them is written 'Non sans droicht."" This is a circumstance seemingly overlooked by all his biographers, many of whom had carefully examined and copied the Grant for publication, and even fac-similes of the draft for the Grant of Arms have been given, without this being noticed. There is no evidence that Shakspere used this motto, as there has been hitherto no evidence of his using any other, and no motto accompanies the Arms on the Stratford Monument. A French motto seems unlike Shakspere. "Not without right," would be better, but some charges having been made against Garter and Clarencieux, Kings-at-Arms, that they had wrongfully given Arms to twenty-three persons, John Shakspere being one of them, and there having been additional enquiry into his circumstances, &c., it is far from probable that there should have been adopted a motto, which would seem a continual disclaimer against the objection. At the first glance, it looks to outsiders the decision, in its heraldic form, of the Herald Office, after re-examining the grounds of the claim.

(The late Mr Gough Nichols, here mentioned, on receiving the Pamphlet, wrote as follows, "I beg to thank you for the Copy I have received of your Pamphlet on North's Plutarch, which I propose to notice in my Herald and Genealogist. There is a misprint in your Copy of the Motto on the Grant at the College of Arms, which should be without the h. In page 22 Reding for Reading is no doubt accidental. I think you are wrong in supposing that North was a Knight, though you are not the first to fall into that apprehension. I should be very glad if you could establish "Vive ut Vivas" to have been Shakspere's Motto, as it is a sentiment that would add honour even to his present reputation. I presume you mean that the letters W.S. are stamped on the front covers, as the initials often were in the 17th Century. I open my letter to withdraw my doubt about Sir Thomas North's Knighthood. I find he is called Sir Thomas in the Will of his brother Roger, Lord North, 1600. There is a Memoir of him in the Athenæ Catabrig, where Mr Cooper says he was Knighted after September, 1568, "but at what particular time we cannot ascertain.")

The motto "Vive ut Vivas" written by W. S. on this North's Plutarch, is associated with the Falcon in at least three cases, and no doubt there is a heraldic connexion between them. In the Arms of Halkertoun (Earl of Kintore) we have "supporters two falcons proper. Motto

Vive ut Vivas;" in those of Randle Willbraham Falconer, Wales, we have a 66 Falcon perched hooded and belled." "Motto Vive ut Vivas;" and they are likewise associated in the arms of Falconer, of Falcon Hall, near Edinburgh, on one of whose Entrances,-a photograph of which lies before us while we write, -a Falcon sits on each of the two side Pillars, and in the centre of each of the panels there is the Falcon, with this Motto round it on a scroll. There are found on books mottoes suggested by the character of the book or the owners' use of it; but there is often found written along with the owner's name, as in this case, what was evidently his own motto: as where Geffrey Whitney, author of a Choice of Emblems, 1586, writes "Constanter et syncere" on his copies of Paradin's Devises Heroiques, 1562, and Oclandus' Prælia Anglorum, 1582; and where Thomas Buttes, “in a very beautiful hand of the time of Elizabeth," writes along with his signature, on his copy of Latymer's Fruteful Sermons, 1575, 66 Soyez sage et simple-Be wise and playne," with an acrostic on his name, and “ verses in praise of his motto." On Charles the First's copy of Shakspere, now in the possession of the Queen, there is, "Dum Spiro Spero. CR." In the instance of the motto on this North's Plutarch, we think that any one carefully inspecting it will feel inclined to believe that it belonged, in some special way, to the W.S. who wrote it before his initials. A man buying a new book, and with great care putting on it his initials and the price paid, would not, exactly in the same line, in the same characters, and connected by the three points, precede them by a motto suggested by the nature of the book, or by his own intended use of it, though with regard to North's Plutarch, Shakspere might not inappropriately have put on it such a motto as might be rendered, "Live in the lives of others, or so enter into the lives of others, of the Past, that you yourself may live in the minds of others, of the Future."

9th. One of the first questions generally and naturally put on the subject of the writing of W.S., on this copy of North's Plutarch, is as to how far it agrees with the known Autographs; and our remaining remarks will be connected with the Handwriting of Shakspere. We suppose that in Shakspere's Plays and Poems there are about a hundred thousand lines, and he would have private and professional correspondence; yet of his writing, we have nothing, publicly acknowledged as genuine, save Six Signatures, which belong to the last half dozen years

(The

of his life, and five of which are to law deeds. Even of this number, one has been lost since Garrick's death, nearly a hundred years ago, but it is preserved to us through an engraving made for Malone. late Sir Frederick Madden, in acknowledging receipt of the Pamphlet and Photograph of the Title Page of the Volume, wrote, 11th Sept., 1871, "The State of Sir F. M's health prevents him from entering deeply into any literary enquiry, but he begs to point out to Mr Paton that the dates of the Deeds referred to on page 31 are Bargain and Sale 10 March 16 Mortgage 11 March 16, so that the latter is only one day later than the former, and although supposed to be lust when Sir F. M. printed his remarks on Shakspere's Autograph in 1838 was afterwards discovered in the hands of M. R. Troward-Son of Mr Troward, Partner of Wallis, who gave it to Garrick-and was sold by Auction at Sotheby's & Co in June 1858, and then purchased by the British Museum, where ever since it has been publicly exhibited in the Department of MSS. In regard to the note of the price of the Volume Sir F. Madden reads it pretiū 16s and he doubts very much whether this notice is written by the same hand that has written the Motto and the initials Wm (?) S.") One of the six Autographs referred to is the British Museum signature; likely to be the earliest in date, the Tempest having been acted in 1611. There is the signature to the lost Mortgage, March, 1612, and that to the Deed of Bargain and Sale, the property of the Corporation of London, 1613. And the remaining three are the signatures to his Will, written one month before his death. In the half of these the Poet contracted his Christian name twice to "Willm." and once to "Wm. ;" but there is enough of resemblance, however they differ, to satisfy us that they all are his, the Florio being the best. As to these signatures, the following are a few opinions, scarcely selected; "We look," it is said in "A Shakspere Memorial" published in 1864, "at these quaint and crabbed autographs, and wonder how the Plays were written." "The few signatures that have been preserved," says the Quarterly for July, 1871, are very little like what might have been expected from one whose practice in writing must have been considerable, and who had in his time filled many reams of manuscript.. If Shakspere's handwriting was at all like his

signatures, it was by no means easy to decipher.

66

The wonder

is how with such a hand he could have written so much."

"It is

absurd," the Athenæum has said, "to suppose that Shakspere, who really wrote a good hand,-witness the 'William' of his signature,— should have made, on every occasion, a mysterious hash of the last syllable of his name." Such remarks go to show the public opinion that these hurried signatures are by no means to be taken as representing Shakspere's undisturbed, closet writing, and one can easily see how they should not be relied on for this. When signing a Mortgage or Convey

ance of a house, or a Will, before lawyers and witnesses, men do not think of the appearance, but of the act and effect of the signature; while, receiving in country retirement, an expensive, beautiful and precious volume, fresh from the press, and putting the record of ownership on it, the writing would certainly be made in correspondence with it. It may indeed be conceded that the MSS. of Shakspere's Plays could not have been of the same character as the known Autographs, for they would then have been unsuitable for the theatres and printers. That they were legible and careful MSS. has been generally assumed, through the oft-quoted words of Heminge and Condell in their Dedication :-" His mind and hand went together: And what he thought he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarse received from him a blot in his papers"; and they speak of his own writings" as distinguished from "the copies" with which the public had been previously abused. But that the Folio of 1623 was printed from the poet's MSS. seems to us certain from one thing, viz: the frequent and invariably intelligent use of Capital Letters at the commencement of Words where they are not commonly used.

66

(At this part of the Pamphlet we first printed our opinion as to the Emphasis-Capitals employed by Shakspere, and introduced a few confirmatory Extracts.)

With regard to the written line at the head of the title page of the copy of North's Plutarch under notice, all that we can say farther is, that its character seems to fall in well with what we imagine "these fair manuscripts" must have been, and that to our eyes there is a resemblance between the initials W. S., here, -elegant and half printed as they are, -and the initials in the acknowledged Autographs.

(In a letter dated "British Museum, 12th March, 1872," Mr Carruthers, F.R.S., wrote, "I have shewn the tracings I made to Mr Bond, Keeper of the Manuscripts here. He was greatly interested

in your discovery, though he had seen nothing of it except what had appeared in the public papers. His impression was that you had made out a good case. There was nothing in the writing, as far as my tracings enabled him to determine, that was opposed to its being Shakspere's writing.")

GREENOCK LIBRARY:

WATT MONUMENT.

Lines in Coriolanus containing Words whose Emphasis-Capitals escaped the Editors and Printers of the Second Folio (1632). (The page referred to in this and the following Lists applies to the present Edition, and Italic-Capitals distinguish what had been omitted, or added.)