by A. Phoenix.
The British lawyer and voluminous Baconian writer Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence who was very familiar with legal documents and wills subjected the Shakspere will and the other three signatures (the ‘signature’ in the Bellot v Mountjoy case was dealt with in his Postscriptum) to a close examination. With the permission of the Corporation of London the intrepid Durning- Lawrence arranged for the Librarian and the Chairman of the Library Committee to transfer the Purchase Deed to the British Museum to place it side by side with the Mortgage Deed:
After they had with myself and the Museum Authorities most carefully examined the two deeds, the Librarian of the City Corporation said to me, there is no reason to suppose that the Corporation deed has upon it the signature of Wm. Shakespeare, and the British Museum Authorities likewise told me that they did not think that the Museum Mortgage Deed had upon it a signature of William Shakespeare. The more you examine the whole five the more you will be certain, as the writer is, after the most careful study of the Will and of the Deeds, that not one of the five writings is a “signature,” or pretends to be a “signature,” and that therefore there is a probability, practically amounting to a certainty, that the Stratford Actor could not so much as manage to scrawl his own name.
