Page:1909. Is Shakespeare Dead? From My Autobiography.djvu/113

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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?

supposed to have come to London, he was induced to enter upon a course of most extended study and mental culture, is almost insuperable. Still it was physically possible, provided always that he could have had access to the needful books. But this legal training seems to me to stand on a different footing. It is not only unaccountable and incredible, but it is actually negatived by the known facts of his career." Lord Penzance then refers to the fact that "by 1592 (according to the best authority, Mr. Grant White) several of the plays had been written. The Comedy of Errors in 1589, Love's Labour's Lost in 1589, Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1589 or 1590, and so forth, and then asks, "with this catalogue of dramatic work on hand … was it possible that he could have taken a leading part in the management and conduct of two theatres, and if Mr. Phillipps is to be relied upon, taken his share in the performances of the provincial tours of his company and at the same time devoted him self to the study of the law in all its branches so efficiently as to make himself complete

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