SHAKESPEARE'S VITAL SECRET
Professor Abel Lefranc has found an ardent disciple in Mr. R. M. Lucas, who in this book (Rydal Press, Keighley, 7s. 6d.) argues that Shakespeare was not, could not have been, " the Stratford man," but was William Stanley, sixth Earl of Derby. The case is quite a good one, and the dates fit far better than the ones which spoil the case for Lord Oxford. The assumption certainly ex- plains some things very well, such as John Davies's epigram, and some lines in Histriomastix. There is, however, one final test which could be made, a test which Mr. Lucas shirks, throwing up a smoke-cloud about the dissensions of handwriting experts. The test is this. If you can show that Derby's handwriting is the same as Hand D in Sir Thomas More, and as the marginal notes in the Stow which is in the posses- sion of the Comtesse de Chambrun, you will have gone far to proving that Derby wrote the Shakespeare plays. You have still, of course, to prove beyond doubt that Hand D is really Shakespeare's, and this may be difficult, though the odds are in favour of its being so.
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