I give this story for what it may be worth,
and rather in the hope of eliciting further information, mentioning only that it has important academic weight behind it. When the translators of the Authorised Version of the Bible came to the 40th chapter of Isaiah, which begins what is commonly known today as the Second Isaiah, they felt that the obvious transition in style in the original called for something specially striking in English. One of the company, while the matter was being discussed, mentioned that he knew of a poet who might give some help. What was the poet's name, he was asked. Shakespeare. The poet (so the stork" goes) was in fact consulted, and there emerged the memorable "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people saith your God " and all that immediately follows. All that can be said is that the dates fit well enough. • BLit what we need to know is not whether it might have happened, but whether it did.
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