The Sir Thomas More Manuscript

The manuscript play of Sir Thomas More, now the Harleian MS, 7368 in the British Museum, has been identified as the work of the Elizabethan playwright Anthony Munday.

The manuscript was first edited from the Harleian MS., by Alexander Dyce, for the Shakespeare Society, in 1844. The chief value of his edition consists in the fact that he used the MS., before it had been repaired, and that therefore it is the authority for those portions of the text, which have since become illegible.

Other editions have been issued by Mr. A. F. Hopkinson (privately printed) in 1902, and by Mr. C. F. T. Brooke, in his Shakespeare Apocrypha in 1908. But the edition by Dr. W. W. Greg, printed for the Malone Society in 1911, holds the field. With infinite pains the editor has scrupulously revised the text and has determined and criticized, most successfully, the several handwritings found in the MS. The entire MS., has been reproduced in collotype in the Tudor Facsimile Texts by Mr. J. S. Farmer in 1910.

Spedding claimed, both as regards composition and handwriting, to Shakespeare. Spedding was more experienced and better qualified to hazard an opinion on the handwriting, but, not being an expert, he confines his remarks to recognition by general impression: that the writing “is a hand which answers to all we know about Shakespeare’s. It agrees with his signature, which is a simple one, written in the ordinary character of the time.” He states that “it agrees with the tradition that his first occupation was that of a Noverint or lawyer’s copying clerk: [did he work for Francis Bacon who was a well known scholar of law?] for in that case he must have acquired in early youth a hand of that type, which, when he left copying and took on to original composition, would naturally grow into such a hand as we have here.”

Whether the handwriting bears within itself any indication of such training as a legal copyist can only be considered after it has been subjected to analysis. 1
Shakespeare’s six authentic signatures are subscribed to the following documents:

1. His deposition in a lawsuit brought by Stephen Bellott against his father-in-law Christopher Montjoy, a Huguenot tire-maker, of Silver-street, near Wood-street in the city of London, with whom Shakespeare lodged about the year 1604; dated 11th May, 1612. (Discovered by Dr. C. W. Wallace in the Public Record Office.)

2. Conveyance of a house in Blackfriars, London, purchased by Shakespeare 10th March, 1613. (Now in the Guildhall Library.)

3. Mortgage-deed of the same property; 11th March, 1613. (Now in the British Museum.)

4-6. Shakespeare’s Will & Testament, written on three sheets of paper, with his signature at the foot of each one; executed 25th March, 1616. (Now in Somerset House.)

The six signatures, one of them prefaced by the words “By me”, present a meagre total of fourteen words. The actual signatures are to be read thus:
1. Willm Shakp
2. William Shaksper
3. Wm Shakspe
4. William Shakspere
5. Willm Shakspere
6. By me William Shakspeare