Shakespeare and his London Associates 3 



I 



THE BELOTT-MOUNTJOY CASE. 



The thirty-nine records assembled chronologically here, three 

 from the Parish Registers of the St. Olave, Silver street, twenty- 

 nine from the Public Record Office, five from the archives of the 

 French Protestant Church, Soho Square, London, and two from 

 Somerset House, combine to make a contribution to Shakes- 

 pearean biography of unusual interest and of considerable impor- 

 tance. The first report of these documents, published in Harper's 

 Magazine, March, 1910, has been discussed not only by scholars 

 and literary periodicals but by the public press. 



There are two chief reasons for this unusual appeal to scholar 

 and layman. First, the matter is sensational in its nature, and 

 would appear so even if it related to the most prosaic folk of our 

 own time and were reported in the daily press. But that sensa- 

 tional quality is multiplied a hundred fold by being associated 

 with the greatest poet of all times and climes, in whom all people 

 are more or less interested. Second, an increased yet withal 

 sober desire for new knowledge about the man we all love makes 

 the world hail new information at this late day with enthusiasm. 

 I could wish this latter were the prime reason for the extra- 

 ordinary interest. But that was not to be hoped for at the outset. 

 Indeed, the sensational nature of the whole story made me hesi- 

 tate, as some of my scholastic friends on both sides of the water 

 will recall from our conversations and correspondence, to present 

 it to the public in popular form, lest too much attention should be 

 drawn to the catchy and minor rather than to the essential and 

 contributive items of human interest and biographical information. 



On the other hand, this very undesirable sensationalism has 

 been of advantage in a measure, by serving as a raft on which to 

 float the new information to universal ports. Men and women 

 thereby have been inspired with enthusiasm to learn more about 

 Shakespeare than they knew before, and to read more of his 

 plays or to reread familiar ones more keenly than before, while 

 students of his biography have been brought to look with closer 



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