The spelling of the five autographs of the "Bard of Avon" is S-h-a-k-s-p-e-r, without a final e.

This is plain enough in the earliest signature, subscribed to the deed of March 10, 1613. (See No. 1, on next page.)

The signature to the mortgage, dated March 11, 1613, (No. 2), seems to read "Shakspe," with an a above the e; but I accept as probable Mr. W. H. Edwards's reading of the name Shakspar. He further contends that only this and perhaps the latter part of the last signature were written by Shaksper; the lawyer's office boy or any other person at hand might write the name in those times.

The next autograph (No. 3) was written three years later, being the first of the three signatures to as many sheets of his will. It has a final letter, which has been mistaken for an e, but is a German script r, much like our script w tilted up at the left. Woodbury's "Method of learning the German Language,” lesson III, has it as shown on next page. I discovered it and gave it to Mr. Edwards. Shaksper was the true spelling.

It convinced me that

In the remaining autographs (4 and 5) the terminal letters after p are illegible.

The original autographs being more or less defaced by time, I have restored the obliterated parts in the appended copies from engraved fac similes in Drake's "Shakspeare and His Times," 1817.

Those which I published in 1886 have been extensively copied. I traced them with my own hand from Drake's engravings, which were faithfully correct, as shown by the recent photographs of the original manuscripts. But Drake reproduced near the end of

signature 4, in the vacant space shown, what appears
to be a superfluous flourish. It is not a part of the
signature, but belongs to the body of the will, and is
a "ye." Shakesper, or whoever scrawled the name,
had to skip it between the e and r of his signature.
1
2

In the Will the name is twice written Shackspeare; in the deeds of 1613 it is Shakespeare.

The discovery of the German script r in autograph 3 was made by Mr. W. H. Edwards of Coalburg, W. Va., author of "Shaksper not Shakespeare," 1900, now out of print by fire.

CORRECTIONS.

Scarcely a correction is needed in my pamphlet, published twenty years ago. In the first two lines on the Sonnets strike out the words "so far as known." On page 19 substitute for "part owner of " the words "interested in." Shaksper in 1590 may have been a gatekeeper of a theater.

LORD BACON'S BROTHER.

Dr. Owen's "Cipher Story" discloses the fact that the Earl of Essex was Bacon's own brother, both sons of Queen Elizabeth by her secret marriage to the Earl of Leicester.

THE CONCEALED POET "IGNOTO."

My discovery of Ignoto is confirmed by a little book of "Poems: by Wil Shake-speare, Gent.," 1640, fac simile reprint 1885. It contains many of the Sonnets, some with verbal changes, and each one or two with appropriate headings; also several of the poems originally signed "Ignoto;" also a few poems of the character of "Venus and Adonis," heretofore unknown, at least to me.

The song "Come live with me and be my love," quoted on pages 33-34 of my pamphlet and signed "Chr. Marlowe," belongs to "Shake-speare;" also "The Nymph's Reply," in the same "Poems: by Wil Shake-speare, Gent."

LORD BACON'S DEATH.

Lord Bacon died to the world only in 1626; he was driven into exile by the Rosicrucian Society which he himself founded, as proved in my pamphlet, "Light on Freemasonry," 1901, and he lived at least fifteen years longer. Therefore he undoubtedly prepared and published, in 1640, the "Poems: by Wil Shakespeare, Gent."

A NEWLY DISCOVERED CIPHER.

Note a cipher in Sonnet 76, printed on page 25. In line one the 6th word begins with b; in line 3 the 9th word begins with a ; in lines 4, 5 and 6, the 6th word begins consecutively with c, o, n. Each numbered word is a multiple of 3, and the initials spell BACON.

Why is my verse so Barren of new pride

So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance Aside,

To new-found methods and to Compounds strange?
Why wrote I still all One, ever the same,

And keep invention in a Noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth and where they did proceed?

This cipher was discovered February 1, 1905, by Mr. R. A. Smith, of Washington, D. C.

POSTPONED.

My "Chronological Parallel," begun on page 45, was long ago completed, but its publication is indefinitely postponed.

WM. HENRY BURR.

WASHINGTON, D. C., April 15, 1906.