Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But although we gladly concede that these labors have resulted in the diffusion of a knowledge of the times and the circumstances in which Shakespeare lived, and in the unearthing of much interesting illustration of his works from the mould of antiquity, we cannot accept the documents which have been so plentifully produced and so pitilessly printed, the extracts from parish-registers and old account-books, not Shakespeare's, the inventories, the last wills and testaments, the leases, the deeds, the bonds, the declarations, pleas, replications, rejoinders, surrejoinders, rebutters, and surrebutters, as having aught to do with the life of such a man as William Shakespeare.
"You may be uncommonly clever, my dear George," soliloquised the dentist, "but you'll never make a fortune by reading wills and hunting in parish-registers for heirs-at-law. A big lump of money is not very likely to go a-begging while any one who can fudge up the faintest pretence of a claim to it is above ground.
The Norman imposed his laws upon England; the courts, the parish-registers, the Acts of Parliament were all his; but to this day there are districts of the Saxon Island where the postman and census-taker inquire in vain for Adam Smith and Benjamin Brown, but must perforce seek out Bullhead and Bandyshins. So indomitable is the Saxon. We have not done yet with our national idioms.
Word Of The Day