opinion.

There is in the Bodleian an Aldine Ovid, "with Shakespeare's"
signature (merely Wm. She.), and a note, "This little volume of Ovid
was given to me by W. Hall, who sayd it was once Will Shakespeare's."
I do not know that the signature (like that on Florio's Montaigne, in
the British Museum) has been detected as a forgery; nor do I know
that Shakespeare's not specially mentioning his books proves that he
had none. Lawyers appear to differ as to this inference: both Mr.
Elton and Mr. Greenwood seem equally confident. {175b} But if it
were perfectly natural that the actor, Shakspere, should have no
books, then he certainly made no effort, by the local colour of
owning a few volumes, to persuade mankind that he WAS the author.
Yet they believed that he was--really there is no wriggling out of
it. As regards any of his own MSS. which Shakespeare may have had
(one would expect them to be at his theatre), and their monetary
value, if they were not, as usual, the property of his company, and
of him as a member thereof, we can discuss that question in the
section headed "The First Folio."

It appears that Shakespeare's daughter, Judith, could write no more
than her grandfather. {176a} Nor, I repeat, could the Lady Jane
Gordon, daughter of the great Earl of Huntly, when she was married to
the Earl of Bothwell in 1566. At all events, Lady Jane "made her
mark." It may be feared that Judith, brought up in that very
illiterate town of Stratford, under an illiterate mother, was
neglected in her education. Sad, but very common in women of her
rank, and scarcely a proof that her father did not write the plays.

As "nothing is known of the disposition and character" {176b} of