Shakespeare's grand-daughter, Lady Barnard, who died in 1670, it is
not so paralysingly strange that nothing is known of any relics or
anecdotes of Shakespeare which she may have possessed. Mr. Greenwood
"would have supposed that she would have had much to say about the
great poet," exhibited his books (if any), and so forth. Perhaps she
did,--but how, if we "know nothing about her disposition and
character," can we tell? No interviewers rushed to her house
(Abington Hall, Northampton-shire) with pencils and notebooks to
record her utterances; no reporter interviewed her for the press. It
is surprising, is it not?

The inference might be drawn, in the Baconian manner, that, during
the Commonwealth and Restoration, "the friends of the Muses" knew
that the actor was NOT the author, and therefore did not interview
his granddaughter in the country.

"But, at any rate, we have the Stratford monument," says Mr.
Greenwood, and delves into this problem. Even the Stratford monument
of Shakespeare in the parish church is haunted by Baconian mysteries.
If the gentle reader will throw his eye over the photograph {177a} of
the monument as it now exists, he may not be able to say to the face
of the poet -


"Thou wast that all to me, Will,
For which my soul did pine."


But if he has any knowledge of Jacobean busts on monuments, he will
probably agree with me in saying, "This effigy, though executed by