Is Shakespeare Dead? / From My Autobiography

are wrote Shakespeare or not, I believe I would place before the debaters only the o

undred arts and trades and crafts and professions which men busy themselves in, but that he could talk about the men and their grades and trades accurately, making no mistakes. Maybe it is so, but have the experts spoke

d all, that they were militarily flawless; I do not remember that any Nelson, or Drake or Cook ever examined his seamanship and said it showed profound and accurate familiarity with that art; I don't remember that any king or prince or duke has ever testified that Shakespeare was letter-perfect in his handling of royal court-manners and the talk and manners of ar

ere in those early days, but with the law it is different: it is mile-stoned and documented all the way back, and the master of that wonderful trade, that complex and intricate trade, that awe-compelling trade, has competent ways of knowing whether Shakespeare-

before the mast of our day. His sailor-talk flows from his pen with the sure touch and the ease and confidence

each yard, at the word the whole canvas of the ship was loosed, and with the greatest rapidity possible

ai

nd all were aloft, active as cats, laying out on the yards and booms, reeving the studding-sail gear; and sail after sail the c

A race in t

standing by to loose it again, I had a fine view of the scene. From where I stood, the two vessels seemed nothing but spars and sails, while their narrow decks, far below, slanting over by the force of the wind aloft, appeared hardly capable of supporting the great fabrics raised upon them. The California was to windward of us, and had every advantage; yet, while the breeze was stiff we held our own. As soon as it

ld this same captain be competent to sit in judgment upon Shakespeare's seamanship-considering the changes in ships and ship-talk that have necessarily taken place, unrecorde

. Boat

ere, master;

s: fall to't, yarely, or we run ou

r mar

to the master's whistle . . . Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try wi'

resent; let us yare a l

the imposing stone into the hell-box; assemble the comps around the frisket and let them jeff for takes and be quick about it," I s

es; arastras, and how to charge them with quicksilver and sulphate of copper; and how to clean them up, and how to reduce the resulting amalgam in the retorts, and how to cast the bullion into pigs; and finally I know how to screen tailings, and also how to hunt for something less robust to do, and find it. I know the argot of the quartz-mining and milling indust

belongs with them; and whenever Harte introduces that industry into a story I know b

ace it step by step and stage by stage up the mountain to its source, and find the compact little nest of yellow metal reposing in its secret home under the ground. I know the language of that

a person tries to talk the talk peculiar to any of them without having lea

a lawyer deeply read and of limitless experience? I would put aside the guesses, and surmises, and perhapses, and might-have-beens, and could-have beens, and must-have-beens, and we-are justified-in-presumings, and the rest of those vague spectres and shadows and indefinitenesses, and stand or fall, win or lose, by the verdict rendered by the jury upo