et Guliermo Shakespear Rescio plani nostro
"and William Shakespear certainly our Roscius"
Recently found in an edition of Camden's Britannia once owned by Richard Hunt
et Guliermo Shakespear Rescio plani nostro
"and William Shakespear certainly our Roscius"
Recently found in an edition of Camden's Britannia once owned by Richard Hunt
Analysis of when the annotator dipped his pen into the inkwell:
The annotator still has ink on his pen from a previous note. |
At the "e" in "et" Hunt? has run out of ink. He refills and writes the "t". As the excess ink (from a new dip) beads and dries it leaves a tell-tale dark border at the edges. |
The "G" shows some excess ink as well implying that "Guliermo" was the intended next word in the annotation. By the time Hunt? gets to the "u" the ink is coming off the pen uniformly and consistently enough to make it to the end of the "m". He dips and writes the "o". |
The "S" in "Shakespear" contains some excess ink left over from the previous "o", so this was the next intended word in the sequence. The annotator makes it to the beginning of the large secretary "S" before going dry, accept for the top and bottom. A quill will do this depending on what angle the tip is at. Here Hunt? dipped rather heavily and the excess ink lasts for four letters: p,e,a, and r. and seems to have evened out by the end of the "r" itself... |
...which lasts until the bottom of the secretary style "S", where he redips lightly and finishes the word very uniformly. NOTE: This word looks strangely different from the rest of the
words. Like it is washed out, in a different hand, or even a different
ink. This make be entirely the result of the fact that this portion
of the annotation is OUT OF FOCUS in the scan. Looking at the type
above it you can see the page is bending away from the camera as it would
in an open book, and this word is receding up and away from the focused
view which is center and left of the page. So is this word part of
Hunt's? original annotation, or was it added at a later date as "Rescio"
by...John Payne Collier?
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He dips and writes the "p", the "L" and the "a" before dipping again for the "n" and "i". What looks like an uncharacteristically heavy spot in the middle of the "L" is the blending and merging of still undried excess ink from the "G" in "Guliermo. |
"Nostro" has the same characteristics as "plani" above. Heavily inked like it was dipped several times. But the two bottom words "plani" and "nostro" are less neatly written than the four words above it, because Hunt? had run out of room to rest his wrist (on the page of the book itself) while he wrote. Check it out in the complete scan at the top of this page. Pretty obvious. If there is any doubt about the "authenticity" of any word in this manuscript entry, it is the word "Roscio" above. But as I have shown the entire annotation not only follows a plausible inking (dipping) sequence, but what looks like a posthumously inserted word, "Roscio", is merely "out of focus", bending slightly up and away because of the curve of the open book, and written with more attention, probably since the previous four letters were too heavily inked and botched. To my eye "Roscio" is much more "in tune" with "et Guliermo Shakespear" than are "plani" and "nostro" below it. The possibility then that "Roscio" is really "Rescio" added later by a Stratfordian "forger" is...well you decide. Richie's conclusion: [drum roll] Another well deserved nail in
the Oxfordian/Authorship coffin. Thanks for the great find Dr. Altrocchi.
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