Shakespeare's Handwriting

Excerpt from Shakespeare's Handwriting: A Study by Edward Maunde Thompson, G. C. B
An invitation from the Delegates of the Clarendon Press to contribute a chapter on Handwriting to Shakespeare's England, a work which they then had in contemplation, first turned my serious attention to the subject of Shakespeare's penmanship, and led me to study the few authentic signatures that have survived from his hand. This study proved more productive than I had dared to hope. The general results have been published in the book, above mentioned. But it was thought that so interesting a subject as Shakespeare's handwriting might with advantage be treated in fuller detail; and with this view the present monograph has been written - a strictly palaeographical study, altogether eschewing criticism of a literary nature.
My researches in due course led to an examination of the well-known addition, written in an unidentified hand, to the MS. play of Sir Thomas More, now the Harleian MS. 7368 in the British Museum. Nearly half a century has passed since, in 1871, this addition was brought to public notice in a contribution to Notes and Queries by the Shakespearian student Richard Simpson, who suggested that it was an autograph composition of Shakespeare. This attribution could not be substantiated at the time: the key of the problem was still undiscovered.
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