Mr. Campbell, the latest editor of Shakspeare's dramatic works,
observes that "the poet's name has been variously written
Shax-peare, Shackspeare, Shakspeare, and Shakspere;" to which
varieties might be added Shagspere, from the Worcester Marriage
License, published in 1836. But the fact is, that by combining with
all the differences in spelling the first syllable, all those in
spelling the second, more than twenty-five distinct varieties of
the name may be expanded, (like an algebraic series,) for the
choice of the curious in mis-spelling. Above all things, those
varieties which arise from the intercalation of the middle _e,
_(that is, the _e_ immediately before the final syllable
_spear,_) can never be overlooked by those who remember, at
the opening of the Dunciad, the note upon this very question about
the orthography of Shakspeare's name, as also upon the other great
question about the title of the immortal Satire, Whether it ought
not to have been the Dunceiade, seeing that Dunce, its great author
and progenitor, cannot possibly dispense with the letter _e._
Meantime we must remark, that the first three of Mr. Campbell's
variations are mere caprices of the press; as is Shagspere; or,
more probably, this last euphonious variety arose out of the gross
clownish pronunciation of the two hiccuping _"marksmen"_ who
rode over to Worcester for the license; and one cannot forbear
laughing at the bishop's secretary for having been so misled by two
varlets, professedly incapable of signing their own names. The same
drunken villains had cut down the bride's name _Hathaway_ into
_Hathwey._ Finally, to treat the matter with seriousness,
Sir Frederick Madden has shown, in his recent letter to the Society
of Antiquaries, that the poet himself in all probability
_wrote_ the name uniformly _Shakspere._ Orthography, both
of proper names, of appellatives, and of words universally, was
very unsettled up to a period long subsequent to that of
Shakspeare. Still it must usually have happened that names written
variously and laxly by others, would be written uniformly by the
owners; especially by those owners who had occasion to sign their
names frequently, and by literary people, whose attention was
often, as well as consciously, directed to the proprieties of
spelling. _Shakspeare_ is now too familiar to the eye for any
alteration to be attempted; but it is pretty certain that Sir
Frederick Madden is right in stating the poet's own signature to
have been uniformly _Shakspere._ It is so written twice in the
course of his will, and it is so written on a blank leaf of
Florio's English translation of Montaigne's Essays; a book recently
discovered, and sold, on account of its autograph, for a hundred
guineas.