CHAPTER 5.
To the extent possible within the compass of a few pages, the three proceeding chapters have
outlined the historical context of our present investigation and brought forward some of the so-
called "external" evidence supporting the theory of De Vere's authorship of the Shakespeare
Canon -- his superlative education in history, languages and literature, his patronage of such arts
as music, literature, philosophy, physics and medicine (in each of which fields he had an uncanny
knack for discovering and assisting what was best and most significant), his prominent role as a
theatrical patron and writer of drama, and finally his formidable and unforgettable wise-ass wit.
The present chapter will briefly consider some elements of so-called "internal evidence"
which support the theory. As is well known, the documented circumstances of de Vere's life are
uncannily manifest in many figurative expressions in the plays and poems published under the
name "Shakespeare" (Ogburn and Ogburn 1952; Ogburn 1984). As Washington Post columnist
Don Oldenburg has noted, de Vere’s life story reads like a rough draft of Hamlet. Let us consider
a few of the most impressive examples of this phenomenal linkage between "internal" and
"external" evidence¹.
As Looney observed in 1920, the figure of the meddling counselor and "fishmonger"
Polonius is a parody of de Vere's real life guardian and father-in-law, Ward's Master William
Cecil. This identification was originally made by George Russell French in his Shakespeareana
Genealogica and has been supported by J.D. Wilson (1948 155; 187) E. K. Chambers (1930 418),
Joel Hurtsfield (1958 257) and Christopher Devlin (n.d. 43) among others. Supreme Court
Justice John Paul Stevens, in his 1992 "Shakespeare Canon of Statutory Construction," concludes
that
1
For a more thorough account of the historical context of the present document, the reader is invited to consult appendix M.
Appendix N details some striking elements of the stylistic evidence linking Oxford to the "Shakespeare" canon.
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