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“The he barbarian with the big belly was called Forlstoff, and in time was known as Surgeon Forlstoff: from which, there is no doubt, he was a skilful leech in the army of the barbarian king, more of whom in good season. Forlstoff’s father was one Shak or Shake, Speare or Spear; for there have been great tumults among the barbarians about the e. In nothing does the ignorance of the English barbarians more lamentably discover itself than in the origin they obstinately give to their Shakespeare; who, according to them, was, like the great Brahme, hatched in an egg on the bank of a river, as may be seen in a thousand idle books in which he is called the ‘Swan of Haveone.’ And this conceit was further manifested in the building of a place called ‘the Swan Theatre,’ where the barbarians were wont to worship. There is little known of Shakespeare’s wife, Forlstoff’s mother, and that little proves her to have been an idle person, given to great sleep and sloth, as is shown by her getting nothing at the death of her husband but his ‘second-best bed!’

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