Empty Theory

To many a zealous amateur scholar it is unthinkable, for reasons not always clear, that Dramatist William Shakespeare should have written his own plays. Some have preferred to credit Sir Francis Bacon, others the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Rutland or the Earl of Derby. Some 20 years ago a Broadway pressagent named Calvin Hoffman dug up another old theory: the true author was the dissolute young genius Christopher Marlowe. Marlowe, so this one goes, was not killed in that famous tavern brawl; he simply went into hiding and as an outlaw wrote the plays since credited to Shakespeare. Proof of this theory, Hoffman figured, might well be found in the tomb of Marlowe's benefactor Sir Thomas Walsingham, who was laid to rest some three centuries ago in the parish church at Chislehurst, Kent.

For three years Hoffman plagued church authorities and Sir Thomas' descendants for permission to open the tomb. Last year, amid the storm of controversy that followed publication of Hoffman's book The Murder of the Man Who Was "Shakespeare," consent was reluctantly given. Last week Sir Thomas' tomb was opened. "We found sand. No coffin, no papers--just sand,'' reported the crestfallen Hoffman. Added the London News Chronicle: "Alas, not even poor Yorick."

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