Today is basically the 439th birthday of William Shakspere, Gent., of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. What a happy accident of History did this man meet with to be regarded still as the Author of the works of Shakespeare. It's not true, of course. He had no hand in those plays and poems, but you may as well believe it because, if you say otherwise, the humorless men in the white lab coats will come and shovel you off somewhere.