Shakspeare a Brass-rubber

I am desirous to notice, if no commentator has forestalled me, that Shakspeare, among his many accomplishments, was sufficiently beyond his age to be a brass-rubber: "What's on this tomb I cannot read; the character I'll take with *wax*." *Timon of Athens*, v. 4. From the "soft impression," however, alluded to in the next scene, his "wax" appears rather to have been the forerunner of *gutta percha* than of *heel-ball*.