SHAKESPEARE, BACON AND THE GREAT UNKNOWN

INTRODUCTION

The theory that Francis Bacon was, in the main, the author of"Shakespeare's plays, " has now been for fifty years before thelearned world. Its advocates have met with less support than theyhad reason to expect. Their methods, their logic, and theirhypotheses closely resemble those applied by many British and foreignscholars to Homer; and by critics of the very Highest School to HolyWrit. Yet the Baconian theory is universally rejected in England bythe professors and historians of English literature; and generally bystudents who have no profession save that of Letters. The Baconians, however, do not lack the countenance and assistance of highlydistinguished persons, whose names are famous where those of mere menof letters are unknown; and in circles where the title of "Professor"is not duly respected. 

The partisans of Bacon aver (or one of them avers) that "LordPenzance, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Palmerston, Judge Webb, JudgeHolmes (of Kentucky, U. S. ), Prince Bismarck, John Bright, andinnumerable most THOUGHTFUL SCHOLARS EMINENT IN MANY WALKS OF LIFE, AND ESPECIALLY IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION . . . " have been Baconians, or, at least, opposed to Will Shakspere's authorship. To these namesof scholars I must add that of my late friend, Samuel Clemens, D. Litt. Of Oxford; better known to many as Mark Twain. Dr. Clemenswas, indeed, no mean literary critic; witness his epoch-making studyof Prof. Dowden's Life of Shelley, while his researches into thebiography of Jeanne d'Arc were most conscientious. 

With the deepest respect for the political wisdom and literary tasteof Lord Palmerston, Prince Bismarck, Lord Beaconsfield, and the lateMr. John Bright; and with every desire to humble myself before thejudicial verdicts of Judges Holmes, Webb, and Lord Penzance; withsincere admiration of my late friend, Dr. Clemens, I cannot regardthem as, in the first place and professionally, trained students ofliterary history. 

They were no more specially trained students of Elizabethanliterature than myself; they were amateurs in this province, as I aman amateur, who differ from all of them in opinion. Difference ofopinion concerning points of literary history ought not to make "ourangry passions rise. " Yet this controversy has been extremelybitter. 

I abstain from quoting the "sweetmeats, " in Captain MacTurk's phrase, which have been exchanged by the combatants. Charges of ignoranceand monomania have been answered by charges of forgery, lying, "scandalous literary dishonesty, " and even inaccuracy. Now no mortalis infallibly accurate, but we are all sane and "indifferent honest. "There have been forgeries in matters Shakespearean, alas, but not inconnection with the Baconian controversy. 

It is an argument of the Baconians, and generally of the impugners ofgood Will's authorship of the plays vulgarly attributed to him, thatthe advocates of William Shakspere, Gent, as author of the plays, differ like the Kilkenny cats among themselves on many points. Alldo not believe, with Mr. J. C. Collins, that Will knew Sophocles, Euripides, and AEschylus (but not Aristophanes) as well as Mr. Swinburne did, or knew them at all--for that matter. Mr. Pollarddiffers very widely from Sir Sidney Lee on points concerning theFirst Folio and the Quartos: my sympathies are with Mr. Pollard. Few, if any, partisans of Will agree with Mrs. Stopes (herself noBaconian) about the history of the Stratford monument of the poet. About Will's authorship of Titus Andronicus, and Henry VI, Part I, the friends of Will, like the friends of Bacon, are at odds amongthemselves. These and other divergencies of opinion cause theBaconians to laugh, as if THEY were a harmonious circle . . . ! Forthe Baconian camp is not less divided against itself than the camp ofthe "Stratfordians. " Not all Baconians hold that Bacon was thelegitimate son of "that Imperial votaress" Queen Elizabeth. Not allbelieve in the Cryptogram of Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, or in any othercryptograms. Not all maintain that Bacon, in the Sonnets, wasinspired by a passion for the Earl of Essex, for Queen Elizabeth, orfor an early miniature of himself. Not all regard him as the authorof the plays of Kit Marlowe. Not all suppose him to be aRosicrucian, who possibly died at the age of a hundred and six, or, perhaps, may be "still running. " Not all aver that he wrote thirteenplays before 1593. But one party holds that, in the main, Will wasthe author of the plays, while the other party votes for Bacon--orfor Bungay, a Great Unknown. I use Bungay as an endearing term forthe mysterious being who was the Author if Francis Bacon was not. Friar Bungay was the rival of Friar Bacon, as the Unknown (if he wasnot Francis Bacon) is the rival of "the inventor of Inductivereasoning. "

I could never have expected that I should take a part in thiscontroversy; but acquaintance with The Shakespeare Problem Restated(503 pp. ), (1908), and later works of Mr. G. G. Greenwood, M. P. , hastempted me to enter the lists. 

Mr. Greenwood is worth fighting; he is cunning of fence, is learned(and I cannot conceal my opinion that Mr. Donnelly and Judge Holmeswere rather ignorant). He is not over "the threshold of Eld" (aswere Judge Webb and Lord Penzance when they took up Shakespeareancriticism). His knowledge of Elizabethan literature is vastlysuperior to mine, for I speak merely, in Matthew Arnold's words, as"a belletristic trifler. "

Moreover, Mr. Greenwood, as a practising barrister, is a judge oflegal evidence; and, being a man of sense, does not "hold a brief forBacon" as the author of the Shakespearean plays and poems, and doesnot value Baconian cryptograms. In the following chapters I makeendeavours, conscientious if fallible, to state the theory of Mr. Greenwood. It is a negative theory. He denies that Will Shakspere(or Shaxbere, or Shagspur, and so on) was the author of the plays andpoems. Some other party was, IN THE MAIN, with other hands, theauthor. Mr. Greenwood cannot, or does not, offer a guess as to whothis ingenious Somebody was. He does not affirm, and he does notdeny, that Bacon had a share, greater or less, in the undertaking. 

In my brief tractate I have not room to consider every argument; totraverse every field. In philology I am all unlearned, and cannotpretend to discuss the language of Shakespeare, any more than I cananalyse the language of Homer into proto-Arcadian and Cyprian, and soon. Again, I cannot pretend to have an opinion, based on internalevidence, about the genuine Shakespearean character of such plays asTitus Andronicus, Henry VI, Part I, and Troilus and Cressida. Aboutthem different views are held WITHIN both camps. 

I am no lawyer or naturalist (as Partridge said, Non omnia possumusomnes), and cannot imagine why our Author is so accurate in hisfrequent use of terms of law--if he be Will; and so totally at sea innatural history--if he be Francis, who "took all knowledge for hisprovince. "

How can a layman pretend to deal with Shakespeare's legalattainments, after he has read the work of the learned Recorder ofBristol, Mr. Castle, K. C. ? To his legal mind it seems that in someof Will's plays he had the aid of an expert in law, and then histechnicalities were correct. In other plays he had no such tutor, and then he was sadly to seek in his legal jargon. I understand Mr. Greenwood to disagree on this point. Mr. Castle says, "I thinkShakespeare would have had no difficulty in getting aid from severalsources. There is therefore no prima facie reason why we shouldsuppose the information was supplied by Bacon. "

Of course there is not!

"In fact, there are some reasons why one should attribute the legalassistance, say, to Coke, rather than to Bacon. "

The truth is, that Bacon seems not to have been lawyer enough forWill's purposes. "We have no reason to believe that Bacon wasparticularly well read in the technicalities of our law; he neverseems to have seriously followed his profession. " {0a}

Now we have Mr. Greenwood's testimonial in favour of Mr. Castle, "Whoreally does know something about law. " {0b} Mr. Castle thinks thatBacon really did not know enough about law, and suggests Sir EdwardCoke, of all human beings, as conceivably Will's "coach" on legaltechnicalities. Perhaps Will consulted the Archbishop of Canterburyon theological niceties?

Que scais je? In some plays, says Mr. Castle, Will's law is allright, in other plays it is all wrong. As to Will's law, when Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Castle differ, a layman dare not intervene. 

Concerning legend and tradition about our Will, it seems that, ineach case, we should do our best to trace the Quellen, to discoverthe original sources, and the steps by which the tale arrived at itslate recorders in print; and then each man's view as to the veracityof the story will rest on his sense of probability; and on his bias, his wish to believe or to disbelieve. 

There exists, I believe, only one personal anecdote of Will, theactor, and on it the Baconians base an argument against thecontemporary recognition of him as a dramatic author. I take thecriticism of Mr. Greenwood (who is not a Baconian). One JohnManningham, Barrister-at-Law, "a well-educated and cultured man, "notes in his Diary (February 2, 1601) that "at our feast we had aplay called Twelve Night or What you Will, much like the Comedy ofErrors, or Menaechmi in Plautus, but most like and near to that inItalian called Inganni. " He confides to his Diary the tricks playedon Malvolio as "a good practice. " {0c} That is all. 

About the authorship he says nothing: perhaps he neither knew norcared who the author was. In our day the majority of people who tellme about a play which they have seen, cannot tell me the name of theauthor. Yet it is usually printed on the playbill, though in modesttype. The public does not care a straw about the author's name, unless he be deservedly famous for writing letters to the newspaperson things in general; for his genius as an orator; his enthusiasm asa moralist, or in any other extraneous way. Dr. Forman in his queeraccount of the plot of "Mack Beth" does not allude to the name of theauthor (April 20, 1610). Twelfth Night was not published till 1623, in the Folio: there was no quarto to enlighten Manningham about theauthor's name. We do not hear of printed playbills, with author'snames inserted, at that period. It seems probable that occasionalplaygoers knew and cared no more about authors than they do atpresent. The world of the wits, the critics (such as Francis Meres), poets, playwrights, and players, did know and care about the authors;apparently Manningham did not. But he heard a piquant anecdote oftwo players and (March 13, 1601) inserted it in his Diary. 

Shakespeare once anticipated Richard Burbage at an amorous tryst witha citizen's wife. Burbage had, by the way, been playing the part ofRichard III. While Will was engaged in illicit dalliance, themessage was brought (what a moment for bringing messages!) thatRichard III was at the door, and Will "caused return to be made thatWilliam the Conqueror was before Richard III. Shakespeare's nameWilliam. " (My italics. ) Mr. Greenwood argues that if "Shakspere theplayer was known to the world as the author of the plays ofShakespeare, it does seem extremely remarkable" that Manninghamshould have thought it needful to add "Shakespeare's name William. "{0d}

But WAS "Shakspere, " or any man, "known to the world as the author ofthe plays of Shakespeare"? No! for Mr. Greenwood writes, "nobody, outside a very small circle, troubled his head as to who thedramatist or dramatists might be. " {0e} To that "very small circle"we have no reason to suppose that Manningham belonged, despite hisremarkable opinion that Twelfth Night resembles the Menaechmi. Consequently, it is NOT "extremely remarkable" that Manningham wrote"Shakespeare's name William, " to explain to posterity the joke about"William the Conqueror, " instead of saying, "the brilliant author ofthe Twelfth Night play which so much amused me at our feast a fewweeks ago. " {0f} "Remarkable" out of all hooping it would have beenhad Manningham written in the style of Mr. Greenwood. But Manninghamapparently did not "trouble his head as to who the dramatist ordramatists might be. " "Nobody, outside a very small circle, " DIDtrouble his poor head about that point. Yet Mr. Greenwood thinks "itdoes seem extremely remarkable" that Manningham did not mention theauthor. 

Later, on the publication of the Folio (1623), the world seems tohave taken more interest in literary matters. Mr. Greenwood saysthat then while "the multitude" would take Ben Jonson's noblepanegyric on Shakespeare as a poet "au pied de la lettre, " "theenlightened few would recognise that it had an esoteric meaning. "{0g} Then, it seems, "the world"--the "multitude"--regarded theactor as the author. Only "the enlightened few" were aware that whenBen SAID "Shakespeare, " and "Swan of Avon, " he MEANT--somebody else. 

Quite different inferences are drawn from the same facts by personsof different mental conditions. For example, in 1635 or 1636, Cuthbert Burbage, brother of Richard, the famous actor, Will'scomrade, petitioned Lord Pembroke, then Lord Chamberlain, forconsideration in a quarrel about certain theatres. Telling thehistory of the houses, he mentions that the Burbages "to ourselvesjoined those deserving men, Shakspere, Heminge, Condell, Phillips andothers. " Cuthbert is arguing his case solely from the point of theoriginal owners or lease-holders of the houses, and of the well-knownactors to whom they joined themselves. Judge Webb and Mr. Greenwoodthink that "it does indeed seem strange . . . That the proprietor[s]of the playhouses which had been made famous by the production of theShakespearean plays, should, in 1635--twelve years after thepublication of the great Folio--describe their reputed author to thesurvivor of the Incomparable Pair, as merely a 'man-player' and 'adeserving man. '" Why did he not remind the Lord Chamberlain thatthis "deserving man" was the author of all these famous dramas? Wasit because he was aware that the Earl of Pembroke "knew better thanthat"? {0h}

These arguments are regarded by some Baconians as proof positive oftheir case. 

Cuthbert Burbage, in 1635 or 1636, did not remind the Earl of whatthe Earl knew very well, that the Folio had been dedicated, in 1623, to him and his brother, by Will's friends, Heminge and Condell, asthey had been patrons of the late William Shakspere and admirers ofhis plays. The terms of this dedication are to be cited in the text, later. WE all NOW would have reminded the Earl of what he very wellknew. Cuthbert did not. 

The intelligence of Cuthbert Burbage may be gauged by anyone who willread pp. 481-484 in William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, bythe late Mr. Charles Elton, Q. C. , of White Staunton. Cuthbert was apuzzle-pated old boy. The silence as to Will's authorship on thepart of this muddle-headed old Cuthbert, in 1635-36, cannot outweighthe explicit and positive public testimony to his authorship, signedby his friends and fellow-actors in 1623. 

Men believe what they may; but I prefer positive evidence for theaffirmative to negative evidence from silence, the silence ofCuthbert Burbage. 

One may read through Mr. Greenwood's three books and note theengaging varieties of his views; they vary as suits his argument; buthe is unaware of it, or can justify his varyings. Thus, in 1610, oneJohn Davies wrote rhymes in which he speaks of "our English Terence, Mr. Will Shakespeare"; "good Will. " In his period patriotic Englishcritics called a comic dramatist "the English Terence, " or "theEnglish Plautus, " precisely as American critics used to call Mr. Bryant "the American Wordsworth, " or Cooper "the American Scott"; andas Scots called the Rev. Mr. Thomson "the Scottish Turner. "Somewhere, I believe, exists "the Belgian Shakespeare. "

Following this practice, Davies had to call Will either "our EnglishTerence, " or "our English Plautus. " Aristophanes would not have beengenerally recognised; and Will was no more like one of these ancientauthors than another. Thus Davies was apt to choose either Plautusor Terence; it was even betting which he selected. But he chanced tochoose Terence; and this is "curious, " and suggests suspicions to Mr. Greenwood--and the Baconians. They are so very full of suspicions!

It does not suit the Baconians, or Mr. Greenwood, to findcontemporary recognition of Will as an author. {0i} Consequently, Mr. Greenwood finds Davies's "curious, and at first sight, inappropriate comparison of 'Shake-speare' to Terence worthy ofremark, for Terence is the very author whose name is alleged to havebeen used as a mask-name, or nom de plume, for the writings of greatmen who wished to keep the fact of their authorship concealed. "

Now Davies felt bound to bring in SOME Roman parallel to Shakespeare;and had only the choice of Terence or Plautus. Meres (1598) usedPlautus; Davies used Terence. Mr. Greenwood {0j} shows us thatPlautus would not do. "Could HE" (Shakespeare) "write only ofcourtesans and cocottes, and not of ladies highly born, cultured, andrefined? . . . "

"The supposed parallel" (Plautus and Shakespeare) "breaks down atevery point. " Thus, on Mr. Greenwood's showing, Plautus could notserve Davies, or should not serve him, in his search for a Romanparallel to "good Will. " But Mr. Greenwood also writes, "if he"(Shakespeare) "was to be likened to a Latin comedian, surely Plautusis the writer with whom he should have been compared. " {0k} YetPlautus was the very man who cannot be used as a parallel toShakespeare. Of course no Roman nor any other comic dramatistclosely resembles the AUTHOR of As You Like It. They who selectedeither Plautus or Terence meant no more than that both werecelebrated comic dramatists. Plautus was no parallel to Will. Yet"surely Plautus is the author to whom he should have been compared"by Davies, says Mr. Greenwood. If Davies tried Plautus, thecomparison was bad; if Terence, it was "curious, " as Terence wasabsurdly accused of being the "nom de plume" of some great "concealedpoets" of Rome. "From all the known facts about Terence, " says aBaconian critic (who has consulted Smith's Biographical Dictionary), "it is an almost unavoidable inference that John Davies made thecomparison to Shakspere because he knew of the point common to bothcases. " The common point is taken to be, not that both men werefamous comic dramatists, but that Roman literary gossips said, andthat Baconians and Mr. Greenwood say, that "Terence" was said to be a"mask-name, " and that "Shakespeare" is a mask-name. Of the secondopinion there is not a hint in literature of the time of good Will. 

What surprises one most in this controversy is that men eminent inthe legal profession should be "anti-Shakesperean, " if not overtlyBaconian. For the evidence for the contemporary faith in Will'sauthorship is all positive; from his own age comes not a whisper ofdoubt, not even a murmur of surprise. It is incredible to me thathis fellow-actors and fellow-playwrights should have been deceived, especially when they were such men as Ben Jonson and Tom Heywood. One would expect lawyers, of all people, to have been most impatientof the surprising attempts made to explain away Ben Jonson'stestimony, by aid, first, of quite a false analogy (Scott's denial ofhis own authorship of his novels), and, secondly, by the suppressionof such a familiar fact as the constant inconsistency of Ben'sjudgments of his contemporaries in literature. Mr. Greenwood musthave forgotten the many examples of this inconsistency; but I havemet a Baconian author who knew nothing of the fact. Mr. Greenwood, it is proper to say, does not seem to be satisfied that he has solvedwhat he calls "the Jonsonian riddle. " Really, there is no riddle. About Will, as about other authors, his contemporaries and even hisfriends, on occasion, Ben "spoke with two voices, " now in terms ofhyperbolical praise, now in carping tones of censure. That is theobvious solution of "the Jonsonian riddle. "

I must apologise if I have in places spelled the name of the Swan ofAvon "Shakespeare" where Mr. Greenwood would write "Shakspere, " andvice versa. He uses "Shakespeare" where he means the Author;"Shakspere" where he means Will; and is vexed with some people whowrite the name of Will as "Shakespeare. " As Will, in the opinion ofa considerable portion of the human race, and of myself, WAS theAuthor, one is apt to write his name as "Shakespeare" in the usualway. But difficult cases occur, as in quotations, and in conditionalsentences. By any spelling of the name I always mean the undividedpersonality of "Him who sleeps by Avon. "

CHAPTER I: THE BACONIAN AND ANTI-WILLIAN POSITIONS

Till the years 1856-7 no voice was raised against the current beliefabout Shakespeare (1564-1616). He was the author in the main of theplays usually printed as his. In some cases other authors, one ormore, may have had fingers in his dramas; in other cases, Shakespearemay have "written over" and transfigured earlier plays, of himselfand of others; he may have contributed, more or less, to severalplays mainly by other men. Separately printed dramas publishedduring his time carry his name on their title-pages, but are notincluded in the first collected edition of his dramas, "The FirstFolio, " put forth by two of his friends and fellow-actors, in 1623, seven years after his death. 

On all these matters did commentators, critics, and antiquarians forlong dispute; but none denied that the actor, Will Shakspere (spelledas heaven pleased), was in the main the author of most of the playsof 1623, and the sole author of Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, and theSonnets. 

Even now, in England at least, it would be perhaps impossible to findone special and professed student of Elizabethan literature, and ofthe classical and European literatures, who does not hold by theancient belief, the belief of Shakespeare's contemporaries andintimates, the belief that he was, in the sense explained above, theauthor of the plays. 

But ours is not a generation to be overawed by "Authority" (as it iscalled). A small but eager company of scholars have convincedthemselves that Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespearean plays. That isthe point of agreement among these enthusiasts: points of differenceare numerous: some very wild little sects exist. Meanwhilemultitudes of earnest and intelligent men and women, having readnotices in newspapers of the Baconian books, or heard of them atlectures and tea-parties, disbelieve in the authorship of "theStratford rustic, " and look down on the faithful of Will Shakesperewith extreme contempt. 

From the Baconians we receive a plain straightforward theory, "Baconwrote Shakespeare, " as one of their own prophets has said. {4a}Since we have plenty of evidence for Bacon's life and occupationsduring the period of Shakespearean poetic activity, we can comparewhat he was doing as a man, a student, a Crown lawyer, a pleader inthe Courts, a political pamphleteer, essayist, courtier, activemember of Parliament, and so on, with what he is said to have beendoing--by the Baconians; namely, writing two dramas yearly. 

But there is another "Anti-Willian" theory, which would dethrone WillShakspere, and put but a Shadow in his place. Conceive a "concealedpoet, " of high social position, contemporary with Bacon andShakespeare. Let him be so fond of the Law that he cannot keep legal"shop" out of his love Sonnets even. Make him a courtier; astatesman; a philosopher; a scholar who does not blench even from thedifficult Latin of Ovid and Plautus. Let this almost omniscientbeing possess supreme poetic genius, extensive classical attainments, and a tendency to make false quantities. Then conceive him to livethrough the reigns of "Eliza and our James, " without leaving inhistory, in science, in society, in law, in politics or scholarship, a single trace of his existence. He left nothing but the poems andplays usually attributed to Will. As to the date of his decease, weonly know that it must necessarily have been later than thecomposition of the last genuine Shakespearean play--for this paragonwrote it. 

Such is the Being who occupies, in the theory of the non-Baconian, BUT NOT ANTI-BACONIAN, Anti-Willians, the intellectual throne filled, in the Will Shakespeare theory, by Will; and in the Baconian, byBacon--two kings of Brentford on one throne. 

We are to be much engaged by the form of this theory which is held byMr. G. G. Greenwood in his The Shakespeare Problem Restated. Inattempting to explain what he means I feel that I am skating on verythin ice. Already, in two volumes (In Re Shakespeare, 1909, and TheVindicators of Shakespeare), Mr. Greenwood has accused his critics offrequently misconceiving and misrepresenting his ideas: wherefore Ialso tremble. I am perfectly confident in saying that he "holds nobrief for the Baconians. " He is NOT a Baconian. His position isnegative merely: Will of Stratford is NOT the author of theShakespearean plays and poems. Then who is? Mr. Greenwood believesthat work by an unknown number of hands exists in the plays firstpublished all together in 1623. Here few will differ from him. But, setting aside this aspect of the case, Mr. Greenwood appears to me tobelieve in an entity named "Shakespeare, " or "the Author, " who is thepredominating partner; though Mr. Greenwood does not credit him withall the plays in the Folio of 1623 (nor, perhaps, with the absoluteentirety of any given play). "The Author" or "Shakespeare" is not asyndicate (like the Homer of many critics), but an individual humanbeing, apparently of the male sex. As to the name by which he wascalled on earth, Mr. Greenwood is "agnostic. " He himself is notAnti-Baconian. He does not oust Bacon and put the Unknown in hisplace. He neither affirms nor denies that Bacon may havecontributed, more or less, to the bulk of Shakespearean work. To putit briefly: Mr. Greenwood backs the field against the favourite (ourWill), and Bacon MAY be in the field. If he has any part in thewhole I suspect that it is "the lion's part, " but Mr. Greenwood doesnot commit himself to anything positive. We shall find (if I am notmistaken) that Mr. Greenwood regards the hypothesis of the Baconiansas "an extremely reasonable one, " {7a} and that for his purposes itwould be an extremely serviceable one, if not even essential. For asBacon was a genius to whose potentialities one can set no limit, heis something to stand by, whereas we cannot easily believe--I cannotbelieve--that the actual "Author, " the "Shakespeare" lived and diedand left no trace of his existence except his share in the workscalled Shakespearean. 

However, the idea of the Great Unknown has, for its partisans, thisadvantage, that as the life of the august Shade is wholly unknown, wecannot, as in Bacon's case, show how he was occupied while the playswere being composed. He MUST, however, have been much at Court, welearn, and deep in the mysteries of legal terminology. Was he SirEdward Coke? Was he James VI and I?

It is hard, indeed, to set forth the views of the Baconians and ofthe "Anti-Willians" in a shape which will satisfy them. The task, especially when undertaken by an unsympathetic person, is perhapsimpossible. I can only summarise their views in my own words as faras I presume to understand them. I conceive the Baconians to crythat "the world possesses a mass of transcendent literature, attributed to a man named William SHAKESPEARE. " Of a man namedWilliam SHAKSPERE (there are many varieties of spelling) we certainlyknow that he was born (1564) and bred in Stratford-on-Avon, apeculiarly dirty, stagnant, and ignorant country town. There isabsolutely no evidence that he (or any Stratford boy of his standing)ever went to Stratford school. His father, his mother, and hisdaughter could not write, but, in signing, made their marks; and ifhe could write, which some of us deny, he wrote a terribly bad hand. As far as late traditions of seventy or eighty years after his deathinform us, he was a butcher's apprentice; and also a schoolmaster"who knew Latin pretty well"; and a poacher. He made, before he wasnineteen, a marriage tainted with what Meg Dods calls "ante-nup. " Heearly had three children, whom he deserted, as he deserted his wife. He came to London, we do not know when (about 1582, according to the"guess" of an antiquary of 1680); held horses at the door of atheatre (so tradition says), was promoted to the rank of "servitor"(whatever that may mean), became an actor (a vagabond under the Act), and by 1594 played before Queen Elizabeth. He put money in hispocket (heaven knows how), for by 1597 he was bargaining for the besthouse in his native bourgade. He obtained, by nefarious genealogicalfalsehoods (too common, alas, in heraldry), the right to bear arms;and went on acting. In 1610-11 (?) he retired to his native place. He never took any interest in his unprinted manuscript plays; thoughrapacious, he never troubled himself about his valuable copyrights;never dreamed of making a collected edition of his works. He died in1616, probably of drink taken. Legal documents prove him to havebeen a lender of small sums, an avid creditor, a would-be encloser ofcommons. In his will he does not bequeath or mention any books, manuscripts, copyrights, and so forth. It is utterly incredible, then, that this man wrote the poems and plays, so rich in poetry, thought, scholarship, and knowledge, which are attributed to "WilliamShakespeare. " These must be the works of "a concealed poet, " aphilosopher, a courtier moving in the highest circles, a supremelegist, and, necessarily, a great poet, and student of the classics. 

No known person of the age but one, Bacon, was a genius, a legist, ascholar, a great poet, and brilliant courtier, with all the otherqualifications so the author of the plays either was Francis Bacon--or some person unknown, who was in all respects equallydistinguished, but kept his light under a bushel. Consequently thename "William Shakespeare" is a pseudonym or "pen-name" wiselyadopted by Bacon (or the other man) as early as 1593, at a time whenWilliam Shakspere was notoriously an actor in the company whichproduced the plays of the genius styling himself "WilliamShakespeare. "

Let me repeat that, to the best of my powers of understanding and ofexpression, and in my own words, so as to misquote nobody, I have nowsummarised the views of the Baconians sans phrase, and of the morecautious or more credulous "Anti-Willians, " as I may style the partywho deny to Will the actor any share in the authorship of the plays, but do not overtly assign it to Francis Bacon. 

Beyond all comparison the best work on the Anti-Willian side of thecontroversy is The Shakespeare Problem Restated, by Mr. G. G. Greenwood (see my Introduction). To this volume I turn for theexposition of the theory that "Will Shakspere" (with many otherspellings) is an actor from the country--a man of very scantyeducation, in all probability, and wholly destitute of books; while"William Shakespeare, " or with the hyphen, "Shake-speare, " is a "nomde plume" adopted by the Great Unknown "concealed poet. "

When I use the word "author" here, I understand Mr. Greenwood to meanthat in the plays called "Shakespearean" there exists work from manypens: owing to the curious literary manners, methods, and ethics ofdramatic writing in, say, 1589-1611. In my own poor opinion this iscertainly true of several plays in the first collected edition, "TheFolio, " produced seven years after Will's death, namely in 1623. These curious "collective" methods of play-writing are to beconsidered later. 

Matters become much more perplexing when we examine the theory that"William Shake-speare" (with or without the hyphen), on the title-pages of plays, or when signed to the dedications of poems, is thechosen pen-name, or "nom de plume, " of Bacon or of the Unknown. 

Here I must endeavour to summarise what Mr. Greenwood has written{11a} on the name of the actor, and the "nom de plume" of the unknownauthor who, by the theory, was not the actor. Let me first confessmy firm belief that there is no cause for all the copious writingabout the spellings "Shakespeare" or "Shake-speare"--as indicatingthe true but "concealed poet"--and "Shakspere" (&c. ), as indicatingthe Warwickshire rustic. At Stratford and in Warwickshire the clan-name was spelled in scores of ways, was spelled in different wayswithin a single document. If the actor himself uniformly wrote"Shakspere" (it seems that we have but five signatures), he wasaccustomed to seeing the name spelled variously in documentsconcerning him and his affairs. In London the printers aimed at akind of uniformity, "Shakespeare" or "Shake-speare": and even if hewrote his own name otherwise, to him it was indifferent. Lawyers andprinters might choose their own mode of spelling--and there is nomore in the matter. 

I must now summarise briefly, in my own words, save where quotationsare indicated in the usual way, the results of Mr. Greenwood'sresearches. "The family of William Shakspere of Stratford" (perhapsit were safer to say "the members of his name") "wrote their name inmany different ways--some sixty, I believe, have been noted . . . Butthe form 'Shakespeare' seems never to have been employed by them";and, according to Mr. Spedding, "Shakspere of Stratford never sowrote his name 'in any known case. '" (According to many Baconians henever wrote his name in his life. ) On the other hand, thededications of Venus and Adonis (1593) and of Lucrece (1594) areinscribed "William Shakespeare" (without the hyphen). In 1598, thetitle-page of Love's Labour's Lost "bore the name W. Shakespere, "while in the same year Richard II and Richard III bear "WilliamShake-speare, " with the hyphen (not without it, as in the twodedications by the Author). "The name which appears in the body ofthe conveyance and of the mortgage bearing" (the actor's) "signatureis 'Shakespeare, ' while 'Shackspeare' appears in the will, prepared, as we must presume, by or under the directions of Francis Collyns, the Stratford solicitor, who was one of the witnesses thereto" (andreceived a legacy of 13 pounds, 6s. 8d. ). 

Thus, at Stratford even, the name was spelled, in legal papers, as itis spelled in the two dedications, and in most of the title-pages--and also is spelled otherwise, as "Shackspeare. " In March 1594 theactor's name is spelled "Shakespeare" in Treasury accounts. Thelegal and the literary and Treasury spellings (and conveyances andmortgages and wills are NOT literature) are Shakespeare, Shackspeare, Shake-speare, Shakespere--all four are used, but we must regard theactor as never signing "Shakespeare" in any of these varieties ofspelling--if sign he ever did; at all events he is not known to haveused the A in the last syllable. 

I now give the essence of Mr. Greenwood's words {13a} concerning thenom de plume of the "concealed poet, " whoever he was. 

"And now a word upon the name 'Shakespeare. ' That in this form, andmore especially with a hyphen, Shake-speare, the word makes anexcellent nom de plume is obvious. As old Thomas Fuller remarks, thename suggests Martial in its warlike sound, 'Hasti-vibrans or Shake-speare. ' It is of course further suggestive of Pallas Minerva, thegoddess of Wisdom, for Pallas also was a spear-shaker (Pallas a'p?'t?? p???e?? t?' d???); and all will remember Ben Jonson's verses . . . " on Shakespeare's "true-filed lines" -

"In each of which he seems to shake a lance, As brandished at the eyes of ignorance. "

There is more about Pallas in book-titles (to which additions caneasily be made), and about "Jonson's Cri-spinus or Cri-spinas, " butperhaps we have now the gist of Mr. Greenwood's remarks on the"excellent nom de plume" (cf. Pp. 31-37. On the whole of this, cf. The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 293-295; a nom de plume calleda "pseudonym, " pp. 307, 312; Shakespeare "a mask name, " p. 328; a"pseudonym, " p. 330; "nom de plume, " p. 335). 

Now why was the "nom de plume" or "pseudonym" "William Shakespeare""an excellent nom de plume" for a concealed author, courtier, lawyer, scholar, and so forth? If "Shakespeare" suggested Pallas Athene, goddess of wisdom and of many other things, and so was appropriate, why add "William"?

In 1593, when the "pseudonym" first appears in Venus and Adonis, acountry actor whose name, in legal documents--presumably drawn up byor for his friend, Francis Collyns at Stratford--is written "WilliamShakespeare, " was before the town as an actor in the leading company, that of the Lord Chamberlain. This company produced the plays someof which, by 1598, bear "W. Shakespere, " or "William Shakespeare" ontheir title-pages. Thus, even if the actor habitually spelled hisname "Shakspere, " "William Shakespeare" was, practically (on theBaconian theory), not only a pseudonym of one man, a poet, but alsothe real name of another man, a well-known actor, who was NOT the"concealed poet. "

"William Shakespeare" or "Shakespere" was thus, in my view, theideally worst pseudonym which a poet who wished to be "concealed"could possibly have had the fatuity to select. His plays and poemswould be, as they were, universally attributed to the actor, who isrepresented as a person conspicuously incapable of writing them. With Mr. Greenwood's arguments against the certainty of thisattribution I deal later. 

Had the actor been a man of rare wit, and of good education and widereading, the choice of name might have been judicious. A "concealedpoet" of high social standing, with a strange fancy for rewriting theplays of contemporary playwrights, might obtain the manuscript copiesfrom their owners, the Lord Chamberlain's Company, through thatknowledgeable, witty, and venal member of the company, WillShakspere. He might then rewrite and improve them, more or less, asit was his whim to do. The actor might make fair copies in his ownhand, give them to his company, and say that the improved works werefrom his own pen and genius. The lie might pass, but only if theactor, in his life and witty talk, seemed very capable of doing whathe pretended to have done. But if the actor, according to someBaconians, could not write even his own name, he was impossible as amask for the poet. He was also impossible, I think, if he were whatMr. Greenwood describes him to be. 

Mr. Greenwood, in his view of the actor as he was when he came toLondon, does not deny to him the gift of being able to sign his name. But, if he were educated at Stratford Free School (of which there isno documentary record), according to Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps "he wasremoved from school long before the usual age, " "in all probability"when "he was about thirteen" (an age at which some boys, later wellknown, went up to their universities). If we send him to school atseven or so, "it appears that he could only have enjoyed suchadvantages as it may be supposed to have provided for a period offive or six years at the outside. He was then withdrawn, and, as itseems, put to calf-slaughtering. " {16a}

What the advantages may have been we try to estimate later. 

Mr. Greenwood, with Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, thinks that Will "couldhave learned but little there. No doubt boys at Elizabethan grammarschools, if they remained long enough, had a good deal of Latindriven into them. Latin, indeed, was the one subject that wastaught; and an industrious boy who had gone through the course andattained to the higher classes would generally be able to write fairLatin prose. But he would learn very little else" (except to writefair Latin prose?). "What we now call 'culture' certainly did notenter into the 'curriculum, ' nor 'English, ' nor modern languages, nor'literature. '" {17a} Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps says that "removedprematurely from school, residing with illiterate relatives in abookless neighbourhood, thrown into the midst of occupations adverseto scholastic progress--it is difficult to believe that when he firstleft Stratford he was not all but destitute of polishedaccomplishments. " {17b} Mr. Greenwood adds the apprenticeship to abutcher or draper, but doubts the poaching, and the frequentwhippings and imprisonments, as in the story told by the Rev. R. Davies in 1708. {17c}

That this promising young man, "when he came to London, spoke theWarwickshire dialect or patois is, then, as certain as anything canbe that is incapable of mathematical proof. " {17d} "Here is theyoung Warwickshire provincial . . . " {17e} producing, apparentlyfive or six years after his arrival in town, Venus and Adonis . . . "Is it conceivable that this was the work of the Stratford Player ofwhom we know so little, but of whom we know so much too much? If sowe have here a veritable sixteenth-century miracle. " {17f} Moreover, "our great supposed poet and dramatist had at his death neither booknor manuscript in his possession, or to which he was legallyentitled, or in which he had any interest whatever. " {17g}

If it be not conceivable now that the rustic speaking in a patoiscould write Venus and Adonis, manifestly it was inconceivable in1593, when Venus and Adonis was signed "William Shakespeare. " No manwho knew the actor (as described) could believe that he was theauthor, but there does not exist the most shadowy hint proving thatthe faintest doubt was thrown on the actor's authorship; ignorant ashe was, bookless, and rude of speech. For such a Will as Mr. Greenwood describes to persuade the literary and dramatic world ofhis age that he DID write the plays, would have been a miracle. Consequently Mr. Greenwood has to try to persuade us that there is nosufficient evidence that Will DID persuade, say Ben Jonson, of hisauthorship and we shall see whether or not he works this twentieth-century miracle of persuasion. 

Of course if Will were unable to write even his name, as anenthusiastic Baconian asserts, Mr. Greenwood sees that Will could noteasily pass for the Author. {18a} But his own bookless actor with apatois seems to him, as author of Venus and Adonis, almostinconceivable. Yet, despite Will's bookless rusticity, this poemwith Lucrece, which displays knowledge of a work of Ovid nottranslated into English by 1593, was regarded as his own. I mustsuppose, therefore, that Will was NOT manifestly so ignorant of Latinas Mr. Greenwood thinks. "I think it highly probable, " says thiscritic, "that he attended the Grammar School at Stratford" (wherenothing but Latin was taught) "for four or five years, and that, later in life, after some years in London, he was probably able to'bumbast out a line, ' and perhaps to pose as 'Poet-Ape that would bethought our chief. ' Nay, I am not at all sure that he would not havebeen capable of collaborating with such a man as George Wilkins, andperhaps of writing quite as well as he, if not even better. But itdoes not follow from this that he was the author either of Venus andAdonis or of Hamlet. " {19a}

Nothing follows from all this: we merely see that, in Mr. Greenwood's private opinion, the actor might write even better thanGeorge Wilkins, but could not write Venus and Adonis. Will, therefore, though bookless, is not debarred here from the pursuits ofliterature, in partnership with Wilkins. We have merely the critic'sopinion that Will could not write Hamlet, even if, like Wordsworth, "he had the mind, " even if the gods had made him more poetical thanWilkins. 

Again, "he had had but little schooling; he had 'small Latin and lessGreek'" (as Ben Jonson truly says), "but he was a good JohannesFactotum; he could arrange a scene, and, when necessary, 'bumbast outa blank verse. '" {19b}

The "Johannes Factotum, " who could "bumbast out a blank verse, " istaken from Robert Greene's hackneyed attack on an actor-poet, "Shake-scene, " published in 1592. "Poet-Ape that would be thought ourchief, " is from an epigram on an actor-poet by Ben Jonson (1601-16?). If the allusions by Greene and Jonson are to our Will, he, by 1592, had a literary ambition so towering that he thought his own work inthe new art of dramatic blank verse was equal to that of Marlowe (notto speak of Wilkins), and Greene reckoned him a dangerous rival tothree of his playwright friends, of whom Marlowe is one, apparently. 

If Jonson's "Poet-Ape" be meant for Will, by 1601 Will would fain "bethought the chief" of contemporary dramatists. His vanity soared farabove George Wilkins! Greene's phrases and Jonson's are dictated byspite, jealousy, and envy; and from them a true view of the work ofthe man whom they envy, the actor-poet, cannot be obtained. We mightas well judge Moliere in the spirit of the author of ElomireHypocondre, and of de Vise! The Anti-Willian arguments keep onappearing, going behind the scenes, and reappearing, like a stagearmy. To avoid this phenomenon I reserve what is to be said about"Shake-scene" and "Poet-Ape" for another place (pp. 138-145 infra). But I must give the reader a warning. Concerning "WilliamShakespeare" as a "nom de plume, " or pseudonym, Mr. Greenwood says, "Some, indeed, would see through it, and roundly accuse the player ofputting forth the works of others as his own. To such he would be a'Poet-Ape, ' or 'an upstart crow' (Shake-scene) 'beautified with thefeathers of other writers. '" {21a}

If this be true, if "some would see through" (Mr. Greenwood, apparently, means DID "see through") the "nom de plume, " the case ofthe Anti-Willians is promising. But, in this matter, Mr. Greenwoodse trompe. Neither Greene nor Jonson accused "Shake-scene" or "Poet-Ape" of "putting forth the works of others as his own. " That isquite certain, as far as the scorns of Jonson and Greene have reachedus. (See pp. 141-145 infra. )

If an actor, obviously incapable of wit and poetry, were creditedwith the plays, the keenest curiosity would arise in "theprofession, " and among rival playwrights who envied the wealth and"glory" of the actors. This curiosity, prompting the wits andplayers to watch and "shadow" Will, would, to put it mildly, mostseriously imperil the secret of the concealed author who had thefolly to sign himself "William Shakespeare. " Human nature could notrest under such a provocation as the "concealed poet" offered. 

This is so obvious that had one desired to prove Bacon or the Unknownto be the concealed author, one must have credited his mask, Will, with abundance of wit and fancy, and, as for learning--with about asmuch as he probably possessed. But the Baconians make him anilliterate yokel, and we have quoted Mr. Greenwood's estimate of theyoung Warwickshire provincial. 

We all have our personal equations in the way of belief. That theplot of the "nom de plume" should have evaded discovery for a week, if the actor were the untutored countryman of the hypotheses, is tome, for one, absolutely incredible. A "concealed poet" looking aboutfor a "nom de plume" and a mask behind which he could be hidden, would not have selected the name, or the nearest possible approach tothe name, of an ignorant unread actor. As he was never suspected ofnot being the author of the plays and poems, Will cannot have been acountry ignoramus, manifestly incapable of poetry, wit, and suchlearning as the plays exhibit. Every one must judge for himself. Mr. Greenwood fervently believes in what I disbelieve. {22a}

"Very few Englishmen . . . In Elizabethan times, concerned themselvesat all, or cared one brass farthing, about the authorship of plays . . . " says Mr. Greenwood. 

Very few care now. They know the actors' names: in vain, as a rule, do I ask playgoers for the name of the author of their entertainment. But in Elizabeth's time the few who cared were apt to care very much, and they would inquire intensely when the Stratford actor, abookless, untaught man, was announced as the author of plays whichwere among the most popular of their day. The seekers never foundany other author. They left no hint that they suspected theexistence of any other author. Hence I venture to infer that Willseemed to them no unread rustic, but a fellow of infinite fancy, --noscholar to be sure, but very capable of writing the pieces which hefathered. 

They may all have been mistaken. Nobody can prove that Heywood andBen Jonson, and the actors of the Company, were not mistaken. Butcertain it is that they thought the Will whom they knew capable ofthe works which were attributed to him. Therefore he cannot possiblyhave been the man who could not write, of the more impulsiveBaconians; or the bookless, and probably all but Latinless, man ofMr. Greenwood's theory. The positions already seem to me to beuntenable. 

CHAPTER II: THE "SILENCE" ABOUT SHAKESPEARE

Before proceeding further to examine Mr. Greenwood's book, and theBaconian theories, with the careful attention which they deserve, wemust clear the ground by explaining two points which appear to puzzleBaconians, though, to be sure, they have their own solutions of theproblems. 

The first question is: Why, considering that Shakespeare, by theconsent of the learned of most of the polite foreign nations, was oneof the world's very greatest poets, have we received so few and suchbrief notices of him from the pens of his contemporaries?

"It is wonderful, " exclaims Mr. Crouch-Batchelor, "that hundreds ofpersons should not have left records of him. {27a} We know nearly asmuch about the most insignificant writer of the period as we know ofhim, but fifty times more about most of his contemporaries. It issenseless to try to account for this otherwise than by recognisingthat the man was not the author. "

Mr. Crouch-Batchelor is too innocent. He sees the sixteenth centuryin the colours of the twentieth. We know nothing, except a few datesof birth, death, entrance at school, College, the Inns of Court, andso forth, concerning several of Shakespeare's illustriouscontemporaries and successors in the art of dramatic poetry. TheBaconians do not quite understand, or, at least, keep steadily beforetheir minds, one immense difference between the Elizabethan age andlater times. In 1590-1630, there was no public excitement about thecharacters, personalities, and anecdotage of merely literary men, poets, and playwrights, who held no position in public affairs, asSpenser did; or in Court, Society, and War, as Sidney did; who didnot write about their own feuds and friendships, like Greene andNash; who did not expand into prefaces and reminiscences, andsatires, like Ben Jonson; who never killed anybody, as Ben did; norwere killed, like Marlowe; nor were involved, like him, in charges ofatheism, and so forth; nor imprisoned with every chance of havingtheir ears and noses slit, like Marston. Consequently, silence andnight obscure the lives and personalities of Kyd, Chapman, Beaumont, Fletcher, Dekker, Webster, and several others, as night and silencehide Shakespeare from our view. 

He was popular on the stage; some of his plays were circulatedseparately in cheap and very perishable quartos. No collectededition of his plays appeared during his life; without that he couldnot be studied, and recognised in his greatness. He withdrew to thecountry and died. There was no enthusiastic curiosity about him;nobody Boswellised any playwright of his time. The Folio of 1623gave the first opportunity of studying him as alone he can bestudied. The Civil Wars and the Reign of the Saints distracted men'sminds and depressed or destroyed the Stage. 

Sir William Davenant, a boy when Shakespeare died, used to see theactor at his father's inn at Oxford, was interested in him, andcherished the embers of the drama, which were fading before thetheatres were closed. Davenant collected what he could in the way ofinformation from old people of the stage; he told Shakespeareananecdotes in conversation; a few reached the late day when uncriticalinquiries began, say 1680-90 at earliest. The memories of ancientpeople of the theatre and clerks and sextons at Stratford wereransacked, to very little purpose. 

As these things were so, how can we expect biographical materialsabout Shakespeare? As to the man, as to how his character impressedcontemporaries, we have but the current epithets: "friendly, ""gentle, " and "sweet, " the praise of his worth by two of the actorsin his company (published in 1623), and the brief prose note of BenJonson, --this is more than we have for the then so widely admiredBeaumont, Ben Jonson's friend, or Chapman, or the adored Fletcher. "Into the dark go one and all, " Shakespeare and the others. To bepuzzled by and found theories on the silence about Shakespeare is toshow an innocence very odd in learned disputants. 

The Baconians, as usual, make a puzzle and a mystery out of their ownmisappreciation of the literary and social conditions ofShakespeare's time. That world could not possibly appreciate hisworks as we do; the world, till 1623, possessed only a portion of hisplays in cheap pamphlets, in several of these his text was mangledand in places unintelligible. And in not a single instance wereanecdotes and biographical traits of playwrights recorded, exceptwhen the men published matter about themselves, or when they becamenotorious in some way unconnected with their literary works. Drummond, in Scotland, made brief notes of Ben Jonson's talk;Shakespeare he never met. 

That age was not widely and enthusiastically appreciative of literarymerit in playwrights who were merely dramatists, and in no other waynotorious or eminent. Mr. Greenwood justly says "the contemporaryeulogies of the poet afford proof that there were some culturedcritics of that day of sufficient taste and acumen to recognise, orpartly recognise, his excellence . . . " {30a} (Here I omit somewords, presently to be restored to the text. ) From such critics thepoet received such applause as has reached us. We also know that theplays were popular; but the audiences have not rushed to pen and inkto record their satisfaction. With them, as with all audiences, theactors and the SPECTACLE, much more than the "cackle, " were theattractions. When Dr. Ingleby says that "the bard of our admirationwas unknown to the men of that age, " he uses hyperbole, and means, Ipresume, that he was unknown, as all authors are, to the greatmajority; and that those who knew him in part made no modern fussabout him. {31a}

The second puzzle is, --Why did Shakespeare, conscious of his greatpowers, never secure for his collected plays the permanence of printand publication? We cannot be sure that he and his company, in fact, did not provide publishers with the copy for the better Quartos orpamphlets of separate plays, as Mr. Pollard argues on good groundsthat they sometimes did. {31b} For the rest, no dramatic authoredited a complete edition of his works before Ben Jonson, a scholarlyman, set the example in the year of Shakespeare's, and of Beaumont'sdeath (1616). Neither Beaumont nor Fletcher collected and publishedtheir works for the Stage. The idea was unheard of before Jonson setthe example, and much of his work lay unprinted till years after hisdeath. We must remember the conditions of play-writing inShakespeare's time. 

There were then many poets of no mean merit, all capable of admirableverse on occasion; and in various degrees possessed of the lofty, vigorous, and vivid style of that great age. The theatre, andwriting for the theatre, afforded to many men of talent a means oflivelihood analogous to that offered by journalism among ourselves. They were apt to work collectively, several hands hurrying out asingle play; and in twos or threes, or fours or fives, they oftencollaborated. 

As a general rule a play when finished was sold by the author orauthors to a company of players, or to a speculator like thenotorious Philip Henslowe, and the new owners, "the grandpossessors, " were usually averse to the publication of the work, lestother companies might act it. The plays were primarily written to beacted. The company in possession could have the play altered as theypleased by a literary man in their employment. 

To follow Mr. Greenwood's summary of the situation "it would seemthat an author could restrain any person from publishing hismanuscript, or could bring an action against him for so doing, solong as he had not disposed of his right to it; and that thepublisher could prevent any other publisher from issuing the work. At the same time it is clear that the law was frequently violated . . . Whether because of the difficulty of enforcing it, or through thesupineness of authors; and that in consequence authors werefrequently defrauded by surreptitious copies of their works beingissued by piratical publishers. " {33a}

It may appear that to "authors" we should, in the case of plays, add"owners, " such as theatrical companies, for no case is cited in whichsuch a company brings an action against the publisher of a play whichthey own. The two players of Shakespeare's company who sign thepreface to the first edition of his collected plays (1623, "The FirstFolio") complain that "divers stolen and surreptitious copies" ofsingle plays have been put forth, "maimed and deformed by the fraudsand stealths of injurious impostors. " They speak as if they wereunable to prevent, or had not the energy to prevent, these frauds. In the accounts of the aforesaid Henslowe, we find him paying fortyshillings to a printer to stop or "stay" the printing of a play, Patient Grizel, by three of his hacks. 

We perhaps come across an effort of the company to prevent or delaythe publication of The Merchant of Venice, on July 17, 1598, in theStationers' Register. James Robertes, and all other printers, areforbidden to print the book without previous permission from the LordChamberlain, the protector of Will Shakespeare's company. Two yearspassed before Robertes issued the book. {34a} As is well known, Heywood, a most prolific playwright, boasts that he never made adouble sale of his pieces to the players and the press. Othersoccasionally did, which Heywood clearly thought less than honest. 

As an author who was also an actor, and a shareholder in his company, Will's interests were the same as theirs. It is therefore curiousthat some of his pieces were early printed, in quartos, from verygood copies; while others appeared in very bad copies, clearlysurreptitious. Probably the company gave a good MS. Copy, sometimes, to a printer who offered satisfactory terms, after the gloss ofnovelty was off the acted play. {34b} In any case, we see that thecustom and interests of the owners of manuscript plays ran contraryto their early publication. In 1619 even Ben Jonson, who lovedpublication, told Drummond that half of his comedies were stillunprinted. 

These times were not as our own, and must not be judged by ours. Whoever wrote the plays, the actor, or Bacon, or the Man in the Moon;whoever legally owned the manuscripts, was equally incurious andnegligent about the preservation of a correct text. As we shall seelater, while Baconians urge without any evidence that Bacon himselfedited, or gave to Ben Jonson the duty of editing, the firstcollected edition (1623), the work has been done in an indescribablynegligent and reckless manner, and, as Mr. Greenwood repeatedlystates, the edition, in his opinion, contains at least two plays notby his "Shakespeare"--that "concealed poet"--and masses of "non-Shakespearean" work. 

How this could happen, if Bacon (as on one hypothesis) either revisedthe plays himself, or entrusted the task to so strict an Editor asBen Jonson, I cannot imagine. This is also one of the difficultiesin Mr. Greenwood's theory. Thus we cannot argue, "if the actor werethe author, he must have been conscious of his great powers. Therefore the actor cannot have been the author, for the actor whollyneglected to collect his printed and to print his manuscript works. "

This argument is equally potent against the authorship of the playsby Bacon. He, too, left the manuscripts unpublished till 1623. "Buthe could not avow his authorship, " cry Baconians, giving variousexquisite reasons. Indeed, if Bacon were the author, he might notcare to divulge his long association with "a cry of players, " and aman like Will of Stratford. But he had no occasion to avow it. Hehad merely to suggest to the players, through any safe channel, thatthey should collect and publish the works of their old friend WillShakspere. 

Thus indifferent was the main author of the plays, whether he wereactor or statesman; and the actor, at least, is not to blame for thechaos of the first collected edition, made while he was in his grave, and while Bacon was busy in revising and superintending Latintranslations of his works on scientific subjects. 

We now understand why there are so few contemporary records ofShakspere the man; and see that the neglect of his texts was extreme, whether or not he were the author. The neglect was characteristic ofthe playwrights of his own and the next generation. In those days itwas no marvel; few cared. Nine years passed before a second editionof the collected plays appeared: thirty-two years went by before athird edition was issued--years of war and tumult, yet they saw theposthumous publication of the collected plays of Beaumont andFletcher. 

There remains one more mystery connected with publication. When thefirst collected edition of the plays appeared, it purported tocontain "All His Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. " According tothe postulate of the Baconians it was edited by the Author, or byJonson acting for him. It contains several plays which, according tomany critics, are not the author's. This, if true, is mysterious, and so is the fact that a few plays were published, as byShakespeare, in the lifetime both of the actor and of Bacon; playswhich neither acknowledged for his own, for we hear of noremonstrance from--whoever "William Shakespeare" was. It isimpossible for me to say why there was no remonstrance. 

Suppose that Will merely supplied Bacon's plays, under his own name, with a slight difference in spelling, to his company. It was as muchhis interest, in that case, to protest when Bacon's pen-name wastaken in vain, as if he had spelled his own surname with an A in thesecond syllable. 

There is another instance which Mr. Greenwood discusses twice. {37a}In 1599 Jaggard published "The Passionate Pilgrim; W. Shakespeare. "Out of twenty poems, five only were by W. S. In 1612, Jaggard addedtwo poems by Tom Heywood, retaining W. Shakespeare's name as soleauthor. "Heywood protested" in print, "and stated that SHAKESPEAREwas offended, and, " says Mr. Greenwood, "very probably he was so; butas he was, so I conceive, 'a concealed poet, ' writing under a nom deplume, he seems to have only made known his annoyance through themedium of Heywood. "

If so, Heywood knew who the concealed poet was. Turning to pp. 348, 349, we find Mr. Greenwood repeating the same story, with thisaddition, that the author of the poems published by Jaggard, "to dohimself right, hath since published them in his own name. " That is, W. Shakespeare has since published under his own name such pieces ofThe Passionate Pilgrim as are his own. "The author, I know, " addsHeywood, "was much offended with Mr. Jaggard that (altogether unknownto him) presumed to make so bold with his name. "

Why was the author so slack when Jaggard, in 1599, published W. S. 'spoems with others NOT by W. S. ?

How can anyone explain, by any theory? It was as open to him in 1599as in 1612 to publish his own pieces under his own name, or pen-name. 

"Here we observe, " says Mr. Greenwood, {38a} "that Heywood doesnothing to identify 'the author with the player. '" This is, we shallsee, the eternal argument. Why should Heywood, speaking of W. Shakespeare, explain what all the world knew? There was no other W. Shakespeare (with or without the E and A) but one, the actor, in theworld of letters of Elizabeth and James. Who the author was Heywoodhimself has told us, elsewhere: the author was--Will!

But why Shakespeare was so indifferent to the use of his name, or, when he was moved, acted so mildly, it is not for me or anyone toexplain. We do not know the nature of the circumstances in detail;we do not know that the poet saw hopes of stopping the sale of theworks falsely attributed to him. I do not even feel certain that hehad not a finger in some of them. Knowing so little, a more soaringwit than mine might fly to the explanation that "Shakespeare" was the"nom de plume" of Bacon or his unknown equivalent, and that hepreferred to "let sleeping dogs lie, " or, as Mr. Greenwood mightquote the Latin tag, said ne moveas Camarinam. 

CHAPTER III: THAT IMPOSSIBLE HE--THE SCHOOLING OF SHAKESPEARE

The banner-cry of the Baconians is the word "Impossible!" It isimpossible that the actor from Stratford (as they think of him, abookless, untutored lad, speaking in patois) should have possessedthe wide, deep, and accurate scholarship displayed by the author ofthe plays and poems. It is impossible that at the little Free Schoolof Stratford (if he attended it), he should have gained his wideknowledge of the literatures of Greece and Rome. To these arguments, the orthodox Stratfordian is apt to reply, that he finds in the playsand poems plenty of inaccurate general information on classicalsubjects, information in which the whole literature of England thenabounded. He also finds in the plays some knowledge of certain Latinauthors, which cannot be proved to have been translated at the datewhen Shakespeare drew on them. How much Latin Shakespeare knew, inour opinion, will presently be explained. 

But, in reply to the Baconians and the Anti-Willians, we must saythat while the author of the plays had some lore which scholars alsopossessed, he did not use his knowledge like a scholar. We do notsee how a scholar could make, as the scansion of his blank verseproves that the author did make, the second syllable of the name ofPosthumus, in Cymbeline, long. He must have read a famous line inHorace thus, "Eheu fugaces Posthoome, Posthoome!"

which could scarce 'scape whipping, even at Stratford Free School. In the same way he makes the penultimate syllable of Andronicusshort, equally impossible. 

Mr. Greenwood, we shall see, denies to him Titus Andronicus, but alsoappears to credit it to him, as one of the older plays which he"revised, improved, and dressed, " {44a} and THAT is taken to havebeen all his "authorship" in several cases. A scholar would havecorrected, not accepted, false quantities. In other cases, as whenGreeks and Trojans cite Plato and Aristotle in Troilus and Cressida, while Plato and Aristotle lived more than a thousand years after thelatest conceivable date of the siege of Troy, I cannot possiblysuppose that a scholar would have permitted to himself the freak, anymore than that in The Winter's Tale he should have borrowed from anearlier novel the absurdity of calling Delphi "Delphos" (a non-existent word), of confusing "Delphos" with Delos, and placing theDelphian Oracle in an island. In the same play the author, quiteneedlessly, makes the artist Giulio Romano (1492-1546) contemporarywith the flourishing age of the oracle of the Pythian Apollo. This, at least, would not be ignorance. 

We have, I think, sufficient testimony to Ben's inability to refrainfrom gibes at Shakspere's want of scholarship. Rowe, who hadtraditions of Davenant's, tells how, in conversation with Suckling, Davenant, Endymion Porter, and Hales of Eton, Ben harped on Will'swant of learning; and how Hales snubbed him. Indeed, Ben could havemade mirth enough out of The Winter's Tale. For, granting to Mr. Greenwood {45a} that "the mention of Delphos suggests the Bohemia ofa much earlier date, and under the reign of Ottocar (1255-78) Bohemiaextended from the Adriatic to the shores of the Baltic, " that onlymakes matters far worse. "Delphos" never was a place-name; there wasno oracle on the isle of "Delphos"; there were no Oracles in 1255-78(A. D. ); and Perdita, who could have sat for her portrait to GiulioRomano, was contemporary with an Oracle at Delphos, but not withOttocar. 

There never was so mad a mixture, not even in Ivanhoe; not even inKenilworth. Scott erred deliberately, as he says in his prefaces;but Will took the insular oracle of Delphos from Greene, insertedGiulio Romano "for his personal diversion, " never heard of Ottocar(no more than I), and made a delightful congeries of errors in gaietyof heart. Nobody shall convince me that Francis Bacon was socharmingly irresponsible; but I cannot speak so confidently of Mr. Greenwood's Great Unknown, a severe scholar, but perhaps a friskysoul. There was no region called Bohemia when the Delphic oracle wasin vigour;--this apology (apparently contrived by Sir EdwardSullivan) is the most comic of erudite reflections. 

Some cruel critic has censured the lovely speech of Perdita, concerning the flowers which Proserpine let fall, when she wascarried off by Dis. How could she, brought up in the hut of aBohemian shepherd, know anything of the Rape of Proserpine? Why not, as she lived in the days of the Delphic Oracle--and Giulio Romano, and of printed ballads. 

It is impossible, Baconians cry, that the rabbit-stealer, brought upamong the Audreys and Jaquenettas of Warwickshire, should havecreated the noble and witty ladies of the Court; and known the styleof his Armado; and understood how dukes and kings talk amongthemselves--usually in blank verse, it appears. 

It is impossible that the home-keeping yokel should have heard of the"obscure" (sic!) Court of Navarre; and known that at Venice there wasa place called the Rialto, and a "common ferry" called "the tranect. "It is impossible that he should have had "an intimate knowledge ofthe castle of Elsinore, " though an English troupe of actors visitedDenmark in 1587. To Will all this knowledge was impossible; forthese and many more exquisite reasons the yokel's authorship of theplays is a physical impossibility. But scholars neither invent nortolerate such strange liberties with time and place, with history, geography, and common sense. Will Shakspere either did not know whatwas right, or, more probably, did not care, and supposed, likeFielding in the old anecdote, that the audience "would not find itout. " How could a scholar do any of these things? He was asincapable of them as Ben Jonson. Such sins no scholar is inclinedto; they have, for him, no temptations. 

As to Shakspere's schooling, the Baconians point at the currentignorance of Stratford-on-Avon, where many topping burgesses, evenaldermen, "made their marks, " in place of signing their names todocuments. Shakespeare's father, wife, and daughter "made theirmarks, " in place of signing. So did Lady Jane Gordon, daughter ofthe Earl of Huntly, when she married the cultivated Earl of Bothwell(1566). 

There is no evidence, from a roll of schoolboys at Stratford FreeGrammar School, about 1564-77, that any given boy attended it; for noroll exists. Consequently there is no evidence that Will was apupil. 

"In the Appendix to Malone's Life of Shakespeare will be found twoLatin letters, written by alumni of Stratford School contemporarywith Shakespeare, " says Mr. Collins. {48a} But though the writerswere Stratford boys contemporary with Shakespeare, in later life hisassociates, as there is no roll of pupils' names how do we know, theBaconians may ask, that these men were educated at Stratford School?Why not at Winchester, Eton, St. Paul's, or anywhere? Need onereply?

Mr. Collins goes on, in his simple confiding way, to state that "oneletter is by Abraham Sturley, afterwards an alderman of Stratford . . . " Pursuing the facts, we find that Sturley wrote in Latin to"Richard Quiney, Shakespeare's friend, " who, if he could readSturley's letter, could read Latin. Then YOUNG Richard Quiney, apparently aged eleven, wrote in Latin to his father. If youngRichard Quiney be the son of Shakespeare's friend, Richard Quiney, then, of course, his Latin at the age of eleven would only provethat, if he were a schoolboy at Stratford, ONE Stratford boy couldwrite Latin in the generation following that of Shakespeare. Thusmay reason the Baconians. 

Perhaps, however, we may say that if Stratford boys contemporary withShakspere, in his own rank and known to him, learned Latin, whichthey retained in manhood, Shakspere, if he went to school with them, may have done as much. 

Concerning the school, a Free Grammar School, we know that duringShakespeare's boyhood the Mastership was not disdained by WalterRoche, perhaps a Fellow of what was then the most progressive Collegein learning of those at Oxford, namely, Corpus Christi. ThatShakespeare could have been his pupil is uncertain; the dates arerather difficult. I think it probable that he was not, and we do notknow the qualifications of the two or three succeeding Masters. 

As to the methods of teaching and the books read at Grammar Schools, abundance of information has been collected. We know what the usewas in one very good school, Ipswich, from 1528; in another in 1611;but as we do not possess any special information about StratfordSchool, Mr. Greenwood opposes the admission of evidence from otheracademies. A man might think that, however much the quality of theteaching varied in various free schools, the nominal curriculum wouldbe fairly uniform. 

As to the teacher, a good endowment would be apt to attract a capableman. What was the endowment of Stratford School? It was derivedfrom the bequest of Thomas Jolyffe (died 1482), a bequest of lands inStratford and Dodwell, and before the Reformation the Brethren of theGuild were "to find a priest fit and able in knowledge to teachgrammar freely to all scholars coming to him, taking nothing fortheir teaching . . . " "The Founder's liberal endowment made itpossible to secure an income for the Master by deed. Under theReformation, Somerset's Commission found that the School Master had10 pounds yearly by patent; the school was well conducted, and wasnot confiscated. " {50a}

Baconians can compare the yearly 20 pounds (the salary in 1570-6, which then went much further than it does now) with the incomes ofother masters of Grammar Schools, and thereby find out if the Head-Master was very cheap. Mr. Elton (who knew his subject intimately)calls the provision "liberal. " The Head-Master of Westminster had 20pounds and a house. 

As to the method of teaching, it was colloquial; questions were askedand answered in Latin. This method, according to Dr. Rouse of PerseSchool, brings boys on much more rapidly than does our currentfashion, as may readily be imagined; but experts vary in opinion. The method, I conceive, should give a pupil a vocabulary. Lilly'sLatin Grammar was universally used, and was learned by rote, as byGeorge Borrow, in the last century. See Lavengro for details. Conversation books, Sententiae Pueriles, were in use; with easybooks, such as Corderius's Colloquia, and so on, for boys were taughtto SPEAK Latin, the common language of the educated in Europe. Waifsof the Armada, Spaniards wrecked on the Irish coast, met "a savagewho knew Latin, " and thus could converse with him. The Eclogues ofMantuanus, a Latin poet of the Renaissance (the "Old Mantuan" ofLove's Labour's Lost), were used, with Erasmus's Colloquia, and, saysMr. Collins, "such books as Ovid's Metamorphoses" (and other works ofhis), "the AEneid, selected comedies of Terence and Plautus, andportions of Caesar, Sallust, Cicero, and Livy. "

"Pro-di-gi-ous!" exclaims Mr. Greenwood, {51a} referring to what Mr. Collins says Will had read at school. But precocious Latinity wasnot thought "prodigious" in an age when nothing but Latin was taughtto boys--not even cricket. Nor is it to be supposed that every boyread in all of these authors, still less read all of their works, butthese were the works of which portions were read. It is notprodigious. I myself, according to my class-master, was "a bad andcareless little boy" at thirteen, incurably idle, but I well rememberreading in Ovid and Caesar, and Sallust, while the rest of my timewas devoted to the total neglect of the mathematics, English "as shewas taught, " History, and whatsoever else was expected from me. Shakespeare's time was not thus frittered away; Latin was all helearned (if he went to school), and, as he was (on my theory) a veryclever, imaginative kind of boy, I can conceive that he was intenselyinterested in the stories told by Ovid, and in Catiline's Conspiracy(thrilling, if you know your Sallust); and if his interest were oncearoused, he would make rapid progress. My own early hatred of Greekwas hissing and malignant, but as soon as I opened Homer, all waschanged. One was intensely interested!

Mr. Greenwood will not, in the matter of books, go beyond Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, {52a} "Lilly's Grammar, and a few classicalworks chained to the desks of the free schools. " Mr. Collins himselfgives but "a few classical books, " of which PORTIONS were read. Thechains were in all the free schools, if Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps isright. The chains, if authentic, do not count as objections. 

Here it must be noted that Mr. Greenwood's opinion of Will'sknowledge and attainments is not easily to be ascertained withprecision. He sees, of course, that the pretension of the extremeBaconians--Will could not even write his name--is absurd. If hecould not write, he could not pass as the author. Mr. Greenwood"fears that the arguments" (of a most extreme Baconian) "would drivemany wandering sheep back to the Stratfordian fold. " {52b}

He has therefore to find a via media, to present, as the pseudo-author, a Will who possessed neither books nor manuscripts when hemade his Testament; a rustic, bookless Will, speaking a patois, whocould none the less pass himself off as the author. So "I think ithighly probable, " says Mr. Greenwood, "that he attended the GrammarSchool at Stratford for four or five years, and that, later in life, after some years in London, he was probably able to 'bumbast out aline, ' and perhaps to pose as 'Poet-Ape who would be thought ourchief. '" {53a} Again, "He had had but little schooling; he had'small Latin and less Greek'; but he was a good Johannes Factotum, hecould arrange a scene, and, when necessary, 'bumbast out a blankverse. '" {53b}

But this is almost to abandon Mr. Greenwood's case. Will appears tome to be now perilously near acceptance as Greene's "Shake-scene, "who was a formidable rival to Greene's three professionalplaywrights: and quite as near to Ben's Poet-Ape "that would bethought our chief, " who began by re-making old plays; then won "somelittle wealth and credit on the scene, " who had his "works" printed(for Ben expects them to reach posterity), and whom Ben accused ofplagiarism from himself and his contemporaries. But this Shake-scene, this Poet-Ape, is merely our Will Shakespeare as described bybitterly jealous and envious rivals. Where are now the "works" of"Poet-Ape" if they are not the works of Shakespeare which Ben sonobly applauded later, if they are not in the blank verse of Greene'sShake-scene? "Shakespeare's plays" we call them. 

WHEN was it "necessary" for the "Stratford rustic" to "bumbast out ablank verse"? Where are the blank verses which he bumbasted out?For what purposes were they bumbasted? By 1592 "Shake-scene" wasambitious, and thought his blank verse as good as the best thatGreene's friends, including Marlowe, could write. He had plenty oftime to practise before the date when, as Ben wrote, "he would bethought our chief. " He would not cease to do that in which heconceived himself to excel; to write for the stage. 

When once Mr. Greenwood deems it "highly probable" that Will had fouror five years of education at a Latin school, Will has as much of"grounding" in Latin, I think, as would account for all the knowledgeof the Roman tongue which he displays. His amount of teaching atschool would carry and tempt even a boy who was merely clever, andloved to read romantic tales and comic plays, into Ovid and Plautus--English books being to him not very accessible. 

Here I may speak from my own memories, for though utterly idle whereset school tasks were concerned, I tried very early to worry thesense out of Aristophanes--because he was said to contain goodreading. 

To this amount of taste and curiosity, nowise unexampled in anordinary clever boy, add GENIUS, and I feel no difficulty as toWill's "learning, " such as, at best, it was. "The Stratfordian, "says Mr. Greenwood, "will ingeminate 'Genius! Genius!'" {55a} I DOsay "Genius, " and stand by it. The ordinary clever boy, in thesupposed circumstances, could read and admire his Ovid (thoughShakespeare used cribs also), the man of genius could write Venus andAdonis. 

Had I to maintain the Baconian hypothesis, I would not weigh heavilyon bookless Will's rusticity and patois. Accepting Ben Jonson'saccount of his "excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentleexpressions, wherein he flowed with that facility . . . , " acceptingthe tradition of his lively wit; admitting that he had some Latin andliterature, I would find in him a sufficiently plausible mask forthat immense Unknown with a strange taste for furbishing up olderplays. I would merely deny to Will his GENIUS, and hand THAT over toBacon--or Bungay. Believe me, Mr. Greenwood, this is your easiestway!--perhaps this IS your way?--the plot of the unscrupulous Will, and of your astute Bungay, might thus more conceivably escapedetection from the pack of envious playwrights. 

According to "all tradition, " says Mr. Greenwood, Shakespeare wastaken from school at the age of thirteen. Those late long-descendedtraditions of Shakespeare's youth are of little value as evidence;but, if it pleases Mr. Greenwood, I will, for the sake of argument, accept the whole of them. Assuredly I shall not arbitrarily chooseamong the traditions: all depends on the genealogical steps by whichthey reach us, as far as these can be discovered. {56a}

According to the tattle of Aubrey the antiquary, publishing in 1680, an opinion concerning Shakspere's education reached him. It camethus; there had been an actor in Shakspere's company, one Phillips, who, dying in 1605, left to Shakspere the usual thirty-shilling pieceof gold; and the same "to my servant, Christopher Beeston. "Christopher's son, William, in 1640, became deputy to Davenant in themanagement of "the King's and Queen's Young Company", and throughBeeston, according to Aubrey, Davenant learned; through BeestonAubrey learned, that Shakespeare "understood Latin pretty well, forhe had been in his younger days a school-master in the country. "Aubrey writes that "old Mr. Beeston, whom Mr. Dryden calls 'thechronicle of the stage, '" died in 1682. {56b}

This is a fair example of the genealogy of the traditions. Phillips, a friend of Shakspere, dies in 1605, leaving a servant, ChristopherBeeston (he, too, was a versifier), whose son, William, dies in 1682;he is "the chronicle of the stage. " Through him Davenant gets thestory, through him Aubrey gets the story, that Shakspere "knew Latinpretty well, " and had been a rural dominie. Mr. Greenwood {57a}devotes much space to disparaging Aubrey (and I do not think him ascientific authority, moult s'en faut), but Mr. Greenwood here saysnot a word as to the steps in the descent of the tradition. Hefrequently repeats himself, thereby forcing me to more iteration thanI like. He had already disparaged Aubrey in note I to p. 105, butthere he approached so closely to historical method as to say that"Aubrey quotes Beeston, a seventeenth-century actor, as hisauthority. " On p. 209 he dismisses the anecdote (which does not suithis book) as "a mere myth. " "HE knows, HE knows" which traditionsare mythical, and which possess a certain historical value. 

My own opinion is that Shakspere did "know Latin pretty well, " andwas no SCHOLAR, as his contemporaries reckoned scholarship. He leftschool, if tradition speak true, by a year later than the age, twelve, when Bacon went to Cambridge. Will, a clever kind of lad (onmy theory), left school at an age when some other clever lads becamefreshmen. Why not? Gilbert Burnet (of whom you may have heard asBishop of Salisbury under William III) took his degree at the age offourteen. 

Taking Shakspere as an extremely quick, imaginative boy, with nothingto learn but Latin, and by the readiest road, the colloquial, Iconceive him to have discovered that, in Ovid especially, were to befound the most wonderful and delightful stories, and poetry whichcould not but please his "green unknowing youth. " In the yearsbefore he left Stratford, and after he left school (1577-87?), I caneasily suppose that he was not ALWAYS butchering calves, poaching, and making love; and that, if he could get books in no other way, this graceless fellow might be detected on a summer evening, knittinghis brows over the stories and jests of the chained Ovid and Plautuson his old schoolroom desk. Moi qui parle, I am no genius; butstories, romance, and humour would certainly have dragged me back tothe old desks--if better might not be, and why not Shakspere? Putyourself in his place, if you have ever been a lad, and if, as a lad, you liked to steal away into the world of romance, into fairyland. 

If Will wrote the plays, he (and indeed whoever wrote the plays) wasa marvel of genius. But I am not here claiming for him genius, butmerely stating my opinion that if he were fond of stories andromance, had no English books of poetry and romance, and had acquiredas much power of reading Latin as a lively, curious boy could easilygain in four years of exclusively Latin education, he might continuehis studies as he pleased, yet be, so far, no prodigy. 

I am contemplating Will in the conditions on which the Baconiansinsist; if they will indeed let us assume that for a few years he wasat a Latin school. I credit the graceless loon with the curiosity, the prompt acquisitiveness, the love of poetry and romance, which theauthor of the plays must have possessed in youth. "Tradition saysnothing of all that, " the Baconian answers, and he may now, if helikes, turn to my reply in The Traditional Shakespeare. {59a}Meanwhile, how can you expect old clerks and sextons, a century afterdate, in a place where literature was NOT of supreme interest, toretain a tradition that Will used to read sometimes (if he did), incircumstances of privacy? As far as I am able to judge, had I been aboy at Stratford school for four years, had been taught nothing butLatin, and had little or no access to English books of poetry andromance, I should have acquired about the same amount of Latin as Isuppose Shakspere to have possessed. Yet I could scarcely, like him, have made the second syllable in "Posthumus" long! Sir Walter Scott, however, was guilty of similar false quantities: he and Shaksperewere about equally scholarly. 

I suppose, then, that Shakspere's "small Latin" (as Jonson called it)enabled him to read in the works of the Roman clerks; to readsufficient for his uses. As a fact, he made use of Englishtranslations, and also of Latin texts. Scholars like Bacon do notuse bad translations of easy Latin authors. If Bacon wantedPlutarch, he went to Plutarch in Greek, not to an English translationof a French translation of a Latin translation. 

Some works of Shakespeare, the Lucrece, for example, and The Comedyof Errors (if he were not working over an earlier canvas from a morelearned hand), and other passages, show knowledge of Latin textswhich in his day had not appeared in published translations, or hadnot been translated at all as far as we know. In my opinion Will hadLatin enough to puzzle out the sense of the Latin, never difficult, for himself. He could also "get a construe, " when in London, or helpin reading, from a more academic acquaintance: or buy a construe atno high ransom from some poor scholar. No contemporary calls himscholarly; the generation of men who were small boys when he diedheld him for no scholar. The current English literature of his daywas saturated with every kind of classical information; its readers, even if Latinless, knew, or might know a world of lore with which themodern man is seldom acquainted. The ignorant Baconian marvels: theclassically educated Baconian who is not familiar with Elizabethanliterature is amazed. Really there is nothing worthy of theirwonder. 

Does any contemporary literary allusion to Shakespeare call him"LEARNED"? He is "sweet, " "honey-tongued, " "mellifluous, " and soforth, but I ask for any contemporary who flattered him with thecompliment of "learned. " What Ben Jonson thought of his learning(but Ben's standard was very high), what Milton and Fuller, boys ofeight when he died, thought of his learning, we know. They thoughthim "Fancy's child" (Milton) and with no claims to scholarship(Fuller), with "small Latin and less Greek" (Jonson). They speak ofShakespeare the author and actor; not yet had any man divided thepersons. 

Elizabethan and Jacobean scholarly poets were widely read in theclassics. They were not usually, however, scholars in the same senseas our modern scholarly poets and men of letters; such as Mr. Swinburne among the dead, and Mr. Mackail and Sir Gilbert Murray--ifI may be pardoned for mentioning contemporary names. But Elizabethanscholarly poets, and Milton, never regarded Shakespeare as learned. Perhaps few modern men of letters who are scholars differ from them. The opinion of Mr. Collins is to be discussed presently, but even hethought Shakespeare's scholarship "inexact, " as we shall see. 

I conceive that Shakspere "knew Latin pretty well, " and, on BenJonson's evidence, he knew "less Greek. " That he knew ANY Greek issurprising. Apparently he did, to judge from Ben's words. Myattitude must, to the Baconians, seem frivolous, vexatious, andevasive. I cannot pretend to know what was Shakspere's preciseamount of proficiency in Latin when he was writing the plays. Thatbetween his own knowledge, and construes given to him, he mighteasily get at the meaning of all the Latin, not yet translated, whichhe certainly knew, I believe. 

Mr. Greenwood says "the amount of reading which the lad Shaksperemust have done, and assimilated, during his brief sojourn at the FreeSchool is positively amazing. " {62a} But I have shown how animaginative boy, with little or no access to English poetry andromances, might continue to read Latin "for human pleasure" after heleft school. As a professional writer, in a London where Latinistswere as common as now they are rare in literary society, he mightread more, and be helped in his reading. Any clever man might do asmuch, not to speak of a man of genius. "And yet, alas, there is norecord or tradition of all this prodigious industry. . . . " I amnot speaking of "prodigious industry, " and of that--at school. In aregion so non-literary as, by his account, was Stratford, Mr. Greenwood ought not to expect traditions of Will's early reading(even if he studied much more deeply than I have supposed) to exist, from fifty to seventy years after Will was dead, in the memories ofthe sons and grandsons of country people who cared for none of thesethings. The thing is not reasonable. {62b}

Let me take one example {62c} of what Mr. E. A. Sonnenschein isquoted as saying (somewhere) about Shakespeare's debt to Seneca'sthen untranslated paper De Clementia (1, 3, 3; I, 7, 2; I, 6, I). Itinspires Portia's speech about Mercy. Here I give a version of theLatin. 

"Clemency becometh, of all men, none more than the King or chiefmagistrate (principem) . . . No one can think of anything morebecoming to a ruler than clemency . . . Which will be confessed thefairer and more goodly in proportion as it is exhibited in the higheroffice . . . But if the placable and just gods punish not instantlywith their thunderbolts the sins of the powerful, how much more justit is that a man set over men should gently exercise his power. What? Holds not he the place nearest to the gods, who, bearinghimself like the gods, is kind, and generous, and uses his power forthe better? . . . Think . . . What a lone desert and waste Romewould be, were nothing left, and none, save such as a severe judgewould absolve. "

The last sentence is fitted with this parallel in Portia's speech:

 "Consider thisThat in the course of Justice none of usShould see salvation. "

Here, at least, Protestant theology, not Seneca, inspires Portia'seloquence. 

Now take Portia:

"The quality of Mercy is not strain'd;It droppeth as the gentle rain from heavenUpon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;"

(Not much Seneca, so far!)

"'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomesThe throned monarch better than his crown;His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;But Mercy is above this sceptred sway, It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself;And earthly power doth then show likest God's, When mercy seasons justice . . . "

There follows the passage about none of us seeing salvation, alreadycited, and theological in origin. 

Whether Shakespeare could or could not have written thesereflections, without having read Seneca's De Clementia, whether, ifhe could not conceive the ideas "out of his own head, " he might nothear Seneca's words translated in a sermon, or in conversation, orread them cited in an English book, each reader must decide forhimself. Nor do I doubt that Shakespeare could pick out what hewanted from the Latin if he cast his eye over the essay of the tutorof Nero. 

My view of Shakespeare's Latinity is much like that of Sir WalterRaleigh. {64a} As far as I am aware, it is the opinion usually heldby people who approach the subject, and who have had a classicaleducation. An exception was the late Mr. Churton Collins, whoseideas are discussed in the following chapter. 

In his youth, and in the country, Will could do what Hogg and Burnsdid (and Hogg had no education at all; he was self-taught, even inwriting). Will could pick up traditional, oral, popular literature. "His plays, " says Sir Walter Raleigh, "are extraordinarily rich inthe floating debris of popular literature, --scraps and tags andbroken ends of songs and ballads and romances and proverbs. In thisrespect he is notable even among his contemporaries. . . . Edgar andIago, Petruchio and Benedick, Sir Toby and Pistol, the Fool in Learand the Grave-digger in Hamlet, even Ophelia and Desdemona, are allalike singers of old songs. . . . " {65a} He is rich in ruralproverbs NOT recorded in Bacon's Promus. 

Shakespeare in the country, like Scott in Liddesdale, "was makinghimself all the time. "

The Baconian will exclaim that Bacon was familiar with many nowobsolete rural words. Bacon, too, may have had a memory rich in allthe tags of song, ballad, story, and DICTON. But so may Shakespeare. 

CHAPTER IV: MR. COLLINS ON SHAKESPEARE'S LEARNING

That Shakspere, whether "scholar" or not, had a very wide and deepknowledge both of Roman literature and, still more, of the wholefield of the tragic literature of Athens, is a theory which Mr. Greenwood seems to admire in that "violent Stratfordian, " Mr. ChurtonCollins. {69a} I think that Mr. Collins did not persuade classicalscholars who have never given a thought to the Baconian belief, butwho consider on their merits the questions: Does Shakespeare showwide classical knowledge? Does he use his knowledge as a scholarwould use it?

My friend, Mr. Collins, as I may have to say again, was a very widereader of poetry, with a memory like Macaulay's. It was his nativetendency to find coincidences in poetic passages (which, to some, tome for example, did not often seem coincidental); and to explaincoincidences by conscious or subconscious borrowing. One remarked inhim these tendencies long before he wrote on the classicalacquirements of Shakespeare. 

While Mr. Collins tended to account for similarities in the work ofauthors by borrowing, my tendency was to explain them as undesignedcoincidences. The question is of the widest range. Some inquirersexplain the often minute coincidences in myths, popular tales, proverbs, and riddles, found all over the world, by diffusion from asingle centre (usually India). Others, like myself, do not denycases of transmission, but in other cases see spontaneous andindependent, though coincident invention. I do not believe that theArunta of Central Australia borrowed from Plutarch the centralfeature of the myth of Isis and Osiris. 

It is not on Shakespeare's use, now and then, of Greek and Latinmodels and sources, but on coincidences detected by Mr. Collinshimself, and not earlier remarked, that he bases his belief in thesaturation of Shakespeare's mind with Roman and Athenian literature. Consequently we can only do justice to Mr. Collins's system, if wecompare example after example of his supposed instances ofShakespeare's borrowing. This is a long and irksome task; and theonly fair plan is for the reader to peruse Mr. Collins's Studies inShakespeare, compare the Greek and Roman texts, and weigh eachexample of supposed borrowing for himself. Baconians must delight inthis labour. 

I shall waive the question whether it were not possible forShakespeare to obtain a view of the manuscript translation of playsof Plautus made by Warner for his unlearned friends, and so to usethe Menaechmi as the model of The Comedy of Errors. He does notborrow phrases from it, as he does from North's Plutarch. 

Venus and Adonis owes to Ovid, at most, but ideas for three purplepatches, scattered in different parts of the Metamorphoses. Lucreceis based on the then untranslated Fasti of Ovid. I do not thinkShakespeare incapable of reading such easy Latin for himself; or tooproud to ask help from a friend, or buy it from some poor youngUniversity man in London. That is a simple and natural means bywhich he could help himself when in search of a subject for a play orpoem; and ought not to be overlooked. 

Mr. Collins, in his rapturous account of Shakespeare's wide andprofound knowledge of the classics, opens with the remark: "Nothingwhich Shakespeare has left us warrants us in pronouncing withcertainty that he read the Greek classics in the original, or eventhat he possessed enough Greek to follow the Latin versions of thoseclassics in the Greek text. " {71a} In that case, how didShakespeare's English become contaminated, as Mr. Collins says itdid, with Greek idioms, while he only knew the Greek plays throughLatin translations?

However this is to be answered, Mr. Collins proceeds to proveShakespeare's close familiarity with Latin and with Greek dramaticliterature by a method of which he knows the perils--"it is alwaysperilous to infer direct imitation from parallel passages which maybe mere coincidences. " {72a} Yet this method is what he practisesthroughout; with what amount of success every reader must judge forhimself. 

He thinks it "surely not unlikely" that Polonius's

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be:For loan oft loses both itself and friend, "

may be a terse reminiscence of seven lines in Plautus (Trinummus, iv. 3). Why, Polonius is a coiner of commonplaces, and if ever therewere a well-known reflection from experience it is this of theborrowers and lenders. 

Next, take this of Plautus (Pseudolus, I, iv. 7-10), "But just as thepoet when he has taken up his tablets seeks what exists nowhere amongmen, and yet finds it, and makes that like truth which is merefiction. " We are to take this as the possible germ of Theseus'stheory of the origin of the belief in fairies:

"And as imagination bodies forthThe FORMS of things unknown, the poet's penTurns them to SHAPES, and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name. "

The reasoning is odd; imagination bodies forth FORMS, and the poet'spen turns them to SHAPES. But to suppose that Shakespeare hereborrowed from Plautus appears highly superfluous. 

These are samples of Mr. Collins's methods throughout. 

Of Terence there were translations--first in part; later, in 1598, ofthe whole. Of Seneca there was an English version (1581). Mr. Collins labours to show that one passage "almost certainly" impliesShakespeare's use of the Latin; but it was used "by an inexactscholar, "--a terribly inexact scholar, if he thought that "alienus"("what belongs to another") meant "slippery"!

Most of the passages are from plays (Titus Andronicus and Henry VI, i. , ii. , iii. ), which Mr. Greenwood denies (usually) to HIS author, the Great Unknown. Throughout these early plays Mr. Collins takesShakespeare's to resemble Seneca's LATIN style: Shakespeare, then, took up Greek tragedy in later life; after the early period when hedealt with Seneca. Here is a sample of borrowing from Horace, "Persicos odi puer apparatus" (Odes. I, xxxviii. I). Mr. Collinsquotes Lear (III, vi. 85) thus, "You will say they are PERSIANATTIRE. " Really, Lear in his wild way says to Edgar, "I do not likethe fashion of your garments: you will say they are Persian; but letthem be changed. " Mr. Collins changes this into "you will say theyare PERSIAN ATTIRE, " a phrase "which could only have occurred to aclassical scholar. " The phrase is not in Shakespeare, and Lear'swandering mind might as easily select "Persian" as any otherabsurdity. 

So it is throughout. Two great poets write on the fear of death, onthe cries of new-born children, on dissolution and recombination innature, on old age; they have ideas in common, obvious ideas, glorified by poetry, --and Shakespeare, we are told, is borrowing fromLucretius or Juvenal; while the critic leaves his reader to find outand study the Latin passages which he does not quote. So arbitraryis taste in these matters that Mr. Collins, like Mr. Grant White, butindependently, finds Shakespeare putting a thought from theAlcibiades I of Plato into the mouth of Achilles in Troilus andCressida, while Mr. J. M. Robertson suggests that the borrowing isfrom Seneca--where Mr. Collins does not find "the smallest parallel. "Mr. Collins is certainly right; the author of Troilus makes Ulyssesquote Plato as "the author" of a remark, and makes Achilles take upthe quotation, which Ulysses goes on to criticise. 

Thus, in this play, not only Aristotle (as Hector says) but Plato aretaken to have lived before the Trojan war, and to have been read bythe Achaeans!

There were Latin translations of Plato; the Alcibiades I waspublished apart, from Ficinus' version, in 1560, with the sub-title, Concerning the Nature of Man. Who had read it?--Shakespeare, or oneof the two authors (Dekker and Chettle) of another Troilus andCressida (now lost), or Bacon, or Mr. Greenwood's Unknown? Which ofthese Platonists chose to say that Plato and Aristotle lived longbefore Homer? Which of them followed the Ionic and mediaeval anti-Achaean view of Homer's heroes, as given in the Troy Books of theMiddle Ages, and yet knew Iliad, Book VII, and admired Odysseus, whomthe Ionian tradition abhors? Troilus and Cressida is indeed amystery, but Somebody concerned in it had read Ficinus' version ofthe Alcibiades; {75a} and yet made the monstrous anachronism ofdating Aristotle and Plato before the Trojan war. "That was hisfun, " as Charles Lamb said in another connection. 

Mr. Collins, it is plain, goes much further than the "small Latin"with which his age (like myself) credited Shakespeare. He could readLatin, Mr. Collins thinks, as easily as an educated Briton readsFrench--that is, as easily as he reads English. Still further, Shakespeare, through Latin translations, was so saturated with theGreek drama "that the characteristics which differentiate his workfrom the work of his contemporaries and recall in essentials the workof the Greek dramatists are actually attributable to thesedramatists. "

Ben Jonson, and all the more or less well-taught University wits, asfar as I remember, like Greene, Marlowe, and Lyly, do not show muchacquaintance with Euripides, AEschylus, Sophocles, and do not oftenremind us of these masters. Shakespeare does remind us of them--theonly question is, do the resemblances arise from his possession of agenius akin to that of Greece, or was his memory so stored with allthe treasures of their art that the waters of Helicon kept bubblingup through the wells of Avon?

But does Mr. Collins prove (what, as he admits, CANNOT bedemonstrated) that Shakespeare was familiar with the Attictragedians? He begins by saying that he will not bottom his case "onthe ground of parallels in sentiment and reflection, which, as theyexpress commonplaces, are likely to be" (fortuitous) "coincidences. "Three pages of such parallels, all from Sophocles, therefore follow. "Curiously close similarities of expression" are also barred. Fourpages of examples therefore follow, from Sophocles and AEschylus, plays and fragments, Euripides, and Homer too (once!). Again, "identities of sentiment under similar circumstances" are not to becited; two pages ARE cited; and "similarities, however striking theymay be in metaphorical expression, " cannot safely be used; severalpages of them follow. 

Finally, Mr. Collins chooses a single play, the Aias of Sophocles, and tests Shakespeare by that, unluckily in part from TitusAndronicus, which Mr. Greenwood regards (usually) as non-Shakespearean, or not by his unknown great author. Troilus andCressida, whatever part Shakespeare may have had in it, does suggestto me that the author or authors knew of Homer no more than the fewbooks of the Iliad, first translated by Chapman and published in1598. But he or they did know the Aias of Sophocles, according toMr. Collins: so did the author of Romeo and Juliet. 

Now all these sorts of parallels between Shakespeare and the Greeksare, Mr. Collins tells us, not to count as proofs that Shakespeareknew the Greek tragedians. "We have obviously to be on our guard"{77a} against three kinds of such parallels, which "may be merecoincidences, " {77b} fortuitous coincidences. But these coincidencesagainst which "we must be on our guard" fill sixteen pages (pp. 46-63). These pages must necessarily produce a considerable effect inthe way of persuading the reader that Shakespeare knew the Greektragedians as intimately as Mr. Collins did. Mr. Greenwood isobliged to leave these parallels to readers of Mr. Collins's essay. Indeed, what more can we do? Who would read through a criticism ofeach instance? Two or three may be given. The Queen in Hamletreminds that prince, grieving for his father's death, that "all thatlive must die":

"That loss is common to the race, And common is the common-place. "

The Greek Chorus offers the commonplace to Electra, --and here is aparallel! Again, two Greeks agree with Shakespeare that anxiousexpectation of evil is worse than actual experience thereof. Greeceagrees with Shakespeare that ill-gotten gains do not thrive, or thatit is not lucky to be "a corby messenger" of bad news; or that allgoes ill when a man acts against his better nature; or that we suffermost from the harm which we bring on ourselves; or that there isstrength in a righteous cause; or that blood calls for blood (an ideacommon to Semites, Greeks, and English readers of the Bible); orthat, having lost a very good man, you will not soon see his likeagain, --and so on as long as you please. Of such wisdom are proverbsmade, and savages and Europeans have many parallel proverbs. Vestigia nulla retrorsum is as well known to Bushmen as to Latinists. Manifestly nothing in this kind proves, or even suggests, thatShakespeare was saturated in Greek tragedy. But page on page of suchfacts as that both Shakespeare and Sophocles talk, one of "the belly-pinched wolf, " the other of "the empty-bellied wolf, " are apt toimpress the reader--and verily both Shakespeare and AEschylus talk of"the heart dancing for joy. " Mr. Collins repeats that such thingsare no proof, but he keeps on piling them up. It was a theory ofShakespeare's time that the apparent ghost of a dead man might be animpersonation of him by the devil. Hamlet knows this -

"The spirit that I have seen may be the devil. "

Orestes (Electra, Euripides) asks whether it may not be an avengingdaemon (alastor) in the shape of a god, that bids him avenge hisfather. Is Shakespeare borrowing from Euripides, or from a sermon, or any contemporary work on ghosts, such as that of Lavater?

A girl dies or is sacrificed before her marriage, and characters inRomeo and Juliet, and in Euripides, both say that Death is herbridegroom. Anyone might say that, anywhere, as in the GreekAnthology -

"For Death not for Love hast thou loosened thy zone. "

One needs the space of a book wherein to consider such parallels. But confessedly, though a parade is made of them, they do not provethat Shakespeare constantly read Greek tragedies in Latintranslations. 

To let the truth out, the resemblances are mainly found in suchcommonplaces: as when both Aias and Antony address the Sun of theirlatest day in life; or when John of Gaunt and Aias both pun on theirown names. 

The situations, in Hamlet and the Choephorae and Electra, are soclose that resemblances in some passages must and do occur, and Mr. Collins does not comment specially upon the closest resemblance ofall: the English case is here the murder of Duncan, the Greek is themurder of Agamemnon. 

Now it would be easy for me to bring forward many close parallelsbetween Homer and the old Irish epic story of Cuchulainn, betweenHomer and Beowulf and the Njal's saga, yet Norsemen and the earlyIrish were not students of Homer! The parallel passages in Homer, onone side, and the Old Irish Tain Bo Cualgne, and the Anglo-Saxonepics, are so numerous and close that the theory of borrowing fromHomer has actually occurred to a distinguished Greek scholar. But nostudent of Irish and Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry has been found, Ithink, to suggest that Early Irish and Anglo-Saxon Court minstrelsknew Greek. The curious may consult Mr. Munro Chadwick's The HeroicAge (1912), especially Chapter XV, "The Common Characteristics ofTeutonic and Greek Heroic Poetry, " and to what Mr. Chadwick says muchmight be added. 

But, to be short, Mr. Collins's case can only be judged by readers ofhis most interesting Studies in Shakespeare. To me, Hamlet'ssoliloquy on death resembles a fragment from the Phoenix of Euripidesno more closely than two sets of reflections by great poets on thetext that "of death we know nothing" are bound to do, --thoughShakespeare's are infinitely the richer. For Shakespeare'sreflections on death, save where Christians die in a Christianspirit, are as agnostic as those of the post-AEschylean Greek andearly Anglo-Saxon poets. In many respects, as Mr. Collins proves, Shakespeare's highest and deepest musings are Greek in tone. But ofall English poets he who came nearest to Greece in his art was Keats, who of Greek knew nothing. In the same way, a peculiar vein ofAnglo-Saxon thought, in relation to Destiny and Death, is purelyHomeric, though necessarily unborrowed; nor were a native Fijianpoet's lines on old age, sine amore jocisque, borrowed fromMimnermus! There is such a thing as congruity of genius. Mr. Collins states the hypothesis--not his own--"that BY A CERTAINNATURAL AFFINITY Shakespeare caught also the accent and tone as wellas some of the most striking characteristics of Greek tragedy. "

Though far from accepting most of Mr. Collins's long array of Greekparallels, I do hold that by "natural affinity, " by congruity ofgenius, Shakespeare approached and resembled the great Athenians. 

One thing seems certain to me. If Shakspere read and borrowed fromGreek poetry, he knew it as well (except Homer) as Mr. Collins knewit; and remembered what he knew with Mr. Collins's extraordinarytenacity of memory. 

Now if "Shakespeare" did all that, he was not the actor. The author, on Mr. Collins's showing, must have been a very sedulous and diligentstudent of Greek poetry, above all of the drama, down to itsfragments. The Baconians assuredly ought to try to prove, fromBacon's works, that he was such a student. 

Mr. Collins, "a violent Stratfordian, " overproved his case. If hisproofs be accepted, Shakspere the actor knew the Greek tragedians aswell as did Mr. Swinburne. If the author of the plays were solearned, the actor was not the author, in my opinion--he WAS, in theopinion of Mr. Collins. 

If Shakespeare's spirit and those of Sophocles and AEschylus meet, itis because they move on the same heights, and thence survey with "thepoet's sad lucidity" the same "pageant of men's miseries. " But howdissimilar in expression Shakespeare can be, how luxuriant and apartfrom the austerity of Greece, we observe in one of Mr. Collins'sparallels. 

Polynices, in the Phoenissae of Euripides (504-506), exclaims:

"To the stars' risings, and the sun's I'd go, And dive 'neath earth, --if I could do this thing, -Possess Heaven's highest boon of sovereignty. "

Then compare Hotspur:

"By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leapTo pluck bright honour from the pale faced moon, Or dive into the bottom of the deep, Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned honour by the locks, So he that doth redeem her thence, might wearWithout corrival all her dignities. "

What a hurrying crowd of pictures rush through Hotspur's mind! IsShakespeare thinking of the Phoenissae, or is he speaking only on thepromptings of his genius?

CHAPTER V: SHAKESPEARE, GENIUS, AND SOCIETY

A phrase has been used to explain the Greek element in Shakespeare'swork, namely, "congruity of genius, " which is apt to be resented byBaconians. Perhaps they have a right to resent it, for "genius" ishard to define, and genius is invoked by some wild wits to explainfeats of Shakespeare's which (to Baconians) appear "miracles. " A"miracle" also is notoriously hard to define; but we may take it("under all reserves") to stand for the occurrence of an event, orthe performance of an action which, to the speaker who applies theword "miracle, " seems "impossible. " The speaker therefore says, "Theevent is impossible; miracles do not happen: therefore the reportedevent never occurred. The alleged performance, the writing of theplays by the actor, was impossible, was a miracle, therefore was doneby some person or persons other than the actor. " This idea of theIMPOSSIBILITY of the player's authorship is the foundation of theBaconian edifice. 

I have, to the best of my ability, tried to describe Mr. Greenwood'sview of the young provincial from Warwickshire, Will Shakspere. IfWill were what Mr. Greenwood thinks he was, then Will's authorship ofthe plays seems to me, "humanly speaking, " impossible. But then Mr. Greenwood appeared to omit from his calculations the circumstancethat Will MAY have been, not merely "a sharp boy" but a boy of greatparts; and not without a love of stories and poetry: a passionwhich, in a bookless region, could only be gratified through folk-song, folk-tale, and such easy Latin as he might take the trouble toread. If we add to these very unusual but not wholly impossibletastes and abilities, that Will MAY have been a lad of genius, thereis no more "miracle" in his case than in other supreme examples ofgenius. "But genius cannot work miracles, cannot do what isimpossible. " Do what is impossible to whom? To the critics, the menof common sense. 

Alas, all this way of talking about "miracles, " and "the impossible, "and "genius" is quite vague and popular. What do we mean by"genius"? The Latin term originally designates, not a man's everydayintellect, but a spirit from without which inspires him, like the"Daemon, " or, in Latin, "Genius" of Socrates, or the lutin which rodethe pen of Moliere. "Genius" is claimed for Shakespeare in aninscription on his Stratford monument, erected at latest some sixyears after his death. Following this path of thought we come to"inspiration": the notion of it, as familiar to Australian savagesas to any modern minds, is that, to the poet, what he produces isGIVEN by some power greater than himself, by the Boilyas (spirits) orPundjel, the Father of all. This palaeolithic psychology, of course, is now quite discredited, yet the term "genius" is still (perhapssuperstitiously) applied to the rare persons whose intellectualfaculties lightly outrun those of ordinary mortals, and who domarvels with means apparently inadequate. 

In recent times some philosophers, like Mr. F. W. H. Myers, put--inplace of the Muses or the Boilyas, or the Genius--what they call the"Subliminal Self, " something "far more deeply interfused than theeveryday intellect. " This subconscious self, capable of far morethan the conscious intelligence, is genius. 

On the other side, genius may fairly be regarded as faculty, onlyhigher in degree, and not at all different in kind, from the everydayintellect which, for example, pens this page. 

Thus as soon as we begin to speak of "genius, " we are involved inspeculations, psychological, psychical, physical, and metaphysical;in difficulties of all sorts not at present to be solved either byphysiological science or experimental psychology, or by psychicalresearch, or by the study of heredity. When I speak of "the geniusof Shakespeare, " of Jeanne d'Arc, of Bacon, even of Wellington, Ipossibly have a meaning which is not in all respects the meaning ofMr. Greenwood, when he uses the term "genius"; so we are apt tomisunderstand each other. Yet we all glibly use the term "genius, "without definition and without discussion. 

At once, too, in this quest, we jostle against "that fool of a word, "as Napoleon said, "impossible. " At once, on either side, we assumethat we know what is possible and what is impossible, --and so pretendto omniscience. 

Thus some "Stratfordians, " or defenders of the actor's authorship, profess to know--from all the signed work of Bacon, and from all thathas reached us about Bacon's occupations and preoccupations, from1590 to 1605--that the theory of Bacon's authorship of the plays is"impossible. " I, however, do not profess this omniscience. 

On the other side the Baconian, arguing from all that HE knows, orthinks he knows, or can imagine, of the actor's education, conditionsof life, and opportunities, argues that the authorship of the actoris "impossible. "

Both sides assume to be omniscient, but we incontestably know muchmore about Bacon, in his works, his aims, his inclinations, and inhis life, than we know about the actor; while about "thepotentialities of genius, " we know--very little. 

Thus, with all Bacon's occupations and preoccupations, he had, theBaconians will allow, GENIUS. By the miracle of genius he MAY havefound time and developed inclination, to begin by furbishing up olderplays for a company of actors: he did it extremely well, but what aquaint taste for a courtier and scholar! The eccentricities ofgenius MAY account for his choice of a "nom de plume, " which, if hedesired concealment, was the last that was likely to serve his turn. He may also have divined all the Doll Tearsheets and Mrs. Quicklysand Pistols, whom, conceivably, he did not much frequent. 

I am not one of those who deny that Bacon might have written Hamlet"if he had the mind, " as Charles Lamb said of Wordsworth. Not atall; I am the last to limit the potentialities of genius. 

But suppose, merely for the sake of argument, that Will Shakspere toohad genius in that amazing degree which, in Henry V, the Bishop ofEly and the Archbishop of Canterbury describe and discuss in the caseof the young king. In this passage we perceive that the poet hadbrooded over and been puzzled by the "miracle" (he uses the word) ofgenius. Says Canterbury speaking of the Prince's wild youth, "Never was such a sudden scholar made. "

One Baconian objection to Shakespeare's authorship is that during hisearly years in London (say 1587-92) he was "such a sudden scholarmade" in various things. 

The young king's

 "addiction was to courses vain, His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow, "

precisely like Shakespeare's courses and companions at Stratford

"Had never noted in him any study. "

Stratford tradition, a century after Shakespeare left the town, didnot remember "any study" in him; none had been "noted, " nor couldhave been remembered. To return to Henry, he shines in divinity, knowledge of "commonwealth affairs, "

"You would say, it hath been all in all his study. "

He is as intimate with the art of war; to him "Gordian knots ofpolicy" are "familiar as his garter. " He MUST have

"The art and practic part of life, "

as "mistress to this theorie, "

"Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it, "

as his youth was riotous, and was lived in all men's gaze, "And never noted in him any study, Any retirement, any sequestrationFrom open haunts and popularity. "

The Bishop of Ely can only suggest that Henry's study or"contemplation"

"Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night, Unseen, "

and Canterbury says

"It must be so, for miracles are ceased. "

And thus the miracle of genius baffles the poet, for Henry's had been"noisy nights, " notoriously noisy. 

Now, as we shall later show, Bacon's rapid production of the plays, considering his other contemporary activities and varied but alwaysabsorbing interests, was as much a miracle as the sudden blossomingof Henry's knowledge and accomplishments; for all Bacon's knownexertions and occupations, and his deepest and most absorbinginterest, were remote from the art of tragedy and comedy. If we areto admit the marvel of genius in Bacon, of whose life and pursuits weknow much, by parity of reasoning we may grant that the actor, ofwhom we know much less, may have had genius: had powers and coulduse opportunities in a way for which Baconians make no allowance. 

We now turn to Mr. Greenwood's chapter, "Shakespeare and 'Genius. '"It opens with the accustomed list of poor Will's disqualifications, "a boy born of illiterate parents, " but we need not rehearse thelist. {91a} He "comes to town" (date unknown) "a needy adventurer";in 1593 appeared the poem Venus and Adonis, author's name beingprinted as "W. Shakespeare. " Then comes Lucrece (1594). In 1598Love's Labour's Lost, printed as "corrected and augmented" by "W. Shakespere. " And so on with all the rest. Criticism of the learningand splendour of the two poems follows. To Love's Labour's Lost, andthe amusing things written about it by Baconians, I return; and toShakespeare's "impossible" knowledge of courtly society, his "polishand urbanity, " his familiar acquaintance with contemporary Frenchpolitics, foreign proverbs, and "the gossip of the Court" ofElizabeth: these points are made by His Honour Judge Webb. 

All this lore to Shakespeare is "impossible"--he could not read, saysome Baconians, or had no Latin, or had next to none; on these pointsI have said my say. The omniscient Baconians know that all the earlyworks ascribed to the actor were impossible, to a man of, say thirty--who WAS no more, and KNEW no more, than they know that the actor wasand knew; and as for "Genius, " it cannot work miracles. Genius"bestows upon no one a knowledge of facts, " "Shakespeare, howeverfavoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned. "

Precisely, but genius as I understand it (and even cleverness) has away of acquiring knowledge of facts where the ordinary "dullintelligent man" gains none. Keen interest, keen curiosity, swiftobservation, even the power of tearing out the things essential froma book, the gift of rapid reading; the faculty of being alive to thefingertips, --these, with a tenacious memory, may enable a small boyto know more facts of many sorts than his elders and betters and allthe neighbours. They are puzzled, if they make the discovery of hisknowledge. Scott was such a small boy; whether we think him a man ofgenius or not. Shakspere, even the actor, was, perhaps, a man ofgenius, and possessed this power of rapid acquisition and vividretention of all manner of experience and information. To what Isuppose to have been his opportunities in London, I shall return. Meanwhile, let the doubter take up any popular English books ofShakespeare's day: he will find them replete with much knowledgewholly new to him--which he will also find in Shakespeare. 

A good example is this: Judge Webb proclaimed that in points ofscientific lore (the lore of that age) Shakespeare and Bacon weremuch on a level. Professor Tyrrell, in a newspaper, said that thefacts staggered him, as a "Stratfordian. " A friend told me that hetoo was equally moved. I replied that these pseudoscientific "facts"had long been commonplaces. Pliny was a rich source of them. Professor Dowden took the matter up, with full knowledge, {93a} andreconverted Mr. Tyrrell, who wrote: "I am not versed in theliterature of the Shakespearian era, and I assumed that the Baconianswho put forward the parallelisms had satisfied themselves that thecoincidences were peculiar to the writings of the philosopher and thepoet. Professor Dowden has proved that this is not so. " {93b}

Were I to enter seriously on this point of genius, I should begin byrequesting my adversaries to read Mr. F. W. H. Myers's papers on "TheMechanism of Genius" (in his Human Personality), and to consider thehumble problem of "Calculating Boys, " which is touched on also byCardinal Newman. How do they, at the age of innocence, arrive attheir amazing results? How did the child Pascal, ignorant of Euclid, work out the Euclidean propositions of "bars and rounds, " as hecalled lines and circles? Science has no solution!

Transport the problem into the region of poetry and knowledge ofhuman nature, take Will in place of Pascal and Gauss, and (in mannersand matter of war) Jeanne d'Arc;--and science, I fancy, is much toseek for a reply. 

Mr. Greenwood considers, among others, the case of Robert Burns. Theparallel is very interesting, and does not, I think, turn so much toMr. Greenwood's advantage as he supposes. The genius of Burns, ofcourse, is far indeed below the level of that of the author of theShakespearean plays. But that author and Burns have this in commonwith each other (and obviously with Homer), that their work arisesfrom a basis of older materials, already manipulated by earlierartists. Burns almost always has a key-note already touched, asconfessedly in the poems of his predecessor, Fergusson; of Hamiltonof Gilbertfield; in songs, popular or artistic, and so forth. He"alchemised" his materials, as Mr. Greenwood says of his author ofthe plays; turned dross into gold, brick into marble. Notoriouslymuch Shakespearean work is of the same nature. 

The education of Burns he owed to his peasant father, to his parishschool (in many such schools he might have acquired Latin and Greek;in fact he did not), to a tutor who read with him some English andFrench; and he knew a modernised version of Blind Harry's Wallace;Locke's Essay; The Spectator, novels of the day, and vernacular Scotspoets of his century, with a world of old Scots songs. These things, and such as these, were Burns's given literary materials. He usedthem in the only way open to him, in poems written for a ruralaudience, and published for an Edinburgh public. No classical, notheatrical materials were given; or, if he read the old drama, hecould not, in his rural conditions, and in a Scotland where thetheatre was in a very small way, venture on producing plays, forwhich there was no demand, while he had no knowledge of the Stage. Burns found and filled the only channels open to him, in a printedbook, and in music books for which he transmuted old songs. 

The bookish materials offered to Will, in London, were crammed withreminiscences from the classics, were mainly romantic and theatrical;and, from his profession of actor, by far the best channel open tohim was the theatre. Badly as it paid the outside author, there wasnothing that paid better. Venus and Adonis brought "more praise thanpudding, " if one may venture a guess. With the freedom of thetheatre Will could soar to all heights and plumb all depths. No suchopportunity had Burns, even if he could have used it, and, owing to avariety of causes, his spirit soon ceased to soar high or wing wide. 

I take Shakespeare, in London at least, to have read the currentElizabethan light literature--Euphues, Lyly's Court comedies, novelsfull of the classics and of social life; Spenser, Sidney--his Defenceof Poesy, and Arcadia (1590)--with scores of tales translated fromthe Italian, French, and Spanish, all full of foreign society, anddiscourses of knights and ladies. He saw the plays of the day, perhaps as one of "the groundlings. " He often beheld Society, fromwithout, when acting before the Queen and at great houses. He hadthus, if I am right, sufficient examples of style and manner, andknowledge of how the great were supposed (in books) to comport andconduct themselves. The books were cheap, and could be borrowed, andturned over at the booksellers' stalls. {96a} The Elizabethan stylewas omnipresent. Suppose that Shakespeare was a clever man, a loverof reading, a rapid reader with an excellent memory, easilyinfluenced, like Burns, by what he read, and I really think that myconjectures are not too audacious. Not only "the man in the street, "but "the reading public" (so loved by Coleridge), have not thebeginning of a guess as to the way in which a quick man reads. Watchthem poring for hours over a newspaper! Let me quote what Sir WalterRaleigh says: {97a} "Shakespeare was one of those swift and masterlyreaders who know what they want of a book; they scorn nothing that isdressed in print, but turn over the pages with a quick discernment ofall that brings them new information, or jumps with their thought, ortickles their fancy. Such a reader will have done with a volume in afew minutes, yet what he has taken from it he keeps for years. He isa live man; and is sometimes judged by slower wits to be a learnedman. "

I am taking Shakespeare to have been a reader of this kind, as wasDr. Johnson, as are not a few men who have no pretensions to genius. The accomplishment is only a marvel to--well, I need not beparticular about the kind of person to whom it is a marvel!

Here, in fairness, the reader should be asked to consider an eloquentpassage of comparison between the knowledge of Burns and of Will, quoted by Mr. Greenwood {97b} from Mr. Morgan. {97c}

Genius, says Mr. Morgan, "did not guide Burns's untaught pen to writeof Troy or Egypt, of Athens and Cyprus. " No! that was not Burns'slay; nor would he have found a public had he emulated thecontemporary St. Andrews professor, Mr. Wilkie, who wrote TheEpigoniad, and sang of Cadmeian Thebes, to the delight of David Hume, his friend. The public of 1780-90 did not want new epics of heroicGreece from Mossgiel; nor was the literature accessible to Burns fullof the mediaeval legends of Troy and Athens. But the popularliterature accessible to Will was full of the mediaeval legends ofThebes, Troy, and Athens; and of these, NOT of Homer, Will made hismarket. Egypt he knew only in the new English version of Plutarch'sLives; of Homer, he (or the author of Troilus and Cressida) used onlyIliad VII. , in Chapman's new translation (1598). For the rest he hadLydgate (perhaps), and, certainly, Caxton's Destruction of Troy, still reprinted as a POPULAR book as late as 1713. Will did not, asMr. Morgan says, "reproduce the very counterfeit civilisations andmanners of nations born and buried and passed into history a thousandyears before he had been begotten. . . " He bestowed the manners ofmediaeval chivalrous romance on his Trojans and Greeks. Heaccommodated prehistoric Athens with a Duke. He gave Scotland cannonthree hundred years too early; and made Cleopatra play at billiards. Look at his notion of "the very manners" of early post-Roman Britainin Cymbeline and King Lear! Concerning "the anomalous status of aKing of Scotland under one of its primitive Kings" the author ofMacbeth knew no more than what he read in Holinshed; of the actualtruth concerning Duncan (that old prince was, in fact, a young manslain in a blacksmith's bothy), and of the whole affair, the authorknew nothing but a tissue of sophisticated legends. The author ofthe plays had no knowledge (as Mr. Morgan inexplicably declares thathe had) of "matters of curious and occult research for antiquaries ordilettanti to dig out of old romances or treaties or statutes ratherthan for historians to treat of or schools to teach!"

Mon Dieu! do historians NOT treat of "matters of curious research"and of statutes and of treaties? As for "old romances, " they werecurrent and popular. The "occult" sources of King Lear are a populartale attached to legendary "history" and a story in Sidney's Arcadia. Will, whom Mr. Morgan describes as "a letterless peasant lad, " or theAuthor, whoever he was, is not "invested with all the love" (sic, v. 1. "lore"), "which the ages behind him had shut up in clasped booksand buried and forgotten. "

"Our friend's style has flowery components, " Mr. Greenwood adds tothis deliciously eloquent passage from his American author, "and yetShakespeare who did all this, " et caetera. But Shakespeare did NOTdo "all this"! We know the sources of the plays well enough: novelsin one of which "Delphos" is the insular seat of an oracle of Apollo;Holinshed, with his contaminated legends; North's Plutarch, done outof the French; older plays, and the rest of it. Shakespeare does notgo to Tighernach and the Hennskringla for Macbeth; or for Hamlet tothe saga which is the source of Saxo; or for his English chronicle-plays to the State Papers. Shakespeare did not, like William ofDeloraine, dig up "clasped books, buried and forgotten. " There is nooriginal research; the author uses the romances, novels, ballads, andpopular books of uncritical history which were current in his day. Mr. Greenwood knows that; Mr. Morgan, perhaps, knew it, but forgotwhat he knew; hurried away by the Muse of Eloquence. And the commonBaconian may believe Mr. Morgan. 

But Mr. Greenwood asks "what was the poetic output?" in Burns's case. {100a} It was what we know, and THAT was what suited his age and hiscircumstances. It was lyric, idyll, song, and satire; it was notdrama, for to the Stage he had no access, he who passed but onewinter in Edinburgh, where the theatre was not the centre ofliterature. 

Shakespeare came, with genius and with such materials as I havesuggested, to an entirely different market, the Elizabethan theatre. I have tried to show how easily his mind might be steeped in the all-pervading classicism and foreign romance of the period, with thewide, sketchy, general information, the commonly known fragments fromthe great banquet of the classics, --with such history, whollyuncritical, as Holinshed and Stow, and other such Englishchroniclers, could copiously provide; with the courtly mannersmirrored in scores of romances and Court plays; and in the currentpopular Morte d'Arthur and Destruction of Troy. 

I can agree with Mr. Greenwood, when he says that "Genius is apotentiality, and whether it will ever become an actuality, and whatit will produce, depends upon the moral qualities with which it isassociated, and the opportunities that are open to it--in a word, onthe circumstances of its environment. " {101a}

Of course by "moral qualities, " a character without spot or stain isnot intended: we may take that for granted. Otherwise, I agree; andthink that Shakespeare of Stratford had genius, and that what itproduced was in accordance with the opportunities open to it, andwith "the circumstances of its environment. " Without the"environment, " no Jeanne d'Arc, --without the environment, noShakespeare. 

To come to his own, Shakespeare needed the environment of "the lightpeople, " the crowd of wits living from hand to mouth by literature, like Greene and Nash; and he needed that pell-mell of the productionsof their pens: the novels, the poems, the pamphlets, and, above all, the plays, and the wine, the wild talk, the wit, the travellers'tales, the seamen's company, the vision of the Court, the gallants, the beauties; and he needed the People, of whom he does not speak inthe terms of such a philanthropist as Bacon professedly was. Not asan aristocrat, a courtier, but as a simple literary man, William doesnot like, though he thoroughly understands, the mob. Like Alceste(in Le Misanthrope of Poquelin), he might say, "L'Ami du genre humain n'est point du tout mon fait. "

In London, not in Stratford, he could and did find his mob. Thisreminds one to ask, how did the Court-haunting, or the study-haunting, or law-court, and chamber of criminal examination-roomshaunting Bacon make acquaintance with Mrs. Quickly, and DollTearsheet, and drawers, and carters, and Bardolph, and Pistol, andcopper captains, and all Shakespeare's crowd of people hanging looseon the town?

It is much easier to discover how Shakespeare found the tone andmanners of courtly society (which, by the way, are purely poetic andconventional), than to find out where Bacon got his immense knowledgeof what is called "low life. "

If you reply, as regards Bacon, "his genius divined the Costards andAudreys, the Doll Tearsheets and tapsters, and drawers, andBardolphs, and carters, from a hint or two, a glance, " I answer thatWill had much better sources for THEM in his own experience of life, and had conventional poetic sources for his courtiers--of whom, inthe quick, he saw quite as much as Moliere did of his Marquis. 

But one Baconian has found out a more excellent way of accounting forBacon's pictures of rude rustic life, and he is backed by LordPenzance, that aged Judge. The way is short. These pictures ofrural life and character were interpolated into the plays of Bacon byhis collaborator, William Shakspere, actor, "who prepared the playsfor the stage. " This brilliant suggestion is borrowed from Mr. Appleton Morgan. {103a}

Thus have these two Baconians perceived that it IS difficult to seehow Bacon obtained his knowledge of certain worlds and aspects ofcharacter which he could scarcely draw "from the life. " I am willingto ascribe miracles to the genius of Bacon; but the Baconians citedgive the honour to the actor, "who prepared the plays for the stage. "

Take it as you please, my Baconian friends who do not believe as Ibelieve in "Genius. " Shakespeare and Moliere did not live in"Society, " though both rubbed shoulders with it, or looked at it overthe invisible barrier between the actor and the great people in whosehouses or palaces he takes the part of Entertainer. The rest theydivined, by genius. 

Bacon did not, perhaps, study the society of carters, drawers, Mrs. Quickly, and Doll Tearsheet; of copper captains and their boys; notat Court, not in the study, did he meet them. How then did he createhis multitude of very low-lived persons? Rustics and ruralconstables he MAY have lovingly studied at Gorhambury, but for hiscollection of other very loose fish Bacon must have kept queercompany. So you have to admit "Genius, "--the miracle of "Genius" inyour Bacon, --to an even greater extent than I need it in the case ofmy Will; or, like Lord Penzance, you may suggest that Willcollaborated with Bacon. 

Try to imagine that Will was a born poet, like Burns, but with a verydifferent genius, education, and environment. Burns could easily getat the Press, and be published: that was impossible for Shakespeareat Stratford, if he had written any lyrics. Suppose him to be apoet, an observer, a wit, a humorist. Tradition at Stratford sayssomething about the humorist, and tradition, IN SIMILARCIRCUMSTANCES, would have remembered no more of Burns, after thelapse of seventy years. 

Imagine Will, then, to have the nature of a poet (that much I amobliged to assume), and for nine or ten years, after leaving schoolat thirteen, to hang about Stratford, observing nature and man, flowers and foibles, with thoughts incommunicable to Sturley andQuiney. Some sorts of park-palings, as he was married at eighteen, he could not break so lightly as Burns did, --some outlying deer hecould not so readily shoot at, perhaps, but I am not surprised if heassailed other deer, and was in troubles many. Unlike Burns, he hada keen eye for the main chance. Everything was going to ruin withhis father; school-mastering, if he tried it (I merely followtradition), was not satisfactory. His opinion of dominies, if hewrote the plays, was identical with that frequently expressed, infiction and privately, by Sir Walter Scott. 

Something must be done! Perhaps the straitest Baconian will not denythat companies of players visited Stratford, or even that he may haveseen and talked with them, and been attracted. He was a practicalman, and he made for London, and, by tradition, we first find himheading straight for the theatre, holding horses at the door, andorganising a small brigade of boys as his deputies. According to BenJonson he shone in conversation; he was good company, despite hisrustic accent, that terrible bar! The actors find that out; he isadmitted within the house as a "servitor"--a call-boy, if you like;an apprentice, if you please. 

By 1592, when Greene wrote his Groatsworth, "Shakescene" thinks hecan bombast out a blank verse with the best; he is an actor, he isalso an author, or a furbisher of older plays, and, as a member ofthe company, is a rival to be dreaded by Greene's three authorfriends: whoever they were, they were professional Universityplaywrights; the critics think that Marlowe, so near his death, wasone of them. 

Will, supposing him to come upon the town in 1587, has now had, say, five years of such opportunities as were open to a man connected withthe stage. Among these, in that age, we may, perhaps, reckon a gooddeal of very mixed society--writing men, bookish young blades, youngblades who haunt the theatre, and sit on the stage, as was the customof the gallants. 

What follows? Chaff follows, a kind of intimacy, a supper, perhaps, after the play, if an actor seems to be good company. This is quitenatural; the most modish young gallants are not so very dainty as tostand aloof from any amusing company. They found it among prize-fighters, when Byron was young, and extremely conscious of the factthat he was a lord. Moreover there were no women on the stage todistract the attention of the gallants. The players, says AsiniusLupus, in Jonson's Poetaster, "corrupt young gentry very much, I knowit. " I take the quotation from Mr. Greenwood. {106a} They could notcorrupt the young gentry, if they were not pretty intimate with them. From Ben's Poetaster, which bristles with envy of the players, Mr. Greenwood also quotes a railing address by a copper captain toHistrio, a poor actor, "There are some of you players honest, gentlemanlike scoundrels, and suspected to ha' some wit, as well asyour poets, both at drinking and breaking of jests; AND ARECOMPANIONS FOR GALLANTS. A man may skelder ye, now and then, of halfa dozen shillings or so. " {107a} We think of Nigel Olifaunt in TheFortunes of Nigel; but better gallants might choose to have someacquaintance with Shakespeare. 

To suppose that young men of position would not form a playhouseacquaintanceship with an amusing and interesting actor seems to me toshow misunderstanding of human nature. The players were, whenunprotected by men of rank, "vagabonds. " The citizens of London, mainly Puritans, hated them mortally, but the young gallants were notPuritans. The Court patronised the actors who performed Masques inpalaces and great houses. The wealth and splendid attire of theactors, their acquisition of land and of coats of arms infuriated thesweated playwrights. Envy of the actors appears in the Cambridge"Parnassus" plays of c. 1600-2. In the mouth of Will Kempe, whoacted Dogberry in Shakespeare's company, and was in favour, saysHeywood, with Queen Elizabeth, the Cambridge authors put this brag:"For Londoners, who of more report than Dick Burbage and Will Kempe?He is not counted a gentleman that knows not Dick Burbage and WillKempe. " It is not my opinion that Shakespeare was, as Ben Jonsoncame to be, as much "in Society" as is possible for a mere literaryman. I do not, in fancy, see him wooing a Maid of Honour. He was aman's man, a peer might be interested in him as easily as in ajockey, a fencer, a tennis-player, a musician, que scais-je?Southampton, discovering his qualities, may have been moreinterested, interested in a better way. 

In such circumstances which are certainly in accordance with humannature, I suppose the actor to have been noticed by the young, handsome, popular Earl of Southampton; who found him interesting, andinterested himself in the poet. There followed the dedication to theEarl of Venus and Adonis; a poem likely to please any young amorist(1693). 

Mr. Greenwood cries out at the audacity of a player dedicating to anEarl, without even saying that he has asked leave to dedicate. Themere fact that the dedication was accepted, and followed by that ofLucrece, proves that the Earl did not share the surprise of Mr. Greenwood. He, conceivably, will argue that the Earl knew the realconcealed author, and the secret of the pseudonym. But of thehypothesis of such a choice of a pseudonym, enough has been said. Whatever happened, whatever the Earl knew, if it were discreditableto be dedicated to by an actor, Southampton was discredited; for weare to prove that all in the world of letters and theatre who haveleft any notice of Shakespeare identified the actor with the poet. 

This appears to me to be the natural way of looking at the affair. But, says Mr. Greenwood, of this intimacy or "patronage" ofSouthampton "not a scrap of evidence exists. " {109a} Where would Mr. Greenwood expect to find a scrap of evidence? In literary anecdote?Of contemporary literary anecdote about Shakespeare, as aboutBeaumont, Dekker, Chapman, Heywood, and Fletcher, there is none, ornext to none. There is the tradition that Southampton gave the poet1000 pounds towards a purchase to which he had a mind. (Rowe seemsto have got this from Davenant, --through Betterton. ) In whatdocuments would the critic expect to find a scrap of evidence?Perhaps in Southampton's book of his expenditure, and that does notexist. It is in the accounts of Prince Charlie that I find him, pooras he was, giving money to Jean Jacques Rousseau. 

As to the chances of an actor's knowing "smart people, " Heywood, whoknew all that world, tells us {109b} that "Tarleton, in his time, wasgracious with the Queen, his sovereign, " Queen Elizabeth. "WillKempe was in the favour of his sovereign. "

THEY had advantages, they were not literary men, but low comedians. I am not pretending that, though his

 "flights upon the banks of ThamesSo did take Eliza and our James, "

Will Shakspere "was gracious with the Queen. "

We may compare the dedication of the Folio of 1623; here two playersaddress the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery. They have the audacityto say nothing about having asked and received permission todedicate. They say that the Earls "have prosecuted both the playsand their authour living" (while in life) "with much favour. " They"have collected and published the works of 'the dead' . . . Only tokeep alive the memory of so worthy a Friend, and Fellow" (associate)"as was our Shakespeare, 'your servant Shakespeare. '"

Nothing can possibly be more explicit, both as to the actor'sauthorship of the plays, and as to the favour in which the two Earlsheld him. Mr. Greenwood {110a} supposes that Jonson wrote thePreface, which contains an allusion to a well-known ode of Horace, and to a phrase of Pliny. Be that as it may, the Preface signed bythe two players speaks to Pembroke and Montgomery. To THEM it cannotlie; THEY know whether they patronised the actor or not; whether theybelieved, or not, that the plays were their "servant's. " How is Mr. Greenwood to overcome this certain testimony of the Actors, to theidentity of their late "Fellow" the player, with the author; and tothe patronage which the Earls bestowed on him and his compositions?Mr. Greenwood says nothing except that we may reasonably suppose Bento have written the dedication which the players signed. {111a}

Whether or not the two Earls had a personal knowledge of Shakespeare, the dedication does not say in so many words. They had seen hisplays and had "favoured" both him and them, with so much favour, had"used indulgence" to the author. That is not nearly explicit enoughfor the precise Baconians. But the Earls knew whether what was saidwere true or false. I am not sure whether the Baconians regard themas having been duped as to the authorship, or as fellow-conspiratorswith Ben in the great Baconian joke and mystery--that "WilliamShakespeare" the author is not the actor whose Stratford friend, Collyns, has his name written in legal documents as "WilliamShakespeare. "

Anyone, however, may prefer to believe that, while William Shaksperewas acting in a company (1592-3), Bacon, or who you please, wroteVenus and Adonis, and, signing "W. Shakspeare, " dedicated it to hisyoung friend, the Earl, promising to add "some graver labour, " apromise fulfilled in Lucrece. In 1593, Bacon was chiefly occupied, we shall see, with the affairs of a young and beautiful Earl--theEarl of Essex, not of Southampton: to Essex he did not dedicate histwo poems (if Venus and Lucrece were his). He "did nothing butruminate" (he tells the world) on Essex. How Mr. Greenwood's Unknownwas occupied in 1593-4, of course we cannot possibly be aware. 

I have thus tried to show that Will Shakspere, if he had as muchschooling as I suggest; and if he had four or five years of life inLondon, about the theatre, and, above all, had genius, might, by1592, be the rising player-author alluded to as "Shakescene. " Thereremains a difficulty. By 1592 Will had not time to be guilty ofTHIRTEEN plays, or even of six. But I have not credited him with theauthorship, between, say, 1587 and 1593, of eleven plays, namely, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Titus Andronicus, Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, King John, the three plays ofHenry VI, and The Taming of the Shrew. Mr. Greenwood {112a} citesJudge Webb for the fact that between the end of 1587 and the end of1592 "some half-dozen Shakespearean dramas had been written, " and forDr. Furnivall's opinion that eleven had been composed. 

If I believed that half a dozen, or eleven Shakespearean plays, as wehave them, had been written or composed, between 1587 and 1592, Ishould be obliged to say that, in my opinion, they were not composed, in these five years, by Will. Mr. Greenwood writes, "Some of thedates are disputable"; and, for himself, would omit "TitusAndronicus, the three plays of Henry VI, and possibly also The Tamingof the Shrew, while the reference to Hamlet also is, as I haveelsewhere shown, of very doubtful force. " {113a} This leaves us withsix of Dr. Furnivall's list of earliest plays put out of action. Themiracle is decomposing, but plays numerous enough to stagger mycredulity remain. 

I cannot believe that the author even of the five plays before 1592-3was the ex-butcher's boy. Meanwhile these five plays, written bysomebody before 1593, meet the reader on the threshold of Mr. Greenwood's book {113b} with Dr. Furnivall's eleven; and they fairlyfrighten him, if he be a "Stratfordian. " "Will, even Will, " says theStratfordian, "could not have composed the five, much less theeleven, much less Mr. Edwin Reed's thirteen 'before 1592. '" {113c}But, at the close of his work {113d} Mr. Greenwood reviews anddisbands that unlucky troop of thirteen Shakespearean plays "before1592" as mustered by Mr. Reed, a Baconian of whom Mr. Collins wrotein terms worthy of feu Mr. Bludyer of The Tomahawk. 

From the five plays left to Shakespeare's account in p. 51, King John(as we know it) is now eliminated. "I find it impossible to believethat the same man was the author of the drama" (The Troublesome Reignof King John) "published in 1591, and that which, so far as we know, first saw the light in the Folio of 1623 . . . Hardly a single lineof the original version reappears in the King John of Shakespeare. "{114a} "I think it is a mistake to endeavour to fortify the argumentagainst him" (my Will, toi que j'aime), "by ascribing to Shakespearesuch old plays as the King John of 1591 or the primitive Hamlet. "{114b}

I thought so too, when I read p. 51, and saw King John apparentlystill "coloured on the card" among "Shakespeare's lot. " We are nowleft with Love's Labour's Lost, Midsummer Night's Dream, Comedy ofErrors, and Romeo and Juliet, out of Dr. Furnivall's list of plays upto 1593. The phantom force of miraculously early plays is "followingdarkness like a dream. " We do not know the date of A MidsummerNight's Dream, we do not know the date of Romeo and Juliet. Mr. Gollancz dates the former "about 1592, " and the latter "at 1591. "{114c} This is a mere personal speculation. Of Love's Labour'sLost, we only know that our version is one "corrected and augmented"by William Shakespeare in 1598. I dare say it is as early as 1591-2, in its older form. Of The Comedy of Errors, Mr. Collins wrote, "Itis all but certain that it was written between 1589 and 1592, and itis quite certain that it was written before the end of 1594. " {114d}

The legion of Shakespearean plays of date before 1593 has vanished. The miracle is very considerably abated. In place of introducing theairy hosts of plays before 1592, in p. 51, it would have been, perhaps, more instructive to write that, as far as we can calculate, Shakespeare's earliest trials of his pinions as a dramatist may beplaced about 1591-3. There would then have been no speciousappearance of miracles to be credited by Stratfordians to Will. Buteven so, we have sufficient to "give us pause, " says Mr. Greenwood, with justice. It gives ME "pause, " if I am to believe that, between1587 and 1592, Will wrote Love's Labour's Lost, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Romeo and Juliet. There is a limiteven to my gullibility, and if anyone wrote all these plays, as wenow possess them, before 1593, I do not suppose that Will was theman. But the dates, in fact, are unknown: the miracle isapocryphal. 

CHAPTER VI: THE COURTLY PLAYS: "LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST"

We now come to consider another "miracle" discovered in the plays, --amiracle if the actor be the author. The new portent is thecourtliness and refinement (too often, alas! the noblest ladies makethe coarsest jokes) and wit of the speeches of the noble gentlemenand ladies in the plays. To be sure the refinement in the jests isoften conspicuously absent. How could the rude actor learn his quipsand pretty phrases, and farfetched conceits? This question I havetried to answer already, --the whole of these fashions abound in theliterature of the day. 

Here let us get rid of the assumption that a poet could not make theladies and gentlemen of his plays converse as they do converse, whether in quips and airs and graces, or in loftier style, unless hehimself frequented their society. Marlowe did not frequent the bestsociety; HE was no courtier, but there is the high courtly style inthe speeches of the great and noble in Edward II. Courtiers andkings never did speak in this manner, any more than they spoke inblank verse. The style is a poetical convention, while the quips andconceits, the airs and graces, ran riot through the literature of theage of Lyly and his Euphues and his comedies, the age of the Arcadia. 

A cheap and probable source of Will's courtliness is to be found inthe courtly comedies of John Lyly, five of which were separatelyprinted between 1584 and 1592. Lyly's "real significance is that hewas the first to bring together on the English stage the elements ofhigh comedy, thereby preparing the way for Shakespeare's Much Adoabout Nothing and As You Like It" (and Love's Labour's Lost, one mayadd). "Whoever knows his Shakespeare and his Lyly well can hardlymiss the many evidences that Shakespeare had read Lyly's plays almostas closely as Lyly had read Pliny's Natural History. . . . One couldhardly imagine Love's Labour's Lost as existent in the period from1590 to 1600, had not Lyly's work just preceded it. " {120a}

"It is to Lyly's plays, " writes Dr. Landmann, "that Shakespeare owesso much in the liveliness of his dialogues, in smartness ofexpression, and especially in that predilection for witticisms, quibbles, and playing upon words which he shows in his comedies aswell as in his tragedies. " There follows a dissertation on theaffected styles of Guevara and Gongora, of the Pleiade in France, andgenerally of the artificial manner in Europe, till in England wereach Lyly, "in whose comedies, " says Dr. Furness, "I think we shouldlook for motives which appeared later in Shakespeare. " {121a}

The Baconians who think that a poet could not derive from books andcourt plays his knowledge of fashions far more prevalent inliterature than at Court, decide that the poet of Love's Labour'sLost was not Will, but the courtly "concealed poet. " No doubtBaconians may argue with Mr. R. M. Theobald {121b} that "Bacon wroteMarlowe, " and, by parity of reasoning many urge, though Mr. Theobalddoes not, that Bacon wrote Lyly, pouring into Lyly's comedies thegrace and wit, the quips and conceits of his own courtly youth. "What for no?" The hypothesis is as good as the other hypotheses, "Bacon wrote Marlowe, " "Bacon wrote Shakespeare. "

The less impulsive Baconians and the Anti-Willians appear to ignorethe well-known affected novels which were open to all the world, andare noted even in short educational histories of English literature. Shakespeare, in London, had only to look at the books on the stalls, to read or, if he had the chance, to see Lyly's plays, and read thepoems of the time. I am taking him not to be a dullard but a poet. It was not hard for him, if he were a poet of genius, not only tocatch the manner of Lyly's Court comedies, and "Marlowe's mightyline" (Marlowe was not "brought up on the knees of Marchionesses"!), but to improve on them. People did not commonly talk in the poeticalway, heaven knows; people did not write in the poetic convention. Certainly Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth talked and wrote, as a rule(we have abundance of their letters), like women of this world. There is a curious exception in Letter VIII of the Casket Lettersfrom Mary to Bothwell. In this (we have a copy of the originalFrench), Mary plunges into the affected and figured style alreadypractised by Les Precieuses of her day; and expands into symbolismsin a fantastic jargon. If courtiers of both sexes conversed in thestyle of Euphues (which is improbable), they learned the trick of itfrom Euphues; not the author of Euphues from them. Lyly's mostpopular prose was accessible to Shakespeare. The whole convention asto how the great should speak and bear themselves was accessible inpoetry and the drama. A man of genius naturally made his ladies andcourtiers more witty, more "conceited, " more eloquent, more graciousthan any human beings ever were anywhere, in daily life. 

It seems scarcely credible that one should be obliged to urge factsso obvious against the Baconian argument that only a Bacon, intimately familiar with the society of the great, could make thegreat speak as, in the plays, they do--and as in real life theyprobably did NOT!

We now look at Love's Labour's Lost, published in quarto, in 1598, as"corrected and augmented by W. Shakespere. " The date of compositionis unknown, but the many varieties of versification, with someallusions, mark it as among the earliest of the dramas. Supposingthat Shakespeare obtained his knowledge of fine manners and speech, and of the tedious quips and conceits which he satirises, from thecontemporary poems, plays, and novels which abounded in them, andfrom precieux and precieuses who imitated them, as I suggest, eventhen Love's Labour's Lost is an extremely eccentric piece. I cannotimagine how a man who knew the foreign politics of his age as Bacondid, could have dreamed of writing anything so eccentric, that is, ifit has any connection with foreign politics of the time. 

The scene is the Court of Ferdinand, King of Navarre. In 1589-93, the eyes of England were fixed on the Court of her ally, Henri ofNavarre, in his struggle with the League and the Guises; the War ofReligion. But the poet calls the King "Ferdinand, " taking perhapsfrom some story this non-existent son of Charles III of Navarre (died1425): to whom, according to Monstrelet, the Burgundian chroniclerof that time, the French king owed 200, 000 ducats of gold. This is atransaction of the early fifteenth century, and leads to the presenceof the princess of France as an envoy at the Court of Navarre in theplay; the whole thing is quite unhistorical, and has the air of beingborrowed from some lost story or brief novel. Bacon's brother, Anthony, was English minister at the Court of Navarre. What couldtempt Bacon to pick out a non-historical King Ferdinand of Navarre, plant him in the distant days of Jeanne d'Arc, and make him, at thatperiod, found an Academe for three years of austere study and absenceof women? But, if Bacon did this, what could induce him to give tothe non-existent Ferdinand, as companions, the Marechal de Biron withde Longueville (both of them, in 1589-93, the chief adherents ofHenri of Navarre), and add to them "Dumain, " that is, the Duc deMayenne, one of the Guises, the deadly foes of Henri and of theHuguenots? Even in the unhistorically minded Shakespeare, the freakis of the most eccentric, --but in Bacon this friskiness is indeedstrange. I cannot, like Mr. Greenwood, {124a} find any "allusions tothe Civil War of France. " France and Navarre, in the play, are infull peace. 

The actual date of the fabulous King Ferdinand would have been about1430. By introducing Biron, Longueville, and the Duc de Mayenne, andBankes's celebrated educated horse, the author shifts the date to1591. But the Navarre of the play is a region "out of space, out oftime, " a fairy world of projected Academes (like that of the fouryoung men in de la Primaudaye's L'Academie Francaise, Englished in1586) and of peace, while the actual King of Navarre of 1591 wasengaged in a struggle for life and faith; and in his ceaselessamours. 

Many of Shakespeare's anachronisms are easily intelligible. He takesa novel or story about any remote period, or he chooses, as for theMidsummer Night's Dream, a period earlier than that of the Trojanwar. He gives to the Athens contemporary with the "Late Minoan III"period (1600 B. C. ?) a Duke, and his personages live like Englishnobles and rustics of his own day, among the fairies of English folk-lore. It is the manner of Chaucer and of the poets and painters ofany age before the end of the eighteenth century. The resultinganachronisms are natural and intelligible. We do not expect war-chariots in Troilus and Cressida; it is when the author makes thebronze-clad Achaeans familiar with Plato and Aristotle that we aresurprised. In Love's Labour's Lost we do not expect the author tointroduce the manners of the early fifteenth century, the date of theaffair of the 200, 000 ducats. Let the play reflect the men andmanners of 1589-93, --but why place Mayenne, a fanatical Catholic foeof Navarre, among the courtiers of the Huguenot King of Navarre?

As for de Mayenne (under the English spelling of the day Dumain)appearing as a courtier of his hated adversary Henri, Bacon, of allmen, could not have made that absurd error. It was Shakespeare whotook but an absent-minded interest in foreign politics. If Bacon isbuilding his play on an affair, the ducats, of 1425-35 (roughlyspeaking), he should not bring in a performing horse, trained byBankes, a Staffordshire man, which was performing its tricks atShrewsbury--in 1591. {126a} Thus early we find that great scholarmixing up chronology in a way which, in Shakespeare even, surprises;but, in Bacon, seems quite out of keeping. 

Shakespeare, as Sir Sidney Lee says, gives Mayenne as "Dumain, "--Mayenne, "whose name was so frequently mentioned in popular accountsof French affairs in connection with Navarre's movements thatShakespeare was led to number him also among his supporters. " Baconwould not have been so led! As Mayenne and Henri fought against eachother at Ivry, in 1590, this was carrying nonsense far, even forWill, but for the earnestly instructive Bacon!

"The habits of the author could not have been more scholastic, " soJudge Webb is quoted, "if he had, like Bacon, spent three years inthe University of Cambridge . . . " Bacon, or whoever corrected theplay in 1598, might have corrected "primater" into "pia mater, "unless Bacon intended the blunder for a malapropism of "Nathaniel, aCurate. " Either Will or Bacon, either in fun or ignorance, makesNathaniel turn a common Italian proverb on Venice into gibberish. Itwas familiar in Florio's Second Frutes (1591), and First Frutes(1578), with the English translation. The books were as accessibleto Shakspere as to Bacon. Either author might also draw from JamesSandford's Garden of Pleasure, done out of the Italian in 1573-6. 

Where the scholastic habits of Bacon at Cambridge are to bediscovered in this play, I know not, unless it be in Biron's wittyspeech against study. If the wit implies in the author a Cambridgeeducation, Costard and Dull and Holofernes imply familiarity withrustics and country schoolmasters. Where the author proves that he"could not have been more familiar with French politics if, likeBacon, he had spent three years in the train of an Ambassador toFrance, " I cannot conjecture. THERE ARE NO FRENCH POLITICS IN THEPIECE, any more than there are "mysteries of fashionable life, " suchas Bacon might have heard of from Essex and Southampton. There is no"familiarity with all the gossip of the Court"; there is no greaterknowledge of foreign proverbs than could be got from common Englishbooks. There is abundance, indeed overabundance of ridicule ofaffected styles, and quips, with which the literature of the day wascrammed: call it Gongorism, Euphuism, or what you please. One doesnot understand how or where Judge Webb (in extreme old age) made allthese discoveries, sympathetically quoted by Mr. Greenwood. {127a}"Like Bacon, the author of the play must have had a large command ofbooks; he must have had his "Horace, " his "Ovidius Naso, " and his"good old 'Mantuan. '" What a prodigious "command of books"! Countryschoolmasters confessedly had these books on the school desks. Itwas not even necessary for the author to "have access to theChronicles of Monstrelet. " It is not known, we have said, whether ornot such plot as the play possesses, with King Ferdinand and the100, 000 ducats, or 200, 000 ducats (needed to bring the Princess andthe mythical King Ferdinand of Navarre together), were not adapted bythe poet from an undiscovered conte, partly based on a passage inMonstrelet. 

Perhaps it will be conceded that Love's Labour's Lost is not a playwhich can easily be attributed to Bacon. We do not know how much ofthe play existed before Shakespeare "augmented" it in 1598. We donot know whether what he then corrected and augmented was an earlywork of his own or from another hand, though probably it was his own. Moliere certainly corrected and augmented and transfigured, in hisillustrious career in Paris, several of the brief early sketcheswhich he had written when he was the chief of a strolling troupe inSouthern France. 

Mr. Greenwood does not attribute the wit (such as it is), the quips, the conceits, the affectations satirised in Love's Labour's Lost, toWill's knowledge of the artificial style then prevalent in all theliteratures of Western Europe, and in England most pleasingly used inLyly's comedies. No, "the author must have been not only a man ofhigh intellectual culture, but one who was intimately acquainted withthe ways of the Court, and the fashionable society of his time, asalso with contemporary foreign politics. " {129a}

I search the play once more for the faintest hint of knowledge offoreign politics. The embassy of the daughter of the King of France(who, by the date of the affair of the ducats, should be Charles VII)has been compared to a diplomatic sally of the mother of thechildless actual King of France (Henri III), in 1586, when Catherinede Medici was no chicken. I do not see in the embassy of thePrincess of the story any "intimate acquaintance with contemporaryforeign politics" about 1591-3. The introduction of Mayenne as anadherent of the King of Navarre, shows either a most confusedignorance of foreign politics on the part of the author, or afreakish contempt for his public. I am not aware that the authorshows any "intimate acquaintance with the ways" of Elizabeth's Court, or of any other fashionable society, except the Courts which Fancyheld in plays. 

Mr. Greenwood {129b} appears to be repeating "the case as to thisvery remarkable play" as "well summed up by the late Judge Webb inhis Mystery of William Shakespeare" (p. 44). In that paralysingjudicial summary, as we have seen, "the author could not have beenmore familiar with French politics if, like Bacon, he had spent threeyears in the train of an Ambassador to France. " The French politics, in the play, are to send the daughter of a King of France (thecontemporary King Henri III was childless) to conduct a negotiationabout 200, 000 ducats, at the Court, steeped in peace, of a King ofNavarre, a scholar who would fain be a recluse from women, in anAcademe of his own device. Such was not the Navarre of Henri in hiswar with the Guises, and Henri did not shun the sex!

Such are the "contemporary foreign politics, " the "French politics"which the author knows--as intimately as Bacon might have known them. They are not foreign politics, they are not French politics, they arepolitics of fairy-land: with which Will was at least as familiar asBacon. 

These, then, are the arguments in favour of Bacon, or the GreatUnknown, which are offered with perfect solemnity of assurance: andthe Baconians repeat them in their little books of popularisation andpropaganda. Quantula sapientia!

CHAPTER VII: CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION OF WILL AS AUTHOR

It is absolutely impossible to prove that Will, or Bacon, or the Manin the Moon, was the author of the Shakespearean plays and poems. But it is easy to prove that Will was recognised as the author, byBen Jonson, Heywood, and Heminge and Condell the actors, to take thebest witnesses. Meanwhile we have received no hint that any manexcept Will was ever suspected of being the author till 1856, whenthe twin stars of Miss Delia Bacon and Mr. Smith arose. The evidenceof Ben Jonson and the rest can only prove that professed playwrightsand actors, who knew Will both on and off the stage, saw nothing inhim not compatible with his work. Had he been the kind of letterlesscountry fellow, or bookless fellow whom the Baconians and Mr. Greenwood describe, the contemporary witnesses cited must havedetected Will in a day; and the story of the "Concealed Poet" whoreally, at first, did the additions and changes in the Company'solder manuscript plays, and of the inconceivably impudent pretencesof Will of Stratford, would have kept the town merry for a month. Five or six threadbare scholars would have sat down at a long tablein a tavern room, and, after their manner, dashed off a Comedy ofErrors on the real and the false playwright. 

Baconians never seem to think of the mechanical difficulties in theirassumed literary hoax. If Will, like the old Hermit of Prague whonever saw pen and ink, could not even write, the hoax was a physicalimpossibility. If he could write, but was a rough bookless man, hiscondition would be scarcely the more gracious, even if he were ableto copy in his scrawl the fine Roman hand of the concealed poet. Iam surprised that the Baconians have never made that point. Will's"copy" was almost without blot or erasion, the other actors were wontto boast. Really the absence of erasions and corrections is tooeasily explained on the theory that Will was NOT the author. Willmerely copied the fair copies handed to him by the concealed poet. The farce was played for some twenty years, and was either undetectedor all concerned kept the dread secret--and all the other companiesand rival authors were concerned in exposing the imposture. 

The whole story is like the dream of a child. We therefore expectthe Anti-Willians to endeavour to disable the evidence of Jonson, Heywood, Heminge, and Condell. Their attempts take the shape of themost extravagant and complex conjectures; with certain pettyobjections to Ben's various estimates of the MERITS of the plays. Heis constant in his witness to the authorship. To these efforts ofdespair we return later, when we hope to justify what is heredeliberately advanced. 

Meanwhile we study Mr. Greenwood's attempts to destroy or weaken thetestimony of contemporary literary allusions, in prose or verse, tothe plays as the work of the actor. Mr. Greenwood rests on anargument which perhaps could only have occurred to legal minds, originally, perhaps to the mind of Judge Webb, not in the primevigour of his faculties. Not very many literary allusions remain, made during Will's life-time, to the plays of Shakespeare. Thewriters, usually, speak of "Shakespeare, " or "W. Shakespeare, " or"Will Shakespeare, " and leave it there. In the same way, when theyspeak of other contemporaries, they name them, --and leave it there, without telling us "who" (Frank) Beaumont, or (Kit) Marlowe, or(Robin) Greene, or (Jack) Fletcher, or any of the others "were. " Allinterested readers knew who they were: and also knew who"Shakespeare" or "Will Shakespeare" was. No other Will Shak(&c. ) wasprominently before the literary and dramatic world, in 1592-1616, except the Warwickshire provincial who played with Burbage. 

But though the mere names of the poets, Ben Jonson, Kit Marlowe, Frank Beaumont, Harry Chettle, and so forth, are accepted asindicating the well-known men whom they designate, this evidence toidentity does not satisfy Mr. Greenwood, and the Baconians, whereWill is concerned. "We should expect to find allusions to dramaticand poetical works published under the name of 'Shakespeare'; weshould expect to find Shakespeare spoken of as a poet and adramatist; we should expect, further, to find some few allusions toShakespeare or Shakspere the player. And these, of course, we dofind; but these are not the objects of our quest. What we require isevidence to establish the identity of the player with the poet anddramatist; to prove that the player was the author of the PLAYS andPOEMS. THAT is the proposition to be established, and THAT theallusions fail, as it appears to me, to prove, " says Mr. Greenwood. He adds, "At any rate they do not disprove the theory that the trueauthorship was hidden under a pseudonym" {136a}--which raises anentirely different question. 

Makers of allusions to the plays must identify Shakespeare with theactor, explicitly; must tell us who this Shakespeare was, though theyneed not, and usually do not, tell us who the other authors mentionedwere; and though the world of letters and the Stage knew but oneWilliam Shakspere or Shakespeare, who was far too familiar to them torequire further identification. But even if the makers of allusionsdid all this, and said, "by W. Shakespeare the poet, we mean W. Shakespeare the actor"--THAT is not enough. For they may all bedeceived, may all believe that a bookless, untutored man is theauthor. So we cannot get evidence correct enough for Mr. Greenwood. 

Destitute as I am of legal training, I leave this notable way ofdisposing of the evidence to the judgement of the Bench and the Bar, a layman intermeddleth not with it. Still, I am, like other readers, on the Jury addressed, --I do not accept the arguments. Miror magis, as Mr. Greenwood might quote Latin. We have already seen one exampleof this argument, when Heywood speaks of the author of poems byShakespeare, published in The Passionate Pilgrim. Heywood doesnothing to identify the actor Shakspere with the author Shakespeare, says Mr. Greenwood. I shall prove that, elsewhere, Heywood doesidentify them, and no man knew more of the world of playwrights andactors than Heywood. I add that in his remarks on The PassionatePilgrim, Heywood had no need to say "by W. Shakespeare I mean thewell-known actor in the King's Company. " There was no other WilliamShakspere or Shakespeare known to his public. 

It is to no purpose that Mr. Greenwood denies, as we have seen above, that the allusions "disprove the theory that the true authorship washidden under a pseudonym. " That is an entirely different question. He is now starting quite another hare. Men of letters who alluded tothe plays and poems of William Shakespeare, meant the actor; that ismy position. That they may all have been mistaken: that "WilliamShakespeare" was Bacon's, or any one's pseudonym, is, I repeat, awholly different question; and we must not allow the critic to glideaway into it through an "at any rate"; as he does three or fourtimes. So far, then, Mr. Greenwood's theory that it was impossiblefor the actor Shakspere to have been the author of the plays, encounters the difficulty that no contemporary attributed them to anyother hand: that none is known to have said, "This Warwickshire mancannot be the author. "

"Let us, however, examine some of these allusions to Shakspere, realor supposed, " says the critic. {138a} He begins with the hackneyedwords of the dying man of letters, Robert Greene, in A Groatsworth ofWit (1592). The pamphlet is addressed to Gentlemen of hisacquaintance "that spend their wits in making plays"; he "wisheththem a better exercise, " and better fortunes than his own. (Marloweis supposed to be one of the three Gentlemen playwrights, but suchsuppositions do not here concern us. ) Greene's is the ancient feudbetween the players and the authors, between capital and labour. Theplayers are the capitalists, and buy the plays out and out, --cheap. The author has no royalties; and no control over the future of hiswork, which a Shakspere or a Bacon, a Jonson or a Chettle, or anyhandyman of the company owning the play, may alter as he pleases. Itis highly probable that the actors also acquired most of the popularrenown, for, even now, playgoers have much to say about the playersin a piece, while they seldom know the name of the playwright. Womenfall in love with the actors, not with the authors; but with "thosepuppets, " as Greene says, "that speake from our mouths, theseanticks, garnished in our colours. " Ben Jonson, we shall see, makessome of the same complaints, --most natural in the circumstances:though he managed to retain the control of his dramas; how, I do notknow. Greene adds that in his misfortunes, illness, and poverty, heis ungratefully "forsaken, " by the players, and warns his friendsthat such may be THEIR lot; advising them to seek "some betterexercise. " He then writes--and his meaning cannot easily bemisunderstood, I think, but misunderstood it has been--"Yes, trustthem not" (trust not the players), "FOR there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his TYGER'S HEART WRAPT IN APLAYER'S HIDE" ("Player's" in place of "woman's, " in an old play, TheTragedy of Richard, Duke of York, &c. ), "supposes he is as well ableto bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being anabsolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. "

The meaning is pellucid. "Do not trust the players, my fellowplaywrights, for the reasons already given, for they, in addition totheir glory gained by mouthing OUR words, and their ingratitude, maynow forsake you for one of themselves, a player, who thinks his blankverse as good as the best of yours" (including Marlowe's, probably). "The man is ready at their call ("an absolute Johannes Factotum"). "In his own conceit" he is "the only Shake-scene in a country. ""Seek you better masters, " than these players, who have now an authoramong themselves, "the only Shake-scene, " where the pun onShakespeare does not look like a fortuitous coincidence. But it maybe, anything may happen. 

The sense, I repeat, is pellucid. But Mr. Greenwood writes that ifShake-scene be an allusion to Shakespeare "it seems clear that it isas an actor rather than as an author he is attacked. " {140a} As anACTOR the person alluded to is merely assailed with the other actors, his "fellows. " But he is picked out as presenting another and a newreason why authors should distrust the players, "FOR there is" amongthemselves, "in a player's hide, " "an upstart crow"--who thinks hisblank verse as good as the best of theirs. He is, therefore, necessarily a playwright, and being a factotum, can readily beemployed by the players to the prejudice of Greene's three friends, who are professed playwrights. 

Mr. Greenwood says that "we do not know why Greene should have beenso particularly bitter against the players, and why he should havethought it necessary so seriously to warn his fellow playwrightsagainst them. " {141a} But we cannot help knowing; for Greene hastold us. In addition to gaining renown solely through mouthing "OUR"words, wearing "OUR feathers, " they have been bitterly ungrateful toGreene in his poverty and sickness; they will, in the samecircumstances, as cruelly forsake his friends; "yes, for they nowhave" an author, and to the playwrights a dangerous rival, in theirown fellowship. Thus we know with absolute certainty why Greenewrote as he did. He says nothing about the superior financial gainsof the players, which Mr. Greenwood suspects to have been the "only"cause of his bitterness. Greene gives its causes in the plainestpossible terms, as did Ben Jonson later, in his verses "Poet-Ape"(Playwright-Actor). Moreover, Mr. Greenwood gives Greene's obviousmotives on the very page where he says that we do not know them. 

Even Mr. Greenwood, {141b} anxious as he is to prove Shake-scene tobe attacked as an actor, admits that the words "supposes himself aswell able to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you, " "do seemto have that implication, " {141c} namely, that "Shake-scene" is adramatic author: what else can the words mean; why, if not for theStage, should Shake-scene write blank verse?

Finally Mr. Greenwood, after saying "it is clear that it is as anactor rather than as an author that 'Shake-scene' is attacked, "{142a} concedes {142b} that it "certainly looks as if he" (Greene)"meant to suggest that this Shake-scene supposed himself able tocompose, as well as to mouth verses. " Nothing else can possibly bemeant. "The rest of you" were authors, not actors. 

If not, why, in a whole company of actors, should "Shake-scene" alonebe selected for a special victim? Shake-scene is chosen out because, as an author, a factotum always ready at need, he is more apt thanthe professed playwrights to be employed as author by his company:this is a new reason for not trusting the players. 

I am not going to take the trouble to argue as to whether, in thecircumstances of the case, "Shake-scene" is meant by Greene for a punon "Shake-speare, " or not. If he had some other rising player-author, the Factotum of a cry of players, in his mind, Baconians maysearch for that personage in the records of the stage. That otherplayer-author may have died young, or faded into obscurity. The term"the only Shake-scene" may be one of those curious coincidences whichdo occur. The presumption lies rather on the other side. I demur, when Mr. Greenwood courageously struggling for his case says that, even assuming the validity of the surmise that there is an allusionto Shakspere, {143a} "the utmost that we should be entitled to say isthat Greene here accuses Player Shakspere of putting forward, as hisown, some work, or perhaps some parts of a work, for which he wasreally indebted to another" (the Great Unknown?). I do more thandemur, I defy any man to exhibit that sense in Greene's words. 

"The utmost that we should be entitled to say, " is, in my opinion, what we have no shadow of a title to say. Look at the poorhackneyed, tortured words of Greene again. "Yes, trust them not; forthere is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with hisTYGER'S HEART WRAPPED IN A PLAYER'S HIDE, supposes he is as well ableto bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being anabsolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. "

How can mortal man squeeze from these words the charge that "PlayerShakspere" is "putting forward, as his own, some work, or perhapssome parts of a work, for which he was really indebted to another"?It is as an actor, with other actors, that the player is "beautifiedwith OUR feathers, "--not with the feathers of some one NOT ourselves, Bacon or Mr. Greenwood's Unknown. Mr. Greenwood even says thatShake-scene is referred to "as beautified with the feathers WHICH HEHAS STOLEN from the dramatic writers" ("our feathers"). 

Greene says absolutely nothing about feathers "WHICH HE HAS STOLEN. "The "feathers, " the words of the plays, were bought, not stolen, bythe actors, "anticks garnished in our colours. "

Tedious it is to write many words about words so few and simple asthose of Greene; meaning "do not trust the players, for one of themwrites blank verse which he thinks as good as the best of yours, andfancies himself the only Shake-scene in a country. "

But "Greene here accuses Player Shakspere of putting forward, as hisown, some work, or perhaps some parts of a work, for which he wasreally indebted to another, " this is "the utmost we should beentitled to say, " even if the allusion be to Shakspere. How does Mr. Greenwood get the Anti-Willian hypothesis out of Greene's few andplain words?

It is much safer for him to say that "Shake-scene" is not meant forShakespeare. Nobody can prove that it IS; the pun MAY be a strangecoincidence, --or any one may say that he thinks it nothing more; ifhe pleases. 

Greene nowhere "refers to this Shake-scene as being an impostor, anupstart crow beautified with the feathers WHICH HE HAS STOLEN FROMTHE DRAMATIC WRITERS ("our feathers")" {145a}--that is, Greene makesno such reference to Shake-scene in his capacity of writer of blankverse. Like all players, who are all "anticks garnisht in ourcolours, " Shake-scene, AS PLAYER, is "beautified with our feathers. "It is Mr. Greenwood who adds "beautified with the feathers which hehas STOLEN from the dramatic writers. " Greene does not even remotelyhint at plagiarism on the part of Shake-scene: and the feathers, theplays of Greene and his friends, were not stolen but bought. We musttake Greene's evidence as we find it, --it proves that by "Shake-scene" he means a "poet-ape, " a playwright-actor; for Greene, likeJonson, speaks of actors as "apes. " Both men saw in a certain actorand dramatist a suspected rival. Only one such successful practisingactor-playwright is known to us at this date (1592-1601), --and he isShakespeare. Unless another such existed, Greene, in 1592, alludesto William Shak(&c. ) as a player and playwright. This proves thatthe actor from Stratford was accepted in Greene's world as an authorof plays in blank verse. He cannot, therefore, have seemed incapableof his poetry. 

Let us now briefly consider other contemporary allusions toShakespeare selected by Mr. Greenwood himself. No allusion can provethat Shakespeare was the author of the work attributed to him in theallusions. The plays and poems MAY have been by James VI and I, "aparcel-poet. " The allusions can prove no more than that, by hiscontemporaries, Shakespeare was believed to be the poet, which isimpossible if he were a mere rustic ignoramus, as the Baconians aver. Omitting some remarks by Chettle on Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, {146a} as, if grammar goes for all, they do not refer to Shakespeare, we have the Cambridge farce or comedy on contemporary literature, theReturn from Parnassus (1602?). The University wits laugh atShakespeare, --not an university man, as the favourite poet, in hisVenus and Adonis, of a silly braggart pretender to literature, Gullio. 

They also introduce Kempe, the low comedy man of Shakespeare'scompany, speaking to Burbage, the chief tragic actor, of Shakespeareas a member of their company, who, AS AN AUTHOR OF PLAYS, "puts down"the University wits "and Ben Jonson too. " The date is not earlierthan that of Ben's satiric play on the poets, The Poetaster (1601), to which reference is made. Since Kempe is to be represented aswholly ignorant, his opinion of Shakespeare's pre-eminent merit onlyproves, as in the case of Gullio, that the University wits decriedthe excellences of Shakespeare. In him they saw no scholar. 

The point is that Kempe recognises Shakespeare as both actor andauthor. 

All this "is quite consistent with the theory that Shake-speare was apseudonym, " {147a} says Mr. Greenwood. Of course it is, but it isNOT consistent with the theory that Shakespeare was an uneducated, bookless rustic, for, in that case, his mask would have fallen off ina day, in an hour. Of course the Cambridge author only proves, ifyou will, that HE thought that KEMPE thought, that his fellow playerwas the author. But we have better evidence of what the actorsthought than in the Cambridge play. 

In 1598, as we saw, Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia creditsShakespeare with Venus and Adonis, with privately circulated sonnets, and with a number of the comedies and tragedies. How the allusions"negative the hypothesis that Shakespeare was a nom de plume is notapparent, " says Mr. Greenwood, always constant to his method. Irepeat that he wanders from the point, which is, here, that the onlyWilliam Shak(&c. ) known to us at the time, in London, was creditedwith the plays and poems on all sides, which proves that noincompatibility between the man and the works was recognised. 

Then Weaver (1599) alludes to him as author of Venus, Lucrece, Romeo, Richard, "more whose names I know not. " Davies (1610) calls him "ourEnglish Terence" (the famous comedian), and mentions him as having"played some Kingly parts in sport. " Freeman (1614) credits him withVenus and Lucrece. "Besides in plays thy wit winds like Meander. " Irepeat Heywood's evidence. Thomas Heywood, author of that remarkabledomestic play, A Woman Killed with Kindness, was, from the old daysof Henslowe, in the fifteen-nineties, a playwright and an actor; hesurvived into the reign of Charles I. Writing on the familiar namesof the poets, "Jack Fletcher, " "Frank Beaumont, " "Kit Marlowe, " "TomNash, " he says, "Mellifluous Shakespeare whose enchanting quillCommanded mirth and passion, was but 'Will. '"

Does Heywood not identify the actor with the author? No quibblesserve against the evidence. 

We need not pursue the allusions later than Shakespeare's death, orinvoke, at present, Ben Jonson's panegyric of 1623. As to Davies, his dull and obscure epigram is addressed "To our English Terence, Mr. Will Shake-speare. " He accosts Shakespeare as "Good Will. " Heremarks that, "as some say, " if Will "had not played some Kinglyparts in sport, " he had been "a companion for a KING, " and "been aKing among the meaner sort. " Nobody, now, can see the allusion andthe joke. Shakespeare's company, in 1604, acted a play on the GowrieConspiracy of 1600. King James suppressed the play after the secondnight, as, of course, he was brought on the stage throughout theaction: and in very droll and dreadful situations. Did Will takethe King's part, and annoy gentle King Jamie, "as some say"? Nobodyknows. But Mr. Greenwood, to disable Davies's recognition of Mr. Will as a playwright, "Our English Terence, " quotes, from Florio'sMontaigne, a silly old piece of Roman literary gossip, Terence'splays were written by Scipio and Laelius. In fact, Terence alludesin his prologue to the Adelphi, to a spiteful report that he wasaided by great persons. The prologue may be the source of the fable--that does not matter. Davies might get the fable in Montaigne, and, knowing that some Great One wrote Will's plays, might therefore, inirony, address him as "Our English Terence. " This is a pretty freeconjecture! In Roman comedy he had only two names known to him tochoose from; he took Terence, not Plautus. But if Davies was in thegreat Secret, a world of others must have shared le Secret dePolichinelle. Yet none hints at it, and only a very weak cause couldcatch at so tiny a straw as the off-chance that Davies KNEW, and used"Terence" as a gibe. {149a}

The allusions, even the few selected, cannot prove that the actorwrote the plays, but do prove that he was believed to have done so, and therefore that he was not so ignorant and bookless as todemonstrate that he was incapable of the poetry and the knowledgedisplayed in his works. Mr. Greenwood himself observes that aBaconian critic goes too far when he makes Will incapable of writing. Such a Will could deceive no mortal. {150a} But does Mr. Greenwood, who finds in the Author of the plays "much learning, and remarkableclassical attainments, " or "a wide familiarity with the classics, "{150b} suppose that his absolutely bookless Will could have persuadedhis intimates that he was the author of plays exhibiting "a widefamiliarity with the classics, " or "remarkable classicalattainments. " The thing is wholly impossible. 

I do not remember that a single contemporary allusion to Shakespearespeaks of him as "learned, " erudite, scholarly, and so forth. Theepithets for him are "sweet, " "gentle, " "honeyed, " "sugared, " "honey-tongued"--this is the convention. The tradition followed by Milton, who was eight years of age when Shakespeare died, and who wroteL'Allegro just after leaving Cambridge, makes Shakespeare "sweetestShakespeare, Fancy's child, " with "native wood-notes wild"; and givesto Jonson "the LEARNED sock. " Fuller, like Milton, was born eightyears before the death of Shakespeare, namely, in 1608. Like Miltonhe was a Cambridge man. The First Folio of Shakespeare's worksappeared when each of these two bookish men was aged fifteen. Itwould necessarily revive interest in Shakespeare, now first known asfar as about half of his plays went: he would be discussed amonglovers of literature at Cambridge. Mr. Greenwood quotes Fuller'sremark that Shakespeare's "learning was very little, " that, if alive, he would confess himself "to be never any scholar. " {151a} I cannotgrant that Fuller is dividing the persons of actor and author. Menof Shakespeare's generation, such as Jonson, did not think himlearned; nor did men of the next generation. If Mr. Collins's viewbe correct, the men of Shakespeare's and of Milton's generations weretoo ignorant to perceive that Shakespeare was deeply learned in theliterature of Rome, and in the literature of Greece. Every one wastoo ignorant, till Mr. Collins came. 

CHAPTER VIII: "THE SILENCE OF PHILIP HENSLOWE"

When Shakespeare is mentioned as an author by contemporary writers, the Baconian stratagem, we have seen, is to cry, "Ah, but you cannotprove the author mentioned to be the actor. " We have seen that Meres(1598) speaks of Shakespeare as the leading tragic and comic poet("Poor poet-ape that would be thought our chief, " quoth Jonson), asauthor of Venus and Adonis, and as a sonneteer. "All this doesnothing whatever to support the idea that the Stratford player wasthe author of the plays and poems alluded to, " says Mr. Greenwood, playing that card again. {155a}

The allusions, I repeat, DO prove that Shak(&c. ), the actor, wasbelieved to be the author, till any other noted William Shak(&c. ) isfound to have been conspicuously before the town. "There is nothingat all to prove that Meres, native of Lincolnshire, had any personalknowledge of Shakespeare. " There is nothing at all to prove thatMeres, native of Lincolnshire, had any personal knowledge of nine-tenths of the English authors, famous or forgotten, whom he mentions. "On the question--who was Shakespeare?--he throws no light. " He"throws no light on the question" "who was?" any of the poetsmentioned by him, except one, quite forgotten, whose College he names. . . To myself this "sad repeated air, "--"critics who praiseShakespeare do not say WHO SHAKESPEARE was, "--would appear to be, notan argument, but a subterfuge: though Mr. Greenwood honestlybelieves it to be an argument, --otherwise he would not use it: muchless would he repeat it with frequent iteration. The more a man wasnotorious, as was Will Shakspere the actor, the less the need for anycritic to tell his public "who Shakespeare was. "

As Mr. Greenwood tries to disable the evidence when Shakespeare isalluded to as an author, so he tries to better his case when, in theaccount-book of Philip Henslowe, an owner of theatres, money-lender, pawn-broker, purchaser of plays from authors, and so forth, Shakespeare is NOT mentioned at all. Here is a mystery which, properly handled, may advance the great cause. Henslowe has notes ofloans of money to several actors, some of them of Shakespeare'scompany, "The Lord Chamberlain's. " There is no such note of a loanto Shakespeare. Does this prove that he was not an actor? If so, Burbage was not an actor; Henslowe never names him. 

There are notes of payments of money to Henslowe after eachperformance of any play in one of his theatres. In these notes THENAME OF SHAKESPEARE IS NEVER ONCE MENTIONED AS THE AUTHOR OF ANYPLAY. How weird! But in THESE notes the names of the authors of theplays acted are never mentioned. Does this suggest that Bacon wroteall these plays?

On the other hand, there are frequent mentions of advances of moneyto authors who were working at plays for Henslowe, singly, or inpairs, threes, fours, or fives. We find Drayton, Dekker, Chapman, and nine authors now forgotten by all but antiquarians. We have alsoBen Jonson (1597), Marston, Munday, Middleton, Webster, and others, authors in Henslowe's pay. BUT THE SAME OF SHAKESPEARE NEVERAPPEARS. Mysterious! The other men's names, writes Dr. Furness, occur "because they were all writers for Henslowe's theatre, but wemust wait at all events for the discovery of some other similarrecord, before we can produce corresponding memoranda regardingShaksper" (sic) "and his productions. " {157a}

The natural mind of the ordinary man explains all by saying, "Henslowe records no loans of money to Shakspere the actor, becausehe lent him no money. He records no payments for plays toShakespeare the author-actor, because to Henslowe the actor sold noplays. " That is the whole explanation of the Silence of PhilipHenslowe. If Shakspere did sell a play to Henslowe, why should thatfinancier omit the fact from his accounts? Suppose that the actorwas illiterate as Baconians fervently believe, and sold Bacon'splays, what prevented him from selling a play of Bacon's (under hisown name, as usual) to Henslowe? To obtain a Baconian reply you mustwander into conjecture, and imagine that Bacon forbade thetransaction. Then WHY did he forbid it? Because he could get abetter price from Shakspere's company? The same cause would producethe same effect on Shakspere himself; whether he were the author, orwere Bacon's, or any man's go-between. On any score but that ofmoney, why was Henslowe good enough for Ben Jonson, Dekker, Heywood, Middleton, and Webster, and not good enough for Bacon, who did notappear in the matter at all, but was represented in it by the actor, Will? As a gentleman and a man of the Court, Bacon would be as muchdiscredited if he were known to sell (for 6 pounds on an average) hisnoble works to the Lord Chamberlain's Company, as if he sold them toHenslowe. 

I know not whether the great lawyer, courtier, scholar, andphilosopher is supposed by Baconians to have given Will Shakspere acommission on his sales of plays; or to have let him keep the wholesum in each case. I know not whether the players paid Shakspere asum down for his (or Bacon's) plays, or whether Will received adouble share, or other, or any share of the profits on them, asHenslowe did when he let a house to the players. Nobody knows any ofthese things. 

"If Shakspere the player had been a dramatist, surely Henslowe wouldhave employed him also, like the others, in that behalf. " {159a}Henslowe would, if he could have got the "copy" cheap enough. Wasany one of "the others, " the playwrights, a player, holding a sharein his company? If not, the fact makes an essential difference, forShakspere WAS a shareholder. Collier, in his preface to Henslowe'sso-called "Diary, " mentions a playwright who was bound to scribblefor Henslowe only (Henry Porter), and another, Chettle, who was boundto write only for the company protected by the Earl of Nottingham. {159b} Modern publishers and managers sometimes make the same termswith novelists and playwrights. 

It appears to me that Shakspere's company would be likely, as hisplays were very popular, to make the same sort of agreement with him, and to give him such terms as he would be glad to accept, --whetherthe wares were his own--or Bacon's. He was a keen man of business. In such a case, he would not write for Henslowe's pittance. He had abetter market. The plays, whether written by himself, or Bacon, orthe Man in the Moon, were at his disposal, and he did not dispose ofthem to Henslowe, wherefore Henslowe cannot mention him in hisaccounts. That is all. 

Quoting an American Judge (Dr. Stotsenburg, apparently), Mr. Greenwood cites the circumstance that, in two volumes of Alleyn'spapers "there is not one mention of such a poet as William Shaksperin his list of actors, poets, and theatrical comrades. " {160a} Ifthis means that Shakspere is not mentioned by Alleyn among actors, are we to infer that William was not an actor? Even Baconians insistthat he was an actor. "How strange, how more than strange, " criesMr. Greenwood, "that Henslowe should make no mention in all this longdiary, embracing all the time from 1591 to 1609, of the actor-author. . . No matter. Credo quia impossibile!" {160b} Credo what? andwhat is IMPOSSIBLE? Henslowe's volume is no Diary; he does not tella single anecdote of any description; he merely enters loans, gains, payments. Does Henslowe mention, say, Ben Jonson, WHEN HE IS NOTDOING BUSINESS WITH BEN? Does he mention any actor or author exceptin connection with money matters? Then, if he did no business withShakspere the actor, in borrowing or lending, and did no businesswith Shakespeare the author, in borrowing, lending, buying orselling, "How strange, how more than strange" it would be if HensloweDID mention Shakespeare! He was not keeping a journal of literaryand dramatic jottings. He was keeping an account of his expenses andreceipts. He never names Richard Burbage any more than he mentionsShakespeare. 

Mr. Greenwood again expresses his views about this dark suspiciousmystery, the absence of Shakespeare or Shakspere (or Shak, as youlike it), from Henslowe's accounts, if Shak(&c. ) wrote plays. Butthe mystery, if mystery there be, is just as obscure if the actorwere the channel through which Bacon's plays reached the stage, forthe pretended author of these masterpieces. Shak--was not the man todo all the troking, bargaining, lying, going here and there, andmaking himself a motley to the view for 0 pounds, 0s, 0d. If he werea sham, a figure-head, a liar, a fetcher-and-carrier of manuscripts, HE WOULD BE PAID FOR IT. But he did not deal with Henslowe in hisbargainings, and THAT is why Henslowe does not mention him. Mr. Greenwood, in one place, {161a} agrees, so far, with me. "Why didHenslowe not mention Shakespeare as the writer of other plays" (thanTitus Andronicus and Henry VI)? "I think the answer is simpleenough. " (So do I. ) "Neither Shakspere nor 'Shakespeare' ever wrotefor Henslowe!" The obvious is perceived at last; and the reasongiven is "that he was above Henslowe's 'skyline, '" "he" being theAuthor. We only differ as to WHY the author was above Henslowe's"sky-line. " I say, because good Will had a better market, that ofhis Company. I understand Mr. Greenwood to think, --because the GreatUnknown was too great a man to deal with Henslowe. If to write forthe stage were discreditable, to deal (unknown) with Henslowe was nomore disgraceful than to deal with "a cry of players"; and as(unknown) Will did the bargaining, the Great Unknown was as safe withWill in one case as in the other. If Will did not receive anythingfor the plays from his own company (who firmly believed in hisauthorship), they must have said, "Will! dost thou serve the Musesand thy obliged fellows for naught? Dost thou give us two popularplays yearly, --gratis?"

Do you not see that, in the interests of the Great Secret itself, Will HAD to take the pay for the plays (pretended his) from somebody. Will Shakspere making his dear fellows and friends a present of twomasterpieces yearly was too incredible. So I suppose he did haveroyalties on the receipts, or otherwise got his money; and, as hecertainly did not get them from Henslowe, Henslowe had no conceivablereason for entering Will's name in his accounts. 

Such are the reflections of a plain man, but to an imaginative soulthere seems to be a brooding mist, with a heart of fire, which halfconceals and half reveals the darkened chamber wherein abides "TheSilence of Philip Henslowe. " "The Silence of Philip Henslowe, " Mr. Greenwood writes, "is a very remarkable phenomenon . . . " It is aphenomenon precisely as remarkable as the absence of Mr. Greenwood'sname from the accounts of a boot-maker with whom he has never had anydealings. 

"If, however, there was a man in high position, 'a concealed poet, '"who "took the works of others and rewrote and transformed them, besides bringing out original plays of his own . . . Then it isnatural enough that his name should not appear among those [of the]for the most part impecunious dramatists to whom Henslowe paid moneyfor playwriting. " {163a} Nothing can be more natural, and, in fact, the name of Bacon, or Southampton, or James VI, or Sir John Ramsay, or Sir Walter Raleigh, or Sir Fulke Greville, or any other "man inhigh position, " does NOT appear in Henslowe's accounts. Nor does thename of William Shak(&c. ). But why should it not appear if Will soldeither his own plays, or those of the noble friend to whom he lenthis name and personality--to Henslowe? Why not?

Then consider the figure, to my mind impossible, of the great"concealed poet" "of high position, " who can "bring out originalplays of his own, " and yet "takes the works of others, " say of"sporting Kyd, " or of Dekker and Chettle, and such poor devils, --TAKES them as a Yankee pirate-publisher takes my rhymes, --and"rewrites and transforms them. "

Bacon (or Bungay) CANNOT "take" them without permission of theirlegal owners, --Shakspere's or any other company;--of any one, inshort, who, as Ben Jonson says, "buys up reversions of old plays. "How is he to manage these shabby dealings? Apparently he employsWill Shakspere, spells his own "nom de plume" "Shakespeare, " and hashis rewritings and transformations of the destitute author's workacted by Will's company. What a situation for Bacon, or Sir FulkeGreville, or James VI, or any "man in high position" whom fancy cansuggest! The plays by the original authors, whoever they were, couldonly be obtained by the "concealed poet" and "man in high position"from the legal owners, Shakspere's company, usually. The concealedpoet had to negotiate with the owners, and Bacon (or whoever he was)employed that scamp Will Shakspere, first, I think, to extract theplays from the owners, and then to pretend that he himself, evenWill, had "rewritten and transformed them. "

What an associate was our Will for the concealed poet; how certain itwas that Will would blackmail the "man in high position"!"Doubtless" he did: we find Bacon arrested for debt, more than once, while Will buys New Place, in Stratford, with the money extorted fromthe concealed poet of high position. {164a} Bacon did associate withthat serpent Phillips, a reptile of Walsingham, who forged apostscript to Mary Stuart's letter to Babington. But now, if notBacon, then some other concealed poet of high position, with amysterious passion for rewriting and transforming plays by sad, needyauthors, is in close contact with Will Shakspere, the Warwickshirepoacher and ignorant butcher's boy, country schoolmaster, draper'sapprentice, enfin, tout le tremblement. 

"How strange, how more than strange!"

The sum of the matter seems to me to be that from as early as March3, 1591, we find Henslowe receiving small sums of money for theperformances of many plays. He was paid as owner or lessee of theHouse used by this or that company. On March 3, 1591, the play actedby "Lord Strange's (Derby's) men" was Henry VI. Several other playswith names familiar in Shakespeare's Works, such as Titus Andronicus, all the three parts of Henry VI, King Leare (April 6, 1593), Henry V(May 14, 1592), The Taming of a Shrew (June 11, 1594), and Hamlet, paid toll to Henslowe. He "received" so much, on each occasion, whenthey were acted in a theatre of his. But he never records hispurchase of these plays; and it is not generally believed thatShakespeare was the author of all these plays, in the form which theybore in 1591-4: though there is much difference of opinion. 

There is one rather interesting case. On August 25, 1594, Hensloweenters "ne" (that is, "a new play") "Received at the VenesyonComodey, eighteen pence. " That was his share of the receipts. TheLord Chamberlain's Company, that of Shakespeare, was playing inHenslowe's theatre at Newington Butts. If the "Venesyon Comodey"(Venetian Comedy) were The Merchant of Venice, this is the firstmention of it. But nobody knows what Henslowe meant by "the VenesyonComodey. " He does not mention the author's name, because, in thispart of his accounts he never does mention the author or authors. Heonly names them when he buys from, or lends to, or has other moneydealings with the authors. He had none with Shakespeare, hence theSilence of Philip Henslowe. 

CHAPTER IX: THE LATER LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE--HIS MONUMENT ANDPORTRAITS

In the chapter on the Preoccupations of Bacon the reader may findhelp in making up his mind as to whether Bacon, with his many andonerous duties and occupations, his scientific studies, and hisabsorbing scientific preoccupation, is a probable author of theShakespearean plays. Mr. Greenwood finds the young Shakspereimpossible--because of his ignorance--which made him such a reallygood pseudo-author, and such a successful mask for Bacon, or Bacon'sunknown equivalent. The Shakspere of later life, the well-to-doShakspere, the purchaser of the right to bear arms; so bad at payingone debt at least; so eager a creditor; a would-be encloser of acommon; a man totally bookless, is, to Mr. Greenwood's mind, animpossible author of the later plays. 

Here, first, are moral objections on the ground of character asrevealed in some legal documents concerning business. Now, I am veryready to confess that William's dealings with his debtors, and withone creditor, are wholly unlike what I should expect from the authorof the plays. Moreover, the conduct of Shelley in regard to his wifewas, in my opinion, very mean and cruel, and the last thing that wecould have expected from one who, in verse, was such a tenderphilanthropist, and in life was--women apart--the best-hearted ofmen. The conduct of Robert Burns, alas, too often disappoints thelover of his Cottar's Saturday Night and other moral pieces. He wasan inconsistent walker. 

I sincerely wish that Shakespeare had been less hard in moneymatters, just as I wish that in financial matters Scott had been morelike himself, that he had not done the last things that we shouldhave expected him to do. As a member of the Scottish Bar it wasinconsistent with his honour to be the secret proprietor of apublishing and a printing business. This is the unexplained moralparadox in the career of a man of chivalrous honour and strictprobity: but the fault did not prevent Scott from writing his novelsand poems. Why, then, should the few bare records of Shakspere'smonetary transactions make HIS authorship impossible? The objectionseems weakly sentimental. 

Macaulay scolds Scott as fiercely as Mr. Greenwood scolds Shakspere, --for the more part, ignorantly and unjustly. Still, there is matterto cause surprise and regret. Both Scott and Shakspere are accusedof writing for gain, and of spending money on lands and houses withthe desire to found families. But in the mysterious mixture of eachhuman personality, any sober soul who reflects on his own sins andfailings will not think other men's failings incompatible withintellectual excellence. Bacon's own conduct in money matters wasthat of a man equally grasping and extravagant. Ben Jonson thusdescribes Shakespeare as a social character: "He was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature . . . I loved the man and do honourhis memory on this side idolatry as much as any. " Perhaps Ben neverowed money to Shakspere and refused to pay!

We must not judge a man's whole intellectual character, and declarehim to be incapable of poetry, on the score of a few legal papersabout matters of business. Apparently Shakspere helped thatElizabethan Mr. Micawber, his father, out of a pecuniary slough ofdespond, in which the ex-High Bailiff of the town was floundering, --pursued by the distraint of one of the friendly family of Quiney--Adrian Quiney. They were neighbours and made a common dunghill inHenley Street. {171a} I do not, like Mr. Greenwood, see anything "atall out of the way" in the circumstance "that a man should be writingHamlet, and at the same time bringing actions for petty sums lent onloan at some unspecified interest. " {171b} Nor do I see anything atall out of the way in Bacon's prosecution of his friend andbenefactor, Essex (1601), while Bacon was writing Hamlet. Indeed, Shakspere's case is the less "out of the way" of the two. He wantedhis loan to be repaid, and told his lawyer to bring an action. Baconwanted to keep his head (of inestimable value) on his shoulders; orto keep his body out of the Tower; or he merely, as he declares, wanted to do his duty as a lawyer of the Crown. In any case, Baconwas in a tragic position almost unexampled; and was at onceoverwhelmed by work, and, one must suppose, by acute distress ofmind, in the case of Essex. He must have felt this the more keenly, if, as some Baconians vow, HE WROTE THE SONNETS TO ESSEX. Whether hewere writing his Hamlet when engaged in Essex's case (1601), or anyother of his dramatic masterpieces, even this astonishing man musthave been sorely bestead to combine so many branches of business. 

Thus I would reply to Mr. Greenwood's amazement that Shakspere, ahard creditor, and so forth, should none the less have been able towrite his plays. But if it is meant that a few business transactionsmust have absorbed the whole consciousness of Shakespeare, and lefthim neither time nor inclination for poetry, consider the scientificpreoccupation of Bacon, his parliamentary duties, his ceaselessactivity as "one of the legal body-guard of the Queen" at a time whenhe had often to be examining persons accused of conspiracy, --and donot forget his long and poignant anxiety about Essex, his constantefforts to reconcile him with Elizabeth, and to advocate his causewithout losing her favour; and, finally, the anguish of prosecutinghis friend, and of knowing how hardly the world judged his ownconduct. Follow him into his relations with James I; his eagerpursuit of favour, the multiplicity of his affairs, his pecuniarydistresses, and the profound study and severe labour entailed by thepreparation for and the composition of The Advancement of Learning(1603-5). He must be a stout-hearted Baconian who can believe that, between 1599 and 1605, Bacon was writing Hamlet, and othermasterpieces of tragedy or comedy. But all is possible to genius. What Mr. Greenwood's Great Unknown was doing at this period, "neitherdoes he know, nor do I know, but he only. " He, no doubt, hadabundance of leisure. 

At last Shakspere died (1616), and had not the mead of one melodioustear, as far as we know, from the London wits, in the shape ofobituary verses. This fills Mr. Greenwood with amazement. "Was itbecause 'the friends of the Muses' were for the most part aware thatShakespeare had not died with Shakspere?" Did Jonson perchance thinkthat his idea might be realised when he wrote, "What a sight it were, To see thee in our waters yet appear"?

and so on. Did Jonson expect and hope to see the genuine"Shakespeare" return to the stage, seven years after the death ofShakspere the actor, the Swan of Avon? As Jonson was fairly sane, wecan no more suspect him of having hoped for this miracle than believethat most of the poets knew the actor not to be the author. MoreoverJonson, while desiring that Shakespeare might "shine forth" again andcheer the drooping stage, added, "Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like Night, And despairs day, but for thy volume's light, "

that is--the Folio of 1623. Ben did not weave the amazing tissue ofinvolved and contradictory falsities attributed to him by Baconians. Beaumont died in the same year as Shakspere, who died in the depthsof the country, weary of London. Has Mr. Greenwood found obituarypoems dropped on the grave of the famous Beaumont? Did Fletcher, didJonson, produce one melodious tear for the loss of their friend; inFletcher's case his constant partner? No? Were the poets, then, aware that Beaumont was a humbug, whose poems and plays were writtenby Bacon? {174a}

I am not to discuss Shakespeare's Will, the "second-best bed, " and soforth. But as Shakespeare's Will says not a word about his books, itis decided by Mr. Greenwood that he had no books. Mr. Greenwood is alawyer; so was my late friend Mr. Charles Elton, Q. C. , of WhiteStaunton, who remarks that Shakespeare bequeathed "all the rest of mygoods, chattels, leases, &c. , to my son-in-law, John Hall, gent. "(He really WAS a "gent. " with authentic coat-armour. )

It is with Mr. Elton's opinion, not with my ignorance, that Mr. Greenwood must argue in proof of the view that "goods" arenecessarily exclusive of books, for Mr. Elton takes it as a quitenatural fact that Shakespeare's books passed, with his other goods, to Mr. Hall, and thence to a Mr. Nash, to whom Mr. Hall left "mystudy of books" {175a} (library). I only give this as a lawyer'sopinion. 

There is in the Bodleian an Aldine Ovid, "with Shakespeare's"signature (merely Wm. She. ), and a note, "This little volume of Ovidwas given to me by W. Hall, who sayd it was once Will Shakespeare's. "I do not know that the signature (like that on Florio's Montaigne, inthe British Museum) has been detected as a forgery; nor do I knowthat Shakespeare's not specially mentioning his books proves that hehad none. Lawyers appear to differ as to this inference: both Mr. Elton and Mr. Greenwood seem equally confident. {175b} But if itwere perfectly natural that the actor, Shakspere, should have nobooks, then he certainly made no effort, by the local colour ofowning a few volumes, to persuade mankind that he WAS the author. Yet they believed that he was--really there is no wriggling out ofit. As regards any of his own MSS. Which Shakespeare may have had(one would expect them to be at his theatre), and their monetaryvalue, if they were not, as usual, the property of his company, andof him as a member thereof, we can discuss that question in thesection headed "The First Folio. "

It appears that Shakespeare's daughter, Judith, could write no morethan her grandfather. {176a} Nor, I repeat, could the Lady JaneGordon, daughter of the great Earl of Huntly, when she was married tothe Earl of Bothwell in 1566. At all events, Lady Jane "made hermark. " It may be feared that Judith, brought up in that veryilliterate town of Stratford, under an illiterate mother, wasneglected in her education. Sad, but very common in women of herrank, and scarcely a proof that her father did not write the plays. 

As "nothing is known of the disposition and character" {176b} ofShakespeare's grand-daughter, Lady Barnard, who died in 1670, it isnot so paralysingly strange that nothing is known of any relics oranecdotes of Shakespeare which she may have possessed. Mr. Greenwood"would have supposed that she would have had much to say about thegreat poet, " exhibited his books (if any), and so forth. Perhaps shedid, --but how, if we "know nothing about her disposition andcharacter, " can we tell? No interviewers rushed to her house(Abington Hall, Northampton-shire) with pencils and notebooks torecord her utterances; no reporter interviewed her for the press. Itis surprising, is it not?

The inference might be drawn, in the Baconian manner, that, duringthe Commonwealth and Restoration, "the friends of the Muses" knewthat the actor was NOT the author, and therefore did not interviewhis granddaughter in the country. 

"But, at any rate, we have the Stratford monument, " says Mr. Greenwood, and delves into this problem. Even the Stratford monumentof Shakespeare in the parish church is haunted by Baconian mysteries. If the gentle reader will throw his eye over the photograph {177a} ofthe monument as it now exists, he may not be able to say to the faceof the poet -

"Thou wast that all to me, Will, For which my soul did pine. "

But if he has any knowledge of Jacobean busts on monuments, he willprobably agree with me in saying, "This effigy, though executed bysomebody who was not a Pheidias, and who perhaps worked merely fromdescriptions, is, at all events, Jacobean. " The same may assuredlybe said of the monument; it is in good Jacobean style: the pillarswith their capitals are graceful: all the rest is in keeping; andthe two inscriptions are in the square capital letters ofinscriptions of the period; not in italic characters. Distrusting myown EXPERTISE, I have consulted Sir Sidney Colvin, and Mr. Holmes ofthe National Portrait Gallery. They, with Mr. Spielmann, think thework to be of the early seventeenth century. 

Next, glance at the figure opposite. This is a reproduction of "theearliest representation of the Bust" (and monument) in Dugdale'sAntiquities of Warwickshire (1656). Compare the two objects, pointby point, from the potato on top with holes in it, of Dugdale, whichis meant for a skull, through all the details, --bust and all. DoesDugdale's print, whether engraved by Hollar or not, represent aJacobean work? Look at the two ludicrous children, their legsdangling in air; at the lions' heads above the capitals of thepillars; at the lettering of the two visible words of theinscription, and at the gloomy hypochondriac or lunatic, clasping acushion to his abdomen. That hideous design was not executed by anartist who "had his eye on the object, " if the object were a Jacobeanmonument: while the actual monument was fashioned in no period ofart but the Jacobean. From Digges' rhymes in the Folio of 1623, weknow that Shakespeare already had his "Stratford monument. " THEEXISTING OBJECT IS WHAT HE HAD; the monument in Dugdale is what, Ihope, no architect of 1616-23 could have imagined or designed. 

Dugdale's engraving is not a correct copy of any genuine Jacobeanwork of art. Is Dugdale accurate in his reproductions of othermonuments in Stratford Church? To satisfy himself on this point, SirGeorge Trevelyan, as he wrote to me (June 13, 1912), "made a sketchof the Carew Renaissance monument in Stratford Church, and found thatthe discrepancies between the original tomb and the representation inDugdale's Warwickshire are far and away greater than in the monumentto William Shakespeare. "

Mr. Greenwood, {179a} while justly observing that "the little sittingfigures . . . Are placed as no monumental sculptor would place them, ""on the whole sees no reason at all why we should doubt thesubstantial accuracy of Dugdale's figure . . . It is impossible tosuppose that Hollar would have drawn and that Dugdale would havepublished a mere travesty of the Stratford Monument. "

I do not know who drew the design, but a travesty of Jacobean work itis in every detail of the monument. A travesty is what Dugdale givesas a representation of the Carew monument. Mr. Greenwood, elsewhere, repeating his criticism of the impossible figures of children, says:"This is certainly mere matter of detail, and, in the absence ofother evidence, would give us no warrant for doubting the substantialaccuracy of Dugdale's presentment of the 'Shakespeare' bust. " {180a}

Why are we to believe that Dugdale's artist was merely fantastic inhis design of the children (and also remote from Jacobean taste inevery detail), and yet to credit him with "substantial accuracy" inhis half-length of a gloomy creature clutching a cushion to hisstomach? With his inaccuracies as to the Carew monument, why are weto accept him as accurate in his representation of the bust?Moreover, other evidence is not wanting. It is positively certainthat the monument existing in 1748, was then known as "the originalmonument, " and that no other monument was put in its place, at thatdate or later. 

Now Mrs. Stopes {180b} argues that in 1748 the monument was "entirelyreconstructed, " and so must have become no longer what Dugdale's mandrew, but what we see to-day. It is positively certain that heropinion is erroneous. 

If ever what we see to-day was substituted for anything like whatDugdale's man drew, the date of the substitution is unknown. 

Mrs. Stopes herself discovered the documents which disprove hertheory. They were known to Halliwell-Phillipps, who quotes anunnamed "contemporary account. " {181a} This account Mrs. Stopes, with her tireless industry, found in the Wheler manuscripts, amongpapers of the Rev. Joseph Greene, in 1746 Head Master of the GrammarSchool. In one paper of September 1740 "the original monument" issaid to be "much impaired and decayed. " There was a scheme formaking "a new monument" in Westminster Abbey. THAT, I venture tothink, would have been in Hanoverian, not in Jacobean taste andstyle. But there was no money for a new monument. Mrs. Stopes alsofound a paper of November 20, 1748, showing that in September 1746, Mr. Ward (grandfather of Mrs. Siddons) was at Stratford with "a cryof players. " He devoted the proceeds of a performance of Othello tothe reparation of the then existing monument. The amount was twelvepounds ten shillings. The affair dragged on, one of the Church-wardens, a blacksmith, held the 12 pounds, 10s. , and was troublesome. The document of November 20, 1748, was drawn up to be signed, but wasnot signed, by the persons who appear to be chiefly concerned in thematter. It directed that Mr. Hall, a local limner or painter, is to"take care, according to his ability, that the monument shall becomeas like as possible to what it was when first erected. " This appearsto have been the idea of Mr. Greene. Another form of words was lateradopted, directing Mr. Hall, the painter, "to repair and beautify, orto have the direction of repairing and beautifying, THE ORIGINALMONUMENT of Shakespeare the poet. " Mrs. Stopes infers, justly in myopinion, that Hall "would fill up the gaps, restore what was amissingas he thought it ought to be, and finally repaint it according to theoriginal colours, traces of which he might still be able to see. " Inhis History and Antiquities of Stratford-on-Avon, {182a} Mr. Whelertells us that this was what Hall did. "In the year 1748 the monumentwas carefully repaired, and the original colours of the bust, &c. , asmuch as possible preserved by Mr. John Hall, limner, of Stratford. "

It follows that we see the original monument and bust, but thepainting is of 1861, for the bust, says Wheler, was in 1793 "paintedin white, " to please Malone. It was repainted in 1861. 

Mrs. Stopes, unluckily, is not content with what Hall was told to do, and what, according to Wheler, he did. She writes: "It would onlybe giving good value for his money" (12 pounds, 10s. ) "to hischurchwardens if Hall added (sic) a cloak, a pen, and manuscript. "He "could not help changing" the face, and so on. 

Now it was physically impossible to ADD a cloak, a pen, andmanuscript to such a stone bust as Dugdale's man shows; to take awaythe cushion pressed to the stomach, and to alter the head. Mr. Hall, if he was to give us the present bust, had to make an entirely newbust, and, to give us the present monument in place of that shown inDugdale's print, had to construct an entirely new monument. Now Hallwas a painter, not (like Giulio Romano) also an architect andsculptor. Pour tout potage he had but 12 pounds, 10s. He could notdo, and he did not do these things! he did not destroy "the originalmonument" and make a new monument in Jacobean style. He was straitlyordered to "repair and beautify the original monument"; he did repairit, and repainted the colours. That is all. I do not quote whatHalliwell-Phillipps tells us {183a} about the repairing of theforefinger and thumb of the right hand, and the pen; work which, hesays, had to be renewed by William Roberts of Oxford in 1790. Hegives no authority, and Baconians may say that he was hoaxed, or"lied with circumstance. "

Mr. Greenwood {183b} quotes Halliwell-Phillipps's Works ofShakespeare (1853), in which he says that the design in Dugdale'sbook "is evidently too inaccurate to be of any authority; theprobability being that it was not taken from the monument itself. "Indeed the designer is so inaccurate that he gives the first word ofthe Latin inscription as "Judicyo, " just as Oudry blunders in theLatin inscription of a portrait of Mary Stuart which he copied badly. Mr. Greenwood proceeds: "In his Outlines Halliwell simply ignoresDugdale. His engraving was doubtless too inconvenient to be broughtto public notice!" Here Halliwell is accused of suppressing thetruth; if he invented his minute details about the repeatedreparation of the writing hand, --not represented in Dugdale'sdesign, --he also lied with circumstance. But he certainly quoted agenuine "contemporary account" of the orders for repairing andbeautifying the original monument in 1748, and I presume that he alsohad records for what he says about reparations of the hand and pen. He speaks, too, of substitutions for decayed alabaster parts of themonument, though not in his Outlines; and I observe that, in Mrs. Stopes's papers, there is record of a meeting on December 20, 1748, at which mention was made of "the materials" which Hall was to usefor repairs. 

To me the evidence of the style as to the date of both monument andbust speaks so loudly for their accepted date (1616-23) and againstthe Georgian date of 1748, that I need no other evidence; nor do Isuppose that any one familiar with the monumental style of 1590-1620can be of a different opinion. In the same way I do not expect anyartist or engraver to take the engraving of the monument in Rowe'sShakespeare (1709), and that by Grignion so late as 1786, foranything but copies of the design in Dugdale, with modifications madea plaisir. In Pope's edition (1725) Vertue gives the monument withsome approach to accuracy, but for the bald plump face of the bustpresents a top-heavy and sculpturally impossible face borrowed from"the Chandos portrait, " which, in my opinion, is of no more authoritythan any other portrait of Shakespeare. None of them, I conceive, was painted from the life. 

The Baconians show a wistful longing to suppose the original bust, copied in Dugdale, to have been meant for Bacon; but we need notwaste words over this speculation. Mr. Greenwood writes that "if Ishould be told that Dugdale's effigy represented an elderly farmerdeploring an exceptionally bad harvest, 'I should not feel it to bestrange!' Neither should I feel it at all strange if I were toldthat it was the presentment of a philosopher and Lord Chancellor, whohad fallen from high estate and recognised that all things are butvanity. "

"_I_ should not feel it to be strange" if a Baconian told me that theeffigy of a living ex-Chancellor were placed in the monument of thedead Will Shakspere, and if, on asking why the alteration was made, Iwere asked in reply, in Mr. Greenwood's words, "Was Dugdale's bustthought to bear too much resemblance to one who was not Shakspere ofStratford? Or was it thought that the presence of a woolsack" (thecushion) "might be taken as indicating that Shakspere of Stratfordwas indebted for support to a certain Lord Chancellor?" {186a} Such, indeed, are the things that Baconians might readily say: do say, Ibelieve. 

Dugdale's engraving reproduces the first words of a Latininscription, still on the monument:

Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem Terra tegit, populus maeret, Olympus habet:

"Earth covers, Olympus" (heaven? or the Muses' Hill?) "holds him whowas a Nestor in counsel; in poetic art, a Virgil; a Socrates for hisDaemon" ("Genius"). As for the "Genius, " or daemon of Socrates, andthe permitted false quantity in making the first syllable of Socratesshort; and the use of Olympus for heaven in epitaphs, it issufficient to consult the learning of Mr. Elton. {186b} The poet whomade such notable false quantities in his plays had no cause toobject to another on his monument. We do not know who erected themonument, and paid for it, or who wrote or adapted the epitaph; butit was somebody who thought Shakespeare (or Bacon?) "a clayver man. "The monument (if a trembling conjecture may be humbly put forth) wasconceivably erected by the piety of Shakespeare's daughter and son-in-law, Mr. And Mrs. Hall. They exhibit a taste for the mortuarymemorial and the queer Latin inscription. Mrs. Hall gratified theManes of her poor mother, Mrs. Shakespeare, with one of the oddest ofLatin epitaphs. {187a} It opens like an epigram in the GreekAnthology, and ends in an unusual strain of Christian mysticism. Mr. Hall possesses, perhaps arranged for himself, a few Latin elegiacs asan epitaph. 

The famous "Good friend for Jesus' sake forbear, " and so on, on thestone in the chancel, beneath which the sacred dust of Shakespearelies, or lay, is the first of "the last lines written, we are told, "{187b} "by the author of Hamlet. " Who tells us that Shakespearewrote the four lines of doggerel? Is it conceivable that theauthority for Shakespeare's authorship of the doggerel is a traditiongleaned by Mr. Dowdall of Queen's in 1693, from a parish clerk, agedover eighty, he says, --criticism makes the clerk twenty yearsyounger. {187c} For Baconians the lines are bad enough to be thework of William Shakspere of Stratford. 

Meanwhile, in 1649, when Will's daughter, Mrs. Hall, died, herepitaph spoke quite respectfully of her father's intelligence. 

"Witty above her sex, but that's not all, Wise to salvation was good Mistris Hall, Something of Shakespeare was in THAT, but THISWholly of Him with whom she's now in bliss. " {187d}

Thirty-three years after Shakespeare's death he was still thought"witty" in Stratford. But what could Stratford know? Milton andCharles I were of the same opinion; so was Suckling, and the rest ofthe generation after Shakespeare. But they did not know, how shouldthey, that Bacon (or his equivalent) was the genuine author of theplays and poems. The secret, perhaps, so widely spread among "thefriends of the Muses" in 1616, was singularly well kept by a set ofmen rather given to blab as a general rule. 

I confess to be passing weary of the Baconian hatred of Will, whichpursues him beyond his death with sneers and fantastic suspicionsabout his monument and his grave, and asks if he "died with a curseupon his lips, an imprecation against any man who might MOVE HISBONES? A mean and vulgar curse indeed!" {188a} And the authorityfor the circumstance that he died with a mean and vulgar curse uponhis lips?

About 1694, a year after Mr. Dowdall in 1693, and eighty years almostafter Shakespeare's death, W. Hall, a Queen's man, Oxford (the W. Hall, perhaps, who gave the Bodleian Aldine Ovid, with Shakespeare'ssignature, true or forged, to its unknown owner), went to Stratford, and wrote about his pilgrimage to his friend Mr. Thwaites, a Fellowof Queen's. Mr. Hall heard the story that Shakespeare was the authorof the mean and vulgar curse. He adds that there was a great ossuaryor bone-house in the church, where all the bones dug up were piled, "they would load a great number of waggons. " Not desiring thispromiscuity, Shakespeare wrote the Curse in a style intelligible toclerks and sextons, "for the most part a very ignorant sort ofpeople. "

If Shakespeare DID, that accommodation of himself to his audience wasthe last stroke of his wisdom, or his wit. {189a} Of course there isno evidence that he wrote the mean and vulgar curse: that he did isonly the pious hope of the Baconians and Anti-Willians. 

Into the question of the alleged portraits of Shakespeare I cannotenter. Ben spoke well of the engraving prefixed to the First Folio, but Ben, as Mr. Greenwood says, was anxious to give the Folio "a goodsend-off. " The engraving is choicely bad; we do not know from whatactual portrait, if from any, it was executed. Richard Burbage isknown to have amused himself with the art of design; possibly hetried his hand on a likeness of his old friend and fellow-actor. Ifso, he may have succeeded no better than Mary Stuart's embroiderer, Oudry, in his copy of the portrait of her Majesty. 

That Ben Jonson was painted by Honthorst and others, whileShakespeare, as far as we know, was not, has nothing to do with theauthorship of the plays. Ben was a scholar, the darling of bothUniversities; constantly employed about the Court in arrangingMasques; his learning and his Scottish blood may have led James I tonotice him. Ben, in his later years, was much in society;fashionable and literary. He was the father of the literary "tribeof Ben. " Thus he naturally sat for his portrait. In the same wayGeorge Buchanan has, and had, nothing like the fame of Knox. But asa scholar he was of European reputation; haunted the Court as tutorof his King, and was the "good pen" of the anti-Marian nobles, Murray, Morton, and the rest. Therefore Buchanan's portrait waspainted, while of Knox we have only a woodcut, done, apparently, after his death, from descriptions, for Beza's Icones. The Folioengraving may have no better source. Without much minute research itis hard to find authentic portraits of Mary Stuart, and, just as inShakespeare's case, {190a} the market, in her own day and in theeighteenth century, was flooded with "mock-originals, " not evenderived (in any case known to me) from genuine and authenticcontemporary works. 

One thing is certain about the Stratford bust. Baconians willbelieve that Dugdale's man correctly represented the bust as it wasin his time; and that the actual bust is of 1748, in spite of proofsof Dugdale's man's fantastic inaccuracy; in spite of the evidence ofstyle; and in spite of documentary evidence that "the originalmonument" was not to be destroyed and replaced by the actualmonument, but was merely "repaired and beautified" (painted afresh)by a local painter. 

CHAPTER X: "THE TRADITIONAL SHAKSPERE"

In perusing the copious arguments of the Anti-Shakesperean but Non-Baconian Mr. Greenwood, I am often tempted, in Socratic phrase, toaddress him thus: Best of men, let me implore you, first, to keep inmemory these statements on which you have most eloquently andabundantly insisted, namely, that society in Stratford was not onlynot literary, but was illiterate. Next pardon me for asking you toremember that the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth centurydid not resemble our fortunate age. Some people read Shakespeare's, Beaumont's, and Fletcher's plays. This exercise is now very rarelypractised. But nobody cared to chronicle literary gossip about theprivate lives and personal traits of these and several otherElizabethan and Jacobean playwrights, in the modern manner. OfShakespeare (pardon, I mean Shakspere), the actor, there is onecontemporary anecdote, in my poor opinion a baseless waggery. OfBeaumont there is none. Of a hand-maid of Fletcher, who drank sackin a tumbler, one anecdote appears at the end of the seventeenthcentury, --nothing better. Meanwhile of Shakspere the "traditions"must be sought either at Stratford or in connection with the LondonStage; and in both cases the traditions began to be in demand verylate. 

As Stratford was not literary, indeed was terribly illiterate, anytraditions that survived cannot conceivably have been literary. Thatis absolutely certain. Natives at Stratford had, by your ownhypothesis, scant interest in literary anecdote. Fifty years afterShakespeare's death, no native was likely to cherish tales of anysprouts of wit (though it was remembered in 1649, that he was"witty"), or any "wood-notes wild, " which he may have displayed orchirped at an early age. 

Such things were of no interest to Stratford. If he made a speechwhen he killed a calf, or poached, or ran away to town, thecircumstance might descend from one gaffer to another; he might evenbe remembered as "the best of his family, "--the least inefficient. Given your non-literary and illiterate Stratford, and you can expectnothing more, and nothing better, than we receive. 

Let me illustrate by a modern example. In 1866 I was anundergraduate of a year's standing at Balliol College, Oxford, certainly not an unlettered academy. In that year, the early and thebest poems of a considerable Balliol poet were published: he had"gone down" some eight years before. Being young and green I eagerlysought for traditions about Mr. Swinburne. One of hiscontemporaries, who took a First in the final Classical Schools, toldme that "he was a smug. " Another, that, as Mr. Swinburne and hisfriend (later a Scotch professor) were not cricketers, they proposedthat they should combine to pay but a single subscription to theCricket Club. A third, a tutor of the highest reputation as amoralist and metaphysician, merely smiled at my early enthusiasm, --and told me nothing. A white-haired College servant said that "Mr. Swinburne was a very quiet gentleman. "

Then you take us to dirty illiterate Stratford, from fifty to eightyyears after Shakspere's death, --a Civil War and the Reign of theSaints, a Restoration and a Revolution having intervened, --and ask usto be surprised that no anecdotes of Shakspere's early brilliance, acentury before, survived at Stratford. 

A very humble parallel may follow. Some foolish person went seekingearly anecdotes of myself at my native town, Selkirk on the Ettrick. From an intelligent townsman he gathered much that was true andinteresting about my younger brothers, who delighted in horses anddogs, hunted, shot, and fished, and played cricket; one of thembowled for Gloucestershire and Oxford. But about me the inquiringliterary snipe only heard that "Andra was aye the stupid ane o' thefam'ly. " Yet, I, too, had bowled for the local club, non sinegloria! Even THAT was forgotten. 

Try to remember, best of men, that literary anecdotes of a fellowtownsman's youth do not dwell in the memories of his neighbours fromsixty to a hundred years after date. It is not in human nature thatwhat was incomprehensible to the grandsire should be remembered bythe grandson. Go to "Thrums" and ask for literary memories of theyouth of Mr. Barrie. 

Yet {198a} the learned Malone seems to have been sorry that little ofShakespeare but the calf-killing and the poaching, and the dying of afever after drink taken (WHERE, I ask you?), with Ben and Drayton, was remembered, so long after date, at Stratford, of all dirtyignorant places. Bah! how could these people have heard of Draytonand Ben? Remember that we are dealing with human nature, in apeculiarly malodorous and densely ignorant bourgade, where, however, the "wit" of Shakespeare was not forgotten (in the family) in 1649. See the epithet on the tomb of his daughter, Mrs. Hall. 

You give us the Rev. John Ward, vicar of Stratford (1661-3), who hasheard that the actor was "a natural wit, " and contracted and died ofa fever, after a bout with Drayton and Ben. I can scarcely believethat THESE were local traditions. How could these rustauds have anopinion about "natural wit, " how could they have known the names ofBen and Drayton?

When you come to Aubrey, publishing in 1680, sixty years afterShakespeare's death, you neglect to trace the steps in the descent ofhis tradition. As has been stated, Beeston, "the chronicle of theStage" (died 1682), gave him the story of the school-mastering;Beeston being the son of a servitor of Phillips, an actor and friendof Shakespeare, who died eleven years before that player. The storyof the school-mastering and of Shakespeare "knowing Latin prettywell, " is of no value to me. I think that he had some knowledge ofLatin, as he must have had, if he were what I fancy him to have been, and if (which is mere hypothesis) he went for four years to a LatinSchool. But the story does not suit you, and you call it "a meremyth, " which, "of course, will be believed by those who wish tobelieve it. " But, most excellent of mortals, will it not, by parityof reasoning, "of course be disbelieved by those who do NOT wish tobelieve it"?

And do you want to believe it?

To several stage anecdotes of the actor as an excellent instructor ofyounger players, you refer slightingly. They do not weigh with me:still, the Stage would remember Shakspere (or Shakespeare) best instage affairs. In reference to a very elliptic statement that, "inHamlet Betterton benefited by Shakespeare's coaching, " you write, "This is astonishing, seeing that Shakspere had been in his gravenearly twenty years when Betterton was born. The explanation is thatTaylor, of the Black Fryars Company, was, according to Sir WilliamDavenant, instructed by Shakspere, and Davenant, who had seen Tayloract, according to Downes, instructed Betterton. There is a similarstory about Betterton playing King Henry VIII. Betterton was said tohave been instructed by Sir William, who was instructed by Lowen, whowas instructed by Shakspere!" {200a}

Why a note of exclamation? Who was Downes, and what were hisopportunities of acquiring information? He "was for many years book-keeper in the Duke's Company, first under Davenant in the old house . . . " Davenant was notoriously the main link between "the first andsecond Temple, " the theatre of Shakespeare whom, as a boy, he knew, and the Restoration theatre. Devoted to the traditions of the stage, he collected Shakespearean and other anecdotes; he revived thetheatre, cautiously, during the last years of Puritan rule, and toldhis stories to the players of the early Restoration. As his Book-keeper with the Duke of York's Company, Downes heard what Davenanthad to tell; he also, for his Roscius Anglicanus, had notes fromCharles Booth, prompter at Drury Lane. On May 28, 1663, Davenantreproduced Hamlet, with young Betterton as the Prince of Denmark. Davenant, says Charles Booth, "had seen the part taken by Taylor, ofthe Black Fryars Company, and Taylor had been instructed by theauthor, (not Bacon but) "Mr. William Shakespeare, " and Davenant"taught Mr. Betterton in every particle of it. " Mr. Elton adds, "Wecannot be sure that Taylor was taught by Shakespeare himself. He isbelieved to have been a member of the King's Company before 1613, andto have left it for a time before Shakespeare's death. " {201a} Hisname is in the list in the Folio of "the principall Actors in allthese plays, " but I cannot pretend to be certain that he played inthem in Will's time. 

It is Mr. Pepys (December 30, 1668) who chronicles Davenant'ssplendid revival of Henry VIII, in which Betterton, as the King, wasinstructed by Sir William Davenant, who had it from old Mr. Lowen, that had his instruction "from Mr. Shakespear himself. " Lowin, orLowen, joined Shakespeare's Company in 1604, being then a man oftwenty-eight. Burbage was the natural man for Hamlet and Henry VIII;but it is not unusual for actors to have "understudies. "

The stage is notoriously tenacious of such traditions. 

When we come with you to Mr. W. Fulman, about 1688, and the additionsto his notes made about 1690-1708, we are concerned with evidencemuch too remote, and, in your own classical style, "all this is justa little mixed. " {201b} With what Mr. Dowdall heard in 1693, and Mr. William Hall (1694) heard from a clerk or sexton, or other illiteratedotard at Stratford, I have already dealt. I do not habituallybelieve in what I hear from "the oldest aunt telling the saddesttale, "--no, not even if she tells a ghost story, or an anecdote aboutthe presentation by Queen Mary of her portrait to the ancestor of theLaird, --the portrait being dated 1768, and representing her Majestyin the bloom of girlhood. Nor do I care for what Rowe said (onBetterton's information), in 1709, about Shakespeare's schooling; norfor what Dr. Furnivall said that Plume wrote; nor for what anybodysaid that Sir John Mennes (Menzies?) said. But I do care for whatBen Jonson and Shakespeare's fellow-actors said; and for what hisliterary contemporaries have left on record. But this evidence youexplain away by aetiological guesses, absolutely modern, and, Iconceive, to anyone familiar with historical inquiry, not morevaluable as history than other explanatory myths. 

What Will Shakspere had to his literary credit when he died, wasmen's impressions of the seeing of his acted plays; with theirknowledge, if they had any, of fugitive, cheap, perishable, and oftenbad reprints, in quartos, of about half of the plays. Men also hadVenus and Adonis, Lucrece, and the Sonnets, which sold very poorly, and I do not wonder at it. Of the genius of Shakespeare Englandcould form no conception, till the publication of the Folio (1623), not in a large edition; it struggled into a Third Edition in 1664. The engouement about the poet, the search for personal details, didnot manifest itself with any vigour till nearly thirty years after1664--and we are to wonder that the gleanings, at illiterateStratford, and in Stage tradition, are so scanty and so valueless. What could have been picked up, by 1680-90, about Bacon atGorhambury, or in the Courts of Law, I wonder. 

CHAPTER XI: THE FIRST FOLIO

"The First Folio" is the name commonly given to the first collectededition of Shakespeare's plays. The volume includes a Preface signedby two of the actors, Heminge and Condell, panegyrical verses by BenJonson and others, and a bad engraved portrait. The book has beenmicroscopically examined by Baconians, hunting for cyphered messagesfrom their idol in italics, capital letters, misprints, andeverywhere. Their various discoveries do not win the assent ofwriters like the late Lord Penzance and Mr. Greenwood. 

The mystery as to the sources, editing, and selection of plays in theFolio (1623) appears to be impenetrable. The title-page says thatALL the contents are published "according to the true originalcopies. " If ONLY MS. Copies are meant, this is untrue; in some casesthe best quartos were the chief source, supplemented by MSS. TheBaconians, following Malone, think that Ben Jonson wrote the Preface(and certainly it looks like his work), {207a} speaking in the nameof the two actors who sign it. They say that Shakespeare's friends"have collected and published" the plays, have so published them"that whereas you were abus'd with divers stolne and surreptitiouscopies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injuriousimpostors that exposed them: EVEN THOSE" (namely, the piecespreviously ill-produced by pirates) "are now offered to your viewcur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and ALL THE REST" (that is, allthe plays which had not been piratically debased), "absolute in theirnumbers, as he conceived them. " So obscure is the Preface that notALL previously published separate plays are explicitly said to bestolen and deformed, but "DIVERS stolen copies" are denounced. Mr. Pollard makes the same point in Shakespeare Folios and Quartos, p. 2(1909). 

Now, as a matter of fact, while some of the quarto editions ofseparate plays are very bad texts, others are so good that the Foliosometimes practically reprints them, with some tinkerings, frommanuscripts. Some quartos, like that of Hamlet of 1604, areexcellent, and how they came to be printed from good texts, andwhether or not the texts were given to the press by Shakespeare'sCompany, or were sold, or stolen, is the question. Mr. Pollardargues, on grounds almost certain, that "we have strong prima facieevidence that the sale to publishers of plays afterwards duly enteredon the Stationers' Registers was regulated by their lawful owners. "{208a}

The Preface does not explicitly deny that some of the separatelyprinted texts were good, but says that "divers" of them were stolenand deformed. My view of the meaning of the Preface is not generallyheld. Dr. H. H. Furness, in his preface to Much Ado about Nothing(p. Vi), says, "We all know that these two friends of Shakespeareassert in their Preface to the Folio that they had used the Author'smanuscripts, and in the same breath denounce the Quartos as stolenand surreptitious. " I cannot see, I repeat, that the Prefacedenounces ALL the Quartos. It could be truly said that DIVERS stolenand maimed copies had been foisted on "abused" purchasers, and reallyno more IS said. Dr. Furness writes, "When we now find them using as'copy' one of these very Quartos" (Much Ado about Nothing, 1600), "weneed not impute to them a wilful falsehood if we suppose that inusing what they knew had been printed from the original text, howsoever obtained, they held it to be the same as the manuscriptitself . . . " That WAS their meaning, I think, the Quarto of MuchAdo had NOT been "maimed" and "deformed, " as divers other quartos, stolen and surreptitious, had been. 

Shakspere, unlike most of the other playwrights, was a member of hisCompany. I presume that his play was thus the common good of hisCompany and himself. If they sold a copy to the press, the pricewould go into their common stock; unless they, in good will, allowedthe author to pocket the money. 

It will be observed that I understand the words of the Prefaceotherwise than do the distinguished Editors of the Cambridge edition. They write, "The natural inference to be drawn from this statement"(in the Preface) "is that ALL the separate editions of Shakespeare'splays were 'stolen, ' 'surreptitious' and imperfect, AND THAT ALLTHOSE PUBLISHED IN THE FOLIO WERE PRINTED FROM THE AUTHOR'S OWNMANUSCRIPTS" (my italics). The Editors agree with Dr. Furness, notwith Mr. Pollard, whose learned opinion coincides with my own. 

Perhaps it should be said that I reached my own construction of thesense of this passage in the Preface by the light of nature, beforeMr. Pollard's valuable book, based on the widest and most minuteresearch, came into my hands. By the results of that research hebacks his opinion (and mine), that some of the quartos aresurreptitious and bad, while others are good "and were honestlyobtained. " {210a} The Preface never denies this; never says that allthe quartos contain maimed and disfigured texts. The Preface draws adistinction to this effect, "even those" (even the stolen anddeformed copies) "are now cured and perfect in their limbs, "--thatis, have been carefully edited, while "ALL THE REST" are "absolute intheir numbers as he conceived them. " This does not allege that allthe rest are printed from Shakespeare's own holograph copies. 

Among the plays spoken of as "all the rest, " namely, those nothitherto published and not deformed by the fraudulent, are, Tempest, Two Gentlemen, Measure for Measure, Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, All's Well, Twelfth Night, Winter's Tale, Henry VI, iii. , Henry VIII, Coriolanus, Timon, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, andCymbeline. Also Henry VI, i. , ii. , King John, and Taming of theShrew, appeared now in other form than in the hitherto publishedQuartos bearing these or closely similar names. We have, moreover, no previous information as to The Shrew, Timon, Julius Caesar, All'sWell, and Henry VIII. The Preface adds the remarkable statementthat, whatever Shakespeare thought, "he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarce received from him a blot in his papers. "

It is plain that the many dramas previously unpublished could only berecovered from manuscripts of one sort or another, because theyexisted in no other form. The Preface takes it for granted that theselected manuscripts contain the plays "absolute in their numbers ashe conceived them. " But the Preface does not commit itself, Irepeat, to the statement that all of these many plays are printedfrom Shakespeare's own handwriting. After "as he conceived them, " itgoes on, "Who, as he was a most happy imitator of nature, was a mostgentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together: and whathe thought he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarcereceived from him a blot in his papers. "

This may be meant to SUGGEST, but does not AFFIRM, that the actorsHAVE "all the rest" of the plays in Shakespeare's own handwriting. They may have, or may have had, some of his manuscripts, and believedthat other manuscripts accessible to them, and used by them, containhis very words. Whether from cunning or design, or from theElizabethan inability to tell a plain tale plainly, the authors orauthor of the Preface have everywhere left themselves loopholes andways of evasion and escape. It is not possible to pin them down toany plain statement of facts concerning the sources for the hithertounpublished plays, "the rest" of the plays. 

These, at least, were from manuscript sources which the actorsthought accurate, and some may have been "fair copies" inShakespeare's own hand. (Scott, as regards his novels, sent his primacura, his first writing down, to the press, and his pages are nearlyfree from blot or erasion. In one case at least, Shelley's firstdraft of a poem is described as like a marsh of reeds in water, withwild ducks, but he made very elegant fair copies for the press. ) Letit be supposed that Ben Jonson wrote all this Preface, in accordancewith the wishes and instructions of the two actors who sign it. Hetook their word for the almost blotless MSS. Which they received fromShakespeare. He remarks, in his posthumously published Discoveries(notes, memories, brief essays), "I remember the players have OFTENmentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing(whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. " And Ben gives, we shall later see, his habitual reply to this habitual boast. 

As to the sources of such plays as had been "maimed and deformed byinjurious impostors, " and are now "offered cur'd and perfect of theirlimbs, " "it can be proved to demonstration, " say the CambridgeEditors, "that several plays in the Folio were printed from earlierquarto editions" (but the players secured a retreat on this point), "and that in other cases the quarto is more correctly printed, orfrom a better manuscript than the Folio text, and therefore of higherauthority. " Hamlet, in the Folio of 1623, when it differs from thequarto of 1604, "differs for the worse in forty-seven places, whileit differs for the better in twenty places. "

Can the wit of man suggest any other explanation than that theediting of the Folio was carelessly done; out of the best quartos andMSS. In the theatre for acting purposes, and, --if the players did notlie in what they "often said, " and if they kept the originals, --outof some MSS. Received from Shakspere? Whether the two playersthemselves threw into the press, after some hasty botchings, whatevermaterials they had, or whether they employed an Editor, a verywretched Editor, or Editors, or whether the great Author, Bacon, himself was his own Editor, the preparation of a text was infamouslydone. The two actors, probably, I think, never read through theproof-sheets, and took the word of the man whom they employed to edittheir materials, for gospel. The editing of the Folio is soexquisitely careless that twelve printer's errors in a quarto of1622, of Richard III, appear in the Folio of 1623. Again, the MerryWives of the Folio, is nearly twice as long as the quarto of 1619, yet keeps old errors. 

How can we explain the reckless retention of errors, and also thelarge additions and improvements? Did the true author (Bacon orBungay) now edit his work, add much matter, and go wrong forty-seventimes where the quarto was right, and go right twenty times when thequarto was wrong? Did he, for the Folio of 1623, nearly double TheMerry Wives in extent, and also leave all the errors of the fourthquarto uncorrected?

In that case how negligent was Bacon of his immortal works! NowBacon was a scholar, and this absurd conduct cannot be imputed, Ihope, to him. 

Mr. Pollard is much more lenient than his fellow-scholars towards theEditor or Editors of the Folio. He concludes that "manuscript copiesof the plays were easily procurable. " Sixteen out of the thirty-sixplays existed in quartos. Eight of the sixteen were not used for theFolio; five were used, "with additions, corrections, or alterations"(which must have been made from manuscripts). Three quartos onlywere reprinted as they stood. The Editors greatly preferred to usemanuscript copies; and showed this, Mr. Pollard thinks, by placingplays, never before printed, in the most salient parts of the threesets of dramas in their book. {215a} They did make an attempt todivide their plays into Acts and Scenes, whereas the quartos, as ageneral rule, had been undivided. But the Editors, I must say, hadnot the energy to carry out their good intentions fully--or Bacon orBungay, if the author, wearied in well-doing. The work is least illdone in the Comedies, and grows worse and worse as the Editor, orBacon, or Bungay becomes intolerably slack. 

A great living author, who had a decent regard for his own works, could never have made or passed this slovenly Folio. Yet Mr. Greenwood argues that probably Bungay was still alive and active, after Shakspere was dead and buried. (Mr. Greenwood, of course, doesnot speak of Bungay, which I use as short for his Great Unknown. )Thus, Richard III from 1597 to 1622 appeared in six quartos. It isimmensely improved in the Folio, and so are several other plays. Whomade the improvements, which the Editors could only obtain inmanuscripts? If we say that Shakespeare made them in MS. , Mr. Greenwood asks, "What had he to work upon, since, after selling hisplays to his company, he did not preserve his manuscript?" {216a}Now I do not know that he did sell his plays to his company. We aresure that Will got money for them, but we do not know whatarrangement he made with his company. He may have had an author'srights in addition to a sum down, as later was customary, and he hadhis regular share in the profits. Nor am I possessed of informationthat "he did not preserve his manuscript. " How can we know that? Hemay have kept his first draft, he may have made a fair copy forhimself, as well as for the players, or may have had one made. Hemay have worked on a copy possessed by the players; and the publisherof the quartos of 1605, 1612, 1622, may not have been allowed to use, or may not have asked for the latest manuscript revised copy. TheRichard III of the Folio contains, with much new matter, theprinter's errors of the quarto of 1622. I would account for this bysupposing that the casual Editor had just sense enough to add the newparts in a revised manuscript to the quarto, and was far too lazy tocorrect the printer's errors in the quarto. But Mr. Greenwood askswhether "the natural conclusion is not that 'some person unknown'took the Quarto of 1622, revised it, added the new passages, and thusput it into the form in which it appeared in 1623. " This naturalconclusion means that the author, Bungay, was alive in 1622, and puthis additions and improvements of recent date into the quarto of1622, but never took the trouble to correct the errors in the quarto. And so on in other plays similarly treated. "Is it not a morenatural conclusion that 'Shakespeare'" (Bungay) "himself revised itspublication, and that some part of this revision, at any rate, wasdone after 1616 and before 1623. " {217a}

Mr. Greenwood, after criticising other systems, writes, {217b} "Thereis, of course, another hypothesis. It is that Shakespeare" (meaningthe real author) "did not die in 1616, " and here follows the usualnotion that "Shakespeare" was the "nom de plume" of that transcendentgenius, "moving in Court circles among the highest of his day (asassuredly Shakespeare must have moved)--who wished to conceal hisidentity. "

I have not the shadow of assurance that the Author "moved in Courtcircles, " though Will would see a good deal when he played at Court, and in the houses of nobles, before "Eliza and our James. " I nevermoved in Court circles: Mr. Greenwood must know them better than Ido, and I have explained (see Love's Labour's Lost, and Shakespeare, Genius, and Society) how Will picked up his notions of courtly ways. 

"Another hypothesis, " the Baconian hypothesis, --"nom de plume" andall, --Mr. Greenwood thinks "an extremely reasonable one": I cannoteasily conceive of one more unreasonable. 

"Supposing that there was such an author as I have suggested, he maywell have conceived the idea of publishing a collected edition of theplays which had been written under the name of Shakespeare, and beinghimself busy with other matters, he may have entrusted the businessto some 'literary man, ' to some 'good pen, ' who was at the time doingwork for him; and why not to the man who wrote the commendatoryverses, the 'Lines to the Reader'" (opposite to the engraving), "and, as seems certain, the Preface, 'to the great variety of Readers'?"{218a}

That man, that "good pen, " was Ben Jonson. On the "supposing" of Mr. Greenwood, Ben is "doing work for" the Great Unknown at the time when"the business" following on the "idea of publishing a collectededition of the plays which had been written under the name ofShakespeare" occurred to the illustrious but unknown owner of that"nom de plume. " In plain words of my own, --the Author may haveentrusted "the business, " and what was that business if not theediting of the Folio?--to Ben Jonson--"who was at the time doing workfor him"--for the Author. 

Here is a clue! We only need to know for what man of "transcendentgenius, universal culture, world-wide philosophy . . . Moving inCourt circles, " and so on, Ben "was working" about 1621-3, the Folioappearing in 1623. 

The heart beats with anticipation of a discovery! "On January 22, 1621, Bacon celebrated his sixtieth birthday with great state at YorkHouse. Jonson was present, " and wrote an ode, with something aboutthe Genius of the House (Lar or Brownie), "Thou stand'st as if some mystery thou didst. "

Mr. Greenwood does not know what this can mean; nor do I. {219a}

"Jonson, it appears" (on what authority?), "was Bacon's guest atGorhambury, and was one of those good 'pens, '" of whom Bacon speaksas assisting him in the translation of some of his books into Latin. 

Bacon, writing to Toby Mathew, June 26, 1623, mentions the help of"some good pens, " Ben Jonson he does not mention. But Judge Webbdoes. "It is an undoubted fact, " says Judge Webb, "that the Latin ofthe De Augmentis, which was published in 1623, was the work ofJonson. " {219b} To whom Mr. Collins replies, "There is not aparticle of evidence that Jonson gave to Bacon the smallestassistance in translating any of his works into Latin. " {219c}

Tres bien, on Judge Webb's assurance the person for whom Ben wasworking, in 1623, was Bacon. Meanwhile, Mr. Greenwood's "supposing"is "that there was such an author" (of transcendent genius, and soon), who "may have entrusted the editing of his collected plays" tosome "good pen, " who was at the time "doing work for him, " and "whynot to"--Ben Jonson. {220a} Now the man for whom Ben, in 1623, was"doing work"--was BACON, --so Judge Webb says. {220b}

Therefore, by this hypothesis of Mr. Greenwood, {220c} the GreatUnknown was Bacon, --just the hypothesis of the common Baconian. 

Is my reasoning erroneous? Is the "supposing" suggested by Mr. Greenwood {220d} any other than that of Miss Delia Bacon, and JudgeWebb? True, Mr. Greenwood's Baconian "supposing" is only a workinghypothesis: not a confirmed belief. But it is useful to hisargument (see "Ben Jonson and Shakespeare") when he wants to explainaway Ben's evidence, in his verses in the Folio, to the Stratfordactor as the Author. 

Mr. Greenwood writes, in the first page of his Preface: "It is nopart of my plan or intention to defend that theory, " "the Baconiantheory. " Apparently it pops out contrary to the intention of Mr. Greenwood. But pop out it does: at least I can find no flaw in thereasoning of my detection of Bacon: I see no way out of it exceptthis: after recapitulating what is said about Ben as one of Bacon's"good pens" with other details, Mr. Greenwood says, "But no doubtthat way madness lies!" {221a} Ah no! not madness, no, but Baconism"lies that way. " However, "let it be granted" (as Euclid says in hissportsmanlike way) that Mr. Greenwood by no means thinks that his"concealed poet" is Bacon--only some one similar and similarlysituated and still active in 1623, and occupied with other businessthan supervising a collected edition of plays written under his "nomde plume" of Shakespeare. Bacon, too, was busy, with supervising, ortoiling at the Latin translation of his scientific works, and Ben(according to Judge Webb) was busy in turning the Advancement ofLearning into Latin prose. Mr. Greenwood quotes, without reference, Archbishop Tenison as saying that Ben helped Bacon in doing his worksinto Latin. {221b} Tenison is a very late witness. The propheticsoul of Bacon did not quite trust English to last as long as Latin, or he thought Latin, the lingua franca of Europe in his day, moreeasily accessible to foreign students, as, of course, it was. ThusBacon was very busy; so was Ben. The sad consequence of Ben'sbusiness, perhaps, is that the editing of the Folio is notoriouslybad; whether Ben were the Editor or not, it is infamously bad. 

Conceivably Mr. Greenwood is of the same opinion. He says, "Itstands admitted that a very large part of that volume" (the Folio)"consists of work that is not 'Shakespeare's' at all. "

How strange, if Ben edited it for the Great Unknown--who knew, if anyhuman being knew, what work was "Shakespeare's"! On Mr. Greenwood'shypothesis, {222a} or "supposing, " the Unknown Author "may well haveconceived the idea of publishing a collected edition of the playswhich had been written" (not "published, " WRITTEN) "under the name ofShakespeare, and, being himself busy with other matters, he may haveentrusted the business to" some "good pen, " "and why not to"--Ben. Nevertheless "a very large part of that volume consists of work thatis not 'Shakespeare's' at all. " {222b} How did this occur? The book{222c} is "that very doubtful 'canon. '" How, if "Shakespeare's" manedited it for "Shakespeare"? Did "Shakespeare" not care what stuffwas placed under his immortal "nom de plume"?

It is not my fault if I think that Mr. Greenwood's hypotheses {222d}--the genuine "Shakespeare" either revised his own works, or put Benon the editorial task--are absolutely contradicted by his statementsin another part of his book. {222e} For the genuine "Shakespeare"knew what plays he had written, knew what he could honestly put forthas his own, as "Shakespeare's. " Or, if he placed the task of editingin Ben's hands, he must have told Ben what plays were of his ownmaking. In either case the Folio would contain these, and no others. But--"the plat contraire, "--the very reverse, --is stated by Mr. Greenwood. "It stands admitted that a very large portion of thatvolume" (the Folio) "consists of work that is not 'Shakespeare's'"(is not Bacon's, or the other man's) "at all. " {223a} Then away flythe hypotheses {223b} that the auto-Shakespeare, or that Ben, employed by the auto-Shakespeare (apparently Bacon) revised, edited, and prepared for publication the auto-Shakespearean plays. For Mr. Greenwood "has already dealt with Titus (Andronicus) and Henry VI, "{223c} and proved them not to be auto-Shakespearean--and he adds"there are many other plays in that very doubtful 'canon'" (theFolio) "which, by universal admission, contain much non-Shakespeareancomposition. " {223d} Perhaps! but if so the two hypotheses, {223e}that either the genuine Shakespeare {223f} revised ("is it not a morenatural solution that 'Shakespeare' himself revised his works forpublication, and that some part, at any rate, of this revision {223g}was done after 1616 and before 1623?"), or {223h} that he gave Ben(who was working, by the conjecture, for Bacon) the task of editingthe Folio, --are annihilated. For neither the auto-Shakespeare (ifhonest), nor Ben (if sober), could have stuffed the Folio full ofnon-Shakespearean work, --including four "non-Shakespearean" plays, --nor could the Folio be "that very doubtful canon. " {224a} Again, ifeither the auto-Shakespeare or Ben following his instructions, wereEditor, neither could have, as the Folio Editor had "evidently nolittle doubt about" Troilus and Cressida. {224b}

Neither Ben, nor the actual Simon Pure, the author, the auto-Shakespeare, could fail to know the truth about Trodus and Cressida. But the Editor {224c} did NOT know the truth, the whole canon is"doubtful. " Therefore the hypothesis, the "supposing, " that theactual author did the revising, {224d} and the other hypothesis thathe gave Ben the work, {224e} seem to me wholly impossible. But Mr. Greenwood needs the "supposings" of pp. 290, 293; and as he rejectsTitus Andronicus and Henry VI (both in the Folio), he also needs thecontradictory views of pp. 351, 358. On which set of supposings andaverments does he stand to win?

Perhaps he thinks to find a way out of what appears to me to be adilemma in the following fashion: He will not accept TitusAndronicus and Henry VI, though both are in the Folio, as the work ofHIS "Shakespeare, " his Unknown, the Bacon of the Baconians. Well, weask, if your Unknown, or Bacon, or Ben, --instructed by Bacon, or bythe Unknown, --edited the Folio, how could any one of the three insertTitus, and Henry VI, and be "in no little doubt about" Troilus andCressida? Bacon, or the Unknown, or the Editor employed by either, knew perfectly well which plays either man could honestly claim ashis own work, done under the "nom de plume" of "William Shakespeare"(with or without the hyphen). Yet the Editor of the Folio does notknow--and Mr. Greenwood does know--Henry VI and Titus are "wrongones. "

Mr. Greenwood's way out, if I follow him, is this: {225a} "JudgeStotsenburg asks, 'Who wrote The Taming of a Shrew printed in 1594, and who wrote Titus Andronicus, Henry VI, or King Lear referred to inthe Diary?'" (Henslowe's). The Judge continues: "Neither Colliernor any of the Shaxper commentators make (sic) any claim to theirauthorship in behalf of William Shaxper. Since these plays have thesame names as those included in the Folio of 1623 the presumption isthat they are the same plays until the contrary is shown. Of courseit may be shown, either that those in the Folio are entirelydifferent except in name, or that these plays were revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they" (who?) "called Shakespeare. "

Mr. Greenwood says, "My own conviction is that . . . These plays were'revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they calledShakespeare. '" {226a} (Whom WHO called Shakespeare?) In that casethese plays, --say Titus Andronicus and Henry VI, Part 1, --which Mr. Greenwood denies to HIS "Shakespeare" were just as much HISShakespeare's plays as any other plays (and there are several), whichHIS Shakespeare "revised, improved, and dressed. " Yet HISShakespeare is NOT author of Henry VI, {226b} not the author of TitusAndronicus. {226c} "Mr. Anders, " writes Mr. Greenwood, "makes what Ithink to be a great error in citing Henry VI and Titus as genuineplays of Shakespeare. " {226d}

He hammers at this denial in nineteen references in his Index toTitus Andronicus. Yet Ben, or Bacon, or the Unknown thought thatthese plays WERE "genuine plays" of "Shakespeare, " the concealedauthor--Bacon or Mr. Greenwood's man. It appears that the immensepoet who used the "nom de plume" of "Shakespeare" did not know theplays of which he could rightfully call himself the author; that (notforeseeing Mr. Greenwood's constantly repeated objections) he boldlyannexed four plays, or two certainly, which Mr. Greenwood denies tohim, and another about which "the Folio Editor was in no littledoubt. "

Finally, {227a} Mr. Greenwood is "convinced, " "it is my conviction"that some plays which he often denies to his "Shakespeare" were"revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they calledShakespeare. " That some one, if he edited or caused to be edited theFolio, thought that his revision, improvement, and dressing up of theplays gave him a right to claim their authorship--and Mr. Greenwood, a dozen times and more, denies to him their authorship. 

One is seriously puzzled to discover the critic's meaning. TheTaming of a Shrew, Titus, Henry VI, and King Lear, referred to inHenslowe's "Diary, " are not "Shakespearean, " we are repeatedly told. But "my own conviction is that . . . " these plays were "revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they called Shakespeare. " Butto be revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they calledShakespeare, is to be as truly "Shakespearean" work as is any play sohandled "by Shakespeare. " Thus the plays mentioned are as truly"Shakespearean" as any others in which "Shakespeare" worked on anearlier canvas, and also Titus "is not SHAKESPEAREAN at all. " Mr. Greenwood, I repeat, constantly denies the "Shakespearean" characterto Titus and Henry VI. "The conclusion of the whole matter is thatTitus and The Trilogy of Henry VI are not the work of Shakespeare:that his hand is probably not to be found at all in Titus, and onlyonce or twice, if at all, in Henry VI, Part I, but that he itprobably was who altered and remodelled the two parts of the oldContention of the Houses of York and Lancaster, thereby producingHenry VI, Parts II and III. " {228a}

Yet {228b} Titus and Henry VI appear as "revised, improved, anddressed" by the mysterious "some one whom they called Shakespeare. "If Mr. Greenwood's conclusion {228c} be correct, "Shakespeare" had noright to place Henry VI, Part I, and Titus in his Folio. If his"conviction" {228d} be correct, Shakespeare had as good a right tothem as to any of the plays which he revised, and improved, anddressed. They MUST be "Shakespearean" if Mr. Greenwood is right{228e} in his suggestion that "Shakespeare" either revised his worksfor publication between 1616 and 1623, or set his man, Ben Jonson, upon that business. Yet neither one nor the other knew what to makeof Troilus and Cressida. "The Folio Editor had, evidently, no littledoubt about that play. " {228f}

So neither "Shakespeare" nor Ben, instructed by him, can have been"the Folio Editor. " Consequently Mr. Greenwood must abandon hissuggestion that either man was the Editor, and may return to hisrejection of Titus and Henry VI, Part I. But he clings to it. Hefinds in Henslowe's Diary "references to, and records of the writingof, such plays" as, among others, Titus Andronicus, and Henry VI. {229a}

Mr. Greenwood, after rejecting a theory of some one, says, "Far morelikely does it appear that there was a great man of the time whosegenius was capable of 'transforming dross into gold, ' who took theseplays, and, in great part, rewrote and revised them, leavingsometimes more, and sometimes less of the original work; and that sorewritten, revised, and transformed they appeared as the plays of'Shake-speare. '" {229b}

This statement is made {229c} about "these plays, " including TitusAndronicus and Henry VI, while {229d} "Titus and the Trilogy of HenryVI are not the work of Shakespeare . . . His hand is probably not tobe found at all in Titus, and only once or twice in Henry VI, PartI, " though he probably made Parts II and III out of older plays. 

I do not know where to have the critic. If Henry VI, Part I, andTitus are in no sense by "Shakespeare, " then neither "Shakespeare norBen for him edited or had anything to do with the editing of theFolio. If either or both had to do with the editing, as the criticsuggests, then he is wrong in denying Shakespearean origin to Titusand Henry VI, Part I. 

Of course one sees a way out of the dilemma for the great auto-Shakespeare himself, who, by one hypothesis, handed over the editingof his plays to Ben (HE, by Mr. Greenwood's "supposing, " was devilingat literary jobs for Bacon). The auto-Shakespeare merely tells Bento edit his plays, and never even gives him a list of them. Then Benbrings him the Folio, and the author looks at the list of Plays. 

"Mr. Jonson, " he says, "I have hitherto held thee for an honestscholar and a deserving man in the quality thou dost profess. Butthou hast brought me a maimed and deformed printed copy of that whichI did write for my own recreation, not wishful to be known for solight a thing as a poet. Moreover, thou hast placed among these mytrifles, four plays to which I never put a finger, and others inwhich I had no more than a thumb. The Seneschal, Mr. Jonson, willpay thee what is due to thee; thy fardels shall be sent whithersoeverthou wilt, and, Mary! Mr. Jonson, I bid thee never more be officerof mine. "

This painful discourse must have been held at Gorhambury, --if Benedited the Folio--for Francis. 

It is manifest, I hope, that about the Folio Mr. Greenwood speakswith two voices, and these very discordant. It is also manifestthat, whoever wrote the plays left his materials in deep neglect, andthat, when they were collected, some one gathered them up in extremedisorder. It is extraordinary that the Baconians and Mr. Greenwooddo not see the fallacy of their own reasoning in this matter of theFolio. They constantly ridicule the old view that the actor, WillShakspere (if, by miracle, he were the author of the plays), couldhave left them to take their fortunes. They are asked, what didother playwrights do in that age? They often parted with their wholecopyright to the actors of this or that company, or to Henslowe. Thenew owners could alter the plays at will, and were notoriouslyanxious to keep them out of print, lest other companies should actthem. As Mr. Greenwood writes, {231a} "Such, we are told, was theuniversal custom with dramatists of the day; they 'kept no copies' oftheir plays, and thought no more about them. It will, I suppose, beset down to fanaticism that I should doubt the truth of thisproposition, that I doubt if it be consonant with the known facts ofhuman nature. " But whom, except Jonson, does Mr. Greenwood findediting and publishing his plays? Beaumont, Fletcher, Heywood? No!

If the Great Unknown were dead in 1623, his negligence was as bad asWill's. If he were alive and revised his own work for publication, {231b} he did it as the office cat might have done it in hours ofplay. If, on the other side, he handed the editorial task over toBen, {232a} then he did not even give Ben a list of his genuineworks. Mr. Greenwood cites the case of Ben Jonson, a notorious and, I think, solitary exception. Ben was and often proclaimed himself tobe essentially a scholar. He took as much pains in prefacing, editing, and annotating his plays, as he would have taken had thetexts been those of Greek tragedians. 

Finally, all Baconians cry out against the sottish behaviour of theactor, Will, if being really the author of the plays, he did notbestir himself, and bring them out in a collected edition. Yet noEnglish dramatist ventured on doing such a thing, till Ben thuscollected his "works" (and was laughed at) in 1616. The examplemight have encouraged Will to be up and doing, but he died early in1616. If Will were NOT the author, what care was Bacon, or theUnknown, taking of his many manuscript plays, and for the properediting of those which had appeared separately in pamphlets? Asindolent and casual as Will, the great Author, Bacon or another, leftthe plays to take their chances. Mr. Greenwood says that "IF THEAUTHOR" (Bacon or somebody very like him) "HAD BEEN CARELESS ABOUTKEEPING COPIES OF HIS MANUSCRIPTS . . . " {232b} What an "if" in thecase of the great Author! This gross neglect, infamous in Will, maythus have been practised by the Great Unknown himself. 

In 1911 Mr. Greenwood writes, "There is overwhelming authority forthe view that Titus Andronicus is not SHAKESPEAREAN at all. " {233a}In that case, neither Bacon, nor the Unknown, nor Ben, acting foreither, can have been the person who put Titus into the Folio. 

CHAPTER XII: BEN JONSON AND SHAKESPEARE

The evidence of Ben Jonson to the identity of Shakespeare the authorwith Shakspere the actor, is "the strength of the Stratfordianfaith, " says Mr. Greenwood. "But I think it will be admitted thatthe various Jonsonian utterances with regard to 'Shakespeare' are byno means easy to reconcile one with the other. " {237a}

It is difficult to reply briefly to Mr. Greenwood's forty-seven pagesabout the evidence of Jonson. But, first, whenever in written wordsor in reported conversation, Ben speaks of Shakespeare by name, hespeaks of his WORKS: in 1619 to Drummond of Hawthornden; in 1623 incommendatory verses to the Folio; while, about 1630, probably, in hisposthumously published Discourses, he writes on Shakespeare as thefriend and "fellow" of the players, on Shakespeare as his own friend, and as a dramatist. On each of these three occasions, Ben's TONEvaries. In 1619 he said no more to Drummond of Hawthornden(apparently on two separate occasions) than that Shakespeare "lackedart, " and made the mistake about a wreck on the sea-coast of Bohemia. 

In 1619, Ben spoke gruffly and briefly of Shakespeare, as to Drummondhe also spoke disparagingly of Beaumont, whom he had panegyrised inan epigram in his own folio of 1616, and was again to praise in thecommendatory verses in the Folio. He spoke still more harshly ofDrayton, whom in 1616 he had compared to Homer, Virgil, Theocritus, and Tyraeus! He told an unkind anecdote of Marston, with whom he hadfirst quarrelled and then made friends, collaborating with him in aplay; and very generously and to his great peril, sharing hisimprisonment. To Drummond, Jonson merely said that he "beat Marstonand took away his pistol. " Of Sir John Beaumont, brother of thedramatist, Ben had written a most hyperbolical eulogy in verse;luckily for Sir John, to Drummond Ben did not speak of him. Such wasBen, in panegyric verse hyperbolical; in conversation "a despiser ofothers, and praiser of himself. " Compare Ben's three remarks aboutDonne, all made to Drummond. Donne deserved hanging for breakingmetre; Donne would perish for not being understood: and Donne was insome points the first of living poets. 

Mr. Greenwood's effort to disable Jonson's evidence rests on thecontradictions in his estimates of Shakespeare's poetry, in noticesscattered through some thirty years. Jonson, it is argued, cannot oneach occasion mean Will. He must now mean Will, now the GreatUnknown, and now--both at once. Yet I have proved that Ben was theleast consistent of critics, all depended on the occasion, and on hishumour at the moment. This is a commonplace of literary history. The Baconians do not know it; Mr. Greenwood, if he knows it, ignoresit, and bases his argument on facts which may be unknown to hisreaders. We have noted Ben's words of 1619, and touched on hispanegyric of 1623. Thirdly, about 1630 probably, Ben wrote in hismanuscript book Discourses an affectionate but critical page onShakespeare as a man and an author. Always, in prose, and in verse, and in recorded conversation, Ben explicitly identified Shakspere(William, of Stratford) with the author of the plays usually ascribedto him. But the Baconian Judge Webb (in extreme old age), and theanti-Shakespearean Mr. Greenwood and others, choose to interpretBen's words on the theory that, in 1623, he "had his tongue in hischeek"; that, like Odysseus, he "mingled things false with true, "that THEY know what is true from what is false, and can undo the manyknots which Ben tied in his tongue. How they succeed we shall see. 

In addition to his three known mentions of Shakespeare by name (1619, 1623, 1630?), Ben certainly appears to satirise his rival at a muchearlier date; especially as Pantalabus, a playwright in The Poetaster(1601), and as actor, poet, and plagiarist in an epigram, Poet-Ape, published in his collected works of 1616; but probably written asearly as 1602. It is well known that in 1598 Shakespeare's companyacted Ben's Every Man in His Humour. It appears that he conceivedsome grudge against the actors, and apparently against Shakespeareand other playwrights, for, in 1601, his Poetaster is a satire bothon playwrights and on actors, whom he calls "apes. " The apparentattacks on Shakespeare are just such as Ben, if angry and envious, would direct against him; while we know of no other poet-player ofthe period to whom they could apply. For example, in The Poetaster, Histrio, the actor, is advised to ingratiate himself with Pantalabus, "gent'man parcel-poet, his father was a man of worship, I tell thee. "This is perhaps unmistakably a blow at Shakespeare, who had recentlyacquired for his father and himself arms, and the pleasure of writinghimself "gentleman. " This "parcel-poet gent'man" "pens lofty, in anew stalking style, "--he is thus an author, he "pens, " and in a highstyle. He is called Pantalabus, from the Greek words for "to TAKE UPALL, " which means that, as poet, he is a plagiarist. Jonson repeatsthis charge in his verses called Poet-Ape -

"HE TAKES UP ALL, " makes each man's wit his own, And told of this, he slights it. "

In a scene added to The Poetaster in 1616, the author (Ben) isadvised not

"With a sad and serious verse to woundPantalabus, railing in his saucy jests, "

and obviously slighting the charges of plagiarism. Perhaps Ben isglancing at Shakespeare, who, if accused of plagiary by an angryrival, would merely laugh. 

A reply to the Poetaster, namely Satiromastix (by Dekker andMarston?), introduces Jonson himself as babbling darkly about "Mr. Justice Shallow, " and "an Innocent Moor" (Othello?). Here isquestion of "administering strong pills" to Jonson; THEN, "What lumps of hard and indigested stuff, Of bitter SATIRISM, of ARROGANCE, Of SELF-LOVE, of DETRACTION, of a blackAnd stinking INSOLENCE should we fetch up!"

This "pill" is a reply to Ben's "purge" for the poets in hisPoetaster. Oh, the sad old stuff!

Referring to Jonson's Poetaster, and to Satiromastix, the counter-attack, we find a passage in the Cambridge play, The Return fromParnassus (about 1602). Burbage, the tragic actor, and Kempe, thelow-comedy man of Shakespeare's company, are introduced, discussingthe possible merits of Cambridge wits as playwrights. Kempe rejectsthem as they "smell too much of that writer Ovid, and that writerMetamorphosis . . . " The purpose, of course, is to laugh at theignorance of the low-comedy man, who thinks "Metamorphosis" a writer, and does not suspect--how should he?--that Shakespeare "smells ofOvid. " Kempe innocently goes on, "Why, here's our fellow" (comrade)"Shakespeare puts them all down" (all the University playwrights), "aye, and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow, he brought up Horace" (in The Poetaster) "giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge . . . "

The Cambridge author, perhaps, is thinking of the pill (not purge)which, in Satiromastix, might be administered to Jonson. TheCambridge author may have thought that Shakespeare wrote the passageon the pill which was to "fetch up" masses of Ben's insolence, self-love, arrogance, and detraction. If this be not the sequence ofideas, it is not easy to understand how or why Kempe is made to saythat Shakespeare has given Jonson a purge. Stupid old nonsense!There are other more or less obscure indications of Jonson's spite, during the stage-quarrel, against Shakespeare, but the mostunmistakable proof lies in his verses in "Poet-Ape. " I am aware thatBen's intention here to hit at Shakespeare has been denied, forexample by Mr. Collins with his usual vigour of language. But thoughI would fain agree with him, the object of attack can be no knownperson save Will. Jonson was already, in The Poetaster, using theterm "Poet-Ape, " for he calls the actors at large "apes. "

Jonson thought so well of his rhymes that he included them in theEpigrams of his first Folio (1616). By that date, the year ofShakespeare's death, if he really loved Shakespeare, as he says, inverse and prose, Ben might have suppressed the verses. But (asDrummond noted) he preferred his jest, such as it was, to his friend;who was not, as usually understood, a man apt to resent a very bluntshaft of very obsolete wit. Like Moliere, Shakespeare had outlivedthe charge of plagiarism, made long ago by the jealous Ben. 

Poet-Ape is an actor-playwright "THAT WOULD BE THOUGHT OUR CHIEF"--words which, by 1601, could only apply to Shakespeare; there was norival, save Ben, near his throne. The playwright-actor, too, has nowconfessedly

 "grownTo a little wealth and credit in the scene, "

of no other actor-playwright could this be said. 

He is the author of "works" (Jonson was laughed at for calling hisown plays "works"), but these works are "the frippery of wit, " thatis, a tissue of plagiarisms, as in the case of Pantalabus. But "toldof this he slights it, " as most successful authors, when accused, asthey often are, of plagiarism by jealous rivals, wisely do;--so didMoliere. This Poet-Ape began his career by "picking and gleaning"and "buying reversions of old plays. " This means that ShakespeareDID work over earlier plays which his company had acquired; or, ifShakespeare did not, --then, I presume, --Bacon did!

THAT, with much bad humour, is the gist of the rhymes on Poet-Ape. Ben thinks Shakespeare's "works" very larcenous, but still, the"works, " as such, are those of the poet-actor. I hope it is nowclear that Poet-Ape, who, like Pantalabus, "takes up all"; who has"grown to a little wealth and credit in the scene, " and who "thinkshimself the chief" of contemporary dramatists, can be nobody butShakespeare. Hence it follows that the "works" of Poet-Ape, are theworks of Shakespeare. Ben admits, nay, asserts the existence of theworks, says that they may reach "the after-time, " but he calls them amass of plagiarisms, --because he is in a jealous rage. 

But this view does not at all suit Mr. Greenwood, for it shows Benregarding Shakespeare as the "Ape, " or Actor, and also as the "Poet"and author of the "works. " Yet Ben's words mean nothing if not thatan actor is the author of works which Ben accuses of plagiarism. Mr. Greenwood thinks that the epigram proves merely that "Jonson lookedupon Shakspere (if, indeed, he refers to him) as one who put forwardthe writings of others as his own, or, in plain English, animpostor. " "The work which goes in his name is, in truth, the workof somebody else. " {244a} Mr. Greenwood put the same interpretationon Greene's words about "Shakescene, " and we showed that theinterpretation was impossible. "The utmost we should be entitled tosay" (if Shake-scene be meant for Shakspere) "is that Greene accusesPlayer Shakspere of putting forward, as his own, some work or perhapssome parts of a work, for which he was really indebted to another. "{245a} We proved, by quoting Greene's words, that he said nothingwhich could be tortured into this sense. {245b} In the same wayBen's words cannot be tortured into the sense that "the work whichgoes in his" (Poet-Ape's) "name is, in truth, the work of somebodyelse. " {245c} Mr. Greenwood tries to find the Anti-Willianhypothesis in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit and in Ben's epigram. Itis in neither. 

Jonson is not accusing Shakespeare of pretending to be the author ofplays written by somebody else, but of "making EACH MAN'S wit hisown, " and the MEN are the other dramatists of the day. Thus thefuture "may judge" Shakespeare's work "to be his as well as OURS. "

It is "we, " the living and recognised dramatists, whom Shakespeare issaid to plagiarise from; so boldly that

"WE, THE ROBBED, leave rage, and pity it. "

Ben does not mean that Shakespeare is publishing, as his own, wholeplays by some other author, but that his works are tissues of scrapsstolen from his contemporaries, from "us, the robbed. " Where are tobe found or heard of any works by a player-poet of 1601, the would-bechief dramatist of the day, except those signed William Shak(&c. ). There are none, and thus Ben, at this date, is identifying WillShakspere, the actor, with the author of the Shakespearean plays, which he expects to reach posterity; "after times may judge them tobe his, " as after times do to this hour. 

Thus Ben expresses, in accordance with his humour on each occasion, most discrepant opinions of Will's works, but he never varies fromhis identification of Will with the author of the plays. 

The "works" of which Ben wrote so splenetically in Poet-Ape, were theworks of a Playwright-Actor, who could be nobody but the actorShakespeare, as far as Ben then knew. If later, and in alteredcircumstances, he wrote of the very same works in very differentterms, his "utterances" are "not easily reconcilable" with eachother, --WHOEVER the real author of the works may be. If Bacon, orMr. Greenwood's anonymous equivalent for Bacon, were the author, andif Ben came to know it, his attitudes towards the WORKS are still asirreconcilable as ever. 

Perhaps Baconians and Mr. Greenwood might say, "as long as Benbelieved that the works were those of an Actor-Playwright, he thoughtthem execrable. But when he learned that they were the works ofBacon (or of some Great One), he declared them to be more thanexcellent"--BUT NOT TO DRUMMOND. I am reluctant to think that Jonsonwas the falsest and meanest of snobs. I think that when his oldrival, by his own account his dear friend, was dead, and when (1623)Ben was writing panegyric verses about the first collected edition ofhis plays (the Folio), then between generosity and his habitualhyperbolical manner when he was composing commendatory verses, hesaid, --not too much in the way of praise, --but a good deal more thanhe later said (1630?), in prose, and in cold blood. I am only takingBen as I find him and as I understand him. Every step in my argumentrests on well-known facts. Ben notoriously, in his many panegyricverses, wrote in a style of inflated praise. In conversation withDrummond he censured, in brief blunt phrases, the men whom, in verse, he had extolled. The Baconian who has not read all Ben's panegyricsin verse, and the whole of his conversations with Drummond, argues inignorance. 

We now come to Ben's panegyrics in the Folio of 1623. Ben heads thelines, "TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVEDTHE AUTHORMR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEAREANDWHAT HE HATH LEFT US. "

Words cannot be more explicit. Bacon was alive (I do not know whenMr. Greenwood's hidden genius died), and Ben goes on to speak of theAuthor, Shakespeare, as dead, and buried. He calls on him thus:

 "Soul of the Age!The applause! delight! the wonder of our Stage!My Shakespear rise: I will not lodge thee byChaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lieA little further, to make thee a room:Thou art a monument, without a tomb, And art alive still, while thy book doth live, And we have wits to read, and praise to give. "

Beaumont, by the way, died in the same year as Shakespeare, 1616, and, while Ben here names him with Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare, his contemporaries have left no anecdotes, no biographical hints. Inthe panegyric follow the lines:

"And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, From thence to honour thee I would not seekFor names, but call forth thund'ring AEschylus, "

and the other glories of the Roman and Attic stage, to see and hearhow Shakespeare bore comparison with all that the classic dramatistsdid, or that "did from their ashes come. "

Jonson means, "despite your lack of Greek and Latin I would notshrink from challenging the greatest Greek and Roman tragedians tosee how you bear comparison with themselves"?

Mr. Greenwood and the Baconians believe that the author of the playsabounded in Latin and Greek. In my opinion his classical scholarshipmust have seemed slight indeed to Ben, so learned and so vain of hislearning: but this is part of a vexed question, already examined. So far, Ben's verses have brought not a hint to suggest that he doesnot identify the actor, his Beloved, with the author. Nothing isgained when Ben, in commendatory verses, praises "Thy Art, " whereas, speaking to Drummond of Hawthornden (1619), he said that Shakespeare"wanted art. " Ben is not now growling to Drummond of Hawthornden:he is writing a panegyric, and applauds Shakespeare's "well-turnedand true-filed lines, " adding that, "to write a living line" a man"must sweat, " and "strike the second heat upon the Muses' anvil. "

To produce such lines requires labour, requires conscious "art. " SoShakespeare HAD "art, " after all, despite what Ben had said toDrummond: "Shakespeare lacked art. " There is no more in the matter;the "inconsistency" is that of Ben's humours on two perfectlydifferent occasions, now grumbling to Drummond; and now writinghyperbolically in commendatory verses. But the contrast makes Mr. Greenwood exclaim, "Can anything be more astonishing and at the sametime more unsatisfactory than this?" {249a}

Can anything be more like Ben Jonson?

Did he know the secret of the authorship in 1619? If so, why did hesay nothing about the plays of the Great Unknown (whom he calledShakespeare), save what Drummond reports, "want of art, " ignorance ofBohemian geography. Or did Ben NOT know the secret till, say, 1623, and then heap on the very works which he had previously scoutedpraise for the very quality which he had said they lacked? If so, Ben was as absolutely inconsistent, as before. There is no way outof this dilemma. On neither choice are Ben's utterances "easy toreconcile one with the other, " except on the ground that Ben was--Ben, and his comments varied with his varying humours and occasions. I believe that, in the commendatory verses, Ben allowed his Muse tocarry him up to heights of hyperbolical praise which he never camenear in cold blood. He was warmed with the heat of poeticcomposition and wound up to heights of eulogy, though even NOW hecould not forget the small Latin and less Greek!

We now turn to Mr. Greenwood's views about the commendatory verses. On mature consideration I say nothing of his remarks on Ben'scouplets about the bad engraved portrait. {250a} They are concernedwith the supposed "ORIGINAL bust, " as represented in Dugdale'sengraving of 1656. What the Baconians hope to make out of "theORIGINAL bust" I am quite unable to understand. {250b} Again, Ileave untouched some witticisms {250c} on Jonson's lines aboutSpenser, Chaucer, and Beaumont in their tombs--lines either suggestedby, or suggestive of others by an uncertain W. Basse, "but theevidence of authorship seems somewhat doubtful. How the date isdetermined I do not know . . . " {251a} As Mr. Greenwood knows solittle, and as the discussion merely adds dust to the dust, and fogto the mist of his attempt to disable Ben's evidence, I glance andpass by. 

"Then follow these memorable words, which I have already discussed:

"'And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek . . . '" {251b}

In "these memorable words, " every non-Baconian sees Ben's opinionabout his friend's lack of scholarship. According to his ownexcellent Index, Mr. Greenwood has already adverted often to "thesememorable words. "

(1) P. 40. " . . . If this testimony is to be explained away as notseriously written, then are we justified in applying the same methodsof interpretation to Jonson's other utterances as published in theFolio of 1623. But I shall have more to say as to that further on. "

(2) P. 88. Nothing of importance. 

(3) P. 220. Quotation from Dr. Johnson. Ben, "who had noimaginable temptation to falsehood, " wrote the memorable words. ButMr. Greenwood has to imagine a "temptation to falsehood, "--and hedoes. 

(4) P. 222. "And we have recognised that Jonson's 'small Latin andless Greek' must be explained away" (a quotation from somebody). 

(5) P. 225. Allusion to anecdote of "Latin (latten) spoons. "

(6) Pp. 382, 383. "Some of us" (some of whom?) "have long lookedupon it as axiomatic . . . That Jonson's 'small Latin and lessGreek, ' if meant to be taken seriously, can only be applicable toShakspere of Stratford and not to Shakespeare, " that is, not to theUnknown author. Unluckily Ben, in 1623, is addressing the shade ofthe "sweet Swan of Avon, " meaning Stratford-on-Avon. 

(7) The next references in the laudable Index are to pp. 474, 475. "Then follow these memorable words, which I have already discussed:

"'And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, '

words which those who see how singularly inappropriate they are tothe author of the PLAYS and POEMS of Shakespeare have been at suchinfinite pains to explain away without impeaching the credit of theauthor, or assuming that he is here indulging in a little Socraticirony. "

_I_ do not want to "explain" Ben's words "away": I want to know howon earth Mr. Greenwood explains them away. My view is that Ben meantwhat he said, that Will, whose shade he is addressing, was no scholar(which he assuredly was not). I diligently search Mr. Greenwood'sscriptures, asking How does he explain Ben's "memorable words" away?On p. 106 of The Shakespeare Problem Restated I seem to catch aglimmer of his method. "Once let the Stratfordians" (every human andnon-Baconian person of education) "admit that Jonson when he pennedthe words 'small Latin and less Greek' was really writing 'with histongue in his cheek. ' . . . "

Once admit that vulgarism concerning a great English poet engaged ona poem of Pindaric flight, and of prophetic vision! No, we leave theadmission to Mr. Greenwood and his allies. 

To consider thus is to consider too seriously. The Baconians andAnti-Willians have ceased to deserve serious attention (if ever theydid deserve it), and virtuous indignation, and all that kind ofthing, when they ask people who care for poetry to "admit" that Benwrote his verses "with his tongue in his cheek. " Elsewhere, {253a}in place of Ben's "tongue in his cheek, " Mr. Greenwood prefers tosuggest that Ben "is here indulging in a little Socratic irony. "Socrates "with his tongue in his cheek"! Say "talking through histhroat, " if one may accept the evidence of the author of Raffles, asto the idioms of burglars. 

To return to criticism, we are to admit that Jonson was reallywriting "with his tongue in his cheek, " knowing that, as a fact, "SHAKESPEARE" (the Great Unknown, the Bacon of the Baconians) "hadremarkable classical attainments, and they, of course, open the doorto the suggestion that the entire poem is capable of an ironicalconstruction and esoteric interpretation. " {254a}

So this is Mr. Greenwood's method of "explaining away" the memorablewords. He seems to conjecture that Will was not SHAKESPEARE, not theauthor of the plays; that Jonson knew it; that his poem is, as awhole, addressed to Bacon, or to the Great Unknown, under his "nom deplume" of "William Shakespeare"; that the address to the "Swan ofAvon" is a mere blind; and that Ben only alludes to his "Beloved, "the Stratford actor, when he tells his Beloved that his Beloved has"small Latin and less Greek. " All the praise is for Bacon, or theGreat Unknown (Mr. Harris), the jeer is for "his Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, And what he hath left Us. "

As far as I presume to understand this theory of the "tongue in thecheek, " of the "Socratic irony, " this is what Mr. Greenwood has topropose towards "explaining away" the evidence of Ben Jonson, in hisfamous commendatory verses. When we can see through the dust ofwords we find that the "esoteric interpretation" of the commendatoryverses is merely a reassertion of the general theory: a man withsmall Latin and less Greek could not have written the plays andpoems. Therefore when Ben explicitly states that his Beloved, Mr. Shakespeare of Stratford, the Swan of Avon DID write the plays, andhad small Latin and less Greek, Ben meant that he did NOT write them, that they were written by somebody else who had plenty of Greek andLatin. It is a strange logical method! Mr. Greenwood merelyreasserts his paradox, and proves it, like certain Biblical criticsof more orthodoxy than sense, by aid of his private "esoteric methodof interpretation. " Ben, we say, about 1630, in prose and in coldblood, and in a humour of criticism without the old rancour and envy, or the transitory poetic enthusiasm, pens a note on Shakespeare in avolume styled "Timber, or Discoveries, made upon men and Matter, asthey have flowed out of his daily Readings; or had their reflux tohis peculiar Notion of the Times. " Ben died in 1637; his MS. Collection of notes and brief essays, and reflections, was publishedin 1641. Bacon, of whom he wrote his impressions in this manuscript, had died in 1626. Ben was no longer young: he says, among thesenotes, that his memory, once unusually strong, after he was pastforty "is much decayed in me . . . It was wont to be faithful to me, but shaken with age now . . . (I copy the extract as given by Mr. Greenwood. {255a}) He spoke sooth: he attributes to Orpheus, in"Timber, " a line from Homer, and quotes from Homer what is not inthat poet's "works. "

In this manuscript occurs, then, a brief prose note, headed, DeShakespeare nostrati, on our countryman Shakespeare. It is ananecdote of the Players and their ignorance, with a few critical andpersonal remarks on Shakespeare. "I remember the players have oftenmentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare that (whatsoever he penned)he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, 'Would he hadblotted a thousand, ' which they thought a malevolent speech. I hadnot told posterity this but for their ignorance who chose thatcircumstance to commend their friend by (that) wherein he mostfaulted; and to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and dohonour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellentphantasy, brave notions and gentle expressions, wherein he flowedwith that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should bestopped. 'Sufflaminandus erat, ' as Augustus said of Haterius. Hiswit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too! Manytimes he fell into those things could not escape laughter, as when hesaid in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, 'Caesar, thou dostme wrong. ' He replied, 'Caesar did never wrong but with just cause';and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices withhis virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to bepardoned. " Baconians actually maintain that Ben is here speaking ofBacon. 

Of whom is Ben writing? Of the author of Julius Caesar, --certainly, from which, his memory failing, he misquotes a line. If Ben be inthe great secret--that the author was Bacon, or Mr. Greenwood's GreatUnknown, he is here no more enthusiastic about the Shadow or theStatesman, than about Shakespeare; no less cool and critical, whoevermay be the subject of his comments. Whether, in the commendatoryverses, he referred to the Actor-Author, or Bacon, or the ShiningShadow, or all of them at once, he is now in a mood very much morecool and critical. If to be so cool and critical is violentlyinconsistent in the case of the Stratford actor, it is not less so ifBen has Bacon or the Shadow in his mind. Meanwhile the person ofwhom he speaks IS HERE THE ACTOR-AUTHOR, whom the players, hisfriends, commended "wherein he faulted, " namely, in not "blotting"where, in a thousand cases, Ben wishes that he HAD blotted. Can themost enthusiastic Baconian believe that when Ben wrote about theplayers' ignorant applause of Shakespeare's, of their friend's lackof care in correction, Ben had Bacon in his mind?

As for Mr. Greenwood, he says that in Ben's sentence about theplayers and their ignorant commendation, "we have it on Jonson'stestimony that the players looked upon William Shakspere the actor asthe author of the plays and praised him for never blotting out aline. " We have it, and how is the critic to get over or round thefact? Thus, "We know that this statement" (about the almost blotlesslines) "is ridiculous; that if the players had any unblottedmanuscripts in their hands (which is by no means probable) they weremerely fair copies . . . "

Perhaps, but the Baconians appear to assume that a "fair copy" isnot, and cannot be, a copy in the handwriting of the author. 

As I have said before, the Players knew Will's handwriting, if hecould write. If they received his copy in a hand not his own, andwere not idiots, they could not praise him and his unerring speed andaccuracy in penning his thoughts. If, on the other hand, Will couldnot write, in their long friendship with Will, the Players must haveknown the fact, and could not possibly believe, as they certainlydid, "on Jonson's testimony" in his authorship. 

To finish Mr. Greenwood's observations, "if they" (the players)"really thought that the author of the plays wrote them off currentecalamo, and never" (or "hardly ever") "blotted a line, never revised, never made any alterations, they knew nothing whatever concerning thereal Shakespeare. " {258a}

Nothing whatever? What they did not know was merely that Will gavethem fair copies in his own hand, as, before the typewriting machinewas invented, authors were wont to do. Within the last fortnight Iheard the error attributed to the players made by an English scholarwho is foremost in his own field of learning. He and I were lookingat some of Dickens's MSS. They were full of erasions andcorrections. I said, "How unlike Scott!" whose first draft of hisnovels exactly answered to the players' description of Will's "copy. "My friend said, "Browning scarcely made an erasion or change inwriting his poems, " and referred to Mr. Browning's MSS. For thepress, of which examples were lying near us. "But Browning must havemade clean copies for the press, " I said: which was as new an ideato my learned friend as it was undreamed of by the Players:- if whatthey received from him were his clean copies. 

The Players' testimony, through Jonson, cannot be destroyed by the"easy stratagem" of Mr. Greenwood. 

Mr. Greenwood now nearly falls back on Bacon, though he constantlyprofesses that he "is not the advocate of Bacon's authorship. " Theauthor was some great man, as like Bacon as one pea to another. Mr. Greenwood says that Jonson looked on the issue of the First Folio{259a} "as a very special occasion. " Well, it WAS a very specialoccasion; no literary occasion could be more "special. " Without theFolio, badly as it is executed, we should perhaps never have had manyof Shakespeare's plays. The occasion was special in the highestdegree. 

But, says Mr. Greenwood, "if we could only get to the back ofJonson's mind, we should find that there was some efficient causeoperating to induce him to give the best possible send-off to thatcelebrated venture. " {260a}

Ben was much in the habit of giving "sendoffs" of great eloquence topoetic "ventures" now forgotten. What could "the efficient cause" bein the case of the Folio? At once Mr. Greenwood has recourse toBacon; he cannot, do what he will, keep Bacon "out of the Memorial. "Ben was with Bacon at Gorhambury, on Bacon's sixtieth birthday(January 22, 1621). Ben wrote verses about the Genius of the oldhouse, "Thou stand'st as if some mystery thou didst. "

"What was that 'mystery'?" asks Mr. Greenwood. {260b} What indeed?And what has all this to do with Ben's commendatory verses for theFolio, two years later? Mr. Greenwood also surmises, as we haveseen, {260c} that Jonson was with Bacon, helping to translate TheAdvancement of Learning in June, 1623. 

Let us suppose that he was: what has that to do with Ben's versesfor the Folio? Does Mr. Greenwood mean to hint that BACON was the"efficient cause operating to induce" Ben "to give the best possiblesend-off" to the Folio? One does not see what interest Bacon had instimulating the enthusiasm of Ben, unless we accept Bacon as authorof the plays, which Mr. Greenwood does not. If Mr. Greenwood thinksthat Bacon was the author of the plays, then the facts are suitableto his belief. But if he does not, --"I hold no brief for theBaconians, " he says, --how is all this passage on Ben's visits toBacon concerned with the subject in hand?

Between the passage on some "efficient cause" "at the back of Ben'smind, " {261a} and the passage on Ben's visits to Bacon in 1621-3, {261b} six pages intervene, and blur the supposed connection betweenthe "efficient cause" of Ben's verses of 1623, and his visits toBacon in 1621-3. These intercalary pages are concerned with Ben'slaudations of Bacon, by name, in his Discoveries. The first isentirely confined to praise of Bacon as an orator. Bacon is nextmentioned in a Catalogue of Writers as "HE WHO HATH FILLED UP ALLNUMBERS, and performed that in our tongue which may be preferred orcompared either to INSOLENT GREECE OR HAUGHTY ROME, " words used ofShakespeare by Jonson in the Folio verses. 

Mr. Greenwood remarks that Jonson's Catalogue, to judge by the nameshe cites (More, Chaloner, Smith, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sidney, Hooker, Essex, Raleigh, Savile, Sandys, and so on), suggests that "he isthinking mainly of wits and orators of his own and the precedinggeneration, " not of poets specially. This is obvious; why should Benname Shakespeare with More, Smith, Chaloner, Eliot, Bishop Gardiner, Egerton, Sandys, and Savile? Yet "it is remarkable that no mentionshould be made of the great dramatist. " Where is Spenser named, orBeaumont, or Chaucer, with whom Ben ranked Shakespeare? Ben quotedof Bacon the line he wrote long before of Shakespeare as a poet, about "insolent Greece, " and all this is "remarkable, " and Mr. Greenwood finds it "not surprising" {262a} that the Baconians dwellon the "extraordinary coincidence of expression, " as if Ben wereincapable of repeating a happy phrase from himself, and as if weshould wonder at anything the Baconians may say or do. 

Another startling coincidence is that, in Discoveries, Ben said ofShakespeare "his wit was in his own power, " and wished that "the ruleof it had been so too. " Of Bacon, Ben wrote, "his language, where hecould spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. " Thus Bacon HAD"the rule of his own wit, " Bacon "COULD spare or pass by a jest, "whereas Shakespeare apparently could not--so like were the twoDromios in this particular! Strong in these convincing arguments, the Baconians ask (not so Mr. Greenwood, he is no Baconian), "werethere then TWO writers of whom this description was appropriate . . . Was there only one, and was it of Bacon, under the name of"Shakespeare, " that Ben wrote De Shakespeare nostrati?

Read it again, substituting "Bacon" for "Shakespeare. " "I rememberthe players, " and so on, and what has Bacon to do here? "Sometimesit was necessary that BACON should be stopped. " "Many times BACONfell into those things could not escape laughter, " such as Caesar'ssupposed line, "and such like, which were ridiculous. " "BACONredeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in BACON tobe praised than to be pardoned. "

Thus freely, according to the Baconians, speaks Ben of Bacon, whom hehere styles "Shakespeare, "--Heaven knows why! while crediting himwith the players as his friends. Ben could not think or speak thusof Bacon. Mr. Greenwood occupies his space with these sagacities ofthe Baconians; one marvels why he takes the trouble. We are askedwhy Ben wrote so little and that so cool ("I loved him on this sideidolatry as much as any") about Shakespeare. Read through Ben'sDiscoveries: what has he to say about any one of his greatcontemporary dramatists, from Marlowe to Beaumont? He says nothingabout any of them; though he had panegyrised them, as he panegyrisedBeaumont, in verse. In his prose Discoveries he speaks, amongEnglish dramatists, of Shakespeare alone. 

We are also asked by the Baconians to believe that his remarks onBacon under the name of Shakespeare are really an addition to hismore copious and infinitely more reverential observations on Bacon, named by his own name; "I have and do reverence him for the greatnessthat was only proper to himself. " Also (where Bacon is spoken of asShakespeare) "He redeemed his vices by his virtues. There was evermore in him to be praised than to be pardoned . . . Sometimes it wasnecessary that he should be stopped . . . Many times he fell intothose things that could not escape laughter. "

These two views of Bacon are, if you like, incongruous. The personspoken of is in both cases Bacon, say the Baconians, and Mr. Greenwood sympathetically alludes to their ideas, {264a} which Icannot qualify in courteous terms. Baconians "would, of course, explain the difficulty by saying that however sphinx-like wereJonson's utterances, he had clearly distinct in his own mind twodifferent personages, viz. Shakspere the player, and Shakespeare thereal author of the plays and poems, and that if in the perplexingpassage quoted from the Discoveries he appears to confound one withthe other, it is because the solemn seal of secrecy had been imposedon him. " They WOULD say, they DO say all that. Ben is not to letout that Bacon is the author. So he tells us of Bacon that he oftenmade himself ridiculous, and so forth, --but he PRETENDS that he isspeaking of Shakespeare. 

All this wedge of wisdom, remember, is inserted between the searchfor "the efficient cause" of Ben's panegyric (1623), in the Folio, onhis Beloved Mr. William Shakespeare, and the discovery of Ben'svisits to Bacon in 1621-3. 

Does Mr. Greenwood mean that Ben, in 1623 (or earlier), knew thesecret of Bacon's authorship, and, stimulated by his hospitality, applauded his works in the Folio, while, as he must not disclose thesecret, he throughout speaks of Bacon as Shakespeare, puns on thatname in the line about seeming "to shake a lance, " and salutes theLord of Gorhambury as "Sweet Swan of Avon"? Mr. Greenwood cannotmean that; for he is not a Baconian. What DOES he mean?

Put together his pages 483, 489-491. On the former we find how "itwould appear" that Jonson thought the issue of the Folio (1623) "avery special occasion, " and that perhaps if we could only "get to theback of his mind, we should find that there was some efficient causeoperating to induce him to give the best possible send-off to thatcelebrated venture. " Then skip to pp. 489-491, and you find veryspecial occasions: Bacon's birthday feast with its" mystery"; Ben asone of Bacon's "good pens, " in 1623. "The best of these good pens, it seems, was Jonson. " {266a} On what evidence does it "seem"? Theopinion of Judge Webb. 

Is this supposed collaboration with Bacon in 1623, "the efficientcause operating to induce" Ben "to give the best possible send-off"to the Folio? How could this be the "efficient cause" if Bacon werenot the author of the plays?

Mr. Greenwood, like the Genius at the birthday supper, "Stands as if some mystery he did. "

On a trifling point of honour, namely, as to whether Ben were a manlikely to lie, tortuously, hypocritically, to be elaborately falseabout the authorship of the Shakespearean plays, it is hopelesslyimpossible to bring the Baconians and Mr. Greenwood (who "holds nobrief for the Baconians") to my point of view. Mr. Greenwood ridesoff thus--what the Baconians do is unimportant. 

"There are, as everybody knows, many falsehoods that are justifiable, some that it is actually a duty to tell. " It may be so; I pray thatI may never tell any of them (or any more of them). 

Among justifiable lies I do not reckon that of Scott if ever heplumply denied that he wrote the Waverley novels. I do not judge SirWalter. Heaven forbid! But if, in Mr. Greenwood's words, he, "weare told, thought it perfectly justifiable for a writer who wished topreserve his anonymity, to deny, when questioned, the authorship of awork, since the interrogator had no right to put such a question tohim, " {267a} I disagree with Sir Walter. Many other measures, inaccordance with the conditions of each case, were open to him. Someare formulated by his own Bucklaw, in The Bride of Lammermoor, asregards questions about what occurred on his bridal night. Bucklawwould challenge the man, and cut the lady, who asked questions. ButScott's case, as cited, applies only to Bacon (or Mr. Greenwood'sUnknown), if HE were asked whether or not he were the author of theplays. No idiot, at that date, was likely to put the question! But, if anyone did ask, Bacon must either evade, or deny, or tell thetruth. 

On the parallel of Scott, Bacon could thus deny, evade, or tell thetruth. But the parallel of Scott is not applicable to any otherperson except to the author who wishes to preserve his anonymity, andis questioned. The parallel does not apply to Ben. HE had notwritten the Shakespearean plays. Nobody was asking HIM if he hadwritten them. If he knew that the author was Bacon, and knew itunder pledge of secrecy, and was asked (per impossibile) "Who wrotethese plays?" he had only to say, "Look at the title-page. " But nomortal was asking Ben the question. But we are to suppose that, inthe panegyric and in Discoveries, Ben chooses to assert, first, thatShakespeare was his Beloved, his Sweet Swan of Avon; and that he"loved him, on this side idolatry, as much as any. " There is noevidence that he did love Shakespeare, except his own statement, when, according to the Baconians, he is really speaking of Bacon, and, according to Mr. Greenwood, of an unknown person, singularlylike Bacon. Consequently, unless we can prove that Ben really lovedthe actor, he is telling a disgustingly hypocritical and whollyneedless falsehood, both before and after the death of Bacon. To besilent about the authorship of a book, an authorship which is thesecret of your friend and patron, is one thing and a blameless thing. All the friends, some twenty, to whom Scott confided the secret ofhis authorship were silent. But not one of them publicly averredthat the author was their very dear friend, So-and-so, who was notScott, and perhaps not their friend at all. That was Ben's line. Thus the parallel with Scott drawn by Mr. Greenwood, twice, {268a} isno parallel. It has no kind of analogy with Ben's allegedfalsehoods, so elaborate, so incomprehensible except by Baconians, and, if he did not love the actor Shakspere dearly, so detestablyhypocritical, and open to instant detection. 

It is not easy to find a parallel to the conduct with which Ben ischarged. But suppose that Scott lived unsuspected of writing hisnovels, which, let us say, he signed "James Hogg, " and died withoutconfessing his secret, and without taking his elaborate precautionsfor its preservation on record. 

Next, imagine that Lockhart knew Scott's secret, under vow ofsilence, and was determined to keep it at any cost. He therefore, writing after the death of Hogg of Ettrick, and in Scott's lifetime, publishes verses declaring that Hogg was his "beloved" (an enormousfib), and that Hogg, "Sweet Swan of Ettrick, " was the author of theWaverley novels. 

To complete the parallels, Lockhart, after Scott's death, leaves anote in prose to the effect that, while he loved Hogg on this sideidolatry (again, a monstrous fable), he must confess that Hogg, author of the Waverley novels, often fell into things that wereridiculous; and often needed to have a stopper put on him for allthese remarks. Lockhart, while speaking of Hogg, is thinking ofScott--and he makes the remarks solely to conceal Scott's authorshipof the novels--of which, on the hypothesis, nobody suspected Scott tobe the author. Lockhart must then have been what the Baconian Mr. Theobald calls Mr. Churton Collins, "a measureless liar, "--all for noreason. 

Mr. Greenwood, starting as usual from the case, which is no parallel, of Scott's denying his own authorship, goes on, "for all we know, Jonson might have seen nothing in the least objectionable in thepublication by some great personage of his dramatic works under apseudonym" (under another man's name really), "even though thatpseudonym led to a wrong conception as to the authorship; and that, if, being a friend of that great personage, and working in hisservice" (Ben worked, by the theory, in Bacon's), "he had solemnlyengaged to preserve the secret inviolate, and not to reveal it evento posterity, then DOUBTLESS ('I thank thee, Jew' (meaning Sir SidneyLee), 'for teaching me that word'!) he would have remained true tothat solemn pledge. " {270a}

To remain "true, " Ben had only to hold his peace. But he lied up anddown, and right and left, and even declared that Bacon was a friendof the players, and needed to be shut up, and made himself alaughing-stock in his plays, --styling Bacon" Shakespeare. " All this, and much more of the same sort, we must steadfastly believe before wecan be Baconians, for only by believing these doctrines can we getrid of Ben Jonson's testimony to the authorship of Will Shakspere, Gent. 

CHAPTER XIII: THE PREOCCUPATIONS OF BACON

Let us now examine a miracle and mystery in which the Baconians findnothing strange; nothing that is not perfectly normal. Bacon was theauthor of the Shakespearean plays, they tell us. Let us look rapidlyat his biography, after which we may ask, does not his poeticsupremacy, and imaginative fertility, border on the miraculous, whenwe consider his occupations and his ruling passion?

Bacon, born in 1561, had a prodigious genius, was well aware of it, and had his own ideal as to the task which he was born to do. Whilestill at Cambridge, and therefore before he was fifteen, he wasutterly dissatisfied, as he himself informed Dr. Rawley, with thescientific doctrines of the Schools. In the study of nature theyreasoned from certain accepted ideas, a priori principles, not fromwhat he came to call "interrogation of Nature. " There were, indeed, and had long been experimental philosophers, but the school doctorswent not beyond Aristotle; and discovered nothing. As Mr. Speddingputs it, the boy Bacon asked himself, "If our study of nature be thusbarren, our method of study must be wrong; might not a better methodbe found? . . . Upon the conviction 'This may be done, ' followed atonce the question, HOW may it be done? Upon that question answeredfollowed the resolution to try and do it. "

This was, in religious phrase, the Conversion of Bacon, "the eventwhich had a greater influence than any other upon his character andfuture course. From that moment he had a vocation which employed andstimulated him . . . An object to live for as wide as humanity, asimmortal as the human race; an idea to live in vast and lofty enoughto fill the soul for ever with religious and heroic aspirations. "{274a} The vocation, the idea, the object, were not poetical. 

In addition to this ceaseless scientific preoccupation, Bacon wasmuch concerned with the cause of reformed religion (then at stake inFrance, and supposed to be in danger at home), and with the goodgovernment of his native country. He could only aid that cause bythe favour of Elizabeth and James; by his services in Parliament, where, despite his desire for advancement, he conscientiously opposedthe Queen. He was obliged to work at such tasks of various sorts, legal and polemical literature, as were set him by people in power. With these three great objects filling his heart, inspiring hisambition, and occupying his energies and time, we cannot easilybelieve, without direct external evidence, that he, or any mortal, could have leisure and detachment from his main objects (to which wemay add his own advancement) sufficient to enable him to compose theworks ascribed to Shakespeare. 

Thus, at the age of twenty-two (1583), when, if ever, he might havepenned sonnets to his mistress's eyebrow, he reports that he wrote"his first essay on the Instauration of Philosophy, which he calledTemporis Partus Maximus, 'The Greatest Birth of Time, '" and "we neednot doubt that between Law and Philosophy he found enough to do. "{275a} For the Baconians take Bacon to have been a very great lawyer(of which I am no judge), and Law is a hard mistress, rapacious of aman's hours. In 1584 he entered Parliament, but we do not hearanything very important of his occupations before 1589, when he wrotea long pamphlet, "Touching the Controversies of the Church ofEngland. " {275b} He had then leisure enough; that he was notanonymously supplying the stage with plays I can neither prove nordisprove: but there is no proof that he wrote Love's Labour's Lost!By 1591-2, we learn much of him from his letter to Cecil, who neverwould give him a place wherein he could meditate his philosophy. Hewas apparently hard at scientific work. "I account my ordinarycourse of study and meditation to be more painful than most parts ofaction are. " He adds, "The contemplative planet carries me awaywholly, " and by contemplation I conceive him to mean what he calls"vast contemplative ends. " These he proceeds to describe: he doesNOT mean the writing of Venus and Adonis (1593), nor of Lucrece(1594), nor of comedies! "I have taken all knowledge to be myprovince, " and he recurs to his protest against the pseudo-science ofhis period. "If I could purge knowledge of two sorts of roverswhereof the one, with frivolous disputations, confutations, andverbosities; the other with blind experiments, and auriculartraditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I hope Ishould bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, andprofitable inventions and discoveries . . . This, whether it becuriosity, or vainglory, or nature, or (if one take it favourably)philanthropy, is so fixed in my mind that it cannot be removed. " IfCecil cannot help him to a post, if he cannot serve the truth, hewill reduce himself, like Anaxagoras, to voluntary poverty, " . . . And become some sorry bookmaker, or a true pioneer in that mine oftruth . . . " {276a} Really, from first to last he was the prince ofbegging-letter writers, endlessly asking for place, pensions, reversions, money, and more money. 

Though his years were thirty-one, Bacon was as young at heart asShelley at eighteen, when he wrote thus to Cecil, "my Lord TreasurerBurghley. " What did Cecil care for his youngish kinsman'sphilanthropy, and "vast speculative ends" (how MODERN it all is!), and the rest of it? But just because Bacon, at thirty-one, IS soextremely "green, " going to "take all knowledge for his province (ifsome one will only subsidise him, and endow his research), I conceivethat he was in earnest about his reformation of science. Surely noBaconian will deny it! Being so deeply in earnest, taking his "studyand meditation" so hard, I cannot see him as the author of Venus andAdonis, and whatever plays of the period, --say, Love's Labour's Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Henry VI, Part I, --are attributed tohim, about this time, by Baconians. Of course my view is merelypersonal or "subjective. " The Baconians' view is also "subjective. "I regard Bacon, in 1591, and later, as intellectually preoccupied byhis vast speculative aims:- what he says that he desires to do, inscience, is what he DID, as far as he was able. His other desires, his personal advancement, money, a share in the conduct of affairs, he also hotly pursued, not much to his own or the public profit. There seems to be no room left, no inclination left, for competitionin their own line with Marlowe, Greene, Nash, and half a dozen otherprofessed playwrights: no room for plays done under the absurdpseudonym of an ignorant actor. 

You see these things as the Baconians do, or as I do. Argument isunavailing. I take Bacon to have been sincere in his effusive letterto Cecil. Not so the Baconians; he concealed, they think, a vastLITERARY aim. They must take his alternative--to be "some sorrybookmaker, OR a pioneer in that mine of truth, " as meaning that hewould either be the literary hack of a company of players, OR thefounder of a regenerating philosophy. But, at that date, playwrightscould not well be called "bookmakers, " for the owners of the playsdid their best to keep them from appearing as printed books. IfBacon by "bookmaker" meant "playwright, " he put a modest value on hispoetical work!

Meanwhile (1591-2), Bacon attached himself to the young, beautiful, and famous Essex, on the way to be a Favourite, and gave him muchexcellent advice, as he always did, and, as always, his advice wasnot taken. It is not a novel suggestion, that Essex is the young manto whom Bacon is so passionately attached in the Sonnetstraditionally attributed to Shakespeare. "I applied myself to him"(that is, to Essex), says Bacon, "in a manner which, I think, happeneth rarely among men. " The poet of the Sonnets applies himselfto the Beloved Youth, in a manner which (luckily) "happeneth rarelyamong men. "

It is difficult to fit the Sonnets into Bacon's life. But, if youpursue the context of what Bacon says concerning Essex, you find thathe does not speak OPENLY of a tenderly passionate attachment to thatyoung man; not more than THIS, "I did nothing but advise and ruminatewith myself, to the best of my understanding, propositions andmemorials of anything that might concern his Lordship's honour, fortune, or service. " {279a} As Bacon did nothing but these things(1591-2), he had no great leisure for writing poetry and plays. Moreover, speaking as a poet, in the Sonnets, he might poeticallyexaggerate his intense amatory devotion to Essex into the symbolismof his passionate verse. WAS ESSEX THEN A MARRIED MAN? If so, theSonneteer's insistence on his marrying must be symbolical of--anything else you please. 

We know that Bacon, at this period, "did nothing" but "ruminate"about Essex. The words are his own! (1604). No plays, no Venus andAdonis, nothing but enthusiastic service of Essex and the Sonnets. Mr. Spedding, indeed, thinks that, to adorn some pageant of Essex(November 17, 1592), Bacon kindly contributed such matter as "Mr. Bacon in Praise of Knowledge" (containing his usual views aboutregenerating science), and "Mr. Bacon's Discourse in Praise of hisSovereign. " {279b} Both are excellent, though, for a Court festival, not very gay. 

He also, very early in 1593, wrote an answer to Father Parson's (?)famous indictment of Elizabeth's Government, in Observations on aLibel. {280a} What with ruminating on Essex, and this essay, he wasnot solely devoted to Venus and Adonis and to furbishing-up oldplays, though, no doubt, he MAY have unpacked his bosom in theSonnets, and indulged his luscious imaginations in Venus and Adonis. I would not limit the potentialities of his genius. But, certainly, this amazing man was busy in quite other matters than poetry; not tomention his severe "study and meditation" on science. 

All these activities of Bacon, in the year of Venus and Adonis, donot exhaust his exercises. Bacon, living laborious days, plungedinto the debate in the Commons on Supply and fell into Elizabeth'sdisgrace, and vainly competed with Coke for the Attorney-Generalship, and went on to write a pamphlet on the conspiracy of Lopez, and totry to gain the office of Solicitor-General, to manage Essex'saffairs, to plead at the Bar, to do Crown work as a lawyer, to urgehis suit for the Solicitorship; to trifle with the composition of"Formularies and Elegancies" (January 1595), to write his Essays, totry for the Mastership of the Rolls, to struggle with the affairs ofthe doomed Essex (1600-1), while always "labouring in secret" at thatvast aim of the reorganisation of natural science, which everpreoccupied him, he says, and distracted his attention from hispractice and from affairs of State. {281a} Of these State affairsthe projected Union with Scotland was the most onerous. He was alsowriting The Advancement of Learning (1605). "I do confess, " he wroteto Sir Thomas Bodley, "since I was of any understanding, my mind hathin effect been absent from that I have done. " {281b} His mind waswith his beloved Reformation of Learning: this came between him andhis legal, his political labours, his pamphlet-writing, and hisprivate schemes and suits. To this burden of Atlas the Baconians addthe vamping-up of old plays for Shakespeare's company, and theinditing of new plays, poems, and the Sonnets. Even without thisconsiderable addition to his tasks, Bacon is wonderful enough, butwith it--he needs the sturdy faith of the Rationalist to accept himand his plot--to write plays under the pseudonym of "WilliamShakespeare. "

Talk of miracles as things which do not happen! The activities ofBacon from 1591 to 1605; the strain on that man's mind and heart, --especially his heart, when we remember that he had to prosecute hispassionately adored Essex to the death; all this makes it seem, tome, improbable that, as Mrs. Pott and her school of Baconians hold, he lived to be at least a hundred and six, if not much older. Nowonder that he turned to tragedy, Lear, Macbeth, Othello, and sawlife en noir: man delighted him not, nor woman either. 

The occupations, and, even more, the scientific preoccupation ofBacon, do not make his authorship of the plays a physicalimpossibility. But they make it an intellectual miracle. Perhaps Imay be allowed to set off this marvel against that other portent, Will Shakspere's knowledge and frequent use of terms of Law. {282a}I do not pretend to understand how Will came to have them at the tipof his pen. Thus it may be argued that the Sonnets are by Bacon andno other man, because the Law is so familiar to the author, and hislegal terms are always used with so nice an accuracy, that only Baconcan have been capable of these mysterious productions. (But why wasBacon so wofully inaccurate in points of scholarship and history?)

By precisely the same argument Lord Penzance proves that Bacon (notBen, as Mr. Greenwood holds) wrote for the players the Dedication ofthe Folio. {282b} "If it should be the case that Francis Bacon wrotethe plays, he would, probably, afterwards have written the Dedicationof the Folio, and the style of it" (stuffed with terms of law) "wouldbe accounted for. " Mr. Greenwood thinks that Jonson wrote theDedication; so Ben, too, was fond of using legal terms in literature. "Legal terms abounded in all plays and poems of the period, " says SirSidney Lee, and Mr. Greenwood pounces on the word "all. " {283a}However he says, "We must admit that this use of legal jargon isfrequently found in lay-writers, poets, and others of the Elizabethanperiod--in sonnets for example, where it seems to us intolerable. "Examples are given from Barnabe Barnes. {283b} The lawyers allagree, however, that Shakespeare does the legal style "more natural, "and more accurately than the rest. And yet I cannot even argue that, if he did use legal terms at all, he would be sure to do it prettywell. 

For on this point of Will's use of legal phraseology I franklyprofess myself entirely at a loss. To use it in poetry was part ofthe worse side of taste at that period. The lawyers with one voicedeclare that Will's use of it is copious and correct, and that their"mystery" is difficult, their jargon hard to master; "there isnothing so dangerous, " wrote Lord Campbell, "as for one not of thecraft to tamper with our freemasonry. " I have not tampered with it. Perhaps a man of genius who found it interesting might have learnedthe technical terms more readily than lawyers deem possible. ButWill, so accurate in his legal terms, is so inaccurate on many otherpoints; for example, in civil and natural history, and in classiclore. Mr. Greenwood proves him to be totally at sea as a naturalist. On the habits of bees, for example, "his natural history of theinsect is as limited as it is inaccurate. " {284a} Virgil, though nota Lord Avebury, was a great entomologist, compared with Will. Aboutthe cuckoo Will was recklessly misinformed. His Natural History wasfolklore, or was taken from that great mediaeval storehouse ofabsurdities, the popular work of Pliny. "He went to contemporaryerror or antiquated fancy for his facts, not to nature, " says acritic quoted by Mr. Greenwood. {284b} Was that worthy of Bacon?

All these charges against le vieux Williams (as Theophile Gautiercalls our Will) I admit. But Will was no Bacon; Will had not "takenall knowledge for his province. " Bacon, I hope, had not neglectedBees! Thus the problem, why is Will accurate in his legalterminology, and reckless of accuracy in quantity, in history, inclassic matters, is not by me to be solved. I can only surmise thatfrom curiosity, or for some other unknown reason, he had read law-books, or drawn information from Templars about the meaning of theirjargon, and that, for once, he was technically accurate. 

We have now passed in review the chief Baconian and Anti-Willianarguments against Will Shakespeare's authorship of the plays andpoems. Their chief argument for Bacon is aut Diabolus, autFranciscus, which, freely interpreted, means, "If Bacon is not theauthor, who the devil is?"

We reply, that man is the author (in the main) to whom the works areattributed by every voice of his own generation which mentions them, namely, the only William Shakespeare that, from 1593 to the earlyyears of the second decade of the following century, held a prominentplace in the world of the drama. His authorship is explicitlyvouched for by his fellow-players, Heminge and Condell, to whom heleft bequests in his will; and by his sometime rival, later friend, and always critic, Ben Jonson; Heywood, player and playwright andpamphleteer, who had been one of Henslowe's "hands, " and lived intothe Great Rebellion, knew the stage and authors for the stage fromwithin, and HIS "mellifluous Shakespeare" is "Will, " as his Beaumontwas "Frank, " his Marlowe "Kit, " his Fletcher, "Jack. " The author ofDaiphantus (1604), mentioning the popularity of Hamlet, styles it"one of friendly Shakespeare's tragedies. " Shakespeare, to him, wasour Will clearly, a man of known and friendly character. The otherauthors of allusions did not need to say WHO their "Shakespeare" was, any more than they needed to say WHO Marlowe or any other poet was. We have examined the possibly unprecedented argument which demandsthat they who mention Shakespeare as the poet must, if they wouldenlighten us, add explicitly that he is also the actor. 

"But all may have been deceived" by the long conspiracy of the astuteBacon, or the Nameless One. To believe this possible, consideringthe eager and suspicious jealousy and volubility of rivalplaywrights, is to be credulous indeed. The Baconians, representingWill almost as incapable of the use of pen and ink as "the old hermitof Prague, " destroy their own case. A Will who had to make his mark, like his father, could not pose as an author even to the call-boy ofhis company. Mr. Greenwood's bookless Will, with some crumbs ofLatin, and some power of "bumbasting out a blank verse, " is a ratherless impossible pretender, indeed; but why and when did the speakerof patois, the bookless one, write blank verse, from 1592 onwards, and where are his blank verses? Where are the "works" of Poet-Ape?As to the man, even Will by tradition, whatever it may be worth, hewas "a handsome, well-shaped man; very good company, and of a veryready and pleasant, smooth wit. " To his fellow-actors he was "soworthy a friend and fellow" (associate). To Jonson, "he was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed so freelythat sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. " If Jonsonhere refers, as I suppose he does, to his conversation, it had thatextraordinary affluence of thoughts, each mating itself with asremarkable originality of richly figured expressions, which is socharacteristic of the style of Shakespeare's plays. In thisprodigality he was remote indeed from the style of the Greeks;"panting Time toils after him in vain, " and even the reader, muchmore the listener, might say, sufflaminandus est; "he needs to havethe brake put on. " {287a}

Such, according to unimpeachable evidence, was Will. Only despaircan venture the sad suggestion that, under the name of Shakespeare, Ben is here speaking of Bacon, as "falling into those things whichcould not escape laughter . . . Which were ridiculous. " But to thislast poor shift and fantastic guess were the Anti-Willians andBaconians reduced. 

Such was Shakespeare, according to a rival. 

But it is "impossible" that a man should have known so much, especially of classical literature and courtly ways, and foreignmanners and phrases, if he had no more, at most, than four or fiveyears at a Latin school, and five or six years in that forcing-houseof faculty, the London of the stage, in the flush of the triumph overthe Armada. 

"With innumerable sorts of English books and infinite fardles ofprinted pamphlets this country is pestered, all shops stuffed, andevery study furnished, " says a contemporary. {288a} If a doubterwill look at the cheap and common books of that day (a play inquarto, and the Sonnets of Shakespeare, when new, were sold forfippence) in any great collection; he will not marvel that to a loverof books, poor as he might be, many were accessible. Such a mancannot be kept from books. 

If the reader will look into "the translations and imitations of theclassics which poured from the press . . . The poems and love-pamphlets and plays of the University wits" (when these chanced to beprinted), "the tracts and dialogues in the prevailing taste, " {288b}he will understand the literary soil in which the genius ofShakespeare blossomed as rapidly as the flowers in "Adonis' garden. "The whole literature was, to an extent which we find tedious, saturated with classical myths, anecdotes, philosophic dicta--a worldof knowledge of a kind then "in widest commonalty spread, " but now somuch forgotten that, to Baconians and the public, such lore seemsrecondite learning. 

The gallants who haunted the stage, and such University wits as couldget the money, or had talent (like Crichton) to "dispute their waythrough Europe, " made the Italian tour, and, notoriously, were"Italianate. " They would not be chary of reminiscences of Florence, Venice, and Rome. Actors visited Denmark and Germany. No man athome was far to seek for knowledge of Elsinore, the mysteriousVenetian "tranect or common ferry, " the gondolas, and the Rialto. There was no lack of soldiers fresh and voluble from the foreignwars. Only dullards, or the unthinking, can be surprised by the easewith which a quick-witted man, having some knowledge of Latin, canlearn to read a novel in French, Italian, or Spanish. ThatShakespeare was the very reverse of a dullard, of the clod ofBaconian fancy, is proved by the fact that he was thought capable ofhis works. For courtly manners he had the literary convention andLyly's Court Comedies, with what he saw when playing at the Court andin the houses of the great. As to untaught nobility of manners, there came to the Court of France in 1429, from a small pig-breedingvillage on the marches of Lorraine, one whose manners were deemed ofexquisite grace, propriety, and charm, by all who saw and heard her:of her manners and swift wit and repartee, the official record of hertrial bears concordant evidence. Other untaught gifts she possessed, and the historic record is unimpeached as regards that child ofgenius, Jeanne d'Arc. 

"Ne me dites jamais cette bete de mot, impossible, " said Napoleon:it is indeed a stupid word where genius is concerned. 

If intellectual "miracles" were impossible to genius, even Baconcould not have been and done all that he was and did, and also theauthor of the Shakespearean plays and poems; even Ben could not havebeen the scholar that he was. For the rest, I need not return on mytracks and explain once more such shallow mysteries as the "Silenceof Philip Henslowe, " and the lack of literary anecdotage aboutShakespeare in a stupendously illiterate country town. Had Will, notBen, visited Drummond of Hawthornden, we should have matter enough ofthe kind desired. 

"We have the epics of Homer, " people say, "what matters it whetherthey be by a Man, or by a Syndicate that was in business throughseven centuries? We have the plays of Shakespeare, what matters itwhether he, or Bacon, or X. Were, in the main, the author?"

It matters to us, if we hold such doubts to be fantastic pedantries, such guesses contrary to the nature of things; while we wish to givelove and praise and gratitude where they are due; to that Achaean"Father of the rest"; and to "friendly Shakespeare. "

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I: "TROILUS AND CRESSIDA"

To myself Troilus and Cressida is, with Henry VI, Part I, the mostmysterious among the Shakespearean plays. Here we find, if Willwrote it, or had any hand in it, the greatest poet of the modernworld in touch with the heroes of the greatest poet of the ancientworld; but the English author's eyes are dimmed by the mists and dustof post-Homeric perversions of the Tale of Troy. The work ofperversion began, we know, in the eighth century before our era, when, by the author of the Cypria, these favourite heroes of Homer, Odysseus and Diomede, were represented as scoundrels, assassins, andcowards. 

In the Prologue to the play (whosoever wrote it) we see that thewriter is no scholar. He makes the Achaean fleet muster in "the portof Athens, " of all places. Even Ovid gave the Homeric trysting-place, Aulis, in Boeotia. (This Prologue is not in the Folio of1623. ) Six gates hath the Englishman's Troy, and the Scaean is notone of them. 

The loves of Troilus and Cressida, with Pandarus as go-between, arefrom the mediaeval Troy books, and were wholly unknown to Homer, whose Pandarus is only notable for loosing a traitor's shaft atMenelaus, in time of truce, and for his death at the hand of Diomede. The play begins after the duel (Iliad, III) between Paris andMenelaus: in the play, not in Homer, Paris "retires hurt, " as is atfirst reported. Hector has a special grudge against the TelamonianAias. As in the Iliad there is a view of the Achaeans, taken fromthe walls by Priam and Helen; so, in the play, Pandarus and Cressidareview the Trojans re-entering the city. Paris turns out not to behurt after all. 

In Act i. Scene 3, the Achaeans hold council, and regret thedisaffection of Achilles. Here comes Ulysses' great speech ondiscipline, in armies, and in states, the gradations of rank andduty; commonly thought to be a leaf in Shakespeare's crown of bays. The speeches of Agamemnon and Nestor are dignified; indeed the poettreats Agamemnon much more kindly than Homer is wont to do. But thepoet represents Achilles as laughing in his quarters at Patroclus'simitation of the cough and other infirmities of old Nestor, to whichHomer, naturally, never alludes. Throughout, the English poetregards Achilles with the eyes of his most infamous late Greek andignorant mediaeval detractors. The Homeric sequence of events is sofar preserved that, on the day of the duel between Paris andMenelaus, comes (through AEneas) the challenge by Hector to fight anyGreek in "gentle and joyous passage of arms" (Iliad, VII). As in theIliad, the Greeks decide by lot who is to oppose Hector; but by thecontrivance of Odysseus (not by chance, as in Homer) the lot falls onAias. In the Iliad Aias is as strong and sympathetic as Porthos inLes Trois Mousquetaires. The play makes him as great an eater ofbeef, and as stupid as Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Achilles, save in apassage quite out of accord with the rest of the piece, is nearly asdull as Aias, is discourteous, and is cowardly! No poet and noscholar who knew Homer's heroes in Homer's Greek, could thus degradethem; and the whole of the revilings of Thersites are loathsome intheir profusion of filthy thoughts. It does not follow that Will didnot write the part of Thersites. Some of the most beautiful andShakespearean pieces of verse adorn the play; one would say that noman but Will could have written them. Troilus and Cressida, atfirst, appear "to dally with the innocence of love"; and nothing canbe nobler and more dramatic than the lines in which Cressida, compelled to go to her father, Calchas, in the Greek camp, inexchange for Antenor, professes her loyalty in love. But the Homericand the alien later elements, --the story of false love, --cannot besuccessfully combined. The poet, whoever he was, appears to wearyand to break down. He ends, indeed, as the Iliad ends, with thedeath of Hector, but Hector, in the play, is murdered, while restingunarmed, without shield and helmet, after stripping a suit ofsumptuous mail from a nameless runaway. In the play he has slainPatroclus, but has not stripped him of the armour of Achilles, which, in Homer, he is wearing. Achilles then meets Hector, but far fromrushing to avenge on him Patroclus, he retires like a coward, mustershis men, and makes them surround and slay the defenceless Hector. 

Cressida, who is sent to her father Calchas, in the Greek camp, in aday becomes "the sluttish spoil of opportunity, " and of Diomede, andthe comedy praised by the preface-writer of a quarto of 1609, is asqualid tragedy reeking of Thersites and Pandarus, of a light o'love, and the base victory of cruel cowardice over knightly Hector. Yet there seemed to be muffled notes from the music, and brokenlights from the splendour of Homer. When Achilles eyes Hector allover, during a truce, and insultingly says that he is thinking inwhat part of his body he shall drive the spear, we are reminded ofIliad, XXII, 320-326, where Achilles searches his own armour, worn byPatroclus, stripped by Hector from him, and worn by Hector, for achink in the mail. Yet, after all, these points are taken, not fromthe Iliad, but from Caxton's popular Troy Book. 

Once more, when Hector is dead, and Achilles bids his men to

 "cry amain, Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain, "

we think of Iliad, XXII, 390-393, where Achilles commands theMyrmidons to go singing the paean

"Glory have we won, we have slain great Hector!"

The sumptuous armour stripped by Hector from a nameless man, recallshis winning of the arms of Achilles from Patroclus. But, in fact, this passage is also borrowed, with the murder of Hector, fromCaxton, except as regards the paean. 

It may be worth noting that Chapman's first instalment of histranslation of the Iliad, containing Books I, II, and VII-XI, appeared in 1598, and thence the author could adapt the passages fromIliad, Book VII. In or about 1598-9 occurred, in Histriomastix, byMarston and others, a burlesque speech in which Troilus, addressingCressida, speaks of "thy knight, " who "SHAKES his furious SPEARE, "while in April 1599, Henslowe's account-book contains entries ofmoney paid to Dekker and Chettle for a play on Troilus and Cressida, for the Earl of Nottingham's Company. {297a} Of this play no more isknown, nor can we be sure that Chapman's seven Books of the Iliad (I, II, VII-XI) of 1598 attracted the attention of playwrights, fromShakespeare to Chettle and Dekker, to Trojan affairs. Thecoincidences at least are curious. If "SHAKES his furious SPEARE" inHistriomastix refers to Shakespeare in connection with Cressida, while, in 1599, Dekker and Chettle were doing a Troilus and Cressidafor a company not Shakespeare's, then there were TWO Troilus andCressida in the field. A licence to print a Troilus and Cressida wasobtained in 1602-3, but the quarto of our play, the Shakespeareanplay, is of 1609, "as it is acted by my Lord Chamberlain's men, " thatis, by Shakespeare's Company. Now Dekker and Chettle wrote, apparently, for Lord Nottingham's Company. One quarto of 1609declares, in a Preface, that the play has "never been staled with thestage"; another edition of the same year, from the same publishers, has not the Preface, but declares that the piece "was acted by theKing's Majesty's servants AT THE GLOBE. " {298a} The author of thePreface (Ben Jonson, Mr. Greenwood thinks, {298b}) speaks only of asingle author, who has written other admirable comedies. "When he isgone, and his comedies out of sale, you will scramble for them, andset up a new English Inquisition. " Why? The whole affair is apuzzle. But if the author of the Preface is right about the singleauthor of Troilus and Cressida, and if Shakespeare is alluded to inconnection with Cressida, in Histriomastix (1599), then it appears tome that Shakespeare, in 1598-9, after Chapman's portion of the Iliadappeared, was author of one Troilus and Cressida, extant in 1602-3(when its publication was barred till the publisher "got authority"), while Chettle and Dekker, in April 1599, were busy with anotherTroilus and Cressida, as why should they not be? In an age so laxabout copyright, if their play was of their own original making, arewe to suppose that there was copyright in the names of the leadingpersons of the piece, Troilus and Cressida?

Perhaps not: but meanwhile Mr. Greenwood cites Judge Stotsenburg'sopinion {298c} that Henslowe's entries of April 1599 "refute theShakespearean claim to the authorship of Troilus and Cressida, " whichexhibits "the collaboration of two men, " as "leading commentators"hold that it does. But the learned Judge mentions as a conceivablealternative that "there were two plays on the subject with the samename, " and, really, it looks as if there were! The Judge does notagree "with Webb and other gifted writers that Bacon wrote thisplay. " So far the Court is quite with him. He goes on however, "Itwas, in my opinion, based on the foregoing facts, originally theproduction of Dekker and Chettle, added to and philosophicallydressed by Francis Bacon. " But, according to Mr. Greenwood, "it isadmitted not only that the different writing of two authors isapparent in the Folio play, but also that 'Shakespeare' must have hadat least some share in a play of Troilus and Cressida as early as thevery year 1599, in the spring of which Dekker and Chettle are foundengaged in writing their play of that name, " on the evidence ofHistriomastix. {299a} How that evidence proves that "a play ofTroilus and Cressida had been PUBLISHED as by 'Shakespeare' about1599, " I know not. Perhaps "published" means "acted"? "And it isnot unreasonable to suppose that this play" ("published as byShakespeare") "was the one to which Henslowe alludes"--as beingwritten in April 1599, by Dekker and Chettle. 

If so, the play must show the hands of three, not two, men, Dekker, Chettle, and "Shakespeare, " the Great Unknown, or Bacon. Hecollaborates with Dekker and Chettle, in a play for Lord Nottingham'smen (according to Sir Sidney Lee), {300a} but it is, later at least, played by Shakespeare's company; and perhaps Bacon gets none of the 4pounds paid {300b} to Dekker and Chettle. Henslowe does not recordhis sale of the Dekker and Chettle play to Shakespeare's or to anycompany or purchaser. Without an entry of the careful Henslowerecording his receipts for the sale of the Dekker and Chettle play toany purchaser, it is not easy to see how Shakespeare's companyprocured the manuscript, and thus enabled him to refashion it. Perhaps no reader will fail to recognise his hand in the beautifulblank verse of many passages. I am not familiar enough with theworks of Dekker and Chettle to assign to them the less desirablepassages. Thersites is beastly: a Yahoo of Swift's might poisonwith such phrases as his the name and nature of love, loyalty, andmilitary courage. But whatsoever Shakespeare did, he did thoroughly, and if he were weary, if man delighted him not, nor woman either, hemay have written the whole piece, in which love perishes for the whimof "a daughter of the game, " and the knightly Hector is butchered tosate the vanity of his cowardly Achilles. If Shakespeare read thebooks translated by Chapman, he must have read them in the samespirit as Keats, and was likely to find that the poetry of theAchaean could not be combined with the Ionian, Athenian, and Romanperversions, as he knew them in the mediaeval books of Troy, in theEnglish of Lydgate and Caxton. The chivalrous example of Chaucer hedid not follow. Probably Will looked on the play as one of hisfailures. The Editor, if we can speak of an Editor, of the Folioclearly thrust the play in late, so confusedly that it is not paged, and is not mentioned in the table of the contents. 

"The Grand Possessors" of the play referred to in the Preface to oneof the two quartos of 1609 we may suppose to be Shakespeare'sCompany. In this case the owners would not permit the publication ofthe play if they could prevent it. The title provokes Mr. Greenwoodto say, "Why these worthies should be so styled is not apparent;indeed the supposition seems not a little ridiculous. " {301a} Ofcourse, if the players were the possessors, "grand" is merely a jeer, by a person advertising a successful piracy. And in regard toTieck's conjecture that James I is alluded to as "the grandpossessor, for whom the play was expressly written, " {301b} theautocratic James was very capable of protecting himself againstlarcenous publishers. 

APPENDIX II--CHETTLE'S SUPPOSED ALLUSION TO WILL SHAKSPERE

In discussing contemporary allusions to William Shakspere orShakespeare (or however you spell the name), I have not relied onChettle's remarks (in Kind-Hart's Dreame, 1592) concerning Greene'sGroatsworth of Wit. Chettle speaks of it, saying, "in which aletter, written to divers play-makers, is offensively by one or twoof them taken. " It appears that by "one or two" Chettle means TWO. "With NEITHER of them that take offence was I acquainted" (at thetime when he edited the Groatsworth), "and with one of them I carenot if I never be. " We do not know who "the Gentlemen his Quondamacquaintance, " addressed by Greene, were. They are usually supposedto have been Marlowe, Peele, and Lodge, or Nash. We do not knowwhich of the two who take offence is the man with whom Chettle didnot care to be acquainted. Of "the other, " according to Chettle, "myself have seen his demeanour no less civil than he is excellent inthe quality he professes" (that is, "in his profession, " as we say), "besides divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty; and his facetious grace in writing thatapproves his art. "

Speaking from his own observation, Chettle avers that the person ofwhom he speaks is civil in his demeanour, and (APPARENTLY) that he is"excellent in the quality he professes"--in his profession. Speakingon the evidence of "divers of worship, " the same man is said topossess "facetious grace in writing. " Had his writings been thenpublished, Chettle, a bookish man, would have read them and formedhis own opinion. Works of Lodge, Peele, and Marlowe had beenpublished. Writing is NOT "the quality he professes, " is not the"profession" of the man to whom Chettle refers. On the other hand, the profession of Greene's "Quondam acquaintance" WAS writing, "theyspend their wits in making Plays. " Thus the man who wrote, but whoseprofession was not that of writing, does not, so far, appear to havebeen one of those addressed by Greene. It seems undeniable thatGreene addresses gentlemen who are "playmakers, " who "spend theirwits in making Plays, " and who are NOT actors; for Greene's purposeis to warn them against the rich, ungrateful actors. If Greene'sfriends, at the moment when he wrote, were, or if any one of themthen was, by profession an actor, Greene's warning to him againstactors, directed to an actor, is not, to me, intelligible. But Mr. Greenwood writes, "As I have shown, George Peele was one of theplaywrights addressed by Greene, and Peele was a successful player aswell as playwright, and might quite truly have been alluded to bothas having 'facetious grace in writing, ' and being 'excellent in thequality he professed, ' that is, as a professional actor. " {304a}

I confess that I did not know that George Peele, M. A. , of Oxford, hadever been a player, and a successful player. But one may ask, --in1592 did George Peele "profess the quality" of an actor; was he thena professional actor, and only an occasional playwright? If so, I amnot apt to believe that Greene seriously advised him not to put faithin the members of his own profession. From them, as a successfulmember of their profession (a profession which, as Greene complains, "exploited" dramatic authors), Peele stood in no danger. Thus I donot see how Chettle's professional actor, reported to have facetiousgrace in writing, can be identified with Peele. The identificationseems to me impossible. Peele and Marlowe, in 1592, were literarygentlemen; Lodge, in 1592, was filibustering, though a literary man;he had not yet become a physician. In 1592, none of the three hadany profession but that of literature, so far as I am aware. The manwho had a special profession, and also wrote, was not one of thesethree; nor was he Tom Nash, a mere literary gentleman, pamphleteerand playwright. 

I do not know the name of any one of the three to whom Greeneaddressed the Groatsworth, though the atheistic writer of tragediesseems meant, and disgracefully meant, for Marlowe. I only know thatChettle is expressing his regrets for Greene's language to some onewhom he applauded as to his exercise of his profession; and who, according to "divers of worship, " had also "facetious grace inwriting. " "Myself have seen him no less civil than he is excellentin the quality he professes"; whether or not this means that Chettlehas SEEN his excellence in his profession, I cannot tell for certain;but Chettle's remark is, at least, contrasted with what he givesmerely from report--"the facetious grace in writing" of the man inquestion. HIS writing is not part of his profession, so he is not, in 1592 (I conceive), Lodge, Peele, Marlowe, or Nash. 

Who, then, is this mysterious personage? Malone, Dyce, Steevens, Collier, Halliwell-Phillipps, Knight, Sir Sidney Lee, Messrs. Gosseand Garnett, and Mr. J. C. Collins say that he is Will Shakspere. But Mr. Fleay and Mr. Castle, whose "mind" is "legal, " have pointedout that this weird being cannot be Shake-scene (or Shakspere, ifGreene meant Shakspere), attacked by Greene. For Chettle says thatin the Groatsworth of Wit "a letter, written to divers play-makers, is offensively by one or two of them taken. " The mysterious one is, therefore, one of the playwrights addressed by Greene. Consequentlyall the followers of Malone, who wrote before Messrs. Fleay andCastle, are mistaken; and what Mr. Greenwood has to say about SirSidney Lee, J. C. Collins, and Dr. Garnett, and Mr. Gosse, in the wayof moral reprobation, may be read by the curious in his pages. {305a}

Meanwhile, if we take Chettle to have been a strict grammarian, byhis words--"a letter, written to divers play-makers, is offensivelyby one or two of them taken, " Will is excluded; the letter was mostassuredly not written to HIM. But I, whose mind is not legal, am notcertain that Chettle does not mean that the letter, written to diversplay-makers, was by one or two makers of plays offensively taken. 

This opinion seems the less improbable, as the person to whom Chettleis most apologetic excels in a quality or profession, which iscontrasted with, and is not identical with, "his facetious grace inwriting"--a parergon, or " bye-work, " in his case. Whoever thisperson was, he certainly was not Marlowe, Peele, Lodge, or Nash. Wemust look for some other person who had a profession, and also wasreported to have facetious grace in writing. 

If Chettle is to be held tight to grammar, Greene referred to someone unknown, some one who wrote for the stage, but had anotherprofession. If Chettle is not to be thus tautly construed, I confessthat to myself he seems to have had Shakspere, even Will, in hismind. For Will in 1592 had "a quality which he professed, " that ofan actor; and also (I conceive) was reported to have " facetiousgrace in writing. " But other gentlemen may have combined theseattributes; wherefore I lay no stress on the statements of Chettle, as if they referred to our Will Shakspere. 

Footnotes:

{0a} E. J. Castle, Shakespeare, Bacon, Jonson, and Greene, pp. 194-195. 

{0b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 145. 

{0c} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 340. 

{0d} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 340, 341. 

{0e} In Re Shakespeare, p. 54. 

{0f} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 341. 

{0g} Ibid. , p. 470. 

{0h} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 339. 

{0i} The Vindicators of Shakespeare, pp. 115-116. 

{0j} Ibid. , p. 49. 

{0k} The Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 14. 

{4a} Francis Bacon Wrote Shakespeare. By H. Crouch-Batchelor, 1912. 

{7a} The Shakespere Problem Restated, p. 293. 

{11a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 31-37. 

{13a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 36-37. 

{16a} Tue Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 20. 

{17a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 47-48. 

{17b} Ibid. , pp. 54-55. 

{17c} Ibid. , p. 54. 

{17d} Ibid. , p. 56. 

{17e} Ibid. , p. 59. 

{17f} Ibid. , p. 62. 

{17g} Ibid. , p. 193. 

{18a} See his Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 210. 

{19a} Vindicators, p. 187. 

{19b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 223. 

{21a} In Re Shakespeare, p. 54. 

{22a} In a brief note of two pages (Cornhill Magazine, November1911) he makes such reply as the space permits to a paper of my own, "Shakespeare or X?" in the September number. With my goodwill hemight have written thirty-two pages to my sixteen, but I am not theEditor, and never heard of Mr. Greenwood's note till May 1912. 

He says that I had represented him as stating that the Unknown geniusadopted the name of William Shake-speare or Shakespeare as a good nomde guerre, without any reference to the fact that there was an actorin existence of the name of William Shakspere, whose name wassometimes written Shakespeare, and without the least idea that theworks he published under this pseudonym would be fathered upon theactor . . . " (My meaning has obviously been too obscurely stated byme. )

Mr. Greenwood next writes that the confusion between the actor, andthe unknown taking the name William Shakespeare, "did happen and wasintended to happen. "

C'est la le miracle!

How could it happen if the actor were the bookless, ignorant man whomMr. Greenwood describes? It could not happen: Will must have beenunmasked in a day. The fact that a strange plot existed was only tooobvious. The Unknown's secret must have been tracked by the houndsof keenest nose in the packs of rival and jealous authors and ofactors. None gives tongue. 

{27a} Francis Bacon Wrote Shakespeare, p. 37. 

{30a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 333. 

{31a} In the passage which I quoted, with notes of omission, fromMr. Greenwood (p. 333), he went on to say that the eulogies of thepoet by "some cultured critics of that day, " "afford no proof thatthe author who published under the name of Shakespeare was in realityShakspere the Stratford player. " That position I later contest. 

{31b} See chap. XI, The First Folio. 

{33a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 305, 306. 

{34a} Furness, Merchant of Venice, pp. 271, 272. 

{34b} On this see Mr. Pollard's Shakespeare Folios and Quartos, pp. 1-9. 

{37a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 202, 348, 349. 

{38a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 349. 

{44a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 356. 

{45a} In Re Shakespeare, p. 88, note I. 

{48a} Studies in Shakespeare, p. 15; Life of Shakespeare, by Malone, pp. 561-2, 564; Appendix, XI, xvi. 

{50a} C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, pp. 97, 98. 

{51a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 44. 

{52a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 39. 

{52b} Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 210. 

{53a} Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 187. 

{53b} Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 223. 

{55a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 69. 

{56a} See chapter X, The Traditional Shakespeare. 

{56b} See C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, pp. 48, 343-8. 

{57a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 207-9. 

{59a} Chapter X, infra. 

{62a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 96. 

{62b} See chapter X, The Traditional Shakespeare. 

{62c} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 94-96. 

{64a} Shakespeare, pp. 38-40. 

{65a} Raleigh, Shakespeare, pp. 77, 78. 

{69a} So he seems to me to do; but in Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 135, he shows great caution: "I refer the reader to Mr. Collin'sessay, and ask him to judge for himself. "

{71a} Studies in Shakespeare, p. 15. 

{72a} Studies in Shakespeare, p. 21. 

{75a} Alcibiades, I, pp. 132, 133; Troilus, III, scene 3. 

{77a} Studies in Shakespeare, p. 46. 

{77b} Iliad, p. 63. 

{91a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 54, 55. 

{93a} National Review, vol. Xxxix. , 1902. 

{93b} The Pilot, Aug. 30, 1902, p. 220. 

{96a} The oldest mention of a CIRCULATING library known to me is inHull, in 1650, when Sir James Turner found it excellent. 

{97a} In his Shakespeare (English Men of Letters), pp. 66, 67. 

{97b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 77, 78. 

{97c} The Shakespearean Myth, p. 162. 

{100a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 76. 

{101a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 81, note I. 

{103a} Penzance, The Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy, pp. 150, 151. Citing Appleton Morgan's Shakespearean Myth, pp. 248, 298. 

{106a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 175. 

{107a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 457. 

{109a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 58. 

{109b} Apology the Actors, 1612. 

{110a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 267. 

{111a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 267, 268. 

{112a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 50-52. 

{113a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 51. 

{113b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 51. 

{113c} Ibid. , p. 500, citing Mr. Reed's Francis Bacon our Shake-speare, chap. Ii. Pp. 62, 63. 

{113d} Ibid. , pp. 500-520, chap xvi. 

{114a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 512. 

{114b} Ibid. , p. 514. 

{114c} Ibid. , p. 386, note I. 

{114d} Ibid. , p. 93. 

{120a} Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. V. P. 126. Prof. G. P. Baker. 

{121a} Furness, Love's Labour's Lost, pp. Xiii. , 348-350: cf. Pp. 348, 349, for the four distinct styles of linguistic affectation ofthe period, at least as they are represented in literature. 

{121b} Shakespeare Studies in Baconian Light, Appendix on Marlowe. 

{124a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 516. 

{126a} Act i. Scene 2. Furness, Love's Labour's Lost, p. 45, note. 

{127a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 67, 68. 

{129a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 66. 

{129b} Ibid. , p. 67. 

{136a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 307. 

{138a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 308. 

{140a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 309. 

{141a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 310. 

{141b} Ibid. , pp. 310, 311. 

{141c} Ibid. , p. 311. 

{142a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 309. 

{142b} Ibid. , pp. 311, 312. 

{143a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 312, 313. 

{145a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 313. 

{146a} See Appendix II, "Chettle's supposed allusion to WillShakspere. "

{147a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 330. 

{149a} The Vindicators of Shakespeare, pp. 115, 116, 211. See myIntroduction, p. Xxii. 

{150a} The Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 210. 

{150b} Ibid. , p. 136. 

{151a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 338. 

{155a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 346. 

{157a} Cited in The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 353. 

{159a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 353. 

{159b} Diary, pp. Xxvii, xxviii. 

{160a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 367. 

{160b} Ibid. , pp. 368, 369. 

{161a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 354. 

{163a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 366. 

{164a} Some Baconians say so!

{171a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 181, 397. 

{171b} Ibid. , p. 186. 

{174a} Some verses of Fletcher's may, perhaps, refer to Beaumont'sdeath. 

{175a} C. I. Elton, Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, pp. 246, 247. 

{175b} As to the Aldine Ovid in the Bodleian, see Mr. Greenwood inThe Vindicators of Shakespeare, pp. 191, 192. Of course he raisesevery objection, but I do not feel sure that either an affirmative ornegative result can be attained by EXPERTISE. We are not told whenor where the Bodleian obtained the book; nor what is the date of thehandwriting of the inscription about W. Hall, a personage whom we areto meet later. A good deal of business is done in forging names inbooks. 

{176a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 196. 

{176b} Ibid. , p. 197. 

{177a} See Frontispiece, {179a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 247, 248, note I. 

{180a} National Review, June 1912, p. 903. 

{180b} Pall Mall Gazette, November 1910. 

{181a} Outlines, vol. I. P. 283. 

{182a} P. 73, 1806. 

{183a} Outlines, vol. I. P. 283. 

{183b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 247. 

{186a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 248-249. 

{186b} C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, pp. 236-237. 

{187a} C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, p. 228. 

{187b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 199. 

{187c} C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, pp. 332-333. 

{187d} Ibid. , p. 250. 

{188a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 199, note 1. 

{189a} C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, pp. 339, 342. 

{190a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 238. 

{198a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 214. 

{200a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 214, note 2. 

{201a} C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, p. 56. 

{201b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 28, 29. 

{207a} Like Mr. Greenwood, I think that Ben was the penman. 

{208a} Pollard, ut supra, p. 10. 

{210a} Pollard, ut supra, pp. 64-80. 

{215a} Pollard, ut supra, pp. 121-124. 

{216a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 287-288. 

{217a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 290-291. 

{217b} Ibid. , pp. 292, 293. 

{218a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 293. 

{219a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 489, 490. 

{219b} Ibid. , p. 491. 

{219c} Studies in Shakespeare, p. 352. 

{220a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 293. 

{220b} Ibid. , p. 491. 

{220c} Ibid. , p. 293. 

{220d} Ibid. , p. 293. 

{221a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 297. 

{221b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 297. 

{222a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 293. 

{222b} Ibid. , p. 351. 

{222c} Ibid. , p. 351. 

{222d} Ibid. , pp. 290, 293. 

{222e} Ibid. , pp. 351, 358. 

{223a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 351. 

{223b} Ibid. , pp. 290, 293. 

{223c} Ibid. , p. 351. 

{223d} Ibid. , p. 351. 

{223e} Ibid. , pp. 290, 293. 

{223f} Ibid. , p. 290. 

{223g} Ibid. , pp. 290, 291. 

{223h} Ibid. , p. 293. 

{224a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 351. 

{224b} Ibid. , p. 358. 

{224c} Ibid. , pp. 351, 358. 

{224d} Ibid. , p. 290. 

{224e} Ibid. , p. 293. 

{225a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 355, 356. 

{226a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 355, 356. 

{226b} Ibid. , pp. 158, 160, 162 ("not the original author"), 170. 

{226c} Ibid. , pp. 130-151, 160, 168. 

{226d} Ibid. , p. , 123, note 2. 

{227a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 356. 

{228a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 160. 

{228b} Ibid. , p. 356. 

{228c} Ibid. , p. 160. 

{228d} Ibid. , p. 356. 

{228e} Ibid. , pp. 290, 293. 

{228f} Ibid. , p. 358. 

{229a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 365. I will bet Mr. Greenwood any sum not exceeding half a crown that he cannot find any"records of the writing of" either of these plays in Henslowe's"Diary, "--his account book of expenses and receipts. 

{229b} Ibid. , p. 365. 

{229c} Ibid. , p. 365. 

{229d} Ibid. , p. 160. 

{231a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 276. 

{231b} Ibid. , p. 290. 

{232a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 293. 

{232b} Ibid. , p. 294. 

{233a} The Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 57 (1911). 

{237a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 453. 

{244a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 466. 

{245a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 313. 

{245b} Supra, p. 143. 

{245c} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 466. 

{249a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 482. 

{250a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 467, 471. 

{250b} See chapter IX on The Later Life of Shakespeare. 

{250c} Ibid. , pp. 472, 474. 

{251a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 473. 

{251b} Ibid. , p. 474. 

{253a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 475. 

{254a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 106. 

{255a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 478. 

{258a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 480. 

{259a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 483. 

{260a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 483. 

{260b} Ibid. , pp. 489-490. 

{260c} See chapter XI, The First Folio. 

{261a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 483. 

{261b} Ibid. , pp. 489-491. 

{262a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 486. 

{264a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 488. 

{266a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 491. 

{267a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 295, cf. P. 499. 

{268a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 295, 499. 

{270a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 499. 

{274a} Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, edited by James Spedding, vol. I. P. 4 (1861). 

{275a} Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, edited by James Spedding, vol. I. P. 31. 

{275b} Ibid. , vol. I. Pp. 74-95. 

{276a} Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, edited by James Spedding, vol. I. Pp. 108-109. 

{279a} Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, edited by James Spedding, vol. I. P. 106. 

{279b} Ibid. , vol. I. Pp. 121-143. 

{280a} Sixty pages in Spedding's Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vol. I. Pp. 146-208. 

{281a} See his statement (1603), Spedding, iii. Pp. 84-87. 

{281b} Ibid. , iii. P. 253. 

{282a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 371-406. 

{282b} The Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy, p. 198. 

{283a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 391. 

{283b} Ibid. , pp. 408-410. 

{284a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 425. 

{284b} Ibid. , p. 431. 

{287a} Sufflamen is the "drag" or "brake. " Ben's, "it was necessaryhe should be STOPPED, " is an incorrect translation. 

{288a} Quoted by Sir Walter Raleigh, Shakespeare, p. 65. 

{288b} Ibid. , p. 65. 

{297a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 358-362. 

{298a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 491-494. 

{298b} Ibid. , p. 495. 

{298c} Ibid. , pp. 358-360. 

{299a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 361. 

{300a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 360. 

{300b} Ibid. , p. 358. 

{301a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 495, note I. 

{301b} Ibid. , p. 494. 

{304a} Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 69. 

{305a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 317-319.