diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:24:54 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:24:54 -0700 |
| commit | 356015a4f553b623337619ebddc17b926d76e146 (patch) | |
| tree | 2fd3d602037a8eca575592fce773470f9caac2a5 /5127-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '5127-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/5127-h.htm | 9570 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/fpb.jpg | bin | 0 -> 256187 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/fps.jpg | bin | 0 -> 38765 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p12b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 226532 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p12s.jpg | bin | 0 -> 40646 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p178b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 252683 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p178s.jpg | bin | 0 -> 40616 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p180b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 231151 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p180s.jpg | bin | 0 -> 40606 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p181b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 247824 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p181s.jpg | bin | 0 -> 39256 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p185b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 243134 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p185s.jpg | bin | 0 -> 40857 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p298b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 233738 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p298s.jpg | bin | 0 -> 40945 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p47ab.jpg | bin | 0 -> 279107 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p47as.jpg | bin | 0 -> 35667 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p47bb.jpg | bin | 0 -> 75603 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p47bs.jpg | bin | 0 -> 22816 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p47cb.jpg | bin | 0 -> 89793 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 5127-h/images/p47cs.jpg | bin | 0 -> 24826 bytes |
21 files changed, 9570 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/5127-h/5127-h.htm b/5127-h/5127-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c464a95 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/5127-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9570 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown, by Andrew Lang</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown, by +Andrew Lang + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown + + +Author: Andrew Lang + + + +Release Date: February 7, 2015 [eBook #5127] +[This file was first posted on May 5, 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKESPEARE, BACON AND THE GREAT +UNKNOWN*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1912 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/fpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Shakespeare’s Monument at Stratford-on-Avon +(1616–1623?)" +title= +"Shakespeare’s Monument at Stratford-on-Avon +(1616–1623?)" + src="images/fps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>SHAKESPEARE<br /> +BACON<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AND THE GREAT UNKNOWN</span></h1> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +ANDREW LANG</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">WITH EIGHT +ILLUSTRATIONS</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">39, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA</span><br +/> +1912</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">All rights +reserved</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pagev"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. v</span><span class="GutSmall">TO</span><br /> +HORACE HOWARD FURNESS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">IN MEMORY OF AN</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OLD PROMISE</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vii</span>PREFACE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is with some hesitation that I +give my husband’s last book to the world. It was in +type when he died, but he had no time to correct even the first +proofs, and doubtless he would have made many changes, if not in +his views at least in his expression of them. Mr. Bartram +has verified the quotations and dates with infinite care, and for +this he has my warmest thanks. For the rest I can but ask +those who differ from the author to remember the circumstances in +which the work has been published.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">L. B. L.</p> +<h2><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +ix</span>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#pagexiii">xiii</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">I.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Baconian and Anti-Willian +Positions</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">II.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The “Silence” about +Shakespeare</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page25">25</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">III.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">That Impossible He—The Schooling +of Shakespeare</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page41">41</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IV.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Mr. Collins on Shakespeare’s +Learning</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page65">65</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">V.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Shakespeare, Genius, and +Society</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page83">83</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VI.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Courtly Plays: “Love’s +Labour’s Lost”</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page119">119</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VII.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Contemporary Recognition of Will as +Author</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page133">133</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VIII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>“<span class="smcap">The Silence of Philip +Henslowe</span>”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page153">153</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IX.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Later Life of +Shakespeare—His Monument and Portraits</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page167">167</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">X.</p> +</td> +<td><p>“<span class="smcap">The Traditional +Shakspere</span>”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page193">193</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XI.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The First Folio</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page205">205</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XII.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Ben Jonson and Shakespeare</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page235">235</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XIII.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Preoccupations of Bacon</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page271">271</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Appendix I.—“Troilus and +Cressida”</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page293">293</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Appendix II.—Chettle’s +Supposed Allusion to Will Shakspere</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page302">302</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="pagexi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xi</span>LIST +OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Shakespeare’s Monument at +Stratford-on-Avon</span> (1616–1623?)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Frontispiece</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Copy of the title-page of +“Love’s Labour’s Lost</span>,” +1598. The earliest title-page in which Shakespeare’s +name is given as the author of the work.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>From</i> J. O. <span +class="smcap">Halliwell-Phillipps</span>’ <i>Outlines of +the Life of Shakespeare</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Facsimile of the Autograph Signature +“By me William Shakspeare</span>.” From one of +the Three Sheets of his Will, dated <i>March</i> 25, 1616.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>From</i> <span class="smcap">Sir +Sidney Lee’s</span> <i>Shakespeare’s Life and +Work</i>. <i>By permission of</i> Messrs. <span +class="smcap">Smith</span>, <span class="smcap">Elder</span> +& Co.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Facsimile of Mark-Signature of John +Shakespeare</span>, <span class="smcap">the Poet’s +Father</span>. From a Deed of Conveyance, dated +<i>January</i> 26, 1596</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>From</i> J. O. <span +class="smcap">Halliwell-Phillipps</span>’ <i>Outlines of +the Life of Shakespeare</i></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Facsimile of Mark-Signature of Judith +Shakespeare</span>, <span class="smcap">the Poet’s Second +Daughter, afterwards Mrs. Thomas Quiney</span></p> +<p><i>From</i> J. O. <span +class="smcap">Halliwell-Phillipps</span>’ <i>Outlines of +the Life of Shakespeare</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="pagexii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xii</span><span class="smcap">The Monument in Dugdale’s +“History of the Antiquities of Warwickshire</span>” +(1656)</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>With permission of</i> <span +class="smcap">John Murray</span>, Esq.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page178">178</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Carew Monument in Stratford +Church</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">The Carew Monument as Represented in +Dugdale’s “History of the Antiquities of +Warwickshire</span>” (1656)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page180">180</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page181">181</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">From Vertue’s Engraving of the +Monument</span> (1725)</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>With permission of</i> <span +class="smcap">John Murray</span>, <span +class="smcap">Esq</span>.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page185">185</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">London in the year 1610, showing the +Globe Theatre in the Foreground</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>From</i> J. O. <span +class="smcap">Halliwell-Phillipps</span>’ <i>Outlines of +the Life of Shakespeare</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page298">298</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="pagexiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xiii</span>INTRODUCTION</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> theory that Francis Bacon was, +in the main, the author of “Shakespeare’s +plays,” has now been for fifty years before the learned +world. Its advocates have met with less support than they +had reason to expect. Their methods, their logic, and their +hypotheses closely resemble those applied by many British and +foreign scholars to Homer; and by critics of the very Highest +School to Holy Writ. Yet the Baconian theory is universally +rejected in England by the professors and historians of English +literature; and generally by students who have no profession save +that of Letters. The Baconians, however, do not lack the +countenance and assistance of highly distinguished persons, whose +names are famous where those of mere men of letters are unknown; +and in circles where the title of “Professor” is not +duly respected.</p> +<p>The partisans of Bacon aver (or one of them avers) that +“Lord Penzance, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Palmerston, Judge +Webb, Judge Holmes (of Kentucky, U.S.), Prince Bismarck, John +Bright, and innumerable most <i>thoughtful scholars eminent in +many walks of life</i>, <i>and especially in </i><a +name="pagexiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xiv</span><i>the +legal profession</i> . . . ” have been Baconians, or, at +least, opposed to Will Shakspere’s authorship. To +these names of scholars I must add that of my late friend, Samuel +Clemens, D.Litt. of Oxford; better known to many as Mark +Twain. Dr. Clemens was, indeed, no mean literary critic; +witness his epoch-making study of Prof. Dowden’s <i>Life of +Shelley</i>, while his researches into the biography of Jeanne +d’Arc were most conscientious.</p> +<p>With the deepest respect for the political wisdom and literary +taste of Lord Palmerston, Prince Bismarck, Lord Beaconsfield, and +the late Mr. John Bright; and with every desire to humble myself +before the judicial verdicts of Judges Holmes, Webb, and Lord +Penzance; with sincere admiration of my late friend, Dr. Clemens, +I cannot regard them as, in the first place and professionally, +trained students of literary history.</p> +<p>They were no more specially trained students of Elizabethan +literature than myself; they were amateurs in this province, as I +am an amateur, who differ from all of them in opinion. +Difference of opinion concerning points of literary history ought +not to make “our angry passions rise.” Yet this +controversy has been extremely bitter.</p> +<p>I abstain from quoting the “sweetmeats,” in +Captain MacTurk’s phrase, which have been exchanged by the +combatants. Charges of ignorance and monomania have been +answered <a name="pagexv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xv</span>by charges of forgery, lying, “scandalous literary +dishonesty,” and even inaccuracy. Now no mortal is +infallibly accurate, but we are all sane and “indifferent +honest.” There have been forgeries in matters +Shakespearean, alas, but not in connection with the Baconian +controversy.</p> +<p>It is an argument of the Baconians, and generally of the +impugners of good Will’s authorship of the plays vulgarly +attributed to him, that the advocates of William Shakspere, Gent, +as author of the plays, differ like the Kilkenny cats among +themselves on many points. All do not believe, with Mr. J. +C. Collins, that Will knew Sophocles, Euripides, and +Æschylus (but not Aristophanes) as well as Mr. Swinburne +did, or knew them at all—for that matter. Mr. Pollard +differs very widely from Sir Sidney Lee on points concerning the +First Folio and the Quartos: my sympathies are with Mr. +Pollard. Few, if any, partisans of Will agree with Mrs. +Stopes (herself no Baconian) about the history of the Stratford +monument of the poet. About Will’s authorship of +<i>Titus Andronicus</i>, and <i>Henry VI</i>, Part I, the friends +of Will, like the friends of Bacon, are at odds among +themselves. These and other divergencies of opinion cause +the Baconians to laugh, as if <i>they</i> were a harmonious +circle . . . ! For the Baconian camp is not less divided +against itself than the camp of the +“Stratfordians.” Not all Baconians hold that +Bacon was the legitimate son of “that Imperial <a +name="pagexvi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xvi</span>votaress” Queen Elizabeth. Not all believe +in the Cryptogram of Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, or in any other +cryptograms. Not all maintain that Bacon, in the Sonnets, +was inspired by a passion for the Earl of Essex, for Queen +Elizabeth, or for an early miniature of himself. Not all +regard him as the author of the plays of Kit Marlowe. Not +all suppose him to be a Rosicrucian, who possibly died at the age +of a hundred and six, or, perhaps, may be “still +running.” Not all aver that he wrote thirteen plays +before 1593. But one party holds that, in the main, Will +was the author of the plays, while the other party votes for +Bacon—or for Bungay, a Great Unknown. I use Bungay as +an endearing term for the mysterious being who was the Author if +Francis Bacon was not. Friar Bungay was the rival of Friar +Bacon, as the Unknown (if he was not Francis Bacon) is the rival +of “the inventor of Inductive reasoning.”</p> +<p>I could never have expected that I should take a part in this +controversy; but acquaintance with <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i> (503 pp.), (1908), and later works of Mr. G. G. +Greenwood, M.P., has tempted me to enter the lists.</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood is worth fighting; he is cunning of fence, is +learned (and I cannot conceal my opinion that Mr. Donnelly and +Judge Holmes were rather ignorant). He is not over +“the threshold of Eld” (as were Judge Webb and Lord +Penzance when they took up Shakespearean criticism). <a +name="pagexvii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xvii</span>His +knowledge of Elizabethan literature is vastly superior to mine, +for I speak merely, in Matthew Arnold’s words, as “a +belletristic trifler.”</p> +<p>Moreover, Mr. Greenwood, as a practising barrister, is a judge +of legal evidence; and, being a man of sense, does not +“hold a brief for Bacon” as the author of the +Shakespearean plays and poems, and does not value Baconian +cryptograms. In the following chapters I make endeavours, +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 and poems. Some other party was, <i>in +the main</i>, with other hands, the author. Mr. Greenwood +cannot, or does not, offer a guess as to who this ingenious +Somebody was. He does not affirm, and he does not deny, +that Bacon had a share, greater or less, in the undertaking.</p> +<p>In my brief tractate I have not room to consider every +argument; to traverse every field. In philology I am all +unlearned, and cannot pretend to discuss the language of +Shakespeare, any more than I can analyse the language of Homer +into proto-Arcadian and Cyprian, and so on. Again, I cannot +pretend to have an opinion, based on internal evidence, about the +genuine Shakespearean character of such plays as <i>Titus +Andronicus</i>, <i>Henry VI</i>, Part I, and <i>Troilus and +Cressida</i>. About them different views are held +<i>within</i> both camps.</p> +<p><a name="pagexviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xviii</span>I +am no lawyer or naturalist (as Partridge said, <i>Non omnia +possumus omnes</i>), and cannot imagine why our Author is so +accurate in his frequent use of terms of law—if he be Will; +and so totally at sea in natural history—if he be Francis, +who “took all knowledge for his province.”</p> +<p>How can a layman pretend to deal with Shakespeare’s +legal attainments, after he has read the work of the learned +Recorder of Bristol, Mr. Castle, K.C.? To his legal mind it +seems that in some of Will’s plays he had the aid of an +expert in law, and then his technicalities 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 think Shakespeare +would have had no difficulty in getting aid from several +sources. There is therefore no <i>prima facie</i> reason +why we should suppose the information was supplied by +Bacon.”</p> +<p>Of course there is not!</p> +<p>“In fact, there are some reasons why one should +attribute the legal assistance, say, to Coke, rather than to +Bacon.”</p> +<p>The truth is, that Bacon seems not to have been lawyer enough +for Will’s purposes. “We have no reason to +believe that Bacon was particularly well read in the +technicalities of our law; he never seems to have seriously +followed his profession.” <a name="citation0a"></a><a +href="#footnote0a" class="citation">[0a]</a></p> +<p><a name="pagexix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xix</span>Now +we have Mr. Greenwood’s testimonial in favour of Mr. +Castle, “Who really does know something about law.” +<a name="citation0b"></a><a href="#footnote0b" +class="citation">[0b]</a> Mr. Castle thinks that Bacon +really did not know enough about law, and suggests Sir Edward +Coke, of all human beings, as conceivably Will’s +“coach” on legal technicalities. Perhaps Will +consulted the Archbishop of Canterbury on theological +niceties?</p> +<p><i>Que sçais je</i>? In some plays, says Mr. +Castle, Will’s law is all right, in other plays it is all +wrong. As to Will’s law, when Mr. Greenwood and Mr. +Castle differ, a layman dare not intervene.</p> +<p>Concerning legend and tradition about our Will, it seems that, +in each case, we should do our best to trace the <i>Quellen</i>, +to discover the original sources, and the steps by which the tale +arrived at its late recorders in print; and then each man’s +view as to the veracity of the story will rest on his sense of +probability; and on his bias, his wish to believe or to +disbelieve.</p> +<p>There exists, I believe, only one personal anecdote of Will, +the actor, and on it the Baconians base an argument against the +contemporary recognition of him as a dramatic author. I +take the criticism of Mr. Greenwood (who is not a +Baconian). One John Manningham, Barrister-at-Law, “a +well-educated and cultured man,” notes in his Diary +(February 2, 1601) that “at our feast we had a play called +Twelve Night or What you Will, much like the Comedy of Errors, or +Menæchmi <a name="pagexx"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xx</span>in Plautus, but most like and near to that in Italian +called <i>Inganni</i>.” He confides to his Diary the +tricks played on Malvolio as “a good practice.” <a +name="citation0c"></a><a href="#footnote0c" +class="citation">[0c]</a> That is all.</p> +<p>About the authorship he says nothing: perhaps he neither knew +nor cared who the author was. In our day the majority of +people who tell me about a play which they have seen, cannot tell +me the name of the author. Yet it is usually printed on the +playbill, though in modest type. The public does not care a +straw about the author’s name, unless he be deservedly +famous for writing letters to the newspapers on things in +general; for his genius as an orator; his enthusiasm as a +moralist, or in any other extraneous way. Dr. Forman in his +queer account of the plot of “Mack Beth” does not +allude to the name of the author (April 20, 1610). +<i>Twelfth Night</i> was not published till 1623, in the Folio: +there was no quarto to enlighten Manningham about the +author’s name. We do not hear of printed playbills, +with author’s names inserted, at that period. It +seems probable that occasional playgoers knew and cared no more +about authors than they do at present. 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 of two +players and (March 13, 1601) inserted it in his Diary.</p> +<p><a name="pagexxi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xxi</span>Shakespeare once anticipated Richard Burbage at an +amorous tryst with a citizen’s wife. Burbage had, by +the way, been playing the part of Richard III. While Will +was engaged in illicit dalliance, the message was brought (what a +moment for bringing messages!) that Richard III was at the door, +and Will “caused return to be made that William the +Conqueror was before Richard III. <i>Shakespeare’s +name William</i>.” (My italics.) Mr. Greenwood +argues that if “Shakspere the player was known to the world +as the author of the plays of Shakespeare, it does seem extremely +remarkable” that Manningham should have thought it needful +to add “Shakespeare’s name William.” <a +name="citation0d"></a><a href="#footnote0d" +class="citation">[0d]</a></p> +<p>But <i>was</i> “Shakspere,” or any man, +“known to the world as the author of the plays of +Shakespeare”? No! for Mr. Greenwood writes, +“nobody, outside a very small circle, troubled his head as +to who the dramatist or dramatists might be.” <a +name="citation0e"></a><a href="#footnote0e" +class="citation">[0e]</a> To that “very small +circle” we have no reason to suppose that Manningham +belonged, despite his remarkable opinion that <i>Twelfth +Night</i> resembles the <i>Menæchmi</i>. +Consequently, it is <i>not</i> “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 of the Twelfth Night play which so +much amused me at <a name="pagexxii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xxii</span>our feast a few weeks ago.” <a +name="citation0f"></a><a href="#footnote0f" +class="citation">[0f]</a> “Remarkable” out of +all hooping it would have been had Manningham written in the +style of Mr. Greenwood. But Manningham apparently did not +“trouble his head as to who the dramatist or dramatists +might be.” “Nobody, outside a very small +circle,” <i>did</i> trouble his poor head about that +point. Yet Mr. Greenwood thinks “it does seem +extremely remarkable” that Manningham did not mention the +author.</p> +<p>Later, on the publication of the Folio (1623), the world seems +to have taken more interest in literary matters. Mr. +Greenwood says that then while “the multitude” would +take Ben Jonson’s noble panegyric on Shakespeare as a poet +“<i>au pied de la lettre</i>,” “the enlightened +few would recognise that it had an esoteric meaning.” <a +name="citation0g"></a><a href="#footnote0g" +class="citation">[0g]</a> Then, it seems, “the +world”—the “multitude”—regarded the +actor as the author. Only “the enlightened few” +were aware that when Ben <i>said</i> “Shakespeare,” +and “Swan of Avon,” he <i>meant</i>—somebody +else.</p> +<p>Quite different inferences are drawn from the same facts by +persons of different mental conditions. For example, in +1635 or 1636, Cuthbert Burbage, brother of Richard, the famous +actor, Will’s comrade, petitioned Lord Pembroke, then Lord +Chamberlain, for consideration in a quarrel about certain +theatres. Telling the history of <a +name="pagexxiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xxiii</span>the +houses, he mentions that the Burbages “to ourselves joined +those deserving men, Shakspere, Heminge, Condell, Phillips and +others.” Cuthbert is arguing his case solely from the +point of the original owners or lease-holders of the houses, and +of the well-known actors to whom they joined themselves. +Judge Webb and Mr. Greenwood think that “it does indeed +seem strange . . . that the proprietor[s] of the playhouses which +had been made famous by the production of the Shakespearean +plays, should, in 1635—twelve years after the publication +of the great Folio—describe their reputed author to the +survivor of the Incomparable Pair, as merely a +‘man-player’ and ‘a deserving +man.’” Why did he not remind the Lord +Chamberlain that this “deserving man” was the author +of all these famous dramas? Was it because he was aware +that the Earl of Pembroke “knew better than that”? <a +name="citation0h"></a><a href="#footnote0h" +class="citation">[0h]</a></p> +<p>These arguments are regarded by some Baconians as proof +positive of their case.</p> +<p>Cuthbert Burbage, in 1635 or 1636, did not remind the Earl of +what the Earl knew very well, that the Folio had been dedicated, +in 1623, to him and his brother, by Will’s friends, Heminge +and Condell, as they had been patrons of the late William +Shakspere and admirers of his plays. The terms of this +dedication are to be cited in the text, later. <i>We</i> +all <i>now</i> would have reminded the Earl of what he very well +knew. Cuthbert did not.</p> +<p><a name="pagexxiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xxiv</span>The +intelligence of Cuthbert Burbage may be gauged by anyone who will +read pp. 481–484 in <i>William Shakespeare</i>, <i>His +Family and Friends</i>, by the late Mr. Charles Elton, Q.C., of +White Staunton. Cuthbert was a puzzle-pated old boy. +The silence as to Will’s authorship on the part of this +muddle-headed old Cuthbert, in 1635–36, cannot outweigh the +explicit and positive public testimony to his authorship, signed +by his friends and fellow-actors in 1623.</p> +<p>Men believe what they may; but I prefer positive evidence for +the affirmative to negative evidence from silence, the silence of +Cuthbert Burbage.</p> +<p>One may read through Mr. Greenwood’s three books and +note the engaging varieties of his views; they vary as suits his +argument; but he is unaware of it, or can justify his +varyings. Thus, in 1610, one John Davies wrote rhymes in +which he speaks of “our English Terence, Mr. Will +Shakespeare”; “good Will.” In his period +patriotic English critics called a comic dramatist “the +English Terence,” or “the English Plautus,” +precisely as American critics used to call Mr. Bryant “the +American Wordsworth,” or Cooper “the American +Scott”; and as Scots called the Rev. Mr. Thomson “the +Scottish Turner.” Somewhere, I believe, exists +“the Belgian Shakespeare.”</p> +<p>Following this practice, Davies had to call Will either +“our English Terence,” or “our <a +name="pagexxv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xxv</span>English +Plautus.” Aristophanes would not have been generally +recognised; and Will was no more like one of these ancient +authors than another. Thus Davies was apt to choose either +Plautus or Terence; it was even betting which he selected. +But he chanced to choose Terence; and this is +“curious,” and suggests suspicions to Mr. +Greenwood—and the Baconians. They are so very full of +suspicions!</p> +<p>It does not suit the Baconians, or Mr. Greenwood, to find +contemporary recognition of Will as an author. <a +name="citation0i"></a><a href="#footnote0i" +class="citation">[0i]</a> Consequently, Mr. Greenwood finds +Davies’s “curious, and at first sight, inappropriate +comparison of ‘Shake-speare’ to Terence worthy of +remark, for Terence is the very author whose name is alleged to +have been used as a mask-name, or <i>nom de plume</i>, for the +writings of great men who wished to keep the fact of their +authorship concealed.”</p> +<p>Now Davies felt bound to bring in <i>some</i> Roman parallel +to Shakespeare; and had only the choice of Terence or +Plautus. Meres (1598) used Plautus; Davies used +Terence. Mr. Greenwood <a name="citation0j"></a><a +href="#footnote0j" class="citation">[0j]</a> shows us that +Plautus would not do. “Could <i>he</i>” +(Shakespeare) “write only of courtesans and +<i>cocottes</i>, and not of ladies highly born, cultured, and +refined? . . . ”</p> +<p>“The supposed parallel” (Plautus and Shakespeare) +“breaks down at every point.” Thus, <a +name="pagexxvi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xxvi</span>on Mr. +Greenwood’s showing, Plautus could not serve Davies, or +should not serve him, in his search for a Roman parallel to +“good Will.” But Mr. Greenwood also writes, +“if he” (Shakespeare) “was to be likened to a +Latin comedian, surely Plautus is the writer with whom he should +have been compared.” <a name="citation0k"></a><a +href="#footnote0k" class="citation">[0k]</a> Yet Plautus +was the very man who cannot be used as a parallel to +Shakespeare. Of course no Roman nor any other comic +dramatist closely resembles the <i>author</i> of <i>As You Like +It</i>. They who selected either Plautus or Terence meant +no more than that both were celebrated 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, the +comparison was bad; if Terence, it was “curious,” as +Terence was absurdly accused of being the “<i>nom de +plume</i>” of some great “concealed poets” of +Rome. “From all the known facts about Terence,” +says a Baconian critic (who has consulted Smith’s +<i>Biographical Dictionary</i>), “it is an almost +unavoidable inference that John Davies made the comparison to +Shakspere because he knew of the point common to both +cases.” The common point is taken to be, not that +both men were famous comic dramatists, but that Roman literary +gossips said, and that Baconians and Mr. Greenwood say, that +“Terence” was said to be a “mask-name,” +and that “Shakespeare” <a name="pagexxvii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. xxvii</span>is a mask-name. Of the +second opinion there is not a hint in literature of the time of +good Will.</p> +<p>What surprises one most in this controversy is that men +eminent in the legal profession should be +“anti-Shakesperean,” if not overtly Baconian. +For the evidence for the contemporary faith in Will’s +authorship is all positive; from his own age comes not a whisper +of doubt, not even a murmur of surprise. It is incredible +to me that his 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 impatient of the surprising attempts made to +explain away Ben Jonson’s testimony, by aid, first, of +quite a false analogy (Scott’s denial of his own authorship +of his novels), and, secondly, by the suppression of such a +familiar fact as the constant inconsistency of Ben’s +judgments of his contemporaries in literature. Mr. +Greenwood must have forgotten the many examples of this +inconsistency; but I have met 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 solved what he calls “the +Jonsonian riddle.” Really, there is no riddle. +About Will, as about other authors, his contemporaries and even +his friends, on occasion, Ben “spoke with two +voices,” now in terms of hyperbolical praise, now in +carping tones of <a name="pagexxviii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. xxviii</span>censure. That is the +obvious solution of “the Jonsonian riddle.”</p> +<p>I must apologise if I have in places spelled the name of the +Swan of Avon “Shakespeare” where Mr. Greenwood would +write “Shakspere,” and <i>vice versa</i>. He +uses “Shakespeare” where he means the Author; +“Shakspere” where he means Will; and is vexed with +some people who write the name of Will as +“Shakespeare.” As Will, in the opinion of a +considerable portion of the human race, and of myself, <i>was</i> +the Author, one is apt to write his name as +“Shakespeare” in the usual way. But difficult +cases occur, as in quotations, and in conditional +sentences. By any spelling of the name I always mean the +undivided personality of “Him who sleeps by +Avon.”</p> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>I<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">THE BACONIAN AND ANTI-WILLIAN +POSITIONS</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Till</span> the years 1856–7 no +voice was raised against the current belief about Shakespeare +(1564–1616). He was the author in the main of the +plays usually printed as his. In some cases other authors, +one or more, may have had fingers in his dramas; in other cases, +Shakespeare may have “written over” and transfigured +earlier plays, of himself and of others; he may have contributed, +more or less, to several plays mainly by other men. +Separately printed dramas published during his time carry his +name on their title-pages, but are not included in the first +collected edition of his dramas, “The First Folio,” +put forth by two of his friends and fellow-actors, in 1623, seven +years after his death.</p> +<p>On all these matters did commentators, critics, and +antiquarians for long dispute; but none denied that the actor, +Will Shakspere (spelled as heaven pleased), was in the main the +author of most of the plays of 1623, and the sole author of +<i>Venus and Adonis</i>, <i>Lucrece</i>, and the Sonnets.</p> +<p>Even now, in England at least, it would be perhaps impossible +to find one special and professed student of Elizabethan +literature, and of <a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +4</span>the classical and European literatures, who does not hold +by the ancient belief, the belief of Shakespeare’s +contemporaries and intimates, the belief that he was, in the +sense explained above, the author of the plays.</p> +<p>But ours is not a generation to be overawed by +“Authority” (as it is called). A small but +eager company of scholars have convinced themselves that Francis +Bacon wrote the Shakespearean plays. That is the point of +agreement among these enthusiasts: points of difference are +numerous: some very wild little sects exist. Meanwhile +multitudes of earnest and intelligent men and women, having read +notices in newspapers of the Baconian books, or heard of them at +lectures and tea-parties, disbelieve in the authorship of +“the Stratford rustic,” and look down on the faithful +of Will Shakespere with extreme contempt.</p> +<p>From the Baconians we receive a plain straightforward theory, +“Bacon wrote Shakespeare,” as one of their own +prophets has said. <a name="citation4a"></a><a href="#footnote4a" +class="citation">[4a]</a> Since we have plenty of evidence +for Bacon’s life and occupations during the period of +Shakespearean poetic activity, we can compare what he was doing +as a man, a student, a Crown lawyer, a pleader in the Courts, a +political pamphleteer, essayist, courtier, active member of +Parliament, and so on, with what he is said to have been <a +name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>doing—by +the Baconians; namely, writing two dramas yearly.</p> +<p>But there is another “Anti-Willian” theory, which +would dethrone Will Shakspere, and put but a Shadow in his +place. Conceive a “concealed poet,” of high +social position, contemporary with Bacon and Shakespeare. +Let him be so fond of the Law that he cannot keep legal +“shop” out of his love Sonnets even. Make him a +courtier; a statesman; a philosopher; a scholar who does not +blench even from the difficult Latin of Ovid and Plautus. +Let this almost omniscient being possess supreme poetic genius, +extensive classical attainments, and a tendency to make false +quantities. Then conceive him to live through the reigns of +“Eliza and our James,” without leaving in history, in +science, in society, in law, in politics or scholarship, a single +trace of his existence. He left nothing but the poems and +plays usually attributed to Will. As to the date of his +decease, we only know that it must necessarily have been later +than the composition of the last genuine Shakespearean +play—for this paragon wrote it.</p> +<p>Such is the Being who occupies, in the theory of the +non-Baconian, <i>but not Anti-Baconian</i>, Anti-Willians, the +intellectual throne filled, in the Will Shakespeare theory, by +Will; and in the Baconian, by Bacon—two kings of Brentford +on one throne.</p> +<p>We are to be much engaged by the form of <a +name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>this theory +which is held by Mr. G. G. Greenwood in his <i>The Shakespeare +Problem Restated</i>. In attempting to explain what he +means I feel that I am skating on very thin ice. Already, +in two volumes (<i>In Re Shakespeare</i>, 1909, and <i>The +Vindicators of Shakespeare</i>), Mr. Greenwood has accused his +critics of frequently misconceiving and misrepresenting his +ideas: wherefore I also tremble. I am perfectly confident +in saying that he “holds no brief for the +Baconians.” He is <i>not</i> a Baconian. His +position is negative merely: Will of Stratford is <i>not</i> the +author of the Shakespearean plays and poems. Then who +is? Mr. Greenwood believes that work by an unknown number +of hands exists in the plays first published all together in +1623. Here few will differ from him. But, setting +aside this aspect of the case, Mr. Greenwood appears to me to +believe in an entity named “Shakespeare,” or +“the Author,” who is the predominating partner; +though Mr. Greenwood does not credit him with all the plays in +the Folio of 1623 (nor, perhaps, with the absolute entirety of +any given play). “The Author” or +“Shakespeare” is not a syndicate (like the Homer of +many critics), but an individual human being, apparently of the +male sex. As to the name by which he was called on earth, +Mr. Greenwood is “agnostic.” He himself is not +Anti-Baconian. He does not oust Bacon and put the Unknown +in his place. He neither affirms nor denies that Bacon may +<a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>have +contributed, more or less, to the bulk of Shakespearean +work. To put it briefly: Mr. Greenwood backs the field +against the favourite (our Will), and Bacon <i>may</i> be in the +field. If he has any part in the whole I suspect that it is +“the lion’s part,” but Mr. Greenwood does not +commit himself to anything positive. We shall find (if I am +not mistaken) that Mr. Greenwood regards the hypothesis of the +Baconians as “an extremely reasonable one,” <a +name="citation7a"></a><a href="#footnote7a" +class="citation">[7a]</a> and that for his purposes it would be +an extremely serviceable one, if not even essential. For as +Bacon was a genius to whose potentialities one can set no limit, +he is something to stand by, whereas we cannot easily +believe—I cannot believe—that the actual +“Author,” the “Shakespeare” lived and +died and left no trace of his existence except his share in the +works called Shakespearean.</p> +<p>However, the idea of the Great Unknown has, for its partisans, +this advantage, that as the life of the august Shade is wholly +unknown, we cannot, as in Bacon’s case, show how he was +occupied while the plays were being composed. He +<i>must</i>, however, have been much at Court, we learn, and deep +in the mysteries of legal terminology. Was he Sir Edward +Coke? Was he James VI and I?</p> +<p>It is hard, indeed, to set forth the views of the Baconians +and of the “Anti-Willians” in a shape which will +satisfy them. The task, especially <a +name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>when undertaken +by an unsympathetic person, is perhaps impossible. I can +only summarise their views in my own words as far as I presume to +understand them. I conceive the Baconians to cry that +“the world possesses a mass of transcendent literature, +attributed to a man named William +<i>Shakespeare</i>.” Of a man named William +<i>Shakspere</i> (there are many varieties of spelling) we +certainly know that he was born (1564) and bred in +Stratford-on-Avon, a peculiarly dirty, stagnant, and ignorant +country town. There is absolutely no evidence that he (or +any Stratford boy of his standing) ever went to Stratford +school. His father, his mother, and his daughter could not +write, but, in signing, made their marks; and if he 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 death +inform us, he was a butcher’s apprentice; and also a +schoolmaster “who knew Latin pretty well”; and a +poacher. He made, before he was nineteen, a marriage +tainted with what Meg Dods calls “ante-nup.” He +early 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 a theatre (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. <a name="page9"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 9</span>He put money in his pocket (heaven +knows how), for by 1597 he was bargaining for the best house in +his native <i>bourgade</i>. He obtained, by nefarious +genealogical falsehoods (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; though rapacious, he +never troubled himself about his valuable copyrights; never +dreamed of making a collected edition of his works. He died +in 1616, probably of drink taken. Legal documents prove him +to have been a lender of small sums, an avid creditor, a would-be +encloser of commons. 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 “William Shakespeare.” +These must be the works of “a concealed poet,” a +philosopher, a courtier moving in the highest circles, a supreme +legist, and, necessarily, a great poet, and student of the +classics.</p> +<p>No known person of the age but one, Bacon, was a genius, a +legist, a scholar, a great poet, and brilliant courtier, with all +the other qualifications so the author of the plays either was +Francis Bacon—or some person unknown, who was in all +respects equally distinguished, but kept his light under a +bushel. Consequently the name “William +Shakespeare” is a pseudonym or “pen-name” <a +name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>wisely +adopted by Bacon (or the other man) as early as 1593, at a time +when William Shakspere was notoriously an actor in the company +which produced the plays of the genius styling himself +“William Shakespeare.”</p> +<p>Let me repeat that, to the best of my powers of understanding +and of expression, and in my own words, so as to misquote nobody, +I have now summarised the views of the Baconians <i>sans +phrase</i>, and of the more cautious or more credulous +“Anti-Willians,” as I may style the party who deny to +Will the actor any share in the authorship of the plays, but do +not overtly assign it to Francis Bacon.</p> +<p>Beyond all comparison the best work on the Anti-Willian side +of the controversy is <i>The Shakespeare Problem Restated</i>, by +Mr. G. G. Greenwood (see my Introduction). To this volume I +turn for the exposition of the theory that “Will +Shakspere” (with many other spellings) is an actor from the +country—a man of very scanty education, in all probability, +and wholly destitute of books; while “William +Shakespeare,” or with the hyphen, +“Shake-speare,” is a “<i>nom de +plume</i>” adopted by the Great Unknown “concealed +poet.”</p> +<p>When I use the word “author” here, I understand +Mr. Greenwood to mean that in the plays called +“Shakespearean” there exists work from many pens: +owing to the curious literary manners, methods, and ethics of +dramatic writing in, say, 1589–1611. In my own poor +opinion this is <a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +11</span>certainly true of several plays in the first collected +edition, “The Folio,” produced seven years after +Will’s death, namely in 1623. These curious +“collective” methods of play-writing are to be +considered later.</p> +<p>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 the chosen pen-name, or “<i>nom de +plume</i>,” of Bacon or of the Unknown.</p> +<p>Here I must endeavour to summarise what Mr. Greenwood has +written <a name="citation11a"></a><a href="#footnote11a" +class="citation">[11a]</a> on the name of the actor, and the +“<i>nom de plume</i>” of the unknown author who, by +the theory, was not the actor. Let me first confess my firm +belief that there is no cause for all the copious writing about +the spellings “Shakespeare” or +“Shake-speare”—as indicating the true but +“concealed poet”—and “Shakspere” +(&c.), as indicating the Warwickshire rustic. At +Stratford and in Warwickshire the clan-name was spelled in scores +of ways, was spelled in different ways within a single +document. If the actor himself uniformly wrote +“Shakspere” (it seems that we have but five +signatures), he was accustomed to seeing the name spelled +variously in documents concerning him and his affairs. In +London the printers aimed at a kind of uniformity, +“Shakespeare” or “Shake-speare”: and even +if he wrote his <a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>own name otherwise, to him it was indifferent. +Lawyers and printers might choose their own mode of +spelling—and there is no more in the matter.</p> +<p>I must now summarise briefly, in my own words, save where +quotations are indicated in the usual way, the results of Mr. +Greenwood’s researches. “The family of William +Shakspere of Stratford” (perhaps it were safer to say +“the members of his name”) “wrote their name in +many different ways—some sixty, I believe, have been noted +. . . but the form ‘Shakespeare’ seems never to have +been employed by them”; and, according to Mr. Spedding, +“Shakspere of Stratford never so wrote his name ‘in +any known case.’” (According to many Baconians +he never wrote his name in his life.) On the other hand, +the dedications of <i>Venus and Adonis</i> (1593) and of +<i>Lucrece</i> (1594) are inscribed “William +Shakespeare” (without the hyphen). In 1598, the +title-page of <i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i> “bore +the name W. Shakespere,” while in the same year <i>Richard +II</i> and <i>Richard III</i> bear “William +Shake-speare,” with the hyphen (not without it, as in the +two dedications by the Author). “The name which +appears in the body of the conveyance and of the mortgage +bearing” (the actor’s) “signature is +‘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” (and received a legacy of +£13, 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>).</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p12b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Copy of the title-page of “Love’s Labour’s +Lost,” 1598. The earliest title-page in which +Shakespeare’s name is given as the author of the work. +From J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps’ Outlines of the Life of +Shakespeare" +title= +"Copy of the title-page of “Love’s Labour’s +Lost,” 1598. The earliest title-page in which +Shakespeare’s name is given as the author of the work. +From J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps’ Outlines of the Life of +Shakespeare" + src="images/p12s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>Thus, +at Stratford even, the name was spelled, in legal papers, as it +is spelled in the two dedications, and in most of the +title-pages—and also is spelled otherwise, as +“Shackspeare.” In March 1594 the actor’s +name is spelled “Shakespeare” in Treasury +accounts. The legal and the literary and Treasury spellings +(and conveyances and mortgages and wills are <i>not</i> +literature) are Shakespeare, Shackspeare, Shake-speare, +Shakespere—all four are used, but we must regard the actor +as never signing “Shakespeare” in any of these +varieties of spelling—if sign he ever did; at all events he +is not known to have used the <i>a</i> in the last syllable.</p> +<p>I now give the essence of Mr. Greenwood’s words <a +name="citation13a"></a><a href="#footnote13a" +class="citation">[13a]</a> concerning the <i>nom de plume</i> of +the “concealed poet,” whoever he was.</p> +<p>“And now a word upon the name +‘Shakespeare.’ That in this form, and more +especially with a hyphen, Shake-speare, the word makes an +excellent <i>nom de plume</i> is obvious. As old Thomas +Fuller remarks, the name suggests <i>Martial</i> in its warlike +sound, ‘Hasti-vibrans or Shake-speare.’ It is +of course further suggestive of Pallas Minerva, the goddess of +Wisdom, for Pallas also was a spear-shaker (Pallas +ὰπὸ του +πάλλειν τὸ +δόρυ); and all will remember Ben +Jonson’s verses . . . ” on Shakespeare’s +“true-filed lines”—</p> +<blockquote><p>“In each of which he seems to shake a +lance,<br /> +As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>There +is more about Pallas in book-titles (to which additions can +easily be made), and about “Jonson’s Cri-spinus or +Cri-spinas,” but perhaps we have now the gist of Mr. +Greenwood’s remarks on the “excellent <i>nom de +plume</i>” (<i>cf.</i> pp. 31–37. On the whole +of this, <i>cf. The Shakespeare Problem Restated</i>, pp. +293–295; a <i>nom de plume</i> called a +“pseudonym,” pp. 307, 312; Shakespeare “a mask +name,” p. 328; a “pseudonym,” p. 330; +“<i>nom de plume</i>,” p. 335).</p> +<p>Now why was the “<i>nom de plume</i>” or +“pseudonym” “William Shakespeare” +“an excellent <i>nom de plume</i>” 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”?</p> +<p>In 1593, when the “pseudonym” first appears in +<i>Venus and Adonis</i>, a country actor whose name, in legal +documents—presumably drawn up by or for his friend, Francis +Collyns at Stratford—is written “William +Shakespeare,” was before the town as an actor in the +leading company, that of the Lord Chamberlain. This company +produced the plays some of which, by 1598, bear “W. +Shakespere,” or “William Shakespeare” on their +title-pages. Thus, even if the actor habitually spelled his +name “Shakspere,” “William Shakespeare” +was, practically (on the Baconian theory), not only a pseudonym +of one man, a poet, but also the real name of another man, a +well-known actor, who was <i>not</i> the “concealed +poet.”</p> +<p><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +15</span>“William Shakespeare” or +“Shakespere” was thus, in my view, the ideally worst +pseudonym which a poet who wished to be “concealed” +could possibly have had the fatuity to select. His plays +and poems would be, as they were, universally attributed to the +actor, who is represented as a person conspicuously incapable of +writing them. With Mr. Greenwood’s arguments against +the certainty of this attribution I deal later.</p> +<p>Had the actor been a man of rare wit, and of good education +and wide reading, the choice of name might have been +judicious. A “concealed poet” of high social +standing, with a strange fancy for rewriting the plays of +contemporary playwrights, might obtain the manuscript copies from +their owners, the Lord Chamberlain’s Company, through that +knowledgeable, witty, and venal member of the company, Will +Shakspere. He might then rewrite and improve them, more or +less, as it was his whim to do. The actor might make fair +copies in his own hand, give them to his company, and say that +the improved works were from his own pen and genius. The +lie might pass, but only if the actor, in his life and witty +talk, seemed very capable of doing what he pretended to have +done. But if the actor, according to some Baconians, could +not write even his own name, he was impossible as a mask for the +poet. He was also impossible, I think, if he were what Mr. +Greenwood describes him to be.</p> +<p><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>Mr. +Greenwood, in his view of the actor as he was when he came to +London, 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 is no documentary record), according to Mr. +Halliwell-Phillipps “he was removed from school long before +the usual age,” “in all probability” when +“he was about thirteen” (an age at which some boys, +later well known, went up to their universities). If we +send him to school at seven or so, “it appears that he +could only have enjoyed such advantages as it may be supposed to +have provided for a period of five or six years at the +outside. He was then withdrawn, and, as it seems, put to +calf-slaughtering.” <a name="citation16a"></a><a +href="#footnote16a" class="citation">[16a]</a></p> +<p>What the advantages may have been we try to estimate +later.</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood, with Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, thinks that Will +“could have learned but little there. No doubt boys +at Elizabethan grammar schools, if they remained long enough, had +a good deal of Latin driven into them. Latin, indeed, was +the one subject that was taught; and an industrious boy who had +gone through the course and attained to the higher classes would +generally be able to write fair Latin prose. But he would +learn very little else” (except to write fair Latin +prose?). “What we now call ‘culture’ +certainly did not enter into the ‘curriculum,’ nor +‘English,’ nor modern languages, nor +‘literature.’” <a name="citation17a"></a><a +href="#footnote17a" class="citation">[17a]</a> <a +name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>Mr. +Halliwell-Phillipps says that “removed prematurely from +school, residing with illiterate relatives in a bookless +neighbourhood, thrown into the midst of occupations adverse to +scholastic progress—it is difficult to believe that when he +first left Stratford he was not all but destitute of polished +accomplishments.” <a name="citation17b"></a><a +href="#footnote17b" class="citation">[17b]</a> Mr. +Greenwood adds the apprenticeship to a butcher or draper, but +doubts the poaching, and the frequent whippings and +imprisonments, as in the story told by the Rev. R. Davies in +1708. <a name="citation17c"></a><a href="#footnote17c" +class="citation">[17c]</a></p> +<p>That this promising young man, “when he came to London, +spoke the Warwickshire dialect or <i>patois</i> is, then, as +certain as anything can be that is incapable of mathematical +proof.” <a name="citation17d"></a><a href="#footnote17d" +class="citation">[17d]</a> “Here is the young +Warwickshire provincial . . . ” <a +name="citation17e"></a><a href="#footnote17e" +class="citation">[17e]</a> producing, apparently five or six +years after his arrival in town, <i>Venus and Adonis</i> . . . +“Is it conceivable that this was the work of the Stratford +Player of whom we know so little, but of whom we know so much too +much? If so we have here a veritable sixteenth-century +miracle.” <a name="citation17f"></a><a href="#footnote17f" +class="citation">[17f]</a> Moreover, “our great +supposed poet and dramatist had at his death neither book nor +manuscript in his possession, or to which he was legally +entitled, or in which he had any interest whatever.” <a +name="citation17g"></a><a href="#footnote17g" +class="citation">[17g]</a></p> +<p>If it be not conceivable now that the rustic speaking in a +<i>patois</i> could write <i>Venus and Adonis</i>, <a +name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>manifestly it +was inconceivable in 1593, when <i>Venus and Adonis</i> was +signed “William Shakespeare.” No man who knew +the actor (as described) could believe that he was the author, +but there does not exist the most shadowy hint proving that the +faintest doubt was thrown on the actor’s authorship; +ignorant as he was, bookless, and rude of speech. For such +a Will as Mr. Greenwood describes to persuade the literary and +dramatic world of his age that he <i>did</i> write the plays, +would have been a miracle. Consequently Mr. Greenwood has +to try to persuade us that there is no sufficient evidence that +Will <i>did</i> persuade, say Ben Jonson, of his authorship and +we shall see whether or not he works this twentieth-century +miracle of persuasion.</p> +<p>Of course if Will were unable to write even his name, as an +enthusiastic Baconian asserts, Mr. Greenwood sees that Will could +not easily pass for the Author. <a name="citation18a"></a><a +href="#footnote18a" class="citation">[18a]</a> But his own +bookless actor with a <i>patois</i> seems to him, as author of +<i>Venus and Adonis</i>, almost inconceivable. Yet, despite +Will’s bookless rusticity, this poem with <i>Lucrece</i>, +which displays knowledge of a work of Ovid not translated into +English by 1593, was regarded as his own. I must suppose, +therefore, that Will was <i>not</i> manifestly so ignorant of +Latin as Mr. Greenwood thinks. “I think it highly +probable,” says this critic, “that he attended the +Grammar School at Stratford” (where nothing but Latin <a +name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>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 +be thought our chief.’ Nay, I am not at all sure that +he would not have been capable of collaborating with such a man +as George Wilkins, and perhaps of writing quite as well as he, if +not even better. But it does not follow from this that he +was the author either of <i>Venus and Adonis</i> or of +<i>Hamlet</i>.” <a name="citation19a"></a><a +href="#footnote19a" class="citation">[19a]</a></p> +<p>Nothing follows from all this: we merely see that, in Mr. +Greenwood’s private opinion, the actor might write even +better than George Wilkins, but could not write <i>Venus and +Adonis</i>. Will, therefore, though bookless, is not +debarred here from the pursuits of literature, in partnership +with Wilkins. We have merely the critic’s opinion +that Will could not write <i>Hamlet</i>, even if, like +Wordsworth, “he had the mind,” even if the gods had +made him more poetical than Wilkins.</p> +<p>Again, “he had had but little schooling; he had +‘small Latin and less Greek’” (as Ben Jonson +truly says), “but he was a good <i>Johannes Factotum</i>; +he could arrange a scene, and, when necessary, ‘bumbast out +a blank verse.’” <a name="citation19b"></a><a +href="#footnote19b" class="citation">[19b]</a></p> +<p>The “<i>Johannes Factotum</i>,” who could +“bumbast out a blank verse,” is taken from Robert <a +name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +20</span>Greene’s hackneyed attack on an actor-poet, +“Shake-scene,” published in 1592. +“Poet-Ape that would be thought our chief,” 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 in the new art of dramatic blank verse was equal to that of +Marlowe (not to speak of Wilkins), and Greene reckoned him a +dangerous rival to three of his playwright friends, of whom +Marlowe is one, apparently.</p> +<p>If Jonson’s “Poet-Ape” be meant for Will, by +1601 Will would fain “be thought the chief” of +contemporary dramatists. His vanity soared far above George +Wilkins! Greene’s phrases and Jonson’s are +dictated by spite, jealousy, and envy; and from them a true view +of the work of the man whom they envy, the actor-poet, cannot be +obtained. We might as well judge Molière in the +spirit of the author of <i>Elomire Hypocondre</i>, and of de +Visé! The Anti-Willian arguments keep on appearing, +going behind the scenes, and reappearing, like a stage +army. To avoid this phenomenon I reserve what is to be said +about “Shake-scene” and “Poet-Ape” for +another place (pp. 138–145 <i>infra</i>). But I must +give the reader a warning. Concerning “William +Shakespeare” as a “<i>nom de plume</i>,” or +pseudonym, Mr. Greenwood says, “Some, indeed, would see +through it, and roundly accuse the <a name="page21"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 21</span>player of putting forth the works of +others as his own. To such he would be a +‘Poet-Ape,’ or ‘an upstart crow’ +(Shake-scene) ‘beautified with the feathers of other +writers.’” <a name="citation21a"></a><a +href="#footnote21a" class="citation">[21a]</a></p> +<p>If this be true, if “some would see through” (Mr. +Greenwood, apparently, means <i>did</i> “see +through”) the “<i>nom de plume</i>,” the case +of the Anti-Willians is promising. But, in this matter, Mr. +Greenwood <i>se trompe</i>. Neither Greene nor Jonson +accused “Shake-scene” or “Poet-Ape” of +“putting forth the works of others as his own.” +That is quite certain, as far as the scorns of Jonson and Greene +have reached us. (See pp. 141–145 <i>infra</i>.)</p> +<p>If an actor, obviously incapable of wit and poetry, were +credited with the plays, the keenest curiosity would arise in +“the profession,” and among rival playwrights who +envied the wealth and “glory” of the actors. +This curiosity, prompting the wits and players to watch and +“shadow” Will, would, to put it mildly, most +seriously imperil the secret of the concealed author who had the +folly to sign himself “William Shakespeare.” +Human nature could not rest under such a provocation as the +“concealed poet” offered.</p> +<p>This is so obvious that had one desired to prove Bacon or the +Unknown to be the concealed author, one must have credited his +mask, Will, with abundance of wit and fancy, and, as for <a +name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +22</span>learning—with about as much as he probably +possessed. But the Baconians make him an illiterate yokel, +and we have quoted Mr. Greenwood’s estimate of the young +Warwickshire provincial.</p> +<p>We all have our personal equations in the way of belief. +That the plot of the “<i>nom de plume</i>” should +have evaded discovery for a week, if the actor were the untutored +countryman of the hypotheses, is to me, for one, absolutely +incredible. A “concealed poet” looking about +for a “<i>nom de plume</i>” and a mask behind which +he could be hidden, would not have selected the name, or the +nearest possible approach to the name, of an ignorant unread +actor. As he was never suspected of not being the author of +the plays and poems, Will cannot have been a country ignoramus, +manifestly incapable of poetry, wit, and such learning as the +plays exhibit. Every one must judge for himself. Mr. +Greenwood fervently believes in what I disbelieve. <a +name="citation22a"></a><a href="#footnote22a" +class="citation">[22a]</a></p> +<p>“Very few Englishmen . . . in Elizabethan <a +name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>times, +concerned themselves at all, or cared one brass farthing, about +the authorship of plays . . . ” says Mr. Greenwood.</p> +<p>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, a bookless, untaught man, was +announced as the author of plays which were among the most +popular of their day. The seekers never found any other +author. They left no hint that they suspected the existence +of any other author. Hence I venture to infer that Will +seemed to them no unread rustic, but a fellow of infinite +fancy,—no scholar to be sure, but very capable of writing +the pieces which he fathered.</p> +<p>They may all have been mistaken. Nobody can prove that +Heywood and Ben Jonson, and the actors of the Company, were not +mistaken. But certain it is that they thought the Will whom +<a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>they knew +capable of the works which were attributed to him. +Therefore he cannot possibly have been the man who could not +write, of the more impulsive Baconians; or the bookless, and +probably all but Latinless, man of Mr. Greenwood’s +theory. The positions already seem to me to be +untenable.</p> +<h2><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>II<br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">THE “SILENCE” ABOUT +SHAKESPEARE</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Before</span> proceeding further to +examine Mr. Greenwood’s book, and the Baconian theories, +with the careful attention which they deserve, we must clear the +ground by explaining two points which appear to puzzle Baconians, +though, to be sure, they have their own solutions of the +problems.</p> +<p>The first question is: Why, considering that Shakespeare, by +the consent of the learned of most of the polite foreign nations, +was one of the world’s very greatest poets, have we +received so few and such brief notices of him from the pens of +his contemporaries?</p> +<p>“It is wonderful,” exclaims Mr. Crouch-Batchelor, +“that hundreds of persons should not have left records of +him. <a name="citation27a"></a><a href="#footnote27a" +class="citation">[27a]</a> We know nearly as much about the +most insignificant writer of the period as we know of him, but +fifty times more about most of his contemporaries. It is +senseless to try to account for this otherwise than by +recognising that the man was not the author.”</p> +<p>Mr. Crouch-Batchelor is too innocent. He sees the +sixteenth century in the colours of the <a +name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +28</span>twentieth. We know nothing, except a few dates of +birth, death, entrance at school, College, the Inns of Court, and +so forth, concerning several of Shakespeare’s illustrious +contemporaries and successors in the art of dramatic +poetry. The Baconians do not quite understand, or, at +least, keep steadily before their minds, one immense difference +between the Elizabethan age and later times. In +1590–1630, there was no public excitement about the +characters, personalities, and anecdotage of merely literary men, +poets, and playwrights, who held no position in public affairs, +as Spenser did; or in Court, Society, and War, as Sidney did; who +did not write about their own feuds and friendships, like Greene +and Nash; who did not expand into prefaces and reminiscences, and +satires, like Ben Jonson; who never killed anybody, as Ben did; +nor were killed, like Marlowe; nor were involved, like him, in +charges of atheism, and so forth; nor imprisoned with every +chance of having their ears and noses slit, like Marston. +Consequently, silence and night obscure the lives and +personalities of Kyd, Chapman, Beaumont, Fletcher, Dekker, +Webster, and several others, as night and silence hide +Shakespeare from our view.</p> +<p>He was popular on the stage; some of his plays were circulated +separately in cheap and very perishable quartos. No +collected edition of his plays appeared during his life; without +that he could not be studied, and recognised in his <a +name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +29</span>greatness. He withdrew to the country and +died. There was no enthusiastic curiosity about him; nobody +Boswellised any playwright of his time. The Folio of 1623 +gave the first opportunity of studying him as alone he can be +studied. The Civil Wars and the Reign of the Saints +distracted men’s minds and depressed or destroyed the +Stage.</p> +<p>Sir William Davenant, a boy when Shakespeare died, used to see +the actor at his father’s inn at Oxford, was interested in +him, and cherished the embers of the drama, which were fading +before the theatres were closed. Davenant collected what he +could in the way of information from old people of the stage; he +told Shakespearean anecdotes in conversation; a few reached the +late day when uncritical inquiries began, say 1680–90 at +earliest. The memories of ancient people of the theatre and +clerks and sextons at Stratford were ransacked, to very little +purpose.</p> +<p>As these things were so, how can we expect biographical +materials about Shakespeare? As to the man, as to how his +character impressed contemporaries, we have but the current +epithets: “friendly,” “gentle,” and +“sweet,” the praise of his worth by two of the actors +in his company (published in 1623), and the brief prose note of +Ben Jonson,—this is more than we have for the then so +widely admired Beaumont, Ben Jonson’s friend, or Chapman, +or the adored Fletcher. “Into the dark go one and +all,” Shakespeare and the others. <a +name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>To be puzzled +by and found theories on the silence about Shakespeare is to show +an innocence very odd in learned disputants.</p> +<p>The Baconians, as usual, make a puzzle and a mystery out of +their own misappreciation of the literary and social conditions +of Shakespeare’s time. That world could not possibly +appreciate his works as we do; the world, till 1623, possessed +only a portion of his plays in cheap pamphlets, in several of +these his text was mangled and in places unintelligible. +And in not a single instance were anecdotes and biographical +traits of playwrights recorded, except when the men published +matter about themselves, or when they became notorious in some +way unconnected with their literary works. Drummond, in +Scotland, made brief notes of Ben Jonson’s talk; +Shakespeare he never met.</p> +<p>That age was not widely and enthusiastically appreciative of +literary merit in playwrights who were merely dramatists, and in +no other way notorious or eminent. Mr. Greenwood justly +says “the contemporary eulogies of the poet afford proof +that there were some cultured critics of that day of sufficient +taste and acumen to recognise, or partly recognise, his +excellence . . . ” <a name="citation30a"></a><a +href="#footnote30a" class="citation">[30a]</a> (Here I omit +some words, presently to be restored to the text.) From +such critics the poet received such applause as has reached us. +We also know that the plays were popular; <a +name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>but the +audiences have not rushed to pen and ink to record their +satisfaction. With them, as with all audiences, the actors +and the <i>spectacle</i>, much more than the +“cackle,” were the attractions. When Dr. +Ingleby says that “the bard of our admiration was unknown +to the men of that age,” he uses hyperbole, and means, I +presume, that he was unknown, as all authors are, to the great +majority; and that those who knew him in part made no modern fuss +about him. <a name="citation31a"></a><a href="#footnote31a" +class="citation">[31a]</a></p> +<p>The second puzzle is,—Why did Shakespeare, conscious of +his great powers, never secure for his collected plays the +permanence of print and publication? We cannot be sure that +he and his company, in fact, did not provide publishers with the +copy for the better Quartos or pamphlets of separate plays, as +Mr. Pollard argues on good grounds that they sometimes did. <a +name="citation31b"></a><a href="#footnote31b" +class="citation">[31b]</a> For the rest, no dramatic author +edited a complete edition of his works before Ben Jonson, a +scholarly man, set the example in the year of +Shakespeare’s, and of Beaumont’s death (1616). +Neither Beaumont nor Fletcher collected and published their works +for the Stage. The idea was unheard of before Jonson set +the example, and much of his work lay unprinted till years <a +name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>after his +death. We must remember the conditions of play-writing in +Shakespeare’s time.</p> +<p>There were then many poets of no mean merit, all capable of +admirable verse on occasion; and in various degrees possessed of +the lofty, vigorous, and vivid style of that great age. The +theatre, and writing for the theatre, afforded to many men of +talent a means of livelihood analogous to that offered by +journalism among ourselves. They were apt to work +collectively, several hands hurrying out a single play; and in +twos or threes, or fours or fives, they often collaborated.</p> +<p>As a general rule a play when finished was sold by the author +or authors to a company of players, or to a speculator like the +notorious Philip Henslowe, and the new owners, “the grand +possessors,” were usually averse to the publication of the +work, lest other companies might act it. The plays were +primarily written to be acted. The company in possession +could have the play altered as they pleased by a literary man in +their employment.</p> +<p>To follow Mr. Greenwood’s summary of the situation +“it would seem that an author could restrain any person +from publishing his manuscript, or could bring an action against +him for so doing, so long as he had not disposed of his right to +it; and that the publisher could prevent any other publisher from +issuing the work. At the same time it is clear that the law +was <a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +33</span>frequently violated . . . whether because of the +difficulty of enforcing it, or through the supineness of authors; +and that in consequence authors were frequently defrauded by +surreptitious copies of their works being issued by piratical +publishers.” <a name="citation33a"></a><a +href="#footnote33a" class="citation">[33a]</a></p> +<p>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 which such a company brings an +action against the publisher of a play which they own. The +two players of Shakespeare’s company who sign the preface +to the first edition of his collected plays (1623, “The +First Folio”) complain that “divers stolen and +surreptitious copies” of single plays have been put forth, +“maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of +injurious impostors.” They speak as if they were +unable to prevent, or had not the energy to prevent, these +frauds. In the accounts of the aforesaid Henslowe, we find +him paying forty shillings to a printer to stop or +“stay” the printing of a play, <i>Patient Grizel</i>, +by three of his hacks.</p> +<p>We perhaps come across an effort of the company to prevent or +delay the publication of <i>The Merchant of Venice</i>, on July +17, 1598, in the <i>Stationers’ Register</i>. James +Robertes, and all other printers, are forbidden to print the book +without previous permission from the Lord Chamberlain, the +protector of Will Shakespeare’s company. Two years +passed before Robertes issued <a name="page34"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 34</span>the book. <a +name="citation34a"></a><a href="#footnote34a" +class="citation">[34a]</a> As is well known, Heywood, a +most prolific playwright, boasts that he never made a double sale +of his pieces to the players and the press. Others +occasionally did, which Heywood clearly thought less than +honest.</p> +<p>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 curious that some of his pieces were early printed, +in quartos, from very good copies; while others appeared in very +bad copies, clearly surreptitious. Probably the company +gave a good MS. copy, sometimes, to a printer who offered +satisfactory terms, after the gloss of novelty was off the acted +play. <a name="citation34b"></a><a href="#footnote34b" +class="citation">[34b]</a> In any case, we see that the +custom and interests of the owners of manuscript plays ran +contrary to their early publication. In 1619 even Ben +Jonson, who loved publication, told Drummond that half of his +comedies were still unprinted.</p> +<p>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 and negligent about the preservation of a +correct text. As we shall see later, while Baconians urge +without any evidence that Bacon himself edited, or gave to Ben +Jonson <a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>the +duty of editing, the first collected edition (1623), the work has +been done in an indescribably negligent and reckless manner, and, +as Mr. Greenwood repeatedly states, the edition, in his opinion, +contains at least two plays not by his +“Shakespeare”—that “concealed +poet”—and masses of “non-Shakespearean” +work.</p> +<p>How this could happen, if Bacon (as on one hypothesis) either +revised the plays himself, or entrusted the task to so strict an +Editor as Ben Jonson, I cannot imagine. This is also one of +the difficulties in Mr. Greenwood’s theory. Thus we +cannot argue, “if the actor were the author, he must have +been conscious of his great powers. Therefore the actor +cannot have been the author, for the actor wholly neglected to +collect his printed and to print his manuscript works.”</p> +<p>This argument is equally potent against the authorship of the +plays by Bacon. He, too, left the manuscripts unpublished +till 1623. “But he could not avow his +authorship,” cry Baconians, giving various exquisite +reasons. Indeed, if Bacon were the author, he might not +care to divulge his long association with “a cry of +players,” and a man like Will of Stratford. But he +had no occasion to avow it. He had merely to suggest to the +players, through any safe channel, that they should collect and +publish the works of their old friend Will Shakspere.</p> +<p>Thus indifferent was the main author of the plays, whether he +were actor or statesman; and <a name="page36"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 36</span>the actor, at least, is not to blame +for the chaos of the first collected edition, made while he was +in his grave, and while Bacon was busy in revising and +superintending Latin translations of his works on scientific +subjects.</p> +<p>We now understand why there are so few contemporary records of +Shakspere the man; and see that the neglect of his texts was +extreme, whether or not he were the author. The neglect was +characteristic of the playwrights of his own and the next +generation. In those days it was no marvel; few +cared. Nine years passed before a second edition of the +collected plays appeared: thirty-two years went by before a third +edition was issued—years of war and tumult, yet they saw +the posthumous publication of the collected plays of Beaumont and +Fletcher.</p> +<p>There remains one more mystery connected with +publication. When the first collected edition of the plays +appeared, it purported to contain “All His Comedies, +Histories, and Tragedies.” According to the postulate +of the Baconians it was edited by the Author, or by Jonson acting +for him. It contains several plays which, according to many +critics, are not the author’s. This, if true, is +mysterious, and so is the fact that a few plays were published, +as by Shakespeare, in the lifetime both of the actor and of +Bacon; plays which neither acknowledged for his own, for we hear +of no remonstrance from—whoever “William +Shakespeare” was. It is impossible <a +name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>for me to say +why there was no remonstrance.</p> +<p>Suppose that Will merely supplied Bacon’s plays, under +his own name, with a slight difference in spelling, to his +company. It was as much his interest, in that case, to +protest when Bacon’s pen-name was taken in vain, as if he +had spelled his own surname with an <i>a</i> in the second +syllable.</p> +<p>There is another instance which Mr. Greenwood discusses twice. +<a name="citation37a"></a><a href="#footnote37a" +class="citation">[37a]</a> In 1599 Jaggard published +“<i>The Passionate Pilgrim</i>; W. +Shakespeare.” Out of twenty poems, five only were by +W. S. In 1612, Jaggard added two poems by Tom Heywood, +retaining W. Shakespeare’s name as sole author. +“Heywood protested” in print, “and stated that +<i>Shakespeare</i> was offended, and,” says Mr. Greenwood, +“very probably he was so; but as he was, so I conceive, +‘a concealed poet,’ writing under a <i>nom de +plume</i>, he seems to have only made known his annoyance through +the medium of Heywood.”</p> +<p>If so, Heywood knew who the concealed poet was. Turning +to pp. 348, 349, we find Mr. Greenwood repeating the same story, +with this addition, that the author of the poems published by +Jaggard, “to do himself right, hath since published them in +his own name.” That is, W. Shakespeare has since +published under his own name such pieces of <i>The Passionate +Pilgrim</i> as <a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>are his own. “The author, I know,” +adds Heywood, “was much offended with Mr. Jaggard that +(altogether unknown to him) presumed to make so bold with his +name.”</p> +<p>Why was the author so slack when Jaggard, in 1599, published +W. S.’s poems with others <i>not</i> by W. S.?</p> +<p>How can anyone explain, by any theory? It was as open to +him in 1599 as in 1612 to publish his own pieces under his own +name, or pen-name.</p> +<p>“Here we observe,” says Mr. Greenwood, <a +name="citation38a"></a><a href="#footnote38a" +class="citation">[38a]</a> “that Heywood does nothing to +identify ‘the author with the player.’” +This is, we shall see, 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 <i>e</i> and <i>a</i>) but one, the actor, in the world of +letters of Elizabeth and James. Who the author was Heywood +himself has told us, elsewhere: the author was—Will!</p> +<p>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 to explain. 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 the works falsely attributed to +him. I do not even feel certain that he had not a finger in +some of them. Knowing so little, a more soaring wit than +mine <a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>might +fly to the explanation that “Shakespeare” was the +“<i>nom de plume</i>” of Bacon or his unknown +equivalent, and that he preferred to “let sleeping dogs +lie,” or, as Mr. Greenwood might quote the Latin tag, said +<i>ne moveas Camarinam</i>.</p> +<h2><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>III<br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">THAT IMPOSSIBLE HE—THE SCHOOLING OF +SHAKESPEARE</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> banner-cry of the Baconians is +the word “Impossible!” It is impossible that +the actor from Stratford (as they think of him, a bookless, +untutored lad, speaking in <i>patois</i>) should have possessed +the wide, deep, and accurate scholarship displayed by the author +of the plays and poems. It is impossible that at the little +Free School of Stratford (if he attended it), he should have +gained his wide knowledge of the literatures of Greece and +Rome. To these arguments, the orthodox Stratfordian is apt +to reply, that he finds in the plays and poems plenty of +inaccurate general information on classical subjects, information +in which the whole literature of England then abounded. He +also finds in the plays some knowledge of certain Latin authors, +which cannot be proved to have been translated at the date when +Shakespeare drew on them. How much Latin Shakespeare knew, +in our opinion, will presently be explained.</p> +<p>But, in reply to the Baconians and the Anti-Willians, we must +say that while the author of the plays had some lore which +scholars also possessed, <a name="page44"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 44</span>he did not use his knowledge like a +scholar. We do not see how a scholar could make, as the +scansion of his blank verse proves that the author did make, the +second syllable of the name of Posthumus, in <i>Cymbeline</i>, +<i>long</i>. He must have read a famous line in Horace +thus,</p> +<blockquote><p>“<i>Eheu fugaces Posthoome</i>, +<i>Posthoome</i>!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>which could scarce ’scape whipping, even at Stratford +Free School. In the same way he makes the penultimate +syllable of Andronicus short, equally impossible.</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood, we shall see, denies to him <i>Titus +Andronicus</i>, but also appears to credit it to him, as one of +the older plays which he “revised, improved, and +dressed,” <a name="citation44a"></a><a href="#footnote44a" +class="citation">[44a]</a> and <i>that</i> is taken to have been +all his “authorship” in several cases. A +scholar would have corrected, not accepted, false +quantities. In other cases, as when Greeks and Trojans cite +Plato and Aristotle in <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>, while Plato +and Aristotle lived more than a thousand years after the latest +conceivable date of the siege of Troy, I cannot possibly suppose +that a scholar would have permitted to himself the freak, any +more than that in <i>The Winter’s Tale</i> he should have +borrowed from an earlier novel the absurdity of calling Delphi +“Delphos” (a non-existent word), of confusing +“Delphos” with Delos, and placing the Delphian Oracle +in an island. In the same <a name="page45"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 45</span>play the author, quite needlessly, +makes the artist Giulio Romano (1492–1546) contemporary +with the flourishing age of the oracle of the Pythian +Apollo. This, at least, would not be ignorance.</p> +<p>We have, I think, sufficient testimony to Ben’s +inability to refrain from gibes at Shakspere’s want of +scholarship. Rowe, who had traditions of Davenant’s, +tells how, in conversation with Suckling, Davenant, Endymion +Porter, and Hales of Eton, Ben harped on Will’s want of +learning; and how Hales snubbed him. Indeed, Ben could have +made mirth enough out of <i>The Winter’s Tale</i>. +For, granting to Mr. Greenwood <a name="citation45a"></a><a +href="#footnote45a" class="citation">[45a]</a> that “the +mention of Delphos suggests the Bohemia of a much earlier date, +and under the reign of Ottocar (1255–78) Bohemia extended +from the Adriatic to the shores of the Baltic,” that only +makes matters far worse. “Delphos” never was a +place-name; there was no oracle on the isle of +“Delphos”; there were no Oracles in 1255–78 +(<span class="GutSmall">A.D.</span>); and Perdita, who could have +sat for her portrait to Giulio Romano, was contemporary with an +Oracle at <i>Delphos</i>, but not with Ottocar.</p> +<p>There never was so mad a mixture, not even in <i>Ivanhoe</i>; +not even in <i>Kenilworth</i>. Scott erred deliberately, as +he says in his prefaces; but Will took the insular oracle of +Delphos from Greene, inserted Giulio Romano “for his +personal diversion,” <a name="page46"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 46</span>never heard of Ottocar (no more than +I), and made a delightful congeries of errors in gaiety of +heart. Nobody shall convince me that Francis Bacon was so +charmingly irresponsible; but I cannot speak so confidently of +Mr. Greenwood’s Great Unknown, a severe scholar, but +perhaps a frisky soul. There was no region called Bohemia +when the Delphic oracle was in vigour;—this apology +(apparently contrived by Sir Edward Sullivan) is the most comic +of erudite reflections.</p> +<p>Some cruel critic has censured the lovely speech of Perdita, +concerning the flowers which Proserpine let fall, when she was +carried off by Dis. How could she, brought up in the hut of +a Bohemian 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.</p> +<p>It is impossible, Baconians cry, that the rabbit-stealer, +brought up among the Audreys and Jaquenettas of Warwickshire, +should have created the noble and witty ladies of the Court; and +known the style of his Armado; and understood how dukes and kings +talk among themselves—usually in blank verse, it +appears.</p> +<p>It is impossible that the home-keeping yokel should have heard +of the “obscure” (<i>sic</i>!) Court of Navarre; and +known that at Venice there was a place called the Rialto, and a +“common ferry” called “the +tranect.” It is impossible that he should have had +“an intimate knowledge of the <a name="page47"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 47</span>castle of Elsinore,” though an +English <i>troupe</i> of actors visited Denmark in 1587. To +Will all this knowledge was <i>impossible</i>; for these and many +more exquisite reasons the yokel’s authorship of the plays +is a physical impossibility. But scholars neither invent +nor tolerate such strange liberties with time and place, with +history, geography, and common sense. Will Shakspere either +did not know what was right, or, more probably, did not care, and +supposed, like Fielding in the old anecdote, that the audience +“would not find it out.” How could a scholar do +any of these things? He was as incapable of them as Ben +Jonson. Such sins no scholar is inclined to; they have, for +him, no temptations.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p47ab.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Facsimile of the Autograph Signature “By me William +Shakspeare.” From one of the Three Sheets of his Will, +dated March 25, 1616. (From Sir Sidney Lee’s +Shakespeare’s Life and Work. By permission of Messrs. +Smith, Elder & Co.)" +title= +"Facsimile of the Autograph Signature “By me William +Shakspeare.” From one of the Three Sheets of his Will, +dated March 25, 1616. (From Sir Sidney Lee’s +Shakespeare’s Life and Work. By permission of Messrs. +Smith, Elder & Co.)" + src="images/p47as.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p47bb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Facsimile of Mark-Signature of John Shakespeare, the +Poet’s Father. From a Deed of Conveyance, dated January +26, 1596" +title= +"Facsimile of Mark-Signature of John Shakespeare, the +Poet’s Father. From a Deed of Conveyance, dated January +26, 1596" + src="images/p47bs.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p47cb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Facsimile of Mark-Signature of Judith Shakespeare, the +Poet’s Second Daughter, afterwards Mrs. Thomas Quiney" +title= +"Facsimile of Mark-Signature of Judith Shakespeare, the +Poet’s Second Daughter, afterwards Mrs. Thomas Quiney" + src="images/p47cs.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>As to Shakspere’s schooling, the Baconians point at the +current ignorance of Stratford-on-Avon, where many topping +burgesses, even aldermen, “made their marks,” in +place of signing their names to documents. +Shakespeare’s father, wife, and daughter “made their +marks,” in place of signing. So did Lady Jane Gordon, +daughter of the Earl of Huntly, when she married the cultivated +Earl of Bothwell (1566).</p> +<p>There is no evidence, from a roll of schoolboys at Stratford +Free Grammar School, about 1564–77, that any given boy +attended it; for no roll exists. Consequently there is no +evidence that Will was a pupil.</p> +<p>“In the Appendix to Malone’s <i>Life of +Shakespeare</i> will be found two Latin letters, written <a +name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>by alumni of +Stratford School contemporary with Shakespeare,” says Mr. +Collins. <a name="citation48a"></a><a href="#footnote48a" +class="citation">[48a]</a> But though the writers were +Stratford boys contemporary with Shakespeare, in later life his +associates, as there is no roll of pupils’ names how do we +know, the Baconians may ask, that these men were educated at +Stratford School? Why not at Winchester, Eton, St. +Paul’s, or anywhere? Need one reply?</p> +<p>Mr. Collins goes on, in his simple confiding way, to state +that “one letter 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 read +Sturley’s letter, could read Latin. Then <i>young</i> +Richard Quiney, apparently aged eleven, wrote in Latin to his +father. If young Richard Quiney be the son of +Shakespeare’s friend, Richard Quiney, then, of course, his +Latin at the age of eleven would only prove that, if he were a +schoolboy at Stratford, <i>one</i> Stratford boy could write +Latin in the generation following that of Shakespeare. Thus +may reason the Baconians.</p> +<p>Perhaps, however, we may say that if Stratford boys +contemporary with Shakspere, in his own rank and known to him, +learned Latin, which they retained in manhood, Shakspere, if he +went to school with them, may have done as much.</p> +<p>Concerning the school, a Free Grammar School, <a +name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span>we know that +during Shakespeare’s boyhood the Mastership was not +disdained by Walter Roche, perhaps a Fellow of what was then the +most progressive College in learning of those at Oxford, namely, +Corpus Christi. That Shakespeare could have been his pupil +is uncertain; the dates are rather difficult. I think it +probable that he was not, and we do not know the qualifications +of the two or three succeeding Masters.</p> +<p>As to the methods of teaching and the books read at Grammar +Schools, abundance of information has been collected. We +know what the use was in one very good school, Ipswich, from +1528; in another in 1611; but as we do not possess any special +information about Stratford School, Mr. Greenwood opposes the +admission of evidence from other academies. A man might +think that, however much the quality of the teaching varied in +various free schools, the nominal curriculum would be fairly +uniform.</p> +<p>As to the teacher, a good endowment would be apt to attract a +capable man. What was the endowment of Stratford +School? It was derived from the bequest of Thomas Jolyffe +(died 1482), a bequest of lands in Stratford and Dodwell, and +before the Reformation the Brethren of the Guild were “to +find a priest fit and able in knowledge to teach grammar freely +to all scholars coming to him, taking nothing for their teaching +. . . ” “The Founder’s liberal endowment +made it possible to secure an income for the Master by +deed. <a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +50</span>Under the Reformation, Somerset’s Commission found +that the School Master had £10 yearly by patent; the school +was well conducted, and was not confiscated.” <a +name="citation50a"></a><a href="#footnote50a" +class="citation">[50a]</a></p> +<p>Baconians can compare the yearly £20 (the salary in +1570–6, which then went much further than it does now) with +the incomes of other 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 +£20 and a house.</p> +<p>As to the method of teaching, it was colloquial; questions +were asked and answered in Latin. This method, according to +Dr. Rouse of Perse School, brings boys on much more rapidly than +does our current fashion, as may readily be imagined; but experts +vary in opinion. The method, I conceive, should give a +pupil a vocabulary. Lilly’s Latin Grammar was +universally used, and was learned by rote, as by George Borrow, +in the last century. See <i>Lavengro</i> for details. +Conversation books, <i>Sententiæ Pueriles</i>, were in use; +with easy books, such as Corderius’s <i>Colloquia</i>, and +so on, for boys were taught to <i>speak</i> Latin, the common +language of the educated in Europe. Waifs of the Armada, +Spaniards wrecked on the Irish coast, met “a savage who +knew Latin,” and thus could converse with him. The +Eclogues of <a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +51</span>Mantuanus, a Latin poet of the Renaissance (the +“Old Mantuan” of <i>Love’s Labour’s +Lost</i>), were used, with Erasmus’s <i>Colloquia</i>, and, +says Mr. Collins, “such books as Ovid’s +Metamorphoses” (and other works of his), “the +Æneid, selected comedies of Terence and Plautus, and +portions of Cæsar, Sallust, Cicero, and Livy.”</p> +<p>“Pro-di-gi-ous!” exclaims Mr. Greenwood, <a +name="citation51a"></a><a href="#footnote51a" +class="citation">[51a]</a> referring to what Mr. Collins says +Will had read at school. But precocious Latinity was not +thought “prodigious” in an age when nothing but Latin +was taught to boys—not even cricket. Nor is it to be +supposed that every boy read in all of these authors, still less +read all of their works, but these were the works of which +portions were read. It is not prodigious. I myself, +according to my class-master, was “a bad and careless +little boy” at thirteen, incurably idle, but I well +remember reading in Ovid and Cæsar, and Sallust, while the +rest of my time was devoted to the total neglect of the +mathematics, English “as she was taught,” History, +and whatsoever else was expected from me. +Shakespeare’s time was not thus frittered away; Latin was +all he learned (if he went to school), and, as he was (on my +theory) a very clever, imaginative kind of boy, I can conceive +that he was intensely interested in the stories told by Ovid, and +in Catiline’s Conspiracy (thrilling, if you know your +Sallust); and if his interest were once aroused, he would make +rapid progress. My own early <a name="page52"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 52</span>hatred of Greek was hissing and +malignant, but as soon as I opened Homer, all was changed. +One was intensely interested!</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood will not, in the matter of books, go beyond Mr. +Halliwell-Phillipps, <a name="citation52a"></a><a +href="#footnote52a" class="citation">[52a]</a> +“Lilly’s Grammar, and a few classical works chained +to the desks of the free schools.” Mr. Collins +himself gives but “a few classical books,” of which +<i>portions</i> were read. The chains were in all the free +schools, if Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps is right. The chains, +if authentic, do not count as objections.</p> +<p>Here it must be noted that Mr. Greenwood’s opinion of +Will’s knowledge and attainments is not easily to be +ascertained with precision. He sees, of course, that the +pretension of the extreme Baconians—Will could not even +write his name—is absurd. If he could not write, he +could not pass as the author. Mr. Greenwood “fears +that the arguments” (of a most extreme Baconian) +“would drive many wandering sheep back to the Stratfordian +fold.” <a name="citation52b"></a><a href="#footnote52b" +class="citation">[52b]</a></p> +<p>He has therefore to find a <i>via media</i>, to present, as +the pseudo-author, a Will who possessed neither books nor +manuscripts when he made his Testament; a rustic, bookless Will, +speaking a patois, who could none the less pass himself off as +the author. So “I think it highly probable,” +says Mr. Greenwood, “that he attended <a +name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>the Grammar +School at Stratford 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 who would be thought our chief.’” <a +name="citation53a"></a><a href="#footnote53a" +class="citation">[53a]</a> Again, “He had had but +little schooling; he had ‘small Latin and less +Greek’; but he was a good <i>Johannes Factotum</i>, he +could arrange a scene, and, when necessary, ‘bumbast out a +blank verse.’” <a name="citation53b"></a><a +href="#footnote53b" class="citation">[53b]</a></p> +<p>But this is almost to abandon Mr. Greenwood’s +case. Will appears to me to be now perilously near +acceptance as Greene’s “Shake-scene,” who was a +formidable rival to Greene’s three professional +playwrights: and quite as near to Ben’s Poet-Ape +“that would be thought our chief,” who began by +re-making old plays; then won “some little wealth and +credit on the scene,” who had his “works” +printed (for Ben expects them to reach posterity), and whom Ben +accused of plagiarism from himself and his contemporaries. +But this Shake-scene, this Poet-Ape, is merely our Will +Shakespeare as described by bitterly jealous and envious +rivals. Where are now the “works” of +“Poet-Ape” if they are not the works of Shakespeare +which Ben so nobly applauded later, if they are not in the blank +verse of Greene’s Shake-scene? +“Shakespeare’s plays” we call them.</p> +<p><i>When</i> was it “necessary” for the +“Stratford <a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +54</span>rustic” to “bumbast out a blank +verse”? Where are the blank verses which he bumbasted +out? For what purposes were they bumbasted? By 1592 +“Shake-scene” was ambitious, and thought his blank +verse as good as the best that Greene’s friends, including +Marlowe, could write. He had plenty of time to practise +before the date when, as Ben wrote, “he would be thought +our chief.” He would not cease to do that in which he +conceived himself to excel; to write for the stage.</p> +<p>When once Mr. Greenwood deems it “highly probable” +that Will had four or five years of education at a Latin school, +Will has as much of “grounding” in Latin, I think, as +would account for all the knowledge of the Roman tongue which he +displays. His amount of teaching at school would carry and +tempt even a boy who was merely clever, and loved to read +romantic tales and comic plays, into Ovid and +Plautus—English books being to him not very accessible.</p> +<p>Here I may speak from my own memories, for though utterly idle +where set school tasks were concerned, I tried very early to +worry the sense out of Aristophanes—because he was said to +contain good reading.</p> +<p>To this amount of taste and curiosity, nowise unexampled in an +ordinary clever boy, add <i>Genius</i>, and I feel no difficulty +as to Will’s “learning,” such as, at best, it +was. “The Stratfordian,” says Mr. Greenwood, +“will ingeminate ‘Genius! <a +name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +55</span>Genius!’” <a name="citation55a"></a><a +href="#footnote55a" class="citation">[55a]</a> I <i>do</i> +say “Genius,” and stand by it. The ordinary +clever boy, in the supposed circumstances, could read and admire +his Ovid (though Shakespeare used cribs also), the man of genius +could write <i>Venus and Adonis</i>.</p> +<p>Had I to maintain the Baconian hypothesis, I would not weigh +heavily on bookless Will’s rusticity and patois. +Accepting Ben Jonson’s account of his “excellent +phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he +flowed with that facility . . . ,” accepting the tradition +of his lively wit; admitting that he had some Latin and +literature, I would find in him a sufficiently plausible mask for +that immense Unknown with a strange taste for furbishing up older +plays. I would merely deny to Will his <i>genius</i>, and +hand <i>that</i> over to Bacon—or Bungay. Believe me, +Mr. Greenwood, this is your easiest way!—perhaps this +<i>is</i> your way?—the plot of the unscrupulous Will, and +of your astute Bungay, might thus more conceivably escape +detection from the pack of envious playwrights.</p> +<p>According to “all tradition,” says Mr. Greenwood, +Shakespeare was taken from school at the age of thirteen. +Those late long-descended traditions 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 choose among the +traditions: all depends on the genealogical <a +name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>steps by +which they reach us, as far as these can be discovered. <a +name="citation56a"></a><a href="#footnote56a" +class="citation">[56a]</a></p> +<p>According to the tattle of Aubrey the antiquary, publishing in +1680, an opinion concerning Shakspere’s education reached +him. It came thus; there had been an actor in +Shakspere’s company, one Phillips, who, dying in 1605, left +to Shakspere the usual thirty-shilling piece of gold; and the +same “to my servant, Christopher Beeston.” +Christopher’s son, William, in 1640, became deputy to +Davenant in the management of “the King’s and +Queen’s Young Company”, and through Beeston, +according to Aubrey, Davenant learned; through Beeston Aubrey +learned, that Shakespeare “understood Latin pretty well, +for he had been in his younger days a school-master in the +country.” Aubrey writes that “old Mr. Beeston, +whom Mr. Dryden calls ‘the chronicle of the +stage,’” died in 1682. <a name="citation56b"></a><a +href="#footnote56b" class="citation">[56b]</a></p> +<p>This is a fair example of the genealogy of the +traditions. Phillips, a friend of Shakspere, dies in 1605, +leaving a servant, Christopher Beeston (he, too, was a +versifier), whose son, William, dies in 1682; he is “the +chronicle of the stage.” Through him Davenant gets +the story, through him Aubrey gets the story, that Shakspere +“knew Latin pretty well,” and had been a rural <a +name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +57</span>dominie. Mr. Greenwood <a +name="citation57a"></a><a href="#footnote57a" +class="citation">[57a]</a> devotes much space to disparaging +Aubrey (and I do not think him a scientific authority, <i>moult +s’en faut</i>), but Mr. Greenwood here says not a word as +to the steps in the descent of the tradition. He frequently +repeats himself, thereby forcing me to more iteration than I +like. He had already disparaged Aubrey in note I to p. 105, +but there he approached so closely to historical method as to say +that “Aubrey quotes Beeston, a seventeenth-century actor, +as his authority.” On p. 209 he dismisses the +anecdote (which does not suit his book) as “a mere +myth.” “<i>He</i> knows, <i>he</i> knows” +which traditions are mythical, and which possess a certain +historical value.</p> +<p>My own opinion is that Shakspere did “know Latin pretty +well,” and was no <i>scholar</i>, as his contemporaries +reckoned scholarship. He left school, if tradition speak +true, by a year later than the age, twelve, when Bacon went to +Cambridge. Will, a clever kind of lad (on my theory), left +school at an age when some other clever lads became +freshmen. Why not? Gilbert Burnet (of whom you may +have heard as Bishop of Salisbury under William III) took his +degree at the age of fourteen.</p> +<p>Taking Shakspere as an extremely quick, imaginative boy, with +nothing to learn but Latin, and by the readiest road, the +colloquial, I conceive him to have discovered that, in Ovid +especially, <a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +58</span>were to be found the most wonderful and delightful +stories, and poetry which could not but please his “green +unknowing youth.” In the years before he left +Stratford, and after he left school (1577–87?), I can +easily suppose that he was not <i>always</i> 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, knitting his brows over the stories and jests of the +chained Ovid and Plautus on his old schoolroom desk. <i>Moi +qui parle</i>, I am no genius; but stories, romance, and humour +would certainly have dragged me back to the old desks—if +better might not be, and why not Shakspere? Put yourself 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.</p> +<p>If Will wrote the plays, he (and indeed whoever wrote the +plays) was a marvel of genius. But I am not here claiming +for him genius, but merely stating my opinion that if he were +fond of stories and romance, had no English books of poetry and +romance, and had acquired as much power of reading Latin as a +lively, curious boy could easily gain in four years of +exclusively Latin education, he might continue his studies as he +pleased, yet be, so far, no prodigy.</p> +<p>I am contemplating Will in the conditions on which the +Baconians insist; if they will indeed let us assume that for a +few years he was at a <a name="page59"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 59</span>Latin school. I credit the +graceless loon with the curiosity, the prompt acquisitiveness, +the love of poetry and romance, which the author of the plays +must have possessed in youth. “Tradition says nothing +of all that,” the Baconian answers, and he may now, if he +likes, turn to my reply in <i>The Traditional Shakespeare</i>. <a +name="citation59a"></a><a href="#footnote59a" +class="citation">[59a]</a> Meanwhile, how can you expect +old clerks and sextons, a century after date, in a place where +literature was <i>not</i> of supreme interest, to retain a +tradition that Will used to read sometimes (if he did), in +circumstances of privacy? As far as I am able to judge, had +I been a boy at Stratford school for four years, had been taught +nothing but Latin, and had little or no access to English books +of poetry and romance, I should have acquired about the same +amount of Latin as I suppose 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 Shakspere were +about equally scholarly.</p> +<p>I suppose, then, that Shakspere’s “small +Latin” (as Jonson called it) enabled him to read in the +works of the Roman clerks; to read sufficient for his uses. +As a fact, he made use of English translations, and also of Latin +texts. Scholars like Bacon do not use bad translations of +easy Latin authors. If Bacon wanted Plutarch, he went to +Plutarch in Greek, not to an English <a name="page60"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 60</span>translation of a French translation +of a Latin translation.</p> +<p>Some works of Shakespeare, the <i>Lucrece</i>, for example, +and <i>The Comedy of Errors</i> (if he were not working over an +earlier canvas from a more learned hand), and other passages, +show knowledge of Latin texts which in his day had not appeared +in published translations, or had not been translated at all as +far as we know. In my opinion Will had Latin enough to +puzzle out the sense of the Latin, never difficult, for +himself. He could also “get a construe,” when +in London, or help in reading, from a more academic acquaintance: +or buy a construe at no high ransom from some poor scholar. +No contemporary calls him scholarly; the generation of men who +were small boys when he died held him for no scholar. The +current English literature of his day was saturated with every +kind of classical information; its readers, even if Latinless, +knew, or might know a world of lore with which the modern man is +seldom acquainted. The ignorant Baconian marvels: the +classically educated Baconian who is not familiar with +Elizabethan literature is amazed. Really there is nothing +worthy of their wonder.</p> +<p>Does any contemporary literary allusion to Shakespeare call +him “<i>learned</i>”? He is +“sweet,” “honey-tongued,” +“mellifluous,” and so forth, but I ask for any +contemporary who flattered him with the compliment of +“learned.” What <a name="page61"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 61</span>Ben Jonson thought of his learning +(but Ben’s standard was very high), what Milton and Fuller, +boys of eight when he died, thought of his learning, we +know. They thought him “Fancy’s child” +(Milton) and with no claims to scholarship (Fuller), with +“small Latin and less Greek” (Jonson). They +speak of Shakespeare the author and actor; not yet had any man +divided the persons.</p> +<p>Elizabethan and Jacobean scholarly poets were widely read in +the classics. They were not usually, however, scholars in +the same sense as our modern scholarly poets and men of letters; +such as Mr. Swinburne among the dead, and Mr. Mackail and Sir +Gilbert Murray—if I may be pardoned for mentioning +contemporary names. But Elizabethan scholarly 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 +he thought Shakespeare’s scholarship “inexact,” +as we shall see.</p> +<p>I conceive that Shakspere “knew Latin pretty +well,” and, on Ben Jonson’s evidence, he knew +“less Greek.” That he knew <i>any</i> Greek is +surprising. Apparently he did, to judge from Ben’s +words. My attitude must, to the Baconians, seem frivolous, +vexatious, and evasive. I cannot pretend to know what was +Shakspere’s precise amount of proficiency in Latin when he +was writing the plays. That between his own knowledge, and +construes given to him, he might easily <a +name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 62</span>get at the +meaning of all the Latin, not yet translated, which he certainly +knew, I believe.</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood says “the amount of reading which the lad +Shakspere must have done, and assimilated, during his brief +sojourn at the Free School is positively amazing.” <a +name="citation62a"></a><a href="#footnote62a" +class="citation">[62a]</a> But I have shown how an +imaginative boy, with little or no access to English poetry and +romances, might continue to read Latin “for human +pleasure” after he left school. As a professional +writer, in a London where Latinists were as common as now they +are rare in literary society, he might read more, and be helped +in his reading. Any clever man might do as much, not to +speak of a man of genius. “And yet, alas, there is no +record or tradition of all this prodigious industry. . . . +” I am not speaking of “prodigious +industry,” and of that—at school. In a region +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 of the sons and grandsons of country people who cared +for none of these things. The thing is not reasonable. <a +name="citation62b"></a><a href="#footnote62b" +class="citation">[62b]</a></p> +<p>Let me take one example <a name="citation62c"></a><a +href="#footnote62c" class="citation">[62c]</a> of what Mr. E. A. +Sonnenschein is quoted as saying (somewhere) about +Shakespeare’s debt to Seneca’s then untranslated <a +name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>paper <i>De +Clementia</i> (1, 3, 3; I, 7, 2; I, 6, I). It inspires +Portia’s speech about Mercy. Here I give a version of +the Latin.</p> +<p>“Clemency becometh, of all men, none more than the King +or chief magistrate (<i>principem</i>) . . . No one can think of +anything more becoming to a ruler than clemency . . . which will +be confessed the fairer and more goodly in proportion as it is +exhibited in the higher office . . . But if the placable and just +gods punish not instantly with their thunderbolts the sins of the +powerful, how much more just it is that a man set over men should +gently exercise his power. What? Holds not he the +place nearest to the gods, who, bearing himself like the gods, is +kind, and generous, and uses his power for the better? . . +. Think . . . what a lone desert and waste Rome would be, +were nothing left, and none, save such as a severe judge would +absolve.”</p> +<p>The last sentence is fitted with this parallel in +Portia’s speech:</p> + +<blockquote><p> “Consider +this<br /> +That in the course of Justice none of us<br /> +Should see salvation.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Here, at least, Protestant theology, not Seneca, inspires +Portia’s eloquence.</p> +<p>Now take Portia:</p> +<blockquote><p>“The quality of Mercy is not +strain’d;<br /> +It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven<br /> +Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;<br /> +It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>(Not much Seneca, so far!)</p> +<blockquote><p><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>“’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it +becomes<br /> +The thronèd monarch better than his crown;<br /> +His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,<br /> +The attribute to awe and majesty,<br /> +Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;<br /> +But Mercy is above this sceptred sway,<br /> +It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,<br /> +It is an attribute to God himself;<br /> +And earthly power doth then show likest God’s,<br /> +When mercy seasons justice . . . ”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There follows the passage about none of us seeing salvation, +already cited, and theological in origin.</p> +<p>Whether Shakespeare could or could not have written these +reflections, without having read Seneca’s <i>De +Clementia</i>, whether, if he could not conceive the ideas +“out of his own head,” he might not hear +Seneca’s words translated in a sermon, or in conversation, +or read them cited in an English book, each reader must decide +for himself. Nor do I doubt that Shakespeare could pick out +what he wanted from the Latin if he cast his eye over the essay +of the tutor of Nero.</p> +<p>My view of Shakespeare’s Latinity is much like that of +Sir Walter Raleigh. <a name="citation64a"></a><a +href="#footnote64a" class="citation">[64a]</a> As far as I +am aware, it is the opinion usually held by people who approach +the subject, and who have had a classical education. An +exception was the late Mr. Churton Collins, whose ideas are +discussed in the following chapter.</p> +<p>In his youth, and in the country, Will could <a +name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>do what Hogg +and Burns did (and Hogg had no education at all; he was +self-taught, even in writing). Will could pick up +traditional, oral, popular literature. “His +plays,” says Sir Walter Raleigh, “are extraordinarily +rich in the floating debris of popular literature,—scraps +and tags and broken ends of songs and ballads and romances and +proverbs. In this respect he is notable even among his +contemporaries. . . . Edgar and Iago, Petruchio and +Benedick, Sir Toby and Pistol, the Fool in <i>Lear</i> and the +Grave-digger in <i>Hamlet</i>, even Ophelia and Desdemona, are +all alike singers of old songs. . . . ” <a +name="citation65a"></a><a href="#footnote65a" +class="citation">[65a]</a> He is rich in rural proverbs +<i>not</i> recorded in Bacon’s <i>Promus</i>.</p> +<p>Shakespeare in the country, like Scott in Liddesdale, +“was making himself all the time.”</p> +<p>The Baconian will exclaim that Bacon was familiar with many +now obsolete rural words. Bacon, too, may have had a memory +rich in all the tags of song, ballad, story, and +<i>dicton</i>. But so may Shakespeare.</p> +<h2><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>IV<br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">MR. COLLINS ON SHAKESPEARE’S +LEARNING</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> Shakspere, whether +“scholar” or not, had a very wide and deep knowledge +both of Roman literature and, still more, of the whole field of +the tragic literature of Athens, is a theory which Mr. Greenwood +seems to admire in that “violent Stratfordian,” Mr. +Churton Collins. <a name="citation69a"></a><a href="#footnote69a" +class="citation">[69a]</a> I think that Mr. Collins did not +persuade classical scholars who have never given a thought to the +Baconian belief, but who consider on their merits the questions: +Does Shakespeare show wide classical knowledge? Does he use +his knowledge as a scholar would use it?</p> +<p>My friend, Mr. Collins, as I may have to say again, was a very +wide reader of poetry, with a memory like Macaulay’s. +It was his native tendency to find coincidences in poetic +passages (which, to some, to me for example, did not often seem +coincidental); and to explain coincidences by conscious or +subconscious borrowing. One remarked in him these +tendencies long before he wrote on the classical acquirements of +Shakespeare.</p> +<p><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>While +Mr. Collins tended to account for similarities in the work of +authors by borrowing, my tendency was to explain them as +undesigned coincidences. The question is of the widest +range. Some inquirers explain the often minute coincidences +in myths, popular tales, proverbs, and riddles, found all over +the world, by diffusion from a single centre (usually +India). Others, like myself, do not deny cases of +transmission, but in other cases see spontaneous and independent, +though coincident invention. I do not believe that the +Arunta of Central Australia borrowed from Plutarch the central +feature of the myth of Isis and Osiris.</p> +<p>It is not on Shakespeare’s use, now and then, of Greek +and Latin models and sources, but on coincidences detected by Mr. +Collins himself, and not earlier remarked, that he bases his +belief in the saturation of Shakespeare’s mind with Roman +and Athenian literature. Consequently we can only do +justice to Mr. Collins’s system, if we compare example +after example of his supposed instances of Shakespeare’s +borrowing. This is a long and irksome task; and the only +fair plan is for the reader to peruse Mr. Collins’s +<i>Studies in Shakespeare</i>, compare the Greek and Roman texts, +and weigh each example of supposed borrowing for himself. +Baconians must delight in this labour.</p> +<p>I shall waive the question whether it were not possible for +Shakespeare to obtain a view of the <a name="page71"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 71</span>manuscript translation of plays of +Plautus made by Warner for his unlearned friends, and so to use +the <i>Menæchmi</i> as the model of <i>The Comedy of +Errors</i>. He does not borrow phrases from it, as he does +from North’s <i>Plutarch</i>.</p> +<p><i>Venus and Adonis</i> owes to Ovid, at most, but ideas for +three purple patches, scattered in different parts of the +<i>Metamorphoses</i>. <i>Lucrece</i> is based on the then +untranslated <i>Fasti</i> of Ovid. I do not think +Shakespeare incapable of reading such easy Latin for himself; or +too proud to ask help from a friend, or buy it from some poor +young University man in London. That is a simple and +natural means by which he could help himself when in search of a +subject for a play or poem; and ought not to be overlooked.</p> +<p>Mr. Collins, in his rapturous account of Shakespeare’s +wide and profound knowledge of the classics, opens with the +remark: “Nothing which Shakespeare has left us warrants us +in pronouncing with certainty that he read the Greek classics in +the original, or even that he possessed enough Greek to follow +the Latin versions of those classics in the Greek text.” <a +name="citation71a"></a><a href="#footnote71a" +class="citation">[71a]</a> In that case, how did +Shakespeare’s English become contaminated, as Mr. Collins +says it did, with Greek <i>idioms</i>, while he only knew the +Greek plays through Latin translations?</p> +<p>However this is to be answered, Mr. Collins proceeds to prove +Shakespeare’s close familiarity <a name="page72"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 72</span>with Latin and with Greek dramatic +literature by a method of which he knows the +perils—“it is always perilous to infer direct +imitation from parallel passages which may be mere +coincidences.” <a name="citation72a"></a><a +href="#footnote72a" class="citation">[72a]</a> Yet this +method is what he practises throughout; with what amount of +success every reader must judge for himself.</p> +<p>He thinks it “surely not unlikely” that +Polonius’s</p> +<blockquote><p>“Neither a borrower nor a lender be:<br /> +For loan oft loses both itself and friend,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>may be a terse reminiscence of seven lines in Plautus +(<i>Trinummus</i>, iv. 3). Why, Polonius is a coiner of +commonplaces, and if ever there were a well-known reflection from +experience it is this of the borrowers and lenders.</p> +<p>Next, take this of Plautus (<i>Pseudolus</i>, I, iv. +7–10), “But just as the poet when he has taken up his +tablets seeks what exists nowhere among men, and yet finds it, +and makes that like truth which is mere fiction.” We +are to take this as the possible germ of Theseus’s theory +of the origin of the belief in fairies:</p> +<blockquote><p>“And as imagination bodies forth<br /> +The <i>forms</i> of things unknown, the poet’s pen<br /> +Turns them to <i>shapes</i>, and gives to airy nothing<br /> +A local habitation and a name.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The reasoning is odd; imagination bodies forth <i>forms</i>, +and the poet’s pen turns them to <a name="page73"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 73</span><i>shapes</i>. But to suppose +that Shakespeare here borrowed from Plautus appears highly +superfluous.</p> +<p>These are samples of Mr. Collins’s methods +throughout.</p> +<p>Of Terence there were translations—first in part; later, +in 1598, of the whole. Of Seneca there was an English +version (1581). Mr. Collins labours to show that one +passage “almost certainly” implies +Shakespeare’s use of the Latin; but it was used “by +an inexact scholar,”—a terribly inexact scholar, if +he thought that “<i>alienus</i>” (“what belongs +to another”) meant “slippery”!</p> +<p>Most of the passages are from plays (<i>Titus Andronicus</i> +and <i>Henry VI</i>, i., ii., iii.), which Mr. Greenwood denies +(usually) to <i>his</i> author, the Great Unknown. +Throughout these early plays Mr. Collins takes +Shakespeare’s to resemble Seneca’s <i>Latin</i> +style: Shakespeare, then, took up Greek tragedy in later life; +after the early period when he dealt with Seneca. Here is a +sample of borrowing from Horace, “<i>Persicos odi puer +apparatus</i>” (<i>Odes</i>. I, xxxviii. I). Mr. +Collins quotes <i>Lear</i> (III, vi. 85) thus, “You will +say they are <i>Persian attire</i>.” Really, Lear in +his wild way says to Edgar, “I do not like the fashion of +your garments: you will say they are Persian; but let them be +changed.” Mr. Collins changes this into “you +will say they are <i>Persian attire</i>,” a phrase +“which could only have occurred to a <a +name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>classical +scholar.” The phrase is not in Shakespeare, and +Lear’s wandering mind might as easily select +“Persian” as any other absurdity.</p> +<p>So it is throughout. Two great poets write on the fear +of death, on the cries of new-born children, on dissolution and +recombination in nature, on old age; they have ideas in common, +obvious ideas, glorified by poetry,—and Shakespeare, we are +told, is borrowing from Lucretius or Juvenal; while the critic +leaves his reader to find out and study the Latin passages which +he does not quote. So arbitrary is taste in these matters +that Mr. Collins, like Mr. Grant White, but independently, finds +Shakespeare putting a thought from the <i>Alcibiades I</i> of +Plato into the mouth of Achilles in <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>, +while Mr. J. M. Robertson suggests that the borrowing is from +Seneca—where Mr. Collins does not find “the smallest +parallel.” Mr. Collins is certainly right; the author +of <i>Troilus</i> makes Ulysses quote Plato as “the +author” of a remark, and makes Achilles take up the +quotation, which Ulysses goes on to criticise.</p> +<p>Thus, in this play, not only Aristotle (as Hector says) but +Plato are taken to have lived before the Trojan war, and to have +been read by the Achæans!</p> +<p>There were Latin translations of Plato; the <i>Alcibiades +I</i> was published apart, from Ficinus’ version, in 1560, +with the sub-title, <i>Concerning the Nature of Man</i>. +Who had read it?—Shakespeare, <a name="page75"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 75</span>or one of the two authors (Dekker and +Chettle) of another <i>Troilus and Cressida</i> (now lost), or +Bacon, or Mr. Greenwood’s Unknown? Which of these +Platonists chose to say that Plato and Aristotle lived long +before Homer? Which of them followed the Ionic and +mediæval anti-Achæan view of Homer’s heroes, as +given in the Troy Books of the Middle Ages, and yet knew Iliad, +Book VII, and admired Odysseus, whom the Ionian tradition +abhors? <i>Troilus and Cressida</i> is indeed a mystery, +but Somebody concerned in it had read Ficinus’ version of +the <i>Alcibiades</i>; <a name="citation75a"></a><a +href="#footnote75a" class="citation">[75a]</a> and yet made the +monstrous anachronism of dating Aristotle and Plato before the +Trojan war. “That was his fun,” as Charles Lamb +said in another connection.</p> +<p>Mr. Collins, it is plain, goes much further than the +“small Latin” with which his age (like myself) +credited Shakespeare. He could read Latin, Mr. Collins +thinks, as easily as an educated Briton reads French—that +is, as easily as he reads English. Still further, +Shakespeare, through Latin translations, was so saturated with +the Greek drama “that the characteristics which +differentiate his work from the work of his contemporaries and +recall in essentials the work of the Greek dramatists are +actually attributable to these dramatists.”</p> +<p>Ben Jonson, and all the more or less well-taught University +wits, as far as I remember, <a name="page76"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 76</span>like Greene, Marlowe, and Lyly, do +not show much acquaintance with Euripides, Æschylus, +Sophocles, and do not often remind us of these masters. +Shakespeare does remind us of them—the only question is, do +the resemblances arise from his possession of a genius akin to +that of Greece, or was his memory so stored with all the +treasures of their art that the waters of Helicon kept bubbling +up through the wells of Avon?</p> +<p>But does Mr. Collins prove (what, as he admits, <i>cannot</i> +be demonstrated) that Shakespeare was familiar with the Attic +tragedians? He begins by saying that he will not bottom his +case “on the ground of parallels in sentiment and +reflection, which, as they express 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. Four pages of examples +therefore follow, from Sophocles and Æschylus, plays and +fragments, Euripides, and Homer too (once!). Again, +“identities of sentiment under similar circumstances” +are not to be cited; two pages <i>are</i> cited; and +“similarities, however striking they may be in metaphorical +expression,” cannot safely be used; several pages of them +follow.</p> +<p>Finally, Mr. Collins chooses a single play, the <i>Aias</i> of +Sophocles, and tests Shakespeare by that, unluckily in part from +<i>Titus Andronicus</i>, which Mr. Greenwood regards (usually) as +non-Shakespearean, <a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +77</span>or not by his unknown great author. <i>Troilus and +Cressida</i>, whatever part Shakespeare may have had in it, does +suggest to me that the author or authors knew of Homer no more +than the few books of the Iliad, first translated by Chapman and +published in 1598. But he or they did know the <i>Aias</i> +of Sophocles, according to Mr. Collins: so did the author of +<i>Romeo and Juliet</i>.</p> +<p>Now all these sorts of parallels between Shakespeare and the +Greeks are, Mr. Collins tells us, not to count as proofs that +Shakespeare knew the Greek tragedians. “We have +obviously to be on our guard” <a name="citation77a"></a><a +href="#footnote77a" class="citation">[77a]</a> against three +kinds of such parallels, which “may be mere +coincidences,” <a name="citation77b"></a><a +href="#footnote77b" class="citation">[77b]</a> fortuitous +coincidences. But these coincidences against which +“we must be on our guard” fill sixteen pages (pp. +46–63). These pages must necessarily produce a +considerable effect in the way of persuading the reader that +Shakespeare knew the Greek tragedians as intimately as Mr. +Collins did. Mr. Greenwood is obliged to leave these +parallels to readers of Mr. Collins’s essay. Indeed, +what more can we do? Who would read through a criticism of +each instance? Two or three may be given. The Queen +in <i>Hamlet</i> reminds that prince, grieving for his +father’s death, that “all that live must +die”:</p> +<blockquote><p>“That loss is common to the race,<br /> +And common is the common-place.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span>The +Greek Chorus offers the commonplace to Electra,—and here is +a parallel! Again, two Greeks agree with Shakespeare that +anxious expectation of evil is worse than actual experience +thereof. Greece agrees with Shakespeare that ill-gotten +gains do not thrive, or that it is not lucky to be “a corby +messenger” of bad news; or that all goes ill when a man +acts against his better nature; or that we suffer most from the +harm which we bring on ourselves; or that there is strength in a +righteous cause; or that blood calls for blood (an idea common to +Semites, Greeks, and English readers of the Bible); or that, +having lost a very good man, you will not soon see his like +again,—and so on as long as you please. Of such +wisdom are proverbs made, and savages and Europeans have many +parallel proverbs. <i>Vestigia nulla retrorsum</i> is as +well known to Bushmen as to Latinists. Manifestly nothing +in this kind proves, or even suggests, that Shakespeare was +saturated in Greek tragedy. But page on page of such facts +as that both Shakespeare and Sophocles talk, one of “the +belly-pinched wolf,” the other of “the empty-bellied +wolf,” are apt to impress the reader—and verily both +Shakespeare and Æschylus talk of “the heart dancing +for joy.” Mr. Collins repeats that such things are no +proof, but he keeps on piling them up. It was a theory of +Shakespeare’s time that the apparent ghost of a dead man +might be an impersonation <a name="page79"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 79</span>of him by the devil. Hamlet +knows this—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The spirit that I have seen may be the +devil.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Orestes (<i>Electra</i>, Euripides) asks whether it may not be +an avenging dæmon (<i>alastor</i>) in the shape of a god, +that bids him avenge his father. Is Shakespeare borrowing +from Euripides, or from a sermon, or any contemporary work on +ghosts, such as that of Lavater?</p> +<p>A girl dies or is sacrificed before her marriage, and +characters in <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, and in Euripides, both say +that Death is her bridegroom. Anyone might say that, +anywhere, as in the Greek Anthology—</p> +<blockquote><p>“For Death not for Love hast thou loosened +thy zone.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One needs the space of a book wherein to consider such +parallels. But confessedly, though a parade is made of +them, they do not prove that Shakespeare constantly read Greek +tragedies in Latin translations.</p> +<p>To let the truth out, the resemblances are mainly found in +such commonplaces: as when both Aias and Antony address the Sun +of their latest day in life; or when John of Gaunt and Aias both +pun on their own names.</p> +<p>The situations, in <i>Hamlet</i> and the +<i>Choephoræ</i> and <i>Electra</i>, are so close that +resemblances in some passages must and do occur, and Mr. Collins +does not comment specially upon the closest resemblance of all: +the English case is here the murder of Duncan, the Greek is the +murder of Agamemnon.</p> +<p><a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>Now it +would be easy for me to bring forward many close parallels +between Homer and the old Irish epic story of Cuchulainn, between +Homer and <i>Beowulf</i> and the Njal’s saga, yet Norsemen +and the early Irish were not students of Homer! The +parallel passages in Homer, on one side, and the Old Irish +<i>Tain Bo Cualgne</i>, and the Anglo-Saxon epics, are so +numerous and close that the theory of borrowing from Homer has +actually occurred to a distinguished Greek scholar. But no +student of Irish and Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry has been found, I +think, to suggest that Early Irish and Anglo-Saxon Court +minstrels knew Greek. The curious may consult Mr. Munro +Chadwick’s <i>The Heroic Age</i> (1912), especially Chapter +XV, “The Common Characteristics of Teutonic and Greek +Heroic Poetry,” and to what Mr. Chadwick says much might be +added.</p> +<p>But, to be short, Mr. Collins’s case can only be judged +by readers of his most interesting <i>Studies in +Shakespeare</i>. To me, Hamlet’s soliloquy on death +resembles a fragment from the <i>Phœnix</i> of Euripides no +more closely than two sets of reflections by great poets on the +text that “of death we know nothing” are bound to +do,—though Shakespeare’s are infinitely the +richer. For Shakespeare’s reflections on death, save +where Christians die in a Christian spirit, are as agnostic as +those of the post-Æschylean Greek and early Anglo-Saxon +poets. In many respects, as Mr. Collins proves, +Shakespeare’s highest and deepest <a +name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>musings are +Greek in tone. But of all 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 of Anglo-Saxon thought, in +relation to Destiny and Death, is purely Homeric, though +necessarily unborrowed; nor were a native Fijian poet’s +lines on old age, <i>sine amore jocisque</i>, borrowed from +Mimnermus! There is such a thing as congruity of +genius. Mr. Collins states the hypothesis—not his +own—“that <i>by a certain natural affinity</i> +Shakespeare caught also the accent and tone as well as some of +the most striking characteristics of Greek tragedy.”</p> +<p>Though far from accepting most of Mr. Collins’s long +array of Greek parallels, I do hold that by “natural +affinity,” by congruity of genius, Shakespeare approached +and resembled the great Athenians.</p> +<p>One thing seems certain to me. If Shakspere read and +borrowed from Greek poetry, he knew it as well (except Homer) as +Mr. Collins knew it; and remembered what he knew with Mr. +Collins’s extraordinary tenacity of memory.</p> +<p>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 diligent student of Greek poetry, +above all of the drama, down to its fragments. The +Baconians assuredly ought to try to prove, from Bacon’s +works, that he was such a student.</p> +<p>Mr. Collins, “a violent Stratfordian,” overproved +<a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>his +case. If his proofs be accepted, Shakspere the actor knew +the Greek tragedians as well as did Mr. Swinburne. If the +author of the plays were so learned, the actor was not the +author, in my opinion—he <i>was</i>, in the opinion of Mr. +Collins.</p> +<p>If Shakespeare’s spirit and those of Sophocles and +Æschylus meet, it is because they move on the same heights, +and thence survey with “the poet’s sad +lucidity” the same “pageant of men’s +miseries.” But how dissimilar in expression +Shakespeare can be, how luxuriant and apart from the austerity of +Greece, we observe in one of Mr. Collins’s parallels.</p> +<p>Polynices, in the <i>Phœnissæ</i> of Euripides +(504–506), exclaims:</p> +<blockquote><p>“To the stars’ risings, and the +sun’s I’d go,<br /> +And dive ’neath earth,—if I could do this +thing,—<br /> +Possess Heaven’s highest boon of sovereignty.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Then compare Hotspur:</p> +<blockquote><p>“By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leap<br +/> +To pluck bright honour from the pale faced moon,<br /> +Or dive into the bottom of the deep,<br /> +Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,<br /> +And pluck up drownèd honour by the locks,<br /> +So he that doth redeem her thence, might wear<br /> +Without corrival all her dignities.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>What a hurrying crowd of pictures rush through Hotspur’s +mind! Is Shakespeare thinking of the +<i>Phœnissæ</i>, or is he speaking only on the +promptings of his genius?</p> +<h2><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>V<br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">SHAKESPEARE, GENIUS, AND +SOCIETY</span></h2> +<p>A <span class="smcap">phrase</span> has been used to explain +the Greek element in Shakespeare’s work, namely, +“congruity of genius,” which is apt to be resented by +Baconians. Perhaps they have a right to resent it, for +“genius” is hard to define, and genius is invoked by +some wild wits to explain feats 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, or the performance of an action which, to +the speaker who applies the word “miracle,” seems +“impossible.” The speaker therefore says, +“The event is impossible; miracles do not happen: therefore +the reported event never occurred. The alleged performance, +the writing of the plays by the actor, was impossible, was a +miracle, therefore was done by some person or persons other than +the actor.” This idea of the <i>impossibility</i> of +the player’s authorship is the foundation of the Baconian +edifice.</p> +<p>I have, to the best of my ability, tried to describe Mr. +Greenwood’s view of the young provincial from Warwickshire, +Will Shakspere. If <a name="page86"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 86</span>Will were what Mr. Greenwood thinks +he was, then Will’s authorship of the plays seems to me, +“humanly speaking,” impossible. But then Mr. +Greenwood appeared to omit from his calculations the circumstance +that Will <i>may</i> have been, not merely “a sharp +boy” but a boy of great parts; and not without a love of +stories and poetry: a passion which, in a bookless region, could +only be gratified through folk-song, folk-tale, and such easy +Latin as he might take the trouble to read. If we add to +these very unusual but not wholly impossible tastes and +abilities, that Will <i>may</i> have been a lad of genius, there +is no more “miracle” in his case than in other +supreme examples of genius. “But genius cannot work +miracles, cannot do what is impossible.” Do what is +impossible to whom? To the critics, the men of common +sense.</p> +<p>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 everyday intellect, but a spirit from without +which inspires him, like the “Dæmon,” or, in +Latin, “Genius” of Socrates, or the <i>lutin</i> +which rode the pen of Molière. “Genius” +is claimed for Shakespeare in an inscription on his Stratford +monument, erected at latest some six years after his death. +Following this path of thought we come to +“inspiration”: the notion of it, as familiar to +Australian savages as to any <a name="page87"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 87</span>modern minds, is that, to the poet, +what he produces is <i>given</i> by some power greater than +himself, by the <i>Boilyas</i> (spirits) or Pundjel, the Father +of all. This palæolithic psychology, of course, is +now quite discredited, yet the term “genius” is still +(perhaps superstitiously) applied to the rare persons whose +intellectual faculties lightly outrun those of ordinary mortals, +and who do marvels with means apparently inadequate.</p> +<p>In recent times some philosophers, like Mr. F. W. H. Myers, +put—in place of the Muses or the <i>Boilyas</i>, or the +Genius—what they call the “Subliminal Self,” +something “far more deeply interfused than the everyday +intellect.” This subconscious self, capable of far +more than the conscious intelligence, is genius.</p> +<p>On the other side, genius may fairly be regarded as faculty, +only higher in degree, and not at all different in kind, from the +everyday intellect which, for example, pens this page.</p> +<p>Thus as soon as we begin to speak of “genius,” we +are involved in speculations, psychological, psychical, physical, +and metaphysical; in difficulties of all sorts not at present to +be solved either by physiological science or experimental +psychology, or by psychical research, or by the study of +heredity. When I speak of “the genius of +Shakespeare,” of Jeanne d’Arc, of Bacon, even of +Wellington, I possibly have a meaning which is not in all +respects the meaning of Mr. Greenwood, when he uses the term +“genius”; <a name="page88"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 88</span>so we are apt to misunderstand each +other. Yet we all glibly use the term “genius,” +without definition and without discussion.</p> +<p>At once, too, in this quest, we jostle against “that +fool of a word,” as Napoleon said, +“impossible.” At once, on either side, we +assume that we know what is possible and what is +impossible,—and so pretend to omniscience.</p> +<p>Thus some “Stratfordians,” or defenders of the +actor’s authorship, profess to know—from all the +signed work of Bacon, and from all that has reached us about +Bacon’s occupations and preoccupations, from 1590 to +1605—that the theory of Bacon’s authorship of the +plays is “impossible.” I, however, do not +profess this omniscience.</p> +<p>On the other side the Baconian, arguing from all that +<i>he</i> knows, or thinks he knows, or can imagine, of the +actor’s education, conditions of life, and opportunities, +argues that the authorship of the actor is +“impossible.”</p> +<p>Both sides assume to be omniscient, but we incontestably know +much more about Bacon, in his works, his aims, his inclinations, +and in his life, than we know about the actor; while about +“the potentialities of genius,” we know—very +little.</p> +<p>Thus, with all Bacon’s occupations and preoccupations, +he had, the Baconians will allow, <i>genius</i>. By the +miracle of genius he <i>may</i> have found time and developed +inclination, to begin by furbishing up older plays for a company +of <a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>actors: +he did it extremely well, but what a quaint taste for a courtier +and scholar! The eccentricities of genius <i>may</i> +account for his choice of a “<i>nom de plume</i>,” +which, if he desired concealment, was the last that was likely to +serve his turn. He may also have divined all the Doll +Tearsheets and Mrs. Quicklys and Pistols, whom, conceivably, he +did not much frequent.</p> +<p>I am not one of those who deny that Bacon might have written +<i>Hamlet</i> “if he had the mind,” as Charles Lamb +said of Wordsworth. Not at all; I am the last to limit the +potentialities of genius.</p> +<p>But suppose, merely for the sake of argument, that Will +Shakspere too had genius in that amazing degree which, in +<i>Henry V</i>, the Bishop of Ely and the Archbishop of +Canterbury describe and discuss in the case of the young +king. In this passage we perceive that the poet had brooded +over and been puzzled by the “miracle” (he uses the +word) of genius. Says Canterbury speaking of the +Prince’s wild youth,</p> +<blockquote><p>“Never was such a sudden scholar +made.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One Baconian objection to Shakespeare’s authorship is +that during his early years in London (say 1587–92) he was +“such a sudden scholar made” in various things.</p> +<p>The young king’s</p> +<blockquote><p> “addiction was to courses +vain,<br /> +His companies unletter’d, rude, and shallow,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +90</span>precisely like Shakespeare’s courses and +companions at Stratford</p> +<blockquote><p>“Had never noted in him any +study.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Stratford tradition, a century after Shakespeare left the +town, did not remember “any study” in him; none had +been “noted,” nor could have been remembered. +To return to Henry, he shines in divinity, knowledge of +“commonwealth affairs,”</p> +<blockquote><p>“You would say, it hath been all in all his +study.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He is as intimate with the art of war; to him “Gordian +knots of policy” are “familiar as his +garter.” He <i>must</i> have</p> +<blockquote><p>“The art and practic part of +life,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>as “mistress to this theorie,”</p> +<blockquote><p>“Which is a wonder how his Grace should +glean it,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>as his youth was riotous, and was lived in all men’s +gaze,</p> +<blockquote><p>“And never noted in him any study,<br /> +Any retirement, any sequestration<br /> +From open haunts and popularity.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The Bishop of Ely can only suggest that Henry’s study or +“contemplation”</p> +<blockquote><p>“Grew like the summer grass, fastest by +night,<br /> +Unseen,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and Canterbury says</p> +<blockquote><p>“It must be so, for miracles are +ceased.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>And +thus the miracle of genius baffles the poet, for Henry’s +had been “noisy nights,” notoriously noisy.</p> +<p>Now, as we shall later show, Bacon’s rapid production of +the plays, considering his other contemporary activities and +varied but always absorbing interests, was as much a miracle as +the sudden blossoming of Henry’s knowledge and +accomplishments; for all Bacon’s known exertions and +occupations, and his deepest and most absorbing interest, were +remote from the art of tragedy and comedy. If we are to +admit the marvel of genius in Bacon, of whose life and pursuits +we know much, by parity of reasoning we may grant that the actor, +of whom we know much less, may have had genius: had powers and +could use opportunities in a way for which Baconians make no +allowance.</p> +<p>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 the list. <a +name="citation91a"></a><a href="#footnote91a" +class="citation">[91a]</a> He “comes to town” +(date unknown) “a needy adventurer”; in 1593 appeared +the poem <i>Venus and Adonis</i>, author’s name being +printed as “W. Shakespeare.” Then comes +<i>Lucrece</i> (1594). In 1598 <i>Love’s +Labour’s Lost</i>, printed as “corrected and +augmented” by “W. Shakespere.” And so on +with all the rest. Criticism of the learning and splendour +of the two <a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +92</span>poems follows. To <i>Love’s Labour’s +Lost</i>, and the amusing things written about it by Baconians, I +return; and to Shakespeare’s “impossible” +knowledge of courtly society, his “polish and +urbanity,” his familiar acquaintance with contemporary +French politics, foreign proverbs, and “the gossip of the +Court” of Elizabeth: these points are made by His Honour +Judge Webb.</p> +<p>All this lore to Shakespeare is +“impossible”—he could not read, say some +Baconians, or had no Latin, or had next to none; on these points +I have said my say. The omniscient Baconians know that all +the early works ascribed to the actor were impossible, to a man +of, say thirty—who <i>was</i> no more, and <i>knew</i> no +more, than they know that the actor was and knew; and as for +“Genius,” it cannot work miracles. Genius +“bestows upon no one a knowledge of facts,” +“Shakespeare, however favoured by nature, could impart only +what he had learned.”</p> +<p>Precisely, but genius as I understand it (and even cleverness) +has a way of acquiring knowledge of facts where the ordinary +“dull intelligent man” gains none. Keen +interest, keen curiosity, swift observation, even the power of +tearing out the things essential from a book, the gift of rapid +reading; the faculty of being alive to the +fingertips,—these, with a tenacious memory, may enable a +small boy to know more facts of many sorts than his elders and +betters and all the neighbours. They are puzzled, if they +make the <a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>discovery of his knowledge. Scott was such a small +boy; whether we think him a man of genius or not. +Shakspere, even the actor, was, perhaps, a man of genius, and +possessed this power of rapid acquisition and vivid retention of +all manner of experience and information. To what I suppose +to have been his opportunities in London, I shall return. +Meanwhile, let the doubter take up any popular English books of +Shakespeare’s day: he will find them replete with much +knowledge wholly new to him—which he will also find in +Shakespeare.</p> +<p>A good example is this: Judge Webb proclaimed that in points +of scientific lore (the lore of that age) Shakespeare and Bacon +were much on a level. Professor Tyrrell, in a newspaper, +said that the facts staggered him, as a +“Stratfordian.” A friend told me that he too +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, <a name="citation93a"></a><a +href="#footnote93a" class="citation">[93a]</a> and reconverted +Mr. Tyrrell, who wrote: “I am not versed in the literature +of the Shakespearian era, and I assumed that the Baconians who +put forward the parallelisms had satisfied themselves that the +coincidences were peculiar to the writings of the philosopher and +the poet. Professor Dowden has proved that this is not +so.” <a name="citation93b"></a><a href="#footnote93b" +class="citation">[93b]</a></p> +<p><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>Were I +to enter seriously on this point of genius, I should begin by +requesting my adversaries to read Mr. F. W. H. Myers’s +papers on “The Mechanism of Genius” (in his <i>Human +Personality</i>), and to consider the humble problem of +“Calculating Boys,” which is touched on also by +Cardinal Newman. How do they, at the age of innocence, +arrive at their amazing results? How did the child Pascal, +ignorant of Euclid, work out the Euclidean propositions of +“bars and rounds,” as he called lines and +circles? Science has no solution!</p> +<p>Transport the problem into the region of poetry and knowledge +of human nature, take Will in place of Pascal and Gauss, and (in +manners and matter of war) Jeanne d’Arc;—and science, +I fancy, is much to seek for a reply.</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood considers, among others, the case of Robert +Burns. The parallel is very interesting, and does not, I +think, turn so much to Mr. Greenwood’s advantage as he +supposes. The genius of Burns, of course, is far indeed +below the level of that of the author of the Shakespearean +plays. But that author and Burns have this in common with +each other (and obviously with Homer), that their work arises +from a basis of older materials, already manipulated by earlier +artists. Burns almost always has a key-note already +touched, as confessedly in the poems of his predecessor, +Fergusson; of Hamilton of Gilbertfield; in songs, popular or +artistic, and so forth. <a name="page95"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 95</span>He “alchemised” his +materials, as Mr. Greenwood says of his author of the plays; +turned dross into gold, brick into marble. Notoriously much +Shakespearean work is of the same nature.</p> +<p>The education of Burns he owed to his peasant father, to his +parish school (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 and French; and he knew a modernised version of Blind +Harry’s <i>Wallace</i>; Locke’s <i>Essay</i>; <i>The +Spectator</i>, novels of the day, and vernacular Scots poets of +his century, with a world of old Scots songs. These things, +and such as these, were Burns’s given literary +materials. He used them in the only way open to him, in +poems written for a rural audience, and published for an +Edinburgh public. No classical, no theatrical materials +were given; or, if he read the old drama, he could not, in his +rural conditions, and in a Scotland where the theatre was in a +very small way, venture on producing plays, for which there was +no demand, while he had no knowledge of the Stage. Burns +found and filled the only channels open to him, in a printed +book, and in music books for which he transmuted old songs.</p> +<p>The bookish materials offered to Will, in London, were crammed +with reminiscences from the classics, were mainly romantic and +theatrical; and, from his profession of actor, by far the best +channel open to him was the theatre. Badly as it paid the +outside author, there was nothing <a name="page96"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 96</span>that paid better. <i>Venus and +Adonis</i> brought “more praise than pudding,” if one +may venture a guess. With the freedom of the theatre Will +could soar to all heights and plumb all depths. No such +opportunity had Burns, even if he could have used it, and, owing +to a variety of causes, his spirit soon ceased to soar high or +wing wide.</p> +<p>I take Shakespeare, in London at least, to have read the +current Elizabethan light literature—<i>Euphues</i>, +Lyly’s Court comedies, novels full of the classics and of +social life; Spenser, Sidney—his <i>Defence of Poesy</i>, +and <i>Arcadia</i> (1590)—with scores of tales translated +from the Italian, French, and Spanish, all full of foreign +society, and discourses of knights and ladies. He saw the +plays of the day, perhaps as one of “the +groundlings.” He often beheld Society, from without, +when acting before the Queen and at great houses. He had +thus, if I am right, sufficient examples of style and manner, and +knowledge of how the great were supposed (in books) to comport +and conduct themselves. The books were cheap, and could be +borrowed, and turned over at the booksellers’ stalls. <a +name="citation96a"></a><a href="#footnote96a" +class="citation">[96a]</a> The Elizabethan style was +omnipresent. Suppose that Shakespeare was a clever man, a +lover of reading, a rapid reader with an excellent memory, easily +influenced, like Burns, by what he read, and I really think that +my conjectures are not too audacious. Not only “the +man in <a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>the +street,” but “the reading public” (so loved by +Coleridge), have not the beginning of a guess as to the way in +which a quick man reads. Watch them poring for hours over a +newspaper! Let me quote what Sir Walter Raleigh says: <a +name="citation97a"></a><a href="#footnote97a" +class="citation">[97a]</a> “Shakespeare was one of those +swift and masterly readers who know what they want of a book; +they scorn nothing that is dressed in print, but turn over the +pages with a quick discernment of all that brings them new +information, or jumps with their thought, or tickles their +fancy. Such a reader will have done with a volume in a few +minutes, yet what he has taken from it he keeps for years. +He is a live man; and is sometimes judged by slower wits to be a +learned man.”</p> +<p>I am taking Shakespeare to have been a reader of this kind, as +was Dr. Johnson, as are not a few men who have no pretensions to +genius. The accomplishment is only a marvel to—well, +I need not be particular about the kind of person to whom it is a +marvel!</p> +<p>Here, in fairness, the reader should be asked to consider an +eloquent passage of comparison between the knowledge of Burns and +of Will, quoted by Mr. Greenwood <a name="citation97b"></a><a +href="#footnote97b" class="citation">[97b]</a> from Mr. Morgan. +<a name="citation97c"></a><a href="#footnote97c" +class="citation">[97c]</a></p> +<p>Genius, says Mr. Morgan, “did not guide Burns’s +untaught pen to write of Troy or Egypt, of Athens and +Cyprus.” No! that was not <a name="page98"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 98</span>Burns’s lay; nor would he have +found a public had he emulated the contemporary St. Andrews +professor, Mr. Wilkie, who wrote <i>The Epigoniad</i>, and sang +of Cadmeian Thebes, to the delight of David Hume, his +friend. The public of 1780–90 did not want new epics +of heroic Greece from Mossgiel; nor was the literature accessible +to Burns full of the mediæval legends of Troy and +Athens. But the popular literature accessible to Will was +full of the <i>mediæval</i> legends of Thebes, Troy, and +Athens; and of these, <i>not</i> of Homer, Will made his +market. Egypt he knew only in the new English version of +Plutarch’s <i>Lives</i>; of Homer, he (or the author of +<i>Troilus and Cressida</i>) used only Iliad VII., in +Chapman’s new translation (1598). For the rest he had +Lydgate (perhaps), and, certainly, Caxton’s <i>Destruction +of Troy</i>, still reprinted as a <i>popular</i> book as late as +1713. Will did not, as Mr. Morgan says, “reproduce +the very counterfeit civilisations and manners of nations born +and buried and passed into history a thousand years before he had +been begotten. . . ” He bestowed the manners of +mediæval chivalrous romance on his Trojans and +Greeks. He accommodated prehistoric Athens with a +Duke. He gave Scotland cannon three hundred years too +early; and made Cleopatra play at billiards. Look at his +notion of “the very manners” of early post-Roman +Britain in <i>Cymbeline</i> and <i>King Lear</i>! +Concerning “the anomalous status of a King of Scotland +under one of <a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +99</span>its primitive Kings” the author of <i>Macbeth</i> +knew no more than what he read in Holinshed; of the actual truth +concerning Duncan (that old prince was, in fact, a young man +slain in a blacksmith’s bothy), and of the whole affair, +the author knew nothing but a tissue of sophisticated +legends. The author of the plays had no knowledge (as Mr. +Morgan inexplicably declares that he had) of “matters of +curious and occult research for antiquaries or dilettanti to dig +out of old romances or treaties or statutes rather than for +historians to treat of or schools to teach!”</p> +<p><i>Mon Dieu</i>! do historians <i>not</i> treat of +“matters of curious research” and of statutes and of +treaties? As for “old romances,” they were +current and popular. The “occult” sources of +<i>King Lear</i> are a popular tale attached to legendary +“history” and a story in Sidney’s +<i>Arcadia</i>. Will, whom Mr. Morgan describes as “a +letterless peasant lad,” or the Author, whoever he was, is +not “invested with all the love” (<i>sic</i>, +<i>v.1.</i> “lore”), “which the ages behind him +had shut up in clasped books and buried and forgotten.”</p> +<p>“Our friend’s style has flowery components,” +Mr. Greenwood adds to this deliciously eloquent passage from his +American author, “and yet Shakespeare who did all +this,” <i>et cætera</i>. But Shakespeare did +<i>not</i> do “all this”! We know the sources +of the plays well enough: novels in one of which +“Delphos” is the insular seat of an oracle of Apollo; +Holinshed, with his contaminated <a name="page100"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 100</span>legends; North’s +<i>Plutarch</i>, done out of the French; older plays, and the +rest of it. Shakespeare does not go to Tighernach and the +<i>Hennskringla</i> for Macbeth; or for Hamlet to the saga which +is the source of Saxo; or for his English chronicle-plays to the +State Papers. Shakespeare did not, like William of +Deloraine, dig up “clasped books, buried and +forgotten.” There is no original research; the author +uses the romances, novels, ballads, and popular books of +uncritical history which were current in his day. Mr. +Greenwood knows that; Mr. Morgan, perhaps, knew it, but forgot +what he knew; hurried away by the Muse of Eloquence. And +the common Baconian may believe Mr. Morgan.</p> +<p>But Mr. Greenwood asks “what was the poetic +output?” in Burns’s case. <a +name="citation100a"></a><a href="#footnote100a" +class="citation">[100a]</a> It was what we know, and +<i>that</i> was what suited his age and his circumstances. +It was lyric, idyll, song, and satire; it was not drama, for to +the Stage he had no access, he who passed but one winter in +Edinburgh, where the theatre was not the centre of +literature.</p> +<p>Shakespeare came, with genius and with such materials as I +have suggested, 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 the wide, sketchy, general information, the +commonly known fragments <a name="page101"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 101</span>from the great banquet of the +classics,—with such history, wholly uncritical, as +Holinshed and Stow, and other such English chroniclers, could +copiously provide; with the courtly manners mirrored in scores of +romances and Court plays; and in the current popular <i>Morte +d’Arthur</i> and <i>Destruction of Troy</i>.</p> +<p>I can agree with Mr. Greenwood, when he says that +“Genius is a potentiality, and whether it will ever become +an actuality, and what it will produce, depends upon the moral +qualities with which it is associated, and the opportunities that +are open to it—in a word, on the circumstances of its +environment.” <a name="citation101a"></a><a +href="#footnote101a" class="citation">[101a]</a></p> +<p>Of course by “moral qualities,” a character +without spot or stain is not intended: we may take that for +granted. Otherwise, I agree; and think that Shakespeare of +Stratford had genius, and that what it produced was in accordance +with the opportunities open to it, and with “the +circumstances of its environment.” Without the +“environment,” no Jeanne d’Arc,—without +the environment, no Shakespeare.</p> +<p>To come to his own, Shakespeare needed the environment of +“the light people,” the crowd of wits living from +hand to mouth by literature, like Greene and Nash; and he needed +that pell-mell of the productions of their pens: the novels, the +poems, the pamphlets, and, above all, the plays, and the wine, +the wild talk, the wit, the <a name="page102"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 102</span>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 +in the terms of such a philanthropist as Bacon professedly +was. Not as an aristocrat, a courtier, but as a simple +literary man, William does not like, though he thoroughly +understands, the mob. Like Alceste (in <i>Le +Misanthrope</i> of Poquelin), he might say,</p> +<blockquote><p>“<i>L’Ami du genre humain n’est +point du tout mon fait</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In London, not in Stratford, he could and did find his +mob. This reminds one to ask, how did the Court-haunting, +or the study-haunting, or law-court, and chamber of criminal +examination-rooms haunting Bacon make acquaintance with Mrs. +Quickly, and Doll Tearsheet, and drawers, and carters, and +Bardolph, and Pistol, and copper captains, and all +Shakespeare’s crowd of people hanging loose on the +town?</p> +<p>It is much easier to discover how Shakespeare found the tone +and manners of courtly society (which, by the way, are purely +poetic and conventional), than to find out where Bacon got his +immense knowledge of what is called “low life.”</p> +<p>If you reply, as regards Bacon, “his genius divined the +Costards and Audreys, the Doll Tearsheets and tapsters, and +drawers, and Bardolphs, and carters, from a hint or two, a +glance,” I answer that Will had much better sources for +<i>them</i> in his own experience of life, and had conventional +<a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 103</span>poetic +sources for his courtiers—of whom, in the quick, he saw +quite as much as Molière did of his <i>Marquis</i>.</p> +<p>But one Baconian has found out a more excellent way of +accounting for Bacon’s pictures of rude rustic life, and he +is backed by Lord Penzance, that aged Judge. The way is +short. These pictures of rural life and character were +interpolated into the plays of Bacon by his collaborator, William +Shakspere, actor, “who prepared the plays for the +stage.” This brilliant suggestion is borrowed from +Mr. Appleton Morgan. <a name="citation103a"></a><a +href="#footnote103a" class="citation">[103a]</a></p> +<p>Thus have these two Baconians perceived that it <i>is</i> +difficult to see how Bacon obtained his knowledge of certain +worlds and aspects of character which he could scarcely draw +“from the life.” I am willing to ascribe +miracles to the genius of Bacon; but the Baconians cited give the +honour to the actor, “who prepared the plays for the +stage.”</p> +<p>Take it as you please, my Baconian friends who do not believe +as I believe in “Genius.” Shakespeare and +Molière did not live in “Society,” though both +rubbed shoulders with it, or looked at it over the invisible +barrier between the actor and the great people in whose houses or +palaces he takes the part of Entertainer. The rest they +divined, by genius.</p> +<p>Bacon did not, perhaps, study the society of <a +name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>carters, +drawers, Mrs. Quickly, and Doll Tearsheet; of copper captains and +their boys; not at Court, not in the study, did he meet +them. How then did he create his multitude of very +low-lived persons? Rustics and rural constables he +<i>may</i> have lovingly studied at Gorhambury, but for his +collection of other very loose fish Bacon must have kept queer +company. So you have to admit +“Genius,”—the miracle of “Genius” +in your Bacon,—to an even greater extent than I need it in +the case of my Will; or, like Lord Penzance, you may suggest that +Will collaborated with Bacon.</p> +<p>Try to imagine that Will was a born poet, like Burns, but with +a very different genius, education, and environment. Burns +could easily get at the Press, and be published: that was +impossible for Shakespeare at Stratford, if he had written any +lyrics. Suppose him to be a poet, an observer, a wit, a +humorist. Tradition at Stratford says something about the +humorist, and tradition, <i>in similar circumstances</i>, would +have remembered no more of Burns, after the lapse of seventy +years.</p> +<p>Imagine Will, then, to have the nature of a poet (that much I +am obliged to assume), and for nine or ten years, after leaving +school at thirteen, to hang about Stratford, observing nature and +man, flowers and foibles, with thoughts incommunicable to Sturley +and Quiney. Some sorts of park-palings, as he was married +at eighteen, he could not break so lightly as Burns +did,—some outlying <a name="page105"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 105</span>deer he could not so readily shoot +at, perhaps, but I am not surprised if he assailed other deer, +and was in troubles many. Unlike Burns, he had a keen eye +for the main chance. Everything was going to ruin with his +father; school-mastering, if he tried it (I merely follow +tradition), was not satisfactory. His opinion of dominies, +if he wrote the plays, was identical with that frequently +expressed, in fiction and privately, by Sir Walter Scott.</p> +<p>Something must be done! Perhaps the straitest Baconian +will not deny that companies of players visited Stratford, or +even that he may have seen and talked with them, and been +attracted. He was a practical man, and he made for London, +and, by tradition, we first find him heading straight for the +theatre, holding horses at the door, and organising a small +brigade of boys as his deputies. According to Ben Jonson he +shone in conversation; he was good company, despite his rustic +accent, that terrible bar! The actors find that out; he is +admitted within the house as a “servitor”—a +call-boy, if you like; an apprentice, if you please.</p> +<p>By 1592, when Greene wrote his <i>Groatsworth</i>, +“Shakescene” thinks he can bombast out a blank verse +with the best; he is an actor, he is also an author, or a +furbisher of older plays, and, as a member of the company, is a +rival to be dreaded by Greene’s three author friends: +whoever they were, they were professional University playwrights; +<a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 106</span>the +critics think that Marlowe, so near his death, was one of +them.</p> +<p>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 with the stage. Among these, in that age, we may, +perhaps, reckon a good deal of very mixed society—writing +men, bookish young blades, young blades who haunt the theatre, +and sit on the stage, as was the custom of the gallants.</p> +<p>What follows? Chaff follows, a kind of intimacy, a +supper, perhaps, after the play, if an actor seems to be good +company. This is quite natural; the most modish young +gallants are not so very dainty as to stand aloof from any +amusing company. They found it among prize-fighters, when +Byron was young, and extremely conscious of the fact that he was +a lord. Moreover there were no women on the stage to +distract the attention of the gallants. The players, says +Asinius Lupus, in Jonson’s <i>Poetaster</i>, “corrupt +young gentry very much, I know it.” I take the +quotation from Mr. Greenwood. <a name="citation106a"></a><a +href="#footnote106a" class="citation">[106a]</a> They could +not corrupt the young gentry, if they were not pretty intimate +with them. From Ben’s <i>Poetaster</i>, which +bristles with envy of the players, Mr. Greenwood also quotes a +railing address by a copper captain to Histrio, a poor actor, +“There are some of you players honest, gentlemanlike +scoundrels, and suspected to ha’ some wit, as <a +name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>well as +your poets, both at drinking and breaking of jests; <i>and are +companions for gallants</i>. A man may skelder ye, now and +then, of half a dozen shillings or so.” <a +name="citation107a"></a><a href="#footnote107a" +class="citation">[107a]</a> We think of Nigel Olifaunt in +<i>The Fortunes of Nigel</i>; but better gallants might choose to +have some acquaintance with Shakespeare.</p> +<p>To suppose that young men of position would not form a +playhouse acquaintanceship with an amusing and interesting actor +seems to me to show misunderstanding of human nature. The +players were, when unprotected by men of rank, +“vagabonds.” The citizens of London, mainly +Puritans, hated them mortally, but the young gallants were not +Puritans. The Court patronised the actors who performed +Masques in palaces and great houses. The wealth and +splendid attire of the actors, their acquisition of land and of +coats of arms infuriated the sweated playwrights. Envy of +the actors appears in the Cambridge “Parnassus” plays +of <i>c.</i> 1600–2. In the mouth of Will Kempe, who +acted Dogberry in Shakespeare’s company, and was in favour, +says Heywood, 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 Will Kempe.” It is not my +opinion that Shakespeare was, as Ben Jonson came to be, as much +“in Society” as is possible for a mere literary +man. I do not, in fancy, see <a name="page108"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 108</span>him wooing a Maid of Honour. +He was a man’s man, a peer might be interested in him as +easily as in a jockey, a fencer, a tennis-player, a musician, +<i>que sçais-je</i>? Southampton, discovering his +qualities, may have been more interested, interested in a better +way.</p> +<p>In such circumstances which are certainly in accordance with +human nature, I suppose the actor to have been noticed by the +young, handsome, popular Earl of Southampton; who found him +interesting, and interested himself in the poet. There +followed the dedication to the Earl of <i>Venus and Adonis</i>; a +poem likely to please any young amorist (1693).</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood cries out at the audacity of a player dedicating +to an Earl, without even saying that he has asked leave to +dedicate. The mere fact that the dedication was accepted, +and followed by that of <i>Lucrece</i>, proves that the Earl did +not share the surprise of Mr. Greenwood. He, conceivably, +will argue that the Earl knew the real concealed author, and the +secret of the pseudonym. But of the hypothesis of such a +choice of a pseudonym, enough has been said. Whatever +happened, whatever the Earl knew, if it were discreditable to be +dedicated to by an actor, Southampton was discredited; for we are +to prove that all in the world of letters and theatre who have +left any notice of Shakespeare identified the actor with the +poet.</p> +<p>This appears to me to be the natural way of <a +name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 109</span>looking at +the affair. But, says Mr. Greenwood, of this intimacy or +“patronage” of Southampton “not a scrap of +evidence exists.” <a name="citation109a"></a><a +href="#footnote109a" class="citation">[109a]</a> Where +would Mr. Greenwood expect to find a scrap of evidence? In +literary anecdote? Of contemporary literary anecdote about +Shakespeare, as about Beaumont, Dekker, Chapman, Heywood, and +Fletcher, there is none, or next to none. There is the +tradition that Southampton gave the poet £1000 towards a +purchase to which he had a mind. (Rowe seems to have got +this from Davenant,—through Betterton.) In what +documents would the critic expect to find a scrap of +evidence? Perhaps in Southampton’s book of his +expenditure, and that does not exist. It is in the accounts +of Prince Charlie that I find him, poor as he was, giving money +to Jean Jacques Rousseau.</p> +<p>As to the chances of an actor’s knowing “smart +people,” Heywood, who knew all that world, tells us <a +name="citation109b"></a><a href="#footnote109b" +class="citation">[109b]</a> that “Tarleton, in his time, +was gracious with the Queen, his sovereign,” Queen +Elizabeth. “Will Kempe was in the favour of his +sovereign.”</p> +<p><i>They</i> had advantages, they were not literary men, but +low comedians. I am not pretending that, though his</p> +<blockquote><p> “flights upon the banks of +Thames<br /> +So did take Eliza and our James,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Will Shakspere “was gracious with the Queen.”</p> +<p><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>We +may compare the dedication of the Folio of 1623; here two players +address the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery. They have the +audacity to say nothing about having asked and received +permission to dedicate. They say that the Earls “have +prosecuted both the plays and their authour living” (while +in life) “with much favour.” They “have +collected and published the works of ‘the dead’ . . . +only to keep alive the memory of so worthy a Friend, and +Fellow” (associate) “as was our Shakespeare, +‘your servant Shakespeare.’”</p> +<p>Nothing can possibly be more explicit, both as to the +actor’s authorship of the plays, and as to the favour in +which the two Earls held him. Mr. Greenwood <a +name="citation110a"></a><a href="#footnote110a" +class="citation">[110a]</a> supposes that Jonson wrote the +Preface, 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 by the two players speaks to Pembroke and +Montgomery. To <i>them</i> it cannot lie; <i>they</i> know +whether they patronised the actor or not; whether they believed, +or not, that the plays were their +“servant’s.” How is Mr. Greenwood to +overcome this certain testimony of the Actors, to the identity of +their late “Fellow” the player, with the author; and +to the patronage which the Earls bestowed on him and his +compositions? Mr. Greenwood says nothing except that we may +reasonably suppose <a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +111</span>Ben to have written the dedication which the players +signed. <a name="citation111a"></a><a href="#footnote111a" +class="citation">[111a]</a></p> +<p>Whether or not the two Earls had a personal knowledge of +Shakespeare, the dedication does not say in so many words. +They had seen his plays and had “favoured” both him +and them, with so much favour, had “used indulgence” +to the author. That is not nearly explicit enough for the +precise Baconians. But the Earls knew whether what was said +were true or false. I am not sure whether the Baconians +regard them as having been duped as to the authorship, or as +fellow-conspirators with Ben in the great Baconian joke and +mystery—that “William Shakespeare” the author +is not the actor whose Stratford friend, Collyns, has his name +written in legal documents as “William +Shakespeare.”</p> +<p>Anyone, however, may prefer to believe that, while William +Shakspere was acting in a company (1592–3), Bacon, or who +you please, wrote <i>Venus and Adonis</i>, and, signing “W. +Shakspeare,” dedicated it to his young friend, the Earl, +promising to add “some graver labour,” a promise +fulfilled in <i>Lucrece</i>. In 1593, Bacon was chiefly +occupied, we shall see, with the affairs of a young and beautiful +Earl—the Earl of Essex, not of Southampton: to Essex he did +not dedicate his two poems (if <i>Venus</i> and <i>Lucrece</i> +were his). He “did nothing but ruminate” (he +tells the world) on Essex. How Mr. Greenwood’s +Unknown was <a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +112</span>occupied in 1593–4, of course we cannot possibly +be aware.</p> +<p>I have thus tried to show that Will Shakspere, if he had as +much schooling as I suggest; and if he had four or five years of +life in London, about the theatre, and, above all, had genius, +might, by 1592, be the rising player-author alluded to as +“Shakescene.” There remains a difficulty. +By 1592 Will had not time to be guilty of <i>thirteen</i> plays, +or even of six. But I have not credited him with the +authorship, between, say, 1587 and 1593, of eleven plays, namely, +<i>Hamlet</i>, <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, <i>Midsummer +Night’s Dream</i>, <i>Titus Andronicus</i>, <i>Comedy of +Errors</i>, <i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i>, <i>King +John</i>, the three plays of <i>Henry VI</i>, and <i>The Taming +of the Shrew</i>. Mr. Greenwood <a +name="citation112a"></a><a href="#footnote112a" +class="citation">[112a]</a> cites Judge Webb for the fact that +between the end of 1587 and the end of 1592 “some +half-dozen Shakespearean dramas had been written,” and for +Dr. Furnivall’s opinion that eleven had been composed.</p> +<p>If I believed that half a dozen, or eleven Shakespearean +plays, as we have them, had been written or composed, between +1587 and 1592, I should be obliged to say that, in my opinion, +they were not composed, in these five years, by Will. Mr. +Greenwood writes, “Some of the dates are disputable”; +and, for himself, would omit “<i>Titus Andronicus</i>, the +three plays of <i>Henry VI</i>, and possibly also <i>The Taming +of the Shrew</i>, while <a name="page113"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 113</span>the reference to <i>Hamlet</i> also +is, as I have elsewhere shown, of very doubtful force.” <a +name="citation113a"></a><a href="#footnote113a" +class="citation">[113a]</a> This leaves us with six of Dr. +Furnivall’s list of earliest plays put out of action. +The miracle is decomposing, but plays numerous enough to stagger +my credulity remain.</p> +<p>I cannot believe that the author even of the five plays before +1592–3 was the ex-butcher’s boy. Meanwhile +these five plays, written by somebody before 1593, meet the +reader on the threshold of Mr. Greenwood’s book <a +name="citation113b"></a><a href="#footnote113b" +class="citation">[113b]</a> with Dr. Furnivall’s eleven; +and they fairly frighten him, if he be a +“Stratfordian.” “Will, even Will,” +says the Stratfordian, “could not have composed the five, +much less the eleven, much less Mr. Edwin Reed’s thirteen +‘before 1592.’” <a name="citation113c"></a><a +href="#footnote113c" class="citation">[113c]</a> But, at +the close of his work <a name="citation113d"></a><a +href="#footnote113d" class="citation">[113d]</a> Mr. Greenwood +reviews and disbands that unlucky troop of thirteen Shakespearean +plays “before 1592” as mustered by Mr. Reed, a +Baconian of whom Mr. Collins wrote in terms worthy of <i>feu</i> +Mr. Bludyer of <i>The Tomahawk</i>.</p> +<p>From the five plays left to Shakespeare’s account in p. +51, <i>King John</i> (as we know it) is now eliminated. +“I find it impossible to believe that the same man was the +author of the drama” (<i>The Troublesome Reign of King +John</i>) “published <a name="page114"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 114</span>in 1591, and that which, so far as +we know, first saw the light in the Folio of 1623 . . . +Hardly a single line of the original version reappears in the +<i>King John</i> of Shakespeare.” <a +name="citation114a"></a><a href="#footnote114a" +class="citation">[114a]</a> “I think it is a mistake +to endeavour to fortify the argument against him” (my Will, +<i>toi que j’aime</i>), “by ascribing to Shakespeare +such old plays as the <i>King John</i> of 1591 or the primitive +<i>Hamlet</i>.” <a name="citation114b"></a><a +href="#footnote114b" class="citation">[114b]</a></p> +<p>I thought so too, when I read p. 51, and saw <i>King John</i> +apparently still “coloured on the card” among +“Shakespeare’s lot.” We are now left with +<i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i>, <i>Midsummer +Night’s Dream</i>, <i>Comedy of Errors</i>, and <i>Romeo +and Juliet</i>, out of Dr. Furnivall’s list of plays up to +1593. The phantom force of miraculously early plays is +“following darkness like a dream.” We do not +know the date of <i>A Midsummer Night’s Dream</i>, we do +not know the date of <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>. Mr. Gollancz +dates the former “about 1592,” and the latter +“at 1591.” <a name="citation114c"></a><a +href="#footnote114c" class="citation">[114c]</a> This is a +mere personal speculation. Of <i>Love’s +Labour’s Lost</i>, 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 <i>The Comedy of Errors</i>, Mr. Collins +wrote, “It is all but certain that it was written between +1589 and 1592, and it is quite certain that it was written before +the end of 1594.” <a name="citation114d"></a><a +href="#footnote114d" class="citation">[114d]</a></p> +<p>The legion of Shakespearean plays of date <a +name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 115</span>before 1593 +has vanished. The miracle is very considerably +abated. In place of introducing the airy 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 be placed about 1591–3. There would then have +been no specious appearance of miracles to be credited by +Stratfordians to Will. But even so, we have sufficient to +“give us pause,” says Mr. Greenwood, with +justice. It gives <i>me</i> “pause,” if I am to +believe that, between 1587 and 1592, Will wrote <i>Love’s +Labour’s Lost</i>, <i>The Comedy of Errors</i>, <i>A +Midsummer Night’s Dream</i>, and <i>Romeo and +Juliet</i>. There is a limit even to my gullibility, and if +anyone wrote all these plays, as we now possess them, before +1593, I do not suppose that Will was the man. But the +dates, in fact, are unknown: the miracle is apocryphal.</p> +<h2><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +119</span>VI<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">THE COURTLY PLAYS: “LOVE’S +LABOUR’S LOST”</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">We</span> now come to consider another +“miracle” discovered in the plays,—a miracle if +the actor be the author. The new portent is the courtliness +and refinement (too often, alas! the noblest ladies make the +coarsest jokes) and wit of the speeches of the noble gentlemen +and ladies in the plays. To be sure the refinement in the +jests is often conspicuously absent. How could the rude +actor learn his quips and pretty phrases, and farfetched +conceits? This question I have tried to answer +already,—the whole of these fashions abound in the +literature of the day.</p> +<p>Here let us get rid of the assumption that a poet could not +make the ladies and gentlemen of his plays converse as they do +converse, whether in quips and airs and graces, or in loftier +style, unless he himself frequented their society. Marlowe +did not frequent the best society; <i>he</i> was no courtier, but +there is the high courtly style in the speeches of the great and +noble in <i>Edward II</i>. Courtiers and kings never did +speak in this manner, any more than they spoke in blank +verse. The style is a poetical convention, while the quips +and conceits, the airs and graces, ran riot <a +name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 120</span>through the +literature of the age of Lyly and his <i>Euphues</i> and his +comedies, the age of the <i>Arcadia</i>.</p> +<p>A cheap and probable source of Will’s courtliness is to +be found in the courtly comedies of John Lyly, five of which were +separately printed between 1584 and 1592. Lyly’s +“real significance is that he was the first to bring +together on the English stage the elements of high comedy, +thereby preparing the way for Shakespeare’s <i>Much Ado +about Nothing</i> and <i>As You Like It</i>” (and +<i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i>, one may add). +“Whoever knows his Shakespeare and his Lyly well can hardly +miss the many evidences that Shakespeare had read Lyly’s +plays almost as closely as Lyly had read Pliny’s <i>Natural +History</i>. . . . One could hardly imagine <i>Love’s +Labour’s Lost</i> as existent in the period from 1590 to +1600, had not Lyly’s work just preceded it.” <a +name="citation120a"></a><a href="#footnote120a" +class="citation">[120a]</a></p> +<p>“It is to Lyly’s plays,” writes Dr. +Landmann, “that Shakespeare owes so much in the liveliness +of his dialogues, in smartness of expression, and especially in +that predilection for witticisms, quibbles, and playing upon +words which he shows in his comedies as well as in his +tragedies.” There follows a dissertation on the +affected styles of Guevara and Gongora, of the +<i>Pléiade</i> in France, and generally of the artificial +manner in Europe, till in England we reach Lyly, “in whose +comedies,” <a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +121</span>says Dr. Furness, “I think we should look for +motives which appeared later in Shakespeare.” <a +name="citation121a"></a><a href="#footnote121a" +class="citation">[121a]</a></p> +<p>The Baconians who think that a poet could not derive from +books and court plays his knowledge of fashions far more +prevalent in literature than at Court, decide that the poet of +<i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i> was not Will, but the +courtly “concealed poet.” No doubt Baconians +may argue with Mr. R. M. Theobald <a name="citation121b"></a><a +href="#footnote121b" class="citation">[121b]</a> that +“Bacon wrote Marlowe,” and, by parity of reasoning +many urge, though Mr. Theobald does not, that Bacon wrote Lyly, +pouring into Lyly’s comedies the grace 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.”</p> +<p>The less impulsive Baconians and the Anti-Willians appear to +ignore the well-known affected novels which were open to all the +world, and are 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 the poems 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 to +catch the manner of Lyly’s Court comedies, and +“Marlowe’s mighty line” (Marlowe was not <a +name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +122</span>“brought up on the knees of +Marchionesses”!), but to improve on them. People did +not commonly talk in the poetical way, 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 Letters +from Mary to Bothwell. In this (we have a copy of the +original French), Mary plunges into the affected and figured +style already practised by <i>Les Précieuses</i> of her +day; and expands into symbolisms in a fantastic jargon. If +courtiers of both sexes conversed in the style of <i>Euphues</i> +(which is improbable), they learned the trick of it from +<i>Euphues</i>; not the author of <i>Euphues</i> from them. +Lyly’s most popular prose was accessible to +Shakespeare. The whole convention as to how the great +should speak and bear themselves was accessible in poetry and the +drama. A man of genius naturally made his ladies and +courtiers more witty, more “conceited,” more +eloquent, more gracious than any human beings ever were anywhere, +in daily life.</p> +<p>It seems scarcely credible that one should be obliged to urge +facts so obvious against the Baconian argument that only a Bacon, +intimately familiar with the society of the great, could make the +great speak as, in the plays, they do—and as in real life +they probably did <i>not</i>!</p> +<p>We now look at <i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i>, +published <a name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +123</span>in quarto, in 1598, as “corrected and augmented +by W. Shakespere.” The date of composition is +unknown, but the many varieties of versification, with some +allusions, mark it as among the earliest of the dramas. +Supposing that Shakespeare obtained his knowledge of fine manners +and speech, and of the tedious quips and conceits which he +satirises, from the contemporary poems, plays, and novels which +abounded in them, and from <i>précieux</i> and +<i>précieuses</i> who imitated them, as I suggest, even +then <i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i> is an extremely +eccentric piece. I cannot imagine how a man who knew the +foreign politics of his age as Bacon did, could have dreamed of +writing anything so eccentric, that is, if it has any connection +with foreign politics of the time.</p> +<p>The scene is the Court of <i>Ferdinand</i>, King of +Navarre. In 1589–93, the eyes of England were fixed +on the Court of her ally, <i>Henri</i> of Navarre, in his +struggle with the League and the Guises; the War of +Religion. But the poet calls the King +“Ferdinand,” taking perhaps from some story this +non-existent son of Charles III of Navarre (died 1425): to whom, +according to Monstrelet, the Burgundian chronicler of that time, +the French king owed 200,000 ducats of gold. This is a +transaction of the early fifteenth century, and leads to the +presence of the princess of France as an envoy at the Court of +Navarre in the play; the whole thing is quite unhistorical, and +has <a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span>the +air of being borrowed from some lost story or brief novel. +Bacon’s brother, Anthony, was English minister at the Court +of Navarre. What could tempt 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 that period, +found an Academe for three years of austere study and absence of +women? But, if Bacon did this, what could induce him to +give to the non-existent Ferdinand, as companions, the +Maréchal de Biron with de Longueville (both of them, in +1589–93, the chief adherents of Henri of Navarre), and add +to them “Dumain,” that is, the Duc de Mayenne, one of +the Guises, the deadly foes of Henri and of the Huguenots? +Even in the unhistorically minded Shakespeare, the freak is of +the most eccentric,—but in Bacon this friskiness is indeed +strange. I cannot, like Mr. Greenwood, <a +name="citation124a"></a><a href="#footnote124a" +class="citation">[124a]</a> find any “allusions to the +Civil War of France.” France and Navarre, in the +play, are in full peace.</p> +<p>The actual date of the fabulous King Ferdinand would have been +about 1430. By introducing Biron, Longueville, and the Duc +de Mayenne, and Bankes’s celebrated educated horse, the +author shifts the date to 1591. But the Navarre of the play +is a region “out of space, out of time,” a fairy +world of projected Academes (like that of the four young men in +de la Primaudaye’s <i>L’Académie +Française</i>, Englished in 1586) and of <a +name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 125</span>peace, +while the actual King of Navarre of 1591 was engaged in a +struggle for life and faith; and in his ceaseless amours.</p> +<p>Many of Shakespeare’s anachronisms are easily +intelligible. He takes a novel or story about any remote +period, or he chooses, as for the <i>Midsummer Night’s +Dream</i>, a period earlier than that of the Trojan war. He +gives to the Athens contemporary with the “Late Minoan +III” period (1600 <span class="GutSmall">B.C.</span>?) a +Duke, and his personages live like English nobles 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 of any age +before the end of the eighteenth century. The resulting +anachronisms are natural and intelligible. We do not expect +war-chariots in <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>; it is when the +author makes the bronze-clad Achæans familiar with Plato +and Aristotle that we are surprised. In <i>Love’s +Labour’s Lost</i> we do not expect the author to introduce +the manners of the early fifteenth century, the date of the +affair of the 200,000 ducats. Let the play reflect the men +and manners of 1589–93,—but why place Mayenne, a +fanatical Catholic foe of Navarre, among the courtiers of the +Huguenot King of Navarre?</p> +<p>As for de Mayenne (under the English spelling of the day +Dumain) appearing as a courtier of his hated adversary Henri, +Bacon, of all men, could not have made that absurd error. +It was Shakespeare who took but an absent-minded <a +name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 126</span>interest in +foreign politics. If Bacon is building his play on an +affair, the ducats, of 1425–35 (roughly speaking), he +should not bring in a performing horse, trained by Bankes, a +Staffordshire man, which was performing its tricks at +Shrewsbury—in 1591. <a name="citation126a"></a><a +href="#footnote126a" class="citation">[126a]</a> Thus early +we find that great scholar mixing up chronology in a way which, +in Shakespeare even, surprises; but, in Bacon, seems quite out of +keeping.</p> +<p>Shakespeare, as Sir Sidney Lee says, gives Mayenne as +“Dumain,”—Mayenne, “whose name was so +frequently mentioned in popular accounts of French affairs in +connection with Navarre’s movements that Shakespeare was +led to number him also among his supporters.” Bacon +would not have been so led! As Mayenne and Henri fought +against each other at Ivry, in 1590, this was carrying nonsense +far, even for Will, but for the earnestly instructive Bacon!</p> +<p>“The habits of the author could not have been more +scholastic,” so Judge Webb is quoted, “if he had, +like Bacon, spent three years in the University of Cambridge . . +. ” Bacon, or whoever corrected the play in 1598, +might have corrected “primater” into “pia +mater,” unless Bacon intended the blunder for a malapropism +of “Nathaniel, a Curate.” Either Will or Bacon, +either in fun or ignorance, makes Nathaniel turn a common Italian +proverb on Venice into gibberish. It was familiar in +Florio’s <i>Second </i><a name="page127"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 127</span><i>Frutes</i> (1591), and <i>First +Frutes</i> (1578), with the English translation. The books +were as accessible to Shakspere as to Bacon. Either author +might also draw from James Sandford’s <i>Garden of +Pleasure</i>, done out of the Italian in 1573–6.</p> +<p>Where the scholastic habits of Bacon at Cambridge are to be +discovered in this play, I know not, unless it be in +Biron’s witty speech against study. If the wit +implies in the author a Cambridge education, Costard and Dull and +Holofernes imply familiarity with rustics and country +schoolmasters. Where the author proves that he “could +not have been more familiar with French politics if, like Bacon, +he had spent three years in the train of an Ambassador to +France,” I cannot conjecture. <i>There are no French +politics in the piece</i>, any more than there are +“mysteries of fashionable life,” such as Bacon might +have heard of from Essex and Southampton. There is no +“familiarity with all the gossip of the Court”; there +is no greater knowledge of foreign proverbs than could be got +from common English books. There is abundance, indeed +overabundance of ridicule of affected styles, and quips, with +which the literature of the day was crammed: call it Gongorism, +Euphuism, or what you please. One does not understand how +or where Judge Webb (in extreme old age) made all these +discoveries, sympathetically quoted by Mr. Greenwood. <a +name="citation127a"></a><a href="#footnote127a" +class="citation">[127a]</a> “Like Bacon, the author +of the play must have had a large <a name="page128"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 128</span>command of books; he must have had +his “Horace,” his “Ovidius Naso,” and his +“good old ‘Mantuan.’” What a +prodigious “command of books”! Country +schoolmasters confessedly had these books on the school +desks. It was not even necessary for the author to +“have access to the <i>Chronicles</i> of +Monstrelet.” It is not known, we have said, whether +or not such plot as the play possesses, with King Ferdinand and +the 100,000 ducats, or 200,000 ducats (needed to bring the +Princess and the mythical King Ferdinand of Navarre together), +were not adapted by the poet from an undiscovered <i>conte</i>, +partly based on a passage in Monstrelet.</p> +<p>Perhaps it will be conceded that <i>Love’s +Labour’s Lost</i> is not a play which can easily be +attributed to Bacon. We do not know how much of the play +existed before Shakespeare “augmented” it in +1598. We do not know whether what he then corrected and +augmented was an early work of his own or from another hand, +though probably it was his own. Molière certainly +corrected and augmented and transfigured, in his illustrious +career in Paris, several of the brief early sketches which he had +written when he was the chief of a strolling <i>troupe</i> in +Southern France.</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood does not attribute the wit (such as it is), the +quips, the conceits, the affectations satirised in +<i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i>, to Will’s +knowledge of the artificial style then prevalent in all the +literatures of Western Europe, and in <a name="page129"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 129</span>England most pleasingly used in +Lyly’s comedies. No, “the author must have been +not only a man of high intellectual culture, but one who was +intimately acquainted with the ways of the Court, and the +fashionable society of his time, as also with contemporary +foreign politics.” <a name="citation129a"></a><a +href="#footnote129a" class="citation">[129a]</a></p> +<p>I search the play once more for the faintest hint of knowledge +of foreign 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 the childless actual King of France (Henri III), in +1586, when Catherine de Medici was no chicken. I do not see +in the embassy of the Princess of the story any “intimate +acquaintance with contemporary foreign politics” about +1591–3. The introduction of Mayenne as an adherent of +the King of Navarre, shows either a most confused ignorance of +foreign politics on the part of the author, or a freakish +contempt for his public. I am not aware that the author +shows any “intimate acquaintance with the ways” of +Elizabeth’s Court, or of any other fashionable society, +except the Courts which Fancy held in plays.</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood <a name="citation129b"></a><a +href="#footnote129b" class="citation">[129b]</a> appears to be +repeating “the case as to this very remarkable play” +as “well summed up by the late Judge Webb in his <i>Mystery +of William Shakespeare</i>” (p. 44). In that <a +name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 130</span>paralysing +judicial summary, as we have seen, “the author could not +have been more familiar with French politics if, like Bacon, he +had spent three years in the train of an Ambassador to +France.” The French politics, in the play, are to +send the daughter of a King of France (the contemporary King +Henri III was childless) to conduct a negotiation about 200,000 +ducats, at the Court, steeped in peace, of a King of Navarre, a +scholar who would fain be a recluse from women, in an Academe of +his own device. Such was not the Navarre of Henri in his +war with the Guises, and Henri did not shun the sex!</p> +<p>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 are politics +of fairy-land: with which Will was at least as familiar as +Bacon.</p> +<p>These, then, are the arguments in favour of Bacon, or the +Great Unknown, which are offered with perfect solemnity of +assurance: and the Baconians repeat them in their little books of +popularisation and propaganda. <i>Quantula +sapientia</i>!</p> +<h2><a name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +133</span>VII<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION OF WILL AS +AUTHOR</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is absolutely impossible to +prove that Will, or Bacon, or the Man in the Moon, was the author +of the Shakespearean plays and poems. But it is easy to +prove that Will was recognised as the author, by Ben Jonson, +Heywood, and Heminge and Condell the actors, to take the best +witnesses. Meanwhile we have received no hint that any man +except Will was ever suspected of being the author till 1856, +when the twin stars of Miss Delia Bacon and Mr. Smith +arose. The evidence of Ben Jonson and the rest can only +prove that professed playwrights and actors, who knew Will both +on and off the stage, saw nothing in him not compatible with his +work. Had he been the kind of letterless country fellow, or +bookless fellow whom the Baconians and Mr. Greenwood describe, +the contemporary witnesses cited must have detected Will in a +day; and the story of the “Concealed Poet” who +really, at first, did the additions and changes in the +Company’s older manuscript plays, and of the inconceivably +impudent pretences of Will of Stratford, would have kept the town +merry for a month. Five or six <a name="page134"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 134</span>threadbare scholars would have sat +down at a long table in a tavern room, and, after their manner, +dashed off a Comedy of Errors on the real and the false +playwright.</p> +<p>Baconians never seem to think of the mechanical difficulties +in their assumed literary hoax. If Will, like the old +Hermit of Prague who never saw pen and ink, could not even write, +the hoax was a physical impossibility. If he could write, +but was a rough bookless man, his condition would be scarcely the +more gracious, even if he were able to copy in his scrawl the +fine Roman hand of the concealed poet. I am surprised that +the Baconians have never made that point. Will’s +“copy” was almost without blot or erasion, the other +actors were wont to boast. Really the absence of erasions +and corrections is too easily explained on the theory that Will +was <i>not</i> the author. Will merely copied the fair +copies handed to him by the concealed poet. The farce was +played for some twenty years, and was either undetected or all +concerned kept the dread secret—and all the other companies +and rival authors were concerned in exposing the imposture.</p> +<p>The whole story is like the dream of a child. We +therefore expect the Anti-Willians to endeavour to disable the +evidence of Jonson, Heywood, Heminge, and Condell. Their +attempts take the shape of the most extravagant and complex +conjectures; with certain petty objections to Ben’s various +estimates of the <i>merits</i> of the <a name="page135"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 135</span>plays. He is constant in his +witness to the authorship. To these efforts of despair we +return later, when we hope to justify what is here deliberately +advanced.</p> +<p>Meanwhile we study Mr. Greenwood’s attempts to destroy +or weaken the testimony of contemporary literary allusions, in +prose or verse, to the plays as the work of the actor. Mr. +Greenwood rests on an argument which perhaps could only have +occurred to legal minds, originally, perhaps to the mind of Judge +Webb, not in the prime vigour of his faculties. Not very +many literary allusions remain, made during Will’s +life-time, to the plays of Shakespeare. The writers, +usually, speak of “Shakespeare,” or “W. +Shakespeare,” or “Will Shakespeare,” and leave +it there. In the same way, when they speak 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.” All interested readers knew who they +were: and also knew who “Shakespeare” or “Will +Shakespeare” was. No other Will Shak(&c.) was +prominently before the literary and dramatic world, in +1592–1616, except the Warwickshire provincial who played +with Burbage.</p> +<p>But though the mere names of the poets, Ben Jonson, Kit +Marlowe, Frank Beaumont, Harry Chettle, and so forth, are +accepted as indicating the well-known men whom they designate, +this <a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span>evidence to identity does not satisfy Mr. Greenwood, +and the Baconians, where Will is concerned. “We +should expect to find allusions to dramatic and poetical works +published under the name of ‘Shakespeare’; we should +expect to find Shakespeare spoken of as a poet and a dramatist; +we should expect, further, to find some few allusions to +Shakespeare or Shakspere the player. And these, of course, +we do find; but these are not the objects of our quest. +What we require is evidence to establish the identity of the +player with the poet and dramatist; to prove that the player was +the author of the <i>Plays</i> and <i>Poems</i>. +<i>That</i> is the proposition to be established, and <i>that</i> +the allusions fail, as it appears to me, to prove,” says +Mr. Greenwood. He adds, “At any rate they do not +disprove the theory that the true authorship was hidden under a +pseudonym” <a name="citation136a"></a><a +href="#footnote136a" class="citation">[136a]</a>—which +raises an entirely different question.</p> +<p>Makers of allusions to the plays must identify Shakespeare +with the actor, explicitly; must tell us who this Shakespeare +was, though they need not, and usually do not, tell us who the +other authors mentioned were; and though the world of letters and +the Stage knew but one William Shakspere or Shakespeare, who was +far too familiar to them to require further identification. +But even if the makers of allusions did all this, and said, +“by W. Shakespeare the poet, we mean W. Shakespeare the +actor”—<i>that</i> is not enough. For <a +name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 137</span>they may +all be deceived, may all believe that a bookless, untutored man +is the author. So we cannot get evidence correct enough for +Mr. Greenwood.</p> +<p>Destitute as I am of legal training, I leave this notable way +of disposing 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. <i>Miror magis</i>, as Mr. Greenwood might +quote Latin. We have already seen one example of this +argument, when Heywood speaks of the author of poems by +Shakespeare, published in <i>The Passionate Pilgrim</i>. +Heywood does nothing to identify the actor Shakspere with the +author Shakespeare, says Mr. Greenwood. I shall prove that, +elsewhere, Heywood does identify them, and no man knew more of +the world of playwrights and actors than Heywood. I add +that in his remarks on <i>The Passionate Pilgrim</i>, Heywood had +no need to say “by W. Shakespeare I mean the well-known +actor in the King’s Company.” There was no +other William Shakspere or Shakespeare known to his public.</p> +<p>It is to no purpose that Mr. Greenwood denies, as we have seen +above, that the allusions “disprove the theory that the +true authorship was hidden under a pseudonym.” That +is an entirely different question. He is now starting quite +another hare. Men of letters who alluded <a +name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 138</span>to the +plays and poems of William Shakespeare, meant the actor; that is +my position. That they may all have been mistaken: that +“William Shakespeare” was Bacon’s, or any +one’s pseudonym, is, I repeat, a wholly different question; +and we must not allow the critic to glide away into it through an +“at any rate”; as he does three or four times. +So far, then, Mr. Greenwood’s theory that it was impossible +for the actor Shakspere to have been the author of the plays, +encounters the difficulty that no contemporary attributed them to +any other hand: that none is known to have said, “This +Warwickshire man cannot be the author.”</p> +<p>“Let us, however, examine some of these allusions to +Shakspere, real or supposed,” says the critic. <a +name="citation138a"></a><a href="#footnote138a" +class="citation">[138a]</a> He begins with the hackneyed +words of the dying man of letters, Robert Greene, in <i>A +Groatsworth of Wit</i> (1592). The pamphlet is addressed to +Gentlemen of his acquaintance “that spend their wits in +making plays”; he “wisheth them a better +exercise,” and better fortunes than his own. (Marlowe +is supposed to be one of the three Gentlemen playwrights, but +such suppositions do not here concern us.) Greene’s +is the ancient feud between the players and the authors, between +capital and labour. The players are the capitalists, and +buy the plays out and out,—cheap. The author has no +royalties; and no control over the future of his work, which a <a +name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 139</span>Shakspere +or a Bacon, a Jonson or a Chettle, or any handyman of the company +owning the play, may alter as he pleases. It is highly +probable that the actors also acquired most of the popular +renown, for, even now, playgoers have much to say about the +players in a piece, while they seldom know the name of the +playwright. Women fall in love with the actors, not with +the authors; but with “those puppets,” as Greene +says, “that speake from our mouths, these anticks, +garnished in our colours.” Ben Jonson, we shall see, +makes some of the same complaints,—most natural in the +circumstances: though he managed to retain the control of his +dramas; how, I do not know. Greene adds that in his +misfortunes, illness, and poverty, he is ungratefully +“forsaken,” by the players, and warns his friends +that such may be <i>their</i> lot; advising them to seek +“some better exercise.” He then +writes—and his meaning cannot easily be misunderstood, I +think, but misunderstood it has been—“Yes, trust them +not” (trust not the players), “<span +class="GutSmall">FOR</span> there is an upstart crow, beautified +with our feathers, that with his <i>Tyger’s heart wrapt in +a Player’s hide</i>” (“Player’s” in +place of “woman’s,” in an old play, <i>The +Tragedy of Richard</i>, <i>Duke of York</i>, &c.), +“supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blank verse +as the best of you; and being an absolute <i>Johannes +Factotum</i>, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a +country.”</p> +<p>The meaning is pellucid. “Do not trust the <a +name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 140</span>players, my +fellow playwrights, for the reasons already given, for they, in +addition to their glory gained by mouthing <i>our</i> words, and +their ingratitude, may now forsake you for one of themselves, a +player, who thinks his blank verse as good as the best of +yours” (including Marlowe’s, probably). +“The man is ready at their call” (“an absolute +<i>Johannes Factotum</i>”). “In his own +conceit” he is “the only Shake-scene in a +country.” “Seek you better masters,” than +these players, who have now an author among themselves, +“the only Shake-scene,” where the pun on Shakespeare +does not look like a fortuitous coincidence. But it may be, +anything may happen.</p> +<p>The sense, I repeat, is pellucid. But Mr. Greenwood +writes that if Shake-scene be an allusion to Shakespeare +“it seems clear that it is as an actor rather than as an +author he is attacked.” <a name="citation140a"></a><a +href="#footnote140a" class="citation">[140a]</a> As an +<i>actor</i> the person alluded to is merely assailed with the +other actors, his “fellows.” But he is picked +out as presenting another and a new reason why authors should +distrust the players, “<i>for</i> there is” among +themselves, “in a player’s hide,” “an +upstart crow”—who thinks his blank verse as good as +the best of theirs. He is, therefore, necessarily a +playwright, and being a <i>factotum</i>, can readily be employed +by the players to the prejudice of Greene’s three friends, +who are professed playwrights.</p> +<p><a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>Mr. +Greenwood says that “we do not know why Greene should have +been so particularly bitter against the players, and why he +should have thought it necessary so seriously to warn his fellow +playwrights against them.” <a name="citation141a"></a><a +href="#footnote141a" class="citation">[141a]</a> But we +cannot help knowing; for Greene has told us. In addition to +gaining renown solely through mouthing “<i>our</i>” +words, wearing “<i>our</i> feathers,” they have been +bitterly ungrateful to Greene in his poverty and sickness; they +will, in the same circumstances, as cruelly forsake his friends; +“yes, for they now have” an author, and to the +playwrights a dangerous rival, in their own fellowship. +Thus we know with absolute certainty why Greene wrote as he +did. He says nothing about the superior financial gains of +the players, which Mr. Greenwood suspects to have been the +“only” cause of his bitterness. Greene gives +its causes in the plainest possible terms, as did Ben Jonson +later, in his verses “Poet-Ape” +(Playwright-Actor). Moreover, Mr. Greenwood gives +Greene’s obvious motives on the very page where he says +that we do not know them.</p> +<p>Even Mr. Greenwood, <a name="citation141b"></a><a +href="#footnote141b" class="citation">[141b]</a> anxious as he is +to prove Shake-scene to be attacked as an actor, admits that the +words “supposes himself as well able to bumbast out a blank +verse as the best of you,” “do seem to have that +implication,” <a name="citation141c"></a><a +href="#footnote141c" class="citation">[141c]</a> namely, that +“Shake-scene” is a dramatic author: <a +name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 142</span>what else +can the words mean; why, if not for the Stage, should Shake-scene +write blank verse?</p> +<p>Finally Mr. Greenwood, after saying “it is clear that it +is as an actor rather than as an author that +‘Shake-scene’ is attacked,” <a +name="citation142a"></a><a href="#footnote142a" +class="citation">[142a]</a> concedes <a +name="citation142b"></a><a href="#footnote142b" +class="citation">[142b]</a> that it “certainly looks as if +he” (Greene) “meant to suggest that this Shake-scene +supposed himself able to compose, as well as to mouth +verses.” Nothing else can possibly be meant. +“The rest of you” were authors, not actors.</p> +<p>If not, why, in a whole company of actors, should +“Shake-scene” alone be selected for a special +victim? Shake-scene is chosen out because, as an author, a +factotum always ready at need, he is more apt than the professed +playwrights to be employed as author by his company: this is a +new reason for not trusting the players.</p> +<p>I am not going to take the trouble to argue as to whether, in +the circumstances of the case, “Shake-scene” is meant +by Greene for a pun on “Shake-speare,” or not. +If he had some other rising player-author, the Factotum of a cry +of players, in his mind, Baconians may search for that personage +in the records of the stage. That other player-author may +have died young, or faded into obscurity. The term +“the only Shake-scene” may be one of those curious +coincidences <a name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +143</span>which do 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 allusion to Shakspere, <a +name="citation143a"></a><a href="#footnote143a" +class="citation">[143a]</a> “the utmost that we should be +entitled to say is that Greene here accuses Player Shakspere of +putting forward, as his own, some work, or perhaps some parts of +a work, for which he was really indebted to another” (the +Great Unknown?). I do more than demur, I defy any man to +exhibit that sense in Greene’s words.</p> +<p>“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 poor hackneyed, tortured words of Greene +again. “Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart +crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his +<i>Tyger’s heart wrapped in a player’s hide</i>, +supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blank verse as the +best of you; and being an absolute <i>Johannes Factotum</i>, is +in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.”</p> +<p>How can mortal man squeeze from these words the charge that +“Player Shakspere” is “putting forward, as his +own, some work, or perhaps some parts of a work, for which he was +really indebted to another”? It is as an actor, with +other actors, that the player is “beautified with +<i>our</i> feathers,”—not with the feathers of some +one <a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +144</span><i>not</i> ourselves, Bacon or Mr. Greenwood’s +Unknown. Mr. Greenwood even says that Shake-scene is +referred to “as beautified with the feathers <i>which he +has stolen</i> from the dramatic writers” (“our +feathers”).</p> +<p>Greene says absolutely nothing about feathers “<i>which +he has stolen</i>.” The “feathers,” the +words of the plays, were bought, not stolen, by the actors, +“anticks garnished in our colours.”</p> +<p>Tedious it is to write many words about words so few and +simple as those of Greene; meaning “do not trust the +players, for one of them writes blank verse which he thinks as +good as the best of yours, and fancies himself the only +Shake-scene in a country.”</p> +<p>But “Greene here accuses Player Shakspere of putting +forward, as his own, some work, or perhaps some parts of a work, +for which he was really indebted to another,” this is +“the utmost we should be entitled to say,” even if +the allusion be to Shakspere. How does Mr. Greenwood get +the Anti-Willian hypothesis out of Greene’s few and plain +words?</p> +<p>It is much safer for him to say that “Shake-scene” +is not meant for Shakespeare. Nobody can prove that it +<i>is</i>; the pun <i>may</i> be a strange coincidence,—or +any one may say that he thinks it nothing more; if he +pleases.</p> +<p>Greene nowhere “refers to this Shake-scene as being an +impostor, an upstart crow beautified with the feathers <i>which +he has stolen from the </i><a name="page145"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 145</span><i>dramatic writers</i> (“our +feathers”)” <a name="citation145a"></a><a +href="#footnote145a" class="citation">[145a]</a>—that is, +Greene makes no such reference to Shake-scene in his capacity of +writer of blank verse. Like all players, who are all +“anticks garnisht in our colours,” Shake-scene, <i>as +player</i>, is “beautified with our feathers.” +It is Mr. Greenwood who adds “beautified with the feathers +which he has <i>stolen</i> from the dramatic +writers.” Greene does not even remotely hint at +plagiarism on the part of Shake-scene: and the feathers, the +plays of Greene and his friends, were not stolen but +bought. We must take Greene’s evidence as we find +it,—it proves that by “Shake-scene” he means a +“poet-ape,” a playwright-actor; for Greene, like +Jonson, speaks of actors as “apes.” Both men +saw in a certain actor and dramatist a suspected rival. +Only one such successful practising actor-playwright is known to +us at this date (1592–1601),—and he is +Shakespeare. Unless another such existed, Greene, in 1592, +alludes to William Shak(&c.) as a player and +playwright. This proves that the actor from Stratford was +accepted in Greene’s world as an author of plays in blank +verse. He cannot, therefore, have seemed incapable of his +poetry.</p> +<p>Let us now briefly consider other contemporary allusions to +Shakespeare selected by Mr. Greenwood himself. No allusion +can prove that Shakespeare was the author of the work attributed +to him in the allusions. The plays and poems <i>may</i> +have <a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +146</span>been by James VI and I, “a +parcel-poet.” The allusions can prove no more than +that, by his contemporaries, Shakespeare was believed to be the +poet, which is impossible if he were a mere rustic ignoramus, as +the Baconians aver. Omitting some remarks by Chettle on +Greene’s <i>Groatsworth of Wit</i>, <a +name="citation146a"></a><a href="#footnote146a" +class="citation">[146a]</a> as, if grammar goes for all, they do +not refer to Shakespeare, we have the Cambridge farce or comedy +on contemporary literature, the <i>Return from Parnassus</i> +(1602?). The University wits laugh at +Shakespeare,—not an university man, as the favourite poet, +in his <i>Venus and Adonis</i>, of a silly braggart pretender to +literature, Gullio.</p> +<p>They also introduce Kempe, the low comedy man of +Shakespeare’s company, speaking to Burbage, the chief +tragic actor, of Shakespeare as a member of their company, who, +<i>as an author of plays</i>, “puts down” the +University wits “and Ben Jonson too.” The date +is not earlier than that of Ben’s satiric play on the +poets, <i>The Poetaster</i> (1601), to which reference is +made. Since Kempe is to be represented as wholly ignorant, +his opinion of Shakespeare’s pre-eminent merit only proves, +as in the case of Gullio, that the University wits decried the +excellences of Shakespeare. In him they saw no scholar.</p> +<p>The point is that Kempe recognises Shakespeare as both actor +and author.</p> +<p>All this “is quite consistent with the theory <a +name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 147</span>that +Shake-speare was a pseudonym,” <a +name="citation147a"></a><a href="#footnote147a" +class="citation">[147a]</a> says Mr. Greenwood. Of course +it is, but it is <i>not</i> consistent with the theory that +Shakespeare was an uneducated, bookless rustic, for, in that +case, his mask would have fallen off in a day, in an hour. +Of course the Cambridge author only proves, if you will, that +<i>he</i> thought that <i>Kempe</i> thought, that his fellow +player was the author. But we have better evidence of what +the actors thought than in the Cambridge play.</p> +<p>In 1598, as we saw, Francis Meres in <i>Palladis Tamia</i> +credits Shakespeare with <i>Venus and Adonis</i>, with privately +circulated sonnets, and with a number of the comedies and +tragedies. How the allusions “negative the hypothesis +that Shakespeare was a <i>nom de plume</i> is not +apparent,” says Mr. Greenwood, always constant to his +method. I repeat that he wanders from the point, which is, +here, that the only William Shak(&c.) known to us at the +time, in London, was credited with the plays and poems on all +sides, which proves that no incompatibility between the man and +the works was recognised.</p> +<p>Then Weaver (1599) alludes to him as author of <i>Venus</i>, +<i>Lucrece</i>, <i>Romeo</i>, <i>Richard</i>, “more whose +names I know not.” Davies (1610) calls him “our +English Terence” (the famous comedian), and mentions him as +having “played some Kingly parts in sport.” +Freeman (1614) credits him with <i>Venus</i> and +<i>Lucrece</i>. “Besides in <a +name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 148</span>plays thy +wit winds like Meander.” I repeat Heywood’s +evidence. Thomas Heywood, author of that remarkable +domestic play, <i>A Woman Killed with Kindness</i>, was, from the +old days of Henslowe, in the fifteen-nineties, a playwright and +an actor; he survived into the reign of Charles I. Writing +on the familiar names of the poets, “Jack Fletcher,” +“Frank Beaumont,” “Kit Marlowe,” +“Tom Nash,” he says,</p> +<blockquote><p>“Mellifluous Shakespeare whose enchanting +quill<br /> +Commanded mirth and passion, was but +‘Will.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Does Heywood not identify the actor with the author? No +quibbles serve against the evidence.</p> +<p>We need not pursue the allusions later than +Shakespeare’s death, or invoke, 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.” He remarks that, “as some +say,” if Will “had not played some Kingly parts in +sport,” he had been “a companion for a +<i>King</i>,” and “been a King among the meaner +sort.” Nobody, now, can see the allusion and the +joke. Shakespeare’s company, in 1604, acted a play on +the Gowrie Conspiracy of 1600. King James suppressed the +play after the second night, as, of course, he was brought on the +stage throughout the action: and in very droll and dreadful +situations. Did Will take the <a name="page149"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 149</span>King’s part, and annoy gentle +King Jamie, “as some say”? Nobody knows. +But Mr. Greenwood, to disable Davies’s recognition of Mr. +Will as a playwright, “Our English Terence,” quotes, +from Florio’s <i>Montaigne</i>, a silly old piece of Roman +literary gossip, Terence’s plays were written by Scipio and +Laelius. In fact, Terence alludes in his prologue to the +<i>Adelphi</i>, to a spiteful report that he was aided 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, in irony, address him as +“Our English Terence.” This is a pretty free +conjecture! In Roman comedy he had only two names known to +him to choose from; he took Terence, not Plautus. But if +Davies was in the great Secret, a world of others must have +shared <i>le Secret de Polichinelle</i>. Yet none hints at +it, and only a very weak cause could catch at so tiny a straw as +the off-chance that Davies <i>knew</i>, and used +“Terence” as a gibe. <a name="citation149a"></a><a +href="#footnote149a" class="citation">[149a]</a></p> +<p>The allusions, even the few selected, cannot prove that the +actor wrote the plays, but do prove that he was believed to have +done so, and therefore that he was not so ignorant and bookless +as to demonstrate that he was incapable of the poetry and the +knowledge displayed in his <a name="page150"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 150</span>works. Mr. Greenwood himself +observes that a Baconian critic goes too far when he makes Will +incapable of writing. Such a Will could deceive no mortal. +<a name="citation150a"></a><a href="#footnote150a" +class="citation">[150a]</a> But does Mr. Greenwood, who +finds in the Author of the plays “much learning, and +remarkable classical attainments,” or “a wide +familiarity with the classics,” <a +name="citation150b"></a><a href="#footnote150b" +class="citation">[150b]</a> suppose that his absolutely bookless +Will could have persuaded his intimates that he was the author of +plays exhibiting “a wide familiarity with the +classics,” or “remarkable classical +attainments.” The thing is wholly impossible.</p> +<p>I do not remember that a single contemporary allusion to +Shakespeare speaks of him as “learned,” erudite, +scholarly, and so forth. The epithets 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 wrote +<i>L’Allegro</i> just after leaving Cambridge, makes +Shakespeare “sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s +child,” with “native wood-notes wild”; and +gives to Jonson “the <i>learned</i> sock.” +Fuller, like Milton, was born eight years before the death of +Shakespeare, namely, in 1608. Like Milton he was a +Cambridge man. The First Folio of Shakespeare’s works +appeared when each of these two bookish men was aged +fifteen. It would necessarily revive interest in +Shakespeare, now <a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +151</span>first known as far as about half of his plays went: he +would be discussed among lovers of literature at Cambridge. +Mr. Greenwood quotes Fuller’s remark that +Shakespeare’s “learning was very little,” that, +if alive, he would confess himself “to be never any +scholar.” <a name="citation151a"></a><a +href="#footnote151a" class="citation">[151a]</a> I cannot +grant that Fuller is dividing the persons of actor and +author. Men of Shakespeare’s generation, such as +Jonson, did not think him learned; nor did men of the next +generation. If Mr. Collins’s view be correct, the men +of Shakespeare’s and of Milton’s generations were too +ignorant to perceive that Shakespeare was deeply learned in the +literature of Rome, and in the literature of Greece. Every +one was too ignorant, till Mr. Collins came.</p> +<h2><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +153</span>VIII<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">“THE SILENCE OF PHILIP +HENSLOWE”</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Shakespeare is mentioned as an +author by contemporary writers, the Baconian stratagem, we have +seen, is to cry, “Ah, but you cannot prove 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), as author of <i>Venus and Adonis</i>, and as a +sonneteer. “All this does nothing whatever to support +the idea that the Stratford player was the author of the plays +and poems alluded to,” says Mr. Greenwood, playing that +card again. <a name="citation155a"></a><a href="#footnote155a" +class="citation">[155a]</a></p> +<p>The allusions, I repeat, <i>do</i> prove that Shak(&c.), +the actor, was believed to be the author, till any other noted +William Shak(&c.) is found to have been conspicuously before +the town. “There is nothing at all to prove that +Meres, native of Lincolnshire, had any personal knowledge of +Shakespeare.” There is nothing at all to prove that +Meres, native of Lincolnshire, had any personal knowledge of +nine-tenths of the English authors, famous or forgotten, whom he +<a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +156</span>mentions. “On the question—who was +Shakespeare?—he throws no light.” He +“throws no light on the question” “who +was?” any of the poets mentioned by him, except one, quite +forgotten, whose College he names . . . To myself this “sad +repeated air,”—“critics who praise Shakespeare +do not say <i>who Shakespeare</i> was,”—would appear +to be, not an argument, but a subterfuge: though Mr. Greenwood +honestly believes it to be an argument,—otherwise he would +not use it: much less would he repeat it with frequent +iteration. The more a man was notorious, as was Will +Shakspere the actor, the less the need for any critic to tell his +public “who Shakespeare was.”</p> +<p>As Mr. Greenwood tries to disable the evidence when +Shakespeare is alluded to as an author, so he tries to better his +case when, in the account-book of Philip Henslowe, an owner of +theatres, money-lender, pawn-broker, purchaser of plays from +authors, and so forth, Shakespeare is <i>not</i> mentioned at +all. Here is a mystery which, properly handled, may advance +the great cause. Henslowe has notes of loans of money to +several actors, some of them of Shakespeare’s company, +“The Lord Chamberlain’s.” There is no +such note of a loan to Shakespeare. Does this prove that he +was not an actor? If so, Burbage was not an actor; Henslowe +never names him.</p> +<p>There are notes of payments of money to Henslowe after each +performance of any play in one of his theatres. In these +notes <i>the name of Shakespeare </i><a name="page157"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 157</span><i>is never once mentioned as the +author of any play</i>. How weird! But in +<i>these</i> notes the names of the authors of the plays acted +are never mentioned. Does this suggest that Bacon wrote all +these plays?</p> +<p>On the other hand, there are frequent mentions of advances of +money to authors who were working at plays for Henslowe, singly, +or in pairs, threes, fours, or fives. We find Drayton, +Dekker, Chapman, and nine authors now forgotten by all but +antiquarians. We have also Ben Jonson (1597), Marston, +Munday, Middleton, Webster, and others, authors in +Henslowe’s pay. <i>But the same of Shakespeare never +appears</i>. Mysterious! The other men’s names, +writes Dr. Furness, occur “because they were all writers +for Henslowe’s theatre, but we must wait at all events for +the discovery of some other similar record, before we can produce +corresponding memoranda regarding Shaksper” (<i>sic</i>) +“and his productions.” <a name="citation157a"></a><a +href="#footnote157a" class="citation">[157a]</a></p> +<p>The natural mind of the ordinary man explains all by saying, +“Henslowe records no loans of money to Shakspere the actor, +because he lent him no money. He records no payments for +plays to Shakespeare the author-actor, because to Henslowe the +actor sold no plays.” That is the whole explanation +of the Silence of Philip Henslowe. If Shakspere did sell a +play to Henslowe, why should that financier omit the fact from +his accounts? Suppose that the actor was illiterate <a +name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 158</span>as +Baconians fervently believe, and sold Bacon’s plays, what +prevented him from selling a play of Bacon’s (under his own +name, as usual) to Henslowe? To obtain a Baconian reply you +must wander into conjecture, and imagine that Bacon forbade the +transaction. Then <i>why</i> did he forbid it? +Because he could get a better price from Shakspere’s +company? The same cause would produce the same effect on +Shakspere himself; whether he were the author, or were +Bacon’s, or any man’s go-between. On any score +but that of money, why was Henslowe good enough for Ben Jonson, +Dekker, Heywood, Middleton, and Webster, and not good enough for +Bacon, who did not appear 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 much discredited if he were +known to sell (for £6 on an average) his noble works to the +Lord Chamberlain’s Company, as if he sold them to +Henslowe.</p> +<p>I know not whether the great lawyer, courtier, scholar, and +philosopher is supposed by Baconians to have given Will Shakspere +a commission on his sales of plays; or to have let him keep the +whole sum in each case. I know not whether the players paid +Shakspere a sum down for his (or Bacon’s) plays, or whether +Will received a double share, or other, or any share of the +profits on them, as Henslowe did when he let a house to the +players. Nobody knows any of these things.</p> +<p><a name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +159</span>“If Shakspere the player had been a dramatist, +surely Henslowe would have employed him also, like the others, in +that behalf.” <a name="citation159a"></a><a +href="#footnote159a" class="citation">[159a]</a> Henslowe +would, if he could have got the “copy” cheap +enough. Was any one of “the others,” the +playwrights, a player, holding a share in his company? If +not, the fact makes an essential difference, for Shakspere +<i>was</i> a shareholder. Collier, in his preface to +Henslowe’s so-called “Diary,” mentions a +playwright who was bound to scribble for Henslowe only (Henry +Porter), and another, Chettle, who was bound to write only for +the company protected by the Earl of Nottingham. <a +name="citation159b"></a><a href="#footnote159b" +class="citation">[159b]</a> Modern publishers and managers +sometimes make the same terms with novelists and playwrights.</p> +<p>It appears to me that Shakspere’s company would be +likely, as his plays 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,—whether the 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 a better market. The plays, whether written by +himself, or Bacon, or the Man in the Moon, were at his disposal, +and he did not dispose of them to Henslowe, wherefore Henslowe +cannot mention him in his accounts. That is all.</p> +<p><a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +160</span>Quoting an American Judge (Dr. Stotsenburg, +apparently), Mr. Greenwood cites the circumstance that, in two +volumes of Alleyn’s papers “there is not one mention +of such a poet as William Shaksper in his list of actors, poets, +and theatrical comrades.” <a name="citation160a"></a><a +href="#footnote160a" class="citation">[160a]</a> If this +means that Shakspere is not mentioned by Alleyn among actors, are +we to infer that William was not an actor? Even Baconians +insist that he was an actor. “How strange, how more +than strange,” cries Mr. Greenwood, “that Henslowe +should make no mention in all this long diary, embracing all the +time from 1591 to 1609, of the actor-author . . . No +matter. <i>Credo quia impossibile</i>!” <a +name="citation160b"></a><a href="#footnote160b" +class="citation">[160b]</a> <i>Credo</i> what? and what is +<i>impossible</i>? Henslowe’s volume is no Diary; he +does not tell a single anecdote of any description; he merely +enters loans, gains, payments. Does Henslowe mention, say, +Ben Jonson, <i>when he is not doing business with Ben</i>? +Does he mention any actor or author except in connection with +money matters? Then, if he did no business with Shakspere +the actor, in borrowing or lending, and did no business with +Shakespeare the author, in borrowing, lending, buying or selling, +“How strange, how more than strange” it would be if +Henslowe <i>did</i> mention Shakespeare! He was not keeping +a journal of literary and dramatic jottings. He was keeping +an account of his expenses <a name="page161"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 161</span>and receipts. He never names +Richard Burbage any more than he mentions Shakespeare.</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood again expresses his views about this dark +suspicious mystery, the absence of Shakespeare or Shakspere (or +Shak, as you like it), from Henslowe’s accounts, if +Shak(&c.) wrote plays. But the mystery, if mystery +there be, is just as obscure if the actor were the channel +through which Bacon’s plays reached the stage, for the +pretended author of these masterpieces. Shak—was not +the man to do all the troking, bargaining, lying, going here and +there, and making himself a motley to the view for £0, +0<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i> If he were a sham, a figure-head, a +liar, a fetcher-and-carrier of manuscripts, <i>he would be paid +for it</i>. But he did not deal with Henslowe in his +bargainings, and <i>that</i> is why Henslowe does not mention +him. Mr. Greenwood, in one place, <a +name="citation161a"></a><a href="#footnote161a" +class="citation">[161a]</a> agrees, so far, with me. +“Why did Henslowe not mention Shakespeare as the writer of +other plays” (than <i>Titus Andronicus</i> and <i>Henry +VI</i>)? “I think the answer is simple +enough.” (So do I.) “Neither Shakspere +nor ‘Shakespeare’ ever wrote for +Henslowe!” The obvious is perceived at last; and the +reason given is “that he was above Henslowe’s +‘skyline,’” “he” being the +Author. We only differ as to <i>why</i> the author was +above Henslowe’s “sky-line.” I say, +because good Will had a better market, that of his Company. +I understand <a name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +162</span>Mr. Greenwood to think,—because the Great Unknown +was too great a man to deal with Henslowe. If to write for +the stage were discreditable, to deal (unknown) with Henslowe was +no more disgraceful than to deal with “a cry of +players”; and as (unknown) Will did the bargaining, the +Great Unknown was as safe with Will in one case as in the +other. If Will did not receive anything for the plays from +his own company (who firmly believed in his authorship), they +must have said, “Will! dost thou serve the Muses and thy +obliged fellows for naught? Dost thou give us two popular +plays yearly,—gratis?”</p> +<p>Do you not see that, in the interests of the Great Secret +itself, Will <i>had</i> to take the pay for the plays (pretended +his) from somebody. Will Shakspere making his dear fellows +and friends a present of two masterpieces yearly was too +incredible. So I suppose he did have royalties on the +receipts, or otherwise got his money; and, as he certainly did +not get them from Henslowe, Henslowe had no conceivable reason +for entering Will’s name in his accounts.</p> +<p>Such are the reflections of a plain man, but to an imaginative +soul there seems to be a brooding mist, with a heart of fire, +which half conceals and half reveals the darkened chamber wherein +abides “The Silence of Philip Henslowe.” +“The Silence of Philip Henslowe,” Mr. Greenwood +writes, “is a very remarkable phenomenon . . . +” It is a phenomenon <a name="page163"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 163</span>precisely as remarkable as the +absence of Mr. Greenwood’s name from the accounts of a +boot-maker with whom he has never had any dealings.</p> +<p>“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 is natural enough that his name +should not appear among those [of the] for the most part +impecunious dramatists to whom Henslowe paid money for +playwriting.” <a name="citation163a"></a><a +href="#footnote163a" class="citation">[163a]</a> 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 in high +position,” does <i>not</i> appear in Henslowe’s +accounts. Nor does the name of William Shak(&c.). +But why should it not appear if Will sold either his own plays, +or those of the noble friend to whom he lent his name and +personality—to Henslowe? Why not?</p> +<p>Then consider the figure, to my mind impossible, of the great +“concealed poet” “of high position,” who +can “bring out original plays of his own,” and yet +“takes the works of others,” say of “sporting +Kyd,” or of Dekker and Chettle, and such poor +devils,—<i>takes</i> them as a Yankee pirate-publisher +takes my rhymes,—and “rewrites and transforms +them.”</p> +<p>Bacon (or Bungay) <i>cannot</i> “take” them +without permission of their legal owners,—Shakspere’s +<a name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 164</span>or any +other company;—of any one, in short, who, as Ben Jonson +says, “buys up reversions of old plays.” How is +he to manage these shabby dealings? Apparently he employs +Will Shakspere, spells his own “<i>nom de plume</i>” +“Shakespeare,” and has his rewritings and +transformations of the destitute author’s work acted by +Will’s company. What a situation for Bacon, or Sir +Fulke Greville, or James VI, or any “man in high +position” whom fancy can suggest! The plays by the +original authors, whoever they were, could only be obtained by +the “concealed poet” and “man in high +position” from the legal owners, Shakspere’s company, +usually. The concealed poet had to negotiate with the +owners, and Bacon (or whoever he was) employed that scamp Will +Shakspere, first, I think, to extract the plays from the owners, +and then to pretend that he himself, even Will, had +“rewritten and transformed them.”</p> +<p>What an associate was our Will for the concealed poet; how +certain it was 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 from the concealed +poet of high position. <a name="citation164a"></a><a +href="#footnote164a" class="citation">[164a]</a> Bacon did +associate with that serpent Phillips, a reptile of Walsingham, +who forged a postscript to Mary Stuart’s letter to +Babington. But now, if not Bacon, then some other concealed +poet of high position, with a <a name="page165"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 165</span>mysterious passion for rewriting and +transforming plays by sad, needy authors, is in close contact +with Will Shakspere, the Warwickshire poacher and ignorant +butcher’s boy, country schoolmaster, draper’s +apprentice, <i>enfin</i>, <i>tout le tremblement</i>.</p> +<p>“How strange, how more than strange!”</p> +<p>The sum of the matter seems to me to be that from as early as +March 3, 1591, we find Henslowe receiving small sums of money for +the performances of many plays. He was paid as owner or +lessee of the House used by this or that company. On March +3, 1591, the play acted by “Lord Strange’s +(Derby’s) men” was <i>Henry VI</i>. Several +other plays with names familiar in Shakespeare’s Works, +such as <i>Titus Andronicus</i>, all the three parts of <i>Henry +VI</i>, <i>King Leare</i> (April 6, 1593), <i>Henry V</i> (May +14, 1592), <i>The Taming of a Shrew</i> (June 11, 1594), and +<i>Hamlet</i>, paid toll to Henslowe. He +“received” so much, on each occasion, when they were +acted in a theatre of his. But he never records his +purchase of these plays; and it is not generally believed that +Shakespeare was the author of all these plays, in the form which +they bore in 1591–4: though there is much difference of +opinion.</p> +<p>There is one rather interesting case. On August 25, +1594, Henslowe enters “<i>ne</i>” (that is, “a +new play”) “Received at the Venesyon Comodey, +eighteen pence.” That was his share of the +receipts. The Lord Chamberlain’s Company, <a +name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 166</span>that of +Shakespeare, was playing in Henslowe’s theatre at Newington +Butts. If the “Venesyon Comodey” (Venetian +Comedy) were <i>The Merchant of Venice</i>, this is the first +mention of it. But nobody knows what Henslowe meant by +“the Venesyon Comodey.” He does not mention the +author’s name, because, in this part of his accounts he +never does mention the author or authors. He only names +them when he buys from, or lends to, or has other money dealings +with the authors. He had none with Shakespeare, hence the +Silence of Philip Henslowe.</p> +<h2><a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +167</span>IX<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">THE LATER LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE—HIS +MONUMENT AND PORTRAITS</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the chapter on the +Preoccupations of Bacon the reader may find help in making up his +mind as to whether Bacon, with his many and onerous duties and +occupations, his scientific studies, and his absorbing scientific +preoccupation, is a probable author of the Shakespearean +plays. Mr. Greenwood finds the young Shakspere +impossible—because of his ignorance—which made him +such a really good pseudo-author, and such a successful mask for +Bacon, or Bacon’s unknown equivalent. The Shakspere +of later life, the well-to-do Shakspere, the purchaser of the +right to bear arms; so bad at paying one debt at least; so eager +a creditor; a would-be encloser of a common; a man totally +bookless, is, to Mr. Greenwood’s mind, an impossible author +of the later plays.</p> +<p>Here, first, are moral objections on the ground of character +as revealed in some legal documents concerning business. +Now, I am very ready to confess that William’s dealings +with his debtors, and with one creditor, are wholly unlike what I +should expect from the author of the plays. Moreover, <a +name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 170</span>the conduct +of Shelley in regard to his wife was, in my opinion, very mean +and cruel, and the last thing that we could have expected from +one who, in verse, was such a tender philanthropist, and in life +was—women apart—the best-hearted of men. The +conduct of Robert Burns, alas, too often disappoints the lover of +his <i>Cottar’s Saturday Night</i> and other moral +pieces. He was an inconsistent walker.</p> +<p>I sincerely wish that Shakespeare had been less hard in money +matters, just as I wish that in financial matters Scott had been +more like himself, that he had not done the last things that we +should have expected him to do. As a member of the Scottish +Bar it was inconsistent with his honour to be the secret +proprietor of a publishing and a printing business. This is +the unexplained moral paradox in the career of a man of +chivalrous honour and strict probity: but the fault did not +prevent Scott from writing his novels and poems. Why, then, +should the few bare records of Shakspere’s monetary +transactions make <i>his</i> authorship impossible? The +objection seems weakly sentimental.</p> +<p>Macaulay scolds Scott as fiercely as Mr. Greenwood scolds +Shakspere,—for the more part, ignorantly and +unjustly. Still, there is matter to cause surprise and +regret. Both Scott and Shakspere are accused of writing for +gain, and of spending money on lands and houses with the desire +to found families. But in the mysterious <a +name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 171</span>mixture of +each human personality, any sober soul who reflects on his own +sins and failings will not think other men’s failings +incompatible with intellectual excellence. Bacon’s +own conduct in money matters was that of a man equally grasping +and extravagant. Ben Jonson thus describes Shakespeare as a +social character: “He was indeed honest, and of an open and +free nature . . . I loved the man and do honour his memory on +this side idolatry as much as any.” Perhaps Ben never +owed money to Shakspere and refused to pay!</p> +<p>We must not judge a man’s whole intellectual character, +and declare him to be incapable of poetry, on the score of a few +legal papers about matters of business. Apparently +Shakspere helped that Elizabethan Mr. Micawber, his father, out +of a pecuniary slough of despond, 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 in Henley Street. <a +name="citation171a"></a><a href="#footnote171a" +class="citation">[171a]</a> I do not, like Mr. Greenwood, +see anything “at all out of the way” in the +circumstance “that a man should be writing <i>Hamlet</i>, +and at the same time bringing actions for petty sums lent on loan +at some unspecified interest.” <a +name="citation171b"></a><a href="#footnote171b" +class="citation">[171b]</a> Nor do I see anything at all +out of the way in Bacon’s prosecution of his friend and +benefactor, <a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +172</span>Essex (1601), while Bacon was writing +<i>Hamlet</i>. Indeed, Shakspere’s case is the less +“out of the way” of the two. He wanted his loan +to be repaid, and told his lawyer to bring an action. Bacon +wanted to keep his head (of inestimable value) on his shoulders; +or to 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, Bacon was in a tragic position almost unexampled; +and was at once overwhelmed by work, and, one must suppose, by +acute distress of mind, in the case of Essex. He must have +felt this the more keenly, if, as some Baconians vow, <i>he wrote +the Sonnets to Essex</i>. Whether he were writing his +<i>Hamlet</i> when engaged in Essex’s case (1601), or any +other of his dramatic masterpieces, even this astonishing man +must have been sorely bestead to combine so many branches of +business.</p> +<p>Thus I would reply to Mr. Greenwood’s amazement that +Shakspere, a hard creditor, and so forth, should none the less +have been able to write his plays. But if it is meant that +a few business transactions must have absorbed the whole +consciousness of Shakespeare, and left him neither time nor +inclination for poetry, consider the scientific preoccupation of +Bacon, his parliamentary duties, his ceaseless activity as +“one of the legal body-guard of the Queen” at a time +when he had often to be examining persons accused of +conspiracy,—and do not forget his long and <a +name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 173</span>poignant +anxiety about Essex, his constant efforts to reconcile him with +Elizabeth, and to advocate his cause without losing her favour; +and, finally, the anguish of prosecuting his friend, and of +knowing how hardly the world judged his own conduct. Follow +him into his relations with James I; his eager pursuit of favour, +the multiplicity of his affairs, his pecuniary distresses, and +the profound study and severe labour entailed by the preparation +for and the composition of <i>The Advancement of Learning</i> +(1603–5). He must be a stout-hearted Baconian who can +believe that, between 1599 and 1605, Bacon was writing +<i>Hamlet</i>, and other masterpieces of tragedy or comedy. +But all is possible to genius. What Mr. Greenwood’s +Great Unknown was doing at this period, “neither does he +know, nor do I know, but he only.” He, no doubt, had +abundance of leisure.</p> +<p>At last Shakspere died (1616), and had not the mead of one +melodious tear, as far as we know, from the London wits, in the +shape of obituary verses. This fills Mr. Greenwood with +amazement. “Was it because ‘the friends of the +Muses’ were for the most part aware that Shakespeare had +not died with Shakspere?” Did Jonson perchance think +that his idea might be realised when he wrote,</p> +<blockquote><p> “What a sight it were,<br +/> +To see thee in our waters yet appear”?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and so on. Did Jonson expect and hope to see <a +name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 174</span>the genuine +“Shakespeare” return to the stage, seven years after +the death of Shakspere the actor, the Swan of Avon? As +Jonson was fairly sane, we can no more suspect him of having +hoped for this miracle than believe that most of the poets knew +the actor not to be the author. Moreover Jonson, while +desiring that Shakespeare might “shine forth” again +and cheer the drooping stage, added,</p> +<blockquote><p>“Which since thy flight from hence hath +mourned like Night,<br /> +And despairs day, but for thy volume’s light,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>that is—the Folio of 1623. Ben did not weave the +amazing tissue of involved and contradictory falsities attributed +to him by Baconians. Beaumont died in the same year as +Shakspere, who died in the depths of the country, weary of +London. Has Mr. Greenwood found obituary poems dropped on +the grave of the famous Beaumont? Did Fletcher, did Jonson, +produce one melodious tear for the loss of their friend; in +Fletcher’s case his constant partner? No? Were +the poets, then, aware that Beaumont was a humbug, whose poems +and plays were written by Bacon? <a name="citation174a"></a><a +href="#footnote174a" class="citation">[174a]</a></p> +<p>I am not to discuss Shakespeare’s Will, the +“second-best bed,” and so forth. But as +Shakespeare’s Will says not a word about his books, it is +decided by Mr. Greenwood that he had no books. Mr. +Greenwood is a lawyer; so was my late friend Mr. Charles Elton, +Q.C., of White Staunton, <a name="page175"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 175</span>who remarks that Shakespeare +bequeathed “all the rest of my goods, chattels, leases, +&c., to my son-in-law, John Hall, gent.” (He +really <i>was</i> a “gent.” with authentic +coat-armour.)</p> +<p>It is with Mr. Elton’s opinion, not with my ignorance, +that Mr. Greenwood must argue in proof of the view that +“goods” are necessarily exclusive of books, for Mr. +Elton takes it as a quite natural fact that Shakespeare’s +books passed, with his other goods, to Mr. Hall, and thence to a +Mr. Nash, to whom Mr. Hall left “my study of books” +<a name="citation175a"></a><a href="#footnote175a" +class="citation">[175a]</a> (library). I only give this as +a lawyer’s opinion.</p> +<p>There is in the Bodleian an Aldine Ovid, “with +Shakespeare’s” signature (merely Wm. She.), and a +note, “This little volume of Ovid was 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 +<i>Montaigne</i>, in the British Museum) has been detected as a +forgery; nor do I know that Shakespeare’s not specially +mentioning his books proves that he had none. Lawyers +appear to differ as to this inference: both Mr. Elton and Mr. +Greenwood seem equally confident. <a name="citation175b"></a><a +href="#footnote175b" class="citation">[175b]</a> But if <a +name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 176</span>it were +perfectly natural that the actor, Shakspere, should have no +books, then he certainly made no effort, by the local colour of +owning a few volumes, to persuade mankind that he <i>was</i> the +author. Yet they believed that he was—really there is +no wriggling out of it. As regards any of his own MSS. +which Shakespeare may have had (one would expect them to be at +his theatre), and their monetary value, if they were not, as +usual, the property of his company, and of him as a member +thereof, we can discuss that question in the section headed +“The First Folio.”</p> +<p>It appears that Shakespeare’s daughter, Judith, could +write no more than her grandfather. <a name="citation176a"></a><a +href="#footnote176a" class="citation">[176a]</a> Nor, I +repeat, could the Lady Jane Gordon, daughter of the great Earl of +Huntly, when she was married to the Earl of Bothwell in +1566. At all events, Lady Jane “made her +mark.” It may be feared that Judith, brought up in +that very illiterate town of Stratford, under an illiterate +mother, was neglected in her education. Sad, but very +common in women of her rank, and scarcely a proof that her father +did not write the plays.</p> +<p>As “nothing is known of the disposition and +character” <a name="citation176b"></a><a +href="#footnote176b" class="citation">[176b]</a> of +Shakespeare’s grand-daughter, Lady Barnard, who died in +1670, it is not so paralysingly strange that nothing is known of +any relics or anecdotes of Shakespeare which she may have +possessed. Mr. Greenwood “would <a +name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 177</span>have +supposed that she would have had much to say about the great +poet,” exhibited his books (if any), and so forth. +Perhaps she did,—but how, if we “know nothing about +her disposition and character,” can we tell? No +interviewers rushed to her house (Abington Hall, +Northampton-shire) with pencils and notebooks to record her +utterances; no reporter interviewed her for the press. It +is surprising, is it not?</p> +<p>The inference might be drawn, in the Baconian manner, that, +during the Commonwealth and Restoration, “the friends of +the Muses” knew that the actor was <i>not</i> the author, +and therefore did not interview his granddaughter in the +country.</p> +<p>“But, at any rate, we have the Stratford +monument,” says Mr. Greenwood, and delves into this +problem. Even the Stratford monument of Shakespeare in the +parish church is haunted by Baconian mysteries. If the +gentle reader will throw his eye over the photograph <a +name="citation177a"></a><a href="#footnote177a" +class="citation">[177a]</a> of the monument as it now exists, he +may not be able to say to the face of the poet—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Thou wast that all to me, Will,<br /> +For which my soul did pine.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But if he has any knowledge of Jacobean busts on monuments, he +will probably agree with me in saying, “This effigy, though +executed by somebody who was not a Pheidias, and who perhaps +worked merely from descriptions, is, at <a +name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 178</span>all events, +Jacobean.” The same may assuredly be said of the +monument; it is in good Jacobean style: the pillars with their +capitals are graceful: all the rest is in keeping; and the two +inscriptions are in the square capital letters of inscriptions of +the period; not in italic characters. Distrusting my own +<i>expertise</i>, I have consulted Sir Sidney Colvin, and Mr. +Holmes of the National Portrait Gallery. They, with Mr. +Spielmann, think the work to be of the early seventeenth +century.</p> +<p>Next, glance at the figure opposite. This is a +reproduction of “the earliest representation of the +Bust” (and monument) in Dugdale’s <i>Antiquities of +Warwickshire</i> (1656). Compare the two objects, point by +point, from the potato on top with holes in it, of Dugdale, which +is meant for a skull, through all the details,—bust and +all. Does Dugdale’s print, whether engraved by Hollar +or not, represent a Jacobean work? Look at the two +ludicrous children, their legs dangling in air; at the +lions’ heads above the capitals of the pillars; at the +lettering of the two visible words of the inscription, and at the +gloomy hypochondriac or lunatic, clasping a cushion to his +abdomen. That hideous design was not executed by an artist +who “had his eye on the object,” if the object were a +Jacobean monument: while the actual monument was fashioned in no +period of art but the Jacobean. From Digges’ rhymes +in the Folio of 1623, we know that Shakespeare already had <a +name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 179</span>his +“Stratford monument.” <i>The existing object is +what he had</i>; the monument in Dugdale is what, I hope, no +architect of 1616–23 could have imagined or designed.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p178b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Monument in Dugdale’s “History of the +Antiquities of Warwickshire” (1656) (By permission of John +Murray, Esq.)" +title= +"The Monument in Dugdale’s “History of the +Antiquities of Warwickshire” (1656) (By permission of John +Murray, Esq.)" + src="images/p178s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Dugdale’s engraving is not a correct copy of any genuine +Jacobean work of art. Is Dugdale accurate in his +reproductions of other monuments in Stratford Church? To +satisfy himself on this point, Sir George Trevelyan, as he wrote +to me (June 13, 1912), “made a sketch of the Carew +Renaissance monument in Stratford Church, and found that the +discrepancies between the original tomb and the representation in +Dugdale’s <i>Warwickshire</i> are far and away greater than +in the monument to William Shakespeare.”</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood, <a name="citation179a"></a><a +href="#footnote179a" class="citation">[179a]</a> while justly +observing that “the little sitting figures . . . are placed +as no monumental sculptor would place them,” “on the +whole sees no reason at all why we should doubt the substantial +accuracy of Dugdale’s figure . . . It is impossible +to suppose that Hollar would have drawn and that Dugdale would +have published a mere travesty of the Stratford +Monument.”</p> +<p>I do not know who drew the design, but a travesty of Jacobean +work it is in every detail of the monument. A travesty is +what Dugdale gives as a representation of the Carew +monument. Mr. Greenwood, elsewhere, repeating his criticism +of the impossible figures of children, says: “This <a +name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>is +certainly mere matter of detail, and, in the absence of other +evidence, would give us no warrant for doubting the substantial +accuracy of Dugdale’s presentment of the +‘Shakespeare’ bust.” <a +name="citation180a"></a><a href="#footnote180a" +class="citation">[180a]</a></p> +<p>Why are we to believe that Dugdale’s artist was merely +fantastic in his design of the children (and also remote from +Jacobean taste in every detail), and yet to credit him with +“substantial accuracy” in his half-length of a gloomy +creature clutching a cushion to his stomach? With his +inaccuracies as to the Carew monument, why are we to accept him +as accurate in his representation of the bust? Moreover, +other evidence is not wanting. It is positively certain +that the monument existing in 1748, was then known as “the +original monument,” and that no other monument was put in +its place, at that date or later.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p180b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Carew Monument in Stratford Church" +title= +"The Carew Monument in Stratford Church" + src="images/p180s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p181b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Carew Monument as Represented in Dugdale’s +“History of the Antiquities of Warwickshire” (1656)" +title= +"The Carew Monument as Represented in Dugdale’s +“History of the Antiquities of Warwickshire” (1656)" + src="images/p181s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Now Mrs. Stopes <a name="citation180b"></a><a +href="#footnote180b" class="citation">[180b]</a> argues that in +1748 the monument was “entirely reconstructed,” and +so must have become no longer what Dugdale’s man drew, but +what we see to-day. It is positively certain that her +opinion is erroneous.</p> +<p>If ever what we see to-day was substituted for anything like +what Dugdale’s man drew, the date of the substitution is +unknown.</p> +<p>Mrs. Stopes herself discovered the documents which disprove +her theory. They were known to Halliwell-Phillipps, who +quotes an unnamed “contemporary account.” <a +name="citation181a"></a><a href="#footnote181a" +class="citation">[181a]</a> <a name="page181"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 181</span>This account Mrs. Stopes, with her +tireless industry, found in the Wheler manuscripts, among papers +of the Rev. Joseph Greene, in 1746 Head Master of the Grammar +School. In one paper of September 1740 “the original +monument” is said to be “much impaired and +decayed.” There was a scheme for making “a new +monument” in Westminster Abbey. <i>That</i>, I +venture to think, would have been in Hanoverian, not in Jacobean +taste and style. But there was no money for a new +monument. Mrs. Stopes also found a paper of November 20, +1748, showing that in September 1746, Mr. Ward (grandfather of +Mrs. Siddons) was at Stratford with “a cry of +players.” He devoted the proceeds of a performance of +<i>Othello</i> to the reparation of the then existing +monument. The amount was twelve pounds ten shillings. +The affair dragged on, one of the Church-wardens, a blacksmith, +held the £12, 10<i>s.</i>, and was troublesome. The +document of November 20, 1748, was drawn up to be signed, but was +not signed, by the persons who appear to be chiefly concerned in +the matter. It directed that Mr. Hall, a local limner or +painter, is to “take care, according to his ability, that +the monument shall become as like as possible to what it was when +first erected.” This appears to have been the idea of +Mr. Greene. Another form of words was later adopted, +directing Mr. Hall, the painter, <a name="page182"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 182</span>“to repair and beautify, or to +have the direction of repairing and beautifying, <i>the original +monument</i> of Shakespeare the poet.” Mrs. Stopes +infers, justly in my opinion, that Hall “would fill up the +gaps, restore what was amissing as he thought it ought to be, and +finally repaint it according to the original colours, traces of +which he might still be able to see.” In his +<i>History and Antiquities of Stratford-on-Avon</i>, <a +name="citation182a"></a><a href="#footnote182a" +class="citation">[182a]</a> Mr. Wheler tells us that this was +what Hall did. “In the year 1748 the monument was +carefully repaired, and the original colours of the bust, +&c., as much as possible preserved by Mr. John Hall, limner, +of Stratford.”</p> +<p>It follows that we see the original monument and bust, but the +painting is of 1861, for the bust, says Wheler, was in 1793 +“painted in white,” to please Malone. It was +repainted in 1861.</p> +<p>Mrs. Stopes, unluckily, is not content with what Hall was told +to do, and what, according to Wheler, he did. She writes: +“It would only be giving good value for his money” +(£12, 10<i>s.</i>) “to his churchwardens if Hall +added (<i>sic</i>) a cloak, a pen, and manuscript.” +He “could not help changing” the face, and so on.</p> +<p>Now it was physically impossible to <i>add</i> a cloak, a pen, +and manuscript to such a stone bust as Dugdale’s man shows; +to take away the cushion pressed to the stomach, and to alter the +head. Mr. Hall, if he was to give us the present bust, <a +name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 183</span>had to make +an entirely new bust, and, to give us the present monument in +place of that shown in Dugdale’s print, had to construct an +entirely new monument. Now Hall was a painter, not (like +Giulio Romano) also an architect and sculptor. <i>Pour tout +potage</i> he had but £12, 10<i>s.</i> He could not +do, and he did not do these things! he did not destroy “the +original monument” and make a new monument in Jacobean +style. He was straitly ordered to “repair and +beautify the original monument”; he did repair it, and +repainted the colours. That is all. I do not quote +what Halliwell-Phillipps tells us <a name="citation183a"></a><a +href="#footnote183a" class="citation">[183a]</a> about the +repairing of the forefinger and thumb of the right hand, and the +pen; work which, he says, had to be renewed by William Roberts of +Oxford in 1790. He gives no authority, and Baconians may +say that he was hoaxed, or “lied with +circumstance.”</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood <a name="citation183b"></a><a +href="#footnote183b" class="citation">[183b]</a> quotes +Halliwell-Phillipps’s <i>Works of Shakespeare</i> (1853), +in which he says that the design in Dugdale’s book +“is evidently too inaccurate to be of any authority; the +probability being that it was not taken from the monument +itself.” Indeed the designer is so inaccurate that he +gives the first word of the Latin inscription as +“Judicyo,” just as Oudry blunders in the Latin +inscription of a portrait of Mary Stuart which he copied +badly. Mr. Greenwood <a name="page184"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 184</span>proceeds: “In his +<i>Outlines</i> Halliwell simply ignores Dugdale. His +engraving was doubtless too inconvenient to be brought to public +notice!” Here Halliwell is accused of suppressing the +truth; if he invented his minute details about the repeated +reparation of the writing hand,—not represented in +Dugdale’s design,—he also lied with +circumstance. But he certainly quoted a genuine +“contemporary account” of the orders for repairing +and beautifying the original monument in 1748, and I presume that +he also had records for what he says about reparations of the +hand and pen. He speaks, too, of substitutions for decayed +alabaster parts of the monument, though not in his +<i>Outlines</i>; 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 use for repairs.</p> +<p>To me the evidence of the style as to the date of both +monument and bust speaks so loudly for their accepted date +(1616–23) and against the Georgian date of 1748, that I +need no other evidence; nor do I suppose that any one familiar +with the monumental style of 1590–1620 can be of a +different opinion. In the same way I do not expect any +artist or engraver to take the engraving of the monument in +Rowe’s <i>Shakespeare</i> (1709), and that by Grignion so +late as 1786, for anything but copies of the design in Dugdale, +with modifications made <i>à plaisir</i>. In <a +name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +185</span>Pope’s edition (1725) Vertue gives the monument +with some approach to accuracy, but for the bald plump face of +the bust presents a top-heavy and sculpturally impossible face +borrowed from “the Chandos portrait,” which, in my +opinion, is of no more authority than any other portrait of +Shakespeare. None of them, I conceive, was painted from the +life.</p> +<p>The Baconians show a wistful longing to suppose the original +bust, copied in Dugdale, to have been meant for Bacon; but we +need not waste words over this speculation. Mr. Greenwood +writes that “if I should be told that Dugdale’s +effigy represented an elderly farmer deploring an exceptionally +bad harvest, ‘I should not feel it to be +strange!’ Neither should I feel it at all strange if +I were told that it was the presentment of a philosopher and Lord +Chancellor, who had fallen from high estate and recognised that +all things are but vanity.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p185b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"From Vertue’s Engraving of the Monument (1725) (By +permission of John Murray, Esq.)" +title= +"From Vertue’s Engraving of the Monument (1725) (By +permission of John Murray, Esq.)" + src="images/p185s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“<i>I</i> should not feel it to be strange” if a +Baconian told me that the effigy of a living ex-Chancellor were +placed in the monument of the dead Will Shakspere, and if, on +asking why the alteration was made, I were asked in reply, in Mr. +Greenwood’s words, “Was Dugdale’s bust thought +to bear too much resemblance to one who was not Shakspere of +Stratford? Or was it thought that the presence of a +woolsack” (the cushion) “might be taken as indicating +that Shakspere of Stratford was indebted for support <a +name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 186</span>to a +certain Lord Chancellor?” <a name="citation186a"></a><a +href="#footnote186a" class="citation">[186a]</a> Such, +indeed, are the things that Baconians might readily say: do say, +I believe.</p> +<p>Dugdale’s engraving reproduces the first words of a +Latin inscription, still on the monument:</p> +<blockquote><p><i>Judicio Pylium</i>, <i>genio Socratem</i>, +<i>arte Maronem</i><br /> + <i>Terra tegit</i>, <i>populus mæret</i>, +<i>Olympus habet</i>:</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Earth covers, Olympus” (heaven? or the +Muses’ Hill?) “holds him who was a Nestor in counsel; +in poetic art, a Virgil; a Socrates for his Dæmon” +(“Genius”). As for the “Genius,” or +dæmon of Socrates, and the permitted false quantity in +making the first syllable of Socrates short; and the use of +<i>Olympus</i> for heaven in epitaphs, it is sufficient to +consult the learning of Mr. Elton. <a name="citation186b"></a><a +href="#footnote186b" class="citation">[186b]</a> The poet +who made such notable false quantities in his plays had no cause +to object to another on his monument. We do not know who +erected the monument, and paid for it, or who wrote or adapted +the epitaph; but it was somebody who thought Shakespeare (or +Bacon?) “a clayver man.” The monument (if a +trembling conjecture may be humbly put forth) was conceivably +erected by the piety of Shakespeare’s daughter and +son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Hall. They exhibit a taste for the +mortuary memorial and the queer Latin inscription. Mrs. +Hall gratified <a name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +187</span>the Manes of her poor mother, Mrs. Shakespeare, with +one of the oddest of Latin epitaphs. <a +name="citation187a"></a><a href="#footnote187a" +class="citation">[187a]</a> It opens like an epigram in the +Greek Anthology, and ends in an unusual strain of Christian +mysticism. Mr. Hall possesses, perhaps arranged for +himself, a few Latin elegiacs as an epitaph.</p> +<p>The famous “Good friend for Jesus’ sake +forbear,” and so on, on the stone in the chancel, beneath +which the sacred dust of Shakespeare lies, or lay, is the first +of “the last lines written, we are told,” <a +name="citation187b"></a><a href="#footnote187b" +class="citation">[187b]</a> “by the author of +<i>Hamlet</i>.” Who tells us that Shakespeare wrote +the four lines of doggerel? Is it conceivable that the +authority for Shakespeare’s authorship of the doggerel is a +tradition gleaned by Mr. Dowdall of Queen’s in 1693, from a +parish clerk, aged over eighty, he says,—criticism makes +the clerk twenty years younger. <a name="citation187c"></a><a +href="#footnote187c" class="citation">[187c]</a> For +Baconians the lines are bad enough to be the work of William +Shakspere of Stratford.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, in 1649, when Will’s daughter, Mrs. Hall, +died, her epitaph spoke quite respectfully of her father’s +intelligence.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Witty above her sex, but that’s not +all,<br /> +Wise to salvation was good Mistris Hall,<br /> +Something of Shakespeare was in <i>that</i>, but <i>this</i><br +/> +Wholly of Him with whom she’s now in bliss.” <a +name="citation187d"></a><a href="#footnote187d" +class="citation">[187d]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +188</span>Thirty-three years after Shakespeare’s death he +was still thought “witty” in Stratford. But +what could Stratford know? Milton and Charles I were of the +same opinion; so was Suckling, and the rest of the generation +after Shakespeare. But they did not know, how should they, +that Bacon (or his equivalent) was the genuine author of the +plays and poems. The secret, perhaps, so widely spread +among “the friends of the Muses” in 1616, was +singularly well kept by a set of men rather given to blab as a +general rule.</p> +<p>I confess to be passing weary of the Baconian hatred of Will, +which pursues him beyond his death with sneers and fantastic +suspicions about his monument and his grave, and asks if he +“died with a curse upon his lips, an imprecation against +any man who might <i>move his bones</i>? A mean and vulgar +curse indeed!” <a name="citation188a"></a><a +href="#footnote188a" class="citation">[188a]</a> And the +authority for the circumstance that he died with a mean and +vulgar curse upon his lips?</p> +<p>About 1694, a year after Mr. Dowdall in 1693, and eighty years +almost after Shakespeare’s death, W. Hall, a Queen’s +man, Oxford (the W. Hall, perhaps, who gave the Bodleian Aldine +Ovid, with Shakespeare’s signature, true or forged, to its +unknown owner), went to Stratford, and wrote about his pilgrimage +to his friend Mr. Thwaites, a Fellow of Queen’s. Mr. +Hall heard the story that Shakespeare was the author of the mean +and vulgar curse. He adds that there was a <a +name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 189</span>great +ossuary or bone-house in the church, where all the bones dug up +were piled, “they would load a great number of +waggons.” Not desiring this promiscuity, Shakespeare +wrote the Curse in a style intelligible to clerks and sextons, +“for the most part a very ignorant sort of +people.”</p> +<p>If Shakespeare <i>did</i>, that accommodation of himself to +his audience was the last stroke of his wisdom, or his wit. <a +name="citation189a"></a><a href="#footnote189a" +class="citation">[189a]</a> Of course there is no evidence +that he wrote the mean and vulgar curse: that he did is only the +pious hope of the Baconians and Anti-Willians.</p> +<p>Into the question of the alleged portraits of Shakespeare I +cannot enter. Ben spoke well of the engraving prefixed to +the First Folio, but Ben, as Mr. Greenwood says, was anxious to +give the Folio “a good send-off.” The engraving +is choicely bad; we do not know from what actual portrait, if +from any, it was executed. Richard Burbage is known to have +amused himself with the art of design; possibly he tried his hand +on a likeness of his old friend and fellow-actor. If so, he +may have succeeded no better than Mary Stuart’s +embroiderer, Oudry, in his copy of the portrait of her +Majesty.</p> +<p>That Ben Jonson was painted by Honthorst and others, while +Shakespeare, as far as we know, was not, has nothing to do with +the authorship <a name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +190</span>of the plays. Ben was a scholar, the darling of +both Universities; constantly employed about the Court in +arranging Masques; his learning and his Scottish blood may have +led James I to notice him. Ben, in his later years, was +much in society; fashionable and literary. He was the +father of the literary “tribe of Ben.” Thus he +naturally sat for his portrait. In the same way George +Buchanan has, and had, nothing like the fame of Knox. But +as a scholar he was of European reputation; haunted the Court as +tutor of his King, and was the “good pen” of the +anti-Marian nobles, Murray, Morton, and the rest. Therefore +Buchanan’s portrait was painted, while of Knox we have only +a woodcut, done, apparently, after his death, from descriptions, +for Beza’s <i>Icones</i>. The Folio engraving may +have no better source. Without much minute research it is +hard to find authentic portraits of Mary Stuart, and, just as in +Shakespeare’s case, <a name="citation190a"></a><a +href="#footnote190a" class="citation">[190a]</a> the market, in +her own day and in the eighteenth century, was flooded with +“mock-originals,” not even derived (in any case known +to me) from genuine and authentic contemporary works.</p> +<p>One thing is certain about the Stratford bust. Baconians +will believe that Dugdale’s man correctly represented the +bust as it was in his time; and that the actual bust is of 1748, +in spite of proofs of Dugdale’s man’s fantastic +inaccuracy; in spite of the evidence of style; and in spite of <a +name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 191</span>documentary +evidence that “the original monument” was not to be +destroyed and replaced by the actual monument, but was merely +“repaired and beautified” (painted afresh) by a local +painter.</p> +<h2><a name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 193</span>X<br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">“THE TRADITIONAL +SHAKSPERE”</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> perusing the copious arguments +of the Anti-Shakesperean but Non-Baconian Mr. Greenwood, I am +often tempted, in Socratic phrase, to address him thus: Best of +men, let me implore you, first, to keep in memory these +statements on which you have most eloquently and abundantly +insisted, namely, that society in Stratford was not only not +literary, but was illiterate. Next pardon me for asking you +to remember that the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth +century did not resemble our fortunate age. Some people +read Shakespeare’s, Beaumont’s, and Fletcher’s +plays. This exercise is now very rarely practised. +But nobody cared to chronicle literary gossip about the private +lives and personal traits of these and several other Elizabethan +and Jacobean playwrights, in the modern manner. Of +Shakespeare (pardon, I mean Shakspere), the actor, there is one +contemporary anecdote, in my poor opinion a baseless +waggery. Of Beaumont there is none. Of a hand-maid of +Fletcher, who drank sack in a tumbler, one anecdote appears at +the end of the seventeenth century,—nothing better. +Meanwhile of Shakspere the “traditions” must be +sought <a name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +196</span>either at Stratford or in connection with the London +Stage; and in both cases the traditions began to be in demand +very late.</p> +<p>As Stratford was not literary, indeed was terribly illiterate, +any traditions that survived cannot conceivably have been +literary. That is absolutely certain. Natives at +Stratford had, by your own hypothesis, scant interest in literary +anecdote. Fifty years after Shakespeare’s death, no +native was likely to cherish tales of any sprouts of wit (though +it was remembered in 1649, that he was “witty”), or +any “wood-notes wild,” which he may have displayed or +chirped at an early age.</p> +<p>Such things were of no interest to Stratford. If he made +a speech when he killed a calf, or poached, or ran away to town, +the circumstance might descend from one gaffer to another; he +might even be remembered as “the best of his +family,”—the least inefficient. Given your +non-literary and illiterate Stratford, and you can expect nothing +more, and nothing better, than we receive.</p> +<p>Let me illustrate by a modern example. In 1866 I was an +undergraduate of a year’s standing at Balliol College, +Oxford, certainly not an unlettered academy. In that year, +the early and the best poems of a considerable Balliol poet were +published: he had “gone down” some eight years +before. Being young and green I eagerly sought for +traditions about Mr. Swinburne. One <a +name="page197"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 197</span>of his +contemporaries, who took a First in the final Classical Schools, +told me that “he was a smug.” Another, that, as +Mr. Swinburne and his friend (later a Scotch professor) were not +cricketers, they proposed that they should combine to pay but a +single subscription to the Cricket Club. A third, a tutor +of the highest reputation as a moralist 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.”</p> +<p>Then you take us to dirty illiterate Stratford, from fifty to +eighty years after Shakspere’s death,—a Civil War and +the Reign of the Saints, a Restoration and a Revolution having +intervened,—and ask us to be surprised that no anecdotes of +Shakspere’s early brilliance, a century before, survived at +Stratford.</p> +<p>A very humble parallel may follow. Some foolish person +went seeking early anecdotes of myself at my native town, Selkirk +on the Ettrick. From an intelligent townsman he gathered +much that was true and interesting about my younger brothers, who +delighted in horses and dogs, hunted, shot, and fished, and +played cricket; one of them bowled for Gloucestershire and +Oxford. But about me the inquiring literary snipe only +heard that “Andra was aye the stupid ane o’ the +fam’ly.” Yet, I, too, had bowled for the local +club, <i>non sine gloria</i>! Even <i>that</i> was +forgotten.</p> +<p>Try to remember, best of men, that literary <a +name="page198"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 198</span>anecdotes +of a fellow townsman’s youth do not dwell in the memories +of his neighbours from sixty to a hundred years after date. +It is not in human nature that what was incomprehensible to the +grandsire should be remembered by the grandson. Go to +“Thrums” and ask for literary memories of the youth +of Mr. Barrie.</p> +<p>Yet <a name="citation198a"></a><a href="#footnote198a" +class="citation">[198a]</a> the learned Malone seems to have been +sorry that little of Shakespeare but the calf-killing and the +poaching, and the dying of a fever after drink taken +(<i>where</i>, I ask you?), with Ben and Drayton, was remembered, +so long after date, at Stratford, of all dirty ignorant +places. Bah! how could these people have heard of Drayton +and Ben? Remember that we are dealing with human nature, in +a peculiarly malodorous and densely ignorant <i>bourgade</i>, +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.</p> +<p>You give us the Rev. John Ward, vicar of Stratford +(1661–3), who has heard that the actor was “a natural +wit,” and contracted and died of a fever, after a bout with +Drayton and Ben. I can scarcely believe that <i>these</i> +were local traditions. How could these <i>rustauds</i> have +an opinion about “natural wit,” how could they have +known the names of Ben and Drayton?</p> +<p>When you come to Aubrey, publishing in 1680, sixty years after +Shakespeare’s death, you neglect <a +name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 199</span>to trace +the steps in the descent of his tradition. As has been +stated, Beeston, “the chronicle of the Stage” (died +1682), gave him the story of the school-mastering; Beeston being +the son of a servitor of Phillips, an actor and friend of +Shakespeare, who died eleven years before that player. The +story of the school-mastering and of Shakespeare “knowing +Latin pretty well,” is of no value to me. I think +that he had some knowledge of Latin, 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 Latin School. But +the story does not suit you, and you call it “a mere +myth,” which, “of course, will be believed by those +who wish to believe it.” But, most excellent of +mortals, will it not, by parity of reasoning, “of course be +disbelieved by those who do <i>not</i> wish to believe +it”?</p> +<p>And do you want to believe it?</p> +<p>To several stage anecdotes of the actor as an excellent +instructor of younger players, you refer slightingly. They +do not weigh with me: still, the Stage would remember Shakspere +(or Shakespeare) best in stage affairs. In reference to a +very elliptic statement that, “in <i>Hamlet</i> Betterton +benefited by Shakespeare’s coaching,” you write, +“This is astonishing, seeing that Shakspere had been in his +grave nearly twenty years when Betterton was born. The +explanation is that Taylor, of the Black Fryars Company, was, +according to Sir William Davenant, <a name="page200"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 200</span>instructed by Shakspere, and +Davenant, who had seen Taylor act, according to Downes, +instructed Betterton. There is a similar story about +Betterton playing King Henry VIII. Betterton was said to +have been instructed by Sir William, who was instructed by Lowen, +who was instructed by Shakspere!” <a +name="citation200a"></a><a href="#footnote200a" +class="citation">[200a]</a></p> +<p>Why a note of exclamation? Who was Downes, and what were +his opportunities 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 and second +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 the theatre, cautiously, during the last +years of Puritan rule, and told his stories to the players of the +early Restoration. As his Book-keeper with the Duke of +York’s Company, Downes heard what Davenant had to tell; he +also, for his <i>Roscius Anglicanus</i>, had notes from Charles +Booth, prompter at Drury Lane. On May 28, 1663, Davenant +reproduced <i>Hamlet</i>, with young Betterton as the Prince of +Denmark. Davenant, says Charles Booth, “had seen the +part taken by Taylor, of the Black Fryars Company, and Taylor had +been instructed by the author,” (not Bacon but) “Mr. +William Shakespeare,” <a name="page201"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 201</span>and Davenant “taught Mr. +Betterton in every particle of it.” Mr. Elton adds, +“We cannot be sure that Taylor was taught by Shakespeare +himself. He is believed to have been a member of the +King’s Company before 1613, and to have left it for a time +before Shakespeare’s death.” <a +name="citation201a"></a><a href="#footnote201a" +class="citation">[201a]</a> His name is in the list in the +Folio of “the principall Actors in all these plays,” +but I cannot pretend to be certain that he played in them in +Will’s time.</p> +<p>It is Mr. Pepys (December 30, 1668) who chronicles +Davenant’s splendid revival of <i>Henry VIII</i>, in which +Betterton, as the King, was instructed by Sir William Davenant, +who had it from old Mr. Lowen, that had his instruction +“from Mr. Shakespear himself.” Lowin, or Lowen, +joined Shakespeare’s Company in 1604, being then a man of +twenty-eight. Burbage was the natural man for Hamlet and +Henry VIII; but it is not unusual for actors to have +“understudies.”</p> +<p>The stage is notoriously tenacious of such traditions.</p> +<p>When we come with you to Mr. W. Fulman, about 1688, and the +additions to his notes made about 1690–1708, we are +concerned with evidence much too remote, and, in your own +classical style, “all this is just a little mixed.” +<a name="citation201b"></a><a href="#footnote201b" +class="citation">[201b]</a> <a name="page202"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 202</span>With what Mr. Dowdall heard in 1693, +and Mr. William Hall (1694) heard from a clerk or sexton, or +other illiterate dotard at Stratford, I have already dealt. +I do not habitually believe in what I hear from “the oldest +aunt telling the saddest tale,”—no, not even if she +tells a ghost story, or an anecdote about the presentation by +Queen Mary of her portrait to the ancestor of the +Laird,—the portrait being dated 1768, and representing her +Majesty in the bloom of girlhood. Nor do I care for what +Rowe said (on Betterton’s information), in 1709, about +Shakespeare’s schooling; nor for what Dr. Furnivall said +that Plume wrote; nor for what anybody said that Sir John Mennes +(Menzies?) said. But I do care for what Ben Jonson and +Shakespeare’s fellow-actors said; and for what his literary +contemporaries have left on record. But this evidence you +explain away by ætiological guesses, absolutely modern, +and, I conceive, to anyone familiar with historical inquiry, not +more valuable as history than other explanatory myths.</p> +<p>What Will Shakspere had to his literary credit when he died, +was men’s impressions of the seeing of his acted plays; +with their knowledge, if they had any, of fugitive, cheap, +perishable, and often bad reprints, in quartos, of about half of +the plays. Men also had <i>Venus and Adonis</i>, +<i>Lucrece</i>, and the Sonnets, which sold very poorly, and I do +not wonder at it. Of the genius of Shakespeare England +could form no conception, till the <a name="page203"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 203</span>publication of the Folio (1623), not +in a large edition; it struggled into a Third Edition in +1664. The <i>engouement</i> about the poet, the search for +personal details, did not manifest itself with any vigour till +nearly thirty years after 1664—and we are to wonder that +the gleanings, at illiterate Stratford, and in Stage tradition, +are so scanty and so valueless. What could have been picked +up, by 1680–90, about Bacon at Gorhambury, or in the Courts +of Law, I wonder.</p> +<h2><a name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +205</span>XI<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">THE FIRST FOLIO</span></h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">The</span> First Folio” is +the name commonly given to the first collected edition of +Shakespeare’s plays. The volume includes a Preface +signed by two of the actors, Heminge and Condell, panegyrical +verses by Ben Jonson and others, and a bad engraved +portrait. The book has been microscopically examined by +Baconians, hunting for cyphered messages from their idol in +italics, capital letters, misprints, and everywhere. Their +various discoveries do not win the assent of writers like the +late Lord Penzance and Mr. Greenwood.</p> +<p>The mystery as to the sources, editing, and selection of plays +in the Folio (1623) appears to be impenetrable. The +title-page says that <i>all</i> the contents are published +“according to the true original copies.” If +<i>only</i> MS. copies are meant, this is untrue; in some cases +the best quartos were the chief source, supplemented by +MSS. The Baconians, following Malone, think that Ben Jonson +wrote the Preface (and certainly it looks like his work), <a +name="citation207a"></a><a href="#footnote207a" +class="citation">[207a]</a> speaking in the name of the two +actors who sign it. They say that Shakespeare’s <a +name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 208</span>friends +“have collected and published” the plays, have so +published them “that whereas you were abus’d with +divers stolne and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by +the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors that exposed +them: <i>even those</i>” (namely, the pieces previously +ill-produced by pirates) “are now offered to your view +cur’d, and perfect of their limbes; and <i>all the +rest</i>” (that is, all the plays which had not been +piratically debased), “absolute in their numbers, as he +conceived them.” So obscure is the Preface that not +<i>all</i> previously published separate plays are explicitly +said to be stolen and deformed, but “<i>divers</i> stolen +copies” are denounced. Mr. Pollard makes the same +point in <i>Shakespeare Folios and Quartos</i>, p. 2 (1909).</p> +<p>Now, as a matter of fact, while some of the quarto editions of +separate plays are very bad texts, others are so good that the +Folio sometimes practically reprints them, with some tinkerings, +from manuscripts. Some quartos, like that of <i>Hamlet</i> +of 1604, are excellent, and how they came to be printed from good +texts, and whether or not the texts were given to the press by +Shakespeare’s Company, or were sold, or stolen, is the +question. Mr. Pollard argues, on grounds almost certain, +that “we have strong <i>prima facie</i> evidence that the +sale to publishers of plays afterwards duly entered on the +Stationers’ Registers was regulated by their lawful +owners.” <a name="citation208a"></a><a href="#footnote208a" +class="citation">[208a]</a></p> +<p><a name="page209"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 209</span>The +Preface does not explicitly deny that some of the separately +printed texts were good, but says that “divers” of +them were stolen and deformed. My view of the meaning of +the Preface is not generally held. Dr. H. H. Furness, in +his preface to <i>Much Ado about Nothing</i> (p. vi), says, +“We all know that these two friends of Shakespeare assert +in their Preface to the Folio that they had used the +Author’s manuscripts, and in the same breath denounce the +Quartos as stolen and surreptitious.” I cannot see, I +repeat, that the Preface denounces <i>all</i> the Quartos. +It could be truly said that <i>divers</i> stolen and maimed +copies had been foisted on “abused” purchasers, and +really no more <i>is</i> said. Dr. Furness writes, +“When we now find them using as ‘copy’ one of +these very Quartos” (<i>Much Ado about Nothing</i>, 1600), +“we need not impute to them a wilful falsehood if we +suppose that in using what they knew had been printed from the +original text, howsoever obtained, they held it to be the same as +the manuscript itself . . . ” That <i>was</i> their +meaning, I think, the Quarto of <i>Much Ado</i> had <i>not</i> +been “maimed” and “deformed,” as divers +other quartos, stolen and surreptitious, had been.</p> +<p>Shakspere, unlike most of the other playwrights, was a member +of his Company. I presume that his play was thus the common +good of his Company and himself. If they sold a copy to the +press, the price would go into their <a name="page210"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 210</span>common stock; unless they, in good +will, allowed the author to pocket the money.</p> +<p>It will be observed that I understand the words of the Preface +otherwise 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 +<i>all</i> the separate editions of Shakespeare’s plays +were ‘stolen,’ ‘surreptitious’ and +imperfect, <i>and that all those published in the Folio were +printed from the author’s own manuscripts</i>” (my +italics). The Editors agree with Dr. Furness, not with Mr. +Pollard, whose learned opinion coincides with my own.</p> +<p>Perhaps it should be said that I reached my own construction +of the sense of this passage in the Preface by the light of +nature, before Mr. Pollard’s valuable book, based on the +widest and most minute research, came into my hands. By the +results of that research he backs his opinion (and mine), that +some of the quartos are surreptitious and bad, while others are +good “and were honestly obtained.” <a +name="citation210a"></a><a href="#footnote210a" +class="citation">[210a]</a> The Preface never denies this; +never says that all the quartos contain maimed and disfigured +texts. The Preface draws a distinction to this effect, +“even those” (even the stolen and deformed copies) +“are now cured and perfect in their +limbs,”—that is, have been carefully edited, while +“<i>all the rest</i>” are “absolute in their +numbers as he conceived them.” This <a +name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 211</span>does not +allege that all the rest are printed from Shakespeare’s own +holograph copies.</p> +<p>Among the plays spoken of as “all the rest,” +namely, those not hitherto published and not deformed by the +fraudulent, are, <i>Tempest</i>, <i>Two Gentlemen</i>, <i>Measure +for Measure</i>, <i>Comedy of Errors</i>, <i>As You Like It</i>, +<i>All’s Well</i>, <i>Twelfth Night</i>, <i>Winter’s +Tale</i>, <i>Henry VI</i>, iii., <i>Henry VIII</i>, +<i>Coriolanus</i>, <i>Timon</i>, <i>Julius Cæsar</i>, +<i>Macbeth</i>, <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>, and +<i>Cymbeline</i>. Also <i>Henry VI</i>, i., ii., <i>King +John</i>, and <i>Taming of the Shrew</i>, appeared now in other +form than in the hitherto published Quartos bearing these or +closely similar names. We have, moreover, no previous +information as to <i>The Shrew</i>, <i>Timon</i>, <i>Julius +Cæsar</i>, <i>All’s Well</i>, and <i>Henry +VIII</i>. The Preface adds the remarkable statement that, +whatever Shakespeare thought, “he uttered with that +easinesse, that wee have scarce received from him a blot in his +papers.”</p> +<p>It is plain that the many dramas previously unpublished could +only be recovered from manuscripts of one sort or another, +because they existed in no other form. The Preface takes it +for granted that the selected manuscripts contain the plays +“absolute in their numbers as he conceived +them.” But the Preface does not commit itself, I +repeat, to the statement that all of these many plays are printed +from Shakespeare’s own handwriting. After “as +he conceived them,” it goes on, “Who, as he was a +most happy imitator of nature, was a <a name="page212"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 212</span>most gentle expresser of it. +His mind and hand went together: and what he thought he uttered +with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot +in his papers.”</p> +<p>This may be meant to <i>suggest</i>, but does not +<i>affirm</i>, that the actors <i>have</i> “all the +rest” of the plays in Shakespeare’s own +handwriting. They may have, or may have had, some of his +manuscripts, and believed that other manuscripts accessible to +them, and used by them, contain his very words. Whether +from cunning or design, or from the Elizabethan inability to tell +a plain tale plainly, the authors or author of the Preface have +everywhere left themselves loopholes and ways of evasion and +escape. It is not possible to pin them down to any plain +statement of facts concerning the sources for the hitherto +unpublished plays, “the rest” of the plays.</p> +<p>These, at least, were from manuscript sources which the actors +thought accurate, and some may have been “fair +copies” in Shakespeare’s own hand. (Scott, as regards +his novels, sent his <i>prima cura</i>, his first writing down, +to the press, and his pages are nearly free from blot or +erasion. In one case at least, Shelley’s first draft +of a poem is described as like a marsh of reeds in water, with +wild ducks, but he made very elegant fair copies for the +press.) Let it be supposed that Ben Jonson wrote all this +Preface, in accordance with the wishes and instructions of the +two actors <a name="page213"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +213</span>who sign it. He took their word for the almost +blotless MSS. which they received from Shakespeare. He +remarks, in his posthumously published <i>Discoveries</i> (notes, +memories, brief essays), “I remember the players have +<i>often</i> mentioned 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.</p> +<p>As to the sources of such plays as had been “maimed and +deformed by injurious impostors,” and are now +“offered cur’d and perfect of their limbs,” +“it can be proved to demonstration,” say the +Cambridge Editors, “that several plays in the Folio were +printed from earlier quarto editions” (but the players +secured a retreat on this point), “and that in other cases +the quarto is more correctly printed, or from a better manuscript +than the Folio text, and therefore of higher +authority.” <i>Hamlet</i>, in the Folio of 1623, when +it differs from the quarto of 1604, “differs for the worse +in forty-seven places, while it differs for the better in twenty +places.”</p> +<p>Can the wit of man suggest any other explanation than that the +editing of the Folio was carelessly done; out of the best quartos +and MSS. in the theatre for acting purposes, and,—if the +players did not lie in what they “often said,” and if +they kept the originals,—out of some MSS. received from +Shakspere? Whether the two players themselves threw into +the press, after some hasty <a name="page214"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 214</span>botchings, whatever materials they +had, or whether they employed an Editor, a very wretched Editor, +or Editors, or whether the great Author, Bacon, himself was his +own Editor, the preparation of a text was infamously done. +The two actors, probably, I think, never read through the +proof-sheets, and took the word of the man whom they employed to +edit their materials, for gospel. The editing of the Folio +is so exquisitely careless that twelve printer’s errors in +a quarto of 1622, of <i>Richard III</i>, appear in the Folio of +1623. Again, the <i>Merry Wives</i> of the Folio, is nearly +twice as long as the quarto of 1619, yet keeps old errors.</p> +<p>How can we explain the reckless retention of errors, and also +the large additions and improvements? Did the true author +(Bacon or Bungay) now edit his work, add much matter, and go +wrong forty-seven times where the quarto was right, and go right +twenty times when the quarto was wrong? Did he, for the +Folio of 1623, nearly double <i>The Merry Wives</i> in extent, +and also leave all the errors of the fourth quarto +uncorrected?</p> +<p>In that case how negligent was Bacon of his immortal +works! Now Bacon was a scholar, and this absurd conduct +cannot be imputed, I hope, to him.</p> +<p>Mr. Pollard is much more lenient than his fellow-scholars +towards the Editor or Editors of the Folio. He concludes +that “manuscript copies of the plays were easily +procurable.” Sixteen <a name="page215"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 215</span>out of the thirty-six plays existed +in quartos. Eight of the sixteen were not used for the +Folio; five were used, “with additions, corrections, or +alterations” (which must have been made from +manuscripts). Three quartos only were reprinted as they +stood. The Editors greatly preferred to use manuscript +copies; and showed this, Mr. Pollard thinks, by placing plays, +never before printed, in the most salient parts of the three sets +of dramas in their book. <a name="citation215a"></a><a +href="#footnote215a" class="citation">[215a]</a> They did +make an attempt to divide their plays into Acts and Scenes, +whereas the quartos, as a general rule, had been undivided. +But the Editors, I must say, had not the energy to carry out +their good intentions fully—or Bacon or Bungay, if the +author, wearied in well-doing. The work is least ill done +in the Comedies, and grows worse and worse as the Editor, or +Bacon, or Bungay becomes intolerably slack.</p> +<p>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, does not speak of Bungay, which I use as +short for his Great Unknown.) Thus, <i>Richard III</i> from +1597 to 1622 appeared in six quartos. It is immensely +improved in the Folio, and so are several other plays. Who +made the improvements, which the <a name="page216"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 216</span>Editors could only obtain in +manuscripts? If we say that Shakespeare made them in MS., +Mr. Greenwood asks, “What had he to work upon, since, after +selling his plays to his company, he did not preserve his +manuscript?” <a name="citation216a"></a><a +href="#footnote216a" class="citation">[216a]</a> Now I do +not know that he did sell his plays to his company. We are +sure that Will got money for them, but we do not know what +arrangement he made with his company. He may have had an +author’s rights in addition to a sum down, as later was +customary, and he had his regular share in the profits. Nor +am I possessed of information that “he did not preserve his +manuscript.” How can we know that? He may have +kept his first draft, he may have made a fair copy for himself, +as well as for the players, or may have had one made. He +may have worked on a copy possessed by the players; and the +publisher of the quartos of 1605, 1612, 1622, may not have been +allowed to use, or may not have asked for the latest manuscript +revised copy. The <i>Richard III</i> of the Folio contains, +with much new matter, the printer’s errors of the quarto of +1622. I would account for this by supposing that the casual +Editor had just sense enough to add the new parts in a revised +manuscript to the quarto, and was far too lazy to correct the +printer’s errors in the quarto. But Mr. Greenwood +asks whether “the natural conclusion is not that +‘some person unknown’ took the Quarto of 1622, +revised it, <a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +217</span>added the new passages, and thus put it into the form +in which it appeared in 1623.” This natural +conclusion means that the author, Bungay, was alive in 1622, and +put his additions and improvements of recent date into the quarto +of 1622, but never took the trouble to correct the errors in the +quarto. And so on in other plays similarly treated. +“Is it not a more natural conclusion that +‘Shakespeare’” (Bungay) “himself revised +its publication, and that some part of this revision, at any +rate, was done after 1616 and before 1623.” <a +name="citation217a"></a><a href="#footnote217a" +class="citation">[217a]</a></p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood, after criticising other systems, writes, <a +name="citation217b"></a><a href="#footnote217b" +class="citation">[217b]</a> “There is, of course, another +hypothesis. It is that Shakespeare” (meaning the real +author) “did not die in 1616,” and here follows the +usual notion that “Shakespeare” was the “<i>nom +de plume</i>” of that transcendent genius, “moving in +Court circles among the highest of his day (as assuredly +Shakespeare must have moved)—who wished to conceal his +identity.”</p> +<p>I have not the shadow of assurance that the Author +“moved in Court circles,” though Will would see a +good deal when he played at Court, and in the houses of nobles, +before “Eliza and our James.” I never moved in +Court circles: Mr. Greenwood must know them better than I do, and +I have explained (see <i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i>, +and <i>Shakespeare</i>, <i>Genius</i>, <i>and Society</i>) how +Will picked up his notions of courtly ways.</p> +<p><a name="page218"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +218</span>“Another hypothesis,” the Baconian +hypothesis,—“<i>nom de plume</i>” and +all,—Mr. Greenwood thinks “an extremely reasonable +one”: I cannot easily conceive of one more +unreasonable.</p> +<p>“Supposing that there was such an author as I have +suggested, he may well have conceived the idea of publishing a +collected edition of the plays which had been written under the +name of Shakespeare, and being himself busy with other matters, +he may have entrusted the business to some ‘literary +man,’ to some ‘good pen,’ who was at the time +doing work for him; and why not to the man who wrote the +commendatory verses, the ‘Lines to the Reader’” +(opposite to the engraving), “and, as seems certain, the +Preface, ‘to the great variety of Readers’?” <a +name="citation218a"></a><a href="#footnote218a" +class="citation">[218a]</a></p> +<p>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 collected edition of the plays which had been +written under the name of Shakespeare” occurred to the +illustrious but unknown owner of that “<i>nom de +plume</i>.” In plain words of my own,—the +Author may have entrusted “the business,” and what +was that business if not the editing of the Folio?—to Ben +Jonson—“who was at the time doing work for +him”—for the Author.</p> +<p>Here is a clue! We only need to know for <a +name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 219</span>what man of +“transcendent genius, universal culture, world-wide +philosophy . . . moving in Court circles,” and so on, Ben +“was working” about 1621–3, the Folio appearing +in 1623.</p> +<p>The heart beats with anticipation of a discovery! +“On January 22, 1621, Bacon celebrated his sixtieth +birthday with great state at York House. Jonson was +present,” and wrote an ode, with something about the Genius +of the House (<i>Lar</i> or Brownie),</p> +<blockquote><p>“Thou stand’st as if some mystery thou +didst.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mr. Greenwood does not know what this can mean; nor do I. <a +name="citation219a"></a><a href="#footnote219a" +class="citation">[219a]</a></p> +<p>“Jonson, it appears” (on what authority?), +“was Bacon’s guest at Gorhambury, and was one of +those good ‘pens,’” of whom Bacon speaks as +assisting him in the translation of some of his books into +Latin.</p> +<p>Bacon, writing to Toby Mathew, June 26, 1623, mentions the +help of “some good pens,” Ben Jonson he does not +mention. But Judge Webb does. “It is an +undoubted fact,” says Judge Webb, “that the Latin of +the <i>De Augmentis</i>, which was published in 1623, was the +work of Jonson.” <a name="citation219b"></a><a +href="#footnote219b" class="citation">[219b]</a> To whom +Mr. Collins replies, “There is not a particle of evidence +that Jonson gave to Bacon the smallest assistance in translating +any of his works into Latin.” <a name="citation219c"></a><a +href="#footnote219c" class="citation">[219c]</a></p> +<p><a name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +220</span><i>Très bien</i>, on Judge Webb’s +assurance the person for whom Ben was working, in 1623, was +Bacon. Meanwhile, Mr. Greenwood’s +“supposing” is “that there was such an +author” (of transcendent genius, and so on), who “may +have entrusted the editing of his collected plays” to some +“good pen,” who was at the time “doing work for +him,” and “why not to”—Ben Jonson. <a +name="citation220a"></a><a href="#footnote220a" +class="citation">[220a]</a> Now the man for whom Ben, in +1623, was “doing work”—was <span +class="smcap">Bacon</span>,—so Judge Webb says. <a +name="citation220b"></a><a href="#footnote220b" +class="citation">[220b]</a></p> +<p>Therefore, by this hypothesis of Mr. Greenwood, <a +name="citation220c"></a><a href="#footnote220c" +class="citation">[220c]</a> the Great Unknown was +Bacon,—just the hypothesis of the common Baconian.</p> +<p>Is my reasoning erroneous? Is the +“supposing” suggested by Mr. Greenwood <a +name="citation220d"></a><a href="#footnote220d" +class="citation">[220d]</a> any other than that of Miss Delia +Bacon, and Judge Webb? True, Mr. Greenwood’s Baconian +“supposing” is only a working hypothesis: not a +confirmed belief. But it is useful to his argument (see +“Ben Jonson and Shakespeare”) when he wants to +explain away Ben’s evidence, in his verses in the Folio, to +the Stratford actor as the Author.</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood writes, in the first page of his Preface: +“It is no part of my plan or intention to defend that +theory,” “the Baconian theory.” +Apparently it pops out contrary to the intention of Mr. +Greenwood. But pop out it does: at least I can find no flaw +in the reasoning of my detection of Bacon: I see no way out of it +except this: <a name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +221</span>after recapitulating what is said about Ben as one of +Bacon’s “good pens” with other details, Mr. +Greenwood says, “But no doubt that way madness lies!” +<a name="citation221a"></a><a href="#footnote221a" +class="citation">[221a]</a> Ah no! not madness, no, but +Baconism “lies that way.” However, “let +it be granted” (as Euclid says in his sportsmanlike way) +that Mr. Greenwood by no means thinks that his “concealed +poet” is Bacon—only some one similar and similarly +situated and still active in 1623, and occupied with other +business than supervising a collected edition of plays written +under his “<i>nom de plume</i>” of Shakespeare. +Bacon, too, was busy, with supervising, or toiling at the Latin +translation of his scientific works, and Ben (according to Judge +Webb) was busy in turning the <i>Advancement of Learning</i> into +Latin prose. Mr. Greenwood quotes, without reference, +Archbishop Tenison as saying that Ben helped Bacon in doing his +works into Latin. <a name="citation221b"></a><a +href="#footnote221b" class="citation">[221b]</a> Tenison is +a very late witness. The prophetic soul of Bacon did not +quite trust English to last as long as Latin, or he thought +Latin, the <i>lingua franca</i> of Europe in his day, more easily +accessible to foreign students, as, of course, it was. Thus +Bacon was very busy; so was Ben. The sad consequence of +Ben’s business, perhaps, is that the editing of the Folio +is notoriously bad; whether Ben were the Editor or not, it is +infamously bad.</p> +<p>Conceivably Mr. Greenwood is of the same <a +name="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +222</span>opinion. He says, “It stands admitted that +a very large part of that volume” (the Folio) +“consists of work that is not +‘Shakespeare’s’ at all.”</p> +<p>How strange, if Ben edited it for the Great Unknown—who +knew, if any human being knew, what work was +“Shakespeare’s”! On Mr. Greenwood’s +hypothesis, <a name="citation222a"></a><a href="#footnote222a" +class="citation">[222a]</a> or “supposing,” the +Unknown Author “may well have conceived the idea of +publishing a collected edition of the plays which had been +written” (not “published,” <i>written</i>) +“under the name of Shakespeare, and, being himself busy +with other matters, he may have entrusted the business to” +some “good pen,” “and why not +to”—Ben. Nevertheless “a very large part +of that volume consists of work that is not +‘Shakespeare’s’ at all.” <a +name="citation222b"></a><a href="#footnote222b" +class="citation">[222b]</a> How did this occur? The +book <a name="citation222c"></a><a href="#footnote222c" +class="citation">[222c]</a> is “that very doubtful +‘canon.’” How, if +“Shakespeare’s” man edited it for +“Shakespeare”? Did “Shakespeare” +not care what stuff was placed under his immortal “<i>nom +de plume</i>”?</p> +<p>It is not my fault if I think that Mr. Greenwood’s +hypotheses <a name="citation222d"></a><a href="#footnote222d" +class="citation">[222d]</a>—the genuine +“Shakespeare” either revised his own works, or put +Ben on the editorial task—are absolutely contradicted by +his statements in another part of his book. <a +name="citation222e"></a><a href="#footnote222e" +class="citation">[222e]</a> For the genuine +“Shakespeare” knew what plays he had <a +name="page223"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 223</span>written, +knew what he could honestly put forth as his own, as +“Shakespeare’s.” Or, if he placed the +task of editing in Ben’s hands, he must have told Ben what +plays were of his own making. In either case the Folio +would contain these, and no others. But—“the +<i>plat contraire</i>,”—the very reverse,—is +stated by Mr. Greenwood. “It stands admitted that a +very large portion of that volume” (the Folio) +“consists of work that is not +‘Shakespeare’s’” (is not Bacon’s, +or the other man’s) “at all.” <a +name="citation223a"></a><a href="#footnote223a" +class="citation">[223a]</a> Then away fly the hypotheses <a +name="citation223b"></a><a href="#footnote223b" +class="citation">[223b]</a> 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 +<i>Titus</i> (<i>Andronicus</i>) and <i>Henry VI</i>,” <a +name="citation223c"></a><a href="#footnote223c" +class="citation">[223c]</a> and proved them not to be +auto-Shakespearean—and he adds “there are many other +plays in that very doubtful ‘canon’” (the +Folio) “which, by universal admission, contain much +non-Shakespearean composition.” <a +name="citation223d"></a><a href="#footnote223d" +class="citation">[223d]</a> Perhaps! but if so the two +hypotheses, <a name="citation223e"></a><a href="#footnote223e" +class="citation">[223e]</a> that either the genuine Shakespeare +<a name="citation223f"></a><a href="#footnote223f" +class="citation">[223f]</a> revised (“is it not a more +natural solution that ‘Shakespeare’ himself revised +his works for publication, and that some part, at any rate, of +this revision <a name="citation223g"></a><a href="#footnote223g" +class="citation">[223g]</a> was done after 1616 and before +1623?”), or <a name="citation223h"></a><a +href="#footnote223h" class="citation">[223h]</a> that he gave Ben +(who was working, by the conjecture, for Bacon) the task of <a +name="page224"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 224</span>editing the +Folio,—are annihilated. For neither the +auto-Shakespeare (if honest), nor Ben (if sober), could have +stuffed the Folio full of non-Shakespearean work,—including +four “non-Shakespearean” plays,—nor could the +Folio be “that very doubtful canon.” <a +name="citation224a"></a><a href="#footnote224a" +class="citation">[224a]</a> Again, if either the +auto-Shakespeare or Ben following his instructions, were Editor, +neither could have, as the Folio Editor had “evidently no +little doubt about” <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>. <a +name="citation224b"></a><a href="#footnote224b" +class="citation">[224b]</a></p> +<p>Neither Ben, nor the actual Simon Pure, the author, the +auto-Shakespeare, could fail to know the truth about <i>Trodus +and Cressida</i>. But the Editor <a +name="citation224c"></a><a href="#footnote224c" +class="citation">[224c]</a> did <i>not</i> know the truth, the +whole canon is “doubtful.” Therefore the +hypothesis, the “supposing,” that the actual author +did the revising, <a name="citation224d"></a><a +href="#footnote224d" class="citation">[224d]</a> and the other +hypothesis that he gave Ben the work, <a +name="citation224e"></a><a href="#footnote224e" +class="citation">[224e]</a> seem to me wholly impossible. +But Mr. Greenwood needs the “supposings” of pp. 290, +293; and as he rejects <i>Titus Andronicus</i> and <i>Henry +VI</i> (both in the Folio), he also needs the contradictory views +of pp. 351, 358. On which set of supposings and averments +does he stand to win?</p> +<p>Perhaps he thinks to find a way out of what appears to me to +be a dilemma in the following fashion: He will not accept +<i>Titus Andronicus</i> and <i>Henry VI</i>, though both are in +the Folio, as the work of <i>his</i> “Shakespeare,” +his Unknown, <a name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +225</span>the Bacon of the Baconians. Well, we ask, if your +Unknown, or Bacon, or Ben,—instructed by Bacon, or by the +Unknown,—edited the Folio, how could any one of the three +insert <i>Titus</i>, and <i>Henry VI</i>, and be “in no +little doubt about” <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>? +Bacon, or the Unknown, or the Editor employed by either, knew +perfectly well which plays either man could honestly claim as his +own work, done under the “<i>nom de plume</i>” of +“William Shakespeare” (with or without the +hyphen). Yet the Editor of the Folio does not +know—and Mr. Greenwood does know—<i>Henry VI</i> and +<i>Titus</i> are “wrong ones.”</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood’s way out, if I follow him, is this: <a +name="citation225a"></a><a href="#footnote225a" +class="citation">[225a]</a> “Judge Stotsenburg asks, +‘Who wrote <i>The Taming of a Shrew</i> printed in 1594, +and who wrote <i>Titus Andronicus</i>, <i>Henry VI</i>, or +<i>King Lear</i> referred to in the Diary?’” +(Henslowe’s). The Judge continues: “Neither +Collier nor any of the Shaxper commentators make (<i>sic</i>) any +claim to their authorship in behalf of William Shaxper. +Since these plays have the same names as those included in the +Folio of 1623 the presumption is that they are the same plays +until the contrary is shown. Of course it may be shown, +either that those in the Folio are entirely different except in +name, or that these plays were revised, improved, and dressed by +some one whom they” (who?) “called +Shakespeare.”</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood says, “My own conviction is <a +name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 226</span>that . . . +these plays were ‘revised, improved, and dressed by some +one whom they called Shakespeare.’” <a +name="citation226a"></a><a href="#footnote226a" +class="citation">[226a]</a> (Whom <i>who</i> called +Shakespeare?) In that case these plays,—say <i>Titus +Andronicus</i> and <i>Henry VI</i>, Part 1,—which Mr. +Greenwood denies to <i>his</i> “Shakespeare” were +just as much <i>his</i> Shakespeare’s plays as any other +plays (and there are several), which <i>his</i> Shakespeare +“revised, improved, and dressed.” Yet +<i>his</i> Shakespeare is <i>not</i> author of <i>Henry VI</i>, +<a name="citation226b"></a><a href="#footnote226b" +class="citation">[226b]</a> not the author of <i>Titus +Andronicus</i>. <a name="citation226c"></a><a +href="#footnote226c" class="citation">[226c]</a> “Mr. +Anders,” writes Mr. Greenwood, “makes what I think to +be a great error in citing <i>Henry VI</i> and <i>Titus</i> as +genuine plays of Shakespeare.” <a +name="citation226d"></a><a href="#footnote226d" +class="citation">[226d]</a></p> +<p>He hammers at this denial in nineteen references in his Index +to <i>Titus Andronicus</i>. Yet Ben, or Bacon, or the +Unknown thought that these plays <i>were</i> “genuine +plays” of “Shakespeare,” the concealed +author—Bacon or Mr. Greenwood’s man. It appears +that the immense poet who used the “<i>nom de +plume</i>” of “Shakespeare” did not know the +plays of which he could rightfully call himself the author; that +(not foreseeing Mr. Greenwood’s constantly repeated +objections) he boldly annexed four plays, or two certainly, which +Mr. Greenwood denies to him, and another about which “the +Folio Editor was in no little doubt.”</p> +<p><a name="page227"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +227</span>Finally, <a name="citation227a"></a><a +href="#footnote227a" class="citation">[227a]</a> 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 +called Shakespeare.” That some one, if he edited or +caused to be edited the Folio, thought that his revision, +improvement, and dressing up of the plays gave him a right to +claim their authorship—and Mr. Greenwood, a dozen times and +more, denies to him their authorship.</p> +<p>One is seriously puzzled to discover the critic’s +meaning. <i>The Taming of a Shrew</i>, <i>Titus</i>, +<i>Henry VI</i>, and <i>King Lear</i>, referred to in +Henslowe’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.” But to be revised, improved, and +dressed by some one whom they called Shakespeare, is to be as +truly “Shakespearean” work as is any play so handled +“by Shakespeare.” Thus the plays mentioned are +as truly “Shakespearean” as any others in which +“Shakespeare” worked on an earlier canvas, and also +<i>Titus</i> “is not <i>Shakespearean</i> at +all.” Mr. Greenwood, I repeat, constantly denies the +“Shakespearean” character to <i>Titus</i> and +<i>Henry VI</i>. “The conclusion of the whole matter +is that <i>Titus</i> and <i>The Trilogy of Henry VI</i> are not +the work of Shakespeare: that his hand is <a +name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 228</span>probably +not to be found at all in <i>Titus</i>, and only once or twice, +if at all, in <i>Henry VI</i>, Part I, but that he it probably +was who altered and remodelled the two parts of the old +<i>Contention of the Houses of York and Lancaster</i>, thereby +producing <i>Henry VI</i>, Parts II and III.” <a +name="citation228a"></a><a href="#footnote228a" +class="citation">[228a]</a></p> +<p>Yet <a name="citation228b"></a><a href="#footnote228b" +class="citation">[228b]</a> <i>Titus</i> and <i>Henry VI</i> +appear as “revised, improved, and dressed” by the +mysterious “some one whom they called +Shakespeare.” If Mr. Greenwood’s conclusion <a +name="citation228c"></a><a href="#footnote228c" +class="citation">[228c]</a> be correct, “Shakespeare” +had no right to place <i>Henry VI</i>, Part I, and <i>Titus</i> +in his Folio. If his “conviction” <a +name="citation228d"></a><a href="#footnote228d" +class="citation">[228d]</a> be correct, Shakespeare had as good a +right to them as to any of the plays which he revised, and +improved, and dressed. They <i>must</i> be +“Shakespearean” if Mr. Greenwood is right <a +name="citation228e"></a><a href="#footnote228e" +class="citation">[228e]</a> in his suggestion that +“Shakespeare” either revised his works for +publication between 1616 and 1623, or set his man, Ben Jonson, +upon that business. Yet neither one nor the other knew what +to make of <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>. “The Folio +Editor had, evidently, no little doubt about that play.” <a +name="citation228f"></a><a href="#footnote228f" +class="citation">[228f]</a></p> +<p>So neither “Shakespeare” nor Ben, instructed by +him, can have been “the Folio Editor.” +Consequently Mr. Greenwood must abandon his suggestion that +either man was the Editor, and may return to his rejection of +<i>Titus</i> and <i>Henry VI</i>, <a name="page229"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 229</span>Part I. But he clings to +it. He finds in Henslowe’s Diary “references +to, and records of the writing of, such plays” as, among +others, <i>Titus Andronicus</i>, and <i>Henry VI</i>. <a +name="citation229a"></a><a href="#footnote229a" +class="citation">[229a]</a></p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood, after rejecting a theory of some one, says, +“Far more likely does it appear that there was a great man +of the time whose genius was capable of ‘transforming dross +into gold,’ who took these plays, and, in great part, +rewrote and revised them, leaving sometimes more, and sometimes +less of the original work; and that so rewritten, revised, and +transformed they appeared as the plays of +‘Shake-speare.’” <a name="citation229b"></a><a +href="#footnote229b" class="citation">[229b]</a></p> +<p>This statement is made <a name="citation229c"></a><a +href="#footnote229c" class="citation">[229c]</a> about +“these plays,” including <i>Titus Andronicus</i> and +<i>Henry VI</i>, while <a name="citation229d"></a><a +href="#footnote229d" class="citation">[229d]</a> +“<i>Titus</i> and the <i>Trilogy of Henry VI</i> are not +the work of Shakespeare . . . his hand is probably not to be +found at all in <i>Titus</i>, and only once or twice in <i>Henry +VI</i>, Part I,” though he probably made Parts II and III +out of older plays.</p> +<p>I do not know where to have the critic. If <i>Henry +VI</i>, Part I, and <i>Titus</i> are in no sense by +“Shakespeare,” then neither “Shakespeare” +nor Ben for him edited or had anything to do with the editing of +the Folio. If either or both had to do with the editing, as +the critic suggests, then <a name="page230"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 230</span>he is wrong in denying Shakespearean +origin to <i>Titus</i> and <i>Henry VI</i>, Part I.</p> +<p>Of course one sees a way out of the dilemma for the great +auto-Shakespeare himself, who, by one hypothesis, handed over the +editing of his plays to Ben (<i>he</i>, by Mr. Greenwood’s +“supposing,” was deviling at literary jobs for +Bacon). The auto-Shakespeare merely tells Ben to edit his +plays, and never even gives him a list of them. Then Ben +brings him the Folio, and the author looks at the list of +Plays.</p> +<p>“Mr. Jonson,” he says, “I have hitherto held +thee for an honest scholar and a deserving man in the quality +thou dost profess. But thou hast brought me a maimed and +deformed printed copy of that which I did write for my own +recreation, not wishful to be known for so light a thing as a +poet. Moreover, thou hast placed among these my trifles, +four plays to which I never put a finger, and others in which I +had no more than a thumb. The Seneschal, Mr. Jonson, will +pay thee what is due to thee; thy fardels shall be sent +whithersoever thou wilt, and, Mary! Mr. Jonson, I bid thee +never more be officer of mine.”</p> +<p>This painful discourse must have been held at +Gorhambury,—if Ben edited the Folio—for Francis.</p> +<p>It is manifest, I hope, that about the Folio Mr. Greenwood +speaks with two voices, and these very discordant. It is +also manifest that, whoever wrote the plays left his materials in +deep <a name="page231"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +231</span>neglect, and that, when they were collected, some one +gathered them up in extreme disorder. It is extraordinary +that the Baconians and Mr. Greenwood do not see the fallacy of +their own reasoning in this matter of the Folio. They +constantly ridicule the old view that the actor, Will Shakspere +(if, by miracle, he were the author of the plays), could have +left them to take their fortunes. They are asked, what did +other playwrights do in that age? They often parted with +their whole copyright to the actors of this or that company, or +to Henslowe. The new owners could alter the plays at will, +and were notoriously anxious to keep them out of print, lest +other companies should act them. As Mr. Greenwood writes, +<a name="citation231a"></a><a href="#footnote231a" +class="citation">[231a]</a> “Such, we are told, was the +universal custom with dramatists of the day; they ‘kept no +copies’ of their plays, and thought no more about +them. It will, I suppose, be set down to fanaticism that I +should doubt the truth of this proposition, that I doubt if it be +consonant with the known facts of human nature.” But +whom, except Jonson, does Mr. Greenwood find editing and +publishing his plays? Beaumont, Fletcher, Heywood? +No!</p> +<p>If the Great Unknown were dead in 1623, his negligence was as +bad as Will’s. If he were alive and revised his own +work for publication, <a name="citation231b"></a><a +href="#footnote231b" class="citation">[231b]</a> he did it as the +office cat might have done it in <a name="page232"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 232</span>hours of play. If, on the +other side, he handed the editorial task over to Ben, <a +name="citation232a"></a><a href="#footnote232a" +class="citation">[232a]</a> then he did not even give Ben a list +of his genuine works. Mr. Greenwood cites the case of Ben +Jonson, a notorious and, I think, solitary exception. Ben +was and often proclaimed himself to be essentially a +scholar. He took as much pains in prefacing, editing, and +annotating his plays, as he would have taken had the texts been +those of Greek tragedians.</p> +<p>Finally, all Baconians cry out against the sottish behaviour +of the actor, Will, if being really the author of the plays, he +did not bestir himself, and bring them out in a collected +edition. Yet no English dramatist ventured on doing such a +thing, till Ben thus collected his “works” (and was +laughed at) in 1616. The example might have encouraged Will +to be up and doing, but he died early in 1616. If Will were +<i>not</i> the author, what care was Bacon, or the Unknown, +taking of his many manuscript plays, and for the proper editing +of those which had appeared separately in pamphlets? As +indolent and casual as Will, the great Author, Bacon or another, +left the plays to take their chances. Mr. Greenwood says +that “<i>if the author</i>” (Bacon or somebody very +like him) “<i>had been careless about keeping copies of his +manuscripts</i> . . . ” <a name="citation232b"></a><a +href="#footnote232b" class="citation">[232b]</a> What an +“if” in the case of the great Author! This +gross <a name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +233</span>neglect, infamous in Will, may thus have been practised +by the Great Unknown himself.</p> +<p>In 1911 Mr. Greenwood writes, “There is overwhelming +authority for the view that <i>Titus Andronicus</i> is not +<i>Shakespearean</i> at all.” <a name="citation233a"></a><a +href="#footnote233a" class="citation">[233a]</a> In that +case, neither Bacon, nor the Unknown, nor Ben, acting for either, +can have been the person who put <i>Titus</i> into the Folio.</p> +<h2><a name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +235</span>XII<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">BEN JONSON AND SHAKESPEARE</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> evidence of Ben Jonson to the +identity of Shakespeare the author with Shakspere the actor, is +“the strength of the Stratfordian faith,” says Mr. +Greenwood. “But I think it will be admitted that the +various Jonsonian utterances with regard to +‘Shakespeare’ are by no means easy to reconcile one +with the other.” <a name="citation237a"></a><a +href="#footnote237a" class="citation">[237a]</a></p> +<p>It is difficult to reply briefly to Mr. Greenwood’s +forty-seven pages about the evidence of Jonson. But, first, +whenever in written words or in reported conversation, Ben speaks +of Shakespeare by name, he speaks of his <i>works</i>: in 1619 to +Drummond of Hawthornden; in 1623 in commendatory verses to the +Folio; while, about 1630, probably, in his posthumously published +<i>Discourses</i>, he writes on Shakespeare as the friend and +“fellow” of the players, on Shakespeare as his own +friend, and as a dramatist. On each of these three +occasions, Ben’s <i>tone</i> varies. In 1619 he said +no more to Drummond of Hawthornden (apparently on two separate +occasions) than that Shakespeare “lacked art,” and +made the mistake about a wreck on the sea-coast of Bohemia.</p> +<p><a name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 238</span>In +1619, Ben spoke gruffly and briefly of Shakespeare, as to +Drummond he also spoke disparagingly of Beaumont, whom he had +panegyrised in an epigram in his own folio of 1616, and was again +to praise in the commendatory verses in the Folio. He spoke +still more harshly of Drayton, whom in 1616 he had compared to +Homer, Virgil, Theocritus, and Tyræus! He told an +unkind anecdote of Marston, with whom he had first quarrelled and +then made friends, collaborating with him in a play; and very +generously and to his great peril, sharing his +imprisonment. To Drummond, Jonson merely said that he +“beat Marston and took away his pistol.” Of Sir +John Beaumont, brother of the dramatist, Ben had written a most +hyperbolical eulogy in verse; luckily for Sir John, to Drummond +Ben did not speak of him. Such was Ben, in panegyric verse +hyperbolical; in conversation “a despiser of others, and +praiser of himself.” Compare Ben’s three +remarks about Donne, all made to Drummond. Donne deserved +hanging for breaking metre; Donne would perish for not being +understood: and Donne was in some points the first of living +poets.</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood’s effort to disable Jonson’s +evidence rests on the contradictions in his estimates of +Shakespeare’s poetry, in notices scattered through some +thirty years. Jonson, it is argued, cannot on each occasion +mean Will. He must now mean Will, now the Great Unknown, +and <a name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +239</span>now—both at once. Yet I have proved that +Ben was the least consistent of critics, all depended on the +occasion, and on his humour at the moment. This is a +commonplace of literary history. The Baconians do not know +it; Mr. Greenwood, if he knows it, ignores it, and bases his +argument on facts which may be unknown to his readers. We +have noted Ben’s words of 1619, and touched on his +panegyric of 1623. Thirdly, about 1630 probably, Ben wrote +in his manuscript book <i>Discourses</i> an affectionate but +critical page on Shakespeare 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 ascribed to him. But the +Baconian Judge Webb (in extreme old age), and the +anti-Shakespearean Mr. Greenwood and others, choose to interpret +Ben’s words on the theory that, in 1623, he “had his +tongue in his cheek”; that, like Odysseus, he +“mingled things false with true,” that <i>they</i> +know what is true from what is false, and can undo the many knots +which Ben tied in his tongue. How they succeed we shall +see.</p> +<p>In addition to his three known mentions of Shakespeare by name +(1619, 1623, 1630?), Ben certainly appears to satirise his rival +at a much earlier date; especially as Pantalabus, a playwright in +<i>The Poetaster</i> (1601), and as actor, poet, and plagiarist +in an epigram, <i>Poet-Ape</i>, published in his collected works +of 1616; but probably <a name="page240"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 240</span>written as early as 1602. It +is well known that in 1598 Shakespeare’s company acted +Ben’s <i>Every Man in His Humour</i>. It appears that +he conceived some grudge against the actors, and apparently +against Shakespeare and other playwrights, for, in 1601, his +<i>Poetaster</i> is a satire both on playwrights and on actors, +whom he calls “apes.” The apparent attacks on +Shakespeare are just such as Ben, if angry and envious, would +direct against him; while we know of no other poet-player of the +period to whom they could apply. For example, in <i>The +Poetaster</i>, Histrio, the actor, is advised to ingratiate +himself with <i>Pantalabus</i>, “gent’man +parcel-poet, his father was a man of worship, I tell +thee.” This is perhaps unmistakably a blow at +Shakespeare, who had recently acquired for his father and himself +arms, and the pleasure of writing himself +“gentleman.” This “parcel-poet +gent’man” “pens lofty, in a new stalking +style,”—he is thus an author, he “pens,” +and in a high style. He is called <i>Pantalabus</i>, from +the Greek words for “to <i>take up all</i>,” which +means that, as poet, he is a plagiarist. Jonson repeats +this charge in his verses called <i>Poet-Ape</i>—</p> +<blockquote><p>“<i>He takes up all</i>, makes each +man’s wit his own,<br /> +And told of this, he slights it.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In a scene added to <i>The Poetaster</i> in 1616, the author +(Ben) is advised not</p> +<blockquote><p>“With a sad and serious verse to wound<br /> +Pantalabus, railing in his saucy jests,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 241</span>and +obviously slighting the charges of plagiarism. Perhaps Ben +is glancing at Shakespeare, who, if accused of plagiary by an +angry rival, would merely laugh.</p> +<p>A reply to the <i>Poetaster</i>, namely <i>Satiromastix</i> +(by Dekker and Marston?), introduces Jonson himself as babbling +darkly about “Mr. Justice Shallow,” and “an +Innocent Moor” (Othello?). Here is question of +“administering strong pills” to Jonson; +<i>then</i>,</p> +<blockquote><p>“What lumps of hard and indigested stuff,<br +/> +Of bitter <i>Satirism</i>, of <i>Arrogance</i>,<br /> +Of <i>Self-love</i>, of <i>Detraction</i>, of a black<br /> +And stinking <i>Insolence</i> should we fetch up!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This “pill” is a reply to Ben’s +“purge” for the poets in his <i>Poetaster</i>. +Oh, the sad old stuff!</p> +<p>Referring to Jonson’s <i>Poetaster</i>, and to +<i>Satiromastix</i>, the counter-attack, we find a passage in the +Cambridge play, <i>The Return from Parnassus</i> (about +1602). Burbage, the tragic actor, and Kempe, the low-comedy +man of Shakespeare’s company, are introduced, discussing +the possible merits of Cambridge wits as playwrights. Kempe +rejects them as they “smell too much of that writer Ovid, +and that writer Metamorphosis . . . ” The purpose, of +course, is to laugh at the ignorance of the low-comedy man, who +thinks “Metamorphosis” a writer, and does not +suspect—how should he?—that Shakespeare “smells +of Ovid.” Kempe innocently goes on, “Why, +here’s our fellow” (comrade) “Shakespeare puts +them all <a name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +242</span>down” (all the University playwrights), +“aye, and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a +pestilent fellow, he brought up Horace” (in <i>The +Poetaster</i>) “giving the poets a pill, but our fellow +Shakespeare hath given him a purge . . . ”</p> +<p>The Cambridge author, perhaps, is thinking of the pill (not +purge) which, in <i>Satiromastix</i>, might be administered to +Jonson. The Cambridge author may have thought that +Shakespeare wrote the passage on the pill which was to +“fetch up” masses of Ben’s insolence, +self-love, arrogance, and detraction. If this be not the +sequence of ideas, it is not easy to understand how or why Kempe +is made to say that 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 most unmistakable proof lies in his +verses in “Poet-Ape.” I am aware that +Ben’s intention here to hit at Shakespeare has been denied, +for example by Mr. Collins with his usual vigour of +language. But though I would fain agree with him, the +object of attack can be no known person save Will. Jonson +was already, in <i>The Poetaster</i>, using the term +“<i>Poet-Ape</i>,” for he calls the actors at large +“apes.”</p> +<p>Jonson thought so well of his rhymes that he included them in +the Epigrams of his first Folio (1616). By that date, the +year of Shakespeare’s death, if he really loved +Shakespeare, as he says, in verse and prose, Ben might have <a +name="page243"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 243</span>suppressed +the verses. But (as Drummond 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 blunt shaft of very +obsolete wit. Like Molière, Shakespeare had outlived +the charge of plagiarism, made long ago by the jealous Ben.</p> +<p>Poet-Ape is an actor-playwright “<i>that would be +thought our chief</i>”—words which, by 1601, could +only apply to Shakespeare; there was no rival, save Ben, near his +throne. The playwright-actor, too, has now confessedly</p> +<blockquote><p> “grown<br /> +To a little wealth and credit in the scene,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>of no other actor-playwright could this be said.</p> +<p>He is the author of “works” (Jonson was laughed at +for calling his own plays “works”), but these works +are “the frippery of wit,” that is, a tissue of +plagiarisms, as in the case of <i>Pantalabus</i>. But +“told of this he slights it,” as most successful +authors, when accused, as they often are, of plagiarism by +jealous rivals, wisely do;—so did Molière. +This Poet-Ape began his career by “picking and +gleaning” and “buying reversions of old +plays.” This means that Shakespeare <i>did</i> work +over earlier plays which his company had acquired; or, if +Shakespeare did not,—then, I presume,—Bacon did!</p> +<p><i>That</i>, 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 <a name="page244"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 244</span>hope +it is now clear that Poet-Ape, who, like <i>Pantalabus</i>, +“takes up all”; who has “grown to a little +wealth and credit in the scene,” and who “thinks +himself the chief” of contemporary dramatists, can be +nobody but Shakespeare. Hence it follows that the +“works” of Poet-Ape, are the works of +Shakespeare. Ben admits, nay, asserts the existence of the +works, says that they may reach “the after-time,” but +he calls them a mass of plagiarisms,—because he is in a +jealous rage.</p> +<p>But this view does not at all suit Mr. Greenwood, for it shows +Ben regarding Shakespeare as the “Ape,” or Actor, and +also as the “Poet” and author of the +“works.” Yet Ben’s words mean nothing if +not that an actor is the author of works which Ben accuses of +plagiarism. Mr. Greenwood thinks that the epigram proves +merely that “Jonson looked upon Shakspere (if, indeed, he +refers to him) as one who put forward the writings of others as +his own, or, in plain English, an impostor.” +“The work which goes in his name is, in truth, the work of +somebody else.” <a name="citation244a"></a><a +href="#footnote244a" class="citation">[244a]</a> Mr. +Greenwood put the same interpretation on Greene’s words +about “Shakescene,” and we showed that the +interpretation was impossible. “The utmost we should +be entitled to say” (if Shake-scene be meant for Shakspere) +“is that Greene accuses Player Shakspere of putting +forward, as his own, some work <a name="page245"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 245</span>or perhaps some parts of a work, for +which he was really indebted to another.” <a +name="citation245a"></a><a href="#footnote245a" +class="citation">[245a]</a> We proved, by quoting +Greene’s words, that he said nothing which could be +tortured into this sense. <a name="citation245b"></a><a +href="#footnote245b" class="citation">[245b]</a> In the +same way Ben’s words cannot be tortured into the sense that +“the work which goes in his” (Poet-Ape’s) +“name is, in truth, the work of somebody else.” <a +name="citation245c"></a><a href="#footnote245c" +class="citation">[245c]</a> Mr. Greenwood tries to find the +Anti-Willian hypothesis in Greene’s <i>Groatsworth of +Wit</i> and in Ben’s epigram. It is in neither.</p> +<p>Jonson is not accusing Shakespeare of pretending to be the +author of plays written by somebody else, but of “making +<i>each man’s</i> wit his own,” and the <i>men</i> +are the other dramatists of the day. Thus the future +“may judge” Shakespeare’s work “to be his +as well as <i>ours</i>.”</p> +<p>It is “we,” the living and recognised dramatists, +whom Shakespeare is said to plagiarise from; so boldly that</p> +<blockquote><p>“<i>We</i>, <i>the robbed</i>, leave rage, +and pity it.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Ben does not mean that Shakespeare is publishing, as his own, +whole plays by some other author, but that his works are tissues +of scraps stolen from his contemporaries, from “us, the +robbed.” Where are to be found or heard of any works +by a player-poet of 1601, the would-be chief dramatist of the +day, except those signed <a name="page246"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 246</span>William Shak(&c.). There +are none, and thus Ben, at this date, is identifying Will +Shakspere, the actor, with the author of the Shakespearean plays, +which he expects to reach posterity; “after times may judge +them to be his,” as after times do to this hour.</p> +<p>Thus Ben expresses, in accordance with his humour on each +occasion, most discrepant opinions of Will’s works, but he +never varies from his identification of Will with the author of +the plays.</p> +<p>The “works” of which Ben wrote so splenetically in +<i>Poet-Ape</i>, were the works of a Playwright-Actor, who could +be nobody but the actor Shakespeare, as far as Ben then +knew. If later, and in altered circumstances, he wrote of +the very same works in very different terms, his +“utterances” are “not easily +reconcilable” with each other,—<i>whoever</i> the +real author of the works may be. If Bacon, or Mr. +Greenwood’s anonymous equivalent for Bacon, were the +author, and if Ben came to know it, his attitudes towards the +<i>works</i> are still as irreconcilable as ever.</p> +<p>Perhaps Baconians and Mr. Greenwood might say, “as long +as Ben believed that the works were those of an Actor-Playwright, +he thought them execrable. But when he learned that they +were the works of Bacon (or of some Great One), he declared them +to be more than excellent”—<i>but not to +Drummond</i>. I am reluctant to think that Jonson was the +falsest and meanest of snobs. <a name="page247"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 247</span>I think that when his old rival, by +his own account his dear friend, was dead, and when (1623) Ben +was writing panegyric verses about the first collected edition of +his plays (the Folio), then between generosity and his habitual +hyperbolical manner when he was composing commendatory verses, he +said,—not too much in the way of praise,—but a good +deal more than he later said (1630?), in prose, and in cold +blood. I am only taking Ben as I find him and as I +understand him. Every step in my argument rests on +well-known facts. Ben notoriously, in his many panegyric +verses, wrote in a style of inflated praise. In +conversation with Drummond he censured, in brief blunt phrases, +the men whom, in verse, he had extolled. The Baconian who +has not read all Ben’s panegyrics in verse, and the whole +of his conversations with Drummond, argues in ignorance.</p> +<p>We now come to Ben’s panegyrics in the Folio of +1623. Ben heads the lines,</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“<span +class="GutSmall">TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED</span><br /> +THE AUTHOR<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AND</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">WHAT HE HATH LEFT US.</span>”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Words cannot be more explicit. Bacon was alive (I do not +know when Mr. Greenwood’s hidden genius died), and Ben goes +on to speak of the <a name="page248"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +248</span>Author, Shakespeare, as dead, and buried. He +calls on him thus:</p> +<blockquote><p> “Soul of the Age!<br /> +The applause! delight! the wonder of our Stage!<br /> +My Shakespear rise: I will not lodge thee by<br /> +Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie<br /> +A little further, to make thee a room:<br /> +Thou art a monument, without a tomb,<br /> +And art alive still, while thy book doth live,<br /> +And we have wits to read, and praise to give.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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. In the panegyric follow the lines:</p> +<blockquote><p>“And though thou hadst small Latin and less +Greek,<br /> +From thence to honour thee I would not seek<br /> +For names, but call forth thund’ring +Æschylus,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and the other glories of the Roman and Attic stage, to see and +hear how Shakespeare bore comparison with all that the classic +dramatists did, or that “did from their ashes +come.”</p> +<p>Jonson means, “despite your lack of Greek and Latin I +would not shrink from challenging the greatest Greek and Roman +tragedians to see how you bear comparison with +themselves”?</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood and the Baconians believe that the author of the +plays abounded in Latin and Greek. In my opinion his +classical scholarship must have seemed slight indeed to Ben, so +<a name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 249</span>learned +and so vain of his learning: but this is part of a vexed +question, already examined. So far, Ben’s verses have +brought not a hint to suggest that he does not identify the +actor, his Beloved, with the author. Nothing is gained 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-turned and +true-filed lines,” adding that, “to write a living +line” a man “must sweat,” and “strike the +second heat upon the Muses’ anvil.”</p> +<p>To produce such lines requires labour, requires conscious +“art.” So Shakespeare <i>had</i> +“art,” after all, despite what Ben had said to +Drummond: “Shakespeare lacked art.” There is no +more in the matter; the “inconsistency” is that of +Ben’s humours on two perfectly different occasions, now +grumbling to Drummond; and now writing hyperbolically in +commendatory verses. But the contrast makes Mr. Greenwood +exclaim, “Can anything be more astonishing and at the same +time more unsatisfactory than this?” <a +name="citation249a"></a><a href="#footnote249a" +class="citation">[249a]</a></p> +<p>Can anything be more like Ben Jonson?</p> +<p>Did he know the secret of the authorship in 1619? If so, +why did he say nothing about the plays of the Great Unknown (whom +he called Shakespeare), save what Drummond reports, <a +name="page250"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 250</span>“want +of art,” ignorance of Bohemian geography. Or did Ben +<i>not</i> know the secret till, say, 1623, and then heap on the +very works which he had previously scouted praise for the very +quality which he had said they lacked? If so, Ben was as +absolutely inconsistent, as before. There is no way out of +this dilemma. On neither choice are Ben’s utterances +“easy to reconcile 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 to carry him up to +heights of hyperbolical praise which he never came near in cold +blood. He was warmed with the heat of poetic composition +and wound up to heights of eulogy, though even <i>now</i> he +could not forget the small Latin and less Greek!</p> +<p>We now turn to Mr. Greenwood’s views about the +commendatory verses. On mature consideration I say nothing +of his remarks on Ben’s couplets about the bad engraved +portrait. <a name="citation250a"></a><a href="#footnote250a" +class="citation">[250a]</a> They are concerned with the +supposed “<i>original</i> bust,” as represented in +Dugdale’s engraving of 1656. What the Baconians hope +to make out of “the <i>original</i> bust” I am quite +unable to understand. <a name="citation250b"></a><a +href="#footnote250b" class="citation">[250b]</a> Again, I +leave untouched some witticisms <a name="citation250c"></a><a +href="#footnote250c" class="citation">[250c]</a> on +Jonson’s lines about Spenser, Chaucer, and Beaumont in +their tombs—lines <a name="page251"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 251</span>either suggested by, or suggestive +of others by an uncertain W. Basse, “but the evidence of +authorship seems somewhat doubtful. How the date is +determined I do not know . . . ” <a +name="citation251a"></a><a href="#footnote251a" +class="citation">[251a]</a> As Mr. Greenwood knows so +little, and as the discussion merely adds dust to the dust, and +fog to the mist of his attempt to disable Ben’s evidence, I +glance and pass by.</p> +<p>“Then follow these memorable words, which I have already +discussed:</p> +<blockquote><p>“‘And though thou hadst small Latin +and less Greek . . . ’” <a name="citation251b"></a><a +href="#footnote251b" class="citation">[251b]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>In “these memorable words,” every non-Baconian +sees Ben’s opinion about his friend’s lack of +scholarship. According to his own excellent Index, Mr. +Greenwood has already adverted often to “these memorable +words.”</p> +<p>(1) P. 40. “ . . . if this testimony is to +be explained away as not seriously written, then are we justified +in applying the same methods of interpretation to Jonson’s +other utterances as published in the Folio of 1623. But I +shall have more to say as to that further on.”</p> +<p>(2) P. 88. Nothing of importance.</p> +<p>(3) P. 220. Quotation from Dr. Johnson. Ben, +“who had no imaginable temptation to falsehood,” +wrote the memorable words. But Mr. Greenwood has to imagine +a “temptation to falsehood,”—and he does.</p> +<p><a name="page252"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +252</span>(4) P. 222. “And we have recognised +that Jonson’s ‘small Latin and less Greek’ must +be explained away” (a quotation from somebody).</p> +<p>(5) P. 225. Allusion to anecdote of “Latin +(latten) spoons.”</p> +<p>(6) Pp. 382, 383. “Some of us” (some +of whom?) “have long looked upon it as axiomatic . . . that +Jonson’s ‘small Latin and less Greek,’ if meant +to be taken seriously, can only be applicable to Shakspere of +Stratford and not to Shakespeare,” that is, not to the +Unknown author. Unluckily Ben, in 1623, is addressing the +shade of the “sweet Swan of Avon,” meaning +Stratford-on-Avon.</p> +<p>(7) The next references in the laudable Index are to pp. +474, 475. “Then follow these memorable words, which I +have already discussed:</p> +<blockquote><p>“‘And though thou hadst small Latin +and less Greek,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>words which those who see how singularly inappropriate they +are to the author of the <i>Plays</i> and <i>Poems</i> of +Shakespeare have been at such infinite pains to explain away +without impeaching the credit of the author, or assuming that he +is here indulging in a little Socratic irony.”</p> +<p><i>I</i> do not want to “explain” Ben’s +words “away”: I want to know how on earth Mr. +Greenwood explains them away. My view is that Ben meant +what he said, that Will, whose shade he is addressing, was no +scholar (which he assuredly was not). I diligently search +Mr. Greenwood’s <a name="page253"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 253</span>scriptures, asking How does he +explain Ben’s “memorable words” away? On +p. 106 of <i>The Shakespeare Problem Restated</i> I seem to catch +a glimmer of his method. “Once let the +Stratfordians” (every human and non-Baconian person of +education) “admit that Jonson when he penned the words +‘small Latin and less Greek’ was really writing +‘with his tongue in his cheek.’ . . . ”</p> +<p>Once admit that vulgarism concerning a great English poet +engaged on a poem of Pindaric flight, and of prophetic +vision! No, we leave the admission to Mr. Greenwood and his +allies.</p> +<p>To consider thus is to consider too seriously. The +Baconians and Anti-Willians have ceased to deserve serious +attention (if ever they did deserve it), and virtuous +indignation, and all that kind of thing, when they ask people who +care for poetry to “admit” that Ben wrote his verses +“with his tongue in his cheek.” Elsewhere, <a +name="citation253a"></a><a href="#footnote253a" +class="citation">[253a]</a> in place of Ben’s “tongue +in his cheek,” Mr. Greenwood prefers to suggest that Ben +“is here indulging in a little Socratic irony.” +Socrates “with his tongue in his cheek”! Say +“talking through his throat,” if one may accept the +evidence of the author of <i>Raffles</i>, as to the idioms of +burglars.</p> +<p>To return to criticism, we are to admit that Jonson was really +writing “with his tongue in his cheek,” knowing that, +as a fact, “<i>Shakespeare</i>” <a +name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 254</span>(the Great +Unknown, the Bacon of the Baconians) “had remarkable +classical attainments, and they, of course, open the door to the +suggestion that the entire poem is capable of an ironical +construction and esoteric interpretation.” <a +name="citation254a"></a><a href="#footnote254a" +class="citation">[254a]</a></p> +<p>So this is Mr. Greenwood’s method of “explaining +away” the memorable words. He seems to conjecture +that Will was not <i>Shakespeare</i>, not the author of the +plays; that Jonson knew it; that his poem is, as a whole, +addressed to Bacon, or to the Great Unknown, under his +“<i>nom de plume</i>” of “William +Shakespeare”; that the address to the “Swan of +Avon” 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 the Great +Unknown (Mr. Harris), the jeer is for “his Beloved, the +Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, And what he hath left +Us.”</p> +<p>As far as I presume to understand this theory of the +“tongue in the cheek,” of the “Socratic +irony,” this is what Mr. Greenwood has to propose towards +“explaining away” the evidence of Ben Jonson, in his +famous commendatory verses. When we can see through the +dust of words we find that the “esoteric +interpretation” of the commendatory verses is merely a +reassertion of the general theory: a man with small Latin and <a +name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 255</span>less Greek +could not have written the plays and poems. Therefore when +Ben explicitly states that his Beloved, Mr. Shakespeare of +Stratford, the Swan of Avon <i>did</i> write the plays, and had +small Latin and less Greek, Ben meant that he did <i>not</i> +write them, that they were written by somebody else who had +plenty of Greek and Latin. It is a strange logical +method! Mr. Greenwood merely reasserts his paradox, and +proves it, like certain Biblical critics of more orthodoxy than +sense, by aid of his private “esoteric method of +interpretation.” Ben, we say, about 1630, in prose +and in cold blood, and in a humour of criticism without the old +rancour and envy, or the transitory poetic enthusiasm, pens a +note on Shakespeare in a volume styled “Timber, or +Discoveries, made upon men and Matter, as they have flowed out of +his daily Readings; or had their reflux to his peculiar Notion of +the Times.” Ben died in 1637; his MS. collection of +notes and brief essays, and reflections, was published in +1641. Bacon, of whom he wrote his impressions in this +manuscript, had died in 1626. Ben was no longer young: he +says, among these notes, that his memory, once unusually strong, +after he was past forty “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. <a +name="citation255a"></a><a href="#footnote255a" +class="citation">[255a]</a>) He spoke sooth: he attributes +to Orpheus, in <a name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +256</span>“Timber,” a line from Homer, and quotes +from Homer what is not in that poet’s +“works.”</p> +<p>In this manuscript occurs, then, a brief prose note, headed, +<i>De Shakespeare nostrati</i>, on our countryman +Shakespeare. It is an anecdote of the Players and their +ignorance, with a few critical and personal remarks on +Shakespeare. “I remember the players have often +mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare that (whatsoever he +penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, +‘Would he had blotted a thousand,’ which they thought +a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for +their ignorance who chose that circumstance to commend their +friend by (that) wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own +candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this +side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and +of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave +notions and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that +facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be +stopped. ‘<i>Sufflaminandus erat</i>,’ as +Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; +would the rule of it had been so too! Many times he fell +into those things could not escape laughter, as when he said in +the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him, +‘Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.’ He replied, +‘Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause’; +and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his +vices with his virtues. <a name="page257"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 257</span>There was ever more in him to be +praised than to be pardoned.” Baconians actually +maintain that Ben is here speaking of Bacon.</p> +<p>Of whom is Ben writing? Of the author of <i>Julius +Cæsar</i>,—certainly, from which, his memory failing, +he misquotes a line. If Ben be in the great +secret—that the author was Bacon, or Mr. Greenwood’s +Great Unknown, he is here no more enthusiastic about the Shadow +or the Statesman, than about Shakespeare; no less cool and +critical, whoever may be the subject of his comments. +Whether, in the commendatory verses, he referred to the +Actor-Author, or Bacon, or the Shining Shadow, or all of them at +once, he is now in a mood very much more cool and critical. +If to be so cool and critical is violently inconsistent in the +case of the Stratford actor, it is not less so if Ben has Bacon +or the Shadow in his mind. Meanwhile the person of whom he +speaks <i>is here the actor-author</i>, whom the players, his +friends, commended “wherein he faulted,” namely, in +not “blotting” where, in a thousand cases, Ben wishes +that he <i>had</i> blotted. Can the most enthusiastic +Baconian believe that when Ben wrote about the players’ +ignorant applause of Shakespeare’s, of their friend’s +lack of care in correction, Ben had Bacon in his mind?</p> +<p>As for Mr. Greenwood, he says that in Ben’s sentence +about the players and their ignorant commendation, “we have +it on Jonson’s testimony that the players looked upon +William <a name="page258"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +258</span>Shakspere the actor as the author of the plays and +praised him for never blotting out a line.” We have +it, and how is the critic to get over or round the fact? +Thus, “We know that this statement” (about the almost +blotless lines) “is ridiculous; that if the players had any +unblotted manuscripts in their hands (which is by no means +probable) they were merely fair copies . . . ”</p> +<p>Perhaps, but the Baconians appear to assume that a “fair +copy” is not, and cannot be, a copy in the handwriting of +the author.</p> +<p>As I have said before, the Players knew Will’s +handwriting, if he could write. If they received his copy +in a hand not his own, and were not idiots, they could not praise +him and his unerring speed and accuracy in penning his +thoughts. If, on the other hand, Will could not write, in +their long friendship with Will, the Players must have known the +fact, and could not possibly believe, as they certainly did, +“on Jonson’s testimony” in his authorship.</p> +<p>To finish Mr. Greenwood’s observations, “if +they” (the players) “really thought that the author +of the plays wrote them off <i>currente calamo</i>, and +never” (or “hardly ever”) “blotted a +line, never revised, never made any alterations, they knew +nothing whatever concerning the real Shakespeare.” <a +name="citation258a"></a><a href="#footnote258a" +class="citation">[258a]</a></p> +<p>Nothing whatever? What they did not know was merely that +Will gave them fair copies in his <a name="page259"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 259</span>own hand, as, before the typewriting +machine was invented, authors were wont to do. Within the +last fortnight I heard the error attributed to the players made +by an English scholar who is foremost in his own field of +learning. He and I were looking at some of Dickens’s +MSS. They were full of erasions and corrections. I +said, “How unlike Scott!” whose first draft of his +novels exactly answered to the players’ description of +Will’s “copy.” My friend said, +“Browning scarcely made an erasion or change in writing his +poems,” and referred to Mr. Browning’s MSS. for the +press, of which examples were lying near us. “But +Browning must have made clean copies for the press,” I +said: which was as new an idea to my learned friend as it was +undreamed of by the Players:—if what they received from him +were his clean copies.</p> +<p>The Players’ testimony, through Jonson, cannot be +destroyed by the “easy stratagem” of Mr. +Greenwood.</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood now nearly falls back on Bacon, though he +constantly professes that he “is not the advocate of +Bacon’s authorship.” The author 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 <a +name="citation259a"></a><a href="#footnote259a" +class="citation">[259a]</a> “as a very special +occasion.” Well, it <i>was</i> a very special +occasion; no literary occasion could be more +“special.” Without the Folio, badly as it is <a +name="page260"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 260</span>executed, +we should perhaps never have had many of Shakespeare’s +plays. The occasion was special in the highest degree.</p> +<p>But, says Mr. Greenwood, “if we could only get to the +back of Jonson’s mind, we should find that there was some +efficient cause operating to induce him to give the best possible +send-off to that celebrated venture.” <a +name="citation260a"></a><a href="#footnote260a" +class="citation">[260a]</a></p> +<p>Ben was much in the habit of giving “sendoffs” of +great eloquence to poetic “ventures” now +forgotten. What could “the efficient cause” be +in the case of the Folio? At once Mr. Greenwood has +recourse to Bacon; 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 old +house,</p> +<blockquote><p>“Thou stand’st as if some mystery thou +didst.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“What was that ‘mystery’?” asks Mr. +Greenwood. <a name="citation260b"></a><a href="#footnote260b" +class="citation">[260b]</a> What indeed? And what has +all this to do with Ben’s commendatory verses for the +Folio, two years later? Mr. Greenwood also surmises, as we +have seen, <a name="citation260c"></a><a href="#footnote260c" +class="citation">[260c]</a> that Jonson was with Bacon, helping +to translate <i>The Advancement of Learning</i> in June, +1623.</p> +<p>Let us suppose that he was: what has that to do with +Ben’s verses for the Folio? Does Mr. <a +name="page261"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 261</span>Greenwood +mean to hint that <i>Bacon</i> was the “efficient cause +operating to induce” Ben “to give the best possible +send-off” to the Folio? One does not see what +interest Bacon had in stimulating the enthusiasm of Ben, unless +we accept Bacon as author of the plays, which Mr. Greenwood does +not. If Mr. Greenwood thinks that Bacon was the author of +the plays, then the facts are suitable to his belief. But +if he does not,—“I hold no brief for the +Baconians,” he says,—how is all this passage on +Ben’s visits to Bacon concerned with the subject in +hand?</p> +<p>Between the passage on some “efficient cause” +“at the back of Ben’s mind,” <a +name="citation261a"></a><a href="#footnote261a" +class="citation">[261a]</a> and the passage on Ben’s visits +to Bacon in 1621–3, <a name="citation261b"></a><a +href="#footnote261b" class="citation">[261b]</a> six pages +intervene, and blur the supposed connection between the +“efficient cause” of Ben’s verses of 1623, and +his visits to Bacon in 1621–3. These intercalary +pages are concerned with Ben’s laudations of Bacon, by +name, in his <i>Discoveries</i>. The first is entirely +confined to praise of Bacon as an orator. Bacon is next +mentioned in a Catalogue of Writers as “<i>he who hath +filled up all numbers</i>, and performed that in our tongue which +may be preferred or compared either to <i>insolent Greece or +haughty Rome</i>,” words used of Shakespeare by Jonson in +the Folio verses.</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood remarks that Jonson’s Catalogue, to judge +by the names he cites (More, <a name="page262"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 262</span>Chaloner, Smith, Sir Nicholas Bacon, +Sidney, Hooker, Essex, Raleigh, Savile, Sandys, and so on), +suggests that “he is thinking mainly of wits and orators of +his own and the preceding generation,” not of poets +specially. This is obvious; why should Ben name Shakespeare +with More, Smith, Chaloner, Eliot, Bishop Gardiner, Egerton, +Sandys, and Savile? Yet “it is remarkable that no +mention should be made of the great dramatist.” Where +is Spenser named, or Beaumont, or Chaucer, with whom Ben ranked +Shakespeare? Ben quoted of 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” <a +name="citation262a"></a><a href="#footnote262a" +class="citation">[262a]</a> that the Baconians dwell on the +“extraordinary coincidence of expression,” as if Ben +were incapable of repeating a happy phrase from himself, and as +if we should wonder at anything the Baconians may say or do.</p> +<p>Another startling coincidence is that, in <i>Discoveries</i>, +Ben said of Shakespeare “his wit was in his own +power,” and wished that “the rule of it had been so +too.” Of Bacon, Ben wrote, “his language, where +he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly +censorious.” Thus Bacon <i>had</i> “the rule of +his own wit,” Bacon “<i>could</i> spare or pass by a +jest,” whereas Shakespeare apparently could not—so +like were the two Dromios in this particular! Strong in +these convincing arguments, <a name="page263"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 263</span>the Baconians ask (not so Mr. +Greenwood, he is no Baconian), “were there then <i>two</i> +writers of whom this description was appropriate . . . +?” Was there only one, and was it of Bacon, under the +name of “Shakespeare,” that Ben wrote <i>De +Shakespeare nostrati</i>?</p> +<p>Read it again, substituting “Bacon” for +“Shakespeare.” “I remember the +players,” and so on, and what has Bacon to do here? +“Sometimes it was necessary that <i>Bacon</i> should be +stopped.” “Many times <i>Bacon</i> fell into +those things could not escape laughter,” such as +Cæsar’s supposed line, “and such like, which +were ridiculous.” “<i>Bacon</i> redeemed his +vices with his virtues. There was ever more in <i>Bacon</i> +to be praised than to be pardoned.”</p> +<p>Thus freely, according to the Baconians, speaks Ben of Bacon, +whom he here styles “Shakespeare,”—Heaven knows +why! while crediting him with the players as his friends. +Ben could not think or speak thus of Bacon. Mr. Greenwood +occupies his space with these sagacities of the Baconians; one +marvels why he takes the trouble. We are asked why Ben +wrote so little and that so cool (“I loved him on this side +idolatry as much as any”) about Shakespeare. Read +through Ben’s <i>Discoveries</i>: what has he to say about +any one of his great contemporary dramatists, from Marlowe to +Beaumont? He says nothing about any of them; though he had +panegyrised them, as he panegyrised Beaumont, in verse. In +his <a name="page264"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +264</span>prose <i>Discoveries</i> he speaks, among English +dramatists, of Shakespeare alone.</p> +<p>We are also asked by the Baconians to believe that his remarks +on Bacon under the name of Shakespeare are really an addition to +his more copious and infinitely more reverential observations on +Bacon, named by his own name; “I have and do reverence him +for the greatness that was only proper to himself.” +Also (where Bacon is spoken of as Shakespeare) “He redeemed +his vices by his virtues. There was ever more in him to be +praised than to be pardoned . . . Sometimes it was necessary that +he should be stopped . . . Many times he fell into those things +that could not escape laughter.”</p> +<p>These two views of Bacon are, if you like, incongruous. +The person spoken of is in both cases Bacon, say the Baconians, +and Mr. Greenwood sympathetically alludes to their ideas, <a +name="citation264a"></a><a href="#footnote264a" +class="citation">[264a]</a> which I cannot qualify in courteous +terms. Baconians “would, of course, explain the +difficulty by saying that however sphinx-like were Jonson’s +utterances, he had clearly distinct in his own mind two different +personages, viz. Shakspere the player, and Shakespeare the real +author of the plays and poems, and that if in the perplexing +passage quoted from the <i>Discoveries</i> he appears to confound +one with the other, it is because the solemn seal of secrecy had +been imposed on him.” They <i>would</i> say, they +<i>do</i> say <a name="page265"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +265</span>all that. Ben is not to let out that Bacon is the +author. So he tells us of Bacon that he often made himself +ridiculous, and so forth,—but he <i>pretends</i> that he is +speaking of Shakespeare.</p> +<p>All this wedge of wisdom, remember, is inserted between the +search for “the efficient cause” of Ben’s +panegyric (1623), in the Folio, on his Beloved Mr. William +Shakespeare, and the discovery of Ben’s visits to Bacon in +1621–3.</p> +<p>Does Mr. Greenwood mean that Ben, in 1623 (or earlier), knew +the secret of Bacon’s authorship, and, stimulated by his +hospitality, applauded his works in the Folio, while, as he must +not disclose the secret, he throughout speaks of Bacon as +Shakespeare, puns on that name in the line about seeming +“to shake a lance,” and salutes the Lord of +Gorhambury as “Sweet Swan of Avon”? Mr. +Greenwood cannot mean that; for he is not a Baconian. What +<i>does</i> he mean?</p> +<p>Put together his pages 483, 489–491. On the former +we find how “it would appear” that Jonson thought the +issue of the Folio (1623) “a very special occasion,” +and that perhaps if we could only “get to the back of his +mind, we should find that there was some efficient cause +operating to induce him to give the best possible send-off to +that celebrated venture.” Then skip to pp. +489–491, and you find very special occasions: Bacon’s +birthday feast with its “mystery”; Ben as one of +Bacon’s “good pens,” in 1623. <a +name="page266"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 266</span>“The +best of these good pens, it seems, was Jonson.” <a +name="citation266a"></a><a href="#footnote266a" +class="citation">[266a]</a> On what evidence does it +“seem”? The opinion of Judge Webb.</p> +<p>Is this supposed collaboration with Bacon in 1623, “the +efficient cause operating to induce” Ben “to give the +best possible send-off” to the Folio? How could this +be the “efficient cause” if Bacon were not the author +of the plays?</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood, like the Genius at the birthday supper,</p> +<blockquote><p>“Stands as if some mystery he +did.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>On a trifling point of honour, namely, as to whether Ben were +a man likely to lie, tortuously, hypocritically, to be +elaborately false about the authorship of the Shakespearean +plays, it is hopelessly impossible to bring the Baconians and Mr. +Greenwood (who “holds no brief for the Baconians”) to +my point of view. Mr. Greenwood rides off thus—what +the Baconians do is unimportant.</p> +<p>“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 that I may never tell any +of them (or any more of them).</p> +<p>Among justifiable lies I do not reckon that of Scott if ever +he plumply denied that he wrote the <i>Waverley</i> novels. +I do not judge Sir Walter. Heaven forbid! But if, in +Mr. Greenwood’s words, he, “we are told, thought it +perfectly justifiable for a writer who wished to preserve <a +name="page267"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 267</span>his +anonymity, to deny, when questioned, the authorship of a work, +since the interrogator had no right to put such a question to +him,” <a name="citation267a"></a><a href="#footnote267a" +class="citation">[267a]</a> I disagree with Sir Walter. +Many other measures, in accordance with the conditions of each +case, were open to him. Some are formulated by his own +Bucklaw, in <i>The Bride of Lammermoor</i>, as regards questions +about what occurred on his bridal night. Bucklaw would +challenge the man, and cut the lady, who asked questions. +But Scott’s case, as cited, applies only to Bacon (or Mr. +Greenwood’s Unknown), if <i>he</i> were asked whether or +not he were the author of the plays. No idiot, at that +date, was likely to put the question! But, if anyone did +ask, Bacon must either evade, or deny, or tell the truth.</p> +<p>On the parallel of Scott, Bacon could thus deny, evade, or +tell the truth. But the parallel of Scott is not applicable +to any other person except to the author who wishes to preserve +his anonymity, and is questioned. The parallel does not +apply to Ben. <i>He</i> had not written the Shakespearean +plays. Nobody was asking <i>him</i> if he had written +them. If he knew that the author was Bacon, and knew it +under pledge of secrecy, and was asked (<i>per impossibile</i>) +“Who wrote these plays?” he had only to say, +“Look at the title-page.” But no mortal was +asking Ben the question. But we are to suppose that, in the +panegyric and in <i>Discoveries</i>, Ben chooses to assert, +first, that <a name="page268"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +268</span>Shakespeare was his Beloved, his Sweet Swan of Avon; +and that he “loved him, on this side idolatry, as much as +any.” There is no evidence 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, singularly like Bacon. +Consequently, unless we can prove that Ben really loved the +actor, he is telling a disgustingly hypocritical and wholly +needless falsehood, both before and after the death of +Bacon. To be silent about the authorship of a book, an +authorship which is the secret of your friend and patron, is one +thing and a blameless thing. All the friends, some twenty, +to whom Scott confided the secret of his authorship were +silent. But not one of them publicly averred that the +author was their very dear friend, So-and-so, who was not Scott, +and perhaps not their friend at all. That was Ben’s +line. Thus the parallel with Scott drawn by Mr. Greenwood, +twice, <a name="citation268a"></a><a href="#footnote268a" +class="citation">[268a]</a> is no parallel. It has no kind +of analogy with Ben’s alleged falsehoods, so elaborate, so +incomprehensible except by Baconians, and, if he did not love the +actor Shakspere dearly, so detestably hypocritical, and open to +instant detection.</p> +<p>It is not easy to find a parallel to the conduct with which +Ben is charged. But suppose that Scott lived unsuspected of +writing his novels, <a name="page269"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 269</span>which, let us say, he signed +“James Hogg,” and died without confessing his secret, +and without taking his elaborate precautions for its preservation +on record.</p> +<p>Next, imagine that Lockhart knew Scott’s secret, under +vow of silence, 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 enormous fib), and that Hogg, +“Sweet Swan of Ettrick,” was the author of the +<i>Waverley</i> novels.</p> +<p>To complete the parallels, Lockhart, after Scott’s +death, leaves a note in prose to the effect that, while he loved +Hogg on this side idolatry (again, a monstrous fable), he must +confess that Hogg, author of the <i>Waverley</i> novels, often +fell into things that were ridiculous; and often needed to have a +stopper put on him for all these remarks. Lockhart, while +speaking of Hogg, is thinking of Scott—and he makes the +remarks solely to conceal Scott’s authorship of the +novels—of which, on the hypothesis, nobody suspected Scott +to be the author. Lockhart must then have been what the +Baconian Mr. Theobald calls Mr. Churton Collins, “a +measureless liar,”—all for no reason.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page270"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 270</span>in the publication by some great +personage of his dramatic works under a pseudonym” (under +another man’s name really), “even though that +pseudonym led to a wrong conception as to the authorship; and +that, if, being a friend of that great personage, and working in +his service” (Ben worked, by the theory, in Bacon’s), +“he had solemnly engaged to preserve the secret inviolate, +and not to reveal it even to posterity, then <i>doubtless</i> +(‘I thank thee, Jew’ (meaning Sir Sidney Lee), +‘for teaching me that word’!) he would have remained +true to that solemn pledge.” <a name="citation270a"></a><a +href="#footnote270a" class="citation">[270a]</a></p> +<p>To remain “true,” Ben had only to hold his +peace. But he lied up and down, and right and left, and +even declared that Bacon was a friend of the players, and needed +to be shut up, and made himself a laughing-stock in his +plays,—styling Bacon “Shakespeare.” All +this, and much more of the same sort, we must steadfastly believe +before we can be Baconians, for only by believing these doctrines +can we get rid of Ben Jonson’s testimony to the authorship +of Will Shakspere, Gent.</p> +<h2><a name="page271"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +271</span>XIII<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">THE PREOCCUPATIONS OF BACON</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Let</span> us now examine a miracle and +mystery in which the Baconians find nothing strange; nothing that +is not perfectly normal. Bacon was the author of the +Shakespearean plays, they tell us. Let us look rapidly at +his biography, after which we may ask, does not his poetic +supremacy, and imaginative fertility, border on the miraculous, +when we consider his occupations and his ruling passion?</p> +<p>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. While still at Cambridge, and therefore before he was +fifteen, he was utterly dissatisfied, as he himself informed Dr. +Rawley, with the scientific doctrines of the Schools. In +the study of nature they reasoned from certain accepted ideas, +<i>a priori</i> principles, not from what he came to call +“interrogation of Nature.” There were, indeed, +and had long been experimental philosophers, but the school +doctors went not beyond Aristotle; and discovered nothing. +As Mr. Spedding puts it, the boy Bacon asked himself, “If +our study of nature be thus barren, our method of study must be +wrong; <a name="page274"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +274</span>might not a better method be found? . . . Upon +the conviction ‘This may be done,’ followed at once +the question, <i>How</i> may it be done? Upon that question +answered followed the resolution to try and do it.”</p> +<p>This was, in religious phrase, the Conversion of Bacon, +“the event which had a greater influence than any other +upon his character and future course. From that moment he +had a vocation which employed and stimulated him . . . an object +to live for as wide as humanity, as immortal as the human race; +an idea to live in vast and lofty enough to fill the soul for +ever with religious and heroic aspirations.” <a +name="citation274a"></a><a href="#footnote274a" +class="citation">[274a]</a> The vocation, the idea, the +object, were not poetical.</p> +<p>In addition to this ceaseless scientific preoccupation, Bacon +was much concerned with the cause of reformed religion (then at +stake in France, and supposed to be in danger at home), and with +the good government of his native country. He could only +aid that cause by the favour of Elizabeth and James; by his +services in Parliament, where, despite his desire for +advancement, he conscientiously opposed the 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 his +ambition, and occupying his energies and time, we cannot <a +name="page275"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 275</span>easily +believe, without direct external evidence, that he, or any +mortal, could have leisure and detachment from his main objects +(to which we may add his own advancement) sufficient to enable +him to compose the works ascribed to Shakespeare.</p> +<p>Thus, at the age of twenty-two (1583), when, if ever, he might +have penned sonnets to his mistress’s eyebrow, he reports +that he wrote “his first essay on the Instauration of +Philosophy, which he called <i>Temporis Partus Maximus</i>, +‘The Greatest Birth of Time,’” and “we +need not doubt that between Law and Philosophy he found enough to +do.” <a name="citation275a"></a><a href="#footnote275a" +class="citation">[275a]</a> 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 a man’s hours. In +1584 he entered Parliament, but we do not hear anything very +important of his occupations before 1589, when he wrote a long +pamphlet, “Touching the Controversies of the Church of +England.” <a name="citation275b"></a><a +href="#footnote275b" class="citation">[275b]</a> He had +then leisure enough; that he was not anonymously supplying the +stage with plays I can neither prove nor disprove: but there is +no proof that he wrote <i>Love’s Labour’s +Lost</i>! By 1591–2, we learn much of him from his +letter to Cecil, who never would give him a place wherein he +could meditate his philosophy. He was apparently hard at +scientific work. “I account my ordinary course of +study <a name="page276"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +276</span>and meditation to be more painful than most parts of +action are.” He adds, “The contemplative planet +carries me away wholly,” and by contemplation I conceive +him to mean what he calls “vast contemplative +ends.” These he proceeds to describe: he does +<i>not</i> mean the writing of <i>Venus and Adonis</i> (1593), +nor of <i>Lucrece</i> (1594), nor of comedies! “I +have taken all knowledge to be my province,” and he recurs +to his protest against the pseudo-science of his period. +“If I could purge knowledge of two sorts of rovers whereof +the one, with frivolous disputations, confutations, and +verbosities; the other with blind experiments, and auricular +traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I hope +I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, +and profitable inventions and discoveries . . . This, whether it +be curiosity, or vainglory, or nature, or (if one take it +favourably) philanthropy, is so fixed in my mind that it cannot +be removed.” If Cecil cannot help him to a post, if +he cannot serve the truth, he will reduce himself, like +Anaxagoras, to voluntary poverty, “ . . . and become some +sorry bookmaker, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth . . . +” <a name="citation276a"></a><a href="#footnote276a" +class="citation">[276a]</a> Really, from first to last he +was the prince of begging-letter writers, endlessly asking for +place, pensions, reversions, money, and more money.</p> +<p>Though his years were thirty-one, Bacon was as <a +name="page277"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 277</span>young at +heart as Shelley at eighteen, when he wrote thus to Cecil, +“my Lord Treasurer Burghley.” What did Cecil +care for his youngish kinsman’s philanthropy, and +“vast speculative ends” (how <i>modern</i> it all +is!), and the rest of it? But just because Bacon, at +thirty-one, <i>is</i> so extremely “green,” going to +“take all knowledge for his province” (if some one +will only subsidise him, and endow his research), I conceive that +he was in earnest about his reformation of science. Surely +no Baconian will deny it! Being so deeply in earnest, +taking his “study and meditation” so hard, I cannot +see him as the author of <i>Venus and Adonis</i>, and whatever +plays of the period,—say, <i>Love’s Labour’s +Lost</i>, <i>The Two Gentlemen of Verona</i>, <i>Henry VI</i>, +Part I,—are attributed to him, about this time, by +Baconians. Of course my view is merely personal or +“subjective.” The Baconians’ view is also +“subjective.” I regard Bacon, in 1591, and +later, as intellectually preoccupied by his vast speculative +aims:—what he says that he desires to do, in science, is +what he <i>did</i>, 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 competition in their own line with Marlowe, +Greene, Nash, and half a dozen other professed playwrights: no +room for plays done under the absurd pseudonym of an ignorant +actor.</p> +<p><a name="page278"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 278</span>You +see these things as the Baconians do, or as I do. Argument +is unavailing. I take Bacon to have been sincere in his +effusive letter to Cecil. Not so the Baconians; he +concealed, they think, a vast <i>literary</i> aim. They +must take his alternative—to be “some sorry +bookmaker, <i>or</i> a pioneer in that mine of truth,” as +meaning that he would either be the literary hack of a company of +players, <i>or</i> the founder of a regenerating +philosophy. But, at that date, playwrights could not well +be called “bookmakers,” for the owners of the plays +did their best to keep them from appearing as printed +books. If Bacon by “bookmaker” meant +“playwright,” he put a modest value on his poetical +work!</p> +<p>Meanwhile (1591–2), Bacon attached himself to the young, +beautiful, and famous Essex, on the way to be a Favourite, and +gave him much excellent advice, as he always did, and, as always, +his advice was not taken. It is not a novel suggestion, +that Essex is the young man to whom Bacon is so passionately +attached in the Sonnets traditionally 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 himself to the Beloved Youth, in a manner which (luckily) +“happeneth rarely among men.”</p> +<p>It is difficult to fit the Sonnets into Bacon’s +life. But, if you pursue the context of what Bacon says +concerning Essex, you find that he <a name="page279"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 279</span>does not speak <i>openly</i> of a +tenderly passionate attachment to that young man; not more than +<i>this</i>, “I did nothing but advise and ruminate with +myself, to the best of my understanding, propositions and +memorials of anything that might concern his Lordship’s +honour, fortune, or service.” <a name="citation279a"></a><a +href="#footnote279a" class="citation">[279a]</a> 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 poetically exaggerate his +intense amatory devotion to Essex into the symbolism of his +passionate verse. <i>Was Essex then a married +man</i>? If so, the Sonneteer’s insistence on his +marrying must be symbolical of—anything else you +please.</p> +<p>We know that Bacon, at this period, “did nothing” +but “ruminate” about Essex. The words are his +own! (1604). No plays, no <i>Venus and Adonis</i>, 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 about regenerating science), and “Mr. +Bacon’s Discourse in Praise of his Sovereign.” <a +name="citation279b"></a><a href="#footnote279b" +class="citation">[279b]</a> Both are excellent, though, for +a Court festival, not very gay.</p> +<p>He also, very early in 1593, wrote an answer <a +name="page280"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 280</span>to Father +Parson’s (?) famous indictment of Elizabeth’s +Government, in <i>Observations on a Libel</i>. <a +name="citation280a"></a><a href="#footnote280a" +class="citation">[280a]</a> What with ruminating on Essex, +and this essay, he was not solely devoted to <i>Venus and +Adonis</i> and to furbishing-up old plays, though, no doubt, he +<i>may</i> have unpacked his bosom in the Sonnets, and indulged +his luscious imaginations in <i>Venus and Adonis</i>. I +would not limit the potentialities of his genius. But, +certainly, this amazing man was busy in quite other matters than +poetry; not to mention his severe “study and +meditation” on science.</p> +<p>All these activities of Bacon, in the year of <i>Venus and +Adonis</i>, do not exhaust his exercises. Bacon, living +laborious days, plunged into the debate in the Commons on Supply +and fell into Elizabeth’s disgrace, and vainly competed +with Coke for the Attorney-Generalship, and went on to write a +pamphlet on the conspiracy of Lopez, and to try to gain the +office of Solicitor-General, to manage Essex’s affairs, to +plead at the Bar, to do Crown work as a lawyer, to urge his suit +for the Solicitorship; to trifle with the composition of +“Formularies and Elegancies” (January 1595), to write +his Essays, to try for the Mastership of the Rolls, to struggle +with the affairs of the doomed Essex (1600–1), while always +“labouring in secret” at that vast aim of the +reorganisation of natural science, which ever preoccupied him, <a +name="page281"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 281</span>he says, +and distracted his attention from his practice and from affairs +of State. <a name="citation281a"></a><a href="#footnote281a" +class="citation">[281a]</a> Of these State affairs the +projected Union with Scotland was the most onerous. He was +also writing <i>The Advancement of Learning</i> (1605). +“I do confess,” he wrote to Sir Thomas Bodley, +“since I was of any understanding, my mind hath in effect +been absent from that I have done.” <a +name="citation281b"></a><a href="#footnote281b" +class="citation">[281b]</a> His mind was with his beloved +Reformation of Learning: this came between him and his legal, his +political labours, his pamphlet-writing, and his private schemes +and suits. To this burden of Atlas the Baconians add the +vamping-up of old plays for Shakespeare’s company, and the +inditing of new plays, poems, and the Sonnets. Even without +this considerable addition to his tasks, Bacon is wonderful +enough, but with it—he needs the sturdy faith of the +Rationalist to accept him and his plot—to write plays under +the pseudonym of “William Shakespeare.”</p> +<p>Talk of miracles as things which do not happen! The +activities of Bacon from 1591 to 1605; the strain on that +man’s mind and heart,—especially his heart, when we +remember that he had to prosecute his passionately adored Essex +to the death; all this makes it seem, to me, 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. No wonder that +he turned to <a name="page282"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +282</span>tragedy, <i>Lear</i>, <i>Macbeth</i>, <i>Othello</i>, +and saw life <i>en noir</i>: man delighted him not, nor woman +either.</p> +<p>The occupations, and, even more, the scientific preoccupation +of Bacon, do not make his authorship of the plays a physical +impossibility. But they make it an intellectual +miracle. Perhaps I may be allowed to set off this marvel +against that other portent, Will Shakspere’s knowledge and +frequent use of terms of Law. <a name="citation282a"></a><a +href="#footnote282a" class="citation">[282a]</a> I do not +pretend to understand how Will came to have them at the tip of +his pen. Thus it may be argued that the Sonnets are by +Bacon and no other man, because the Law is so familiar to the +author, and his legal terms are always used with so nice an +accuracy, that only Bacon can have been capable of these +mysterious productions. (But why was Bacon so wofully +inaccurate in points of scholarship and history?)</p> +<p>By precisely the same argument Lord Penzance proves that Bacon +(not Ben, as Mr. Greenwood holds) wrote for the players the +Dedication of the Folio. <a name="citation282b"></a><a +href="#footnote282b" class="citation">[282b]</a> “If +it should be the case that Francis Bacon wrote the plays, he +would, probably, afterwards have written the Dedication of the +Folio, and the style of it” (stuffed with terms of law) +“would be accounted for.” Mr. Greenwood thinks +that Jonson wrote the Dedication; so Ben, too, was fond of using +legal terms in literature. “Legal terms abounded in +all plays <a name="page283"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +283</span>and poems of the period,” says Sir Sidney Lee, +and Mr. Greenwood pounces on the word “all.” <a +name="citation283a"></a><a href="#footnote283a" +class="citation">[283a]</a> However he says, “We must +admit that this use of legal jargon is frequently found in +lay-writers, poets, and others of the Elizabethan period—in +sonnets for example, where it seems to us +intolerable.” Examples are given from Barnabe Barnes. +<a name="citation283b"></a><a href="#footnote283b" +class="citation">[283b]</a> The lawyers all agree, 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 pretty well.</p> +<p>For on this point of Will’s use of legal phraseology I +frankly profess myself entirely at a loss. To use it in +poetry was part of the worse side of taste at that period. +The lawyers with one voice declare that Will’s use of it is +copious and correct, and that their “mystery” is +difficult, their jargon hard to master; “there is nothing +so dangerous,” wrote Lord Campbell, “as for one not +of the craft to tamper with our freemasonry.” I have +not tampered with it. Perhaps a man of genius who found it +interesting might have learned the technical terms more readily +than lawyers deem possible. But Will, so accurate in his +legal terms, is so inaccurate on many other points; for example, +in civil and natural history, and in classic lore. Mr. +Greenwood proves him to be totally at sea as a naturalist. +On the habits of bees, for <a name="page284"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 284</span>example, “his natural history +of the insect is as limited as it is inaccurate.” <a +name="citation284a"></a><a href="#footnote284a" +class="citation">[284a]</a> Virgil, though not a Lord +Avebury, was a great entomologist, compared with Will. +About the cuckoo Will was recklessly misinformed. His +Natural History was folklore, or was taken from that great +mediæval storehouse of absurdities, the popular work of +Pliny. “He went to contemporary error or antiquated +fancy for his facts, not to nature,” says a critic quoted +by Mr. Greenwood. <a name="citation284b"></a><a +href="#footnote284b" class="citation">[284b]</a> Was that +worthy of Bacon?</p> +<p>All these charges against <i>le vieux Williams</i> (as +Théophile Gautier calls our Will) I admit. But Will +was no Bacon; Will had not “taken all knowledge for his +province.” Bacon, I hope, had not neglected +Bees! Thus the problem, why is Will accurate in his legal +terminology, and reckless of accuracy in quantity, in history, in +classic matters, is not by me to be solved. I can only +surmise that from curiosity, or for some other unknown reason, he +had read law-books, or drawn information from Templars about the +meaning of their jargon, and that, for once, he was technically +accurate.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>We have now passed in review the chief Baconian and +Anti-Willian arguments against Will Shakespeare’s +authorship of the plays and <a name="page285"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 285</span>poems. Their chief argument +for Bacon is <i>aut Diabolus</i>, <i>aut Franciscus</i>, which, +freely interpreted, means, “If Bacon is not the author, who +the devil is?”</p> +<p>We reply, that man is the author (in the main) to whom the +works are attributed by every voice of his own generation which +mentions them, namely, the only William Shakespeare that, from +1593 to the early years of the second decade of the following +century, held a prominent place in the world of the drama. +His authorship is explicitly vouched for by his fellow-players, +Heminge and Condell, to whom he left bequests in his will; and by +his sometime rival, later friend, and always critic, Ben Jonson; +Heywood, player and playwright and pamphleteer, who had been one +of Henslowe’s “hands,” and lived into the Great +Rebellion, knew the stage and authors for the stage from within, +and <i>his</i> “mellifluous Shakespeare” is +“Will,” as his Beaumont was “Frank,” his +Marlowe “Kit,” his Fletcher, +“Jack.” The author of <i>Daiphantus</i> (1604), +mentioning the popularity of <i>Hamlet</i>, styles it “one +of friendly Shakespeare’s tragedies.” +Shakespeare, to him, was our Will clearly, a man of known and +friendly character. The other authors of allusions did not +need to say <i>who</i> their “Shakespeare” was, any +more than they needed to say <i>who</i> Marlowe or any other poet +was. We have examined the possibly unprecedented argument +which demands that they who mention Shakespeare <a +name="page286"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 286</span>as the poet +must, if they would enlighten us, add explicitly that he is also +the actor.</p> +<p>“But all may have been deceived” by the long +conspiracy of the astute Bacon, or the Nameless One. To +believe this possible, considering the eager and suspicious +jealousy and volubility of rival playwrights, is to be credulous +indeed. The Baconians, representing Will almost as +incapable of the use of pen and ink as “the old hermit of +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 of his company. Mr. Greenwood’s +bookless Will, with some crumbs of Latin, and some power of +“bumbasting out a blank verse,” is a rather less +impossible pretender, indeed; but why and when did the speaker of +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, he was “a handsome, +well-shaped man; very good company, and of a very ready and +pleasant, smooth wit.” To his fellow-actors he was +“so worthy 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 freely that sometimes it was +necessary he should be stopped.” If Jonson here +refers, as I suppose he does, to his conversation, it had that +extraordinary affluence <a name="page287"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 287</span>of thoughts, each mating itself with +as remarkable originality of richly figured expressions, which is +so characteristic of the style of Shakespeare’s +plays. In this prodigality he was remote indeed from the +style of the Greeks; “panting Time toils after him in +vain,” and even the reader, much more the listener, might +say, <i>sufflaminandus est</i>; “he needs to have the brake +put on.” <a name="citation287a"></a><a href="#footnote287a" +class="citation">[287a]</a></p> +<p>Such, according to unimpeachable evidence, was Will. +Only despair can venture the sad suggestion that, under the name +of Shakespeare, Ben is here speaking of Bacon, as “falling +into those things which could not escape laughter . . . which +were ridiculous.” But to this last poor shift and +fantastic guess were the Anti-Willians and Baconians reduced.</p> +<p>Such was Shakespeare, according to a rival.</p> +<p>But it is “impossible” that a man should have +known so much, especially of classical literature and courtly +ways, and foreign manners and phrases, if he had no more, at +most, than four or five years at a Latin school, and five or six +years in that forcing-house of faculty, the London of the stage, +in the flush of the triumph over the Armada.</p> +<p>“With innumerable sorts of English books and infinite +fardles of printed pamphlets this country is pestered, all shops +stuffed, and every <a name="page288"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +288</span>study furnished,” says a contemporary. <a +name="citation288a"></a><a href="#footnote288a" +class="citation">[288a]</a> If a doubter will look at the +cheap and common books of that day (a play in quarto, and the +Sonnets of Shakespeare, when new, were sold for fippence) in any +great collection; he will not marvel that to a lover of books, +poor as he might be, many were accessible. Such a man +cannot be kept from books.</p> +<p>If the reader will look into “the translations and +imitations of the classics which poured from the press . . . the +poems and love-pamphlets and plays of the University wits” +(when these chanced to be printed), “the tracts and +dialogues in the prevailing taste,” <a +name="citation288b"></a><a href="#footnote288b" +class="citation">[288b]</a> he will understand the literary soil +in which the genius of Shakespeare 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 <i>dicta</i>—a +world of knowledge of a kind then “in widest commonalty +spread,” but now so much forgotten that, to Baconians and +the public, such lore seems recondite learning.</p> +<p>The gallants who haunted the stage, and such University wits +as could get the money, or had talent (like Crichton) to +“dispute their way through Europe,” made the Italian +tour, and, notoriously, were “Italianate.” They +would not be chary of reminiscences of Florence, Venice, and <a +name="page289"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 289</span>Rome. +Actors visited Denmark and Germany. No man at home was far +to seek for knowledge of Elsinore, the mysterious Venetian +“tranect or common ferry,” the gondolas, and the +Rialto. There was no lack of soldiers fresh and voluble +from the foreign wars. Only dullards, or the unthinking, +can be surprised by the ease with which a quick-witted man, +having some knowledge of Latin, can learn to read a novel in +French, Italian, or Spanish. That Shakespeare was the very +reverse of a dullard, of the clod of Baconian fancy, is proved by +the fact that he was thought capable of his works. For +courtly manners he had the literary convention and Lyly’s +Court Comedies, with what he saw when playing at the Court and in +the houses of the great. As to untaught nobility of +manners, there came to the Court of France in 1429, from a small +pig-breeding village on the marches of Lorraine, one whose +manners were deemed of exquisite grace, propriety, and charm, by +all who saw and heard her: of her manners and swift wit and +repartee, the official record of her trial bears concordant +evidence. Other untaught gifts she possessed, and the +historic record is unimpeached as regards that child of genius, +Jeanne d’Arc.</p> +<p>“<i>Ne me dites jamais cette bête de mot</i>, +<i>impossible</i>,” said Napoleon: it is indeed a stupid +word where genius is concerned.</p> +<p>If intellectual “miracles” were impossible to +genius, even Bacon could not have been and <a +name="page290"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 290</span>done all +that he was and did, and also the author of the Shakespearean +plays and poems; even Ben could not have been the scholar that he +was. For the rest, I need not return on my tracks and +explain once more such shallow mysteries as the “Silence of +Philip Henslowe,” and the lack of literary anecdotage about +Shakespeare in a stupendously illiterate country town. Had +Will, not Ben, visited Drummond of Hawthornden, we should have +matter enough of the kind desired.</p> +<p>“We have the epics of Homer,” people say, +“what matters it whether they be by a Man, or by a +Syndicate that was in business through seven centuries? We +have the plays of Shakespeare, what matters it whether he, or +Bacon, or X. were, in the main, the author?”</p> +<p>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 give love and praise and gratitude where they are due; +to that Achæan “Father of the rest”; and to +“friendly Shakespeare.”</p> +<h2><a name="page291"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +291</span>APPENDICES</h2> +<h3><a name="page293"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +293</span>APPENDIX I<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">“TROILUS AND +CRESSIDA”</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">To</span> myself <i>Troilus and +Cressida</i> is, with <i>Henry VI</i>, Part I, the most +mysterious among the Shakespearean plays. Here we find, if +Will wrote it, or had any hand in it, the greatest poet of the +modern world in touch with the heroes of the greatest poet of the +ancient world; but the English author’s eyes are dimmed by +the mists and dust of post-Homeric perversions of the Tale of +Troy. The work of perversion began, we know, in the eighth +century before our era, when, by the author of the <i>Cypria</i>, +these favourite heroes of Homer, Odysseus and Diomede, were +represented as scoundrels, assassins, and cowards.</p> +<p>In the Prologue to the play (whosoever wrote it) we see that +the writer is no scholar. He makes the Achæan fleet +muster in “the port of <i>Athens</i>,” of all +places. Even Ovid gave the Homeric trysting-place, Aulis, +in Bœotia. (This Prologue is not in the Folio of +1623.) Six gates hath the Englishman’s Troy, and the +Scæan is not one of them.</p> +<p>The loves of Troilus and Cressida, with Pandarus as +go-between, are from the mediæval Troy books, and were +wholly unknown to Homer, whose Pandarus is only notable for +loosing a <a name="page294"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +294</span>traitor’s shaft at Menelaus, in time of truce, +and for his death at the hand of Diomede. The play begins +after the duel (Iliad, III) between Paris and Menelaus: in the +play, not in Homer, Paris “retires hurt,” as is at +first reported. Hector has a special grudge against the +Telamonian Aias. As in the Iliad there is a view of the +Achæans, taken from the walls by Priam and Helen; so, in +the play, Pandarus and Cressida review the Trojans re-entering +the city. Paris turns out not to be hurt after all.</p> +<p>In Act i. Scene 3, the Achæans hold council, and regret +the disaffection of Achilles. Here comes Ulysses’ +great speech on discipline, in armies, and in states, the +gradations of rank and duty; commonly thought to be a leaf in +Shakespeare’s crown of bays. The speeches of +Agamemnon and Nestor are dignified; indeed the poet treats +Agamemnon much more kindly than Homer is wont to do. But +the poet represents Achilles as laughing in his quarters at +Patroclus’s imitation of the cough and other infirmities of +old Nestor, to which Homer, naturally, never alludes. +Throughout, the English poet regards Achilles with the eyes of +his most infamous late Greek and ignorant mediæval +detractors. The Homeric sequence of events is so far +preserved that, on the day of the duel between Paris and +Menelaus, comes (through Æneas) the challenge by Hector to +fight any Greek in “gentle and joyous passage of +arms” (Iliad, VII). As in the Iliad, the Greeks +decide by lot who is to oppose Hector; but by the contrivance of +Odysseus <a name="page295"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +295</span>(not by chance, as in Homer) the lot falls on +Aias. In the Iliad Aias is as strong and sympathetic as +Porthos in <i>Les Trois Mousquetaires</i>. The play makes +him as great an eater of beef, and as stupid as Sir Andrew +Aguecheek. Achilles, save in a passage quite out of accord +with the rest of the piece, is nearly as dull as Aias, is +discourteous, and is cowardly! No poet and no scholar who +knew Homer’s heroes in Homer’s Greek, could thus +degrade them; and the whole of the revilings of Thersites are +loathsome in their profusion of filthy thoughts. It does +not follow that Will did not write the part of Thersites. +Some of the most beautiful and Shakespearean pieces of verse +adorn the play; one would say that no man but Will could have +written them. Troilus and Cressida, at first, appear +“to dally with the innocence of love”; and nothing +can be nobler and more dramatic than the lines in which Cressida, +compelled to go to her father, Calchas, in the Greek camp, in +exchange for Antenor, professes her loyalty in love. But +the Homeric and the alien later elements,—the story of +false love,—cannot be successfully combined. The +poet, whoever he was, appears to weary and to break down. +He ends, indeed, as the Iliad ends, with the death of Hector, but +Hector, in the play, is murdered, while resting unarmed, without +shield and helmet, after stripping a suit of sumptuous mail from +a nameless runaway. In the play he has slain Patroclus, but +has not stripped him of the armour of Achilles, which, in Homer, +he is wearing. Achilles then meets Hector, but far from +rushing <a name="page296"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +296</span>to avenge on him Patroclus, he retires like a coward, +musters his men, and makes them surround and slay the defenceless +Hector.</p> +<p>Cressida, who is sent to her father Calchas, in the Greek +camp, in a day becomes “the sluttish spoil of +opportunity,” and of Diomede, and the comedy praised by the +preface-writer of a quarto of 1609, is a squalid 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 broken lights from +the splendour of Homer. When Achilles eyes Hector all over, +during a truce, and insultingly says that he is thinking in what +part of his body he shall drive the spear, we are reminded of +Iliad, XXII, 320–326, where Achilles searches his own +armour, worn by Patroclus, stripped by Hector from him, and worn +by Hector, for a chink in the mail. Yet, after all, these +points are taken, not from the Iliad, but from Caxton’s +popular Troy Book.</p> +<p>Once more, when Hector is dead, and Achilles bids his men +to</p> +<blockquote><p> “cry amain,<br /> +Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>we think of Iliad, XXII, 390–393, where Achilles +commands the Myrmidons to go singing the pæan</p> +<blockquote><p>“Glory have we won, we have slain great +Hector!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The sumptuous armour stripped by Hector from a nameless man, +recalls his winning of the arms of Achilles from Patroclus. +But, in fact, this passage is also borrowed, with the murder <a +name="page297"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 297</span>of Hector, +from Caxton, except as regards the pæan.</p> +<p>It may be worth noting that Chapman’s first instalment +of his translation of the Iliad, containing Books I, II, and +VII–XI, appeared in 1598, and thence the author could adapt +the passages from Iliad, Book VII. In or about 1598–9 +occurred, in <i>Histriomastix</i>, by Marston and others, a +burlesque speech in which Troilus, addressing Cressida, speaks of +“thy knight,” who “<i>Shakes</i> his furious +<i>Speare</i>,” while in April 1599, Henslowe’s +account-book contains entries of money paid to Dekker and Chettle +for a play on Troilus and Cressida, for the Earl of +Nottingham’s Company. <a name="citation297a"></a><a +href="#footnote297a" class="citation">[297a]</a> Of this +play no more is known, nor can we be sure that Chapman’s +seven Books of the Iliad (I, II, VII–XI) of 1598 attracted +the attention of playwrights, from Shakespeare to Chettle and +Dekker, to Trojan affairs. The coincidences at least are +curious. If “<i>Shakes</i> his furious +<i>Speare</i>” in <i>Histriomastix</i> refers to +Shakespeare in connection with Cressida, while, in 1599, Dekker +and Chettle were doing a <i>Troilus and Cressida</i> for a +company not Shakespeare’s, then there were <i>two Troilus +and Cressida</i> in the field. A licence to print a +<i>Troilus and Cressida</i> was obtained in 1602–3, but the +quarto of our play, the Shakespearean play, is of 1609, “as +it is acted by my Lord Chamberlain’s men,” that is, +by Shakespeare’s Company. Now Dekker and Chettle +wrote, apparently, for Lord Nottingham’s Company. One +quarto of 1609 declares, in a Preface, <a +name="page298"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 298</span>that the +play has “never been staled with the stage”; another +edition of the same year, from the same publishers, has not the +Preface, but declares that the piece “was acted by the +King’s Majesty’s servants <i>at the Globe</i>.” +<a name="citation298a"></a><a href="#footnote298a" +class="citation">[298a]</a> The author of the Preface (Ben +Jonson, Mr. Greenwood thinks, <a name="citation298b"></a><a +href="#footnote298b" class="citation">[298b]</a>) speaks only of +a single author, who has written other admirable comedies. +“When he is gone, and his comedies out of sale, you will +scramble for them, and set up a new English +Inquisition.” Why? The whole affair is a +puzzle. But if the author of the Preface is right about the +single author of <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>, and if Shakespeare +is alluded to in connection with Cressida, in +<i>Histriomastix</i> (1599), then it appears to me that +Shakespeare, in 1598–9, after Chapman’s portion of +the Iliad appeared, was author of one <i>Troilus and +Cressida</i>, extant in 1602–3 (when its publication was +barred till the publisher “got authority”), while +Chettle and Dekker, in April 1599, were busy with another +<i>Troilus and Cressida</i>, as why should they not be? In +an age so lax about copyright, if their play was of their own +original making, are we to suppose that there was copyright in +the names of the leading persons of the piece, Troilus and +Cressida?</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p298b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"London in the year 1610, showing the Globe Theatre in the +Foreground" +title= +"London in the year 1610, showing the Globe Theatre in the +Foreground" + src="images/p298s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Perhaps not: but meanwhile Mr. Greenwood cites Judge +Stotsenburg’s opinion <a name="citation298c"></a><a +href="#footnote298c" class="citation">[298c]</a> that +Henslowe’s entries of April 1599 “refute the +Shakespearean claim to the authorship of <i>Troilus and +Cressida</i>,” which exhibits “the collaboration <a +name="page299"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 299</span>of two +men,” as “leading commentators” hold that it +does. But the learned Judge mentions as a conceivable +alternative that “there were two plays on the subject with +the same name,” and, really, it looks as if there +were! The Judge does not agree “with Webb and other +gifted writers that Bacon wrote this play.” So far +the Court is quite with him. He goes on however, “It +was, in my opinion, based on the foregoing facts, originally the +production of Dekker and Chettle, added to and philosophically +dressed by Francis Bacon.” But, according to Mr. +Greenwood, “it is admitted not only that the different +writing of two authors is apparent in the Folio play, but also +that ‘Shakespeare’ must have had at least some share +in a play of <i>Troilus and Cressida</i> as early as the very +year 1599, in the spring of which Dekker and Chettle are found +engaged in writing their play of that name,” on the +evidence of <i>Histriomastix</i>. <a name="citation299a"></a><a +href="#footnote299a" class="citation">[299a]</a> How that +evidence proves that “a play of <i>Troilus and Cressida</i> +had been <i>published</i> as by ‘Shakespeare’ about +1599,” I know not. Perhaps “published” +means “acted”? “And it is not +unreasonable to suppose that this play” (“published +as by Shakespeare”) “was the one to which Henslowe +alludes”—as being written in April 1599, by Dekker +and Chettle.</p> +<p>If so, the play must show the hands of three, not two, men, +Dekker, Chettle, and “Shakespeare,” the Great +Unknown, or Bacon. He collaborates with Dekker and Chettle, +in a play <a name="page300"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +300</span>for Lord Nottingham’s men (according to Sir +Sidney Lee), <a name="citation300a"></a><a href="#footnote300a" +class="citation">[300a]</a> but it is, later at least, played by +Shakespeare’s company; and perhaps Bacon gets none of the +£4 paid <a name="citation300b"></a><a href="#footnote300b" +class="citation">[300b]</a> to Dekker and Chettle. Henslowe +does not record his sale of the Dekker and Chettle play to +Shakespeare’s or to any company or purchaser. Without +an entry of the careful Henslowe recording his receipts for the +sale of the Dekker and Chettle play to any purchaser, it is not +easy to see how Shakespeare’s company procured the +manuscript, and thus enabled him to refashion it. Perhaps +no reader will fail to recognise his hand in the beautiful blank +verse of many passages. I am not familiar enough with the +works of Dekker and Chettle to assign to them the less desirable +passages. Thersites is beastly: a Yahoo of Swift’s +might poison with such phrases as his the name and nature of +love, loyalty, and military courage. But whatsoever +Shakespeare did, he did thoroughly, and if he were weary, if man +delighted him not, nor woman either, he may have written the +whole piece, in which love perishes for the whim of “a +daughter of the game,” and the knightly Hector is butchered +to sate the vanity of his cowardly Achilles. If Shakespeare +read the books translated by Chapman, he must have read them in +the same spirit as Keats, and was likely to find that the poetry +of the Achæan could not be combined with the Ionian, +Athenian, and Roman perversions, as he <a +name="page301"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 301</span>knew them +in the mediæval books of Troy, in the English of Lydgate +and Caxton. The chivalrous example of Chaucer he did not +follow. Probably Will looked on the play as one of his +failures. The Editor, if we can speak of an Editor, of the +Folio clearly thrust the play in late, so confusedly that it is +not paged, and is not mentioned in the table of the contents.</p> +<p>“The Grand Possessors” of the play referred to in +the Preface to one of the two quartos of 1609 we may suppose to +be Shakespeare’s Company. In this case the owners +would not permit the publication of the play if they could +prevent it. The title provokes Mr. Greenwood to say, +“Why these worthies should be so styled is not apparent; +indeed the supposition seems not a little ridiculous.” <a +name="citation301a"></a><a href="#footnote301a" +class="citation">[301a]</a> Of course, if the players were +the possessors, “grand” is merely a jeer, by a person +advertising a successful piracy. And in regard to +Tieck’s conjecture that James I is alluded to as “the +grand possessor, for whom the play was expressly written,” +<a name="citation301b"></a><a href="#footnote301b" +class="citation">[301b]</a> the autocratic James was very capable +of protecting himself against larcenous publishers.</p> +<h3><a name="page302"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +302</span>APPENDIX II<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">CHETTLE’S SUPPOSED ALLUSION TO WILL +SHAKSPERE</span></h3> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> discussing contemporary +allusions to William Shakspere or Shakespeare (or however you +spell the name), I have not relied on Chettle’s remarks (in +<i>Kind-Hart’s Dreame</i>, 1592) concerning Greene’s +<i>Groatsworth of Wit</i>. Chettle speaks of it, saying, +“in which a letter, written to divers play-makers, is +offensively by one or two of them taken.” It appears +that by “one or two” Chettle means <i>two</i>. +“With <i>neither</i> of them that take offence was I +acquainted” (at the time when he edited the +<i>Groatsworth</i>), “and with one of them I care not if I +never be.” We do not know who “the Gentlemen +his Quondam acquaintance,” addressed by Greene, were. +They are usually supposed to have been Marlowe, Peele, and Lodge, +or Nash. We do not know which of the two who take offence +is the man with whom Chettle did not care to be acquainted. +Of “the other,” according to Chettle, “myself +have seen his demeanour no less civil than he is excellent in the +quality he professes” (that is, “in his +profession,” as we say), “besides divers of worship +have reported his uprightness of dealing, which <a +name="page303"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 303</span>argues his +honesty; and his facetious grace in writing that approves his +art.”</p> +<p>Speaking from his own observation, Chettle avers that the +person of whom he speaks is civil in his demeanour, and +(<i>apparently</i>) that he is “excellent in the quality he +professes”—in his profession. Speaking on the +evidence of “divers of worship,” the same man is said +to possess “facetious grace in writing.” Had +his writings been then published, Chettle, a bookish man, would +have read them and formed his own opinion. Works of Lodge, +Peele, and Marlowe had been published. Writing is +<i>not</i> “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” <i>was</i> writing, +“they spend their wits in making Plays.” Thus +the man who wrote, but whose profession was not that of writing, +does not, so far, appear to have been one of those addressed by +Greene. It seems undeniable that Greene addresses gentlemen +who are “playmakers,” who “spend their wits in +making Plays,” and who are <i>not</i> actors; for +Greene’s purpose is to warn them against the rich, +ungrateful actors. If Greene’s friends, at the moment +when he wrote, were, or if any one of them then was, by +profession an actor, Greene’s warning to him against +actors, directed to an actor, is not, to me, intelligible. +But Mr. Greenwood writes, “As I have shown, George Peele +was one of the playwrights addressed by Greene, and Peele was a +successful player as well as <a name="page304"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 304</span>playwright, and might quite truly +have been alluded to both as having ‘facetious grace in +writing,’ and being ‘excellent in the quality he +professed,’ that is, as a professional actor.” <a +name="citation304a"></a><a href="#footnote304a" +class="citation">[304a]</a></p> +<p>I confess that I did not know that George Peele, M.A., of +Oxford, had ever been a player, and a successful player. +But one may ask,—in 1592 did George Peele “profess +the quality” of an actor; was he then a professional actor, +and only an occasional playwright? If so, I am not apt to +believe that Greene seriously advised him not to put faith in the +members of his own profession. From them, as a successful +member of their profession (a profession which, as Greene +complains, “exploited” dramatic authors), Peele stood +in no danger. Thus I do not see how Chettle’s +professional actor, reported to have facetious grace in writing, +can be identified with Peele. The identification seems to +me impossible. Peele and Marlowe, in 1592, were literary +gentlemen; Lodge, in 1592, was filibustering, though a literary +man; he had not yet become a physician. In 1592, none of +the three had any profession but that of literature, so far as I +am aware. The man who had a special profession, and also +wrote, was not one of these three; nor was he Tom Nash, a mere +literary gentleman, pamphleteer and playwright.</p> +<p>I do not know the name of any one of the three to whom Greene +addressed the <i>Groatsworth</i>, though the atheistic writer of +tragedies seems meant, and disgracefully meant, for +Marlowe. <a name="page305"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +305</span>I only know that Chettle is expressing his regrets for +Greene’s language to some one whom he applauded as to his +exercise of his profession; and who, according to “divers +of worship,” had also “facetious grace in +writing.” “Myself have seen him no less civil +than he is excellent in the quality he professes”; whether +or not this means that Chettle has <i>seen</i> his excellence in +his profession, I cannot tell for certain; but Chettle’s +remark is, at least, contrasted with what he gives merely from +report—“the facetious grace in writing” of the +man in question. <i>His</i> writing is not part of his +profession, so he is not, in 1592 (I conceive), Lodge, Peele, +Marlowe, or Nash.</p> +<p>Who, then, is this mysterious personage? Malone, Dyce, +Steevens, Collier, Halliwell-Phillipps, Knight, Sir Sidney Lee, +Messrs. Gosse and Garnett, and Mr. J. C. Collins say that he is +Will Shakspere. But Mr. Fleay and Mr. Castle, whose +“mind” is “legal,” have pointed out that +this weird being cannot be Shake-scene (or Shakspere, if Greene +meant Shakspere), attacked by Greene. For Chettle says that +in the <i>Groatsworth of Wit</i> “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. Consequently all the +followers of Malone, who wrote before Messrs. Fleay and Castle, +are mistaken; and what Mr. Greenwood has to say about Sir Sidney +Lee, J. C. Collins, and Dr. Garnett, and Mr. Gosse, in the way of +moral reprobation, may be read by the curious in his pages. <a +name="citation305a"></a><a href="#footnote305a" +class="citation">[305a]</a></p> +<p><a name="page306"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +306</span>Meanwhile, if we take Chettle to have been a strict +grammarian, by his words—“a letter, written to divers +play-makers, is offensively by one or two of them taken,” +Will is excluded; the letter was most assuredly not written to +<i>him</i>. But I, whose mind is not legal, am not certain +that Chettle does not mean that the letter, written to divers +play-makers, was by one or two makers of plays offensively +taken.</p> +<p>This opinion seems the less improbable, as the person to whom +Chettle is most apologetic excels in a quality or profession, +which is contrasted with, and is not identical with, “his +facetious grace in writing”—a <i>parergon</i>, or +“ bye-work,” in his case. Whoever this person +was, he certainly was not Marlowe, Peele, Lodge, or Nash. +We must look for some other person who had a profession, and also +was reported to have facetious grace in writing.</p> +<p>If Chettle is to be held tight to grammar, Greene referred to +some one unknown, some one who wrote for the stage, but had +another profession. If Chettle is not to be thus tautly +construed, I confess that to myself he seems to have had +Shakspere, even Will, in his mind. For Will in 1592 had +“a quality which he professed,” that of an actor; and +also (I conceive) was reported to have “ facetious grace in +writing.” But other gentlemen may have combined these +attributes; wherefore I lay no stress on the statements of +Chettle, as if they referred to our Will Shakspere.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote0a"></a><a href="#citation0a" +class="footnote">[0a]</a> E. J. Castle, <i>Shakespeare</i>, +<i>Bacon</i>, <i>Jonson</i>, <i>and Greene</i>, pp. +194–195.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0b"></a><a href="#citation0b" +class="footnote">[0b]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 145.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0c"></a><a href="#citation0c" +class="footnote">[0c]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 340.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0d"></a><a href="#citation0d" +class="footnote">[0d]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 340, 341.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0e"></a><a href="#citation0e" +class="footnote">[0e]</a> <i>In Re Shakespeare</i>, p. +54.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0f"></a><a href="#citation0f" +class="footnote">[0f]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 341.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0g"></a><a href="#citation0g" +class="footnote">[0g]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 470.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0h"></a><a href="#citation0h" +class="footnote">[0h]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 339.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0i"></a><a href="#citation0i" +class="footnote">[0i]</a> <i>The Vindicators of +Shakespeare</i>, pp. 115–116.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0j"></a><a href="#citation0j" +class="footnote">[0j]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 49.</p> +<p><a name="footnote0k"></a><a href="#citation0k" +class="footnote">[0k]</a> <i>The Vindicators of +Shakespeare</i>, p. 14.</p> +<p><a name="footnote4a"></a><a href="#citation4a" +class="footnote">[4a]</a> <i>Francis Bacon Wrote +Shakespeare</i>. By H. Crouch-Batchelor, 1912.</p> +<p><a name="footnote7a"></a><a href="#citation7a" +class="footnote">[7a]</a> <i>The Shakespere Problem +Restated</i>, p. 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote11a"></a><a href="#citation11a" +class="footnote">[11a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 31–37.</p> +<p><a name="footnote13a"></a><a href="#citation13a" +class="footnote">[13a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 36–37.</p> +<p><a name="footnote16a"></a><a href="#citation16a" +class="footnote">[16a]</a> <i>Tue Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 20.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17a"></a><a href="#citation17a" +class="footnote">[17a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 47–48.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17b"></a><a href="#citation17b" +class="footnote">[17b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. +54–55.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17c"></a><a href="#citation17c" +class="footnote">[17c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 54.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17d"></a><a href="#citation17d" +class="footnote">[17d]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 56.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17e"></a><a href="#citation17e" +class="footnote">[17e]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 59.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17f"></a><a href="#citation17f" +class="footnote">[17f]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 62.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17g"></a><a href="#citation17g" +class="footnote">[17g]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 193.</p> +<p><a name="footnote18a"></a><a href="#citation18a" +class="footnote">[18a]</a> See his <i>Vindicators of +Shakespeare</i>, p. 210.</p> +<p><a name="footnote19a"></a><a href="#citation19a" +class="footnote">[19a]</a> <i>Vindicators</i>, p. 187.</p> +<p><a name="footnote19b"></a><a href="#citation19b" +class="footnote">[19b]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 223.</p> +<p><a name="footnote21a"></a><a href="#citation21a" +class="footnote">[21a]</a> <i>In Re Shakespeare</i>, p. +54.</p> +<p><a name="footnote22a"></a><a href="#citation22a" +class="footnote">[22a]</a> In a brief note of two pages +(<i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, November 1911) he makes such reply as +the space permits to a paper of my own, “Shakespeare or +X?” in the September number. With my goodwill he +might have written thirty-two pages to my sixteen, but I am not +the Editor, and never heard of Mr. Greenwood’s note till +May 1912.</p> +<p>He says that I had represented him as stating that the Unknown +genius adopted the name of William Shake-speare or Shakespeare +“as a good <i>nom de guerre</i>, without any reference to +the fact that there was an actor in existence of the name of +William Shakspere, whose name was sometimes written Shakespeare, +and without the least idea that the works he published under this +pseudonym would be fathered upon the actor . . . ” (My +meaning has obviously been too obscurely stated by me.)</p> +<p>Mr. Greenwood next writes that the confusion between the +actor, and the unknown taking the name William Shakespeare, +“did happen and was intended to happen.”</p> +<p><i>C’est là le miracle</i>!</p> +<p>How could it happen if the actor were the bookless, ignorant +man whom Mr. Greenwood describes? It could not happen: Will +must have been unmasked in a day. The fact that a strange +plot existed was only too obvious. The Unknown’s +secret must have been tracked by the hounds of keenest nose in +the packs of rival and jealous authors and of actors. None +gives tongue.</p> +<p><a name="footnote27a"></a><a href="#citation27a" +class="footnote">[27a]</a> <i>Francis Bacon Wrote +Shakespeare</i>, p. 37.</p> +<p><a name="footnote30a"></a><a href="#citation30a" +class="footnote">[30a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 333.</p> +<p><a name="footnote31a"></a><a href="#citation31a" +class="footnote">[31a]</a> In the passage which I quoted, +with notes of omission, from Mr. Greenwood (p. 333), he went on +to say that the eulogies of the poet by “some cultured +critics of that day,” “afford no proof that the +author who published under the name of Shakespeare was in reality +Shakspere the Stratford player.” That position I +later contest.</p> +<p><a name="footnote31b"></a><a href="#citation31b" +class="footnote">[31b]</a> See chap. XI, <i>The First +Folio</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote33a"></a><a href="#citation33a" +class="footnote">[33a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 305, 306.</p> +<p><a name="footnote34a"></a><a href="#citation34a" +class="footnote">[34a]</a> Furness, <i>Merchant of +Venice</i>, pp. 271, 272.</p> +<p><a name="footnote34b"></a><a href="#citation34b" +class="footnote">[34b]</a> On this see Mr. Pollard’s +<i>Shakespeare Folios and Quartos</i>, pp. 1–9.</p> +<p><a name="footnote37a"></a><a href="#citation37a" +class="footnote">[37a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 202, 348, 349.</p> +<p><a name="footnote38a"></a><a href="#citation38a" +class="footnote">[38a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 349.</p> +<p><a name="footnote44a"></a><a href="#citation44a" +class="footnote">[44a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 356.</p> +<p><a name="footnote45a"></a><a href="#citation45a" +class="footnote">[45a]</a> <i>In Re Shakespeare</i>, p. 88, +note I.</p> +<p><a name="footnote48a"></a><a href="#citation48a" +class="footnote">[48a]</a> <i>Studies in Shakespeare</i>, +p. 15; <i>Life of Shakespeare</i>, by Malone, pp. 561–2, +564; Appendix, XI, xvi.</p> +<p><a name="footnote50a"></a><a href="#citation50a" +class="footnote">[50a]</a> C. I. Elton, <i>William +Shakespeare</i>, <i>His Family and Friends</i>, pp. 97, 98.</p> +<p><a name="footnote51a"></a><a href="#citation51a" +class="footnote">[51a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 44.</p> +<p><a name="footnote52a"></a><a href="#citation52a" +class="footnote">[52a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 39.</p> +<p><a name="footnote52b"></a><a href="#citation52b" +class="footnote">[52b]</a> <i>Vindicators of +Shakespeare</i>, p. 210.</p> +<p><a name="footnote53a"></a><a href="#citation53a" +class="footnote">[53a]</a> <i>Vindicators of +Shakespeare</i>, p. 187.</p> +<p><a name="footnote53b"></a><a href="#citation53b" +class="footnote">[53b]</a> <i>Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 223.</p> +<p><a name="footnote55a"></a><a href="#citation55a" +class="footnote">[55a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 69.</p> +<p><a name="footnote56a"></a><a href="#citation56a" +class="footnote">[56a]</a> See chapter X, <i>The +Traditional Shakespeare</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote56b"></a><a href="#citation56b" +class="footnote">[56b]</a> See C. I. Elton, <i>William +Shakespeare</i>, <i>His Family and Friends</i>, pp. 48, +343–8.</p> +<p><a name="footnote57a"></a><a href="#citation57a" +class="footnote">[57a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 207–9.</p> +<p><a name="footnote59a"></a><a href="#citation59a" +class="footnote">[59a]</a> Chapter X, <i>infra.</i></p> +<p><a name="footnote62a"></a><a href="#citation62a" +class="footnote">[62a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 96.</p> +<p><a name="footnote62b"></a><a href="#citation62b" +class="footnote">[62b]</a> See chapter X, <i>The +Traditional Shakespeare</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote62c"></a><a href="#citation62c" +class="footnote">[62c]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 94–96.</p> +<p><a name="footnote64a"></a><a href="#citation64a" +class="footnote">[64a]</a> <i>Shakespeare</i>, pp. +38–40.</p> +<p><a name="footnote65a"></a><a href="#citation65a" +class="footnote">[65a]</a> Raleigh, <i>Shakespeare</i>, pp. +77, 78.</p> +<p><a name="footnote69a"></a><a href="#citation69a" +class="footnote">[69a]</a> So he seems to me to do; but in +<i>Vindicators of Shakespeare</i>, p. 135, he shows great +caution: “I refer the reader to Mr. Collin’s essay, +and ask him to judge for himself.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote71a"></a><a href="#citation71a" +class="footnote">[71a]</a> <i>Studies in Shakespeare</i>, +p. 15.</p> +<p><a name="footnote72a"></a><a href="#citation72a" +class="footnote">[72a]</a> <i>Studies in Shakespeare</i>, +p. 21.</p> +<p><a name="footnote75a"></a><a href="#citation75a" +class="footnote">[75a]</a> <i>Alcibiades</i>, I, pp. 132, +133; <i>Troilus</i>, III, scene 3.</p> +<p><a name="footnote77a"></a><a href="#citation77a" +class="footnote">[77a]</a> <i>Studies in Shakespeare</i>, +p. 46.</p> +<p><a name="footnote77b"></a><a href="#citation77b" +class="footnote">[77b]</a> <i>Iliad</i>, p. 63.</p> +<p><a name="footnote91a"></a><a href="#citation91a" +class="footnote">[91a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 54, 55.</p> +<p><a name="footnote93a"></a><a href="#citation93a" +class="footnote">[93a]</a> <i>National Review</i>, vol. +xxxix., 1902.</p> +<p><a name="footnote93b"></a><a href="#citation93b" +class="footnote">[93b]</a> <i>The Pilot</i>, Aug. 30, 1902, +p. 220.</p> +<p><a name="footnote96a"></a><a href="#citation96a" +class="footnote">[96a]</a> The oldest mention of a +<i>circulating</i> library known to me is in Hull, in 1650, when +Sir James Turner found it excellent.</p> +<p><a name="footnote97a"></a><a href="#citation97a" +class="footnote">[97a]</a> In his <i>Shakespeare</i> +(<i>English Men of Letters</i>), pp. 66, 67.</p> +<p><a name="footnote97b"></a><a href="#citation97b" +class="footnote">[97b]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 77, 78.</p> +<p><a name="footnote97c"></a><a href="#citation97c" +class="footnote">[97c]</a> <i>The Shakespearean Myth</i>, +p. 162.</p> +<p><a name="footnote100a"></a><a href="#citation100a" +class="footnote">[100a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 76.</p> +<p><a name="footnote101a"></a><a href="#citation101a" +class="footnote">[101a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 81, note I.</p> +<p><a name="footnote103a"></a><a href="#citation103a" +class="footnote">[103a]</a> Penzance, <i>The +Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy</i>, pp. 150, 151. Citing +Appleton Morgan’s <i>Shakespearean Myth</i>, pp. 248, +298.</p> +<p><a name="footnote106a"></a><a href="#citation106a" +class="footnote">[106a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 175.</p> +<p><a name="footnote107a"></a><a href="#citation107a" +class="footnote">[107a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 457.</p> +<p><a name="footnote109a"></a><a href="#citation109a" +class="footnote">[109a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 58.</p> +<p><a name="footnote109b"></a><a href="#citation109b" +class="footnote">[109b]</a> <i>Apology the Actors</i>, +1612.</p> +<p><a name="footnote110a"></a><a href="#citation110a" +class="footnote">[110a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 267.</p> +<p><a name="footnote111a"></a><a href="#citation111a" +class="footnote">[111a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 267, 268.</p> +<p><a name="footnote112a"></a><a href="#citation112a" +class="footnote">[112a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 50–52.</p> +<p><a name="footnote113a"></a><a href="#citation113a" +class="footnote">[113a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 51.</p> +<p><a name="footnote113b"></a><a href="#citation113b" +class="footnote">[113b]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 51.</p> +<p><a name="footnote113c"></a><a href="#citation113c" +class="footnote">[113c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 500, citing +Mr. Reed’s <i>Francis Bacon our Shake-speare</i>, chap. ii. +pp. 62, 63.</p> +<p><a name="footnote113d"></a><a href="#citation113d" +class="footnote">[113d]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. +500–520, chap xvi.</p> +<p><a name="footnote114a"></a><a href="#citation114a" +class="footnote">[114a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 512.</p> +<p><a name="footnote114b"></a><a href="#citation114b" +class="footnote">[114b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 514.</p> +<p><a name="footnote114c"></a><a href="#citation114c" +class="footnote">[114c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 386, note +I.</p> +<p><a name="footnote114d"></a><a href="#citation114d" +class="footnote">[114d]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 93.</p> +<p><a name="footnote120a"></a><a href="#citation120a" +class="footnote">[120a]</a> <i>Cambridge History of English +Literature</i>, vol. v. p. 126. Prof. G. P. Baker.</p> +<p><a name="footnote121a"></a><a href="#citation121a" +class="footnote">[121a]</a> Furness, <i>Love’s +Labour’s Lost</i>, pp. xiii., 348–350: <i>cf.</i> pp. +348, 349, for the four distinct styles of linguistic affectation +of the period, at least as they are represented in +literature.</p> +<p><a name="footnote121b"></a><a href="#citation121b" +class="footnote">[121b]</a> <i>Shakespeare Studies in +Baconian Light</i>, Appendix on Marlowe.</p> +<p><a name="footnote124a"></a><a href="#citation124a" +class="footnote">[124a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 516.</p> +<p><a name="footnote126a"></a><a href="#citation126a" +class="footnote">[126a]</a> Act i. Scene 2. +Furness, <i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i>, p. 45, +note.</p> +<p><a name="footnote127a"></a><a href="#citation127a" +class="footnote">[127a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 67, 68.</p> +<p><a name="footnote129a"></a><a href="#citation129a" +class="footnote">[129a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 66.</p> +<p><a name="footnote129b"></a><a href="#citation129b" +class="footnote">[129b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 67.</p> +<p><a name="footnote136a"></a><a href="#citation136a" +class="footnote">[136a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 307.</p> +<p><a name="footnote138a"></a><a href="#citation138a" +class="footnote">[138a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 308.</p> +<p><a name="footnote140a"></a><a href="#citation140a" +class="footnote">[140a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 309.</p> +<p><a name="footnote141a"></a><a href="#citation141a" +class="footnote">[141a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 310.</p> +<p><a name="footnote141b"></a><a href="#citation141b" +class="footnote">[141b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 310, 311.</p> +<p><a name="footnote141c"></a><a href="#citation141c" +class="footnote">[141c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 311.</p> +<p><a name="footnote142a"></a><a href="#citation142a" +class="footnote">[142a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 309.</p> +<p><a name="footnote142b"></a><a href="#citation142b" +class="footnote">[142b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 311, 312.</p> +<p><a name="footnote143a"></a><a href="#citation143a" +class="footnote">[143a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 312, 313.</p> +<p><a name="footnote145a"></a><a href="#citation145a" +class="footnote">[145a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 313.</p> +<p><a name="footnote146a"></a><a href="#citation146a" +class="footnote">[146a]</a> See Appendix II, +“<i>Chettle’s supposed allusion to Will +Shakspere</i>.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote147a"></a><a href="#citation147a" +class="footnote">[147a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 330.</p> +<p><a name="footnote149a"></a><a href="#citation149a" +class="footnote">[149a]</a> <i>The Vindicators of +Shakespeare</i>, pp. 115, 116, 211. <i>See</i> my +Introduction, p. xxii.</p> +<p><a name="footnote150a"></a><a href="#citation150a" +class="footnote">[150a]</a> <i>The Vindicators of +Shakespeare</i>, p. 210.</p> +<p><a name="footnote150b"></a><a href="#citation150b" +class="footnote">[150b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 136.</p> +<p><a name="footnote151a"></a><a href="#citation151a" +class="footnote">[151a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 338.</p> +<p><a name="footnote155a"></a><a href="#citation155a" +class="footnote">[155a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 346.</p> +<p><a name="footnote157a"></a><a href="#citation157a" +class="footnote">[157a]</a> Cited in <i>The Shakespeare +Problem Restated</i>, p. 353.</p> +<p><a name="footnote159a"></a><a href="#citation159a" +class="footnote">[159a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 353.</p> +<p><a name="footnote159b"></a><a href="#citation159b" +class="footnote">[159b]</a> <i>Diary</i>, pp. xxvii, +xxviii.</p> +<p><a name="footnote160a"></a><a href="#citation160a" +class="footnote">[160a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 367.</p> +<p><a name="footnote160b"></a><a href="#citation160b" +class="footnote">[160b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 368, 369.</p> +<p><a name="footnote161a"></a><a href="#citation161a" +class="footnote">[161a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 354.</p> +<p><a name="footnote163a"></a><a href="#citation163a" +class="footnote">[163a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 366.</p> +<p><a name="footnote164a"></a><a href="#citation164a" +class="footnote">[164a]</a> Some Baconians say so!</p> +<p><a name="footnote171a"></a><a href="#citation171a" +class="footnote">[171a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 181, 397.</p> +<p><a name="footnote171b"></a><a href="#citation171b" +class="footnote">[171b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 186.</p> +<p><a name="footnote174a"></a><a href="#citation174a" +class="footnote">[174a]</a> Some verses of Fletcher’s +may, perhaps, refer to Beaumont’s death.</p> +<p><a name="footnote175a"></a><a href="#citation175a" +class="footnote">[175a]</a> C. I. Elton, +<i>Shakespeare</i>, <i>His Family and Friends</i>, pp. 246, +247.</p> +<p><a name="footnote175b"></a><a href="#citation175b" +class="footnote">[175b]</a> As to the Aldine Ovid in the +Bodleian, see Mr. Greenwood in <i>The Vindicators of +Shakespeare</i>, pp. 191, 192. Of course he raises every +objection, but I do not feel sure that either an affirmative or +negative result can be attained by <i>expertise</i>. We are +not told when or where the Bodleian obtained the book; nor what +is the date of the handwriting of the inscription about W. Hall, +a personage whom we are to meet later. A good deal of +business is done in forging names in books.</p> +<p><a name="footnote176a"></a><a href="#citation176a" +class="footnote">[176a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 196.</p> +<p><a name="footnote176b"></a><a href="#citation176b" +class="footnote">[176b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 197.</p> +<p><a name="footnote177a"></a><a href="#citation177a" +class="footnote">[177a]</a> See <i>Frontispiece</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote179a"></a><a href="#citation179a" +class="footnote">[179a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 247, 248, note I.</p> +<p><a name="footnote180a"></a><a href="#citation180a" +class="footnote">[180a]</a> <i>National Review</i>, June +1912, p. 903.</p> +<p><a name="footnote180b"></a><a href="#citation180b" +class="footnote">[180b]</a> <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>, +November 1910.</p> +<p><a name="footnote181a"></a><a href="#citation181a" +class="footnote">[181a]</a> <i>Outlines</i>, vol. i. p. +283.</p> +<p><a name="footnote182a"></a><a href="#citation182a" +class="footnote">[182a]</a> P. 73, 1806.</p> +<p><a name="footnote183a"></a><a href="#citation183a" +class="footnote">[183a]</a> <i>Outlines</i>, vol. i. p. +283.</p> +<p><a name="footnote183b"></a><a href="#citation183b" +class="footnote">[183b]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 247.</p> +<p><a name="footnote186a"></a><a href="#citation186a" +class="footnote">[186a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 248–249.</p> +<p><a name="footnote186b"></a><a href="#citation186b" +class="footnote">[186b]</a> C. I. Elton, <i>William +Shakespeare</i>, <i>His Family and Friends</i>, pp. +236–237.</p> +<p><a name="footnote187a"></a><a href="#citation187a" +class="footnote">[187a]</a> C. I. Elton, <i>William +Shakespeare</i>, <i>His Family and Friends</i>, p. 228.</p> +<p><a name="footnote187b"></a><a href="#citation187b" +class="footnote">[187b]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 199.</p> +<p><a name="footnote187c"></a><a href="#citation187c" +class="footnote">[187c]</a> C. I. Elton, <i>William +Shakespeare</i>, <i>His Family and Friends</i>, pp. +332–333.</p> +<p><a name="footnote187d"></a><a href="#citation187d" +class="footnote">[187d]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 250.</p> +<p><a name="footnote188a"></a><a href="#citation188a" +class="footnote">[188a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 199, note 1.</p> +<p><a name="footnote189a"></a><a href="#citation189a" +class="footnote">[189a]</a> C. I. Elton, <i>William +Shakespeare</i>, <i>His Family and Friends</i>, pp. 339, 342.</p> +<p><a name="footnote190a"></a><a href="#citation190a" +class="footnote">[190a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 238.</p> +<p><a name="footnote198a"></a><a href="#citation198a" +class="footnote">[198a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 214.</p> +<p><a name="footnote200a"></a><a href="#citation200a" +class="footnote">[200a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 214, note 2.</p> +<p><a name="footnote201a"></a><a href="#citation201a" +class="footnote">[201a]</a> C. I. Elton, <i>William +Shakespeare</i>, <i>His Family and Friends</i>, p. 56.</p> +<p><a name="footnote201b"></a><a href="#citation201b" +class="footnote">[201b]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 28, 29.</p> +<p><a name="footnote207a"></a><a href="#citation207a" +class="footnote">[207a]</a> Like Mr. Greenwood, I think +that Ben was the penman.</p> +<p><a name="footnote208a"></a><a href="#citation208a" +class="footnote">[208a]</a> Pollard, <i>ut supra</i>, p. +10.</p> +<p><a name="footnote210a"></a><a href="#citation210a" +class="footnote">[210a]</a> Pollard, <i>ut supra</i>, pp. +64–80.</p> +<p><a name="footnote215a"></a><a href="#citation215a" +class="footnote">[215a]</a> Pollard, <i>ut supra</i>, pp. +121–124.</p> +<p><a name="footnote216a"></a><a href="#citation216a" +class="footnote">[216a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 287–288.</p> +<p><a name="footnote217a"></a><a href="#citation217a" +class="footnote">[217a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 290–291.</p> +<p><a name="footnote217b"></a><a href="#citation217b" +class="footnote">[217b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 292, 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote218a"></a><a href="#citation218a" +class="footnote">[218a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote219a"></a><a href="#citation219a" +class="footnote">[219a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 489, 490.</p> +<p><a name="footnote219b"></a><a href="#citation219b" +class="footnote">[219b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 491.</p> +<p><a name="footnote219c"></a><a href="#citation219c" +class="footnote">[219c]</a> <i>Studies in Shakespeare</i>, +p. 352.</p> +<p><a name="footnote220a"></a><a href="#citation220a" +class="footnote">[220a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote220b"></a><a href="#citation220b" +class="footnote">[220b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 491.</p> +<p><a name="footnote220c"></a><a href="#citation220c" +class="footnote">[220c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote220d"></a><a href="#citation220d" +class="footnote">[220d]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote221a"></a><a href="#citation221a" +class="footnote">[221a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 297.</p> +<p><a name="footnote221b"></a><a href="#citation221b" +class="footnote">[221b]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 297.</p> +<p><a name="footnote222a"></a><a href="#citation222a" +class="footnote">[222a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote222b"></a><a href="#citation222b" +class="footnote">[222b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 351.</p> +<p><a name="footnote222c"></a><a href="#citation222c" +class="footnote">[222c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 351.</p> +<p><a name="footnote222d"></a><a href="#citation222d" +class="footnote">[222d]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 290, 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote222e"></a><a href="#citation222e" +class="footnote">[222e]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 351, 358.</p> +<p><a name="footnote223a"></a><a href="#citation223a" +class="footnote">[223a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 351.</p> +<p><a name="footnote223b"></a><a href="#citation223b" +class="footnote">[223b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 290, 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote223c"></a><a href="#citation223c" +class="footnote">[223c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 351.</p> +<p><a name="footnote223d"></a><a href="#citation223d" +class="footnote">[223d]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 351.</p> +<p><a name="footnote223e"></a><a href="#citation223e" +class="footnote">[223e]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 290, 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote223f"></a><a href="#citation223f" +class="footnote">[223f]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 290.</p> +<p><a name="footnote223g"></a><a href="#citation223g" +class="footnote">[223g]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 290, 291.</p> +<p><a name="footnote223h"></a><a href="#citation223h" +class="footnote">[223h]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote224a"></a><a href="#citation224a" +class="footnote">[224a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 351.</p> +<p><a name="footnote224b"></a><a href="#citation224b" +class="footnote">[224b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 358.</p> +<p><a name="footnote224c"></a><a href="#citation224c" +class="footnote">[224c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 351, 358.</p> +<p><a name="footnote224d"></a><a href="#citation224d" +class="footnote">[224d]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 290.</p> +<p><a name="footnote224e"></a><a href="#citation224e" +class="footnote">[224e]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote225a"></a><a href="#citation225a" +class="footnote">[225a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 355, 356.</p> +<p><a name="footnote226a"></a><a href="#citation226a" +class="footnote">[226a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 355, 356.</p> +<p><a name="footnote226b"></a><a href="#citation226b" +class="footnote">[226b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 158, 160, 162 +(“not the original author”), 170.</p> +<p><a name="footnote226c"></a><a href="#citation226c" +class="footnote">[226c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. +130–151, 160, 168.</p> +<p><a name="footnote226d"></a><a href="#citation226d" +class="footnote">[226d]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p., 123, note +2.</p> +<p><a name="footnote227a"></a><a href="#citation227a" +class="footnote">[227a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 356.</p> +<p><a name="footnote228a"></a><a href="#citation228a" +class="footnote">[228a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 160.</p> +<p><a name="footnote228b"></a><a href="#citation228b" +class="footnote">[228b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 356.</p> +<p><a name="footnote228c"></a><a href="#citation228c" +class="footnote">[228c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 160.</p> +<p><a name="footnote228d"></a><a href="#citation228d" +class="footnote">[228d]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 356.</p> +<p><a name="footnote228e"></a><a href="#citation228e" +class="footnote">[228e]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 290, 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote228f"></a><a href="#citation228f" +class="footnote">[228f]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 358.</p> +<p><a name="footnote229a"></a><a href="#citation229a" +class="footnote">[229a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, 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.</p> +<p><a name="footnote229b"></a><a href="#citation229b" +class="footnote">[229b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 365.</p> +<p><a name="footnote229c"></a><a href="#citation229c" +class="footnote">[229c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 365.</p> +<p><a name="footnote229d"></a><a href="#citation229d" +class="footnote">[229d]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 160.</p> +<p><a name="footnote231a"></a><a href="#citation231a" +class="footnote">[231a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 276.</p> +<p><a name="footnote231b"></a><a href="#citation231b" +class="footnote">[231b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 290.</p> +<p><a name="footnote232a"></a><a href="#citation232a" +class="footnote">[232a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote232b"></a><a href="#citation232b" +class="footnote">[232b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 294.</p> +<p><a name="footnote233a"></a><a href="#citation233a" +class="footnote">[233a]</a> <i>The Vindicators of +Shakespeare</i>, p. 57 (1911).</p> +<p><a name="footnote237a"></a><a href="#citation237a" +class="footnote">[237a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 453.</p> +<p><a name="footnote244a"></a><a href="#citation244a" +class="footnote">[244a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 466.</p> +<p><a name="footnote245a"></a><a href="#citation245a" +class="footnote">[245a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 313.</p> +<p><a name="footnote245b"></a><a href="#citation245b" +class="footnote">[245b]</a> <i>Supra</i>, p. 143.</p> +<p><a name="footnote245c"></a><a href="#citation245c" +class="footnote">[245c]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 466.</p> +<p><a name="footnote249a"></a><a href="#citation249a" +class="footnote">[249a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 482.</p> +<p><a name="footnote250a"></a><a href="#citation250a" +class="footnote">[250a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 467, 471.</p> +<p><a name="footnote250b"></a><a href="#citation250b" +class="footnote">[250b]</a> See chapter IX on <i>The Later +Life of Shakespeare</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote250c"></a><a href="#citation250c" +class="footnote">[250c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 472, 474.</p> +<p><a name="footnote251a"></a><a href="#citation251a" +class="footnote">[251a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 473.</p> +<p><a name="footnote251b"></a><a href="#citation251b" +class="footnote">[251b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 474.</p> +<p><a name="footnote253a"></a><a href="#citation253a" +class="footnote">[253a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 475.</p> +<p><a name="footnote254a"></a><a href="#citation254a" +class="footnote">[254a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 106.</p> +<p><a name="footnote255a"></a><a href="#citation255a" +class="footnote">[255a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 478.</p> +<p><a name="footnote258a"></a><a href="#citation258a" +class="footnote">[258a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 480.</p> +<p><a name="footnote259a"></a><a href="#citation259a" +class="footnote">[259a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 483.</p> +<p><a name="footnote260a"></a><a href="#citation260a" +class="footnote">[260a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 483.</p> +<p><a name="footnote260b"></a><a href="#citation260b" +class="footnote">[260b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. +489–490.</p> +<p><a name="footnote260c"></a><a href="#citation260c" +class="footnote">[260c]</a> See chapter XI, <i>The First +Folio</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote261a"></a><a href="#citation261a" +class="footnote">[261a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 483.</p> +<p><a name="footnote261b"></a><a href="#citation261b" +class="footnote">[261b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. +489–491.</p> +<p><a name="footnote262a"></a><a href="#citation262a" +class="footnote">[262a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 486.</p> +<p><a name="footnote264a"></a><a href="#citation264a" +class="footnote">[264a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 488.</p> +<p><a name="footnote266a"></a><a href="#citation266a" +class="footnote">[266a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 491.</p> +<p><a name="footnote267a"></a><a href="#citation267a" +class="footnote">[267a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 295, <i>cf.</i> p. 499.</p> +<p><a name="footnote268a"></a><a href="#citation268a" +class="footnote">[268a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 295, 499.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270a"></a><a href="#citation270a" +class="footnote">[270a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 499.</p> +<p><a name="footnote274a"></a><a href="#citation274a" +class="footnote">[274a]</a> <i>Letters and Life of Francis +Bacon</i>, edited by James Spedding, vol. i. p. 4 (1861).</p> +<p><a name="footnote275a"></a><a href="#citation275a" +class="footnote">[275a]</a> <i>Letters and Life of Francis +Bacon</i>, edited by James Spedding, vol. i. p. 31.</p> +<p><a name="footnote275b"></a><a href="#citation275b" +class="footnote">[275b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, vol. i. pp. +74–95.</p> +<p><a name="footnote276a"></a><a href="#citation276a" +class="footnote">[276a]</a> <i>Letters and Life of Francis +Bacon</i>, edited by James Spedding, vol. i. pp. +108–109.</p> +<p><a name="footnote279a"></a><a href="#citation279a" +class="footnote">[279a]</a> <i>Letters and Life of Francis +Bacon</i>, edited by James Spedding, vol. i. p. 106.</p> +<p><a name="footnote279b"></a><a href="#citation279b" +class="footnote">[279b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, vol. i. pp. +121–143.</p> +<p><a name="footnote280a"></a><a href="#citation280a" +class="footnote">[280a]</a> Sixty pages in Spedding’s +<i>Letters and Life of Francis Bacon</i>, vol. i. pp. +146–208.</p> +<p><a name="footnote281a"></a><a href="#citation281a" +class="footnote">[281a]</a> See his statement (1603), +Spedding, iii. pp. 84–87.</p> +<p><a name="footnote281b"></a><a href="#citation281b" +class="footnote">[281b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, iii. p. 253.</p> +<p><a name="footnote282a"></a><a href="#citation282a" +class="footnote">[282a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 371–406.</p> +<p><a name="footnote282b"></a><a href="#citation282b" +class="footnote">[282b]</a> <i>The Bacon-Shakespeare +Controversy</i>, p. 198.</p> +<p><a name="footnote283a"></a><a href="#citation283a" +class="footnote">[283a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 391.</p> +<p><a name="footnote283b"></a><a href="#citation283b" +class="footnote">[283b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. +408–410.</p> +<p><a name="footnote284a"></a><a href="#citation284a" +class="footnote">[284a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 425.</p> +<p><a name="footnote284b"></a><a href="#citation284b" +class="footnote">[284b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 431.</p> +<p><a name="footnote287a"></a><a href="#citation287a" +class="footnote">[287a]</a> <i>Sufflamen</i> is the +“drag” or “brake.” Ben’s, +“it was necessary he should be <i>stopped</i>,” is an +incorrect translation.</p> +<p><a name="footnote288a"></a><a href="#citation288a" +class="footnote">[288a]</a> Quoted by Sir Walter Raleigh, +<i>Shakespeare</i>, p. 65.</p> +<p><a name="footnote288b"></a><a href="#citation288b" +class="footnote">[288b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 65.</p> +<p><a name="footnote297a"></a><a href="#citation297a" +class="footnote">[297a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 358–362.</p> +<p><a name="footnote298a"></a><a href="#citation298a" +class="footnote">[298a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 491–494.</p> +<p><a name="footnote298b"></a><a href="#citation298b" +class="footnote">[298b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 495.</p> +<p><a name="footnote298c"></a><a href="#citation298c" +class="footnote">[298c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. +358–360.</p> +<p><a name="footnote299a"></a><a href="#citation299a" +class="footnote">[299a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 361.</p> +<p><a name="footnote300a"></a><a href="#citation300a" +class="footnote">[300a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 360.</p> +<p><a name="footnote300b"></a><a href="#citation300b" +class="footnote">[300b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 358.</p> +<p><a name="footnote301a"></a><a href="#citation301a" +class="footnote">[301a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, p. 495, note I.</p> +<p><a name="footnote301b"></a><a href="#citation301b" +class="footnote">[301b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 494.</p> +<p><a name="footnote304a"></a><a href="#citation304a" +class="footnote">[304a]</a> <i>Vindicators of +Shakespeare</i>, p. 69.</p> +<p><a name="footnote305a"></a><a href="#citation305a" +class="footnote">[305a]</a> <i>The Shakespeare Problem +Restated</i>, pp. 317–319.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKESPEARE, BACON AND THE GREAT +UNKNOWN***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 5127-h.htm or 5127-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/1/2/5127 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive +specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this +eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook +for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, +performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given +away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks +not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the +trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country outside the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and + most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no + restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it + under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this + eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the + United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you + are located before using this ebook. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The +Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the +mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its +volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous +locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt +Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to +date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and +official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/5127-h/images/fpb.jpg b/5127-h/images/fpb.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d9118be --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/fpb.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/fps.jpg b/5127-h/images/fps.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..aaa327d --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/fps.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p12b.jpg b/5127-h/images/p12b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..22614a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p12b.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p12s.jpg b/5127-h/images/p12s.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b459112 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p12s.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p178b.jpg b/5127-h/images/p178b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6b4e547 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p178b.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p178s.jpg b/5127-h/images/p178s.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b7b5e0 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p178s.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p180b.jpg b/5127-h/images/p180b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4204b38 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p180b.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p180s.jpg b/5127-h/images/p180s.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c025836 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p180s.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p181b.jpg b/5127-h/images/p181b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3d5481 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p181b.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p181s.jpg b/5127-h/images/p181s.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..25952d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p181s.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p185b.jpg b/5127-h/images/p185b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..aed8dbe --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p185b.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p185s.jpg b/5127-h/images/p185s.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dfe1630 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p185s.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p298b.jpg b/5127-h/images/p298b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9700cd --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p298b.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p298s.jpg b/5127-h/images/p298s.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..199e48d --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p298s.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p47ab.jpg b/5127-h/images/p47ab.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a909a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p47ab.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p47as.jpg b/5127-h/images/p47as.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dbef234 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p47as.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p47bb.jpg b/5127-h/images/p47bb.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d5dc25f --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p47bb.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p47bs.jpg b/5127-h/images/p47bs.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2976c8e --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p47bs.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p47cb.jpg b/5127-h/images/p47cb.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5050df5 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p47cb.jpg diff --git a/5127-h/images/p47cs.jpg b/5127-h/images/p47cs.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a251306 --- /dev/null +++ b/5127-h/images/p47cs.jpg |
