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diff --git a/old/sbun10.txt b/old/sbun10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..363f906 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sbun10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7741 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown +by Andrew Lang +(#36 in our series by Andrew Lang) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown + +Author: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5127] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on May 5, 2002] +[Most recently updated: May 5, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SHAKESPEARE, BACON ETC. *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1912 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +SHAKESPEARE, BACON AND THE GREAT UNKNOWN + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + + +The theory that Francis Bacon was, in the main, the author of +"Shakespeare's plays," has now been for fifty years before 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. + +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 THOUGHTFUL SCHOLARS EMINENT IN MANY WALKS OF LIFE, +AND ESPECIALLY IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION . . . " have been Baconians, +or, at least, opposed to Will Shakspere's authorship. To these 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 Life of Shelley, while his researches into the +biography of Jeanne d'Arc were most conscientious. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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 AEschylus (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 Titus Andronicus, and Henry VI, 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 THEY 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 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." + +I could never have expected that I should take a part in this +controversy; but acquaintance with The Shakespeare Problem Restated +(503 pp.), (1908), and later works of Mr. G. G. Greenwood, M.P., has +tempted me to enter the lists. + +Mr. Greenwood is worth fighting; he is cunning of fence, is learned +(and I cannot conceal my opinion that Mr. Donnelly and Judge 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). His knowledge of Elizabethan literature is vastly +superior to mine, for I speak merely, in Matthew Arnold's words, as +"a belletristic trifler." + +Moreover, Mr. Greenwood, as a practising barrister, is a judge 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, IN THE MAIN, 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. + +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 +Titus Andronicus, Henry VI, Part I, and Troilus and Cressida. About +them different views are held WITHIN both camps. + +I am no lawyer or naturalist (as Partridge said, Non omnia possumus +omnes), 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." + +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 prima facie reason why we should +suppose the information was supplied by Bacon." + +Of course there is not! + +"In fact, there are some reasons why one should attribute the legal +assistance, say, to Coke, rather than to Bacon." + +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." {0a} + +Now we have Mr. Greenwood's testimonial in favour of Mr. Castle, "Who +really does know something about law." {0b} 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? + +Que scais je? 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. + +Concerning legend and tradition about our Will, it seems that, in +each case, we should do our best to trace the Quellen, 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. + +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 Menaechmi in Plautus, but most like and near to that in +Italian called Inganni." He confides to his Diary the tricks played +on Malvolio as "a good practice." {0c} That is all. + +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). Twelfth Night 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. + +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. Shakespeare's name +William." (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." +{0d} + +But WAS "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." {0e} To that "very small circle" +we have no reason to suppose that Manningham belonged, despite his +remarkable opinion that Twelfth Night resembles the Menaechmi. +Consequently, it is NOT "extremely remarkable" that Manningham wrote +"Shakespeare's name William," to explain to posterity the joke about +"William the Conqueror," instead of saying, "the brilliant author of +the Twelfth Night play which so much amused me at our feast a few +weeks ago." {0f} "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," DID +trouble his poor head about that point. Yet Mr. Greenwood thinks "it +does seem extremely remarkable" that Manningham did not mention the +author. + +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 "au pied de la lettre," "the +enlightened few would recognise that it had an esoteric meaning." +{0g} Then, it seems, "the world"--the "multitude"--regarded the +actor as the author. Only "the enlightened few" were aware that when +Ben SAID "Shakespeare," and "Swan of Avon," he MEANT--somebody else. + +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 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"? {0h} + +These arguments are regarded by some Baconians as proof positive of +their case. + +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. WE all NOW would have reminded the Earl of what he very well +knew. Cuthbert did not. + +The intelligence of Cuthbert Burbage may be gauged by anyone who will +read pp. 481-484 in William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, 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. + +Men believe what they may; but I prefer positive evidence for the +affirmative to negative evidence from silence, the silence of +Cuthbert Burbage. + +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." + +Following this practice, Davies had to call Will either "our English +Terence," or "our 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! + +It does not suit the Baconians, or Mr. Greenwood, to find +contemporary recognition of Will as an author. {0i} Consequently, +Mr. Greenwood finds Davies's "curious, and at first sight, +inappropriate comparison of 'Shake-speare' to Terence worthy of +remark, for Terence is the very author whose name is alleged to have +been used as a mask-name, or nom de plume, for the writings of great +men who wished to keep the fact of their authorship concealed." + +Now Davies felt bound to bring in SOME Roman parallel to Shakespeare; +and had only the choice of Terence or Plautus. Meres (1598) used +Plautus; Davies used Terence. Mr. Greenwood {0j} shows us that +Plautus would not do. "Could HE" (Shakespeare) "write only of +courtesans and cocottes, and not of ladies highly born, cultured, and +refined? . . . " + +"The supposed parallel" (Plautus and Shakespeare) "breaks down at +every point." Thus, 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." {0k} 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 AUTHOR of As You Like It. 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 "nom de plume" of some great "concealed +poets" of Rome. "From all the known facts about Terence," says a +Baconian critic (who has consulted Smith's Biographical Dictionary), +"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" is a mask-name. Of the second +opinion there is not a hint in literature of the time of good Will. + +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 censure. That is the +obvious solution of "the Jonsonian riddle." + +I must apologise if I have in places spelled the name of the Swan of +Avon "Shakespeare" where Mr. Greenwood would write "Shakspere," and +vice versa. 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, WAS 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." + + + +CHAPTER I: THE BACONIAN AND ANTI-WILLIAN POSITIONS + + + +Till 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. + +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 Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, and the +Sonnets. + +Even now, in England at least, it would be perhaps impossible to find +one special and professed student of Elizabethan literature, and of +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. + +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. + +From the Baconians we receive a plain straightforward theory, "Bacon +wrote Shakespeare," as one of their own prophets has said. {4a} +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 +doing--by the Baconians; namely, writing two dramas yearly. + +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. + +Such is the Being who occupies, in the theory of the non-Baconian, +BUT NOT ANTI-BACONIAN, Anti-Willians, the intellectual throne filled, +in the Will Shakespeare theory, by Will; and in the Baconian, by +Bacon--two kings of Brentford on one throne. + +We are to be much engaged by the form of this theory which is held by +Mr. G. G. Greenwood in his The Shakespeare Problem Restated. In +attempting to explain what he means I feel that I am skating on very +thin ice. Already, in two volumes (In Re Shakespeare, 1909, and The +Vindicators of Shakespeare), 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 NOT a Baconian. His position is +negative merely: Will of Stratford is NOT 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 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 MAY 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," {7a} 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. + +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 MUST, 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? + +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 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 SHAKESPEARE." Of a man named +William SHAKSPERE (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. He put money in his +pocket (heaven knows how), for by 1597 he was bargaining for the best +house in his native bourgade. 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. + +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" 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." + +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 sans phrase, 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. + +Beyond all comparison the best work on the Anti-Willian side of the +controversy is The Shakespeare Problem Restated, 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 "nom +de plume" adopted by the Great Unknown "concealed poet." + +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 +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. + +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 "nom de plume," of Bacon or of the Unknown. + +Here I must endeavour to summarise what Mr. Greenwood has written +{11a} on the name of the actor, and the "nom de plume" of the 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 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. + +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 Venus and Adonis (1593) and of Lucrece (1594) are +inscribed "William Shakespeare" (without the hyphen). In 1598, the +title-page of Love's Labour's Lost "bore the name W. Shakespere," +while in the same year Richard II and Richard III 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 pounds, 6s. 8d.). + +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 NOT 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 A in the last syllable. + +I now give the essence of Mr. Greenwood's words {13a} concerning the +nom de plume of the "concealed poet," whoever he was. + +"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 nom de plume is obvious. As old Thomas Fuller remarks, the +name suggests Martial 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 a'p?' +t?? p???e?? t?' d???); and all will remember Ben Jonson's verses . . +. " on Shakespeare's "true-filed lines" - + + +"In each of which he seems to shake a lance, +As brandished at the eyes of ignorance." + + +There is more about Pallas in book-titles (to which additions 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 nom de plume" (cf. pp. 31-37. On the whole of this, cf. +The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 293-295; a nom de plume called +a "pseudonym," pp. 307, 312; Shakespeare "a mask name," p. 328; a +"pseudonym," p. 330; "nom de plume," p. 335). + +Now why was the "nom de plume" or "pseudonym" "William Shakespeare" +"an excellent nom de plume" for a concealed author, courtier, lawyer, +scholar, and so forth? If "Shakespeare" suggested Pallas Athene, +goddess of wisdom and of many other things, and so was appropriate, +why add "William"? + +In 1593, when the "pseudonym" first appears in Venus and Adonis, 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 NOT the +"concealed poet." + +"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. + +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. + +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." {16a} + +What the advantages may have been we try to estimate later. + +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.'" {17a} 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." {17b} 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. {17c} + +That this promising young man, "when he came to London, spoke the +Warwickshire dialect or patois is, then, as certain as anything can +be that is incapable of mathematical proof." {17d} "Here is the +young Warwickshire provincial . . . " {17e} producing, apparently +five or six years after his arrival in town, Venus and Adonis . . . +"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." {17f} 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." {17g} + +If it be not conceivable now that the rustic speaking in a patois +could write Venus and Adonis, manifestly it was inconceivable in +1593, when Venus and Adonis 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 DID 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 DID persuade, say Ben Jonson, of his +authorship and we shall see whether or not he works this twentieth- +century miracle of persuasion. + +Of course if Will were unable to write even his name, as an +enthusiastic Baconian asserts, Mr. Greenwood sees that Will could not +easily pass for the Author. {18a} But his own bookless actor with a +patois seems to him, as author of Venus and Adonis, almost +inconceivable. Yet, despite Will's bookless rusticity, this poem +with Lucrece, 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 NOT 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 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 Venus and +Adonis or of Hamlet." {19a} + +Nothing follows from all this: we merely see that, in Mr. +Greenwood's private opinion, the actor might write even better than +George Wilkins, but could not write Venus and Adonis. 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 Hamlet, even if, like Wordsworth, +"he had the mind," even if the gods had made him more poetical than +Wilkins. + +Again, "he had had but little schooling; he had 'small Latin and less +Greek'" (as Ben Jonson truly says), "but he was a good Johannes +Factotum; he could arrange a scene, and, when necessary, 'bumbast out +a blank verse.'" {19b} + +The "Johannes Factotum," who could "bumbast out a blank verse," is +taken from Robert 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. + +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 Moliere in the spirit of the author of Elomire +Hypocondre, and of de Vise! 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 infra). +But I must give the reader a warning. Concerning "William +Shakespeare" as a "nom de plume," or pseudonym, Mr. Greenwood says, +"Some, indeed, would see through it, and roundly accuse the 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.'" {21a} + +If this be true, if "some would see through" (Mr. Greenwood, +apparently, means DID "see through") the "nom de plume," the case of +the Anti-Willians is promising. But, in this matter, Mr. Greenwood +se trompe. 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 infra.) + +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. + +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 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. + +We all have our personal equations in the way of belief. That the +plot of the "nom de plume" 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 "nom de plume" 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. {22a} + +"Very few Englishmen . . . in Elizabethan times, concerned themselves +at all, or cared one brass farthing, about the authorship of plays . +. . " says Mr. Greenwood. + +Very few care now. They know the actors' names: in vain, as a rule, +do I ask playgoers for the name of the author of their entertainment. +But in Elizabeth's time the few who cared were apt to care very much, +and they would inquire intensely when the Stratford actor, 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. + +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 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. + + + +CHAPTER II: THE "SILENCE" ABOUT SHAKESPEARE + + + +Before 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. + +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? + +"It is wonderful," exclaims Mr. Crouch-Batchelor, "that hundreds of +persons should not have left records of him. {27a} 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." + +Mr. Crouch-Batchelor is too innocent. He sees the sixteenth century +in the colours of the 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. To be +puzzled by and found theories on the silence about Shakespeare is to +show an innocence very odd in learned disputants. + +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. + +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 . . . " {30a} (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; but the audiences have not rushed to pen and ink +to record their satisfaction. With them, as with all audiences, the +actors and the SPECTACLE, 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. {31a} + +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. {31b} 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 after his +death. We must remember the conditions of play-writing in +Shakespeare's time. + +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. + +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. + +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 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." {33a} + +It may appear that to "authors" we should, in the case of plays, add +"owners," such as theatrical companies, for no case is cited in 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, +Patient Grizel, by three of his hacks. + +We perhaps come across an effort of the company to prevent or delay +the publication of The Merchant of Venice, on July 17, 1598, in the +Stationers' Register. 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 the book. {34a} 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. + +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. {34b} 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. + +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 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. + +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." + +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. + +Thus indifferent was the main author of the plays, whether he were +actor or statesman; and 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. + +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. + +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 for me to say why there was no remonstrance. + +Suppose that Will merely supplied Bacon's plays, under his own name, +with a slight difference in spelling, to his company. It was as 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 A in the +second syllable. + +There is another instance which Mr. Greenwood discusses twice. {37a} +In 1599 Jaggard published "The Passionate Pilgrim; W. Shakespeare." +Out of twenty poems, five only were by W. S. In 1612, Jaggard added +two poems by Tom Heywood, retaining W. Shakespeare's name as sole +author. "Heywood protested" in print, "and stated that SHAKESPEARE +was offended, and," says Mr. Greenwood, "very probably he was so; but +as he was, so I conceive, 'a concealed poet,' writing under a nom de +plume, he seems to have only made known his annoyance through the +medium of Heywood." + +If so, Heywood knew who the concealed poet was. Turning to pp. 348, +349, we find Mr. Greenwood repeating the same story, with 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 +The Passionate Pilgrim as 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." + +Why was the author so slack when Jaggard, in 1599, published W. S.'s +poems with others NOT by W. S.? + +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. + +"Here we observe," says Mr. Greenwood, {38a} "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 E and A) 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! + +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 might fly to the explanation that "Shakespeare" was the +"nom de plume" 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 ne moveas Camarinam. + + + +CHAPTER III: THAT IMPOSSIBLE HE--THE SCHOOLING OF SHAKESPEARE + + + +The 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 patois) 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. + +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, 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 Cymbeline, long. He must have read a famous line in +Horace thus, + + +"Eheu fugaces Posthoome, Posthoome!" + + +which could scarce 'scape whipping, even at Stratford Free School. +In the same way he makes the penultimate syllable of Andronicus +short, equally impossible. + +Mr. Greenwood, we shall see, denies to him Titus Andronicus, but also +appears to credit it to him, as one of the older plays which he +"revised, improved, and dressed," {44a} and THAT 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 Troilus and Cressida, +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 The Winter's Tale 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 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. + +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 The Winter's Tale. For, granting to Mr. +Greenwood {45a} 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 +(A.D.); and Perdita, who could have sat for her portrait to Giulio +Romano, was contemporary with an Oracle at Delphos, but not with +Ottocar. + +There never was so mad a mixture, not even in Ivanhoe; not even in +Kenilworth. 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," 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. + +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. + +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. + +It is impossible that the home-keeping yokel should have heard of the +"obscure" (sic!) 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 castle of Elsinore," though an English troupe of actors visited +Denmark in 1587. To Will all this knowledge was impossible; 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. + +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). + +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. + +"In the Appendix to Malone's Life of Shakespeare will be found two +Latin letters, written by alumni of Stratford School contemporary +with Shakespeare," says Mr. Collins. {48a} 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? + +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 YOUNG 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, ONE Stratford boy could +write Latin in the generation following that of Shakespeare. Thus +may reason the Baconians. + +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. + +Concerning the school, a Free Grammar School, 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. + +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. + +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. Under the +Reformation, Somerset's Commission found that the School Master had +10 pounds yearly by patent; the school was well conducted, and was +not confiscated." {50a} + +Baconians can compare the yearly 20 pounds (the salary in 1570-6, +which then went much further than it does now) with the incomes 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 +pounds and a house. + +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 Lavengro for details. +Conversation books, Sententiae Pueriles, were in use; with easy +books, such as Corderius's Colloquia, and so on, for boys were taught +to SPEAK 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 +Mantuanus, a Latin poet of the Renaissance (the "Old Mantuan" of +Love's Labour's Lost), were used, with Erasmus's Colloquia, and, says +Mr. Collins, "such books as Ovid's Metamorphoses" (and other works of +his), "the AEneid, selected comedies of Terence and Plautus, and +portions of Caesar, Sallust, Cicero, and Livy." + +"Pro-di-gi-ous!" exclaims Mr. Greenwood, {51a} referring to what Mr. +Collins says Will had read at school. But precocious Latinity 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 Caesar, 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 hatred of Greek +was hissing and malignant, but as soon as I opened Homer, all was +changed. One was intensely interested! + +Mr. Greenwood will not, in the matter of books, go beyond Mr. +Halliwell-Phillipps, {52a} "Lilly's Grammar, and a few classical +works chained to the desks of the free schools." Mr. Collins himself +gives but "a few classical books," of which PORTIONS 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. + +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." {52b} + +He has therefore to find a via media, 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 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.'" {53a} Again, "He had had but little schooling; he had +'small Latin and less Greek'; but he was a good Johannes Factotum, he +could arrange a scene, and, when necessary, 'bumbast out a blank +verse.'" {53b} + +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. + +WHEN was it "necessary" for the "Stratford 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. + +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. + +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. + +To this amount of taste and curiosity, nowise unexampled in an +ordinary clever boy, add GENIUS, and I feel no difficulty as to +Will's "learning," such as, at best, it was. "The Stratfordian," +says Mr. Greenwood, "will ingeminate 'Genius! Genius!'" {55a} I DO +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 Venus and +Adonis. + +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 GENIUS, and hand THAT over to +Bacon--or Bungay. Believe me, Mr. Greenwood, this is your easiest +way!--perhaps this IS 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. + +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 steps by which +they reach us, as far as these can be discovered. {56a} + +According to the tattle of Aubrey the antiquary, publishing in 1680, +an opinion concerning Shakspere's education reached him. It 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. {56b} + +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 dominie. Mr. Greenwood {57a} +devotes much space to disparaging Aubrey (and I do not think him a +scientific authority, moult s'en faut), 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." "HE knows, HE knows" which traditions +are mythical, and which possess a certain historical value. + +My own opinion is that Shakspere did "know Latin pretty well," and +was no SCHOLAR, 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. + +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, 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 ALWAYS butchering calves, poaching, +and making love; and that, if he could get books in no other way, +this graceless fellow might be detected on a summer evening, knitting +his brows over the stories and jests of the chained Ovid and Plautus +on his old schoolroom desk. Moi qui parle, 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. + +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. + +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 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 The Traditional Shakespeare. {59a} +Meanwhile, how can you expect old clerks and sextons, a century after +date, in a place where literature was NOT 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. + +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 translation +of a French translation of a Latin translation. + +Some works of Shakespeare, the Lucrece, for example, and The Comedy +of Errors (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. + +Does any contemporary literary allusion to Shakespeare call him +"LEARNED"? He is "sweet," "honey-tongued," "mellifluous," and so +forth, but I ask for any contemporary who flattered him with the +compliment of "learned." What 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. + +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. + +I conceive that Shakspere "knew Latin pretty well," and, on Ben +Jonson's evidence, he knew "less Greek." That he knew ANY 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 get at the meaning of all the Latin, not yet translated, which +he certainly knew, I believe. + +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." {62a} 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. {62b} + +Let me take one example {62c} of what Mr. E. A. Sonnenschein is +quoted as saying (somewhere) about Shakespeare's debt to Seneca's +then untranslated paper De Clementia (1, 3, 3; I, 7, 2; I, 6, I). It +inspires Portia's speech about Mercy. Here I give a version of the +Latin. + +"Clemency becometh, of all men, none more than the King or chief +magistrate (principem) . . . 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." + +The last sentence is fitted with this parallel in Portia's speech: + + + "Consider this +That in the course of Justice none of us +Should see salvation." + + +Here, at least, Protestant theology, not Seneca, inspires Portia's +eloquence. + +Now take Portia: + + +"The quality of Mercy is not strain'd; +It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven +Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed; +It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;" + + +(Not much Seneca, so far!) + + +"'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes +The throned monarch better than his crown; +His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, +The attribute to awe and majesty, +Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; +But Mercy is above this sceptred sway, +It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, +It is an attribute to God himself; +And earthly power doth then show likest God's, +When mercy seasons justice . . . " + + +There follows the passage about none of us seeing salvation, already +cited, and theological in origin. + +Whether Shakespeare could or could not have written these +reflections, without having read Seneca's De Clementia, 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. + +My view of Shakespeare's Latinity is much like that of Sir Walter +Raleigh. {64a} 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. + +In his youth, and in the country, Will could 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 Lear +and the Grave-digger in Hamlet, even Ophelia and Desdemona, are all +alike singers of old songs. . . . " {65a} He is rich in rural +proverbs NOT recorded in Bacon's Promus. + +Shakespeare in the country, like Scott in Liddesdale, "was making +himself all the time." + +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 DICTON. But so may Shakespeare. + + + +CHAPTER IV: MR. COLLINS ON SHAKESPEARE'S LEARNING + + + +That 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. {69a} 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? + +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. + +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. + +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 Studies in +Shakespeare, compare the Greek and Roman texts, and weigh each +example of supposed borrowing for himself. Baconians must delight in +this labour. + +I shall waive the question whether it were not possible for +Shakespeare to obtain a view of the manuscript translation of plays +of Plautus made by Warner for his unlearned friends, and so to use +the Menaechmi as the model of The Comedy of Errors. He does not +borrow phrases from it, as he does from North's Plutarch. + +Venus and Adonis owes to Ovid, at most, but ideas for three purple +patches, scattered in different parts of the Metamorphoses. Lucrece +is based on the then untranslated Fasti 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. + +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." {71a} In that case, how did +Shakespeare's English become contaminated, as Mr. Collins says it +did, with Greek idioms, while he only knew the Greek plays through +Latin translations? + +However this is to be answered, Mr. Collins proceeds to prove +Shakespeare's close familiarity 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." {72a} Yet this method is what he practises +throughout; with what amount of success every reader must judge for +himself. + +He thinks it "surely not unlikely" that Polonius's + + +"Neither a borrower nor a lender be: +For loan oft loses both itself and friend," + + +may be a terse reminiscence of seven lines in Plautus (Trinummus, iv. +3). Why, Polonius is a coiner of commonplaces, and if ever there +were a well-known reflection from experience it is this of the +borrowers and lenders. + +Next, take this of Plautus (Pseudolus, 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: + + +"And as imagination bodies forth +The FORMS of things unknown, the poet's pen +Turns them to SHAPES, and gives to airy nothing +A local habitation and a name." + + +The reasoning is odd; imagination bodies forth FORMS, and the poet's +pen turns them to SHAPES. But to suppose that Shakespeare here +borrowed from Plautus appears highly superfluous. + +These are samples of Mr. Collins's methods throughout. + +Of Terence there were translations--first in part; later, in 1598, 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 "alienus" +("what belongs to another") meant "slippery"! + +Most of the passages are from plays (Titus Andronicus and Henry VI, +i., ii., iii.), which Mr. Greenwood denies (usually) to HIS author, +the Great Unknown. Throughout these early plays Mr. Collins takes +Shakespeare's to resemble Seneca's LATIN 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, +"Persicos odi puer apparatus" (Odes. I, xxxviii. I). Mr. Collins +quotes Lear (III, vi. 85) thus, "You will say they are PERSIAN +ATTIRE." 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 PERSIAN ATTIRE," a phrase "which could only have occurred to a +classical scholar." The phrase is not in Shakespeare, and Lear's +wandering mind might as easily select "Persian" as any other +absurdity. + +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 +Alcibiades I of Plato into the mouth of Achilles in Troilus and +Cressida, 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 Troilus makes Ulysses +quote Plato as "the author" of a remark, and makes Achilles take up +the quotation, which Ulysses goes on to criticise. + +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 Achaeans! + +There were Latin translations of Plato; the Alcibiades I was +published apart, from Ficinus' version, in 1560, with the sub-title, +Concerning the Nature of Man. Who had read it?--Shakespeare, or one +of the two authors (Dekker and Chettle) of another Troilus and +Cressida (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 mediaeval anti- +Achaean 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? Troilus and Cressida is indeed a +mystery, but Somebody concerned in it had read Ficinus' version of +the Alcibiades; {75a} 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. + +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." + +Ben Jonson, and all the more or less well-taught University wits, as +far as I remember, like Greene, Marlowe, and Lyly, do not show much +acquaintance with Euripides, AEschylus, 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? + +But does Mr. Collins prove (what, as he admits, CANNOT 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 AEschylus, +plays and fragments, Euripides, and Homer too (once!). Again, +"identities of sentiment under similar circumstances" are not to be +cited; two pages ARE cited; and "similarities, however striking they +may be in metaphorical expression," cannot safely be used; several +pages of them follow. + +Finally, Mr. Collins chooses a single play, the Aias of Sophocles, +and tests Shakespeare by that, unluckily in part from Titus +Andronicus, which Mr. Greenwood regards (usually) as non- +Shakespearean, or not by his unknown great author. Troilus and +Cressida, 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 Aias of Sophocles, according to +Mr. Collins: so did the author of Romeo and Juliet. + +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" +{77a} against three kinds of such parallels, which "may be mere +coincidences," {77b} 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 Hamlet +reminds that prince, grieving for his father's death, that "all that +live must die": + + +"That loss is common to the race, +And common is the common-place." + +The Greek Chorus offers the commonplace to Electra,--and here is 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. +Vestigia nulla retrorsum 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 AEschylus 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 of him by the devil. Hamlet knows this - + + +"The spirit that I have seen may be the devil." + + +Orestes (Electra, Euripides) asks whether it may not be an avenging +daemon (alastor) 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? + +A girl dies or is sacrificed before her marriage, and characters in +Romeo and Juliet, and in Euripides, both say that Death is her +bridegroom. Anyone might say that, anywhere, as in the Greek +Anthology - + + +"For Death not for Love hast thou loosened thy zone." + + +One needs the space of a book wherein to consider such parallels. +But confessedly, though a parade is made of them, they do not prove +that Shakespeare constantly read Greek tragedies in Latin +translations. + +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. + +The situations, in Hamlet and the Choephorae and Electra, 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. + +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 Beowulf 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 Tain Bo Cualgne, 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 The Heroic +Age (1912), especially Chapter XV, "The Common Characteristics of +Teutonic and Greek Heroic Poetry," and to what Mr. Chadwick says much +might be added. + +But, to be short, Mr. Collins's case can only be judged by readers of +his most interesting Studies in Shakespeare. To me, Hamlet's +soliloquy on death resembles a fragment from the Phoenix 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-AEschylean Greek and +early Anglo-Saxon poets. In many respects, as Mr. Collins proves, +Shakespeare's highest and deepest 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, sine amore jocisque, borrowed from +Mimnermus! There is such a thing as congruity of genius. Mr. +Collins states the hypothesis--not his own--"that BY A CERTAIN +NATURAL AFFINITY Shakespeare caught also the accent and tone as well +as some of the most striking characteristics of Greek tragedy." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Mr. Collins, "a violent Stratfordian," overproved 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 WAS, in the +opinion of Mr. Collins. + +If Shakespeare's spirit and those of Sophocles and AEschylus 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. + +Polynices, in the Phoenissae of Euripides (504-506), exclaims: + + +"To the stars' risings, and the sun's I'd go, +And dive 'neath earth,--if I could do this thing, - +Possess Heaven's highest boon of sovereignty." + + +Then compare Hotspur: + + +"By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leap +To pluck bright honour from the pale faced moon, +Or dive into the bottom of the deep, +Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, +And pluck up drowned honour by the locks, +So he that doth redeem her thence, might wear +Without corrival all her dignities." + + +What a hurrying crowd of pictures rush through Hotspur's mind! Is +Shakespeare thinking of the Phoenissae, or is he speaking only on the +promptings of his genius? + + + +CHAPTER V: SHAKESPEARE, GENIUS, AND SOCIETY + + + +A phrase 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 +IMPOSSIBILITY of the player's authorship is the foundation of the +Baconian edifice. + +I have, to the best of my ability, tried to describe Mr. Greenwood's +view of the young provincial from Warwickshire, Will Shakspere. If +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 MAY 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 MAY 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. + +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 +"Daemon," or, in Latin, "Genius" of Socrates, or the lutin which rode +the pen of Moliere. "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 modern minds, is that, to the poet, what he produces is +GIVEN by some power greater than himself, by the Boilyas (spirits) or +Pundjel, the Father of all. This palaeolithic 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. + +In recent times some philosophers, like Mr. F. W. H. Myers, put--in +place of the Muses or the Boilyas, 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. + +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. + +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"; so we are apt to +misunderstand each other. Yet we all glibly use the term "genius," +without definition and without discussion. + +At once, too, in this quest, we jostle against "that fool of a word," +as Napoleon said, "impossible." At once, on either side, we assume +that we know what is possible and what is impossible,--and so pretend +to omniscience. + +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. + +On the other side the Baconian, arguing from all that HE 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." + +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. + +Thus, with all Bacon's occupations and preoccupations, he had, the +Baconians will allow, GENIUS. By the miracle of genius he MAY have +found time and developed inclination, to begin by furbishing up older +plays for a company of actors: he did it extremely well, but what a +quaint taste for a courtier and scholar! The eccentricities of +genius MAY account for his choice of a "nom de plume," 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. + +I am not one of those who deny that Bacon might have written Hamlet +"if he had the mind," as Charles Lamb said of Wordsworth. Not at +all; I am the last to limit the potentialities of genius. + +But suppose, merely for the sake of argument, that Will Shakspere too +had genius in that amazing degree which, in Henry V, 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, + + +"Never was such a sudden scholar made." + + +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. + +The young king's + + + "addiction was to courses vain, +His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow," + + +precisely like Shakespeare's courses and companions at Stratford + + +"Had never noted in him any study." + + +Stratford tradition, a century after Shakespeare left the town, 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," + + +"You would say, it hath been all in all his study." + + +He is as intimate with the art of war; to him "Gordian knots of +policy" are "familiar as his garter." He MUST have + + +"The art and practic part of life," + + +as "mistress to this theorie," + + +"Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it," + + +as his youth was riotous, and was lived in all men's gaze, + + +"And never noted in him any study, +Any retirement, any sequestration +From open haunts and popularity." + + +The Bishop of Ely can only suggest that Henry's study or +"contemplation" + + +"Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night, +Unseen," + + +and Canterbury says + + +"It must be so, for miracles are ceased." + + +And thus the miracle of genius baffles the poet, for Henry's had been +"noisy nights," notoriously noisy. + +Now, as we shall later show, Bacon's rapid production of the plays, +considering his other contemporary activities and varied but 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. + +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. {91a} He "comes to town" (date unknown) "a needy adventurer"; +in 1593 appeared the poem Venus and Adonis, author's name being +printed as "W. Shakespeare." Then comes Lucrece (1594). In 1598 +Love's Labour's Lost, printed as "corrected and augmented" by "W. +Shakespere." And so on with all the rest. Criticism of the learning +and splendour of the two poems follows. To Love's Labour's Lost, 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. + +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 WAS no more, and KNEW 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." + +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 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. + +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, {93a} 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." {93b} + +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 Human Personality), 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! + +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. + +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. 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. + +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 Wallace; +Locke's Essay; The Spectator, 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. + +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 that paid better. Venus and Adonis 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. + +I take Shakespeare, in London at least, to have read the current +Elizabethan light literature--Euphues, Lyly's Court comedies, novels +full of the classics and of social life; Spenser, Sidney--his Defence +of Poesy, and Arcadia (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. {96a} 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 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: {97a} "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." + +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! + +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 {97b} from Mr. Morgan. {97c} + +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 Burns's +lay; nor would he have found a public had he emulated the +contemporary St. Andrews professor, Mr. Wilkie, who wrote The +Epigoniad, 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 mediaeval legends of Troy and Athens. But the popular +literature accessible to Will was full of the mediaeval legends of +Thebes, Troy, and Athens; and of these, NOT of Homer, Will made his +market. Egypt he knew only in the new English version of Plutarch's +Lives; of Homer, he (or the author of Troilus and Cressida) used only +Iliad VII., in Chapman's new translation (1598). For the rest he had +Lydgate (perhaps), and, certainly, Caxton's Destruction of Troy, +still reprinted as a POPULAR 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 +mediaeval 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 Cymbeline and King Lear! Concerning "the anomalous status of a +King of Scotland under one of its primitive Kings" the author of +Macbeth 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!" + +Mon Dieu! do historians NOT 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 King Lear are a popular +tale attached to legendary "history" and a story in Sidney's Arcadia. +Will, whom Mr. Morgan describes as "a letterless peasant lad," or the +Author, whoever he was, is not "invested with all the love" (sic, +v.1. "lore"), "which the ages behind him had shut up in clasped books +and buried and forgotten." + +"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," et caetera. But Shakespeare did NOT +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 legends; North's Plutarch, done out +of the French; older plays, and the rest of it. Shakespeare does not +go to Tighernach and the Hennskringla 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. + +But Mr. Greenwood asks "what was the poetic output?" in Burns's case. +{100a} It was what we know, and THAT was what suited his age and 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. + +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 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 Morte d'Arthur and Destruction of Troy. + +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." {101a} + +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. + +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 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 Le Misanthrope of Poquelin), he might say, + + +"L'Ami du genre humain n'est point du tout mon fait." + + +In London, not in Stratford, he could and did find his mob. 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? + +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." + +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 THEM in his own experience of life, +and had conventional poetic sources for his courtiers--of whom, in +the quick, he saw quite as much as Moliere did of his Marquis. + +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. {103a} + +Thus have these two Baconians perceived that it IS 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." + +Take it as you please, my Baconian friends who do not believe as I +believe in "Genius." Shakespeare and Moliere 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. + +Bacon did not, perhaps, study the society of 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 MAY 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. + +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, IN SIMILAR +CIRCUMSTANCES, would have remembered no more of Burns, after the +lapse of seventy years. + +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 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. + +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. + +By 1592, when Greene wrote his Groatsworth, "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; the critics think that Marlowe, so near his death, was +one of them. + +Will, supposing him to come upon the town in 1587, has now had, say, +five years of such opportunities as were open to a man connected 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. + +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 Poetaster, "corrupt young gentry very much, I know +it." I take the quotation from Mr. Greenwood. {106a} They could not +corrupt the young gentry, if they were not pretty intimate with them. +From Ben's Poetaster, which bristles with envy of the players, Mr. +Greenwood also quotes a railing address by a copper captain to +Histrio, a poor actor, "There are some of you players honest, +gentlemanlike scoundrels, and suspected to ha' some wit, as well as +your poets, both at drinking and breaking of jests; AND ARE +COMPANIONS FOR GALLANTS. A man may skelder ye, now and then, of half +a dozen shillings or so." {107a} We think of Nigel Olifaunt in The +Fortunes of Nigel; but better gallants might choose to have some +acquaintance with Shakespeare. + +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 c. 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 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, que scais-je? +Southampton, discovering his qualities, may have been more +interested, interested in a better way. + +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 Venus and Adonis; a poem likely to please any young amorist +(1693). + +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 +Lucrece, 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. + +This appears to me to be the natural way of looking at the affair. +But, says Mr. Greenwood, of this intimacy or "patronage" of +Southampton "not a scrap of evidence exists." {109a} Where would Mr. +Greenwood expect to find a scrap of evidence? In literary anecdote? +Of contemporary literary anecdote about Shakespeare, as about +Beaumont, Dekker, Chapman, Heywood, and Fletcher, there is none, or +next to none. There is the tradition that Southampton gave the poet +1000 pounds 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. + +As to the chances of an actor's knowing "smart people," Heywood, who +knew all that world, tells us {109b} that "Tarleton, in his time, was +gracious with the Queen, his sovereign," Queen Elizabeth. "Will +Kempe was in the favour of his sovereign." + +THEY had advantages, they were not literary men, but low comedians. +I am not pretending that, though his + + + "flights upon the banks of Thames +So did take Eliza and our James," + + +Will Shakspere "was gracious with the Queen." + +We may compare the dedication of the Folio of 1623; here two 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.'" + +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 {110a} 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 THEM it cannot +lie; THEY 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 Ben +to have written the dedication which the players signed. {111a} + +Whether or not the two Earls had a personal knowledge of Shakespeare, +the dedication does not say in so many words. They had seen 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." + +Anyone, however, may prefer to believe that, while William Shakspere +was acting in a company (1592-3), Bacon, or who you please, wrote +Venus and Adonis, and, signing "W. Shakspeare," dedicated it to his +young friend, the Earl, promising to add "some graver labour," a +promise fulfilled in Lucrece. 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 Venus and Lucrece were his). He "did nothing but +ruminate" (he tells the world) on Essex. How Mr. Greenwood's Unknown +was occupied in 1593-4, of course we cannot possibly be aware. + +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 +THIRTEEN plays, or even of six. But I have not credited him with the +authorship, between, say, 1587 and 1593, of eleven plays, namely, +Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Titus Andronicus, +Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, King John, the three plays of +Henry VI, and The Taming of the Shrew. Mr. Greenwood {112a} 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. + +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 "Titus +Andronicus, the three plays of Henry VI, and possibly also The Taming +of the Shrew, while the reference to Hamlet also is, as I have +elsewhere shown, of very doubtful force." {113a} 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. + +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 {113b} 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.'" {113c} +But, at the close of his work {113d} 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 feu Mr. Bludyer of The Tomahawk. + +From the five plays left to Shakespeare's account in p. 51, King John +(as we know it) is now eliminated. "I find it impossible to believe +that the same man was the author of the drama" (The Troublesome Reign +of King John) "published in 1591, and that which, so far as we know, +first saw the light in the Folio of 1623 . . . Hardly a single line +of the original version reappears in the King John of Shakespeare." +{114a} "I think it is a mistake to endeavour to fortify the argument +against him" (my Will, toi que j'aime), "by ascribing to Shakespeare +such old plays as the King John of 1591 or the primitive Hamlet." +{114b} + +I thought so too, when I read p. 51, and saw King John apparently +still "coloured on the card" among "Shakespeare's lot." We are now +left with Love's Labour's Lost, Midsummer Night's Dream, Comedy of +Errors, and Romeo and Juliet, 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 A Midsummer +Night's Dream, we do not know the date of Romeo and Juliet. Mr. +Gollancz dates the former "about 1592," and the latter "at 1591." +{114c} This is a mere personal speculation. Of Love's Labour's +Lost, we only know that our version is one "corrected and augmented" +by William Shakespeare in 1598. I dare say it is as early as 1591-2, +in its older form. Of The Comedy of Errors, Mr. Collins wrote, "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." {114d} + +The legion of Shakespearean plays of date 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 ME "pause," if I am to believe that, between +1587 and 1592, Will wrote Love's Labour's Lost, The Comedy of Errors, +A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Romeo and Juliet. There is a 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. + + + +CHAPTER VI: THE COURTLY PLAYS: "LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST" + + + +We 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. + +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; HE was no courtier, but there is the high courtly style in +the speeches of the great and noble in Edward II. 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 through the literature of the +age of Lyly and his Euphues and his comedies, the age of the Arcadia. + +A cheap and probable source of Will's courtliness is to be found 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 Much Ado +about Nothing and As You Like It" (and Love's Labour's Lost, 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 Natural History. . . . One could +hardly imagine Love's Labour's Lost as existent in the period from +1590 to 1600, had not Lyly's work just preceded it." {120a} + +"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 Pleiade in France, and +generally of the artificial manner in Europe, till in England we +reach Lyly, "in whose comedies," says Dr. Furness, "I think we should +look for motives which appeared later in Shakespeare." {121a} + +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 Love's Labour's +Lost was not Will, but the courtly "concealed poet." No doubt +Baconians may argue with Mr. R. M. Theobald {121b} 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." + +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 "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 Les Precieuses of her day; and expands into symbolisms +in a fantastic jargon. If courtiers of both sexes conversed in the +style of Euphues (which is improbable), they learned the trick of it +from Euphues; not the author of Euphues 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. + +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 NOT! + +We now look at Love's Labour's Lost, published in quarto, in 1598, as +"corrected and augmented by W. Shakespere." The date of 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 precieux and precieuses who imitated them, as I suggest, even +then Love's Labour's Lost 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. + +The scene is the Court of Ferdinand, King of Navarre. In 1589-93, +the eyes of England were fixed on the Court of her ally, Henri 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 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 Marechal 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, {124a} find any "allusions to +the Civil War of France." France and Navarre, in the play, are in +full peace. + +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 L'Academie Francaise, Englished in +1586) and of peace, while the actual King of Navarre of 1591 was +engaged in a struggle for life and faith; and in his ceaseless +amours. + +Many of Shakespeare's anachronisms are easily intelligible. He takes +a novel or story about any remote period, or he chooses, as for the +Midsummer Night's Dream, a period earlier than that of the Trojan +war. He gives to the Athens contemporary with the "Late Minoan III" +period (1600 B.C.?) 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 Troilus and Cressida; it is when the author makes the +bronze-clad Achaeans familiar with Plato and Aristotle that we are +surprised. In Love's Labour's Lost 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? + +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 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. {126a} 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. + +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! + +"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 Second Frutes (1591), and First Frutes +(1578), with the English translation. The books were as accessible +to Shakspere as to Bacon. Either author might also draw from James +Sandford's Garden of Pleasure, done out of the Italian in 1573-6. + +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. THERE ARE NO FRENCH POLITICS IN THE +PIECE, 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. {127a} +"Like Bacon, the author of the play must have had a large 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 +Chronicles 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 conte, partly based on a passage in +Monstrelet. + +Perhaps it will be conceded that Love's Labour's Lost 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. +Moliere 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 troupe in +Southern France. + +Mr. Greenwood does not attribute the wit (such as it is), the quips, +the conceits, the affectations satirised in Love's Labour's Lost, to +Will's knowledge of the artificial style then prevalent in all the +literatures of Western Europe, and in 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." {129a} + +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. + +Mr. Greenwood {129b} appears to be repeating "the case as to this +very remarkable play" as "well summed up by the late Judge Webb in +his Mystery of William Shakespeare" (p. 44). In that 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! + +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. + +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. Quantula sapientia! + + + +CHAPTER VII: CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION OF WILL AS AUTHOR + + + +It 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 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. + +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 NOT 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. + +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 MERITS of the 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. + +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. + +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 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 PLAYS and +POEMS. THAT is the proposition to be established, and THAT 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" {136a}--which raises an +entirely different question. + +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"--THAT is not enough. For 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. + +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. Miror magis, +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 The Passionate Pilgrim. 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 The Passionate +Pilgrim, 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. + +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 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." + +"Let us, however, examine some of these allusions to Shakspere, real +or supposed," says the critic. {138a} He begins with the hackneyed +words of the dying man of letters, Robert Greene, in A Groatsworth of +Wit (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 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 THEIR 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), "FOR there is an upstart crow, +beautified with our feathers, that with his TYGER'S HEART WRAPT IN A +PLAYER'S HIDE" ("Player's" in place of "woman's," in an old play, The +Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York, &c.), "supposes he is as well able +to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an +absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake- +scene in a country." + +The meaning is pellucid. "Do not trust the players, my fellow +playwrights, for the reasons already given, for they, in addition to +their glory gained by mouthing OUR 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 Johannes Factotum"). +"In his own conceit" he is "the only Shake-scene in a country." +"Seek you better masters," than these players, who have now an 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. + +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." {140a} As an +ACTOR 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, "FOR 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 factotum, can readily be +employed by the players to the prejudice of Greene's three friends, +who are professed playwrights. + +Mr. Greenwood says that "we do not know why Greene should have been +so particularly bitter against the players, and why he should have +thought it necessary so seriously to warn his fellow playwrights +against them." {141a} But we cannot help knowing; for Greene has +told us. In addition to gaining renown solely through mouthing "OUR" +words, wearing "OUR 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. + +Even Mr. Greenwood, {141b} 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," {141c} namely, that "Shake-scene" is a +dramatic author: what else can the words mean; why, if not for the +Stage, should Shake-scene write blank verse? + +Finally Mr. Greenwood, after saying "it is clear that it is as an +actor rather than as an author that 'Shake-scene' is attacked," +{142a} concedes {142b} that it "certainly looks as if he" (Greene) +"meant to suggest that this Shake-scene supposed himself able to +compose, as well as to mouth verses." Nothing else can possibly be +meant. "The rest of you" were authors, not actors. + +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. + +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 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, {143a} "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. + +"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 +TYGER'S HEART WRAPPED IN A PLAYER'S HIDE, supposes he is as well able +to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an +absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake- +scene in a country." + +How can mortal man squeeze from these words the charge that "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 OUR feathers,"--not with the feathers of some one NOT ourselves, +Bacon or Mr. Greenwood's Unknown. Mr. Greenwood even says that +Shake-scene is referred to "as beautified with the feathers WHICH HE +HAS STOLEN from the dramatic writers" ("our feathers"). + +Greene says absolutely nothing about feathers "WHICH HE HAS STOLEN." +The "feathers," the words of the plays, were bought, not stolen, by +the actors, "anticks garnished in our colours." + +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." + +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? + +It is much safer for him to say that "Shake-scene" is not meant for +Shakespeare. Nobody can prove that it IS; the pun MAY be a strange +coincidence,--or any one may say that he thinks it nothing more; if +he pleases. + +Greene nowhere "refers to this Shake-scene as being an impostor, an +upstart crow beautified with the feathers WHICH HE HAS STOLEN FROM +THE DRAMATIC WRITERS ("our feathers")" {145a}--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, AS PLAYER, is "beautified with our feathers." +It is Mr. Greenwood who adds "beautified with the feathers which he +has STOLEN 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. + +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 MAY have 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 Groatsworth of Wit, +{146a} as, if grammar goes for all, they do not refer to Shakespeare, +we have the Cambridge farce or comedy on contemporary literature, the +Return from Parnassus (1602?). The University wits laugh at +Shakespeare,--not an university man, as the favourite poet, in his +Venus and Adonis, of a silly braggart pretender to literature, +Gullio. + +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, AS AN AUTHOR OF PLAYS, "puts down" +the University wits "and Ben Jonson too." The date is not earlier +than that of Ben's satiric play on the poets, The Poetaster (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. + +The point is that Kempe recognises Shakespeare as both actor and +author. + +All this "is quite consistent with the theory that Shake-speare was a +pseudonym," {147a} says Mr. Greenwood. Of course it is, but it is +NOT 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 HE thought that KEMPE thought, that his fellow player +was the author. But we have better evidence of what the actors +thought than in the Cambridge play. + +In 1598, as we saw, Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia credits +Shakespeare with Venus and Adonis, with privately circulated sonnets, +and with a number of the comedies and tragedies. How the allusions +"negative the hypothesis that Shakespeare was a nom de plume is 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. + +Then Weaver (1599) alludes to him as author of Venus, Lucrece, Romeo, +Richard, "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 +Venus and Lucrece. "Besides in plays thy wit winds like Meander." I +repeat Heywood's evidence. Thomas Heywood, author of that remarkable +domestic play, A Woman Killed with Kindness, 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, + + +"Mellifluous Shakespeare whose enchanting quill +Commanded mirth and passion, was but 'Will.'" + + +Does Heywood not identify the actor with the author? No quibbles +serve against the evidence. + +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 KING," 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 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 +Montaigne, 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 Adelphi, 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 le Secret de +Polichinelle. Yet none hints at it, and only a very weak cause could +catch at so tiny a straw as the off-chance that Davies KNEW, and used +"Terence" as a gibe. {149a} + +The allusions, even the few selected, cannot prove that the 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 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. {150a} 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," +{150b} 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. + +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 +L'Allegro just after leaving Cambridge, makes Shakespeare "sweetest +Shakespeare, Fancy's child," with "native wood-notes wild"; and gives +to Jonson "the LEARNED 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 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." {151a} 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. + + + +CHAPTER VIII: "THE SILENCE OF PHILIP HENSLOWE" + + + +When Shakespeare is mentioned as an author by contemporary writers, +the Baconian stratagem, we have seen, is to cry, "Ah, but you 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 Venus and Adonis, 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. {155a} + +The allusions, I repeat, DO 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 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 WHO SHAKESPEARE 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." + +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 NOT 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. + +There are notes of payments of money to Henslowe after each +performance of any play in one of his theatres. In these notes THE +NAME OF SHAKESPEARE IS NEVER ONCE MENTIONED AS THE AUTHOR OF ANY +PLAY. How weird! But in THESE notes the names of the authors of the +plays acted are never mentioned. Does this suggest that Bacon wrote +all these plays? + +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. BUT THE SAME OF SHAKESPEARE NEVER +APPEARS. 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" (sic) "and his productions." {157a} + +The natural mind of the ordinary man explains all by saying, +"Henslowe records no loans of money to Shakspere the actor, 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 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 WHY 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 pounds on an average) his +noble works to the Lord Chamberlain's Company, as if he sold them to +Henslowe. + +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. + +"If Shakspere the player had been a dramatist, surely Henslowe would +have employed him also, like the others, in that behalf." {159a} +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 WAS 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. +{159b} Modern publishers and managers sometimes make the same terms +with novelists and playwrights. + +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. + +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." {160a} 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. Credo quia impossibile!" {160b} Credo what? and +what is IMPOSSIBLE? 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, WHEN HE IS NOT +DOING BUSINESS WITH BEN? 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 +DID mention Shakespeare! He was not keeping a journal of literary +and dramatic jottings. He was keeping an account of his expenses and +receipts. He never names Richard Burbage any more than he mentions +Shakespeare. + +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 pounds, 0s, 0d. If he were +a sham, a figure-head, a liar, a fetcher-and-carrier of manuscripts, +HE WOULD BE PAID FOR IT. But he did not deal with Henslowe in his +bargainings, and THAT is why Henslowe does not mention him. Mr. +Greenwood, in one place, {161a} agrees, so far, with me. "Why did +Henslowe not mention Shakespeare as the writer of other plays" (than +Titus Andronicus and Henry VI)? "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 WHY the author was above Henslowe's +"sky-line." I say, because good Will had a better market, that of +his Company. I understand 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?" + +Do you not see that, in the interests of the Great Secret itself, +Will HAD to take the pay for the plays (pretended his) from somebody. +Will Shakspere making his dear fellows and friends a present of 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. + +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 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. + +"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." {163a} Nothing can be more natural, and, in fact, +the name of Bacon, or Southampton, or James VI, or Sir John Ramsay, +or Sir Walter Raleigh, or Sir Fulke Greville, or any other "man in +high position," does NOT 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? + +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,-- +TAKES them as a Yankee pirate-publisher takes my rhymes,--and +"rewrites and transforms them." + +Bacon (or Bungay) CANNOT "take" them without permission of their +legal owners,--Shakspere's 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 "nom de plume" "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." + +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. {164a} 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 +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, enfin, tout le tremblement. + +"How strange, how more than strange!" + +The sum of the matter seems to me to be that from as early as 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 Henry VI. Several other plays +with names familiar in Shakespeare's Works, such as Titus Andronicus, +all the three parts of Henry VI, King Leare (April 6, 1593), Henry V +(May 14, 1592), The Taming of a Shrew (June 11, 1594), and Hamlet, +paid toll to Henslowe. He "received" so much, on each occasion, 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. + +There is one rather interesting case. On August 25, 1594, Henslowe +enters "ne" (that is, "a new play") "Received at the Venesyon +Comodey, eighteen pence." That was his share of the receipts. The +Lord Chamberlain's Company, that of Shakespeare, was playing in +Henslowe's theatre at Newington Butts. If the "Venesyon Comodey" +(Venetian Comedy) were The Merchant of Venice, 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. + + + +CHAPTER IX: THE LATER LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE--HIS MONUMENT AND +PORTRAITS + + + +In 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. + +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, 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 Cottar's Saturday Night and other moral pieces. He was +an inconsistent walker. + +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 HIS authorship impossible? The objection +seems weakly sentimental. + +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 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! + +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. {171a} I do not, like Mr. Greenwood, see anything "at +all out of the way" in the circumstance "that a man should be writing +Hamlet, and at the same time bringing actions for petty sums lent on +loan at some unspecified interest." {171b} Nor do I see anything at +all out of the way in Bacon's prosecution of his friend and +benefactor, Essex (1601), while Bacon was writing Hamlet. 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, HE WROTE THE SONNETS TO ESSEX. Whether he +were writing his Hamlet 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. + +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 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 The Advancement of Learning +(1603-5). He must be a stout-hearted Baconian who can believe that, +between 1599 and 1605, Bacon was writing Hamlet, and 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. + +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, + + + "What a sight it were, +To see thee in our waters yet appear"? + + +and so on. Did Jonson expect and hope to see the genuine +"Shakespeare" return to the stage, seven years after the death 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, + + +"Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like Night, +And despairs day, but for thy volume's light," + + +that is--the Folio of 1623. Ben did not weave the amazing tissue 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? {174a} + +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, who remarks that Shakespeare bequeathed "all the rest of my +goods, chattels, leases, &c., to my son-in-law, John Hall, gent." +(He really WAS a "gent." with authentic coat-armour.) + +It is with Mr. Elton's opinion, not with my ignorance, that Mr. +Greenwood must argue in proof of the view that "goods" 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" {175a} (library). I only give this as a lawyer's +opinion. + +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 Montaigne, 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. {175b} But if 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 WAS 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." + +It appears that Shakespeare's daughter, Judith, could write no more +than her grandfather. {176a} 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. + +As "nothing is known of the disposition and character" {176b} 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 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? + +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 NOT the author, and therefore did not interview +his granddaughter in the country. + +"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 {177a} of +the monument as it now exists, he may not be able to say to the face +of the poet - + + +"Thou wast that all to me, Will, +For which my soul did pine." + + +But if he has any knowledge of Jacobean busts on monuments, he 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 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 EXPERTISE, 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. + +Next, glance at the figure opposite. This is a reproduction of "the +earliest representation of the Bust" (and monument) in Dugdale's +Antiquities of Warwickshire (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 his "Stratford monument." THE +EXISTING OBJECT IS WHAT HE HAD; the monument in Dugdale is what, I +hope, no architect of 1616-23 could have imagined or designed. + +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 Warwickshire are far and away greater than in the monument +to William Shakespeare." + +Mr. Greenwood, {179a} 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." + +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 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." {180a} + +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. + +Now Mrs. Stopes {180b} 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. + +If ever what we see to-day was substituted for anything like what +Dugdale's man drew, the date of the substitution is unknown. + +Mrs. Stopes herself discovered the documents which disprove her +theory. They were known to Halliwell-Phillipps, who quotes an +unnamed "contemporary account." {181a} 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. THAT, 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 Othello 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 pounds, 10s., 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, "to repair and beautify, or +to have the direction of repairing and beautifying, THE ORIGINAL +MONUMENT 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 History and Antiquities of Stratford-on-Avon, {182a} 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." + +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. + +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 pounds, 10s.) "to his +churchwardens if Hall added (sic) a cloak, a pen, and manuscript." +He "could not help changing" the face, and so on. + +Now it was physically impossible to ADD a cloak, a pen, 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, 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. Pour tout potage he had but 12 pounds, 10s. 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 {183a} 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." + +Mr. Greenwood {183b} quotes Halliwell-Phillipps's Works of +Shakespeare (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 proceeds: "In his Outlines 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 Outlines; and I observe that, in Mrs. +Stopes's papers, there is record of a meeting on December 20, 1748, +at which mention was made of "the materials" which Hall was to use +for repairs. + +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 +Shakespeare (1709), and that by Grignion so late as 1786, for +anything but copies of the design in Dugdale, with modifications made +a plaisir. In 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. + +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." + +"_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 to a certain Lord Chancellor?" {186a} Such, +indeed, are the things that Baconians might readily say: do say, I +believe. + +Dugdale's engraving reproduces the first words of a Latin +inscription, still on the monument: + + +Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem + Terra tegit, populus maeret, Olympus habet: + + +"Earth covers, Olympus" (heaven? or the Muses' Hill?) "holds him who +was a Nestor in counsel; in poetic art, a Virgil; a Socrates for his +Daemon" ("Genius"). As for the "Genius," or daemon of Socrates, and +the permitted false quantity in making the first syllable of Socrates +short; and the use of Olympus for heaven in epitaphs, it is +sufficient to consult the learning of Mr. Elton. {186b} 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 the +Manes of her poor mother, Mrs. Shakespeare, with one of the oddest of +Latin epitaphs. {187a} 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. + +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," +{187b} "by the author of Hamlet." 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. {187c} For Baconians the lines are bad enough to be the +work of William Shakspere of Stratford. + +Meanwhile, in 1649, when Will's daughter, Mrs. Hall, died, her +epitaph spoke quite respectfully of her father's intelligence. + + +"Witty above her sex, but that's not all, +Wise to salvation was good Mistris Hall, +Something of Shakespeare was in THAT, but THIS +Wholly of Him with whom she's now in bliss." {187d} + + +Thirty-three years after Shakespeare's death he was still thought +"witty" in Stratford. But what could Stratford know? Milton 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. + +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 MOVE HIS +BONES? A mean and vulgar curse indeed!" {188a} And the authority +for the circumstance that he died with a mean and vulgar curse upon +his lips? + +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 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." + +If Shakespeare DID, that accommodation of himself to his audience was +the last stroke of his wisdom, or his wit. {189a} 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. + +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. + +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 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 Icones. 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, {190a} 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. + +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 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. + + + +CHAPTER X: "THE TRADITIONAL SHAKSPERE" + + + +In perusing the copious arguments of the Anti-Shakesperean but Non- +Baconian Mr. Greenwood, I am often tempted, in Socratic phrase, 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 either at Stratford or in connection with the London +Stage; and in both cases the traditions began to be in demand very +late. + +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. + +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. + +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 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." + +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. + +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, non sine +gloria! Even THAT was forgotten. + +Try to remember, best of men, that literary 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. + +Yet {198a} 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 (WHERE, 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 bourgade, where, however, +the "wit" of Shakespeare was not forgotten (in the family) in 1649. +See the epithet on the tomb of his daughter, Mrs. Hall. + +You give us the Rev. John Ward, vicar of Stratford (1661-3), who 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 THESE were local traditions. How could these rustauds have an +opinion about "natural wit," how could they have known the names of +Ben and Drayton? + +When you come to Aubrey, publishing in 1680, sixty years after +Shakespeare's death, you neglect 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 NOT wish to +believe it"? + +And do you want to believe it? + +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 +Hamlet 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, 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!" {200a} + +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 Roscius Anglicanus, had notes from +Charles Booth, prompter at Drury Lane. On May 28, 1663, Davenant +reproduced Hamlet, 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," 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." {201a} 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. + +It is Mr. Pepys (December 30, 1668) who chronicles Davenant's +splendid revival of Henry VIII, 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." + +The stage is notoriously tenacious of such traditions. + +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." {201b} 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 aetiological guesses, absolutely modern, and, I +conceive, to anyone familiar with historical inquiry, not more +valuable as history than other explanatory myths. + +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 +Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, 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 publication of the Folio (1623), +not in a large edition; it struggled into a Third Edition in 1664. +The engouement about the poet, the search for personal details, 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. + + + +CHAPTER XI: THE FIRST FOLIO + + + +"The 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. + +The mystery as to the sources, editing, and selection of plays in the +Folio (1623) appears to be impenetrable. The title-page says that +ALL the contents are published "according to the true original +copies." If ONLY 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), {207a} speaking in the name +of the two actors who sign it. They say that Shakespeare's friends +"have collected and published" the plays, have so published them +"that whereas you were abus'd with divers stolne and surreptitious +copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious +impostors that exposed them: EVEN THOSE" (namely, the pieces +previously ill-produced by pirates) "are now offered to your view +cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and ALL THE REST" (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 +ALL previously published separate plays are explicitly said to be +stolen and deformed, but "DIVERS stolen copies" are denounced. Mr. +Pollard makes the same point in Shakespeare Folios and Quartos, p. 2 +(1909). + +Now, as a matter of fact, while some of the quarto editions 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 Hamlet 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 prima facie +evidence that the sale to publishers of plays afterwards duly entered +on the Stationers' Registers was regulated by their lawful owners." +{208a} + +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 Much Ado about Nothing +(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 ALL the Quartos. It could be truly said that DIVERS stolen +and maimed copies had been foisted on "abused" purchasers, and really +no more IS said. Dr. Furness writes, "When we now find them using as +'copy' one of these very Quartos" (Much Ado about Nothing, 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 WAS their meaning, I think, the Quarto of Much +Ado had NOT been "maimed" and "deformed," as divers other quartos, +stolen and surreptitious, had been. + +Shakspere, unlike most of the other playwrights, was a member of 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 common stock; unless they, in good will, allowed +the author to pocket the money. + +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 ALL the separate editions of Shakespeare's +plays were 'stolen,' 'surreptitious' and imperfect, AND THAT ALL +THOSE PUBLISHED IN THE FOLIO WERE PRINTED FROM THE AUTHOR'S OWN +MANUSCRIPTS" (my italics). The Editors agree with Dr. Furness, not +with Mr. Pollard, whose learned opinion coincides with my own. + +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." {210a} 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 "ALL THE REST" are "absolute in +their numbers as he conceived them." This does not allege that all +the rest are printed from Shakespeare's own holograph copies. + +Among the plays spoken of as "all the rest," namely, those not +hitherto published and not deformed by the fraudulent, are, Tempest, +Two Gentlemen, Measure for Measure, Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, +All's Well, Twelfth Night, Winter's Tale, Henry VI, iii., Henry VIII, +Coriolanus, Timon, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and +Cymbeline. Also Henry VI, i., ii., King John, and Taming of the +Shrew, 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 The Shrew, Timon, Julius Caesar, All's +Well, and Henry VIII. 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." + +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 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." + +This may be meant to SUGGEST, but does not AFFIRM, that the actors +HAVE "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. + +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 prima +cura, 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 who sign it. He +took their word for the almost blotless MSS. which they received from +Shakespeare. He remarks, in his posthumously published Discoveries +(notes, memories, brief essays), "I remember the players have OFTEN +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. + +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." Hamlet, 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." + +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 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 Richard III, appear in the Folio of 1623. Again, the Merry +Wives of the Folio, is nearly twice as long as the quarto of 1619, +yet keeps old errors. + +How can we explain the reckless retention of errors, and also 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 The +Merry Wives in extent, and also leave all the errors of the fourth +quarto uncorrected? + +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. + +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 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. {215a} 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. + +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, Richard III 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 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?" {216a} +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 +Richard III 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, 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." {217a} + +Mr. Greenwood, after criticising other systems, writes, {217b} "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 "nom de plume" 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." + +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 Love's Labour's Lost, and Shakespeare, +Genius, and Society) how Will picked up his notions of courtly ways. + +"Another hypothesis," the Baconian hypothesis,--"nom de plume" and +all,--Mr. Greenwood thinks "an extremely reasonable one": I cannot +easily conceive of one more unreasonable. + +"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'?" +{218a} + +That man, that "good pen," was Ben Jonson. On the "supposing" of Mr. +Greenwood, Ben is "doing work for" the Great Unknown at the time when +"the business" following on the "idea of publishing a collected +edition of the plays which had been written under the name of +Shakespeare" occurred to the illustrious but unknown owner of that +"nom de plume." 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. + +Here is a clue! We only need to know for 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. + +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 (Lar or Brownie), + + +"Thou stand'st as if some mystery thou didst." + + +Mr. Greenwood does not know what this can mean; nor do I. {219a} + +"Jonson, it appears" (on what authority?), "was Bacon's guest 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. + +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 De Augmentis, which was published in 1623, was the work of +Jonson." {219b} 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." {219c} + +Tres bien, 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. {220a} Now the man for whom Ben, in 1623, was +"doing work"--was BACON,--so Judge Webb says. {220b} + +Therefore, by this hypothesis of Mr. Greenwood, {220c} the Great +Unknown was Bacon,--just the hypothesis of the common Baconian. + +Is my reasoning erroneous? Is the "supposing" suggested by Mr. +Greenwood {220d} any other than that of Miss Delia Bacon, and 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. + +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: 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!" {221a} 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 "nom +de plume" 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 Advancement of +Learning into Latin prose. Mr. Greenwood quotes, without reference, +Archbishop Tenison as saying that Ben helped Bacon in doing his works +into Latin. {221b} 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 lingua franca 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. + +Conceivably Mr. Greenwood is of the same 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." + +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, {222a} 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," WRITTEN) "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." {222b} How did this occur? The book +{222c} 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 "nom de plume"? + +It is not my fault if I think that Mr. Greenwood's hypotheses {222d}- +-the genuine "Shakespeare" either revised his own works, or put Ben +on the editorial task--are absolutely contradicted by his statements +in another part of his book. {222e} For the genuine "Shakespeare" +knew what plays he had 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 plat contraire,"--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." {223a} Then away fly +the hypotheses {223b} that the auto-Shakespeare, or that Ben, +employed by the auto-Shakespeare (apparently Bacon) revised, edited, +and prepared for publication the auto-Shakespearean plays. For Mr. +Greenwood "has already dealt with Titus (Andronicus) and Henry VI," +{223c} and proved them not to be auto-Shakespearean--and he adds +"there are many other plays in that very doubtful 'canon'" (the +Folio) "which, by universal admission, contain much non-Shakespearean +composition." {223d} Perhaps! but if so the two hypotheses, {223e} +that either the genuine Shakespeare {223f} 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 {223g} +was done after 1616 and before 1623?"), or {223h} that he gave Ben +(who was working, by the conjecture, for Bacon) the task of 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." {224a} 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" Troilus and Cressida. {224b} + +Neither Ben, nor the actual Simon Pure, the author, the auto- +Shakespeare, could fail to know the truth about Trodus and Cressida. +But the Editor {224c} did NOT know the truth, the whole canon is +"doubtful." Therefore the hypothesis, the "supposing," that the +actual author did the revising, {224d} and the other hypothesis that +he gave Ben the work, {224e} seem to me wholly impossible. But Mr. +Greenwood needs the "supposings" of pp. 290, 293; and as he rejects +Titus Andronicus and Henry VI (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? + +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 Titus +Andronicus and Henry VI, though both are in the Folio, as the work of +HIS "Shakespeare," his Unknown, 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 +Titus, and Henry VI, and be "in no little doubt about" Troilus and +Cressida? 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 "nom de plume" of "William Shakespeare" +(with or without the hyphen). Yet the Editor of the Folio does not +know--and Mr. Greenwood does know--Henry VI and Titus are "wrong +ones." + +Mr. Greenwood's way out, if I follow him, is this: {225a} "Judge +Stotsenburg asks, 'Who wrote The Taming of a Shrew printed in 1594, +and who wrote Titus Andronicus, Henry VI, or King Lear referred to in +the Diary?'" (Henslowe's). The Judge continues: "Neither Collier +nor any of the Shaxper commentators make (sic) 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." + +Mr. Greenwood says, "My own conviction is that . . . these plays were +'revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they called +Shakespeare.'" {226a} (Whom WHO called Shakespeare?) In that case +these plays,--say Titus Andronicus and Henry VI, Part 1,--which Mr. +Greenwood denies to HIS "Shakespeare" were just as much HIS +Shakespeare's plays as any other plays (and there are several), which +HIS Shakespeare "revised, improved, and dressed." Yet HIS +Shakespeare is NOT author of Henry VI, {226b} not the author of Titus +Andronicus. {226c} "Mr. Anders," writes Mr. Greenwood, "makes what I +think to be a great error in citing Henry VI and Titus as genuine +plays of Shakespeare." {226d} + +He hammers at this denial in nineteen references in his Index to +Titus Andronicus. Yet Ben, or Bacon, or the Unknown thought that +these plays WERE "genuine plays" of "Shakespeare," the concealed +author--Bacon or Mr. Greenwood's man. It appears that the immense +poet who used the "nom de plume" 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." + +Finally, {227a} Mr. Greenwood is "convinced," "it is my conviction" +that some plays which he often denies to his "Shakespeare" were +"revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they 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. + +One is seriously puzzled to discover the critic's meaning. The +Taming of a Shrew, Titus, Henry VI, and King Lear, 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 Titus "is not SHAKESPEAREAN at all." Mr. +Greenwood, I repeat, constantly denies the "Shakespearean" character +to Titus and Henry VI. "The conclusion of the whole matter is that +Titus and The Trilogy of Henry VI are not the work of Shakespeare: +that his hand is probably not to be found at all in Titus, and only +once or twice, if at all, in Henry VI, Part I, but that he it +probably was who altered and remodelled the two parts of the old +Contention of the Houses of York and Lancaster, thereby producing +Henry VI, Parts II and III." {228a} + +Yet {228b} Titus and Henry VI appear as "revised, improved, and +dressed" by the mysterious "some one whom they called Shakespeare." +If Mr. Greenwood's conclusion {228c} be correct, "Shakespeare" had no +right to place Henry VI, Part I, and Titus in his Folio. If his +"conviction" {228d} be correct, Shakespeare had as good a right to +them as to any of the plays which he revised, and improved, and +dressed. They MUST be "Shakespearean" if Mr. Greenwood is right +{228e} 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 Troilus and Cressida. "The Folio Editor had, evidently, no little +doubt about that play." {228f} + +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 Titus and Henry VI, 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, Titus Andronicus, and Henry VI. +{229a} + +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.'" {229b} + +This statement is made {229c} about "these plays," including Titus +Andronicus and Henry VI, while {229d} "Titus and the Trilogy of Henry +VI are not the work of Shakespeare . . . his hand is probably not to +be found at all in Titus, and only once or twice in Henry VI, Part +I," though he probably made Parts II and III out of older plays. + +I do not know where to have the critic. If Henry VI, Part I, and +Titus 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 he is wrong in denying Shakespearean origin to Titus +and Henry VI, Part I. + +Of course one sees a way out of the dilemma for the great auto- +Shakespeare himself, who, by one hypothesis, handed over the editing +of his plays to Ben (HE, 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. + +"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." + +This painful discourse must have been held at Gorhambury,--if Ben +edited the Folio--for Francis. + +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 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, {231a} "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! + +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, +{231b} he did it as the office cat might have done it in hours of +play. If, on the other side, he handed the editorial task over to +Ben, {232a} 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. + +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 NOT 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 "IF THE +AUTHOR" (Bacon or somebody very like him) "HAD BEEN CARELESS ABOUT +KEEPING COPIES OF HIS MANUSCRIPTS . . . " {232b} What an "if" in the +case of the great Author! This gross neglect, infamous in Will, may +thus have been practised by the Great Unknown himself. + +In 1911 Mr. Greenwood writes, "There is overwhelming authority for +the view that Titus Andronicus is not SHAKESPEAREAN at all." {233a} +In that case, neither Bacon, nor the Unknown, nor Ben, acting for +either, can have been the person who put Titus into the Folio. + + + +CHAPTER XII: BEN JONSON AND SHAKESPEARE + + + +The evidence of Ben Jonson to the identity of Shakespeare the 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." {237a} + +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 WORKS: in 1619 to Drummond of Hawthornden; in 1623 in +commendatory verses to the Folio; while, about 1630, probably, in his +posthumously published Discourses, 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 TONE +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. + +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 Tyraeus! 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. + +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 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 Discourses 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 THEY 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. + +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 The Poetaster +(1601), and as actor, poet, and plagiarist in an epigram, Poet-Ape, +published in his collected works of 1616; but probably written as +early as 1602. It is well known that in 1598 Shakespeare's company +acted Ben's Every Man in His Humour. It appears that he conceived +some grudge against the actors, and apparently against Shakespeare +and other playwrights, for, in 1601, his Poetaster 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 The Poetaster, +Histrio, the actor, is advised to ingratiate himself with Pantalabus, +"gent'man parcel-poet, his father was a man of worship, I tell thee." +This is perhaps unmistakably a blow at Shakespeare, who had 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 Pantalabus, from the Greek words for "to TAKE UP +ALL," which means that, as poet, he is a plagiarist. Jonson repeats +this charge in his verses called Poet-Ape - + + +"HE TAKES UP ALL," makes each man's wit his own, +And told of this, he slights it." + + +In a scene added to The Poetaster in 1616, the author (Ben) is +advised not + + +"With a sad and serious verse to wound +Pantalabus, railing in his saucy jests," + + +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. + +A reply to the Poetaster, namely Satiromastix (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; THEN, + + +"What lumps of hard and indigested stuff, +Of bitter SATIRISM, of ARROGANCE, +Of SELF-LOVE, of DETRACTION, of a black +And stinking INSOLENCE should we fetch up!" + + +This "pill" is a reply to Ben's "purge" for the poets in his +Poetaster. Oh, the sad old stuff! + +Referring to Jonson's Poetaster, and to Satiromastix, the counter- +attack, we find a passage in the Cambridge play, The Return from +Parnassus (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 down" (all the University playwrights), +"aye, and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow, +he brought up Horace" (in The Poetaster) "giving the poets a pill, +but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge . . . " + +The Cambridge author, perhaps, is thinking of the pill (not purge) +which, in Satiromastix, might be administered to Jonson. 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 The Poetaster, using the +term "Poet-Ape," for he calls the actors at large "apes." + +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 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 Moliere, Shakespeare had outlived +the charge of plagiarism, made long ago by the jealous Ben. + +Poet-Ape is an actor-playwright "THAT WOULD BE THOUGHT OUR CHIEF"-- +words which, by 1601, could only apply to Shakespeare; there was no +rival, save Ben, near his throne. The playwright-actor, too, has now +confessedly + + + "grown +To a little wealth and credit in the scene," + + +of no other actor-playwright could this be said. + +He is the author of "works" (Jonson was laughed at for calling his +own plays "works"), but these works are "the frippery of wit," that +is, a tissue of plagiarisms, as in the case of Pantalabus. 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 +Moliere. This Poet-Ape began his career by "picking and gleaning" +and "buying reversions of old plays." This means that Shakespeare +DID work over earlier plays which his company had acquired; or, if +Shakespeare did not,--then, I presume,--Bacon did! + +THAT, with much bad humour, is the gist of the rhymes on Poet-Ape. +Ben thinks Shakespeare's "works" very larcenous, but still, the +"works," as such, are those of the poet-actor. I hope it is now +clear that Poet-Ape, who, like Pantalabus, "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. + +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." {244a} 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 or perhaps +some parts of a work, for which he was really indebted to another." +{245a} We proved, by quoting Greene's words, that he said nothing +which could be tortured into this sense. {245b} 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." {245c} Mr. Greenwood tries to find the Anti-Willian +hypothesis in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit and in Ben's epigram. It +is in neither. + +Jonson is not accusing Shakespeare of pretending to be the author of +plays written by somebody else, but of "making EACH MAN'S wit his +own," and the MEN are the other dramatists of the day. Thus the +future "may judge" Shakespeare's work "to be his as well as OURS." + +It is "we," the living and recognised dramatists, whom Shakespeare is +said to plagiarise from; so boldly that + + +"WE, THE ROBBED, leave rage, and pity it." + + +Ben does not mean that Shakespeare is publishing, as his own, 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 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. + +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. + +The "works" of which Ben wrote so splenetically in Poet-Ape, 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,--WHOEVER 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 WORKS are still as +irreconcilable as ever. + +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"--BUT NOT TO DRUMMOND. I am reluctant to think that Jonson +was the falsest and meanest of snobs. 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. + +We now come to Ben's panegyrics in the Folio of 1623. Ben heads the +lines, + + +"TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED +THE AUTHOR +MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE +AND +WHAT HE HATH LEFT US." + + +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 +Author, Shakespeare, as dead, and buried. He calls on him thus: + + + "Soul of the Age! +The applause! delight! the wonder of our Stage! +My Shakespear rise: I will not lodge thee by +Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie +A little further, to make thee a room: +Thou art a monument, without a tomb, +And art alive still, while thy book doth live, +And we have wits to read, and praise to give." + + +Beaumont, by the way, died in the same year as Shakespeare, 1616, +and, while Ben here names him with Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare, +his contemporaries have left no anecdotes, no biographical hints. In +the panegyric follow the lines: + + +"And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, +From thence to honour thee I would not seek +For names, but call forth thund'ring AEschylus," + + +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." + +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"? + +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 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." + +To produce such lines requires labour, requires conscious "art." So +Shakespeare HAD "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?" {249a} + +Can anything be more like Ben Jonson? + +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, "want of art," ignorance of +Bohemian geography. Or did Ben NOT 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 NOW he +could not forget the small Latin and less Greek! + +We now turn to Mr. Greenwood's views about the commendatory verses. +On mature consideration I say nothing of his remarks on Ben's +couplets about the bad engraved portrait. {250a} They are concerned +with the supposed "ORIGINAL bust," as represented in Dugdale's +engraving of 1656. What the Baconians hope to make out of "the +ORIGINAL bust" I am quite unable to understand. {250b} Again, I +leave untouched some witticisms {250c} on Jonson's lines about +Spenser, Chaucer, and Beaumont in their tombs--lines 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 . . . " {251a} 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. + +"Then follow these memorable words, which I have already discussed: + + +"'And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek . . . '" {251b} + + +In "these memorable words," every non-Baconian sees Ben's opinion +about his friend's lack of scholarship. According to his own +excellent Index, Mr. Greenwood has already adverted often to "these +memorable words." + + +(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." + +(2) P. 88. Nothing of importance. + +(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. + +(4) P. 222. "And we have recognised that Jonson's 'small Latin and +less Greek' must be explained away" (a quotation from somebody). + +(5) P. 225. Allusion to anecdote of "Latin (latten) spoons." + +(6) Pp. 382, 383. "Some of us" (some of whom?) "have long 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. + +(7) The next references in the laudable Index are to pp. 474, 475. +"Then follow these memorable words, which I have already discussed: + + +"'And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,' + + +words which those who see how singularly inappropriate they are to +the author of the PLAYS and POEMS 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." + +_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 +scriptures, asking How does he explain Ben's "memorable words" away? +On p. 106 of The Shakespeare Problem Restated 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.' . . . " + +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. + +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, {253a} +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 Raffles, as +to the idioms of burglars. + +To return to criticism, we are to admit that Jonson was really +writing "with his tongue in his cheek," knowing that, as a fact, +"SHAKESPEARE" (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." {254a} + +So this is Mr. Greenwood's method of "explaining away" the memorable +words. He seems to conjecture that Will was not SHAKESPEARE, 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 "nom de +plume" 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." + +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 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 DID write the plays, and +had small Latin and less Greek, Ben meant that he did NOT write them, +that they were written by somebody else who had plenty of Greek 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. {255a}) He spoke sooth: he attributes to Orpheus, in +"Timber," a line from Homer, and quotes from Homer what is not in +that poet's "works." + +In this manuscript occurs, then, a brief prose note, headed, De +Shakespeare nostrati, 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. 'Sufflaminandus erat,' 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 Caesar, one speaking to him, 'Caesar, thou dost +me wrong.' He replied, 'Caesar did never wrong but with just cause'; +and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with +his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be +pardoned." Baconians actually maintain that Ben is here speaking of +Bacon. + +Of whom is Ben writing? Of the author of Julius Caesar,--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 IS HERE THE ACTOR-AUTHOR, whom the players, his +friends, commended "wherein he faulted," namely, in not "blotting" +where, in a thousand cases, Ben wishes that he HAD 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? + +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 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 . . . " + +Perhaps, but the Baconians appear to assume that a "fair copy" is +not, and cannot be, a copy in the handwriting of the author. + +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. + +To finish Mr. Greenwood's observations, "if they" (the players) +"really thought that the author of the plays wrote them off currente +calamo, and never" (or "hardly ever") "blotted a line, never revised, +never made any alterations, they knew nothing whatever concerning the +real Shakespeare." {258a} + +Nothing whatever? What they did not know was merely that Will gave +them fair copies in his 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. + +The Players' testimony, through Jonson, cannot be destroyed by the +"easy stratagem" of Mr. Greenwood. + +Mr. Greenwood now nearly falls back on Bacon, though he 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 +{259a} "as a very special occasion." Well, it WAS a very special +occasion; no literary occasion could be more "special." Without the +Folio, badly as it is executed, we should perhaps never have had many +of Shakespeare's plays. The occasion was special in the highest +degree. + +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." {260a} + +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, + + +"Thou stand'st as if some mystery thou didst." + + +"What was that 'mystery'?" asks Mr. Greenwood. {260b} What indeed? +And what has all this to do with Ben's commendatory verses for the +Folio, two years later? Mr. Greenwood also surmises, as we have +seen, {260c} that Jonson was with Bacon, helping to translate The +Advancement of Learning in June, 1623. + +Let us suppose that he was: what has that to do with Ben's verses +for the Folio? Does Mr. Greenwood mean to hint that BACON 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? + +Between the passage on some "efficient cause" "at the back of Ben's +mind," {261a} and the passage on Ben's visits to Bacon in 1621-3, +{261b} 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 Discoveries. The first is +entirely confined to praise of Bacon as an orator. Bacon is next +mentioned in a Catalogue of Writers as "HE WHO HATH FILLED UP ALL +NUMBERS, and performed that in our tongue which may be preferred or +compared either to INSOLENT GREECE OR HAUGHTY ROME," words used of +Shakespeare by Jonson in the Folio verses. + +Mr. Greenwood remarks that Jonson's Catalogue, to judge by the names +he cites (More, 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" {262a} 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. + +Another startling coincidence is that, in Discoveries, 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 HAD +"the rule of his own wit," Bacon "COULD 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, +the Baconians ask (not so Mr. Greenwood, he is no Baconian), "were +there then TWO writers of whom this description was appropriate . . . +Was there only one, and was it of Bacon, under the name of +"Shakespeare," that Ben wrote De Shakespeare nostrati? + +Read it again, substituting "Bacon" for "Shakespeare." "I remember +the players," and so on, and what has Bacon to do here? "Sometimes +it was necessary that BACON should be stopped." "Many times BACON +fell into those things could not escape laughter," such as Caesar's +supposed line, "and such like, which were ridiculous." "BACON +redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in BACON to +be praised than to be pardoned." + +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 +Discoveries: 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 prose Discoveries he speaks, among +English dramatists, of Shakespeare alone. + +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." + +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, {264a} 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 Discoveries he appears to confound one with +the other, it is because the solemn seal of secrecy had been imposed +on him." They WOULD say, they DO say 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 PRETENDS that he is +speaking of Shakespeare. + +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. + +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 DOES he mean? + +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. "The best of these good pens, +it seems, was Jonson." {266a} On what evidence does it "seem"? The +opinion of Judge Webb. + +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? + +Mr. Greenwood, like the Genius at the birthday supper, + + +"Stands as if some mystery he did." + + +On a trifling point of honour, namely, as to whether Ben were a 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. + +"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). + +Among justifiable lies I do not reckon that of Scott if ever he +plumply denied that he wrote the Waverley 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 his anonymity, to deny, when questioned, the authorship of a +work, since the interrogator had no right to put such a question to +him," {267a} 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 The Bride of Lammermoor, 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 HE 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. + +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. HE had not +written the Shakespearean plays. Nobody was asking HIM if he had +written them. If he knew that the author was Bacon, and knew it +under pledge of secrecy, and was asked (per impossibile) "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 Discoveries, Ben chooses to assert, first, that +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, {268a} 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. + +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, 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. + +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 +Waverley novels. + +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 Waverley 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. + +Mr. Greenwood, starting as usual from the case, which is no parallel, +of Scott's denying his own authorship, goes on, "for all we know, +Jonson might have seen nothing in the least objectionable in 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 DOUBTLESS ('I thank thee, Jew' (meaning Sir Sidney +Lee), 'for teaching me that word'!) he would have remained true to +that solemn pledge." {270a} + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XIII: THE PREOCCUPATIONS OF BACON + + + +Let 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? + +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, a priori 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; might not a better method +be found? . . . Upon the conviction 'This may be done,' followed at +once the question, HOW may it be done? Upon that question answered +followed the resolution to try and do it." + +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." +{274a} The vocation, the idea, the object, were not poetical. + +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 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. + +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 +Temporis Partus Maximus, 'The Greatest Birth of Time,'" and "we need +not doubt that between Law and Philosophy he found enough to do." +{275a} For the Baconians take Bacon to have been a very great lawyer +(of which I am no judge), and Law is a hard mistress, rapacious of 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." {275b} 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 Love's Labour's Lost! +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 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 +NOT mean the writing of Venus and Adonis (1593), nor of Lucrece +(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 . . . " {276a} Really, from first to last he was the prince of +begging-letter writers, endlessly asking for place, pensions, +reversions, money, and more money. + +Though his years were thirty-one, Bacon was as 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 MODERN it all is!), +and the rest of it? But just because Bacon, at thirty-one, IS 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 Venus and +Adonis, and whatever plays of the period,--say, Love's Labour's Lost, +The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Henry VI, 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 DID, as far as he was able. His other desires, +his personal advancement, money, a share in the conduct of affairs, +he also hotly pursued, not much to his own or the public profit. +There seems to be no room left, no inclination left, for 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. + +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 +LITERARY aim. They must take his alternative--to be "some sorry +bookmaker, OR a pioneer in that mine of truth," as meaning that he +would either be the literary hack of a company of players, OR 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! + +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." + +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 does not speak OPENLY of a tenderly passionate attachment to that +young man; not more than THIS, "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." {279a} As Bacon did nothing but these things +(1591-2), he had no great leisure for writing poetry and plays. +Moreover, speaking as a poet, in the Sonnets, he might poetically +exaggerate his intense amatory devotion to Essex into the symbolism +of his passionate verse. WAS ESSEX THEN A MARRIED MAN? If so, the +Sonneteer's insistence on his marrying must be symbolical of-- +anything else you please. + +We know that Bacon, at this period, "did nothing" but "ruminate" +about Essex. The words are his own! (1604). No plays, no Venus and +Adonis, 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." {279b} Both are excellent, though, for a Court festival, +not very gay. + +He also, very early in 1593, wrote an answer to Father Parson's (?) +famous indictment of Elizabeth's Government, in Observations on a +Libel. {280a} What with ruminating on Essex, and this essay, he was +not solely devoted to Venus and Adonis and to furbishing-up old +plays, though, no doubt, he MAY have unpacked his bosom in the +Sonnets, and indulged his luscious imaginations in Venus and Adonis. +I would not limit the potentialities of his genius. But, certainly, +this amazing man was busy in quite other matters than poetry; not to +mention his severe "study and meditation" on science. + +All these activities of Bacon, in the year of Venus and Adonis, 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, he says, and distracted his attention from his +practice and from affairs of State. {281a} Of these State affairs +the projected Union with Scotland was the most onerous. He was also +writing The Advancement of Learning (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." {281b} 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." + +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 tragedy, Lear, Macbeth, Othello, and saw +life en noir: man delighted him not, nor woman either. + +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. {282a} +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?) + +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. {282b} "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 and poems of the period," says Sir +Sidney Lee, and Mr. Greenwood pounces on the word "all." {283a} +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. {283b} 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. + +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 example, "his natural history of the +insect is as limited as it is inaccurate." {284a} 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 mediaeval 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. {284b} Was that worthy of Bacon? + +All these charges against le vieux Williams (as Theophile 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. + + +We have now passed in review the chief Baconian and Anti-Willian +arguments against Will Shakespeare's authorship of the plays and +poems. Their chief argument for Bacon is aut Diabolus, aut +Franciscus, which, freely interpreted, means, "If Bacon is not the +author, who the devil is?" + +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 HIS "mellifluous Shakespeare" is "Will," as his Beaumont +was "Frank," his Marlowe "Kit," his Fletcher, "Jack." The author of +Daiphantus (1604), mentioning the popularity of Hamlet, 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 WHO their "Shakespeare" was, +any more than they needed to say WHO Marlowe or any other poet was. +We have examined the possibly unprecedented argument which demands +that they who mention Shakespeare as the poet must, if they would +enlighten us, add explicitly that he is also the actor. + +"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 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, sufflaminandus est; "he needs to have +the brake put on." {287a} + +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. + +Such was Shakespeare, according to a rival. + +But it is "impossible" that a man should have known so much, +especially of classical literature and courtly ways, and 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. + +"With innumerable sorts of English books and infinite fardles of +printed pamphlets this country is pestered, all shops stuffed, and +every study furnished," says a contemporary. {288a} 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. + +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," {288b} +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 dicta--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. + +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 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. + +"Ne me dites jamais cette bete de mot, impossible," said Napoleon: +it is indeed a stupid word where genius is concerned. + +If intellectual "miracles" were impossible to genius, even Bacon +could not have been and 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. + +"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?" + +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 Achaean +"Father of the rest"; and to "friendly Shakespeare." + + + + +APPENDICES + + + + +APPENDIX I: "TROILUS AND CRESSIDA" + + + +To myself Troilus and Cressida is, with Henry VI, Part I, the 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 Cypria, these favourite heroes of Homer, +Odysseus and Diomede, were represented as scoundrels, assassins, and +cowards. + +In the Prologue to the play (whosoever wrote it) we see that the +writer is no scholar. He makes the Achaean fleet muster in "the port +of Athens," of all places. Even Ovid gave the Homeric trysting- +place, Aulis, in Boeotia. (This Prologue is not in the Folio of +1623.) Six gates hath the Englishman's Troy, and the Scaean is not +one of them. + +The loves of Troilus and Cressida, with Pandarus as go-between, are +from the mediaeval Troy books, and were wholly unknown to Homer, +whose Pandarus is only notable for loosing a 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 Achaeans, 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. + +In Act i. Scene 3, the Achaeans 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 mediaeval detractors. The Homeric sequence of events is so +far preserved that, on the day of the duel between Paris and +Menelaus, comes (through AEneas) 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 (not by chance, as in Homer) the lot falls on +Aias. In the Iliad Aias is as strong and sympathetic as Porthos in +Les Trois Mousquetaires. 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 to avenge on him Patroclus, he retires like a coward, musters +his men, and makes them surround and slay the defenceless Hector. + +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. + +Once more, when Hector is dead, and Achilles bids his men to + + + "cry amain, +Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain," + + +we think of Iliad, XXII, 390-393, where Achilles commands the +Myrmidons to go singing the paean + + +"Glory have we won, we have slain great Hector!" + + +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 of Hector, from +Caxton, except as regards the paean. + +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 Histriomastix, by +Marston and others, a burlesque speech in which Troilus, addressing +Cressida, speaks of "thy knight," who "SHAKES his furious SPEARE," +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. {297a} 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 "SHAKES his furious SPEARE" in +Histriomastix refers to Shakespeare in connection with Cressida, +while, in 1599, Dekker and Chettle were doing a Troilus and Cressida +for a company not Shakespeare's, then there were TWO Troilus and +Cressida in the field. A licence to print a Troilus and Cressida 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, 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 AT THE GLOBE." {298a} The author of the +Preface (Ben Jonson, Mr. Greenwood thinks, {298b}) 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 Troilus and Cressida, and if Shakespeare is alluded to in +connection with Cressida, in Histriomastix (1599), then it appears to +me that Shakespeare, in 1598-9, after Chapman's portion of the Iliad +appeared, was author of one Troilus and Cressida, extant in 1602-3 +(when its publication was barred till the publisher "got authority"), +while Chettle and Dekker, in April 1599, were busy with another +Troilus and Cressida, 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? + +Perhaps not: but meanwhile Mr. Greenwood cites Judge Stotsenburg's +opinion {298c} that Henslowe's entries of April 1599 "refute the +Shakespearean claim to the authorship of Troilus and Cressida," which +exhibits "the collaboration 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 Troilus and Cressida 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 +Histriomastix. {299a} How that evidence proves that "a play of +Troilus and Cressida had been PUBLISHED 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. + +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 for Lord Nottingham's +men (according to Sir Sidney Lee), {300a} but it is, later at least, +played by Shakespeare's company; and perhaps Bacon gets none of the 4 +pounds paid {300b} 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 +Achaean could not be combined with the Ionian, Athenian, and Roman +perversions, as he knew them in the mediaeval 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. + +"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." {301a} 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," {301b} the +autocratic James was very capable of protecting himself against +larcenous publishers. + + + +APPENDIX II--CHETTLE'S SUPPOSED ALLUSION TO WILL SHAKSPERE + + + +In discussing contemporary allusions to William Shakspere or +Shakespeare (or however you spell the name), I have not relied on +Chettle's remarks (in Kind-Hart's Dreame, 1592) concerning Greene's +Groatsworth of Wit. 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 TWO. +"With NEITHER of them that take offence was I acquainted" (at the +time when he edited the Groatsworth), "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 argues his honesty; and his facetious grace in writing that +approves his art." + +Speaking from his own observation, Chettle avers that the person of +whom he speaks is civil in his demeanour, and (APPARENTLY) 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 NOT "the quality he professes," is not the +"profession" of the man to whom Chettle refers. On the other hand, +the profession of Greene's "Quondam acquaintance" WAS writing, "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 NOT 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 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." {304a} + +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. + +I do not know the name of any one of the three to whom Greene +addressed the Groatsworth, though the atheistic writer of tragedies +seems meant, and disgracefully meant, for Marlowe. 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 SEEN 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. HIS writing is not part of his profession, so he is not, +in 1592 (I conceive), Lodge, Peele, Marlowe, or Nash. + +Who, then, is this mysterious personage? Malone, Dyce, Steevens, +Collier, Halliwell-Phillipps, Knight, Sir Sidney Lee, Messrs. 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 Groatsworth of Wit "a letter, written to divers play-makers, +is offensively by one or two of them taken." The mysterious one is, +therefore, one of the playwrights addressed by Greene. 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. {305a} + +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 HIM. 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. + +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 parergon, 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. + +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. + + + +Footnotes: + +{0a} E. J. Castle, Shakespeare, Bacon, Jonson, and Greene, pp. 194- +195. + +{0b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 145. + +{0c} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 340. + +{0d} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 340, 341. + +{0e} In Re Shakespeare, p. 54. + +{0f} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 341. + +{0g} Ibid., p. 470. + +{0h} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 339. + +{0i} The Vindicators of Shakespeare, pp. 115-116. + +{0j} Ibid., p. 49. + +{0k} The Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 14. + +{4a} Francis Bacon Wrote Shakespeare. By H. Crouch-Batchelor, 1912. + +{7a} The Shakespere Problem Restated, p. 293. + +{11a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 31-37. + +{13a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 36-37. + +{16a} Tue Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 20. + +{17a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 47-48. + +{17b} Ibid., pp. 54-55. + +{17c} Ibid., p. 54. + +{17d} Ibid., p. 56. + +{17e} Ibid., p. 59. + +{17f} Ibid., p. 62. + +{17g} Ibid., p. 193. + +{18a} See his Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 210. + +{19a} Vindicators, p. 187. + +{19b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 223. + +{21a} In Re Shakespeare, p. 54. + +{22a} In a brief note of two pages (Cornhill Magazine, 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. + +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 nom +de guerre, 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.) + +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." + +C'est la le miracle! + +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. + +{27a} Francis Bacon Wrote Shakespeare, p. 37. + +{30a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 333. + +{31a} In the passage which I quoted, with notes of omission, 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. + +{31b} See chap. XI, The First Folio. + +{33a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 305, 306. + +{34a} Furness, Merchant of Venice, pp. 271, 272. + +{34b} On this see Mr. Pollard's Shakespeare Folios and Quartos, pp. +1-9. + +{37a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 202, 348, 349. + +{38a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 349. + +{44a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 356. + +{45a} In Re Shakespeare, p. 88, note I. + +{48a} Studies in Shakespeare, p. 15; Life of Shakespeare, by Malone, +pp. 561-2, 564; Appendix, XI, xvi. + +{50a} C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, pp. +97, 98. + +{51a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 44. + +{52a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 39. + +{52b} Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 210. + +{53a} Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 187. + +{53b} Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 223. + +{55a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 69. + +{56a} See chapter X, The Traditional Shakespeare. + +{56b} See C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, +pp. 48, 343-8. + +{57a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 207-9. + +{59a} Chapter X, infra. + +{62a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 96. + +{62b} See chapter X, The Traditional Shakespeare. + +{62c} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 94-96. + +{64a} Shakespeare, pp. 38-40. + +{65a} Raleigh, Shakespeare, pp. 77, 78. + +{69a} So he seems to me to do; but in Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. +135, he shows great caution: "I refer the reader to Mr. Collin's +essay, and ask him to judge for himself." + +{71a} Studies in Shakespeare, p. 15. + +{72a} Studies in Shakespeare, p. 21. + +{75a} Alcibiades, I, pp. 132, 133; Troilus, III, scene 3. + +{77a} Studies in Shakespeare, p. 46. + +{77b} Iliad, p. 63. + +{91a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 54, 55. + +{93a} National Review, vol. xxxix., 1902. + +{93b} The Pilot, Aug. 30, 1902, p. 220. + +{96a} The oldest mention of a CIRCULATING library known to me is in +Hull, in 1650, when Sir James Turner found it excellent. + +{97a} In his Shakespeare (English Men of Letters), pp. 66, 67. + +{97b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 77, 78. + +{97c} The Shakespearean Myth, p. 162. + +{100a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 76. + +{101a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 81, note I. + +{103a} Penzance, The Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy, pp. 150, 151. +Citing Appleton Morgan's Shakespearean Myth, pp. 248, 298. + +{106a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 175. + +{107a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 457. + +{109a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 58. + +{109b} Apology the Actors, 1612. + +{110a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 267. + +{111a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 267, 268. + +{112a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 50-52. + +{113a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 51. + +{113b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 51. + +{113c} Ibid., p. 500, citing Mr. Reed's Francis Bacon our Shake- +speare, chap. ii. pp. 62, 63. + +{113d} Ibid., pp. 500-520, chap xvi. + +{114a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 512. + +{114b} Ibid., p. 514. + +{114c} Ibid., p. 386, note I. + +{114d} Ibid., p. 93. + +{120a} Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. v. p. 126. +Prof. G. P. Baker. + +{121a} Furness, Love's Labour's Lost, pp. xiii., 348-350: cf. pp. +348, 349, for the four distinct styles of linguistic affectation of +the period, at least as they are represented in literature. + +{121b} Shakespeare Studies in Baconian Light, Appendix on Marlowe. + +{124a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 516. + +{126a} Act i. Scene 2. Furness, Love's Labour's Lost, p. 45, note. + +{127a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 67, 68. + +{129a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 66. + +{129b} Ibid., p. 67. + +{136a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 307. + +{138a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 308. + +{140a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 309. + +{141a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 310. + +{141b} Ibid., pp. 310, 311. + +{141c} Ibid., p. 311. + +{142a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 309. + +{142b} Ibid., pp. 311, 312. + +{143a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 312, 313. + +{145a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 313. + +{146a} See Appendix II, "Chettle's supposed allusion to Will +Shakspere." + +{147a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 330. + +{149a} The Vindicators of Shakespeare, pp. 115, 116, 211. See my +Introduction, p. xxii. + +{150a} The Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 210. + +{150b} Ibid., p. 136. + +{151a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 338. + +{155a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 346. + +{157a} Cited in The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 353. + +{159a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 353. + +{159b} Diary, pp. xxvii, xxviii. + +{160a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 367. + +{160b} Ibid., pp. 368, 369. + +{161a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 354. + +{163a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 366. + +{164a} Some Baconians say so! + +{171a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 181, 397. + +{171b} Ibid., p. 186. + +{174a} Some verses of Fletcher's may, perhaps, refer to Beaumont's +death. + +{175a} C. I. Elton, Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, pp. 246, +247. + +{175b} As to the Aldine Ovid in the Bodleian, see Mr. Greenwood in +The Vindicators of Shakespeare, 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 EXPERTISE. 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. + +{176a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 196. + +{176b} Ibid., p. 197. + +{177a} See Frontispiece, + +{179a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 247, 248, note I. + +{180a} National Review, June 1912, p. 903. + +{180b} Pall Mall Gazette, November 1910. + +{181a} Outlines, vol. i. p. 283. + +{182a} P. 73, 1806. + +{183a} Outlines, vol. i. p. 283. + +{183b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 247. + +{186a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 248-249. + +{186b} C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, pp. +236-237. + +{187a} C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, p. +228. + +{187b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 199. + +{187c} C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, pp. +332-333. + +{187d} Ibid., p. 250. + +{188a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 199, note 1. + +{189a} C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, pp. +339, 342. + +{190a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 238. + +{198a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 214. + +{200a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 214, note 2. + +{201a} C. I. Elton, William Shakespeare, His Family and Friends, p. +56. + +{201b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 28, 29. + +{207a} Like Mr. Greenwood, I think that Ben was the penman. + +{208a} Pollard, ut supra, p. 10. + +{210a} Pollard, ut supra, pp. 64-80. + +{215a} Pollard, ut supra, pp. 121-124. + +{216a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 287-288. + +{217a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 290-291. + +{217b} Ibid., pp. 292, 293. + +{218a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 293. + +{219a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 489, 490. + +{219b} Ibid., p. 491. + +{219c} Studies in Shakespeare, p. 352. + +{220a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 293. + +{220b} Ibid., p. 491. + +{220c} Ibid., p. 293. + +{220d} Ibid., p. 293. + +{221a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 297. + +{221b} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 297. + +{222a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 293. + +{222b} Ibid., p. 351. + +{222c} Ibid., p. 351. + +{222d} Ibid., pp. 290, 293. + +{222e} Ibid., pp. 351, 358. + +{223a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 351. + +{223b} Ibid., pp. 290, 293. + +{223c} Ibid., p. 351. + +{223d} Ibid., p. 351. + +{223e} Ibid., pp. 290, 293. + +{223f} Ibid., p. 290. + +{223g} Ibid., pp. 290, 291. + +{223h} Ibid., p. 293. + +{224a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 351. + +{224b} Ibid., p. 358. + +{224c} Ibid., pp. 351, 358. + +{224d} Ibid., p. 290. + +{224e} Ibid., p. 293. + +{225a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 355, 356. + +{226a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 355, 356. + +{226b} Ibid., pp. 158, 160, 162 ("not the original author"), 170. + +{226c} Ibid., pp. 130-151, 160, 168. + +{226d} Ibid., p., 123, note 2. + +{227a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 356. + +{228a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 160. + +{228b} Ibid., p. 356. + +{228c} Ibid., p. 160. + +{228d} Ibid., p. 356. + +{228e} Ibid., pp. 290, 293. + +{228f} Ibid., p. 358. + +{229a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 365. I will bet Mr. +Greenwood any sum not exceeding half a crown that he cannot find any +"records of the writing of" either of these plays in Henslowe's +"Diary,"--his account book of expenses and receipts. + +{229b} Ibid., p. 365. + +{229c} Ibid., p. 365. + +{229d} Ibid., p. 160. + +{231a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 276. + +{231b} Ibid., p. 290. + +{232a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 293. + +{232b} Ibid., p. 294. + +{233a} The Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 57 (1911). + +{237a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 453. + +{244a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 466. + +{245a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 313. + +{245b} Supra, p. 143. + +{245c} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 466. + +{249a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 482. + +{250a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 467, 471. + +{250b} See chapter IX on The Later Life of Shakespeare. + +{250c} Ibid., pp. 472, 474. + +{251a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 473. + +{251b} Ibid., p. 474. + +{253a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 475. + +{254a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 106. + +{255a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 478. + +{258a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 480. + +{259a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 483. + +{260a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 483. + +{260b} Ibid., pp. 489-490. + +{260c} See chapter XI, The First Folio. + +{261a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 483. + +{261b} Ibid., pp. 489-491. + +{262a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 486. + +{264a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 488. + +{266a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 491. + +{267a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 295, cf. p. 499. + +{268a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 295, 499. + +{270a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 499. + +{274a} Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, edited by James Spedding, +vol. i. p. 4 (1861). + +{275a} Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, edited by James Spedding, +vol. i. p. 31. + +{275b} Ibid., vol. i. pp. 74-95. + +{276a} Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, edited by James Spedding, +vol. i. pp. 108-109. + +{279a} Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, edited by James Spedding, +vol. i. p. 106. + +{279b} Ibid., vol. i. pp. 121-143. + +{280a} Sixty pages in Spedding's Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, +vol. i. pp. 146-208. + +{281a} See his statement (1603), Spedding, iii. pp. 84-87. + +{281b} Ibid., iii. p. 253. + +{282a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 371-406. + +{282b} The Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy, p. 198. + +{283a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 391. + +{283b} Ibid., pp. 408-410. + +{284a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 425. + +{284b} Ibid., p. 431. + +{287a} Sufflamen is the "drag" or "brake." Ben's, "it was necessary +he should be STOPPED," is an incorrect translation. + +{288a} Quoted by Sir Walter Raleigh, Shakespeare, p. 65. + +{288b} Ibid., p. 65. + +{297a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 358-362. + +{298a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 491-494. + +{298b} Ibid., p. 495. + +{298c} Ibid., pp. 358-360. + +{299a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 361. + +{300a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 360. + +{300b} Ibid., p. 358. + +{301a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p. 495, note I. + +{301b} Ibid., p. 494. + +{304a} Vindicators of Shakespeare, p. 69. + +{305a} The Shakespeare Problem Restated, pp. 317-319. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SHAKESPEARE, BACON ETC. *** + +This file should be named sbun10.txt or sbun10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, sbun11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, sbun10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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