methods I have conjectured, how can Mr. Theobald account for his
ultimately emerging from the “depths of poverty” into a position of
comparative affluence? The explanation is simplicity itself: “If a
needy, and probably deserving vagabond” (page 11).--Why deserving?
He was a “shrunken, sordid soul” on page 7!--“dives into the abyss
of London life, lies _perdu_ for a few years, and then emerges as
a tolerably wealthy theatrical manager; you know that he must have
gained some mastery of theatrical business.” So far the inference
is legitimate and convincing; but how? Must he not have disclosed
exceptional ability as an actor or playwright, or--? listen to Mr.
Theobald!--“he must have made himself a useful man in the green room, a
skilful organiser of players and stage effects--he must have found out
how to govern a troop of actors, reconciling their rival egotisms, and
utilising their special gifts; how to cater for a capricious public,
and provide attractive entertainments. Anyhow, he would have little
time for other pursuits--if a student at all, his studies would be very
practical relating to matters of present or passing interest. _During
this dark period he has been carving his own fortune, filling his
pockets, not his mind; working for the present, not for the future. But
it was exactly then that the plays began to appear._”
Mr. Theobald’s argument can only be described as a reckless,
illogical, and absurd distortion of possibilities, and it is the more
inconsequential since it proceeds to defeat its primary object. In
the first place it is supremely ridiculous to assume that the paltry
services of Shakespeare in the green room and the carpenter’s shop,
secured for him his pecuniary interest in the Globe Theatre, or the
respect and friendship of the leading dramatists of his day, or even
the enmity of jealous rivals in the craft. Yet Mr. Theobald attempts
to substantiate his conclusions by distorting the obvious meaning of
Robt. Greene’s reference to Shakespeare in _A Groat’s Worth of Wit_.
Greene was not an actor, but a dramatist; he was a man of dissolute
habits, a poet of rare charm, but a playwright of only moderate ability
and repute. He was a gentleman by birth, and a scholar by training. He
had the lowest opinion of actors--he envied them their success, and
despised their avocation. In _The Return from Parnassus_ he betrays his
prejudice in the following lines, which are put into the mouth of a
poor and envious student:--
“England affords these glorious vagabonds,
That carried erst their fardels on their backs,
Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets,
Sweeping it in their glaring satin suits,
And pages to attend their masterships;
With mouthing words that better wits had framed,
They purchase lands, and now esquires are made.”
To the jaundiced mind of Robert Greene, the accumulation of means
by an actor was a crime in itself, but that a mere mummer should
dare to compete with the scholar and the poet in the composition of
plays--more, that he should write plays that exceeded in popularity
those of the superior person, the student--was a personal affront. On
his death-bed, in 1592, Greene found an outlet for his resentment in
writing an ill-natured farewell to life, in which he girded bitterly
at the new dramatist, whose early plays had already brought him into
public notice. He warns his three brother playwrights--Marlowe, Nash,
and Peele--against the “upstart crow, the only Shake-scene in the
country” who “supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse
as the best of you.” How it is possible to interpret these words to
mean that the “upstart crow” was not an author, “but only an actor
who pretended to be an author also,” the oldest inhabitant of Colney
Hatch and Mr. Theobald must decide between them. These anything but
“cryptic” words, as Mr. Theobald describes them, can have but one
interpretation, and that is the one their author intended. They do
not imply that Shakespeare, the “upstart crow,” is not the author of
the plays imputed to him, but that he considers his plays as good
as those of the older dramatists. His profession of authorship is
not questioned, but the quality of his work is savagely challenged.
Any other construction put upon the passage is sheer nonsense. Mr.
Theobald appeals to the “most gentle and gentlemanly critics” to be
patient and tolerant with the Baconians--“men as sound in judgment
and as well equipped in learning as yourselves”--but it is high time
that this kind of wilful misrepresentation and perversion of common
sense should be condemned in plain language. If Greene had believed
that Shakespeare was wearing feathers that did not rightfully belong
to him, if he were pretending to be what he really was not; if, in Mr.
Theobald’s confident explanation, he had no right to profess himself an
author at all, we may be quite certain that Greene would have said so
outright--he would not have adopted a “cryptic” style, and left it for
Mr. Theobald to decipher his meaning.
Mr. Theobald’s alternative theory that the word “Shake-scene” does
not refer to Shakespeare at all, is even more preposterous. “In 1592
‘Shakespeare’ did not exist at all, and only two or three of the
plays which subsequently appeared under this name could have been
written.” But those two or three plays included, as far as we can
tell, _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, and _The
Comedy of Errors_--plays of sufficient promise to secure any author
recognition as a poet and dramatist. If Mr. Theobald entertains
any serious doubts as to the identification of Shakespeare in the
“Shake-scene” of Greene, he may be advised to read the apology for
this attack which Henry Chettle, the publisher, prefixed to a tract
of Greene’s in the same year. “I am as sorry,” Chettle wrote, “as if
the originall fault had been my fault, because myselfe have seene his
(_i.e._, Shakespeare’s) demeanour no lesse civill than he (is) exelent
in the qualitie he professes, besides divers of worship have reported
his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty and his facetious
grace in writing that aprooves his art.”
[Illustration: St. MICHAEL’S CHURCH.
Extract from the Will of Lord Bacon.
“For my burial I desire it may be in St. Michael’s Church, near St.
Albans; there was my Mother buried, and it is the only Christian Church
within the walls of Old Verulam.
“For my name and memory I leave it to men’s charitable speeches, and to
foreign nations, and the next ages.”]
This apology put forth by Henry Chettle is an invaluable attestation to
the character and literary standing of Shakespeare--“his uprightness
in dealing” is a matter of public report, and “his facetious grace
in writing” is frankly acknowledged. At a period when professional
rivalries ran strong, and no man’s reputation was above attack, a
publisher and fellow author is seen regarding Shakespeare not only as
a man to whom an apology was due, but to whom it appeared expedient
to make one. In treating of the personal history of Shakespeare, it
must be borne in mind that although the duly-attested facts regarding
him are regrettably few, the poet was widely known to the leading
literary and theatrical men of his day. Ben Jonson, his brother actor
and dramatist, and Michael Drayton were his intimate friends. Condell
and Heming remained in close relationship with Shakespeare until his
death, and Richard Burbage was his partner in the business of the Globe
Theatre. In _Pericles_ and _Timon_, Shakespeare worked in collaboration
with George Wilkins, a dramatic writer of some repute, and William
Rowley, a professional reviser of plays. There were besides, the
members of the Globe Company, men who lived their lives beside him,
rehearsed under him, learned from him, interpreted him. Yet none of
these men appear to have entertained the slightest doubt upon the
genuineness of his claims to authorship, while every contemporaneous
reference to him is couched in terms of affection and admiration. The
only possible explanation of this remarkable fact is that Shakespeare
and Bacon were one and the same person--a theory that the most hardened
Baconian has not yet thought it advisable to advance.
_Wm. Shakespeare, Money Lender and Poet._
Mr. Theobald is unfortunate in his selection of the points he raises in
Shakespeare’s career in order to belittle the character of the poet.
He writes: “His known occupations, apart from theatre business, were
money-lending, malt-dealing, transactions in house and land property.”
There is not the slightest evidence to show that Shakespeare traded
as a money-lender; his only interest in malt-dealing was confined to
one transaction, and his transactions in houses and lands were those
of any man who invests his savings in real estate. The phrase is, as
the most superficial Shakespeare student will recognise, misleading in
substance, and incorrect as a statement of fact. In another part of his
determinedly one-sided book, Mr. Theobald dismisses, in a paragraph,
the contention that Shakespeare’s poems are illuminated and illustrated
by Shakespeare’s life. The obvious rejoinder is that there is nothing
in the life of Shakespeare that makes it difficult for us to accept him
as the author of the Plays, whereas the whole life and character of
Bacon makes his pretensions more than difficult, even impossible, of
acceptance.
In 1593, _Venus and Adonis_ was published by Shakespeare’s friend and
fellow townsman, Richard Field, and in the following year _Lucrece_ was
issued at the sign of the White Greyhound in St. Paul’s Churchyard.
Both poems were dedicated to Shakespeare’s first and only patron, the
Earl of Southampton, with whom Bacon is not known to have sought any
intimacy until 1603, when he addressed to him a characteristic letter
of conciliation. (In 1621, when Bacon was accused of corruption,
the Earl of Southampton pointed out the insufficiency of the Lord
Chancellor’s original confession, and it was largely the result of
his firm and unfriendly attitude that Bacon’s abject submission and
acknowledgment of the justice of the charges, was placed before the
Lords). These poems constituted Shakespeare’s appeal to the reading
public. The response was instantaneous and enthusiastic. “Critics vied
with each other,” writes Mr. Sidney Lee, “in the exuberance of the
eulogies, in which they proclaimed that the fortunate author had gained
a place in permanence on the summit of Parnassus.” _Lucrece_, Michael
Drayton declared, in his _Legend of Matilda_ (1594), was “revived to
live another age.” In 1595, William Clerke, in his _Polimanteia_, gave
“all praise” to “Sweet Shakespeare” for his _Lucrecia_. John Weever,
in a sonnet addressed to “honey-tongued” Shakespeare in his _Epigrams_
(1595), eulogised the two poems as an unmatchable achievement,
although he mentions the plays _Romeo_, and _Richard_, and “more whose
names I know not.” Richard Carew, at the same time, classed him with
Marlowe, as deserving the praises of an English Catullus. Printers and
publishers of the poems strained their resources to satisfy the demands
of eager purchasers. No fewer than seven editions of _Venus_ appeared
between 1594 and 1602; an eighth followed in 1617. _Lucrece_ achieved
a fifth edition in the year of Shakespeare’s death. The Queen quickly
showed him special favour, and until her death in 1603, Shakespeare’s
plays were repeatedly acted in her presence.
[Illustration: Elizabeth R]
When the sonneteering vogue reached England from Italy and France,
Shakespeare applied himself to the composition of sonnets, with all the
force of his poetic genius. Of the hundred and fifty-four sonnets that
survive, the greater number were probably composed in 1593 and 1594.
Many are so burdened with conceits and artificial quibbles that their
literary value is scarcely discernible; but the majority, on the other
hand, attain to supreme heights of poetic expression, sweetness, and
imagery. They are of peculiar interest, as disclosing the relationship
that existed between Southampton and Shakespeare. No less than
twenty of the sonnets are undisguisedly addressed to the patron of
the poet’s verse: three of them are poetical transcriptions of the
devotion which he expressed to Southampton in his dedicatory preface to
_Lucrece_. The references are direct and unmistakable. In 1603, when
the accession of James I. opened the gates of Southampton’s prison,
Bacon was meekly writing to him: “I would have been very glad to have
presented my humble service to your Lordship by my attendance if I
could have foreseen that it should not have been unpleasing to you,”
and hypocritically assuring him, “How credible soever it may seem to
you at first, yet it is as true as a thing God knoweth, that this great
change (_i.e._, the release of Southampton, and his favour with the new
monarch, whose good-will Bacon ardently desired), hath wrought in me
no other change towards your Lordship than this, that I may safely be
now that which I was truly before.” The Earl of Southampton considered
these protestations of friendship so incredible, as coming from the
man who had consigned Essex, Bacon’s own friend and patron, to the
headsman, and sent Southampton himself to the Tower, that he appears
to have made no response to this letter, and twenty years afterwards
he materially contributed to the Lord Chancellor’s discomfiture. One
has only to compare this letter with the sonnet with which Shakespeare
saluted his patron on his release from the Tower, to recognise the
impossibility of regarding the two compositions as the work of the same
man.
_The “True Shakespeare.”_
If Bacon was the “true Shakespeare,” as Mr. Theobald calls him, the
question naturally arises as to his motive in concealing the authorship
of the plays and the poems. Baconians explain this extraordinary act
of reticence on the ground that dramatic authorship was held in low
esteem, and that the fact, if known, would have proved an obstacle to
his advancement at Court. This contention, though fully borne out by
Bacon’s cipher writings, is ridiculous in the extreme. In the first
place, it was not the profession of dramatic authorship, but the
calling of the actor that was held in low esteem. Furthermore, poetry
was not under the ban that attached to the stage, and it cannot be
denied that the acknowledged authorship of _Venus and Adonis_, of
_Lucrece_, or of the _Sonnets_, would have won for Bacon more favour
at Elizabeth’s Court than he ever secured by his philosophy. Poetry
was held in high esteem; sonneteering was the vogue. Buckingham, in
the next reign, wrote a play, _The Rehearsal_, and Essex had composed
a masque. The publication of _The Faerie Queene_, in 1589, secured for
Edmund Spenser an introduction to the Queen, who made him her poet
laureate in the same year. Why should Bacon have persisted in devoting
himself to a branch of literature which appears to have advanced his
interests so little? Elizabeth was never impressed by his genius;
she acknowledged his great wit and learning, but accounted him “not
deep.” James criticised his philosophy with lofty captiousness, and
compared his _Novum Organum_ to “the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding.” It would be neither discreditable to his pride as a
poet, nor contrary to the nature of the man, to believe that if he
could safely have claimed the authorship of _Lucrece_ and _A Midsummer
Night’s Dream_, he would not have hesitated for an hour in so doing.
_Venus and Adonis_ won for Shakespeare the favour of Elizabeth, while,
under the sovereignty of her successor, Shakespeare’s company gave
between forty and fifty performances at Court during the first five
years of his reign. Is it not rather absurd to believe that Bacon
should have remained quiescent while his unavowed work was being
acclaimed as “immortal,” and the works published under his own name
were either neglected, or treated to a contemptuous _mot_ by the very
person whose admiration he was feverishly striving to attract?
Yet the Baconians find no difficulty in accepting this explanation
of secrecy--Mr. A. P. Sinnett regards the motive as perfectly
intelligible. Bacon, he contends, was not writing his plays for
fame, but for the money it brought him. Mr. Theobald contends that
the plays could not have been written by Shakespeare because he was
too busily employed in “carving his own fortune” ... “filling his
pockets” ... “working for the present, not for the future,” to devote
the necessary leisure to literary pursuits. Bacon himself, according
to the bi-literal cipher discoveries of Mrs. Gallup, declares that so
far from receiving remuneration for his plays, he paid “a sufficient
reward in gold” to Shakespeare for the use of his name. “He was left
quite without resources,” Mr. Sinnett explains, “and he took up
dramatic writing for the sake of the money it earned him.” Before we
are won over by this fallacious explanation, we would inquire how
it was that Bacon, who was left without resources in 1577, did not
produce his first play until 1591, and then paid for the luxury of
concealing his indiscretion. Mr. Sinnett’s next sentence is instructive
as a specimen of Baconian reasoning. “After Bacon obtained an office
of profit at forty-six, no more Shakespeare plays appeared, though
the reputed author lived for ten more years in dignified leisure at
Stratford.” It may, of course, be regarded as a “shallow objection” to
raise, but Bacon was fifty-one years of age when Shakespeare retired
to Stratford. Moreover, Bacon obtained no office of profit in 1611.
He was made Solicitor-General, and became a rich man, in 1607, but
until his appointment to the Attorney-Generalship in 1613 he was
continually suing for promotion and applying for a better paid office.
It is, indeed, significant that Bacon was silent as a playwright from
the time of Shakespeare’s retirement. When he was Chancellor, and
enjoyed a yearly income equal to between £60,000 and £70,000 of our
money, he continued to compose his scientific works, and he was still
actively engaged in the task between 1621 and 1626 when he was again
reduced to comparative penury, and the more remunerative employment
of play-writing would have relieved his financial position without
detriment to his political prospects. The source from whence he could
have augmented his inadequate income was neglected while he employed
himself in writing a _Digest of the Laws of England_, _The History of
Henry VII._, _Sylva Sylvarum_, _Augmentis Scientiarum_, _The Dialogue
of the Holy War_, some additional _Essays_, and the translation of
“certain Psalms into English verse.” Bacon, according to Baconians,
produced his plays during the busiest period of his political
career, and in the days of his leisure and impecuniosity--“when
Shakespeare was not present to shield him from the disgrace of
possessing poetic and dramatic genius”--he produced his versification
of the Psalms.
[Illustration: ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX. O.B. 1601.
From the original of Hilliard, in the collection of The Right Honble
the Earl of Verulam.]
Mr. Sinnett, in common with Mr. Theobald and, indeed, all other
upholders of the Baconian theory, has a distinctly original way of
dealing with matters of fact. Mr. Theobald invents his facts to suit
his argument; Mr. Sinnett ignores all facts that prove intractable.
Thus Mr. Sinnett in _The National Review_: “All through the plays there
is no allusion to Stratford.” And again: “While Bacon seems to have
gone North to curry favour with James on his accession, _Macbeth_ was
written just after that event. Certainly there is no reason to suppose
that Shakespeare ever went to Scotland.” What nonsense is all this!
Although personalities are rare in the Plays, there are a number of
literal references to Stratford, and Shakespeare’s native county, in
_The Taming of the Shrew_; and local allusions are also to be found in
the second part of _Henry IV._ and _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. In his
_Life of William Shakespeare_, Mr. Lee enumerates several instances
in point. “Barton Heath,” we read is, “Barton-on-the-Heath, the home
of Shakespeare’s aunt, Edmund Lambert’s wife, and of her sons. The
tinker, in _The Taming of the Shrew_, confesses that he has run up a
score with Marian Hacket, the fat ale wife of Wincot. The references to
Wincot and the Hackets are singularly precise. The name of the maid of
the inn is given as Cicely Hacket, and the ale-house is described in
the stage direction as ‘on a heath.’” Again, in _Henry IV._, the local
reference to William Visor, of Woncot, and the allusions to the region
of the Cotswold Hills, and the peculiar Cotswold custom of sowing “red
lammas” wheat at an unusually early season of the agricultural year,
are unmistakable. Mr. Sinnett’s assumptions that Bacon went to Scotland
and that Shakespeare did not, are entirely arbitrary. In point of fact
we may be quite sure that Bacon did not go to Scotland, and we have no
reason to believe that Shakespeare was ever in Venice, or Sardis, or “a
wood near Athens.” The author of the _Letters from Hell_ was not under
suspicion because he could not claim to have been ferried across the
Styx to get his local colour.
If we are to accept the Baconian opinion of Shakespeare it is difficult
to understand how Bacon came to allow him to make a successful
application on behalf of his father, John Shakespeare, to the College
of Heralds for a grant of arms in 1597. Bacon was an aristocrat and a
firm believer in his order. If he knew Shakespeare to be a notoriously
ill-educated actor, a man little better than a vagabond, an impostor, a
villain with “some humour,” whom Bacon employed as the original model
for Sir John Falstaffe and Sir Toe-be--as Mr. Harold Bayley states--why
did he not prevent his intimate friend, the Earl of Essex, the Earl
of Southampton, and William Camden, the great scholar and antiquary,
from being hoaxed by this impudent rogue, and prevent the Shakespeares
from obtaining the desired grant? These three friends of Shakespeare
certainly facilitated the proceedings.
_Mr. Theobald’s Parallels and Mr. Bayley’s Conclusions._
When Mr. Theobald gets away from his biographical pabulum and plunges
into the literary arguments for Bacon’s authorship of the plays, he has
little that is original to reveal, but much that is new in the way of
parallels and coincidences. In the first place, he takes it for granted
that Shakespeare could not, by any possibility, have written the plays.
He does not prove it, but--_cela va sans dire_. Then he proceeds,
to the extent of some four hundred pages of matter, to demonstrate,
by reference to the significant Baconian characteristics in the
plays, and the still more significant parallels between the poetry of
Shakespeare and the philosophy of Bacon, that Bacon must be the author
of both. Bacon, for instance, appears to have had a “very curious
habit” of striking himself on the breast when he wished to emphasise
an argument. Brutus, Ophelia, Clarence’s little boy, and Claudio, are
all represented as using a similar gesture. Some such lamentations as
Bacon may be supposed to have uttered after his fall, are to be found
in _King Lear_, and Lucrece’s self-condemnation of herself to death for
an offence of which she is entirely innocent is, of course, inspired
by Bacon’s behaviour in making a full and humble submission to the
Lords in respect of offences which he never committed. The mere fact
that _Lucrece_ was published in 1594, and that Bacon’s downfall did not
take place until 1621, is a point of no moment--we can readily agree
with Mr. Theobald that “there is a very curious reflection of Bacon’s
character and temperament in the poem of _Lucrece_.” Lucrece absolves
herself in the reflection,
“The poison’d fountain clears itself again,
And why not I from this compelled stain?”