to proof, we find ourselves compelled to make a synopsis of expert
opinion on the subject, we shall find no man’s conclusions more
deserving of respect and acceptance than those of the late James
Spedding. Without intending to cast any reflection upon the critics
and others who have plunged with ebullient enthusiasm into this
controversy, it may not be out of place to point out that Spedding is
head and shoulders above all disputants in knowledge, and second to
none in critical ability. His knowledge of Shakespeare was intimate
and profound, and he knew his Bacon more thoroughly than it has been
the lot of any other man of letters to be known by his fellow man. He
gave up his position in the Colonial Office, and declined the position
of Under-Secretary of State, with £2,000 a year, in order to devote
his whole time to the study of the life and works of Lord Bacon--a
task which occupied him for nearly thirty years. Sir Henry Taylor, in
a letter to a friend in 1861, wrote as follows:--“I have been reading
Spedding’s _Life and Letters of Lord Bacon_ with profound interest
and admiration--admiration not of the perfect style and penetrating
judgment only, but also of the extraordinary labours bestowed upon
the works by a lazy man; the labour of some twenty years, I believe,
spent in rummaging among old records in all places they were to be
found, and collating different copies of manuscripts written in the
handwriting of the 16th century, and noting the minutest variations of
one from another--an inexpressibly tedious kind of drudgery, and, what
was, perhaps, still worse, searching far and wide, waiting, watching,
peering, prying through long years for records which no industry could
recover. I doubt whether there be any other example in literary history
of so large an intellect as Spedding’s devoting itself, with so much
self-sacrifice, to the illustration of one which was larger still, and
doing so out of reverence, not so much for that largest intellect,
as for the truth concerning it.” Sir Henry Taylor, in this passage,
not only does justice to the diligence and genius of the author, but
recognises the spirit in which the work was undertaken. Spedding spent
thirty years in quest of the truth concerning this remarkable man,
and having discovered it, he was prepared to maintain his conclusions
with all the power of his knowledge and commanding intelligence. These
qualities he exercised with paralysing effect against Lord Macaulay’s
_Essay on Bacon_. It has been claimed by one champion of Shakespeare’s
cause that Macaulay’s “well-known depth of research, comprehensive
grasp of facts and details, and his calm method of presenting honest
conclusions, renders him pre-eminent as a safe authority.” The exact
opposite is, of course, the case, but the possession of these very
qualities are revealed by Spedding in his _Evenings with a Reviewer_,
to the utter spoliation of a great number of Macaulay’s cherished
calculations and conclusions. “No more conscientious, no more sagacious
critic,” according to G. S. Venables, “has employed in a not unworthy
task the labour of his life,” and the same writer has also declared
that “the historical and biographical conclusions which he (Spedding)
established depend on an exhaustive accumulation of evidence arranged
and interpreted by the clearest of intellects, with an honesty which
is rarely known in controversial discussion.” Spedding is, in brief,
universally acknowledged to be not only the greatest authority on
Bacon, but also of the times in which he lived. His acquaintance
with Elizabethan literature, its history, and its manuscripts was
unique--he was, it may be said without fear of contradiction, a master
of his period. “His knowledge of Shakespeare,” says Venables, in the
prefatory notice to _Evenings with a Reviewer_, “was extensive and
profound, and his laborious and subtle criticism derived additional
value from his love of the stage.” The opinion of such an authority on
such a subject as the authorship of plays attributed to Shakespeare is,
in default of proof to the contrary, of the highest possible value--to
a close student of Spedding it must appear incontrovertible.
Spedding’s article on the question, which is included in the volume of
_Reviews and Discussions_ (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1879) was written
in reply to Professor Nathaniel Holmes’ treatise on _The Authorship
of Shakespeare_. In his opening sentence, he says, “I have read your
book ... faithfully to the end, and if my report of the result is to
be equally faithful, I must declare myself not only unconvinced, but
undisturbed.”
He is instant and decisive with his reasons. “To ask me,” he continues,
“to believe that a man who was famous for a variety of other
accomplishments, whose life was divided between public business, the
practice of a laborious profession, and private study of the art of
investigating the material laws of nature--a man of large acquaintance,
of note from early manhood, and one of the busiest men of his time, but
who was never suspected of wasting his time in writing poetry, and is
not known to have written a single blank verse in all his life--that
this man was the author of fourteen comedies, ten historical plays, and
eleven tragedies, exhibiting the greatest, and the greatest variety,
of excellence that has been attained in that kind of composition, is
like asking me to believe that Lord Brougham was the author, not only
of Dickens’s novels, but of Thackeray’s also, and of Tennyson’s poems
besides.”
Spedding, himself a genius, finds no difficulty in appreciating
the quality of genius in Shakespeare. It was not scholarship, or
environment, or training that enabled William Shakespeare to become
the author of the most wonderful series of dramas in the world. Of
Shakespeare’s gifts, he frankly states the wonder is that any man
should have possessed them, not that the man to whose lot they fell
was the son of a poor man called John Shakespeare, and that he was
christened William. If Shakespeare was not trained as a scholar, or a
man of science, neither do the works attributed to him show traces of
trained scholarship or scientific education. Given the faculties (which
nature bestows as fully on the poor as on the rich) you will find that
the required knowledge, art and dexterity which the Shakespearean
plays imply, were easily attainable by a man who was labouring in his
vocation, and had nothing else to do.”
[Illustration: ANN HATHAWAY’S COTTAGE AT SHOTTERY.]
What Spedding failed to grasp was the difficulty which the Baconians
find in believing that Shakespeare was as likely to be the author of
the plays as any other man of his generation. In endeavouring to solve
the extraordinary difficulty of the old theory of the authorship of
the plays by substituting a new one, they have only made confusion
worse confounded. “That which is extraordinary in the case,” Spedding
maintains, “is that any man should possess such a combination of
faculties as must have met in the author of these plays. But that is
a difficulty which cannot be avoided. There must have been _somebody_
in whom the requisite combination of faculties did meet, for there
the plays are; and by supposing that this somebody was a man who, at
the same time possessed a combination of other faculties, themselves
sufficient to make him an extraordinary man too, you do not diminish
the wonder, but increase it.... That a human being possessed of
the faculties necessary to make a Shakespeare should exist, is
extraordinary. That a human being possessed of the faculties
necessary to make a Bacon should exist, is extraordinary. That two
such human beings should have been living in London at the same time
was more extraordinary still. But that one man should have existed
possessing the faculties and opportunities necessary to make both,
would have been the most extraordinary thing of all.”
It may be contended, and with justice, that in the foregoing we have
arguments that did not require the special knowledge and experience of
a Spedding to prefer. It may not be, it probably is not, regarded by
Baconians as serious argument, and, as Mr. R. M. Theobald would say, it
would be simply a waste of time and words to discuss it. Certain is it
that none of the pro-Bacon writers realise the necessity of answering,
and, if possible, contravening these simple arguments. It is difficult
to find any satisfactory reason for their reticence. But whether it is
that they question the value of the views of the greatest student of
Bacon on this subject, or are ignorant of his essay, or--what is more
likely--are unable to combat so plausible a view coming from so eminent
an authority, the fact remains that Spedding’s opinion is consistently
disregarded.
It is not, however, that part of his argument which we have quoted,
but the part which follows which carries conviction to those who are
familiar with the work both of Bacon and of Spedding. The resemblances
in thought and language, which are to be found in Shakespeare and
Bacon, are accepted by Spedding as inevitable between writers nourished
upon a common literature, employing a common language, and influenced
by a common atmosphere of knowledge and opinion. “But to me,” he
declares, “I confess, the resemblances between Shakespeare and Bacon
are not so striking as their differences. Strange as it seems that two
such minds, both so vocal, should have existed within each other’s
hearing without mutually affecting each other, I find so few traces of
any influence exercised by Shakespeare upon Bacon, that I have great
doubt whether Bacon knew any more about him than Gladstone (probably)
knew about Tom Taylor (in his dramatic capacity). Shakespeare may have
derived a good deal from Bacon. He had, no doubt, read the _Advancement
of Learning_ and the first edition of the _Essays_, and most likely
had frequently heard him speak in the Courts and in the Star Chamber.
But among all the parallelisms which you have collected with such
industry to illustrate the identity of the writer, I have not observed
one in which I should not have inferred, from the difference of style,
a difference of hand. Great writers, being contemporary, have many
features in common; but if they are really great writers, they write
naturally, and nature is always individual. I doubt whether there are
five lines together to be found in Bacon which could be mistaken for
Shakespeare, or five lines in Shakespeare which could be mistaken for
Bacon, by one who was familiar with their several styles, and practised
in such observations. I was myself well read in Shakespeare before I
began with Bacon, and I have been forced to cultivate what skill I have
in distinguishing Bacon’s style to a high degree; because in sifting
the genuine from the spurious, I had commonly nothing but the style
to guide me. And to me, if it were proved that any one of the plays
attributed to Shakespeare was really written by Bacon, not the least
extraordinary thing about it would be the power which it would show in
him of laying aside his individual peculiarities and assuming those of
a different man.”
There we have Spedding’s reasons for rejecting the Baconian theory--let
us summarise his conclusions in his own words: “If you had fixed upon
anybody else rather than Bacon as the true author,” he says--“anybody
of whom I knew nothing--I should have been scarcely less incredulous,
because I deny that a _prima facie_ case is made out for questioning
Shakespeare’s title. But if there were any reason for supposing that
somebody else was the real author, I think I am in a condition to say
that, whoever it was, it was not Bacon. The difficulties which such a
supposition would involve would be almost innumerable, and altogether
insurmountable. But,” he adds, “if what I have said does not excuse me
from saying more, what I might say more would be equally ineffectual.”
_Were Shakespeare and Bacon Acquainted?_
If we are to believe in the existence of the cipher, it follows as a
matter of course that Bacon and Shakespeare were acquainted. Nothing
is more probable. Bacon was at Court during the whole time that
Shakespeare’s plays were presented there. Bacon must at one period
have been acquainted with Shakespeare’s patron, Lord Southampton, who
was the bosom friend of Bacon’s patron, the Earl of Essex. Bacon was
certainly in touch with Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s friend and co-worker.
It is scarcely conceivable that the two most prominent figures in the
literary world of the day should have been unknown to one another,
although there is no authentic evidence to show that they were. In
_Shakespeare’s True Life_ (1890), Major James Walter publishes an
illustration of Bacon’s house at St. Margaret’s, Richmond, “where
Shakespeare was a frequent visitor.” “Twickenham,” says the writer,
“is a main connecting link with what is known of Shakespeare’s visits
to the neighbourhood; doubly interesting as clearly indicating his
intimacy with Bacon, then living at his house, only a short distance
on the other side of St. Margaret’s, in Twickenham Park.” Again, “It
was just shortly before this plague fright, Shakespeare and Bacon had
been jointly engaged in getting up one or more of his plays in Gray’s
Inn, and it comes with the saying they should be frequently together in
the eminently charming retreat just acquired by Bacon at the munificent
hand of Elizabeth’s Favourite (the Earl of Essex).” “Catholic
tradition,” the same authority assures us, “asserts that Bacon wrote
the first portion of his great essays under the cedars of Twickenham
Park; others go further, and say our information is that Shakespeare
and Bacon had a special fondness for the two old cedars, and spent
much time on occasions of Shakespeare’s visiting and resting with his
friend at Twickenham, in reading and converse under the shade of these
widespreading venerable trees.” In another part of the same book we
read: “Some families, whose past histories should afford information
bearing on Shakespeare’s life, assert that he met Spenser and Sir
Walter Raleigh on more than one occasion at Richmond, and that Bacon
was in the habit of receiving them together at his St. Margaret’s home.”
Interesting as are these details, they are, it will be observed,
quite unsupported. What the Major says is, unfortunately, “not
evidence.” If Major Walter had given us chapter and verse for all this
information, we might have verified his evidence for ourselves, but
“Catholic tradition” and the unnamed “families with past histories,”
and the “others” are too vague to pin one’s faith to. We may, however,
assume that Shakespeare was not unknown to Bacon, that they met when
Shakespeare was appearing at Gray’s Inn; and it is quite possible, if
not probable, that Shakespeare consulted Bacon on the legal references
and similes that we find in the Plays.
Bacon, although disloyal, and capable of shameless ingratitude towards
his benefactors, had the love of his secretary Rawley, and the warm
esteem of such men as Ben Jonson, Boëner, and Toby Matthew. Abbott,
who is fully awake to his many faults, notes this curious inconsistency
in his nature, and explains it in the conclusion that “whenever he
found men naturally and willingly depending on him, and co-operating
with him ... his natural and general benevolence found full play.”
If we accept this explanation, and it would appear to be the correct
solution of his enigmatic character, we can readily understand that
Bacon, in a patronising, but good-hearted way, would extend no little
favour to a man of Shakespeare’s position and reputation. Shakespeare
would be familiar with Bacon’s works, he may even have had the run of
Bacon’s library in Gray’s Inn--an assumption of their intimacy, which,
if supported by documentary evidence, would establish the theory that
the poet used the philosopher as his model for Polonius. Bacon, the
great philosopher, and the influential politician, would certainly
have “the tribute of the supple knee” of all aspirants to literary
fame. Authors would be proud to attract his notice, publishers would be
flattered to allow him to glance through the proofs of any books that
they were issuing. It is quite natural to suppose that if Shakespeare
was known to Bacon, Heming and Condell would have been aware of the
fact, and an offer to render them some assistance in publishing the
First Folio would have been accepted with alacrity. Such an offer may
have been made through Rawley, his faithful secretary; it might have
come direct from Bacon to the publishers. How he obtained command of
the proofs it is impossible to conjecture with any confidence, but
if it is proved that the cipher exists in the Folio, and the other
works mentioned--and I am satisfied to believe that it does, until a
properly constituted committee reports that it is non-existent--it will
be evident that somebody must have overcome the difficulties that
the task presented. The law at that time recognised no natural right
in an author to the creation of his brain, and the full owner of a
MS. copy of any literary composition was entitled to reproduce it, or
to treat it as he pleased, without reference to the author’s wishes.
Thomas Thorpe, and the other pirates of the period, were always on the
look-out for written copies of plays and poems for publication in this
manner. All Shakespeare’s plays that appeared in print were issued
without his authority, and, in several instances, against his expressed
wish. How did Thorpe and his tribe obtain possession of the manuscripts
of _King Lear_, _Henry V._, _Pericles_, _Hamlet_, _Titus Andronicus_,
and the rest of the sixteen plays which were in print at the date of
the author’s death? If we knew for certain that Shakespeare and Bacon
were on terms of intimacy, it would be a justifiable conjecture to
suppose that the latter might have had a hand in the business, but if
the existence of the cipher in these pirated quartos is verified, we
may be quite sure that Bacon was the publishers’ accessory in securing
the MSS. for publication.
It is, however, more difficult to satisfactorily explain the claim
of Bacon to the authorship of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_. The first
edition, in quarto form, was published in 1621; the cipher appears in
the folio that was issued in 1628. In the preface to this edition,
the author announces that he will make no more changes in his work:
“I will not hereafter add, alter, or retract; I have done.” What do
we gather from that, Mrs. Gallup may ask?--surely that Bacon felt his
strength failing when he wrote those words; he certainly did not live
to see the book through the press. But the fact remains that four more
editions were published within Burton’s lifetime, each with successive
alterations and additions. The final form of the book was the sixth
edition (1651-52), printed from an annotated copy given just before
Burton’s death to the publisher, Henry Cripps, who gained, Anthony à
Wood tells us, great profits out of the book. This is one of the points
upon which we shall hope to hear from Mrs. Gallup.
In this 1628 folio of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Mrs. Gallup has
deciphered some ninety pages of a partial translation of Homer’s
_Iliad_. But on comparing this translation with that of Alexander Pope,
written about a century later, it becomes clear that it is not taken
from the original Greek of Homer, but is, in fact, a prose rendering
of Pope’s version. But Mrs. Gallup in a letter to the _Times_, which
appears as these pages are going through the press, declares that an
examination of six different English translations of the _Iliad_, and
one Latin, shows her such substantial accord that either of them could
be called with equal justice a paraphrase of Pope, or that Pope had
copied from the others.
[Illustration: THE “WHEEL” (IMPROVISED FOR READY REFERENCE), USED BY
Dr. OWEN IN DECIPHERING SIR FRANCIS BACON’S CIPHER WRITINGS.
1,000 feet of canvas is covered by the pages of the works used.]
_In Conclusion._
Three of the main arguments which Baconians urge against the claims
of Shakespeare to the authorship of the Plays are, firstly, that
Shakespeare left no books; secondly, that only five of his signatures
have come down to us; and, thirdly, that he makes no reference to his
plays in his Will. When we come to investigate these objections, it
may be said, without hesitation, that they do not amount to a row of
pins. There isn’t a rag of evidence, to employ Mr. Sinnett’s phrase,
to show that he left no books, it is quite certain that he left as
much manuscript as Peele or Marlowe or any of the dramatists of his
period, and it would have been something more than extraordinary if
he had made any reference to copyrights which he did not possess.
The professional playwrights of the period sold their plays outright
to one or other of the acting companies, and they retained no legal
interest in them after the manuscript had passed into the hands of the
theatrical manager. When Shakespeare had disposed of his dramas, he
washed his hands of them, so to speak, and not a single play of the
sixteen that were published during his lifetime was issued under his
supervision. They belonged to the theatre for which they were written.
Shakespeare was only conforming to the general custom in this matter
in betraying no interest in work which did not belong to him. He was
consistently and characteristically indifferent as to what became of
his plays, and in this he forms a striking contrast to Bacon, who had
a mania for preserving and publishing every particle of his writings.
In Shakespeare, this neglect, if surprising, is at least consistent;
in Bacon it is too antagonistic to what is known of his idiosyncracies
to be entertained for a single moment. Bacon must have realised that
his versification of the Psalms was of less merit than the poetry
in the plays. Yet he carefully superintended the publication of the
Psalms, in the same year in which they were written, and kept no copies
of such plays as _The Tempest_, _The Two Gentlemen_, _Measure for
Measure_, _Comedy of Errors_, _As You Like It_, _All’s Well_, _Twelfth
Night_, _Winter’s Tale_, _Henry VI._, _Henry VIII._, _Coriolanus_,
_Timon_, _Julius Cæsar_, _Macbeth_, _Antony and Cleopatra_, and
_Cymbeline_. These works of “supreme literary interest” were rescued
from the dust-bin of the theatres, by the energy and affection of two
of Shakespeare’s brother actors, what time Bacon was translating his
philosophical works into Latin, and publishing the Psalms.
In the foregoing pages, Bacon’s character, and the incidents in
his life have, it may be objected, been dealt with in a harsh and
unsympathetic manner. Yet the facts set down are matters of history,
and I claim for the comments, and the conclusions derived therefrom,
that they are neither misleading nor exaggerated. It has been my
endeavour to show that, while all that we know of Bacon’s private life
and his public career--the evidence of his deeds, his sentiments,
his prose, and his verse--prove him to have been a man incapable of
conceiving the poetry of the Plays, there is nothing in the life
of Shakespeare, when freed of the miserable misrepresentations and
baseless accusations introduced by his traducers, which makes it
difficult for us to regard him as the rightful author. One thing we
must recognise in the writer of the greatest poetry of all times--his
genius. We cannot argue that Shakespeare had genius--and, therefore,
he wrote the plays--but we may transpose the argument and declare
that Shakespeare wrote the plays, and therefore he had genius.
But, cries the Baconian, Bacon also possessed genius. The fact is
incontrovertible. His genius inspired him to draw up the scheme of
his _Magna Instauratio_, to write his _Essays_, to invent a new
philosophy, and a most ingenious cipher, but it did not prevent him
from composing some miserably poor verses or enable him to discern
the singular absence of merit in his metrical effusions. There is not
a single “literary” argument of the hundreds put forward in support
of Bacon’s claims to the authorship of the Plays which has validity,
or even plausibility, to recommend it. There is not a single argument
of the hundreds that have been advanced to deprive Shakespeare of his
mantle which can stand the test of investigation. Carlyle declared
Bacon to be as incapable of writing _Hamlet_ as of making this planet.
Spedding, who devoted thirty years of his life to the study of Bacon,
emphatically asserts that, “if there were any reason for supposing that
somebody else was the real author (of Shakespeare), I think I am in a
condition to say that, whoever it was, it was not Bacon.” We know that
Shakespeare put the plays on the stage, and acted in them, and that his
intimate friends, his fellow actors, and the public, believed him to be
the writer. We know, too, that Bacon had a distaste, if not a contempt,
for the stage; that his lifelong complaint was his inability to secure
time for his philosophic studies. To sum up in a sentence, it may be
said that there is no reason to suppose that Bacon was the author of
the Plays, while there is every reason to believe that he was not; and
with respect to Shakespeare, there is no reason to believe he was not
what he claimed to be, and there is tradition, the testimony of all who
had the best means of knowing, to prove that he was.