The greatest of English poets is Shakespeare. The greatest prose writer
in English literature is probably Bacon. Each of these writers, alone,
is a marvel of intellectual grandeur. It is hard to understand how
one man, in a few years, could have written all the masterpieces of
Shakespeare,--thirty-six dramas, each a work of genius such as the
world will never let die. It is a marvel that from one mind could
proceed the tender charm of such poems as "Romeo and Juliet," "As You
Like It," or "The Winter's Tale;" the wild romance of "The Tempest,"
or of "A Midsummer Night's Dream;" the awful tragedies of "Lear,"
"Macbeth," and "Othello;" the profound philosophy of "Hamlet;" the
perfect fun of "Twelfth Night," and "The Merry Wives of Windsor;" and
the reproductions of Roman and English history. It is another marvel
that a man like Bacon, immersed nearly all his life in business, a
successful lawyer, an ambitious statesman, a courtier cultivating the
society of the sovereign and the favorites of the sovereign, should
also be the founder of a new system of philosophy, which has been the
source of many inventions and new sciences down to the present day;
should have critically surveyed the whole domain of knowledge, and
become a master of English literary style. Each of these phenomena is
a marvel; but put them together, and assume that one man did it all,
and you have, not a marvel, but a miracle. Yet, this is the result
which the monistic tendency of modern thought has reached. Several
critics of our time have attempted to show that Bacon, besides writing
all the works usually attributed to him, was also the author of all of
Shakespeare's plays and poems.
This theory was first publicly maintained by Miss Delia Bacon in
1857. It had been, before, in 1856, asserted by an Englishman,
William Henry Smith, but only in a small volume printed for private
circulation. This book made a distinguished convert in the person of
Lord Palmerston, who openly declared his conviction that Bacon was the
author of Shakespeare's plays. Two papers by Appleton Morgan, written
in the same sense, appeared last year in "Appletons' Journal." But far
the most elaborate and masterly work in support of this attempt to
dethrone Shakespeare, and to give his seat on the summit of Parnassus
to Lord Bacon, is the book by Judge Holmes, published in 1866. He has
shown much ability, and brought forward every argument which has any
plausibility connected with it.
Judge Holmes was, of course, obliged to admit the extreme antecedent
improbability of his position. Certainly it is very difficult to
believe that the author of such immortal works should have been
willing, for any reason, permanently to conceal his authorship; or,
if he could hide that fact, should have been willing to give the
authorship to another; or, if willing, should have been able so
effectually to conceal the substitution as to blind the eyes of all
mankind down to the days of Miss Delia Bacon and Judge Holmes.
What, then, are the arguments used by Judge Holmes? The proofs he
adduces are mainly these: (1st) That there are many coincidences and
parallelisms of thought and expression between the works of Bacon and
Shakespeare; (2d) that there is an amount of knowledge and learning
in the plays, which Lord Bacon possessed, but which Shakespeare could
hardly have had. Besides these principal proofs, there are many other
reasons given which are of inferior weight,--a phrase in a letter of
Sir Tobie Matthew; another sentence of Bacon himself, which might be
possibly taken as an admission that he was the author of "Richard II.;"
the fact that some plays which Shakespeare certainly did not write were
first published with his name or his initials. But his chief argument
is that Shakespeare had neither the learning nor the time to write the
plays, both of which Lord Bacon possessed; and that there are curious
coincidences between the plays and the prose works.
These arguments have all been answered, and the world still believes in
Shakespeare as before. But I have thought it might be interesting to
show how easily another argument could be made of an exactly opposite
kind,--how easily all these proofs might be reversed. I am inclined
to think that if we are to believe that one man was the author both
of the plays and of the philosophy, it is much more probable that
Shakespeare wrote the works of Bacon than that Bacon wrote the works
of Shakespeare. For there is no evidence that Bacon was a poet as well
as a philosopher; but there is ample evidence that Shakespeare was a
philosopher as well as a poet. This, no doubt, assumes that Shakespeare
actually wrote the plays; but this we have a right to assume, in the
outset of the discussion, in order to stand on an equal ground with our
opponents.
The Bacon vs. Shakespeare argument runs thus: "Assuming that Lord
Bacon wrote the works commonly attributed to him, there is reason to
believe that he also wrote the plays and poems commonly attributed to
Shakespeare."
The counter argument would then be: "Assuming that Shakespeare wrote
the plays, and poems commonly attributed to him, there is reason to
believe that he also wrote the works commonly attributed to Bacon."
This is clearly the fair basis of the discussion. What is assumed on
the one side on behalf of Bacon we have a right to assume on the other
on behalf of Shakespeare. But before proceeding on this basis, I must
reply to the only argument of Judge Holmes which has much apparent
weight. He contends that it was impossible for Shakespeare, with the
opportunities he possessed, to acquire the knowledge which we find
in the plays. Genius, however great, cannot give the knowledge of
medical and legal terms, nor of the ancient languages. Now, it has
been shown that the plays afford evidence of a great knowledge of law
and medicine; and of works in Latin and Greek, French and Italian.
How could such information have been obtained by a boy who had no
advantages of study except at a country grammar school, which he
left at the age of fourteen, who went to London at twenty-three and
became an actor, and who spent most of his life as actor, theatrical
proprietor, and man of business?
This objection presents difficulties to us, and for our time, when
boys sometimes spend years in the study of Latin grammar. We cannot
understand the rapidity with which all sorts of knowledge were imbibed
in the period of the Renaissance. Then every one studied everything.
Then Greek and Latin books were read by prince and peasant, by queens
and generals. Then all sciences and arts were learned by men and women,
by young and old. Thus speaks Robert Burton--who was forty years old
when Shakespeare died: "What a world of books offers itself, in all
subjects, arts and sciences, to the sweet content and capacity of the
reader! In arithmetic, geometry, perspective, opticks, astronomy,
architecture, _sculptura_, _pictura_, of which so many and elaborate
treatises have lately been written; in mechanics and their mysteries,
military matters, navigation, riding of horses, fencing, swimming,
gardening, planting, great tomes of husbandry, cookery, faulconry,
hunting, fishing, fowling; with exquisite pictures of all sports and
games.... What vast tomes are extant in law, physic, and divinity,
for profit, pleasure, practice.... Some take an infinite delight to
study the very languages in which these books were written: Hebrew,
Greek, Syriac, Chaldee, Arabick, and the like." This was the fashion
of that day, to study all languages, all subjects, all authors. A mind
like that of Shakespeare could not have failed to share this universal
desire for knowledge. After leaving the grammar school, he had nine
years for such studies before he went to London. As soon as he began
to write plays, he had new motives for study; for the subjects of the
drama in vogue were often taken from classic story.
But Shakespeare had access to another source of knowledge besides
the study of books. When he reached London, five or six play-houses
were in full activity, and new plays were produced every year in
vast numbers. New plays were then in constant demand, just as the new
novel and new daily or weekly paper are called for now. The drama was
the periodical literature of the time. Dramatic authors wrote with
wonderful rapidity, borrowing their subjects from plays already on
the stage, and from classic or recent history. Marlowe, Greene, Lyly,
Peele, Kyd, Lodge, Nash, Chettle, Munday, Wilson, were all dramatic
writers before Shakespeare. Philip Henslowe, a manager or proprietor
of the theatres, bought two hundred and seventy plays in about ten
years. Thomas Heywood wrote a part or the whole of two hundred and
twenty plays during his dramatic career. Each acted play furnished
material for some other. They were the property of the play-houses, not
of the writers. One writer after another has accused Shakespeare of
indifference to his reputation, because he did not publish a complete
and revised edition of his works during his life. How could he do
this, since they did not belong to him, but to the theatre? Yet every
writer was at full liberty to make use of all he could remember of
other plays, as he saw them acted; and Shakespeare was not slow to use
this opportunity. No doubt he gained knowledge in this way, which he
afterward employed much better than did the authors from whom he took
it.
The first plays printed under Shakespeare's name did not appear
till he had been connected with the stage eleven years. This gives
time enough for him to have acquired all the knowledge to be found
in his books. That he had read Latin and Greek books we are told by
Ben Jonson; though that great scholar undervalued, as was natural,
Shakespeare's attainments in those languages.
But Ben Jonson himself furnishes the best reply to those who think
that Shakespeare could not have gained much knowledge of science
or literature because he did not go to Oxford or Cambridge. What
opportunities had Ben Jonson? A bricklayer by trade, called back
immediately from his studies to use the trowel; then running away and
enlisting as a common soldier; fighting in the Low Countries; coming
home at nineteen, and going on the stage; sent to prison for fighting
a duel--what opportunities for study had he? He was of a strong animal
nature, combative, in perpetual quarrels, fond of drink, in pecuniary
troubles, married at twenty, with a wife and children to support. Yet
Jonson was celebrated for his learning. He was master of Greek and
Latin literature. He took his characters from Athenæus, Libanius,
Philostratus. Somehow he had found time for all this study. "Greek
and Latin thought," says Taine, "were incorporated with his own, and
made a part of it. He knew alchemy, and was as familiar with alembics,
retorts, crucibles, etc., as if he had passed his life in seeking
the philosopher's stone. He seems to have had a specialty in every
branch of knowledge. He had all the methods of Latin art,--possessed
the brilliant conciseness of Seneca and Lucan." If Ben Jonson--a
bricklayer, a soldier, a fighter, a drinker--could yet find time to
acquire this vast knowledge, is there any reason why Shakespeare, with
much more leisure, might not have done the like? He did not possess as
much Greek and Latin lore as Ben Jonson, who, probably, had Shakespeare
in his mind when he wrote the following passage in his "Poetaster:"
"His learning savors not the school-like gloss
That most consists in echoing words and terms,
And soonest wins a man an empty name;
Nor any long or far-fetched circumstance
Wrapt in the curious generalties of art--
But a direct and analytic sum
Of all the worth and first effects of art.
And for his poesy, 'tis so rammed with life,
That it shall gather strength of life with being,
And live hereafter more admired than now."
The only other serious proof offered in support of the proposition
that Bacon wrote the immortal Shakespearean drama is that certain
coincidences of thought and language are found in the works of the two
writers. When we examine them, however, they seem very insignificant.
Take, as an example, two or three, on which Judge Holmes relies, and
which he thinks very striking.
Holmes says (page 48) that Bacon quotes Aristotle, who said that
"young men were no fit hearers of moral philosophy," and Shakespeare
says ("Troilus and Cressida"):--
"Unlike young men whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy."
But since Bacon's remark was published in 1605, and "Troilus and
Cressida" did not appear until 1609, Shakespeare might have seen it
there, and introduced it into his play from his recollection of the
passage in the "Advancement of Learning."
Another coincidence mentioned by Holmes is that both writers use the
word "thrust:" Bacon saying that a ship "thrust into Weymouth;" and
Shakespeare, that "Milan was thrust from Milan." He also thinks it
cannot be an accident that both frequently use the word "wilderness,"
though in very different ways. Both also compare Queen Elizabeth to a
"star." Bacon makes Atlantis an island in mid-ocean; and the island
of Prospero is also in mid-ocean. Both have a good deal to say about
"mirrors," and "props," and like phrases.
Such reasoning as this has very little weight. You cannot prove two
contemporaneous writings to have proceeded from one author by the same
words and phrases being found in both; for these are in the vocabulary
of the time, and are the common property of all who read and write.
My position is that if either of these writers wrote the works
attributed to the other, it is much more likely that Shakespeare wrote
the philosophical works of Bacon than that Bacon wrote the poetical
works of Shakespeare. Assuming then, as we have a right to do in this
argument, that Shakespeare wrote the plays, what reasons are there for
believing that he also wrote the philosophy?
First, this assumption will explain at once that hitherto insoluble
problem of the contradiction between Bacon's character and conduct and
his works. How could he have been, at the same time, what Pope calls
him,--
"The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind"?
He was, in his philosophy, the leader of his age, the reformer of old
abuses, the friend of progress. In his conduct, he was, as Macaulay has
shown, "far behind his age,--far behind Sir Edward Coke; clinging to
exploded abuses, withstanding the progress of improvement, struggling
to push back the human mind." In his writings, he was calm, dignified,
noble. In his life, he was an office-seeker through long years,
seeking place by cringing subservience to men in power, made wretched
to the last degree when office was denied him, addressing servile
supplications to noblemen and to the sovereign. To gain and keep office
he would desert his friends, attack his benefactors, and make abject
apologies for any manly word he might have incautiously uttered. His
philosophy rose far above earth and time, and sailed supreme in the
air of universal reason. But "his desires were set on things below.
Wealth, precedence, titles, patronage, the mace, the seals, the
coronet, large houses, fair gardens, rich manors, massy services of
plate, gay hangings," were "objects for which he stooped to everything
and endured everything." These words of Macaulay have been thought too
severe. But we defy any admirer of Bacon to read his life, by Spedding,
without admitting their essential truth. How was it possible for a man
to spend half of his life in the meanest of pursuits, and the other
half in the noblest?
This difficulty is removed if we suppose that Bacon, the courtier and
lawyer, with his other ambitions, was desirous of the fame of a great
philosopher; and that he induced Shakespeare, then in the prime of his
powers, to help him write the prose essays and treatises which are his
chief works. He has himself admitted that he did actually ask the aid
of the dramatists of his time in writing his books. This remarkable
fact is stated by Bacon in a letter to Tobie Matthew, written in June,
1623, in which he says that he is devoting himself to making his
writings more perfect--instancing the "Essays" and the "Advancement of
Learning"--"by the help of some good pens, which forsake me not." One
of these pens was that of Ben Jonson, the other might easily have been
that of Shakespeare. Certainly there was no better pen in England at
that time than his.
When Shakespeare's plays were being produced, Lord Bacon was fully
occupied in his law practice, his parliamentary duties, and his
office-seeking. The largest part of the Shakespeare drama was put on
the stage, as modern research renders probable, in the ten or twelve
years beginning with 1590. In 1597 Shakespeare was rich enough to buy
the new place at Stratford-on-Avon, and was also lending money. In 1604
he was part owner of the Globe Theatre, so that the majority of the
plays which gained for him this fortune must have been produced before
that time. Now, these were just the busiest years of Bacon's life. In
1584 he was elected to Parliament. About the same time, he wrote his
famous letter to Queen Elizabeth. In 1585 he was already seeking office
from Walsingham and Burleigh. In 1586 he sat in Parliament for Taunton,
and was active in debate and on committees. He became a bencher in the
same year, and began to plead in the courts of Westminster. In 1589 he
became queen's counsel, and member of Parliament for Liverpool. After
this he continued active, both in Parliament and at the bar. He sought,
by the help of Essex, to become Attorney-General. From that period, as
crown lawyer, his whole time and thought were required to trace and
frustrate the conspiracies with which the kingdom was full. It was
evident that during these years he had no time to compose fifteen or
twenty of the greatest works in any literature.
But how was Shakespeare occupied when Bacon's philosophy appeared? The
"Advancement of Learning" was published in 1605, after most of the
plays had been written, as we learn from the fact of Shakespeare's
purchase of houses and lands. The "Novum Organum" was published in
1620, after Shakespeare's death. But it had been written years before;
revised, altered, and copied again and again--it is said twelve times.
Bacon had been engaged upon it during thirty years, and it was at last
published incomplete and in fragments. If Shakespeare assisted in the
composition of this work, his death in 1616 would account, at once, for
its being left unfinished. And Shakespeare would have had ample time to
furnish the ideas of the "Organum" in the last years of his life, when
he had left the theatre. In 1613 he bought a house in Black Friars,
where Ben Jonson also lived. Might not this have been that they might
more conveniently coöperate in assisting Bacon to write the "Novum
Organum"?
When we ask whether it would have been easier for the author of the
philosophy to have composed the drama, or the dramatic poet to have
written the philosophy, the answer will depend on which is the greater
work of the two. The greater includes the less, but the less cannot
include the greater. Now, the universal testimony of modern criticism
in England, Germany, and France declares that no larger, deeper, or
ampler intellect has ever appeared than that which produced the
Shakespeare drama. This "myriad-minded" poet was also philosopher,
man of the world, acquainted with practical affairs, one of those who
saw the present and foresaw the future. All the ideas of the Baconian
philosophy might easily have had their home in this vast intelligence.
Great as are the thoughts of the "Novum Organum," they are far inferior
to that world of thought which is in the drama. We can easily conceive
that Shakespeare, having produced in his prime the wonders and glories
of the plays, should in his after leisure have developed the leading
ideas of the Baconian philosophy. But it is difficult to imagine that
Bacon, while devoting his main strength to politics, to law, and to
philosophy, should as a mere pastime for his leisure, have produced in
his idle moments the greatest intellectual work ever done on earth.
If the greater includes the less, the mind of Shakespeare includes that
of Bacon, and not _vice versa_. This will appear more plainly if we
consider the quality of intellect displayed respectively in the dramas
and the philosophy. The one is synthetic, creative; the other analytic,
critical. The one puts together, the other takes apart and examines.
Now, the genius which can put together can also take apart; but it by
no means follows that the power of taking apart implies that of putting
together. A watch-maker, who can put a watch together, can easily take
it to pieces; but many a child who has taken his watch to pieces has
found it impossible to put it together again.
When we compare the Shakespeare plays and the Baconian philosophy, it
is curious to see how the one is throughout a display of the synthetic
intellect, and the other of the analytic. The plays are pure creation,
the production of living wholes. They people our thought with a race of
beings who are living persons, and not pale abstractions. These airy
nothings take flesh and form, and have a name and local habitation
forever on the earth. Hamlet, Desdemona, Othello, Miranda, are as
real people as Queen Elizabeth or Mary of Scotland. But when we turn
to the Baconian philosophy, this faculty is absent. We have entered
the laboratory of a great chemist, and are surrounded by retorts and
crucibles, tests and re-agents, where the work done is a careful
analysis of all existing things, to find what are their constituents
and their qualities. Poetry creates, philosophy takes to pieces and
examines.
It is, I think, a historic fact, that while those authors whose primary
quality is poetic genius have often been also, on a lower plane,
eminent as philosophers, there is, perhaps, not a single instance of
one whose primary distinction was philosophic analysis, who has also
been, on a lower plane, eminent as a poet. Milton, Petrarch, Goethe,
Lucretius, Voltaire, Coleridge, were primarily and eminently poets;
but all excelled, too, in a less degree, as logicians, metaphysicians,
men of science, and philosophers. But what instance have we of any man
like Bacon, chiefly eminent as lawyer, statesman, and philosopher,
who was also distinguished, though in a less degree, as a poet? Among
great lawyers, is there one eminent also as a dramatic or lyric author?
Cicero tried it, but his verses are only doggerel. In Lord Campbell's
list of the lord chancellors and chief justices of England no such
instance appears. If Bacon wrote the Shakespeare drama, he is the one
exception to an otherwise universal rule. But if Shakespeare coöperated
in the production of the Baconian philosophy, he belongs to a class of
poets who have done the same. Coleridge was one of the most imaginative
of poets. His "Christabel" and "Ancient Mariner" are pure creations.
But in later life he originated a new system of philosophy in England,
the influence of which has not ceased to be felt to our day. The
case would be exactly similar if we suppose that Shakespeare, having
ranged the realm of imaginative poetry in his youth, had in his later
days of leisure coöperated with Bacon and Ben Jonson in producing the
"Advancement of Learning" and the "Novum Organum." We can easily think
of them as meeting, sometimes at the house of Ben Jonson, sometimes
at that of Shakespeare in Black Friars, and sometimes guests at that
private house built by Lord Bacon for purposes of study, near his
splendid palace of Gorhambury. "A most ingeniously contrived house,"
says Basil Montagu, "where, in the society of his philosophical
friends, he devoted himself to study and meditation." Aubrey tells
us that he had the aid of Hobbes in writing down his thoughts. Lord
Bacon appears to have possessed the happy gift of using other men's
faculties in his service. Ben Jonson, who had been a thorough student
of chemistry, alchemy, and science in all the forms then known, aided
Bacon in his observations of nature. Hobbes aided him in giving
clearness to his thoughts and his language. And from Shakespeare he
may have derived the radical and central ideas of his philosophy. He
used the help of Dr. Playfer to translate his philosophy into Latin.
Tobie Matthew gives him the last argument of Galileo for the Copernican
system. He sends his works to others, begging them to correct the
thoughts and the style. It is evident, then, that he would have been
glad of the concurrence of Shakespeare, and that could easily be had,
through their common friend, Ben Jonson.
If Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare, it is difficult to give any
satisfactory reason for his concealment of that authorship. He had
much pride, not to say vanity, in being known as an author. He had his
name attached to all his other works, and sent them as presents to the
universities, and to individuals, with letters calling their attention
to these books. Would he have been willing permanently to conceal
the fact of his being the author of the best poetry of his time?
The reasons assigned by Judge Holmes for this are not satisfactory.
They are: his desire to rise in the profession of the law, the low
reputation of a play-writer, his wish to write more freely under an
incognito, and his wish to rest his reputation on his philosophical
works. But if he were reluctant to be regarded as the author of "Lear"
and "Hamlet," he was willing to be known as the writer of "Masques,"
and a play about "Arthur," exhibited by the students of Gray's Inn.
It is an error to say that the reputation of a play-writer was low.
Judge Holmes, himself, tells us that there was nothing remarkable in a
barrister of the inns of court writing for the stage. Ford and Beaumont
were both lawyers as well as eminent play-writers. Lord Backhurst,
Lord Brooke, Sir Henry Wotton, all wrote plays. And we find nothing in
the Shakespeare dramas which Bacon need have feared to say under his
own name. It would have been ruin to Sir Philip Francis to have avowed
himself the author of "Junius." But the Shakespeare plays satirized no
one, and made no enemies. If there were any reasons for concealment,
they certainly do not apply to the year 1623, when the first folio
appeared, which was after the death of Shakespeare and the fall of
Bacon. The acknowledgment of their authorship at that time could no
longer interfere with Bacon's rise. And it would be very little to the
credit of his intelligence to assume that he was not then aware of the
value of such works, or that he did not desire the reputation of being
their author. It would have been contrary to his very nature not to
have wished for the credit of that authorship.
On the other hand, there would be nothing surprising in the fact of
Shakespeare's laying no claim to credit for having assisted in the
composition of the "Advancement of Learning." Shakespeare was by nature
as reticent and modest as Bacon was egotistical and ostentatious. What
a veil is drawn over the poet's personality in his sonnets! We read in
them his inmost sentiments, but they tell us absolutely nothing of the
events of his life, or the facts of his position. And if, as we assume,
he was one among several who helped Lord Bacon, though he might have
done the most, there was no special reason why he should proclaim that
fact.
Gervinus has shown, in three striking pages, the fundamental harmony
between the ideas and mental tendencies of Shakespeare and Bacon. Their
philosophy of man and of life was the same. If, then, Bacon needed to
be helped in thinking out his system, there was no one alive who would
have given him such stimulus and encouragement as Shakespeare. This
also may explain his not mentioning the name of Shakespeare in his
works; for that might have called too much attention to the source from
which he received this important aid.
Nevertheless, I regard the monistic theory as in the last degree
improbable. We have two great authors, and not one only. But if we
are compelled to accept the view which ascribes a common source to
the Shakespeare drama and the Baconian philosophy, I think there are
good reasons for preferring Shakespeare to Bacon as the author of
both. When the plays appeared, Bacon was absorbed in pursuits and
ambitions foreign to such work; his accepted writings show no sign of
such creative power; he was the last man in the world not to take the
credit of such a success, and had no motive to conceal his authorship.
On the other hand, there was a period in Shakespeare's life when he had
abundant leisure to coöperate in the literary plans of Bacon; his ample
intellect was full of the ideas which took form in those works; and
he was just the person neither to claim nor to desire any credit for
lending such assistance.
There is, certainly, every reason to believe that, among his other
ambitions, Bacon desired that of striking out a new path of discovery,
and initiating a better method in the study of nature. But we know
that, in doing this, he sought aid in all quarters, and especially
among Shakespeare's friends and companions. It is highly probable,
therefore, that he became acquainted with the great dramatist, and that
Shakespeare knew of Bacon's designs and became interested in them. And
if so, who could offer better suggestions than he; and who would more
willingly accept them than the overworked statesman and lawyer, who
wished to be also a philosopher?
Finally, we may refer those who believe that the shape of the brow and
head indicates the quality of mental power to the portraits of the two
men. The head of Shakespeare, according to all the busts and pictures
which remain to us, belongs to the type which antiquity has transmitted
to us in the portraits of Homer and Plato. In this vast dome of thought
there was room for everything. The head of Bacon is also a grand one,
but less ample, less complete--less
"Teres, totus atque rotundus."
These portraits therefore agree with all we know of the writings, in
showing us which, and which only, of the two minds was capable of
containing the other.