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BACONIAN ESSAYS
BACONIAN ESSAYS
BY
E. W. SMITHSON
WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND TWO ESSAYS
BY
SIR GEORGE GREENWOOD
LONDON
CECIL PALMER
OAKLEY HOUSE, 14-18 BLOOMSBURY ST., W.C. 1
_First
Edition
Copyright
1922_
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY (by G. GREENWOOD) 7
_Five Essays_ by E. W. SMITHSON
THE MASQUE OF “TIME VINDICATED” 41
SHAKESPEARE--A THEORY 69
BEN JONSON AND SHAKESPEARE 97
BACON AND “POESY” 123
“THE TEMPEST” AND ITS SYMBOLISM 149
_Two Essays_ by G. GREENWOOD
THE COMMON KNOWLEDGE OF SHAKESPEARE AND BACON 161
THE NORTHUMBERLAND MANUSCRIPT 187
FINAL NOTE (G. G.) 223
ERRATA.
(Corrected in this etext.)
Page 17 line 12 _for_ “hat” _read_ “that.”
” 19 line 13 from bottom _for_ “Spain” read “Spa in.”
” 38 line 7 ” ” _for_ “Magwell” read “Mugwell.”
” 169 line 13 ” ” _for_ “swet” read “sweet.”
” 193 line 10 from bottom _for_ “tilt-hard” read “tilt-yard.”
BACONIAN ESSAYS
INTRODUCTORY
Henry James, in a letter to Miss Violet Hunt, thus delivers himself with
regard to the authorship of the plays and poems of “Shakespeare”[1]:--“I
am ‘a sort of’ haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the
biggest and most successful fraud ever practised on a patient world. The
more I turn him round and round the more he so affects me.”
Now I do not for a moment suppose that in so writing the late Mr. Henry
James had any intention of affixing the stigma of personal fraud upon
William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon. Doubtless he used the term
“fraud” in a semi-jocular vein as we so often hear it made use of in the
colloquial language of the present day, and his meaning is nothing more,
and nothing less, than this, viz., that the belief that the plays and
poems of “Shakespeare” were, in truth and in fact, the work of “the man
from Stratford,” (as he subsequently, in the same letter, styles “the
divine William”) is one of the greatest of all the many delusions which
have, from time to time, afflicted a credulous and “a patient world.”
He believed that when, in the year 1593, the dedication of _Venus and
Adonis_ to the Young Earl of Southampton was signed “William
Shakespeare,” that signature did not, in truth and in fact, stand for
the Stratford player who never so signed himself, but for a very
different person, in quite another sphere of life, who desired to
preserve his anonymity. He believed that when plays were published in
the name of “Shake-speare” that name did not, in truth and in fact,
stand for “the man from Stratford,” but again for that same person--or
it might be, and in certain cases certainly was, for some other--who
desired to publish plays under the mask of a convenient pen-name. And if
the authorship of these poems and plays came, in course of time, to be
attributed to William Shakspere, the player from Stratford-upon-Avon,
who himself never uttered a word, or wrote a syllable, or took any steps
whatever to claim the authorship of those poems and plays for himself,
but was content merely to play the part of “William the Silent” from
first to last, there is, surely, no reason to brand him as a cheat and a
“fraud” upon that account, and we may be quite sure that that
highly-gifted and distinguished man of literature, Henry James--one of
the intellectuals of our day--had no intention of so branding him.
A lady, a short time ago, wrote a book to explain the play of _Hamlet_
in quite a new light, by making reference to the special political
circumstances of the time when it appeared, such as the “Scottish
succession,” the character of James I, certain events in the lives of
Mary Queen of Scots, Burleigh, Essex, Southampton, Elizabeth Vernon, and
other historical figures, and producing “detailed analogies between
episodes of contemporary history and the play,”[2] and, in reply to
certain objections raised by a well-known critic, she essayed to justify
herself by an appeal to the doctrine of “Relativity,” which, as she
declared with some warmth, had come to stay whether her captious critic
wanted it or not!
This lofty invocation of Einstein’s theory of Time, Space, and the
Universe--a theory so difficult of comprehension that only a favoured
few can even affect to understand it--in support of a new interpretation
of one of Shakespeare’s plays, was, certainly, somewhat ridiculous, but
the lady was quite right in her contention--which would equally hold
good though Einstein had never lived or taught--that in forming our
judgments on men long gone, whether of their characters or their
actions, or their sayings or their writings, we must ever bear in mind
the views, the beliefs, the opinions, and the special circumstances of
the time and the society in which they lived. Now, it is well known that
in Elizabethan and Jacobean times opinion with regard to what I may call
literary deception was very different from what it is at the present day
when we at any rate affect much greater scrupulosity with regard to
these matters. Such literary deceptions, which in these days would be
condemned as “frauds,” were, in those times, constantly and habitually
practised, and considered quite venial sins, if, indeed, they were
looked upon as sins at all. That is a fact which should never be lost
sight of when we are considering problems of authorship, or writings of
dubious interpretation (such as some of Ben Jonson’s, e.g.) in those
long-gone and very different times.
Now, I am one of those who agree with the late Mr. Henry James, and with
the present highly-distinguished French scholar and historian, Professor
Abel Lefranc--I refer here to his negative views only--with regard to
the authorship of the plays and poems of “Shakespeare.” In my humble
opinion (which, to be quite honest, I may say is not “humble” at all!),
that the plays and poems of “Shakespeare” were not written by William
Shakspere, the player who came from Stratford, is as certain as anything
can be which is not susceptible of actual mathematical proof. Who then
wrote the plays? (Let us leave the poems on one side for the present).
Well, that the work of many pens appears in the Folio of 1623 is surely
indisputable. Few if any, of the “orthodox” would be found to deny it.
There is little, if any, of “Shakespeare”--whoever he was--in the first
part of _Henry VI_, and, surely, not much more in the second and third
parts. Very little, if any part, of _The Taming of the Shrew_ is
“Shakespearean.” The great majority of critics exclude _Titus_
altogether. The work of pens other than the Shakespearean pen is to be
found in _Pericles_, and _Timon_, and _Troilus and Cressida_, and even
in _Macbeth_. _Henry VIII_, though published as by “Shakespeare,” was
almost undoubtedly the work of Fletcher and Massinger in
collaboration.[3] The list might be added to but it is unnecessary to do
so. I repeat, the work of many pens is to be found in the Folio of 1623,
but there is, of course, one man whose work eclipses that of all the
rest, one man who stands pre-eminent and unrivalled, towering high above
the others; one man of whom it may be said, as of Marcellus of old, that
_insignis ingreditur, victorque viros supereminet omnes_. Find that man,
find the author of _Hamlet_, and _Lear_, and _Othello_--to give but a
few examples--and you will have found the true “Shakespeare.” But set
your hearts at rest; you will never find him in the man whose vulgar and
banal life (in the course of which not one--I do not say generous
but--even respectable action can be discovered by all the researches of
his biographers) is to be read in the pages of Halliwell-Phillipps and
Sir Sidney Lee--the life of which so little is known, and yet so much
too much!
Meantime it is amusing, or would be so if it were not so lamentable, to
see our solemn and entirely self-satisfied Pundits and Mandarins of
“Shakespearean” literature ever trying to see daylight through the
millstone of the Stratfordian faith; ever broaching some brand-new
theory, and affecting to find something in this Shakespearean literature
which nobody ever found before them, but which as they fondly imagine,
somehow, and in some way, tends to support the old outworn Stratfordian
tradition. Perhaps some “prompt copy” of an old Elizabethan drama is
discovered. It is hailed with exultation as affording proof that plays
in those times were printed from “prompt copies,” and further cryptic
arguments are adduced in support of the absurd theory that the Stratford
player dashed off the plays of “Shakespeare,” _currente calamo_, and
handed them over to his fellow “deserving men,” Heminge and Condell, and
the rest, with “scarse a blot” upon them, and that the plays were
printed from these precious “unblotted autographs.” An old Manuscript
Play is found. It is the work of several pens. In it are discovered
three pages in an unknown hand. See now! Here is a hand “of the same
class” as the “Shakespeare” (i.e., “Shakspere”) signatures! Why, it is
Shakspere’s own handwriting! Look at Shakspere’s will--the will in which
no book or manuscript is mentioned, but wherein are small bequests to
Shakspere’s fellow-players, those “deserving men” Burbage, and Heminge,
and Condell, to buy them rings withal, and of the testator’s sword, and
parcel-gilt bowl, and “second-best bedstead”--and there you will find
three words well and distinctly written in a firm hand--“By me William.”
Yes, and the “W” of “William” is so carefully written that it even has
“the ornamental dot” under the curve of the right limb thereof! But why,
then, are the signatures themselves such miserable, illegible scrawls?
Oh, fools and blind! Cannot you see that player William in this case
reversed the usual procedure; that he intended to sign the last of the
three pages of his Will first (“But _why_?”--“Oh, never mind _why_!”);
that the poor man was _in extremis_ (true he lived another month after
signing, and his Will witnesses that he was “in perfect health and
memorie, God be praysed!” _Mais cela n’empêche pas_); and that he made a
tremendous effort, and wrote the words “By me William,” in a fine
distinct hand--“ornamental dot” and all!--and then collapsed utterly and
could only make illiterate scrawls for his surname, and the other two
signatures. But these words, “By me William,” are in the same
handwriting as that of the “addition” to _Sir Thomas More_! What? You
say they were manifestly written by the Law Scrivener! _What?_ You say
the handwriting of this “addition” differs manifestly and fundamentally
from the handwriting of the “Shakspere” signatures (which, wretched
scrawls as they are, differ profoundly one from the other), as anybody
can see who does not happen to be a “paleographer” with an _idée fixe_!
What? You say that! Yah, fool! Yah, fanatic! What do _you_ know about
it, I should like to know![4]
Such is all too frequently the language of the _soi-disant_ “orthodox”
to the poor “heretic”; such are “the spurns that patient merit of the
unworthy takes”!
Then we have a man--an “orthodox” wiseacre--who tells us that, without
doubt, the “dark lady” of the Sonnets was Mistress Mary Fitton, and we
are to subscribe to the belief that Mary Fitton, one of Elizabeth’s
Maids of Honour, had an intrigue with a common player--one “i’ the
statute!” It is nothing to tell the people who have made this wonderful
discovery that Mary Fitton was _not_ a “dark lady,” but a _fair_ lady,
as her portraits at Arbury show. It is nothing to tell them that, though
among the remarkable contemporaneous documents in the Muniment Room at
Arbury there is much mention of Mary Fitton’s _liaison_ with that proud
nobleman, Lord Pembroke, not a breath is to be discovered of any
suggestion of her so degrading herself as to have an intrigue with “a
man-player”--one who was a “rogue and vagabond” were it not for the
licence of a great personage. No, all this goes for nothing when it is
necessary somehow, by hook or by crook, to identify the Stratford player
with the author of the Sonnets of “Shakespeare.” _O miseras hominum
mentes, O pectora cæca!_
Then yet another finds this “dark lady” in the person of the wife of an
Oxford Inn Keeper, with whom, forsooth, player Shakspere had an
intrigue, on his way from Stratford to London, or _vice versa_, and
laborious investigations are undertaken, and many learned letters are
written to the Press about this other imaginary “dark lady”--“that woman
colour’d ill”[5]--and all the family history of the Davenants is
exploited in this foolish quest. Then, again, another makes the
discovery that William Shakspere, the Stratford player, had conceived a
feeling of violent hatred against “Resolute John Florio,” the translator
of Montaigne (who was, by the way, so far as we know, a good worthy
man), so he caricatures this hateful person in the hateful (!) character
of Jack Falstaff--the Falstaff of _King Henry IV_! But we _don’t_ hate
Jack Falstaff! On the contrary we all love old Jack Falstaff, in spite
of his many faults and failings. We can’t help loving him, for his
unfailing good humour and his unrivalled wit! “Oh, that is nothing,
nothing,” says our critic from across the Atlantic--one Mr. Acheson of
New York--who has made this grand discovery. “Will Shakspere of
Stratford _hated_ Florio, so he has lampooned him and ridiculed him in
this hateful character of Falstaff! Of that there is no possible doubt.
I am Sir Oracle, and when I speak let no dog bark![6]”
And so I might go on to multiply the examples of this “Stratfordian”
folly. And we, who see the absurdity of all this, are called “Fanatics!”
But what is “Fanaticism”? It is the madness which possesses the
worshippers at the shrine. These men have bowed themselves down at the
traditional Stratfordian Shrine; they have accepted without thinking the
dogmas of the Stratfordian faith; they are impervious to reasoning and
to common sense; they have surrendered their judgment; “their eyes they
have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear
with their ears, and should understand with their hearts, and should be
converted” to truth and reason. Verily, _these_ are the real “fanatics.”
Let me for a moment, before passing on, call attention to some words
written by those distinguished “Shakespearean” critics Dr. Richard
Garnett, and Dr. Edmund Gosse, in their _Illustrated English
Literature_. They speak of “that knowledge of good society, and that
easy and confident attitude towards mankind which appears in
Shakespeare’s plays _from the first_, and which are so unlike what might
have been expected from _a Stratford rustic_.... The first of his plays
were undoubtedly the three early comedies, _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, _The
Comedy of Errors_, and _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, which must have
appeared in 1590-1591, or perhaps in the latter year only. The question
of priority among them is hard to settle, but we may concur with Mr.
[now Sir Sidney] Lee in awarding precedence to _Love’s Labour’s Lost_.
All three indicate that the runaway Stratford youth had, within five or
six years, made himself the perfect gentleman, master of the manners and
language of the best society of his day, and able to hold his own with
any contemporary writer.”[7]
Now this miraculous “runaway Stratford youth,” came to London “a
Stratford rustic,” in the year 1587,[8] and, according to his
biographers, being a penniless adventurer, had to seek for a living in
“very mean employments,” as Dr. Johnson says, whether as horse-holder,
or “call boy,” or “super” on the stage, or what you will. His parents
were entirely illiterate, and he left his two daughters in the same
darkness of ignorance. We may assume that he had attended for a few
years at the “Free School” at Stratford (as Rowe, his earliest
biographer, calls it), although there is really no evidence in support
of that assumption, but it is admitted even by the most zealous and
orthodox Stratfordians that he “had received only an imperfect
education.”[9] But I will not again recapitulate the facts (real or
supposed) of this mean and vulgar life. Let the reader, I say again,
study it in the pages of Halliwell-Phillipps, and Sir Sidney Lee.[10]
And now let us consider for a moment that extraordinary play, _Love’s
Labour’s Lost_, which, as we have seen, “appeared” in 1590 or 1591,
according to Messrs. Garnett and Gosse, but of which Mr. Fleay writes:
“The date of the original production cannot well be put later than
1589.” It was, as the “authorities” are all agreed, Shakespeare’s first
drama, and it is remarkable for this fact, among other things, that
unlike other Shakespearean plays it is not an old play re-written, nor
is the plot taken from some other writer. The plot of _Love’s Labour’s
Lost_ is an original one.
And now let us see what Professor Lefranc, who has made a very special
study of this play, has to tell us about it, premising that I do not
cite his remarks as “authoritative,” but merely as a clear statement of
the facts of the case by one who has exceptional knowledge of the
history of the time in which the action of the play is supposed to take
place.
“Everybody knows,” he writes, “that the scene of this very original
comedy is laid at the Court of Navarre, at a date nearly contemporaneous
with the play, when Henri de Bourbon was the reigning sovereign of this
little kingdom, before he became Henri IV of France.... That the author
of _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ knew and had visited the Court of Navarre is
at once obvious to anyone who will study the play without any
preconceived hypothesis and who takes the trouble to learn something
about the history of this little Kingdom of Nérac.... All the
explanations which have been given of this play, the first of the
Shakespearean dramas, in order to bolster up the theory of its
composition by Shakspere the player at the very outset of his career as
a playwright, as also every element of the comedy itself, and every
known incident in the life of the Stratford player, prove the
impossibility of his being the author of it. All these theories and
hypotheses put forward during the last 120 years are of such total
improbability, indeed of such miserable tenuity, that some day people
will wonder how they could possibly find acceptance for so long.”
M. Lefranc cites Montegut, a French Shakespearean scholar and a critic
of noted insight and perspicacity, who writes: “It is extraordinary to
see how Shakespeare is faithful even in the most minute details to
historical truth and to local colour,” and he proceeds to demonstrate
that many allusions in this wonderful play of _Love’s Labour’s Lost_
cannot be properly understood or appreciated without reference to the
memoirs of the celebrated Marguerite de Valois, who is herself the
“Princess of France” of the comedy (in the original edition called “The
Queen”[11]), who comes with her suite to visit Henri at his Court of
Nérac. The Princess of France, then, was originally Queen Marguerite of
Navarre, and this comedy represents her as coming to rejoin her husband
at Nérac to endeavour to regain his love, and to settle many questions
relative to her dowry of Aquitaine. That this journey actually took
place, that Marguerite paid a long visit to the Court of Navarre where a
series of entertainments were held in her honour, and that the question
of her dowry in Aquitaine was then discussed at length is established by
the Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois.[12] The author, then, had in his
mind events of contemporaneous history which had taken place at the
Court of Navarre, and with which he appears to have been personally
familiar. The memoirs, too, throw light on several passages of the drama
which would be obscure without them. Take (e.g.) Act II, Sc. 1, where
Biron asks Rosaline, “Did not I dance with you at Brabant once?” Here we
have an allusion to the visit of Marguerite to Spa in 1577, of which a
full account is given in her Memoirs, where she tells of balls at Mons,
Namur, and Liege, all in a country which was at that time constantly
spoken of as Brabant. Again, in Act V, Sc. 2, there is an obscure
allusion, which seems to be satisfactorily explained by a reference to
the story of the unfortunate Hélène de Tournon, related by Marguerite
in her Memoirs. Further, in Act V, Sc. 2, we have an allusion to the
manner in which Henri of Navarre, the “Vert Galant,” wrote, prepared,
and sealed his love letters, as though the author was familiar with the
amorous King’s poetical letter addressed by him to the “Charmante
Gabrielle” d’Estrés; while the circumstances described in Act I, Sc. 1,
are explained in the light of fact by a letter from Cobham to Walsingham
dated from Paris in June, 1583.
But it would take far too much time to dilate further upon this, the
first of the Shakespearean plays. I can only refer my readers, for
further light, to Professor Lefranc’s work _Sous le Masque de William
Shakespeare_.[13]
Yet we are required to believe--nay, we are “fanatics” if we do not
believe--that this extraordinary play was composed by the “Stratford
rustic” some two years after he had “run away” from Stratford, and,
further, that he composed two other remarkable comedies, _The Comedy of
Errors_, and _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, just about the same time!
Verily this is a faith which does not remove mountains, but simply
swallows them whole--a faith which appears to me more worthy of Bedlam
than of the intelligence of rational human beings. On the other hand,
there is no difficulty whatever in believing that this unique
play--which shows that the author of it was not only a “perfect
gentleman, master of the manners and language of the best society of the
day,” but also one familiar with the doings, and “happenings” and
amusements and _entourage_ of the Court of Henri of Navarre at Nérac on
the occasion of the visit of Marguerite de Valois to that Court--was
written by a man who lived and moved in a very different sphere of
society from that in which Shakspere of Stratford lived and moved, but
who was desirous of concealing his identity as a playwright under a
convenient mask-name.
Yet, as M. Lefranc truly says, “L’hétérodoxie dans ce domaine [the
“Shakespearean” authorship to wit] a paru jusqu’à présent aux maïtres
des universités et aux érudits, une opinion de mauvais goût, temeraire
et malséante, dont la science patentée n’avait pas à s’occuper, sauf
pour la condamner.”[14] But he continues--I will now translate--“I am
convinced that every one who has preserved an independent opinion
concerning the Shakespeare problem will recognise that the old positions
of the traditional doctrine can no longer be maintained.... The laws of
psychology, and, what is more, of simple common sense, ought to banish
for ever the absurd theory which would have us believe in an
incomparable writer whose life was absolutely out of harmony with the
marvellous works which appeared in his name. It is time to take decisive
action against that immense error, and against the incredible _naiveté_
upon which it rests.”
“Simple common sense.” Aye, but when I spoke not long ago to a
well-known writer, who is a Stratfordian _enragé_, of “common sense” in
this matter, what was his reply? “_Oh, damn common sense!_”--a
characteristic interjection which might well be adopted as the motto of
all the “Stratfordian” highbrows of the present day.
But, adds Professor Lefranc, “If many still refuse to admit the
existence of a Shakespeare problem, yet the time is at hand when nobody
will any longer venture to deny it, unless he is prepared at the same
time to deny all the evidence in the case. It is clear that a new era of
Shakespearean study has recently presented itself. Scepticism with
regard to the Stratford man is spreading in spite of the resistance of
the multifarious defenders of the old tradition. A number of beliefs,
accepted for many years as dogmas, are disappearing every day. The rock
of credulity is crumbling away. The Stratfordians will, sooner or later,
be reduced, under the pressure of a more enlightened public opinion, to
change their tactics and modify the assumptions of their creed. In
truth, speaking generally, the best-established reproach to which the
learned men who have concerned themselves with Shakespeare, according to
the rules of Stratfordian orthodoxy, have laid themselves open, is not
so much that they have maintained the traditional doctrine with regard
to the poet-actor, but rather that in the face of the innumerable
enigmas which are involved in the history of his life, and his
[supposed] works, and even of the text of those works, they have never
had the candour to admit even the existence of all these obscure
problems. At every step in Shakespearean study these difficulties and
incoherences are encountered, but these learned men affect not to see
them.... Truly, in view of such superb assurance, the lay reader could
never imagine the existence of all the gratuitous assumptions, the naïve
assertions, the inadmissible interpretations that are to be found in the
works of these gentlemen, which the public have been accustomed to
accept as infallible authorities. Yet, even the most famous and the most
admired amongst them would have to yield to an investigation conducted
according to the simple rules of the art of reasoning, that is to say of
sound common sense. The hour has come when the representatives of the
‘Shakespearean’ dogma will have to change their attitude. They will have
to renounce both their silence and their credulity. Above all, they will
have to admit the necessity of inquiries, and discussions hostile to
their creed, to make a _tabula rasa_ of many points, and to take in hand
once more the investigation thereof _ab imis fundamentis_, resolutely
putting away those prejudices which have so long blinded them to the
truth.”
So writes Professor Abel Lefranc, with much more to the same purport and
effect, and, in my judgment, he writes both wisely and well. But if he
really believes that our hidebound Pundits and Mandarins of the
Stratfordian faith will ever “put away those prejudices which have so
long blinded them to the truth,” and give impartial consideration to the
facts of the Shakespeare Problem in the light of reason and
“commonsense,” I fear me he reckons without his host and is destined to
be very sadly undeceived.[15]
We are brought back, however, to the question: Who, then, is the real
“Shakespeare”? That is a question which I have never attempted to
answer. It has been quite sufficient for me to confine my arguments to
the negative side of the Shakespeare Problem. The positive, or
constructive side I have hitherto been content to leave to others.
Now, there is a large number of persons, many of them rational and
intelligent men and women, of quite sound mind and understanding, who
believe that the real “Shakespeare” is to be found in the person of
Francis Bacon. But there are “Baconians and Baconians.” There are the
wild Baconians who find Bacon everywhere, but especially in ciphers,
cryptograms, anagrams, acrostics, and in all sorts of occult figures and
emblems[16]--those who believe amongst other things, that Bacon was the
son of Queen Elizabeth, that he lived in philosophic concealment many
years after the date usually assigned as that of his death, that he
wrote practically all the English literature worthy of that name of the
Elizabethan and Jacobean period, and that he hid his “Shakespearean”
manuscripts in the mud of the River Wye or some other equally
inappropriate and ridiculous place, where no sane man would ever dream
of looking for them.
The wild and unrestrained “Baconians” have, undoubtedly, done great
injury to the cause which they desire to advocate; and not only have
they injured that cause, but they have greatly prejudiced the discussion
of the Shakespeare Problem as a whole. For in such cases we are all
liable to be “tarred by the same brush,” and the sanest of
“Anti-Stratfordian” reasoners has, unfortunately, not escaped the
back-wash of the ridicule which these eccentrics have brought upon
themselves.
There are, however, “Baconians” of another class--the sane “Baconians”
who are content to argue the matter--and some of them have argued it
with great knowledge and ability--in the calm light of reason and common
sense. Of these one of the sanest and ablest was my friend the late
Edward Walter Smithson, whose little book _Shakespeare--Bacon. An
Essay_,[17] published anonymously some three and twenty years ago,
attracted no little attention, and did much to help the cause in support
of which it was written. He published, however, nothing more on the
subject till 1913, in November of which year there appeared in _The
Nineteenth Century_ an article from his pen entitled “Ben Jonson’s Pious
Fraud.” The greater part of this article I have quoted by way of preface
to his essay now published on Jonson’s Masque of _Time Vindicated_,[18]
and it may be as well to cite the commencement of it at this place:
The writer is one of those persons who consider it highly probable
that Shakespeare was at first a mere pen-name of Bacon’s, and
regard Shakspere, Shaxper, or Shayksper--easily mistaken for
Shakespeare--as the usual patronymic from birth to death of an
illiterate actor: he thinks, moreover, that there must have been
some sort of understanding between the poet and the actor
(resembling perhaps that between Aristophanes and the actor
Callistratus), and conjectures that it may have covered proprietary
rights or shares in theatrical ventures.
When and how I came by such views can be of little or no interest
to anyone but myself. To prevent misconception, however, it may be
well to explain that my conversion dates from 1884-5. An essay of
mine (_Shakespeare-Bacon_, Sonnenschein, 1900)[19] belonging in
substance to 1885, would have been published long before the date
of actual publication but for the appearance of a portent called
the _Great Cryptogram_, which put me out of love with the subject.
My earliest suspicions were suggested not by heretics--Mr. W. H.
Smith, Lord Campbell, Lord Penzance, and the rest--whose opinions
were absolutely unknown to me, but, if memory serve, by Mr.
Halliwell-Phillipps and the New Shakspere Society (of which I must
have been an early member). Since 1885, I have tried to keep in
touch with what orthodoxy has had to say for itself, and against
us. Some of our opponents regard Ben Jonson as their prophet. To
him they fly for counsel and comfort. They throw his sayings at our
heads whenever they get a chance. In the index to Mr. Lang’s
_Shakespeare-Bacon and the Great Unknown_ (1912) Ben Jonson’s name
takes up more space than even Shakespeare’s. According to Mr. Lang
“it is easy to prove that Will (i.e. the Stratford man) was
recognised as the author by Ben Jonson.” If this were true there
would be no Shakespeare question at all, none at least so far as I
am concerned. But it is not true. Ben Jonson--whose _Works_ ought
to be familiar to all students of Shakespeare--is in fact what
lawyers would call a difficult witness, and to assert that he is on
the side of orthodoxy is simply to beg the question.[20] Some of
Mr. Lang’s admirers will have it that he has crushed Mr. G. G.
Greenwood much as a motor-car might crumple up a bicycle. But a
reading of Mr. Lang’s book leaves me in doubt whether Mr.
Greenwood’s main contentions (_The Shakespeare Problem Restated_)
are anywhere shaken, and I am not likely to be very strongly
biassed in Mr. Greenwood’s favour, seeing that he ostentatiously
disclaims being a Baconian. Mr. Greenwood indeed may be said to
have quitted Stratford for good and travelled a great many miles.
Where he pulls up it is not easy to say, but he does pull up
somewhere--perhaps where the rainbow ends. Mr. Lang, though he
refrains from imputing imbecility to Mr. Greenwood, is apparently
unable to be quite so lenient to Baconians. He explains, or would
like to explain, the Baconian views of Lord Penzance and Judge Webb
as partly due to senile decay. How he accounts for the views of
Lord Campbell,[21] Mr. George Bidder, Q.C., and others of less note
does not appear. When an unfamiliar theory happens to be at grips
with a popular one, the habit of thinking and calling an opponent
infatuated or not more than half mad is easily caught. Bacon did
not escape it, but he took care to give it a turn which saved it
from mere _brutalité_. In his day two notable theories were at
loggerheads, the Ptolemaic and the Copernican, with Galileo for the
Copernican Achilles. Convinced that the Sun moved round the Earth,
Bacon smiled at his opponents for doubting the immovability of our
planet and dubbed them “car-men,” “terrae aurigas,” chauffeurs, in
other words. No other student of _The Advancement of Learning_
(1605), written be it remembered when Bacon was fully mature, will
be surprised at this. Bacon avowedly took “all knowledge for his
province,” and _The Advancement_ is a comprehensible survey of that
province--as Bacon understood it. Of mathematics he probably knew
little or nothing. It is an open question whether Induction owes
anything to the _Novum Organum_. His acquaintance with the
phenomena of nature (as distinct from human nature) was derived for
the most part from poets and men of letters. More significant
still, his splendid natural gifts were not adapted to scientific
research. His true province in short was literature, above all,
poetry. And here it may not be amiss to note (1) that John Dryden’s
appreciation of Shakespeare--in whom, says J. D., are to be found
“all arts and sciences, all moral and natural
philosophy”--coincides as closely as may be with the traditional
estimate of Bacon, and (2) that Shakespeare seems to have been of
one mind with Bacon upon the motion of the Sun round the Earth.
With the tons of printed matter on the Baconian side, my
acquaintance has always been of the smallest. In a recent pamphlet
by Sir E. Durning Lawrence, that gentleman with the aid of a
newspaper called _The Tailor and Cutter_ labours the point, already
sufficiently obvious, that the figure which does duty as
frontispiece to the first folio of Shakespeare must have been meant
for a caricature.
What the Shakespeare theory is needs no telling. It is developed in
_Biographies_, _Lives_, and so forth, within the reach of every
one.
The Bacon theory on the other hand is still in the rough. “You may
well say that,” an opponent exclaims. “You, Baconians, differ among
yourselves almost as widely as you differ from us. With some of you
it is an article of faith that Bacon looked for fame (poetical) to
after ages, and took unheard-of pains to secure it. Baconians who
hunt for ciphers, key-numbers and so forth, not only in books, but
even under the river Wye belong to this class. You on the contrary
have convinced yourself, I know not how, that Bacon intended his
secret to die with him. What are we to do? How can we help thinking
that there is no such thing as a passably authentic Baconian
theory?” My acquaintance with Baconians, I reply, is far too
limited to justify any important attempt at sketching an
authoritative theory. My object is less ambitious. It is to set
down, as briefly and simply as possible, by way of introduction to
Ben Jonson, certain probable constituents of a reasonable Baconian
theory.
(_a_) Shakespeare was a pseudonym adopted by Bacon to mask his
personality whenever he created or “made” for the stage.
(_b_) The date at which Bacon gave up writing for public theatres
coincided pretty nearly with the beginning of his rise to high
place in the State.
(_c_) By the year 1623 (if not earlier) Bacon’s friends and
admirers must have become very uneasy about the fate of his still
unpublished plays. These plays had long been hidden away from the
public eye. What if the veil should never be lifted? Lest that
should happen, publication, and the sooner the better, must have
been eagerly desired by all lovers of literature. The conditions
were not unpromising. Softened by misfortune, Bacon would be open
to entreaty, and publication just then would put it in the power of
influential friends to minister with perfect delicacy to the more
urgent needs of the fallen man, “old, weak, ruined, in want, a very
subject of pity.” Provided that his true name could be for ever
kept from contact with the “family” of her who had once been his
“mistress,”[22] his consent or rather acquiescence might be hoped
for. Values it is true, literary and poetical values especially,
were no longer what they had been in the days of the late Queen.
But a parent’s affection for the offspring of his brain is never
perhaps wholly uprooted. Even so, the task was one for a master of
literary craft. But the thing had to be done and that quickly, if
it was to be of any use to the great man who, to quote Jonson’s
_Discoveries_, had “filled up all numbers, and performed that in
our tongue which may be compar’d or preferr’d either to insolent
Greece or haughty Rome.” No considerable help was to be looked for
from Bacon himself. The lie downright was to be avoided if
possible; but the motive being perfectly clean, economy of truth
and suggestion of untruth were neither of them barred. The
pseudonym was ready to hand, and the players Heminge and Condell
were not likely to deny their names to any prefatory matter
whatever which the editor might think fit to invent.
(_d_) Among the notable persons who openly interested themselves in
the publication of the First Folio were the Earl of Pembroke, the
Earl of Montgomery, and Ben Jonson. But it is safe to say that they
were not the only promoters of the undertaking, and in my opinion
King James (himself a poet in days gone by), Prince Charles, and
some _alter ego_ of Bacon’s (possibly Sir T. Mathews) were of the
number.
(_e_) A private printing press may have been among the tools
habitually employed by the author. Heminge and Condell in the First
Folio are made to say: “We have scarce received from him
(Shakespeare) a blot in his papers.” As an allusion to the use of a
press this statement would pass muster.[23] It occurs in the
prefatory matter, thoroughly Jonsonian, which seems to have served
as receptacle for what he preferred to put upon other shoulders
than his own.
(_f_) As for Shakspere--the man who emerged from and returned to
Stratford somehow and somewhen--he while he lived was a nobody
outside Stratford, and by the year 1622 must have been almost
forgotten even there, except as a good sort of fellow who, having
made money in London, had invested it in Stratford with a view to
enjoying the congenial society of its artless natives. His
_Apotheosis_ probably began with the publication of Jonson’s own
Ode.
“Guesswork!” exclaims one. “Mere figments of the brain!” says
another. Well, where is the theory which does not consist of such
material? Take away from any orthodox life-story of Shakspere all
figments of somebody’s brain, and what remains? According to
Professor Saintsbury, “almost all the received stuff of his
life-story is shreds and patches of tradition, if not positive
dream-work.”
Here it becomes necessary to say a word in explanation of the present
work. The late Edward Smithson left by his Will a sum of money to myself
and a friend who prefers to remain anonymous, with the suggestion that
it might be made use of in the endeavour to ascertain--to use his own
words--“the true parentage of Shakespeare (not Shakspere),” meaning
thereby, as there can be no doubt, that such sum might be employed, if
thought well--for there was no definite trust attached to it--in
furtherance of the quest of the true “Shakespeare,” whether he might be
found in Francis Bacon (as he himself thought was the case) or in some
other writer of the period in question. Moreover, he had left in type
certain “Baconian” essays, which, although he gave no specific
directions to that effect, it was known that he desired to be published
as his last words on a matter in which he was so deeply interested, and
these, at the request of his wife who survives him, I have supervised
and prepared for publication. Here a difficulty presented itself. Some
of these essays deal, to a certain extent, with the same subject matter,
and, consequently, the reader will find in them a certain amount of
repetition. At first I thought it might be possible to avoid this by
collating the various manuscripts, and fusing them together, as it were,
into one volume. It soon became apparent, however, that such “fusion”
would lead to “confusion,” and would be detrimental to Mr. Smithson’s
work. I trust, therefore, that the recurrence of various arguments, or
sentiments, in the following essays, will meet with generous toleration
on the part of the reader. After all, a certain amount of repetition is,
sometimes, likely to do more good than harm. The famous Mr. Justice
Maule, while still at the Bar, was once arguing a case before three
Judges, one of whom, finding the distinguished counsel somewhat prolix
on this occasion, and inclined to repeat his arguments, exclaimed
testily: “Really, Mr. Maule, that is the third time you have made that
observation!” “Well,” replied Maule, quite imperturbably, “there are
_three_ of your Lordships!” To repeat an argument once for each Judge on
the Bench was, then, in this great advocate’s opinion, quite a right,
proper, and useful thing to do. I am in hopes, therefore, that there may
be the same justification for a considerable amount of repetition in the
case now presented to a court--that of the reading public--which, it is
hoped, may consist of many more Judges than those addressed by Mr.
Justice Maule.
I would make this further observation with regard to Edward Smithson’s
Essays, though perhaps it is hardly necessary to make it. Although it
has been a pleasure to me to edit them, so far as they required editing
at all, I have, of course, no responsibility for the arguments or the
opinions expressed in them. Mr. Smithson, in the passage I have quoted
above from his article in _The Nineteenth Century_, says that I
“ostentatiously disclaim being a Baconian.” I am sorry if that
disclaimer was made “ostentatiously,” but speaking now, after the lapse
of many years, and I trust without a shred of “ostentation”--which,
certainly, would be very much out of place--I must say that I am still
unwilling to label myself as a “Baconian.” It was, I think, Professor
Huxley who said that, if asked whether he believed that there were
inhabitants in Mars, his reply would be that he neither believed nor
disbelieved. He did not know. This is the “agnostic” position in which I
find myself with regard to the hypothesis that Bacon is the true
Shakespeare. I really do not know. Nevertheless, an astronomer who had
adopted Professor Huxley’s position concerning the possible existence of
inhabitants in Mars, might without prejudice to that agnostic position,
find himself impelled to set forth certain arguments which seemed to him
to tell in favour of such a possibility. In the same way it occurred to
me some years ago to write certain essays on the Baconian side of the
case, two of which I now venture to publish as a sequel to those of Mr.
Smithson’s authorship. I recognise that there is much that may quite
fairly and reasonably be urged in favour of the Baconian case. Merely to
ridicule that case appears to me to be indicative of folly rather than
wisdom on the part of those who adopt such an attitude. Nevertheless,
when all is said and done, I am far from thinking that the Baconian
authorship of any of the plays or poems published in the name of
“Shakespeare” has been actually proved. That Francis Bacon had, at any
rate, something to do with the production of some of these plays and
poems is, at least, a very plausible hypothesis. As Professor Lefranc
writes, “Que l’auteur du théâtre Shakespearien ait été en rapport avec
Francis Bacon, c’est ce que nous avons toujours été porté à admettre
pour bien des raisons,”[24] and in support of that hypothesis I may be
said to hold a brief _pro hâc vice_ in the two “Baconian” Essays which I
now venture to publish. But that is all. I endeavour to keep an open
mind upon this, as upon many other doubtful questions. Professor Lefranc
himself has shown, with great learning and conspicuous ability, that a
strong case can be made in favour of William Stanley, Sixth Earl of
Derby, as the author of some, at any rate, of the “Shakespearean” plays,
and more especially of that extraordinary play _Love’s Labour’s
Lost_.[25] But the constructive side of the “Shakespeare Problem” I must
be content to leave to younger and abler men, and such as have much more
time to devote to it than I have. With regard, however, to “the man from
Stratford,” as Mr. Henry James styles him, or the “Stratford rustic,” as
Messrs. Garnett and Gosse do not hesitate to characterize him, _his_
supposed authorship may, and, indeed, must be, set aside as one of the
greatest and most unfortunate of the many delusions which have, from
time to time, imposed themselves upon a credulous and “patient
world.”[26]
I cannot conclude this note without a brief reference to two articles
which have lately appeared in the _Quarterly Review_ (October, 1921, and
January, 1922), under the heading of “Recent Shakespearean Research,” by
Mr. C. R. Haines. I can find little or nothing that can be recalled
“recent” in them unless we give a quite unwonted extension to the
meaning of that word. Mr. Haines even includes such _vieux jeu_ as the
Plume MSS. in his “recent” Shakespearean Research, but they certainly
contain some very remarkable statements. I will, however, here content
myself by quoting the following letter which I sent to the _Nation and
Athenæum_ after reading the first of these articles, and which appeared
in that paper on November 26th, last:
“RECENT SHAKESPEAREAN RESEARCH.”
SIR,--In an article under the above heading in the October number
of the _Quarterly Review_, Mr. C. R. Haines writes (p. 229): “There
cannot be the smallest doubt that Shakespeare [i.e., William
Shakspere, of Stratford] was possessed of books at his death. One
of these, _with his undoubted signature_ [my italics], ‘W. Sh^{r}.’
is still extant in the Bodleian Library.... A second, Florio’s
version of Montaigne (1603), bears the signature ‘Wilm Shakspere,’
which is with some reason regarded as genuine.”
Now Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, who, I believe, is generally
considered our foremost “paleographer,” has told us that the
“Florio’s Montaigne” signature is an “undoubted forgery” (I have in
my possession a letter of his addressed from the British Museum in
1904 to the late Sir Herbert Tree, and kindly forwarded by the
latter to me, in which Sir Edward so states); and the same high
authority writes in “Shakespeare’s England” (Vol. I, p. 308, n.):
“Nor is it possible to give a higher character to the signature,
‘W^{m} Sh^{e}.’ (not ‘W. Sh^{r},’ as Mr. Haines prints it) in the
Aldine Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses,’ 1502, in the Bodleian Library.”
How in the face of this Mr. C. R. Haines can assert that the book
referred to, in the Bodleian Library, bears Shakespeare’s
“undoubted signature,” or that the “Florio” signature is with
reason regarded as genuine, I am quite unable to understand.