Haines’s article. Alluding to the suit of “Belott _v._ Mountjoy,”
he writes: “From this suit we also learn an interesting by-fact,
namely, that Belott and his wife, after quitting the Mountjoys,
lived in the house of George Wilkins, the playwright, who had the
honour of collaborating with Shakespeare in ‘Pericles,’ and
possibly in ‘Timon.’” Here I would ask what particle of evidence is
there that the “George Wilkins, Victualler,” mentioned in the
action, was George Wilkins the pamphleteer and hack-dramatist? It
is true Professor Wallace has told us that, although “we have known
nothing about Wilkins personally before,” he thinks that “more than
one reader with a livelier critical interest in these
[Shakespearean] plays may be able to _smell the victualler_”
(_Harper’s Magazine_, March, 1910, p. 509); but, really, we can
hardly be expected to put implicit confidence in the deductions of
Dr. Wallace’s olfactory organ. What warrant, then, has Mr. Haines
to characterize as a “fact” that which is only guess-work and
assumption? For my part, I can no more “smell the victualler” in
the author of “The Miseries of Inforst Marriage” than I can “smell”
(as did Professor Wallace) the French official Herald in Mountjoy
of Muggle Street!
One more question and I have done, though many more occur to me.
Mr. Haines invites our attention to “The Plume MSS., which gave us
the only glimpse of John Shakespeare at his home, cracking jests
with his famous son” (p. 241). May I respectfully ask him if it is
not the fact that this pleasant picture of John Shakespeare rests
upon the (alleged) statement of Sir John Mennes, and that Sir John
Mennes was born on March 1st, 1599, whereas John Shakespeare died
in September, 1601, so that the infant Mennes must, presumably,
have been taken from his cradle in Kent, in his nurse’s arms, for
the purpose of interviewing that “merry-cheeked old man,” of which
interview he made a record from memory when he had learnt to write?
I trust Mr. Haines will enlighten a perplexed inquirer as to these
matters in the second article, which, as I gather, he is to
contribute to the _Quarterly Review_ on the results of “Recent
Shakespearean Research.”--Yours, &c.,
RIGHT
GEORGE GREENWOOD.
I turned, therefore, with some interest to Mr. Haines’s second article,
but, alas, I found no enlightenment therein. He has treated my questions
with a very discreet silence. Well, no doubt “silence is golden”--in
some cases. But such is “Shakespearean” criticism at the present day, of
which these articles are a very instructive and characteristic specimen.
I am aware, of course, that if I were to offer a paper in reply to them,
however conclusive that reply might be, and even if it were quite up to
the literary standard of the _Review_ in question, it would be at once
returned to me by the editor--if not consigned to the “W.P.B.”--for the
all-sufficient reason that the writer is guilty of vile and intolerable
heresy (to wit that he shares the conviction of the late Henry
James--and many others alive and dead--that the author of _Hamlet_ and
_Lear_ and _Othello_ was actually a well-educated man, of high
position, and the representative of the highest culture of his day), and
is therefore _taboo_ to the editors of all decent journals. _Id sane
intolerandum!_ Indeed, with the exception of the editor of the _National
Review_--to whom the thanks of all unprejudiced and liberal-minded men
are most justly due--I know of no editor of an English quarterly or
monthly magazine, since the lamented death of Mr. Wray Skilbeck, who
does not maintain this boycott as though it were a matter of moral
obligation, just as but a few years since they boycotted the
Free-thinker and the Rationalist. They freely open their columns to
attacks upon the “Anti-Stratfordian,” but on no account must he be
allowed to reply.
Whether such an attitude redounds to the credit of English literature it
is not for me, a “heretic,” to say. I would only venture to refer the
reader to the observations of Professor Abel Lefranc--a scholar and
critic of European reputation--upon this matter, in whose judgment it
seems that such an attitude with regard to an extremely interesting
literary problem is not only absurdly prejudiced and narrow-minded, but
one which--I tremble as I say it--makes some of our literary highbrows
not a little ridiculous in the eyes of men of common sense and
unfettered judgment.[27]
RIGHT
G. G.
THE MASQUE OF “TIME VINDICATED”[28]
The following extract from Mr. Smithson’s Article in _The Nineteenth
Century_ of November 1913, headed “Ben Jonson’s Pious Fraud,” may well
stand as a preface to his now published Essay on Jonson’s Masque of
_Time Vindicated_, which was written by him in the year 1919. The reader
may also be referred to Chapters VI and VII of his _Shakespeare-Bacon_,
published in 1899.
It is odd that we Baconians, differing as we do from our opponents
in so many points, should agree with them so entirely on one--the
supreme importance of the testimony of Ben Jonson. This paper is
mainly concerned with two of his utterances, the Ode in the First
Folio, and the _Prince’s Masque_. Both the one and the other belong
in point of composition to the same period, 1622-3. We will begin
with the _Masque_ completed no doubt a few months earlier than the
Ode. In my opinion they were vital parts of one great scheme of
which Bacon, i.e., Bacon-Shakespeare, was the subject.
The genesis of the _Prince’s Masque_ was probably on this wise:
assuming that Bacon was bent on disowning his plays, the
publication of them, however generous in intention, could at best
be only a left-handed compliment to him. Consequently if the scheme
was to yield any true satisfaction to its originators (or any
suitable consolation to Bacon regarded as the victim of malicious
if not disloyal persecution), it would have to give scope for some
direct (_ad virum_) expression, in their own persons if possible,
of love and admiration for their hero. A prince brought up in the
court of James the First would be sure to decide that a Masque was
the thing and Ben Jonson the man. As the audience would necessarily
be select and discreet (Court influence being potent), the risk of
disclosure was not serious; and even if it had been, Jonson’s skill
would have been equal to the task of hoodwinking any probable
audience. On this occasion luck helped cunning. In the nick of
time, George Wither, a “prodigious pourer forth of rhime,” happened
to publish a volume of _Satirical Essays_ in rhyme, with a
ridiculous dedication of the thing to himself as patron and
protector. This I fancy gave Jonson just what he wanted--a red
herring to draw across the scent.
The _Prince’s Masque_ had another, and for our purpose far more
significant title--_Time Vindicated to Himself and His Honours_.
Time, no Time of long ago, but the age that was then passing, had
been slandered, taxed with being mean and dull and sterile, and the
intention of the Masque or Pageant was to refute these calumnies in
presence, not of an inquisitive world, but of Time’s living
ornaments (as well as himself). If report speak true, it was
presented on the 19th of January, 1623--the Sunday in that
memorable year which fell nearest to Bacon’s birthday--presented in
circumstances of unprecedented splendour, “the Prince leading the
Measures with the French embassador’s wife.” The Masque (as given
in Jonson’s _Works_) is sub-divided into Antimasque and Masque
proper.
Fame, the accredited mouthpiece of the author, is by far the most
important personage in the Antimasque. Her first business is to
proclaim that she has been sent to invite to that night’s “great
spectacle,” not the many, but the few who alone were worthy to view
it. An inquisitive mob nicknamed The Curious at once begins to
heckle Fame. A thrasonical personage called Chronomastix, a
caricature compounded in unequal proportions of George Wither and
the Ovid Junior of Jonson’s _Poetaster_, then appears on the scene.
Chronomastix, I may say in passing, seems to have deluded John
Chamberlain, for he (J. C.) tells a correspondent that Jonson in
the _Prince’s Masque_ “runs a risk by impersonating George Withers
as a whipper of the times, which is a dangerous jest.” At sight of
Chronomastix The Curious jeer at Fame for not recognising their
idol, while Chronomastix himself has the effrontery to call her his
“mistress,” and tells her it is for her sake alone that he “revells
so in rime.” Fame retorts (in effect): “Away thou wretched
Impostor! My proclamation was not meant for thee or thy kind; goe
revell with thine ignorant admirers. Let worthy names alone.”
Chronomastix is furious, brags of his popularity, and appeals to
The Curious to “come forth ... and now or never, spight of Fame,
approve me.” The stage direction here runs: “At this, the Mutes
come in.” The first Mute, an elephantine creature, meant of course
for Jonson himself, is about to bring forth a “male-Poem ... that
kicks at Time already.” (Jonson’s Ode to Shakespeare was probably
ruminated, if not written, at the very time that this “male-Poem”
was struggling to be born.) The second Mute, a quondam
Justice--reminding one of Justice Clement in Jonson’s earliest
comedy--is in the habit of carrying Chronomastix about “in his
pocket” and crying “‘O happy man!’ to the wrong party, meaning the
_Poet_, where he meant the subject.” (This I take for a hint at the
confusion of mind that must have existed among lovers of the drama
as to who Shakespeare really was.) The succeeding pair of Mutes
are, the one a printer in disguise who conceals himself and “his
presse in a hollow tree, and workes by glow-worm light, the moon’s
too open”; the other a compositor who in “an angle inhabited by
ants will sit curled whole days and nights, and work his eyes out
for him.”[29] The fifth Mute is a learned man, a schoolmaster, who
is turning the works of the caricature Chronomastix into _Latine_.
(“Some good pens”--as we learn from his letters--were at this time
engaged in turning Bacon’s _Advancement of Learning_ into Latin,
the “general language.”) The sixth and last Mute is a “Man of
warre,” reminiscent of Gullio in the _Return from Parnassus_, who
it may be remembered worships “sweet Mr. Shakspeare,” talks
“nothing but Shakspeare,” etc. Not one of the Mutes ever opens his
mouth, and all that the audience knows of them is told by The
Curious, whose function is to connect the Antimasque with the
Masque and act as nomenclators for the elephantine poet and his
suite. The Mutes came, or seemed to come, at the bidding of
Chronomastix, in order to snub Fame for having insulted him. But
Chronomastix himself is the person actually snubbed by them, seeing
that they ignore him utterly. As for Fame, she treats the Mutes
very coolly, her only comment being “What a confederacy of _Folly_
is here!”
Following hard on this observation (of Fame’s) comes a dance, in
which The Curious adore Chronomastix and then carry him off in
triumph. Afterwards The Curious come up again, and one of them,
addressing Fame, asks: “Now, Fame, how like you this?” Another
chimes in: “He scornes you, and defies you, has got a _Fame_ of
his owne, as well as a Faction.” A third adds: “And these will
deify him, to despite you.” Fame answers: “I envie not the
_Apotheosis_. ’Twill prove but deifying of a Pompion.” (If The
Curious had scented what Fame was about, a retort like this would
have been enough to let them into the secret. But this hint, as
well as her previous taunt, “My hot inquisitors, what I am about is
more than you understand,” was lost on them and they continue their
futile cackle.) Fame gets rid of The Curious at last by means of
the Cat and Fiddle, who, according to the stage direction, “make
sport with and drive them away.”
Relieved of the presence of all who were unfit to view the “great
Spectacle” now on the point of being exhibited “with all
solemnity,” Fame at last lets herself go: “Commonly (says she) The
Curious are ill-natured and, like flies, seek _Time’s_ corrupted
parts to blow upon, but may the sound ones live with fame and
honour, free from the molestation of these insects.”
The stage direction here runs: “Loud musique. To which the whole
scene opens, where Saturne sitting with Venus is discovered above,
and certaine Votaries coming forth below, which are the Chorus.”
Addressing the King, Fame announces that Saturn (Time) urged by
Venus (emblem of affection) had promised to set free “certaine
glories of the Time,” which, though eminently fitted to “adorn that
age,” had nevertheless for mysterious reasons been kept in
“darknesse” by “Hecate (Queene of shades).” Venus puts in her word;
assures Time that the liberation of the “glories” is a “worke
(which) will prove his honour” as well as exceed “men’s hopes.”
Saturn answers her gallantly and then addressing the Votaries says:
“You shall not long expect: with ease the things come forth (that)
are born to please. Looke, have you seene such lights as these?”
This is the very climax of the Masque. “The _Masquers_ (so runs the
stage direction) are discovered and that which obscured them
vanisheth.” The Votaries exclaim with rapture: “These, these must
sure some wonders be.... What grief, or envie had it beene, that
these and such had not beene seene, but still obscured in shade!
Who are the glories of the _Time_ ... and for the light were made!”
(Who were these “glories” whom Fame, the Prince, Ben Jonson, and
the rest had with difficulty rescued from the underworld, in whose
behalf inquisitive intruders had been excluded, about whom absurd
mistakes of identity had been made, and who according to Fame were
destined to play parts in the “apotheosis” of a pumpkin?[30] The
only answer that occurs to me is that the spectacle consisted
essentially of a selection from among the _dramatis personæ_ who
were about to figure in the First Folio, especially characters out
of the sixteen or twenty then unpublished plays.)
The Masque ends with an exhortation to charity, the final words
being:
Man should not hunt mankind to death,
But strike the enemies of man.
Kill vices if you can:
They are your wildest beasts:
And when they thickest fall, you make the Gods true feasts.
(Bearing in mind that Bacon was probably regarded by the audience
as an ill-used man, this exhortation sorts well with what I take to
be the true interpretation of the Masque. So does the motto with
which it opens. In that motto Martial bids ill-natured censors to
leave him alone and keep their venom for self-admirers, persons
vain of their own achievements. From first to last, therefore,
_Time Vindicated_ seems to have been deliberately adjusted to
Bacon.)
The second part of this quasi-national scheme for doing honour to
Shakespeare-Bacon falls now to be considered. The First Folio was
published, it would seem, towards the end of 1623. Though not
entered on the Stationers’ Register till November, it may well have
been on the stocks before that, for the difficulties of collecting,
arranging with interested printers, editing, adapting (_The
Tempest_ for example), and so forth, must have been extraordinary.
The volume is introduced by some doggerel, signed “B. I.,” which
tells the reader:
This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein, etc.
Derision and mystification, twin motives or causes of the guy
Chronomastix, are equally the motives of this grotesque “figure.”
Whether this were also intended to parody the doggerel inscribed on
Shakespeare’s gravestone in Stratford Church may be open to doubt.
That inscription runs:
Good frend, for Jesus sake forbeare
To digge the dust encloased heare;
Bleste be the man, etc.
Warned by “B. I.” that laughter is in that air, we turn to the
famous Ode itself which is signed “Ben: Ionson”(not “B. I.”) This
Poem opens with a significant hint that the “_name_” Shakespeare,
as distinct from his “book” and his “_fame_,” was a delicate
subject to handle. After having assured himself with much ado that
Shakespeare’s (true) name is now in no danger, Jonson proceeds to
inform him that he (Shakesspeare) is alive still, “a moniment
without a tombe.” Then comes the line: “And though thou hadst small
Latin and less Greek,” which is generally mistaken for a
categorical statement that Shakespeare lacked Latin, whereas it
should be understood as equivalent to “Supposing thou hadst small
Latin,” etc. The word “would” in the next sentence (“From thence to
honour thee I would not seek”) shows this to be the reading.
Then come the triumphant verses in which, after having challenged
“insolent Greece or haughtie Rome” to produce a greater than
Shakespeare, Jonson exclaims:
Triumph my Britaine, thou hast one to showe,
To whom all Scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When like Apollo he came forth, etc.
(Compare this with what Jonson wrote of Bacon not many years later:
Bacon “is he, who hath filled up all numbers; and performed that in
our tongue, which may be compared or preferred, either to insolent
_Greece_ or haughty _Rome_. In short, within his view and about his
times were all the wits born that could honour a language, or helpe
study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downe-ward, and _Eloquence_
growes back-ward. So that hee may be named, and stand as the
_marke_ and _akme_ of our language.... Hee seemed to mee ever, by
his worke, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration
that had beene in many Ages.” The similarity between the two
eulogies strikes one the moment they are brought into
juxtaposition, and this helps to explain the exclusion of the Ode
from the collected _Workes of Ben: Jonson: 1640-1_.)
After this rapturous outburst the mood changes, and we are bored by
a number of didactic lines about the need of toil and sweat as well
as genius, “for the good poet’s made as well as born.” The passage
is one among many symptoms of Jonson’s long-standing quarrel with
Shakespeareolators--a quarrel which at a later date found
expression in the _Discoveries_--for refusing to see that the
carelessness of their idol was at times not less conspicuous than
his genius. Satisfied with having vindicated his own consistency,
Jonson goes on to declare that each “well-torned and true-filed”
line of Shakespeare’s “seemes to shake a lance as brandished at the
eyes of ignorance.” (Obviously, therefore, Jonson had in view a
peculiar kind of ignorance, one which the mere technique displayed
in the First Folio would, but for a misunderstanding, have put to
flight. The quondam Justice of _Time Vindicated_ who was wont to
cry “O happy man! to the wrong party,” suggests the
misunderstanding in question. What, moreover, are we to make of the
“stage” shaking and “lance” shaking and brandishing? How reconcile
this punning upon _shake_ and _spear_ with the opening lines of the
Ode which breathe forth reverence for “thy name.” It had been
difficult, short of direct statement, to give plainer indications
that Jonson was out for a juggle with a pair of names, one of them
an _alias_.)
On the heels of the lance-brandishing jest comes the passionate
utterance: “Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were to see thee in
our waters yet appeare, and make those flights upon the bankes of
Thames, that so did take Eliza and our James!” (Here _suggestio
falsi_ is carried to the verge of the lie. What Jonson would have
us think he felt about Warwick and its Avon is one thing. What he
actually thought may be gathered from a fragment of rather later
date in which he jeers at “Warwick Muses” for choosing a
“Hoby-horse” as their favourite mount--“the _Pegasus_ that uses to
waite on _Warwick_ Muses,” etc. Be this as it may, the ethics of
the case would cause him no uneasiness. A secret had to be kept in
deference to the wishes of one whom Jonson regarded as almost the
greatest and most admirable of men, one too whose right to an
incognito no living man of letters was likely to dispute.)
Jonson’s yearning to see Shakespeare once more “upon the bankes of
Thames” is suddenly arrested by a vision. Turning his poetic eye
upwards and catching sight of the constellation Cygnus, he affects
to be thrilled by the conceit that Shakespeare had been
metamorphosed, “advanced” to a higher sphere--“the hemisphere” as
he calls it. (The Ode belongs, as has been said, to 1622-23. Some
ten or a dozen years earlier, Shakspere, preferring humdrum
Stratford to London and poetry, had turned his back on the Capital.
If this yearning had been uttered in 1612-13, instead of 1622-23,
it might have been meant for the Stratford man. So with the vision
and the thrill, if we could have referred them to 1616-17, they
would have provoked no question. But as things stand, question is
inevitable. Had the yearning been kept under since 1612, and why?
The vision too and the thrill, what had they to do with the
testator of 1616? What more likely than that Jonson had in his mind
the social elevation of the wonderful man who long before 1623 had
broken his magic wand, doffed his singing robes, and taken leave of
the stage for ever?)
The Ode closes on a note akin to despair at the low estate of
Poetry ever since Shakespeare had ceased to enrich and adorn it. A
similar note, it will be remembered, marks the close of Jonson’s
appreciation of Bacon: “Now things daily fall: wits grow
downe-ward, and Eloquence growes back-ward” etc. Here again the
thoughts of Jonson were evidently running on Shakespeare; for with
Jonson Eloquence was Poetry, or rather--to speak by the
book--Poetry was “the most prevailing Eloquence, and of the most
exalted Charact.”
The contention of this article may be compressed into one sentence:
The _Prince’s Masque_ and the famous Ode to Shakespeare were a
signal act of homage in two parts to one man, and that man Francis
Bacon. The proposition does not admit of demonstrative proof. High
probability is all that is claimed, and if the claim be rejected
the fault is with the advocate.
Such being the Preface, let us now turn to the further Essay on the
Masque of _Time Vindicated_, which Edward Smithson left for, alas,
posthumous publication.
Proprietas denique illa inseparabilis, quae _Tempus_ ipsum
sequitur, ut veritatem indies parturiat. _De Aug: Scientiarum_,
1623.
The year 1623 was a memorable one for literature. First in order of date
came a masterpiece of Ben Jonson’s, the Masque of _Time Vindicated_.
This was followed by Bacon’s _De Augmentis Scientiarum_, an expanded
version of his _Advancement of Learning_, written many years earlier.
The finest gift of that year was the First Folio of _Shakespeare_.
_Time Vindicated_ consists of two violently contrasted parts; jest and
earnest, antimasque and masque proper. The most conspicuous figure in
the farcical part is CHRONOMASTIX, an enigmatical creature, so greedy
of publicity (for fame is denied him) that his only “end” is “to get
himselfe a name,” to ingratiate himself with “rumor” (he would have said
_Fame_) as an inspired poet or maker.[31] CHRONOMASTIX is escorted by a
doting mob of inquisitive adorers, the CURIOUS, who are obsessed by the
expectation that they are about to assist at the deification of a great
poet, their own incomparable CHRONOMASTIX as they fondly imagine. FAME,
the mouthpiece of Jonson, derides the CURIOUS at every turn, and when
they tell her that CHRONOMASTIX “has got a _Fame_ of his owne, as well
as a Faction: and these will deifie him, to despite you,” FAME replies:
“I envie not the _Apotheosis_. ’Twill prove but deifying of a Pompion.”
The antimasque closes with the ignominious expulsion of CHRONOMASTIX and
his votaries; obviously because the “great spectacle,” which _Time_
intended that “night to exhibit with all solemnity,” was too august for
prying eyes to see.
The Masque proper opens with an address to King James, the gist of which
is that “certaine glories of the _Time_,” till then artificially
concealed, were about to be freed “at Love’s suit” or intercession
because admirably fitted “to adorne the age.” The climax of the Masque
follows this address almost immediately. The stage direction runs: “The
_Masquers_ are discovered, and that which obscur’d them, vanisheth.” The
CHORUS of the Masque is delighted by the vision of the _Masquers_, and
cries out: “What griefe, or envie had it beene, that these, and such (as
these) had not beene seene, but still obscur’d in shade! Who are the
glories of the Time, ... and for the light were made!”