Masque_, is that Time had been reproached with incapacity to produce
masterpieces comparable anyway with those of Greece and Rome; and that
the revelation of these Masquers was a triumphant refutation of the
calumny. To suppose that this result was achieved by the Prince and his
companions would be to insult Ben Jonson, the Prince, and all concerned.
The all-important feature of the revelation must have been the _make-up_
of the Masquers.
For several months previous to 1623 Jonson’s mind had necessarily been
concentrated on Shakespeare; collecting manuscripts; squaring rival
publishers; appreciating contributions offered by admirers (Fletcher
perhaps and Chapman among others); amending originals, _Julius Cæsar_
for instance; acting as editor-in-chief of the great book; meditating
his Ode to “Shakespeare,” _the man he lov’d and honoured (on this side
idolatry) as much as any_. (See _Discoveries_, 1641, for this italicised
passage).
There are many and various indications to justify the hypothesis that
the Masque as a whole was a tribute of love and admiration for
“Shakespeare.” Here are some of them. (1) _Love_ is the incentive to the
freeing of the “wonders”--the “glories”--that so charmed the CHORUS of
the Masque. Love for “Shakespeare” was probably Jonson’s leading motive
for undertaking all the drudgery connected with the First Folio. (2) The
mention of “envie” by the CHORUS gives one to think. Deprecation of
_envy_ is the burden of the enigmatical and portentous exordium of
Jonson’s Ode to Shakespeare. (3) For reasons unexplained by his
accredited biographers, the plays of Shakespeare had long been held back
or secluded, but were then on the eve of publication or disclosure; not
indeed “cured and perfect of their limbes”--to quote the editorial
figment in the First Folio--but certainly less damaged, and imperfect
than even Jonson, at an earlier stage, can have expected. (4) The
audience of _Time Vindicated_ is given to understand that “the Bosse of
_Belinsgate_,” a nickname for Jonson, “has a male-_poem_ in her belly
now, big as a colt, that kicks at _Time_ already.” In my opinion this
_Time_-defying _poem_ was none other than the famous Ode to Shakespeare.
These indications alone are sufficient to justify the above-mentioned
hypothesis that the Masque as a whole was a tribute of love and
admiration for “Shakespeare.” On no other hypothesis would the title,
_Time Vindicated_, have been appropriate or even excusable. Whereas no
other conceivable title would have been so absolutely appropriate, if
“Shakespeare” were, as I believe he was, the hero of the Masque; in
precisely the same sense, by the way, in which he was the hero of the
Ode; the only Poet worthy to be compared, in the words of the Ode, with
“all that insolent Greece or haughtie Rome sent forth, or since did from
their ashes come.”
Another significant feature of the Masque is the display of anxiety to
safeguard the spectacular revelation of the Masquers from the attentions
of inquisitive observers, an anxiety which requires the drastic
expulsion of the CURIOUS. This anxiety, as I read it, betokened a secret
intimately connected with the First Folio. Before developing this
contention, it may be well to clear the ground, not only of Heminge and
Condell, but also of the Stratford gentleman’s representatives. Heminge
and Condell were probably mere dummies who gave Jonson _carte blanche_
to say in their names anything whether strictly true or not, which he
thought conducive to the end in view; the prefatory address ostensibly
subscribed by them is too Jonsonian to admit of any doubt on this score.
As for “Mr. Shakspere,” he had long been dead and buried, and his
commonplace Will knows nothing of plays, manuscripts, books, or anything
that matters. And as for his representatives--had they been consulted at
all--they would have welcomed, rather than vetoed publicity.
The object of these precautions to secure secrecy must have been a
_persona grata_ to the King, Prince, and Court; this might go without
saying. A significant conjuration against hunting “Mankind to death”
suggests that he was also considered, by the Prince among others, a
victim of malicious persecution. For other clues we have to go back to
the Antimasque. The CURIOUS have contrived to pick up several very
useful items of information about the mysterious object in question.
They know for instance that he is or has been served by printers and
compositors so devoted to him, that they were quite content to “worke
eyes out for him,” in dark holes and corners, the better to “conceale”
them. They know too that a typical admirer of certain “_poems_,” which
he was in the habit of carrying about “in his pocket,” made the
ridiculous mistake of addressing his congratulations “to the wrong
party”: to CHRONOMASTIX, the “subject” of the Antimasque, whom he
mistook for the “_Poet_.” This blunder is crucial. The secret so
ostentatiously safeguarded was a secret of pseudonymity. The _Poet_ of
the Masque (and of our quest)--the very antithesis of the blatant
poetaster of the Antimasque--was a “maker” who concealed his personality
behind a pen-name.
The evidence that Francis Bacon was a “concealed” poet is incontestable.
A private letter of his is conclusive, though Aubrey’s corroborative
evidence is by no means negligible. Moreover, Bacon, besides being a
_persona grata_ at Court, was probably regarded by many notabilities not
as a criminal, but rather as a sufferer for the faults of his day and
generation. Ben Jonson’s views may be gathered from his _Discoveries_
(1641) where he tells that Bacon was “one of the greatest men ... that
had beene in many Ages ... perform’d that in our tongue which may be
compar’d or preferr’d to, either insolent _Greece_ or haughtie
_Rome_.... So that hee may be nam’d and stand as the _marke_ and _akme_
of our language.... In his adversity I ever prayed that _God_ would give
him strength: for _Greatnesse_ he could not want.” Francis Bacon then
was the mysterious poet of _Time Vindicated_. That Bacon was not the
only concealed poet of those days is probably true. London might have
teemed with concealed poets. But the only concealed poet who satisfies
the many other conditions is Francis Bacon. Additional evidence that we
are on the right track is supplied by the Antimasque. The “Nosed” ones
among the CURIOUS have smelt out _apropos_ of CHRONOMASTIX that “a
schoolmaster is turning all his workes into Latin.” Now it happens that
about 1623 Bacon wrote to an intimate friend: “My labours are most set
to have those works ... _Advancement of Learning_ ... the _Essays_
(etc), well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens that
forsake me not.” The _Advancement of Learning_ in Latin form, _De Aug:
Scientiarum_, appeared in 1623, dedicated to Prince Charles the
dedicatee of our Masque (and Camden, Jonson’s “reverend” master may have
helped in the translation--but this is mere conjecture).[32]
The figure CHRONOMASTIX is not easy to range or class; for he is not a
caricature proper. He salutes FAME with impudent assurance (in the
Antimasque) as his “Deare Mistris” and tells her that “he revells so in
rime” for no other “end” than “to serve _Fame_ ... and get himselfe a
name.” FAME, here as elsewhere, the mouthpiece of Jonson, browbeats the
blatant creature: “Away, I know thee not, wretched Impostor, Creatire of
glory, Mountebanke of witte, selfe-loving Braggart, ... Scorne of all
the Muses, goe revell with thine ignorant admirers, let worthy names
alone.” A little abashed by this rebuff, CHRONOMASTIX appeals to the
CURIOUS for sympathy; tells them that his “glorious front and word at
large triumphs in print at my admirers charge”; and finishes his
harangue by this invitation to his friends and admirers: “Come forth
that love me, and now or never, spight of _Fame_, approve me.”
CHRONOMASTIX therefore whatever he be, is the very antithesis of a
self-effacing poet or maker. He belongs I think to the same genus as
those fantastic portraits, _Landru chez lui_, etc., lately exhibited in
Piccadilly by the National Portrait Society, partly to amuse the public
and partly to puzzle quidnuncs. He was a freak in other words, and his
function was to amuse outsiders and put curiosity off the scent.
Turn we now from the figure CHRONOMASTIX, to the “Figure” which mars the
front page of the First Folio: the sorry “Figure ... wherein the Graver
had a strife with Nature to out-doo the life”; as “B. J.” (Ben Jonson)
significantly informs “the Reader.” “B. J.’s” innuendo does not stop
here; he follows it up by explicitly warning all readers to “looke not
on” the “picture,” but on the “Booke.” The warning seems almost
superfluous; for the effigy cannot be identified with portrait or bust
of any human being. Twin brother to CHRONOMASTIX, the thing is a freak
expressly designed to prevent inquisitive persons, ourselves among
others, from scrutinising the fiction then launched on the world.
Reverting once more to the Antimasque and the orgiastic dance at the end
of which the CURIOUS carry away their deity CHRONOMASTIX: one or other
of the deluded adorers taunts FAME in these words: “He scornes you and
defies you, h’as got a _Fame_ on’s 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.” When these words
were spoken, it is quite possible that neither the figure, nor the Ode,
nor the prefatory addresses had reached finality. But Jonson’s inside
knowledge of the whole project would enable him to forecast important
results. One of these results, in my opinion, was that a Pumpkin would
be deified by posterity. In this forecast a note of misgiving is
perceptible enough; but of spitefulness there is hardly a trace; for
after all, the pumpkin is a _deserving_ vegetable--the stress here is on
the word _deserving_, since that is the epithet by which the surviving
Burbages, in perfect good temper, described the deceased Shakspere. This
apotheosis idea, I may add, is also prominent in the Shakespeare Ode at
the point where Jonson pulls himself up: “But stay, I see thee to the
hemisphere advanced and made a constellation there.” In the Ode however
the apostrophe--half banter, half congratulation--is entirely free from
regret or misgiving.
From the point of view of the privileged few who were in the secret,
_Time Vindicated_ and the Shakespeare Folio were, I consider, parts of a
superlative Act of Homage to the greatest of modern poets. From Jonson’s
special point of view they were a pious fraud, in which at the behest of
disinterested love and admiration for Bacon, he consented to undertake
the chief rôle. After the death of Bacon Jonson’s mood may have
undergone some modification. Certain it is that the Ode, his finest
poem, is excluded from the first edition, Vol. II, of his collected
Works, and that in his _Discoveries_ he tells “posterity” certain truths
about Shakespeare which were not even suggested in the Ode.
Hitherto our thoughts have been preoccupied with Ben Jonson. They shall
now be devoted more closely to Bacon and the state of his mind and
feelings about 1623. In a pathetic letter of his to King James, Bacon
comforts himself with the knowledge that his fall was not the “act” of
his Sovereign, and then proceeds: “For now it is thus with me: I am a
year and a half old in misery ... mine own means through mine own
improvidence are poor and weak.... My dignities remain marks of your
favour, but burdens of my present fortune. The poor remnants ... of my
former fortunes in plate and jewels I have spread upon poor men unto
whom I owed, scarcely leaving myself bread.... I have often been told by
many of my Lords (of your Council), as it were in excusing the severity
of the sentence, that they knew they left me in good hands.... Help me,
dear Sovereign ... so far as I ... that desire to live to study, may not
be driven to study to live.”
Here it is to be observed that the proceeds of sale of the Shakespeare
Folio, “printed at his admirers’ charge,” would help towards relieving
the fallen man’s pecuniary distress, whilst the august compliment
conveyed by the Masque would tend to soothe his lacerated feelings.
The attitude of a concealed poet to his art is rarely explicit, or
concealment would be next to impossible. In this connection I ask leave
to quote from an Essay, _Shakespeare-Bacon_, by E. W. S., published many
years ago.[33] The essayist, after having stated that Bacon’s
qualifications for dramatic work were of a high order, and that some at
least of his recognised Elizabethan output actually were dramatic, runs
on: “Moreover, curious as is Bacon’s manner when treating of ‘poesie,’
his manner when dealing with dramatic poetry is more curious still. The
_Advancement of Learning_ though not published till the reign of her
successor, belongs to the age of Queen Elizabeth, in conception,
observation, reflection, and substance generally. In this work, after
having mapped out the “globe” of human knowledge into three great
continents of which poetry is one, he finds himself face to face with
dramatic poetry. Compelled to give the thing a name, he rejects the
almost inevitable word _dramatic_, in favour of the distant word
_representative_. And what he permits himself to say about
‘representative’ poetry, in that the natural, and appropriate place for
saying it, seems intended to suggest--what of course was absurdly
untrue--that he was all but a stranger to anything in the nature of a
dramatic performance. The suggestion too is strangely out of keeping
with passages of unexpected occurrence in other parts of the book. For
instance, in handling what he calls the ‘Georgics of the mind,’ he
describes poetry (along with history) in terms which so admirably
characterise the very best dramatic poetry of the age, that it is
difficult to resist the conviction that he must have been thinking
chiefly of the masterpieces of Shakespeare. ‘In poetry,’ says he, ‘we
may find painted forth with great life, how affections are kindled and
incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained from
act and further degree; how they disclose themselves, how they work, how
they vary, how they gather and fortify, how they are inwrapped one with
another, and how they do fight and encounter one with another ... how to
set affection against affection, and to master one by another; even as
we use to hunt beast with beast,’ etc. Another of these unexpected
passages seems to imply that Bacon, writing at the close of the
Elizabethan epoch, was so convinced of the paramount importance of
dramatic poetry, as to have forgotten that there was any poetry at all,
except what had to do with the theatre. In this passage Bacon has been
claiming that ‘for expressing the affections, passions, corruptions, and
customs, we are more beholding to the poets than to the
philosophers’--at this point he suddenly breaks off with an ironical:
‘But it is not good to stay too long in the theatre.’[34]
A question that has probably been intriguing some of my readers is: Why
did Bacon abandon the poet’s Crown to which his genius entitled him?
From among the complex of conceivable reasons it will suffice to pick
out three. (1) In dedicating the _De Augmentis Scientiarum_ to Prince
Charles, 1623, Bacon writes: “It is a book I think will live, and be a
citizen of the world which English books are not.” Again, a letter, of
about the same date, to an intimate friend contains this passage: “For
these modern languages will play the bank-rowtes with books; and since I
have lost much time with this age, I would be glad, as God shall give me
leave, to recover it with posterity.” “_Play the bank-rowtes_” means, I
suppose, put a stop to the currency; and “_lost much time with this
age_” is probably an allusion to pseudonymous work. These and similar
passages justify the conclusion that by this time Bacon had convinced
himself that English as a literary language, was doomed to go under to
Latin. (2) The poet in Bacon, as in Wordsworth and others, had expired
with the passing of youth. (3) Bacon imagined himself the Discoverer of
a New Instrument or method, by which human life would be so beatified
that posterity would revere him as one of its greatest benefactors; _if_
only men of science (such as Harvey) were for ever deprived of excuse
for pooh-poohing the _Novum Organum_, merely because its inventor was
none other than Shakespeare, sonneteer and dreamer of dreams.
* * * * *
[_Note by the Editor_]. There appears to be no doubt that in
“Chronomastix” Jonson was lampooning George Wither, whose “Abuses Stript
and Whipt, or Satiricall Essayes,” was published by Budge in 1622,
(there had been an earlier edition in 1613) and was followed by a poem
called “The Scourge.” In “Abuses Stript and Whipt” we find the following
lines:
And though full loth, ’cause their ill natures urge,
I’ll send abroad a satire with a scourge,
That to their shame for this abuse shall strip them,
And being naked in their vices whip them.
And to be sure of those that are most rash
Not one shall ’scape him that deserves the lash.
There is also an Epigram to “Time,” in which Wither asks:
Now swift-devouring, bald, and ill-fac’t Time,
Dost not thou blush to see thyself uncloak’t?
Another Epigram is to “Satyro-Mastix,” the last lines of which are:
Then scourge of Satyrs hold thy whip from mine,
Or I will make my rod lash thee and thine.
“Withers Motto” (1621) was “_nec habeo nec careo nec curo_.” This was
satirised by John Taylor, the Water-Poet, in the words “et habeo, et
careo, et curo,” and is obviously alluded to in Jonson’s Masque, where
“_Nose_” says “The gentleman-like _Satyre_ cares for nobody.”
Wither, moreover, quarrelled with the Stationers’ Company and the
printers (who disapproved of his independent method of business), which
also was a subject for Jonson’s ridicule in the Masque:
One is his Printer in disguise, and keepes
His presse in a hollow tree, where to conceale him,
He workes by glow-worme light, the moon’s too open, etc., etc.
In the _Dict: of National Biography_ we are told that “Jonson quarrelled
with Alex. Gill the elder for having quoted Wither’s work with approval
in his ‘Logonomia Anglica’ (1619), and Jonson revenged himself by
caricaturing Wither under the title of ‘Chronomastix’ in the Masque of
_Time Vindicated_ presented at Court 1623-4,” and allusion is made to
Jonson’s sarcasm with regard to Wither’s quarrel with his printers.
Further, we find John Chamberlain writing to Sir Dudley Carleton, on
January 25, 1622-3, as follows with reference to the Masque of _Time
Vindicated_: “Ben Jonson they say is like to hear of it on both sides of
the head for personating George Withers, a poet or poetaster he terms
him, as hunting after some, by being a Chronomastix, or whipper of the
time, which is become so tender an argument that it must not be admitted
either in jest or earnest.” (_The Court and Times of James the First._
Ed. 1848. Vol. II, p. 356.)
These facts seem to have been well known to Mr. Smithson, for not only
does he quote John Chamberlain’s letter in his _Nineteenth Century_
article, where he expresses the opinion that “Chronomastix” is “a
caricature compounded in unequal proportions of George Wither and the
Ovid Junior of Jonson’s _Poetaster_ (as to which see an interesting
chapter in _Shakespeare-Bacon_, headed “A Caricature of some Notable
Elizabethan Poet,” together with the chapter following), but among his
manuscripts were found certain Notes with reference to George Wither
which I cite lower down. It will be seen, however, that he was convinced
that Jonson, while lampooning and ridiculing Wither, the scourger of the
time, had for his main object the glorification of the Shakespearean
drama under cover of a _Masque_--those glorious works wherein “Time,”
which had been vilified by Wither, found its all-sufficient and splendid
“Vindication.”[35]
The following are Mr. Smithson’s Notes to which I have made reference:
“Wither sends
Abroad a Satyr with a scourge;
That to their shame for this abuse shall strip them,
And being naked in their vices whip them.
(_Abuses Stript and Whipt._ Ed. 1622, p. 305.)
He gives Justices of Peace a warning lest they be put out of the
Commission for partiality (p. 318). Ruffling Cavaliars also are touched
(p. 320).
In the address to the reader of _Shepheard’s Hunting_, Wither to some
extent recants his disgust at Time--says he has been ‘persuaded to
entertain a better opinion of the Times than I lately conceived, and
assured myself, that Virtue had far more followers than I supposed.’
Curiously enough, therefore, Wither’s frame of mind in 1622[36] seems to
have been similar to that of Jonson in _Time Vindicated_. The
coincidence would help perhaps to mislead the judgment of the time, and
may have so commended itself to Jonson.
I don’t think Wither knows why, or by whom he was persecuted. (See
Philarate to Willy in Eclogue I, and last page but two of ‘Address to
the Reader.’)
He calls Time ‘bald and ill-fac’d,’ ‘shameless time,’ speaks of his
‘deformities,’ ‘blockish age,’ that ‘truth’ in this age gets ‘hatred,’
‘while love and charitie are fled to heaven.’
He took upon him to scourge Time, and he was certainly arrogant enough,
in form at any rate, for Chronomastix.
I therefore take him to have been the stalking-horse or blind used by
Jonson, the Prince, and some others, to conceal the true object.”
SHAKESPEARE--A THEORY
[_The Notes of this Essay (except those inserted by the Editor)
which are denoted by Roman Numerals, will be found at the end of
it._]
The recent discovery of an entry in a domestic expenses account book of
the Mannours or Manners family has attracted some notice. According to
Mr. Sidney Lee[37] the terms of the entry, under the head “Payments for
household stuff, plate, armour,” etc., are: “1613. Item 31 Martii to Mr.
Shakspeare in gold about my Lorde’s impreso [the terminal _o_ should be
_a_] xliiij^{s}., to Richard Burbadge for paynting and making yt in gold
xliiij^{s.}. [Total] iiij^{li}viij^{s.}” An impresa Camden describes as
“a device in picture with his motto or word borne by noble and learned
personages to notifie some particular conceit of their own,” its nearest
modern analogue being the book-plate.[38] Burbage seems to have made,
as well as painted, the thing. What there was for Mr. Shakespeare to do
is by no means clear. The motto, if motto there were, would to a
certainty be designated by the “noble and learned personage” himself.
Moreover, some three years later (1616) Burbage appears to have executed
a similar commission for the same Earl of Rutland, entirely without
assistance. That the clerk who made the entry denied to Burbage the
“prefix of gentility” which he bestowed upon “Mr. Shakespeare” is a fact
of trivial import. If--to take an imaginary case--Nick Bottom had been
living “on his means” at South Place, Stratford-at-the-Bow, this clerk
would have dubbed him Mr. Bottom as a matter of course in the same
circumstances. Mr. Lee is of opinion that “the recovered document
discloses a capricious sign of homage on the part of a wealthy and
cultured nobleman to Shakespeare.” If he had suggested that the
two-guinea payment to “Mr. Shakespeare” may have been preceded by a
hearty meal in the buttery, without exciting any feeling of resentment
on the part of either recipient that the meal was not served in the
dining-hall, I should have been more disposed to agree with him.
The situation is a curious one. But any serious discussion of it would
be premature until we are actually in possession of the “rich harvest of
new disclosures” which Mr. Lee teaches us to expect.[39] Meanwhile the
Bacon theory regarded as a development of the hypothesis that
Shakespeare was a pen-name of Bacon’s is certainly not crushed, if it
be not actually encouraged, by this Belvoir disclosure, since no one in
his senses would think of denying the existence of “Mr. Shakespeare” or
his acquaintance with Richard Burbage.