the inflated style in use for laudatory poems of the time, it is written
in singularly moderate language, and I think no reader, after
considering it as a whole, could possibly put upon it the malignant
construction suggested by Mr. Dowse, unless his judgment be warped by
very bitter prejudice. But it is not only an honest eulogy of Bacon as a
man, it is valuable as bearing witness to the fact, doubtless well known
to Davies, that Bacon was a poet. Mr. Dowse speaks contemptuously of
Davies’s “apology for Bacon’s amateur verses,” but I fear Mr. Dowse’s
sight is distorted by a fragment of that broken magic mirror whereof
Hans Anderson has written so charmingly. Davies drinks to Bacon’s health
in “Helicon”--not in “the waters of the Spaw,” but in “the waters of
Parnassus,”
As to her Bellamour the Muse is wont.
It is true that Bacon was engaged in “grave affaires”--he had been made
Solicitor-General in 1607--and therefore, though he wooed the Muse,
could only “use her company” by way of recreation in intervals of more
serious employment. Nevertheless he is fully recognised as her
“Bellamour.”
We may be grateful to Mr. Dowse for once more calling attention to this
very high and remarkable tribute of praise.
Mr. Dowse goes on to cite Davies’s testimony--which is here, of course,
to be taken very seriously indeed--to the excellence of William
Shakspere. “In his ‘Microcosmos,’ in a stanza beginning ‘Players, I
love,’ Davies singles out Shakespeare and Burbage for his highest
admiration. He attributes to them ‘_wit_ (i.e. intellect), _courage_,
_good shape_, _good partes_, and ALL GOOD!’”
Now I will again set forth the lines _in extenso_ in order that the
reader may form his own opinion as to their meaning and evidentiary
value. It is to be observed that Davies does not mention Shakespeare (or
Shakspere) or Burbage by name, but there are, in a marginal note to the
third line, the letters W. S. R. B., which are generally interpreted as
bearing reference to those two “deserving men.”[102] Whether he
attributes to them all the excellencies so largely writ in Mr. Dowse’s
interpretation the reader shall judge. Why Mr. Dowse has written the
words “all good” in such startlingly large letters I am unable to say,
and I really do not think the poet, who according to Mr. Dowse was of a
very strict, if not sanctimonious, turn of mind, intended to attribute
ALL GOOD to poor Will Shakspere and Dick Burbage; while as to his being
“over exquisite in depreciating their calling,” this fault--if fault it
be--he certainly shares with all the other writers of his time
concerning the profession and _status_ of the Players. Here is the poem
published in the _Microcosmos_ or “The Discovery of the Little World,
with the Government thereof,” 1603:
_Players_, I love yee, and your _Qualitie_,
As ye are Men, _that_ passtime not abus’d;
And some I love for _painting_, _poesie_,
And say fell _Fortune_ cannot be excus’d,
That hath for better _uses_ you refus’d:
_Wit_, _Courage_, _good shape_, _good partes_, and all _good_,
As long as al these _goods_ are no _worse_ us’d,
And though the _stage_ doth staine pure gentle _bloud_,
Yet generous yee are in _minde_ and _moode_.
Mr. Dowse follows this by a reference to Davies’s poem addressed to
Our English Terence, Mr. Will.
Shake-speare.[103]
which appeared, with the sonnet to Bacon already quoted, in the _Scourge
of Folly_ (1610-11). On this poem Mr. Dowse waxes eloquent. This, he
tells us “in short compass gives us a number of important particulars
about him [Shakespeare]. Thus, he acted ‘kingly parts,’ which means
lordly manners and bearing and elocution; and if he had not _played_
those parts (the stage again!)[104] he would have been a fit companion
for a King; indeed he would have _been_ a king among the general ruck of
mankind. He had then (as now) his detractors, but he was above
detraction, and never railed in return; for he had a ‘reigning wit,’
i.e. a sovereign intellect.”
I will quote this poem also. _The Scourge of Folly_ by the way, is, we
read, a work “consisting of Satyricall Epigramms and others.” I fancy
there is a good deal of the “Satyricall” in the following:
Some say (good _Will_) which I, in sport, do sing,
Hadst thou not plaid some Kingly parts in sport,
Thou hadst bin a companion for a _King_;
And, beene a King among the meaner sort.
Some others raile; but, raile as they think fit,
Thou hast no rayling, but a raigning Wit.
_And_ honesty _thou sow’st, which they do reape_;
_So_, to _increase their_ Stocke _which they do keepe_.
So Davies, singing “in sport,” suggests that according to the saying of
some, if the Player had not been a Player he might have been a companion
for a King (I rather suspect some esoteric meaning here to which, at
this date, we cannot penetrate), and have been himself a King “among the
meaner sort.” As Miss L. Toulmin Smith writes (Ingleby’s _Centurie of
Prayse_, p. 94) “it seems likely [? certain] that these lines refer to
the fact that Shakespere was a player, a profession that was then
despised and accounted mean.” The poem, of course, has some value for
the supporters of the Stratfordian faith, for, if Davies is here writing
in sober seriousness, and with no ironical _arrière pensée_, it
certainly seems to imply that he supposed “Mr. Will Shake-speare, our
English Terence,” to be identical with player Shakspere. To which the
anti-Stratfordian would reply that, if he did so mean, he was misled, as
others were, by the use of the pseudonym Shakespeare. Poems and Plays
were published in that name “as it was always _printed_ in those days,
and not as he [Shakspere] himself in any known case ever wrote it.”[105]
In any case Davies’s lines can hardly be said to be the high eulogy of
Player Shakspere that Mr. Dowse would have them to be.[106]
A word more and I have done with Mr. Dowse. As I have already said, that
which I still venture to call the “table of contents,” on the outer page
of the paper volume, is headed by Bacon’s “Of tribute,” and a list of
his four “Praises.” Now, about an inch below the last “Praise” occurs
the word _fraunces_, and a little below and to the right of that is the
word _turner_. These we are told are “in different hands,” though
whether or not they are samples of Davies’s hundred different styles it
would seem rather difficult to say. Mr. Dowse, however, thinks that
_fraunces_ was written by the copyist of the “Praises,” and _turner_ by
“the scribbler,” and that the latter word was “apparently intended to
stand as if related in some way to _fraunces_.” He then tells us how
pondering over this a brilliant idea struck him. In the middle of the
reign of James I occurred the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, instigated
by Frances Howard, Lady Essex, and one of this lady’s “principal agents”
was a Mrs. Anne Turner. What can be clearer than that we have here a
reference to these two notorious criminals? It follows from this that
“the MS. was ‘knocking about,’ or at any rate open for additions to the
scribble on the cover, as late as 1615.”[107]
This is going to one’s conclusion _per saltum_ with a vengeance. It is
to be observed that _fraunces_ is written just under the _ffrauncis_ of
“Mr. ffrauncis Bacon,” and just above that stands “Mr. Ffrauncis.” It
seems very probable therefore, that _fraunces_ is only written as a
variety of, or at least suggested by, the name “ffrauncis,” though Mr.
Burgoyne does not seem to be right in transcribing it in the latter
form. The idea that it stands for the “_Christian name_” of Lady Essex,
and “_turner_” for the _surname_ of her “principal agent” seems an
altogether wild one, and I should imagine that no serious critic would
seek to fix the date of any part of the scribble by such a hare-brained
supposition.[108]
I turn then from Mr. Dowse’s singularly injudicial tract to Mr.
Burgoyne’s more sober comment. “As to the penman who actually wrote the
manuscript,” says Mr. Burgoyne, “nothing certain is known. The writing
on the contents page is chiefly in one hand, with occasional words in
another, and a few words mostly scrawled across the page at an angle
appear to be written by a third. The main body of the work is in two or
more handwritings, and the difference is especially to be noted in
‘Leycester’s Commonwealth,’ which appears to have been written in a
hurry, for the writing has been overspaced in some pages and overcrowded
in others, as if different penmen had been employed. There are also
noticeable breaks on folios 64 and 88, and the difference in penmanship
on these pages is specially remarkable. This points to the collection
having been written at a literary workshop or professional writer’s
establishment. It is a fact worthy of notice, that Bacon and his brother
Anthony were interested in a business of the kind about the time
suggested for the date of the writing of this book. Mr. Spedding
states:--[109] “Anthony Bacon appears to have served [Essex] in a
capacity very like that of a modern under-secretary of State, receiving
all letters which were mostly in cipher in the first instance;
forwarding them (generally through his brother Francis’s hands) to the
Earl, deciphered and accompanied with their joint suggestions; and
finally, according to the instructions thereupon returned, framing and
dispatching the answers. Several writers must have been employed to
carry out with promptitude such work as here outlined, and we find in a
letter from Francis Bacon to his brother,[110] dated January 25th, 1594,
that the clerks were also employed upon other work.... ‘I have here an
idle pen or two ... I pray send me somewhat else for them to write out
besides your Irish collection.’” etc., etc.
In a well-known letter to Tobie Mathew, Bacon writes: “My labours are
now most set to have those works, which I had formerly published ...
well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens that forsake me
not.” In this connection Mr. Burgoyne writes: “It is worthy of notice
that in ‘The Great Assises holden in Parnassus by Apollo and his
Assessours,’ printed in 1645, the ‘Chancellor’ is declared to be ‘Lord
Verulam,’ and ‘Ben Johnson’ is described as the ‘Keeper of the
Trophonian Denne.’”[111] “It seems not unlikely,” says Mr. Burgoyne,
“that this literary workshop, was the source of the ‘Verulamian
Workmanship’ which is referred to by Isaac Gruter in a letter to Dr.
William Rawley (Bacon’s secretary and executor) written from Maestricht,
and dated March 20, 1655. This letter was written in Latin, and both the
original and the translation are printed in ‘Baconiana, or certain
genuine Remains of Sir Francis Bacon,’ London, 1679.” Mr. Burgoyne gives
the following extract:
“If my Fate would permit me to live according to my Wishes I would
flie over into _England_, that I might behold whatsoever remaineth,
in your cabinet of the _Verulamian_ Workmanship, and at least make
my eyes witnesses of it, if the possession of the Merchandize be
yet denied to the Publick.... At present I will support the Wishes
of my impatient desire, with hope of seeing, one Day, those
[issues] which being committed to faithful Privacie, wait the time
till they may safely see the Light, and not be stifled in their
Birth.”
This letter, we note in passing, shows us that in the _Verulamian_
literary Workshop certain “Merchandize” was produced which was “denied
to the public”--that in fact (as we know by other evidence to have been
the case) there were many writings of Bacon “committed to faithful
Privacie”--to Rawley e.g.--which were to be kept unpublished till they
could “safely see the light,” but which, most unfortunately, were lost
or destroyed.
The suggestion, therefore, is that this paper volume, now known as the
Northumberland MS., was a product of the famous Verulamian Workshop or
_Scriptorium_, and Mr. Bompas adopting (with too great facility as I
think) Mr. Dowse’s hypothesis that “the scribbler” was John Davies of
Hereford, and referring to the known fact that the “Praises” were
written for Essex’s _Device_ in 1592, points out that at that date John
Davies was only 27 and at the beginning of his career, and that it is
“fifteen years later, in 1607, that an entry appears in the
Northumberland accounts of a payment showing his employment by the
Earl.” Mr. Bompas, therefore, suggests that in 1592 Davies might have
been in Bacon’s employ; he seems, however to have overlooked the fact
that, according to Mr. Dowse, the “Praises” were _not_ written by
Davies, since they are “in a totally different hand.”[112] The one fact
which emerges is that we really do not know who wrote any part of the
Manuscript, but that it was written for Bacon by one or more of his
secretaries seems entirely probable, seeing that six of the nine pieces
which now form its contents are transcripts of Bacon’s works, then
unpublished. How Bacon, or his secretary, came into possession of two
unpublished plays of Shakespeare, is a matter for speculation.
As to the “scribble” itself Mr. Spedding writes: “At the present time,
if the waste leaf on which a law stationer’s apprentice tries his pens
were examined, I should expect to find on it the name of the poet,
novelist, dramatic author, or actor of the day, mixed with snatches of
the last new song, and scribblings of ‘My dear Sir,’ ‘Yours sincerely,’
and ‘This Indenture witnesseth.’ And this is exactly the sort of thing
which we have here.” Mr. Dowse demurs to this, for, says he, “the cases
are not parallel: there is nothing trivial or vulgar in our scribbler:
he was a serious and even religious man: the subjects that interest him
are lofty, and like his acquaintance noble.” I will not offer an opinion
on this point, viz., as to whether the scribbler was merely an idle
penman, or “a serious and religious” penman, but, however that may be, I
do not think that Mr. Spedding’s analogy holds good. “A law stationer’s
apprentice” might certainly exercise his pen on a “waste leaf” as Mr.
Spedding suggests, but an outer sheet of a paper volume in which works
of importance, or so considered, were transcribed, the whole volume
being stitched together, can hardly be described as a waste leaf. In
days when printing was far less common than it is now such a volume
would be valuable. Moreover, on the outside leaf were written the
contents of the volume. A law stationer’s apprentice would hardly dare
to exercise his idle pen on the outside skin of a newly-engrossed deed.
I am inclined, therefore, to agree with Mr. Dowse that the scribblings
were to a certain extent “serious.” There is method in their madness.
And they are such “acts of ownership,” that the scribbler must have had
a complete _dominium_ over the document.
I have been long, and I fear, tedious over this curious work, but the
more one considers Mr. Dowse’s tract the more does one find it
provocative of criticism. I will now leave the regions of imagination
for those of fact. Whether or not John Davies of Hereford was “the
Scribbler” seems to me of comparatively little importance.[113] What is
of importance is this:--We have here an undoubtedly Elizabethan
manuscript volume. Its contents, as they have come down to us, are nine
articles, out of which seven are by Bacon. It seems, therefore very
reasonable to believe that the volume was written for Bacon and was
perhaps a product of the “Verulamian workshop.” Very possibly it was
presented by him either to the Earl of Northumberland, or to Sir Henry
Neville, his own nephew. It is quite reasonable to believe that among
the contents of the volume, as it originally stood, were the two
Shakespearean plays, _Richard II_ and _Richard III_. In any case these
were noted on the outer leaf either as having been transcribed, or for
future transcription. Such note would not, in all probability, have been
made after 1597, when these plays were first (anonymously) published, at
the price of sixpence each. At that date “Shakespeare” was unknown to
the public as a dramatic author, for not a play had as yet been
published under that name. Here then we have the names and the works of
Bacon and Shakespeare associated, in close juxtaposition, in a
contemporaneous manuscript. Further, the transcriber of, at any rate,
part of the work, writing not idly but with serious thought, exercises
his pen by writing the names, or parts of the names of Shakespeare and
Bacon, over and over again, on the outside sheet. “William Shakespeare,”
the author of _Richard II_ and _Richard III_, seems to be a name
familiar to him, although those plays had not as yet been published, and
indeed were not published under the name of “Shake-speare” till 1598. He
writes the name of “Shakespeare” “as it was always printed,” and not as
Shakspere of Stratford “in any known case ever wrote it.” And not
content with associating thus closely the names of Shakespeare and
Bacon, on a volume containing some works by both these writers, if two
they really were, he must needs, on the same outer sheet, quote a line,
slightly varied, from _Lucrece_, and a word from _Love’s Labour’s Lost_.
No other name of poet, or actor, appears upon “the Scribble” as distinct
from the table of contents. It is all either Shakespeare or Bacon.
If a dishonest Baconian could fabricate fictitious evidence in the same
way as the forger Ireland did for Shakspere, it seems to me that he
might well endeavour to concoct such a document as this. But the
Northumberland MS. is an undoubtedly genuine document, and it is but
natural that the “Baconians” should make the most of it.--G.G.
FINAL NOTE
There is one argument in support of the contention that Bacon was the
author of _Venus and Adonis_ which seems to me to deserve more attention
than it has hitherto received.
It was, I believe, first put forward by the late Reverend Walter Begley,
of St. John’s College, Cambridge, in his book, _Is it
Shakespeare?_[114]--a work which every one interested in the Shakespeare
problem ought to read, because it is replete with both information and
amusement, and there is hardly a dull page in it. The argument is
derived from the Satires of Marston and Hall, our early English
satirists, of the sixteenth century, who wrote in bitter vein the one
against the other. Both of them have a good deal to say concerning one
_Labeo_, which is a pseudonym for some anonymous writer of the time. Now
in 1598 Marston published a poem founded on the lines and model of
_Venus and Adonis_, which he called “Pigmalion’s Image” (_sic_)--a love
poem, not a satire--and as an appendix to it he wrote some lines “in
prayse of his precedent Poem,” where “Pigmalion” had, according to the
old legend, succeeded in bringing the image he had wrought out of ivory
to life, and in this appendix occur the following lines:
And in the end (the end of love I wot),
Pigmalion hath a jolly boy begot.
So Labeo did complaine his love was stone,
Obdurate, flinty, so relentlesse none;
Yet Lynceus knowes that in the end of this
He wrought as strange a metamorphosis.
Now compare the following lines from _Venus and Adonis_ (199-200):
Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel--
Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth.
Here we have Labeo’s complaint almost word for word, and we are reminded
that at the end of _Venus and Adonis_ there was the “strange
metamorphosis” of Adonis into a flower, quite as strange as that of
“Pigmalion’s Image.”
Is it not clear, then, that by Labeo is meant the author of _Venus and
Adonis_? It may be said, of course, that it was not the author, but
Venus who complained that Adonis was “obdurate, flinty,” and relentless,
but that is a futile objection, for Marston evidently puts the words of
Venus into Labeo’s mouth, and it can only be the author of the poem to
whom he alludes.
Who, then, was _Labeo_? Well, “these University wits,” as Mr. Begley
writes, “were steeped in Horace, Juvenal, Persius, and Ovid, and thence
brought forth a nickname whenever an occasion required it.” Now in
Horace we read:
Labeone insanior inter
sanos dicatur.
and we learn that M. Antistius Labeo was a famous lawyer, who, it is
said, by too much free speaking had offended the Emperor Augustus.[115]
But what more have we about this sixteenth century Labeo? Well, Bishop
Hall in his satires mentions him several times, and reflects upon him as
a licentious writer who takes care to preserve his anonymity, and, like
the cuttle-fish, involves himself in a cloud of his own making. Thus in
the second book of his satires, which he called (after Plautus)
_Virgidemiæ_, i.e., a bundle of rods, Hall attacks Labeo in the
following words:
For shame! write better, Labeo, or write none;
Or betterwrite, or, Labeo, write alone.
(Bk. II, Sat. 1)
and he ends this satire thus:
For shame! write cleanly, Labeo, or write none.
From these lines we may infer, as Mr. Begley says, that Labeo did not
write alone, but in conjunction with, or under cover of, another author,
and also that he did not write “cleanly,” but in a lascivious style,
such as the style of _Venus and Adonis_, it might be.
But there is a further passage in Hall’s _Virgidemiæ_ (Book IV, Sat. 1)
which I must quote:
_Labeo_ is whipp’d and laughs me in the face:
Why? for I smite, and hide the galléd place.
Gird but the Cynick’s Helmet on his head,
Cares he for _Talus_ or his flayle of lead?
Long as the crafty _Cuttle_ lieth sure
In the black _Cloude_ of his thick vomiture,
Who list complain of wrongéd faith or fame
When he may shift it to another’s name?
It would take too long if, in this note, I were to attempt the
explanation of this “Sphinxian” passage, as Dr. Grosart called it, but
the general meaning seems clear enough, viz.: “I, the Satirist, whip
Labeo, but Labeo merely laughs at me, for he knows he can shift the
blame, and the punishment, on to another whose name he makes use of,
while he himself lies, like the Cuttle, in the Cloud of his own
vomiture.”[116]
Then, writes Mr. Begley, “Labeo is the writer of _Venus and Adonis_; and
as there is every reason to think that Marston used the name Labeo
because Hall had used it, we are therefore able to infer that Hall and
Marston both mean the same man. We, therefore, advance another step, and
infer that the author of _Venus and Adonis_ did not write alone, that he
shifted his work to another’s name (certainly a Baconian
characteristic), and acted like a cuttle-fish by interposing a dark
cloud between himself and his pursuers.”
But what proof or evidence is there that Labeo stood for Bacon? Well,
Marston’s Satires were published, with his “Pigmalion’s Image,” in 1598,
several months after Hall’s first three books of _Virgidemiæ_ had
appeared, and in his Satire IV, entitled _Reactio_, Marston goes through
pretty well the whole list of writers whom Hall had attacked, and
defends them, but, curiously enough, he seems to take no notice of
Hall’s attack on Labeo, though that attack was a marked and recurrent
one. But, says Mr. Begley, “_Labeo is there_, but concealed in an
ingenious way by Marston, and passed over in a line that few would
notice or comprehend. But when it _is_ noticed it becomes one of the
most direct proofs we have on the Bacon-Shakespeare question, and, what
is more, a genuine and undoubted contemporary proof.” What, then, is
that proof? It is found in a line addressed by Marston to Hall:
What, not _mediocria firma_ from thy spite?
(Sat. IV, 77)
That is to say: “What, did not even _mediocria firma_ escape thy
spite?”--or we might translate: “What, was not even _mediocria_ safe
(_firma_) from thy spite?”
“_Mediocria firma_,” therefore, stands for a writer, and one who had
been attacked by Hall. And who was that writer? Of this there can,
surely, be no doubt. “Mediocria firma” was Bacon’s motto, and we find it
engraved over the well-known portrait of _Franciscus Baconus Baro de
Verulam_, which appears at the commencement of his _Sylva Sylvarum_.
Moreover, it is a motto which has never been used except by the Earls of
Verulam or the Bacon family. “Mediocria firma,” therefore, stands for
Bacon. But is “Mediocria firma” identical with “Labeo”?