Adonis_. Of that, I think, there can be no doubt. And Hall’s “Labeo,”
the elusive author of a lascivious poem, who writes under a pseudonym
and who is always prepared to shift the responsibility upon somebody
else, seems eminently characteristic of Francis Bacon. And it is Bacon,
under the guise of “Mediocria firma,” the spiteful attacks upon whom in
Hall’s Satires are deprecated by Marston. In fine, it seems to be
eminently probable, though it cannot be said to be absolutely proved,
that “Labeo” and “Mediocria firma” are one and the same.
The above is but a brief outline of the argument put before his readers
by the late Walter Begley, and I have no space to elaborate it further
in this note. I should like, however, to add one final word. If Bacon
was the author of _Venus and Adonis_, then he was also the author of
_Lucrece_. Well, for myself, I should not be at all surprised to find
that he was, in fact, the author of that long, wearisome, tedious, and
pedantic poem, where the outraged matron, “_après avoir été violée
autant qu’on peut l’être_,” like Candide’s Cunegonde, and “pausing for
means to mourn some newer way,” at last “calls to mind where hangs a
piece of skilful painting, made for Priam’s Troy,” the contemplation of
which leads to a prolonged train of reflection concerning Ajax and
Ulysses, Paris and Helen, Hector and Troilus, Priam and Hecuba, etc.,
etc., all of which is singularly out of place in the mouth of Tarquin’s
unhappy victim. Nor would I, in this connection, omit to refer to that
long and curious and unwanted passage concerning heraldry which we find
in an earlier part of the poem (lines 54-72), and upon which Mr. George
Wyndham remarks that: “Whenever Shakespeare in an age of technical
conceit indulges in one ostentatiously, it will always be found that his
apparent obscurity arises from our not crediting him with a technical
knowledge which he undoubtedly possessed, be it of heraldry, of law, or
philosophic disputation.”
Here, in conclusion, I would advert to a passage in this stilted poem
which is curiously illustrative of “Shakespeare’s knowledge of a not
generally known custom among the ancient Romans.” When Tarquin has
forced an entry into the chamber of Lucrece, we read: “Night wandering
weasels shriek to see him there,”--a line which for a long time puzzled
all the commentators. For what could _weasels_ be doing in Collatine’s
house or in Lucrece’s chamber? At last, however, some scholar directed
attention to the note on Juvenal’s Satire XV, 7, in Mayor’s edition,
where we learn that some animal of the weasel tribe was kept by the
Romans in their houses for some purpose or another; and referring to
Facciolati’s Dictionary, we read: “Mustela, γαλὴ, animal quadrupes
parvum sed oblongum, flavi coloris, muribus, columbis, gallinis
infestum. Duo autem sunt genera: _alterum, domesticum quod in domibus
nostris oberrat_, et catulos suos, ut auctor est Cicero, quotidie
transfert, mutatque sedem, serpentes persequitur,” etc.
The Romans then, it seems, had no knowledge of the domestic cat, and had
domesticated an animal of the weasel tribe which they kept in the house
to kill mice or it might be snakes, and for other purposes. Now, this
is just the sort of out-of-the-way and recondite information which Bacon
would have delighted in. But does any sane and reasonable man suppose
that Will Shakspere of Stratford had ever heard of the “night-wandering
weasel” in an ancient Roman house? The Baconian authorship of _Venus and
Adonis_ and _Lucrece_, and, I would add, the _Sonnets_, may be rejected
as “not proven,” but the idea that these works were written by the
player who came to London as a “Stratford rustic” in 1587, is surely one
of the most foolish delusions that have ever obsessed and deceived the
credulous mind of man. _O miseras hominum mentes, O pectora cæca!_
THE END.
_Cahill & Co., Ltd., London, Dublin and Drogheda._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Letters of Henry James._ Macmillan, 1920, Vol. I., p. 432.
[2] See _Times Literary Supplement_, June 2, 1921. Article headed
“Hamlet and History.”
[3] See _Sidelights on Shakespeare_ by H. Dugdale Sykes. (The
Shakespeare Head Press, Stratford-upon-Avon. 1919.)
[4] The theory that the handwriting of this “addition” to the play of
_Sir Thomas More_ is the same handwriting as that of the Shakspere
signatures, is, I do not hesitate to say, one of the most absurd
propositions ever advanced even in Shakespearean controversy.
[5] See _Sonnet_ 144.
[6] It is only necessary to read the life of John Florio in the
_Dict. of National Biography_ or the _Encyc. Brit._ to appreciate the
absurdity of this attempt to find him in Shakespeare’s Falstaff. An
almost equally silly attempt has been made by another sapient critic
to identify him with Holofernes in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_. Now no
two characters could be more dissimilar than those of Falstaff and
Holofernes, yet Florio according to one wiseacre was the prototype of
the former, and according to another wiseacre of the latter! But there
is no limit to the absurdities which are symptomatic of the _rabies
Stratfordiana_.
[7] _English Literature._ An Illustrated Record (1903), pp. 199, 200,
202. Italics mine.
[8] So says that distinguished Shakespearean scholar, Mr. Fleay, who
points out that in the previous year the theatres were closed owing to
the plague.
[9] Sir E. Maunde Thompson, in _Shakespeare’s Handwriting_, p. 26.
[10] So far, that is, as Sir Sidney’s _Life of Shakespeare_ is,
or purports to be, biographical, and setting aside the “fanciful
might-have-beens.”
[11] She so appears in the Quarto, and also in the Folio in certain
places (II. 1 and IV. 1, e.g.) where, as in other passages, the play
seems to have been imperfectly revised.
[12] Boyet in the play (II. 1) calls upon the Princess (or Queen) to
reflect that her mission to Navarre was to raise a claim “of no less
weight than Aquitaine, a dowry for a Queen.”
[13] Vol. II, ch. 7.
[14] _Sous le Masque_, vol. I, 21. He might, I think, have included
certain editors of newspapers and magazines in his statement, though
not always “_érudits_.”
[15] M. Abel Lefranc, it may be mentioned, is _Professeur au Collège
de France_, and one of our highest authorities on Rabelais and the
period of the Renaissance, not to mention Moliére, and other historical
periods. “But, surely, we need not go to a Frenchman for enlightenment
on our great English poet!” wrote a British commentator in the
Press the other day--a most characteristic utterance, and superbly
illustrative of the insular conceit which no _entente cordiale_ seems
to have the power to dissipate. But is it not highly probable that
a French scholar, applying himself to the study of the Shakespeare
Problem with an impartial mind, with no innate or national prejudices
to obscure his vision, being himself an enthusiastic worshipper at
the shrine of Shakespeare, the poet and dramatist, might be able to
throw light upon many things which are “beyond the skyline” of those
who have grown up in the school of an old and unquestioned tradition
to which they cling as though it were part and parcel of the British
constitution, and, as it were, a necessary ingredient of the national
glory?
[16] I am, I need scarcely say, very far from denying the possible
existence of ciphers, cryptograms, and anagrams, whether in
“Shakespeare’s” plays and poems or in other literature of that day. It
is known that such things were frequently made use of by writers of the
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Bacon himself gives us an
example of the biliteral cipher, and it is known that he often employed
such cryptic methods of writing. It is none the less true that the
search for these things by “Baconian” enthusiasts of the present day
has frequently led to very distressing results, for “that way madness
lies.”
[17] Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1899.
[18] This Masque, also called “The Prince’s Masque,” forms the
subject of two chapters (VI and VII) in Mr. Smithson’s book,
_Shakespeare--Bacon_.
[19] The title-page bears date 1899. [G. G.]
[20] I may be allowed to refer to my booklet, _Ben Jonson and
Shakespeare_ (Cecil Palmer, 1921). [G. G.]
[21] But Lord Campbell cannot be quoted as a “Baconian.” [G. G.]
[22] See Jonson’s censure of Poetry in his day, for being “a meane
Mistresse to such as have wholly addicted themselves to her; or given
their names up to her family. They who have but saluted her on the
by ... she hath done much for, and advanced in the way of their own
professions, both the _Law_ and the _Gospel_, beyond all they could
have hoped without her favour.” This means, I take it, that Jonson
had in his eye Bacon and others as striking examples of Poetry’s
generosity, and himself a shining illustration of her meanness. As for
the prosperous burgher of Stratford, he was not in the picture, for
Jonson was treating of poets. [Original Note.]
[23] But surely this statement, put into the mouths of the players by
the author of the Folio preface, could not have referred to _printed_
matter? If the players did indeed, receive papers with “scarce a blot”
they were, doubtless, fair copies. [G. G.]
[24] See _Sous le Masque de Shakespeare_. Vol. I, p. 130.
[25] As for the claims of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, see
_“Shakespeare” Identified_, by J. Thomas Looney (Cecil Palmer, 1920).
[26] With reference to the “Baconian” theory I must here quote words
recently written by one who bears a highly distinguished name in the
ranks of literature. Mr. George Moore, writing in reply to a criticism
by Mr. Gosse, published in the _Sunday Times_, thus expresses his
opinion upon that question: “Some of Shakespeare’s finest plays were
not only revised, but remoulded; ‘Hamlet’ is one of these, and it is
not an exaggeration to say that its revisions were spread over at least
twenty years; and I thought when I wrote the little booklet, ‘Fragments
from Héloïse and Abélard,’ that the text of ‘Othello’ in the Folio
contained 160 lines that are not to be found in the quarto, and I think
so still; 160 lines were added between the publication of the quarto
[in 1622] and the folio [1623], and these lines cannot be attributed to
any other hand but the author’s; they are among the best in the play,
and among them will be found lines dear to all who hold the belief that
Bacon and not the mummer was the author of the plays:
Like the Pontic Sea
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Helespont.”
See the _Sunday Times_, August 28, 1921. With reference to the 160 new
lines added in the folio version of _Othello_ and which “cannot be
attributed to any other hand but the author’s,” it will be remembered
that William Shakspere of Stratford died some six years before the
publication of the quarto of 1622. (See _Is there a Shakespeare
Problem?_ p. 443 _et seq._)
[27] In the _Fortnightly Review_ of January, 1922, Mr. W. Bayley
Kempling gravely informs us that Shakespeare bestowed the name of
“Mountjoy” on the French Herald in _Henry V._ in honour of the
“tire-maker” of that name with whom player Shakespeare lodged for
a time in Mugwell (i.e., Monkwell) Street, thereby repeating the
preposterous error of Dr. Wallace (often exposed by the present writer
amongst others) who wrote in ignorance of the fact that “Mountjoy King
at Arms” was the official name of a French Herald who, as Holinshed
informs us, made his appearance at Agincourt! Had Mr. Kempling
condescended to read an “heretical” author he might have been saved
from this absurd mistake.
[28] This Essay was written by Mr. Smithson in 1919-20.
[29] The words of the original are:
“Who in an angle, where the ants inhabit,
(The emblems of his labours) will sit curl’d,” etc.
[Ed.]
[30] But it was not “these ‘glories’,” but the Faction of Chronomastix,
and the “Fame of his own,” who, according to the real Fame, were
destined to “deify a Pompion.” The suggestion which follows that the
“glories” were “a selection from among the _dramatis personæ_ who were
about to figure in the First Folio” is an hypothesis which will not, I
fear, meet with general acceptance even among “Baconians.” [ED.]
[31] It might be well here to quote the original words. Chronomastix,
addressing Fame, delivers himself as follows:
“It is for you I revel so in rhyme,
Dear Mistress, not for hope I have, the Time
Will grow the better by it; to serve Fame
Is all my end, and get myself a name.”
To which Fame answers:
“Away, I know thee not, wretched impostor,
Creature of glory, mountebank of wit,
Self-loving braggart, Fame doth sound no trumpet
To such vain empty fools: ’tis Infamy
Thou serv’st, and follow’st, scorn of all the Muses!
Go revel with thine ignorant admirers,
Let worthy names alone.”
Whereupon Chronomastix makes an appeal to his “ignorant admirers”:
“O you, the Curious,
Breathe you to see a passage so injurious,
Done with despight, and carried with such tumour
’Gainst me, that am so much the friend of rumour?
I would say, Fame?
Who with the lash of my immortal pen
Have scourg’d all sorts of vices and of men.
Am I rewarded thus? have I, I say,
From Envy’s self-torn praise and bays away,
With which my glorious front, and word at large,
Triumphs in print at my admirers’ charge?
Whereat “Ears,” one of “The Curious,” exclaims:
Rare! how he talks in verse, just as he writes!
[Ed.]
[32] In Mr. Smithson’s _Shakespeare-Bacon_, at p. 124, we read:
“A schoolmaster, for example, is engaged in turning ‘all his
(Chronomastix’s) workes’ from the insular ‘English in which they
were originally written into the general or continental Latine.’”
It is somewhat difficult however, to find Bacon under the guise of
Chronomastix.
Jonson’s words are:
“There is a school-master
Is turning all his works too into Latin,
To pure Satyric Latin; makes his boys
To learn him; call’s him the Times Juvenal;
Hangs all his school with his sharp sentences;
And o’er the execution place hath painted
Time whipt, for terror to the infantry.”
This also appears to be an allusion to George Wither. [ED.]
[33] Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1899.
[34] _Shakespeare-Bacon_ pp. 89-91, and Note 2 on p. 91.
[35] It may perhaps be worth while to quote some of the words put
into the mouth of “Fame” when “the whole Scene opens,” and Saturn
sitting with Venus is discovered above, and certain “Votaries” come
forth below, “which are the chorus,” shortly before “the Masquers are
discovered.”
“Within yond’ darkness, Venus hath found out
That Hecate, as she is queen of shades,
Keeps certain glories of the time obscured,
There for herself alone to gaze upon
As she did once the fair Endymion.
These Time hath promised at Love’s suit to free
As being fitter to adorn the age.
By you [i.e., King James] restored on earth, most like his own;
And fill this world of beauty here, your Court.”
What were the “certain glories of the time obscured” which Time had
“promised at Love’s suit to free” is matter for speculation.
[36] But _Shepheard’s Hunting_ appeared in 1615. Jonson, in the Grand
Chorus at the end of the Masque, writes:--
“Turn hunters then
Again
But not of men.
Follow his ample
And just example,
That hates all chase of malice, and of blood,
And studies only ways of good.
To keep soft peace in breath
Man should not hunt mankind to death,
But strike the enemies of man.
Kill vices if you can,” etc.
Here was yet another hit at George Wither, but who was he whose “ample
and just example” was held up as a model for imitation? [ED.]
[37] Mr. Smithson’s references to Sir Sidney as Mr. Lee show that this
Essay was written many years ago. [Ed.]
[38] But an _impresa_ was much more than this. _Imprese_ were employed
in tournaments (e.g.). Puttenham says, “The Greeks call it Emblema,
the Italians Impresa, and we a Device, such as a man may put into
letters of gold and send to his mistresses for a token, or cause to be
embroidered in Scutcheons of arms on any bordure of a rich garment, to
give by his novelty marvel to the beholder.” On this matter of the Earl
of Rutland’s _Impresa_ (it was Francis Manners, the Sixth Earl for whom
the work was executed), see my “_Is there a Shakespeare Problem?_” pp.
16-21. It is to be noted that in the year 1613, after all the great
Shakespearean works had been written, we find Shakspere, the (alleged)
great dramatist, then, as we must assume, at the zenith of his fame,
engaged with his fellow-actor, Dick Burbage, to work at Lord Rutland’s
new Device, for the magnificent reward of 44^{s}.! [Ed.]
[39] Alas, that rich harvest has never seen the light. [Ed.]
[40] In the portrait Bacon has an open book before him, across whose
pages are written the words “_Instaur_” and “_Magna_.” On the left-hand
page appear the words “_Mundus Mens_,” and on the right-hand page the
words “_connubio jungam stabili_.” [Ed.]
[41] I venture to refer to my short article on _The Tempest_ in “The
New World” of April, 1921. The reader may also profitably consult Mr.
Looney’s _“Shakespeare” Identified_ on this matter, at p. 513. [Ed.]
[42] The better opinion now seems to be that _Henry VIII_ is
not Shakespearean, but was written by Fletcher and Massinger in
collaboration. Mr. James Spedding long ago tendered reasons which
have convinced most of the “orthodox” critics that the better part
of this play, including Wolsey’s and Buckingham’s speeches, was the
work of Fletcher, and recently Mr. Dugdale Sykes, in his _Sidelights
on Shakespeare_, published at the “Shakespeare Head Press” at
Stratford-upon-Avon (1919), with preface by the late A. H. Bullen,
appears to have proved that all that part of this great spectacular
drama which was not written by Fletcher came from the pen of Massinger,
who, as we know, frequently collaborated with him. [Ed.]
[43] Milton’s versification of the Psalms is much worse than Bacon’s,
and if there were any doubt as to the authorship of _Paradise Lost_,
and _Lycidas_, and _L’Allegro_, and _Il Penseroso_, and Milton were
known only as the writer of this versification of the Psalms, it would
be confidently asserted that he could not possibly be the author of the
above-mentioned works. [ED.]
[44] This Essay was written by Mr. Smithson in the year 1919.
[45] See my _Shakespeare Problem Restated_, p. 342. [Ed.]
[46] Jonson says “wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes
it was necessary he should be stop’d; _Sufflaminandus erat_, as
Augustus said of Haterius.” This means that he had to be “stop’d” not
in _writing_ but in _talking_. See my _Is there a Shakespeare Problem?_
p. 386, _seq._ [Ed.]
[47] The so-called _Masque of Owls_ begins with the stage-direction:
“Enter Captain Cox on his Hobby horse,” of which animal the Captain
says: “He is the Pegasus that uses to wait on Warwick Muses, and on
gaudy days he paces Before the Coventry Graces.” The “Warwick Muses”
are generally supposed to be the Morris-dancers of the county, with
whom the hobby-horse was usually associated. [Ed.]
[48] To which, of course, Bacon had been “translated,” first as Baron
Verulam, and later as Viscount St. Alban. [Ed.]
[49] This is No. LXV. Nota 6, in Sir I. Gollancz’s Edition. [ED.]
[50] No. LXXI.
[51] No. LXXII.
[52] See _Manes Verulamiani_, published by Sir Wm. Rawley (1626). No.
32, by Thomas Randolph of Trinity College, Cambridge. [Ed.]
[53] Waller in the dedication of his works to Queen Henrietta Maria,
speaks of Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Francis Bacon as “Nightingales who
sang only with spring; it was the diversion of their youth.” [ED.]
[54] See note _ante_ p. 84. [ED.]
[55] Mrs. Humphry Ward’s _Reminiscences_, 1918, are, if memory fail
not, my authority here. [See Mrs. H. Ward’s _Recollections_, pp.
255-258, and an interesting letter, headed “Shakespeare Folios,” and
signed “A. R. Watson,” in _The Times_ of April 13, 1922. Ed.]
[56] It cannot be proved that Shakspere ever spelt his name
Shakespeare. Shakspere seems to be the form he preferred. Probably
however, both he and his illiterate father Shaxper, Shaksper,
Shakspear, or what not, were anything but fastidious about spellings.
Persons who happen to be interested in the Shakspere family’s fifty or
sixty ways of spelling their name will thank me for referring them to
Sir George Greenwood’s _Shakespeare Problem_ where they will find it
stated that “the form Shakespeare seems never to have been employed by
them.” Among examples of destructive criticism of the Stratford theory,
I know not one so exhaustive and deadly as this of Sir G. Greenwood’s.
In my _Shakespeare-Bacon Essay_, Shakspere, his irredeemably vulgar
Will, and other doings, are relegated to an appendix.
[57] Whitgift to wit. [Ed.]
[58] The allusion is to Francis Meres’s _Palladis Tamia_, 1598. [Ed.]
[59] See Bacon’s Essay _Of Simulation and Dissimulation_, where he will
have it that dissimulation is a necessary consequence of “secrecy,”
its “skirts or traine, as it were.” Simulation he holds to be “more
culpable ... except it be in great and rare matters” where there is “no
Remedy.” Jonson would be able to maintain that his Ode told no lies
direct--its attribution of “small Latin” being merely conditional, and
its “Swan of Avon” a purely imaginary bird.
[60] As to Jonson and Shakespeare, see further the extract from an
article contributed by Mr. Smithson to _The Nineteenth Century_,
prefixed to his Essay on the Masque of _Time Vindicated_. I may be
allowed also to refer to my booklet _Ben Jonson and Shakespeare_ (Cecil
Palmer, 1921).
[61] In this place the order of the words is slightly altered, but the
quoted words are Bacon’s. Here also it may be well to observe that
Francis Bacon was not a pioneer in the revolt against what is called
the Aristotelian, but should be called the Scholastic Philosophy.
Destructive criticism of that philosophy began at least as early as the
13th century and had already done its work so far as natural science
was concerned long before Francis Bacon took up the cry.
[62] This always reminds me of _The Tempest_ and its projected match
between Ferdinand, the unsophisticated mind of man, and Miranda, symbol
of the new method of nature study. Naples, the New City of the Tempest,
would thus stand for the model city or state expected to spring up as a
result of the New Method. The _New Atlantis_ of Bacon was another state
of this kind.
[63] In a letter to his uncle, 1592, Bacon wrote: “I have taken all
knowledge to be my province.” May this explain the “universality” with
which James I is here credited?
[64] These same goodly fields had been so diligently cultivated by
Bacon that his insight into human nature was probably unequalled by any
of his contemporaries, whilst his mastery of all arts of expression
enabled him to portray it as it has never been portrayed before or
since.
[65] “Insignia hæc amoris et mæstitiæ monumenta.” These were published
by Rawley under the title of _Manes Verulamiani_, in 1626, the year of
Bacon’s death. [Ed.]
[66] S. Collins, Rector of King’s College, Cambridge, writes, in the
_Manes Verulamiani_:
_Henricus_ neque Septimus tacetur,
Et quicquid venerum politiorum, et
Si quid præterii inscius libellum
Quos magni peperit vigor Baconi.
Where the appended translation reads: “Nor must the Seventh Henry fail
of mention, or if aught there be of more cultured loves, aught that
I unwitting have passed over of the works which the vigor of great
Bacon hath produced.” A note explains “quicquid venerum politiorum” as
“stories of love more spiritually interpreted,” and refers to Bacon’s
_De Sapientia Veterum_.
The author of No. XVIII of the _Manes_ tells us that “the Day Star of
the Muses hath fallen ere his time! Fallen, ah me, is the very care and
sorrow of the Clarian god [Phœbus to wit], thy darling, nature and the
world’s--Bacon: aye--passing strange--the grief of very Death.
What privilege did not the crule Destiny [_Atropos_, one of the Fates]
claim? Death would fain spare, and yet she [_Atropos_] would not.
Melpomene, chiding, would not suffer it, and spake these words to the
stern goddesses [the _Parcæ_, or Fates]: ‘Never was Atropos truly
heartless before now; keep thou all the world, only give my Phœbus
back.’” It is to be noted that the Muse who here speaks of Bacon as her
“Phœbus,” or Apollo, is Melpomene the Muse of Tragedy. [ED.]