INTRODUCTION

THE theory that Francis Bacon was, in the main, the author of

“Shakespeare’s plays,” has now been for fifty years before the learned

world. Its advocates have met with less support than they had reason to

expect. Their methods, their logic, and their hypotheses closely

resemble those applied by many British and foreign scholars to Homer; and

by critics of the very Highest School to Holy Writ. Yet the Baconian

theory is universally rejected in England by the professors and

historians of English literature; and generally by students who have no

profession save that of Letters. The Baconians, however, do not lack the

countenance and assistance of highly distinguished persons, whose names

are famous where those of mere men of letters are unknown; and in circles

where the title of “Professor” is not duly respected.

The partisans of Bacon aver (or one of them avers) that “Lord Penzance,

Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Palmerston, Judge Webb, Judge Holmes (of

Kentucky, U.S.), Prince Bismarck, John Bright, and innumerable most

_thoughtful scholars eminent in many walks of life_, _and especially in

__the legal profession_ . . . ” have been Baconians, or, at least,

opposed to Will Shakspere’s authorship. To these names of scholars I

must add that of my late friend, Samuel Clemens, D.Litt. of Oxford;

better known to many as Mark Twain. Dr. Clemens was, indeed, no mean

literary critic; witness his epoch-making study of Prof. Dowden’s _Life

of Shelley_, while his researches into the biography of Jeanne d’Arc were

most conscientious.

With the deepest respect for the political wisdom and literary taste of

Lord Palmerston, Prince Bismarck, Lord Beaconsfield, and the late Mr.

John Bright; and with every desire to humble myself before the judicial

verdicts of Judges Holmes, Webb, and Lord Penzance; with sincere

admiration of my late friend, Dr. Clemens, I cannot regard them as, in

the first place and professionally, trained students of literary history.

They were no more specially trained students of Elizabethan literature

than myself; they were amateurs in this province, as I am an amateur, who

differ from all of them in opinion. Difference of opinion concerning

points of literary history ought not to make “our angry passions rise.”

Yet this controversy has been extremely bitter.

I abstain from quoting the “sweetmeats,” in Captain MacTurk’s phrase,

which have been exchanged by the combatants. Charges of ignorance and

monomania have been answered by charges of forgery, lying, “scandalous

literary dishonesty,” and even inaccuracy. Now no mortal is infallibly

accurate, but we are all sane and “indifferent honest.” There have been

forgeries in matters Shakespearean, alas, but not in connection with the

Baconian controversy.

It is an argument of the Baconians, and generally of the impugners of

good Will’s authorship of the plays vulgarly attributed to him, that the

advocates of William Shakspere, Gent, as author of the plays, differ like

the Kilkenny cats among themselves on many points. All do not believe,

with Mr. J. C. Collins, that Will knew Sophocles, Euripides, and Æschylus

(but not Aristophanes) as well as Mr. Swinburne did, or knew them at

all—for that matter. Mr. Pollard differs very widely from Sir Sidney Lee

on points concerning the First Folio and the Quartos: my sympathies are

with Mr. Pollard. Few, if any, partisans of Will agree with Mrs. Stopes

(herself no Baconian) about the history of the Stratford monument of the

poet. About Will’s authorship of _Titus Andronicus_, and _Henry VI_,

Part I, the friends of Will, like the friends of Bacon, are at odds among

themselves. These and other divergencies of opinion cause the Baconians

to laugh, as if _they_ were a harmonious circle . . . ! For the Baconian

camp is not less divided against itself than the camp of the

“Stratfordians.” Not all Baconians hold that Bacon was the legitimate

son of “that Imperial votaress” Queen Elizabeth. Not all believe in the

Cryptogram of Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, or in any other cryptograms. Not

all maintain that Bacon, in the Sonnets, was inspired by a passion for

the Earl of Essex, for Queen Elizabeth, or for an early miniature of

himself. Not all regard him as the author of the plays of Kit Marlowe.

Not all suppose him to be a Rosicrucian, who possibly died at the age of

a hundred and six, or, perhaps, may be “still running.” Not all aver

that he wrote thirteen plays before 1593. But one party holds that, in

the main, Will was the author of the plays, while the other party votes

for Bacon—or for Bungay, a Great Unknown. I use Bungay as an endearing

term for the mysterious being who was the Author if Francis Bacon was

not. Friar Bungay was the rival of Friar Bacon, as the Unknown (if he

was not Francis Bacon) is the rival of “the inventor of Inductive

reasoning.”

I could never have expected that I should take a part in this

controversy; but acquaintance with _The Shakespeare Problem Restated_

(503 pp.), (1908), and later works of Mr. G. G. Greenwood, M.P., has

tempted me to enter the lists.

Mr. Greenwood is worth fighting; he is cunning of fence, is learned (and

I cannot conceal my opinion that Mr. Donnelly and Judge Holmes were

rather ignorant). He is not over “the threshold of Eld” (as were Judge

Webb and Lord Penzance when they took up Shakespearean criticism). His

knowledge of Elizabethan literature is vastly superior to mine, for I

speak merely, in Matthew Arnold’s words, as “a belletristic trifler.”

Moreover, Mr. Greenwood, as a practising barrister, is a judge of legal

evidence; and, being a man of sense, does not “hold a brief for Bacon” as

the author of the Shakespearean plays and poems, and does not value

Baconian cryptograms. In the following chapters I make endeavours,

conscientious if fallible, to state the theory of Mr. Greenwood. It is a

negative theory. He denies that Will Shakspere (or Shaxbere, or

Shagspur, and so on) was the author of the plays and poems. Some other

party was, _in the main_, with other hands, the author. Mr. Greenwood

cannot, or does not, offer a guess as to who this ingenious Somebody was.

He does not affirm, and he does not deny, that Bacon had a share, greater

or less, in the undertaking.

In my brief tractate I have not room to consider every argument; to

traverse every field. In philology I am all unlearned, and cannot

pretend to discuss the language of Shakespeare, any more than I can

analyse the language of Homer into proto-Arcadian and Cyprian, and so on.

Again, I cannot pretend to have an opinion, based on internal evidence,

about the genuine Shakespearean character of such plays as _Titus

Andronicus_, _Henry VI_, Part I, and _Troilus and Cressida_. About them

different views are held _within_ both camps.

I am no lawyer or naturalist (as Partridge said, _Non omnia possumus

omnes_), and cannot imagine why our Author is so accurate in his frequent

use of terms of law—if he be Will; and so totally at sea in natural

history—if he be Francis, who “took all knowledge for his province.”

How can a layman pretend to deal with Shakespeare’s legal attainments,

after he has read the work of the learned Recorder of Bristol, Mr.

Castle, K.C.? To his legal mind it seems that in some of Will’s plays he

had the aid of an expert in law, and then his technicalities were

correct. In other plays he had no such tutor, and then he was sadly to

seek in his legal jargon. I understand Mr. Greenwood to disagree on this

point. Mr. Castle says, “I think Shakespeare would have had no

difficulty in getting aid from several sources. There is therefore no

_prima facie_ reason why we should suppose the information was supplied

by Bacon.”

Of course there is not!

“In fact, there are some reasons why one should attribute the legal

assistance, say, to Coke, rather than to Bacon.”

The truth is, that Bacon seems not to have been lawyer enough for Will’s

purposes. “We have no reason to believe that Bacon was particularly well

read in the technicalities of our law; he never seems to have seriously

followed his profession.” {0a}

Now we have Mr. Greenwood’s testimonial in favour of Mr. Castle, “Who

really does know something about law.” {0b} Mr. Castle thinks that Bacon

really did not know enough about law, and suggests Sir Edward Coke, of

all human beings, as conceivably Will’s “coach” on legal technicalities.

Perhaps Will consulted the Archbishop of Canterbury on theological

niceties?

_Que sçais je_? In some plays, says Mr. Castle, Will’s law is all right,

in other plays it is all wrong. As to Will’s law, when Mr. Greenwood and

Mr. Castle differ, a layman dare not intervene.

Concerning legend and tradition about our Will, it seems that, in each

case, we should do our best to trace the _Quellen_, to discover the

original sources, and the steps by which the tale arrived at its late

recorders in print; and then each man’s view as to the veracity of the

story will rest on his sense of probability; and on his bias, his wish to

believe or to disbelieve.

There exists, I believe, only one personal anecdote of Will, the actor,

and on it the Baconians base an argument against the contemporary

recognition of him as a dramatic author. I take the criticism of Mr.

Greenwood (who is not a Baconian). One John Manningham,

Barrister-at-Law, “a well-educated and cultured man,” notes in his Diary

(February 2, 1601) that “at our feast we had a play called Twelve Night

or What you Will, much like the Comedy of Errors, or Menæchmi in Plautus,

but most like and near to that in Italian called _Inganni_.” He confides

to his Diary the tricks played on Malvolio as “a good practice.” {0c}

That is all.

About the authorship he says nothing: perhaps he neither knew nor cared

who the author was. In our day the majority of people who tell me about

a play which they have seen, cannot tell me the name of the author. Yet

it is usually printed on the playbill, though in modest type. The public

does not care a straw about the author’s name, unless he be deservedly

famous for writing letters to the newspapers on things in general; for

his genius as an orator; his enthusiasm as a moralist, or in any other

extraneous way. Dr. Forman in his queer account of the plot of “Mack

Beth” does not allude to the name of the author (April 20, 1610).

_Twelfth Night_ was not published till 1623, in the Folio: there was no

quarto to enlighten Manningham about the author’s name. We do not hear

of printed playbills, with author’s names inserted, at that period. It

seems probable that occasional playgoers knew and cared no more about

authors than they do at present. The world of the wits, the critics

(such as Francis Meres), poets, playwrights, and players, did know and

care about the authors; apparently Manningham did not. But he heard a

piquant anecdote of two players and (March 13, 1601) inserted it in his

Diary.

Shakespeare once anticipated Richard Burbage at an amorous tryst with a

citizen’s wife. Burbage had, by the way, been playing the part of

Richard III. While Will was engaged in illicit dalliance, the message

was brought (what a moment for bringing messages!) that Richard III was

at the door, and Will “caused return to be made that William the

Conqueror was before Richard III. _Shakespeare’s name William_.” (My

italics.) Mr. Greenwood argues that if “Shakspere the player was known

to the world as the author of the plays of Shakespeare, it does seem

extremely remarkable” that Manningham should have thought it needful to

add “Shakespeare’s name William.” {0d}

But _was_ “Shakspere,” or any man, “known to the world as the author of

the plays of Shakespeare”? No! for Mr. Greenwood writes, “nobody,

outside a very small circle, troubled his head as to who the dramatist or

dramatists might be.” {0e} To that “very small circle” we have no reason

to suppose that Manningham belonged, despite his remarkable opinion that

_Twelfth Night_ resembles the _Menæchmi_. Consequently, it is _not_

“extremely remarkable” that Manningham wrote “Shakespeare’s name

William,” to explain to posterity the joke about “William the Conqueror,”

instead of saying, “the brilliant author of the Twelfth Night play which

so much amused me at our feast a few weeks ago.” {0f} “Remarkable” out

of all hooping it would have been had Manningham written in the style of

Mr. Greenwood. But Manningham apparently did not “trouble his head as to

who the dramatist or dramatists might be.” “Nobody, outside a very small

circle,” _did_ trouble his poor head about that point. Yet Mr. Greenwood

thinks “it does seem extremely remarkable” that Manningham did not

mention the author.

Later, on the publication of the Folio (1623), the world seems to have

taken more interest in literary matters. Mr. Greenwood says that then

while “the multitude” would take Ben Jonson’s noble panegyric on

Shakespeare as a poet “_au pied de la lettre_,” “the enlightened few

would recognise that it had an esoteric meaning.” {0g} Then, it seems,

“the world”—the “multitude”—regarded the actor as the author. Only “the

enlightened few” were aware that when Ben _said_ “Shakespeare,” and “Swan

of Avon,” he _meant_—somebody else.

Quite different inferences are drawn from the same facts by persons of

different mental conditions. For example, in 1635 or 1636, Cuthbert

Burbage, brother of Richard, the famous actor, Will’s comrade, petitioned

Lord Pembroke, then Lord Chamberlain, for consideration in a quarrel

about certain theatres. Telling the history of the houses, he mentions

that the Burbages “to ourselves joined those deserving men, Shakspere,

Heminge, Condell, Phillips and others.” Cuthbert is arguing his case

solely from the point of the original owners or lease-holders of the

houses, and of the well-known actors to whom they joined themselves.

Judge Webb and Mr. Greenwood think that “it does indeed seem strange . . .

that the proprietor[s] of the playhouses which had been made famous by

the production of the Shakespearean plays, should, in 1635—twelve years

after the publication of the great Folio—describe their reputed author to

the survivor of the Incomparable Pair, as merely a ‘man-player’ and ‘a

deserving man.’” Why did he not remind the Lord Chamberlain that this

“deserving man” was the author of all these famous dramas? Was it

because he was aware that the Earl of Pembroke “knew better than that”?

{0h}

These arguments are regarded by some Baconians as proof positive of their

case.

Cuthbert Burbage, in 1635 or 1636, did not remind the Earl of what the

Earl knew very well, that the Folio had been dedicated, in 1623, to him

and his brother, by Will’s friends, Heminge and Condell, as they had been

patrons of the late William Shakspere and admirers of his plays. The

terms of this dedication are to be cited in the text, later. _We_ all

_now_ would have reminded the Earl of what he very well knew. Cuthbert

did not.

The intelligence of Cuthbert Burbage may be gauged by anyone who will

read pp. 481–484 in _William Shakespeare_, _His Family and Friends_, by

the late Mr. Charles Elton, Q.C., of White Staunton. Cuthbert was a

puzzle-pated old boy. The silence as to Will’s authorship on the part of

this muddle-headed old Cuthbert, in 1635–36, cannot outweigh the explicit

and positive public testimony to his authorship, signed by his friends

and fellow-actors in 1623.

Men believe what they may; but I prefer positive evidence for the

affirmative to negative evidence from silence, the silence of Cuthbert

Burbage.

One may read through Mr. Greenwood’s three books and note the engaging

varieties of his views; they vary as suits his argument; but he is

unaware of it, or can justify his varyings. Thus, in 1610, one John

Davies wrote rhymes in which he speaks of “our English Terence, Mr. Will

Shakespeare”; “good Will.” In his period patriotic English critics

called a comic dramatist “the English Terence,” or “the English Plautus,”

precisely as American critics used to call Mr. Bryant “the American

Wordsworth,” or Cooper “the American Scott”; and as Scots called the Rev.

Mr. Thomson “the Scottish Turner.” Somewhere, I believe, exists “the

Belgian Shakespeare.”

Following this practice, Davies had to call Will either “our English

Terence,” or “our English Plautus.” Aristophanes would not have been

generally recognised; and Will was no more like one of these ancient

authors than another. Thus Davies was apt to choose either Plautus or

Terence; it was even betting which he selected. But he chanced to choose

Terence; and this is “curious,” and suggests suspicions to Mr.

Greenwood—and the Baconians. They are so very full of suspicions!

It does not suit the Baconians, or Mr. Greenwood, to find contemporary

recognition of Will as an author. {0i} Consequently, Mr. Greenwood finds

Davies’s “curious, and at first sight, inappropriate comparison of

‘Shake-speare’ to Terence worthy of remark, for Terence is the very

author whose name is alleged to have been used as a mask-name, or _nom de

plume_, for the writings of great men who wished to keep the fact of

their authorship concealed.”

Now Davies felt bound to bring in _some_ Roman parallel to Shakespeare;

and had only the choice of Terence or Plautus. Meres (1598) used

Plautus; Davies used Terence. Mr. Greenwood {0j} shows us that Plautus

would not do. “Could _he_” (Shakespeare) “write only of courtesans and

_cocottes_, and not of ladies highly born, cultured, and refined? . . . ”

“The supposed parallel” (Plautus and Shakespeare) “breaks down at every

point.” Thus, on Mr. Greenwood’s showing, Plautus could not serve

Davies, or should not serve him, in his search for a Roman parallel to

“good Will.” But Mr. Greenwood also writes, “if he” (Shakespeare) “was

to be likened to a Latin comedian, surely Plautus is the writer with whom

he should have been compared.” {0k} Yet Plautus was the very man who

cannot be used as a parallel to Shakespeare. Of course no Roman nor any

other comic dramatist closely resembles the _author_ of _As You Like It_.

They who selected either Plautus or Terence meant no more than that both

were celebrated comic dramatists. Plautus was no parallel to Will. Yet

“surely Plautus is the author to whom he should have been compared” by

Davies, says Mr. Greenwood. If Davies tried Plautus, the comparison was

bad; if Terence, it was “curious,” as Terence was absurdly accused of

being the “_nom de plume_” of some great “concealed poets” of Rome.

“From all the known facts about Terence,” says a Baconian critic (who has

consulted Smith’s _Biographical Dictionary_), “it is an almost

unavoidable inference that John Davies made the comparison to Shakspere

because he knew of the point common to both cases.” The common point is

taken to be, not that both men were famous comic dramatists, but that

Roman literary gossips said, and that Baconians and Mr. Greenwood say,

that “Terence” was said to be a “mask-name,” and that “Shakespeare” is a

mask-name. Of the second opinion there is not a hint in literature of

the time of good Will.

What surprises one most in this controversy is that men eminent in the

legal profession should be “anti-Shakesperean,” if not overtly Baconian.

For the evidence for the contemporary faith in Will’s authorship is all

positive; from his own age comes not a whisper of doubt, not even a

murmur of surprise. It is incredible to me that his fellow-actors and

fellow-playwrights should have been deceived, especially when they were

such men as Ben Jonson and Tom Heywood. One would expect lawyers, of all

people, to have been most impatient of the surprising attempts made to

explain away Ben Jonson’s testimony, by aid, first, of quite a false

analogy (Scott’s denial of his own authorship of his novels), and,

secondly, by the suppression of such a familiar fact as the constant

inconsistency of Ben’s judgments of his contemporaries in literature.

Mr. Greenwood must have forgotten the many examples of this

inconsistency; but I have met a Baconian author who knew nothing of the

fact. Mr. Greenwood, it is proper to say, does not seem to be satisfied

that he has solved what he calls “the Jonsonian riddle.” Really, there

is no riddle. About Will, as about other authors, his contemporaries and

even his friends, on occasion, Ben “spoke with two voices,” now in terms

of hyperbolical praise, now in carping tones of censure. That is the

obvious solution of “the Jonsonian riddle.”

I must apologise if I have in places spelled the name of the Swan of Avon

“Shakespeare” where Mr. Greenwood would write “Shakspere,” and _vice

versa_. He uses “Shakespeare” where he means the Author; “Shakspere”

where he means Will; and is vexed with some people who write the name of

Will as “Shakespeare.” As Will, in the opinion of a considerable portion

of the human race, and of myself, _was_ the Author, one is apt to write

his name as “Shakespeare” in the usual way. But difficult cases occur,

as in quotations, and in conditional sentences. By any spelling of the

name I always mean the undivided personality of “Him who sleeps by Avon.”

I

THE BACONIAN AND ANTI-WILLIAN POSITIONS

TILL the years 1856–7 no voice was raised against the current belief

about Shakespeare (1564–1616). He was the author in the main of the

plays usually printed as his. In some cases other authors, one or more,

may have had fingers in his dramas; in other cases, Shakespeare may have

“written over” and transfigured earlier plays, of himself and of others;

he may have contributed, more or less, to several plays mainly by other

men. Separately printed dramas published during his time carry his name

on their title-pages, but are not included in the first collected edition

of his dramas, “The First Folio,” put forth by two of his friends and

fellow-actors, in 1623, seven years after his death.

On all these matters did commentators, critics, and antiquarians for long

dispute; but none denied that the actor, Will Shakspere (spelled as

heaven pleased), was in the main the author of most of the plays of 1623,

and the sole author of _Venus and Adonis_, _Lucrece_, and the Sonnets.

Even now, in England at least, it would be perhaps impossible to find one

special and professed student of Elizabethan literature, and of the

classical and European literatures, who does not hold by the ancient

belief, the belief of Shakespeare’s contemporaries and intimates, the

belief that he was, in the sense explained above, the author of the

plays.

But ours is not a generation to be overawed by “Authority” (as it is

called). A small but eager company of scholars have convinced themselves

that Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespearean plays. That is the point of

agreement among these enthusiasts: points of difference are numerous:

some very wild little sects exist. Meanwhile multitudes of earnest and

intelligent men and women, having read notices in newspapers of the

Baconian books, or heard of them at lectures and tea-parties, disbelieve

in the authorship of “the Stratford rustic,” and look down on the

faithful of Will Shakespere with extreme contempt.

From the Baconians we receive a plain straightforward theory, “Bacon

wrote Shakespeare,” as one of their own prophets has said. {4a} Since we

have plenty of evidence for Bacon’s life and occupations during the

period of Shakespearean poetic activity, we can compare what he was doing

as a man, a student, a Crown lawyer, a pleader in the Courts, a political

pamphleteer, essayist, courtier, active member of Parliament, and so on,

with what he is said to have been doing—by the Baconians; namely, writing

two dramas yearly.

But there is another “Anti-Willian” theory, which would dethrone Will

Shakspere, and put but a Shadow in his place. Conceive a “concealed

poet,” of high social position, contemporary with Bacon and Shakespeare.

Let him be so fond of the Law that he cannot keep legal “shop” out of his

love Sonnets even. Make him a courtier; a statesman; a philosopher; a

scholar who does not blench even from the difficult Latin of Ovid and

Plautus. Let this almost omniscient being possess supreme poetic genius,

extensive classical attainments, and a tendency to make false quantities.

Then conceive him to live through the reigns of “Eliza and our James,”

without leaving in history, in science, in society, in law, in politics

or scholarship, a single trace of his existence. He left nothing but the

poems and plays usually attributed to Will. As to the date of his

decease, we only know that it must necessarily have been later than the

composition of the last genuine Shakespearean play—for this paragon wrote

it.

Such is the Being who occupies, in the theory of the non-Baconian, _but

not Anti-Baconian_, Anti-Willians, the intellectual throne filled, in the

Will Shakespeare theory, by Will; and in the Baconian, by Bacon—two kings

of Brentford on one throne.

We are to be much engaged by the form of this theory which is held by Mr.

G. G. Greenwood in his _The Shakespeare Problem Restated_. In attempting

to explain what he means I feel that I am skating on very thin ice.

Already, in two volumes (_In Re Shakespeare_, 1909, and _The Vindicators

of Shakespeare_), Mr. Greenwood has accused his critics of frequently

misconceiving and misrepresenting his ideas: wherefore I also tremble. I

am perfectly confident in saying that he “holds no brief for the

Baconians.” He is _not_ a Baconian. His position is negative merely:

Will of Stratford is _not_ the author of the Shakespearean plays and

poems. Then who is? Mr. Greenwood believes that work by an unknown

number of hands exists in the plays first published all together in 1623.

Here few will differ from him. But, setting aside this aspect of the

case, Mr. Greenwood appears to me to believe in an entity named

“Shakespeare,” or “the Author,” who is the predominating partner; though

Mr. Greenwood does not credit him with all the plays in the Folio of 1623

(nor, perhaps, with the absolute entirety of any given play). “The

Author” or “Shakespeare” is not a syndicate (like the Homer of many

critics), but an individual human being, apparently of the male sex. As

to the name by which he was called on earth, Mr. Greenwood is “agnostic.”

He himself is not Anti-Baconian. He does not oust Bacon and put the

Unknown in his place. He neither affirms nor denies that Bacon may have

contributed, more or less, to the bulk of Shakespearean work. To put it

briefly: Mr. Greenwood backs the field against the favourite (our Will),

and Bacon _may_ be in the field. If he has any part in the whole I

suspect that it is “the lion’s part,” but Mr. Greenwood does not commit

himself to anything positive. We shall find (if I am not mistaken) that

Mr. Greenwood regards the hypothesis of the Baconians as “an extremely

reasonable one,” {7a} and that for his purposes it would be an extremely

serviceable one, if not even essential. For as Bacon was a genius to

whose potentialities one can set no limit, he is something to stand by,

whereas we cannot easily believe—I cannot believe—that the actual

“Author,” the “Shakespeare” lived and died and left no trace of his

existence except his share in the works called Shakespearean.

However, the idea of the Great Unknown has, for its partisans, this

advantage, that as the life of the august Shade is wholly unknown, we

cannot, as in Bacon’s case, show how he was occupied while the plays were

being composed. He _must_, however, have been much at Court, we learn,

and deep in the mysteries of legal terminology. Was he Sir Edward Coke?

Was he James VI and I?

It is hard, indeed, to set forth the views of the Baconians and of the

“Anti-Willians” in a shape which will satisfy them. The task, especially

when undertaken by an unsympathetic person, is perhaps impossible. I can

only summarise their views in my own words as far as I presume to

understand them. I conceive the Baconians to cry that “the world

possesses a mass of transcendent literature, attributed to a man named

William _Shakespeare_.” Of a man named William _Shakspere_ (there are

many varieties of spelling) we certainly know that he was born (1564) and

bred in Stratford-on-Avon, a peculiarly dirty, stagnant, and ignorant

country town. There is absolutely no evidence that he (or any Stratford

boy of his standing) ever went to Stratford school. His father, his

mother, and his daughter could not write, but, in signing, made their

marks; and if he could write, which some of us deny, he wrote a terribly

bad hand. As far as late traditions of seventy or eighty years after his

death inform us, he was a butcher’s apprentice; and also a schoolmaster

“who knew Latin pretty well”; and a poacher. He made, before he was

nineteen, a marriage tainted with what Meg Dods calls “ante-nup.” He

early had three children, whom he deserted, as he deserted his wife. He

came to London, we do not know when (about 1582, according to the “guess”

of an antiquary of 1680); held horses at the door of a theatre (so

tradition says), was promoted to the rank of “servitor” (whatever that

may mean), became an actor (a vagabond under the Act), and by 1594 played

before Queen Elizabeth. He put money in his pocket (heaven knows how),

for by 1597 he was bargaining for the best house in his native

_bourgade_. He obtained, by nefarious genealogical falsehoods (too

common, alas, in heraldry), the right to bear arms; and went on acting.

In 1610–11 (?) he retired to his native place. He never took any

interest in his unprinted manuscript plays; though rapacious, he never

troubled himself about his valuable copyrights; never dreamed of making a

collected edition of his works. He died in 1616, probably of drink

taken. Legal documents prove him to have been a lender of small sums, an

avid creditor, a would-be encloser of commons. In his will he does not

bequeath or mention any books, manuscripts, copyrights, and so forth. It

is utterly incredible, then, that this man wrote the poems and plays, so

rich in poetry, thought, scholarship, and knowledge, which are attributed

to “William Shakespeare.” These must be the works of “a concealed poet,”

a philosopher, a courtier moving in the highest circles, a supreme

legist, and, necessarily, a great poet, and student of the classics.

No known person of the age but one, Bacon, was a genius, a legist, a

scholar, a great poet, and brilliant courtier, with all the other

qualifications so the author of the plays either was Francis Bacon—or

some person unknown, who was in all respects equally distinguished, but

kept his light under a bushel. Consequently the name “William

Shakespeare” is a pseudonym or “pen-name” wisely adopted by Bacon (or the

other man) as early as 1593, at a time when William Shakspere was

notoriously an actor in the company which produced the plays of the

genius styling himself “William Shakespeare.”

Let me repeat that, to the best of my powers of understanding and of

expression, and in my own words, so as to misquote nobody, I have now

summarised the views of the Baconians _sans phrase_, and of the more

cautious or more credulous “Anti-Willians,” as I may style the party who

deny to Will the actor any share in the authorship of the plays, but do

not overtly assign it to Francis Bacon.

Beyond all comparison the best work on the Anti-Willian side of the

controversy is _The Shakespeare Problem Restated_, by Mr. G. G. Greenwood

(see my Introduction). To this volume I turn for the exposition of the

theory that “Will Shakspere” (with many other spellings) is an actor from

the country—a man of very scanty education, in all probability, and

wholly destitute of books; while “William Shakespeare,” or with the

hyphen, “Shake-speare,” is a “_nom de plume_” adopted by the Great

Unknown “concealed poet.”

When I use the word “author” here, I understand Mr. Greenwood to mean

that in the plays called “Shakespearean” there exists work from many

pens: owing to the curious literary manners, methods, and ethics of

dramatic writing in, say, 1589–1611. In my own poor opinion this is

certainly true of several plays in the first collected edition, “The

Folio,” produced seven years after Will’s death, namely in 1623. These

curious “collective” methods of play-writing are to be considered later.

Matters become much more perplexing when we examine the theory that

“William Shake-speare” (with or without the hyphen), on the title-pages

of plays, or when signed to the dedications of poems, is the chosen

pen-name, or “_nom de plume_,” of Bacon or of the Unknown.

Here I must endeavour to summarise what Mr. Greenwood has written {11a}

on the name of the actor, and the “_nom de plume_” of the unknown author

who, by the theory, was not the actor. Let me first confess my firm

belief that there is no cause for all the copious writing about the

spellings “Shakespeare” or “Shake-speare”—as indicating the true but

“concealed poet”—and “Shakspere” (&c.), as indicating the Warwickshire

rustic. At Stratford and in Warwickshire the clan-name was spelled in

scores of ways, was spelled in different ways within a single document.

If the actor himself uniformly wrote “Shakspere” (it seems that we have

but five signatures), he was accustomed to seeing the name spelled

variously in documents concerning him and his affairs. In London the

printers aimed at a kind of uniformity, “Shakespeare” or “Shake-speare”:

and even if he wrote his own name otherwise, to him it was indifferent.

Lawyers and printers might choose their own mode of spelling—and there is

no more in the matter.

I must now summarise briefly, in my own words, save where quotations are

indicated in the usual way, the results of Mr. Greenwood’s researches.

“The family of William Shakspere of Stratford” (perhaps it were safer to

say “the members of his name”) “wrote their name in many different

ways—some sixty, I believe, have been noted . . . but the form

‘Shakespeare’ seems never to have been employed by them”; and, according

to Mr. Spedding, “Shakspere of Stratford never so wrote his name ‘in any

known case.’” (According to many Baconians he never wrote his name in

his life.) On the other hand, the dedications of _Venus and Adonis_

(1593) and of _Lucrece_ (1594) are inscribed “William Shakespeare”

(without the hyphen). In 1598, the title-page of _Love’s Labour’s Lost_

“bore the name W. Shakespere,” while in the same year _Richard II_ and

_Richard III_ bear “William Shake-speare,” with the hyphen (not without

it, as in the two dedications by the Author). “The name which appears in

the body of the conveyance and of the mortgage bearing” (the actor’s)

“signature is ‘Shakespeare,’ while ‘Shackspeare’ appears in the will,

prepared, as we must presume, by or under the directions of Francis

Collyns, the Stratford solicitor, who was one of the witnesses thereto”

(and received a legacy of £13, 6_s._ 8_d._).

[Picture: Copy of the title-page of “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” 1598. The

earliest title-page in which Shakespeare’s name is given as the author of

the work. From J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps’ Outlines of the Life of

Shakespeare]

Thus, at Stratford even, the name was spelled, in legal papers, as it is

spelled in the two dedications, and in most of the title-pages—and also

is spelled otherwise, as “Shackspeare.” In March 1594 the actor’s name

is spelled “Shakespeare” in Treasury accounts. The legal and the

literary and Treasury spellings (and conveyances and mortgages and wills

are _not_ literature) are Shakespeare, Shackspeare, Shake-speare,

Shakespere—all four are used, but we must regard the actor as never

signing “Shakespeare” in any of these varieties of spelling—if sign he

ever did; at all events he is not known to have used the _a_ in the last

syllable.

I now give the essence of Mr. Greenwood’s words {13a} concerning the _nom

de plume_ of the “concealed poet,” whoever he was.

“And now a word upon the name ‘Shakespeare.’ That in this form, and more

especially with a hyphen, Shake-speare, the word makes an excellent _nom

de plume_ is obvious. As old Thomas Fuller remarks, the name suggests

_Martial_ in its warlike sound, ‘Hasti-vibrans or Shake-speare.’ It is

of course further suggestive of Pallas Minerva, the goddess of Wisdom,

for Pallas also was a spear-shaker (Pallas ὰπὸ του πάλλειν τὸ δόρυ); and

all will remember Ben Jonson’s verses . . . ” on Shakespeare’s

“true-filed lines”—

“In each of which he seems to shake a lance,

As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.”

There is more about Pallas in book-titles (to which additions can easily

be made), and about “Jonson’s Cri-spinus or Cri-spinas,” but perhaps we

have now the gist of Mr. Greenwood’s remarks on the “excellent _nom de

plume_” (_cf._ pp. 31–37. On the whole of this, _cf. The Shakespeare

Problem Restated_, pp. 293–295; a _nom de plume_ called a “pseudonym,”

pp. 307, 312; Shakespeare “a mask name,” p. 328; a “pseudonym,” p. 330;

“_nom de plume_,” p. 335).

Now why was the “_nom de plume_” or “pseudonym” “William Shakespeare” “an

excellent _nom de plume_” for a concealed author, courtier, lawyer,

scholar, and so forth? If “Shakespeare” suggested Pallas Athene, goddess

of wisdom and of many other things, and so was appropriate, why add

“William”?

In 1593, when the “pseudonym” first appears in _Venus and Adonis_, a

country actor whose name, in legal documents—presumably drawn up by or

for his friend, Francis Collyns at Stratford—is written “William

Shakespeare,” was before the town as an actor in the leading company,

that of the Lord Chamberlain. This company produced the plays some of

which, by 1598, bear “W. Shakespere,” or “William Shakespeare” on their

title-pages. Thus, even if the actor habitually spelled his name

“Shakspere,” “William Shakespeare” was, practically (on the Baconian

theory), not only a pseudonym of one man, a poet, but also the real name

of another man, a well-known actor, who was _not_ the “concealed poet.”

“William Shakespeare” or “Shakespere” was thus, in my view, the ideally

worst pseudonym which a poet who wished to be “concealed” could possibly

have had the fatuity to select. His plays and poems would be, as they

were, universally attributed to the actor, who is represented as a person

conspicuously incapable of writing them. With Mr. Greenwood’s arguments

against the certainty of this attribution I deal later.

Had the actor been a man of rare wit, and of good education and wide

reading, the choice of name might have been judicious. A “concealed

poet” of high social standing, with a strange fancy for rewriting the

plays of contemporary playwrights, might obtain the manuscript copies

from their owners, the Lord Chamberlain’s Company, through that

knowledgeable, witty, and venal member of the company, Will Shakspere.

He might then rewrite and improve them, more or less, as it was his whim

to do. The actor might make fair copies in his own hand, give them to

his company, and say that the improved works were from his own pen and

genius. The lie might pass, but only if the actor, in his life and witty

talk, seemed very capable of doing what he pretended to have done. But

if the actor, according to some Baconians, could not write even his own

name, he was impossible as a mask for the poet. He was also impossible,

I think, if he were what Mr. Greenwood describes him to be.

Mr. Greenwood, in his view of the actor as he was when he came to London,

does not deny to him the gift of being able to sign his name. But, if he

were educated at Stratford Free School (of which there is no documentary

record), according to Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps “he was removed from school

long before the usual age,” “in all probability” when “he was about

thirteen” (an age at which some boys, later well known, went up to their

universities). If we send him to school at seven or so, “it appears that

he could only have enjoyed such advantages as it may be supposed to have

provided for a period of five or six years at the outside. He was then

withdrawn, and, as it seems, put to calf-slaughtering.” {16a}

What the advantages may have been we try to estimate later.

Mr. Greenwood, with Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, thinks that Will “could have

learned but little there. No doubt boys at Elizabethan grammar schools,

if they remained long enough, had a good deal of Latin driven into them.

Latin, indeed, was the one subject that was taught; and an industrious

boy who had gone through the course and attained to the higher classes

would generally be able to write fair Latin prose. But he would learn

very little else” (except to write fair Latin prose?). “What we now call

‘culture’ certainly did not enter into the ‘curriculum,’ nor ‘English,’

nor modern languages, nor ‘literature.’” {17a} Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps

says that “removed prematurely from school, residing with illiterate

relatives in a bookless neighbourhood, thrown into the midst of

occupations adverse to scholastic progress—it is difficult to believe

that when he first left Stratford he was not all but destitute of

polished accomplishments.” {17b} Mr. Greenwood adds the apprenticeship

to a butcher or draper, but doubts the poaching, and the frequent

whippings and imprisonments, as in the story told by the Rev. R. Davies

in 1708. {17c}

That this promising young man, “when he came to London, spoke the

Warwickshire dialect or _patois_ is, then, as certain as anything can be

that is incapable of mathematical proof.” {17d} “Here is the young

Warwickshire provincial . . . ” {17e} producing, apparently five or six

years after his arrival in town, _Venus and Adonis_ . . . “Is it

conceivable that this was the work of the Stratford Player of whom we

know so little, but of whom we know so much too much? If so we have here

a veritable sixteenth-century miracle.” {17f} Moreover, “our great

supposed poet and dramatist had at his death neither book nor manuscript

in his possession, or to which he was legally entitled, or in which he

had any interest whatever.” {17g}

If it be not conceivable now that the rustic speaking in a _patois_ could

write _Venus and Adonis_, manifestly it was inconceivable in 1593, when

_Venus and Adonis_ was signed “William Shakespeare.” No man who knew the

actor (as described) could believe that he was the author, but there does

not exist the most shadowy hint proving that the faintest doubt was

thrown on the actor’s authorship; ignorant as he was, bookless, and rude

of speech. For such a Will as Mr. Greenwood describes to persuade the

literary and dramatic world of his age that he _did_ write the plays,

would have been a miracle. Consequently Mr. Greenwood has to try to

persuade us that there is no sufficient evidence that Will _did_

persuade, say Ben Jonson, of his authorship and we shall see whether or

not he works this twentieth-century miracle of persuasion.

Of course if Will were unable to write even his name, as an enthusiastic

Baconian asserts, Mr. Greenwood sees that Will could not easily pass for

the Author. {18a} But his own bookless actor with a _patois_ seems to

him, as author of _Venus and Adonis_, almost inconceivable. Yet, despite

Will’s bookless rusticity, this poem with _Lucrece_, which displays

knowledge of a work of Ovid not translated into English by 1593, was

regarded as his own. I must suppose, therefore, that Will was _not_

manifestly so ignorant of Latin as Mr. Greenwood thinks. “I think it

highly probable,” says this critic, “that he attended the Grammar School

at Stratford” (where nothing but Latin was taught) “for four or five

years, and that, later in life, after some years in London, he was

probably able to ‘bumbast out a line,’ and perhaps to pose as ‘Poet-Ape

that would be thought our chief.’ Nay, I am not at all sure that he

would not have been capable of collaborating with such a man as George

Wilkins, and perhaps of writing quite as well as he, if not even better.

But it does not follow from this that he was the author either of _Venus

and Adonis_ or of _Hamlet_.” {19a}

Nothing follows from all this: we merely see that, in Mr. Greenwood’s

private opinion, the actor might write even better than George Wilkins,

but could not write _Venus and Adonis_. Will, therefore, though

bookless, is not debarred here from the pursuits of literature, in

partnership with Wilkins. We have merely the critic’s opinion that Will

could not write _Hamlet_, even if, like Wordsworth, “he had the mind,”

even if the gods had made him more poetical than Wilkins.

Again, “he had had but little schooling; he had ‘small Latin and less

Greek’” (as Ben Jonson truly says), “but he was a good _Johannes

Factotum_; he could arrange a scene, and, when necessary, ‘bumbast out a

blank verse.’” {19b}

The “_Johannes Factotum_,” who could “bumbast out a blank verse,” is

taken from Robert Greene’s hackneyed attack on an actor-poet,

“Shake-scene,” published in 1592. “Poet-Ape that would be thought our

chief,” is from an epigram on an actor-poet by Ben Jonson (1601–16?). If

the allusions by Greene and Jonson are to our Will, he, by 1592, had a

literary ambition so towering that he thought his own work in the new art

of dramatic blank verse was equal to that of Marlowe (not to speak of

Wilkins), and Greene reckoned him a dangerous rival to three of his

playwright friends, of whom Marlowe is one, apparently.

If Jonson’s “Poet-Ape” be meant for Will, by 1601 Will would fain “be

thought the chief” of contemporary dramatists. His vanity soared far

above George Wilkins! Greene’s phrases and Jonson’s are dictated by

spite, jealousy, and envy; and from them a true view of the work of the

man whom they envy, the actor-poet, cannot be obtained. We might as well

judge Molière in the spirit of the author of _Elomire Hypocondre_, and of

de Visé! The Anti-Willian arguments keep on appearing, going behind the

scenes, and reappearing, like a stage army. To avoid this phenomenon I

reserve what is to be said about “Shake-scene” and “Poet-Ape” for another

place (pp. 138–145 _infra_). But I must give the reader a warning.

Concerning “William Shakespeare” as a “_nom de plume_,” or pseudonym, Mr.

Greenwood says, “Some, indeed, would see through it, and roundly accuse

the player of putting forth the works of others as his own. To such he

would be a ‘Poet-Ape,’ or ‘an upstart crow’ (Shake-scene) ‘beautified

with the feathers of other writers.’” {21a}

If this be true, if “some would see through” (Mr. Greenwood, apparently,

means _did_ “see through”) the “_nom de plume_,” the case of the

Anti-Willians is promising. But, in this matter, Mr. Greenwood _se

trompe_. Neither Greene nor Jonson accused “Shake-scene” or “Poet-Ape”

of “putting forth the works of others as his own.” That is quite

certain, as far as the scorns of Jonson and Greene have reached us. (See

pp. 141–145 _infra_.)

If an actor, obviously incapable of wit and poetry, were credited with

the plays, the keenest curiosity would arise in “the profession,” and

among rival playwrights who envied the wealth and “glory” of the actors.

This curiosity, prompting the wits and players to watch and “shadow”

Will, would, to put it mildly, most seriously imperil the secret of the

concealed author who had the folly to sign himself “William Shakespeare.”

Human nature could not rest under such a provocation as the “concealed

poet” offered.

This is so obvious that had one desired to prove Bacon or the Unknown to

be the concealed author, one must have credited his mask, Will, with

abundance of wit and fancy, and, as for learning—with about as much as he

probably possessed. But the Baconians make him an illiterate yokel, and

we have quoted Mr. Greenwood’s estimate of the young Warwickshire

provincial.

We all have our personal equations in the way of belief. That the plot

of the “_nom de plume_” should have evaded discovery for a week, if the

actor were the untutored countryman of the hypotheses, is to me, for one,

absolutely incredible. A “concealed poet” looking about for a “_nom de

plume_” and a mask behind which he could be hidden, would not have

selected the name, or the nearest possible approach to the name, of an

ignorant unread actor. As he was never suspected of not being the author

of the plays and poems, Will cannot have been a country ignoramus,

manifestly incapable of poetry, wit, and such learning as the plays

exhibit. Every one must judge for himself. Mr. Greenwood fervently

believes in what I disbelieve. {22a}

“Very few Englishmen . . . in Elizabethan times, concerned themselves at

all, or cared one brass farthing, about the authorship of plays . . . ”

says Mr. Greenwood.

Very few care now. They know the actors’ names: in vain, as a rule, do I

ask playgoers for the name of the author of their entertainment. But in

Elizabeth’s time the few who cared were apt to care very much, and they

would inquire intensely when the Stratford actor, a bookless, untaught

man, was announced as the author of plays which were among the most

popular of their day. The seekers never found any other author. They

left no hint that they suspected the existence of any other author.

Hence I venture to infer that Will seemed to them no unread rustic, but a

fellow of infinite fancy,—no scholar to be sure, but very capable of

writing the pieces which he fathered.

They may all have been mistaken. Nobody can prove that Heywood and Ben

Jonson, and the actors of the Company, were not mistaken. But certain it

is that they thought the Will whom they knew capable of the works which

were attributed to him. Therefore he cannot possibly have been the man

who could not write, of the more impulsive Baconians; or the bookless,

and probably all but Latinless, man of Mr. Greenwood’s theory. The

positions already seem to me to be untenable.

II

THE “SILENCE” ABOUT SHAKESPEARE

BEFORE proceeding further to examine Mr. Greenwood’s book, and the

Baconian theories, with the careful attention which they deserve, we must

clear the ground by explaining two points which appear to puzzle

Baconians, though, to be sure, they have their own solutions of the

problems.

The first question is: Why, considering that Shakespeare, by the consent

of the learned of most of the polite foreign nations, was one of the

world’s very greatest poets, have we received so few and such brief

notices of him from the pens of his contemporaries?

“It is wonderful,” exclaims Mr. Crouch-Batchelor, “that hundreds of

persons should not have left records of him. {27a} We know nearly as

much about the most insignificant writer of the period as we know of him,

but fifty times more about most of his contemporaries. It is senseless

to try to account for this otherwise than by recognising that the man was

not the author.”

Mr. Crouch-Batchelor is too innocent. He sees the sixteenth century in

the colours of the twentieth. We know nothing, except a few dates of

birth, death, entrance at school, College, the Inns of Court, and so

forth, concerning several of Shakespeare’s illustrious contemporaries and

successors in the art of dramatic poetry. The Baconians do not quite

understand, or, at least, keep steadily before their minds, one immense

difference between the Elizabethan age and later times. In 1590–1630,

there was no public excitement about the characters, personalities, and

anecdotage of merely literary men, poets, and playwrights, who held no

position in public affairs, as Spenser did; or in Court, Society, and

War, as Sidney did; who did not write about their own feuds and

friendships, like Greene and Nash; who did not expand into prefaces and

reminiscences, and satires, like Ben Jonson; who never killed anybody, as

Ben did; nor were killed, like Marlowe; nor were involved, like him, in

charges of atheism, and so forth; nor imprisoned with every chance of

having their ears and noses slit, like Marston. Consequently, silence

and night obscure the lives and personalities of Kyd, Chapman, Beaumont,

Fletcher, Dekker, Webster, and several others, as night and silence hide

Shakespeare from our view.

He was popular on the stage; some of his plays were circulated separately

in cheap and very perishable quartos. No collected edition of his plays

appeared during his life; without that he could not be studied, and

recognised in his greatness. He withdrew to the country and died. There

was no enthusiastic curiosity about him; nobody Boswellised any

playwright of his time. The Folio of 1623 gave the first opportunity of

studying him as alone he can be studied. The Civil Wars and the Reign of

the Saints distracted men’s minds and depressed or destroyed the Stage.

Sir William Davenant, a boy when Shakespeare died, used to see the actor

at his father’s inn at Oxford, was interested in him, and cherished the

embers of the drama, which were fading before the theatres were closed.

Davenant collected what he could in the way of information from old

people of the stage; he told Shakespearean anecdotes in conversation; a

few reached the late day when uncritical inquiries began, say 1680–90 at

earliest. The memories of ancient people of the theatre and clerks and

sextons at Stratford were ransacked, to very little purpose.

As these things were so, how can we expect biographical materials about

Shakespeare? As to the man, as to how his character impressed

contemporaries, we have but the current epithets: “friendly,” “gentle,”

and “sweet,” the praise of his worth by two of the actors in his company

(published in 1623), and the brief prose note of Ben Jonson,—this is more

than we have for the then so widely admired Beaumont, Ben Jonson’s

friend, or Chapman, or the adored Fletcher. “Into the dark go one and

all,” Shakespeare and the others. To be puzzled by and found theories on

the silence about Shakespeare is to show an innocence very odd in learned

disputants.

The Baconians, as usual, make a puzzle and a mystery out of their own

misappreciation of the literary and social conditions of Shakespeare’s

time. That world could not possibly appreciate his works as we do; the

world, till 1623, possessed only a portion of his plays in cheap

pamphlets, in several of these his text was mangled and in places

unintelligible. And in not a single instance were anecdotes and

biographical traits of playwrights recorded, except when the men

published matter about themselves, or when they became notorious in some

way unconnected with their literary works. Drummond, in Scotland, made

brief notes of Ben Jonson’s talk; Shakespeare he never met.

That age was not widely and enthusiastically appreciative of literary

merit in playwrights who were merely dramatists, and in no other way

notorious or eminent. Mr. Greenwood justly says “the contemporary

eulogies of the poet afford proof that there were some cultured critics

of that day of sufficient taste and acumen to recognise, or partly

recognise, his excellence . . . ” {30a} (Here I omit some words,

presently to be restored to the text.) From such critics the poet

received such applause as has reached us. We also know that the plays

were popular; but the audiences have not rushed to pen and ink to record

their satisfaction. With them, as with all audiences, the actors and the

_spectacle_, much more than the “cackle,” were the attractions. When Dr.

Ingleby says that “the bard of our admiration was unknown to the men of

that age,” he uses hyperbole, and means, I presume, that he was unknown,

as all authors are, to the great majority; and that those who knew him in

part made no modern fuss about him. {31a}

The second puzzle is,—Why did Shakespeare, conscious of his great powers,

never secure for his collected plays the permanence of print and

publication? We cannot be sure that he and his company, in fact, did not

provide publishers with the copy for the better Quartos or pamphlets of

separate plays, as Mr. Pollard argues on good grounds that they sometimes

did. {31b} For the rest, no dramatic author edited a complete edition of

his works before Ben Jonson, a scholarly man, set the example in the year

of Shakespeare’s, and of Beaumont’s death (1616). Neither Beaumont nor

Fletcher collected and published their works for the Stage. The idea was

unheard of before Jonson set the example, and much of his work lay

unprinted till years after his death. We must remember the conditions of

play-writing in Shakespeare’s time.

There were then many poets of no mean merit, all capable of admirable

verse on occasion; and in various degrees possessed of the lofty,

vigorous, and vivid style of that great age. The theatre, and writing

for the theatre, afforded to many men of talent a means of livelihood

analogous to that offered by journalism among ourselves. They were apt

to work collectively, several hands hurrying out a single play; and in

twos or threes, or fours or fives, they often collaborated.

As a general rule a play when finished was sold by the author or authors

to a company of players, or to a speculator like the notorious Philip

Henslowe, and the new owners, “the grand possessors,” were usually averse

to the publication of the work, lest other companies might act it. The

plays were primarily written to be acted. The company in possession

could have the play altered as they pleased by a literary man in their

employment.

To follow Mr. Greenwood’s summary of the situation “it would seem that an

author could restrain any person from publishing his manuscript, or could

bring an action against him for so doing, so long as he had not disposed

of his right to it; and that the publisher could prevent any other

publisher from issuing the work. At the same time it is clear that the

law was frequently violated . . . whether because of the difficulty of

enforcing it, or through the supineness of authors; and that in

consequence authors were frequently defrauded by surreptitious copies of

their works being issued by piratical publishers.” {33a}

It may appear that to “authors” we should, in the case of plays, add

“owners,” such as theatrical companies, for no case is cited in which

such a company brings an action against the publisher of a play which

they own. The two players of Shakespeare’s company who sign the preface

to the first edition of his collected plays (1623, “The First Folio”)

complain that “divers stolen and surreptitious copies” of single plays

have been put forth, “maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of

injurious impostors.” They speak as if they were unable to prevent, or

had not the energy to prevent, these frauds. In the accounts of the

aforesaid Henslowe, we find him paying forty shillings to a printer to

stop or “stay” the printing of a play, _Patient Grizel_, by three of his

hacks.

We perhaps come across an effort of the company to prevent or delay the

publication of _The Merchant of Venice_, on July 17, 1598, in the

_Stationers’ Register_. James Robertes, and all other printers, are

forbidden to print the book without previous permission from the Lord

Chamberlain, the protector of Will Shakespeare’s company. Two years

passed before Robertes issued the book. {34a} As is well known, Heywood,

a most prolific playwright, boasts that he never made a double sale of

his pieces to the players and the press. Others occasionally did, which

Heywood clearly thought less than honest.

As an author who was also an actor, and a shareholder in his company,

Will’s interests were the same as theirs. It is therefore curious that

some of his pieces were early printed, in quartos, from very good copies;

while others appeared in very bad copies, clearly surreptitious.

Probably the company gave a good MS. copy, sometimes, to a printer who

offered satisfactory terms, after the gloss of novelty was off the acted

play. {34b} In any case, we see that the custom and interests of the

owners of manuscript plays ran contrary to their early publication. In

1619 even Ben Jonson, who loved publication, told Drummond that half of

his comedies were still unprinted.

These times were not as our own, and must not be judged by ours. Whoever

wrote the plays, the actor, or Bacon, or the Man in the Moon; whoever

legally owned the manuscripts, was equally incurious and negligent about

the preservation of a correct text. As we shall see later, while

Baconians urge without any evidence that Bacon himself edited, or gave to

Ben Jonson the duty of editing, the first collected edition (1623), the

work has been done in an indescribably negligent and reckless manner,

and, as Mr. Greenwood repeatedly states, the edition, in his opinion,

contains at least two plays not by his “Shakespeare”—that “concealed

poet”—and masses of “non-Shakespearean” work.

How this could happen, if Bacon (as on one hypothesis) either revised the

plays himself, or entrusted the task to so strict an Editor as Ben

Jonson, I cannot imagine. This is also one of the difficulties in Mr.

Greenwood’s theory. Thus we cannot argue, “if the actor were the author,

he must have been conscious of his great powers. Therefore the actor

cannot have been the author, for the actor wholly neglected to collect

his printed and to print his manuscript works.”

This argument is equally potent against the authorship of the plays by

Bacon. He, too, left the manuscripts unpublished till 1623. “But he

could not avow his authorship,” cry Baconians, giving various exquisite

reasons. Indeed, if Bacon were the author, he might not care to divulge

his long association with “a cry of players,” and a man like Will of

Stratford. But he had no occasion to avow it. He had merely to suggest

to the players, through any safe channel, that they should collect and

publish the works of their old friend Will Shakspere.

Thus indifferent was the main author of the plays, whether he were actor

or statesman; and the actor, at least, is not to blame for the chaos of

the first collected edition, made while he was in his grave, and while

Bacon was busy in revising and superintending Latin translations of his

works on scientific subjects.

We now understand why there are so few contemporary records of Shakspere

the man; and see that the neglect of his texts was extreme, whether or

not he were the author. The neglect was characteristic of the

playwrights of his own and the next generation. In those days it was no

marvel; few cared. Nine years passed before a second edition of the

collected plays appeared: thirty-two years went by before a third edition

was issued—years of war and tumult, yet they saw the posthumous

publication of the collected plays of Beaumont and Fletcher.

There remains one more mystery connected with publication. When the

first collected edition of the plays appeared, it purported to contain

“All His Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies.” According to the postulate

of the Baconians it was edited by the Author, or by Jonson acting for

him. It contains several plays which, according to many critics, are not

the author’s. This, if true, is mysterious, and so is the fact that a

few plays were published, as by Shakespeare, in the lifetime both of the

actor and of Bacon; plays which neither acknowledged for his own, for we

hear of no remonstrance from—whoever “William Shakespeare” was. It is

impossible for me to say why there was no remonstrance.

Suppose that Will merely supplied Bacon’s plays, under his own name, with

a slight difference in spelling, to his company. It was as much his

interest, in that case, to protest when Bacon’s pen-name was taken in

vain, as if he had spelled his own surname with an _a_ in the second

syllable.

There is another instance which Mr. Greenwood discusses twice. {37a} In

1599 Jaggard published “_The Passionate Pilgrim_; W. Shakespeare.” Out

of twenty poems, five only were by W. S. In 1612, Jaggard added two

poems by Tom Heywood, retaining W. Shakespeare’s name as sole author.

“Heywood protested” in print, “and stated that _Shakespeare_ was

offended, and,” says Mr. Greenwood, “very probably he was so; but as he

was, so I conceive, ‘a concealed poet,’ writing under a _nom de plume_,

he seems to have only made known his annoyance through the medium of

Heywood.”

If so, Heywood knew who the concealed poet was. Turning to pp. 348, 349,

we find Mr. Greenwood repeating the same story, with this addition, that

the author of the poems published by Jaggard, “to do himself right, hath

since published them in his own name.” That is, W. Shakespeare has since

published under his own name such pieces of _The Passionate Pilgrim_ as

are his own. “The author, I know,” adds Heywood, “was much offended with

Mr. Jaggard that (altogether unknown to him) presumed to make so bold

with his name.”

Why was the author so slack when Jaggard, in 1599, published W. S.’s

poems with others _not_ by W. S.?

How can anyone explain, by any theory? It was as open to him in 1599 as

in 1612 to publish his own pieces under his own name, or pen-name.

“Here we observe,” says Mr. Greenwood, {38a} “that Heywood does nothing

to identify ‘the author with the player.’” This is, we shall see, the

eternal argument. Why should Heywood, speaking of W. Shakespeare,

explain what all the world knew? There was no other W. Shakespeare (with

or without the _e_ and _a_) but one, the actor, in the world of letters

of Elizabeth and James. Who the author was Heywood himself has told us,

elsewhere: the author was—Will!

But why Shakespeare was so indifferent to the use of his name, or, when

he was moved, acted so mildly, it is not for me or anyone to explain. We

do not know the nature of the circumstances in detail; we do not know

that the poet saw hopes of stopping the sale of the works falsely

attributed to him. I do not even feel certain that he had not a finger

in some of them. Knowing so little, a more soaring wit than mine might

fly to the explanation that “Shakespeare” was the “_nom de plume_” of

Bacon or his unknown equivalent, and that he preferred to “let sleeping

dogs lie,” or, as Mr. Greenwood might quote the Latin tag, said _ne

moveas Camarinam_.

III

THAT IMPOSSIBLE HE—THE SCHOOLING OF SHAKESPEARE

THE banner-cry of the Baconians is the word “Impossible!” It is

impossible that the actor from Stratford (as they think of him, a

bookless, untutored lad, speaking in _patois_) should have possessed the

wide, deep, and accurate scholarship displayed by the author of the plays

and poems. It is impossible that at the little Free School of Stratford

(if he attended it), he should have gained his wide knowledge of the

literatures of Greece and Rome. To these arguments, the orthodox

Stratfordian is apt to reply, that he finds in the plays and poems plenty

of inaccurate general information on classical subjects, information in

which the whole literature of England then abounded. He also finds in

the plays some knowledge of certain Latin authors, which cannot be proved

to have been translated at the date when Shakespeare drew on them. How

much Latin Shakespeare knew, in our opinion, will presently be explained.

But, in reply to the Baconians and the Anti-Willians, we must say that

while the author of the plays had some lore which scholars also

possessed, he did not use his knowledge like a scholar. We do not see

how a scholar could make, as the scansion of his blank verse proves that

the author did make, the second syllable of the name of Posthumus, in

_Cymbeline_, _long_. He must have read a famous line in Horace thus,

“_Eheu fugaces Posthoome_, _Posthoome_!”

which could scarce ’scape whipping, even at Stratford Free School. In

the same way he makes the penultimate syllable of Andronicus short,

equally impossible.

Mr. Greenwood, we shall see, denies to him _Titus Andronicus_, but also

appears to credit it to him, as one of the older plays which he “revised,

improved, and dressed,” {44a} and _that_ is taken to have been all his

“authorship” in several cases. A scholar would have corrected, not

accepted, false quantities. In other cases, as when Greeks and Trojans

cite Plato and Aristotle in _Troilus and Cressida_, while Plato and

Aristotle lived more than a thousand years after the latest conceivable

date of the siege of Troy, I cannot possibly suppose that a scholar would

have permitted to himself the freak, any more than that in _The Winter’s

Tale_ he should have borrowed from an earlier novel the absurdity of

calling Delphi “Delphos” (a non-existent word), of confusing “Delphos”

with Delos, and placing the Delphian Oracle in an island. In the same

play the author, quite needlessly, makes the artist Giulio Romano

(1492–1546) contemporary with the flourishing age of the oracle of the

Pythian Apollo. This, at least, would not be ignorance.

We have, I think, sufficient testimony to Ben’s inability to refrain from

gibes at Shakspere’s want of scholarship. Rowe, who had traditions of

Davenant’s, tells how, in conversation with Suckling, Davenant, Endymion

Porter, and Hales of Eton, Ben harped on Will’s want of learning; and how

Hales snubbed him. Indeed, Ben could have made mirth enough out of _The

Winter’s Tale_. For, granting to Mr. Greenwood {45a} that “the mention

of Delphos suggests the Bohemia of a much earlier date, and under the

reign of Ottocar (1255–78) Bohemia extended from the Adriatic to the

shores of the Baltic,” that only makes matters far worse. “Delphos”

never was a place-name; there was no oracle on the isle of “Delphos”;

there were no Oracles in 1255–78 (A.D.); and Perdita, who could have sat

for her portrait to Giulio Romano, was contemporary with an Oracle at

_Delphos_, but not with Ottocar.

There never was so mad a mixture, not even in _Ivanhoe_; not even in

_Kenilworth_. Scott erred deliberately, as he says in his prefaces; but

Will took the insular oracle of Delphos from Greene, inserted Giulio

Romano “for his personal diversion,” never heard of Ottocar (no more than

I), and made a delightful congeries of errors in gaiety of heart. Nobody

shall convince me that Francis Bacon was so charmingly irresponsible; but

I cannot speak so confidently of Mr. Greenwood’s Great Unknown, a severe

scholar, but perhaps a frisky soul. There was no region called Bohemia

when the Delphic oracle was in vigour;—this apology (apparently contrived

by Sir Edward Sullivan) is the most comic of erudite reflections.

Some cruel critic has censured the lovely speech of Perdita, concerning

the flowers which Proserpine let fall, when she was carried off by Dis.

How could she, brought up in the hut of a Bohemian shepherd, know

anything of the Rape of Proserpine? Why not, as she lived in the days of

the Delphic Oracle—and Giulio Romano, and of printed ballads.

It is impossible, Baconians cry, that the rabbit-stealer, brought up

among the Audreys and Jaquenettas of Warwickshire, should have created

the noble and witty ladies of the Court; and known the style of his

Armado; and understood how dukes and kings talk among themselves—usually

in blank verse, it appears.

It is impossible that the home-keeping yokel should have heard of the

“obscure” (_sic_!) Court of Navarre; and known that at Venice there was a

place called the Rialto, and a “common ferry” called “the tranect.” It

is impossible that he should have had “an intimate knowledge of the

castle of Elsinore,” though an English _troupe_ of actors visited Denmark

in 1587. To Will all this knowledge was _impossible_; for these and many

more exquisite reasons the yokel’s authorship of the plays is a physical

impossibility. But scholars neither invent nor tolerate such strange

liberties with time and place, with history, geography, and common sense.

Will Shakspere either did not know what was right, or, more probably, did

not care, and supposed, like Fielding in the old anecdote, that the

audience “would not find it out.” How could a scholar do any of these

things? He was as incapable of them as Ben Jonson. Such sins no scholar

is inclined to; they have, for him, no temptations.

[Picture: Facsimile of the Autograph Signature “By me William

Shakspeare.” From one of the Three Sheets of his Will, dated March 25,

1616. (From Sir Sidney Lee’s Shakespeare’s Life and Work. By permission

of Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co.)]

[Picture: Facsimile of Mark-Signature of John Shakespeare, the Poet’s

Father. From a Deed of Conveyance, dated January 26, 1596]

[Picture: Facsimile of Mark-Signature of Judith Shakespeare, the Poet’s

Second Daughter, afterwards Mrs. Thomas Quiney]

As to Shakspere’s schooling, the Baconians point at the current ignorance

of Stratford-on-Avon, where many topping burgesses, even aldermen, “made

their marks,” in place of signing their names to documents.

Shakespeare’s father, wife, and daughter “made their marks,” in place of

signing. So did Lady Jane Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Huntly, when

she married the cultivated Earl of Bothwell (1566).

There is no evidence, from a roll of schoolboys at Stratford Free Grammar

School, about 1564–77, that any given boy attended it; for no roll

exists. Consequently there is no evidence that Will was a pupil.

“In the Appendix to Malone’s _Life of Shakespeare_ will be found two

Latin letters, written by alumni of Stratford School contemporary with

Shakespeare,” says Mr. Collins. {48a} But though the writers were

Stratford boys contemporary with Shakespeare, in later life his

associates, as there is no roll of pupils’ names how do we know, the

Baconians may ask, that these men were educated at Stratford School? Why

not at Winchester, Eton, St. Paul’s, or anywhere? Need one reply?

Mr. Collins goes on, in his simple confiding way, to state that “one

letter is by Abraham Sturley, afterwards an alderman of Stratford . . . ”

Pursuing the facts, we find that Sturley wrote in Latin to “Richard

Quiney, Shakespeare’s friend,” who, if he could read Sturley’s letter,

could read Latin. Then _young_ Richard Quiney, apparently aged eleven,

wrote in Latin to his father. If young Richard Quiney be the son of

Shakespeare’s friend, Richard Quiney, then, of course, his Latin at the

age of eleven would only prove that, if he were a schoolboy at Stratford,

_one_ Stratford boy could write Latin in the generation following that of

Shakespeare. Thus may reason the Baconians.

Perhaps, however, we may say that if Stratford boys contemporary with

Shakspere, in his own rank and known to him, learned Latin, which they

retained in manhood, Shakspere, if he went to school with them, may have

done as much.

Concerning the school, a Free Grammar School, we know that during

Shakespeare’s boyhood the Mastership was not disdained by Walter Roche,

perhaps a Fellow of what was then the most progressive College in

learning of those at Oxford, namely, Corpus Christi. That Shakespeare

could have been his pupil is uncertain; the dates are rather difficult.

I think it probable that he was not, and we do not know the

qualifications of the two or three succeeding Masters.

As to the methods of teaching and the books read at Grammar Schools,

abundance of information has been collected. We know what the use was in

one very good school, Ipswich, from 1528; in another in 1611; but as we

do not possess any special information about Stratford School, Mr.

Greenwood opposes the admission of evidence from other academies. A man

might think that, however much the quality of the teaching varied in

various free schools, the nominal curriculum would be fairly uniform.

As to the teacher, a good endowment would be apt to attract a capable

man. What was the endowment of Stratford School? It was derived from

the bequest of Thomas Jolyffe (died 1482), a bequest of lands in

Stratford and Dodwell, and before the Reformation the Brethren of the

Guild were “to find a priest fit and able in knowledge to teach grammar

freely to all scholars coming to him, taking nothing for their teaching

. . . ” “The Founder’s liberal endowment made it possible to secure an

income for the Master by deed. Under the Reformation, Somerset’s

Commission found that the School Master had £10 yearly by patent; the

school was well conducted, and was not confiscated.” {50a}

Baconians can compare the yearly £20 (the salary in 1570–6, which then

went much further than it does now) with the incomes of other masters of

Grammar Schools, and thereby find out if the Head-Master was very cheap.

Mr. Elton (who knew his subject intimately) calls the provision

“liberal.” The Head-Master of Westminster had £20 and a house.

As to the method of teaching, it was colloquial; questions were asked and

answered in Latin. This method, according to Dr. Rouse of Perse School,

brings boys on much more rapidly than does our current fashion, as may

readily be imagined; but experts vary in opinion. The method, I

conceive, should give a pupil a vocabulary. Lilly’s Latin Grammar was

universally used, and was learned by rote, as by George Borrow, in the

last century. See _Lavengro_ for details. Conversation books,

_Sententiæ Pueriles_, were in use; with easy books, such as Corderius’s

_Colloquia_, and so on, for boys were taught to _speak_ Latin, the common

language of the educated in Europe. Waifs of the Armada, Spaniards

wrecked on the Irish coast, met “a savage who knew Latin,” and thus could

converse with him. The Eclogues of Mantuanus, a Latin poet of the

Renaissance (the “Old Mantuan” of _Love’s Labour’s Lost_), were used,

with Erasmus’s _Colloquia_, and, says Mr. Collins, “such books as Ovid’s

Metamorphoses” (and other works of his), “the Æneid, selected comedies of

Terence and Plautus, and portions of Cæsar, Sallust, Cicero, and Livy.”

“Pro-di-gi-ous!” exclaims Mr. Greenwood, {51a} referring to what Mr.

Collins says Will had read at school. But precocious Latinity was not

thought “prodigious” in an age when nothing but Latin was taught to

boys—not even cricket. Nor is it to be supposed that every boy read in

all of these authors, still less read all of their works, but these were

the works of which portions were read. It is not prodigious. I myself,

according to my class-master, was “a bad and careless little boy” at

thirteen, incurably idle, but I well remember reading in Ovid and Cæsar,

and Sallust, while the rest of my time was devoted to the total neglect

of the mathematics, English “as she was taught,” History, and whatsoever

else was expected from me. Shakespeare’s time was not thus frittered

away; Latin was all he learned (if he went to school), and, as he was (on

my theory) a very clever, imaginative kind of boy, I can conceive that he

was intensely interested in the stories told by Ovid, and in Catiline’s

Conspiracy (thrilling, if you know your Sallust); and if his interest

were once aroused, he would make rapid progress. My own early hatred of

Greek was hissing and malignant, but as soon as I opened Homer, all was

changed. One was intensely interested!

Mr. Greenwood will not, in the matter of books, go beyond Mr.

Halliwell-Phillipps, {52a} “Lilly’s Grammar, and a few classical works

chained to the desks of the free schools.” Mr. Collins himself gives but

“a few classical books,” of which _portions_ were read. The chains were

in all the free schools, if Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps is right. The

chains, if authentic, do not count as objections.

Here it must be noted that Mr. Greenwood’s opinion of Will’s knowledge

and attainments is not easily to be ascertained with precision. He sees,

of course, that the pretension of the extreme Baconians—Will could not

even write his name—is absurd. If he could not write, he could not pass

as the author. Mr. Greenwood “fears that the arguments” (of a most

extreme Baconian) “would drive many wandering sheep back to the

Stratfordian fold.” {52b}

He has therefore to find a _via media_, to present, as the pseudo-author,

a Will who possessed neither books nor manuscripts when he made his

Testament; a rustic, bookless Will, speaking a patois, who could none the

less pass himself off as the author. So “I think it highly probable,”

says Mr. Greenwood, “that he attended the Grammar School at Stratford for

four or five years, and that, later in life, after some years in London,

he was probably able to ‘bumbast out a line,’ and perhaps to pose as

‘Poet-Ape who would be thought our chief.’” {53a} Again, “He had had but

little schooling; he had ‘small Latin and less Greek’; but he was a good

_Johannes Factotum_, he could arrange a scene, and, when necessary,

‘bumbast out a blank verse.’” {53b}

But this is almost to abandon Mr. Greenwood’s case. Will appears to me

to be now perilously near acceptance as Greene’s “Shake-scene,” who was a

formidable rival to Greene’s three professional playwrights: and quite as

near to Ben’s Poet-Ape “that would be thought our chief,” who began by

re-making old plays; then won “some little wealth and credit on the

scene,” who had his “works” printed (for Ben expects them to reach

posterity), and whom Ben accused of plagiarism from himself and his

contemporaries. But this Shake-scene, this Poet-Ape, is merely our Will

Shakespeare as described by bitterly jealous and envious rivals. Where

are now the “works” of “Poet-Ape” if they are not the works of

Shakespeare which Ben so nobly applauded later, if they are not in the

blank verse of Greene’s Shake-scene? “Shakespeare’s plays” we call them.

_When_ was it “necessary” for the “Stratford rustic” to “bumbast out a

blank verse”? Where are the blank verses which he bumbasted out? For

what purposes were they bumbasted? By 1592 “Shake-scene” was ambitious,

and thought his blank verse as good as the best that Greene’s friends,

including Marlowe, could write. He had plenty of time to practise before

the date when, as Ben wrote, “he would be thought our chief.” He would

not cease to do that in which he conceived himself to excel; to write for

the stage.

When once Mr. Greenwood deems it “highly probable” that Will had four or

five years of education at a Latin school, Will has as much of

“grounding” in Latin, I think, as would account for all the knowledge of

the Roman tongue which he displays. His amount of teaching at school

would carry and tempt even a boy who was merely clever, and loved to read

romantic tales and comic plays, into Ovid and Plautus—English books being

to him not very accessible.

Here I may speak from my own memories, for though utterly idle where set

school tasks were concerned, I tried very early to worry the sense out of

Aristophanes—because he was said to contain good reading.

To this amount of taste and curiosity, nowise unexampled in an ordinary

clever boy, add _Genius_, and I feel no difficulty as to Will’s

“learning,” such as, at best, it was. “The Stratfordian,” says Mr.

Greenwood, “will ingeminate ‘Genius! Genius!’” {55a} I _do_ say

“Genius,” and stand by it. The ordinary clever boy, in the supposed

circumstances, could read and admire his Ovid (though Shakespeare used

cribs also), the man of genius could write _Venus and Adonis_.

Had I to maintain the Baconian hypothesis, I would not weigh heavily on

bookless Will’s rusticity and patois. Accepting Ben Jonson’s account of

his “excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein

he flowed with that facility . . . ,” accepting the tradition of his

lively wit; admitting that he had some Latin and literature, I would find

in him a sufficiently plausible mask for that immense Unknown with a

strange taste for furbishing up older plays. I would merely deny to Will

his _genius_, and hand _that_ over to Bacon—or Bungay. Believe me, Mr.

Greenwood, this is your easiest way!—perhaps this _is_ your way?—the plot

of the unscrupulous Will, and of your astute Bungay, might thus more

conceivably escape detection from the pack of envious playwrights.

According to “all tradition,” says Mr. Greenwood, Shakespeare was taken

from school at the age of thirteen. Those late long-descended traditions

of Shakespeare’s youth are of little value as evidence; but, if it

pleases Mr. Greenwood, I will, for the sake of argument, accept the whole

of them. Assuredly I shall not arbitrarily choose among the traditions:

all depends on the genealogical steps by which they reach us, as far as

these can be discovered. {56a}

According to the tattle of Aubrey the antiquary, publishing in 1680, an

opinion concerning Shakspere’s education reached him. It came thus;

there had been an actor in Shakspere’s company, one Phillips, who, dying

in 1605, left to Shakspere the usual thirty-shilling piece of gold; and

the same “to my servant, Christopher Beeston.” Christopher’s son,

William, in 1640, became deputy to Davenant in the management of “the

King’s and Queen’s Young Company”, and through Beeston, according to

Aubrey, Davenant learned; through Beeston Aubrey learned, that

Shakespeare “understood Latin pretty well, for he had been in his younger

days a school-master in the country.” Aubrey writes that “old Mr.

Beeston, whom Mr. Dryden calls ‘the chronicle of the stage,’” died in

1682. {56b}

This is a fair example of the genealogy of the traditions. Phillips, a

friend of Shakspere, dies in 1605, leaving a servant, Christopher Beeston

(he, too, was a versifier), whose son, William, dies in 1682; he is “the

chronicle of the stage.” Through him Davenant gets the story, through

him Aubrey gets the story, that Shakspere “knew Latin pretty well,” and

had been a rural dominie. Mr. Greenwood {57a} devotes much space to

disparaging Aubrey (and I do not think him a scientific authority, _moult

s’en faut_), but Mr. Greenwood here says not a word as to the steps in

the descent of the tradition. He frequently repeats himself, thereby

forcing me to more iteration than I like. He had already disparaged

Aubrey in note I to p. 105, but there he approached so closely to

historical method as to say that “Aubrey quotes Beeston, a

seventeenth-century actor, as his authority.” On p. 209 he dismisses the

anecdote (which does not suit his book) as “a mere myth.” “_He_ knows,

_he_ knows” which traditions are mythical, and which possess a certain

historical value.

My own opinion is that Shakspere did “know Latin pretty well,” and was no

_scholar_, as his contemporaries reckoned scholarship. He left school,

if tradition speak true, by a year later than the age, twelve, when Bacon

went to Cambridge. Will, a clever kind of lad (on my theory), left

school at an age when some other clever lads became freshmen. Why not?

Gilbert Burnet (of whom you may have heard as Bishop of Salisbury under

William III) took his degree at the age of fourteen.

Taking Shakspere as an extremely quick, imaginative boy, with nothing to

learn but Latin, and by the readiest road, the colloquial, I conceive him

to have discovered that, in Ovid especially, were to be found the most

wonderful and delightful stories, and poetry which could not but please

his “green unknowing youth.” In the years before he left Stratford, and

after he left school (1577–87?), I can easily suppose that he was not

_always_ butchering calves, poaching, and making love; and that, if he

could get books in no other way, this graceless fellow might be detected

on a summer evening, knitting his brows over the stories and jests of the

chained Ovid and Plautus on his old schoolroom desk. _Moi qui parle_, I

am no genius; but stories, romance, and humour would certainly have

dragged me back to the old desks—if better might not be, and why not

Shakspere? Put yourself in his place, if you have ever been a lad, and

if, as a lad, you liked to steal away into the world of romance, into

fairyland.

If Will wrote the plays, he (and indeed whoever wrote the plays) was a

marvel of genius. But I am not here claiming for him genius, but merely

stating my opinion that if he were fond of stories and romance, had no

English books of poetry and romance, and had acquired as much power of

reading Latin as a lively, curious boy could easily gain in four years of

exclusively Latin education, he might continue his studies as he pleased,

yet be, so far, no prodigy.

I am contemplating Will in the conditions on which the Baconians insist;

if they will indeed let us assume that for a few years he was at a Latin

school. I credit the graceless loon with the curiosity, the prompt

acquisitiveness, the love of poetry and romance, which the author of the

plays must have possessed in youth. “Tradition says nothing of all

that,” the Baconian answers, and he may now, if he likes, turn to my

reply in _The Traditional Shakespeare_. {59a} Meanwhile, how can you

expect old clerks and sextons, a century after date, in a place where

literature was _not_ of supreme interest, to retain a tradition that Will

used to read sometimes (if he did), in circumstances of privacy? As far

as I am able to judge, had I been a boy at Stratford school for four

years, had been taught nothing but Latin, and had little or no access to

English books of poetry and romance, I should have acquired about the

same amount of Latin as I suppose Shakspere to have possessed. Yet I

could scarcely, like him, have made the second syllable in “Posthumus”

long! Sir Walter Scott, however, was guilty of similar false quantities:

he and Shakspere were about equally scholarly.

I suppose, then, that Shakspere’s “small Latin” (as Jonson called it)

enabled him to read in the works of the Roman clerks; to read sufficient

for his uses. As a fact, he made use of English translations, and also

of Latin texts. Scholars like Bacon do not use bad translations of easy

Latin authors. If Bacon wanted Plutarch, he went to Plutarch in Greek,

not to an English translation of a French translation of a Latin

translation.

Some works of Shakespeare, the _Lucrece_, for example, and _The Comedy of

Errors_ (if he were not working over an earlier canvas from a more

learned hand), and other passages, show knowledge of Latin texts which in

his day had not appeared in published translations, or had not been

translated at all as far as we know. In my opinion Will had Latin enough

to puzzle out the sense of the Latin, never difficult, for himself. He

could also “get a construe,” when in London, or help in reading, from a

more academic acquaintance: or buy a construe at no high ransom from some

poor scholar. No contemporary calls him scholarly; the generation of men

who were small boys when he died held him for no scholar. The current

English literature of his day was saturated with every kind of classical

information; its readers, even if Latinless, knew, or might know a world

of lore with which the modern man is seldom acquainted. The ignorant

Baconian marvels: the classically educated Baconian who is not familiar

with Elizabethan literature is amazed. Really there is nothing worthy of

their wonder.

Does any contemporary literary allusion to Shakespeare call him

“_learned_”? He is “sweet,” “honey-tongued,” “mellifluous,” and so

forth, but I ask for any contemporary who flattered him with the

compliment of “learned.” What Ben Jonson thought of his learning (but

Ben’s standard was very high), what Milton and Fuller, boys of eight when

he died, thought of his learning, we know. They thought him “Fancy’s

child” (Milton) and with no claims to scholarship (Fuller), with “small

Latin and less Greek” (Jonson). They speak of Shakespeare the author and

actor; not yet had any man divided the persons.

Elizabethan and Jacobean scholarly poets were widely read in the

classics. They were not usually, however, scholars in the same sense as

our modern scholarly poets and men of letters; such as Mr. Swinburne

among the dead, and Mr. Mackail and Sir Gilbert Murray—if I may be

pardoned for mentioning contemporary names. But Elizabethan scholarly

poets, and Milton, never regarded Shakespeare as learned. Perhaps few

modern men of letters who are scholars differ from them. The opinion of

Mr. Collins is to be discussed presently, but even he thought

Shakespeare’s scholarship “inexact,” as we shall see.

I conceive that Shakspere “knew Latin pretty well,” and, on Ben Jonson’s

evidence, he knew “less Greek.” That he knew _any_ Greek is surprising.

Apparently he did, to judge from Ben’s words. My attitude must, to the

Baconians, seem frivolous, vexatious, and evasive. I cannot pretend to

know what was Shakspere’s precise amount of proficiency in Latin when he

was writing the plays. That between his own knowledge, and construes

given to him, he might easily get at the meaning of all the Latin, not

yet translated, which he certainly knew, I believe.

Mr. Greenwood says “the amount of reading which the lad Shakspere must

have done, and assimilated, during his brief sojourn at the Free School

is positively amazing.” {62a} But I have shown how an imaginative boy,

with little or no access to English poetry and romances, might continue

to read Latin “for human pleasure” after he left school. As a

professional writer, in a London where Latinists were as common as now

they are rare in literary society, he might read more, and be helped in

his reading. Any clever man might do as much, not to speak of a man of

genius. “And yet, alas, there is no record or tradition of all this

prodigious industry. . . . ” I am not speaking of “prodigious industry,”

and of that—at school. In a region so non-literary as, by his account,

was Stratford, Mr. Greenwood ought not to expect traditions of Will’s

early reading (even if he studied much more deeply than I have supposed)

to exist, from fifty to seventy years after Will was dead, in the

memories of the sons and grandsons of country people who cared for none

of these things. The thing is not reasonable. {62b}

Let me take one example {62c} of what Mr. E. A. Sonnenschein is quoted as

saying (somewhere) about Shakespeare’s debt to Seneca’s then untranslated

paper _De Clementia_ (1, 3, 3; I, 7, 2; I, 6, I). It inspires Portia’s

speech about Mercy. Here I give a version of the Latin.

“Clemency becometh, of all men, none more than the King or chief

magistrate (_principem_) . . . No one can think of anything more becoming

to a ruler than clemency . . . which will be confessed the fairer and

more goodly in proportion as it is exhibited in the higher office . . .

But if the placable and just gods punish not instantly with their

thunderbolts the sins of the powerful, how much more just it is that a

man set over men should gently exercise his power. What? Holds not he

the place nearest to the gods, who, bearing himself like the gods, is

kind, and generous, and uses his power for the better? . . . Think . . .

what a lone desert and waste Rome would be, were nothing left, and none,

save such as a severe judge would absolve.”

The last sentence is fitted with this parallel in Portia’s speech:

“Consider this

That in the course of Justice none of us

Should see salvation.”

Here, at least, Protestant theology, not Seneca, inspires Portia’s

eloquence.

Now take Portia:

“The quality of Mercy is not strain’d;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;”

(Not much Seneca, so far!)

“’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes

The thronèd monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But Mercy is above this sceptred sway,

It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God’s,

When mercy seasons justice . . . ”

There follows the passage about none of us seeing salvation, already

cited, and theological in origin.

Whether Shakespeare could or could not have written these reflections,

without having read Seneca’s _De Clementia_, whether, if he could not

conceive the ideas “out of his own head,” he might not hear Seneca’s

words translated in a sermon, or in conversation, or read them cited in

an English book, each reader must decide for himself. Nor do I doubt

that Shakespeare could pick out what he wanted from the Latin if he cast

his eye over the essay of the tutor of Nero.

My view of Shakespeare’s Latinity is much like that of Sir Walter

Raleigh. {64a} As far as I am aware, it is the opinion usually held by

people who approach the subject, and who have had a classical education.

An exception was the late Mr. Churton Collins, whose ideas are discussed

in the following chapter.

In his youth, and in the country, Will could do what Hogg and Burns did

(and Hogg had no education at all; he was self-taught, even in writing).

Will could pick up traditional, oral, popular literature. “His plays,”

says Sir Walter Raleigh, “are extraordinarily rich in the floating debris

of popular literature,—scraps and tags and broken ends of songs and

ballads and romances and proverbs. In this respect he is notable even

among his contemporaries. . . . Edgar and Iago, Petruchio and Benedick,

Sir Toby and Pistol, the Fool in _Lear_ and the Grave-digger in _Hamlet_,

even Ophelia and Desdemona, are all alike singers of old songs. . . . ”

{65a} He is rich in rural proverbs _not_ recorded in Bacon’s _Promus_.

Shakespeare in the country, like Scott in Liddesdale, “was making himself

all the time.”

The Baconian will exclaim that Bacon was familiar with many now obsolete

rural words. Bacon, too, may have had a memory rich in all the tags of

song, ballad, story, and _dicton_. But so may Shakespeare.

IV

MR. COLLINS ON SHAKESPEARE’S LEARNING

THAT Shakspere, whether “scholar” or not, had a very wide and deep

knowledge both of Roman literature and, still more, of the whole field of

the tragic literature of Athens, is a theory which Mr. Greenwood seems to

admire in that “violent Stratfordian,” Mr. Churton Collins. {69a} I

think that Mr. Collins did not persuade classical scholars who have never

given a thought to the Baconian belief, but who consider on their merits

the questions: Does Shakespeare show wide classical knowledge? Does he

use his knowledge as a scholar would use it?

My friend, Mr. Collins, as I may have to say again, was a very wide

reader of poetry, with a memory like Macaulay’s. It was his native

tendency to find coincidences in poetic passages (which, to some, to me

for example, did not often seem coincidental); and to explain

coincidences by conscious or subconscious borrowing. One remarked in him

these tendencies long before he wrote on the classical acquirements of

Shakespeare.

While Mr. Collins tended to account for similarities in the work of

authors by borrowing, my tendency was to explain them as undesigned

coincidences. The question is of the widest range. Some inquirers

explain the often minute coincidences in myths, popular tales, proverbs,

and riddles, found all over the world, by diffusion from a single centre

(usually India). Others, like myself, do not deny cases of transmission,

but in other cases see spontaneous and independent, though coincident

invention. I do not believe that the Arunta of Central Australia

borrowed from Plutarch the central feature of the myth of Isis and

Osiris.

It is not on Shakespeare’s use, now and then, of Greek and Latin models

and sources, but on coincidences detected by Mr. Collins himself, and not

earlier remarked, that he bases his belief in the saturation of

Shakespeare’s mind with Roman and Athenian literature. Consequently we

can only do justice to Mr. Collins’s system, if we compare example after

example of his supposed instances of Shakespeare’s borrowing. This is a

long and irksome task; and the only fair plan is for the reader to peruse

Mr. Collins’s _Studies in Shakespeare_, compare the Greek and Roman

texts, and weigh each example of supposed borrowing for himself.

Baconians must delight in this labour.

I shall waive the question whether it were not possible for Shakespeare

to obtain a view of the manuscript translation of plays of Plautus made

by Warner for his unlearned friends, and so to use the _Menæchmi_ as the

model of _The Comedy of Errors_. He does not borrow phrases from it, as

he does from North’s _Plutarch_.

_Venus and Adonis_ owes to Ovid, at most, but ideas for three purple

patches, scattered in different parts of the _Metamorphoses_. _Lucrece_

is based on the then untranslated _Fasti_ of Ovid. I do not think

Shakespeare incapable of reading such easy Latin for himself; or too

proud to ask help from a friend, or buy it from some poor young

University man in London. That is a simple and natural means by which he

could help himself when in search of a subject for a play or poem; and

ought not to be overlooked.

Mr. Collins, in his rapturous account of Shakespeare’s wide and profound

knowledge of the classics, opens with the remark: “Nothing which

Shakespeare has left us warrants us in pronouncing with certainty that he

read the Greek classics in the original, or even that he possessed enough

Greek to follow the Latin versions of those classics in the Greek text.”

{71a} In that case, how did Shakespeare’s English become contaminated,

as Mr. Collins says it did, with Greek _idioms_, while he only knew the

Greek plays through Latin translations?

However this is to be answered, Mr. Collins proceeds to prove

Shakespeare’s close familiarity with Latin and with Greek dramatic

literature by a method of which he knows the perils—“it is always

perilous to infer direct imitation from parallel passages which may be

mere coincidences.” {72a} Yet this method is what he practises

throughout; with what amount of success every reader must judge for

himself.