TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Three or four asterisks in a quotation indicates omitted text.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
--OF THE--
BACON-SHAKESPEARE
CONTROVERSY,
--WITH--
NOTES AND EXTRACTS.
BY W. H. WYMAN.
“Shikspur! Shikspur! Who wrote it?”
Miss KITTY, in _High Life Below Stairs_.
CINCINNATI:
PETER G. THOMSON,
1884.
COPYRIGHTED,
1884,
BY W. H. WYMAN.
PREFACE.
In July, 1882, the compiler of this work issued a small
privately-printed _Bibliography of the Bacon-Shakespeare Literature_,
including all the titles then ascertained--63 in number. Since that
time, additional titles and interesting material have so accumulated
that he has thought proper to present this volume--the work, or
amusement of leisure evenings--believing that the discussion has
reached a point that entitles it to as complete a Bibliography as can
be made. While personally entertaining no doubts as to Shakespeare’s
authorship, he believes that the discussion has its compensating
features in inciting a study of the Shakespearian dramas, and of
the works as well of the dramatists and philosophers--in fact, the
literary history--of the Elizabethan age. It is, perhaps, due to the
various theorists that the ground-work of their opinions be known,
and it is due no less to the memory of William Shakespeare that these
adverse theories, and the arguments in answer, shall be so presented
as to enable any one, who wishes to investigate the question, to form
an intelligent opinion for himself.
As to the Bibliography, so far as titles are concerned, no pains have
been spared to make it complete. It is believed to contain a list of
all the books, pamphlets, and magazine articles on the question,
as well as a large proportion of the reviews, the more important
newspaper articles, etc. Of the latter, a few may be included that
are unimportant--as it has been difficult to decide just where to
draw the line--but the intention has been to include nothing, except
some collateral matters of special interest, that is not of some use
in the formation of an opinion.
While the endeavor has been to embody in some part of it, in a
general way, all the main points of the discussion, this work does
not pretend to be a complete reflex of all the arguments or the
evidence adduced. It is simply a list of the titles, to which are
added such brief memoranda as will give the main facts in regard to
this literature, and something as to its authors. By the notes and
extracts, an effort has been made to relieve the tediousness of a dry
Bibliography. Where extracts are given, such have usually been chosen
as were thought to embody some interesting feature, or a hint of the
argument--these to be distributed so evenly as to leave no doubts of
a bibliographical impartiality. In short, the aim has been to point
out to those who desire this information just where it may be found.
In common with one of the writers, who has adopted an expression of
Lord Bacon’s: “We have only taken upon us to ring a bell, to call
other wits together, which is the meanest office.”
And as to the extracts, an apology is doubtless due to the writers.
It may well be appalling to the author of a book or an article,
bristling with telling arguments and eloquent passages, to find
here a quotation wrenched from its appropriate context, embodying
only a single idea, and that, perhaps, the one he values least--or,
possibly, none at all. The compiler admits all this in advance,
with the single remark that he has made no attempt--it being simply
impossible within the limits of this work--to do any sort of justice
to the various productions, many of them learned, ingenious, and
cultured.
The compilation and arrangement has not been without its
difficulties. With such a varied mass of material--many of the
articles being without any proper titles, it has been impossible
to follow an exact Bibliographical formula. Though crude in
this respect, it is hoped that it has been so arranged as to be
intelligible. The titles have been placed chronologically as best
calculated to show the history and progress of the discussion, thus
rendering it necessary to divide a few, such as _Notes and Queries_,
which would more properly come together. As it has been found
impracticable to give a full explanation of many of the titles, the
general tenor of each has been thus indicated:
FOR SHAKESPEARE, _Pro-Sh._
AGAINST SHAKESPEARE, _Anti-Sh._
UNCLASSIFIED, _Unc._
the last including all articles which for any reason can not be
classed as For or Against.
A recapitulation of some of the main features of the Bibliography may
be interesting:
Of the 255 titles, there are, For Shakespeare, 117; Against
Shakespeare, 73; Unclassified, 65. In addition to the above, there
are about 100 sub-titles, of more or less importance, represented by
_a_, _b_, _c_, etc.
As to nationality, the origin of the articles (titles) may be classed
as follows: American, 161; English, 69; Australian, 10; Scotch, 4;
Canadian, 3; German, 2; French, 2; Italy, Holland, Ireland, and
India, 1 each.
Taken chronologically, there appeared in 1848, 1; 1852, 1; 1853, 1;
1856, 9; 1857, 11; 1860, 2; 1862, 1; 1863, 2; 1865, 1; 1866, 12;
1867, 8; 1869, 2; 1870, 2; 1874, 28; 1875, 11; 1876, 2; 1877, 7;
1878, 9; 1879, 10; 1880, 9; 1881, 27; 1882, 30; 1883, 61; 1884, to
date, 8. This can not, of course, be relied upon as giving more than
an approximate idea of the relative progress of the controversy, as
the titling of articles--especially those of minor importance--has
been much more practicable in the later years.
There has been ample opportunity for an examination of these works.
Of the 255 titles, copies of 249 are in the library of the compiler.
The titles lacking are 48, 92, 109, 117; also, the articles under 151
and 161 in part.
In explanation of the different ways of spelling Shakespeare,
Shakespearian, etc., in these pages, it is proper to say that the
intention has been to follow, in all titles and extracts, the methods
adopted by the various writers.
The compiler tenders his acknowledgments to many friends and
correspondents for information and assistance, in all cases
courteously furnished. An additional favor will be conferred by
further information as to any errors or omitted titles.
It will be seen by a reference to the notes, that not less than
five new works are foreshadowed, some of which will be published.
Evidently the discussion is not ended. The subject is one that
appeals too strongly to the iconoclastic spirit of the age for
that. It is likely to afford as endless a theme as the authorship
of Junius, or the personality of Homer. If the authorship of the
Shakespearian dramas is not _now_ settled, in that sense it never
will be settled, for it is not, in its very nature, susceptible of
such proof as will satisfy everybody. And though the world may always
hold to its faith in William Shakespeare, none the less will there
always be doubters.
W. H. W.
WALNUT HILLS,
CINCINNATI, April 10th, 1884.
BACON-SHAKESPEARE
CONTROVERSY.
[Illustration: (Decorative banner header)]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 THE ANCIENT LETHE. In _The Romance of Yachting; Voyage the First_.
By JOSEPH C. HART, author of “Miriam Coffin,” etc. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1848; 12mo. pp. 332. (See pages 207-243).
_Anti-Sh._
The first known publication questioning the right of Shakespeare to
the authorship of the Shakespearian dramas.
COL. HART’S article seems to have been overlooked, and not brought
to the notice of those who were interested in the question, until
it was used by the compiler of this work as the first title in _The
Bibliography of the Bacon-Shakespeare Literature_, of which this is
an extension. Up to that time, the article in _Chambers’s Edinburgh
Journal_ (see next title), seems to have been accepted by all the
authorities as the first mention. _The Romance of Yachting_ is a
gossipy account of a voyage to Spain, in a merchant ship, in which
are interwoven discussions of various topics in a free and easy
style. This chapter is supposed to be written on the banks of the
Guadalete--the ancient Lethe. Hence the title.
“Alas, Shakespeare! Lethe is upon thee! But if it drown thee, it
will give up and work the resurrection of _better men and more
worthy_. Thou hast had thy century; they are about having theirs.”
* * * * *
“He was not the mate of the literary characters of his day, and
none knew it better than himself. It is a fraud upon the world
to thrust his surreptitious fame upon us. He had none that was
worthy of being transmitted. The enquiry will be, _who were the
able literary men who wrote the dramas imputed to him_? The
plays themselves, or rather a small portion of them, will live
as long as English literature is regarded as worth pursuit. The
_authorship_ of the plays is no otherwise material to us, than as
a matter of curiosity, and to enable us to render exact justice;
but they should not be assigned to Shakespeare alone, if at all.”
The author contrasts Shakespeare with the other Elizabethan writers.
He argues that the facts known in the life of Shakespeare, so far as
they are known, are incompatible with the authorship, and takes up
the plays in review, claiming that he had very little part in them.
He suggests no other author.
(Col. Hart was a lawyer, journalist, and yachtsman--residing in, and
well-known in New York, especially from 1832 to 1850--the friend
and associate of Willis, Poe, Park Benjamin, Col. Porter, of _The
Spirit_, etc. He was a Colonel in the National Guard. During his
later years he was U. S. Consul lo Santa Cruz de Teneriffe, and died
there in 1855, in his 57th year. A private letter concerning him
says: “He was quite proud of writing that chapter as to Shakespeare,
and declared that in time his views must become accepted.”)
2 WHO WROTE SHAKESPEARE? An article in _Chambers’s Edinburgh
Journal_, August 7, 1852.
_Anti-Sh._
The author of this is unknown. The article was for a long time
accepted as “the first mention.” It is moderate in tone, contrasting
the commonplace life of Shakespeare with his works, and suggests that
he may have “kept a poet.”
“May not William Shakespeare--the cautious, calculating man,
careless of fame, and intent only on money-making--have found,
in some furtherest garret, overlooking the silent highway of
the Thames, some pale, wasted student, with a brow as ample and
lofty as his own, who had written the _Wars of the Roses_, and
who, with eyes of genius gleaming through despair, was about,
like Chatterton, to spend his last copper coin upon some cheap
and speedy mode of death? What was to hinder William Shakespeare
from reading, appreciating, and purchasing these dramas, and
thereafter keeping his poet as Mrs. Packwood did?”
* * * * *
“Well, reader, how like you our hypothesis? We confess we do
not like it ourselves; but we humbly think it is, at least, as
plausible as most of what is contained in the many bulky volumes
written to connect the man, William Shakespeare, with the poet of
_Hamlet_. We repeat, there is nothing recorded in his every-day
life that connects the two, except the simple fact of his selling
the poems and realizing the proceeds, and their being afterwards
published with his name attached; and the statements of Ben
Jonson, which, however, are quite compatible with his being in
the secret.”
The writer opens his article with an allusion to Miss Kitty’s
“SHIKSPUR! WHO WROTE IT?” in _High Life Below Stairs_. To explain
this allusion: This farce, with the query so frequently alluded to in
this controversy, was written by the Rev. James Townley, and first
acted in Drury Lane in 1759. The _dramatis personæ_ in the following
dialogue are servants, who hold high carnival in the absence of the
owners of the mansion, all, except Kitty, assuming the titles of
their respective masters and mistresses:
“LADY BAB-- * * * I never read but one book.
KITTY--What is it your ladyship is so fond of?
LADY BAB--Shikspur. Did you never read Shikspur?
SIR HARRY--I never heard of it.
KITTY--Shikspur! Shikspur! Who wrote it? No, I never read
Shikspur.
LADY BAB--Then you have an immense pleasure to come.
DUKE--Shikspur! Who wrote it?
SIR HARRY--Who wrote it? Why, Ben Jonson.
DUKE--Oh, I remember, it was Kolly Kibber.
KITTY--Well, then, I’ll read it over one afternoon or other.”
3 NOTES AND QUERIES. London. FIRST SERIES.
_a_--From Theta, Vol. VIII, p. 438, November 5, 1853.
_b_--Answer by C, Vol. X, p. 106, August 15, 1854.
_Unc._
Unimportant, except as the commencement of the series of articles
running through Notes and Queries, which will be found hereafter
arranged in chronological order.
4 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND HIS PLAYS. An Inquiry Concerning Them. By
DELIA BACON. In _Putnam’s Monthly_, January, 1856, pages 1-19.
_Anti-Sh._
Miss BACON was the first writer who connected Lord Bacon with the
authorship of the Shakespearian dramas, and in this article she
first suggests it--not directly, but rather by inference. It was
written during her stay in England (at St. Albans), and was the real
commencement of the “Bacon-Shakespeare” controversy. As this was
before her mind became so completely clouded by her intense thought
on the subject, it is much clearer in its style than her subsequent
book. In it she draws the contrast between the known facts in the
life of Shakespeare, and the magnificence of the dramas that bear his
name.
“Shall this crowning literary product of that great epoch,
wherein these new ages have their beginning, vividly arranged
in its choicest refinements, flashing everywhere on the surface
with its costliest wit, crowded everywhere with its subtlest
scholasticisms, betraying, on every page, its broadest, freshest
range of experience, its most varied culture, its profoundest
insight, its boldest grasp of comprehension--shall this crowning
result of so many preceding ages of growth and culture, with its
essential, and now probable connection with the new scientific
movement of the time from which it issues, be able to conceal
from us, much longer, its history?--shall we be able to accept
in explanation of it, much longer, the story of the Stratford
poacher?”
(DELIA BACON was born in Tallmadge, Ohio, February 2, 1811. She
was the daughter of Rev. David Bacon, one of the early Western
missionaries, and sister of the late Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon. She
was educated at Miss Catherine E. Beecher’s school, in Hartford,
and is described as a woman of rare intellect and attainments. Her
profession was that of a teacher and lecturer--the first woman,
Mrs. Farrar says, whom she had ever known to speak in public. At
this time, she resided in Boston. Having conceived the idea of the
Baconian authorship, she became a monomaniac on the subject. Visiting
England, in 1853, in search of proofs for her theory, she spent five
years there, first at St. Albans, where she supposed Bacon to have
written the plays; then at London, where she wrote _The Philosophy
of Shakespeare Unfolded_; and subsequently at Stratford-on-Avon.
Here, after the publication and non-success of her book, she lost
her reason wholly and entirely. She was returned to her friends in
Hartford, in April, 1858, and died there September 2, 1859.)
5 REVIEW OF DELIA BACON’S ARTICLE in _Putnam’s Monthly_. In the
_Athenæum_, London, July 26, 1856, p. 108.
_Pro-Sh._
“The process by which Shakespeare is reduced to nothing is
certainly startling. Take away all the evidences of the poet’s
supreme intellect--refuse him the witness of his works--and it
is, of course, very easy to say the poor player was unequal to
his mighty task. But the same process could reduce Bacon from a
great law-giver in the empire of thought, to a corrupt lawyer and
base flatterer in the Court of King James. Take the facts which
stand apart from his intellectual action--erect the idea of man
upon them--and it will be as easy to raise a theory that not
Bacon but Shakespeare wrote the _Essays_ and _Novum Organum_.”
6 WAS LORD BACON THE AUTHOR OF SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS? A letter to Lord
ELLESMERE. By WILLIAM HENRY SMITH. Pamphlet. Printed for private
circulation. London: September, 1856. (This was reproduced in
_Littell’s Living Age_, November, 1856. 4 pages in _Littell_).
_Anti-Sh._
This was addressed to the Earl of Ellesmere, as the late President
of the Shakespeare Society. It takes strong grounds in favor of the
Baconian authorship.
A question of precedence as to the Baconian advocacy arose between
Mr. Smith and Miss Bacon’s friends. HAWTHORNE in his preface to Miss
Bacon’s book animadverted upon Mr. Smith for “taking to himself this
lady’s theory,” resulting in the correspondence published in Smith’s
book. In his letter Mr. Smith claimed that he had never seen Miss
Bacon’s _Putnam’s Monthly_ article until after his pamphlet was
published, and also that he had held these opinions for twenty years
previously. But as Miss Bacon’s article was published eight months
previous to his pamphlet, and reviewed in the _Athenæum_ in the
meantime, his want of knowledge was certainly very singular, and the
precedence must be awarded to her.
(Mr. WILLIAM HENRY SMITH, who still resides in London, was the first
English Baconian. He not only wrote, but lectured on the subject.
During the past fifteen years, we find nothing from his pen, but
from recent advices we infer that his interest in the question is
unabated, and that he may yet be heard from.)
7 WAS LORD BACON THE AUTHOR OF SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS?
_a_--In the _Literary Gazette_, London, Sept. 6, 1856.
_b_--In the same, Oct. 18, 1856.
_Pro-Sh._
Both articles are notices of Smith’s Ellesmere pamphlet--the latter a
comprehensive review. Towards its close, the writer recapitulates the
contemporary evidence, and adds:
“Now, before Mr. Smith proceeds to take possession of the plays
in the name of Lord Bacon, he should show his right to dispossess
the occupying tenant. This can be done only by overturning the
mass of evidence, upon the faith of which the whole world has
hitherto believed Shakespeare, if we may so express it, to be the
author of his own works. When Mr. Smith shall have done this, and
proved that Greene, Chettle, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and the rest,
and the traditions, to boot, as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa,
are one and all unworthy of credit, he shall then be in a
position to assert Lord Bacon’s claim--but not one moment sooner.”
8 REVIEW OF SMITH’S LETTER TO LORD ELLESMERE. In the _Athenæum_,
London, Sept. 13, 1856, p. 1133.
_Pro-Sh._
“Of course--as our readers have seen--we reject altogether
the theory of an extra authorship of Shakespeare’s plays; and
on any idle day of the year, should we ever find one, we will
undertake to prove, just as plausibly as Mr. Smith here proves
the authorship of _Lear_ and _Hamlet_ to belong to Bacon, that
Shakespeare composed the _Instauration_ and wrote the Essays.”
9 NOTES AND QUERIES. London. SECOND SERIES.
_a_--From A. Hopper, II, 267, Oct. 4, 1856.
_b_--Review of Ellesmere letter, II, 320, Oct. 18, 1856.
_c_--From Vox, II, 369, Nov. 8, 1856.
_d_--From W. H. S. [Smith] II, 503, Dec. 27, 1856.
_e_--From R. Slocomb, II, 504, Dec. 27, 1856.
_Unc._
10 SHAKESPEARE AND LORD BACON. In the _Illustrated London News_,
October 25, 1856. 1 column.
_Unc._
An account of a lecture by Wm. Henry Smith, at the Beethoven Rooms,
Harley street, London.
11 ON THE ART OF CAVILLING. “All is humbug.” In _Blackwood’s
Magazine_, Edinburgh, November, 1856. 15 pages.
_Pro-Sh._
An answer to Smith’s Ellesmere letter.
“It proves an unlimited power of credulity among the class
[the cavillers] to which its writer belongs, and throws some
light upon that extraordinary mental process by which men of
a crotchety turn of mind can set up pure unreason in the face
of plain truth; but it proves nothing whatever about Francis
Bacon, nor throws the smallest glimmer of illumination on those
mysterious productions called Shakespeare’s Plays.”
12 SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. “A little chink may let in much light.”
Anonymous. [By DR. C. M. INGLEBY.] In _Illustrated London News_, Dec.
6, 1856, p. 577.
_Pro-Sh._
In this DR. INGLEBY summarizes the arguments of Smith in the
Ellesmere letter, and comprehensively answers them.
13 I WON’T HAVE BACON. A communication by JOHN BULL. In _Illustrated
London News_, January 10, 1857.
_Pro-Sh._
“I won’t have Bacon. I will have my own cherished “Will.” I
have borne a great deal, and never changed my faith. I have
seen him chipped, mauled, befribbled, and overdone. I have seen
upholsterers and classic managers cloud his genius in fustian
and explanations. I have heard shouts against his anachronisms,
and anathemas against his want of the unities and his knowledge
of Greek; but never thought an Englishman and a Smith would try
to prove that he was a swindler--a thief--a jackdaw, and died in
the odor of sanctity, the pilferer of Bacon. * * * * I know the
pestilent vapor will pass away, and the steady glories of Will.
Shakespeare break forth again; but in the meantime we shiver
under a passing cloud.”
14 BACON AND SHAKESPEARE. Letter from WILLIAM HENRY SMITH, on the
Psalms translated by Bacon. In the _Athenæum_, London, January 24,
1857, p. 122.
_Anti-Sh._
MR. SMITH claims that these translations show the poetic faculty in
Bacon. “His mind was so essentially poetical, that it was as great a
constraint to him to write prose, as to spare, or pass by a jest.”
15 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE NOT AN IMPOSTOR. By an English Critic. [GEO.
H. TOWNSEND.] London and New York: G. Routledge & Co., 1857, 12mo.
pp. 122.
_Pro-Sh._
The especial purpose of this book is to answer Smith’s Ellesmere
letter, which the author criticises severely, but it takes in the
question in its fullest scope. His preface aptly describes it:
“The author has endeavored to collect within the compass of a
small volume the historical documents and the testimonies of the
poet’s contemporaries, by which the claim of William Shakespeare
to the authorship of the six-and-thirty plays, published in the
folio edition of 1623, is clearly established. His title is
confirmed by such a mass of evidence, that many readers, who have
not investigated the matter, will wonder how it could have been
called in question.”
The author gives a summary of Smith’s argument (copied from _Notes
and Queries_), and answers it as follows:
“He contends: 1. That the character of Shakespeare, as sketched
by Pope, is the exact biography of Bacon. 2. That Bacon possessed
dramatic talent to a high degree, and could, according to his
biographers, assume the most different characters, and speak
the language proper to each, with a facility that was perfectly
natural. 3. That he wrote and assisted at bal-masques, and was
an intimate friend of Lord Southampton, the alleged patron of
Shakespeare. 4. That the first folio of 1623 was not published
till Bacon had been driven to private life, and had leisure to
revise his literary works; and that as he was obliged to raise
money by almost any means, it is at least probable that he did
so by writing plays. 5. That Shakespeare was a man of business
rather than poetry, and acknowledged his poems and sonnets, but
never laid claim to the plays.”
“This is, after all [says Mr. Townsend], as good a summary
as can be given of the wretched arguments upon which Mr.
William Henry Smith bases his new, preposterous and altogether
untenable theory. They may be dismissed in a few sentences. 1.
Shakespeare’s character could not possibly be the biography of
another man. 2. Bacon’s ability for dramatic composition can
not be accepted as proof that he wrote plays, to the authorship
of which he never laid claim, and which were attributed to, and
acknowledged by, one of his contemporaries. 3. Lord Southampton,
the friend of Shakespeare and Bacon, is, as we shall see more
fully in another chapter, a witness against Mr. William Henry
Smith and his theory. 4. Bacon’s leisure and want of funds
will never justify even the suspicion that he wrote the plays
of Shakespeare. 5. The assertion that Shakespeare was a man of
business rather than poetry is directly at variance with the
truth, as any person who has perused the _Venus and Adonis_,
_Lucrece_, and the _Sonnets_, will at once admit. It is equally
false to assert that Shakespeare did not claim the authorship of
these dramas.”
Here is the author’s comparison of Bacon and Shakespeare:
“No two minds could be more dissimilar than those of Bacon and
Shakespeare; they were both monarchs in the realms of literature,
but they sat upon different thrones; theirs was not a joint
sovereignty; they ruled over different empires. Shakespeare
possessed great natural genius; Bacon’s mind was a store-house
of learning. The one had power to create, the other to mould all
human knowledge to his mighty will. Bacon was a dictator amongst
philosophers and schoolmen; Shakespeare, a king among poets. The
one dived deep beneath the surface, and brought up rich pearls
of thought; the other plucked the flowers as he passed along;
received his inspiration direct from all-bounteous Nature, and
held mysterious communion with her.”
(Mr. Townsend is better known as the author of the _Manual of Dates_
and _Men of the Time_. He resided in London, and died there in 1869.
A series of disappointments so affected his mind as to lead him to
take his own life.)
16 REVIEWS OF TOWNSEND’S SHAKESPEARE NOT AN IMPOSTOR.
_a_--In the _Athenæum_, London, February 14, 1857, p. 213.
_b_--In the _Literary Gazette_, London, Feb. 21, 1857, p. 181.
_Pro-Sh._
“The book is honestly meant, but can its writer conceive that any
such book was needed? If he does, the fact is as noticeable as
Mr. William Henry Smith’s lucubrations.”--_Athenæum._
17 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE UNFOLDED. By DELIA
BACON. With a Preface by NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. London: Groombridge &
Sons, 1857. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857. 8vo. pp. 582.
_Anti-Sh._
Miss Bacon’s book was mainly written during her residence in
London. In it she makes no attempt to deal with the historical side
of the question--that being reserved for another volume, never
published. She confines herself to the development of her theory of
a hidden under-current of philosophy in the works of both Bacon and
Shakespeare, veiled in cipher and allegory for the Elizabethan times,
but to be read and understood by a future age. This is outlined in
Mr. Hawthorne’s preface:
“In the present volume, accordingly, the writer applies herself
to the demonstration and development of a system of philosophy,
which has presented itself to her as underlying the superficial
and ostensible text of Shakespeare’s plays. Traces of the same
philosophy, too, she conceives herself to have found in the
acknowledged works of Lord Bacon, and in the works of other
writers contemporary with him. All agree in one system; all the
traces indicate a common understanding and unity of purpose in
men among whom no brotherhood has hitherto been suspected, except
as representatives of a grand and brilliant age, when the human
intellect made a marked step in advance.”
As to the authorship, Miss Bacon points to Lord Bacon, Sir Walter
Raleigh, and possibly others of the wits and dramatists of the age.
Her style of writing is so redundant that no brief extract can be
made, within the limits of this work, which will give anything like a
clear statement of her theories. In the following, the theme is the
Shakespearian dramas:
“Man, as he is, booked, surveyed--surveyed from the continent
of nature, put down as he is in her book of kinds, not as he is
from his own interior, isolated conceptions only--the universal
powers and causes as they are developed in him, in his untaught
affections, in his utmost sensuous darkness--the universal
principle instanced where it is most buried, the cause in nature
found--man as he is in his heights and in his depths, ‘from his
lowest note to the top of his key’--man in his possibilities,
in his actualities, in his thought, in his speech, in his book
language, and in his every day words, in his loftiest lyric
tongue, in his lowest pit of play-house degradation, searched
out, explained, interpreted. * * * * It is man’s life, and the
culture of it, erected into an art or science, that these books
contain. In the lowness of the lowest, and in the aspiration
of the noblest, the powers whose entire history must make the
basis of a successful morality and policy are found. It is all
abstracted or drawn into contemplation, ‘that the precepts of
cure and culture may be more rightly concluded.’ ‘For that which
in speculative philosophy corresponds to the cause, in practical
philosophy becomes the rule.’”
“It is not necessary to illustrate this criticism in this case,
because in this case the design looks through the execution
elsewhere. The criticism of the Novum Organum, the criticism
of the Advancement of Learning, and the criticism of Raleigh’s
History of the World, than which there is none finer, when once
you penetrate its crust of profound erudition, is here on the
surface. And the scholasticism is not more obtrusive here, the
learned sock is not more ostentatiously paraded, than in some
critical places in these performances; while the humor that
underlies the erudition issues from a depth of learning not less
profound.”
For a sketch of the theory of the book, see the extract (Title 20)
from the _National Review_.
18 REVIEW OF DELIA BACON’S PHILOSOPHY OF SHAKESPEARE UNFOLDED. In the
_Athenæum_, London, April 11, 1857, p. 461.
_Pro-Sh._
19 REVIEW OF THE BOOKS OF DELIA BACON AND W. H. SMITH. In the
_Literary Gazette_, London, May 9, 1857.
_Pro-Sh._
20 THE ALLEGED NON-EXISTENCE OF SHAKESPEARE. In the _National
Review_, London, July, 1857.
_Pro-Sh._
A very long and caustic review of Delia Bacon’s book. We give the
commencement of it, from its value to the reader as an interpretation
of the book itself.
“American philosophy delights in hiding its light under a
bushel. Emerson is not easy reading; the Poughkeepsie seer (not
that we wish to class them together) is sometimes difficult
of construction; but Delia Bacon is harder still. We have met
with nothing in the range of literature so like the attempt to
find a needle in a bundle of hay, as the task of extracting a
definite meaning from the vast body of obscure verbiage and
inconsequential reasoning in which she has folded up her ideas.
As far as we can make out, however, the following is her theme
and the thread of her argument:
In the days of Elizabeth and James, a conquest more complete
and more degrading than that of the first Norman King had
overwhelmed England. At the same time, the first fruits of the
revival of learning were ripening in England. There was a body
of men here, at the head of whom were Raleigh and Lord Bacon,
of boundless penetration, wisdom, and philanthropy. The cause
of freedom and human advancement was that to which their whole
souls and lives were devoted. Some of them ventured an overt
act against the government, which was speedily crushed. It was
necessary to conceal the new light which it was their mission
to shed forth upon the world. Yet so to hide it, that while it
should not betray itself to the jealous scrutiny of a tyrannical
autocracy, it yet should be discoverable to the gifted eye,
and buried only to be disinterred, in its due time, by the
sagacity of future generations. We know that in his youth Lord
Bacon busied himself with ciphers; he speaks of word ciphers as
well as letter ciphers; be sure, then, that in ciphers he has
hidden the learning he dared not lay bare to the face of day.
Those who search his works with a discriminating eye, will find
abundant hints scattered through them that they have an esoteric
meaning subtly hidden beneath their obvious expressions. He was
the master-mind of a ‘secret association’ of men who made it
their business to perfect and transmit to posterity a ‘new and
all-comprehending science of life and practice.’ It is in the
later and more finished works of this school--the Advancement of
Learning, Hamlet, Lear, the Tempest, and the Novum Organum--that
the key to the secret doctrines of which it is the object of Miss
Bacon’s work to furnish the interpretation is best found; but it
lies also wrapt up, like the tree in the bud, in the earliest and
most faulty plays of the collection.”
21 BACON AND SHAKESPEARE. An Inquiry Touching Players, Play-Houses,
and Play-Writers, in the days of Elizabeth. By WILLIAM HENRY SMITH,
ESQ. To which is appended an abstract of a MS. respecting Tobie
Matthew. London: John Russell Smith, 1857. 12mo. pp. 162.
_Anti-Sh._
This is an enlargement and extension of the letter to Lord Ellesmere.
“To consider the probability of these plays having been written
by William Shakespeare, and to attack the evidence by which the
assertion that they were is supported, is our present object.”
“Proof that they were written by some other person, we do not
yet hope to be able to adduce, but merely such evidence of the
probability of this being the case, as may induce some active
inquiry in the direction indicated.”
A short summary of Mr. Smith’s arguments will be found under the
answer of Mr. Townsend to the Ellesmere letter (Title 15). Mr. Smith
says in his epitome:
* * * “Very little indeed is known of the history of Shakespeare,
and that in no way connects him with these plays--that the writer
of them must have possessed a vast variety of talents, such as
have been reported to have been found in Francis Bacon, and
in him alone; that the wit and poetry are of a kind that were
peculiarly his--that William Shakespeare, of Stratford-on-Avon,
connected himself with a class which had only recently sprung
into existence, and which were held in the utmost contempt--that
he was neither eminent as an actor, nor as a writer, during his
life time, nor celebrated as such in the period immediately
succeeding his death--that there are some remarkable coincidences
of expression in these plays and in the writings of Bacon,
and that the latter was ever careful to note any thing like a
quotation * * * [and, as reasons why Bacon did not claim the
plays] that literary labor was not at that time voluntarily
pursued for pecuniary recompense, and the few that followed such
an occupation were regarded with the utmost contempt--that a play
was hardly considered a literary work, and ranked infinitely
below a sonnet, and that learned men would as little have prided
themselves upon writing one, as upon writing a _bon mot_.” * * *
* *
22 NOTICE in the _Athenæum_, London, August 15, 1857, of the
correspondence between Hawthorne and William Henry Smith, p. 1036.
_Pro-Sh._
Mr. Smith transmits a copy of the correspondence above mentioned, but
the _Athenæum_ declines to be convinced that he knew nothing of Delia
Bacon’s theory previous to the publication of his Ellesmere letter.
23 SHAKESPEARE IN MODERN THOUGHT. In the _North American Review_,
October, 1857. [By REV. C. C. SHACKFORD.] 24 pages.
_Pro-Sh._
A portion of the article is devoted to a review of Miss Bacon’s book.
“There is, on the other hand, in Miss Bacon’s work, a spirit
of subtile analysis, a deep moral insight, and a penetrating
research, which, separated from the monomania of her particular
theory, enlists our admiration, and is adapted to throw much
light upon Shakespeare’s genius, and makes us feel that there
are in him vast depths of thought, and presentations of great
human and social laws of development, of which, as yet, we
have scarcely dreamed. On every page, nay, over almost every
paragraph, we are forced to exclaim: ‘O matter and impertinency,
mixed reason in madness!’ The significant contents of the
political and philosophical _status_ of that age are minutely
exhibited. The particular theory of the book, and the special
pleading through inferences, hints, and analogies in thought and
expression, to prove that the philosophy and the plays of the age
proceeded literally from the same brain and the same hand, we
may put aside as impertinent, and a merely fine-spun, fanciful
speculation, and there will be left a valuable contribution
to the real criticism of Shakespeare, as embodying the whole
spirit of the Baconian philosophy, and as the ripe flower and
consummated product of the tendencies and outstreaming influences
of that wonderful period of development for the English genius.”
24 HARRINGTON: A STORY OF TRUE LOVE. [By WILLIAM D. O’CONNOR.]
Boston: Thayer & Eldridge, 1860, 12mo. pp. 558. (See Chapter XII,
pages 215-221).
_Anti-Sh._
To explain this unique title: Hawthorne, in his _Recollections of a
Gifted Woman_ (Title 27), says of Miss Bacon’s book:
“I believe it has been the fate of this remarkable book never
to have had more than a single reader. But, since my return to
America, a young man of genius and enthusiasm has assured me
that he has positively read the book from beginning to end, and
is completely a convert to its doctrines. It belongs to him,
therefore, and not to me--whom, in almost the last letter that
I received from her, she declared unworthy to meddle with her
work--it belongs surely to this one individual, who has done her
so much justice as to know what she wrote, to place Miss Bacon in
her due position before the public and posterity.”
The “young man” referred to (in 1863) is the author of this novel.
The story itself is of the times of the Fugitive Slave Law. Mr.
O’Connor introduces his own Baconian theories through the dialogue of
his title-hero, Harrington. He also renders an acknowledgment to Miss
Bacon as their source, in a note at the end of the book:
“The reader of the twelfth chapter of this book, may already
have observed that Harrington, if he had lived, would have been
a believer in the theory regarding the origin and purpose of
the Shakespearian drama, as developed in the admirable work by
Miss Delia Bacon, entitled, ‘The Philosophy of Shakespeare’s
Plays Unfolded,’ in which belief I should certainly agree with
Harrington. I wish it were in my power to do even the smallest
justice to that mighty and eloquent volume, whose masterly
comprehension and insight, though they could not save it from
being trampled upon by the brutal bison of the English press,
yet lift it to the dignity, whatever may be its faults, of being
the best work ever composed upon the Baconian or Shakespearian
writings. It has been scouted by the critics as the product of
a distempered ideality. Perhaps it is. But there is a prudent
wisdom, says Goethe, and there is a wisdom that does not remind
us of prudence; and, in like manner, I may say that there is
a sane sense, and there is a sense that does not remind us of
sanity. At all events, I am assured that the candid and ingenuous
reader Miss Bacon wishes for, will find it more to his profit to
be insane with her on the subject of Shakespeare, than sane with
Dr. Johnson.”
(Mr. O’CONNOR resides in Washington, and is an officer connected with
the Treasury Department. It is understood that he has finally obeyed
the injunction Hawthorne put upon him, “to place Miss Bacon in her
due position before the public and posterity,” and has prepared an
article on the subject, which will soon be published.)
25 EDITORS AND COMMENTATORS, in the Life of Edmond Malone, Editor of
Shakespeare. By SIR JAMES PRIOR. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1860.
_Unc._
Writing of a date about 1780-90, Sir James Prior says of the
Shakespearian discussions:
“Editors and commentators appear at every turn in all societies.
In the club-house we meet three or four of a morning; in the
park see them meditating by the Serpentine, or under a tree in
Kensington Gardens; no dinner table is without one or two; in
the theatre you view them by the dozens. Volume after volume
is poured out in note, comment, conjecture, new reading,
statement, or mis-statement, contradiction, or variation of all
kinds. Reviews, magazines, and newspapers report these with as
little mercy on the reader, as to give occasional emendations
of their own. Some descant upon his sentiments, some upon his
extravagancies, some upon his wonderful creations, or flights
of imagination, some upon his language, or phraseology. Several
suppose that he wrote more plays than he acknowledged; others,
that he fathered more than he had written, while the last
opinions are still more original and extraordinary--that his name
is akin to a myth, and _that he wrote no plays at all_! Every
new aspirant in this struggle for distinction aims to push his
predecessor from his stool.”
26 NOTES AND QUERIES. London: THIRD SERIES. From T. J. Buckton, II,
502, Dec. 27, 1862.
_Unc._
27 RECOLLECTIONS OF A GIFTED WOMAN. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. In the
_Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1863. (See pages 43-58.) Reprinted also
with Hawthorne’s Works in _Our Old Home_.
_Unc._
This is interesting as a record of Miss Bacon’s experiences in
England while writing her book, and especially so as to her efforts
to have the tomb of Shakespeare opened, believing that she would
find within it manuscript proofs of her theory. Hawthorne himself,
though he wrote the preface to her book, was not a believer. “Being
conscious within myself of a sturdy unbelief,” he says.
“I had heard, long ago, that she believed that the material
evidences of her dogma as to the authorship, together with the
key of the new philosophy, would be found buried in Shakespeare’s
grave. Recently, as I understood her, this notion had been
somewhat modified, and was now accurately defined and fully
developed in her mind, with a result of perfect certainty.
In Lord Bacon’s letters, on which she laid her finger as
she spoke, she had discovered the key and clue to the whole
mystery. There were definite and minute instructions how to
find a will and other documents relating to the conclave of
Elizabethan philosophers, which were concealed (when and by whom
she did not inform me) in a hollow space in the under surface
of Shakespeare’s grave-stone. Thus the terrible prohibition
to remove the stone was accounted for. The directions, she
intimated, went completely and precisely to the point, obviating
all difficulties in the way of coming at the treasures; and
even, if I remember right, were so contrived as to ward off any
troublesome consequences likely to ensue from the interference of
the parish-officers. All that Miss Bacon now remained in England
for--indeed, the object for which she had come hither, and which
had kept her here for three years past--was to obtain possession
of these material and unquestionable proofs of the authenticity
of her theory.”
28 THE IDENTITY OF SHAKESPEARE AS A WRITER OF PLAYS. A chapter in
_The Biography and Bibliography of Shakespeare_. By HENRY G. BOHN.
Privately-printed (40 copies) for the Philobiblon Society. London,
1863. (See pages 291-300.)
_Pro-Sh._
This chapter gives a sketch of the various anti-Shakespearian works,
following it by the historical and contemporary evidence in favor of
Shakespeare, derived from Ben Jonson, Francis Meres, Milton, Greene,
Basse, etc., and adds:
“The positive testimony of Ben Jonson alone, who, though
Shakespeare’s friend, was a rival, and not at all likely
to concede more than belonged to him, ought in itself be a
sufficient answer. He was constantly near the poet; knew what
he wrote, and when he wrote; and after his death was engaged
in promoting the publication of his works. In conjunction with
him, John Heminge and Henry Condell, Shakespeare’s intimate
friends and fellow-players, and who are recognized as such in
his will, attest the authorship of all the plays in the first
folio, by subscribing themselves as witnesses. This volume,
too, is dedicated to those high-minded noblemen, William, Earl
of Pembroke, and Philip, Earl of Montgomery, who would not, and
could not, have consented to let themselves be made party to
a notorious fraud. Indeed, King James himself, as well as the
Earl of Southampton (who was intimate with both Lord Bacon and
Shakespeare) and all the players, playwrights, and literati of
the day, must have been acquiescent in the contemptible and
gratuitous deception--may we not say forgery?”
* * * * *
“In conclusion, we will only observe that Shakespeare had jealous
and watchful rivals enough to expose him had any suspicion
existed of his not being the actual author of the fame-absorbing
plays which bore his name during his life-time.”
29 LORD PALMERSTON. An article in _Fraser’s Magazine_, London,
November, 1865.
_Anti-Sh._
Page 666 contains the paragraph usually relied upon to prove Lord
Palmerston’s belief in the Baconian theory:
“Literature was the fashion of Lord Palmerston’s early days, when
(as Sydney Smith remarked) a false quantity in a man was pretty
nearly the same as a _faux pas_ in a woman. He was tolerably well
up in the chief Latin and English classics; but he entertained
one of the most extraordinary paradoxes touching the greatest
of them, that was ever broached by a man of his intellectual
calibre. He maintained that the plays of Shakespeare were
really written by Bacon, who passed them off under the name of
an actor, for fear of compromising his professional prospects
and philosophic gravity. Only last year when this subject was
discussed at Broadlands, Lord Palmerston suddenly left the room,
and speedily returned with a small volume of dramatic criticisms,
in which the same theory (originally started by an American lady)
was supported by supposed analogies of thought and expression.
‘There,’ he said, ‘read that and you will come to my opinion.’
When the positive testimony of Ben Jonson, in the verses prefixed
to the edition of 1623, was adduced, he remarked, ‘O, those
fellows always stand up for one another, or he may have been
deceived like the rest.’ The argument had struck Lord Palmerston
by its originality, and he wanted leisure for a searching
exposure of its groundlessness.”
The volume alluded to was Smith’s _Bacon and Shakespeare_.
30 MISS DELIA BACON. Chapter XL, in Mrs. JOHN FARRAR’S _Recollections
of Seventy Years_. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1866. 16mo. (Pages
319-331.)
_Unc._
An interesting account of Miss Bacon’s historical lectures, and of
her subsequent experiences in England.
“She [Miss Bacon] had no notion of going to England to teach
history; all she wanted to go for was to obtain proof of the
truth of her theory, that Shakespeare did not write the plays
attributed to him, but that Lord Bacon did. * * * The lady whom
she was visiting put her copy of his works out of sight, and
never allowed her to converse with her on this, her favorite
subject. We considered it dangerous for Miss Bacon to dwell on
this fancy, and thought that, if indulged, it might become a
monomania, which it subsequently did.”
* * * * *
“She suffered many privations [in London] during the time that
she was writing her book. She lived on the poorest food, and was
often without the means of having a fire in her chamber. She told
me that she wrote a great part of her large octavo volume sitting
up in bed, in order to keep warm.”
31 NOTES AND QUERIES. London. THIRD SERIES. From Q, with editorial
answer, IX, 155, February 24, 1866.
_Unc._
32 THE AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE. By NATHANIEL HOLMES. New York:
Hurd & Houghton, 1866, 12mo. pp. 601. Second edition, 1868. (Third
edition, with appendix, referred to hereafter, 1876, pp. 696.)
_Anti-Sh._
Judge HOLMES is the apostle of Baconianism. His book, first published
in 1866, has gone through several editions, and has been regarded as
the text-book and authority for all controversialists on that side.
Though largely reviewed and discussed, there has been but one book
written directly in answer to it--that of Mr. King.
We can not do better than to give Judge Holmes’s theorem in his own
language (hitherto unpublished):