Methinks such tattered rogues should never conquer:
a touch that could only be due to the pencil which had drawn Falstaff's
ragged regiment. In both cases, moreover, it was to be noted that the
tattered rogues proved ultimately victorious. But he had--they might
hardly believe it, but so it was--even yet stronger and more convincing
evidence to offer. It would be remembered that a play called _The Double
Falsehood_, formerly attributed to Shakespeare on the authority of
Theobald, was now generally supposed to have been in its original form
the work of Shirley. What, then, he would ask, could be more natural or
more probable than that a play formerly ascribed to Shirley should prove
to be the genuine work of Shakespeare? Common sense, common reason,
common logic, all alike and all equally combined to enforce upon every
candid judgment this inevitable conclusion. This, however, was nothing
in comparison to the final proof which he had yet to lay before them. He
need not remind them that in the opinion of their illustrious German
teachers, the first men to discover and reveal to his unworthy countrymen
the very existence of the new Shakespeare, the authenticity of any play
ascribed to the possibly too prolific pen of that poet was invariably to
be determined in the last resort by consideration of its demerits. No
English critic, therefore, who felt himself worthy to have been born a
German, would venture to question the postulate on which all sound
principles of criticism with regard to this subject must infallibly be
founded: that, given any play of unknown or doubtful authorship, the
worse it was, the likelier was it to be Shakespeare's. (This proposition
was received with every sign of unanimous assent.) Now, on this ground
he was prepared to maintain that the claims of _Andromana_ to their most
respectful, their most cordial, their most unhesitating acceptance were
absolutely beyond all possibility of parallel. Not _Mucedorus_ or _Fair
Em_, not _The Birth of Merlin_ or _Thomas Lord Cromwell_, could
reasonably or fairly be regarded as on the same level of worthlessness
with this incomparable production. No mortal man who had survived its
perusal could for a moment hesitate to agree that it was the most
incredibly, ineffably, inconceivably, unmitigatedly, irredeemably,
inexpressibly damnable piece of bad work ever perpetrated by human hand.
No mortal critic of the genuine Anglo-German school could therefore
hesitate for a moment to agree that in common consistency he was bound to
accept it as the possible work of no human hand but the hand of the New
Shakespeare.
The Chairman then proceeded to recapitulate the work done and the
benefits conferred by the Society during the twelve months which had
elapsed since its foundation on that day (April 1st) last year. They had
ample reason to congratulate themselves and him on the result. They had
established an entirely new kind of criticism, working by entirely new
means towards an entirely new end, in honour of an entirely new kind of
Shakespeare. They had proved to demonstration and overwhelmed with
obloquy the incompetence, the imbecility, the untrustworthiness, the
blunders, the forgeries, the inaccuracies, the obliquities, the utter
moral and literary worthlessness, of previous students and societies.
They had revealed to the world at large the generally prevalent ignorance
of Shakespeare and his works which so discreditably distinguished his
countrymen. This they had been enabled to do by the simple process of
putting forward various theories, and still more various facts, but all
of equally incontrovertible value and relevance, of which no
Englishman--he might say, no mortal--outside the Society had ever heard
or dreamed till now. They had discovered the one trustworthy and
indisputable method, so easy and so simple that it must now seem
wonderful it should never have been discovered before, by which to pluck
out the heart of the poet's mystery and detect the secret of his touch;
the study of Shakespeare by rule of thumb. Every man, woman, and child
born with five fingers on each hand was henceforward better qualified as
a critic than any poet or scholar of time past. But it was not, whatever
outsiders might pretend to think, exclusively on the verse-test, as it
had facetiously been called on account of its total incompatibility with
any conceivable scheme of metre or principle of rhythm--it was not
exclusively on this precious and unanswerable test that they relied.
Within the Society as well as without, the pretensions of those who would
acknowledge no other means of deciding on debated questions had been
refuted and repelled. What were the other means of investigation and
verification in which not less than in the metrical test they were
accustomed to put their faith, and by which they doubted not to attain in
the future even more remarkable results than their researches had as yet
achieved, the debate just concluded, in common with every other for which
they ever had met or ever were likely to meet, would amply suffice to
show. By such processes as had been applied on this as on all occasions
to the text of Shakespeare's works and the traditions of his life, they
trusted in a very few years to subvert all theories which had hitherto
been held and extirpate all ideas which had hitherto been cherished on
the subject: and having thus cleared the ground for his advent, to
discover for the admiration of the world, as the name of their Society
implied, a New Shakespeare. The first step towards this end must of
course be the demolition of the old one; and he would venture to say they
had already made a good beginning in that direction. They had disproved
or they would disprove the claim of Shakespeare to the sole authorship of
_Macbeth, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Hamlet_, and _Othello_; they had
established or they would establish the fact of his partnership in
_Locrine, Mucedorus, The Birth of Merlin, Dr. Dodipoll_, and _Sir Giles
Goosecap_. They had with them the incomparable critics of Germany; men
whose knowledge and judgment on all questions of English literature were
as far beyond the reach of their English followers as the freedom and
enlightenment enjoyed by the subjects of a military empire were beyond
the reach of the citizens of a democratic republic. They had established
and affiliated to their own primitive body or church various branch
societies or sects, in England and elsewhere, devoted to the pursuit of
the same end by the same means and method of study as had just been
exemplified in the transactions of the present meeting. Still there
remained much to be done; in witness of which he proposed to lay before
them at their next meeting, by way of inauguration under a happy omen of
their new year's work, the complete body of evidence by means of which he
was prepared to demonstrate that some considerable portion, if not the
greater part, of the remaining plays hitherto assigned to Shakespeare was
due to the collaboration of a contemporary actor and playwright, well
known by name, but hitherto insufficiently appreciated; Robert Armin, the
author of _A Nest of Ninnies_.