The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies Part 28

But why, being a great poet, should Bacon conceal the fact, and choose as a mask a man whom, on the hypothesis of his ignorance, every one that knew him must have detected as an impostor? Now, one great author did choose to conceal his ident.i.ty, though he never shifted the burden of the 'Waverley Novels' on to Terry the actor. Bacon may, conceivably, have had Scott's pleasure in secrecy, but Bacon selected a mask much more impossible (on the theory) than Terry would have been for Scott.

Again, Sir Walter Scott took pains to make his ident.i.ty certain, by an arrangement with Constable, and by preserving his ma.n.u.scripts, and he finally confessed. Bacon never confessed, and no doc.u.mentary traces of his authorship survive. Scott, writing anonymously, quoted his own poems in the novels, an obvious 'blind.' Bacon, less crafty, never (as far as we are aware) mentions Shakespeare.

It is arguable, of course, that to write plays might seem dangerous to Bacon's professional and social position. The reasons which might make a lawyer keep his dramatic works a secret could not apply to 'Lucrece.'

A lawyer, of good birth, if he wrote plays at all, would certainly not vamp up old stock pieces. That was the work of a 'Johannes Factotum,' of a 'Shakescene,' as Greene says, of a man who occupied the same position in his theatrical company as Nicholas Nickleby did in that of Mr.

Crummles. Nicholas had to bring in the vulgar pony, the Phenomenon, the buckets, and so forth. So, in early years, the author of the plays (Bacon, by the theory) had to work over old pieces. All this is the work of the hack of a playing company; it is not work to which a man in Bacon's position could stoop. Why should he? What had he to gain by patching and vamping? Certainly not money, if the wealth of Shakespeare is a dark mystery to the Baconian theorists. We are asked to believe that Bacon, for the sake of some five or six pounds, toiled at refashioning old plays, and handed the fair ma.n.u.scripts to Shakespeare, who pa.s.sed them off, among the actors who knew him intimately, as his own. THEY detected no incongruity between the player who was their Johannes Factotum and the plays which he gave in to the manager. They seemed to be just the kind of work which Shakespeare would be likely to write. BE LIKELY TO WRITE, but 'the father of the rest,' Mr. Smith, believed that Shakespeare COULD NOT WRITE AT ALL.

We live in the Ages of Faith, of faith in fudge. Mr. Smith was certain, and Mr. Bucke is inclined to suspect, that when Bacon wanted a mask he chose, as a plausible author of the plays, a man who could not write.

Mr. Smith was certain, and Mr. Bucke must deem it possible, that Shakespeare's enemy, Greene, that his friends, Jonson, Burbage, Heming, and the other actors, and that his critics and admirers, Francis Meres and others, accepted, as author of the pieces which they played in or applauded, a man who could write no more than his name. Such was the tool whom Bacon found eligible, and so easily gulled was the literary world of Eliza and our James. And Bacon took all this trouble for what reason? To gain five or six pounds, or as much of that sum as Shakespeare would let him keep. Had Bacon been possessed by the ambition to write plays he would always have written original dramas, he would not have a.s.sumed the part of Nicholas Nickleby.

There is no human nature in this nonsense. An ambitious lawyer pa.s.ses his nights in retouching stock pieces, from which he can reap neither fame nor profit. He gives his work to a second-rate illiterate actor, who adopts it as his own. Bacon is so enamoured of this method that he publishes 'Venus and Adonis' and 'Lucrece' under the name of his actor friend. Finally, he commits to the actor's care all his sonnets to the Queen, to Gloriana, and for years these ma.n.u.script poems are handed about by Shakespeare, as his own, among the actors, hack scribblers, and gay young n.o.bles of his acquaintance. They 'chaff' Shakespeare about his affection for his 'sovereign;' great Gloriana's praises are stained with sack in taverns, and perfumed with the Indian weed. And Bacon, careful toiler after Court favour, 'thinks it all wery capital,' in the words of Mr. Weller pere. Moreover, n.o.body who hears Shakespeare talk and sees him smile has any doubt that he is the author of the plays and amorous fancies of Bacon.

It is needless to dwell on the pother made about the missing ma.n.u.scripts of Shakespeare. 'The original ma.n.u.scripts, of course, Bacon would take care to destroy,' says Mr. Holmes, 'if determined that the secret should die with him.' If he was so determined, for what earthly reason did he pa.s.s his valuable time in vamping up old plays and writing new ones?

'There was no money in it,' and there was no reason. But, if he was not determined that the secret should die with him, why did not he, like Scott, preserve the ma.n.u.scripts? The ma.n.u.scripts are where Marlowe's and where Moliere's are, by virtue of a like neglect. Where are the MSS.

of any of the great Elizabethans? We really cannot waste time over Mr.

Donnelly's theory of a Great Cryptogram, inserted by Bacon, as proof of his claim, in the mult.i.tudinous errors of the Folio. Mr. Bucke, too, has his Anagram, the deathless discovery of Dr. Platt, of Lakewood, New Jersey. By manipulating the sc.r.a.ps of Latin in 'Love's Labour's Lost,' he extracts 'Hi Ludi tuiti sibi Fr. Bacono nati': 'These plays, entrusted to themselves, proceeded from Fr. Bacon.' It is magnificent, but it is not Latin. Had Bacon sent in such Latin at school, he would never have survived to write the 'Novum Organon' and his sonnets to Queen Elizabeth. In that stern age they would have 'killed him--with wopping.' That Bacon should be a vamper and a playwright for no appreciable profit, that, having produced his deathless works, he should make no sign, has, in fact, staggered even the great credulity of Baconians. He MUST, they think, have made a sign in cipher. Out of the ma.s.s of the plays, anagrams and cryptograms can be fashioned a plaisir, and the world has heard too much of Mrs. Gallup, while the hunt for hints in contemporary frontispieces led to mistaking the porcupine of Sidney's crest for 'a hanged hog' (Bacon).

The theory of the Baconian authorship of Shakespeare's plays and poems has its most notable and recent British advocate in His Honour Judge Webb, sometime Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, Regius Professor of Laws, and Public Orator in the University of Dublin. Judge Webb, as a scholar and a man used to weighing evidence, puts the case at its strongest. His work, 'The Mystery of William Shakespeare' (1902), rests much on the old argument about the supposed ignorance of Shakespeare, and the supposed learning of the author of the plays. Judge Webb, like his predecessors, does not take into account the wide diffusion of a kind of cla.s.sical and pseudo-scientific knowledge among all Elizabethan writers, and bases theories on manifest misconceptions of Shakespearean and other texts. His book, however, has affected the opinions of some readers who do not verify his references and examine the ma.s.s of Elizabethan literature for themselves.

Judge Webb, in his 'Proem,' refers to Mr. Holmes and Mr. Donnelly as 'distinguished writers,' who 'have received but scant consideration from the accredited organs of opinion on this side of the Atlantic.' Their theories have not been more favourably considered by Shakespearean scholars on the other side of the Atlantic, and how much consideration they deserve we have tried to show. The Irish Judge opens his case by noting an essential distinction between 'Shakspere,' the actor, and 'Shakespeare,' the playwright. The name, referring to the man who was both actor and author, is spelled both 'Shakspeare' and 'Shakespeare'

in the 'Returne from Parna.s.sus' (1602).* The 'school of critics' which divides the substance of Shakespeare on the strength of the spelling of a proper name, in the casual times of great Elizabeth, need not detain the inquirer.

*The Returne from Parna.s.sus, pp. 56,57,138. Oxford, 1886.

As to Shakespeare's education, Judge Webb admits that 'there was a grammar school in the place.' As its registers of pupils have not survived, we cannot prove that Shakespeare went to the school. Mr.

Collins shows that the Headmaster was a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and describes the nature of the education, mainly in Latin, as, according to the standard of the period, it ought to have been.* There is no doubt that if Shakespeare attended the school (the age of entry was eight), minded his book, and had 'a good sprag memory,'

he might have learned Latin. Mr. Collins commends the Latin of two Stratford contemporaries and friends of Shakespeare, Sturley and Quiney, who probably were educated at the Grammar School. Judge Webb disparages their lore, and, on the evidence of the epistles, says that Sturley and Quiney 'were not men of education.' If Judge Webb had compared the original letters of distinguished Elizabethan officials and diplomatists--say, Sir William Drury, the Commandant of Berwick--he would have found that Sturley and Quiney were at least on the ordinary level of education in the upper cla.s.ses. But the whole method of the Baconians rests on neglecting such comparisons.

*Fortnightly Review, April 1903.

In a letter of Sturley's, eximiae is spelled eximie, without the digraph, a thing then most usual, and no disproof of Sturley's Latinity.* The Shakspearean hypothesis is that Shakespeare was rather a cleverer man than Quiney and Sturley, and, consequently, that, if he went to school, he probably learned more by a great deal than they did.

There was no reason why he should not acquire Latin enough to astonish modern reviewers, who have often none at all.

*Webb, p. 14. Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, i. p.

150, ii. p. 57.

Judge Webb then discusses the learning of Shakespeare, and easily shows that he was full of mythological lore. So was all Elizabethan literature. Every English scribbler then knew what most men have forgotten now. n.o.body was forced to go to the original authorities--say, Plato, Herodotus, and Plutarch--for what was accessible in translations, or had long before been copiously decanted into English prose and poetry. Shakespeare could get Rhodope, not from Pliny, but from B. R.'s lively translation (1584) of the first two books of Herodotus. 'Even Launcelot Gobbo talks of Scylla and Charybdis,' says Judge Webb. Who did not? Had the Gobbos not known about Scylla and Charybdis, Shakespeare would not have lent them the knowledge.

The mythological legends were 'in the air,' familiar to all the Elizabethan world. These allusions are certainly no proof 'of trained scholarship or scientific education.' In five years of contact with the stage, with wits, with writers for the stage, with older plays, with patrons of the stage, with Templars, and so on, a man of talent could easily pick up the 'general information'--now caviare to the general--which a genius like Shakespeare inevitably absorbed.

We naturally come to Greene's allusion to 'Shakescene' (1592), concerning which a schoolboy said, in an examination, 'We are tired to death with hearing about it.' Greene conspicuously insults 'Shakescene'

both as a writer and an actor. Judge Webb says: 'As Mr. Phillipps justly observes, it' (one of Greene's allusions) 'merely conveys that Shakspere was one who acted in the plays of which Greene and his three friends were the authors (ii. 269).'

It is necessary to verify the Judge's reference. Mr. Phillipps writes: 'Taking Greene's words in their contextual and natural sense, he first alludes to Shakespeare as an actor, one "beautified with our feathers,"

that is, one who acts in their plays; THEN TO THE POET as a writer just commencing to try his hand at blank verse, and, finally, to him as not only engaged in both those capacities, but in any other in which he might be useful to the company.' Mr. Phillipps adds that Greene's quotation of the line 'TYGER'S HEART WRAPT IN A PLAYER'S HIDE' 'is a decisive proof of Shakespeare's authorship of the line.'*

*Webb, p. 57. Phillipps, ii. p. 269.

Judge Webb has manifestly succeeded in not appreciating Mr. Phillipps's plain English. He says, with obvious truth, that Greene attacks Shakespeare both as actor and poet, but Judge Webb puts the matter thus: 'The language of Greene... as Mr. Phillipps justly observes, merely conveys that Shakspere was one who acted in the plays of which Greene and his three friends were authors.'

The language of Greene IN ONE PART OF HIS TIRADE, 'an upstart crow beautified in our feathers,' probably refers to Shakespeare as an actor only, but Greene goes on to insult him as a writer. Judge Webb will not recognise him as a writer, and omits that part of Mr. Phillipps's opinion.

There followed Chettle's well-known apology (1592), as editor of Greene's sally, to Shakespeare. Chettle speaks of his excellence 'in the quality he professes,' and of his 'facetious grace in writing, that approves his art,' this on the authority of 'the report of divers of worship.'

This proves, of course, that Shakespeare was a writer as well as an actor, and Judge Webb can only murmur that 'we are "left to guess" who divers of worship' were, and 'what motive' they had for praising his 'facetious grace in writing.' The obvious motive was approval of the work, for work there WAS, and, as to who the 'divers' were, n.o.body knows.

The evidence that, IN THE OPINION OF GREENE, CHETTLE, AND 'DIVERS OF WORSHIP,' Shakespeare was a writer as well as an actor is absolutely irrefragable. Had Shakespeare been the ignorant lout of the Baconian theorists, these men would not have credited him, for example, with his first signed and printed piece, 'Venus and Adonis.' It appeared early in 1593, and Greene and Chettle wrote in 1592. 'Divers of worship,'

according to the custom of the time, may have seen 'Venus and Adonis' in ma.n.u.script. It was printed by Richard Field, a Stratford-on-Avon man, as was natural, a Stratford-on-Avon man being the author.* It was dedicated, in stately but not servile courtesy, to the Earl of Southampton, by 'William Shakespeare.'

*Phillipps, i. p. 101.

Judge Webb asks: 'Was it a pseudonym, or was it the real name of the author of the poem?' Well, Shakespeare signs 'Shakspere' in two deeds, in which the draftsman throughout calls him 'Shakespeare:' obviously taking no difference.* People were not particular, Shakespeare let them spell his name as best pleased them.

*Phillipps, ii. pp. 34, 36.

Judge Webb argues that Southampton 'took no notice' of the dedication.

How can he know? Ben Jonson dedicated to Lady Wroth and many others.

Does Judge Webb know what 'notice' they took? He says that on various occasions 'Southampton did not recognise the existence of the Player.'

How can he know? I have dedicated books to dozens of people. Probably they 'took notice,' but no record thereof exists. The use of arguments of this kind demonstrates the feebleness of the case.

That Southampton, however, DID 'take notice' may be safely inferred from the fact that Shakespeare, in 1594, dedicated to him 'The Rape of Lucrece.' Had the Earl been an ungrateful patron, had he taken no notice, Shakespeare had Latin enough to act on the motto Invenies alium si te hic fastidit Alexin. He speaks of 'the warrant I have of your honourable disposition,' which makes the poem 'a.s.sured of acceptance.'

This could never have been written had the dedication of 'Venus and Adonis' been disdained. 'The client never acknowledged his obligation to the patron,' says Judge Webb. The dedication of 'Lucrece' is acknowledgment enough. The Judge ought to think so, for he speaks, with needless vigour, of 'the protestations, warm and gushing as a geyser, of "The Rape."' There is nothing 'warm,' and nothing 'gushing,' in the dedication of 'Lucrece' (granting the style of the age), but, if it were as the Judge says, here, indeed, would be the client's 'acknowledgment,'

which, the Judge says, was never made.* To argue against such logic seems needless, and even cruel, but judicial contentions appear to deserve a reply.

Webb, p. 67.

We now come to the evidence of the Rev. Francis Meres, in 'Palladis Tamia' (1598). Meres makes 'Shakespeare among the English' the rival, in comedy and tragedy, of Plautus and Seneca 'among the Latines.' He names twelve plays, of which 'Love's Labour's Won' is unknown. 'The soul of Ovid' lives in his 'Venus and Adonis,' his 'Lucrece,' and his 'sugred sonnets among his private friends.' Meres also mentions Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, and so forth, a long string of English poetic names, ending with 'Samuel Page, sometime Fellow of C.C.C. in Oxford, Churchyard, Bretton.'*

*Phillipps, ii. pp. 149,150.

Undeniably Meres, in 1598, recognises Shakespeare as both playwright and poet. So Judge Webb can only reply: 'But who this mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare was he does not say, AND HE DOES NOT PRETEND TO KNOW.'* He does not 'pretend to know' 'who' any of the poets was--except Samuel Page, and he was a Fellow of Corpus. He speaks of Shakespeare just as he does of Marlowe, Kid, Chapman, and the others whom he mentions. He 'does not pretend to know who' they were. Every reader knew who they all were. If I write of Mr. Swinburne or Mr.

Pinero, of Mr. Browning or of Mr. Henry Jones, I do not say 'who they were,' I do not 'pretend to know.' There was no Shakespeare in the literary world of London but the one Shakespeare, 'Burbage's deserving man.'

*Webb, p. 71.

The next difficulty is that Shakespeare's company, by request of the Ess.e.x conspirators (who paid 2 pounds), acted 'Richard II.' just before their foolish attempt (February 7, 1601). 'If c.o.ke,' says the Judge, 'had the faintest idea that the player' (Shakespeare) 'was the author of "Richard II.," he would not have hesitated a moment to lay him by the heels.' Why, the fact of Shakespeare's authorship had been announced, in print, by Meres, in 1598. c.o.ke knew, if he cared to know. Judge Webb goes on: 'And that the Player' (Shakespeare) 'was not regarded as the author by the Queen is proved by the fact that, with his company, he performed before the Court at Richmond, on the evening before the execution of the Earl.'*

*Webb, pp. 72, 73.

Nothing of the kind is proved. The guilt, if any, lay, not in writing the drama--by 1601 'olde and outworne'--but in acting it, on the eve of an intended revolution. This error Elizabeth overlooked, and with it the innocent authorship of the piece, 'now olde and outworne.'* It is not even certain, in Mr. Phillipps's opinion, that the 'olde and outworne'