By C. S TO PES.
m*
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
THE
P
J
ACON-SHAKSPERE QUESTION
THE
BACON S HAKSPERE
Q UESTION,
BY
C. STOPES.
T. G. JOHNSON, 121 Fleet Street, E.G.
188S.
1
PREFACE.
THE great Shaksperean scholars consider it
beneath their dignity to answer the asser-
tions of the Baconians. " Silence " may be
" golden " in defence of the character of the living,
but in regard to the character of the dead, I think
that speech is golden when it answers speech ; and
proof, when it contests proof. Hence I thought it
not in vain to put together the main results of the
studies I had undertaken on my own account
during the past two years. These may help to
turn the balance of opinion in some wavering
minds, or to aid some warm Shakspereans (that
are too busy to go through original work on
their own account) to reconsider the subject justly,
and " give a reason for the faith that is in them."
C. Stopes.
^vr
jf.*jf. Study in preparation for a scries of articles
Oft Stimulants in the Trade fonrnal Wine,
Spirit & Beer, suggested to the Author the
force of proof available on this question; and
its subseqxient expansioji in the present form.
INTRODUCTION.
THE practical use of an introduction may best
be served by quoting a few writers on
the general question — as, for instance, Dr,
Ingleby's remarks on the controversy : " It serves
to call particular attention to the existence of a
class of minds, which, like Macadam's sieves,
retain only those ingredients that are unsuited to
the end in view. Alix up a quantity of matters
relevant and irrelevant, and those minds will
eliminate from the instrument of reasoning every
point on which the reasoning ought to turn, and
then proceed to exercise their constitutional per-
versity on the residue." '•' Of all men who have
left their impress on the reign of the first Maiden
Queen, not one can be found who was so deficient
in human sympathies as Xord^Tjacqh. As for such
aTnan portray ing'"a vvomarri'TrTall her natural sim-
plicity, purity and grace ; as to his imagining and
bodying forth in natural speech and action such
exquisite creations as Miranda, Perdita, Cordelia,
Desdemona, Marina — the supposition is the height
of absurdity." Professor Dowden also gives a
suggestive paragraph : " Bac on and Shakspere _
stand far apart. In moral character and m gins'
of intellect and soul, we should find little resem-
blance between them. While Bacon's sense of the
presence of physical law in the Universe was for
his time extraordinarily developed, he seems prac-
tically to have acted upon the theory that the
moral laws of the world are not inexorable, but
rather by tactics and dexterity may be cleverly
viii The Bacon- Shakspere Qiiestion,
7^ evaded. Their supremacy was acknowledged by
Shakspere in the minutest as well as in the
greatest concerns of human life. Bacon's superb
intellect was neither disturbed nor impelled by
the promptings of his heart. Of perfect friend-
ship or of perfect love, he may, without reluctance, y/
be pronounced incapable. Shakspere yielded his
whole nature to boundless and measureless de-
votion. Bacon's ethical writings sparkle with a
frosty brilliancy of fancy, playing over the worldly
maxims which constituted his wisdom for the
conduct of life. Shakspere reaches to the ulti-
mate truths of human life and character through
a supreme and indivisible energy of love, ima-
gination and thought. Yet Bacon and Shakspere
belonged to the one great movement of humanity." *
But perhaps Carlyle should specially be quoted,
on account of the strange use that Mr. Donnelly
has made of some of his phrases, and because of
the further support we know he would have given
to us now, had he lived. " Given your hero, what
is he to become — conqueror, king, philosopher,
or poet? ... He will read the world and its
laws ; the world with its laws will be there to
read. He must be able to be all, to be any. . . .
They have penetrated into the sacred mystery of
the Universe, what Goethe calls ' The open
secret.' It is unexampled, that calm creative
perspicacity of Shakspere. The thing he looks
at reveals not this or that face of it, but its in-
most heart and generic secret ; it dissolves itself
in light before him, so that he discerns the per-
fect structure of it. . . . Novum Organum and
all the intellect you will find in Bacon is of a
quite secondary order — earthy, material, poor, in
comparison with this. He had the Seeing Eye. . .
Sceptical dilettantism, the curse of these ages — a
curse: hat will not last for ever — does indeed,
in this the higher province of human things, as
* Mind and Art of Shahpere.
The Bacon-SJiakspere Question. ix
in all provinces, make sad work, and our rever-
ence for great men, all crippled, blinded, paralytic,
as it is, comes out in poor plight, hardly recog-
nisable. But now, were dilettantism, scepticism,
triviality, and all that sorrowful brood, only cast
out of us ! " * The perplexity of the question seems
to rise from the difficulty of believing that a heaven-
born genius should have arisen amid upper-class
tradesmen and farmers. Yet surely in a country
that, from a lower peasant class of the farming
community, produced a Carlyle and a Burns, this
extraordinary event need not be considered impos-
sible, even had it not been proved true.
* Heroes and Ilcro-tvorship.
BIOGRAPHICAL DATES.
1536 — 160S. Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, and Earl
of Dorset (dramatic poet).
1552 — 1596. George Peele (dramatic poet).
1552 — 1618. Sir Walter Raleigh (poet and historian).
1553 — 1599. Edmund Spenser (poet).
1554 — 1601. John Lyly (dramatic poet, and author of
Enplnics).
1554 — 1586. Sir Philip Sydney (soldier, poet, and author
of the Arcadia).
1554 — 1628. Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (philosophic
poet).
1556 — 1625. Thomas Lodge (dramatist and prose-writer).
1557 — 1634. George Chapman (dramatic poet, translator).
1558 — 1609. William Warner {Albion'' s England, historical
poem).
1560 — 1592. Robert Greene (dramatist and pamphleteer).
1561 — 1512. Sir John Harington : publishes his translation
of Ariosto, 1591.
1570. — 1632. Edward Fairfax: publishes his version of
Tasso, 1600.
1501 — 1626. Francis Bacon, Lord \'erulam, Viscount St.
Alban (philosopher, historian, &c.).
1562 — 1619. Samuel Daniel (poet).
1562 — 1593. Christopher Marlowe (dramatist and poet).
1563 — 1618. John Davies of Hereford.
1563 — 1631. Michael Drayton (poet, author o{ Polyolbion).
1563 — 1618. Joshua Sylvester (translates Du Bartas).
1564 — 1616. William Shakspere.
1567 — 1600. Thomas Nash (dramatist and pamphleteer).
1568 — 1639. Sir Henry Wotton (essayist and poet).
1569 — 1640. John Webster (dramaiic poet).
1569 — 1626. Sir John Davies (philosophic poet).
1573 — 1631. Dr. John Donne (poet and preacher).
1574 — 1626. Richard Barnefiekl (poet).
1574 — 1637. Ben Jonson (dramatist).
The Bacon- Shakspere Question,
1575— 1634. John Marston (dramatist).
1576 — 1625. John Fletcher (dramatist and poet).
15S6 — 161 5. Francis Beaumont (dramatist and pool).
Minor Dramatists :—
Henry Chettle.
Thomas Dekker.
Thomas Middleton.
Robert Taylor.
William Rowley.
Cyril Tourneur.
Thomas Nabbes,
John Day.
William Ilaughton.
SOME INTRODUCTORY DATES.
1558— 1603. Elizabeth's Reign.
1575 The Lord Mayor expels players from London.
They settle outside the liberty.
1576 Theatres built outside the liberty: —
1st. The Theatre.
2nd. The Curtain.
3rd. Elackfriars, by Eurbage.
4th. The Globe on Bankside.
A great controversy rises as to morality of
plays.
1576-9 Gosson, after trying his hand at writing for the
stage, alters his views, and brings out The
Schoole of Abuse, censuring plays, &c. ; dedi-
cated to Sir Philip Sydney.
1583 Philip Stubbcs, in his Anatomy of Abuses,
exposes and denounces Stage Plays and their
Evils.
1586 Sydney dies. Shakspere comes to London.
1592 Greene, Nash, and Ilarvey engage in a literary
controversy.
1593 — 1594- Venus and Adonis and Lueteec published
and dedicated by the author to Lord South-
ampton.
1595 Sydney's Apology for Poetry, in whicli he
takes the opposite view to Stubbes, is pub-
lished. Claike, in his Poli/nanteia, f\rs,i refers
to Ven7is and Adonis and Luereee as Shaks-
pere'.s.
xii The Bacoti-Shakspere Question.
1597 Bacon's i?5jrt'_j'j' published by the author. Shaks-
^Q.x&\ KicJiard II., Richard III, and Romeo
andjuliel published by the printers as Shaks-
pere's.
159S Francis Meres, M.A., a graduate of both Uni-
versities, notices Shakspere with praise in
Palladis Tamia.
1 599 John Rainoldes publishes his Overthrow oj
Stage Plays.
1 601 John Shakspere died.
1601-2. (Jan. 18.) Merry Wives of Windsor, as originally
written, licensed for the press ; printed 4to,
1602. Said to have owed its origin to the
Queen's express desire to see Falstaff on the
stage in love. The play is remarkable and
unique as containing the sole attempt by
Shakspere in the direction of a panegyric on
royalty.
1606 The Return from Parnassns, acted about 1602,
is printed with a highly eulogistic account and
flattering estimate of Shakspere.
1607 Shakspere's daughter Susanna marries Dr. Ilall.
1609 Sonnets published.
1610 Histrio-mastix ; or, the Player Whipt.
161 2 Apology for Actors by Thomas Heywood,
is printed.
1613 Globe Theatre burnt during performance of
He7iry VIII.
1614 Shakspere, according to contemporary testi-
mony, expresses a strong repugnance to the
enclosure of common lands near Stratford.
1615 Greene's Refutation of the '■^ Apology for Actors.^''
1616 Shakspere's daughter Judith marries Richard
Quiney.
1616 Shakspere dies. Jonson at Stratford.
1616 All Jonson's papers burned. (Did he take
Shakspere's to London ? — C. Brown.) Great
fire at Stratford,
1623 Shakspere's wife, Anne Hathaway, dies.
Ileming and CondcU bring out his collected
works.
1642 Edict against plays.
THE
BACON-SHAKSPERE QUESTION:
WITH A SPECIAL ILLUSTRATION
FROM THE CONSIDERATION OF STIMULANTS.
By C. Stopes.
Chapter I.
THE CHARACTER AND EDUCATION OF THE WRITER
OF THE PLAYS.
The attempt to dethrone Shakspere, \vliirli
has been made in the columns of the Daily
Telegraphy is not a new thing. Dr. Jamieson, the
anonymous writer in Chambers's Joicrnal^ was, I
beheve, the first to create a reasoned doubt of
Shakspere having written these plays, and suggest
that "he kept a poet." IMiss Delia Bacon, who
believed that poet to have been Bacon, was never-
theless so inconsistent as to dwell over every
souvenir of Shakspere, to haunt the places where he
lived, to spend even a night in Stratford Church by
his tomb, and lost her reason in her perplexity.
But she suggested the idea in America, where many
writers have worked at it. In England, Mr. W. H.
Smith wrote a book to prove the same proposition ;
and then Mrs. Potts took it up, and gave her Thirl y-
tivo Reasons for believing that Bacon wrote Shaks-
pere. She does not give the one reason that "he
did so;" which Mr. Donnelly tries to do now,
though he is not very successful.
2 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.
I may divide my answer into four groups.
I St. The probability from known character and
education of the writer of the plays.
2nd. Internal evidence, gained by comparing
Shakspere's plays and the works of Bacon, and
referring each to the character of the ascribed
author and supposed author.
3rd. The external evidence of most of the poems
and plays being at some time claimed by Shakspere,
and never by Bacon.
4th. The external evidence of the writings of
contemporaries, some of whom personally knew
both these great men.
The question is too large to be discussed fully in
these pages, yet I must briefly notice each of our
heads, and consider specially the rather novel
question : What is the relation these two writers
hold to the vieivs regarding wine, spirits, and beer
expressed in either set of works ?
The proceedings of the Bacon Society tell us
" the contention of the Baconians is that William
Shakspere had no hand whatever in the production
of either the plays or the poems — that he was
an uneducated man, who could just manage
to write his own name ; that there is not a particle
of evidence that he ever wrote, or could write,
anything else." They also accuse him of every
sin and crime, short of murder, to take away his
character, and thus argue from his want of character
an incapacity to have produced his poems. It is
reasoning in a circle with a vengeance, when the
argunicniiun ad Jwininem is thus made to contradict
the argumeniuin ad rem.
I St. I cannot imagine any literary student
asserting Bacon's claim; we cannot imagine any
psychological student believing in its possibility.
The psychologic aspect is of ]irime importance in
such a discussion, and this will be expanded in the
internal evidence. It has been well said, " Some
men are born colour-blind, and cannot distinguish
The Bacon- ShaJzspere Question. 3
colour ; they who could believe the Baconian theory
would seem to have been born character-blind."
Jean Paul Richter said that every poet ought to
choose to have himself born in a small town, so
as to grow up having the advantages of town and
country life. This happened in Shakspere's case,
and every other condition known of his life is
essentially congruous with the idea of a poet's de-
velopment. Warwickshire is a central county, the
great Roman roads from Dover to Chester and
from Totnes to Lincoln met there, so that much
traffic and interchange of ideas must have
sharpened the natives. Drayton speaks of it as
" Warlike Warwickshire." It was the border-
land between the Celtic and Teutonic races.
Shakspere is the type Englishman who has com-
bined the mobility and fancy of the Celt, with the
depth and energy of the Teuton, and the place of
his birth must not be ignored. Further, it was
formerly the district of J/cr/r/ifr, whither King Alfred
sent for Scholars, and which gave the literary
language to later England.* Stratford was no
inconsiderable town. In Speede's county map of
England, i6ic,t we find it marked as of the same
size and importance as Warwick, and second only
to Coventry in the county. It possessed the first
highway bridge over the Avon below Warwick,
and much traffic must therefore have passed
through it. Shakspere was born of one of
the best families within that town.| His father
had passed through the various grades of municipal
dignity, being successively Ale-taster, one of the
four Constables, one of the four Affeerors, then
High Alderman or Bailiff of Stratford ; and a sense
of importance and general interest must have risen
in his house. He was evidently nmch respected,
* Becon, in his nedicalion to the Princess Elizalx-'lh of
the Pearl of Joy, 1549, mentions that Warwickshire was
distinguished amony; the English counties for Ihc intelligence
of its inhabitants. — Eu.
t See Appendix, Note i. X See Appendix, Note 2.
4 Ti'ie BaconSIiakspcrc Qjtestion.
and he must have met the best society to be had.
His wife, an heiress of the neighbouring old family
of Arden, of good connexions, would doubtless pour
into the youthful ears of her children the family and
local legends, for tradition in those days took the
place of much of our modern education ; a sense of
the romance of war, and the pomp of courts would
thus arise in young Shakspere's heart. We can see
how he would appreciate the martial suggestion in
his patronymic so much made of by his contem-
poraries.'''' He would certainly get the best oppor-
tunities of education the place could afford. Nine
years before his birth, King Edward VI. specially
interested himself in the re-establishment by Royal
Charter of the Free Gramniar school of Stratford,
which had been suppressed at the dissolution of the
religious houses in his father's reign. Mr. Baynes
gives a list of the books used there. But I imagine
that to this list should be added Thomas Wilson's
Art of Rhetoric, \^\\\q\\ was dedicated in 1557 to
the Earl of Warwick, to whom Stratford belonged.
Not only does he explain how " Three things are
required of an orator, to teache, to delight, and to
persuade \ " but lago's speech, which the Baconians
insist is from untranslated Berni, is found therein.
William must have learned something at school. But
the river, the stile-paths, the woods, the wild flowers,
the clouds, and the birds must have been an attrac-
tion to the natural poet-soul. The old chap-books
and romances must have floated many a time between
the pages of his Latin Grammar and his eyes. He
lived on storied ground. Guy of Warwick and
* A record of the name appears in Kent in 1279 : " Some
are named from tiiat they carried, as Palmer . . . Long
sword, Broadspear, and, in some such respect, Shalvcspeare."
— Caindeii's Kcviaincs, Ed. 1605. " Brealvspcar, Shalcspear,
and the like, have bin surnames imposed upon the first
bearers of them for valour and feates of armes." — Verstegan's
RcstUution of Decayed Intelligence, Ed. 1605. In Poly-
doron (undated) " Names were first questionlesse given for
distinction, facullie, consanguinity, desert, quality ....
Armstrong, Shakspere of high quality."
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 5
Heraud of Arden formerly roamed there. Eves-
ham and Bosworlh were fought on the borders of the
Shire. Layamon and Piers Ploughman and Wycliffe,
were writers of the district. Henry VII. and Eliza-
beth had slept in Coventry, where the Mysteries
lingered until Shakspere's youth. The neighbour-
hood was haunted by suggestions. The town lay in
the fair forest of Arden, placed on the sweet Avon,
whose scenery is often suggested in his works.
No doubt he often was dreaming and indolent ;
he might remember himself when he wrote of the
" School-boy creeping unwillingly to school," or play-
ing truant from facts to weave his fancies " of imagin-
ation all compact." Doubtless the temptations of
beautiful Mother Nature were often too much for
him, and he would rush off from the chattering
town to the sweet solemn silences of the Forest of
Arden, thinking, " I know a bank whereon the
wild thyme blows ; " and perhaps he would dream
there till he saw the Fairy Queen as evening fell,
and was sworn into her service like Thomas of
Ercildoune, It was all so natural, however, for
one like him to have merry times with young
fellows as he grew older, and to play big school-
boy pranks on Sir Thomas Lucy and his keepers.
We cannot but think there must have been some
foundation for the legend of deer-stealing. It was
a part of the romance of youth to follow the
legends of the past. The law of the time proves
that no dreadful consequences would have ensued
on such a deed, even if Lucy wished to
enforce them, which was not likely, when the
culprit was a child of his old neighbour, Mary
Arden. My own opinion is that Lucy had with-
drawn from intimacy with the family at the time of
its waning fortunes, and roused a bitter feeling
thus, echoed in Timon. But it was not Sir Thomas
Lucy that drove Shakspere from Stratford.
His over-early and impetuous love, suddenly
sobered by a hasty marriage, suggests many a poetic
thought in his love scenes. But it was his too rapid
2
6 The Bacon- Shakspere Question,
awakening to the responsibilities of paternity that
changed the current of his Hfe. His father had a
large family to support upon the lands and the trade
shpping from him ; and more than enough domestic
help to perform the various employments that
farmers combined in those days before the division-
of-labour-system had arisen. Times or people
had changed, and the fortunes of the family grew
darkest just before its rising dawn. Its eldest-
born son rose to its rescue. There is no doubt
that the money difficulties of that period acted as a
peculiar, and perhaps necessary training for the
free poet soul, and were the real cause of his after
industry and worldly success. When, in the midst
of his father's money anxieties (that he evidently
sympathised in), he complicated matters by marry-
ing Anne Hathaway before he could support
her, he certainly felt that he must give up
his future life to duty. Yet that he had power
to combine two dissimilar aims, and succeed in
both, showed no common mind. In choosing a
career, he allowed his inclinations some play ;
buckled on his knapsack, and, like many another
man, went to seek his fortune in London, and
found it. He went not unknown. His mother
had good friends; but it is more than likely he
went straight to his old school-fellow Field, who
was a printer in Blackfriars. In Blackfriars also
were the players that had been down in Stratford,
Warwickshire men, Burbage among them. To
them would he go, possibly Avith Venus and
Adonis, the " first heir of his invention," in his
pocket. If he went to London in 1586, he must
have returned to Stratford in 1587, for he then
concurred with his parents in giving up his right to
inheritance in Asbies, that they might transfer it
freely to Lambert, for a further sum of ;^2o.
Several companies of players were in Stratford that
year, and it is more than likely he went to London
along with them. His father had always been fond
of spectacle, had been kind to the players in the
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 7
day of his power, and they, more than likely, had
a kindly feeling towards the young Benedict of
their own neighbourhood, on whom the cares of
domestic life were now pressing so heavily. For
there is no doubt his parents and younger brethren
leaned on him, as well as Anne and his three children.
His player-friends could not help him outside of their
own circle, but " they would see what they could
do for him." He was young, handsome, healthy,
and ambitious, a charming companion, a versatile
genius. They very soon discovered his gifts,
taught him to act, and seeing his power in
impromptu, set him to alter and freshen up
some of their old stock of plays. His success
in that department kindled him to spend his powers
on original work, and in a few years he was famous,
how few relatively may be calculated, by comparing
with his, the number of years it generally takes a
poet to get written about by other poets, or by
professors of literature. The universality of his
genius, his power of thought, his congruity of dic-
tion and sweetness of versification must have been
fed by a wonderful power of observation, and reten-
tive force of memory. His mind was like a magnet
that drew all grains of iron to itself, and impressed
its power on what it drew.
Just think how rapidly he would develope then.
Transplanted from the centre of a small town
where everyone knew him, to the fringes of a great
city unknown to him, the unknown ; how small the
unit to him would seem before the mass of
humanity. Instead of the Coventry Mysteries of
his boyhood, and the travelling players of his
youth, he would gaze from the best theatres at the
best plays of the time.* At first a spectator, he soon
entered behind the scenes. f The stage is a different
thing when one treads it ; life is a different thing
when seen from behind the footlights. The people
would become the actors to him, and he learned
their ways by heart. He was endowed with a
* See Appendix, Note 3. t See Appendix, Note 4.
8 The Bacon-SJiakspere Quesiioti.
determination to make the best possible of every
opportunity. Among the stage-properties would
be a large stock of manuscript and printed plays,
accepted and rejected. The Drama was then a
modern revival. It was not long since Sackville's
" Ferrex and Porrex " had initiated Tragedy, and
Nicholas Udall's " Ralph Roister Doister " had led
off true Comedy. How eagerly he would pore
over the ripening powers of Lyly, Greene, Peele,
]Marlowe, Kyd, and Lodge, with a preliminary rap-
ture that kindled his own soul.
We know that he had a volume of Montaigne's
Essays.* This was translated by Florio, who taught
the French and Italian languages, and lived in the
pay of the Earl of Southampton, whom he called
the " Pearl of Peers." From this connexion he
probably knew Shakspere, and might have given
him this copy of Montaigne's Essays. It is evident
he had read them. I think that, beyond Hall,
Holinshed, and the Bible, all his further book
knowledge can have been extracted from the
publications by VautroUier, the printer, whom Field
succeeded, and with whom he lived.
People have often asked, Where is Shakspere's
Library ? I feel inclined to answer. There ! Be-
cause the list of the publications of that firm
seems to supply all that is wanting for the material
of the plays and poems. We give this list in
the Notes.! We can well imagine his first period in
London, spent in sharing the same room with
Field, eagerly reading the books thus naturally
brought within his reach, and fiUing up the gaps in
his education with an interest that no scholastic
method could have done. Perhaps even, as Mr.
Blades suggests with more forcible arguments than
are brought forward to prove Shakspere belonging
to any other profession, he might have learned type-
setting and proof-correcting then, as there are in his
works so many phrases that, to a printer's eye,
* See Appendix, Note 5. f See Appendix, Note 6.
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 9
intimate special knowledge of his trade. INTr.
Halliwell-Philips suggests that he must, at least,
have gone carefully over his dedicated poems, as
the title-page and the typography are so superior to
anything else of the time. At the same time he learns
old London life. We hear later of his wit-combats
at "the Mermaid," where, among all wits, he was the
chief. And there must we seek the origin of many
a tavern-scene and word-combat in the plays.
There probably he became acquainted with the
best wits of the age — noble, or fighting the battle
of life like him, for bread — and he became the
Poet of them all, feeling, thinking, expressing for all.
He would meet no man without learning some-
thing from him ; so there would be suggestions
from Burbage and all the players ; from the poets
and lawyers that met at the Mermaid ; from
Southampton and Elizabeth and all the nobles ;
mingling with memories of the rustic homely souls
he knew in Stratford, modifying himself iho. under-
lying substratum of all.
Hence in a period when the dicta of Pastoral
Poetry had been pushed to an absurdity, when
every poet was a " Shepherd," even on the sea or
the battlefield, there arose a new and unexpected
vision. A real Shepherd, sprung from a real inland
farm, appeared and conquered the whole realm of
poetry ; and the masks of the mock-shepherd poets
were cast away for ever. But the chivalric romance,
the Arcadianism and the Euphuism ; the Mystery
and the Morality ; the Tragedy and the Comedy ;
the History of the nation and the Life of the
people that had been rising like the four sides of a
pyramid up to its apex, ended there in him. No one
has ever risen higher. There need so many and so
varied elements to the making of an all-round man.
The determination of his poetic form he owed
to his worldly success, as well as his worldly
misfortunes. The litigation* between Burbage's
* See Appendix, Note 4.
lo The Bacon-Shakspere Quest ion.
sons and other intending partners, show the true
meaning of Greene's jealousy of him, and of the
ruHng power he had acquired in five years.
Turn to Bacon, full of ambitions, with no
personal duty to others to raise or purify them.
Essentially a city youth, a University student, a
classic critic, an observant traveller, a man of the
world, a statesman born and bred, a lawyer, a
member of Parliament, an essayist, a scientist, a
philosopher — in short, the author of " The greatest
birth of Time."
That was his secret work, the idea of his life,
his happiness, his hope, his Alpha and Omega.
His own acknowledged poems are scarcely third-
rate : his masques, such as the " Conference of
Pleasure," pompous speeches, with flattery in them,
as a means to display magnificent robes. In his
later years he gives a translation of the Psalms
of commonplace type, occasionally even with crude
rhymes, such as —
" The huge Leviathan
Doth make the sea to seethe as boiling pan."
Maurice calls him, "This enemy of poets and
poetry," because his very definitions of poetry are
defective ; he considers the drama far from what
it ought to be; " it is not good to remain long in
the theatre." He writes an Essay on Love ; he can
analyse its elements ; neither in life nor writing
does he acknowledge its power. His faults were
essentially unpoetical, his character was selfish and
self-centred, he never did an impulsive thing in his
life ; he fell in love at forty-three, and married at
forty-six a young and eligible maiden ; did not
make her happy, and was not very happy with her
himself. A hunter for place and reward all his life,
he pUed his sovereign with petitions, and, beside
his sovereign, all his sovereign's favourites. He
might have loved Essex in his own way, but he
deserted him ; he could not have honoured James
and Villiers, but he loaded them with adulation.
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. ii
His undoubted superiority gave him rivals; his
eagerness to please made him enemies ; his speeches
in Parliament offended Elizabeth, who thought
him more showy than deep ; his secret experi-
ments and " speculations " disgusted his relative,
Burleigh. Writing poetry would have been a venial
offence compared to this of " speculation." Buck-
hurst, Raleigh, Davies, Spenser, and many others
were known poets and in office. Doubtless Eliza-
beth's shrev/d eye read his inner character better
than he thought, better than her successor did. Under
James his efforts to rise were crowned with success,
and he fell a victim rather to his vanity and his rivals
than to his crimes.* His tremendous energy and
perseverance are worthy of note. From sixteen to
sixty he kept making expermients, studying philo-
sophy, noting facts, writing and rewriting his mar-
vellous collection of philosophic works — some of
them even twelve times ; attending to his health,
diet, and medicines in a very special way ; besides
the work of Parliament, of office, of society, of
gaiety, of masque-writing, with occasional acting
and shows to make him like the other gay men of
the period.
We must remember, also, he was before his
times. The practical nature of his science was
considered degrading, and his philosophy confusing.
It did not develop so naturally as that of Bruno,
writing at the same period. The Instauratio
Mag7ia was presented to Sir Edward Coke in 1620,
who wrote on the title page —
Edw. C, ex done Auctoris,
" Auctori Consilium,
Instaurare paras vcterum documenta sophorum,
Instaurare Leges Justitiamque prius."
And over the device of the ship passing between
Hercules' pillars. Sir Edward wrote —
*' It deserveth not to he read in Schooles,
But to be freighted in the ' Ship of Fooles.' "
* See Appendix, Note 7 '
12 The Bacon-Shakspere Quest ion.
Mr. Henry Cuffe said that " a fool could not have
written this work, and a wise man would not."
And King James used to say the book was "like
the peace of God, that passeth all understanding."
Yet while in advance of many, he was behind
some. He did not agree with GaUleo ; Sir Thomas
Bodley, while praising, criticised sharply both his
style and works. Harvey would not allow him to
be a great scholar, saying, " He writes philosophy
like a Lord Chancellor." Sir Toby Matthew seemed
his most faithful admirer through life and death.
He was constantly occupied either in his pro-
fessional or his literary and scientific ambitions.
How the Baconians imagine he could find time
to write the plays, even if he had the inspiration,
I know not. The question of time taken, even for
his acknowledged writings, occurs to his own mind.
In his Epistle Dedicatory to the King, prefacing
his great work, he says : " Your Majesty may
perhaps accuse me of larceny, having stolen from
your affairs so much time as was required for this
work. I know not what to say for myself. For
of time there can be no restitution, unless it be that
what has been abstracted from your business, may,
perhaps, go to the memory of your name and the
honour of your age."
Further, the plays are evidently the work of an
actor of the very modern English school of dramatic
art. Bacon would have scorned their scholar-
ship, despised their neglect of the unities, denied
their passion, and ignored their wit, and he did so,
in a general way, throughout his writings. Ben
Jonson was more near to him in every way, and it
would have been much more natural to say that he
wrote Ben Jonson's plays to teach Sliakspere how
to do it.
The plan I have proposed to myself is more
general than verbally critical. The Baconians are
unwise, they try to prove too much. They say
Shakspere was utterly ilHterate and unable to write
any of his works. If I can only prove he wrote
The Bacon-Shakspere Qnesttoji, 13
" some," or even that he was capable of writing
"any," we can prove their universal assertion /a/jrt'
by a particular.
The personal animus shown in the way their
proofs are treated, discounts from the validity of
their conclusions. But before we take the opinion
of witnesses, we must see what each of these
writers had to say for himself. The contrast
between their opinions on poetry, drama, the stage,
love, marriage, fatherhood, life, space, time and
eternity have been treated elsewhere. I have
tested them on hitherto untried ground, that
of their manner of viewing stimulants, and I
consider the result satisfactory.
14 The Bacon- Shakspere Question.
Chapter II.
THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF SHAKSPERE's PLAYS
AND bacon's books.
One very striking point of contrast has not
been sufficiently noted elsewhere. Bacon is
essentially a subjective writer — subjective to an
extraordinary degree, even when he is scientific.
He writes much in the first person ; his very
experiments are narrated as "singular" or "in
consort ; " his great Idea is an invitation to mankind
to work with him. The hundreds of his letters
which have been preserved support this peculiarity :
he says, " I know I am censured of some conceit
of mine ability."
Shakspere, on the other hand, is objective to
as extraordinary a degree. He never writes in the
first person, except in the Sonnets, and even there
we can notice an objective dominating power, and
a suggestion that they too might have been written
dramatically, or as a natural expression or \6\ctfor
the friends to whom he gave them to express their
feelings to their friends. In all other writings
the man Shakspere never brings himself forward by
word or suggestion. The actor-element in him
throws him so intensely into the real life of the being
he delineates, that he becomes, as it were, simply
a vehicle to carry the thoughts of a Romeo, a
Hamlet, a Csesar, a Lear, where even the use of
the first and second persons are practically the
third to him.
The unobtrusiveness of Shakspere's life re-
flected itself in his wiitings. His dramatic form
veiled him, as he intended it should. It could not
have veiled Bacon. You would at once have been
\
The Bacon- Shahpere Qiiesiion. 15
able to pick out which character he meant most
nearly to represent himself, as you can do in
Byron. When Bacon writes for the stage, he
writes masques, utterly unlike Shakspere, and
just like himself— thoughtful, heavy, and adulatory.
" They answer very well to the general description
in Bacon's Essays of Avhat a masque should be,
with its loud and cheerful music, abundance of
light and colour, graceful motions and forms, and
such things as do naturally take the sense."
(Spedding's Bacoii).
With the same exception of the Sonnets, Shak-
spere also writes little to the second person.
Bacon is always intensifying its use, and is full of
flattery as well as dedication. Not only does he
pile it on to Elizabeth and James, but to every one
who could in any way help him. That it was the
position and not the man he honoured, may be
seen by the way he forgot the warm helpful
cordiality of Essex ; and prepared adulation and
advice for succeeding royal favourites, however
unworthy. This, though partly a part of character,
is also an element of style, only to be discovered
now in the literary works of each.
The simple, manly character of Shakspere
prevented him ever writing " Panegyrics,"
"Elegies," Dedications, of the fulsome type in
which Bacon constantly indulged. He never
mentions Elizabeth except in Cranmer's speech
in " Henry VHI." He never alludes to James
except in " Macbeth." The simple dedication
of "Venus and Adonis" to Southampton by
Shakspere, may be compared to Bacon's dedica-
tion of his "Advancement of Learning" to James.
The whole structure of language in the two
writers is as characteristic, and, therefore, as
different as is possible in the case of two great
men living at the same time, in the same city,
serving the same sovereign, rubbing shoulders with
the same men, conversing with the same wits,
hoping the same national thoughts.
1 6 The Bacon-Shakipere Question.
No author more often repeats similar phrases,
and ideas sometimes identical, than Bacon, because
he was a Scientist ; while the recurrences of
Shakspere are few, and are modified by the mood
and the circumstance as becomes a Poet and a
Philosopher,
Just as one can say it is impossible that
Shakspere could have written Bacon, without a
learning he did not possess, so we can say it was
impossible for Bacon to have written Shakspere
without putting into the poems some of the
learning he did possess.
The relation each holds to wine, spirits, and
beer is peculiar. Bacon was a scientist \ he con-
sidered no experiment too vulgar to be regarded.
Trade facts and habits were collected and
criticised by his thoughtful mind. He notices wine <
more than beer ; cyder and perry a little ; spirits,
in any separate modern form, not at all. He gives
advice as to the process of wine-making — methods
of grafting vines, of training and manuring them,
of ripening and preserving grapes, of the must,
clarification, maturation, and methods of treatment,
such as burymg, heating, cooling. He tests the
relative weights of wine and water. He treats of
barley as seed, as growing corn, drying corn,
as malt, as mash, as beer, and of other forms
of grain that might be used as malt. He writes
of hops, of finings, of casking, of bottling, of
preserving, of doctoring. He gives valuable
historical information as to the taxes on ale-
houses, and the monopoly of sweet wines ; legal
information regarding felony, pardonable when a
man is mad, but not when he is drunk. He writes
the " Natural History of Drunkenness and its
Effects." He gives some preventives against
inebriety — i.e., by burning wine, taking sugar with
it — taking large draughts rather than small ones
— and recommends oil or milk as an antidote to
its after-effects.
The moral question never touches him ; not even
The Bacon-Shahpcre Question. 17
in his " Colours of Good and Evil," does he con-
sider drink in relation to character. The psycho-
logical effect is treated only physiologically. Man,
to him, is but a means of experimenting upon the
various effects of spirit in wine. We do not hear
of Bacon mingling with the "people," or indulging
in their "small ales," though he uses beer chiefly
with medicine. Being a gentleman, and moving
only among gentlemen, he chiefly affected wine,
probably of expensive sorts, as he was a connoisseur.
Shakspere, in his non-dramatic poems — i.e.,
"Venus and Adonis," " Lucrece," "Passionate
Pilgrim," "Sonnets," &c., never mentions wine or
strong drink, 3s if it did not play so large a part
in his life as the Baconians give it.
But it is different when we turn from the poems
that shadow forth his own thoughts, to those that
represent the thoughts of others. He knows that
stimulants form an important element, not only of
action, but also of character. The author of
Shakspere was always ready to suggest what
knowledge he had gleaned on every subject. Had
lie been Bacon, he could not have avoided some
allusions to his knowledge and experiments on this
point. Among the many trades and professions,
the critics have " proved " that Shakspere " must
have practised," no one has hitherto suggested his
being a brewer, distiller, wine-maker, maltster, or
lecturer on the art of manufacturing liquors, as one
might well have said of Bacon. Indeed, Mrs. Potts
gives as one reason that he could not have written
the plays, that he did not allude to a brewing, &c.
Now, we see that this test acts quite on the other
side. It is rather amusing to find that in Mr.
Donnelly's book, that has come out since these
articles were penned for the magazine, he says
that Shakspere was a brewer. I am not going
to contest this question ; only this is just the
point in which he would require most help from
Bacon. Shakspere in his plays, at least, receives
and knows only the " finished product," and treats
1 8 The Bacon-Shakspere Question,
it only in relation to man. We find he knows the
value of "froth and lime" and "sugar" to the
Tapster, probably learned when, in some holiday,
he enacted the part he gave to Prince Henry. He
knew that tapsters sometimes put water in their
beer ; that brewing was one of the duties of a good
housewife ; that ale and beer were the drinks of the
people ; and where they could best be got. He
was aware that wine was the drink of some foreign
nations, who considered themselves on that account
superior to the "ale-drinking Englishman;" that
wine was the drink of the upper classes in this
country, probably from its greater cost and its
higher and more subtle effects. The habit of
drinking healths was in full fashion in his day ; and
the " heavy drinking " had begun amongst English-
men, which had previously prevailed among the
Germans and Dutch. A number of interesting
phrases are preserved to us in relation to this
special subject. One little geographical notice
tells powerfully in favour of Shakspere, if not
against Bacon. In the induction to the Taming of
the Shrew, he praises the power of the "Wincot
Ale," which sent Christopher Sly to sleep. Now,
Wincot was the birth-place of Shakspere's mother,
Mary Arden, and the place of her inheritance — a
village at a walking distance from Stratford, famed
for its ale, which no doubt he had often tasted on
his youthful wanderings.
Perry and cyder are never mentioned. No
allusion appears in any drinking scene to spirits
by any modern name, except aqua vitm, which
appears twice — once in connexion with an Irish-
man, hence not meaning brandy. When Juliet's
nurse calls out, " Some aqua vita, ho !" it is sup-
posed to be simply a restorative. IBut while giving
thus comparatively little information on the objec-
tive nature of these drinks, Shakspere has given us
a masterly analysis of the subjective effects of
stimulants in various degrees on different minds,
and the views they have of it. The simple honest
The Bacoji-Shakspere Question. 19
Adam, in As Vou Like It, considers his abstinence
in youth the cause of his health and strength in
age ; the bloated Falstaff gives as the reason of
Prince Henry's superiority over his father, the free
use of wine. Lady Macbeth is made " bold " by
what had made her attendants drunk. Falstaff is
always requiring a reinforcement of Dutch courage, in
" an intolerable deal of sack to a halfpenny-worth of
bread." The degradation of a higher nature is shown
in Mark Anthony ; but the most masterly descrip-
tion of the effects on an imaginative, sensitive, and
hot-blooded man is shown in Cassio. He knows
he cannot stand much wine ; he has already suffered
in the past ; he has resolved to have no more than
one cup ; tempted to his destruction by the cold-
blooded villain lago, by specious pretexts, he feels
the full shame of his broken resolve to himself, of
his broken faith to Othello, as a moral death.
In several of his plays, Shakspere makes no men-
tion of any stimulant ; these are the Midsummer
Nighfs Dream, Loves Labours' Lost, Wintej- s Tale,
Alls Well That Ends Well, Comedy of Errors,
Richard IL, Part 3, Heftry VL, and Titus
Atidronicus. The only allusion in Much Ado
About Nothing is Leonato's invitation to Dogberry,
" Drink some wine ere you go " ; and in lung
John the only suggestion lies in Faulconbridge's
exclamation : —
St. George — that swinged the dragon, and ere sincCf
Sits on his horseback at mine hostess' door,
Teach us some fence !
It is interesting to note the different kinds
of stimulant and the names of the vessels and
accessories named in different plays : —
"Cup of Charneco," "sack," "pot of double
beer," "Three-hooped pot," "Claret," "Wine,"
and "beer." (Henry VL, Part 2.)
"Butt of Malmsey," "Sop," "Wine." {King
Richard II.)
"Pot of small ale," "Pot of the smallest ale,"
20 The Bacon- Shakspere Question.
" Stone jugs and sealed quarts," "Fat alewife,"
"Sheer ale," " On the score." (Ind. to Taming of
the Shrew)
" Muscadel and sops." {Taming of the Shreiv.)
" Wine and wassail," " Drink." (Macbeth.)
" Drunken spilth of wine," "Subtle juice o' the
grape," " Honest water." {Tivion of Athens)
' 69th enquiry.
\_For continuation of Foot-note sec p. 68.
68 The Bacon-Shaksperc Question,
Pie distinctly states what he would do, if left to
himself: "The call for me, it is book learning."
*' I confess I have as vast contemplative ends, as I
have moderate civil ones." " I am like ground
fresh. If I be left to myself, I will grow and bear
natural philosophy ; but if the King will plow me
up again and sow me on, I hope to give him some
yield. ... If active, I should write —
1. The Reconciling of Laws.
2. Tlie Disposing of Wards.
3. Limiting the Jurisdiction of Courts.
If contemplative I would write —
1. Going on with the story of Henry VIII.
2. General treatise of De Legibus et Justitia.
3. The Holy War."
Writing to Sir Thomas Bodley, he says : " There-
fore calling myself home, I have now for a time
enjoyed myself, whereof likewise I desire to make
the world partake. My labours, if I may so term
that which was the comfort of my other labours, —
I have dedicated to the king." And this was
Cogitata et Visa — i.e., philosophical writings — no
claim for poetry. His being " wholly exercised
in inventions " is also evidently explained by the
experiments and inventions he made. " I have
taken all knowledge to be my province ; and if I
Fire. • . Greater masses x X X X 7°'^ enquiry.
Heavens Greater masses ij) qj ij. f/j 71st enquiry.
Meteors Greater masses w w w w 72nd enquiry.
Conditions of Beings.
Existence and non-existence a a a a 73rd enquiry.
Possibility and impossibility ^ /3 /3 /3 74th enquiry.
Much and Little . . . . y y y y 75th enquiry.
Durable and transitoiy . . 5 5 6 S 76th enquiry.
Natural and unnatural . . e e e e 77th enquiry.
Natural and artificial . . c C C C 78th enquiry, &c.
Such then is the rule and plan of the Alphabet. May God
the Maker, the Preserver, the Renewer of the universe, of
His love and compassion to man, protect and guide this
work, both in its ascent to His glory, and in its descent to
the good of man, through His only Son, God with us. —
Spedding's Bacon,
TJie Baam-Shakspere Question. 69
could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the
one with disputations, confutations and verbosities,
the other with bUnd experiments and auricular
traditions and impostures, hath committed so many
spoils; I hope I should bring in, industrious obser-
vations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inven-
tions and discoveries ; the best state of that province.
This, whether it be curiosity or vain glory, or
nature, or if one take it favourably, philanthropia,
is so fixed in my mind that it cannot be removed."
Letter to Bio-gliky, 1592. He often uses the word
in this sense, as well as his previous one — a poetic
conception of a fictitious tale, such as would suggest
our modern novel. Therefore we may exonerate
Bacon from claiming the Plays.
But not only were the Poems and Plays printed
as Shakspere's at the outset, both in the early
editions and the standard editions of 1623 and
1632, but they continued to be so by the old
stationers and by the modern editors without excep-
tion or scepticism. \V^e must not forget the old
proverb, " Possession is nine points of the law." Our
arguments, then, do not require to be one-quarter
as strong as those of the other side to overwhelm
them. But we have an opinion, shared by many,
that they are stronger. Of the translations of
certain Psalms into English verse by Bacon 1624,
Spedding says: "These were the only verses cer-
tainly of Bacon's making that have come to us, and
probably with one or two slight exceptions the
only verses he ever wrote."
The Bacon-Shaksperc Question.
Chapter IV.
External Evidence.
We have, further, the psychological improbability
that so many men 7nust have been in the secret,
if secret there was ; and that all should have been
able to keep it, not to only keep it even in silence,
but to go out of their way to falsify the facts.
We hold that truth is more natural to men than
untruth ; and that a truth depending upon a simple
definite fact of yes or no, would have been sure to
have leaked out through some of the many confede-
rates necessary to so great and complex a plot as
this must necessarily have been, had it been.
The unanimous external evidence of other
people's writings, however, is the most convincing
proof.
1592. The earliest printed notice which alludes to
Shakspere is in Greene's Groaf s-worth of Wit, where
he, in an oft-quoted passage, evidently aims at Shak-
spere's growing fame and his entrance on a dra-
matic career as the actor and adapter of other
men's dramas, and calls him " an absolute yi?//a//«^
Factotum " and " the only Shakescene in a country."
It suggests that he also assisted in stage-manage-
ment, and points to the fact that he was dominant
by that time, and that other witty writers were subject
to his pleasures.
Greene's scorn of the actors, the "puppits,'' the
"buckram gentleman," seems embittered by the
fact that one of them should be " able to bumbast
out a blanke verse as well as the best of you." As
a rival of Shakspere, it is wonderful he had so little
else to say against him.
The Bacon- Shaksperc Qucsilon. 71
Green's Groafs-worth of Wit. " Young Juvenal
that biting satyrist.* And thou no less de-
serving than the other two. . . . Base-minded
men all three of you, if by my miserie ye be not
v/arned \ for unto none of you (like me) sought
those burres to cleave : those Puppits (I meane)
that speak from our mouths, those anticks garnished
in our colours. Is it strange that I, to whom they
all have been beholding ; is it not like that you, to
whom they all have been beholding, shall (were
ye in that case that 1 am now) be both at once of
them forsaken ? Yes, trust them not : for there is
an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that
with his t Tiger's Heart Wrapt in a Flayer s Hide
supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke
verse as the best of you ; and being an absolute
Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only
Shakescene in a countrie. Oh, that I might
intreate your rare wits to be employed in more
profitable courses ; and let these Apes imitate your
past excellence, and never more acquaint them with
your admired inventions. . . . Whilst you
may, seeke you better maisters, for it is pittie men
of such rare wits j should be subject to the pleasures
of such rude groomes. In this I might insert two
more that both have writ against these buckram
gentlemen. For other new comers I leave them
to the mercy of those painted monsters, who, I
doubt not, will drive the best-minded to despise
them."
This and Greene's Quippefor an upstati Courtier
really led to the Nash-Harvey dispute, as Nash
was by some supposed to have aided Greene ; by
others, Chettle, the editor, was blamed. The one
point, however, in which all concerned agreed was
the praise of Shakspere, and the clearing his name
from any blame.
* Nash.
t "Oh, Tyger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide." — 3rd Part,
A'ing Henry I 'I.
J Marlow, Lodge and Nash,
72 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.
*' Greene, the coney-catcher of this dreame, the
autour — for his dainty device deserveth the Hauter
. . . . I would not wish a sworn enemie to be
more basely valued, or more vilely reputed than
the common voice of the citie esteemelh him that
sought fame by diffamation of other, but hath
utterly discredited himself, and is notoriously
grown a proverbe of infamy and contempt. . . .
Honour is precious, worship of value, fame in-
valuable. They perillously threaten the Common-
wealth that go about to violate the inviolable partes
thereof, many will sooner lose their lives than the
least jott of their reputation. "§
1592. In Fierce Peimilesse, by Thomas Nash, we
find " Other newes I am advertised of, that a scald
triviall lying pamphlet called Green's Groafs-worth
of Wit is given out to be of my doing. God never
have care of my soule, but utterly renounce me, if
the least word or syllable in it proceeded from my
pen." Further, " How would it have joyed brave
Talbot (the terror of the French) to thinke that
after he had lyen two hundred yeares in his
toombe, he should triumph again on the stage, and
have his bones new embalmed with the teares of
10,000 spectators at least (at several times) who,
in the tragedian that represents his person imagine
they see him fresh-bleeding." And again, " If
you tell them what a glorious thing it is to have
Henry V. represented on the stage leading the
French King prisoner and forcing both him and
the Dolphin to swear fealtie. Aye, but (will they
say) what doo we get by it? respecting neither
the right of fame that is due to the nobility deceased,
nor what hopes of eternity are to be proposed to ad-
venturous minds, to encourage them forward."
Nash further praises plays in general.
1592. In Foiire Letters mid certain Sonnets,
especially touching Robert Greene and other parties
by him abused, Gabriel Harvey praises Shakspere,
§ Very suggestive of Casslo's regard for "reputation."
The Bacon-Shakspcre Question.
/J
and also says : " If any distresse be miserable, dif-
famation is intolerable, especially to mindes that
would rather deserve just commendation than un-
just slander. That is done, cannot de facto be un-
done ; but I appeale to wisedome how discreetly/
and to justice, how deservedly it is done; and
request the one to do us reason in shame of Im-
pudency, and beseech the other to do us right in
reproach of Calumny. It was my intention so to
demeane myself in the whole, and so to temper my
stile in every part, that I might neither seeme
blinded with affection, nor enraged with passion;
nor partiall to friend, nor prejudicial! to enemie ,
nor injurious to the worst, nor offensive to any, but
mildely and calmly shew how discredite reboundeth
upon the autors, as dust flyeth back into the wag's
eyes, that will need be puffing it out." And, in the
next year, in Pierce's Supererogation he adds,
" He is very simple who would fear a rayling
Greene."
1592. Greene's friend Chettle, who had edited
Greene's " Groatsworth," publishes Kind Harfs
Dream, in which he says of Shakspere, '* I am
as sorry as if the originall fault had beene my
fault, because myselfe have seene his demeanour
no less civille than he, exelent in the qualitie he
professes. Besides, divers of worship, have reported
his uprightness of deahng, which argues his
honesty, and his facetious grace in writing which
aprooves his art." This proves him no "rude
groome," but of civil demeanour, excellent in the
" qualitie he professes " — i.e., acting and improving
on plays, with a facetious grace in writing with art
and with good friends.
I shall now set down in order of time the re-
markable sequence of witnesses for Shakspere's
title to be regarded as the author of the plays and
poems : —
1593. A letter written to Lord de CHfford
styles iShakspere " our English Tragedian." In this
year Venus and Adonis was printed.
74 The Bacon-Shakspere Qucstiofi.
1594. Henry Willobie, in his Avisa, says : —
" And Shakspere paints poor Lucrece rape."
In his introductory verses on his love-troubles,
Willobie consults his friend Shakspere, " who not
long before had tried the courtesy of a like
passion."
1594. " You that to shew your wits have taken toyle
In registering the deeds of noble men,
And sought for matter on a forraine soyle
As worthier subjects of your silver pen,
Whom you have raised from dark oblivion's den ;
You that have writ of chaste Lucretia
AVhose death was witness of her spotless life ;
Or penned the praise of sad Cornelia,
Whose blameless name hath made her name to rise
As noble Pompey's most renowned wife.
Hither unto your home direct youre eies
Whereas unthought on, much more matter lies."
(Sir William Herbert : Epicedium of Lady
Helen B7-anch.')
1594. " Lucrece, of whom proud Rome hath boasted long
Lately revived to live another age."
(Drayton's Matilda.)
1594. Still finest wits are 'stilling Venus' rose.
(Robert Southwell.)
1595. "All praiseworthy Lucretia of sweet Shakspere."
(Marg. note to Clark's Polimantda.)
'595- " -^"^^ there though last, not least is Action
A gentler shepherd may nowhere be found,
Whose muse, full of high thought's invention,
Doth like himself heroically sound."*
(Spenser's Colin €10111' s come home again.)
1595. In George Markham's tragedy of Sir
Richard Gretwille, headdresses Southampton thus:
" Thou, the laurel of the muses' hill,
Whose eyes doth crown the most victorious pen."
— meaning Shakspere.
1596. The Prologue to Ben Jonson's Every
* This surely could not be Bacon, Action means eagle-
flight, suggesting his poetry. Shakspere was the only heroic
name of the period. All poets then were poetically called
shepherds.
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 75
Man in His Humour alludes to Shakspere's
Henry V. and Henry VI. He said that the
world had had enough of Shakspere's style, and
that he was going to shew it how plays should be
written.
" Though need make many poets, and some such
As art and nature have not bettered much ;
Yet ours for want hath not so loved the stage,
As he dare serve the ill customs of the age,
Or purchase your delight at such a rate
As, for it, he himself must justly hate ;
To make a child now swaddled, to proceed
Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed,
Past threescore jears ; or, with three rusty swords,
And help of some few loot and half-foot words,
Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars,
And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars ;
He rather prays you will be pleased to see,
One such to-day, as other plays should be,
Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas.
Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please ;
Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard
The gentlewomen ; nor roll'd bullet heard
To say, it thunders ; nor tempestuous drum
Rumbles, to tell you when the storm doth come ;
But deeds and language, such as men do use,
And persons, such as comedy would choose,
When she would show an image of the times
And sport with human follies, not with crimes.
Except we make them such, by loving stiil
Our popular errors, where we know they're ill ;
I mean such errors as you'll all confess.
By laughing at them, they deserve no less :
Which, when you heartily do, there's hope left then
You, that have so graced monsters, may like men."
1596. " Will you reade Catullus ? Take Shak-
spere," says Richard Carew, in his Essay on The
Excellency of the Efiglish Tongue, attached to
his Survey of Cornwall.
1596. The Dc Witt Papers, lately discovered
at Berlin, give interesting notices of the four London
theatres — the Theatre, the Curtain, the Rose, and
the Crown — and say how large (^fitted for 3,000),
and how beautiful they were.
1598. The familiar passage in the Palladis
J 6 The Bacon- Shakspere Question.
Tamia of Francis Meres, which places Shakspere
in this year above all ancient or modern writers,
was republished in the edition of 1634.
This history of literature (written probably in
1596) shows that in about ten years Shakspere
had taken the first rank in literature as well
as on the stage, and no one, so much as Francis
Meres, Professor of Rhetoric in Oxford, would
have naturally studied the subject so care-
fully and critically in his period. "As the
soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in
Pythagoras, so the sweet wittie soule of Ovid
lives in mellifluous and hony-tongued Shakspere.
AVitness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his
sugred Sonnets among his private friends, &c. . . .
As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for
Comedy and Tragedy among the Latins, so
Shakspere among ye Englishe is the most ex-
cellent in both kinds for the stage ; for comedy,
witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his
Love's Labour Lost, his Love's Labour Wonne,
his Midsummer A^ig/it's Dream, and his Mercharite
of Venice ; for tragedy, his Richard IL., Richard
LIL., Lfetiry LV, King John, Titus Atidronicus,
and his Romeo and Juliet. As Epius Stolo said
that the Muses would speak with Plautus'
tongue, if they would speak Latine, so I say,
that the muses would speak with Shakspere's
fine-filed phrase if they would speak English.
As Ovid said . . and as Horace saith of his
works ... so say I severally of Sir Philip
Sydney's, Spenser's, Drayton's, Daniel's, Shaks-
pere's, and Warner's works. , . As Pindarus,
Anacreon, and Callimachus among the Greeks,
and Horace and Catullus among the Latines . . .
so Shakspere. . . . For tragedie, our best are . . .
Shakspere, &c.; for comedie, our best are . . .
Shakspere, &c. The most passionate among us
to bewail the perplexities of love . . . Shakspere,
&c." — Meres' Wit's Treasury. One interesting
fact may be noted, that Meres, at the time of
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 77
this publication, was living near the Globe Theatre,
and must have heard Shakspere, andmost probably
knew him personally.
159S. Richard Barnfield, in his Remembrance
of some English Poets, praises Shakspere for his
Lucrece.
" And Shakspere, thou whose honey-flowing vaine
(Pleasing the world) thy praises doth ol)taine ;
Whose Venus and who^e Lucrece, (sweet and chaste)
Thy name in Fame's immortell Booke have placed.
Live ever you — at least, in fame live ever —
Well may the body dye, but Fame dies never."
{A Reniembrance of some Eiii^lish Poets.)
1598. John Marston, in his Scourge of ViUaivy,
says : —
"A hall! A hall!
Room for the Spheres, the Orbes celestial
Will dance Kemp's jigge. . .
I set thy lips abroach, from whence doth flow
Nought but pure Juliet and Romeo.
Say, who acts best ? Drusus or Roscio ?
Now I have hmi, that nere of oughte did speake
But when of playes or plaiers he did treate,
Hath made a common-place book out of plaies,
And speaks in print ; at least what e'er he sayes
Is warranted by Curtaine plaudeties. *
If ere you heard him courtmg Lesbia's eyes,
Say (courteous Sir) speaks he not movingly
From out some new pathetic tragedy.
He writes, he rails, he jests, he courts, what not
And all from out his huge long-scraped stock
Of well-penned playes."
{Hnmoiirs, Satyr 10.)
Drusus being -a name applied to Shakspere for his
noble bearing, and Roscius to Burbage.
In Satyr 7, Marston also says, 1598 :
" A man, a man ; a kingdom for a man.
Why, how now, currish mad Athenian? "
1598. Gabriel Harvey's note on Speght's
Chaucer.
" The younger sort take much deliglit in Shakspere's
Venus and Adonis ; but his Lucrece, and his tragedy oi
♦ See Appendix, Note 9.
78 The Bacon- Shakspere Question.
Hamlet Prince of Denmark have it in them to please the
wiser sort."
1599" JoJ"'n Weever, Ad G^dielmjim Shakspere : —
" Honie-tongued Shakspere, when I saw thine issue,
I swore Apollo got them and none other,
Their rosie-tinted features clothed in tissue
Some heaven-born godesse said to be their mother.
Rose-cheeked Adonis with his amber tresses,
Faire fier-hot Venus charming him to love her —
Chaste Lucretia, vergine hke her dresses,
Prowd hist-stung Tarquine seeking still to prove her,
Romeo, Richard ; more whose names I know not.
Their sugred tongues and power attractive beauty,
Say they arc saints although that saints they shew not,
For thousand vowes to them subjective dutie,
They burne in love thy childre Shakspere bet the
Go, woo thy muse, more nymphish brood beget the."
{Epigrams in Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion.)
1600. Samuel Nicolson compliments Shakspere
by cribbing largely from him without acknowledg-
ment in '■'■ Acolastus his After ■ Witie ;" which,
however, only proves the existence of the plays,
and Nicolson's knowledge and appreciation of
them. We must remember that the Drama, ap-
plied to pleasure apart from instruction, was not
fifty years old at this time.
1600. Shakspere is mentioned 79 times ia
EnglajicTs Parnassus. Editor, Robert Allot. In
England^s ffelicon, edited by Bodenham, among
other pieces appears the lines from Lo~re's Labour
Lost., beginning, " On a day, alack the day," with
the name of Shakspere attached to it.
1600. J. M. The nc7ve Metamorphosis ; a Feast
of Fancie.
" It seems 'tis true that W(illiam) S(hakspcre) laid,
When once he heard one courting of a mayde,
' Beleeve not thou men's fained flatteries,
Lovers will tell a bushelful of lies.' "
1602. The Return from Parnassus, of which the
value cannot be overstated, publicly acted by the
students of St. John's College, Cambridge.
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 79
The Return from Fartiassus, or The Scourge of
Simony, publicly acted by the students of St.
John's College in Cambridge in January 1602, was
printed in 1606. The reprint is edited by E.
Arber. The Introduction tells us of it : —
"A comedy written by a University pen in 1601, ami
addressing itself to one of the most cultivated audiences
possible at that time in the country ; which thus publicly
testifies on the stage, in the character of Richard Burbage
and William Kempe (Shakspere's fellow-actors) to his
confessed supremacy at that date, not only over all University
dramatists, but also over all the London professional play-
wrights, Ben Jonson included. . . . We must point out
important testimony first, to the disreputability, and then to
the profitableness of the new vocation of tlie professional
play-actor ; not of the poet-actor, like Shakspere and
Jonson. It was probably owing to the fact that they had
written no plays that Burbage and Kempe were singled out
for their posts in the play."
" The Pilgrimage to Pcniasstis and the Rctiirne
from Fcrnassus, have stood the honest stage-keepers
in many a crown's expense."*
In judging the various poets, Ingenioso asks
Judiciot what he thinks of William Shakspere —
referring to the Sonnets, &:c.
" Who loves Adonis love or Lucre's rape,
His sweeter verse containes Ilart-robbing life.
Could but a graver sut'ject him content,
Without love's foolish languishment?"
The French phrases in the play bear a strong
resemblance to those of Shakspere.
Act 4, Scene 5, Burbage, Kempe. t.
Kempe makes criticism on Cambridge acting.
Burbage. A little teaching will mend these faults, and it
may be besides they will be able to pen a part.
k'etnpe. Few of the University pen plaies well, they smell
too much of that writer Ovid, and that writer Metamorphoses,
* This was the third play by the same writer.
t The criticism by Ingenioso and Judicio is of Francis
Meres' List of Poets — among whom is William Shakspere.
" These being modern and extant poets, that have lived
together, from mayiy of their extantc tvorkcs and some kept
in private."
X '1 he Kempe of \h&figge and the Nine Days' U'ota/er.
So The Bacon- Shakspere Question. '
and talke too much of Proserpina and Juppiter. Why, here's
our fellow Shakspere puts them all downc, aye, and Ben
Jonson, too. O, that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow, he
brought up Horace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow
Shakspere hath given him a purge that made him bewray his
credit.
Burhage. It's a shrewd fellow indeed. . . .
KcDipc. Be merry, my lads ; you have happened upon the
most excellent vocation in the world for money ; they come
north and south to bring it to our playhouse, and for honours,
who of more report than Dick Burbage and Will? . . .
Kcnipe to Philotmisus. Thou wilt do well in time, if thou
wilt be ruled by thy betters — that is, by myself and such grave
aldermen of the playhouse.
Burbage. I like your face and the proportion of your body
for Richard III. I pray, M. Philomusus, lei me see you act
a little of it.
rhil. Now is the winter of our discontent,
Made glorious summer by the sonne of York.
Allusion is made also to the " Isle of Dogs."
1603. A Mournful Dittie, entituled Elizabeths
Losse : —
*' You poets all, brave Shakspere, Jonson, Greene,
Bestow your time to write for England's Queene,
Lament, lament, &c.
Returne your songs and sonnets and your layes,
To set forth sweet Elizabetha's praise.
Lament, lament, &c."
1603. Chettle's England's Mourning Garment:
"Nor doth the silver-tongued Melicert,
Drop from his honied muse one sable teare
To mourne her death, who graced his desert,
And to his laies opened her Royall eare
Shepherd, remember our Elizabeth,
And sing her rape, done by that Tarquin, Death."
1603. Davies of Hereford's Micro cosmos.* re-
printed in 1605. To W. S. and R. B. : —
Stage- Some followed her by acting all men's parts,
plaiers. These on a stage she raised in scorne to fall.
And made them mirrors by their acting arts,
W S & ^^'hsi'ein men saw their faults though ne'er so small.
R. B. ^st some she guerdoned not to their deserts.
But other some were but ill-action all,
Who while they acted ill, ill stayed behinde
(By custom of their manners) in their minde.
Players, I love you and your qualitie,
♦ See Appendix, Note 10.
The Baco7i-Shakspere Qiiesfion. 8i
As you are men that pass time not abused ;
And some I love for painting pocsie,
Simonides And say fell Fortune cannot be excused,
saith That hath for better uses you refused :
speaking^ Wit, courage, good shape, good parts and all good,
painting. As long as all these goods are no worse used.
And though the stage doth stain pure gentle blood,
Yet generous ye are in minde and mood.
{The Civil Warres of Death or Fortune.)
1604. Scoloker,in the Introduction to ZJw///a;7///j-,
refers to " friendly Shakspere's tragedies."
1604. " It should come home to the vulgar's element, like
friendly Shakspere's Tragedies, where the comedian rides,
where the tragedian stands on tip-toe. Faith, it should
please all, like Prince Hamlet. But in sadnesse, then it were
to be feared he would run mad ; in sooth, I will not be moon-
sick to please ; nor out of my wits though I displease all."
— (Anthony Scoloker, Diaphantiis, or thu Passions of Loiut, since your
lordships have been pleased to consider these trifles
something heretofore, and have prosecuted both
them and their author living with so much favour,
we hope that (they out-living him and he not
having the same fate, common with some, to be
executor to his owne writings) you will use the
like indulgence toward them, you have done unto
their parent. There is a great difference whether
any booke choose his patrones or find them. This
hath done both. For so much were your Lordship's
likings of the severall parts when they were acted,
as before they were published, the volume asked to
be yours We have collected them and done
an oflice to the dead to procure his orphanes
guardians ; without ambition either of self-profit or
fame, only to keep the memory of so 'corlJiy a friend
and fellowe alive, as was our Shakspere, by humble
offer of his playcs, to your most noble patronage.
. . . Wcmost humbly consecrate to your Highnesses
these remaines of your servant Shakespeare \ that
88 Tlic Bacon- Shakspere Question.
what delight is in them may be ever your lord-
ships', the reputation his, and the faults ours, if
any be committed by a payre so careful to show
their gratitude both to the living and the dead as is
your lordships most bounden,
John Hemingk.
Henry Condell.
To THE Great Variety of Reader.
From the most able to him that can but spelL
There you are numbered. We had rather you
were weighed. Especially when the fate of all
bookes depends upon your capacities, and not of
your heads alone but of your purses. Well ! it is
now publique, and you will stand for your privileges
wee know, to read and censure. Do so, but buy it
first. That doth best commend a book, the
stationer sayes. Then, how odde soever your
braines be, or your wisedomes, make your license
the same, and spare not. . . Whatever you do, buy.
Censure will not drive a trade or make the Jacke
go. And though you be a magistrate of wit, and
sit on the stage at Black Friars, or the Cock Pit,
to arraigne plays daily, know these playes have
had their trial already, and stood out all appeales
and do now come forth quitted rather by a decree
of Court than any purchased letters of recom-
mendation.
It had been a thing, we confesse, worthy to
have been wished that the author himself had
lived to have set forth and overseen his owne
writings, but since it hath been ordained otherwise,
and he by death departed from that right, we pray
you do not envie his friends the office of their care
and paine, to have collected and published them,
and so to have published them, as where (before)
you were abused with diverse stolen and surrep-
titious copies, maimed and deformed by the
frauds and stealths of injurious impostors, that
exposed them ; even those are now offered to
your view cured, and perfect of their limbes ; and
Tke Bacon-Shakspere Question. 89
all the rest as he conceived them. Who, as he was
a happy imitator of nature, he was a most gentle
expresser of it. His mind and hand went together,
and what he thought he uttered with that easiness
that we have scarce received from him a blot in
his papers. But it is not our province, who onely
gather his works and give them you, to praise him.
It is yours that reade him. And there we hope,
to your divers capacities, you will find enough, both
to draw and hold you ; for his wit can no more lie
liid, than it could be lost. Read him theretore
again and again ; and then, if you do not hice him,
you are in some manifest danger, not to understand
him.
John Hemtnge.
Henry Condell.
To the memorie of M. W. Sh.ikspere.
Wee wondred (Shakspere) that thou wentst so soone.
From the world's stage to the grave's tyring-roome.
Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth
Tels thy spectators that thou went'st but forth,
To enter with applause. An actor's art
Can dye and live, to acte a second part
Thai's l)ut an exit of mortalitie,
This, a re-entrance to a Plaudit e. J- ^I-
1623. The verses before the book by W. Basse,
" On Mr. William Shakspere : —
" Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Beaumont, and rare Beaumont ly
A little nearer Chaucer to make roome
For Shakspere, in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
To lodge all four in one bed make a shift
Until Domesday, for hardly will a fiftc
Betwixt this day and thai by fate be slaine
For whom the curtains shall be drawn again.
But if Precedency in death doe barre,
A fourth place in your sacred sepulcher
In this uncarved marble of thy own,
Sleep, brave Tragedian, Shakspere sleep alone.
Thy unmolested rest, unshared cave
Possesse as Lord, not tenant, to thy grave,
That unto others it may counted be
Honour hereafter to be laid by thee."
90 The Bacon- Shakspcrc Question.
1623. Hugh Holland upon the lines and life of
the famous scenic poet Master William Shakspere.
"Those hands, vvliich you so clapt, go now and wring
You Britaine's brave ; for done are Shakspere's day^.
His days are done thai made the dainty playes,
Which make the globe of Heaven and Earth to ring.
Dried is that vein, dried is tlie Thespian S^^ring,
Turned ail to teares, and Phoebus clouds his rays.
That corps, that coffin now bestick with bays,
Which crowned him Poet first, then Poet's King.
If Tragedies might any Prologue have
All those he made, would scarce make one to this,
Where fame, now that he gone is to the grave,
(Death's public tyring-house) the Nuncius is.
For though his line of life went soone about
The life yet of his lines shall never out."
1623. The magnificent eulogy of Jonson is
almost a household word, so to speak, in our
literature.
" Ben Jonson, To the memory of my beloved ;
the Author, Mr. William Shakspere : —
To draw no envy (Shakspere) on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy Booke and Fame ;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor muse can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. . .
I therefore will begin. Soule of the Age !
The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our stage ;
My Shakspere, rise ! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye
A little further to make thee a roome ;
Thou art a monument, without a tombe,
And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give. . .
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greeke
From thence to honour thee, I would not seeke
For names ; but call for thundering yEschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us ;
Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage ; or, when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britaine, thou hast one to she we
To whom all scenes of l\urope homage owe.
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 91
He was not for an age, but for all time.
Nature herseife was proud of his designes,
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines
Which were so richly spun, and woven to fit
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
Yet must 1 not give nature all ; thy art.
My gentle Shakspere, must enjoy a part ;
For, though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion, and that he
Who casts to write a living line must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and strike the seconde heat
Upon the muse's anvil, turn the same
(And himself with it) that he thinks to frame,
Or for the laurel he may gain a scorne,
For a good poet's made, as well as born ;
And such wert thou.
Look how the Father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race ;
Of Shakspere's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well-turned and true-tiled lines.
S*eet Swan of Avon ! what a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appeare,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza and our James !
But stay, 1 see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there !
Shine forth thou star of potts, and with rage
Or influence chide or cheere the drooping stage,
Which, since thy flight fro hence hath mourned like night.
And despairs day, but for thy volumes light.
— Benjonson.
Yet Drummond says of Jonson, *' He is a great
lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and
scorner of others." * Therefore his praise is stronger
than that of others.
* John Davies, of Hereford, says to Ben Jonson, in his
Scourge of Folly , i5u : —
" Thou art sounde in body ; but some say, thy soulc
Envy doth ulcer ; yet corrupted hearts
Such censurers must have."
Dryden concurred with Rowe in thinking these verses
sparing and invidious, while Boswell thought them sincere
because so appropriate. Supported by the passage in
Timber, 1 think there is no doubt he felt and meant all
he said.
92 The Bacon-Shakspere Questioti.
1623. Leonard Digges writes a poem to the
memory of the deceased author, Maister William
Shakspere : —
Shakspere, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy works ; thy workes by which outlive
Thy tomb, thy name must, when that stone is rent
And time dissolves thy Stratford mouuiment,
Here we alive shall view thee still. This Booke,
When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke,
Fresh to all ages ; when I^osteritie
Shall loathe whai's new, think all is prodegie
That is not Shakspere's ; every line, each verse
Here shall revive, redeeme thee from thy Herse.
Nor fire, nor cankering age, as Naso said
Of his, thy wit-fraught book shall once invade,
Nor shall I e'er believe, or thinke thee dead
(Though mist) untill our Bankrout stage be sped
(Impossible) with some new strain to out-do
Passions of Juliet and her Romeo ;
Or till I heare a scene more nobly take
Than when thy half-sword parleying Romans spake.
Till these, till any of thy volumes' rest.
Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprest,
Be sure, our Shaks|)eie, thou canst never dye.
But crowned with laurel, live eternally. Z. Digt^es.
This portion of the Anti-Baconian evidence is a
singularly valuable and representative series of
affidavits, so to speak, from men who knew
Shakspere in many relations. Condell was pro-
bably a native of Stratford or the immediate
vicinity, where a family of this not very common
name remains.
1623. The Office-book of Sir Henry Herbert,
Master of the Revels to James I., Charles I., and
Charles H, Variorum, vol. HI, 1623-36. To the
Duchess of Richmond, in the King's absence, was
given the Wi/iiers Tale, by the K. Company the
i8th Jan., 1623. At Whitehall.
Upon New Year's night, the Prince only being
there, the first part of Sir John Fa /staff, by the
King's Company. At Whitehall, 1624.
For the King's players. An olde playe, called
Winter's Tale, formerly allowed of Sir George
Bucke, and likewise by mee, on Mr. Hemmings his
The Baion-Shakspere Question. 93
v/orde that there was nothing profane, added or
reformed, though the allowed booke was missinge ;
and therefore I relumed it without a fee, this 19th
August, 1623,
Received from Mr. Hemmings in their company's
name, to forbid the playing of Shakspere's plays to
the Red Bull Company, this nth of April, 1627.
£S OS. od.
On Saturday, the 17th of November (mistake
for 1 6th), being the Queen's Birthday, Richarde the
Thirde was acted by the K. players at St. James,
when the King and Queene were present, it being
the first play the Queene sawe since her M"^'*
delivery of the Duke of York, 1633.
On Tuesday night, at Saint James, the 26th of
November, 1633, was acted before the King and
Queene, the Jami/ige of the Shrezc. I.ikt.
On Wednesday night the first of January, 1633,
Cynibely7ie was acted at Court by the King's
players. Well likt of the King.
The lVi}ite?-'s Tale was acted on Thursday night
at Court, the i6th January, 1633, by the K. players
and likt.
fuHus Cccsar at St. James, the 31st January,
1636. This, of course, only proves that Shakspere
wrote plays. Those mentioned we know, from
other sources, to be his.
1625. Richard James to Sir Henry Bourchier : —
" A young gentle Lady of your acquaintance,
having read ye works of Shakspere, made me this
question. How Sir John Falstaffe or Fastolf, as he
is written in ye Statute Book of Maudlin College in
Oxford, where every day that society were bound to
make memorie of his soule, could be dead in ye
time of Harrie ye fifte, and again live in ye time of
Harrie ye Sixt, to be banished for cowardice." —
D. Ingleby's Centurie of Prayse.
1625. Ben Jonson's Timber, or Discoveries.
De Shakspeai-e Nostrat. — Augustus in Hat.
" I remember the players have often meiitioned
it as an honour to Shakspere, that in his writing
94 The Baam-SJiakspen Question.
(whatsoever he penned), he never blotted out a
line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted
a thousand — which they thought a malevolent
speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their
ignorance, who chose that circumstance to
commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted ;
I to justify mine own candour : for I loved the man,
and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as
much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an
open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy,
brave notions, and gentle expressions ; wherein he
flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was
necessary he should be stopped. ' Sufflainin-
andus erat' as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit
was in his own power, would the rule of it had been
so too. Many times he fell into those things,
could not escape laughter; as when he said in the
person of Caesar, one speaking to him, ' Csesar,
thou dost me wrong," he replied, ' Casar did never
wrong but with just cause,' and such like, which
were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with
his virtues. There was ever more in him to be
praised than pardoned." This conclusively proves
that Jonson loved " the man," and not the works
only, and that the man had extraordinary conversa-
tional powers. It is but a step to the writing of
thoughts, which here is also proved ; so that, even
had Bacon written the plays, Shakspere is shown
capable of having done so himself.
1627. Drayton's Epistle to Henry Reynolds : —
" Shakspere, thou had'st as smooth a comicke vaine,
Fitting the socks, and in thy natural braine,
As strong conception and as clear a rage
As anyone that trafficked with the stage."
1630. Abraham Covilty's Poetical Revenge : —
** May bee,
Bee by his father in his study tooke,
At Shakspere's plays instead of the Lord Cooke."
The Bacon- SJiakspere Question. 95
1630. John Taylor (the Water-Poet), in his
Travels in Bohemia., alludes to Shakspere's seaports
there.
1630. The Praise of Hemp Seed. Works III. : —
Spenser and Shakspere did in art excel
Sir Edward Dyer, Greene, Nash, Daniel.
(John Taylor, the IVaieT'Toet. )
1630. Aichy's Banquet of Jests {f\r%i printed in
1630) has a story of one travelling through
Stratford, " a town most remarkable for the birth
of famous William Shakspere."
1630. John Milton's splendid Epitaph, thougli
printed later in the editions of 1632 and 1640, was
said to have been written in this year. Coming
from a Puritan, printed in the time of Purita-.i
ascendency, it is very powerful in his argument.
*' An Epitaph on the admirable dramatic poet,
William Shakspere : —
What needs my Shakspere, for his honoured bones.
The labour of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallowed rebques should be hid
Under a star y-pointing pyramid ?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name.
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment.
Hast built thyself a live long monument.
For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers How ; and that each lieart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took.
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving.
And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die."
(John Milton.)
1632. Milton also alludes to Shakspere in
L Allegro.
" Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned socks be on ;
Or sweetest Shakspere, Fancy's child,
-" Warble his native wood-notes wild."
96 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.
1632. Thomas Randolph alludes to some of the
plays.
1632. " Read Jonson, Shakspere, Beaumont, Fletcher, or
Thy ncal limned pieces, skilful Massinger."
(Sir Aston Cokaine, lines prefixed to Massinger.)
1632. The 2nd foHo edition repeats the portraits
and lines by Jonson. It is printed by Thomas
Cotes for Robert Allot ; but the address to Lords
Pembroke and Montgomery remain.
Then comes the lines " Upon the effigies of my
worthy friend, the author, Master William
Shakspere : —
Spectator, this life's shadow is to see,
The truer image of a livelier he.
Turn reader ; but observe his comic vaine.
Laugh and proceed next to a tragic strain.
Then weep, so when thou find'st two contraries,
Two different passions from thy rapt soul rise.
Say (who alone effect such wonders could)
Rare Shakspere to the life thou dost beholde."
1632. On worthy Master Shakspere and his
poems : —
" A mind reflecting ages past, whose cleere
And equal surface can make things appeare
Distant a thousand years, and represent
Them in their lively colours just extent. . .
In that deepe duskie dungeon to discerne
A Royal Ghost from Churls ; by art to learne
The physiognomic of shades and give
Them suddaine birth, wondering how oft they live.
What story coldly tells, what poets faine
At secondhand, and picture without braine.
Senseless and soullesse showes. To give a stage
(Ample and true with life) voyce, action, age ;
To raise our ancient sovereigns from their hearse ;
Make kings his subjects by exchanging verse. . .
This and much more, which cannot be exprest
But by himselfe, his tongue, and his owne brest,
Was .Shakespeare's freehold, which his cuning braine
ImjDroved by favour of the nine-fold traii^e.
The buskined Muse, the Comick Queen, the grand
And louder tone of Clio : nimble hand,
And nimbler foote of the melodious paire.
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 97
The silver-voiced lady, the most faiie
Calliope, whose speaking silence daunts,
And she whose prayse the heavenly body chants.
These joynlly woo'd him, envying one another
(Obeyed by all as spouse but loved as brother),
And wrought a curious robe of sable grave,
Fresh greene, and pleasant yellow, red most brave,
And constant blew, ricli purple, guiltless white,
The lowly russet, and the scarlet bright,
Brancht and embroidered like the painted spring ;
Each leaf matched with a flower, and each string
Of golden wire, each line of silke : there run
Italian workes, whose thread the sisters spun ;
And there did sing, or seem to sing, the choyse
Birdes of a forrayn note and curious voyce. . .
Now when they could no longer him enjoy
In mortall garments peat, death may destroy.
They say, his body, but his verse shall live.
And more than nature takes our hands shall give.
In a lesse volume but more strongly bound,
.Sliakespeare shall breathe and speake, in laurel crowned
Which never fades. Fed with Ambrosian meate.
In a well-lined vesture rich and neate,
So with this robe they clothe him, bid him weare it,
For time shall never staine nor envy teare it."
— /. M. S.
1633. John Hales of Eton, " In a conversation
between Sir John Stickling, Sir William Davenant
Endymion Porter, Mr. Hales of Eaton, and Ben
Tonson, Sir John Suckling, who was a professed
admirer of Shakspere, had undertaken his defence
against Ben Jonson with some warmth; Mr. Hales,
who had sat still some time hearing Ben frequently
reproaching him with the want of learning and
Ignorance of the Antients, told him at last ' that,
if Mr. Shakspere had not read the Antients, he
had Hkewise not stolen anything from them (a
fault that the other made no conscience of), and
that if he would produce any one Topick finely
treated by any of them, he would undertake to
show something upon the same subject, at least as
well written, by Shakspere.'" — Roive s Life.
1633. A marginal note to William Prynne's His-
triomastix refers to Shakspere's plays as printed on
finer paper and more in demand than the Bible.
98 The Bacon- Shaksperc Question.
"Some play-bookes since I first undertook this sub
ject are grown from quarto into folio ; which yet
bear so <2;ood a price and sale, that I cannot but
with grief relate it, they are now new printed in
far better paper than most octavo or quarto Bibles."
.... " Note, Shakspere's plays are printed in
the best ctown paper, far better than most Bibles.
Above 40,000 play-books have been printed and
vented within these two years." — To the Christian
Reader.
Habington glances at this in his Castara, 1634.
1634. William Habington to a friend inviting
him to a meeting upon promise :
" May you drinke beare, or that adulterate wine,
Which makes the zeale of Amsterdam divine,
If you make breache of promise. T have now
•So rich a sacke, that even your selfe will bow
T' adore my Genius. Of this wine should Prynne
Drinke but a plenteous glasse, he would beginne
A health to Shakspere's ghost." Castara.
1635. T. Hey wood's Hierarchy of the Blessed
Angels, alluding to the writers and actors being
called by their Christian names, specifies " the en-
chanting quill of mellifluous Shakspere."
" Our model ne poets to that passe are driven,
Those names arc curtailed that they first had given. . . .
Mellifluous Shakspere, whose enchanting quill
Commanded mirth and passion, was but IVill."
1C36. Sir John Suckling's Fragnienta Aurea.
" The sweat of leamed Jonson's brain
And gentle Shakspere's easier strain."
1636. Sir John Suckling's Prologmto the Goblins.
" When Shakspere, Beaumont, Fletcher ruled the stage,
There scarce were ten good pallats in the age.
More curious cooks than guests ; for men would eat
Most heartily of any kind of meat."
1636. Sir John Suckling's Letters : " We are at
length arrived at that river, about the uneven
running of which my friend Mr. William Shakspere
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 99
makes Henry Hotspur quarrel so highly with his
fellow-rebels."
Other minor tributes appear in this year.
1637. " Who without Latine helpes had been as rare
As Beaumont, Fletcher, or as Shakspere were."
(Jasper ^ia.ynQ, Joitsottius I'lrluiis.)
1637. " Yet Shakspere, Beaumont, Jonson, these three shall
Make up the Gem in the point verticall."
(Owen ¥t\\.\\3.m, Jonsotiius Jlrlniis.)
1637. " Shakspere may make grief merry ; Beauniont's stile
Ravish, and melt anger into a smile."
(Richard West, yonsoniits J'irluus.)
1637. " That Latine hee reduced and could command
That which your Shakspere scarce could understand."
(H. 'R^.m.sty, Jottso/iiiis P'irlnus.)
1637. Samuel Holland's £>on Zara del Fogo (not
printed till 1656) mentions that "Shakspere and
others [were] willing to water their bays with their
blood rather than part with their proper right."
1638. Epitaph on Jonson, Jasper Mayne : —
" Though the priest had translated for that time
The Liturgy, and buried thee in rime,
So that in meter we had heard it said,
Poetique dust is to poetique laid ;
And though that dust being Shakspere's thou mightst have
Not his roome, but the I'oet for thy grave. . . .
Who without Latine helps hadst been as rare
As Beaumont, Fletcher, or as Shakspere were ;
And, like them, from thy native stock couldst say,
Poets and kings are not born every day."
1638. Davenant's Ode: "In remembrance of
Master William Shakspere."
1638. James Mervyn prefixed to Shirley's Royal
ALaster—
" That limbus I could have believed thy brain
Where Beaumont, Fletcher, Shakspere, and a traine
Of glorious poets in their active heate
Move in that orbe as in their former seate. .
Each casting in his dose, 15eaumont his weight,
Shakspere liLs mirth, and Fletcher his conceit."
joo The Bdcon Shakspa-e Question.
1640. Thomas Bancroft to Shakspere : —
" Thy muse's suc;ared dainties seem to us
Like the famed apples of old 'I'antaUis ;
For sve (admiring) see and hear thy straines,
But none I see or hcare those sweets attaines. . . .
Thou hast so used thy pen or fshooke tliy spcare),
That poets startle, nor thy wit come necre."
1640. The i2mo. edition of the poems of Shak-
spere gives new testimonials : —
To the Reader, — I here presume under favour
to present to your view some excellent and sweetely
composed poems of Master William Shakspere,
which in themselves appeare of the same purity,
the Authour himselfe then living avouched; they
had not the fortune by reason of their Infancie in
his death, to have the due acomodation of propor-
tionable glory with the rest of his ever living works,
yet the lines of themselves will afford you a more
authentick approbation than my assurance any way
can, to invite your allowance, in your perusall you
shall finde them seren, cleere and elegandy plaine.
such gentle straines as shall recreate, and not per-
plexe your braine, no intricate or cloudy stuff to
puzzell your intellect, but perfect eloquence, such
as will raise your admiration to his praise : this
assurance I know will not differ from your acknow-
ledgment. And certain I am my opinion will be
seconded by the sufficiency of these ensuing lines.
I have been somewhat solicitous to bring this forth
to the perfect view of all men, and in so doing, glad
to be serviceable for the continuance of glory to
the deserved Author in these his poems.
John Benson.
Of Mr. William Shakspere.
What, lofty Shakspere, art again revived ?
And virbius-like now shows't thyself twice-lived
'Tis love that thus to thee is showne
The labours his, the glory still thine owne
These learned poems amongst ihine after-birth
That makes thy name immortall on the earth,
The Bacon- Shakspere Question. lOi
Will make the learned still admire to see
The muses' gifts so full, infused on thee.
Let carping Momus barke, and bite his fill,
And ignorant Davus slight thy learned skill.*
Yet those who know the worth of thy desert,
And with true judgment can discern thy art,
Will be admirers of thy high-tuned straine,
Amongst whose number let me still remain.
John Warren.
Upon Master William Shakspere.
Poets are borne not made, when I would prove
This truth, the glad rememberance I must love
Of never dying Shakspere who alone
Is argument enough to prove that one.
First that he was a poet none could doubt,
That heard the applause of what he sees set out
Imprimed ; where thou hast (I will not say)
Reader, his workes for to contrive a play ;
(To him 'twas none) the patterne of all wit
Art without art unparalleled as yet.
Next Nature onely helpt him, for looke thorow
This whole booke thou shalt finde he doth not borowe.
One phrase from Greekes nor Latines imitate.
Nor once from vulgar languages translate,
Nor plagiari-like from others gleane.
Nor beggcs he from each witty friend a scene
To piece his Acts with ; all that he doth write
Is pure his owne, plot, language, exquisite.
Then vanish upstart Writers to each stage,
You needy Poetasters of this age. . . .
I doe not wonder when you offer at
Black-Friers, that you suffer, 'tis the fate
Of richer veines, prime judgments that have fared
The worse with this deceased man compared.
So have I scene, when Csesar would appeare
And on the stage at half-sword parley were
Brutus and Cassius ; oh, how the audience
Were ravished, with what wonder they went thence,
When some new day they would not brook a line
Of tedius, though well-laboured Catiline.
Sejanus too, was iiksomc, they prized more
Honest lago or the jealous Moore.
And though the Fox and subtle Alchemist
Long intermitted, could not quite be mist.
Though these have shamed all Ancients, and might raise
Their aulhours' merit with a crown of Bayes.
* There were some carpers even in those days.
8
102 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.
Yet these sometimes, even at a friend's desire,
Acted, have scarce defrayed the sea-cole fire,
And doore-keepers ; when let but Falstaffe come,
Hal, Poines, the rest, you scarce shall have a roome.
All is so pestered ; let but Beatrice
And Benedicke be scene ; loe, in a trice
The cockpit, galleries, boxes, all are full
To heare Malvoglio, that cross-gartered gull,
Briefe, there is nothing in his wit-fraught booke.
Whose sound we would not heare, or whose worth looke
Like old coyndgold, whose lines in every page
Shall passe true currant to succeeding age,
Leonard Digges.
After the elegies by J. M, and W. B., reprinted
from the 1632 edition, comes "An Elegie on
the Death of that famous Writer and Actor,
Mr. WiUiam Shakspere."—
• • • Let learned Johnson sing a dirge for thee,
And fill our Orbe with mournful harmony.
But we neede no remembrancer, thy fame
Shall still accompany thy honoured name
To all posterity, and make us be
Sensible of what we lost in losing thee.
Being the Age's wonder, whose smooth rhimes
Did more reforme than lash the looser times.
Nature herselfe did her own selfe admire,
As oft as thou wert pleased to attire
Her in her native lusture and confesse
Thy dressing was her chiefest comlinesse.
How can we then forget thee, when the age,
Her chiefest tutor, and the widdow'd stage.
Her onely favourite in thee hath lost ;
And Nature's selfe, what she did bragge of most.
Sleep then, rich Soule of numbers, whilst poor we.
Enjoy the profits of thy legacie.
And think it happinesse enough we have
So much of thee redeemed from the grave
As may suffice to enlighten future times,
With the bright lustre of thy matchless rhimes.
Anon.
To Mr. WiUiam Shakspere : —
*' Shakespeare, we must be silent in thy praise,
'Cause our encomiums will but blast thy bays,
Which envy could not, that thou didst so well.
Let thine own histories prove a chronicle.''
Anon
The Bacon-Shakspen Question. 103
1 64 1. A complaint of poor players out of
occupation because of the plague — and doubtless,
also, Puritan ascendancy.
1642. James Shirley, Prologue to The Sisters.
" To Shakspere comes, whose mirth did once beguile,
Dull hours, and buskined, made even sorrow smile."
1643. Sir Richard Baker's Chronicle says : —
" For writers of Plays, and such as had been Players
themselves, William Shakspere and Benjamin Jonson have
specially left their names recommended to posteritie. "
1644. Mermrius Britannicus, No. 20, gives an
account of the misfortunes befalling a man who
edited a Sunday newspaper : " Aulicus " is "a wofuU
spectacle and object of dulnesse, and tribulation,
not to be recovered by the Protestant or Catholique
liquor, either ale or strong beer, or sack or claret,
or hippocras, or muscadine, or rosalpis, which
has been reputed formerly by his grandfather
Ben Jonson, and his uncle, Shakspere ; and his
cowzen Germains Beaumont and Fletcher, the
onely blossoms for the brain, the restoratives for
the wit, the bathing for the nine muses ; but none
of these are nov^^ able either to warin him into a
quibble, or to inflame him into a sparkle of inven-
tion, and all this because he hath prophaned the
Sabbath by his pen."
1644-5. ^-^^^ great Assises holdcn in Paniassi/s
by Apollo and his Assessours, at which sessions
are arraigned the newspapers of the time.
In this one point I specially notice the peculiar
manner the Baconians have of disobeying their
great master, to seek after *' negative instances "
of any opinion one may hold. They bring forivard
the title page to prove that Bacon was set high
above Shakspere, and only next Apollo, and
therefore the author of the plays ; and they with-
hold the contents.
Lord Verulam is Chancellor, as fitted his office,
104 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.
and placed among the learned men, who have also
benefited by the printer's art. Shakspere is placed
among the jurors, as z. poet among poets. Joseph
Scaliger, the Censor, tells Apollo, considering
typography : —
" This instrument of Art is now possest
By some who have in Art no interest."
Apollo sends for Torquato Tasso with troops to
bring in all that had defiled the Press with
scurrilous pamphlets, to
" Where Phcebus on his high tribunall sate,
With his assessours in triumphant state,
Sage Verulam, sitbH)ncd for science great.
As Chancellor, next him had the first seat."
The others were arranged in order of considera-
tion of their learning, and the amount of detraction
they had suffered at the hands of the newspapers.
Jonson was made the keeper or jailor. He first
brought forth " Mercurius Britannicus." Then the
jury was impanelled, twelve good men : —
" Hee who was called first in all the list,
George Withers hight, entitled satyrist ;
Then Gary, May, and Davenant were called forth,
Renowned poets all and men of worth,
If wit may passe for worth. Then Sylvester,
Sands, Drayton, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger,
Shakespeare and Heywood, poets good and free ;
Dramatic writers all but the first three.
These were empanelled all, and, being sworne,
A just and perfect verdict to returne. . .
Then Edmund Spenser, Gierke of the Assize,
Read the endictment loud, which did comprise
Matters of scandall and contempt extreme,
Done 'gainst the Dignity and Diademe
Of great Apollo, and that legal course
Which throughout all Parnassus was in force."
The prisoner, Mercurius Britannicus, pleads not
guilty, and requests the jurors' names to be read
over again, excepting to George Withers on the
plea that he himself was " a cruel satyrist." He
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 105
next tried to set aside two other able jurors, on the
plea they were translators —
" Deserving Sands and gentle Sylvester,"
But Apollo judges that translators can be poets.
The next culprit, Mercurius Aulicus, is blamed for
bringing in the exploded doctrine of the Florentine
Macchiavelli. He objects to the juror May,
because, though a poet, he " cannot trust his
truth." Another prisoner objects to other jurors,
but Apollo quenches him —
" He should be tried
By twelve who were sufficient men and fit,
Both for integrity and pregnant wit."
Bribery is attempted, but Apollo scorns it, and
puts the briber in prison under " Honest Ben."
Another prisoner objects to to Gary for a " luxurious
pen " " with foule conceits." The last prisoner
objected —
" By Histrionicke Poets to be tryed,
'Gainst whom he thus mahciously enveighed.
Shakspere's a mimicke, Massinger a sot,
Ileywood for Aganippe takes a plot.
Beaumont and Fletcher make one poet ; they
Single dare not adventure on a play. , . .
Thus spake the prisoner, then among the crowd
Plautus and Terence 'gan to mutter loud.
And old jMenander was but ill-apayd,
While Aristophanes his wrath bewrayed
With words opprobrius, for it galled him shrewdly
To see dramatic poets taxed so lewdly."
Another prisoner, Spye, objects to Drayton.
Apollo is indignant.
" How boldly hath this proud traducing Spye
And his comrades our honest poets checkt,
Who from the best have ever found respect."
There is nothing for Bacon — all for Shakspere
here.
1646. S. Shepherd, in his The Times displayed in
Six Sestiads, says : —
" See him whose tragic scean Euripides
Doth equal, and with Sophocles we may
Compare great Shakspere."
io6 The Bacon-Shahpere Que U ion.
1647. " ShaIc?p«Te to thee was dall, whose best wit lies
I' the Lady's qaestion and the Fool's replies,
Old fashioned wit, which walked from town to town.
William Cartwright on Fletcher,"
1647. " The flowing compositions of the then-expired
Sweet Swan of Avon — Snakspere."
fjzmes Shirley, Dedicatory EpistU oj Ten Players,
JUAamrsat &. Hetcher's works )
1647. " WTien Jonson, ' " ' ":, and thyself did sit
And :%wayed in • ./irate of wit.
Vet what from Jonvjn ■» oyle and sweat did fkrw.
Or what more ea^y nature did hjer-tow
Cm Shalwpere's gentler ma3c, in thee fulI-grown«,
Their graces doth appeare."
(Sir John Denham on Fletcher.)
Others also connect these names.
1649. Milton in Eikonoklaites says that "Shak-
spere was the closet companion of Charles ; " as
also says Cooke, Appeal to Rational Mirth.
1649. The epitaph upon his daughter, Mrs.
.Susanna Hall, shows the estimation of his
character : —
" Here lyeth ye body of Stisanna, wife to John Hall, Gent,
ye daughter of William Shak^.pere, Gent. She deceased ye
irth of July, A-D. 1649, aged 66.
' ' Witty above her sexe, but that's not all —
Wise to salv- . goo<-l Mistress Hall.
Something o ^ ire was in that, but this
W'holy of Him with whom she's now in blisse.
Then, pas-venger, hast ne'ere a teare
To weepe with her, that wept with all ?
That wept, yet set herself to chere
Them up with comfort's c/'jrdiall.
Her love shall live, her mercy spread
\Mien thou hast ne'er a tear to shed."
1650. Henry Vaughan testifies to George
Herbert's Poems having rendered Shakspere less
popular. It was the Puritan time.
165 1. S. Sheppard, in his Epigrams, includes
one on Shakspere.
" I. Sacred Spirit, while thy lyre
Echoed o'er the Arcadian plains
Even Apollo did admire
Orpheus wondered at thy strains,
* ♦ * ♦ ♦
The Bacon- Shakspere Question, 107
3. Who wrote his lines with a sunbeame,
More durable than Time or Fate ;
Others boldly do blaspheme
Like those who seem to preach, but prate.
4. Thou wert truly priest-elect,
Chosen darling to the nine,
Such a trophy to erect
By thy wit and skill divine.
5. That were all their other glories
(Thine excepted) torn away,
By thine admirable stories
Their garments ever shall be gay.
6. Where thy honoured bones do lie,
As Statius once to Maro's urn,
Thither every year will I
Slowly tread and sadly turn."
1652. A Hermeticall Banquet, drest by a Spagiri-
call Cooke : —
"Poeta is her minion, to whom she (Eloquentia) resigns
the whole government of her family. Ovid she makes Major
Domo ; Homer, because a merry Greek, Master of the Wine-
cellars ; Shakspere, Butler ; Ben Jonson, Clerk of the
Kitchen ; Fenner, his Turnspit ; and Taylor, his scullion."
1653. Sir Richard Baker's Chronicles : —
" Richard Burbage and Edward Alleyne — two such actors
as no age must ever look to see the like. . . . For writers of
plays, and such as had been players themselves, William
Shakspere and Benjamin Jonson have specially left their
names recommended to posterity."
1653. Sir Aston Cokaine, Prelude to Broivn's
Plays.
" Shakspere (more rich in humours) entertaine
The crowded Theatres with his happy vaine."
1656. Samuel Holland, Wit and Fancy in a
Maze : —
" Behold Shakspere and Fletcher appeared (1)ringing with
them a strong party) as if they meant to water the bays with
bloud, rather than part with their proper right, which indeed
Apollo and the Muses had (with much justice) conferred
upon them, so that now there is likely to be a trouble in
Triplex. . . . Shakspere and Fletcher, surrounded with
their life-guard — viz., Gosse, Massinger, Decker, Webster,
Suckling, Cartwright, Carew."
io8 The Bacon SJiak^^pere Question.
1658. In verses to Mr. Clement Fisher, of
Wincot, accompanying his Small Poems, Sir Aston
Cokaine says : —
" Shakspere, your Wincot Ale hath much renowned,*
That fox'd a beggar so (by cliance was founde
Sleeping), that there needed not many a word
To make him to believe he was a Lord ;
But you affirm (and in it seem most eager)
'Twill make a Lord as drunk as any beggar.
Bid Norton brew such Ale as Shakspere fancies
Did put Kit Sly into such Lordly trances,
And let us meet there (for a fit of Gladnesse),
And drink ourselves merry in sober sadness."
Also,
" Now, Stratford-upon-Avon, we would choose
Thy gentle and ingenuous Shakspere Muse. . . .
Our Warwickshire the heart of England is,
As you most evidently have proved by this."
1660. Restoration.
1660. {Circa.) Richard Flecknoe writes : —
" For playes, Shakspere was one of the first who inverted
the Dramatic Stile, from dull History to quick Comedy. . . .
upon whom Jonson refined." (Essays on tJie English S/age.\
1660. Sir Richard Baker's Chrofiicles cj
England: —
" Poetry was never more resplendent, nor more graced ;
wherein Jonson, Silvester, Shakspere, iS:c., not only excelled
their own countrymen, but the whole world beside."
1 66 1. An Antidote against Melancholy, made up
in Filles compounded of Witty Ballads, Jovial Songs,
a?id Merry Catches. At p. 72 of this collection of
ballads, we have a catch : —
" Wilt thou be fatt, I'll tell thee how
Thou shalt quickly do the feat,
And that so plump a thing as thou
Was never yet made up of meat.
Drink oft" thy Sack ! 'twas only that
Made Bacchus and Jack Falstaffe fat."
1662. Fuller's JF(?r//«Vj-, under Warwickshire, has:
" William Shakspere was born at Stratford on Avon in
this county ; in whom three eminent poets may seem to be
confounded, i. Martial, in the warlike sound of his sur-
name (whence some conjecture him of a military extraction.)
Hastivibrans or Shakspeare. 2. Ovid, the most natural and
* Alluding to the Induction to the Ta7nwg of the Shrew.
The Bacon- Shakspere Quest ion. 109
witty of all poets. 3. Plautus, who was an exact comedian,
yet never any scliolar, as our Shakspeare (if alive) would
confess himself. Add to all these, that though his genius
generally was jocular, and inclining him to festivity, yet he
could, when so disposed, be solemn and serious, as appears
by his tragedies; so that Heraclitus himself (I mean if
secret and unseen) might afford to smile at his comedies,
they were so merry ; and Democritus scarce forbear to
sigli at his tragedies, they were so mournful. He was an
eminent instance of the truth of that rule, Poeta non fit
scd nascitur. [One is not made, but born a poet.] Indeed,
his learning was very little. . . . Nature itself was all
the art which was used upon him. Many were the wit
combats betwixc him and Ben Jonson, which two I beheld
like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war.
Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learn-
ing, solid but slow in his performances; .Shakspere, like the
English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing,
could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of
all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention."*
To Mr. Davenport, Sheppard says : —
'* Thou rival'st Shakspere, though thy glory's less."
164S to 1679. Diary of Rev. J. Ward, Vicar of
Stratford : " Shakspere frequented the plays all his
younger time, but in his elder days lived at Strat-
ford, and supplied the stage with two plays every
year."
While we survey such an extraordinary assem-
blage of certificates, which speak of William
Shakspere's clear and indefeasible title to the works,
which have always been taken by the world to be
his and his alone, we feel that the authenticity
of no other poet could be attested by so many or
so powerful allusions, within a period, through
which he might have lived. It is a singular con-
sensus of opinion on the part of intelligent and
educated persons, many of whom were contem-
* " What things we have seen
Done at the Mermaid. Heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame
As if that every one from whom they came
Had meant to put his whole soul in ajest."
Ueauinont's lines on the Mermaid Tavern,
no The Bacon-Shakspere Question.
porarles, and to some of whom the poet was as
perfectly well known as Tennyson or Svvinbuine
IS to the present age. The attestations are clear
and definite. They all tell one story. There are a
few other traditions regarding him, of the gossiping
conglomerate style, that may or may not be true,
but do not bear on the point.
The Traditional period begins after this — namely,
with Aubrey in 1680.''' Every one knows how
easily he was imposed upon. To understand this,
one may refer to the Outlines of the Life of Shakspere,
by Mr. Halliwell-Phillips, for the history of the
Davenant Scandal, and others. The critical period
begun with Dryden, the elaborative period in our
own century, the sceptical outburst in our own life-
time. We have only dealt with facts and contem-
porary witnesses.
We find that Warwickshire and Stratford were con-
sidered honoured for being the birth-place of Shak-
* Most of the "traditions " arise from him, though several
came into existence as late as 1748. Though John Aubrey
had a good education, and intellectual tastes, he was cre-
dulous and inexact to an extraordinary degree. Malone said
he was a dupe to every gossip. Perhaps a list of his other
works best give the qualities of his mind : —
I. Miscellanies ; Day-Fatality ; Local-Fatality ; Ostenta ;
Omens ; Dreams ; Apparitions ; Voices ; Impulses ; Knock-
ings ; Blows Invisible ; Prophecies ; Marvels ; Magic ;
Transportation in the Air ; Visions in a Beril, or Glass ;
Converse with Angels and Spirits ; Corps-Candles in Wales ;
Oracles ; Exstacy ; Glances of Love ; Envy ; Second-sighted
Persons.
II. A Perambulation of the County of Surrey.
III. I. The Natural History of Wiltshire.
2. Architectonica Sacra.
3. An Apparatus for the Lives of our English and
other Mathematical Writers.
4. An Interpretation of Villare Anglicanum.
5. The Life of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (his
friend).
6. An Idea of Education of Young Gentlemen.
7. Designatio de Easton Piers in Com. Wilts, per me
(eheu) infortunatum Johannem Aubrey, R.S. Socium.
The Bacon-Sliakspere Qitestion, iii
spere ; that he had come to town to seek his fortune,
was handsome and gifted, welcomed and loved
by the actors ; adored by the people, received
by the nobles, and honoured by both sovereigns \
jealously spoken of only by Greene, whose opinion
was worth nothing, and by Ben Jonson" in the first
instance, who nobly made up for it, o.x\d perhaps by
the jealous author oi Ratsefs Ghost. At that time
of savage attacks and gross raillery, no other word
was ever said against Shakspere — whose life must
have been open to the Argus-eyed scrutiny of
many rivals. Beyond and above rancour or reply,
he was called "gentle," "honey-tongued," "friendly,"
"silver-tongued," "noble," "rare," "having no
ray ling but a rayning wit." There would be no-
thing peculiar in considering so dominant a per-
sonality capable of writing poems, had he not
been proved to have done so. His wit and
conversation made him i-eig7i in his own circles ;
his acting powers were great ; his literary powers
unparalleled. Had this gnat cheat been per-
petrated, Ben Jonson must have known. Upon
what principle could we explain his panegyric to
the beloved " departed sweet Swan of Avon," if
applied to the " living Lord Keeper of York
House, Strand ?" Had the Baconians demanded
the honour for AntJiony Bacon, it would not have
been so utterly incongruous ; for he was dead, yet
at the same time obviously a man whose life had
not shown the fruits of wit possible to it. Had
they demanded it for Raleigh ; for Beaumont, or
Fletcher, or any one of the other drama-writers,
there might have seemed some probability in it.
An actor must have written the plays.
But reading has only increased my conviction,
that, whoever wrote the plays, Bacon did not, and
his editor, Spedding, thought the same.
There are no contemporary or early suggestions
of Bacon's authorship. The first dreams of it have
* Appendix, Note 13.
112 The Bacon- Shakspcre Question.
arisen in this century. Much has been said and
])roved, contested and disproved, regarding the
authorship of the fourth (iospel. This attempt at
disproving our fiftJi Gospel is another outcome of
the same destructive creed, but, fortunately, the
laws regarding the authenticity of testimony and
credility of witnesses can be fully satisfied in this
case, and the attack resisted. The Daily Telegraph
committed a fallacy in using the question-begging
epithet ^^ Dethroning Shakspcre" ; without doubt,
it was an attempt to do so — success requires greater
strength than that. The " attempt and not the
deed confounds it." Some good comes out
of all evil. The good for us in this discussion is,
that it sends us back, from second-hand traditions
and repeated errors, forgeries, misstatements and
misconstructions, to read anew the real authors, and
their real friends and foes, in the living reality of
time and space contemporary with them. The
more one reads of them, the less it seems necessary
to answer the Baconian statements ; the answers
seem so simple and self-evident.
The Bacon- Shakspere Question. ii
J
Chapter V.
Thirty-two Reasons for Believing that Bacon
Wrote Shakspere : and, Did Francis Bacon
Write Shakspere ? — By Mrs. Potts.
These are the most reasonable of the expositions
of the Baconian theory, though of course I
disagree with most of its statements, and with all
its conclusions. Nevertheless, they might have
had some vahdity and have been considered
gravely, if the plays had really come down to us
anonymously, and not universally attributed to
Shakspere. Still, it is well to hear both sides of the
question ; and I condense the statements : —
I. " That nothing in his life makes it impossible
for Bacon to have written the plays."
II. "That chronological order, dates, and other
particulars coincide with facts in the life of Bacon."
III. " The hints given by the author's experiences
applicable to Bacon and not with Shakspere."
I disagree wholly with these three statements.
IV. " That Bacon was a poet."
But'so were many others, better able than he to
write the plays.
V. That Bacon was addicted to the theatre, got
up masques, and wrote The Cofiferetice of Pleasure,
The Gesta Grayorum, Afasque of an Lidian Prince"
No person who could write the plays 7vould have
written these; but as I have said so much on this
point already in the general question I must
pass on.
VI. "The Earls of Southampton and Pembroke
are not shown to have any intimacy with Shakspere
114 "^^^^ Baco?i-Shakspere Question.
but they had with Bacon." The "dedications"
would have been all the more impossible to Bacon,
had they been written to an intimate. But it is
distinctly proved that Shakspere knew at least
Southampton, just in the way the dedications
suggest. The Baconians make so much use of
tradition that they also should remember the very
persistent one, that Southampton gave Shakspere
the money to buy New Place as a present from
himself.
VII. " Many of the wits and poets acknowledge
Bacon their chief." No doubt Bacon was a great
man, but there are a greater number of acknow-
ledgments of Shakspere's superiority.
The Great Assises of Parnassus. We have shown
how entirely the interior of this pamphlet, of which
the title page is quoted here, supports Shakspere in
his true position as actor and dramatic poet.
VIII. " That Ben Jonson used the same words
in addressing both." Only one similar phrase,
and I show elsewhere how that might arise.
" Ben Jonson does not put Shakspere among the
sixteen greatest wits of the day." That can easily
be accounted for. " Sir Henry Wotton does not
mention him at all." As, however, he also omitted
Spenser, and other great poets, this is not so sur-
prising.
IX. "That in the time of Bacon's poverty, 1623,
Ben Jonson tried to push the sale of Shakspere's
works." The conclusion desired non-sequitur.
These were printed by Isaac Jaggard and Edward
Blount, at the charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount,
J. Smithweeke, and W. Apsley, and all profits were
shared by these, with probably a commission to
Ben Jonson, and no share to Bacon.
X. "That Bacon had some connexion with
Shakspere." This is, however, only shown by the
same clerk scribbling their names on the same
sheet of paper in the Northumberland MS,
explained in Chap. III.
The Bacon- Shakspere Question. 115
XI. "That he uses 'the alphabet."' This is
the " Alphabet of the Sciences." See Spedding's
Bacon and page 67, ante.
XII. "That Sir Toby Matthew's letter from
abroad adds — P.S. The most prodigious wit that
ever I knew of my nation, on this side of the sea is
of your lordship's name, though he be known by
another." This of course refers to his brother,
Anthony Bacon ; when on his secret service missions
abroad he used an alias. " This side of the sea "
excludes the possibility of his meaning Francis
Bacon, as Matthew did not meet him ■ there, when
in his extreme youth he was abroad. " Invention "
he repeatedly uses, as the application of imagination
to experiment so as to make discoveries.
XIII. "That he called himself a 'concealed
poet ' to Sir John Davies." * Unless it had meant
that Bacon had written Davies' Nosce Teipsiini
for him, how was Davies to know what he meant ?
If Bacon wrote Shakspere's plays and spoke of it,
he would not be a 'concealed poet.' It really
refers to his parabolical writings. See his defini-
tions of poetry referred to in Chap. III.
XIV. and xv. " The knowledge in the plays is
that of Bacon," &c. But Bacon's knotuledge is
much more extensive and thorough than that of the
plays, and of a different nature. As Shakspere
had a cousin, and many friends lawyers ; as he
lived near the Law Courts, frequenting the same
taverns ; as his father had been in an office that
required some legal knowledge ; as all people of
the period seemed to go through numerous petty
litigations ; and as most dramatic writers of the
time used law phrases freely, it is not unnatural
Shakspere should have done so. Shakspere for his
classical stories used the translations then Sv)
abundant — North's translation of Fliitarch^s Livcs^
published by VautroUier ; translations of Ovid and
Cicero by the same ; Diana of Monteniayor,
* See Appendix, Note 10.
ii6 The Bacon- Shakspere Question.
translated by Thomas Wilson ; The Menaechmi of
Plautus translated earlier, and published in
T595; Montaigne's Essays, translated by Florio ;
Baudwin's "Collection of the sayings of all the
wise, 1547."'^ Then there was Lilly's Euphiies,
Sidney's Arcadia, Greene's plays and novels, with
those of Marlowe and others ; histories, travels,
essays, probably Bacon's among the number, which
had probably been pirated; as, "like those who
have an orchard ill-neighboured, he had been
forced to gather too early to save his fruit," or
publish to keep his profits and credit.
" Shakspere's Library " has been collected by
Collier and Hazlitt.
The general science of the plays comes not from
Bacon's mind. The flowers of Shakspere are those
naturally observed by a poet born amid rich
woodland and river scenery, and trans])orted to the
suburbs of a large city, where woods were still
within walking distance, and where some plants
not very common were found by Gerard in the
very Theatre-Field. (See Gerard's " Historic of
Plants," 1597).
XVI. " That the subjects which engross them are
the same."
xvii. " That the observations on character are
the same."
I can only say I disagree with both these
propositions.
xviii. That the scientific errors are the same."
That is very natural, and depends on the advance-
ment of the times ; the scientific knowledge, how-
ever, is different both in kind and in degree.
XIX. " Bacon's studies of any time introduced
into plays of the same date," and
XX. " In several editions of a play, Bacon's
increased knowledge shown in the later editions."
There are different means of accounting for the
element of truth that lies in these 3 as well as in
the
♦ See Appendix, Note 14.
The Bacon-Shahpere Qiccsiion. 1 1 7
XXI. " Vocabulary very much the same."
XXIII. "Baconian ideas and groups of ideas appear
in the plays." I have shown elsewhere, however,
that Bacon, no less than Shakspere, read much and
borrowed much.
XXIV. " ]\Irs. Cowden Clarke's ninety-five points
of Shakspere's style common to Bacon."
XXV. " Shakspere grammar of Dr. Abbott serves
for Bacon."
XXVI. " Figures of speech frequently the same."
XXVII. " The Promus notes do not appear in
Bacon's works, but in Shakspere's plays." Very
probably they were taken from them, or from
common sources. None of them were original ;
but we see that many of the proverbs and headings
do appear in Bacon's works and not in Shakspere's :
for instance, phrases regarding wine.
XXVIII. "Superstitious and religious beUef the
same." I think them quite different.
XXIX. *' Bacon's favourite authors Shakspere's
also." But we must remember Bacon's age was
nearly the same as Shakspere's, his period, his
place of residence, his public, his Sovereign, some
of his friends, and many of his circumstances. Is
there no resemblance between other two writers in
the same period, or of Dryden's period, or Words-
worth's period, of a similar nature ?
XXX. " Striking ^7/wWtf'^i' from the plays fit the
character and circumstances of Bacon. No villacre
O
experiences, no brewing, cider-making, or baking."
We have shown that just in these points Bacon
was more interested than Shakspere, and more
likely to mention them. " No children are men-
tioned, therefore the childless Bacon wrote them."
I think Mrs. Potts trips here, Macduft^'s feeling
for his children could only be pourtrayed by a
fixther. Constance and Arthur and other parents
and children appear. But the interests of the times
9
ii8 2 he Bacon-Shaksperc Question.
were more centred in adult life, and Shakspere sup-
plied a demand.
XXXI. "That the Folio of 1623 included Plays
never before heard of." That is to say, it included
Plays of which the criticism by name has not come
down to us. But these were collected by the pro-
prietors of the theatre to which he sold them 3 and
who had no interest in publishing the plays beyond
the loving desire to " keep the memory of their
worthy fellow alive," even at the cost of their copy-
right. " The Folio was published two years after
Bacon's fall, when he was trying to publish every-
thing on account of poverty and failing health."
But how, without a free confession, would he get
his hands into the manuscript chest of the theatre, so
as to select, and reconstruct the number he wished
printed ? How did he bribe so many concerned —
proprietors, poets, printers, publishers, Ben Jonson
in particular, not only to tell liberal lies, but to
stick to them ? What profit could come to him as
his proportion of the reprint ? But we know from
his life he was otherwise employed at the time.
XXXII. *' That the difficulties which have to be
explained away are much less in the case of Bacon
than of Shakspere." I do not think so.
The other pamphlet — " Did Francis Bacon ivrite
Shakespeare ? " — gives the parallels more calmly
and dispassionately than other Baconian writings
do. But I cannot see how any one could consider
them either proofs or reasonings. The first proof
brought forward is, " Bacon's mother was a lady,
Shakspere's mother of a peasant family."* Though
this contrast is quite irrelevant to the subject in
hand, genius being above social distinction, one
cannot accept it. The family of the Ardens was
very far above the rank of peasants : a comfortable,
well-to-do, well-connected family, farming their
* See Appendix, Note 2.
The Bacon- Shahspere Question. 119
own lands, and living in houses very much above
the average of the times, having a memory of a
higher past, and aspirations towards a higher
future, that could not have entered a peasanfs bmiti.
It is very evident that Mary Arden was at once
possessed of powers and charms. She was her
father's favourite daughter, and a methodical help-
meet for her ambitious but unpractical husband.
She was the mother of a powerful and charming
man, and as men generally take after their mothers,
we may suppose her also to be susceptible to the
beauties of nature, and human life. A happier
and more healthy-minded mother was she for a
great man, than the learned, ambitious, narrow,
masterful Lady Bacon, whose mind preyed on itself
until it went crazy.
" It will tax ingenuity to invent any satisfactory
explanation of the facts that some of Shakspere's
plays appeared during his life-time without his
name, and some did not appear till after his death,
supposing William Shakspere to have been the
author." The very simple and satisfactory ex-
planation is, that the habits of these days in regard
to publication were perfectly different from ours ;
that it was perfectly common for writers to publish
even their own writings without name or signature;
and to do so in some editions and not in others ;
that Shakspere v/rote for the stage, and therefore
for the proprietors, and it was not to their interest
to publish ; and his later plays, when his name
had been famous some time, were more likely to
be jealously guarded than the earlier. But the
pirates were always about, and either put on names
or no names on the title page, to suit their own
convenience. "After his retirement," the Rev. John
Ward, vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, in 1663 writes
that "Shakspere wrote two ilays every year for the
stage, for which he was so well paid, he could
spend at the rate of a thousand a year."
I believe it was a sense that, being removed
from the sphere of pure poetry, by the mercantile
120 2 he Bacon- SJiakspcrc Question.
impulse towards them, they fell so far short of his
ideas of what they should be, which prevented his
caring to publish them. \'arious other queries
and difficulties are brought forward, all the
important points of which could be answered.
The parallelisms only shew how well the industry
of Shakspere kept him abreast of the literature of
the time. But we could not go through each
trifling dispute in detail, without writing a mighty
volume. Our ignorance of many facts is to be
deplored. But we believe we have shewn e nough^
to prove that Bacon is utterly innocent of making""
any claim to the plays, and that Shakspere stands
firm on the rock of his rights.
The Bacon-Shakspere Question, 121
CHAPTER VI.
Bacon's Ciphers.
Bacon sometimes, as in Valerius Terminus,
wrote his doctrines in a purposely abrupt and
obscure style, such as would " choose its reader."
He did not give his philosophy in a form which
" whoso runs may read," and was scornful of " the
general reader." But there is not the slightest
grounds in his works for beUeving there was a
cipher in them. Nay rather, he apologised for
introducing ciphers as a part of learning at all.
His connexion with Essex, with his brother
Anthony, with so many treasonable and state
affairs, must have taught him the value of
thoroughly understanding the powers of conceal-
ment in writing ; and we are not surprised he con-
siders ciphers in his general survey of learning.
But he gives them no prominence.
In the 6th Book of Dc Augmentis, Chapter I.,
Bacon treats of Ciphers and the method of De-
ciphering. " Communications may either be written
by the common alphabet (which is used by every-
body), or by a secret or private one agreed upon
by particular persons, called Ciphers. There are
many kinds, simple and mixed, those in two
different letters ; wheel-ciphers, key-ciphers, word-
ciphers, and the like. There may be a double
alphabet of significants and non-significants. The
three merits of a cipher are: ist, easy to write ;
2nd, safe, or impossible to be deciphered without
the key ; 3rd, such as not to raise suspicion." " Now
for tliis elusion of enquiry there is a new and
useful contrivance for it, which, as I have it by
me, why should 1 set it down among the desiderata,
122
The Bacon-Shakspcre Question.
instead of propounding the thing itself? It is
this — let a man have two alphabets, one of true
letters, the other of non-significants, and let him
unfold in them two letters at once, the one
carrying the secret, the other such a letter as the
writer would have been likely to send. Then if
anyone be strictly examined as to the cipher, let
him offer the alphabet of non-significants for the
true letteis, and the alphabet of true letters for the
non-significants. Thus the examiner will fall upon
the exterior letter, which, finding probable, he will
not suspect anything of another letter written." He
then alludes to his own contrivance in his early
youth in Paris (which he gives in full), and is the
same as that mentioned in Every Boy's Book.
" But for avoiding suspicion altogether, I will add
another contrivance. The way to do it is this —
first let all the letters of the alphabet be resolved
into transpositions of two letters only. For the
transposition of two letters through five places will
yield 32 differences, much more than 24 which is
the number of letters in our alphabet."
Example of an alphabet in two letters : —
A
B
C
D
E
F
aaaaa
aaaab
aaaba
aaabb
aabaa
aabab
G
II
I
K
L
M
aabba
aabbb
abaaa
abaab
ababa
ababb
N
P
Q
R
S
abbaa
abbab
abbba
abbbb
baaaa
baaab
T
V
W
X
Y
Z
baaba
baabb
babaa
babab
babba
babbb
" Nor is it a slight thing which is thus by the way
effected. For hence we see how thoughts may be
communicated at any distance of place by means
of any objects perceptible either to the eye or ear,
provided only those objects are capable of two
diflerences. It was subject to this condition
that the infolding writing shall contain five times
as many letters as the writing infolded, and no
other condition or restriction is implied.
The Bacon-Shakspere Qiiestion. 123
" When you prepare to write you must reduce the
interior epistle to this literal alphabet. Let the
interior epistle be
FLY.
Example of Reduction.
FLY
aabab ababa babba
Have by you at the same time another alphabet in
two forms ; I mean one in which each of the letters
of the common alphabet, both capital and small, is
exhibited in two different forms — any forms that
you find convenient. Then take your interior
epistle, reduced to the bi-literal shape, and adapt
to it, letter by letter, your exterior epistle in the
bi-form character, then write it out. The exterior
epistle is "Do not go till I come."
Example of Adaptation,
F L Y
aa bab ab aba b a bba
Do not go till I come.
" The doctrine of cyphers carries with it another
doctrine, which is its relative. This is the doctrine
of deciphering, or of detecting ciphers, though one
be quite ignorant of the alphabet used or the
private understanding between the parties, a thing
requiring both labour and ingenuity, and dedicated,
as the other likewise is, to the secrets of princes.
By skilful precaution indeed it may be made useless ;
though as things are, it is of very great use, for if
good and safe ciphers were introduced, there are
very many of them which altogether elude and
exclude the decipherer, and yet are sufficiently con-
venient and ready to read and write. But such is
the rawness and unskilfulness of secretaries and
clerks in the courts of Kings, that the greatest
matters are commonly trusted to weak and futile
ciphers."
In paragraph 202 Bacon speaks of a cipher
within a cipher : " You write in a common cipher,
124 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.
with an alphabet of eighteen letters, the cipher
being such that the five vowels are used as nulls ;
then by the last cipher the five vowels are made
significant and give the hidden sense." He seems
to speak of this as his own. Mr. Ellis's notes to
Spedding's Bacon say: "The earliest writer
on ciphers, except Trithemius, whom he quotes, is
John Baptist Porta, whose work Dc Occultis
Biterariun Notis was reprinted at Strasburg in
1606. The wheel-cipher is described in chapters
7, 8, and 9. The Ciphra Clavis, described by
Porta, is a cipher of position. The cipher of words
is worked at both by Trithemius and Porta. The
Traite des Chiffres on secretes vianieres d'escrire par
Blaise de Vigencre, Bonrbon?!ais, Paris 1587, brings
forward another cipher. The two authors whom
he chiefly mentions are Trithemius and Porta.
The key cipher of which Porta speaks he
ascribes to a certain Belasio, who employed
it as early as 1549, Porta's book not being
published until 1563: " Auquel il a insere le
chiffre sans faire mention dont il le tenoit."
Porta's book, he goes on to say was not " en vente "
till 1568. The invention was ascribed to Belasio
by the Grand Vicar of St. Peter's at Rome, who
was a great scholar in ciphers. Vigenere gives an
account of ciphers in which letters are represented
by combinations of other letters, which Porta
already had done. But he also gives the bi-
literal alphabet and the combinations above. The
transition from this to Bacon's cipher is so easy,
that the credit given to him must materially be re-
duced.
The Baconians have been driven to the desperate
attempt of seeking and finding a cipher in the plays
to prop up their otherwise unsupported conclusions.
The strange thing is, that }io cip/ier suggested is
drawn eit/ier from Bacon's worlzs, or from tJiose of
his instructors. Another point worthy of considera-
tion is, that more than one different cipher reader
professes to find a different cipher under different
The Bacon-Shakspen Question. 125
conditions in the same works, giving the same chief
conclusions, with different accessories. How many
ciphers can the same works enrol at the same time
is a new puzzle, as difficult to solve as the author-
ship of Shakspere's plays.
Mrs. C. F. A. Windle, of San Francisco, has one
pamphlet addressed to the New Shakspere Society in
1 88 1, and another to the Trustees of the British
Museum in 1882, " On the Discovery of the Cipher
of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, alike in his prose
writings and the Shakspeare dramas, proving that
he wrote the latter." She quotes Bacon on cipher :
" Writing in the received manner no way obstructs
the pronunciation, but leaves it free. . . . But to
prevent all suspicion we shall annex a cipher of
our own which has the highest perfection of a
cipher, that of s\gx\\{ymg om?iia per oiimia.'^ Mrs.
Windle says, " There is not so much as a single
line of all Bacon's prose works or letters, as he
has, with omniscient security and provision trans-
mitted them, without, as it now appears, its definite
design of a final conjoinder with this great resur-
rection, and its assigned part in the fulfilment and
proof of the predestined miracle." She claims
Montaigne's Essays for him, and also adds : " I
have already hinted my belief that the marvellous
psychological phenomenon of his future recognition
by another mind was pre-conceived by Lord
Verulam as a part of the value to the world of his
anticipated resurrection. It stamps his work with
the miracle of prophecy and fulfilment. . . . For
myself, it were stupid and soulless in me not to
have felt in this revelation, as it has come to me, a
direction and inspiration something more than
merely natural ; a mysterious intercommunication
with the spirit of this first of all the departed, as
still existent, apart from, no less than in the
immortal work, in which it has been mine, as the
favoured human agent, to recover him to the
world. ... I feel the deepest responsil^lity rest-
ing on me to fulfil perfectly this duly, devolved on me
126 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.
from the unseen realm ; mare especially as I realise
that if left to another the tnie expositioji 7vill never be
made." One example given is from Cymbeline :
" When at the time that a Posthumous fame, borne
of a British Lion shall, unconsciously and without
seeking, find itself embraced by the tender ' Ariel '
of its own Book, Ah, Rare one! and when the
branches of Bacon's poetry, philosophy, and virtue,
which lopped from the stately Cedar of Britain's
renown have been dead many years, shall after-
wards revive, be jointed to the old stock, and
freshly grow, then shall the misery of his delayed
recognition terminate, Britain be fortunate and
flourish in peace and plenty." "I am assured
that the recognition of Bacon's title cannot be
much longer delayed."
A great contrast to the slender bulk of Mrs.
Windle's Cryptogram, are Mr. Donnelly's mighty
volumes of the Great Cryptogram :
"That the Cipher is there; that I have found
it out, that the narrative given is real, no man can
doubt who reads this book to the end."
" A more brain-racking problem was never sub-
mitted to the intellect of man."
" I was often reminded of the Western story of
the lost traveller whose highway changed into a
wagon-road, his wagon-road disappeared in a
bridle-path, his bridle-path merged into a cow-path
and his cow-path at last degenerated into a squirrel-
track, which ran up a tree !"
I quote three of Mr. Donnelly's own sentences,
with the frst of which I disagree.
I have honestly done my duty, and have read
the whole of Mr. Donnelly's weighty volumes from
beginning to end. They reflect great credit in the
first place on Messrs. Sampson Low & Co., who
have admirably performed a difficult task. There
are some chapters in the work that possess interest
and value ; for instance, those on the parallelisms
and identities in thought, expression, constructions
and errors in Bacon and Shakspere. I respect
The Bami-Shakspere Question. 127
the industry and perseverance that have led the
author through labours equal to those of Hercules,
and I only wish that more exactitude, honesty,
fairness, learning, and common sense had been
added to the industry, so that a book had been
produced creditable alike to Mr. Donnelly and his
country.
The work divides itself naturally into two parts —
the resume of what is called the Baconian theory,
and Mr. Donnelly's own special contribution, which
he calls the Great Cryptogram, possibly to dis-
tinguish it from others. In regard to the general
question, I consider that "The great assizes
holden in Parnassus" would not permit Mr. Don-
nelly to be a judge, or even to be a juryman or
witness in such a question, because he is — ist, too
violent a partisan. A personal " animus " against
Shakspere is shown in every line, in every noun
and adjective he flings at him. 2nd. He is illogical
in the reasonings he brings to bear on facts. 3rd.
He is inconsistent in the adducing of the facts he
reasons from. 4th. He sometimes falsifies facts,
either through ignorance or selection. He says of
Shakspere's editors, "False in one point, false in
all." — " O noble judge ! A Daniel come to judg-
ment ! I thank thee (Donnelly) for teaching me
that word." 5th. The current of his faith and
imagination carries him away. Mr. Donnelly was
evidently intended to be an original poet.
Fortunately for us, the laws of authenticity of
testimony and credibility of witnesses decide that
the witness of the large group of contemporaries
who knew Shakspere and Bacon, is more valid
than the opinion of one man born about 300 years
after them, in another hemisphere, even when he is
backed by a following of friends who think it would
be more congruous to their own thought that Bacon
wrote Shakspere.
The previous chapters have shown the weak-
ness of his case, the real points of difference in
128 The Bacon-Shakspcre Question.
character, in the works of the men, and in the
testimony for each.
Mr. Donnelly is a master of bathos. "Here I
would remark that it is sorrowful, nay pitiful, nay
shameful, to read the fearful abuse which in sewer-
rivers has deluged the fair memory of Francis
Bacon within the last four months." I think
Mr. Donnelly does not believe he is the worst
sinner in this respect, nor does he imagine that the
sentence might much more naturally be written of
the Baconians in their abuse of Shakspere. They
have dwelt upon unauthenticated tradiiiofi (when
it is uncomplimentary), misjudged it, garbled it,
and set it in opposition to well authenticated
writings. Truly, as was once said of the Pharisees,
" Ye have made the Scriptures of none effect
through your tradition." And when Mr. ]3onnelly
does judge from writings he selects the unsavoury,
dwells on them, magnifies them, and clouds there-
with his style and reasoning, ignoring all i)oints
that tell against him, and attempting to make his
readers do the same. What though Stratford
was at times " unsavoury " ? All towns of the
period were. Great ladies carried sweet odoured
balls " to smell to," when they became aware of
the offensive. Can a poet not escape to the
woodlands and the primrose banks? And, after
all, even though the whole question is utterly irrele-
vant, is open-air drainage more injurious to brain-
power than a drainage that gives a superficial
tidiness and sends the deadly drain-poisoned airs
through chink and cranny to suck the life out of
body and soul like a vampire bat ?
Mr. Donnelly says Shakspere had nearly every
vice, and was disgraced in the eyes of men in
every way ; that he was coarse, vulgar, and ugly ;
was indeed the original of Falstaff, of crooked
Richard, and of Caliban ! Has he not read Dr.
Ingleby's " Centurie of Prayse ? " His superiority
to " his fellows " and those who wrote for the stage
may be seen by the position he had taken towards
The Bacon- Shahspere Question. 129
them in seven years after his arrival in London.
" In the greatest age of Enghsh hterature the
greatest man of his species Uves in London for
nearly 30 years, and no man takes any note of his
presence." This need not be re-answered. " Com-
pare the little we know of him, and the much we
know of Ben Jonson." The men are different ;
Jonson is like Bacon, and likes to let men know
about him.
Yet one thing that Mr. Donnelly says of him as
a crowning insult, I might have believed. He
says : "I have proved he was a brewer." "We
peep into the kitchen of New Place, Stratford, and
we see the occupant brewing beer." I wished to
welcome him into the guild, for which he would
certainly have needed Bacon's knowledge to fit
him ; and looking back to the early chapter that
proves it, I find it really must be transcribed as
a fine specimen of the style of Mr. Donnelly's
" reasonings."
"Shakspere a brewer. He carried on brewing
* in New Place. It is very probable the alleged
" author of Hamlet carried on the business of
" brewing beer in his residence at New Place. He
" sued Philip Rogers in 1604 for several bushels of
" ' malt ' sold him at various times between March 27
" and the end of May of that year, amounting in all
" to the value of ^ I 15s. lod. The business of beer-
" making was not unusual among his townsmen.
"George Perrye, besides his glover's trade,
" useth buying and selling of wool and yarn and
" making of malte. Robert Butler, besides his
" glover's occupation, useth making of malte.
"Rychard Castell, Rother Market, useth his
" glover's occupation, his wife uttering weeklye by
" bruyinge ij strikes of malte. Mr. Persons for a
" long tyme used malting of malte and bruyinge to
" sell in his house."— (C/r/J/'6'6'., 1595.)
(This is taken from the notes to Mr. Halliwell-
Philipps's book without the context.)
130 The Bacon- Shakspere Question.
** Think of the author of Hamlet and of Lear
brewing beer ! "
But Mr. Donnelly has tripped here. // is no
proof, that he should hold malt, and that other men
who held malt brewed beer to sell. Malt was
often received as rent. INIalting and brewing were
carried on in every gentleman's house of the king-
dom at that time ; but the only home in which it
is proved that the Head of the House concerned
himself with the manufacture was Bacon s ; because
we have his experiments, written with his own hand.
Therefore, if Bacon did write Hamlet and Lear,
we wz/j-/ "think of the author of these plays as
brewing beer." And why should he not ? Mortal
men do not live the whole twenty-four hours on
the Mount of Transfiguration.
" The identities of the question of temperance ; "
I find the strongest contrasts.
" It is a little surprising that a writer whose sym-
pathies were always with the aristocracy should
convert the finest house in Stratford, built by Sir
Hugh Clopton, into a Brewery, and employ himself
peddling out malt to his neighbours and sueing
them when they did not pay promptly. And taken
in connection with the sale of malt, there is another
curious fact that throws some light upon the
character of the man of the household. In the
Chamberlain's account of Stratford we find a charge
in 1614 for 'one quart of sack and one quart of
clarett wine given to a preacher at the New Place.'
What manner of man must he have been who
would require the town to pay for the wine he
furnished his guests?" It seems to be forgotten
that towns often gave handsome gifts to indi-
viduals ; that in this case the smallness of the gift
to the preacher who had pleased them all depended
on the knowledge that he had been liberally treated
at the best house in the place. The choice of
wine was not unusual for a gift.
It appears original to this work that " Shakspere
was a Brewer." We would be willing to accept
The Bacon-Shaksperc Question. 131
him as such without proof, were it only to see in
it more than a coincidence that the UberaHty of his
successors, Messrs. Flower & Son, has enabled the
Stratford of to-day to do fitting honour to the
greatest native of Stratford.
Mr. Donnelly follows the well-known legal trick
classed among the Logical Fallacies — "No case;
abuse the plaintiff's attorney, or himself." So he
abuses Warwickshire, Stratford, the house where
Shakspere was born ; forgetful that for the period
it was large and substantial enough for a man in a
very good position. He abuses his name, his
family and himself, and his supporters, in every
possible way.
He (Donnelly) tries to suggest vile thoughts of
Shakspere, and even that there "was something
wrong in the breed," because Shakspere's first child
appeared sooner than is usual after marriage. Pope's
biography can prove that no explanation ot this need
be necessary, but we must further remember that
the habits of the time were different from ours ; that
the pre-contract or betrothal had a more binding
force than the engagement of our days, and was
equivalent to a civil marriage. Surely in times
when the same thing happened in the cases of Sir
Walter Raleigh and Earl Southampton, at older age,
without blame or disgrace, there is no need to
annihilate a man so young for a fault that he
repaired as fully as he could, if there were a fault
at all. And we must emphatically assert, there is
no authority for any suspicion of a further blot on
his fair fame through life.
Mr. Donnelly says Shakspere was a "usurer."
I think that he was a man who had discovered
the uses of adversity, and learned the lessons of ex-
perience, and that, seeing that his father had lost
his fair chances for himself and family by careless-
ness in money matters, he had determined the value
alike of exactitude and economy.
" He combined with others to oppress tlie poor,
when an attempt was made to enclose the public
132 The Bacon-Shakspcre Question.
lands " ; while the fact remains on record that he
opposed and prevented the enclosures. " He was
a mean peasant, and lied to beg a coat of arms for
his father."'^ Facts are against Mr. Donnelly here
also. Shakspere's honour was unimpeached and
unimpeachable. " The author of the plays was a
profound scholar and laborious student, and
therefore must be Bacon." I differ from Mr.
Donnelly in the degree of profundity apparent,
which would take a volume as large as his own
to contest, and I have proved that Shakspere also
was a "laborious student." Mr. Donnelly does not
seem to be aware of the numerous translations of
foreign authorities then extant ; nor of the character
his fellow-dramatist, Webster, gave Shakspere for
his "right happy and copious industry;" nor of the
opportunities he had for education late in life, even
if he had neglected his school.
Some questions are asked which I should
like to be able to answer. There are, of
course, some extraordinary things in connexion
with him, or Mr. Donnelly would not have
had the chance of writing this book. Five-and-a- ^
half volumes of the large catalogues of names of \
books in the British Museum are occupied by
editions of Shakspere, or books written about him.
The chief difficulty in studying him is this fact.
But we must remember that fires happened fre-
quently then, and were often on the trail of Shak-
spere ; that the Globe was burned down in 161 3 ;
that Ben Jonson was in Stratford-on-Avon in 16 16,
at the time of Shakspere's death ; that probably he
took some of Shakspere's papers to London with
him ; that Ben Jonson's papers were destroyed by
fire late in the same year. The will of his son-in-
law. Dr. Hall, who with his wife was his residuary
legatee in 1635, says: "Concerning my study of
bookes, I leave them to my sonn Nash, to dispose
of them as you see good. As for my manuscripts,
♦ Appendix, Note 2.
The Bacon- Shakspere Question. 133
I would have given them to Mr. Boles if he had
been here ; but forasmuch as he is not here present,
you may, son Nash, burn them, or do with them
what you please." Some of tliese were original*"
though some may have been Shakspere's. There
is a tradition that a grand-nephew of his had a large
box of his papers, which were destroyed in the great
fire at Warwick.
Mr. Donnelly supports his case on Carlyle,
who makes this most significant speech : " The
wisdom displayed in Shakspeare was equal in
profoundness to the great Lord Bacon's Novum
Organum." Our edition of Carlyle says otherwise :
"It is unexampled, that calm creative perspicacity
of Shakspere. . . . Novum Organum^ and all
the intellect you will find in Bacon, is of a quite
secondary order — earthy, material, poor in com-
parison with this." t
He tries to prove that because Bacon writes a
better hand than Shakspere he was more likely to
write the plays. It may be peculiar to my collec-
tion of autographs, but I find there the boldest
and best handwritings are those of the fools.
Mr. Donnelly strengthens his position by as-
serting, "The writer of the plays must have been
in Scotland." Bacon is not proved to have gone
so far, while Burbage's company played in Edin-
burgh in 1601, and it is more than possible Shaks-
pere was with them. It is discovered that Ben
* " Select Observations on English Bodies, or Cures both
Empericall and Ilisloricall performed upon very eminent
persons in desperate diseases, first wrilten in Latin by Mr.
John Hall, Physician, living at Stratford-on-Avon, in War-
wickshire, where he was very famous, as also in the counties
adjacent, as appears by these Observations drawn out of
severall hundreds of his, as choyscst ; now put into English
for common benefit by James Cooke, Tractitioner in Physick •
and Chirurgery," 1657.
i "Heroes and llero-Worship."
10
134 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.
Jonson uses the same phrase once in regard to Bacon
and Shaksperc. Of Shakspere, in 1623,
" When Ihy socks are on
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome."
This phrase impressed Jonson as a good one,
and after the manner of his patron Bacon, he
serves it up again rechauffe in his Discoveries
when he placed Bacon among the great Orators
that treated oratory as an art. It is possible he
had thought of Mark Antony's oration when he
applied that phrase to Shakspere, and by asso-
ciated ideas, quoted it for Bacon.
"Bacon's imagination is revealed in his works;"
for instance, " For as statues and pictures are dumb
histories, so histories are speaking pictures." This,
like many others of Mr. Donnelly's, is an unfor-
tunate selection, as it is cribbed from Simonides
without any acknowledgment, a common habit of
Bacon's. Mr. Donnelly acknowledges Spedding to
be a high authority, and we have his authority for
this patent fact, as well as for the other, that Bacon
wrote little else than his metrical paraphrases of the
Psalms in verse.
" Bacon took part in many plays." He wrote some
Masques, which nobles played in, but he chiefly
concerned himself with the decorative part of the
getting-up of others. " Why was it the fountain
of Shakspere's song closed as soon as Bacon's
necessities ended?" asks Mr. Donnelly. Odier
Baconians insist that because they kept appearing
after Shakspere's death Bacon wrote them.
"The whole publication of the folio of 1623, is
based on a fraudulent statement. . . . False in one
thing, false in all." The MSS. of Heming and
Condell were probably the play-house copies, the
earlier editions being pirated from eager listeners
catching up the occasionally varied acting forms,
■ and, as it is perfectly certain that Shakspere in
acting would modify his phrases to his peculiar
mood at the time, that quite accounts for
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 135
the singular variations in the texts. " If
the Plays are not Shakspere's, then the whole
make-up of the folio is a fraud, and the dedi-
cation and the introduction are probably both
from the pen of Bacon " — which means, in short, if
Shakspere wrote the plays it was a fraud, if Shak-
spere did not write the plays it was a fraud ; but
either Shakspere or Bacon wrote the plays, so in
cither case it was a fraud. Query, would the fraud
be nobler if Bacon perpetrated it than if Heming
and Condell did ? Would not the falseness affect
Bacon in this case more radically than the loving-
hearted slips of an actor who wished to commemo-
rate his dead poet ?
Mr. Donnelly gives us a syllogism in Caraestres,
to prove Shakspere could not have written the
plays, and that a lawyer did so ; but if he converts
this into Celarent and a true Universal, he will
find a strange conclusion from strange premises.
He says afterwards, " Nothing is more conclu-
sively proved than that the author of the plays was
a lawyer." I am sorry for the stability of things,
if *' nothing " is stronger than this.
" Bacon is naturally given to secretiveness, and
seeks a disguise." That may be true. In his
Essay on Truth, he says, " The admixture of a lie
doth ever make truth more pleasant." " His works
were dangerous to worldly success." Why did
poems not hinder the worldly advancement of
others — Sackville, Raleigh, Sir John Davies even ?
To this latter Bacon wrote asking, as he asked
all his correspondents, for help — " be good to con-
cealed poets " — and this is the climax of the proof
he wrote Shakspere's plays. But how was Davies
to know this ? Is it not more likely that he wrote
Nosce teipsnm — that went about in Davies' name ? *^
I do indeed wonder that Mr. Donnelly did not
claim this for him when he was at it. If Bacon
wrote all his own works, all Shakspere's, all
* See Appendix, Note 10,
136 TheBacon-Shakspere Questioih
Montaigne's, all Burton's, all Marlowe's and the
minor Dramatists' productions, all anonymous
works (as is demanded for him), surely this sen-
tence might have engulphed those of Sir John
Davies also, who writes a philosophic work and
metrical translation of some Psalms. Mr. Donnelly
proves so much, that the same reasonings would
prove much more. Burton's Anatomy of Melan-
choly is not at all unlike his style, therefore he
wrote it. It was not signed in the first edition
(162 1 ), but was in the second of 1632. But Mr.
Donnelly did not remember that Bacon was a
Cambridge man, and that Burton's Anatomy of
Melancholy was published at Oxford, then a keener
rival than it is now. Mrs. Windle had first sug-
gested that Bacon wrote Montaigne ; Mr. Donnelly
clings to the idea. " We are brought face to face
with this dilemma ; either Francis Bacon wrote
the Essays of Montaigne ; or Francis Bacon
stole many of his noblest thoughts and the whole
scheme of his philosophy from Montaigne." The
choice is fair, but there is no dilemma at all.
Bacon invariably takes every good thing he finds
in his reading, assimilates it, uses it, thanks God
and himself for it, and says nothing of the debt
to his ignorant public.
We now come to the Cipher. We cannot but
remark the extraordinary manner in which the
Cipher supports, in a coarse, vulgar, pointless
story, the opinions of the Baconian Theory.
Yet surely no insult to the dignity and character
of Bacon ; no insult to his knowledge and style
was ever offered by any one like to this. That
HE could have invented and inserted Donnelly's
Cipher in the plays ! It crowns all. The con-
clusions that might be drawn from it are these :
I St, Mr. Donnelly's, that Bacon wrote the plays,
and inserted the Cipher. No man that had any
notion of the dignity of poetry could so degrade
it by making it a pack-horse to bear a burden
of mean prose-gossip. Were that supposition
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 137
granted, his character is stained, and he is
proved a Har, a hypocrite and a plagiarist of no
ordinary meanness. For beside all the dishonesty
of the publications and dedications of the Folio,
he would have to bear the odium of copying
Plutarch, Tacitus, &c., and cribbing all other
previous playwrights' works, without having any
right to do so. And we must remember that what
in Shakspere — actor, manager, playwright, as well
as poet — was justified and justifiable, in Bacon
would be gross plagiarism and contemptible
literary robbery.
2nd. " But another of those luminous intellects
(whose existence is a subject of perpetual per-
plexity to those who reverence God) has made the
further suggestion that granted there is a Cipher in
the plays. Bacon put it there to cheat Shakspere out
of his just rights and honours." There is much to
be said in support of this "luminous intellect."
If Bacon could crib from Montaigne enough to fix
Mr. Donnellyjbetween the two horns of a dilemma,
why should he not do more ? " False in one point,
false in all." We thank thee for that word, again
and again. And the very Cipher which Bacon
claims, which suggested to Mr. Donnelly his years
of patient labour, was cribbed from Vigenere's
volume, and taken possession of without acknow-
ledgment. If he stole the Cipher, what was there
to prevent him stealing the plays, think some. We
do not think so. Bacon only appropriated what
he valued, and his own works prove that he did
not value the plays.
3rd. A third conclusion has come to some that Mr.
Donnelly put there what he found there, or manipu-
lated things to the obscuring of the senses, after
the principles of IMessrs. Maskelyne & Cooke. As
Mr. Donnelly assures us he did not, we accept his
word, though we think it one of the most slip-shod
Ciphers that ever have been found out, and one
that Bacon would have been ashamed of. Cer-
tainly this is more intricate and ingenious than that
138 The Bacon- Shakspere Question.
of Mrs. Windle, but she had the advantage of
priorit3^ The tales she educes are also more
poetically told. But we come here to the new puzzle.
How may ciphers co-exist in the same works,
at the same time, under different conditions, to be
opened only by " luminous intellects ?" Does " one
nail not drive out another " here ?
4th. But there is a fourth possibility that I
claim as original. Most things connected with
Shakspere are uncommon. As men used to seek
the Sortes Virgilia/icc, many have sought the Sortes
ShaksperiancE. Is it not possible that what
materialists might call chance, fatalists fate, or
superstition-mongers the ministers of the black art,
might have arranged the words so as to have
tempted Mr. Donnelly to find a sequence in the un-
connected and a story in chance words ? The style
of the Cryptogram narrative is wonderfully like the
Oracular. That these same powers generally help
a man to spell out what he wants to see is very
well-known.
" Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and grey,
Mingle, mingle, mingle.
You that mingle may."
But the general experience is that the "mingling"
is neither profitable nor pleasant in the long run.
Macbeth began "to doubt the equivocation of the
fiend that lied like truth," and concluded : —
"Be these juggling fiends no more believed
That palter with us in a double sense ;
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope."
Though fiends and faith have ahke gone out of
fashion, it is just possible that the "mingling"
remains, and that this is a specimen.
I could find a possible fifth conclusion,
but will not suggest it, so here is a Tetra-
lemma, a more horned animal even than the
Montaigne Dilemma. The worst of it is, that
The Bacon-Shakspcre Question . 139
each horn buffets somebody — either Bacon, whom
we reverence for what he has really done or
been ; or Mr. Donnelly, whom we ought to rever-
ence for what he wanted to do. None of them
affect Shakspere at all.
Mr. Donnelly says Bacon was the original
" Hamlet " and " Prospero." " Miranda " is " the
Works of Alphabet;" but that is worked out by
the application of Mrs. Windle's Cipher. Mr.
Donnelly's is too intricate to give anything so
simple. According to his own showing, the in-
tricacies of the Cipher pressed as heavily upon
Bacon as on himself.
" The cipher pressed him hard when he wrote
such a sentence as this : " The liorse will sooner
con an oration." ( Troilus and Crcssida, act ii.
sc. i). " As there is no Francisco present or any-
where in the play, this is all rambling nonsense,
and the word is dragged in for a purpose." " Are
there any other plays in the world where characters
appear for an instant, and disappear in this extra-
ordinary fashion, saying nothing and doing
nothing?"' "What was the purpose of this
nonsensical scene, which, as some one has said, is
about on the par of a negro-minstrel shew ? . . .
It enabled the author to bring in the name of
Francis twenty times in less than a column."
" The complicated exigencies of the cipher com-
pel Bacon to talk nonsense." And so Mr.
Donnelly is content. He fancies that he proves
that the plays are too good to be written by
Shakspere, that Bacon wrote them ; but that, at
the same time, they contain much "nonsense."'
Be sure that Mr. Donnelly could not prove that
without talking much nonsense himself. " Let us
examine this. The word Bacon is an unusual
word in literary work. ... I undertake to say
that the reader cannot find in any work of prose
or poetry, not a biography of Bacon, in that age,
or any subsequent age, where no reference was
intended to be made to the man Bacon, such
140 The Bacon-Shakspcrc Question.
another collocation of Nicholas — Bacon — Baconfed
— Bacons. I challenge the sceptical to undertake
the task ! " And I, the sceptical, accept the
challenge. In "Gammer Gurton's Needle,"'*
printed 1575, Mr. Donnelly will find "Bacons"
enough to prove that play written by Queen
Elizabeth's little Lord Keeper at the age of
thirteen.
The conclusion of our argument is this — while
the philosophic spirit urges us to doubt, so as to
" prove all things," it also impels us to believe those
facts that satisfy the needs and nature of proof;
and such a proved fact we believe this to be — that
Shakspere wrote the plays and poems that have
always been attributed to him.
" Our Shakspere wrote, too, in an age as blest.
The happiest poet of his time and best.
A gracious Prince's favour cheered his muse,
A constant favour he ne'er feared to lose."
Otway.
* See Appendix, Note 15.
2 he Bacon-Shakspa-e Qjicsfion. mi
APPENDIX.
Note I.
Specde's County Map of England was ])uLlished 1610.
lie draws the relative size and importance of the towns and
villages by a condensed little group of buildings, and, in
spite of the scorn thrown at "the peasant-village of Strat-
ford," we lind it is marked the same size as Warwick, and
second only to Coventry in the county. It has the first
highway bridge over the Avon below Warwick, so that much
traffic would have necessarily passed through the town.
Snitterfield, the residence of Shakspere's uncle, is also
sketched as large as Charlecote. Stratford belonged to the
Earls of Warwick. It was incorporated in i553- The parish
of old Stratford was lifteen miles in circumference, and in-
cluded Shottery, Clopton, Little Wilmcote, &c. " The Col-
lege " had been well endowed, and up to 1535 supported
four priests at ;i^5 6s. Sd,, and a schoolmaster at £\o salary ;
so education was then honoured. At the dissolution of ' ' the
HolyCuild," the town received the possessions together with
the great tithes, to maintain a vicar, a curate, and a school-
master, to pay the almspeople, and repair the chapel, bridge,
and other public buildings. Half of these tithes Shakspcrc
bought at the suggestion of Abraham Sturley to his brother-
in-law, Richard (^uiney. " It seenieth by your father that
our countryman, Mr. Shakspere, is willing to disburse some
money. . . . Move him to deal in the matter of our tithes.
By the instructions you can give him thereof, and by the
friends he can make therefore. ... It obtained would advance
him in deed, and would do us much good.'" The Granmiar
School, founded l)y the Rev. Mr. Jolape in Henry VI. 's reign,
had got into difficulties in Ilcnry VIII. 's reign, but the
charter of Edward VI. guaranteed the schoolmaster an an-
nual stipend of ^20 and a free house. This being liberal for
the period, it is likely Ihey had as good work as could bo
done at the time. Mr. liaynes gives a list of the books used
at the time in education. I think it very probable that to
his list would be added Thomas Wilson's Ari oj Rhetoric,
dedicated to the Earl of Warwick in 1557. Not from ]>erni,
but from this book, at some period of his life, did Shakspere
borrow lago's speech, " Who steals my purse, steals trash."
t/^i The Bacon-Shakspcrc Question.
Note 2.
A. \V. C. Ilallen's Pedigree of Shakspere's Family : —
In the draft of the grant of arms, John Shakspcre is styled
gentleman, and his great grandfather referred to as having
rendered faithful and valiant service to Henry VII. A fac-
simile of the grant of arms by Sir William Dethick, Garter,
20th October, 1596, also of the assignment of arms to Mary
Arden, his wife, in 1599, appeared in Aliscdlanea Genealogica
TonA Hcraldica, 3rd series, July, 1884, page 109. It has been
proved that her father was the descendant in the male line
of Turchill de Arden (temp. Will. I.), who was descended
from the Saxon Earls of Warwick, who were dispossessed at
the Conquest, and then took their name from Arden, their
principal manor in Warwickshire.
(See Mr. Russel French's Shakspereana Genealogica.)
The Grant of Arms to Shakspere : —
The original, in the Heralds' Office, is marked G. 13, \i.
349. There is also a manuscript in the Heralds' Office,
marked W. 2, p. 276, where notice is taken of this coat, and
that the person to whom it was granted had borne magis-
tracy at Stratford-on-Avon.
(Waldron's Shaksperian Miscellany.)
The armorial bearings appropriate to the family of Shaks-
pcre are : Or, on a bend sable, a tilting speare of the first
point upwards, headed argent ; crest, a falcon displayed
arcrcnt, supporting a spear in pale or.
'^ ^^ (R. K. Whelcr.)
Note 3.
(Waldron's Shaksperian Miscellany.)
" Early in Elizabeth's reign, the established players
of London began to act in temporary theatres in the yards
of inns."
In the time of Shakspere were seven theatres ; three
private houses — viz., Ulackfriars, Whitefriars, the Cockpit or
Phoenix in Drury Lane ; and four ]niblic theatres. The
Globe on the Bank Side ; the Curtain in Shoreditch ; the
Red Bull at the upper end of St. John Street; and the
Fortune in Whitecross Street.
Note 4.
1635. A collection of papers relating to shares and sharers
in the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres, preserved among the
official manuscripts of the Lord Chamberlain at St. James's
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 143
Palace. Eenefield, Swanstown, and Pollard appealed to be
allowed to buy a share in these : Cuthbert Burbage, and
Winifred, his brother's wife, and William, his son, petitioned
"not to be disabled of our livelihoods by men so soon shot
up, since it hath been the custom that they should come to
it by far more antiquity and desert than these can justly attri-
bute to themselves. . . . The father of us, Cuthbert and
Richard Burbage, was the first builder of playhouses, and
was himself in his younger years a player. The Theatre he
built with many hundred pounds taken up at interest, . . .
and at like expense built the Globe, with more summes
taken up at interest ; and to ourselves we joined those
ilese>~i'htg men, Shakspere, Hemings Condell, Philipps, and
others, partners in the profittes of that they call the house.
. . . Now for the Blackfriars, that is our inheritance ; our
father purchased it at extreme rates, and made it into a play-
house with great charge and trouble, . . . and placed men
players, which were, Hemings, Condell, Shakspere, tic."
Note 5.
The authenticity of the autogiaph of Shakspere in the
YXono'?, Montaigne oi 1603 in the British Museum has been
questioned. But it can be traced to Warwickshire, and as
having been in the possession of a gentleman there prior to the
Ireland epoch. See Sir F. Madden's pamphlet, 1838.
Note 6.
VautroUier's Publications, London and Edinburgh.
1 566- 1605.
Balnaves. Confession of Faith containing how tlic
troubled man should seek refuge of his God. 1584.
Bacon, Thomas. The sickc man's salve, where the
faithful Christians may learn to behave themselves paciently
and thankfully. 15S4.
Bdlot, Jacques. Le jardin dc vertus et bonnes mceurs.
Baa's Theodore de Works. 1570.
Bible. In many editions.
Bright, Timothy. A Treatise on Melancholy, containing
the causes thereof, and reasons of the strange effects it
worketh in our minds and bodies. 1586.
Bruno's Giordano. Philosophy.
Calvin, Jean. The institution of the Christian Religion,
written in Latine by Mr. John Calvine, and translated into
English by Thomas Norton, 1578.
1. 1-4 TJie Bacon-Shakspcre Question.
Chaloiter, Sir Thomas. De Regis Anglorum instauranda
Libri decern.
Cicero's Oraiiones (ad imprimendum solum).
Coligiiy, Gaspani Dc, Admiral of France. The lyfc of
this most godly Captain, &c.
De Beau Cliesne. Translated by John Baildon. A book
containing divers sorts of hands, &c.
Dc la Motte. A brief introduction to music. Collected
by P. de La Motte, a Frenchman. Licensed. London, Svo.
1574.
Dc Sainliens, Claude. The French Littleton, etc., Campo
di Fior, or else the flourie field of foure languages for the
futherance of the learners of the ] -aline. French, English,
but chictly of the Italian tongues. 1583.
Fulkc. Two treatises written against the I'apists.
Gcntilis. " Disputatio de Auctoribus et Spectatoribus
Tabularum non notandis." Reprinted. Shakspere Society.
Series V.
Guicciardini' s "Description of the Low Countries." 1567.
Ilcmmingscn. The faith of the Church Militant.
James /, The works of.
La Ramee,
Lentulus. An Italian grammar written in Latin by M.
Scipio Leululo, and turned into English by Henry Grantham.
157S and 1587.
Lco7vita. An Astrological Calcchisni, Englished (jy
Turner.
L'Espine.
Manzio, A. <^ P. Phrases Lingua; Latiniv. 1579.
Mcrbiirg.
Mullaster's " Ovid's Metamorphoses.'' " Ovid's Epistles."
"Ovid's Art of Love."
" Plutarch's Lives." From the French of Amyutt.
Englished by Sir Thomas North. Folio. 1579.
Saluste du Barlus. Scribonius. Vermigli. Virgil.
Also histories of England and Scotland.
A treatise on French verbs. 1581.
A most easie, perfect and absolute way to learn the French
tongue. 1581.
(Field republishes many of these — as also a long list of his
own, some of them very suggestive.)
The Bacon-Shakspcre Question. 145
Ariosio Lodovico. " Orlando Fuvioso in English IIerfiic:\l
Verse."
BarroiigJh Philip. " The Method of Phisick," &c.
nig°s, IValiei: " A summary and true discourse of Sir F.
Drake's West Indian Voyage," &c.
Calvin. Caniden.
Campion, Thomas. " Observations in the Art of English
Poesie."
Cogan, Thofiias. ' ' The haven of health, chiefly made for
the use of Students."
Dauuce, Edward. "A brief discourse, dialogue, wish, itc."
Desainliens. Digges. Herring.
Hume, David (of Godscrofl). " Daphnis-Amaryllis."
Juvenalis (Decimus Junius). "J. J. et A. Persii Flacci
Satyrae."
Shakspere's " Venus and Adonis."
Shakspere's " Rape of Lucrece."
Note 7.
Hen Jonson on Bacon — "Timlier" — "My conceit of his
person was never increased towards him by his place or
honours, but I have and do reverence him for llie greatness
that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever,
Ijy his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of
admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity, I
even prayed that God would give him strength ; for greatness
he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or
syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to
virtue, but rather help to make it manifest."
Note 8.
In Lodge's Illustrations of British History, Vol. II., p. 251
(edition 1791), there is a letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury,
1599, to Thomas Baudewyn, in which the postscript says: " 1
wokl have you bye me glasses to drink in : Send me word
what olde plat yeldes the ounce, for I wyll not leve me a
cuppe of sylvare to drink in, but I wyll see the next terme his
creditors payde." Whether the Earl sold his plate and his
example made " glasses " fashionable, Shakspere in Henry
//'., I'arl II., makes Falstaff say, "Glasses are the only
drinking." . . .
Note 9.
The English of the days of Elizabeth accused the
people of the Low Countries with having taught them to
146 The Bacon-Shakspet'c Question.
drink to excess. The "men of war" who had cam-
paigned in Flanders, according to Sir John Smythe, in
his Discourses, 1590, introduced this vice amongst us,
"whereof it is come to pass that now-a-days there are very
few feasts where our said men of war are present, but that
they do invite and procure all the company, of what calling
soever they be, to carousing and quaffing ; and because they
will not be denied their challenges, they, with many new
songes, ceremonies, and reverences, drink to the health and
prosperity of princes, to the health of counsellors, and unto
the health of their greatest friends both at home and aljroad,
in which exercise they never cease till they be dead drunk,
or, as the Flemings say, " Doot drunken." He adds, " And
this aforesaid detestable vice hath within these six or seven
years taken wonderful root amongst our English nation, that
in times past was wont to be of all nations of Christendom
one of the soberest."
Note 10.
John Davies, of Hereford, 1563 — 1618, was a writing-
master. He writes The Scourge of Folly, ATia-ocosmus,
iVitte's Pilgritnaoe, The Muse's Sac7-ijice, and many minor
poems; as well as versified translations of the Psalms. He
writes praises of Shakspere, as our English Terence, iS:c. , and
in one poem says —
" Ciood wine doth need no bush, Lord, who can telle
How ofte this old-said saw hath praised new books?"
We mention this because the proverb is one of the identities
given by the Baconians.
Sir John Davies, a lawyer and friend of Bacon's, 1569 —
1626, publishes Orchestra, 1596; Hymns io Astma (Eliza-
beth), 1599; Aletrical Psalms, Nosce Tcipsitvi, 1599. Went
to Scotland to " welcome " King James in i6or. Bacon
asked him then to be good to '• conceled poets," and he
doubtless was so, as we find James ready to receive Bacon
when he came to England. Query, Whether did Bacon
write his Orchestra, Psalms, or Nosce Teipsuin, or all three ?
Note II.
An amusing illustration of the life of the times may be
found in Deckar. Deckar's GttWs Hornbook, 1609, is
addressed to gulls in general.
Chaj). 6 shows " How a young gallant should behave him-
self in a play-house."
"The theatre is your Poet's Royal Exchange, on which
their muses (they are now turned to merchants) meeting,
The Bacon- Shakspere Question. 147
barter away that light commodity of words, for a lighter
ware than words, Plaudities and the Breath of the (ireai
Beast, which (like the threatening of two cowards), vanish all
into the aire. Seat yourself on the very rushes where the
C!ommedy is to dance. For do but cast up a reclconing what
large commings in are pursed up by sitting on the stage, first a
conspicuous eminence is gotten, by which means the best and
most essentiall parts of a gallant (good cloaths and a pro-
portionable legge, white hands, the Persian lock, and a
tolerable beard) are perfectly revealed. By sitting on the
stage you have a signed patent to engross the whole com-
modity of censure, may lawfully presume to be a girder,
stand at the hehne to steere the passage of scenes, yet no
man shall once offer to hinder you from obtaining the title
of an insolent over-weening coxcombe." lie goes on to tell
him satirically how to draw attention to himself by applaud-
ing in the wrong place. " To conclude, hoord up the finest
play-scraps you can get upon which your leane witte may
most savourly feede, for want of other stuffe, when the
Arcadian and Euphuis'd gentlewomen have their tongues
sharpened to set on you ; that quality (next to your shittle-
cocke) is the only furniture to a courtier that is but a new
beginner and is but in his A.B.C of complement."
Note 12.
The preface to the first edition of Troilns and Cressida
1609 : "A never writer, to an ever reader, Newes, Eternall
reader, you have heere a new play, never staled with the
stage, never clapper-clawed wiih the palmes of the vulgar,
and yet passing full of the palme comicall ; for it is a birth of
the brain that never undertooke anything comicall vainly ;
and were but the vaine names of commedies changed for the
titles of commodities, or of playes for pleas, you should see
all those grand censors, that now stile them such vanities,
flock to them for the maine grace of their gravities ;
especially this author's commedies, that are so framed to the
life that they serve for the most common commentaries of all
the actions of our lives ; showing such a dexteritie and power
of witte, that the most displeased with plays are pleased with
his commedies. And all such dull and heavy-witted
worldlings as were never capable of the witte of a commedie,
coming by report of them to his representations, have found
that witte there that they never found in themselves, and have
parted better-wittied than they came ; feeling rnd edge of wit
set upon them, more than ever they dreamed they had brain
to grind it on. . , . Amongst all there is none more
witty than this. . . . It deserves such a labour as well
as the best commedie in Terence or I'lautus, and believe this,
that when hee is gone, and his commedies out of sale, you
will scramble for them, and set up a new English
Inquisition."
14^ The Bacon- Shakspere Question.
Note 13.
LVi. Epigram. Poet-Ape,
Poor Poet-Ape, that would he thouglit our chief,
Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit
From bondage is become so l)okl a thief,
As we the robbed, leave rage, and pity it.
At first he made low-shifts, would pick and glean,
Buy the reversion of old j'jlays ; now grown
To a little wealth, and credit in the scene.
He takes up all, makes each man's wit his own.
And, told of this, he slights it. Tut, such crimes
The sluggish gaping auditor devours ;
He marks not whose 'twas first : and after times
May judge it to be his, as well as ours.
Fool ! as if half eyes will not know a fleece
From locks of wool, or shreds from the whole piece ?
Ben Jonson is supposed to have expressed in this his feel-
ings of jealousy towards Shakspere's successes in his early
days, before he knew and "loved the man."
Note 14.
William Baudwin, author of the Myrroiir for Magistrates,
has a poem on Richard H. and on Richard IH. 1571.
He is the compiler of a "Treatise of Morall Philosophy,
contayning the sayings of the wyse wherein you maye see the
worthie and witlie sayings of the I'hilosophers, Emperors,
Kynges and Orators, of their lyvcs, their aunswers, of what
linaf^e they come of ; of what countrie they were, whose
worthy and notable precepts, counsailes, parables and
semblables, doe hereafter foUowe." The editions of 1547,
1567, 1575, 1584, 1587, 1591, iSgf'. 1610, 1620, 1630, are in
the British Museum.
His 1st Book is—
Of Lives and Aunswers.
2nd. Of Philosophical Theologie.
3rd. Of Kynges and Rulers, and of Lawe.
4th. Of Sorrow and Lamentation.
5th. Of Mental Powers and Virtues.
6th. An admonition to avoid all kinds of vices.
This has been a rich field for readers and writers of the
period, and one can trace much of Shakspere's knowledge and
]ihilosophy to it.
Note 15.
Gammer Giirtoirs Needle, by Mr. S., Master of Arts, acted
at Christ's College, Cambridge, was published 1575; ^"'1
The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 149
though later than Nicholas Udall's Ralph Roister Doister, is
by many considered the first English Comedy.
(First Act. First Scene.)
Diccon. Many a peece of bacon have I had out of their bailees,
In roming over the countrie in long and wery vvalkes.
. . . When I saw it booted not, out at doores I hied mee.
And caught a slip of bacon, when I saw none spyed mee.
Which I intend, not far hence, unless my purpose fayle,
Shall serve for a shoeing home to draw on two pots of ale
2nd Act. The Song. " Back and side go bare," &c.
Diccon. Well done, by Gog's Malt, well sung and well
sayde. . . .
Hodge. A pestilence light on all ill luck, chad thought yet for
all this,
Of a morsel of bacon behinde the dore, at worst should not
misse.
But when I sought a slyp to cut, as I was wont to do —
Gog's soul, Diccon, Gyp our cat, had eat the bacon too.
(Wbich bacon Diccon stole, as is declared before.)
Diccon. Ill luck, quod he ? Mary swere it Hodge, this day
the truth tel.
Thou rose not on thy right side, or els blest thee not wel.
Thy milk slopt up, thy bacon filched, that was too bad
luck — Hodge !
T. G. Johnson, Printer, izi Fleet Street. E.G.
UNIVERSITV OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
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