Part 4

Mr. Theobald is scarcely complimentary to Shakespeare’s champions in this controversy, but his language is positively libellous when he refers to Shakespeare himself. His personality is “small and insignificant;”--he is a “shrunken, sordid soul, fattening on beer, and coin, and finding sweetness and content in the _stercorarium_ of his Stratford homestead”--a “feeble, and funny, and most ridiculous mouse.” Mr. Theobald almost argues himself not a Baconian by his assertion that “no Baconian, so far as I know, seeks to help his cause by personal abuse, or intolerant and wrathful speech.”

_Was Shakespeare the “Upstart Crow?”_

All that we can allege with any certainty about Shakespeare, between 1586 and 1602, is that he must have obtained employment at one or other of the only two theatres existing in London at that time (The Theatre, and The Curtain)--perhaps, as Malone has recorded, in the capacity of call-boy--that he became an actor, was employed in polishing up the stock-plays presented by the Company, and that _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ was produced in the Spring of 1591. Assuming that Shakespeare was the author of this play--assuming, that is to say, that Ben Jonson, John Heming, and Henry Condell were neither arrant fools, nor wilful perjurers--it is evident that the “insignificant,” “shrunken, sordid soul,” “this ridiculous mouse” had education, application, a natural taste for the stage; and what is more--and more than Mr. Theobald can comprehend--he had genius. Mr. Theobald does not arrive at any such conclusion. Apart altogether from Mrs. Gallup’s cipher revelations, he is convinced by another “flash of intuition” that Ben Jonson was a fellow conspirator with Bacon in the ridiculous plot of foisting Bacon’s plays upon the world as the work of Shakespeare, and that Heming and Condell were but the tools of the disgraced Lord Chancellor.

But if Shakespeare was not advancing towards prosperity by the feasible methods I have conjectured, how can Mr. Theobald account for his ultimately emerging from the “depths of poverty” into a position of comparative affluence? The explanation is simplicity itself: “If a needy, and probably deserving vagabond” (page 11).--Why deserving? He was a “shrunken, sordid soul” on page 7!--“dives into the abyss of London life, lies _perdu_ for a few years, and then emerges as a tolerably wealthy theatrical manager; you know that he must have gained some mastery of theatrical business.” So far the inference is legitimate and convincing; but how? Must he not have disclosed exceptional ability as an actor or playwright, or--? listen to Mr. Theobald!--“he must have made himself a useful man in the green room, a skilful organiser of players and stage effects--he must have found out how to govern a troop of actors, reconciling their rival egotisms, and utilising their special gifts; how to cater for a capricious public, and provide attractive entertainments. Anyhow, he would have little time for other pursuits--if a student at all, his studies would be very practical relating to matters of present or passing interest. _During this dark period he has been carving his own fortune, filling his pockets, not his mind; working for the present, not for the future. But it was exactly then that the plays began to appear._”

Mr. Theobald’s argument can only be described as a reckless, illogical, and absurd distortion of possibilities, and it is the more inconsequential since it proceeds to defeat its primary object. In the first place it is supremely ridiculous to assume that the paltry services of Shakespeare in the green room and the carpenter’s shop, secured for him his pecuniary interest in the Globe Theatre, or the respect and friendship of the leading dramatists of his day, or even the enmity of jealous rivals in the craft. Yet Mr. Theobald attempts to substantiate his conclusions by distorting the obvious meaning of Robt. Greene’s reference to Shakespeare in _A Groat’s Worth of Wit_. Greene was not an actor, but a dramatist; he was a man of dissolute habits, a poet of rare charm, but a playwright of only moderate ability and repute. He was a gentleman by birth, and a scholar by training. He had the lowest opinion of actors--he envied them their success, and despised their avocation. In _The Return from Parnassus_ he betrays his prejudice in the following lines, which are put into the mouth of a poor and envious student:--

“England affords these glorious vagabonds, That carried erst their fardels on their backs, Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets, Sweeping it in their glaring satin suits, And pages to attend their masterships; With mouthing words that better wits had framed, They purchase lands, and now esquires are made.”

To the jaundiced mind of Robert Greene, the accumulation of means by an actor was a crime in itself, but that a mere mummer should dare to compete with the scholar and the poet in the composition of plays--more, that he should write plays that exceeded in popularity those of the superior person, the student--was a personal affront. On his death-bed, in 1592, Greene found an outlet for his resentment in writing an ill-natured farewell to life, in which he girded bitterly at the new dramatist, whose early plays had already brought him into public notice. He warns his three brother playwrights--Marlowe, Nash, and Peele--against the “upstart crow, the only Shake-scene in the country” who “supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you.” How it is possible to interpret these words to mean that the “upstart crow” was not an author, “but only an actor who pretended to be an author also,” the oldest inhabitant of Colney Hatch and Mr. Theobald must decide between them. These anything but “cryptic” words, as Mr. Theobald describes them, can have but one interpretation, and that is the one their author intended. They do not imply that Shakespeare, the “upstart crow,” is not the author of the plays imputed to him, but that he considers his plays as good as those of the older dramatists. His profession of authorship is not questioned, but the quality of his work is savagely challenged. Any other construction put upon the passage is sheer nonsense. Mr. Theobald appeals to the “most gentle and gentlemanly critics” to be patient and tolerant with the Baconians--“men as sound in judgment and as well equipped in learning as yourselves”--but it is high time that this kind of wilful misrepresentation and perversion of common sense should be condemned in plain language. If Greene had believed that Shakespeare was wearing feathers that did not rightfully belong to him, if he were pretending to be what he really was not; if, in Mr. Theobald’s confident explanation, he had no right to profess himself an author at all, we may be quite certain that Greene would have said so outright--he would not have adopted a “cryptic” style, and left it for Mr. Theobald to decipher his meaning.

Mr. Theobald’s alternative theory that the word “Shake-scene” does not refer to Shakespeare at all, is even more preposterous. “In 1592 ‘Shakespeare’ did not exist at all, and only two or three of the plays which subsequently appeared under this name could have been written.” But those two or three plays included, as far as we can tell, _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, and _The Comedy of Errors_--plays of sufficient promise to secure any author recognition as a poet and dramatist. If Mr. Theobald entertains any serious doubts as to the identification of Shakespeare in the “Shake-scene” of Greene, he may be advised to read the apology for this attack which Henry Chettle, the publisher, prefixed to a tract of Greene’s in the same year. “I am as sorry,” Chettle wrote, “as if the originall fault had been my fault, because myselfe have seene his (_i.e._, Shakespeare’s) demeanour no lesse civill than he (is) exelent in the qualitie he professes, besides divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty and his facetious grace in writing that aprooves his art.”

This apology put forth by Henry Chettle is an invaluable attestation to the character and literary standing of Shakespeare--“his uprightness in dealing” is a matter of public report, and “his facetious grace in writing” is frankly acknowledged. At a period when professional rivalries ran strong, and no man’s reputation was above attack, a publisher and fellow author is seen regarding Shakespeare not only as a man to whom an apology was due, but to whom it appeared expedient to make one. In treating of the personal history of Shakespeare, it must be borne in mind that although the duly-attested facts regarding him are regrettably few, the poet was widely known to the leading literary and theatrical men of his day. Ben Jonson, his brother actor and dramatist, and Michael Drayton were his intimate friends. Condell and Heming remained in close relationship with Shakespeare until his death, and Richard Burbage was his partner in the business of the Globe Theatre. In _Pericles_ and _Timon_, Shakespeare worked in collaboration with George Wilkins, a dramatic writer of some repute, and William Rowley, a professional reviser of plays. There were besides, the members of the Globe Company, men who lived their lives beside him, rehearsed under him, learned from him, interpreted him. Yet none of these men appear to have entertained the slightest doubt upon the genuineness of his claims to authorship, while every contemporaneous reference to him is couched in terms of affection and admiration. The only possible explanation of this remarkable fact is that Shakespeare and Bacon were one and the same person--a theory that the most hardened Baconian has not yet thought it advisable to advance.

_Wm. Shakespeare, Money Lender and Poet._

Mr. Theobald is unfortunate in his selection of the points he raises in Shakespeare’s career in order to belittle the character of the poet. He writes: “His known occupations, apart from theatre business, were money-lending, malt-dealing, transactions in house and land property.” There is not the slightest evidence to show that Shakespeare traded as a money-lender; his only interest in malt-dealing was confined to one transaction, and his transactions in houses and lands were those of any man who invests his savings in real estate. The phrase is, as the most superficial Shakespeare student will recognise, misleading in substance, and incorrect as a statement of fact. In another part of his determinedly one-sided book, Mr. Theobald dismisses, in a paragraph, the contention that Shakespeare’s poems are illuminated and illustrated by Shakespeare’s life. The obvious rejoinder is that there is nothing in the life of Shakespeare that makes it difficult for us to accept him as the author of the Plays, whereas the whole life and character of Bacon makes his pretensions more than difficult, even impossible, of acceptance.

In 1593, _Venus and Adonis_ was published by Shakespeare’s friend and fellow townsman, Richard Field, and in the following year _Lucrece_ was issued at the sign of the White Greyhound in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Both poems were dedicated to Shakespeare’s first and only patron, the Earl of Southampton, with whom Bacon is not known to have sought any intimacy until 1603, when he addressed to him a characteristic letter of conciliation. (In 1621, when Bacon was accused of corruption, the Earl of Southampton pointed out the insufficiency of the Lord Chancellor’s original confession, and it was largely the result of his firm and unfriendly attitude that Bacon’s abject submission and acknowledgment of the justice of the charges, was placed before the Lords). These poems constituted Shakespeare’s appeal to the reading public. The response was instantaneous and enthusiastic. “Critics vied with each other,” writes Mr. Sidney Lee, “in the exuberance of the eulogies, in which they proclaimed that the fortunate author had gained a place in permanence on the summit of Parnassus.” _Lucrece_, Michael Drayton declared, in his _Legend of Matilda_ (1594), was “revived to live another age.” In 1595, William Clerke, in his _Polimanteia_, gave “all praise” to “Sweet Shakespeare” for his _Lucrecia_. John Weever, in a sonnet addressed to “honey-tongued” Shakespeare in his _Epigrams_ (1595), eulogised the two poems as an unmatchable achievement, although he mentions the plays _Romeo_, and _Richard_, and “more whose names I know not.” Richard Carew, at the same time, classed him with Marlowe, as deserving the praises of an English Catullus. Printers and publishers of the poems strained their resources to satisfy the demands of eager purchasers. No fewer than seven editions of _Venus_ appeared between 1594 and 1602; an eighth followed in 1617. _Lucrece_ achieved a fifth edition in the year of Shakespeare’s death. The Queen quickly showed him special favour, and until her death in 1603, Shakespeare’s plays were repeatedly acted in her presence.

When the sonneteering vogue reached England from Italy and France, Shakespeare applied himself to the composition of sonnets, with all the force of his poetic genius. Of the hundred and fifty-four sonnets that survive, the greater number were probably composed in 1593 and 1594. Many are so burdened with conceits and artificial quibbles that their literary value is scarcely discernible; but the majority, on the other hand, attain to supreme heights of poetic expression, sweetness, and imagery. They are of peculiar interest, as disclosing the relationship that existed between Southampton and Shakespeare. No less than twenty of the sonnets are undisguisedly addressed to the patron of the poet’s verse: three of them are poetical transcriptions of the devotion which he expressed to Southampton in his dedicatory preface to _Lucrece_. The references are direct and unmistakable. In 1603, when the accession of James I. opened the gates of Southampton’s prison, Bacon was meekly writing to him: “I would have been very glad to have presented my humble service to your Lordship by my attendance if I could have foreseen that it should not have been unpleasing to you,” and hypocritically assuring him, “How credible soever it may seem to you at first, yet it is as true as a thing God knoweth, that this great change (_i.e._, the release of Southampton, and his favour with the new monarch, whose good-will Bacon ardently desired), hath wrought in me no other change towards your Lordship than this, that I may safely be now that which I was truly before.” The Earl of Southampton considered these protestations of friendship so incredible, as coming from the man who had consigned Essex, Bacon’s own friend and patron, to the headsman, and sent Southampton himself to the Tower, that he appears to have made no response to this letter, and twenty years afterwards he materially contributed to the Lord Chancellor’s discomfiture. One has only to compare this letter with the sonnet with which Shakespeare saluted his patron on his release from the Tower, to recognise the impossibility of regarding the two compositions as the work of the same man.

_The “True Shakespeare.”_

If Bacon was the “true Shakespeare,” as Mr. Theobald calls him, the question naturally arises as to his motive in concealing the authorship of the plays and the poems. Baconians explain this extraordinary act of reticence on the ground that dramatic authorship was held in low esteem, and that the fact, if known, would have proved an obstacle to his advancement at Court. This contention, though fully borne out by Bacon’s cipher writings, is ridiculous in the extreme. In the first place, it was not the profession of dramatic authorship, but the calling of the actor that was held in low esteem. Furthermore, poetry was not under the ban that attached to the stage, and it cannot be denied that the acknowledged authorship of _Venus and Adonis_, of _Lucrece_, or of the _Sonnets_, would have won for Bacon more favour at Elizabeth’s Court than he ever secured by his philosophy. Poetry was held in high esteem; sonneteering was the vogue. Buckingham, in the next reign, wrote a play, _The Rehearsal_, and Essex had composed a masque. The publication of _The Faerie Queene_, in 1589, secured for Edmund Spenser an introduction to the Queen, who made him her poet laureate in the same year. Why should Bacon have persisted in devoting himself to a branch of literature which appears to have advanced his interests so little? Elizabeth was never impressed by his genius; she acknowledged his great wit and learning, but accounted him “not deep.” James criticised his philosophy with lofty captiousness, and compared his _Novum Organum_ to “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.” It would be neither discreditable to his pride as a poet, nor contrary to the nature of the man, to believe that if he could safely have claimed the authorship of _Lucrece_ and _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, he would not have hesitated for an hour in so doing. _Venus and Adonis_ won for Shakespeare the favour of Elizabeth, while, under the sovereignty of her successor, Shakespeare’s company gave between forty and fifty performances at Court during the first five years of his reign. Is it not rather absurd to believe that Bacon should have remained quiescent while his unavowed work was being acclaimed as “immortal,” and the works published under his own name were either neglected, or treated to a contemptuous _mot_ by the very person whose admiration he was feverishly striving to attract?

Yet the Baconians find no difficulty in accepting this explanation of secrecy--Mr. A. P. Sinnett regards the motive as perfectly intelligible. Bacon, he contends, was not writing his plays for fame, but for the money it brought him. Mr. Theobald contends that the plays could not have been written by Shakespeare because he was too busily employed in “carving his own fortune” ... “filling his pockets” ... “working for the present, not for the future,” to devote the necessary leisure to literary pursuits. Bacon himself, according to the bi-literal cipher discoveries of Mrs. Gallup, declares that so far from receiving remuneration for his plays, he paid “a sufficient reward in gold” to Shakespeare for the use of his name. “He was left quite without resources,” Mr. Sinnett explains, “and he took up dramatic writing for the sake of the money it earned him.” Before we are won over by this fallacious explanation, we would inquire how it was that Bacon, who was left without resources in 1577, did not produce his first play until 1591, and then paid for the luxury of concealing his indiscretion. Mr. Sinnett’s next sentence is instructive as a specimen of Baconian reasoning. “After Bacon obtained an office of profit at forty-six, no more Shakespeare plays appeared, though the reputed author lived for ten more years in dignified leisure at Stratford.” It may, of course, be regarded as a “shallow objection” to raise, but Bacon was fifty-one years of age when Shakespeare retired to Stratford. Moreover, Bacon obtained no office of profit in 1611. He was made Solicitor-General, and became a rich man, in 1607, but until his appointment to the Attorney-Generalship in 1613 he was continually suing for promotion and applying for a better paid office. It is, indeed, significant that Bacon was silent as a playwright from the time of Shakespeare’s retirement. When he was Chancellor, and enjoyed a yearly income equal to between £60,000 and £70,000 of our money, he continued to compose his scientific works, and he was still actively engaged in the task between 1621 and 1626 when he was again reduced to comparative penury, and the more remunerative employment of play-writing would have relieved his financial position without detriment to his political prospects. The source from whence he could have augmented his inadequate income was neglected while he employed himself in writing a _Digest of the Laws of England_, _The History of Henry VII._, _Sylva Sylvarum_, _Augmentis Scientiarum_, _The Dialogue of the Holy War_, some additional _Essays_, and the translation of “certain Psalms into English verse.” Bacon, according to Baconians, produced his plays during the busiest period of his political career, and in the days of his leisure and impecuniosity--“when Shakespeare was not present to shield him from the disgrace of possessing poetic and dramatic genius”--he produced his versification of the Psalms.

Mr. Sinnett, in common with Mr. Theobald and, indeed, all other upholders of the Baconian theory, has a distinctly original way of dealing with matters of fact. Mr. Theobald invents his facts to suit his argument; Mr. Sinnett ignores all facts that prove intractable. Thus Mr. Sinnett in _The National Review_: “All through the plays there is no allusion to Stratford.” And again: “While Bacon seems to have gone North to curry favour with James on his accession, _Macbeth_ was written just after that event. Certainly there is no reason to suppose that Shakespeare ever went to Scotland.” What nonsense is all this! Although personalities are rare in the Plays, there are a number of literal references to Stratford, and Shakespeare’s native county, in _The Taming of the Shrew_; and local allusions are also to be found in the second part of _Henry IV._ and _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. In his _Life of William Shakespeare_, Mr. Lee enumerates several instances in point. “Barton Heath,” we read is, “Barton-on-the-Heath, the home of Shakespeare’s aunt, Edmund Lambert’s wife, and of her sons. The tinker, in _The Taming of the Shrew_, confesses that he has run up a score with Marian Hacket, the fat ale wife of Wincot. The references to Wincot and the Hackets are singularly precise. The name of the maid of the inn is given as Cicely Hacket, and the ale-house is described in the stage direction as ‘on a heath.’” Again, in _Henry IV._, the local reference to William Visor, of Woncot, and the allusions to the region of the Cotswold Hills, and the peculiar Cotswold custom of sowing “red lammas” wheat at an unusually early season of the agricultural year, are unmistakable. Mr. Sinnett’s assumptions that Bacon went to Scotland and that Shakespeare did not, are entirely arbitrary. In point of fact we may be quite sure that Bacon did not go to Scotland, and we have no reason to believe that Shakespeare was ever in Venice, or Sardis, or “a wood near Athens.” The author of the _Letters from Hell_ was not under suspicion because he could not claim to have been ferried across the Styx to get his local colour.