Category: British Literature

Bacon is Shake-Speare Together with a Reprint of Bacon's Promus of Formularies and Elegancies

Some twenty years ago, when this question was first propounded, it was deemed an excellent joke, and I find that there still are a great number of persons who seem unable to perceive that the question is one of considerable importance.

Chapters

18. CHAPTER XV.

The facsimile shewn in Plate 41, Page 176, is from "The Attourney's Academy," 1630. The reader will perceive that the ornamental heading is printed upside down. In the ordinary...

12. CHAPTER X

The long word found in "Loves Labour's lost" was not created by the author of Shakespeare's plays. Mr. Paget Toynbee, writing in the _Athenoeum_ (London weekly) of December 2nd...

13. CHAPTER XI.

H O N O R I F I C A B I L I T U 8 14 13 14 17 9 6 9 3 1 2 9 11 9 19 20 D I N I T A T I B U S 4 9 13 9 19 1 19 9 2 20 18 = 287

2. CHAPTER II.

In the year 1909 Mr. George Hookham in the January number of the _National Review_ sums up practically all that is really known of the life of William Shakspeare of Stratford as...

15. CHAPTER XII.

We have in Chapter II. printed Mr. George Hookham's list of the very few incidents recorded concerning Shakespeare's life, but, as we have already shewn, a great deal of the "au...

8. CHAPTER VII.

In discussing the question of the Authorship of the plays many people appear to be unaware that Bacon was considered by his contemporaries to be a great poet. It seems therefore...

16. Chapter XIII.

Bacon had published eleven plays anonymously, when it became imperatively necessary for him to find some man who could be purchased to run the risk, which was by no means incons...

17. CHAPTER XIV.

Most fortunately before going to press we were able to see at the Record Office, Chancery Lane, London, the revealing documents recently discovered by Dr. Wallace and described...

11. CHAPTER IX.

One word to the Stratfordians. The "Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon" myth has been shattered and destroyed by the mass of inexactitudes collected in the supposititious "Life of...

19. Scene 3, where Puntarvolo addresses his wife, who appears at a window,

in a parody of the address of Romeo to Juliet. Again in Act II., Scene 3, Carlo Buffone calls Puntarvolo "A yeoman pheuterer." Pheuter or feuter means a rest or supportfor a spe...

3. CHAPTER III.

In Plate 14, Page 36, are shewn the five so-called signatures. These five being the only pieces of writing in the world that can, even by the most ardent Stratfordians, be suppo...

1. CHAPTER I.

Some twenty years ago, when this question was first propounded, it was deemed an excellent joke, and I find that there still are a great number of persons who seem unable to per...

7. CHAPTER VI.

There is only a single letter extant addressed to Shakspeare, and this asks for a loan of L30 It is dated 25th October 1598, and is from Richard Quiney. It reads

10. Act ii, Scene 7.

"O that I were a foole, I am ambitious for a motley coat. _Duke_. Thou shalt haue one. _Jag_. It is my onely suite, Prouided that you weed your better judgements Of all opinion...

6. Chapter V.

The next play to which attention must be called is "The Return from Parnassus" which was produced at Cambridge in 1601 and was printed in 1606 with the following title page:--

5. Act 5, Scene i.

_Clo_. It is meat and drinke to me to see a clowne, by my troth, we that haue good wits, haue much to answer for: we shall be flouting: we cannot hold.

4. Chapter IV.

In addition to these three plays, there is a fourth evidence of the way in which the Clown who had purchased a coat of arms was regarded, in a pamphlet or tract of which only on...

14. Act v., Scene I.

It will be of interest to shew another specially revealing title page, which for upwards of a hundred years remained unaltered as the title page to Vol. I. of Bacon's collected...

9. CHAPTER VIII.

Bacon also reveals much of himself in the play "As you like it," which of course means "Wisdom from the mouth of a fool." In that play, besides giving us much valuable informati...