Part 13

Now as to the date of these writings, Mr. Spedding states that he could find nothing, either in the “scribblings” or in what remains of the book itself, to indicate a date later than the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Burgoyne gives reasons for concluding that the manuscript was written not later than January, 1597, and he says “it seems more probable that no part of the manuscript was written after 1596.” There are several reasons for assigning this date to the work. One is that the outside list shows that the volume originally contained a copy of Bacon’s Essays. These--the ten short essays which appeared in the first edition--were published in January, 1597,[98] after having been extensively circulated in manuscript. After they were printed it is not likely that the expensive and imperfect method of copying in manuscript would have been resorted to.[99] Again the plays of _Richard II_ and _Richard III_ were first printed in 1597, “and issued,” says Mr. Burgoyne, “at a published price of sixpence each.” After that date, therefore, it seems reasonable to suppose that they would not have been transcribed, or noted for transcription. It is not unimportant to remember that when they were first issued the name of Shakespeare was not on them. In the editions of 1598, however, the hyphenated name, “William Shake-speare,” appears on each, and this is the first appearance of that name on any play. Nash’s “Isle of Dogs” referred to in the outside list was produced at Henslowe’s theatre in 1597, but never printed. Of course all the contents of the volume may not have been written in one year, and it is impossible to fix the exact date of the scribblings. But if, as it appears only reasonable to believe, the Shakespearean plays were transcribed (or even only noted for transcription) before 1597, we have here references to “Shakespeare” as the author of these plays before his name had come before the public as a dramatic author at all, and more than a year before his name appeared on any title page; and, what is certainly remarkable, we find this, at that time little known name closely associated with the name of Francis Bacon.

Who was the writer of the scribble? Mr. Dowse would identify him with John Davies of Hereford, who was born a year after Shakspere of Stratford and died two years after him. This John Davies was of Magdalen College, Oxford, a poet, and, says Mr. Dowse, “a competent scholar.” He took up penmanship as a calling, and “became the most famous teacher of his age; and he taught, not only in many noble and gentle families, but in the royal family itself, for in those days not even nobles and princes were ashamed to write well.” How we could wish that William Shakspere of Stratford had been among his pupils! But what is the evidence that Davies was “the Scribbler”? Let Mr. Dowse state it in his own words: “His numerous sonnets and other poems, as well as his many dedications, addressed to people of note, while friendly, are also respectful and manly (though he could neatly flatter): and their number shows the extent of the circle in which he moved. Within this circle, or rather a section of it, I felt myself to be, while dealing with the page of scribble; and that feeling has been amply justified out of the mouth, or rather by the pen of John Davies himself, for his Works show that he was directly and closely acquainted with nearly all the persons his contemporaries there mentioned; with some indeed he was friendly and familiar. The overwhelming evidence of this fact _is of itself sufficient to identify Davies as the scribbler_” (p. 8).

This strikes one as rather curious logic. Davies was closely acquainted with nearly all the persons mentioned in “the page of scribble.” _Ergo_, Davies wrote the scribble!

I hardly think a judge would direct a jury to pay much attention to “evidence” of this description. I have no prepossessions whatever against John Davies of Hereford. I am perfectly willing to believe that he was “the scribbler”; but unless some better proof than this can be adduced, I fear we must regard Mr. Dowse’s theory as mere hypothesis. However, Mr. Dowse tells us that he has other evidence. He refers to Davies’s “Dedicatory and Consolatory Epistle,” addressed to the ninth Earl of Northumberland, which is to be found in the Grenville Library at the British Museum. This, he says, is “with some verbal exceptions written in Davies’s beautiful court-hand.” And he further tells us that “no one who has studied the scribble and then turns to that ‘Consolatory Epistle’ can fail to recognise the same hand at a glance.” Here I am not competent to express an opinion, for I have not examined the Epistle in question, nor have I seen the original of the Northumberland MS., and even if I had inspected both I fear I should be in no better case, for nothing is more dangerous than this identification by comparison of handwriting. Anyone who has served an apprenticeship at the Bar knows how perilous it is to trust to the evidence of “expert witnesses” in this matter. I well remember a case in which the two most famous handwriting experts of their day, in this country at any rate, Messrs. Inglis and Netherclift, swore point blank one against the other, with equal confidence as to certain disputed handwriting, so that the judge felt constrained to tell the jury that they must leave the “expert evidence” out of the question altogether. In the Dreyfus case too, the experts, the renowned M. Bertillon included, seem to have come utterly to grief. One is reminded of the Judge’s famous categories of “liars,” viz., “liars, damned liars, and expert witnesses!” Therefore I think it well to cultivate a little healthy scepticism when Mr. Dowse identifies “at a glance” John Davies’s “beautiful court-hand” with the scribble of the Northumberland MS. Mr. Dowse quotes Thomas Fuller to the effect that “John Davies was the greatest master of the pen that England in his age, beheld”; and goes on to say: “His merits are summarized under the heads of rapidity, beauty, compactness, and _variety of styles_; which last he so mixed that he made them appear a hundred!” I think one ought to be more than ordinarily cautious in judging of the handwriting of a man who had a hundred different styles. Yet Mr. Dowse undertakes to tell us which of the entries on the outer leaf of the volume are by John Davies, and which by somebody else! I repeat I am quite willing to accept John Davies as the scribbler, but I fear that at present I must regard the hypothesis as “not proven.” I fear Mr. Dowse may have been a little too anxious to find the verification of his preconceived opinion, on his “first scrutiny of Spedding’s facsimile,” that Davies was the man who wrote the scribble. However the fact that Davies seems to have been for some years in the service of Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland, as teacher of his family (that is, I presume mainly as writing master[100]), and possibly as copyist lends some probability to Mr. Dowse’s surmise.

Mr. Dowse speaks in very bitter terms of Francis Bacon, perhaps unconsciously allowing his bitterness to be accentuated (as we so often find to be the case) by his abhorrence of the Baconian theory of authorship. It is, at any rate, so strong as to lead him into criticism so obviously, and indeed absurdly, unfair as to carry its own refutation with it, and to impair very seriously the value of the critic’s judgment. He assumes that Davies wrote the words “Anthony Comfort, and Consorte,” though why the writing master, who was, according to the hypothesis, in the service of the Earl of Northumberland at the time, should have made this entry it is rather difficult to conjecture. However, says Mr. Dowse, it “shows that he was aware of the relations subsisting between the two brothers--that Anthony was the companion and support of Francis the spendthrift, whom to keep out of prison he impoverished himself, and then did not succeed. It also suggests a rebuke of the toadyism of Francis in selecting and, _more suo_, grossly flattering the terrible old termagant on the throne as the ‘worthiest person’ in preference to such a brother.” When we remember that “the praise of his soveraigne” was, with the other speeches, written in 1592, to be spoken at a _Device_ presented by Essex before Elizabeth (the idea being, of course, to conciliate the Queen in favour of Essex, and the very fact of Bacon’s authorship being concealed), the suggestion that Davies had in his mind to rebuke Bacon for his “toadyism” because of this purely dramatic performance is, I submit, sufficiently absurd. But that is far from being the worst. I make no complaint whatever that Mr. Dowse will have nothing at all to do with Spedding’s attempted vindication of Bacon in the matter of Essex, or that he will make no allowance whatever for the exigencies of Bacon’s position as counsel in the service of the Crown. Everyone has the right to form his own opinion upon that, as upon other matters of historical controversy. But, says Mr. Dowse, in view of the sentiments which Davies entertained with regard to the families of Northumberland and Essex, “we can imagine how he would feel towards those who were instrumental in bringing Essex to the block.... The man that did more than anyone else towards securing the death of Essex was Francis Bacon, but the MS. was planned, and probably in great part executed, before that repulsive procedure, or the contents might have been very different.” In plain English, Davies, the assumed writer of the scribble, must, after the Essex affair, have felt nothing but hatred and scorn for Francis Bacon, and had Essex’s death taken place before this manuscript was planned, and (probably) in great part executed, “the contents might have been very different”; the meaning of which is, I suppose, either that Bacon’s works would have been omitted altogether, or that the writer would have put on record “a bit of his mind” with regard to the author. But it so happens that some years after this, viz., about 1610, Davies published, in his _Scourge of Folly_, a sonnet addressed to Bacon in which he speaks of him in highly eulogistic terms. How does Mr. Dowse explain this? I will place his remarks before the reader, and afterwards quote the sonnet in full, and then ask judgment on this very remarkable style of anti-Baconian criticism. “It seems,” writes Mr. Dowse, “that Bacon had recently made him (Davies) a present of money, or more probably had paid him lavishly for some assistance. But the poet’s gratitude takes a singular form:

Thy _bounty_, and the beauty of thy Witt _Compells_ my pen to let fall shining ink!

Further on he speaks of Bacon ‘keeping the Muse’s company _for sport_ twixt grave affairs’--an apology for Bacon’s amateur verses.”

Now, first of all be it observed that the italics and the note of admiration in the above quotations are Mr. Dowse’s own contribution.[101] And what is the suggestion, again to put it into plain English? It is that Davies, though in his heart regarding Bacon with contempt and abhorrence, had accepted a large sum of money from him, and therefore felt _compelled_, however reluctantly, to write a poem in his honour! Observe that Mr. Dowse in other places speaks of Davies in the highest terms, and cites him as a witness of unimpeachable honesty and honour in favour of Shakspere, player and author. Yet he allows his bitter feelings against Bacon to carry him so far that rather than recognise what must be plain to every impartial reader, viz., that Davies was writing _ex animo_ as a friend and admirer of Bacon, he would have us believe, in vilification of his own witness, that the poet was induced by filthy lucre to write entirely insincere, and, therefore, particularly nauseous flattery of a man whom he hated and despised!

And now I will set before the reader the sonnet _in extenso_ (preserving the italics as in the original), and ask him whether there is any possible reason to suppose that it is not an honest expression of the writer’s genuine admiration for Bacon:

* * * * *

To the royall, ingenious, and all learned Knight, Sir Francis Bacon.

Thy _bounty_ and the _Beauty_ of thy Witt Comprisd in Lists of _Law_ and learned _Arts_, Each making thee for great _Imployment_ fitt Which now thou hast (though short of thy deserts) Compells my pen to let fall shining _Inke_ And to bedew the _Baies_ that _deck_ thy _Front_; And to thy health in _Helicon_ to drinke As to her _Bellamour_ the _Muse_ is wont: For, thou dost her embozom; and dost use Her company for sport twixt grave affaires: So utterst Law the livelyer through thy _Muse_. And for that all thy _Notes_ are sweetest _Aires_; _My Muse thus notes thy worth in ev’ry Line, With yncke which thus she sugers; so to shine._

Now this “sugred sonnet” is I think a very remarkable one. Considering the inflated style in use for laudatory poems of the time, it is written in singularly moderate language, and I think no reader, after considering it as a whole, could possibly put upon it the malignant construction suggested by Mr. Dowse, unless his judgment be warped by very bitter prejudice. But it is not only an honest eulogy of Bacon as a man, it is valuable as bearing witness to the fact, doubtless well known to Davies, that Bacon was a poet. Mr. Dowse speaks contemptuously of Davies’s “apology for Bacon’s amateur verses,” but I fear Mr. Dowse’s sight is distorted by a fragment of that broken magic mirror whereof Hans Anderson has written so charmingly. Davies drinks to Bacon’s health in “Helicon”--not in “the waters of the Spaw,” but in “the waters of Parnassus,”

As to her Bellamour the Muse is wont.

It is true that Bacon was engaged in “grave affaires”--he had been made Solicitor-General in 1607--and therefore, though he wooed the Muse, could only “use her company” by way of recreation in intervals of more serious employment. Nevertheless he is fully recognised as her “Bellamour.”

We may be grateful to Mr. Dowse for once more calling attention to this very high and remarkable tribute of praise.

Mr. Dowse goes on to cite Davies’s testimony--which is here, of course, to be taken very seriously indeed--to the excellence of William Shakspere. “In his ‘Microcosmos,’ in a stanza beginning ‘Players, I love,’ Davies singles out Shakespeare and Burbage for his highest admiration. He attributes to them ‘_wit_ (i.e. intellect), _courage_, _good shape_, _good partes_, and ALL GOOD!’”

Now I will again set forth the lines _in extenso_ in order that the reader may form his own opinion as to their meaning and evidentiary value. It is to be observed that Davies does not mention Shakespeare (or Shakspere) or Burbage by name, but there are, in a marginal note to the third line, the letters W. S. R. B., which are generally interpreted as bearing reference to those two “deserving men.”[102] Whether he attributes to them all the excellencies so largely writ in Mr. Dowse’s interpretation the reader shall judge. Why Mr. Dowse has written the words “all good” in such startlingly large letters I am unable to say, and I really do not think the poet, who according to Mr. Dowse was of a very strict, if not sanctimonious, turn of mind, intended to attribute ALL GOOD to poor Will Shakspere and Dick Burbage; while as to his being “over exquisite in depreciating their calling,” this fault--if fault it be--he certainly shares with all the other writers of his time concerning the profession and _status_ of the Players. Here is the poem published in the _Microcosmos_ or “The Discovery of the Little World, with the Government thereof,” 1603:

_Players_, I love yee, and your _Qualitie_, As ye are Men, _that_ passtime not abus’d; And some I love for _painting_, _poesie_, And say fell _Fortune_ cannot be excus’d, That hath for better _uses_ you refus’d: _Wit_, _Courage_, _good shape_, _good partes_, and all _good_, As long as al these _goods_ are no _worse_ us’d, And though the _stage_ doth staine pure gentle _bloud_, Yet generous yee are in _minde_ and _moode_.

Mr. Dowse follows this by a reference to Davies’s poem addressed to

Our English Terence, Mr. Will. Shake-speare.[103]

which appeared, with the sonnet to Bacon already quoted, in the _Scourge of Folly_ (1610-11). On this poem Mr. Dowse waxes eloquent. This, he tells us “in short compass gives us a number of important particulars about him [Shakespeare]. Thus, he acted ‘kingly parts,’ which means lordly manners and bearing and elocution; and if he had not _played_ those parts (the stage again!)[104] he would have been a fit companion for a King; indeed he would have _been_ a king among the general ruck of mankind. He had then (as now) his detractors, but he was above detraction, and never railed in return; for he had a ‘reigning wit,’ i.e. a sovereign intellect.”

I will quote this poem also. _The Scourge of Folly_ by the way, is, we read, a work “consisting of Satyricall Epigramms and others.” I fancy there is a good deal of the “Satyricall” in the following:

Some say (good _Will_) which I, in sport, do sing, Hadst thou not plaid some Kingly parts in sport, Thou hadst bin a companion for a _King_; And, beene a King among the meaner sort. Some others raile; but, raile as they think fit, Thou hast no rayling, but a raigning Wit. _And_ honesty _thou sow’st, which they do reape_; _So_, to _increase their_ Stocke _which they do keepe_.

So Davies, singing “in sport,” suggests that according to the saying of some, if the Player had not been a Player he might have been a companion for a King (I rather suspect some esoteric meaning here to which, at this date, we cannot penetrate), and have been himself a King “among the meaner sort.” As Miss L. Toulmin Smith writes (Ingleby’s _Centurie of Prayse_, p. 94) “it seems likely [? certain] that these lines refer to the fact that Shakespere was a player, a profession that was then despised and accounted mean.” The poem, of course, has some value for the supporters of the Stratfordian faith, for, if Davies is here writing in sober seriousness, and with no ironical _arrière pensée_, it certainly seems to imply that he supposed “Mr. Will Shake-speare, our English Terence,” to be identical with player Shakspere. To which the anti-Stratfordian would reply that, if he did so mean, he was misled, as others were, by the use of the pseudonym Shakespeare. Poems and Plays were published in that name “as it was always _printed_ in those days, and not as he [Shakspere] himself in any known case ever wrote it.”[105] In any case Davies’s lines can hardly be said to be the high eulogy of Player Shakspere that Mr. Dowse would have them to be.[106]

A word more and I have done with Mr. Dowse. As I have already said, that which I still venture to call the “table of contents,” on the outer page of the paper volume, is headed by Bacon’s “Of tribute,” and a list of his four “Praises.” Now, about an inch below the last “Praise” occurs the word _fraunces_, and a little below and to the right of that is the word _turner_. These we are told are “in different hands,” though whether or not they are samples of Davies’s hundred different styles it would seem rather difficult to say. Mr. Dowse, however, thinks that _fraunces_ was written by the copyist of the “Praises,” and _turner_ by “the scribbler,” and that the latter word was “apparently intended to stand as if related in some way to _fraunces_.” He then tells us how pondering over this a brilliant idea struck him. In the middle of the reign of James I occurred the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, instigated by Frances Howard, Lady Essex, and one of this lady’s “principal agents” was a Mrs. Anne Turner. What can be clearer than that we have here a reference to these two notorious criminals? It follows from this that “the MS. was ‘knocking about,’ or at any rate open for additions to the scribble on the cover, as late as 1615.”[107]

This is going to one’s conclusion _per saltum_ with a vengeance. It is to be observed that _fraunces_ is written just under the _ffrauncis_ of “Mr. ffrauncis Bacon,” and just above that stands “Mr. Ffrauncis.” It seems very probable therefore, that _fraunces_ is only written as a variety of, or at least suggested by, the name “ffrauncis,” though Mr. Burgoyne does not seem to be right in transcribing it in the latter form. The idea that it stands for the “_Christian name_” of Lady Essex, and “_turner_” for the _surname_ of her “principal agent” seems an altogether wild one, and I should imagine that no serious critic would seek to fix the date of any part of the scribble by such a hare-brained supposition.[108]

I turn then from Mr. Dowse’s singularly injudicial tract to Mr. Burgoyne’s more sober comment. “As to the penman who actually wrote the manuscript,” says Mr. Burgoyne, “nothing certain is known. The writing on the contents page is chiefly in one hand, with occasional words in another, and a few words mostly scrawled across the page at an angle appear to be written by a third. The main body of the work is in two or more handwritings, and the difference is especially to be noted in ‘Leycester’s Commonwealth,’ which appears to have been written in a hurry, for the writing has been overspaced in some pages and overcrowded in others, as if different penmen had been employed. There are also noticeable breaks on folios 64 and 88, and the difference in penmanship on these pages is specially remarkable. This points to the collection having been written at a literary workshop or professional writer’s establishment. It is a fact worthy of notice, that Bacon and his brother Anthony were interested in a business of the kind about the time suggested for the date of the writing of this book. Mr. Spedding states:--[109] “Anthony Bacon appears to have served [Essex] in a capacity very like that of a modern under-secretary of State, receiving all letters which were mostly in cipher in the first instance; forwarding them (generally through his brother Francis’s hands) to the Earl, deciphered and accompanied with their joint suggestions; and finally, according to the instructions thereupon returned, framing and dispatching the answers. Several writers must have been employed to carry out with promptitude such work as here outlined, and we find in a letter from Francis Bacon to his brother,[110] dated January 25th, 1594, that the clerks were also employed upon other work.... ‘I have here an idle pen or two ... I pray send me somewhat else for them to write out besides your Irish collection.’” etc., etc.

In a well-known letter to Tobie Mathew, Bacon writes: “My labours are now most set to have those works, which I had formerly published ... well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens that forsake me not.” In this connection Mr. Burgoyne writes: “It is worthy of notice that in ‘The Great Assises holden in Parnassus by Apollo and his Assessours,’ printed in 1645, the ‘Chancellor’ is declared to be ‘Lord Verulam,’ and ‘Ben Johnson’ is described as the ‘Keeper of the Trophonian Denne.’”[111] “It seems not unlikely,” says Mr. Burgoyne, “that this literary workshop, was the source of the ‘Verulamian Workmanship’ which is referred to by Isaac Gruter in a letter to Dr. William Rawley (Bacon’s secretary and executor) written from Maestricht, and dated March 20, 1655. This letter was written in Latin, and both the original and the translation are printed in ‘Baconiana, or certain genuine Remains of Sir Francis Bacon,’ London, 1679.” Mr. Burgoyne gives the following extract: