Part 3

SIR,--In an article under the above heading in the October number of the _Quarterly Review_, Mr. C. R. Haines writes (p. 229): “There cannot be the smallest doubt that Shakespeare [i.e., William Shakspere, of Stratford] was possessed of books at his death. One of these, _with his undoubted signature_ [my italics], ‘W. Sh^{r}.’ is still extant in the Bodleian Library.... A second, Florio’s version of Montaigne (1603), bears the signature ‘Wilm Shakspere,’ which is with some reason regarded as genuine.”

Now Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, who, I believe, is generally considered our foremost “paleographer,” has told us that the “Florio’s Montaigne” signature is an “undoubted forgery” (I have in my possession a letter of his addressed from the British Museum in 1904 to the late Sir Herbert Tree, and kindly forwarded by the latter to me, in which Sir Edward so states); and the same high authority writes in “Shakespeare’s England” (Vol. I, p. 308, n.): “Nor is it possible to give a higher character to the signature, ‘W^{m} Sh^{e}.’ (not ‘W. Sh^{r},’ as Mr. Haines prints it) in the Aldine Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses,’ 1502, in the Bodleian Library.”

How in the face of this Mr. C. R. Haines can assert that the book referred to, in the Bodleian Library, bears Shakespeare’s “undoubted signature,” or that the “Florio” signature is with reason regarded as genuine, I am quite unable to understand.

A further question is suggested by the following passage in Mr. Haines’s article. Alluding to the suit of “Belott _v._ Mountjoy,” he writes: “From this suit we also learn an interesting by-fact, namely, that Belott and his wife, after quitting the Mountjoys, lived in the house of George Wilkins, the playwright, who had the honour of collaborating with Shakespeare in ‘Pericles,’ and possibly in ‘Timon.’” Here I would ask what particle of evidence is there that the “George Wilkins, Victualler,” mentioned in the action, was George Wilkins the pamphleteer and hack-dramatist? It is true Professor Wallace has told us that, although “we have known nothing about Wilkins personally before,” he thinks that “more than one reader with a livelier critical interest in these [Shakespearean] plays may be able to _smell the victualler_” (_Harper’s Magazine_, March, 1910, p. 509); but, really, we can hardly be expected to put implicit confidence in the deductions of Dr. Wallace’s olfactory organ. What warrant, then, has Mr. Haines to characterize as a “fact” that which is only guess-work and assumption? For my part, I can no more “smell the victualler” in the author of “The Miseries of Inforst Marriage” than I can “smell” (as did Professor Wallace) the French official Herald in Mountjoy of Muggle Street!

One more question and I have done, though many more occur to me. Mr. Haines invites our attention to “The Plume MSS., which gave us the only glimpse of John Shakespeare at his home, cracking jests with his famous son” (p. 241). May I respectfully ask him if it is not the fact that this pleasant picture of John Shakespeare rests upon the (alleged) statement of Sir John Mennes, and that Sir John Mennes was born on March 1st, 1599, whereas John Shakespeare died in September, 1601, so that the infant Mennes must, presumably, have been taken from his cradle in Kent, in his nurse’s arms, for the purpose of interviewing that “merry-cheeked old man,” of which interview he made a record from memory when he had learnt to write?

I trust Mr. Haines will enlighten a perplexed inquirer as to these matters in the second article, which, as I gather, he is to contribute to the _Quarterly Review_ on the results of “Recent Shakespearean Research.”--Yours, &c.,

RIGHT GEORGE GREENWOOD.

I turned, therefore, with some interest to Mr. Haines’s second article, but, alas, I found no enlightenment therein. He has treated my questions with a very discreet silence. Well, no doubt “silence is golden”--in some cases. But such is “Shakespearean” criticism at the present day, of which these articles are a very instructive and characteristic specimen. I am aware, of course, that if I were to offer a paper in reply to them, however conclusive that reply might be, and even if it were quite up to the literary standard of the _Review_ in question, it would be at once returned to me by the editor--if not consigned to the “W.P.B.”--for the all-sufficient reason that the writer is guilty of vile and intolerable heresy (to wit that he shares the conviction of the late Henry James--and many others alive and dead--that the author of _Hamlet_ and _Lear_ and _Othello_ was actually a well-educated man, of high position, and the representative of the highest culture of his day), and is therefore _taboo_ to the editors of all decent journals. _Id sane intolerandum!_ Indeed, with the exception of the editor of the _National Review_--to whom the thanks of all unprejudiced and liberal-minded men are most justly due--I know of no editor of an English quarterly or monthly magazine, since the lamented death of Mr. Wray Skilbeck, who does not maintain this boycott as though it were a matter of moral obligation, just as but a few years since they boycotted the Free-thinker and the Rationalist. They freely open their columns to attacks upon the “Anti-Stratfordian,” but on no account must he be allowed to reply.

Whether such an attitude redounds to the credit of English literature it is not for me, a “heretic,” to say. I would only venture to refer the reader to the observations of Professor Abel Lefranc--a scholar and critic of European reputation--upon this matter, in whose judgment it seems that such an attitude with regard to an extremely interesting literary problem is not only absurdly prejudiced and narrow-minded, but one which--I tremble as I say it--makes some of our literary highbrows not a little ridiculous in the eyes of men of common sense and unfettered judgment.[27]

RIGHT G. G.

THE MASQUE OF “TIME VINDICATED”[28]

The following extract from Mr. Smithson’s Article in _The Nineteenth Century_ of November 1913, headed “Ben Jonson’s Pious Fraud,” may well stand as a preface to his now published Essay on Jonson’s Masque of _Time Vindicated_, which was written by him in the year 1919. The reader may also be referred to Chapters VI and VII of his _Shakespeare-Bacon_, published in 1899.

It is odd that we Baconians, differing as we do from our opponents in so many points, should agree with them so entirely on one--the supreme importance of the testimony of Ben Jonson. This paper is mainly concerned with two of his utterances, the Ode in the First Folio, and the _Prince’s Masque_. Both the one and the other belong in point of composition to the same period, 1622-3. We will begin with the _Masque_ completed no doubt a few months earlier than the Ode. In my opinion they were vital parts of one great scheme of which Bacon, i.e., Bacon-Shakespeare, was the subject.

The genesis of the _Prince’s Masque_ was probably on this wise: assuming that Bacon was bent on disowning his plays, the publication of them, however generous in intention, could at best be only a left-handed compliment to him. Consequently if the scheme was to yield any true satisfaction to its originators (or any suitable consolation to Bacon regarded as the victim of malicious if not disloyal persecution), it would have to give scope for some direct (_ad virum_) expression, in their own persons if possible, of love and admiration for their hero. A prince brought up in the court of James the First would be sure to decide that a Masque was the thing and Ben Jonson the man. As the audience would necessarily be select and discreet (Court influence being potent), the risk of disclosure was not serious; and even if it had been, Jonson’s skill would have been equal to the task of hoodwinking any probable audience. On this occasion luck helped cunning. In the nick of time, George Wither, a “prodigious pourer forth of rhime,” happened to publish a volume of _Satirical Essays_ in rhyme, with a ridiculous dedication of the thing to himself as patron and protector. This I fancy gave Jonson just what he wanted--a red herring to draw across the scent.

The _Prince’s Masque_ had another, and for our purpose far more significant title--_Time Vindicated to Himself and His Honours_. Time, no Time of long ago, but the age that was then passing, had been slandered, taxed with being mean and dull and sterile, and the intention of the Masque or Pageant was to refute these calumnies in presence, not of an inquisitive world, but of Time’s living ornaments (as well as himself). If report speak true, it was presented on the 19th of January, 1623--the Sunday in that memorable year which fell nearest to Bacon’s birthday--presented in circumstances of unprecedented splendour, “the Prince leading the Measures with the French embassador’s wife.” The Masque (as given in Jonson’s _Works_) is sub-divided into Antimasque and Masque proper.

Fame, the accredited mouthpiece of the author, is by far the most important personage in the Antimasque. Her first business is to proclaim that she has been sent to invite to that night’s “great spectacle,” not the many, but the few who alone were worthy to view it. An inquisitive mob nicknamed The Curious at once begins to heckle Fame. A thrasonical personage called Chronomastix, a caricature compounded in unequal proportions of George Wither and the Ovid Junior of Jonson’s _Poetaster_, then appears on the scene. Chronomastix, I may say in passing, seems to have deluded John Chamberlain, for he (J. C.) tells a correspondent that Jonson in the _Prince’s Masque_ “runs a risk by impersonating George Withers as a whipper of the times, which is a dangerous jest.” At sight of Chronomastix The Curious jeer at Fame for not recognising their idol, while Chronomastix himself has the effrontery to call her his “mistress,” and tells her it is for her sake alone that he “revells so in rime.” Fame retorts (in effect): “Away thou wretched Impostor! My proclamation was not meant for thee or thy kind; goe revell with thine ignorant admirers. Let worthy names alone.” Chronomastix is furious, brags of his popularity, and appeals to The Curious to “come forth ... and now or never, spight of Fame, approve me.” The stage direction here runs: “At this, the Mutes come in.” The first Mute, an elephantine creature, meant of course for Jonson himself, is about to bring forth a “male-Poem ... that kicks at Time already.” (Jonson’s Ode to Shakespeare was probably ruminated, if not written, at the very time that this “male-Poem” was struggling to be born.) The second Mute, a quondam Justice--reminding one of Justice Clement in Jonson’s earliest comedy--is in the habit of carrying Chronomastix about “in his pocket” and crying “‘O happy man!’ to the wrong party, meaning the _Poet_, where he meant the subject.” (This I take for a hint at the confusion of mind that must have existed among lovers of the drama as to who Shakespeare really was.) The succeeding pair of Mutes are, the one a printer in disguise who conceals himself and “his presse in a hollow tree, and workes by glow-worm light, the moon’s too open”; the other a compositor who in “an angle inhabited by ants will sit curled whole days and nights, and work his eyes out for him.”[29] The fifth Mute is a learned man, a schoolmaster, who is turning the works of the caricature Chronomastix into _Latine_. (“Some good pens”--as we learn from his letters--were at this time engaged in turning Bacon’s _Advancement of Learning_ into Latin, the “general language.”) The sixth and last Mute is a “Man of warre,” reminiscent of Gullio in the _Return from Parnassus_, who it may be remembered worships “sweet Mr. Shakspeare,” talks “nothing but Shakspeare,” etc. Not one of the Mutes ever opens his mouth, and all that the audience knows of them is told by The Curious, whose function is to connect the Antimasque with the Masque and act as nomenclators for the elephantine poet and his suite. The Mutes came, or seemed to come, at the bidding of Chronomastix, in order to snub Fame for having insulted him. But Chronomastix himself is the person actually snubbed by them, seeing that they ignore him utterly. As for Fame, she treats the Mutes very coolly, her only comment being “What a confederacy of _Folly_ is here!”

Following hard on this observation (of Fame’s) comes a dance, in which The Curious adore Chronomastix and then carry him off in triumph. Afterwards The Curious come up again, and one of them, addressing Fame, asks: “Now, Fame, how like you this?” Another chimes in: “He scornes you, and defies you, has got a _Fame_ of his owne, as well as a Faction.” A third adds: “And these will deify him, to despite you.” Fame answers: “I envie not the _Apotheosis_. ’Twill prove but deifying of a Pompion.” (If The Curious had scented what Fame was about, a retort like this would have been enough to let them into the secret. But this hint, as well as her previous taunt, “My hot inquisitors, what I am about is more than you understand,” was lost on them and they continue their futile cackle.) Fame gets rid of The Curious at last by means of the Cat and Fiddle, who, according to the stage direction, “make sport with and drive them away.”

Relieved of the presence of all who were unfit to view the “great Spectacle” now on the point of being exhibited “with all solemnity,” Fame at last lets herself go: “Commonly (says she) The Curious are ill-natured and, like flies, seek _Time’s_ corrupted parts to blow upon, but may the sound ones live with fame and honour, free from the molestation of these insects.”

The stage direction here runs: “Loud musique. To which the whole scene opens, where Saturne sitting with Venus is discovered above, and certaine Votaries coming forth below, which are the Chorus.”

Addressing the King, Fame announces that Saturn (Time) urged by Venus (emblem of affection) had promised to set free “certaine glories of the Time,” which, though eminently fitted to “adorn that age,” had nevertheless for mysterious reasons been kept in “darknesse” by “Hecate (Queene of shades).” Venus puts in her word; assures Time that the liberation of the “glories” is a “worke (which) will prove his honour” as well as exceed “men’s hopes.” Saturn answers her gallantly and then addressing the Votaries says: “You shall not long expect: with ease the things come forth (that) are born to please. Looke, have you seene such lights as these?”

This is the very climax of the Masque. “The _Masquers_ (so runs the stage direction) are discovered and that which obscured them vanisheth.” The Votaries exclaim with rapture: “These, these must sure some wonders be.... What grief, or envie had it beene, that these and such had not beene seene, but still obscured in shade! Who are the glories of the _Time_ ... and for the light were made!”

(Who were these “glories” whom Fame, the Prince, Ben Jonson, and the rest had with difficulty rescued from the underworld, in whose behalf inquisitive intruders had been excluded, about whom absurd mistakes of identity had been made, and who according to Fame were destined to play parts in the “apotheosis” of a pumpkin?[30] The only answer that occurs to me is that the spectacle consisted essentially of a selection from among the _dramatis personæ_ who were about to figure in the First Folio, especially characters out of the sixteen or twenty then unpublished plays.)

The Masque ends with an exhortation to charity, the final words being:

Man should not hunt mankind to death, But strike the enemies of man. Kill vices if you can: They are your wildest beasts: And when they thickest fall, you make the Gods true feasts.

(Bearing in mind that Bacon was probably regarded by the audience as an ill-used man, this exhortation sorts well with what I take to be the true interpretation of the Masque. So does the motto with which it opens. In that motto Martial bids ill-natured censors to leave him alone and keep their venom for self-admirers, persons vain of their own achievements. From first to last, therefore, _Time Vindicated_ seems to have been deliberately adjusted to Bacon.)

The second part of this quasi-national scheme for doing honour to Shakespeare-Bacon falls now to be considered. The First Folio was published, it would seem, towards the end of 1623. Though not entered on the Stationers’ Register till November, it may well have been on the stocks before that, for the difficulties of collecting, arranging with interested printers, editing, adapting (_The Tempest_ for example), and so forth, must have been extraordinary. The volume is introduced by some doggerel, signed “B. I.,” which tells the reader:

This figure that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; Wherein, etc.

Derision and mystification, twin motives or causes of the guy Chronomastix, are equally the motives of this grotesque “figure.” Whether this were also intended to parody the doggerel inscribed on Shakespeare’s gravestone in Stratford Church may be open to doubt. That inscription runs:

Good frend, for Jesus sake forbeare To digge the dust encloased heare; Bleste be the man, etc.

Warned by “B. I.” that laughter is in that air, we turn to the famous Ode itself which is signed “Ben: Ionson”(not “B. I.”) This Poem opens with a significant hint that the “_name_” Shakespeare, as distinct from his “book” and his “_fame_,” was a delicate subject to handle. After having assured himself with much ado that Shakespeare’s (true) name is now in no danger, Jonson proceeds to inform him that he (Shakesspeare) is alive still, “a moniment without a tombe.” Then comes the line: “And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,” which is generally mistaken for a categorical statement that Shakespeare lacked Latin, whereas it should be understood as equivalent to “Supposing thou hadst small Latin,” etc. The word “would” in the next sentence (“From thence to honour thee I would not seek”) shows this to be the reading.

Then come the triumphant verses in which, after having challenged “insolent Greece or haughtie Rome” to produce a greater than Shakespeare, Jonson exclaims:

Triumph my Britaine, thou hast one to showe, To whom all Scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of an age, but for all time! And all the Muses still were in their prime, When like Apollo he came forth, etc.

(Compare this with what Jonson wrote of Bacon not many years later: Bacon “is he, who hath filled up all numbers; and performed that in our tongue, which may be compared or preferred, either to insolent _Greece_ or haughty _Rome_. In short, within his view and about his times were all the wits born that could honour a language, or helpe study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downe-ward, and _Eloquence_ growes back-ward. So that hee may be named, and stand as the _marke_ and _akme_ of our language.... Hee seemed to mee ever, by his worke, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration that had beene in many Ages.” The similarity between the two eulogies strikes one the moment they are brought into juxtaposition, and this helps to explain the exclusion of the Ode from the collected _Workes of Ben: Jonson: 1640-1_.)

After this rapturous outburst the mood changes, and we are bored by a number of didactic lines about the need of toil and sweat as well as genius, “for the good poet’s made as well as born.” The passage is one among many symptoms of Jonson’s long-standing quarrel with Shakespeareolators--a quarrel which at a later date found expression in the _Discoveries_--for refusing to see that the carelessness of their idol was at times not less conspicuous than his genius. Satisfied with having vindicated his own consistency, Jonson goes on to declare that each “well-torned and true-filed” line of Shakespeare’s “seemes to shake a lance as brandished at the eyes of ignorance.” (Obviously, therefore, Jonson had in view a peculiar kind of ignorance, one which the mere technique displayed in the First Folio would, but for a misunderstanding, have put to flight. The quondam Justice of _Time Vindicated_ who was wont to cry “O happy man! to the wrong party,” suggests the misunderstanding in question. What, moreover, are we to make of the “stage” shaking and “lance” shaking and brandishing? How reconcile this punning upon _shake_ and _spear_ with the opening lines of the Ode which breathe forth reverence for “thy name.” It had been difficult, short of direct statement, to give plainer indications that Jonson was out for a juggle with a pair of names, one of them an _alias_.)

On the heels of the lance-brandishing jest comes the passionate utterance: “Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were to see thee in our waters yet appeare, and make those flights upon the bankes of Thames, that so did take Eliza and our James!” (Here _suggestio falsi_ is carried to the verge of the lie. What Jonson would have us think he felt about Warwick and its Avon is one thing. What he actually thought may be gathered from a fragment of rather later date in which he jeers at “Warwick Muses” for choosing a “Hoby-horse” as their favourite mount--“the _Pegasus_ that uses to waite on _Warwick_ Muses,” etc. Be this as it may, the ethics of the case would cause him no uneasiness. A secret had to be kept in deference to the wishes of one whom Jonson regarded as almost the greatest and most admirable of men, one too whose right to an incognito no living man of letters was likely to dispute.)