Part 9

* * * * *

“And yet it must be confessed that to many readers, whose reason cannot penetrate the mere mask of words and discern behind it the mystery of style, the soul that fills the form with the breath of supremest life, this analysis by parallels may be misleading, even to a sense of partial conviction. To such can only be said, in the words of the ever-living Poet:

“O place, O form! How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit, Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls To thy false meaning.” (_Measure for Measure, II, iv, 12._)”

204 TO CERTAIN THEORISTS. A sonnet. By W. L. SHOEMAKER. In _Shakespeariana_, in the _Literary World_, Boston, February 24, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

Mr. SHOEMAKER’S sonnet is the only poetry yet discovered in this prosaic controversy:

“Still must I hear the noise of those who claim That Shakespeare was not Shakespeare, but was Bacon!-- Seeking from him by whom the stage was shaken With mightiest buskin, to filch all his fame. O bats and owls, how impotent your aim! How purblind, by a little _Promus_ taken, Drowsing yourselves to think the world to waken, To exalt the courtier, and the player to shame! Our “Star of Poets” did not Jonson know, And praise in lines that well your prate confute, And put your feminine theories to scorn? Yea; spite of Greene and every later foe, His shade serene smiles at the senseless bruit-- Greatest in drama of all souls yet born.”

205 SHAKESPEARE’S GEHEIMNISZ UND BACON’S PROMUS. In the _Allgemeine Zeitung_, Stuttgart and Munchen: March 1, 1883. 4 columns.

_Anti-Sh._

The first German article. A translation of this title will be found below.

206 SHAKESPEARE’S SECRET AND BACON’S “PROMUS.” An article in the _Allgemeine Zeitung_ of March 1, 1883. Translated from the German, and printed by special request. Price three pence. H. Wills, Printer, Loughborough, England. Pamphlet, 12mo. pp. 12.

_Anti-Sh._

This article is anonymous. It is nominally a review of the _Promus_, but discusses the question generally, and is most vehemently Baconian throughout:

“In the eyes of the masses [in England] Shakespeare passes for a supernatural being. He who doubts of his divinity is guilty of high treason, or even of blasphemy.

“Such prejudice is unknown in America. There it has long been accepted as an acknowledged fact that Bacon wrote the Shakespearean dramas.”

207 SHAKESPEARE _v._ BACON. A review of the _Promus_ in the _Spectator_, London, March 3, 1883. 2 columns.

_Pro-Sh._

208 DR. EDWIN A. ABBOTT, MRS. HENRY POTT, AND LORD BACON. In the _St. James’s Gazette_, London, March 10, 1883. 1 page.

_Pro-Sh._

209 MRS. POTT ON SHAKESPEARE’S WOMEN. In _Shakespeariana_, in the _Literary World_, Boston, March 10, 1883.

_a_--Note from A. A. A. [Adee] on the _Promus_.

_Pro-Sh._

Mr. ROLFE takes issue with Mrs. Pott as to her opinions of Shakespeare’s women, and quotes from a foot-note on page 479 of the _Promus_:

“From the entries which referred to women we see that Bacon formed very unfavorable views regarding them, views which unhappy passages in his own life probably tended to confirm. The Shakespeare Plays seem to exhibit the same unfavorable sentiments of their author. There are 130 female personages in the Plays, and the characters of these seem to be easily divisible into six classes:

“1. Furies or viragoes, such as Tamora, Queen Margaret, Goneril, Regan, and even Lady Macbeth in the dark side of her character.

“2. Shrews and sharp-tongued women, as Katherine, Constance, and many others, when they are represented as angry.

“3. Gossiping and untrustworthy women, as most of the maids, hostesses, etc., and as Percy insinuates that he considers his wife to be.

“4. Fickle, faithless, and artful--a disposition which seems assumed throughout the Plays to be the normal condition of womanhood.

“5. Thoroughly immoral, as Cleopatra, Phrynia, Timandra, Bianca.

“6. Gentle, simple, and colorless, as Hero, Olivia, Ophelia, Cordelia, etc.

“Noteworthy exceptions, which exhibit more exalted and truer pictures of good and noble women, are the characters of Isabella, of Volumnia, and of Katherine of Arragon; but these are not sufficient to do away with the impression that, on the whole, the author of the Plays had but a poor opinion of women; that love he regarded as youthful passion, marriage as a doubtful happiness.”

It will be noticed that Mrs. Pott omits to classify Imogen, Rosalind, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Viola, Miranda, and others.

In answer, Mr. Rolfe quotes from Charles Cowden-Clarke, “who is one of the most sympathetic and appreciative of critics (partly, no doubt, because Mary Cowden-Clarke was his wife and fellow-worker):”

“Of all the writers that ever existed, no one ought to stand so high in the love and gratitude of women as he. He has indeed been their champion, their laureate, their brother, their friend. * * * He has asserted their prerogative, as intellectual creatures, to be the companions (in the best sense), the advisers, the friends, the equals of men. He has endowed them with the true spirit of Christianity and brotherly love, enduring all things, forgiving all things, hoping all things; and it is no less remarkable that, with a prodigality of generosity, he has not unfrequently placed the heroes in his stories at a disadvantage with them.”

Cowden-Clarke proceeds to illustrate this by Hero and Claudio in _Much Ado_ (the play he is discussing at the time), and quotes also, in confirmation of the statement, the characters of Bertram in _All’s Well_, of Posthumus in _Cymbeline_, of Leontes in the _Winter’s Tale_, and of Proteus in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_. He adds:

“All these characters not only appear at a disadvantage by, but they are unworthy of the women with whom they are united. Shakespeare has himself made the Duke in _Twelfth Night_ say:

However we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, Than women’s are.

A remarkable confession that for a man! Therefore Shakespeare is the writer, above all others, whom women should most take to their hearts; for it may be said to have been mainly through his influence that their claims in society were acknowledged in England, when throughout the civilized world their position was that of mere domestic drudges.”

210 THE PROMUS, etc. A review in the _Tribune_, New York, March 11, 1883. 1¼ columns.

_Pro-Sh._

“We have made a very thorough examination of these 1655 Promus memorandums, and of the passages which are produced in illustration and elucidation of them; we have read every word that the authoress has written in support of her theory; we have done so, we are sure, in a candid spirit, but we have to say, as the result of our examination, that we have not found an instance, not one, in which a passage in the plays is shown to have its origin in the Promus. The method of elucidating the Promus by ‘Shakespeare’ seems to have been to fix upon the most salient word in one of Bacon’s notes, and then to take up Mrs. Cowden-Clarke’s Concordance to Shakespeare, and find by its aid passages in which that word occurs, or more rarely a phrase which expresses in some modified or related form the idea conveyed by the Promus word or phrase. The result is a display of a word or a phrase on one side and several like words or phrases on the other; but of any necessary connection between them, of any inkling of a growth of the latter from the former, there is an utter and total absence.”

211 THE PROMUS, etc. A review in the _Nation_, New York, March 15, 1883. 2 columns.

_Pro-Sh._

212 THE AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE. An editorial article. [By J. G. PYLE]. In the _Pioneer Press_, St. Paul, Minn., March 25, 1883. 1 column.

_Anti-Sh._

A notice of the _Promus_, introducing Morgan’s review.

“While there can be no doubt that the editress has carried her comparisons to the last degree of attenuation, and has discovered resemblances where there is nothing but the recurrence of a single unimportant word in the Promus and in the Plays on which to stand, yet, when these instances are eliminated, there remains a body of coincidences which cannot be dismissed with a cool assumption of superiority to all modern ‘vagaries,’ and which will require some more coherent explanation than the article by Richard Grant White in the last _Atlantic_.”

213 A REVIEW OF BACON’S PROMUS. BY APPLETON MORGAN. In the _Pioneer Press_, St. Paul, Minn. Part I, March 25, 1883; Part II, April 1, 1883. 5 columns.

_Anti-Sh._

In this paper, besides going into a general review of the subject, Mr. Morgan gives a summary, under twelve heads, of the _Net Results of the Promus_, at the conclusion of which he says:

“Now which existing anti-Shakespearean theory does the evidence of this Promus most clearly corroborate? There are four of these theories, all of which have many parts in common, but no two of which are exactly alike, viz:

“1. That Bacon and the rest of a coterie of political philosophers and moralists wrote in Hermetic or cryptographical compositions a philosophy for ‘the next ages’ which they dared not promulgate in Elizabeth’s reign (Miss Delia Bacon’s theory).

“2. That Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare (the Baconian theory).

“3. That the coterie (perhaps the same as that Miss Bacon suggested) wrote the plays to amuse themselves--and induced William Shakespeare to father them for a consideration (the New theory).

“4. That whoever wrote them, William Shakespeare was stage editor only of the plays (the Editorial theory).

“It seems to us that the new evidence offered by the Promus marshals itself, with the least violence, on the side of either Theory 2 or Theory 4, and, as between these latter, most naturally on the side of Theory 4.”

214 THE AUTHORSHIP OF MISS BACON’S BOOK. In the _Sunday Telegraph_, Milwaukee, Wis. Three articles of dates following:

_Unc._

_a_--AN ODD LITERARY SENSATION. [Editorial, by Col. E. A. CALKINS]. March 25, 1883.

“Miss Bacon, as she alleged to be the case with Shakespeare, was not the author of her own book. It was written throughout by T. C. Leland, then a stenographic reporter on the New York _Tribune_. * * * Mr. Leland stated to literary gentlemen with whom he became acquainted at Madison [in 1853] that he was engaged in this labor, and had partly completed Miss Bacon’s work. * * * He did not claim to be more than her mere amanuensis, though in fact he was something more, as he furnished the forms of expression which Miss Bacon employed while transferring her views to paper.”

_b_--MISS DELIA BACON. Letter from W. H. W. [W. H. WYMAN]. April 8, 1883.

“Doubtless there would be a poetic or retributive justice in denying to Delia Bacon the authorship of her own book, but, unfortunately for this theory, I cannot see how it can have the slightest foundation in fact. * * * [References are given to Mrs. Farrar’s _Recollections_, and to Hawthorne’s _Preface_ to Miss Bacon’s work.] * * * These extracts show conclusively that neither of her works on this subject were written in this country, nor until some years after the reported conversations; and even that in England she could have had no assistance is clear, from the fact that she was alone, and it was with the utmost difficulty that she sustained herself during that time. * * * I do not call your attention to these misapprehensions because I have any belief in Delia Bacon’s theories, but simply that justice may be done to the memory of a woman whose sad fate has caused her to be greatly misunderstood.”

_c_--LETTER FROM T. C. LELAND, dated New York, August 22, 1883; printed September 9, 1883.

“I think it was in the late fall of 1852, or perhaps it was December, I was engaged to report some lectures delivered in this city by Miss Delia Bacon, on the Art and Culture of Egypt and other ancient nations. Though she was a very ready, fluent, and, at times, eloquent speaker, yet when she came to take up her pen she wrote slowly and with difficulty. She expressed a wish one day that I should help her in this respect. I suggested that, if she could dictate to me, an audience of one, as fluently and happily as she did to an audience of hundreds, she would be a perfect success. We agreed to make the experiment, but, on trial, she found that an amanuensis was practically somewhat better, but not much, than a pen. There was, on trial, one advantage; that occasionally she would have inspired moments and a spurt of thought and rapid utterances; and these gushes I could take down and save, which otherwise she could not have traced rapidly enough on paper, and would have lost. * * * But in all this I played the part, simply and only, of an amanuensis, putting down her words conscientiously without any change or amendment of mine. My short-hand notes were translated into long-hand copy just as she delivered the words, and handed to her. I suppose that these notes were the basis, in whole or in part--probably a larger part--of her subsequent book.”

215 BACON’S PROMUS AGAIN. By A. A. A. [ADEE]. In the _Republic_, Washington, March 31, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

216 THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON QUESTION. A Bibliographical list of the works on the subject in the Boston Public Library. In the _Bulletin_ of the Library for April, 1883. 38 titles.

_Unc._

217 THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. By RICHARD GRANT WHITE. In the _Atlantic Monthly_ for April, 1883. (See pages 507-521.)

_Pro-Sh._

In this paper, Mr. White expresses his personal indifference as to whether Bacon, Shakespeare, or anybody else is to be credited with the authorship, as it “affects in no way the value or interest of the plays;” he gives a very complete and unfavorable review of the _Promus_, occupying ten pages; instances the sonnets, as impossible to have been written by Bacon, who did not therefore write the plays; and makes a brilliant comparison between Bacon and Shakespeare, showing “the unlikeness of Bacon’s mind and of his style to those of the writer of the plays.” The following is an extract from the concluding paragraph:

“As to treating the question seriously, that is not to be done by men of common sense and moderate knowledge of the subject. * * * It is as certain that William Shakespeare wrote (after the theatrical fashion, and under the theatrical conditions of his day) the plays that bear his name, as it is that Francis Bacon wrote the Novum Organum, the Advancement of Learning, and the Essays. The notion that Bacon also wrote Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, King Lear, and Othello, is not worth five minutes’ consideration by any reasonable creature.”

218 RICHARD GRANT WHITE and “THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE.” By F. [EDWARD FILLEBROWN]. In the _Commonwealth_, Boston, March 31, 1883. 1 column.

_Anti-Sh._

219 “THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE.” Letter of APPLETON MORGAN in the _Post_, Boston, April 2, 1883. ¼ column.

_Anti-Sh._

220 “THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE” of Richard Grant White. By O. F. [O. FOLLETT]. In the _Register_, Sandusky, O., April 5, 1883. 1 column.

_Anti-Sh._

221 THE PROMUS, etc. A notice of the book in the _Mercury_, Leeds, England, April 11, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

222 SHAKESPEARE’S SCHOOLING, WITH SOME LIGHT AS TO THE ELIZABETHAN BOY. Letter from APPLETON MORGAN. In the _Pioneer Press_, St. Paul, Minn., April 15, 1883. ½ column.

_Anti-Sh._

A dissertation on the insufficiency of the schools in Shakespeare’s day. In illustration of this, Mr. Morgan quotes schoolmaster Evans and his pupil William, in _Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act IV, Scene 1.

223 THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE THEORY. In the _Morning Journal_, Cincinnati, April 16, 1883. 1 column.

_Pro-Sh._

224 SHAKESPEARIAN CIRCLE-SQUARING. A criticism of the _Promus_, in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, London, April 20, 1883. 1½ columns.

_Pro-Sh._

225 ARTICLES in _Shakespeariana_, in the _Literary World_, Boston, April 21, 1883.

_a_--Cleopatra’s “Billiards.” Note from Hon. A. A. Adee, with remarks by the Editor.

_b_--Mr. Grant White on Bacon and Shakespeare.

_Pro-Sh._

Mr. ADEE calls attention to the fact that the often quoted (but disputed) anachronism in _Antony and Cleopatra_--where _Cleopatra_ says to her attendant, _Charmian_, “let’s to billiards”--was doubtless obtained from Chapman, who uses the word “billiards” similarly in his _Blind Beggar of Alexandria_, printed ten years before _Antony and Cleopatra_, was written. As to the anachronisms generally, Mr. Rolfe says:

* * * “If, to preserve his incognito, Bacon had refrained from any parade of his scholarship, and had even put occasional anachronisms into the mouths of his characters, we cannot imagine him showing the habitual ignorance in such matters that Shakespeare does. He could never have made Coriolanus talk of ‘graves in the holy church-yard,’ or Menenius, in the same play, of ‘Galen’--‘an anachronism of near 650 years,’ as Dr. Grey called it--or Mark Antony, of coming to ‘bury’ Cæsar, and the like. These frequent and free-and-easy blunders, so utterly inconsistent with the scholarly habit of mind, are of themselves a sufficient refutation of the theory that ‘Bacon wrote Shakespeare.’”

226 SHAKESPEARE. By Rev. EDWARD C. TOWNE. Two articles in the _Evening Transcript_, Boston. I, April 28, 1883; II, August 3, 1883. 3 columns each.

_Pro-Sh._

These articles are devoted principally to the life, genius, and character of Shakespeare as disproving the Baconian theory.

227 “OUR SHAKESPEARE CLUB.” Remarks of SAM. TIMMINS, Chairman. In the _Daily Mail_, Birmingham, England, April 24, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

Mr. TIMMINS presided at the annual dinner of the club on the birth-day of Shakespeare, at the Plow and Harrow Hotel, Birmingham, and made the opening address, opposing all the anti-Shakespearian theories.

228 “BACON’S PROMUS.” Two letters of APPLETON MORGAN of this title. In the _Republic_, Washington, April 28, and March 24, 1883.

_Anti-Sh._

229 SHAKESPEARE AS A MYTH. By HENRY HOOPER. In the _Commercial Gazette_, Cincinnati, April 29, 1883. 3 columns.

_Pro-Sh._

Occasioned by Morgan’s _Shakespearean Myth_, to which it is a reply.

“If Shakespeare alone wrote these plays, then it is the greatest miracle on record, says Mr. Morgan. If it be a miracle for one, it would be a combination of miracles for ten, or even two, to compose _Hamlet_ or _Othello_. * * * The joint composition theory is as improbable and impossible as it would be for an orchestra to invent a Symphony of Beethoven. You might just as well say that Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is the joint work of a number of musicians, viz: that the violin players composed the string parts, the reed players the flute and oboe parts, and the trombones and double basses their scores. This is not more absurd than the theory that a pale student, a needy scholar, a ready writer, an actor and a stage manager produced _Twelfth Night_ and _King Lear_.”

230 WHO WAS SHAKESPEARE? Address by Mr. WILLIAM LEIGHTON, JR., at the Shakespeare Club Banquet, Wheeling, W. Va., April 23, 1883. In the _Sunday Register_, Wheeling, April 29, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

In Mr. LEIGHTON’S address the authorship is only incidentally referred to.

“Genius is the touch of God’s hand, an inspiration that comes not out of any college, but is evoked from the soul by its own tendencies and aspirations; and, so born, can only be fostered into healthy maturity by unremitting labor. The attempt to take from Shakespeare’s brow the laurel crown of the most glorious of bards is a vain effort to rob a dead man of well-earned honors; and why? Because a yeoman must not presume to stand above a nobleman; or a poet, who has not been to college, dare to mount the winged steed. But Shakespeare’s honors can not be taken from him by idle sophistry or arbitrary dogmatism; he has entrenched himself in the hearts of his countrymen, and his position is impregnable.”

231 WHO IS SHAKESPEARE? Address by Mr. JOSEPH CROSBY, at the Shakespeare Club Banquet, Wheeling, W. Va., as above. In the _Sunday Register_, Wheeling, April 29, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

Mr. CROSBY--whose views will be found under title 126--devotes a portion only of this address to the authorship.

232 LETTER FROM APPLETON MORGAN. In the _Church Eclectic_, Utica, N. Y., for May, 1883. 3 pages.

_Anti-Sh._

A reply to the letter of Mr. Crosby’s in the same magazine for November, 1880. We quote one point only:

“I am sure I can refer the writer to at least half a score of authorities which will agree that the tuition in provincial grammar-schools of the Sixteenth Century was simply ridiculous, and a travesty; a little of A, B, C, and Lily’s Accidence, and a good deal of birch; and that however it made boys truants, it hardly graduated ‘men of letters.’”

233 BOSH ABOUT BACON. By A. B. B. [A. B. BRALEY, Madison, Wis.] In the _Sunday Telegraph_, Milwaukee, Wis., May 20, 1883, 1½ columns. Also, THE BACON CRANKS. Evidence of Shakespeare’s Contemporaries. In the same paper, June 10, 1883. 1½ columns.

_Pro-Sh._

234 SHAKESPEARE AT HOME. Letter from M. D. C. [MONCURE D. CONWAY], from Stratford-on-Avon, April 21, 1883. In the _Commercial Gazette_, Cincinnati, May 26, 1883. 2 columns.

_Unc._

An interesting letter from Mr. Conway on the occasion of one of the commemorative celebrations at Stratford.

Referring to Delia Bacon’s book:

* * * “Perhaps there never was such a monument of wasted ability. There is hardly anything in it of a negative character, very little that shows apprehension of the real points in the Shakespearean traditions that tempt skepticism. Her book dwells on the affirmation that Bacon wrote the plays; that may easily be answered by any one who will turn from a page of Shakespeare to one of Bacon, which, to most people, is turning from a winged to an earth-bound genius. But the incidental theory that Shakespeare did _not_ write these plays, though at present the fad of a few, is not unlikely to acquire large proportions in the future. Such is the inevitable doom of every set of traditions that have not been subjected to severe skeptical criticism.

* * * * *

“For the back-ground of miracle is always present--namely, that the village lad, son of a man who could not write his name, wrote all these mighty works, died at the age of fifty-three, and yet left no manuscript, no records, so that not even his birth-day is known.

“Yet here are the works. Somebody wrote them. Or it would be truer to say that somebody recognized the great world-histories and legends, exhumed them, covered them with flesh and blood, and breathed into them the breath of life. For here we are enjoying them, and finding amid all these creations the presence of a central mind, however inapprehensible.”

235 WHO WROTE JULIUS CÆSAR? By H. I. In the _Times-Star_, Cincinnati, May 29, 1883. 2 columns.

_Anti-Sh._

The writer takes the occasion of the Cincinnati Dramatic Festival to make this inquiry:

“The Dramatic Festival of this city was inaugurated by the production, at immense cost and great splendor, of the play of Julius Cæsar. It must have been ‘indeed an oasis’--with McCullough and Murdoch, Barrett, Louis James, and Miss Forsyth in the fore-front, five hundred Roman citizens and soldiers in perfect drill--a spectacle this to have gladdened with happy moisture the eyes, could they have seen it, of--the--author. Who was he?”