Part 2

Some have insisted that Shakespeare mentions Queen Elizabeth in the last scene of Henry VIII. The answer to this is that Shakespeare did not write the last scene in that Play. The probability is that Fletcher was the author.

Shakespeare lived during the great awakening of the world, when Europe emerged from the darkness of the Middle Ages, when the discovery of America had made England, that blossom of the Gulf-Stream, the centre of commerce, and during a period when some of the greatest writers, thinkers, soldiers and discoverers were produced.

Cervantes was born in 1547, dying on the same day that Shakespeare died. He was undoubtedly the greatest writer that Spain has produced. Rubens was born in 1577. Camoens, the Portuguese, the author of the _Lusiad_, died in 1597. Giordano Bruno--greatest of martyrs--was born in 1548--visited London in Shakespeare's time--delivered lectures at Oxford, and called that institution "the widow of learning." Drake circled the globe in 1580. Galileo was born in 1564--the same year with Shakespeare. Michael Angelo died in 1563. Kepler--he of the Three Laws--born in 1571. Calderon, the Spanish dramatist, born in 1601. Corneille, the French poet, in 1606. Rembrandt, greatest of painters, 1607. Shakespeare was born in 1564. In that year John Calvin died. What a glorious exchange!

Seventy-two years after the discovery of America Shakespeare was born, and England was filled with the voyages and discoveries written by Hakluyt, and the wonders that had been seen by Raleigh, by Drake, by Frobisher and Hawkins. London had become the centre of the world, and representatives from all known countries were in the new metropolis. The world had been doubled. The imagination had been touched and kindled by discovery. In the far horizon were unknown lands, strange shores beyond untraversed seas. Toward every part of the world were turned the prows of adventure. All these things fanned the imagination into flame, and this had its effect upon the literary and dramatic world. And yet Shakespeare--the master spirit of mankind--in the midst of these discoveries, of these adventures, mentioned no navigator, no general, no discoverer, no philosopher.

Galileo was reading the open volume of the sky, but Shakespeare did not mention him. This to me is the most marvelous thing connected with this most marvelous man.

At that time England was prosperous--was then laying the foundation of her future greatness and power.

When men are prosperous, they are in love with life. Nature grows beautiful, the arts begin to flourish, there is work for painter and sculptor, the poet is born, the stage is erected--and this life with which men are in love, is represented in a thousand forms.

Nature, or Fate, or Chance prepared a stage for Shakespeare, and Shakespeare prepared a stage for Nature.

Famine and faith go together. In disaster and want the gaze of man is fixed upon another world. He that eats a crust has a creed. Hunger falls upon its knees, and heaven, looked for through tears, is the mirage of misery. But prosperity brings joy and wealth and leisure--and the beautiful is born.

One of the effects of the world's awakening was Shakespeare. We account for this man as we do for the highest mountain, the greatest river, the most perfect gem. We can only say: He was.

"It hath been taught us from the primal state That he which is was wished until he were."

IV.

IN Shakespeare's time the actor was a vagabond, the dramatist a disreputable person--and yet the greatest dramas were then written. In spite of law, and social ostracism, Shakespeare reared the many-colored dome that fills and glorifies the intellectual heavens.

Now the whole civilized world believes in the theatre--asks for some great dramatist--is hungry for a play worthy of the century, is anxious to give gold and fame to any one who can worthily put our age upon the stage--and yet no great play has been written since Shakespeare died.

Shakespeare pursued the highway of the right. He did not seek to put his characters in a position where it was right to do wrong. He was sound and healthy to the centre. It never occurred to him to write a play in which a wife's lover should be jealous of her husband.

There was in his blood the courage of his thought. He was true to himself and enjoyed the perfect freedom of the highest art. He did not write according to rules--but smaller men make rules from what he wrote.

How fortunate that Shakespeare was not educated at Oxford--that the winged god within him never knelt to the professor. How fortunate that this giant was not captured, tied and tethered by the literary Lilliputians of his time.

He was an idealist. He did not--like most writers of our time--take refuge in the real, hiding a lack of genius behind a pretended love of truth. All realities are not poetic, or dramatic, or even worth knowing. The real sustains the same relation to the ideal that a stone does to a statue--or that paint does to a painting. Realism degrades and impoverishes. In no event can a realist be more than an imitator and copyist. According to the realist's philosophy, the wax that receives and retains an image is an artist.

Shakespeare did not rely on the stage-carpenter, or the scenic painter. He put his scenery in his lines. There you will find mountains and rivers and seas, valleys and cliffs, violets and clouds, and over all "the firmament fretted with gold and fire." He cared little for plot, little for surprise. He did not rely on stage effects, or red fire. The plays grow before your eyes, and they come as the morning comes. Plot surprises but once. There must be something in a play besides surprise. Plot in an author is a kind of strategy--that is to say, a sort of cunning, and cunning does not belong to the highest natures.

There is in Shakespeare such a wealth of thought that the plot becomes almost immaterial--and such is this wealth that you can hardly know the play--there is too much. After you have heard it again and again, it seems as pathless as an untrodden forest.

He belonged to all lands. "Timon of Athens" is as Greek as any tragedy of Eschylus. "Julius Cæsar" and "Coriolanus" are perfect Roman, and as you read, the mighty ruins rise and the Eternal City once again becomes the mistress of the world. No play is more Egyptian than "Antony and Cleopatra"--the Nile runs through it, the shadows of the pyramids fall upon it, and from its scenes the Sphinx gazes forever on the outstretched sands.

In "Lear" is the true pagan spirit. "Romeo and Juliet" is Italian--everything is sudden, love bursts into immediate flower, and in every scene is the climate of the land of poetry and passion.

The reason of this is that Shakespeare dealt with elemental things, with universal man. He knew that locality colors without changing, and that in all surroundings the human heart is substantially the same.

Not all the poetry written before his time would make his sum--not all that has been written since, added to all that was written before, would equal his.

There was nothing within the range of human thought, within the horizon of intellectual effort, that he did not touch. He knew the brain and heart of man--the theories, customs, superstitions, hopes, fears, hatreds, vices and virtues of the human race.

He knew the thrills and ecstasies of love, the savage joys of hatred and revenge. He heard the hiss of envy's snakes and watched the eagles of ambition soar. There was no hope that did not put its star above his head--no fear he had not felt--no joy that had not shed its sunshine on his face. He experienced the emotions of mankind. He was the intellectual spendthrift of the world. He gave with the generosity, the extravagance, of madness.

Read one play, and you are impressed with the idea that the wealth of the brain of a god has been exhausted--that there are no more comparisons, no more passions to be expressed, no more definitions, no more philosophy, beauty, or sublimity to be put in words--and yet, the next play opens as fresh as the dewy gates of another day.

The outstretched wings of his imagination filled the sky. He was the intellectual crown o' the earth.

V.

THE plays of Shakespeare show so much knowledge, thought and learning, that many people--those who imagine that universities furnish capacity--contend that Bacon must have been the author.

We know Bacon. We know that he was a scheming politician, a courtier, a time-server of church and king, and a corrupt judge. We know that he never admitted the truth of the Copernican system--that he was doubtful whether instruments were of any advantage in scientific investigation--that he was ignorant of the higher branches of mathematics, and that, as a matter of fact, he added but little to the knowledge of the world. When he was more than sixty years of age he turned his attention to poetry, and dedicated his verses to George Herbert.

If you will read these verses you will say that the author of "Lear" and "Hamlet" did not write them.

Bacon dedicated his work on the _Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human_, to James I., and in his dedication he stated that there had not been, since the time of Christ, any king or monarch so learned in all erudition, divine or human. He placed James the First before Marcus Aurelius and all other kings and emperors since Christ, and concluded by saying that James the First had "the power and fortune of a king, the illumination of a priest, the learning and universality of a philosopher." This was written of James the First, described by Macaulay as a "stammering, slobbering, trembling coward, whose writings were deformed by the grossest and vilest superstitions--witches being the special objects of his fear, his hatred, and his persecution."

It seems to have been taken for granted that if Shakespeare was not the author of the great dramas, Lord Bacon must have been.

It has been claimed that Bacon was the greatest philosopher of his time. And yet in reading his works we find that there was in his mind a strange mingling of foolishness and philosophy. He takes pains to tell us, and to write it down for the benefit of posterity, that "snow is colder than water, because it hath more spirit in it, and that quicksilver is the coldest of all metals, because it is the fullest of spirit."

He stated that he hardly believed that you could contract air by putting opium on top of the weather glass, and gave the following reason:

"I conceive that opium and the like make spirits fly rather by malignity than by cold."

This great philosopher gave the following recipe for staunching blood:

"Thrust the part that bleedeth into the body of a capon, new ripped and bleeding. This will staunch the blood. The blood, as it seemeth, sucking and drawing up by similitude of substance the blood it meeteth with, and so itself going back."

The philosopher also records this important fact: "Divers witches among heathen and Christians have fed upon man's flesh to aid, as it seemeth, their imagination with high and foul vapors."

Lord Bacon was not only a philosopher, but he was a biologist, as appears from the following:

"As for living creatures, it is certain that their vital spirits are a substance compounded of an airy and flamy matter, and although air and flame being free will not mingle, yet bound in by a body that hath some fixing, will."

Now and then the inventor of deduction reasons by analogy. He says:

"As snow and ice holpen, and their cold activated by nitre or salt, will turn water into ice, so it may be it will turn wood or stiff clay into stone."

Bacon seems to have been a believer in the transmutation of metals, and solemnly gives a formula for changing silver or copper into gold. He also believed in the transmutation of plants, and had arrived at such a height in entomology that he informed the world that "insects have no blood."

It is claimed that he was a great observer, and as evidence of this he recorded the wonderful fact that "tobacco cut and dried by the fire loses weight" that "bears in the winter wax fat in sleep, though they eat nothing" that "tortoises have no bones" that "there is a kind of stone, if ground and put in water where cattle drink, the cows will give more milk" that "it is hard to cure a hurt in a Frenchman's head, but easy in his leg;" that "it is hard to cure a hurt in an Englishman's leg, but easy in his head;" that "wounds made with brass weapons are easier to cure than those made with iron;" that "lead will multiply and increase, as in statues buried in the ground" and that "the rainbow touching anything causeth a sweet smell."

Bacon seems also to have turned his attention to ornithology, and says that "eggs laid in the full of the moon breed better birds," and that "you can make swallows white by putting ointment on the eggs before they are hatched."

He also informs us "that witches cannot hurt kings as easily as they can common people" that "perfumes dry and strengthen the brain" that "any one in the moment of triumph can be injured by another who casts an envious eye, and the injury is greatest when the envious glance comes from the oblique eye."

Lord Bacon also turned his attention to medicine, and he states that "bracelets made of snakes are good for curing cramps" that "the skin of a wolf might cure the colic, because a wolf has great digestion" that "eating the roasted brains of hens and hares strengthens the memory" that "if a woman about to become a mother eats a good many quinces and considerable coriander seed, the child will be ingenious," and that "the moss which groweth on the skull of an unburied dead man is good for staunching blood."

He expresses doubt, however, "as to whether you can cure a wound by putting ointment on the weapon that caused the wound, instead of on the wound itself."

It is claimed by the advocates of the Baconian theory that their hero stood at the top of science; and yet "it is absolutely certain that he was ignorant of the law of the acceleration of falling bodies, although the law had been made known and printed by Galileo thirty years before Bacon wrote upon the subject. Neither did this great man understand the principle of the lever. He was not acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes, and as a matter of fact was ill-read in those branches of learning in which, in his time, the most rapid progress had been made."

After Kepler discovered his third law, which was on the 15th of May, 1618, Bacon was more than ever opposed to the Copernican system. This great man was far behind his own time, not only in astronomy, but in mathematics. In the preface to the "De-scriptio Globi Intellectualis," it is admitted either that Bacon had never heard of the correction of the parallax, or was unable to understand it. He complained on account of the want of some method for shortening mathematical calculations; and yet "Napier's Logarithms" had been printed nine years before the date of his complaint.

He attempted to form a table of specific gravities by a rude process of his own, a process that no one has ever followed; and he did this in spite of the fact that a far better method existed.

We have the right to compare what Bacon wrote with what it is claimed Shakespeare produced. I call attention to one thing--to Bacon's opinion of human love. It is this:

"The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man. As to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies and now and then of tragedies, but in life it doth much mischief--sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. Amongst all the great and worthy persons there is not one that hath been transported to the mad degree of love, which shows that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion."

The author of "Romeo and Juliet" never wrote that.

It seems certain that the author of the wondrous Plays was one of the noblest of men.

Let us see what sense of honor Bacon had.

In writing commentaries on certain passages of Scripture, Lord Bacon tells a courtier, who has committed some offence, how to get back into the graces of his prince or king. Among other things he tells him not to appear too cheerful, but to assume a very grave and modest face; not to bring the matter up himself; to be extremely industrious, so that the prince will see that it is hard to get along without him; also to get his friends to tell the prince or king how badly he, the courtier, feels; and then he says, all these failing, "let him contrive to transfer the fault to others."

It is true that we know but little of Shakespeare, and consequently do not positively know that he did not have the ability to write the Plays--but we do know Bacon, and we know that he could not have written these Plays--consequently, they must have been written by a comparatively unknown man--that is to say, by a man who was known by no other writings. The fact that we do not know Shakespeare, except through the Plays and Sonnets, makes it possible for us to believe that he was the author.

Some people have imagined that the Plays were written by several--but this only increases the wonder, and adds a useless burden to credulity.

Bacon published in his time all the writings that he claimed. Naturally, he would have claimed his best. Is it possible that Bacon left the wondrous children of his brain on the door-step of Shakespeare, and kept the deformed ones at home? Is it possible that he fathered the failures and deserted the perfect?

Of course, it is wonderful that so little has been found touching Shakespeare--but is it not equally wonderful, if Bacon was the author, that not a line has been found in all his papers, containing a suggestion, or a hint, that he was the writer of these Plays? Is it not wonderful that no fragment of any scene--no line--no word--has been found?

Some have insisted that Bacon kept the authorship secret because it was disgraceful to write Plays. This argument does not cover the Sonnets--and besides, one who had been stripped of the robes of office for receiving bribes as a judge, could have borne the additional disgrace of having written "Hamlet." The fact that Bacon did not claim to be the author, demonstrates that he was not. Shakespeare claimed to be the author, and no one in his time or day denied the claim. This demonstrates that he was.

Bacon published his works, and said to the world: This is what I have done.

Suppose you found in a cemetery a monument erected to John Smith, inventor of the Smith-churn, and suppose you were told that Mr. Smith provided for the monument in his will, and dictated the inscription--would it be possible to convince you that Mr. Smith was also the inventor of the locomotive and telegraph?

Bacon's best can be compared with Shakespeare's common, but Shakespeare's best rises above Bacon's best, like a domed temple above a beggar's hut.

VI.

OF course it is admitted that there were many dramatists before and during the time of Shakespeare--but they were only the foot hills of that mighty peak the top of which the clouds and mists still hide. Chapman and Marlowe, Heywood and Jonson, Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher wrote some great lines, and in the monotony of declamation now and then is found a strain of genuine music--but all of them together constituted only a herald of Shakespeare. In all these Plays there is but a hint, a prophecy, of the great drama destined to revolutionize the poetic thought of the world.

Shakespeare was the greatest of poets. What Greece and Rome produced was great until his time. "Lions make leopards tame."

The great poet is a great artist. He is painter and sculptor. The greatest pictures and statues have been painted and chiseled with words. They outlast all others. All the galleries of the world are poor and cheap compared with the statues and pictures in Shakespeare's book.

Language is made of pictures represented by sounds. The outer world is a dictionary of the mind, and the artist called the soul uses this dictionary of things to express what happens in the noiseless and invisible world of thought. First a sound represents something in the outer world, and afterwards something in the inner, and this sound at last is represented by a mark, and this mark stands for a picture, and every brain is a gallery, and the artists--that is to say, the souls--exchange pictures and statues.

All art is of the same parentage. The poet uses words--makes pictures and statues of sounds. The sculptor expresses harmony, proportion, passion, in marble; the composer, in music; the painter in form and color. The dramatist expresses himself not only in words, not only paints these pictures, but he expresses his thought in action.

Shakespeare was not only a poet, but a dramatist, and expressed the ideal, the poetic, not only in words, but in action. There are the wit, the humor, the pathos, the tragedy of situation, of relation. The dramatist speaks and acts through others--his personality is lost. The poet lives in the world of thought and feeling, and to this the dramatist adds the world of action. He creates characters that seem to act in accordance with their own natures and independently of him. He compresses lives into hours, tells us the secrets of the heart, shows us the springs of action--how desire bribes the judgment and corrupts the will--how weak the reason is when passion pleads, and how grand it is to stand for right against the world.

It is not enough to say fine things,--great things, dramatic things, must be done.

Let me give you an illustration of dramatic incident accompanying the highest form of poetic expression:

Macbeth having returned from the murder of Duncan says to his wife:

"Methought I heard a voice cry: Sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep; the innocent sleep; Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast."...

"Still it cried: Sleep no more, to all the house, Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more--Macbeth shall sleep no more."

She exclaims:

"Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy Thane, you do unbend your noble strength To think so brain-sickly of things; get some water, And wash this filthy witness from your hand. Why did you bring the daggers from the place?"

Macbeth was so overcome with horror at his own deed, that he not only mistook his thoughts for the words of others, but was so carried away and beyond himself that he brought with him the daggers--the evidence of his guilt--the daggers that he should have left with the dead. This is dramatic.

In the same play, the difference of feeling before and after the commission of a crime is illustrated to perfection. When Macbeth is on his way to assassinate the king, the bell strikes, and he says, or whispers:

"Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell."

Afterward, when the deed has been committed, and a knocking is heard at the gate, he cries:

"Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst."

Let me give one more instance of dramatic action. When Antony speaks above the body of Cæsar he says:

"You all do know this mantle: I remember The first time ever Cæsar put it on-- 'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, That day he overcame the Nervii: Look! In this place ran Cassius' dagger through: See what a rent the envious Casca made! Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed, And as he plucked his cursed steel away, Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it."

VII.

THERE are men, and many of them, who are always trying to show that somebody else chiseled the statue or painted the picture,--that the poem is attributed to the wrong man, and that the battle was really won by a subordinate.