Part 6

Our belief in the pseudonymity of the author of the poems and plays, called Shakespeare, is strengthened by the absence of verse commemorative of concurrent events, such as the strivings of his boldest countrymen in the great Elizabethan age. There is, from his pen, neither word of cheer, nor sympathy, with the daring and suffering warriors and adventurers of that time, although his contemporaries versified eulogies to the heroes of those days for their stirring deeds. There is, in the poems and plays, no elegiac lay in memory of Elizabeth, “the glorious daughter of the illustrious Henry,” as Robert Greene calls her, nor is there one line of mourning verse at the death of Prince Henry, the noblest among the children of the king, by a writer who was always a strenuous and consistent supporter of prerogative against the conception of freedom. This is another evidence of the secrecy maintained as to the authorship of the poems and plays. We cannot discover a single laudatory poem or commendatory verse, or a line of praise of any publication, or writer of his time. All this is in contrast with his contemporaries, whose personalities are identifiable with their literary work, and, so liberal of commendation were they, that they literally showered commendatory verses on literary works of merit, or those thought to have merit. Of these, thirty-five were bestowed on Fletcher, a score or more on Beaumont, Chapman and Ford, while Massinger received nineteen. Ben Jonson’s published works contain thirty-seven pieces of commendation. His Roman tragedy, “Sejanus,” was acclaimed by ten contemporary poets. In praise of his comedy, “Volpone,” there are seven poems. The versified compliments bestowed on him by his fellow craftsmen embrace many of the most celebrated names antecedent to his death, which occurred in 1637. Early in 1638 a collection of some thirty elegies were published under the title of “Jonsonus Virbius,” or “The Memory of Ben Jonson,” in which nearly all the leading poets of the day, except Milton, took part.

It must appear strange to the votaries of Shakspere that Jonson should have received so many crowns of mourning verse, while for Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon, the reputed author of “Hamlet,” “Lear” and “Macbeth,” there wailed no dirge. Not a single commendatory verse was bestowed by a contemporary poet antecedent to his death, nor was a single elegiac poem written of him in the year of his death, 1616. Already in that fatal year there had been mourning for Francis Beaumont, who received immediate posthumous honors by many poets, in memorial odes, sighing forth the requiem to his name in mournful elegy.

Eight and forty days after the death of Francis Beaumont, all that was mortal of William Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon was buried in the chancel of his parish church, in which, as part owner of the tithes and consequently one of the lay rectors, he had the right of interment. Over the spot where his body was laid, there was placed a slab with the inscription imprecating a curse on the man who should disturb his bones,

“Good friend, for Jesus sake forbeare To digg the dust enclosed here Bless be ye man yt spares this stown And curst be he yt moves my bones.”

This rude, absurd and ignorant epitaph has given much trouble to writers on the subject of Shakespeare. The usual explanation of the threat is given that the Puritans thought that the church had been profaned by the ashes of an actor. These ignorant words could not have been written as a deterrent to the Puritans, for they did not belong to the ignorant section of the population, but to the middle class, nor would they have been deterred from invading Shakspere’s tomb by the superstitious fear of a threat contained in doggerel verse cut on the tomb. There was not the least danger that the actor’s grave would be violated by the Puritans, for Dr. John Hall, Shakspere’s son-in-law, was a Puritan. If he had had this warning epitaph cut on the tomb it would have been written in scholarly English. The doggerel lines, rude as they are, satisfied, doubtless, the widow and daughters, themselves ignorant. The most pleasing epitaph, it seems to us, would have been one expressing a known wish of their “dear departed” in words, when read by others, that would best suit their understandings, for the Shakspere family were uncultured. They could not read the stupid epitaph on his tomb, and so their hearts were not saddened as they gazed upon an inscription of barbaric rudeness.

Some slight circumstance may have given rise to William Hall’s conjecture, during his visit to Stratford, in 1694, that Shakspere authored his own epitaph, and that these lines were written to suit the capacity of clerks and sextons, who, according to Hall, in course of time would have removed Shakspere’s dust to the bone house. This is not improbable from the point of view taken by those who believe that Shakspere of Stratford wrote the doggerel epigram on John Combe, money lender, and the vituperative ballad abusing the gentleman whose park he (Shakspere) robbed, for the three compositions are of the same grade of ignorant nonsense. But we do know that had the author of “Hamlet” written his own epitaph, it would have been as deathless as the one over the Countess of Pembroke:

“Underneath this sable hearst Lies the subject of all verse Sidney’s sister—Pembroke’s mother Death, ere thou hast slain another Learned and fair and good as she Time shall throw a dart at thee.”

It should be borne in mind that clerks and sextons were not the only ignorant people in and about Stratford. There were some that had a grievance, or thought they had, which parish clerks and sextons had not. We have reference to the poor debtors, who regarded Shakspere of Stratford as a grasping usurer, hard upon poor people in his power, so the curse inscribed slab was placed over Shakspere’s grave as a shield to protect his ashes from those who would not hesitate to invade the tomb of one whose memory had become hateful to them. If in pressing his claim the money lender elects to be a tormentor, his name will be execrated while living and a hateful memory when dead.

One thing is evidenced by the maledictory epitaph; that the one who wrote it was afraid the tomb might be violated by the removal of the bones to the charnel house. Who were they that would most likely invade Shakspere’s tomb? Obviously those, we repeat, who regarded him as a hard-hearted man, who pressed poor debtors with all the rigor of the law to enforce the payment of petty sums; the man who had shown himself supremely selfish in an attempt to enclose the Stratford common field; the man who would be made “a gentleman” by misrepresentation, fraud and falsehood. The foregoing facts, and the legal and municipal evidence bound up in dusty records, a bogus coat-of-arms, and a rude epitaph, tell the true story of the life of William Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon.

There is no record of any pretended living likeness of Shakspere better representing him than the Stratford bust. This bust is erected on the north side of the chancel of Holy Trinity Church at Stratford-on-Avon. On the floor of the chancel in front of the monument are the graves of Shakspere and his family. We have no means of ascertaining when the monument and bust were erected. The first folio edition of his reputed works was published in 1623. It contained words from Leonard Diggs prefatory lines “and time dissolves thy Stratford moniment,” monument being used interchangeably with tomb; but these words do not prove that the bust was set up before 1623. His image was rudely cut, sensual and clownish in appearance.

There is not a tittle of evidence adduced to show that a knowledge of Shakspere’s putative authorship of poems and plays was current at Stratford when the first folio edition of his reputed works was published in 1623. The records attest that Shakspere’s fame reputatively as writer is posterior to this event. How strange it must seem to those who claim for Shakspere an established reputation as poet and dramatist of repute anterior to the first folio edition in 1623, that Dr. Hall, himself an author and most advantaged of all the heirs by Shakspere’s death, should fail to mention his father-in-law in his “cure-book” or observations! The earliest dated cure is 1617, the year following Shakspere’s death, but there are undated ones. In “Obs. XIX.” Hall mentions without date an illness of his wife, Mrs. Hall; and we find him making a note long afterwards in reference to his only daughter, Elizabeth, who was saved by her father’s skill and patience. “Thus was she delivered from death and deadly diseases and was well for many years.” The illness of Drayton is recorded without date in “Obs. XXII.,” with its wee bit of a literary biography, and he is referred to as “Mr. Drayton, an excellent poet.” Had Shakspere received a like mention as a poet or writer by one who knew him so intimately, what a delicious morsel it would have been to all those who have followed the literary antiquarian through the dreary barren waste of Shakespearean research. We have found nothing but husks, and these, eulogists of Shakespeare—Hallam, Stevens and Emerson—refused to crunch! For nearly three centuries the Stratford archives have contained all matters concerning Shakspere’s life and character, and have given us full knowledge of the man; nothing has been lost; but of his alleged literary life, there is not a crumb, no family traditions, no books, no manuscripts, no letters, no commendatory verses, plays, masques or anthology.

The biographers of Shakespeare have none of the material out of which poets and dramatists are made, but only those facts which are congruous with money lenders, land speculators, play-brokers and actors; also, a good assortment of apocryphal stores and gossipy yarns which have become traditional currency. According to Mark Twain there is something more. He says, “When we find a vague file of chipmunk tracks stringing through the dust of Stratford village we know that Hercules has been along.” Again he proceeds, “The bust, too, there in the Stratford church, the precious bust, the calm bust with a dandy mustache, and the putty face unseamed with care—that face which has looked passionlessly down upon the awed pilgrim for a hundred and fifty years, and will look down upon the awed pilgrim three hundred more with the deep, deep, deep, subtle, subtle, subtle expression of a bladder.”

Not having found the slightest trace of Shakespeare in 1592 as writer of plays, or as adapter or elaborator of other men’s work, his advent into literature must have been at a later date, if at all. In 1593 “Venus and Adonis” appeared in print with a dedication to Lord Southampton, and signed “William Shakespeare.” In 1594 appeared another poem, “Lucrece,” also with a dedication to Lord Southampton. The poems bore no name of an author on the title page. Here is literary tangibility, but does it establish the identity of their author, or attest the responsibility of the young Stratford man for the poems which were published under the name of Shakespeare? This was the first mention of the now famous name? Was it a pseudonym, or was it the true name of the author of the poem? The enthusiastic reception of the poems awakens a suspicion when we learn that their popularity was due to a belief in their lasciviency; and that the dedicatee was the rakish Henry Wriothesley, third Earle of Southampton; and, furthermore, that the name of the dedicator, “Shakespeare,” was one of a class of nicknames which in 1593 still retained in some measure that which was derisive in them. In 1487 a student at Oxford changed his own name of “Shakespeare” into “Saunders,” because he considered it too expressive and distinctive of rough manners, and significant of degradation, and as such was unwilling to aid in its hereditary transmission, when all that is derisive in the name Shakspere remained fixed and fossilized in the old meaning. In those unlettered times, lascivious persons were sometimes branded, so to speak, with the nickname “Shakspere.” Primarily, the name has no militant signification. There is no such personal name in any known list of British surnames. They are of the parvenu class without ancestry.

Mr. Sidney Lee admits that the Earle of Southampton is the only patron of Shakspere that is known to biographical research (p. 126). By what fact, or facts, may we ask, is the authenticity of the Earl’s friendship or patronage attested? Southampton was the standing patron of all the poets, the stock-dedicatee of those days. It was the fashion of the times to pester him with dedications by poets grave and gay. They were after those five or six pounds, which custom constrained his Lordship to yield for having his name enshrined in poet’s lines. All the poets of that age were dependents, and there is, with few exceptions, the same display of pharisaic sycophancy, greediness, and on the part of dedicatee an inordinate desire for adulation. Every student of Elizabethan literature and history should know that the Southampton-Shakspere friendship cannot be traced biographically. The Earl of Southampton was a voluminous correspondent, but did not bear witness to his friendship for Shakspere. A scrutinous inspection of Southampton’s papers contained in the archives of his family, descendants and contemporaries, yields nothing in support of the contention that Southampton’s friendship, or patronage, is known to biographical research, and it is as attestative as that other apocryphal story preserved by Rowe “which is fast disappearing from Shakespearean biography.”

“There is one instance so singular in its munificence that if we had not been assured that the story was handed down by Sir William Davenant, who was probably very well acquainted with his affairs, we should not venture to have inserted that my Lord Southampton at one time gave him (Shakspere) a thousand pounds, to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to.” (Davenant was the man who gave out that he was the natural son of Shakspere). A present of a thousand pounds which equals at least twenty-five thousand dollars to-day! The magnitude of the gift discredits the story nevertheless, the startled Rowe, is the first to make it current, but does not give his readers the ground for his assurance. Be it what it may, he could hardly satisfy the modern reader that this man, a son, who insinuatingly defiles the name and fair fame of his own mother, is a credible witness, or that such a man is “fit for wolf bait.” What purchase did Shakspere “go through with?” Not New Place in 1597, for the purchase money was only sixty pounds. Neither could it have been the Stratford estate in 1602, for at that time Southampton was a prisoner in the Tower. In fact, the whole sum expended by Shakspere did not amount to a thousand pounds in all. The truth is, the social Rules of Tudor and Jacobin times did not permit peer and peasant to live on terms of mutual good feeling. Almost all the poets in hope of gain, penned adulatory sonnets in praise of Lord Southampton. In those times they had a summary way of dealing with humble citizens. Jonson, Chapman and Marston, were imprisoned for having displeased the king by a jest in “Eastward Ho,”—

“A nobleman to vindicate rank brought an action in the star-chamber against a person, who had orally addressed him as ‘Goodman Morley.’” The literati of those days found in scholastic learning, neither potency, nor promise, to abrogate class distinctions by giving a passport to high attainment in literature, poetry and philosophy. Ben Jonson says, “The time was when men were had in price for learning, now letters only make men vile. He is upbraidingly called a poet as if it were a contemptible nickname.”

Mr. Lee tells us, that the state papers and business correspondence of Southampton were enlivened by references to his literary interest and his sympathy with the birth of English Drama. (P. 316.). “However, Mr. Lee has extracted no reference to Shakspere from the paper.” Southampton’s zest for the theatre is based on the statement contained in the “Sidney Papers” that he and his friend Lord Rutland “come not to court but pass away the time merely in going to plays every day.” When a new library for his old college, St. Johns, was in course of construction, Southampton collected books to the value of three hundred and sixty pounds wherewith to furnish it. Southampton’s literary tastes and sympathy with the drama cannot be drawn from his gift to the library, for it consisted largely of legends of the saints and mediaeval chronicles. When and where did William Shakspere acknowledge his obligations to the only patron of the player? According to Mr. Lee, who is known to biographical research, not one of the Shakespearean plays was dedicated to Southampton. The name “Shakspere” is conspicuously absent from among the distinguished writers of his day, who in panegyrical speech and song acclaimed Southampton’s release from prison in 1602.

Francis Meres, a pedantic schoolmaster and Divinity student, had his “Palladis Tamia” registered September 7, 1598, and published shortly after. Meres in his “Tamia” writes of the mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare, and his “Venus and Adonis,” and his “Lucrece,” and his sugared sonnets to his friends, and enumerates twelve plays—though at the time three only had been published with his name. Like others of his contemporaries, Meres writes tritely of the honey-tongued, the honey sweet and the sugared. With him, everything written is mellifluent, but he says nothing of the man. In fact, no contemporary left on record any definite impression of Shakespeare’s personal character. Meres asserted that Ben Jonson was one of our best poets for tragedy, when at that time (1598) Jonson had not written a single tragedy, and but one comedy.

Before, we transcribe, in part, “Wits Treasury” by Francis Meres, we ask the readers’ pardon for this abuse of their patience, for Meres merely repeats names of Greek, Latin and modern play-makers. “As these tragic poets flourished in Greece—Aeschylus, Euripides” (in all seventeen are named and these among the Latin, Accius, M. Attilus, Seneca and several others). “So these are our best for tragedy; the Lord Buckhurst, Dr. Leg of Cambridge, Dr. Eds of Oxford, Master Edward Ferris—the author of the ‘Merriour for Magistrates,’—Marlowe, Peele, Watson, Kyd, Shakespeare, Drayton, Chapman, Decker and Benjamin Jonson. The best poets for comedy”—(Meres proceeds with his enumeration, naming sixteen Greeks and ten Latins, twenty-six in all.) “So the best for comedy amongst us be Edward, Earl of Oxford; Dr. Lager of Oxford; Master Rowley; Master Edwards: eloquent and wittie John Lilly; Lodge; Gascoyne; Greene; Shakespeare; Thomas Nash; Thomas Heywood; Anthony Munday. Our best plotters: Chapman, Porter, Wilson, Hathaway and Henry Chettle.”

Meres does not seem to have considered it necessary to read before reviewing. Had he done so he would not have placed the name of Lord Buckhurst first in his list, giving primacy to this mediocrist, and the author of “Romeo and Juliet,” whoever he was, ninth in his list of dramatic poets which he considered best among the English for tragedy; nor, would he have named for second place on the list Dr. Leg of Cambridge, instead of the author of “The Jew of Malta” (Marlowe). What has Dr. Eds of Oxford, whose name stands third in the Meres list, written that he should have been mentioned in the same connection with the author of “The White Devil” (Webster) or the author of that classic “The Conspiracy,” and “The Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron” (Chapman)? Why this commingling of such insignificant writers as Edward, Earl of Oxford, Lord Buckhurst, Drs. Lager and Leg, with the giant brotherhood? The fact is, so far as attesting the responsibility of anybody or anything, the Meres averments are as worthless as “a musty nut.” What was said of John Aubrey is also true of Francis Meres, “His brain was like a hasty pudding whose memory and judgment and fancy were all stirred together.” Yet this is the writer that many Shakespearean commentators confidently appeal to, in part, and whose testimony, in part, they, with equal unanimity impeach.

The slight mention of Shakespeare by the “judicious Webster,” as Hazlet calls him, comprehends no more than that Shakspere was one of the hack writers of the day: “detraction is the sworn friend to ignorance.” For mine own part I have ever truly cherished “my good opinion of other men’s worthy labours, especially of that full and heightened style of Master Chapman, the laboured and understanding works of Master Jonson, the no less worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont and Fletcher, and lastly (without wrong last to be named) the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker and Master Heywood.”

These words written by the third greatest of English tragic poets are very significant, for Webster wrote for the theatre to which Shakspere, the player and play-broker, belonged; yet industry is the only distinguishing mark in Shakspere which he must share with Dekker, and Heywood, hack writers for the stage. Dekker’s many plays attest his copious industry, when we remember that this writer spent three years in prison, and Heywood’s industry cannot be doubted for he claimed to have had a hand and main finger in two hundred twenty plays. Copious industry signifies to the reader the existence of an author not utterly unknown, it is true, but it fails to identify him as the author of the immortal plays. What shall we say then? Were the works called Shakespeare’s but little known? Shakspere’s biographers say that they were the talk of the town. If that is true, then the writer who was commended for industry was not regarded by Webster as the author of “Hamlet,” “Lear,” and “Macbeth,” for Shakespeare’s distinctive characteristics are not individualized from those of Dekker and Heywood, while those of Chapman, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher are. In the last four named is perfect interlacement of personality with authorship, but not so in Shakespeare.

John Webster’s judgment of his fellow craftsman was just, “I have ever truly cherished my good opinion of other men’s worthy labours.” Webster never conceals or misrepresents the truth by giving evasive, or equivocating, evidence. He reveals the judicial trait of his character in placing Chapman first among the poets then living, assuming that the name Shakespeare was used by printers and publishers, if not by writers, as an impersonal name, masking the name of a true poet. Sidney, Marlowe and Spencer had then descended to the tomb.

George Chapman’s name has not received due prominence in the modern hand-books of English literature, but he was a bright torch and numbered by his own generation, among the greatest of its poets. He, whom Webster calls the “Prince’s Sweet Homer” and “My Friend,” was not unduly honored by the “full and heightened style” which Webster makes characteristic of him. “Our Homer-Lucan,” as he was gracefully termed by Daniel, is a poet much admired by great men. Edmund Waller never could read Chapman’s Homer without a degree of transport. Barry is reputed to have said that when he went into the street after reading it, men seemed ten feet high; Coleridge declares Chapman’s version of the Odyssey to be as truly an original poem as the “Faerie Queene.” He also declares that Chapman in his moral heroic verse stands above Ben Jonson. “There is more dignity, more lustre, and equal strength.”