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 The Problem 
 
 OF THE 
 
 jmkespfatf $Ia#0 
 
 BY 
 
 George C. Bompas 
 
 LONDON 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, LIMITED 
 
 ffl DU1I6I.H1 i «)Ull'.l 
 
 Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C. 
 1902
 
 CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WH1TTINGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
 
 7 O 
 
 IH 
 
 THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 IN a letter which appeared in "The Times" on 28th 
 December, 1901, I suggested the following points re- 
 lating to the authorship of the Shakespeare plays, as deserv- 
 ing thoughtful consideration. 
 
 1. According to Halliwell-Phillipps, Shakspere's most 
 complete biographer, Shakspere, when he left Stratford at 
 the age of twenty-one or twenty-three, was " all but destitute 
 of polished accomplishments," and " could not have had the 
 opportunity of acquiring a refined style of composition." 
 
 2. There is no evidence that he was addicted to study, 
 but much to the contrary. 
 
 3. The plays show an acquaintance with Latin, Greek, 
 Italian, French and Spanish ; and with many works in these 
 different languages. 
 
 4. Also an exact knowledge of law, in its various branches, 
 and of medicine, natural history, horticulture and natural 
 philosophy, up to and beyond the limit of learning of the 
 age. 
 
 5. One man there was, of surpassing genius, who, by 
 laborious study, had acquired all these forms of knowledge. 
 Was there another who had attained exactly the same vari- 
 ous knowledge by intuition ? 
 
 6. Macaulay, Shelley and Spedding recognize that the 
 poetical faculty was powerful in Bacon's mind. He was also 
 devoted to the drama, and declared that " dramatic poesy 
 would be of excellent use if well directed, for the stage is 
 capable of no small use, both of discipline and corruption " ; 
 
 9S
 
 iv The Argument. 
 
 " a kind of musician's bow, by which men's minds may be 
 played upon." 
 
 7. The vocabulary of the plays is a new development of 
 English speech. Max Miiller declares that " Shakespeare 
 displayed a greater variety of expression than probably any 
 writer in any language." He estimated Milton's vocabulary 
 at 8,000 words; Shakespeare's at 15,000 words. Bacon's 
 vocabulary is practically the same as that of the Shakespeare 
 plays. 
 
 8. Not only the learning, but also the errors of the plays 
 are identical with those of Bacon's works. 
 
 9. Parallelisms of thought and expression exist through- 
 out the plays and Bacon's works, hard to explain save by 
 unity of authorship. More than a thousand of such parallel- 
 isms have been collected. 
 
 10. Bacon kept a notebook, containing over 1,600 quota- 
 tions, proverbs and turns of expression, called the " Promus 
 of Formularies and Elegancies." These are largely used in 
 the plays. 
 
 11. There is strong evidence that several of the plays 
 appeared before William Shakspere left Stratford. 
 
 12. The plays fit curiously into the life of Bacon, but 
 show scarcely a point of contact with Shakspere's life. The 
 scenes of nearly all the plays are foreign. The scenes of 
 several of the earlier plays are laid in France, where Bacon 
 had resided for two and a half years. Others, as " 3 
 Henry VI." and "Cymbeline," have their scenes at St. 
 Albans, Bacon's home. "The Merchant of Venice" was 
 acted when Anthony Bacon had just delivered his brother 
 Francis from the Jews. The " dark period " of the plays 
 coincides with the death of Essex and of Anthony Bacon in 
 1601. "The Tempest" appeared when the ships sent out 
 by the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery and Bacon 
 were wrecked at the Bermudas. " Henry VIII.," " Corio-
 
 The Argiiment. v 
 
 lanus " and " Timon " appeared seven years after Shak- 
 spere's death ; but, appropriately to their subjects, after 
 Bacon's fall. 
 
 13. The death of William Shakspere in 16 16, leaving 
 neither books nor manuscripts, did not stop the production 
 of new plays, nor prevent the rewriting of old ones : but 
 when Bacon became Solicitor-General in 1607 the plays 
 diminished ; and when he was appointed Attorney-General 
 in 1 613 they ceased ; but to be resumed after his fall in 1621. 
 
 14. Two arguments support William Shakspere's claims. 
 First, common repute ; but we learn from Greene's " Fare- 
 well to Folly," that it was the practice of play-writers of 
 " calling and gravity " to "get some other to set their names 
 to their verses." 
 
 15. The main, nay, the sole substantial argument is the 
 Folio of 1623 and Ben Jonson's preface. But Ben Jonson 
 up to 1616, the year of Shakspere's death, was bitterly 
 jealous of him, and lost no opportunity of a sneer. In 
 1620 he became Bacon's literary assistant in latinizing 
 Bacon's works, and suddenly became a worshipper of the 
 author of the plays, expressing the same profound admira- 
 tion which he also expressed for Bacon, and in similar 
 terms. Ben Jonson was the chief editor of the Folio- 
 Heminge and Condell appear to have been nominal editors, 
 seeking no profit and undertaking no charges. But Jonson 
 was, at the same time, Bacon's literary assistant. The Folio 
 must, therefore, have been published with Bacon's know- 
 ledge, and it may well have been under his control. 
 
 If the publication of the Folio was, in fact, controlled by 
 Bacon, the presumption of authorship may be reversed ! 
 
 In the following pages endeavour is made to give to these 
 several points some of the consideration they deserve. 
 
 GEORGE C. BOMPAS. 
 
 LONDON, February, 1902.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I'AGK 
 
 I. The Problem i 
 
 II. William Shakspere's Life and Education . 5 
 
 III. Francis Bacon's Life and Education . . 17 
 
 IV. Comparison of the Plays with Bacon's Prose 
 
 Works 23 
 
 V. The "Promus" 37 
 
 VI. Comparison of the Plays with Bacon's Life . 42 
 
 VII. "Hamlet" 49 
 
 VIII. "Twelfth Night," "Love's Labour's Lost," 
 "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and "Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream " 59 
 
 IX. Historical Plays, 1591 64 
 
 X. "Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece," 1 593- 1 594 68 
 XI. The "Comedy of Errors" and Other Plays, 
 
 1 594- 1600 73 
 
 XII. The Dark Period, 1601-1606 .... 82 
 
 XIII. Bacon's Late Prosperity, 1606-1620 ... 85 
 
 XIV. Bacon's Fall, 1621 89 
 
 XV. Contemporary Allusions 93 
 
 XVI. The Folio of 1623 98 
 
 XVII. Ruts in the Clouds 107 
 
 XVIII. Conclusion 11 1 
 
 Index 117
 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF THE 
 SHAKESPEARE PLAYS. 
 
 The Inquirie of Truth, which is the Love-making or Wooing of it ; 
 the knowledge of Truth, which is the Presence of it ; and the Beleefe 
 of Truth, which is the Enjoying of it ; is the Sovereigne Good of 
 humane nature. — Francis Bacon, Essay of Truth. 
 
 I. THE PROBLEM. 
 
 THE most interesting, perhaps, of literary problems, and 
 not the least intricate, is that of the authorship of the 
 Shakespeare plays. 
 
 That the plays, or most of them, were attributed to 
 William Shakspere ' in his lifetime is not doubted, nor that 
 this gave him a high reputation with many of his con- 
 temporaries. Yet the difficulty of reconciling the production 
 of works of such consummate genius, and such various 
 knowledge, with the known facts of Shakspere's life, has 
 been profoundly felt by many thoughtful men. 
 
 Many of the keenest intellects of the last century have 
 expressed their doubts of Shakspere's authorship of the plays. 
 
 Lord Byron and Lord Palmerston shared these doubts ; 
 Hallam sought in vain the true author. Lord Beaconsficld 
 in 1837 put the same doubt in the mouth of one of the char- 
 acters in " Venctia." " And who is Shakespeare ? We know 
 
 1 " Shakespeare," is the spelling used throughout when referring to 
 the plays; "Shakspere" for the reputed author. 
 
 I'.
 
 2 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 as much of him as we do of Homer. Did he write half the 
 plays attributed to him? Did he write one whole play? I 
 doubt it." In 1852 appeared in "Chambers' Edinburgh 
 Journal" the first English essay on "Who wrote Shake- 
 speare?" expressing the same doubts. In 1856 Delia Bacon 
 in America questioned Shakspere's claim. Nathaniel Haw- 
 thorne aided the publication of her book, and wrote its 
 preface. In the same year William Henry Smith wrote his 
 letter to Lord Ellesmere, and in 1857 a short treatise pointing 
 out Francis Bacon as the probable author. Lord Campbell 
 in 1859 elaborately showed that the author must have been a 
 trained lawyer, which there is no evidence that Shakspere was 
 or could have been. In 1867 Judge Holmes in America, in 
 1883 Mrs. Pott in England, advocated Francis Bacon's title 
 to the authorship of the plays. James Russell Lowell speaks 
 of " the apparition known to moderns as Shakespeare." 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote : " I would not be surprised 
 to find myself ranged with Mrs. Pott and Judge Holmes on 
 the side of the philosopher against the play-actor." John 
 G. Whittier wrote : " Whether Bacon wrote the wonderful 
 plays or not, I am quite sure the man Shakspere neither did 
 nor could." Sir Edwin Arnold argues for Bacon's author- 
 ship. Gladstone stated thus his opinion : " Considering 
 what Bacon was, I have always regarded the discussion as 
 one perfectly serious and to be respected " ; and John 
 Bright said bluntly : " Any man who believes that William 
 Shakspere of Stratford wrote ' Hamlet ' or ' Lear ' is a fool ! " 
 
 Excepting William Shakspere, if he was the author of 
 these plays, the most towering intellect of that age was 
 Francis Bacon, who had, Macaulay writes, " the most 
 exquisitely constructed intellect that has ever been be- 
 stowed on any of the children of men " ; and whom Hallam 
 styles " the wisest and greatest of mankind." 
 
 If William Shakspere did not write the plays, no other
 
 The Problem. 3 
 
 than Francis Bacon could be suggested, as having the various 
 attainments possessed by their author. The problem to 
 be solved therefore is — Was William Shakspere, or Francis 
 Bacon the true author of these plays ? 
 
 To examine the question thus arising, to weigh impartially 
 the evidence on both sides, is a deeply interesting inquiry ; 
 yet the inquiry is by most men treated with scorn : and not- 
 withstanding the eminent doubters just named, and many 
 others, Mr. Sidney Lee, Shakspere's recent and very able 
 biographer, ventures to pronounce that the theory of Bacon's 
 authorship of the plays has " no rational right to a 
 hearing " ! 
 
 The arts of criticism and of historic inquiry, and also 
 the just appreciation of the genius of the plays, are of 
 modern growth ; no wonder, therefore, that the authorship 
 of the plays has until lately remained unquestioned. Evelyn 
 in 1 66 1 reports that the plays "begin to disgust the present 
 age." Pepys described " Midsummer Night's Dream " as 
 the " most insipid, ridiculous " play, and " Romeo and 
 Juliet " the " worst " he had ever seen, and " Twelfth 
 Night" as "silly." Hume charged both Shakspere and 
 Bacon with " defective taste and elegance." Addison found 
 the plays "very faulty." Dr. Johnson declared that Shak- 
 spere had not perhaps produced " one play which, as the 
 work of a contemporary writer, would be heard to the 
 conclusion." Dryden considered Shakspere as "below the 
 dullest writers of our own or any precedent age." From 
 the beginning of the eighteenth century Shakspere's reputa- 
 tion steadily rose in England. Lessing in Germany claimed 
 for him in 1759 the first place. But Voltaire in 1776 
 described Shakspere as a barbarian, whose works, "a huge 
 dunghill," contained some pearls ! 
 
 The genius of these plays is now everywhere acknow- 
 ledged ; yet few, comparatively, seem aware of the existence
 
 4 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 of a problem concerning their authorship, and fewer still of 
 the evidence relating to it. To gather up and present con- 
 cisely this evidence and weigh its effect is the task before 
 us, and all who love the plays should welcome the inquiry. 
 
 An impartial hearing is invited from all who sincerely 
 seek truth, and say with Polonius : " I will find out where 
 truth is hid, though it were hid indeed in the centre." ' To 
 such "Truth will come to light — in the end truth will out." 
 
 First, then, it has been said that the doubts are unfounded, 
 for that the powers of genius cannot be limited, and that the 
 genius of the author of the plays was unrivalled. A wide 
 sympathy with humanity, an intuition of character may be 
 allowed, but the character of the plays should have some 
 correspondence with the character of the man, and there is 
 no royal road to learning. 
 
 Suppose while the authorship of the Waverley Novels, 
 works of undoubted genius, remained a mystery, someone 
 had announced that the greatest genius in Scotland was 
 Robert Burns, that he therefore wrote the Waverley Novels, 
 would anyone have believed it ? Robert Burns, an illiterate 
 ploughman, notwithstanding his undoubted genius, "warb- 
 ling his native wood-notes wild," could not have written the 
 novels. These showed evidence of high education, of varied 
 knowledge of law, history, archaeology and geography, and 
 of society modern and mediaeval, which no illiterate genius 
 could possess. The novels reflected the life, not of Robert 
 Burns, but of Walter Scott. 
 
 A similar incoherence exists between the life of William 
 Shakspere and the plays which bear his name ; a like con- 
 sonance may be found between those plays and the life and 
 intellect of Bacon. 
 
 The genius of the plays is admitted, and also the variety, 
 the universality of the knowledge they display. What 
 1 "Hamlet," II. ii. 157. 2 "Merchant of Venice," II. ii.
 
 Shakspere s Life and Education. 5 
 
 branch indeed of knowledge is there which they do not 
 illustrate, up to the limit of the attainment of that age. 
 
 Treatises have been written upon the knowledge shown in 
 the plays of law, medicine, trees, flowers, natural history and 
 philosophy. They show a knowledge of Latin, which per- 
 vades the language of the plays, and of many Latin authors, 
 of Plautus and Tacitus, Virgil, Horace, Ovid and others ; 
 of Greek, of Plato and Lucian ; to which Malone adds Lu- 
 cretius, Statius, Catullus, Seneca, Sophocles and Euripides ; 
 a colloquial knowledge of French ; an intimate knowledge of 
 Italian language and literature, from which, and often from 
 untranslated novels, so many of the plays are taken ; an ac- 
 quaintance with Spanish, from which one play and many 
 sayings are derived ; and generally a wide knowledge of 
 literature, both classical and contemporary, English and 
 foreign. 
 
 One man then lived, of surpassing genius, who took all 
 knowledge for his province, who by laborious study had 
 attained and possessed all this various knowledge. 
 
 Was there another, who had also attained it, by intuition ? 
 
 To form any judgment the facts of Shakspere's life must 
 be considered. 
 
 II. WILLIAM SHAKSPERE'S LIFE AND 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE was born at Stratford on 
 22nd or 23rd April, 1564. 
 His father, John Shakspere, was a well-to-do tradesman at 
 Stratford, a glover, corn and hide merchant, and butcher. 
 The rudeness which surrounded William Shakspere's child- 
 hood is shown by his father being fined twelve pence in 
 1552 for maintaining a dirt heap in front of his house in
 
 6 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 Henley Street, instead of removing the filth to the neigh- 
 bouring town-midden. The Stratford archives are said by 
 Mr. Sidney Lee to show that John Shakspere could write, but 
 this is doubted by Halliwell-Phillipps, and he seems usually 
 to have only made his mark ; he had, however, some skill 
 in accounts, and held in succession various municipal offices, 
 until in 1585 he fell into debt and difficulty. 1 
 
 His mother, Mary Shakspere, though " well provided with 
 worldly goods, was apparently without education; several 
 extant documents bear her mark, and there is no proof that 
 she could sign her name." 2 
 
 There can be little doubt that William Shakspere went for 
 some years to the free grammar school of Stratford, for he 
 did learn to write. At that school, in ordinary course, he 
 would learn reading and writing and the rudiments of Latin. 
 Of his writing five signatures alone remain, and these are 
 the only certain evidence of the tuition he received, a 
 tuition in this respect certainly imperfect or carelessly used. 
 It is indeed hard to believe that the writer of those five 
 crabbed signatures could have been a fluent and prolific 
 author. 
 
 " The best authorities unite in telling us," his biographer 
 Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps writes/ 1 "that the poet imbibed a 
 certain amount of Latin at school, but that his acquaintance 
 with that language was throughout life of a very limited 
 character." "It is not probable that scholastic learning was 
 ever congenial to his tastes ; and it should be recollected 
 that books, in most parts of the country, were then of very 
 rare occurrence. Lilly's grammar, and a few classical works 
 chained to the desks of the free school, were probably the 
 
 1 " Life of Shakespeare," by Sidney Lee, p. 5 ; Halliwell-Phillipps, 
 "Outlines of Life of Shakespeare," ii. p. 369. 
 '■* Lee, p. 7 ; Halliwell-Phillipps, i. p. 28. 
 1 Halliwell-Phillipps, i. p. 53.
 
 Shakspere s Life and Education. 7 
 
 only volumes of the kind to be found at Stratford-on-Avon. 
 Exclusive of Bibles, Church services, psalters and educational 
 manuals, there were certainly not more than two or three 
 dozen books, if so many, in the whole town. The copy of 
 the black-letter English history, so often depicted as well 
 thumbed by Shakspere and his father, never existed out of 
 imagination." 
 
 English was but little taught in such schools. The first Eng- 
 lish grammar was not published until 1586, some years after 
 William Shakspere left school. 1 Neither Italian nor Spanish 
 would be taught at all. 
 
 He probably left school about 1577, at the age of thirteen, 
 when his father's failing fortunes required the son's help in 
 his then trade of butcher, to which more than one tradition 
 recorded by Aubrey and Dowdall assert the son was ap- 
 prenticed. 2 
 
 There is no evidence that the boy was addicted to study, 
 by which stores of varied knowledge could be acquired. His 
 course of life seems rather that of an idle youth, caring 
 neither for honesty, morality, nor good character. 
 
 A popular local legend attached to a tree long shown as 
 " Shakspere's crab tree " described him as sleeping off under 
 it the effects of a hard drinking bout with the neighbouring 
 village of Bidford. 
 
 " The independent testimony of Archdeacon Davies, who 
 was vicar of Sapperton, Gloucestershire, late in the seven- 
 teenth century, is to the effect that Shakspere was much 
 given to all unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits, par- 
 ticularly from Sir Thos. Lucy, who had him oft whipt, and 
 sometimes imprisoned, and at last made him fly his native- 
 county, to his great advancement." ' 
 
 Rowe in 1709 gives a like account. 
 
 Deerstealers were then subject to three months' imprison- 
 
 1 Goadby, p. 101. 2 Lcc, p. 18. ■ Ibid., p. 27.
 
 8 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 ment, but such seclusion was hardly favourable to study, or 
 to a refinement of language. 
 
 " Removed prematurely from school ; residing with illit- 
 erate relatives in a bookless neighbourhood ; thrown into 
 the midst of occupations adverse to scholastic progress, it is 
 difficult," Halliwell-Phillipps writes, " to believe that when he 
 first left Stratford, he was not all but destitute of polished 
 accomplishments. He could not, at all events under the 
 circumstances in which he had then so long been placed, 
 have had the opportunity of acquiring a refined style of 
 composition." 1 
 
 The same writer supposes that in London the youth 
 would find the means of self-education. It is hard to be- 
 lieve that, at the age of twenty-one or twenty-three, having 
 shown no sign of studious habits in the leisure of his youth, 
 he could, as horse-boy or prompter's call-boy, or in the then 
 despised trade of an actor, have acquired culture, education 
 and learning. There were no night schools or free libraries 
 in those days. 
 
 Books were scarce, and there is no sign, outside the 
 plays and poems, that William Shakspere ever possessed 
 one, the genuineness of his supposed signature in the copy 
 of Florio's Montaigne in the British Museum being at 
 least disputable. 2 
 
 If he had been an enthusiastic student, and by some 
 extraordinary means had acquired many languages and 
 much learning, his contemporaries must surely have known 
 it ; but the impression he produced on them was the contrary. 
 
 The writers of that age assert that Shakspere was, in fact, 
 notoriously unlearned. Leonard Digges, one of the preface 
 writers of the folio of 1623, writing in 1640 says: "Nature 
 only helped him." Thomas Fuller in 1662 : " His learning 
 was very little." Sir John Denham in 1668: "Old mother 
 1 Halliwell-Phillipps, i. p. 95. 2 Lee, p. 285.
 
 Shakspere s Life and Education. 9 
 
 wit and nature gave Shakspere and Fletcher all they have." 
 Chetwood in 1684: "Shakspere said all that Nature could 
 impart." In the same year Winstanley wrote of another : 
 " Never any scholar, as our Shakspere if alive would con- 
 fess"; and Gerard Langbaine in 1691: "He was as much 
 a stranger to French as to Latin." 1 
 
 How, then, could an unlearned man write learned plays ? 
 Some striking contrast there must have been between the 
 man and the works which bore his name, which made men 
 marvel at Shakspere the unlearned. 
 
 It has been supposed that towards the end of 1585 
 Shakspere left Stratford, but the year 1587 seems the more 
 likely date. In 1586 a distress was issued against John 
 Shakspere's goods, but none were found. In March of the 
 following year he was imprisoned, and sued out a writ of 
 habeas corpus to obtain his liberty. In the same year, 1587, 
 several companies of players visited Stratford ; 2 and it seems 
 likely, from the coincidence of date, that William Shakspere, 
 gaining no support from his father or his father's trade, then 
 joined the players and followed them to London. There 
 is evidence that William Shakspere was in Stratford in 
 1587, since in that year he joined with his father and 
 mother in a release of her property of Ashbies to John 
 Lambert the mortgagee, a transaction which John Shak- 
 spere endeavoured in 1589, and again in 1597, to set aside, 
 but without success. Nothing more is heard of William 
 Shakspere until 1592. 
 
 In the meantime, in 1582, when only eighteen, William 
 Shakspere had formed an intimacy with a neighbouring 
 farmer's daughter, Anne Hathaway, eight years older than 
 himself, whom lie married in November or December of 
 that year, apparently under pressure of her relations, and 
 
 1 " Uacon V. Shakspere," by Edwin Reed, to which book the 
 author is much indebted. - Lee, p. 33.
 
 io Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 who bore him a daughter in May, 1583, and twin son and 
 daughter in January, 1585. 
 
 The more closely Shakspere's life is scrutinized, the more 
 unamiable he appears. 
 
 To hurry on his marriage with Anne Hathaway, two 
 friends of her father (who had lately died) took the unusual 
 step of giving a bond in the Worcester registry on the 28th 
 November, 1582, which enabled the marriage to take place 
 immediately with only one publication of banns. But on 
 the previous day, 27th November, a licence had been taken 
 out of the same registry for the marriage of William Shak- 
 spere with Ann Whately ! It has been suggested as possible 
 that this was another William Shakspere ; but the coincid- 
 ence of time, and the sudden and unusual pressing on of 
 Anne Hathaway's marriage, leave little room for doubt that, 
 but for her friends' interference, Shakspere would have de- 
 serted Anne Hathaway and married another woman; nor 
 does this disagree with his after conduct to his wife. 
 
 "All the evidence points to the conclusion, which the fact 
 that he had no more children confirms, that in the later 
 months of the year 1585 [or 1587] he left Stratford, and that, 
 although he was never wholly estranged from his family, he 
 saw little of his wife or children for eleven years." ' 
 
 The emphasis with which the author of the plays insists 
 that a woman should take in marriage "an elder than her- 
 self," and that prenuptial intimacy is productive of "barren 
 hate, sour-eyed disdain, and discord," suggests, it is said, 
 " a personal interpretation " ! It is rather one of the many 
 discords between the plays and Shakspere's life. 
 
 Of these eleven years, apart from the inferences drawn 
 from the plays and poems which bear the name of Shake- 
 speare, scarcely anything is known. 
 
 On his arrival in London he is said at first to have held 
 
 1 Lee, p. 26.
 
 Shakspere s Life and Education. 1 1 
 
 horses for visitors to the theatre, then to have been engaged 
 as call-boy or supernumerary, and then as actor. He is 
 noticed as an actor in 1592, and was a member of the Lord 
 Chamberlain's Company in 1594, in December of which year 
 he acted before the Queen at Greenwich. He is said to have 
 lodged near the Bear Garden in Southwark in 1596, and in 
 the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, in 1598. The com- 
 pany acted successively at the Theatre and the Curtain, both 
 near Shoreditch, the Rose Theatre, the Globe, the Black 
 friars Theatre, at various provincial towns, and sometimes 
 at Court. In 1598 he acted in Ben Jonson's " Every Man 
 in his Humour," and in 1603 in " Sejanus." Aubrey quotes 
 an old actor as saying that Shakspere " did act exceedingly 
 well." Rowe identifies only one of his parts, namely, the 
 ghost in " Hamlet," and describes it as " the top of his per- 
 formance." 
 
 The only personal incident of this period which has come 
 down to us is the story of a trick practised upon his fellow- 
 player Richard Burbage, marking a loose life. 1 
 
 Let us pass over for a while these eleven mysterious 
 years, which are supposed to have converted William Shak- 
 spere into the most brilliant literary genius of all time, 
 and consider him when he returned again to Stratford in 
 1596. 
 
 He then had made money, and in 1597 he bought New 
 Place, the largest house in Stratford, and added field to 
 field in after years, though living partly in London until 
 161 1 ; but all we learn of him is that he lent money and 
 sued for its repayment. From his many suits he seems to 
 have been a hard man and litigious. " He inherited his 
 father's love of litigation." 2 This is another discord between 
 his life and the plays, which hold usurers up to contempt, 
 and praise Antonio, who lent money without interest and 
 
 1 Lee, p. 265. 2 Ibid., p. 206.
 
 1 2 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 spoilt the usurer's trade. Bacon, be it observed, wrote an 
 essay against usury. 
 
 Shakspere's literary fame was little appreciated at Strat- 
 ford, and did not even obtain the toleration of the drama 
 there; for in the year 1602 the board of aldermen pro- 
 hibited the future performance of any stage plays at Strat- 
 ford under a penalty of ten shillings, increased in 1612, the 
 year after Shakspere's final retirement to Stratford, to ten 
 pounds. 
 
 The status of a player was then a low one ; for, by a 
 statute of Elizabeth of 1571, players must procure a licence 
 from a peer or personage of higher degree, or they were 
 adjudged rogues and vagabonds. These licences were 
 freely given by Elizabeth and her nobles, so that, although 
 the first theatre in London was erected in 1576, there were 
 in London in 1587 six companies of players, besides three 
 companies of boy-actors from the choirs of St. Paul's and 
 the Chapel Royal, and from Westminster Scholars. Yet in 
 1597 the Lord Mayor denounced the theatre as "a place for 
 vagrants, thieves, horse-stealers, contrivers of treason, and 
 other idle and dangerous persons." 
 
 Shakspere's two daughters were twelve or thirteen years 
 old when their father returned to Stratford in 1596, but 
 were allowed to grow up in ignorance, notwithstanding the 
 scorn with which the author of the plays denounces ignor- 
 ance ; another discord ! 
 
 "O thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou 
 look ! " — Love's Labour 's Lost 
 
 "There is no darkness but ignorance." — Twelfth Night. 
 
 " Ignorance the curse of God, knowledge the wing where- 
 with we fly to heaven."— 2 Henry IV. 
 
 "The common curse of mankind folly and ignorance." 
 — Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 Susannah, the eldest daughter, was not sufficiently edu-
 
 Shakspere s Life and Education. 13 
 
 cated to be able to recognize her husband's writing ; Judith 
 could not sign her name. 
 
 Shakspere's wife, it must be supposed, rejoined him, since 
 she is mentioned in his will ; but stories current in his life- 
 time and afterwards show, at least, that his reputation when 
 in London, and after his return to Stratford, was not one of 
 fidelity to her. 1 Another discord, since the plays condemn 
 unchastity in every form. Nor did he, unless compelled, 
 repay the forty shillings borrowed of her father's shepherd 
 during her husband's neglect. This remained unpaid when 
 the shepherd died in 1601, and he directed his executor to 
 recover the money from Shakspere and distribute it among 
 the poor of Stratford. 
 
 John Shakspere's money troubles appear, indeed, to have 
 ceased on his son's return ; and father and son combined in 
 a curious application for a grant of arms, based on fictitious 
 statements, which ultimately in 1589 proved so far success- 
 ful that the arms were assumed, though not recorded. 
 
 In 1605 Shakspere bought a portion of Stratford tithes, 
 and thereupon engaged in litigation with the town. In 1614 
 he joined in an application for the inclosure of the common 
 land, by which he hoped to profit, but was defeated by the 
 corporation of Stratford. 
 
 On 25th April, 16 16, he died, and according to the testi- 
 mony of John Ward, vicar of Stratford from 1662 to 1668, 
 from the effects of a drinking bout. The tradition at least 
 shows a reputation for intemperance. 
 
 The plays express contempt for intemperance. 
 
 To sit 
 And keep the turn of tippling with a slave, 
 To reel the streets at noon, and stand the bullet 
 With knaves that smell of sweat. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, I. iv. 
 
 1 Lee, p. 265.
 
 1 4 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 " O that men should put an enemy in their mouths to 
 steal away their brains ! that we should with joy, pleasance, 
 revel and applause transform ourselves into beasts. To be 
 now a sensible man, by-and-by a fool, and presently a beast ! 
 O strange ! Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the in- 
 gredient is a devil." — Othello, II. iii. 
 
 When he is best he is little worse than a man ; 
 And when he is worst he is little better than a beast. 
 
 Merry Wives, I. ii. 
 
 Oh, monstrous beast ! how like a swine he lies. 
 
 Taming of the Shrew. 
 
 This Bacon may have written : can Shakspere have done 
 so? 
 
 The lines on the slab over Shakspere's grave in Stratford 
 were, according to a letter written in 1694, by William Hall, 
 an Oxford graduate, "in his lifetime ordered to be cut on 
 his tomb-stone," which is confirmed by the fact that the 
 epitaph seems to have prevented his wife being buried 
 beside him. The lines show little evidence of poetic genius. 
 Another doggerel epitaph on John Combe is attributed to 
 Shakspere by Aubrey and Rowe. 
 
 Shakspere by his will commenced in January, and signed 
 in March, 1616, gave New Place and all his residuary estate 
 to his eldest daughter, Susannah Hall. To Judith he gave 
 a silver bowl, a life interest in a house, ^£150 in money, 
 which included her marriage portion of ^100, and a further 
 ^150 should she survive him three years. He left, among 
 other legacies, " 36/8 to each of his fellowes, John Heminge, 
 Richard Burbage and Henry Condell, with which to buy 
 memorial rings." To his wife, by an interlineation in the 
 will, he left "his second best bed with its furniture," and 
 nothing more. She may have been entitled to dower out 
 of some part of his lands, but on his last purchase in 1613, 
 of a house in Blackfriars, he barred his wife's dower.
 
 Shakspere s Life and Education. 1 5 
 
 Although there is careful mention of his various landed 
 and house properties, his household furniture, his plate, his 
 bowl, his sword and his wearing apparel, there is no men- 
 tion of books or manuscripts, or literary property. Yet if 
 he was the learned student, the wide-read and prolific author 
 he is reputed to have been, he must have possessed a 
 library of books, a rare and valuable possession in those 
 days, and many manuscripts of the successive editions of 
 the plays. 
 
 A man so careful, nay, greedy of money, had he been the 
 author of the most famous plays of the period, not to say of 
 all time, would surely have turned them to some account, or 
 given some direction about them in his will. 
 
 The interest he acquired in the London theatres as one of 
 the actors probably ceased on his retirement ; and it has 
 been suggested that all his rights in the plays may have been 
 made over to the company of players. But there was no 
 such transfer recorded at Stationers' Hall, where after 1594 
 all plays were required to be registered before publication ; 
 nor is there any evidence of a transfer which could prevent 
 him from publishing the twenty plays yet unpublished. On 
 the contrary, his fellow-players, Heminge and Condell, did 
 afterwards publish them, and disclaimed any such title. 
 They say in the dedication of the folio : " We have but col- 
 lected them, and done an office to the dead to procure his 
 Orphanes guardians, without ambition of selfe-profit or 
 fame ; onely to keepe the memory of so worthy a Friend 
 and Fellowe alive as was our Shakespeare." But William 
 Shakspere left no trace of books or manuscripts ! 
 
 In 1642 Dr. James Cooke, a surgeon in attendance on 
 royalist troops stationed at Stratford, visited Mrs. Hall, 
 Shakspere's eldest daughter, a widow since 1635, an d ex- 
 amined the manuscripts in her possession ; but they were 
 of her husband's and not of her father's composition,
 
 1 6 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 though she insisted that they were written by a debtor, 
 who had pledged them to her husband. Dr. Cooke says : 
 " I being acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand told her that 
 one or two of them were her husband's and showed them to 
 her. She denied, I affirmed, till I perceived she began to 
 be offended." Mrs. Hall, therefore, although her father's 
 executrix and residuary legatee, knew nothing of any manu- 
 scripts written by him, or of other literary remains, and 
 could not distinguish her husband's writing. 
 
 Observe how the end of Shakspere's life fits in with the 
 beginning. There is the same unamiable, intemperate, 
 immoral life, the same carelessness and neglect of wife and 
 children ; no sign of learned education, or books, or litera- 
 ture ; no more trace of the plays at the end of his life than 
 at the beginning. 
 
 A character wide as the poles from the character revealed 
 by the plays of their author. Genius may doubtless be 
 subject to human infirmity, but should be at least discernible 
 in the life and character of the man. Whence in his sordid 
 life could William Shakspere derive the noble thoughts, the 
 profound philosophy, the generous sentiments, the various 
 learning, the pure ideal of womanhood, the aristocratic 
 sense, the tone and speech of courts and camps, which 
 characterize the plays ? 
 
 " I cannot marry this fact to his verse," Emerson wrote. 
 " Other admirable men have led lives in some sort of keeping 
 with their thought, but this man in wide contrast." 
 
 Coleridge, assuming Shakspere's authorship of the plays, 
 rejected the facts of his life and character. "Ask your 
 hearts," he exclaimed, "ask your common sense to conceive 
 the possibility of the author of the plays being the anomalous, 
 the wild, the irregular genius of our daily criticism. What ! 
 are we to have miracles in sport ? Does God choose idiots 
 by whom to convey divine truth to men ? "
 
 Bacons Life and Edtication. 1 7 
 
 It is this discord between the life of William Shakspere 
 and the plays which bear his name, which caused the doubts 
 of those acute and thoughtful men whose names have been 
 cited. Weighing the facts of William Shakspere's life, it 
 seems improbable, if not incredible, that he should have 
 written the plays. 
 
 III. FRANCIS BACON'S LIFE AND EDUCATION. 
 
 IN striking contrast was Francis Bacon's mental equip- 
 ment. Born on 22nd January, 1561, he was the son of 
 the wise Sir Nicholas Bacon for twenty years Lord Keeper. 
 His mother, noted for her learning and piety, was able to 
 correspond with Archbishop Jewell in Greek, and to read, 
 write and translate Latin and Italian. From her Bacon 
 would early acquire a familiar knowledge of Italian language 
 and literature, from which so many of the plays are derived. 
 
 In April, 1573, at the age of twelve, he entered Cambridge 
 University, and was trained under Whitgift, afterwards Arch- 
 bishop. At Christmas, 1575, he left Cambridge, having 
 mastered all the knowledge he could gain at the University 
 and " run through the whole circle of the liberal arts." 
 Disappointed with Aristotle's philosophy, he even then con- 
 ceived the idea that a better method might be found ; but 
 he acquired a wide knowledge of classical and modern 
 language and literature, such knowledge as is conspicuous 
 in the plays. 
 
 In 1576, being then fifteen, he entered as a student at 
 Gray's Inn. Already he enjoyed the Queen's favour, who 
 called him her young Lord Keeper. In September of the 
 same year he went with Sir Amyas Paulet, the English 
 ambassador, to Paris, and remained in France for two and 
 
 c
 
 1 8 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 a half years, where he gained a colloquial knowledge of 
 French and some of Spanish ; and he made afterwards a col- 
 lection of Spanish proverbs. He saw many parts of France, 
 Blois, Tours and Poitiers, where he stayed some months, 
 thus visiting the battlefields famous in English history. A 
 knowledge of French and of these battle scenes is reflected 
 in the plays. During his absence the Queen, in May, 1577, 
 was entertained for five days by his father, Sir Nicholas 
 Bacon, at Gorhambury, near St. Albans. 1 
 
 Bacon brought back despatches to the Queen, which 
 mentioned him as " of great hope and endued with many 
 good and singular parts." During these years he lived with 
 princes and nobles, and learned the manners and language 
 of the Court. Shakspere's associates at Stratford were 
 peasants and apprentices. 
 
 The death of Sir Nicholas Bacon, in 1579, recalled 
 Francis Bacon to his home at Gorhambury. He then took 
 up his abode in Gray's Inn, and began laboriously to study 
 law. Disappointed of his father's intended provision, of 
 which he received only a fifth part, he had now to make 
 his livelihood by his profession or by literary effort. 
 
 We are wont to think of Bacon only as the grave philo- 
 sopher of his later life ; but his philosophical writings did 
 not begin to appear for seventeen years after his returti from 
 Paris. Meantime, though studying law, his life was that of 
 the brilliant courtier, the associate of Essex and Southamp- 
 ton and Sidney; the chief contriver of the masques and 
 entertainments at Gray's Inn, or before the Queen at Green- 
 wich. Not free from extravagance, his narrow means in- 
 volved him in many difficulties. How were his necessities 
 to be met? 
 
 Philosophical writings in advance of the age are not often 
 either popular or lucrative ; it was said by Cuffe, Essex's 
 1 Nicholls's " Progresses."
 
 Bacon s Life and Education. 19 
 
 secretary, of the " Novum Organum," when published in 
 
 1600, that "a fool could not have written it and a wise 
 
 man would not." And Coke wrote on his presentation 
 
 copy : 
 
 It deserveth not to be read in Schools, 
 But to be freighted in the Ship of Fools. l 
 
 If, then, any other form of literature more readily saleable 
 lay open, would not Bacon be likely to use it, if he could 
 by any means escape the charge of frivolity, and avoid 
 injury to his professional career? 
 
 Not until 1596 were his " Maxims of the Law and Treatise 
 on the Colours of Good and Evil" published, and in 1597 
 the first ten of his fifty-eight Essays appeared. Though he 
 diligently studied law, it was distasteful. He was called to 
 the Outer Bar in June, 1582, but could not plead in Court 
 until he became a bencher in 1586, and his first case seems 
 to have been in January, 1594. He had entered Parliament 
 in 1584. Disappointed of office, and struggling with debt, 
 he threatened in 1592 to throw up the law, and become 
 "a sorry bookmaker or a true pioneer in the mine of truth." 
 
 Was there no fruit of his teeming brain during these 
 seventeen years to help his empty purse ? 
 
 At this period from -£6 to j£n was the price ordinarily 
 paid to an author for a play," but these sums should be 
 multiplied by eight to represent their present value. 
 
 A needy barrister of the present day would be glad to 
 earn from ^50 to ^90 by writing a play, if his talents 
 enabled him to do so, and Bacon may well have been glad 
 to earn the equivalent in his day. 
 
 Now there is evidence that Francis Bacon, during these 
 years, before the publication of philosophical books, was 
 in fact engaged in some course of study or literary work 
 
 1 Disraeli's " Curiosities of Literature," p. 492. 
 
 2 Lee, p. 197.
 
 20 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 (he was, he says, "a man born for literature") which to 
 one at least of his friends seemed derogatory if not dis- 
 graceful. 
 
 This appears from a remarkable letter written in 1607 
 by Sir Thomas Bodley, the founder of the Bodleian Library, 
 Oxford, on receipt of Bacon's " Cogitata et Visa." The 
 letter congratulates Bacon on having at length made choice 
 of a fit subject of study, natural philosophy, " which course," 
 he adds, " would to God — to whisper as much in your ear 
 — you had followed at the first, when you fell to the study 
 of such a study as was not worthy such a student." 
 
 Sir Thomas shared the prevailing prejudice against Eng- 
 lish plays, and would not admit "such baggage" into his 
 library. 
 
 It has been doubted if Bacon had poetic genius, or 
 dramatic taste, to fit him for such authorship. 
 
 " In wit," Macaulay says, " if by wit be meant the power 
 of perceiving analogies between things which appear to have 
 nothing in common, he never had an equal ; not even 
 Cowley, not even the author of 'Hudibras.' . . . The 
 poetical faculty was powerful in Bacon's mind. ... In 
 truth, much of Bacon's life was passed in a visionary 
 world." 
 
 Shelley said : " Lord Bacon was a poet. His language has 
 a sweet and majestic rhythm which satisfies the sense, no 
 less than the almost super-human wisdom of his philosophy 
 satisfies the intellect." x 
 
 His versions of the Psalms, written in sickness, have been 
 adduced as evidence of want of poetic talent ; but these, 
 though such translations cramp poetic genius, are certainly 
 finer than some of Milton's versions — for example, Milton's 
 version of the 7th Psalm ; yet Milton was undoubtedly a 
 poet. Let two verses from each suffice for comparison : 
 1 Prose Works, iii. p. 107.
 
 Bacons Life and Education. 21 
 
 O Lord, thou art our home, to whom we fly, 
 And so hast always been from age to age ; 
 Before the hills did intercept the eye, 
 Or that the frame was up of earthly stage, 
 One God thou wert, and art, and still shalt be ; 
 The line of time, it doth not measure thee. 
 
 Thou carriest man away as with a tide, 
 
 Then down swim all his thoughts that mounted high, 
 
 Much like a mocking dream that will not bide, 
 
 But flies before the sight of aching eye ; 
 
 Or as the grass that cannot term obtain 
 
 To see the summer come about again. 
 
 Bacon, Psalm XC. 
 
 Lord, my God, to Thee I fly, 
 
 Save me and secure me under 
 Thy protection while I cry ; 
 
 Lest as a lion (and no wonder) 
 
 He haste to tear my soul asunder, 
 Tearing and no rescue nigh. 
 
 He digged a pit and delved it deep, 
 
 And fell into the pit he made : 
 His mischief that due course doth keep 
 
 Turns on his head ; and his ill trade 
 
 Of violence will, undelayed, 
 Fall on his crown with ruin steep. 
 
 Milton, Psalm VII. 
 
 Spedding writes : " I should myself infer that Bacon had 
 all the natural faculties which a poet wants, a fine ear for 
 metre, a fine feeling for imaginative effect in words, and a 
 vein of poetic passion : the thought could not well be fitted 
 with imagery, words and rhythm more apt and imaginative ; 
 and there is a tenderness of expression, which comes mani- 
 festly out of a heart in sensitive sympathy with nature. . . . The 
 heroic couplet could hardly do its work better in the hands 
 of Dryden." 
 
 Nor does Bacon's stately prose differ more widely from 
 the poetry of the plays than the prose of Milton's " Areo- 
 pagitica" does from " Comus " and " L'Allegro." 
 
 It is certain also that Bacon wrote other poetry than that
 
 22 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 which bore his name, since he described himself and was 
 described by others as " a concealed poet." x 
 
 As to dramatic taste. In that age, when the drama and its 
 votaries were despised, Bacon perceived and taught that the 
 drama ought to be used for the education and elevation of 
 the people. 
 
 " Dramatic poesy is as history made visible, for it repre- 
 sents actions as if they were present, whereas History 
 represents them as past." Dramatic poesy, " which has the 
 theatre for its world, would be of excellent use if well di- 
 rected ; for the stage is capable of no small influence both of 
 discipline and corruption. Now of corruptions of this kind 
 we have enough, but the discipline has in our times been 
 plainly neglected. But though in modern states play-acting 
 is esteemed but as a toy, except when it is too satirical and 
 biting, yet, among the ancients, it was used as a means of 
 educating men's minds to virtue, nay, it has been regarded by 
 learned men and great philosophers as a kind of musician's 
 bow, by which men's minds may be played upon." ~ 
 
 Again, in "The Masculine Birth of Time," speaking of 
 the obstructions caused by the ignorance and bigotry of the 
 age, he writes : "A new process must be instituted by which 
 to insinuate ourselves into minds so entirely obstructed. . . . 
 So men generally taste well knowledges that are drenched in 
 flesh and blood, civil history, morality, policy, about which 
 men's affections, praises, fortunes do turn and are conversant." 
 
 And in the second book of the Latin translation of the 
 " Advancement of Learning," he urges that " the art of 
 acting {actio theatralis) should be made a part of the educa- 
 tion of youth — for though it be of ill repute as a profession, 
 yet as a part of discipline it is of excellent use." 
 
 The Shakespeare plays realized Bacon's ideal, yet no- 
 where does he make allusion to them ! 
 
 1 Post, p. 108. 2 " De Augmentis," book ii., ch. xiii.
 
 The Plays and Bacon s Prose. 23 
 
 Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony appear both to 
 have had a passion for the drama. Anthony, soon after his 
 return in 1592 from his travels, left his brother to take up 
 his abode in Bishopsgate, near the Bull Theatre, where 
 several of the Shakespeare plays were acted. 
 
 Their mother, Lady Anne Bacon, was gravely concerned 
 at her sons' taste for stage performances, and wrote that 
 she trusts " they will not mum nor mask nor sinfully revel 
 at Gray's Inn " ; but Francis Bacon continued through 
 life to be the " chief contriver " of the masques at Gray's 
 Inn. 
 
 Lady Anne was a masterful woman, whose rigid Puritan 
 opinions her sons might not openly offend. Anthony, 
 while travelling abroad, once hired a Roman Catholic 
 servant, to his mother's grave displeasure, and sent him on 
 some errand to England. Lady Anne straightway clapped 
 the man in gaol as a Papist, and refused the entreaties of 
 both her sons to let him out. 
 
 Surveying Francis Bacon's life, his character and educa- 
 tion, his intellectual training and social experience, his 
 poetical imagination and dramatic taste, and his various 
 learning, are not these the very qualities which the plays 
 themselves demand for their author, in all of which William 
 Shakspere seems hopelessly deficient ? 
 
 IV. COMPARISON OF THE PLAYS WITH 
 BACON'S PROSE WORKS. 
 
 IF the contrast between Shakspere's life and Bacon's life, 
 and between their intellectual endowment and training, 
 points to Bacon rather than Shakspere as the probable 
 author of the plays, what is the internal evidence of the 
 plays themselves ?
 
 24 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 The more closely the plays are examined, the larger 
 looms the difficulty of attributing them to Shakspere, and 
 the closer appears their affinity with the prose works of 
 Bacon. Under a superficial difference of style, inherent in 
 the difference of subject, will be found an underlying 
 identity of thought and expression hard to explain except 
 by unity of authorship. 
 
 Estimates have been made of different vocabularies. 
 Some labourers, Max Miiller tells us, have not 300 words in 
 their vocabulary. "A well-educated person in England 
 who has been at a public school and at the University, who 
 reads his Bible, his Shakespeare, 'The Times,' and all 
 the books of Mudie's Library, seldom uses more than about 
 3,000 or 4,000 words in actual conversation. Accurate 
 thinkers and close reasoners, who avoid vague and general 
 expressions, and wait till they find the word that exactly fits 
 their meaning, employ a larger stock, and eloquent speakers 
 may rise to a command of 10,000. Shakespeare, who dis- 
 played a greater variety of expression than probably any 
 writer in any language, produced all his plays with about 
 15,000 words. Milton's works are built up with 8,000 ; and 
 the Hebrew Testament says all it has to say with 5,642 
 words." ' 
 
 Professor Craik estimates Shakespeare's vocabulary at 
 21,000 and Milton's at 7,000. It has been computed that 
 Shakespeare gave 3,000, or some say 5,000, new words to 
 our language, and these largely derived from the Latin ; 
 and about 2,000 words are said to be used once only in the 
 plays. 2 Without relying on the exactness of these estimates, 
 there can be no doubt that the vocabulary of the plays is 
 one of extraordinary richness. 
 
 Whence could Shakspere, emerging from a provincial 
 
 1 a 
 
 Science of Language," vol. i., pp. 277-278. 
 2 Theobald, "Shakespeare Studies," p. 431.
 
 The Plays and Bacons Prose. 25 
 
 town, with the imperfect education described by Halliwell- 
 Phillipps, gain this affluence of speech, which could only be 
 acquired by familiarity with classical and modern language 
 and literature ? 
 
 This familiarity Bacon possessed, and made it his study 
 "to enrich languages by mutual exchanges, so that the 
 several beauties of each may be combined (as in the Venus 
 of Apelles) into a most beautiful image of speech." 
 
 And this rich vocabulary belonged equally to Bacon and 
 to the Shakespeare plays. 
 
 Dr. Johnson said : " A dictionary of the English language 
 might be compiled from Bacon's works alone." 
 
 Excluding, for fair comparison, from Bacon's prose works 
 absolute technicalities, and from the plays absolute collo- 
 quialisms, oaths, etc., unsuitable for philosophic works, 97 
 per cent, of the words, Mrs. Pott states, are common to 
 Bacon and Shakespeare. Did Bacon acquire this wealth of 
 words from Shakspere, or the plays from Bacon ? 
 
 Not only the words, but the expressions and turns of 
 speech are curiously alike in the plays and in Bacon's prose 
 works. 
 
 For example, Mr. Bengough, 1 a student of Shakespeare, 
 compared Bacon's "History of Henry VII." with Shake- 
 speare's " King John," and found in these two works alone 
 22 metaphors used in both, several catchwords often re- 
 peated in both, 9 or 10 peculiar phrases used in both, 20 or 
 more words peculiar or used in an unusual sense occurring 
 in both ; he found, indeed, 21 passages in one scene of the 
 play (Act II., Sc. ii.) with corresponding passages in three 
 pages of the history, and concludes that the only rational 
 hypothesis is, that the same mind employed the same words 
 in both cases. 
 
 Numerous similar lists of parallelisms, to the number of 
 
 1 " ISaconiana."
 
 26 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 1,000 and more, have been pointed out between the other 
 plays and Bacon's prose works. 1 
 
 The cogency of this argument increases in proportion to 
 the number of examples examined ; a few only can here be 
 given. 
 
 "Periander being consulted with how to preserve a 
 tyranny ; bid the messenger stand still, and he walking in a 
 garden topped all the highest flowers, signifying the cutting 
 off and the keeping low of the nobility." — De Aug., vi. i. 
 
 Go thou, and like an executioner 
 Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays 
 That look too lofty in our commonwealth : 
 All must be even in our government. 
 
 Richard II, III. iv. 33. 
 
 Being once perfected how to grant suits, 
 How to deny them ; who t' advance, and who 
 To trash for over-topping. 
 
 Tempest, I. ii. 
 
 The Moon so constant in inconstancy. 
 
 Bac, Trans. Psalm CIV. 
 
 Oh, swear not by the Moon, the inconstant Moon, 
 That monthly changes in her circled orb, 
 Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. 
 
 Rom. and Jul., II. ii. 109. 
 
 " His purpose was to break the knot of the conspiracy." 
 —Hist. Hen. VII. 
 
 There 's a knot, a gin, a conspiracy against me. 
 
 Merry Wives, IV. ii. 123. 
 
 This ancient knot of dangerous adversaries. 
 
 Richard III., III. i. 182. 
 
 1 Parallelisms have been collected by Judge Holmes in " Authorship 
 of Shakespeare," pp. 303-325 ; by Mrs. Pott in " State Metaphors," 
 in the " Journal of the Bacon Society," and in Bacon's " Promus " ; 
 by Mr. Wigston, "Francis Bacon," pp. 192-268 ; by Mr. Edwin Reed 
 in "Bacon v. Shakspere," pp. 57-80; by Mr. Donnelly in the first 
 vol. of the "Great Cryptogram"; and by Mr. R. M. Theobald in 
 "Shakespeare Studies in Baconian Light."
 
 The Plays and Bacons Prose. 27 
 
 " A subtler error is this, that art is conceiv'd to be a sort 
 of addition to nature." — Advt. of Learning. 
 
 So that over art, 
 Which you say adds to nature, is an art 
 That nature makes. 
 
 This [grafting] is an art 
 Which does mend nature, changes it rather, but 
 The art itself is nature. 
 
 Winter's Tale. 
 
 "Wretches — have been able to stir earthquakes by the 
 murdering of Princes." — Charge against Owen. 
 
 Wherefore this ghastly looking ? What 's the matter ? 
 O ! 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear, 
 To make an earthquake. 
 
 Tempest, II. i. 309. 
 
 " ' Ordinatio belli et pacis est absoluti imperii,' a principal 
 flower of the crown. For if those flowers should wither and 
 fall, the garland will not be worth the wearing." — Report, 
 1606-7. 
 
 Catesby. Till Richard wear the garland of the realm. 
 Hastings. How ! wear the garland ! dost thou mean the crown ? 
 
 Richard III., III. ii. 
 
 "To see if he could heave at his lordship's authority." — 
 Observations on War and Peace. 
 
 I'll venture one heave at him. 
 
 Henry 17//., II. ii. 85. 
 
 "As for discontentments, they are in the body politic 
 like to humours in the natural, which are apt to gather a 
 preternatural heat and inflame." — Essay of Sedition. 
 
 Stop their marches 'fore we are inflamed. 
 Our discontented counties do revolt — 
 This inundation of distempered humour 
 Rests by you only to be qualified. 
 
 John, V. i. 7. 
 
 " To give moderate liberty for griefs is a safe way, for he
 
 28 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 that makes the wound to bleed inwardly endangereth malign 
 ulcers and pernicious imposthumes." — Essay of Sedition. 
 
 This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace, 
 That inward breaks and shows no cause without 
 Why the man dies. 
 
 Hamlet, IV. iv. 27. 
 
 Such instances of identity both of thought and expres- 
 sion may be multiplied almost indefinitely. 
 
 There are also tricks of style common both to the plays 
 and prose works, such as triple antitheses. For example : 
 
 " Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some 
 have greatness thrust upon them." — Shakespeare. 
 
 " Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, 
 and some few to be chewed and digested." — Bacon. 
 
 " It would be an argument for a week, laughter for a 
 month, and a good jest for ever." — Shakespeare. 
 
 " Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, 
 and wise men use them." — Bacon. 
 
 " One draught above heat makes him a fool, a second 
 mads him, and third drowns him." — Shakespeare. 
 
 " Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, 
 and writing an exact man." — Bacon. 
 
 A long list of such triplets has been extracted from the 
 plays and from the prose works. 1 
 
 Of fifty-three points of style, which were selected by 
 Mrs. Cowden Clarke in the " Shakespeare Key " as being 
 " specialities " and "characteristics " of Shakespeare, almost 
 all have been found in the prose works of Bacon. 
 
 Not only the words and phrases, but the learning and 
 opinions expressed in the plays and in the prose works of 
 Bacon are the same, and in both the learning is largely 
 drawn from books rather than from observation. 
 
 The knowledge of law shown in the plays is wide and 
 1 Edwin Reed, pp. 191-194.
 
 The Plays and Bacons Prose. 29 
 
 accurate, and could not be exhibited except by a trained 
 lawyer ; and this knowledge is not shown merely by a formal 
 description of legal proceedings, which may be learned, but 
 crops up even in the mouths of the heroines, in metaphors 
 which would only occur to a lawyer. In one scene the 
 lover, wishing for a kiss, prays for a grant of pasture on his 
 mistress's lips. She replies that "they are no common, 
 though several they be," playing on the law of common of 
 pasture and severalty. 
 
 Mistress Page understood the strongest form of assurance 
 of property, when she says of Falstaff : " If the devil have 
 him not in fee simple, with fine and recovery, he will never 
 I think attempt us again." — Merry Wives, IV. ii. 
 
 Portia knew the charges and interrogatories of a bill in 
 Chancery. She says : 
 
 Let us go in 
 And charge us there upon int'rogatories, 
 And we will answer all things faithfully. 
 
 Merchant of Venice, V. i. 
 
 Lord Campbell, in his treatise on " Shakespeare's Legal 
 Acquirements," says : " While novelists and dramatists are 
 constantly making mistakes as to the law of marriage, of 
 wills and inheritance ; to Shakespeare's law, lavishly as he 
 expounds it, there can be neither demurrer nor bill of ex- 
 ception nor writ of error." 
 
 One writer ' enumerates 250 law terms used or referred 
 to in the plays, of which 200 are treated with more or less 
 fullness in Bacon's legal tracts. 
 
 The stress of this serious, if not insuperable difficulty, 
 induced a conjecture that Shakspere had passed a year or 
 two in a lawyer's office. This is abandoned ; but it is now 
 suggested that his legal acquirements were gained by ob- 
 servation of his father's many legal processes, and inter- 
 
 1 (< 
 
 Iiaconiana," vol. i., p. 154.
 
 30 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 course with members of the Inns of Court : l an inadequate 
 mode of legal education. Law is not contagious ! 
 
 As to medicine. In an age when Queen Elizabeth's 
 physician, Dr. William Bulleyn, prescribed for a nervous 
 child "a smal yonge mouse rosted," and King James's 
 physician, Sir Theodore Aulbone, relied on pulverized 
 human bones, " raspings of a human skull unburied " and 
 balsam of bats ; when Dr. Hall, Shakspere's son-in-law, 
 was accustomed to prescribe human fat, tonics of earth- 
 worms and snails, frog spawn water and swallows' nests, 
 Bacon and the author of the plays, though deeply versed in 
 medicine, are equally free from such absurdities and pre- 
 scribe identical remedies. 
 
 Bacon recommends to produce sleep " the tear of poppy," 
 henbane and mandrake. 
 
 We read in " Othello " : 
 
 Not poppy nor mandragora, 
 Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world 
 Shall ever minister thee to that sweet sleep 
 Which thou ow'dst once. 
 
 Bacon and the Shakespeare plays both recommend as a 
 cordial carduus betiedictus, and cite the bitters oicoloqiiintida; 
 both refer to the ventricles of the brain and the pia mater 
 as the seat of the intellect ; and the symptoms of Falstaff's 
 death, the fumbling hands, sharpened nose and cold ex- 
 tremities, are described in " Henry V." in the same terms as 
 Bacon uses in his " History of Life and Death." 
 
 Dr. Bucknill, in a treatise on the " Medical Knowledge of 
 Shakespeare," discusses that knowledge as shown in each 
 one of the plays, and " arrives at the conviction that the 
 great dramatist had at least been a diligent student of all 
 medical knowledge existing at his time," and he finds " not 
 merely evidence but proof that Shakespeare had read widely 
 
 1 Lee, p. 32.
 
 The Plays and Bacons Prose. 3 1 
 
 in medical literature." The same writer observes that 
 " physical science, upon which modern medicine is founded, 
 traces its parentage no higher than to Shakespeare's great 
 contemporary, Bacon." 
 
 Treatises have been written on the natural history of the 
 plays, on the animal lore, the birds, the insects ; but the 
 varied knowledge was gathered from books rather than 
 observation. An acute writer in the " Quarterly Review " 
 for April, 1894, tells from what books this learning was 
 taken, sometimes almost word for word : " He borrows 
 from Gower and Chaucer and Spenser, from Drayton and 
 Du Bartas and Lyly and William Brown, from Pliny, Ovid, 
 Virgil and the Bible ; borrows, in fact, everywhere he can, 
 but with a symmetry that makes his natural history har- 
 monious as a whole, and a judgment that keeps it always 
 moderate and possible." 
 
 " Shakespeare," he continues, " was curiously unob- 
 servant of animated nature. He seems to have seen 
 very little — Stratford-on-Avon was, in his day, enmeshed 
 in streams, yet he has not a single kingfisher. Not 
 in all his streams or pools is there an otter, a water-rat, a 
 fish rising, a dragon-fly, a moor-hen, or a heron — to the 
 living objects about him he seems to have been obstinately 
 purblind and half deaf. His boyhood was passed among 
 the woods, and yet in all the woods in his plays there is 
 neither wood-pecker nor wood-pigeon — we never hear or 
 see a squirrel in the trees, nor a night-jar hawking over the 
 bracken." 
 
 Knowledge accumulated from books must share their 
 errors, and there are many errors of natural history in the plays. 
 
 Bees are often described, but mistakenly : 
 
 We'll follow where thou Iead'st, 
 
 Like slinging bees in hottest summer's day 
 
 Led by their master to the flowered fields. 
 
 Titus Andron., V. i.
 
 32 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 " The passage," the reviewer adds, " is of course ridiculous, 
 but it is taken from Du Bartas." 
 
 The old bees die, the young possess their hive. 
 
 "A monumental error, the most compendious mis-state- 
 ment possible." 
 
 The most elaborate description of a beehive and its 
 inhabitants is in " Henry V.," of which the same writer 
 observes : " As poetry it is a most beautiful passage," but 
 " with an error of fact in every line. It is taken from the 
 ' Euphues ' of Lyly." 
 
 The same store of knowledge of natural history, gathered 
 from books and not free from like error, is found in Bacon's 
 prose works. 
 
 Bacon calls Perkin Warbeck "this little cockatrice of a 
 king that was able to destroy those that did not espy him 
 first." Three Shakespeare plays refer to the supposed deadly 
 power of the cockatrice's eye. 
 
 Bacon questions " if the stone taken out of a toad's head 
 be not of virtue." 
 
 In Shakespeare we read : 
 
 Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
 
 Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. 
 
 Bacon speaks of the wisdom of crocodiles that shed tears 
 when they would devour. 
 
 In Shakespeare we find : "As the mournful crocodile, with 
 sorrow snares relenting passengers." 
 
 Yet Shakspere appears to have had no books, and was 
 accounted by his fellows not studious but unlearned ! 
 
 So in horticulture ; of the thirty-three flowers of Shake- 
 speare, Bacon enumerates thirty in his Essay on Gardens or 
 in his " Sylva Sylvarum."
 
 The Plays and Bacons Prose. 33 
 
 Not only so, but Bacon's curious experiments in horti- 
 culture reappear in the plays : 
 
 " Take common brier and set it amongst violets or wall- 
 flowers, and see whether it will not make the violets or 
 wall-flowers sweeter." — Natural History, Experiment 488. 
 
 The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, 
 And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best 
 Neighboured by fruit of baser quality. 
 
 Henry V., I. i. 
 
 "As terebration doth meliorate fruit, so upon the like 
 reason doth letting of plant's blood, as pricking vines or 
 other trees after they be of some growth ; and thereby let- 
 ting forth gums or tears." — Natural History, Experiment 
 
 464. 
 
 And wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees, 
 Lest being over-proud with sap and blood 
 With too much riches it confound itself. 
 
 Richard II, III. iv. 
 
 And the same explanation of knots in trees, causing irregular 
 branches, is given by Bacon and in the plays. 
 
 " The cause whereof is that the sap ascendeth unequally, 
 and doth, as it were, tire and stop by the way. And it 
 seemeth they have some closeness and hardness on their 
 stalk, which hindereth the sap from going up, until it hath 
 gathered into a knot and so is more urged to put forth." — 
 Natural History, 389. 
 
 Checks and disasters 
 Grow in the veins of actions highest reared, 
 As knots by the conflux of meeting sap 
 Infect the sound pine and divert his grain, 
 Tortive and errant from his course of growth. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, I. iii. 
 
 In all subjects treated of by Bacon, the human body, 
 sound and light, heat and cold, germination and putrefaction 
 the history of the winds, astronomy, astrology, meteorology 
 
 D
 
 34 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 and witchcraft, the plays and prose works closely corre- 
 spond, and both exhibit a learning up to the limit of that 
 age. 
 
 Nay more, when Bacon's philosophical opinions change, 
 the philosophy of the plays changes simultaneously. For 
 instance, in the 1604 edition of "Hamlet," the Prince, ad- 
 dressing his mother, says : " Sense sure you have, else could 
 you not have motion." 
 
 This accords with the ancient doctrine that everything 
 that has motion has sense. Bacon's "Advancement of 
 Learning" was first published in 1605, and it states this 
 doctrine of the ancients with some approval. But in 1623 
 a new edition of the " Advancement of Learning " was pub- 
 lished, which expressly declared that there is motion in 
 inanimate bodies, without sense, but with a kind of percep- 
 tion. In the same year the first folio of the plays was pub- 
 lished, and the passage above quoted from " Hamlet " was 
 omitted. It no longer agreed with Bacon's opinion. 
 
 In " Natural Philosophy " not only the same wisdom, but 
 the same errors, are found in Bacon's prose works and in the 
 plays. For example, Bacon supposed that fire extinguished 
 fire. In the " History of Henry VII." he describes that 
 Perkin Warbeck at the siege of Exeter fired one of the 
 gates. " But the citizens perceiving the danger blocked up 
 the gate inside with faggots and other fuel, which they like- 
 wise set on fire, and so repulsed fire with fire." In the 
 "Advancement of Learning" Bacon again wrote: "Flame 
 doth not mingle with flame but remaineth contiguous." 
 
 In " King John," Pandulph tells the King : " Falsehood 
 falsehood cures, as fire cools fire." Again in "Coriolanus " : 
 " One fire drives out one fire, one nail one nail" ; and again 
 in " Two Gentlemen of Verona " : 
 
 Even as one heat another heat expels, 
 
 Or as one nail by strength drives out another.
 
 The Plays and Bacons Prose. 35 
 
 Bacon also supposed that the sea swells before a storm. 
 
 " It is everywhere taken notice of that waters do some- 
 what swell and rise before tempests." — Natural History of 
 Winds. 
 
 " As there are certain hollow blasts of wind, secret swell- 
 ing of seas before a tempest, so are there in states."— Essay 
 of Sedition. 
 
 In Shakespeare the same thought is expressed. 
 
 Before the days of change still is it so 
 By a divine instinct, men's minds mistrust 
 Ensuing danger ; as by proof, we see 
 The waters swell before a boisterous storm. 
 
 Richard, III. , II. iii. 
 
 Hamlet uses this strange expression : 
 
 O that this too too solid flesh would melt, 
 Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew. 
 
 Act I. Sc. ii. 229. 
 
 But this is the echo of Bacon's philosophy, who wrote : 
 " The emission of the spirit produces dryness ; the deten- 
 tion and working thereof within the body either melts, or 
 putrefies, or vivifies." "The spirit in a body of firm texture 
 is detained, though against its will." — History of Life and 
 Death, pp. 321, 328. 
 
 Bacon speaks of " the irregularities of Mars " (" De Aug.," 
 bk. iii.). 
 
 In Shakespeare we find : 
 
 Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens 
 So in the earth to this day is not known. 
 
 Henry VI., I. ii. 
 
 Bacon did not readily accept the Copernican theory of 
 the heavens. In his " Essay of Wisdom " he speaks of the 
 Earth " that only stands fast upon his own centre, whereas 
 all things that have affinity with the heavens move upon the 
 centre of another."
 
 36 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 Shakespeare says : 
 
 The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, 
 Observe degree, priority, and place. 
 
 Troilus and Cress., I. iii. 
 
 On the other hand, Bacon anticipated in principle New- 
 ton's discovery of gravitation. He wrote : 
 
 " The loadstone draws inferior to superior powers as iron 
 in atoms cleaves to the magnet, but in mass will, like a true 
 patriot, with appetite of amity fall towards the centre of the 
 earth." 
 
 Voltaire exclaims : " But what sagacity in Bacon to imagine 
 what no one else had thought of." 
 
 In Shakespeare we find the same principle stated : 
 
 But the strong base and building of my love 
 Is as the very centre of the earth, 
 Drawing all things to it. 
 
 Troilus and Cress. , IV. ii. 
 
 As to religion. In an age embittered by religious hatred 
 and persecution, Bacon, though a Protestant, enjoined a 
 large tolerance and condemned persecution. 
 
 The same spirit shines through the plays. Cranmer is 
 praised, but there is no satire upon the priests, who are 
 always represented as benevolent and venerable ; and as to 
 persecution the author writes : 
 
 It is an heretic that makes the fire, 
 Not she who burns in it. 
 
 Winter's Tale, II. iii. 
 
 The Bible was then a scarce book, and William Shakspere 
 seems an unlikely man to be addicted to its study ; but the 
 writer of the plays was very familiar with its contents, as 
 was also Francis Bacon, who often refers to its histories, 
 and in his " Promus " noted down twenty-two passages for 
 literary use. 
 
 Can it be from two different minds that knowledge and 
 ideas flow in such identical channels ?
 
 The " Promus.'' 2>7 
 
 V. THE "PROMUS." 
 
 THE " Promus " is another branch of evidence identi- 
 fying Bacon with the authorship of the plays. 
 
 Bacon for many years, from December, 1594, kept a 
 notebook to enlarge his powers of language, called a 
 " Promus of Formularies and Elegancies." 1 It contains over 
 1,600 notes from classical and modern literature, including 
 668 proverbs— English, French, Spanish and Italian. These 
 notes reappear to a large extent both in Bacon's prose works 
 and in the plays. 
 
 It cannot be seriously supposed that Bacon made these 
 notes from the plays, for use in his philosophical writings. 
 
 The following are illustrations of the use in the plays of 
 Bacon's notebook. Six entries in the "Promus" occur very 
 near together, probably made at about the same time, in 
 January, 1595, since the next folio of the "Promus" is 
 dated 27th January, 1595. The corresponding words and 
 phrases are found in eleven consecutive lines of " Romeo and 
 Juliet," which was probably written about that date. 
 
 Promus. 
 Rome. 
 Good morrow. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet. 
 Romeo. 
 Good morrow. 
 
 Sweet for speech in the morning. What early tongue so sweet sa- 
 
 luteth me. 
 Lodged next. Where care lodges sleep will never 
 
 He. 
 
 Golden sleep. 
 Uprouse. 
 
 There golden sleep doth reign. 
 Thou art uproused by some dis- 
 temperature. 
 
 "Golden sleep " was a new simile, " uprouse " a new word. 
 This parallelism can scarcely be mere coincidence : the 
 
 1 " The Promus of Formularies and Elegancies," by Francis Bacon 
 edited and illustrated by Mrs. Henry Pott, 1883.
 
 o 
 
 8 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 writer of " Romeo and Juliet " must surely have had Bacon's 
 " Promus " at his elbow. 
 
 The same folio of the "Promus," No. in, contains an 
 even more striking coincidence with the plays. This folio 
 begins with forms of salutation : " Good morrow," " Good 
 swoear," " Good travaile," " Good matins," " Good betimes, 
 bonum Mane," " Bon ioure," " Bon ioure, Bridegroome," 
 " Good day to me and good morrow to you." What object, 
 it will be asked, could Bacon have in noting down these 
 forms of salutation, and indorsing this sheet " Formularies 
 and Elegancies " ? 
 
 In truth, they were not then in common use in England ; 
 and the fact that they were so noted down, and four of them 
 borrowed from the French, shows that Bacon had been 
 struck with the courtesies of France, and wished to introduce 
 or encourage like courtesies in England. 
 
 Mrs. Pott, in a laborious examination of the literature 
 of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, com- 
 prising 328 authors and 5,300 of their works, 1 only found 
 three instances of the use of any of these forms of salutation 
 before 1594, the date of the "Promus." 
 
 Ben Jonson a little later uses "good morrow" two or 
 three times ; and Beaumont and Fletcher, in more than 
 forty plays, use " good morrow " five times, " good day " 
 once, "good night " four times, "good even" once. 
 
 In the Shakespeare plays the forms of salutation noted in 
 the "Promus " are used about 250 times, with the addition 
 in " King Lear " of "good dawning." 
 
 A striking instance of identity of thought and purpose 
 between Bacon's notebook and the plays. 
 
 Bacon, in the concluding lines of his Essay on Travel, 
 ridicules the man who lets travel appear rather in his apparel 
 and gestures than in his discourse ; whereas he should only 
 1 " Promus," pp. 81, 82, and 536-566.
 
 The "Promus! 
 
 39 
 
 " prick in some flowers of that he had learned abroad into 
 the customs of his own country." This Bacon did when he 
 " pricked in " these flowers of courteous speech into his 
 " Promus " and thence transplanted them to bloom abund- 
 antly in the plays. 
 
 Out of numerous other striking parallels between the 
 '• Promus " and the plays a few may here be given as 
 examples : 
 
 From Bacon's " Promus." 
 God sendeth fortune to fools. 
 
 He who dissembles is not free. 
 
 Our sorrows are our schoolmas- 
 ters. 
 
 He who lends to a friend loses 
 double. 
 
 He is the devil's porter who does 
 more than what is required of 
 him. 
 
 Love me little, love me long. 
 
 Make not two sorrows of one. 
 
 What the eye seeth not the heart 
 rueth not. 
 
 At length the string cracks. 
 
 From the Plays. 
 Call me not fool till heaven hath 
 sent me fortune. 
 
 As You Like It, II. vii. 
 
 The dissembler is a slave. 
 
 Pericles, I. i. 
 
 Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor 
 me. Richard II., IV. i. 
 
 For loan oft loses both itself and 
 friend. Hamlet, I. iii. 
 
 I'll devil porter it no further. 
 
 Macbeth, II. iii. 
 
 Love moderately, long love does 
 so. Romeo and Juliet, II. vi. 
 
 Two together weeping make one 
 woe. Richard II., V. i. 
 
 Let him not know 't and he 's not 
 robbed at all. 
 
 Othello, III. iii. 
 
 The strings of life began to crack. 
 Lear, V. iii. 
 
 There seems scarcely a sentiment or opinion expressed in 
 the plays which has not its counterpart in the acknowledged 
 works of Bacon. 
 
 Tennyson indeed thought that the author of the Essay 
 on Love could not have written " Romeo and Juliet," be- 
 cause he speaks of love as tending "to trouble a man's
 
 4-0 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 fortunes and make him untrue to his own ends " ; but he 
 forgot that Shakespeare also says : 
 
 To be wise and love 
 Exceeds man's might, that dwells with Gods above. 
 
 Trot /us and Cress., III. ii. 
 
 And Proteus complains : 
 
 I leave myself, my friend, and all for love. 
 Thou Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me, 
 Made me neglect my studies, lose my time, 
 War with good counsel, set the world at naught, 
 Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought. 
 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona, I. i. 
 
 Moreover, in 1591-2, before the date of "Romeo and 
 Juliet," Bacon, then in his prime, extolled love, and wrote a 
 masque, " The Conference of Pleasure," containing a speech 
 in "Praise of Love," in which love is declared to be "the 
 noblest affection " of the mind. The Essay in its final form 
 was written in declining years, in 1623, when his married life 
 was overclouded and embittered. What wonder he should 
 then declare that " the stage is more beholden to love than 
 the life of man " ? 
 
 But the picturing of love in the plays (though not in 
 many of them is it the ruling motive) does with singular 
 exactness anticipate the philosophy of love as taught in the 
 Essay. 
 
 " Great spirits and great business do keep out this weak 
 passion " ; and so Coriolanus and Brutus, Hamlet and Hot- 
 spur, repress their love, and " sever it from their serious 
 affairs." In weaker natures love is wayward and hyper- 
 bolical, oft " losing riches and wisdom," as shown in " Love's 
 Labour 's Lost," or by Proteus and Benedick and Florizel. 
 " Transported to the mad degree," it " does much mischief, 
 sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury," as in Mark 
 Antony or Romeo or Othello. 1 
 
 1 R. M. Theobald, "Shakespeare Studies," p. 129.
 
 The "Promus." 41 
 
 Is it conceivable that two different minds, one of the 
 highest cultivation, the other imperfectly educated, should 
 each, independently of the other, achieve a series of extra- 
 ordinary works in advance of their age, yet identical in 
 language of unexampled richness, in knowledge, philosophy, 
 opinion, in wisdom and error, and in form of expression ? 
 It seems impossible. 
 
 In 182 1, while the authorship of the Waverley Novels 
 was still undisclosed, eight letters were published by Mr. 
 Adolphus, identifying the author of the novels with the writer 
 of Scott's poems ; by the knowledge shown both in the 
 novels and the poems of classical and modern languages, of 
 law, of social manners, of history and locality ; by poetic 
 feeling and by moral character ; and finally by parallelisms of 
 thought and expression, of which eighty instances were cited. 
 Scott was pointed out as the only known author combining 
 these various attributes, and it was noticed that he was never 
 referred to by the novelist. The argument was sound and 
 convincing, but the like argument identifies with still greater 
 force the writings of Francis Bacon with the Shakespeare 
 plays, in which the intellectual identity is equally varied and 
 complete, while the parallelisms may be counted as more 
 than a thousand. Francis Bacon alone combines the multi- 
 farious knowledge found in these plays, and these plays he 
 never names. 
 
 Observe ! this evidence is cumulative, its force grows with 
 the number of examples. If eighty instances are convincing, 
 by what ratio shall we gauge the demonstration of a thousand? 
 If likeness of opinion suggests identity, what shall we say 
 when every branch of knowledge of Bacon's many-sided 
 mind is thus reflected in the plays ?
 
 42 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 VI. COMPARISON OF THE PLAYS WITH 
 BACON'S LIFE. 
 
 BUT further, the plays reflect Bacon's life, not Shak- 
 spere's. 
 
 One striking peculiarity of the plays is that, notwithstand- 
 ing the variety and originality they display, the plots are not 
 original, but embroidered upon some old tale or history. It 
 is very strange that the author's so versatile mind should 
 never invent an original story ! 
 
 But this was consonant with Bacon's mind, who, when 
 writing his " History of Henry VII.," wished " there had been 
 already digested any tolerable chronicle as a simple narrative 
 of the actions themselves, which should only have needed 
 out of the former helps to be enriched with the counsels, 
 and the speeches, and notable peculiarities." ' Just so the 
 author of the plays used and enriched the old chronicles 
 and tales. 
 
 Another singularity of the plays is that, apart from the 
 historical plays, the scenes are nearly alway laid abroad. 
 
 Few of the Elizabethan dramas had foreign scenes. 
 Greene, who had travelled in Spain, wrote a play in 1585 
 entitled "The Comical History of Alphonso, King of 
 Aragon." Kidd about 1592 produced "Jeronimo" and 
 "The Spanish Tragedy." Peile about 1594 wrote "The 
 Battle of Alcazar," and perhaps " Alphonsus of Germany." 
 Ben Jonson in 1596 laid in Italy the scene of " Every Man 
 in his Humour," but changed the scene to England in the 
 next edition of the play in 1598. He also took three sub- 
 jects from ancient Roman history. Chapman, the learned 
 translator of Homer and other classics, who began writing 
 1 Bacon's Works, by Spedding, vol. vi., p. 17.
 
 The Plays and Bacons Life. 43 
 
 plays about 1597, chose a foreign scene for his first play, 
 " The Blind Beggar of Alexandria," and for some other 
 plays after Elizabeth's death. Marlowe, whose plays in 
 style, in subject and in metre so strangely resemble the 
 Shakespeare plays as to suggest collaboration, if not a closer 
 origin, chose foreign scenes for his three plays of " Tambur- 
 laine," " The Jew of Malta " and " The Massacre of Paris," 
 between 1585 and 1589. 
 
 All the Shakespeare plays have foreign scenes, save some 
 of the historical plays ; the " Merry Wives," which continues 
 " Henry IV." ; " Cymbeline," whose scene is Bacon's home ; 
 and " King Lear." 
 
 To Bacon, who lived two and a half years in France, 
 whose brother Anthony continued in foreign travel for many 
 years, and who maintained through life intimate corre- 
 spondence with others resident abroad, it would be natural, 
 seeking "fresh woods and pastures new," to let his imagina- 
 tion dwell on foreign scenes. But what could put it into 
 the head of William Shakspere, fresh from a provincial 
 tuwn, to talk of nothing else but foreign parts, of which he 
 could know little or nothing ! 
 
 Notwithstanding a few errors, the plays show a know- 
 ledge of foreign countries, especially of France and Italy, 
 much beyond that ordinarily attained in that age. Francis 
 Bacon's travels were probably confined to France. Anthony 
 visited Germany and Switzerland, and in 1582 intended to 
 go on to Italy, but was then hindered by war. His intimate 
 friend and correspondent, Nicholas Faunt, after travelling 
 in Germany, passed six or seven years between Geneva and 
 North Italy, and as Anthony continued his travels until 
 1 592, he doubtless often accompanied Faunt to Italy. 
 
 The chief error charged against the author of the plays is 
 allotting a seashore to Bohemia in " Winter's Tale." This 
 error appears to have arisen from a transposition, without
 
 44 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 consequent correction, of the scenes in Greene's romance 
 of " Pandosto," on which the play is founded. 1 The romance 
 begins in Bohemia and ends in Sicily. The play transposes 
 the scenes ; hence the sailors land in Bohemia instead of 
 Sicily. Notwithstanding his encyclopaedic learning, Francis 
 Bacon was often careless of details, and incurred James's 
 satirical remark, " De minimis non curat lex." 2 
 
 Another error alleged is that in "The Two Gentlemen 
 of Verona " Valentine and Launce are made to embark at 
 Verona for Milan ; but the Adige is navigable, and the em- 
 barkation was by river, for Launce declares that if the river 
 were dry he could fill it with his tears. 
 
 This play, moreover, was probably written before 1592, 
 when Anthony Bacon returned, and brought Francis the 
 exact knowledge of Venice, Padua and Verona which the 
 plays exhibit, as Elze shows in his essay on the " Supposed 
 Travels of Shakespeare." 
 
 Mr. Sidney Lee admits that "it is in fact unlikely that 
 Shakspere ever set foot on the continent of Europe in either 
 a private or professional capacity." 
 
 Again, notwithstanding what is alleged in the preface to 
 the folio of 1623, the plays did not spring from the poet's 
 brain perfect and complete, like Minerva from the head of 
 Jupiter. They often began with a sketch, which was from 
 time to time re-edited and enlarged until final completion. 
 In this way, too, were Bacon's prose works composed. 
 
 Bacon, we are told, rewrote his " Essays " thirty times. 
 His chaplain and biographer, Dr. Rawley, says : " I myself 
 have seen at the least twelve copies of the ' Instauration ' 
 revised year by year, one after another, and every year 
 altered and amended in the frame thereof, till at last it 
 
 1 Temple Shakespeare. 
 
 2 For instances of inaccuracies see Bacon's " Apothegms," Devey's 
 notes, Bonn's edition.
 
 The Plays and Bacons Life. 45 
 
 came to that model in which it was committed to the 
 press." 
 
 Consider now in detail the origin and history of the plays. 
 
 The development of the mediaeval moralities into the 
 regular drama took place in the sixteenth century. Italy 
 led the way early in the century. Ariosto (1474-1533) has 
 been styled the father of modern comedy. In France, 
 Stephen Jodelle (153 2- 1572) first introduced tragedy and 
 comedy of modern character. Other dramatists succeeded, 
 borrowing largely from the Italian, and in 1576, the year of 
 Bacon's arrival in Paris, a permanent colony of Italian 
 players was established in France, so that Bacon saw in 
 Paris both French and Italian plays, and could form the 
 opinion, afterwards strongly expressed, that the stage, then 
 too often licentious, should be raised to be a means of 
 instruction for the people. 
 
 The English stage was not then more pure than that of 
 France, nor does William Shakspere's life point him out as 
 a probable reformer of its morals ; but it is a striking coin- 
 cidence that in 1576, in which year Francis Bacon first 
 came to London and attended the Court, the first beginning 
 of the Shakespeare plays appeared; and in 1579, the very 
 year in which Francis Bacon returned to England from 
 France, signs of improvement were noted in the English 
 stage, and in that year appeared, in its earliest form, 
 another, or perhaps two other, of the Shakespeare plays. 
 
 In 1576 a " Historie of Errors" was played at Hampton 
 Court before the Queen by the " Children of Pauls." 
 This was doubtless the original or first sketch of the 
 " Comedy of Errors," which was founded on the " Menaech- 
 mi " of Plautus, not then translated. The author was 
 therefore a classical scholar, and had access to the Court, 
 conditions fitting well with Francis Bacon, then fresh from 
 Cambridge, brilliant and precocious, and eager to attract
 
 46 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 the Queen's favour. The same play, probably (miscalled 
 in the Account of Revels "A Historie of Ferrars"), was 
 "shewed before Her Majesty at Wyndesor on Twelf daie 
 (1581) at night, enacted by the Lord Chamberleyne's ser- 
 vants." That Bacon was the anonymous author is con- 
 firmed by the fact that, the next time we hear of the 
 "Comedy of Errors," it was acted in 1594, at Francis 
 Bacon's Inn, Gray's Inn, under his direction and in asso- 
 ciation with a masque wholly or in great part written by 
 him. 
 
 In 1579 Stephen Gosson, in his " School of Abuse," con- 
 taining "a pleasant invective against poets, pipers, players 
 and such like caterpillars of the Commonwealth," while ex- 
 pressing penitence for some plays he had himself written, 
 tells us that, " As some of the players are farre from abuse, 
 so some of their plays are without rebuke, which are as 
 easily remembered, as quickly reckoned." Of such he 
 names, with five others, " The Jew showne at the Bull, re- 
 presenting the greediness of worldly choosers and bloody 
 mindes of usurers." 
 
 In the year of Bacon's return from France, therefore, there 
 was acted at the Bull, where several of the Shakespeare 
 plays were afterwards produced, a play with the double plot 
 of the " Merchant of Venice," the " Caskets " and " The 
 Jew," now first united ; both stories taken from Italian 
 sources, the cruel Jew from a novel not translated. 1 
 
 It is difficult to point to any English dramatist of that 
 date familiar with Italian literature, and competent to dis- 
 cover and combine these two Italian stories into an English 
 comedy. No one has claimed the play, which therefore was 
 probably produced anonymously. Lilly is the only dramatist 
 of any note who is known to have begun work at this date ; 
 he began to write in 1578 and lived till 1601. He wrote 
 
 1 Lee, p. 66.
 
 The Plays and Bacons Life. 47 
 
 many graceful though fantastic masques, but did not claim 
 this play. 
 
 Peile, Greene and Marlowe are said to have begun work 
 about 1584 or 1585. Nash came to London in 1589. 
 Chapman, Ben Jonson and Dekker began eight or ten years 
 later. Marlowe was at this date a youth of fifteen ; Peile 
 was of full age, having been born in 1552. He was an able 
 writer, but he lived until about 1598, when this play had 
 been again acted, under the name of "The Venesyon 
 Comedie," and never claimed the play. On the contrary, 
 his last play, "Willie Beguiled," contains passages parodying 
 the " Merchant of Venice." 1 
 
 The coincidence of date, the foreign scene, and the un- 
 translated Italian source of the play, Bacon being intimately 
 acquainted with Italian literature, all point to the probability 
 that the "Play of the Jew," which was acted in 1579, it 
 would seem anonymously, was one of Francis Bacon's 
 earliest dramas. 
 
 If so, his active intellect and pressing necessities make it 
 unlikely that it was the only one, and there is some evidence 
 of others. 
 
 Gosson mentions a " History of Caesar and Pompey " as 
 also acted in 1579. This may have been the first form of 
 "Julius Caesar." A French tragedy called "The Death of 
 Caesar," written by J. Guerin, was acted in Paris in 1578," 
 and may have suggested the theme. In 1579 also North's 
 translation of Plutarch appeared, containing the lives of 
 Caesar, Brutus and Antony, and upon North's translation 
 the play of " Julius Caesar" appears to be partly based. 
 
 Francis Bacon was at this period very busy about some- 
 thing of seeming mystery, for Nicholas Faunt, in a letter to 
 Anthony of 31st March, 1583, says he called at Gray's Inn 
 
 1 Fleay, " Chronicle," vol. ii., p. 159. 
 a Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. p. 257.
 
 48 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 to see Francis, and " I was answered by his servant that he 
 was not at leisure to speak with me. This strangeness which 
 hath at other times been used towards me by your brother 
 hath made me sometimes to doubt that he greatly mistaketh 
 me." 
 
 The nature of Francis Bacon's studies during these years 
 was, as we have seen, known to his friend Sir Thomas 
 Bodley, and by him strongly condemned. 
 
 In 1584, the year after Faunt's letter, "Felix and Philo- 
 mena," a lost play, on which it is acknowledged ' " The Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona " was founded, was acted at Court. 
 This play had also a foreign source and foreign scene. It 
 was drawn from the Spanish romance of " Diana," which was 
 not translated until 1596 or 1598, and, not being claimed by 
 any dramatist, it was probably anonymous. Yet the author 
 was a man of cultivation, acquainted with the Spanish lan- 
 guage and literature, and of sufficient interest at Court to 
 have the play acted before the Queen All this is very con- 
 sistent with Bacon's authorship. 
 
 The Earl of Leicester was at this time, and until his 
 death in 1588, the patron of the principal company of 
 players, the Queen's, after 1594 called the Lord Chamber- 
 lain's Company. Francis Bacon was a constant attendant 
 at Court, and was in favour with the Queen, whose enter- 
 tainment he often afterwards promoted, and could readily 
 arrange with Leicester for the performance of this play. 
 
 William Shakspere had not then left Stratford. 
 
 1 Lee, p. 53.
 
 " Hamlet '." 49 
 
 VII. " HAMLET." 
 
 T AMLET " next appears ; its early history deserves 
 
 i- JL close attention. 
 
 The play was first acted at some time between 1584 and 
 1589, probably in 1584 or 1585. The scene and source 
 of " Hamlet " are foreign. The story was drawn from the 
 French " Histoires Tragiques " of Belleforest, not translated 
 until 1608, or from the earlier Latin " Historia Danica" of 
 Saxo Grammaticus. The play was therefore the work of a 
 scholar. The play transforms the legend, and is a typical 
 example of the dramatist's power to " enrich " his subject 
 " with counsels and speeches and notable peculiarities," 
 transmuting dross into gold. 
 
 The Ghost, so powerful a motive in the play, finds no 
 place in the legend. The secrecy of the crime, its detection 
 by the " Mousetrap " play, and the gravediggers scene, all 
 are new ; and, from a vulgar temptress procured by the 
 uncle to test Hamlet's madness, has been created the pure 
 and pathetic character of Ophelia. 
 
 The play, though acted before 1589, was not published 
 until 1603. The question is whether the early play and the 
 published play were substantially the same and by the same 
 author. One evidence of identity is that both contained 
 the new and striking episode of the Ghost. 
 
 The production of the play, having for its subject the 
 poisoning of a monarch, deeply avenged, was doubtless 
 connected with the plots for the murder of Elizabeth by 
 poison, which in 1584, and again in 1594, strongly excited 
 the public mind. The play was calculated to arouse in- 
 dignation against such crimes, and to inspire in those 
 tempted to commit them a wholesome dread of vengeance. 
 
 E
 
 50 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 In 1584 several of such plots were discovered, investigated 
 and punished. Francis Bacon, who entered Parliament in 
 that year, thereupon addressed to the Queen a letter of 
 warning and advice. " Care," he wrote, " one of the natural 
 and true-bred children of unfeigned affection, awaked with 
 these late wicked and barbarous attempts, would needs 
 exercise my pen to your sacred Majesty." 
 
 On 28th February, 1587-8, certain devices and shows 
 were presented to Her Majesty by the gentlemen of Gray's 
 Inn (Bacon's Inn) at Her Highness's Court at Greenwich, 
 including a masque of " The Misfortunes of Arthur," ' partly 
 devised by Francis Bacon. Seven plays were also performed 
 before the Queen by the children of Paul's and Her Majesty's 
 servants during these revels. Whether these plays included 
 the original play of " Hamlet " we know not ; the first distinct 
 allusion to the play appears in Nash's preface to Greene's 
 " Menaphon " in 1589, when the play must have been well 
 known and already often acted. 
 
 Both Nash and Greene were dramatists of University 
 education, who jealously resented the intrusion by inter- 
 lopers, without classical education, of foreign translated 
 plays in blank verse. Greene in 1585, in his "Planeto- 
 machia," denounced " some avaricious player — who not 
 content with his own province [of acting] should dare to 
 intrude into the field of authorship, which ought to belong 
 solely to the professed scholars." In 1588 he sneers again 
 at this play-writer, and speaks of "gentlemen poets" who 
 set " the end of scholarism in an English blank verse — it is 
 the humor of a novice that tickles them with self-love." 
 
 Nash, in his preface of 1589, sneers at a few of our 
 " triviall translators," and proceeds : " It is a common 
 practice now-a-daies, amongst a sort of shifting companions 
 
 1 Collier's " History of the Drama," pp. 266-268 ; Knight's " Bio- 
 graphy of Shakespeare," pp. 326-327.
 
 " Hci7nlet" 51 
 
 that runne through every arte and thrive by none, to leave 
 the trade of noverint wherein they were borne, and busie 
 themselves with the endeavours of art ; that could scarcelie 
 latinize their neck-verse if they should have neede ; yet 
 English Seneca read by candle-light yeeldes manie good 
 sentences as ' Bloud is a beggar,' and so forth : and if you 
 intreate him faire in a frostie morning he will affoord you 
 whole Hamlets, I should say Handfuls of tragical speaches." 
 — "Idiot art-masters who think to outbrave better pens 
 with the swelling bombast of bragging verse, and translate 
 twopenny pamphlets from the Italian. 1 ' 
 
 What caused this outburst of jealousy from Greene and 
 Nash ? By some this satire is supposed to refer to Shak- 
 spere, who had but lately come to London ; by others, to 
 be pointed at Thomas Kydd, who about this date was writ- 
 ing plays ; but Kydd is not known to have translated from 
 the Italian. Probably the satire was directed against the 
 anonymous and, as yet, unknown author, whose foreign 
 dramas in blank verse, drawn from Italian, Spanish or 
 French stories, were gaining a popularity excelling that of 
 the rhyming comedies of Nash and Greene or Lodge. 
 
 In 1 591 Greene, in his "Farewell to Folly," sneers at 
 the practice of concealing the authorship of plays under 
 other names. " Others — if they come to write or publish 
 anything in print — which for their calling a?id gravity being 
 loth to have any profane pamphlets pass under their hand, 
 get some other to set his name to their verses. Thus is 
 the ass made proud by this underhand brokery. And he 
 that cannot write true English without the aid of clerks 
 of parish churches will needs make himself the father of 
 interludes." 
 
 In 1594 another plot against Elizabeth's life was dis- 
 covered ; her physician Lopez was bribed with 50,000 
 crowns to poison her by putting a poisoned jewel into her
 
 52 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 cup. Bacon took official part in the inquiry into the guilt 
 of Lopez, who was executed on 7th June, 1594. 
 
 Two days later, on 9th June, 1594, " Hamlet " was acted 
 at Newington Butts by " My lord Admiralle and my lord 
 Chamberlen men." * 
 
 In the play the cup prepared for Hamlet, but drunk by 
 the Queen, is poisoned with a pearl. 
 
 In 1596 Lodge, in "Wits Miserie," alludes to the Ghost 
 " which cries so miserably at the Theatre like an oyster wife 
 ' Hamlet revenge.' " This new supernatural element, the 
 ghost impelling Hamlet to avenge his murder, goes far to 
 prove the substantial identity of the play acted before 1589, 
 and again in 1594, with the play published in 1603 and 1604. 
 
 In 1598, the year in which the name of Shakespeare was 
 first printed on the title-page of a play, " Hamlet " appears 
 to have been assigned to him as the author. 
 
 Steevens, in his preface to " Hamlet," writes : " I have 
 seen a copy of Speight's edition of Chaucer which formerly 
 belonged to Gabriel Harvey (the antagonist of Nash), who 
 in his own handwriting has set down ' Hamlet ' as a per- 
 formance with which he was well acquainted in the year 
 1598. His words are these: 'The younger sort take much 
 delight in Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis"; but his 
 " Lucrece " and his tragedy of " Hamlet, Prince of Den- 
 marke," have it in them to please the wiser sort, 1598.' " 
 
 The copy of Chaucer referred to has disappeared, and 
 Halliwell-Phillipps doubts if the date of Gabriel Harvey's 
 note is reliable ; but Steevens's statement is precise, and 
 confirms the identity of the play, well known in and before 
 1598, with the play afterwards published in Shakespeare's 
 name. 
 
 The identity of the actors points to the same conclusion. 
 In 1594 "Hamlet" was played by the Lord Admiral and 
 
 1 Henslowe's Diary.
 
 "Hamlet? 53 
 
 the Lord Chamberlain's men, who from 1594 to 1596 acted 
 together at Newington Butts. In 1596 "Hamlet" was 
 played at " The Theatre " which James Burbage built in 
 1576, and where the Lord Chamberlain's Company were 
 acting in 1596. 1 The play therefore belonged to that com- 
 pany ; and according to tradition Richard Burbage excelled 
 in the part of Hamlet, and William Shakspere, who was a 
 member of the company in and after 1594, took the part of 
 the Ghost, " the top of his performance." Were there two 
 Hamlets, and two Ghosts, conceived by two different 
 authors, and acted alternately or successively by the same 
 actors ? A strange theory, which seems confuted by the 
 title of the play when published. 
 
 On 26th July, 1602, "A book called the revenge of 
 Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, as it was lately acted by the 
 Lord Chamberlain his servants," was entered on the register 
 of the Stationers' Company. 
 
 In the following year, 1603, "Hamlet" was published 
 under the title of "The Tragical Historie of Hamlet, Prince 
 of Denmark, by William Shakespeare, as it hath beene 
 divers times acted by his Highnesse servants in the citie of 
 London, as also in the two Universities of Cambridge and 
 Oxford and elsewhere." 
 
 The play now published was, therefore, not a new one, 
 but the old one well known as so often acted by the Lord 
 Chamberlain's Company in many places. 
 
 In 1604 a revised and much longer version was published 
 as "The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, 
 by William Shakespeare, newly imprinted and enlarged to 
 almost as much again as it was, according to the true and 
 perfect copy." 
 
 In the folio of 1623 it was again printed, with some 
 further additions and some omissions. 
 
 1 Lee, p. 36.
 
 54 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 The precise words, " Hamlet revenge," spoken by the 
 Ghost, and which had become a common saying in 1596, 
 are not found in the published editions ; but the title regis- 
 tered in 1602, "The Revenge of Hamlet," suggests that 
 some earlier copies contained them, or that some actor 
 declaimed them and so gave them currency. The passion 
 of the play as first acted was probably less restrained than 
 in the printed editions. 1 
 
 The continuous popularity of the play, presented re- 
 peatedly by the same company, the Ghost specially char- 
 acteristic of the Shakespeare play, its description when pub- 
 lished as the well-known play so often acted by the Lord 
 Chamberlain's Company : all these are marks which com- 
 bine to establish the substantial identity of the play pub- 
 lished in 1603 with the play acted in and before 1589. 
 
 But in 1589 William Shakspere had but lately left 
 Stratford, and, according to D'Avenant's story, was holding 
 horses at the Theatre. He could scarcely yet have become 
 an actor, nor is it reasonably credible that he had already 
 composed " Hamlet " and obtained its production. 
 
 Bacon at this date had returned from France ten years, 
 and was studying law at Gray's Inn, but falling into debt. 
 He was devoted to the drama, and had perhaps already 
 produced four plays, "The Plaie of Errors," "The Jew," 
 " Caesar," and " Felix and Philomena." He was well known 
 and esteemed at Court, familiar with Lord Leicester, and 
 doubtless also with the Queen's Company of players, and, 
 well knowing the dangers to which Elizabeth was exposed, 
 was eager to " exercise his pen in her service." 
 
 The philosophic character and the medical science and 
 legal skill of the play point to the philosophic mind and 
 medical and legal skill of Bacon, rather than to the early 
 essay of a provincial youth, for its origin. 
 
 1 Halliwell-Phillipps, vol. ii., p. 312.
 
 " Hamlet" 55 
 
 The play seems tinged with the vague pantheistic philo- 
 sophy of Giordano Bruno, 1 who lectured in Paris against 
 Aristotle in 1579 (in which year Bacon also was in Paris), 
 and who was in England from 1583 to 1585, was patronized 
 by Sir Philip Sidney, to whom he dedicated two of his books, 
 and doubtless would obtain the sympathy and friendship of 
 Francis Bacon. The coincidence of date is interesting, 
 having regard to the philosophical cast of the play. 
 
 The philosophy of Greece also appears in the play. 
 
 Bacon names among other Greek philosophers, too 
 slightingly perused, Parmenides, of whose works a few 
 fragments have been preserved by Plato. The essence of 
 Parmenides' teaching was that Being is the sole reality, and 
 not Being is nothing, 2 " Wherefore either to be or not to be 
 is the unconditioned alternative." Here may be traced 
 the germ of Hamlet's soliloquy. Parmenides also taught 
 that the sun and stars are real fires. Bacon adopted this 
 opinion and Hamlet expresses it : " Doubt that the stars 
 are fire — but never doubt my love." 
 
 But there is also singular evidence of medical science. 
 The circulation of the blood was not announced by Harvey 
 until 1 6 16 ; but the valvular structure of the veins was dis- 
 covered before this time by Fabricius, a physician of Padua, 
 to whom Harvey went to study in 1598. This stage of the 
 discovery appears to have been known to the author of 
 " Hamlet," who also understood the action of certain poisons 
 in coagulating the blood and throwing out pustules. 
 
 The Ghost thus describes his murder : 
 
 Sleeping within mine orchard, 
 My custom always of the afternoon, 
 
 1 " Shakespeariana," vol. i., p. 31 ; Field's notes to "Romeo and 
 Juliet." 
 
 a " Baconiana, " vol. i., p. 223.
 
 56 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole 
 With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, 
 And in the porches of mine ears did pour 
 The leperous distilment ; whose effect 
 Holds such an enmity with blood of man 
 That swift as quicksilver it courses through 
 The natural gates and alleys of the body, 
 And with a sudden vigour it doth posset 
 And curd, like eager droppings into milk, 
 The thin and wholesome blood : so did it mine, 
 And a most instant tetter barked about 
 Most lazar like, with vile and loathsome crust, 
 All my smooth body. 
 
 The like knowledge appears afterwards in " Coriolanus," 
 where Menenius, in telling the fable of the belly and the 
 members, says of the digested food : 
 
 I send it through the rivers of your blood, 
 
 Even to the Court, the heart — to the seat of the brain ; 
 
 And through the cranks and offices of men, 
 
 The strongest nerves and small inferior veins 
 
 From me receive that natural competency 
 
 Whereby they live. 
 
 How came the author of " Hamlet " by this knowledge ? 
 Francis Bacon had correspondents in Italy and at Padua, and 
 studied deeply physiology and the operation of poisons. 
 Can William Shakspere be reasonably supposed to have 
 gained this knowledge at Stratford. 
 
 As to legal attainment, it has been pointed out by Lord 
 Campbell * that the gravediggers scene shows an accurate 
 knowledge of the law relating to suicides, as discussed in 
 the case of Hales v. Petit in Plowden's " Reports" (1578). 
 Knowledge proper to Bacon, but very strange in William 
 Shakspere. 
 
 Much conjecture has been indulged in as to the relation 
 of the first to the second quarto edition of " Hamlet." It 
 
 1 " Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements," p. 104.
 
 "Hamlet" 57 
 
 has been suggested that the 1603 edition was printed 1 
 " apparently from a MS. of the old play by Kyd, as hurriedly 
 altered by Shakspere for the occasion, but with the omission 
 of many speeches, which, being written on separate papers, 
 had passed into the hands of the several actors ; their defect 
 being made up as best might be." Again, 2 that the edition 
 of 1603 was "a piratical and carelessly transcribed copy of 
 Shakspere's first draft of the play." 
 
 These conjectures appear inconsistent with the facts 
 shown by the books themselves. 
 
 The greater part of the play of 1603 is verbatim the same 
 as that of 1604, and must have had the same author. The 
 title of the play of 1603 declares it to be that which the 
 Lord Chamberlain's Company were accustomed to act. That 
 it was not copied or taken down from the play of 1604 is 
 shown by Polonius being named Corambus in 1603. The 
 difference between the two editions consists not in incident 
 but chiefly in the expansion of the speeches, developing 
 the characters of the play. The speeches are not dropped 
 out in 1603, but are expanded in 1604. Thus revised 
 and enlarged the play became the true and perfect copy. 
 A like revision and expansion took place with regard to 
 others of these plays, "The Merry Wives," the Second 
 part of " Henry VI.," and others. The two titles tell 
 the plain facts and cannot be ignored. There appears no 
 just ground for the imputation of piracy. The book was 
 duly entered at Stationers' Hall in 1602 by James Roberts, 
 who probably therefore printed the edition of 1603 for 
 Ling and Trundell, the publishers ; and who certainly 
 printed the edition of 1604 for the same publisher, Nicholas 
 Ling. 
 
 That the edition of 1603 was not a mutilated copy of that 
 
 1 Fleay, " Chronicle of the English Drama," vol. ii., p. 1S6. 
 a Lee, p. 223.
 
 58 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 of 1604, but that the latter was a distinct revision, is con- 
 firmed by the German " Hamlet." " Hamlet " is included 
 with " Romeo and Juliet," " Julius Caesar " and " King 
 Lear," in a list dated 1626 of English plays acted in that 
 year at Dresden. 1 The earliest extant German version is 
 dated in 17 10. It is vulgarized in the translation ; but the 
 incidents are nearly the same as those of the English play 
 of 1603, and the Chamberlain is named Corambus, showing 
 that the German play had an origin distinct from and earlier 
 than the English play of 1604. 
 
 Leicester's company of players accompanied him to the 
 Low Countries when he went thither as commander-in-chief 
 in 1585. The play, as we have seen, belonged to that 
 company. It seems probable that by that company and 
 at that date the play of " Hamlet " was first introduced into 
 Germany. 
 
 If the evidence identifies the " Hamlet " acted in and 
 before 1589 with the "Hamlet" of 1603 and 1604, William 
 Shakspere cannot reasonably be supposed to have been the 
 author. If Shakspere was not the author, to whom but to 
 Francis Bacon can the authorship be attributed ? And it will 
 not be disputed that the author of "Hamlet" was the 
 author of the other plays. 
 
 1 Cohn's " Shakespeare in Germany," p. cxv.
 
 Other Plays. 59 
 
 VIII. "TWELFTH NIGHT," "LOVE'S LABOUR'S 
 LOST," "TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA" 
 AND "MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM." 
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT " in its original form, if the sug- 
 gestions of an ingenious writer may be accepted, 1 
 also appeared in 1584 or 1585 as a thinly-veiled satire on 
 members of the English Court. 
 
 In D'Israeli's " Curiosities of Literature " it is stated that 
 " Coke was exhibited on the stage for his ill-usage of Raleigh, 
 as was suggested by Theobald in a note on 'Twelfth Night'"; 
 but the play may be more probably explained as a satire in 
 the person of Malvolio, Olivia's steward, upon Raleigh, then 
 the Queen's Chamberlain, whose overweening arrogance 
 embittered the envy caused by his sudden rise to royal 
 favour. 
 
 Raleigh, Aubrey says, " was a fine fellow but damnable 
 proud." Bacon relates Lord Oxford's sneer at Raleigh, 
 "When Jacks go up heads go down." He offended the 
 court ladies, as Bacon also tells, 2 by saying " they were like 
 witches for they could do hurt, but they could do no good ! " 
 The ladies doubtless retaliated, and would enjoy even an 
 imaginary discomfiture of their contemner. Maria's descrip- 
 tion of Malvolio as " smiling his face into more lines than 
 are in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies " 
 would be referred to Raleigh, whose captains returned in 
 September, 1584, from their first exploring voyage to the 
 West. 3 
 
 1 "Renascence Drama, or History made Visible," by William 
 Thomson, K. R.C.S., F.L.S. Melbourne, 1880. 
 
 s "Apothegms." 
 
 ,1 This may be a later addition referring to Hakluyt's Map, published 
 in 1599 or 1600 (Lee, p. 210).
 
 60 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 The Clown doubtless represented, or was represented 
 by, Dick Tarleton, whom for his ready wit Leicester brought 
 from being a cowherd on his estate to become Court Jester, 
 a post he retained until in 1584 his biting jest at the un- 
 popular favourite banished him from Court. 1 "See," he 
 said, pointing to Raleigh, who with Leicester was sitting 
 beside Elizabeth, " the knave commands the Queen !" After 
 leaving Court, Tarleton became or continued the chief 
 comedian in Leicester's company of players ; he went with 
 Leicester to the Low Countries in 1585, and died in 1588. 
 Tarleton also kept a tavern in Gracious, now Gracechurch 
 Street, hard by the chiming tower of St. Benet's Church. 
 Hence the wit passage between the Clown and Viola. 
 
 " Viola. Save thee, friend, and thy music. Dost thou live 
 by thy tabor? 
 
 Clown. No, sir, I live by the church. 
 
 Viola. Art thou a churchman. 
 
 Clown. No such matter, sir. I do live by the church, for 
 I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the 
 church." 
 
 And again, the Clown says to Orsino : 
 
 "The bells of St. Bennet may put you in mind, one, two, 
 three." 
 
 The Captain's advice to Sebastian, " In the south suburb, 
 at the Elephant, is best to lodge," further shows that, though 
 the scene and the actors are disguised as of Illyria, they 
 belong really to the English Court, and to London city. 
 The Elephant, now surviving as the Elephant and Castle, 
 would be one of the first hostelries reached on entering 
 London on the south from the sea-coast. 
 
 1 Bohun's " Character of Elizabeth."
 
 Other Plays. 61 
 
 The Clown also satirically refers to the transmigration of 
 souls, which strange notion of Pythagoras was revived by 
 Giordano Bruno when in England from 1583 to 1585, the 
 suggested date of the play. 
 
 " Clown. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning 
 wild fowl ? 
 
 Malvolio. That the soul of our grandam might haply in- 
 habit a bird." 
 
 Sir Toby Belch, Olivia's kinsman, recalled Elizabeth's 
 own cousin, Sir Francis Knollys, a jovial old soldier, who by 
 virtue of " consanguinity " took liberties in the royal house- 
 hold, as Sir Toby did in Olivia's. His chamber being hard 
 by the dormitory of the maids of honour, he declared 
 " that they used when retired for the night to frisk and hey 
 about," so that it was in vain for him to attempt sleep or 
 study. One night, " when the maids of honour were un- 
 usually obstreperous," he marched into their dormitory with 
 his night-cap on and book in hand, and paced up and down 
 declaiming in Latin, declaring that he would not leave them 
 in quiet possession, without they permitted him to rest in 
 his apartments. 
 
 Sebastian may represent young Robert Devereux, after- 
 wards Earl of Essex, who in 1584 entered the brilliant 
 Court, and Viola, perhaps, his sister Penelope, whose 
 beauty changed Sir Philip Sidney's courtly admiration of 
 Elizabeth to a passion for herself, which her marriage with 
 Lord Rich disappointed. 
 
 Other allusions in the play may be traced with more or 
 less probability, and others may exist no longer recog- 
 nizable. 
 
 In that age personal satire was common, and playwrights 
 freely lampooned one another ; but a court satire needed for 
 its writer one within the circle of the Court, familiar with
 
 62 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 court gossip, and with tact showing how far and in what 
 direction satire might safely go. These qualifications be- 
 longed to Bacon rather than to Shakspere. 
 
 "Twelfth Night" was acted, probably in a revised form, 
 at the Middle Temple Hall on February 2nd, 1601-2. 
 
 The satire on the English Court was followed by a 
 travesty of the French Court. In " Love's Labour 's Lost " 
 the King of Navarre and his courtiers and some of the in- 
 cidents of the play are drawn from contemporary characters 
 and events of the French Court. The scene in which the 
 princess's lovers press their suit in the disguise of Russians 
 follows the reception at Elizabeth's Court, in 1584, of Rus- 
 sian ambassadors, who sought a wife among the English 
 nobility for the Tsar. 
 
 " Love's Labour 's Lost " is commonly said from internal 
 evidence to be the earliest of the Shakespeare plays, because 
 of the large number of rhymes which it contains ; and, al- 
 though this character may depend on subject as well as 
 date, this play appears to be the first which in point of date 
 could be attributed to William Shakspere. But how strange 
 a subject it seems for him to choose for his first essay in 
 drama. 
 
 Bacon from his residence in France knew all the leaders 
 in French politics, and doubtless saw the Russian am- 
 bassadors at the English Court ; but what could Shakspere, 
 living at Stratford, probably until 1587, be likely to know 
 of French politics or Russian ambassadors ? 
 
 "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," which is thought to 
 have next appeared, was probably a revision of the lost 
 " History of Felix and Philomena " already mentioned. 
 Both were founded on the Spanish romance of " Diana," of 
 which no translation was published until 1596 or 1598. 
 Bacon knew Spanish, and in his " Promus " collected 
 Spanish proverbs, but it is scarcely possible that Shakspere
 
 Other Plays. 63 
 
 could be acquainted with the Spanish language or literature, 
 or could have discovered this Spanish romance ; he could 
 not have done so at Stratford in 1584, when "Felix and 
 Philomena " appeared. 
 
 The scenes of these two plays were laid abroad, a choice 
 well fitting Bacon's life, but hard to reconcile with Shak- 
 spere's. 
 
 " Midsummer Night's Dream " is believed by Fleay to be 
 one of the earliest of the plays on account of the 850 
 rhyming lines it contains, exceeding those of any other of 
 the plays except " Love's Labour 's Lost," which has more 
 than 1,000. Only three other plays, " Romeo and Juliet," 
 " Richard II." and the "Comedy of Errors," exceed 200. ' 
 
 The play was probably written in celebration of a mar- 
 riage, and several authors 2 have assumed that it was com- 
 posed for Southampton's marriage in 1598. Elze points 
 out a that this is inconsistent with the clandestine circum- 
 stances of Southampton's marriage, for which he was 
 promptly imprisoned by Elizabeth, and he suggests Essex's 
 marriage in 1590 as the more probable occasion. 
 
 Oberon's vision is thought to refer to Leicester's fete- 
 to Elizabeth at Kenilworth in 1575, which argues an early 
 date for the play. 
 
 This theory agrees well with Francis Bacon's authorship, 
 whose intimacy with Essex might well lead him so to grace 
 his marriage. But it is difficult to suppose that William 
 Shakspere within three years from leaving Stratford in 1587 
 could have attained the refinement and skill which charac- 
 terize the play, or the distinction of being chosen to write 
 it for such an occasion. 
 
 1 " Shakespeare Manual," p. 131. 
 
 a Tieck, Ulrici, Gerald, Massey. 
 
 ' Elze's "Essays," " Midsummer Night's Dream."
 
 64 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 IX. HISTORICAL PLAYS, 1591. 
 
 THE next play is believed to be the First part of 
 "Henry VI.," commencing the historical series and 
 dramatizing the wars in France. It was produced on 3rd 
 March, 1591, J and obtained a popular triumph. "How it 
 would have joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French," 
 wrote Nash in August, 1592, "to think that after he had 
 lyne two hundred yeares in his tombe hee should triumph 
 againe on the stage, and have his bones embalmed with the 
 teares of ten thousand spectators at least (at several times), 
 who in the tragedian that represents his person imagine 
 that they behold him fresh bleeding." 
 
 The scenes of this play Bacon had himself visited ; the 
 effect of its acting was just such as he desired for the his- 
 torical drama, " History made Visible." 
 
 The Second and Third parts of " Henry VI. " were acted 
 in the same or the following year. These depict the wars 
 of the Roses ; the Second part describes the battle of St. 
 Albans, which was fought within a mile or two of Bacon's 
 home. From his childhood he grew up amid the memories 
 of Henry VI. In the Abbey Church are the tombs of Earl 
 Warwick's family, with the Nevil's crest, "The rampant 
 bear chained to the ragged staff," of the Greys his kindred, 
 of Queen Margaret and good Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, 
 all of whom are mentioned in the Third part of " Henry VI." 
 
 Historical plays were then almost a novelty, although a 
 popular play of " The Victories of Henry V. " was acted 
 and one or two others. It was natural that Bacon should 
 essay historical drama which he so commended, and natural 
 
 1 Henslowe's Diary ; Lee, p. 56.
 
 Historical Plays. 65 
 
 that he should choose the historical scenes with which he 
 was most familiar : but it was a strange coincidence that 
 Shakspere (if it was really he) should not only choose 
 historical drama, but should, in making his first essay, select 
 for his subject three historical scenes so intimately connected 
 with Bacon's life. 
 
 Two lines in " 1 Henry VI. " point to Bacon rather 
 than Shakspere as the author of this play : 
 
 Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens 
 
 That one day bloomed and fruitful were the next. 
 
 Critics were long puzzled to trace this legend. It has 
 been found in Plato's " Phredrus," which Bacon knew, 
 but which was not translated in Shakspere's time. But 
 " Adonis' Gardens " is also one of Bacon's " Promus " notes, 
 drawn from Erasmus. 
 
 A few lines further on "the rich jewelled coffer of Darius" 
 is mentioned, of which the story, taken from Pliny and 
 Strabo, is told by Bacon in the first book of " De Aug- 
 ments " ; another instance of the identity, in thought and 
 knowledge, of the author of the plays and Bacon. 
 
 It seems as difficult to fit the scenes and subjects of these 
 plays, as their language and learning into the life of Shakspere. 
 
 Genius, in every other case, takes colour from its sur- 
 roundings, however it may transmute them. 
 
 Walter Scott wrote of mediaeval romance, and of Scottish 
 history and homely life ; Robert Burns of " Banks and 
 Braes " and rustic beauty ; Dickens invested vulgar life 
 with picturesqueness, humour and pathos ; Thackeray wrote 
 tales of the Charterhouse ; Disraeli, political novels; Glad- 
 stone, Homeric dissertations. Shakspere's receptivi •genius, 
 if he really possessed it, must have absorbed the scenes 
 and customs of his Warwickshire home, as George Eliot 
 did, and then the vivid variety of town life when he came 
 
 F
 
 66 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 to London. With a mind so filled, but with little book- 
 learning, in what form is his genius supposed to burst out ? 
 French politics, Italian novel, Roman history, Spanish 
 romance, Danish legend, Latin play, French wars and the 
 battle of St. Albans ! 
 
 It is a tissue of improbabilities which multiply by geo- 
 metrical progression into the impossible. But all fit natur- 
 ally and exactly into the life of Francis Bacon, and reflect 
 its varying colour. 
 
 If Bacon was the author of the plays this could not be 
 avowed ; some author must be named for plays so successful. 
 
 In the contempt in which the stage was then held, an 
 avowal of the authorship of stage plays would have de- 
 stroyed Bacon's good prospects of judicial or other office, 
 and ruined his professional career. It would have dis- 
 graced him at Court, and bitterly incensed his mother. 
 
 Literature as a profession, even apart from play-writing, 
 was then deemed degrading to a man of position. Mon- 
 taigne said for a man of good family to addict himself to 
 literature for so "abject an end as gain " was "unworthy of 
 the grace and favour of the Muses." Selden, in his "Table 
 Talk," says : " 'Tis ridiculous for a Lord to print verses, 
 'tis well enough to make them to please himself, but to 
 make them public is foolish"; and the author of "The 
 Arte of English Poesie " (1589) says he has known "very 
 many notable gentlemen of the Court that have written 
 (poetry) commendably and suppressed it again, or else 
 suffered it to be published without their own names to it." 1 
 
 Suchy^«jc d' esprit might be circulated privately in manu- 
 script without the loss of caste which publication for profit 
 would entail. 
 
 Shakspere's name was given forth as the author of the 
 plays. This role would be but awkwardly assumed by a 
 1 " Shakespeare, Bacon, an Essay," p. 36.
 
 Historica I Plays. 6 7 
 
 young illiterate player, and may well have seemed to his 
 fellows incongruous or unaccountable, and have excited 
 their jealousy and suspicion ; although those who only 
 knew him from the works which bore his name may have 
 expressed unfeigned admiration. Nash in 1589 had sneered 
 at some " Idiot art-masters who think to outbrave better 
 pens with the swelling bombast of bragging verse and trans- 
 late twopenny pamphlets from the Italian." But when the 
 trilogy of " Henry VI." achieved such brilliant success, and 
 was claimed by Shakspere, suspicion broke out into denun- 
 ciation ; and Greene in 1592, in his "Groatsworth of Wit," 
 warned his friends against the upstart. "An upstart crow 
 beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart 
 wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to 
 bombast a blank verse as the best of you, and being an 
 absolute Johannes Factotum is in his own conceit the only 
 Shake-scene in a country." 
 
 The words " With his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's 
 hide " are parodied from the line in " 3 Henry VI." : " O 
 tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide." 
 
 It has been erroneously supposed that Chettle, who pub- 
 lished Greene's " Groatsworth of Wit," afterwards apolo- 
 gized, in his " Kind Hearts Dream," for this as an attack on 
 Shakspere. This is an error ; the apology and the character- 
 sketch it contained do not, as Fleay and Castle have pointed 
 out, 1 refer at all to Shakspere, but to one of the three writers 
 whom Greene had addressed and severely censured, prob- 
 ably Marlowe. The error was begun by Malone, and has 
 been copied by subsequent writers. Chettle's words are : 
 " About three months since died Mr. Robert Greene, leaving 
 many papers in sundry booksellers' hands, among others 
 his ' Groatsworth of Wit,' in which a letter written to divers 
 
 1 Fleay, "Chronicle History of Shakespeare," p. Ill; "Shake- 
 speare, Bacon, Jonson, ami Greene," l>y Castle, p. 163.
 
 68 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 play-writers is offensively by one or two of them taken. — 
 With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and 
 with one of them I care not if I never be. The other 
 whom at that time I did not so much spare as since I wish 
 I had — that I did not I am as sorry as if the original fault 
 had been my fault." 
 
 If the suspicions of the genuineness of Shakspere's claims 
 should spread the mask might not avail, the true authorship 
 of the plays might be discovered. If, however, Shakspere's 
 reputation as a poet were established, this might be averted. 
 What next followed certainly had this effect. 
 
 X. "VENUS AND ADONIS" AND " LUCRECE," 
 
 IN 1593, the London theatres being closed on account 
 of the plague, which would prevent the author of the 
 plays, whether Bacon or Shakspere, from gaining money by 
 fresh dramas, the classical poem of " Venus and Adonis " 
 appeared, without an author's name on the title-page, but 
 with a dedication to the Earl of Southampton, signed 
 " William Shakespeare." The Earl of Southampton, then 
 a young man of twenty, lodged in Gray's Inn, and was well 
 known to Bacon and his brother Anthony. He was a close 
 friend of Essex, for whom Francis and Anthony Bacon were 
 then acting as secretaries or assistants. He afterwards be- 
 came associated with Essex in his treasonable schemes ; 
 Bacon then renounced the friendship of both, and the 
 dedication did not appear in the later editions. 
 
 To show some connection between Southampton and 
 William Shakspere, any intimacy between a nobleman and 
 a young actor being unlikely, a story is cited, recorded by 
 Nicholas Rowe with some hesitation more than a century
 
 " Venus and Adonis " and " Litcrece" 69 
 
 later, in 1709, and said to be handed down by Sir William 
 D'Avenant, "that Lord Southampton at one time gave 
 Shakspere a thousand pounds to enable him to go through 
 with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to." 
 
 The story is not reconcilable with the facts of Shakspere's 
 life. His first purchase was of New Place for ^60 in 
 1597. At this time his income as an actor is estimated at 
 ^130 a year, irrespective of any profit from the plays. 1 In 
 1598 we find him lending money at Stratford. In that year 
 Southampton was committed to prison on account of his 
 secret marriage with one of the Queen's Maids of Honour. 
 He was already ruined by his extravagance, and had joined 
 the Paris embassy to endeavour to retrieve his position. 
 Being recalled to answer for his offence, he wrote thus to 
 Essex from Paris in September, 1598: "My so sudden 
 return is a kind of punishment which I imagine Her 
 Majesty's will is not to lay upon me ; I mean because, when 
 I am returned, I protest unto your lordship I scarce know 
 what course to take to live, having at my departure let to 
 farm that poor estate I had left for the satisfying my 
 creditors, and payment of those debts which I came to owe 
 by following her court, and have reserved only such a 
 portion as will maintain myself and a very small train in 
 the time of my travels." 2 In 1599 Shakspere acquired from 
 Burbage shares in the Globe Theatre, "doubtless freely 
 bestowed," 3 estimated to bring him in ^500 a year. In 
 1 601 Southampton was again imprisoned for complicity in 
 Essex's rebellion, and was not released until April, 1603. 
 His name was now struck out from the dedication of the 
 poems. In 1602 Shakspere, then living in affluence at 
 Stratford, bought lands for ^320, and in 1605 a lease of 
 tithes for ,£440. It cannot be supposed that Southamp- 
 
 1 Lcc, p. 199. - Hatfield MSS., 1598. 
 
 3 Lee, p. 201.
 
 jo Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 ton's aid, while he was still in prison or recently released, 
 was either offered or required for these purchases. 
 
 If the story has any foundation, it may possibly refer to 
 some act of liberality of Southampton to Francis Bacon, 
 who was in money straits, and to whom Essex in 1594 trans- 
 ferred property worth ^1,800 in reward for long service. 
 
 To " Venus and Adonis " was prefixed a Latin quotation 
 from Ovid's "Amores." Of the poem Charles and Mary 
 Cowden Clarke, who seem to have studied it more ac- 
 curately than Shakspere's life, write : " It bears palpable 
 tokens of college elegance and predilection, both in story and 
 in treatment. The air of niceness and stiffness peculiar to the 
 schools invests these efforts of the youthful genius with almost 
 unmistakable signs of having been written by a schoolman." 
 
 One of Shakspere's contemporaries, the author of " Poli- 
 manteia " (1595), fell into the like error, or divined the true 
 author, when he wrote that Shakspere was both a " schollar " 
 and also a member of one or more of the " three English 
 Universities, Cambridge, Oxford and the Inns of Court." 
 A description well fitting either Francis or Anthony Bacon, 
 but not William Shakspere. 
 
 In those days, when men travelled little even in their 
 own country, the provincial dialects were strong and per- 
 sistent. It is difficult to conceive that William Shakspere, 
 so soon after leaving Stratford, could have written a poem 
 so polished, elegant and classical. 
 
 Moreover, the dedication describes the poem as "the 
 first heir of mine invention," a remarkable expression, in- 
 consistent apparently with its authorship by the writer of 
 the plays, whoever he might be, unless, as some have been 
 driven to suppose, it was written by Shakspere before he 
 left Stratford — a difficult theory ! 
 
 In the previous year, 1592, Anthony Bacon returned 
 from his foreign travels, and lived with Francis at Gray's
 
 
 
 " Venus and Adonis " and " Lucrece^ J i 
 
 Inn until 1594, and then went to live near the Bull Theatre. 
 He was two years older than Francis, and had an equal 
 education ; the brothers were devoted to each other, and 
 doubtless Anthony, until his death in 1601, aided Francis 
 in his literary work, including the plays, if he wrote them. 
 He was, Dr. Rawley tells us, " of as great a wit as his 
 brother, but less learned." Among Anthony Bacon's cor- 
 respondence at Lambeth Palace is a French elegy to his 
 memory, which addresses him as " the flower of Englishmen 
 and the honor of the nine Muses and of Pallas, who now 
 wander without guide or succour through the wood." It 
 would seem from this that Anthony was known as a poet, 
 although no poems are known to have been published in 
 his name. 
 
 Is it an improbable conjecture that Anthony Bacon may 
 have written " Venus and Adonis," which is as poetical as 
 the plays, but less learned ? This may have been " the first 
 heir of his invention." The moral tone of the poem differs 
 widely from that of the plays, and seems to harmonize as 
 little with the character of Francis Bacon as the polished 
 elegance of the verse does with the education of William 
 Shakspere. 
 
 In the year 1594 the poem " Lucrece " was published, 
 with a similar dedication to Lord Southampton, signed 
 " William Shakespeare." The authorship of the two poems 
 was doubtless the same. 
 
 Although the writing of poems might be less objectionable 
 in a lawyer than writing plays, its avowal would have been a 
 serious obstacle to Francis Bacon's professional advance- 
 ment, since even his philosophical writings are said to have 
 been used by his rivals to exclude him from office. The same 
 objection might be felt by Anthony to the publication of 
 poems in his name, and there was, if Francis Bacon wrote 
 the plays, the attribution of which to Shakspere was already
 
 72 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 the subject of suspicion, strong reason for confirming Shak- 
 spere's poetic reputation. 
 
 On the other hand, how could Shakspere have possibly 
 acquired the cultured and classical style these poems show, 
 and why should he describe them as " the first heir of mine 
 invention"? Both these poems were printed by Richard 
 Field, who had lately come from Stratford-on-Avon and 
 commenced a printing business in London, and with whom 
 William Shakspere was probably acquainted ; but Field's 
 name does not again appear. 
 
 These poems were greatly admired, and gained for William 
 Shakspere high praise, and did in fact confirm his reputation 
 both as poet and play-writer. John Weever, in a sonnet 
 addressed to "honey-tongued Shakespeare" in 1595, eulogized 
 the two poems as an unmatchable achievement, mentioning 
 at the same time the plays " Romeo " and " Richard," and 
 " more whose names I know not." 
 
 The numerous editions show that the publication of these 
 poems was profitable to the author, whoever he may have 
 been. 
 
 Letters between Bacon and Essex, hereafter quoted, 
 appear to show that Essex knew that Bacon was a poet. 
 Southampton, from his intimacy with Essex and Bacon, 
 probably shared the secret, and would understand that 
 Shakespeare was an assumed name. 
 
 It must be noted that, although the Shakspere family 
 spelt their name in twenty-six different ways, 1 never until 
 the dedication of these poems was the name known to be 
 spelt " Shakespeare." 
 
 This spelling was afterwards generally adopted when the 
 name was printed on the plays, but, in seventeen instances, 
 with a hyphen between the syllables, as if it was a nom-de- 
 plume or a metaphor rather than a proper name ; and the 
 
 1 Elze's "Essays."
 
 " Comedy of Errors" etc. 73 
 
 title-page of the folio of 1623 shows the spear shaken by Wit 
 from behind a mask at Ignorance. In none of the five sig- 
 natures of Shakspere extant does he appear to have so spelt 
 his name, though all are written late in life ; nor in any of 
 the 166 entries in the Stratford records is the name so spelt ; 
 only in the poems and plays, and in the proceedings to 
 obtain the grant of arms ; and in some deeds, but not all, 
 after that date, does this spelling appear ; and it is not then 
 adopted by Shakspere himself, as his later signatures show. 
 Shakspere is the spelling in the registry of baptism and of 
 burial, Shagspere in the marriage bond. In 1604 the Ac- 
 counts of Revels at Court show that " Measure for Measure " 
 and " The Plaie of Errors," and in 1605 " The Merchant of 
 Venis," were played before the King. In both places "The 
 poet which made the Plaies " is given as " Shaxberd." l 
 
 Is it not then a suggestive coincidence that, just about the 
 time when the name " Shakespeare " first appeared, someone 
 was experimenting with this name in connection with the 
 name of Francis Bacon, and wrote it out seven times, and 
 the name Francis Bacon three times, on the cover of a book 
 containing several of Francis Bacon's writings in manuscript, 
 and also the manuscripts of two of the Shakespeare plays ? 
 Yet this appears from the Northumberland House manu- 
 script hereafter described. 
 
 XI. THE "COMEDY OF ERRORS" AND OTHER 
 PLAYS, 1 594- 1600. 
 
 THE "Comedy of Errors " reappeared in 1594, being 
 probably a revised form of the " Historie of Errors " 
 played at Hampton Court in 1576. 
 
 1 Shakspere's name does not appear elsewhere in the Accounts of 
 Revels ; nor at all in the Stationers' Registry, nor in Ilenslowe's 
 Diary.
 
 74 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 "A Comedy of Errors like to Plautus his Menechmi" 
 was played by the players at Grays' Inn on Innocents' Day, 
 December, 1594, as is recorded in the " Gesta Graiorum." 
 The players are described as a " Company of base and 
 common fellows," to distinguish them from the members of 
 the Inn, who acted in the accompanying masque, which, 
 according to Spedding, was composed by Bacon, the " chief 
 contriver " of the masques and revels there. Was Bacon or 
 one of those " base and common fellows " more probably the 
 classical scholar, who adapted this play from the untranslated 
 " Menaechmi " of Plautus ? 
 
 On the same day William Shakspere had made his first 
 recorded appearance before the Queen at Greenwich Palace, 
 acting in a comedy or interlude with William Kempe and 
 Richard Burbage. Halliwell-Phillipps 1 supposes that the 
 same company came late at night to Grays' Inn to act in 
 the " Comedy of Errors," and if Shakspere wrote the comedy 
 he would doubtless be there; but the description of the 
 players is little consistent with his recognition as the author 
 of the play. 
 
 In 1592 and 1593 Francis Bacon was in money straits, 
 borrowing from Jews and Lombards, and almost decided 
 to abandon the legal profession and become " a sorry book- 
 maker." About this time he was arrested on a bond. 
 Anthony again and again came to his relief, and mortgaged 
 his estate to pay his brother's debts. In 1594 he writes 
 that " He is poor and sick, working for bread." Upon 
 what work was he then engaged to supply his need ? 
 
 In 1593 and 1595 he wrote two masques, "The Conference 
 of Pleasure " and " The Indian Prince," for Essex to present 
 before the Queen. But in 1594, when Bacon was in such 
 sore need of money, the author of the plays was very 
 prolific. This year, it is believed, saw the production of 
 
 1 Vol. i., p. 124.
 
 "Co?nedy of Errors" etc. 75 
 
 " Richard II.," "Titus Andronicus," " King John," and also 
 an early form of " The Merchant of Venice," then called 
 "The Venesyon Comedy," in addition to the "Comedy of 
 Errors." 
 
 It is, indeed, a strange coincidence if, just after Anthony 
 had delivered his brother from the Jews, it occurred to 
 Shakspere to represent on the stage Antonio delivering 
 Bassanio from the clutches of Shylock. If, again, "The 
 Venesyon Comedy " was only a reproduction of the play of 
 "The Jew showne at the Bull " in 1579, that play Shak- 
 spere could not have written. 
 
 What makes the hypothesis of Shakspere's authorship 
 still more difficult is that this play, whenever written, was 
 founded on an Italian novel not then accessible except in 
 the original Italian. 1 
 
 It may be remarked that Anthony, the name of Francis 
 Bacon's brother, to whom he was devoted, is a favourite 
 name with the author of the plays. It occurs in " Love's 
 Labour 's Lost," " Much Ado about Nothing," " Henry V.," 
 "Richard III.," "Romeo and Juliet," "Anthony and 
 Cleopatra," "Julius Caesar" and "Macbeth." 
 
 Both "Richard II." and "Richard III." were pub- 
 lished anonymously in 1597, as they had "been publicly 
 acted by the Rt. Hon. Lord Chamberlain his servants." 
 
 A curious history attaches to the play of " Richard II." 
 Dealing with the deposition of a king, it gave offence to 
 Elizabeth, who was jealous of her own title to the crown. 
 When the play was printed, the deposition scene was 
 omitted in the earlier editions. The offence of the play 
 was increased, when in 1598 Sir John Haygarth published 
 a history of the first year of Henry IV. 's reign, describing 
 the deposition of Richard, and dedicated the book to Essex 
 in terms of adulation : for this Haygarth was sent to the 
 
 1 Lee, pp. 65, 66.
 
 j 6 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 Tower. The play was acted, at the instigation of Essex 
 and his followers, in the afternoon before his insurrection in 
 February, 1601, but failed to excite the populace to rise as 
 Essex had hoped. The Queen complained * that " This 
 Tragedie of Richard 2nd had been played with seditious 
 intent forty times in open streets and houses," and one 
 head of the indictment preferred against the conspirators 
 was that they had procured with money the old tragedy of 
 the tragical abdication of Richard II. to be performed in a 
 public theatre before the conspirators. 
 
 " Titus Andronicus," a play showing classical knowledge, 
 was performed in January, 1594, 2 with much success; it 
 was published anonymously in 1600 and was included in 
 the folio of 1623. 
 
 To 1594 or 1595 are attributed "All's Well that Ends 
 Well " and " The Taming of the Shrew." These plays have 
 foreign scenes. They were first published in 1623. 
 
 The correspondence already pointed out between the 
 " Promus " notes and " Romeo and Juliet " may lead us to 
 attribute this play to 1595, in which year Francis Meres 
 mentions it, though Lee assigns it to 1594, and Dr. Delius 
 suggested 1591 because of the Nurse's remark, "'Tis since 
 the earthquake now eleven years," the last earthquake in 
 England having been in 1580. Perhaps the first draft of the 
 play may have been written in 1591. The play is founded 
 on an Italian story, though this, it appears, had been trans- 
 lated. Italian literature was familiar to Bacon ; Shakspere 
 would learn nothing of it at the Stratford Grammar School ; 
 books, whether original or translations, were scarce in those 
 days, and Shakspere appears to have had none. " Romeo 
 and Juliet," again, has a foreign scene ; it was printed 
 anonymously in 1597, 1599 and 1609. 
 
 1 Isaac Reed's " Shakespeare" Note to Richard II. 
 
 2 Lee, p. 302.
 
 " Comedy of Errors," etc. jj 
 
 Essex was in 1594 and 1595 endeavouring, but in vain, 
 to obtain for Bacon the office of Solicitor-General. 
 
 On 1 8th May, 1594, Essex wrote to Bacon that the Queen 
 " did acknowledge you had a great wit, and an excellent 
 gift of speech, and much other good learning. But in law 
 she rather thought you could make show to the uttermost 
 of your knowledge, than that you were deep." 
 
 Bacon, weary of waiting, wrote thus to Essex in 1595 : 
 " I am neither much in appetite (for the office) nor much 
 in hope ; for as to the appetite the waters of Parnassus are 
 not like the waters of the Spaw, which give a stomach, but 
 rather they quench appetites and desires." 
 
 What were these waters of Parnassus, which were so 
 satisfying as to quench even the desire for office ? Parnassus 
 was the home of the Muses, all devoted to poetry and the 
 drama, save Clio, the Muse of history, and Urania. Whence, 
 and in what channel, flowed in 1595 those streams of poetry 
 which satiated Bacon's desires? 
 
 In another letter, written about the same date, Bacon ex- 
 presses his weariness and disappointment in pursuit of 
 office. 
 
 " For to be like a child, following a bird, which, when he 
 is nearest flieth away and lighteth a little before; and then 
 the child after it again, and so on in infinitum. I am weary 
 of it." 
 
 The metaphor is reproduced in "Coriolanus ": " I saw 
 him run after a gilded butterfly ; and when he caught it, he 
 let it go again, and after it again ; and over and over he 
 comes and up again." 
 
 In another letter of 1595 Bacon writes to Essex : "I am 
 purposed not to follow the practice of the law, and m\ 
 reason is only because it drinketh too much time, which I 
 have dedicated to better purposes." 
 
 Of the year 1596 Spedding writes : " It is easier to under-
 
 78 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 stand why Bacon was resolved not to devote his life to the 
 ordinary practice of a lawyer, than what plan he had in view 
 to clear himself of the difficulties which were now accumu- 
 lating upon him, and to obtain means of living and working. 
 What course he betook himself to at the crisis at which we 
 have now arrived I cannot possibly say. I do not find any 
 letter of his which can possibly be assigned to the winter of 
 1596, nor have I met among his brother's papers with any- 
 thing which indicates what he was about." 
 
 The mystery is solved if he was the author of the 
 plays. 
 
 In 1597 historical plays were resumed in the First and 
 Second parts of "Henry IV.," followed by "The Merry 
 Wives of Windsor," the last having an English scene, but 
 being again in part founded on an Italian novel. 
 
 In this year, 1597, the first edition of ten of Bacon's 
 " Essays " appeared, dedicated to his " deare brother, you 
 that are next myself." What, it may again be asked, had 
 been up to this time the employment of so active and versa- 
 tile a mind, being, as he declares, " born for literature " ? 
 
 In " The Taming of the Shrew " and in the Second 
 part of " Henry IV." are found the only traces of the 
 neighbourhood of Stratford or of any connection with the 
 life of Shakspere. Christopher Sly and Marian Hacket 
 and the villages of Wincot and Woncot and Barton-on-the- 
 Heath are said to be names found in the neighbourhood of 
 Stratford, and Justice Shallow is said to be a satire upon 
 Sir Thomas Lucy. The connection is but slight, and it does 
 not account for the absence of any such references before. 
 
 On the other hand, it is remarkable that just at this time 
 Bacon was brought into connection with the neighbourhood 
 of Stratford; for in 1598 Bacon, in reward for services, 
 received a royal grant of a valuable lease of the Rectory and 
 ■Church of Cheltenham and the Chapel of Charlton Kings,
 
 " Comedy of Errors" etc. 79 
 
 lying about twenty-five miles from Stratford and twenty 
 from Barton-on-the-Heath. Some years later, in 1606, 
 Bacon married a step-daughter of Sir John Pakington, who 
 lived near Stratford, and by his marriage became connected 
 with Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, whose daughter Joyce 
 his cousin, Sir William Cook, had already married in 1601, 
 so that Bacon had ample opportunity of becoming acquainted 
 with the district. " The Taming of the Shrew " was first 
 printed in 1623. 
 
 A play entitled " The Taming of a Shrew " was printed in 
 quarto in 1594. It is difficult to determine the relation of 
 this play to the one printed in the folio of 1623. The in- 
 duction is substantially alike in both plays, though improved 
 in the later play. The last scenes between Katharine and 
 Petruchio are nearly alike in both plays, and must have 
 been written by the same author. The other scenes in the 
 earlier play are of doubtful authorship. The allusions to 
 the Stratford neighbourhood are introduced in the later 
 play. 
 
 In the year 1598 Shakespeare's name appears for the first 
 time on the title-page of a play, namely "Love's Labour's 
 Lost," hitherto played anonymously. The title-page de- 
 scribes the play as " presented before her Highness this last 
 Christmas. Newly corrected and augmented by W. Shake- 
 speare." A court performance probably required the name 
 of the author to be given. Up to this date the plays were 
 published anonymously, although Shakspere may have been 
 already the reputed author of some, and now became 
 generally recognized as the author of these plays. 
 
 Mercs in 1598 highly extolled Shakespeare as most excel- 
 lent in tragedy and comedy, and names his poems and six 
 comedies, "Two Gentlemen of Verona," "Errors," "Love's 
 Labour 's Lost," " Love's Labour 's Won," " Midsummer 
 Night's Dream " and " Merchant of Venice," and six
 
 8o Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 tragedies, "Richard II.," "Richard III.," "Henry V.," 
 " King John," " Titus " and " Romeo and Juliet," and his 
 sugared sonnets among his private friends. As the plays 
 until 1598 were published anonymously, Meres's list cannot 
 be relied upon as complete. 
 
 But why, if Shakspere was the author, should the plays 
 have been published until 1598 anonymously? 
 
 To Bacon secrecy was essential, not only on his mother's 
 account, but because he was still looking forward with 
 Essex's aid to be appointed Solicitor-General ; but he failed 
 as yet to obtain the appointment, apparently through the 
 opposition of his cousins the Cecils, who represented him as 
 "A Speculative man, a dangerous individual therefore in 
 the realities of business." Had it been known he was a 
 writer of stage plays or poems, all hopes of preferment 
 would have vanished. 
 
 In 1598 "Henry V." was written, which was performed 
 in 1599. 
 
 It was published anonymously in 1600, 1602, 1608, and 
 in an enlarged form in 1623. This play dramatized the 
 French wars, the battle of Agincourt, and the scenes visited 
 by Bacon in early life. The play also shows that the author 
 was a friend of Essex, whose return from his command in 
 Ireland was then expected. 
 
 Were now the general of our gracious Empress 
 (As in good time he may) from Ireland coming 
 Bringing rebellion broached upon his sword, 
 How many would the peaceful city quit 
 To welcome him. 
 
 Act V. 
 
 In 1599 two of the most perfect of the comedies were 
 probably written, " Much Ado about Nothing " and " As 
 You Like It," the former of them drawn apparently from 
 Italian sources and both with foreign scenes. 
 
 "Troilus and Cressida" was probably written about this
 
 " Comedy of Errors" etc. 81 
 
 time, since in 1602-3 a licence was obtained "For the 
 booke of Troilus and Cressida as it is acted by my Lord 
 Chamberlayne's men." It was not printed till 1608, when 
 it appeared, perhaps in an altered form, with Shakespeare's 
 name on the title-page, and with a curious preface extolling 
 him as a writer of comedies, and asserting that the piece 
 had not been acted, but had escaped from " the grand 
 possessors." 1 This play borrows so much from the Greek 
 that Steevens concluded that Shakspere could not have 
 wholly written it. I 
 
 In 1596 Shakspere had returned to Stratford. He was 
 now a man of some wealth. An actor's profession, though de- 
 spised, was lucrative. Richard Burbage was able to build the 
 Globe and Blackfriars theatres ; Alleyne built and endowed 
 Dulwich College. Shakspere's income as an actor, apart 
 from any money he may have received from the plays or 
 poems, would probably exceed ^130, equivalent to ,£1,040 
 in our times." In 1597, as already stated, he bought New 
 Place for ^60, and thereafter lived, partly at least, at Strat- 
 ford, though still residing part of the year in London until 
 161 1, when he finally retired to Stratford. He lodged on 
 his journeys to and fro at the Crown Inn at Oxford, kept 
 by John Davenant, a respectable but sombre man, who had 
 a beautiful and witty wife. 
 
 In 1599 or 1600 William Shakspere acquired from 
 Richard Burbage and his brother shares in the Globe and 
 Blackfriars theatres then newly built. These shares, it is 
 estimated, would bring in at least ,£500 a year, equivalent 
 now to ^4,000 a year. 3 
 
 In a petition presented to the Lord Chamberlain by 
 Richard Burbage's wife, son and brother in 1636, the 
 
 1 Bacon was at this time Solicitor-General. No new play was 
 published after this, until "Othello" in 1622. 
 '' Lee, p. 199. - 1 Ibid. i p. 201. 
 
 G
 
 82 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 transaction is thus described: "We built the Globe, and 
 to ourselves we joyned those deserving men Shakspere, 
 Hemings, Condall, Phillips and others. Now for the 
 Blackfriers (we) placed men players which were Hemings, 
 Condall, Shakspere, and others." ' 
 
 It appears that the owners of the theatre were entitled to 
 one half of the receipts, except the outer doors, correspond- 
 ing to the modern pit, the other half of the " galleries " and 
 the outer doors being assigned to the actors, who out of 
 their share " defrayed all wages to hired men, apparell, 
 J>oetes, lightes and other charges of the house whatsoever." 
 
 Heminge and Condell, it is expressly stated, had their 
 shares for nothing, and the same may be assumed for what- 
 ever interest Shakspere had. 
 
 XII. THE DARK PERIOD, 1601-1606. 
 
 A MARKED change now came over the plays : instead 
 of the brilliant comedies a series of tragedies ap- 
 peared, though Shakspere continued at Stratford, buying 
 and selling, and living in rich though selfish respectability. 
 It is true that in the year 1601 his father, John Shakspere, 
 died; but in 1602 William Shakspere bought for ^320 
 107 acres of land at Stratford, and in the same year a 
 cottage and garden near New Place, and was living a 
 prosperous life. 
 
 The Shadow is found darkening Bacon's life. Essex was 
 executed in 1601, Anthony Bacon died soon after, and 
 Lady Anne fell into mental derangement. Elizabeth died 
 in 1603. Now, as always, it is the course of Bacon's life, 
 not that of Shakspere, which is reflected in the plays. 
 
 In 1603 and 1604 the two editions of "Hamlet" were 
 published, the latter much enlarged. 
 
 1 Halliwell-Phillipps, vol. i., pp. 313-319.
 
 The Dark Period. 83 
 
 In 1604 " Othello " was written, which was acted before 
 King James at Whitehall on 1st November. 
 
 At this time, according to tradition, Shakspere seduced 
 the wife of the host of the Crown Inn, who early in 1605 
 gave birth to a son, who afterwards became Sir William 
 D'Avenant, of whom Shakspere was the reputed father ; nor 
 did the son disclaim the relationship ; a bizarre coincidence 
 indeed, ill-fitting Shakspere's life, if Shakspere at this time 
 really wrote and brought out " Othello." 
 
 The tradition, which both Halliwell-Phillipps and Sidney 
 Lee desire to be disbelieved, is confirmed by several authors 
 quoted by the former in an appendix. The facts shown are 
 that John Davenant, the innkeeper, was a respectable but 
 morose man, his wife noted for her beauty and attractions. 
 Aubrey adds : "She had a very light report." Shakspere, then 
 a rich actor, married but unfaithful, was a frequent and wel- 
 come guest ; a child was born, popularly imputed to him, 
 to whom he stood godfather and gave his name ; the jest 
 was oft repeated, that the boy should not take the name of 
 godfather in vain. Grown to manhood, clever and vain, 
 the boy became Sir William D'Avenant, and did not dis- 
 claim, but rather boasted of the relationship; his brothers 
 were dull as their father. Against this is set that John 
 Davenant, whether ignorant or tolerant, remained subject to 
 his wife's charms, and, surviving her, desired to be buried 
 in the same tomb. 
 
 In 1604, also, the scarcely less incongruous play of 
 "Measure for Measure" was produced, whose moral is, 
 that chastity is dearer than life, and mercy the noblest 
 virtue of princes. It was acted before the King at White- 
 hall on 26th December. 
 
 Both the last mentioned plays had foreign scenes, and 
 were drawn as so often from Italian sources. 
 
 In 1605 "Macbeth" followed. This play indicates
 
 84 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 local knowledge by the author. 1 Bacon, as appears from 
 a letter printed by Spedding, had been sent in 1603 to 
 meet King James after his accession, before he came to 
 London, and had an interview with him, apparently in 
 Scotland, since the treasurer of Scotland was present. 
 There is no evidence that Shakspere ever was in Scotland." 
 The Scotch history of King James's ancestors, and the 
 witch scenes which accorded with the King's Demonology, 
 adroitly sought the King's favour. In the same year, 1605, 
 Ben Jonson, Marston and Chapman, less skilled in the 
 ways of Courts, were sent to prison by order of the King 
 for attacks made on the stage against the Scots, and against 
 the King's book on demonology. Was it more probably 
 Shakspere or Bacon, whose courtier instincts moulded the 
 play of " Macbeth " ? 
 
 " King Lear " was written about the same time ; it was 
 acted at Whitehall on 26th December, 1606, and registered 
 on 26th November, 1607. Bacon's father was born at Chisle- 
 hurst, in Kent. The men of Kent are praised in " 2 Henry 
 VI.," and many of the towns of Kent and also the Goodwin 
 Sands are mentioned in the plays. Bacon, in passing to 
 and from France had seen Shakespeare's cliff and the sam- 
 phire gatherers. The delineation of madness in " King 
 Lear," and in the later editions of " Hamlet," probably 
 reflects the mental state of Bacon's mother, but has no 
 known correspondence with Shakspere's life. Shakspere 
 may have visited Dover in 1597 with the Queen's Com- 
 pany, but his name is not recorded in their provincial 
 tours. 
 
 1 Knight's "Life of Shakespeare." - Lee, p. 41.
 
 Bacons Late Prosperity. 85 
 
 XIII. BACON'S LATE PROSPERITY, 1606-1620. 
 
 IN 1606 a period of prosperity began for Bacon's life. In 
 1606, in the forty-sixth year of his age, he married, after 
 three years' courtship, Alice Barnham, "an alderman's 
 daughter — an handsome maiden, and to his liking." He 
 settled upon her a sum double her own marriage portion, 
 which shows that his pecuniary position was at length 
 established. On Anthony's death in 1601 he had suc- 
 ceeded to Gorhambury. In 1607 he was at length pro- 
 moted to the office of Solicitor-General, with an income of 
 ;£i,ooo a year. 
 
 Freedom from money cares and pressure of official 
 business might well interrupt the production of new plays, 
 if Bacon was their author. No such explanation can be 
 given of a sudden cessation of Shakspere's mental activity, 
 after the extraordinary profusion of the ten years preceding 
 1607 ; but from the date when Bacon took office, the pro- 
 duction of the plays suddenly diminished, and when he was 
 appointed Attorney-General in 16 13 they ceased. 
 
 With the following exceptions, no more plays are known 
 to have been produced from 1606 until Shakspere's death 
 in 1616; nor, indeed, until Bacon's fall and until the pub- 
 lication of the folio of 1623. But the character of the plays 
 again changed with Bacon's changed life, and brightened 
 with its brightness. 
 
 In May, 1608, Edward Blount entered in the Stationers' 
 Register, by authority of Sir George Buc, the licenser of 
 plays, " A booke called Anthony and Cleopatra." It was 
 not published, however, until the folio of 1623; nor is it 
 known to have been produced on the stage.
 
 86 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 In 1608 "Pericles" was printed — a doubtful play, not 
 included in the first folio. 
 
 In 1609-10 Bacon was a fellow-member with the Earls of 
 Southampton, Pembroke and Montgomery, in the Virginia 
 Company, which, in 1609, sent out a fleet to the West Indies 
 under Sir John Somers. The fleet was terribly vexed by 
 storms on the voyage. The ship " Admiral " was wrecked 
 upon the Bermudas ; of which an account appeared soon 
 afterwards in Jourdain's " Discovery of the Bermudas, other- 
 wise called the Isle of Devils." 
 
 On 1st November, 161 1, the delightful comedy of "The 
 Tempest," whose scene was "the still vexed Bermoothes," 
 was represented before the King at Whitehall. The gentle 
 airs, and the spirits and devils, that infested the island, 
 referred to the Bermudas. The seafaring terms, with which 
 the play opens, show an accurate knowledge of ships, also 
 shown in Bacon's treatise on the sailing of ships published 
 in the same year. Shakspere is never known to have 
 gone to sea, and would know little of such matters. The 
 incidental music was composed by one of the royal 
 musicians. This might well be arranged by Bacon, who, 
 notwithstanding his official duties, prepared in the follow- 
 ing year a splendid masque, presented by the Gentlemen 
 of Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple, on the occasion of 
 the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the Elector 
 Palatine. 
 
 William Shakspere had already left London and finally 
 settled at New Place in September, 161 1, 1 and there- 
 after produced no new drama, though he survived for five 
 years. 
 
 " The Tempest " contains many allusions to Bacon's later 
 studies, "The History of the Winds," "Ebb and Flow of 
 the Sea," " The Sailing of Ships," and others. 
 
 1 Lee, p. 257.
 
 Bacons Late Prosperity. Sy 
 
 " Cymbeline " is recorded by Dr. Firman the astrologer, 
 who kept a list of performances, to have been acted in 1610 
 or 161 1, and "Winter's Tale" on 15th May, 161 1; both 
 comedies full of charm. 
 
 Cymbeline was a British king who reigned at Verulam in 
 the early part of the Christian era, and whose coins have 
 been found at Verulam. Strange that the imagination 
 of Shakspere (if he wrote the play) should continue to 
 hover round the home of Bacon, while Stratford is unnamed 
 and Warwickshire scarcely referred to. 
 
 In " Winter's Tale " the statue is ascribed to Giulio 
 Romano, at which critics have scoffed, saying that he was 
 only a painter ; but in the first edition of Vasari, published 
 in 1550, and never translated, he is described as also an 
 architect and sculptor. This Shakspere could not probably 
 be acquainted with, but would be the natural source of 
 Bacon's information. The three plays last named were first 
 printed in the folio of 1623. 
 
 With these exceptions, no new play is known to have 
 been produced between 1606 and 1623. 
 
 In 1616 William Shakspere died at Stratford, leaving 
 neither books nor manuscripts. No special notice of the 
 event is recorded to have been taken at the time, but some 
 time before 1623 his bust, by a Dutch sculptor resident in 
 London, was put up in the church, by whom is not known, 
 with a laudatory epitaph. 
 
 Some remarkable facts bearing upon our inquiry must 
 here be considered. 
 
 Only sixteen of the thirty-six Shakespeare plays were 
 published in William Shakspere's lifetime, and several of 
 these anonymously. 
 
 But between 1595 and 161 3 seven plays by inferior 
 writers were published, three with the name of Shakespeare 
 on the title, one with " W. Sh." and three with " W. S." on
 
 8S Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 the title, by which it is admitted William Shakespeare was 
 intended. 1 
 
 The appearance of Shakespeare's name on the title of a 
 play is therefore no certain evidence of its authorship. 
 
 After 1594 no plays might be published without licence 
 and registry at Stationers' Hall ; but no protest or objection 
 by William Shakspere is recorded to the use of his name on 
 these plays. No other dramatist appears to have allowed 
 such a use of his name. 
 
 It has been suggested that the publishers were un- 
 scrupulous, and stole his name to increase their profits ; 
 but if William Shakspere's name was now worth money, he 
 scarcely seems the man to allow its use gratis. If, however, 
 William Shakspere was accustomed to treat his name as a 
 marketable commodity, how slender becomes the presump- 
 tion that any of the plays which bear his name were written 
 by him. Nay, the more brilliant and the more learned are 
 the plays, the less credible is his authorship. 
 
 It is even more noteworthy that the death of William 
 Shakspere did not prevent the revisal and rewriting of 
 plays already published, nor the production of some new 
 ones ! 
 
 Bacon became Secretary of State in 161 2, Attorney- 
 General in 16 1 3, Privy Councillor in 161 6, and Lord 
 Keeper in 161 7. In 16 18 he was appointed Lord Chan- 
 cellor and created Baron Verulam ; and on 27th January, 
 162 1, was made Viscount St. Albans. These offices well 
 account for the total cessation of the plays in 161 1 if they 
 were written by him. No such explanation applies to Shak- 
 spere, who lived until 1616. 
 
 1 " Locrine," 1595 ; " Puritan Widow," 1607 ; " Thos. Lord Crom- 
 well," 1613, with full name.— "Oldcastle," 1600; " London Prodigal," 
 1605; "Yorkshire Tragedy," 1608. W. S.— " Troublesome Reign of 
 King John," 161 1. W. Sh. The registry of these plays does not give 
 the name of the author, which appeared on the title-page.
 
 Bacons Fall. 89 
 
 It should be mentioned that a play concerning Henry VIII., 
 entitled " All is true, representing some principal pieces in 
 the reign of Henry VIII.," was in course of performance at 
 the Globe Theatre on June 29th, 161 3, when the firing of 
 some cannon incidental to the performance set fire to the 
 playhouse, which was burned down. Fleay gives reasons 
 for believing that this play was not that printed in the folio 
 of 1623. The earlier play seems to have had a clown as a 
 prominent character; the later play is, as the prologue 
 shows, serious and grave, and must have been at least re- 
 cast. 
 
 During this period, however, in the spring of 1609, a 
 book entitled "Shakespeare's sonnets never before im- 
 printed " was entered at Stationers' Hall and published by 
 Thomas Thorpe. The vexed questions of their authorship 
 and true meaning are too long for discussion here, nor do 
 the difficulties seem to weigh seriously on one side or the 
 other upon the present question of the authorship of the 
 plays. Some " sugared sonnets " had, as we have seen, 
 been circulated in manuscript some years before under 
 Shakespeare's name. In polished style and in moral tone 
 the sonnets resemble the "Venus and Adonis" and " Lu- 
 crece " rather than the plays. They may not, perhaps, be 
 all the product of one mind. 
 
 In 1 619 the Second and Third parts of " Henry VI." and 
 " The Merry Wives of Windsor " were reprinted, but in 
 each case in their original short form. No new play was 
 printed between 1608 and 1622. 
 
 XIV. BACON'S FALL, 1621. 
 
 IN 162 1 came Bacon's fall, due to the malice of his 
 enemies, the corruption of his servants, and to care- 
 lessness rather than misconduct on his own part. His great
 
 90 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 wealth vanished, but he retained in adversity the favour of 
 the King and the admiration of his friends. Being forced 
 to give up York House, he retired to Gorhambury and 
 devoted himself to literary work. " I could never bring 
 myself," Ben Jonson wrote, "to condole with the great man 
 after his fall, knowing as I did that no accident could do 
 harm to his virtue, but rather make it manifest. He seemed 
 to me ever by his work one of the greatest men and most 
 worthy of admiration." 
 
 The facts as to Bacon's alleged corruption appear from 
 Spedding's investigations to stand thus. 
 
 On being accused of corruption, Bacon at first indignantly 
 denied the charge, declaring that he had never received 
 bribe or present to influence his judgment in the course of 
 any suit. He admitted having received presents from suitors 
 after judgment had been given, but this was according to 
 long established custom, to which no exception had ever been 
 taken. So in " The Merchant of Venice " the Duke says : 
 
 Antonio, gratify this gentleman (Portia, the judge), 
 For in my mind you are much bound to him. 
 
 And Bassanio offers the 3,000 ducats which were the con- 
 dition of the bond. 
 
 When, however, the charge was pressed against Bacon 
 with regard to specific cases, it appeared that his servants had 
 often taken secret bribes under pretence of influencing his 
 favour, and also that in a few instances Bacon had himself 
 received presents after judgment given, but, inadvertently, 
 before the suit had been completely wound up. This Bacon 
 admitted was technically, if not morally wrong. But further, 
 Bacon was too sagacious not to perceive, the question being 
 now raised, that the custom of gifts to judges, however time- 
 honoured, was in principle indefensible, and liable to mani- 
 fold abuse. He confessed therefore that he had transgressed,
 
 Bacons Fall. 9 1 
 
 and could not justify his conduct, though at the same time 
 asserting that he was " the justest chancellor that hath been 
 in the five changes since Sir Nicholas Bacon's time." He 
 seems to have been urged to plead guilty and rely on the 
 King's clemency, probably in order that so eminent a scape- 
 goat might divert the attack from other highly placed offend- 
 ers. He was thereupon deprived of office and disgraced, and 
 even committed to the Tower, but quickly released. The 
 ruinous fine imposed on him was not, however, enforced. 
 
 Three plays fitting the change of circumstances may well 
 be attributed to this period : " Henry VIII.," " Timon of 
 Athens " and " Coriolanus." The first described the fall of 
 Wolsey ; <: Timon" paints vividly and bitterly the ingratitude 
 and neglect which attend a great man's fall ; " Coriolanus " 
 describes the power of envy, and the fickleness of the 
 people. 
 
 " Timon" was founded partly on the story in Plutarch, but 
 principally on the untranslated Greek of Lucian. 1 Bacon 
 had studied Timon's story in both authors; for, in his 
 Essay on Goodness, he alludes to the misanthropi, who, 
 Plutarch says, make it their practice to bring men to the 
 bough, and yet leave never a tree in their garden as Timon 
 had ; and in the "Advancement " he speaks of the flatterers 
 in the later stage of the Roman State, of which kind Lucian 
 maketh a merry description. 
 
 There is no such evidence that Shakspere had studied 
 Plutarch and the Greek of Lucian. 
 
 In July, 162 1, immediately after his fall, Bacon began 
 his " History of Henry VII.," and completed it, and sent a 
 copy to King James on 8th October of the same year. It 
 is significant that the Shakes] >eare plays contain the history 
 of England and the Wars of the Roses from Richard II. to 
 Henry VIII., except the reign of Henry VII., which saw the 
 1 Knight's " Stories of Shakespeare," p. 71.
 
 92 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 union of the Roses. This gap was filled up by Bacon's 
 "History of Henry VII." 
 
 In the following year, 1622, Bacon, after receiving back 
 the manuscript of Henry VII. , made notes for an intended 
 interview with the King, at which he would propose to em- 
 ploy his pen upon the story of Henry VIII. ; and, on the 
 following 10th January, Sir Thomas Wilson reported to the 
 King, that Bacon had applied to him for such papers as he 
 had in his custody relating to Henry VIII. ; and was directed 
 by the King to supply Bacon with any papers he might re- 
 quire. That Bacon then set to work upon the " History of 
 Henry VIII." in some form appears both from common 
 report and from his own letter, for on 10th February, 1623, 
 Chamberlayne wrote : " The Lord (Bacon) busies himself 
 about books, and hath set out two lately, ' Historia Vent- 
 orum ' and ' De Vita et Morte.' I have not seen either of 
 them, because I have not leisure, but if the Life of Henry 
 VIII. which they say he is about might come out after his 
 own manner, I should find time and means enough to read 
 it"; and on 21st February, 1623, Bacon wrote to Bucking- 
 ham, then in Spain, and asked to be remembered to the 
 Prince (Charles I.), "who I hope ere long will make me 
 leave He?iry VIII. and set me on work in relation of his 
 Highness's heroical adventures." 
 
 Of a prose history of Henry VIII. Bacon left only two or 
 three prefatory pages, enough perhaps to give colour to his 
 request for official documents, but someone at this time was 
 writing or rewriting the play of " Henry VIII.," and the in- 
 ference seems strong that it was Francis Bacon who now 
 painted with sympathetic pathos the fall of Wolsey. 
 
 In 1622 "Othello," which had been acted in and after 
 1604, was published. 
 
 Surveying from this point the plays as a whole, are they 
 not both a transcript of Bacon's intellect and a mirror of
 
 Contemporary Allusions. 93 
 
 his life ? Have they any point of contact with Shakspere's 
 life or character? Is it possible or reasonably credible that 
 Shakspere could have collected so many stories from Italian 
 or Spanish novels and classic histories, or conceived and 
 described such various foreign scenes, or displayed such 
 varied learning, and such knowledge of courtly life ? 
 
 XV. CONTEMPORARY ALLUSIONS. 
 
 IN circumstantial evidence each additional coincidence 
 not only adds to but multiplies its force; so that an 
 unbroken chain of probabilities may grow to a certainty. 
 
 Against the chain of circumstantial evidence which has 
 been adduced two facts are opposed, contemporary repute 
 and the folio of 1623. 
 
 William Shakspere's reputed authorship of the plays is 
 not, however, wholly inconsistent with Bacon's real author- 
 ship, since if Bacon was the true author it is probable, from 
 the circumstances of his life and expectations, that the 
 authorship would be concealed. We have also seen * that 
 it was the practice of the time for authors of " calling and 
 gravity " to suppress their names, or get some other to set 
 his name to their verses. 
 
 It has been urged, however, that Shakspere's con- 
 temporaries must have detected whether he was or not the 
 author of the plays attributed to him, and numerous con- 
 temporary references to his reputed works have been 
 diligently collated, but few describing the man himself. 
 
 Dr. Ingleby, who collected these references in his 
 " Centurie of Prayse " and " Shakespeare Allusion Books," 
 attached "so little weight to contemporary rumour" that 
 he cites seven witnesses only, of whom " there are but four 
 
 1 Ante, pp. 5 1 , 67.
 
 94 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 who directly identify the man or the actor with the writer 
 of the plays and poems." These were the four editors or 
 preface writers of the folio of 1623, presently to be con- 
 sidered. Dr. Ingleby adds : " It is plain for one thing that 
 the bard of our admiration was unknown to the men of that 
 age. Assuredly no one during the ' Centurie ' had any sus- 
 picion that the genius of Shakespeare was unique." 
 
 The personal allusions seem the least favourable. 
 
 Greene, we have seen, denounced "the upstart." 
 
 Nash, who eulogized the play of " Henry VI.," has also 
 been referred to. He was a close friend of Greene, and in 
 a letter of 1589 prefixed to Greene's " Menaphon," spoke in 
 like contemptuous terms of some ignoramus, who can 
 scarcely be other than the object of Greene's scorn, since it 
 points to a player-author who translated from the Italian. 
 
 "Amongst this kind of men, that repose Eternity in the 
 mouth of a player, I can but engross some deep-read school- 
 men and grammarians, who have no more learning in their 
 skull than will serve to take up a commodity, nor art in their 
 brains. Idiot art-masters, who think to outbrave better pens 
 with the swelling bombast of bragging verse, and translate 
 twopenny pamphlets from the Italian, without any know- 
 ledge even of its articles. It may be the ingrafted overflow 
 of some kill-cow conceit." 
 
 " Deep-read schoolmen and grammarians " may point 
 ironically at someone educated only at a grammar school. 
 Nash and Greene and several other of the Elizabethan 
 dramatists were University men. 
 
 To kill the cow or calf was, in the slang phrase of the 
 day, to make extemporary speeches during a performance 
 on the stage, such as Shakspere probably often made. 
 
 Two anonymous writers, some years later, refer apparently 
 to Shakspere, since no other player-author, at this date, is 
 known to have acquired wealth or affected gentility.
 
 Contemporary Allusions. 95 
 
 One writes thus : " Thou shalt learn to be frugal, to feed 
 upo7i all men, and when thou feelest thy purse well-lined 
 buy thee some place in the country." — Ratsies Ghost, 1605. 
 
 Another writes : 
 
 With mouthing words that better wits have framed 
 They purchase lands, and now esquires are made. 
 
 Return from Parnassus, 1 606. 
 
 Ben Jonson appears to have entertained the like contempt 
 of Shakspere until about the year 1620, when he became 
 associated with Bacon, and assisted him in latinizing his 
 works. 1 
 
 Ben Jonson's epigram, published with others in 16 16, the 
 year of Shakspere's death, but probably written earlier, can 
 scarcely apply to any but Shakspere. 
 
 Poor poet ape, that would be thought our chief — 
 
 Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit 
 
 From brokerage is become so bold a thief 
 
 As we the robbed leave rage and pity it. 
 
 At first he made low shifts, would pick and glean, 
 
 Buy the reversion of old plays. — Now grown 
 
 To a little wealth and credit in the scene, 
 
 He takes up all, makes each man's wit his own ; 
 
 And told of this he slights it. — Tush such crimes 
 
 The sluggish gaping auditor devours, 
 
 He marks not whose 'twas first, and after times 
 
 May judge it to be his as well as ours. 
 
 Ape is the term elsewhere applied by Jonson to players. 
 Shakspere was the only actor who claimed to be a dramatist, 
 whose plays excelled Jonson's in popularity, and would 
 excite his jealousy. 
 
 In the epilogue to " Every Man in his Humour," acted 
 in 1598, and printed in 1616, Ben Jonson satirizes Shak- 
 spere's neglect of the unities of the drama. 
 
 Though need makes many pints, and some such 
 As wit and nature hath not bettered much, 
 
 1 See Edwin Reed, pp. 92-101.
 
 96 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 Yet ours for want hath not so loved the stage 
 As he dare serve the ill customs of the age 
 Or purchase your delight at such a rate, 
 As for it he himself must justly hate : 
 To make a child now swaddled, to proceed 
 Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed, 
 Past threescore years, or with three rusty swords 
 And help of some few foot and half foot words, 
 Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars, 
 And in the tyring house bring wounds to scars. 
 
 The whole of this prologue, Steevens says, " is a malicious 
 sneer at Shakspere." 
 
 In the "Poetaster" (1601) he elaborately ridicules his 
 use of new words derived from the Latin. 
 
 Rufus Laberius (red-haired 1 Shaker) Crispinus, a poet- 
 actor, who had obtained a coat of arms and whose father 
 was lately dead (characteristics plainly identifying Shakspere), 
 is accused by Horace of stealing words from him, and is 
 condemned by Caesar to take a pill from Virgil, which causes 
 him to vomit up the uncouth words retrograde, reciprocal, 
 defunct, and many others. At length Caesar dissolves the 
 court with these words : 
 
 It is the bane and torment of our ears 
 
 To hear the discords of those jangling rhymes 
 
 That with their bad and scandalous practices 
 
 Bring all true arts and learning in contempt. 
 
 Blush, folly, blush, here 's none that fears 
 
 The wagging of an ass's ears, 
 
 Detraction is but baseness varlet 
 
 And apes are apes though clothed in scarlet. 
 
 A scarlet dress was the badge of an actor's profession. 
 Shakspere and his fellow-actors walked in King James's 
 Coronation procession, and each received four and a half 
 yards of scarlet cloth. 
 
 1 Shakspere, according to the bust at Stratford, had red or auburn 
 hair. Some have supposed Dekker or Marston to be the object of this 
 satire; an error, since they, though play-writers, were not actors.
 
 Contemporary Allusions. 97 
 
 In the induction to "Bartholomew Fair," acted in 1614, 
 three years after "The Tempest" appeared, Jonson again 
 wrote : " If there never be a servant monster in a fair, who 
 can help it ? he (the author) says ; or a nest of antics ; he is 
 loth to make nature afraid like those who beget tales, tem- 
 pests and such like drolleries, to mix his head with other 
 men's heels." The reference is to Caliban, and to the dance 
 of Satyrs in " Winter's Tale." " Our author," says Jonson's 
 editor, Whalley, "is still venting his sneers at Shakspere." 
 
 In 1619 Jonson told Drummond of Hawthornden that 
 Shakspere "wanted art and sometimes sense." 
 
 These sneers were doubtless due to jealousy, but Jonson 
 also despised Shakspere's want of education, which he ap- 
 parently considered incompatible with the plays attributed 
 to him ; and the fact that seven plays and some poems were 
 published in Shakspere's name, besides those now claimed 
 for him, gave further ground for the repeated imputation of 
 appropriating other men's work. 
 
 Strenuous endeavours have been made to explain away 
 Ben Jonson's animosity against Shakspere, by urging that 
 these bitter gibes cannot have been meant for him, or that 
 they showed a passing irritation hiding the love verging on 
 idolatry, which Ben Jonson afterwards expressed for the 
 author of the plays ■ but the animosity seems too plain to 
 be reconcilable with such love. 
 
 This jealous animosity, which continued until Shakspere's 
 death in 161 6, was transformed into a profound admiration 
 for the author of the plays, when Jonson, about 1620, 
 became Bacon's literary assistant ; and this new-born ad- 
 miration was expressed in Jonson's preface to the first folio 
 of the Shakespeare plays, the publication of which in 1623 
 Jonson undertook to aid or control. 
 
 H
 
 98 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 XVI. THE FOLIO OF 162 
 
 5' 
 
 THE folio of 1623 contains thirty-six plays, of which 
 twenty were now printed for the first time. It was 
 nominally edited by John Heminge and Henry Condell, 
 two of Shakspere's company of players, to whom he be- 
 queathed legacies for mourning rings. They state that they 
 have collected the plays "without ambition of selfe-profit 
 or fame, onely to keepe the memory of so worthy a Friend 
 and Fellowe alive as was our Shakespeare." 
 
 Heminge and Condell did not, however, undertake the 
 cost of the book, which was printed by Isaac Jaggard and 
 Edward Blount, " at the charges of W. Jaggard (Isaac Jag- 
 gard's father), Ed. Blount, J. Smithweeke and W. Aspley," 
 the two last of whom had each published two of the Shake- 
 speare plays. 
 
 The printers, Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, obtained, 
 on 8th November, 1623, licence from the Stationers' Com- 
 pany to publish sixteen of the twenty unpublished plays. 
 The four others, " King John," First and Second " Henry 
 VI.," and the "Taming of the Shrew," were not now 
 licensed, probably because they were based on or were 
 revisions of earlier plays already published. The licence 
 shows that no transfer of the title to these plays had been 
 before recorded. 
 
 A portrait of William Shakspere was prefixed to the 
 volume with a laudatory verse by Ben Jonson, who also 
 wrote a longer preface in praise of the plays and their author. 
 
 Leonard Digges and two other minor poets also wrote 
 prefatory verses. Such prefatory poems were the custom of 
 the period ; Spenser's " Faery Queen " was prefaced by 
 seventeen poems and sonnets. 
 
 The prefaces to the folio of 1623, by Heminge and Con- 
 
 ^
 
 The Folio 0/1625. 99 
 
 dell and by Ben Jonson, are justly deemed the strongest 
 evidence which exists in favour of Shakspere's authorship of 
 the plays ; and, but for the cogency of the internal and cir- 
 cumstantial evidence to the contrary, and Ben Jonson's 
 striking change of appreciation, might, at first view, be 
 accepted as concluding the matter. 
 
 Closer examination may show that there is a mystery 
 surrounding this folio, which the prefaces do not solve. 
 
 The book is dedicated to the Earls of Pembroke and 
 Montgomery, both intimate friends of Bacon, who were 
 associated with him in the Virginian Company. The pre- 
 face is nominally by Heminge and Condell, and describes 
 the plays as " trifles." The dedication is also in their name, 
 but the use made of Pliny's epistle to Vespasian, prefixed 
 to his " Natural History," makes it unlikely that the dedica- 
 tion was written by them. It has been with more probability 
 ascribed to Ben Jonson. 
 
 The title-page showed Wit from behind a mask, shaking a 
 spear at Ignorance, emphasizing the metaphorical spelling 
 and use of the supposed author's name ; a metaphor also 
 applied by Ben Jonson to the author of the plays in his 
 preface : " He seems to shake a lance, as brandished in the 
 face of Ignorance." 
 
 The contents of the folio present serious difficulties. Of 
 the twenty plays now printed for the first time fourteen are 
 known to have been acted. 
 
 " All 's Well that Ends Well," now first printed, is prob- 
 ably the same as " Love's Labour \s Won," mentioned by 
 Meres in 1598, in his enumeration of Shakespeare's plays. 
 
 A play of "Julius C?esar" was, as we have seen, acted in 
 1579, 1589 and 1594, but was first printed in the folio. 
 
 No performance of "Antony and Cleopatra" is recorded. 
 
 " Coriolanus " and "Timon of Athens," and " Henry VII I. " 
 in its present form, are now heard of for the first time.
 
 ioo Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 All the sixteen plays before published differ more or less 
 from the quarto editions ; some are largely rewritten. 
 
 The Second and Third parts of " Henry VI." were pub- 
 lished in 1594 and 1595 under the titles, respectively, of 
 " The First Part of the Contention between the two famous 
 Houses York and Lancaster " and "The True Tragedy of 
 Richard Duke of York." These had been republished in 
 161 9, three years after Shakspere's death, under the same 
 titles as at first. In the folio of 1623, however, they appear 
 under new titles, and the Second part now contained 1,578 
 new lines and is otherwise much altered. 
 
 " The Merry Wives of Windsor" was also reprinted in 16 19, 
 after Shakspere's death, in the same form as in 1602 ; but 
 in the folio it becomes nearly twice as long as in the quarto. 
 
 "Othello" was first printed and published in 1622, the 
 year before the issue of the folio ; but in the folio it received 
 numerous alterations. 
 
 Who revised and rewrote these plays long after Shak- 
 spere's death, and whence came the plays of which there is 
 no previous record ? This is a mystery ! 
 
 The account of the folio given by Heminge and Condell 
 in their preface cannot be reconciled with the facts. 
 
 " As where before we were abused with divers stolen and 
 surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds 
 and stealths of incurious impostors that exposed them, even 
 those are now offered to your view cured and perfect in 
 their limbes, and all the rest absolute in their members as 
 he conceived them, who, as he was a happie imitator of 
 Nature, was a most gentle expressor of it. His mind and 
 hand went together : and what he thought he uttered with 
 that Easinesse that we have scarse received from him a blot 
 in his paper " ; and they further state the plays were now 
 printed from " the true original copies." 
 
 The story is a fiction.
 
 The Folio 0/162$. 1 o 1 
 
 The copies from which the folio was printed, whenceso- 
 ever obtained, were not the "true original copies." The 
 plays had been written and rewritten, altered and enlarged. 
 Nor is it credible that the writer of the five crabbed and 
 scarce legible signatures of William Shakspere could write 
 " with that easinesse " that he wrote the " true original 
 copies " of the thirty-six plays fluently, as he imagined them 
 and with scarce a blot ! 
 
 Why was this fiction invented, unless to conceal the true 
 provenance of the copies used for the folio ? Whence did 
 these copies really come, and what has become of them ? 
 This is a mystery. 
 
 It is probably true that the previous publication of the 
 plays was in some instances, but not always, unauthorized 
 and piratical. Fleay considers 1 that all the quartos issued 
 up to 1 600 were authorized, but that later ones were surrep- 
 titious ; but if Shakspere was their author, why did he not 
 stop the piracy? If Bacon wrote them, Shakspere could 
 not, and Bacon would not, assert a legal claim. 
 
 Mr. Sidney Lee asserts that all the quarto editions of the 
 Shakespeare plays were published surreptitiously, and de- 
 nounces William Jaggard as "a well-known pirate pub- 
 lisher"; but these statements seem at least exaggerated. 
 James Roberts, who printed the quartos of " The Merchant 
 of Venice," " Midsummer Night's Dream," and the " Ham- 
 let" of 1604, enjoyed for nearly twenty years the privilege, 
 under licence from the Stationers' Company, of printing 
 the playbills, a privilege he could scarcely have retained 
 had he habitually pirated plays against the will of the 
 author and players, and in defiance of the rules of the 
 Stationers' Company. The Jaggard family, John, William, 
 Isaac and E. Jaggard, were among the chief printers of 
 London. William Jaggard was appointed in 161 1 printer 
 1 Fleay's "Manual," p. 270.
 
 102 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 to the City of London; and in 1613 the Jaggards bought 
 James Roberts's business, and with it the privilege of print- 
 ing the playbills. They also published four editions of 
 Bacon's "Essays" in 1606, 1612, 1613 and 1624. William 
 Aspley and John Smethwick had each published two of the 
 Shakespeare quartos. It is not likely that Ben Jonson 
 would select as publishers or printers of the Shakespeare 
 folio men notorious for having pirated the plays. It is 
 more reasonable to believe that the previous publications 
 by Aspley and Smethwick were legitimate. Once only is 
 Shakespeare alleged to have expressed any offence at the use 
 of his name, and no protest by him is at any time recorded. 1 
 Leonard Digges, a few of whose lines were printed in the 
 folio, attained perhaps the highest pitch of unreality in the 
 following verses, which, though seemingly intended for the 
 folio, were relegated to a volume of the Shakespeare poems 
 printed in 1640. 
 
 Next Nature only helped him, for look through 
 His whole book, you shall find he doth not borrow 
 One phrase from Greeks, nor Latins imitate, 
 Nor once from vulgar languages translate, 
 Nor plagiary like from others glean, 
 Nor begs he from each witty friend a scene 
 To piece his acts with ; all that he doth write 
 Is pure his own ; plot, language exquisite. 
 
 Another fiction ! 
 
 The publication of a volume of thirty-six plays, of which 
 twenty were before unpublished, was in those days a great 
 literary undertaking. Heminge and Condell, the nominal 
 editors, though friends of Shakspere in his lifetime, were 
 not literary men, but two players. It is unlikely, if not 
 impossible, that they should undertake such a task without 
 the help, and indeed without the superintendence, of others. 
 
 The printers and their associates who undertook the 
 
 1 Lee, p. 182.
 
 The Folio 0/1623. 103 
 
 charges were none of them literary men ; but one of the 
 chief literary figures of the day, Ben Jonson, who had lately 
 published his own works in folio, worked in co-operation 
 with them. He wrote the principal preface and probably 
 the dedication, and seems to have been the chief editor. 
 
 Here may be found the solution of the mystery. For 
 Ben Jonson, " the learned and judicious poet," about three 
 years before had, as already stated, become Bacon's friend 
 and literary assistant, and was, as Archbishop Tenison tells 
 us, 1 one of the " good pens " who aided him in translating 
 his works into Latin, "the universal language," as Bacon 
 styled it. Bacon's Latin, notwithstanding his learning, was 
 (as indeed the " Promus " shows) imperfect. In 1621 
 Jonson was staying with Bacon at Gorhambury, and wrote 
 a sonnet in his praise on his birthday. In that year came 
 Bacon's fall, which, however, did not lessen the esteem of 
 Jonson or of Bacon's other friends. Bacon, in now devoting 
 what remained of life to literary work, had Jonson's con- 
 tinued help. 
 
 Whatever control, therefore, Jonson had over the pro- 
 duction of the folio was, in fact, or may well have been, the 
 control of Bacon, who, however, could not appear or per- 
 sonally interfere in the publication, as he was still hoping 
 for some official appointment. 
 
 These considerations change considerably the point of view. 
 
 The fact that the folio was thus published with Bacon's 
 privity under Ben Jonson's direction, and printed by the 
 printers of Bacon's "Essays," makes a wide difference in 
 the inferences to be drawn. 
 
 At this date Bacon's wealth had vanished, and he was 
 involved in debt. He was in broken health, but striving to 
 complete his literary work while life lasted. 
 
 Twenty plays remained unpublished, sixteen had been 
 
 1 Bacon's Works, by Montagu, vol. i., p. xviii.
 
 104 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 published separately. It was at this crisis of Bacon's life, 
 Shakspere having been dead seven years, that it was decided 
 to publish all the plays together. Can it be doubted that 
 the decision was Bacon's ? 
 
 If so, it was necessary that someone should control the 
 publication without Bacon's name appearing. This Ben 
 Jonson could best undertake, but, having regard to his 
 known association with Bacon, it would also be necessary 
 to find nominal editors who had some connection with 
 William Shakspere. This condition Heminge and Condell 
 fulfilled. Seeking neither fame nor profit, nor undertaking 
 charges, they would be docile and unsuspicious instru- 
 ments. Others were found to undertake the charges of 
 printing and publication, with what share of profit we know 
 not, but under the control of Ben Jonson, who was himself 
 under the direction of Bacon. 
 
 The new plays, the largely rewritten or revised editions, 
 and the unblotted copies, may thus be explained. 
 
 What, assuming that Bacon wrote the plays, had Jonson 
 to do ? First, to write such a commendation of the book 
 as might promote its sale. Next, to divert from Bacon any 
 suspicion of authorship which the publication of twenty new 
 plays would cause to be much discussed. This not easy 
 task he effectually accomplished in the preface by the free 
 exercise of his dramatic powers, though at some expense of 
 historic truth. A portrait of William Shakspere, with another 
 verse prefixed, completed the illusion. 
 
 That the preface is expressed to apply to Shakspere, and 
 was intended to be so read, is plain enough, but the high 
 praise is really given to the works ; the name Shakespeare 
 was a mask or a metaphor. " Reader, look not on his 
 Picture, but his Book." The true author Jonson doubtless 
 knew, but was bound to conceal. 
 
 In what other way can be explained the sudden change
 
 The Folio of 1623. 105 
 
 in Jonson's estimate of Shakspere, of whom he seems to 
 
 have been bitterly jealous, and at whom, up to 16 16, the 
 
 year of Shakspere's death, he lost no opportunity of sneering ? 
 
 Jonson's preface extols Shakespeare above all dramatists 
 
 modern or ancient. 
 
 When the socks are on 
 
 Leave thee alone for the comparison 
 
 Of all that insolent Greece or haughtie Rome 
 
 Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. 
 
 In his " Discoveries," written after Bacon's death, Jonson 
 
 enumerates fifteen men of that age, great masters of wit 
 
 and language, from Sir Thomas More to Lord Chancellor 
 
 Egerton, and proceeds : " But his learned (but unfortunate) 
 
 successor is he who has filled up all numbers and performed 
 
 that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred 
 
 either to insolent Greece or haughtie Rome. — So that he 
 
 may be named and stand as the mark and a^r\ of our 
 
 language." 
 
 Shakespeare is here ignored ; the real man is named. 
 
 In another passage Shakespeare is named. " I remember 
 the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shake- 
 speare, that, in his writing, whatsoever he penned he never 
 blotted a line. My answer had been, would he had blotted 
 a thousand ; which they thought a malevolent speech. I 
 had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance who 
 choose that circumstance to commend their friend by, 
 wherein he most faulted ; for I loved the man and do honour 
 his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was 
 indeed honest, and of an open and free nature, and gentle 
 expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that some- 
 times it was necessary he should be stopped." 
 
 The irregularity of the plays, often satirized by Jonson, 
 was doubtless still displeasing to his somewhat pedantic 
 taste ; but, in qualifying the eulogy of his preface, he repeats 
 his admiration of their author, still known as Shakespeare.
 
 1 06 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 But William Shakspere was not idolized by Jonson ; the 
 man whom he idolized he thus described, in the same 
 " Discoveries " : 
 
 "There happened in my time one noble speaker, who was 
 full of gravity in his speaking. His language (when he 
 would spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. . . . 
 He commanded when he spoke, and had his judges angry 
 and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections 
 more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him 
 was lest he should make an end." 
 
 " My conceit of his person was never increased toward 
 him by his place or honours ; but I have and do reverence 
 him for the greatness that was only proper to himself; in 
 that he seemed to me ever by his work one of the greatest 
 men and most worthy of admiration that had been in many 
 ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give 
 him strength, for greatness he could not want, neither could 
 I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no 
 accident could do harm to his virtue, but rather help to make 
 it manifest." 
 
 If Bacon was the author of the plays, it is inherently 
 probable that he would at this date, when striving to com- 
 plete his literary work, publish the unpublished plays, and 
 that the name of Shakespeare would be still used, and 
 that Ben Jonson would be the instrument of their pub- 
 lication. 
 
 But neither date nor circumstances of publication agree 
 with Shakspere's authorship. Why the long delay? Why 
 the nominal editors? Why the fictitious prefaces? Why 
 Ben Jonson's superintendence ? 
 
 The just conclusion appears to be that the thirty-six plays 
 were collected and published in the folio, not by Heminge 
 and Condell, who lent their names without responsibility for 
 charges or hope of profit, but by Francis Bacon himself,
 
 Rifts in the Clotids. 107 
 
 \ 
 
 through the aid of Ben Jonson, his literary assistant, and 
 thus the folio becomes, instead of an objection to, strong 
 confirmation of, Francis Bacon's authorship of the plays. 
 
 XVII. RIFTS IN THE CLOUDS. 
 
 LITERARY secrecy was a habit of Bacon's life. When 
 a youth in Paris he invented a biliteral cipher, which 
 is described in the sixth book of " De Augmentis." l Both 
 he and his brother Anthony were throughout life engaged 
 in cryptic correspondence. Anthony's correspondence 
 abounds in feigned names and hidden meanings, and the 
 names and dates in Sir Tobie Matthew's letters to Francis 
 Bacon are disguised. 
 
 Bacon was skilled in mystification. At one time, when 
 he was endeavouring to bring Essex into favour with the 
 Queen, he composed a fictitious correspondence for the eye 
 of the Queen. "I did draw," he says, " with my Lord 
 privily and by his appointment, two letters, the one written 
 as from my brother, the other as an answer returned from 
 my Lord, both to be by me in secret manner shewed to the 
 Queen — as a mean to work her Majesty to receive the Earl 
 again to favour and attendance at Court." 
 
 Bacon often composed for Essex letters, speeches, and 
 once at least a masque, which went under Essex's name. 
 
 In his Essay of Simulation Bacon writes : " An habit of 
 secrecy is both Politick and Morall. No man can be secret 
 except he give himself a little scope of Dissimulation ; which 
 is, as it were, but the skirts or Frame of Secrecy. The best 
 
 1 A book lately published under the title of "The Biliteral Cipher 
 of Francis Bacon," by Mrs. E. W. Gallup of Chicago, has been 
 tested by the present author, who is satisfied that it is unworthy of 
 credence.
 
 io8 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 composition and Temperature is, to have Opennesse in Fame 
 and Opinion ; Secrecy in Habit ; Dissimulation in reason- 
 able use ; and a Power to faigne if there be no Remedy." 
 
 Notwithstanding this careful secrecy some hints have 
 transpired. 
 
 Bacon spoke of himself and was spoken of by others as 
 "a concealed poet." 
 
 In 1600 Bacon received a visit from Queen Elizabeth at 
 "his lodge at Twicknam." "At which time," he says, "I 
 had, though I profess not to be a poet, prepared a sonnet 
 directly tending and alluding to draw on her Majesty's 
 reconcilement to my Lord." 
 
 In 1603 Bacon, writing to Sir John Davies to bespeak 
 the favour of the King, asks him " to be good to concealed 
 poets." 
 
 Stowe in his Chronicles (161 5) enumerated twenty-four 
 of " Our modern and present excellent poets which worthely 
 flourish in their own workes," in the Queen's reign, and 
 amongst them Edmond Spencer, Esq.; Sir Philip Sidney, 
 Knight ; Sir Francis Bacon, Knight ; Maister George Chap- 
 man, Gentleman ; Mr. William Shakespeare, Gentleman ; 
 Michael Draiton, Esquire, and Mr. Benjamin Johnson, 
 gentleman. 
 
 Florio, a learned Italian, the translator of Montaigne's 
 Essays, also translated many of Bacon's works for publication 
 abroad. In his preface to Montaigne's Essays he commends 
 a certain sonnet, now generally attributed to Bacon, written 
 as he says by a friend of his, " who loved better to be a poet 
 than to be counted so." 
 
 John Aubrey, Milton's friend, who was born the year after 
 Bacon's death, and who was familiar with those who knew 
 the Chancellor personally, states that " his lordship was a 
 good poet but concealed." 
 
 Bacon alludes mysteriously to literary work in terms not
 
 Rifts in the Clouds. 109 
 
 applicable in date or language to his philosophical writings. 
 In 1595 we have seen how he wrote of the waters of Par- 
 nassus. In the " Promus," which he commenced in December, 
 1594, he notes, " Law at Twickenham for the merrie tales." 
 His philosophical writings were certainly not " merrie tales,'' 
 nor did they begin to appear until 1597. The comedies 
 then rapidly appearing were " merrie tales," and contained 
 much law. 
 
 In his correspondence with Sir Tobie Matthew, his " kind 
 inquisitor," to whom he was wont to submit his writings, 
 Bacon alludes mysteriously to " works of my recreation," 
 " other works " and " t he Alphabet, " which last may be 
 explained by a " Promus " note : " Tragedy and Comedy are 
 made of the same alphabet." In one letter Sir Tobie 
 writes : " I return you not weight for weight, but measure for 
 measure." 
 
 In 1604, at about the time when the great tragedies of 
 " Hamlet," " King Lear," " Macbeth " and " Othello" were 
 appearing, Bacon writes to Matthew apologizing for some 
 neglect, on the ground that his head had been " wholly em- 
 ployed on invention." 
 
 In a letter to Matthew, probably of 1609, Bacon writes : 
 " I sent you some copies of my Book of the Advancement, 
 which you desired, and a little tvork of my recreation which 
 you desired not. My Instauration I reserve for our con- 
 ference ; it sleeps not. Those works of the Alphabet are in 
 my opinion of less use to you where you are now than at 
 Paris ; and therefore I conceived that you had sent me a 
 kind of tacit countermand of your former request. But in 
 regard that some friends of yours insisted here, I send them 
 to yo. , and, for my part, I value your own reading more than 
 your publishing them to others." 
 
 In a postscript to a letter to Bacon addressed by Sir Tobie 
 to Viscount St. Albans, written therefore after 27th January,
 
 1 1 o Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 162 1, acknowledging a letter of 9th April sending some 
 " great and noble token," probably one of Bacon's works, 
 Sir Tobie writes : " The most prodigious wit that ever I 
 knew, of my nation and of this side of the sea, is of your 
 Lordship's name, though he be known by another.'''' 
 
 The praise is evidently intended for Bacon, and declares 
 that, whether in England or on the Continent, Bacon was 
 the most prodigious wit he ever knew, though the works of 
 his genius passed under another name. 
 
 Sir Tobie's letter was apparently written from abroad 
 between 18th April and 10th October, 1623, between which 
 dates he was absent from England on a mission to the Duke 
 of Buckingham and Prince Charles in Spain. Sir Tobie was 
 resident in London in 1621 and 1622. Bacon's " De Aug- 
 ments "was published in October, 1623. The Shakespeare 
 folio was entered at Stationers' Hall in November, 1623, but 
 seems to have been printed early in the year, one copy bear- 
 ing date 1622. One of these two books was probably the 
 " Great and noble token " sent to Sir Tobie Matthew ; the 
 terms of the postscript point to the Shakespeare folio. 
 
 In Northumberland House was found in a box of old 
 papers a volume of manuscripts, of which there is a table of 
 contents. These are nearly all Bacon's works, though not in 
 his handwriting. Two manuscripts mentioned in the con- 
 tents are missing from the volume, namely, " Richard II." 
 and " Richard III.," two of the Shakespeare plays. It may 
 therefore be truly said that the only place where any manu- 
 script of the Shakespeare plays is known to have existed is 
 in this volume in association with Bacon's works, while their 
 removal from the volume shows an intention to suppress 
 them. 
 
 But further, the cover of the volume is scrawled over, in 
 writing of the period, with the name William Shakespeare 
 seven times repeated, and also that of Francis Bacon three
 
 Conclusion. 1 1 1 
 
 times, and also with two scraps from " Love's Labour 's 
 Lost " and " Lucrece." 
 
 Now it will be remembered, and the coincidence is notable, 
 that " Lucrece " and " Venus and Adonis " were the first two 
 works which bore the name of Shakespeare, and this in 1593 
 and 1594, and that "Love's Labour's Lost," written about 
 1591 or 1592, but not published until 1598, was the first play 
 which was printed with that name ; and these were the first 
 instances in which the name was spelt in the new metaphorical 
 manner. Further, that "Richard II." and "Richard III." 
 were written in or about 1593 or 1594. 
 
 Does it not look as if someone associated with Francis 
 Bacon about the year 1593, with his head full of " Lucrece " 
 and " Love's Labour 's Lost," was trying how this trans- 
 formed name of William Shakespeare would look if used 
 and printed in this connection ; and so wrote it out seven 
 times, before it was decided to put it to the dedications of 
 "Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece," and to the play of 
 " Love's Labour 's Lost." It certainly was not William 
 Shakspere who was thus trying the new name ! 
 
 All these are hints, not in themselves conclusive, but 
 curiously fitting in with the threefold strand of moral, in- 
 tellectual and circumstantial evidence which attests Bacon's 
 authorship : rifts in the clouds that shroud the authorship 
 of the plays. 
 
 XVIII. CONCLUSION. 
 
 BACON died on 9th April, 1626. By his will he gave 
 careful direction for the custody of his " cabinets and 
 presses full of papers," and for their publication or suppres- 
 sion according to the judgment of his literary executors.
 
 1 1 2 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 " For my name and memory I leave it to men's charitable 
 speeches and to foreign nations and to the next ages." 
 
 His death was deeply deplored. 
 
 His secretary, Dr. Rawley, collected thirty-two Latin 
 elegies written by Bacon's friends, chiefly University men of 
 some eminence. These call on Apollo and the Muses to 
 lament his loss ; one especially invoking Melpomene, the 
 Muse of tragedy and lyric poetry, another Clio, the Muse of 
 history. Another begins : " If thou should'st seek, O 
 Bacon, to reclaim all thou hast given to poesy and the 
 world." Another commences : 
 
 Hush, for our grief a speaking silence loves, 
 
 Now he is gone, our only Orator, 
 
 Teller of tales that mazed the Courts of Kings, etc. 
 
 These elegies clearly recognize Bacon as a poet, though the 
 plays are not expressly mentioned, and the " Instauration " 
 and other writings are in some referred to. 
 
 In 1645, in an anonymous book attributed to George 
 Withers the poet, which describes a great assize held on 
 Mount Parnassus, Apollo sits at the summit, and next to 
 him Bacon sits as Chancellor of Parnassus, Edmund Spenser 
 as clerk. Shakespeare stands below as a juror only to 
 witness to Bacon's pre-eminence. 
 
 Bacon, therefore, at his death was by his friends acknow- 
 ledged as a true poet ; yet no poems, save the versions of a 
 few Psalms, were published in his name. 
 
 Critics profess to trace in some of the plays a second 
 hand, of Marlowe or some other; Shakspere may be sug- 
 gested to have thus had a part in their production, although 
 the plays bear in themselves the stamp of Bacon's genius. 
 
 It may be suggested that the plays were written by Bacon 
 and Shakspere in collaboration. Collaboration was in that 
 age not infrequent. Let us then imagine that, in those
 
 Coiichision. 113 
 
 lodgings of Anthony Bacon beside the theatre, Shakspere 
 sometimes met Francis Bacon, who may have told the 
 stories of Italian novels, Spanish romances or Latin plays, 
 while Anthony narrated his travels and suggested foreign 
 scenes, or described the associations of their home at 
 St. Albans ; and Francis may have produced his " Promus," 
 and poured out stores of proverbs and witty sayings, and 
 discussed the latest problems of philosophy. 
 
 Will this hypothesis suit and explain the facts ? What 
 sympathy or fellowship could exist between characters so 
 opposite as Bacon and Shakspere ? Bacon might use Shak- 
 spere : he could not love him. 
 
 And Shakspere did not acquire Bacon's philosophy and 
 learning, but was still reputed unlearned. 
 
 Besides this, the language of the plays and of Bacon's 
 prose was a new development of English speech. Could 
 Bacon teach this speech to Shakspere ? 
 
 If the language, the philosophy, the knowledge of law, of 
 literature, of courts and camps, the types of noble manhood 
 and female purity were derived from Bacon, what but the 
 mask is left for Shakspere ? 
 
 Something may be added as to Marlowe, over whose 
 plays hangs a mystery, singularly like that which shadows 
 the Shakespeare plays. 
 
 Marlowe's reputation was almost entirely posthumous. 
 Only two of the plays which have since been assigned to 
 him were published during his lifetime. These are the two 
 parts of " Tamburlaine," and they were published anonym 
 ously. The three other principal plays attributed to Marlowe 
 are " Dr. Faustus," " The Jew of Malta " and " Edward II." 
 
 The prologue to " The Troublesome Reign of King 
 John " (upon which is founded the Shakespeare play of 
 "King John") appears to assign "Tamburlaine" to the 
 same author. This prologue runs : 
 
 1
 
 ii4 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 You that with friendly grace and smoothed brow 
 Have entertained the Scythian Tamburlaine, 
 And given applause unto an infidel, 
 Vouchsafe to welcome with like courtesy 
 A warlike Christian and your countryman. 
 
 Marlowe died on ist June, 1593. "Faustus" is not 
 known to have existed before 1594, and that date is doubt- 
 ful. It was registered 7th January, 1601 ; the earliest extant 
 editions are 1604 and 1609. In 16 16 it was republished, 
 enlarged to half as much again, by whom is unknown. 
 Each edition contains allusions which seem of later date 
 than Marlowe's death; the last edition speaks of "Bruno 
 led in chains," an event several years later than Marlowe's 
 death. 
 
 "The Jew of Malta" was not registered until 1594, and 
 the earliest known edition is 1633. 
 
 "Edward II." was entered at Stationers' Hall in July, 
 1593, shortly after Marlowe's death, but is not known to 
 have been published until 1598. Some classical poems are 
 also attributed to Marlowe. " Dido " was published in 
 1594 ; " Hero and Leander " was entered in 1593 and pub- 
 lished in 1598. 
 
 No collected edition of Marlowe's works was published 
 until 1826. 
 
 Marlowe has been called the precursor of Shakespeare ; 
 "To him," it has been said, "we are indebted for the 
 first regular form of the English drama cleared of rhymes, 
 and he may be considered as the link between Shakespeare 
 and the Moralities." 1 "Before him," Swinburne writes, 
 " there was neither genuine blank verse nor a genuine 
 tragedy in our language." 2 
 
 The finest passages of the plays attributed to Marlowe 
 are indistinguishable from Shakespeare; and some critics 
 
 1 " English Cyclopaedia." - " Encyclopaedia Britannica."
 
 Conclusion. 115 
 
 assert that Marlowe's hand is plainly seen, in collaboration 
 with Shakespeare, in the First part of " Henry VI.," one of 
 the earliest of the Shakespeare plays. 
 
 Marlowe's plays are more diffuse, more turgid and less 
 restrained, perhaps more immature than the Shakespeare 
 plays; but the style of both is curiously alike, and the 
 language, especially of " Edward II.," is closely allied to that 
 of the Shakespeare plays. This resemblance, if not identity, 
 has been shown in an elaborate comparison of the play of 
 "Edward II." with the plays of Shakespeare, by Mr. R. M. 
 Theobald. 1 
 
 But Marlowe was three years younger than Francis 
 Bacon ; " Tamburlaine " and " Dr. Faustus " were not acted 
 before 1588 or 1589, "The Jew of Malta" later. The 
 author of the Shakespeare plays therefore preceded Marlowe, 
 and it was doubtless he who, either in collaboration or in- 
 dependently, impressed upon the anonymous plays attributed 
 to Marlowe the form of blank verse, the historic subjects 
 and foreign scenes, and some at least of the poetic genius 
 which characterize the Shakespeare plays. 
 
 If Bacon wrote the first sketch of "The Merchant of 
 Venice" and of "Julius Caesar" in 1579, of "The Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona" in 1584, and of " Hamlet" in 1585, 
 he may well have collaborated with Marlowe in the pro- 
 duction of some of the Marlowe plays, especially " Edward 
 II.," and have revised these plays after Marlowe's death — 
 if indeed " Edward II." is not more probably an early play 
 of Francis Bacon? This would fill up and explain the 
 interval between the plays of the " Jew " and " Hamlet," and 
 the plays of " Love's Labour 's Lost " and " Henry VI." 
 
 Marlowe was killed in a tavern brawl on 1st June, 1593. 
 In the same year Shakespeare's name first appeared in print. 
 
 To sum up. The facts of Shakspere's life render his 
 
 1 Theobald, " Shakespeare Studies," p. 415.
 
 1 1 6 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 authorship of the plays which bear his name so inconceivable 
 that Schlegel pronounces it " a mere fabulous story, a blind 
 and extravagant error." But, in these plays, the genius of 
 Bacon is manifest ; they bear the stamp of his character 
 they reflect his intellect, they speak his language, they mirror 
 his life. 
 
 It is surely an impossibility that of these two men Shak- 
 spere should have written the plays : a moral impossibility, 
 if we contrast their moral characters ; an intellectual impos- 
 sibility, for the plays are redolent of Bacon's intellect, and 
 of a learning proper to him, but which Shakspere cannot 
 reasonably be supposed to have possessed ; a biographical 
 impossibility, for the plays are part of Bacon's life but not 
 of Shakspere's.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Appreciation of plays gradual, 3. 
 Aubrey, John, 108. 
 
 Bacon, Anthony, 23, 43, 44, 70, 74. 
 Bacon, Francis, birth and educa- 
 tion, 17. 
 
 Visit to France, 17. 
 
 Return to England, 18. 
 
 Philosophical writings, iS, 19. 
 
 First publications, 19. 
 
 Poetic power, 20. 
 
 Version of Psalms, 20, 21. 
 
 Dramatic taste, 22. 
 
 Vocabulary, 25. 
 
 " Promus," 37. 
 
 Essay of Love, 40. 
 
 Travels, 17, 43. 
 
 Late prosperity, 85. 
 
 Marriage, 85. 
 
 Promotion to office, 88. 
 
 Fall, 89. 
 
 Death, III. 
 
 Will, in. 
 Bacon, Lady Anne, 17, 23. 
 " Bartholomew Fair," 97. 
 Uengough, E. , comparison of "His- 
 tory of Henry VII." with 
 " King John," 25. 
 Bodley, Sir Thomas, letter, 20. 
 Kruno, Giordano, 55. 
 Bucknill, Dr., medicine in plays, 
 
 30. 
 Hurbage, Richard, II, 67, 81. 
 
 Campbell, Lord, "Shakespeare's 
 Legal Acquirements," 2, 29. 
 
 Chettle's apology, 67. 
 
 Coleridge, 16. 
 
 Comparison of plays with Bacon's 
 
 prose works, 23. 
 Concealed poets, 108. 
 Contemporary allusions, 93. 
 Cooke, Dr. James, 15. 
 Cowden Clarke, Mrs., points of 
 
 style, 28. 
 Craik, Professor, vocabulary, 24. 
 
 Dark period, 82. 
 D'Avenant, Sir William, 83. 
 Davies, Archdeacon, William 
 
 Shakspere's youth, 7. 
 Digges, Leonard, 102. 
 Drama, origin of modern, 45. 
 Dramatists, contemporary, 47. 
 Drummond of Ilawthornden, 97. 
 
 Elegies on Bacon, 112. 
 
 Emerson, 16. 
 
 Epigram of Ben Jonson, 95. 
 
 Essays, 19, 78. 
 
 Essex, Earl of, 80. 
 
 " Every Man in his Humour,'' 95. 
 
 Faunt, Nicholas, 43, 47. 
 Flowers in Shakespeare, 32. 
 Florin, translator of Montaigne's 
 
 Essays, 108. 
 Folio of 1623, 98. 
 
 Germany, " Hamlet " in, 58. 
 Globe and Blackfriars Theatres 
 shares in, 67, Si.
 
 1 1 8 Problem of the Shakespeare Plays. 
 
 Gosson, " School of Abuse," 46, 47. 
 Greene, Richard, 50, 51, 67, 94. 
 
 Halliwell-Phillipps, W. Shakspere's 
 
 education, 6. 
 Heminge and Condell, 98, 104. 
 " Henry VII., History of," 91. 
 
 Jaggards, IOI. 
 Johnson, Dr., 3, 25. 
 Tonson, Ben, 95, 103-107. 
 
 Law terms, 29. 
 Leicester, Earl of, 48. 
 Literature as a profession, 66. 
 Lodge, 52. 
 "Lucrece," 71. 
 
 Macaulay, opinion of Bacon, 20. 
 Marlowe, 47, 67, 112. 
 Masques, " Conference of Plea- 
 sure," " Indian Prince," 74. 
 Matthew, Sir Tobie, 109. 
 Max Miiller, 24. 
 Meres, eulogy of plays, 79. 
 Metaphors, bird and butterfly, 77. 
 
 Northumberland House manuscript, 
 no. 
 
 Parmenides, 55. 
 
 Parallelisms, 26-28. 
 
 " Parnassus, waters of," 77. 
 
 "Poetaster," 96. 
 
 " Polimanteia," 70. 
 
 Pott, Mrs., comparison of vocabu- 
 laries, 25. 
 
 "Promus," 37. 
 
 Psalms, versions of, 21. 
 
 Rifts in the clouds, 107. 
 
 Shakespeare : vocabulary, 24. 
 Parallelisms, 26-28. 
 Triple antitheses, 28. 
 Knowledge of law, 29. 
 
 Shakespeare : 
 
 Knowledge of medicine, 30. 
 
 ,, ,, natural history, 31. 
 
 Errors in natural history, 31. 
 
 Knowledge of horticulture, 33. 
 
 Change of opinion, 34. 
 
 Natural philosophy, 34. 
 
 Religion, 36. 
 
 Love, 39. 
 
 Plots not original, 42. 
 
 Scenes foreign, 42. 
 
 Errors in geography, 43. 
 Shakespeare plays : " Historie of 
 Errors," 45. 
 
 " Merchant of Venice," 46. 
 
 " Felix and Philomena," 48. 
 
 "Hamlet," 49, 82. 
 
 "Twelfth Night," 59. 
 
 " Love's Labour's Lost," 62. 
 
 "Two Gentlemen of Verona," 62. 
 
 " Midsummer Night's Dream," 
 
 63. 
 Historical plays, 64. 
 "Henry VI.," Part I., 64. 
 " Henry VI.," Parts II. and III. , 
 
 64. 
 " Comedy of Errors," 73. 
 
 "King John," 75- 
 "Richard IL," 75. 
 
 "Richard III.," 75. 
 " Titus Andronicus," 75, 76. 
 " Venesyon Comedy," 75. 
 "All's Well that Ends Well," 76. 
 " Taming of the Shrew," 76. 
 " Romeo and Juliet," 76. 
 "Henry IV.," Parts I. and II., 
 
 78. 
 " Merry Wives of Windsor," 78. 
 "Henry V," 80. 
 " Much Ado about Nothing," 80. 
 " As You Like It," 80. 
 " Troilus and Cressida," 80. 
 " Othello," 83. 
 "Measure for Measure," 83. 
 " Macbeth," 83. 
 " King Lear," 84.
 
 Index. 
 
 119 
 
 Shakespeare plays : 
 
 "Antony and Cleopatra," 85. 
 
 " Pericles," 86. 
 
 " Tempest," 86. 
 
 " Cymbeline," 87. 
 
 " Winter's Tale," 87. 
 
 "Henry VIII.," 91. 
 
 "Timon of Athens," 91. 
 
 " Conolanus," 91. 
 Shokspere, John, 5, 9, 13. 
 Shakspere, Judith, 12. 
 Shakspere, Mary, 6. 
 Shakspere, Susannah, 12, 15. 
 Shakspere, various spelling of name, 
 
 72. 
 Shakspere, William : birth, 5. 
 
 Education, 6. 
 
 Crabtree legend, 7. 
 
 Reputed unlearned, 8. 
 
 Marriage, 9, 10. 
 
 Arrival in London, 10. 
 
 Shakspere, William : 
 
 Appearance before the Queen, II, 
 
 74- 
 
 First appearance of name on 
 plays, 79. 
 
 Purchase of New Place, II, Si. 
 
 Return to Stratford, 81, 86. 
 
 Purchase of lands, II, 82. 
 
 Death, 13, 87. 
 
 Will, 14. 
 Shelley, Bacon a poet, 20. 
 Simulation, Essay of, 107. 
 Spedding, " Life of Bacon," 21, 77. 
 Sonnet to Queen Elizabeth, 108. 
 Southampton, Earl of, 68. 
 Stratford, prohibition of dramatic 
 
 performances, 12. 
 Stowe's Chronicle, 108. 
 
 " Venus and Adonis," 68. 
 
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