00 Henry ' <~~ WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE NOT AN IMPOSTOE, BY AN ENGLISH CRITIC. 'The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo." LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. J LONDON: G. ROUTLEDGE & CO. PARRINGDON STREET; NEW YORK: 18, BEEKMAN STREET. . 1857. [The Author reserves tte Right of Transtatiuii. \ PRINTED BY COX AND WYMAN, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. ur TO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE, AS Cf;e ^Bfst 6u;irbuws of tjjos* !Eir!j Antics of BEQUEATHED BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE TO ALL POSTERITY, THIS VINDICATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE MAN AND OF THE FAME OF THE POET IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY THE AUTHOR. 851 PEEFACE, THE Author has endeavoured to collect within the compass of a small volume the historical docu- ments and the testimonies of the "poet's contempora- ries, by which the claim of William Shakespeare to the authorship of the six-and-thirty plays, published in the folio edition of 1623, is clearly established. His title is confirmed by such a mass of evidence, that many readers who have not investigated the matter will wonder how it could ever have been called in question. They must not forget that the province of some critics is to scatter doubts broad-cast over the literature of a country ; and that weeds always spread more rapidly than wholesome plants and sweet-smelling flowers. To vindicate the character of our mighty Shakespeare, thus wantonly assailed, has indeed been a labour of love ; and if this little volume should have the effect of kindling in any vi PREFACE. heart a deeper reverence for the memory of William Shakespeare, or giving to a single reader a fairer idea of his extraordinary superiority over all other poets, ancient as well as modern, the author will not have written in vain. LONDON, January 26tk, 1857. " TRUTH may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day ; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or car- buncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations, as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy wind indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves ? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum dcemonum, because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it is the sovereign good of human nature." FRANCIS BACON. SHAKESPEARE NOT AN IMPOSTOR CHAPTER L THE NATURE OF THE CHARGE. "Then what do those poor Sank which nothing get? Or what do those which get, and cannot keep ? Like buckets Bottomless, which all out-let, Those Souls, for want of Exercise, must sleep." SIR JOHN DAVIES, " ASSUREDLY that criticism of Shakespeare will alone be genial which is reverential. An Englishman, who with- out reverence a proud and affectionate reverence can utter the name of William Shakespeare, stands dis- qualified for the office of critic." Such are the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the most learned and acute of Shakesperian students and commentators ; while " Shakespeare is a vile impostor," is the cry of the latest luminary of the age, To the eternal disgrace of English literature, if the effusion to which we refer can be classed amongst its productions, a pamphlet has recently appeared, in every way calculated " to fright the isle from its propriety." It contains charges against the two most illustrious names upon our list of authors, which, if proven, must cover their names with infamy of the deepest dye, and consign their memories to eternal execration. The ac- cusations are made by one William Henry Smith,* with- * Throughout this vindication of our immortal bard we have been B 2 4 THE NATURE OF out, as we shall see in the course of this investigation, one shadow of proof; and for such an offender there can be neither consideration nor respect. On light and unjusti- fiable grounds, seduced, as it would appear, by the reveries of a disordered fancy, he has brought grave charges against William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon, which he has not attempted to establish by one particle of evidence. The de- sire of notoriety, not of honourable distinction, has become quite a passion with many of the new lights of the age ; and we presume that the aspirant for literary honours, whose wanton onslaught upon the memory of Shakespeare must excite the indignation of all that great man's affec- tionate admirers, cares little by what means he obtains his end, or gratifies his uneasy ambition. In the rambling sentences in which his accusations are couched, he certainly does hint at proofs ; but in any case Mr. William Henry Smith has acted unfairly both towards the mighty dead whom he maligns, and the British public which he would delude. Even if he were in possession of proofs to substantiate his grave charges, these ought most decidedly to have been produced, when the charges were made ; and if he can adduce nothing but his own disordered fancies to support his theories, they should never have been given to the world. The fame of the illustrious dead is the most precious me- morial of the past ; it is not only the source of all our glory, bnt it is the fountain of future greatness, and acts as an incentive to others, impelling them to the per- formance of noble and heroic actions. Yet this sacred heirloom is not secure from the attacks of those who, to speak most charitably of their conduct, can have but a feeble notion of its real importance. The author of the present defence of Shakespeare very careful to give this purblind critic's name in full. It is fit that the public should know which member of the large family of the Smiths it is that has stepped out of his legitimate sphere to assail the character of William Shakespeare, THE CHARGE. 5 if defence can be needed against such a charge has waited anxiously for some time, hoping that a champion better qualified to undertake the vindication of the mighty dead, now wantonly and wilfully assailed, would have come to the rescue, None have taken up the gauntlet so deliberately thrown down before us : and he cannot suffer it to be said, that when, in the nineteenth century, dark suspicions were breathed against the cha- racter of William Shakespeare, no Englishman could be found to hurl them back at the head of the detractor. The platitudes of M. Ponsard, who drivelled the other day at Paris, about "the divine Williams," as only self-satis- fied but incompetent critics can do, were too contemptible to require notice ; but Mr. William Henry Smith, though evidently a critic of the same class, cannot be allowed to perpetrate his follies without rebuke. The French critic may be excused for not fully under- standing the character or appreciating the genius of Shakespeare ; but the Englishman, who, at this advanced stage of Shakespearian investigation, has no adequate idea of either the one or the other, can plead nothing save wilful blindness, or hopeless obtuseness, in extenuation of his extraordinary ignorance. No inducement should lead such a one to set himself up as a teacher ; and many people will doubtless assert that an offender of this class and calibre is beneath notice ; and that no well-educated man, acquainted either with the dramas of Shakespeare, the writings of Bacon, or the literary history of the Elizabethan period, can possibly be misled by his shallow speculations. This is, to a certain extent, true ; but we must not forget that Shakespeare has become a beloved and honoured guest in the cottages and hamlets of the land ; that his name is dear to thousands of the humble and the lowly, who have neither the means nor the leisure which will admit of their diving deeply into his history, and to investigate accusations brought against him ; and 6 THE NATURE OF for such persons in particular the author is now induced to take up his pen. Cheap literature has introduced the works of our great dramatist to all classes of his country- men ; it has opened unimagined mines of intellectual wealth to the enraptured gaze of once neglected sections of the community, and it has sunk shafts through the grim haunts of ignorance and crime, letting in the glorious rays of wisdom and intelligence. Wherever Englishmen go, they carry with them their English Bible and their English Shakespeare ; and neither of these can we suffer to be lightly spoken of or undervalued. The former we defend on account of its divine origin, as the source of all our hopes ; the latter, as the most precious of uninspired writings. Moreover, it is fit and proper that the high priests of literature should be protected from irreverent and wanton assault. Let these, his new admirers in the lower, but not, on that account, less honourable, ranks of life, know that the Shakespeare whose magic power holds them spell- bound in amazement and admiration, is not the greatest literary impostor the world ever saw. Nor is it only the humbler class of readers that may be misled by such vagaries. Even the acute and sagacious editor of that deservedly popular periodical, Notes and Queries, falls into the snare, and, apparently without reflecting upon the infamy that must for ever rest upon the names of Bacon and Shakespeare, supposing that Mr. William Henry Smith were able to substantiate his charges, says, with reference to this pamphlet, " It is a Letter to the Earl of Ellesmere, suggesting whether the plays attributed to Shakespeare were not in reality written by Bacon. The author has overlooked two points : one, the fact that his theory had been anticipated by an American writer ; the second, one which certainly tells strongly in favour of his theory, and which has been on several occasions alluded to in these columns, namely, the very remarkable circumstance that nowhere in the writings of Shakspeare THE CHARGE. 7 is any allusion to Bacon to be met with ; nor in the writings of the great philosopher is there the slightest reference to his wonderful and most philosophic contem- porary."* We are willing to allow Mr. William Henry Smith to make the most of this admission, but how it can possibly prove, either directly or indirectly, that Bacon wrote Shakespeare, or Shakespeare Bacon, we are at a loss to conceive. The former must have gone con- siderably out of his way to drag the greatest of modern philosophers into his dramas ; and, as regards Bacon, he may have felt an influence which he did not choose to acknowledge. Such strange admissions from authorities highly qualified to give an opinion, and in every way entitled to respect, render it expedient that the question should be set at rest without delay, and that it should be clearly shown not only that Mr. William Henry Smith's arguments are untenable that they are altogether with- out foundation, but that it is absolutely and utterly impossible, in the teeth of the evidence that we actually possess, that any one but William Shakespeare could have written the dramas that have been for more than two centuries attributed to him. Many years' earnest and affectionate study of the works of Shakespeare have served to increase the author's esteem and admiration for the great and commanding superiority of his genius over that of all other gifted men, and he has no hesitation in asserting, what he is prepared to prove ; namely, that Shakespeare merits that general tribute of affection and admiration which he has won. It is a most remarkable fact, that every fresh par- ticular brought to light concerning his career becomes an additional witness in his favour. The more we learn of Shakespeare, the higher does our admiration rise ; the nearer we get at the truth, the fairer does the truth appear. Every advance made in our inves- * Notes and Queries, Second Series, No. 42. Notes on Books, p. 320. 8 THE NATURE OF tigations serves to remove a blemish from his portrait ; arid were it not that fresh calumnies are invented ay the old ones disappear, a defence of our great national bard would be at this moment unnecessary. Vain is ! it for this last assailant of the reputation of the mighty dead to plead the controversy that has arisen respecting the authorship of the Letters of Junius at his excuse for starting this question. Junius was a writer who did not wish to be known, and the public were, naturally enough, anxious to strip off the mask ; but we have no reason for entertaining the slightest doubt that Shake- speare was the author of at least the majority of the dramas that bear his name. The writers who laboured to establish the identity of Junius endeavoured to clear up a mystery, in the solution of which all Englishmen had an interest. He was an anonymous censor, who gloried in his secret, boasting that he would carry it with him to the grave ; and he thus threw out a challenge to every member of the com- munity. It was a fair game at hide-and-seek between him and the public ; the former did his best to evade detection, the latter to unearth the literary fox. Cir- cumstances pointed at various times to different persons ; and even when a mistake was made, no great harm was done. A temperate denial from some one able to speak with certainty upon the matter, or the silent yet not less certain testimony of evidence called circumstantial, turned pursuit in another direction; and if to this hour the authorship of those Letters, that created a wonderful sensation at the time of publication, and have excited so many keen encounters of wit, and provoked such ani- mated controversies at intervals during the last fifty years, remains to a certain extent a mystery, the memories of the dead lie under no grievous imputations on that account. An anonymous author is one thing ; and a man who appropriates the reputation that does not belong to him another. THE CHAEGE. If the dramas of Shakespeare were really written by Bacon, the former is the greatest of all impostors, and the latter the basest of deceivers. Mr. William Henry Smith seeks to consign these men to eternal degradation ; he would have us believe that the lives of both were a series of palpable deceits, an acted lie. To the hour that Mr. William Henry Smith poured forth his dark sus- picions, no critic, commentator, nor editor, had ventured to hint that William Shakespeare was not the author of the dramas published under his name. Certain crude and disconnected pieces, that have been foisted upon him by interested publishers, were indeed rejected by the most discerning critics ; but the question, as it now stands, deals not with particular dramas, but the whole collection. The English people are asked to subscribe to the pre- posterous theory, that the poet, whom, of all others, they admire and respect, is no poet at all, and that for two centuries, students and commentators have been groping in the dark, and erecting a monument to a man who practised one of the vilest deceptions of which human nature is capable ; and who added to the degradation of being a base-minded upstart, that of seeking to appro- priate to himself the fame and the honour which belonged by right to another. What the public in general think of the matter, will be seen from the following letter, published in the Illustrated London News, of January 10, under the signature of "John Bull:" " I won't have Bacon. I will have my own cherished 1 Will.' I have borne a great deal, and never changed my faith. I have seen him chipped, mauled, befrib- bled and overdone. I have seen upholsterers and classic managers cloud his glories in fustian and explanations. I have heard shouts against his anachronisms, and anathemas against his want of the unities and ignorance of Greek ; but never thought that an Englishman, and a 1 Smith,' would try to prove that he was a swindler, a 10 THE NATURE OF THE CHARGE. thief, a jackdaw, and died, in the odour of sanctity, the pilferer of Bacon. Have we no literary police no pen jealeus of the honour of our 'immortal bard?' Oh, for an hour with the giant Christopher North ! Oh, for some swashing blows of his rhetorical cudgel to crush this fungus ! I know the pestilent vapour will pass away, and the steady glories of Will. Shakspeare blaze forth again ; but in the mean time we shiver under the passing cloud. First, a College of Monks wrote Shikspur ; now it's the jurisprudist Bacon. Why not Sir Walter Ealeigh 1 Why not Queen Elizabeth herself 1 But, as I began, we won't have ' Bacon !' " 11 CHAPTER II. THE ASSAILANTS OF GENIUS, AND THE VARIOUS METHODS BY WHICH THEY CARRY ON THE ASSAULT. "Ah! how the poor world is pestered with such water-flies; diminutives of nature." TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. HAPPILY, in the quaint language of Sir Thomas Browne, this is " a fallacy that dwells not in a cloud, and needs not the sun to scatter it ;" and before proceeding to refute the same, we may glance for a moment at the two principal classes by which the reputations of the good and the gifted have been invariably assailed, as well as at the manner in which their hostility has been manifested. These classes are the over-learned, who account for every- thing upon theory, and the hopelessly ignorant, whose very souls shudder at every kind of mental superiority. They are the assailants of genius, in whatever form it may develop itself ; and to which of these the latest detractor of Shakespeare belongs, or whether he is to be regarded as the founder of a new school of cavillers, my readers may decide for themselves. The former get entangled in the cobwebs which they weave from their own brains ; the latter vent their rage upon everything calculated to give grace and dignity to our fallen nature. We cannot, therefore, wonder that our most illustrious author if not, indeed, the master-spirit of all time should incur their fierce resentment. Meaner intellects have at least one consolation ; if they cannot create, they may succeed in destroying. He who would build up some glorious edifice of learning and wisdom, must be possessed of great mental endowments ; industry, which 12 THE ASSAILANTS no amount of toil can weary ; and patience and long- suffering, bestowed upon few out of the many millions of human beings who play their parts upon the theatre of this world ; but for the work of destruction, none of these qualifications are required. The veriest tyro can assault a time-honoured institution or bespatter with mud the noblest monument of genius. Indeed the lower the position such a detractor occupies in the intellectual scale, the better fitted will he be for the performance of his unseemly task. Dirt} 7 - work requires ifcs peculiar instrument ; and none more readily assail the literary fame of others than those who have no literary reputation of their own to lose. The leveller has generally but little to boast of : he would not be so anxious to pull down and destroy, did he possess anything worthy of defence. It is the same in literature as in the common- weal : he who has possessions will carefully uphold the rights of property. To create requires the skill of the master, but to over- throw that which other men by patient labour, unwearied diligence, and great ability, have erected, is an easier task. Thus the authors of those sublime productions of genius, which have formed the delight and wonder of successive generations, have in all ages been the subjects of the most envenomed and the vilest attacks. Nor have these attacks been confined to the works of man, those coming directly from God, and stamped with the impress of His holiness, have been subjected to similar treatment. As the litera- ture of a country is its most enduring possession, its pro- ductions of course come in for the principal share of the hostility of such narrow-minded despoilers. The greatest treasures of universal literature are, it will, we imagine, be admitted without dispute, the Bible, the works of Homer, and the dramas of William Shakespeare. The assault upon the Scriptures has been waged in various ways. While some have sought to suppress them, to make them a sealed book, and thus to rob man OF GENIUS. 13 of his best treasure, others have endeavoured to explain them away altogether. Toland and his imitators would account for miracles and mysteries in a perfectly natural manner j while Sir William Drum m on d calmly endea- voured to prove that the Hebrew Scriptures were a collec- tion of astronomical emblems, and sought to identify the patriarchs with the twelve signs of the zodiac.* Vain were it for us to undertake the task of exposing all the different methods in which, both in bygone and even in more modern times, the sacred writings have been assailed. One authority, incredulous in all things save his own superior ability and discernment, assures us, with a gravity ill becoming such ribaldry, that they are a collection of fables ; another cannot admit that they are inspired ; while a third will point out the particular por- tions that are alone worthy of reception. All such reasoners lack that humility which is the faithful attend- ant of true wisdom : theirs is the presumption of over- weening vanity, or the arrogance of ignorance as hopeless as it is profound. In fact some people seem to fancy they have a charter, liberal as the wind, to assail anything that comes in their way, no matter how sacred it may be. Yet while mercilessly severe against the productions of the great thinkers and workers of the past, they treat the pigmies of to-day with a ridiculous and totally uncalled- for leniency. Thus almost every department of literature is crowded with shallow pretenders. True, we have noble-minded men, toiling for the benefit of their fellows, and adding lustre to our literary annals ; but these are not the popular writers of the day. Those whose names will stand out as beacons a century hence, are not most followed and * See the " CEdipus Judaicns" by Sir W. Drnmmond, a work at first printed for private circulation only, and therefore not published. It was very admirably dealt with in a Satire by the Rev. G. Town- send, D.D., who, adopting Sir \V. Drummond's line of argument, contended that the signs of the zodiac represented the twelve Caesars. 14 THE ASSAILANTS best remunerated now. Take down what popular author you please from the shelf, and examine his right and title to celebrity. Look narrowly into his style, weigh his sentences, break them up, parse them, dissect them : you might as well hunt for a grain of gold-dust in a cart-load of sand, as hope to find anything that will repay you for your search. The composition will not bear inspection ; the sentences will be found to consist of a strange medley of foreign terms and absurd conceits. To distort a figure, and to thrust a word into any position but the one which it might legitimately occupy, is their highest aim. A healthy, manly, nervous Shakesperian diction would be so much Greek to these word-mongers, who have stocked our vocabulary with slang terms, and introduced the jargon of the stable into the drawing-room.* Their productions are false in form, execrable in spirit, and weak in expression. " I do not mean by expression," to adopt the language of Coleridge, " the mere choice of words, but the whole dress, fashion, and arrangement of a thought." If their diction be vile, the views and opinions they seek to propagate are calculated to shake the very foundations of society ; to scatter the seeds of enmity among all classes of the community. Their hand is against everything holy and good ; in their sight the most sacred institutions of the land are an abomination. They delight in caricaturing Nature, but they never strive to represent her or to interpret her oracles. They cannot sit in humble meekness at her feet, studying her form, and seeking to be illumined by her blessed light : their object is not to adorn, but to deface everything they touch. t * Numerous proofs of these assertions may be found by any person willing to undertake the search amongst the productions of our popular authors. Specimens and illustrations of these errors shall, if leisure and opportunity permit, be given in a future work. *t* While these sheets are passing through the press, the writer's attention has been directed to some articles of great merit in the Saturday Review, exposing some of the evils to which he alludes. OF GENIUS. Id Their conclusions are as erroneous as their style is faulty. They mutilate and mangle every subject, to raise a smile, or to create what they term a sensation. To Truth they pay no homage ; indeed, they have long since turned their backs upon her. The simple beauty of her appearance can have no attractions for those who love to feast their eyes upon frippery and finery ; who prefer gaudy tinsel to solid ore. Exactly the same kind of process is in operation upon the English stage. With one or two honourable exceptions, our most popular performers act in precisely the same style as our popular authors write. Those are most applauded who have the trick of flattering the follies of the hour ; who, by their vulgarity, have won the goodwill of the vulgar. To exaggerate and distort is their vocation. Mounte- banks have succeeded the Kembles, Kean, Listen, and the bright spirits of a better period. People talk of the decline of the drama, as if that were to be attributed solely to a scarcity of good dramatists. Where shall we find actors capable of interpreting the master-pieces of tragedy and comedy, in which our literature is so rich ? When the accomplished artist makes his bow to a dis- criminating audience, we feel assured that he will not be at a loss for something to represent. The reader or student may always test the merits of any composition by careful analysis. Anything in literature which will not bear inspection, which can- not be weighed and examined, which may not be differently expressed, is mere verbiage. If paragraphs, sentences, and words have a meaning, that meaning may easily be seized upon and unfolded. One method in particular has been noticed, in a recent number of the Athenaeum* and the remarks of the critic in recom- mending the adoption of such a system in our educa- The reviewer's remarks are admirable, and may act as an antidote to the poison swallowed in such quantities. * January 3, 1857. 16 THE ASSAILANTS OF GENIUS. tional establishments are so good, that we have na hesitation in quoting them : " It was Dr. Arnold, we think, who regretted that it was not the custom in our higher schools and colleges to read some of our best English authors in the minute and careful manner univer- sally practised in reading the Greek and Latin classics, and who expressed a belief that, if this custom were once well established, many of those benefits which result from the learning of Greek and Latin might be derived, to nearly the same extent, from vernacular studies alone. The same idea must have occurred to many. If, in our schools and colleges, pupils were made to read Shake- speare or Milton, in short passages at a time, just as Homer and Sophocles, or Virgil and Horace, are read ; if each word of the text were carefully studied, each difficult etymology traced, each unusual idiom investigated, each peculiarity in syntax or prosody inspected, each allusion explained, each beauty in thought or expression brooded over lovingly ; if, in short, every particle of every line were made to pass slowly, and perhaps three or four sepa- rate times for separate purposes, through the mind, as a good classical tutor makes his class parse Greek or Latin text, there can be no doubt that, besides other advan- tages, the process would serve as a logical discipline little inferior to that which is, perhaps, the main recommend- ation at present of classical studies. The difficulty, as Dr. Arnold felt, is to introduce such a method, and become master of it. Our very familiarity with our own language prevents us from rolling every morsel of it under our tongue in the slow and deliberate way in which we treat dead vocables ; and besides, the art of exposition, as applied to the classical authors, is one made perfect by long usage and by academic tradition." Ye admirers of popular authors, try, we beseech you, this experiment upon the compositions of your favourites, which you will speedily discover to consist of a grain of sense concealed in a wilderness of verbiage ! 17 CHAPTER III. GERMAN ONSLAUGHT UPON HOMER AND SHAKESPEARE. "There are nations, it is reported, who aim their arrows and javelins at the sun and moon on occasions of eclipse, or any other offence ; but I never heard that the sun and moon abated their course through the heavens for it, or looked more angrily when they issued forth again to shed light on their antagonists. They went onward all the while in their own serenity and clear- ness, through unobstructed paths, without diminution aud with- out delay. It was only the little world below that was in darkness." W. S. LANDOB. HOMER of course attracted the attention of the critical operators, and in their hands soon lost every trace of the vigour and rotundity of life. The Germans, some years since, won an unenviable notoriety for this style ot criticism, which has been very ably described by a writer in a recent Quarterly Review : " Wolf's erudite dis- ciples, if they can be said to have agreed on anything besides the great general articles of misbelief, seem to have instinctively concurred in an antipathy to these time-hallowed miracles of thought and word. Whenever what they call tfie action comes to what they consider a halt ; that is, whenever the Poet is tempted to relieve his pictures of war and tumult by some exquisite glimpse of domestic tenderness, or- heated by a self-kindled flame of which those doctors have no more notion than Chesel- den's patient had of scarlet expands into some delicious commemoration of old personal reminiscence or dear dream of romantic tradition it is luce clarius that this is a patch. The antique manufacturing company knew their business too well to have winked at such inter- ferences with the rubrical continuity of the patent web 18 ONSLAUGHT UPON HOMER they were stuck on by the sciolists, who sent in their accounts for travelling expenses, attendance at consult- ations, copies made, and sundries, to the treasury of Pisistratus. " In this way they put out of court for ever, on the motion of Counsellor Hermann, or Lachmann, or some other of his understrappers, whatever has signally familiarized and brought home to us the most masculine of Homer's cha- racters ; whatever has made us sympathize with the flesh and blood, and be merciful to the frailties of others ; what- ever, in short, has made them living types of human nature and the despair of all the poets of 3,000 years save one. Apply the same sort of process to that one ; but let us be merciful apply it only to the most learned, adroit, and artistical (in the doctor's own sense of that last word) among Homer's or Shakspeare's successors. What fortu- nate riddances, now, in the case of Yirgil ! how many of his crack paragraphs are manifest panni ! think of fathering on such an expert as that such a gross inter- polation as the purposeless episode of Euryalus, or such a transparent clumsiness as a piece of flattery about Mar- cellus ! Such superfcetations will not bear a touch of the scalpel. " Or take Milton : what a swoop of his pretty eaglets ! What a world of stuffed-in abortive excrescences about Pagan mythology, medieval romance, blindness of an ex Latin secretary of Oliver Cromwell evil days of the Cabal and Lely's bevies ! Imagine the gravest of Christian poets mixing up Eve and Proserpine, the fall of the angels with discharges of artillery Galaphron and his city of Albracca Charlemagne and all his chivalry at Fontarabia. So treated, no doubt, poets may be shorn of their most troublesome beams and reduced by safe mani- pulation within the comprehension of the critical lens." * The remoteness of the era in which Homer lived * Quarterly Review, vol. 87, No. 174, p. 445. AND SHAKESPEARE. 19 afforded these professors an excellent opportunity for attempting to destroy him altogether. They had no sooner stowed away the glorious father of epic poetry in safety among the myths, than the keen-eyed vultures of the criticism of annihilation cast their greedy eyes upon our own sweet Shakespeare. With him they were com- pelled to deal in a different manner ; the proofs of his having actually existed were too numerous to admit of the application to his case of this summary process of annihilation. The man William Shakespeare had been a rather important personage in his day and generation, and what is more, Lad left several evidences of the part he had played, that could not be explained away ; so the extin- guisher was laid aside, and the critics grasped the toma- hawk ; although they could not crush out his existence, they thought they might manage to hew his reputation to pieces. So to work they went ; and mighty were the results. They could not annihilate the man Shakespeare, but they might reduce the poet within reasonable dimen- sions. This was the expedient by which they hoped to gain their ends. To overrate the merits of his contemporaries, and to de- preciate his, was their solution of the difficulty. Zealously did they labour at this new hobby, terrible were their efforts to pull down Shakespeare, and to erect their own blocks of wood and stone in his place. They plied their oars vigorously against the stream of common sense and honest truth, imagining that, because the water flowed past them , they were making rapid advances. But the German dreamers had hit upon something like a real difficulty at last ; and they found Shakespeare possessed of a vitality which they had little suspected. They could not demolish a reputation that had taken root in every quarter of the globe j a fame which, like the air, pervaded the universe. The sagacious writer in the Quarterly, to whom we c 2 20 ONSLAUGHT UPON HOMER have already referred, has administered a castigation upon these offenders, from the effects of which they are not likely to recover. He says : " First of all, they never see we really doubt if any even of their better men, except Schlegel and Goethe (who never went leisurely into the subject), had the least glimpse of the immense gulf that intervenes between Shakspeare and those whom it has been too common to speak of as the other great dramatists of the Elizabethan period. One makes every allowance for the purblind ecstasies of pro- fessed black-letter moles and grubs at home or abroad ; but what are we to say when we find persons enjoying the reputation in their own country, not only of uni- versal critics, but of original poets, who painfully trans- late, edit, and comment upon 'the Fore-school of Shakspeare,' that is, the limping poetasters that wrote plays before Shakspeare produced his master-pieces, and from whom he occasionally borrowed the thread of a story, or the dim and tremulous outline of a character ; and gravely proceed, from first to last, on the notion that these worthies have been comparatively neglected here, not because they are poetasters, but because Shak- speare is with us a blind, bigoted, intolerant superstition 1 In like manner, when they grapple with the great bard himself, the mark nine times out of ten is to saddle him with some play which he had nothing to do with, or at most, in his capacity of Globe proprietor, had gone over pen in hand, touching up the dialogue here and there, and perhaps sticking in some vivid speech or scene of his own, ad captandum ; or else it is to prove that what his benighted countrymen have voted a blot, is one of his sublimest beauties ; to elucidate the profound phi- losophy lurking under what Warburton and Johnson took for a mere pun ; or how completely all English readers, for two hundred and fifty years, have mistaken one of his really simplest and most elementary characters ; that men had always read him, in fact, straightforward, or AND SHAKESPEARE. 21 from left to right, or at best boustrophedon never in the real authentic way that is, upside down until salvation flashed on the world from some farthing candle at Heidelberg. For example, one luminous professor makes it clear as mud, that ' Arden of Feversham ' was penned wholly by Shakspeare, and ranks with his very first master-pieces ; to wit, not ' Macbeth ' or ' Othello,' but ' Titus Andronicus,' or 'Pericles, Prince of Tyre,' or the 'Two Noble Kinsmen.' Another esta- blishes, in one hundred and fifty pages of text, with foot- notes as long but not so light as Bayle's, that the same poet never could have created both a Lear and a Falstaflf. Another delivers as the result of a not less laborious investigation, that we are wholly wrong about Dolly Tearsheet, whose genuine affection for Sir John ought to cover a multitude of early indiscretions, and who was uttering the deepest emotion of a true heart when she declared that she would never dress herself handsome again, till her little tidy boar-pig came back from the wars. "Then there is a whole school who consider it as a capital blunder to take Shakspeare's dramas for the best of his performances, but fight lustily among themselves as to whether that character belongs righteously to his Sonnets or his 'Venus and Adonis ;' but we think the Sonneteers are now the topping sect, though what half the Sonnets are about, hardly two are agreed. Such is the art of extract- ing sunbeams from cucumbers, exhibited with equal success in the Homeric and Shakspearian departments. * * Much of the same happy discrimination is to be admired in their estimates of British authors generally dead or living. Ossian has stood his ground : they are not to be gulled with the vulgar romances about Macpherson ; the originals were examined and approved by Sir John Sinclair, and published in extenso by the Highland Society. Ossian is infinitely the greatest as well as the oldest of our insular bards ; he can never be too much studied, 22 ONSLAUGHT UPON" HOMER AND SHAKESPEARE. whether for mythology, history, manners, or metres. Richardson, too, flourishes ; he, not Fielding, is the real 1 life-painter' of George the Second's time. Blackmore is not without friends. Hervey (not Sporus, but the Meditator) is in great feather. There are two charms which never fail dulness and finery; choose between drab and pink, but with either you are sure of im- mortality. Creep, or walk on stilts. If you dance, let it be on a barn-floor, or a tight-rope ; if you fiddle, play on one string, or with your toes. Nature vibrates between truism and conceit ; these are the legitimate alphabet, the rest intrusive, not real Cadmus. If any gifted son of any Muse be vilipended at home, whether on pretence of platitudes or of affectations, let him be of good cheer, few prophets are honoured in their own land. If Germany should by any miraculous infelicity overlook him, America will not \ but commonly the critical sentiment of these grand arbiters will be in unison. Look at any Leipzig cata- logue, and consider what sort of English books are most translated. The only thing you may be confident of, is that, if you see one author worried among half a dozen rival oversetters, you had never heard of him in England. And so in the other high appeal court of Parnassus when Sir Charles Lyell last arrived at Boston, he found all the town agog about some Professor's course of lectures (we think the name was Professor Peabody) on the poetry of Miss Eliza Cook, the Sappho, or Corinna, we believe, of the ' London Weekly Dispatch' We cannot doubt that she has also been illustrated by Frescoists of Dusseldorff."* Such was one kind of that fierce warfare waged against Shakespeare and his productions, until Mr. William Henry Smith discovered a fresh method of assault, in comparison with which all former systems may be called mild and benevolent. * Quarterly Keview, vol. 87, No. 174, p. 440. The whole article is well worth perusal. 23 CHAPTER IV. THE BACONIAN THEORY. "I had rather be a tick in a sheep, than such a valiant ignorance." TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. THERE is nothing more remarkable in the annals of English literature than the vicissitudes that have attended both the fame and the writings of Shakespeare. During the Great Rebellion that broke out soon after his death, the Puritans endeavoured to root out the stage from, among the institutions of the country, and to obliterate all traces of dramatic literature. Not only were the writings of Shakespeare and those of his contemporaries, sought out and destroyed, but his character was libelled, and his fair fame assailed. Then came the adapters and mutilators of every kind, and various denominations. Some cut down, others amended ; some struck out a scene, others annihilated a character. Improvement of Shake- speare was their great canon of criticism. According to the general idea, he had become famous by accident, and grew a poet in his own despite. Schlegel in Germany, and Coleridge in this country, first instituted a more genial kind of criticism, and suc- ceeded in restoring Shakespeare to the pedestal from which he had been unjustly displaced. " Let me now proceed," says Coleridge, " to destroy, as far as may be in my power, the popular notion that he was a great dramatist by mere instinct, that he grew immortal in his own despite, and sank below men of second or third-rate power, when he attempted aught beside the drama even as bees construct their cells and manufacture their honey to 24 THE BACONIAN THEORY. admirable perfection ; but would in vain attempt to build a nest. Now this mode of reconciling a compelled sense of inferiority with a feeling of pride, began in a few pedants, who having read that ISophocles was the great model of tragedy, and Aristotle the infallible dictator of its rules, and finding that the Lear, Harnlet, Othello, and other master- pieces, were neither in imitation of Sophocles, nor in obedience to Aristotle, and not having (with one or two exceptions) the courage to affirm, that the delight which their country received from generation to generation, in defiance of the alterations of circumstances and habits, was wholly groundless, took upon them, as a happy medium and refuge, to talk of Shakspeare as a sort of beautiful lusus naturce, a cfelightful monster, wild, indeed, and without taste or judgment, but, like the inspired idiots so much venerated in the East, uttering, amid the strangest follies, the sublimest truths. In nine places out of ten in which I find his awful name mentioned, it is with some epithet of ' wild,' ' irregular/ ' pure child of nature,' &c. If all this be true, we must submit to it; though to a thinking mind it cannot but be painful to find any excellence, merely human, thrown out of all human analogy, and thereby leaving us neither rules for imita- tion, nor motives to imitate; but if false, it is a dangerous falsehood ; for it affords a refuge to secret self-conceit, enables a vain man at once to escape his reader's indig- nation by general swollen panegyrics, and merely by his ipse dixit to treat as contemptible, what he has not intellect enough to comprehend, or soul to feel, without assigning any reason, or referring his opinion to any de- monstrative principle ; thus leaving Shakspeare as a sort of grand Lama, adored indeed, and his very excrements prized as relics, but with no authority or real influence. I grieve that every late voluminous edition of his works would enable me to substantiate the present charge with a variety of facts, one-tenth of which would of themselves exhaust the time allotted to me. Every critic, who has THE BACONIAN THEORY. 25 or has not made a collection of black-letter books in itself a useful and respectable amusement puts on the seven-league boots of self-opinion, and strides at once from an illustrator into a supreme judge, and, blind and deaf, fills his' three-ounce phial at the waters of Niagara; and determines positively the greatness of the cataract to be neither more nor less than his three-ounce phial has been able to receive." His character, like his dramas, was assailed in every possible manner. He was said to have been a papist, a bad husband, a drunkard. Yet no sooner was a rigorous investigation instituted, than the scales began to fall from the eyes of the critics. He whom they had all made their butt, came out of the ordeal unscathed ; and at length it was established in the most satisfactory manner, that the life and conduct of this glorious genius were as fully entitled to respectful admiration as his works. Both life and writings were found to be in all respects worthy of a great soul of a king amongst mankind. On broad and substantial grounds he has become an object of veneration to the majority of Englishmen, as well as to thousands of kindreds and countries, who have learned, in his own expressive language, to believe that " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," when Mr. William Henry Smith starts his new theory, which we have not the slightest hesitation in denouncing as the most infamous and wanton attack that has yet been made, either at home or abroad, by insidious or avowed enemy, upon his reputation. Innovators and their admirers would doubtless claim merciful and lenient treatment for this assailant of Shake- speare and Bacon. Has he dealt tenderly with them ? has he respected their reputations ? If what he advances be correct, is not Shakespeare branded as a cheat and an impostor 1 does not another stain fall on the escutcheon of the lord of St. Alban ? That criticism alone can be 26 THE BACONIAN THEORY. honest which is fearless, and shrinks not from calling things by their right names. Mr. William Henry Smith declares Shakespeare to be a rank impostor ; and we say, without fear of contradiction, that such an accusation ought to have been accompanied by proofs. It is neither a light nor a trivial charge that he has brought against the Bard of Avon ; it is one which no man of delicate and refined feelings would have advanced against the meanest of his fellows, unless able to substantiate it by proofs that nothing could shake. The literary merits of Shakespeare afford a fair and legitimate field for criticism and discussion his private character ought to be sacred from attack. Mr. William Henry Smith tells us, in the coolest manner possible, that Shakespeare did not write one of the dramas which he palmed off upon his contemporaries and pos- terity, and that he was content to strut in " borrowed plumes." To prop up an assertion so rash, he does not adduce one iota of evidence : on a bare surmise, he would consign to eternal infamy the two names that stand first in the roll of England's great spirits. Are we, then, to spare one who shows no mercy towards others to crouch before a critic who scatters calumnies at hazard 1 It is this weak toleration of every new folly and absurdity, to use the mildest terms, that has filled our literature with false forms, raised up erroneous standards, and given a certain semblance of importance to a mushroom class of writers, who, although they make a stir now, will be surely overwhelmed by the advancing tide of time, and be as speedily forgotten. It would be easy to show from Bacon's writings, his position, his failures in poetical composition, and many collateral circumstances, that he did not write the dramas of Shakespeare ; but in this inquiry we intend to take higher ground. Were Bacon's claim disposed of, Mr. William Henry Smith would probably look about for another candidate, or perhaps assert, as some have, we THE BACONIAN THEORY. 27 believe, hinted, that these inimitable compositions were pro- duced by a dramatic manufacturing company, formed upon the soundest principles, with limited liability. We hope, therefore, after disposing of his wretched pamphlet, with its theories and its calumnies, to adduce proofs incon- testable proofs sufficient so satisfy any reasonable man, that Shakespeare's claim to be regarded as the author of the dramas that bear his name cannot be for one moment disputed : it is clear and unassailable, established as cer- tainly as any fact in our literary annals, and never ought to have been called in question. The new theory is artfully introduced ; and in order to pave the way for its reception, the principal events in the life of the poet are summed up in the most partial manner. The reader will perceive that such is the case from the following table, in which Mr. William Henry Smith's summary of what he would have the world suppose to be known respecting Shakespeare and his family, and the facts established by recent researches, are placed in opposite columns. Mr. William Henry Smith's Facts established by the latest Account. investigations. "It will be desirable, in the Richard Shakespeare, the first instance, to bring together poet's grandfather, was a holder the best-established facts re- of land ; and "thus," says Halli- specting the family and conduct well, " we find the poet of nature of Shakespeare, whose history, rising where we would wish to disconnected from his plays, is find him rise, from the inhabit- as ordinary and intelligible as ants of the valley and woodland, can possibly be. His father, a carrying in his blood the impress humble tradesman at Stratford- of the healthiest and most vir- upon-Avon, by patient industry tuous class possessed in these and perseverance conciliated the days by England." respect and regard of his fellow- John Shakespeare, the poet's townsmen ; and being admitted father, took up his residence at a member of the Corporation, Stratford-upon-Avon in 1551. rose, through the offices of Ale- As early as 1556, he became the taster, Constable, and Chamber- holder of two copyhold estates, lain, to that of Alderman and and in 155 7 married Mary Arden, Bailiff, and became, consequently, the daughter of a landed pro- THE BACONIAN THEORY. Mr. William Henry Smith's A ccount. ex officio, a Magistrate : the fact of his humble origin being at- tested to the last, by his inability to write his name. He appears, as he rose in con- Bequence, to have abandoned his original trade of ' glover,' and to have turned his attention to agri- culture ; but this was not to his permanent advantage, for his fortunes seemed to have waned from 1576 ; until, after having received various indulgences from his colleagues, the Corporation of Stratford, in the year 1586, came to a resolution depriving John Shakespeare of his alder- man's gown, because ' he doth not come to the halls when warned, nor hath not done of a long time.' The same reason which caused him to be excused by his brother aldermen, in 1578, from the petty payment of fourpence per week for a temporary purpose, still, doubtless, continued to operate ; and the obvious inference is, that he had sunk into so low a grade of poverty, that be was ashamed to appear among his fellow-towns- men. These facts give colour to the reports which were in existence, that William Shakespeare was removed from school at an early age ; and it is natural that this removal should have taken place in or about the year 1577, when the necessities of his father began to show themselves openly. Such being the circumstances connected with the parentage of Facts established by the latest investigations. prietor, of good standing in the county of Warwick. In 1565 he was made alderman, in 1568 high bailiff, and in 1571 chief alderman. He possessed pro- perty, occupied and cultivated land, reared sheep, and from a union of different pursuits, by no means uncommon at that time, was a farmer, a dealer in wool, and a glover. In 1579, John Shakespeare parted with some of his property, and his prosperity suffered a temporary decline. This was not, however, so great as some have represented, nor was it of long duration. In 1596 we find him applying for a grant of arms, in which he is described as "John Shakespeare, of Stratford uppon- Avon, in the counte of Warwick, whose pa- rentes and late antecessors were, for there valeant and faithefull service advanced and rewarded by the most prudent prince King Henry the Seventh of famous memorie, sythence whiche tyme they have continewed at those paries in good reputacion and credit ; and that the said John having maryed Mary, daughter and one of the heyrs of Robert Arden, of Wilmcote, in the said counte, yent," &c., which plain- ly proves that, either by his own exertions, or the good fortune of his son William, John Shake- speare had, at the time this ap- plication was made, recovered his former position in life. In 1580 he was classed among " the THE BACONIAN THEORY. 29 Mr. William Henry Smith's Account. William Shakespeare, the infor- mation we possess respecting his early years is even more scanty. There is neither record nor ru- mour of his having exhibited any precocity of talent. It is only known that, at theage of eighteen, he contracted, or was inveigled into a marriage with a woman eight years older than himself ; and it is believed that, some- where about the time at which his father was deprived of his alderman's gown, he left his wife and family at Stratford upon- Avon, and went to seek his for- tune in the metropolis." Pam- phlet, pp. 35. Facts established ty/ the latest investigations. gentlemen and freholders," and died in 1601. William Shakespeare was born in 1564, was most probably educated at "the King's New School of Stratford-upon-Avon," to which a charter had been granted by Edward VI. in 1553, and in which there can be no doubt that Latin, if not Greek, was taught. Supposing the poet to have been taken awa_y from school in 1578, as Rowe suggests, on account of the change in the state of his father's affaire, he would then have been in his fifteenth year, and would, con- sequently, have had ample time to lay the foundations of a liberal education, which his own tastes, inclinations, and ambition would induce him to complete. In 1582 he married Ann Hath- away, and probably soon alter left Stratford for London, where he would naturally enough hope to find a fairer field for the ex- ertion of those abilities with which Providence had blessed him, than within the narrow precincts of a country town. The marriage licence was discovered by Sir R Phillips, in the Consistorial Court of Worcester, and published by Mr. Wheler in 1836. It is dated November 28th, in the 25th year of Elizabeth, 1582. The description of the poet's wife is as follows : " Anne Hathwey, of Strat- ford, in the Dioces of Worcester, maiden." In his beautiful, though somewhat fanciful " Biography of Shakespeare," Charles Knight deals very successfully with the calumnies that have been invented by some 30 THE BACONIAN THEORY. critics, with reference to this event. He says : " It is scarcely necessary to point out to our readers that the view we have taken presupposes that the licence for matrimony, obtained from the Consistorial Court at Worcester, was a permission sought for under no extra- ordinary circumstances ; still less that the young, man who was about to marry was compelled to urge on the marriage as a consequence of previous imprudence. We believe, on the contrary, that the course pursued was strictly in accordance with the customs of the time, and of the class to which Shakspere belonged. The espousals before witnesses, we have no doubt, were then considered as constituting a valid marriage, if followed up within a limited time by the marriage of the Church. However the Reformed Church might have endeavoured to abrogate this practice, it was unquestionably the ancient habit of the people. It was derived from the Roman law, the foundation of many of our institutions. It prevailed for a long period without offence. It still prevails in the Lutheran Church. We are not to judge of the customs of those days by our own, especially if our inferences have the effect of imputing criminality where the most perfect innocence existed."* Mr. Halliwell, in that wonderful repository of facts and documents connected with the history of Shakespeare, prefixed to his new folio edition of that poet's works, takes precisely the same view. He says : " The espousals of the lovers were celebrated in the summer of 1582. In those days, betrothment, or contract of matrimony, often preceded actual marriage ; and there need be no hesitation in believing that this ceremony was passed through by Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway. There is the direct testimony of an author of 1543 that, in some places, it was regarded, in all essential particulars, as a regular marriage ; and, provided the ceremony was cele- * Book i. chap. xvi. p. 274, in the new and beautiful edition of this book published by Messrs. Eoutledge and Co. THE BACONIAN THEORY. 31 brated in a reasonable time, no criminality could be alleged after the contract had been made. This opinion is well illustrated by a passage in the ' Winter's Tale,' Act i., Scene 2, expressive of disgust at one who ' puts to before her troth-plight.' The parish register of Stratford will show it was usual for cohabitation to take place before actual marriage ; the existence of a contract fully counteracting any charge of impropriety."* It will be seen that Mr. William Henry Smith lays great stress upon the supposed poverty of the poet's father, as well as upon the fact that this worthy parent could not write his own name. More importance has been attached to both of these matters than they de- serve. John Shakespeare was involved in litigation, and he may have had some motive for wishing to conceal the real state of his affairs. From 1577 till 1586, he did not attend to his duties as an alderman, and was consequently, in the last-mentioned year, struck off the list, in precisely the same way as he had before been excused certain municipal payments. Yet we must not forget that, in two documents recently published, bearing the date of 1580, John Shakespeare is described among the " gentlemen and freeholders," in the first case of the hundred of Barlichway, and in the second, of the county of Warwick. The latter entry occurs in " A Book of the Names and Dwelling-places of the Gentlemen and Freeholders in the county of Warwick, 1580."t And in this John Shakespeare is assigned to Stratford-upon- Avon. * Halliwell, Life, p. 88. f See " A Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns of Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, 1547 1580, preserved in the State Paper Department of her Majesty's Public Record Office ;" edited by Robert Lemon, F.S.A., under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, and with the sanction of her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department. 1857. These valuable historical documents have not been before published, although they have been referred to and quoted by various writers. 32 THE BACONIAN THEORY. The poet was then sixteen years old ; and there is no positive evidence that he did not pursue his studies at the Stratford-upon-Avon grammar-school up to this period. So much for the supposed poverty of John Shakespeare. Mr. William Henry Smith dwells with a kind of painful satisfaction upon the fact that John Shake- speare could not write his own name ; yet we do not perceive how this can prove that his son was not the most gifted man of the age. In the times in which John Shakespeare lived, it was not by any means so uncommon a thing for a man in good circumstances, arid even of gentle parentage, to make his mark. The youth of John Shakespeare was cast in a period of transition ; an old system had been broken up and destroyed, and the new one was not completely established in its .place. Amid the troubles, the contentions, the revolutions and counter- revolutions that occurred between the reigns of Henry "VIII. and of James I. which eventful interval com- prised the Reformation, followed by the re-ascendancy of the Catholic party, and the bloody interlude of Queen Mary's sway, and the re-establishment of pure religion under Elizabeth, education and the gentler arts were but too often neglected. In those unsettled times, the mental training and discipline of richer and more influential men than John Shakespeare did not receive the attention which they deserved, and there were many filling higher positions in society, who were compelled to plead guilty to the charge of want of scholarship, by affixing their mark to whatever documents they were called upon to subscribe. The poet, however, enjoyed advantages denied to his parent ; learning had in his day once more regained its rightful position ; and at the Stratford-upon-Avon gram- mar-school he doubtless received the rudiments of a liberal education. Let us grant, for the sake of the argument, that Mr. William Henry Smith's account of the change that THE BACONIAN THEORY. 33 occurred in John Shakespeare's circumstances, is correct, and that the extreme degree of importance which he seems to attach to the fact that he could not write his name, is also equally worthy of reception, what does he gain by the concessions 1 John Shakespeare's poverty and w^ant of education are rotten foundations upon which to build arguments respecting the condition of the son. Keith er the indigence of the former, nor his want of gentle accomplishments, will prove that the latter was not the first poet in the universe. The Omnipotent Ruler of the world hath thought fit, in his wisdom, to scatter his benefits freely amongst all classes and conditions, and "often crowns the poor man^s progeny with the diadem of intellectual superiority. The lengthy and honourable list of those who have emerged from the lower walks of life, into well-merited distinction, need not be inserted here ; every student of history knows that all ranks and conditions can boast of their great men ; and that while the offspring of mighty and potent monarchs have died in obscurity, the descendants of hewers of wood and drawers of water have climbed the dazzling heights of power. Mental endowments cannot be, like worldly possessions, transmitted from father to son : the intellectual order of merit does not recognize social distinctions. Starting from these false premises, Mr. Henry William Smith proceeds to draw the erroneous conclusions that " William Shakespeare was a man of limited education, careless of fame, and intent upon money-getting;" neither of which assertions he attempts to prove, probably as fully aware as most reasonable people, that were they all substantiated, his theory would not be thereby advanced. In fact, the whole gist of the pamphlet may be summed up in this manner : John Shakespeare was poor and ignorant, and could not have given his son a good educa- tion ; and in addition to this, William Shakespeare cared little for fame, and only thought of money-making ; there- 3 4: THE BACONIAN THEORY. fore he did not write the plays that have so long been received as his productions. Having settled matters with the poet and his father in this arbitrary manner, Mr. William Henry Smith pro- ceeds to search for a man after his own heart. Lord Bacon suits his idea of a great dramatic author, and is at once advanced to the throne from which poor William, or what M. Ponsard would call "poor Williams,"* has been ruthlessly ejected. Lord Bacon was of noble extrac- tion, and had received a good education ; he possessed considerable ability for dramatic composition, and wanted money ; in fact, to borrow Mr. William Henry Smith's own words, " His daily walk, letters, and conversation, constitute the beau-ideal of such a man as we might sup- pose the author of these plays to have been ; and the very absence, in those letters, of all allusion to Shakespeare's plays, is some, though slight, corroboration of his connec- tion with them." t Was ever theory raised upon such stubble ? By adopt- ing this line of argument, the literary reputations of half the great names in our list of authors might be demolished in a few seconds. A single specimen from this medley of inconsistencies will serve to show how obstinately and absurdly their author contradicts himself. One reason which he advances with much gravity as affording satis- factory proof that William Shakespeare did not write these plays, is that he was " careless of fame." J Now let the reader consider for a moment what this * We have a strong notion that Mr. Henry William Smith and M. Ponsard are one and the same individual, and that this acute critic merely assumed the latter name while lecturing foreign audiences, in order to create for himself a twofold reputation. At any rate, they are kindred spirits, and a night with Ponsard and Mr. William Henry Smith, especially if the conversation hap- pened to turn upon Shakespeare, would be a literary banquet, of which even Athenaeus himself could not have formed a conception. f Pamphlet, p. 10. J Pamphlet, p. 6. THE BACONIAN THEORY. 35 insensibility to the allurements of fame induced William Shakespeare to do 1 It was not to bury himself in ob- scurity, or to take the profit arising from certain plays, leaving the glory to another, but actually to appropriate to himself the credit of having penned the masterpieces of our dramatic literature, which credit belonged by right to Francis Bacon. It must not be forgotten that the merit of these dramas was recognized in the days of Bacon and Shakespeare. Everybody possessed of a parti- cle of common sense or discernment understood that they were immeasurably superior to anything in our language, in fact, to all compositions of the kind in universal litera- ture. The man, " careless of fame, intent upon money- getting,"* filches the former and relinquishes the gains without compunction. " Cai-eless of fame," he wraps himself in the mantle of Bacon's reputation ; " intent upon money-getting," he perpetrates this great wrong, in order to replenish Bacon's exhausted treasury. " Care- less of fame," he receives the homage, to which he was by no means entitled, of poets, statesmen, and crowned heads ; " intent upon money-getting," he hands over the cash to Francis Bacon. Admiring audiences, enraptured students, patrons of learning and literature, pay tribute after tribute to his genius, and William Shakespeare receives them, and allows the press to pour forth edition after edition of particular plays, of which the authorship was assigned to him, without uttering a word of remon- strance, while the noble intellect that produced these masterpieces pined in comparative obscurity. Reasoning more absurd never appeared in print ; Mr. William Henry Smith actually endeavours to draw from these facts a conclusion diametrically opposed to the one they naturally convey. It is obvious that had Shakespeare done as this sagacious critic insinuates, he would have shown himself greedy of fame, and careless as to the * Pamphlet, p. 6. D L> 36 THE BACONIAN THEORY. reward. Had he permitted one of his contemporaries to take the credit of having written his dramas, in return for pecuniary satisfaction, he must then have pleaded guilty to the imputation of having been " careless of fame, intent upon money-getting;" but this is not the charge Mr. William Henry Smith wishes to fix upon him ; and this over clever disputant has argued upon false pre- mises and come to an opposite conclusion to the one which he wished to establish. In fact he has lost himself in a maze, and while seeking to show that Shakespeare was " careless of fame and intent upon money-getting," has, if his arguments are to be regarded as trustworthy, proved the very contrary. In order to afford Mr. William Henry Smith every pos- sible advantage, we append the view taken of his pamphlet in the communication of an intelligent though over-credu- lous correspondent of " Notes and Queries." This writer says : " As your correspondent has furnished a somewhat striking coincidence* between 'an expression of Shak- * The following is the "somewhat striking coincidence" alluded to. " In the play of Henry F., Act iii. Sc. iii., occurs the following line : ' The gates of mercy shall be all shut up.' And again in Henry VI. : ' Open the gate of mercy, gracious Lord ! ' " Sir Francis Bacon uses the same idea in a letter written to King James a few days after the death of Shakspeare : ' And therefore, in conclusion, he wished him (the Earl of Somerset) not to shut the gate of your majesty's mercy against himself by being obdurate any longer.'"* This, at the most, can only prove that Bacon took the expression from Shakespeare. Henry V. was printed in 1600, and this letter was written as late as 1616. It is probable that both authors got the idea from the Bible, in which "gate of the Lord," "gate of righteousness," and similar terms, frequently occur. Notes and Queries, Second Series, No 40, p. 267. THE BACONIAN THEORY. 37 speare and a passage of a letter written by Lord Bacon, it may be worth while to preserve in ' N. and Q.' a sum- mary of Mr. W. H. Smith's argument on the point in question. He contends : 1. That the character of Shakspeare, as sketched by Pope, is the exact biography of Bacon. 2. That Bacon possessed dramatic talent to a high degree, and could, according to his biographers, ( assume the most different characters, and speak the language proper to each with a facility that was perfectly natural.' 3. That he wrote and assisted at bal-masques, and was the intimate friend of Lord Southampton, the acknowledged patron of Shakspeare. 4. That the first folio of 1623 was not published till Bacon had been driven to private life, and had leisure to revise his literary works; and that as he was obliged to raise money by almost any means, it is at least probable that he did so by writing plays. 5. That Shakspeare was a man of busi- ness rather than poetry, and acknowledged his poems and sonnets, but never laid claim to the plays."* This is, after all, as good a summary as can be given of the wretched arguments upon which Mr. William Henry Smith bases his new, preposterous, and altogether unten- able theory. They may be dismissed in a few sentences. 1. Shakespeare's character could not possibly be the bio- graphy of another man. 2. Bacon's ability for dramatic composition cannot be accepted as a proof that he wrote plays to the authorship of which he never laid claim, and which were attributed to, and acknowledged by, one of his contemporaries. 3. Lord Southampton, the friend of Shakespeare and Bacon, is, as we shall see more fully hi another chapter, a witness against Mr. William Henry Smith and his theory. 4. Bacon's leisure and want of funds will never justify even the suspicion that he wrote the plays of Shakespeare. 5. The assertion that Shake- speare was a man of business rather than poetry is directly * Notes and Queries, Second Series, No. 45, p. 369. THE BACONIAN THEORY. at variance with the truth, as any person who has perused the " Venus and Adonis," " Lucrece," and the Sonnets, will at once admit. It is equally false to assert that Shake- speare did not claim the authorship of these dramas. He allowed them to be published with his name affixed to them, not denying his right to be regarded as their author, although he condemned the illegal manner in which copies had been obtained by greedy publishers ; he received and accepted various and numerous tributes of commendation, not only from friends and associates, but even from statesmen and rulers ; and he permitted his con- temporaries to give him the credit of having penned these inimitable productions without offering a remonstrance. If these do not constitute a claim to their authorship, and one that cannot be upset, save by unimpeachable evi- dence, we should be glad to know upon what grounds we can attribute any works we may possess to any particular writer. If the summary of Mr. William Henry Smith's arguments is to be enshrined in " Notes and Queries," or any other periodical published in the United Kingdom, let the refutation, which is simple enough, be placed at its side, that the younger wayfarers on the great highroads of learning may not be led astray, even for a moment, by what we cannot honour with a better term than the flimsiest productions of a disordered brain. Mr. William Henry Smith quotes what he calls " these remarkable words," from Lord Bacon's will : " My name and memory I leave to foreign nations ; and to my own countrymen, after some time be passed over." That this passage contains no secret allusion to the authorship of Shakespeare's plays must be evident to any one acquainted with Lord Bacon's history. He merely expressed a hope that the lapse of time might set him right with posterity, and that the conduct which led to his dismissal from office, degradation, and amercement, might at some future day be regarded in a more favourable light. He trusted that the stain that blotted his lofty repu- THE BACONIAN THEORY. 39 tation, and somewhat tarnished the splendour of his deeds, might, after a short interval, be removed, and that his countrymen would some day consider him great in the true acceptation of the term. Moreover, Lord Bacon needed not the credit of having written the dramas of Shakespeare : his renown is colossal ; and of all English- men he has the least to gain by filching from the repu- tations of others. Mr. William Henry Smith brings his pamphlet to a close with the following letter. " To the Lord Viscount St. Alban, " MOST HONOURED LORD. I have received your great and noble token and favour of the 9th of April, and can. but return the humblest of my thanks for your Lordship's vouchsafing so to visit this poorest and un worthiest of your servants. It doth me good at heart, that, although I be not where I was in place, yet I am in the fortune of your Lordship's favour, if I may call that fortune, which I observe to be so unchangeable. I pray hard, that it may once come in my power to serve you for it ; and who can tell, but that, a,sfortis imaginatio general casum, so strange desires may do as much 1 Sure I am, that mine are ever waiting on your Lordship ; and wishing as much happi- ness, as is due to your incomparable virtue, I humbly do your Lordship reverence. " Your Lordship's most obliged and humble servant "TOBIE MATTHEW. " POSTC. The most prodigious wit, that ever I knew of my nation, and of this side of the sea, is of your Lord- ship's name, though he be knovm by another." The Italics in the last line are Mr. William Henry Smith's ; and although that gentleman does not conde- scend to offer note, comment, or explanation, either upon the epistle itself or its author, he evidently wishes his 40 THE BACONIAN THEORY. readers to draw the conclusion, from the words which he has underlined, that Lord Bacon wrote the dramas of Shakespeare, arid that to Sir Tobie Matthew the secret of their authorship was intrusted. The epistle is inserted by Dr. Thomas Birch, among " Letters, Speeches, Charges, Advices, &c: of Francis Bacon," * and may be found, with some others, at the end of the volume. Dr. Birch says of them : " The following letters, wanting both dates and circumstances to determine such dates, are placed together.'' The communication is not of the slightest consequence, nor does it contain one tittle of evidence in support of Mr. William Henry Smith's theory. But its author played a rather prominent part in his day and generation, was very intimate with Lord Bacon ; therefore some account of him may be acceptable to many readers, and will also serve to convince them, that had he possessed such information as that to which Mr. William Henry Smith alludes, it would long since have been given to the world. Tobie Matthew, the son of Dr. Tobie Matthew, bishop of Durham, and afterwards archbishop of York, was born at Oxford, in 1578, his father being at that time dean of Christchurch. In a letter to Sir Thomas Chaloner, Bacon styles him " my very good friend," and " a very worthy young gentleman ;" and Anthony Wood (Athence Oxoni- enses, vol. iii. p. 403) says that " he had all his father's name, and many of his natural parts ; was also one of considerable learning, good memory, and sharp wit, mixed with a pleasant affability in behaviour, and a seeming sweetness of mind, though sometimes, according to the company he was in, pragmatical, and a little too forward.'* Whilst travelling upon the continent, Mr. Matthew was induced, by the influence, it is said, of the Jesuit Father Parsons, to abandon the religion of his family and country, and to become a Roman Catholic. This did not diminish * London, 1763, p. 392. THE BACONIAN THEORY. 41 the friendship between him and Bacon, although it is probably in reference to this perversion that the latter wrote the following touching epistle, which has been published, but without date :* " Do not think me forgetfull or altered towards you. But if I should say I could do you any good, I should make my power more then it is. I do fear that which I am right sorry for, that you grow more impatient and busie then at first ; which makes me exceedingly fear the issue of that which seemeth not to stand at a stay. I myself am out of doubt that you have been miserably abused when you were first seduced ; and that which I take in compassion, others may take in severity. I pray God, that understands us all better then we understand one another, continue you, as I hope he will, at least, within the bounds of loyalty to his Majesty, and natural piety to your Country. And I intreat you much to meditate sometimes upon the effect of Superstition in this last Powder-Treason ; fit to be tabled and pictured in the Chambers of Meditation, as another Hell above the ground ; and well justifying the censure of the Heathen ; that Superstition is far worse than Atheism j by how much it is less evil to have no opinion of God at all, then, such as are impious towards his divine Majesty and good- ness. Good Mr. Matthews receive your self back from these courses of Perdition. Willing to have written a great deal more, I continue,