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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE 
 
 Shakespeare Story 
 
 An Outline 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE PITT-LEWIS, k.c, ex-m.p. 
 
 AUTHOi; OF TENTH tDlTlnN OF "tAVLOR ON EVIDENCE"; AND 
 AUTHOR OK VARIOUS LEGAL AND OTHER WOKKK 
 
 hioiH Pugdale's Engraving 
 of 1656 
 
 From Hilliard's Miniature 
 T579 
 
 SHAKSI'ER 
 
 Look not on his Picture 
 
 BACON 
 
 but his Book" 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN cS: CO. LlMriEL) 
 
 I'ATERNOSTER SQUARE, E.G. 
 
 1904
 
 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY s 
 
 AN OUTLINE
 
 THE 
 SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 AN OUTLINE 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE PITT-LEWIS, k.c, ex-m.p. 
 
 EDITOR OF TENTH EDITION OF " TAYLOR ON EVIDENCE"", AND 
 AUTHOR OF VARIOUS LEGAL AND OTHER WORKS 
 
 "If circumstances lead me, I will find where truth is 
 hid." — "Shakespeare," Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2. 
 
 "No pleasure is comparable to the Standing upon the 
 Vantage Ground of Truth." — Bacon's Essay on Truth. 
 
 " Where there exist strong prepossessions no amount of 
 evidence produces any effect." — Herbert Spencer. 
 
 1Lon&on 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. LIMITED 
 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE, E.G. 
 
 1904
 
 THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
 
 y^H
 
 Ubts ©utline 
 
 FOR THE REASONS IN IT ON PP. 25-7, AND WITHOUT ITS PERMISSION 
 
 35 2)et)icatet) 
 
 TO THE EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE 
 LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL
 
 SUMMARY OF OUTLINE 
 
 A Lord Keeper marries the daughter of a King's Tutor — The 
 Lady corresponds with an Archbishop in Greek, and 
 translates a volume of Italian sermons — The "Learning" 
 of Cambridge University — An Infant Prodigy, and a 
 Royal Patroness — A lovely miniature, with a Latin motto 
 — Divination in Dreams — A Lord Keeper is the victim of 
 a Barber's courtesy — A Patrimony lost through a Lawyer's 
 lapse of memory as to the Law — A Lad with no Patrimony 
 reaches the Bar, Parliament, and eventually the Woolsack 
 — The Stage in Queen Elizabeth's day — A Cambridge 
 Graduate grows to be a Play-writer — A Cambridge M.A., 
 after a Stage accident, becomes a Playwright, and eventually 
 meets a tragic death in a Tavern Brawl— A "double" secret 
 preserved for three hundred years — The "Shakespeare" 
 Plays tell their Story — ^^ Honori/icabilitudinitatibus" and 
 "Hang-hog" hint it — An Intrigue at Court with a Maid 
 of Honour — An Etching which is a "Figure" — A 
 Diplomatic Arrangement dressed in Italian — A princely 
 Gift — A new Globe — A Brother and an Uncle die, and a 
 Mother becomes insane — An old Westminster, and old 
 Soldier from the Ranks, fills a Brother's Place — A King 
 obtains a new Kingdom — An old Adherent philosophises 
 under the Garb of Flattery, gains a great Place, and meets 
 with a terrible Downfall — The Motto and the Etching 
 meet, and solve a Mystery — A Philosopher's "Ghost" is 
 transferred into a Pseudo-Saint, working Miracles — Super- 
 stitious worship of him dissipated — The Labours of 
 "Lunatics" without delusions finally avail.
 
 ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA 
 
 *^* Readers are earnestly entreated, before per- 
 using the Book, to cut out and to gum on their 
 proper pages in its text, as is arranged can be 
 done, or to there copy all the alterations preceding 
 the "N.B." overleaf. Those noted after that are 
 of far less importance. 
 
 I'age 1 8, /me S from bottotn, after "Patronage" and before 
 "The" insert "The identity of the Play in the 1623 
 folio with that of 1576 is shown by its being the only one 
 in the folio not containing any matter also found in the 
 ' Promus,' which was only commenced about eighteen 
 years after it was written." 
 
 Page 26, in last line of footnote, strike out "Third Volume of 
 Book of Tune " and substitute " Temporis Partus Mas- 
 culus." 
 
 Page 30, line 2, delete "one," insert " such a Tutor." 
 
 Page 37, line 11, after "date" insert "contains the Dedica- 
 tion, but." 
 
 Page 40, line ^ from bottom, delete "previous to"; insert 
 "after." 
 
 Page 41, line 2) f^om bottom, delete the full stop after "Earl" 
 and substitute a semicolon ; after " unquestionably " 
 insert " as " ; so that the sentence will then read on, 
 "; as unquestionably as." Also in last line delete 
 " Southampton " and substitute " Lords Pembroke and 
 Montgomery." Commence the word "There" with a 
 capital letter, as it is the beginning of a new sentence. 
 
 Page 54, line ij. delete "a" and before "Novel" insert "an 
 untranslated." 
 
 Page 62, line 18 from bottom, delete "contrasted," say "com- 
 pared." 
 
 Page 66, line 4, strike out "before" and substitute "used 
 over and over again." In line 5, after "Plays" add "; and 
 none are of mere commonplaces, or of proverbs or expres- 
 sions then in common use." 
 
 Page 68, line 16, delete "Promus," say "MS. Book." Also 
 line 17, delete " : — ", and insert "which, though not pub- 
 lished till years later, is contained in a letter to Anthony 
 Bacon about this dale (1593-1600) now at Lambeth 
 Palace Library." 
 
 [Over
 
 Page 73, line 4, strike out sentence commencing "The 
 'Promus'" down to end and substitute "The whole of 
 the Plays in the Folio, save The Comedy of Errors, as to 
 which see ante p. 18, contain matter also found in the 
 ' Promus.' " 
 
 Page 99, line 5, delete " Or again, some "and substitute " One." 
 In line 7, delete the words "were" and "yet," and in 
 place of latter word say "is the only." In line 8, delete 
 the words " not a " and " is." 
 
 N-B. — Typographical errors of an obvious nature, but not 
 affecting the thread of the story, or otherwise material to it, 
 may also be corrected upon pages 9, 19, 27, 32 (two), 37 
 (three), 50, 56, 57, 62, 68, and 81. 
 
 Matters which would be made the subjects of controversy, 
 however they were stated, are, in the writer's judgment, 
 stated in the way which the weight of the evidence calls for. 
 Such matters are, as well as elsewhere, in particular, to be 
 found on pages 19, 38, 39, 41, 69, 75, 77, 78, and 107.
 
 THE '* SHAKESPEARE '' STORY 
 
 AN OUTLINE 
 
 THE "Outline" now put forward is meant to do 
 no more than to prepare the way for, and to 
 present in a connected form a mere sketch of, 
 the story which his supporters are prepared to prove 
 by evidence, establishing that a great Philosopher^ has 
 a right to be regarded as the actual writer of the 
 " Shakespeare " Plays. A sketch of this sort will, it is 
 believed, be welcome to that large General Public who 
 are at present wholly unfamiliar with the leading facts 
 of the " Shakespeare " Story. In a Sentence, the 
 object of the " Outline " here presented is merely to 
 tell the Shakespeare Story shortly and plainly ; and 
 it will be hereafter sought to prove it by the " Evi- 
 dence." Such an outline is not, however, intended 
 for those already expert in literary matters, or, to 
 some extent at least, familiar with the controversial 
 matters involved in the Story. To such, the present 
 " Outline " will be by no means conclusive. They will, 
 most reasonably, require all the " Evidence " which sup- 
 ports the story to be placed before them. The Outline 
 must content itself with merely saying that it is founded 
 entirely upon Evidence which has been already col- 
 lected. Such Evidence, however, fills a Book far larger 
 than the present. It is, moreover, only fit to be laid, in 
 its full detail, before a Jury composed of the Literary 
 men of the world — the right Tribunal for the determina- 
 tion of this question — and the world is now ripe for its 
 trial. An " Opening " in full of the " Evidence " which 
 can be brought forward in support of the claim just 
 
 ^ See post page 20. 
 A
 
 2 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 made will, it is hoped, speedily follow this introductory 
 " Outline." 
 
 Where a case is being tried by a Jury, it is the 
 proper office of the Lawyer's " Opening " of the Evi- 
 dence available in support of the claimant's Case to 
 state fully the exact facts which, as he honestly be- 
 lieves, can be brought forward by those whom he repre- 
 sents in support of their claim. These facts, more- 
 over, are arranged by the Advocate himself in a form 
 which makes the story they tell a connected narrative, 
 told in such a fashion that each fact falls into its proper 
 place, and the whole makes a tale which must " hold the 
 field " in the minds of the Court and Jury till the other 
 side can bring forward facts telling a more likely story. 
 
 Such an " Opening " of the Evidence has been pre- 
 pared, and will be published so soon as such a number 
 of Subscribers for it has been obtained as will justify 
 the considerable outlay which will be attendant upon 
 its publication. 
 
 This " Shakespeare " Story, in a connected form, has 
 never been yet told. We have, indeed, some theories 
 which depend upon cyphers, cryptograms, and such 
 like mysteries,^ and we also possess much valuable 
 fragmentary information concerning alike Bacon and 
 these " Shakespeare " Plays. But this latter has never 
 been all put together, and, consequently, it no more 
 tells the story than the unconnected parts lying in an 
 engineer's shop form an Engine. 
 
 From the commencement of the Middle Ages at 
 any rate, and probably from an even earlier time, it 
 has been not uncommon to submit questions, thought 
 to be fairly open to discussion, to the tests of a sup- 
 posed trial by Jury. 
 
 ^ On these no opinion is expressed, but they will not be at all relied 
 upon as "Evidence."
 
 AN OUTLINE 3 
 
 Unless imagination has usurped the place of recol- 
 lection it will even be found that, on one occasion, the 
 motives and moral conduct of that cock who, by 
 crowing thrice, reproached St Peter, was actually once 
 debated in this manner. 
 
 The question of the Authorship of the "Shakespeare" 
 Plays has of late years come to be known as " the 
 "Bacon-Shakespeare" problem. It would appear to 
 be obviously a proper one to be debated in such a 
 manner as this, but for two seeming objections. These 
 are — first, to get a sufficiently large Jury ; and next, 
 that its members shall be competent to decide such 
 a question. For thus it, of course, must be possible for 
 all that passes to reach them. Under such circum- 
 stances a Jury thus constituted inspires confidence, 
 because it is a tribunal which may be trusted to 
 decide all questions submitted to it solely by the light 
 of broad common-sense applied to hard facts proved 
 before it. Such a Jury is always especially welcome 
 to an Advocate who seeks to establish his case solely 
 upon a foundation of facts, intelligible to every shrewd 
 man, and without, and independently of, any mere theory 
 advanced in reliance upon the evidence of experts. 
 Their theories may be entirely correct ; yet it is better 
 that, if it can be, a case shall be proved without their aid. 
 All the difficulties above suggested have been re- 
 moved. The Press supplies the means of obtaining 
 as large and as competent a Jury as is required, and 
 also the opportunity needed for an appeal to the good 
 sense of each Juryman. Let the " Bacon-Shakespeare" 
 question be accordingly tried by a Literary Jury, upon 
 which every Student of English Literature throughout 
 the world shall be entitled to take his seat, and to 
 hearken to the " Evidence." 
 
 The Addresses calling attention to the points upon
 
 4 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 which each side relies should respectively be placed in 
 the mouths of avowed Advocates, rather than in those 
 of persons assuming to fill a Judicial Character. In this 
 last-named capacity the person occupying it is bound 
 to at least pretend to a certain amount of impartiality. 
 In the character proposed to be assumed there need 
 be no pretence of impartiality to be kept up. An 
 Advocate, on whatever side, often can with advantage, 
 alike to Truth and to the side represented by him, 
 advance statements which a Judge trying the case 
 cannot. It will, however, be supposed that the Trial 
 is being conducted in accordance with the ordinary 
 principles of Evidence which govern a Court of Law,^ 
 Each side is presumed to be bound by the strict rules 
 of Evidence save in so far as they have been dispensed 
 with by mutual consent. Where this seems to be 
 reasonably required, however, such a consent to waive 
 strict rules will be assumed. For example, " tradition " 
 or " reputation," in other words " gossip," is usually not 
 evidence at all in a Court of Law upon a question of 
 mere private right. But the present inquiry is so far 
 a matter of public concern that, where reputation or 
 tradition would be properly receivable as evidence in 
 such a private matter, it will be taken that, by mutual 
 consent, each side has agreed that it shall be accepted 
 as evidence in this case, leaving the Jury trying the 
 matter to assign to it in each instance such weight 
 as they think it deserves. 
 
 A supposed trial by Jury having been adopted by 
 mutual consent^ for the discussion of this much dis- 
 
 ^ As to this, ste. post page 21. 
 
 2 Judge Willis, on the so-called "orthodox" side, and Lord Penzance 
 writing for Baconian believers, have each in a book assumed the form of 
 addressing a supposed Jury. The writer of this "Outline "and of the 
 forthcoming Evidence is under great obligations alike to them, to a book 
 by the late very learned Judge Webb (named by him a " Summary of
 
 AN OUTLINE 5 
 
 puted question, it will be well for all, on every side in 
 this matter, if they can imagine that they really are 
 in the calm atmosphere of a Law Court. To do so 
 will enable them to debate the subject under discussion 
 decorously and dispassionately, without any of the 
 bitter personalities which it seems too often to provoke, 
 as much as if it were a theological controversy. It 
 may well be calmly treated, for, in any case, the English 
 nation will still possess the glory of the writer of the 
 magnificent plays having been a native of their country. 
 If the great Englishman who wrote them was, as 
 " orthodox " opponents persist, a self-educated Actor 
 he indeed affords a magnificent example of that in- 
 domitable industry and perseverance which are National 
 characteristics ; and it is even more than a miracle that 
 such an one could in a very few years, and without 
 much previous learning, have so educated himself as 
 to be able to produce Plays confessedly the greatest 
 and the most Philosophical which the world has ever 
 seen ; Plays, moreover, exhibiting alike a vast range 
 of learning and a mighty mind. If, on the other hand, 
 as is contended by those whose views are here repre- 
 sented, these Plays were, in truth, the work of the 
 greatest Philosopher of his day, and were really written 
 by him to introduce and popularise the new system 
 of Philosophy ^ which he intended to found and after- 
 wards established — that now known to many by his 
 name — and if we are convinced that he wrote them, 
 then we may surely also look with a certainty that 
 they are to be found, for new and hitherto undis- 
 covered beauties and teachings in the immortal 
 
 Evidence"), and to Mr Edwin Reed's "Parallelisms" for great aid 
 received from their respective works in putting the facts of this 
 Shakespeare Story together in such a form as to make a connected 
 narrative. 
 
 ^ As to his having done this, see post page 20.
 
 6 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 " Shakespeare " Plays — as they must always be called 
 by the name under which they were given to the world. 
 The Trial by a Jury of the Bacon - Shakespeare 
 question having been accepted ^ by each side as the 
 best mode of investigating the subject, the question 
 for trial is, in a word, " Who was William Shakespeare, 
 the writer of the plays?" Was he Francis Bacon, or 
 was he the Actor of Stratford-on-Avon ? This latter 
 person's family name was certainly not Shake-speare 
 or " Shakespeare." He was never so called in private 
 life, either by his family, his friends, his neighbours, or 
 even by himself He spelt his proper name with a 
 short " a " before the " k " in the first syllable, and with no 
 " e " after the " k." Moreover, in the second syllable 
 an "a" was introduced before the final "r" in the 
 assumed name. So distinctly short was his pronuncia- 
 tion of the first syllable of his family name that, on the 
 only two occasions on which we know that the Actor 
 himself had to verbally state it to a stranger, while the 
 first syllable of it was written down correctly, the second 
 was on each occasion wrongly recorded. When he 
 obtained his marriage licence his name was taken by 
 the Bishop's official as " Shagspur " ; when he had to 
 state it to the officer of the Privy Council (because he 
 was about to play before James I.) that functionary 
 recorded it as " Shaxberd." When either the Actor 
 himself, his family, or their fellow-townsmen had to 
 write or record the family name they uniformly did 
 it in such a way as, in each of many varying forms, 
 would phonetically (and all spelling was at that time 
 phonetic) represent the pronunciation of the "a" in 
 its first syllable as short and hard, as also was the 
 second. In the assumed name the added "e" after 
 the "k" in the first syllable, and the "a" introduced 
 
 ^ See note on page 4.
 
 AN OUTLINE 7 
 
 before the " r " in the second, made both syllables soft. 
 If this difference in pronunciation were not enough to 
 mark the distinction between the real and family name 
 and the assumed one, in the latter a hyphen (or"-") 
 was frequently introduced in the middle, between its 
 first and its second syllables, as if to proclaim : " This 
 is a fancy name." This " fancy name " was, as we 
 shall see, invented about 1593-5 ; gave an allegorical 
 meaning to what closely resembled the family name of 
 the Actor ; and probably took its origin in a sneer at 
 the Actor by a contemporary, in which the former was 
 disparaged as a mere " Shake-Scene." 
 
 The full " Evidence," expanding the facts in the 
 summary presented by it, and this " Outline," will 
 both seek to do what Lord Penzance, with his great 
 judicial experience, declared to be now required — viz. 
 to show first, affirmatively, that Bacon wrote the Plays, 
 and afterwards that Shakspere (or "Shaxspur"), the 
 Stratford Actor, did not do so. An actual negative is, 
 as every logician knows, incapable of absolute proof. 
 So what Lord Penzance asked for was, strictly and 
 exactly, such affirmative proof of Bacon's Authorship 
 as to throw upon the defendants (who have long been 
 in possession of the reputation that this belongs to 
 their client) the burden of giving reasonable proof of 
 the authorship of the Stratford Actor, and not mere 
 guesses, with the huge chasms between them and the 
 facts bridged over by a " doubtless," a " must," a " seem- 
 ingly," or some similar expression. 
 
 The kind of evidence which, on this imaginary 
 Trial will be offered on behalf of Lord Bacon's claim, 
 shall be that which the famous Bishop Butler laid 
 down to afford the means for proper investigation into 
 a question of disputed authorship. The Bishop said 
 that, in such cases, a comparison ought to be made
 
 8 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 between the work, the authorship of which is in dis- 
 pute, and any known works of some person suspected 
 of such concealed or disputed authorship. The coming 
 "Evidence" will contain such a comparison of each 
 play, one by one, with the known philosophic and 
 other works of Bacon. A similar comparison, for 
 the purpose of affording prima facie evidence that the 
 Stratford Actor did not write such plays, will sub- 
 sequently be made between the " Shakespeare " Plays 
 and the Tavern mock-Epitaphs, which constitute his 
 only reputed works. A double inference is to be drawn 
 from the test directed by the logical writer of the 
 "Christian Analogy." It will be further pointed out 
 that this test has once already been applied in modern 
 times, with conspicuous success, to settle a question of 
 disputed authorship. For, when the authorship of the 
 famous Waverley novels was still concealed, and con- 
 sequently still the subject of dispute, Mr Adolphus, 
 then a well-known lawyer, applied to the question 
 this test suggested by Bishop Butler. Adolphus suc- 
 ceeded in collecting some eighty instances of identity, 
 principally of style, between the known works of Sir 
 Walter Scott and passages in these novels. The case 
 thus made by Adolphus was generally considered so 
 strong as to be unanswerable. Soon afterwards Sir 
 Walter Scott admitted that he was the writer of the 
 Waverley novels, confessing that he had previously 
 concealed this lest it should be thought that to be 
 a novel writer was beneath the dignity of the office 
 of "A grave Clerk of Session." Bacon, it will be 
 pointed out, as he attained during his career the High 
 Office of Lord Chancellor, was also justified by reasons 
 of ambition in acting similarly to Scott. Further, con- 
 temporary writers will be cited to prove that for a 
 man of Birth and Position to write for the Stage for
 
 AN OUTLINE 9 
 
 money (as Bacon undoubtedly did) was then considered 
 a disreputable thing. That Bacon earned money in 
 some disreputable way to supply himself with an 
 income was conjectured by the late Mr Thorpe, F.S.A., 
 who guessed that he kept a Usurer's shop for that 
 purpose ! 
 
 Moreover, the authority of no less distinguished a 
 historian than the late Bishop Stubbs will be cited to 
 show that, in addition to other reasons, Bacon may well 
 have had cause to fear that a confession that he it was 
 who had expressed some of the views contained in the 
 Plays might bring a prosecution. Finally he had, 
 most of his life, family reasons for keeping his author- 
 ship of " Stage Plays " a secret ; and, as to the Waverley 
 novels, eighty instances of identity, chiefly of Style, 
 were held sufficient proof. In this Bacon-Shakespeare 
 case numerous identities, amounting in the whole to 
 hundreds, will be shown under at least a dozen heads 
 claimed by the " Orthodox " for Shakespeare, besides 
 it being shown that either the Philosophy, or some 
 other teaching of Bacon's, runs throughout the whole of 
 the Plays. 
 
 The Address, "opening" the Claimant's full evidence, 
 to which this Outline is introductory, will be an attempt 
 to achieve for Lord Bacon's reputation what Mr 
 Adolphus successfully accomplished in showing the 
 real authorship of the Waverley novels. To attain 
 its end, the " Evidence " will endeavour to deal, in a 
 connected narrative, alike with Bacon's life and with 
 the various Plays and Groups of Plays. It will be 
 shown more at length in the Evidence how such plays 
 fit naturally into Bacon's life, in the manner shown 
 in Table A. prefixed to this Outline, and that a 
 knowledge of each of these things — that is, alike of 
 the Life of Bacon and of the Groups which the Plays
 
 lo THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 form — is necessary to add to the full appreciation and 
 understanding of either. 
 
 As before explained, the " Opening " pointing out 
 these things will be addressed to a supposed Literary 
 Jury of the world, and each side will be presumed 
 bound by the strict rules of evidence, save in the 
 respects already mentioned.^ Moreover, the " Evidence " 
 will not ignore the fact that there is another side of the 
 controversy, and will accordingly sometimes endeavour 
 to meet it by anticipation. The legal principles of 
 evidence which will most affect the question are not 
 only such as would prevail in an action to recover 
 land, but those which would apply to an action for 
 infringement of Copyright; or in a case, civil or criminal, 
 raising the question of the identity of a person. 
 
 The principles as to Evidence governing a Copyright 
 case are that, even where the work in dispute is a 
 Dictionary or a Directory, each of which, of course, 
 must be substantially similar to other books of the 
 same description, yet, so soon as identical mistakes 
 are pointed out both in an original work and the 
 work which is denied to be copied from it, as soon 
 are the owners of the alleged piratical work called on 
 by a Court of Law to explain this identity, and to 
 establish the independent authorship of their book. The 
 " Evidence" will point out that, in the "Shakespeare" 
 Plays, errors as to several matters are made, identical 
 with those also made in Bacon's works. Nay, more ; 
 many of these errors will be shown to have been 
 simultaneously corrected. 
 
 The principles of Evidence which would be acted on 
 as Law in a court where a Judge was sitting without 
 a Jury are in substance applied by a Jury to the 
 ordinary affairs of life, merely by the light of their 
 
 ^ As to these, see posi page 20.
 
 AN OUTLINE ii 
 
 common-sense. What Verdict, for instance, would a 
 Jury be likely to give at a trial raising the question 
 of who was the writer of some Libels, extending over 
 many years, after it had been proved that both their 
 writer and the person suspected similarly misspelt the 
 same particular word about the same period, and that 
 both corrected their mistake about the same time? 
 Yet this very proof will be given as to Bacon and the 
 writer of the Shakespeare Plays. At the end of the 
 sixteenth century, and early in the seventeenth, both 
 Bacon (in his " Advancement of Learning ") and the 
 writer of the Plays (in Richard III., Act iii. Sc. 2, 
 quarto edition of 1597, and in the Merchant of Venice, 
 Act iv. Sc. I, quarto edition of 1 600) spelt Sabbath 
 as " Sabbaoth." Both Bacon and the Play Writer dis- 
 covered that this somewhat pedantic mistake was due 
 to ignorance of Hebrew, in which " Sabaoth " means 
 " host," while " Sabbath " means a day of rest. Each 
 corrected this mistake in the year 1623 — Bacon in the 
 second edition of his " Advancement of Learning," 
 " Shakespeare " in the folio edition of the two plays 
 previously cited. Would a Jury be satisfied with the 
 explanation that this mistake "must" have been 
 common in 1597 and directly afterwards, but that it 
 had been generally discovered in 1623 that it was a 
 mistake? That they may not be, the Evidence will 
 show a converse case of the identity of the two writers 
 being proved by spelling. To this day many people 
 confuse "counsel" and "council"; indeed, their use 
 interchangeably was quite common till late in the 
 seventeenth century. Yet Bacon and the writer of 
 the Shakespeare Plays never confused the two words. 
 Bacon, in a letter to Villiers in 1600, writes: "Besides 
 the giving of counsel, the Councilors are bound to 
 keep counj-el." In the Merry Wives (Act i. Sc. i)
 
 12 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 we read : " The Coundl shall know this, 'twere better 
 for you it were known in couni-el." Many men of 
 eminence were guilty of making the blunder of confus- 
 ing these words. A list of those who habitually made the 
 mistake is in Mr Edwin Reed's "Parallelisms" at p. 209. 
 But Bacon and " Shakespeare " are the two writers con- 
 spicuous in that age for having never so blundered ! 
 
 The " Evidence " will press that, after this, the verdict 
 of a Jury could only be one. But, in addition to the 
 striking " coincidences " thus pointed out, many mere 
 expressions dropped in the Plays will be shown to be 
 found cropping up afterwards in Bacon's private letters, 
 though they are phrases of a most peculiar kind ; and 
 many philosophical views expressed in the Plays make 
 their appearance in Bacon's philosophical works pub- 
 lished by him long years after these efforts of " Dramatic 
 Poesy," and quite at the end of his life. So important 
 is this last consideration that a table (C ) of most 
 of these philosophical views, common alike to the 
 Shakespeare Plays and to Bacon's philosophical pen, 
 will be contained in the Evidence. 
 
 This Evidence will at an early point draw the Jury's 
 attention to that portion of Bacon's early life as to 
 which there can be no dispute. This will facilitate the 
 following of the arguments. It will be pointed out that 
 Bacon's father. Sir Nicholas Bacon, was for many years 
 Keeper of The Great Seal, and that his mother was 
 Anne, an accomplished daughter of Sir Thomas Cooke, 
 the tutor of King Edward VI. This lady will be 
 shown to have been herself a highly accomplished one, 
 to have been familiar with Latin and Greek, able to 
 correspond fluently with Archbishop Jewell in the latter 
 language, and so familiar with Italian that she made 
 an excellent translation into English of a volume of 
 sermons by an Italian preacher. She was, moreover,
 
 AN OUTLINE 13 
 
 a most rigid Puritan, and hated " Stage Plays " with 
 a fervid reHgious zeal. 
 
 His mother was, as the "Evidence" will tell, the 
 teacher of Francis Bacon, the younger of her two sons, 
 till he went to college together with his elder brother 
 Anthony. The tale runs that before he went there 
 Francis Bacon — mere child as he was — had been to the 
 Court of Queen Elizabeth, and that he had, when only 
 ten years old, already won the heart of the great Queen 
 by replying to her, when asked his age, that he was 
 "just two years younger than your Majesty's happy 
 reign." The pleased Queen had then patted him on 
 the head, and had called him her " young Lord Keeper." 
 At Cambridge, Francis Bacon took a violent aversion to 
 what he considered the narrow and crabbed Philosophy 
 of Aristotle, and his chaplain and biographer, Rawley, 
 tells us that, even in those youthful College days, he con- 
 ceived the idea of supplanting it by a new Philosophical 
 teaching of his own devising. This, he hoped, would be 
 superior alike to the teaching of the hated Aristotle 
 and to the equally unsatisfactory doctrines of others. 
 
 The " Evidence," when it comes to deal afterwards 
 with the Play of Love's Labours Lost, will point 
 out that the latter embodies this idea ; and it will 
 draw attention to the satires in other Plays on the 
 doctrines of Pythagoras, Epicurus, and their fellow- 
 philosophers. The tale will be told how Bacon, dis- 
 gusted at the narrowness of its teaching, left his 
 University in 1576 without a Degree. The very year 
 in which he did so he returned to London. Favourite 
 as he was at Court, it is not strange that there was played 
 before the Queen that year, at the Christmas Revels, 
 by " the children of Paul's," an Academic Play, just such 
 as would be written by a young lad lately from College. 
 It will be discussed when the " Evidence " comes to
 
 14 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 consider The Comedy of Errors. In the June follow- 
 ing, Francis and his brother were entered as students 
 at Gray's Inn. It will be narrated how, having obtained 
 a release from the "Readings" and "Moots" at the 
 Inn, Francis forthwith went to Paris in the train of 
 the then English Ambassador, Sir Amyas Paulet. 
 
 In 1578 his fond mother had a miniature of her 
 youngest and favourite son (then in his eighteenth 
 year) painted by Hillyard, a famous and fashionable 
 Miniature painter of that day. Hillyard was the en- 
 graver of the Great Seal of England used by Queen 
 Elizabeth, and the painter of miniatures of the Queen 
 herself and of many of her courtiers. Like many 
 others of the great Queen's favourites, he was a west- 
 countryman — indeed, a Devonshire man. 
 
 It is some test of the value of his work that his 
 miniatures even now command high prices, one of them 
 having been sold in London during this present month 
 of June (1904) for no less than ^^2500. 
 
 So beautiful was the mind of Francis Bacon, even 
 at this early age, that when the lovely miniature — the 
 outline of which is intended to be reproduced by Photo- 
 gravure upon the cover of this Outline — had been 
 completed, beautiful as it was, the great Artist himself 
 would appear — but possibly some other friends of Bacon 
 did it — to have surrounded it with the motto : " Si 
 tabula daretur digna, aniniani malleni" 
 
 It would be out of place to mention this pretty little 
 incident in this mere "Outline" did it not shed con- 
 siderable light on the precocious beauty of Bacon's 
 mind even in his early youth, and did it play an 
 unimportant part in the Shakespeare Story. In this 
 it takes a share of considerable importance, as will be 
 mentioned in a future page, no further reference to 
 which need be here given.
 
 AN OUTLINE 
 
 15 
 
 Arrived in France, Bacon travelled much in those 
 parts of France which had once belonged to the 
 English — Maine, Anjou, Poictiers — and, as some say, 
 extended his travels into Italy also. In 1578 he was 
 hurriedly recalled from Paris by the sudden death 
 of his Father, the old Keeper of the Great Seal. 
 Francis had, just before this, dreamt a strange Dream. 
 It shall not be reserved for the " Evidence," but told 
 at once in his own words. In his "Natural History" 
 Bacon writes : " I myself remember that, being in Paris, 
 and my Father dying in London, two or three days 
 before my Father's death I had a Dream, which I 
 told to divers English gentlemen, that my Father's 
 house in the country was plastered all over with black 
 mortar." In those days no telegraphs, and still less 
 telephones, existed to convey the news. How, then, 
 had it reached the mind of Francis Bacon ? Can this 
 be explained, otherwise than it is in Richard III. {hct 
 ii. Sc. 3)? — "By a divine instinct, men's minds mis- 
 trust ensuing danger." The very sentiment expressed 
 in Richard III. is repeated in Jiilius CcEsar (Act ii. 
 Sc. 2). We at once see a reason why Dreams play 
 so often a part in the " Shakespeare " Plays. What 
 is the "divine instinct which warns men's minds"? 
 Is it that telepathy of which the plays elsewhere speak? 
 {Cyjnbeline, Act i. Sc. 4.) 
 
 Leaving speculations such as these, let Bacon answer 
 the question in his own language. 
 
 In his " De Augmentis " he writes : " By natural 
 Divination we mean that the mind has, of its own 
 essential power, some pre-notion of things to come. 
 This appears mostly (i) in sleep; (2) in ecstasies ; (3) 
 near Death ; (4) more rarely, in waking apprehensions ; 
 and (5) . . . from foreknowledge of God and the 
 Spirits."
 
 1 6 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 In the Shakespeare Plays we have, in Richard III., 
 Act V. Sc. 3, that miserable King and his rival and 
 conqueror, afterwards Henry VH., each narrating their 
 dreams. The " Evidence " will display, borrowing them 
 from Mr Edwin Reed's " Parallelisms " (No. 38, p. 24), 
 examples from the Shakespeare Plays which furnish 
 instances of all the other four kinds of Divination men- 
 tioned in the " De Augmentis." But none will be more 
 striking than the first, in which the supposed dreams of 
 the Rivals at Bosworth Field are obviously inspired by 
 a haunting recollection of that Dream in Paris which 
 Bacon himself described in his " Natural History," and 
 wrote {ut sup.) : " I myself remember." For the Dream 
 of young Francis Bacon proved but too true, and 
 must have much impressed his mind. Going into 
 a barber's shop to be shaved, the old Lord Keeper, 
 who was so fat that it was a standing joke at Court 
 that " Her Majesty's Conscience was well housed," 
 had gone to sleep while waiting his turn from the 
 Barber, a window close to him being wide open because 
 there was a rapid and oppressive thaw. The Barber, 
 over-obsequious to so great a customer, had not dared 
 to shut it, and he was told by the Lord Keeper, when 
 the latter rose with a chill upon him : " Your civility 
 hath cost me my life." And so, a few days later, it 
 did. As with his famous son, nearly half-a-century 
 later, the chill produced pneumonia, and he died. 
 
 After his Father's unexpected death Francis Bacon 
 found himself left without a Patrimony worthy of that 
 name ; for the purchase of the estate, which his Father 
 had intended for him, had been anticipated by the 
 accident of Death, and by it the portion intended 
 for Francis had fallen to be divided among the Father's 
 entire family. The " Evidence " will tell how, neverthe- 
 less, Francis determined to go to the Bar ; how he took
 
 AN OUTLINE 17 
 
 up his residence in Gray's Inn ; and how, after a while, 
 he was there joined by the Earl of Southampton as his 
 " fellow-lodger." The Earl had been Ward to Bacon's 
 Uncle, Lord Burleigh. He, naturally, joined Bacon's 
 " set," with whom Masques and Interludes played a 
 great part amongst the amusements of Gray's Inn. The 
 Earl, too, was young, amorous, and rich. Burleigh's 
 relationship to Bacon was that the former had married 
 the sister of the latter's Mother. 
 
 The " Evidence " will further go on to show that 
 Francis Bacon was called to the Bar of his Inn of Court 
 in 1582, but that this was not equivalent at that time 
 to a Call to the Bar of the Courts of Law, and so did 
 not enable him to practise. He, consequently, did not 
 become entitled to earn an Income by the Law until 
 he was called within the Bar of his Inn of Court, and 
 to the Bar of the Courts of Law, in the year 1586. 
 Even after this latter Call he obtained no Practice, and 
 consequently no income, till much later. It will be 
 pointed out that Spedding, Bacon's Biographer, marvels 
 how he could meanwhile both have lived, and also met 
 his many heavy expenses of Court life, with a seat in 
 Parliament. His slender Patrimony must soon have 
 become exhausted. Spedding regards not only how 
 he lived, but also how Bacon occupied himself, during 
 those years, as being a mystery, inasmuch as his philo- 
 sophical works did not appear till many years later. 
 
 Anthony Bacon, the brother of Francis, will be 
 shown to have returned abroad so soon as their 
 Father's affairs were settled, and to have remained 
 there for about eleven years from 1579. During all 
 this period Anthony was busily engaged as a Diplom- 
 atist, and conducted delicate negotiations and in- 
 trigues, both between Foreign Courts and the adherents 
 B
 
 1 8 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 of James I., then King of Scotland, who was scheming 
 to succeed to the English Crown on the death of Queen 
 Elizabeth. Anthony Bacon will be shown to have lived 
 much in Switzerland, and also to have had, through an 
 Agent named Faunt, frequent communications with the 
 Sovereigns and States of North Italy, and to be said by 
 some to have himself once for a considerable time lived 
 at Padua. The " Evidence " will further tell how poor 
 Anthony returned to England about 1 590-1, a martyr 
 to Gout, and terribly broken in health in other ways ; 
 and it will show that he was, from his return till his 
 death in 1601, either living with Francis, or at least 
 in constant communication with him. 
 
 At this point, the forthcoming " Opening " of the 
 *' Evidence " enters upon controversial subjects. Indeed, 
 the first debated matter in the history of Francis 
 Bacon's life arises at an earlier period in it than that 
 already reached. It will be recalled that The Comedy 
 of Errors was acted by the "Children of Paul's" in the 
 very year (1576) in which Bacon had left Cambridge, 
 and had again appeared at Court. The " Children of 
 Paul's," who had the privilege of acting at Christmas 
 before the Queen, always performed a play previously 
 approved of by the Lord Chamberlain. That Official 
 was then Lord Leicester, and it is not curious that the 
 Company of Play Actors, to which Shaxpere subse- 
 quently was attached, was that which played as under 
 Leicester's patronage. The observation already made, 
 that the play performed in 1576 was 5uch as a young 
 man fresh from College would be likely to write, is 
 founded upon the fact that its plot was derived from 
 the Menechmi of Plautus, a Greek poet whose Plays 
 had not then been translated. The new Play was 
 called at that time A Historie of Errors^ and the source 
 which inspired it was mentioned. In passing, it will
 
 AN OUTLINE 
 
 19 
 
 be recalled that, in after years, Twelfth Night was 
 founded upon the plot of this same Greek Play, as the 
 members of the Middle Temple were informed ; and one 
 of them (Manningham) recorded when this play was 
 performed there in 1601. The Play called The Comedy 
 of Errors can be traced as having been performed in 
 the presence of the Queen on several occasions. It 
 was, when it was rewritten in 1594, rechristened as The 
 Comedy of Errors, instead of The Historie of Errors. 
 In the interval a Play had been again performed at 
 Court in 1582-3 when it had been recorded by a manifest 
 mistake as being TJie Historie of Ferrers. When the 
 earlier Play was again performed, in 1594, it was played 
 at some " Revels " at Gray's Inn, at which the Queen 
 was present, which Bacon himself wrote a Masque 
 for, and generally superintended. This, too, was an 
 occasion on which the Company of Actors to which 
 Shakespeare belonged was certainly present, and it 
 probably was the first appearance of Shakespeare him- 
 self as an Actor before the Queen. It is a singular and 
 significant fact that, while the Play never appeared in 
 print until it did so in the Shakespeare folio of 1623, 
 yet that Bacon must obviously have known all about it 
 in 1594, although, says Stanton, "no earlier copy has 
 been discovered than that of 1594." 
 
 The point as to what Bacon was employing his time 
 on between his Call to the Bar of Gray's Inn and his 
 entry upon much professional business some years 
 later will be, of course, hotly disputed. It will be the 
 object, alike of this " Outline " and of the " Opening " 
 of the full Evidence, to fill the gap in the life of Bacon 
 left by Mr Spedding, and dealt with by him in a very few 
 pages. Both will seek to show alike how this period was 
 occupied, and how Bacon obtained an income during it. 
 
 In dealing with a matter thus obscure and much
 
 20 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 controverted, the "Opening" of the full Evidence will 
 proceed to state, placing each under a separate head, 
 the facts with regard to this period which can be fully 
 established. These facts, when thus ascertained, con- 
 clusively prove, as is submitted, that Francis Bacon, a 
 Philosopher of now world-wide fame, must henceforth 
 be identified as the writer of the celebrated Dramas 
 hitherto known as the " Shakespeare " Plays. For 
 it cannot be too often repeated that, since it is the 
 name under which their author wrote them and gave 
 them to the world, the Plays must ever remain the 
 immortal " Shakespeare " Plays. 
 
 The facts which will thus be established by the 
 " Evidence " about to be thus " Opened " have been 
 gathered from a detailed examination of each of the 
 Plays by itself, and by a careful search into the period 
 of Bacon's private life corresponding to the time when 
 it was written. No investigation has ever been pre- 
 viously made into the first ten years or thereabouts 
 of the career of the great Philosopher. It will be 
 sought to trace Bacon's hitherto undiscovered employ- 
 ment and mysterious source of income from soon after 
 his profitless Call to the Bar of his Inn of Court until 
 he procured Political Preferment in the days of James I. 
 In the interval. Bacon obtained little professional 
 occupation, and consequently little income from the 
 Law. At the end of his life, after his fall from the 
 High Office of Lord Chancellor in 162 1, a similar 
 inquiry as to whence he derived an income must also 
 be made. As a preliminary to the first of these in- 
 vestigations the position of the English Stage during 
 the early part of the time dealt with will be shown. 
 Moreover, the " Evidence " will give cause to believe 
 that Bacon not only held, but actually carried into 
 effect, peculiar views as to the proper province of the
 
 AN OUTLINE 21 
 
 Stage. The facts revealed by due inquiry will be 
 placed in a form in which, according to all principles 
 governing the law of evidence (which the writer has 
 for years made the subject of special study^ ) they would 
 be regarded in a Court of Law as evidence. But before 
 summing up the proofs of Bacon's authorship, afforded 
 by the internal evidence of the " Shakespeare " Plays 
 themselves, the " Evidence " will sketch, in a few words, 
 a short outline of the conclusions, on other and inci- 
 dental matters, which are shown by surrounding facts. 
 An understanding of these subjects will enable the 
 argument to be more easily followed. Even before 
 an explanation of these is entered upon, attention will 
 be directed by the " Evidence " to some other pre- 
 liminary facts having a special connection with the 
 "Shakespeare" Plays. It will point out that Bacon, 
 according to his Biographer and Chaplain, Rowley, had 
 an inveterate habit of writing and rewriting any com- 
 positions of his over and over again, and that this was 
 exactly what the author of the " Shakespeare " Plays 
 continually did. Quarto editions of a Play successively 
 claimed it in many cases "As it hath been lately acted "; 
 while many subsequent ones each say that the Play in 
 question has been " Newly augmented and revised," or 
 " Newly corrected and enlarged," or " Newly corrected." 
 As, on the occasion of each revision, the Play was 
 " written up to date," as it were, it is made extremely 
 hard to say when any particular " Shakespeare " Play 
 was really first written. The best way to ascertain 
 this is to refer back to the earliest incident to which 
 the Play, as revised, still refers ; and to conclude it to 
 have been written at least not later than the earliest 
 
 ^ The writer is the editor of the tenth edition of "Taylor on Evidence." 
 "Taylor on Evidence "is the standard text-book of authority on the 
 English Law of Evidence.
 
 22 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 event so alluded to. Even then, it is obviously impos- 
 sible to be at all sure that the Play may not be of still 
 earlier origin. 
 
 The next matter which the " Evidence " will point 
 out is that the young Stratford Actor " Shakspere," 
 of whom we shall hereafter hear much, is clearly shown 
 by facts to certainly have not been an educated man 
 when he left his native town, and clearly not to have 
 done this before 1587. Exactly how long it must be 
 supposed to have been needed for even the "great 
 genius," with which he is credited, to acquire that 
 education, which every Play obviously required its 
 writer to possess, is a matter which must rest with each 
 Juryman to determine for himself. There is no ex- 
 ample to guide him. For never, before or since, was 
 so much learning attributed to so comparatively 
 ignorant a man as " Shakspere " was when he left 
 Stratford, and supposed to have been acquired, in some 
 unknown way, in some undefined time. 
 
 Then the " Evidence " will go on to point out that 
 the Stage sprang into existence soon after the Re- 
 formation had caused the discontinuance of the old 
 Ecclesiastical Miracle Plays. To write for the Stage 
 for money, it will be shown, long continued to be 
 regarded as a most undesirable occupation for any 
 person having a pretence to a position, seeing the 
 close association which a Play - writer had of 
 necessity to enter into with Actors — all then, with a 
 few exceptions, vagabonds by Act of Parliament. A 
 Literary Jury will then have laid before them, in some 
 detail, a view of the history and position of the English 
 Stage in its early days. It will be shown how Actors, 
 and the " Poet that made the Play," were originally 
 always one and the same person ; how they soon 
 became separate ones ; how one " Poet " subsequently
 
 AN OUTLINE 
 
 23 
 
 " made the Play " for at first several different Actors, 
 and finally for all ; and how, in the end, it became 
 usual for the manager of a Company of Actors to 
 provide one " Poet," or Play-writer, to write their parts 
 for each of its members. The " Poet," whose employ- 
 ment now grew to be a separate profession, will next 
 be shown to have generally worked in conjunction 
 with some other of his class, and the method of joint 
 composition will be described. The "Evidence" will 
 point out that, accordingly, it is probable that Bacon 
 never worked alone, and was never in direct personal 
 communication with " Shakspere " or any other Actor, 
 but always had a Literary " mask " intervening between 
 himself and the Stage. 
 
 Attention will be drawn to the singular precautions 
 taken by Bacon throughout his life which the facts 
 disclose. These show that the great Philosopher 
 habitually adopted the teachings of his own Philosophy. 
 This takes for its basis Nature, and an abandonment 
 of everything artificial (as is taught by Loves Labour s 
 Lost), and a return to Nature (as is taught by The 
 Winter's Tale, and by As You Like It). In making 
 his arrangements for the concealment of his name 
 from the general public — that vulgar herd whom the 
 aristocrat regarded with cordial contempt — Bacon 
 himself took a lesson from Nature. Many a shy and 
 timid creature is, in its Natural state, protected by its 
 environments or surroundings. The foxes and pheasants 
 of the Arctic regions grow white among the snow 
 about them ; the squirrel and its kindred, the par- 
 tridge, and not a few other birds, are the less easily 
 seen by reason of the close resemblance of their colour- 
 ing to that of their surroundings ; the Green Lizard 
 takes the same hue as the green grass through which 
 it creeps. Bacon, in the same way, always made the
 
 24 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 Plays he was writing take their colouring from the 
 Literary Coadjutor with whom he was at the moment 
 writing. His first Literary Coadjutor appears to have 
 been the Playwright Greene. The Plays then written 
 took the form of Comedies and Philosophical Plays, 
 based on passing Court incidents, and on the Novels of 
 the hour. He, as his once coadjutor bitterly complained, 
 " deserted " Greene. Marlow then became his fellow- 
 worker. Now, Marlow was a writer of Plays illustrative 
 of English History. Bacon forthwith commenced to 
 write his English Historical Plays. Marlow's tragic 
 death compelled Bacon to procure some other Literary 
 " go-between." He at last found him in the person of 
 his brother Anthony. Then, as Anthony was newly 
 returned from foreign countries, and from frequent 
 communication with North Italy, if not from actual 
 residence in one of its towns (Padua), the Plays 
 at once assumed an Italian aspect from this time 
 till Anthony's death. After that event, Ben 
 Jonson became suddenly reconciled with the Actor 
 " Shakspere," with whom he had previously been at 
 dire Literary enmity — to say the least. Having thus 
 become qualified for the position, Jonson henceforth 
 acted as Bacon's Literary " mask " or " go-between." 
 The Plays immediately became of a character some- 
 what similar to those of Jonson, and they are made 
 to simultaneously express Bacon's Political views, while 
 they also served his personal ends. This startling 
 series of " coincidences," as the " orthodox " call them, 
 which the facts will be found to make manifest, will 
 be traced fully and closely by the Evidence. 
 
 The Robert Greene just referred to was one of the 
 very earliest, if not actually the earliest, of the writers 
 who openly avowed that he wrote for the Stage. This 
 man's life will be fully sketched in the " Evidence."
 
 AN OUTLINE 25 
 
 It will be shown that he was, like Bacon himself, 
 a member of Cambridge University, with one of 
 whom Bacon, throughout life, always kept in touch ; 
 that Greene obtained the Degree of M.A. ; that 
 he came to London about 1583-4; that he was in 
 Denmark early in 1585, where he probably heard 
 the tale of Hamlet, which Bacon would find recorded 
 in the Novels of the French writer Belleforest ; and 
 that many traces of his Literary work are visible in the 
 early " Shakespeare " Plays. In a passage which will 
 be set out and discussed later in this " Outline," 
 evidence is afforded that " Shake-Scene " was denounced 
 by Greene in March 1592 as an Actor who was merely 
 " an upstart crow beautified in our feathers," thus imply- 
 ing that he was not, in truth, the Writer of the Plays 
 in which he was appearing. The whole argument of the 
 " Evidence " will be, in a word, that " Shake-Scene," with 
 his name improved and developed into " Shakespeare," 
 continued to fill the character assigned to him by Greene 
 until his retirement from the Stage in 1604. The key 
 to the solution of the so-called Bacon-Shakespeare 
 mystery, it will be contended, was really given by 
 Greene in 1592, that writer being the coadjutor with 
 whom Bacon had been recently working. 
 
 The Plays produced by " Shakespeare " in his earliest 
 period, and while he was working with Greene, will be 
 pointed out to have been either all Educational or else 
 all Philosophical Plays, founded upon incidents at Queen 
 Elizabeth's Court. Under the cover of dramatising 
 these latter the Play-writer, at one time, ridiculed other 
 systems of philosophy, while at another he prepared 
 the world for his own. In the Plays of Love's Labours 
 Lost, of Hamlet, and of Twelfth Night the first of these 
 objects was effected. The introduction of the system 
 of philosophy, founded upon Nature, is best fore-
 
 26 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 shadowed in The Winters Tale." It is there personi- 
 fied in Perdita, the long-lost child of Nature, who is, 
 at last, again found. 
 
 Such appears to be the general scheme of the early 
 Plays, written in conjunction with Greene. Later Plays, 
 written with different coadjutors, all likewise contained 
 some distinctive teaching. The words of Bacon him- 
 self can be used to bear witness that this construction 
 of the Plays is not the mere fanciful imagination of the 
 present writer. 
 
 In his prose works,^ Bacon tells us that " in some 
 States of Antiquity " what he calls " Play-Acting " was 
 " used as a means of educating men's minds." He also 
 declares that, in his opinion, it ought to be so used in 
 Modern States, enlarges upon its merits and possi- 
 bilities, and goes on to discuss them. He says expressly 
 that " Play- Acting" has been regarded by learned men 
 and by great Philosophers as " a kind of magician's 
 bow, by which men's minds may be played upon." 
 He sought to " play upon men's minds " by the Dramas 
 which have been already mentioned as intended to be 
 introductory of his system of Philosophy. Again, we 
 are told by Bacon that " Dramatic Poesy is as History 
 made visible, for it represents actions as if they were 
 present, whereas History regards them as past." The 
 " Shakespeare " Plays, in the Prologue to what we shall 
 hereafter find to be the last of their English Historical 
 series (that to Henry VIII.), expresses the sentiment 
 of Bacon's which has just been quoted, in language 
 almost identical. Its exhorts the audience to " Think 
 you see the very persons of our noble story. As they 
 were living." 
 
 Not a little remarkable is it that, after the lapse of 
 
 ^ Sec "Advancement of Learning," Book II. ; " De Augmentis," Book 
 II., cap. xiii. ; and also The Third Vohime of the Book of Tune.
 
 AN OUTLINE 27 
 
 over three centuries, some men wisely, but probably 
 quite unconscious of whose words they now seek to 
 have effect given, should commence to urge the new 
 Educational Authority for London at this day to use 
 the " Shakespeare " Plays for the very purpose for 
 which Bacon says that " Play- Acting" ought to be 
 employed — that is, to " Educate men's minds." Not 
 less remarkable is it that the " Shakespeare " Plays 
 should be put forward by these men, thus unconscious 
 of what they are unwittingly doing, as Plays exactly 
 containing all that Bacon declared to be needed to 
 attain the end now sought. 
 
 The value of the " Shakespeare " Plays as instruments 
 of Education, in accordance with Bacon's suggestion, 
 will be the more appreciated when it is recalled that 
 there hardly is one of them which cannot be usefully 
 so employed. For example, children previously taken 
 to see such Plays might be afterwards well questioned, 
 in competition with each other, as to the incidents 
 of History referred to in any Historical Plays they 
 had witnessed. The geographical knowledge which 
 can be obtained from The Two Gentlemen of Verona^ 
 and from many others of the Plays, could be similarly 
 utilised. A knowledge of French might be tested after 
 children have witnessed King Henry V. More ad- 
 vanced students could, in a similar way, be instructed 
 in Botany and Natural History from the foundation 
 laid by seeing The Winter's Tale. A knowledge of 
 the Passions of human nature, displayed in the second 
 Group of Dramas, is arranged in the Table (A.) affixed 
 to this " Outline," and the moral which each teaches 
 might be usefully imparted by a study of them. Even 
 some knowledge of, and interest in, current political 
 events, and the instruction which they give, might be 
 excited in those who will form our future Electorate
 
 28 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 by closely following the Plays written after the acces- 
 sion of James I., and constituting the third Group. In 
 the fourth Group — the Plays of the Downfall — Bacon 
 plainly seeks to obtain sympathy for himself, the 
 victim of fallen Ambition, and for a faithful steward, 
 while he also shows the evils which envy, even when 
 achieving its immediate purpose, in the end entails. 
 
 From this digression into the teachings which can 
 be derived from the " Shakespeare " Plays a return 
 will be made to the narrative, telling the story of their 
 coming into existence at different Periods of Bacon's 
 life. The " Evidence " will collect the various traces 
 of Greene's Literary labours which are to be found in 
 the early " Shakespeare " Plays. To state here in any 
 detail what these are would be out of place. Yet it 
 will interest the readers of this " Outline " to know 
 that the very early play, now known as The Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona^ is admitted by Mr Sidney Lee, 
 the champion of the Orthodox, to have been originally 
 named Felix and Philoviefia. Under this name the Play 
 had been produced at Court in 1884. It had been, and 
 still is, founded upon the Plot of a Spanish Pastoral 
 Romance named " Diana." This Spanish Romance 
 was not, at that time, translated into English, nor was 
 it till about ten years later ; but it will be recalled that 
 Greene had travelled in Spain, and was a Spanish 
 scholar. Further, Bacon's commonplace book or notes, 
 which shall be subsequently mentioned, betrays him 
 soon after Greene's death making notes of common 
 Spanish phrases of salutation and similar idiomatic 
 expressions. The Play being an educational one, 
 designed to show the advantage of foreign travel, it 
 was important that the geographical statements con- 
 tained in it should be accurate. Accordingly, as Bacon 
 had never been in Spain, and Greene had been dead
 
 AN OUTLINE 29 
 
 for some years, it was afterwards, subsequently to 
 Anthony Bacon's return to England, made to shift 
 its scene from Spain to North Italy. Coming to 
 another of the best known of the early Plays, it will 
 be shown that Hamlet was written soon after a 
 plot to murder Queen Elizabeth had been discovered 
 in 1584, and Greene had returned from Denmark with 
 the legend of Hamlet, as already pointed out. Indeed, 
 the play was introduced into Germany by the Earl 
 of Leicester's Company (in other words, by the 
 Company of the Lord Chamberlain of the English 
 Court) at a very early date. The English version of 
 Hamlet has in it incidents which did not form part 
 of the original story — for instance, the Ghost and the 
 " Mousetrap " incident, in which, under pretence of 
 seeking for a mouse behind the tapestry, Hamlet runs 
 his sword through the man concealed there. While, on 
 the one hand, other traces of Greene's work will be 
 found in it, Hamlet will be shown to literally teem 
 with the philosophy of Bacon. It will be pointed out 
 that some of its most celebrated passages containing 
 this are almost translations from Greek and other 
 authors, so worded as to breathe the spirit, yet not 
 the literal words, of their great originals. For example, 
 Hamlet's famous soliloquy "To be or not to be "was 
 in substance derived from the Dialogues of Plato, which 
 at that time still remained untranslated from the 
 original Greek. A contemporary writer, moreover, will 
 be shown to have addressed the Members of both 
 Universities in terms which allude to the writer of 
 Hamlet as " The English Seneca." They would at once 
 recall that Seneca was a most eloquent lawyer and 
 pleader, also a Philosopher, a writer of Plays, and 
 himself the Tutor of a King. All these descriptions 
 are exactly corresponded to by Bacon, save that
 
 so THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 the latter was not himself the tutor of a King but 
 only the Grandson of one. After stating many more 
 facts, showing that Hamlet must have been written 
 soon after 1584, and "written up" by the addition to 
 it of the poisoned cup incident in 1594, when Queen 
 Elizabeth's Physician, one Lopez, had been detected 
 in a plot to murder the Queen by placing a jewel 
 supposed to be poisonous in her wine, the " Evidence " 
 will leave Hamlet. It will proceed to show that 
 others of the early Plays were written at a date long 
 before that at which "Shakspere" the Actor left 
 Stratford. The Play of The Winter's Tale will be 
 pointed out to have been founded on a Novel of 
 Greene's, which the Play so closely followed that, by 
 an error in transposing scenes, Bohemia is given a 
 sea-coast ; while this Play is again made the vehicle 
 of conveying, in allegorical form, much' of Bacon's deep 
 Philosophy. Dealing with Love's Labour's Lost, the 
 " Evidence " will suggest further facts, indicating it to 
 have been written by Bacon while he was still work- 
 ing in conjunction with Greene, and to have been, in 
 truth, founded upon political events in France which 
 had actually happened in the year 1586. The date 
 at which the Play of Twelfth Night was written will 
 be iixed by the " Evidence " to have been not later 
 than September 1588. For some incidents at Court, 
 the dates of which will be stated, are in it made the 
 subjects of most delicate and veiled satire, which be- 
 comes plainly visible directly the key to it is afforded. 
 But the incident, which is conclusive as to the date, is 
 as follows : — One Tarleton had been found on the estate 
 of Bacon's friend Lord Leicester, the Lord Chamberlain. 
 Tarleton had been brought by Leicester to Court, and 
 had been there made not only a Court Actor, but also 
 the "Fool" usually attendant on the Queen. Sir
 
 AN OUTLINE 31 
 
 Walter Raleigh had about 1585 returned from discover- 
 ing the Indies, and had made himself so familiar to 
 the Queen that he was said to aspire to her hand ; 
 while his intimacy with Her Majesty, and insolent 
 ways to everyone else, rendered him universally hated. 
 One day, when the Queen was seated between Leicester 
 and Raleigh, and the latter was absorbing all her con- 
 versation, Tarleton sarcastically remarked : " A strange 
 thin^, the knave commands the Oueen." For this 
 bitter jest Tarleton was banished from attendance 
 at Court as a " Fool." To procure him an opportunity 
 of once more appearing in the Royal presence the 
 scene in Twelfth Night (Act iii. Sc. i.) was intro- 
 duced. Tarleton kept a Tavern called the " Tabor," 
 next to St Benet's Church in " Gracious " (now Grace- 
 church) Street. This makes the following by-play 
 between the Clown and Viola obviously plain : — 
 
 " Viola. Save thee 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." 
 
 Local colouring, identifying Tarleton and his house, 
 is here found ; for the Tower of St Benet's Church 
 contains chimes. So, subsequently, Tarleton the Clown 
 tells Orsino : " The bells of St Benet may put you in 
 mind, one, two, three." No one ever wrote a part for 
 a dead man to play. Yet, as the Register of his burial 
 records, Tarleton died in September 1588. 
 
 The approximate date of the termination of Bacon's 
 collaboration with Greene will even be traced. None 
 of the Shakespeare writings were assigned a name 
 previous to the year 1591, but till Venus and Adonis
 
 32 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 appeared in 1593, all were published anonymously; 
 while no Play had its Author's name on it till 1548. 
 Accordingly, in 1591, the Play of King John appeared 
 anonymously. There is an anonymous copy in the 
 possession of Capell College, Cambridge, dated 1591. 
 Literary critics find in this Play, in its early part, 
 distinct traces of Greene. In later portions of it 
 the hand of Marlow is betrayed ; while the title of 
 The Troublesome Reign appears to be clearly bor- 
 rowed from Marlow's Troublesome Reign of Edward II. 
 The obvious inference is that the connection between 
 Bacon and Greene terminated at some time while 
 King John was in progress. It was probably brought 
 about in consequence of Green's dissolute ways (which 
 the " Evidence" will mention) rendering him an unsatis- 
 factory fellow - worker. This date also tallies with 
 Greene's complaint, in March 1592, that he had been 
 " deserted " — as if somewhat recently. 
 
 Marlow was the Playwright with whom Bacon 
 worked in conjunction on the termination of his con- 
 nection with Greene. The " Evidence " will give a 
 sketch of Marlow's career. It will show him to have 
 exercised a great influence upon " Shakespeare," not- 
 withstanding that their connection did not continue 
 long, in point of mere time. Marlow, like his prede- 
 cessor Greene, was a Graduate of the University of 
 Cambridge. He was the earliest writer of English 
 Historical Plays, and no one questions now that the 
 "Shakespeare" Plays illustrative of English History 
 were directly inspired by his influence. Some of his 
 Historical Plays were, at least, not inferior to those of 
 " Shakespeare " — and there are critics who claim them 
 to have been superior. Marlow was an Actor before 
 he left the Stage, after he broke his leg on it in 
 a bad Stage accident, and then took to Play-
 
 AN OUTLINE ^^ 
 
 writing. He probably affords the earliest instance of 
 a University man going upon the Stage. The " Evi- 
 dence " will point out various Literary traces of his work 
 in the "Shakespeare" Plays. So marked, indeed, are 
 some that Mr Algernon Swinburne, no mean judge in 
 such a matter, at one place (//. Henry VI. Act iv. Sc. i ), 
 which commences with the line, " The gaudy, blabbing, 
 and remorseful day," exclaims Aut Christopherus 
 Marlow, aut Diabolus ! and it is universally recognised 
 that the way for the blank verse of Shkesapeare was 
 prepared by " Marlow's mighty line." Unfortunately, 
 Marlow, like Greene, was a man of dissolute habits. On 
 1st June 1593, as the " Evidence " will tell, he was tragic- 
 ally murdered, by being stabbed in the eye so that his 
 brain protruded through it, in a tavern at Deptford, as 
 the old writer tells us, " by a bawdy serving-man named 
 Francis Archer during a quarrel over their lewd loves." 
 
 Bacon's arrangements were suddenly disconcerted by 
 Marlow's terrible death. As with Greene, distinct 
 traces of Marlow's work are visible in the Shakespeare 
 Plays. Some zealous Baconians, indeed, would go 
 so far as to assert that Bacon was the actual writer 
 of all the Plays put forward as the work of Greene 
 and of Marlow. For example, they would suggest 
 that Marlow never wrote a Play in his life, and that 
 his Tamburlaine was, in truth, wholly the work of Bacon. 
 They would also urge that Bacon, under the pseudonym 
 of " Shakespeare," during this early period did a lot 
 of " touching up " of old Plays as a sort of Journeyman 
 for Stage Managers. But of all this there is no actual 
 evidence, and the finding of the work of Greene and 
 Marlow in the early Shakespeare Plays appears not to 
 warrant any of the conjectures just mentioned, and to, at 
 least at present, no more than support the theory that 
 Bacon and the two writers named were at different times 
 C
 
 34 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 working in collaboration. As the " Evidence " will sug- 
 gest, the Plays written by Bacon had hitherto got 
 produced upon the Stage as the productions of, and 
 by, Actors familiar with the fellow-worker with whom 
 he was writing. Hence it was that, by Marlow's 
 death, Bacon was placed in a great difficulty. But 
 there was a skilled Diplomatist at his elbow at the 
 moment. His brother Anthony had opportunely re- 
 turned to England just in time. The " Evidence " will 
 disclose facts from which the inference is plain that, 
 with or without Anthony's aid, a Diplomatic arrange- 
 ment was soon afterwards made with the young Stratford 
 Actor. The exact nature of this has been the Literary 
 "mystery" of over three centuries. It is believed that 
 the writer has now discovered this by observing facts 
 which have hitherto not received the attention they 
 merited. Stated shortly, it was this. The name, or 
 word, " Shake-SPEAR," or Greene's nickname, with 
 *' Spear " as its ending instead of " Scene," formed a 
 figure of speech exactly expressing one of Bacon's ideas 
 of a fit mission of the Stage.^ So it was arranged that 
 Shaksper of Stratford should assume it, either in that 
 form, or written as one word. But, in this latter form, 
 the name so closely resembled both the Actor's 
 Patronymic, and also his Stage-name, in the form he 
 might from time to time select, that none of the general 
 Public would be likely to notice, though there it was, in 
 days when spelling was largely Phonetic. Such an 
 arrangement, too, was involved enough to puzzle (as 
 indeed it long has done) better educated persons, or 
 those about Court, who might suspect some connection 
 to exist between the Philosopher and the Actor. 
 Accordingly it was arranged that Bacon also should 
 adopt the same name, in either of its forms, for Poetry 
 
 ^ As to its meaning, see infra page 36.
 
 AN OUTLINE 
 
 35 
 
 or Plays. But it was to be given to no Play, unless 
 originally Bacon's, and one in which a Part had been 
 played by Shaksper of Stratford, on the occasion of its 
 being first produced upon any Stage. Such, the 
 Evidence shows, was the substance of the 1593-5 
 arrangement. It will be found that the Actor usually 
 used the name, as his Stage-name, with the Hyphen ; 
 while Bacon as a writer, often employed it, as his " Pen- 
 name " written as one word and without a break ; and 
 this for obvious reasons. At the coming trial the facts, 
 and the conclusion which it is submitted ought to be 
 drawn from them, will be laid before a Literary Jury, 
 to be tested by their common-sense. Proof will not 
 be sought to be established by the aid of any such 
 matter, as has been already disclaimed.^ 
 
 This arrangement took a considerable interval, and 
 much diplomacy, to bring it into effect. At Marlow's 
 death, the name of the Stratford Actor was neither 
 known in Literature nor famous upon the Stage. 
 The first task was to procure Literary celebrity for it. 
 To effect this, Venus and Adonis was published. 
 
 Much close connection between it and Bacon can 
 be traced. The poem, though printed by one origin- 
 ally a Stratford man (which would serve as a " Blind " 
 to many), had to be " Licensed " before Publication. 
 For the then Archbishop of Canterbury, in conjunction 
 with the then Bishop of London, had in 1585 procured 
 the Star Chamber to decree that no Book should be 
 published without being previously licensed. Venus 
 and Adonis received the singular honour, notwithstand- 
 ing the voluptuous nature of many of the passages in 
 it, of being licensed by no less a personage than the 
 Archbishop himself. 
 
 Under the circumstances, this is striking and strange. 
 
 ' See ante page 2.
 
 36 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 Had the alliance between the Stage and the Church, 
 as we call it in this twentieth century, already com- 
 menced in the sixteenth? Can we believe that any 
 Actor, even so great a genius as the man of Stratford 
 is claimed by his friends to have been, "Must" have 
 then been so closely intimate with the Archbishop of 
 the moment that the latter readily licensed his some- 
 what loose love-songs? 
 
 The subject-matter of Venus and Adonis was to 
 advise a rich and amorous young lord, in terms of 
 familiar freedom, to marry and beget an heir to his 
 title and wealth. Such advice might well come from a 
 fellow-peer and fellow-lodger, but seems strange as 
 proceeding from a hitherto totally unknown Literary 
 man, and a little-known Actor. 
 
 No such conjecture as above suggested is needed when 
 we find that Whitgift, Bacon's old tutor at Cambridge, 
 had become an Archbishop, and that he it was who, in 
 spite of his cloth, " licensed " Venus and Adonis. More- 
 over, that Poem was dedicated to " Henry Wriothesley," 
 the young Earl of Southampton, who has been already ^ 
 described as Bacon's " Fellow-lodger " and friend at 
 Gray's Inn. The person who so dedicated it signed 
 himself as " William Shakespeare." This name will, as 
 above stated, be shown by the " Evidence " to have 
 been Bacon's " Pen-name." When, about thirty years 
 later, under the circumstances mentioned elsewhere,^ 
 the Folio was published, it had upon it a headpiece 
 which contained an etching that embodied the exact 
 idea which was expressed in verse by Ben Jonson in 
 some lines in the folio also. This etching depicted a 
 man behind a mask throwing a "spear" (hence the 
 termination of the name) at Ignorance. In Ben 
 Jonson's words. Bacon's " well turned and true filed 
 ^ See ante pages 16-17. ^ See ^osi pages 56-57.
 
 AN OUTLINE 37 
 
 lines " are verses " in each of which he seems to shake 
 a lance, as brandish'd at the eyes of Ignorance." 
 
 All the earlier published Shake-speare Plays have 
 a significant fact, common alike to them and to Venus 
 and Adonis, and to Lucrece (which was published in 
 the year following, 1594). It appears in the Catalogue of 
 Title-Pages given at the end of his Lecture by the (in this 
 instance) "orthodox" Judge Willis, than whom a more 
 vehement Shakesperian is not to be found in England. 
 Every known copy (and there are eight) of Venus and 
 Adonis, whatever its date, is without any Author's name 
 upon the Title-page. The first four known editions of 
 Lucrece, of which we have copies, have no Author's name 
 upon their Title-pages ; but the two copies mentioned 
 below have an Author's name upon them. One known 
 copy of Venus and Adonis has a Dedication signed in full 
 — "William Shapespeare." But, while the 1593 Edition 
 of Venus and Adonis has this Dedication, and a similar 
 one is in the 1594 Edition of Lucrece, all the editions 
 of both Poems have no Author's name upon their Title- 
 pages, except in the case of two late editions of Lucrece 
 which contain on their Title-pages the name " William. 
 Shapespeare" in full. As regards the Plays, when 
 King John was published in 1591 it was put forth 
 anonymously, as appears by an edition dated in that 
 year, which is in the possession of Capell College, 
 Cambridge. In 161 1 the initials "W S" were placed 
 upon its Title-page (the only instance of such initials 
 being so employed), and in the Folio of 1623 the full 
 name of " Shapespeare," of course, covered King John, 
 as well as the other plays then published. All four 
 editions oi Romeo and Juliet w&x^ also published anony- 
 mously — one in 1597, and three others subsequently. 
 The full name, "William Shakespeare," first appeared in 
 the Folio of 1623, in which this Play was included.
 
 38 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 Again, Richard II., Richard III, and Henry IV. 
 were all published anonymously — the two first named 
 in 1597, and the last named in 1598. In the year just 
 named, however (1598), the Play oi Love's Labour's Lost 
 was shown to be then an old Play by the announcement 
 on its Title-page that it had been " presented before her 
 Highness last Christmas," and that it had been newly 
 corrected and enlarged by "William Shakespeare." 
 
 After this, this full name appeared, as a rule, upon 
 each Play when it was published. This looks as if the 
 use of the Pen-name was not finally decided upon, and 
 was hesitating and tentative from the publication of 
 Venus in 1593, till the success of the publication of 
 Love's Labours Lost in 1598 showed that there was no 
 need that more fear should be felt about its habitual 
 use. 
 
 During the following year (1594), position as an Actor 
 of some importance was procured for the Stratford 
 Actor by obtaining for him the privilege of playing 
 before Queen Elizabeth. The Members of Gray's Inn 
 gave some " Revels " at Greenwich, where " Shakspere " 
 acted before the Queen ; and, subsequently, some at 
 Gray's Inn, where Bacon, as the "Sorcerer," took the 
 management of these. The Inn, when the first day's 
 entertainment had proved a fiasco, complained that the 
 " Sorcerer " had invited " a Company of lewd fellows " 
 — in other words, the Company of Actors to which 
 " Shakspere " of Stratford was attached — to come there 
 and play The Comedy of Erroi's. Bacon, on this, 
 arranged for another entertainment at the Inn, and 
 himself wrote a Masque to be performed on this 
 second occasion. In the same year, further Literary 
 reputation was secured for the name of "William 
 Shakespeare" by the publication (1594) of Lucrece, 
 with a dedication by " William Shakespeare," in terms
 
 AN OUTLINE 
 
 39 
 
 of fervently warm and increased affection. Again it 
 is asked, as it has been already shown to be the 
 question for the Literary Jury : " Who was William 
 Shakespeare ? " 
 
 The " Evidence " will suggest that the tradition told 
 by Rowe of the young Earl of Southampton having 
 made a gift of ;^iooo (equal to about iJ'Sooo to ;^io,ooo 
 in these days) to " Shakespeare," in order " to enable 
 him to complete a purchase for which he had a mind," 
 is as well authenticated as any other " Shakespeare " 
 tradition, and also, in all probability, absolutely true. 
 Facts, too, will be collected showing that this munificent 
 present, if ever made, must have unquestionably been 
 bestowed about this time. For up to this date the 
 young Earl was not of age ; not long afterwards became 
 engaged in an intrigue with one of the Queen's Maids of 
 Honour, was compelled by circumstances to marry her ; 
 and soon was thrown into prison in the Tower and 
 became impoverished. The " Evidence " after describing 
 all these matters in full will go on to suggest that the 
 purchase which Lord Southampton's gift enabled 
 " Shakspere " to complete was not one of property 
 in the neighbourhood of Stratford, where the "orthodox" 
 have sought for it in vain, but was one of Shares in 
 the Globe Theatre, which was just afterwards erected, 
 and, as soon as opened, at once became the home of 
 the " Shakespeare " Dramas. That the Stratford Actor 
 did in some way become possessed of a large interest 
 in it is not denied. Mr Sidney Lee airily says that 
 the Burbidges, by whom the theatre was built, " Must " 
 have given him the Shares. Yet they subsequently 
 wrote of him merely as "a deserving man," so that 
 the suggestion, which the " Evidence " will advance, 
 seems at least as probable as Mr Sidney Lee's " Must." 
 Other evidence, showing that Bacon also was greatly
 
 40 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 interested, in other than a money sense, in this Globe 
 Theatre will be adduced in the " Evidence." The name 
 of the theatre closely resembles the title which would 
 be suggested by one of his prose works ; the classical 
 motto for which it was conspicuous was plainly pro- 
 vided by a man of learning and deep reading. We 
 do not exactly know how the interior of the theatre 
 was arranged, since it was burnt down in 1613 ; but it 
 is not a little remarkable that so great an interest was 
 taken by Bacon in theatrical matters that after his 
 death there was found among his papers the ground 
 plan of a theatre, arranging its details down even to 
 the arrangements of the dressing-rooms for the Actors. 
 
 That Francis Bacon took considerable interest in 
 the new arrangement, whatever that was, will be treated 
 by the " Evidence " as being already sufficiently made 
 obvious. After an interval, which had lasted about two 
 years — that is, from Marlow's death on ist June 1593 
 until about the year 1595 — the "Shakespeare" Plays 
 assumed their appearance under that name. And as 
 early as 1598 one of them made its appearance in print. 
 This was that of Love's Labour's Lost, which had been 
 seemingly performed at Court in 1587-8, at a time when 
 the Actor " Shakspere," if he had left Stratford, could not 
 possibly have obtained the learning and education ex- 
 hibited in it. The style of the master mind dominating 
 the " Shakespeare " Plays of the new series, commenced 
 after the arrangement with " Shakspere," did not 
 materially differ from that shown in those which this 
 Outline has suggested, and the full " Evidence " will 
 prove, there is cause to believe were of earlier date. 
 No one, indeed, has ever ventured to suggest that the 
 plays written previous to 1594 were written under 
 the guidance of a different master mind from that 
 which belonged to the author of the earlier ones.
 
 AN OUTLINE 41 
 
 Yet the participation of Anthony Bacon in some 
 arrangement at about this date is abundantly clear. 
 Anthony had just returned from abroad, and, if he had 
 not actually come from Italy itself, he was at least 
 familiar with the scenery and towns, the manners, and 
 the people of North Italy. The "Shakespeare" Plays, 
 on being resumed, at once assumed an Italian garb. 
 In this dress they, one after another, painted pictures 
 of the Passions of Humanity. In turn, they showed 
 on the Stage Perversity, Devotion, Love, Scheming, 
 Avarice, Lust, the love of Nature, and Jealousy. The 
 " Evidence " will point out the hitherto unnoticed fact 
 that just about this time someone, actuated by some 
 unavowed reason, began to publish translations in 
 English of Italian tales and novels, which subsequently 
 formed the foundation of some of the " Shakespeare " 
 Plays. Others of these Plays of the Italian Group 
 incorporate previously untranslated gleanings from 
 Italian Literature. The "Evidence" will, moreover, 
 point out a passage of this description, in one of the 
 " Shakespeare " Plays, where a mistranslation in an 
 English version previously published is corrected, and 
 the passage made accurate according to the original 
 Italian. 
 
 That the Earl of Southampton played a prominent 
 part in the " Shakespeare " story is ground common to 
 both sides. It is undeniable that Venus and Adonis, 
 and Lucrece, which, it is contended, were the earliest 
 Poems written by " Shakespeare " — that is to say, 
 Bacon — after he had made, but before he had 
 finally ' concluded and acted upon, his arrangements 
 with the Stratford Actor " Shakespur," were dedi- 
 cated to the Earl. As unquestionably, the folio of 
 1623 collecting the "Shakespeare" Plays was also 
 dedicated to Southampton, there ought to be no
 
 42 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 doubt entertained about the sonnets published in 1609 
 having been also dedicated to Earl Southampton. In- 
 ternal evidence makes it clear that he was the person ad- 
 dressed in them, and thus " the only begetter " of them. 
 Of this opinion is Mr Sidney Lee. Some, indeed, see 
 " an insuperable objection " in the fact of the dedication 
 being to " Mr W. H." To the mind of a lawyer, the _ 
 name adopted is a sort of pardonable "blind," which 
 only makes the matter plainer. The name of the Earl 
 of Southampton, it will be recollected, was " Henry 
 Wriothesley." The initials employed are those of the 
 Earl, merely reversed. Mr Sidney Lee's shrewdness as 
 a critic made him see clearly that the Earl was the 
 person addressed by the Sonnets. His candour com- 
 pelled him to say so. The same shrewdness which 
 led him to see to whom the Sonnets were addressed 
 must, however, have told him that, in admitting the 
 Sonnets to be addressed to Earl Southampton, he was 
 enormously strengthening the case for the Baconians, 
 in view of the close relationships which have been 
 before pointed out^ as existing between the Earl and 
 Francis Bacon. The same candour which compelled 
 Mr Lee to make this handsome admission will, it is 
 hoped, lead him to accept the explanation of the real 
 relationship existing between Bacon and " Shakspere " 
 of Stratford, when such explanation as above is 
 proved by the full evidence. He can the more 
 easily do so when he finds that such explanation is 
 altogether consistent alike with itself, with the conduct 
 of everyone else, and with the part played in carrying 
 out the arrangement agreed upon, both in the original 
 production of the Plays, their subsequent publications 
 in the quarto editions, and in their publication in a 
 collected form in the folio of 1623, He will be glad to 
 
 ^ See ante pages 16-17.
 
 AN OUTLINE 43 
 
 find also that the ambiguities of the folio itself are 
 cleared up. Even the curious act of placing under the 
 portrait, " for gentle Shakespeare cut," lines embodying 
 the sentiment in a motto originally round a miniature 
 of Bacon in his youth, and embodied in the lines : 
 
 " Oh, could he but have drawn his wit 
 As well in brass, as he hath hit 
 His face." 1 
 
 will be found to have been explained. So will also 
 
 the numerous antitheses in the verses, and elsewhere, 
 
 between one " He " and " His " and another. 
 
 The " Evidence " will urge it to be a highly probable 
 
 thing that three young men who were " fellow-lodgers " 
 
 at Gray's Inn, and intimately associated, should agree 
 
 to play the respective parts which are above suggested, 
 
 and shown by the facts to have been subsequently 
 
 performed by them. The Literary man, or " man of 
 
 parts," becomes an author. The man of wealth liberally 
 
 contributes out of his abundant means. The man of 
 
 Diplomacy probably suggested the plan, and certainly 
 
 took his share in carrying it out. Thus it will be sug- 
 
 p^ested that the facts show all three friends contributed 
 
 o 
 
 something — each according to his means — to effect 
 an object in which they felt a common interest. 
 Francis Bacon desired to use the Drama as a vehicle 
 for instruction ; both his brother and his friend were 
 interested in the Stage, and desired to help him 
 achieve his ends. The story is at least a probable 
 one. 
 
 The arrangement thus come to between 1593 and 
 1 601 continued for about six years. An indication 
 
 ^ A miniature of Bacon, painted for his mother by Hillyard, a Devon- 
 shire man (1537-1619), a famous miniature painter, probably on the occa- 
 sion of his returning from abroad, is encircled by the words : " Sz tabula 
 daretur digna ajiimani malleni.'''' The words quoted in the text are a free 
 translation of this Latin motto, which is given in vol. i. of Spedding, page 7.
 
 44 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 of the class of Play produced during those six years 
 has already been given.^ 
 
 It will, however, be usefully pointed out by the 
 "Evidence" that the iirst of the series of Italian Plays 
 which appeared did so under singular circumstances. 
 A Play, entitled The Taming of a Shrew, was pro- 
 duced in English, having been adapted from the Italian. 
 Directly afterwards a Play substantially the same made 
 its appearance amongst the "Shakespeare" Plays. It 
 was, however, there entitled The Tanning of the 
 Shrew (instead of a Shrew), and it was surrounded 
 by what may be best described as a " setting," in which 
 local Warwickshire colouring is lent to the Italian Play 
 by the device of making the latter to be the dream of 
 a dissipated Warwickshire tinker, who goes to an Inn 
 kept by a Warwickshire landlady on a well-known 
 heath in that County, there meets numerous folk with 
 Warwickshire names, and finally falls asleep outside 
 the ale-house door, and has this marvellous dream. 
 
 During this Second Period of his life Bacon com- 
 pleted the Group of English Plistorical Plays com- 
 menced during the First Period of it, under the influence 
 of Marlow. Nothing of a special importance in connec- 
 tion with any of them will be noticed in the " Evidence," 
 except that it is traditionally said that Queen Elizabeth 
 was so pleased with the character of Falstaff that she de- 
 sired to see him shown as in love. The Philosopher knew 
 well that a being such as he had depicted Falstaff to be 
 was not capable of love, in any true sense of that word. 
 Nevertheless, he did not disappoint the Queen. Lust 
 would not be inconsistent with the character of Falstaff. 
 So, after a very short interval (traditionally said to 
 have been no more than a fortnight), he wrote The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, in which the hero Falstaff 
 
 ^ See ante page 41.
 
 AN OUTLINE 
 
 45 
 
 is made the merry sport of the combined passions of 
 his Lust and his Avarice. But the plot of the Play 
 was taken from that Italian source which was at the 
 moment dominant over the play-writer. A tale lately 
 translated from the Italian, and called "jThe Two Lovers 
 of Pisa," furnished its foundation. 
 
 Yet a third group of Plays came into existence during 
 this second period of Bacon's life. In the year 1601 
 the following circumstances obliged him to commence 
 a series of Historical Latin Plays : — In early life Francis 
 Bacon had been the political adherent of the party in 
 Opposition, headed by Lord Essex. In return, Essex 
 had exerted (most injudiciously) all his influence to 
 obtain for Bacon the Office of Solicitor-General. Their 
 relationships, indeed, had been such that Essex may 
 be said to have been Bacon's political father. A cold- 
 ness, however, arose between them in politics. Then 
 Essex was invited to take the command in Ireland of 
 the Army sent to crush a rebellion there. On this he 
 consulted Bacon. The latter at first advised him to 
 accept the position. But a personal interview at 
 Gray's Inn revealed to Bacon the real ends at which 
 Essex aimed. He advised Essex, verbally, not to go 
 to Ireland, and intimated that he himself could take 
 no part in his designs. Essex, however, went ; he made 
 secret arrangements in his own interest with the rebels 
 he was sent to subdue ; suddenly returned to London, 
 and tried to raise a rebellion there also, and so acted as 
 was likely to arouse a suspicion that Bacon was a sharer 
 in his treason. His rebellion failed, and Bacon took 
 part, by the Queen's command, in the prosecution of 
 Essex for treason which immediately followed, and 
 resulted in the Earl's execution. 
 
 To justify himself. Bacon resorted to Latin 
 History. He wrote the Play of Julius Ccesar directly
 
 46 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 afterwards (in 1601). In it, when Julius Caesar sought 
 the overthrow of the old constitution of Rome, his own 
 illegitimate son Brutus was one of those who, in the 
 interest of his country, firmly opposed his designs. 
 Bacon, in the Play, invests the position with pathos by 
 suggesting that Brutus, who gave Caesar his final stab, 
 was his own son, and by making Caesar pathetically 
 exclaim, in words borrowed by Bacon from the Greek 
 of the then untranslated Suetonius : " Et tu, Brute." ^ 
 
 Bacon's Biographer, Spedding, finds the " germ " of 
 Julius CcBsar in Bacon's " Conference of Pleasure!' 
 
 The arrangement come to in 1595 was put an end 
 to, as will be told in the " Evidence," by the death of 
 Anthony Bacon about May 1601. Bacon's uncle, Lord 
 Burleigh, also died about the same time. Bacon's 
 mother, perhaps distraught by these double deaths, 
 became insane, and so continued for six or seven 
 years, when she died also. This was not all. After 
 these dire calamities Queen Elizabeth, who had always 
 been a kind friend to Bacon, making him handsome 
 gifts just after each occasion on which she had declined 
 to approve of him as a Law Officer of the Crown, fell 
 ill, and she also died early in 1603. 
 
 Perhaps it is not a matter of wonder, under the 
 circumstances just stated, that the production of any 
 " Shakespeare " Plays was suspended, and was not re- 
 newed until after a long interval. After the death of 
 Marlovv, an interval of about two years had been re- 
 quired to effect new arrangements. On this occasion, 
 one of three years occurred. During it, Ben Jonson 
 became reconciled with Bacon's Stage Mask, the Strat- 
 ford Actor, whom he had previously reviled much in 
 
 1 In the original (and then untranslated) Greek of Suetonius, which 
 is Bacon's authority for making the dying Cresar exclaim, in English, 
 "And thou, too, my son," the words are : " Kai o-v, t€kvov."
 
 AN OUTLINE 47 
 
 the manner of Greene. It cannot but be suspected that 
 the vacancy in the Office of Literary go-between for 
 Bacon, which had been created by Anthony Bacon's 
 death, had something to do with this. At all events, 
 the reconciliation at that moment was opportune and 
 convenient to everyone concerned. Great as Ben Jon- 
 son's name unquestionably is in English Literature, 
 and unconnected with anything dishonourable as it is, 
 his career is one which does not altogether, and of itself, 
 carry evidence on the face of it that the suggestion just 
 made is an utterly impossible one. Jonson had been 
 educated at Westminster under Camden, Like Greene 
 and Marlow, he had been a Member of Cambridge 
 University, His stepfather had made him work as a 
 bricklayer ; then he had served as a soldier in the Low 
 Countries, He had afterwards killed a man in a duel, 
 claimed his benefit of clergy after conviction at the 
 Old Bailey for the manslaughter, and had been dis- 
 charged after the usual branding on the brawn of 
 his left thumb. Next he turned Roman Catholic for 
 twelve years (1598-1610), but at the end of that time 
 is known to have recanted. 
 
 Much, however, also occurred in the long interval 
 between Anthony Bacon's death and Jonson's succes- 
 sion as Literary go-between for Bacon, which the 
 "Evidence" will point out in some detail. The ac- 
 cession of James I., with whom Bacon had for years 
 previously been in secret comm.unication, greatly altered 
 his prospects, and opened for him a probability of pro- 
 fessional and political advancement. Indeed, he had 
 probably, without any delay, betaken himself to 
 Scotland to see the new King ; since we hear of an 
 interview taking place between him and the Treas- 
 urer for Scotland, In 1604 James appointed Bacon to 
 be a K.C., then a new rank amongst lawyers, which
 
 48 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 Bacon made to carry with it considerable professional 
 work for the Crown. In the same year " Shakspere " 
 of Stratford had conferred upon him the Office of a 
 Court-Actor. Then it was that he left the regular 
 Stage, with an understanding, according to tradition, 
 that he should return to London twice a year, and 
 play at Court two Plays written by Bacon. This latter 
 arrangement is shown by the books of the Privy 
 Council to have been carried out for several years ; 
 but in 1611 the Actor finally left the Stage. It 
 obviously was greatly convenient, alike to the Play- 
 writer and the Actor, that such an arrangement as 
 that of 1604 should take place. It left Bacon at 
 liberty to devote such time as might be required to 
 the development of his improved Professional and 
 Political prospects ; it left the Actor free to enjoy at 
 Stratford the (in his eye) considerable wealth which he 
 had acquired. 
 
 Again the type of Plays alters on the new literary 
 go-between, Ben Jonson, assuming that Office. On 
 Anthony Bacon undertaking it, the Plays had suddenly 
 acquired an Italian character. Now that Ben Jonson 
 entered upon it, they became distinctly of an English 
 and classical style, not differing much from Jonson's 
 own. 
 
 But, while taking this form, the Plays also resumed 
 the characteristic of reflecting matters personal to 
 Bacon, which had been distinctive of the early ones. 
 The whole Group of Plays written between 1603 and 
 1 61 3 will be found to, in some way, bear upon the 
 Personality of Bacon. Thus the very first Play of the 
 Group did so. Incidentally, it should here be men- 
 tioned that the Play of Othello belongs to the Group 
 of Italian Plays, and the "Evidence" suggests that 
 it was in an incomplete state when Anthony Bacon
 
 AN OUTLIiNE 49 
 
 died in 1601, and that this event, and those which 
 followed it, prevented its production on the Stage till 
 1604, when it was one of the Plays performed at Court. 
 The first Play of the new Group was that of Measure 
 for Measure, which was also performed at Court in the 
 year just mentioned. This Play of Measure for 
 Measure is the most legal of all the " Shakespeare " 
 Plays. It brings into prominence the legal abilities of 
 Bacon. That, in itself, was no ill-chosen subject for 
 an ambitious lawyer, aspiring to Political Office, to 
 bring to the notice of a new King. But the Play did 
 more than this. 
 
 Strange and striking are many of the Reflections of 
 Bacon's Life contained in the Shapespeare Plays. But 
 of all of them none is more remarkable than this of 
 Measure for Measure. 
 
 With a new King just seated upon the Throne, 
 nothing could seem more appropriate than that one 
 of the very earliest Acts of Parliament of his reign 
 should be a great Law Reform, proposed and urged 
 by one who had been amongst the most staunch of 
 his adherents in the days of the King's uncertainty and 
 expectancy, and who was, as he had shown himself, 
 well fitted to be one of the new Sovereign's Law 
 Officers. The Codification of the Law, and securing 
 its simplicity by constant Revision, was urged by 
 Bacon, alike in his place in Parliament ; in a Legal 
 work (" Maxims of the Law ") ; now by a Play ; and 
 afterwards in his subsequently published Philosophical 
 works. When the Play appeared, Bacon had already 
 brought this reform forward in Parliament — in 1593 — in 
 an eloquent speech. His " Maxims of the Law " had 
 subsequently developed his arguments. 
 
 In the Play in which he now again urged Codification 
 it may well be believed that the r Actor who served 
 D
 
 50 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 him as his " Stage Mask " most probably, as an ex- 
 perienced Stage Manager, gave Bacon considerable aid 
 by suggesting Scenes, Situations, and Dialogues, which 
 made lighter and more pleasant a Play having but a 
 dull subject — a Law Reform — for its theme. The Actor- 
 Manager may well be supposed to have brightened 
 this somewhat dreary teaching, in much the same way 
 as he previously had the philosophical enumerations of 
 the signs of approaching death detailed in King 
 Henry V. 
 
 Bacon's efforts for Codification did not end, how- 
 ever, with an endeavour so embody them as the 
 teaching of the Play of Measure for Measure. He 
 afterwards returned to the subject in his " De Aug- 
 mentis." That great work was translated into French, 
 and, like his other Philosophical Works, once more 
 gave proof that a Prophet is usually more honoured 
 in a strange country than he is in his own. For, in 
 France, these works commanded greater weight than 
 was ever allowed to them in England. Consequently, 
 it may well be that Bacon's labours for the Codification 
 and Simplification of the Law, distasteful as they would 
 naturally be in England to the lawyers of his day, and 
 much as they may for that reason have contributed to 
 the shipwreck of his life, may yet have had some effect 
 in inspiring the code Napoleon. 
 
 The Play presented at Court in the next year (1605) 
 was that of Macbeth. It appeared, at first sight, to 
 flatter James by adopting his views on the subject of 
 witchcraft. The King had not only written a book 
 upon this subject when ruling Scotland, but his very 
 first English Parliament had passed an Act of Parlia- 
 ment by which, in deference to the new Monarch's 
 known views, the cruel enactments, under which witches 
 were burnt to death, were consolidated and renewed.
 
 AN OUTLINE 
 
 51 
 
 Yet upon close examination it will be seen that Bacon 
 makes the Play of Macbeth really teach the philo- 
 sophical view that witchcraft, in truth, merely acts 
 through the Imagination, which compels men to seize, 
 when it arises, the opportunity of bringing into effect 
 what the mind has already desired. But the Play also 
 adroitly flattered James in another way. During the 
 Royal progress from Scotland to England the new 
 King of England, acting on his own mere authority, 
 had ordered a "cut-purse," who had been caught in 
 his train, to be forthwith hung. His advisers in English 
 Constitutional Law had then told him that such a 
 despotic act as hanging a man without trial was con- 
 trary to our English Constitution. The astute Bacon 
 craftily comforted the King's wounded vanity, by sug- 
 gesting in the Play that, in Scotland, such an act was 
 perfectly proper and legal ; since he depicted in Macbeth 
 the execution of a Scottish Earl by the King's orders. 
 The Play of King Lear was hardly less adroit in its 
 flattery of the King. It painted the evils likely to be 
 brought upon a kingdom when its sovereign left an 
 unsettled Succession. Men had greatly feared that 
 Queen Elizabeth, by leaving her Successor to the Crown 
 unselected, would entail once more upon England all 
 the evils of a Civil War consequent upon her failing to 
 name one. At the last moment she had nominated 
 " Our cousin of Scotland " to succeed to her throne. 
 Both in Macbeth^ and in Lear^ Bacon utilised the know- 
 ledge of how " to minister to a mind diseased," which 
 his own mother's sad insanity had given him a painful 
 opportunity of studying. In 1609 the Play of Troilus 
 and Cressida brought into prominence the deep know- 
 ledge of " Statecraft," which Bacon had studied from 
 the days when he, in his youth, was abroad in the train 
 of an Ambassador of England. This lesson alone
 
 52 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 would not be lost upon a monarch who prided himself 
 on his own knowledge of" Statecraft" as did James I. 
 
 But the Play of Troilus and Cressida was in many 
 ways a remarkable one. It, alone of the Shakespeare 
 Plays, other than those of the Trilogy of the Downfall, 
 was published without having been previously placed 
 upon the Stage. 
 
 One reason for this was that it was a Play likely to 
 be the more appreciated the more closely it was read, 
 and thus better suited for the Study than the Stage. 
 
 Another, in all probability, was that something, early 
 in 1609, made Bacon anxious to bring the Play at once 
 to the notice of those who would appreciate it. But 
 Shakspere the Actor was at Stratford, and to have 
 put it on the Stage in his absence would have been a 
 violation of the Agreement between him and Bacon, 
 which was scrupulously adhered to by both of them 
 throughout life, and by Bacon during the ten years or 
 so for which he survived the Actor. The " Evidence," 
 when the nature of this arrangement has been disclosed, 
 will make it clear that this was so. The excuse given 
 for the Play's appearance in print, without having been 
 previously acted, was insinuated to be that its readers 
 had to " thank fortune for the 'scape it hath made 
 amongst you " from some who were " insinuated to be 
 its ' grand possessors.' " How the Play had " made its 
 'scape," or who its " grand possessors " were, was not 
 stated. It is not a little remarkable that, in the same 
 year as that in which the Play appeared (1609), the 
 Sonnets appeared also in the name of " Shakespeare," 
 but their author there plainly told us (Sonnet ^6) : " I 
 keep Invention in a noted Weed, and every Word doth 
 almost tell my name." Shakspere of Stratford was 
 still alive, and in all probability played in Troilus and 
 Cressida when he next was up from Stratford. For, 

 
 AN OUTLINE 53 
 
 before the year 1609 had expired, that Play "was acted 
 by the King's Majesty Servants at the Globe," as we 
 are informed by the Title-page of another edition. 
 
 This " Monster of a Play " has largely puzzled 
 Shakespearian critics. They confess to have found 
 it "hard to characterise." Read by the light of the 
 Stratford Actor's life only, this certainly cannot be done. 
 
 Homer, in the days of ancient Greece, and long 
 afterwards Virgil, in the zenith of Rome's Literary 
 glory, had, as their many imitators had done since, 
 treated the Siege of Troy as a Martial subject, and 
 had sung the glories of the Art of War. 
 
 Bacon, departing from tradition, made the tale tell 
 of triumphs of Diplomacy, and of its representative, the 
 crafty Ulysses, In a word, the teaching of the Play, 
 as treated by Bacon, may be expressed in the three 
 words : Cedunt arma togce. The marvellous mind 
 of the great philosopher seemingly foresaw how the 
 Art of Diplomacy would one day triumph as, after 
 three centuries, it is doing by the spread of Arbitration 
 among nations, over the barbarous and antiquated Art 
 of War. 
 
 This was the grand teaching of the Play, written by 
 the enlightened and far-seeing Philosopher, who even 
 then taught that " Men's minds might be played upon 
 as by a Magician's bow," and led to seek some better 
 method of adjusting the disputes of nations than by 
 an appeal to brute force. While this was its great and 
 splendid lesson, Troilus and Cressida did not forget 
 either to flatter King James, or to identify Bacon. 
 As says Judge Webb : " The glorious Planet Sol . . . 
 it may be noted, was the cognisance of the Prince of 
 Purpoole at the Gray's Inn P^estivities of 1594, when 
 Bacon was Master of the Revels." " It was a political 
 Tract also," writes the late Judge (page 223), "and in
 
 54 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 it 'James is the glorious planet Sol, and Bacon is the 
 sly Ulysses.'" 
 
 The " Evidence " will quote many passages in this 
 one Play which are identical with views expressed by 
 Bacon in his prose works ; and in a striking passage the 
 late Judge Webb (p. 218) eloquently identifies the senti- 
 ments in the Play with at once the Law, the Science, 
 the Horticultural Knowledge, the Natural History, and ~ 
 even the Astronomical Learning of Bacon, as well as 
 with his habitual " Triads," and general style. 
 
 The Play of Cyinbeline (produced about 1610), was a 
 tale of an early British King, some of whose coins had 
 been found near Bacon's home at St Albans. Just as the 
 adventures of Falstaff, depicted in The Merry Wives of 
 Windsor, had been adapted from the Italian tale of " The 
 Lovers of Pisa," so in Cyinbeline a traditionary tale of the 
 ancient Britons is founded upon a novel written by the 
 Italian Boccaccio. The Play of The Tempest, with its * 
 picture of the loss of a ship in a storm off " the vexed 
 Bermoothes," was first written and presented before the 
 King at Whitehall in November 161 1, being the very 
 year after a ship called The Admiral, in which Bacon, 
 the Earl of Southampton, and the Earls Pembroke and 
 Montgomery (to the last two of whom the folios were 
 dedicated) were jointly interested, had been wrecked 
 off these very " Bermoothes." This Play was, after 
 Bacon's usual fashion, altered and augmented on the 
 occasion of the marriage, in 161 3, of James's daughter 
 Elizabeth with the Prince Palatine — a marriage, by the 
 way, which confers upon our present Royal family 
 their right to the Throne of England. When it was 
 then performed, it was happily remoulded by its author, 
 so as to represent James as the great magician whose 
 power had brought about this auspicious marriage. 
 
 The full " Evidence" will state, in greater detail than
 
 AN OUTLINE 55 
 
 is here permissible, the specific evidence which can 
 be produced in support of each of the statements made 
 above. 
 
 While the main body of the Plays produced during 
 the third period of Bacon's life (or period of Political 
 progress) consisted of those already mentioned, a further 
 Group of Plays was continued by him during the same 
 period. About the year 1607 he wrote a continuation 
 of the Crisis in Roman History, partially dealt with in 
 his Julius CcBsar, and completed his History of that 
 event. The new Play was called Anthony and Cleo- 
 patra. Soon after it was written, its author appears to 
 have contemplated its immediate publication. It is 
 known never to have been produced upon the Stage, 
 and it was not published until it appeared in the 
 folio of 1623. The Hon. Albert Canning, in his 
 "Shakespeare studied in eight Plays," remarks (at p. 162) 
 that " Bacon's opinion of Augustus, expressed in vigor- 
 ous, concise prose, much resembles the poetic description 
 of him by Shakespeare in the successive Plays oi Julius 
 Cissar, and Anthony and Cleopatra." In support of his 
 opinion he quotes a passage from Bacon's " Historical 
 Essays," which will be set out in the " Evidence." 
 
 The fourth Period of Bacon's life was Official, for he 
 was appointed Attorney-General in 161 3 and Lord 
 Keeper of the Great Seal in 16 17. After obtaining 
 promotions in the peerage, and advancement to the 
 post of Lord Chancellor, he was impeached and de- 
 graded from the latter high Office in 1621. 
 
 It is extremely remarkable to note that, while new 
 editions of such Plays as had been previously published 
 continued to appear, in the name of " William 
 Shakespeare," between the date of the death of 
 " Shakspere " of Stratford in 16 16 and that of Bacon's 
 Fall, yet no new "Shakespeare" Play whatever
 
 56 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 was put upon the Stage during that time. Never- 
 theless, we know that several had then been already 
 written ; as, for instance, Anthony and Cleopatra in 
 1607, and Troilus and Crescidda in 1609, besides the 
 rearrangement in a " Trilogy " of Henry VI. The 
 reason for this abstention from placing the Plays on 
 the Stage was, as the " Evidence " will show, that to 
 place them on the Stage, and to afterwards publish 
 them as " Shakespeare " Plays, would have been a 
 breach by Bacon of the honourable understanding with 
 ■" Shakspere " of Stratford, which both appear to have 
 observed in the most scrupulous and honourable way. 
 To publish them and the Trilogy mentioned below as 
 " Shakespeare " Plays, in the manner in which they were 
 afterwards inserted in the folio, was not a breach of 
 such understanding, if construed in the manner which 
 the " Evidence " will suggest. 
 
 Bacon's Fall was brought about by his life-enemy 
 Coke. That eminent, but sour and narrow-minded, 
 lawyer contrived to stir up a popular feeling against 
 the system of fees by which all Judges, as well as 
 counsel, were then paid, and Arbitrators are still. The 
 first victim was Yelverton, C.B., whom Bacon, as 
 President of the Privy Council, had to sentence. The 
 next was Bacon himself, who, like many another, 
 before and since, fell a victim to a vile system, 
 attacked by a popular fit of virtue, offering some 
 men opportunities to ruin individuals, though it does 
 not give courage to attack an abominable system. 
 
 The remaining period of Bacon's life is that of 
 his Downfall. During the first part of it, he collected 
 together and published, with the assistance of Ben 
 Jonson, the previously existing " Shakespeare " Plays. 
 To them he added a Trilogy, which may be called 
 *' The Trilogy of the Downfall." It completed, by a
 
 AN OUTLINE 57 
 
 concluding Play, each of the series of " Shakespeare " 
 Plays, the Educational Plays being concluded by the 
 Play Timon of Athens. In this, the original was so 
 altered that it could be said to Bacon de te fabula 
 narratur ; and to suggest the Scene to be at York 
 House rather than at ancient Athens. It brought 
 into prominence the conduct of faithless friends, not- 
 able amongst whom were Sir George Hastings and Sir 
 Richard Young, who deserted a once prosperous man 
 after his Fall, and the one faithful servant — in Bacon's 
 case his Steward, Sir Thomas Mentys — who remains 
 true to him. The series of English History Plays 
 was concluded by a new Play named King Henry 
 VIII., which took the place of an older Play of the 
 same name. Critics of this detect that much of 
 it was written by Fletcher, the son of a judge, and 
 the colleague of Beaumont. There existed a close 
 connection, probably through Archbishop Whitgift, 
 between Bacon and the family of the Fletchers, one 
 of whom Bacon, when Lord Chancellor, presented to a 
 living in his gift in that capacity. This Play reflected 
 two incidents in Bacon's life. A fallen Chancellor, 
 like himself, was depicted in Cardinal Wolsey. Bacon's 
 own views, strongly condemning Benevolences as op- 
 pressive of the people, expressed by him in Parliament 
 many years previously, were in the Play placed in the 
 mouth of Queen Anne Boleyn, the mother of Queen 
 Elizabeth. Finally, the series of Latin History Plays 
 was, like Bacon's own career, brought to a close by 
 Envy (Coke personified) working the downfall of the 
 object of its jealousy, Coriolanus (Bacon himself), by 
 playing upon the popular feeling of the moment. 
 
 Having thus collected the " Shakespeare " Plays, 
 Bacon devoted the remainder of his life to the pub- 
 lication of those Philosophical works for which the
 
 58 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 Plays had prepared the way. He died, in the year 
 1626, of a chill contracted in an experiment strangely 
 echoing the inquiries made in Hamlet (Act v. Sc. i), 
 as to how long a dead body can be preserved ere it 
 decompose. In that Play, we read that a Tanner has 
 his hide so tanned that he will last eight or nine years. 
 Anticipating the modern system of refrigeration, Bacon 
 was trying the effect of stuffing a dead fowl with snow, 
 when he caught the chill which, as with his father before 
 him, developed into pneumonia and caused his death. 
 
 Besides the evidence afforded by his entire life, 
 identifying Bacon with the " Shakespeare " Plays, 
 both internal evidence in those Dramas, and also con- 
 siderable external evidence, similarly identifies him. 
 
 The internal evidence contained in the Plays them- 
 selves will, in the " Evidence," be analysed by a 
 separate critical examination of each Play in its order. 
 The following propositions will be proved by their 
 contents : — 
 
 1. The Plays, as a whole, when closely looked at, 
 show that they were written in pursuance of the ideas 
 contained in Bacon's prose works, which have been 
 already cited.^ 
 
 2. Not only Bacon's Philosophy, but many of his 
 other attainments, are found running through the 
 "Shakespeare" Plays as a whole. In some his Clas- 
 sical knowledge is prominent. A Scholar, versed in 
 the Classics, instinctively feels that the Classical 
 allusions made in the Plays echo thoughts in the Classics, 
 and are not the mere laboured efforts of a man, himself 
 ignorant of Classics, working with the aid of a 
 Translation which, however good — and the transla- 
 tions of those days were not the most excellent 
 — always fails to catch the whole spirit of the 
 
 ^ See ante pages 26-7.
 
 AN OUTLINE 59 
 
 original. In not a few cases, moreover, those originals, 
 as has been pointed out, were untranslated. In other 
 Plays Bacon's legal, medical, musical, and nautical 
 attainments, and, in yet others, his doctrines of Natural 
 History, will be traced. These latter were, on many 
 points, far in advance of his time, as some of them 
 even foreshadow modern Discoveries — such as those 
 of Sex in Plants, the Transmutation of Species, and, 
 seemingly, even the future Transmutation of bodies ; 
 the Deaf and Dumb alphabet ; Telepathy, which, 
 with its sister Psychology, still puzzles Science ; and, 
 most remarkable of all. Electricity, or, as he often 
 calls it, " Spirits." This last allusion strikingly shows 
 how entirely Bacon kept himself well informed of the 
 foremost discoveries of Science in his time. The dawn 
 of Electrical Science was in the days of Queen Eliza- 
 beth ; and the Queen and her Court interested themselves 
 in it. Dr Gilbert, M.D., a native of Colchester, in the 
 latter part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, wrote a treatise, 
 " De magnete," and is generally regarded as the Father 
 of modern Electrical Science. There is at Colchester 
 a picture of Dr Gilbert, presented to the town by sub- 
 scription from persons interested in Science, in which 
 the Doctor is represented as demonstrating by experi- 
 ments in Magnetism before Queen Elizabeth. Will 
 a Literary Jury o( the world believe that Bacon prob- 
 ably was an assistant attending some such demonstra- 
 tion ? Or will they rather think that the Actor of 
 Stratford was on such familiar terms with the great 
 Queen that she, "doubtless," invited him to lunch at 
 her Palace, and must " have made him stop to the 
 seance afterwards " ? ^ 
 
 1 Seriously, this is no unfair Parody upon the approved style of the 
 " orthodox " Shakespearians. In his " Life of Shakespeare," for example, 
 Mr Sidney Lee writes of him that "his summons to act at Court was 
 possibly due" to certain causes which he goes on to guess at. Again, Mr
 
 6o THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 Be this as it may, however, there are in all no less 
 than a dozen attainments, claimed by an " orthodox " 
 believer in him for the man of Stratford, which will 
 be shown in the " Evidence " to have been shared with 
 him not only at the date when he lived, but for many 
 a year afterwards, with no human being save Bacon. 
 
 3. The Periods of Bacon's Life, already pointed out, 
 are absolutely echoed in the Groups of Plays written 
 during each. Moreover, Bacon's very nature is betrayed 
 in the Plays. We know he was utterly careless of 
 money, and used to leave it in unlocked drawers, so 
 that it was pilfered by his servants ; indeed, his care- 
 lessness on this head probably contributed largely to 
 his first fall. In his " Essays on Sedition " he says 
 money is, " like muck, of no good except it be spread 
 upon the earth." Precious things are spoken of in 
 Coriolanus (Act ii. Sc. 2) in almost identical language ; 
 they are called " The common muck o' the world." ^ 
 
 4. A man naturally writes about his own surround- 
 ings, and about scenes with which he is familiar. Bacon 
 writes about Dukes and Duchesses, Bishops, Earls, and 
 Barons, with their ladies, and great Warriors. The 
 " Shakespeare " personages are all such as these, and 
 the scenes of the Plays are laid in palaces and battle- 
 fields. Nay more, some are placed in parts of France 
 where Bacon had resided, and so knew well ; others 
 
 Lee says that his "wedding probably took place" under circumstances 
 conveniently supposed by him. Mr Stronach collects fifty instances of 
 guesses such as this solely from the one book just referred to, and says that 
 he could without difficulty collect a hundred and fifty such instances. Prob- 
 ably he could, for any reader of the " Dictionary of National Biography," 
 who will look at a column of the article there by the same author, and 
 underrun with a pencil the numerous "guess-words," such as "probably" 
 or "doubtless," and the like, cannot but be amazed at the number to 
 which they will total up, even in one column where they appear to be 
 somewhat plentiful. 
 
 ^ As to Shakespeare's views on money, st&J)ost pages 92 and 98.
 
 AN OUTLINE 6i 
 
 are laid in the neighbourhood of his home at St Albans ; 
 and localities where the Court usually " lay " (such as 
 Windsor) are depicted in the Plays. 
 
 5. Court life and fashionable Society were, in Bacon's 
 days, notoriously loose.^ Many of the most prominent 
 Vices of the day are, however, vigorously reproved in 
 the Plays, Drunkenness was, at that period, actually 
 regarded as a gentlemanly habit, and Bacon must have 
 seen it daily prevalent around him. Yet many are 
 the passages in the Plays in which disgust and contempt 
 for it are expressed ; and of these the full " Evidence " 
 will contain a collection." Again, the morality existing, 
 even in Court life, between the sexes is sufficiently 
 exemplified by the fact that, till a hasty marriage, as 
 has been pointed out, obliged him to make her his 
 wife at last, the notoriously gallant friend of Bacon's, 
 the young Earl of Southampton, for years carried on 
 an immoral intrigue with one of the Queen's Maids 
 of Honour, as will be related in the " Evidence." Never- 
 theless, Lust is denounced by Bacon, alike in his prose 
 works and in the " Shakespeare " Plays — often in very 
 similar terms. In TJie Merry Wives its victim is 
 made the subject of ridicule and contempt ; ^ while a 
 song in it (^Act v. Sc. 5) cries : 
 
 " Fie on sinful fantasy, 
 Fie on Lust and Luxury ; 
 Lust is but a bloody fire 
 Kindled with unchaste desire, 
 Fed in heart ; whose flaines aspire, 
 As thoughts do blow them higher and higher." 
 
 The words in italics will be shown, in the " Evidence," 
 
 1 See as to this Greene's " History of the English people." 
 - See one also post page 99 n. 
 
 •* For a comparison on this subject between the life of Shakespeare of 
 Stratford and the sentiments expressed in the Play, see post page 99 «.
 
 62 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 to exactly echo the expressions and sentiments ex- 
 pressed in one of Bacon's prose works. The action 
 of a man acting as Bacon's friend Southampton had 
 done is made the object of warning in the Plays. In 
 The Tempest (Act iv. Sc. i) he is told that : 
 
 " If thou dost break her Virgin knot before, 
 All sanctimonious ceremonies may 
 With full and holy rite be ministered, 
 No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall 
 To make this contract grow. But barren hate, 
 Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew 
 The union of your beds with weeds so loathly 
 That you shall hate it both." 
 
 A reference to a " Shakespeare " concordance will show 
 that Lust is, over and over again, spoken of in the Plays 
 in terms of ridicule and contempt. In the "Evidence" 
 Bacon's sentiments in the Plays and in his prose works 
 will be contrasted. 
 
 6. The writer of the Plays was, obviously, not only 
 a gentleman in the best sense of that word, but also a 
 courtier. The delicate satire on passing events at Court, 
 which had required great delicacy of touch to make 
 sport of, bespeak him to have been both. Thus, in 
 Twelfth Night, Sir Toby Belch represents Queen 
 Elizabeth's cousin. Sir Francis Knowllys, an apparently 
 somewhat testy old soldier, who resided in the Royal 
 Household, and there made himself as much at home 
 as some people habitually do in the houses of relatives. 
 The Maids of Honour slept near his bedroom, and 
 they, after the fashion of some young ladies when going 
 to bed, chattered so loudly and so long that the testy 
 old soldier could get no sleep ; so one night, taking a 
 Latin book with him, he walked into the Dormitory 
 belonging to them, and insisted on walking up and 
 down in it, loudly reading his Latin the while, and
 
 AN OUTLINE 63 
 
 declaring that, if he were allowed no sleep in his room, 
 the Maids of Honour should have none in theirs either. 
 By the light of this explanation the passage in the 
 Play (Aa i. Sc. 3) where Maria tells Sir Toby that he 
 "must come in earlier o' nights," and that "your cousin, 
 M'Lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours," is 
 seen to be one of delicate raillery. The "chaff" (as 
 modern slang would call it) of the rest of the Play is 
 also made more evident. In the rest of Scene 3, Sir 
 Toby's conduct is explained by the assumption that 
 he was drunk when he acted in the way just described ; 
 while in Act it. Sc. 5 w^e find that Maria and Sir Toby 
 had grown to be close allies, and are (to again use 
 modern slang) setting a trap to induce the unpopular ^ 
 Malvolio to make a fool of himself That there micfht 
 be no mistake as to Raleigh being the person aimed at 
 he has previously been described, in Act Hi. Sc. 2, as one 
 who " does smile his face into more lines than there are 
 in the new map, with the augmentation of the Indies." 
 
 7. Indeed, the actual jokes and pleasantries contained 
 in the " Shakespeare " Plays will be shown by the 
 " Evidence " to have been either jokes originally made 
 by the Sovereign herself or pleasantries by some of 
 those about her. Thus in /. Henry IV. Act ii. Sc. 4 
 we have a Royal joke, which cannot be understood 
 without previously giving that "explanation" which 
 is usually so fatal to any humour. In the money of 
 old times, a Royal was worth los., but a Noble only 
 6s. 8d., and a groat 4d. Listening one day to a sermon 
 by a probably " wordy " but tedious preacher, appro- 
 priately named Mr Blower, that Divine addressed 
 Elizabeth as " My Royal Queen." Shortly afterwards 
 he called her "My Noble Queen." Said the tired 
 Queen : " Why am I ten groats worse than I was ? " 
 
 ^ See ante page 31, as to Raleigh's unpopularity.
 
 64 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 — a groat being 46. (as all jurymen know to this day), 
 and, consequently, ten groats being the exact difference 
 between a " Royal " and a " Noble." This joke is 
 echoed in the passage just referred to, where Prince 
 Henry, on being told that his father had sent a " Noble- 
 man " to speak to him, retorts : " Give him as much 
 as will make him a Royal man, and send him back 
 again to my mother." In T^e Tempest, Act i. Sc. 2, 
 we get a witticism which had been originally made 
 by Queen Elizabeth, and afterwards astutely adopted, 
 with all gravity, by Lord Treasurer Burleigh ; and in 
 Act iv. Sc. 2 a family joke is repeated which had hap- 
 pened on the Northern Circuit to Bacon's own father, 
 but was never published to the world, otherwise than 
 in this Play, till nearly half-a-century later. A convict 
 having claimed mercy from Sir Nicholas Bacon on 
 the ground that his judge and he were " of kin," and ex- 
 plained that his name was Hogg, the judge had replied 
 dryly: "But Hogg and Bacon are not of kin until the 
 Hogg is hung." But the identity of " Shakespeare " 
 with Bacon, established by jokes, can be carried even 
 further than it has already been. Some of these jokes 
 cannot be understood at all without a reference to the 
 " Promus," or commonplace book, which will be men- 
 tioned hereafter,^ and which is in Bacon's own handwriting. 
 Thus Falstaff, on one occasion (/. Henry IV. Act iii. 
 Sc. 3), says that if he has not forgotten what the 
 inside of a Church is like " I am a brewer's horse." 
 Asked the Commentators : " What is a brewer's horse ? " 
 The most erudite Dr Jonson most learnedly pointed out 
 that, as a brewer's horse is apt to be lean and hard- 
 worked, Falstaff undoubtedly meant to say : " If I am 
 not speaking truly may I grow lean." Steevens, the 
 most sapient of " Shakespeare " Scholars, commented 
 
 ^ See post page 65 et seq.
 
 AN OUTLINE 65 
 
 on the joke as one which did not refer to a horse at 
 all, but rather to the "cross-beams on which beer 
 barrels are carried into cellars." Bacon, in his own 
 handwriting, has noted in the " Promus " that a brewer's 
 horse is "the ass that carries wine and drinks water." ^ 
 
 8. It has just been pointed out that there is con- 
 tained in one of the Plays a joke, the original of which 
 is a subject of a note by Bacon in his commonplace 
 book, written by himself The " Promus " is a sort 
 of Memorandum Book, in Bacon's own handwriting, 
 which has come down to us, and is preserved amongst 
 the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum. In his 
 77th Sonnet, published in 1609, Bacon advises the keep- 
 ing of such a Book to hold " what thy memory 
 cannot contain," just as he previously had done in 
 his " Advancement of Learning," published in 1603. 
 About eight years before this last-named date, he 
 had himself begun to keep such a Book. It is in- 
 cluded by Mr Spedding amongst his Works, and 
 is entitled a " Promus of Formularies and Elegances." 
 Mrs Pott, who has edited the Book for the Bacon 
 Society, and Mr Hutchison, the Librarian of the 
 Middle Temple, have supplied information as to the 
 work, which may be summarised as follows : — The 
 Book was commenced in December 1594, and was 
 continued in January 1 595 after an interval of a few 
 weeks. It contained rough sentences, without any notes 
 between them either of reference or of explanation. 
 Apparently, whenever Bacon was greatly struck by any 
 expression he had heard in conversation, had met with 
 in his reading, or had himself employed in one of the 
 " Shakespeare " Plays, he afterwards " made a note " of 
 
 - The way in which the joke is worked out is given injra, and on next 
 page. For a comparison between the jokes in the ' ' Shakespeare " Plays and 
 those credited to " Shakspere," the Stratford Actor, see i>ost page 97, et seq. 
 
 E
 
 66 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 it. Thus we, at one place, get a group of notes from 
 the new Vulgate Version of the Bible, at another of 
 expressions in foreign tongues, or of foreign proverbs. 
 Many notes are made of expressions used before in the 
 " Shakespeare " Plays. Romeo and Juliet supplies a 
 good example of this, as six Promus entries are all 
 found in eleven consecutive lines {cf. Act it.), and when 
 the expression was one which had particularly struck 
 Bacon's fancy (such, e.g., as : " He may go by water, for 
 he is sure to be well landed," noted by Reid as his 
 No. 282 ; or as : " Happy man, happy Dole," noted by 
 Reid as No. 517) we find it employed in the Plays 
 over and over again, A better illustration of Bacon's 
 mode of using his "Promus" or Commonplace Book 
 could not be desired than is furnished by the expres- 
 sion " Brewer's horse " just referred to. The original 
 note in the " Promus " was in French, and of the Pro- 
 verb in that language : " L'asne qui porte le vin, et boit 
 I'eau." Bacon worked out various ideas from this. 
 Amongst others, we find a note by him : " Which carries 
 malt liquor but does not drink it." Thus we get the 
 expression " a Brewer's horse," to which reference has 
 just been made, and a similar expression in /. Henry 
 IV. Act iii. Sc. 3. A main idea the French Proverb 
 suggested to Bacon was that of a Drudge doing work 
 for another, for which the other gets all the benefit. 
 This, too, is worked out, alike in the " Promus " and 
 in the Plays (see, e.g. Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc. 5 ; 
 Measure Jor Measure, Act iii. Sc. 7). 
 
 Besides this " Promus," in his handwriting, another 
 Document can be also connected with Bacon, in a way 
 little less conclusive. Queen Elizabeth, in November 
 1595, presented Bacon with "a Lodge at Twickenham." 
 His correspondence shows that he there employed " good 
 pens," and was at least once, during a holiday period,
 
 AN OUTLINE (i^ 
 
 occupied with himself making notes for some " Merrie 
 Tales" — a description not applicable to his Prose or to 
 his Philosophical Works. Seemingly (the " Evidence " 
 will furnish ground for so thinking) the " good pens " 
 included Davies of Hereford. He, born in 1565, and 
 educated as a Scholar, was, in 1 594, about 29 ; and was 
 then commencing his career by acting for others as a 
 "good pen." By 1607, he had gone into the employ- 
 ment of one of the Earls (now Dukes) of Northumber- 
 land as writing master to his children. " Orthodox " 
 supporters of the Stratford actor are invited to, if they 
 can, show any connection between him and Davies by 
 something more substantial than a " probably," or a 
 "doubtless," or even a "must." In 1867, on the 
 demolition of Northumberland House (near the site of 
 the Grand Hotel, Charing Cross) in connection with the 
 Thames Embankment Scheme, there was in it found 
 a MS. book, in the handwriting of Davies, now pre- 
 served at Alnwick Castle. This book contained six 
 or (if a " Speech for my Lord of Sussex " be included) 
 seven known compositions of Bacon's. On the cover 
 of this were numerous " scribblings," seemingly of some 
 apparently recent matters of which Davies desired to 
 possess memoranda. Amongst these were the names 
 of several of Bacon's still unpublished books ; and, at 
 one place, each following the other, entries of " Orations 
 at Graies Inn Revels " ; of a " Letter to the Queen's 
 Majesty by Mr Francis Bacon " ; and " Essaies by the 
 same Author, printed." When published, the Essays 
 were dedicated to Francis's brother Anthony, and this 
 probably explains why, on another part of the cover, 
 there is " scribbled " also " Anthony Comfort and 
 Consorte." Amongst the other " scribbles " on the 
 cover there were the names of some Plays which had 
 been in a packet, but were no longer all there, includ-
 
 68 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 ing Rychard the Second and Rychard the Third, which 
 were amongst those that had disappeared. Similarly 
 "scribbled" upon the cover of the MS. book, seven 
 or eight times over, was the name of •' Bacon." About 
 the same number of times there was also written the 
 name, not of " Shaksper " the Actor, but the name of 
 " Shakespeare," which has on an earlier page ^ been 
 shown to have been invented about 1593-5- Besides 
 the mention of two of the " Shakespeare " Plays in the 
 list already quoted from there was amongst other 
 " scribblings " on the cover the line from Lucrece : 
 
 " Revealing day through every cranny creeps " ; 
 
 and, in close juxtaposition, though not so placed as to 
 quite "read on," are also the words : " See your William 
 Shakespe^^re." 
 
 After this follows, on the cover of the " Promus," 
 the following Latin quatrain : — 
 
 " Multis annis jam transactis 
 Nulla fides est in pactis 
 Mell - in are, Verba Lactis 
 Fell ^ in corde, ffraus " in factis." 
 
 After this quatrain there was written in English : 
 
 " Your lovinge ffrend, 
 
 Honorificabilitudin(e)." (Or some say "a.") 
 
 The termination of this long word, whether it be read 
 "e" or "a," is a false case ending of the long word, 
 " Honorificabilitudin-itatibus." We find the ablative 
 case plural in Act v. Scene i of Love's Labour's Lost. 
 But it is impossible, according to the rules of Latin 
 grammar, for a noun formed as this long word is to 
 
 1 Ante page 34. 
 
 2 Sic. It will be noticed that in each of these three places an unneces- 
 sary letter is added. The reason why this is done will be made clear in 
 the " Evidence."
 
 AN OUTLINE 69 
 
 have any case ending in either " e " or " a." The endings 
 mentioned just above suggest the ablative case singular. 
 But the true ablative case singular after the " din " ends 
 in " itate," not only by the rules of grammar, but in two 
 instances in mediaeval Latin which will be shown in the 
 " Evidence." Such a schoolboy's blunder as this is as 
 bad as when, in To7n Brown's Schooldays, a Rugby boy 
 translated " Triste lupus stabulus " as the " sorrowful 
 wolf," and so annoyed Doctor Arnold that he lost his 
 temper, and forthwith boxed the young scholar's ears. 
 Davies, though not an Oxford University man, meant 
 it for a hint to seek the root of the long word. This, 
 as asserted by an ingenious American, forms a startling 
 Anagram, containing in Latin an assertion of Bacon's 
 authorship of the Play. Anagrams were in frequent 
 use by scientific men in the sixteenth century. Francis 
 Bacon was often jocularly called Friar Bacon. His 
 famous namesake Roger employed at first a subtle 
 Anagram to conceal his invention of Gunpowder. The 
 great Galileo even, on one occasion, used Anagrams 
 to conceal, for the moment, some of his astronomical dis- 
 coveries, which he desired the credit of having been the 
 first to make, while he at the same time was anxious 
 that they should not be yet generally disclosed to the 
 world. Regarding the Play of Love's Labour's Lost as 
 written with the philosophical meaning already attri- 
 buted to it in this Outline,^ Bacon may well have had 
 similar reasons for desiring present concealment, but 
 ultimate disclosure thereafter, to those which actuated 
 Roger Bacon and Galileo. Moreover, the " Evidence " 
 will go on to point out that the Latin quatrain to which 
 the root of the long word is appended by way of 
 signature was founded on a similar quatrain which can 
 be traced to Dijon — a place in France with which Bacon 
 
 ^ See ante page 23.
 
 70 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 was very familiar, and where many of the scenes in 
 the " Shakespeare " Plays are laid — and also that the 
 original quatrain, and the variation of it given above, 
 were both published in Paris in 1608. Attention will 
 be further directed to the instructions for " secret writ- 
 ing," which Bacon gives in his " De Augmentis," requiring 
 the use of such a number of letters as will form a 
 multiple of five ; while the " Evidence " will show that 
 the number of letters in the original quatrain has been 
 ingeniously expanded from eighty-six to ninety, partly 
 by the addition of letters in the way pointed out above, 
 and partly by variations made between the quatrain 
 as printed above, and the original on which it is 
 founded. Here, then, is a new puzzle for students of 
 " enfolded writing," Anagrams, and such like things, 
 which were dear even to the learned in the days of our 
 forefathers, and are sometimes often now placed before 
 their readers by the puzzle editors of newspapers, and 
 found to still interest many people. The solution of 
 the Anagram here suggested will not be regarded as 
 a violation of the Copyright of this Outline. 
 
 Davies, in 16 10, addressed two epigrams to 
 " Shakespear." One of these is to " Our English 
 Terence, Mr William Shakespeare," and this seems to 
 address the Autho?' of the Plays; the other is in his 
 " Microcosmos," and is addressed to " Shakespear," 
 avowedly as an Actor. In doing thus, Davies wrote 
 consistently with, and indeed confirmed, the suggestion 
 that " Shakespeare " covered two personalities, already 
 made on an earlier page;^ and in accordance with the 
 works of Ben Jonson, and of the writer of " Ratsei's 
 Ghost," as they will be explained hereafter.^ 
 
 Further direct connection between written matter 
 
 ^ See ante page 34. 
 
 * See post page 78, et seq.
 
 AN OUTLINE 71 
 
 which can be traced to Bacon and passages in 
 the Plays themselves, also exist in other instances. 
 Thus there is one between Jidius Ccssar and Bacon's 
 "Interlude" on Fortitude contained in a Masque 
 called The Conference of Pleasure, which he wrote 
 for the Earl of Essex when the latter entertained 
 Queen Elizabeth in 1592. A similar striking connec- 
 tion between passages in the Plays and matter in 
 Bacon's handwriting, is also furnished by A Mid- 
 summer- Nighfs Dream. This contains {Act ii. Sc. i) 
 a passage of great beauty, commencing : "She, as her 
 attendant, hath a lovely boy, stolen from an Indian 
 Prince." A little further down in the Play there is 
 an equally lovely passage beginning : " Cupid all armed." 
 As in the case of fulius Ccssar, we find a Masque, 
 written by Bacon for Essex, and performed before 
 the Queen (in 1595), to contain a passage echoing 
 that in the Play. In it the lines already referred to 
 are apparently blended.^ This passage was found after 
 
 1 The poetry in the Masque will compare favourably with that in A 
 Midsununer-Night' s Dream. It runs thus : 
 
 " Seated between the Old world and the New, 
 
 A land there is no other land may touch, 
 
 Where reigns a Queen in peace and honour true ; 
 
 Stories or fables do describe none such. 
 
 Never did Atlas such a burthen bear, 
 
 As, in holding up the world oppressed ; 
 
 Supplying with her virtue everywhere 
 
 Weakness of friends, errors of servants best. 
 
 No nation breeds a warmer blood for War, 
 
 And yet she calms them by her majesty, 
 
 No age hath ever wits refined so far, 
 
 And yet she calms them by her policy. 
 
 To her thy son must make his sacrifice, 
 
 If he will have the morning of his eyes." 
 The whole of the verses set out above, as well as the passages from A 
 Midsumnier-Nighf s Dream, which are referred to in the text, we are told 
 by Mr Hepworth Dixon (in his "Personal History of Lord Bacon," at 
 p. 62), allude to an incident which had then lately happened in connection 
 with our newly-acquired Indian Empire. A Mighty Monarch ruling the
 
 72 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 it had lain for years in the dust of the State Paper 
 Office, and a note upon it, and the official description 
 in the calendar contains statements to the effect men- 
 tioned in the footnote below. The verses there quoted, 
 if they served no other purpose, would afford a useful 
 refutation of the assertions of those who boldly allege 
 Bacon to have been incapable of writing Poetry. But 
 direct connection between the " Shakespeare " Plays 
 and matter in the actual handwriting of Bacon can 
 be established in many more cases than the two or 
 three just instanced. The " Orthodox " believers are 
 challenged to point out Plays which do not contain, 
 in each of them, at least one expression taken from 
 the " Promus " or Commonplace Book in the hand- 
 writing of Bacon himself The "Evidence" in dealing 
 with each of the Plays will point out the particular 
 expressions in it taken from the " Promus." 
 
 In a few words, there are in existence no less than 
 four distinct written documents, each of which can be 
 traced to Bacon, on the one hand, and into the Plays on 
 the other. These are as follow : — (i) The Northumber- 
 land House MS. connects itself with Lucrece by a 
 citation from it ; with Love's Labours Lost, as 
 already explained, by the Anagram in the root word 
 
 country situated near the Amazon River had a son who had been born 
 blind. He sent this son to Queen Elizabeth, with the hope that he might, 
 through her, obtain "the morning of his eyes." This, the "Evidence" 
 will add, he actually did, probably in consequence of medical men having, 
 under her instructions, removed a film, which sometimes is found covering 
 the eye at a person's birth, and rendering him blind until a proper surgical 
 operation has been performed to remove it. Then the lad came to the 
 Queen's Court. " as her attendant," and as "a lovely boy stol'n from an 
 Indian King." He became "Cupid all armed "—in other words, " Love " ; 
 and according to the Play : " A certain aim he took at a fair vestal thron'd 
 by the west." The " fair vestal thron'd by the west " of the Play is made, 
 in Bacon's verses in the "Device," to become the "Queen in peace and 
 honour true" who reigns "seated between the Old world and the New."
 
 AN OUTLINE 73 
 
 " Honorificabilitudin " ; (2) The verses in the State 
 Paper Office echo the ideas in A M idsunimer- Night' s 
 Dream ; (3) The Conference of Pleasure admittedly 
 contains the " germ " of fulius CcEsar ; (4) The 
 " Promus " contains at least a few words taken, it 
 is believed, from every one of the Plays. The sup- 
 porters of the Stratford claim are invited to instance 
 Plays which contain expressions not also set out in the 
 " Promus." 
 
 In the face of this evidence of written documents, 
 such a search as some have proposed, either in the 
 seventeen-feet grave of the Actor, or at the Base of 
 Bacon's statue, or elsewhere at St Albans, in quest of 
 MSS. of the " Shakespeare " Plays, seems to be quite 
 unnecessary. We have already enough written evidence 
 to trace the genesis of the Plays. 
 
 9. The " Shakespeare " Plays exhibit, in addition to 
 those somewhat enlarged upon under Head 2, a 
 familiarity with at least one attainment, an acquaint- 
 ance with which was comparatively seldom met with 
 in the days when yachting had not yet become fashion- 
 able — that of Navigation. Bacon had, as we know, at 
 any rate crossed and recrossed the Channel in a sailing 
 ship, and probably he did so more than once. More- 
 over, we also know that he was once in a bad storm 
 there, and was on that occasion nearly shipwrecked. 
 The Playwright betrays familiarity alike with the cliffs 
 of the seashore {King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 6), one of which 
 at Dover is called " Shakespeare's " Cliff; and, in an 
 early Play {King fohn, Act v. Scs. 3, 5), with the 
 Goodwin Sands. In one, which is but little later 
 (///. Henry VI. Act v. Sc. 4.), we have a powerful 
 description of Shipwreck, which it is hard to believe 
 was written by one who had never himself been in 
 peril of it, so lifelike is it. Again, in Ki^ig Hetiry VIII.
 
 74 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 the buzz of an excited multitude is (Ac^ iv. Sc. i) 
 compared to " such a noise as the shrouds make at 
 sea in a stiff tempest." This comparison can only have 
 been made by a man who had himself heard the 
 " noise " of the shrouds " in a stiff tempest." Henry 
 VIII. was first published in the folio of 1623. In the 
 previous year (1622) Bacon published his treatise"/?^ 
 Ventosis" or " History of the Winds " — a subject on 
 which he plainly was speaking with the experience of 
 years behind him. 
 
 10. While several new Plays were, from time to time, 
 placed upon the Stage down to 161 3, in the year last 
 named the appearance of any new Plays suddenly 
 stopped. Till it did so many of the Plays which had 
 appeared were such as would, at one time and another, 
 have suited Bacon's purpose at the moment. When the 
 appearance of Plays ceased Bacon had just accepted, 
 in that very year, the Office of Attorney-General, and 
 in 1617 succeeded to the Seals. From 161 3 until his 
 fall from the Chancellorship in 162 1 his whole time 
 would be taken up by Official Duties, and he, moreover, 
 would not have any special object to be served by 
 writing Plays. But, only a couple of years after his 
 fall from Office, not only do the earlier " Shakespeare " 
 Plays appear collected together in a folio (1623), but 
 there are added to them the Plays comprised in the 
 Trilogy of the Downfall, and these are once more 
 Plays which obviously served Bacon's purposes at the 
 moment. The arrangement, which the " Evidence " will 
 suggest had been come to between Bacon and the Strat- 
 ford Actor, would have been broken had these three new 
 Plays been placed upon the Stage — so they were not. 
 
 1 1. Not only the thoughts, but also the style, phrases, 
 and the very vocabulary of the Plays and of Bacon's 
 works, are in many respects absolutely identical. The
 
 AN OUTLINE 75 
 
 " Evidence " will point out details of the respects in 
 which they are so. Such details are so multitudinous 
 that it is not possible to state them in this Outline. 
 
 12. Even the errors and changes of opinion 
 made in Bacon's works are also contained in the 
 " Shakespeare " Plays. Some of these have already been 
 incidentally mentioned.^ As in the case of the Identity 
 referred to under the preceding head, justice to them 
 can only be done by giving full details such as the 
 " Evidence" will contain, and they cannot be compressed 
 into mere Outline. 
 
 Such, then, being some of the most prominent points 
 in the internal evidence as to their authorship, which 
 is furnished by the "Shakespeare" Plays themselves, 
 an examination will next be made into the evidence 
 bearing upon this subject, which is wholly external to 
 these " Shakespeare " Plays themselves. 
 
 This external evidence falls under five distinct heads. 
 Briefly stated, these are as follows : — 
 
 I. It is a rule, alike of law and of common-sense, 
 that Admissions made by a man himself — at the 
 time when they are made contrary to his own apparent 
 interest — are, after his death, evidence upon the subject 
 they relate to should it become the subject of con- 
 troversy. Bacon, as already pointed out, had many 
 reasons for thinking that it would be very much 
 against his interests to let it be generally known that 
 he was a writer of " Stage Plays." His strict and severe 
 Puritan mother once threw into prison, as a Papist, a 
 mere messenger (F'aunt), whom her son Anthony had 
 sent to her, for no other reason than that he, as an 
 avowed " Papist," was offensive to her as a violent and 
 bigoted Puritan. So religious, indeed, was she that 
 her son Francis affectionately speaks of her as a " Saint 
 
 ' See ante pages lO-ll.
 
 76 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 of God." So strict a watch did she keep on her two 
 sons, even when in London, that we find in her letters 
 constant lectures about their health ; hopes that Francis 
 will not sit up late at night over some unmentioned 
 labours, which were evidently then engaging him 
 deeply ; and an expression of hope that the two 
 brothers at Gray's Inn do not there " mum, nor mask, 
 nor sinfully revel." Besides the fear of offending such 
 a mother, who was very dear to him, Francis Bacon 
 would be kept back by his own personal ambition, and 
 even by, as Bishop Stubbs says he would have had 
 reason to dread, a fear of prosecution for expressing 
 the views in them, from letting it be generally known 
 that he was the Author of the " Shakespeare " Plays. 
 All these things clearly made it " against the interest " 
 of Bacon to admit his authorship of these Plays. Yet 
 we, again and again, find in his correspondence state- 
 ments by Bacon that he was a " concealed poet," that 
 he had drank of " the waters of Parnassus," and one 
 saying that he is purposed " not to follow the practice 
 of the law , . . because it drinketh too much time, 
 which I have dedicated to better purposes" 
 
 As the letter, which contains the remarkable words 
 in italics, is dated in 1595 it cannot refer to Bacon's 
 Philosophical works, which did not begin to appear 
 till long afterwards. This letter, indeed, puzzles his 
 Biographer Spedding, who confesses that he cannot 
 understand why Bacon proposed to give up the law, 
 what his plan for earning a living otherwise at that 
 time was, and that he does not find anywhere any 
 indication of what Bacon was doing. The date, how- 
 ever, seems significant. A reference to Table A will 
 show that just then Bacon was busily engaged in 
 producing the Group of Plays of the Passions, and that 
 they were produced in great profusion between 1594
 
 AN OUTLINE 
 
 n 
 
 and 1 600- 1 ; while he, during the same time, was not 
 idle in producing English Historical Plays. During 
 the six or seven years from 1594 to the end of the 
 century no less than fifteen new Plays were written. 
 In other words, during the whole of this period of 
 six years "Shakespeare" Plays were being produced 
 at the rate of one every few months (on an average, 
 less than five months). During the latter portion of 
 the period Plays which, by the arrangement with 
 " Shakespeare " already referred to,^ and which will be 
 fully described in the " Evidence," were prevented 
 from being "Shakespeare" Plays appeared in large 
 numbers with, on their Title-pages, the name of 
 " William Shakespeare." On these the writer of the 
 " Shakespeare " Plays had at least spent some labour, 
 though they were not originally conceived by him. 
 The " Evidence " will set out much of Bacon's corre- 
 spondence in detail. 
 
 2. Letters from his friends, addressed to a deceased 
 man, in terms which afford evidence, showing what they 
 said to him as bearing upon a matter which is a subject 
 of discussion, are receivable in evidence when there is 
 proof that the deceased read them. Not only did Bacon 
 himself make many such admissions as are above pointed 
 out, but he continually received letters from friends 
 referring to the, in their opinion, unworthy occupation 
 in which he was engaged. Thus Sir Thomas Bodley, 
 the famous founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, 
 in thanking Bacon for a philosophical book received 
 during 1607, wishes that Bacon had followed such 
 studies as it contained from " the first, when you fell 
 to the study of such a study as was not worthy of such 
 a student." Sir Tobie Matthew, an intimate friend of 
 Bacon's, on one occasion wrote to him, when returning 
 
 ^ See ante page 34.
 
 78 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 some " writings " to him, that he would promise to 
 return him not "weight for weight" but "measure for 
 measure." This latter expression seems identified with 
 the " Shakespeare " Play of that name when we further 
 find Sir Tobie, in another letter to Bacon (January 1621), 
 writing to him : " The most prodigious wit that I ever 
 knew, of my nation, and of this side of the sea (Sir 
 Tobie was in England when he wrote the letter), is of 
 your Lordship's name, though he be known by another'' 
 The natural construction of these two letters seems to 
 be that in the one last set out Sir Tobie refers to Bacon 
 being best known as a wit under the name of 
 " Shakespeare," while in the former he alludes to the 
 " Shakespeare " Play of the name mentioned. The full 
 *' Evidence " will set out, of course, all the important 
 letters alluding to the subject. 
 
 3. The conduct of Ben Jonson, looked at as a whole, 
 really confirms the suggestion that, like Davies and 
 the writer of " Ratsei's Ghost," he knew both the Actor 
 Shaksper as such, and also knew that " Shakespeare " 
 was a " Pen-name " under which Bacon wrote. Down to 
 about the year 1601, when he, after the death of 
 Anthony Bacon, suddenly became reconciled to the 
 Actor Shakespeare, Jonson was at enmity with 
 Shakespeare. He then wrote a Play in Greek, which 
 was performed at Cambridge University in December 
 1601. In this he denounced Shakspeare the Actor 
 as one who 
 
 "With mouthing words that better wits had framed, 
 Now purchase lands, and now esquires are made."^ 
 
 So late as 1616, or the very year in which Shakspere 
 
 ^ This is an allusion to an application made to the Heralds' College by 
 Shakspere of Stratford just before for a grant of a Coat-of-Arms, which 
 would incidentally confer upon the "grantee" the rank of " Esquire."
 
 AN OUTLINE 79 
 
 of Stratford died, the Greek in which the Return from 
 Parnassus (as the Play performed in 1601 had been 
 called) was translated out of the Greek into plain 
 English. In it had been asked : " Are there no Players 
 here, no Poet-apes, 
 
 "That come with basiHsks' eyes, whose forked tongues 
 Are steeped in venom, as their hearts in gall?"^ 
 
 In the English translation published in 1616 the 
 Player is again spoken of as a "Poor Poet-ape"; and 
 it is said that he " from brokage is become so bold a 
 thief, As we, the robb'd, leave rage and pity it " ; and 
 it is added : " He takes up all, makes each man's wit 
 his own, And, told of this, he slights it." 
 
 It would seem plainly impossible that Ben Jonson 
 himself, no mean Play-writer and Poet, could satirise, 
 in terms such as these, the writer who, even before 
 1601, had produced The Comedy of En'ors, di\so Love's 
 Labour's Lost, with Romeo and Juliet, and As You 
 Like It, and, in addition. The Merchant of Venice, as 
 well as the other Plays enumerated in Mere's list of 
 1 598. Much less could he do so after the same Play- 
 wright had, between 1601 and 16 16, amazed the world 
 with Macbeth, with Lear, and with The Tempest, not 
 to name other Plays. Indeed, Jonson had himself 
 declared the " Shakespeare " Plays to be " such that 
 neither man nor muse could praise too much." Nor 
 did he. On close examination it will be seen that, 
 while writing of the Player pretending to be a " Poet " in 
 terms of contempt, such as those already quoted, Jonson 
 speaks most consistently of the writer of the Plays in 
 which the y^^/(?r appeared in the following words : — "I 
 love the man, and do honour his memory, on this side 
 
 ^ Sentiments in the Latin quatrain set out, ante page 68, are almost 
 literally translated in this last line.
 
 8o THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 idolatry, as much as any." This identification of the 
 writer " Shakespeare " is subsequently conveyed by 
 Jonson in a curious way. In his "Discoveries" there 
 is a passage, which will be set out in full in the 
 " Evidence," which has a heading " De Shakespeare 
 nostrati." In this Jonson describes Shakespeare as 
 " Our fellow-countryman " — in other words, as being 
 a fellow-Londoner. But more. Immediately follow- 
 ing the entry " De Shakespeare nostrati " there follows 
 a heading, entitled " Dominus Verulamius," or Francis 
 Bacon. In this latter entry Jonson repeats, in other lan- 
 guage, every single thing, as applicable to Bacon, which 
 had just before been said by him of " Shakespeare." 
 Yet a further similar hint as to the identity of the 
 writer " Shakespeare " with Bacon is given by Jonson 
 in his " Scriptorum Catalogus." This work is a bead- 
 roll of all the great masters of wit and language who 
 had been contemporaries with him, and " in whom 
 all vigour of invention and strength of judgment met." 
 Among these the greatest of them, in Jonson's opinion, 
 was Bacon, and to him he accordingly awards the palm. 
 " Shakspere " is not even mentioned in this catalogue 
 as having been either a writer or a wit. 
 
 This distinction between the Actor of the Plays and 
 the Writer of them will be elaborated in the coming 
 " Evidence " ; and the arrangement under which the 
 first named always appeared in the Plays of the latter 
 will be there disclosed and discussed. 
 
 4. Contemporary writers, other than Jonson, also 
 furnish evidence of the identity of the writer 
 "Shakespeare" with Bacon. Thus it will be recollected 
 that Nash speaks of " Shakespeare " as being the English 
 " Seneca," and that Bacon has been already identified 
 with Seneca.^ Moreover, the author of a work called 
 
 * See ante page 29.
 
 AN OUTLINE 8i 
 
 " Polimenteia," published anonymously at Cambridge 
 about 1595, stated that the supposed author of Venus 
 and Adonis — in other words, "William Shakespeare" 
 — was a Scholar, and that he also had been a 
 Member of Cambridge University, whence he had 
 proceeded to one of the Inns of Court. It is curious 
 that in one of the " Shakespeare " Plays the son of 
 Justice Shallow is made to pursue this very course. 
 After Bacon's death, his Chaplain and Secretary, Dr 
 Rawley, collected no less than thirty-two Latin eulogies, 
 written by his friends among eminent University men. 
 Many of these speak of Bacon in terms implying that 
 he had been a great Poet ; while one almost com- 
 mences by describing him as a " Teller of tales that 
 'mazed the Courts of Kings." 
 
 Nearly twenty years later there was published (in 
 1645) a book which, though anonymous, is generally 
 known to have been written by one George Withers, 
 a poet of that day. It describes the holding of a great 
 Assize on Mount Parnassus, with Apollo presiding at 
 the top of the mount, Bacon sitting below him as 
 Chancellor of Parnassus, while Edmund Spenser attends 
 
 as a Clerk. " Shakspere " is not forgotten, but he 
 
 is only placed below as a mere juryman. The sug- 
 gestion in this book seems to be not inconsistent 
 with the description of him given by Greene in 1892, 
 when we first hear of Shakespeare in London, and he 
 then is described as " an upstart crow beautified in 
 our feathers," or with Jonson's description of him in 
 the very last year of his life as a " poor poet-ape." 
 
 5. The " Promus," in addition to its other testimony, 
 affords a curious bit of external evidence which seems 
 to have hitherto escaped notice. The fact that it is 
 inferential rather than direct gives it additional weight. 
 Greene, it has been pointed out, was well acquainted 
 F
 
 82 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 with Spanish, and had travelled in Spain. He died in 
 1592. Two years later the " Promus," commenced in 
 December 1594 and continued in January 1595 and 
 onwards, almost in very early pages contains a series 
 of Spanish expressions, noted by Bacon for future 
 use. It appears as if Bacon, in the interval which 
 had taken place since Greene's death, had already 
 begun to realise that he was rapidly forgetting the little 
 knowledge of Spanish he had picked up from Greene, 
 and had accordingly made a note of as much as he 
 remembered. 
 
 The acts of a man, whose conduct is under the con- 
 sideration of a Court of Law, often afford more cogent 
 evidence, either for or against him, than even his written 
 or verbal admissions. 
 
 Bacon's interest when he, in early life, made the 
 admissions to which attention has been previously 
 drawn ^ was to conceal the fact that he was a writer 
 of " Stage Plays," and his precautions to secure this 
 concealment were most careful and elaborate. 
 
 In later life, and after his fall from the Chancellorship, 
 he still seemed to affect a desire to conceal his author- 
 ship from his contemporaries, but grew much less 
 careful in his methods of doing this, and seemingly 
 determined that some future generation should discover 
 his secret. Indeed, some of his acts after his fall 
 almost tear off the Mask, and almost betray his 
 Authorship. He certainly then concealed with far less 
 elaborate efforts than in former days. 
 
 As the " Evidence " will show in more detail, Bacon 
 at last allowed the genuine " Shakespeare Plays " to be 
 collected into one large folio volume, which included 
 in it a mere selection from among the numerous plays 
 then current in London with the name of " William 
 
 ^ See ante pages 73-5.
 
 AN OUTLINE 83 
 
 Shakespeare " upon their Title-page as their Author. 
 By this act alone he let it be plainly seen, by those 
 who looked closely, that there was someone yet alive 
 who knew what were genuine " Shakespeare Plays " and 
 what were not, and was entitled to select some plays 
 as such, and to reject others, as if they did not answer 
 some test within his knowledge as to what were, and 
 what were not, genuine Shakespeare Plays. The dis- 
 guise of the two Actor- Friends Hemming and Condell 
 (having somehow collected and gathered Plays which 
 were at the Theatre or in the hands of other Actors) 
 was one which Bacon's natural shrewdness must 
 have told him was very poor and transparent. For 
 not only had the Globe Theatre and all its contents 
 been burnt no more than between two and three years 
 previous to the Stratford Actor's death, but the con- 
 tents of the Plays themselves were in many ways 
 contradictory of such a supposition. For how could 
 plays which had never been acted at all, or had 
 thousands of lines in them altered since they were last 
 acted, be either at a Theatre or in the hands of Actors 
 who had never played them as they appeared ? How, 
 too, could it be that several Plays, such as the Trilogy 
 of the Downfall,^ reflect events which had happened to 
 Bacon himself long after the death of the Stratford Actor? 
 The literary style of the supposed editors of the 
 Plays was, again, too obviously like that of Ben Jonson, 
 then notoriously one of Bacon's own " Good Pens " ; 
 the antitheses between one " he " and another, and 
 between one " his " and another, as referring at one 
 moment to the Stratford Actor and at another to the 
 Playright, almost obtruded themselves. As if all this 
 might not afford sufficient evidence to disclose the secret 
 of his authorship Bacon added further to it. 
 ^ See ante page 56, as to these.
 
 84 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 An etching embodying the idea which the very name 
 *' Shakespear " was intended to convey was allowed to 
 appear in the Folio, together with verses which say that 
 in each line of the Plays their writer 
 
 " Seems to shake a Lance 
 As brandished at the eyes of Ignorance." 
 
 It needed little reflection to tell that, so soon as the 
 etching was observed, men would naturally ask whence 
 Ben Jonson, Bacon's literary assistant when the Folio 
 was published, and the avowed author of the verses, 
 obtained the very idea pictorially represented by the 
 newly-noticed etching, and that they would mentally 
 at once answer their own question. 
 
 Lest this key should be lost or mislaid in any way 
 another and a distinct one was supplied. As has been 
 seen ^ many years before, and when he was but a lad 
 of eighteen, Bacon's mother had commissioned Hillyard, 
 the famous miniature painter, to execute a miniature 
 of her son Francis, and that the artist or the lad's 
 admirers had placed round it the Latin Motto : " Si 
 tabula daretur digna, animam malletnr This minia- 
 ture, by the death of his mother and of his brother, had 
 come into the possession of Francis himself No one 
 has, indeed, ever suggested that it had during Bacon's 
 life fallen into the hands of anyone else. Yet, some- 
 how placed in possession of the sentiment embodied 
 in the Latin motto, Ben Jonson put under the " Figure" 
 which we are expressly told was " for gentle 
 Shakespeare cut" a translation of this motto, well 
 worthy of the fame of his old school, Westminster, for its 
 Latin versification. It " turned " the Latin in the words : 
 
 " Oh, could he but have drawn his wit, 
 ... as he hath hit 
 Upon his face." 
 
 ^ For this history of the miniature see ante page 14.
 
 AN OUTLINE 85 
 
 At this point the " Evidence," leaving the proof of 
 Bacon's authorship, which has been now afforded 
 ahke by the internal evidence furnished by the 
 " Shakespeare " Play and also by evidence external to 
 them, will next proceed to attempt the second of 
 the two efforts pointed out by Lord Penzance as 
 necessary.^ By sketching briefly as much as is 
 really known of the facts connected with the life of 
 Shakspere, the Actor of Stratford, and by pointing 
 out the inconsistencies between that life and the Plays, 
 it will now be endeavoured to throw upon his ad- 
 mirers the burden of proving that he ever wrote the 
 " Shakespeare " Plays, 
 
 George Steevens, one of the earliest and the greatest 
 of the Shakespearian Commentators, has been pointed 
 out by Mr Stronach to have compressed all that in 
 his time was known about the Actor into the following 
 sentence : " All that is known with any degree of 
 certainty concerning (him) is that he was born at 
 Stratford-on-Avon, married, and had children there — 
 went to London, where he commenced Actor, and 
 wrote Poems and Plays — returned to Stratford, made 
 his will, died, and was buried." 
 
 Even in this brief biography — probably one of the 
 shortest that ever was written — there is one statement 
 which must be rejected. For there is, in truth, no 
 evidence whatever that he at any time " wrote poems 
 and plays." On the other hand, there may fairly be 
 added to the brief biography of Steevens, not, indeed, 
 such a mass of imaginary facts as has been piled upon 
 it, but a supplement to the effect following : — 
 
 The Actor William Shakspere was the son of one 
 John Shakspere. His father was apparently a small 
 farmer and general dealer, who, possibly, at times killed 
 
 ^ See ante page 7.
 
 86 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 his own cattle. This man, it seems, was at one time 
 prosperous, and became Mayor of the little Town he 
 lived in. The son, William, attended the local grammar 
 school from about seven till about twelve. Then he was 
 prematurely removed from the school, owing to the 
 straitened means of his father, with his education far 
 from complete, and Vv-ith only that " little Latin and 
 less Greek " which, according to Ben Jonson, he re- 
 tained through life. The accident that his father 
 sometimes killed his own animals has given rise to 
 an absurd tradition, now generally discredited, char- 
 acteristic of the powers of imagination surrounding his 
 career, that the lad was once employed as a butcher. 
 " He never could kill a calf, except in high style, and 
 without making a speech," writes one collector of gossip. 
 The expression " killing the calf" is Stage-slang for 
 a bombastic style of acting, which there is considerable 
 evidence to show was Shakespeare's mode. If, as he 
 appears to have been, the Actor had a somewhat 
 broad humour of his own the phrase was just one in 
 which he would poke fun at his rustic neighbours. 
 It is well ascertained that, when no more than 
 eighteen, the lad made the acquaintance of a certain 
 Ann Hathaway, who was about eight years his senior. 
 Contrary to the advice given in the Plays which are 
 attributed to him, and contain a warning ^ against a 
 
 ^ About the time of Shakspere's marriage, when we may suppose that 
 the Playwright Bacon had not yet made the acquaintance of the Actor 
 Shakspere, we find the former writing in Twelfth Night — which Table A, 
 if it proves no more, at least shows to be a very early "Shakespeare" 
 Play — when the Duke asked Viola the age of the Lady whom she 
 has recommended to him for a wife, and Viola has told him ' ' about your 
 years, my Lord," the Duke says : 
 
 " Too old, by heaven ; let still the woman take 
 An elder than herself; so wears she to him, 
 So sways she level in her husband's heart."
 
 AN OUTLINE ^y 
 
 man marrying a wife older than himself, young William 
 Shakspere, after the fashion of his day, presently found 
 himself in a position which justified her friends in com- 
 pelling him to marry her. 
 
 In justice to the lad Shaksper, and as some have 
 sought to construe this to his disparagement, the 
 " Evidence " will point out that the facts do not 
 by any means necessarily show that he had been 
 guilty of seducing Ann Hathaway before marriage, 
 and only afterwards married her under pressure by 
 her friends. This is, indeed, the most uncharitable 
 construction placed by many on the circumstances. 
 But, as Mr Halliwell-Phillips justly remarks (at p. 62 
 of "Outlines," tenth (1898) edition), it is only "with 
 those numerous moralists [or rather, hypocrites, who, 
 being evil-doers themselves, are greedy to think, and to 
 affect belief in, all possible evil of others] who do not 
 consider it necessary for inquiry to precede condemna- 
 tion " that any dishonour rests in the matter upon the 
 "young husband." 
 
 The Rites of the Roman Catholic Church had, just 
 then, only very recently ceased to prevail throughout 
 England. Under them marriages were not, as in 
 modern days, celebrated in hot haste, perhaps leaving 
 one or other of the parties, and sometimes both, to 
 repent at leisure during the remainder of their joint 
 lives. The ceremony of betrothal, or " precontract," 
 usually preceded actual marriage by a few months ; 
 and, meanwhile, conferred upon the parties to it all 
 the privileges of an actual marriage. 
 
 A " precontract " prevented either party from after- 
 wards making a valid marriage with, or contract to 
 marry, anyone else. The case of Henry VIII. will be 
 recalled as affording a well - remembered instance of 
 this. If, however, the union of the parties seemed
 
 88 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 not likely to be happy or fruitful, or other good reasons 
 intervened, the "precontract" was never followed by 
 an actual marriage. At the Reformation the " pre- 
 contract " of the Roman Catholic Church was abolished, 
 in so far that it ceased to be a ceremony of any legal 
 effect. But the practice it sanctioned continued for 
 generations among the folk of this country. It long 
 continued to be the custom, especially in country 
 places, among the lower orders, that a marriage should 
 not take place, till the celebration of one became 
 necessary to render legitimate the child of which the 
 bride was likely to become the mother. So well 
 recognised was the practice that the present writer 
 well recollects being called aside by a gentleman's 
 respectable gardener in his own village and, being (as 
 is always his wish) on very friendly terms with the 
 humbler classes around him, confidentially told : " You 
 see. Master Garge, I be sending my Annie [his only 
 daughter] to Lun'on with he for a bit of a trip ; he 
 is a well-to-do widow man, that can make a wife 
 comfortable if he be mind to." 
 
 In that particular case no marriage ever followed, 
 no occasion for one ever arose, and the parties seemingly 
 changed their minds after the trip to "Lun'on." Neither 
 spouse was in such cases, in the country, regarded as 
 having acted immorally or dishonourably. 
 
 In Shaksper's case, the need that a marriage should 
 take place within a limited time became apparent. 
 Ann Hathaway 's friends, by the well-known marriage 
 bond, obtained, and Shaksper honourably gave and 
 discharged, legal validity to what was previously (under 
 the Law as recently altered) only an obligation of 
 honour. 
 
 To impute moral blame to people for following the 
 manners and customs of their day, and to try the
 
 AN OUTLINE 89 
 
 standard of morals in the sixteenth century by the cold 
 ceremonial fashions of the twentieth is cruel and hypo- 
 critical. 
 
 Justification of the requirement of the friends of 
 Ann Hathaway was shown by the birth of a child 
 to the possibly happy, but certainly impecunious, pair 
 within about six months later. It would seem that not 
 long after his marriage the young man fell into the 
 company of wild young fellows at Stratford. The next 
 we hear of him is that he formed part of a Company 
 who engaged in a drinking bout with a delectable gang 
 called the " Bidford Topers " ; that these outdrank the 
 Stratford party ; that the latter, nevertheless, were un- 
 able to make their legs carry them home, and reposed for 
 the night under a friendly crab-tree — an event which is 
 depicted, at least to the extent of a likeness of the tree, 
 in a picture at Stratford. It is also possibly immortal- 
 ised in drama in the Plays in the person of the drunken 
 tinker who, while reposing outside the ale-house on the 
 heath, dreamt the Play of The Tanimg of the Shrew 
 The next incident in the young man's life which lives 
 in the memory of Stratford is that he " took up with 
 poaching." To what extent this was carried on by 
 him does not seem to be very material, though much 
 good learning has been expended in an endeavour to 
 show that Sir Thomas Lucy, whose game appears to 
 have been the usual victims of young Shakspere's sport, 
 had not a legally protected " park," and, therefore, could 
 not have subjected the lad to the extremely severe 
 penalties imposed by the law for slaying deer in a place 
 duly "emparked." Be this as it may, the young sports- 
 man, not content with helping himself to the game of an 
 M.P. and county magistrate, as Sir Thomas Lucy was, 
 stuck a scurrilous lampoon on that squire's gates. The 
 assailed squire was then likely, especially in Elizabethan
 
 90 
 
 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 days, to prosecute him criminally for libel. The future 
 Actor having done as he had, Sir Thomas employed an 
 Attorney at Worcester ; and he, to use a modern simile, 
 soon made it " so hot " for Shakspere that he fled that 
 part of the country. This must have happened not 
 earlier than 1587, for in the year named we find him 
 joining with his father and mother in raising money 
 on a mortgage of the latter's property. The exact date, 
 however, when he thus fled the country is not really 
 known. But the burden of proving precisely when this 
 was rests with the admirers of Shakspere, according to 
 law. Two legal presumptions place this burden upon 
 them. In the first place, when a given state of affairs 
 has once been established a Court of Law always re- 
 quires those who assert any change to prove exactly when 
 it took place. This very question was long ago decided 
 as regards residence in the days when the old Poor-laws 
 often made the question where a man was residing at 
 some given time become one of importance in an inquiry 
 as to his " Settlement." So the Literary Jury must 
 patiently await this possibly-forthcoming proof from 
 the Stratford Actor Shakspere's adherents. Another 
 principle of law also throws upon these the burden of 
 proving when it was that Shakspere left Stratford. 
 For Courts of Law always say : " Ubi uxor, ibi Domus" 
 — in plain English : " Where a man's wife is there is 
 his home, and there it is presumed that he also is." 
 About the year 1587, however, a Company of Strolling 
 Players was in the neighbourhood of Stratford, and 
 it would not be unlikely that Shakspere attached him- 
 self to them. At all events, he somehow got to London. 
 He there seems to have been employed in connection 
 with the Theatre kept by the elder Burbage, with 
 whose son Richard, afterwards an accomplished Actor 
 and Painter, the full " Evidence " will give reasons for
 
 AN OUTLINE 91 
 
 believing that he may have been at school in Stratford. 
 The Burbages kept some Livery Stables near the 
 Theatre. As people usually rode to such places of 
 entertainment as this, in those days, it is easy to believe 
 that Shakspere's first employment in connection with 
 the Theatre was, as D'Avenant and the older writers 
 have stated, that of organising a band of boys to take 
 the horses of persons coming to see the plays. So well 
 did young Shakspere manage this business that he was 
 soon taken into the Theatre itself as a "Servitor" or 
 attendant upon the Actors, and it cannot have been 
 long before he became a " Player " himself, since we find 
 him in March 1591 playing a part in ///. Henry VI. — 
 the first Play produced jointly by Bacon and Marlow 
 after the first named had " deserted " Greene. 
 
 The arrangements come to after Marlow's death in 
 1593 were undoubtedly the making of Shakespeare's 
 fortune. 
 
 A curious corroboration of the fact that the arrange- 
 ments indicated on a former page^ were come to, and 
 that, as just stated, they were the foundation of the 
 Actor's fortunes, is inferentially supplied by the history 
 of his life. It may be assumed that he had left Strat- 
 ford, at latest, somewhere between 1585 — when one of 
 his children was born — and 1 590, since we hear of him 
 on the Stage early in 1591. It is " probable" enough, 
 notwithstanding that there is no actual evidence to 
 prove it, that the actual date of young Shakspere's 
 leaving Stratford was somewhere during the year 1587. 
 But, whenever he left, we do not find any trace of his 
 having returned to his native home before the time 
 when the negotiations consequent upon Marlow's death 
 were in progress. After this, however, the Actor, about 
 1 593-94, returns to his native town. His visits to it grow 
 
 ^ See ante page 22.
 
 92 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 more and more frequent, and each occasion betrays him 
 to be increasing in prosperity. Gradually he purchased 
 one piece of property after another in it, or adjacent to 
 it, including the " big house of the town." 
 
 Some recent writers make a heavy call upon the 
 credulity of Shakespeare's admirers when the latter are 
 asked to believe that, all the time while Shakspere was 
 " working his way up " in connection with the Theatre, 
 he had in his pocket, and kept there for years, the 
 MS. of Venus and Adonis. Why he, meanwhile, did 
 not sell this to a Publisher, and write a similar poem, 
 such as Lucrece, as a means of livelihood has not been 
 explained, as yet, by those who advance this theory; 
 any more than on what grounds, and for what reasons, 
 they think it was that this strangely bashful prodigy 
 never avowed that he was the writer either of the 
 Poems, or of the Plays in which he appeared ; and 
 never signed his name in the form in which it became 
 in print so familiar to the Public. 
 
 Of the life of Shakspere the Actor while he was 
 living in London we know positively nothing, save a 
 tale, not very creditable to him, which is recorded 
 in a gossiping diary kept by one Manningham, a 
 Member of the Middle Temple. This narrative, in 
 language none too refined, says that Shakspere, once 
 overhearing his fellow-actor, and probably schoolfellow, 
 Richard Burbage, making an assignation with "a 
 citizen's wife " for the following day, got there before 
 the appointed hour and, when Burbage arrived, humor- 
 ously sent down word to him that " William the Con- 
 queror came before Richard II." Such is the only 
 recorded incident of the life in London of one whom 
 his admirers credit with having miraculously educated 
 himself, and subsequently moved in the highest circles 
 of Court, refined, and learned life.
 
 AN OUTLINE 93 
 
 When the Actor Shakspere retired from the Ordinary 
 Stage in 1604, and returned to Stratford, he there 
 anticipated the fiction of " Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde." 
 For at Stratford he became quite another man from 
 the one he had been in London. He threw off all the 
 philosophy, learning, and polished courtly ways, with 
 which he is credited when in town, and shown in the 
 Plays. Indeed, not only was mere commonplace fiction 
 outdone by him, but he even surpassed the fancies of 
 fairy tales. Everyone is familiar with Hans Andersen's 
 Fairy Tale of the Ugly Duckling who, one day, suddenly 
 found himself a beautiful Swan. Even the imagination 
 of the famous Fairy Tale writer never dared to fancy 
 that the beautiful swan one day again became a mere 
 ugly duckling — crept back into the shell out of which 
 it had originally come and grew back again into that 
 ugly duckling. 
 
 Yet such are said to have been the achievements of 
 the " Swan of Avon." For, after his retirement to Strat- 
 ford in 1604, we do not hear of the Actor making any 
 pretensions to the qualities ascribed to him when in 
 London, and manifestly possessed by the writer of the 
 Plays. Indeed, he did not even gain local reputation 
 as a fiddler, though the plays show their writer to 
 have been a lover of music. Local gossips tell us 
 that he was fond of his pipe, though, as Bacon would 
 have been, he, assuming that he was their writer, 
 was too good a Courtier to mention Tobacco in 
 the Plays, lest he should by so doing vex the 
 kingly author of the "Counterblast." We learn also 
 that he was fond of sitting at his garden gate 
 and having his little jokes with passers-by. But we 
 do not hear that he fiddled at the Country Dances, or 
 in the choir of the church now said to have been " his." 
 The simple-minded man amused himself with farming,.
 
 94 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 varied by a few lawsuits, in which he claimed, besides 
 debt for farm produce, some other paltry debts as due 
 from his neighbours to him (one claim of this descrip- 
 tion was as small as two shillings). During all this time 
 he was acquiring property (among it the Great Tythes 
 of Stratford), and also had the satisfaction of what 
 modern slang would call being " squared " over an En- 
 closure objected to by the town ; and of successfully 
 resisting a claim to the repayment of a trifle of forty 
 shillings, which her father's shepherd claimed he had 
 lent to the Actor's wife to meet her necessities during 
 her husband's absence in London — until, at last, the 
 shepherd left it by will, with instructions to his execu- 
 tors to collect the sum thus remaining " in the hands 
 of Mr William Shakspere." 
 
 After some years thus spent at Stratford the retired 
 Actor had a festivity at New Place, in company with 
 his friends Ben Jonson and Drayton the Poet. After 
 this he fell ill, and died within a few days. 
 
 At his death neither a single book, any musical score, 
 nor musical instruments of any description, have ever 
 been stated to have been found in his house. Needless 
 to say, there was no MS. there either. 
 
 After the Actor's death the Will, which had been pre- 
 pared for him three months previously, was found to 
 have been duly executed by him — signed with his usual 
 signature of " Shakspere," though his name had been 
 given in the engrossment of it by the lawyer's clerk 
 as " Shakespeare." By this Will the testator disposed 
 of all his property, down to the minutest detail, and 
 including his sword, his silver-gilt bowls, and his 
 " second best bedstead." Yet it said not a word 
 about the immortal Plays, in which his worshippers 
 tell us he had added thousands of new lines — so fond 
 of money as he was, he even apparently quite forgot
 
 AN OUTLINE 95 
 
 the large income which their writer must for years 
 have obtained from the sale of the repeated editions of 
 them which had been published. 
 
 The sketch of the career of the Actor which is given 
 above may appear to be needlessly slighting. But, alas ! 
 it is founded upon hard facts, standing upon record. 
 If these seemed to press somewhat cruelly upon 
 Shakspere then, to quote the words of a great deceased 
 Judge, "so much the worse for the facts." It is no 
 part of this Outline to, without reason, belittle the 
 Actor, whose posthumous admirers have thrust upon 
 him a position which he himself in his lifetime never 
 sought for, nor assumed. Truth, in any case, must not 
 be suppressed, and, however disagreeable it may be, 
 the words of the historian Hallam make it necessary 
 that it should be told. Hallam's remark may be ex- 
 tended to every known incident in the Actor's life. 
 That great historian observes that " to be told that he 
 played a trick in a licentious amour, or that he died 
 of a drunken frolic . . . does not exactly inform us of 
 the man who wrote Lear!' The stern duty of placing 
 facts as they exist before a Literary Jury will be dis- 
 charged, in justice alike to Bacon and to him, and in 
 order that each of them may be given his proper place in 
 connection with the "Shakespeare" Plays. It will be 
 pleasant to turn to other matters for which Shakspere 
 the Actor is entitled to some credit. Two o-ood 
 traits in his character may be pointed out. Both throw 
 some light on the Authorship of the " Shakespeare " 
 Plays. One is that the Actor appears to have been 
 a man possessed of some genial humour. This, how- 
 ever, was more like that of a prosperous man of the 
 middle class, sitting in a Tavern and making merry 
 with his friends, than the classical " wit " of a polished 
 gentleman and courtier, or the delicate humour and
 
 96 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 refined raillery found running through the Plays. 
 Further, assuming some arrangement to have existed 
 between Bacon and himself, the highly honourable 
 way in which he strictly kept faith, and neither by 
 word or deed, directly or indirectly, advanced a claim 
 to the authorship of the Poems or of the Plays, is 
 greatly to be commended. 
 
 The Literary Jury may well be reminded that, after 
 all, the fact of Shakspere being so honourable a man, 
 however humble the part he played as to them, is 
 one for which the world is much indebted to him, for 
 this it was that made possible the production of the 
 "Shakespeare" Plays. Had Bacon failed to find a 
 Stage " Mask " after Marlow's death, or had Shakspere 
 afterwards proved less honourable or less scrupulous in 
 keeping the secret entrusted to him than he did, the 
 great philosopher would probably have ceased to write 
 " Stage Plays," and the world been so much the 
 poorer. Moreover, it is not unreasonable to suppose 
 that Bacon, like many a Play-writer since, was in- 
 debted to the Manager for whose Company he wrote 
 for many valuable hints and suggestions of a practical 
 sort as to the structure of the Plays. The " Evidence " 
 will suggest at least one probable instance of this. 
 In Henry V. (Act ii. Sc. 3) Dame Quickly gives an 
 account of the signs of approaching death which she 
 had noticed immediately before the death of Falstaff. 
 The indications described by her are exactly those just 
 preceding death which are subsequently enumerated 
 in Bacon's " History of Life and Death." This de- 
 scription is accurately taken from the writings of 
 medical experts — particularly Galen. But in the Play, 
 when a certain point is reached, and the dying man 
 should " cry out " at the very last (expressed in Latin 
 by the words ''' Et tunc clamor"), the accurate de-
 
 AN OUTLINE 
 
 97 
 
 scription is broken off as too solemn for the Stage, 
 and a bit of dialogue introduced, as we may well sup- 
 pose at the suggestion of the practical manager 
 Shakspere. Dame Quickly then says : " A' cried out 
 ' God, God ' three or four times ; now I, to comfort him, 
 bid him, ' a' should not think of God ' ; I hoped there 
 was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts 
 yet." An experienced Stage manager would at once 
 say that, otherwise, the ending would be too serious 
 and solemn, and too heavy for the Stage. Other in- 
 stances of " gags " or " business," which may well have 
 been suggested by Shakspere's theatrical experience, 
 such as his probable aid with facetious Law Court scenes 
 in Measure for Measure, will be contained in the " Evi- 
 dence," or will readily suggest themselves. 
 
 It remains to be seen whether the Plays themselves 
 do not, in truth, bear witness that the Stratford Manager, 
 while the Actor who took some part on the production 
 of each Play, was not himself the writer of them. 
 Shortly stated, the Plays, when carefully looked at, 
 seem to furnish such evidence under the following 
 heads : — 
 
 I. The Plays as a whole, if looked at as written by 
 the Actor, do not show themselves to have been written 
 in development of any preconceived plan whatever, 
 much less in pursuance of any idea expressed by 
 Shakspere the Actor at any time, either verbally or 
 in writing.^ Indeed, the Actor's admirers have until now 
 not been even able to agree as to their probable Chrono- 
 logical order. In some important cases, as notably with 
 regard to Ki7ig John and Hamlet, his advocates, feeling 
 themselves pressed, on the one hand, by the necessity 
 for making the date of each Play as much later than 
 1 591 as is possible, that being the date of the publica- 
 
 ^ As to Bacon's probable scheme, see ante pp. 25-7. 
 G
 
 98 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 tion of King John ; and, on the other hand, also 
 feeling that it is impossible to really maintain that 
 Shakspere left Stratford earlier than 1587, resort to 
 what Mr Fleay calls "the imbecile device of a lost 
 Play," when recourse to such a supposition is sought 
 with regard to anyone other than Shakespeare. More- 
 over, the Stratford Actor left no written compositions 
 of any sort behind him, and the five laboured signa- 
 tures of his which we possess certainly do not suggest 
 ^' the pen of a ready writer " capable of throwing off 
 the thousands upon thousands of lines which the 
 ■*' Shakespeare " Plays alone would require. 
 
 2. Apart from the Plays attributed to him, without 
 sufficient reason, the Stratford Player has not left any 
 evidence, not even a tradition, that he either possessed 
 any philosophy, any learning, or any of the attain- 
 ments traced to Francis Bacon. Neither can we find 
 anything in the life of the Player suggesting him to 
 have been a man of any refinement, if the Plays be 
 ignored for the purpose of supplying such evidence. 
 
 3. No division of the life of Shakspere can be formed 
 which is echoed by the Plays in any way. Nor is the 
 nature of the man. We have seen^ that the writer of 
 the Plays was a man that absolutely despised money, and 
 spoke of it as " muck," yet Shakspere was rigorous in en- 
 forcing debts due to him ; while, on the other hand, he was 
 a person from whom it was not easy to extract money. 
 
 4. Not one of the scenes, except only the local 
 colouring (the outside of an Ale-house, and some 
 common Warwickshire names) used as a sort of 
 ^'Setting" for the Italian Play of The Taming of a 
 Shrew^ is laid in or near Stratford, nor, indeed, any- 
 where in Warwickshire — yet many might have been. 
 What, for instance, would have been the difficulty in 
 
 ^ See ante page 60.
 
 AN OUTLINE 99 
 
 placing the scene of The Merry Wives of Windsor as 
 at Kenilworth instead of in Windsor Great Park, or 
 in making its characters take their names from a 
 family well known somewhere in Warwickshire, rather 
 than from one dwelling at Windsor ? Or again, some 
 of the battles of the Civil Wars between York and 
 Lancaster were fought within thirty miles of Stratford, yet 
 not a battle scene is laid there in any historical Play.^ 
 
 5. The very vices censured by the writer of the 
 " Shakespeare " Plays are found to be parts of the 
 life of Shakespeare. This has been shown to be the 
 case with regard to the latter's greed for money. The 
 drunkenness, reproved in the Plays, alike in compara- 
 tively early Plays '^ and in some later ones, is indulged 
 in by Shakspere from the days of the Bidford drink- 
 ing bout of his youth till he ends his life in conse- 
 quence of a " festivity " with some friends. Again, 
 like Bacon's friend Earl Southampton, and many 
 others of his day, Shakspere committed ante-nup- 
 tial immorality in spite of the eloquent warning 
 against it which the Plays contain.^ In later life we 
 find the incident recorded by Manningham in his 
 diary to have taken place soon after, if not contem- 
 poraneously with, the eloquent denunciation of Lust 
 contained {circa 1600) in the The Merry Wives of 
 
 ^ Yet many battle and other scenes are placed around St Albans. 
 
 ''■ In the comparatively early Play of The Taming of the Shrew (about 
 1594) the Induction contains a vivid description of a man who is "dead 
 drunk," and the Lord who has found him on the ground exclaims: "O 
 monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies." In 'The iMeny Wives of 
 IVmdsor (y/rMen 1599-16CX)) it is said (Act i. Sc. 2) of a drunken man 
 that "When he is best, he is little worse than a man ; and when he is 
 worst, he is little better than a beast." Again, in the Play of Othello 
 (written about 1600-1) we find the passage following : — "Oh 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 ! 
 Oh, strange ! Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a 
 devil." 
 
 ^ See ante page 61.
 
 lOO THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 Windsor} Even the Actor's marriage was in viola- 
 tion of his own supposed teachings, which have been 
 previously quoted.^ 
 
 6. The jokes attributed to the Actor are all mere 
 Tavern jokes, or else mock-epitaphs savouring of 
 ordinary Village-Churchyard poetry. They appear to 
 have been mostly made at the expense of either Ben 
 Jonson, or of some neighbours. Very different do they 
 seem from the delicate humour shown in the Plays. 
 
 7. Not a single joke in any of the Plays is connected, 
 even by tradition, with anything ever known to have 
 been said or written by the Player. It will be recol- 
 lected that the joke as to the brewer's horse is explained 
 by Bacon's Commonplace Book.^ 
 
 8. Nothing whatever contained in the Plays can, 
 indeed, be shown to be connected in any way with any- 
 thing, written or unwritten, traced back to the Actor. 
 
 While four distinct written documents connected 
 with Bacon have been shown ^ to be also connected 
 with the Shakespeare Plays, the admirers of Shakspere, 
 the Stratford Actor, are invited to produce one scrap 
 of paper in his handwriting in any way connected with 
 the Plays. His five crabbed and laborious signatures 
 are all in his handwriting that can be produced. And 
 these confirm the impression that the Stratford Actor 
 was not likely to have written the thousands of lines 
 contained in the Plays alone. 
 
 9. No practical experience of Navigation can ever 
 possibly have been acquired by Shakespeare of Strat- 
 ford. For it is admitted that there is no trace of his 
 ever having been out of England. The nautical ex- 
 periences traced to Bacon under this same head will 
 not be forgotten.* 
 
 ^ See anie page 61. '^ See ante pages 64, 65, 66. 
 
 ^ See ante page 70. ■* See ante page 73.
 
 AN OUTLINE loi 
 
 10. While the heads under which the Plays have 
 been considered hitherto in many cases have been in 
 marked contrast, as between Bacon and Shakspere, 
 yet under this tenth head there is absolute agreement 
 between them. It is common ground that the appear- 
 ance of any " Shakespeare " Plays absolutely ceased 
 during the Period between 1613 and 1621, during which 
 Bacon was holding High Legal Offices. 
 
 11. It would be at least very singular if the Actor 
 and the Philosopher not only possessed many identities 
 of thought, style, and phrases, but if each of them bore 
 a great part in enlarging the vocabulary of the English 
 language. Professor Max Muller says that, while some 
 English labourers have hardly 300 words in their 
 vocabulary, a well-educated English person usually 
 employs in ordinary conversation some 3000 or 4000 
 different words. Now, Professor Craik estimates the 
 vocabulary of the " Shakespeare " Plays at about 
 2 1, OCX) words. Some of these, variously estimated at 
 from 3000 to 5000 in number, are new words. Many 
 of them are derived from the Latin — a language with 
 which, his contemporaries tell us, the Actor had 
 little familiarity ; while the numerous commentators 
 on the "Shakespeare" Plays who support the claims 
 of this man of Stratford in substance corroborate his 
 contemporaries by relying on a theory that transla- 
 tions were used by Shakspere in the preparation of 
 the Plays. No translation can possibly teach a man 
 the structure of a language, or enable him to form 
 derivations from its root words. Moreover, many of 
 these same words thus derived from the Latin, and 
 undoubtedly found in the Plays, are also met with 
 in the works of Bacon. 
 
 12. It is impossible to believe that the subjects as 
 to which many of the errors and changes of opinion
 
 I02 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 met with in the Plays are such as can be attributed 
 to the Actor. It cannot be supposed, for instance, 
 that he deeply studied the motion of the Universe ; 
 the question of how the interior of the earth is com- 
 posed ; or Natural History — and all these so deeply 
 that he from time to time changed his views on 
 important points connected with each of them. 
 
 The " Shakespeare " Plays, as above pointed out, 
 furnish under twelve heads, which are above considered, 
 such internal evidence as, on the one hand, proves 
 that Francis Bacon was the author of them, and on 
 the other hand, when considered in relation to the 
 claim of the Stratford Actor to their authorship, throws 
 considerable doubt upon it. The "Evidence" will next 
 proceed to consider the external evidence bearing 
 upon the question which the Literary Jury will try, 
 when they are in effect asked to say : " Who was 
 Shakespeare ? " There is, in truth, no external evidence 
 in support of the Stratford claim that a native of that 
 town wrote the Plays. The Evidence usually put for- 
 ward in support of that claim is that, seven years 
 after Shakspere the Actor's death, the folio of 1623 
 appeared with the name of " Shakespeare " upon it. 
 But when it is shown, as it has been, that this name 
 is at anyrate not the Actor's Patronymic, or personal 
 name, but is an assumed one, the use of it is seen to, in 
 truth, furnish no evidence of the identity of the person 
 who in 1623 wrote or edited the Plays, with the in- 
 dividuality of the Stratford man. 
 
 Another head of external evidence usually becomes 
 available, when previously ascertained facts be proved 
 to be connected with the contents of the document in 
 controversy. In the case as to Bacon, much such 
 evidence can be obtained. This Outline sketches what 
 some of it is, while the "Evidence" will disclose much
 
 AN OUTLINE lo^ 
 
 v> 
 
 more. " Orthodox " Shakespearians, however, content 
 themselves with arguing in a circle. They say 
 "Shakspere wrote the Plays — the Plays show great 
 learning — therefore he must have been a very learned 
 man." They can, however, when pressed, give no 
 evidence of the previously ascertained fact that he 
 was a man of any learning, independently of the proof 
 in the Plays themselves that their writer, whoever he 
 was, answers this description. 
 
 The Bust in Stratford Church has been "restored" 
 out of recognition, from that depicted by Dugdale, on 
 the Cover of this Outline. The gravestone now at 
 Stratford supplies a piece of negative evidence which 
 would very probably, though not of necessity, be 
 fatal to the Stratford claim in a Court of Law, and 
 with an ordinary Jury. It is a well settled rule of 
 Law that every possible presumption must always 
 be made against anyone who destroys or suppresses 
 evidence. For example, a man in possession of a 
 diamond, which he will not allow to be seen, would 
 not be listened to for a moment were he to assure 
 a Jury that it was only a very low quality one, and 
 worth but a few shillings. The Jury would be told 
 by the Judge that they were at liberty to give the 
 Plaintiff the value of the most expensive sort of 
 diamond known, and this they accordingly might do 
 if they so pleased. Now, after the death of Shakspere 
 the Actor, a stone, bearing an uncouthly-cut inscrip- 
 tion upon it, was placed by someone over his grave. 
 Varying copies of the strangely-cut inscription are 
 given by several old writers, beginning with Dugdale 
 and ending with the late Charles Knight. These will 
 be reproduced in the forthcoming " Evidence." It 
 is claimed by some that the apparently confused 
 medley of large and small letters on the original
 
 I04 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 stone enabled the inscription to be read by the 
 light of the system of "enfolded writing" given by 
 Bacon in his " De Augmentis," and to there declare 
 his authorship of the Flays. This system has been 
 referred to on an earlier page of this Outline.^ Such 
 an assertion as is alleged to have been contained on 
 the original stone might be easily tested by a reference 
 to the actual inscription itself. But, on inquiry for 
 this, it is found that it has disappeared, and been 
 replaced by a neatly-cut modern inscription reproduc- 
 ing the original lines in letters of uniform size. The 
 " Evidence " will contain a letter written by the 
 present vicar of Stratford in answer to inquiries made 
 by the writer. The vicar most courteously replied to 
 this request for information ; but did so in terms 
 betraying that he was previously himself left in 
 ignorance of what had taken place in the days of 
 some predecessor, failing to refer to any Faculty or 
 other legal justification for this removal, and even 
 indicating a doubt whether there ever was such a 
 stone. No reliance can be placed on the assertion 
 that Bacon's authorship was alleged in the original 
 inscription. The original inscription has, however, 
 been sufficiently examined for it to be ascertained 
 that, if the letters in it be made of the sizes which it 
 is claimed they should be, but which none of the 
 facsimiles exactly show, then the assertion alleged 
 certainly comes out. But any reading of such an 
 inscription can only be very unsatisfactory in the 
 absence of the original. 
 
 The " Evidence " will, in conclusion, show the manner 
 in which the Stratford superstition came into existence 
 some years after the death of the actor. When 
 Shakspere, in accordance with the arrangement just 
 
 ^ See ante page 70.
 
 AN OUTLINE 105 
 
 previously made, was journeying twice a year between 
 Stratford and London, during the years intervening 
 between 1604 a-^d 161 1, he used usually to stay a night 
 at the Crown Inn at Oxford. This was at that time 
 kept by one John D'Avenant. The Innkeeper had a 
 pretty wife, who bore him ten children ; he lived with her 
 to the end of his life; and was, by his own wish, buried 
 beside her after his death. Shakspere, who seems 
 never to have objected to a pretty woman, and prob- 
 ably liked being made comfortable at his Inn, became 
 godfather to one of the ten children — a boy who subse- 
 quently became an Actor, and was knighted. This man, 
 reckless alike of his mother's honour, and of his own 
 right to his name, by sundry mysterious nods and winks 
 to those who mentioned that Shakspere was his god- 
 father, to the effect that they must be careful not to 
 take the name of God in vain, and likewise by affect- 
 ing to know a great deal about the private history of 
 Shakspere — who, by the way, died when D'Avenant 
 was himself only about ten years old — managed to 
 create an impression that the actor was considerably 
 nearer akin to him than a godfather. All this stimu- 
 lated an Actor named Betterton, who greatly admired 
 the " Shakespeare " Plays, and was in D' Avenant's 
 Company of Actors, to go down to Stratford about 
 the year 1690 and to ascertain on the spot all that 
 he could about the deceased Shakspere. He there 
 ascertained nothing whatever, even at that date, which 
 in any way tended to prove that the late Actor had 
 written the Plays. But he discovered many little par- 
 ticulars of gossip about him. On the slender founda- 
 tion thus laid, and by altogether omitting to notice 
 that the name upon the folio differs, in the respects 
 already pointed out, from the surname of the Actor 
 and his family, there has grown up, in the course of
 
 io6 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 years, that which has come to be the Great Stratford 
 Superstition; and it is now accepted by many, especially 
 by Actors, as a Faith which it is blasphemy itself to doubt. 
 One final observation of a legal character yet remains 
 to be made. It is an undoubted principle of Law that 
 there can be no Insanity without Delusions. A Delu- 
 sion is a belief based on supposed facts which have 
 no existence. It has been the object of this humble 
 Outline, and will be sought by the far fuller " Opening " 
 of the evidence available which is intended to follow 
 it, to show that the Baconian belief is based upon 
 substantial facts, not upon fancies born of the Imagina- 
 tion. Mr Sidney Lee and Mr Churton Collins each 
 has stated that those who believe Bacon wrote the 
 Shakespeare Plays are fit persons for admission to 
 an Asylum for the Insane.^ Enough has now been here 
 said to show a Literary Jury that the Baconians are 
 suffering from no Delusions about their facts, and that 
 there is at least much method in their madness. 
 
 ^ Adopting this playful language of ironical exaggeration, it will be 
 satisfactory to all who hold the opinion, which the text mentions, as to 
 those entertaining Baconian beliefs, to learn that the particular lunatic who 
 has put together this Outline, and the "Opening" of evidence which it is 
 hoped will follow it, was not "wandering at large" when he did so, but 
 was then "under proper care and treatment." He, in truth, was at that 
 time a prisoner on Dartmoor. He did not, indeed, "do his six months 
 on Dartamoor," in the Government establishment there near Princetown, 
 but at the delightful residence of a medical man, to whose experience and 
 skill he is indebted for discovering and removing the causes of periodical 
 rushes of blood to the head, causing temporary incapacity, which, many 
 years ago, produced a long and dangerous illness, and would certainly have 
 caused another, and probably a fatal one, unless discovered and relieved. 
 Any inaccuracies or errors which may be found in this Outline will be 
 explained by the consequent personal disadvantages under which this book 
 has been written ; without access to a Library, solely by the aid of copious 
 notes already made by the writer, supplemented by that of books lent, 
 and information from time to time afforded by the kindness of friends, 
 amongst whom he is very especially indebted to George C. Bom pas, Esq., 
 and such books written by the other side as he chanced to have in his 
 possession; particularly his friend Judge Willis's "Lecture," Mr Fleay's 
 learned volumes, and Mr Halliwell-Phillips's "Outlines." Both friends 
 and foes to the views here expressed will, it is hoped, unite in pointing 
 out all errors and inaccuracies to the writer.
 
 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 Since the foregoing pages were written their author 
 has discovered absolutely conclusive evidence, hither- 
 to overlooked, that Francis Bacon was the writer of 
 the " Shake-speare " Plays. Bacon's " Commonplace 
 Book," or " Promus," is, as stated, ante p. 65, at the 
 British Museum. It is amongst the Harleian MSS., 
 and has long been recognised by the authorities of 
 the Museum as a genuine document, and in Bacon's 
 own handwriting. Dates in it show that it was 
 commenced in December 1594, and, after a break 
 of a few weeks, continued from January 1595 for 
 some time. It contains a selection of striking say- 
 ings which had, in any way, arrested Bacon's special 
 attention, as well as a collection of commonplaces, 
 of literary hooks-and-eyes to form up sentences, and 
 of ordinary proverbs ; and it is not, as some think, 
 merely the latter. Many a phrase noted in it has 
 some characteristic individuality sufficient to make it 
 easily recognised. This " Promus," when closely ex- 
 amined, as the writer has been doing for the purpose 
 of arranging the " Evidence " promised in his present 
 little book, discloses the facts following ; and these 
 facts, taken together, afford evidence which, as already 
 stated, can only be regarded as absolutely conclusive. 
 
 First, every individual Play of the thirty-six contained 
 in the 1623 Folio, save one alone, contains some marked 
 expression which is also found to be noted in the 
 " Promus." The one Play which does not contain any 
 such matter is Tlie Comedy of Errors. But this Play 
 was written in 1576 (see ante pp. 13, 18), and, con- 
 sequently, about twenty years before this " Note Book " 
 or " Promus," was commenced ; and the reason why the 
 io6a
 
 io6b postscript 
 
 Play and the " Promus " contain nothing in common 
 thus becomes obvious. The answer " orthodox " Strat- 
 fordians might make to this fact, if it stood alone, would 
 probably be that Bacon " must " subsequently have read 
 all the later Plays as they came out in Quarto, and 
 "made notes" from them for his own future use. 
 
 A second fact, however, disposes of this possible 
 suggestion. There is an entry in the " Promus," of 
 " Albada " [" good dawning " ]. This is from " Alborada," 
 the Spanish for " dawning " ; and the " Promus " entry 
 is evidently a reminiscence of one of the few Spanish 
 phrases, which Bacon was now rapidly forgetting that he 
 had learnt from Greene, who is shown, on pp. 24, 25, to 
 have been acquainted with Spain and the Spanish, and 
 to have been Bacon's early collaborator. The position of 
 the entry in the book tells it cannot have been made later 
 than 1596. And the expression "good dawning" is not 
 found anywhere in all English literature except in the 
 " Shakespeare " Play of King Lear. But King Lear 
 was not placed on the Stage till 1604. If Bacon, 
 in addition to being a diligent reader of the Quartos, 
 making careful notes of all striking expressions in 
 them, be supposed to have also been a regular " first 
 nighter " on the production of each " Shakespeare " 
 Play, even this latter supposition does not explain how 
 he came to be able, in 1596, to make a note in his 
 Commonplace Book of a unique expression contained 
 nowhere else than in a Play not produced on the Stage 
 till eight years later. 
 
 A third fact shown by the " Promus " is still more 
 convincing. The Folio of 1623 contained six plays, all 
 of which had never before been published. Two of 
 these, besides the three Plays of the " Downfall," as far 
 as is known, and most probably, never had been 
 acted ; though we know at about what dates one 
 Julius Ccesar was written and acted [ante pp. 45, 46),
 
 POSTSCRIPT io6c 
 
 and the two, other than " Downfall " Plays (see 
 p. 56), were written. Yet all six of the new 
 Plays contain striking expressions, also noted in the 
 " Promus." These will all be set out in full in the 
 " Evidence," being too long for this mere " Postscript." 
 The existence in the three Plays of the " Downfall," 
 which had certainly never been either acted or pub- 
 lished, previous to 1623, of expressions common alike 
 to them and to the " Promus " necessarily requires a 
 great deal before Shakspere of Stratford can be assumed 
 to be their writer. The three Plays just referred to 
 have been {ayite p. 57) already pointed out to have 
 dramatised incidents accompanying Bacon's "Downfall" 
 in 1621, Now "Shake-spear" of Stratford — the Actor 
 bearing that Stage name — had died in 1616. Let it 
 for the moment be assumed, in true Stratfordian style, 
 that the three Plays written in 1601, 1607, ^i^d 1609 
 respectively, previous to Shakspere's death, " must " 
 have been seen by Bacon, as a regular and never- 
 absent " first nighter " ; and that he, as usual, noted 
 some passages from them in his " Commonplace Book." 
 Passing by the other and first-mentioned three Plays 
 — half of the Folio's six new ones — still the " Promus " 
 passages in the three " Downfall " Plays remain to 
 be accounted for. Shakspere of Stratford cannot be 
 assumed to have been the writer of these three Plays 
 of the " Downfall " ; unless, at the bidding of the Great 
 Stratford Superstition, we can believe that, before he 
 died, he not only foresaw and dramatised events in 
 Bacon's career, about to hap})en some five years after 
 the Actor's own decease, but also that he, in some 
 miraculous and inexplicable manner, far more marvel- 
 lous than any of those of modern spirit-writing, got 
 expressions he had employed in the Plays, depicting 
 these future events, recorded in Bacon's private Note 
 Book ! ! This is impossible.
 
 io6d postscript 
 
 The only possible construction of the facts, shown 
 by the " Promus " alone, without considering any others, 
 has been suggested ante p. 34. All the facts on 
 both sides, when put together and taken as a whole, 
 show, as often happens, that truth in this matter, as in 
 many another, lies hid in their midway. Sound sense 
 bids us reject as evidence alike the mysterious and the 
 marvellous. This book as early as page 2 disclaimed 
 for the Shakespeare of literature reliance upon mysteri- 
 ous stories based on cryptograms or cyphers. Belief 
 must in turn be withheld from the legendary miracle of 
 Shakespeare the Actor being suddenly inspired with a 
 finished education of a high order. The truth here 
 dwells not too deep to be seen, nor at the bottom of 
 any well. It discloses that, great as William Shaksper 
 of Stratford was, as the first of a long line of magnificent 
 Actor- Managers who have raised the English stage 
 to the high position it now holds by the excellence of 
 their selections of the Plays placed upon it, as worthily 
 representative of the National Drama, he himself no 
 more actually wrote all the splendid Plays produced 
 at the Theatre he was connected with than did 
 Sir Henry Irving either Harold^ Queen Mary, or The 
 Cup ; or Mr Tree The Tempest itself Let, then, 
 literature unite with law in adapting the words of one 
 of the earliest of the Plays {Titus Andronicus, Act i. 
 Sc. 2) and saying that " Suum cuique is our Roman 
 Justice " ; and in coming to the conclusion expressed 
 in the armed, and thus antithetical. Prologue (see 
 ante page 53) to one of the latest {Troilus and Cressida), 
 which tells us that these great " Shakespeare " Plays 
 may be admired, by the respective believers in each, 
 as the triumphs either 
 
 "Of Author's pen, or^ Actor's voice." 
 ^ The distinction of type here is, of course, not in the orif;inal.
 
 "Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem 
 Quam qua; sunt occulis subjecta fidelibus." — HORACB, A.P. 150-1. 
 
 TABLE A^ 
 
 BACON'S LIFE 
 
 DIVIDED INTO PERIODS, WITH CORRESPONDING 
 GROUPS OF PLAYS 
 
 Period I., or the Early Period of Bacon's Life, ex- 
 tending from about 1583 (the year after his Call 
 to Gray's Inn Bar) until Marlow's Death in 1593. 
 
 GROUP I. {a) OF PLAYS 
 
 Educational and Philosophical Plays written under the iitfluence 
 
 of Greene 
 
 Written about 
 
 1583-4. ^The Two Gentlemen of Verona, formerly Felix and 
 
 Philomena. 
 1584-5. Hamlet. 
 
 1586. Twelfth Night. 
 1587-8. Love's Labour's Lost. 
 1588-9. The Winter's Tale. 
 
 1590. A Midsummer-Night's Dream. 
 1 591 -4. Titus Andronicus. 
 
 GROUP L{b) OF PLAYS 
 Historical Plays written under Marlow^s ififluettce 
 
 Written about 
 
 1 590- 1. King John. 
 1592. I. Henry VL 
 
 ^ In order not to overload this Outline this Table is now presented in 
 the very simple form here printed. But at the end of the "Opening" of 
 the full Evidence, the incident which gave origin to each Play in its turn 
 will be stated, and also the sources — in many cases previously untranslated 
 Latin, Greek, or Italian Literature — which were drawn upon by their writer. 
 
 '•* The Academic Play of the Comedy of Errors was written circa 1575 
 immediately after Bacon left College. See pages 18-19. 
 
 [For Period II. see over 
 107
 
 io8 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 Period H., or the Struggling Period of Bacon's Life, 
 extending from Mf^rlow's Death in 1593 till 
 James I.'s Accession in 1603, during which he is 
 said (by Anthony Bacon) to have been " working 
 for bread." 
 
 GROUP II. {a)— PLAYS OF THE PASSIONS 
 
 Plays in Italian garb depicting Human Passions, written with the 
 aid and under the influence of Anthony Bacon 
 
 Written about 
 
 1594. The Taming of the Shrew. 
 
 1595. All's Well that Ends Well (formerly Love's Labour's 
 
 Won). 
 
 1596. Romeo and Juliet. 
 1596-7. Much Ado about Nothing. 
 
 1598. The Merchant of Venice. 
 
 1 599- 1 600. The Merry Wives of Windsor. 
 
 1599. As You Like It. 
 
 1600-1. Othello {not produced on the Stage until 1604). 
 
 GROUP IL(b)— ENGLISH HISTORICAL PLAYS 
 
 Historical Plays written under Harlow's influence {continued) 
 
 Written about 
 
 
 1594- 
 
 II. Henry VI. 
 
 1594- 
 
 I. Henry VI. 
 
 1597- 
 
 Richard II. 
 
 1597. 
 
 Richard III. 
 
 1597-8. 
 
 I. Henry IV. 
 
 1598-9. 
 
 I. Henry IV. 
 
 1599- 
 
 Henry V. 
 
 GROUP II. {c) LATIN HISTORICAL PLAYS 
 
 Written abou 
 
 t 
 
 160I. 
 
 Julius Cxsar. 
 
 [For Period IIL see opposite
 
 AN OUTLINE 109 
 
 Period III., or the Political Progress Period of Bacon's 
 Life, extending from James I.'s Accession in 
 1603 till his appointment in 161 3 to be Attorney- 
 General. 
 
 GROUP III. {a)— POLITICAL AND PERSONAL PLAYS 
 Plays written under the influence of Ben Jonson 
 
 Written about 
 
 1604. Measure for Measure. 
 
 1605. Macbeth. 
 
 1606. King Lear. 
 
 1609. Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 1609. Cymbeline. 
 
 1610. The Tempest. 
 
 GROUP II I. {b)— LATIN HISTORICAL PLAYS 
 
 Written about 
 
 1607. Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 Period IV., or the Official Period of Bacon's Life, 
 extending from the year 1613, when he became 
 Attorney-General, until his Fall from the Chancel- 
 lorship in 1521. 
 
 No Group of Plays written during this period 
 
 Period V., or the " Downfall " Period in Bacon's 
 Life, during which he completed each of the 
 series of Plays previously commenced, and all the 
 " Shakespeare " Plays were collected and published 
 in the Folio of 1623. 
 
 TRILOGY OF PLAYS OF THE DOWNFALL 
 
 (a) Concluding Educational Play : Timon of Athens. ^ 
 (d) Concluding English History Play : Henry VI 11.''^ 
 (c) Concluding Latin History Play : Coriolanus.^ 
 
 1 Depicting the flight of faithless friends (Sir George Hastings, and 
 Sir Richard Young) and a faithful steward (Sir Thomas Mentys). 
 
 - Depicting a fallen Chancellor in Cardinal Wolsey, with a Queen 
 (Anne Boleyn, the mother of Queen Elizabeth) expressing political views 
 previously uttered by Bacon in Parliament. 
 
 ' Depicting Envy (Coke) working the downfall of the object of its 
 jealousy by playing upon the papular 'feeling of the moment.
 
 TABLE B, 
 
 ACKNOWLEDGED PROSE WORKS OF BACON 
 REFERRED TO IN THE PLAYS 
 
 ^,^._When a reference is made in any Play, as is frequently the 
 case, to a new edition of a work, which a previous Play has 
 already quoted, the new edition is named below as well as the 
 old one. 
 
 Temporis Partus Masculus 
 
 The Power of Knowledge 
 
 Observations on a Libel 
 
 Maxims of the Law 
 
 Colours of Good and Evil 
 
 Essay on Faction 
 
 Meditationes Sacras 
 
 Essays — First Edition. Dedication. Essay on Discourse 
 
 Essay on Followers and Friends . 
 Character of Julius Caesar 
 Valerius Terminus .... 
 Pacification of the Church 
 On the Interpretation of Nature (Cogitationes de 
 
 Rerum) . . . • • 
 
 Discussion on a Union with Scotland 
 De Principiis et Originibus 
 Helps for the Intellectual Powers 
 Advancement of Learning 
 Redargutio Philosophiarum 
 Essay on the Fortunate 
 Office of Constable . . . • 
 
 The True Greatness of the King of Great Britain 
 Wisdom of the Ancients 
 Filum Labyrinthi . . . • 
 
 Published 
 about 
 
 1585 
 1592 
 1592 
 1596 
 1597 
 1597 
 1598 
 
 Natura 
 
 1598 
 1601 
 1603 
 1603 
 
 1603 
 1603 
 1603 
 1 596- 1 603 
 1603 
 1608 
 1608 
 1608 
 1608 
 1609 
 
 no 
 
 I 
 i
 
 AN OUTLINE 
 
 I II 
 
 Essays on 
 Ambition 
 Beauty 
 Deformity 
 Friendship 
 Fortune 
 
 Greatness and Goodness 
 Pride 
 
 Love 
 
 Riches 
 
 Seditions and Troubles 
 
 Seeming Wise 
 
 Superstition 
 
 Vain Glory 
 
 Published 
 about 
 
 . l6l2 
 
 Descriptio Globi Intellectualis. 
 
 On Worship 
 
 Plan of the Instauratio 
 
 Novum Organum 
 
 History of Henry VIII. 
 
 De Principiis atque Originibus 
 
 Historia Ventorum ; or, History of the Winds 
 
 De Augmentis ..... 
 
 Advertisement touching a Holy War . 
 
 Descriptio Vitte et Mortis. History of Life and Death 
 
 History of Dense and Rare. Historia Densi et Rari 
 
 Essay on Anger 
 
 New Atlantis 
 
 Apophthegms . 
 
 Natural History 
 
 Essays on 
 
 Adversity 
 
 Anger 
 
 Ambition 
 
 Cunning 
 
 Custom 
 
 Delays 
 
 Education 
 
 Envy 
 
 Fortune 
 
 Friendships (New Edition) 
 
 Gardens 
 
 Goodness 
 
 Great Place (New Edition) 
 Innovations 
 Love (New Edition) 
 Nature 
 Revenge 
 
 Seditions and Troubles 
 Simulation and Dis- 
 simulation 
 Travel 
 Truth 
 Vicissitudes 
 
 1612 
 1612 
 1620 
 1608-20 
 1622 
 1622 
 1622 
 1622 
 1622 
 1623 
 1623 
 1623 
 1624 
 1624 
 1625 
 1625 
 
 Dates uncertain 
 
 Uses of the Law 
 
 Wisdom 
 
 Wisdom of the Ancients 
 
 De Galore et Frigore 
 
 Death (posthumous pub- 
 lication) 
 Physiological Remains
 
 112 THE SHAKESPEARE STORY 
 
 KNOWN "DEVICES" INTERLUDES, AND 
 "MASQUES" BY BACON 
 
 Published 
 about 
 
 Misfortunes of Arthur. (Presented to the Queen at Green- 
 wich by the Gentlemen of Gray's Inn) . . . 1588 
 
 A Device for the Earl of Essex. (Containing an Interlude 
 of the Conference of Pleasure, and also a Sonnet in 
 honour of the Earl, the Device being performed 
 when Queen Elizabeth visited Bacon at Twickenham 
 Park) 1592 
 
 Masque of the Order of the Helmet ; or, Gesta Graiorum. 
 (Performed at Gray's Inn simultaneously with the 
 Comedy of Errors) ..... 1594 
 
 Device for Essex. (Containing the Interlude of the Indian 
 Prince, and also Philautia, otherwise Love and Self- 
 Love) . . . . . . -1595 
 
 Marriage of the Thames and the Rhine. (Performed con- 
 temporaneously with The Tempest on the occasion of 
 the marriage of James I.'s daughter, the Princess 
 Elizabeth, with the Count Palatine) . . .1613 
 
 A Masque of Flowers. (Presented by the Gentlemen of 
 Gray's Inn on the occasion of the marriage of the Earl 
 of Somerset, at a cost of about ^2000 to Bacon, who 
 was then Lord Chancellor, and the " Chief Encourager ") 1614
 
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