THE SILENT 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ROBERT FRAZER 
 
The 
 
 Silent Shakespeare 
 
 BY 
 ROBERT FRAZER 
 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 William J. Campbell 
 
 1915 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introductory 7 
 
 Will Shakspere 18 
 
 Venus, Lucrece and the Sonnets 75 
 
 The First Pblio 110 
 
 Multiple Authorship 137 
 
 Old English Terence 167 
 
 The Silent Shakespeare >e ; .; 195 
 
 69 
 
THE SILENT S HAJC-E 8T 
 
 "To the great Variety of Readers!" 
 
 Folio of 1623. 
 
 In presenting the results of several years 
 of preparation, the writer desires to acknowl- 
 edge his indebtedness to the large body of 
 investigators, from Malone to Halliwell- 
 Phillipps, who have ransacked libraries and 
 garrets for new light upon the subject of this 
 sketch. To many of these something is 
 owing, and frequent mention of authorities 
 has been made in the text. But since it is 
 clearly impracticable to trace, in every case, 
 the source from which a suggestion has been 
 received, this general acknowledgment is 
 made, with the hope that no reference of 
 importance has been omitted. 
 
 In the matter of accepting the statements 
 of writers on this subject, it has been found 
 necessary to exercise caution; a single in- 
 stance will serve as an illustration. The 
 present writer has insisted that Shakespeare's 
 death attracted little attention; a point of 
 3 
 
 
 328438 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 some importance, as it testifies to the insig- 
 nificance of the man. 
 
 As to this matter, we find the ingenuous 
 Sir Sidney Lee, a modern pillar of the Strat- 
 fordian theory, with a different purpose in 
 mind, making the following remarkable 
 statement : 
 
 "When Shakespeare lay dead in the 
 spring of 1616 * * the flood of pane- 
 gyrical lamentation poured forth in a new 
 flood. One of the earliest of the elegies was 
 a sonnet by William Basse * * This fine 
 sentiment found many a splendid echo. It 
 resounded in Ben Jonson's noble lines pre- 
 fixed to the First Folio of 1623 * * Mil- 
 ton qualified the conceit a few years later, 
 in 1630 * * Such was the invariable 
 temper in which literary men gave vent to 
 their grief on learning the death of the 'be- 
 loved author/ &c." 
 Great Englishmen of the XVIth Century, 
 
 pp 279-81. 
 
 Here is a very flagrant instance of the 
 method of the suggestio falsi. The casual 
 4 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 reader will accept the statement that a flood 
 of lamentation poured forth in "the spring 
 of 1616," when literary men "learned the 
 death of the beloved author," without noting 
 that actually the flood of 1616 consisted of 
 a sonnet by Basse, which did not appear 
 before 1622, of the introductory matter to the 
 folio of 1623, of which more will be said 
 later, and of Milton's verses, in 1630, when 
 he learned of the death of the "beloved 
 author." 
 
 However, we can forgive Lee for this 
 sort of work, in consideration of his un- 
 wearying research, which produced, for ex- 
 ample, his identification of the "Mr. W. H." 
 of the dedication to the Sonnets with one 
 William Hall. 
 
 Except in the arrangement and interpre- 
 tation of the data which are the common 
 property of all, there is nothing new in the 
 following pages. Against the Hathaway 
 marriage, the vital absence of any mention 
 of it in the records of Stratford church, and 
 the remarriage of Mrs. Shakespeare after 
 5 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 1616, are insisted on. The interpretation 
 of Heywood's protest against the insertion 
 of his sonnets in the Passionate Pilgrim is 
 perhaps new; and I have not seen the point 
 made that Will Shakspere, whose patron 
 was Lord Strange, could hardly have dedi- 
 cated the Venus and the Lucrece to another 
 than his patron. 
 
 Perhaps, too, the part that I have as- 
 signed to Will Shakspere in the composi- 
 tion of the plays, is more or less new. So far 
 as I know, it has never been seriously main- 
 tained that his share in the work was a 
 minor one. Stratfordians are satisfied with 
 nothing less than to credit him with all that 
 is fine in the plays; and Baconians will not 
 allow that he had any part whatever in them. 
 
 The presentation of this theory is the 
 principal object and excuse for these essays. 
 Philadelphia, 1915. ROBERT FRAZER. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 No self-respecting Shakespearean scholar 
 permits himself to refer to the so-called 
 " Shakespeare problem' ' otherwise than in 
 terms of concentrated scorn. 
 
 Preferably he ignores its existence. This 
 is natural and inevitable. Eyes that have 
 been straining at a microscope do not at once 
 recover their ordinary focus; and the close 
 study of a subject induces affection for the 
 traditions and prejudices which may be en- 
 tangled in it, as well as for its vital truths. 
 
 In this way an unreasoning reverence has 
 grown up for the mere name Shakespeare, 
 even as though the poet had never written 
 "that which we call a rose, by any other word 
 would smell as sweet." 
 
 There really is a Shakespeare problem, 
 
 and the attitude of these scholars does not at 
 
 once dispose of it. A large and increasing 
 
 number of sensible persons now doubt that 
 
 7 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the actor was the author. That doubt would 
 be converted into certainty could a satisfac- 
 tory answer be found to the question; who, 
 then, is the author, if not Will Shakspere ? 
 
 An extraordinarily silent man was this 
 Will Shakspere, and his contemporaries 
 have repaid him in kind. No letters, diaries 
 or memoirs of the day exist to tell us of his 
 personal history. What we know of him has 
 been gleaned from public records. From 
 these indeed, we know a good deal about 
 him; his surroundings, his occupations, 
 interests, acquaintances and acts; and from 
 such we are enabled to form an opinion as 
 to his character. 
 
 The only other sources of information 
 open to us, aside from a number of un veri- 
 fiable traditions, are the writings attributed 
 to him. From them inferences may be drawn 
 as to the character, and to a less extent, to 
 the personal history of the author. This mine 
 has been thoroughly worked by scholars, to 
 their own great satisfaction; and we thus 
 discover that the author was a man of great 
 8 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 literary industry, with an intense apprecia- 
 tion of nature; of aristocratic tendencies, with 
 a touch of the Romeo in him; a philosopher 
 who looked upon this world as a phantasma- 
 goria; a writer of vast intellect, soaring 
 imagination and profundity of insight; and 
 one, moreover, whose life was one of extraor- 
 dinary intellectual and spiritual growth. 
 
 Such are the conclusions reached by 
 scholars like Professor David Masson, and 
 by the editors of the Tudor Shakespeare. It 
 is painful to have to record the fact that the 
 character thus synthetically constructed is 
 wholly and ludicrously unlike the character 
 of Will Shakspere, as revealed to us by the 
 external facts of his life. 
 
 Almost in our own day Emerson voiced 
 his perplexity over this discordance in no un- 
 certain phrase. He notes that Shakespeare 
 found a great body of plays in existence, and 
 used whatever he found ; he quotes Malone to 
 the effect that out of 6,043 lines in the three 
 parts of Henry VI, only 1,899 are original 
 with Shakespeare. He calls attention to the 
 9 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 fact that Bacon never mentioned Shake- 
 speare, and that Sir Henry Wotton, only four 
 years Shakspere's junior, and surviving 
 him twenty-three years, did not include him 
 in his long list of acquaintances and cor- 
 respondents. He continues: 
 
 "He was a good-natured sort of 
 man, an actor and shareholder in the 
 theatres, not in any striking manner 
 distinguished from other actors and 
 managers." 
 
 "The Egyptian verdict of the 
 Shakespeare societies comes to mind, 
 that he was a jovial actor and man- 
 ager. I cannot marry this fact to his 
 verse. Other admirable men have led 
 lives in some sort of keeping with 
 their thought; but this man in wide 
 contrast. It must go into the world's 
 history that the best poet led an ob- 
 scure and profane life, using his 
 genius for the public amusement." 
 Mr. Edwin Reed has collected and pub- 
 lished, in "Noteworthy Opinions," a long 
 10 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 list of doubters, many of them men whose 
 prominence entitles their words to respectful 
 consideration. From among many others, I 
 take these: 
 
 A W. von Schlegel 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
 
 Lord Byron 
 
 Henry Hallam 
 
 Lord Palmerston 
 
 Cardinal Newman 
 
 James Russell Lowell 
 
 Charles Dickens 
 
 Walt Whitman 
 
 John G. Whittier. 
 
 Wm. H. Furness said: 
 
 "I am one of the many who have 
 never been able to bring the life of 
 William Shakespeare and the plays 
 of William Shakespeare within a 
 planetary space of each other. " 
 Disraeli put the following into the mouth 
 of one of the characters in his novel of 
 Venetia : 
 
 "And who is Shakespeare? We 
 11 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 know as much of him as we do of 
 Homer. Did he write half of the 
 plays attributed to him? Did he ever 
 write a single whole play? I doubt 
 it. He appears to me to have been an 
 inspired adapter for the theatres, 
 which were then not as good as barns. 
 I take him to have been a botcher up 
 of old plays." 
 
 This, then, is the first phase of the 
 Shakespeare problem, which deals with the 
 extreme unfitness of Will Shakspere for 
 the role of the greatest dramatic genius of 
 all time. 
 
 The second phase of the question has to 
 do with the composite authorship of the 
 plays, in which we note a mass of incon- 
 gruities, manifested most glaringly, perhaps, 
 in the juxtaposition of passages of extreme 
 beauty, with scenes of intolerable and irrele- 
 vant buffoonery. 
 
 Long ago the keen, critical eye of Vol- 
 taire detected these anomalies, and although 
 he felt and expressed his admiration for 
 12 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Shakespeare as "an amazing genius" and 
 was the first to introduce his works to Con- 
 tinental readers, he did not hesitate to stig- 
 matize him as a "drunken savage" and an 
 "indecent buffoon." 
 
 These deformities in the plays were felt 
 very strongly by the historian Hume, and 
 doubtless were the basis for his much abused 
 criticism of Shakespeare writings. 
 
 Considered as a man, educated in the 
 lowest manner, he concedes him to be a 
 Prodigy; while as a poet, he severely criti- 
 cises his irregularities and absurdities, and 
 his inability to uphold for any time, a rea- 
 sonable propriety. 
 
 May we not allow that there exists some 
 ground for such verdicts, which were deliv- 
 ered before the present age of indiscriminate 
 admiration of the plays? 
 
 Gilbert Murray probably represents the 
 
 views of a majority of modern scholars in 
 
 holding that the Homeric poems were the 
 
 work of many poets, whose songs were ulti- 
 
 13 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 mately collected and set to the "Tale of 
 Troy," and, like the poems of Homer, and 
 like the Hebrew Scriptures, the plays of 
 Shakespeare seem to be the work of many 
 writers in many revisions. 
 
 Taking this view, it will be the purpose 
 of the present writer to maintain that the 
 poems known as Shakespeare's were not 
 written by the man of Stratford ; and that the 
 dramas known as Shakespeare's were not 
 his, either, but had their origin, in great part, 
 in old plays which were worked over by many 
 minds, produced before many audiences, and 
 enlarged and amended as experience direct- 
 ed, before they were crystallized in the folio 
 of 1623; and that in all this labor Will 
 Shakspere had a minor, although a definite, 
 share. 
 
 In entering upon the subject, mention 
 must be made of the Baconian theory, as 
 it has greatly aided in stimulating interest 
 in the question. Although Baconians have 
 failed to convince the world that Bacon was 
 the great dramatist, they have pretty thor- 
 14 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 oughly demolished the claims made on be- 
 half of Will Shakspere. 
 
 The writer holds that probability is 
 against the truth of the Baconian theory; that 
 the arguments upon which it rests, founded 
 upon ciphers and symbols ; upon parallelisms 
 and allusions, howsoever specious they may 
 be, are in the final analysis, unconvincing. 
 
 The fact is that the strongest ground 
 upon which Bacon's name can be urged, is 
 the assumption that he was the only man in 
 England at the time who was capable of pro- 
 ducing a dramatic masterpiece. 
 
 This is an error a galaxy of literary 
 geniuses then lived in London, several of 
 whom closely approached the Shakespearean 
 standard of excellence. 
 
 There were Beaumont and Fletcher; 
 George Chapman, Michael Drayton, Chris- 
 topher Marlowe and John Webster, for ex- 
 ample. Some were gentleman's sons and Uni- 
 versity men; many of them had traveled on 
 the Continent; witness Thomas Carew, 
 15 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Samuel Daniel, who was poet laureate; Rob- 
 ert Greene and Thomas Nash. 
 
 There were lawyers also among the 
 dramatists of that wonderful period; John 
 Ford, Thomas Lodge and John Marston, 
 among the number. Thus, the argument for 
 Bacon, based on the law in the plays, which 
 is one of the pillars of the cause, is incon- 
 clusive. It is good as against Will Shak- 
 spere, but it does not prove Bacon's author- 
 ship. 
 
 Nothing in Bacon's personal character, 
 and nothing in the pedantic and obscure 
 style of his acknowledged writings, is sug- 
 gestive of Shakespeare. 
 
 Bacon so distrusted the future of the Eng- 
 lish language that he went to the extreme 
 length of translating, non sine labore, his 
 philosophical writings into Latin, in order 
 to preserve them for posterity; thus discard- 
 ing the most vigorous and adaptable medium 
 the world has ever known, to embalm his 
 works in the stiff wrappings of a dead lan- 
 guage. 
 
 16 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Now the Shakespeare writers had a 
 clearer foresight. 
 
 Bacon died rather foolishly of a cold 
 which he contracted while stuffing a chicken 
 with snow. History does not state what was 
 the object of this abstruse experiment. Did 
 Bacon expect the snow to cook the chicken? 
 Probably not and yet, for a man who had 
 spent sixty-five years in study; and more 
 particularly for a man who had taken all 
 knowledge for his province, it seems to have 
 been a singularly futile proceeding. 
 
 It is not unlikely that some of the writ- 
 ings now accredited to Shakespeare were 
 Bacon's, but for a satisfactory solution of 
 the problem, we must look elsewhere. 
 
 There were, of course, men, or there was 
 a man, to whom we must give the name 
 Shake-speare ; Mr. Lang, gently ironical, 
 christens him the "Great Unknown"; I prefer 
 to call him the Silent Shakespeare. 
 
 17 
 
CHAPTER II 
 WILL SHAKSPERE. 
 
 The material that we possess for a life of 
 Shakspere consists of municipal records and 
 of records of the theatrical company to which 
 he belonged. We have no account of his lit- 
 erary or social life; and if we were to draw 
 the usual conclusions from the absence of his 
 name in the memoirs and correspondence of 
 the day, we should have to believe that 
 Shakspere had no part in the great social 
 world, and no friendships outside of the 
 narrow circle of his fellow- actors, and of his 
 fellow-townsmen. 
 
 A number of late and untrustworthy an- 
 ecdotes have been collected which represent 
 him as having been a butcher's boy of the- 
 atrical tendencies ; as a deer stealer ; as begin- 
 ning in London by holding horses in front of 
 a theatre; as seducing an inn-keeper's wife 
 at Oxford, and as dying in consequence of a 
 drunken spree. 
 
 18 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 It is regrettable that all of the traditions 
 should be of this character, and that none 
 should survive to relate some act or word of 
 kindness, some elevated thought or poetical 
 saying to preserve a worthy memory of the 
 personality of the greatest genius. One tale 
 there is of a favor done to Jonson, which we 
 shall see later to be apochryphal. 
 
 Shakespeareans attribute to him the qual- 
 ities which they conceive must have formed 
 the equipment of one whom they lovingly call 
 "The Master." They assume that he was 
 dignified and cultured; a lawyer, a traveler, 
 a soldier and a courtier. 
 
 On the other hand, Baconians are prone 
 to conceive of him as an ignorant, drunken 
 boor, and a mere vulgar impostor. 
 
 Neither of these extreme positions is 
 justified by the facts. Shakspere appears to 
 have been a shrewd, virile Englishman, with 
 a taste for wine and for women, and a fond- 
 ness for low company which remained with 
 him to the end of his life ; and with a gift of 
 low comedy which served him well in his 
 19 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 profession, and was the well from which he 
 drew such success and reputation as he en- 
 joyed during his lifetime. 
 
 From this point of view I purpose to 
 relate the story of Shakspere's life, and to 
 consider his share in the works called 
 Shakespeare's. 
 
 1564 William Shakspere, Shaxper or 
 Shagsper; for he seems to have used 
 these variants, was born in April, 1564, at 
 Stratford on Avon, then a dirty, unlettered 
 village of about fifteen hundred inhabitants. 
 The exact site of his birthplace is not 
 known. The house now shown to tourists as 
 the birthplace was not owned by his father 
 until 1575, and was first suggested as such 
 in 1769. For some time there were three 
 houses which claimed the distinction. The 
 relics in the museum are scandalous impos- 
 tures. Whatever Stratford may have been 
 in Walpole's and in Garrick's day, it is now 
 a clean and attractive little town, but terribly 
 commercialised for the benefit of the senti- 
 mental American tourist. 
 20 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Shakspere's parents, John Shakspere 
 and Mary Arden, were a tolerably well-to-do 
 couple of farmer descent. Like his children, 
 his parents were perfectly illiterate. 
 
 Illiteracy was at the time no obstacle to 
 public office, for in 1565 only six out of a 
 total of nineteen selectmen of Stratford could 
 sign their names. 
 
 We need not be surprised, then, to learn 
 that John Shakspere held several public of- 
 fices. The high- water mark of his prosperity 
 was in 1568, when he was elected High 
 Bailiff, or Mayor, of Stratford. 
 
 One of the functions of the Mayor was to 
 issue licenses to the companies of players 
 which toured the provinces in summer, when 
 the London theatres were closed. It is known 
 that Stratford was not without its share of 
 entertainments of the kind. During the years 
 between 1569 and 1587, twenty-four the- 
 atrical companies visited it. It was the duty 
 of the town officials to witness a performance 
 before granting a license, and as his father's 
 son, as well as on his own account, young 
 21 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Shakspere, it is more than likely, attended 
 many of the representations given during 
 those years. 
 
 1578 In 1578 John Shakspere, apparently 
 in money difficulties, although only 
 three years earlier he had bought the "birth- 
 place" in Henley Street, mortgaged his wife's 
 property of Asbies, which was in Wilmcote, 
 or Wincot, for the sum of forty pounds, the 
 equivalent then of about one thousand dol- 
 lars. 
 
 1582 About the end of November, 1582, 
 Will Shakspere, then over eighteen 
 years of age, married. It is commonly be- 
 lieved that he married one Ann Hathaway, 
 of Shottery, who was eight years his senior. 
 Six months later his first child, Susanna, was 
 born; and in February, 1585, the twins, 
 Hamnet and Judith, were born. 
 
 The picturesque Hathaway cottage, or 
 
 what is shown as such, for its position was 
 
 unknown in 1770, is one of the sights of 
 
 Stratford ; and many pretty fancies have been 
 
 22 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 woven around the love story of the poet and 
 the maid. 
 
 But the shadow of the critic hangs darkly 
 over the romantic tale. There is no record 
 of the marriage, and what we know of the 
 affair furnishes good reason for doubts as to 
 the identity of the bride. We may arrange 
 the argument as follows: 
 
 First. On November 27, 1582, a license 
 was issued at Worcester for the marriage 
 of William Shaxper with Anne Whately, 
 of Temple Grafton. 
 
 Second. On November 28, 1582, an indem- 
 nity bond was given by two friends of the 
 Hathaways, who made their marks instead 
 of signing, to protect the Bishop from lia- 
 bility for licensing the hurried marriage of 
 one William Shagspere with Ann Hath- 
 away. 
 
 Have we to do with one couple here, or 
 with two couples? If the latter, we have 
 to face the improbability that two men of 
 identical name were seeking marriage in 
 the same diocese at the same moment. 
 23 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Or were the Whately woman and the 
 Hathaway woman one and the same? It 
 has been suggested that Ann Hathaway 
 had first married some man named Whate- 
 ly, of Temple Grafton, had been left a 
 widow, and that her friends who executed 
 the bond overlooked this small circum- 
 stance. 
 
 This explanation assumes a great deal 
 of carelessness in all the parties concerned ; 
 in the careless friends who forgot their 
 protege's name; in the Bishop for suppos- 
 ing that a bond for the case of one Ann 
 Hathaway would indemnify him for li- 
 censing the irregular marriage of Anne 
 Whately ; and again in the Bishop to issue 
 the license before the execution of the 
 bond. 
 
 These explanations, therefore, do not 
 satisfy. 
 
 Richard Hathaway, supposed to be the 
 
 father of Ann, was a farmer of Shottery, 
 
 who died a few months before this date, 
 
 leaving three daughters, none of them 
 
 24 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 named Ann, but of whom Agnes, sup- 
 posed to be a name interchangeable with 
 Ann, was the eldest. He left her in his 
 Will, executed in September 1581, the sum 
 of 6-13-4, to be paid her on the day of 
 her marriage. So that she was not married 
 at the time of the making of the Will. 
 
 Third. If Shakspere married the Shottery 
 woman, the existing records of Stratford 
 church ought to testify to the fact. As to 
 the Temple Graf ton church, its records do 
 not exist, thus leaving open the question 
 as to the marriage having taken place 
 there. And unfortunately, while the Strat- 
 ford records preserve the dates of Will 
 Shakspere's baptism, and of all the family 
 baptisms; their marriages and burials; 
 they make no mention of his own mar- 
 riage; he was not married there, nor, we 
 may conclude, to the Hathaway woman at 
 any time or at any place. 
 
 Fourth. After Shakspere's death, his wid- 
 ow, whose share in his life appears to have 
 been inconsiderable, remarried, taking one 
 25 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Richard James as husband, and dying 
 August 6, 1623. 
 
 Now in 1616, the year of Shakspere's 
 death, Ann Hathaway was sixty-one years 
 old, and unless in extreme haste to divest 
 herself of the illustrious name, must have 
 been at least sixty-two years old at the time 
 of her remarriage. Before the day of the 
 modern woman, this was a good old age, 
 and it will be conceded that this second or 
 third marriage would be more likely to oc- 
 cur with a younger woman, such as Anne 
 Whately may have been. 
 
 The Hathaways abounded plenteously in 
 Stratford. An Anne Hathaway of Shottery 
 married William Wilson on January 17, 
 1579, but this, of course, was not our Ann. 
 
 Lady Barnard, Will Shakspere's grand 
 daughter, dying in 1670, left money to the 
 five daughters of her "kinsman" Thomas 
 Hathaway, late of Stratford. But it seems 
 that this Thomas Hathaway was a relative 
 of her first husband, Thomas Nash, who died 
 in 1647, leaving money to Elizabeth, Thomas 
 26 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and Judith Hathaway. Thomas Nash was 
 himself a Stratfordian, born June 20, 1593. 
 Thus there is no evidence of the Hath- 
 away marriage, and there are even plausible 
 grounds for the belief that, after all, Shaks- 
 pere married Anne Whately de Temple 
 Grafton. 
 
 1587 In April, 1587, Edmund Lambert of 
 Barton on Heath, John Shakspere's 
 brother-in-law, and holder of the Asbies 
 mortgage, died. In 1589 John Shakspere 
 began suit against his nephew, John Lam- 
 bert, alleging that in the autumn of 1587 it 
 had been agreed between the Shaksperes, in- 
 cluding William, and John Lambert, that 
 the former were to deliver title to Asbies in 
 consideration of twenty pounds to be paid by 
 Lambert; that they were willing to perform 
 their share of the agreement, but that Lam- 
 bert would not pay the twenty pounds. Lam- 
 bert denied that there had been any such 
 agreement, and there the matter rested. 
 
 Ten years later, John Shakspere brought 
 another action against Lambert, on a new 
 27 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and different basis. This time he declared 
 that he had tendered the amount of the mort- 
 gage to Edmund Lambert in 1580, when it 
 became due, and that Lambert had refused 
 to accept it. 
 
 This very improbable statement was also 
 denied by Lambert, and as before, the pro- 
 ceedings were dropped. It is therefore likely 
 that both of Shakspere's contentions were 
 untrue. 
 
 Will Shakspere may have gone to London 
 as early as 1585, or as late as 1587. If he 
 was in Stratford in 1587 at the time of the 
 alleged Asbies agreement, the latter supposi- 
 tion is reasonable. Stratford was visited by 
 several theatrical companies during the sum- 
 mer of that year, Leicester's among the num- 
 ber, and he may have returned to London 
 with them in the autumn. It i3 as reasonable 
 a theory as any, but we do not know. 
 
 Nor do we know how the next few years 
 
 were spent, and his biographers conjecture 
 
 that he must have been doing this thing or 
 
 that; traveling in Italy; or soldiering in 
 
 28 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Flanders; or clerking in a lawyer's office; 
 anything to fit him for play writing. One 
 author is positive that he pursued the trade of 
 stealing purses during those unrecorded 
 years. This author, it is needless to say, is 
 not a Stratfordian. 
 
 It must be remembered that a number of 
 the Shakespeare plays were written before the 
 end of 1592. There is some difference of 
 opinion as to the exact number, but the fol- 
 lowing list is generally agreed upon: 
 
 Titus Andronicus 1584-90 
 
 Love's Labors Lost 1585-91 
 
 Comedy of Errors 1587-91 
 
 Taming of the Shrew 1589 
 
 1 Henry VI 1589-91 
 
 2 and 3 Henry VI 1591-2 
 Two Gentlemen of Verona 1 590-2 
 
 To this list some add Pericles as of 1588, 
 but it is more generally assigned to a later 
 date. 
 
 Here we have seven dramas done by the 
 time our raw country boy had been in London 
 some five years. Hamlet, in an early form, 
 29 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 was known in 1586. Prof. Dowden calls 
 Titus Andronicus and 1 Henry VI pre- 
 Shakespearean, and Dr. Furnivall assigns 
 1590 as the date of Midsummer Night's 
 Dream, and 1591 for Romeo and Juliet and 
 for King John. 
 
 Venus and Adonis must have been in 
 process of labor in 1592, since it was pub- 
 lished in 1593. 
 
 Is it reasonable to credit Will Shakspere 
 with the authorship of these plays? To do 
 so is to stultify our judgment, and to no pur- 
 pose, as it will be the object of this essay to 
 maintain. 
 
 The London stage at the time of which 
 we are writing was but an humble affair. The 
 most popular feature of the shows was the 
 buffoonery of the clowns, which was more or 
 less extemporaneous. The audiences were 
 made up of the most disreputable and unruly 
 elements of a rude civilization, with a 
 sprinkling of fashionable young men in the 
 boxes or on the stage. The actors were very 
 plain people; grocers, butchers, carpenters, 
 30 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and the like. Legally they were vagabonds, 
 and the puritanically minded Londoners ob- 
 jected to their presence in their midst. The 
 first public theatres, the "Theatre" and the 
 " Curtain," which had been erected about 
 1576 by James Burbage and by Philip 
 Henslowe, respectively, were ultimately 
 driven across the river to Southwark. Later 
 each of these managers controlled several 
 theatres. Henslowe, a very ignorant man, 
 w'ho had originally been his wife's servant, 
 confined himself to the letting of his houses 
 for a share in the receipts ; but the Burbages 
 managed their playhouses and acted in them. 
 
 The fondness of Queen Elizabeth and of 
 her nobility for the drama promoted the de- 
 velopment of the stage. Companies of play- 
 ers were maintained under their protection. 
 Thus there were the Queensmen; and com- 
 panies were named after Lords Nottingham, 
 Sussex, Essex, Worcester, Leicester, Stafford 
 and others. The players gave performances 
 at Court, or at the houses of their patrons, 
 31 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 when called upon; at other times they might 
 give public performances. 
 
 One of the companies thus maintained 
 and protected was named for Lord Strange. 
 When Leicester died in 1588 it received many 
 of the players of his company. Lord Strange 
 became the Earl of Derby in 1593, and died 
 in 1594. Soon after, the company became 
 the Lord Chamberlain's; and after the ac- 
 cession of James I, the Kingsmen. 
 
 This was the company to which Shaks- 
 pere belonged. 
 
 1592 The first allusion to Shakspere of 
 which we have any knowledge after 
 his departure from Stratford occurs in 1592. 
 On March 3 of that year, Henry VI was pro- 
 duced by Lord Strange's company at Hens- 
 lowe's Rose theatre, and met with great suc- 
 cess. It was said that 10,000 persons wit- 
 nessed it during its run. It is assumed that 
 it was the Shakespeare play, that Shakspere 
 belonged to Lord Strange's company, and 
 that he acted in this play; all of which is 
 probably correct. 
 
 32 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Then one Robert Greene, a clever but 
 dissolute author, writing in June or July 
 1592, made a violent attack upon Shakspere 
 in a pamphlet which was published in Au- 
 gust 1592, Greene having meanwhile died, 
 by his literary executor, Henry Chettle. 
 
 The pamphlet, entitled "A Groats worth 
 of Wit, &c," was addressed to three of 
 Greene's acquaintances, playwrights, one of 
 whom he styles a "gracer of tragedies," the 
 second a "young Juvenal," and the third as 
 being "in some things rarer, in nothing in- 
 ferior, driven as myself to extreme shifts." 
 
 He warns the three authors against play- 
 actors; "those puppets that speak from our 
 mouths, those antics garnished in our col- 
 ors," who have forsaken him to whom they 
 are so much beholden; 
 
 "Yes, trust them not, for there is 
 an upstart crow beautified with our 
 feathers, that with his tygers heart 
 wrapt in a players hide supposes he 
 is as well able to bumbast out a blank 
 verse as the best of us, and being an 
 33 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 absolute Johannes factotum, is in his 
 own conceit the only Shake scene in 
 the countrie." 
 
 It is a pity, he says, that such rare wits 
 should be subject to the pleasures of such 
 rude groomes; others, he says, have written 
 against these buckram gentlemen; let their 
 own works bear witness against them, if they 
 continue to maintain any more such peasants. 
 Here he probably referred to Nash, who, in 
 prefacing the Menaphon of Greene in 1589, 
 wrote scornfully of the author of Hamlet. 
 
 Thus Greene, who died in the direst pov- 
 erty, charged actors in general with ingrati- 
 tude: "I, to whom they al have beene be- 
 holding, is it not like that you * * * 
 shall be bothe at once of them forsaken." 
 And in particular, he charged the actor 
 Shakspere with being an upstart with a 
 tiger's heart, an expression travestied from 
 Henry VI; and, while making his profit out 
 of Greene's verses, with conceiting that he 
 could make as good himself. 
 
 It is a fact that the emoluments of the 
 34 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 actors were much greater than those of the 
 playwrights. The former received one-half 
 of the receipts of the performances, but 
 Henslowe's memoranda show that the high- 
 est price he paid for a play was eleven 
 pounds ; which sum was to be divided among 
 the authors, five or six of whom were some- 
 times employed in the composition of a play. 
 
 A sequel to Greene's pamphlet was the 
 publication, in December, 1592, of a pam- 
 phlet by Chettle; the "Kind Hearts Dream," 
 in which it was said that two of the three 
 writers to whom the " Groats worth" was ad- 
 dressed had taken offense at it. One of the 
 two, Chettle said, he did not know, nor care 
 to ; but the other he held in esteem, both as a 
 man and as an author, and he was as sorry 
 to have given offense as if he had written the 
 passage himself. 
 
 This expression is usually explained to 
 be an apology to Shakspere, which is a most 
 inexcusable perversion of its meaning. The 
 apology is plainly made to one of Greene's 
 three friends, and the occasion for it was 
 35 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 that the playwrights, who were sometimes 
 "driven to extreme shifts," did not all care 
 to endorse Greene's diatribes against the 
 actors and managers upon whom they de- 
 pended for their livelihood. 
 
 It may fairly be inferred that Greene's 
 shaft was in fact directed against Shakspere, 
 and that it had to do with some trouble about 
 Henry VI. The passage parodied by Greene 
 occurs in 3 Henry VI. I. 4. Since this play 
 is now attributed to the joint labors of Mar- 
 lowe, Greene, Peele and Kyd, it is reasonable 
 to conjecture that Greene, being one of the 
 poorly paid playwrights, cherished in his dy- 
 ing moments a grudge against Shakspere as 
 an ungrateful upstart who had dared to alter 
 some of Greene's verses. 
 
 We shall see that this first contemporary 
 mention of Shakspere is in accord with other 
 contemporary allusions. We learn from it 
 that he had become an actor, and that he 
 meddled with other men's plays to his own 
 profit instead of theirs. 
 36 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 It is also the first appearance, in the form 
 of a punning variant of the name, of the new 
 form Shake , which, being adopted in the 
 following year, by the author of Venus and 
 Adonis, eventually replaced the original 
 Shak of the actor's name, and thereby led 
 to much trouble and confusion. 
 
 1593 In 1593 Venus and Adonis, the 
 "first heir to my invention," was pub- 
 lished, and was followed in 1594 by the 
 "Rape of Lucrece" These poems, very suc- 
 cessful at the time, but which do not afford 
 much pleasure to modern readers, are dedi- 
 cated by " William Shakespeare" to Henry 
 Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. The 
 classical and artificial style of the poems is 
 not Shakespearean, and it requires a robust 
 faith to believe the crude actor capable of 
 their production. In fact, the name attached 
 to the dedications is not his ; but only nearly 
 his. 
 
 The adulatory tone of the dedications is 
 wholly Baconian, and Baconians find proof 
 of Bacon's authorship in the dedication of 
 37 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Lucrece, when taken in connection with the 
 first and last lines of the poem. 
 
 These may as well be given, in illustra- 
 tion of Baconian methods; the dedication 
 begins as follows: 
 
 "The love I dedicate to your lord- 
 ship is without end; whereof this 
 pamphlet, without beginning, is but 
 a superfluous moiety." 
 
 The passage appears meaningless; the 
 writer may have felt love for his lordship, as 
 he says, and the pamphlet might have ex- 
 pressed a moiety of that love, although it ex- 
 pressed rather an insane passion; but why, 
 even in that day of fantastic speech, should 
 the author describe it as 'without beginning,' 
 unless in order to make an antithesis, and 
 run in the words, 'without end'? 
 
 The expression is without meaning at 
 all events, however it may be placed in re- 
 spect to beginning or end. 
 
 Therefore, the Baconians conclude that 
 there is a hidden meaning, and look at the 
 38 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 beginning and at the end of Lucrece, and 
 this is what they find, as printed in the 
 original editions: 
 
 " CROM the besieged Ardea all in post, 
 Borne by the trustlesse wings of false 
 
 desire." 
 
 And the concluding lines are: 
 "The Romaines plausibly did give consent 
 To TARQUIN'S everlasting banishment." 
 .Finis. 
 
 From the initial lines we derive 'Fr B,' 
 and from the last lines, we have T bacon/ 
 
 In September, 1594, a poem, entitled 
 'Willobie and his Avisa,' was entered in the 
 Stationer's Register. The authorship is at- 
 tributed to Matthew Roydon, a minor poet 
 and a friend of George Chapman. Shake- 
 speare is mentioned by name in some intro- 
 ductory verses : 
 
 "Though Collatine have dearly bought 
 
 To high renowne, a lasting life, 
 And found that most in vaine have 
 sought 
 
 39 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 To have a f aire and constant wife ; 
 Yet Tarquine pluckt his glistering 
 
 grape 
 And Shake-speare paints p o o r e 
 
 Lucrece rape." 
 
 This is a type of many allusions to 
 Shakespeare, which refer to the book and not 
 to the actor, who never spelled his name as 
 Shake-speare. 
 
 The first official mention of Shakspere 
 as an actor is in the list of some of the Lord 
 Chamberlain's men, who gave two comedies 
 at Greenwich Palace, at Christmas, 1594. 
 The entry states that William Kempe, Will- 
 iam Shakspere and Richard Burbage were 
 paid twenty pounds for their performances 
 at that time. 
 
 Although the company of which Shak- 
 spere was a member included Burbage, and 
 usually played at Burbage's houses, it some- 
 times had relations with the rival manager, 
 Philip Henslowe. 
 
 The following quaint entry in the so- 
 40 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 called 'Diary' of Henslowe, records the 
 
 earliest known instance of this : 
 
 "In the name of God, amen, 1591, 
 being the 19th feb, my Lord 
 Strange's men as followeth." 
 
 The names of two of Greene's plays fol- 
 low: 'Friar Bacon' and 'Orlando' ; and on 
 the 3d of March, Henry VI. Later in the 
 year 'Lear' was played. 
 
 From June 3, 1594, until November 15, 
 1596, the Lord Chamberlain's men played 
 at one of Henslowe's theatres, producing 
 during the whole period an average of a new 
 or different play every eighteen days. 
 
 A number of the plays then given have 
 identical or similar titles with Shakespeare 
 plays. In addition to the two already men- 
 tioned, we find Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, 
 Taming of a Shrew; Palamon and Arcite, 
 which is the same in plot with the Two Noble 
 Kinsmen, which in turn, is included in one 
 of the Shakespeare folios; and Henry V. 
 
 Henslowe paid for several of these plays 
 41 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 with the Shakespearean titles, and for plays 
 on Shakespearean subjects: Troilus and 
 Cressida; Sir John Ould casstel, which was 
 attributed to Shakespeare in a quarto edition 
 of 1600; The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, a 
 predecessor of Henry VIII; Caesar's Fall 
 and Richard Crookbacke, a play on the sub- 
 ject of Richard III. 
 
 Notwithstanding these various transac- 
 tions, Henslowe, although he records pay- 
 ments made for the writing of plays to Wil- 
 son, Drayton, Dekker, Chettle, Monday, 
 Hathway, Webster, Middleton and Ben Jon- 
 son, records no payments made to Shak- 
 spere, nor does he mention his name in any 
 way whatever. 
 
 1596 In this year Shakspere's son Ham- 
 net died, and was buried on August 
 11. 
 
 1597 In 1597 Shakspere paid sixty pounds 
 for New Place, in Stratford. 
 
 1598 Corn being scarce in Stratford, an 
 inventory of the supply on hand was 
 
 42 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 taken, and William Shakspere of Stratford 
 on Avon, gentleman, was listed as owning 
 ten quarters. 
 
 Jonson's 'Every Man in His Humor' was 
 produced in 1598, with Shakspere in the 
 cast. It was not a new play. 
 
 On October 25, 1598, one Richard 
 Quiney, a fellow-townsman, wrote to Shak- 
 spere asking for a loan of thirty pounds. 
 This is the only letter extant addressed to 
 Shakspere, but three other letters of the same 
 year survive in which he is mentioned. They 
 all relate to the borrowing of money from 
 him. 
 
 1599 In 1599 Shakspere assumed a coat of 
 arms, after attempting to have his 
 right to do so recognised upon untruthful 
 statements as to his ancestry. 
 
 The design was a falcon holding a spear 
 upright. The motto was 'Non Sanz Droict/ 
 rather an audacious statement, under the cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 Jonson immediately, 1599, inserted a 
 43 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 satirical allusion to this affair in his 'Every 
 Man out of his Humor.' He represented him 
 as a clown who has purchased a coat of 
 arms: 
 
 "Carlo. A Swine without a head, 
 without braine, wit, any- 
 thing indeed, Ramping to 
 Gentilitie. You can blazon 
 the rest signior, can you 
 not? 
 Puntarvolo. Let the word be, 'Not 
 
 without mustard &c' 
 
 The wit may not be Attic, but its meaning 
 is sufficiently plain; the magnificent Shake- 
 speare, the friend of Earls and the lover of 
 Court ladies, is publicly ridiculed as a clown, 
 by his personal acquaintance. 
 
 In this same year 1599, the Burbages 
 built the Globe theatre, and, according to a 
 declaration made by them in 1635, "to our- 
 selves we joined those deserving men, Shak- 
 spere, Hemings, Condall, Phillips and 
 others, partners in the profits of the house," 
 these profits being, as is elsewhere stated, 
 44 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 one half of the receipts, and the outer doors". 
 
 The statement continues, referring to the 
 Blackfriars theatre, that when they took over 
 the lease, which was in Aug. 1608, they 
 placed in it "men players, which were Hem- 
 ings, Condall, Shakspere &c." So that long 
 after Shakspere's death, and long after the 
 publication of the 1623 folio, with its flam- 
 boyant eulogies, Will Shakspere remained 
 merely a "deserving man" to the Burbages. 
 
 The ownership of the Globe theatre was 
 in sixteen shares, of which the Burbages held 
 eight, Condall four, and Hemings four 
 shares. The shareholders were known as the 
 'housekeepers,' and they had one half of the 
 receipts, except the 'outer doors/ and they 
 paid the rent and certain other expenses. 
 1600 In the course of the year 1600 Shak- 
 spere sued one John Clayton, of Lon- 
 don, for seven pounds, and got judgment in 
 his favor. He also sued Philip Rogers, of 
 Stratford, for two shillings. No sum was too 
 insignificant to be neglected by this careful 
 man of business. 
 
 45 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 1601 On February 2 1601 Southampton 
 ordered and paid for a performance 
 of Richard II at the Globe theatre. The 
 Queen was greatly offended with the per- 
 formance, which she regarded as treason- 
 able. The Essex rebellion broke out on Feb- 
 ruary 8, the play, relating the deposition of 
 the King, being supposedly one of the means 
 adopted to excite and prepare the minds of 
 the populace for the event. 
 
 Nevertheless Shakspere played with the 
 company before the Queen at Richmond on 
 February 24, the night before Essex's exe- 
 cution. It is evident that if Shakspere had 
 been regarded as the author of the seditious 
 play, Richard II, he would have been the 
 angry Queen's prisoner, instead of being 
 called upon to amuse her by his gambols at 
 this moment. 
 
 Again, on March 13 1601, John Man- 
 ningham, a barrister of the Middle Temple, 
 recorded in his diary a story of Shakspere the 
 actor, which was going the rounds at the 
 time. It was to the effect that Shakspere, 
 46 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 overhearing an arrangement for a meeting 
 between Richard Burbage, then playing 
 Richard III, and his mistress, forestalled 
 his friend with the woman. When Burbage 
 arrived and sent in his name, Shakspere 
 caused answer to be made that "William 
 the Conqueror came before Richard III." 
 Manningham concluded the entry with the 
 remark; "Shakspere's name William." 
 
 By 1601 at least twenty of the plays now 
 known as Shakespeare's had been produced. 
 How then are we to account for the fact that 
 an educated man thought it necessary to ex- 
 plain a joke by noting that 'Shakspere's name 
 was William?' Clearly he did not associate 
 the writer and the actor in his mind. 
 
 On September 8, 1601, Shakspere's 
 father was buried. 
 
 The pursuit of gentility by Will Shak- 
 spere has already been noted. About this 
 time his fellow actors, Phillips, Pope and 
 Cowley, with a number of others, over 
 twenty in all, were charged with having ob- 
 tained grants of arms under false pretenses. 
 47 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The practise was becoming a scandal 
 against which the satirists launched their 
 bolts of ridicule. 
 
 In the "Return from Parnassus," a stu- 
 dent sketch, acted in Cambridge in 1601-2, 
 but not printed until 1606, one Studioso is 
 made to say : 
 
 "But ist not strange this mimick apes 
 
 should prize 
 
 Unhappy schollers at a hireling rate, 
 Vile world ; that lifts them up to hye 
 
 degree 
 
 And treads us down in groveling 
 miserie, 
 
 With mouthing words that better wits 
 
 have framed 
 They purchase lands, and now 
 
 Esquiers are made. 
 
 Of similar tenor are certain passages in 
 "Ratsei's Ghost/' which was published in 
 1605; 
 
 Ratsei, a robber, advises a strolling actor 
 to go to London, and learn to feed upon all 
 48 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 men, to make his hand a stranger to his 
 pocket, his heart slow to perform his 
 tongue's promise, and when his purse is well 
 lined, to buy a place of Lordship in the coun- 
 try, that growing weary of playing, his money 
 may bring him to dignity and reputation. 
 Then he need care for no one, nor for them 
 that before made him proud with speaking 
 their words upon the stage. "I have heard," 
 he concludes, "of some that have gone to 
 London very meanly, and have come in time 
 to be extremely wealthy." 
 
 In the two above quoted passages, ref- 
 erence is assumed by the biographers to be 
 made to Shakspere, and it may well be so, for 
 they accord with other contemporary al- 
 lusions. And if so, it will be noticed that 
 Shakspere is credited only with speaking 
 other men's words. 
 
 Another passage in the Return from Par- 
 nassus contains a reference to Shakspere by 
 name ; Burbage and Kempe, two members of 
 the Globe company, are speaking, and the 
 clown Kemp says; 
 
 49 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 "Few of the University pens play 
 well. They smell too much of that 
 writer Ovid, and that writer Meta- 
 morphosis, and talk too much of 
 Proserpina and Juppiter. Why, here's 
 our fellow Shakespeare puts them all 
 down, I, and Ben Jonson, too. Oh 
 that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; 
 he brought up Horace giving the 
 poets a pill, but our fellow Shake- 
 speare hath given him a purge that 
 made him bewray his credit." 
 
 Here reference is made to a literary row 
 which was amusing London in 1601, in 
 which Jonson had come off second best. He 
 had attacked Marston and Dekker in the 
 'Poetaster,' and Dekker had made vigorous 
 response in "Satiromastix." 
 
 Shakspere was not concerned in the af- 
 fair, and never gave Jonson a purge to be- 
 wray his credit. But the College wits who 
 were the authors of the Return from Par- 
 nassus, saw their opportunity to poke fun at 
 Kempe, who was the buffoon of Burbage's 
 50 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Company, by representing him as supposing 
 that Metamorphosis was the name of an 
 author, and to raise a laugh at his simple 
 boasting that his 'fellow Shakspere' had put 
 Jonson down. The one absurdity would be 
 as evident as the other to the educated 
 audience who would witness a College play. 
 "Silly old stuff" Andrew Lang calls it, 
 truly enough. But that we have to bother 
 with it is the fault of the biographers, who 
 endeavor to turn every bit of nonsense to 
 Shakspere's credit. 
 
 1602 On May 1 1602, Shakspere bought 
 107 acres from William Combe, to 
 enlarge New Place at Stratford. The price 
 was 320 pounds. 
 
 In this same year 1602, the Town Coun- 
 cil of Stratford, unmoved by the great repu- 
 tation, which Shakespearians assume was 
 his, of Will Shakspere, prohibited the use 
 of the Guild Hall for dramatic purposes. It 
 was the only suitable place for stage per- 
 formances in Stratford. In 1612 the pro- 
 hibition was renewed. 
 51 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 In 1602 William Kemp left the Lord 
 Chamberlain's company to join that of Ed- 
 ward Alleyn, Henslowe's son in law. 
 
 Kemp was a well known person on the 
 stage, his specialties being clowning and jig 
 dancing. He had traveled with a company 
 which played in Denmark, in France, and in 
 Italy. 
 
 His best known feat was a morris dance 
 over the distance of 114 miles between Lon- 
 don and Norwich. He performed this feat 
 in 1600, in nine days of dancing, accom- 
 panied by one Thomas Slye, who played the 
 tabor to his partner's steps. 
 
 Kemp recorded the event in a pamphlet 
 called "A Nine Daies Wonder," of which 
 only a single copy is known to exist. It was 
 dedicated to Mistres Anne Fitton, supposed 
 to be intended for Mistress Mary Fitton, one 
 of the maids of honor to the Virgin Queen. 
 
 From this ignorant familiarity, some 
 writers argue that actors, clowns and the like, 
 may have been on intimate terms with per- 
 sonages of the Court, and Shakspere among 
 52 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the number. But the error in the dedication 
 does not allow us to infer any intimacy with 
 the lady addressed; and it is to be remem- 
 bered that the days when jesters and buf- 
 foons had the privilege of amusing their 
 masters, had not yet passed. 
 
 1603 Queen Elizabeth died on March 4 of 
 this year. It was a year of the plague. 
 
 On May 7 James I issued a patent, licensing 
 the King's players. In the list of eleven 
 players, Shakspere's name occurs second. 
 
 In a letter dated October 20 1603, Mrs. 
 Alleyn recorded a visit she had received from 
 Mr. Shakspere of the Globe, in reference to 
 an attempt of one Francis Challoner to bor- 
 row money from her. Shakspere told her that 
 Challoner was a rogue, and she wrote that 
 she was glad that she had not lent him any- 
 thing. It is strange that every reference to 
 Shakspere should be coupled with some 
 mention of money, and none with mention 
 of his wonderful dramas. 
 
 1604 In May 1604 Shakspere sued Philip 
 Rogers for the sum of 1 pd, 15 sh, 
 
 53 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 10 d, the value of some malt he had sold to 
 Rogers. Once before he sued him for two 
 shillings. Unfortunate Rogers. 
 
 On March 15, 1604, Shakspere walked in 
 procession, with eight other actors, on the 
 occasion of James's entry into London. Four 
 and a half yards of red cloth apiece was the 
 reward for this service. 
 
 Certain answers made to interrogatories 
 in a petty suit of 1612, reveal the fact that 
 about this time, 1604, Shakspere occasion- 
 ally "lay" in the house of a wigmaker named 
 Mountjoy, in Silver Street, a little to the 
 north of Cheapside. It is fairly well estab- 
 lished that prior to 1594, Shakspere lived 
 in St. Helen's parish, Bishopsgate, and that 
 by 1596 he had removed to Southwark. 
 
 1605 In 1605, the year of the Gunpowder 
 Plot, Shakspere paid 440 pounds for 
 an unexpired lease of tithes in Stratford. 
 This purchase conferred the right of sepul- 
 ture within the chancel of the church, and to 
 it we probably owe the preservation of the 
 Shakespeare monument. 
 54 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 On May 4 1605 Augustine Phillips, one 
 of the company, died, and left "to my fel- 
 low William Shakspeare, a thirty shilling 
 piece of gold." 
 
 1607 In this year Will Shakspere's daugh- 
 ter Susanna married Dr. John Hall 
 
 of Stratford. This was June 5, when he was 
 32 years old, and she 25. He held several 
 offices ; was twice a burgess ; a church warden 
 and a vicar's warden. In Oct. 1633 he was 
 expelled from the town council for "breach 
 of orders, sundry other misdemeanors and 
 for his continual disturbances at our 
 Halles." He died in 1635 and a flat stone 
 in the chancel of Stratford church bears his 
 name. Beside him is his wife's stone, and 
 on the other side of Shakspere's grave is 
 that of Ann Shakspere, who married Rich- 
 ard James. 
 
 1608 In 1608 Shakspere prosecuted John 
 Addenbroke for a debt of six pounds, 
 
 and, Addenbroke having judiciously ab- 
 sconded, Shakspere, to the great sorrow of 
 his biographers, was so unmerciful as to put 
 55 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Addenbroke's security, Thomas Hornby, in 
 jail. On September 9 1608 Shakspere's 
 mother, Mary Arden, was buried. 
 
 On October 16 1608 he stood godfather 
 at Stratford, to Henry Walker's son. 
 
 1609 In Aug. 1608, as already noted, the 
 Burbages put him, with his other 
 
 "men players," at the Blackfriars theatre. 
 Great dramatist and intimate of Earls, as 
 the biographers would have us believe him, 
 he was still subject to the orders of the sons 
 of the carpenter actor, Burbage, and of Hem- 
 ings and Condell. 
 
 1610 The Sonnets were published in 1609, 
 and in 1610 Macbeth appeared in 
 
 print. It was the last of the plays known as 
 Shake-speare's to be published during the 
 lifetime of the actor. 
 
 Still we find no mention of him in the 
 social annals of the day. One mention of 
 him we do find at this time; in the Scourge 
 of Folly, published in 1610 by John Davies 
 of Hereford. Davies was himself an actor. 
 The reference is as follows; 
 56 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 To our English Terence Mr. Will 
 Shake-speare. 
 Some say, good Will, which I, in sport do 
 
 sing, 
 Hadst thou not plaid some Kingly parts in 
 
 sport, 
 Thou hadst bin a companion for a King, 
 
 And been a King among the meaner sort. 
 Some others raile; but raile as they think fit, 
 Thou hast no rayling, but a reigning wit, 
 And honesty thou sowest, which they do reap, 
 So to increase their stocke which they do 
 
 keepe. 
 
 Davies calls Will a comic writer, or Ter- 
 ence, at whom some railed; and for the 
 rest, a good boon companion among the 
 meaner sort, with a lively wit; and as an 
 actor in Kingly parts. 
 
 In 1610 Shakspere bought 20 acres of 
 land in Stratford from the Combes. 
 
 1612 In this year an incident occurred 
 which has been curiously misinter- 
 preted by the biographers. It followed upon 
 the publication of the Passionate Pilgrim. 
 
 57 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 In 1598 Wm. Jaggard published two 
 sonnets by Richard Barnfield. In 1599 he 
 issued the "Passionate Pilgrim, by Wm. 
 Shakespeare;" a volume containing about 
 twenty sonnets. Only five of the verses, 
 namely, Sonnets 138 and 144, with three 
 songs from Loves Labors Lost, are Shake- 
 speare's; the rest of the verses are by Mar- 
 lowe, Barnfield, Griffin, Roydon and others. 
 
 No complaint of this publication is re- 
 corded; but when Jaggard issued a third 
 edition in 1612, this time adding two poems 
 by Thomas Hey wood, still retaining Shake- 
 peare's name on the title page, Heywood 
 promptly protested. He wrote; 
 
 "Here likewise I must necessarily 
 insert a manifest injury done to me 
 in that worke, by taking the two epis- 
 tles of Paris to Helen arid Helen to 
 Paris, and printing them in a lesser 
 volume under the name of another, 
 which may put the world in opinion 
 I might steale them from him, and 
 he, to do himself right, hath since 
 58 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 published them in his owne name, but 
 as I must acknowledge my lines not 
 worthy his patronage under whom he 
 hath published them, so the author I 
 know much offended with M. Jag- 
 gard that (altogether unknown to 
 him) presumed to make so bold with 
 his name." 
 
 The above protest was published by Hey- 
 wood in "An Apology for Actors," and is 
 interpreted by Shakespearians to mean that 
 Shakspere was offended at the liberty taken 
 with his name by Jaggard, and as a proof 
 that Heywood was acquainted with Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 If Will Shakspere was offended by this 
 particular unauthorized use of his name, and 
 said so; this is the one and only occasion 
 upon which he ever lifted up his voice 
 against literary piracy. Indeed he should 
 have been the last man to protest, he who 
 is charged by his contemporaries with the 
 appropriation of other men's works. 
 
 In addition to specific accusations 
 59 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 brought against him by Greene and Jonson, 
 Chapman is supposed to refer to him in the 
 preface to the Iliad published in 1611, when 
 he writes of some one whom he calls a 
 "windsucker" and a "kestrel," names for a 
 species of small hawk ; of whom he says that 
 "whatsoever he takes from others he adds 
 to himself; one that in this kind of robbing 
 doth like Mercury, but stole good and sup- 
 plied it with counterfeit bad." 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, Heywood, in 
 making the protest, was speaking for him- 
 self alone. Translated into modern English, 
 his complaint would read somewhat as fol- 
 lows; 
 
 I protest against the injury done to ME 
 by the printing of my two poems under 
 Shakespeare's name, since it looks as if I 
 had stolen them from him, and he had been 
 obliged to set himself right by now publish- 
 ing them himself. I know that my verses are 
 unworthy of the honor of being attributed to 
 the writer of Venus, Lucrece and the Son- 
 nets, but still, as the author of them, I am 
 60 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 much offended with the liberty which has 
 been taken with my name. 
 
 Apart from the fact that the above is the 
 plain meaning of the passage, it is what we 
 should expect. Heywood was the injured 
 party; the credit had been taken from him 
 and given to another, while Shakspere was 
 not cast in the mould which constrains a 
 man to disclaim unearned credit. Between 
 1595 and 1613, at least nine plays were pub- 
 lished with either "W. S." or "William 
 Shakespeare" on the title page, without pro- 
 test from the actor, or indeed from any one 
 else, although no one of the nine is now 
 attributed to Shakespeare. 
 
 Shakspere never laid claim to any lit- 
 erary production. Since the publication of 
 the poems, the name "Shake-speare" evident- 
 ly had a commercial value, and the fact that 
 the litigious, grasping man who was always 
 suing someone for small sums of money, 
 took no thought for the protection of what 
 ought to have been a valuable asset, makes 
 61 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 it quite evident that the plays were not his 
 property. 
 
 1613 On March 101613 Shakspere bought 
 a house in Blackfriars, 200 yards east 
 of the theatre, for 141 pounds, and on the 
 day following, placed a mortgage on it. He 
 bought from Henry Walker, whose son was 
 his god son. 
 
 During the same month he was paid 44 
 shillings for painting a device, or for doing 
 some work in connection with it, at Belvoir 
 Castle for the Duke of Rutland. His fellow 
 player Burbage was paid a like amount. 
 
 Jonson and Dray ton are known to have 
 been guests at Belvoir, but Shakspere seems 
 to have been there as a workman only. 
 
 Beaumont, Fletcher and Jonson are men- 
 tioned as having been at the Mermaid, the 
 club which was founded by Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, but there is no mention of Shak- 
 spere there. 
 
 On June 29 1613, during a performance 
 of Henry VIII, the Globe theatre caught fire 
 62 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and was burned down, but the plays and cos- 
 tumes in stock there were saved. 
 
 By this time Shakspere appears to have 
 retired from the stage, and we may consider 
 what is known as to his place as an actor. 
 There is a silly tradition that his best part 
 was that of the Ghost in Hamlet, which we 
 may at once discard, knowing otherwise. 
 
 Davies has told us that Shakspere played 
 in Kingly parts, and we may infer from 
 the position of his name near the head of the 
 list of players, both in the King's patent, and 
 in Burbage's declaration of 1635, that Shak- 
 spere was a prominent member of the com- 
 pany. As early as 1594 he was one of the 
 three actors who were paid twenty pounds 
 for playing in two comedies at Greenwich 
 before the Court. 
 
 Yet little is known as to the actual parts 
 in which he played. We know of only two 
 parts in which we may be certain that he ap- 
 peared. 
 
 The first is the part of "Kno'well," the 
 63 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 leading character in Jonson's " Every Man in 
 his Humor/' which he played in 1598. 
 
 The second is the part of Caesar. Jonson 
 said of him, in his Discoveries, published in 
 1641, "Many times he fell into those things 
 could not escape laughter, as when he said, 
 in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him; 
 'Caesar, thou dost me wrong/ he replyd, 
 ' Caesar never did wrong but with just cause/ 
 and such like, which were ridiculous." 
 
 This refers to the scene in Julius Caesar, 
 Act III, 1. Caesar says; 
 
 "Know Caesar doth not wrong 
 nor without cause will be satisfied." 
 
 During all these years the company was 
 in constant service; in the winter playing in 
 London, unless prevented by outbreaks of 
 the plague; in the summer touring the 
 provinces. These tours took the company, 
 and Will Shakspere with it, far and wide; 
 we read of it in the Channel towns ; at Aber- 
 deen in the north, and at Bideford in the 
 west; and in many other places between 
 these extreme points. 
 
 64 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 1614 By 1614 Shakspere was permanently 
 established at Stratford, where the 
 Combes, with whom he had several business 
 transactions, appear to have been his chosen 
 companions. John Combe, tax gatherer and 
 money lender, died during the year, be- 
 queathing him the sum of five pounds. 
 
 We find mention of a Stephen Sly, as a 
 servant of William Combe, and in 1616, of 
 a Christopher Sly of Stratford. 
 
 In December 1614 Shakspere went to 
 London upon business, in reference to an at- 
 tempt of William Combe to annex a piece of 
 common land in Stratford. Shakspere, who 
 had an interest in the matter, owing to his 
 lease of tithes, having first secured himself 
 against loss, took sides with Combe against 
 the corporation, but the scheme failed. 
 
 1616 On February 10 1616, Shakspere's 
 daughter Judith married Thomas 
 Quiney, a tavern keeper. It is not on record 
 that any of Shakspere's friends of high de- 
 gree from London were present on the occa- 
 sion. Quiney did not turn out well. He was 
 65 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 addicted to adulterating his liquors and was 
 eventually forced to leave the town. 
 
 On April 17, William Hart, Shakspere's 
 brother in law, was buried, and on the 23d 
 of the same month, William Shakspere died 
 after an illness of a month. 
 
 Shakspere's Will was drawn up in Janu- 
 ary 1616, and corrected in March, when he 
 was taken ill. He left his daughter Judith 
 300 pounds; his sister Joan 20 pounds and 
 the house she lived in; to her three sons five 
 pounds each; to his grand daughter Eliza- 
 beth Hall, whom he calls his "neece," his 
 plate; and the following small bequests: to 
 the poor of Stratford 10 pds, to Thomas 
 Combe his sword, to Thomas Russel 5 pds, to 
 Francis Collins of Warwick, the lawyer who 
 attended to his affairs, 13 pds 6 sh 8 d, to 
 his godson 20 shillings in gold, to Hamlett 
 Sadler, William Raynoldes, Anthony Nash 
 and to John Nash, 26 sh 8 d each; to "my 
 fellows" John Hemynges, Richard Burbage 
 and Henry Cundell, 26 sh 8 d each for rings. 
 
 To his wife, interlined as an after 
 66 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 thought, which no one omits to notice, he 
 willed his second best bed with the furniture. 
 This throws light on his relations with his 
 wife. Possibly he foresaw her intention to 
 become Mrs. Richard James. 
 
 All the rest of his property went to his 
 daughter Susanna and her husband; to wit; 
 his goodes, chattels, leases, plate, jewels, and 
 household stuffe whatsoever. 
 
 In this Will therefore, there is no men- 
 tion of books, manuscripts or copyhold 
 rights in his works; nor, although he goes 
 outside of his family in making bequests, 
 does he mention any one beyond the circle 
 of humble people with whom he associated 
 in Stratford and in the theatre. 
 
 Perhaps this is the place to refer to a 
 curious error regarding Burbage and Hem- 
 ing into which Charles Kingsley, and fol- 
 lowing his lead, Henry Pemberton Jr., have 
 fallen. 
 
 In Jonson's Masque of Christmas, a 
 small boy is billed to enact the part of Cupid. 
 Before his appearance, his mother, a dodder- 
 67 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ing old woman, engages an usher in conver- 
 sation. She praises her boy; "she could have 
 had money enough for him had she been 
 tempted to have let him out for the week to 
 the Kings Players . . Master Burbage 
 has been about with her for him, and old Mr. 
 Hemmings too." 
 
 Whereupon Kingsley goes off in one of 
 his characteristic tirades to the effect that she 
 had better have tied a stone about his neck 
 and thrown him into the river than have 
 handed him over to Burbage to make money 
 out of the degradation of Christ's lamb &c, 
 intimating that Burbage wanted the boy for 
 immoral purposes. 
 
 Now at that date, women's parts were 
 played by boys, and handsome boys were 
 much sought after, and were more highly 
 paid than the other actors. Of course the old 
 woman was only trying to blow her son's 
 trumpet as a desirable addition to the cast in 
 the Masque, and the point comes out when, 
 after a few words, the poor little fellow 
 breaks down and is sent off the stage. 
 68 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Three weeks before Shakspere's death, 
 Francis Beaumont, dramatist, was buried in 
 Westminster Abbey. Two years later, when 
 Richard Burbage, Shakspere's fellow, died, 
 many tributes were paid to him as a man 
 and as an actor. 
 
 But Will Shakspere's death attracted no 
 attention whatever. 
 
 His son in law, Dr. John Hall, made the 
 following entry in his note book of cases; 
 
 "My father in law died last Thurs- 
 day/' 
 
 That is all a brief notice, but sufficient 
 in his eyes. 
 
 And yet Shakespearians of today lay 
 their hands upon their hearts, and say: 
 
 "There is no mystery about Shake- 
 speare; records amply establish the 
 identity between the actor and the 
 writer." 
 
 It was really Ben Jonson who wrote Will 
 Shakspere's epitaph in the "Poet Ape," or 
 Poet Actor, Ape being Elizabethan for actor, 
 which appeared in 1616. It is as follows; 
 69 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 "Poor Poet Ape that would be thought 
 
 our chief, 
 Whose works are but the frippery 
 
 of wit, 
 From brokage is become so bold a 
 
 thief 
 As we, the robbed, leave rage and 
 
 pity it. 
 At first he made low shifts; would 
 
 pick and glean, 
 Buy the reversion of old plays; 
 
 now grown 
 To a little wealth and credit in the 
 
 scene 
 He takes up all ; makes each man's 
 
 wit his own, 
 And told of this, he slights it. Tut, 
 
 such crumes 
 
 The sluggish gaping auditor de- 
 vours. 
 He marks not whose twas first, and 
 
 after times 
 May judge it to be his as well as 
 
 ours. 
 Fool, as if half eyes will not know a 
 
 fleece 
 
 From locks of wool; or shreds 
 from the whole piece." 
 70 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Will Shakspere was undoubtedly referred 
 to in these lines, which give truly enough, 
 the measure of his performance, and whose 
 prophecy has been amply fulfilled. 
 
 The monument in the church in Strat- 
 ford was erected by the family, probably 
 very much as we see it today. The restora- 
 tions made in 1746 were very trifling, and 
 Dugdale's illustrations in his "Antiquities of 
 Warwickshire," of which Baconians make 
 much, have been shown by Mr. Lang to be 
 inaccurate. Dugdale, by the way, gives us no 
 information about the player. 
 
 Will Shakspere was a successful man in 
 his way, which was not an extraordinary 
 way. He went to London at a happy moment 
 in the calling he had chosen. He was able to 
 add to the already considerable emoluments 
 of an actor by some sort of popularizing 
 work on old plays which aroused anger and 
 jealousy in some professional playwrights. 
 
 So far from being an ignorant, drunken 
 boor was he, that by industry and shrewd- 
 ness he made himself a place upon the stage, 
 71 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and a fortune; he looked after his family 
 and restored them to comfort. 
 
 But was he the inspired writer the world 
 at large believes him to have been? Do we 
 find it true that his life was one of "constant 
 and extraordinary intellectual growth" as 
 the authors of "The Facts about Shake- 
 speare" phrase it? I cannot bring myself to 
 believe it. To the very end he remained the 
 shrewd, money getting, money lending, 
 litigious man of small affairs. He left no 
 books nor papers, nor anything suggestive 
 of a literary life. He is assumed to have been 
 a man of wide culture; his plays are gen- 
 erally taken from foreign, and sometimes 
 from somewhat inaccessible sources, and yet 
 his equipment was of the most poverty 
 stricken character in all the essentials of a 
 literary life. Every carpenter needs his tools, 
 and Will Shakspere had none. 
 
 Baconians hold that Shakspere deserted 
 
 his family, and neglected to provide for them 
 
 even after he became able to do so. They 
 
 support this theory by the case of one 
 
 72 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Thomas Whittington, who as they say, dying 
 in 1601, instructed his executor to recover a 
 debt of 40 shillings from Mrs. Shakspere. 
 
 What Whittington actually did was to 
 bequeath to the poor of Stratford, 40 shil- 
 lings "which is in the hand of Anne Shax- 
 pere wyfe unto Mr. Wyllyam Shaxspere and 
 is debt due me, being paid to mine executor 
 by the said Wyllyam Shaxspere or his as- 
 signs &c." 
 
 The inference from this is that Mrs. 
 Shakspere was holding Whittington's savings 
 for him, in default of savings banks. 
 
 In this year of 1601 Shakspere was in 
 prosperous circumstances. Four years earlier 
 he had bought New Place, a pretentious 
 property, and had probably installed his 
 family there. Although the greatest literary 
 Englishman if we choose to think him such 
 did so far neglect his children that they 
 never learned to read or write, we have no 
 reason to believe that he neglected their ma- 
 terial wants. 
 
 There is no evidence that Will Shak- 
 73 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 spere ever knew socially any one outside of 
 the narrow circle of his fellow play actors 
 and fellow townsmen. He was not even dis- 
 tinguished in his own town; he never held 
 any public office there, and was neither 
 missed nor regretted. When, later in the cen- 
 tury, visitors came to Stratford; as the vicar 
 John Ward in 1661, John Aubray in 1669, 
 and John Dowdall in 1693, nothing was re- 
 membered of Will Shakspere but a few un- 
 important trifles he had wit but not art; 
 that he died after a carouse; that he was 
 a butcher's boy, and that he wrote a lot of 
 doggerel verses, including his own epitaph. 
 
 There is no mention made of him in any 
 papers left by any of the distinguished per- 
 sonages who were, it is asserted, his friends 
 and intimates. 
 
 And, finally, outside of the first folio of 
 1623, there was never any contemporary 
 claim made that he, Will Shakspere, the 
 actor, was the author of the works since 
 known as "Shake-speare's." 
 
 74 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 VENUS, LUCRECE, AND THE 
 SONNETS 
 
 A careful perusal of the foregoing chap- 
 ter should satisfy the reader of weakness in 
 Will Shakspere's title. Not only does the 
 evidence fail to identify him with the man 
 of culture and genius we are entitled to find 
 as the author of the Shakespeare works, but 
 it points plainly in an opposite direction, in- 
 dicating that he held, and deserved, only a 
 lowly place among his contemporaries. 
 
 Leaving this then, let us inquire as to 
 the evidence that the poems and plays were 
 composed by him. And first as to the poems. 
 
 Venus and Adonis. This, the first to ap- 
 pear of the poems, and 
 
 the first appearance in print of the name 
 William Shakespeare, was published in 
 1593. It was prefaced by two lines in the 
 original Latin from the Amores of Ovid, and 
 by a Dedication to the Earl of Southampton. 
 75 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The poem relates that on a summer's 
 morn, Adonis was on his way to the hunt, 
 when Venus waylaid him, and despite his 
 indifference, held him during the day, while 
 she made shameless love to him. At night- 
 fall, he left her, very probably being in need 
 of refreshment, and when on the following 
 morning, she found him, he had met his 
 death in the hunt. A flower sprang up from 
 his blood, which she, lamenting, took with 
 her to Paphos. 
 
 The tale is, of course, taken from the 
 Metamorphoses, but is told at much greater 
 length, and with the erotic side of the story 
 developed ad nauseam. Where Ovid merely 
 says; 
 
 "And she flung 
 Her limbs upon the grass, and 
 
 pressed at once 
 Its verdure and her lover, and her 
 
 wealth 
 Of glossy tresses pillowing on his 
 
 breast 
 
 With frequent kisses broken told her 
 tale." Kings transl. 
 
 76 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the English writer devotes quite one fourth 
 part of the poem to the presentation, in tedi- 
 ous iteration, of this phase of his theme. 
 Now, this amorousness is not a feature of the 
 Shakespeare plays. The authorship is 
 fundamentally different. 
 
 The description of the horse appears to 
 have been adapted from the poem on the 
 Creation, by the Frenchman Du Bartas. Du 
 Bartas described the horse which was tamed 
 by Cain as follows; 
 
 "With round high hollow smooth 
 
 brown jetty hoof, 
 With pasterns short upright, but yet 
 
 in mean, 
 Dry sinewy shanks, strong fleshless 
 
 knees and lean, 
 With hart like legs, broad breast and 
 
 large behinde, 
 With body large, smooth flanks and 
 
 double chined. 
 A crested neck, bowed like a half bent 
 
 bow 
 Whereon a long thin curled mane 
 
 doth flow, 
 77 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 A fine full tail, touching the lowly 
 ground 
 
 With dock between two fair fat but- 
 tocks drowned, 
 
 Pricked ear that rests as little space 
 
 As his light foot; a lean bare bonny 
 face, 
 
 Thin jowle and head, but of a mid- 
 dling size 
 
 Full lively flaming, quickly rolling 
 
 eyes, 
 Great foaming mouth, hot flaring 
 
 nostril wide." 
 
 This, our English author, in haste to re- 
 turn to his puling Venus, condenses into four 
 lines ; 
 
 "Round hoof'd, short jointed, fetlocks 
 
 shag and long 
 Broad breast, full eye, small head 
 
 and nostril wide, 
 High crest, short ears, straight legs 
 
 and passing strong 
 Thin mane, thick tail, broad but- 
 tock, tender hide;" 
 78 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Ovid's Metamorphoses was translated by 
 Golding into English and published in 1565. 
 Du Bartas, who lived from 1544 to 1590, 
 was translated into English by Sylvester in 
 1598. 
 
 Mr. Castle finds traces of a legal train- 
 ing in the author in lines 335-6; 
 
 "But when the heart's attorney once 
 
 is mute 
 
 The client breaks, as desperate in his 
 suit." 
 
 and in lines 511-21; 
 
 "Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips 
 
 imprinted, 
 What bargains may I make, still 
 
 to be sealing? 
 
 To sell myself I can be well con- 
 tented, 
 So thou wilt buy, and pay, and 
 
 use good dealing; 
 Which purchase if thou make, for 
 
 fear of slips, 
 
 Set thy seal manual on my wax red 
 lips. 
 
 79 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 A thousand kisses buys my heart 
 
 from me; 
 And pay them at thy leisure, one 
 
 by one. 
 What is ten hundred touches unto 
 
 thee? 
 Are they not quickly told, and 
 
 quickly gone? 
 Say, that for non payment that the 
 
 debt should double, 
 Is twenty hundred kisses such a 
 
 trouble ?" 
 
 With less plausibility, Dr. Furnivall saw 
 references to Startford experiences in such 
 lines as; 
 
 "Rain added to a river that is rank 
 Perforce will force it to overflow the 
 bank." 
 
 which he thought might picture the Avon; 
 and in; 
 
 "Even as the wind is hushed before it 
 
 raineth" and in; 
 "The owl, nights herald, shrieks 'tis 
 
 very late" and; 
 "Like many clouds consulting for foul 
 
 weather" 
 
 80 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and in other similar instances. As if such 
 experiences were to be found only at Strat- 
 ford. 
 
 Now, as to the authorship ; the poems and 
 Sonnets are taken by Shakespearians to fur- 
 nish contemporary proof that the actor Will 
 Shakspere enjoyed the friendship of distin- 
 guished personages at Court, where he ac- 
 quired the culture and knowledge of the 
 great world which are displayed in the works. 
 The argument is that the poems show culture, 
 therefore the actor had culture. The connec- 
 tion is not quite clear, but it is the best to 
 be had, since there is no other proof of the 
 existence of either culture or of courtly 
 friendships of Will Shakspere. 
 
 As to the plays, the lines of Jonson in the 
 first folio constitute the only direct, contem- 
 porary testimony in our possession to the ef- 
 fect that the actor, Will Shakspere, was the 
 admired author of the Shakespeare plays. 
 
 Steevens excluded the poems from his 
 edition of Shakespeare's works in 1773, de- 
 81 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 daring that an Act of Parliament would not 
 compel readers into their service. 
 
 The dedication of Venus and Adonis 
 runs as follows ; 
 
 To the 
 Right Honourable Henry Wriothesley 
 
 Earl of Southampton 
 and Baron of Titchfield. 
 Right Honourable 
 
 I know not how I shall offend in dedi- 
 cating my unpolished lines to your lordship, 
 nor how the world will censure me for choos- 
 ing so strong a prop to support so weak a 
 burden; only if your honour seems but 
 pleased, I account myself highly praised, and 
 vow to take advantage of all idle hours till 
 I have honoured you with some greater 
 labour. But if the first heir of my invention 
 prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so 
 noble a godfather, and never after ear so 
 barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad 
 a harvest. I leave it to your honourable sur- 
 vey, and your honour to your heart's con- 
 tent; which I wish may always answer your 
 82 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 own wish and the world's hopeful expecta- 
 tion. 
 
 Your Honours in all duty, 
 
 William Shakespeare. 
 
 The author says that if this, his first at- 
 tempt, be successful, he will offer something 
 more serious. Seven editions of Venus, and 
 five of Lucrece, were issued by 1616, thus 
 justifying the author's hopes. 
 
 It is to be remembered that the poems 
 and Sonnets were not included in the first 
 folio, so that the support of Jonson's iden- 
 tification does not extend to them. 
 
 The name "Shakespeare" to which we are 
 here introduced for the first time, was not 
 the actor's name. Although, as is well known, 
 there was no standard of spelling in Shak- 
 spere's day, it is to be noted that in all the 
 variants of the name prior to 1593, its first 
 syllable is short; as Shag, Shack, Shak, or 
 Shax. Its original meaning was a common 
 spearman, the first syllable meaning rough, 
 or rascal, and the last spear, or perhaps spur. 
 83 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The conception of shaking a spear does not 
 enter into the name. 
 
 The existing so called signatures, 
 whether written by Shakspere himself or by a 
 scrivener, are in the form Shaksper and 
 Shaxper. It would seem that even Shake- 
 spearians should admit the form Shake- 
 speare to be a pen name, devised, if not by 
 the actor himself, then by another. 
 
 The poem is the work of a scholar, and it 
 is our theory that Will Shakspere, at the 
 time only a few years in London, was inca- 
 pable of its authorship. 
 
 From our point of view therefore, it is 
 permissible to conjecture that the rising of 
 the name Shakespeare on the literary horizon 
 at the time, was an independent happening, 
 in some way coincident, and perhaps con- 
 nected with Shakspere's London career; and 
 to inquire who might have found it conven- 
 ient to set a pen name to his work, as well as 
 who would have been likely to choose such 
 a name as Shakespeare, which added to a 
 84 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 classical composition the classical suggestion 
 of Pallas Athene, the goddess. 
 
 It is extremely improbable, for instance, 
 that any professed poet, desiring the advan- 
 tage of a distinguished patronage to god- 
 father his essay, would deliberately resign 
 that advantage by concealing his identity 
 under an assumed name. Rather would he 
 have been particularly careful to place his 
 own name to the dedication. 
 
 This consideration would seem to exclude 
 the known poets from the number of possi- 
 bilities. Mr. T. W. White ascribes the Venus 
 to Marlowe on internal evidence. But why 
 should not Marlowe have used his own name. 
 
 At the time the Venus appeared, Will 
 Shakspere was in the service of Lord Strange, 
 to whose company he belonged, and it would 
 have been unsuitable for him to have ad- 
 dressed himself to another patron. Had he 
 been capable of writing such verse, he would 
 undoubtedly have addressed Lord Strange as 
 his patron. 
 
 Thus the scope of our inquiry, after 
 85 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 eliminating, as we seem bound to do, the 
 actor, and the known poets, is very consider- 
 ably narrowed. 
 
 Raleigh or Sidney have been thought pos- 
 sibilities, but, admitting even that they might 
 have wished to conceal their identity for the 
 moment, can it be explained why either of 
 them should address in so humble a style, a 
 youngster of half their age, and no more than 
 their equal in family or position. It must 
 be confessed that, in this case at least, the 
 trail leads rather plainly Baconwards. 
 
 Although the only verses positively 
 known as Bacon's, that remain to us, are his 
 metrical versions of seven of the Psalms, and 
 less surely, a rendering of a Greek epigram, 
 and a dozen other lines, all of them of in- 
 ferior merit; yet it is known that by some 
 he was accounted a poet. 
 
 In 1603 Bacon wrote to Sir John Davies, 
 when James was on his way to England; 
 
 "I commend myself to your love 
 and the well using of my name . . 
 so desiring you to be good to all con- 
 cealed poets &c" 
 86 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 And in his Apology, published in 1604, 
 Bacon says; 
 
 "I had prepared a Sonnet tending 
 to her Majesty's reconcilement to my 
 Lord (Essex) which I remember I 
 also showed to a great person, one of 
 my Lord's nearest friends &c" 
 Also, John Davies of Hereford, in his 
 Scourge of Folly, published in 1610, says 
 that Bacon's wit compelled him to write; 
 
 "And to thy health in Helicon to drinke 
 As to her Ballamour the Muse is 
 
 wont; 
 For thou dost her embosom ; and dost 
 
 use 
 
 Her company for sport twixt grave 
 affairs." 
 
 In Stow's Annals, published in 1615, 
 Bacon's name occurs as the seventh in a list 
 of 27 Elizabethan poets. This was prior to 
 his versification of the Psalms. 
 
 So that it is evident that we do not pos- 
 sess all of Bacon's poems as his acknowl- 
 edged work. 
 
 87 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 In 1593 Bacon was a member of Parlia- 
 ment, taking a prominent part in political af- 
 fairs, heavily in debt and a keen competitor 
 for the important post of Attorney General. 
 Essex, with whom he was intimate, was back- 
 ing his application strongly. Southampton 
 was one of Essex' intimates, and it is con- 
 ceivable that under the circumstances Bacon 
 might desire to compliment Southampton 
 and gain his support, without making a pub- 
 lic avowal of his authorship. The Queen al- 
 ready held his attainments rather lightly, 
 esteeming them but superficial, and it might 
 have gravely endangered his chance of ob- 
 taining this serious and weighty position 
 were it generally known that he was flirting 
 so amorously with the Muse. 
 
 As to the choice of Shakespeare as a pen 
 name, we may observe first that something 
 like it had been known before, since we learn 
 from Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature that 
 the names Spavento, horrid fright ; and Spiz- 
 zafer, shiver spear, were in use by the Ital- 
 ian pantomimists. 
 
 88 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The attack made by Greene in 1592 upon 
 the actor, as Shake scene, may have been a 
 factor in the adoption, and adaptation of the 
 name Shake speare, this as has been said, 
 having been the first appearance ,of Shake, 
 instead of Shak, in the actor's name. 
 
 However that may be, there is no doubt 
 that Bacon was connected in some way with 
 the device, for not only did La Jessee, secre- 
 tary to the Due d'Anjou, address a Sonnet 
 to Bacon in 1595, in which he speaks of 
 'votre Pallas/ but Bacon himself, in the same 
 year, connected the hyphenated name with 
 Pallas, in his Essex device. Then we have 
 Jonson in 1623 writing; 
 
 "In each of which he seems to shake 
 
 a lance 
 As brandished at the eyes of 
 
 ignorance." 
 
 Thus we have the name Shakespeare 
 connected with Pallas, and Pallas connected 
 with Bacon; and we find the idea very suit- 
 able to a man with Bacon's turn of mind; 
 Shake-speare, the goddess of wisdom, fully 
 89 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 armed, shaking her spear; not the actor Will 
 Shakspere's name, but sufficiently like it to 
 serve for a cloak. 
 
 And so, it may be, the name Shake 
 speare was born ; and the success of the poem 
 gave it popularity and commercial value. 
 
 The Rape of Lucrece. The Lucrece was 
 
 published in 1594, 
 
 and is undoubtedly by the same hand as the 
 Venus, being just as classical and just as 
 amorous. 
 
 Attention has already been called to the 
 curious connection between the "without end" 
 and "without beginning" of the dedication; 
 and the finding of "Fr B" in the first words 
 of the first two lines, and of "F Bacon" in 
 the last words of the two concluding lines of 
 the poem. 
 
 That a lawyer wrote the Lucrece seems 
 quite clear, as Mr. Castle has pointed out. 
 The author brings in expressions learned in 
 the court house, in the most tragic moments 
 of the story. 
 
 90 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Thus Tarquin, debating whether or no 
 he shall commit the crime, says; 
 
 "Why hunt I then for color or ex- 
 cuse," color being a legal term 'for a 
 shadow of a reason. 
 
 And Lucrece is as good a lawyer as he, 
 when she inquires ; 
 
 "Under what color he commits this 
 ill." 
 
 The deed being done, she finds time in 
 her tempest of grief to think of a register's 
 office to find a name for Night ; 
 
 "Dim register and notary of 
 shame," and this leads her to think of 
 another simile; 
 
 "Sin ne'er gives a fee; He gratis 
 comes;" and she goes on to describe 
 Tarquin in terms which a lawyer 
 might use in denouncing an opponent. 
 
 Of Collatine she says; 
 
 "I will not poison thee with my 
 attaint," 
 
 She recalls the adventures of Helen and 
 91 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Paris, the connection of which with her own 
 case is obscure, and occasion is taken to bring 
 in a description of a picture of Troy, with 
 the Trojans watching the Greeks from the 
 city walls, which fills seventy six lines of the 
 poem. 
 
 The following lines, written by Bacon in 
 1624, are taken from his version of the 104th 
 Psalm. At this period Bacon was sixty three 
 years old, and a sick man. Even with these 
 handicaps, and that of the difficulty of the 
 subject, the lines are not inferior to many of 
 those in the Lucrece; 
 
 "Father and King of Powers both high 
 
 and low 
 Whose sounding Fame all creatures 
 
 serve to blow, 
 My soul shall with the rest strike up 
 
 thy praise 
 
 And caroll of thy workes and won- 
 drous waies. 
 * * * * 
 
 The clouds as chariots swift doe 
 secure the sky 
 92 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The stormy winds upon their wings 
 doe fly 
 
 His Angels spirits are, that wait his 
 Will 
 
 As Flames of Fire his anger they ful- 
 fill. 
 * * * * 
 
 Let all his works praise him with one 
 
 accord, 
 Oh, praise the Lord, my Soule ; praise 
 
 ye the Lord." 
 
 Milton did far worse in his translation 
 of a Psalm, and surely this specimen of 
 verses, indisputably by Bacon, compares 
 quite favorably with the one undisputed 
 poetical composition of Will Shakspere, 
 actor, which commences; 
 
 "Good Frend for Jesus sake forbeare 
 To digg the dust encloased heare." 
 
 The Sonnets. The first mention of the Son- 
 nets was made in 1598, when 
 Francis Meres published his Palladis Tamia, 
 or Wits Treasury, containing a partial list 
 of the authors of the day who "have enriched 
 the English tongue." He says; 
 93 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 "The sweet witty soul of Ovid lives 
 in mellifluous honey tongued Shake- 
 speare; witness his Venus and 
 Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred son- 
 nets among his private friends &c." 
 In 1599 Jaggard included two of the son- 
 nets, Nos. 138 and 144, in the collection en- 
 titled the Passionate Pilgrim. 
 
 In 1609 the Sonnets, as we know them, 
 were published under the title; 
 
 "Shake-speare's Sonnets never before 
 
 imprinted" 
 
 with a fantastic dedication which has given 
 much concern to the critics; 
 
 "To the onlie begetter of 
 
 These insuing Sonnets 
 
 Mr. W. H. all happiness 
 
 And that eternitie 
 
 promised 
 
 by 
 Our everliving poet 
 
 wisheth 
 
 the well wishing 
 
 Adventurer in 
 
 setting 
 
 forth 
 
 np 'T 1 
 
 94 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Since the whole superstructure which has 
 been built up, of friendships existing between 
 Will Shakspere and members of the beau 
 monde, rests solely upon the dedications pre- 
 fixed to the poems, frantic efforts have been 
 made to connect the actor with some impor- 
 tant personage who is assumed to be alluded 
 to in this above dedication, and to be the 
 friend addressed in the Sonnets themselves. 
 
 Thus the "onlie begetter" and the "Mr. 
 W. H." of the dedication have been arbi- 
 trarily transformed into "the author's 
 friend" and "Lord so and so," no agreement 
 having yet been reached as which particu- 
 lar Lord was denoted by Mr. W. H. Among 
 the suggested names are those of Southamp- 
 ton, Pembroke, Raleigh, Hervey, and a com- 
 moner, one William Hewes. 
 
 Now, mark the unreasonableness of 
 these attempts ; a begetter is either the author, 
 or else the one who gets; that is to say, the 
 collector. 
 
 Nor could an humble publisher, like 
 Thomas Thorpe, the T. T. who signed the 
 dedication, have ventured to address the Earl 
 95 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 of Southampton, the Right Honorable Will- 
 iam Herbert, Sir Walter Raleigh, or Sir 
 William Hervey, as plain "Mr. W. H." Even 
 to-day it would be inconceivable presumption 
 to do so. 
 
 These verses were composed, it is sup- 
 posed, in great part if not wholly, between the 
 years 1595 and 1598, when they were men- 
 tioned by Meres, the latest about 1603. 
 
 They were not for sale, according to Son- 
 net 21, but for private circulation, and were 
 handed about for some years. By 1609 some 
 one had got hold of those that we now pos- 
 sess, and gave them to his publisher friend, 
 who then printed them. The dedication is not 
 addressed by the author to his patron, but 
 by the publisher to the friend who has pre- 
 sented him with an opportunity for a pub- 
 lishing venture. 
 
 "Mr. W. H." is undoubtedly one William 
 Hall, as appears from the dedication itself; 
 
 "Mr. W. Hall." 
 
 In the Isham reprints there is a poem by 
 Robert Southwell, the dedication to which 
 reads; "W. H. wisheth with long life a pros- 
 96 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 perous achievement of his good desires." 
 Southwell's poem was procured by William 
 Hall, and printed for him by G. Eld, who 
 was also the printer of the Shakespeare Son- 
 nets for Thorpe. 
 
 "And that eternitie promised by our ever- 
 living poet." This poet was the author of 
 the Sonnets, who insists in many places upon 
 this eternity; as in Sonnets 18, 19, 55, 63, 65, 
 and in several others. Still are we debating 
 who this poet and his friend may be. 
 
 There is no doubt about "T. T." for his 
 name is found in the Register of the Station- 
 ers Company; 
 
 "20 May 1609, Thomas Thorpe, a 
 book called Shake-speare's Sonnets." 
 Thus the much discussed dedication re- 
 solves itself into the following; 
 To the Procurer 
 of these Sonnets 
 
 Mr W Hall; 
 
 happiness and the eternity 
 promised by their author 
 
 is the wish of 
 the enterprising publisher 
 
 Thomas Thorpe. 
 97 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 In 1598, which we may take to be about 
 the date when the majority of the Sonnets 
 had been composed, Pembroke, as William 
 Herbert became in 1601, was only 18 years 
 old; Southampton was 25; Essex 31 years; 
 Will Shakspere 34; Bacon 37; Sir Philip 
 Sidney 44, and Raleigh 46 years old. 
 
 The Sonnets number 154; of which the 
 first seventeen are known as the Procreative 
 Sonnets, being addressed to a young man who 
 is advised to reproduce himself, "for love of 
 me." The feverish anxiety expressed by one 
 man concerning another man's procreative 
 exercises is too much overdone to be more 
 than an affectation. 
 
 Sonnets 18-126 continue to be ad- 
 dressed, in a very passionate strain, to a man. 
 The poet describes himself as old and selfish, 
 while his love is a boy. There are hints of a 
 quarrel, of jealousy of other men, of forgive- 
 ness, of shame, and of a scandal; most of it 
 mere drivel. Sonnet 126, which is a canzon- 
 ette, and complete in itself, completes this 
 series. Sonnet 107, by the way, is supposed 
 98 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 to congratulate Southampton upon his re- 
 lease from prison, which, if correct, would 
 lead to the conclusion that Southampton was 
 the friend addressed, Southampton the 
 patron to whom the Venus and the Lucrece 
 were dedicated; and would also fix the date 
 of composition of this Sonnet, since South- 
 ampton's release from the Tower occurred 
 on April 10, 1603. 
 
 Sonnets 127-152 are ostensibly ad- 
 dressed to a woman, but are so extremely un- 
 flattering that one may be excused for doubt- 
 ing that they were addressed to any real per- 
 son. The lady is described as unattractive 
 and with a bad breath; she is "black as hell," 
 and so are her deeds. Their love is unlawful, 
 and she is his "worser spirit." Sonnet 145, 
 included in this series, is considered to be by 
 another hand. 
 
 Sonnets 153-4 are an original transla- 
 tion of a Greek epigram, to the effect that 
 Love's torch having gone out while he slept, 
 it was relighted by the eyes of the poet's mis- 
 tress. 
 
 99 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 A biographical character is universally 
 assigned to these sonnets, although a great 
 deal that is in them is evidently mere affecta- 
 tion, such as prevailed in the sonneteering 
 period. 
 
 There can be little doubt that the author 
 of the Venus and of the Lucrece is also the 
 author of the Sonnets. 
 
 Take the following lines from the Venus, 
 where the goddess is endeavoring to argue 
 Adonis into reciprocating her passion; 
 
 163. Torches are made to light, jewels to 
 
 wear, 
 Dainties to taste, fresh beauties for 
 
 the use, 
 Herbs for their smell and sappy plants 
 
 to bear. 
 Things growing to themselves are 
 
 growths abuse; 
 Seeds spring from seed and beauty 
 
 breedeth beauty, 
 Thou wast begot to get it is thy duty. 
 
 169. Upon the earth's increase why 
 shouldst thou feed, 
 
 100 
 
THE SILENT SHARES? 
 
 Unless the earth ititik thy iridrease 
 
 be fed? 
 By law of Nature thou art bound to 
 
 breed, 
 That thine may live when thou thy- 
 
 self are dead; 
 And so in spite of death thou dost sur- 
 
 vive 
 In that thy likeness still is left alive. 
 
 751. Therefore despite of fruitless chastity, 
 Love lacking vestals, and self lov- 
 
 ing nuns, 
 That on the earth would breed a 
 
 scarcity 
 And barren dearth of daughters and 
 
 of sons, 
 Be prodigal, the lamp that burns by 
 
 night 
 
 Dries up his oil to lend the world his 
 light. 
 
 757. What is thy body but a swallowing 
 
 grave 
 
 Seeming to bury that posterity 
 Which by the rights of time thou 
 needst must have 
 101 
 
: T*HE 'S'lL'ENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ' If thdu 'destroy them not in dark 
 obscurity 
 
 If so the world will hold thee in dis- 
 dain 
 
 Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is 
 slain. 
 
 and compare with the first seventeen Sonnets, 
 from which the following are a few of the 
 lines ; 
 
 3. But if thou live, remembered not to be 
 Die single, and thine image dies with 
 
 thee. 
 
 13. Dear my love, you know 
 
 You had a father ; let your son say so. 
 
 15. When I perceive that men as plants 
 
 increase 
 Cheered and check'd even by the 
 
 self same sky 
 Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height 
 
 decrease 
 
 And wear their brave state out of 
 memory; 
 
 We may question whether this line of 
 argument was likely to influence the youth- 
 102 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ful Adonis, but we may not question the 
 conclusion that the author of the Venus and 
 the author of the Sonnets, were one. 
 
 Sir Sidney Lee sees in Southampton the 
 friend to whom the Sonnets are addressed, 
 and thinks that several of the Sonnets em- 
 body language almost identical with that in 
 the dedication to Lucrece; or in other words, 
 that they were written by the author of the 
 Lucrece. See, for example, Sonnet 26. 
 
 Yet, despite the supposed intimacy be- 
 tween Southampton ; and Will Shakspere; 
 despite the real intimacy which must have 
 existed between the author of the Sonnets 
 and their inspirer, there is no mention of 
 Shakspere in Southampton's existing letters 
 or papers. 
 
 That the real authorship is concealed un- 
 der an assumed name is proclaimed in Son- 
 nets 72 and 76. 
 
 "My name be buried where my body is 
 And live no more to shame nor me 
 nor you. 
 
 103 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Why write I still all one, ever the 
 
 same 
 
 And keep invention in a noted weed 
 That every word doth almost tell my 
 
 name." 
 
 "Invention" meaning his compositions, 
 and "weed" a garment or cloak, as the word 
 is used in Sonnet 2. The meaning still sur- 
 vives in our phrase, widow's weeds ! 
 
 So, when we read of "Shakespeare's 
 sugred Sonnets" we understand that Shakes- 
 peare is a pseudonym, made noted by the 
 success of Venus and of Lucrece. 
 
 The passionate love for young men ex- 
 pressed in the Sonnets accords very well with 
 Bacon's character, for like his master, James 
 I, By the Grace of God King of England, 
 &c., he has been charged with the vice of an 
 erotic fancy for young men. And both 
 Southampton and Pembroke were notori- 
 ously licentious. 
 
 The "rival poet" of Sonnets 80-86 has 
 been plausibly identified with George Chap- 
 man, and the "proud full sail of his great 
 104 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 verse." Chapman is known to have sought 
 Southampton's patronage in 1596-7 for his 
 translation of the Iliad. 
 
 A rather showy identification has been 
 conceived by Judge Stotsenburg of Sir Philip 
 Sidney as the author of the Sonnets; of 
 Lady Penelope Rich, for whom Sidney had 
 a fancy, as the Dark Lady; and of Sir Ed- 
 ward Dyer, Sidney's friend, as the friend of 
 the Sonnets. But it is based upon a misap- 
 prehension of the line in Sonnet 20; 
 
 "A man in hue, all hues in his con- 
 trolling." 
 
 Naturally, a dyer has all hues in his 
 controlling, but hue, formerly spelled hew, 
 and from the anglo saxon hiw, means form, 
 not color, and is so used elsewhere in the 
 Sonnets. Thus in Sonnet 82; 
 
 "As fair in knowledge as in hue." 
 And in Sonnet 104; 
 
 "So your sweet hew, which methinks 
 
 still doth stand 
 Hath motion." 
 
 In these instances the sense requires the 
 105 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 meaning, form or shape, and in Sonnet 20 
 the meaning is ; 
 
 "A man in form, all forms in his con- 
 trolling." 
 
 Referring undoubtedly to the possible re- 
 sults of the procreative activities so highly 
 recommended by our poet. 
 
 In Sonnet 76 the author conceives that 
 he is making plain both his own name and 
 the name of the friend to whom he writes; 
 
 "every word doth almost tell my 
 
 name 
 
 Showing their birth and where they 
 did proceed." 
 
 Unfortunately, we no longer understand 
 the allusions, and the birth as well as the 
 destination of the lines is still disputed. 
 
 The punning Sonnets, 135, 136, 143, do 
 not assist us. The author says that the 
 Dark Lady has her will, for his name is 
 Will; William Shakespeare, his pseudonym. 
 
 During the years in which the Sonnets 
 were written, our actor was pursuing his 
 lucrative but humble calling; touring the 
 106 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 provinces with his fellow apes, puppets, jug- 
 glers and clowns; was trying, with others of 
 his kind, to enter the ranks of gentility, and 
 was being ridiculed for it; was just one of 
 carpenter Burbage's men players; was suing 
 Philip Rogers of Stratford for two shillings; 
 and was tricking his fellow Burbage out of 
 his mistress' favors, or seducing an inn 
 keeper's wife at Oxford. 
 
 If Will Shakspere had indeed been 
 Southampton's intimate, as we are asked 
 to believe by those who believe that he wrote 
 the Sonnets, would not his personal history 
 have been written in larger letters? 
 
 The series of probabilities above set 
 forth may now be summarized as follows; 
 
 1. Venus, Lucrece and the Sonnets are 
 from the same hand. 
 
 2. That hand was not Will Shaks- 
 pere's, 
 
 a. Because there are no known 
 facts in his life to support 
 the belief, and the facts we 
 have are inconsistent with 
 it. 
 107 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 b. Because his patron was Lord 
 
 Strange, not the Earl of 
 Southampton. 
 
 c. Because his name was not 
 
 Shakespeare, but a name 
 vocally and etymologically 
 different. 
 
 d. Because the name Shakespeare, 
 
 prefixed to the Sonnets, was 
 avowedly a pen name, a 
 noted weed. It was noted, 
 because the success of Lu- 
 crece had made it so. It 
 was not Shakspere's, be- 
 cause it was too like his real 
 name to serve as a disguise. 
 
 e. Because he was never contem- 
 
 poraneously identified with 
 the author of the poems. 
 
 3. Known poets, that is professional 
 poets, would have used their own 
 names. 
 
 4. We know that Bacon had written a 
 Sonnet before 1604, and that he was 
 
 108 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 known as a poet by his contem- 
 poraries before 1610, although the 
 only surviving acknowledged verses 
 of his were written in 1624. 
 
 5. Bacon had a sufficiently good reason 
 at the moment for concealing his 
 identity as the author. 
 
 6. The amorous character of the poems 
 answers to the known disposition of 
 both Bacon and of Southampton. 
 
 For those who accept these conclusions, 
 Shakspere's fancied friendships with the 
 great ones of the earth must vanish into noth- 
 ingness, for there is absolutely no evidence 
 in support of them except the name William 
 Shakespeare attached to the Venus, the Lu- 
 crece and the Sonnets. 
 
 109 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 The First Folio 
 
 If Ben Jonson had written nothing con- 
 cerning Shakspere but the Ode to his Be- 
 loved, which is among the prefatory matter 
 to the folio of 1623, we should either have 
 to accept the distinct identification there 
 made of the actor with the author, or we 
 should have to flatly decline to do so, because 
 of the inherent improbability of Jonson's 
 eulogies. 
 
 Happily, Honest Ben has spared us the 
 unpleasant necessity of choosing which horn 
 of the dilemma we prefer, by recording, or 
 having recorded for him, upon at least half 
 a dozen occasions, when he was not under 
 contract to write a paean of praise, his opin- 
 ion of Will Shakspere. These extra folian 
 pronouncements are mutually consistent, but 
 are all at variance with the Ode; the weight 
 and purport of which is thereby greatly mod- 
 ified. 
 
 110 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The folio came into existence in the fol- 
 lowing way: 
 
 By 1623 the little circle of the Burbage 
 players had lost some of its principal mem- 
 bers. Richard Burbage, its star, died in 
 1618; William Kemp, the clown, had left it 
 in 1602, and is not heard of after 1605, and 
 Augustine Phillips died in 1605. 
 
 John Fletcher had succeeded the older 
 writers as the lion of the dramatic authors. 
 He collaborated with Field, Massinger, Row- 
 ley and others, and was the dramatist for the 
 King's players. The Shakespeare plays were 
 no longer new, and were given but infre- 
 quently; and their owners, who were also the 
 owners of the theatre, to wit; the Burbage 
 heirs, Heminge, and Condell, saw a possible 
 profit in collecting and publishing them from 
 their own copies in order to displace the 
 pirated editions then in the market. 
 
 The charges of publishing were borne 
 by Wm. Jaggard, Ed. Blount, J. Smithweeke 
 and W. Aspley. 
 
 The ever-needy Ben Jonson was engaged 
 111 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 to give the book a literary send-off. He was 
 a most suitable person for the purpose, hav- 
 ing published his own works in 1616, the 
 first writer to undertake such an enterprise. 
 Besides this, he was the foremost literary 
 man in England; and the poet laureate, hav- 
 ing been so created by Letters Patent dated 
 February 1, 1616, with a pension of 100 
 marks a year, later increased by Charles I 
 to 100 pounds. 
 
 The poems were not included in the folio, 
 which contained but 36 plays, Pericles being 
 omitted. 
 
 Some of the plays are more complete than 
 in the quartos; some are less complete; they 
 were evidently published without editing. 
 
 Twenty of them were here published for 
 the first time. 
 
 About two hundred copies of the first 
 folio are now in existence, of which it is said 
 that less than twenty copies contain the por- 
 trait printed, and not inserted, on the title 
 page. 
 
 112 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The verses which introduce the portrait 
 are signed "B. I.," or Ben Jonson, and are 
 written in a style which obituary poetry has 
 rendered familiar to us all; 
 
 TO THE READER 
 
 "This figure, that thou here seest put, 
 It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; 
 Wherein the Graver had a strife 
 With Nature, to outdoo the life. 
 O, could he but have drawne his wit 
 As well in brasse as he hath hit 
 His face; the print would then sur- 
 
 passe 
 
 All, that was ever writt in brasse. 
 But since he cannot, Reader, looke 
 Not on his Picture, but his Booke." 
 
 The lines asserting that the Graver had 
 a strife with Nature to outdoo the life are 
 not original, but are to be found in other 
 eulogies of the time. It is all dreadfully poor 
 stuff. 
 
 The book is dedicated to Pembroke and 
 Montgomery, the "Incomparable Paire of 
 113 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Brethren, who have prosequuted both these 
 trifles and their Author living with so much 
 favour"; that is to say, who have attended 
 and approved the performances, for there is 
 no evidence that they ever did more. 
 
 Heminge and Condell, who signed the 
 Dedication, are made to say that they have 
 collected the plays and done an office to the 
 dead, who is "by death departed from that 
 right . . . without ambition of selfe 
 profit or fame." 
 
 Nevertheless, in the Address to the Great 
 Variety of Readers, which follows, and 
 which also is signed by Heminge and Con- 
 dell, the public is urged to buy the book; 
 "But, whatever you do, Buy." The public 
 is informed that it was before "abused with 
 diverse stolne and surreptitious copies," but 
 that these are now offered "cured and per- 
 fect of their limbs, and all the rest, absolute 
 in their numbers, as he conceived them 
 . . . His mind and hand went together, 
 and what he thought, he uttered with that 
 114 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 easiness that we have scarse received from 
 him a blot in his papers." 
 
 These two addresses are universally at- 
 tributed to Jonson, who, in his "Discoveries," 
 referring to the claim that Shakespeare never 
 blotted a line, sardonically remarks that his 
 friends chose that circumstance to commend 
 their friend wherein he most faulted. 
 
 Next we have some lines by Hugh Hol- 
 land, beginning; 
 
 "Those hands which you so clapt, go 
 
 now, and wring 
 
 You Britaines brave; for done are 
 Shakespeare's dayes:" 
 
 and a Catalogue of the Plays, numbering 
 only 35, for Troilus and Cressida, although 
 contained in the folio, was omitted in cata- 
 loguing; and Pericles is not included in the 
 book. 
 
 And so at last we come to Jonson's verses 
 
 to the Author. It must be confessed that the 
 
 Plays were sufficiently prefaced, although it 
 
 would have been well had the editors thought 
 
 115 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 it worth while to give us some account of the 
 life and personality of the author, and fewer 
 fireworks. 
 
 To the Memory of my Beloved 
 
 the Author 
 Mr. William Shakespeare 
 
 and 
 what he hath left us. 
 
 Now it must be insisted upon that Will 
 Shakspere was not Jonson's Beloved. On the 
 contrary, Jonson lost no opportunity of at- 
 tacking our actor in his most vigorous man- 
 ner. Thus; 
 
 In "Every Man out of his Humor," 1599, 
 he pillories Shakspere as Sogliardo, a well-to- 
 do clown, with an ambition to become a gen- 
 tleman, at any cost. Sogliardo purchases 
 arms; "By this parchment, gentlemen, I 
 have been so toiled among the harrots yon- 
 der you will not believe ... I can 
 write myself gentleman now; here's my 
 Patent; it cost me thirty pound ... it 
 is your boar without a head, rampant." 
 116 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 And the jester Carlo, who is tutoring the 
 clown, strikes in; 
 
 Carlo A swine without a head ; without 
 braine, wit, anything indeed, ramping to gen- 
 tility. 
 
 Puntavarlo Let the word be 'Not with- 
 out mustard, 7 your crest is very rare, sir. 
 
 Shakspere's motto, it will be remembered, 
 for this passage has been quoted in a former 
 chapter, was 'Non sanz droict.' 
 
 In the "Poetaster," again, in 1601, where 
 Jonson presents himself as Horace, attacked 
 by two scribblers, Crispinus and Demetrious, 
 under which names he satirizes Marston and 
 Dekker, he introduces a braggart captain, 
 one Tucca, who asks Histrio, an actor, if he 
 knows Pantalabus; one who takes all, a 
 plagiarist; 
 
 "a gent'man parcel poet; his father 
 was a man of worship, I tell thee 
 he pens high, lofty, in a new talking 
 strain, bigger than half the rhymers 
 in town." 
 
 117 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 This also conceeded to be a drive at 
 Shakspere as a thief of plays. 
 
 Jonson has been accused of ingratitude 
 in thus attacking Shakspere, and there is a 
 story to the effect that, when a little known 
 author, he wanted the Burbages to produce 
 "Every Man in his Humor" in 1598, the play 
 was about to be rejected, when the gentle 
 Shakespeare intervened, and succeeded in 
 having the piece accepted. 
 
 Unfortunately for the truth of the only 
 anecdote which presents Shakspere to us as 
 the doer of a^kind or generous action, "Every 
 Man in his Humor" was played by Hen- 
 slowe's company before this date; having 
 been first presented on November 25, 1596, 
 and a number of times subsequently, with 
 great success. Neither the poet nor the play 
 was unknown in 1598. 
 
 The first twelve lines of the Ode form a 
 labored apology; 
 
 "To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on 
 
 thy name, 
 
 Am I thus ample to thy Booke, and 
 Fame; 
 
 118 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 While I confesse thy writings to be 
 
 such 
 As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise 
 
 too much, 
 Tis true, and all men's suffrage. Bui 
 
 these wayes 
 Were not the paths I meant unto thy 
 
 praise : 
 For seeliest Ignorance on these may 
 
 light, 
 Which, when it sounds at best, but 
 
 ecchos right; 
 Or blinde Affection, which doth ne're 
 
 advance 
 The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all 
 
 by chance; 
 Or crafty Malice, might pretend this 
 
 praise, 
 And thinke to ruine, where it seem'd 
 
 to raise." 
 
 Surely this is a remarkable introduction 
 to an eulogistic poem. It is not unnatural 
 nor unusual to praise an author in a prefa- 
 tory notice to his works, and it does not 
 necessarily call down ridicule or malice to do 
 119 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 so. Why, then, did Jonson hedge in this 
 way, as if to protect himself against antici- 
 pated assaults upon his position? 
 
 Why should Malice think he meant to 
 ruin Shakspere by overpraise, unless indeed, 
 there was some reason for the charge. He 
 owns himself that he is praising him 
 abundantly. And, above all, what way was 
 it 'he meant unto his praise' ? 
 
 The Ode continues; 
 
 "I, therefore, will begin, Soule of the 
 
 Age! 
 The applause ! delight ! the wonder of 
 
 our Stage! 
 My Shakespeare, rise; I will not 
 
 lodge thee by 
 
 Chaucer, or Spencer, or bid Beau- 
 mont lye 
 
 A little further, to make thee a roome; 
 Thou are a Moniment, without a 
 
 tombe, 
 And art alive still, while thy Booke 
 
 doth live, 
 And we have wits to read, and praise 
 
 to give." 
 120 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Note the exclamation points in the first 
 two lines above. The statements were not 
 true at the time; Shakespeare was vieux jeu 
 for the moment, and Fletcher was reigning 
 on the stage. 
 
 The fourth and fifth lines allude to a 
 Sonnet to Mr William Shakespeare which 
 had recently been put forth by William 
 Basse, in which it is said; 
 
 "Renowned Spencer, lye a thought 
 
 more nye 
 
 To learned Chaucer, and rare Beau- 
 mont lye 
 
 A little nearer Spenser, to make roome 
 For Shakespeare in your threefold, 
 fourfold tombe," 
 
 But Jonson will have none of that; com- 
 pare the above lines with the epigram to the 
 Poet Ape, already quoted ; 
 
 "Poor Poet Ape, that would be thought 
 
 our chief, 
 
 Whose works are e'en the frippery 
 of wit; 
 121 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 From brokage, is become so bold a 
 
 thief 
 
 As we, the robbed, leave rage, and 
 pity it. 
 
 He takes up all, makes each man's wit 
 his own, 
 
 And, told of this, slights it. Tut, such 
 
 crumes 
 
 The sluggish, gaping auditor de- 
 vours ; 
 
 He marks not whose 'twas first; and 
 
 after times 
 
 May judge it to be his, as well as 
 ours." 
 
 Skipping a little in the Ode, we come upon 
 this; 
 
 "And though thou hadst small Latine, 
 
 and lesse Greeke 
 From thence to honour thee, I would 
 
 not seeke 
 For names; but call forth thundering 
 
 AEschilus 
 
 Euripides, and Sophocles to us, 
 Paccuuius, Accius, him of Cordova 
 dead, 
 
 122 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 To life again, to hear thy buskin 
 
 tread, 
 And shake a stage; or, when thy 
 
 socks were on, 
 
 Leave thee alone, for the comparison 
 Of all, that insolent Greece, or 
 
 haughtie Rome 
 Sent forth, or since did from their 
 
 ashes come." 
 
 Commenting on this, we note that Rowe 
 relates that in conversation with Suckling, 
 Davenant, Porter, and Hales of Eton, Jon- 
 son insisted on Shakespeare's want of learn- 
 ing, until Hales had to stop him. 
 
 Shakspere may have had small learning, 
 but Jonson thought well of his acting, for 
 he wanted to call up AEschilus and the other 
 ancient worthies to hear his buskin tread 
 and shake the stage. 
 
 The line about 'insolent Greece and 
 haughtie Rome' occurs also, as every one 
 knows, in Jonson's "Discoveries," which was 
 written about 1630, but not published until 
 1641, four years after Jonson's death. Under 
 123 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the head of Scriptorum Catalogus, they are 
 applied to Bacon, who is said to be he 'who 
 hath filled up all numbers and performed 
 that in our tongue which may be compared 
 or preferred either to insolent Greece or 
 Haughty Rome/ 
 
 After another interval, the Ode con- 
 tinues ; 
 
 "Yet must I not give Nature all; thy 
 
 Art, 
 My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy 
 
 a part. 
 For though the Poets matter, Nature 
 
 be, 
 His Art doth give the fashion. And 
 
 that he 
 Who casts to write a living line, must 
 
 sweat, 
 
 (Such as thine are) and strike the 
 
 second heat 
 
 Upon the Muses anvil : turn the same, 
 (And himself with it) that he thinkes 
 
 to frame; 
 Or for the lawrell, he may gaine a 
 
 scorne, 
 
 124 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 For the good Poet's made, as well as 
 
 borne. 
 And such wert thou. Looke how the 
 
 fathers face 
 Lives in his issue, even so, the race 
 
 Of Shakespeares minde, and man- 
 ners brightly shines 
 
 In his well torned and true filed lines : 
 
 In each of which, he seems to shake 
 a lance 
 
 As brandisht at the eyes of Ignorance. 
 
 Sweet Swan of Avon ! what a sight it 
 
 were 
 To see thee in our waters yet ap- 
 
 peare, &c. 
 
 It is a pity to cavil at these fine lines; 
 but what must we think of them when we 
 find Jonson telling Drummond of Haw- 
 thorndon in 1619, that Shakespeare "wanted 
 arte," and of that passage in his "Discov- 
 eries," De Shakespeare Nostrati, where he 
 says of Shakespeare that he most faulted in 
 that "he never blotted out a line." 
 
 "He was indeed honest and of a 
 free open nature, had an excellent 
 125 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 fancy, brave notions and gentle ex- 
 pressions, wherein he flowed with that 
 facility that sometimes it was neces- 
 sary he should be stopped. 'Suf- 
 flaminandus erat (he needed to be 
 shut up), as Augustus said of 
 Haterius. His wit was in his own 
 power: would the rule of it had been 
 so too. Many times he fell into those 
 things could not escape laughter 
 . . . But he ever redeemed his 
 vices with his virtues. There was ever 
 more in him to be praised than to be 
 pardoned." 
 
 Such was the modest estimation in which 
 Jonson held Will Shakspere, and when he 
 adds "I loved the man, and do honour his 
 memory on this side idolatry as much as 
 any," we may be assured that the honor he 
 gave him was very considerably this side of 
 idolatry. When he was not paid to be adula- 
 tory, Jonson describes Will Shakspere as 
 Sogliardo, the well to do clown; as Panta- 
 labus, the man who takes all; or as the Poet 
 126 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Ape, that bold thief; as the man who wanted 
 arte, as he told Drummond; who wanted 
 learning, as he told Hales and the rest; as 
 the actor who sometimes made himself ridicu- 
 lous on the stage; the man whose tongue and 
 pen flowed so freely that he needed to be shut 
 up ; and finally that wonder of the stage who 
 had more in him to be praised than to be 
 pardoned. 
 
 What then are the lines of the Ode but 
 pardonable poetical exaggeration? It is no 
 crime to exaggerate a little upon such an oc- 
 casion. Nearly every advertiser to sell his 
 wares, does as much. The whole introductory 
 matter is of a like character ; the verses to the 
 portrait; the statement that the collection was 
 made without ambition of profit, followed by 
 the exhortation to buy; and the statement that 
 the plays are absolute in their numbers as he 
 conceived them, and the like. 
 
 Jonson was not a man of so high minded 
 a moral character as to be above the suspi- 
 cion of such offenses as we are attributing 
 to him. When in prison in 1598 for having 
 127 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 killed Gabriel Spencer in a duel, he turned 
 Roman Catholic, not from conviction, but as 
 he said himself, "taking the priests word for 
 it;" and later wrote a letter to Lord Salisbury 
 which showed that he was willing to spy 
 upon, and inform against his fellow 
 Catholics. 
 
 And in 1619 he told Drummond a very 
 unedifying story about himself. In 1613, it 
 appears, he was in France, acting as gov- 
 ernor to the son of Sir Walter Raleigh, who 
 exhibited him, dead drunk upon a car, 
 "which he made to be drawn by pioneers 
 through the streets, at every corner showing 
 his governor stretched out, and telling them 
 that was a more lively image of a crucifix 
 than any they had." Evidently the youth 
 felt but little respect for his tutor. 
 
 Returning to the folio; the Ode is fol- 
 lowed by two tributes, one by Leonard 
 Digges, in which occurs the line which in- 
 forms us the monument at Stratford was 
 already in existence; 
 
 "And time dissolves thy Strat- 
 ford Moniment," 
 128 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and finally a list of the principal actors in 
 all these plays, containing twenty-six names. 
 
 Of the sixteen plays which had appeared 
 in print before 1623, some are more com- 
 plete in the folio than in the quartos, and 
 these, we infer, were printed in the folio as 
 written, and not as acted ; for the acting ver- 
 sions were frequently curtailed. Mr. Edwin 
 Reed has compiled the results of the com- 
 parison of eleven of the plays. For example; 
 
 Henry VI contains 1139 lines, and 
 2,000 changes not in the 1619 quarto. 
 
 Merry Wives is nearly double the length 
 of, and quite different from the 1619 quarto. 
 
 Taming of the Shrew contains 1,000 
 lines more than the 1607 quarto. 
 
 Henry V has the choruses, two scenes, 
 and 1655 lines not in the 1608 quarto. 
 
 On the other hand, Hamlet is shorter in 
 the folio than in the 1694 quarto, and some 
 of the finest passages are omitted, doubtless 
 for representation on the stage. 
 
 Some of the plays are divided into Acts 
 and Scenes ; some into Acts without any divi- 
 129 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 sion into scenes. Hamlet, with surprising 
 carelessness, has no divisions after Act II, 
 Scene 2. 
 
 In Richard III, twelve printer's errors 
 are reproduced from the 1622 quarto. 
 
 Troilus is not even catalogued, nor is it 
 paged except for the first few pages. 
 
 In some of the plays the names of the 
 actors who played the parts are given instead 
 of their part names. Thus we learn that 
 Kempe played Dogberry, and Cowley 
 Verges, in Much Ado About Nothing; that 
 Harvey played Bardolph, and Rossill Peto 
 in 1 Henry IV. S inkier, Bates, Court, 
 Williams and others, in all about twenty five 
 names of actors, it is said, are made known 
 to us in their parts through these oversights. 
 
 What then becomes of the theories of 
 careful editing, and of the assertion of 
 Heminge and Condell that instead of the 
 stolen, surreptitious copies with which the 
 public was formerly abused, these are now 
 offered cured and perfect of their limbs? 
 
 On the contrary, it appears that Heminge 
 130 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and Condell collected the plays, and brought 
 them to the publishers direct from the 
 theatre, and that they were printed from those 
 copies without correction. 
 
 It may be interesting to inquire as to how 
 Heminge and Condell obtained possession 
 of the plays, and to whom they belonged ; for 
 they certainly did not belong to Will Shaks- 
 pere's estate. Did they belong to the theatre 
 owners, or to the company of actors? Either 
 was possible; plays were owned in either 
 way; Henslowe the theatre owner, counted 
 his stock of plays on March 3 1598, and had 
 25 plays. We may therefore inquire as to 
 the ownership of the Globe and Blackfriars 
 theatres, with which Heminge and Condell 
 were connected. 
 
 The Globe Theatre was originally built 
 in 1599, and finished in July of that year; 
 was burned down on June 29 1613, and was 
 rebuilt in the following year. 
 
 The Burbages, Richard and Cuthbert, 
 had a half interest in it. The other half was 
 divided into eight shares, held by Shakspere, 
 131 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Heminge, Phillips, Pope, and Kempe, later 
 Condell was added, and later still, Ostler 
 and Field. 
 
 These interests could be devised; Pope 
 died 1603-4, willing his interest; Shakspere 
 had evidently disposed of his interest upon 
 leaving London, and by 1627 we find the 
 owners reduced to four, Heminge and 
 Condell having bought in the other actors' 
 shares. Cuthbert Burbage, Mrs. Robinson, 
 who was Richard Burbage's widow; 
 Heminge, and Condell, each owned four 
 shares. 
 
 As to the Blackfriars Theatre, it was 
 completed by the end of 1596, and was then 
 leased to Thos. Evans for the Children of 
 the Chapel, or as they were subsequently 
 called, of the Queens Revels. In August 
 1608, the Burbages took over the lease, and 
 placed their own men in the theatre, and 
 joined them partners in the profits of the 
 house. The ownership seems to have been 
 at that time, in eight shares, held by the two 
 Burbages, Shakspere, Heminge, Condell and 
 Ostler. 
 
 132 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 In 1634 the owners were Cuthbert 
 Burbage, Mrs. Robinson, Jno Shank, Mrs 
 Condell, Jos Taylor, Jno Lowin and Jno 
 Underwood, eight shares in all; Shank hold- 
 ing two shares. 
 
 In April 1612, according to Collier, 
 Edward Alleyn paid, with the incorrigible 
 English liking for odd sums, 599 pds 6 sh 
 8 d, for an interest in the Blackfriars theatre, 
 possibly for Shakspere's share. Alleyn died 
 Nov 25 1626, and his interest must have 
 passed back to the actors in the Kings com- 
 pany before 1634. 
 
 As a matter of collateral interest, it was 
 testified by Thomasin Ostler in 1616, that 
 the theatre shares, having then twenty one 
 years to run, were worth, for the whole issue, 
 4,200 pounds for the Globe, and 2,100 
 pounds for the Blackfriars theatre. 
 
 At no time therefore, did Heminge and 
 Condell own either of the theatres entirely, 
 and if the plays had belonged to the owners, 
 or housekeepers, as they were called, we 
 should expect to find their names joined with 
 133 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Heminge and Condell in the introductory 
 matter to the folio. But they are not there. 
 
 Turning to the actor's companies, we 
 find that they also owned plays. Henslowe 
 made a number of entries of money lent to 
 the Lord Admiral's men for the purchase of 
 plays from the writers ; as for instance ; 
 
 March 30 1598. Lent unto the 
 Company to give Mr. Willsone, 
 Dickers, Drayton and Cheatall, in 
 parte payment of a booke called 
 Pierce of Exstone (Richard II) the 
 some of 40 sh. 
 
 There are a number of similar entries. 
 
 Of the eight actors of the Kings com- 
 pany, who together with Shakspere, were 
 named in James license of May 17 1603, and 
 who paraded with him on March 15 1604, 
 on the occasion of the King's entry into 
 London, for their four and a half yards of 
 red cloth apiece; only Heminge and Condell 
 were left by 1623. Richard Burbage died 
 March 13 1618, Augustine Phillips on May 
 4 1605, and William Slye on August 13 
 134 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 1608. Fletcher, Armin and Cowley appear 
 to have left the company before 1623. 
 
 It is a reasonable conclusion that the 
 plays, the last of which, Henry VIII, 
 appeared in 1612, belonged to the actors. 
 Heminge was Treasurer of the company, and 
 the plays were probably in his possession. 
 He and Condell were retiring from the 
 stage, and as literary executors and residuary 
 legatees of the old company, gathered to- 
 gether the old plays and looked for a pub- 
 lisher, in order to realize upon this asset. 
 Troilus was found at the last moment, and 
 added after the catalogue was printed; 
 Pericles was overlooked altogether. 
 
 But the plays were no longer as popular 
 as formerly, and it was not easy to find a 
 publisher willing to undertake the enterprise. 
 In the lists of Court performances given in 
 the years 1613 and 1623 inclusive, we find 
 only three representations of Shakespeare 
 plays named. But finally four publishers 
 agreed to share the risk of the undertaking, 
 and the work was issued. From these doubts 
 135 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and difficulties sprang the need of the elab- 
 orate puffing of the prefatory matter, and the 
 numerous typographical errors with which 
 the book is disfigured. 
 
 But, even if Jonson's testimony to the 
 great value of Will Shakspere's contribution 
 to the plays be discredited, as it would be in 
 any modern court of justice, yet we must be- 
 lieve that he had some share in them. Not 
 only Jonson, in references made elsewhere to 
 Shakspere's work; but Greene, and Davies, 
 tell us that he did some work on the plays; 
 and they all agree as to what that work was ; 
 he fixed up old plays, and popularised them 
 by adding comic scenes; nothing more. He 
 was not a great man, nor a great author, but 
 he did what was in him to do. 
 
 And so, while Ben Jonson, the literary 
 man, left a good library, Will Shakspere 
 actor and comic, left none. 
 
 136 
 
CHAPTER V 
 Multiple Authorship. 
 
 To the casual reader, the plays of Shake- 
 speare appear to be nearly uniform in excel- 
 lence of style and of thought ; to him Shake- 
 speare is always Shakespeare. 
 
 That this is not the case is well known 
 to students of the plays. It has been well 
 said that Shakespeare is a noise of many 
 waters, and the only debatable questions con- 
 cern the proper apportionment of the work 
 of the different writers who have contributed 
 to the works. 
 
 Nor is the quality of the plays any more 
 uniform than their style. Critics divided 
 them into three or four classes, according to 
 their merit; and there is as wide a difference 
 between Macbeth and Titus Andronicus, for 
 example, as between Midsummer Nights 
 Dream and the Taming of the Shrew, or be- 
 tween Hamlet and Pericles as there is between 
 137 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the work of a master and that of a tyro, some 
 of the inferior plays being very poor stuff 
 indeed. 
 
 How these differences of style and of 
 quality arose I shall endeavor to suggest; 
 always for the benefit of the casual reader; 
 by a brief reference to the dramatic methods 
 of the time. And first, the practise of collab- 
 oration demands our attention. 
 
 For it is well known that in Shakespeare's 
 day, theatre managers often engaged several 
 authors to write upon a play, in order to 
 expedite the work. During the two years 
 during which the company of players to 
 which Will Shakspere belonged, occupied 
 Henslowes' theatre; that is from June 1594 
 to July 1596, a new play was given, on an 
 average, every eighteen days. To keep up 
 this rate of production, it was necessary that 
 plays should be turned out with expedition, 
 and this was accomplished by engaging a 
 number of writers, sometimes as many as six, 
 in the composition of a play. 
 
 We find, in the memoranda left by 
 138 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Henslowe, the names of about a dozen 
 writers, some of them very well known, whom 
 he employed in the work of writing, revis- 
 ing, or adding to plays to be used in his 
 theatres. As for example: 
 
 Henry Chettle 
 
 Thomas Dekker 
 
 Michael Drayton 
 
 Originally, it is be- 
 lieved, a printer. 
 He was engaged 
 upon forty nine 
 plays, of which 
 only thirteen were 
 wholly his. 
 Who collaborated 
 in fifty two plays, 
 with nearly every 
 author of the day. 
 Like Will Shak- 
 pere, a Warwick- 
 shire man, a fact 
 to be noted by 
 those who seek to 
 prove Shakspere's 
 authorship by cit- 
 ing local refer- 
 
 139 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 William Haughton 
 
 Ben Jonson 
 
 ences occurring in 
 the plays. Dray- 
 ton was an actor, a 
 poet, and a drama- 
 tist. He wrote 
 about twenty plays 
 which were very 
 popular. 
 
 Who wrote one 
 very successful 
 play alone, and 
 collaborated with 
 '.Chettle, Dekker 
 and Day. 
 Also wrote for 
 Henslowe. His 
 father was a min- 
 ister. He spent 
 some time at Cam- 
 bridge; he was a 
 soldier, an actor, a 
 dramatist, and the 
 second of Eng- 
 land's Poet Lau- 
 reates. 
 
 140 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Thomas Middleton 
 
 Anthony Monday 
 
 John Webster 
 
 Robert Wilson 
 
 A man of good 
 family ; a Cam- 
 bridge graduate, 
 and of Greys Inn. 
 His play "The 
 Chan geling" is 
 hardly equalled, 
 outside of Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 An actor, and a 
 traveler in Italy 
 and in France. He 
 collaborated with 
 Drayton, Wilson, 
 and Hathway. 
 A writer of the 
 first rank. His 
 "White Devil" is 
 a tragedy not much 
 less remarkable 
 than Shake- 
 speare's. 
 
 Of whom not much 
 is known, except 
 
 141 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 that he was 
 praised by Meres 
 as being "for 
 learning and wit, 
 without company 
 or compere." 
 
 Robert Greene A Cambridge man, 
 
 who studied medi- 
 cine, traveled in 
 Spain and Italy, 
 and wrote about a 
 dozen plays. 
 
 These, with Thomas Kyd, John Day, 
 and Richard Hathway, constituted Hens- 
 lowes staff of writers ; that is, the staff of one 
 theatre manager. 
 
 Some of the greatest names of the age 
 remain to be mentioned; Beaumont, Chap- 
 man, Fletcher, Ford, Heywood, Lodge, Mar- 
 lowe, Marston, Massinger, Nash and Peele. 
 Some one has counted the names of forty 
 noteworthy, and two hundred and twenty 
 three minor writers in the Elizabethan era, 
 some of them not far inferior to Shakespeare; 
 142 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 more particularly Beaumont, Marlowe, 
 Webster and Drayton. 
 
 Such were the dramatists of the period, 
 of that glorious period when the new world 
 was really new to Europe, and when Eng- 
 land was laying the foundations of its future 
 greatness. It formed a galaxy of talent well 
 able to supply all that the plays contain of 
 law, of medicine, of seamanship or classical 
 knowledge, of familiarity with foreign 
 countries; of everything in short, that Will 
 Shakspere could not supply. 
 
 Nearly all of them wrote in collaboration 
 with others, and to many of them a share has 
 been ascribed in the composition of the 
 Shakespeare plays. 
 
 Between 1591 and 1601 Henslowe paid 
 for or produced a number of plays with iden- 
 tical, or at least similar titles with some of 
 the Shakespeare plays. 
 
 And between June 1594 and July 1596 
 the Lord Chamberlain's men, of whom Will 
 Shakspere was one, played at his theatres. 
 143 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 During this period the following plays with 
 Shakespearian titles were produced; 
 
 March 3 1592 Henry VI, a new play 
 
 May 14 " Harey V 
 
 Jany 23 1593 Titus Ondronicus, new 
 
 April 8 1594 Kinge Leare 
 
 June 9 " Hamlet 
 
 " 11 " Tamynge of a Shrowe 
 From a large number of similar entries, 
 the following memoranda of payments made 
 by Henslowe for the writing of plays are 
 selected. Henslowe had his own ideas as to 
 spelling. 
 
 "Lent unto Thomas Downton, to lende 
 unto Mr Dickers and harey Cheat- 
 ell, in earneste of ther boocke 
 called Troyeles and Creasse daye, 
 Aprell 7 1599 3 pds. 
 
 "Lent unto Samwell Rowlye 1601 to 
 pay unto harye Chettell for writ- 
 tinge the boocke of Carnalle Wols- 
 eye lyfe, the 5 of June 20 sh 
 "Lent unto Robarte Shawe to lend unto 
 harey Chettell and Antonye Mon- 
 144 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 daye and mihell Drayton in earn- 
 este of a boocke called the Rissenge 
 of Carnowlle Wolsey, the 10 of 
 Oct 1601 40 sh 
 
 "Lent unto harey Chettell by the com- 
 pany at the Eagell and the childe 
 in pt of payment of a boocke 
 called the Rissynge of carnell 
 Wollsey the some of the 6 of Nov 
 1601 10 sh 
 
 "Lent unto the companye the 22 of 
 May 1602 to geve unto Antoney 
 Monday and Mihell Drayton, 
 Webster, Mydelton and the rest, in 
 earnest of a boocke called sesers 
 Falle 5 pds." 
 
 Henslowe did not buy any plays from 
 Will Shakspere nor from Shakespeare, nor 
 did he mention his name in any way. 
 
 Furthermore, none of these plays for 
 which he paid, are contained in a list of his 
 stock of plays which he made out, dated 
 March 3 1598. 
 
 The actual fact of the practise of collab- 
 145 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 oration being thus established, we may con- 
 sider its application to the Shakespeare 
 plays. And first, as to the richness of the 
 Shakespeare vocabulary. 
 
 Max Muller, quoting from Kenan's "His- 
 toire des Langues," said that while an edu- 
 cated man rarely uses over three or four 
 thousand words, the plays contain a vocabu- 
 lary of 15,000 words. Prof. March makes 
 the same estimate, while Prof. Craik and 
 others place it at 21,000 words. Milton, 
 with 8,000 words, is a bad second. 
 
 Bartlett's Complete Shakespeare Concord- 
 ance contains 1,910 pages, averaging about 
 8.5 words per page, excluding inflections; a 
 total of over 16,000 words. 
 
 The authorised version of the Bible is 
 said to contain 15,000 words in its vocabu- 
 lary, an estimate which anyone can investi- 
 gate by consulting a Bible Concordance. 
 The Bible, it will be remembered, is com- 
 posed of sixty six different books originally 
 written in three different languages, and the 
 translation of our authorised version was 
 146 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 executed by forty eight different scholars. 
 The substantial harmony of style in the 
 Bible, notwithstanding the manner in which 
 it was produced, is greater than that in the 
 Shakespeare works. 
 
 The question of the unity of authorship 
 of the Shakespeare plays is thus definitely 
 settled in the negative. No one man has ever 
 been master of such an enormous vocabulary. 
 
 If we consider the history of the plays, 
 and the views of the critics as to their author- 
 ship, we shall reach the same conclusion. 
 For a rapid survey of the matter we may 
 arrange plays in three divisions; old plays 
 which have been retouched; other collabora- 
 ted plays; and plays which have been at- 
 tributed to different authors. 
 
 Old plays retouched. 
 
 Titus Andronicus. A fourth rate play of 
 
 1584-90, published in 
 
 1594, 1600, and 1611 anonymously. It was 
 
 played at Henslowe's on Jany. 23 1593 as a 
 
 new play. Jonson refers to it in the intro- 
 
 147 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 duction to Bartholomew Fair, 1614, as then 
 25 or 30 years old. The folio play contains 
 one scene which is not in the 1611 quarto. 
 Malone pronounced it to be not Shake- 
 speare's ; Dowden calls it pre-Shakespearian, 
 and Swinburne says that no scholar believes 
 in the single authorship of Titus, and thinks 
 that it contains some of Greene's work. 
 Other critics have thought that Kyd, Dek- 
 ker and Chettle had a share in it. 
 
 1 Henry VI A fourth rate play of 1589- 
 91, which was published in 
 1600 as by Shakespeare. It was acted at 
 Henslowe's on March 3, 1591 as new. Nash 
 identifies it in 1592 by a mention of Talbot, 
 who appears in this first play of the trilogy 
 only. Dowden calls it pre-Shakespearian. 
 None of the three plays are by Shakespeare, 
 says Malone. A trilogy of old plays re- 
 touched, says Brandes. Only touched up by 
 Shakespeare, says Masson. The old 
 Henslowe play altered, says Marshall. It is 
 attributed by others to Greene, Peele and 
 Kyd. 
 
 148 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 2 Henry VI Composed 1591-2, published 
 
 in 1594 as the "First part of 
 the Contention of the two famous Houses of 
 York and Lancaster," containing 2214 lines. 
 The present play is a rehash; the 2d and 3d 
 parts contain 3250 lines of the old plays says 
 Boas. The authorship is disputed, says 
 Masson. Probably in part by Marlowe, say 
 Dyce and Dowden . 
 
 3 Henry VI A fourth rate play of 1591-2. 
 
 It was published in 1595 
 as "The True Tragedy of Richard 
 Duke of York," in 2311 lines. This is the 
 play that Greene referred to in his Groats- 
 worth, parodying the line "O tygre's heart, 
 wrapt in a woman's hide." Dowden calls 
 these three plays pre-Shakespearian, and at- 
 tributes them in part to Marlowe; so also 
 Swinburne. Malone does not think any of 
 the three Shakespeare's. Meres in 1598 did 
 not include Henry VI in his list of Shake- 
 speare's plays. By some writers they are 
 attributed to the joint labor of Greene, Peele 
 and Kyd. 
 
 149 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 King John Composed between 1591-95. 
 It was published anonymously 
 in 1591 as "The Troublesome Reign of 
 King John." A dull old play, says Swin- 
 burne. In 1611 it was published as Shake- 
 speare's. The folio is based on the early 
 play, but has about 1,000 new lines. Bran- 
 des says that with fine passages it combines 
 intolerable affections. The writer is un- 
 known. 
 
 Richard III Composed about 1593, and 
 published anonymously in 
 1597. On June 24, 1602 Henslowe paid 
 Ben Jonson 10 pds. on account for writing 
 of "Richard Crookbacke," a play on the 
 reign of Richard III. Dowden says that the 
 two Richard plays show Marlowe's hand, 
 and T. W. White attributes Richard III to 
 Marlowe. 
 
 Richard II Composed about 1594 and 
 
 published anonymously in 
 
 1597 as "The Tragedy of King Richard the 
 
 second, as it hath been publicly acted by the 
 
 150 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Lord Chamberlain his servants," and in 
 1608 with Shakespeare's name on the title 
 page, "with new additions of the Parliament 
 scene and the deposing of King Richard." 
 In March 1598 Wilson, Dekker, Drayton 
 and Chettle were writing "Pierce of Exstone" 
 for Henslowe. Richard II was the play 
 given on February 2 1601, just before the 
 Essex rebellion, and the play which then dis- 
 pleased the Queen. Yet three weeks later we 
 know that Will Shakspere was playing be- 
 fore the Queen, and therefore, that he was 
 not suspected of being its author. Mr. T. W. 
 White attributes it to Daniel or Drayton. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet Composed between 
 1591-6, and published 
 anonymously in 1597. Dowden calls it a 
 revision of an old play. The "Return from 
 Parnassus," of 1599, not the one played in 
 1601, contains this, says T. W. White; 
 
 "Ingenioso speaking; Mark Romeo and 
 
 Juliet; O monstrous theft; I think he will 
 
 run through a whole book of Samuel 
 
 Daniel." And Mr. T. W. White ascribes it 
 
 151 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 to Daniel. Furnivall (Jates its composition 
 in 1591, and the nurse's words; Act I, 3. 
 
 "Tis since the earthquake (April 6 1580) 
 now eleven years" confirm Furnivall's 
 opinion. In London, after the Restoration, 
 it was presented on alternate nights, as a 
 comedy and as a tragedy. The orginal of 
 the play was a Spanish comedy by Lopez de 
 Vega. 
 
 Taming of the Shrew A fourth rate play 
 
 of 1589-97. It was 
 
 published anonymously in 1594, with which 
 edition the folio agrees, having meanwhile 
 grown longer by some 1,000 lines. On June 
 11 1594 it was played at Henslowe's. In 
 1602 Henslowe paid Dekker for writing 
 "Medicine for a curst wife," and Dekker's 
 hand may be traced in the present play. 
 T. W. White attributes it to Daniel or Dray- 
 ton. Collier and Swinburne to Haughton, 
 and Fleay to Kyd, revised by Lodge and 
 Shakespeare. Masson acknowledges that its 
 authorship is disputed. 
 152 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 1 Henry IV A first rate play of 1597-8 
 and published anonymously 
 in 1598. This quarto is quite perfect, al- 
 though Shakespeare is not named on the 
 title page, nor in the registry. In the first 
 edition Falstaff was called Sir John Old- 
 castle, which was the name of a play written 
 for Henslowe in 1599 by Monday, Drayton, 
 Wilson and Hathway, and published the fol- 
 lowing year under Shakespeare's name. 
 T. W. White attributes it to Nash. 
 
 Henry V Composed about 1598-9, and 
 published anonymously in 1598 
 as "The Famous Victories of Henry the 
 Fifth." The original was a very old play, 
 for Tarleton, who died in 1588, acted in it. 
 It was played on May 14 1592 at Hens- 
 lowe's, and is mentioned by Nash in the 
 same year. It has been attributed in part to 
 Marlowe, and also to Drayton and Dekker. 
 
 Julius Caesar A first rate play of 1599- 
 1604, published first in the 
 folio. In 1598, as is noted by Stotsenburg, 
 153 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Drayton published "Mortomeriados," con- 
 taining a parallel passage to one in Julius 
 Caesar, V. 5. On May 22 1602, Monday, 
 Drayton, Webster, Middleton, "and the 
 rest," were writing "Caesars Fall" for Hens- 
 lowe. 
 
 Hamlet A first rate play of 1602, published 
 in 1603 under Shakespeare's name. 
 An old and a very much revised play. In 
 1591 Nash quoted the "to be or not to be" as 
 known for five years, or as early as 1586. 
 On June 9 1594 it was played at Henslowe's. 
 This early play was probably by Kyd, says 
 Sir Sidney Lee. Mr. Pemberton calls atten- 
 tion to the fact that in the "Brudermord," a 
 German version of the lost Hamlet, 
 Polonius is called Corambio, which name is 
 given to him in the quarto of 1603, thus 
 showing that the present play is derived 
 from the early play. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida Composed between 
 
 1601-8 and pub- 
 lished anonymously in 1609 and as by 
 154 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Shake-speare. In April 1599 Dekker and 
 Chettle were writing Troilus and Cressida 
 for Henslowe. Marston is thought to refer 
 to this play in his "Histrio Matrix" c 1598. 
 It was registered on February 7 1603 by 
 Master Roberts. The prefatory Address is 
 curious. The title page of the 1609 edition 
 stated that it was "as acted by the Kings 
 company at the Globe," but part of the 
 edition has a different title. Now the pre- 
 fatory address is, in part, as follows : ; 
 
 "A Never writer to an Ever 
 Reader; News. Eternal Reader, you 
 have here a new play, never clapper 
 clawed with the palms of the vulgar 
 by the grand posses- 
 sor's Wills, I believe you should have 
 prayed for them (the comedies) 
 rather than been prayed &c." 
 
 There was evidently some trouble about 
 the copyright to the play, which should have 
 been owned by Henslowe, since he paid for 
 it in 1599. It would appear that it was 
 inserted in the folio at the last moment, since 
 155 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 it is omitted from the catalogue and is not 
 even paged. The Irving Shakespeare attrib- 
 utes the last act to Dekker, and Brandes pro- 
 nounces the play to be decadent and of innate 
 barbarism. 
 
 Othello A first rate play of 1604-6, which 
 was first published in 1622. In 
 February 1599 Dekker, Haughton and Day 
 were writing "The Spanish Moor's Tragedy" 
 for Henslowe. The original was undoubt- 
 edly a Spanish play. The scene is not Vene- 
 tian, for there is no mention of canals; the 
 people walk the streets as in other towns; 
 they do not ride in gondolas. It was besides, 
 impossible that a Moor should command a 
 Venetian army. These considerations show, 
 as T. W. White has pointed out, its adapta- 
 tion from another play. 
 
 King Lear Composed about 1605-6, and 
 published anonymously in 
 1605. An early play was registered on May 
 14 1594, and was acted at Henslowe's on 
 April 8 1594. Some of the finest passages 
 in the quarto v are omitted in the folio. 
 156 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Thus it appears by consent, in most in- 
 stances, of confessed Stratfordians, that of 
 the 37. Shakespeare plays, sixteen are old 
 plays retouched, and therefore, containing 
 the work of several writers. 
 
 But this is by no means the whole story; 
 a number of the other plays are believed to 
 be the product of collaboration. 
 
 Other Collaborated Plays. 
 
 Two Gentleman of Verona Composed 
 
 about 1590- 
 
 92, and first published in the folio. In 
 January 1585, Felix and Philiomena, these 
 being the names of the principals in "Diana 
 in Love," a translated Spanish romance, was 
 played before the Queen at Greenwich. In 
 1598 Meres attributed the same story to 
 Shakespeare. T. W. White quotes Upton 
 and Henmer as saying that the Two Gentle- 
 men is by some inferior hand, and Stotsen- 
 burg thinks it the work of Dekker and Dray- 
 ton. 
 
 157 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Midsummer Nights Dream Dates from 
 
 1590-97, and 
 
 was published in 1600. Its authorship is 
 attributed to Peele and Drayton by T. W. 
 White. 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor Composed about 
 
 1598-1602 and 
 published in 1602. 
 
 It was perhaps adapted from the 
 "Jealous Comedy/' of 1592. The quarto is 
 a mere outline of the folio. Interpolated by 
 a botcher, says Halliwell-Phillipps. It is 
 a play of no literary merit, and its composi- 
 tion has been ascribed to Dekker and Dray- 
 ton. 
 
 Alls Well that ends Well In its present 
 
 form dates 
 
 from 1597-1602, but is supposed to be re- 
 ferred to by Meres in 1598 under the title of 
 Love's Labor's Won. The plot is taken from 
 Boccaccio's Decameron; only the comic 
 parts, says Brandes, being of Shakespeare's 
 invention. Swinburne assigns to it a second 
 158 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 place among the Shakespeare plays, and 
 Stotsenburg sees in it signs of more than one 
 author. 
 
 Measure for Measure Composed in 1603-4 
 
 but first published 
 
 in the folio. It was founded, says Castle, on 
 Promos and Cassandra, a comedy by George 
 Whetstone of 1578. In 1602 Heywood and 
 Chettle wrote a play for Henslowe called 
 "Like quits Like," an expression found in 
 Act V. 6. of Measure for Measure. 
 
 Macbeth A first rate play of 1606, pub- 
 lished in 1610. Portions of it 
 are Middleton's, says Swinburne. One of 
 the most striking scenes is by a hack, says 
 Lee. T. W. White thinks it is by Chapman. 
 Certain confusions in the plot indicate the 
 participation of more than one writer. 
 
 Timon of Athens Dates from 1607-10, and 
 
 first published in the 
 
 folio. Only in part by Shakespeare, says 
 
 Dowden. No scholar questions the part 
 
 159 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 taken by some hireling in Timon, say Swin- 
 burne and Lee. 
 
 Pericles A fourth rate play of 1607-8, 
 although Masson and others say 
 that it may be as early as 1588. Dryden 
 called it Shakespeare's first play. It was 
 published in 1609, and is not in the folio of 
 1623. Malone did not consider it to be 
 Shakespeare's, and Masson suggests Greene 
 as author. Says Jonson; 
 
 "Like Pericles, and stale 
 
 As the shrieve's crusts, and nasty as 
 
 his fish 
 Scraps out of every dish." 
 
 Only partly Shakespeare's, says Dowden. 
 More than one author, says Swinburne. It 
 was registered February 7 1603, but condi- 
 tionally, not to be printed until permission 
 was had from the owners. 
 
 Cymbeline About 1609-10 but not pub- 
 lished until 1623. The vision 
 of Posthumus is mummery by another hand, 
 says Lee. 
 
 160 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 A Winters Tale Dates from 1610-11 but 
 first published in 1623. 
 It is attributed by T. W. White to Greene 
 and Nash. Andrew Lang notes that Delphi 
 is mentioned as Delphos, a place that has no 
 existence, and that it is confused with Delos, 
 thus locating the oracle on an island. 
 
 Henry VIII Composed in 1612 and first 
 published in 1623. In 1601 
 Chettle was writing "Cardinal Wolsey's 
 Life," and Chettle, Monday and Drayton 
 were writing the "Rising of Cardinal Wol- 
 sey" for Henslowe. The present play is 
 partly by Fletcher, says Lee. It is by Fletcher 
 and Massinger, say Poel and Dowden. 
 
 Adding these eleven plays to the sixteen 
 old plays retouched, we have a total of 
 twenty seven plays out of thirty seven 
 Shakespeare plays which are considered by 
 competent critics, to contain the work of 
 more than one author. 
 
 Some of the remaining plays have been 
 attributed, by one writer or another, for more 
 161 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 or less substantial reasons, to other authors 
 than Shakespeare. As follows ; 
 
 Love's Labor Lost A play of 1585-91, 
 
 which was published 
 
 in 1598. An entirely orginal play; but the 
 quarto states on the title page "Newly cor- 
 rected and augmented by W. Shakspere," 
 which does not of necessity imply that he was 
 its author. In fact, the early date of its 
 composition, which is fixed by internal evi- 
 dence, such as references to the French wars 
 of the eighties, almost certainly exclude the 
 possibility of Shakspere's authorship. 
 Brandes pronounces it to be by the author 
 of the Sonnets. Reed gives it to Bacon, and 
 T. W. White to Greene. 
 
 Comedy of Errors Composed between 
 1587-91 but not pub- 
 lished until 1623. A vulgar parody of 
 Plautus' "Menaechmi," probably by Greene, 
 says T. W. White. A reference to the 
 Spanish Armada as a recent event would 
 appear to fix the date of its composition at 
 162 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 about 1588. Stotsenburg assigns it to Dek- 
 ker or Porter. In any event, if it dates from 
 1588, it could not have been written by 
 Shakspere. 
 
 Merchant of Venice A first rate play of 
 
 1594-6, published in 
 
 1598. Inspired by Marlowe's "J ew of 
 Malta," but from a Spanish original; the 
 names are Spanish. T. W. White assigns it 
 to Peele. 
 
 2 Henry IV Composed about 1597-8 and 
 published anonymously in 
 1600. Its composition antedates that of the 
 first part, since in this quarto of 1600 Fal- 
 staff is called Oldcastle, while the 1598 
 quarto of the first part has already the 
 change from Oldcastle to Falstaff. Both 
 plays are attributed by T. W. White to Nash. 
 
 As You Like It 1599-1600, and published 
 
 in 1608. The story is 
 
 taken from Lodge's "Rosalynde," of 1590, 
 
 and T. W. White assigns the play to Lodge. 
 
 163 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra A first rate play of 
 
 1606, published in 
 1608, and 
 
 Coriolanus 1608-9, first published in 1623, 
 are both assigned by T. W. 
 White to Bacon. 
 
 Tempest 1610-11, not published until 
 1623, is attributed by T. W. 
 White to Chapman. 
 
 These eight plays bring the total num- 
 ber so far described, up to thirty five, leav- 
 ing only two; Much Ado about Nothing, and 
 Twelfth Night, concerning the authorship 
 of which I have met with no conjecture. 
 T. W. White dismisses them with the re- 
 mark; "authorship unknown." 
 
 The foregoing review, brief and super- 
 ficial as it is, ought to sufficiently exhibit 
 upon what an insecure foundation rest both 
 the popular idea of the unity of the Shake- 
 speare plays, and that other wild theory that 
 Will Shakspere, of Stratford, was the great 
 author. 
 
 164 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 We may rest assured that many of the 
 plays are revisions of older plays, and that 
 many others were composed at a date so 
 early that it precludes the possibility of the 
 Will Shakspere authorship. So evident is 
 this, that inveterate Stratfordians have been 
 obliged to suppose that our Will wrote some 
 of the plays while yet in Stratford. We need 
 not trouble ourselves to combat this theory. 
 
 By the proved fact of collaboration then, 
 we readily account for the knowledge of the 
 classics, of law, medicine, seamanship, 
 court life, foreign countries and all the rest, 
 which has so tried the souls of the commen- 
 tators. 
 
 By some means the name Shake-speare ; 
 please note not Shaks-pere, Shags-pere, nor 
 Shax-per; acquired a commercial value, and 
 the popular name was affixed to a variety of 
 plays, just as stories or jests are fathered 
 upon some noted raconteur of our own day; 
 and it has remained, and will doubtless con- 
 tinue there. But it is only a name nothing 
 more. 
 
 165 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Jonson and Beaumont retained the pro- 
 prietorship of their plays, notwithstanding 
 the performance of them at the Globe by the 
 King's players. But no claimant has ever 
 appeared for the authorship of the " Shake- 
 speare" plays, except a name. It has there- 
 fore been said the "greatest of all our Eng- 
 lish poets is but a name." 
 
 Is is in fact, hardly too extravagant a 
 conjecture to suppose, from the absence of 
 unity of style in these plays, and from the 
 way in which they were tossed into the folio, 
 that they were neither more nor less than a 
 part of the old stock of plays, and that 
 Heminge and Condell owned them. 
 
 166 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 "Our English Terence" 
 
 Voltaire found Shakespeare at once "an 
 amazing genius," and "an indecent buffoon." 
 "It appears," said he, in the prefatory matter 
 to his drama of Semiramis, "that Nature 
 pleased herself in assembling in the head of 
 Shakespeare the highest degree of force and 
 greatness, together with all that was most 
 coarse, dull, low and detestable." S. G. 
 Tallentyre, in her delightful life of Voltaire, 
 explains this anomaly, which so perplexed 
 Voltaire, by remarking that he did not know, 
 as we do, "that many of the clowns, and the 
 clownish jokes to which he took a just objec- 
 tion, were interpolations and not Shakespeare 
 himself." 
 
 Both of these clever authors are in the 
 right, but the world is still debating the 
 question of who was the genius, and who the 
 the clown. 
 
 167 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 It is evident that Will Shakspere was 
 known among his contemporaries for a 
 writer of a sort; as early as 1592 Greene 
 sneered at him as an upstart crow who fan- 
 cied that he could bombast out a blank verse 
 as well as the best of us ; Davies called him a 
 comic writer, "Our English Terence"; and 
 Jonson said that he was a bold thief who 
 bought the reversion of old plays, and made 
 each man's wit his own. 
 
 More than this, when Jonson published 
 his Sejanus, after it had been acted at the 
 Globe theatre in 1603, with Shakspere in the 
 cast, he stated in the preface that "it was not 
 the same with that which was acted on the 
 public stage ... a second pen had a 
 good share in it ... not to defraud so 
 happy a genius of his right" he has replaced 
 his own words in the play. It is not unrea- 
 sonable to infer that the interpolater in this 
 case, at whom this caustic shaft was aimed, 
 was none other than Will Shakspere. 
 
 Drayton, in an elegy to Henry Reynolds, 
 said "Shakespeare, thou hadst as smooth a 
 168 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 comic vein, Fitting the sock, and in thy nat- 
 ural brain &c." And in our own day George 
 Brandes, best of Stratfordians, wrote of All's 
 Well that ends Well, that . only the comic 
 parts were of Shakespeare's invention. 
 
 The author of the Merchant of Venice, 
 whoever he was, made of Shylock, and with- 
 out doubt, intended to make of him a 
 pathetic and tragic character. But the Shak- 
 spere troupe gave the part to a buffoon. And 
 Halliwell-Phillips has unearthed a tradition 
 to the effect that Shakspere inserted some 
 comic business for lago, and gave the part 
 to a popular comedian. 
 
 Given his character and reputation as 
 we see them, it is a justifiable assumption 
 that the perpetrator of these literary out- 
 rages was Will Shakspere himself; and we 
 may deduce from their occurrence, that since 
 no author would permit such changes in the 
 interpretation of his work, Will Shakspere 
 was not the author of these plays. 
 
 In adopting this theory we do not 
 acknowledge that there is occasion to sup- 
 169 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 pose that a conspiracy was in existence to 
 deceive the world as to the authorship of the 
 plays; or for supposing that, in the case of 
 any great number of them, some great per- 
 sonage was concealing his identity under an 
 assumed name. The facts are that a large 
 number of the plays were old; the work of 
 writers whose names were known to those 
 who were in the business of writing or of 
 producing plays, and that they had been 
 bought up by the Globe players and popular- 
 ized. Shakspere's contemporaries give him 
 credit for a talent of that sort. They have 
 come down to us with his name attached to 
 them because he was the latest editor ; because 
 his additions had increased their vogue, and 
 because Heminge and Condell, recognizing 
 these facts, and not much caring what the 
 original authorship might be, sent them 
 forth as by William Shakespeare. 
 
 It is contended by some Baconians, that 
 
 Shakspere was entirely illiterate, and this is 
 
 a most obscure subject, for, as a matter of 
 
 fact, no specimen of his handwriting has 
 
 170 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 come down to us, except half a dozen sig- 
 natures, which do not sustain the claim made 
 by Heminge and Condell that he was a ready 
 writer, and which, in fact, the unbelieving 
 assert, were written by the law clerks who 
 prepared the documents to which they are 
 appended. 
 
 It is undoubtedly very disconcerting to 
 be obliged to confess that no scraps of the 
 handwriting of so supposedly celebrated 
 and voluminous a writer should exist, and 
 those who prefer to believe in the perfect 
 illiteracy of the gentle Shakespeare are able 
 to remind us that a large part of the work 
 of the clowns was extemporaneous; Robert 
 Wilson and Richard Tarleton were noted for 
 "a quick, extemporall wit," and it is there- 
 fore not impossible that their parts may have 
 been thus devised, and later written down 
 by others. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is difficult to believe in 
 the total illiteracy of William Shakspere, 
 even if his parents and his children were 
 totally illiterate. As a prominent member of 
 the Company, acting in principal parts, it 
 171 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 would seem that he should have been able to 
 read; and in his business as money lender, 
 hardly less important to him than the stage, 
 he could hardly have succeeded without some 
 knowledge of writing, although the public 
 scrivener was always in that day, at the serv- 
 ice of the unlettered ; nor could he have done 
 what Jonson said he did without some learn- 
 ing. The field is open for conjecture. 
 
 My own firm conviction, based upon what 
 we know, and upon the balancing of proba- 
 bilities in what we do not positively know, is 
 that Shakspere really did contribute some- 
 thing to the plays, and that his contribution 
 was the writing of the comic parts ; and that 
 his contemporaries understood this to be the 
 case. 
 
 The Shaksperian touch can very readily 
 be recognized in the plays; there is nothing 
 anywhere else just like the Shakspere buf- 
 foonery. When, at the performance of a 
 Shakespeare play, some exquisite scene is fol- 
 lowed by an irrelevant and grotesque in- 
 trusion of the buffoons and drunken clowns, 
 172 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 with the coarse haw-hawings and idiotic 
 quibblings which so offended Voltaire, the 
 auditor may confidently say, "here is the real 
 Shakspere Will Shakspere of Stratford." 
 These fooleries delighted the groundlings of 
 the day; they delighted Queen Elizabeth, 
 whose taste was not of the most refined ; and 
 they made the plays profitable. 
 
 It is in the low comedy portions of the 
 plays, and in them alone, that are to be found 
 the Stratfordian allusions which identify the 
 writer as a Stratford man. 
 
 Students find many names and references 
 in the plays which indicate that some War- 
 wickshire man had a share in their composi- 
 tion. 
 
 Michael Drayton was a Warwickshire 
 man; he was a successful playwright, and 
 has been put forward as a part author of the 
 plays; but he did not come from Stratford. 
 
 The Taming of the Shrew. The following 
 
 lines from the 
 
 Induction to the Taming of the Shrew, con- 
 tain several Stratfordian allusions. 
 173 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The drunken tinker says ; 
 
 1. Sly. What, would you make me 
 mad? Am I not Christopher 
 Slie, old Slies sonne of Burton- 
 heath, by byrth a Pedler, by 
 education a Cardmaker, by 
 transmutation a Beare-heard, 
 and now by present profession 
 a Tinker. Aske Marrian 
 Racket the fat Alewife of Win- 
 cot if shee know me not ; if she 
 say I am not XIIII d. on the 
 score for sheere Ale, score me 
 up for the lyingst knave in 
 Christendome. 
 
 The above lines, which do not occur in 
 the old play of 1594, contain four references 
 to Stratford; 
 
 a. Sly was a Stratford name, and al- 
 though the drunkard in the old 
 play was one "Slie," yet the 
 name has been localised by the 
 addition of the Christopher, 
 174 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 since one of that name is men- 
 tioned in Greene's diary in 1616, 
 as living at Stratford. 
 
 b. Burton-heath, or Barton on the 
 
 heath, a few miles to the south- 
 east of Stratford, was the home 
 of Edmund Lambert, who 
 loaned John Shakspere 40 pds 
 on the Asbies property in 1578. 
 
 c. Hacket is a name which still sur- 
 
 vives in the neighborhood. 
 
 d. Wincot, or Wilmcote, was near by. 
 
 The Asbies' property of Mary 
 
 Arden was situated at Wilmcote. 
 
 The Tamynge of a Shrew was entered in 
 
 the Stationer's Register on May 2 1594, and 
 
 was published anonymously in the same year, 
 
 as "A pleasant Conceited History called the 
 
 Tamynge of a Shrew, As it was sundry times 
 
 acted by the Earle of Pembrook his 
 
 servants." It was played at Henslowe's on 
 
 June 11 1594. But it was known before 
 
 1594, since Greene alluded to it in his Mena- 
 
 phon, which was published in 1589. 
 
 175 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The old play contained the Induction, 
 with a 'Slie,' but without the Stratford allu- 
 sions. It ended by Slie being carried in in 
 his own apparel and left outside the tavern 
 door still asleep. The tapster awakes him, 
 and he concludes that he has been dreaming. 
 
 The old play is undoubtedly the original 
 from which the play as we know it was 
 developed. The folio of 1623 contains 1124 
 lines more than the quarto of 1594. The In- 
 duction alone contains 297 lines, while the 
 Induction of the old play contained only 172 
 lines. Fleay thinks that the original was by 
 Kyd, remodeled by Lodge, and added to by 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Now, if we turn to the Merry Wives of 
 Windsor, we shall find further evidence of 
 growth as the result of years of representa- 
 tion. 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor. This play was 
 
 first published 
 
 in 1602, as "A most pleasant and excellent 
 
 Conceited Comedie of Syr John Falstaff , and 
 
 the Merrie Wives of Windsor, by William 
 
 176 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Shakespeare, As it hath bene divers times 
 Acted by the Right Honourable My Lord 
 Chamberlain's Servantes, Both before her 
 Majestic and elsewhere." 
 
 It contained 1620 lines; the present play 
 has 2701 lines; an addition of 1081 lines. 
 
 Our folio play contains the following 
 passages of interest in our present inquiry. 
 
 2. Act I. Scene 1. 
 
 a. Shal. Sir Hugh, perswade me 
 not. I will make a Star 
 Chamber matter of it; if 
 he were twenty Sir John 
 Falstoffs, he shall not 
 abuse Robert Shallow 
 Esquire. 
 
 Slen. In the County of Gloster, 
 Justice of Peace and 
 Cor am. 
 
 Shal. I (Cosen Slender) and 
 Cust-aloram. 
 
 Slen. I, and Rato lorum too, 
 and a gentleman borne, 
 (Master Parson) who 
 177 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 writes himselfe Armi- 
 gero, in any Bill, War- 
 rant, Quittance or Obli- 
 gation, Armigero. 
 
 Shal. I that I doe, and have 
 done any time these three 
 hundred yeeres. 
 
 Slen. All his successors (gone 
 before him) have don't, 
 and all his Ancestors 
 (that come after him) 
 may; they may give the 
 dozen white luces in their 
 coate. 
 
 Shal. It is an olde Coate. 
 
 Evans. The dozen white lowses 
 doe become an old coat 
 well; it agrees well pas- 
 sant, it is a familiar beast 
 to man, and signifies 
 love. 
 
 
 
 b. M.Page. I am glad to see you, 
 good Master Slender. 
 178 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Slen. How do's your fallow 
 Greyhound, Sir, I heard 
 say he was outrun on 
 Cotsall. 
 
 M.Pa. It could not be Judg'd, 
 Sir. 
 
 
 
 c. Falstaff. Now Master Shallow, 
 you'll complaine of me 
 to the King? 
 
 Shal. Knight, you have beaten 
 
 my men, kill'd my deere, 
 
 and broke open my 
 
 lodge. 
 
 Fal. But not kiss'd your 
 
 Keeper's daughter? 
 
 The old play contains the dispute be- 
 tween Shallow and Falstaff in an undevel- 
 oped form; 
 
 Shal. N'ere talke to me, lie 
 make a Star Chamber 
 matter of it. 
 
 Fal. Now M. Shallow, you'le 
 179 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 complain of me to the 
 Counsell, I hear? 
 Shal. Sir John, Sir John, you 
 have hurt my keeper, 
 kild my dogs, stolne my 
 deere &c. 
 
 Among the changes which differentiate 
 the new play from the old, is the elimination 
 of profane expressions. This was the result 
 of parliamentary legislation in 1605-6. 
 Another is the addition of the reference to 
 the Cotsall, or Cotswold games which were 
 revived subsequently to the date of the 
 quarto, and were held on the Cotswold Hills, 
 near Stratford. 
 
 The bashful lover, the riddles, and the 
 allusion to Greene Sleeves, a popular song, 
 are additions which were added from time 
 to time. 
 
 The white luces of Justice Shallow are 
 also additions which were intended to touch 
 up Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, four 
 miles from Stratford, and the addition testi- 
 fies to Will Shakspere's hand in the work 
 180 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 of enlargement, for the old story of his deer 
 stealing in Sir Thomas Lucy's park, and of 
 his consequent punishment, still commands 
 belief; although some writers, among whom 
 is Mrs. Stopes, have endeavored to dis- 
 credit it. 
 
 Mrs. Stopes argues that, as Sir Thomas 
 Lucy died in 1600, and the allusions to luces 
 and coats of arms did not appear in the 1602 
 or the 1619 editions of the play, it is im- 
 probable that the reference so long after his 
 death, could have been intended for him. 
 Can such anger dwell in divine minds? ex- 
 claims in effect, Mrs. Stopes. 
 
 A second Sir Thomas Lucy was living 
 in London in 1595, who died in 1605, and 
 who was succeeded by his son, the third Sir 
 Thomas Lucy, who created a Park at Charle- 
 cote and who did make a Star Chamber mat- 
 ter of a deer stealing affair which occurred 
 on his Worcester estate. 
 
 But Mrs. Stopes's attempt to disentangle 
 the luces, the Lucys, and the deer stealing 
 episode, are not entirely successful. In the 
 181 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 first place, the play of 1602 contains the 
 Star Chamber threat and the deer stealing 
 charge, and was published prior to the com- 
 plaint of Sir Thomas 3d; and in the second 
 place, if the white luces and the old coat 
 allusions did not refer to the Lucys, to whom 
 did they allude? 
 
 In 1592 on Sept. 25, Sir Thomas Lucy 
 and other Commisioners, reported John 
 Shakspere, the actor's father, as one of nine 
 recusants who were liable to fines for non- 
 attendance at church services. If the deer 
 stealing episode ever occurred, this report 
 could hardly have failed to revive the ancient 
 grudge in the mind of Will Shakspere, and 
 whether it did or not, it may have had a 
 share in the imagining of Justice Shallow's 
 old coat and white luces. 
 
 Our interest in the matter, however, is 
 limited to establishing the Stratfordian char- 
 acter of 'the passage, in order to connect Will 
 Shakspere with its composition. 
 
 The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth &c. 
 This play was registered on May 14, 1594, 
 
 182 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 but it was first published in 1598, in black 
 letter. It was, however, a much older play, 
 since Tarleton, who died in 1588, acted 
 the part of the clown Dericke in it. 
 
 The play began with the trouble over 
 the robbery of a carrier by one of Prince 
 Henry's men, who is arrested. The Prince 
 rescues him, and strikes the Chief Justice, 
 in accordance with the legend. Then fol- 
 low the King's reproaches, the repentance 
 of the Prince, his assumption of the Crown, 
 and the death of Henry IV. The new King 
 throws over his old associates, and defies 
 a French embassy. He besieges and cap- 
 tures Harfleur, wins the battle of Agincourt, 
 and the play ends with the submission of 
 the French princes, and Henry's betrothal to 
 the French Princess Katherine. 
 
 A patriotic play, such as this, was nat- 
 urally very popular, and it furnished the 
 skeleton upon which three Henry plays of 
 Shakespeare were built; Henry IV, parts 1 
 and 2, and Henry V. We shall see to what 
 extent it was expanded. 
 183 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 1 Henry IV. This was first published 
 
 anonymously in 1598. The 
 text of the quarto was quite perfect. There 
 were in all, eight editions before the folio 
 of 1623, and all of them, except the first, 
 attribute the play to Shakespeare. 
 
 2 Henry IV. The first and only quarto 
 
 edition of this play was pub- 
 lished anonymously in 1600. It is thought 
 to have been written before the first part, 
 as, although Oldcastle was altered to Fal- 
 staff before the first part was published, in 
 1598, the name Oldcastle is retained in one 
 place in the quarto of the second part. And, 
 since Jonson mentions Silence in " Every 
 Man out of his Humour," in 1599, the sec- 
 ond part of Henry IV must have been played 
 not later than 1598-9. 
 
 The differences between the text of the 
 quarto and the folio indicate that the quarto 
 of 2 Henry IV represented the play as it 
 was acted. The passages which are omitted 
 in the folio are the Falstaffian scenes, which 
 were liked by the actors because of their 
 184 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 popularity, while some of the historical 
 scenes are omitted in the quarto as tedious, 
 and less popular than the comic scenes. 
 
 Henry V. Although "Harey the Vth" was 
 played at Henslowe's on May 
 14, 1592, the first quarto was not published 
 until much later; in 1600, and anonymously. 
 It contains only about one half the number 
 of Henry V's lines, but the speeches of Pistol 
 are given in full. 
 
 Pistol must have been a much liked 
 character. He is named on the title page of 
 the quarto of 2 Henry IV as "Swaggering 
 Pistol," and in the quarto of Henry V as the 
 "Antient Pistol." 
 
 The "Famous Victories" was "plaid by 
 the Queen's Majestie's Players," 2 Henry 
 IV and Henry V by the Lord Chamberlain's 
 Company. 
 
 The expansion of the "Famous Vic- 
 tories," which contains but 1641 lines, into 
 the three Henry plays, which contain, in the 
 quartos 7629 lines, and in the later folio of 
 1623, 9869 lines, testifies at once to the im- 
 185 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 mense popularity of the subject, and to the 
 manner of its development. Oldcastle, who 
 in the old play, made a single appearance 
 with but six lines to speak, became Falstaff, 
 and his drolleries were infinitely extended. 
 Bardolph, Nym, Pistol, Poins and Peto, the 
 Irish, Scotch and Welsh captains; and Shal- 
 low and Silence, are all new creations and ad- 
 ditions to the old play. 
 
 The comic scenes in the three folio plays 
 constitute about one third part of the whole, 
 and are evidently the result of growth in re- 
 sponse to the popular demand for amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 It is in these comic scenes, and more par- 
 ticularly, in 2 Henry IV, that we find a num- 
 ber of Stratfordian allusions. 
 
 Thus we find; 
 
 3. 2 Henry IV. 1. 2. Falstaff is 
 speaking; 
 
 a. Fal. He may keep his owne 
 
 Grace, but he is almost out 
 
 of mind, I can assure him. 
 
 What said M. Dumbledon 
 
 186 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 about the satten for my 
 short cloake, and slops? 
 It appears that Dumbledon is a Stratford 
 name. In the same play we have; 
 
 b. Act II. 4. 
 
 1st Drawer. What hast thou brought 
 there? Apple- Johns ? 
 thou know'st Sir John 
 cannot endure an 
 Apple- John. 
 
 2d Draw. Thou say'st true. The 
 Prince once set a Dish 
 of Apple-Johns before 
 him and told him there 
 were five more Sir 
 Johns; and putting off 
 his Hat, said, I will now 
 take my leave of these 
 sixe drie, round, old- 
 wither 'd Knights. 
 
 According to Miss Rose Kingsley, who 
 has written upon "Shakespeare in Warwick- 
 shire/' apple Johns are still to be found at 
 Dancing Marston. But it may have been a 
 187 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 common expression, since Jonson uses the 
 term in "Every Man out of his Humour," 
 where one Shift says, "as I am a poor esquire 
 about the town here, they call me master 
 apple John." 
 
 In 2 Henry IV. III. 2. the author makes 
 another attack upon the Lucys in the per- 
 son of Shallow; 
 
 c. Shal. I was calPd anything: and 
 I would have done any- 
 thing indeede too, and 
 roundly too. There was I, 
 and little John Doit of 
 Staffordshire, and blacke 
 George Bare, and Francis 
 Pick - bone, and Will 
 Squele, a Cot-sal-man, you 
 had not foure such 
 Swindge-bucklers in all 
 the Innes of Court againe. 
 
 Fal. . . . This same starved 
 Justice hath done nothing 
 but prate to me of the 
 188 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 wildnesse of his Youth, 
 and the Feates he hath done 
 about Turnball-street, and 
 every third word a Lye 
 . . . he was for all the 
 world, like a forked Rad- 
 ish, with a Head fantas- 
 tically carved upon it with 
 a Knife ... If the 
 young Dace be a Bayt for 
 the old Pike, I see no rea- 
 son, in the Law of Nature, 
 but I may snap at him. 
 
 d, And in Act V. 1. 
 
 Shal. Well conceited Davy: 
 about thy Businesse, Davy. 
 
 Davy. I beseech you sir, to coun- 
 tenance William Visor of 
 Woncot against Clement 
 Perkes of the hill. 
 
 Shal. There are many com- 
 plaints, Davy, against that 
 Visor, that Visor is an ar- 
 189 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 rant Knave, on my knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 Davy. I graunt your Worship 
 that he is a knave Sir, but 
 yet, Heaven forbid Sir, but 
 a Knave should have some 
 Countenance at his friends 
 request. 
 
 This William Visor was a neighbor of 
 the Ardens at Wilmcote, and there was a 
 John Perkes of Snitterfield, whose daugh- 
 ter married Robert Webbe, a cousin of Will 
 Shakspere's. Miss Kingsley says that Cherry 
 Orchard farm, at Weston, two miles from 
 Stratford, is still known as the Hill farm. 
 
 Bardolph was the name of a Chamber- 
 lain of Stratford in 1585-6, and a further 
 coincidence which has been noted to account 
 for the connection of Falstaff, or Oldcastle, 
 with Bardolph, is found in the fact that a 
 Sir Roger Cobham, or Oldcastle, was mar- 
 ried to an Ann Bardolph. 
 
 Poins and Peto are Warwickshire names, 
 and Captain Fluellen may have had as a 
 190 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 prototype one William Fluellen, who was 
 one of the nine Stratford recusants already 
 alluded to. 
 
 Miss Kingsley makes much of an ex- 
 pression used by Ulysses in Troilus and 
 Cressida, III, 3, "The fool slides o'er the ice 
 that you should break," as having been 
 copied from "Foole upon Foole," a book 
 published in 1600 by Robert Armin, Shak- 
 spere's fellow actor; wherein the same ex- 
 pression is made use of in relating an inci- 
 dent said to have occurred at Evesham on 
 the Avon, about ten miles below Stratford. 
 There is of course, no ground for supposing 
 that Shakspere was the only person who 
 had access to Armin's book, or who might 
 have made use of an expression which had 
 caught his fancy. 
 
 We meet the "poor Johns" again in the 
 Tempest, II. 2., where Trinculo says; 
 
 "A fish, hee smels like a fish; a 
 very ancient and fishlike smell; a 
 kinde of, not of the newest, poore- 
 John &c." 
 
 191 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 We will leave to those who believe in 
 the identity of the author of Love's Labors 
 Lost and of the Tempest, and in his immense 
 growth in spirituality during the intervening 
 years, the problem of explaining why the 
 comedy of one of his earliest plays should be 
 so artificial and scholarly, and that of one 
 of his latest so indecently coarse. 
 
 Other Warwickshire expressions and al- 
 lusions are to be found in the plays ; in fact, 
 it is said that nearly every English County 
 is represented in allusions to local customs 
 or dialects; but, with the exception of Sir 
 Roland De Boys and to the Forest of Arden, 
 in As you Like it, there are no other dis- 
 tinctively Stratfordian references in the 
 plays. And I will again remind the reader 
 that as Michael Drayton, although best 
 known to us as a poet, was a successful play- 
 wright, and a Warwickshire man, references 
 to Warwickshire in general may be attributed 
 to him with equal probability as to Will 
 Shakspere. 
 
 192 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Such then, are the portions of the plays 
 with which we may, with some certainty, as- 
 sociate the name of Will Shakspere of Strat- 
 ford, and we can recognize without difficulty, 
 in similar scenes, the same hand elsewhere in 
 the plays. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive that Bacon, or 
 any town-bred man, could have given us the 
 Dogberrys, the Shallows, and the country 
 bumpkins who wander on and off the scenes, 
 often quite irrelevantly and without any 
 part in the development of the tale. 
 
 But Will Shakspere was of the soil him- 
 self; he knew such people in the flesh, and 
 was familiar with their thought and speech. 
 He had the wit to reproduce them, and the 
 reality of his characters, and the human 
 nature in them, reached his audiences, and, 
 much more than the fine literary qualities of 
 the dramas, secured their success. 
 
 He popularised old plays, and years of 
 representation developed them. In time the 
 original authors were forgotten by the many. 
 193 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 This, in effect, is what Greene and Jon- 
 son said of Shakspere; and it explains the 
 sort of success he had; and it also explains 
 his personal insignificance and obscurity. 
 
 In a word, it explains what has been 
 called the mystery of William Shakspere 
 of Stratford. 
 
 194 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 We have now reached the extreme limit 
 of solid ground, and, to pursue the subject 
 farther, must venture upon the sea of con- 
 jecture. 
 
 Thus far we have been guided by facts, 
 and by conclusions, more or less disputable 
 it is true, but which nevertheless have been 
 deduced not unreasonably from facts. We 
 are tolerably certain that Will Shakspere was 
 not the man to write genius into the plays, 
 and that as a matter of fact, he did not, and 
 never during his lifetime, was credited with 
 having done so. It is also tolerably certain 
 that most of the plays had a long history 
 before they took the form in which they have 
 reached us, and that many minds, both of 
 writers and of actors, of which last Will 
 Shakspere was one, had a share in shaping 
 them. 
 
 195 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 But if any one master mind, outside of 
 the circle of writers previously herein named, 
 impressed his greatness and noble personality 
 upon the plays, research has failed to dis- 
 cover him. He himself has been silent as to 
 his share in the work, and history has been 
 silent about him. Unlike Marlowe, Dekker, 
 Beaumont, Jonson and the rest, whose work 
 is known and recognized, that greater than 
 them all lived unrecognized, and even to this 
 day "the greatest of all our English poets is 
 only a name." He is the Silent Shakespeare. 
 
 What if their plots be absurd, impossible 
 and without moral sense ; the comedy vulgar 
 buffoonery, and the ladies' hussies; all of 
 which Dr. Johnson discovered long ago; 
 what, if even as plays, the Shakespeare plays 
 have been superseded by modern works which 
 some of us may prefer to witness; as liter- 
 ature the world has proclaimed them 
 supreme. 
 
 Who then was Shakespeare; did such a 
 being exist apart from the collaborators who, 
 as we now know, worked on the Shakespeare 
 plays? 
 
 196 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 There must be only a few of the plays 
 which do not bear testimony to the partici- 
 pation of other hands, but it is also perhaps 
 true that in nearly all of them there is some- 
 thing of what we call "Shakespeare." 
 
 Attempts have been made to determine 
 the authorship sought for by internal evi- 
 dence gathered from study of the plays them- 
 selves; thus they have been attributed to 
 Bacon because of a certain familiarity with 
 legal terms; to Raleigh because of a similar 
 familiarity with nautical terms, this among 
 other things; and to Dekker and others be- 
 cause of characteristics of style. 
 
 But we might as well look for the author 
 in the lists of physicians, or of naturalists, or 
 of philosophers, for there is something of all 
 these to be found in the plays. While in 
 many places the frequent occurrence of legal 
 phrases is such as to suggest a mind trained 
 to their habitual use, there is nothing of this 
 that any one of half a dozen of the collabo- 
 rators could not have furnished ; and no spe- 
 cial knowledge of the sea shown that any one 
 197 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 of half the population of the island might not 
 have possessed. 
 
 Perhaps the most illuminating clue to the N 
 undiscovered authorship of the plays to be 
 derived from their critical study is found in 
 the conclusion that they are permeated 
 throughout by Roman Catholic and aristo- 
 cratic sentiments. This vein has been well 
 worked by Mr. Geo. Wilkes, and, even after 
 making due allowance for a fact which he 
 ignored ; that in Shakespeare's day the stage 
 was a target for the dislike of the Puritans; 
 and that playwrights and actors retaliated by 
 lampooning the Puritans in their plays; 
 enough remains of an intimate knowledge 
 of, and of reverence for Roman Catholic doc- 
 trine and practice to make it clear that some 
 one much in sympathy with that cult had a 
 large share in the writing of some of the most 
 beautiful passages in the plays. This fact, 
 as Mr. Wilkes justly remarks, excludes 
 Bacon from the list of possibilities. 
 
 So, too, with the aristocratic tendencies of 
 the plays; only a single one, the Merry 
 198 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Wives of Windsor, is without its titled per- 
 sonages; in only two, As you Like It, and 
 Timon of Athens, do we find the poor well 
 spoken of; and Mr. Wilkes describes this 
 feature of the plays as servility to rank and 
 contempt for the poor. 
 
 Such a cast of mind is not incompatible 
 with great talents, for Bacon's character was 
 of this description. But it is a harsh judg- 
 ment to pronounce upon the author, and by 
 no means necessarily a true one. It is equally \ 
 within the limits of probability that the writer 
 held a genuine belief in the value to the 
 nation of nobility, and a low opinion of the/ 
 vulgar. If Carlyle could characterise the 
 population of England in his day as "mostly 
 fools," and the founders of the Constitution 
 of the United States could feel such distrust 
 of the people as that much-respected docu- 
 ment evidences, surely an aristocrat of Eliza- 
 beth's England may well be supposed to en- 
 tertain similar, but intensified views. 
 
 In the Nineteenth Century of May, 1906, 
 Sir Sidney Lee called attention to the dis- 
 199 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 covery by Mr. James Greenstreet among the 
 Domestic State Papers of Queen Elizabeth's 
 reign, of two letters dated June 30 1599, 
 from London to Antwerp and Venice, in 
 which it is stated that the Earl of Derby "is 
 busyed only in penning Comedies for the 
 common players." 
 
 Mr. Greenstreet published his discovery 
 in the "Genealogist" in 1891 and 1892, in 
 three articles, in which he attempted to prove 
 that the Earl was the real Shakespeare. 
 
 It is perhaps not strange that a devoted 
 Stratfordian should not have thought it 
 worth while to follow up the investigation 
 which Mr. Greenstreet's death closed, and 
 yet there are circumstances which lend con- 
 siderable interest and importance to the mat- 
 ter. 
 
 The 6th Earl of the Catholic House of 
 Derby was William Stanley, whose initials 
 are the same as those of William Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 More important is the fact that the Stan- 
 leys were undoubtedly in close touch with 
 200 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the Shakspere players. Ferdinando Stanley, 
 the elder brother of William Stanley, was 
 the Lord Strange who maintained the thea- 
 trical company of which Will Shakspere was 
 a member. This patronage was continued 
 after he became Earl, and for a time after 
 his death, by his widow, the Countess of 
 Derby. From 1594 until 1617 at least, Will- 
 iam Stanley maintained his connection with 
 the stage. 
 
 This is sufficiently interesting to justify 
 some account of the house of Derby, and of 
 the 6th Earl in particular; taken from the 
 Stanley Papers, and from the above men- 
 tioned articles of Mr. Greenstreet. 
 
 The 4th Earl Henry Stanley, married 
 Feb. 7, 1555, Margaret 
 Clifford, who was descend- 
 ed from Charles Brandon 
 and Mary Tudor, sister of 
 Henry VIII. He died Sept. 
 25 1593, and was succeed- 
 ed by his eldest son; 
 201 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The 5th Earl Ferdinando Stanley, who 
 had borne the title of Lord 
 Strange from 1572 until his 
 accession, and who had 
 maintained the theatrical 
 company known as Lord 
 Strange's, and to which 
 Will Shakspere belonged 
 from about 1576-7. Ferdi- 
 nando died within a year on 
 April 16 1594, and was 
 succeeded by his younger 
 brother; 
 
 The 6th Earl William Stanley, the sub- 
 ject of this sketch, who mar- 
 ried almost immediately, on 
 June 26 1594, Elizabeth 
 Vere, daughter of the 17th 
 Earl of Oxford. 
 
 William Stanley was born in London. 
 In 1572, says Mr. Greenstreet, he went to 
 St. John's College, Oxford, with his broth- 
 ers, Lord Strange and Francis Stanley. It 
 seems that the younger brothers had dis- 
 202 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 pleased the Queen in some way, for she 
 writes under date of Dec. 6 1571 to Lord 
 Strange that she "is sorry not to have found 
 the like earnest good will to her service in 
 his brethren." 
 
 In 1582 he went to France with a pre- 
 ceptor, and after three years to Spain, where 
 he wounded his adversary in a duel, and had 
 to escape to France in disguise. 
 
 From France to Italy, High Germany, 
 Egypt, the Barbary coast, Palestine and to 
 Constantinople, where he was put into 
 prison. After a romantic release, he went 
 to Russia and to Greenland. 
 
 In 1585 his father, the 4th Earl, with 
 whom he was a favorite, was received as 
 Ambassador to the Court of France; and 
 Mr. Greenstreet thinks that he joined the 
 English army in the Netherlands, as a sol- 
 dier and comrade in arms of the Earl of 
 Southampton. 
 
 He was at home again from December 
 1587 to July 1590, as may be learned from 
 the records of Lathom House, one of the 
 203 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 family seats. One or two extracts from these 
 records follow; 
 
 1587 July 13, 14. Lathom. Leicesters 
 
 troupe played. 
 
 Dec. 17. Mr. William Stanley 
 
 came home from Chester. 
 
 1588 Oct. 12. The Queens players 
 
 came. 
 1588-9 Jan. 7 & 12. Derbys, or Lord 
 
 Stranges players played. 
 1589-90 Jan. 22. Sir Edward Fitton 
 
 came at night. 
 
 Sir Edward Fitton was the father of 
 Mistress Mary Fitton, whom some suppose 
 to be the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, and 
 Mr. Greenstreet suggests that William Stan^~ 
 ley may have been one of the three Wills of/ 
 the Sonnets. 
 
 The Stanley Papers refer to William 
 
 Stanley as the great Sir William, whose 
 
 travels and martial exploits are well known. 
 
 He was abroad again in 1594, when 
 
 Ferdinando died, and returning home, at 
 
 once became involved in litigation with his 
 
 204 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 nieces over his estates, which he found to be 
 held by four Bishops for the use of these 
 two ladies. 
 
 He was made K. G. on April 23 1601; 
 served as privy counsellor extraordinary 
 from March to May 1603, and was appoint- 
 ed Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire and 
 Cheshire on Dec. 22 1607. His London 
 residence was in Canon Row, Westminster. 
 
 Chapman refers to him in his preface to 
 the Iliad in 1594, as "most ingenious 
 Darby." Addressing his friend, Matthew 
 Roydon, he says; 
 
 "But I stay this spleen when I 
 remember, my good Matthew, how 
 joyfully oftentimes you reported un- 
 to me that most ingenious Darby, 
 deep searching Northumberland, and 
 skill embracing heir of Hunsdon had 
 most profitably entertained learning 
 in themselves to the vital warmth of 
 freezing science and to the admir- 
 able lustre of their true nobility 
 &c." 
 
 205 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 William Stanley's connection with the 
 stage has been explained. 
 
 Northumberland maintained a company 
 of players which was known as the Lord 
 Admiral's Company. 
 
 Hunsdon's heir was George Carey, who 
 succeeded to the title of Lord Hunsdon upon 
 the death of his father, who was the Lord 
 Chamberlain on July 23 1596, and con- 
 tinued to be the patron of his company, 
 known as the Lord Chamberlain's. 
 
 Thus Chapman, in naming Darby, 
 Northumberland and Hunsdon, was paying 
 court to three famous patrons of the stage. 
 
 In 1637 William Stanley surrendered 
 his estate, sreserving Ito himself only tane 
 thousand pounds a year, to his eldest son 
 James, and retired to a country house on 
 the Dee, near Chester, where he died in 
 1642. 
 
 James was the 7th Earl, the great Earl, 
 who espoused the royalist cause, was taken 
 prisoner after the battle of Worcester, and 
 was beheaded on Oct. 15 1651. 
 206 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Since William Stanley, at once soldier, 
 statesman, courtier and scholar, was con- 
 nected with the stage for many years; first 
 by inheritance from his brother, and later 
 by his own choice; was connected with the 
 very company of which Will Shakspere was 
 a member; and was himself a dramatist, 
 busying himself in 1599 "only in writing 
 comedies for the common players"; it is dif- 
 ficult to escape the conclusion that he had 
 a hand in shaping the Shakespeare plays. 
 
 We may conceive of him as aiding in 
 the revision of the old plays; adding per- 
 haps, those fine passages which Will Shak- 
 spere and his fellows sometimes omitted in 
 representation in order to make room for 
 their own buffooneries, but which have hap- 
 pily been preserved to enrich all time. 
 
 The writer has now executed his design 
 of setting out the considerations which make 
 for the rejection of the view that Will Shak- 
 spere was our Shakespeare. Volumes might 
 have been written have been written on 
 the subject, and to treat it with any larger 
 207 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 degree of detail would involve much repe- 
 tition of that which has been written by 
 others, and which is accessible to all. 
 
 A brief summary of the argument may 
 
 be useful, and will make a suitable ending. 
 
 The record of Will Shakspere's 
 
 life traverses the theory that he was 
 
 a great genius. 
 
 His contemporaries assigned to 
 him an inferior and not altogether 
 creditable role in the production of 
 the plays; a fact to which very little 
 attention has been given. 
 
 He did not write the poems. His 
 patron was not Southampton, but 
 Lord Strange. In the Sonnets, 
 which are undoubtedly by the same 
 hand as the Venus, and the Lucrece, 
 it is distinctly stated that the name 
 under which they appeared, William 
 Shakespeare, was but a pen name. 
 
 There is no evidence, worthy of 
 the name, that the plays were his. 
 The one and only contemporary 
 208 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 writer who distinctly identified the 
 actor with the genius, namely Ben 
 Jonson, did so only in his well-known 
 ode, "To the memory of my be- 
 loved." In the title, as well as in the 
 body of the ode, he contradicted 
 every other known utterance by him, 
 to the number of half a dozen, on 
 the subject. Every other remark 
 made by him, or reported of him, 
 shows that he did not like Will 
 Shakspere, and indeed, regarded 
 him as a very ordinary person. 
 
 The history of the plays, and 
 the internal evidences of style, fix 
 the authorship in great part else- 
 where. 
 
 The occurrence of Stratfordian al- 
 lusions only in the comic scenes; 
 which scenes are usually irrelevant to 
 the action of the drama, and distinct- 
 ly differing in style, point to the ex- 
 planation that these were the contri- 
 butions of Will Shakspere. 
 209 
 
THE SILENT SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The suggestion, first offered by 
 Mr. Greenstreet, as to the genius 
 who stamped his individuality upon 
 the plays, plausibly answers the 
 question "Who was Shakespeare?" 
 by replying; William Stanley was 
 William Shakespeare. 
 
 Finis. 
 
 210 
 
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