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THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 


BT  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 
MONTAIGNE  &  SHAKESPEARE 

DID    SHAKESPEjARE  WRITE 
TITUS  ANDRONICUS? 

ESSAYS  TOWARDS  A  CRITICAL 
METHOD 

ETC.  ETC. 


THE 
BACONIAN    HERESY 

A   CONFUTATION 

BY 
J.  M.  ROBERTSON  M.P. 


DO      YOU      THINK     SO?  ARE      YOU      IN 

THAT    GOOD    HERESY,    I     MEAN    OPINION  ? 
Ben    Jonson,  The   Sad    Shepherd,   *Acf   i,  Sc>    ii 


ffi     HERBERT   JENKINS    LIMITED     fig 

ARUNDEL  PLACE  HAYMARKET  LONDON  SW 

MCMXIII 


BALLANTYNE 


i 


PREFACE 

treatise  was  in  large  part  compiled  some 
years  ago,  under  the  shock  of  the  revelation 
that  Mark  Twain  had  died  a  "  Bacon-Shake 
spearean."  Laid  aside  under  a  misgiving  that 
the  drudgery  it  involved  had  not  been  worth  while,  it 
has  been  finished,  by  way  of  a  holiday  task,  at  the  instance 
of  a  friend  somewhat  disturbed  by  Baconian  solicitings. 
It  is  finally  published  with  a  hope  not  merely  of  checking 
in  some  degree  the  spread  of  the  Baconian  fantasy,  but 
of  stimulating  to  some  small  extent  the  revival  of  scientific 
Shakespearean  criticism.  Any  close  reader  of  the  Baco 
nian  literature  will  recognise  that  its  doctrine  flourishes 
mainly  on  the  unsunned  sides  of  the  Shakespeare  problem. 
If  only  the  specialists  had  done  their  proper  work  of 
discriminating  between  the  genuine  and  the  alien  in  the 
Shakespeare  plays,  much  of  the  Baconian  polemic  would 
have  been  impossible,  if  indeed  it  could  have  proceeded 
at  all.  What  we  latterly  get  from  the  professed  historians 
of  English  literature  is  mostly  "  cathedral  "  declamation, 
somewhat  analogous  to  much  of  the  Baconian  asseveration. 
It  has  been  a  question  for  me  how  far  the  confutation 
of  Baconian  fallacies  may  usefully  be  carried.  The 
Baconian  case  constantly  tends  to  new  exorbitances  of 
nonsense,  as  when  Sir  Edwin  Durning-Lawrence  intimates 
that  Bacon  did  the  authorised  version  of  the  Bible,  and 
Mr.  Parker  Woodward,  with  calm  confidence,  intimates 
that  Bacon  also  wrote  Lilly's  EUPHUES,  Spenser's  poems, 
Puttenham's  ARTE  OF  ENGLISH  POESY,  all  the  works  of 
Thomas  Nashe,  all  the  works  and  plays  of  Greene,  Peele, 
Kyd,  and  Marlowe,  Burton's  ANATOMY  OF  MELANCHOLY, 


vi  PREFACE 

and  I  know  not  what  else.  Many  of  these  claims,  indeed, 
were  made  years  before  ;  but  they  seem  to  recur  sponta 
neously.  When  Mr.  Woodward  is  at  a  loss  for  a  pretext 
for  any  such  attribution,  he  alleges  a  statement  by  Bacon 
in  a  "  cipher."  I  have  drawn  the  line  at  ciphers,  which 
are  rejected  even  by  leading  Baconians  such  as  Dr. 
Theobald  and  Lord  Penzance ;  and  I  have  likewise  put 
aside  all  the  extra-Shakespearean  attributions.  It  seems 
sufficient  to  call  the  attention  of  the  reader  to  them,  and 
to  point  out  to  what  the  Baconian  theory  commonly 
carries  its  devotees. 

It  may  be  argued,  on  this,  that  they  reason  on  then- 
wildest  propositions  very  much  as  they  do  on  their 
primary  doctrine;  and  that  Dr.  R.  M.  Theobald,  cm 
whose  "  classical "  and  other  fallacies  I  have  spent  some 
time,  is  quite  as  sure  about  what  he  calls  "  the  Marlowe 
branch  of  our  theory  "  as  about  the  Shakespearean.  I 
can  but  answer  that  I  have  been  astonished  to  see  quite 
intelligent  men,  for  lack  of  knowledge  of  Elizabethan 
literature,  deluded  by  the  Bacon-Shakespeare  case,  and 
by  the  misinformation  supplied  to  them  by  orthodox 
Shakespeareans ;  and  I  have  been  willing  to  take  some 
trouble  to  prevent  the  spread  of  such  error,  which  goes 
on  without  regard  to  the  lengths  of  further  extravagance 
attained  by  the  Baconians,  But  I  am  not  concerned 
to  spend  time  over  people  who  can  believe  that  Bacon 
wrote  the  entire  Elizabethan  drama,  the  English  Bible, 
and  Spenser,  Montaigne,  Nashe,  and  Burton  to  boot. 
Non  ragiomam  di  lor. 

But,  once  more,  all  this  divagation  has  been  made 
possible  by  the  old  fashion  of  contemplating  Shakespeare 
in  vacua,  and  as  a  miracle  at  that.  As  a  good  critic  put 
it  a  generation  ago :  "  Even  he  must  be  partly  inter 
preted  by  his  age.  We  cannot  duly  appreciate  his  position 
without  careful  study  of  this  whole  chapter  of  literary 
history.  Unless  we  are  acquainted  with  the  soil  from 
which  he  grew,  and  with  the  other  products  which  that 


PREFACE  vii 

soil  was  capable  of  bearing,  he  remains;  not  marvellous 
merely,  but  prodigious.  If  he  be  regarded  after  the  fashion 
of  the  last  generation  but  one,  as  a  lusus  naturcz,  out  of 
relation  to  the  ordinary  laws  of  human  development, 
he  loses  his  interest  for  us  as  a  human  being ;  his  actual 
bodily  existence,  which  has  little  enough  of  the  substance 
imparted  by  the  biographer,  becomes  altogether  shadowy 
and  mythical :  we  fall  an  easy  prey  to  some  '  Baconian 
hypothesis '  about  the  authorship  of  his  plays,  and  take 
a  final  leave,  so  far  as  he  is  concerned,  of  criticism  and 
common  sense."1 

It  may  be,  then;  that  a  discussion  which  involves  a 
constant  application  of  the  comparative  method  will  be 
serviceable  to  genuine  Shakespeare-study,  whatever  it 
may  avail  in  the  way  of  averting  further  lapses  into 
Baconianism.  I  have  been  encouraged  to  complete  my 
task — in  so  far  as  it  can  be  said  to  be  completed — by  the 
declaration  of  Mr.  Charles  Crawford  :  "It  seems  to  me 
that  scholars  are  making  a  big  mistake  in  allowing  this 
question  to  assume  such  serious  proportions."2  Mr. 
Crawford  has  himself  done  so  much  to  clear  it  up  that  I 
am  moved  respectfully  to  reproach  him  for  not  doing 
the  whole  of  the  work.  Differing  from  him  upon  only 
one  serious  issue  in  matters  Shakespearean — the  author 
ship  of  TITUS  ANDRONICUS — I  realise  none  the  less  the 
fulness  and  exactness  of  his  Elizabethan  learning,  by 
which  I  have  here  profited. 

The  task,  indeed,  is  one  that  should  have  been  under 
taken  by  a  small  company  of  scholars.  A  few  leisured 
and  vigilant  readers  together  could  in  a  short  time  have 
compiled  a  much  fuller  refutation  than  the  following ; 
and  might  incidentally  have  done  a  much  greater  service 
to  Shakespeare  scholarship  than  is  possible  to  one  who 
lacks  due  leisure  even  if  he  had  scholarly  qualifications. 

1  G.  C.  Macaulay,  Francis  Beaumont :  A  Critical  Study ,  1883,  p. 5. 
8  Preamble  to  essay  on  "  The  Bacon-Shakespeare  Question  " 
in  Collectanea,  Second  Series,  Stratford -on-A von,  1907. 


viii  PREFACE 

If  a  study  which  for  me  has  necessarily  been  subsidiary 
could  yield,  with  the  help  of  such  previous  workers  as 
Mr.  Crawford  and  Judge  Willis,  and  some  recent  editors 
of  plays,  what  I  think  to  be  a  fair  sufficiency  of  refutation 
of  the  Baconian  case  on  all  its  lines,  much  more  efficiently 
might  the  work  have  been  done  by  scholars  who  have 
been  able  to  devote  their  lives  to  matters  of  philology 
and  literary  history. 

Such  scholars  have  not  thought  it  worth  while.  I 
still  hope,  however,  that  some  of  them  may  be  moved 
to  carry  out  anew  the  scholarly  annotation  of  Shake 
speare's  text.  Nothing  has  ever  made  up  for  the  turning 
away  of  Farmer  from  the  task  which  he  was  so  uniquely 
fitted  to  perform.  His  brief  ESSAY  ON  THE  LEARNING 
OF  SHAKESPEARE  remains  an  unmatched  performance  in 
its  kind,  after  a  century  and  a  half.  At  its  close  he  made 
a  half-promise  to  extract  more  elucidatory  matter  from 
"  the  chaos  of  papers  "  from  which  he  had  compiled  the 
essay  ;  but  the  unkind  fates  set  him  to  other  work  ;  and 
no  man  of  quite  equal  scholarly  opulence,  perhaps,  has 
put  his  hand  to  the  task  since.  The  multifarious  erudi 
tion  for  which  he  half  apologised  is,  as  he  said,  "  the  read 
ing  necessary  for  a  comment  on  Shakespeare  "  ;  and 
much  of  his  was  buried  with  him.  But  half  a  dozen 
specialists  of  to-day,  including  some  of  the  most  competent 
of  recent  Shakespearean  editors,  if  they  would  put  their 
heads  together,  could  give  us  such  annotation  as  was 
never  compassed  by  the  old  variorum  men.  And  then, 
mayhap,  they  or  another  company  might  give  us  that 
annotated  edition  of  Spenser,  the  lack  of  which  is  a 
standing  scandal  to  English  scholarship. 


Since  this  book  was  put  in  the  hands  of  the  printers, 
there  has  appeared  the  posthumous  work  of  the  late 
Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  SHAKESPEARE,  BACON,  AND  THE  GREAT 
UNKNOWN.  Very  naturally,  a  number  of  Mr.  Lang's 


PREFACE  ix 

arguments  coincide  with  mine,  and  I  am  heartily  glad 
to  have  such  support.  To  the  general  argument  of  my 
friend  Mr.  Greenwood,  in  my  opinion  the  most  consum 
mate  paralogism  in  the  literature  of  biography,  he  seems 
to  me  to  have  supplied  a  very  complete  rebuttal,  by 
simple  analysis  of  its  steps.  Incidentally,  by  reproduc 
ing  Dugdale's  version  of  the  Carew  monument  in  Stratford 
Church  and  confronting  it  with  a  photograph  of  the 
actual  monument,  he  has  exploded  the  small  mystery 
built  up  by  Mr.  Greenwood  out  of  the  difference  between 
the  actual  Shakespeare  monument  and  Dugdale's  repre 
sentation  of  it  in  1656.  In  1908  I  urged  upon  my  friend 
a  solution  of  his  mystery  which  can  now,  I  think,  be 
seen  to  be  the  true  one.  Dugdale,  it  is  pretty  evident, 
was  in  the  habit  of  making  slight  and  rude  outline  sketches 
of  the  monuments  he  saw,  and  these  were  afterwards 
elaborated  for  him  by  a  professional  draughtsman,  who 
took  a  large  licence.  There  was  no  support  for  either 
the  Baconian  or  the  "  Great  Unknown  "  hypothesis  in 
the  Dugdale  mystery  at  best ;  and  even  the  mystery  is 
now  disposed  of. 

Mr.  Lang,  unfortunately,  was  "  bluffed  "  by  the  as 
severations  of  the  lawyers  as  to  the  "  law  "  in  the  plays. 
Had  he  applied  comparative  tests  to  that  part  of  the 
problem  he  would  have  discovered  what,  I  trust,  is  made 
clear  in  the  following  pages — that  Shakespeare  had  no 
more  law  than  half  a  dozen  other  Elizabethan  dramatists 
who  were  not  lawyers  ;  and  would  so  have  exploded  that 
"mystery"  also  instead  of  facing  it  with  tentative 
hypotheses. 

Somewhat  unexpectedly,  again,  Mr.  Lang  has  touched 
but  lightly  on  a  part  of  the  problem  upon  which  one 
would  have  expected  him  to  enlarge — the  thesis  as  to  the 
'*•  classical  scholarship  "  in  the  plays — contenting  himself 
with  commenting  on  the  self-contradictions  of  the  late 
Mr.  Churton  Collins,  and  generally  denying  that  the 
thesis  squares  with  the  facts.  In  this  connection,  how- 


x  PREFACE 

ever,  he  has  fallen  into  supererogatory  error,  which  I 
am  constrained  to  point  out,  as  it  partly  concerns  myself. 

So  arbitrary  is  taste  in  these  matters  [he  writes]  that  Mr.  Collins, 
like  Mr.  Grant  White,  but  independently,  finds  Shakespeare 
putting  a  thought  from  the  ALCIBIADES  I  of  Plato  into  the  mouth 
of  Achilles  in  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA,  while  Mr.  J.  M.  Robertson 
suggests  that  the  borrowing  is  from  Seneca — where  Mr.  Collins 
does  not  find  "the  smallest  parallel."  Mr.  Collins  is  certainly 
right :  the  author  of  TROILUS  makes  Ulysses  quote  Plato  as  "  the 
author  of"  a  remark,  and  makes  Achilles  take  up  the  quotation, 
which  Ulysses  goes  on  to  criticise.  * 

As  Mr.  Lang  did  not  live  to  revise  his  proofs;  it  must 
suffice  to  state  the  facts,  without  protest. 

If  he  had  read  with  attention  the  second  edition  of  my 
MONTAIGNE  AND  SHAKESPEARE,  which  he  reviewed  on 
its  appearance,  he  would  have  noted  my  exposure  of 
Mr.  Collins's  blunder.2  I  had  not  referred  the  lines  of 
Achilles  to  Seneca :  my  reference  was  to  the  lines  of 
Ulysses.  Mr.  Collins,  professing  to  cite  the  entire  passage, 
elided  the  relevant  lines  of  Ulysses,  and  made  Ulysses 
mention  of  "  a  strange  fellow's  "  writing  apply  to  the 
speech  which  Achilles  makes  in  reply.  That  I  never 
referred  to  Seneca.  I  did  incidentally  point  out  that 
the  whole  reference  to  Plato  is  gratuitous,  seeing  that 
the  argument  about  the  inability  of  the  eye  to  see  itself, 
which  is  the  gist  of  the  passage,  had  appeared  already  in 
JULIUS  CESAR,  in  which  connection  the  commentators 
long  ago  traced  it  to  the  NOSCE  TEIPSUM  of  Sir  John 
Davies,  where,  as  I  had  further  pointed  out,  there  is 
found  also  the  phrase,  "  spirit  of  sense,"  used  in  the 
passage  in  TROILUS.  At  the  same  time,  I  had  shown 
that  the  "  eye  "  passage  might  also  be  traced  to  Cicero, 
who  had  given  the  idea  common  currency.  The  primary 
speech  of  Ulysses,  which  I  had  shown  to  be  traceable  to 
both  Seneca  and  Cicero,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  item 
about  the  eye  not  seeing  itself,  put  by  the  dramatist  in 
1  Work  cited,  p.  74.  2  Work  cited,  p.  97  sq. 


PREFACE  xi 

the  mouth  of  Achilles.  Mr.  Collins  had  hopelessly 
blundered  over  the  matter  he  argued  ;  and  Mr.  Lang, 
unwatchfully  following  him,  has  given  a  gratuitous 
advantage  to  the  very  Baconian  thesis  he  was  countering. 
The  alleged  reproduction  of  Plato  in  TROILUS,  claimed 
by  two  strong  "  Stratfordians,"  is  one  of  the  stock  themes 
of  the  "  anti-Stratfordians."  The  reader  will  find  it 
fully  dealt  with  in  my  book  above  cited,  and  hereinafter. 

The  final  words  quoted  above  from  Mr.  Lang  are  so 
completely  astray  that  they  should  have  been  deleted 
by  those  who  edited  his  MS.  The  author  of  TROILUS 
assuredly  does  not  "  make  Ulysses  quote  Plato  as  '  the 
author  '  of  a  remark  "  ;  neither  does  he  make  "  Achilles 
take  up  the  quotation."  Plato  is  never  once  mentioned 
in  the  Shakespeare  plays.  Achilles  in  the  play  meets 
the  philosopheme  "  quoted  "  by  Ulysses  with  another 
and  a  different  philosopheme,  which  Mr.  Collins  and  Mr. 
Grant  White  insisted  upon  ascribing  to  Plato,  without 
accounting  for  its  previous  appearance  in  JULIUS  C^SAR. 

These  critical  misadventures  on  the  part  of  three  strong 
"Stratfordians"  are  "chastening,"  as  the  phrase  goes. 
The  academics  err  on  classical  matters  even  as  the  lawyers 
err  about  the  law  in  the  plays  :  evidently  we  are  all  apt 
to  trip.  One  can  but  say,  with  Frederick,  that  "  the 
best  general  is  he  who  makes  fewest  mistakes  "  ;  adding 
that  mistakes  differ  in  degree  of  fatality.  It  is  the  object 
of  this  treatise  to  show  that  the  mistakes  alike  of  the 
Baconians  and  of  the  mainly  negative  "  anti-Strat- 
fordians  "  are  irredeemable.  My  friend  Mr.  Greenwood, 
who  is  so  Draconic  towards  every  over-strong  inference, 
every  "  doubtless  "  and  every  "  certainly  "  of  the  "  Strat 
fordians,"  has  built  his  own  case1  mainly  on  current 
propositions  concerning  the  "  law  "  and  "  scholarship  " 
of  the  plays  to  which  he  had  never  applied  the  slightest 
comparative  criticism,  taking  them  without  question 
from  writers  whose  Stratfordian  orthodoxy  should  have 
1  See  The  Shakespeare  Problem  Re-stated,  1908. 


Xll 


PREFACE 


vetoed  his  faith  in  these  as  in  their  other  theories.  And, 
inexorable  towards  all  defects  of  biographical  evidence 
for  the  main  tradition,  he  maintains  for  his  own  part  a 
hypothesis  which  is  not  only  unsupported  by  a  grain  of 
evidence  but  is  in  constant  and  deadly  conflict  with  the 
very  arguments  by  which  he  seeks  to  disallow  the  claims 
of  the  Stratford  actor.  So  much  has  been  shown  by  Mr. 
Lang ;  and  will,  I  think,  be  shown  independently  in  the 
following  pages.  If  they,  in  turn,  should  be  found  to 
evolve  any  equipollent  fallacy,  let  it  be  shown.  If  not, 
the  candid  reader  will  presumably  rate  at  their  true 
weight  the  mistakes  of  detail  from  which  such  a  treatise 
cannot  conceivably  be  free. 

The  deficiency  which  I  recognise  in  it  is  the  incomplete 
ness  of  its  survey  of  the  literary  field  that  should  be 
covered.  For  lack  of  leisure,  I  have  had  to  leave  un- 
collated  at  least  a  score  of  books  that  I  had  noted  for  re- 
perusal  in  this  connection.  One  cannot  remember  all 
the  allusions  and  the  vocabulary  of  old  books  that  one 
had  read  without  any  special  note-taking  :  they  must 
be  re-read  for  an  argument  which  turns  largely  on  vocabu 
lary  and  allusion.  Still,  I  am  fain  to  think  that  the 
confutation  undertaken  has  been  substantially  made 
out ;  and  if  its  incompleteness  at  many  points  is  noted 
by  any  more  leisured  reader,  I  trust  he  will  make  good 
the  deficiency.1 

Christmas  Week,  1912. 

1  Since  the  above  lines  were  written,  I  have  read,  in  the 
enforced  leisure  of  a  brief  illness,  Canon  Beeching's  little  book, 
William  Shakespeare  :  Player,  Playmaker,  and  Poet :  a  Reply  to 
Mr.  George  Greenwood  (1908),  in  which,  as  in  Mr.  Lang's  volume, 
I  find  some  of  my  "  points  "  already  made,  with  many  others  to 
boot.  All  this  consensus  of  argument  among  independent 
writers  will,  I  think,  impress  the  open-minded  reader,  as  it  has 
done  me. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

The  Status  of  "  Heresy  "  :  Sources  of  the  Baconian  bias  :  Its 
extremer  forms  :  Ciphers :  Sir  E.  Burning  Lawrence  on 
"  Honorificabilitudinitatibus  "  :  Rational  forms  of  the  debate  : 
Inadequacy  of  literary  taste  as  arbitrator  :  Need  for  evidence 
and  ratiocination.  pp.  i-io 

CHAPTER  II 

THE    POSITION    OF   MARK   TWAIN 

English  origin  of  Baconian  theory  :  American  developments  : 
Mark  Twain's  theses  :  The  supposed  contemporary  disbelief 
in  Shakespeare's  authorship  a  chimera  :  The  literary  testi 
monies,  before  and  after  1616  :  Scantiness  of  all  biographical 
record  of  men  of  letters  in  Shakespeare's  age  :  The  Puritan 
attitude  towards  him  in  Stratford  :  Biographical  records 
of  Shakespeare,  Cervantes,  and  Molidre.  pp.  1 1-30 

CHAPTER  III 

THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS  IN  SHAKESPEARE  I     LORD 

CAMPBELL'S  CASE 

The  thesis  as  to  the  legal  knowledge  shown  in  the  plays  :  Its 
"  orthodox  "  origin  and  development  :  Mark  Twain's  un 
questioning  acceptance  :  Test  questions,  neither  put  nor 
answered  by  Baconians  :  Mr.  Greenwood's  acceptance  of 
idolatrous  theses  as  to  the  plays  :  His  rejection  of  Mr.  Collins 's 
proofs  of  "  law  "  in  TITUS  :  His  acceptance  of  Lord  Campbell's 
final  dicta  from  Lord  Penzance  without  scrutiny  :  Campbell's 
contradictory  positions  :  his  errors  as  to  biographical  data  : 
Conflict  of  criticism  among  the  legalists  :  Campbell's  points 
taken  seriatim.  pp.  31-95 

xiii 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY  I     MR.  GRANT  WHITE'S 

CASE 

Grant  White  an  anti-Baconian  :  His  extravagant  development 
of  the  legalist  view  :  His  list  of  technical  terms  in  the  plays  : 
Ascribes  to  the  plays  a  term  not  to  be  found  there  :  His  philo 
logical  blunder  as  to  "  purchase  "  :  The  word  traced  from 
Chaucer  to  Warburton.  pp.  96-1 16 

CHAPTER  V 

THE     ARGUMENT    FROM     LEGAL     PHRASEOLOGY  :       MR.     RUSHTON   ; 
SENATOR   DAVIS  ;     MR.    CASTLE 

§  i .  Rushton 

Mr.  Rushton's  priority  to  Campbell  :  His  argument  from  use  of 
legal  maxims  :  His  failure  to  collate  other  Elizabethan 
dramatists. 

§  2.  Davis 

Laxity  of  the  argument  of  Senator  Davis  :  Alternately  strict  and 
reckless  in  certificating  legal  use  of  terms  :  His  ascription 
of  "  forensic  "  character  to  trial  in  the  Merchant  met  by 
comparison  of  trial  scene  in  Jonson  :  Ascribes  Sir  John 
Oldcastle  to  Shakespeare  on  legal  grounds  :  Consequences  from 
this  ascription. 

§3.  Castle 

Position  of  Mr.  Castle  :  Theory  of  "  legal  "  and  "  non-legal  " 
plays  :  Shakespeare  occasionally  "  assisted  "  by  a  lawyer, 
probably  Bacon  :  His  blunder  as  to  "  colour  "  :  The  word 
traced  in  previous  English  literature  :  Self-contradiction  as 
to  Measure  for  Measure  :  Fiasco  as  to  "  Escalus  "  :  Failure  to 
collate  other  dramatists  :  Ignorance  as  to  Elizabethan 
phraseology  :  Heedless  acceptance  of  literary  thesis  of  Mr. 
Donnelly  :  General  laxity  of  procedure  of  the  legalists  on  the 
literary  side .  pp.  117-139 

CHAPTER  VI 

LITIGATION   AND   LEGALISM   IN   ELIZABETHAN   ENGLAND 

Nashe  on  contemporary  litigiousness  :  Chapman  on  the  law's 
delays  :  Roger  Hutcninson  on  litigation  :  Latimer  on  foolish 


CONTENTS  xv 

litigiousnegs  and  unjust  judges  :  Illustration  from  a  play  : 
Mr.  Hubert  Hall's  picture  of  Elizabethan  life  :  Arrest  for 
debt  in  the  drama  :  Use  of  maxims  and  legal  terms  in 
dialogue  :  Law  courts  at  Stratford  :  Dray  ton's  picture  of  a 
trial  :  Litigiousness  of  John  Shakespeare  :  Question  as  to  his 
impecuniosity  :  Theory  of  recusancy  :  Shakespeare's  juvenile 
~~i  experience  :  Talk  of  courts  and  trials  on  the  stage  and  in  the 
pulpits  :  Legal  procedure  in  plays  and  even  in  poems  and 
pamphlets  :  Nashe  :  Greene  :  Spenser  :  Trial  scenes  in  plays 
Jonson  :  Chapman  and  Rowley  :  Dekker  :  Webster 
Greene  and  Lodge  :  Massinger  :  Webster's  Devil's  Law  Case 
Mr.  Greenwood's  denial  of  its  "  legal  "  quality  :  Comparison 
with  trial  scene  in  the  Merchant  :  Webster's  Appius  and 
Virginia  :  Jonson 's  Magnetic  Lady  :  Legalism  in  the  theo 
logians  :  Mr.  Greenwood's  dilemma  :  His  withdrawal  from 
the  original  position  :  Disclaims  founding  on  use  of  legal 
terms  :  Has  nothing  else  to  found  on  :  His  error  as  to  Mr. 
Devecmon  and  Senator  Davis  :  Confuted  by  his  own 
criticisms  :  Mr.  Devecmon 's  error  as  to  "  statutes." 

pp. 140-177 

CHAPTER  VII 

THE    ALLEGED    CLASSICAL   SCHOLARSHIP   OF   THE    PLAYS 

§i.  Lord  Penzance  and  Mr.  Donnelly 

The  "  classical  "  fallacy  on  all  fours  with  the  "  legalist  "  :  In 
complete  induction  in  both  cases  :  Method  and  inconsistency 
of  Prof.  Churton  Collins  :  Ignoring  of  English  precedents  : 
Diffusion  of  common  classical  knowledge  by  Interludes  and 
homiletic  literature  :  Persistence  of  the  "  classical  "  view  : 
Farmer's  confutation  :  Revival  of  the  thesis  by  anti-Baco 
nians,  giving  the  Baconians  a  main  part  of  their  case  :  Pro 
cedure  of  Lord  Penzance  :  His  discipleship  to  Mr.  Donnelly,  who 
had  no  classical  scholarship  :  Authorship  of  the  Henry  VI 
plays  :  Grant  White's  blunder  as  to  Bentley  and  the  "  Gardens 
of  Adonis  "  :  Solution  of  the  confusion  :  A  common  classical 
adage  treated  as  a  rarity  of  scholarship  :  A  second  Platonic 
mare's  nest  :  Blunders  and  oversights  of  Prof.  Collins  and 
Grant  White  :  Alleged  scholarship  of  the  Roman  plays  : 
Their  real  lack  of  scholarship. 

§2.  Mr.  G.  G.  Greenwood 

Mr.  Greenwood's  treatment  of  the  problem  :  Scraps  of  possible 
reminiscence  treated  as  proofs  of  wide  classical  knowledge  : 
His  acceptance  of  Prof.  Collins's  case  :  Question  of  the  circu- 

b 


XVI 


CONTENTS 


lation  of  MS.  translations  :  Problem  of  the  Comedy  of  Errors  : 
The  critical  solution  :  Mr.  Greenwood's  presentment  of  the 
author's  positions. 

§3.  Dr.  R.  M.  Theobald 

Dr.  Theobald's  positions  :  His  "  classic  "  allusions  exposed  seria 
tim  :  His  final  admission  of  "  probable  use  of  translations." 

§4.  Mr.  W.  Theobald 

Mr.  Theobald's  forensic  procedure  :  Logical  suicide  :  Failure  to 
understand  Farmer  :  A  collector  of  mares'  nests  :  His 
"  classic  allusions  "  dealt  with  seriatim  :  His  citation  of 
Georg  Brandes  on  Othello — Alleged  use  of  Berni  and  Ariosto  : 
Brandes'  unwarranted  inferences  :  His  acceptance  of  the 
legalist  view  :  His  repudiation  of  the  Baconian  theory  : 
Grant  White's  denunciation  of  it.  pp.  178-252 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  I 

ii.  DR.  R.  M.  THEOBALD'S  LIST  OF  WORDS 

§i.  Dr.  Theobald's  claim  and  undertaking  :  Partial  anticipation 
of  his  claim  by  Hallam  :  Hallam's  oversights  :  Mr.  Greenwood's 
unqualified  acceptance  of  Hallam's  qualified  claim  :  The  de 
velopment  of  Latin  vocabulary  in  Elizabethan  English  : 
Possibility  of  contributions  by  Shakespeare  :  Need  for 
competent  scrutiny  of  the  claim  :  Neologism  in  the  drama  : 
Attitude  of  scholars  to  neologism  :  Cheke  :  Ascham  :  Caesar  : 
Favorinus  :  Practice  of  Spenser  :  Attitude  of  Sidney  : 
Practice  of  Sir  T.  More  :  Latinism  in  Latimer,  Bale,  and 
Hutchinson  :  Tyndale  on  the  revival  of  scholarship  :  Ascham 
and  Elyot :  Foxe's  preference  for  Latin  :  Style  of  Hooker  and 
Bacon  :  General  acquaintance  with  Latinic  terms  :  Dr. 
Theobald's  ignorance  of  pre-Shakespearean  English  :  His 
slight  and  fallacious  use  of  the  Oxford  Dictionary  :  Mr. 
Harold  Bay  ley's  misconception  :  Dr.  Theobald's  preliminary 
instances  of  "  new  words  "  :  His  citations  a  series  of  fiascos. 

§2.  Confutation  of  his  chapter  on  "  Shakespeare's  Classic 
Diction  "  by  Judge  Willis  :  Preliminary  instances  of  alleged 
phrase-coinage  by  Bacon  :  Dr.  Theobald's  list  dealt  with 
seriatim  :  Complete  collapse  of  his  case.  pp.  253-375 


CONTENTS  xvii 

CHAPTER  IX 

COINCIDENCES    OF    PHRASE    IN    SHAKESPEARE    AND    BACON 

§i.  The  Evidential  Problem 

Effect  of  parallelisms  on  readers  not  versed  in  Elizabethan  litera 
ture  :  Dr.  Theobald's  praise  of  Mr.  Donnelly's  performance  : 
More  rational  attitude  of  Judge  Holmes  :  Mr.  Donnelly's 
ignorance  of  Elizabethan  literature  :  Dr.  Theobald's  paralo 
gism  as  to  "  cumulative  evidence  "  :  Mr.  Crawford's  con 
futation  of  Mrs.  Pott  :  Coincidences  between  Bacon  and 
Jonson. 

§2.  Lord  Penzance  and  Mr.  Donnelly 

Lord  Penzance's  ignorance  of  Elizabethan  literature  :  Mr.  Don 
nelly  :  His  first  samples  of  coincidence  :  "  Eager  "  and 
"  thicken  "  ;  "  troublers  of  the  world,"  "  top,"  "  eternize," 
"quintessence,"  "gravelled"  :  Real  instances  of  copying 
of  phrase  in  Elizabethan  letters  :  Only  a  special  proclivity  to 
a  universal  practice  :  Practice  of  Nashe  :  Marlowe  :  Greene  : 
Peele  :  Chapman  :  Shakespeare's  copyings  :  Poetical  imitation 
in  general  :  Drayton  and  Spenser  :  Imitations  of  Shakespeare 
by  Webster,  Chapman,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Dekker,  and 
Heywood  :  Shakespeare  and  Montaigne  :  Common  tags  : 
Shakespeare's  retention  of  previous  writing  in  recast  plays  : 
Absurdity  of  general  inference  of  identity  of  authorship  : 
Real  instances  of  alien  or  divided  authorship  :  Mr.  Donnelly's 
parallels  wholly  uncritical  :  His  use  of  the  pseudo -Baconian 
essay  Of  Death  :  His  trivial  parallels  of  phrase  :  Seven  more 
significant  parallels  exposed  :  Twenty-one  of  his  instances  of 
word-coincidence,  from  "  ape  "  to  "  wilderness,"  dealt  with  by 
the  comparative  method.  pp. 376-432 

CHAPTER  X 

THE    ARGUMENT    FROM    COINCIDENCES    OF    PHRASE  : 
il.    DR.  R.  M.  THEOBALD 

Dr.  Theobald's  argument  from  coincidence  to  identity  :  His 
principal  instance  :  Universalitytof  plagiarism  in  Shakespeare's 
day  :  Jonson  and  Bacon  :  Dr.  Theobald's  ignorance  of 
Elizabethan  literature  :  His  attempt  to  reply  to  Judge  Willis  : 
Forty  of  his  instances  dealt  with  seriatim  :  Samples  of  the 
futility  of  the  remainder  :  His  blunder  as  to  terms  of  assevera 
tion  :  His  argument  as  to  "muck"  :  His  blunder  as  to 
Solamen  miseris.  pp.  433-482 


XV111 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XI 

PROSE    STYLE    IN    SHAKESPEARE    AND    BACON 

Style  a  personal  characteristic  :  Shakespeare  not  a  great  prose- 
writer  :  Best  prose  and  best  verse  never  produced  by  one 
writer  :  Shakespeare's  originality  in  verse  :  Development 
of  English  prose  from  Chaucer  :  Tudor  prose  :  Hooper  :  Nashe  : 
Jonson  :  Bacon  :  Series  of  samples  of  Shakespeare's  prose  : 
Its  unvarying  structure  :  The  contrast  of  his  verse  :  Trans 
muting  power  of  rhythm  :  Samples  of  Bacon's  prose  :  Its 
entirely  different  structure  :  Many  differences  in  vocabulary  at 
once  apparent :  Bacon's  prose  style  masterly  but  homogeneous 
like  Shakespeare's  :  His  potency  as  a  leader  of  thought :  Mon 
strosity  of  the  theory  that  both  styles  are  his.  pp.  483-5 10 

CHAPTER  XII 

THE  VOCABULARIES  OF  SHAKESPEARE  AND  BACON 

Alleged  range  of  Shakespeare's  vocabulary  :  Failure  of  the 
Baconians  to  compare  the  vocabularies  :  The  divergence 
much  wider  than  might  have  been  expected  :  Illustrated 
by  a  fair  test  selection  of  pages  from  Bacon  :  Surprisingly 
large  number  of  ordinary  words  not  found  in  Shakespeare  : 
Words  only  once  used  :  Ill-supported  character  of  the  claim 
for  his  exceptional  range  :  Impossibility  of  explaining  Bacon's 
failure  to  use  in  the  Plays,  if  his,  many  words  habitually  used 
by  him  in  his  signed  writings  :  Significant  differences  in 
flexions,  scansions,  and  spellings  of  the  same  word  :  The 
two  men's  literary  outfits  substantially  different  :  The 
allegations  of  Mr.  Bompas  as  to  vocabulary,  &c.  :  Thousands 
of  Bacon's  words  not  in  Shakespeare  :  Shakespeare's  mastery 
of  expression  not  a  matter  of  wide  vocabulary  :  Monstrosity 
of  the  Baconian  theory  once  more  realised.  pp.  51 1-524 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  INTELLECTUAL  INTERESTS  OF  SHAKESPEARE   AND  BACON 

Bacon's  main  preoccupations  :  professional,  political,  didactic  and 
scientific  :  His  propagandist  aspirations  supreme  :  Their  utter 
incompatibility  with  his  alleged  play  writing :  Their  complete 
exclusion  from  the  Plays  :  Points  of  contact  slight  and  rare  : 
Fundamental  difference  of  Shakespeare's  attitude  :  Bacon's 
alleged  leaning  to  dramatic  methods  :  Complete  misconception 


CONTENTS 


xix 


of  his  meaning  by  Baconians  :  Bacon  entirely  opposed  to  the 
dramatic  methods  of  his  time  :  His  ideals  wholly  didactic  : 
Testimony  of  Taylor,  the  Water-Poet  :  Proof  of  Bacon's 
complete  aloofness  from  the  theatre  :  His  conviction  of  the 
coming  "  bankruptcy  "  of  modern  languages  :  Impossibility 
of  explaining  his  devotion  of  his  time  to  playwriting. 

PP-  525-537 
CHAPTER  XIV 


EXTERNAL  AND  CIRCUMSTANTIAL  EVIDENCE 
PERSONALITIES 


LIVES  AND 


§i.  The  a  priori  view  of  the  training  and  culture  of  a  great 
dramatic  poet  :  Real  effects  of  exact  biography  :  Need  to 
study  actual  lives  of  men  of  genius  :  Emerson's  a  priori 
attitude  :  Common  acquiescence  in  it. 

§2.  Argument  from  the  dramatist's  apparent  "  indifference  " 
to  the  preservation  of  his  work  :  Its  fallacy  :  Rational  view 
of  the  problem  :  The  authorised  and  unauthorised  quartos  : 
Mr.  Pollard's  demonstration  :  Shakespeare's  position  as  an 
adapter  and  rewriter  of  other  men's  work  :  His  course  the 
natural  one  :  Suicidal  character  of  the  Baconian  theory  at 
this  as  at  other  points  :  Bacon's  "  indifference  "  to  the 
preservation  of  the  Plays. 

§3.  Implications  of  the  fact  that  most  of  the  Plays  are  based  on 
previous  work  :  The  adapter  necessarily  in  habitual  associa 
tion  with  the  theatre  :  Mr.  Greenwood's  theory  in  the  same 
dilemma  with  the  Baconian  :  Antipodal  antithesis  between 
Bacon's  personality  and  the  sympathies  shown  in  the 
Plays  :  Baconian  misgivings  on  the  subject  :  Question  to  be 
determined  by  other  arguments. 

§4.  The  "  culture  "  problem  :  Mr.  Greenwood  on  Shakespeare's 
science  :  Shakespeare  not  a  scientific  student :  Mr.  Greenwood's 
argument  as  to  Venus  and  Adonis  :  Its  fallacy  :  Test  cases 
of  poetic  culture  :  Keats  :  Shakespeare's  schooling  :  Weakness 
of  traditional  assumptions  :  Shakespeare's  special  culture  as 
an  actor  :  Mr.  Greenwood's  exaggeration  of  the  classical 
culture  in  the  Venus  :  Its  culture-basis  slight  :  Range  of 
reading  open  to  Shakespeare  in  English  :  Culture  of  Taylor 
the  Water-Poet  :  Effects  of  classical  culture  in  the  case  of 
other  dramatists  :  Not  the  source  of  Shakespeare's  superiority: 
The  Venus  a  "  modern  "  piece  of  work  :  Shakespeare  and 
Southampton. 

§5.  Mr.  Greenwood's  treatment  of  Jonson's  testimony  :  Fallacy 
of  his  method  :  Jonson  and  Donne  :  Jonson's  criticisms  are 
testimonies  :  Jonson  on  Daniel  and  Marston  :  The  "  who  ' 


xx  CONTENTS 

argument :  Mr.  Greenwood's  treatment  of  Jonson's  paragraph 
in  the  Discoveries  :  Dr.  Meier's  fantasy  :  The  question  of 
Shakespeare's  speed  in  composition  :  Jonson  inconsistent 
as  critic  :  This  no  invalidation  of  his  personal  testimony. 

§6.  Jonson's  Scriptorum  Catalogus  :  The  "  mystery  "  of  the  Ode  to 
Bacon  :  Jonson's  repetition  of  phrase  in  praising  Bacon  and 
Shakespeare  :  Similar  repetitions  by  him  elsewhere  :  Collapse 
of  Mr.  Greenwood's  main  hypothesis  :  The  charge  against  the 
actor-partners. 

§7.  Other  negative  items  in  Mr.  Greenwood's  case  :  His  chapter 
on  "  The  Silence  of  Philip  Henslowe  "  :  Its  complete  collapse 
on  scrutiny  :  The  Diary  not  examined  by  Mr.  Greenwood  : 
Shakespeare  may  or  may  not  have  "  written  for  Henslowe  "  : 
No  payments  to  playwrights  by  Henslowe  noted  before  1597  : 
The  cavils  of  Judge  Stotsenburg  :  Mr.  Greenwood's  treat 
ment  of  the  testimony  of  Hey  wood. 

§8.  The  arguments  from  Shakespeare's  bequest  to  his  wife  :  And 
from  his  handwriting  :  Nugatoriness  of  both  arguments  : 
The  will  of  Bacon  :  The  will  of  Daniel  :  Shakespeare's  signa 
tures  :  The  script  :  Literary  and  other  handwriting  and 
signatures  :  The  non-education  of  Shakespeare's  daughters  : 
Milton  and  his  daughters  :  Postscript  on  Shakespeare  as  a 
"hard  creditor."  pp.  S38-582 

CHAPTER  XV 

CONCLUSION 

The  Baconian  procedure  contrasted  with  Bacon's  prescriptions  of 
scientific  methods  :  Utter  disregard  of  them  by  the 
"  Baconians  "  :  Their  fallacies,  however,  are  but  examples  of 
fallacy  in  general  :  Campbell's  nonsense  of  the  same  order  : 
Dr.  Theobald's  self -revelation  :  Other  chimeras  to  hand,  and 
likely  to  ensue  :  Professor  Demblon's  ascription  of  the  plays 
to  Lord  Rutland  :  His  theory  absolutely  destitute  of  evidence  : 
Annexes  the  negative  case  of  the  Baconians,  and  simply  puts 
Bacon  aside  :  M.  Demblon's  self-certification  :  The  question 
of  the  "  uncultured  poet "  :  Irrelevances  of  M.  Demblon  :  The 
test-case  of  Balzac  :  Assumption  of  all  the  antis  that  the 
Plays  could  easily  be  a  by-product  of  an  otherwise  busy 
man's  life  :  Bad  record  of  judges  on  the  Shakespeare  problem  : 
Variant  theories  :  Judge  Stotsenburg's  :  Why  not  Queen 
Elizabeth  :  The  rebound  of  idolatry  :  Baconian  virulence  and 
unscrupulousness  of  imputation  :  Utility  of  a  rational 
investigation.  pp.  583-595 

INDEXES  pp.  596-612 


THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 


THE  BACONIAN   HERESY 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

IT  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  term  "  heresy  "  will  not 
be  resented  by  those  to  whom  it  may  here  apply. 
The  present  writer,  being  himself  open  to  indict 
ment  for  serious  heresy  in  more  than  one  field  of 
doctrine,  is  not  likely  to  employ  it  as  an  aspersion.  A 
heresy  is  but  a  mode  of  opinion,  the  word  having  originally 
meant  a  sect ;  and  it  serves  conveniently  to  specify  a 
dissent  from  an  opinion  or  belief  normally  held.  It  is 
a  heresy,  for  instance,  to  hold  that  the  "  Rokeby  Venus  " 
is  not  the  work  of  Velasquez  ;  and  that  heresy  the  present 
writer  inclines  to  share,  being  indeed  prone  to  give  a 
hearing  to  heresy  of  all  kinds.  But  a  heresy,  to  start 
with,  is  an  opinion  like  another,  as  likely  to  be  wrong 
as  right ;  and  the  belief  that  the  "  plays  of  Shakespeare  " 
were  written  by  Bacon  is  to  be  termed  a  heresy  until  it 
can  establish  itself. 

That  it  has  never  done  so  for  careful  students  is  put 
by  many  of  these  as  a  reason  for  ignoring  it ;  and  some 
will  doubtless  pronounce  the  present  examination  a 
waste  of  time.  But  there  is,  I  find,  a  surprisingly  large 
sprinkling  of  intelligent  people  who,  without  any  studious 
examination,  have  either  accepted  the  Baconian  theory 
or  taken  up  a  non-committal  "  anti-Stratfordian  "  posi 
tion  on  the  score  of  difficulties  which  they  find  in  the 
"  orthodox  "  case,  as  put  by  both  sides.  Such  readers 
I  take  to  be  victims  of  misinformation  ;  and  I  think  that 


2  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

their  perplexity  can,  in  many  instances,  be  removed. 
But  their  trouble  is  caused,  to  begin  with,  by  the  reitera 
tion  of  "  orthodox  "  errors,  to  which  the  doubters  give 
harbourage,  and  of  which  the  Baconians  make  their 
capital.  If  one  side  were  wholly  scientific,  and  the  other 
wholly  the  reverse,  the  conscious  "  expert  "  might  do 
well  perhaps  merely  to  shrug  his  shoulders.  But  opinion 
is  not  so  distributed.  It  is  very  doubtful  whether  the 
Baconian  theory  would  ever  have  been  framed  had  not 
the  idolatrous  Shakespeareans  set  up  a  visionary  figure 
of  the  Master.  Broadly  speaking,  all  error  is  consan 
guineous.  Baconians  have  not  invented  a  new  way  of 
being  mistaken. 

Some  there  are,  certainly,  who  are  not  open  to  correc 
tion.  I  have  small  hope  of  converting  a  believer  in  any 
of  the  hundred-and-one  ciphers  by  which  Bacon  is  alleged 
to  have  inserted  in  the  plays  and  in  the  prefatory  verses 
to  the  folio  a  multitude  of  grotesque  "  revelations  "  of 
what,  if  he  had  any  occasion  to,  he  could  have  sanely 
established  by  sealed  documents,  to  be  opened  at  any 
specified  time.  The  cipher-mongers  as  a  rule  destroy 
their  case  in  advance  by  arguing  that  Bacon's  "  secret  " 
was  known  not  only  to  Ben  Jonson  and  other  friends, 
but  to  Shakespeare's  partners — as  indeed  it  must  have 
been  if  such  secret  there  were.  It  is  this  open  secret  that 
Bacon  is  declared  to  have  embedded  in  a  series  of  ciphers 
the  concoction  of  any  one  of  which  would  have  been  a 
task  outside  of  rational  contemplation  on  the  part  of 
any  poet  or  dramatist.  The  man  who  took  incalculable 
pains  to  get  at  the  minds  of  his  contemporaries  and 
posterity  in  his  avowed  works  is  represented  as  spending 
an  immensity  of  time  and  trouble  in  fantastically  con 
triving  ciphers  which  were  never  to  be  suspected  by 
any  reader  till  Mr.  Ignatius  Donnelly  professed  to 
discover  one  of  them.  The  Baconians,  I  believe,  have 
now  abandoned  Mr.  Donnelly's  egregious  cryptogram 
as  lightly  as  many  of  them  adopted  it;  but  new 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  PROBLEM          3 

ciphers   are   forthcoming    from    their   camp    every    few 
years. 

The  latest  is  that  set  forth  by  Sir  Edwin  Durning- 
Lawrence  in  his  munificently  produced  volume  entitled 
BACON  is  SHAKESPEARE  (1910).  One  of  the  clues  which 
he  presents  with  the  utmost  confidence  is  the  anagram 
he  evolves  from  the  monster-word  "  Honorificabilitudi- 
nitatibus  "  in  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST  (v,  i).  This  he 
knows  to  be  an  old  byword  among  grammarians ;  but, 
finding  he  can  anagrammatise  it  into  Hi  ludi  F.  Baconis 
nati  tuiti  orbi  :  "  These  plays  F.  Bacon's  offspring  are 
preserved  to  the  world  " — a  portent  of  Latin  that  vies 
with  the  original  prodigy,  and  an  unspeakable  "  hexa 
meter  "  like  that,  to  boot — he  goes  about  to  show  that 
Bacon  inserted  it  in  the  original  play  for  the  conveyance 
of  his  secret  to  posterity,  and  expressly  arranged  the 
paging  of  the  folio  and  the  place  of  the  word  in  the  page 
so  as  to  give  by  the  numbers  a  clue  to  the  coming  inter 
preter.  That  is  to  say,  the  allusion  to  Hi  ludi,  "  these 
plays,"  (i)  was  put  in  one  play  before  there  were  any 
other  plays  to  claim  ;  (2)  was  duly  printed  in  the  quarto 
of  1598  with  the  same  intention  ;  and  (3)  was  circum 
spectly  reproduced  in  the  folio  with  a  Pythagorean 
machinery  of  cross-numbering  of  lines  and  pages  which 
must  have  cost  inconceivable  trouble  to  arrange,  supposing 
it  to  have  been  possible.  And  Bacon,  who  always  latin- 
ized  his  name  Baconus,  is  herejnadfi^to_put  it  as  Baco. 

All  the  while  the  mystery-making  author  is  to  be 
regarded  as  having  left  uncorrected  the  grossest  errors 
of  the  press  found  in  the  quarto  on  the  very  page  in  ques 
tion.  To  the  first  long  speech  of  the  Pedagogue  on  that 
page  the  Curate  answers,  "  Laus  deo,  bene  intelligo  "  ; 
and  the  Pedagogue  rejoins,  "  Borne  boon  for  boon  prescian, 
a  little  scratched,  'twill  serve."  This  verbal  mess,  which 
reappears  in  the  folio,  has  been  reduced  to  meaning  in 
two  ways.  The  earlier  editors,  in  their  enterprising 
fashion,  made  the  Curate  say  "  bone  "  instead  of  benet 


4  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

and  made  the  Pedagogue  reply,  "  Hum,  bone  for  bene  ; 
Priscian,  a  little  scratched,"  which  would  pass  very  well. 
But  there  is  the  less  adventurous  solution  of  the  reading 
latterly  adopted,  "  Bon,  Bon,  fort  bon  :  Priscian,  a  little 
scratched,"  which  takes  fewer  liberties  with  the  text, 
while  doing  nothing  to  explain  the  closing  phrase.  Which 
ever  emendation  be  right,  the  original  "  Borne  boon  for 
boon  "  is  unintelligible  gibberish,  which  no  critical  reader 
can  believe  to  have  been  written  by  the  dramatist,  who 
ever  he  was.  But  this  gibberish  was  left  unremedied 
by  "  Baco,"  on  the  Baconian  view,  when  he  was  taking 
incredible  pains  to  arrange  the  folio  page  in  an  arith 
metical  puzzle ;  and  Sir  Edwin,  undisturbed  by  the 
gibberish,  but  agreeing  to  read  "  Priscian  "  for  "  prescian," 
actually  proceeds  to  explain  that  the  grammarian's  name 
is  introduced  for  the  purpose  of  expressing  a  humorous 
disregard  of  his  dictum  that  the  letter  /  is  a  mute  !  In 
Sir  Edwin's  incomparable  anagram-hexameter  "  F  "  is 
to  be  sounded  "  eff  "  :  hence  the  alleged  avowal  by  the 
anagrammatist  of  an  intention  to  strain  the  grammarian's 
code.  In  point  of  fact,  be  it  observed,  the  anagram- 
word  has  not  at  this  point  of  the  action  been  uttered  : 
it  occurs  eleven  lines  later,  after  the  entrance  of  the 
Braggart  and  the  Boy ;  and  it  is  then  uttered  by  the 
Clown,  who  was  not  present  when  the  Pedagogue  alluded 
to  Priscian. 

It  is  impossible  to  guess  how  many  or  what  order  of 
readers  will  either  assent  to  this  "  revelation  "  or  keep 
their  countenances  over  it ;  but  I  am  quite  sure  that 
Sir  Edwin  will  never  give  it  up.  And  when  I  point  out  to 
him  that  "  Honorificabilitudinitatibus  "  occurs  in  Nashe's 
LENTEN  STUFF  (1599),  on  line  seven  of  Signature  D,  and 
is  to  be  found  on  the  thirty-third  line  of  page  176  of  the 
third  volume  of  Mr.  McKerrow's  edition  of  Nashe's  works 
(1904),  he  will,  I  expect,  at  once  proceed  to  prove  that 
Bacon  had  somehow  arranged  these  things  also  for  the 
revelation  of  the  fact  that  he  wrote  THE  PRAISE  OF  THE 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  PROBLEM          5 

RED  HERRING.1  For  Sir  Edwin  is  satisfied  that  Bacon 
"caused  to  be  issued"  the  PALLADIS  TAMIA  :  WIT'S 
TREASURY  which  is  "  attributed  to  Francis  Meres  "  ; 
and  further,  as  he  once  informed  me,  believes  Bacon  to  F 
have  written  Montaigne's  Essays  in  the  original  French —  / 
here  improving  on  Mr.  Donnelly,  who  regarded  Florio's 
translation  as  the  original,  and  ascribed  that  to  Bacon. 
Latterly,  he  has  proclaimed  to  a  staring  world  that 
Bacon  is  the  translator  of  the  Authorised  version  of  the 
Bible ;  and  I  make  no  doubt  that  he  has  embraced  Dr. 
R.  M.  Theobald's  demonstration  that  Bacon  wrote 
Marlowe — not  to  mention  the  rest  of  the  Elizabethan 
playwrights. 

Now,  Sir  Edwin,  like  Dr.  Theobald,  is  a  learned  man, 
which  Mr.  Donnelly  was  not,  and  the  fact  that  the  Baconian 
theory  can  lead  both  learned  and  unlearned  men  to  such 
weird  conclusions  might  be  held  sufficient  to  warn  off 
ordinary  folk  from  taking  the  first  step.  If,  however, 
I  can  forecast  the  future  with  any  safety  from  my  know 
ledge  of  the  Baconian  movement,  the  common  run  of 
Baconians  will  go  on  as  before,  some  believing  that  Bacon 
wrote  most  of  the  Elizabethan  drama,  Spenser,  Nashe, 
Montaigne  and  Burton ;  and  some  drawing  the  line  at 
Shakespeare ;  while  the  anti-Stratfordians  will  continue 
simply  to  disparage  the  "  Stratford  actor  "  or  "  rustic," 
denying  responsibility  for  Baconian  doings.  All  that 
one  can  hope  to  do  is  to  arrest  a  minority  on  their  path 
of  mounting  credence,  by  confronting  them  with  some 
evidence  at  least  as  valid  as  that  on  which  they  decided 

1  This,  I  find,  is  actually  claimed  by  Mr.  Parker  Woodward, 
who  sees  decisive  proof  in  the  fact  that  Nashe,  like  Bacon,  girds 
at  Ramus.  (Have  with  you  to  Saffron  Walden  :  Works,  ed. 
McKerrow,  iii,  136.)  To  this  I  may  add,  for  Sir  Edwin's  edifica 
tion,  that  Nashe,  like  Bacon,  rejects  the  doctrine  of  Copernicus 
(Id.  p.  94),  and  uses  the  "  Baconian  "  phrase,  Veritas  temporis 
filia  (Id.  p.  29).  For  a  Baconian  nothing  more  can  be  needed 
to  prove  that  Bacon  wrote  Nashe.  The  trouble  is  that  Shake 
speare  does  none  of  the  things  in  question. 


6  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

to  take  the  Baconian  turning.  It  was  by  garbled  and 
erroneous  information  that  they  were  first  set  agoing  ; 
fuller  and  more  accurate  information  may  turn 
them. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  an  ordinary  Shakespearean 
scholar,  the  Baconian  opinion  is  an  extravagant  hallucina 
tion.  But  he  will  perhaps  admit,  on  reflection,  that  all 
of  us  are  likely  to  be  under  some  hallucinations  on  points 
of  past  history.  If,  as  most  of  us  frequently  discover, 
we  can  be  seriously  misled  by  accepting  current  state 
ments  about  contemporary  matters,  it  is  broadly  in 
conceivable  that  we  are  not  at  times  much  misled  by 
remote  evidence  about  matters  on  which  we  are  of  neces 
sity  scantily  informed.  And  the  Baconian  opinion — 
the  wilder  extravagances  apart — is  in  my  opinion  a 
hallucination  actually  derivable  and  derived  from  opinions 
promulgated  by  some  good  Shakespearean  scholars  who 
scout  the  other.  If  this  judgment  should  be  made  good  in 
the  course  of  our  inquiry,  the  gain  may  even  extend  beyond 
the  plucking  of  some  brands  from  the  Baconian  bonfire. 
For  the  true  humanist,  all  divagations  of  belief  should  as 
such  possess  some  interest ;  and  the  variety  of  grounds 
on  which  my  "  anti-Stratfordian  "  friends  of  all  shades 
have  reached  their  negation  have  seemed  to  me  quite 
noteworthy.  One  of  the  most  entertaining  cases  is  that 
of  my  friend  X,  an  acutely  intelligent  barrister  of  foreign 
parentage,  who  learned  English  as  a  foreigner,  and 
mastered  it  with  an  enviable  perfection.  Coming  into 
our  literature  as  an  observant  tourist,  so  to  speak,  he 
met  with  the  mountainous  work  of  Mr.  Donnelly,  and, 
studying  it  with  the  impartiality  of  an  entire  stranger, 
decided  that  Mr.  Donnelly  had  made  out  his  case.  Later 
he  chanced  to  meet  with  Bacon's  Essays,  which  he  read 
with  the  same  cheerful  detachment,  reaching  the  quite 
unexpected  conclusion  that  the  man  who  wrote  "  such 
commonplace  stuff ' '  as  the  Essays  could  never  have 
written  the  plays;  though,  on  the  other  hand,  the 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  PROBLEM    7 

explorer  still  found  it  incredible  that  the  plays  could 
have  been  written  by  "  the  Stratford  actor."  If  he 
should  follow  the  present  inquiry,  his  pronouncement 
upon  it  will  not  be  among  the  least  interesting  to  the 
author. 

Whatever  may  be  the  utility  of  the  discussion,  it  is 
in  any  case  inevitable,  and  it  may  as  well  be  gone  about 
systematically.  Issue  has  already  been  joined  with  the 
Baconians  by  defenders  of  the  ordinary  belief  ;  and  some 
have  done  it  with  a  competence  to  which  I  gladly  bear 
testimony.  To  say  nothing  of  the  many  essays  which 
have  appeared  in  the  reviews,  such  a  study  as  that 
of  Mr.  Charles  Crawford  on  "  The  Bacon-Shakespeare 
Question,"  originally  published  in  NOTES  AND  QUERIES, 
and  reprinted  in  his  COLLECTANEA,  1  needs  only,  I  believe, 
a  wider  circulation  to  make  it  a  fountain  of  healing  to 
many  distracted  inquirers.  If  the  present  treatise  should 
do  much  less  for  the  elucidation  of  other  points  at  issue 
than  Mr.  Crawford  has  done  for  those  with  which  he 
specially  deals,  it  may  still  be  well  worth  producing. 
The  wider  field  that  has  to  be  traversed  cannot  well  be 
here  explored  with  such  fulness  of  relevant  learning  as 
his  ;  but  the  extension  of  the  survey  may  still  be  usefully 
attempted. 

And  indeed,  if  the  question  is  to  be  discussed  at  all, 
it  had  better  be  dealt  with  concretely,  in  detail,  and 
comprehensively,  by  the  methods  of  argument  which 
establish  or  overthrow  theories  in  other  provinces  of 
inquiry.  Individual  students  may  quite  fitly  dismiss 
the  Baconian  theory  on  the  strength  of  their  literary 
perception  that  the  works  of  Bacon  and  the  plays  of 
Shakespeare  are  the  production  of  two  utterly  different 
personalities,  whose  ways  of  handling  language — to 
mention  nothing  else — are  about  as  different  as  the  ways, 
say,  of  Herbert  Spencer  and  Charles  Lamb.  To  those 
of  us  who  have  lived  long  in  the  society  of  the  Plays  and 
1  Stratford-on-Avon,  1906-7,  2  vols. 


8  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

the  Works  separately,  the  failure  to  recognise  this  pro 
found  difference  is  always  perplexing.  But  since  it  lies 
on  the  face  of  the  debate  that  such  perception  is  in 
communicable,  there  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by  asseverat 
ing  the  difference.  For  here  again,  if  we  stake  our  case 
on  our  literary  sense,  we  shall  find  the  claim  to  be  two- 
edged.  I  at  least  am  conscious  of  no  great  aid  from  the 
support,  on  that  issue,  of  a  Shakespearean  who  has  no 
misgivings  about  the  real  authorship  of  certain  of  the 
plays  and  portions  of  others.  If  I  diverge  from  my  allies 
there,  the  "  literary  "  sense  is  a  precarious  guide  ;  and 
indeed,  I  find  critics  whose  confidence  in  their  literary 
sense  is  of  the  most  complacent  and  aggressive  kind, 
passing  what  seem  to  me  very  ill-founded  opinions  on 
these  matters. 

The  literary  sense,  then,  cannot  well  be  arbitrator  in 
our  dispute  ;  and  while  each  may  fitly  rely  upon  his  own, 
there  is  nothing  to  be  settled  by  citing  it  as  a  decisive 
witness  in  this  trial,  though  it  will  be  found  cited  as  an 
"  expert  "  on  both  sides.  We  must  proceed  rather  to 
operate  on  the  general  sense  of  evidence  ;  and  it  is  perhaps 
possible  to  present  the  case  a  little  more  judicially  than 
it  has  sometimes  been  put  in  the  past.  Thus  far,  it  has 
been  often  debated  on  both  sides  with  heat  enough  to 
set  up  an  ample  suggestion  of  odium  theologicum,  though 
on  both  sides  it  has  been  at  times  handled  with  amenity. 
For  a  time,  the  "  orthodox  "  were  apt  to  be  the  more 
provocative  in  their  language,1  resenting  as  they  often 
did  the  lack  of  scholarly  and  critical  preparation  on  the 
part  of  the  heretics.  It  is  the  fact,  I  think,  trjat  no  expert 
in  Elizabethan  litera.ture,  indeed  no  good  scholar  in 
English  literature,  has  ever  held  the  heresy.  Many 

1  The  first  explicit  Bacon-Shakespeare  treatise,  the  Bacon 
and  Shakespeare  of  William  Henry  Smith  (1856),  was  promptly 
replied  to  in  a  book  entitled  William  Shakespeare  not  an  Impostor, 
"  By  an  English  Critic  "  (1857),  in  which  the  appearance  of  Smith's 
booklet  was  declared  to  be  "  to  the  eternal  disgrace  of  English 
literature." 


THE  CONDITIONS  OF  THE  PROBLEM         9 

"  Baconians  "  know  little  even  about  Bacon  ;  those  who 
have  gone  at  all  fully  into  his  work  or  that  of  his  contem 
poraries  seem  always  to  have  read  ad  hoc  ;  and  few  have 
even  done  much  in  that  way.  Those  who  do,  seem  unable 
to  stop  short  of  attributing  to  Bacon  the  authorship  of  every 
book  in  which  they  find  a  phrase  or  idea  used  in  common 

dth  Bacon.  But  whatever  inadequacy  of  survey  or 
llacy  of  reasoning  may  be  noted  among  the  Baconians 
to  be  partly  matched  in  the  writings  of  "  orthodox  " 
arsons  who  have  expressly  discussed  either  the  Baconian 

leresy  or  some  other  important  problem  of  Shakespearean 
iticism.  To  me,  at  least,  some  of  the  most  accomplished 

>f  "  orthodox  "  Shakespearean  scholars  seem  to  be  very 
far  astray  in  their  conclusions  at  highly  important  points. 
I  am  therefore  not  disposed  to  cast  at  the  Baconians  in 
leral,  or  at  any  one  in  particular,  epithets  which  might 
in  my  opinion  be  fairly  retorted  on  some  of  my  allies  in 
the  present  dispute.  Rather  I  would  deprecate  the  use 
of  the  argumentum  ad  hominem  on  both  sides  in  a  debate 
where,  in  any  case,  it  can  advantage  neither.  Both  sides 
have  resorted  to  it  freely.  Baconians,  with  every  reason 
to  conciliate  the  normal  Shakespearean,  hardly  ever 
contrive,  latterly,  to  abstain  long  from  hard  flings  at  the 
"  Stratford  actor,"  the  blackening  of  whose  character 
they  seem  to  think  part  of  the  disproof  of  his  authorship 
of  the  plays  published  in  his  name ;  and  the  orthodox 
Shakespeareans,  in  turn,  seem  unable  to  forego  retaliations 
on  the  assailants,  whether  or  not  they  abstain  from 
countervailing  attacks  on  the  variously  vulnerable  reputa 
tion  of  Bacon.  Even  the  mere  "  anti-Stratfordians," 
so  ably  represented  by  my  friend  Mr.  G.  G.  Greenwood; 
apparently  cannot  conduct  their  case  without  a  manifold 
impeachment  of  a  man  of  whom,  they  confess,  we  know 
but  little.  A  constant  cross-fire  of  personalities  between 
the  two — or  three — camps  is  thus  generated,  and  the 
most  competent  antagonists  of  the  Baconian  theory  do 
not  disguise  their  contempt  for  its  exponents  in  general, 


io  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

though  even  expressly  justified  contempt  is  notoriously 
provocative  rather  than  persuasive. 

In  view  of  it  all,  a  professed  partisan  of  the  "  orthodox  " 
cause  can  hardly  hope  to  escape  giving  at  times  the  usual 
kind  of  offence.  But  at  least  he  may  try — try,  that  is, 
to  bring  his  criticism  to  bear,  whether  or  not  severely; 
on  positions  and  arguments,  and  to  treat  antagonists 
as  producers  of  arguments,  good  or  bad.  Realising  the 
logical  nullity  of  Mark  Twain's  happiest  shots  at  the 
Stratford  bust,  and  at  the  tombstone  verses,  he  may 
abstain,  not  only  from  responsive  shots  at  the  verses  and 
the  effigies  and  the  character  of  Bacon,  but  from  extra- 
judicial  comment  on  the  personal  demerits  of  those 
whose  arguments  he  rebuts.  And  he  had  better  so  refrain. 
For  there  has  been,  as  aforesaid,  much  untenable  argu 
ment  on  the  "  orthodox  "  side,  both  positive  and  nega 
tive,  whatever  may  be  the  quality  of  the  reasoning  on 
the  other ;  and,  indeed,  it  will  be  strange  if  there  be  not 
some  logical  or  material  imperfections  in  the  present 
treatise. 


CHAPTER  II 


E 


THE  POSITIONS  OF  MARK  TWAIN 

NGLISHMEN  are  wont,  with  small  justification; 
to  lay  Bacon-Shakespearism    at  the  door  of 
"  America."  It  was  in  point  of  fact  first  clearly 
propounded  in  England,1  and  has  been  nour- 
from  the  start  on  the  dicta  of  " orthodox"  English 

In  Hawthorne's  laboured  and  clouded  preface  to  Delia 
Bacon's  Philosophy  of  the  Plays  of  Shakespeare  Unfolded  (1857), 
where  the  Baconian  theory  is  only  vaguely  to  be  inferred  from 
the  mass  of  declamation  which  constitutes  the  book,  the  novelist 
states  that  "  A  single  article  from  her  pen,  purporting  to  be  the 
5t  of  a  series,  appeared  in  an  American  magazine,"  naively 
adding  that  "  An  English  writer  (in  a  '  Letter  to  the  Earl  of 
Ellesmere  '  published  within  a  few  months  past)  has  thought  it 
not  inconsistent  with  the  fair-play  on  which  his  country  prides 
itself,  to  take  to  himself  this  lady's  theory,  and  favour  the  public 
with  it  as  his  own  original  conception,  without  allusion  to  the 
author's  private  claim."  This  appears  to  assert  that  Miss  Bacon 

lad  definitely  stated  the  Bacon-Shakespeare  theory  before  1857  ; 

mce  the  angry  allusion  is  to  William  Henry  Smith's  Bacon  and 
Shakespeare  :  an  Inquiry  touching  Players,  Playhouses,  and 
Play-Writers  in  the  Days  of  Elizabeth  (1856).  Smith,  however, 
at  once  wrote  to  Hawthorne  protesting  that  he  had  known 
nothing  whatever  of  Miss  Bacon's  magazine  article,  and  that 
on  reading  it  over,  he  thought  it  preposterous  to  suggest  that 
he  had  thence  derived  his  theory  of  Bacon's  authorship  of  the 
plays,  which  he  could  prove  he  had  held  for  upwards  of  twenty 
years.  Hawthorne  thereupon  wrote  a  letter  of  retractation  and 
apology,  and  both  are  printed  by  Smith  in  his  second  edition 
(1857).  Smith  had  in  fact  propounded  the  Baconian  theory 
with  an  explicitness  and  circumstantiality  of  which  there  is  no 
trace  in  Delia  Bacon's  bulky  book.  It  was  after  he  had  started 
the  battle  that  Judge  Nathaniel  Holmes  built  up  an  "  American 
School  "  on  the  same  lines.  But  even  before  Smith's  book,  as 
Holmes  has  noted,  there  appeared  in  Chambers' s  Edinburgh 
Journal,  Aug.  5,  1852,  an  article  entitled  "Who  Wrote 

ii 


12  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

devotees  who  had  either  never  heard  of  the  Baconian 
heresy  or  regarded  it  as  beneath  contempt;  and  the 
avowed  heretics  have  latterly  seemed  to  swarm,  or  at 
least  to  hive,  as  actively  in  England  as  in  the  States. 
But  since  the  publication  of  Mark  Twain's  Is  SHAKE 
SPEARE  DEAD  ?  the  cult  bids  fair  to  become  predominantly 
an  American  movement,  like  "  Christian  Science." 

To  a  Briton,  however,  who  knows  it  to  be  all  a  woeful 
mistake,  there  is  no  comfort  in  this.  Error  is  as  inevitable 
in  its  reactions  as  depression  in  trade  ;  and  the  brother 
hood  of  culture  can  no  more  than  that  of  science  recognise 
tribal  divisions.  We  claim  to  cherish  Mark  Twain  "  on 
this  side  "  with  a  special  regard,  and  it  is  the  possession 
of  a  full  share  in  that  bias  that  proximately  moves  the 
present  writer  to  lift  up  a  systematic  testimony  "  on  the 
other  side  "  in  what  Mark  Twain  has  called  the  "  Bacon- 
Shakespeare  scuffle."  The  thing  has  become  serious 
since  he  entered  the  fray. 

Mark  Twain's  championship  of  the  Baconian  theory, 
or  at  least  of  the  "  anti-Stratford"  thesis,  gives  to  the 
antis  a  dangerous  advantaged  He  is  apt  to  win  the 
laughers — a  thing  not  before  to  be  apprehended  from 
Baconian  propaganda ;  and  his  influence  in  that  way  is 
probably  even  mere  potent  since  his  death.  And  no 
man  is  likely  to  seek  to  meet  him  with  his  special  weapons. 
The  fun  of  is  SHAKESPEARE  DEAD  ?  is  nearly  as  good 
as  it  had  need  be.  But,  as  usual,  the  serious  purpose  or 
purport  of  its  author  is  perfectly  clear  ;  and  he  is  likely, 
as  usual,  to  have  fortified  or  induced  a  serious  belief  by 
his  fun  where  he  so  wished.  It  is  accordingly  justifiable 
to  take  his  statement  of  the  case  as  specially  important, 
if  not  typical,  and,  by  controverting  it,  to  supply  an  up- 
to-date  introduction  to  the  whole  dispute.  If  the  process 
involves  some  serious  strictures  on  a  beloved  author's 

Shakespeare  ?  "  in  which  it  was  argued  that  the  actor  could  not 
have  written  the  plays.  (Nathaniel  Holmes,  The  Authorship  of 
Shakespeare,  3rd  ed.  1875,  App.  p.  605.) 


THE  POSITIONS  OF  MARK  TWAIN  13 

wilful  way  of  handling  a  complex  problem,  it  cannot  be 
helped  :  the  master  of  thirty  legions  in  the  order  of 
humour  must  just  take  his  chances  in  a  literary  war  in 
which  he  was  the  challenger.  Against  one  form  of 
hostility  he  is  secure  :  against  Mark  Twain  on  no  score 
can  any  man  bear  malice. 

Mark  Twain's  anti-Shakespearean  case  condenses  into 
these  two  main  theses  : 

1.  Shakespeare  was   of   no   account  in   Stratford-on- 
Avon  in  his  lifetime  ;    was  utterly  forgotten  there  from 
the  moment  of  his  death  ;   and  was  therefore  as  a  person 
ality  wholly  incommensurate  with  the  vast  achievement 
of  the  plays. 

2.  "  The  "  plays  are  saturated  with  an  exact,  technical 
knowledge   of   law,   which   the   Stratford   actor  cannot 
conceivably  have  possessed.     On  this  thesis  Mark  Twain 
is  willing  to  stake  the  whole  question  :    for  him  it  is  a 
"  crucial  instance." 

Other  contentions  arise  in  the  course  of  the  exposition, 
but  these  are  the  main  fighting  points.  And  as  the  first 
is  Mark  Twain's  special  contribution  to  the  debate,  and 
may  be  much  more  briefly  dealt  with  than  the  second, 
it  may  be  well  to  give  it  primary  attention.  A  clearing- 
up  of  this  issue  may  indeed  promote  a  better  understanding 
of  others. 

Both  theses  are  formulated,  as  it  happens,  without  even 
a  glance  at  the  contrary  case,  and  the  first  with  an  almost 
burlesque  extravagance.  While  making  hard  play  against 
the  biographers  because  they  have  tried  to  fill  in  by  more 
or  less  reasonable  conjecture  the  outlines  given  them  by 
the  few  precise  data  we  possess  concerning  Shakespeare, 
the  Baconian  thus  sets  out  on  his  own  course  : 

When  Shakespeare  died,  in  1616,  great  literary  productions 
attributed  to  him  as  author  had  been  before  the  London  world 
and  in  high  favour  for  twenty-four  years.  Yet  his  death  was 
not  an  event.  It  made  no  stir,  it  attracted  no  attention.  Ap- 
parentlylhis  eminent  literary  contemporaries  did  not  realize  that  a 
celebrated  poet  had  passed  from  their  midst.  Perhaps  they  knew  a 


I4  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

plav-actor  of  minor  rank  had  disappeared,  but  did  not  regard  him 
as  the  author  of  his  works.  «  We  are  justified  in  assuming  »  this. 
His  death  was  not  even  an  event  in  the  little  town  of  Stratford. 
He  had  spent  the  last  five  or  six  years  of  his  life  there, 
diligently  trading  in  every  big  and  little  thing  that  had  money  in  it  ; 
so  we  are  compelled  to  assume  that  many  of  the  folks  there  in 
those  said  latter  days  knew  him  personally,  and  the  rest  by  sight 
and  hearsay.  But  not  as  a  celebrity  ?  Apparently  not.  For 
everybody  soon  forgot  to  remember  any  contact  with  him  or 
any  incident  connected  with  him. 

If  the  biographers  of  Shakespeare  had  done  their 
conjecturing  in  this  fashion  they  would  indeed  have  given 
scope  for  jest.  We  have  here  a  series  not  of  rational 
conjectures,  but  of  wild  positive  assertions,  for  none  of 
which,  save  where  a  known  fact  is  grossly  exaggerated 
for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  is  there  the  slightest  ground, 
and  which  singly  and  collectively  do  not  even  approximate 
to  decent  plausibility.  Supposing  Shakespeare  to  have 
been  the  merest  actor,  or  the  "  illiterate  clown  "  of  Sir 
Edwin  Durning-Lawrence's  amiable  fancy,  the  chances 
are  that  he  would  be  remembered  by  his  neighbours  as 
most  ordinary  people  are.  Nobody  has  the  slightest 
right  to  say  that  they  soon  "  forgot  to  remember  any 
contact  with  him  or  incident  connected  with  him,"  or 
that  he  was  not  known  to  any  one  of  them  as  a  celebrity. 
/  How  could  the  epitaph  in  the  parish  church  remain 
unknown  to  everybody  in  the  place  ?  On  the  other  hand, 
supposing  the  literary  world  and  the  neighbours  to  have 
known  and  appreciated  the  plays,  and  yet  to  have  regarded 
Shakespeare  as  a  man  of  no  account  (and  this  appears 
to  be  the  point  of  the  argument  before  us),  we  are  to  infer 
that  it  was  in  Shakespeare's  day  a  matter  of  common 
notoriety  that  the  plays  were  the  work  of  some  one  else, 
presumptively  the  Lord  Chancellor,  Viscount  of  St. 
Albans.  Over  such  a  proposition  it  is  difficult  to  be 
serious  ;  and  yet  this  or  nothing  is  the  argument  in  hand. 
And  this  impossible  hypothesis,  as  it  happens,  Mark 
Twain  has  taken  over  from  my  friend  Mr.  Greenwood, 


THE  POSITIONS  OF  MARK  TWAIN  15 

with  the  sole  difference  that  while  Mark  makes  Bacon 
the  author,  Mr.  Greenwood  names  nobody,  stipulating 
only  for  a  lawyer.  In  a  case  which  trades  so  constantly 
on  the  alleged  difficulties  of  the  orthodox  view,  it  is 
important  to  realise  at  the  outset  the  absolutely  mortal 
difficulties  of  the  objectors.  Mr.  Greenwood  knows, 
though  Mark  Twain  did  not,  the  more  or  less  continuous 
series  of  testimonies  to  the  literary  repute  of  William 
Shakespeare,  from  Meres  onwards.  When,  then,  and 
to  whom,  did  the  alleged  spuriousness  of  the  actor's 
claim  become  known  ?  Mr.  Greenwood,1  greatly  daring, 
selects  Spenser  as  a  poet  about  whose  life  we  are  much 
better  informed  than  we  are  concerning  Shakespeare's. 
It  is  a  sufficiently  untenable  position,  as  will  be  shown 
a  little  later  ;  but  it  is  clear  that  for  Mr.  Greenwood  the 
strongest  point  in  it  is  Camden's  statement  that  when 
Spenser  died,  "  contemporary  poets  thronged  to  his 
funeral  and  cast  their  elegies  and  the  pens  that  wrote 
them  into  the  tomb ' ' ;  whereas  nothing  of  the  sort 
happened  at  Shakespeare's  [or  "  Shakspere's  "]  death. 
"  Look  upon  this  picture/'  writes  Mr.  Greenwood  " — 
"  and  on  that.  What  a  contrast !  "  Mr.  Greenwood 
maintains  a  politic  silence  as  to  the  dispute  over  Ben 
Jonson's  two  conflicting  statements  that  Spenser  "  died 
for  lack  of  bread,"  and  that  he  refused  Essex's  gift  of 
twenty  pieces,  saying  he  had  no  time  to  spend  them. 
But  let  that  pass.  The  question  is  as  to  Mr.  Greenwood's 
implication  concerning  "  Shakspere." 

In  the  concluding  part  of  his  chapter  on  "  The  Later 
Life  and  Death  of  Shakespeare,"  Mr.  Greenwood  develops 
his  case.  He  takes  it  for  granted  that  the  epitaph  on 
the  tomb  was  really  written  by  "  Shakspere,"  the  actor, 
and  cannot  have  been  the  work  of  Shakespeare,  the 
dramatist.  The  argument  is  in  parts  so  incoherent  that 
I  cannot  be  sure  of  its  drift.  "  Another  extraordinary 
fact  in  this  amazing  life,"  writes  Mr.  Greenwood  (p.  199), 
1  The  Shakespeare  Problem  Restated,  p.  53. 


16  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

"  is  that  with  the  exception  of  the  Plays,  and  VENUS  AND 
ADONIS,  and  the  LUCRECE  and  the  SONNETS,  and  that 
puzzle-poem,  THE  PHCENIX  AND  THE  TURTLE,  Shakespeare 
appears  to  have  written  nothing,  unless  we  are  to  accept  the 
above-mentioned  doggerels  as  his  indeed !  If  '  Shake 
speare  '  was  but  a  nom  de  plume  this  need  not  excite 
surprise.  ..."  "  With  the  exception  of  .  .  .  !  "  Mr. 
Greenwood  seems  to  mean  that  the  man  who  wrote  the 
Plays  and  Poems  must  (for  some  occult  reason)  have 
written  many  other  things ; 1  and  that  these  other  things 
are  presumably  extant  over  another  man's  signature. 
Yet  he  makes  no  attempt  whatever  to  identify  the  man. 

Of  such  reasoning  I  can  make  nothing ;  and  I  must 
therefore  confine  myself  to  the  portion  of  the  argument 
that  is  intelligible.  It  develops  the  innuendo  put  in  the 
previous  contrast  of  Shakespeare's  and  Spenser's  funerals. 
"  Surely,"  he  writes  (p.  200),  "  when  this  great  poet  died 
there  was  a  great  burst  of  lamentation,  a  great  concert 
of  praise  !  Surely  all  his  brother  minstrels  who  survived 
him  vied  with  each  other  to  write  his  elegy.  Alas  ! 
Again  silence — the  silence  that  can  be  felt.  ...  It  was 
not  till  seven  years  after  the  death  of  Shakspere  that 
.'  Shakespeare's  '  elegy  was  written  by  ...  Ben  Jonson." 

I  hesitate  to  press  upon  my  friend's  notice  the  simple 
fact  that  whereas  Spenser  died  tragically  in  London,  after 
being  tragically  driven  out  of  Ireland,  and  thus  could 
have  a  distinguished  funeral,  "  Shakspere  "  died,  appa 
rently  after  a  short  illness,  in  comfortable  circumstances; 
at  Stratford-on-Avon ;  and  that  in  the  then  state  of 
means  of  communication  his  literary  friends  could  not 
very  well  attend  his  funeral.  These  facts,  which  seem 
to  me  to  collapse  his  dramatic  contrast,  must  have  been 
present  to  his  mind.  His  argument  seems  to  be  that  the 
non-publication  of  elegies  by  friends  proves  that  "  Shak- 

1  Does  Mr.  Greenwood  deny  the  hall-mark  of  the  sonnet  to 
Florio,  prefixed  to  the  First  Frutes  ?  And  is  he  quite  sure  about 
the  Lover's  Complaint  ? 


THE  POSITIONS  OF  MARK  TWAIN  17 

spere  ' '  was  held  at  his  death  to  be  of  no  literary  account — 
though  he  has  omitted  to  say  what  became  of  the  elegies 
said  to  have  been  written  on  Spenser.1  What  then  does 
he  make  of  the  poems  that  were  written  for  the  Folio  in 
1623  ?  And  of  Ben  Jonson's  mention  of  Shakespeare 
in  1619  to  Drummond  ?  In  another  chapter  he  professes 
to  find  it  inexplicable  that  in  talk  with  Drummond  Ben 
should  say  that  "  5  Shakespeare  wanted  art/  when  he  was 
to  give  him  such  praise  later  "  ;  but  as  regards  the  problem 
of  testimonies  that  is  mere  trifling.  The  fact  stands  out 
that  Ben  spoke  of  "  Shakespeare  "  to  Drummond  as  a 
faulty  poet,  but  still  a  poet.  Mr.  Greenwood  is  arguing 
that  "  Shakspere  "  was  no  poet  at  all ;  and  that  at  the 
time  of  his  death  this  was  generally  known  to  literary  men. 
Now,  in  his  later  panegyrical  poem  and  in  his  DISCOVERIES 
Ben  Jonson  identifies  "  Shakspere,"  the  Stratford  actor, 
with  "  Shakespeare,"  the  dramatist — a  writer  with  faults 
of  art,  but  a  great  genius.  Does  Mr.  Greenwood  then 
mean  to  suggest  that  Ben  at  the  actor's  death — and  this 
in  common  with  all  his  literary  contemporaries — thought 
the  actor  a  literary  fraud,  and  later  reverted  to  the  other 
view  ?  If  so,  what  explanation  of  his  nightmare  does 
Mr.  Greenwood  offer  ?  If^notj  what  point  jfi  there  in  the 
argument  from  Ben's  silence  at  "  Shakspere's  "  death  ? 
And  what  about  all  the T  other  men;"ffrst~""  silent  "  and 
later  panegyrical  ?  Was  it  a  universal  conspiracy,  or 
a  twice  enacted  mystification  ? 

I  decline  at  this  point  to  go  into  the  side  issues  as  to 
Jonson's  diverging  criticisms  of  Shakespeare.  Knowing 
that  many  men  of  letters — e.g.  Carlyle  on  Emerson; 
Tennyson,  Dickens,  and  Browning — have  talked  and 
written  in  diverging  strains  of  their  literary  friends — I 

1  If  buried  without  being  copied,  they  were  probably  well 
interred.  It  is  not  quite  inconceivable  that  such  a  poet  as 
Shakespeare,  after  reading  Spenser's  Astrophel  and  the  other 
dirges  over  Sidney,  might  say  to  his  friends,  with  regard  to  his 
own  latter  end,  "  No  elegies,  by  request  !  " 

B 


i8  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

am  not  in  the  least  puzzled  by  the  moods  of  so  moody 
a  man  as  Jonson.  On  the  other  hand,  I  claim  that  any 
body  putting  forward  such  an  amazing  argument  as  Mr. 
Greenwood's,  above  summarised,  is  bound  to  bring  it 
into  some  appearance  of  rationality  if  he  desires  it  to  be| 
seriously  considered;  and  I  confess  I  cannot  see  how 
he  is  ever  to  do  so.  The  thesis  he  has  propounded  b 
implication  is  the  most  hopeless  of  literary  chimer 

a  riddle  beside  which  all  the  anomalies  he  discovers 

in  the  "Shakespeare  Problem"  are  trifles.  And  this 
chimera  it  is  that  Mark  Twain  complacently  adopts,  and 
embodies  in  his  "  anti-Stratfordian  "  argument. 

Leaving  it  standing  in  its  naked  insanity,  we  can  b 
turn  to  the  remainder  of  the  exposition,  and  criticise  that 
on  its  merits.  It  is  sufficiently  fantastic  with  the  chimera 
left  out.  Mark  Twain's  statements  are  those  of  a  man  of 
letters  who  ostensibly  knew  substantially  nothing  of  the 
conditions  of  literary  life  in  Elizabethan  England,  and 
who  yet  assumed  that  he  knew  it  in  virtue  of  his  knowledge 
of  the  modern  United  States.  This  is  the  kind  of  trouble 
that  faces  us  all  through  the  Baconian  controversy.  The 
Baconians  are  often  studious,  and,  in  some  matters; 
well-informed  people  :  unfortunately  they  do  not  acquire 
the  information  that  is  relevant  to  this  discussion.  Mark 
writes  that  "  For  seven  years  after  Shakespeare's  deat 
nobody  seems  to  have  been  interested  in  him."  Wh 
is  here  meant  by  "  seems  "  ?  That  there  was  no  bi 
graphy  published  ?  That  was  not  the  usage  of  the  time. 
And  there  were  positively  no  newspapers  to  deal  with 
such  matters.  But  who  wrote  the  lines  of  the  epitaph 
commemorating  the  Shakespeare  "  with  whom  quick 
nature  died  ?  ' '  Certainly  a  man  of  culture,  improbabl 
a  Stratfordian.  When  they  were  written  we  know  not  ;| 
but  it  was  inferribly  before  1623,  when  we  know  the  bust 
to  have  been  in  place. 

'  Then,"  writes  Mark,  "  the  quarto  was  published.'] 
Such  a  blunder  could  not  have  been  made  by  a  properly 


I 

:rs 

us 
ad  I 

?! 


THE  POSITIONS  OF  MARK  TWAIN          19 

informed  student.  "  Ben  Jonson,"  he  goes  on,  "  awoke 
out  of  his  long  indifference."  In  no  other  controversy, 
surely,  could  such  an  assertion  have  been  so  advanced. 
No  man  has  the  faintest  right  to  say,  on  the  bare  ground 
of  his  not  having  published  an  elegy,  that  Jonson  had 
shown  indifference  to  the  death  of  the  man  whom  he  tells 
us  he  had  loved.  "  Then,"  continues  our  investigator, 
"  silence  fell  again.  For  sixty  years.  Then  inquiries 
into  Shakespeare's  life  began  to  be  made  of  Stratfordians." 

It  is  difficult  to  be  sure  as  to  what  is  here  meant, 
Mark  Twain  explicitly  asserts  an  absolute  "  silence  "  in  the 
way  of  printed  allusions  to  Shakespeare  over  a  period 
of  sixty  years.  But  he  was  following  Mr.  Greenwood,  who 
is  of  course  aware  of  the  many  literary  allusions  to 
Shakespeare  in  the  period  in  question.  Mr.  Greenwood's 
case  is  *  that  allusions  to  the  work  of  Shakespeare  have 
no  evidential  force  inasmuch  as  they  do  not  say  "  who  " 
he  was — a  kind  of  test  which  would  reduce  to  nullity 
most  of  the  literary  allusions  in  all  literature.  One  can 
but  note  the  self -stultify  ing  character  of  the  argument, 
for  the  purposes  either  of  Mark  Twain  or  of  Mr.  Green 
wood.  If  in  a  long  series  of  allusions  to  Shakespeare 
there  is  no  specification  or  designation  of  the  man,  the 
only  inference  rationally  to  be  drawn  so  far  is  that  nobody 
had  ever  hinted  a  doubt  of  the  genuineness  of  his  claims. 
Had  any  such  doubt  been  current,  we  might  look  for 
either  a  qualifying  "  whosoever  he  was  "  or  a  positive 
claim  for  the  "  swan  of  Avon."  The  complete  absence  of 
any  questioning  is  obviously  a  very  strong  proof  that 
no  questioning  ever  took  place.  Simple  references  to 
Shakespeare  have  exactly  the  force  of  simple  references  to 
Chaucer  or  Spenser  :  they  signify  that  only  one  poet  so 
named  was  known  ;  and  that  no  outside  claimant  to  the 
honours  of  the  name  had  ever  been  heard  of. 

But,  as  it  happens,  the  post-Shakespearean  allusions 
do  often  point  to  an  unlearned  poet,  and  exclude  a 

1  Shakespeare  Problem  Re-stated,  1908,  ch.  xi. 


20  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

learned  one.  Let  us  follow  the  series.  Ben  Jonson 
as  aforesaid,  was  discussing  Shakespeare  with  Drummond 
in  or  about  1619.  In  1620  John  Taylor  wrote1  that 
"  Spencer  and  Shakespeare  did  in  art  excel  ;  and  it 
is  a  scholarly  and  not  an  ignorant  "conjecture 
that  the  anonymous  lines  "On  the  Time-Poets"  re 
printed  in  the  CHOYCE  DROLLERY  in  1656,  naming  "  Ben 
fluent  Fletcher,  Beaumont  rich  in  sense,  .  .  .  in- 
genidus  Shakespeare  .  .  .  Massinger  .  .  .  Chapman,"  were 
written  between  1620  and  1626.  To  the  Folio  of  1623 
there  are  prefixed  not  only  the  noble  eulogy  by  Jonson; 
but  others  as  high  pitched,  by  Hugh  Holland,  Leonard 
Digges,  and  I.M.  ;  and  the  fine  epitaph  by  William  Basse, 
referred  to  in  Jonson's  memorial,  is  assigned  to  1622.  It 
was  in  1627,  again,  that  Drayton  published  his  lines  : 

Shakespeare,  thou  hadst  as  smooth  a  comic  vein, 
Fitting  the  sock,  and  in  thy  natural  brain 
As  strong  conception  and  as  clear  a  rage 
As  any  one  that  tramck'd  with  the  stage  ; 

Cowley's  passing  allusion  to  Shakespeare's  plays  was 
made  between  1628  and  1631  ;  and  Ben  Jonson's  para 
graph  with  the  phrase,  "  I  loved  the  man,  and  do  honour 
his  memory,  on  this  side  Idolatry,  as  much  as  any/' 
published  in  his  TIMBER  :  OR  DISCOVERIES  in  1641,  is 
to  be  dated  between  1630  and  1637.  Milton's  eulogium, 
prefixed  to  the  second  Folio,  1632,  appeared  again  in  1640 
and  in  1645,  and  in  the  edition  of  his  poems  of  the  latter 
year  it  is  dated  1630.  In  the  last-named  year  appeared 
A  BANQUET  OF  JESTS,  in  which  (No.  259)  there  is  an  allu 
sion  to  "  Stratford  upon  Avon,  a  Towne  most  remarkable 
for  the  birth  of  famous  William  Shakespeare";  and 
Milton's  lines  on  "  sweetest  Shakespeare,  Fancy's  child," 
in  L' ALLEGRO,  are  to  be  dated  between  1632  and  1638. 
To  the  second  Folio,  of  which,  evidently,  Mark  Twain 
knew  nothing,  are  further  prefixed  the  glowing  panegyric 
verses  of  I.M.S.  and  the  anonymous  lines  "  upon  the 
1  The  Praise  of  Hemp-Seed,  1620,  p.  26. 


THE  POSITIONS  OF  MARK  TWAIN          21 

effigies  of  my  worthy  friend  the  Author,  Master  William 
Shakespeare  and  his  Workes  "  ;  and  in  the  same  year 
Shakespeare  is  named  with  Spenser,  Jonson,  Beaumont, 
and  Fletcher  in  the  commendatory  verses  of  Sir  Aston 
Cokaine  prefixed  to  Massinger's  EMPEROR  OF  THE  EAST. 
In  William  Habington's  CASTARA,  1634,  appear  the  lines 
"To  a  Friend,"  praising  a  wine  of  which 

should  Prynne 

Drink  but  a  plenteous  glass,  he  would  begin 
A  health  to  Shakespeare's  ghost  ; 

and  the  famous  eulogium  passed  on  Shakespeare  by  Hales 
of  Eton,  though  only  traditionally  preserved,  is  reasonably 
to  be  dated  before  1633.  That  testimony,  to  be  sure,  is 
ill-documented  ;  but  in  1635  we  have  Heywood's  mention 
of  "  mellifluous  Shakespeare  "  in  THE  HIERARCHIE  OF 
THE  BLESSED  ANGELLS  ;  and  the  three  allusions  to  Shake 
speare  by  Suckling  in  his  posthumous  FRAGMENTA  AUREA; 
published  in  1646,  that  in  his  comedy  THE  GOBLINS, 
in  the  same  volume,  and  those  in  his  letters,  are  to  be 
dated  between  1636  and  1641. 

In  JONSONUS  VIRBIUS,  published  in  1638,  there  are 
praises  of  Shakespeare  by  Jasper  Mayne,  Owen  Feltham, 
Richard  West,  H.  Ramsay,  and  T.  Terrent ;  and  in  the 
same  year  appeared  Sir  William  Davenant's  MADAGASCAR, 
WITH  OTHER  POEMS,  containing  his  Ode  "  In  Remem 
brance  of  Master  William  Shakespeare."  Then  in  1640 
comes  the  edition  of  the  POEMS,  to  which  are  prefixed  the 
preface  of  John  Benson,  the  laudatory  poem  on  "  lofty 
Shakespeare  ' '  by  John  Warren,  and  the  well-known  lines 
of  Leonard  Digges  on  "  never-dying  Shakespeare,"  where 
to  is  appended  the  anonymous  "  Elegy  on  the  death  of 
that  famous  Writer  and  Actor,  Mr.  William  Shakespeare," 
which  is  to  be  dated  1637  or  earlier,  since  it  speaks  of  Ben 
Jonson  as  living.  To  1638  belong  the  lines  of  James 
Mervyn,  naming  "  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  Shakespeare,  and 
a  train  of  glorious  poets  "  ;  and  to  1639  the  eulogy  of 
Thomas  Bancroft  in  his  Two  BOOKES  OF  EPIGRAMMES 


22  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

and  that  of  the  anonymous  quatrain  in  WITTS  RESERVA 
TIONS. 

And  so  the  stream  of  testimony  goes  on  through  the 
century— all  this  independently  of  mere  references  to  and 
imitations  of  the  plays.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  ascertain 
ing  these  testimonies  :  they  are  all  duly  collected  for  the 
students  of  Shakespeare  by  Dr.  Ingleby  in  his  Shake 
speare's  CENTURIE  OF  PRAYSE,  of  1874,  which  has  been 
repeatedly  reprinted  since ;  and  again  in  Mr.  C.  E. 
Hughes'  compilation,  THE  PRAISE  OF  SHAKESPEARE  (1904). 
Yet  of  all  this  commemoration  Mark  Twain  ostensibly 
knew  nothing  :  he  writes  confidently  of  a  "  silence  "  of 
"sixty"  years  after  the  printing  of  the  Folio,  which  he 
calls  a  quarto.  It  is  a  distressing  spectacle.  For,  if  he 
merely  meant  that  the  literary  allusions  to  Shakespeare 
during  sixty  years  after  his  death  convey  no  specification 
of  the  man,  but  are  simply  praises  of  the  work,  he  still 
betrays  an  entire  inacquaintance  with  the  record.  The 
allusions  do  repeatedly  indicate  Shakespeare  the  actor ; 
some  profess  personal  acquaintance  with  him  ;  yet  others 
are  applicable  only  to  an  unlearned  poet.  Jonson, 
Drayton,  and  Milton,  to  say  nothing  of  Digges,  all 
indicate  the  knowledge  that  the  poet  was  not  a  scholar. 
Heywood,  who  must  have  known  much  of  Shakespeare  the 
man,  calls  him  "  mellifluous,"  even  as  Milton  had 
spoken  of  his  "  native  wood-notes  wild,"  and  as  Webster, 
in  his  lifetime,  had  praised  his  "  right  happy  and  copious 
industry."  All  these  testimonies  significantly  exclude 
any  hint  of  "  learning,"  and  cannot  sanely  be  supposed  to 
hint  at  any  "  concealed  author  "  whatever. 

It  is  thus  mere  wilful  myth-mongering  to  pretend  that 
any  one  of  the  references  under  notice  leaves  the  slightest 
opening  for  the  notion  that  Shakespeare  was  for  a  moment 
suspected  to  be  but  the  mask  of  another  man.  All  the 
later  testimonies  plainly  proceed  upon  a  universal  ac 
ceptance.  The  Shakespeare  of  the  later  eulogies  is  just 
Ben  Jonson's  Shakespeare,  the  actor,  the  man  of  Stratford- 


THE  POSITIONS  OF  MARK  TWAIN          23 

on- A  von.  If  it  be  still  complained  that  they  convey  no 
"  gossip/'  no  stories  or  reminiscences  of  the  man,  one  can 
but  ask  how  much  personal  reminiscence  we  find  of 
Heywood,  Dekker,  Greene,  Peele,  Marlowe,  Kyd,  Nashe  ; 
of  Spenser,  the  laurelled  poet ;  nay,  even  of  Ben  Jonson, 
the  foremost  and  most  personally  remembered  man  of 
letters  in  that  age  ;  and  of  Bacon  himself,  who  lived  in  the 
eye  of  the  court  and  the  nation  as  well  as  of  the  men  of 
letters  ?  Save  for  the  published  observations  of  Rawley, 
his  chaplain,  how  much  should  we  have  known  of  him  in 
his  simple  capacity  of  man  of  letters  ?  How  much  did 
Fulke  Greville  tell  of  the  private  life  of  Sidney  ?  When 
will  the  "  antis  "  realise  that  in  Bacon's  day  the  age  of 
modern  biography  had  not  begun  ? 

Sparing  comment,  we  turn  to  Mark  Twain's  handling  of 
his  theorem  that  after  sixty  years  "  inquiries  into  Shake 
speare's  Stratford  life  began  to  be  made  by  Stratfordians." 
He  asks  :  "  Has  it  ever  happened  before — or  since — that 
a  celebrated  person  who  had  spent  exactly  half  of  a  fairly 
long  life  in  the  village  where  he  was  born  and  reared,  was 
able  to  slip  out  of  this  world  and  leave  that  village  voiceless 
and  gossipless  behind  him — utterly  voiceless,  utterly  gossip- 
less  ?  And  permanently  so  ?  "  This  is  really  as  bad  as 
what  went  before.  To  assume  that  there  was  no  gossip 
in  Stratford  about  Shakespeare  after  his  death,  because 
none  of  it  has  been  preserved,  is  to  bring  into  the  Baconian 
propaganda  a  new  exorbitance  of  absurdity.  When 
Mark  Twain  goes  on  to  tell  how  his  own  name  and  fame 
have  been  preserved  to  his  own  knowledge,  in  the  village 
of  Hannibal,  Missouri,  in  an  age  and  a  land  of  newspapers 
and  newspaper  readers,  of  cheap  books  and  universal 
literary  comment,  in  a  country  where  every  one  is  taught 
to  read  and  books  are  printed  by  the  billion,  he  does  but 
show  that  he  has  never  even  tried  to  realise  what  Eliza 
bethan  life  in  England  was  like.  Yet  he  knew,  for  he 
has  said  as  much,  that  the  people  of  Stratford  in  Shake 
speare's  day  were  mostly  illiterates.  The  more  reason, 


24  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

surely,  to  expect  that  they  would  not  publish  reminis 
cences  of  a  man  of  letters. 

If  such  a  wit  as  Mark  Twain's  could  so  divagate,  there 
must  be  many  who  wander  after  him  ;  and  perhaps  the 
best  way  to  call  up  for  them  some  idea  of  the  relevant 
facts  is  to  note  briefly  how  little  has  been  preserved  of 
biographical  detail  concerning  the  general  run  of  the 
English  poets  and  dramatists  of  Shakespeare's  age.  After 
noting  such  matters  they  may  begin  to  realise  how  entirely 
beside  the  case  is  Mark  Twain's  argument. 

1.  John  Lilly  was  one  of  the  most  famous  English 
men-of-TetTersT  of  his  day,  yet  we  know  not  the  place  or 
the  date  of  his  birth.     We  have  extant  letters  of  his 
writing,  and  know  him  to  have  been  a  university  man  and 
a  member  of  Parliament ;    but  fifty  years  ago  an  editor 
could  say  that  beyond  his  writings  "  we  know  three 
facts  only,  that  he  was  a  little  man,  was   married,  and 
was  fond  of  tobacco."  1    The  date  and  place  of  his  death 
are  gathered  only  from  entries  which  may  refer  to  another 
man  ;   and  we  cannot  clearly  tell  how  he  subsisted. 

2.  Thomas  Dekker  was  one  of  the  most  popular  of  the 
Elizabethan  dramatists,  but  "  the  outline  of  his  life  is 
indeed  singularly  blank.     We  do  not  know  exactly  when 
he  was  born,  or  where  ;  there  is  scarcely  any  clue  to  the 
important  period  of  his  youth,  and  his  early  struggles  as 
a  poet  and  playwright :   we  do  not  even  know  when  he 
died."2 

3.  Thomas  Heywood,  by  his  own  account,  had  either 
"  an  entire  hand  or  at  least  a  main  finger  "  in  two  hundred 
and  twenty  dramas  ;  and  he  published  twenty-four  ;  yet 
we  know  not  his  birthplace.     He  "  was  a  Lincolnshire 
man,  presumably  of  good  family,"  says  Mr.  Symonds, 

1  Memoir  by  Fairholt,  prefixed  to  Lilly's  Works  in  "  Library 
of  Old  Authors." 

2  Memoir  by  E.  Rhys,  prefixed  to  the  "  Mermaid  "  edition  of 
Dekker's  Plays.     Dekker  tells,  however,  that  he  was  born  in 
London. 


THE  POSITIONS  OF  MARK  TWAIN          25 

"  though  I  cannot  find  that  the  Visitations  of  that  county  * 
record  any  pedigree  of  his  name."  He  was  a  Cambridge 
University  man  ;  he  began  to  write  for  the  stage  in  1596,3 
and  in  1598  he  was  an  actor  and  sharer  in  Henslowe's 
company.  "  Little  else  is  known  about  his  life;  and  thougli 
it  is  certain  that  he  lived  to  a  ripe  age,  we  are  ignorant 
of  the  date  of  his  death."  l 

4.  Thomas  Kyd  was  the  author  of  some  of  the  best- 
known  plays  of  his  age  :   in  at  least  four  contemporary 
plays  mention  is  made  of  his  JERONYMO.     By  a  rare 
chance,  the  entry  of  his  baptism  has  lately  been  dis 
covered,  and  his  parentage  has  thus  been  traced  :    we 
know  too,  from  recent  research,  not  from  contemporary 
mention,  that  he  was  sent  to  the  Merchant  Taylors' 
School.     "  But  between  1565  and  1589  history  is  entirely 
silent  about  him."     We  know  from  official  documents, 
never  published  till  our  own  time,  that  he  was  involved 
in  the  "  atheistic  academy  "  associated  with  the  name 
of  Raleigh  ;   but  "  henceforth  we  lose  all  trace  of  Kyd's 
person.     It  is  as  a  rule  supposed  that  he  died  in  1594  or 
J595  "  >  all  that  is  certain  is  that  he  died  before  i6oi.2 

5.  Of  the  life  of  Ben  Jonson  we  know  more  than  of  that 
of  any  dramatist  or  poet  of  the  Shakespearean  age  ;   but 
we  have  not  the  exact  date  or  the  place  of  his  birth, 
though  we  know  it  was  in  Westminster  ;  and  we  lack  the 
dates  of  his  matriculation  at  Cambridge,  of  the  length 
of  his  stay,  and  of  the  time  of  his  soldiering  in  Flanders. 
All  the  biographical  details  we  have  of  him  will  go  into 
small  space. 

6.  But  in  the  case  of  Spenser,  the  most  illustrious  poet 
of  his  age,  the  lack  of  biography  is  most  signal.     Mr. 
Greenwood's  account  contrasts  pleasantly  with  that  of 
the  biographers.     "  The  life  of  Spenser  is  wraptin  a 

1  Symonds'   Essay,   prefixed   to    the    "  Mermaid  "   edition  of 
Hey  wood's  Plays. 

2  Professor  J.  Shick's  preface  to  the  "  Temple  "  edition  of  The 
Spanish  Tragedy. 


26  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

similar  obscurity  to  that  which  hides  from  us  his  great 
predecesso7~Chaucer,  and  his  still  greater  contemporary 
Shakespeare.  As  in  the  case  of  Chaucer,  our  principal 
external  authorities  are  a  Je^vjnejy^mMes  in L  certain 
official  documents,  and  such  facts  as  may  be  gathered 
trom  n^^works The  birth-year _ol_gg.r,fr  pOflt  ig-Hpfpr- 
mined  by  inference.  The  circumstances  in  which  each 
died  are  a  matter  of  controversy."  1  "  Of  his  parents, 
the  only  fact  secured  is  that  his  mother's  name"  was 
Elizabeth ;  this  appears  from  sonnet  74  "  ;  there  is  no 
other  trace,  though  he  was  highly  connected  on  his  father's 
side.  We  infer  that  he  was  born  in  1532  j  we  have  it  on 
his  own  Testimony  that  he  ^ras  foorn  in  London.  JBut  we 
know  not  in  what  part.  Quite  recently  it  has  been 
discovered  that  lie  went  to  the  Merchant  Taylors' 
School;  and  w_e__trace  him  at  Cambridge  in  1569  ;  but 
of  the  rest  of  hiis  life  up  to  that  year  we  know  nothing 
wHatever. 

Here  is  a  fair  analogy  to  the  case  of  Shakespeare.  But 
for  the  school  and  college  entries  we  should  know  nothing 
of  Spenser  till  he  had  reached  manhood ;  and  we  know 
Shakespeare's  parentage  and  place  of  schooling  with 
certainty.  We  also  know  the  name  of  his  wife  :  we  do 
not  certainly  know  the  surname  of  Spenser's,  nor  the 
names  of  his  children. 

7.  Finally,  let  us  take  the  case  ofJDra^e,  one  of  the 
most  famous  Englishmen  of  Shakespeare's  day.  He  was 
a  national  hero,  and  his  ship,  The  Golden  Hind,  was 
treasured  as  long  as  she  held  together.  Yet  the,  research^ 
of  Professor  Laughton  has  failed  to  establish  either  his 
parentage  or  the  place  of  his  birth.2  The  ascertaining 
of  such  data,  in  fact,  when  there  was  any  obscurity  about 

1  Prof.  Hales'  Memoir,  prefixed  to  the  "  Globe  "  edition  of 
Spenser's  Works. 

2  More  recent  research  is  understood  to  have  established  the 
birthplace.     But  the  fact  of  the  long  blank  in  English  knowledge 
on  the  subject  bears  out  our  case. 


THE  POSITIONS  OF  MARK  TWAIN          27 

them,  never  preoccupied  the  Elizabethans  even  in  the 
case  of  their  greatest  celebrities. 

Nevertheless  it  is  not  rationally  to  be  supposed  that 
there  was  not  current,  in  the  age  of  Shakespeare  and 
Jonson,  abundant  gossip  concerning  all  of  these  men, 
alike  in  London  and  in  the  country  places  with  which 
they  had  been  at  all  intimately  connected.  The  contrary 
is  inconceivable  :  gossip  is  universal  and  irrepressible. 
Of  what  else  does  the  bulk  of  human  conversation  ever 
consist  ?  The  residual  literary  fact  is  simply  this,  that 
in  the  England  of  that  time  even  the  most  famous  poets 
and  men  of  action  and  the  most  popular  dramatists  were, 
for  lack  of  literacy  and  periodicals,  not  commemorated 
as  much  less  distinguished  people  are  to-day.  They 
could  not  be.  There  were  no  journals  in  which  to  do  it, 
and  the  custom  of  writing  biographies  of  writers  or  even 
of  heroes  had  hardly  begun. 

But  as  regards  the  poets  and  the  dramatists  in  particular 
there  came  into  play  a  process  of  partial  disrepute,  which 
could  account  only  too  easily  for  that  absence  of  a  cult 
of  Shakespeare  at  Stratford-on-Avon  which  is  the  sole 
residual  fact  in  Mark  Twain's  argument  under  the  head 
of  non-commemoration.  When  the  antiquaries  did  begin 
to  seek  for  reminiscences  of  Shakespeare  at  his  native 
town  two  or  more  generations  after  his  death  they  found 
little  to  record.  But  why  ?  Mark  Twain  all  along 
absurdly  subsumes  the  extreme  Baconian  explanation — 
that"  Shakespeare's  contemporaries  knew  that  he  was  not 
really  a  man  of  genius  ;  and  that,  by  consequence,  there 
was  a  general  inkling  that  the  plays,  recognised  to  be 
wuiks  uf^^ntusTwere  the  works  of  another  man.  This 
theorem,  which  puts  the  Baconian  theory  in  its  most 
entirely  incredible  form,  has  literally  not  a  shred  of 
evidence  to  support  it.  There  is  abundant  testimony 
to  the  belief  of  the  bookish  and  literary  men  that  William 
Shakespeare  was  a  man  of  genius.  This  recognition 
is  prominent  in  Ben  Jonson 's  talk  even  when  he  is 


28  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

carping  ;  it  suffuses  with  fire  his  panegyric.  But  every 
explicit  testimony  in  his  own  day  and  among  the  next 
generation  of  readers  recognises  the  dramatist-actor  as 
a  man  of  rare  powers ;  there  is  never  the  shadow  of  a 
hint  to  the  contrary. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to 
suppose  that  the  average  inhabitants  of  Stratford  did 
or  could  appreciate  the  plays  as  literature,  all  questions  of 
authorship  apart.  If  for  most  of  them  Shakespeare  was 
not  "  a  celebrity"  it  was  because,  first,  many  could  not 
read  ;  and,  secondly,  because  they  tended  to  be  puritani 
cal,  and  did  not  dream  that  stage  plays  could  be  great 
or  serious  matter.  Many  of  them,  in  fact,  would  regard 
everything  connected  with  the  "  harlotry  players  "  as 
savouring  of  sin.  As  Halliwell-Phillipps  summed  up  : 

When  the  monument  was  first  erected,  there  can,  indeed,  be 
little  doubt  that  most  of  the  inhabitants  of  Stratford-on-Avon, 
including  the  puritanical  vicar,  regarded  it  as  the  memorial  of 
one  whose  literary  career  had,  to  say  the  least,  been  painfully 
useless  to  society.  A  like  fanaticism  no  doubt  pervaded  no 
insignificant  section  of  Londoners  ;  but  it  was  not  sufficiently 
dominant  in  the  metropolis  to  restrain  the  continued  popularity 
of  the  works  of  the  great  dramatist.1 

This  is  not  a  matter  of  mere  "  conjecture,"  legitimate 
or  other.  There  is  solid  evidence  of  the  growth  of  Puritan 
ism  in  Stratford-on-Avon  as  elsewhere  in  Shakespeare's 
latter  years.  A  rigorous  bylaw  against  theatrical  per 
formances  was  passed  by  the  town  in  1612  ;  and  when 
it  was  found  that  this  could  not  well  be  enforced  against 
players  under  Court  protection,  resort  was  had  to  other 
devices ;  for  instance,  that  of  the  year  1622,  when  six 
shillings  were  "  pay'd  to  the  Kinges  players  for  not  play 
ing  in  the  hall."  We  know  further  that  Shakespeare's 
daughter,  Mrs.  Hall,  entertained  a  Puritan  preacher  at 
New  Place,  the  town  paying  for  his  drink— a  very  tolerable 
deal  of  sack— while  she  presumably  provided  his  food. 
Yet  when  her  epitaph  came  to  be  written,  after  her  death 

1  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Shakespeare,  5th  ed.  p.  241. 


THE  POSITIONS  OF  MARK  TWAIN  29 

in  1649,  even  the  pious  hand  that  composed  it  testified 
that  among  the  more  cultured  folk  of  Stratford  the 
memory  and  the  fame  of  her  father  were  still  green  : 

Witty  above  her  $exe,  but  that's  not  all  : 
Wise  to  salvation  was  good  Mistress  Hall : 
Something  of  Shakespeare  was  in  that,  but  this 
Wholly  of  him  with  whom  she's  now  in  blisse. 

This  epitaph,  apparently,  was  as  unknown  to  Mark  Twain 
as  all  the  rest  of  the  evidence  which  confutes  him. 

To  sum  up,  a  playwright  and  actor  was  the  last  man 
to  be  made  a  local  hero  in  Stratford-on-Avon  in  the  days 
of  deepening  Puritanism.  The  not  wholly  undeserved 
disrepute  of  the  theatre  affected  all  connected  with  it, 
as  we  can  already  see  in  the  Sonnets.1  A  population  at 
once  unlettered  and  fanatical  could  not  conceivably 
cherish  the  literary  memory  of  the  author  of  ROMEO  AND 
JULIET  and  ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA,  VENUS  AND  ADONIS 
and  THE  RAPE  OF  LUCRECE  ;  though  they  must  have 
gossiped  somewhat  about  his  memory  while  his  generation 
lasted.  But  in  the  special  circles  outside,  where  literary 
genius  could  be  and  was  appreciated,  while  Puritanism 
was  doing  its  best  and  worst  against  free  art,  the  name 
of  Shakespeare  never  ceased  to  be  a  word  to  conjure  with  ; 
and  the  English  avowals  are  more  abundant  than  the 
testimonies  ^Eo~TrIe~~iTrffeTm^"taume  ^_Bacon3imself ,  no 
one  ever  indicating  a  suspicion  that  the  Stratford  actor 
was  not  the  great  poet  he  was  reputed  to  be.  And  even 
in  Stratford  itself,  as  we  have  seen,  three  and  thirty  years 
after  Shakespeare's  death,  the  quasi-Puritan  composer 
of  the  epitaph  of  his  Puritan  daughter  takes  for  granted 
the  knowledge  of  all  educated  people  that  Shakespeare 
was  a  man  of  intellectual  distinction,  whose  daughter  a 

1  Even  in  France,  long  afterwards,  it  was  told  that  two  kins 
women  of  Moliere  in  the  religious  life — it  may  have  been  his 
sister  and  his  cousin — "  blushed  to  recognise  as  a  relative  the 
author  of  Tartuffe,  and  fasted  on  a  fixed  day  every  year  to  expiate 
the  misfortune  of  such  a  connection."  Fournier,  Etudes  sur  la 
vie  et  les  ceuvres  de  Moli&re,  1885,  pp.  9-10. 


30  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Puritan  woman  might  be  proud  to  be,  though  his  sole 
fame  was  as  a  writer  of  poems  and  plays,  and  mayhap, 
in  some  little  degree,  as  an  actor. 

Thus  the  documentary  identification  of  "  the  Stratford 
actor  "  as  the  author  of  the  plays,  though  not  copious,  is 
perfectly  valid,  especially  in  view  of  the  scantiness  of 
biographical  record  all  round  for  the  period.  Those  who 
make  much  of  the  sparsity  of  exact  traces  of  Shakespeare 
might  be  led  to  pause  in  their  propaganda  if  they  realised 
that  for  the  birth,  upbringing,  and  life  of  Cervantes,  the 
most  famous  writer  of  Spain,  the  record  is  just  as  scanty. 
The  enthusiastic  devotion  of  Cervantes'  countrymen  has 
failed  to  ascertain  his  parentage  or  his  place  of  birth  ; 
and  what  we  know  of  him  has  been  preserved  not  by 
biographical  research  among  his  contemporaries  but  by 
the  chance  of  his  own  statements  and  of  non-biographical 
documents.  It  is  sometimes  urged  as  a  strange  circum 
stance  that  there  survives  no  known  manuscript  of 
Shakespeare.  But  there  survives  no  known  manuscript 
of  ^lolierej^  and  concerning  even  that  dramatist,  who 
lived  so  much  nearer  the  age  of  biography,  it  is  uncertain 
whether  he  was  or  was  not  called  to  the  Bar.  The  latter- 
day  biography  of  Moliere,  indeed,  has  been  built  up  only 
by  a  "  miracle  of  investigation  "  *  which  has  left  openings 
for  endless  disputes.2  The  argument  from  lack  of  early 
biographical  commemoration  or  research,  in  short,  has 
no  weight  whatever  for  the  earlier  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 

The  ground  being  thus  cleared  of  the  first  section  of  Mark 
Twain's  unhappy  mystification,  we  may  proceed  to  the 
somewhat  lengthier  task  of  disposing  of  the  second,  which, 
however,  is  a  mere  repetition  of  an  elaborate  mystification 
evolved  by  others  and  taken  by  him  on  trust. 

1  The  Recherches  sur  Molidre  of  Eudore  Soulie,  1863. 

2  Cp.  the  Etudes9 sur  la  vie*et  Us  ceuvres  de  MolUre  of  Edouard 
Fournier,  passim;   the  preface  to  that  work  by  Auguste  Vitu  ; 

and  the  Autour  de  Moliere^oi  Auguste  Baluffe,  1889,  passim. 


i 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS  IN 
SHAKESPEARE  :  LORD  CAMPBELL'S  CASE 

§1 

BAKING  Mark  Twain  as  the  protagonist  of  the 
Baconian  case,  we  have  found  him  rejecting 
the  normal  view  of  the  authorship  of  the 
Shakespearean  plays  on  the  strength  of  a 
series  of  gross  errors  as  to  the  documentary  evidence,  and 
an  all-pervading  misconception  as  to  the  conditions  of 
Elizabethan  life.  Protesting  against  the  acceptance  of 
"  conjecture  "  as  biographical  material,  he  founded  his  own 
case  upon  mere  wild  misstatement  in  matters  of  notorious 
fact,  followed  up  by  an  argument  which  on  a  little  scrutiny 
is  found  to  be  wholly  irrelevant.  When,  however,  the 
whole  case  thus  far  is  disposed  of,  the  unabashed  Baco 
nians  are  found  confidently  justifying  their  unexampled 
"  conjecture  "  by  a  proposition  or  propositions  in  regard 
to  which  they  can  claim  the  support  of  Shakespearean 
scholars  of  good  standing, — the  general  theorem,  to  wit, 
that  the  author  of  the  plays  in  question  was  demonstrably 
possessed  of  a  deep  and  technically  expert  knowledge  of 
English  law. 

On  the  strength  of  this  affirmation,  confidently  accepted 
by  him  from  others,  Mark  Twain  embraced  the  "  conjec 
ture  "  that  Bacon  wrote  VENUS  AND  ADONIS,  THE  MER 
CHANT  OF  VENICE,  ROMEO  AND  JULIET,  OTHELLO,  LEAR, 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  plays.  In  his  view  "  we  are  entitled 
to  assume  ' '  (even  as  Stratf ordian  biographers  might  put 
it)  that  where  lawyers  profess  to  find  legal  expertise  in 
the  plays  they  cannot  be  mistaken  ;  that  only  a  lawyer 

31 


3a  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

therefore  can  have  written  them  ;  and  that  the  lawyer 
must  have  been  Bacon.  The  foe  of  conjectures  died 
ostensibly  in  full  reconcilement  to  the  conjecture  that 
HAMLET  was  written  by  Bacon  for  a  company  of  actor- 
partners,  all  in  the  secret,  after  the  trial  of  Essex  and 
while  Bacon  was  scheming  for  the  favour  of  King  James  ; 
and  that  THE  TEMPEST,  THE  WINTER'S  TALE,  CYMBELINE, 
and  HENRY  VIII  were  written  under  similar  conditions 
of  open  secrecy  by  King  James*  Solicitor-General— the 
last-named  play  just  before  his  elevation  to  the  Attorney- 
Generalship.  And  it  is  expressly  insisted  on  that  while 
thus  carrying  on  a  kind  of  authorship  which  he  was  deeply 
concerned  to  keep  secret,  Sir  Francis,  either  deliberately 
or  through  *naM]ltY  tft  pefrgiifl  from  "  talkiiK 
.  -.-.  _. •.-.•.>'.•••.-..;  the  phys  >vi:h  a  multitude  of  leca:  cv.-^- 
r- -.,--.>  v,  •-.-.;:-.  to  auv  trained  ear  must  have  betrayed  their 
emanatKm  frmi  a  Ifg?1  source,  and  which,  be  it  observed; 

he  — r^-  ^^qfiiT^  in  Jifc  Ey^y*- 

To  this  extremity  of  conjecture  we  are  exhorted  to 
come  on  the  bare  authority,  cited  at  third  hand,  of  certain 
pronouncements  by  lawyers  of  high  and  other  status, 
not  one  of  whom  had  a  fair  knowledge  of  the  Elizabethan 
and  Jacobean  drama  in  general.  In  a  dispute  in  which 
the  principle  of  mere  authority  is  expressly  sought  to 
be  overthrown,  we  are  asked  to  let  an  inference  from  the 
dicta  of  one  or  two  purely  legal  authorities  reverse  at  a 
stroke  the  whole  structure  of  Shakespearean  and  Baconian 
biography.  The  authority  of  the  great  mass  of  Shake 
spearean  students  is  to  go  for  nothing,  whether  as  to 
biography  or  as  to  comparison  of  styles  ;  but  the  authority 
of  certain  lawyers,  and  these  of  the  "  idolatrous  "  school; 
is  to  settle  once  for  all  the  question  whether  the  author 
of  the  plays  had  a  professional  knowledge  of  law.  Thus, 
it  may  be  said,  is  idolatry  pursued  by  its  Nemesis  :  the 
Shakespeare-worshippers'  habit  of  ascribing  to  the  author 
of  the  plays  every  accomplishment  in  a  superlative  degree 
is  made  a  ground  for  taking  away  the  Stratford  actor's 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       33 

kingdom  and  giving  it  to  another.  And  the  same  sequence 
occurs  in  respect  of  the  ascription  to  the  playwright  of 
a  wide  knowledge  of  the  classics.  The  idolaters  are  in 
effect  slain  by  their  own  lintel-stones.  But  for  the  non- 
idolater  all  this  concludes  nothing.  As  simple  student, 
he  asks  : 

1.  What  expressions,  in  which  plays,  prove  the  play 
wright  to  have  had  an  incomparably  exact  knowledge 
of  law,  possible  only  to  a  trained  lawyer  ? 

2.  Is  it  averred  that  the  dramatic  use  of  these  expres 
sions  has  the  effect  of  making  personages  speak  out  of 
character,  in  respect  of  their  being  endowed  with  a  legal 
knowledge  which  they  could  not  reasonably  be  supposed 
to  possess  ?     If  so,  is  this  admitted  to  be  a  detraction 
from  the  dramatist's  own  artistic  credit  ?     If,  on  the  other 
hand,  his  characterisation  is  not  on  this  score  called  in 
question,   with  what   fitness   can  he  be  credited  with 
abnormal  legal  knowledge  on  the  score  of  expressions 
which  can  dramatically  pass  muster  as  "  in  character  "  ? 

3.  Is  it  claimed  that  such  legal  expressions  do  not  occur 
in  the  works  of  other  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  dramatists 
in  similar  quantity  and  quality  ?     Have  the  lawyers  ever 
faced  this  prqblem  ? 

4.  How  is  it  to  be  proved  that  the  mere  habit  of  haunting 
law  courts,  common  to  multitudes  in  Shakespeare's  day 
as  in  ours,  could  not  yield  to  a  quick  mind  precisely  the 
amount  of  familiarity  with  legal  terminology  seen  in  the 
plays  ? 

5.  Is  it  true,  as  asserted  by  Lord  Campbell  and  others; 
that  the  Shakespearean  handling  of  law  terms  and  phrases 
is  constantly  and  impeccably  correct  ? 

6.  Does  Bacon,  in  his  non-legal  works,  make  any  such 
play  with  legal  terms  and  phrases  ? 

Every  one  of  these  six  questions,  to  raise  no  others, 
is  vital  to  the  issue  which  Mark  Twain  declares  to  be  vital 
to  the  problem  of  the  authorship  of  the  plays.  And  he 
does  not  raise  one  of  them  ;  does  not  even  indicate  that 

c 


34  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

it  has  occurred  to  him  that  any  one  of  them  might  be 
raised.  He  simply  cites  on  the  legal  question  nine  pages 
of  Mr.  George  Greenwood's  able  but  ex  parte  treatise, 
THE  SHAKESPEARE  PROBLEM  RESTATED,  ascribing  to  that 
a  conclusiveness  which  is  denied  to  any  argumentation 
on  the  "  Stratfordian  "  side,  and  there  makes  an  end  of 
discussion  on  that  issue,  declared  to  be  central. 

Now,  Mr.  Greenwood,  setting  out  to  challenge  the 
whole  "  Stratford "  tradition,  and  all  the  dogmatism 
thereon  accruing,  has  made  out  his  own  negative  case 
largely  by  means  of  the  uncritical  deliverances  of  men 
who  adhered  uncritically  to  the  tradition  in  question. 
He  has  done  this  as  regards  the  vital  problem  of  the 
classical  learning  said  to  be  exhibited  in  the  plays.  Reject 
ing  absolutely  the  late  Mr.  Churton  Collins's  verdict  on 
the  main  issue,  he  accepts  without  scrutiny  Mr.  Collins' s 
judgment  on  the  primary  point  of  the  dramatist's  learn 
ing.  Yet  it  can  be  demonstrated  that  at  every  important 
point  Mr.  Collins' s  judgment  breaks  down  on  analysis.1 
The  author  of  the  plays  exhibits,  on  exact  scrutiny,  no 
such  learning  as  he  ascribes  to  him.  Ben  Jonson's 
ascription  to  Shakespeare  of  "  small  Latin  and  less 
Greek,"  which  Mr.  Collins  arbitrarily  and  illicitly  sets 
aside,  turns  out  on  close  examination  to  be  in  perfect 
accord  with  the  internal  evidence  of  the  plays,  after  these 
have  been  carefully  considered  with  a  view  to  the  whole 
problem  of  authenticity.  If,  then,  evidence  which,  with 
his  own  scholarly  investigations,  satisfies  Mr.  Greenwood 
as  to  the  playwright's  learning,  is  found  to  be  quite 
inadequate,  evidence  which  satisfies  him  as  to  the  play 
wright's  mastery  of  English  law  may  turn  out  to  be  no 
less  inadequate,  albeit  he  is  himself  a  lawyer. 

The  thesis  of  the  juristic  knowledge  of  the  dramatist, 
long  ago  set  up  by  Steevens  and  Malone,  on  the  basis  of 
the  "  attorney's  clerk "  tradition,  is  specially  insisted 

1  See  the  present  writer's  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  and 
other  Essays  on  Cognate  Questions,  1909,  per  index. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS        35 

on  by  Mr.  Churton  Collins  as  part  of  his  proof  that  TITUS 
ANDRONICUS  is  a  genuine  Shakespearean  work.  Now 
this,  of  all  of  "  the  "  plays,  has  moved  the  largest  number 
of  critics  to  reject  it,  on  general  grounds,  as  alien  work  ; 
and  an  all-round  survey  of  the  problem  is  found  to  bear 
out  their  conclusion.  As  to  this,  Mr.  Greenwood  is  of 
my  opinion.  So  far  as  demonstration  in  such  matters 
can  be  said  to  be  attainable,  TITUS  is  demonstrably  the 
work,  in  the  main,  of  Peele  and  Greene,  with  portions 
possibly  by  Kyd  or  Lodge  or  Marlowe.1  Its  legal  allu 
sions,  then,  tell  of  no  legal  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the 
author  of  OTHELLO,  CORIOLANUS,  As  You  LIKE  IT,  and 
the  unquestioned  plays.  Nor  is  this  all.  The  legal 
knowledge  exhibited  in  the  plays  is  found  to  be  assigned 
by  the  lawyers  mainly  on  the  score  of  phrases  which  will 
not  in  the  least  bear  out  their  assertion.  Mr.  Greenwood 
cites  (from  Lord  Penzance)  the  astounding  judgments 
of  Lord  Chief  Justice  Campbell  (afterwards  Lord  Chan 
cellor)  without  quoting,  save  in  subsequent  discussion 
and  in  other  connections,  one  specimen  of  the  grounds 
given  by  his  lordship  for  them  ;  and  Mark  Twain  there 
upon  adopts  without  inquiry  a  verdict  which,  had  he  had 
the  grounds  before  him,  he  would,  I  believe,  have  regarded 
as  much  better  matter  for  jest  than  any  of  the  themes  he 
has  jested  on — unless,  indeed,  he  recognised  in  the  Lord 
Chancellor  a  fellow  humorist.  It  is  important  to  keep 
in  view  from  the  outset  the  evolution  of  the  argument ; 
because  Mr.  Greenwood  will  be  found  ere  long  putting  a 
thesis  which  is  only  in  appearance  Campbell's,  while 
citing  Campbell's  pronouncements  in  support  of  it. 
Campbell  goes  about  to  prove  his  general  proposition  by 
a  series  of  items  of  evidence,  consisting  substantially  of 
legal  phrases  used  in  the  plays.  By  that  series  of  items 
his  general  pronouncement  must  stand  or  fall.  But 
Mr.  Greenwood  at  a  certain  stage  of  the  debate  in  effect 

1  See   the    present    writer's    Did    Shakespeare    Write     "  Titus 
A  ndronicus  "  ?     1 90  5 . 


36  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

repudiates  the  very  grounds   of   Campbell's   judgment 
while  asking  us  to  accept  that  judgment  as  decisive. 

§2 

Let  us  first  examine  Lord  Campbell's  entire  case,  put 
in  the  form  of  a  letter  to  J.  Payne  Collier  under  the  title 
SHAKESPEARE'S  LEGAL  ACQUIREMENTS  CONSIDERED 
(1859)  .\  This  case,  which  Mark  Twain  had  never  seen, 
and  the  tenuity  of  which  no  one  could  imagine  from  a 
mere  reading  of  Mr.  Greenwood's  extracts,  made  through 
Lord  Penzance,  is  framed,  bad  as  it  is,  merely  to  support 
the  theory  that  Shakespeare  may  have  been  a  clerk  in  a 
country  attorney's  office. 

Great  as  is  the  knowledge  of  law  which  Shakespeare's  writings 
display,  and  familiar  as  he  appears  to  have  been  with  all  its 
forms  and  proceedings,  the  whole  of  this  would  easily  be  accounted 
for  if  for  some  years  he  had  occupied  a  desk  in  the  office  of  a 
country  attorney  in  good  business — attending  sessions  and 
assizes — keeping  leets  and  law  days — and  perhaps  being  sent 
up  to  the  metropolis  in  term  time  to  conduct  suits  before  the 
Lord  Chancellor  or  the  superior  courts  of  common  law  at  West 
minster,  according  to  the  ancient  practice  of  country  attorneys 
who  would  not  employ  a  London  agent  to  divide  their  fees.2 

And  here,  at  the  very  outset,  we  have  radical  conflict 
between  the  champions  of  the  lawyer  theory.  "  We 
quite  agree  with  Mr.  Castle,"  3  writes  Mr.  Greenwood, 
"  that  Shakespeare's  legal  knowledge  is  not  what  could 
have  been  picked  up  in  an  attorney's  office,  but  could 
only  have  been  learned  by  an  actual  attendance  at  the 

1  A  year  before,  W.  L.  Rushton,  then  a  law  student,  had  pub 
lished  Shakespeare  a  Lawyer  (Liverpool,  1858)  ;  and  Mr.  Jaggard 
writes,   in  his  Shakespeare  Bibliography    (p.   271),  that   "Lord 
Campbell  coolly  plundered  and  plagiarised  it  a  year  later,  in  his 
imitation     work,     entitled      Shakespeare's    Legal   Acquirements, 
without  the  least  acknowledgment."     But  Rushton  also  followed 
Malone.     Cp.  Rushton's  own  Appendices  to  his  brochure,  Shake 
speare's  Testamentary  Language,  1869. 

2  Work  cited,  pp.  22-23. 

8  E.  J.  Castle,  Shakespeare,  Bacon,  Jonson,  and  Greene  :  A  Study, 
1897,  PP-  8,  26. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       37 

Courts,  at  a  Pleader's  in  Chambers,  and  on  circuit,  or 
by  associating  intimately  with  members  of  the  Bench 
and  Bar."1  Mr.  Greenwood  is  thus  in  conflict  with  his 
chief  witness,  upon  whose  testimony  have  apparently 
been  built  the  opinions  of  nearly  all  the  other  witnesses 
whom  he  cites.  Further,  Mr.  Castle  finds  plenty  of  law 
in  plays  in  which  Lord  Campbell  finds  none ;  no  law  at 
all  in  plays  in  which  Lord  Campbell  finds  some  ;  and 
"  laughable  mistakes "  where  Lord  Campbell  declares 
there  is  no  deviation  from  strict  legal  accuracy.  With 
Mr.  Castle  we  shall  deal  later  :  for  the  present  we  have 
to  follow  the  variegated  reasoning  of  the  Chief  Justice. 

It  is  significant  of  the  texture  of  Campbell's  argument 
that  after  the  explicit  statement  last  cited  from  him  he 
finds  in  the  plays  a  "wonderful"  and  "profound"2 
knowledge  of  law — implying  that  profundity  in  that 
knowledge  may  be  attained  by  a  village  attorney's  clerk 
in  a  few  years.  But  still  more  staggering  is  the  circum 
stance  that  after  putting  his  whole  case  he  writes  :  "  Still 
I  must  warn  you  (Collier)  that  I  myself  remain  rather 
sceptical.  All  that  I  can  admit  to  you  is  that  you  may  be 
right,  and  that  while  there  is  weighty  evidence  for  you  there 
is  nothing  conclusive  against  you."*  And  he  further 
points  out  to  Collier  :  "  You  must  likewise  remember 
that  you  require  us  implicitly  to  believe  a  fact  which, 
were  it  true,  positive  and  irrefragable  evidence  in  Shake 
speare's  own  handwriting  might  have  been  forthcoming 
to  establish.  Not  having  been  actually  enrolled  as  an 
attorney,  neither  the  records  of  the  local  court  at  Stratford; 
nor  of  the  superior  courts  at  Westminster,  would  present 
his  name  as  being  concerned  in  any  suits  as  an  attorney ; 
but  it  might  have  been  reasonably  expected  that  there 
would  have  been  deeds  or  wills  witnessed  by  him  still 
extant ; — and  after  a  very  diligent  search  none  such  can 
be  discovered." 

1  The  Shakespeare  Problem  Restated,  p.  31. 

2  P.  113.  »  Pp.  no-ii. 


38  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Upon  this  caveat  Mr.  Greenwood  expressly  insists  ; 
and  whereas  Campbell's  argument  went  solely  to  prove 
possible  clerkship,  Mr.  Greenwood  turns  his  evidence  to 
the  support  of  the  thesis  that  the  playwright  must  have 
been  a  lawyer  trained  on  a  higher  plane.  He  in  turn 
refuses  to  accept  the  Baconian  theory  ;  whereas  the 
Baconians  turn  his  and  Campbell's  arguments  alike  to 
the  support  of  that.  Mr.  Greenwood  must  have  a  lawyer, 
but  cannot  accept  Bacon,  and  can  name  no  other.  And 
the  whole  theorem  rests  on  the  forensic  if  not  insincere 
reasoning  of  a  judge  who  would  have  laughed  the  Baco 
nian  theory  to  scorn.  Campbell's  argumentation,  as  he 
himself  observed,  is  "  worthy  of  Serjeant  Eitherside  "  ; 
and  still  it  is  the  sole  or  main  foundation  of  his  summing- 
up  or  judgment,  which  constitutes  Mr.  Greenwood's  case. 
Lord  Campbell  had  in  fact  been  indulging  in  a  forensic 
exercise,  using  the  language  of  exaggerated  conviction 
in  the  forensic  manner,  as  a  barrister  would  in  a  defence 
of  a  clouded  client  before  an  ignorant  jury.  To  make 
clear  the  truth  of  this,  it  is  necessary  only  to  summarise 
his  argument. 

It  sets  out  by  taking  for  granted  (a)  that  Nashe's  allu 
sion,  in  the  epistle  prefixed  to  Greene's  MENAPHON  (1589) , 
to  "  shifting  companions  that  .  .  .  leave  the  trade  of 
noverint,  whereto  they  were  born,"  must  have  referred 
to  Shakespeare,  in  respect  of  the  further  allusion  to 
HAMLET;  and  (b)  that  Greene,  in  respect  of  his  later 
"  Shake-scene  "  fling,  must  be  held  to  have  been  party 
to  the  description  of  Shakespeare  as  a  lawyer  by  trade. 
Now,  it  has  long  been  established  to  the  satisfaction,  I 
think,  of  absolutely  all  Shakespearean  scholars,  that 
Nashe's  allusion  is  to  Kyd,  whose  father  was  a  law  scrivener; 
and  who  was  in  all  probability  the  author  of  the  old 
HAMLET,  upon  which,  by  common  consent  (Campbell's 
included),  Shakespeare's  play  is  founded.  Lord  Camp 
bell's  preliminary  case  thus  goes  by  the  board  at  once  : 
the  testimony  of  "  two  contemporaries  ....  who  must 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS        39 

have  known  him  [Shakespeare]  well,"  with  which  he 
presents  Collier  at  the  outset,  is  a  myth  of  mistaken  in 
ference.  In  passing,  it  may  be  noted  that  he  is  equally 
astray  (p.  25)  in  taking  Spenser's  "  pleasant  Willy  "  to 
be  the  dramatist.  No  scholar,  at  least,  now  agrees  with 
him. 

The  adherents  of  the  lawyer  theory  should  further  note, 
what  Mr.  Greenwood  omits  to  mention,  that  Campbell 
"  entered  "  the  following  caveat  : 

In  THE  Two  GENTLEMEN  OF  VERONA,  TWELFTH  NIGHT, 
JULIUS  CAESAR,  CYMBELINE,  TIMON  OF  ATHENS,  THE  TEMPEST, 
KING  RICHARD  II,  KING  HENRY  V,  KING  HENRY  VI,  Part  I  ; 
KING  HENRY  VI,  Part  II ;  KING  RICHARD  III,  KING  HENRY 
VIII,  PERICLES  OF  TYRE,  and  TITUS  ANDRONICUS — fourteen  of 
the  thirty-seven  dramas  generally  attributed  to  Shakespeare, — 
I  find  nothing  that  fairly  bears  upon  this  controversy.  Of 
course  I  had  only  to  look  for  expressions  and  allusions  that 
must  be  supposed  to  come  from  one  who  has  been  a  professional 
lawyer.  Amidst  the  seducing  beauties  of  sentiment  and  language 
through  which  I  had  to  pick  my  way,  I  may  have  overlooked 
various  specimens  of  the  article  of  which  I  was  in  quest,  which 
would  have  been  accidentally  valuable,  although  intrinsically 
worthless. 

In  this  connection  it  should  be  noted  (a)  that  the  late 
Professor  Churton  Collins  found  a  long  series  of  "  un 
questionable  "  legal  allusions  in  TITUS  ANDRONICUS — 
where  it  can  hardly  have  been  "  seducing  beauties  of 
sentiment  "  that  prevented  Campbell  from  seeing  them ; 

(b)  that  Mr.  Greenwood  in  turn  finds  these  allusions  to 
be  "  very  ordinary  expressions,"  which  it  is  "  ridiculous  " 
to  ascribe  to  a  trained  lawyer,  though  they  are  just  such 
expressions  as  Campbell  cites  from  other  plays ;    and 

(c)  that  while  the  Lord  Chancellor  finds  only  one  passage 
"  with  the  juridical  mark  "  upon  it  in  MACBETH,  Mr. 
Castle,  K.C.,  goes  further,  and  denies  that  there  is  any 
sign  of  legal  knowledge  in  that  play  at  all.     Thus  in  both 
early  and  late  plays,  in  genuine  and  ungenuine  alike, 
the  experts  themselves  confess  to  lack  of  evidence  over 
nearly  forty  per  cent  of  the  area  involved. 


40  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Let  us  now  take  Lord  Campbell's  evidential  passages 
in  detail.  The  mere  presentment  will  probably  suffice 
to  dispose  of  them  for  most  readers,  so  utterly  void  are 
they  of  justification  for  the  thesis  built  upon  them. 
Comment  is  often  entirely  needless  ;  the  one  constant 
difficulty  is  to  believe  that  the  judge  is  serious. 

i.  In  THE  MERRY  WIVES  (ii,  2)  Ford  says  his  love  was 

Like  a  fair  house  built  upon  another  man's  ground  ;  so  that 
I  have  lost  my  edifice  by  mistaking  the  place  where  I  erected  it. 

Upon  which  Lord  Campbell  pronounces  that  "  this  shows 
in  Shakespeare  a  knowledge  of  the  law  of  real  property, 
not  generally  possessed."  It  might  suffice  to  answer  that 
such  knowledge  is  to-day  possessed  by  millions  of  laymen  : 
and  that  in  the  litigious  days  of  Elizabeth  it  must  have 
been  at  least  as  common.  But  let  the  lawyer  be  answered 
in  legal  form.  In  Dekker's  SHOEMAKER'S  HOLIDAY, 
published  in  1597,  Hodge  says  (v,  2)  :  "  The  law's  on  our 
side ;  he  that  sows  on  another  man's  ground  forfeits  his 
harvest."  Hodge  is  a  foreman  shoemaker.  Was  Dekker 
an  attorney's  clerk,  or  was  Hodge  talking  in  character 
and  saying  what  any  shoemaker  might  ?  Or  was  it  a 
lawyer  who  penned  in  Heywood's  ENGLISH  TRAVELLER 
(iv,  i)  the  lines  : 

Was  not  the  money 

Due  to  the  usurer,  took  upon  good  ground 
That  proved  well  built  upon  ?     We  are  no  fools 
That  knew  not  what  we  did ? 

Or  is  Chapman  to  be  credited  with  a  legal  training  because 
he  cites  the  legal  maxim,  Aedificium  cedit  solo  in  MAY 
DAY  (iii,  3)  ?  According  to  Mr.  Rushton,  this  l  is  the 
legal  maxim  underlying  the  words  of  Ford,  and  not  the 
formula,  Cujus  est  solum,  ejus  est  usque  ad  ccelum,2  cited 
by  Campbell. 

2.  In  Act  iv  of  the  same  play,  says  Campbell,  "  Shake 
speare's  head  was  so  full  of  the  recondite  terms  of  the  law 

1  More  strictly,  Aedificatum  solo  solo  cedit. 

2  Shakespeare's  Legal  Maxims,  1907,  pp.  24-25. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       41 

that  he  makes  a  lady  .  .  .  pour  them  out  in  a  confidential 
tete-ti-tete  conversation  with  another  lady.  ..."  The 
passages  thus  characterised  are  : 

May  we,  with  the  warrant  of  womanhood  and  the  witness  of 
a  good  conscience  pursue  him  ?  ...  If  the  devil  have  him 
not  in  fee  simple,  with  fine  and  recovery,  he  will  never,  &c. 

On  Lord  Campbell's  principles,  then,  what  inference 
shall  we  draw  from  this  piece  of  dialogue  between  wooer 
and  lady  in  one  of  Greene's  stories  ? — 

Yet  Madame  (quoth  he)  when  the  debt  is  confest  there  re- 
maineth  some  hope  of  recovery.  .  .  .  The  debt  being  due,  he 
shall  by  constraint  of  law  and  his  own  confession  (maugre  his 
face)  be  forced  to  make  restitution. 

Truth,  Garydonius  (quoth  she),  if  he  commence  his  action  in 
a  right  case,  and  the  plea  he  puts  in  prove  not  imperfect.     But  yet 
take  this  by  the  way,  it  is  hard  for  that  plaintiff  to  recover  his 
costs  where  the  defendant,  being  judge,  sets  down  the  sentence. 
The  Card  of  Fancy,  1587  :  Works,  ed.  Grosart,  iv,  108. 

The  "  debt  "  in  question  is  one  of  unrequited  love. 
Shall  we  then  pronounce  that  Greene  wrote  as  he  did 
because  "  his  head  was  full  of  the  recondite  terms  of  the 
law"? 

And  what,  again,  shall  we  say  of  the  passage  in  Dekker's 
HONEST  WHORE  (Pt.  I,  iv,  i)  in  which  Hippolito  points 
to  the  portrait  of  Infelice  as 

The  copy  of  that  obligation 

Where  my  soul's  bound  in  heavy  penalties  ; 

and  Bellafront  replies  : 

She's  dead,  you  told  me  :  she'll  let  fall  her  suit. 

Must  Dekker  too  be  a  lawyer  ?  The  reader  has  already 
begun,  perhaps,  to  realise  that  lawyership  is  out  of  the 
question.  Greene  was  no  lawyer.  He  wrote  legalisms 
as  he  wrote  Euphuism,  because  it  was  a  fashion  of  the 
time  ;  and  he  did  it,  as  we  shall  see  later,  to  a  far  greater 
extent,  in  the  way  of  elaboration,  than  Shakespeare  ever 
did.  Dekker  and  the  other  dramatists  in  general  did  the 
same  thing  as  Shakespeare. 


42  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Lord  Campbell  is  here  imputing  lawyership  on  the  score 
of  terms  far  less  technical  than  many  which  occur  in  a 
multitude  of  non-Shakespearean  plays  of  the  period. 
When  such  expressions  as  "warrant"  and  "witness" 
and  "  fee  simple  "  are  seriously  asserted  to  come  from  a 
head  "  full  of  recondite  terms,"  it  seems  necessary  to 
explain  that  "  warrant  "  was  long  before  Shakespeare's 
day  a  term  in  constant  non-legal  use  (as  in  the  colloquial 
phrase,  "I'll  warrant  you ")  ;  that  the  word  occurs 
many  hundreds  of  times,  alike  in  the  literal  and  in  the 
metaphorical  sense,  in  non-Shakespearean  plays  ;  and 
that  "  witness  "  was  in  the  same  case,  being  habitually 
used  in  theological  speech  and  in  the  common  phrase 
"  God  is  my  witness,"  to  say  nothing  of  plays.  If  the 
use  of  such  terms  is  proof  of  legal  knowledge  on  the  play 
wright's  part,  then  such  knowledge  is  clearly  possessed 
by  Webster,  who  in  APPIUS  AND  VIRGINIA  has  : 

Show'd  him  his  hand  a  witness  'gainst  himself,     (iii,  i .) 

By  what  command  ? 
By  warrant  of  these  men.     (ib.} 

By  warrant  of  our  favour,     (iii,  2.) 

Clown.  .  .  .  Though  she  have  borrow'd  no  money,  yet  she 
is  enter'd  into  bonds  ;  and  though  you  may  think  her  a  woman 
not  sufficient,  yet  'tis  very  like  her  bond  will  be  taken. 

First  Servant.  .  .  .     What  witness  have  they  ? 

Clown.  Witness  these  fountains.  .  .  .  The  Lord  Appius  hath 
committed  her  to  ward.  His  warrant  is  out  for  her.  (iv,  i.) 

Here's  witness,  most  sufficient  witness,     (iv,  2.) 

So  we  must  infer  a  legal  training  on  the  playwright's 
part  when,  in  Dekker's  SHOEMAKER'S  HOLIDAY  (iv,  4), 
Rose  says  to  her  lover  : 

Rose  is  thine  own.     To  witness  I  speak  truth, 
Where  thou  appoint 'st  the  place  I'll  meet  with  thee  ; 

as  also  when  her  father  uses  the  same  phrase  in  the  next 
scene  ;  again  in  Heywood's  WOMAN  KILLED  WITH  KIND 
NESS  (iv,  3)  when  Mistress  Frankford  says  to  her  lover, 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       43 

"  You  plead  custom  "  ;  again  in  THE  WITCH  OF  EDMON 
TON  (by  Dekker,  Rowley,  and  Ford)  when  Winnifred  (i,  2) 
speaks  of  her  lover's  promise 

That  never  any  change  of  love  should  cancel 
The  bonds  in  which  we  are  to  either  bound 
Of  lasting  truth  ; 

and  yet  again  when  Massinger,  in  THE  FATAL  DOWRY, 
makes  Beaumelle  (iii,  i)  speak  of  "  sufficient  warrant  " 
in  love-making,  and  Romont  (ib.)  deliver  the  line  "  Will 
warrant  and  give  privilege  to  his  counsels  "  ;  to  say 
nothing  of  a  judge's  "  You  had  not  warrant  for  it  "  (v, 
end).  In  the  same  play,  as  it  happens,  Romont  says 
"  Bear  witness  "  (iii,  near  end)  ;  Beaumelle  says  "  To 
witness  my  repentance  "  (iv,  3)  ;  and  Charalois,  "  I  ask 
him  for  a  witness  ' '  (iv,  2) .  All  three  are  non-legal  cha 
racters,  one  a  woman.  Again  in  A  NEW  WAY  TO  PAY 
OLD  DEBTS  (iv,  2)  we  have  Margaret's  lines  : 

My  vows,  in  that  high  office  register'd, 
Are  faithful  witnesses. 

So,  on  Lord  Campbell's  principle,  Massinger  must  have 
been  giving  reckless  rein  to  his  legal  knowledge. 

Ben  Jonson  is  similarly  certificated,   for  in   EVERY 
MAN  IN  His  HUMOUR  (i,  i)  we  have  : 

You  are  his  elder  brother,  and  that  title 
Both  gives  and  warrants  your  authority. 

And  though  Justice  Clement  there  talks  of  warrants  by 
professional  right,  the  lay  folk  in  the  play  say  "  I  warrant 
you  ' '  without  scruple  ;  while  Bobadill  pleads  that  he  had 
a  "  warrant  of  the  peace  served  "  on  him  ;  and  Matthew 
intimates  that  "  we  determine  to  make  our  amends  by 
law,"  and  asks  "  the  favour  to  procure  a  warrant." 
"Warrants,"  in  fact,  swarm  through  the  play.  Which 
clearly  proves  that  Jonson  must  have  been  an  attorney's 
clerk  !  And  between  "  warrant  "  and  "  witness  "  every 
other  Elizabethan  dramatist  would  be  in  the  same  list. 
As  to  the  "  fee  simple  "  passage,  we  have  first  to  put 


44  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

the  queries  :  (i)  Was  Shakespeare,  or  was  he  not,  aiming 
at  a  realistic  effect  in  the  play  before  us  ?  (2)  Is  it  not 
one  of  the  most  realistic  of  all  he  has  written  ?  (3)  Would 
he  then  be  likely  to  put  in  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  "  merry 
wives  "  language  which  to  his  audience  would  seem  utterly 
out  of  character,  and  fit  only  for  an  attorney  ?  To  answer 
in  the  affirmative  is  at  once  to  accuse  the  playwright  of 
utterly  bad  art,  and  to  ignore  the  testimony  of  the  great 
mass  of  Elizabethan  literature,  summed  up  in  Mr.  Hubert 
Hall's  generalization  that  "  every  man  in  these  days  was 
up  to  a  certain  point  his  own  lawyer ;  that  is,  he  was 
well  versed  in  all  the  technical  forms  and  procedure."  1 
But  let  us  waive  authority,  here  as  elsewhere,  and  note 
decisive  data.  Out  of  a  score  of  parallels  to  such  phrases 
as  "fee  simple"  and  "fine  and  recovery"  in  other 
dramatists  and  writers,  it  may  here  suffice  to  note  (i)  in 
Lilly's  MOTHER  BOMBIE  (i,  2)  : 

A  good  evidence  to  prove  the  fee  simple  of  your  daughter's 
folly  ; 

(2)  in  the  old  dialogue  or  quasi-interlude,  Roye's  REDE 
ME  AND  BE  NOT  WROTHE  (1528),  one  speaker's  description 
of  the  friars  as 

Fre  coppy  holders  of  hell 
And  fe  fermers  of  purgatory, 

Whittingham's  rep.  p.  72  ; 

and  (3)  Thomas  Nashe's  second  prefatory  epistle  to  his 
STRANGE  NEWS  OF  THE  INTERCEPTING  CERTAIN  LETTERS 
(1592),  where  Gabriel  Harvey  is  told  that  he  is  "  here 
indited  for  an  encroacher  upon  the  fee  simple  of  the 
Latin."  Are  we  to  pronounce  all  three  writers  lawyers  ? 

3.  In  MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE  (i,  2)  when  Mrs.  Overdone 
laments  that  places  such  as  hers  are  to  be  put  down, 
Pompey  says  :  "  Fear  not  you,  good  counsellors  lack  no 
clients."  2  Whereupon  Lord  Chancellor  Campbell  writes  : 

1  Society  in  the\Elizabethan  Age,   by  Hubert  Hall,  of    H.M. 
Public  Record  Office,  2nd  ed.  1887,  p.  141. 

2  It  may  be  worth  noting  that  the  word  "  client  "  occurs  only 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       45 

"  This  comparison  is  not  very  flattering  to  the  bar,  but 
it  seems  to  show  a  familiarity  with  both  the  professions 
alluded  to."  Upon  these  principles,  what  would  his 
lordship  not  have  made  of  the  remark  of  Justiniano  in 
WESTWARD  Ho  (ii,  i)  :  "  Like  country  attorneys,  we 
are  to  shuffle  up  many  matters  in  a  forenoon  ' '  ?  Dekker 
and  Webster,  surely,  must  have  been  country  attorneys  ! 
And  what  depths  of  legal  experience  must  he  not  have 
divined  behind  the  suggestion  of  Webster  and  Rowley, 
in  A  CURE  FOR  A  CUCKOLD  (iv,  3),  that  "  long  vacations 
may  make  lawyers  hungry " !  Or  behind  Jonson's 
lines  : 

Or  if  thou  hadst  rather  to  the  Strand  down  to  fall, 
'Gainst  the  lawyers  dabbled  from  Westminster  hall, 
And  mark  how  they  cling  with  their  clients  together, 
Like  ivy  to  oak,  so  velvet  to  leather. 

The  Devil  is  an  Ass,  i,  i. 
Or  in  Dekker 's  passage  about 

the  shaving  of  poor  clients,  especially  by  the  attorneys'  clerks 
of  your  courts,  and  that's  done  by  writing  their  bills  of  costs 
upon  cheverel. 

Seven  Deadly  Sins  of  London,  ed.  Arber,  c.  6,  p.  40. 

Or  in  the  page  on  lawyers  in  Stubbes'  ANATOMIE  OF 
ABUSES.1  But  we  waste  illustration  over  a  contention 
which  belongs  to  the  plane  of  farce. 

The  only  other  items  offered  from  MEASURE  FOR 
MEASURE  are  (i)  Elbow's  clownism,  "  I'll  have  mine 
action  of  battery  on  thee  "  (ii,  i) ;  (2)  the  ironical  reply 
of  Escalus  suggesting  an  action  for  slander  for  a  box  on 
'the  ear  ;  and  (3)  Escalus'  phrases  :  "  my  brother  Angelo," 
"my  brother,"  "my  brother  justice"  (iii,  2).  This; 
says  the  Lord  Chancellor,  "  is  so  like  the  manner  in  which 
one  English  judge  designates  and  talks  of  another  that 
it  countenances  the  supposition  that  Shakespeare  may 
often,  as  an  attorney's  clerk,  have  been  in  the  presence 

thrice  in  all  Shakespeare's  plays,  an  odd  fact  if  he  were  so  obsessed 
by  lawyer-reminiscences  as  the  legalists  allege. 
'  *  Collier's  Rep.  p.  116. 


46  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

of  English  judges  "—as  ten  thousand  laymen  had  been. 
After  this,  there  is  an  air  of  great  self-restraint  about  the 
suggestion  that  there  is  a  "  tinge  "  of  legal  terminology 
in  Isabella's  speech  to  Angelo  on  the  theme  that 
All  the  souls  that  were,  were  forfeit  once. 

4.  "  Fine  and  recovery  "  occurs  again  in  the  COMEDY 
OF  ERRORS  (ii,  2)  ;    and  this  time  we  are  told  that  the 
puns  extracted  from  the  terms  "  show  the  author  to  be 
very  familiar  with  some  of  the  most  abstruse  proceedings 
in  English  jurisprudence."     The  same  deep  knowledge 
is  doubtless  to  be  credited  to  Nashe,  who  writes  of  "  suing 
the  least  action  of  recovery  "  and  "  a  writ  of  Ejectione 
firma."  *    And  as  "  fine  and  recovery  "  is  not  ostensibly 
a  more  abstruse  conception  than  "  livery  and  seisin," 
which  is  mentioned  by  both  Jonson  and  Webster,  we  are 
once  more  led  to  extend  to  them  the  diploma  of  attorney- 
ship  so  liberally  bestowed  on  Shakespeare.     "  Fine,"  as 
it  happens,  is  a  common  figure  in  the  drama  of  Shake 
speare's  day.     Bellafront  in  Dekker's    HONEST  WHORE 

(Part  II,  iv,  i)  speaks  of 

an  easy  fine, 
For  which,  me  thought,  I  leased  away  my  soul. 

From  Mall,  in  Porter's  Two  ANGRY  WOMEN  OF  ABINGTON 
(iii,  2),  we  have  : 

Francis,  my  love's  lease  I  do  let  to  thee 

Date  of  my  life  and  time  :  what  say'st  thou  to  me  ? 

The  ent'ring,  fine,  or  income  thou  must  pay. 

There  is  nothing  more  technical  in  the  COMEDY  OF  ERRORS. 

5.  In  the  last-named  play  (iv,  2)  we  have  the  line  : 
One  that  before  the  judgment  carries  poor  souls  to  hell, 

and  the  phrase,  "  'rested  on  the  case,"  upon  which  the 
Lord  Chancellor  declares  that  "  there  we  have  a  most 
circumstantial  and  graphic  account  of  an  English  arrest 
on  mesne  process  "  ("  before  the  judgment  ")  "in  an 
action  on  the  case."  It  seems  necessary  to  explain  that 
1  The  Praise  of  the  Red  Herring,  Works,  iii,  157. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       47 

Dromio's  "  before  the  judgment  "  has  reference  to  the 
theological  "  last  day  "  ;  and  to  suggest  that  the  whole 
effect  of  the  latter  part  of  the  passage  quoted  turns  upon 
the  naturalness  of  a  serving-man's  fumbling  with  two 
legal  tags,  as  serving-men  and  others  constantly  do 
throughout  the  bulk  of  Elizabethan  drama.  What  would 
Lord  Campbell  have  made,  once  more,  of  Mistress  Honey 
suckle's  speech  in  WESTWARD  Ho  (ii,  i)  : 

You  have  few  citizens  speak  well  of  their  wives  behind  their 
backs  ;  but  to  their  faces  they'll  cog  worse  and  be  more  suppliant 
than  clients  that  sue  in  forma  paper. 

Dyce,  who  could  not  have  dreamt  of  what  a  Lord  Chief 
Justice  could  attain  to  by  the  light  of  a  comprehensive 
ignorance  of  Elizabethan  drama  outside  Shakespeare, 
has  upon  this  the  note  :  "  Our  early  dramatists  have  a 
pleasure  in  making  their  characters  miscall  terms  of  law," 
citing  a  similar  instance  from  Rowley's  WHEN  You  SEE 
ME  You  KNOW  ME.  Perhaps  we  may  leave  the  point 
at  that. 

6.  Rosalind's  gibe  in  As  You  LIKE  IT  (i,  2)  :  "  Be  it 
known  unto  all  men  by  these  presents,"  is  cited  for  the 
purpose  of  suggesting  that  it  was  "  introduced  in  order 
to  show  contempt  for  Nashe's  criticism. ' '  To  this  theorem 
is  devoted  a  page  of  space.  If  we  reply  that  Nashe's 
criticism,  as  aforesaid,  applies  to  Kyd,  Lord  Campbell's 
successors  will  probably  rejoin  that  on  that  view  the 
phrase  under  notice  must  be  held  to  stand  for  the  drama 
tist's  tendency  to  talk  law  under  any  circumstances.  It 
may  therefore  be  worth  while  to  ask  whether  the  same 
theory  is  required  to  explain  the  passage  in  CYNTHIA'S 
REVELS  in  which  Jonson  makes  Amorphus  read  the 
"  bill  "  beginning,  "  Be  it  known  to  all  that  profess  court 
ship,  by  these  presents  "  :  and  again,  whether  it  is  further 
required  to  explain  the  citation  of 

Sciant  praesentes  et  futuri 
Witeth  and  Witnesseth 
That  wonieth  upon  this  erthe, 


48  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

in  THE  VISION  OF  PIERS  PLOWMAN  (ed.  Wright,  1030-32)  ; 
or  the  phrase  Noverint  universi  in  Chapman's  MAY-DAY 
(ii,  i)  ? 

7.  It  is  considerately  admitted  that  the  words  "  testa 
ment  "  and  "  bankrupt,"  in  Jaques'  speech  (ii,  i), 
"  might  be  used  by  any  man  of  observation  "  ;  but  it 
is  claimed  that  in  Act  iii,  i,  "  a  deep  technical  knowledge 
of  law  is  displayed."  The  sole  proof  is  the  single  phrase  : 

Make  an  extent *  upon  his  house  and  lands. 

To  this  demonstration  is  added  the  assurance  that  in 
HENRY  VIII  (III,  ii,  340)  "  we  have  an  equally  accurate 
statement  of  the  omnivorous  nature  of  a  writ  of  Pr&mu- 
nire."  As  usual,  there  is  nothing  in  the  matter  special  to 
Shakespeare,  who,  as  it  happens,  uses  the  word  Prcemu- 
nire  only  once  in  all  his  plays.  "  Extent  "  occurs  in  the 
pre-Shakespearean  play  SELIMUS,  ascribed  to  Greene 
(Sc.  i,  1.  21) : 

Though  on  all  the  world  we  make  extent ; 
and  in  Greene's  tract  THE  DEFENCE  OF  CONEY-CATCHING  : 

They  have  you  in  suit,  and  I  doubt  not  will  ere  long  have  some 
extent  against  your  lands.* 

Greene,  as  we  shall  see,  has  many  legal  phrases  not  found 
in  Shakespeare,  and  though  no  lawyer,  uses  them  in  a 
more  lawyerlike  fashion. 

The  meaning  of  a  Pramunire,  again,  was  presumably 
quite  well  known  to  Philip  Stubbes,  who  in  his  ANATOMIE 
OF  ABUSES  warns  all  men  that  he  who  supports  stage- 
plays  "must  needs  incur  the  damage  of  premunire  "  ;8 
as  it  was  to  Foxe  the  martyrologist,4  and  to  Thomas 
Nashe,  who  in  PIERCE  PENNILESSE'S  SUPPLICATION  TO 

1  This  word  occurs  in  Titus  Andronicus,  where  Lord  Campbell 
had  not  noticed  it. 

?  Greene's  Works,  ed.  Grosart,  xi,  56. 

'  i.e.  of  damnation.  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  1583  Collier's  Rep. 
p.  140. 

*  Acts  and  Monuments,  Cattley's  ed.  1841,  i,  25. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       49 

THE  DIVELL  1  suggests  to  that  potentate  that  he  might 
"  make  extent  upon  the  souls  of  a  number  of  uncharitable 
cormorants"  who  have  "  incurred  the  danger  of  a 
Pramunire  with  meddling  with  matters  that  properly 
concern  your  own  person."  Again,  in  CHRIST'S  TEARES 
OVER  JERUSALEM  2  there  is  the  phrase,  "  O  pride,  of  all 
heaven-relapsing  praemunires  the  most  fearful";  and 
yet  again  in  THE  UNFORTUNATE  TRAVELLER  : 

lamenting  my  Jewish  Praemunire  that  body  and  goods  I 
should  light  into  the  hands  of  such  a  cursed  generation.8 

In  the  same  tale  we  again  have  "  to  extend  upon," 
meaning  "  to  make  extent  upon  "  ;  and  in  Massinger's 
plays  the  phrase  occurs  repeatedly  : 

There  lives  a  foolish  creature 

Called  an  under-sheriff,  who,  being  well  paid,  will  serve 
An  extent  on  lords  or  lowns'  lands. 

The  City  Madam,  v,  2. 

When 

This  manor  is  extended  to  my  use  : 
You'll  speak  in  a  humbler  key. 
A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts,     v,  near  middle. 

The  meaning  of  "  extent  "  and  the  nature  of  a  writ  of 
Praemunire  were  in  fact  matters  of  common  knowledge 
in  Elizabethan  days,  and  had  been  so  long  before  her 
reign.  In  the  BEGGAR'S  PETITION  AGAINST  POPERY, 
presented  to  Henry  VIII  in  1538,  it  is  remarked  that 
"  Had  not  Richard  Hunne  commenced  an  action  of 
j>rcemunire  against  a  priest,  he  had  yet  been  alive,  and 
noheretick  at  all,  but  an  honest  man."  4  The  procedure 
of  "  extent  "  was  at  least  equally  familiar,  and  both 
terms  were  certainly  understood  by  the  writers  who  so 
often  allude  to  them.  If  Lord  Campbell  had  found  in 
Shakespeare  the  lines  : 

If  I  were  a  justice,  besides  the  trouble, 
I  might,  or  out  of  wilfulness  or  error, 

1  Nashe's  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  i,  165. 

2  Ed.  cited,  ii,  80.  8  Ed.  cited,  ii,  305. 
*  Rep,  in  Harl.  Misc.  ed.  1808,  i,  222,  also  p.  224. 

D 


50  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Run  myself  finely  into  a  praemunire, 
And  so  become  a  prey  to  the  informer — 

spoken  by  Sir  Giles  Overreach  in  Massinger's  A  NEW  WAY 
TO  PAY  OLD  DEBTS  (ii,  i),  or  the  phrase  "  That's  a  shrewd 
premunire,"  in  the  same  playwright's  THE  OLD  LAW 
(v,  near  end)  ;  or  Jonson's  lines 

Lest  what  I  have  done  to  them,  and  against  law, 
Be  a  praemunire, 

(The  Staple  of  News,  v,  2,  end); 

he  would  not  have  hesitated  to  pronounce  that  they 
showed  a  practical  knowledge  of  the  operation  of  the  kind 
of  writ  in  question.  Yet  no  biographer  has  ever  hinted 
that  either  Massinger  or  Jonson  was  a  lawyer. 

8.  The  phrase  of  Rosalind  in  As  You  LIKE  IT  (in,  2) 
about  lawyers  "sleeping  between  term  and  term"  is 
formally  produced  as  showing  that  Shakespeare  "  was 
well  acquainted  with  lawyers  themselves  and  the  vicissitudes 
of  their  lives  "  !     With  what  zest,  then,  would  his  lordship 
have  cited,  if  he  could,   the  saying  of  Sanitonella  in 
Webster's  THE  DEVIL'S  LAW  CASE,  that  "  no  proctor 
in  the  term-time  be  tolerated  to  go  to  the  tavern  above 
six  times  i'  the  forenoon  ! ' '    Must  not  Webster  have  been 
a  lawyer  ? 

9.  Concerning  Rosalind's  jest  in  As  You  LIKE  IT  (iv,  i), 
"  die  by  attorney,"  we  learn  that  Shakespeare  gives  us 
the  true  legal  meaning    of    the   word    '  attorney,'  viz. 
representative  or  deputy."     It  will  perhaps  be  equally 
edifying  to  mention  that  Ben  Jonson  exhibits  the  same 
recondite  learning  in  THE  ALCHEMIST  (ii,  i)  : 

Face.  You'll  meet  the  captain's  worship  ? 
Surly.  Sir,  I  will — But  by  attorney ; 

and  again  in  CYNTHIA'S  REVELS  (v,  3,  Palinode),  in  the 
phrase  "  making  love  by  attorney."  And  Webster  and 
Dekker,  once  more,  jointly  lay  themselves  open  to  sus 
picion  of  deep  legal  knowledge  when  they  make  Mistress 
Tenterhook  say  in  WESTWARD  Ho  (iii,  i)  : 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS        51 

When  they  owe  money  in  the  city  once,  they  deal  with  iheiv 
lawyers  by  attorney,  follow  the  court,  though  the  court  do  them 
not  the  grace  to  allow  them  their  diet. 

10.  Finally,    it  is  explained  that  Shakespeare  again 
evinces  Ms  love  for  legal  phraseology  and  imagery  "  by 
making  Rosalind  say,  '  Well,  Time  is  the  old  Justice  that 
examines  all  such  offenders,  and  let  Time  try. ' '      By  the 
same  test,  it  must  have  been  a  writer  steeped  in  legal 
experience  who  made  Hammon  in  THE  SHOEMAKER'S 
HOLIDAY  (iv,  i)  woo  Jane  with  the  demand  : 

Say  judge,  what  is  they  sentence,  life  or  death  ? 
Mercy  or  cruelty  lies  in  thy  breath. 

So  that  Dekker  must  have  been  a  lawyer,  unless,  indeed, 
he  has  unconsciously  revealed  his  avocation  in  the  phrase; 
"  that  lean  tawny-faced  tobacconist  Death,  that  turns 
all  into  smoke  "  (OLD  FORTUNATUS  ?  i,  i).  If  he  were 
not  a  tobacconist,  he  must  needs  have  been  a  lawyer, 
since  he  makes  the  Duke  in  THE  HONEST  WHORE  (Part  I, 
i,  i)  tell  Hippolito  : 

For  why,  Death's  hand  hath  sued  a  strict  divorce 
'Twixt  her  and  thee. 

Apparently  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  would  see  a  passion 
for  legal  phraseology  in  a  modern  allusion  to  "  the  bar 
of  public  opinion,"  to  say  nothing  of  the  saw,  "  Time 
tries  all,"  or  "  Time  and  truth  try  all,"  as  Porter  has  it 
in  THE  Two  ANGRY  WOMEN  OF  ABINGTON  (iv,  3).  In 
point  of  fact  the  learned  judge  sees  legal  preoccupation  in 

11.  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA,  (iv,  5)  : 

That  old  common  arbitrator,  Time. 

By  parity  of  reasoning,  Nashe  was  a  lawyer,  inasmuch  as 
he  wrote  "  Let  Antiquity  be  Arbiter  "  ; 1  and  again : 
"  Judge  the  world,  judge  the  highest  courts  of  appeal 
from  the  miscarried  world's  judgment,  Oxford  and  Cam 
bridge,  wherein  I  have  trespassed  .  .  .  "  ; 2  and  yet  again 

1  Anatomic  of  Absurdity  :  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  i,  16. 

2  Four  Letters  Confuted,  vol.  cited,  p.  302. 


52  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

when  he  tells  his  antagonist,  "  All  is  ink  cast  away  :  :  you 
recover  no  costs  and  no  charges."  By  the  same  reason 
ing,  too,  it  was  a  lawyer  who  described  the  sun  as  "  in 
different  arbiter  between  the  night  and  the  day  "  in  the 
first  sentence  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  ARCADIA  ;  and  another 
who  spoke  of  "  Nature's  Sergeant  (that  is  Order)  "  in 
the  FAERIE  QUEENE  (B.  VII,  c.  vii,  4).  And  what  shall 
we  say  of  the  Reverend  Philip  Stubbes,  who  writes  of 
"  the  high  justice-of-the-peace,  Christ  Jesus  "  P1 

12.  Dealing  with  Dogberry  and  Verges  in  MUCH  ADO 
ABOUT  NOTHING,  the  Lord  Chancellor  concludes  that 
"  the  dramatist  seems  himself  to  have  been  well  ac 
quainted  with  the  terms  and  distinctions  of  our  criminal 
code,  or  he  could  not  have  rendered  the  blunders  of  the 
parish  officers  so  absurd  and  laughable  " — absurd  and 
laughable,  that  is,  to  an  audience  who  in  the  terms  of  the 
argument  could  not  appreciate  the  absurdity,  being  them 
selves  devoid  of  the  alleged  "  profound  legal  knowledge  " 
of  the  dramatist.    Thus  can  a  judge  reason.     His  further 
remark  that  in  the  line 

Keep  your  fellows'  counsel  and  your  own, 

"  Dogberry  uses  the  very  words  of  the  oath  administered 
by  the  Judge's  marshal  to  the  grand  jury  at  the  present 
day,"  needs  no  comment.  Does  it  require  a  lay  mind 
to  realise  that  the  words  must  then  have  been  known  to 
myriads  of  laymen  ? 

13.  On  the  speech  of  Don  Adriano  in  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S 
LOST  (i   i)  beginning  "  Then  for  the  place  where,"  and 
ending  "  a  man  of  good  repute,  carriage,  bearing  and 
estimation,"  we  have  this  pronouncement :   "  The  gifted 
Shakespeare  might  perhaps  have  been  capable,  by  intui 
tion,  (!)  of  thus  imitating  the  conveyancer's  jargon  ;  but 
no  ordinary  man  could  have  hit  it  off  so  exactly,  without 
having  engrossed  in  an  attorney's  office." 

When  therefore  Puntarvole  in  Ben  Jonson's  EVERY 
i  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  1583,  Collier's  Rep.  p.  171. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       53 

MAN  OUT  OF  HIS  HUMOUR  (iv.  4)  begs  the  notary  to  draw 
the  indentures,  and  gives  directions,  we  know  what  to 
think.  There  are  scores  of  lines  such  as  these  : 

That,  after  the  receipt  of  his  money,  he  shall  neither  in  his 
own  person  nor  any  other,  either  by  direct  or  indirect  means, 
as  magic,  witchcraft,  or  other  exotic  arts,  attempt,  practise  or 
complot  anything  to  the  prejudice  of  me,  my  dog  or  my  cat  ; 
neither  shall  I  use  the  help  of  any  such  sorceries  or  enchantments, 
as  unctions  to  make  our  skins  impenetrable,  or  travel  invisible 
by  virtue  of  a  powder,  or  a  ring,  or  to  hang  any  three-forked 
chains  about  my  dog's  neck,  secretly  conveyed  into  his  collar  ; 
but  that  all  be  performed  sincerely,  without  fraud  or  imposture. 

Clearly,  Ben  must  have  "  engrossed  in  an  attorney's 
office,"  unless,  indeed,  Bacon  wrote  Ben's  plays  as  well 
as  Shakespeare's,  as  not  a  few  Baconians  aver. 

14.  This,  be  it  observed,  is  the  sole  example  cited 
from  that  which  passes  for  Shakespeare's  earliest  comedy, 
in  which,  if  ever,  the  proclivity  of  the  "  attorney's  clerk  " 
to  legal  phraseology  on  his  own  account  should  have 
asserted  itself.  And  from  a  comedy  which  is  perhaps  as 
early,  and  in  any  case  is  among  the  three  or  four  earliest, 
Lord  Campbell  is  again  able  to  cite  only  one  instance  of 
legal  phraseology  : 

According  to  our  law 
Immediately  provided  in  that  case. 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  i,  i. 

On  this  Steevens  had  long  ago  observed,  citing  the 
attorney-clerk's  tradition,  that  "  the  line  before  us  has 
an  undoubted  smack  of  legal  commonplace.  Poetry 
disclaims  it."  That  is  to  say,  the  young  poet  was  so 
much  of  an  attorney's  clerk  as  to  obtrude  his  office 
reminiscences  where  poetry  would  have  been  more 
appropriate.  As  it  happens,  the  whole  speech  of  Egeus 
in  which  the  line  occurs  is  prosaic ;  and  once  more  the 
question  arises  whether  the  dramatist  is  or  is  not  making 
one  of  his  characters  speak  out  of  character.  Lord 
Campbell,  never  asking  the  question,  naively  confesses  that 
"  the  prosaic  formula  runs  :  '  In  such  case  made  and 


54  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

provided/  "    Then  the  attorney's  clerk  is  not  true  to  his 
office  reminiscences.     But  his  lordship  explains  that  the 
precise  formula  "  would  not  have  stood  in  the  verse  " — as 
if  Shakespeare  could  not  have  made  one  line  end  with 
"  in  such  case  "  and  the  next  begin, "  Made  and  provided  "  ! 
And  Mr.  Grant  White,  carried  away  by  Lord  Campbell's 
simple  prosodical  argument,  writes  of  Egeus'  speech  that 
"  He  pleads  the  statute ;  and  the  words  run  off  his  tongue 
in  heroic  verse  as  if  he  were  reading  them  from  a  paper."  *• 
The  process  of  self-confusion  has  here  become  curiously 
interesting.    Lord  Campbell  admits  the  legal  phrase  to 
be  laxly  used,  but  pleads  the  trammels  of  the  verse  : 
Mr.  White  argues  that  the  words  run  "  in  heroic  verse, 
as  if  he  were  reading  them  from  a  paper" — when  the 
whole  speech  of  Egeus  is  in  the  same  sort  of  verse,  and 
any  line  might  equally  be  said  to  run  as  if  read  from  a 
paper.     The  simple  fact  is  that  the  dramatist  has  put 
in  the  mouth  of  a  lay  citizen  one  of  those  more  or  less 
loosely  used  legal  tags  which  are  to  be  found  in  almost 
every  play  of  the  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  era.     In  an 
argument  which  undertakes  to  prove  "  profound  legal 
knowledge,"  this  rag  of  evidence  is  thus  manipulated 
with  a  solemnity  that  transcends  burlesque.     If  Shake 
speare's  legal  knowledge  is  to  be  thus  proved,   what 
diploma  can  be  refused  to  the  authors  of  such  lines  as 
these  : 

How  !  strike  a  justice  of  peace  !  'tis  petty  treason 
Edwardi  quinto  :  but  that  you  are  my  friend, 
I  would  commit  you  without  bail  or  mainprize. 

Massinger,  A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts,  iii,  2. 
Nor  bond,  nor  bill,  nor  bare  acknowledgment. 

Id.  v,  i. 

We  may  put  off  a  commission  :  you  shall  find  it 
Henrici  decimo  quarto.  Id  A,  3. 

Well,  if  you'll  save  me  harmless,  and  put  me  under  covert  barn 
(  =-  baron),  I  am  content  to  please  you. 

Dekker,  The  Honest  Whore,  Part  I,  iii,  2. 
1  Memoir  of  Shakespeare  in  1865  ed.  of  Works,  i,  p.  xlvi. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       55 

Citizens'  sons  and  heirs  are  free  of  the  house  by  their  father's  copy. 

Dekker,  The  Honest  Whore,  v,  2. 

Return  your  habeas  corpus  :  here's  a  certiorari  for  your  precedendo, 

Peele,  Edward  I,  ed.  Dyce,  p.  382 

They'll  make  a  solemn  deed  of  gift  of  themselves,  you  shall  see. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  i,  i. 

15.  In  THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  (i.  3  ;  ii.  8),  we  are 
assured,  "  Antonio's  bond  to  Shylock  is  prepared  and 
talked  about  according  to  all  the  forms  observed  in  an 
English  attorney's  office.  The  distinction  between  a 
'  single  bill '  and  a  '  bond  with  a  condition '  is  clearly 
referred  to ;  and  punctual  payment  is  expressed  in  the 
technical  phrase,  '  Let  good  Antonio  keep  his  day.' '  By 
which  token  Dekker  and  Webster  were  probably  attorneys' 
clerks,  because  they  make  Monopoly  in  WESTWARD  Ho 
(i.  2),  when  told  that  he  has  forfeited  his  bond,  reply 
"  I'll  pay  him  fore's  day  "  ;  and  again,  in  Dekker's 
THE  Honest  WHORE  (i.  2)  Fustigo  protests  :  "  By  this 
hand,  I'll  discharge  at  my  day." 

Heywood's  legal  experience  must  be  even  greater, 
for  he  is  thus  technical  at  least  four  times — thrice  in  one 
play: 

Like  debtors,  such  as  would  not  break  their  day. 

The  English  Traveller,  iii,  i. 
Broke  our  day.  Ib.  iii,  2. 

Break  his  day.  Ib. 

I'll  hold  my  day. 

A  Woman  Killed  with  Kindness,  i,  i . 

Yet  again,  Dekker  in  his  tract  THE  SEVEN  DEADLY 
SINS  OF  LONDON  (1606),  says  of  his  first  type-character, 
"the  politic  bankrupt,"  that  "he  will  be  sure  to  keep 
his  days  of  payment  more  truly  than  lawyers  keep  their 
terms  "  ;  and  Jonson  in  THE  ALCHEMIST  (iii,  2)  has  : 
"  take  the  start  of  bonds  broke  but  one  day."  And,  yet 
again,  Nashe  in  PIERCE  PENILESSE  says  of  Gabriel  Harvey's 
astrological  brother  that  "  his  astronomy  broke  his  day 
with  his  creditors."  (Works,  i,  196-97.) 


56  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Sooth  to  say,  the  phrase  had  been  current  among  the 
laity  in  the  time  of  Langland,  who  (PIERS  PLOWMAN, 
2961  sq.)  makes  Coveteise  tell  how  he  seized  the  manor 
of  a  borrower  "if  he  his  day  breke."  And  it  would 
seem  to  have  been  no  less  familiar  in  the  time  of  Caxton, 
since  in  the  MORTE  DARTHUR  we  read  "  How  that  Sir 
Palomides  kept  his  day  for  to  have  foughten  "  (Title  of 
c.  88  of  B.  x).  These  trade  secrets  will  out,  somehow  ! 
Sir  John  Fortescue  avows,  about  1475,  that  the  King's 
creditors  "  defame  his  highness  off  mysgovernance,  and 
defaute  of  kepynge  of  days  "  (GOVERNANCE  OF  ENGLAND, 
ch.  v).  Even  the  preachers  knew  about  it.  Roger 
Hutchinson  in  a  sermon  (c.  1550)  mentions  that  "  the 
defendant's  office  is,  when  he  is  summoned  or  cited,  to 
appear  at  his  day  "  (Second  Sermon  OF  OPPRESSION,  &c.; 
Parker  Soc.  ed.  of  Works,  p.  332). 

In  THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  however,  "  it  appears 
further,"  by  iii,  2,  "  that  Antonio  has  been  arrested  on 
mesne  process."  The  action  for  a  pound  of  flesh,  then,  is 
dramatised  by  an  English  attorney's  clerk  (if  not  by 
Bacon)  in  the  light  of  his  professional  knowledge  ;  and 
we  are  further  told  :  "  Antonio  is  made  to  confess  that 
Shylock  is  entitled  to  the  pound  of  flesh  according  to  the 
plain  meaning  of  the  bond  and  condition,  and  the  rigid 
strictness  of  the  common  law  of  England  : 

Salarino.  I  am  sure  the  Duke 
Will  never  grant  this  forfeiture  to  hold. 

Antonio.  The  Duke  cannot  deny  the  course  of  law. 

"All  this  has  a  strong  odour  of  Westminster  Hall." 
Since  the  Duke,  as  represented  by  Portia,  after  putting 
other  "  English  "  arguments  does  disallow  the  forfeiture 
as  a  criminal  device,  two  contradictory  views  are  thus 
alike  homologated  by  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  as  "  strict 
English  law."  And  it  would  appear  to  follow  that  the 
Italian  novelists  from  whom  the  tale  is  derived  had  the 
same  "profound  legal  training"  as  shines  forth  in  the 
drama. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       57 

The  trial,  further,  is  "  duly  conducted  according  to 
the  strict  forms  of  legal  procedure/'  That  is  to  say,  it 
was  in  the  strict  fashion  of  Westminster  Hall  (i)  to  let  the 
Duke  of  Venice  (who  later  announces  that  (2)  he  is  going 
to  "  dismiss  the  court  "  failing  the  arrival  of  Bellarioof 
Padua,  "  a  learned  doctor  "  whom  he  has  "  sent  for  to 
determine  this  "),  begin  (3)  to  abuse  the  plaintiff  to  the 
defendant  before  the  case  has  been  stated  on  either  side. 
Portia  is  described  (4)  as  "  the  Podesta  or  judge  called  in 
to  act  under  the  authority  of  the  Doge  ' '  (which  she  is 
not),  so  that  Bellario  would  on  that  theory  take  the  same 
status.  (5)  Nevertheless  the  proceedings  begin  as  afore 
said  in  Bellario's  absence.  The  Podesta  theory,  by  the 
way,  is  illuminated  by  the  fact  that  at  the  close  of  the 
proceedings  the  Duke  (6)  exhorts  Antonio  to  reward 
Portia,  i.e.  the  judge. 

The  business  having  been  started  by  the  Duke  as 
aforesaid,  (7)  Shylock  delivers  in  reply  a  psychological 
essay,  and  (8)  Bassanio  intervenes  with  invective  in 
the  capacity  of  a  friend  of  the  defendant,  who  (9)  in 
turn  conveys  his  opinion  of  the  plaintiff's  character.  After 
(10)  this  highly  professional  discussion  has  been  further 
continued,  (n)  Nerissa,  "  dressed  as  a  lawyer's  clerk," 
in  strict  Westminster  Hall  style  presents  a  letter  to  the 
Duke ;  and  (12)  Bassanio,  Shylock  and  Gratiano  exchange 
amenities.  (13)  The  letter  is  then  read  out  by  the  Duke, 
with  scrupulous  attention  to  legal  forms.  It  announces 

(14)  that  Bellario,  the  "  Podesta,"  being  ill,  appoints 
a  "young  doctor"  from  Rome  as  his  substitute,  the 
Duke  of  Venice  concurring  as  in  duty  bound ;  though 

(15)  he  thoughtfully  inquires  whether  the  substitute  knows 
anything  about  the  case.     (16)  He  is  assured  that  the 
substitute  knows  all  about  it — before  having  heard  any 
thing   from    the    parties.     (17)  Portia,    dressed    as    "a 
doctor  of  laws,"  then  discusses  moral  issues  with  Shylock 
in  a  fashion  which  illustrates  her  profound  acquaintance 
with  Westminster  Hall  usage,   the  plaintiff   (18)   alter- 


58  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

nately  retorting  and  applauding,  in  Westminster  Hall 
fashion.  Portia's  line  is  (19)  to  urge  the  plaintiff  to 
accept  thrice  his  debt,  knowing  all  the  while  that  it  is 
because  of  his  refusal  to  do  so  that  the  case  is  in  court. 
On  his  refusal  (20)  she  admits  that  he  may  "  lawfully  " 
have  his  pound  of  flesh,  and  (21)  advises  Antonio  to 
prepare  for  the  operation  there  and  then,  at  the  hands  of 
the  plaintiff,  as  was  the  wont  at  Westminster  Hall. 
Incidentally  (22)  she  intervenes  in  the  conversation 
between  Bassanio  and  Antonio  with  a  jest — here,  cer 
tainly,  conforming  to  English  legal  usage — and  Nerissa 
follows  suit,  ostensibly  as  clerk  to  the  court ;  whereupon 
the  plaintiff  (23)  rebukes  the  court  for  wasting  time. 

(24)  The  court  then  develops  the  interesting  legal  theory 
that  flesh  does  not,  according  to  the  vulgar  notion,  contain 
or  include  blood,  and  warns  the  plaintiff  accordingly. 

(25)  In  reply  to  him,  the  court  courageously  alleges  that 
an  Act  to  that  effect  is  in  existence-;   proceeding  further 

(26)  to  aver  that  the  plaintiff  must  exact  the  whole 
penalty  due  under  his  bond,  and  will  himself  incur  the 
capital  penalty  if  he  takes  more  or  less.     (27)  Having 
thus  already,  in  effect,  non-suited  the  plaintiff,  the  court 
unexpectedly  does  it  afresh,  intimating  that  he  has  all 
along  lain  under  the  capital  penalty,  inasmuch  as  the 
laws  of  Venice— of  which  the  Venetian  authorities  and 
public  appear  to  have  no  knowledge — define  his  entire 
proceedings  as  homicidal;    and  further   (28)   that   the 
same  occult  code  awards  half  of  his  property  to  the 
defendant,  and  the  other  half  to  "  the  privy  coffer  of 
the  State,"  whose  interests  have  been  so  indifferently 
represented  by  the  Duke. 

The  plaintiff  is  now  advised  to  throw  himself  on  the 
mercy  of  the  Crown,  which  he  contumaciously  fails  to 
do ;  but  the  Crown,  now  getting  a  word  in,  spontaneously 
remits  the  death  penalty,  and  (having  apparently  some 
doubts  as  to  the  revelation  just  made  concerning  its  fiscal 
privileges)  suggests  a  substantial  remission  of  the  pecuniary 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       59 

penalty  so  far  as  the  State  is  concerned.  (29)  The 
defendant,  however,  intervenes  with  a  somewhat  obscure 
proposal  that,  he  retaining  his  half  of  the  plaintiff's 
property,  the  plaintiff  shall  "  let  me  have  the  other  half 
in  use,  to  render  it  upon  his  death  "  to  plaintiff's  son- 
in-law  ;  adding,  "  Two  things  provided  more,"  to  wit, 
(a)  that  "for  this  favour"  plaintiff  shall  turn  Christian, 
and  (b)  "  record  a  deed  of  gift,  here  in  the  court,  of  all  he 
dies  possessed,"  to  his  son-in-law  and  daughter.  Defen 
dant  has  justifiably  taken  for  granted  the  assent  of  the 
court  and  Crown,  which  latter  (30)  accommodatingly 
intimates  that  plaintiff's  pardon  will  be  "  recanted  "  if 
he  does  not  do  as  he  is  told.  (31)  With  the  same  business 
like  promptitude  the  plaintiff  assents,  and  the  court 
directs  the  clerk  to  "  draw  up  a  deed  of  gift."  (32)  The 
plaintiff  is  nevertheless  allowed  to  withdraw,  directing 
that  the  deed  be  "  sent  after  him  "  ;  whereupon  the 
Crown  invites  the  court  to  dinner ;  adding,  when  the 
learned  judge  pleads  lack  of  time,  its  celebrated 
suggestion  to  the  defendant,  to  see  that  the  judge 
is  well  paid.  The  courthouse  then  becomes  the  scene 
of  domestic  amenities,  according  to  Westminster  Hall 
practice. 

And  this  "  trial,"  we  are  told  by  a  Lord  Chief  Justice, 
later  Lord  Chancellor,  "  is  duly  conducted  according  to 
the  strict  forms  of  legal  procedure,"  whence  arises  a 
highly  strengthened  presumption  that  the  dramatist  was 
a  practised  attorney's  clerk.  His  lordship  brilliantly 
concludes  with  the  reflection  that  Gratiano's  speech  : 

In  christening  them  shalt  have  two  godfathers, 
Had  I  been  judge,  thou  shouldst  have  had  ten  more, 
To  bring  thee  to  the  gallows,  not  the  font, 

is  "an  ebullition  which  might  be  expected  from  an 
English  lawyer." 

I  should  expect  further  ebullitions  from  any  lawyer 
who  should  chance  to  peruse  Lord  Campbell's  pages. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  apart  from  downright 


60  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Baconism,  the  theorem  before  us  is  the  worst  nonsense 
that  has  ever  been  penned  in  Shakespearean  discussion, 
which  is  saying  a  good  deal.  I  leave  it  to  the  lawyers 
to  decide  whether  or  not  his  lordship  was  writing  with 
his  tongue  in  his  cheek ;  and  I  invite  Mr.  Greenwood  to 
say  on  what  critical  principles  he  makes  use  of  such  a 
critic's  declaration  that  "  to  Shakespeare's  law,  lavishly 
as  he  expounds  it,  there  can  neither  be  demurrer,  nor  bill 
of  exceptions,  nor  writ  of  error."  "  There  is  nothing  so 
dangerous,"  wrote  Lord  Campbell,  "  as  for  one  not  of 
the  craft,  to  tamper  with  our  freemasonry."  It  would 
appear  that  there  are  still  more  dangerous  undertakings 
open  to  lawyers. 

It  may  be  worth  noting  in  this  connection  that,  as  a 
legal  friend  of  mine  has  put  it,  whosoever  wrote  the 
trial  scene  in  THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE,  it  cannot  have 
been  Bacon,  the  equity  lawyer.  Mr.  Devecmon  and  other 
lawyers  have  been  so  struck  by  the  disregard  of  equity 
in  Portia's  rulings  as  to  be  unable  to  refrain  from  severe 
censure  of  Shakespeare's  conception  of  justice.  They 
in  turn,  in  their  revolt  against  the  entire  lack  of  true 
legal  feeling  in  the  play,  have  perhaps  grown  blind,  by 
reaction,  to  the  moral  enormity  of  Shylock's  position. 
An  equity  lawyer,  I  suppose,  would  have  set  aside  alike 
Portia's  "  blood  "  argument  and  Shylock's  "  bond  "  argu 
ment,  and  given  simple  decree  for  payment  of  the  debt. 
We  can  imagine  what  Bacon  would  have  thought  of  the 
theorem  that  if  A  lends  money  on  condition  of  being 
allowed  to  cut  off  half  a  newly  killed  pig  belonging  to  B; 
he  cannot  be  permitted  to  cut  off  less  than  half,  and  is 
precluded  from  taking  any  blood.  But  whatever  the 
equity  lawyer  might  decide  on  the  final  merits,  the  play 
wright  has  in  view  an  audience  who — to  say  nothing  of 
their  primary  prejudice  against  the  Jew— were  at  least 
justified  in  regarding  Shylock  as  a  miscreant  in  the  matter 
of  the  pound  of  flesh.  And  it  is  the  utterly  unlawyer- 
like  punishment  of  the  miscreant  for  his  intentions  that 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       61 

finally  makes  the  legalist  theory  so  completely  prepos 
terous  in  regard  to  this  particular  play. 

As  regards  Shakespeare's  moral  outlook  in  the  matter, 
it  may  suffice  to  remind  the  reader  of  the  existence  of 
an  older  play,  referred  to  by  Stephen  Gosson  in  his 
SCHOOL  OF  ABUSE  (1579),  on  tne  subject  of  the  caskets 
and  the  Jewish  usurer's  bond ;  and  to  suggest  that 
Shakespeare,  who  has  done  so  much  to  humanise  the 
figure  of  the  hated  Jew  in  other  respects,  probably 
stopped  short  of  the  vengeance  meted  out  in  the  older 
drama. 

16.  Portia's  phrase  (V,  i,  298), 

Charge  us  there  upon  inter  'gatories, 

is  justly  alleged  to  contain  a  "  palpable  allusion  to  English 
legal  procedure."  It  does  ;  and  so  do  the  four  other 
instances  of  the  word  in  the  plays.  And  so  does  Ariosto's 

What  should  move  you 

Put  forth  that  harsh  inter'gatory  ? 

in  Webster's  THE  DEVIL'S  LAW  CASE  (ii,  3).  And  so  does 
Gelaia's  "Slight,  he  has  me  upon  interrogatories,"  in 
Ben  Jonson's  CYNTHIA'S  REVELS  (iv,  i).  And  so  does 
Andelocia's  phrase  in  Dekker's  OLD  FORTUNATUS  (iv, 
end)  :  "  Are  you  created  constable  ?  You  stand  so 
much  upon  interrogatories."  And  so  does  Black  Will's 
"  You  were  best  swear  me  on  the  inter  'gat  'ties,"  in 
ARDEN  OF  FEVERSHAM  (III,  vi,  6).  And  so  do  Nashe's 
phrases  :  "  Let  me  deal  with  him  for  it  by  interro 
gatories"  (First  Part  of  PASQUIL'S  APOLOGIE  :  Works, 
i,  115),  and  "  Pilate's  interrogatory  ministered  unto  him 
was,  Art  thou  the  King  of  the  Jews  ?  "  (Ib.  p.  129.) 

And  so  does  the  question,  "  What  are  you,  sir,  that  deal 
thus  with  me  by  interrogatories,  as  if  I  were  some  run 
away  ?  "  in  Greene's  MENAPHON  (Arber's  rep.  p.  57). 
What  then  ?  Were  these  writers  all  lawyers  ? 

17,  The  servant's  phrase,  "  present  her  at  the  leet, 
because,"  &c.;  in  the   Induction   to   THE   TAMING   OF 


62  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

THE  SHREW,  is  alleged  to  betray  an  "  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  matters  which  may  be  prosecuted  as  offences 
before  the  Court  Leet,  the  lowest  court  of  criminal 
judicature  in  England."  It  shows  exactly  such  know 
ledge  as  was,  in  the  terms  of  the  case,  necessarily  possessed 
in  every  alehouse  in  England  ;  otherwise  Sly  is  presented 
as  a  tinker  impossibly  learned  in  the  law.  An  even  wider 
range  of  legal  knowledge  of  the  same  order,  as  it  happens, 
is  exhibited  by  Justice  Overdo  in  Ben  Jonson's  BARTHOLO 
MEW  FAIR  (ii,  i) .  What  is  the  inference  there  ? 
18.  Because  Tranio  in  the  TAMING  OF  THE  SHREW  (i,  2) 

remarks  that 

adversaries  in  law 
Strive  mightily,  but  eat  and  drink  as  friends, 

the  Lord  Chief  Justice  is  moved  to  observe  that  the 
dramatist  "  had  been  accustomed  to  see  the  contending 
counsel,  when  the  trial  is  over,  or  suspended,  on  very 
familiar  and  friendly  terms  with  each  other."  'Tis  like  ! 
Ten  thousand  laymen  have  noted  as  much ;  and  a 
hundred  popular  tales  have  been  current  from  time 
immemorial  which  convey  the  fact  from  generation  to 
generation.  Similar  lore,  to  a  layman's  thinking,  pre 
sumptively  underlay  the  remark  put  by  Dekker  and 
Webster  in  the  mouth  of  Mistress  Justiniano  in  WEST 
WARD  Ho  (i,  i),  to  the  effect  that  she  sleeps  "  as  quietly 
as  a  client  having  great  business  with  lawyers."  But  if 
that  had  been  said  in  a  Shakespearean  play,  what  depth 
of  legal  experience  would  Lord  Campbell  not  have  found 
in  it !  What  would  he  not  have  made,  again,  of  the  lines  : 

The  man  of  law, 

Whose  honeyed  hopes  the  credulous  clients  draw, 
As  bees  by  tinkling  basins, 

in  the  WITCH  OF  EDMONTON  (iv,  i),  by  Dekker,  Ford,  and 
Rowley  ;  or  of  the  phrase,  "  They'll  hold  no  more  than  a 
lawyer's  conscience  "  in  Dekker 's  MATCH  ME  IN  LONDON 
(Act  i,  end).  If  he  had  only  read  THE  DEVIL'S  LAW 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       63 

CASE  (v,  2),  he  would  perhaps  have  been  content  to  stake 
his  whole  thesis  upon  one  sentence  of  Sanitonella  : 

You  have  lawyers  take  their  clients'  fees,  and  their  backs  are 
no  sooner  turned  but  they  call  them  fools  and  laugh  at  them. 

For  Sanitonella   is    actually  a    lawyer's    clerk ;    and  it 
clearly  follows  that  the  dramatist  must  have  been  one  ! 

19.  Whereas  Katherine  in  the  same  play  (ii,  i)  says; 
"You  crow  too  like  a  craven,"  we  are  seriously  assured  that 
the  playwright  "  shows  that  he  was  acquainted  with  the 
law  for  regulating  trials  by  battle  "  between  champions; 
one  of  which  had  been  fought  in  Tothill  Fields  before  the 
judges  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  because  "  all  lawyers  "  know  that  "  craven  " 
is  "  the  word  spoken  by  a  champion  who  acknowledged 
that  he  was  beaten,  and  declared  that  he  would  fight  no 
more ;     whereupon    judgment    was    immediately    given 
against  the  side  which  he  supported,  and  he  bore  the  in 
famous  name  of  craven  for  the  rest  of  his  days/'     "  We 
have  like  evidence  in  HAMLET  (iv,  4),"  adds  his  lordship, 
"  of  Shakespeare's  acquaintance  with  the  legal  meaning 
of  this  word,"  inasmuch  as  Hamlet  has  the  phrase,  "  some 
craven  scruple." 

I  invite  Mr.  Greenwood's  critical  attention  to  the 
rubbish  upon  which  he  has  been  building  his  case.  He 
is,  I  know,  the  last  man  that  would  attend  a  cockfight ; 
but  he  will  perhaps  admit  that  cockfighters  called  a  timid 
cock  a  craven  without  possessing  the  lore  of  "  all  lawyers  " 
as  to  the  nomenclature  of  trial  by  battle — concerning 
which,  more  anon.  He  will  also,  I  think,  grant  me  that 
Shakespeare  did  not  write  THE  TAMING  OF  THE  SHREW; 
the  "  profound "  legal  learning  of  which  play  must 
accordingly  be  credited  in  some  other  quarter. 

20.  Lord  Campbell  gives  three  pages  to  the  proposition 
that  the  bare  plot  of  ALL'S  WELL,  as  regards  the  legal 
position  of  Bertram,  is  proof  "  that  Shakespeare  had  an 
accurate  knowledge  of  the  law  of  England  respecting  .  .  . 


64  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

tenure  in  chivalry"  and  "wardship  of  minors."  The 
wardship  of  Bertram,  we  are  told,  "  Shakespeare  drew  from 
his  own  knowledge  of  the  common  law  of  England,  which 
was  in  full  force  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth."  That 
is  to  say,  the  alleged  knowledge  must  have  been  common 
to  the  multitude,  since  there  is  not  a  word  of  technicalities 
in  the  play.  And  after  all  we  learn,  in  a  foot-note,  that 
"  according  to  Littleton  it  is  doubtful  whether  Bertram 
might  not  have  refused  to  marry  Helena  on  the 
ground  that  she  was  not  of  noble  descent." 

21.  The  profundity  and  accuracy  of  legal  knowledge 
exhibited  in  the  WINTER'S  TALE  is  vouched  for  (a)  by  the 
fact  that  Hermione  mentions,  (i,  2),  "a  piece  of  English 
law  procedure  which  .  .  .  could  hardly  be  known  to  any 
except  lawyers,  or  those  who  had  themselves  actually  been 
in  prison  on  a  criminal  charge — that,  whether  guilty  or 
innocent,  the  prisoner  was  liable  to  pay  a  fine  on  his 
liberation."  Lord  Campbell  appears  to  have  assumed  that 
released  prisoners  would  keep  this  strange  circumstance 
to  themselves  as  a  dark  secret.  Mr.  Greenwood  will 
probably  admit  that  it  was  likely  to  be  known  to  Ben 
Jonson  (who  had  been  twice  in  prison,  and  may  have 
revealed  his  occult  knowledge  to  Shakespeare)  ;  to 
Marston  and  Dekker,  who  had  also  been  in  jail ;  and  to 
Greene  and  Nashe,  to  say  nothing  of  certain  thousands  of 
other  Elizabethans  !  Lest,  however,  he  or  his  Baconian 
friends  should  refuse  to  grant  that  anybody  but  a  lawyer 
was  likely  to  disclose  the  mystic  secret  in  a  play,  it  may 
be  well  to  cite  Heywood's  A  WOMAN  KILLED  WITH  KIND 
NESS,  where  it  is  thoughtlessly  revealed  thrice  over  : 

Prison  Keeper.    Dischargey  our  fees  and  you  are  then  at 

freedom. 

Sir  Charles.  Here,  Master  Keeper,  take  the  poor  remainder 
Of  all  the  wealth  I  have.  .  .  . 

(Actii,  2). 

Prison  Keeper.  .  .  .  You  are  not  left  so  much  indebted  to  us 
As  for  your  fees  :  all  is  discharged,  all  paid. 

(Act  iv,  Scene  2) . 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       65 

In  the  same  scene,  when  Sir  Charles  discovers  that  he  is 
released  by  his  enemy  Acton,  he  cries,  "  Hale  me  back  !  " 
and  concludes  : 

I  am  not  free  :   I  go  but  under  bail ; 

to  which  the  keeper  replies  : 

My  charge  is  done,  Sir,  now  I  have  my  fees 
As  we  get  little,  we  will  nothing  leese  [lose]. 

Yet  again,  in  Part  II  of  his  KING  EDWARD  THE  FOURTH 
(Pearson's  ed.  i,  139)  Heywood  proclaims  the  usage 
which  Lord  Campbell  thinks  could  have  been  known  only 
to  lawyers  or  ex-prisoners.  Jane  Shore,  securing  the 
pardon  of  the  prisoners  for  piracy,  about  to  be  hanged, 
says  to  the  officer  : 

You  must  discharge  them,  paying  of  their  fees 
Which,  for  I  fear  their  store  is  very  small, 
I  will  defray. 

And  if  this  be  not  enough,  we  have  yet  another  revelation 
in  Dekker's  THE  WONDER  OF  A  KINGDOM  (iv,  i)  : 

Gentile.         Go  and  release  him 
Send  him  home  presently,  and  pay  his  fees. 

If  Lord  Campbell  and  Mr.  Greenwood  had  but  handled 
this  case  as  they  would  have  done  a  legal  one,  and  taken 
a  little  trouble  to  discover  precedents,  they  and  their 
readers  might  have  been  saved  the  construction  and 
demolition  of  a  legal  house  of  cards.  That  which  Lord 
Campbell  thinks  could  hardly  have  been  known  to  any 
but  lawyers  and  prisoners  was  known  to  every  spectator, 
and  is  known  to  every  reader,  of  Heywood's  best  play,  to 
say  nothing  of  ordinary  means  of  knowledge. 

22.  With  a  supreme  effort  of  candour,  Lord  Campbell 
admits  that  the  indictment  of  Hermione  (iii,  2)  "is  not 
altogether  according  to  English  legal  form,  and  might  be 
held  insufficient  on  a  writ  of  error."  But  he  comforts  him 
self  with  the  reflection  (b)  that  "  we  lawyers  cannot  but 
wonder  at  seeing  it  so  near  perfection  in  charging  the 

E 


66  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

treason,  and  alleging  the  overt  act  committed  by  her 
contrary  to  the  faith  and  allegiance  of  a  true  subject." 

With  what  wonder,  then,  must  the  lawyers  read  the 
indictment  of  Crispinus  and  Fannius  in  Jonson's  POET 
ASTER  (v,  i),  where  the  technicalities  are  to  Shakespeare's 
as  three  to  one !  The  culprits  there  are  "  jointly  and 
severally  indicted  and  here  presently  to  be  arraigned  "  as 
having  acted  "  contrary  to  the  peace  of  our  liege  lord, 
Augustus  Caesar,  his  crown  and  dignity,"  and  "  mutually 
conspired  and  plotted  at  sundry  times,  as  by  several 
means,  and  in  sundry  places,  for  the  better  accomplishing 
your  base  and  envious  purpose.  ..."  Mere  clerkship 
in  an  attorney's  office,  surely,  could  not  yield  such  pro 
fundity  of  legal  learning !  THE  POETASTER,  like  the 
rest  of  the  Elizabethan  drama,  must  be  by  Bacon  ! 

And  only  the  same  hand,  surely,  could  have  penned  the 
"  wonderful  "  indictment  of  Guildford  and  Lady  Jane 
in  the  FAMOUS  HISTORY  OF  SIR  THOMAS  WYAT,  by 
Dekker  and  Webster,  where  the  culprits  are  "  here  in 
dicted  by  the  names  of  Guilford  Dudley,  Lord  Dudley, 
Jane  Grey,  Lady  Jane  Grey,  of  capital  and  high  treason 
against  our  most  sovereign  lady  the  Queen's  majesty," 
for  having  "  sought  to  procure  unto  yourselves  the  royalty 
of  the  crown  of  England,  to  the  disinheriting  of  our  now 
sovereign  lady  the  queen's  majesty,"  and  "  manifestly 
adorned  yourselves  with  the  state's  garland  imperial," 
and  so  forth.  And  only  a  lawyer,  clearly,  could  have 
made  Norfolk  order  that  the  accused  shall "  directly  plead 
unto  the  indictment." 

Returning  to  Lord  Campbell;  we  learn  (c)  that  Cleo- 
menes  and  Dion  "  are  sworn  to  the  genuineness  of  the 
document  they  produce  almost  in  the  very  words  now  used 
by  the  Lord  Chancellor  when  an  officer  presents  at  the  bar 
of  the  House  of  Lords  the  copy  of  a  record  of  a  court  of 
justice."  Which  completes  the  case  for  the  WINTER'S 
TALE  and  the  Comedies. 

23.  Coming  to  the  Histories,  our  jurist  notes  that  the 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       67 

English  history  plays  contain  fewer  "  legalisms  "  than 
"  might  have  been  expected,"  and  that  there  are  more 
in  the  foreign  plays.  He  recalls,  however,  that  in  the 
history  plays  Shakespeare  was  working  upon  foundations 
already  laid  by  other  men  who  had  no  "  technical  know 
ledge  "  of  the  recondite  kind  we  have  just  been  consider 
ing.  And  after  all,  we  find  that  in  King  John's  speech 
to  Robert  Faulconbridge,  beginning  : 

Sirrah,  your  brother  is  legitimate, 

we  have  the  "  true  doctrine,  Pater  est  quern  nuptice  demon- 
stmnt."  Unhappily,  the  author  or  authors  of  the  older 
play,  THE  TROUBLESOME  RAIGNE  OF  KING  JOHN  (whom 
I  take  to  be  mainly  Marlowe  and  Greene),  though  neces 
sarily  devoid  of  technical  knowledge,  had  been  incon 
siderate  enough  to  develop  the  argument  more  fully  and 
with  more  use  of  technical  terms  than  Shakespeare  has 
done.  When,  accordingly,  it  is  further  argued  that  the 
line  (ii,  i), 

As  seal  to  this  indenture  of  my  love, 

"  might  come  naturally  from  an  attorney's  clerk/'  we 
can  but  remark  that  the  metaphor  in  question  seems  to 
have  come  naturally  to  most  of  the  poets  and  dramatists 
of  Elizabethan  England.  Take  fifteen  instances  out  of 
a  hundred  : 

Be  this  day 

My  last  of  bounty  to  a  wretch  ingrate  ; 

But  unto  thee  a  new  indenture  sealed 

Of  an  affection  fixed  and  permanent. 

Hey  wood,  The  English  Traveller,  i,  2. 

Not  till  my  pardon's  sealed.  Ib.  iv,  6. 

Mary.  Yes  sir  ;  a  bond  fast  sealed  with  solemn  oaths, 
Subscribed  unto,  as  I  thought,  with  your  soul  ; 
Delivered  as  your  deed  in  sight  of  Heaven  : 
Is  this  bond  cancelled  :  have  you  forgot  me  ? 

Middleton,  The  Roaring  Girl,  i,  i. 

He  and  I 
Have  sealed  two  bonds  of  friendship. 

Dekker,  The  Honest  Whore,  Part  I,  i,  i. 


68  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Then  with  thy  lips  seal  up  this  new-made  match. 

Arden  of  Fever  sham,  III,  v,  150. 

Francis.  Bid  her  come  seal  the  bargain  with  a  kiss. 
Matt.  To  make  love's  patent  with  my  $eal  of  arms. 

The  Two  Angry  Women  of  Abington,  iii,  2. 

And  have  his  lips  seal'd  up. 
Jonson,  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  Induction. 

Seal  it  with  thy  blood,  (twice) 

Dekker,  The  Witch  of  Edmonton,  ii,  i. 

the  tragedy, 

Though  it  be  seal'd  and  honour'd  with  the  blood 
Both  of  the  Portugal  and  barbarous  Moor. 

Peele,  The  Battle  of  Alcazar,  iv,  2. 

Join  you  with  me  to  seal  this  promise  true 
That  she  be  mine,  as  I  to  her  am  true.  .  .  . 
First  Four  but  say,  next  Four  their  saying  seal 
But  you  must  pay  the  gage  of  promised  weal. 

Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Arcadia,  b.  iii. 

I  seal  your  charter-patent  with  my  thumbs. 

Greene,  Eclogue  in  Menaphon,  end. 
You  all  fixt 

Your  hands  and  seals  to  an  indenture  drawn 
By  such  a  day  to  kill  me. 

Dekker,  Match  Me  in  London, 
Act  iv.      Pearson's  ed.  iv,  200. 

I'll  bear  him  such  a  present, 
Such  an  acquittance  for  the  knight  to  seal, 
As  will  amaze  his  senses. 

Heywood,  A  Woman  Killed  with  Kindness,  v,  it 
I  seal  you  my  dear  brother,  her  my  wife.  Ib. 

Or  seal  our  resolution  with  our  lives. 

Heywood,  First  Part  of  Edward  IV. 
Pearson's  Heywood,  i,  14. 
I  seal  myself  thine  own  with  both  my  hands 
In  this  true  deed  of  gift. 

Blurt,  Master-Constable,  1602,  v,  3. 

It  is  edifying  to  know,  in  the  same  connection,  that 
Bishop  Wordsworth  found  in  Shakespeare's  metaphorical 
use  of  "  seal  "  a  proof  of  his  study  of  the  Bible.1 

1  On  Shakespeare's  Knowledge  and  Use  of  the  Bible    2nd    ed 
1864,  p.  333. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       69 

As  there  is  no  more  "  law  "  in  KING  JOHN,  our  jurist 
fills  a  page  by  demonstrating  that  his  author  "  spurned 
the  ultramontane  pretensions  of  the  Pope."  It  is  even  so. 

24.  A  brighter  prospect  opens  for  the  Baconian  when 
we  reach  KING  HENRY  IV,  Part  I,  for  there  (iii,  i)  "  the 
partition  of  England  and  Wales  "  is  carried  out  "  in  as 
clerk-like,  attorney-like  fashion  as  if  it  had  been  the 
partition  of  a  manor  between  joint  tenants,  tenants  in 
common,  or  coparceners."  All  this  because  Mortimer 
has  the  lines 

And  our  indentures  tripartite  are  drawn, 
Which,  being  sealed  interchangeably.  .  .  . 

"  It  may  well  be  imagined,"  says  the  learned  judge; 
"  that  .  .  .  Shakespeare  was  recollecting  how  he  had 
seen  a  deed  of  partition  tripartite  drawn  and  executed 
in  his  master's  office  at  Stratford  " — though  in  the  critic's 
opinion  he  probably  was  never  in  any  attorney's  office  ! 
And  when  Hotspur  asks  :  "  Are  the  indentures  drawn  ?  " 
he  shows  that  he  "  fully  understood  this  conveyancing 
proceeding."  By  the  same  reasoning,  Dekker  knew  as 
much  when  he  wrote  the  lines  last  above  cited  from  him ; 
and  Greene  and  Lodge  may  well  be  imagined  to  be  draw 
ing  on  office  reminiscences  when  they  made  the  Usurer 
in  A  LOOKING  GLASS  FOR  LONDON  say  to  his  victim  : 
"  Have  you  not  a  counterpane  of  your  obligation  ?  " 
thus  making  their  personage  "  fully  understand  "  what 
only  lawyers  could  know  !  And,  once  again,  we  find 
that  Ben  Jonson's  plays  must  have  been  written  by  a 
trained  lawyer,  inasmuch  as  he  not  only  has  : 

Here  determines  the  indenture  tripartite 
'Twixt  Subtle,  Dol,  and  Face, 

in  THE  ALCHEMIST  (v,  2),  but  makes  the  scrivener  in  the 
Induction  to  BARTHOLOMEW  FAIR  present  a  full-drawn 
"  indenture  " — of  which  the  Bookholder  gets  the  "  counter 
pane  " — in  strict  quasi-legal  form,  between  the  spectators 
and  the  author.  As  the  document  runs  to  over  a  hundred 


7o  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

lines,  the  claims  for  Shakespeare's  legal  training  would  seem 
to  be  at  this  point  as  dust  in  the  balance.  The  only  question 
open  on  the  juristic  principles  under  notice  is,  whether 
Jonson  was  an  attorney's  clerk  or  Bacon's  amanuensis ! 

And  the  problem  does  not  end  with  the  dramatists. 
Bishop  Hooper,  the  martyr,  in  a  long  passage  of  legalist 
theology  quoted  hereinafter  (ch.  vi),  speaks  of  a  contract 
"  confirmed  with  obligations  sealed  interchangeably." 
Hooper  is  known  to  have  been  a  monk  before  he  became 
a  Protestant  preacher.  Is  it  to  be  inferred  that  he  had 
also  been  a  lawyer's  clerk  ? 

25.  Our  jurist  adds  :  "  Shakespeare  may  have  been 
taught  that '  livery  of  seisin  '  was  not  necessary  to  a  deed 
of  partition,  or  he  would  have  probably  directed  this  ceremony 
to  complete  the  title."  Such  modesty  of  statement  should 
be  fitly  acknowledged.  But  the  judge  is  more  assured 
in  noting  that  "  so  fond  was  Shakespeare  of  law  terms  " 
that  he  makes  Henry  IV  use  (iii,  2)  the  "  forced  and  harsh  " 
figure,  "  Enfeoff'd  himself  to  popularity."  Upon  this 
we  have  a  copy  of  Malone's  note  on  the  passage,  but  not 
of  Steevens's  mention  that  in  the  old  comedy  of  WILY 
BEGUILED  there  is  the  phrase  :  "I  protested  to  enfeoffe 
her  in  forty  pounds  a  year."  When  Shakespeare  uses 
a  legal  term  in  a  strained  sense,  such  as  probably  would 
never  suggest  itself  to  a  lawyer,  he  is  held  to  exhibit  his 
profound  and  accurate  legal  knowledge.  When,  then, 
Serlsby  in  Greene's  FRIAR  BACON  (sc.  10)  says  : 

I  am  the  lands-lord,  keeper,  of  thy  holds  ; 
By  copy  all  thy  living  lies  in  me  ; 
Laxfield  did  never  see  me  raise  my  dues  ; 
I  will  enfeoff  fair  Margaret  in  all, 

it  merely  proves  that  Greene  had  "  no  technical  know 
ledge."  In  point  of  fact,  the  "forced  and  harsh"  use 
of  this  very  term  occurs  often  in  Nashe  : 

Might  the  name  of  the  Church  infeoffe  them  in  the  kingdom 
of  Christ.  .  .  . 

The  A  natomie  of  A  bsurditie,  1 589.  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  i,  22. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       71 

A  kind  of  verse  it  is  he  hath  been  enfeoft  in  from  his  minoritie. 
Ep.  Ded.  to  Have  with  You  to  Saffron  Waldon,  Works,  iii,  7. 

I  ...  enfeofe  thee  with  indefinite  blessedness — 

Christ's  Teares  over  Jerusalem,  ed.  cited,  ii,  32. 

— in  a  fashion  which  indicates  that  it  was  a  trick  of  speech 
of  the  period,  analogous  to  that  of  the  phrase,  "  Shall  I 
contract  myself  to  wisdom's  love  ?  "  in  Dekker's  OLD 
FORTUNATUS  (i,  i).  The  words  "feoffee"  and  "  feoff- 
ment  "  occur  again  in  the  legal  sense  many  times  in 
two  acts  of  Jonson's  play,  THE  DEVIL  is  AN  Ass.  It  is 
thus  abundantly  evident  that  both  the  normal  and  the 
abnormal  use  of  such  legal  terms  were  common  in  Eliza 
bethan  phraseology.  Yet  because  Hotspur  in  i  HENRY  IV 
(iv,  3)  simply  tells  how  Henry  on  a  historic  occasion  said 
he  came  to  "  sue  his  livery  "  when  he  actually  did  so, 
we  are  asked  to  believe  that  Shakespeare's  language  is 
determined  by  his  special  legal  training.  What  inference 
then  shall  we  draw  when  Ben  Jonson  in  THE  STAPLE  OF 
NEWS  (i,  i)  makes  Pennyboy  junior  declare, 

I'll  sue  out  no  man's  livery  but  mine  own — ? 

Are  we  to  be  told  here  also  that  Jonson  exhibits  lack  of 
a  technical  knowledge  which  Shakespeare  possessed  ? 

26.  Whereas  some  have  argued  that  the  conversation 
between  Falstaff  and  the  Chief  Justice  does  not  exhibit 
a  close  observation  of  the  manner  of  speech  of  judges, 
Lord  Campbell  demonstrates  that  Lord  Chancellor 
Jeffreys  once  actually  did  talk  of  laying  a  man  "  by  the 
heels."  He  further  delivers  the  judgment  that  the 
author  who  made  Falstaff  talk  of  "  the  wearing  out  of 
six  fashions,  which  is  four  terms,  or  two  actions,"  "  must 
have  been  early  initiated  in  the  mysteries  of  terms  and 
actions."  So,  it  appears,  was  Greene,  who  in  JAMES  IV 
(iii,  3)  makes  Andrew  say  that  "  dead  "  is  "a  terrible 
word  at  the  latter  end  of  a  sessions,"  and  further  makes 
the  Divine  (v,  4)  complain  that  the  lawyers  "  delay  your 
common  pleas  for  years."  And  so  must  have  been  Dekker 


72  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

and  Webster,  since  they  make  Justiniano  in  WESTWARD 
Ho  speak  of  "  the  motion  in  law  that  stays  for  a  day 
of  hearing"  ;  and  Dekker  in  IF  THIS  BE  NOT  A  GOOD 
PLAY,  THE  DEVIL  is  IN  IT  (ed.  Pearson,  iii,  p.  274)  makes 

Octavio  say  : 

Yet  term  time  all  the  year  ! 
A  good  strong  lawsuit  cannot  now  cost  dear  ; 

and  again  in  THE  HONEST  WHORE  (Part  I,  iv,  2)  makes 
Fustigo  reflect :  "I  could  have  mine  action  of  battery 
against  him,  but  we  may  haps  be  both  dead  and  rotten 
before  the  lawyers  would  end  it  "  ;  and  yet  again  makes 
Doll  in  NORTHWARD  Ho  (i,  3)  protest :  "  I'm  as  melan 
choly  now  as  Fleet  Street  in  a  long  vacation ;  ...  so 
soon  as  ever  term  begins  I'll  change  my  lodging."  As 
for  Heywood,  he  once  more  betrays  his  lawyership  in  THE 
ENGLISH  TRAVELLER  (iii,  3)  : 

Besides,  'tis  term, 

And  lawyers  must  be  followed  ;  seldom  at  home, 

And  scarcely  then  at  leisure. 

Lord  Campbell,  it  would  appear,  had  not  mastered  the 
simple  fact,  which  lies  on  the  face  of  a  hundred  Eliza 
bethan  books  dealing  with  contemporary  life,  that  the 
"  terms  "  of  the  law-courts  were  then  a  normal  way  of 
dividing  time,  as  we  now  commonly  divide  it  by  the 
seasons.  The  reader,  however,  can  now  understand  that 
when  Nashe  writes  :  "  My  clue  is  spun ;  the  term  is  at 
an  end  ;  wherefore  I  will  end  and  make  vacation  "  (HAVE 
WITH  You  TO  SAFFRON  WALDEN  ;  Works,  iii,  136)  he 
is  really  not  giving  any  proof  of  legal  experience  ;  but 
is  simply  using  the  every-day  language  of  the  period  ; 
as  he  does  when,  at  the  close  of  the  pamphlet,  he  says  he 
will  "  keep  back  till  the  next  term  "  his  further  scolding. 

27.  Pistol's  "  absque  hoc  "  (v,  5)  is  of  course  cited  as 
"  remarkable,"  that  being  "  an  expression  used,  when  the 
record  was  in  Latin,  by  special  pleaders  in  introducing 
a  special  traverse  or  negation  of  a  positive  material  allega 
tion  on  the  other  side,  and  so  framing  an  issue  of  fact 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       73 

for  the  determination  of  the  jury."  So  that  Shakespeare, 
whose  genius  is  subsumed  throughout  the  inquiry,  was 
really  incapable  of  drawing  the  character  of  the  swaggerer 
Pistol  without  falsifying  it  by  making  him  utter  phrases 
which  were  within  the  ken  only  of  trained  lawyers,  and 
which  he  could  never  have  heard  even  as  scraps  and 
tags !  Similarly,  when  Heywood  in  THE  FAIR  MAID 
OF  THE  WEST  (i,  5)  makes  a  tavern  drawer  say  :  "It 
is  the  commonest  thing  that  can  be,  for  these  captains 
to  score  and  to  score  ;  but  when  the  scores  are  to  be  paid; 
non  est  inventus,"  he  must  be  held  to  have  bewildered 
his  audience  by  putting  in  a  tapster's  mouth  a  Latin 
phrase  possible  only  to  lawyers.  It  really  seems  saner 
to  suppose  that  tags  of  law  Latin  were  common  currency. 

28.  Our  jurist  reaches  his  high- water  mark  in  the 
HENRY  VI  plays,  where  Dick's  proposal  (2  H.  VI,  iv,  2), 
"  let's  kill  all  the  lawyers,"  and  Jack  Cade's  allusions  to 
parchment  and  beeswax,  show  "  a  familiarity  with  the 
law  and  its  proceedings  which  strongly  indicates  that  the 
author  must  have  had  some  professional  practice  or  educa 
tion  as  a  lawyer."  And  on  the  sentencing  of  the  Clerk 
of  Chatham,  who  could  "  make  obligations  and  write 
court  hand,"  and  always  signed  his  name  instead  of 
making  his  mark,  the  Lord  Chancellor  pens  this  reflection 
(italics  his)  :  "  Surely  Shakespeare  must  have  been 
employed  to  write  deeds  on  parchment  in  court  hand,  and 
to  apply  the  wax  to  them  in  the  form  of  seals  :  one  does 
not  understand  how  he  should,  on  any  other  theory  of 
his  bringing  up,  have  been  acquainted  with  these  details." 
Over  this  nonsense  one's  only  doubt  is  as  to  whether  the 
writer  can  have  penned  it  with  any  consciousness  of  its 
purport ;  or  whether  he  was  deliberately  farcing.  It 
seems  incredible  that  it  should  be  necessary  to  mention 
that  the  parchment,  beeswax,  and  seal,  and  the  scene 
with  the  Clerk  of  Chatham,  are  all  in  the  FIRST  PART  OF 
THE  CONTENTION  OF  THE  Two  FAMOUS  HOUSES  OF  YORK 
AND  LANCASTER,  which  was  no  more  written  by  Shake- 


74  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

speare  than  by  Lord  Campbell.  But  the  argument  before 
us  is  part  of  the  case  upon  which  Lord  Campbell  founds 
his  deliverance  as  to  the  profound  legal  knowledge  ex 
hibited  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  upon  which  bare  deliver 
ance  Mr.  Greenwood  in  turn  mainly  rests  Us  case,  which 
convinced  Mark  Twain  ! 

29.  Of  course  we  are  next  told  that  the  indictment  of 
Lord  Say  (iv,  7)  was  drawn  by  "  no  inexperienced  hand," 
inasmuch  as  it  contains  the  burlesque  phrase  "  contrary 
to  the  king,  his  crown  and  dignity,"  and  the  further 
legal  phrase,  "  such  abominable  words  as  no  Christian 
ear  can  endure  to  hear,"  which  are  the  equivalent  of 
"inter  Christianas  non  nominand'." 

It  is  quite  certain  that  the  drawer  of  this  indictment  must 
have  had  some  acquaintance  with  "  The  Crown  Circuit  Com 
panion,"  and  must  have  had  a  full  and  accurate  knowledge  of 
that  rather  obscure  and  intricate  subject — "  Felony  and  Benefit 
of  Clergy." ! 

Cade's  proclamation,  which  follows,  we  are  as  gravely 
told,  "  deals  with  still  more  recondite  heads  of  juris 
prudence."  Thus  it  runs  : 

The  proudest  peer  in  the  realm  shall  not  wear  a  head  on  his 
shoulders  unless  he  pay  me  tribute  :  there  shall  not  a  maid  be 
married  but  she  shall  pay  me  her  maidenhead  ere  they  have  it. 
Men  shall  hold  of  me  in  capite  ;  and  we  charge  and  command 
that  their  wives  be  as  free  as  heart  can  wish  or  tongue  can  tell. 

"  Strange  to  say,"  writes  the  jurist,  "  this  phrase,  or  one 
almost  identically  the  same,  'as  free  as  tongue  can  speak 
or  heart  can  think,'  is  feudal,  and  was  known  to  the 
ancient  laws  of  England."  Ergo,  only  a  trained  lawyer 
can  have  heard  of  it !  Nashe,  as  it  happens,  is  incon 
siderate  enough  to  employ  the  phrase  in  his  HAVE  WITH 
You  TO  SAFFRON  WALDEN  (Works,  ed.  cited,  iii,  33).  But 
that  is  a  trifle.  Once  more,  it  appears,  we  must  point 
out  that  "  against  the  king's  crown  and  dignity,"  and 
the  "  abominable  words  as  no  Christian  ear  is  able  to 
endure  to  hear  it,"  and  the  edifying  lines  on  the  "  still 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       75 

more  recondite  heads  of  jurisprudence "  which  Lord 
Campbell  describes  as  "  legislation  on  the  mercheta 
mulierum,"  are  all  in  the  FIRST  PART  OF  THE  CONTENTION, 
where,  instead  of  "  heart  can  wish,"  we  have  the  profes 
sionally  accurate  "  heart  can  think."  What  does  Mr. 
Greenwood  think  of  it  all  ? 

30.  At  a  bound  we  pass  from  i  HENRY  VI  to  TROILUS 
AND    CRESSIDA,    where,    as   we   might    have   expected, 
Pandarus'  phrases  (iii,  2)  "  a  kiss  in  fee-farm  "  and  "  in 
witness  the  parties  interchangeably  "  are  solemnly  cited; 
with  the  comment  that  the  latter  phrase  is  the  "  exact 
form  of  the  testatum  clause  in  an  indenture  " — "  in  witness 
whereof  the  parties  interchangeably  have  hereto  set  their 
hands  and  seals  "  ;  whereas  the  word  "  whereof  "  has  been 
left  out.     Then  we  are  reminded  of  the  "  seals  of  love  " 
in  the  song  in  MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE  and  the  "  sweet 
seals "  in  VENUS  AND  ADONIS,  which  are  once  more 
implicitly  declared  to  be  the  lyrical  expressions  of  an 
attorney's   clerk.     It   would   seem   again   necessary   to 
vindicate  the  poethood  of  the  poet  against  his  legalist 
idolaters  by  pointing  out  that  this  too  is  a  poetic  common 
place  of  the  time  : 

Sweet  lady,  seal  my  pardon  with  a  kiss. 

Dekker,  The  Wonder  of  a  Kingdom,  iv,  end. 

Seal  me  a  pardon 
In  a  chaste  turtle's  kiss. 

Randolph,  The  Jealous  Lovers,  i,  7. 

I  had  taught 

Our  lips  ere  this,  to  seal  the  happy  mixture 
Made  of  our  souls. 

Jonson,  The  Devil  is  an  Ass,  i,  i. 
Thus  I  seal  it  (kisses  her}. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Monsieur  Thomas,  v,  10. 
My  lips  .  .  .  seal  my  duty. 

Massinger,  The  Picture,  iv,  i. 
Our  bargain  thus  I  seal.     (He  kisses  her.) 
Heywood,  The  Brazen  Age.     Pearson's  Heywood,  iii,  215. 

31.  In  LEAR,  naturally,  the  Fool's  phrase  (i,  4),  "  'tis 
like  the  breath  of  an  unfee'd  lawyer,"  is  held  "to show 


76  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

that  Shakespeare  had  frequently  been  present  at  trials  in 
courts  of  justice,  and  now  speaks  from  his  recollection.'* 
Dekker  and  Webster,  evidently,  must  have  had  the  same 
recondite  training,  inasmuch  as  Mistress  Birdlime  in 
their  WESTWARD  Ho  (ii,  2)  says,  "  I  spake  to  her,  as 
clients  do  to  lawyers  without  money,  to  no  purpose." 

32.  Gloucester's  phrase  (ii,  i),  "  I'll  work  the  means 
to  make  thee  capable,"  is  characterised  as  "  a  remarkable 
example  of  Shakespeare's  use  of  technical  legal  phrase 
ology,"  inasmuch  as  "  capable  "  is  the  technical  formula 
for  "  capable  of  inheriting."  "  It  is  only  a  lawyer  who 
would  express  the  idea  "  so.  So  that,  once  more,  Chap 
man  must  have  been  a  lawyer,  since  he  makes  Almanzor 
in  REVENGE  FOR  HONOUR  (iv,  i)  tell  his  son  Abilqualit 
that  he  is  "  deprived  of  being  capable  of  this  empire  "  ; 
Heywood  must  have  been  a  lawyer,  since  he  puts  this 
very  term  "  capable  "  in  the  same  special  sense  in  the 
mouth  of  the  vintner's  apprentice,  Clem,  in  THE  FAIR 
MAID  OF  THE  WEST  (v,  2)  : 

Please  your  majesty,  I  see  all  men  are  not  capable  of  honour  : 
what  he  refuseth,  may  it  please  you  to  bestow  on  me  ; 

and  Massinger  must  have  been  a  lawyer,  since  he  has  the 
phrase  in  an  edict  (OLD  LAW,  v,  i),  "  no  son  and  heir  shall 
be  held  capable  of  his  inheritance  .  .  .  unless.  ..." 
And  Heywood,  Chapman,  Massinger,  and  Shakespeare 
stand  alike  convicted — if  there  be  any  validity  whatever 
in  the  legalist  argument — of  at  once  putting  their  cha 
racters  out  of  drawing  and  bewildering  their  audiences 
by  making  their  non-legal  personages  use  terms  which 
none  but  lawyers  could  understand  !  It  may  suffice  to 
mention  that  the  terms  "  capable  "  and  "  incapable  " 
are  used  in  More's  HISTORY  OF  RICHARD  III  (Murray's 
rep.  pp.  194,  195)  with  reference  to  the  succession  to  the 
crown,  that  they  occur  in  the  chronicles,  and  that  they 
must  have  been  used  in  all  men's  common  talk  for  many 
generations. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       77 

33.  The  words  of  Cornwall  to  Edmund,  "  Seek  out 
where  thy  father  is,  that  he  may  be  ready  for  our  appre 
hension,"  are  cited  without  any  explicit  claim  to  find 
in  them  signs  of  profound  legal  knowledge  ;  but  inasmuch 
as  Edmund  says,  aside  :    "  If  I  find  him  comforting  the 
king,  it  will  stuff  his  suspicion  more  fully,"  we  are  duly 
reminded  that  "  comforting  "  is  the  term  used  in  "  the 
indictment  against  an  accessory  after  the  fact,  for  treason." 
The  Lord  Chancellor  would  appear  to  have  been  unaware 
that  the  word  is  used  in  indictments  after  the  fact  for 
lesser  crimes  than  treason  !     It  must  have  been  heard 
as  so  used  in  every  Elizabethan  court,  and  would  be 
familiar  in  every  village.1     It  may  be  mentioned  inci 
dentally  that  "  back  up  "  or  "  encourage  "  is  the  original 
meaning  of  "comfort,"  and  that  the  word  is  used  often 
by  Wiclif  in  that  sense.2 

34.  There  being  no  other  "  law  "  in  LEAR,  we  are 
finally  assured   that    at   least    "  In  Act   iii,  Sc.  6,  the 
imaginary  trial  of  the  two  unnatural  daughters  (by  the 
mad  Lear)  is  conducted  in  a  manner  showing  a  perfect 
familiarity  with  criminal  procedure."     In  this  case  I 
spare  comment. 

35.  In  HAMLET  the  simple  phrase,  "  should  it  be  sold 
in  fee  "  (iv,  4)  is  alleged  to  be  one  of  the  various  expres 
sions  "  showing  the  substratum  of  law  in  the  author's 
mind."    We  then  learn  that  the  mention  of  impressed 
shipwrights  who  work  on  Sunday  "  has  been  quoted, 
both  by  text  writers  and  by  judges  on  the  bench,  as  an 
authority  upon  the  legality  of  the  press-gang,  and  upon 
the  debated  question  whether  shipwrights,   as  well  as 
common  seamen,  are  liable  to  be  pressed  into  the  service 
of  the  royal  navy."    That  is  to  say,  the  passage  tells  of 

1  In  a  recent  English  case  which  excited  much  interest,  the 
newspapers  printed  the  phrase  in  question,  some  misreading  it 
"  comport."     In  Elizabeth's  day,  the  mistake  would  have  been 
impossible. 

2  Treatise  Against  the  Order  of  Friars,  chs.  20,  24,  31. 


78  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Elizabethan    usage.     There    is    no    question    of    "  legal 
knowledge  "  in  the  matter. 

36.  Hamlet's  phrase,  "  As  this  fell  sergeant  Death  is 
strict  in  his  arrest,"  cannot  be  let  pass  without  the  remark 
that  in  this  metaphor  Death  comes  "  as  it  were  to  take 
him  into  custody  under  a  capias  ad  satisfaciendum." 
His  lordship  would  doubtless  have  said  the  same  had  he 
met  in  Shakespeare  with  Ben  Jonson's  "  He'll  watch  this 
sen' night  but  he'll  have  you  :  he'll  out- wait  a  sergeant 
for  you"  (EPICCENE,  iv,  2).  Had  Lord  Campbell  read 
Chapman's  ALL  FOOLS  he  would  have  known  from  a 
phrase  about  Dame  Nature  sending  "  her  Serjeant  John 
Death  to  arrest  his  body  "  (i,  i),  that  the  trope  was  in 
common  use.  Chapman's  "  executioner  of  justice, 
Death"  (REVENGE  FOR  HONOUR,  iii,  i),  and  Massinger's 
"  Summoned  to  appear  in  the  court  of  Death  "  (THE 
DUKE  OF  MILAN,  v,  2)  are  simply  samples  of  a  vein  of 
metaphor  which  runs  through  all  English  speech  of  the 
period.  We  have  it  in  Nashe's  CHRISTS  TEARES  OVER 
JERUSALEM  (1593)  : 

The  Judge  [shall]  deliver  thee  to  Death,  his  Sarjant,  the  Sarjant 
to  the  divel. 

Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  ii,  32. 

We  have  it  again  in  Dekker  : 

They  have  broke  Virtue's  laws;  Vice  is  her  Serjeant, 
Her  jailer  and  her  executioner. 

Old  Fortunatus,  v,  2. 

37.  Over  the  grave-diggers'  scene,  naturally,  we  have 
special  exultation  :  it  is  "  the  mine  which  produces  the 
richest  legal  lore."  Inasmuch  as  the  talk  of  felo  de  se 
bears  on  the  case  of  Sir  James  Hales,  puisne  Judge  of 
the  Common  Pleas,  who  became  insane  and  committed 
suicide  soon  after  the  accession  of  Queen  Mary,  we  are 
assured  that  "  Shakespeare  had  read  and  studied  Plowden's 
Report  of  the  celebrated  case  of  Hales  v.  Petit,  tried  in 
the  reign  of  Philip  and  Mary."  The  sole  basis  for  this 
now  familiar  stress  of  asseveration  is  that  in  the  lawsuit 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       79 

over  Hales'  estate,  in  which  one  side  argued  that  a  man 
"cannot  be  attainted  of  his  own  death"  and  "cannot 
befelo  de  se  till  the  death  is  fully  consummate,"  whereas 
"  the  death  precedes  the  felony  and  the  forfeiture,"  the 
other  side  argued  that  "  the  act  consists  of  three  parts  " 
— imagining,  resolving,  and  executing.  In  the  play,  the 
Clown  says,  with  regard  to  the  suicide  of  Ophelia,  "  an 
act  hath  three  branches,  it  is  to  act,  to  do,  and  to  per 
form."  That  is  the  whole  case. 

Now,  it  is  obvious  that  such  a  notable  argument  as 
that  in  the  Hales  case  must  have  been  reported,  dis 
cussed,  and  commented  on  for  two  generations  all  over 
England ;  and  it  would  be  discussed  among  common 
folk  as  among  the  educated.  Shakespeare  could  often 
have  heard  just  some  such  confabulation  as  he  ascribes 
to  the  grave-diggers.  If  this  be  denied,  we  must  decide 
that  he  put  in  the  mouths  of  common  folk  quasi-legal 
talk  which  neither  they  nor  the  audience  could  even 
loosely  understand.  There  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to 
suppose  that  he  went  to  Plowden  to  study  a  case  of 
common  notoriety  for  the  sole  purpose  of  framing  a  few 
burlesque  phrases  for  a  comic  dialogue — for  that  is  the 
sole  use  to  which  he  puts  the  matter.  Once  more  the 
legalist  case,  at  its  highest  pretension,  collapses  on  a 
moment's  scrutiny. 

38.  Over  Hamlet's  speech  on  the  skull,  however,  we 
have  inevitably  a  further  sweeping  claim,  inasmuch  as 
it  "  abounds  with  lawyer-like  thoughts  and  words." 
"  These  terms  of  art  are  all  used  seemingly  with  a  full 
knowledge  of  their  import ;  and  it  would  puzzle  some 
practising  barristers  with  whom  I  am  acquainted  to  go 
over  the  whole  seriatim  and  to  define  each  of  them  satis 
factorily."  So  that  Shakespeare,  once  more,  is  in 
artistic  enough  to  put  in  the  mouth  of  a  prince  a  string 
of  law  terms  which  a  Victorian  barrister  would  be  hard 
put  to  it  to  define  ! 

But,  as  usual,  other  dramatists  of  the  time  do  likewise. 


8o  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

In  Ben  Jonson's  EPICCENE  (iv,  2)  we  have  Morose's  list 
of  terms  to  match  Hamlet's  : 

There  is  such  noise  in  the  court  that  they  have  frighted  me 
home  with  more  violence  than  I  went  !  such  speaking  and 
counter-speaking,  with  their  several  voices  of  citations,  appella 
tions,  allegations,  certificates,  attachments,  interrogatories,  refer 
ences,  convictions  and  afflictions,  indeed,  among  the  doctors  and 
proctors,  that  the  noise  here  is  silence  to't. 

Then,  in  the  scene  (v,  i)  in  which  Otter  and  Cutbeard 
play  the  parts  of  a  divine  and  a  canon  lawyer,  we  have 
these  legal  terms  : 

Divortium  legitimum  ;  divinere  contractum  ;  irritum  reddere 
matrimonium,  "  as  we  say  in  the  canon  law,  not  to  take  away 
the  bond,  but  cause  a  nullity  therein  "  ;  impedimentum  erroris  ; 
error  personae  ;  error  fortunae  ;  error  qualitatis  nee  post  nup- 
tiarum  benedictionem  ;  irrita  reddere  sponsalia  ;  conditio  ; 
votum  ;  cognatio  spiritualis  ;  crimen  adulterii  ;  cultus  dis- 
paritatis  ;  vis  ;  ordo  ;  ligamen  ;  publica  honestas,  which  is 
inchoata  quaedam  affinitas  ;  affinitas  orta  ex  sponsalibus  ;  leve 
impedimentum — and  yet  more. 

Why  should  Ben  Jonson  be  denied  his  diploma  as  canon 
lawyer  ? 

39.  In  MACBETH  the  only  phrases  cited  as  having  "  the 
juridical  mark  "  upon  them  are  Macbeth's  "  take  a  bond  of 
fate  "  and  "  live  the  lease  of  nature  "  (iv,  i).  Upon  these 
citations  there  follow  certain  professional  pleasantries 
which  laymen  may  pass  by.  It  is  fitting,  however,  to 
note  that  Mr.  Castle,  K.C., 1  classes  MACBETH  among 
"  the  non-legal  plays,"  and  pronounces  the  "  bond  of 
fate"  phrase  "mere  sound,  not  sense,"  as  he  does  the 
"lease  of  nature"  phrase  to  be  "nonsense."2  Above 
all,  he  is  impressed  by  the  legal  ignorance  displayed  in 
the  story  of  the  traitor  Cawdor,  concerning  whom  Angus 

1  Work  cited,  p.  96  sq. 

2  If  so,  it  was  popular  nonsense.     In  Webster's  White  Devil, 
Brachiana  tells  Flamineo  :  "I  will  not  grant  your  pardon.  .  .  . 
Only  a  lease  of  your  life  ;  and  that  shall  last  But  for  one  day  " 
(iv,  s,  end). 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       81 

alleges  "  treasons  capital,  confessed  and  proved,"  without 
being  able  to  tell  the  king  what  they  were.  In  particular, 
Mr.  Castle  insists  that  the  passage  : 

Is  execution  done  on  Cawdor  ? 
Are  not  those  in  commission  yet  returned  ? 

"is  an  inaccurate  and  improper  expression,"  inasmuch 
as  Cawdor  had  not  been  tried.  I  leave  this  crux  to  the 
Baconians  and  the  other  legalists,  merely  noting  that 
Mr.  Castle  finds  "  this  condemnation  of  Cawdor  to  death 
without  trial  .  .  .  the  most  convincing  proof  that  Shake 
speare  had  no  legal  assistance  in  writing  this  play."  The 
poet,  he  thinks,  personally  leant  to  the  view  that  the 
king  could  condemn  any  one  to  death  without  trial — as 
did  James,  to  the  scandal  of  the  lawyers,  in  the  case  of 
a  cutpurse,  on  his  journey  to  London  to  be  crowned. 
Perhaps  James  had  read  RICHARD  III ! 

40.  From  OTHELLO  Lord  Campbell  contrives  to  wring 
a  larger  harvest  than  from  any  other  play.  As  thus  : 

(a)  Nonsuits  my  mediators  (i,  i). 

(6)  Lawful  prize  (ii,  2) — the  trope  indicating  that  there  would 
be  a  suit  in  the  High  Court  of  Admiralty  to  determine  the 
validity  of  the  capture. 

(c)  The  trial  of  Othello  (i,  3)  before  the  Senate  as  if  he  had 
been  indicted  on  Stat.  33  Hen.  VII,  c.  8,  for  practising  con 
juration,  witchcraft,  enchantment,  and  sorcery,  to  provoke  to 
unlawful  love. 

(d)  The  lines  of  Desdemona  (iii,  3)  : 

I'll  intermingle  everything  he  does 

With  Cassio's  suit :  Therefore  be  merry,  Cassio  : 

For  thy  Solicitor  shall  rather  die 

Than  give  thy  cause  away. 

(e)  lago's  line  (ib.)  : 

Keep  leets  and  lawdays,  and  in  session  sit. 

In  (d)  Desdemona's  appeal,  we  are  told,  "  is  made  to 
assume  the  shape  of  a  juridical  proceeding  "  ;  in  (e)  the 
language  "  shows  that  Shakespeare  was  well  acquainted 
with  all  courts,  low  as  well  as  high."  Noting  the  utter 
futility  of  the  two  last  cited  pleas,  we  can  best  rebut  the 

F 


82  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

whole  five  instances  by  citing  a  much  longer  series  of 
"  legal  "  passages  from  one  play  of  Ben  Jonson— EPICCENE, 
OR  THE  SILENT  WOMAN  : 

They  say  he  has  been  upon  divers  treaties  with  the  fishwives 
and  orange-women,  and  articles  propounded  to  them,  (i,  i.) 

It  gives  thee  the  law  of  plaguing  him.  .  .  .  Disinherit  thee  ! 
he  cannot,  man.  Art  not  thou  next  of  blood,  and  his  sister's 
son  ?  (Ib.) 

He  shall  never  have  that  plea  against  me.     (Ib.) 

Have  I  ever  cozened  any  friends  of  yours  of  their  land  ? 
bought  their  possessions  ?  taken  forfeit  of  their  mortgage  ? 
begged  a  reversion  for  them  ?  (Ib.) 

r   Daw.  Syntagma  juris   civilis  ;    Corpus   juris   civilis  ;    corpus 

juris  canonici.  .  .  . 
Daup.  What  was  that  Syntagma,  sir  ? 
Daw.  A  civil  lawyer,  a  Spaniard. 
Daup.  Sure,  Corpus  was  a  Dutchman,     (ii,  2.) 

He's  better  read  in  jure  civile  than  ...     (Ib.) 

I'll  kiss  you,  notwithstanding  the  justice  of  my  quarrel,     (iii,  2.) 

I  have  an  execution  to  serve  upon  them,  I  warrant  thee,  shall 
serve.     £iv,  2.) 

Batter  !    If  he  dare,  I'll  have  an  action  of  battery  against  him.  (Ib.) 

In  addition,  we  have  all  the  other  Jonsonian  legalisms 
noted  above  and  hereinafter — in  all  fifty  times  as  much 
"  law  "  as  Lord  Campbell  finds  in  OTHELLO.  It  is  doubt 
less  a  work  of  supererogation  to  cite  parallels  to  "  non 
suits,"  "  lawful  prize,"  "  leets,"  and  "  sessions,"  but  here 
they  are.  In  one  speech  in  a  play  of  Jonson  we  have  : 

Pennyboy  jun.  But  Picklock,  what  wouldst  thou  be  ?     Thou 

canst  cant  too. 

Picklock.  In  all  the  languages  in  Westminster  Hall, 
Pleas,  Bench,  or  Chancery.     Fee-farm,  fee-tail 
Tenant  in  dower,  at  will,  for  term  of  life, 
By  copy  of  court-roll,  knight's  service,  homage, 
Fealty,  escuage,  soccage,  or  frank  almoigne, 
Grand  serjeantry,  or  burgage. 

The  Staple  of  News,  iv,  i . 

Had  Lord  Campbell  found  such  a  catalogue  in  Shake 
speare,  with  what  superlatives  would  he  have  cited  it ! 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS        83 

"Lawful   prize"    is    a   standing   .Elizabethan   term: 
witness — 

'Tis  a  lawful  prize 
That's  ta'en  from  pirates. 

Dekker,  Match  Me  in  London,  Act  iii. 

Pearson's  ed.  of  Work,  siv,  187. 
'Twas  lawful  prize  when  I  put  out  to  sea 
And  warranted  in  my  commission 

Hey  wood,  Edward  IV,  Part  II. 
Pearson's  ed.  of  Works,  i,  123. 

Take  further  the  following  : 

But  now  the  sessions  of  my  power's  broke  up, 
And  you  exposed  to  actions,  warrants,  writs  ; 
For  all  the  hellish  rabble  are  broke  loose 
Of  Serjeants,  sheriffs,  bailiffs. 

Heywood,  The  English  Traveller,  iv,  5. 

There's  subject  for  you  ;  and,  if  I  mistake  not, 
A  supersedeas  of  your  melancholy. 

Jonson,  The  Poetaster,  i,  i. 

Many  are  the  yearly  enormities  of  this  fair,  in  whose  Courts  of 
Pie-poudres  I  have  had  the  honour,  during  the  three  days,  some 
times  to  sit  as  judge.  Id.  Bartholomew  Fair,  ii,  i. 

Such  a  plea 

As  nonsuits  all  your  princely  evidence. 

Greene,  Orlando  Furioso,  Sc.  i. 
Set  a  supersedeas  of  my  wrath.  Id.  ib. 

As  for  "  leets  and  lawdays,"  it  was  evidently  a  standing 
phrase.  In  the  publisher's  or  editor's  address  "  to  the 
Reader,"  prefaced  to  Latimer's  Second  Sermon  before 
King  Edward  VI,  1549,  we  have  : 

Why,  but  be  not  lawyers  diligent,  say  ye  ?  Yea  truly  are 
they  ;  about  their  own  profit  there  are  no  more  diligent  men,  nor 
busier  persons  in  all  England.  They  trudge,  in  the  term  time, 
to  and  fro.  They  apply  the  world  hard.  They  foreslow  !  They 
follow  assizes  and  sessions,  leets,  law-days,  and  hundreds.  They 
should  serve  the  king,  but  they  serve  themselves. 

Sermons  by  Hugh  Latimer,  Ed.  in  "  Everyman's  Library,"  p.  94. 

This  surely  is  not  a  lawyer's  outburst ! 

Add  that  in  a  dozen  other  plays  by  non-lawyer  drama 
tists  of  Shakespeare's  day  there  are  far  more  elaborate 


84  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

and  realistic  trials— to  be  noted  hereafter— than  any  in 
Shakespeare,  and  the  case  founded  on  OTHELLO  is  done 
with. 

41.  Avowing  that  he  can  find  no  instance  in  JULIUS 
C^SAR  "  of  a  Roman  being  made  to  talk  like  an  English 
lawyer,"  Lord  Campbell  proceeds  to  claim  that  in  ANTONY 
AND  CLEOPATRA  (i,  4)  Lepidus  "  uses  the  language  of  a 
conveyancer's  chambers  in  Lincoln's  Inn"  when  he  says 
that  the  faults  of  Antony  seem  "  hereditary  rather  than 
purchased;"  adding  in  a  footnote  a  citation  of  the  king's 
lines  in  2  HENRY  IV,  iv,  4  : 

What  in  me  was  purchas'd 
Falls  upon  thee  in  a  more  fairer  sort. 

The  point  is  that  in  legal  terminology  "  whatsoever  does 
not  come  through  operation  of  law  by  descent  is  purchased, 
although  it  may  be  the  free  gift  of  a  donor."  As  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  go  fully  into  this  point  later  in  connection 
with  a  similar  claim  by  Mr.  Grant  White,  it  may  suffice 
here  to  say  that,  as  usual,  Lord  Campbell  puts  it  in  entire 
ignorance  of  the  common  phraseology  of  other  Elizabethan 
dramatists  and  writers,  and  that  we  shall  find  the  word 
used  in  the  same  way  by  them  in  scores  of  instances. 
What  he  describes  as  a  specifically  legal  use  of  the  term 
"  purchase  "  was  in  fact  the  primary  and  normal  sense 
of  the  word  in  English,  as  may  be  seen  by  tracing  it 
through  ordinary  literature  down  to  Shakespeare's  day. 

42.  Citing   the   speech   of   Menenius   in   CORIOLANUS 
(ii,  i),  reproaching  the  tribunes  Sicinius  and  Brutus  with 
their  fashion  of  wasting  time  over  trifling  causes,  and 
embroiling  issues  "  between  party  and  party  "  by  wanton 
displays  of  impatience  and  temper,  Lord  Campbell  argues 
that  here  "  Shakespeare  shows  that  he  must  have  been 
present  before  some  tiresome,  testy,  choleric  judges  at 
Stratford,  Warwick,  or  Westminster."       He  admittedly 
"  mistakes  the  duties  of  the  tribune  for  those  of  the 
prcetor  "  (a  likely  thing  on  the  part  of  a  trained  lawyer  !)  ; 
but  "  in  truth  he  was  recollecting  with  disgust  what  he 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       85 

had  himself  witnessed  in  his  own  country."  And  if  so, 
what  then  ?  Is  this  any  proof  of  profound  legal  know 
ledge  ?  Where  the  claim  is  so  feeble,  it  is  hardly  worth 
while  to  offer  parallel  instances  ;  but  as  usual,  they  are 
easily  found.  The  testy  and  choleric  judge,  a  lamentably 
common  figure  in  Tudor  England,  1  appears  in  Webster's 
WHITE  DEVIL  ;  in  Chapman's  ADMIRAL  OF  FRANCE  ;  in 
Massinger's  THE  FATAL  DOWRY,  and  in  Lodge  and 
Greene's  LOOKING  GLASS  FOR  LONDON.  In  the  DUCHESS 
OF  MALFY  (i,  i)  Webster  makes  Antonio  say  of  the  Duke 
that  he  "  will  seem  to  sleep  o'  the  bench,  Only  to  trap 
offenders."  Is  this  such  a  reminiscence  as  proves  legal 
training  ? 

43.  Concerning  ROMEO  AND  JULIET,  we  are  assured 
that  the  first  scene  may  "  be  studied  by  a  student  of  the 
Inns  of  Court  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  law  of  assault 
and  battery."  Without  bringing  a  microscope  to  bear 
on  the  few  minutice  put  forward  in  support  of  this  cha 
racteristic  assertion,  we  may  note  that  so  much  knowledge 
of  the  law  of  assault  and  battery  could  probably  be  picked 
up  by  any  inhabitant  of  Stratford,  to  say  nothing  of  those 
who  attended  the  inferior  courts  of  London.  Lord  Camp 
bell  himself  evidently  feels  the  triviality  of  the  detail  that 
the  elder  Montagu  and  Capulet  are  bound  over,  in  the 
English  fashion,  "  to  keep  the  peace,"  as  is  Bobadill  in 
EVERY  MAN  IN  HIS  HUMOUR.  But  he  strives  to  make 
a  good  finish  by  citing  Mercutio's  phrase,  "  buy  the  fee 
simple  of  my  life  for  an  hour  and  a  quarter  "  (iii,  i),  and 
adding  in  a  footnote  that  Parolles  in  ALL'S  WELL  (iv,  3) 
"  is  made  to  talk  like  a  conveyancer  of  Lincoln's  Inn  " 

1  See  Latimer's  Third  Sermon  before  Edward  VI.  Bishop 
Bale,  recounting  the  Examination  of  Anne  Askewe,  tells  of  "  the 
judges,  without  all  sober  discretion,  running  to  the  rack,  tugging, 
hauling,  and  pulling  thereat,  like  tormentors  in  a  play.  Compare 
me  here,"  he  adds,  "  Pilate  with  Wrisley,  the  high  chancellor 
of  England,  with  Rich,  and  with  other  .  .  .  and  see  how  much 
the  pagan  judge  excelled  in  virtue  and  wisdom  the  false  christned 
judge."  Select  Works,  Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  241. 


86  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

when  he  says  :   "  He  will  sell  the  fee-simple  of  his  salva 
tion  .  .  .  and  cut  the  entail  from  all  remainders." 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  phrase  "  fee  simple  "  is 
shown  by  other  men's  plays  to  have  been  a  household 
word ;  but  it  may  be  well  to  conclude  with  further 
analogies  and  parallels  : 

You  helped  me  to  three  manors  in  fee-farm.1 

Heywood,  Edward  IV,  Pt.  II. 

Pearson's  ed.  of  Works,  i,  150. 

There  is  only  in  the  amity  of  women  an  estate  for  will,  and  every 
person  knows  that  is  no  certain  inheritance. 

Webster  and  Dekker,  Westward  Ho,  i,  2. 
Runs  it  [the  warrant] 
Both  without  bail  and  mainprize  ?  z 

Heywood,  The  English  Traveller,  iv,  i . 
I'll  hire  thee  for  a  year  by  the  Statute  of  Winchester. 

Id.     The  Wise  Woman  of  Hogsdon,  ii,  i. 

Now  thou  art  mine 

For  one  and  twenty  years,  or  for  three  lives, 
Choose  which  thou  wilt,  I'll  make  thee  a  copyholder, 
And  thy  first  bill  unquestioned. 

Jonson,  The  Staple  of  News,  i,  i . 
They  stand  committed  without  bail  or  mainprize .- 

Id.  ib.  v,  2. 

I  told  you  such  a  passage  would  disperse  them 
Although  the  house  were  their  fee-simple  in  law. 

Id.     The  Magnetic  Lady,  ii,  i,  near  end. 

This  concludes  Lord  Campbell's  case  as  regards  the 
plays.  It  remains  to  note  his  citations  from  the  poems. 
They  are  nearly  all  instances  of  metaphor  such  as  we  have 
already  dealt  with  : 

1.  But  when  the  heart's  attorney  once  is  mute, 
The  client  breaks  as  desperate  in  the  suit. 

Venus  and  Adonis,  1.  335. 

2.  Which  purchase  if  thou  make  for  fear  of  slips, 
Set  thy  seal-manual  on  my  wax-red  lips. 

Id.     515-16. 

3.  Her  pleading  hath  deserved  a  greater  fee.  Id.  609. 

1  This  term  occurs  only  once  in  Shakespeare. 

2  This  term  never  occurs  in  Shakespeare. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       87 

4.  Dim  register  and  notary  of  shame. 

Rape  of  Lucrece,  765. 

5.  Since  that  my  case  is  past  the  help  of  law.  Id.  1022. 

6.  No  rightful  plea  might  plead  for  justice  here.        Id.  1649. 

7.  Hath  served  a  dumb  arrest  upon  his  tongue.         Id.  1780. 

8.  When  to  the  sessions  of  sweet  silent  thought 

I  summon  up  remembrance  of  things  past.          Sonnet  30. 

9.  So  should  that  beauty  which  you  hold  in  lease. 

Sonnet  13. 

10.  And  summer's  lease  hath  all  too  short  a  date. 

Sonnet  18. 

11.  And  'gainst  thyself  a  lawful  plea  commence. 

Sonnet  35. 

12.  When  that  fell  arrest 

Without  all  bail  shall  carry  me  away.  Sonnet  74. 

13.  Of  faults  concealed,  wherein  I  am  attainted. 

Sonnet  88. 

14.  Which  works  on  leases  of  short  numbered  hours. 

Sonnet  124. 

15.  Lord  of  my  love,  to  whom  in  vassalage. 

Sonnet  26. 

1 6.  And  I  myself  am  mortgag'd  to  thy  will. 

Sonnet  134. 

17.  Why  so  large  cost,  having  so  short  a  lease  ? 

Sonnet  146. 

1 8.  So  should  that  beauty  which  you  hold  in  lease 

Find  no  determination.  Sonnet  13. 

Finally,  Sonnet  46  is  quoted  entire,  with  the  claim  that 
it  "  smells  as  potently  of  the  attorney's  office  as  any  of 
the  stanzas  penned  by  Lord  Kenyon  while  an  attorney's 
clerk  in  Wales." 

Hitherto,  the  legalist  case  has  proceeded  on  the  implicit 
assumption  that  Shakespeare  chronically  vitiates  his  art 
by  putting  in  the  mouths  of  lay  characters  phraseology 
which  only  lawyers  could  understand.  Now  the  implica 
tion  is  that  he  similarly  flavours  his  sonnets  and  poems 
in  a  way  that  only  a  lawyer  would  have  done.  Again, 
all  that  is  necessary  is  to  cast  a  glance  over  that  con 
temporary  poetry  which  Lord  Campbell  never  takes  into 
account.  This  has  already  been  duly  done  by  Sir 


88  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Sidney  Lee ;    and  it  will  here  suffice  to  quote  a  few  of 
the  sonnets  to  which  he  points  as  the  patterns  and  pre 
cedents  1  of  those  in  which  Shakespeare  plays  the  lawyer  : 
Then  to  Parthenophe,  with  all  post  haste 

(As  full  assured  of  the  pawn  fore-pledged) , 
I  made  ;  and  with  these  words  disordered  placed 

Smooth  (though  with  fury's  sharp  outrages  edged). 
Quoth  I,  "  Fair  Mistress  !  did  I  set  mine  Heart 

At  liberty,  and  for  that,  made  him  free  ; 
That  you  should  win  him  for  another  start, 
Whose  certain  bail  you  promised  to  be  !  " 
"  Tush  !  "  quoth  Parthenophe,  "  before  he  go, 

I'll  be  his  bail  at  last,  and  doubt  it  not  i " 
"  Why  then,"  said  I,  "  that  Mortgage  must  I  show 
Of  your  true  love,  which  at  your  hands  I  got. 
Ay  me  !     She  was  and  is  his  bail,  I  wot, 
But  when  the  Mortgage  should  have  cured  the  sore 
She  passed  it  off,  by  Deed  of  Gift  before. 

Barnabe  Barnes,  Parthenophil  and  Parthenophe, 
Sonnets,  &c.,  1593.     Sonnet  8.     (In  rep.  of 
Arber's  Elizabethan  Sonnets,  1904,  i,  173.) 
«...  Why  then,  inhuman,  and  my  secret  foe, 

Didst  thou  betray  me  ?  yet  would  be  a  woman  ! 
From  my  chief  wealth,  outweaving  me  this  woe, 

Leaving  thy  love  in  pawn,  till  time  did  come  on 
When  that  thy  trustless  bonds  were  to  be  tried  ! 

And  when,  through  thy  default,  I  thee  did  summon 
Into  the  Court  of  Steadfast  Love,  then  cried, 

"  As  it  was  promised,  here  stands  his  Heart's  bail  ! 
And  if  in  bonds  to  thee  my  love  be  tied, 

Then  by  those  bonds  take  Forfeit  of  the  Sale  !  " 

Id.  ib.  Sonnet  u,  as  cited,  p.  174. 
Those  Eyes  (thy  Beauty's  Tenants  /)  pay  due  tears 
For  occupation  of  mine  Heart,  thy  Freehold, 
In  tenure  of  Love's  service  !     If  thou  behold 
1  Before  the  fashion  of  sonnets    broke  out  as  it  did  in  the 
'nineties,  George  Gascoigne  had  produced  his  poem  "  The  Arraign 
ment  of  a  Lover  "  (in  Posies,  1575),  wherein  the  lover  is  tried 
at  "  Beauty's  Bar,"  accused  by  False  Suspect,  whereon  "  Craft, 
the  Crier,  called  a  Quest,"  and  after  sentence  "  Jealous,  the  Jailor, 
bound  we  fast,  To  hear  the  verdict  of  the  Bill  "  ;  the  procedure 
ending  with  "Faith  and  Truth  my  Sureties,"  than  which  there 
is  "no  better  warrantise."     See  the  poem  in  Arber's  Spenser 
Anthology,  p.  132  ;  Gascoigne's  Works,  ed.  Cunliffe,  i,  38. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       89 

With  what  exaction  it  is  held  through  fears  ; 
And  yet  thy  Rents,  extorted  daily,  bears. 

Thou  wouldst  not  thus  consume  my  quiet's  gold  ! 
And  yet,  though  covetous  thou  be,  to  make 

Thy  beauty  rich,  with  renting  me  so  roughly 
And  at  such  sums,  thou  never  thought  dost  take 
But  still  consumes  me  !     Then,  thou  dost  misguide  all  ! 
Spending  in  sport,  for  which  I  wrought  so  toughly  ! 
When  I  had  felt  all  torture,  and  had  tried  all  ; 

And  spent  my  stock  through  'strain  of  thy  extortion  ; 
On  that,  I  had  but  good  hopes  for  my  portion. 

Id.  ib.  Sonnet  20,  p.  181. 

Shall  we  be  told,  in  the  absence  of  all  biographical  evidence; 
that  Barnes  must  have  been  a  lawyer  ?  There  is  simply 
no  legal  trace  of  him.  But  what  is  quite  clear  is  that 
Shakespeare  had  read  his  poems,  published  in  1593.  It 
is  not  merely  that  he  writes  "  legal  "  sonnets  in  Barnes's 
fashion,  and  distinctly  echoes  him  at  various  points  : 

A  quest  of  thoughts  all  tenants  to  the  Heart. 

Sonnet  46. 
That  fell  arrest  without  all  bail. 

Sonnet  73  (Cp.  133). 
Your  charter  is  so  strong 
That  you  yourself  may  privilege  your  time. 

Sonnet  58  (Cp.  87). 
— the  two  last  recalling  Barnes's 

that  charter, 
Sealed  with  the  wax  of  stedfast  continence 

Sonnet  10, 
and 

Thy  love's  large  Charter, 

Sonnet  1 5  ; 

but  that  there  are  so  many  echoes  of  tune  and  theme  that 
in  reading  Barnes  one  seems  half  the  time  to  be  hearing 
undertones  of  the  more  powerful  song  of  Shakespeare. 
And  as  Lord  Southampton  was  one  of  Barnes's  as  well 
as  one  of  Shakespeare's  proclaimed  patrons,  the  two  men 
are  very  likely  to  have  been  acquaintances.1  Shake- 

1  Dr.  Creighton,  in  his  Shakespeare's  Story  of  his  Life  (1904), 
works  out  a  wildly  speculative  tale  of  Shakespeare's  use  of  Barnes 


9o  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

speare's  sonnets  are  in  any  case  notably  in  the  manner 
of  Barnes's,  and  he  was  following  him  in  legalism  as  in 
other  fashions.  And  the  same  holds  of  his  relation  to  the 
anonymous  sonneteer  who  in  1594  published  the  volume 
entitled  ZEPHERIA.  Here  we  have  the  same  trick  of 
legal  phraseology  : 

Mine  eyes  (quick  pursuivants  !)  the  sight  attached 

Of  Thee  .  .  . 

Mine  heart,  Zepheria  !  then  became  thy  fee. 

Canzon  3.     Vol.  II  of  Bliz.  Sonnets,  as  cited,  p.  158, 
Care's  Usher  !     Tenant  to  his  own  Oppression. 

Canzon  5,  p.  159, 

Wherein  have  I  on  love  committed  trespass  ? 
O,  if  in  justice  thou  must  needs  acquit  me, 
Reward  me  with  thy  love. 

Canzon  16,  p.  165, 

and  so  forth.  Two  complete  "  canzons  "  show  how  far 
the  fashion  went  : 

How  often  hath  my  pen  (mine  heart's  Solicitor  !) 

Instructed  thee  in  Breviat  of  my  case  ! 
While  Fancy-pleading  eyes  (thy  beauty's  Visitor  !) 

Have  patterned  to  my  quill,  an  angel's  face. 
How  have  my  Sonnets  (faithful  Counsellors  !) 

Thee,  without  ceasing,  moved  for  Day  of  Hearing  ! 
While  they,  my  plaintive  Cause  (my  faith's  Revealers  !) 

Thy  long  delay,  my  patience,  in  thine  ear  ring. 
How  have  I  stood  at  bar  of  thine  own  conscience  ; 

When  in  Requesting  Court  my  suit  I  brought  ! 
How  have  thy  long  adjournments  slowed  the  sentence, 

Which  I  (through  much  expense  of  tears)  besought ! 
Through  many  difficulties  have  I  run  ; 
Ah,  sooner  wert  thou  lost,  I  wis,  than  won  ! 
When  last  mine  eyes  dislodged  from  thy  beauty, 

Though  served  with  process  of  a  parent's  Writ  : 
A  Supersedeas  countermanding  duty, 

Even  then,  I  saw  upon  thy  smiles  to  sit ! 
Those  smiles  which  we  invited  to  a  Party, 

Disperpling  clouds  of  faint  respecting  fear, 
Against  the  Summons  which  was  served  on  me 

A  larger  privilege  of  dispense  did  bear. 

as  "  devil  "  after  lampooning  him  as  Parolles.  All  this  is  idle 
myth-mongering  ;  but  the  two  men  must  have  met. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       91 

Thine  eyes'  edict,  the  statute  of  Repeal, 

Doth  other  duties  wholly  abrogate, 
Save  such  as  thee  endear  in  hearty  zeal, 

Then  be  it  far  from  me,  that  I  should  derogate 
From  Nature's  Law,  enregistered  in  thee  ! 
So  might  my  love  incur  a  Pr&munire, 

It  will  hardly  be  disputed  that  either  Shakespeare  had 
read  in  manuscript,  or  heard  some  one  quote,  ZEPHERIA, 
or  the  sonneteer  had  read  VENUS  AND  ADONIS.  That  one 
poet  should  write  of  his  "  heart's  solicitor,"  and  another 
of  the  "  heart's  attorney,"  by  sheer  coincidence,  is  not 
plausibly  to  be  argued.  And  even  if  it  could  be  proved; 
which  it  cannot,  that  the  more  lawyerlike  poet  was  a 
lawyer,  it  would  be  sufficiently  idle  to  contend  that  the 
other  must  also  have  been  so,  in  view  of  what  we  have  seen 
of  the  habit  of  legalism  among  all  the  dramatists  of  the  day. 
We  are  witnessing  a  fashion  of  the  time,  comparable  with 
the  vogue  of  Euphuism.  The  many  echoes  and  parallels 
of  earlier  sonnets  in  those  of  Shakespeare  are  weighty 
hints  of  the  slightness  of  our  ground  for  taking  his  as 
direct  records  of  his  heart's  experience.  Even  when 
he  youthfully  imitated  other  men's  modes,  he  could  not 
but  give  to  his  echoes  the  deeper  vibration  of  his  larger 
spirit,  even  as  he  avoided  his  models'  grosser  crudities. 
In  ZEPHERIA,  the  canzon  last  above  cited  is  followed  by 
two  in  which  we  have  the  barbarisms  "  irrotulate  "  and 
"  foyalty,"  "  excordiate  "  and  "  exordiate  " — outrages 
possible  to  a  pedant,  but  not  to  our  poet.  But  however 
his  finer  taste  and  deeper  feeling  might  preserve  him  from 
such  offences,  he  is  none  the  less  mannered  by  the  "  form 
and  pressure  "  of  the  time,  which  in  this  matter  of 
legalist  vocabulary  and  imagery  is  nearly  universal.  The 
Elizabethan  sonneteers,  like  the  old  troubadours,  have 
their  tunes  and  themes  in  common,  and  each  man's 
collection  is  visibly  suggested  by  or  suggestive  of  others. 
Their  very  titles,  PHILLIS,  LICIA,  DELIA,  DIANA,  COELIA, 
IDEA,  ZEPHERIA,  FIDESSA,  CHLORIS,  LAURA,  tell  of  a 
reigning  mode,  setting  in  with  Sidney's  ASTROPHEL  AND 


92  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

STELLA,  and  drawing  much  on  French  originals.  It  was 
in  full  force  in  1593,  and  culminated  about  1597 — the 
years  between  which  we  know  Shakespeare  to  have 
written  many  of  his  "  sugred  sonnets."  That  he  should 
copy  a  particular  fashion  as  he  copied  the  general  was 
entirely  natural.  Drayton,  who  was  no  lawyer,  but  was 
a  poet,  could  not  so  far  resist  the  legalist  craze  as  to 
abstain  from  working  out  in  one  Sonnet l  the  fancy  that 
his  mistress  may  be  tried  for  murdering  his  heart : 

The  verdict  on  the  view 
Do  quit  the  dead,  and  me  not  accessory. 

Well,  well !     I  fear  it  will  be  proved  of  you  ! 
The  Evidence  so  great  a  proof  doth  carry. 

Shakespeare  had  thus  the  example,  in  these  matters,  of  a 
poet  whom  he  could  not  but  esteem,  and  whom  in  one  of 
his  later  sonnets  he  has  so  closely  imitated  that  there  can 
be  no  question  of  the  influence.  In  this  case  the  parallel 
is  so  striking  that  once  more  we  are  led  to  doubt  the 
primary  character  of  the  experience  suggested  in  Shake 
speare's  sonnet  : 

DRAYTON 

'     An  Evil  Spirit  (your  Beauty)  haunts  me  still, 

Wherewith,  alas,  I  have  been  long  possest  ; 
Which  ceaseth  not  to  attempt  me  to  each  ill, 

Nor  gives  me  once,  but  one  poor  minute's  rest. 
In  me  it  speaks,  whether  I  sleep  or  wake  ; 

And  when  by  means  to  drive  it  out  I  try, 
With  greater  torments  then  it  me  doth  take, 

And  tortures  me  in  most  extremity. 
Before  my  face,  it  lays  down  my  despairs, 

And  hastes  me  on  unto  a  sudden  death  : 
Now  tempting  me  to  drown  myself  in  tears  ; 

And  then  in  sighing  to  give  up  my  breath. 
Thus  am  I  still  provoked  to  every  evil, 
By  this  good-wicked  Spirit,  sweet  Angel-Devil. 

No.  22  in  1599  ed.  of  Idea  ;  No.  20  in  ed.  cited,  p.  191. 

1  No.  51  of  ed.  1599  of  Idea;   No.  2  in  reprint  in  Elizabethan 
Sonnets,  as  cited,  ii,  182. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS       93 

SHAKESPEARE 

Two  loves  I  have,  of  comfort  and  despair 

Which  like  two  spirits  do  suggest  me  still : 
The  better  angel  is  a  man  right  fair, 

The  worser  spirit  a  woman,  colour 'd  ill* 
To  win  me  soon  to  hell,  my  female  evil 

Tempteth  my  better  angel  from  my  side,    t 
And  would  corrupt  my  saint  to  be  a  devil,    , 

Wooing  his  purity  with  her  foul  pride. 
And  whether  that  my  angel  be  turned  fiend, 

Suspect  I  may,  yet  not  directly  tell  ; 
But  being  both  from  me,  both  to  each  friend, 

I  guess  one  angel  in  another's  hell : 
Yet  this  shall  I  ne'er  know,  but  live  in  doubt, 
Till  my  bad  angel  fire  my  good  one  out. 

Sonnet  144. 
Dray  ton  has  told  in  another  sonnet  (21)  how  : 

A  witless  Gallant,  a  young  wench  that  wooed.  .  .  , 
Intreated  me,  as  e'er  I  wished  his  good, 
To  write  him  but  one  Sonnet  to  his  Love  ; 

and  how  he  did  so,  with  the  success  desired.  It  is  not 
easy  to  believe  that  these  sombre  lines  of  Shakespeare's 
.were  but  such  an  exercise.  Yet  they  may  have  been. 
In  any  case,  there  is  no  excuse  now  left  for  imputing  to 
an  overmastering  devotion  to  law,  the  result  of  a  deep  legal 
training,  the  legalisms  in  which  he  outwent  Drayton. 

So  far  from  being  "  lawyerlike  "  in  the  sense  of  striking 
the  literary  note  natural  to  a  trained  lawyer,  they  struck 
such  a  lawyer,  to  wit  Sir  John  Davies,  as  rather  ridiculous. 
Davies,  in  one  of  his  "  gulling  sonnets,"  avowedly  parodies 
the  legalist  sonnets  of  the  poet  of  ZEPHERIA  ;  and  he 
seems  to  have  had  before  him  in  manuscript  Shakespeare's 
Sonnet  26  when  he  penned  his  parody  beginning  : 

To  love,  my  lord,  I  do  Knight's  service  owe, 

"  B.  Griffin,  Gent."  who  dedicated  his  FIDESSA  (I596) to 
the  Gentlemen  of  the  Inns  of  Court,  and  was  presumably 
one  of  them,  makes  only  one  slight  excursion  into  legal 
imagery  in  his  sonnets.  Yet  the  Baconians  would  have 
us  believe  that  Bacon,  who  in  his  non-legal  works  so 


94  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

rarely  resorts  to  legal  phraseology,  touched  the  sonnets 
with  it  so  abundantly  by  reason  of  a  natural  professional 
propensity. 

In  this  connection,  however,  it  is  hardly  necessary 
to  consider  the  theorem  which,  on  the  strength  of  the 
legalisms  and  of  the  fixed  Baconian  idea,  would  ascribe 
to  Francis  Bacon,  as  a  real  expression  of  experience,  all 
the  Sonnets.  In  no  other  aspect  and  over  no  other 
issue  is  that  theorem  more  staggering  to  judgment.  But 
we  shall  recur  to  it  in  a  later  chapter.  For  the  present 
it  is  enough  to  have  shown  how  entirely  nugatory  is  the 
non-comparative  process  by  which  Lord  Campbell  has 
unwittingly  fooled  the  Baconians  to  the  top  of  their  bent. 
Citing  him,  they  have  relieved  themselves  of  the  trouble 
of  outgoing  his  research.  The  whole  phenomenon  is 
a  warning  instance  of  the  heedless  pretence,  and  the  more 
heedless  acceptance,  of  authority  in  criticism.  "  All  law 
critics  admit,"  says  Dr.  R.  Theobald,1  that  such  language 
as  that  of  the  46th  Sonnet  "  is  not  the  writing  of  an 
amateur  but  of  an  expert."  Lord  Campbell  alone  is  cited 
for  the  "  all  "  :  Mr.  Devecmon's  counter-doctrine  is  un 
known  to  the  Baconian.  We  have  seen  the  value  of  Lord 
Campbell's  pronouncement,  and  we  shall  similarly 
examine  some  others. 

But  critics  like  Dr.  Theobald,  themselves  habitually 
dogmatising  on  a  basis  of  literary  ignorance,  are  willingly 
at  the  mercy  of  any  false  evidence  that  chimes  with 
their  predilection.  "  Lawyers  say,"  writes  Dr.  Theobald, 
"  that  one  of  the  most  difficult  things  to  acquire  in  their 
profession  is  the  phraseology."  Dr.  Theobald  need  only 
have  read  in  the  Elizabethan  drama  a  little  further  than 
he  went  for  material  to  prove  that  Bacon  wrote  Shake 
speare  and  Marlowe,  in  order  to  learn  that  the  lawyers 
talked  ignorantly.  When,  however,  he  proceeds  to  help 
them  in  their  mystification  by  asserting  that  "  the  out 
sider  is  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to  be  found  out.  He  will 
1  Shakespeare  Studies  in  Baconian  Light,  1904,  p.  19. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  ALLUSIONS  95 

traverse  what  he  approves  (!), — or  empanel  a  witness  (!) 
instead  of  a  jury — or  in  some  way  his  legal  chatter  will 
degenerate  into  jargon."  On  this  principle,  Dr.  Theobald's 
assent  to  the  lawyer's  claim  is  of  no  value ;  he  being 
no  lawyer.  Unable  to  illustrate  his  proposition  save  by 
imaginary  enormities  of  blundering,  he  must  by  his  own 
account  be  unable  to  detect  any  slighter  deviations  from 
legal  accuracy.  Then  his  endorsement  of  their  expertise 
is  admittedly  worthless  to  start  with. 

Lawyers  of  literary  competence  will  be  the  first  to 
admit,  on  a  study  of  the  case,  that  Lord  Campbell's 
handling  of  the  literary  problem  before  us  partakes  of  the 
nature  of  literary  charlatanism ;  and  that  Lord  Pen- 
zance's  professed  "  summing-up  "  of  the  Bacon-Shake 
speare  problem,  being  a  grossly  ex  parte  statement,  is 
entitled  to  neither  lay  nor  professional  respect.  In  this 
matter  the  sole  authorities  are  critical  reason  and  literary 
evidence.  Unhappily  we  shall  find  some  professed 
Shakespearean  scholars  as  uncritical  as  the  judges. 


i 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY  : 
MR.  GRANT  WHITE'S  CASE: 

UNCRITICAL   as  are  the  arguments  alike  of 
Lord  Campbell  and  tha  Baconians    about 
the  legal  learning  of  Shakespeare,  they  are 
not   more  so  than  those  put  forth  to  the 
same  effect  by  Mr.  Grant  White,  a  Shakespearean  scholar 
and  a  hearty  contemner  of  the  entire  Baconian  theory. 
From  him  Mr.  Greenwood  is  able  to  cite  the  allegation 
that 

legal  phrases  flow  from  his  (Shakespeare's)  pen  as  part  of  his 
vocabulary,  and  parcel  of  his  thought.  Take  the  word  "pur 
chase,"  for  instance,  which  in  ordinary  use  means  to  acquire 
by  giving  value,  but  applies  in  law  to  all  legal  modes  of  obtaining 
property  except  by  inheritance  or  descent,  and  in  this  peculiar 
sense  the  word  occurs  five  times  in  Shakespeare's  thirty-four 
plays,  and  only  in  one  single  instance  in  the  fifty-four  plays  of 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  \ 

This  passage,  which  follows  Lord  Campbell's  lead,  forms 
part  of  a  longer  one  in  which  the  infirmity  of  Mr.  White's 
handling  of  the  problem  lies  on  the  surface. 

Malone  [he  writes],  noticing  the  frequency  with  which  Shake 
speare  uses  law  terms,  conjectured  that  he  had  passed  some  of 
his  adolescent  years  in  an  attorney's  office.  In  support  of  his 
conjecture,  Malone,  himself  a  barrister,  cited  twenty-four 
passages  distinguished  by  the  presence  of  law  phrases  ;  and  to 
these  he  might  have  added  many  more.  But  the  use  of  such 
phrases  is  by  no  means  peculiar  to  Shakespeare.  The  writings 
of  the  poets  and  playwrights  of  his  period,  Spenser,  Dray  ton, 
Greene,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Middleton,  Donne,  and  many 

1  Memoirs  of  William  Shakespeare  in  1866  ed.  of  Shakespeare's 
Works,  I,  pp.  xlv.     Repr.  later. 

96 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY  97 

others  of  less  note,  are  thickly  sprinkled  with  them.  In  fact  the 
application  of  legal  language  to  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life  was 
more  common  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  than  it  is  now  ; 
though  even  nowadays  the  usage  is  far  from  uncommon  in  the 
rural  districts.  There  law  shares  with  agriculture  the  function 
of  providing  those  phrases  of  common  conversation  which,  used 
•figuratively  at  first,  and  often  with  poetic  feeling,  pass  into  mere 
thought-saving  formulas  of  speech. 

Having  thus  reached  a  point  of  view  from  which  his 
own  theory  is  manifestly  open  to  suspicion,  since  the 
first  purpose  of  drama  must  be  to  be  "  understanded  of 
the  people,"  Mr.  White  nevertheless  proceeds  to  offer 
"  reasons  for  believing  that  Shakespeare  had  more  than 
a  layman's  knowledge  of  the  law."  Yet  the  sole  "  reason" 
suggested  is  the  merest  begging  of  the  question.  Needy 
young  lawyers  in  the  Elizabethan  period,  we  are  told, 
turned  to  play- writing  as  they  now  do  to  journalism  ; 
"  and  of  those  who  had  been  successful  in  their  dramatic 
efforts  how  inevitable  it  was  that  many  would  give 
themselves  up  to  play-writing,  and  that  thus  the  language 
of  the  plays  of  that  time  should  show  a  remarkable  in 
fusion  of  law  phrases."  That  is  to  say,  we  expect  to 
find  lawyer-dramatists  filling  their  plays  with  law.  Then 
comes  the  logical  somersault : 

To  what,  then,  must  we  attribute  the  fact  that  of  all  the  plays 
that  have  survived  of  those  written  between  1580  and  1620 
Shakespeare's  are  most  noteworthy  in  this  respect  ?  For  no 
dramatist  of  the  time,  not  even  Beaumont,  who  was  a  younger 
son  of  a  Judge  of  the  Common  Pleas,  and  who,  after  studying 
in  the  Inns  of  Court,  abandoned  law  for  the  drama,  used  legal 
phrases  with  Shakespeare's  readiness  and  exactness. 

Shakespeare;  that  is  to  say,  is  more  given  to  legalisms 
than  are  the  lawyer  dramatists,  and  must  therefore  have 
been  much  more  of  a  lawyer  than  they  !  Shakespeare, 
accordingly,  is  likely  to  have  had  not  the  mere  superficial 
training  of  a  lawyer's  clerk  ;  the  probability  is  that  he 

was  allowed  to  commence  his  studies  for  a  profession  for  which 
his  cleverness  fitted  him — and  that  he  continued  those  studies 
until  his  father's  misfortunes,  aided,  perhaps,  by  some  of  those 

G 


98  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

acts  of  youthful  indiscretion  which  clever  lads  as  well  as  dull 
ones  will  sometimes  commit,  threw  him  upon  his  own  resources  ; 
and  that  then,  law  failing  to  supply  his  pressing  need,  he  turned 
to  the  stage,  on  which  he  had  townsmen  and  friends. 

Thus  a  new  hypothesis,  outgoing  all  tradition,  and 
resting  on  no  shred  of  direct  testimony,  is  superimposed 
on  a  dubious  tradition,  by  way  of  supporting  an  un 
proved  assumption.  For  Mr.  White  does  not  make  one 
attempt  to  reach  a  true  quantitative  or  qualitative 
estimate  of  the  legal  element  in  Shakespeare  and  his 
contemporaries  by  way  of  detailed  comparison.  He 
makes  the  blank  affirmation,  and  merely  follows  it  up 
with  the  before-cited  passage  about  purchase,  and  by  a 
further  non-comparative  recital  of  legal  terms  from  the 
Shakespearean  plays  in  rebuttal  of  the  view  that  the 
whole  vocabulary  may  have  been  acquired  by  haunting 
the  law  courts. 

Those  terms  his  use  of  which  is  most  remarkable  .  .  .  are  not 
such  as  he  would  have  heard  at  ordinary  proceedings  at  nisi 
prius,  but  such  as  refer  to  the  tenure  or  transfer  of  real  property — 
"  fine  and  recovery,"  "  statutes  marchant,"  "  purchase,"  "  in 
denture,"  "  tenure,"  "  double  voucher,"  "  fee  simple,"  "  fee 
farm,"  "  remainder,"  "  reversion,"  "  forfeiture,"  &c.  This 
conveyancer's  jargon  could  not  have  been  picked  up  by  hanging 
round  the  courts  of  law  in  London  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago,  when  suits  as  to  the  title  to  real  property  were  comparatively 
rare.  And  besides,  Shakespeare  uses  his  law  just  as  freely  in 
his  early  plays,  written  in  his  first  London  years,  as  in  those 
produced  at  a  later  period. 

It  is  necessary  to  show  in  some  detail  that  we  have 
here,  once  more,  merely  a  forensic  "  bluff  "  ;  and  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  begin  the  demonstration  without  a 
word  of  protest  against  the  hand-to-mouth  fashion  in 
which  a  critic  who  was  most  unsparing  in  his  denunciation 
of  other  men's  laxities  and  inadequacies  went  about  a 
task  which  obviously  called  for  the  most  exact  critical 
procedure.  He  has  been  so  heedless  as  to  assign  to 
Shakespeare  the  common  phrase  "  statutes  marchant," 
which  is  not  to  be  found  in  any  of  the  plays  or  poems, 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY  99 

while  he  cites  eight  terms  which  are  to  be  found  by  the 
hundred  in  Elizabethan  drama.  But  his  lack  of  caution 
becomes  still  more  clear  when  we  examine  the  first-cited 
illustration,  upon  which  he  most  relies — that  which  turns 
upon  the  word  "  purchase."  In  point  of  fact  the  words 
"  purchase/'  "  purchased,"  "  purchaseth,"  and  "  pur 
chasing  "  occur  in  all  some  fifty  times  in  Shakespeare's 
plays,  and  twice  in  LUCRECE,  and  they  have  their  primary 
force — which  Mr.  White  fallaciously  reduces  to  a  "  legal  " 
one — far  oftener  than  five  times,  else  Shakespeare  would 
indeed  have  been  peculiar  among  his  contemporaries  in 
giving  the  word  its  secondary  and  modern  force.  By  the 
definition  "  legal  modes  of  obtaining  property "  the 
critic  merely  obscures  the  fact  that  the  term  covered 
all  modes  of  acquisition  save  inheritance.  There  was  no 
more  a  "  legal  "  sense  of  the  term  "  purchase  "  than  there 
was  or  is  of  the  term  "  property  "  or  "  obtain  "  :  the 
law  simply  discriminated,  on  legal  lines,  between  right  and 
wrong  modes  of  "purchase."  To  pick  out  cases  in  the  plays 
in  which  "  purchase  "  means  lawful  acquisition  is  thus 
pure  mystification  :  any  lawyer,  even,  might  say  "  lawful 
purchase  "  by  way  of  expressly  distinguishing  between 
lawful  and  unlawful  purchase,  as  he  might  say  "  stolen 
property  "  on  occasion.  As  Mr.  White  does  not  specify 
his  five  cases,  and  Mr.  Greenwood,  quoting  Mr.  White  as  he 
quotes  Lord  Campbell,  makes  no  scrutiny  of  the  assertion, 
I  will  simply  clear  the  matter  up  by  citing  many  instances 
of  the  use  of  the  quasi-"  legal  "  use  of  the  word  in  other 
writers  and  dramatists,  noting  that  it  is  frequently  applied 
in  the  sense  of  "  booty  "  or  plunder.  To  begin  with,  Mr. 
White  is  merely  mystifying  us  in  his  assertion  that  the 
"  legal "  sense  of  "  purchase "  occurs  only  once  in 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  fifty-four  dramas.  In  its 
original  and  general  sense,  which  is  the  "  legal,"  it  occurs 
twice  in  one  of  their  plays  : 

Lovegood.  I  thought  till  now 

There  had  been  no  such  living,  no  such  purchase 


ioo  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

(For  all  the  rest  is  labour),  as  a  list 
Of  mensurable  friends. 

Wit  without  Money,  iii,  4. 

Luce.         Must  every  slight  companion  that  can  purchase 
A  show  of  poverty,  and  beggarly  planet  [?], 
Fall  under  your  compassion  ? 

Ib.  iv,  4. 

— these  being  the  only  instances  of  the  word,  in  any 
application,  in  the  play  in  question.  And  it  occurs  re 
peatedly  in  others  by  the  same  authors  : 

Morecraft.  I  purchased,  wrung,  and  wire-drawed  for  my 
wealth,  lost,  and  was  cozened. 

The  Scornful  Lady,  v,  4. 

(Here  the  meaning  is  "  got  by  stratagems  " — within 
the  limits  of  the  law.) 

Dinant.  Yet,  but  consider  how  this  wealth  was  purchased 
[=  acquired]  ... 

In  brief, 

All  you  shall  wear,  or  touch,  or  see,  is  purchased 
By  lawless  force  [prize-taking  at  sea]. 

The  Little  French  Lawyer,  i,  i. 

Let  us  enjoy  our  purchase  [=  capture] . 

Ib.  iv,  6. 

Again,  these  two  last  are  the  only  instances  of  the  word 
"  purchase  "  in  the  play  cited. 

A  partial  collation  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  large 
mass  of  work  yields  the  following  additional  instances  : 

You  make  me  more  a  slave  still  to  your  goodness, 
And  only  live  to  purchase  thanks  to  pay  you. 

A  King  and  No  King,  iv,  i. 
[Can]  his  arms  rust  in  ease 

That  bears  the  charge,  and  sees  the  honoured  purchase 
Ready  to  gild  his  valour  ? 

Thierry  and  Theodoret,  iv,  i . 

I  hear  some  noise  :  it  may  be  new  purchase  [=  booty]. 

Ib.  v,  i. 

Here,  you  dull  slaves  :  purchase,  purchase  !  the  soul  of  the 
rock,  diamonds,  sparkling  diamonds  ! 

Id.  ib. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   101 

Why,  what  remains  but  new  nets  for  [=  to  effect]  the  purchase. 

Valentinian,  i,  i,  end. 
Let  not  this  body  .   .   .  now  be  purchase 
For  slaves  and  base  informers. 

Id.  i,  3,  end. 

Can  any  but  a  chastity  serve  Caesar, 
And  such  a  one  the  gods  would  kneel  to  purchase. 

Id.  iv,  i . 

I  need  no  company  to  that,  that  children 
Dare  do  alone,  and  slaves  are  proud  to  purchase. 

Id.  iv,  4. 
To  purchase  fair  revenge. 

Id.  v,  2. 
What  have  I  got  by  this  now  ?  what's  the  purchase  ? 

The  Chances,  i,i. 
My  holy  health  ...  to  purchase  which  .   .   . 

Monsieur  Thomas,  v,  4. 

I  have  purchased  to  myself,  besides  mine  own  undoing,  the 
ill  opinion  of  my  friends. 

Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle,  iv,  3 . 
This  sessions,  purchased  at  your  suit,  Don  Henrique, 
Hath  brought  us  hither. 

The  Spanish  Curate,  iii,  3. 
Grant  he  purchase 
Precedency  in  the  country. 

The  Elder  Brother,  i,  i. 
Oh,  Honour  ! 

How  greedily  men  seek  thee,  and,  once  purchased, 
How  many  enemies  to  man's  peace  bringst  thou  ! 

The  Prophetess,  iii,  3. 

The  philological  fact  is  that  the  sense  of  "  acquisition," 
"  a  thing  got,"  is  the  fundamental  meaning  of  the  word 
"  purchase,"  of  which  the  starting-point  is  the  idea  of  the 
chase  (Fr.  pourchasser),  the  product  of  hunting  or  foraging. 
It  is  the  idea  of  buying  that  is  secondary,  though  that 
has  now  become  the  normal  force  of  the  word.  That  is 
to  say,  the  so-called  "  legal  "  meaning  of  "  acquisition  of 
property  by  one's  personal  action  as  distinct  from  inheri 
tance  ' '  is  the  original  meaning,  and  is  the  likely  sense  of 
the  word  in  the  whole  feudal  period.  The  meaning  of 
"  buy  "  is  merely  an  evolution  from  that,  buying  being 
a  common  way  of  obtaining,  a  mode  of  "  purchase."  The 


102  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

fact  that  "  purchase  "  still  means  "  hold  " — as  in  "  get 
a  purchase  on  a  rope  " — shows  the  primary  meaning 
subsisting  on  one  line  of  extension  while  it  has  ceased 
on  another.  But  down  to  the  age  of  Shakespeare  the 
original  and  quasi-legal  sense  was  normal.  To  begin 
with,  that  use  of  the  word  in  ordinary  literature  is 
established  as  early  as  Chaucer.  Professor  Skeat  there 
assigns  to  the  verb  the  meanings  ."  to  procure  or  acquire,  to 
win,  to  buy,  to  promote,  to  contrive,  to  provide  ;  "  and  to 
the  noun  the  meanings  "  proceeds,  gifts  acquired,  gain  ;  " 
with  the  further  sense  of  "  conveyancing  "  in  the  form 
"  purchasing."  1  In  the  Canterbury  Tales  we  have  : 

His  purchas  was  wel  better  than  his  rente  ; 

Prologue,  256. 
and  again  : 

My  purchas  is  the  effect  of  al  my  rente. 

Frere's  Tale,  1451. 
Yet  again,  in  another  place,  we  have  : 

My  purchas  is  better  than  my  rent. 

Romaunt  of  the  Rose,  6837. 

In  TROILUS  AND  CRISEYDE  also  (iv,  557)  we  have  : 
Sin  wel  I  wot  I  may  her  not  purchace 

—in  the  sense  of  "  obtain."  And  again  in  the  Prologue 
we  have  a  secondary  use  (318-20)  : 

So  greet  a  purchasour  was  nowher  noon. 
Al  was  fee  symple  to  him  in  effect, 
His  purchasyng  myghte  not  been  infect. 

That  is,  he  (the  Sergeant)  was  a  great  conveyancer, 
whose  conveyancing  could  not  be  impugned.  In  THE 
PERSONE'S  TALE,  in  the  phrase  "  for  to  purchasen  many 
earthly  things  (sent.  742),  and  in  the  TALE  OF  MELIBEUS 
(§55),  in  the  phrase  "they  that  loven  and  purchasen 

1  Prol.  to  Cant.  Tales,  1.  320.  Other  scholars  (see  Glossary  of 
Globe  ed.)  assign  the  meanings  "  prosecuting  "  and  "  prosecutor  " 
in  the  case  of  the  description  of  the  Man  of  Lawe.  Skeat 's  seems 
the  correct  view.  In  the  Frere's  Tale,  1449,  however,  purchasing 
means  acquiring. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   103 

peace,"  the  meaning  is  clearly  the  primary  one.  We 
have  the  word  again  in  Langland  : 

And  purchased  him  a  pardon 

A  pozna  et  a  culpa 

Manye  wepten  for  joie 

And  preiseden  Piers  the  Plowman 

That  purchased  this  bulle. 

Vision  of  Piers  Ploughman, 

ed.  Wright,  4469-70,  4538-40. 

— where  the  idea  is  not  buying  but  obtaining.  It  has  the 
same  force  in  the  phrase  "  favour  craftily  purchasing" 
in  Roye's  REDE  ME  AND  BE  NOTT  WROTHE  (1528)  and  in 
Sir  Thomas  More's  DIALOGUE  OF  COMFORT  AGAINST 
TRIBULATION  (1534)  : 

If  we  might  once  purchase  the  grace  to  come  to  that  point, 
Dent's  rep.  with  Utopia,  p.  187  ; 

and  again,  in  the  editor's  preface  to  Latimer's  Second 
Sermon  before  Edward  VI,  the  word  is  used  in  the  alleged 
"  legal "  sense,  though  the  writer  is  ostensibly  a  foe  to 
lawyers  : 

Thou  that  purchasest  so  fast,  to  the  utter  undoing  of  the  poor. 
Sermons  of  Latimer,  Dent's  rep.  p.  90. 

Obviously  this  was  the  regular  force  of  the  term,  and 
it  is  in  that  sense  that  Latimer  himself  uses  it : 

A  certain  great  man  that  had  purchased  much  lands. 

Last  Sermon  before  King  Edward,  ed.  cited,  p.  240. 

So  in  Roger  Hutchinson  : 

Now  they  [who  "  were  wont  to  ...  maintain  schools  and 
houses  of  alms  "]  be  purchasers  and  sellers-away  of  the  same. 

Epistle  to  Archbishop  Cranmer  ;  Parker  Soc.  vol.  of 

Works,  p.  4. 

In  theology  the  term  is  often  used  metaphorically  with 
the  same  force  :  e.g. 

The  everlasting  heritage  which  he  [Christ]  hath  purchased  for  us. 
Trans,  of  Calvin  on  Ephesians,  15,  fol.  146,  verso. 

A  metaphorical  use  of  the  word,  resting  on  the  "  legal  " 
sense,  was  in  fact  normal  throughout  Tudor  literature  ; 
and  a  dozen  instances  of  it  may  be  found  in  the  early 


104  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

version  (from  the  Italian)  of  the  PHCENISS^:  of  Euripides 
by  Gascoigne  and  others  under  the  title  of  JOCASTA 
(1566).  It  is  common,  again,  in  Spenser,  in  various 
senses  which  all  turn  upon  the  alleged  "  legal  "  one  : 

For  on  his  back  a  heavy  load  he  bare 
Of  nightly  stelths  and  pillage  severall 
Which  he  had  got  abroad  by  purchas  criminall. 

Faerie  Queene,  B.  I,  C.  iii,  St.  16. 
That  [sword]  shall  I  shortly  purchase  to  your  hand. 

Id.  B.  II,  C.  iii,  St.  18. 

Made  answere  that  the  mayd  of  whom  they  spake 
Was  his  owne  purchase  and  his  onely  prize. 

Id.  B.  VI,  C.  xi,  St.  12. 
Sicker  I  hold  him  for  a  greater  fon  (fool) 
That  loves  the  thing  he  cannot  purchase. 

Shepheard's  Calendar,  158-9. 

Again  in  the  prose  dedication  of  MUIOPOTMOS  he  has  : 

That  honourable  name  which  ye  have  by  your  brave  deserts 
purchast  to  yourself. 

In  Puttenham's  prose  this  sense  of  the  term  is  explicit : 

No  doubt  the  shepheard's  .  .  .  trade  was  the  first  act  of  lawful 
acquisition  or  purchase,  for  at  these  days  robbery  was  a  manner 
of  purchase. 

An  of  Poetrie,  Arber's  rep.,  p.  53. 

That  the  word  was  in  normal  Elizabethan  use  in  the 
quasi-legal  sense  might  be  inferred  from  its  occurring 
twice  metaphorically  with  such  a  meaning  in  Nicholas 
Breton's  TOM  THE  PAGE'S  SONG  : 

Faith  !  she  will  say,  you  wicked  page  ! 
I'll  purchase  you  an  heritage. 
To  purchase  me  an  heritage. 

Joys  of  an  Idle  Head,  in  A  Flourish  uponFancy,  1582. 
Rep.  in  Arber's  Spenser  Anthology,  1899,  p.  187. 

In  homiletic  literature  it  has  the  same  metaphorical 
force  : 

Thereby  purchase  to  himself  .  .  .  eternal  damnation. 

Stubbes,  Anatomic  of  Abuses,  Collier's  Rep.  p.  37. 
Again,  p.  68. 

And  unless  we  are  to  suppose  that  all  the  dramatists 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   105 

alike  made  tfreir  personages  talk  out  of  character — as 
in  effect  the  legalists  imply  that  Shakespeare  did — we 
must  draw  the  same  inference  from  their  plays,  for  they 
all  introduce  the  word  in  the  broad  primary  sense,  and 
this  far  more  often  than  in  the  limited  modern  one  : 

He  that  will  purchase  things  of  greatest  prize 
Must  conquer  by  his  deeds,  and  not  by  words. 

Lilly,  Woman  in  the  Moon,  ii,  i. 
My  valour  everywhere  shall  purchase  friends. 

Kyd,  S oliman  and  Perseda,  IV,  ii,  6. 
To  purchase  Godhead,  as  did  Hercules. 

Id.  ib.  1.  19. 
To  purchase  fame  to  our  posterities. 

Id.  Cornelia,  v,  5. 
His  company  hath  purchased  me  ill  friends. 

Arden  of  Fever  sham,  v,  i  [twice]. 
Jeron.  How  like  you  Don  Horatio's  spirit  ? 
What,  doth  it  promise  fair  ? 

K.  of  Spain.  Ay,  and  no  doubt  his  merit  will  purchase  more. 
First  Part  of  Jeronimo  [1605]  Sc.  i,  11.  17-19. 
Sadoc.  God  save  Lord  Cusay.     And  direct  his  zeal 
To  purchase  David's  conquest  'gainst  his  son. 

Peele,  David  and  Bethsabe,  iii,  2. 
To  purchase  hearing  with  my  lord  the  King. 

Id.  ib. 
Messenger.  How  many  friends  I  purchase  everywhere. 

King  Leir  and  his  Three  Daughters,  Sc.  17. 
That  purchas'd  kingdoms  by  your  martial  deeds. 

Marlowe,  I.  Tamb.  v,  2,  end. 
To  purchase  towns  by  treachery. 

Id.  Jew  of  Malta,  v,  4. 
He  that  will  not  when  he  may 
When  he  desires  shall  surely  purchase  nay. 
Greene,  Alphonsus  King  of  Arragon,  v,  ed.  Dyce,  p.  245. 

Your  pardon  is  already  purchased. 

Id.  ib.  p.  246. 

Greene  uses  the  word  in  the  same  way  in  his  prose  tales  : 

He  thought  no   victuals  to  have  their  taste  which  were  not 
purchased  by  his  own  sweat. 

Id.     Tale   of    Perimedes    the    Blacksmith  [1588], 
Works,  ed.  Grosart,  vii,  12. 


106  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Thou  may'st  practise  virtue  if  them  take  heed,  or  purchase 
discredit  if  thou  beest  careless. 

Id.     Card  of  Fancy.     Works,  iv,  20. 

and  in  his  play  JAMES  IV  (v,  4)  : 

.  The  crafty  men  have  purchased  great  men's  lands. 
Jonson  in  his  plays  uses  it  many  times  : 

I  glory 

More  in  the  cunning  purchase  of  my  wealth 
Than  in  the  glad  possession. 

Jonson,  Volpone,  i,  i,  near  beginning. 
A  diamond,  plate,  chequines.     Good  morning's  purchase. 
[In  this  case  —  acquisitions  by  gift]. 

Id.  ib.  near  end  of  Scene. 

Do  you  two  pack  up  all  the  goods  and  purchase. 
[In  this  case  =  cheaters'  booty]. 

76.  iv,  4. 
I  think  I  must  be  enforced  to  purchase  me  another  page. 

Id.    Cynthia's  Revels,  ii,  i . 
I  will  not  rob  you  of  him,  nor  the  purchase. 

Id.     The  Magnetic  Lady,  v,  6,  end. 
Wittipol.  I  will  share,  Sir, 

In  your  sports  only,  nothing  in  your  purchase  [in  this  case = gains]. 

The  Devil  is  an  Ass,  hi,  i. 
This  second  blessing  of  your  eyes 
Which  now  I've  purchased. 

Ib.  i,  i. 
Purchase  to  themselves  rebuke  and  shame. 

Sejanus,  iii,  i. 

(Here  the  sense  is  '.'.  attained  to."     Wittipol  would  not 
tell  the  lady  that  he  has  bought  the  sight  of  her.) 

No  less  common  is  the  word  in  Webster  and  his  col 
laborators  : 

I  will  not  purchase  by  thee  [Laverna]  but  to  eat. 

Webster  and  Rowley,  A  Cure  for  a  Cuckold,  ii,  i. 
And  will  redeem  myself  with  purchase  [«  booty]. 

Id.  ii,  2. 

Of  all  my  being,  fortunes,  and  poor  fame 
(If  I  have  purchased  any)   .  .  . 
You  have  been  the  sole  creatress. 

Id.  iii,  3. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY  107 

I  made  a  purchase  lately,  and  in  that 
I  did  estate  the  child — 
Joint-purchaser  in  all  the  land  I  bought. 

Id.  iv,  i. 

Ignorance,  when  it  hath  purchased  honour, 
It  cannot  wield  it. 

Webster,  Duchess  of  Mai  ft,  ii,  3. 
Were  all  of  his  mind,  to  entertain  no  suits 
But  such  they  thought  were  honest,  sure  our  lawyers 
Would  not  purchase  half  so  fast. 

Id.     The  Devil's  Law  Case,  iv,  I. 
They  do  observe  I  grew  to  infinite  purchase 
The  left-hand  way. 

Id,  iii,  i. 

That  noblemen  shall  come  with  cap  and  knee 
To  purchase  a  night's  lodging  of  their  wives. 

Id.  iii,  2. 

In  the  same  sense  we  have  it  in  Randolph  : 

Here  is  a  conquest  purchas'd  without  blood. 

The  Jealous  Lovers,  i,  10. 

In  Thomas  Heywood  the  word  is  particularly  frequent : 

I'll  gain  her,  or  in  her  fair  quest 
Purchase  my  soul  free  and  immortal  rest. 

Heywood,  A  Woman  Killed  with  Kindness,  iii,  i . 

I  have  a  trade, 
And  in  myself  a  means  to  purchase  wealth. 

Id.     The  Foure  Prentises  of  London,  i,  i . 

They  are  all  on  fire 
To  purchase  [=win  booty]  from  the  Spaniard. 

Id.     The  Fair  Maid  of  the  West,  i,  i. 
Now  could  your  lady  purchase 
Their  pardon  from  the  king. 

[Here  the  force  is,  "  obtain  by  favour  "]. 

Id.  ib.  v,  i. 

I'll  purchase  't  with  a  danger. 

Id.     Part  II,   Fair  Maid  of  the   West.     Pearson's 
Heywood,  ii,  349. 

Purchased  by  this  bold  answer. 

Id.  ib.  p.  350. 
Show  me  the  way 
To  gain  this  royal  purchase. 

Id.  ib.  p.  350. 


io8  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Not  to  do  it 
May  purchase  his  displeasure. 

Id.  ib.  p.  351. 

Here  the  word  is  used  in  the  quasi-legal  sense  four  times 
in  three  successive  pages.     But  it  constantly  recurs  in 
the  same  general  sense,  as  distinct  from  that  of  buying. 
To  purchase  to  yourself  a  thrifty  son. 

Id.     The  English  Traveller,  iv,  6. 
Could  I  have  purchased  houses  at  that  rate, 
I  had  meant  to  have  bought  all  London. 
[Here  the  sense  is  "  acquired  by  fraud  "]. 

Id.  ib. 

Your  grace  may  purchase  glory  from  above, 
And  entire  love  from  all  your  people's  hearts. 

Id.     If  you  know  not  me  you  know  nobody.      Pt.  I 

Pearson's  Hey  wood,  i,  225. 
When  my  poor  wife  and  children  cry  for  bread, 
They  still  must  cry  till  these  [hands  and  spade]  have  purchast  it. 

Id.  ib.     Part  II,  ed.  cited,  p.  304. 
My  love  to  her  may  purchase  me  his  love. 

Id.     PU  I  of  King  Edward  IV,  ed.  cited,  i,  129. 
Jupiter.  Hadst  thou  asked  love,  gold,  service,  Empiry, 
This  sword  had  purchased  for  Callisto  all. 

Id.     The  Golden  Age,  ii,  i,  ed.  cited,  iii,  26. 

I'll  wake  her 
Unto  new  life.     This  purchase  I  must  win. 

Id.  ib.  iv,  i,  p.  68. 
Saturn.  Re-purchast  and  re-lost  by  Jupiter. 

Id.  ib.  v,  i,  p.  75. 
I'll  try  conclusions, 
And  see  if  I  can  purchase  it  with  blows. 

Id.  ib.  p.  76. 

Pluto.  Ceres  nor  Jove,  nor  all  the  Gods  above, 
Shall  rob  me  this  rich  purchase  [Proserpine]. 

Id.     The  Silver  Age,  iii,  vol.  cited,  p.  137. 
Hercules.  We  take  but  what  our  valour  purchast  us. 

Id.     The  Brazen  Age,  i,  i,  p.  177. 
Atreus.  Without  some  honour  purchast  on  this  Boar. 

Id.  ib.  p.  188. 
Meleager.  To  have  purchased  honour  in  this  hasty  quest. 

Id.  ib.  p.  189. 
Thou  hast  purchast  honour  and  renown  enough. 

Id.  ib.  p.  192. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY  109 

Jason.  Rename  all  Greece 

By  the  rich  purchase  of  the  Colchian  fleece. 

Id.  ib.  p.  203. 

Hercules.  Now  is  the  rich  and  precious  fleece 

By  Jason's  sword  repurchast. 

Id.  ib.  p.  218. 

Medea.  To  redeem  the  fleece, 

And  it  repurchase  with  your  tragic  deaths. 

Id.  ib.  p.  2  19. 
Hercules.     She  is  the  warlike  purchase  of  thy  sword. 

Id.  ib.  p.  225. 
And  by  our  deeds  repurchase  our  renown. 

Id.  ib.  p.  246. 

Here  we  have  the  word  used  nine  times  in  one  play,  and 
only  in  the  primary  sense.  For  Heywood,  in  fact, 
"purchase"  normally  means  acquisition  otherwise  than 
by  inheritance  or  buying  ;  and  there  is  no  inference  open 
save  that  this  was  a  normal  sense  of  the  word  in  his  day. 

But  we  have  it  also  in  Dekker  : 

That  would  have  purchased  sin  alone  to  himself. 

Dekker.     The  Honest  Whore,  Pt.  I,  ii,  i. 

The  purchase  [booty]  is  rich. 

Ib.  Pt.  II,  iv,  i. 

It  shall  concern  thee  and  thy  love's  purchase. 
The  Witch  of  Edmonton,  by  Rowley,  Dekker,  Ford,  &c.  iii,  i. 

Of  this  as  of  other  "  legal  "  uses  of  terms  we  have 
frequent  examples  in  the  prose  of  Nashe  : 

It  may  be  that  he  meaneth  about  purchasing  [acquiring  prop 
erty]  as  he  hath  done. 

First  part  of  Pasquil's  Apology.     Works,  ed. 
McKerrow,  i,  128. 

That  recantation  purchased  his  liberty. 

Four  Letters  Confuted.     Vol.  cited,  p.  297. 

Their  purchased  [= granted  by  the  King]  prerogatives. 

Nashe' s  Lenten  Stuff,  ed.  cited,  iii,  165. 

Voyages  of  Purchase  of  Refusals. 

Id.  p.  i 80. 
Men  that  have  no  means  to  purchase  credit  with  their  prince. 

Id.  p.  218, 


no  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

In  Massinger  the  usage  abounds  : 

Style  not  that  courtship,  madam,  which  is  only 
Purchased  on  your  part. 

A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts,  i,  2. 
By  that  fair  name  I  in  the  wars  have  purchased. 

Id.  iii,  i. 
Purchased  with  his  blood  that  did  oppose  me. 

Id.  iii,  2. 
Honour 
By  virtuous  ways  achieved,  and  bravely  purchased. 

Id.  iv,  i. 

I  can  do  twenty  [tricks]  neater,  if  you  please, 
To  purchase  and  grow  rich. 

Id.  v,  near  end. 
the  knowledge  of 

A  future  sorrow,  which,  if  I  find  out, 
My  present  ignorance  were  a  cheap  purchase. 

The  Picture,  i,  i. 
this  bubble  honour  .  .  . 

With  the  loss  of  limbs  or  life  is,  in  my  judgment, 
Too  dear  a  purchase. 

Id.  i,  2. 

There  are  other  toys  about  you  the  same  way  purchased 
[= received  in  gift]. 

Id.  iii,  6. 
I  would  not  lose  this  purchase  [=gain]. 

The  City  Madam,  v,  i. 
This  felicity,  not  gained 

By  vows  to  saints  above,  and  much  less  purchased 
By  thriving  industry. 

Id.  ib.  v,  3. 
I  shall  break 
If  at  this  rate  [by  marriage]  I  purchase  you. 

Id.     The  Guardian,  i,  i. 
Here  purchase  the  reward  that  was  propounded. 

Id.     The  Virgin  Martyr,  v,  near  end. 
The  danger  in  the  purchase  of  the  prey. 

Id.     The  Unnatural  Combat,  ii,  i . 
You  have  purchased 
This  honour  at  a  high  price  [moral]. 

Id.  ib. 

My  scrip,  my  tar-box,  hook,  and  coat,  will  prove 
But  a  thin  purchase  [=- booty]. 

Id.     The  Bashful  Lover,  iii,  i , 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY  in 

I  would  purchase 
My  husband  by  such  benefits. 

Id.  ib.  iii,  2,  near  end, 
I  will  practise 
All  arts  for  your  deliverance,  and  that  purchased   .   .   . 

Id.     The  Bondman,  v,  2. 
And  it  is  frequent  in  Chapman  : 

Borrowing 
With  thee  is  purchase. 

Byron's  Conspiracy,  i,i. 
My  purchased  honours. 

The  Admiral  of  France,  ii,  2. 

Consume 
All  he  hath  purchased. 

All  Fools,  i,  i. 
While  we  abroad  fight  for  new  Kingdoms'  purchase. 

Revenge  for  Honour,  ii,  i. 
So  much  I  prize  the  sweetness 
Of  that  unvalued  purchase. 

Id.  iv,  i. 
Then  your  purchase  holds. 

The  Ball,  ii,  2. 

We  have  it  in  the  anonymous  play  NERO  [1624]  : 

That  heady  and  adventurous  crew 
That  go  to  lose  their  own  to  purchase  but 
The  breath  of  others  and  the  common  voice.  i,  3« 

and  in  Henry  Porter's  Two  ANGRY  WOMEN  OF  ABINGTON  : 
What  shall  I  do  purchase  company  ?  (v,  i ) 

It  seems  unnecessary  to  carry  the  comparison  further. 
The  primary  and  quasi-"  legal  "  sense  of  "purchase," 
so  far  from  being  peculiar  to  Shakespeare,  is  far  more 
common  than  the  other  in  the  dramas  of  other  writers 
in  his  and  the  next  generation.  And  so  absolutely  normal 
was  this  use  of  the  word  that  it  enters  into  the  old 
rhymed  version  of  the  Psalms,  authorised  for  use  in  the 
churches  in  1645  : 

The  swallow  also  for  herself 

Hath  purchased  a  nest.  Ps.  Ixxxiv,  3.1 

1  Hopkins'  sixteenth-century  version  of  this  Psalm,  still 
retained  in  Scotland.  Tate  and  Brady  (1696)  give  a  changed 
rendering. 


ii2  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

When  therefore  we  find  the  word  used  by  Bacon  (ESSAY 
OF  HONOUR  AND  REPUTATION)  we  are  not  reading  a 
legalism  imposed  on  belles  lettres  by  a  lawyer,  but  a  current 
English  word  used  in  its  current  meaning.1  So  widely 
was  that  meaning  established  that  we  find  it  as  late  as 
1727  in  a  preface  of  Bishop  Warburton's  : 

For  now  the  Invention  of  Printing  hath  made  it  [the  usage  of 
dedications]  a  Purchase  for  the  Vulgar. 

A    Critical   and  Philosophical   Enquiry  into  the    Causes 
of  Prodigies  and  Miracles,  1727,  ded.  p.  vii. 

For  the  rest,  Mr.  Grant  White's  general  case  is  obviously 
as  void  as  that  of  Lord  Campbell.  To  say  no  more  of 
his  divagation  over  the  term  "  purchase,"  it  is  astonishing 
that  such  a  scholar,  who  must  have  had  a  general  acquaint 
ance  with  the  Elizabethan  and  Stuart  drama,  should  find 
evidence  of  special  and  technical  knowledge  of  conveyanc 
ing  in  the  bare  use  of  such  terms  and  phrases  "  fine  and 
recovery,"  "  indenture/'  "  tenure,"  "  double  voucher," 
"  fee  simple,"  "  remainder,"  "  reversion,"  and  "  for 
feiture."  A  perusal  of  two  plays  of  Massinger's  might 
have  led  the  critic  to  cancel  his  whole  thesis.  In  A  NEW 
WAY  TO  PAY  OLD  DEBTS  we  have,  in  addition  to  the 
passages  already  cited,  this  swarm  of  legal  terms  : 

On  forfeiture  of  their  licences. 
Makes  forfeiture  of  his  breakfast. 
On  the  forfeit  of  your  favour. 
Sue  in  forma  pauperis. 
Put  it  to  arbitrament. 
Come  upon  you  for  security. 
By  mortgage  or  by  statute. 

You  had  it  in  trust,  which  if  you  do  discharge, 
Surrendering  the  possession,  you  shall  ease 
Yourself  and  me  of  chargeable  suits  in  law. 

1  Bacon  uses  the  word  in  its  modern  sense  thrice  in  the  Essay 
Of  Usury. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   113 

If  thou  canst  forswear 
Thy  hand  and  seal,  and  make  a  forfeit  of 
Thy  ears  to  the  pillory. 

Indented,  I  confess,  and  labels,  too, 
But  neither  wax  nor  words  ! 

There  is  a  statute  for  you. 

I  know  thou  art 

A  public  notary,  and  such  stand  in  law 
For  a  dozen  witnesses  :    the  deed  being  drawn  too  .  .  .  and 

delivered 
When  thou  wert  present,  will  make  good  my  title. 

Your  suit  is  granted 
And  you  loved  for  the  motion. 

In  THE  CITY  MADAM,  by  the  same  playwright,  we  have 
these  : 

I  can  make  my  wife  a  jointure  of  such  lands  too 
As  are  not  encumbered  :  no  annuity 
Or  statute  lying  on  them. 

His  bond  three  times  since  forfeited. 

Ten  thousand  pounds  apiece  I'll  make  their  portions, 
And  after  my  decease  it  shall  be  double. 
Provided  you  assure  them,  for  their  jointures, 
Eight  hundred  pounds  per  annum,  and  entail 
A  thousand  more  upon  the  heirs  male 
Begotten  on  their  bodies. 

The  forfeiture  of  a  bond. 

His  whole  estate 

In  lands  and  leases,  debts  and  present  monies, 
With  all  the  movables  he  stood  possess'd  of. 

Cancel  all  the  forfeited  bonds  I  sealed  to. 

I  will  likewise  take 

The  extremity  of  your  mortgage,  and  the  forfeit 
Of  your  several  bonds  :   the  use  and  principal 
Shall  not  serve. 

From  almost  no  play  of  Shakespeare  can  there  be  cited 
so  many  "  legalisms  "  as  occur  in  either  of  these  two  of 
Massinger.  But  Massinger  is  not  singular.  We  have 
already  noted  dozens  of  legalisms  in  Jonson,  Dekker, 
Heywood,  and  Chapman. 


Ii4  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

In  Lilly's  MOTHER  BOMBIE  alone  I  find  some  thirty 
"  legal  "  allusions  : 

A  good  evidence  to  prove  the  fee  simple  of  your  daughter's  folly. 

I  convey  a  contract: 

Impannelled  in  a  jury. 

Carrying  the  quest  to  consult. 

A  deed  of  gift. 
Witnesses  to  their  contract. 
Let  us  join  issue  with  them. 
He  arrests  you  at  my  suit  for  a  horse. 
Sergeant,  wreak  thine  office  on  him. 
Nay,  let  him  be  bailed. 

I'll  enter  into  a  statute  marchant  to  see  it  answered.  But  if 
thou  wilt  have  bonds,  then  shalt  have  a  bushelful. 

Thou  bound  in  a  statute  marchant  ?  A  brown  thread  will  bind 
thee  fast  enough.  But  if  you  will  be  content  all  four  jointly  to 
enter  into  a  bond,  I  will  withdraw  the  action. 

A  scrivener's  shop  hangs  to  a  sergeant's  mace  like  a  bur  to  a 
frieze  coat. 

You  must  take  a  note  of  a  bond. 

The  scrivener  cannot  keep  his  pen  out  of  the  pot :  every  goblet 
is  an  ink-horn. 

I,  such  as  they  cry  at  the  'sizes,  a  work  in  issues. 
Where  did  I  consent  ?     When  ?     What  witness  ? 

Our  good  wills  being  asked,  which  needed  not,  we  gave  them , 
which  booted  not. 

Wast  thou  privy  to  this  practice  ? 
Thou  shalt  be  punished  as  principal. 
Let  the  conveyance  run  as  we  agreed. 
You  convey  cleanly  indeed,  if  cozenage  be  clean  dealing. 

You  shall  presently  be  contracted. 
Upon  submission  escape  the  punishment. 
Thy  fact  is  pardoned,  though  the  law  would  see  it  punished. 
I  was  content  to  take  a  bond  jointly  of  them  all. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   115 

Sealed  me  an  obligation,  nothing  to  the  purpose. 
By  this  bond  you  can  demand  nothing. 

I  have  his  acquittance  :  let  him  sue  his  bond 

With  such  a  noverint  as  Cheapside  can  show  none  such. 

Every  one  of  these  phrases  would  have  been  certified  by 
Lord  Campbell  and  Senator  Davis  as  a  proof  of  legal 
knowledge  had  they  found  it  in  Shakespeare,  and  in 
no  Shakespearean  play  can  they  find  half  as  many.  Was 
Lilly  then  a  lawyer  ?  If  Shakespeare's  plays  exhibit  a 
professional  knowledge  of  conveyancing,  what  inference, 
once  more,  are  we  to  draw  from  this  series  of  conveyancer's 
phrases  in  a  single  play  of  Ben  Jonson's  ? — 

The  thing  is  for  recovery  of  drown'd  land 
Whereof  the  crown's  to  have  a  moiety 
If  it  be  owner  ;  else  the  crown  and  owners 
To  share  that  moiety,  and  the  recoverers 
To  enjoy  the  t'other  moiety  for  their  charge. 

The  Devil  is  an  Ass,  ii,  i. 
He  keeps  more  stir 

For  that  same  petty  sum,  than  for  your  bond 
Of  six,  and  statute  of  eight  hundred. 

Id.  ii,  3. 

Then  we  grant  out  our  process,  which  is  diverse 
Either  by  chartel,  Sir,  or  ore  tenus. 

Id.  iii,  i. 

Have  your  deed  drawn  presently, 
And  leave  a  blank  to  put  in  your  feoffees 
One,  two,  or  more,  as  you  see  cause. 

Id.  iii,  2. 

Get  the  feoff ment  drawn,  with  a  letter  of  attorney 
For  livery  and  seisin. 

Id.  iv,  2. 
But,  sir,  you  mean  not  to  make  him  feoffee. 

Id.  ib. 

Sir  Paul  Eitherside  willed  me  give  you  caution 
Whom  you  did  make  feoffee  ;  for  'tis  the  trust 
Of  your  whole  state. 

Id.  ib. 

He  has  a  quarrel  to  carry,  and  has  caused 
A  deed  of  feoffment  of  his  whole  estate 
To  be  drawn  yonder. 

Id.  iv,  3. 


n6  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

I  am  ready 
For  process  now,  Sir  :  this  is  publication. 

Id.  ib. 

By  which  means  you  were 
Not  compos  mentis  when  you  made  your  feoffment. 

Id.  v,  3. 
Move  in  a  court  of  equity. 

Id.  ib. 

In  Jonson,  as  in  Lilly,  we  have  one  of  the  law  terms 
erroneously  ascribed  by  Grant  White  to  Shakespeare  : 

I'll  be  his  Statute  staple,  Statute-marchant 
Or  what  he  please. 

The  Staple  of  News,  iii,  i. 

We  find  it  in  Nashe  : 

;  .  .  The  Divell  used  to  lend  money  upon  pawnes,  or  anything, 
and  would  let  one  for  a  need  have  a  thousand  pounds  upon  a 
Statute  Marchant  of  his  soul,  or  ...  would  trust  him  upon  a 
bill  of  his  hand.  .  .  . 

Pierce  Penilesse  his  Supplication  to  the  Divell.    Works,  i,  161 . 

It  occurs  also  in  at  least  two  stories  of  Greene's  : 

Lends  him  money  and  takes  a  fair  statute-marchant  of  his 
lands  before  a  judge. 

Life  and  Death  of  Ned  Browne.     Works,  xi,  30. 

He  must  bind  over  his  lands  in  a  statute  marchant  or  staple. 
Quip  for  an  Upstart  Courtier.     Works,  xi,  277. 

And  this  particular  law  term  occurs  in  one  of  the  old 
morality  plays  : 

Bounde  in  statute  marchante. 

Impatient  Poverty  (1560),  Rep.  1909,  1.  191, 

—with  other  legalisms  such  as  "  surety,"  "  bill  of  sale," 
"writ  of  privilege,"  and  the  maxim  that  "the  law  is 
indifferent  to  every  person  "  (1.  6) — all  going  to  show 
that  legal  phraseology  and  discussion  pervaded  Eliza 
bethan  drama  from  its  earliest  stages. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY  : 
MR.  RUSHTON;   SENATOR  DAVIS;   MR.  CASTLE 

§  i.     Rushton 

A  DISTINCTION  should  be  drawn  between  the 
argumentation  of  Mr.  W.  L.  Rushton  and  that 
of  the  later  advocates,  Baconian  or  other,  of 
the  theory  that  the  Shakespearean  plays  ex 
hibit  special  knowledge  of  law.  Mr.  Rushton,  as  has  been 
noted  above,  preceded  and  apparently  primed  Campbell ; 
and  throughout  his  series  of  small  books  on  Shakespearean 
questions  he  exhibits  at  once  a  wider  literary  learning 
and  a  somewhat  sounder  judgment  than  are  to  be  seen 
in  the  other  writers  with  whom  we  have  to  deal.  His 
SHAKESPEARE'S  EUPHUISM  is  a  painstaking  performance, 
the  work  of  an  industrious  literary  antiquary.  Yet  there 
is  in  all  his  work  an  element  of  laborious  trifling,  and  he  is 
always  somewhat  indiscriminate  in  his  citation  of  parallels. 
In  so  far  as  his  case  for  Shakespeare's  knowledge  of 
law  is  appropriated  and  embodied  in  Campbell's,  it  has 
been  disposed  of  in  our  examination  of  that.  He  himself, 
however,  never  committed  Campbell's  folly  of  claiming 
for  the  law  of  the  plays  an  entire  freedom  from  error. 
As  he  puts  it  in  his  laconic  way,  taking  his  revenge  for 
plagiarism  : 

We  all  know  that  Lord  Campbell  was  a  lawyer  of  great  ex 
perience,  yet  in  his  book  he  has  made  several  mistakes  in  law  ; 
how  then  could  any  errors  in  law  which  I  might  show  in  Shake 
speare's  works  afford  conclusive  evidence  that  Shakespeare  was 
not  a  lawyer  ?  1 

1  Appendix  B  to  Shakespeare's  Testamentary  Language,  1869, 
p.  53  ;  Shakespeare's  Legal  Maxims,  1907,  p.  12. 

117 


n8  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  Rushton  had  undertaken 
in  his  SHAKESPEARE  A  LAWYER  "  to  show  that  Shake 
speare  had  acquired  a  general  knowledge  of  the  principles 
and  practice  of  the  Law  of  Real  Property,  of  the  Common 
Law  and  Criminal  Law,  that  he  was  familiar  with  the 
exact  letter  of  the  Statute  Law,  and  that  he  used  law 
terms  correctly."  Of  the  value  of  that  thesis  we  have 
been  able  to  judge  in  our  examination  of  Campbell ;  and 
it  need  but  be  added  that  even  a  generally  "  correct  " 
use  of  law  terms  by  an  Elizabethan  dramatist  has  been 
seen  to  be  no  warrant  for  supposing  him  a  lawyer,  since 
it  can  be  predicated  more  largely  of  Jonson  and  Webster, 
to  name  no  others,  than  of  Shakespeare.  When,  for 
instance,  Rushton  argues  that  Macbeth's 

But  yet  I'll  make  assurance  double  sure, 
And  take  a  bond  of  fate, 

"  refers  not  to  a  single  but  to  a  conditional  bond,  under 
or  by  virtue  of  which  the  principal  sum  was  recoverable,"  x 
he  says  nothing  to  the  purpose.  In  his  later  work, 
SHAKESPEARE  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  LEX  SCRIPTA  (1870) , 
the  augmentation  is  equally  nugatory,  in  so  far  as  it  is 
not  a  mere  "illustration"  of  the  text.  The  first  item 
is  that  in  Suffolk's  "  praemunire  "  speech  in  HENRY  VIII 
(iii,  2)  the  phrase  about  forfeiting  goods,  lands,  tenements, 
&c.,  and  being  "  out  of  the  king's  protection,"  is  "  the 
exact  letter  of  the  statute  law  " — an  assertion  which 
carries  us  nowhere.2  The  last  item  is  the  proposition 
that  when  Speed,  in  THE  Two  GENTLEMEN  OF  VERONA 
(ii,  i)  says  first  "  do  you  not  perceive  her  jest  ?  "  and 
then  "  did  you  perceive  her  earnest?  "  he  uses  "  perceive  " 
first  in  its  usual  meaning,  but  the  second  time  in  the  sense 
of  a  statute  phrase,  "  take,  perceive,  and  enjoy."  If 

1  Shakespeare  a  Lawyer,  1858,  p.  19. 

2  I  do  not  here  stress  the  fact  that  the  speech  in  question 
belongs  to  the  share  assigned  to  Fletcher  in  Henry  VIII  by  the 
critics.     It  stands  in  any  case  for  no  special  knowledge. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   119 

this  be  "  illustration  "  of  anything,  it  is  not  of  the  thesis 
that  the  plays  are  written  by  a  lawyer. 

Of  more  significance  is  Rushton's  more  recent  thesis 
that  Shakespeare's  use  of  legal  maxims  tells  of  legal  train 
ing.  It  is  put  with  comparative  circumspection,  and 
partly  in  bar  of  the  Baconian  view.  ".  Although  Bacon's 
legal  maxims  are  twenty-five  in  number,"  he  writes,  "  I 
have  not  found  any  of  them  in  Shakespeare's  plays  ; 
but  a  portion  of  one  of  them.  .  .  . 

Sententia  interlocutaria  revocare  potest,  definitiva  non  potest, 

expresses  the  law  to  which  Shakespeare  refers  in  the 
COMEDY  OF  ERRORS  (i,  i)  : 

And  passed  sentence  cannot  be  recalled. 

To  impute  legal  knowledge  on  the  strength  of  that 
commonplace,  however,  is  but  to  continue  the  idle  mysti 
fication  which  we  have  been  occupied  in  clearing  up. 
And  the  case  is  little  better  when  Rushton  puts  his  point 
that  Shakespeare  in  his  use  of  legal  maxims  translates 
correctly  from  the  Latin  : 

In  the  plays  of  Ben  Jonson,  George  Chapman  and  other 
dramatists  of  their  time,  legal  maxims  are  to  be  seen  in  Latin, 
Shakespeare  never  quotes  legal  maxims  in  Latin,  but  he  gives 
correct  translations  of  them  which  are  so  embodied  in  his  verse 
and  prose  that  they  have  not  the  appearance  of  quotations.  .  .  . 
Shakespeare's  correct  translations  of  legal  maxims  are,  I  think, 
the  only  satisfactory  evidence  we  have  of  his  knowledge  of  Latin.! 

Here  the  case  for  the  dramatist's  legal  knowledge  is  in 
effect  abandoned,  and  the  question  shifted  to  that  of  his 
scholarship,  with  the  admission  that  the  evidence  usually 
cited  on  that  head  is  not  satisfactory.  If  Ben  Jonson 
and  George  Chapman,  who  are  not  lawyers,  admittedly 
cite  legal  maxims  in  Latin,  what  is  to  be  proved  from 
Shakespeare's  citation  of  any  in  English,  when  the  same 
thing  is  done  by  Heywood  and  Massinger,  who  also  were 

1  Shakespeare's  Legal  Maxims,  p.  9. 


120  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

not  lawyers  ?  Massinger  (THE  FATAL  DOWRY,  i,  2) 
writes,  quite  "  correctly  "  : 

though  it  be  a  maxim  in  our  laws, 
All  suits  die  with  the  person. 

Is  he  then  not  to  be  credited  with  Shakespearean  lawyer- 
ship  ? 

The  instances  given  from  Shakespeare  by  Rushton  are 
sufficient  to  entitle  us  once  more  to  dismiss  the  whole 
case  : 

I  now  give  one  example  of  Shakespeare's  correct  translation 
of  the  Latin  maxims,  and  of  the  good  verse  (!)  he  makes  of  it  : 

Dormiunt  aliquando  leges,  moriuntur  nunquam 
(The  law  hath  not  been  dead,  though  it  hath  slept), 

where  the  verbs  dormior  and  morior  in  Latin  are  represented  (!) 
by  the  verbs  sleep  and  die  in  English.1 

It  is  not  clear  why  we  are  not  further  informed  that  leges 
is  represented  by  "  law."  The  whole  point  is  a  futility. 
Shakespeare  was  citing  a  legal  commonplace  which  must 
have  been  familiar  to  thousands  of  laymen  ;  as  he  was 
when  he  made  Portia  say  : 

To  offend  and  judge  are  distinct  offices, 

Merchant  of  Venice,  ii,  9  ; 
or  Olivia  say  : 

both  the  plaintiff  and  the  judge, 

Twelfth  Night,  v,  I . 

Rushton  gravely  cites  these  simple  utterances,  with 
Cranmer's 

I  shall  both  find  your  lordship  judge  and  juror, 

Henry  VIII,  v,  2, 

as  standing  for  knowledge  of  the  legal  maxims  : 

Nemo  debet  esse  judex  in  sua  propria  causa, 
and 

Ad  questionem  facti  non  respondent  judices  ; 
Ad  questionem  legis  non  respondent  juratores. 

One  can  but  patiently  put  the  old  questions.     When 

1  Work  cited,  p.  10. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY    121 

Massinger  makes  Alonso  in  THE  BASHFUL  LOVER  (ii,  7) 
say: 

No  man's  a  faithful  judge  in  his  own  cause,1 

was  he  drawing  upon  a  professional  knowledge  of  law  ? 
When  Greene  in  one  of  his  stories  wrote  :  "  They  both 
agreed  I  should  be  judge  and  juror  in  this  controversy  " 
(Quip  FOR  AN  UPSTART  COURTIER  :  Works,  xi,  229)  did  he 
prove  himself  a  trained  lawyer  ?  Or  did  Rowley  and 
Dekker  do  so  when  they  made  characters  say  : 

You  are  in  effect  both  judge  and  jury  yourselves, 

A  Cure  for  a  Cuckold,  iv,  i  ; 
Thou  my  evidence  art, 

Jury  and  judge ? 

The  Witch  of  Edmonton,  iv,  2. 

A  good  many  thousand  laymen  have  in  their  time 
remarked  that  "Possession  is  nine  points  of  the  law" 
without  expecting  to  be  reckoned  experts  for  it ;  but 
inasmuch  as  we  have  in  KING  JOHN  (i,  i)  the  lines  : 

King  J.  Our  strong  possession  and  our  right  for  us. 
Elinor.  Your  strong  possession  much  more  than  your  right, 

our  antiquary  would  have  us  see  in  them  a  translation 
of  the  legal  maxim  : 

In  aequali  jure  melior  est  conditio  possidentis. 
And  when  Hamlet  says,  unpretentiously  enough, 

Man  and  wife  is  one  flesh, 
it  is  held  to  stand  for  the  canonical  knowledge  that 

Vir  et  uxor  sunt  quasi  unica  persona,  quia  caro  una,  et  sanguis 
unus. 

So  much  for  the  last  stages  of  the  first  attempt  to  prove 
"  Shakespeare  a  lawyer." 

§  2.  Davis 

We  need  spend  little  time  over  the  kindred  performance 
of  Senator  Cushman  Davis,  who  in  his  work  THE  LAW 
1  Cp.  The  City  Madam,  iii,  2. 


122  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

IN  SHAKESPEARE  does  but  eke  out  the  method  and  matter 
of  Campbell  and  Rushton  with  a  multitude  of  more  trivial 
details.  Like  Campbell,  he  finds  that  Cade's  talk  of 
parchment,  wax,  seals,  the  killing  of  lawyers,  and  the 
charge  against  the  clerk  of  Chatham,  "  are  expressions 
such  as  a  lawyer  would  naturally  put  in  the  mouth  of  a 
brutal  and  ignorant  insurgent ' '  ;  and  with  Campbell  he 
sees  recondite  legal  knowledge  in  the  alleged  allusion  to 
the  mercheta  mulierum,  though  he  seems  to  ascribe  it  to 
the  rebel  and  not  to  the  dramatist :  "  Cade  undoubtedly 
had  this  atrocious  custom  in  his  mind." ! 

Like  the  Lord  Chancellor,  the  Senator  does  not  ask 
whether  the  lawyer-dramatist  could  or  could  not  expect 
the  audience,  devoid  of  legal  training,  to  appreciate  the 
allusions ;  and  he  makes  nothing  of  the  fact  that  they 
are  all  in  the  pre-Shakespearean  play.  When,  again, 
Cade  speaks  of  being  "  seized  for  a  stray  for  entering  his 
fee-simple  without  leave,"  we  are  simply  assured  that 
he  "uses  technical  language."2  It  should  be  suitably 
acknowledged  that  in  the  phrase  : 

I  here  entail  the  crown, 

3  Henry  VI,  i,  i , 

the  learned  Senator  is  scrupulous  enough  to  confess  that 
the  expression  is  inaccurate,  inasmuch  as  there  is  needed 
the  use  of  the  term  "  body  "  "to  make  it  a  fee-tail." 3 
But  as  against  this  stand  for  technical  exactitude,  we 
have  from  him  a  multitude  of  claims  for  legal  knowledge 
where  even  Campbell  would  have  blenched  at  the  sugges 
tion.  Thus  in  the  first  scene  of  CORIOLANUS  the  words 
verdict,  statutes,  act,  and  repeal,  are  all  cited  as  displays 
of  legal  knowledge,  the  word  edicts  being  unintelligibly 
ignored.  Elsewhere  he  makes  "legal"  capital  of  such 
words  as  arrest,  arrested,  abjure,  appellant,  avouch,  addition 
(of  name),  bond,  cases,  depose,  earnest,  "  execution  done 

1  The  Law  in  Shakespeare,  St.  Paul,  U.S.A.,  1884,  pp.  195-7. 

2  Id.  p.  198.  3  Id  p   200 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   123 

on  Cawdor,"  matter,  "  made  good,"  indenture,  object, 
tenor,  &c.  &c.  It  may  suffice  to  say  that  on  the  Senator's 
principles  every  Elizabethan  dramatist  may  be  pro 
nounced  a  lawyer  without  further  research. 

That  some  of  the  other  dramatists  do  display  similar 
legal  knowledge  he  appears  to  be  aware,  herein  transcend 
ing  Campbell.  But  the  knowledge  only  moves  him  to  the 
assertion  that  Ben  Jonson  is  "  not  so  precise  in  his  use 
of  legal  terms  or  in  reports  of  legal  proceedings  "  as  is 
Shakespeare,  and  that  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  though 
both  were  lawyers,  "  we  can  find  no  such  disposition  or 
facility  in  the  use  of  law  terms  or  the  procedure  of  the 
courts."  1  The  last  proposition  may  be  left  to  work  its 
effect  on  readers  who  have  had  in  view  the  Baconian 
thesis  that  it  was  lawyership  that  inspired  the  alleged 
lawyerism  of  the  plays.  The  first  statement  is  simply 
false.  As  we  have  seen,  Jonson  uses  a  multitude  of  legal 
expressions  of  a  more  technical  character  than  any  used 
by  Shakespeare  ;  and  his  treatment  of  legal  procedure 
is  realistic  where  Shakespeare's  is  merely  romantic.  On 
the  trial  scene  in  THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  the  Senator 
pronounces  that  "  The  whole  of  this  exquisite  scene  is 
forensic.  The  author's  mind,  in  its  employment  of  legal 
terms,  has,  like  the  dyer's  hand,  been  subdued  to  what 
it  works  in."  a  On  that  particular  folly,  the  reader  may 
be  referred  to  what  has  been  said  in  the  previous  chapter. 
But  the  Senator's  words  might  with  fair  propriety  be 
applied  to  the  mimicry  of  legal  procedure  in  Ben  Jonson. 
as  here  : 

Pru.  Nor  murmur  her  pretences  :   master  Lovel, 
For  so  your  libel  here,  or  bill  of  complaint 
Exhibited,  in  our  high  court  of  sovereignty, 
At  this  first  hour  of  our  reign,  declares 
Against  this  noble  lady,  a  disrespect 
You  have  conceived,  if  not  received,  from  her. 

Host.  Received  :   so  the  charge  lies  in  our  bill. 

Pru.  We  see  it,  his  learned  counsel,  leave  your  plaining. 

1  The  Law  in  Shakespeare,  pp.  52-3.  2  Id.  p.  116. 


124  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

We  that  do  love  our  justice  above  all 

Our  other  attributes  ...  do  here  enjoin  .  . 

Host.  Good  ! 

Pru.  Charge,  will,  and  command 
Her  ladyship,  pain  of  our  high  displeasure, 
And  the  committing  an  extreme  contempt 
Unto  the  court,  our  crown  and  dignity.  .  .  . 
To  entertain  you  for  a  pair  of  hours.  .  .  . 
To  give  you  all  the  titles,  all  the  privileges 
The  freedoms,  favours,  rights,  she  can  bestow.  . 
Or  can  be  expected,  from  a  lady  of  honour 
Or  quality,  in  discourse,  access,  address.  .  .>'  • 

For  each  hour  a  kiss 
To  be  ta'en  freely,  fully,  and  legally 
Before  us  in  our  court  here,  and  our  presence. 

The  New  Inn,  ii,  2. 

Pru.  Here  set  the  hour  ;  but  first  produce  the  parties, 
And  clear  the  court :  the  time  is  now  of  price.  .  .  . 

Ferret.  Oyez,  oyez,  oyez. 

Trundle.  Oyez,  oyez,  oyez. 

Ferret  [Trundle  repeating  each  line]. 
Whereas  there  hath  been  awarded — 
By  the  queen  regent  of  love — 
In  this  high  court  of  sovereignty — 
Two  special  hours  of  address — 
To  Herbert  Lovel,  appellant — 
Against  the  lady  Frampul,  defendant — 
Herbert  Lovel  come  into  the  court — 
Make  challenge  to  thy  first  hour — 
And  save  thee  and  thy  bail — 

[Enter  Lady  Frampul,  and  takes  her  place  on  the  other  side.] 

Host.  She  makes  a  noble  and  a  just  appearance. 
Set  it  down  likewise,  and  how  arm'd  she  comes. 

Pru.  Usher  of  Love's  court,  give  them  both  their  oath 
According  to  the  form,  upon  Love's  missal. 

Host.  Arise,  and  lay  your  hands  upon  the  book. 

Herbert  Lovel,  appellant,  and  Lady  Frances  Frampul,  de 
fendant,  you  shall  swear  upon  the  liturgy  of  Love,  Ovid  de 
arte  amandi,  that  you  neither  have,  nor  will  have,  nor  in  any  wise 
bear  about  you,  thing  or  things,  pointed  or  blunt,  within  these 
lists,  other  than  what  are  natural  and  allowed  by  the  court  : 
no  inchanted  arms  or  weapons,  stones  of  virtue,  herb  of  grace, 
charm,  character,  spell,  philtre,  or  other  power  than  Love's 
only,  and  the  justness  of  your  cause.  So  help  you  Love,  his 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   125 

mother,  and  the  contents  of  this  book.  Kiss  it.  [Lovel  kisses 
the  book.]  Return  unto  your  seats. — Crier,  bid  silence. 

Ferret  [Trundle  repeating] 
In  the  name  of  the  sovereign  of  Love — 
Notice  is  given  by  the  court — 
To  the  appellant  and  defendant — 
That  the  first  hour  of  address  proceeds — 
And  Love  save  the  sovereign — 
Every  man  or  woman  keep  silence,  pain  of  imprisonment.  .  .  . 

[Conclusion] 

Lady  F.  Prue,  adjourn  the  court. 

Pru.  Cry,  Trundle. 

Trund.  Oyez. 

Any  man  or  woman  that  hath  any  personal  attendance 
To  give  unto  the  court :  keep  the  second  hour, 
And  Love  save  the  sovereign  !  Id.  iii,  2. 

All  this  in  two  scenes  of  one  play.  For  more  matter  of 
the  same  order  of  realistic  parody,  see  CYNTHIA'S  REVELS, 
v,  2  ;  EVERY  MAN  OUT  OF  His  HUMOUR,  iii,  i ;  THE' 
EOETASTER,  v,  i ;  THE  SILENT  WOMAN,  v,  i  ;  to  say 
nothing  of  the  Induction  to  BARTHOLOMEW  FAIR  and 
the  trial  scene  in  VOLPONE.  Could  they  have  found  a 
fraction  of  it  in  Shakespeare,  Lord  Campbell  and  Senator 
Davis  would  have  thankfully  dropped  half  the  rest  of 
their  case  ;  and  the  latter  would  have  been  more  sure 
than  ever  that  the  dramatist  knew  more  law  than 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  As  it  is,  he  is  satisfied  that 
Shakespeare  must  have  had  a  hand  in  the  play  SIR  JOHN 
OLDCASTLE,  because  "  the  scene  where  Harpool  forces  the 
Sumner  to  eat  the  citation  he  has  come  to  serve,  and  the 
other  legal  phrases,  taken  together,  seem  to  indicate  this."! 
The  Senator  is  unaware  that  just  such  a  scene  occurs  in 
GEORGE  A-GREENE,  which  some  deny  to  Robert  Greene, 
but  none  has  yet  assigned  to  Shakespeare  ;  and  seeing 
that  just  such  an  escapade  is  narrated  of  Greene  by  his 
friend  Nashe,2  the  legalist's  simple  solution  of  the  author 
ship  of  the  other  play,  it  is  to  be  feared,  will  not  be  found 

1  The  Law  in  Shakespeare,  pp.  51-52. 

2  Four  Letters  Confuted.    Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  i,  271. 


126  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

decisive.  And  as  SIR  JOHN  OLDCASTLE  undoubtedly 
contains  legal  matter  such  as  (i,  i)  : 

The  King's  justices,  perceiving  what  public  mischief  may 
ensue  this  private  quarrel,  in  his  majesty's  name  do  straitly 
charge  and  command  all  persons,  of  what  degree  soever,  to 
depart  this  city  of  Hereford,  except  such  as  are  bound  to  give 
attendance  at  this  assize,  and  that  no  man  presume  to  wear 
any  weapon,  especially  Welsh-hooks  and  forest-bills — and  that 
the  Lord  Powis  do  presently  disperse  and  discharge  his  retinue, 
and  depart  the  city  in  the  King's  peace,  he  and  his  followers, 
on  pain  of  imprisonment, 

we  are  left  to  wonder  whether  Drayton,  Hathway, 
Munday,  and  Wilson,  to  whom  Fleay  ascribes  the  play, 
were  all  lawyers  like  their  dramatist  brethren. 

Characteristically,  Senator  Davis  finds  the  best  ground 
for  ascribing  Act  I  of  THE  Two  NOBLE  KINSMEN  to 
Shakespeare  in  the  fact  that  it  includes  the  phrases, 
V  the  tenor  of  thy  speech,"  "  prorogue,"  "  fee,"  "  moiety," 
and  "  seal  the  promise.  "1  He  can  thus  be  thankful  for 
small  mercies ;  but  if  he  had  found  in  any  alleged  or 
putative  Shakespearean  play  such  a  trial-scene  as  that 
in  Massinger's  THE  OLD  LAW,  of  which  he  declares  that 
"  as  a  forensic  representation  "  it  "is  crude,  lacks  detail, 
and  displays  none  of  that  pomp  of  justice  which  all  courts 
of  any  dignity  exhibit,"2  he  would  probably  have  seen 
it  with  other  eyes.  Massinger  certainly  yields  many  less 
scanty  crops  of  quasi-legal  terminology  than  that  culled 
by  the  Senator  from  Act  I  of  the  Two  NOBLE  KINSMEN. 

His  treatise,  in  fine,  is  a  piece  of  indiscriminate  and 
uncritical  special  pleading,  serving  only  to  prove  how 
a  fixed  idea  can  hypnotise  judgment.  Without  adopting 
the  Baconian  theory,  the  Senator  has  taken  up  a  stand 
point  which  equally  excludes  any  rational  conception  of 
dramatic  art.  For  him  the  author  of  the  plays  is  a  writer 
obsessed  with  legal  knowledge,  and  constantly  bent  on 
embodying  it  in  the  plays,  to  the  extent  of  grafting  it 
all  over  his  recast  of  the  old  HAMLET,  "  all  with  the 
1  The  Law  in  Shakespeare,  p.  52.  2  Id.  p.  54. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   127 

greatest  painstaking  to  be  full  and  accurate"1 — as  if 
the  end  of  drama  for  Shakespeare  were  the  communication 
of  legal  lore.  As  we  have  seen,  the  entire  conception  is 
a  hallucination.  Shakespeare,  like  his  corrivals,  made 
his  characters  talk  law  as  they  talked  Euphuism,  because 
it  was  the  fashion  of  the  age ;  and  we  have  only  to 
compare  his  legal  phraseology  with  theirs  to  see  that  he 
was  no  more  a  lawyer  than  were  Jonson,  Chapman, 
Heywood,  Greene,  Peele,  and  Dekker  in  his  own  day, 
and  Massinger  after  him. 

§  3.  Castle 

Something  of  a  diversion  is  created  in  our  inquiry  by 
the  performance  of  Mr.  E.  J.  Castle,  K.C.,  entitled 
SHAKESPEARE,  BACON,  JONSON,  AND  GREENE.  Mr. 
Castle,  albeit  something  of  a  Baconian,  is  driven,  as  we 
have  seen,  to  reject  the  hyperbolical  panegyric  of  Shake 
speare's  law  by  Lord  Campbell,  and  to  formulate  a  theory 
of  his  own,  to  the  effect  that  there  are  "  non-legal  "  as 
well  as  "  legal  "  plays  ;  that  in  the  latter  only  did  the 
dramatist  "  receive  assistance  "  from  a  lawyer,  probably 
Bacon ;  and  that  in  the  former  he  makes  so  many  mis 
takes  as  to  prove  that  he  "  personally  had  not  the  educa 
tion  of  a  lawyer."  We  thus  have  one  of  the  profession 
denying  that  all  the  plays  exhibit  a  firm  hold  of  its  "  free 
masonry."  Indeed  he  premises  a  doubt  as  to  the  force 
of  the  general  argument  from  the  use  of  legal  terms. 

I  do  not  lay  so  much  stress  upon  their  presence  in  the  plays, 
&c.,  as  other  persons  have  done,  because  I  believe  they  are 
capable  of  being  learned  from  books,  and  are  therefore  not  so 
valuable  a  test,  to  my  mind,  as  the  familiarity  with  the  habits 
and  thoughts  of  counsel  learned  in  the  law,  which  I  think  is  the 
peculiar  characteristic  of  the  legal  plays.2 

Further,  he  notes  that  Lord  Campbell  was  "  in  many 

1  The  Law  in  Shakespeare,  p.  14. 

2  Shakespeare,    Jonson,    Bacon,   and    Greene.     A  Study.      By 
Edward   James  Castle,  One  of  Her  Majesty's  Counsel.      (Late 
Lieutenant  Royal  Engineers.)     London,  1897.     P.  u. 


128  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

cases  only  repeating  what  Malone  had  said  before  him. 
The  consequence  of  confining  his  attention  to  legal  expres 
sions  is  that  he  has  missed  entirely  the  more  subtle 
evidence  which  points  to  the  life  and  habits  of  a  lawyer, 
which  may  not  happen  to  be  clothed  in  legal  language." 

I  am  not  concerned  to  found  upon  this  conflict  of 
authorities,  or  to  dwell  upon  the  chaos  which  the  half- 
and-half  theory  makes  of  the  Baconian  case  in  general. 
It  is  more  important  to  point  out  that  Mr.  Castle  is  as 
innocent  as  Lord  Campbell  of  any  general  knowledge  of 
Elizabethan  literature,  and  frames  his  own  theory  in 
vacuo,  finding  "  subtle  evidence  "  of  lawyerism  in  what 
any  familiarity  with  Elizabethan  drama  would  have 
shown  him  to  be  the  ordinary  run  of  lay  conversation. 
As  little  need  we  curiously  inquire  whether  in  the  "  non- 
legal  "  plays  Shakespeare  commits  the  "  laughable 
mistakes "  which  Mr.  Castle  discovers.  Mr.  Castle 
speaks  modestly  enough  of  his  handling  of  his  own  legal 
case,  avowing  that  "mistakes  may  have  crept  in."1. 
What  is  much  more  serious  in  his  total  ignorance  of  the 
similar  literature  of  the  period.  He  discusses  the  sonnets 
in  general,  No.  134  in  particular,  and  the  lawyerlike  lines 
in  VENUS  AND  ADONIS,  with  no  suspicion  that  other 
Elizabethan  poets  wrote  so.  The  result  is  that  when 
he  proceeds  to  make  his  own  contribution  to  the  legal 
theory  he  wastes  his  labour  as  utterly  as  did  Campbell. 

Thus  he  finds  "  some  of  the  most  remarkable  references 
to  law  "  in  LUCRECE  ; 2  and  he  dwells  especially  on  the 
use  of  the  word  "  colour,"  which,  he  tells  us,  "  as  used 
in  legal  pleadings  has  a  very  specialized  meaning. ' '  Know 
ing  vaguely  that  the  legal  meaning  has  partly  survived 
in  ordinary  language,  he  cites  the  definition  that  "  colour 
in  pleading  is  a  feigned  matter  which  the  defendant  or 
tenant  uses  in  his  bar,"  and  so  forth;  concluding  that 
"  colour  sets  out  a  title  which,  though  probable,  is  really 
false."  Then  he  undertakes  to  show  that  "  in  the  plays 

1  Shakespeare,  Jonson,  Bacon,  and  Greene,  p.  25.        2  Id.  p.  18. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   129 

we  find  '  colour  '  used  in  the  strict  legal  sense  as  I  have 
explained  it,  as  well  as  in  its  more  colloquial  manner  of 
pretence  or  appearance." 

The  very  first  instance  he  offers  is  conclusive  against 
him.  He  cites  : 

Caesar's  ambition  .  .  .  against  all  colour,  here 
Did  put  the  yoke  upon  us. 

Cymbeline,  iii,  i. 

That  is  to  say,  on  Mr.  Castle's  own  interpretation; 
Caesar's  ambition  put  a  yoke  on  Britain  against  a  probable 
but  false  title.  A  layman  could  hardly  be  guilty  of  such 
self -stultification.  The  lines  simply  mean  that  Caesar 
usurped  sovereignty  in  defiance  of  legal  forms  :  there  is 
no  special  or  technical  connotation  whatever.  Citing 
Florizel's  lines  in  the  WINTER'S  TALE  (iv,  3)  : 

What  colour  for  my  visitation  shall  I 
Hold  up  before  him  ? 

Mr.  Castle  uneasily  writes  :  "  Here  the  technical  use  of 
the  word  is  perhaps  not  quite  so  certain,  but  I  think  a 
stronger  meaning  is  given  to  the  language  if  we  use  it 
in  the  legal  sense  of  title  or  justification.  However,  in 
the  next  example,  the  word  is  used  in  its  strict  legal  sense." 
The  next  example  is  the  passage  : 

For,  of  no  right,  or  colour  like  to  right, 
He  doth  fill  fields  with  harness  in  the  realm. 

i  Henry  IV,  iii,  2. 
Then  we  have  Beaufort's 

But  yet  we  want  a  colour  for  his  death. 

2  Henry  VI,  iii,  i, 

-with  the  explanation  that   "the  Cardinal  does  not 
iek  a  pretext,  but  a  justification  or  title  for  the  act,  as 
is  to  be  condemned  by  law." 

Any  competent  lay  reader  will  at  once  see  that  the 
rhole    theorem    is    a    mare's    nest.     Shakespeare    uses 
"colour"   just   as   a   hundred   other   Elizabethans   use 
it,   in    a   sense   which    includes   both    "  pretext "   and 

i 


130  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

"justification."  Pretext  is  alleged  justification;  and 
pretended  title  is  just  alleged  title — Mr.  Castle's  own 
definition.  In  this  broad  sense  the  word  was  used  con 
stantly  in  Shakespeare's  day.  I  find  it  four  times  in 
ten  pages  of  Fenton's  translation  of  Guicciardini  (1579)  : 

They  attempted,  under  colour  to  defend  the  liberty  of  the 
people  of  Milan,  to  make  themselves  lords  of  that  State  (P.  3). 

The  original  of  the  colour  under  the  which  [two  kings  were] 
.  .  .  stirred  up  by  the  Popes  to  make  many  invasions  ...  (P.  12). 

She  brake  that  adoption  under  colour  of  ingratitude  (Ib.). 

The  titles  and  colours  of  right  changing  with  the  time  (P.  13). 

Again  we  have  it  twice  on  two  successive  pages  (24,  25)  : 
To  give  some  colour  of  justice  to  so  great  an  injustice. 

The  better  to  strengthen  their  usurpation  with  a  show  of 
right,  to  strengthen  first  with  colours  lawful. 

The  translator  of  Gentillet's  diatribe  against  Machiavelli 
(1577)  uses  it  as  legally  as  may  be  : 

He  hath  a  certain  subtilty  (such  as  it  is)  to  give  colour  unto 
his  most  wicked  and  damnable  doctrines. 

Discourse  upon  the  Means  of  Well  Governing,  &c.,  .  .  . 
against  Nicholas  Machiavel,  trans,  by  Simon  Patericke. 
Ed.  1608,  pref.  A  ii,  verso. 

The  word  was  in  fact  of  very  old  standing  in  common 
English.  In  Wiclif's  treatise  AGAINST  THE  ORDERS  OF 
FRIARS  we  have  the  statement  that  the  friars 

colour  their  own  wicked  laws  under  the  name  of  these  saints  .  .  . 
and  so  ...  sin  is  maintained  by  colour  of  holiness  ; 

and  again  : 

Yet  friars  will  colour  these  sins  and  undertake  for  these 
sinful  men. 

Treatise  cited,  ch.  ii.  (Rep.  from  ed.  of  1608  in  Tracts 
and  Treatises  of  Wycliffe,  1845,  PP-  228,  253.) 

In  the  sixteenth  century  it  was  in  constant  use.  We 
have  it  frequently  in  Elyot's  GOVERNOUR  : 

Inasmuch  as  liberality  wholly  resteth  in  the  giving  of  money, 
it  sometime  coloureth  a  vice.  B.  II,  c.  10  (Dent's  rep.  p.  160). 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   131 

Under  the  colour  of  holy  Scripture,  which  they  do  violently 
wrest  to  their  purpose.     B.  Ill,  c.  3  (p.  205). 

It  seerns  to  have  been  equally  common  in  books  and  in 
sermons.  Thus  we  have  it  in  Latimer's  sermons  again 
and  again  : 

Under  a  colour  of  religion  they  turned  it  [church  property] 
to  their  own  proper  gain  and  lucre. 

Third  Sermon  before  Edward  VI. 

And  so  under  this  colour  they  set  all  their  hearts  and  minds 
only  upon  this  world. 

Seventh  Sermon  on  the  Lord's  Prayer. 

It  occurs  repeatedly  in  Ralph  Robinson's  translation 
(1551)  of  More's  UTOPIA  : 

Under  the  same  colour  and  pretence. 
Under  this  colour  and  pretence. 

A  shew  and  colour  of  justice. 

B.  I  (Dent's  rep.  pp.  22,  37,  38). 

It  is  used  in  the  same  way  by  Jewel  (1565)  : 

By  any  sleight  or  colour  of  appeal. 

Reply  to  M.   Harding's  Answer,   Art.   V,  2ist 

Div.  Works,  Parker  Soc.  ed.  i,  389. 
and  again  : 

Pighius  granteth  simply,  without  colour  .  .  . 

Sermon  at  Paul's  Cross,  1560.     Works,  as  cited,  i,  8. 

The  translator  (Tyndale  ?)  of  the  ENCHIRIDION  MILITIS 
CHRISTIANI  of  Erasmus  (1533)  has  : 

With  false  title  and  under  a  feigned  colour  of  honesty. 

Methuen's  rep.  p.  75. 
Lest  under  a  colour  of  pastime  he  might  entice  .  .  . 

Id.  p.  101. 

It  was  evidently  a  normal  term  for  the  clergy.  Bale  has 
it  many  times  : 

Sincerely  and  faithfully,  without  craft  or  colour. 
The  Image  of  Both  Churches  :  Works,  Parker  Soc.  ed.  p.  265. 
As  the  matter  is  without  feigned  colour  in  every  point  performed. 
Examination  of  Oldcastle,  vol.  cited,  p.  43. 


I32  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Seekest  ...  the  blood  of  this  innocent  woman,  under  a  colour 
of  friendly  handling. 

Examination  of  Anne  Askewe,  vol.  cited,  p.  162. 

The  Protestant  Roye,  who  attacked  Wolsey  in  1528,  has 

By  coloure  of  their  faulce  pray  res, 
Defrauded  are  the  ryght  heyres 
From  their  true  inheritance. 
Rede  Me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  Whittingham's  rep.  p.  57. 

Hooker  uses  it  repeatedly  : 

Some  judicial  and  definitive  sentence,  whereunto  neither 
part  that  contendeth  may  under  any  pretence  or  colour  refuse 
to  stand. 

Pref.  to  B.  I  of  Eccles.  Polity  (1549),  ch.  vi,  i. 

Under  this  fair  and  plausible  colour  whatsoever  they  utter 
passeth  for  good  and  current. 

Id.  B.  I.  ch.  i,  §i. 

And  in  the  CONSTITUTIONS  AND  CANONS  ECCLESIASTICALL 
issued  in  1604  we  have  : 

Purely  and  sincerely,  without  any  colour  or  dissimulation  (P.  2.) . 

Spenser  uses  it  in  his  VIEW  OF  THE  PRESENT  STATE  OF 
IRELAND  : 

But  what  colour  soever  they  allege,  methinks  it  is  not  expedient 
that  the  execution  of  a  law  once  ordained  should  be  left  to  the 
discretion  of  the  judge  or  officer. 

Globe  ed.  of  Works,  p.  639. 

and  in  the  SHEPHEARD'S  CALENDAR  (February)  he  has  : 
His  coloured  crime  with  craft  to  cloak. 

Among  Shakespeare's  known  books,  again,  we  find 
the  word  in  North's  Plutarch,  as  in  these  passages  : 

That  it  might  appear  they  had  just  cause  and  colour  to  attempt 
that  they  did  against  him. 

Cloak  and  colour  the  most  cruel  and  unnatural  fact. 

Life    of    Julius    Ccesar     (Skeat's    Shakespeare's 
Plutarch,  pp.  13,  92); 

and  in  many  others,  for  which  see  Skeat's  index.  The 
legal  metaphor  had  in  fact  entered  into  the  body  of  the 
language,  and  is  as  common  in  the  drama  as  elsewhere. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   133 

It  is  used  at  least  five  times,  with  more  or  less  concrete 
application,  in  Lady  Lumley's  translation  of  IPHIGENIA 
AT  AULIS,  written  about  1550,  the  English  law  term  being 
imposed  on  the  classic  diction. 

If  there  is  anywhere  a  "  technical  "  use  of  the  word 
in  ordinary  literature  it  is  in  Greene  and  Lodge's  LOOKING- 
GLASS  FOR  LONDON,  where  we  have  twice  : 

It  was  your  device  that,  to  colour  the  statute. 

A  device  of  him  to  colour  the  statute. 

Dyce's  ed.  of  Greene  and  Peele,  pp.  121,  125. 

Jonson  uses  it  with  the  same  "  legal  "  bearing  : 

How,  how,  knave,  swear  he  killed  thee,  and  by  the  law  ?  What 
pretence,  what  colour  hast  thou  for  that  ? 

Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  iii,  3. 

Dekker  and  Webster  are  just  as  technical : 

Though  your  attempt,  lord  treasurer,  be  such 
That  hath  no  colour  in  these  troublous  times 
But  an  apparent  purpose  of  revolt. 

The  Famous  History  of  Sir  Thomas  Wyat,  Sc.  6. 

Massinger  uses  the  term  as  does  Shakespeare  : 

There  is  no  colour  of  reason  that  makes  for  him. 

The  Unnatural  Combat,  i,  i. 
Similarly  Chapman  : 

Passion,  my  lord,  transports  your  bitterness 
Beyond  all  colour. 

Byron's  Tragedy,  v,  i. 

His  own  black  treason  in  suggesting  Clermont's, 
Colour'd  with  nothing  but  being  great  with  me. 

Revenge  of  B ussy  D'Ambois,  iv,  i. 

If  there  were  not  all  this  habitual  use  of  the  word  in  plays 
and  books,  the  public  were  made  familiar  with  it  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  executive  justice.  An  offender,  we 
read,  was  pilloried  with  a  paper  on  his  breast  stating 
that  he  was  punished  "  For  practising  to  colour  the 
detestable  facts  of  George  Saunders'  wife."  l  But  the 
literary,  dramatic,  and  theological  usage,  as  we  have 

1  Brief  Discourse  of  the  Murther  of  George  Saunders,  1573,  in 
Simpson's  School  of  Shakespeare,  ii,  228. 


134  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

seen,  was  universal.     Shakespeare  was  in  fact   simply 
using  the  word  as  every  one  else  did. 

Thus  Mr.  Castle's  laboured  argument  from  Shake 
speare's  use  of  "  colour  "  conies  to  nothing,  being  but 
one  more  instance  of  the  "  method  of  ignorance  "  by 
which  the  Baconians  and  the  simple  legalists  alike  proceed. 
When  he  goes  on  to  set  forth  his  view  of  the  "  legal  plays  " 
he  pursues  the  same  method  ;  but  in  nearly  every  instance 
his  argument  destroys  itself.  Thus  he  contends  that 
MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE  is  a  truly  legal  play  inasmuch 
as  it  shows  knowledge  of  the  law  of  precontract  of 
marriage.  He  is  aware  that  the  play  is  founded  upon 
Whetstone's  PROMOS  AND  CASSANDRA  ;  and  he  avows 
that  in  refining  upon  the  old  plot  by  positing  a  pre 
contract  between  Claudio  and  Julia  the  recast  "  takes 
all  point  out  of  the  story,"  "  so  that  in  reality  there  is 
no  motive  left  for  the  play."  l  This  is  partly  true  :  the 
case  of  Julia  and  Claudio  is  on  all  fours  with  the  case  of 
Mariana  and  Angelo,  in  which  the  Duke,  after  treating 
Claudio  as  liable  for  the  same  thing  to  capital  punishment, 
plans  the  intercourse  of  the  precontracted  persons.  And 
we  are  asked  to  believe  that  the  dramatist  Who  thus  played 
fast  and  loose  with  his  legal  plot  was  "  one  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  legal  proceedings  "  ! 2 

As  if  this  were  not  fiasco  enough,  Mr.  Castle  adds  a 
piece  of  elaborate  nonsense  in  the  shape  of  a  theory  that 
the  name  Escalus  was  coined  from  the  "  escue  "  in  the 
name  of  Sir  John  Fortescue,  the  famous  English  judge 
and  legalist.  "Escalus"  is  the  name  of  the  Prince  in 
ROMEO  AND  JULIET — the  first  name  in  the  dramatis 
persona  of  that  play,  produced  long  before  MEASURE  FOR 
MEASURE.  Shakespeare  got  it  from  Brooke,  and  it  was 
the  kind  of  stage  name  that  could  do  repeated  duty. 
Over  such  a  chimera  one  is  disposed  to  ask  what  kind 
of  minds  we  are  dealing  with  in  the  debate  over  the 
"  legal  element  "  in  the  plays. 

1  Id.  p.  37.  2  /d.  p.  4i. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY  135 

On  the  general  question  as  to  MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE 
it  suffices  to  say  that  Mr.  Castle's  summing-up,  to  the 
effect  that  the  play  must  have  been  "  written  either  by 
one  who  has  drawn  the  scene  from  the  life  or  has  been 
assisted  by  one  well  versed  in  the  every-day  life  of  English 
law  courts,"  1  is  naught.  Many  Elizabethan  dramatists 
were  so  "  versed "  ;  and  Shakespeare  had  the  same 
opportunities  as  they.  In  reading  Nashe's  SUMMER'S 
LAST  WILL  AND  TESTAMENT  one  can  see  that  Nashe  had 
attended  courts.  But  who  in  his  day  had  not  ?  Had 
Mr.  Castle  read  Chapman  and  Shirley's  play,  THE  ADMIRAL 
OF  FRANCE,  he  would  have  found  a  much  more  elaborate 
parody  of  legal  proceedings,  perhaps  based  upon  a  reading 
of  French  law  reports.  He  gravely  tells  us  that  Angelo, 
when  exposed  by  the  Duke,  "  acknowledges  his  guilt  as 
a  lawyer  would."  The  wicked  judge  in  Whetstone's 
PROMOS  AND  CASSANDRA  and  the  corrupt  Chancellor  in 
THE  ADMIRAL  OF  FRANCE  do  the  same  thing.  Were 
Whetstone  and  Chapman  and  Shirley  then  lawyers  ? 

Proceeding  in  his  vain  task,  Mr.  Castle,  after  granting 
that  TITUS  ANDRONICUS  is  non-Shakespearean,  insists 
upon  treating  the  HENRY  VI  plays  as  Shakespeare's, 
representing  that  Malone  pronounced  i  HENRY  VI  non- 
Shakespearean  "  principally  because  there  were  certain 
contradictions  about  Henry's  age."  This  is  an  idle 
travesty  :  the  ground  on  which  Malone  and  the  great 
majority  of  critics  reject  the  play  is  substantially  that 
of  its  plainly  non-Shakespearean  style.  Mr.  Castle 
accepts  the  argument  in  the  case  of  TITUS,  and  rejects 
it  in  the  case  of  the  other  play,  mainly  because  that 
course  suits  his  argument.  But  we  need  not  try  that 
issue  here.  The  authors  of  the  play  were  probably 
Marlowe,  Peele,  and  Greene  ;  and  that  they  were  no  more 
lawyers  than  Shakespeare  might  be  gathered  from  Mr. 
Castle's  own  argument.  Thus  he  notes  that  in  the  third 
scene  the  law  style  of  the  proclamation  is  correct,  adding  : 
1  Id.  p.  50, 


I36  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

"  but  the  occasion  was  not  one,  in  my  opinion,  in  which 
it  would  or  should  have  been  used."  1  To  what  end,  then, 
is  all  the  learned  research  to  show  that  the  author  exhibited 
special  knowledge  of  Temple  life  in  making  Plantagenet 
say,  "  Come,  let  us  four  to  dinner  "  ?  The  recondite 
legal  fact  that  "  four  makes  a  mess  "  was  available  to 
Shakespeare  in  Lilly's  MOTHER  BOMBIE  (ii,  i). 

Coming  to  2  HENRY  VI,  we  find  Mr.  Castle  endorsing 
Lord  Campbell's  deliverance  in  regard  to  the  legal 
language  of  Jack  Cade.  Contentedly  ascribing  both  the 
CONTENTION  and  the  later  play  to  Shakespeare,  he  makes 
no  difficulty  over  the  discrepancy  of  "  heart  can  wish  " 
and  "  heart  can  think,"  and  gravely  concludes  that  "  it 
requires  a  lawyer  of  some  study  to  be  able  to  quote  from 
the  Year  Books,  and  we  find  the  author  of  both  Quarto 
and  Folio  doing  this."2  So  that,  once  more,  Thomas 
Nashe  was  a  lawyer  of  some  study,  inasmuch  as  he  tells 
how  his  PIERS  PENNILESSE  has  been 

maimedly  translated  into  the  French  tongue,  and  in  the  English 
tongue  as  rascally  printed  and  ill  interpreted  as  heart  can  think 
or  tongue  can  tell. 

Have  with  You  to  Saffron  Walden  :  Works,  iii,  33. 

Legal  learning,  as  Hobbes  would  say,  is  capable  of  a  more 
excellent  foolishness  than  laymen  could  well  attain  to. 
If  Mr.  Castle  had  but  read  UdalTs  RALPH  ROISTER 
DOISTER,  which  was  written  about  1553,  he  would  have 
found  Gawyn  Goodlucke  saying  to  Dame  Christian 
Custance  (v,  3)  : 

Neither  heart  can  thinke  nor  tongue  tell 
How  much  I  joy  in  your  constant  fidelity. 

If  he  had  read  KING  LEIR  AND  His  THREE  DAUGHTERS, 
he  would  have  noted  the  line  (sc.  24)  : 

My  toung  doth  faile  to  say  what  heart  doth  think. 

And  if  he  had  further  read  a  little  in  Elizabethan  literature 
outside  of  drama  and  law  he  might  have  divined  that 

1    W.  p.  63.  .Of.  2    Id.  p.  74. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   137 

ordinary  folk  in  those  days  even  read  many  "  legal  " 
documents  for  various  reasons.  When  Nashe  in  his  tirade 
against  Harvey  cries  :  "  Letters  do  you  term  them  ? 
they  may  be  Letters  patents  well  enough  for  their  tedious- 
ness.  .  .  .  Why  they  are  longer  than  the  Statutes  of 
clothing  or  the  Charter  of  London/'1  he  is  not  addressing 
himself  to  lawyers.  He  knows  that  many  lay  folk  had 
seen  the  Charter,  and  that  many  traders  had  read  the 
Statute  of  Clothing ;  and  when  he  speaks  of  "  calling  a 
fellow  knave  that  hath  read  the  Book  of  Statutes,  since 
by  them  all  in  general  they  were  made/'2  he  really  does 
not  mean  that  lawyers  are  all,  or  are  the  only,  knaves, 
or  that  only  lawyers  read  the  volume.  Even  when  he 
writes  of 

never  reading  to  a  period  (which  you  shall  scarce  find  in  thirty 
sheets  of  a  lawyer's  declaration), 

Lenten  Stuff :  Works,  iii,  214, 

he  is  assuming  that  others  than  lawyers  have  perused 
lawyers'  documents.  That  he  was  no  lawyer  may  be 
held  to  be  proved  by  his  lines  : 

Smooth-tongued  Orators,  the  fourth  in  place, 
Lawyers  our  commonwealth  entitles  them  ; 
Mere  swash-bucklers  and  ruffianly  mates 
That  will  for  twelve  pence  make  a  doughty  fray, 
Set  men  for  strawes  together  by  the  ears. 
Summer's  Last  Will  and  Testament :  Works,  iii,  276. 

When  Mr.  Castle  goes  on  to  quote  Gloster's  lines  : 

Let  these  have  a  day  appointed  them 
For  single  combat  in  convenient  place, 

with  the  comment  that  "  All  this  correctly  states  the 
appeal  by  combat,  the  essential  point  of  which  is,  there 
must  be  a  doubt,"3  he  does  but  show  that,  like  Lord 
Campbell,  he  knew  nothing  of  Webster,  who  exhibits 
a  detailed  and  technical  knowledge  of  the  law  of  trial 
by  combat,  without  being  a  lawyer.  Ten  thousand  lay- 

1  Have  with  You,  as  cited,  p.  34. 

2  Id.  p.  119.  3  Work  cited,  p.  75. 


138  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

men  could  have  said  all  that  is  implied  in  the  lines  cited  ; 
as  they  might  have  known  and  said  that  Gloster  had 
used  torture  beyond  legal  rule.1  It  is  edifying  to  learn 
that,  on  re-reading  HENRY  VI,  Mr.  Castle  finds  "  some 
thing  fresh  "  for  his  purpose  in  the  story  of  Gloster's 
cross-examination  of  the  sham  blind-man.  This,  he 
assures  us,  is  a  further  "  trace  of  the  author  being  ac 
quainted  with  a  lawyer's  training." 2  As  if  any  intelligent 
layman  who  told  the  well-known  tale  would  not  have 
brought  out  the  points  in  the  same  fashion. 

It  is  after  this  lamentable  series  of  non  sequiturs  that 
Mr.  Castle  claims  to  have  indicated  in  Shakespeare's 
works  "  not  only  the  mere  legal  acquirements  as  collected 
by  Lord  Campbell  .  .  .  but  .  .  .  pictures  drawn  of  the 
different  members  of  the  legal  profession."  What  then 
are  we  to  say  of  the  "  pictures  "  drawn  by  Jonson  and 
Chapman,  Greene,  Webster,  and  Massinger  ?  Mr.  Castle 
modestly  begins  his  preface  with  the  avowal :  "I  have 
some  doubts  whether  I  should  publish  this  book.  The 
world  does  not  like  to  have  its  established  beliefs  ques 
tioned.  ..."  The  world  might  fairly  urge  that  those 
who  undertake  such  questioning  should  take  a  reasonable 
amount  of  pains  to  prove  their  case.  Mr.  Castle  has  not 
done  so.  He  writes  concerning  "  Shakespeare,  Bacon, 
Jonson,  and  Greene  ' '  without  having  read  beyond  Shake 
speare  and  Bacon,  save  in  so  far  as  the  commentators 
tell  him  of  the  relations  of  Greene  and  Jonson  to  Shake 
speare.  Of  the  plays  of  the  two  last-named,  and  of 
Greene's  prose  writings,  he  appears  to  know  nothing. 
He  is  careful  and  laborious  in  matters  of  strictly  legal 
research :  of  the  necessary  literary  research  he  has 
apparently  no  idea. 

The  result  is  that  when  he  approaches  the  strictly 

literary  question  of  the  alleged  coincidences  of  phrase  in 

Bacon  and  Shakespeare  he  is  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  such 

an  egregious  guide  as  Mr.  Ignatius  Donnelly,  from  whom 

1  Id.  p.  76.  2  id.  p.  77. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  LEGAL  PHRASEOLOGY   139 

he  cites !  instances  of  (i)  identical  expressions,  (2)  identi 
cal  metaphors,  (3)  identical  opinions,  and  (4)  identical 
studies.  Under  the  first  head  he  gives  only  this  egregious 
example  : 

Custom  !  an  ape  of  nature. 

Bacon. 
Oh  sleep,  thou  ape  of  death. 

Shakespeare. 

In  a  later  chapter  we  shall  deal  with  that  and  many  other 
of  the  alleged  "  identities  "  of  expression  in  Bacon  and 
Shakespeare.  But  it  is  impossible  to  part  from  Mr. 
Castle  without  a  final  protest  against  the  sheer  thoughtless 
ness  of  his  handling  of  this  aspect  of  his  problem.  From 
Mr.  Donnelly,  whose  cipher  he  sees  to  be  a  farce,  he 
accepts  a  few  utterly  inconclusive  parallels  as  proof  of 
Mr.  Donnelly's  conclusion,  without  even  putting  the 
question  whether  other  Elizabethan  writers  do  not  exhibit 
the  same  kind  of  "  identities  "  with  Bacon.  In  the  same 
way  he  ascribes  to  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  "  identical 
studies  "  on  the  sole  strength  of  one  allusion  in  each  to 
gardens  and  one  to  the  formation  of  knots  in  trees,  never 
even  inquiring  how  it  comes  that  all  the  main  lines  of 
Bacon's  studies  and  aims  are  wholly  unrepresented  in 
Shakespeare.  Such  incredible  laxity  in  the  handling  of 
evidence  would  discredit  any  literary  critic  as  such. 

When  it  is  exhibited  by  trained  lawyers  and  judges, 
it  is  one  more  ground  for  disregarding  their  mere  assevera 
tions  as  to  the  presence  of  legal  knowledge  in  the  plays. 
If  Mr.  Castle's  argument  be  regarded  as  an  improvement 
upon  Campbell's,  the  breakdown  of  the  whole  is  complete, 
for  his  specially  selected  and  presented  instances  of  legal 
knowledge  in  the  plays,  as  we  have  seen,  are  just  as 
nugatory  as  the  rest. 

1  Id.  p.  196. 


CHAPTER  VI 

LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  IN  ELIZABETHAN 
ENGLAND 

FOR  all  who  have  cared  to  follow  it,  the  process  of 
confronting  with  parallel  passages  the  evidence 
offered  for  the  legal  training  of  the  author  of  the 
Shakespearean  Plays  must  be  decisive  as  to  the 
fallacy  involved.  But  even  without  that  tedious  process 
of  confutation,  any  alert  student  of  Elizabethan  literature 
might  be  expected  to  reject  a  thesis  which  proceeds  upon 
lack  of  familiarity  with  the  life  which  that  literature 
more  or  less  clearly  mirrors.  Most  of  the  champions  of 
the  "  legal "  theory — orthodox,  Baconian,  and  anti- 
Stratfordian  alike — simply  ignore  the  evidence  for  the 
general  currency  of  legal  phrases  in  the  Elizabethan  and 
Jacobean  period.  Mr.  Grant  White,  as  we  have  seen, 
does  avow  the  frequency  of  legal  allusions  in  the  drama 
in  general,  but  goes  on  to  posit  the  false  proposition  that 
in  Shakespeare  they  are  much  more  numerous  than  else 
where.  In  reality,  as  we  have  already  to  some  extent 
seen,  they  pervade  all  Elizabethan  literature,  and  they 
tell  of  a  general  litigiousness  which  is  at  once  the  cause 
and  the  explanation.  "  Thou'lt  go  to  law  with  the  vicar 
for  a  tithe  goose,"  says  Hobson  in  Heywood's  EDWARD  IV.1 
As  Nashe  has  it  in  PIERCE  PENILESSE  HIS  SUPPLICATION 
TO  THE  DIVELL  :  "  Lawyers  cannot  devise  which  way 
in  the  world  to  beg,  they  are  so  troubled  with  brabble- 
ments  and  suits  every  term,  of  yeomen  and  gentlemen 
that  fall  out  for  nothing.  If  John  a  Nokes  his  hen  do 
but  leap  into  Elizabeth  de  Yappe's  close,  she  will  never 

1  Part  I.     Pearson's  Heywood,  vol.  i,  p.  71. 
140 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  141 

leave  to  haunt  her  husband  till  he  bring  it  to  a  Nisi 
prius.  One  while  the  parson  sueth  the  parishioner  for 
bringing  home  his  tithes  :  another  while  the  parishioner 
sueth  the  parson  for  not  taking  away  his  tithes  in  time."  1 
All  the  while  the  burden  of  "  the  law's  delays  "  was  known 
to  all  men.  Chapman  makes  a  character  declare  that 
"  cures  are  like  causes  in  law,  which  may  be  lengthened 
or  shortened  at  the  discretion  of  the  lawyer  :  he  can 
either  keep  it  green  with  replications  or  rejoinders,  or 
sometimes  skin  it  fair  a'  th'  outside  for  fashion  sake  : 
but  so  he  may  be  sure  'twill  break  out  again  by  a  writ 
of  error,  and  then  he  has  his  suit  new  to  begin."  2 

Roger  Hutchinson,  in  his  Sermons  OF  OPPRESSION, 
AFFLICTION,  AND  PATIENCE  (1553)  is  amusingly  careful 
to  explain  that  when  Paul  blames  Christians  for  going 
to  law,  "  the  fault  which  he  affirmeth  to  be  in  suits  must 
be  referred  to  one  party,  not  to  the  plaintiff  and  defendant 
both.  .  .  .  These  words  ['  Why  rather  suffer  ye  not 
wrong  ?  ']  are  spoken  to  unjust  and  contentious  suitors, 
and  do  not  disprove  rightful  suits  ' '  3 — an  audacity  of 
misinterpretation  at  which  an  attorney  would  have 
blenched.  The  England  of  that  day,  in  fact,  appears 
to  have  been  a  scene  of  manifold  oppression  as  well  as 
of  litigiousness  ;  and  a  doctrine  of  non-resistance  would 
not  have  won  much  assent.  But  Hutchinson  devoutly 
protests  that  "  for  as  much  as  ...  malice  increaseth 
daily  by  delays,  and  long  continuance  of  suits  through 
the  covet ousness  of  lawyers  ;  would  God  the  King's 
Majesty,  by  the  assent  of  his  Parliament,  would  make 
some  statute  that  all  suits  should  be  determined  and 
judged  within  the  compass  of  a  year,  or  of  half  a  year  if 
their  value  were  under  a  hundred  pound,  upon  pain  of 
some  great  forfeiture  to  the  judges  before  whom  such 
matters  come."  4 

1  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  i,  189.  2  All  Fools,  iv,  i. 

3  Works  of  Roger  Hutchinson,  Parker  Soc.  ed.  1842,  p.  328. 

4  Id.  p.  332. 


142  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

It  might  have  been  well  to  set  up  some  machinery  for 
the  discouragement  of  frivolous  suits.  Latimer  in  his 
first  Sermon  before  King  Edward  VI  tells  of  a  lawsuit 
betwixt  two  friends  for  a  horse.  The  owner  promised  the  other 
should  have  the  horse  if  he  would  :  the  other  asked  the  price  ; 
he  said  twenty  nobles  (five  pounds).  The  other  would  give  him 
but  four  pound.  The  owner  said  he  should  not  have  him  then. 
The  other  claimed  the  horse,  because  he  said  he  should  have  him 
if  he  would.  Thus  this  bargain  became  a  Westminster  matter  : 
the  lawyers  got  twice  the  value  of  the  horse  ;  and  when  all  came 
to  all,  two  fools  made  an  end  of  the  matter.1 

In  his  Second  Sermon  before  the  King,  again,  Latimer 
tells  of  unjust  judges,  who  listen  only  to  the  rich  litigant, 
and  help  him  to  oppress  the  poor.  "  I  cannot  go  to  my 
book,  for  poor  folks  come  unto  me,  desiring  that  I  will 
speak  that  their  matters  may  be  heard."  2  Purely  oppres 
sive  suits  were  common  ;  but  there  were  as  many  fools 
as  knaves,  all  making  work  for  the  lawyers. 

This  mania  for  litigation  is  dramatically  set  forth  again 
in  the  poor  play,  IF  You  KNOW  NOT  ME,  You  KNOW 
NOBODY,  Part  II — obviously,  as  it  stands,  the  work  of 
several  hands  and  different  times,  but  ascribed  to  Hey- 
wood,  who  doubtless  had  "  a  hand  or  a  main  finger  "  in 
it  as  in  two  hundred  more.  In  one  of  the  earlier  scenes 
Gresham  and  Sir  Thomas  Ramsey,  the  eminent  London 
merchants,  are  brought  together  to  be  reconciled  over  a 
foolish  lawsuit  in  which  they  have  been  embroiled  for 
six  or  seven  years.  Doctor  Nowell  tells 

How  by  good  friends  they  have  been  persuaded  both, 
Yet  both  but  deaf  to  fair  persuasion  ; 

and  old  Hobson  jovially  rates  them  on  their  passion 

To  beat  yourselves  in  law  six  or  seven  year, 

Make  lawyers,  "  turneys'  "  clerks,  and  knaves  to  spend 

Your  money  in  a  brabbling  controversy, 

Even  like  two  fools. 

The  two  litigants  for  a  time  snap  at  each  other,  revealing 
the  animal  pugnacity  of  the  race,  which  turned  sponta- 

1  Sermons  of  Hugh  Latimer,  ed.  in   "  Everyman's  Library," 
P-  76.  2  Id.  p.  108. 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  143 

neously  to  litigation  when  the  reign  of  law  set  limits  to 
private  warfare.  Their  ground  of  quarrel  was  that 
Ramsey  had  "  given  earnest  "  for  a  piece  of  land  which 
Gresham,  not  knowing  of  the  previous  transaction, 
bought  and  built  upon  ;  and  they  are  now  induced  to 
shake  hands  upon  the  friendly  arbiter's  decision  that 
Gresham  shall  pay  Ramsey  a  hundred  pounds  compensa 
tion,  each  losing  the  five  hundred  pounds  he  has  spent 
during  the  futile  lawsuit.  If  it  be  objected  that  plays 
are  not  valid  evidence  as  to  social  usage  or  habit,  it  may 
suffice  to  cite  Mr.  Hubert  Hall's  account 1  of  the  lawsuits 
over  the  inheritance  of  "  Wild  Darrell  "  for  unimpeach 
able  evidence  of  Elizabethan  manners,  morals,  and 
practices.  We  there  seem  to  find  ourselves  in  a  world 
still  half-savage,  where  law  and  lawlessness  are  in  a 
perpetual,  breathless  grapple,  and  where  the  authentic 
record  at  once  makes  credible  many  episodes  in  the  con 
temporary  and  later  drama  which  at  a  first  reading  seem 
grotesque  exaggerations.  The  litigiousness  and  the  law 
lessness,  the  legal  and  the  illegal  frauds  and  violences, 
are  correlative. 

Apart  from  such  stress  of  strife,  the  whole  Elizabethan 
drama  tells  of  a  normal  resort  to  the  procedure  of  arrest 
for  debt.  One  of  the  commonest  situations  is  that  in 
which  a  personage  is  either  rightfully  or  fraudulently 
"attached"  or  arrested;  and  the  invariable  question, 
"  At  whose  suit  ?  "  tells  of  a  general  familiarity  with  the 
occurrence.  People  in  humble  life  are  made  normally 
to  use  technical  language  in  regard  to  such  mishaps.  In 
the  play  last  cited,  the  pedlar,  Tawnycoat,  utters  a 
soliloquy  which,  had  it  occurred  in  a  Shakespearean  play; 
would  have  been  triumphantly  cited  by  the  critical  tribe 
of  Lord  Campbell  as  proof  positive  of  the  playwright's 
"  profound  "  acquaintance  with  legal  procedure  : 

I  broke  my  day  with  him.     O  had  that  fatal  hour 
Broken  my  heart  ;  and,  villain  that  I  was, 

1  Society  in  Elizabethan  England. 


144  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Never  so  much  as  writ  in  my  excuse  ; 
And  he  for  that  default  hath  sued  my  bill, 
And  with  an  execution  is  come  down 
To  seize  my  household  stuff,  imprison  me, 
And  turn  my  wife  and  children  out  of  doors. 

Ed.  cited,  p.  303. 

Heywood  was  no  lawyer,  but  he  makes  a  non-legal 
character,  still  in  the  same  play,  quote  in  due  form  legal 
maxims  that  would  have  proved  his  lawyership  for  both 
Lord  Campbell  and  Mr.  Rushton.  Twice  over,  Jack 
Gresham  quotes  one  such  maxim,  the  second  time  thus  : 

Friend,  Ployden's  proverb  :    the  case  is  alter' d  ;    and,  by  my 
troth,  I  have  learn'd  you  a  lesson  ;  forbearance  is  no  acquittance.1 

That  phrase,  "  The  case  is  alter'd,"  is  a  standing  tag  in 
Elizabethan  drama,  and  Ben  Jonson  makes  it  the  title 
of  a  play.  In  the  second  part  of  his  KING  EDWARD  THE 
FOURTH,  again,  where  Aire,  after  being  saved  from  execu 
tion  for  piracy  by  the  influence  of  Jane  Shore,  is  executed 
for  succouring  her,  Heywood  makes  the  doomed  man 
thus  play  on  legal  terms  and  procedure  in  his  farewell 
speech  : 

Jane,  be  content ! 
I  am  as  much  indebted  unto  thee 
As  unto  nature  :     I  owed  thee  a  life 
When  it  was  forfeit  unto  death  by  law. 
Thou  begdst  it  of  the  King  and  gav'st  it  me. 
This  house  of  flesh,  wherein  this  soul  doth  dwell, 
Is  thine,  and  thou  art  landlady  of  it, 
And  this  poor  life  a  tenant  but  at  pleasure. 
It  never  came  to  pay  the  rent  till  now, 
But  hath  run  in  arrearage  all  this  while, 
And  now  for  very  shame  comes  to  discharge  it 
When  death  distrains  for  what  is  but  thy  due. 

Pearson's  ed.  of  Works,  i,  181. 

Here  we  have  the  very  fashion  of  lawyerism  seen  in  those 
Sonnets  of  Shakespeare  which  are  cited  as  proof  of  his 
"  profound  technical  knowledge,"  and  this  in  a  play 
meant  for  common  folk  and  tolerable  only  to  them.  To 
such  phraseology  they  were  daily  accustomed.  Such  a 
1  Id.  p.  332.  (Cp.  p.  329.) 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  145 

proclivity  meant,  further,  a  habitual  haunting  of  law 
courts  ;  and  in  Stratford-on-Avon,  where  a  fortnightly 
court  was  regularly  held,  it  is  morally  certain  that  people 
with  any  idle  time  on  their  hands  would  frequently  seek 
there  what  must  have  been  the  most  interesting  entertain 
ment  regularly  open  to  them.  If  such  resort  is  still 
common  in  days  of  newspapers  and  in  towns  supplied 
with  theatres,  it  must  have  been  much  more  so  in  a  time 
and  in  places  where  news-sheets  were  still  unknown  and 
theatres  non-existent.  Dray  ton  draws  a  picture  which 
generalises  one  that  must  have  been  familiar  to  many 
thousands  of  his  countrymen  : 

Like  some  great  learned  judge,  to  end  a  weighty  cause, 
Well  furnished  with  the  force  of  arguments  and  laws, 
And  every  special  proof  that  justly  may  be  brought  ; 
Now  with  a  constant  brow,  a  firm  and  settled  thought, 
And  at  the  point  to  give  the  last  and  final  doom  : 
The  people  crowding  near  within  the  pester 'd  room. 
A  slow  soft  murmuring  moves  amongst  the  wond'ring  throng, 
As  though  with  open  ears  they  would  devour  his  tongue.1 

In  respect  of  the  state  of  society  in  which  this  was  a 
normal  experience,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  prove  that 
Shakespeare  had  any  special  inducement  in  youth  to 
take  an  interest  in  legal  procedure.  But,  as  it  happened, 
he  had.  It  is  generally  known,  and  the  legalists  might 
have  been  expected  to  remember,  that  Shakespeare's 
father  was  a  man  of  many  lawsuits.  But  nowhere  in 
connection  with  this  question,  I  think,  has  note  been 
taken  of  the  extent  and  significance  of  that  experience 
in  the  Shakespeare  household.  It  has  been  left  to  a 
clerical  writer — partly  bent  on  proving  the  quite  arguable 
thesis  that  John  Shakespeare  was  a  Puritan  recusant, 
partly  on  pressing  the  fantastic  one  that  William  Shake 
speare  was  a  profound  Biblical  student — to  bring  out  the 
full  force  of  the  evidence  as  to  the  father's  manifold  expe 
rience  of  law  courts.  The  summary  is  that  "  He  was  one 
of  the  most  litigious  of  men.  .  .  .  From  July,  2  Philip 

1  Polyolbion,  5th  Song,  ii,  29-36. 

K 


146  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

and  Mary,  to  March,  37  Elizabeth,  there  are  no  less  than 
sixty-seven  entries  of  cases  in  which  his  name  appears 
on  one  side  or  the  other  ;  and  some  of  his  actions  are  with 
his  best  friends,  as  Adrian  Quiney,  Francis  Herbage, 
Thomas  Knight,  and  Roger  Sadler ;  but  in  1591  there 
is  only  one  entry,  wherein  John  Shakespeare  sued  as 
plaintiff  in  a  debt  recovery  action  and  won  with  costs."  1 

This  noteworthy  record,  and  many  of  the  details  on 
which  it  is  based,  bring  out  three  facts  of  obvious  import 
ance  in  the  biography  of  Shakespeare  :  (i)  the  normality 
of  litigation  in  Stratford  as  in  Elizabethan  England  in 
general ;  (2)  the  abundant  share  of  the  Shakespeares 
in  legal  experience ;  and  (3)  the  possibility  of  error  in 
the  old  inference,  accepted  by  most  of  us,  as  to  the 
father's  impecuniosity.  The  fact  seems  to  be  that  when 
John  Shakespeare  was  distrained  upon  for  debt  and  the 
writ  was  returned  (1586)  endorsed  with  the  note,  "  quod 
praedictus  Johannes  Shakspere  nihil  habet  unde  distrin- 
gere  potest  habet,"  he  was  not  at  all  devoid  of  means, 
but  was  simply  baffling  the  suit  against  him.  Real 
property  he  certainly  possessed  at  that  time,2  as  did 
other  substantial  citizens  who  were  also  being  proceeded 
against ;  3  to  say  nothing  of  the  obvious  consideration 
that  he  must  have  had  household  furniture.  I  will  not 
attempt  here  to  decide  the  problem  as  to  whether  the 
whole  episode  of  John  Shakespeare's  finings  and  the 
disqualification  consequent  on  his  non-attendance  at  the 
Council  was  simply  a  matter  of  his  recusancy.  The  prima 
facie  case  for  that  view  is  extremely  strong  ;  but  it  calls 
for  a  more  searching  investigation  than  I  have  yet  met 
with  ;  and  I  simply  note  that  it  puts  in  doubt  the  whole 
theory  of  John  Shakespeare's  progressive  impecuniosity, 
which  in  the  past  I  had  accepted  like  others.  Mr.  Halli- 
well-Phillipps  had  indeed  pointed  out  that  when  Alderman 

1  Rev.  T.  Carter,  Shakespeare  :    Puritan  and  Recusant,  1897, 
p.  166. 

2  Work  last  cited,  pp.  30,  93,  124,  159.  8  Id.  p.  165. 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  147 

Shakespeare  went  on  paying  heavy  fines  for  persistent 
non-attendance  at  the  Council,  it  was  "  not  an  evidence 
of  falling-off  in  circumstances,  but  rather  the  opposite, 
for  it  implies  on  the  contrary  the  ability  to  pay  the  fines 
for  non-attendance,  for  we  cannot  doubt  that  if  he  had 
not  paid  them  some  notice  would  have  appeared  in  the 
books."1  This,  however,  was  not  convincing;  and  the 
theory  of  lack  of  funds  was  ostensibly  the  reasonable  one. 
But  on  a  review  of  all  the  data  the  question  must  be 
pronounced  unsettled  ;  and  among  other  things  the  theory 
that  the  boy  William  Had  to  leave  school  at  thirteen 
because  of  his  father's  pecuniary  embarrassments  is 
obviously  put  in  doubt. 

Whatever  be  the  ultimate  solution,  it  is  at  least  clear 
that  the  boy  Shakespeare  had  not  less  but  more  than  the 
normal  Elizabethan  ground  of  interest  in  legal  matters. 
It  would  be  idle  for  the  "  anti-Stratfordians  "  to  argue 
that  we  have  no  evidence  of  his  taking  any  interest  in 
his  father's  litigations.  It  might  as  well  be  said  that 
we  have  no  evidence  of  his  caring  about  anything.  Com 
mon  sense  warrants  the  belief  that  he  heard  endless  talk 
in  the  home  circle  on  legal  matters  ;  and  the  very  illiteracy 
of  his  father,  so  often  stressed  by  the  Baconians  and  their 
allies,  carries  the  irresistible  presumption  that  the  boy 
was  called  on  to  read  some  legal  documents  for  his  parents. 
In  view  of  our  previous  survey  of  the  legalisms  in  the 
plays  it  is  worth  noting  that  the  enigmatic  document  of 
agreement  between  John  Shakespeare  and  Robert  Webbe, 
entered  into  in  1579,  makes  mention  of  "  feoffments, 
grants,  entails,  jointures,  dowers,  leases,  wills,  uses,  rent 
charges,  rent  sects,  arrearages  of  rent,  recognizance, 
statute  merchant  and  of  the  staple,  obligations,  judg 
ments,  executions,  condemnations,  issues,  fines,  amerce 
ments,  intrusions,  forfeitures,  alienations  without  license," 
&c.2  Of  most  of  these  terms  John  Shakespeare,  with 
his  many  litigations  and  title-deeds,  was  likely  enough 
1  Citation  by  Carter,  p.  125.  2  Carter,  as  cited,  p.  98. 


148  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

to  know  the  meaning,  whether  or  not  he  could  sign  his 
name.  Between  the  documents  and  the  lawsuits,  his 
son  had  occasion  enough  to  know  as  well  as  any  layman 
of  his  day  the  common  vocabulary  of  lawyers,  which  is 
practically  all  that  his  plays  indicate  him  to  have  known. 
And  as  that  very  transaction  about  the  Asbies,  with  which 
the  Webbe  agreement  connects,  dragged  on  long  after 
he  was  a  grown  man,  and  came  into  the  court  of  Chancery 
in  1597 — "  after  the  days  of  persecution  were  over,"  as 
Mr.  Carter  notes,  when  a  recusant  could  go  to  law  without 
fear  of  amercement — William  Shakespeare  had  a  personal 
interest  in  studying  all  the  documents  concerned.  If 
Mr.  Grant  White  and  the  legalists  had  taken  such  things 
into  account,  they  might  have  found  a  simple  solution 
for  the  occurrence  of  legal  terms  in  the  plays. 

But  Shakespeare's  experience,  be  it  repeated,  was  not 
abnormal  in  that  litigious  and  court-haunting  age.  The 
public  in  general  had  the  same  proclivities,  and  the  other 
dramatists,  as  we  have  seen,  catered  freely  for  the  same 
appetite.  The  habit  of  court-haunting  is  indicated  in 
Webster  and  Rowley's  CURE  FOR  A  CUCKOLD  (iii,  i)  : 

A  judge,  methinks,  looks  loveliest  when  he  weeps, 
Pronouncing  of  death's  sentence  ; 

and  in  the  same  scene  a  character  sententiously  puts  sex 
attraction  in  a  legal  figure  : 

Although  the  tenure  by  which  land  was  held 
In  villanage  be  quite  extinct  in  England, 
Yet  you  have  women  there  at  this  day  living 
Make  a  number  of  slaves. 

Latimer  in  the  pulpit  (1529)  turns  to  homiletic  account 

three  terms  which  we  have  common  and  usual  amongst  us,  that 
is  to  say,  the  sessions  of  inquirance,  the  sessions  of  deliverance, 
and  the  execution  day.  Sessions  of  inquirance  is  like  unto  judg 
ment  ;  for  when  sessions  of  inquiry  is,  then  the  judges  cause 
twelve  men  to  give  verdict  of  the  felon's  crime,  whereby  he  shall 
be  judged  to  be  indicted  :  sessions  of  deliverance  is  much  like 
council  :  for  at  sessions  of  deliverance  the  judges  go  among 
themselves  to  council,  to  determine  sentence  against  the  felon  ; 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  149 

execution-day  is  to  be  compared  with  hell-fire.  .  .  .  Wherefore 
you  may  see  that  there  are  degrees  in  these  our  terms,  as  there 
be  in  those  terms.1 

The  same  habit  of  court-haunting  is  taken  for  granted 
by  Sir  Thomas  Elyot  (1531)  : 

And  in  the  country,  at  a  sessions  or  other  assembly,  if  no 
gentyl  men  be  thereat,  the  saying  is  that  there  was  none  but  the 
commonalty.2 

The  habits  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  day  i  n  this  regard  had 
not  changed  in  Elizabeth's.  No  matter  in  what  country 
they  lay  their  scene,  the  dramatists  assume  the  universal 
interest  in  matters  of  law  and  litigation. 

I  walking  in  the  place  where  men's  lawsuits 
Are  heard  and  pleaded — 

Chapman,  All  Fools,  ii,  I, 

is  quite  a  natural  way  of  beginning  an  account  of  an 
episode  ;  equally  by  the  way  is  the  description  : 

Heard  he  a  lawyer,  ne'er  so  vehement  pleading, 
He  stood  and  laugh'd. 

Id.     Revenge  of  Bussy  D'Ambois,  i,  i  ; 

and  Chapman  had  made  a  personage  say,  before  Dickens  : 

The  law  is  such  an  ass. 

Revenge  for  Honour,  iii,  2. 

The  natural  result  of  such  a  general  preoccupation  is 
that  not  merely  the  phraseology  but  the  procedure  of 
the  law-courts  everywhere  obtrudes  itself  in  literature. 
Even  in  our  day,  trial  scenes  are  often  the  central  features 
in  melodramas,  the  spontaneously  dramatic  character 
of  a  trial  giving  the  playwright  an  easy  opportunity  ;  • 
and  as  soon  as  the  Elizabethan  drama  had  come  in  touch 
with  normal  life,  even  on  a  poetic  plane,  it  availed  itself 
of  this  obvious  resource.  Not  only  does  the  drama 
swarm  with  trials  and  trial  scenes,  lawsuits,  advocates, 
judges,  magistrates,  scriveners,  warrants,  sergeants  and 
affairs  of  justice,  but  the  judicial  procedure  and  the  legal 

1  Sermons,  ed.  cited,  pp.  9-10. 

*  The  Boke  named  the  Governour,  ed.  in  same  series,  p.  2. 


150  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

terminology  are  alike  constantly  resorted  to  in  poetic 
and  polemic  literature. 

Nashe,  in  one  of  his  hilarious  wrangles  with  Gabriel 
Harvey,  in  FOUR  LETTERS  CONFUTED,  plunges  into  the 
trial  form  as  naturally  as  any  dramatist,  thus  : 

The  Arraignment  and  Execution  of  the  Ihird  Letter. 
To  every  reader  favourably  or  indifferently  affected. 
Text,  stand  to  the  Bar.     Peace  there  below. 

After  a  quotation  and  a  comment,  we  have  : 

You  would  foist  in  non  causam  pro  causa.  ...  If  you  have 
any  new  infringement  to  destitute  the  indictment  of  forgery 
that  I  bring  against  you,  so  it  is. 

Here  enters  Argumentum  a  testimonio  humano,  like  Tamburlaine 
drawn  in  a  chariot  by  four  kings.1 

In  Greene's  story,  A  QUIP  FOR  AN  UPSTART  COURTIER, 
similarly,  the  onlooker  in  the  quarrel  between  Velvet- 
breeches  and  Cloth-breeches  says  to  the  former  : 

Listen  to  me,  and  discuss  the  matter  by  law ;  .  .  .  you  claim 
all,  he  [Cloth-breeches]  would  have  but  his  own  :  both  plead  an 
absolute  title  of  residence  in  this  country  :  then  the  course 
between  you  be  trespass  or  disseisin  of  frank  tenement  :  You, 
Velvet-breeches,  in  that  you  claim  the  first  title,  you  shall  be 
plaintiff  and  plead  a  trespass  of  disseisin  done  you  by  Cloth- 
breeches,  so  shall  it  be  brought  to  a  jury,  and  tried  by  a  verdict 
of  twelve  or  four-and-twenty. 

The  reply  is  that  Velvet-breeches  cannot  rely  on  juries' 
justice,  "  for  my  adversary  is  their  countryman  and  less 
chargeable  :  he  shall  have  the  law  mitigated  if  a  jury  of 
hinds  or  peasants  should  be  empannelled."  Upon  this 
comes  the  rejoinder  : 

You  need  not  doubt  of  that,  for  whom  you  distrust  and  think 
not  indifferent,  him  you  upon  a  cause  manifested,  challenge 
from  your  jury. 

If  your  law  allow  such  large  favour,  quoth  Velvet-breeches, 
I  am  content  my  title  be  tried  by  a  jury,  and  therefore  let  mine 
adversary  plead  me  Nul  tort  nul  disseisin* 

1  Works,  ed.  cited,  i,  293. 

1  Works,  ed.  Grosart,  xi,  228-9. 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  151 

Later  there  is  a  literary  jury-trial,   and  the  narrator 
addresses  the  jury,  first  naming  a  knight  as  foreman  : 

Worshipful  sir,  with  the  rest  of  the  jury,  whom  we  have  solicited 
of  choice  honest  men,  whose  consciences  will  deal  uprightly  in 
this  controversy,  you  and  the  rest  of  your  company  are  here 
upon  your  oath  and  oaths  to  inquire  whether  Cloth-breeches 
have  done  disseisin  unto  Velvet-breeches,  yea  or  no,  in  or  about 
London,  in  putting  him  out  of  frank  tenement,  wronging  him 
of  his  right  and  imbellishing  [weakening]  his  credit  :  if  you  find 
that  Cloth-breeches  hath  done  Velvet-breeches  wrong,  then  let 
him  be  set  in  his  former  estate  and  allow  him  reasonable  damages.1 

Greene's  story,  as  it  happens,  is  a  systematic  plagiarism 
from  the  doggerel  poem  THE  DEBATE  BETWEEN  PRIDE 
AND  LOWLINESS,  by  Francis  Thynne,  a  young  attorney, 
probably  written  and  privately  printed,  but  not  published, 
before  1570. 2  The  curious  thing  is,  however,  that  Greene 
puts  the  case  in  a  more  lawyerlike  way  than  does  the 
lawyer,  who  is  mainly  concerned  to  moralise,  and  whose 
point  lies  in  the  destruction  of  Cloth-breeches  by  a  mis 
cellaneous  jury  whose  sympathies  are  with  Velvet- 
breeches,  the  rich  oppressor  ;  whereas  Greene  gives  the 
legal  victory  to  the  man  with  right  on  his  side,  on  legal 
grounds.  Thynne  mentions  the  maxim  nul  tort,  nul 
disseisin,  merely  as  a  comment  in  epilogue  :  Greene 
brings  it  into  the  case.  The  story  was  long  popular : 
evidently  the  public  taste  for  legalism  could  be  relied 
on  by  both  authors  and  publishers.  And  Greene,  as 
we  have  seen,  freely  employs  legal  phraseology  in  other 
tales.  In  this  he  has  a  phrase  about  "  statute  marchant 
or  staple  ' '  which  is  not  in  his  original ;  and  in  the 
DEFENCE  OF  CONEY-CATCHING  (Works,  xi,  55),  among 
other  "  legal "  expressions,  there  is  a  transaction  in 
which  a  borrower  "  promised  to  acknowledge  a  statute 
staple"  to  the  borrower,  "with  letters  of  defeysance," 
and  further  "  made  an  absolute  deed  of  gift  from  wife 

1  Id.  p.  293. 

2  See    J.    P.    Collier's   preface   to   the   Shakespeare    Society's 
reprint  (1841)  of  Thynne 's  poem. 


152  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

and  children  to  this  usurer  of  all  his  lordship,"  [worth 
in  "  rent  of  assise  seven  score  pounds  by  the  year  "] 
"  and  so  had  the  2000  marks  upon  the  plain  forfeit  of 
a  bond."  In  ALCIDA,  GREENE'S  METAMORPHOSIS  (1588), 
we  have  the  dictum  "  Where  love  serveth  his  writ  of 
command,  there  a  super sedeas  of  reason  is  of  no  avail  " 
(Works,  ix,  42).  If  such  a  quantity  of  technical  phrase 
ology  and  procedure  had  been  found  in  a  Shakespearean 
play,  it  would  have  been  pronounced  proof  positive  of 
the  saturation  of  the  poet's  mind  with  legal  ideas  through 
a  legal  training.  But  Greene  was  no  more  a  lawyer  than 
Nashe. 

Even  Spenser  in  the  FAERIE  QuEENE1  follows  the 
prevailing  fashion  : 

On  a  day  when  Cupid  held  his  court, 
As  he  is  wont  at  each  Saint  Valentine, 

a  fair  cruel  maid  is  found  to  have  "  murdred  "  many 
sighing  lovers. 

Therefore  a  Jury  was  impannelled  straight  .  .  . 

Of  all  these  crimes  she  there  indited  was. 

All  which  when  Cupid  heard,  he  by  and  by 

In  great  displeasure  willed  a  Capias 

Should  issue  forth  t'  attach  that  scornful  lass. 

The  warrant  straight  was  made,  and  therewithal 

A  Bailiff-errant  forth  in  post  did  pass, 

Whom  they  by  name  there  Portamore  did  call, 

He  which  doth  summon  lovers  to  love's  judgment  hall. 

The  damsel  was  attacht,  and  shortly  brought 

Unto  the  bar  whereas  she  was  arraigned  j 

But  she  thereto  nould  plead,  nor  answer  ought.  .  .   . 

So  judgment  past,  as  is  by  law  ordained 

In  cases  like,  which  when  at  last  she  saw  .  .  . 

Cried  mercy,  to  abate  the  extremitie  of  law. 

Turning  to  the  drama,  we  find  the  expedient  of  a  trial 
resorted  to  by  half  the  dramatists  of  the  period.  Peele 
makes  a  trial  the  central  matter  of  his  ARRAIGNMENT  OF 
PARIS  (1584),  which  precedes  Marlowe.  Jonson  employs 
the  expedient  again  and  again.  In  THE  POETASTER  he 

1  B.  VI.  c.  vii,  33-37. 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  153 

puts  into  the  form  of  a  trial  his  quarrel  with  his  rivals 
and  calumniators,  as  does  his  antagonist  Dekker  in 
SATIROMASTIX.  An  elaborate  trial  scene  is  inserted  in 
VOLPONE,  with  "  Avocatori,  Notario,  Commandatori, 
Saffi,  and  other  officers  of  justice  "  :  and  the  procedure 
is  incomparably  more  court-like  than  that  in  the  trial 
of  the  case  of  Antonio  and  Shylock.  In  THE  SILENT 
WOMAN  there  is  a  long  scene  in  which  a  divine  and  a 
canonist  debate  at  length  on  the  law  of  divorce  as  they 
might  have  done  in  a  court.  In  THE  STAPLE  OF  NEWS 
there  is  a  parade  of  characters  representing  legal  abstrac 
tions — Mortgage,  Statute,  Band,  Wax,  with  a  lawyer 
Picklock  ;  and  in  THE  NEW  INN  we  have,  as  aforesaid,1 
a  "Court  of  Love"  scene  in  a  room  "furnished  as  a 
tribunal,"  where  the  maid  Prudence  "  takes  her  seat  of 
judicature  "  and  calls  for  the  clearing  of  the  court  and 
administration  of  oaths.  In  his  other  plays,  as  we  have 
seen,  legalisms  abound  :  in  THE  MAGNETIC  LADY,  as  we 
shall  see,  there  is  far  more  legal  "  shop  "  and  talk  about 
lawyers  than  in  any  three  plays  of  Shakespeare.  A  play- 
scene  was  in  fact  counted-on  as  a  "  draw,"  though  Jonson 
did  not  succeed  with  THE  NEW  INN.  Chapman  and 
Rowley  make  their  entire  plaf  of  THE  ADMIRAL  OF  FRANCE 
a  tissue  of  judicial  investigations.  An  inquiry,  held  by 
way  of  a  trial,  and  corruptly  swayed  by  an  iniquitous 
Chancellor,  is  followed  by  another  trial,  in  which,  the 
King's  Advocate  prosecuting,  the  Chancellor  is  exposed 
and  brought  to  justice.  One  or  both  of  the  authors  had 
certainly  watched  trials,  as  nearly  everybody  in  that 
day  did ;  and  there  is  a  probability  that  the  elaborate 
harangues  in  this  play  were  modelled  upon  printed 
reports.  Yet  neither  Chapman  nor  Rowley  was  a  lawyer. 
A  less  elaborate  but  still  lengthy  trial  scene  occurs  in 

>YRON'S  TRAGEDY  :    the  device  was  evidently  popular 
the  period  ;  and  in  Chapman's  plays  it  must  have  been 

le  main  attraction. 

1  Above,  pp.  123-5. 


154  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Other  playwrights  show  the  same  proclivity.  In 
Dekker's  OLD  FORTUNATUS  (v,  2),  in  the  scene  in  which 
Vice  and  Virtue  and  Fortune  dispute,  the  effect  of  a  trial 
is  got  by  a  reference  to  the  Queen  in  the  audience  : 

Fortune.  Thou  art  too  insolent  :  see,  here's  a  court 
Of  mortal  judges  :  let's  by  them  be  tried, 
Which  of  us  three  shall  most  be  deified. 

And  in  IF  THIS  BE  NOT  A  GOOD  PLAY,  THE  DEVIL  is  IN  IT  l 
we  have  similar  extempore  effects  : 

Pluto.  Sit,  call  a  sessions  :  set  the  souls  to  a  bar. 
3.  Jud.  Make  an  Oyes  !  .  .  . 

Shacklesoul.  A  jury  of  brokers  impanneU'd  and  deeply  sworn, 
to  pass  on  all  the  villains  in  hell. 

Then  follows  a  trial  of  souls  of  bad  men — Ravaillac, 
Faust,  &c.  In  A  WARNING  FOR  FAIRE  WOMEN  (1599) 
there  is  a  long  trial  scene  to  which,  for  detail,  formality, 
and  general  realism,  there  is  no  parallel  in  Shakespeare's 
plays.  A  murderer,  concerning  whose  case  there  has 
already  been  much  amateur  detective  investigation,  is 
tried  before  "  the  Lord  Mayor,  the  Lord  Justice,  and  the 
four  Lords,  and  one  clerk,  and  a  Sheriff,"  who  enter  in 
due  form.  The  Lord  Justice  calls  : 

Bring  forth  the  prisoner,  and  keep  silence  there.          * 
Prepare  the  Inditement  that  it  may  be  read. 

The  clerk  duly  does  so,  the  document  being  given  in  full, 
in  the  strict  form  of  the  day.  The  criminal  is  told  in  full 
legal  detail  how  "  with  one  sword,  price  six  shillings," 
he  accomplished  his  crime  :  and  on  his  pleading  guilty 
the  case  proceeds  exactly  as  such  a  case  might,  the  judge 
pronouncing  a  homily  before  passing  sentence.  The 
abettors  of  the  crime  are  then  brought  in  and  indicted 
"  jointly  and  severally,"  with  the  same  technical  pre 
cision,  and  searching  questions  are  put  to  the  guilty 
persons.  The  "inditements "  stand  as  documents  of 
Elizabethan  criminal  procedure.  Had  such  a  scene  been 
found  in  a  Shakespearean  play,  it  would  have  been 
1  Pearson's  ed.  vol.  iii,  p,  353. 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  155 

claimed  by  the  legalists  as  overwhelming  evidence  of 
Shakespeare's  lawyership.  The  play  is  anonymous,  and 
is  conjecturally  ascribed  by  Fleay  to  Lodge,  whose  train 
ing  was  in  medicine.  Shakespeare's  it  certainly  is  not, 
though  Shakespeare  in  MACBETH  echoed  some  of  its  lines. 
(See  below,  Ch.  ix.) 

In  A  LOOKING  GLASS  FOR  LONDON,  Greene  and  Lodge 
insert  an  elaborate  trial  scene  for  the  purpose  of  showing 
how  justice  was  perverted  both  by  advocates  and  judges 
in  the  interest  of  usurers  :  the  trial  being  here  presented, 
as  it  were,  for  its  own  sake. 

In  THE  FATAL  DOWRY,  Massinger  sets  out,  in  "  A 
Street  before  the  Court  of  Justice,"  with  a  discussion  on 
the  arbitrary  ways  of  law  courts  ;  and  the  second  scene 
consists  in  the  hearing  of  a  plea  to  set  aside  the  rigour 
of  justice  in  the  case  of  a  dead  body  seized  for  debt.  In 
the  second  Act  the  debate  is  continued.  In  the  fourth 
Act  the  wronged  husband  causes  his  father-in-law,  an 
ex- judge,  to  try  the  cause  of  the  unfaithful  wife,  telling 
the  servants  to  set  down  the  body  of  the  slain  seducer 
"  before  the  judgment  seat "  ;  and  the  wife  is  to  "  stand 
at  the  bar  "  : 

For  me,  I  am  the  accuser. 

In  the  fifth  Act,  finally,  the  husband  is  himself  formally 
tried  in  court  for  his  act  of  vengeance ;  the  victim's 
father,  a  judge,  being  present.  The  whole  conduct  of 
these  trials  is  sufficiently  unlawyerlike ;  but  that  is  not 
the  question.  The  point  is  that,  like  Shakespeare,  the 
other  dramatists,  without  legal  training  and  without 
concern  for  strict  legal  form,  spontaneously  resorted  to 
trials  and  court  procedure  as  a  dramatic  method. 

In  THE  MAID  OF  HONOUR,  Massinger  makes  the  heroine 
plead  her  cause  before  the  King  as  before  a  judge  : 

To  do  me  justice, 

Exacts  your  present  care,  and  I  can  admit 
Of  no  delay.     If,  ere  my  cause  be  heard, 
In  favour  of  your  brother  you  go  on,  sir, 


156  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Your  sceptre  cannot  right  me.     He's  the  man, 

The  guilty  man,  whom  I  accuse  ;  and  you 

Stand  bound  in  duty,  as  you  are  supreme, 

To  be  impartial.     Since  you  are  a  judge, 

As  a  delinquent  look  on  him,  and  not 

As  on  a  brother  :    Justice  painted  blind 

Infers  her  ministers  are  obliged  to  hear 

The  cause  :  and  truth,  the  judge,  determine  of  it  ; 

And  not  sway'd  or  by  favour  or  affection, 

By  a  false  gloss  or  wrested  comment,  alter 

The  true  intent  or  letter  of  the  law.  .  .  . 

I  stand  here  mine  own  advocate. 

Legal  style  and  diction  are  lent  to  the  scene  in  excess  of 
any  need  in  the  situation,  for  it  takes  place  in  a  room  of 
the  palace.  The  King  in  judicial  style  says  : 

Let  us  take  our  seats. 
What  is  your  title  to  him  ? 

And  the  heroine  answers  : 

By  this  contract, 

Seal'd  solemnly  before  a  reverend  man, 
I  challenge  him  for  my  husband. 

[Presents  a  paper  to  the  King.} 

We  are  witnessing  a  drama  cast  in  legal  forms,  for  the 
entertainment  of  an  audience  accustomed  to  hear  law 
and  talk  law,  by  a  dramatist  who  has  no  more  special 
legal  knowledge  than  they.  Had  Lord  Campbell  had  it 
before  him  as  a  Shakespearean  work  he  would  unquestion 
ably  have  professed  to  find  in  it  proof  of  close  familiarity 
with  legal  procedure,  though  in  point  of  fact,  like  Shake 
speare's  own  legal  scenes,  it  is  as  loose  as  may  be  in  its 
imitation  of  the  real  work  of  courts. 

Middleton,  in  turn,  makes  the  whole  play  of  THE  WIDOW 
turn  on  the  getting  of  warrants,  arrests,  bails,  the  attempt 
to  secure  a  widow  in  marriage  by  having  concealed 
witnesses  to  her  verbal  "  contract,"  the  attempt  on  her 
part  to  escape  by  litigation,  and  her  "  deed  of  gift  " 
which,  as  she  announces,  "  was  but  a  deed  in  trust/' 
Middleton,  we  shall  be  told,  was  a  barrister  ;  and  it  must 
have  been  his  professional  experience  that  so  filled  his 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  157 

head  with  legal  ideas  and  terms  that  he  bestows  them 
on  the  widow.  But  in  his  other  plays  he  uses  no  such 
machinery  ;  and  Webster,  who  was  a  "  Merchant  Taylor," 
makes  three  of  his  plays — THE  WHITE  DEVIL,  THE 
DEVIL'S  LAW  CASE,  and  APPIUS  AND  VIRGINIA — turn 
upon  formal  trials,  besides  introducing  a  trial  scene  into 
THE  FAMOUS  HISTORY  OF  SIR  THOMAS  WYAT,  which  he 
wrote  in  collaboration  with  Dekker.  Concerning  the 
second  of  the  plays  named,  Mr.  Devecmon  has  remarked 
that  it  contains  "  more  legal  expressions,  some  of  them 
highly  technical,  and  all  correctly  used,  than  are  to  be 
found  in  any  single  one  of  Shakespeare's  Works."  l  Upon 
my  citation  of  this  judgment2  Mr.  Greenwood  protests3 
that 

the  fact  is  that  the  statement  as  to  The  Devil's  Law  Case  is  not 
only  not  true,  but  so  preposterously  contrary  to  the  truth  that 
one  can  hardly  believe  that  Mr.  Devecmon  had  read  the  drama 
in  question.  There  is,  incredible  as  it  may  sound,  practically 
no  law  at  all  in  Webster's  play  !  There  are  indeed  a  few  legal 
terms  such  as  "livery  and  seisin,"  a  "caveat,"  "tenements," 
"  executors,"  thrown  in  heie  and  there,  and  there  is  an  absurd 
travesty  of  a  trial  where  each  and  everybody — judge,  counsel, 
witness,  or  spectator — seems  to  put  in  a  word  or  two  just  as  it 
pleases  him  ;  but  to  say  that  there  are  "  more  legal  expressions  " 
in  the  play  "  (and  some  of  them  highly  technical  and  all  correctly 
used)  than  are  to  be  found  in  any  single  one  of  Shakespeare's 
works,"  is  an  astounding  perversion  of  the  fact,  as  any  reader 
can  see  who  chooses  to  peruse  Webster's  not  very  delicate  drama. 
I  cannot  but  think  that  Mr.  Robertson  had  either  not  read  the 
play,  or  had  forgotten  it  when  he  quoted  this  amazing  passage. 

I  am  quite  willing  to  stake  the  entire  question  upon 
this  issue.  Mr.  Greenwood  might,  I  think,  have  taken 
the  trouble  to  collate  the  legal  references  in  THE  DEVIL'S 
LAW  CASE,  and  compare  them  with  Lord  Campbell's 
citations  from  any  one  Shakespearean  play  :  it  would 
have  been  more  to  the  purpose  than  any  amount  of  simple 

1  In  re  Shakespeare's  Legal  Acquirements,  p.  8. 

2  Did  Shakespeare  write  '  Titus  A  ndronicus  '  ?  1905,  p.  54. 

3  The  Shakespeare  Problem  Restated,  p.  398. 


158  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

asseveration,  however  emphatic.  He  would  thus  have 
learned  that  the  "  few  "  legal  terms  which  he  dismisses 
as  of  no  account  are  exactly  on  a  par  with  most  of  those 
cited  by  Campbell  from  Shakespeare  (only  more  realistic) , 
and  with  those  cited  by  Grant  White  in  a  passage  which 
he  himself  has  quoted  with  approbation.  Having  read 
Webster's  play  thrice — which  is  more,  I  fear,  than  Mr. 
Greenwood  had  done  by  Campbell's  book — I  will  make 
good  his  omission.  The  following  "  legal  "  phrases  are 
cited  as  they  come,  Act  by  Act  : 

ACT  I.     SCENE  I. 

Romelio.  He  makes  his  colour 

Of  visiting  us  so  often,  to  sell  land. 

Contarino.  The  evidence  of  the  piece  of  land 

I  motion'd  to  you  for  the  sale. 

Leonora.  To  settle  your  estate. 

ACT  I.     SCENE  2. 
Jolenta.  Do  you  serve  process  on  me  ? 

Rom.  Keep  your  possession,  you  have  the  door  by  the  ring. 
That's  livery  and  seisin  in  England. 

Ercole.  To  settle  her  a  jointure. 
Jolenta.  To  make  you  a  deed  of  gift. 

Winifred.  Yes,  but  the  devil  would  fain  put  in  for's  share 
In  likeness  of  a  separation. 

Contarino.  You  have  delivered  him  guiltless. 

ACT.  II.     SCENE  i. 

Julio.  Any  action  that  is  but  accessory. 
Crispiano.  One  that  compounds  quarrels. 
Ercole.  Your  warrant  must  be  mighty. 
Contarino.  has  a  seal 

From  heaven  to  do  it. 

ACT  II.     SCENE  3. 
Ariosto.  What  should  move  you 
Put  forth  that  harsh  inter'gatory  ? 

Romelio.  The  evidence  of  church  land.  .  .  . 
A  supersedeas  be  not  su'd. 

Lonora.  To  come  to  his  trial,  to  satisfy  the  law. 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  159 

ACT  II.     SCENE  4. 
Capuchin.  The  law  will  strictly  prosecute  his  life. 

ACT  III.     SCENE  2. 

Romelio.  He  has  made  a  will  .  .  .  and  deputed  Jolenta  his  heir. 

Romelio.  If  we  can  work  him,  as  no  doubt  we  shall, 
To  make  another  will,  and  therein  assign 
This  gentleman  his  heir. 

Romelio.  I  must  put  in  a  strong  caveat. 
To  put  in  execution  Barmotho  pigs. 
Here's  your  earnest. 

ACT  III.     SCENE  3. 

Romelio.  You  are  already  made,  by  absolute  will, 
Contarino's  heir  :  now,  if  it  can  be  prov'd 
That  you  have  issue  by  Lord  Ercole, 
I  will  make  you  inherit  his  land  too.  .  .  . 

I  have  laid  the  case  so  radically 
Not  all  the  lawyers  in  [all]  Christendom 
Shall  find  any  the  least  flaw  in't.   .  .  . 
No  scandal  to  you,  since  we  will  affirm 
The  precontract  was  so  exactly  done 
By  the  same  words  us'd  in  the  form  of  marriage, 
That  with  a  little  dispensation, 
A  money  matter,  it  shall  be  register'd 
Absolute  matrimony. 

ACT  IV.     SCENE  I. 

A  long  quibbling  dialogue  between  Ariosto,  the  advocate,  and 
Sanitonella,  who  has  been  "  dry-founder 'd  "  in  a  pew  of  a  law 
office  "  this  four  years,  seldom  found  non-resident  from  my 
desk,"  and  presents  a  brief  which  "  cost  me  four  nights'  labour." 
Ariosto  tears  it  up  ;  and  the  clerk  "  must  make  shift  with  the 
foul  copy."  Cantilupo,  being  next  consulted,  pronounces, 
"  'Tis  a  case  shall  leave  a  precedent  to  all  the  world  "  ;  Sanitonella 
concluding,  "  The  court  will  sit  within  this  half  hour  ;  peruse 
your  notes  ;  you  have  very  short  warning." 

ACT  IV.     SCENE  2.     TRIAL. 

Ercole  pays  an  officer  to  get  a  seat  in  "  a  closet  belonging 
to  the  court,"  where  he  "  may  hear  all  unseen  "  ;  and  Sanitonella 
warns  the  officers  to  "  let  in  no  brachygraphy-men  to  take 
notes,"  and,  as  "this  cause  will  be  long  a-pleading,"  produces  a 
pie  which  he  "  may  pleasure  some  of  our  learned  counsel  with," 
as  he  has  done  "  many  a  time  and  often  when  a  cause  "  has 
dragged  long. 


160  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

The  judge  asks  whether  the  parties  are  present  ;  and  on 
Romelio  saying  he  is  ignorant  of  what  he  is  to  be  charged  with, 
says: 

I  assure  you,  the  proceeding 

Is  most  unequal  then,  for  I  perceive 

The  counsel  of  the  adverse  party  furnish'd 

With  full  instruction  .  .  . 

Sir,  we  will  do  you 

The  favour,  you  shall  hear  the  accusation  ; 

Which  being  known,  we  will  adjourn  the  court 

Till  a  fortnight  hence  :  you  may  provide  your  counsel. 

After  further  dialogue,  Cantilupo  opens  : 

May  it  please  your  lordship  and  the  reverend  court 

To  give  me  leave  to  open  to  you  a  case 

So  rare,  so  altogether  void  of  precedent, 

That  I  do  challenge  all  the  spacious  volumes 

Of  the  whole  civil  law  to  show  the  like. 

We  are  of  counsel  for  this  gentlewoman. 

We  have  receiv'd  our  fee  :  yet  the  whole  course 

Of  what  we  are  to  speak  is  quite  against  her. 

Yet  we'll  deserve  our  fee  too. 

After  he  has  lengthily  stated  his  case,  the  judge  comments  : 
A  most  strange  suit  this  ;  'tis  beyond  example,  &c. 

and  proceeds  to  question  the  parties.  When  a  witness 
is  asked  for,  Sanitonella  responds,  "  Here,  my  lord,  ore 
tenus,"  and  there  is  a  long  cross-examination. 

In  Act  v,  Scene  4,  we  have  a  passage  which  may  be 
instructively  contrasted  with  Lord  Campbell's  illustration 
of  Shakespeare's  deep  and  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
procedure  of  trial  by  battle  : 

Julio.  I  have  undertaken  the  challenge  very  foolishly. 

Prosper o.  It  would  be  absolute  conviction 

Of  cowardice  and  perjury  ;  and  the  Dane 

May  to  your  public  shame  reverse  your  arms, 

Or  have  them  ignominiously  fasten 'd 

Under  his  horse-tail. 

And  in  Scene  6  we  have  the  actual  trial  by  battle.  The 
Marshal  begins  in  due  form  : 

Give  the  appellant  his  summons  :  do  the  like 
To  the  defendant  ; 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  161 

the  proceedings  go  on  with  ostensible  technical  accuracy  ; 
and  we  have  the  herald's  cries  :  "  Soit  la  bataille,  et 
victoire  a  ceux  qui  ont  droit !  ' '  What  would  not  Lord 
Campbell  have  made  of  it  all ! 

How  Mr.  Greenwood,  in  the  face  of  all  this  matter, 
can  say  that  Mr.  Devecmon's  assertion  "  is  an  astounding 
perversion  of  the  fact,"  I  cannot  understand.  He  must 
have  written  in  total  oblivion,  or  ignorance,  of  the  matter 
upon  which  Lord  Campbell  founded  his  amazing  dicta. 
If  there  is  "  no  law  at  all  in  Webster's  play,"  Lord  Camp 
bell  has  cited  none  from  Shakespeare ;  and  Mr.  Green 
wood's  handling  of  the  matter,  in  view  of  the  use  he  has 
made  of  Lord  Campbell's  egregious  treatise,  calls  for 
somewhat  serious  reprehension.  Evidently  he  had  no 
idea  of  the  nature  of  the  grounds  on  which  Campbell 
proceeds.  He  speaks  of  "  a  few  legal  terms  thrown  in 
here  and  there."  What  did  Campbell  produce  from 
Shakespeare  ?  If  the  trial  in  Webster  is  an  "  absurd 
travesty  of  a  trial,  where  each  and  everybody — judge, 
counsel,  witness,  or  spectator — seems  to  put  in  a  word 
or  two  just  as  it  pleases  him,"  what,  in  the  name  of  honest 
controversy,  is  the  trial  in  THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE, 
which  Lord  Campbell  alleged  to  be  "  conducted  according 
to  the  strict  forms  of  legal  procedure  "  ?  Upon  Lord 
Campbell's  scandalous  deliverances  Mr.  Greenwood  founds 
his  main  case.  Will  he  venture  to  discriminate  between 
Shakespeare's  law  case  and  Webster's  ?  And  if  Lord 
Campbell  is  entitled  to  ascribe  to  Shakespeare  a  full 
knowledge  of  the  procedure  of  trial  by  battle  on  the  sole 
ground  of  his  use  of  the  word  "  craven,"  and  to  make 
this  unspeakable  absurdity  part  of  his  case  for  Shake 
speare's  "  profound  and  accurate  knowledge  of  law," 
upon  what  critical  principle  does  Mr.  Greenwood  sweep 
aside  the  actual  trial  by  battle  in  Webster,  with  all  its 
technicalities  ? 

I  am  not  concerned  to  go  into  the  question  of  the 
accuracy  of  Webster's  or  Massinger's  phraseology  :  that 

L 


162  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

is  neither  here  nor  there.  Even  Campbell,  in  flat  contra 
diction  of  his  own  claims,  admitted  inaccuracies  in  Shake 
speare  ;  and  Mr.  Greenwood,  in  turn,  fatally  pressed 
by  Mr.  Devecmon,  makes  further  admissions,  forgetting 
that  they  absolutely  destroy  his  own  case,  which  rested 
not  upon  mere  citation  of  legal  matter  in  Shakespeare, 
but  upon  the  repeated  claim  that  Shakespeare's  law  was 
impeccable,  never  open  to  demurrer  or  writ  of  error,  and 
therefore  possible  only  to  one  within  the  freemasonry  of 
the  profession.  It  may  be  left  to  either  lawyers  or  lay 
men  to  judge  for  themselves  whether  there  is  not  much 
more  show  of  legal  knowledge  and  recourse  to  legal 
phraseology  in  Webster  than  in  Shakespeare.  From 
twenty-three  of  Shakespeare's  plays  Lord  Campbell 
can  cite  on  the  average  only  two  or  three  legal  allusions 
apiece  :  Webster's  one  play  yields  over  thirty.  I  do  not 
for  a  moment  pretend  that  they  exhibit  "deep"  or 
"  accurate "  knowledge  :  I  leave  these  follies  to  the 
other  side,  who  profess  to  certify  a  playwright's  lawyer- 
ship  on  grounds  that  would  move  a  policeman  to  derision. 
The  question  is  whether  Webster's  multitude  of  "  legal- 
isms  "  do  not,  by  every  principle  on  which  Lord  Campbell 
proceeded  in  his  extracts  and  his  comments,  exhibit 
tenfold  more  preoccupation  with  legal  matters  than  do 
Shakespeare's,  and,  by  mere  variety  of  allusion,  far  more 
"  knowledge." 

I  have  dealt  thus  far  only  with  one  of  Webster's  plays — 
apart  from  the  incidental  citations  I  have  made  from  him 
in  common  with  other  playwrights  in  dealing  with  Lord 
Campbell's  proofs.  But  an  almost  equal  abundance  of 
legal  allusion  is  found  in  APPIUS  AND  VIRGINIA,  as  the 
following  citations  show  : 

Were  you  now 

In  prison,  or  arraign 'd  before  the  senate 
For  some  suspect  of  treason  ; 

(i.  I-) 

Virginius,  we  would  have  you  thus  possess'd, 
We  sit  not  here  to  be  prescrib'd  and  taught, 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  163 

Nor  to  have  any  suitor  give  us  limit 
Whose  power  admits  no  curb. 

Is  my  love  mispriz'd  ? 

(ii,  3-) 

Hadst  thou  a  judge's  place  above  all  judges 
That  judge  all  souls,  having  power  to  sentence  me. 

(Ib.) 
Your  rashness  we  remit. 

(Ib.) 
Blind  misprision. 

(76.) 

I'll  produce 

Firm  proofs,  notes  probable,  sound  witnesses, 
Then,  having  with  your  lictors  summon'd  her, 
I'll  bring  the  cause  before  your  judgment  seat, 
Where  upon  my  infallid  evidence 
You  may  pronounce  the  sentence  on  my  side. 

(Ib.) 

The  cause  is  mine  ;  you  but  the  sentencer 
Upon  that  evidence  which  I  shall  bring. 
The  business  is,  to  have  warrants  by  arrest 
To  answer  such  things  at  the  judgment  bar 
As  can  be  laid  against  her  :  ere  her  friends 
Can  be  assembled,  ere  himself  can  study 
Her  answer,  or  scarce  know  her  cause  of  summons, 
To  descant  on  the  matter,  Appius  may 
Examine,  try,  and  doom  Virginia. 

(76.) 

The  most  austere  and  upright  censurer 
That  ever  sat  upon  the  awful  bench. 

(Hi,  i.) 

If  you  will  needs  wage  eminence  and  state 
Choose  out  a  weaker  opposite. 

(76.) 

First,  the  charge  of  her  husband's  funeral,  next  debts  and 
legacies,  and  lastly  the  reversion. 

(iii,  2.) 

The  term-time  is  the  mutton-monger  in  the  whole  calendar. 
Do  your  lawyers  eat  any  salads  with  their  mutton  ? 

(iii,  2.) 

Deny  me  justice  absolutely,  rather 
Than  feed  me  with  delays. 

(76.) 


164  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

My  purse  is  too  scant  to  wage  law  with  thee  : 
I  am  enforc'd  be  mine  own  advocate. 

(16.) 

to  let  you  know, 

Ere  you  proceed  in  this  your  subtlement, 
What  penalty  and  danger  you  accrue 
If  you  be  found  to  double. 

(Ib.) 

Having  compounded  with  his  creditors 
For  the  third  moiety. 

(/&.( 
Your  reverence  to  the  judge,  good  brother. 

(iv,  i.) 
May  it  please  your  reverend  lordships. 

(Ib.} 

Now  the  question 

(With  favour  of  the  bench)  I  will  make  plain 
In  two  words  only  without  circumstance. 

(76.) 
Here's  her  deposition  on  her  death-bed. 

(Ib.) 

If  that  your  claim  be  just,  how  happens  it 
That  you  have  discontinu'd  it  the  space 
Of  fourteen  year  ? 

(Ib.) 
I  shall  resolve  your  lordship. 

(16.) 

Where  are  your  proofs  of  that  ? 
Here,  my  good  lord, 
With  depositions  likewise. 

(76.) 

For  your  question 
Of  discontinuance  :  put  case.  .  .  . 

(76.) 
I  bend  low  to  thy  gown,  but  not  to  thee. 

(76.) 
Let  us  proceed  to  sentence. 

(76.) 

Over  and  above  all  this  resort  to  forms  of  trial,  the 
habit  of  legal  phraseology  and  legal  allusion,  as  we  have 
seen,  pervades  the  Elizabethan  drama  to  an  extent  which 
implies  a  general  proclivity  in  the  people.  Even  the 
many  parallels  above  presented  to  the  citations  of  Lord 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  165 

Campbell  from  Shakespeare  give  but  an  inadequate  idea 
of  the  extent  of  the  practice  ;  and  at  the  risk  of  wearying 
the  reader  I  will  transcribe  for  him  a  string  of  the  legalisms 
and  references  to  law  and  litigation  in  a  single  play  of 
Ben  Jonson's — THE  MAGNETIC  LADY. 

Compass.  He  is  the  prelate  of  the  parish  here.  .  .  . 
Makes  all  the  matches  and  the  marriage  feasts 
Within  the  ward  ;  draws  all  the  parish  wills, 
Designs  the  legacies.  .  .  . 
For  of  the  wardmote  quest  he  better  can 
The  mystery,  than  the  Levitic  law. 

Lady  Loadstone.  He  keeps  off  all  her  suitors,  keeps  the  portion 
Still  in  his  hands,  and  will  not  part  withal 
On  any  terms. 

[Many  references  to  this] 

Compass.  Master  Practice  here,  my  lady's  lawyer 
Or  man  of  law  (for  that  is  the  true  writing) , 
A  man  so  dedicate  to  his  profession 
And  the  preferments  go  along  with  it.  ... 
So  much  he  loves  that  night-cap  !  the  bench-gown 
With  the  broad  gard  on  the  back  !  these  shew  a  man 
Betroth'd  unto  the  study  of  our  laws.  .  .  . 
He  has  brought  your  niece's  portion  with  him,  madam, 
At  least,  the  man  that  must  receive  it,  here 
They  come  negociating  the  affair  ; 
You  may  perceive  the  contract  in  their  faces, 
And  read  the  indenture. 

Sir  Diaphanous.  I  have  seen  him  wait  at  court  there,  with  his 

maniples 
Of  papers  and  petitions. 

Practice.  He  is  one 

That  over-rules  though,  by  his  authority 

living  there  ;  and  cares  for  no  man  else  : 
feglects  the  sacred  letter  of  the  law  ; 
id  holds  it  all  to  be  but  a  dead  heap 
civil  institutions  :  the  rest  only 
common  men,  and  their  causes,  a  farrago 
a  made  dish  in  court  ;  a  thing  of  nothing. 

Compass.  And  that's  your  quarrel  with  him  !  a  just  plea. 
Lady  Loadstone.  Will  Master  Practice  be  of  counsel  against  us  ? 
Compass.  He  is  a  lawyer  and  must  speak  for  his  fee, 
st  his  father  and  mother,  all  his  kindred, 


166  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

His  brothers  or  his  sisters  ;  no  exception 

Lies  at  the  common  law.     He  must  not  alter 

Nature  for  form,  but  go  on  in  his  path  ; 

It  may  be,  he'll  be  for  us.  ... 

He  shall  at  last  accompt  for  the  utmost  farthing 

If  you  can  keep  your  hand  from  a  discharge. 

Sir  Moth.  The  portion  left  was  sixteen  thousand  pound  : 
I  do  confess  it  as  a  just  man  should.  .  .  . 
Now  for  the  profits  every  way  arising. 

Well  sir,  the  contract 

Is  with  this  gentleman,  ten  thousand  pound. 
An  ample  portion  for  a  younger  brother  .  .  . 
He  expects  no  more  than  that  sum  to  be  tender'd 
And  he  receive  it  :  these  are  the  conditions. 

Practice.  A  direct  bargain,  and  sale  in  open  market. 

Sir  Moth.  And  what  I  have  furnish'd  him  withal  o'the  by 
To  appear  or  so,  a  matter  of  four  hundred 
To  be  deduced  upon  the  payment.   .  .  . 

Draw  up  this 
Good  Master  Practice,  for  us,  and  be  speedy 

Practice.  But  here's  a  mighty  gain,  sir,  you  have  made 
Of  this  one  stock  :  the  principal  first  doubled, 
In  the  first  seven  year,  and  that  redoubled 
In  the  next  seven,  beside  six  thousand  pound, 
There's  threescore  thousand  got  in  fourteen  year, 
After  the  usual  rate  of  ten  in  the  hundred, 
And  the  ten  thousand  paid  .  .  . 

Sir  Moth.     .  .  .  'Tis  certain  that  a  man  may  leave, 
His  wealth  or  to  his  children  or  his  friends  ; 
His  wit  he  cannot  so  dispose  by  legacy.  M  *  . 

Compass.  He  may  entail  a  jest  upon  his  house, 
Or  leave  a  tale  to  his  posterity, 
To  be  told  after  him. 

Practice.     »  .  k  The  reverend  law  lies  open  to  repair 
Your  reputation.     That  will  give  you  damages  ! 
Five  thousand  pound  for  a  finger,  I  have  known 
Given  in  court ;  and  let  me  pack  your  jury. 

.  .  .  Sir,  you  forget 

There  is  a  court  above,  of  the  Star  Chamber 
To  punish  routs  and  riots. 

Compass.     .  .  „  There's  no  London  jury  but  are  led, 
In  evidence,  as  far  by  common  fame 
As  they  are  by  present  disposition 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  167 

...  a  man 
Mark'd  out  for  a  chief  justice  in  his  cradle. 

Practice.  ...  I  am  a  bencher,  and  now  double  reader 

Compass.  But  run  the  words  of  matrimony  over 
My  head  and  Mistress  Pleasance's  in  my  chamber  ; 
There's  Captain  Ironside  to  be  a  witness, 
And  here's  a  license  to  secure  thee. — Parson 
What  do  you  stick  at  ? 

Palate.  It  is  afternoon,  sir, 
Directly  against  the  canon  of  the  church. 

Sir  Diaphanous.  I  saw  the  contract  and  can  witness  it. 
Compass.  Varlet,  do  your  office. 

Serjeant.  I  do  arrest  your  body,  Sir  Moth  Interest, 
In  the  King's  name,  at  suit  of  Master  Compass, 
And  dame  Plancentia  his  wife.     The  action's  enter 'd, 
Five  hundred  thousand  pound.  .  .  . 

Lady  Loadstone.  I  cannot  stop 

The  laws,  or  hinder  justice  :   I  can  be 
Your  bail,  if  it  may  be  taken. 

Compass.  With  the  captain's, 

I  ask  no  better. 

Rut.  Here  are  better  men 
Will  give  their  bail. 

Compass.  But  yours  will  not  be  taken.  .  .  . 

Serjeant.  You  must  to  prison,  sir, 
Unless  you  can  find  bail  the  creditor  likes. 

Compass.  Bring  forth  your  child,  or  I  appeal  you  of  murder. 

Prac.  The  law  is  plain  :  if  it  were  heard  to  cry, 
And  you  produce  it  not,  he  may  indict 
All  that  conceal  it,  of  felony  and  murder. 

Polish.  .  .  ,     Here    your    true    niece    stands,    fine   Mistress 

Compass, 

To  whom  you  are  by  bond  engag'd  to  pay 
The  sixteen  thousand  pound,  which  is  her  portion 
Due  to  her  husband,  on  her  marriage-day. 
I  speak  the  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth.  .  .  . 

Ironside.  You'll  pay  it  now,  Sir  Moth,  with  interest.  .  .  h 

Sir  Moth.  Into  what  nets  of  cozenage  am  I  cast 
O  n  every  side  ?  .  .  .     What  will  you  bate  ? 


i68  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Compass.  No  penny  the  law  gives. 
Sir  Moth.  Yes,  Bias's  money. 

Compass.  What,  your  friend  in  court  ! 
I  will  not  rob  you  of  him,  nor  the  purchase. 

Lady  Loadstone.     .  .  .  There  rests  yet  a  gratuity  from  me 
To  be  conferr'd  upon  this  gentleman, 
Who,  as  my  nephew  Compass  says,  was  cause 
First  of  the  offence,  but  since  of  all  amends. 
The  quarrel  caused  the  affright,  the  fright  brought  on 
The  travail,  which  made  peace  ;  the  peace  drew  on 
This  new  discovery,  which  endeth  all 
In  reconcilement. 

Compass.  When  the  portion 
Is  tender'd,  and  received. 

Sir  Moth.  Well,  you  must  have  it  ; 
As  good  at  first  as  last. 

The  whole  play,  in  fine;  is  the  working  out,  without 
resort  to  courts,  of  a  dispute  in  law.  Plays  in  a  similar 
taste  will  be  found  in  Chapman,  Heywood,  Dekker,  and 
Massinger,  who  were  not  lawyers,  and  in  Middleton,  who 
was.  But,  as  it  happens,  no  such  play  of  pervading  legal 
intrigue  is  to  be  found  in  Shakespeare.  In  no  Shake- 
sperean  play,  indeed,  apart  from  the  MERCHANT  OF 
VENICE,  is  there  to  be  found  nearly  so  much  reliance 
upon  and  reference  to  a  legal  interest  as  is  to  be  seen  in 
Chapman's  first  play,  THE  BLIND  BEGGAR  OF  ALEX 
ANDRIA,  where  a  question  about  a  mortgage  alleged  to 
be  forfeited  recurs  half  a  dozen  times,  with  long  dis 
cussions  about  "  statutes  "  and  "  assurances  "  such  as 
Shakespeare  nowhere  indulges  in.  Where  Shakespeare 
merely  uses  legal  phrases,  as  often  as  not  metaphorically, 
the  other  dramatists  introduce  actual  matters  of  litiga 
tion. 

Apart  from  the  endless  allusions  to  concrete  litigation 
in  Tudor  literature,  again,  we  find  in  the  writings  even 
of  the  theologians  constant  evidence  of  the  legalist  habit 
of  mind.  They  often  put  religion  in  lawyer-fashion; 
knowing  their  readers  would  so  relish  it.  Thus  Bishop 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  169 

Hooper,  answering  Bishop  Gardiner  on  the  subject  of 
the  Eucharist,  writes  of 

the  promise  of  God  ...  of  the  which  .  .  .  these  Sacraments 
be  testimonies,  witnesses  ;  as  the  seal  annexed  unto  the  writing 
is  a  stablishment  and  making  good  of  all  things  contained  and 
specified  within  the  writing.  This  is  used  in  all  bargains, 
exchanges,  purchases,  and  contracts. 

When  the  matter  entreated  between  two  parties  is  fully 
concluded  upon,  it  is  confirmed  with  obligations  sealed  inter 
changeably,  that  for  ever  those  seals  may  be  a  witness  of  such 
covenants  as  hath  been  agreed  upon  between  the  both  parties. 
And  these  writings  and  seals  maketh  not  the  bargain,  but  con- 
firmeth  the  bargain  that  is  made.  No  man  useth  to  give  his 
obligation  of  debtor  before  there  is  some  contract  agreed  upon 
between  him  and  his  creditor.  No  man  useth  to  mark  his 
neighbour's  ox  or  horse  in  his  mark  before  he  be  at  a  full  price 
for  the  ox,  or  else  were  it  felony  and  theft  to  rob  his  neighbour. 
Every  man  useth  to  mark  his  own  goods,  and  not  another  man's  ; 
so  God,  in  the  commonwealth  of  his  church,  doth  not  mark  any 
man  in  his  mark,  until  such  time  as  the  person  that  he  marketh 
be  his.  There  must  first  be  had  a  communication  between 
God  and  the  man,  to  know  how  he  can  make  any  contract  of 
friendship  with  his  enemy,  the  living  God.1 

In  a  similar  vein  he  handles  the  Ten  Commandments  : 

Forasmuch  as  there  can  be  no  contract,  peace,  alliance,  or 
confederacy  between  two  persons  or  more,  except  first  the 
persons  that  will  contract  agree  within  themselves  upon  such 
things  as  shall  be  contracted  .  .  .  ;  also,  seeing  these  ten  com 
mandments  are  nothing  else  but  the  tables  or  writings  that 
contain  the  conditions  of  the  peace  between  God  and  man, 
Gen.  xix,  and  declareth  at  large  how  and  to  what  the  persons 
named  in  the  writings  are  bound  unto  the  other  .  .  .  ;  it  is 
necessary  to  know  how  God  and  man  was  made  at  one,  that  such 
conditions  could  be  agreed  upon  and  confirmed  with  such  solemn 
and  public  evidences,  as  these  tables  be,  written  with  the  finger 
of  God.  The  contents  whereof  bind  God  to  aid  and  succour, 
keep  and  preserve,  warrant  and  defend  man  from  all  ill,  both  of 
body  and  soul,  and  at  the  last  to  give  him  eternal  bliss  and 
everlasting  felicity.2 

1  Answer  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  Parker  Soc.  vol.  p.  136. 

2  Declaration  of  the  Ten  Commandments  :    pref.   "  Unto  the 
Christian  Reader,"  1550. 


170  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

And  this  comes  from*  an  evangelical  writer,  a  martyr, 
much  prized  in  the  generation  following  him. 

After  this  we  can  understand  how  a  later  divine,  Thomas 
Adams,  could  deliver  in  a  sermon  the  "  legal "  passages 
cited  from  him  by  Mr.  Judge  Willis,  and  candidly  quoted 
by  Mr.  Greenwood,1  who  can  offer  no  better  semblance 
of  a  rebuttal  than  the  suggestion  that  Adams  had  "  prob 
ably  looked  into  some  law  books,  and  perhaps  been  thrown 
into  legal  company."  Now,  the  passages  cited  are  so 
technical  that,  had  Lord  Campbell  found  them  in  Shake 
speare,  he  would  have  reckoned  them  "  the  best  stakes 
in  his  hedge,"  as  Hooker  would  say.  And  if  it  be  rational 
to  explain  Adams's  law  by  the  "  probably  "  and  the 
"  perhaps  "  above  cited,  why,  in  the  name  of  reason  and 
consistency,  should  not  the  same  suggestion  hold  in  the 
case  of  Shakespeare  ? 

It  is  idle  on  Mr.  Greenwood's  part  to  fall  back  on  an 
appeal  to  the  "intelligent  and  unprejudiced  reader" 
to  go  through  the  plays  and  poems  and  note  "  the  persist 
ence,  the  accuracy  with  which  he  makes  use  of  legal  terms 
and  legal  allusions,  in  season  and  out  of  season,"  and  all 
the  rest  of  it,  "  and  then  say  if  he  thinks  these  expressions, 
culled  from  the  sermons  of  Thomas  Adams,  furnish  any 
thing  like  a  parallel  case  to  that  which  we  have  been  con 
sidering."  The  intelligent  and  unprejudiced  reader  will 
reply  (i)  that  the  expressions  of  Adams  are  more  tech 
nically  lawyerlike  than  anything  in  Shakespeare,  and 
(2)  that  parallel  cases  to  Shakespeare's  are  furnished  by  half 
a  dozen  of  the  dramatists  whom  we  have  put  in  evidence, 
and  whom  Mr.  Greenwood,  like  Lords  Campbell  and 
Penzance  and  the  other  lawyers,  had  never  thought  of 
examining — the  only  difference  being  that  Jonson  and 
Webster  and  Chapman  show  much  more  knowledge  of 
and  interest  in  law  than  does  Shakespeare. 

Mr.  Greenwood's  answer  to  me  on  the  subject  of  THE 
DEVIL'S  LAW  CASE  is  a  sufficient  proof  that  he  had  adopted 
1  The  Shakespeare  Problem  Restated,  pp.  392-3. 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  171 

the  conclusions  of  Lord  Campbell  without  studying  his 
exposition.  I  will  not  believe,  unless  he  makes  affidavit  to 
that  effect,  that  he  thinks  the  trial-scene  in  the  MERCHANT 
OF  VENICE  is  lawyerlike  in  comparison  with  that  in 
Webster's  play.  His  attack  on  that  is  a  mere  distortion 
of  the  issue.  He  has  prodigally  and  blindly  endorsed 
alike  Lord  Campbell  and  Mr.  Castle  and  the  other  legalists 
— save  where  he  candidly  avows  (p.  381)  that  he  "  cannot 
attach  much  weight  to  the  judgment  of  a  critic  [Mr. 
Churton  Collins]  who  sees  the  trained  lawyer's  hand  in 
TITUS  ANDRONICUS  "  on  the  strength  of  such  items  as 
"  affy,"  "  warrants,"  "  suum  quique,"  "  seizeth,"  "  fee," 
"  purchase,"  and  so  forth.  But  it  is  just  on  such  things 
as  these  that  the  case  of  Campbell  is  mostly  built  up. 
It  includes  even  far  weaker  items.  If  such  data  be  dis 
allowed,  nine-tenths  of  his  book  goes  by  the  board  at 
once. 

Replying  to  Mr.  Devecmon,  Mr.  Greenwood  strangely 
protests  (p.  400)  against  what  he  calls  the  "  curious  idea  " 
that  "  a  dramatist  cannot  be  a  lawyer  unless  he  makes 
his  ladies  and  laymen  speak  in  the  language  that  a  trained 
lawyer  would  employ,"  Mr.  Devecmon  having  shown 
that  Shakespeare  did  not  do  so.  At  this  line  of  argument 
I  must  express  my  astonishment.  Twice  over,  Mr.  Green 
wood  has  in  effect  surrendered  his  case.  Proceeding 
as  he  does  upon  Lord  Campbell's  deliverance,  without 
examining  the  absurd  evidence  by  which  it  is  supported, 
he  at  a  pinch  throws  over  that  evidence  while  still  insisting 
upon  the  judge's  finding.  Met  by  Judge  Willis  with 
more  technical  legalisms  than  Shakespeare's  in  the  writ 
ings  of  a  divine  of  Shakespeare's  day,  he  denies  that  such 
instances  furnish  "  any  analogy  with  the  case  of  Shake 
speare." 

It  is  not  (he  goes  on)  a  question  of  the  mere  use  of  legal 
phrases  or  maxims,  such  as  "  acknowledging  a  fine,"  "  a  writ  ad 
melius  inquirendum,"  "  non  est  inventus,"  "  novennt  universi," 
"  seised,"  "  volenti  non  fit  injuria,"  "  tenants  at  will,"  "  tenants 


172  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

in  capite,"  "  bargain  and  sale,"  and  the  like.  The  question  13, 
whether  Shakespeare,  when  we  consider  his  works  as  a  whole, 
does  not  exhibit  such  a  sound  and  accurate  knowledge  of  law, 
such  a  familiarity  with  legal  life  and  customs,  as  could  not 
possibly  have  been  acquired  (or  "  picked  up  ")  by  the  Stratford 
player  ;  whether  it  be  not  the  fact,  as  Richard  Grant  White 
puts  it,  that  "  legal  phrases  flow  from  his  pen  as  part  of  his 
vocabulary,  and  parcel  of  his  thought  "  ?  It  is  not  to  the  purpose 
to  compile  mere  lists  of  legal  terms  and  expressions  from  the 
pages  of  other  Elizabethan  writers,  and  those  who  do  so  simply 
display  an  ignoratio  elenchi,  as  the  old  philosophers  would  say.  *• 

I  regret  to  have  to  say  that  there  is  something  worse  here 
than  ignoratio  elenchi  ;  but  I  will  not  characterise  it 
further  than  by  use  of  the  phrase  of  the  distinguished 
living  statesman  who  pronounced  certain  political  argu 
ments  to  be  samples  of  the  "  black  arts  of  surrebuttal 
and  surrejoinder."  Mr.  Greenwood  has  simply  sought 
to  change  the  issue  while  professing  to  argue  it.  It  is 
a  question  of  "  the  mere  use  of  legal  phrases  or  maxims  " 
— or,  still  worse,  of  the  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  mere 
scoffing  allusions  to  the  practices  of  lawyers.  Campbell 
did  not  scruple  to  found  on  these  as  proofs  of  an  inside 
familiarity  with  legal  life.  He  actually  cited  the  phrase 
"  crow  like  a  craven  "  as  proof  of  a  technical  knowledge 
of  the  law  of  wager  by  battle.  Beyond  such  ineptitudes 
as  these,  he  could  cite  only  the  use  of  legal  phrases,  apart 
from  a  very  few  claims  as  to  legal  knowledge  being  implied 
in  the  plots  of  plays.  To  all  the  ineptitudes  of  Campbell's 
case  Mr.  Greenwood  is  committed  when  he  founds  on 
the  deliverances  which  Campbell  so  justified.  If  Mr. 
Greenwood  means  to  assert  that  a  "  sound  and  accurate 
knowledge  of  law  "  is  to  be  proved  in  the  plays  apart 
from  the  use  of  legal  phrases,  he  is  talking,  I  must  say, 
even  more  heedlessly  than  Campbell,  for  Campbell  did 
at  least  make  a  parade  of  evidence  in  respect  of  the  legal 
phrases.  Had  Campbell  found  "  writ  ad  melius  inquiren- 
dum  "  in  Shakespeare  he  would  have  made  it  the  head- 

1  Work  cited,  p.  395. 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  173 

stone  of  the  corner.  It  is  really  carrying  special  pleading 
beyond  the  bounds  of  professional  licence  to  turn  round 
as  Mr.  Greenwood  does,  after  staking  his  whole  case  on 
a  judgment1  founded  on  a  "  mere  list  of  legal  terms  and 
expressions,"  and  assert  that  lists  of  other  men's  legal 
terms  and  expressions  count  for  nothing  as  against  an 
alleged  general  knowledge  of  law  in  the  Shakespeare 
plays  for  which  he  has  no  other  evidence  worth  mentioning. 
I  am  at  a  loss,  I  confess,  to  know  finally  what  Mr. 
Greenwood  does  mean  ;  for  in  this  very  passage,  disparag 
ing  mere  legal  phrases,  he  resumes  the  claim  that  "  legal 
phrases  flow  from  Shakespeare's  pen  as  part  of  his  vocabu 
lary  and  parcel  of  his  thought."  Does  he  mean  that 
other  men's  legal  phrases  flowed  from  their  pens  in  some 
other  way  ?  If  so,  whose  ?  The  plain  truth  is  that  Mr. 
Greenwood  had  never  looked  at  the  legal  phrases  of  the 
other  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  dramatists.  Had  he 
done  so,  he  would  not  have  written  his  book.  Indeed 
I  cannot  believe  that  if,  instead  of  taking  Campbell's 
mere  dictum  at  second  hand  from  Lord  Penzance,  he 
had  merely  gone  through  the  Shakespeare  plays  ad  hoc 
in  the  critical  spirit  in  which  he  approached  the  Shake 
speare  biography,  he  would  ever  have  dreamt  of  formulat 
ing  for  himself  any  legalist  theory.  Reading  the  trial 
scene  in  the  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE,  he  would  have  said 
of  that,  as  he  quite  irrelevantly  says  to  me  concerning 
the  DEVIL'S  LAW  CASE,  that  it  "  contains  no  law  at  all." 
He  dismisses  with  just  contempt  the  "legal"  phrases 
cited  by  Mr.  Churton  Collins  from  TITUS  ANDRONICUS, 
and  agrees  with  Mr.  Castle  that  the  play  "  seems  to  do 
everything  that  a  lawyer  would  not  do,  and  leave  undone 
everything  that  he  would."  I  am  curious  to  know  whether 
he  would  say  otherwise  of  the  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE, 
which  Mr.  Castle  does  not  examine.  But  the  phrases 
cited  by  Mr.  Collins  from  TITUS  are  not  a  whit  more 

1  Lord  Penzance,  be  it  remembered,  merely  quoted  Campbell, 
making  no  investigation  of  his  own. 


174  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

nugatory  than  most  of  those  founded  upon  by  Campbell. 
Furthermore,  on  his  unfortunate  presupposition  that 
what  eminent  lawyers  affirm  in  his  favour  about  law  in 
Shakespeare  must  be  true,  Mr.  Greenwood  has  committed 
himself  to  Mr.  Castle's  special  claim  about  the  use  of 
"  colour  "  in  Shakespeare,  which  we  have  seen  to  be  as 
worthless  as  Campbell's  and  Grant  White's  claim  about 
"  purchase,"  and  Campbell's  case  in  general. 

Mr.  Greenwood's  respect  for  legal  opinion  vanishes,  of 
course,  when  it  goes  against  his  thesis.     We  have  seen 
how  he  treats  the  dicta  of  Mr.  Devecmon.     I  fancy  that 
any  open-minded  lawyer  who  has  followed  the  discussion 
will  give  Mr.  Greenwood  short  shrift — if  I  may  so  mix 
professional  metaphors.     In  his  impatience  of  the  other 
lawyer's  contradiction,   he  unwittingly  falls  foul   of   a 
fellow  legalist,  Senator  Davis.     From   that   writer   Mr. 
Devecmon  quoted  the  admission  that  "  Antony  in  speak 
ing  of  the  real  estate  left  by  Caesar  to  the  Roman  people, 
does  not  use  the  appropriate  word   '  devise.' '      Upon 
which  Mr.  Greenwood  retorts  (p.  403)  that  the  dramatist 
was  not  "  so  absurdly  pedantic  "  as  to  make  Antony 
use  a  correct  legal  expression  when  the  "  left  "  of  North 
sufficed.     Then  he  proceeds  to  quote  "  the  critic  "  as 
saying  that  the  expression  "  unto  your  heirs  for  ever  " 
was    unnecessary.     "  Really,     really !  "     exclaims    Mr. 
Greenwood,  "  This  is  just  a  little  irritating."     Perhaps  ; 
but  the  offence  comes  from  Senator  Davis,  who  affirms 
in  general  the  profundity  and  accuracy  of  Shakespeare's 
legal  knowledge,  not  Mr.  Devecmon,  who  denies  it !     And 
only  thirty  pages  earlier  (p.  374),  Mr.  Greenwood  had 
cited  this  very  Senator  Davis  as  one  giving  weighty  testi 
mony  to  Shakespeare's  command  of  a  legal  vocabulary 
in  which  "  no  legal  solecisms  will  be  found."     If  then 
the   irritating   phrase   is,    as   Mr.    Greenwood   protests, 
"  surely  an  argument  fit  only  for  the  least  intelligent  of 
readers,"  the  protest  should  go  to  the  right  address. 
When  he  repugns  against  Mr.  Devecmon '3  criticisms 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  175 

of  Shakespeare's  law,  Mr.  Greenwood  merely  cuts  the 
bough  on  which  he  sits.  In  an  amusing  footnote  he 
quotes  from  my  book  on  TITUS  ANDRONICUS  the  phrase, 
"  putting  a  few  necessary  caveats."  "  No  lawyer,"  he 
comments,  "  would  speak  of  '  putting  a  caveat.'  The 
legal  term  is  to  '  enter  a  caveat.' '  And  the  compiler  of 
his  index  sternly  clinches  the  matter  by  the  entry, 
"  Robertson,  Mr.  J.  M.,  betrays  his  ignorance  on  law, 
372,  note."  The  most  amusing  item  of  all,  perhaps,  is 
that  I  happen  to  have  spent  four  and  a  half  years  of  my 
youthful  life  in  a  law  office.  But  it  was  a  Scotch  office 
(to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  I  was  immensely  more 
interested  in  iterature  than  in  law)  ;  and  in  Scotch  law 
they  do  not,  to  my  recollection,  speak  of  "  caveats,"  which 
word  is  therefore  for  me  simple  English,  and  not  "  jargon." 
"  Enter  a  caveat  "  is  a  phrase  well  entitled  to  the  latter 
label.  But  let  Mr.  Greenwood's  and  the  indexer's 
judgment  stand  :  what  then  becomes  of  Mr.  Greenwood's 
attempted  rebuttal  of  Mr.  Devecmon  ? 1  He  really  cannot 
have  it  both  ways.  If  he  insists  that  no  lawyer  would 
say  "  put  a  caveat,"  he  has  quashed  his  own  objection 
to  the  argument  that  Shakespeare  makes  his  characters 
talk  law  as  no  lawyer  would.  He  does  not  deny  that 
Shakespeare  makes  Queen  Catherine  "  challenge "  a' 
judge,  as  lawyers  "  challenge "  jurors.  Then  Shake 
speare  was  no  lawyer.  It  is  idle  for  Mr.  Greenwood  to 
say  that  "  challenge  "  was  used  in  a  general  sense.  What 
about  "  caveat  "  ?  .  .  . 

1  At  one  point,  I  will  offer  Mr.  Greenwood  my  humble  literary 
support  against  Mr.  Devecmon,  my  ally.  Mr.  Devecmon  criticises 
Shakespeare's  use  of  "statutes"  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  i,  i. 
"  A  statute,"  he  objects,  "  is  an  act  of  the  legislature."  It  was 
really  other  things  as  well  !  Apart  from  its  perfectly  legitimate 
application  to  the  laws  of  a  college,  the  word  was  habitually 
applied  in  Shakespeare's  day  to  "  statutes  marchant  "  &c. 
without  the  defining  term.  I  think  my  ally  is  in  the  wrong  for 
once — in  the  course  of  an  argument  in  which  he  is  overwhelmingly 
in  the  right. 


176  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

I  am  not  concerned  to  follow  Mr.  Greenwood  through 
the  rest  of  the  difficulties  in  which  he  has  enmeshed  him 
self.  It  is  sufficient  to  repeat  that  he  cannot  without 
self-stultification  plead  that  the  laxities  of  Shakespeare's 
law  do  not  prove  him  to  have  been  no  lawyer.  The 
summing-up  of  Campbell,  upon  which  Mr.  Greenwood 
proceeded,  was  to  the  effect  that  Shakespeare  did  in 
variably  use  legal  terms — that  is,  make  his  characters 
use  them — as  a  trained  lawyer  would.  It  was  Mr.  Green 
wood's  citation  of  that  and  similar  enormities  of  nonsense 
that  enabled  Mark  Twain  to  die  contented  in  the  Baco 
nian  faith.  The  breakdown  of  Campbell's  case  at  the 
first  serious  push  tells  of  the  levity  with  which  it  was 
framed.  But  if  we  allow  Mr.  Greenwood  to  recall  Camp 
bell's  extravagances  and  restate  the  proposition  as  he 
will,  it  is  annihilated  for  every  candid  student  by  that 
comparison  of  the  Shakespeare  plays  with  those  of  his 
contemporaries  which  has  been  made  in  these  pages,  and 
which  neither  Campbell  nor  Mr.  Greenwood  attempted. 

When,  then,  Mr.  Greenwood  winds  up  his  legal  chapter 
by  citing  the  passage  about  "  common  "  and  "  several  " 
from  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST  (ii,  i),  and  the  similar  passage 
from  the  Sonnets,  and  triumphantly  puts  the  questions, 
f  Did  the  provincial  player,  the  '  Stratford  rustic/  write 
such  sonnets  as  those  [i.e.  the  various  '  legal '  sonnets] 
I  have  quoted  ?  Is  it  his  law  which  appears  in  Venus's 
allusion  to  a  common  money  bond,  or  in  the  various 
passages  of  LUCRECE  ?  Did  he  write  the  travesty  of 
'  Hales  v.  Petit '  in  HAMLET  ?  Did  he  discourse  of 
*  common  of  pasture  '  and '  severalty  '  in  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S 
LOST  ?  Is  it  to  him  that  we  owe  the  thousands  (!)  of  legal 
allusions  scattered  throughout  the  plays  ?  " — to  the  whole 
series  of  challenges  we  answer,  Yes  ! — with  the  qualifica 
tion  that  "  thousands  "  should  be  "  dozens."  On  the  very 
previous  page  Mr.  Greenwood  had  obliviously  cited  an 
allusion  to  a  "  several  "  in  the  First  Part  of  SIR  JOHN  OLD- 
CASTLE.  Was  that  play  written  by  a  lawyer  ?  The  jesting 


LITIGATION  AND  LEGALISM  177 

figure  about  "  common  "  and  "  enclosed  "  ground,  applied 
to  a  woman,  occurs  twice  in  Dekker's  HONEST  WHORE 
(Pt.  II,  iv,  i).  Was  that  written  by  a  lawyer?  In 
Bacon's  APOPHTHEGMS  Mr.  Greenwood  will  find  a  suffi 
ciently  free  jest  about  "  common  and  several  "  ascribed 
to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  Was  Raleigh  a  lawyer  ?  And 
can  Mr.  Greenwood  doubt  that  such  stories  were  widely 
current  in  Shakespeare's  day  ?  In  his  own  words,  "  I 
think  not.  Credat  Judceus " ;  or  let  us  rather  say, 
"  Credant  judices  " — Campbell  and  Penzance  ! 

The  other  items  in  Mr.  Greenwood's  challenge  are  as 
void  as  this.  We  have  seen  them  one  and  all  put  down 
on  test.  His  final  affirmation  of  "  profusion  of  legal 
phraseology  and  wealth  of  legal  knowledge,"  made  without 
any  judicial  comparison  of  Shakespeare's  plays  with 
other  men's,  will  not,  I  trust,  be  repeated  after  such  a 
comparison  has  been  laid  before  him.  But  I  am  moved 
to  put  two  additional  challenges,  after  the  model  of  his. 
(i)  If  "  Shakspere  "  the  actor  were  a  "  Stratford  rustic," 
why  on  earth  should  that  rustic,  of  all  people,  be  supposed 
to  be  ignorant  of  the  rurally  notorious  facts  about  the 
usage  of  "  common  "  and  "  several  "  ?  (2)  But  why, 
on  the  other  hand,  should  Shakespeare,  coming  to  London 
in  early  manhood  and  living  there  till  near  his  death,  be 
singled  out  for  rusticity  any  more  than  Bacon  ?  Myself 
born  a  rustic,  I  have  some  interest  in  the  answer. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP 
OF  THE  PLAYS 

(I)  Lord  Penzance  and  Mr.  Donnelly 

ONE  province  of  our  inquiry,  that  constituted 
by  the  argument  from  "  legal  knowledge,"  has 
been  traversed,  not  without  tedium.   Two 
others  remain  to  be  explored.     The  "  legal  " 
argument  is  backed  up  by  the  "  classical " — the  argument 
from  the  "  classical  scholarship  "  said  to  be  revealed  by  the 
Plays ;    and  both  are  sought  to  be  corroborated  by  the 
citation  of  "  coincidences  of  thought  and  phrase  "  in  the 
Shakespearean  plays  and  Bacon's  works.     We  are  now 
to  deal  with  the  "  classical  "  position. 

The  dialectical  experience  will  be  found  to  be  curiously 
similar  to  that  which  we  have  undergone.  The  pervading 
fallacy  of  the  legalist  argument  has  been,  in  a  word,  that 
of  incomplete  induction.  The  quality  of  lawyership  has 
been  assigned  to  one  playwright  mainly  by  inference 
from  a  study  of  his  plays  alone ;  when  a  wider  survey 
proves  that  he  had  no  special  proclivity  or  accomplish 
ment.  Where  a  form  of  testing  has  been  gone  through, 
it  has  been  carelessly  and  misleadingly  applied.  Sub 
stantially  the  same  error  we  shall  find  made  in  respect 
of  the  inference  that  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  exhibit 
wide  classical  scholarship  because  they  contain  classical 
allusions  and  classical  commonplaces.  For  in  this  case 
also  the  conclusion  has  been  drawn  without  resort  to  the 
comparative  method,  which  would  reveal  non-classical 
sources  for  Shakespeare's  small  classical  knowledge. 
Much  of  the  discussion,  indeed,  proceeds  on  the  assump- 

178 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       179 

tion  that  the  commonplaces  of  antiquity  are  unique,  and 
incapable  of  being  independently  invented  by  other 
peoples,  whereas  it  is  of  the  very  nature  of  commonplaces 
to  be  universal.  Such  tropes  as  that  of  "a  sea  of 
troubles,"  such  saws  as  "  time  tries  all,"  "  your  father 
lost,  lost  his,"  and  so  forth,  have  been  seriously  cited 
as  ideas  possible  only  to  men  who  knew  them  by  classic 
quotation.  The  late  Professor  Churton  Collins,  while 
repeatedly  conceding  that  such  phrases  are  mere  co 
incidences  of  ordinary  reflection,  claimed  that  the  saw 
"  Fat  paunches  have  lean  pates  "  (L.  L.  L.  i,  i)  is  "  un 
doubtedly  from  the  anonymous  Greek  proverb  "  to  the 
same  effect.  It  was  a  current  English  proverb,  and  is 
found  in  two  forms  in  Dekker's  OLD  FORTUNATUS  : 

For  a  lean  diet  makes  a  fat  wit. 

(i,    2). 

I  am  not  fat. 
Andel.     I'll  be  sworn  thy  wit  is  lean. 

(ii,  2). 

Even  as  regards  less  common  sayings,  common  sense  and 
common  experience  remind  us  that  a  hundred  lessons  of 
life  are  learned  and  briefly  recorded  by  common  folk 
to-day  even  as  they  were  by  the  ancients.  An  old  friend 
of  my  own,  a  Scotch  foreman  carpenter,  once  remarked 
to  me,  with  regard  to  his  function  as  foreman,  "  I  can 
say,  '  Come  on,  chaps  ' ;  I  canna  say,  '  Go  on.' '  I 
am  very  sure  he  knew  nothing  of  the  classic  Docet  tolerare 
labores,  non  jubet :  the  idea  was  as  natural  to  him  as  to 
any  ancient.  And  in  the  case  of  a  writer  so  obviously 
given  to  sententious  phrase  as  the  author  of  the  Shake 
spearean  plays  and  poems,  common  sense  might  admit 
the  probable  spontaneity  of  many  items  of  every-day 
reflection  that  happen  to  have  been  penned  in  antiquity. 
Antithesis  and  alliteration,  again,  are  natural  devices  in 
all  languages.  Learned  Professors — Mr.  Churton  Collins  and 
Mr.  Lowell,  for  instance — cannot  read  such  a  line  as  : 
Unhouseled,  disappointed,  unaneled, 


i8o  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

without  suspecting  reminiscence  of  Greek  sets  of  terms 
beginning  with  the  privative  a.  Now,  not  only  are  lines 
of  sequences  of  words  in  "un"  common  in  Spenser,1 
they  are  common  in  Fairfax's  translation  of  Tasso's 
JERUSALEM  DELIVERED  (1600),  and  still  more  common 
in  Daniel's  CIVIL  WARS  : 

Unseen,  unheard,  or  undescried  at  all. 

Fairfax,  B.  i,  st.  65. 
Unseen,  unmarked,  unpitied,  unrewarded. 

Id.  B.  ii,  st.  16. 

Daniel  has  : 

Uncourted,  unrespected,  unobeyed. 

B.  ii,  st.  52. 
Unheard  and  unarraigned. 

B.  iii,  st.  23. 
Undaunted,  unaff eared. 

B.  iii,  st.  76. 
Unsupported  and  unbackt. 

B.  iii,  st.  79. 

There  is  no  reason  to  infer  here  any  reminiscence  of  Greek 
tragedy  :  the  device  goes  back  to  Chaucer,  and  might 
be  independently  reinvented.  Daniel  and  Fairfax  were 
not  Greek  scholars. 

The  main  stress  of  the  "  classical  "  case,  of  course,  is 
laid  upon  direct  classical  allusions  and  upon  non-pro 
verbial  passages  which  may  fairly  be  described  as  quota 
tions.  But  in  this  connexion  also  the  inference  of 
original  scholarship  is  often  quite  uncritically  drawn. 
Even  Shakespearean  scholars  in  some  cases  seem  to  fail 
to  realise  how  much  popular  knowledge  of  classical 
matters  was  scattered  by  both  homilies  and  popular 
plays  in  the  Tudor  period,  apart  from  the  publication  of 
translations.  Some  of  the  Interludes  are  notably  abun 
dant  in  their  classical  allusions.  That  of  THE  TRIAL  OF 
TREASURE,  printed  in  black-letter  in  1567,  has  references, 
often  discursive  and  explanatory,  to  Diogenes,  Alexander, 
Antisthenes,  Pythagoras,  Pegasus,  Morpheus,  Hydra; 

1  See  refs.  in  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  2nd  ed.  p.  299. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP      181 

Hercules,  Hector,  Tully,  Epicurus,  Croesus  (thrice),  Esop, 
Aristippus,  Prometheus,  Solon,  Adrastia,  Circe,  Diony- 
sius,  Tarquin  Superbus,  Heliogabalus,  Helen,  Thales, 
and  Cressida,  to  say  nothing  of  gods  and  goddesses.  It 
contains  such  passages  as  these  : 

The  advice  of  Aristippus  have  in  your  mind 

Which  willed  me  to  seek  such  things  as  be  permanent.  .  . 

For  treasures  here  gotten  are  uncertain  and  vain, 

But  treasures  of  the  mind  do  continually  remain. 

Thou  never  remembrest  Thales  his  sentence, 
Who  willeth  men  in  all  things  to  keep  a  measure, 
Especially  in  love  to  incertainty  of  treasure. 

The  remarkable  interlude  called  THE  FOUR  ELEMENTS, 
with  its  elaborate  argument  to  prove  the  roundness  of 
the  earth,  its  discussions  of  natural  phenomena,  its  in 
troduction  of  the  scholastic  "  Nature  Naturate,"  and  its 
frequent  allusions  to  "  cosmography,"  is  a  notable 
reminder  that  the  stage  even  in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII 
could  be  a  source  of  popular  culture  as  well  as  of  enter 
tainment.1 

In  this  fashion,  people  who  could  not  read  might  have 
some  acquaintance  with  the  lore  of  "  clerks  "  ;  and 
common  folk  whose  reading  did  not  go  beyond  homiletic 
works  could  easily  meet  with  a  multitude  of  classical 
allusions,  sufficiently  explained.  Tyndale's  translation 
of  the  ENCHIRIDION  MILITIS  CHRISTIANI  of  Erasmus, 
printed  in  1533  by  Wynkyn  de  Worde,  is  a  small  store 
house  of  such  lore,  the  many  allusions  of  Erasmus  being 

1  Dr.  C.  W.  Wallace,  after  the  most  thorough  research  yet 
made  upon  the  subject  (The  Evolution  of  the  English  Drama  up 
to  Shakespeare  :  Berlin,  Reimer,  1912),  confidently  decides  that 
The  Four  Elements  and  several  of  the  better  Interludes  ascribed 
to  Heywood  were  written  by  his  predecessor  Cornish.  It  may 
well  be  so  ;  but  documentary  evidence  seems  still  to  be  lacking. 
Dr.  Wallace  holds  that  the  best  Interlude  work  was  produced 
for  the  court ;  and  that  this  play  is  "  evidently  "  by  Cornish  (p.  17). 
Yet  it  lacks  the  dramatic  character  which  he  ascribes  to  Cornish's 
work.  In  any  case,  as  printed,  it  appears  to  have  been  intended 
for  general  performance. 


182  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

marginally  "  glossed  "  by  the  translator  with  long  elucida 
tions.  Thus  the  English  reader  was  brought  into  much 
contact  with  Plato,  reading,  for  instance,  the  famous 
similitude  of  the  cave,  and  getting  accounts  of  Phocion, 
Apelles,  Crates,  Alcibiades,  Hesiod,  and  of  Catullus,  besides 
mythic  personages  such  as  Prometheus  and  Pandora, 
Proteus,  Ajax,  Achilles,  ^Eneas,  Ixion,  Tantalus,  Hercules 
and  Hydra,  Ulysses  and  the  Sirens,  &c.  &c.  Similar 
allusions  must  often  have  been  made  in  the  pulpit,  though 
the  later  Puritan  school  would  tend  to  shun  the  scholarly 
liberalism  of  Erasmus.  In  the  treatise  of  the  Minister 
Northbrooke  AGAINST  DICING,  DANCING,  PLAYS  AND 
INTERLUDES  (1577)  there  are  scores  of  quotations  from 
both  Fathers  and  pagan  writers,  with  exact  translations 
and  much  elucidatory  comment,  embracing  a  wide  range 
of  classical  allusion.  In  the  face  of  such  a  variety  of 
ordinary  sources  for  matters  of  ordinary  classical  know 
ledge,  it  is  a  sufficiently  reckless  course  to  credit  Shake 
speare  with  scholarly  knowledge  on  the  score  of  the  very 
ordinary  classical  references  in  his  plays. 

Here  again,  orthodox  writers  are  as  deep  in  fallacy  as 
any  of  the  Baconians.  Long  ago,  Dr.  Farmer  proved 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  scholars  of  his  generation  that 
the  author  of  the  Plays  had  little  classical  scholarship, 
and  that  the  instances  put  forward  by  Upton,  Lewis 
Theobald,  and  others,  were  all  reducible  to  English 
sources.  The  contrary  thesis,  however,  has  been  zeal 
ously  revived  in  recent  times  by  two  strongly  anti- 
Baconian  scholars,  the  late  Professor  Fiske  and  the  late 
Professor  Churton  Collins,  who  drew  upon  the  previous 
argumentation  of  Dr.  Maginn  and  Professor  Baynes. 
Having  elsewhere  1  discussed  at  length  the  "classical" 
case  put  by  these  critics  and  by  Mr.  Greenwood,  I  will 
first  deal  with  it  mainly  as  it  is  put  by  Lord  Penzance, 
who  proceeds  uncritically  upon  the  data  given  him  by 

1  See  the  author's  Montaigne   and  Shakespeare,  2nd   edition, 
1909  ;  per  index. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       183 

Mr.  Donnelly  and  upon  the  sweeping  assertions  of  several 
"  orthodox  "  scholars.  For  Lord  Penzance,  who  could 
not  believe  that  the  Plays  were  written  by  the  Stratford 
actor,  it  is  quite  certain  that  their  author  was  "  master 
of  French  and  Italian  as  well  as  of  Greek  and  Latin,  and 
capable  of  quoting  and  borrowing  largely  from  writers 
in  all  these  languages,"  and  this  mainly  because  the 
assertion  is  made  by  certain  "  orthodox "  scholars, 
though  he  attaches  no  weight  whatever  to  the  authority 
of  these  scholars  when  they  contemptuously  repudiate 
the  Baconian  theory.  And  he  appears  to  attach  equal 
weight,  on  the  classical  question,  to  the  authority  of 
Mr.  Donnelly,  who  appears  to  have  had  no  classical 
scholarship  whatever.  Yet  he  accepts  at  the  same  time,1 
on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  the  statement 
that  Shakespeare's  "  acquaintance  with  the  Latin  language 
throughout  his  life  was  of  a  very  limited  character," 
though  Mr.  Halliwell-Phillipps  grounds  this  verdict  largely 
if  not  mainly  on  the  internal  evidence  of  the  Plays.  Lord 
Penzance  does  not  seem  ever  to  have  asked  himself  what 
critical  method  means. 

The  first  piece  of  evidence  offered  by  him  to  prove  the 
classical  scholarship  of  the  author  of  the  dramas  is  the 
familiar  citation  from  i  HENRY  VI  (i,  6)  : 

Thy  promises  are  like  Adonis'  gardens, 

That  one  day  bloom'd  and  fruitful  were  the  next. 

It  is  almost  needless  to  say  that  Lord  Penzance  does  not 
once  glance  at  the  critical  case  for  the  attribution  of  the 
HENRY  VI  plays — Part  I  in  particular — in  large  measure 
or  wholly  to  other  hands  than  Shakespeare's.  Here  he 
is  in  accord  with  the  whole  Baconian  school.  Mr.  Green 
wood,  I  think,  is  the  only  "  anti-Stratfordian  "  writer 
who  realises  that  a  large  portion  of  "  Shakespeare  "  is 
alien  matter ;  that  TITUS  ANDRONICUS,  for  instance,  is 
non-Shakespearean;  and  that  Shakespeare  merely  wrought 

1  P.  50. 


184  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

over  the  HENRY  VI  group.  Lord  Penzance  was  quite 
unaware,  apparently,  that  a  large  number  of  Shake 
spearean  critics,  for  over  a  century,  have  ascribed  the 
bulk  of  i  HENRY  VI  to  Marlowe,  Peele,  and  Greene. 

But  even  as  to  the  significance  of  the  particular  passage 
under  notice  he  has,  as  usual,  made  no  critical  investiga 
tion.  It  suffices  for  him  that  Mr.  Grant  White,  whose 
treatment  of  the  Baconian  problem  he  regards  as  utterly 
uncritical,  made  the  astonishing  assertion  that  "  no 
mention  of  any  such  garden  in  the  classic  writings  of 
Greece  and  Rome  is  known  to  scholars,  as  the  learned 
Bentley  first  remarked.  "1  Even  this  grossly  erroneous 
passage  Lord  Penzance  quotes  without  any  first-hand 
investigation,  for  he  goes  on  2  to  write  : 

A  recent  commentator,  James  D.  Butler,  has  found  out  the 
source  of  this  allusion,  says  Mr.  Donnelly.  He  pointed  out  that 
the  couplet  might  have  been  suggested  by  a  passage  in  Plato's 
Phcedrus,  which  he  translated  thus  :  "  Would  a  husbandman 
(said  Socrates)  who  is  a  man  of  sense,  take  the  seeds  which  he 
values  and  wishes  to  be  fruitful,  and  in  sober  earnest  plant  them 
in  some  garden  of  Adonis,  that  he  may  rejoice  when  he  sees  them 
in  eight  days  appearing  in  beauty  ?  " 

Now,  the  very  passage  here  cited  from  the  PHJSDRUS 
was  actually  produced  by  Mr.  Grant  White  in  1869  in 
his  essay  on  "  Glossaries  and  Lexicons  "  (reprinted  in 
his  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE,  1885).  There,  improving 
slightly  on  his  note  to  the  passage  in  his  first  edition  of 
Shakespeare — where,  however,  he  had  already  fathered 
the  negative  statement  on  Bentley,  and  cited  Milton's 
allusion — Mr.  Grant  White  blunderingly  writes  : 

The  mention  of  Adonis'  gardens  in  Henry  VI,  Pt.  I,  Act  i,  Scene  6, 
gave  Bentley  the  opportunity  of  remarking  that  there  is  no  authority 
for  the  existence  of  any  such  gardens,  in  Greek  or  Latin  writers  ; 
the  KTJTOL  JA£wj/i£oe  being  mere  pots  of  earth  planted  with  a 
little  fennel  and  lettuce,  which  were  borne  by  women  on  the 
feast  of  Adonis,  in  memory  of  the  lettuce-bed  where  Venus  laid 
her  lover.  But  Spenser,  writing  before  Shakespeare,  says  : 

1  Note  in  loc.  in  his  ed.  of  Shakespeare.  2  P.  60. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       185 

But  well  I  wote  by  tryale  that  this  same 
All  other  pleasant  places  doth  excell, 
And  calldd  is  by  her  lost  lover's  name,  - 
The  Garden  of  Adonis,  far  renown'd  by  fame. 

Daily  they  grow  and  daily  forth  are  sent 
Into  the  World. 

Faerie  Queene,  Book  III,  Canto  6,  st.  29,  36. 

And  the  scholar-poet  Milton  calls  Eden 

Spot  more  delicious  than  those  gardens  feigned 
Or  of  revived  Adonis  or  renowned 
Alcinous. 

Paradise  Lost,  ix,  440. 

But,  after  all,  Shakespeare,  or  the  author  of  the  First  Part  of 
King  Henry  VI,  whoever  he  was,  whether  from  knowledge  or  by 
chance,  was  more  correct,  or  rather  less  incorrect,  than  Spenser 
or  Milton.  He  does  not  speak  of  the  gardens  of  Adonis  as  a  place, 
or  as  a  spot  :  he  only  compares  speedily  redeemed  promises  to 
"  Adonis's  gardens,  that  one  day  bloomed  and  fruitful  were  the 
next."  So  Plato  says  in  his  Phaedrus  : 

Now  do  you  think  that  a  sensible  husbandman  would  take 
the  seed  that  he  valued,  and,  wishing  to  produce  a  harvest,  would 
seriously,  after  the  summer  had  begun,  scatter  it  in  the  gardens 
of  Adonis  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  it  spring  up  and  look  green 
in  a  week  ?  * 

When  all  is  said,  however,  the  whole  theorem  remains  a 
mare's  nest.  The  "  gardens  of  Adonis  "  referred  to  in 
the  PH^DRUS  are  just  the  proverbial  Kfjrot  'A&owSo?, 
the  baskets  or  pots  or  trays  of  lettuces  or  herbs  borne 
by  women  at  the  feast  of  Adonis.  What  the  worshippers 
did  was  to  plant  seeds  (or  put  young  plants)  in  earth, 
in  their  trays  or  pots — here  employing  a  primitive  form 
of  "  sympathetic  magic,"  now  well  understood  by  anthro 
pologists,2  for  the  promotion  of  all  plant  life.  Even  as 
Mr.  Donnelly  discusses  Grant  White  without  reading 
him,  and  Lord  Penzance  copies  Mr.  Donnelly's  citations 
without  reading  Mr.  Grant  White,  Mr.  Grant  White  in 

1  Studies  in  Shakespeare,  1885,  pp.  296-7. 

*  See  the  classical  references  and  the  anthropological  explana 
tion  in  Dr.  Frazer's  Adonis,  Attis,  Osiris,  1906,  ch.  ix. 


186  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

turn  had  cited  Bentley  without  reading  him.  Bentley  *s 
note  has  no  reference  whatever  to  the  play.  It  is  to  be 
found  in  his  edition  of  Milton,1  wherein  he  sets  forth 
his  theory  that  PARADISE  LOST  was  (not  written  by 
Bacon !  but)  edited  by  a  fraudulent  and  incompetent 
personage  who  committed  many  blunders  and  many 
forgeries.  The  allusion  to  the  gardens  of  Adonis  or 
Alcinous  gives  Bentley  the  opportunity  to  convict  this 
imaginary  villain  at  once  of  bad  taste  and  bad  scholar 
ship  ;  and  the  note  is  a  standing  warning  of  what  a 
scholar  may  come  to  under  the  spell  of  a  fixed  idea. 

Our  Editor  [says  Bentley]  confesses  that  those  gardens  were 
feigned.  Why  then  brought  in  here  at  all  ?  What  Deliciousness 
can  exist  in  a  fable  ?  or  what  proportion,  what  compare,  between 
Truth  and  Fiction  ?  And  then  for  Solomon's  Garden,  which 
he  makes  real,  not  mystic,  contriv'd  it  seems  for  the  sapient 
King's  Dalliance,  our  Editor  might  have  had  more  Sapience 
than  to  introduce  such  silly  and  prophane  Ideas.  But  if 
these  exceptions  do  not  fully  detect  his  Forgery,  what  follows, 
certainly  will.  He  supposes  the  Garden  of  reviv'd  Adonis  to  be 
some  magnificent  and  spacious  Place,  like  that  of  Alcinous  in 
Homer.  There  was  no  such  Garden  ever  existent  or  even  feigned. 
KJJroi  'AtJwvitJoc,  the  Gardens  of  Adonis,  so  frequently  mentioned 
by  Greek  writers,  Plato,  Plutarch,  &c.,  were  nothing  but  portable 
earthen  Pots,  with  some  lettuce  or  fennel  growing  in  them.  On 
his  yearly  Festival,  every  woman  carried  one  of  them  for  Adonis's 
worship,  because  Venus  had  once  laid  him  in  a  lettuce  bed.  The 
next  day  they  were  thrown  away  ;  for  the  herbs  were  but  raised 
about  a  week  before,  and  could  not  last  for  want  of  root.  Hence 
the  Gardens  of  Adonis  grew  to  be  a  proverb  of  contempt  for  any 
fruitless,  fading,  perishable  affair.  And  now  is  not  a  Garden  of 
A  donis,  a  Pot  with  a  few  Herbs  in't,  a  proper  comparison  for  the 
Garden  of  Paradise  ?  They  that  can  believe  Milton  guilty  of 
such  Ignorance,  have  not  the  opinion  of  his  Learning,  which  I 
profess  to  have. 

Thus  Bentley,  cracked  but  learned  still.  Mr.  Grant  White 
cannot  have  seen  this  note,  which  has  no  shadow  of 
connection  with  the  passage  in  I  HENRY  VI,  and  applies 
solely  to  that  in  Milton.  So  far  from  denying  that  there 
were  references  in  the  classics  to  "  Gardens  of  Adonis," 
1  1732,  4to.  Pp.  282-3. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       187 

Bentley  gives  an  exact  account  of  what  those  references 
convey,  contending — rightly  enough,  at  the  height  of 
his  hallucination,  save  as  regards  an  overlooked  passage 
in  Pliny — that  there  was  no  classic  mention  of  such 
Gardens  of  Adonis  as  are  described  by  Milton.  Had 
Bentley  known  his  Spenser  as  he  knew  his  classics,  he 
would  have  realised  that  Milton  had  simply  followed  his 
predecessor's  wrong  lead — unless  he  and  Spenser  had 
alike  been  misled  by  Pliny  or  some  Italian  poet.!  Upon 
this  subject  there  was  a  comprehensive  brawl  among 
the  Shakespearean  commentators  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  duly  recorded  in  the  variorum  editions.  The 
only  excuse  to  be  made  for  Spenser  and  Milton  is  the 
passage  in  Pliny  (xix,  4)  : 

Antiquitas  nihil  prius  mirata  est  quam  Hesperidum  hortos  ac 
regum  Adonidos  Alcinoi, 

which  Bentley  might  justly  have  dismissed  as  a  mere 
utterance  of  Roman  error,  cited  to  justify  that  of  two 
English  poets.  Mr.  Grant  White,  overlooking  all  this, 
and  knowing  nothing  about  the  point  in  question,  blunder 
ingly  applied  Bentley 's  negative  to  the  use  of  the  phrase 
in  i  HENRY  VI,  where  it  is  not  applicable,  since  the  lines 
there,  as  he  sees  later,  are  loosely  compatible  with  the 
classic  description.  In  the  end,  accordingly,  he  claims 
for  the  dramatist  a  scholarship  more  accurate  than  that 
of  Spenser  and  Milton.  But  he  is  still  astray.  The  very 
nature  of  his  conclusion,  raising  as  it  does  the  question 
how  the  young  Shakespeare  could  have  acquired  a  wider 
and  more  exact  scholarship  than  Milton's,  might  have 
startled  him  into  distrust  of  the  whole  theorem  of  the 
classic  scholarship  of  the  author  of  the  Plays.  His  own, 
clearly,  was  neither  wide  nor  exact.  If  on  the  one  hand 
he  had  but  consulted  the  variorum  edition,  and  on  the 
other  either  looked  up  Bentley's  note,  or  but  turned  to 

1  Warton,  who  does  not  seem  to  realise  the  nature  of  Spenser's 
error  (Observations,  ed.  1807,  i.  122),  mentions  no  Italian  source, 
but  I  have  some  vague  recollection  of  one. 


i88  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

the  old  Classical  Dictionary  of  his  countryman,  Professor 
Anthon,  he  would  have  learned  that  "  the  expression 
'ASwwSoe  WTOI  became  proverbial,  and  was  applied  to 
whatever  perished  previous  to  the  period  of  maturity  " — 
as  is  witnessed  by  the  ADAGIA  VETERUM,  p.  410.  The 
passage  in  i  HENRY  VI  is  simply  a  loose  application  of 
this  proverbial  phrase,  and  expressly  excludes  knowledge 
of  the  PH^DRUS,  where  "  eight  days  "  are  allowed  for 
the  growth  of  the  plants. 

Such  then,  on  analysis,  is  the  foundation  for  Lord 
Penzance's  assertion  that  "  William  Shakespeare  (if  he 
was  the  author)  had  so  far  progressed  in  his  studies  by 
the  month  of  March  1592,  as  to  have  mastered  the  Greek 
language  thus  early  ;  and  that  he  had  pushed  his  reading 
in  directions  not  traversed  by  the  ordinary  run  of  classic 
readers."  We  are  witnessing  a  game  of  literary  blind- 
man's-buff.  Nobody  in  the  whole  discussion,  not  even 
Bentley,  turned  monomaniac,  has  drawn  a  sane  inference. 
Bentley,  knowing  the  classical  facts,  cannot  believe  that 
Milton  was  ignorant  of  them.  The  clear  fact  is  that 
both  Spenser  and  Milton — the  latter  copying  the  former, 
or  both  following  an  Italian  poet — were  misled  by  the 
bare  traditional  phrase,  and  created  in  imagination  an 
idea  which  had  no  conformity  with  its  historical  origin. 
Spenser  commits  his  error  repeatedly — in  the  FAERIE 
QUEENE,  B.  II,  c.  x,  st.  71  ;  in  the  motto  to  the  canto 
before  cited ;  in  Stanza  39  of  the  same  canto  ;  and  in 
COLIN  CLOUT'S  COME  HOME  AGAIN,  1.  855.  Nor  was  he 
the  only  Elizabethan  who  so  erred.  So  ripe  a  scholar  as 
Ben  Jonson,  probably  following  Spenser,  has  the  phrase  : 

Remember  thou  art  not  now  in  Adonis'  garden,  but  in  Cynthia's 
presence. 

Cynthia's  Revels,  v,  3. 

Where  Spenser,  Jonson,  and  Milton  fell  short,  it  was 
not  by  dint  of  deep  scholarship  that  the  playwright  came 
nearer  the  truth.  An  unquestioning  acceptance  of  Mr. 
Grant  White's  fallacious  note,  and  of  the  fallacies  appended 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP        189 

thereto  by  himself  and  the  Baconians,  serves  as  passport 
to  the  wildest  generalisations  concerning  the  scholarship 
of  the  playwright.  It  is  all  in  the  air.  The  writer  of 
the  lines  in  I  HENRY  VI  was  probably  Marlowe,  who  was 
no  very  deep  classicist,  and  was  here  merely  employing 
a  classic  commonplace.  But  Shakespeare,  much  less 
of  a  classicist  still,  might  very  well  have  known  it  as 
such. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  well  to  note  a  cognate 
error  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Grant  White,  whose  fundamental 
mistakes  as  to  the  legal  and  classical  knowledge  in  the 
Plays  have  given  so  much  countenance  to  the  Baconidfci 
theory,  which  he  contemned.  In  the  same  essay  on 
"  Glossaries  and  Lexicons,"  dealing  with  Achilles'  speech 
in  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  (iii,  3)  as  to  the  eye  being 
unable  to  see  itself,  he  quotes  from  Plato's  FIRST  ALCI- 
BIADES  this  passage  : 

We  may  take  the  analogy  of  the  eye.  The  eye  sees  not  itself, 
but  from  some  other  thing  ;  for  instance,  a  mirror.  But  the  eye 
can  see  itself  also  by  reflection  in  another  eye  ;  not  by  looking 
at  any  other  part  of  a  man,  but  at  the  eye  only ; 

remarking  that  the  "  similarity  of  thought  between  it  and 
Achilles'  speech  .  .  .  seems  quite  inexplicable,  except 
on  the  supposition  that  Shakespeare  was  acquainted 
with  what  Plato  wrote."  Now,  as  Mr.  Grant  White 
ought  again  to  have  remembered,  the  commentators 
long  ago  pointed  out,  on  the  similar  passage  in  JULIUS 
CESAR  (i,  2),  that  in  Sir  John  Davies'  poem  NOSCE  TEIP- 
SUM  (1599),  the  classicism  about  the  eye  being  unable  to 
see  itself  is  fully  elaborated  (Grosart's  ed.  i,  20,  25)  : 

It  is  because  the  mind  is  like  the  eye 

Through  which  it  gathers  knowledge  by  degres — 
Whose  rays  reflect  not,  but  spread  outwardly  : 

Not  seeing  itself  when  other  things  it  sees. 

Mine  eyes,  which  view  all  objects,  nigh  and  far, 
Look  not  into  this  little  world  of  mine, 
Nor  see  my  face,  wherein  they  fixed  are. 


THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

That  Shakespeare1  had  read  Davies'  poem,  whether 
or  not  he  found  the  idea  there  for  the  first  time,  is  nearly 
certain,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  in  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA 
he  twice  uses  the  phrase  "  spirits  of  sense,"  which  is 
thrice  used  in  NOSCE  TEIPSUM.  But,  further,  as  I  have 
elsewhere  pointed  out,2  the  classicism  about  the  eye  was 
available  to  him  in  Cicero's  TUSCULANS,  which  had  been 
translated  by  Dolman  in  1561  ;  and  the  expatiation  on 
this  and  other  themes  in  the  speeches  of  Achilles  and 
Ulysses,  and  in  the  analogous  passages  in  MEASURE  FOR 
MEASURE  (i,  i),  could  all  have  been  derived  by  him  from 
Davies  plus  passages  in  Cicero  and  Seneca  which  lay  to 
his  hand  in  Florio's  translation  of  Montaigne.  The  late 
Professor  Churton  Collins,  who  independently  advanced 
the  reference  to  Plato's  FIRST  ALCIBIADES  for  the  same 
purpose,  has  wasted  his  labour  like  Mr.  Grant  White, 
for  lack  of  resort  to  the  comparative  method. 

Returning  to  Lord  Penzance,  we  find  him  accepting 
as  perfectly  conclusive  the  allegation  of  Charles  Knight, 
who  in  turn  was  no  classical  scholar,  that 

the  marvellous  accuracy,  the  real  and  substantial  learning,  of 
the  three  Roman  plays  of  Shakespeare,  present  the  most  complete 
evidence  to  our  minds  that  they  were  the  result  of  a  profound 
study  of  the  whole  range  of  Roman  history,  including  the  nicer 
details  of  Roman  manners,  not  in  those  days  to  be  acquired  in 
a  compendious  form,  but  to  be  brought  out  by  diligent  reading 
alone.  * 

Over  such  utterances  one  has  a  discouraging  sense  of  the 
waste  of  time  and  thought  set  up  in  all  fields  of  criticism 
by  heedless  assertion.  No  scholar  will  to-day  grant  a 
tithe  of  the  claim  made  by  Knight  for  Shakespeare  in 
regard  to  Roman  history,  even  if  we  put  aside  the 
consideration  that  JULIUS  GESAR  is  probably  founded 
on  or  inclusive  of  other  men's  work,  of  which,  in  the 

1  Whether  or  not  we  assume  him  to  have  written  originally 
the  whole  of  Julius  C&sar. 

2  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  2nd  ed.  pp.  95-105. 

3  Biography  of  Shakespeare,  p.  61. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       191 

judgment  of  some  of  us,  there  are  palpable  remains  in 
the  extant  play.1  It  is  now  perfectly  well  established 
that  Shakespeare  drew  for  his  Roman  plays  mainly  on 
North's  translation  of  Amyot's  Plutarch ;  2  that  where 

1  As  to  this  problem,  see  Fleay's  argument  (Life  of  Shakespeare, 
p.  215)  to  the  effect  that  the  play  is  a  condensation  of  two,  a 
Ccssar's  Tragedy  and  a  C&sar's  Revenge.    "  That  the  present  play 
has  been  greatly  shortened,"  remarks  Fleay,  "  is  shown  by  the 
singularly  large  number  of  instances  in  which  mute  characters  are 
on  the  stage  ;  which  is  totally  at  variance  with  Shakespeare's  usual 
practice.     The  large  number  of  incomplete  lines  in  every  possible 
position,  even  in  the  middle  of  speeches,  confirms  this  point." 
Fleay's  theory  has  not  been  duly  considered  by  later  critics, 
though  they  have  noted  Gildon's  remark  that  the  play  is  rather 
a  Brutus  than  a  Ccssar  ;    and  though  Craik  had  arguefl   (The 
English  of  Shakespeare,  6th  ed.  p.  55)  that  "it  might  almost  be 
suspected  that  the  complete  and  full-length  Caesar  had  been 
carefully  reserved  for  another  drama."     The  question  arises  :  If 
the  play  be  a  condensation,  what  and  whose  work  does  it  con 
dense  ?    As  we  have  no  text  before  that  of  the  Folio,  it  is  impossible 
to  say  that   Shakespeare  has  not  taken  up  the  composite  per 
formance  of  Dekker,  Munday,  Drayton,  Webster,  and  Middleton, 
entitled   Ccssar' s  Fall   (or   "  The  Two  Shapes  ")   mentioned  in 
Henslowe's  Diary,  May  22,  29,  1602.     Unless  this  can  be  excluded, 
the  view  that  Drayton  copied  Shakespeare  in  the  phrase  about 
"the  elements  ...  so  mixed"  cannot  be  established.     Professor 
MacCallum,  in  discussing  the  point  in  his  Shakespeare's  Roman 
Plays,  takes  no  account  of  the  possibilities  of  mixed  authorship, 
though  these  are  obtruded  by  the  style  of  much  of  the  play  ; 
and  though  a  recognition  of  them  would  suggest  a  solution  of  the 
anomalies  in  the  characterisation,  on  which  he  dwells. 

2  See  Professor  MacCallum's  Shakespeare's  Roman  Plays  and 
their  Background,   1910,  Appendices,  as  to  the  possible  use  of 
Appian  (of  which  Bynniman's  translation  had  been  published  in 
1578)  in  Julius  CcBsar,  and  the  very  probable  use  of  it  in  Antony 
and  Cleopatra.     For  Coriolanus  there  appears  to  be  no  source  save 
North's  Plutarch.     But  all  along  Shakespeare's  own  creative 
genius  vivifies  and  expands  his  material,  achieving  what  mere 
"  culture  "  could  never  do.     As  to  his  possible  knowledge  of 
Garnier's  Marc  Antoine  or  the  Countess  of  Pembroke's  transla 
tion,  of  Garnier's  CUopatre  or  Daniel's  translation,  and  of  Garnier's 
Cornelie  or  Kyd's  translation,  see  the  same  work,  introd.  §3. 
That  Shakespeare  recalled  some  lines  of  Kyd's  version  of  Garnier's 
CornSlie  in  the  speech  of  Antony  to  Eros,  IV,  xiv,  72,  was  long  ago 
suggested  by  Steevens  (Reed's  ed.  of  Dodsley,  1780,  ii,  263). 


IQ2  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

North  errs,  following  Amyot,  Shakespeare  errs,  following 
North  ;  that  at  no  point  does  he  supplement  him  ;  and 
that,  in  his  ignorance  or  disregard  of  chronology,  he 
makes  additional  mistakes  of  his  own.  The  blunder  of 
making  Lartius  speak  of  Cato  (COR.  I,  v,  59)  as  a  con 
temporary  or  predecessor,  is  one  of  these.  The  blunder 
about  "  the  napless  vesture  of  humility  "  (COR.  II,  i,  224) 
is  another,  made  through  following  North,  who  took 
Amyot's  "  robbe  simple  "  to  mean  "  a  poor  gown."  The 
Baconians  and  the  critics  who  persist  in  assigning  TITUS 
ANDRONICUS  to  Shakespeare  have  alike  failed  to  realise 
that  the  writer  of  the  "  Candidatus  "  passage  in  that 
play  knew  the  fact  that  public  men  seeking  office  in  Rome 
wore  a  white  toga,  whereas  the  writer  of  CORIOLANUS 
knew  of  no  such  usage.  To  ascribe  to  him  profound  and 
exact  knowledge  of  Roman  history  in  the  face  of  such 
facts  as  these  is  but  to  exhibit  superficiality  and  in 
accuracy. 

(2)  Mr.  G.  G.  Greenwood 

In  the  whole  of  this  discussion  we  have  a  standing 
illustration  of  the  vitiating  force  of  a  prepossession.  It 
was  an  idolatrous  prepossession  that  set  scholars  like 
Upton  and  Theobald  in  the  eighteenth  century  upon 
crediting  Shakespeare  with  high  scholarship.  Farmer 
appreciated  Shakespeare  as  much  as  they  did ;  but  his 
habit  of  comparative  scholarship  and  his  inductive  faculty 
made  clear  to  him  their  error.  Later  idolaters  and 
Baconians  alike  have  visibly  hated  him  for  his  pains. 
"  Anti-Stratfordians  "  like  my  friend  Mr.  G.  G.  Green 
wood,  setting  out  with  a  primary  ideal  of  a  highly  "  cul 
tured  "  mind  as  being  alone  capable  of  writing  "  Shake 
speare,"  clutch  desperately  at  every  semblance  of  classical 
knowledge  which  the  plays  and  poems  present ;  and, 
fiercely  intolerant  of  any  semblance  of  too-ready  belief 
on  the  "  Stratfordian  "  side,  are  profuse  of  their  "  cer- 
tainlys  "  and  "  undoubtedlys  "  over  the  merest  shadows 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       193 

of  evidence  for  their  own  faith.  Mr.  Greenwood,  I  see, 
takes  me  to  task1  for  representing  him  as  claiming  to 
prove  Shakespeare's  familiarity  with  Horace  on  the 
strength  of  two  lines  of  a  hackneyed  quotation,  when  in 
point  of  fact  he  had  in  another  passage  extended  the  two 
lines  to  four.  I  cheerfully  allow  the  correction,  noting 
afresh  the  absurd  exiguity  of  the  case  as  thus  stated. 
Had  Mr.  Greenwood  come  to  the  thesis  of  the  scholarship 
of  the  plays  in  the  temper  in  which  he  handles  what  he 
calls  the  "  tradition  "  of  the  authorship,  he  would  have 
laughed  to  scorn  the  notion  that  a  writer's  "  scholarship  " 
is  to  be  proved  by  a  few  scraps  of  translated  quotation, 
all  of  the  most  hackneyed  order.  He  labours  to  persuade 
us  that  when  Shakespeare  wrote  "  Most  sure,  the  goddess," 
he  must 2  have  remembered,  in  the  original,  Virgil's  "  O 
dea  certe  !  "  Well,  supposing  the  poet  had  remembered 
the  whole  passage,  where  is  the  proof  of  "  scholarship  "  ? 
Supposing  that,  without  blenching  over  Mr.  Greenwood's 
amusingly  violent  conjunction  of  Miranda's  "  certainly 
a  maid"  with  Venus's  "  Virginibus  Tyriis  mos  est,"  we 
allow  that  Shakespeare  may  well  have  read  that  and 
more  of  Virgil  at  school,  how  much  nearer  are  we,  in  the 
name  of  common  sense,  to  proving  "wide  familiarity 
with  the  classics,"  the  now  modified  form  to  which  Mr. 
Greenwood  reduces  his  former  claim  of  "  remarkable 
classical  attainments  "  ?3  On  a  perfectly  straightforward 
induction,  we  are  not  entitled  even  to  claim  that  the  poet 
had  "  O  dea  certe  "  in  mind.  Such  lines  as  Chapman's  : 

Without  all  question,  'twas  a  God,  the  Gods  are  easily  known, 

Trans,  of  Iliad,  xiii,  69  ; 

1  The  Vindicators  of  Shakespeare,  (n.d.),  p.  133. 

2  "  It  can  hardly  be  doubted,"  are  his  words,  p.  96. 

3  "  The  proof  "  that  the  dramatist  had  "  a  large  knowledge  of 
Latin,"  he  originally  declared,  "is  so  cogent  that  it  cannot  be 
disputed  "  (p.  102) — this  after  deriding  every  "  certainly  "  and 
"doubtless"    of    the    "  Stratfordians."     The    claim    is    simply 
ridiculous  ;    and  the  assertion  as  to   "a  very  fair  amount  of 
Greek  "  is  no  better. 

N 


I94  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

These  ears  and  these  self  eyes  approved 
It  was  a  Goddess, 

Id.  xxiv,  209-10  ; 

Straight  he  [Achilles]  knew  her  [ Athene"]  by  her  eyes,  so  terrible 
they  were. 

Id.  i,  204  ; 

Whose  [Aphrodite's]  virtue  Helen  felt  and  knew,   by  her  so 
radiant  eyes, 

Id.  iii,  415, 

should  serve  to  remind  us  that,  apart  from  direct  transla 
tions,  Elizabethan  belles  lettres  were  steeped  in  classical 
allusion  of  every  kind,  and  that  no  poet  could  miss  know 
ing  many  such  passages,  whatever  may  have  been  his 
schooling.  Mr.  Greenwood,  without  going  to  Farmer 
for  himself,  does  not  scruple  to  cite  from  Mr.  Churton 
Collins — whose  judgment  he  elsewhere  derides — the 
charge  that  Farmer  is  silent  "  on  almost  all  the  classical 
parallels  which  are  really  worth  considering."  That 
charge  was  disingenuous  in  the  highest  degree  ;  and  Mr. 
Greenwood's  reproduction  of  it  without  investigation  is 
a  confession  of  critical  insolvency.  Farmer  dealt  with 
all  parallels  of  any  importance  that  had  in  his  day  been 
put  forward  ;  and  Mr.  Churton  Collins  has  but  advanced 
equally  untenable  parallels,  of  which  Farmer  could  have 
disposed  at  a  glance.  The  argument  (of  Mr.  Collins) 
on  which  Mr.  Greenwood  relies  seems  to  be  that  Shake 
speare  was  as  likely  to  have  gone  to  Virgil  or  Ovid  as 
"  to  spell  out  mediaeval  homilies  and  archaic  Scotch." 
This  again  is  mere  misrepresentation  on  Mr.  Collins 's 
part.  Stanyhurst's  Virgil  is  not  mediaeval  homily  or 
archaic  Scotch  ;  and  Farmer's  point  was  that  the  phrase 
could  have  currency  in  English.  But  the  essential  thing 
is  that  the  passages  founded  on  are  never  such  as  a  poet 
would  "go  to  "  a  classic  for,  but  passages  and  phrases 
such  as  were  in  the  mouths  of  all  men  who  affected  litera 
ture.  Neither  Mr.  Collins  nor  Mr.  Greenwood  has  made 
the  slightest  attempt  to  meet  Farmer's  point,  that  Taylor, 
the  water-poet,  who  avowed  his  failure  to  get  through 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       195 

the  Latin  accidence,  and  his  ignorance  of  all  languages 
but  his  own,  has  a  far  greater  number  of  classical  allusions 
than  occur  in  all  the  Shakespeare  plays. 

In  his  determination  to  deny  the  possibility  of  any  use 
of  translations  by  an  Elizabethan  dramatist,  Mr.  Green 
wood,  like  Mr.  Collins,  falls  into  complete  misapprehen 
sion  and  distortion  of  an  opponent's  statement.  He 
thus  represents  me  as  having  found  a  cheap  "  solution  " 
for  the  small  element  of  classical  knowledge  in  the 
LUCRECE  : 

Shakespeare,  "having  decided  to  write  a  LUCRECE  as  contrast 
to  the  VENUS,"  *  may  have  "  had  a  translation  made  for  him  "  ! 
In  this  easy  manner  difficulties  are  jauntily  disposed  of  per 
saltum. 

Now,  what  I  actually  wrote  was  :  "  It  is  not  impossible, 
indeed,"  that  Shakespeare  may  have  had  a  translation 
made  for  him  "  .  .  .  but  that  hypothesis  is  unnecessary." 
The  "indeed,"  one  would  suppose,  must  have  led  any 
reader,  however  hasty,  to  note  the  waiving  of  the  possible 
plea.  In  the  passage  from  which  Mr.  Greenwood  quotes, 
I  expressly  proceed  to  indicate  that,  according  to  one 
testimony,  there  was  a  translation  of  the  FASTI,  published 
in  1570,  and  that  there  certainly  were  three  "ballads/' 
which  might  mean  poems,  or  even  plays,  of  any  length. 
Of  all  this  Mr.  Greenwood's  readers  could  have  no  notion 
from  the  kind  of  account  he  has  given  of  my  argument. 

In  this  connection  Mr.  Greenwood  endorses  another 
of  Mr.  Collins's  arguments  which,  upon  any  other  issue, 
he  would  have  seen  to  be  worthless.  Whereas  I  had 
spoken  of  "  the  many  manuscript  translations  then  in 
currency  "  of  Latin  poetry,  he  cites  Mr.  Collins's  state 
ment  that  in  the  British  Museum  MSS.  "  there  are  only 
two  versions  from  classical  dramatists  which  can  be 
assigned  to  the  sixteenth  century,"  and  that  "  this  seems 
proof  positive  that  classical  translations  could  not  have 
circulated  on  a  large  scale."  Mr.  Collins's  language  might 
1  Ref.  to  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  2nd  ed.  p.  314. 


ig6  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

almost  have  been  specially  chosen  in  order  to  obscure 
the  problem.  The  reason  for  believing  that  MS.  transla 
tions  of  Latin  poetry  were  numerous  in  Shakespeare's 
day  are  manifold  ;  and  I  confess  to  being  astonished  that 
any  one,  even  in  the  ardour  of  an  idee  fixe,  should  doubt 
the  likelihood.  The  argument  from  the  lack  of  preserved 
MSS.  is  surprisingly  uncritical.  Lady  Lumley's  transla 
tion  of  the  IPHIGENEIA  IN  AULIS,  made  about  1530,  might 
well  be  preserved  by  her  family ;  but  who  would  lay 
store  by  a  contemporary  manuscript  version  of  the  FASTI 
made  about  1590  ?  That  actual  versions  even  of  Greek 
plays  were  not  all  preserved  we  do  know.  Mr.  Collins 
ought  to  have  been  aware  that  Peele  translated  one  of 
the  two  IPHIGENEIAS  of  Euripides,  and  that  that  transla 
tion  is  not  extant.  But  translations  from  Ovid,  if  not 
by  noted  poets,  or  if  unmarked  by  special  merit,  would 
be  much  more  likely  to  be  let  go  as  old  scribblings. 

It  is  a  question  of  supply  and  demand.  I  have  seen 
a  number  of  French  MS.  versions,  made  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  from  the  works  of  English  deists,  of  which 
translations  were  printed.  The  MS.  versions,  which  were 
fair  copies,  may,  for  aught  I  know,  have  been  made 
either  before  or  after  those  actually  printed ;  in  those 
days  even  printed  deistical  books  soon  became  scarce 
through  seizures  and  destructions  ;  and  fresh  versions 
might  readily  be  made  by  enthusiastic  readers  for  their 
friends.  Of  the  genuine  and  complete  TESTAMENT  DE 
JEAN  MESLIER  a  good  many  MS.  copies  are  known  to  have 
been  current  in  the  eighteenth  century,  but  not  till  late 
in  the  nineteenth  was  one  recovered  for  a  printed  edition. 
The  MSS.  seen  by  me  were  not  in  the  Bibliotheque 
Nationale,  but  in  a  Paris  bookseller's  shop.  If  such 
MSS.  translations  from  English  into  French  were  current 
in  France  in  the  eighteenth  century,  why  should  any 
one  doubt  that  the  habit  of  doing  MS.  versions  of  Latin 
poetry,  certainly  common  since,  was  common  in  Shake 
speare's  day  ?  Did  Mr.  Greenwood,  I  wonder,  never 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       197 

do  such  translations  in  his  youth  ;  and,  if  so,  has  he 
preserved  them  ? l 

The  question  of  the  source  of  the  COMEDY  OF  ERRORS 
moves  Mr.  Greenwood  to  further  exclaim  against  all 
who  suggest  that  the  author  of  the  plays  ever  used  a 
translation,  though  he  is  perfectly  well  aware  that  North's 
Plutarch  was  "certainly"  used  for  the  composition  of 
the  three  Roman  plays.  Not  content  with  insisting  that 
Warner's  translation  of  the  MEN^ECHMI  is  not  to  be  traced 
anywhere  in  the  COMEDY,  2  he  protests  against  the  natural 
surmise  that  the  play  is  founded  on  the  old  HISTORIE 
OF  ERROR  recorded  to  have  been  played  before  Elizabeth 
"  by  the  children  of  Powles  "  in  1576-77.  "  Nothing  at 
all,"  says  Mr.  Greenwood,  "  is  known  about  this  early 
play."  After  all,  we  do  know  that  there  was  such  a 
play,  and  Mr.  Greenwood  should  let  that  count  for  some 
thing.  He  has  committed  himself  to  a  theory  of  the 
authorship  of  the  plays  by  a  man  of  whom  he  professes 
to  know  not  even  the  name.  Is  all  the  latitude  of 
hypothesis  to  be  one  way  ?  But  the  question  is  otiose  ; 
and  in  the  interests  of  rational  Shakespeare-criticism  I 
will  simply  indicate  what  seems  to  me  the  reasonable  view 
of  the  genesis  of  the  early  play,  as  to  which  Mr.  Green 
wood  appears  to  halt  oddly  between  two  opinions. 

It  is  really  not  in  the  least  necessary  to  find  a  given 
original  for  the  COMEDY.  The  essential  point  is  that  it 
is  a  composite  work.  Any  one  who  will  carefully  scan 
the  first  two  scenes  will  note  that  in  the  first,  which  has 
152  blank-verse  lines,  the  double-endings  are  only  2  per 

1  I  can  remember  doing,  in  my  early  teens,  a  punctilious 
translation  of  the   Life  of  Hannibal  (then  my  favourite  hero) 
from  Cornelius  Nepos  ;    and  in  my  later  teens,  versions  from 
Catullus,    Horace,    Boileau,    &c.     Three   hundred   years   hence, 
doubtless,  even  those  humble  performances  might  be  catalogued 
if  they  should  then  exist.     But  they  certainly  will  not  ! 

2  This,  of  course,  is  no  proof  that  Warner's  version  had  not 
been  used.     I  may  point  out  to  Mr.  Greenwood,  who  is  so  con 
temptuous  of  any  "  manuscript  "  suggestion,  that  the  printer's 


198  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

cent ;  while  in  the  second,  with  103  blank-verse  lines, 
the  "double-endings  number  25  — over  24  per  cent.  I 
know  no  theory  of  verse  evolution  which  would  ascribe 
the  two  scenes  to  the  same  hand  in  the  same  period.  But 
whereas  Shakespeare,  like  the  preceding  poets,  can  broadly 
be  seen  to  have  increased  his  proportion  of  double-endings 
as  he  progressed  in  his  art,  the  first  scene  of  the  COMEDY, 
which  has  only  three  double-endings,  is  much  better 
and  more  pregnant  in  style  than  the  shorter  second  scene, 
which  has  twenty-five.  No  such  diffuse  verse  as  that 
is  to  be  found  in  any  unquestioned  work  of  his  at  the 
time  at  which  he  used  any  such  large  proportion  of  double- 
endings.1  The  verse  of  the  second  scene,  with  all  its 
double-endings,  is  mostly  end-stopped — a  sure  mark  of 
early  work.  Then  the  second  scene  is  not  Shakespeare's, 
to  begin  with  ;  and  the  disparity  of  styles  is  to  be  noted 
throughout  the  play. 

Two  alternative  inferences  are  open.  The  play  may 
have  been  one  of  collaboration,  or  it  may  have  been  an 
adaptation  by  Shakespeare  of  a  previous  work.  There 
is  certainly  no  trace  of  versification  in  the  style  of  1576  : 
the  double-endings  in  the  second  scene  could  hardly  be 
dated  earlier  than  1591  for  any  author ;  and  the  theory 
of  collaboration  is  therefore  the  more  likely  one.  But 
on  either  theory  we  are  relieved  of  the  problem  of  the 
classic  "  source  "  ;  for  the  collaborator  may  have  known 
his  Plautus  without  resort  either  to  Warner  or  to  the 
HISTORIE  OF  ERROR  ;  and  it  is  the  collaborator  (or 
previous  writer)  who  begins  the  Plautine  work  of  the 
play. 

By  this  strictly  inductive  line  of  inference  we  reach  a 
view  of  Shakespeare's  early  work  which  clears  up  other 

advertisement  to  Warner's  translation  (entered  in  1594)  expressly 
states  that  it  had  been  circulated  for  some  time  in  MS. 

1  His  share  in  Richard  III,  where  the  double-endings  are  so 
numerous,  has  long  been  in  dispute.  I  have  always  held  that 
play  to  be  but  a  partial  recast  of  other  men's  work — Marlowe's 
and  Kyd's,  for  choice. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       199 

mystifications.  For  my  own  part,  I  have  always  insisted 
on  a  loyal  acceptance  of  Shakespeare's  own  express 
declaration  that  VENUS  AND  ADONIS  was  the  "  first  heir 
of  his  invention  ";x  and  I  have  never  been  able  to  believe 
that  he  would  have  kept  such  a  work  by  him  for  years 
unpublished.  The  only  justifiable  interpretation  of  his 
phrase  is  "  the  first  work  planned  and  composed  by  me." 
Standing  to  that  interpretation,  I  have  always  argued 
that  the  dramatic  work  done  by  him  before  1593  was  but 
collaboration  or  adaptation.  But  I  never  held,  as  Mr. 
Greenwood  so  strangely  assumes  in  his  SHAKESPEARE 
PROBLEM  RESTATED,  that  Shakespeare  had  done  no 
dramatic  writing  before  1593.  Mr.  Greenwood  puts  the 
case  thus  :  2 

Mr.  J.  M.  Robertson,  too,  roundly  asserts  that  we  must  take 
Shakespeare  strictly  at  his  word,  and  believes,  since  Venus  and 
Adonis  was  the  first  heir  of  his  invention,  that  all  the  plays  were 
written  subsequently  to  that  date.  If  so,  these  eleven,  twelve 
["  the  Meres  list  "]  or  more  dramas  must  have  been  composed  by 
Shakespeare,  and  brought  upon  the  stage  (if  not  also  published) 
between  1593  and  1598.  If  Mr.  Robertson  can  believe  this,  he 
has  indeed  great  faith,  which  seems  to  be  reserved  for  the  Strat- 
fordian  Gospel  only,  Credat  JudcBus,  non  ego  ! 

I  regret  to  observe  that  my  friend,  who  is  always  so 
scrupulously  respectful  to  the  wildest  theses  of  the 
Baconians,  resorts  to  his  "  Credat  Judaeus  "  only  when 
he  is  exclaiming  at  a  "  Stratfordian  "  thesis  which  he 
has  entirely  misunderstood,  or  at  some  point  where  his 
own  view  is  demonstrably  the  irrational  one.3  It  is  his 
indiscriminating  zeal  for  his  own  thesis  of  an  absolutely 
unknown  and  untraceable  author — in  regard  to  whom 
his  "  faith  "  is  truly  transcendental — that  has  led  him  so 
hopelessly  to  misconceive  me.  Yet  his  own  footnote 
to  the  very  passage  I  have  quoted  shows  him  to  have 

1  As  to  this  see  Did  Shakespeare  write  "  Titus  Andronicus  "? 
pp.  22-23. 

2  Work  cited,  p.  517.  8  See  above,  p.  177. 


200  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

had  the  facts  in  view.     To  the  words  above  italicised 
by  me  he  has  appended  the  note  : 

With  this  alternative,  however,  viz.  that  "  Shakespeare  for  the 
best  reasons  would  not  regard  as  heirs  of  his  invention  plays  in 
which  he  used  other  men's  drafts  or  shared  with  others  the  task 
of  composition"  (Did  Shakespeare  write  '  Titus  \  A  ndronicus  '  ? 
p.  29).  It  is  suggested  therefore  that  he  had  collaborators 
[I  wrote  "  collaborators  or  draughtsmen  "]  for  The  Two  Gentlemen, 
Love's  Labour's  Lost,  The  Comedy  of  Errors,  the  Dream,  Richard 
II,  and  other  early  plays. 

Thus  Mr.  Greenwood  had  my  real  opinion  before  him. 
What  he  oddly  calls  an  alternative  is  the  substantive 
thesis.  Why  then  did  he  leave  standing  in  the  text  his 
complete  misconception  of  it  ?  Apparently  a  fling  at 
"  the  Stratfordian  Gospel  "  could  not  be  foregone.  If 
Mr.  Greenwood  could  only  get  his  "Stratfordian" 
troubles  out  of  his  head,  he  would,  with  his  power  to 
recognise  the  non-Shakespearean  character  of  TITUS 
ANDRONICUS,  soon  realize  that  the  loyal  construction  of 
"  first  heir  of  my  invention  "  brings  everything  into  line. 
The  only  plays  commonly  dated  before  1598  which  we 
have  good  ground  for  pronouncing  wholly  Shakespearean 
in  style  are  THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  and  HENRY  IV. 
With  Fleay,  indeed,  I  am  willing  to  date  the  first  draft 
of  TWELFTH  NIGHT  as  early  as  1594,  agreeing  with  him 
that  the  play  was  certainly  revised  or  rewritten  later. 
It  may,  in  my  opinion,  have  been  the  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S 
WON  of  Meres'  list,  though  it  only  imperfectly  answers 
to  that  title.  But  whether  we  assign  that  title  to  TWELFTH 
NIGHT  or  to  MUCH  ADO  or  to  ALL'S  WELL,  and  date  the 
first  form  of  any  one  of  them  before  1598 ;  and  whether 
or  not  we  give  Shakespeare  the  whole  of  the  Two  GENTLE 
MEN1  (I  prefer  to  posit  a  foundation  play  by  Greene), 
we  have  no  difficulty  about  placing  the  plays  in  question 
between  1593  and  1598.  On  the  other  hand  there  can 
be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  of  the  plays  indicated  by 

1  Some  critics  have  doubted  the  genuineness  of  the  entire  play. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       201 

me  as  works  of  collaboration  or  adaptation  a  number 
were  written  before  1593,  as  were  the  HENRY  VI  group. 
I  would  only  add  that  I  see  nothing  of  Shakespeare  in 
TITUS,  nothing  in  i  HENRY  VI,  and  next  to  nothing  in 
the  SHREW. 

If  the  reader  will  keep  in  view  these  last  propositions, 
he  may  be  assisted  in  his  scrutiny  of  the  "  classical  " 
thesis,  as  put  by  Baconians  and  others.  Quantitatively, 
the  classical  case,  as  regards  direct  classical  allusions  and 
quotations,  points  precisely  to  the  most  doubtful  of  all 
the  plays  published  as  Shakespeare's  in  the  Folio.  This 
alone  is  surely  a  reason  for  vigilant  examination  of  the 
general  ascription  to  the  dramatist  of  a  "  wide  knowledge 
of  the  classics."  Mr.  Greenwood,  who  is  so  confident 
about  the  Latin  scholarship  of  the  playwright,  agrees 
with  me  in  dismissing  TITUS  and  most  of  the  HENRY  VI 
group  ;  and  I  do  not  see  how  he  can  differ  from  the  mass 
of  critical  opinion  as  to  the  SHREW  ;  yet  it  is  on  these 
plays  that  the  bulk  of  the  classical  case,  which  he  supports, 
is  founded.  But  it  is  only  rarely  that  we  need  even 
recall  this  particular  ground  for  demurrer.  The  Baconian 
case,  as  we  have  thus  far  examined  it,  and  as  it  presents 
itself  in  the  writers  dealt  with  in  the  following  sections, 
consists  in  imputing  classical  scholarship  for  every 
semblance  of  a  classical  allusion,  and  generally  collapses 
on  the  first  application  of  comparative  tests. 

(3)  Dr.  R.  M.  Theobald* 

Dr.  Theobald  follows  up  Mr.  Donnelly  in  this  as  in 
other  matters,  naturally  making  the  most  of  what  had 
been  said  by  idolatrous  commentators,  in  particular 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cowden  Clarke,  of  the  "  miraculous  "  quality 
of  the  classical  learning  shown  in  the  plays.  Taking 
these  and  other  pronouncements  as  unchallenged,  taking 
Leigh  Hunt's  verdict  (that  Shakespeare's  poetry  is  if 

1  Shakespeare  Studies  in  Baconian  Light,  ed.  1904,  ch.  xiii. 


202  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

anything  "  too  learned  ")  as  one  which  "  completely 
disposes  of  Milton's  uncritical  lines,"  and  without  saying 
a  word  of  the  old  ESSAY  ON  THE  LEARNING  OF  SHAKE 
SPEARE  by  Dr.  Farmer,  he  proceeds  in  the  customary 
Baconian  way  to  claim  that  Shakespeare,  the  actor, 
cannot  have  had  the  scholarship  thus  ascribed.  "  The 
poet  was  assuredly  no  untutored  child  of  nature,  but  a 
scholar  and  a  man  of  the  world."  "  The  unbiassed, 
uncritical  [sic  /]  reader  of  the  poems  must  inevitably 
conclude  that  the  Poet  was  a  learned  man,  and  that 
neither  genius,  nor  good  fellowship,  nor  cribs  can  account 
for  the  classic  element  in  his  writings."  "  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  if  there  were  no  controversial  necessity 
for  maintaining  that  William  Shakespeare  was  a  very ' ' 
[who  said  very  P1]  "  imperfectly  educated  man,  if  it  could 
be  proved  that  he  ...  had  had  a  university  education 
and  acquired  a  complete  mastery  of  the  classic  languages 
and  literature,  ...  no  one  would  hesitate  to  accept  the 
very  strong  indications  of  scholarship  in  the  poems  as 
.  .  .  entirely  characteristic  of  such  antecedents  and 
training." 

Such  are  the  preliminary  assertions  :  let  us  come  to 
the  proofs.  After  all  his  parade  of  asserted  abundance 
of  classic  learning  and  allusion  in  the  plays,  Dr.  Theobald 
dutifully  proceeds  to  repeat,2  after  Mr.  Donnelly  and 
the  rest  : 

i.  The  argument  which  we  have  fully  dealt  with  above 
(p.  189),  helplessly  copied  from  Richard  Grant  White,  as 
to  the  derivation  from  Plato  of  the  passage  in  TROILUS 

1  Mr.  Greenwood,  noticing  in  his  Vindicators  of  Shakespeare  my 
demurrer  to  his  assumption  that  the  view  opposed  to  his  ascribed 
ignorance  and  complete  lack  of  culture  to  the  Poet,  pleasantly 
observes  that  I  "  admit  "  I  do  not  entertain  such  an  idea  ;   but 
adds  :    "  Such  an  idea  has  been  held  and  maintained  by  many  " 
(p.  1 36) .     What  I  want  to  know  is,  who  were  they  ? 

2  For  most  of  his  references,  he  admits,  he  is  "  indebted  either 
to  Stapfer  or  Lewis  Theobald."     Work  cited,  p.  305.      I  take  his 
selection  as  showing  what  Baconians  are  disposed  to  stand  to. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       203 

about  the  eye  not  seeing  itself.  On  that  head,  no  further 
refutation  is  needed. 

2.  Next  comes  the  other  well-worn  plea  from  the 
"  most  profound  and  philosophic  discussion  "  in  HENRY  V 
(I,  ii,  180-213),  "  of  the  mutual  dependence  of  different 
offices  and  functions  in  a  government,  which  is  compared 
to  the  structure  of  a  harmonic  combination  in  music. 
This  idea,"  we  are  dogmatically  assured,  "  is  taken  from 
a  portion  of  Cicero's  long  lost  treatise  DE  REPUBLICA, 
a  fragment  of  which  is  preserved  by  St.  Augustine." 
Charles  Knight  is  of  course  quoted,  to  the  effect  that 
"  the  lines  of  Shakespeare  are  more  deeply  imbued  with 
Platonic  philosophy  than  the  passage  of  Cicero,"  so  that 
Shakespeare  had  inferribly  read  Plato's  REPUBLIC  in 
the  original. 

We  have  here  the  standing  illustration  of  the  childish 
position  that  Shakespeare  had  read  deeply  in  the  Greek 
and  Latin  classics,  only  to  produce  a  few  references  to 
commonplaces  which  had  for  centuries  been  themes  of 
didactic  writing.  He  is  assumed  on  the  one  hand  to 
have  gone  to  Augustine  for  the  fragment  of  Cicero, 
though  he  gives  no  other  sign  of  having  read  the  DE 
CIVITATE  DEI  ;  and  he  is  held  on  the  other  hand  to 
have  read  Plato's  REPUBLIC,  though  he  nowhere  else 
seems  to  quote  it.  Knight  solemnly  averred  that  the 
passage  "  develops  unquestionably  the  great  Platonic 
doctrine  of  the  Tri-unity  of  the  three  great  principles 
in  man  with  the  idea  of  a  State."  It  is  all  a  futile  mystifi 
cation.  The  Baconians  cannot  even  pretend  that  the 
passage  is  duplicated  in  Bacon  :  they  do  but  take  for 
granted  that,  being  "  classic,"  it  must  be  from  Bacon's 
pen.  Obviously,  the  passage  is  ultimately  traceable  to 
Augustine's  quotation  from  Cicero  ;  and  if  Shakespeare 
had  seen  that  in  the  original,  his  small  Latin  might  suffice 
to  translate  it.  But  it  is  idle  to  make  such  an  assumption 
in  regard  to  a  passage  so  likely  to  be  dilated  upon  by 
divines  and  moralists.  Richard  Grant  White,  whose 


204  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

far-fetched  parallel  between  Plato  and  the  TROILUS 
passage  has  fooled  the  Baconians  to  the  top  of  their 
bent,  swung  to  the  other  extreme  when  he  wrote1  that 
*'  it  is  more  than  superfluous  to  seek,  as  some  have  sought, 
in  Cicero's  DE  REPUBLIC  A  the  origin  of  this  simile  ;  for 
that  book  was  lost  to  literature,  and  unknown,  except 
by  name,  until  Angelo  Mai  discovered  it  upon  a  palimpsest 
in  the  Vatican,  and  gave  it  to  the  world  in  1822."  A 
professed  commentator  might  have  been  supposed  to 
know  that  Lewis  Theobald  in  his  notes  on  his  edition 
cited  the  very  passage  in  question  from  the  DE  CIVITATE 
DEI.  "  Cicero,"  adds  White,  "  very  probably  borrowed 
the  fancy  from  Plato  ;  but  it  was  not  Shakespeare's  way 
to  go  so  far  for  that  which  lay  near  to  hand."  This 
opinion  is  ignored  by  the  Baconians.  They  might  indeed 
reply  that  the  expressions  "  through  high  and  low  and 
lower,  put  into  parts,  doth  keep  in  one  concent  .  .  .  like 
music,"  do  point  specially  to  Cicero's  "  Sic  ex  summis, 
et  mediis  et  in  infimis  interjectis  ordinibus,  ut  sonis  .  .  . 
consensu  dissimiliorum  concinere ;  et  quae  harmonia  a 
musicis  ...  in  civitate  concordiam."  But  the  reason 
able  inference  is  that  the  passage  had  often  been  applied 
to  politics  by  previous  writers. 

The  passage  cited  from  HENRY  V  is  followed  by  the 
well-known  one  on  the  polity  of  the  bees,  which  Malone 
long  ago  showed  to  be  substantially  derived  from  EUPHUES 
AND  His  ENGLAND.  But  there  are  other  clues.  The 
theme  of  "  the  state  of  man  "  is  handled  afresh  in  TROILUS, 
which  the  Baconians  do  not  cite  in  this  connection.  But 
both  passages  suggest  very  distinctly  reminiscences  of 
Elyot's  BOKE  OF  THE  GOVERNOUR,  or  of  some  discourse 
or  discourses  which  drew  upon  that  and  upon  Lilly. 
Elyot  insists  on  "  degree,"  and  "  higher  and  lower,"  and 
he  combines  with  his  thesis  the  illustration  of  the  bees' 
commonwealth.  The  first  chapter  of  THE  GOVERNOUR 

1  Essay  on  Shakespeare's  Genius,  pref.  to  ed.  of  Works,  vol.  i, 
p.  ccxxv. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP      205 

sets  out  with  a  pointed  discrimination  between  "  publike 
weale  "  and  "  commune  weale,"  the  latter  term  being 
condemned  (with  an  obvious  aim  at  Sir  Thomas  More) 
as  suggesting  "  that  every  thinge  should  be  to  all  men 
in  commune."  Elyot  dwells  on 

the  discrepance  of  degrees,  whereof  proceedeth  ordre.  .  .  More 
over,  take  away  ordre  from  all  things,  what  should  then  remayne  ? 
Certes  nothynge  finally,  except  some  man  would  imagine  eft 
soones  Chaos.  .  .  .  Where  there  is  any  lacke  of  ordre  needes 
must  be  perpertuall  conflicte  ;  and  in  thynges  subiecte  to  Nature 
nothynge  of  hym  self  only  may  be  norisshed ;  but  when  he  hath 
destroyed  that  wherewith  he  doth  participate  by  the  ordre  of  his 
creation,  he  himselfe  of  necessite  must  then  perisshe,  whereof 
ensueth  universal  dissolution.  .  .  . 

Hath  not  [God]  set  degrees  and  estates  in  all  his  glorious  workes  ? 
Fyrst  in  his  hevenly  ministres,  whom  ...  he  hath  constituted 
to  be  in  divers  degrees  called  hierarchies.  Beholde  the  four 
elements  whereof  the  body  of  man  is  compacte,  how  they  be 
set  in  their  places  called  spheris,  higher  or  lower,  ...  so  that 
in  every  thing  is  ordre,  and  without  ordre  may  be  nothing  stable 
or  permanent,  and  it  may  not  be  called  ordre,  except  it  do  conteyne 
it  in  degrees,  high  and  base.  .  .  And  like  as  ...  the  fire  which 
is  the  most  pure  of  elements  ...  is  deputed  to  the  highest 
sphere  or  place.  .  .  . 

In  the  second  chapter  follows  an  account  of  the  life  of 
the  bees  : 

lefte  to  man  by  nature,  as  it  seemeth  a  perpetuall  figure  of  a  just 
governance  or  rule,  who  hath  among  them  one  principall  Bee  for 
their  governeur,  who  excelleth  all  other  in  greatness,  yet  hath 
he  no  prick  or  stinge.  .  .  .  The  capitayne  hym  selfe  laboureth 
not  for  his  sustenance,  but  all  the  other  for  him  ;  he  only  seeth 
that  if  any  drone  or  other  unprofitable  bee  entreth  into  the 
hyve^ .  .  .  that  he  be  immediately  expelled  from  that 
company.  .  .  . 

Compare  Shakespeare  : 

While  that  the  armed  hand  doth  fight  abroad 
The  advised  head  defends  itself  at  home. 
For  government,  through  high  and  low  and  lower 
Put  into  parts,  doth  keep  in  one  concent.  .  .  . 

Therefore  doth  heaven  divide 
The  state  of  man  in  divers  functions.  .  .  . 


206  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

To  which  is  fixed,  as  an  aim  or  butt, 
Obedience  ;  for   so  work  the  honey  bees, 
Creatures  that  by  a  rule  in  nature,  teach 
The  act  of  order  to  a  peopled  kingdom. 
They  have  a  king.  .  .  . 
Who,  busied  in  his  majesty  surveys  .... 
Delivering  o'er  to  executors  pale 
The  lazy  yawning  drone. 

Henry  V.  i.  2. 

When  that  the  general  is  not  like  the  hive, 
To  whom  the  foragers  shall  all  repair, 
What  honey  is  expected  ?     Degree  being  vizarded, 
The  unworthiest  shows  as  fairly  in  the  mask. 
The  heavens  themselves,  the  planets  and  the  centre, 
Observe  degree.  .  .  . 
And  therefore  is  the  glorious  planet  Sol 
In  noble  eminence  enthroned  and  sphered.   .  .  . 

O,  when  degree  is  shaked 
Which  is  the  ladder  to  all  high  designs, 
Then  enterprise  is  sick  !     How  should  communities, 
Degrees  in  schools,  and  brotherhoods  in  cities.  .  .  . 
But  by  degree,  stand  in  authentic  place  ? 
Take  but  degree  away,  untune  that  string 
And  hark,  what  discord  follows  !     each  thing  meets 
In  mere  oppugnancy.  .  .  . 

Great  Agamemnon, 
This  chaos,  when  degree  is  suffocate, 
Follows  the  choking.  .  .  ..  ' 

Troilus  and  Cressida,  i,    3. 
fe 

It  does  not  follow  that  Shakespeare  had  Elyot  directly 
in  mind  when  he  wrote  :  the  general  topic  is  obviously 
likely  to  have  been  commented  often  between  Elyot's 
day  and  his.  Long  before  Elyot  and  Lilly,  Bartholomew 
had  discoursed  imaginatively  of  the  bees  in  his  cyclopaedia 
De  proprietatibus  rerum  ;*  and  a  hundred  homilists  must 
have  handled  the  theme.  But  some  line  of  'connection 
between  Elyot  and  Shakespeare  there  surely  was  ;  and 
there  is  no  need  to  make  the  latter  resort  to  Augustine 
for  ideas  so  certainly  current  in  his  own  tongue,  whether 

1  See  the  extracts  from  Berthelet's  ed.  (1535)  of  Trevisa's 
trans,  in  Dr.  Seager's  Natural  History  in  Shakespeare's  Time,  1896, 
PP-  32-33- 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       207 

written  or  spoken.  The  Baconians  should  be  the  last 
people  to  dispute  that  Shakespeare  had  read  and  remem 
bered  either  Elyot's  treatise  or  others  which  drew  from 
it  and  from  Bartholomew.  Had  they  found  any  such 
"  echoes  and  correspondencies "  between  Shakespeare 
and  Bacon,  they  would  have  been  glad  to  rest  their  whole 
case  upon  them.  For  the  rest  of  us  it  is  sufficient  to  say 
that  Shakespeare  certainly  did  thus  utilise  English  books 
and  discourses  ;  and  that,  this  being  clear,  it  is  worse 
than  idle  to  ascribe  to  him  Greek  and  Latin  erudition 
to  account  for  his  knowledge  of  a  few  classical  common 
places.  And  still  more  futile,  in  this  connection,  is  the 
Baconian  hypothesis.  Dr.  Theobald  does  not  make  out 
one  verbal  coincidence  between  Shakespeare  and  Bacon 
in  respect  of  the  "Platonic  "  passages,  familiar  as  were 
the  commonplaces  they  set  forth. 

3.  Dr.    Theobald    reproduces    the    parallel    between 
Hamlet's 

Lay  her  i'  the  earth, 
And  from  her  fair  and  unpolluted  flesh 
May  violets  spring  ! 

and  Persius' 

Non  nunc  e  manibus  istis, 
Non  nunc  e  tumulo,  fortunataque  fa  villa, 
Nascentur  violae  ? 

As  I  have  elsewhere1  pointed  out,  the  second  and  third 
lines  cited  from  Persius  are  quoted  by  Montaigne  in  his 
essay  OF  GLORY,  and  are  duly  translated  by  Florio  (1603). 
As  there  are  a  number  of  clear  echoes  of  Montaigne  in 
HAMLET,  the  reasonable  presumption  is  that  Shakespeare 
found  them  there.  But 

4.  Shakespeare  speaks  of  "  method  in  madness  "  in 
HAMLET,  II,  ii,  207  ;  M.  FOR  M.,  V,  i,  63  ;  and  LEAR,  IV, 
vi,  178-9.     This  Dr.  Theobald  refers  to  Horace  : 

Insanire  paret  certa  ratione  modoque, 

Sat.  II,  iii,  271  ; 

1  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  2nd  ed.  1909,  section  on  "The 
Learning  of  Shakespeare,"  p.  329. 


208  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

citing  in  this  connection  Bacon's  "  cum  ratione  qua- 
darn  et  prudentia  insanirent  "  (Nov.  ORG.  pref.),  and  an 
extract  in  the  PROMUS  from  Horace,  SAT.  II,  iii,  120. 
This  item  Shakespeare  might  very  well  have  known  with 
"  small  Latin."  But  the  first  two  Books  of  the  Satires 
had  been  twice  translated  in  English — by  Lucas  Evans 
in  1564,  and  by  B.  L.  in  1567  ;  and  the  whole  of  the 
Satires,  with  the  Art  of  Poetry  and  the  Epistles,  by 
Thomas  Drant  in  1567. 

5.  As  might  have  been  expected,  the  "  un disco ver'd 
country  "  lines  in  HAMLET  are  by  Dr.  Theobald  as  by 
his  predecessors  affirmed  to  be  "  evidently  taken  from 
Catullus  "  ;    though  Dr.  Theobald  does  not  repeat  Mr. 
Donnelly's  exploit  with  the  "  brief  candle  "  rendering 
of  brevis  lux.     I  must  repeat  here,  what  I  have  pointed 
out  elsewhere,  that  the  old  commentators  cited  for  the 
line  in  question  the  phrase  in  Sandford's  translation  of 
Cornelius  Agrippa  (circa  1570  :    described  by  Steevens 
as  "  once  a  book  of  uncommon  popularity  ")  :    "  The 
countrie  of  the  dead  is  irremeable,  that  they  cannot 
return  "  ;   and  the  parallel  in  Marlowe's  EDWARD  II : 

Weep  not  for  Mortimer, 
That  scorns  the  world,  and  as  a  traveller, 
Goes  to  discover  countries  yet  unknown. 

The  Catullus  derivation  is  thus  one  more  delusion. 

6.  Dr.  Theobald,  however,  undertakes  to  show  "  many 
other    quotations    from    Catullus."     He    cites    from    2 
HENRY  IV,  I,  i,  47,  the  phrase  "  devour  the  way,"  claim 
ing  to  be  the  first  to  refer  it  to  "  its  classic  source  "  in 
Catullus  (xxxiii)  : 

Quare,  si  sapiet,  viam  vorabit. 

The  variorum  edition  would  have  informed  him  that 
Blackstone  and  Malone  between  them  traced  it  to 
Nemesian — 

latumque  fuga  consumere  campum. 

But  it  would  further  have  referred  him  to  Job  xxxix  : 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       209 

"  He  swalloweth  the  ground  with  fierceness  and  rage," 
and  to  Ben  Jonson's  SEJANUS  (v,  10,  near  end)  : 

With  that  speed  and  heat  of  appetite 
With  which  they  greedily  devour  the  way 
To  some  great  sports. 

It  was  evidently  a  current  trope,  like  Ariel's  "  I  drink 
the  air." 

7.  Parallels   between   Miranda's   "  I   am   your  wife " 
speech  (TEMPEST,  III,  i,  83)  and  Ariadne's  cry  in  Catullus' 
EPITHALAMIUM  PELEI  ET  THETIDOS  (158  sq.)  : 

Si  tibi  non  corda  fuerant  connubia  nostra,  &c.  ; 

and  again  between  Catullus'  lenta  vitis  lines  (!N  NUPTIAS 
JULI.E  ET  MANLII,  106  sq.)  and  Adriana's 

Thou  art  an  elm,  my  husband,  I  a  vine, 

(Comedy  of  Errors,  II,  ii,  176  sq.) 

are  really  not  worth  discussing.  The  image  is  of  universal 
vogue,  e.g.  : 

As  the  Vine  married  unto  the  Elme 
With  strict  embraces. 

Daniel,  Complaint  of  Rosamond,  1592,  11.  829-30. 

And  it  is  nearly  always  those  universally  current  tropes 
that  are  cited  to  prove  Shakespeare's  classical  scholarship. 

8.  Of  course  the  lines  : 

What  stronger  breastplate  than  a  heart  untainted  ? 
Thrice  is  he  arm'd  that  hath  his  quarrel  just 

(2  Henry  VI,  III,  ii,  232), 

must  be  derived  from  the  equally  familiar  lines  : 

Illi  robur  et  aes  triplex 
Circa  pectus  erat. 

Horace,  Carm.  I,  ii:,  9-10. 

In  vain  did  Malone  point  out  that  in  LUST'S  DOMINION, 
an  old  play  probably  in  part  by  Marlowe  (circa  1588) 
occur  the  lines  : 

Come,  Moor  ;  I'm  arm'd  with  more  than  complete  steel, 
The  justice  of  my  quarrel. 

Those  cited  from  2  HENRY  VI  are  almost  certainly 

o 


210  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

non-Shakespearean.  In  any  case  they  are  not  the 
equivalent  of  the  Horatian  phrase.1 

9.  Dr.  Theobald  naturally  affirms  that  the  allusion  to 
Roman  lachrimatories  in  ANTONY   (I,  iii,  63)  is  "  very 
remarkable  "  for  its  "  classic  learning,"  "  referring  as  it 
does  to  usages  not  likely  to  be  familiar  to  an  unlearned 
writer."     It  is  as  likely  to  have  been  known  to  English 
readers  in  Shakespeare's  day  as  the  Roman  usage  of 
burning  the  dead. 

10.  "  When  Aegon  begins  the  story  of  his  life  with  : 

A  heavier  task  could  not  have  been  imposed 
Than  I  to  speak  my  griefs  unspeakable  " 

(Com.  Er.  I,  i,  32), 

says  Dr.  Theobald,  "  the  poet  must  certainly  have  had 
in  his  mind  the  well-known  line  of  Virgil : 

Infandum,  regina,  jubes  renovare  dolorem." 

And  if  he  had,  he  was  only  referring  to  one  of  the  most 
hackneyed  lines  in  Latin  literature,  which  he  had  para 
phrased  to  his  hand  in  Marlowe  and  Nashe's  DIDO,  1594  : 

A  woeful  tale  bids  Dido  to  unfold, 

Whose  memory,  like  pale  Death's  stormy  mace, 

Beats  forth  my  senses  from  this  troubled  breast. 

But  in  neither  case  do  we  have  a  close  resemblance. 

11.  "In  the  same  speech,"  adds  our  Baconian,  "  when 
he  says  : 

For  what  obscured  light  the  heavens  did  grant 
Did  but  convey  unto  our  fearful  minds 
A  doubtful  warrant  of  immediate  death. 

1  In  discussing  many  other  passages  of  plays  which  I  believe 
to  have  been  only  worked  over,  adapted,  or  collaborated -in  by 
Shakespeare,  I  make  no  attempt  to  meet  the  Baconian  argument 
by  suggesting  other  authorship.  To  such  a  consideration 
Baconians  seem  to  be  impervious  ;  and  in  nearly  every  case  they 
can  be  easily  confuted  even  on  their  own  lines.  But  as  I  have 
in  some  cases  pointed  out  the  non-Shakespearean  character  of 
passages  stressed  by  them,  I  think  it  well  to  explain  that  omission 
to  say  the  same  thing  in  other  cases  where  it  would  apply  does 
not  mean  acceptance  of  the  passage  discussed  as  really 
Shakespearean. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       211 

the  poet  is  reproducing  Virgil's 

Praesentemque  vires  intentant  ornnia  mortem." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  such  a  "  reproduction." 

12.  The  allusions  to  "  Sybil/'  Xantippe,  and  the  swelling 
Adriatic  in  the  SHREW  (I,  ii,  70),  prove  to  Dr.  Theobald 
that  the  poet's  mind  is  "  full  of  classic  illustration  "  ; 
and  we  are  reminded  that  Bacon  refers  to  "Sybilla"1 
in  his  essay  on  DELAYS.     All  this  is  truly  remarkable 
classical  learning  !     The  fact  that  most  good  critics  are 
of  opinion  that  the  SHREW  was  not  by  Shakespeare  will 
naturally  have  no  influence  with  Baconians. 

13.  The  references  to  the  "  many-headed  multitude  " 
in  CORIOLANUS  (II,  iii,  17)  and  to  the  "  blunt  monster 
with  uncounted  heads  "  in  2  HENRY  IV  (Induction,  18) 
are  of    course    declared  to  be  "  derived  from  Horace — 
Bellua  multorum  es  capitum."    The  Baconian  is  as  usual 
unaware  that  in  Elyot's  GOVERNOUR  (1531)  occurs  the 
remark  that  the  Athenian  democracy   "  moughte  well 
be  called  a  monstre  with  many  heedes  "  (B.  i,  c.  2)  ;  and 
that    "  many-headed    multitude "    occurs    in    Sidney's 
ARCADIA  (B.  ii).     Yet  he  might  have  learned  the  latter 
fact   from  Bartlett's  FAMILIAR  QUOTATIONS.     Without 
going  to  either  Elyot  or  Sidney,  Shakespeare  could  have 
got  the  tag  from  a  previous  play.     It  occurs  in  the  first 
part  of  Marlowe's  TAMBURLAINE  (Pt.  I,  iv,  3) 

A  monster  of  five  hundred  thousand  heads  ; 
also  in  THE  TROUBLESOME  RAIGNE  OF  KING  JOHN  : 

The  multitude,  a  beast  of  many  heads, 
Hazlitt's  Shakespeare  Library,  Part  II,  vol.  i,  p.  290  ; 

and  in  Daniel's  poem  (1595)  on  THE  CIVIL  WARS  (ii,  12)  : 

This  many-headed  monster  Multitude  ; 

1  Bacon  of  course  wrote  "  Sibylla."  Shakespeare  in  the 
Merchant  (i,  2)  spells  "  Sibilla  "  ;  and  in  Othello  (iii,  4)  "  Sybill." 
But  in  the  non-Shakespearean  Shrew  also  (i,  2)  we  have  "  Sibell  " 
and  "  Zentippe  "  ;  and  in  Titus  (iv,  i)  "  Sibel." 


212  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

to  say  nothing  of  the  later  plays  which  show  it  to  have 
been  a  common  expression.  And  Bacon  quoted  Horace 
too! 

14.  Juliet's  lines  : 

Thou  mays't  prove  false  :   at  lovers'  perjuries 
They  say,  Jove  laughs, 

"  may  have  been  taken  either  from  Tibullus  or  Ovid," 
says  Dr.  Theobald,  with  comparative  moderation.  The 
implication  is  that  when  Shakespeare  puts  a  "  they  say  " 
into  the  mouth  of  a  girl  he  is  writing  something  which 
he  does  not  know  to  be  a  common  saw,  and  is  importing 
a  classical  quotation  from  his  own  reading.  Dr.  Theobald 
admits  that  "  in  Marlowe  there  is  a  metrical  version  : 

For  Jove  himself  sits  in  the  azure  skies 
And  laughs,  below,  at  lovers'  perjuries." 

This  he  learned  from  one  commentator,  and,  being  con 
vinced  that  Bacon  wrote  Marlowe,  is  willing  to  mention 
it.  From  Malone  he  might  have  learned  that  the  phrase 
occurs  also  in  GREENE'S  METAMORPHOSIS.  And  if  he 
had  read  Lilly's  ENDIMION  he  would  have  noted  (i,  2)  : 

If  the  gods  sit  unequal  beholders  of  injuries,  or  laughers  at 
lovers'  deceits,  then  let  mischief  be  as  well  forgiven  in  women  as 
perjury  winked  at  in  men. 

15.  The  same  inveterate  unwisdom  is  shown  in  the 
citation  of  Lewis  Theobald's  note  to  the  jocular  direction 
of  Launcelot  in  the  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  (II,  ii,  42)  : 
"  Turn  upon  your  right  hand  at  the  next  turning,  but 
at  the  next  turning  of  all,"  &c.     The  commentator  sug 
gested  that  it  "  seemed  to  be  copied  "  from  Terence's 
ADELPHI,  iv,  2.     It  is  simply  not  copied.     It  is  a  piece 
of  such  fooling  as  spontaneously  goes  on  in  all  countries, 
at  all  times.     Those  who  thus  strive  to  credit  the  dramatist 
with  classical' learning  make  him  a  pedantic  fool,  who 
from   wide   reading   harvests   only   commonplaces   and 
trivialities.     Such  was  neither  Shakespeare  nor  Bacon. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       213 

16.  Proceeding   on   his   own   learning,   Dr.   Theobald 
writes  that  the  "  sentiment  "  of  the  passage  : 

If  our  virtues 

Did  not  go  forth  of  us,  'twere  all  alike 
As  if  we  had  them  not, 

M.  for  M. 1,1,34, 

"  appears  to  have  originated  "  in  Horace's 

Paullum  sepultae  distat  inertiae 
Celata  virtus. 

Od.  iv,  9. 

The  sentiment  in  question  is  the  same  as  that  put  in  the 
mouth  of  Ulysses  in  TROILUS  (III,  iii,  96  sq.)  and  it 
"originated"  before  Horace.  It  is  substantially  put 
by  Cicero,  DE  AMICITIA,  19.  It  is  developed  afresh  by 
Seneca,  DE  BENEFICIIS,  B.  v.  And  if  Shakespeare  had 
not  met  with  it — as  probably  he  did  not — in  the  current 
translations  of  those  treatises,  he  had  it  all  to  his  hand, 
with  a  thousand  other  classic  saws,  in  Florio's  translation 
of  Montaigne.1  But  it  would  be  folly  to  suppose  that 
such  a  maxim  as  Frustra  habet  qui  non  utitur,  given  in 
the  ADAGIA  of  Erasmus,  had  not  been  a  thousand  times 
quoted  before  Shakespeare.  The  argument  that  "  nothing 
is  seen  here  to  be  made  for  itself  .  .  .  the  noblest  creatures 
have  need  of  the  basest,  and  the  basest  are  served  by  the 
noblest,"  is  elaborated  by  De  Mornay  in  his  treatise  on 
the  Truth  of  the  Christian  Religion,  translated  by  Sidney 
and  Golding  in  1587  (ed.  1604,  p.  18)  ;  and  must  have 
been  many  times  employed.  In  this  passage,  be  it  noted, 
we  have  the  argument  found  in  HENRY  V,  with  the  phrase, 
"  so  many  and  so  divers  pieces  ...  so  coupled  with  one 
another,  making  one  body,  and  full  of  so  apparent  consents 
of  affections."  The  general  sentiment  that  men  are  not 
made  for  themselves  is  a  standing  theme  : 

As  learned  men  have  remembered,  saying,  we  be  not  borne 
solely  to  ourselves,  but  partely  to  the  use  of  our  Countrey,  of  our 

1  See  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  2nd  ed.  pp.  95-104. 


214  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Parentes,  of  our  Kinsfolkes,  and  partly  of  our  Friendes  and 
Neyghboures.  .  .  . 

Staftord, Brief  Conceipt of  English Pollicy, 1 581,  N.S.S.  rep.  p.  15. 

How  certaine  it  is,  both  by  the  tradition  of  ancient  and  moderne 
judgments  avowed,  that  everie  man  is  not  borne  for  himself e. 
Ford,  Honor  Triumphant,  1606,  first  sentence. 

The  same  Ciceronian  maxim  is  employed  twice  over  by 
Northbrooke  in  his  TREATISE  AGAINST  DICING,  DANCING, 
&c.  (1577)— in  the  Epistle  Dedicatory  and  in  the  text 
(Sh.  Soc.  rep.  p.  57)  ;  with  the  addition  of  a  similar 
saying  translated  from  Plato,  Homines  hominum  causa  esse 
generates.  It  was  evidently  a  familiar  exordium. 

17.  And  this  is  the  fitting  comment  on  the  set  of 
parallels  cited  to  Horace's  Extinctus  amabitur  idem  and 
Virtutem  incolumen  odimus.      The  phrase  "  I  shall  be 
loved  when  I  am  lack'd "   (CORIOLANUS,  IV,  i,  15)   is 
flagrantly  proverbial.     Such  things  are  said  everywhere 
by  unlearned  men  who  never  read  a  line  of  Latin  or  even 
a  translation  of  a  classic.     It  is  the  very  ecstasy  of  error 
that  moves  Dr.  Theobald  to  write  :    "  It  is  curious  to 
note  how  frequently  the  word  lack'd  is  used  in  the  Shake 
speare   passages  :    it   is   the   equivalent   of  Extinctus." 
Bacon's  PROMUS,  where  the  quotation  is  found,  is  a  mere 
garner  of  proverbial  and  colloquial  sayings. 

18.  "  Catullus,"  says  Dr.  Theobald,  "  again  turns  up 
in  the  following  : 

Be  now  as  prodigal  of  all  dear  grace 
As  nature  was  in  making  graces  dear, 
When  she  did  starve  the  general  world  beside, 
And  prodigally  gave  them  all  to  you. 

L.  L.  L.  II,  i,  9. 

"  In  the  84th  [should  be  86th]  Epigram,  Lesbia  is  simi 
larly  complimented  : 

Quae  cum  pulcherima  tota  est, 

Turn  omnibus  una  omnes  surripuit  Veneres." 

It  would  be  hard  to  cite  a  sentiment  more  completely 
run  to  death  in  the  whole  world  of  amorous  poetry. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP      215 

Surrey's  "  Praise  of  his  Love,"  developing  this  theme, 
is  the  type  of  a  hundred  Elizabethan  lyrics. 

19.  Following    his    namesake,    Lewis,     Dr.    Theobald 
refers  the  opening  lines  of  TROILUS  : 

I'll  unarm  again. 

Why  should  I  war  without  the  walls  of  Troy, 
That  find  such  cruel  battle  here  within, 

to  Anacreon  :  "  'Tis  in  vain  I  have  a  shield,"  &c.  Once 
more  we  are  dealing  with  a  poetic  commonplace.  E.g.  : 

Why  fearest  thou  thy  outward  foe, 

When  thou  thy  selfe  thy  harme  doste  feede  ? 

Tottel's  Miscellany,  Arber's  rep.  p.  204. 

It  is  mostly  to  such  familiar  sentiments  that  the  Baconian 
references  point,  making  "  scholarship  "  a  mere  means 
of  access  to  common  metaphor.  And  we  have  the  same 
thing  in  the  deducing  of  Pandarus'  comment  on  the 
Trojan  warriors  from  Homer's  episode  of  Helen  on  the 
walls  of  Troy,  copied  by  Euripides  and  Statius  and  a 
score  of  poets  more.  Chapman's  translation  of  the  first 
seven  books  of  the  ILIAD  appeared  in  1598. 

20.  Following  Lewis  Theobald   again,   our  Baconian 
refers  Hamlet's  "  large  discourse  "  (IV,  iv,  36)  to  Homer 
(ILIAD,  iii,  109  ;    i,  343  ;    xviii,  250)  ;    and  notes  that 
"  the   profound   philosophical   expression   '  discourse   of 
reason'    '    is    "used    by    Bacon."     The    expression    in 
question,  as  I  pointed  out  long  ago,  occurs  four  times 
in  Florio's  translation  of  Montaigne,  demonstrably  read 
by  Shakespeare  while  he  was  writing  HAMLET.     It  is 
also  found  in  Sidney  and  Golding's  translation  of  De 
Mornay  on  the  Christian  Religion  (1587)  ;    repeatedly  in 
Fenton's  translation  of  Guicciardini  (1579)  ;    four  times 
in  Holland's  translation  (1603)  of  one  essay  ("  Of  Moral 
Virtue")  in  Plutarch's  MORALIA,  and  frequently  in  other 
essays  ;    to  say  nothing  of  Hooker   (1594)   and  earlier 
writers  such  as  Jewel  and  More.     "  Discourse  "  is  an 
absolutely  normal  word  in  Tudor  literature  : 

Discourse  of  state  and  government. 
Fenton's  ep.   ded.  to  trans,  of  Guicciardini. 


2i6  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

By  the  light  of  natural  discourse. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Polity,  B.  I,  ch.  xiv,  §  i. 

If  you  desire  to  see  me  beat  my  breast.  .  .  . 
Then  you  may  urge  me  to  that  sad  discourse. 

Heywood,  Fair  Maid  of  the   West,  v,   i. 

The  mind,  which  in  discoursing  reacheth  far  beyond  all  sensible 
things. 

Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay. 

Ed.  1604,  p.  7. 

The  manner  of  his  [man's]  discourse  is  but  to  proceed  from 
kind  to  kind. 

Id.  p.  42. 

The  word  occurs  scores  of  times  in  Florio  and  Holland. 

21.  "  The  classic  scholarship  shown  in  TITUS  ANDRONI- 
cus  is  very  remarkable,"  says  Dr.  Theobald.  "This 
play  is  crowded  with  classic  allusions."  All  scholarship 
seems  to  Dr.  Theobald  "  very  remarkable."  But  TITUS 
is  not  Shakespeare's  work  ;  and  the  allusion  to  Hecuba's 
killing  of  Polymnestor  (I,  i,  136)  is  from  the  hand  of 
Peele.1  If  Lewis  Theobald  and  Steevens,  who  dwell 
on  the  classic  knowledge  exhibited  in  the  allusion  to  the 
burial  of  Ajax  (I,  i,  379),  had  done  their  work  properly, 
they  would  have  noted  that  the  very  phrase  "  wise 
Laertes'  son  "  occurs  in  Peele's  TALE  OF  TROY  (1589, 
1.  362),  where  the  quarrel  and  suicide  of  Ajax  are  lengthily 
described. 

So  much  for  Dr.  Theobald's  selection  of  classical 
parallels  to  prove  the  Baconian  case.  "  The  list,"  he 
writes,  "  might  be  very  easily  extended  ;  but  it  is  needless 
to  do  so."  It  would  be  useless  :  the  whole  "  classical  " 
case  is  hollow,  the  work  of  men  with  preconceived  notions, 
seeking  to  buttress  them  by  any  semblance  of  proof. 
On  the  foregoing  series  of  miscarriages  there  follows  a 
final  attempt  to  prove  "classical  knowledge"  in  the 
playwright  from  an  alleged  use  of  Latin  idioms  and 

1  See  the  point  discussed  in  Did  Shakespeare  write  "  Titus 
Andronicus  "  ?  pp.  226-7. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       217 

grammatical  forms,  as  set  forth  in  Dr.  Abbott's  SHAKE- 
SPEREAN  GRAMMAR.  Such  forms  as  "  the  mightiest 
Julius,"  "without  all  bail,"  "after"  =  secundum, 
"  mere  "  =  sheer,  "  my  very  friends,"  "  your,"  as  in 

Your  serpent  of  Egypt  is  bred  now  of  your  mud  by  the  operation 
of  your  sun  ;  so  is  your  crocodile. 

Antony,  II,  vii,  29  ; 

such  forms  as 

What  with  your  help,  what  with  the  absent  king  ; 
What  with  the  injuries  of  a  wanton  time, 

i  Henry  IV,  v,  i,  49 

— these  and  other  universally  used  idioms  of  the  period 
are  seriously  cited  as  "  classic  footprints."  The  argu 
ment  is  not  worth  discussion.  Even  if  such  forms  had 
all  been  classic  in  origin — which  they  were  not — they 
had  become  part  and  parcel  of  common  English  speech, 
built  up  as  that  so  largely  was  by  men  schooled  in  Latin, 
in  ages  when  priests  wrote  interludes  for  the  people,  and 
preachers  quoted  from  the  Vulgate.  The  "  your  "  form 
is  put  by  Shakespeare  in  the  mouths  of  carters  and  grave- 
diggers,  and  we  are  asked  to  suppose  that  it  stood  for 
familiarity  with  Latin. 

"  Verray,"  which  comes  through  French  vrai  and  not 
by  imitation  of  Latin  usage,  is  already  completely  estab 
lished  in  Chaucer,  who  uses  it  scores  of  times  in  BOECE 
alone  :  "  Verray  tears,"  "  a  more  verray  thing,"  "  thilke 
selve  welefulnesse "  and  "thilke  verray  welefulnesse," 
"  verray  blisfulnesse,"  "  verray  and  parfit  good,"  "  false 
goodes  .  .  .  verray  goodes,"  "verray  good,"  "right 
verray  resoun,"  "verray  resoun,"  "no  more  verraye 
thing,"  "  verray  light,"  &c.  &c.  The  usage  remained 
fixed  till  Shakespeare's  time.  "Very"  is  a  normal 
usage  in  Elyot  in  1530,  as  in  "  my  very  son  Esau."  "  Very 
God ' '  was  a  standing  term  in  the  creeds  ;  and  thus 
"  very,"  with  somewhat  the  force  of  "  sheer  "  or  "  abso 
lute,"  was  constantly  used  in  theology.  It  could  be 
cited  twenty  times  from  one  popular  book  :  e.g.  "  very 


2i8  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

corruption,"  "  in  very  deed,"  "  in  very  truth,"  "  a  very 
man,"  "  verie  goodness  and  wisdom,"  &c.  (Sidney  and 
Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay,  ed.  1604,  pp.  93,  97,  264, 
271,  272,  273,  282,  295,  298,  329,  &c.  &c.).  "Mere" 
=  "  pure  "  or  "sheer"  was  in  equally  universal  use, 
as  will  be  shown  in  the  next  chapter.  Solvuntur  tabula. 

Uneasily  conscious  that  there  are  some  notoriously 
awkward  facts  which  he  must  face,  Dr.  Theobald  avows  : 

In  writing  these  plays,  it  is  probable  that  English  translations 
were  used  as  a  matter  of  convenience,  even  though  the  writer 
might  have  been  (sic]  capable  of  going  to  the  original  sources.  My 
conviction  is  that  any  unbiassed  reader  will  not  easily  lose  the 
impression  that  a  poet  who  could  so  faithfully  reproduce  the 
spirit  and  entourage  of  classic  events  and  persons  must  have 
studied  them  carefully  in  their  most  authentic  setting.  But 
when  this  impression  does  not  arise,  or  is  resisted,  I  have  no  means 
of  enforcing  it  by  argument."  * 

Quite  so.  After  all  the  confident  bluster  we  have 
examined  ;  after  all  the  "  certainlys  "  and  "  undoubted- 
lys  "  ;  after  all  the  procession  of  quotations  and  sources 
in  regard  to  which  it  is  claimed  that  only  one  inference 
is  open,  we  have  the  inept  conclusion  that  the  dramatist 
"probably"  used  translations  "for  convenience" — 
that  Bacon,  who  so  often  wrote  and  so  constantly  quotes 
Latin,  found  it  inconvenient  to  translate  for  himself. 
And  in  fine  we  have,  pro  ratione,  the  proposition  :  "My 
conviction  is.  ...  I  have  no  means  of  enforcing  it  by 
argument."  That  is  my  case. 

§  4.  Mr.  William  Theobald 

In  1909  there  was  posthumously  published,  under  the 
editorship  of  Dr.  R.  M.  Theobald,  THE  CLASSICAL  ELEMENT 
IN  THE  SHAKESPEARE  PLAYS,  by  his  cousin,  the  late  Mr. 
William  Theobald.  In  the  editorial  preface  there  is 
cited  a  particular  coincidence  (non-classical)  of  idea  and 
phrase  between  Shakespeare  and  Bacon,  with  which  I 
1  Work  cited,  pp.  308-9. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       219 

shall  deal  in  the  next  chapter ;  and  there  is  advanced 
an  argument  in  regard  to  the  "  integration  of  a  number 
of  small  or  doubtful  resemblances,"  which  will  there  also 
be  discussed  on  its  merits.  I  mention  it  here  by  way  of 
noting  that  even  Dr.  Theobald  perceived  the  "  faint  and 
probably  accidental  "  character  of  some  of  the  "  resem 
blances  "  alleged  by  his  relative,  concerning  which  he 
claims,  however,  that  they  are  "  not  entirely  valueless." 
As  to  this  the  reader  can  decide  for  himself  when  he  has 
perused  the  series  of  alleged  classical  parallels  examined 
hereinafter.  I  have  gone  through  one  entire  chapter 
of  these,  ignoring  nothing.  But  before  coming  to  them 
it  may  be  well  to  note  how  Mr.  William  Theobald  in  his 
Introduction  deals  with  the  general  question  of  Shake 
speare's  scholarship. 

He  begins  by  accepting  the  existence  of  one  Shakspere 
or  Shaksper,  for  whom  he  accepts  as  properly  applicable 
the  epithets  of  "  poet-ape,"  "  Johannes  factotum,"  and 
"  upstart-crow,"  which,  it  is  alleged,  "  two  of  his  con 
temporaries,  who  knew  him  personally,"  apply  to  him. 
The  second  and  third  epithets  are  those  of  Greene,  concern 
ing  whose  personal  acquaintance  with  Shakespeare  Mr. 
Theobald  offers  no  evidence  whatever ;  and  who  in  any 
case  wrote  as  his  enemy.  The  first  is  from  Ben  Jonson's 
epigram,  which  might  fitly  be  applied  to  any  one  of  three 
or  four  of  Jonson's  enemies  ;  which  is  absolutely  in 
compatible  with  Jonson's  express  praise  of  Shakespeare  ; 
and  concerning  which  also  Mr.  Theobald  makes  no  attempt 
to  prove  that  it  was  directed  at  Shakespeare.  Then  the 
theorist  proceeds  to  accept  the  testimony  of  Ben  Jonson 
that  "  Shakespere "  [sic]  had  "  small  Latin  and  less 
Greek,"  saying  nothing  of  the  significance  of  the  fact 
that  this  testimony  is  part  of  a  panegyric  upon  Shake 
speare  of  Stratford  as  one  of  the  great  dramatists  of  all 
time. 

Beyond  this  Mr.  Theobald's  exposition  consists  in 
affirming  that  the  author  of  HAMLET  "  certainly  "  knew 


220  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Greek  ;  and  in  charging  "  unblushing  dogmatism  "  upon 
Sir  Sidney  Lee  and  others  who  claim  that,  beyond 
rational  dispute,  Shakespeare  of  Stratford-on-Avon  wrote 
the  plays  which  we  cherish  as  his.  On  the  point  of  the 
"  non-Shakespearean  "  character  of  some  of  them,  Mr. 
Theobald  is  as  uncritical  as  the  rest  of  the  Baconians  and 
some  of  the  orthodox,  merely  arguing  that  the  editors 
of  the  Folio  "  should  have  known  the  author  of  the  plays 
included  therein/'  and  that  Jonson  "  must  have  known 
also."  All  the  while  he  assumes  that  the  plays  assigned 
to  Shakespeare  were  written  by  Bacon,  to  whom  he  has 
no  scruple  in  ascribing  TITUS  ANDRONICUS. 

In  so  far  as  he  argues  that  "  all  writers  are,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  indebted  for  ideas,  facts,  allusions,  and, 
in  a  word,  literary  material,  to  previous  writers,"  he  is 
forcing  an  open  door.  The  purpose  of  his  book  is  to 
prove  that  Shakespeare  did  his  borrowing  largely  at  first 
hand  from  Greek  and  Latin  writers  ;  and  it  is  in  this 
undertaking  that  Mr.  Theobald  fully  reveals  his  incapacity 
to  draw  rational  inferences  from  literary  evidence.  Dr. 
Furnivall's  deliverance,  that 

Chaucer,  George  Gascoigne,  Holinshed's  Chronicle,  Lyly's 
Euphues,  Painter's  Palace  of  Pleasure,  and  other  collections  of 
novels,  Greene's  prose  tales,  Montaigne's  Essays,  are  the  main 
books  we  trace  in  [Shakespeare's]  works, 

Mr.  Theobald  pronounces  a  "  preposterous  utterance." 
We  shall  see  in  due  course  the  value  of  his  opinion. 

At  one  point  Mr.  Theobald's  argument  becomes  so 
incoherent  that  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  even  a 
careless  editor  could  pass  it  without  comment.  He 
accuses  of  gross  misrepresentation  an  anti-Baconian 
writer  who  first  remarked  on  the  folly  of  the  thesis  that 
Bacon  would  choose  as  his  mask  "  a  rude  unlettered 
fellow  "  ;  and  later  observes  that  "  the  Baconians  had 
to  prove  that  Shakespeare  was  a  scholar."  Obviously 
the  writer  meant  that  they  had  to  prove  that  the  play 
wright  was  a  scholar.  But  after  thus  fiercely  denouncing 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP      221 

a  mere  ellipsis,  Mr.  Theobald  in  his  own  person  reasons 
thus: 

The  true  reason  why  the  writer  of  the  plays  (Bacon)  did  not 
care  to  bring  too  prominently  forward  his  knowledge  of  the  Greek 
tragedies,  was  probably  the  risk  thereby  incurred  of  jeopardising 
his  cherished  incognito  ;  as  his  literary  stalking-horse,  Shakspere, 
was  too  well  known  to  be  readily  credited  with  deriving  materials 
from  the  works  of  Sophocles,  £ischylus,  or  Euripides.  Even  at 
second-hand,  through  Seneca,  the  risk  was  too  great  to  be  encountered. 

I  invite  attention  to  this  piece  of  reasoning.  It  affirms 
(i)  That  the  man  Shakespeare  was  too  well  known  (i.e., 
by  implication,  to  be  no  scholar)  to  permit  of  the  real 
author  introducing  into  the  plays  any  signs  of  knowledge 
of  the  Greek  classical  drama,  or  even  of  a  dramatist  so 
widely  read  in  those  days  as  Seneca.  But  it  is  involved 
in  this  proposition  (2)  that  Shakespeare  could  pass  among 
those  who  knew  him  not  only  as  the  author  of  all  the 
poetry  and  eloquence  in  the  plays,  but  as  having  scholar 
ship  enough  for  what  scholarly  touches  there  are  in  them. 
That  is  to  say,  those  who  knew  Shakespeare  would  see 
no  reason  for  doubting  that  he  was  able  to  write  all  the 
plays  and  poems  he  signed — this  by  the  admission  of  the 
Baconian. 

Be  it  now  noted  (3)  that  Mr.  Theobald  in  his  opening 
chapter  undertakes  to  show  that  the  plays  reveal  not 
only  a  "  good,"  a  "  thorough,"  nay,  even  a  "  pedantic  " 
knowledge  of  Latin  literature  in  general,  but  a  knowledge 
of  Aristotle,  Euripides,  and  Homer ;  and  (4)  that  in 
subsequent  chapters  he  claims  to  prove,  still  from  the 
plays,  a  knowledge  not  only  of  these  writers  but  of  /Eschy- 
lus,  Anacreon,  Aristophanes,  Athenaeus,  ^Elian,  Appian; 
Plato,  Theocritus,  Tyrtaeus,  and  Apollonius  Rhodius, 
to  say  nothing  of  such  out-of-the-way  Latin  writers  as 
Alanus,  Ausonius,  Avienus,  Fracastorius,  &c.  &c.  Bacon, 
then,  could  safely  let  his  unlettered  mask  figure  as 
possessed  of  all  that  classical  reading,  while  forced  to 
withhold  all  signs  of  knowledge  of  "  Sophocles,  ^Eschylus, 
or  Euripides,"  or  even  Seneca  [ 


222  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

After  this  sample  of  his  mental  processes,  it  is  perhaps 
superfluous  to  explain  that  when  Mr.  Theobald  under 
takes  to  convict  Farmer  of  gross  ignorance  he  merely 
exhibits  entire  failure  of  comprehension.  Farmer  remarked 
that  Taylor,  the  "  Water  Poet,"  has  "  more  scraps  of 
Latin  and  allusions  to  antiquity  than  are  anywhere  to 
be  met  with  in  the  writings  of  Shakespeare/'  Upon  this 
Mr.  Theobald  thus  explodes  :  "To  understand  the 
audacity  of  this  assertion,  it  is  sufficient  to  quote  the 
authority  of  Taylor  himself/'  citing  the  poet's  avowal 
that  he  could  never  get  beyond  possum  and  posset.  Of 
this  fact,  Farmer  was  not  only  perfectly  aware  :  he  had 
given  the  very  clue  which  Mr.  Theobald  takes !  In  his 
preface1  he  had  mentioned  the  passage  about  possum 
and  posset ;  and  in  the  text  he  had  expressly  quoted 
Taylor's  avowal  that  "  he  never  learned  his  Accidence, 
and  that  Latin  and  French  were  to  him  heathen  Greek  "  ; 
going  on  :  "  yet,  by  the  help  of  Mr.  Whalley's  argument, 
I  will  prove  him  a  learned  man,  in  spite  of  everything 
he  may  say  to  the  contrary."  The  whole  point  of 
Farmer's  argument  was  that  an  English  poet  avowedly 
ignorant — in  the  scholarly  sense — of  any  language  but 
his  own  could  nevertheless  make  hundreds  of  classical 
allusions  in  virtue  of  his  English  reading,  and  could  even 
use  many  scraps  of  Latin. 

I  do  not  accuse  Mr.  Theobald  of  gross  misrepresenta 
tion  :  his  infirmity  appears  to  have  been  intellectual 
rather  than  moral.  But  when  he  proceeds  to  pretend 
that  Farmer,  in  pointing  to  the  English  books  where 
Shakespeare  could  have  found  his  "classical"  matter, 
in  positing  something  harder  of  belief  than  the  "  classical  " 
thesis  itself,  Mr.  Theobald  exhibits  a  fairly  low  standard 
of  candour.  He  actually  names  French  writers  without 
mentioning  that  Farmer  had  referred  to  English  transla 
tions  of  them.  But  he  probably  could  not  understand 

1  To  the  second  edition,  in  which  first  occurs  the  passage  above 
cited  and  denounced  by  Mr.  Theobald. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       223 

that  in  pointing  to  the  English  currency  of  the  classical 
items  in  dispute  Farmer  did  not  mean  to  claim  that 
Shakespeare  had  necessarily  read  every  one  of  those 
books — though  he  very  well  might — but  simply  to  show 
that  the  knowledge  in  question  was  current  for  English 
readers  without  resort  to  Greek  and  Latin.  The  rationale 
of  the  whole  problem  is  hidden  to  a  writer  of  Mr,  Theo 
bald's  intellectual  habits. 

This  is  finally  made  clear  by  his  handling  of  the  point 
of  the  parallel,  pressed  by  himself,  between  the  declara 
tion  in  the  SHREW  that  "  'Tis  death  to  any  one  in  Mantua, 
To  come  to  Padua."  For  this  Mr.  Theobald  was  bound 
to  find  a  classic  original ;  and  he  fathers  it  on  Aulus 
Gellius'  story  (vii,  10)  of  the  decree  of  the  citizens  of 
Athens  against  those  of  Megara.  In  the  eighteenth 
century,  George  Colman  had  traced  a  character  in  the 
SHREW  to  the  untranslated  TRINUMMUS  of  Plautus ; 
whereupon  Farmer  pointed  out,  in  his  ESSAY,  that  both 
the  character  and  the  part  of  the  plot  in  question  had 
been  borrowed  from  the  previous  comedy  of  SUPPOSES, 
a  translation  by  George  Gascoigne  from  Ariosto's  SUP- 
POSITI.  Colman  was  convinced  on  this  head,  though 
he  held  out  on  others.  Not  so  Mr.  Theobald.  He  decides 
(p.  167)  that  "  as  the  work  of  Gascoigne  was  published 
without  date,  Farmer's  argument  does  not  carry  convic 
tion."  Farmer,  I  fancy,  would  not  have  been  concerned 
to  carry  conviction  to  Mr.  Theobald.  But  in  the  interest 
of  minds  more  permeable  to  reason  it  may  be  well  to 
mention  that  Gascoigne's  SUPPOSES  was  published  as 
having  been  "  presented  "  at  Gray's  Inn  in  1566.  It 
would  thus  have  been  known  to  actors  apart  from  publica 
tion  ;  but  it  is  known  to  have  been  published  by  Jeffes 
in  1587. 

Since  Farmer's  day,  the  critical  examination  of  the 
SHREW  has  been  carried  far  enough  to  make  us  sure  that 
Shakespeare  had  no  hand  in  its  framing,  but  at  most 
touched  it  up  and  inserted  some  passages.  This,  of  course, 


224  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

is  not  a  matter  to  be  put  to  Baconians  ;  but  it  is  one  the 
consideration  of  which  may  save  some  brands  from  their 
burning.  Mr.  Theobald  is  not  an  investigator  of  historic 
fact,  but  a  myth-maker.  In  his  pages,  I  suppose,  are 
to  be  found  all  the  standard  mares'  nests  of  his  sect.  He 
duly  enshrines  the  "  Honorificabilitudinitatibus."  He  has 
read  in  the  Aihenceum  the  sentence  on  it  from  the  CATHO- 
LICON  of  Giovanni  da  Genova;  and  then,  in  the  true 
Baconian  manner,  he  pronounces  (p.  170)  :  "  Whether 
Bacon  was  the  more  likely  man  to  have  had  recourse  to 
the  pages  of  that  work,  or  Shakespeare,  I  confidently 
leave  to  the  common  sense  of  my  readers."  Mr.  Theo 
bald  is  truly  a  precious  authority  on  common  sense.  The 
old  variorum  edition  could  have  informed  him  that  the 
"word"  is  to  be  met  with  in  Nashe's  LENTEN  STUFF, 
in  a  passage  (WORKS,  ed.  McKerrow,  iii,  176)  which  shows 
it  to  have  been  quite  familiar  in  that  day.  We  are  dealing 
with  perhaps  the  most  impossible  of  all  the  Baconians. 

None  the  less  his  entire  chapter  on  "  Classical  Allusions 
Generally"  shall  be  examined  in  detail.  I  hesitate  to 
express  my  opinion  of  its  general  critical  quality  before 
the  reader  has  had  a  full  opportunity  of  judgment ;  and 
thereafter  he  may  be  more  moved  to  compassion  than 
to  censure.  Let  him  but  note  that  in  a  number  of 
instances  Mr.  Theobald  coincides  in  his  claims  with  Dr. 
R.  M.  Theobald  ;  and  that  in  these  cases  I  refer  back,  or 
forward  to  the  next  chapter. 

1.  Captious  (ALL'S  WELL,  I,  iii,  193). 

See  below,  Ch.  VIII,  p.  283. 

2.  Lethe'd  ("  a  Lethe'd  dulness  "  :  ANTONY,  II,  i,  27). 
"  Simply  the  Latin  Lethaus  in  an  English  dress,"  says 

Mr.  Theobald,  "  as  when  Statius  uses  the  expression 
Lethceum  vimen,  a  rod  dipped  in  Lethe  (or  Lethe'd  rod), 
Thebais,  ii,  30." 

There  was  no  need  to  resort  to  Statius.  "  Lethe  " 
had  the  current  force  of  "  oblivion."  Ascham  in  THE 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       225 

SCHOLEMASTER  notes  (Arber's  rep.  p.  75)  that  Plato 
"  doth  plainelie  declare  that  pleasure  .  .  .  doth  ingender 
in  all  those  that  yield  up  themselves  to  her,  foure  notorious 
properties,"  the  first  being  \yfiw,  "  forgetfulness  of  all 
good  things  learned  before."  In  the  drama  and  in  poetry 
the  word  was  in  common  use  : 

I  have  drunk  Lethe. 

Webster,  The  White  Devil,  iv,  2. 

His  memory  to  virtue  and  good  men 
Is  still  carousing  Lethe. 

Id.  Appius  and  Virginia,  iv,  i. 

To  drown  the  pain  it  did  abide 
In  solitary  Lethe's  sleepy  tide. 

Kyd,  Cornelia,  Act  ii. 

Drinking  of  the  Lethe  of  mine  eyes, 
He  is  forced  forget  himself. 

Daniel,  Complaint  of  Rosamond,  1592. 

3.  Exigent  (ANTONY,  IV,  xiv,  62). 

See  below,  p.  310. 

4.  Prosecution  (  =  following  up  :  same  passage) . 

"  Used  precisely  as  in  Latin,"  says  Mr.  Theobal^.     But 
also  precisely  as  in  many  English  writers  : 

Caesar  .  .  .    also    prosecuted    them   [his    enemies]   with  such 
celerity  and  effect.   .   .  . 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  i,  23  ;  Dent's  rep.  p.  100. 

He  with  his  army  did  prosecute  after. 
Latimer,  First  Sermon  before  Edward  VI.  Dent's  rep.  p.  73. 

To  prosecute  their  purposes. 
Ascham,  Scholemaster,  Arber's  rep.  p.  69. 

Our  intent  is  not  so  exactlie  to  prosecute  the  purpose. 
Puttenham,  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  Arber's  rep.  p.  127. 

The  King  .   .  .  prosecuted  still  in  questioning. 

Greene,  Penelope's  Web,   1587  :     Works,  v,  232. 

I  will  prosecute  what  disgrace  my  hatred  can  dictate  to  me. 
Jonson,    Cynthia's  Revels,    v,    2. 
Left  then  to  prosecute  her. 

Lilly,  Love's  Metamorphosis,  i,  2. 
P 


226  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Whose  bodies  are  followed  in  the  world  with  lust,  and  prosecuted 
in  the  grave  with  tyranny. 

Id.  ib. 
Prosecuting  of  this  enterprise.     Prosecute  the  cause. 

Sir  John  Oldcastle,   Pt.   I,   iii,    i  ;    v,    10. 

Go  prosecute  the  Senate's  will. 

A   Knack  to  Know  an  Honest  Man,    1596,  1.   516. 
One  of  Caesar's  captains  which  was  sent  to  Rome  to  prosecute 
his  suit. 

North's  trans,  of  Life  ofCcesar.     Skeat's  Sh.  Plutarch, 
p.  70. 

5.  The  Ablative  Absolute: 

My  music  playing  far  off,  There,  I  will  betray,  &c., 

Antony,  II,  v,  10. 

Such  constructions  were  perfectly  normal  in  English — 
the  natural  result  of  Latin  culture.  Latimer  has  : 

Those  premises  considered,  I  would  have  you,  &c., 

Fifth  Sermon  before  Edward  VI. 

Elyot  has  many  such  constructions. 

6.  Percussion  (CoRiOLANUS,  I,  iv,  59). 

"  Not  an  English  word,"  says  Mr.  Theobald,  on  the 
score  that  Richardson  gives  only  this  and  instances  from 
Bacon. 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  instances  from  Phaer, 
REGIMENT  OF  LYFE,  c.  vii,  and  Holland's  PLUTARCH,  p. 

1348. 

Compare  : 

Salute  me  with  thy  repercussive  voice. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  i,   i  (1601). 

7.  Progeny  (=  ancestry.     CORIOLANUS,  I,  viii,  n). 

"  Used  not  in  its  English  sense,"  says  Mr.  Theobald, 
"  but  as  the  equivalent  of  ancestry  and  of  the  Greek  word 
progenetor.  It  is  occasionally  used  in  this  sense  of 
'  ancestry  '  in  Latin  by  Cicero  and  Terence,  but  I  make 
bold  to  say  it  would  not  have  been  so  used  by  a  man  who 
was  not  a  good  classical  scholar  and  aware  of  the  authority 
he  had  for  so  uncommon  a  use  of  the  word."  No  man  who 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       227 

knew  anything  of  Tudor  English  could  have  advanced 
such  an  assertion.  The  sense  of  "  ancestry  "  was  if  any 
thing  more  common  than  that  of  offspring  or  posterity. 
The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  instances  from  Wiclif, 
Gower,  Higden,  Fabyan,  and  Cranmer.  Add  : 

They  descend  of  famous  progeny. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,    1528. 
Whittingham's  rep.  p.  101. 

His  name  is  Person,  and  his  progeny, 
Now  tell  me  of  what  ancient  pedigree  ? 
Greene,  Lacena's  Riddle,  in  The  Tritameron  of  Love ,  1584. 

Honour'd  for  his  parentage  and  progeny  [said  of  an  unmarried 
youth]. 

Id.  Mirror  of  Modesty,   1584  :     Works,  iii,  9. 

Whose  [Danae's]  parentage  and  progeny  [before  bearing 
children], 

Id.  Tritameron  of  Love,  1587  :     Works,  iii,  69. 

I  therefore  dissent  because  the  destinies  have  appointed  my 
progeny  from  such  a  peevish  parent. 

Id.  Planetomachia,  1585  :     Works,  v,  40. 
My  parents  and  progeny. 

Id.  Menaphon  :     Works,    vi,    1 10. 
The  honour  of  thy  house  and  progeny. 

Peele,  David  and  Bethsabe,  ii,  2. 

Neither  noble  progenie,  succession,  nor  election  be  of  such  force 
that.  .  . 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  B.  ii,  c.  i  ;  Dent's  ed.  p.  117. 

In  a  horse  or  good  greyhound  we  praise  that  we  see  in  them 
and  not  the  beauty  or  goodness  of  their  progeny. 

Id.  B.  ii,  c.  5,  p.  130. 
Born  of  worshipful  progeny. 
Stubbes,  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  Collier's  rep.  p.  42. 

Wot  ye  not  how  great  lord  I  [Pride]  am, 
Of  how  noble  progeny  I  came  ? 
Medwall,  Nature,  in  Farmer's  Lost  Tudor  Plays,  p.  66. 

8.  Microcosm  (CORIOLANUS,  II,  i,  57). 

"  The  word  '  microcosm/  "  remarks  Mr.  Theobald, 
"  occurs  in  Bacon,  SYL.  SYL.  Cent,  x,  introd.,  which  was 
not  published  in  Shakespeare's  lifetime.  Also  in  Sir 


228  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Walter  Raleigh's  HISTORY  OF  THE  WORLD  (B.  i,  ch.  2), 
but  this  was  not  published  when  the  play  was  written 
(the  first  volume  being  published  in  1614)."  Mr.  Theo 
bald  does  not  expressly  say  that  these  were  the  first  uses 
of  the  word  in  English  books  apart  from  Shakespeare, 
but  unless  he  means  that  he  is  saying  nothing.  Let  us 
then  supplement  somewhat  his  literary  information  : 

Microcosm,  as  the  Oxford  Dictionary  notes,  occurs  in 
Lydgate  (1426),  Norton  (1477),  Dee  (1570)  ;  the  First 
Part  of  THE  RETURN  FROM  PARNASSUS  (1597),  and  Florio's 
Montaigne  (1604).  Compare  the  following  : 

That  is  to  say,  Macr ocosmus  and  Microcosmus,  which  is  to  say, 
the  greater  world  and  the  lesser  world. 

Gascoigne,   Viewe  of  Worldly  Vanities:  Works,  ed. 
Cunliffe,  ii,  234. 

Let  us  make  Man  ;  that  is,  a  wonderful  creature,  and  therefore 
is  called  in  Greek  Microcosmos,  a  little  world  in  himself. 

Stubbes,  The  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  1583,  Ep.  Ded. 

For  our  English  Mikrokosmos  or  Phenician  Dido's  hide  of 
ground. 

Nashe,  Lenten  Stuff e,  1599.  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  iii,  186. 

No  my  harts,  I  am  an  absolute  Microcosmus,  a  pettie  world  of 
myself. 

Lilly,  Endimion,  1591,  iv,  2. 

In  1603  John  Davies  of  Hereford  published  a  long  poem 
entitled  MICROCOSMUS.  It  would  thus  appear  that  the 
word  was  attainable  without  resort  to  consultation  with 
Bacon  or  Raleigh. 

9.  Illustrous  (CYMBELINE,  I,  vi,  108). 

"  Who  but  a  classical  scholar,  nay,  a  very  pedant, 
would  have  used  the  word  *  illustrous  '  in  place  of  dim  ?  " 
asks  Mr.  Theobald — after  explicitly  arguing  that  Bacon 
dared  not  indicate  his  scholarship  in  the  plays  put  out 
by  him  under  the  name  of  Shakespeare.  As  it  happens, 
we  do  not  know  that  Shakespeare  ever  did  this.  The 
Folio  reads  "  illustrious"  ;  and  as  there  is  no  warrant  for 
giving  to  that  word  the  sense  of  "  dim,"  some  editors 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       229 

have  substituted  "  illustrous."  Rowe  put  "  unlustrous," 
and  that  reading  is  adopted  in  the  Globe  edition.  So 
that  "  Shakespeare's  "  pedantry  is  still  to  prove. 

The  Oxford  Dictionary,  as  it  happens,  does  not  include 
the  word  "  illustrous  "  at  all.  This  is  surprising,  for  that 
word  does  actually  appear  in  Shepherd's  edition  of  Chap 
man's  MINOR  POEMS  AND  TRANSLATIONS,  in  the  prose 
JUSTIFICATION  OF  "  PERSEUS  AND  ANDROMEDA  "  (1614) 
p.  194,  col.  2,  in  the  phrase  "  their  present  doctrinal  and 
illustrous  purposes."  Unless  Shepherd  gives  a  false 
reading,  the  Dictionary  has  fallen  into  a  sin  of  omission. 
The  word  appears  again,  however,  with  the  meaning 
"  illustrious,"  in  Shepherd's  edition  of  Chapman's  transla 
tion  of  the  ILIAD,  viii,  182.  Here  the  bare  scansion  calls 
for  three  syllables,  though  four  could  pass.  On  the 
whole,  the  presumption  is  that  the  word  had  some 
currency,  and  that  Shakespeare  did  not  coin  it. 

10.  Eager  (HAMLET,  I,  ii,  68). 

"  The  word  '  eager,'  "  Mr.  Theobald  informs  us,  "  is 
here  used  in  its  classical  or  root  sense  of  sharp,  from  the 
Greek  a/aV(!),  a  sharp  point,  whence  metaphorically  sharp 
in  the  sense  of  acid,  which  none  but  a  scholar  would  have 
so  introduced.  The  commoner  word  acid  is  not  used 
in  the  plays.  '  Posset '  here  is  introduced,  too,  into  the 
language  for  the  first  time." 

Such  folly  "  striketh  a  man  dead,"  as  the  Elizabethans 
would  say.  Mr.  Theobald  is  unaware  that  "  eager  "  is 
simply  the  French  aigre,  and  is  so  used  by  scores  of 
writers  between  Chaucer  and  Shakespeare.  He  does 
not  even  know  that  "  the  commoner  word  acid  " — then 
very  uncommon — is  found  in  Bacon  ;  or  else  he  ignores 
the  point,  as  not  serving  the  Baconian  purpose.  His 
remark  as  to  "  posset  "  is  astounding  even  to  a  reader 
of  the  Baconians.  It  was  an  e very-day  word  in  every 
English  household.  Hey  wood  puts  it  twice  in  the  mouths 
of  farmer-folk  in  the  First  Part  of  his  EDWARD  IV, 


230  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

published  in  1600.  Ben  Jonson  in  the  preliminary  matter 
to  EVERY  MAN  OUT  OF  His  HUMOUR  (1599)  nas  (List  of 
Characters  :  Carlo  Buffone)  : 

A  slave  that  will  swill  up  more  sack  at  sitting  than  would 
make  all  the  guard  a  posset. 

It  occurs  in  BLURT,  MASTER-CONSTABLE  (1602,  iii,  3) 
assigned  to  Middleton ;  and  thrice  in  Webster  and 
Marston's  MALCONTENT,  published  in  1604. 

A  posset,  the  commentators  explain,  was  "  wine  boiled 
with  milk."  The  dialogue  in  THE  MALCONTENT  illustrates 
this  description. 

11.  Implorators  (HAMLET,  I,  iii,  129). 

Mr.  Theobald's  note  on  this  word  must  be  cited  in 
full,  to  do  it  justice  :  "  The  word  '  implorators  '  is  neither 
Latin  nor  English,  though  it  might  conceivably  have 
been  formed  (as  amator  is  from  amare)  had  the  metre 
required  it.  But  the  metre  forbids  it,  and  Lewis  Theobald 
was  therefore  justified  in  treating  the  word  as  a  printer's 
error  for  implorers.  If,  however,  the  word  '  implorators  ' 
was  the  poet's  own  word,  it  clearly  shows  how  the  classical 
bias  of  his  mind  was  so  strong  as  to  overpower  elementary 
requirements,  in  this  case  of  prosody."  Q.  E.  D. 

Most  modern  editors,  recognising,  pace  Mr.  Theobald, 
that  prosody  does  not  reject  "  implorators,"  retain  the 
word.  They  happen  to  know  that  there  was  a  French 
legal  word  implorateurs,  which  probably  was  Anglicised 
long  before  Shakespeare  by  the  lawyers. 

12.  Green  Wound  (2  HENRY  IV,  II,  i,  93). 

Mr.  Theobald  impressively  notes  that  Bacon  in  the 
Essay  OF  REVENGE  speaks  of  a  man  keeping  his  own 
wounds  green.  "  It  was  also,"  he  explains,  "  a  classical 
usage,  as  Euripides  applies  the  term  chloros,  green  or 
fresh,  to  blood"  (HECUBA,  129).  So  that  Shakespeare 
had  appropriately  put  a  Greek  expression  in  the  mouth 
of  Mrs.  Quickly,  the  better  to  reveal  his  scholarship  ! 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       231 

This  perhaps  deserves  to  rank,  even  in  competition 
with  the  assertion  about  "  posset,"  as  the  last  word  in 
Baconian  wool-gathering.  The  phrase  must  be  about 
as  old  as  English.  In  the  MORTE  DARTHUR  we  read  how 
Sir  Tristram  "  in  his  raging  took  no  keep  of  his  green 
wound  that  King  Mark  had  given  him  "  (B.  viii,  ch.  14). 
In  Surrey's  first  poem  in  TOTTEL'S  MISCELLANY  (1557) 
is  the  line  : 

Of  mine  old  hurt  yet  feel  the  wound  but  green. 

And  in  Sackville's  COMPLAINT  OF  BUCKINGHAM — part 
of  his  Induction  to  the  MIRROUR  FOR  MAGISTRATES  (1563) 
— is  the  line  : 

And  feeling  green  the  wound  about  his  heart. 

Sackville's  Works,  ed.    1859,  p.    135. 

It  may  be  well  to  add,  in  a  world  in  which  Baconians 
flourish,  that  the  phrase  was  current  in  the  Elizabethan 
drama  : 

Lest  he  dismount  me  while  my  wounds  are  green. 

Kyd,  S oliman  and  Perseda,  i,  4. 
That  wound  yet  too  green. 

Chapman,  The  Blind  Beggar  of  Alexandria  (1596)  i,  i. 
Wounds  must  be  cured  when  they  be  fresh  and  green. 
Greene,  Alphonous  King  of  A rr agon,  iii,  ed.  Dyce,  p.  236. 
And  for  your  green  wound  .  .  . 

Jonson,   Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  iii,    2. 
That  [comfort  which  green  wounds  receive  from  sovereign 
balm. 

Dekker,  The  Honest  Whore,  Part  I,  v,  2,  near  end. 

13.  Absque  hoc  (2  HENRY  IV,  V,  v,  28). 
See  above,  p.  72. 

14.  Caesar  and  his  Fortune  (i  HENRY  VI,  I,  ii,  138). 
Mr.  Theobald,  in  a  lucid  interval,   admits  that  the 

phrase  "  is  almost  too  familiar  to  quote,"  but  proceeds 
to  point  out  that  "  the  epithet  '  insulting  '  applied  to  the 
ship,  is  used  ...  in  its  purely  Latin  sense."  As  to  this 
see  below,  p.  321. 


232  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

15.  Proditor  (Id.  I,  iii,  31). 

This,  Mr.  Theobald  explains,  "  is  a  Latin  word  and 
not  an  English  one,"  quoting  Cicero  and  Horace.  It 
will  be  shown  below,  p.  337,  that  the  word  was  in 
English  use. 

16.  Simular  (LEAR,  III,  ii,  54). 

See  below,  p.  348. 

17.  Virtue  (Id.  V,  iii,  104). 

"  Here  the  word  '  virtue  '  is  used  in  its  primary  classical 
sense,  without  any  reference  to  moral  goodness  :  that  is, 
trust  to  thy  '  valour  '  alone  to  save  you." 

The  word  in  this  sense  was  perfectly  familiar,  and  there 
is  absolutely  no  innovation  in  the  matter.  Elyot  in  his 
GOVERNOUR  has  the  saying  : 

A  man  is  called  in  Latin  vir,  whereof,  saith  Tully,  vertue  is 
named. 

B.  iii,  c.  9.     Dent's  rep.  p.  229  ; 
and  he  has  the  phrase  : 

A  semblance  of  vertue  or  cunning  (B.  i,  c.  20). 

About  the  same  date,  Tyndale  in  his  translation  of  the 
ENCHIRIDION  of  Erasmus  has  the  expression  : 
Christ,  the  virtue  or  strength  of  God  ; 

and  in  the  first  chapter  of  Sir  Thomas  North's  translation 
of  Plutarch's  Life  of  Coriolanus,  read  by  Shakespeare, 
we  have  the  sentence  : 

Now  in  those  days  valiantness  was  honoured  in  Rome  above 
all  other  virtues  :  which  they  called  virtus,  by  the  name  of  virtue 
itself,  as  including  in  that  general  name  all  other  special  virtues 
besides.  So  that  virtus  in  the  Latin  was  as  much  as  valiantness. 

Skeat's  Sh.  Plutarch,  p.  2. 
On  the  stage  we  have  : 

And,  valiant  with  a  forced  Vertue,  longs 
To  die  the  death. 

Hughes,  Misfortunes  of  Arthur,  IV,  ii,  206-7. 

One  is  moved  to  ask  whether  Mr.  Theobald,  at  the 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       233 

height  of  his  hallucination,  could  suppose  that  the  gospel 
phrase,  "  Virtue  had  gone  out  of  him,"  and  such  a  con 
stantly  used  phrase  as  "  the  virtue  of  herbs,"  were  classic 
mysteries  for  common  folk  ? 

18,  19,  20,  21.  Epitheton,  Festinately,  Pernicious, 
and  Sequent,  all  previously  put  forward  by  Dr.  Theobald, 
are  dealt  with  below,  in  ch.  viii. 

22.  Laus  Deo,  bone  intelligo  (L.L.L.  V,  i,  24). 

"The  author,"  declares  Mr.  Theobald,  "must  have 
been  a  fair  scholar  to  know  that  there  is  no  such  word 
as  bone,  but  only  bene."  It  would  be  interesting  to  know 
what  Mr.  Theobald  would  regard  as  "  small  Latin."  For 
the  rest,  the  context  is  corrupt ; l  and  "  bone  "  does  not 
occur  in  the  original,  being  merely  an  editorial  guess. 

23.  Perge  (L.L.L.  IV,  ii,  50). 

"  This  is  not  a  word  that  would  be  picked  up  in  any 
translation,"  says  Mr.  Theobald.  It  might,  however, 
have  been  picked  up  at  school !  Mr.  Theobald,  with 
ripe  learning,  points  to  Seneca,  THYESTES,  i,  23 ;  Virgil, 
ECLOGA,  vi,  13  ;  Claudian,  DE  BELLO  GILDONICO,  201, 
from  which  it  "  may  have  been  borrowed."  Several 
other  instances  of  the  use  of  the  word  may  be  found  in 
Stephanus.  With  all  of  the  writers  named,  says  Mr. 
Theobald,  "  the  author  of  the  plays  was  familiar." 
"  Paper  is  patient,"  say  the  Germans — borrowing  from 
the  Latin. 

24.  Deformed  (L.L.L.  IV,  ii,  50). 

"  Your  beauty  .  .  .  hath  much  deformed  us."  The 
word  is  "  here  used  in  its  classical  or  root  sense,  which 
does  not  necessarily  involve  the  idea  of  ugliness  as  the 
English  word  does  ;  and  its  use  in  this  place  is,  I  consider, 
a  clear  indication  of  the  scholarly  mind  of  the  author," 
says  Mr.  Theobald.  Unluckily,  the  word  had  been  used 
1  See  above,  p.  3. 


234  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

in  the  "  classical  or  root  sense  "  by  English  authors  long 
before  Shakespeare  : 

His  hair  and  beard  deformed  with  blood  and  sweat. 

Kyd,  Cornelia,  Act  iii. 

He  shall  not  reform  himself,  but  rather  deform  his  conscience. 
Hooper,  Declaration  of  Christ  and  His  Office, 
Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  29. 

To  rip  up  all  our  deformities  I  mind  not  here. 

Foxe,  Four  Considerations,  pref .  to  Martyrs. 

Now  over  and  beside  this  deformity  of  life. 

Id.     Exordium.     Cattley's  ed,  i,  12. 

Joys  that  deform  us  with  the  lusts  of  sense. 

Chapman,  The  Gentleman  Usher,  iv,  i . 

A  ...  jester  that  .  .  .  with  absurd  smiles  will  transform  any 
person  into  deformity. 

Jonson,  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour  :    List 
of  Characters  ;  CARLO  BUFFONE. 

Where  they  shall  see  the  time's  deformity 
Anatomized  in  every  nerve  and  sinew. 

Id.  Ib.  Induction. 

25.  Receipt  (=  receptacle  :   MACBETH,  I,  vii,  66). 

"The  word  ...  in  this  sense  is  very  classical,"  says 
Mr.  Theobald,  referring  to  Cicero's  TUSCULANS,  I,  xx 
(should  be  xxii),  52,  for  "  receptacle."  The  astonishing 
thing  is  that  there  is  no  reference  to  Bacon,  who  in  the 
Essay  OF  GARDENS  (No.  46)  speaks  of  two  kinds  of 
fountains  of  which  one  is  "  a  faire  receipt  (=  pool  or 
basin)  of  water."  How  comes  it  that  the  Baconians  had 
not  detected  such  a  "  coincidence "  ?  Of  course,  as 
Bacon's  phrase  shows,  the  word  was  in  common  use  in 
that  sense.  It  was  so  long  before.  Hoccleve  has  : 

My  .   .   .  greedy  mowth,  (receite  of  swich  outrage). 

La  Male  Regie  de  T.  Hoccleve,  1.   114. 
Lydgate  has  : 

The  thought,  resceyt  of  wo  and  of  complaynt. 

Complaynt  of  the  Black  Knight,  1.  226. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       235 

Roye  has  : 

The  prestes  of  Babilone  .  .  . 

Had  an  ydole  called  Bell. 
Outwardly  made  all  of*  bras, 
And  inwardly  of  earth  it  was, 

Having  a  vesceyte  so  devised 
That  the  ydole  semed  to  devowere 
An  C  shepe  with  wine  and  flower 

Daily  unto  it  sacryfised. 

Rede  Me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528. 

And  Hey  wood  uses  the  word  twice  for  the  "  capacity  "  or 
"  holding  power  "  of  a  theatre  in  his  APOLOGY  FOR  ACTORS. 
Compare  his  line  : 

Of  all  the  houses  for  a  king's  receipt. 

2  Edward  IV  (1599),  iii,  2. 

26.  Multitudinous — Incarnadine  (II,  ii,  62). 

Not  content  with  "  incarnadine,"  Mr.  Theobald  an 
nounces,  more  suo,  that  "  multitudinous  "  is  "here  used 
for  the  first  time."  Enlightened  from  within,  the  Baco 
nian  dreams  not  of  consulting  the  variorum  edition, 
where  he  might  learn  that  the  word  is  used  by  Dekker 
in  THE  WONDERFUL  *¥EAR,  1603,  in  the  phrase,  "  the 
multitudinous  spawn."  As  to  incarnadine,  see  below, 
p.  361. 

27.  Way  of  life  (MACBETH,  V,  iii,  22). 

Some  one  having  expressed  perplexity  over  this  phrase, 
Mr.  Theobald  pityingly  observes  that  it  is  "  an  example 
of  how  the  eyes  of  critics,  commentators  and  editors  are 
sealed  by  the  absurd  assumption  that  the  author  of  the 
plays  was  a  poor  classical  scholar."  He  confidently 
points  to  "  secretum  iter  et  fallentis  semita  vita "  in 
Horace,  EPIST.  I,  xviii,  103,  as  "  probably  the  source 
whence  the  phrase  '  way  of  life  '  was  derived."  The 
puzzle  is,  how  came  Shakespeare  to  be  able  to  speak 
English  at  all  save  through  Latin  ? 

Not  for  the  Baconian  is  the  old  leisurely  debate  over 
"  way  "  and  "  May."  Colman  gave  two  instances  to 


236  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

justify  Johnson's  emendation,  "  May,"  that  word  being 
a  common  poetic  figure  for  the  period  of  youth,  as  Steevens 
further  proved  by  seven  more  instances.  But,  as  it 
happens,  other  poets  and  dramatists  did  write  "  way  of 
life"  for  "course  of  life" — e.g.  Massinger  in  VERY 
WOMAN  and  NEW  WAY  TO  PAY  OLD  DEBTS  ;  and  in 
PERICLES,  i,  i,  that  simple  form  occurs,  as  in  HENRY  VIII 
we  have  "  the  way  of  our  profession."  And  even  apart 
from  such  usages,  it  seems  sane  to  infer  that  English 
people  could  think  or  speak  of  the  path  or  the  journey 
of  life  without  getting  the  idea  from  Horace. 

28.  Wicked  Hannibal  (M.  FOR  M.  II,  i,  170). 

Mr.  Theobald  with  profound  learning  shows  that 
Hannibal  was  a  name  for  detestableness  among  the 
Romans.  He  is  convinced  that  Bacon-Shakespeare 
studied  the  classics  thus  to  illuminate  the  dialogue  of 
contemporary  clowns  ! 

And  he  would  doubtless  give  the  same  explanation  in 
the  case  of  Ben  Jonson  : 

Your  maids  too  know  this,  and  yet  would  have  me  turn 
Hannibal,  and  eat  my  own  flesh  and  blood. 

Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  iii,  2. 

"  Hannibal  "  for  "  cannibal "  was  a  standing  tag. 

29.  Loss  of  Question  (M.  FOR  M.  II,  iv,  90). 

Mr.  Theobald  takes  joy  in  the  explanation,  given  so 
long  ago  as  1852,  that  "loss  of  question"  stands  for 
casus  questionis.  He  does  not  explain  why  Shakespeare 
should  translate  casus  by  "  loss."  The  passage  is  in  all 
likelihood  corrupt.  Johnson's  suggested  emendation, 
"  toss  of  question,"  flouted  by  Grant  White,  would  make 
it  clear  enough. 

30.  Delighted  spirit  (M.  FOR  M.  Ill,  i,  122). 

This  old  crux  gives  Mr.  Theobald  another  opportunity. 
His  cousin,  Dr.  Theobald,  is  all  for  "  delated  "  :  he  him- 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       237 

self  prefers  to  read  "  delighted  "  as  de-lighted  =  deprived 
of  light,  because  Homer  (!LIAD,  xviii,  6)  uses  the  phrase 
"  to  lose  the  light  "  as  the  equivalent  for  "  to  die."  And 
yet  probably  Shakespeare  just  wrote  "delighted"  and 
meant  "  delighted  "  in  the  sense  of  "  hitherto  full  of  the 
delight  of  life  "  !  Anyhow,  "  de-lighted  "  is  not  classical. 

31.  On  p.  40,  whether  of  artistic  intent  or  by  the  skill 
of  his  editor,  Mr.  Theobald  has  the  oracular  passage  : 

In  Hamlet  Polonius  says  (II,  ii,  105)  "  Perpend," 

making  no  comment.  On  p.  48  we  have  a  similar  intima 
tion  with  reference  to  THE  MERRY  WIVES,  II,  i,  19.  Here 
Mr.  Theobald  censures  an  editor  for  saying  that  "  per 
pend  "  was  "an  affected  term."  This  hits  Dr.  R.  M. 
Theobald,  who  noted  that  in  Shakespeare  "  the  word  is 
used  only  by  pedantical  speakers  or  professional  fools." 
"  There  was  no  affectation  in  its  use  in  the  time  of  Eliza 
beth,"  says  Mr.  W.  Theobald,  "  as  it  was  a  word  used  in  all 
seriousness  by  Bale,  Burnet,  Fox,  and  Brown."  The 
general  proposition  is  quite  true.  But  only  the  Baconian 
can  follow  Mr.  Theobald  in  proceeding  to  connect  Shake 
speare's  use  of  it  with  Lucretius.  It  was  current  English. 
See  below,  p.  330. 

32.  Evitate  (MERRY  WIVES,  V,  v,  215). 

The  word,  says  Mr.  Theobald,  "  is  rarely  used  in 
English,  but  Bacon  was  one  of  the  few  who  adopted  it," 
and  this  in  "  a  work  not  published  in  Shakespeare's  life 
time." 

See  below,  p.  308,  as  to  another  source  of  vocabulary 
open  to  poor  Shakespeare  in  this  matter. 

33.  Thrice-blessed  (M.N.D.,  I,  i,  74). 

"  The  use  of  *  thrice,'  as  an  intensitive,"  says  the 
indefatigable  Mr.  Theobald,  "  was  a  peculiarity  of  Shake 
speare's  style"}  and  "this  is  very  suggestive  of  the 
Greek,"  and  also  of  the  Latin.  It  was  even  such  a 


238  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

peculiarity  as    the   taking  of   salt  with    meat.      Every 
dramatist  of  the  period  did  it  : 

Thrice-happy.  Thrice  dreadful.  Thrice  mighty.  Thrice 
noble. 

Thrice  royal.  Thrice  sacred.  Thrice  almighty.  Thrice 
sacred. 

Chapman,  Shepherd's  vol.  of  Minor  Poems,  &c.,  pp.  4, 
10,  16,  49,  128,  243,  255,  342.  A  dozen  more 
instances  could  easily  be  found  in  the  same  poet. 

Thrice  reverend  (thrice).  Thrice  valiant  (twice).  Thrice 
haughty.  Thrice  worthy.  Thrice  honourable. 

Peele,  Dyce's  vol.  of  Greene  and  Peele,  pp.  365,  366, 

367,  377,  38o,  462,  543.  547- 
Thrice-renowned . 

Kyd,  S oliman  and  Perseda,  i,  3. 
Thrice-renowned . 

Daniel,  Cleopatra,  1.  704.  (Ill,  ii). 
Thrice  fortunate. 

Lilly,  Endimion,  iv,   3. 

"  Nothing  hath  made  my  master  a  fool  but  flat 
scholarship,"  says  Epiton  in  the  last-cited  play. 

34.  By  lifting  a  lost  passage  from  p.  40  to  p.  49  we 
realise  that  Mr.  Theobald  finds  "  peculiarity  "  in  Shake 
speare's  use  of  "  liberal  "  in  HAMLET  (IV,  vi,  171)  as  well 
as  in  OTHELLO  (II,  i,  164  ;  V,  ii,  223).  "  In  both  these 
instances  the  word  '  liberal '  is  used  in  one  of  its  classical 
senses,  which  it  never  bears  in  English,  though  the  synony 
mous  word  'free'  does."  Mr.  Theobald's  monotony  of 
error  approaches  the  miraculous.  "  Liberal "  was  in 
Elizabethan  use  in  all  of  the  senses  in  question  : 

To  declare  his  mind  in  broad  and  liberal  speeches. 

Puttenham,  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  Arber's  rep.  p.  234. 

Thus  when  her  fair  heart -binding  hands  had  tied 
Those  liberal  tresses. 

Chapman,  Ovid's  Banquet  of  Sense,  1 595.    Shepherd's 
ed.  of  Minor  Poems  and  Translations,  p.  31. 

Fair  Phillis  wore  a  liberal  tress. 

Chapman,  Phillis  and  Flora,  1 595 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       239 

Committing  their  bitterness,  and  liberal  invectives  against  all 
estates,  to  the  mouths  of  children. 

Heywood,  Apology  for  Actors,  1612. 
Their  breasts  liberal  to  the  eye. 

Sidney,  Arcadia,  B.  iii,  ed.  1627,  p.  235. 

35.  Generous  (OTHELLO,  III,  iii,  284). 
See  below,  p.  355. 

36.  Infection  (RiCHARD  II,  II,  i,  44). 

Mr.  Theobald  is  "  certain  "  that  we  should  here  read 
"  infestion,"  because  that  enables  him  to  impute  classic 
ism,  albeit  "  the  word  is  itself  corruptly  formed  from 
infesto,  and  is  the  Englished  form  of  infestatio  .  .  . 
shortened  for  the  sake  of  the  metre  into  infestion."  Thus 
is  scholarship  demonstrated  !  All  the  while,  the  actual 
reading  is  "  infection."  Those  who  stand  for  infestion  = 
invasion  make  a  tautology,  the  line  being  "  Against 
infection  and  the  hand  of  war." 

37.  Beat  your  breast  (RICHARD  III,  II,  ii,  3). 

"  The  idea  of  '  beating  the  breast '  as  a  sign  of  grief 
is,  I  think  " — thus  Mr.  Theobald — "  more  likely  due  to 
classical  literature  than  to  personal  observation  of  the 
poet  either  in  Warwickshire  or  in  Middlesex."  So  that 
the  Baconian  is  for  the  moment  "  Stratfordian."  But 
as  beating  of  the  breast  figures  as  an  English  usage  in 
fifty  Elizabethan  poets  and  dramatists,  it  is  not  clear 
why  Mr.  Theobald  should  bar  either  Warwickshire  or 
Middlesex. 

38.  Gallop  apace  (ROMEO  AND  JULIET,  III,  ii,  i). 

"  Fiery-footed  steeds,"  Mr  Theobald  reminds  us,  "is 
the  classical  epithet  for  the  horses  of  the  Sun,"  as  in 
Ovid  and  Statius.  But  why  not  also  cite  "  bright 
Phoebus  "  and  "  chaste  Diana  "  ? 

39.  Aristotle's  Checks  (SHREW,  I,  i,  32). 

Mr.    Theobald   endorses   the   argument   of   some   one 


240  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

("the  same  writer" — no  one  being  mentioned  in  this 
connection)  in  1853,  to  the  effect  that  "  checks  "  must 
be  the  right  reading,  because  any  tiro  might  have  written 
"  ethics,"  "  but  no  person  except  one  well  read  in  the 
philosophy  itself  would  think  of  giving  it  such  a  designa 
tion  as  '  checks.'  "  Thus  again  is  a  man's  scholarship 
to  be  demonstrated. 

40.  Piece.  ("Thy  mother  was  a  piece  of  virtue  "  : 
TEMPEST,  I,  ii,  56.)  Mr.  Theobald  interprets  this  to 
mean  pars  virtutis.  "  It  illustrates  the  author's  habit 
of  thinking  in  Latin,  as  when  writing  '  piece  '  he  had  the 
Latin  equivalent  pars  in  his  mind " — as  in  Horace, 
partem  animce  (CARM.  II,  xvii,  5). 

If  Mr.  Theobald  could  only  have  been  as  consummately 
ignorant  of  all  English  literature  as  he  was  of  the  pre- 
Shakespearean,  he  might  have  furnished  us  with  commen 
taries  on  living  writers  for  which  the  comic  press  would 
have  been  grateful.  As  it  is,  the  foregoing  will  be  appre 
ciated  by  those  who  know  that  "  piece  "  was  a  standing 
figure  (usually  laudatory)  for  a  woman  (sometimes  it 
is  applied  to  a  man)  in  Elizabethan  poetry  and  drama : 

Have  won  ...  a  peece  that  hath  no  peere. 

Gascoigne,  Adventures  of  Master  F.  ] .,  15  :  Works, 
ed.  Cunliffe,  i,  414. 

Behold  here  a  peerelesse  piece. 
Id.     The  Glass  of  Government :  ii,  6  (Cunliffe,  ii,  41). 

A  pece  surely  of  price. 

Id.     Hemetes  the  Heremyte  :   ii,  481. 

Make  such  another  piece  as  Scudmore  is. 

A  Woman  is  a  Weathercock  (c.  1606),  i,  i. 
So  fair  a  piece. 

Spenser,  Sonnet  14. 
A  beautiful  and  brave  attired  piece. 

Jonson,    Cynthia's  Revels,  i,  i. 

In  fine,  a  piece,  despite  of  beauty,  framed 
To  show  what  Nature's  lineage  could  afford. 

Greene,  verses  in  The  Tritameron  of  Love  (1587). 
Dyce's  Green  and  Pede,  p.  285. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       241 

Fair  Helena,  that  brave  and  peerless  piece. 

Peele,  Tale  of  Troy,  1.  112. 
Touched  with  the  rape  of  this  reproachful  piece. 

Id.  1.  218. 
To  paint  the  colours  of  that  changing  piece. 

Id.  ed.  1589.     Dyce's  ed.  p.  555,  note. 

To  intimate  that  even  the  daintiest  piece 
And  noblest-born  dame  should  industrious  be. 
Chapman,  Hero  and  Leander,  5th  Section  :  Tale  of  Teras. 

The  sweet  Armida  ...  a  tender  piece. 
Fairfax,  tr.  of  Tasso's  Jerusalem,  1600,  B.  iv,  st.  27. 

This  figure  of  man's  comfort,  this  rare  piece. 

Chapman,  An  Humorous  Day's  Mirth,  1599, 
(Shepherd's  ed.  of  Plays,  p.  32). 

41.  Pole-dipt  Vineyard  (TEMPEST,  IV,  i,  68). 

"  This  is  a  poetic  reflection  of  Homer's  description  of 
a  vineyard  surrounded  by  a  ditch  encompassed  by  a  fence — 
that  is,  pole-dipt  (!LIAD,  xviii,  564)."  Q.  E.  D. ! 

42.  Scarcity  ("  Scarcity  and  want   shall  shun  you  "  : 
TEMPEST,  IV,  i,  116).     "  This  impersonation  of  '  scarcity/ 
and  her  inability  to  remain  where  '  plenty  '  was  to  be 
found,  recalls  the  PLUTUS  of  Aristophanes.  ..."     Simi 
larly,  doubtless,  it  was  classical  training  that  enabled 
the  early  English  to  propose  to  "  drive  away  dull  care  " 
and  "  banish  sorrow." 

43.  Sea  of  wax  (TiMON,  I,  i,  47). 

"This,"  says  Mr.  Theobald,  "  is  a  classical  allusion 
to  the  use  of  wooden  tablets,  covered  with  wax,  to  write 
on — the  tablet  used  by  the  poet  for  the  praises  of  Timon 
being  so  large  as  to  suggest  the  idea  of  a  sea  of  wax." 
It  may  be  so,  though  the  interpretation  has  been  flouted. 
In  any  case,  Mr.  Theobald  might  have  learned  from  the 
commentators  that  the  same  practice  existed  in  England 
as  late  as  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century.  But  a  non- 
Baconian  can  conceive  that  Shakespeare  heard  of  the 
Roman  practice  at  school. 

Q 


242  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

44.  Remotion  (TiMON,  IV,  iii,  338). 

Remotio,  Mr.  Theobald  informs  us,  "  is  a  rare  Latin 
word  used  by  Cicero,  and  not  used  by  English  writers 
before  Shakespeare's  time."  For  the  literary  facts,  see  the 
next  chapter,  p.  372.  Dr.  R.  M.  Theobald,  who  had 
learned  from  Judge  Willis's  "  Baconian  Mint  "  that  the 
word  was  current  before  Shakespeare's  time,  writes  a 
preface  to  his  cousin's  book  in  1909  without  any 
attempt  to  rectify  his  ignorant  assertion. 

45.  Pantheon  (TiTUS,  I,  i,  240). 

"  This  reference  to  the  great  temple  of  Jupiter  .  .  . 
infers  a  considerable  knowledge  of  Roman  archaeology." 
More  knowledge,  certainly,  than  Mr.  Theobald  had  of 
Tudor  literature.  "  The  name  of  Lavinia,  too  .  .  .  !  " 

46.  Palliament  (Tixus,  I,  i,  179). 

"  Here  we  have  a  word,  '  palliament,'  wholly  unknown 
to  the  English  language,  but  derived  from  the  Latin 
word  pallium,  a  cloak."  Mr.  Theobald  has  for  once  the 
excuse  that  the  commentator  Steevens  knew  of  no 
previous  use  of  the  'vord.  But  it  was  previously  in  print, 
like  so  many  othe  <-  words  unknown  to  Mr.  Theobald. 
See  above,  p.  121. 

47.  Candidatus  (Id.  ib.}. 

"Representing"  for  Mr.  Theobald,  of  course,  "an 
idea  which  would  be  familiar  only  to  a  thoroughly  classical 
scholar."  The  word  is  Peele's,  not  Shakespeare's,  who 
in  CORIOLANUS  shows  that  he  did  not  know  what  candi- 
datus 1  meant ;  but  what  a  truly  Baconian  basis  for  a 
certificate  of  scholarship  ! 

48.  Assubjugate  (TnoiLUS,  II,  iii,  185). 

"  A  word  which  could  only  have  been  coined  by  a 
classical  scholar,  as  it  is  assuredly  derived  from  no  transla- 

1  Though  its  significance  had  been  noted  in  Puritan  controversy. 
Marsden's  Hist,  oj  the  Early  Puritans,  ed.  1853,  p.  26. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       243 

tion."  Mr.  Theobald's  assurance  on  this  head  is  truly 
valuable.  But  as  we  have  "  assubject  "  in  Fenton's 
Guicciardini,  and  "  assecured  "  and  "  assiege  "  (after 
Chaucer)  often  in  Daniel,  the  non-Baconian  reader  must 
reluctantly  doubt. 

49.  Sacred  (TROILUS,  IV,  v,  132). 

Steevens  is  responsible  for  Mr.  Theobald's  conviction 
that  in  "  my  sacred  aunt  "  Shakespeare  betrayed  the 
knowledge  that  theios,  "  sacred,"  was  "  used  as  a  noun 
for  a  father's  brother,  or  uncle,"  and  that  the  poet,  "  by 
a  daring  stretch  of  orthography  transferred  the  expression 
in  its  adjectival  sense  from  uncle  to  aunt."  But  Mr. 
Theobald  does  not  mention  Steevens'  inference  that 
TROILUS  is  not  wholly  by  Shakespeare.  The  open- 
minded  reader  will  want  to  know  how  a  misapplication 
of  an  alleged  Greek  usage  proves  deep  scholarship. 

50.  Galathe  :    Sagittary  (TROILUS,  V,  v,  14,  20). 
These   allusions   to   items   not   mentioned   in   Homer 

move  Mr.  Theobald  to  assert  that  "  the  writer  was  familiar 
with  the  medieval  versions  of  the  tale  of  Troy."  As  the 
old  commentators  pointed  out,  they  are  both  derived 
from  Lydgate  and  THE  THREE  DESTRUCTIONS  OF  TROY, 
printed  by  Caxton. 

51.  Tears    of   joy    ("  sorrow  wept  ...  for   their   joy 
waded  in  tears  "  :  WINTER'S  TALE,  V,  ii,  44). 

"  This  idea  of  joy  producing  tears  is  very  classical, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Herald,  who  returned  safe  to  his 
native  Argos — AGAM.  541  ;  ILIAD,  vi,  482."  So  our 
profound  scholar.  As  Shakespeare  thus  demonstrably 
could  not  have  had  the  notion  from  personal  knowledge, 
we  must  take  refuge  in  the  hypothesis  that  he  had  been 
electrified  by  previously  meeting  the  phrase  "  tears  of 
joy  "  in  Peele's  EDWARD  I,  i,  i. 

With  that  theorem  about "  tears  of  joy  "Mr.  Theobald's 
first  chapter  appropriately  ends.  I  have  dealt  with  every 


244  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

item  in  it,  and  leave  to  the  reader  the  characterization 
of  its  merits.  I  will  not  ask  them  to  follow  any  such 
detailed  examination  of  the  follies  which  follow.  A  few 
samples  will  indicate  how  effectually  they  maintain  the 
level  reached  in  the  opening  chapter. 

52.  The  proverb,  "  Smooth  runs  the  water  where  the 
brook  is  deep  "  (2  HENRY  VI,  III,  i,  53)  is  declared  (p.  58) 
to  refer  "  to  a  fable  of  Abstemius,  which  shows  that 
there  is  more  to  be  apprehended  from  a  silent  than  from 
a   noisy   enemy !  ' '     Why   did   not    Mr.    Theobald   cite 
instead  Quintus  Curtius,  who  has  :    Altissima  quaeque 
flumina  minimo  sono  labi  (vii,  4,  13)  ?     Unhappily  for 
our  Baconian,  the  line  he  quotes  as  Shakespeare's  belongs 
to  the  old  CONTENTION. 

53.  Ttte  "  Mouse-hunt  "  passage  in  ROMEO  AND  JULIET 
(IV,  iv,  n)  is  alleged  (p.  59)  to  display  "  a  thorough 
acquaintance  .  .  .  with    some    of    the    nicer    points    of 
classical  idiom/'  inasmuch  as  "we  learn  from  ^Elian  the 
unsavoury  sense  the  word  bore  in  amatory  phraseology." 

54.  The  lines  in  JULIUS  CESAR  (III,  i,  106) 

And  let  us  bathe  our  hands  in  Caesar's  blood 
Up  to  the  elbows,  and  besmear  our  swords 

— which  may  be  paralleled  in  twenty  rants  in  previous 
Elizabethan  plays — are  gravely  referred  (p.  63)  to  the 
passage  in  the  SEPTEM  CONTRA  THE  BAM  which  describes 
the  ceremonial  cutting  of  a  bull's  throat,  and  the  touching 
of  the  blood  by  the  seven  chiefs  ! 

55.  The  identity  of  Shakespeare  with  Bacon  is  proved 
(p.  91)  by  the  fact  that,  among  other  things,  both  held 
by  the  common  error  that  snails  voluntarily  cast  their 
shells. 

56.  Lady  Macbeth's  "  fate  and  metaphysical  aid  "  is 
declared  (p.  91)  to  be  the  phrase  of  "  a  thorough  scholar, 
versed  in  classical  idioms,"  in  the  face  of  the  cited  fact 
that  Marlowe  previously  made  Faustus  speak  of  "  these 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       245 

metaphysics  of  magicians."  Of  course,  Bacon  wrote 
Marlowe.  It  follows,  then,  presumably,  that  he  wrote 
THE  PURITAN,  since  there  we  have  : 

You  see  I  know  your  determinations,  which  must  come  to  me 
metaphysically,  and  by  a  supernatural  intelligence. 

(Act  ii,  Sc.  i.) 

And  he  must  previously  have  written  Marston's  SCOURGE 
OF  VILLAINE  (1599),  where  we  have  (1.  10)  : 
My  soule — an  essence  metaphysicall. 

57.  The  phrase,  "  lurched  all  swords  of  the  garland  " 
(CORIOLANUS,  II,  ii,  99),  is  declared  (p.  108)  to  be  "  a 
metaphorical  use  of  a  word  derived  from  the  Latin  lurco, 
to  devour ;  an  uncommon  word,  and  one  it  is  hardly 
credible  Shaksper  (sic)  could  ever  have  come  across,"  but 
which  was  known  to  Bacon,  who,  by  implication  coined 
"  lurcheth  "  (Essay  45).  It  has  been  given  to  few,  even 
in  the  Baconian  camp,  to  flaunt  such  evidences  of  arro 
gant  ignorance  as  are  multiplied  by  Mr.  Theobald.  From 
the  variorum  or  a  school  edition  he  might  have  learned 
that  Ben  Jonson  in  THE  SILENT  WOMAN  has  the  phrase  : 
You  have  lurched  your  friends  of  the  better  half  of  the  garland  ; 
that  in  Florio's  Italian  Dictionary,  1598,  the  phrase 
Gioco  marzo  is  denned,  "  A  maiden  set,  or  lurch,  at  any 
game  "  ;  and  that  in  Cotgrave  Bredouille  is  denned  "  a 
lurch  at  cards,  at  tables  "  ;  and  Lourche  "  the  game 
called  Lurche,  or  a  Lurch  in  game."  The  vernacular 
phrase  "  left  in  the  lurch  "  might  indicate  even  to  a 
Baconian  the  common  use  of  the  term.  In  the  sense  of 
niching  or  over-reaching,  "  to  lurch  "  was  a  common 
Elizabethan  word.  In  the  MERRY  WIVES  (ii,  2)  Shake 
speare  puts  it  in  the  mouth  of  Falstaff,  talking  to  Pistol. 
Nashe,  in  CHRIST'S  TEARES  OVER  JERUSALEM,  speaks  of 
courtesans  "  laughing  at  the  punies  they  had  lurched  " 
(Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  ii,  150).  Lilly  in  ENDIMION 
(ii,  2)  has  : 

Is  not  love  a  lurcher,  that  taketh  men's  stomacks  away,  that 
they  cannot  eate  ? 


246  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

and  the  old  interlude  of  William  Roye,  REDE  ME  AND 
BE  NOTT  WROTHE  (1528)  has  the  lines  : 

Yea,  but  thorowe  falce  lorchers, 
And  unthryfty  abbey  lobbers. 

Whittingham's  rep.  p.  108. 

Shakespeare  is  fortunate  in  his  foes  ! 

58.  Many-headed  beast.     Mr.   Theobald,   going  halves 
in  this  as  in  so  many  other  mares'  nests  with  his  cousin, 
Dr.  R.  M.  Theobald,  cites  the  phrase  in  English  from 
Buchanan's  De  Jure  Regni  apud  Scotos,  c.  27,  proceeding 
to  explain  that   Buchanan   copied  Horace.     Buchanan 
actually  quotes  the  words  of  Horace.     Apparently  this 
is  supposed  to  strengthen  the  claim  that  Shakespeare 
drew  the  phrase  hence.     Mr.  Theobald,  like  his  cousin, 
has  not  an  inkling  of  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  could 
have  found  the  phrase  in  Elyot  even  if  it  were  not  already 
current  on  the  stage.     See  above,  p.  211. 

59.  Falstaff's  "  If  the  rascal  have  not  given  me  medicines 
to  make  me  love  him,  I'll  be  hanged,"  is  explained  to  be 
"  an  allusion  to  the  classical  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  love- 
potions,"  though  in  the  next  breath  it  is  avowed  that 
such  potions  were  traded  in  by  witches  "  ancient  and 
modern."     That  is  to  say,  the  idea  was  known  in  every 
English  village. 

60.  A  notable  sample  of  the  method  of  learned  igno 
rance  is  furnished  in  Mr.  Theobald's  assertion  that  the 
line  in  MUCH  ADO  (I,  i,  226)  : 

In  time  the  savage  bull  doth  bear  the  yoke, 
is  "  paraphrased  from  a  line  of  Ovid — 

In  time  the  unbroken  steers  come  beneath  the  yoke, 

Ars.  Amat.  471." 

In   so  well-known   a   play  as   THE   SPANISH    TRAGEDY 
(ii,  i)  he  might  have  found  it  in  English  : 

In  time  the  savage  bull  sustains  the  yoke  ; 
and  from  the  commentators  he  might  have  learned  that 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       247 

the  passage  is  an  almost  literal  transcription  from  Watson's 
HECATOMPATHIA,  Sonnet  47,  which  in  turn  is  adapted 
from  a  sonnet  by  Serafmo  d'Aquila.  It  was  one  of  the 
most  hackneyed  quotations  of  the  age,  in  English. 

61.  Of  course  Mr.  Theobald  repeats  (p.  298)  the  stock 
Baconian  argument  that  "  the  eye  seeing  not  itself  "  is 
from  the  FIRST  ALCIBIADES  of  Plato l  (this  after  positing 
at  the  outset  the  view  that  Bacon  did  not  dare  indicate 
his  scholarship  in  works  to  be  ascribed  to  Shakespeare)  ; 
and,  following  previous  speculators,  is  sure  that  the  "  To 
be  "  soliloquy  is  derived  from  Plato,  Parmenides,  and 
"  the  Eleatic  fragments."  The  items  in  the  soliloquy 
have  been  traced  to  many  sources,  often  unnecessarily 
enough.  The  "  sea  of  troubles  "  continues  to  be  traced 
to  the  jrauaoy  xeXayof  of  ^Eschylus,  in  disregard  of  the 
words  "  of  troubles  "  and  "  by  opposing  end  them," 
which  point  to  the  old  story  of  the  Celts  rushing  into 
the  sea  to  fight  it — a  story  made  current  in  English  by 
the  translation  of  THE  REGYSTRE  OF  HYSTORIES  of 
^Elian,  published  in  1576.  The  simple  idea  of  "a 
sea  of  troubles  "  was  a  current  poetical  commonplace 
in  Shakespeare's  day,  as  it  doubtless  was  in  that  of 
^Eschylus.  Lewis  Theobald  admitted  that  it  "  grew 
into  a  proverbial  usage."  A  metaphorical  use  of  "sea" 
was  in  fact  one  of  the  very  commonest  tropes  in  the 
language.2  "  A  sea  of  evils,"  as  Steevens  pointed  out, 
is  found  in  Morysine's  translation  of  Ludovicus  Vives' 
INTRODUCTION  TO  WYSEDOME,  1544 ;  and  Malone  cited 
"  seas  of  guiltless  smart  "  from  Higgins's  MIRROUR  FOR 
MAGISTRATES  (1575).  There  also  we  find  "seas  of  care" 
(Induction,  st.  5),  which  is  repeated  as  "seas  of  never- 
ceasing  care  "  in  SELIMUS,  1.  1761  (1594).  We  have  "  sea 
of  blood  "  in  Fairfax's  Tasso  and  in  MUCEDORUS  (1598)  ; 
"  sea  of  bloody  tragedy  "  in  A  KNACK  TO  KNOW  AN 
HONEST  MAN  (1598)  ;  and  "  seas  of  heinous  faults  "  in 

1  See  above,  p.  189.  2  See  below,  ch.  ix. 


248  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Gascoigne's  JOCASTA,  i,  I,  (1566).  In  Florio's  Montaigne, 
again,  we  have  (Essay  OF  PHYSIOGNOMY)  "  tide  of  mis 
chief,"  after  "  arm  myself  to  expel  or  wrestle  against  " 
"  unpleasant  conceits."  In  the  fortieth  essay,  again, 
we  have  Montaigne's  citation  and  translation  of  Augus 
tine's  malam  mortem  non  facit,  nisi  quod  sequitur  mortem, 
which  may  be  said  to  be  the  gist  of  the  whole  soliloquy. 
The  reference  to  Plato  is  idle  ;  as  perhaps  is  that  to 
Cardan's  DE  CONSOLATIONS,  translated  by  Bedingfield 
into  English  in  1576.  If  Socrates'  Apology  be  a  source 
for  part  of  the  soliloquy,  it  lay  to  Shakespeare's  hand, 
substantially  reproduced  in  Montaigne  (iii,  12),  Florio's 
translation  of  which  we  know  him  to  have  read,  and 
parts  of  which  he  may  well  have  seen,  as  we  know  others 
did,  before  it  was  printed.1  The  theme  is  one  that  must 
have  been  often  discussed  in  Shakespeare's  day  as  in 
every  other ;  and  there  is  not  an  idea  in  the  soliloquy 
that  would  not  readily  arise  in  such  discussion. 

62.  And  this  is  the  best  of  Mr.  Theobald's  matter  :  the 
rest,  which  we  have  sufficiently  sampled,  runs  to  such 
follies  as  the  derivation  of  "  Time  tries  all  "  from  Pindar  : 

Future  days  forsooth  are  the  wisest  witnesses. 

It  was  a  trite  English  saw,  and  is  found  in  the  interlude 
RespuUica,  1553  : 

Yet  time  trieth  all,  and  time  bringeth  truth  to  light. 

Farmer's  Lost  Tudor  Plays,  1907,  p.  180. 

63.  In  an  Appendix,  with  suicidal  industry,  Mr.  Theobald 
busies  himself  to  show,  among  other  things,  what  every 
body  knows,  that  the  author  of  the  plays  freely  used  the 
English  Chronicles  and  borrowed  from  Lilly  and  Florio's 
Montaigne — as  if  "  the  Stratford  actor  "  could  not  even 
read  English.     But  in  the  same  Appendix  we  are  informed 
that  the  common  proverb  "  two  may  keep  counsel  when 
the  third's  away  "  (Tixus,  IV,  ii,  144)  is  "  borrowed  from 
the  Seventh  Fable  in  the  HITOPADESA."     It  was  simply 

1  See  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  2nd  ed.  pp.  40,  77,  161,  139. 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       249 

a  standing  English  proverb,  and  is  to  be  found  in  Greene's 
MAMILLIA  (1580)  :  Works,  ii,  30  ;  and  in  Lilly's  MOTHER 
BOMBIE  (1589),  ii,  i.  The  other  recondite  proverb  about 
the  man  born  to  be  hanged  was  a  household  word. 

64.  In  one  case  Mr.  Theobald  is  able  to  cite  a  distin 
guished  critic  for  "  an  absolutely  conclusive  proof  that  the 
author  of  the  plays  knew  Italian."  Georg  Brandes  had 
pointed  to  the  "  prophetic  fury  "  passage  in  OTHELLO, 
and  its  derivation  from  the  ORLANDO  FURIOSO  (Canto  46, 
Stanza  80),  adding  : 

The  agreement  here  cannot  possibly  be  accidental.  And  what 
makes  it  still  more  certain  that  Shakespeare  had  the  Italian  text 
before  him  is  that  the  words  prophetic  fury,  which  are  the  same 
in  Othello  as  in  the  Italian,  are  not  to  be  found  in  Harington's 
English  translation,  the  only  one  then  in  existence.  He  must 
thus,  whilst  writing  Othello,  have  been  interested  in  Orlando, 
and  have  had  Berni's  and  Ariosto's  poems  lying  on  his  table* 

The  reference  to  Berni  has  regard  to  the  passage  begin 
ning  "  Who  steals  my  purse  steals  trash  "  ;  concerning 
which  Mr.  Theobald  affirms  that  "  Grant  White  remarks 
that  this"  [the  opening  phrase]  "is  taken  from  the 
ORLANDO  INNAMORATO  of  Berni."  If  Grant  White  said 
so,  he  erred.  There  is  nothing  about  "  stealing  trash  " 
in  Berni,  whose  lines  are  cited  in  full  by  Brandes  :  it  is 
the  rest  of  the  passage  that  points  there.  But  the  critic's 
confident  conclusion  that  Shakespeare  read  Berni  and 
Ariosto  is  a  notable  instance  of  unwarranted  induction. 
He  has  overlooked  (i)  the  question  whether  OTHELLO  is 
a  first-hand  play  ;  (2)  the  fact  that  the  allusion  is  remote, 
Ariosto  naming  Cassandra  whereas  Shakespeare  does  not, 
but  speaks  of  a  "  sybill  "  ;  while  the  poet  tells  of  a  canopy 
and  the  dramatist  of  a  handkerchief ;  (3)  the  endless 
possibilities  of  translated  passages  of  Italian  poetry 
coming  in  Shakespeare's  way  ;  and  (4)  the  English  books  in 
which  the  "  steals  my  good  name  "  thesis  is  explicitly  put 
forth.  Hunter  cited  from  Wilson's  Rhetorique  (1553)  the 

1   William  Shakespeare,  1898,  ii,  123. 


250  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

suggested  argument  "that  a  slanderer  is  worse  than  any 
thief,  because,  .  .  .  the  loss  of  money  may  be  recovered  ; 
but  the  loss  of  a  man's  good  name  cannot  be  called  back 
again  ' ' ;  and  Mr.  Hart  in  his  excellent  edition  of  OTHELLO 
adds  from  Humphrey  Gifford's  POSIE  OF  GILLOFLOWERS 
(1580  :  ed.  Grosart,  p.  8)  the  sentence  : 

Such  as  take  men's  purses  from  them  undesired,  passe  often 
by  the  sentence  of  a  cow  ;  and  shall  such  as  rob  men  of  their 
good  names  undeserved  be  supposed  to  escape  scot-free  ? 

To  these  instances  may  be  added  earlier  : 

First  of  all  it  [lust]  pulleth  away  from  thee  thy  good  fame,  a 
possession  far-away  most  precious. 

Tyndale's  trans,  of  Erasmus'  Enchiridion,  1533,  ch.  32. 

After  he  [the  merchant]  hath  put  his  honest  reputation  of  good 
report  that  is  sprung  of  him,  his  life,  his  soul,  in  a  thousand 
jeopardies. 

Id.  ch.  ii. 

We  will  appear  religious  in  such  using  of  meats,  and  in  hurting 
men's  fame  we  be  bold  and  hardy. 

Id.  Pref.  Epist. 

But  Shakespeare,  if  he  needed  a  hint  on  such  a  well-worn 
topic,  had  it  much  nearer  home,  in  Ben  Jonson  : 

When  no  malicious  thief 
Robs  my  good  name,  the  treasure  of  my  life. 

The  Poetaster,  iii,  2. 

In  the  face  of  all  this,  it  is  a  strain  upon  common  sense 
to  be  referred  to  Berni  for  the  simple  sentiment  in  question. 
And  it  is  hardly  less  precipitate  to  take  it  for  granted 
that  any  slight  verbal  parallel  in  OTHELLO  to  an  Italian 
classic  must  be  an  original  adaptation  by  Shakespeare, 
who  took  so  much  other  Italian  matter  at  second-hand. 
The  phrases  "  prophetic  fury  "  and  "poetic  fury,"  be 
it  added,  are  very  common  in  Elizabethan  literature. 

This  summary  handling  of  critical  problems  in  regard 
to  authorship  is  one  of  the  blemishes  of  Brandes'  com 
prehensive  book  on  Shakespeare.  It  affects  his  treatment 
of  TITUS  ANDRONICUS  ;  still  more  his  handling  of  THE 
TAMING  OF  THE  SHREW,  in  regard  to  which  he  does  not 


ALLEGED  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP       251 

even  notice  the  doubts  of  many  preceding  critics  as  to 
Shakespeare's  share.  Thus  he  allows  Gremio's  descrip 
tion  of  an  Italian  interior  (Act  ii,  end)  to  count  in  favour 
of  the  hypothesis  of  Shakespeare's  visiting  Italy  ;  when 
the  hypothesis  of  Greene's  hand  in  the  play  would  dispose 
of  the  other  ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  the  "  Arras 
counterpoints  "  occur  in  the  old  TAMING  OF  A  SHREW. 
Gremio's  speech  is  expressly  assigned  by  Boswell-Stone 
to  the  pre-Shakespearean  hand. 

With  similar  precipitance,  Brandes  has  assigned  the 
Jack  Cade  scenes  in  2  HENRY  VI  to  Shakespeare,  here 
accepting  the  untenable  theory  of  Shakespeare's  part 
authorship  of  the  old  play  ;  and  like  other  Shakespeareans 
he  has  played  into  the  hands  of  the  Baconians  by  un 
critically  adopting  the  thesis  that  "  Shakespeare  shows 
a  quite  unusual  fondness  for  the  use  of  legal  expressions. 
He  knows  to  a  nicety  the  technicalities  of  the  bar,  the 
formulas  of  the  bench,"1  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  He  has 
thus  given  with  one  hand  while  taking  away  with  the  other 
in  his  use  of  the  demonstration  that  Lilly's  EUPHUES 
and  not  Bruno  is  the  source,  if  source  be  needed,  for 
Hamlet's  bitter  dialogue  with  Ophelia.2 

The  error  of  such  a  critic  as  Brandes  is  a  very  different 
thing  from  the  divagations  of  the  Baconians.  Mr. 
Theobald  knew  Brandes  only  by  quotation  at  second 
hand.  It  is  fitting  in  this  connection  to  note  what 
Brandes  says  of  the  "  ignorant  and  arrogant  attack  "  of 
the  "  wretched  group  of  dilettanti  "  who  have  "  been 
bold  enough,  in  Europe  and  America,  to  deny  William 
Shakespeare  the  right  to  his  own  life-work,  to  give  to 
another  the  honour  due  to  his  genius,  and  to  bespatter 
him  and  his  invulnerable  name  with  an  insane  abuse 
which  has  re-echoed  through  every  land."3  And  since 

1  Work  cited,  i,  109.  z  Id.  ii,  18-19. 

3  Work  cited,  ii,  413.  Compare  i,  104  sq.  Brandes  at  the 
close  avows  that  the  Baconian  attack  was  one  of  his  two  motives 
for  writing  his  book. 


252  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

the  Baconians  have  also  made  use  of  Grant  White,  it  may 
be  well  to  keep  under  view  his  remark  that  "  every  man 
of  common  sense  and  even  a  little  knowledge  of  the 
literary  and  dramatic  history  of  the  times  of  Elizabeth 
and  James  I,  has  the  right  to  feel  aggrieved  and  injured 
when  the  productions  of  the  two  greatest  minds  of 
modern  times  are  made  the  occasion  of  a  gabble  of  con 
troversy,  the  sole  foundation  of  which  is  a  petty  parade 
of  fiddling,  perverted  verbal  coincidences,  which  have 
no  more  real  significance  than  the  likeness  of  the  notes 
of  two  cuckoos  or  of  two  cuckoo-clocks."1 

We  have  had  enough,  I  think,  of  the  general  Baconian 
argument  from  the  alleged  "  classical  scholarship  "  of 
the  plays.  Founded  on  the  fallacies  of  many  orthodox 
Shakespeareans,  it  has  been  carried  by  the  Messrs.  Theo 
bald  to  lengths  which  might  have  given  pause  to  the 
most  idolatrous  of  the  orthodox.  In  all  stages  alike,  it 
breaks  down  utterly  upon  critical  investigation.  We 
are  left,  as  before,  to  the  conclusion  that  Jonson  knew 
whereof  he  spoke  when  he  declared,  in  the  midst  of  his 
splendid  panegyric,  that  his  dead  friend  had  "  small 
Latin  and  less  Greek."  Those  who  maintain  the  contrary 
have  simply  ignored  or  been  ignorant  of  the  mass  of  con 
temporary  Elizabethan  literature  in  which  the  "  classical  " 
matter  of  the  plays  is  scattered  broadcast,  and  in  which 
we  can  so  often  find  the  ipsissima  verba  founded  on. 

1  "The  Bacon-Shakespeare  Craze,"  in  Studies  in  Shakespeare, 
1885,  P-  153- 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP 
ii  :     DR.  R.  M.  THEOBALD'S  LIST  OF  WORDS 


AFTER  giving  the  "  examples  of  Latin  construc 
tion  "  already  dealt  with,  Dr.  Theobald  com 
piles  a  chapter  "  the  object  of  which  is  to 
show  that  Shakespeare's  vocabulary  was  in 
the  highest  degree  classic,  .  .  .  that  his  English  contains 
very  large  augmentations  from  the  Latin.     It   shows  him 
constantly    making   linguistic   experiments,    endeavouring 
to  enrich  his  language  by  coining  new  words,  derived  from 
the  Latin  ;   and  that  even  ordinary  English  words  often 
became   plastic   and  elastic  in   his   speech,   carrying   a 
larger  import   than   their   vernacular   employment   can 
account  for."  1 

The  claim  is  not  Baconian  in  origin.  So  judicious  a 
critic  as  Hallam  suggested  that  Shakespeare's  vocabulary 
showed  "  a  greater  knowledge  of  Latin  than  had  com 
monly  been  ascribed  to  him.  The  phrases,  unintelligible 
and  improper,  except  in  the  sense  of  their  primitive 
roots,  which  occur  so  copiously  in  his  plays,  seem  to 
be  unaccountable  on  the  supposition  of  absolute  ignorance. 
In  the  MIDSUMMER  NIGHT'S  DREAM  these  are  much  less 
frequent  than  in  his  later  dramas.  But  here  we  find 
several  instances.  Thus,  '  things  base  and  vile,  holding 
no  quantity,'  for  value  ;  rivers  that  '  have  overborne 
their  continents,'  the  continence  ripa  of  Horace  ;  '  compact 
of  imagination  '  ;  '  something  of  great  constancy,'  for 
consistency  ;  '  sweet  Pyramus,  translated  there  '  ;  '  the 
1  Work  cited,  p.  318. 
253 


254  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

law  of  Athens,  which  by  no  means  we  may  extenuate.' 
I  have  considerable  doubts  whether  any  of  these  expres 
sions  would  be  found  in  the  contemporary  prose  of 
Elizabeth's  reign."  l  Hallam  goes  on  to  say  that  "  could 
authority  be  produced  for  Latinisms  so  forced,  it  is  still 
not  very  likely  that  one  who  did  not  understand  their 
proper  meaning  would  have  introduced  them  into 
poetry  " — a  proposition  which  is  not  likely  to  be  disputed. 
Unfortunately  Hallam,  like  so  many  later  and  less  erudite 
critics,  had  unduly  trusted  to  his  memory  and  general 
knowledge,  and  has  here,  as  we  shall  see,  half-claimed 
uniqueness  for  a  number  of  Shakespearean  words  which 
were  more  or  less  fully  current  before  1590.  It  is  par 
ticularly  surprising  to  find  that  Hallam  hesitated  over 
"  compact,"  which  occurs  often  in  Elyot's  GOVERNOUR  ; 2 
that  he  should  have  seen  any  novelty  in  ' '  continents  ' '  = 
bounds  or  banks  ;  and  that  he  should  have  had  no 
recollection  of  the  common  pre-Shakespearean  use  of 
"  translate "  3  in  the  physical  sense.  Such  slips  by 
eminent  critics  make  for  harm.  Hallam's  qualified 
obiter  dictum  has  been  adopted,  without  scrutiny,  by 
Mr.  G.  G.  Greenwood,  as  a  support  to  the  "  classical  " 
theory  ; 4  and  the  Baconians,  mostly  devoid  of  general 
knowledge  of  Tudor  literature,  make  wholesale  assertions 

1  Introd.  to  Lit.  of  Europe,  ed.  1872,  ii,  280. 

2  See  above,  p.  205  ;  and  Elyot,  B.  i,  chs.  13,  26  ;  B.  iii,  ch.  28. 

3  See   below,    p.   351.     Constancy   for   consistency  is   likewise 
precedented.     The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 

A  death  constant  and  agreeable  to  a  life  honestly  and  godly 
led.  Baret's  Alvearic,  1580. 

But  the  Dictionary  takes  "  constancy/'  in  the  passage  cited 
by  Hallam,  to  mean  "  certainty  "  (for  which  use  again  it  cites  a 
precedent  in  1563),  not  "  consistency."  Extenuate  is  dealt  with 
below  in  Dr.  Theobald's  list,  No.  74,  p.  312. 

4  Mr.  Greenwood  insists,  in  obvious  error  (p.  125),  that  Shake 
speare's  allusions    to    the    river's  "continents"    is    "exactly" 
Horace's  continente  ripa.     It  is  simply  a  normal  use  of  the  English 
word.     But  if  it  were  a  reminiscence  of  Horace,  it  would  count 
for  little. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP    255 

where  Hallam,  possessing  wide  though  not  philologically 
specialised  knowledge,  ventured  only  to  advance  "  con 
siderable  doubts."  Thus  we  attain  to  the  wholesale 
declaration  above  cited  from  Dr.  Theobald.  The  writer 
who  would  have  counted  the  Baconian  theory  insane 
becomes  a  stepping-stone  thereto. 

It  is  obvious  that  in  Dr.  Theobald's  sweeping  pro 
position  there  might  be  contained  a  grain  of  truth.  If 
we  simply  rest  rationally  on  Ben  Jonson's  verdict  that 
Shakespeare  had  "  small  Latin  and  less  Greek,"  we  are 
not  debarred  from  the  assumption  that  what  Latin  he 
imbibed  at  the  grammar-school  had  some  shaping  in 
fluence  on  his  diction.  A  man  with  a  genius  for  utterance 
must  be  supposed  to  reflect  on  the  formation  as  well  as 
the  significance  of  words.  Some  touches  of  etymology 
must  necessarily  have  entered  into  grammar-school 
teaching ;  and  questions  of  word- values  and  word-forms 
could  hardly  miss  being  debated  at  times  among  the 
company  at  the  Mermaid,  to  say  nothing  of  the  greenroom. 
To  reject  such  possibilities  would  be  to  revert  to  the 
miracle-mongering  conception  of  Shakespeare  which  has 
prepared  the  way  for  the  aberrations  of  the  Baconians. 
It  would  be  quite  compatible  with  such  a  non-academic 
culture,  on  the  basis  of  an  ordinary  middle-class  schooling, 
that  a  born  master  of  speech,  such  as  our  playwright 
unquestionably  was,  should  innovate  in  language  within 
certain  limits ;  and  it  would  be  interesting,  if  possible, 
to  trace  any  such  innovation  in  his  work.  But  the 
tracing  is  obviously  the  task  of  a  trained  English  philo 
logist  :  a  mere  random  groping,  in  terms  of  a  mere  general 
knowledge  of  Latin  and  late  English  literature,  can  yield 
only  guesses  and  chimeras.  Where  Hallam  slipped, 
Baconians  must  fall  painfully. 

As  all  English  scholars  are  aware,  all  words  of  Latin 
or  French  derivation  bore  in  the  sixteenth  century  a 
closer  relation  to  their  source  than  they  do  now.  They 
were  then,  so  to  speak,  nearer  to  their  roots,  even  as  were 


256  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

the  native  words,  which  also  have  since  undergone 
much  mutation.  Words  which  have  now  become 
specialised  in  narrow  senses  had  then  their  larger  primary 
significance,  or  something  near  it.  "  Corpse  "  or  "  corse  " 
was  still  corpus,  "  body,"  and  was  commonly  applied  to 
the  living  body,  so  that  "  dead  corse,"  as  in  HAMLET 
(also  in  Gascoigne,  as  often  before  in  Sackville),  was 
no  tautology.  "  Success  "  had  still  much  of  its  primary 
force,  of  "  sequence  "  ;  so  that  we  constantly  meet  with 
such  phrases  as  "  fortunate  success,"  "  good  success," 
and  "  vile  success "  in  the  poets  and  dramatists. 
"Courage"  could  still  mean  "the  state  of  the  heart," 
so  that  men  could  significantly  speak  of  "  good  courage  " 
and  "  vile  courage."  For  a  time  they  kept  the  noun 
"discourage."  Such  a  phrase  as  "detract  [= sunder] 
our  vows ' '  (SiR  CLYOMON)  was  still  possible  to  writers 
for  the  stage  in  Shakespeare's  day  ;  though  "  detraction  " 
was  already  an  established  term  in  the  modern  sense. 
"Rest"  still  had  the  force  of  "remain,"  as  in  "it 
resteth."  "  Painful  "  meant  painstaking.  "  Presently  " 
could  still  mean  "  now  "  in  England,  as  it  yet  does  in 
Scotland.  "  Censure "  meant  "  judgment,"  not 
"  blame  "  :  "  enormities  "  were  still  "  departures  from 
the  norm,"  not  necessarily  atrocities  ;  and  "  enormous 
times  ' '  were  times  of  tumult  or  disorder.  They  had  the 
word  "radicate"  as  well  as  "eradicate";  "confer" 
(the  "  cf."  of  our  footnote  references)  meant  for  them,  as 
in  Latin,  "  compare."  "  Edify  "  still  meant  "  build  " 
or  "construct"  as  well  as  "instruct";  "reduce" 
commonly  or  often  meant  "  lead  back  "  :  we  can  see  its 
modern  sense  of  "  subdue  "  coming  in  from  the  French 
side.  "Admire"  often  meant  simply  "wonder"; 
"  continent  " — one  of  Hallam's  erring  instances — "  that 
which  contains";  "include"  could  mean  "bury"; 
and  "  prevent  "  had  the  force  of  "  anticipate,"  as  still 
in  the  Prayer-Book  and  in  the  daily  prayers  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  A  thousand  words  of  Latin  de- 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  257 

rivation  were  still  "  unpolarised,"  as  Dr.  Holmes  would 
say ;  and  many  words  were  used  in  a  sense  in  which 
they  are  now  never  applied,  as  when  Latimer,  thrice  in  a 
page,  has  the  phrase  "evacuate  the  cross  of  Christ," 
"  evacuate  Christ's  death."  1 

The  period  of  Elizabeth's  reign  was  specially  given 
to  Latin  formations.  Some  of  Chaucer's  constructions 
had  missed  acceptance  in  the  illiterate  period  between  ; 
but  whereas  Gower 2  had  thought  it  necessary  to  explain 
that  "  Ire  "  (freely  used  by  Chaucer)  is  "  that  in  our 
english  Wrath  is  hote  "  [=hight],  the  earlier  preachers 
of  the  sixteenth  century  used  "ire"  frequently  in  the 
pulpit.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  Authorised  Bible  of 
1611,  conservative  as  it  is  of  older  English,  never  employs 
the  word  at  all.  Many  old  words,  however,  were  dropped 
for  good.  Where  Pecock  had  said  "  overer "  and 
"netherer,"  all  English  writers  would  say  "superior" 
and  ' '  inferior . ' '  Many  less  common  Latin  formations  were 
added  to  the  language  between  More  and  Bacon ;  but  the 
period  of  early  Protestant  controversy  was  perhaps  as 
fruitful  in  them  as  the  later  age  of  Shakespeare.  They 
abound  in  the  old  Interludes.  Preachers  naturally 
employed  both  Latinic  and  vernacular  forms,  giving  us 
such  sentences  as  :  "  Our  understanding  and  spirit  is 
depressed  with  the  gross  lump  and  dungeon  of  the 
corruptible  body.3  They  used  "  erudition  "  for  "  teach 
ing  "  or  "instruction,"  and  spoke  of  David  as  "the 
Psalmographe  "  4  :  but  they  would  use  also  such  simple 
vernacular  as  :  "  Thou  art  pinched  and  nipped  by  the 
shins  for  thy  misdoings." 5  The  common  folk  were 
thus  in  some  degree  accustomed  to  both  vocabularies. 

Further,  the  first  age  of  printing  was  bound  to  be  a 

1  Sermon  of  the  Plough. 

2  Confessio  A  mantis,  B.  ii,  19-20. 

3  Roger  Hutchinson,  The  Image  of  God,  1550,  end. 
*  Id.     Second  Sermon  on  the  Lord's  Supper,  1560. 
5  Id.     Second  Sermon  of  Oppression,  &c. 

R 


258  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

period  of  new  word-making.  It  was  so  in  France. 
Rabelais,  himself  a  very  free-and-easy  neologist,  presents, 
in  the  person  of  the  Limousin  student,  a  type  of  the  more 
extravagant  word-maker,  who,  arising  later  in  Elizabethan 
England,  is  satirised  in  its  drama.  Jonson,1  Dekker, 
Webster,2  and  Shakespeare,  alike  hold  him  up  to  ridicule. 
In  LOCRINE  (circa  1587)  it  is  probably  Greene  who  makes 
the  comic  personage  say  to  the  audience  :  "If  any  of 
you  be  in  love,  provide  ye  a  cup-case  full  of  new-coined 
words"  (i,  3).  In  PATIENT  GRISSIL  (by  Dekker,  Chettle, 
and  Haughton,  1599)  there  is  presented  "  one  of  those 
changeable  silk  gallants "  who  "  chew  between  their 
teeth  terrible  words,  as  though  they  would  conjure,  as 
'  compliment '  and  '  projects/  and  '  fastidious/  and 
f  capricious/  and  '  misprision/  and  '  the  sintheresis  of  the 
soul'  and  such  like  raise- velvet  terms."  This  charac 
ter  in  due  course  coins  also  "  condolement,"  "  collocu- 
tion,"  "  oblivionize/'  "  incongruent,"  "  delinquishment," 
"  vapulating/'  "  vulnerated,"  and  other  extravagances 
(ii,  i ;  iii,  2) ;  but  as  the  "terrible  words"  ascribed  to 
him  in  advance  mostly  found  acceptance,  it  would  appear 
that  even  the  fantastical  neologists  may  have  played 
their  part  in  enlarging  the  common  tongue.  It  was  so 
in  the  case  of  a  number  of  Marston's  words  selected  by 
Jonson  for  special  derision  in  THE  POETASTER  ;  and 
many  words  in  the  old  Interludes  can  be  seen  to  have 
been  rather  reckless  coinages. 

The  expansion  of  the  language  was  of  course  not 
accomplished  without  resistance.  There  is  extant  a 
letter  of  the  great  scholar  Sir  John  Cheke,  stringently 
condemning  the  whole  process,  while  in  effect  admitting, 
and  indeed  illustrating,  its  inevitableness.  "  I  am  of  this 
opinion,"  he  writes 3  "  to  his  loving  f rind  mayster  Thomas 
Hoby," 

1  E.g.  Fastidious  Brisk  in  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  ii,  i. 

'  E.g.  the  lawyer  in  The  White  Devil. 

8  Letter  printed  at  end  of  The  Courtier,  1561  ;  rep.  in  Arber's 
ed.  of  Ascham's  Scholemaster ,  introd.  p.  5. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  259 

that  our  own  tung  should  be  written  clean  and  pure,  unmixt 
and  unmangeled  with  borrowing  of  other  tunges,  wherein  if  we 
take  not  heed  bi  tijm,  ever  borowing  and  never  paying,  she 
shall  be  fain  to  keep  her  house  as  bankrupt.2  For  then  doth  our 
tung  naturallie  and  praisablie  utter  her  meaning,  when  she 
bouroweth  no  counterfeitness  of  other  tunges  to  attire  her  self 
withall,  but  useth  plainlie  her  own  with  such  shift  as  nature, 
craft,  experiens  and  folowing  of  other  excellent  doth  lead  her 
unto  ;  and  if  she  want  at  ani  tijm  (as  being  unperfight  she  must) 
yet  let  her  borow  with  suche  bashfulnes,  that  it  mai  appeer  that 
if  either  the  mould  of  our  own  tung  could  serve  us  to  fascion  a 
woord  of  our  own,  or  if  the  old  denisoned  words  could  content 
and  ease  this  need,  we  wold  not  boldly  venture  of  unknowen 
wordes. 

It  is  clear  that  the  eminent  scholar  had  very  inade 
quately  considered  the  nature  of  the  previous  growth 
of  his  native  language,  and  was  indeed  vacillating  while 
he  wrote.  What  he  first  forbids  and  then  allows  was 
substantially  what  took  place,  before  and  after  him, 
save  that  his  mistaken  counsel  about  forming  new 
English  words  on  old  roots  was  put  aside  in  favour  of 
formations  from  Latin  and  French,  as  had  happened 
in  the  past.2 

Cheke's  pupil,  Roger  Ascham,  repugns  in  a  like  vein 
at  the  diction  of  Hall's  Chronicle,  "  where  moch  good 
mater  is  quite  marde  with  Indenture  Englishe,"  desiring 
that  some  one  should  "  first  change  strange  and  inkhorne 
tearmes  into  proper  and  commonlie  used  words."  Edward 
King,  in  his  Epistle  prefatory  to  Spenser's  SHEPHEARD'S 
CALENDER,  writes  in  a  similar  key,  complaining  that  his 
countrymen  have  let  slip  many  good  old  English  words 
and  "  patched  up  the  holes  with  pieces  and  rags  of  other 
languages,  borrowing  here  of  the  French,  there  of  the 
Italian,  everywhere  of  the  Latin."  All  this  stands  for 
the  due  revolt  of  the  cultured  "  natural  man  "  against 
neology  and  archaism  alike  or  in  turn.  So  did  Caesar, 
greatest  of  "  men  of  the  world,"  contemn  the  antiquarian 

1  Mem.    Bacon's  use  of  the  same  term  in  the  same  connection. 

1  E.g.,  the  old  "  spousebreaking  "  had  long  been  superseded 
by  "  adultery." 


260  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

faddists  of  his  day.  So  did  Favorinus,  with  his  maxim, 
Vive  moribus  prceteritis,  loquere  verbis  prcesentibus. 
Neology  is  indeed  less  resistible  and  on  the  whole  less 
open  to  criticism  than  is  archaism  ;  and  neology  went  on 
perforce.  Could  the  scholars  have  recovered  the  whole 
vocabulary  of  Chaucer,  they  might  have  been  spared 
much  trouble.  But  educated  England  between  More 
and  Bacon  read  much  more  of  Latin  and  translated 
theology  than  it  did  of  Chaucer  or  Lydgate.  In  1540  the 
English  of  1400  was  grown  so  strange  and  "  northern  " 
that  Tyndale  thought  fit  to  modernise  the  record  of  the 
examination  of  the  Lollard  martyr  William  Thorpe,1 
putting  it  mainly  into  "  the  English  that  now  is  used 
in  England  for  our  southern  men."  Spenser,  indeed, 
deliberately  reverted  to  the  northern  speech  in  his 
SHEPHEARD'S  CALENDER,  and  used  many  of  its  terms  in 
the  FAERIE  QUEENE  ;  but  while  the  lovers  of  poetry 
were  mostly  complaisant,  Sidney  and  others  demurred ; 
and  the  great  stream  of  English  flowed  on  through  the 
new  fields,  receiving  a  multitude  of  rills  from  Latin 
literature  and  the  Latin  lands.  Sidney  could  not  have 
his  way  as  to  drama.  He  had  it  as  to  dialect.  The 
readers  of  Puritan  sermons  and  treatises  could  not  be 
at  home  in  Wiclif ; 2  the  ordinary  readers  of  Shakespeare 
and  Jonson  must  have  had  hard  work  to  construe  Chaucer 
and  Gower. 

Men  wont  to  read  alike  classic  and  post-classic  Latin 
simply  could  not  help  Latinising  if  they  had  any  turn 
for  diction.  Sir  Thomas  More  was  so  fastidious  about 

1  See  the  Advertisement  to  his  Examination,  in  Bale's  Works, 
Parker  Soc.  rep.  pp.  62-63. 

2  It  is  a  singular  fact  that  in  a  sixteenth  century  reprint  (1531) 
of  the  old  Praier  and  Complaynte  of  the  Ploweman  unto  Christ  it 
is  thought  necessary  to  put  "  desert  "  in  the  glossary,  with  the 
equivalent  "wilderness."     (See  rep.  in  Havleian  Miscellany,  ed. 
1808,  i,  155.)     In  this  case,  a  Latin  word  has  gone  out  of  vogue 
and  a  Saxon  one  come  in.     Poetic  instinct  had  taken  back  the 
more  sonorous  term,  and  it  finally  kept  both. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  261 

the  correct  use  of  the  vernacular  that  he  took  Tyndale 
lengthily  to  task,  in  the  midst  of  a  bitter  theological 
controversy,  for  not  discriminating  properly  between 
"  Yes  "  and  "  Yea,"  "  No  "  and  "  Nay  "  ;  and  in  his 
Dialogue  OF  COMFORT  AGAINST  TRIBULACION  he  is 
evidently  concerned  to  write  simply  for  simple  folk. 
But  he  cannot  refrain  from  such  terms  as  "uncogitable," 
"  experimental,"  "  medicinable,"  "  prerogative,"  "  enter  - 
pausying  between,"  "  enterparlying,"  "  fatigacion,"  "re 
creation,"  and  so  on.  He  writes  of  "  an  estimacioun  of 
the  incomparable  and  uncogitable  joye  that  we  shall 
have,"  "  the  right  ymaginacioun  of  colours,"  "  the  greate 
physicion  God,  prescribing  the  medicines  himselfe,  and 
correcting  the  faultes  of  theyr  erronyous  receyptes," 
"  the  rebellion  of  sensualitye  "  ;  and  so  forth  ;  and  in  the 
page  in  which  he  translates  :  "  And  also  he  that  over- 
cometh  shall  be  clothed  in  whyte  clothes,"  he  writes  of 
"  the  very  substance  essentiall  of  all  the  celestiall  joye," 
"  natural  possibilitie,"  "  carnall  fantasy,"  "  fruicion  of 
the  blisse  of  heaven."  Quoting  and  translating  the 
Vulgate,  he  gives  a  lesson  in  new  terms :  "I  wil  give  hym 
a  whyte  suffrage,1  and  in  his  suffrage  a  new  name 
written."  ...  "  They  used  of  olde  in  Grece  (where 
S.  John  did  write)  to  elect  and  chose  men  unto  honorable 
rowmes,  and  every  man's  assent  was  called  his  suffrages  : 
whiche  in  some  place  was  by  the  voices,  in  some  place 
by  handes.  And  one  kinde  of  those  suffrages,  was  by 
certayn  thinges  that  are  in  latine  called  calculi,  because 
that  in  some  places  they  used  thereto  round  stones."  z 
And  throughout  the  treatise  he  translates  texts  from  the 
Vulgate,  first  giving  the  original,  as  the  divines  con 
stantly  did  in  the  pulpit. 

Even  Latimer  helps  the  Latin  evolution.  "If  I 
should  preach  in  the  country,"  he  remarks  in  the  Sermon 
of  the  Plough,  "  among  the  unlearned,  I  would  tell  what 

1  This  word  occurs  repeatedly  in  Roye's  dramatic  satire  Rede  me 
and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528.  z  Dialogue  cited,  B.  iii,  c.  26. 


262  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

propitiatory,  expiatory,  and  remissory  is  ;  but  here  is  a 
learned  auditory  ;  yet  for  them  that  be  unlearned  I  will 
expound  it."  And  it  was  chiefly  his  discourses  to  such 
audiences  that  were  printed,  to  be  read  by  thousands 
in  the  next  generation.  Bale  is  much  more  Latinic  in  his 
vocabulary,  as  is  Hutchinson  :  and  the  whole  of  that 
generation  of  Protestant  churchmen,  like  Latimer,  were 
zealous  for  the  promotion  of  university  life.  That,  after 
all,  was  one  of  the  main  factors  in  the  cultivation  of  the 
Latin  element  in  English.  At  no  time  in  English  history 
had  there  been  so  large  a  proportion  of  college-bred  men 
as  in  the  age  in  which  printing  and  the  habit  of  reading 
alike  extended  in  the  ratio  of  the  general  activity  of  the 
intellectual  renascence.  Tyndale,  writing  in  1530,  asks  : 
"  Remember  ye  not  how  in  our  own  time,  of  all  that 
taught  grammar  in  England,  not  one  understood  the 
Latin  tongue  ?  How  then  came  we  by  the  Latin  tongue 
again  ?  .  .  .  Out  of  the  old  authors."  1  Elyot,  writing 
about  the  same  time,  declares  that  "  Grammers  of 
greke  .  .  .  now  almost  be  innumerable ; "  2  and  if  that 
were  so,  Latin  must  have  been  still  more  widely  taught, 
for  the  reasons  which  still  prevail.  Ascham,  writing 
forty  years  later,  while  complaining  as  did  Elyot  of 
imperfect  teaching,  testifies  to  a  much  extended  study  of 
the  classics.3  The  influence  and  example  of  Cheke  had 
wrought  effectually  in  that  direction,  and  the  generation 
of  Camden  was  far  more  widely  learned  than  any  that 
preceded  it.  Interest  in  the  Chronicles  and  interest  in 
theology  alike  promoted  the  resort  to  Latin  ;  and  Foxe, 
going  about  his  monumental  work  on  the  martyrs  in  the 
'fifties,  felt  himself  withdrawn  by  that  urgent  under 
taking  from  what  he  would  have  preferred  to  be  doing — 
writing  in  Latin.4  His  vocabulary,  naturally,  abounds 

1  Answer  to  Sir  Thomas  Move's  Dialogue,  Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  55. 

2  The  Governour,  1531,  B.  i,  c.  10. 

3  The  Scholemaster,  Arber's  rep.  p.  25. 

4  Epist.  Ded.  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  2nd.ed.of  Acts  and  Monuments. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  263 

in  Latin  formations.  But  so  does  that  of  John  Heywood 
and  the  other  scholarly  writers  of  Interludes,  who 
naturally  were  followed  in  this  respect  by  the  first 
academic  writers  of  regular  drama.  Thus  on  all  hands 
the  scholarlike  amplification  of  the  English  tongue  was 
furthered  ;  so  that  Hooker  and  Bacon,  writing  about  the 
close  of  the  century,  come  into  the  use  of  a  copious  and 
sonorous  speech,  stately  and  almost  stiff  with  Latinisms. 

The  sixteenth  century,  then,  was  in  a  manner  Latinist 
even  in  respect  of  much  ordinary  English  ;  and  to  surmise 
classical  knowledge  on  the  part  of  every  writer  found  to 
use  a  word  in  a  classical  as  against  a  modern  sense  would 
obviously  be  mere  wool-gathering.  At  the  very  outset, 
the  "  classicist  "  thesis  commits  its  advocates  to  nonsense, 
even  as  does  the  "  legalist."  The  latter  involves  the 
constant  imputation  to  the  dramatist  of  the  folly  of 
making  his  characters  use  a  legal  phraseology  declared 
to  be  unintelligible  to  his  audience ;  the  latter  similarly 
presents  him  as  putting  classical  neologisms  in  the 
mouths  of  his  personages  of  all  grades.  What  Bacon  did 
not  do  in  his  books,  written  to  be  read  at  leisure,  he  is 
represented  as  doing  in  plays  written  for  the  stage.  It 
is  of  course  arguable  that  the  very  nearness  of  so  much 
current  English  to  Latin  would  facilitate  the  formation 
of  new  terms — a  process  which  must  have  gone  on  rapidly 
between  1500  and  1600 — and  that  Shakespeare  was 
likely  to  participate  in  such  an  enterprise.  It  has  to  be 
remembered  too  that  there  survived  in  Shakespeare's 
day  the  pulpit  practice  of  quoting  and  translating  Vulgate 
texts  and  classic  phrases — a  usage  to  be  noted  even  in 
such  a  "  preacher  to  the  people  "  as  Latimer.  Even 
with  "  small  Latin  "  of  his  own,  Shakespeare  might  thus 
be  led  to  a  certain  amount  of  word-making  on  his  own 
account.  We  may  thus  freely  concede  to  Dr.  Theobald 
ground  for  speculation. 

But  we  have  only  to  read  Dr.  Theobald  to  be  warned 
that  in  this  as  in  all  other  regards  nothing  can  save  us 


264  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

from  hallucination  save  vigilant  scrutiny  upon  scholarly 
lines.  The  first  page  of  Dr.  Theobald's  instances  of 
Shakespeare's  "  classic  vocabulary  "  contains  these  four  : 
abruption,  Academe,  accite,  and  acknown.  All  four,  in 
terms  of  his  definition,  he  takes  to  be  instances  either 
of  augmentation  or  of  expansion  of  the  English  vo 
cabulary.  A  proposition  of  this  kind  one  would  expect 
to  rest  upon  some  little  investigation,  some  research  into 
previous  and  contemporary  English.  So  far  is  Dr. 
Theobald  from  having  made  any  such  preparation,  he 
had  not  even  consulted  the  New  English  Dictionary, 
as  regards  two  of  the  four  words.  Concerning  "  ac 
known  "  he  has  the  egregious  note  that  it  is  "  probably 
an  attempt  to  bring  the  Latin  word  agnosco  into  the 
language."  Such  a  deliverance  convicts  the  Baconian 
once  for  all  of  unfitness  for  his  task.  "  Acknown"  has 
absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  agnosco  :  it  is  an  old 
English  formation,  akin  to  "  acknowledge  "  ;  and  the 
Oxford  Dictionary,  had  he  turned  thither,  would  have 
furnished  him  with  a  full  outline  of  its  history.  Had  he 
read  Chaucer's  translation  of  Boethius  he  would  have 
seen  (B.  I,  prosa  iv  ;  B.  IV,  pr.  iv)  the  phrase,  "  that  I 
conf  esse  and  am  aknowe ;  ' '  and  the  glossary  would 
have  told  him  that  it  meant  "  I  acknowledge."  The 
word  lingered  long.1  We  have  dropped  "  be  acknow  " 
and  preserved  "  acknowledge,"  just  as  we  have  dropped 
the  verbs  "  to  custom  "  and  "  to  knowledge  "  (=-  acknow 
ledge)  extant  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  preserved 
"  to  accustom." 

As  to  "  accite,"  Dr.  Theobald  is  in  no  better  case. 
The  Oxford  Dictionary  shows  this  word  to  have  been 
in  common  and  non-professional  use  long  before  Shake- 

1  Gower  (also  Chaucer)  has  the  forms  "  am  beknowe  "  and 
"  wol  beknowen,"  Confessio  Amantis,  ed.  Morley,  pp.  147,  57. 
Pocock  has  aknowe  ("  be  aknowe  us  "  ;  "  is  aknowe  to  ")  four 
times  in  his  Represser  of  Overmuch  Blaming  of  the  Clergy  (circa 
1455).  In  Piers  Plowman  we  have  the  form  "  bi-knowen  " 
(11.  407,  1422,  &c.) 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  265 

speare.  It  had  very  much  the  legal  force  of  "  cite," 
and  was  spelt  (and  pronounced,  if  not  always)  at  times 
"  assite."  Dr.  Theobald's  abstention  from  such  a  facile 
source  of  information  is  the  more  astonishing  because, 
in  his  controversy  with  Mr.  Judge  Willis,  contained  in  the 
preface  to  the  1904  reissue  of  his  book,  he  actually  implies 
that  he  takes  the  earliest  date  given  for  any  word  or 
phrase  in  the  Oxford  Dictionary  to  be  the  date  of  its 
first  use.  This  is  presumably  his  ground  for  ascribing 
to  Shakespeare  the  first  use  of  "  abruption/'  But  if 
the  New  Dictionary  was  to  be  consulted  for  "  abruption," 
why  not  for  "  acknown  "  and  "  accite  ?  " 

Even  to  the  inexpert  reader,  however,  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  explain  that  the  Dictionary  does  not  pro 
fess — and,  in  regard  to  words  of  the  sixteenth  century 
could  not  possibly  pretend — to  give  the  first  instance  of 
use.1  Old  forms  can  be  closely  traced  in  the  com- 

1  Mr.  Harold  Bayley,  whose  useful  compilation,  The  Shake 
speare  Symphony  (1906),  might  serve  to  explode  the  Baconian 
delusion,  albeit  he  speaks  of  it  with  surprising  sympathy,  un 
fortunately  gives  countenance  to  Dr.  Theobald  in  respect  that 
he  falls  into  that  writer's  misconception  of  the  nature  of  the 
testimony  supplied  by  the  New  English  Dictionary.  He  describes 
it  as  recording  not  only  the  "  birthday  and  parent,  so  far  as  known, 
of  every  English  word  "  (p.  208),  but,  by  every  entry,  either  a 
"newly  coined  "  or  "newly  used  "  word  (p.  209).  The  latter 
claim  is  very  far  astray.  Myriads  of  the  entries  in  the  Dictionary 
do  but  serve  to  trace  the  history  or  continued  use  of  words,  and 
stand  for  no  "  new  use  "  whatever  ;  and  Mr.  Bayley 's  calculation 
that  "  we  are  indebted  to  the  poet  Shakespeare  for  enriching  our 
English  tongue  with  the  astonishing  total  of  9450  newly  coined 
or  newly  used  words  "  is  a  mere  midsummer  night's  dream.  An 
examination  of  his  lists  will  reveal  this  to  any  reader.  The  great 
majority  of  the  words  there  cited  had  been  in  use  long  before 
the  dates  given  ;  and  in  the  instances  noted  there  can  be  no  really 
new  application.  Let  me  give  one  illustration.  Under  "  Ben 
Jonson  "  we  have,  among  other  words,  "  expulsed,  1603."  This 
must  refer  to  the  phrase  "  the  expulsed  Apicata  "  in  Sejanus, 
v,  10.  But  there  is  no  novelty  here  :  the  word  has  its  ordinary 
force,  and  is  simply  noted  to  show  continued  use.  So,  when  Mr. 
Mr.  Bayley  credits  Shakespeare  with  two  new  uses  of  "  except," 


266  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

paratively  scanty  literature  before  Chaucer ;  and  in  the 
case  of  "  acknown "  this  is  carefully  done;  but  as 
regards  Tudor  English  the  great  Dictionary  gives  only 
illustrations,  not  complete  historical  lists.  The  more 
need  that  any  one  going  about  Mr.  Theobald's  under 
taking  should  do  a  little  reading  on  his  own  account. 
He  might,  for  instance,  have  turned  to  Chaucer  before 
making  his  astounding  assertion  that  "  perdurable  is  not 
really  an  English  word  at  all  " — implying  that  it  was 
invented  by  Bacon- Shakespeare.  It  occurs  at  least 
ten  times  in  Chaucer,  who  uses  it  five  times  in  the 
translation  of  Boethius  alone,  and  also  has  "  perdurably  " 
and  "  perdurabletee  "  several  times.  At  least  a  glance  at 
the  Chaucer  glossary  would  seem  to  have  been  worth  Dr. 
Theobald's  while.  He,  as  we  have  seen,  has  not  even 
regularly  consulted  the  Dictionary. 

What  can  come  of  even  following  it,  on  the  assumption 
that  its  first  dates  for  words  are  always  cases  of  first  use, 

two  of  "  excellent,"  two  of  "  exalted,"  four  of  "  exchange,"  four 
of  "  exercise,"  six  of  "  get,"  ten  of  "  go,"  and  twelve  of  "  go  "  in 
combination,  as  in  "  go  before,"  "  go  off,"  "  go  round,"  and  so  on, 
we  are  witnessing  mere  moonshine.  At  this  rate,  every  one  of 
us  achieves  "  new  uses  "  every  day. 

Again,  Mr.  Bayley  writes  (p.  128)  that  "According  to  Dr. 
Murray,  until  Massinger  revived  it  in  1622  the  word  '  colon  ' 
[the  intestine]  had  not  been  used  in  England  since  1541."  Who, 
on  a  moment's  reflection,  can  possibly  believe  this  ?  Dr.  Murray 
would  never  dream  of  asserting  it  :  the  Dictionary  merely  indicates 
continued  use  by  instances  in  successive  generations.  The 
whole  of  Mr.  Bayley 's  theorem  must  simply  be  excised. 

Even  Mr.  Pearsall  Smith,  in  his  charming  little  book  on  The 
English  Language  (1912),  goes  too  far  in  relying  on  first  entries 
in  the  Dictionary.  Thus  he  gives  Shakespeare  "  multitudinous," 
whereas  Dekker  used  the  word  in  1603  ;  and  it  is  impossible  to 
prove  that  Macbeth  is  earlier  than  that.  Mr.  Smith  states  (p.  114) 
that  Shakespeare  has  "  more  new  words  than  are  found  in  almost 
all  of  the  English  poets  put  together."  This  is  an  extravagant 
error.  Mr.  Smith  admits  (p.  117)  that  Nashe,  Greene  and  Chapman 
"  provide  immense  lists  of  words  that  are  only  used  by  their  own 
creators."  Quite  so.  There  are  many  more  new  words,  surely, 
in  Chapman  than  in  Shakespeare. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  267 

may  be  seen  from  a  "  supplementary  list,"  compiled  for 
Dr.  Theobald  by  Mr.  Stronach,  of  fourteen  "  words  the 
first  known  use  of  which  is  in  Shakespeare."  l  They  are  : 
Abruption,  Antic,  Assubjugate,  Cerements,  Conflux, 
Credent,  Deracinate,  Derogate,  Dolours,  Evitation,  Extern 
(as  a  noun),  Festinate,  Fluxive,  Incony.  Will  it  be  be 
lieved  that  in  a  list  thus  professedly  fathered  on  the 
Oxford  Dictionary  the  second  word  is  a  blunder  ?  The 
Dictionary  gives  for  "antic"  two  instances  from 
Marlowe  (1590)  and  one  from  Drayton  (1594),  all  in 
senses  in  which  Shakespeare  uses  the  word.  These 
senses  are  but  variants  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  as 
used  by  Spenser  (F.  Q.  II,  vii,  4)  in  the  phrase  "  woven 
with  antickes  and  wild  imagery  "  ;  which  again  is  but 
a  special  development  of  "  antique."  Any  reader  with 
the  least  judgment  in  word  history  would  see  at  a  glance 
that  the  word  could  not  be  new  for  Shakespeare.  And 
while  speculation  might  be  natural  as  to  "  abruption  " 
and  "  assubjugate,"  which  are  certainly  not  common 
forms,  it  is  again  astonishing  to  find  any  professed  student 
assuming  that  Shakespeare  invented  "  cerements,"  "  con 
flux,"  "credent,"  "  deracinate,"  "  derogate,"  "  dolours," 
and  "  incony."  "  Deracinate  "  is  not  a  classic  word  at 
all :  it  is  simply  an  adoption  of  the  French  desraciner, 
found  in  Cotgrave.  It  has  not,  I  believe,  been  traced 
before  Shakespeare ;  but  it  is  highly  likely  to  have 
been  used.  Is  it  remotely  likely,  to  begin  with,  that 
a  dramatist  would  in  serious  speeches  present  entirely 
new  words  on  the  stage  ?  Supposing  him  to  invent 
"conflux"  and  "credent,"  or  even  "deracinate,"  he 
might  indeed  expect  educated  hearers  to  divine  at  once 
his  meaning  ;  but  how  could  he  expect  comprehension  of 
"  cerements  "  if  the  word  had  never  been  used  before  ? 
"  Credence,"  a  word  of  Chaucer's,  is  used  in  Elyot's 
GOVERNOUR  (iii,  6)  as  a  common  term,  and  constantly 
appears  in  later  Tudor  writers.  "  Credent "  would 
1  Shakespeare  Studies,  p.  385. 


268  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

be  an  easy  coinage  from  that ;  but  what  scholar  would 
believe  that  it  was  left  for  Shakespeare  to  coin  ?  Know 
ing  that  "  dolorous  "  was  an  old  word,  what  reader  could 
suppose  "  dolours  "  to  be  a  new  one  about  the  close  of 
the  sixteenth  century  ?  And  what  sensible  student 
would  infer  that  "  conflux,"  stated  to  be  used  by  Drayton 
in  1612  and  by  Selden  in  1614,  was  first  coined  by  Shake 
speare,  merely  because  the  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  no 
earlier  instance?  Jonson  has  "  confluctions  "  in  the 
Induction  to  EVERY  MAN  OUT  OF  HIS  HUMOUR  (1599)  : 
is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  singular  was  not  also 
current  ? 

In  this  connexion  it  may  suffice  to  give  a   few  more 
illustrations. 

1.  "  Incony "  was    a    common  Elizabethan  term,   of 
the  same  force  as  "  coney,"  in  vulgar  use.     The  variorum 
edition  mentions  that  it   occurs  in  THE  Two  ANGRY 
WOMEN   OF   ABINGTON    (1599),    in   DOCTOR   DODYPOLL 
(1600),  in  Jonson's  TALE  OF  A  TUB,  in  Marlowe's  JEW  OF 
MALTA,    and    in    BLURT,    MASTER-CONSTABLE    (1602). 
Could  any  rational  reader,  with  these  facts  before  him, 
suppose  that  the  term  was   first   put  in  currency  by 
LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST  ?     He  who  will  may  find  "  coney," 
in  the  sense  in   question,   four  times   over  in   RALPH 
ROISTER  DOISTER  (ante  1553.     Arber's  rep.  pp.  27,  50, 

56, 87). 

2.  Dolour    and    dolours   were    common    and    familiar 
English  words  long  before  Shakespeare  ;   and  the  Oxford 
Dictionary  of  course  shows  as  much.     "  Dolour,"  which 
came  in  with  the  Normans  if  not  earlier,  occurs  at  least 
twice  in  the  COVENTRY  MYSTERIES   (Sh.   Soc.  ed.   pp. 
147,  388),  which  date  from  about  1450  ;   and  it  remained 
in  constant  use.     It  is  used  in  the  third  book  of  the 
FAERIE  QUEENE  (c.  ii,  st.  17),  published  in  1589,  and 
repeatedly  in   Spenser's  minor  poems.     It   also   occurs 
(sp.  dolor)  in  the  first  line  of  Nashe's  CHRISTS  TEARES 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  269 

OVER  JERUSALEM  (1593)  and  again  in  the  next  paragraph 
(sp.  dollour).  The  Oxford  Dictionary  cannot  be  supposed 
to  deny  these  facts.  And  the  word  was  equally  common 
on  the  stage.  It  is  to  be  found  at  least  three  times  in  the 
archaistic  rhyme-play  SIR  CLYOMON  AND  SIR  CLAMYDES, 
ascribed  to  Peele  (but  probably  collaborated-in  by  Greene), 
apparently  first  printed  in  1599,  but  certainly  written 
before  1592.  (Dyce's  ed.  of  Peele  and  Greene,  pp.  512, 
527.)  The  word  is  used  twice  on  one  page.  It  is  also 
to  be  found  thrice  in  Greene's  MAMILLIA  (1580-83),  and 
in  at  least  four  other  places  in  his  works  (ed.  Grosart, 

11,  115,  120,  243  ;   iii,  83,  221  ;   iv,  14 ;   ix,  22).     In  one 
place  we  have  the  phrase,  "  spent  his  doleful  days  in 
dumps  and  dolors  "   (CARD  OF  FANCY,  1587  :    iv,  14). 
The  word  occurs  also  in  Puttenham's  ARTE  OF  ENGLISH 
POESIE,  1589  (Arber's  rep.  p.  167).     If  the  good  Baconian 
on  learning  this  feels  bound  to  conclude  that  Bacon 
wrote  the  FAERIE  QUEENE  and  Nashe  and  Puttenham's 
book  (some  of  them  claim  as  much),  and  also  all  the 
works  of  Greene  and  Peele,  let  him  turn  to  Bishop  Bale's 
BRIEF  CHRONICLE  of  the  case  of  Lord  Cobham  (1544); 
where  he  will  soon  find  "  dolour  "  (Parker  Soc.  rep.  p. 

12,  &c.).     Or  let  him  peruse  Bishop  Hooper's  DECLARA 
TION  OF  CHRIST  AND  His  OFFICE  (1547.     Parker  Soc. 
vol.  p.  60) ;  or  Latimer's  Seventh  Sermon  before  King 
Edward,  1549  (Dent's  rep.  pp.  192,  193,  199)  ;    or  the 
Epistle  Dedicatorie   to   George  Gascoigne's  STEEL  GLAS 
(1576)  ;     or   the    same    writer's   VIEWE    OF    WORLDLY 
VANITIES,  1576  (Cunliffe's  ed.  of  Works,  ii,  261)  ;   or  his 
FLOWERS   (Id.  i,  55)  ;    or  his  DAN  BARTHOLOMEW  OF 
BATHE  (Id.  i,  112)  ;   or  Holinshed's  Chronicle  of  Richard 
III  (Boswell-Stone's  SH.  HOLINSHED,  p.  378),  and  he  will 
find  it  often.     Or  let  him  turn,  once  for  all,  to  Sackville's 
Induction  to  THE  MIRROUR  FOR  MAGISTRATES  where 
(including  the  COMPLAYNT  OF  BUCKINGHAM)  he  will  find 
"  dolour  "  and  "  dolours  "  five  times.     (Works  ed.  1859, 
pp.  101,  103,  104,  131,  156).     He  will  also  find  several 


270  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

instances  of  "  dole  "  and  "  doleful."  A  perusal  of  the 
whole  performance,  which,  dating  as  it  does  from  1563, 
can  scarcely  have  been  written  by  Bacon,  may  help 
him  to  realise  that  the  English  language,  broadly  speaking, 
existed  before  the  Armada.  He  may  chance  to  note, 
in  passing,  the  lines  (p.  133)  : 

Much  like  a  felon  that,  pursued  by  night, 
Starts  at  each  bush,  as  his  foe  were  in  sight, 

which  will  doubtless  recall  to  him  those  : 

Suspicion  always  haunts  the  guilty  mind  : 
The  thief  doth  fear  each  bush  an  officer. 

3  Henry  VI,  V,  vi,  12  ; 

and  the  useful  question  may  occur  to  him  whether  it 
was  Shakespeare  or  Bacon  or  a  third  penman  who  thus 
utilised  a  familiar  commonplace.  There  may  thus  open 
up  for  him  a  more  profitable  path  of  inquiry  than  the 
Baconian. 

3.  Derogate  was  in  use  long  before  Shakespeare. 

See  below,  p.  303. 

4.  Antics  occurs,  in  the  secondary  sense,  in  Stubbes's 
ANATOMIE  OF  ABUSES  (1583)  :    "  Then    have    they   [in 
the  train  of  the  Lord  of  Misrule]  their    hobby-horses, 
dragons,  and  other  antiques  "  (Collier's  reprint,  p.  142) ; 
and  in  Drayton  and  Sir  John  Davies  in  1599  : 

Making  withal  some  filthy  antic  face. 

Idea,  Son.  31. 
Such  toyes,  such  ant-ikes,  and  such  vanities. 

Nosce  Teipsum,  st.  32. 

It  is  thus  unnecessary  to  suppose  that  Ben  Jonson,  who 
uses  the  word  thrice  in  one  play  (1600)  : 

How  antic  and  ridiculous  soe'er. 

Cynthia's  Revels,  i,   i,  end  ; 
O,  most  antick.  .  .  . 

Id.  v,  2  ; 
An  antic  gesture.  .  .  . 

Id.  ib. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  271 

— had  got  it  from  Shakespeare — or  Bacon.  Marlowe 
has  it  twice,  as  aforesaid  : 

And  point  like  antics  at  his  triple  crown. 

Doctor  Faustus,  in,  i. 
Shall  with  their  goat-feet  dance  the  antic  hay 

Id.     Edward  II.  i,  i. 
Chapman  uses  it  repeatedly  : 

And  have  an  antic  face  to  laugh  within. 

Fourth  Sestiad  of  Hero  and  Leander,  1598. 
Of  all  his  antic  shows. 

Id.  Sixth  Sestiad. 
Off  with  this  antic. 

The  Widow's  Tears,  v,  3. 

And  it  occurs  in  A  LARUM  FOR  LONDON  (published  1599) : 

Shall  as  an  antic  in  thy  sight  appear. 

Simpson's  rep.  p.  61  ; 

and  twice  in  A  WOMAN  is  A  WEATHERCOCK  (circa  1606)  : 

One  here,  one  there,  making  such  antic  faces. 

I  was  almost  frantic 
A  modern  knight  should  be  so  like  an  antic. 

Act  iv,  sc.  2   (Mermaid  ed.  pp.  393,  398). 

Of  course  Dr.  Theobald  ascribes  Marlowe's  plays  to 
Bacon  ;  but  why  not  also  Ben  Jonson's — and  all  the 
rest? 

5.  Cerements  is  probably  a  variant   of  "cerecloths;" 
but  the  quartos  have  "  ceremonies " ;   and  in  JULIUS 
CESAR  (i,  i)  we  have  "  decked  with  ceremonies,"  in  the 
sense  of  religious  or  honorary  ornaments,  so  that  the 
actuality  of  the  word  is  uncertain. 

6.  Extern    (as    a    noun :     Sonnet     125).      The    word 
occurs  only  once  elsewhere  in  Shakespeare  (OTHELLO,  i,  i); 
and  there  is  an  adjective, — on  a  par  with  "  eterne  "  and 
many  other  common  formations. 

Other  words  in  the  list  described  as  of  "  first  known 
use  in  Shakespeare  "  are  dealt  with  hereinafter,  in  the 
course  of  an  examination  of  Dr.  Theobald's  list  of  words 


272  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

of  "  classic  "  formation  of  which  the  origin  is  ascribed 
by  him  to  Shakespeare — that  is,  Bacon. 

The  confutation  of  that  list  as  a  whole  has  been  accom 
plished  by  the  late  Judge  Willis  in  a  work  of  the  most 
patient  and  assiduous  research.1  wherein  the  normal 
pre-Shakespearean  currency  of  nearly  every  word  cited 
is  proved.  So  far  as  the  leading  Baconians  are  con 
cerned,  the  only  effect  has  been  a  determined  forensic 
evasion  by  Dr.  Theobald  of  the  whole  demonstration. 
In  the  preface  to  a  reissue  of  his  book  in  1904  he  does 
not  scruple  to  write  : 

I  give  [in  ch.  xiv]  a  list  of  words  in  which  there  is  a  classic  sense 
or  a  classic  aroma,  which  could  not  easily  arise  unless  the  writer  was 
a  good  classic  scholar.  When  Mr.  Willis  points  to  other  writers 
who  have  used  the  same  classic  phraseology,  that  only  proves 
that  other  writers  besides  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  had  their 
minds  saturated  with  Latin.  It  does  not  prove  that  these  words 
or  phrases  were  not  classic,  and  therefore  does  not  touch  my  argu 
ment  in  the  faintest  degree.  Nearly  the  whole  of  Mr.  Willis's  no 
pages  is  therefore  entirely  pointless  and  superfluous. 

We  here  enter  on  a  new  phase  of  the  Baconian  con 
troversy.  Hitherto  we  have  contemplated  all  manner 
of  fallacy  and  imperfect  induction  :  now  we  are  faced 
by  equivocation.  Dr.  Theobald  had  expressly  under 
taken  to  show  "  expansion  or  augmentation "  of  the 
English  vocabulary  in  the  plays  of  Shakespeare.  The 
effect  of  Mr.  Willis's  book  is  to  show  that  the  "  classic  " 
words  in  question  were  almost  all  part  of  the  established 
English  language  in  what  Dr.  Theobald  declared  to  be  their 
classic  sense  ;  so  that  the  claim  that  that  sense  or  aroma 
"  could  not  easily  arise  unless  the  writer  was  a  good 
classic  scholar"  is  shown  to  be  simply  false.  Any 
Englishman  of  Shakespeare's  day,  whether  he  knew 
Latin  or  not,  necessarily  used  those  words  in  the  so-called 
"  classic  "  sense,  if  he  used  them  at  all,  simply  because 

1  The  Baconian  Mint :  its  Claims  Examined.  By  William 
Willis,  One  of  the  Masters  of  the  Bench  of  the  Honourable  Society 
of  the  Temple.  Printed  by  Order  of  the  Masters.  .  .  1903. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP   273 

they  had  been  introduced  and  adopted  in  the  past  by 
men  who  were  habituated  to  Latin.  Dr.  Theobald  had 
clearly  compiled  his  chapter  in  ignorance  of  the  previous 
currency  of  the  words  :  on  this  being  exposed,  he  seeks 
to  extricate  himself  as  we  have  seen.  The  few  pseudo- 
classic  words  of  which  Judge  Willis  did  not  trace  the 
previous  history,  and  to  which  Dr.  Theobald  points 
afresh,  are  mostly  not  words  which  a  good  Latinist 
would  have  coined.  "  Reverb,"  and  "immure"  as  a 
noun,  are  instances  in  point. 

Continuing  his  rejoinder,  Dr.  Theobald  writes  : 

And  even  when  the  use  of  any  words  is  represented  as  an 
unsuccessful  attempt  to  naturalize  a  Latin  word, — [the  words 
given  are  acknown,  aggravate,  evitate,  immanity,  ruinate,  and 
simular] — which  is  the  only  (!)  kind  of  assertion  of  novelty 
which  I  make  in  these  cases,  I  scarcely  think  there  is  any  in 
accuracy,  even  if  it  be  shown  that  the  same  attempt  was  made  by 
another  writer.  Indeed  I  admit  this  myself  in  reference  to  one 
of  these  words.  [Which  ?] 

Dr.  Theobald  appears  to  be  as  impervious  to  informa 
tion  as  to  argument.  "  Acknown  "  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
an  old  English  word,  in  no  way  derived  from  Latin. 
"  Aggravate  "  was  used  by  Shakespeare  as  by  all  other 
Englishmen  in  his  day  :  the  meaning  has  since  partly 
shifted,  though  the  old  sense  survives.  "  Evitate  "  was 
not  an  "  attempt  "  on  his  part  to  innovate  :  the  word 
was  current ;  it  has  since  dropped,  like  so  many  others. 
"  Immanity  "  was  a  fairly  common  word  before  Shake 
speare,  and  was  used  long  after  him.  "  Ruinate  "  was 
quite  common  in  poetry  and  drama.  "Simular"  is  the 
one  rare  word  in  the  list ;  but  to  say  that  he  "  attempted 
to  naturalize  it  "  when  he  found  it  made  to  his  hand  is 
to  trifle  with  the  reader.  The  phrase,  "  the  same  attempt 
was  made  by  another  writer,"  is  of  the  same  order. 
"  Another  writer  "  suggests  a  contemporary.  In  most 
cases  the  words  in  question  were  generations  or  centuries 
old. 

In  so  far  as  Dr.  Theobald's  reply  to  Mr.  Willis  has 

s 


274  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

reference  to  the  alleged  "  coincidences  "  between  Bacon 
and  Shakespeare,  as  distinct  from  the  "  classicisms  "  (in 
regard  to  most  of  which  no  coincidence  is  shown)  they 
will  be  dealt  with  in  a  later  chapter.  As  regards  the  two 
hundred  "  classical  "  words  of  which  Mr.  Willis  has  shown 
the  common  pre-Shakespearean  currency,  he  makes  no 
better  attempt  at  rebuttal,  while  professing  to  examine 
Mr.  Willis's  book  "  somewhat  completely,"  than  that 
above  dealt  with,  save  in  so  far  as  he  complains  that 
over  the  word  "  composure  "  Mr.  Willis  misrepresented 
him,  and  cited  against  him  a  use  of  the  word  with  a 
meaning  quite  different  from  that  which  he  had  posited. 
That  might  happen  without  any  unfair  intention  :  Dr. 
Theobald  should  be  the  last  person  to  raise  questions  of 
candour  in  controversy.  He  further  alleges  that  in  Mr. 
Willis's  book  he  is  "  represented  as  affirming  that  Bacon 
invented  such  words  as  Act,  Fact,  Consequence,  Per 
mission,  Inequality,  Success,  Confine,  and  a  host  of  such 
familiar  words."  This  is  simply  not  true.  Mr.  Willis 
makes  no  such  representation.  He  points  out  that  Dr. 
Theobald  is  as  ill-informed  and  mistaken  in  ascribing 
to  Bacon  new  applications  of  old  words  as  in  imput 
ing  coinages  of  new  words  and  new  collocations  of 
terms. 

A  word  of  comment  should  be  added  on  Dr.  Theobald's 
attempt  to  discredit  Mr.  Willis's  exposure  of  him  by 
charging  upon  his  critic  inadequate  knowledge  of  the 
literary  ground  in  dispute.  "  The  fact  is,"  he  writes, 
"  that  whenever  Mr.  Willis  leaves  the  province  of  Puritan 
literature,  in  which  he  is  an  expert,  and  attempts 
Shakespearean  criticism,  in  which  he  is  a  novice,  he  is 
generally  pointless,  and  frequently  mistaken."  In  strict 
fact,  Mr.  Willis  has  not  meddled  with  "  Shakespearean 
criticism  "  :  he  has  effectually  shown,  by  citations  from 
pre-Shakespearean  and  later  literature,  that  Dr.  Theobald 
was  completely  ignorant  of  precisely  the  ground  he  ought 
to  have  known.  If  Mr.  Willis's  evidence  had  been  con- 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  275 

fined,  as  Dr.  Theobald  hardily  suggests,  to  Puritan 
literature,  so  much  the  more  crushing  was  his  confuta 
tion  ;  for  if  Dr.  Theobald's  spurious  array  of  Baconian 
terms  from  the  plays  could  be  paralleled  and  stultified 
by  selections  from  a  single  section  of  Tudor  literature, 
the  absurdity  of  the  confuted  thesis  would  only  be  the 
more  clear.  But,  as  it  happens,  though  Mr.  Willis  had 
modestly  written  that  he  had  "  become  familiar  with 
only  a  small  portion  of  English  literature  extant  at  the 
time  of  Bacon's  birth — chiefly  the  writings  of  divines, 
ecclesiastical  records,  and  correspondence,"  he  has  taken 
the  pains  to  collate  the  collections  of  Richardson's  and 
the  Oxford  Dictionaries,  and  thus  does  in  point  of  fact 
present  the  results  of  a  vastly  wider  range  of  inquiry 
than  Dr.  Theobald's.  The  Baconian,  like  most  of  his 
sect,  has  no  pretension  to  acquaintance  with  the  litera 
ture  of  which  a  knowledge  was  specially  requisite  to  give 
him  the  right  to  hold  his  opinion.  A  tithe  of  the  trouble 
taken  by  Mr.  Willis  might  have  cured  Dr.  Theobald  of 
his  delusion,  and  saved  him  from  his  vain  task. 

Judge  Willis  may  have  made  incidental  mistakes, 
like  the  rest  of  us ;  but  it  is  not  on  casual  mistakes 
that  he  or  any  of  us  grounds  the  indictment  of  the 
Baconian  theory  as  set  forth  by  Dr.  Theobald,  who, 
broadly  speaking,  makes  nothing  but  mistakes,  in  support 
of  an  error  "gross  as  a  mountain."  It  is  in  a  manner 
monstrous  that  such  a  mere  accumulation  of  blunders 
should  have  to  be  disposed  of  in  detail ;  but  if  the 
Baconian  delusion  is  to  be  dissipated  ;  if  credulous  men 
of  culture,  with  limited  reading — who,  as  Judge  Willis 
remarks,  "  seem  to  have  no  power  to  think  for  them 
selves  " — are  to  be  saved  from  the  contagion  of  the 
method  of  ignorance,  we  must  deal  with  this  as  we  have 
dealt  with  other  manipulations  of  the  myth.  After  all, 
Dr.  Theobald  is  on  all  fours  with  Lord  Justice  Campbell 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  darkeners  of  counsel  on  this  theme. 
To  the  detailed  examination,  then,  let  us  turn. 


276  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

As  THE  BACONIAN  MINT  is  not  generally  accessible, 
I  will  present  summarily  the  series  of  words  in  Shake 
speare  which  Dr.  Theobald  puts  forward  as  "  classically  " 
framed  and  therefore  Baconian,  and  which  Judge  Willis 
shows  to  have  been  in  current  use  long  before  or  about 
1600 ;  prefacing  them,  as  does  Mr.  Willis,  with  an 
exposure  of  a  few  of  the  "  coincidences  "  of  phrase  which 
Dr.  Theobald  cites  as  specially  significant  of  Baconian 
authorship.  Of  this  last  order  of  phrases  Mr.  Willis 
took  only  a  few  samples  :  in  a  later  chapter  it  will  be 
dealt  with  more  fully.  I  shall  take  leave  to  supplement 
Mr.  Willis's  illustrations  with  some  borrowed  from  Mr. 
Crawford ;  adding  yet  further  instances,  in  a  number  of 
cases;  in  brackets.  In  regard  to  some  words,  again,  I 
have  substituted  my  own  illustrations  for  those  given  by 
the  first  writer.1  It  is  worth  noting  that  Judge  Willis 
wrought  his  demonstration  in  the  conviction  that 
Shakespeare  had  classical  scholarship,  while  Mr.  Crawford, 
who  deals  only  incidentally  with  this  point  in  his  valuable 
essay  on  "  The  Bacon-Shakespeare  Question,"  2  argues 
to  the  same  effect  as  Judge  Willis  in  the  conviction 
that  Shakespeare  was  not  classically  cultured. 

i.  Gross  and  palpable  (M.  N.  D.,  V,  i,  374 ;  i  HENRY 
IV,  II,  iv,  250). 

Grossly  and  papably  off  ended. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Polity. 
Gross  and  palpable. 

Bancroft,  Platform  of  Episcopacy,  (1594), 

ed.  1663,  p.  187. 
Gross  and  palpable  blindness. 

Trans,  of  Calvin's  Sermons  on  Deuteronomy,  by  T.  W.,  1583  : 

Letter  to  the  Reader. 

1  Judge  Willis's  book,  unfortunately,  was  imperfectly  prepared 
for  the  press,  and  insufficiently  corrected  ;   and  it  may  be  that 
the  references,  which  are  sometimes  incomplete,  are  not  always 
accurate.     I  have  no  doubt,  however,  that  they  invariably  stand 
for  real  evidence.     The  incomplete  references   are  mostly  to 
citations  given  in  the  Oxford  Dictionary. 

2  In  Collectanea,  Second  Series,  1907. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  277 

Gross  and  palpable  abuses. 

William  Fulke,  A  nswer  to  the  Rhemish  New  Testament,  1581. 
.  .  .  Sins,  whether  gross  and  more  palpable  or  more  secret. 

Daniel  Dyke,  Treatise  on  Repentance,  1631,  p.  161. 
Gross  and  palpable  darkness. 

Arthur  Dent,  TheRuine  of  Rome,  1607. 
[Add  : 

Gross  and  palpable  faults. 

Rosdell,  Ep.  ded.  to  ed.  of  Hooper's  Christ  and  His 
Office,  1582.] 

2.  Starting  holes  (i  HENRY  IV  ;  II,  iv,  290). 

Said  by  Dr.  Theobald  to  be  "  another  curious  phrase 
found  in  both  Shakespeare  and  Bacon."  (See  below, 
ch.  x.)  It  was  a  standing  phrase  in  Elizabethan  speech. 
See  it  in  : 

The  translation  of  Calvin's  Commentary  on  John,  1584,  p.  93  ; 
on  Job,  1584,  p.  391. 

Hales'  address  on  an  Act  of  Parliament,  Ed.  VI,  given  in  Strype's 
Ecclesiastical  Memorials,  iv,  361. 

A  letter  to  Thomas  Cromwell,  by  Layton,  1535. 

Mr.  Crawford  (Collectanea,  ii,  136)  further  points  to  the 
phrase  in  Jonson's  THE  CASE  is  ALTERED,  and  in  the 
DISCOVERIES  :  De  Bonis  et  Mails  ;  in  Peele,  EDWARD  I 
(first  draft  :  Dyce's  ed.  p.  415)  ;  and  in  Gascoigne's 
VOYAGE  INTO  HOLLAND,  1572. 

[Add: 

A  fit  cloud  to  cover  their  abuse,  and  not  unlike  to  the  starting- 
hole  that  Lucinius  found.  .  . 

Gosson,  School  of  Abuse,  Arber's  rep.  p.  41. 

Peradventure  some  which  seek  for  sterting  holes  .  .  .  will 
objecte. 

Elyot,  Governour,  ii,  9  (Dent's  rep.  p.  152). 

Smoking  this  .  .  .  trade  out  of  his  starting  holes. 

Nashe,  Christs  Teares,  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  ii,  152. 

Compare  Chaucer  : 

I  hold  a  mouse's  herte  not  worth  a  leek 
That  hath  but  one  hole  for  to  sterte  to. 

Wife  of  Bath's  Tale,  572-3.] 


278  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

3.  Top  (metaph.  :  TEMPEST,  III,  i,  38,  &c.). 

[See  below,  ch.  ix,  for  a  number  of  instances  of  the 
use  of  this  metaphor.  Mr.  Willis  gives  others,  mostly 
from  religious  writings.] 

4.  Sweet,     sugared,    honey,     as     applied     to     words 
(L.L.L.  V,  ii,  231 ;   i  HENRY  VI,  III,  iii,  18  ;   &c.  &c.). 

Mr.  Willis  gives  an  instance  of  "  wordes  .  .  .  well 
sugred  and  honied"  from  the  translation  of  Calvin's 
Sermons,  1579,  P-  9^T-  I  could  fill  pages  with  instances 
from  general  literature  ;  but  it  should  suffice  to  mention 
that  "sugar"  or  "sugared"  or  "sugaring"  is  thus 
metaphorically  used  six  times  in  Sidney's  ASTROPHEL 
AND  STELLA  sonnets  alone ;  and  at  least  four  times 
in  the  JOCASTA  of  Gascoigne  and  his  friends  (1566).  It 
would  probably  be  difficult  to  find  an  Elizabethan  poet 
or  dramatist  who  did  not  use  it.  "  Honeyed "  is  no 
less  hackneyed;  and  "sweet,"  as  applied  to  words, 
is  one  of  the  commonest  figures  in  the  whole  range  of 
literature,  in  all  languages.  The  citation  of  such  meta 
phors  as  special  to  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  is  sheer 
folly. 

5.  Academe  (L.L.L.  I,  i,  13  ;   IV,  iii,  303,  352). 

Found  in  The  Book  of  Good  Manners,  1487. 
Found  in  Sandys'  Travels,  1610,  p.  275. 

[Be  it  observed  that  the  scansion  of  the  word  in  LOVE'S 
LABOUR'S  LOST  is  precisely  what  a  good  classical  scholar 
would  not  do  with  it ;  though  Marston  follows  Shake 
speare  in  his  SCOURGE  OF  VILLANIE,  Sat.  iii.] 

Academy,  needless  to  say,  is  common.  Judge  Willis 
cites  Caxton's  CHESSE,  1474,  p.  86  ;  and  Greene's  FRIAR 
BACON  AND  FRIAR  BUNGAY,  Dyce's  ed.  p.  155. 

[The  lexicographers  have  not  brought  out  the  fact 
that  Greene  in  his  four  uses  of  the  word  in  FRIAR  BACON, 
and  also  in  his  MAIDEN'S  DREAM,  st.  40,  makes  it  scan 
Academy,  as  does  Daniel.] 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  279 

6.  Accite.     (Used  by   Shakespeare,   jocularly,   in   the 
sense  of  "  excite,"  2  HENRY  IV,  II,  ii,  64.     Occurs  in 
TITUS  ANDRONICUS  in  the  regular  sense.) 

Ascited  occurs  in  Fish's  SUPPLICATION  OF  BEGGARS, 
1528  ;  in  a  letter  of  William  Barlow  to  Thomas  Cromwell, 
April,  1536 ;  Accite  in  Ben  Jonson's  UNDERWOODS 
(Execration  upon  Vulcan),  in  the  phrase  ("  accite  .  .  . 
appetite  ")  which  may  conform  either  to  the  jocular  or 
to  the  serious  meaning. 

[Add: 

Afore  that  Queen  I  caused  to  be  accited. 

Wyatt's  Complaint  of  Love. 
Summer.     I  asyte  you  in  our  court  to  appear. 

Impatient  Poverty,  1560,  near  end.] 

7.  Acknown  ("be  acknown"  =  acknowledge :  OTHELLO, 
III,  iii,  319). 

(See  above,  p.  264.)  Occurs  in  Wilson's  trans,  of  Demos 
thenes,  1570,  p.  98. 

Aknown  in  Tyndale's  Expos,  of  Matthew,  1532, 
Parker  Soc.  rep.  i,  80  ;  also  in  Message  of  the  Council  of 
England  to  Philip  II,  in  Strype,  Eccles.  Memor.,  vi,  103. 

So  would  I  not  have  a  translator  ashamed  to  be  acknowen 
of  his  translation. 

Pattenham,  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  1589,  Arber's  rep.  p.  260. 

Acknown  is  also  found  in  Henry  Smith,  1591  (no  ref.)  ; 
Ben  Jonson,  VOLPONE,  1605,  v,  4. 
[Add: 

Yet  are  they  loth  to  be  acknowen  of  their  skill. 

Puttenham,  as  cited,  p.  37. 

Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  Nichodemus  .  .  .  durst  not  be 
acknowen  of  him  [Jesus] . 

Tyndale,  Answer  to  Sir  T.  More,  1531.  Parker  Soc.  rep.  iii,  38. 
I  do  not  marvel  although  you  will  not  be  acknowen  of  this 
marriage. 

Lady  Lumley's  Iphigeneya  (c.  i55o),Malone  Soc.  ed.  1.  750. 
But  ours  [misfortune]  of  others  will  not  be  acknowen. 

Kyd's  trans,  of  Garnier's  Cornelia,  1594,  Act  ii.] 


280  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

8.  Advertising  (as    used    in  MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE, 
V,  1,387). 

Compare  :  To  whose  doctrine  I  did  me  advertise. 
Hawes'  PASTIME  OF  PLEASURE,  1509,  v,  i. 

[Advertise  =  apprise  is  normal  and  common  in  Tudor 
English.] 

9.  Aggravate    ( =  make    heavier  :     RICHARD  II,  I,  i, 
43  ;  Sonnet  146). 

To  aggravate  their  oath. 

Coverdale,  1549. 
Aggravate  his  sins. 

Aggravate  this  tragical  counsel. 

Henry  Smith,  1590. 
Aggravation  of  offences. 

Adams,  Sermon  on  "  The  White  Devil." 

Aggravated  their  discontents. 

Sandys'  Travels,  1610. 

["  To  make  heavier  "  is  simply  the  primary  and  then 
normal  meaning  of  the  word.  Compare  "  aggregge  " 
in  Chaucer.  The  very  line  in  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  146, 
upon  which  Dr.  Theobald  founds  : 

And  make  that  pine  to  aggravate  thy  store, 
is  an  echo  from  Daniel  : 

Then,  O  injurious  Land,  what  dost  thou  gain 
To  aggravate  thine  own  afflictions  store. 

Civil  Wars  (1595)  B.  ii,  st.  16. 
Compare  : 

I  know  my  pitied  love  doth  aggravate 
Envy  and  wrath  for  these  wrongs  offerdd. 

Id.  Letter  from  Octavia  to  Marcus  Antonius,  st.  43. 
Who,  ever  aggravating  that  which  feeds 
Their  fears. 

Id.  Civil  Wars.  ed.  1602,  i,  122. 
Thereby  aggravating  the  offence  to  God. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  i,  19  (Dent's  rep.  p.  85). 
Tullus,  aggravating  the  matter. 
North,  tr.  of  Life  of  Coriolanus  (Sh.  Plutarch,  p.  27). 
To  add  more  grief  to  aggravate  my  sorrow. 

Daniel,  Delia  (1592)  S.  54. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  281 

But  more  to  aggravate  the  heavy  cares 
Of  my  perplexed  mind. 

Wilmot,  Tancred  and  Gismunda,  1592,  v,  i. 
To  aggravate  the  measure  of  our  grief. 

Troublesome  Raigne  of  King  John,  Pt.  I. 

Hazlitt's  Sh.  Library,  Pt.  II,  vol.  i,  p.  160. 
You  did  so  aggravate  the  jest  withal. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  ii,  i. 
Aggravating  their  offence. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Polity,  B.  I,  ch.  xvi,  par.  i .] 

10.  Antres  (  =  caves  :  Lat.  Antrum :   OTHELLO,  I,  iii, 
140). 

[?  An  old  French  word,  from  antowm.  So  all  the  com 
mentators.  But  it  might  have  come  through  the  Italian 
antro.  It  could  not  conceivably  be  a  new  word,  thus 
introduced  in  a  play  ;  even  scholars  would  be  at  a  loss 
to  associate  it,  on  the  sudden,  with  antrum.  But  it  was 
certainly  not  common,  and  its  meaning  is  not  absolutely 
certain,  though  all  the  commentators  connect  it  with 
Fr.  antre  a  cave.  In  the  Folio  the  spelling  is  Antars  ; 
in  the  first  Quarto  it  is  Antrees.  It  is  just  possible  that 
the  derivation  is  through  Chaucer's  entree.  In  BOECE 
(ii,  pr.  2)  he  renders  in  Jovis  limine  by  "  in  the  entree,  or  in 
the  celere  [v.  r.  seler]  of  Jupiter."  Elsewhere  he  translates 
both  adytum  and  aditum  by  "  entree"  (ii,  pr.  i  ;  i,  pr. 
6) ,  perhaps  knowing  that  adytum  primarily  meant  a  cave, 
and  confusing  the  two  words.] 

11.  Artificial    (  =  skilful,   artistic,   pertaining  to  art  : 
M.  N.  D.  Ill,  ii,  203  ;  TIMON,  I,  i,  37). 

The  usual  force  of  the  word. 

Very  artificial  in  making  of  images. 

Hakluyt's  Voyages,  1600. 
A  cunning  and  artificial  graver. 

Barnes's  Works,  1541. 

[Compare : 

Rhetorike,  which  is  the  science  whereby  is  taught  an  artificiall 
form  of  speaking. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  B.  I,  c.  13. 


282  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Artificial!  speakers. 

Id.  ib.  (P.  56  of  Dent's  rep.). 
Artificiall  science  or  corporal  labour. 

Id.  ib.  i,  i  ;  p.  5. 
Artificial  tears. 

Selimus,  1.  449. 
A  very  active  and  artificial  way  in  driving  of  a  prince's  chariot. 

Puttenham,  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  Arber's  rep.  p.  313. 
A  garden  .  .  .  filled   with  fruitful   trees,    very  orderly  and 
artificially  disposed. 

Kyd,  The  Householder's  Philosophic,  trans,  from  Tasso, 

Works,  ed.  Boas,  p.  241. 

To  entertain  [deceive]  one  another  with  vain  hopes  and 
artificial  practices. 

Fenton's  Guicciardini,  1579,  p.  299. 
Secret  and  artificial  practices. 

Id.  p.  602. 

Artificial  and  ceremonial  magic. 
Nashe,  Terrors  of  the  Night  ;  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  i,  367. 

With  all  artificial  magnificence  adorned.     Id.  p.  379.] 

12.  Aspersion    (  =  dropping  of   fluid  :    TEMPEST   IV, 
i,  18). 

Aspersions  of  ink.  Adams,  Sermons,     i,  n. 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  cites  among  other  instances  : 

By  the  aspersion  of  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Foxe's  Martyrs,  i,  497. 
She  did  asperse  the  place  with  the  waters. 

Caxton,  Eneydos    (1490)    xxiv,    90. 

This  was  of  course  the  primary  meaning  of  the  word,  in 
English  as  in  Latin  ;  the  moral  application  is  meta 
phorical  and  secondary. 

13.  Cacodaemon  (RICHARD  III,  I,  iii,  143). 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  notes  that  the  word  is  given 
and  denned,  from  Plato,  in  Bartholomew's  old  encyclo 
paedia,  the  De  proprietatibus  rerum,  of  which  Trevisa's 
translation  was  widely  read.  It  also  occurs  in  Nashe 's 
TERRORS  OF  THE  NIGHT,  1593  (Works,  McKerrow's  ed. 
i,  376),  and,  as  Mr.  Willis  notes,  thrice  in  Adams's 
SERMONS,  1605-25. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP    283 

[Add: 

Maketh  the  image  of  God  the  image  of  Cacodemon. 

Hooper,  Answer  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  1547, 
Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  137. 

The  word  had  thus  a  theological  currency.] 

14.  Capricious    (  =  goatlike  :    As  You  LIKE   IT,  III, 

ii»  7)- 

Word  so  denned  in  Carew's  version  of  Huarte's  Examen, 
1594.     [It  is  used  with  this  force  by  T.  Heywood  : 

What,  drawers  grow  capricious  ? 

Fair  Maid  of  the  West,  iii,  2  ; 
by  Webster  : 

A  fine  capricious,  mathematically  jealous  coxcomb. 

The  White  Devil,  i,  i. 

and  repeatedly  by  Chapman  in  THE  WIDOW'S  TEARS, 
iii,  i ;  iii,  i  (capricious)  ;  v,  3.] 

15.  Captious  (  =  "  receptive  "    or    "  taking  " — "  cap 
tious  and  intenible  sieve  "  ;  ALL'S  WELL,  I,  iii,  207). 

So  used  from  1447. 

Capcious,  crafty  in  words  to  take  one  in  a  trap. 

Palsgrave,  1530. 
By  captious  words  to  make  me  do  it. 

Three  Ladies  of  London,  Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  vi,  293. 

[Compare : 

[Such  captious  doom  [judgment]  as  Momus  erst  did  use. 
Higgins'  add.  to  Mirrour  for  Magistrates,  ed.  1575. 

Rep.  of  1810,  p.  90.] 

16.  Cast  (  =  chaste  :  As  You  LIKE  IT,  III,  iv,  16). 

Diana  ...  the  cast  goddess. 

Lydgate,  1430. 

17.  Casual,  casualty    (chance,    risk  :     MERCHANT,   II, 
ix,  29  ;  LEAR,  IV,  iii,  45  ;  PERICLES,  V,  i,  93). 

The  normal  sense  of  the  word  in  the  period. 

A  thing  hanging  on  such  casualty. 

Jacob  and  Esau  (1555)  :   Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  ii,  221. 


284  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  instances  from  James  I 
(Kings  Quair)  ;  Halliwell,  1500  ;  Wriothesley,  1548  ; 
Fabyan,  1494 ;  Wolsey,  1530 ;  and  Taverner,  1539. 
See  also  CASUALITY. 

18.  Circumscribed       (   =  limited),       Circumscription  : 
TITUS,  I,  i,  68  ;  HAMLET,  I,  iii,  22  ;  OTHELLO,  I,  ii,  26. 

Again,  the  normal  meaning  of  the  word. 

Not  comprehensible  nor  circumscribed. 

More,  Dialogue  of  Heresy,  1529. 

They  that  thronged  to  circumscribe  him. 

Jonson,  Sejanus,  v,  10. 
Circumscribed  within  the  bounds  of  a  certayne  of  studies. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  B.  i,  c.  14  (Dent's  rep.  p.  68). 
[Add: 

Hell  hath  no  limits,  nor  is  circumscribed 
To  one  self  place. 

Marlowe,  Faustus,  II,  i. 
Look  !   a  painted  board  [a  coffin] 
Circumscribes  all. 

Dekker,  The  Honest  Whore,  iv,  i. 
Not  to  be  circumscribed  in  servile  bounds. 

Heywood,  Rape  of  Lucrece,  i,  i. 
The  time  I  hope  cannot  be  circumscribed 
Within  so  short  a  limit. 

Id.  i,  3,  end.] 

19.  Civil :    uncivil  (in  the  "  Latin  "  sense,  "  pertaining 
to  the   State,"   also  =  civilised,   uncivilised  :     RICHARD 
II,  III,  iii,  101 ;  2  HENRY  VI,  III,  i,  310). 

Again  the  fundamental,  and  then  the  normal,  meaning 
of  the  terms,  as  still  in  "  civil  service,"  "  civil  war." 
Compare  : 

Civil  society. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.  1590,  B.  i,  p.  10. 

Civil  life.  Civil  industry.  The  civility  of  other  nations.  Civil 
union. 

Lewkenor's  trans,  of  Contrareno,  pp.  34,  35,  41,  and  pref . 
Policy  and  civility.     Civil  inhabitants.     Liberty  and  civility. 
Sandys'  Travels,  1610  ;  ed.  1637,  pref.  and  pp.  53,  60. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  285 

[Add: 

Civil  service  to  their  prince  and  contrie. 

Ascham,  Scholemaster,  Arber's  rep.  p.  135. 
What's  the  difference  twixt  a  Christian 
And  the  uncivil  manners  of  the  Turk  ? 

First  Part  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  iv,  2. 
We  that  have  been  so  long  civil  and  wealthy  in  peace. 

King  James,  Counterblast  to  Tobacco,  Arber's  rep.  p.  100. 
Civil  love  of  art. 

Chapman,  Hymnus  in  Noctem. 
Uncivil  outrages.  ^.».»/ 

Marlowe,  i  Tamb.  I,  i. 
Laws  civil.     Civil  law.     Civil  policy. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  B.  i,  c.  14. 
Better  government  and  civility. 

Spenser,  Present  State  of  Ireland,  Globe  ed.  of  Works,  p.  609. 
Very  brute  and  uncivill  (= uncivilised). 

Id.  p.  638. 
Even  the  other  day,  since  England  grew  to  be  civill. 

Id.  ib. 
Some  barbarous  outlaw  or  uncivil  kern. 

Heywood,  A  Woman  Killed  with  Kindness,  v,  i . 

A  more  civil  and  orderly  life. 

The  savage  and  uncivil,  who  were  before  all  science  or  civility. 

The  books  and  studies  of  the  ci viler  ages. 

The  most  civil  countries  and  commonwealths. 

The  ancient  and  civil  poets. 

All  manner  of  functions  civil  and  martial. 

Puttenham,  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  1589,  Arber's  rep. 
pp.22,  26,  27,  30,  31,  33.] 

20.  Collect      ("  collect      these     dangers  "  =  mentally 
gather  together  :   2  HENRY  VI,  III,  i,  34 ;   TEMPEST,  I, 

ii>  13)- 

The  doctrine  that  may  be  collected  thereof. 

First  Book  of  Discipline,  1560. 
[Add: 

Whereof  ...  we  have  collected  after  this  manner. 

Foxe,  Acts  and  Monuments,  Cattley's  ed.  1841,  i,  96. 
And  all  my  cares  by  cruel  Love  collected. 

Spenser,  Epithalamion,  1.  267.] 


286  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

21.  Collection   (same  force  :   CYMBELINE,   V,   v,  429  ; 
HAMLET,  IV,  v,  7). 

By  a  collection  and  discourse  of  reason. 

More's  Dialogue  of  Heresy. 
Your  own  only  probable  collection  [of  doctrine;). 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.  ed.  1823,  p.  102. 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 

As  by  a  brief  collection  of  the  whole  chapter  .  .  .  shall  appear 

1579,  Fulke,  Heskins  Parl.  35. 
Most  severe  in  fashion  and  collection  of  himself. 

Jonson,  Poetaster,  v,  i. 
[Add: 

Not  the  commandments  of   God   but  your  own  erroneous 
collections. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.  pref.  ch.  viii,  §5. 

Only  deduced  they  are  out  of  Scripture  by  collection. 

Id.  B.  I,  ch.  xiv,  §2. 
All  collections  speak  he  was  the  soldier. 

Chapman,  The  Widow's  Tears,  v,  3.] 

22.  Comfort  (legal  sense,  aiding  or  helping  :     LEAR, 
III,  v,  21 ;  TITUS,  II,  iii,  209). 

See  above,  p.  77,  as  to  the  currency  of  the  term  in 
proclamations  and  in  old  English. 

Neither  aiding  nor  comforting  (in  an  assassination). 

Grafton's  Chronicle,  1568,  ii,  74. 
[Latimer  has : 

Thou  shalt  first  kill  the  great  Turks,  and  discomfort  and  thrust 
them  down. 

Second  Sermon  on  the  Card.] 

23.  Complement  (   =  completing,  rilling  up  :  OTHELLO, 
I,  i,  61). 

For  complement  and  execution  of  justice. 

Hakluyt's  Voyages,  ix,  153. 
Compare  Faerie  Queene,  B.  Ill,  c.  v,  st.  55. 

[Add: 

All  the  rare  qualities  humours,  and  complements  of  a  gentleman. 
Jonson,  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  i,  i.] 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  287 

24.  Composition  (  =  coherence,  consistency  :    OTHELLO 
I,  iii,  i). 

Disordered  composition. 

Thynne's  Animadversions,  1597. 

[The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  26  senses  of  this  word, 
putting  the  OTHELLO  passage  as  a  case  by  itself.  It  is 
really  a  case  of  the  logical  application  of  the  term  = 
synthesis.  Bacon  does  not  so  use  it,  but  it  was  current 
in  the  schools,  in  the  teaching  of  logic,  arithmetic,  and 
mathematics.  There  is  no  coinage  in  the  matter.] 

25.  Composure  (  =  composition  :   ANTONY,  I,  iv,  22  ; 
TROILUS,  II,  iii,  251). 

Demosthenes  in  the  composure  of  ...  his  orations. 

Ben  Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  i,  i. 
[See  also  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  ii,  i .] 
The  harsh  composure  and  conveyance  of  the  style. 

R.  Johnson,  Kingdom  and  Commonwealth,  1603  (N.E.D.). 

[Add: 

Marston  (THE  MALCONTENT,  ii,  4)  has  "  composure  " 
for  "  ingredients."  Compare  : 

And  yet  even  this  doth  the  divine  inspiration  render  vast, 
illustrious,  and  of  miraculous  composure. 

Chapman,  Ep.  Ded.  to  trans,  of  Odyssey. 

Dr.  Theobald  protests  (pref.  to  1904  ed.  p.  vii)  that 
Mr.  Willis's  instances  do  not  meet  his  case,  contending 
that,  by  the  testimony  of  the  Oxford  Dictionary,  the 
word  as  used  in  TROILUS  has  a  wider  meaning  than  that 
of  literary  composition.  It  is  really  a  mere  case  of  using 
the  idea  of  "  structure  "  or  "  composition  "  in  different 
applications.  Obviously  one  sense  is  no  more  "  classic" 
than  another ;  and  it  was  the  classic  derivation  of  the 
word  that  Dr.  Theobald  was  arguing  for.  The  thesis  of 
"augmentations  of  meaning"  becomes  a  chimera  in  his 
hands.] 

26.  Compound     (  =  arrange,    settle,    as    a    quarrel : 
JOHN,  II,  i,  281,  &c.). 

The  regular  force  of  the  word.     Instances  needless. 


288  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

27.  Concent  (  =  harmony  :  HENRY  V,  I,  ii,  180). 

Sing  with  one  concent. 

Fairfax's  trans,  of  Tasso's  Jerusalem,  B.  xviii,  st.  19. 

In  true  concent  meet. 

Drayton,  Barons'  Wars,  iii,  114. 
That  concent  .  .  .  which  doth  draw  things  together. 

Id.  Eclogue  vii,  177. 
[Add: 

For  love  is  a  celestial  harmony 

Of  likely  hearts  composed  of  stars'  concent. 

Spenser,  Hymn  in  Honour  of  Beauty. 

Therefore  are  they  called  the  Muses'  birds,  because  they  follow 
not  the  sound  so  much  as  the  consent. 

Lilly,  Euphues  and  his  England,  Arber's  rep.  p.  262. 
O  sweet  consent  between  a  crowde  [fiddle]  and  a  Jewes  harpe. 

Id.  Campaspe,  ii,  i . 
As  in  music  divers  strings  cause  a  more  delicate  consent. 

Id.  ib.  iii,  4. 
Sung  .  .  .  with  sweet  concent. 

Spenser,  Faerie  Queene,  III,  xii,  5. 
A  sweet  consent,  of  Musick's  sacred  sound. 
Gascoigne,  The  Steel  Glas.     Cunliffe's  ed.  of  Works,  ii,  152. 
O  divine  Apollo,  O  sweet  consent  !  [in  Apollo's  song]. 

Lilly,  My  das,  iv,  i. 

My  lute,  though  it  have  many  strings,  maketh  a  sweet  consent. 

Id.  Love's  Metamorphosis,  iii,  i.] 

28.  Conduce  (  =  educe  or  "  be  conducted,"  "  occur  "  : 
"  Within  my  soul  there  doth  conduce  a  fight."   TROILUS, 
V,  ii,  147  ;  also  =  lead  to,  promote  :  TROILUS,  II,  ii,  168). 
Merely  variants  of  the  fundamental  meaning  : 

The  conducing  and  setting  forth  of  amity  and  peace. 

Letter  of  Wolsey  to  Henry  VIII,  1527. 
[Compare  : 

That  can  so  conduce  him  from  the  rocks  on  that  side. 

More,  Dialogue  of  Comfort,  rep.  p.  213.] 

29.  Conduct  (noun,  =  guidance  :  TROILUS,  II,  ii,  61). 

By  conduct  of  some  star. 

Spenser,  Sonnet  34. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  289 

[Add: 

Ye  have  also  this  word  Conduict,  a  French  word,  but  well 
allowed  of  us,  and  long  since  usual  .  .  .  it  is  applied  only  to  the 
leading  of  a  Captain. 

Puttenham,  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  Arber's  rep.  p.  159. 

The  conducted  policies  of  wise  and  expert  captaines. 

Elyot,  Governour,  i,  n. 
And  lead  thy  thousand  horse  with  my  conduct. 

Marlowe,  i  Tamb.  i,  2. 
To  wend  with  him  and  be  his  conduct  true. 

Spenser,  F.  Q.  VI,  xi,  35. 
For  conduct  of  all  which. 

Chapman,  tr.  of  Iliad,  i,  144.] 
Other  instances  in  N.  E.  D. 

30.  Confine  (  =  boundary :  HAMLET,  I,  i,  154  : 
derivations  in  other  passages). 

A  perfectly  normal  word,  usually  in  the  plural : 

Princes  have  less  confines  to  their  wills. 

Strype,  Eccles.  Mem,  iv,  370. 
The  countries  which  confine  there  together. 

North's  Plutarch. 
Also  Hall's  Chronicle,  ii,  171  b. 
[Add: 

Sir,  said  the  King,  I  have  divers  confins  and  neighbours. 

Elyot,  Governour,  B.  i,  c.  20. 

He  removed  his  camp  as  far  from  their  confines  as  he  could. 
North,  Life  of  Coriolanus  (Shakespeare's  Plutarch,  p.  29). 

Leaving  the  confines  of  fair  Italy. 

Locrine,  I,  i. 
To  which  confines  [of  Wales]  ...  we  will  amain. 

Peele,  Edward  I,  Ed.  Dyce,  p.  386. 

Other  nations  that  us  here  confine. 

Fairfax's  tr.  of  Tasso's  Jerusalem,  B.  v,  st.  50. 

Is  the  Sophi  entered  our  confines  ? 

Selimus,  1.  959. 
Fill  all  the  confines  with  fire,  sword,  and  blood. 

7^.1.1376. 
To  set  thy  feet  within  the  Turkish  confines. 

Id.  1.  2451. 
T 


290  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Those  tracts  divine 
That  are  the  confines  of  the  triple  world. 

Chapman,  Eugenia,  Indue.  1.  9. 

Ye  are  at  this  present  in  the  confines  and  borders  of  Babylon. 
Philpot,  Letter  of  1555.   Parker  Soc.  vol.  p.  239. 
Even  in  the  confines  of  mine  age. 

Daniel,  Cleopatra,  1594,  1.  175. 
In  confines  of  the  dead. 

Id.  1.331- 
We  durst  not  continue  longer  so  near  her  confines. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.  pref.  ch.  viii,  §i. 
The  confins  of  Rome.  .  .  .     The  jurisdictions  of  confins. 

Fenton's  Guicciardini,  1579,  p.  7- 
We  fight  not,  we,  t'enlarge  our  scant  confines. 

Kyd,  trans,  of  Garnier's  Cornelia,  v,  5- 
Ere  this,  I  would  have  taught  thee  to  usurp 
Upon  our  confines. 

The  Weakest  Goeth  to  the  Wall  (1600)  iv,  i. 
And  in  your  confines,  with  his  lawless  train, 
Daily  commits  uncivil  outrages. 

Marlowe,  i  Tamb.  i,  I.] 

31.  Congreeing  (HENRY  V,  I,  ii,  180). 

Dr.  Theobald  observes  that  this  is  "a  new  word, 
classically  constructed  if  not  classically  derived.  It  is 
probably  an  echo  of  congredior  (congressus)  or  of  con- 
geno."  (?)  Mr.  Willis  rationally  suggests  that  it  is  made 
by  combining  "  con  "  and  "  gree  "  =  "  agree  "  ;  that  is 
to  say,  it  is  a  pseudo-classical  coinage,  not  the  work  of  a 
scholar.  But  the  very  existence  of  the  word  is  doubtful. 
The  Quarto  of  1608  has  congrueth ;  and  the  earlier 
editors  surmised  that  the  Folio  word  was  a  misprint  for 
"  congruing."  Still,  "  congreeing  "  was  a  quite  possible 
coinage  for  one  not  restrained  by  scholarly  usage. 

32.  Congruent  (  =  appropriate,  suitable  :  L.  L.  L.  I, 
ii,  14). 

Not  agreeable  nor  congruent  to  his  Majesty. 

Elyot,  Governour. 
Good  congruity. 

Tyndale  ;  Parker  Soc.  ed.  p.  337. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  291 

[Add: 

It  is  therefore  congruent  and  according  that  .  .  . 

Elyot,  B.  i,.c.  i,  p.  5. 
First,  it  is  of  good  congruence  that  .  .  . 

Id.  B.  i,  c.  3,  p.  17. 
It  shall  not  be  incongruent  to  our  matter. 

Id.  B.  i,  c.  13,  p.  57. 
Easy  and  congruent  to  his  strength. 

Id.  B.  i,  c.  27,  p.  112. 
Of  good  reason  and  congruence. 

Id.  B.  iii,  c.  22.] 

33.  Consign    (  =  subscribe,   ratify,   yield  :     2  HENRY 
IV,  V,  ii,  143  ;  HENRY  V,  V,  ii,  326  ;   Song  in  CYMBELINE, 
IV,  ii). 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 

My  father  hath  consigned  and  confirmed  me. 

Tyndale,  Works,  457. 

Laying  their  hands  upon  them  and  consigning  them  with  holy 
chrism. 

Strype,  Eccles.  Mem.  I,  App.  Ixxxviii,  245. 
So  that  by  baptism  we  are  initiated  and  consigned   into  the 
worship  of  one  God. 

Tyndale,  Lord's  Supper,  44. 
Have  all  the  prizes  consigned  into  their  hands 

Wriothesley  (1528)  in  Pocock,  Rec.  Ref.  I,  xii,  80. 

34.  Consist    (  =  Lat.  consisto,  to  take  a  stand,  &c. — 
"  Consist  upon  "  :  2  HENRY  IV,  IV,  i,  185). 

Quite  common.     The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 

The  English  imperie  consisteth  on  sure  pillars. 

Polydore  Vergil,  trans,  circa  1534. 

Parallelograms  consisting  upon  equal  bases. 

Billingsley  (1570)  Euclid,  I,  xxxvi,  46. 
This  temple  seemed  to  consist  upon  pillars  of  porphyry. 

Segar  (1602)  Hon.  Mil.  and  Civ.  Ill,  liv,  §3,  197. 
To  think  that  the  commonwealth  consisted  on  his  safety. 

Greene,  Pandosto,  1588. 

35.  Constringed  (TROiLUS  AND  CRESSIDA,  V,  ii,  173). 

Constringed  with  a  muscle. 

Burton,  Anatomy  of  Melancholy. 


292  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  "  constringent  "  from  Sir 
C.  Heydon  in  1603,  and  "  constringeth  "  from  T.  Wright 
in  1604.  The  word  was  clearly  current  before  Shake 
speare,  though  certainly  rare. 

36.  Contain      (  =  contineo,     restrain    or    encompass. 
SHREW,  Ind.  I,  100 ;  TROILUS,  V,  ii,  180,  &c.).  Content 
(from  same  root :  TROILUS,  I,  ii,  320). 

Words  used  in  these  and  various  other  senses  long  before 
Shakespeare.    See  Oxford  Dictionary,  s.  v. 

37.  Continent  (same  derivation) ;  as  in 

The  rivers  have  o'erborne  their  continents. 

Mid.  Night's  Dream,  II,  i,  92. 

So  used  by  Bacon  :  "  then  is  the  continent  greater  than 
the  content."  Hallam  (see  above,  p.  253),  cited  and  sup 
ported  by  Mr.  G.  Greenwood  (SHAKESPEARE  PROBLEM 
RESTATED,  p.  125),  pointed  to  Shakespeare's  use  of  this 
word  as  an  indication  of  "classical"  knowledge.  It 
might  or  might  not  have  been  a  reminiscence,  but  it  is 
certainly  not  a  proof  thereof.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
phrase  "  whereof  the  continent  exceedeth  the  thing 
contained  "  occurs  in  North's  Plutarch,  1579  ;  also  in 
Field's  play  A  WOMAN  is  A  WEATHERCOCK  (1609),  and 
in  Adams's  Sermons  (1612  :  preached  long  before  that 
date). 

[Further,  the  word  is  used  in  the  sense  of  "  bounds" 
by  Marlowe  : 

Afric  and  Europe  bordering  on  your  land, 
And  continent  to  your  dominion. 

I  Tambuvlaine,  i,  2. 

Between  this  sense  and  the  normal  use  of  continent  for 
"  that  which  contains,"  there  is  no  room  for  ascribing  any 
innovation  to  Shakespeare. 
Compare  : 

Hark  how  loud  the  Greeks  laugh,  who  did  take 
Thy  fair  form  for  a  continent  of  parts  as  fair. 

r,h;i.]>ni;ui,  1r;ms.  <>l  Iliad,  in.  .j.j.J 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  293 

38.  Contraction  (  =  drawing  together,  as  in  marriage : 
HAMLET,  III,  iv,  45). 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 

The  mutual  contraction  of  a  perpetual  league. 

Hakluyt's  Voyage s,  1598,  i,  180. 

The  city  of  Palma,  where  there  is  great  contraction  for  wines. 

Id.  II,  ii,  316. 
The  merchants  do  leave  their  contractions  and  trafickes. 

Parke's    trans,    of    Mendoza's    History    of   China 
(1588)  p.  74. 

39.  Contrive  (  =  pass  away  time :   TAMING   OF  THE 
SHREW,  I,  ii,  276), 

Tarry  and  abide  here  to  contrive  your  time. 

Painter's  Palace  of  Pleatwe,  i,  i\6b. 
In  travelling  countries  we  three  have  contrived 
Full  many  a  year. 

Edwards,  Damon  and  Pithias,  Hazlitt's  Dodsley, 
iv,  26. 

[Compare  Puttenham's  title :  "  The  Arte  of  English 
Poesie  contrived  into  three  Bookes,"] 

40.  Conveniences  (=  agreements.  OTHELLO,  II,  i,  234) 
The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 

There  is  no  convenience  between  Christ  and  Belial. 

T.  Sampson,  in  Strype's  Eccles.  Memor.  (1554)  HI, 

App.  xviii,  p.  52. 

This  kind  of  man  created  God  of  a  marvellous  convenience  with 
all  other  manner  of  creatures. 

Sir  T.  More  (1534),  Worht,  1274,  I. 

For  the  conclusion  of  such  convenience*  as  were  drawn  and 
articulated  between  the  D.  of  Somerset  and  the  said  company. 

(1551)  Strype,  II,  xxix,  243- 
The  convenience  of  both  their  ages  and  estates. 

Grafton's  Chronicle  (1568)  ii,  772. 
[Compare : 
Again  every  sin,  a  remedy  convenient. 

Medwall's  Interlude,  Nature  (c.  1490),  Farmer's 
Lost  Tudor  Plays,  p.  123. 

The  word  is  constantly  used  with  this  force  by  Tudor 
writers.] 


294  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

41.  Convent   (vb.   from    convenit:    TWELFTH    NIGHT, 
V,  i,  391). 

This  again  is  one  of  the  primary  and  common  uses 
of  the  word.  The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  many 
instances  : 

Unneth  the  Christians  could  safely  convent  in  their  own  houses. 

Foxe,  Martyrs  (1563-87). 

Crescentius  with  the  people  conventing  against  the  said 
Gregorie. 

Id. 
The  king  conventing  his  nobles  and  clarkes  together. 

Grafton's  Chronicle,  ii,  56. 

And  each  one  to  a  divers  sect  convents. 

Warner,  Albion's  England,  ix,  liii. 

42.  Conversation  (used  of   thoughts   or   mental    life : 
ALL'S  WELL,  I,  iii,  238). 

As  a  consultation  of  the  Concordance  to  the  Bible 
would  soon  make  clear  to  any  one,  this  word  in  Shake 
speare's  day  had  a  much  wider  range  of  meaning  than  it 
now  retains.  "  Walk  and  conversation  "  did  not  mean 
"  walk  and  talk."  E.g.  : 

To  him  that  ordereth  his  conversation  aright  will  I  show  the 
salvation  of  God.  Ps.  1,  23. 

Compare  : 

Both  men  and  women  whose  conversation  in  old  times  was 
beautified  with  singular  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Miles  Coverdale's  pref .  to  Letters  of  Martyrs. 
[Add: 

In  all  conversation,  deeds,  laws,  bargains,  covenants,  ordinances 
and  decrees  of  men. 

Tyndale's  Answer  to  More,  Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  56. 

Andrew,  being  conversant  in  a  city  of  Achaia  called  Patrae. 

Foxe's  Acts  and  Monuments,  Cattley's  ed.  1841, 
i,96. 

The  misorder  of  life  and  conversation. 

Id.  i,  4. 
The  life  and  conversation  of  the  court  of  Rome. 

Id.  p.  6. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  295 

To  lay  down  their  old  conversation.  Id.  p.  74. 

There  is  made  conversant  amonge  men  in  authoritie  a  vice 
very  ugly  and  monstruouse  .  .  .  this  monstre  is  called  in 
englysshe  Detraction. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  B.  iii,  c.  27. 

They  that  have  their  conversation  in  heaven  under  an  undefiled 
faith. 

Bale,  The  Image  of  Both  Churches,  c.  1540,  Parker  Soc. 

rep.  p.  432. 

Which  shall  in  those  days  live  and  be  among  men  conversant. 
Id.  Pref.  to  First  Exam,  of  Anne  Askewe,  rep.  p.  137. 
Sithence  the  time  that  the  blessed  Apostles  were  here  conversant. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.  pref.  iv,  §i. 
To  be  reasonable  .  .   .  through  all  our  moral  conversation. 

Pecock,  Represser  of  Over  Much  Blaming,  Pt.  iv,  ch. 
9  (Rolls  ed.  ii,  472). 

To  Christes  Gospell  your  conversacyon  apply. 

Bale,  Interlude  of  John  the  Baptist,  Harl.  Misc.  rep. 
1808,  i,  207. 

Your  conversacyon,  which  is  in  a  sore  decay. 

Id.  p.  205. 

He  that  bendeth  to  follow  his  own  inclination 
Must  needs  live  a  wicked  and  vile  conversation. 

Interlude  of  The  Trial  of  Treasure,   1567,  Percy 
Soc.  rep.  p.  16. 

And  those  that  be  thankful  in  their  conversation. 

Id.  p.  27.] 

Dr.  Theobald  connects  Shakespeare's  use  of  "  conversa 
tion  "  with  Bacon's  phrase,  "  a  man's  tossing  his  thoughts," 
concerning  which  Edward  Fitzgerald  said,  "  I  know 
not  from  what  metaphor  Bacon  took  his  '  tosseth.' ' 
As  usual,  we  are  dealing  with  a  common  Elizabethan 
phrase  : 

The  cause  is  debated  and  tossed  to  and  fro. 

Rhemish  New  Testament,  p.  89. 

In  tossing  it  often  with  myself  to  and  fro. 
Edwards,  Damon  and  Pithias,  Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  iv,  65 . 
And  while  he  talked,  great  things 
Toss'd  in  his  thought. 

Fairfax's  Tasso,  ed.  1624,  p.  326. 


296  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

[Add: 

After  often  tossing  it  up  and  down  in  the  mind. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  B.  iii,  c.  24,  Dent's  rep.  p.  277. 

With  much  and  long  deliberation  to  be  resolved  and  tossed  in 
the  mind. 

Id.  c.  28,  p.  291. 

Spend  four  or  five  years  in  tossing  all  the  rules  of  grammar  in 
common  schools. 

Ascham,  The  Scholemaster,  Arber's  rep.  p.  95. 

Tossing  and  troubling  young  wits  (making  Latin  verses) . 

Id.  p.  101. 

The  mind  .  .  .  occupied  in  turning  and  tossing  itself  many 
ways.  Id.  p.  1 10. 

In  his  breast  a  thousand  cares  he  tossed. 

Fairfax's  Tasso,  B.  v,  st.  92. 

He  left  him  tossing  in  his  thought 
A  thousand  doubts. 

Id.  B.  vi,  st.  101. 

I  tost  my  imaginations  a  thousand  waies. 
Nashe,  Pierce  Penilesse  ;  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  i,  158. 

Thus  my  conscience  being  tossed  in  the  waves  of  a  scrupulous 
mind. 

Henry  VIII,  cited  in  Holinshed's  History. 

Toss'd  and  tormented  with  the  tedious  thought. 

Sackville,  Induction  to  the  Mirrour  for  Magistrates, 
st.    33- 

Whose  dryer  brain 
Is  tost  with  troubled  sights  and  fancies  weak. 

Spenser,  Faerie  Queene,  B.  i,  c.  i,  st.  42. 

That  troublous  dream  gan  freshly  toss  his  brain. 

Id.  ib.  st.  55. 

With  seven  years'  tossing  necromantic  charms. 
Greene,  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay,  ed.  Dyce,  p.  172. 

The  fearful  tossing,  in  the  latest  night, 
Of  papers  full  of  necromatic  charms. 

Id.  ib.  p.  175. 

The  tempests  of  tossing  fantasy. 
Gascoigne,  Adventures  of  F.  ].,  Cunliffe's  ed.  of 
Works,  i,  421. 

Tossing  their  light  opinions  to  and  fro. 

Davies,  Nosce  Teipsum,  1599,  ed.  Grosart,  i,  27.] 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  297 

43.  Convicted,  Convince  (  =  defeat,  overcome :  JOHN; 
III,  iv,  2  ;  MACBETH,  I,  vii,  63). 

Them  to  convince  by  force  of  arms. 
Preston's  Cambyses,  1570  :   Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  iv,    174. 
Hippolita  being  convicted  by  Theseus,  for  her  singular  stout 
ness  and  courage  was  married  to  him. 

Pilgrim  Princes,  1607. 

["Convince"  for  "convict"  was  a  standing  usage. 
See  the  Authorised  Version,  Job,  xxxii,  12  ;  John,  viii, 
46  ;  xvi,  8  ;  Acts  xviii,  28  ;  i  Cor.  xiv,  24 ;  Tit.  i,  9 ; 
James,  ii,  9 ;  Jude,  15.  Could  not  the  Baconians  consult 
even  this  source  for  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  English  ? 
Of  course  Bacon  used  the  word,  like  every  one  else. 
Convict  =  overcome  is  equally  common,  and  convince 
thus  =  overcome.  In  the  COVENTRY  MYSTERIES  we  have : 

By  the  fruit  of  your  [Mary's]  body  was  convycte  his  [Satan's] 
vyolens. 

Sh.  Soc.  ed.  p.  388. 

So  in  the  old  morality  play,  MANKIND,  c.  1475  (Farmer's 
LOST  TUDOR  PLAYS,  pp.  18-19)  : 

My  father,  Mercy,  advised  me  to  be  of  a  good  cheer, 
And  again  my  enemies  manly  for  to  fight. 
I  shall  convict  them,  I  hope,  every  one. 

"  Conviction,"    with    this   force,    occurs   in    Chapman's 
CESAR  AND  POMPEY,  v,  i. 
Compare  : 

Born  slavish  barbarism  to  convince. 
Chapman,  Sonnets  appended  to  trans,  of  Homer,  13. 

Chimera  the  invincible,  he  sent  him  to  convince. 

Id.  trans,  of  Iliad,  vi,  182. 

Come  ye  to  convince  the  mightiest  conqueror  ? 

Interlude  of  The  Trial  of  Treasure,  1567,  Percy 

Soc.  rep.  p.  ii. 

For  surely  there  was  no  great  need  to  detect  and  convince  the 
flattery  of  Melanthius  .  .  . 

Holland's  trans,   of   Plutarch's   Moralia,   Dent's 

selection,  p.  41. 

By  what  different  marks  shall  he  be  known  and  convinced  .  .  . 

Id.  p.  45- 


298  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

When  they  [the  Catilinarians]  were  convinced  in  open  Senate. 
North,    trans,    of    Life    of    Ccssar.     Skeat's    SA. 

Plutarch,  p.  48. 
These  backbiters  and  slanderers  must  be  convinced. 

Latimer,  Third  Sermon  before  Edward  VI.     Dent's 

rep.  p.  112. 
I  must  stop  their  mouths,  convince,  refel,  and  confute. 

Id.  ib. 
Now  you  look  finely  indeed,  Win  !  this  cap  does  convince. 

Jonson,  Bartholomew  Fair,  i,  I. 
Our  Persian  monarch  makes  his  frown  convince 
The  strongest  truth. 

Daniel,  Philotas,  1.  1804. 
Whose  wit  .  .  . 
Secret  conspiracies  could  well  convince. 

Greene,  A  Maiden's  Dream,  1591,  st.  17.] 

44.  Crescive  (HENRY  V,  I,  i.  65). 

"  When  Shakespeare  was  a  child  of  three  years  of  age," 
remarks  Judge  Willis,  "  Drant  [trans,  of  Horace]  was 
writing  :  '  The  dragons,  with  proper  breasts,  do  nurse 
their  cresyve  young.'  " 

45.  Crisp    (  =  curling    or    waving :    TEMPEST,   IV,   i, 
130  ;  i  HENRY  IV,  I,  iii,  106  ;  TIMON,  IV,  iii,  183). 

Common.  The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  instances  from 
Cooper's  THESAURUS,  1565-73 ;  T.  Watson,  1583 ; 
Gerard's  HERBAL,  1597  ;  Higden,  1432,  &c. 

[Compare  : 

Canst  drink  the  waters  of  the  crisped  spring  ? 

Patient  Grissel,  i,  i  ;  again  in  iv,  2. 
Thy  dainty  hair  so  curled  and  crisped  now. 

Drayton,  Idea,  8. 
Her  hair  disordered,  brown,  and  crisped  wiry. 

Barnes,  Parthenophil  and  Parthenophe,  son.  13. 
Young  I'd  have  him  too,  and  fair, 
Yet  a  man  ;  with  crispdd  hair. 

Jonson,  Underwoods,  ix. 
Crisped  Germans  ("  Curl'd  Sicambrians,"  four  lines  later). 

Id.  Sejanus,  iii,  i. 
Crisped  groves. 

Id.  The  Devil  is  an  Ass,  ii,  2.] 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  299 

46.  Decimation   ("  a  tithed  death  "  :  TIMON,  V,  iv,  31). 
It  is  needless   to  go  further  for  this  than   North's 

Plutarch,  used  by  Shakespeare  : 

Antonius  executed  the  decimation.  For  he  divided  his  men 
by  ten  legions,  and  then  of  them  he  put  the  tenth  legion  to  death. 

47.  Defused  (  =  confused.     LEAR,  I,  iv,  i). 
See  Oxford  Dictionary  for  many  instances. 

[The  variorum  edition  gives  instances  from  John 
Maplet's  A  GREEN  FOREST,  OR  A  NATURAL  HISTORY, 
1567 ;  GREENE'S  FAREWELL  TO  FOLLY,  1591,  and 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  PASSIONATE  MAN.  Add : 
Greene's  PLANETOMACHIA  :  Works,  ed.  Grosart,  v,  126  ; 
EDWARD  III  (sp.  diffused)  v,  i,  126.] 

48.  Degenerate    (implying  loss    of  caste  or  status,  as 
in  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA,  II,  ii,  154). 

The  primary  and  then  common  sense  of  the  term. 

Do  degenerate  from  the  nobleness  of  their  stock. 

Lewkenor,  trans,  of  Cardinal  Contrareno's  Republic 
of  Venice,  1 599,  p.  1 1 1 . 

Degenerate  from  the  examples  of  our  elders. 

Foxe's  trans,    of   the    Emperor's   letter  against 

Luther,  1560. 
Nothing  degenerating  from  so  worthy  a  father. 

Camden,  1603. 

[Add: 

That  for  an  evil  member  two  or  three, 
Or  more  or  less,  that  be  degenerate, 
And  fallen  from  their  office  and  degree. 

Thynne,   Debate  between  Pride  and  Lowli 
ness  (c.  1570)  Sh.  Soc.  rep.  p.  45.] 

49.  Deject  (adj.  =  dejectus  :   also  verb:  TROILUS,  II, 
ii,  49,  121). 

A  perfectly  common  usage. 

Be  not  of  a  deject  mind  for  these  temptations. 

Letter  of  the  Martyr  Philpot,  1555. 
Christ  dejected  himself. 

Udal,  trans,  of  Erasmus'  Paraphrase. 


300  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Good  writers  deject  me  too  too  much. 

Florio's  Montaigne. 
[Compare  : 

Is't  possible  that  Stukly,  so  deject 

In  England,  lives  in  Spain  in  such  respect. 

The  Play  of  Stucley,  Simpson's  rep.  Sch.  of  Sh.  i, 
pp.  234-5. 

Dejected  [= deposed]  lady.     You  do  forget  yourself. 
You  are  not  wise,  dejected  [= deposed]  as  you  are. 

No-Body  and  Some-Body,  vol.  last  cit.  pp.  303,  315. 

Her  authority  began  immediately  to  be  dejected. 

Fenton's  trans,  of  Guicciardini,  1579,  p.  12. 

Where  there  is  a  true  and  perfect  merit 
There  can  be  no  dejection. 

Jonson,  The  Poetaster,  1601,  v.  i. 

I  cannot  too  much  diminish  and  deject  myself. 

Chapman,  pref .  to  trans,  of  Iliad. 

Men  deject.     Gold  and  his  dejections. 

Id.  Hymns  In  Noctem  and  In  CynthiamJ] 

50.  Delated,      and      delation      (?  =  delivering      over, 
accusing  :  HAMLET,  I,  ii,  36). 
Judge  Willis  cites  : 

Delated  to  the  Presbyterie. 

Res.  Kirk  of  Scotland,  March   7,  1575. 

[The  word  was  thus  used  in  Scotch  legal  and  ecclesiastical 
procedure  for  centuries.  But,  according  to  Steevens  and 
Malone  (notes  on  OTHELLO,  III,  iii,  124,  var.  ed.)  it  was 
not  so  used  in  England ;  and  the  word  in  HAMLET  is 
read  by  most  commentators  as  =  dilated.  (See  No.  56, 
below.)  That  is  the  actual  reading  of  the  Folios,  "  de 
lated  "  being  found  only  in  the  Quartos.  And  "  delated 
articles  "  would  be  a  blundering  use  of  the  Roman  term, 
adopted  in  Scots  law.  The  word  had  at  that  date  no 
English  legal  currency  in  the  Roman  sense.  Drummond 
in  his  CONVERSATIONS  makes  Ben  Jonson  say  that  "  he 
was  delated  by  Sir  James  Murray  to  the  King  for  writing 
.  .  .  against  the  Scots  in  ...  EASTWARD  Ho ; ' '  but 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  301 

that  may  be  Drummond's  own  use  of  a  Scots  law  term, 
though  Jonson  in  VOLPONE  (ii,  3)  has  : 

Yet,  if  I  do  it  not,  they  may  delate 
My  slackness  to  my  patron. 

VOLPONE  is  dated  1605  ;  and  the  word  may  have  come 
in  with  King  James.  Dr.  Theobald  is  oblivious  of  the 
fact  that  Bacon  never  uses  "delate"  in  that  sense, 
whereas  he  does  use  it  in  the  sense  of  "  conveyance  " 
of  sound  and  light — an  extension  of  the  force  of  "  dilate." 
It  is  probable  that  if  Shakespeare  wrote  "  delated  "  he 
meant  "  dilated  "  ;  and  in  his  use  of  that  word  he  made 
no  "  classical  "  innovation.] 

51.  Demerits  (  =  MERITS  :   OTHELLO,  I,  ii,  24). 
For  his  demerits  called  the  good  Duke  of  Gloucester. 

Hall's  Chronicle,  1548,  p.  151. 
[Add: 

Demonstrations  of  prowez  and  valoure  diverslie  distributed 
according  to  the  qualities  and  worthines  of  the  parsons  de- 
mereting  the  same. 

Herald's    document    of    1568,    cited    by    Dyce  in 
biog.  introd.  to  Middleton's  Works,  1840,  i,  p.  x.] 

52.  Demise  (RICHARD   III,  iv,  246). 

Claimed  by  Dr.  Theobald  as  "  a  legal  term  used  once 
by  Shakespeare  and  by  no  other  poet ' ' — a  random  asser 
tion  based,  not  on  any  study  of  Elizabethan  poetry,  but 
on  the  simple  fact  that  the  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  no 
other  poetic  instance  ! 

53.  Depend  (Cymbeline,  IV,  iii,  22  ;    OTHELLO   I,   iii, 

369). 

[An  unintelligible  claim.  All  the  meanings  of  "  de 
pend  ' '  are  close  to  the  primary.  The  sense  in  CYMBELINE 
is  the  common  one  of  "  pending."] 

54.  Deprave,  depravation    (  =  slander.     TROILUS  AND 
CRESSIDA,  V,  ii,  130). 

Dr.  Theobald  actually  notes  this  as  the  primary 
meaning.  As  such  it  was  then  in  common  use. 


302  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

The  word  is  used  in  this  sense    by  Chaucer   (CoM- 
PLEYNT  OF  MARS,  1.  207)  ;  and  it  remained  fixed. 
[Compare  : 

I  kam  nought  to  chide 
Ne  deprave  thi  persone. 

Piers  Plowman,  1.  1714. 
Misjudging  and  depraving  other  men. 

More's   Dialogue   of  Comfort   Against    Tribulation, 
1534,  Dent's  rep.,  p.  223. 

Then  sought  they   to    deprave    [  =  defame]    the   translation, 
notes,  etc. 

Foxe,  Ep.  ded.  to  Acts  and  Monuments  ;   Cattley's 
ed.  i,  503. 

Easier  to  deprave  all  things  than  to  amend  anything. 

Stubbes,  Ep.  ded.  to  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  1583. 

Even  such  a  man  as  Homer  wanted  not  his  malicious  depravers. 
Chapman,  Ep.  ded.  to  trans,  of  Achilles'  Shield. 

Homer,  ...  an  host  of  men  against  any   depraver  of  any 
principle  he  held. 

Id.  ib. 
The  worse  depraving  [  =  slandering]  the  better. 

Id.  Ep.  ded.  to  trans,  of  Hesiod. 

Herodotus  is  unjustly  said  to  praise  only  the  Athenians,  that 
all  Grecians  else  he  might  the  more  freely  deprave. 

Id.,  A  Justification  of  '  Perseus  and  Andromeda.' 

He  to  deprave  and  abuse  the  virtue  of  an  herb  so  generally 
received  ! 

Jonson,  Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  iii,  2. 

As  distant  from  depraving  another  man's  merit  as  proclaiming 
his  own. 

Id.  Cynthia's  Revels,  ii,  i. 
To  malign  and  deprave  him. 

Pref.  to  Latimer's  Second  Sermon  before  Edward  VI,  1549. 

Lewdly  thou  my  love  depravest. 

Spenser,  Faerie  Queene,  V,  vii,  32. 

They  honoured  their  benefactors,  we  deprave  and  deface  them. 
Hutchinson,    First    Sermon,    Of    Oppression,    &c. 
Parker  Soc.  rep.,  p.  309. 

Depravers  of  those  that  be  good. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528,  Whitting- 
ham's  rep.  p.  72. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  303 

I  merveyll  that  ye  can  this  wise  him  deprave. 

Cornish    or    Hey  wood,     Interlude    of    The    Four 
Elements,  Percy  Soc.  rep.  p.  18.] 

55.  Derogate    (adj.),    derogation    (LEAR,    I,    iv,    302  ; 
CYMBELINE,  II,  i,  48). 

[Another  common  use  of  a  term.  Derogate  is  used  as 
=  derogated.  The  sense  here  is  not  "  classical  "  at  all. 
As  Malone  pointed  out,  the  idea  is  "  shrunken."  Lear 
is  speaking  of  a  withered  or  shrunken  body — a  meta 
phorical  application  of  the  term.  Bullokar's  ENGLISH 
EXPOSITOR,  1616,  gives  for  "derogate"  the  meaning 
"  impair,  diminish."  So  Hutchinson  : 

This  endless  punishment  of  the  wicked  is  no  derogation  to 
God's  great  mercy. 

The  Image  of  God,  or  Layman's  Book,  1550,  ch.  xi. 

Compare  Tyndale  (or  Frith)  : 

Anything  that  should  derogate,  minish  or  hurt  his  [God's]  glory. 
The  Supper  of  the  Lord,  Parker  Soc.  rep.  of  Tyndale, 

hi,  232. 

It  includeth  repugnance,  and  derogateth  his  glory.       Id.  ib. 
Hooper  : — This  ungodly  opinion  .  .  .  doth  derogate  the  mercy 
of  God. 

Answer  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  131. 
Elyot : — Whereby  no  law  or  justice  should  be  derogate. 

The  Governour,  B.  ii,  6  ;  Dent's  rep.  p.  139. 
Hooker  : — We  should  be  injurious  unto  virtue  itself,  if  we  did 
derogate  from  them  whom  their  industry  hath  made  great. 

Eccles.  Pol.  pref.  ch.  ii,  §7. 

Latimer  : — What  dishonour  is  this  to  God  ?  or  what  derogation 
is  this  to  heaven  ? 

Sermon  of  the  Plough. 
Doth  this  derogate  anything  from  his  [Christ's]  death  ? 

Id.  Seventh  Sermon  before  Edward  VI.  (Several  times.) 
Tyndale,  1533  : — Doth  not  derogate  or  minish  the  honour  of 
the  order. 

Trans,  of  Erasmus'  Enchiridion,  Methuen's  rep.  p.  22.] 

56.  Dilated  (ALL'S    WELL;    II,    i,  58 ;    TROILUS,    II, 
iii,  259). 

An  ordinary  use  of  the  word. 

By  urgent  cause  erected  forth  my  grief  for  to  dilate. 

Preston's  Cambyses  (1566)  :   Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  iv,  192. 


304  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

[Add: 

These  and  suchlike  things  I  have  dilated  and  expounded  unto 
you  in  the  pulpit. 

Latimer,  First  Sermon  on  the  Lord's  Prayer,  ed.  1582. 
Here  I  might  dilate  the  matter. 

Id.  Seventh  Sermon  before  Edward  VI. 
Which  through  all  the  world  is  dilated. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528,  preamble. 
If  we  would  dilate,  and  were  able  to  declare  .  .  . 

More,  Dialogue  of  Comfort,  rep.  p.  348. 

Which  being  spread  and  dilated  both  wide  and  broad  to  the 
edifying  of  the  hearers. 

Tyndale,    trans,    of    Erasmus'    Enchiridion,    1533. 

Methuen's  rep.  p.  61. 

Were  able  to  increase  and  dilate,  to  colour  and  garnish,  any 
manner  thing  never  so  barren,  simple,  or  homely. 

Id.  p.  148. 
I  lack  tyme  to  dylate  matter  here. 

J.   Hey  wood's  Dialogue  on   Wit  and  Folly,   Percy 
Soc.  rep.  p.  ii.] 

57.  Discoloured  (K.  JOHN,  II,  i,  305). 

[Again  a  perfectly  ordinary  use.  Dr.  Theobald  notes 
it  in  Marlowe,  for  him  =  Bacon.  But  it  occurs  also  in 
Peele  : 

Enamell'd  with  discoloured  flowers, 

David  and  Bethsabe,  Sc.  i, 

where  the  phrase  has  the  same  force  as  '/.  parti-coloured 
flowers  "  in  LOCRINE,  ii,  i. 
And  it  is  frequent  in  Spenser  : 

All  in  a  kirtle  of  discoloured  say. 

F.  Q.  I,  iv,  31. 
In  garments  light, 
Discoloured  like  to  womanish  disguise. 

Id.  Ill,  x,  21. 
Her  [Iris']  discoloured  bow. 

Id.  Ill,  xi,  47. 

Also  in  Ben  Jonson,  CYNTHIA'S  REVELS,  V,  ii,  twice.] 

58.  Dissemble  (TWELFTH  NIGHT,  IV,  ii,  5-6). 

Mr.  Willis  remarks  that  the  word  was  in  universal 
use  long  before  1590. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  305 

[Dr.  Theobald  seems  to  suppose,  with  Cowden  Clarke, 
that  to  speak  of  "  dissembling  "  by  way  of  a  material 
disguise  is  a  remarkable  reversion  to  classic  usage.  It 
was  really  common,  notably  through  many  stories  of 
disguised  personages.  Greene  has  : 

Dissembling  yourself  a  shepherd. 

Menaphon  ;  Works,  vi,  144  ; 

and  "  cloked  dissimulation  "  occurs  in  REDE  ME  AND  BE 
NOTT  WROTHE,  1528.] 

59.  Distract :    distraction    (  =  dividing,    breaking    up. 
OTHELLO  I,  iii,  323  ;  ALL'S  WELL,  V,  iii,  34 ;  ANTONY, 

III,  vii,  42,  77). 

Shunning  that  distraction  of  persons  wherein  Nestorius  went 
awry. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.  V,  52,  §4  ;   53,  §2. 

60.  Document   (  =  teaching    or    example  :     HAMLET, 

IV,  v,  178). 

[Dr.  Theobald  cites  the  special  use  of  documentum  — 
example,  by  Tacitus,  AGRIC.  ii,  3.  Having  consulted  the 
Oxford  Dictionary  or  a  commentator,  he  avows  that 
"  the  word  is  similarly  used  by  Spenser,"  ("  heavenly 
documents  did  preach,"  F.  Q.  I,  x,  19,)  and  by  Raleigh 
(in  the  phrase  "  stoned  to  death  as  a  document  to 
others  "),  but  claims  that  "  Shakespeare's  use  of  the  word 
corresponds  more  exactly  to  the  classic  sense." 

This  is  not  the  fact ;  but  in  any  case  Shakespeare 
was  using  the  word  as  it  had  been  used  on  the  stage. 
In  the  Interlude  of  THE  TRIAL  OF  TREASURE,  1567,  it 
occurs  four  times  : 

Sapience.     Truthe,  indeed,   and  therefore,  your  name  being 

Juste, 
With  me  and  my  documentes  must  be  associate. 

Juste.     Seeing  Sapience  consisteth  in  heavenly  document, 
And  that  heavenly  document  consisteth  in  Sapience. 

Time.     .  .  .  And  you  shall  beholde  the  same  in  this  glasse 
As  a  document  both  profitable  and  safe. 

Percy  Soc.  rep.  pp.  18,  20,  40. 
U 


306  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

See  also  Greene : 

Her  [Theology's]  documents  are  severity. 

Greene's  Vision,  1592  ;  Works,  xii,  279, 
Daniel  : 

You  [library  and  lands]  the  happy  monuments 
Of  Charity  and  Zeal  .  .  .  are  documents 
To  shew  what  glory  hath  the  surest  hold. 

Dedicatory  lines  to  Works,  folio,  1601  ; 
and  Painter  : 

A  goodly  document  to  men  of  like  calling  to  moderate  them 
selves  [the  case  of  Appius]. 

Palace  of  Pleasure,  1566,  Tom.  i,  Nov.  5,  end.] 

61.  Double  ("  as  double  as  "  :   OTHELLO,  I,  ii,  92). 
See  the  New  Oxford  Dictionary  for  instances.  [Compare : 

So  double  was  his  pains,  so  double  be  his  praise. 

Spenser,  F.  Q.  II,  ii,  25. 
Be  he  never  so  first  in  the  commission  of  wit. 

Jonson,  Earth.  Fair,  Induction.] 

62.  Eminent   (  =  physically    lofty  :    ALL'S   WELL,   I, 
ii,  41). 

The  primary  and  normal   meaning  !     Compare  "  an 
eminence." 

If  a  person  shall  be  excommunicate,  he  shall  sit  in  a  public 
place  and  eminent. 

Res.  Kirk  of  Scotland,  1 569. 
Two  piked  rocks  lift  up  their  eminent  heads. 

Sandys'  Travels,  1610. 
The  super-eminent  mountain. 

Id.  p.  221. 
[Add: 
He  made  .  .  .  trees  of  a  more  eminent  stature  than  herbs. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  i,  i. 
My  lord's  eminent  shoulder. 

Jonson,  Se janus,  v,  9. 
The  most  high  and  eminent  part  of  the  temple. 

Fenton's  Guicciardini,  1579,  p.  4. 
Was  his  father  of  any  eminent  place  or  means  ? 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  i,  i . 
Men  of  eminent  places. 

Chapman,  Revenge  of  Bussy  d'Ambois,  iv,  i.] 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  307 

63.  Epitheton  (L.L.L.  I,  ii,  14).  "  A  word  not  likely  to  be 
used  except  by  a  classical  scholar,"  says  Dr.  Theobald. 

[It  is  a  word  that  might  have  been  used  by  a  schoolboy 
who  had  heard  it  from  his  master  ;  and  it  might  or  might 
not  be  used  by  scholars  ;  because  "  epithet,"  though 
it  occurs  thrice  in  Shakespeare  and  is  used  by  Jonson 
(POETASTER,  iv,  i),  was  still  in  process  of  being  naturalized. 
Gascoigne  indeed  uses  it  repeatedly  (pref.  ep.  to  THE 
POSIES,  1575 ;  CERTAYNE  NOTES  OF  INSTRUCTION  ; 
and  first  ed.  of  THE  ADVENTURES  OF  MASTER  F.  J. — 
Cunliffe's  ed.  of  Works,  i,  5,  465,  493)  ;  and  King  James 
has  Epithetis  (Scot.  pi.  =  Epithets)  in  his  REULIS  AND 
CAUTELIS  OF  SCOTTIS  POESIE,  1585  (Arber's  rep.  p.  64) — 
both  probably  copying  a  French  usage.  Puttenham, 
who  had  been  educated  abroad,  and  often  follows  French 
forms,  has  Epithete  and  Epithet  as  well  as  Epitheton 
(ARTE  OF  ENGLISH  POESIE,  Arber's  rep.  pp.  187,  188, 
193,  261,  262)  ;  and  Chapman,  the  scholarly,  has 
"epethite,"  rhyming  with  light  (Third  Sestiad  of  HERO 
AND  LEANDER  ;  also  in  verses  To  THE  AUTHOR  OF  NENNIO, 
1595  ;  Shepherd's  ed.  of  MINOR  POEMS,  pp.  49,  71). 
But  the  Greek  form  was  also  current.] 

Epitheton  was  certainly  in  English  use  before  the  writing 
of  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST  : 

E.g.  :  Divers  thought  Theophilus  to  be  a  name  appellative  .  .  . 
but  the  epitheton  .  .  .  that  is  joined  with  it  differeth  from  that 
opinion. 

Trans,  of  Calvin's  Harmony,  1584,  p.  i. 

The   Oxford   Dictionary   gives  instances  from   Hooper, 
Foxe,  Holinshed,  and  the  Douay  Bible. 

[Add: 

Your  Epitheton  or  qualifiev  .  .  .  serves  also  to  alter  and  enforce 
the  sense. 

Puttenham,  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  Arber's  rep.  p.  193- 

Which  natural  and  proper  quality  [moisture]  in  my  judgment 
caused  the  ancient  poets  to  attribute  this  Epitheton  unto 
Venus  :  Alma,  ab  alendo. 

Greene,  Planetomachia,  1585  :  Works,  v,  101. 


308  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

These  epithetons  that  Homer  assigned  to  Ulysses. 

Greene's  Mourning  Garment,  1590  :   Works,  ix,  130. 

The  hip  is  not  simply  the  red  berry  on  the  briar,  unless  you  add 
this  epitheton  and  say.  .  . 

F.  Thynne's  Animadversions  on  Speight,  1599,  in 
Todd's  Illustrations  of  Gower  and  Chaucer,  1810, 
p.  45. 

With  some  sweet-smelling  pink  epitheton. 

Marston,  Satires,  iii. 
This  blade  .  .  . 
May  very  well  bear  a  feminine  Epitheton. 

Kyd,  Soliman  and  Perseda,  I,  iii,  77.] 

64.  Err,  errant,    erring   ( =  roving  :    OTHELLO,   I,   iii, 
362  ;  HAMLET,  I,  i,  154). 

Again  a  perfectly  common  use  : 

Errand,  vagabond,  wavering  persons. 

King  on  Jonah,  1594,  p.  141. 
Erring  or  wandering  stars. 

Adams'  Sermons,  1605  to  1620,  i,  10. 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 

An  erringe  pylgrym  in  the  servyse  of  ...  God. 

Lay  Folks'  Mass  Book,  1400. 

[Add: 

The  erring  stars. 

Chapman,  Epist.  ded.  to  trans,  of  Odyssey. 
The  erring  dolphin. 

Id.  Eugenia  :    Inductio. 
Cynthia,  lowest  of  the  erring  stars. 

Lilly,  Woman  in  the  Moon,  v,  i,  1.  2. 

An  "  arrant  rogue  "  was  simply  an  "  errant  "  or  wander 
ing  rogue.  Compare  "  most  errant  traitors."  Bale, 
PROCESS  AGAINST  COBHAM,  Works,  Parker  Soc.  ed.  p.  50. 
See  Extravagant,  below,  No.  77.] 

65.  Evitate  (MERCHANT,  V,  v,  241). 

"  An  attempt,  not  successful,  to  introduce  a  new  word," 
says  Dr.  Theobald,  with  his  usual  fatal  confidence.  It 
occurs  in  Parker's  trans,  of  Mendoza's  HISTORY  OF 
CHINA,  1588. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  309 

66.  Exempt     ( =  excluded,    banished :     COMEDY     OF 
ERRORS,  II,  ii,  173). 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  inter  alia  : 
Exempted  from  Sathan,  to  live  forever  with  Christ. 

T.  Wilson,  Arte  of  Rhetorique  (1553),  39- 

Exempted  and  banished   (as  it  were)  from  the  House  of  the 
Lord. 

1563.     Homilies,  II. 

He    hist  ;     for    nature    now  had  cleane  exempt     All    other 
speech. 

Golding's  Ovid,  Metam.  iv,  97  (1593). 
I'll  exempt  them  [flowers]  all  from  my  smell. 

Greene,  Arcadia,  1589. 

Themselves    [the    Thebans]  only  exempted,  from    treaty   of 
peace. 

North's  Plutarch,  Agesilaus. 
[Compare  : 

A  quarter  not  altogether  exempted  from  witches. 

Nashe,  Terrors  of  the  Night ;  Works,  ed.  McKerrow, 

i,  382. 

See  also  the  passage  from  BEGGARS'  PETITION,  under 
No.  177,  hereinafter.] 

67.  Exhaust    ("  from     fools     exhaust    [  =  draw     out] 
their  mercy  "  :  TIM  ON,  IV,  iii,  118). 

Innumerable   sums   of  money,  craftily  exhausted  out  of   this 
realm. 

Act  32  Hen.  VIII,  c.  29. 

Charges     enforced     have     exhaust   the   most   part    of    your 
substance. 

Elyot,  The  Governour. 

[Add: 

By  little   and   little   exhaust   by  the  negligence  and  folly  of 
ignorant  emperors. 

Id.  B.  iii,  c.  23. 

Compare  our  phrase  "  to  exhaust  the  air  "  from  a  receiver.] 

68.  Exhibition    ( =  maintenance  :     Two   GENTLEMEN, 
I,  iii,  68). 

In  constant  use  in  this  sense  before  Shakespeare.     See 


310  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Oxford    Dictionary.     Latimer    uses    the    word    in    his 
SERMON  ON  THE  PLOUGH. 

69.  Exigent,  sb.  (i  HENRY  VI,  II,  v,  8). 
The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives,  inter  alia  : 

These  by  degrees  passed  to  the  last  exigent. 

A.  Day,  English  Secretary,  1586. 
Driven  her  to  some  desperate  exigent. 

Dr.  Doddypoll,  iv,  3. 
The  duke  seeing  himself  to  be  driven  to  such  an  exigent. 

Holinshed,  Chron.  1577,  ii,  3. 
Also  Sidney's  Arcadia  (1580),  B.  iv,  ed.  1622,  p.  413. 

[Add: 

Now  was  Zelmane  brought  to  an  exigent. 

Sidney,  Arcadia,  B.  ii,  ed.  1627,  p.  98.] 

70.  Exorcist,  exerciser  ( =  one  who  calls    up  spirits  : 
JULIUS  CESAR,   II,   i,   323 ;   CYMBELINE,   IV,   ii,  276) ; 
EXORCISM   (2  HENRY  VI,  I,  iv,  4). 

I  do  conjure  you  and  do  exorcise  you  .  .  .  that  you  do  come 
unto  me. 

Scot,  Discoverie  of  Witchcraft,  1589. 
This  ghost  of  Tucca  .  .  .  was  raised  up  by  new  exorcisms. 

Dekker,  Satiromastix. 

71.  Expedient   (=  expeditious  :    K.  JOHN,   II,   i,   60); 
Expedition  (MACBETH,  II,  iii,  116,  &c.). 

In  our  ways  we  be  expedient. 

Digby  Mysteries,  1485  :    1882  rep.  iii,  817. 

The  King  shall  showe  his  good  grace  and  favour  in  the  expedision 
thereof. 

Paston  Letters,  1464,  No.  493. 

72.  Expostulate  ( =  postulate,  inquire,  discuss  :  HAMLET, 
II,  ii,  86). 

Having  at  large  expostulated  my  true  meaning. 

A.  Day,  English  Secretary,  1586. 

The  Ambassador  hearing  and  expostulating  the  matter  .  .  . 
Sandys'  Travels,  1610,  ed.  1637,  p.  86. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  311 

[Add: 

Nay,  stand  not  to  expostulate  :  make  haste. 

True  Tragedie  of  Richard  Duke  of  York,  Morley's 

ed.,  with  Richard  III,  p.  155. 
Line  varied  in  First  Part  of  the  Contention,  Morley's 

ed.,  with  2  Henry  VI,  p.  191. 

Nor  gave  he   him    [Christ]   any  Commission   to   expostulate 
proudly  of  injuries. 

Nashe,  Christ's  Teares  over  Jerusalem,  1593,  5th  par. 
Gentlie  expostulated  their  ill  dealing. 

Id.  ib.  6th  par.] 

73.  Expulsed  (=  expelled  :  i  HENRY  VI,  III,  iii,  25). 
A  very  common  word  : 

Saturnus,  expulsed  of  Jupiter  his  son. 

Higden,  1432. 
Adam  our  first  parent  was  expulsed  from  Paradise. 

Stubbes,  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  ii,  49. 
Almighty  God  expulsed  sin. 

Fisher,    Seven    Penitent   Psalms,    1505  :    Works, 

p.  115. 
Isabel  Queen  of  Naples  being  expulsed  the  realm. 

Strype,  Eccles.  Memor.  iv,  369. 
Of  whom  but  a  woman  was  it  'long  on 
That  Adam  was  expulsed  from  Paradise  ? 

Calisto  and  Melebea,  circa  1530,  11.  175-6. 
They  which  should  honour  thee  shall  expulse  thee. 

Henry  Smith,  ed.  1611,  p.  186. 

Sandys'  Travels,  1610,  has  the  word  seven  times.     Ed.  1637, 
pp.  15,  36,  107,  142,  144,  145,  222. 

[Add: 

They  expulsed  it  from  thence. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528,  Whitting- 
ham's  rep.  p.  140. 

The  expulsdd  Apicata. 

Jonson,  Sejanus,  v,  10. 

God  found  just  matter  and  justification  to  expulse  the  inhabi 
tants  of  that  land. 

Hooper,    Declaration    of  the    Ten    Commandments, 
1550,  pref. 


3i2  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

They  shall  seek  occasion  to  expulse  me  out  of  this  city. 

Elyot,     The    Governour,    B.    ii,     12  ;     Dent's    rep. 

P-  173- 
The  apostles  and  disciples  expulsed  out  of  Jewry. 

Bale,    Image    of  Both    Churches  :    Works,    Parker 

Soc.  ed.  p.  336. 
Whyles  those  thynges  be  expulsed  and  voyded. 

Robinson's  trans,  of   More's  Utopia  ;    Dent's  rep. 

P-  77- 
Expulsed  were  we  with  injurious  arms. 

Fairfax's  trans,  of  Tasso's  Jerusalem,  iv,  12.] 

74.  Extenuate  ( =  make  less,  take  away  from  :  M.  N.  D., 
I,  i,  120). 

Merely  an  application  of  the  ordinary  term  to  some 
thing  not  a  fault — in  which  latter  sense  the  modern  use 
is  weakly  restricted.  In  the  trans,  of  Calvin's  HARMONY 
OF  THE  GOSPELS,  1584,  we  have  "  extenuate  the  God 
head."  Compare  : 

Extenuating,  annulling  their  virtues  ;  aggravating  their 
imperfections. 

Huish  on  the  Lord's  Prayer  (1623),  Lect.  18,  p.  1 1. 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  instances  of  "  extenuate  " 
in  the  physical  sense  from  Elyot  (1533),  Hakluyt's 
VOYAGES  (1599),  Stubbes  (1583),  Morwyng  (1559),  Chester 
(1601),  and  Holland's  Pliny  (1601). 

[Add: 

To  hide  or  extenuate  the  judgment  of  God  against  sin. 

Hooper,  Declaration  of  Christ  and  his  Office,  Parker 
Soc.  rep.  p.  92. 

They  .  .  .  extenuate  God's  ire  and  displeasure  against  idolatry 
too  much. 

Id.  Answer  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  p.  151.] 

75.  Extirp  (=  extirpate,  M.  FOR  M.,  Ill,  ii,  109). 
Perfectly  common. 

Extyrpe  all  heresy. 

Wm.  Barlow  to  Henry  VIII,  1533. 
Extirping  ...  of  vyce  and  sin. 

Act  27  Hen.  VIII,  c.  28. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  313 

Extirping  out  all  popery. 

Latimer,  Sermons  on  the  Lord's  Prayer,  vi. 
[Add: 

That  may  extirpe  or  raze  these  tyrannies. 

Kyd,  Cornelia,  Act  iv,  Sc.  2,  178. 
He  shall  extirp  and  pluck  away  altogether. 

Latimer,  First  Sermon  before  Edward  VI.] 

76.  Extracting  ("  a  most  extracting  frenzy/'  TWELFTH 
NIGHT,  V,  i,  288). 

["  Used  in  a  singularly  classic  way,"  says  Dr.  Theobald. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  the  word  is  not  a  misprint  for 
distracting  !  But  Malone  cites  from  the  old  HYSTORIE 
OF  HAMBLET  the  phrase  :  "to  try  if  men  of  great  account 
be  extract  out  of  their  wits."  This  is  pre-Shakespearean 
and  popular  :  the  story  must  have  been  printed  before 
1608,  the  date  of  the  only  surviving  copy,  as  it  is  demon- 
strably  anterior  to  the  play.] 

77.  Extravagant  (HAMLET,  I,  i,  54). 

Rogues,  extra vagants  and  stragglers. 

Stubbes,  Anatomic  of  Abuses,  1583. 

[Add: 

This  extravagant  and  errant  rogue. 

Chapman,  Byron's  Tragedy,  1608,  v,  i.] 

The  cant  term  "  stravagant,"  with  the  force  of  "  vaga 
bond,"  appears  in  several  old  plays.  The  term  was 
evidently  in  official  use,  and  popularly  curtailed.] 

78.  Facinorous  (=  wicked  :  ALL'S  WELL,  II,  iii,  35). 

Facinorous  and  vile  persons. 

Strype's  Annals,  ed.  1824,  vii,  133. 

The    Oxford    Dictionary    gives    another   instance   from 
Hall's  Chronicle,  1548. 
[Compare  : 

All  facinorous  acts  that  could  be  named. 

Jonson,  The  Silent  Woman,  ii,  i.j 

79.  Fact  (=  act :   MACBETH,  III,  vi,  10). 

As  Judge  Willis  remarks,  "  fact  "  in  this  sense  is  in 


314  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

absolutely  universal  use  in  Tudor  literature.  Only  one 
entirely  ignorant  of  that  literature  could  cite  it  as  special 
to  Shakespeare  and  Bacon. 

80.  Fatigate  (=  fatigued  :  CORIOLANUS,  II,  ii,  121). 
Occurs  at  least  six  times  in  Elyot's  GOVERNOUR  ! 

81.  Festinate  (LEAR,  III,  vii,  9). 

"  Festination  "  occurs  frequently  :  Elyot,  THE  IMAGE 
OF  GOVERNANCE,  1541 ;  THE  DISOBEDIENT  CHILD  (Haz- 
litt's  Hodsley,  ii,  310  ;  Chapman,  Jonson,  and  Marston, 
EASTWARD  Ho,  ii,  i. 

[Painter's  PALACE  OF  PLEASURE,  T.  i,  Nov.  4  ;  rep. 
1813,  p.  18  ;  Interlude  RESPUBLICA,  1553  :  Farmer's 
LOST  TUDOR  PLAYS,  p.  204.] 

82.  Fine    ( =  the    end  :     ALL'S    WELL,     IV,    iv,    35  ; 
HAMLET,  V,  i,  115). 

A  particularly  absurd  instance  of  "  innovation."  The 
word  occurs  scores  of  times  in  Chaucer,  who  uses  it  six 
times  in  a  single  stanza  of  TROILUS  AND  CRISEYDE  (v,  262) . 

83.  Frustrate    (ANTONY,  V,    i,    i  :    TEMPEST,    III,   iii, 

10). 

The  ordinary  force  of  the  word.     Instances  unnecessary. 

84.  Gratulate  (TiTUS  ANDRONICUS,  I,  i,  221). 

An  extremely  common  word  in  Elizabethan  drama. 
Occurs  frequently  in  Greene  and  Peele  and  other  play 
wrights  before  Shakespeare  ;  also  in  Spenser. 

85.  Illustrate  (=  illustrious  :    LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST, 
IV,  i,  65  ;  V,  i,  128). 

Mr.  Willis  gives  several  instances  of  the  infinitive  to 
illustrate  in  the  sense  of  =  "  make  famous."  The  parti 
ciple  occurs  in  the  epistle  dedicatory  to  Chapman's  trans, 
of  the  ILIAD,  1594  : 

Her  substance  yet  being  too  pure  and-  illustrate  to  be  discerned 
with  ignorant  and  barbarous  sense  ; 
also  in  the  translation,  B.  iv,  74,  &c. ;  also  in  the  phrase 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  315 


"  her  illustrate  bright  ness  "  in  Jonson's  Ode 

In  Chester's  LOVE'S  MARTYR.     The  word  is  altered  by 

Gifford  in  his  edition  to  "  illustrious/') 

86.  Immanity  (=  IMMANITAS  :  i  HENRY  VI,  V,  i,  13). 
Occurs  in  one  of  the  non-Shakespearean  plays.     Dr. 

Theobald,  more  suo,  pronounces  it  "  evidently  an  un 
successful  attempt  to  anglicise  a  Latin  word."  If  so, 
the  attempt  was  not  Shakespeare's.  It  occurs  in  Dent's 
RUINE  OF  ROME,  1590,  p.  112  ;  and  in  Adams's  Sermons. 
These  writers  were  not  likely  to  adopt  a  play-house 
coinage.  And  the  word  is  used  by  Fielding  in  JOSEPH 
ANDREWS. 

[See  it  also  in  Fleming's  Continuation  of  Holinshed's 
Chronicle,  1587,  iii,  1557  >  m  the  "  Declaration  of  the 
Favourable  Dealings  of  Her  Majestie's  Commissioners 
appointed  for  the  Examination  of  Certaine  Trait  ours," 
1583  (Rep.  in  HARL.  Misc.  ed.  1808,  i,  515)  ;  and  in  the 
play  A  WARNING  FOR  FAIRE  WOMEN  (1599),  ii,  2.  Chap 
man  has  "  immane  "  at  least  twice  :  Postscript  to  trans. 
of  Hymns  of  Homer,  1.  5  from  end  ;  Ep.  ded.  to  A  JUSTI 
FICATION  OF  A  STRANGE  ACTION  OF  NERO.] 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  instances  from  Foxe's 
MARTYRS,  1563-70,  ed.  1684,  ui>  649)  and  from  North's 
translation  of  Guevara's  DIALL  OF  PRINCES,  1557  ;  and 
mentions  that  the  word  is  used  by  Fotherby  in  1619,  and 
by  Bentley.  [Add  that  it  occurs  at  least  half  a  dozen 
times  in  Daniel's  COLLECTION  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF 
ENGLAND  (1612-18),  and  the  scope  of  Dr.  Theobald's 
erudition  will  be  broadly  gauged.] 

87.  Imminent  (  JULIUS  CESAR,  II,  ii,  81,  &c.). 
Normal   use    of   the   word.     See   Oxford   Dictionary. 

"  Imminence,"  says  Dr.  Theobald,  "  occurs  only  once, 
and  is  evidently  coined  by  the  poet  "  (TROILUS,  V,  x,  13). 

88.  Immures  (noun  :  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA,  Prol.  8). 
The  word  occurs  in  a  prologue  which  has  long  been 


3i6  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

held  by  critics  to  be  non-Shakespearean.  It  is  a  bad 
coinage  in  any  case,  being  framed  by  mere  imitation 
from  "  mures." 

89.  Impertinency,     impertinent    (LEAR    IV,    vi,     178  ; 
MERCHANT,  II,  ii,  146). 

The  primary  and  at  that  time  the  ordinary  meaning  of 
the  word.  It  is  as  old  as  Chaucer,  Prologue. 

90.  Implorator  (HAMLET,  I,  iii,  129). 

Probably  a  legal  usage,  from  the  French.  Sec  ch.  vii, 
above,  p.  230. 

91.  Imponed  (HAMLET,  V,  ii). 

Used  in  State  Papers,  Hen.  VIII,  ii,  130  (1529). 
[The  passage  shows  that  the  word  was  current.] 

92.  Imposed     (M.    FOR    M.,     I,    iv,    40)  ;     Imposition 
(MERCHANT,  III,  iv,  32). 

Absolutely  normal  use.     E.g.  : 

Wherein,  she  which  did  impose  was  holy. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.  pref.  ch.  iii,  §  15. 
The  imposition  of  this  law  upon  himself  [God]. 

Id.  B.  i,  ch.  ii,  §  6. 
If  any  law  be  now  imposed. 

Id.  B.  viii  (Frag,  of  Sermon  :  ed.  1850,  ii,  583). 

93.  Incense    ( =  stir    up,    excite,    persuade :     MERRY 
WIVES,  I,  iii,  109). 

[Mr.  Willis  gives  some  instances  which  are  either  not 
strictly  relevant  or  later  than  1600.  But  the  word  in  the 
sense  noted  was  common.  E.g.  : 

They  shall  thereto  [to  study]  be  the  more  incensed. 

Elyot,  Governour,  B.  i,  c.  14,  Dent's  rep.  p.  68. 
He  being  advertised  and  incensed  by  light  persons  about  him. 

Id.,  B.  ii,  6,  p.  139. 
Secretly  incensing  Virginio  .  .  .  not  to  consent. 

Fenton's  Guicciardini,  1579,  p.  9. 

He  knew  well  that  Isabell  .  .  .  would  use  a  perpetual  diligence 
to  incense  her  grandfather. 

Id.  ib. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  317 

Who  being  also  secretly  incensed. 

Id.,  p.  1 1. 
Incensed  into  lust  and  lightness. 

Patericke's  trans,  of  Gentillet  on  Machiavelli,  1577, 

Ep.  Ded. 
Only  incensed  by  the  means  of  folly. 

Greene,  Debate   between   Folly   and   Love :    Works, 
iv,  218. 

The  example  of  their  light  regarding, 
Vulgar  looseness  much  incenses. 

Daniel,  Tragedy  of  Cleopatra,  1594,  1.  1230. 
Incensed  his  father's  heart  against  him  thus. 

Id,  Philotas,  1.  2177  (V,  ii). 
Agamemnon  then 

To  mortal  war  incenseth  all  his  men. 
Chapman,  Arg.  to  B.  ivof  trans,  of  Iliad  (1598). 
Incense  the  people  in  the  civil  cause 
With  dangerous  speeches. 

Jonson,  Sejanus,  iii,  i. 

Elyot  has  the  form  "  incende."  B.  i,  c.  23,  near  end  ; 
B.  ii,  5.] 

94.  Incertain  (M.  FOR  M.  Ill,  i,  126). 
[A  perfectly  normal  Elizabethan  form  : 

So  variable  and  miserable  is  the  destiny  of  man  ;  and  so 
incertain  to  every  one  what  will  be  his  condition  in  time  to 
come. 

Fenton's  Guicciardini,  1579,  p.  243  (end  of  lib.  4). 
Not  curious  of  incertain  chances  now. 

'     Lodge,  Wounds  of  Civil  War,  1 594,  near  end. 
Incertainty  of  treasure. 

The  Triatt  of  Treasure,  1567,  Percy  Soc.  rep.  p.  37.] 

95.  Include     ("  includes     itself "      =     is      included : 
TROILUS,  I,  iii,  119). 

An  application  of  the  primary  meaning.     Compare  : 

The  tombs  are  no  ...  larger  than  fitting  the  included  bodies. 

Sandys'  Travels,  p.  63. 

[Add: 

O  that  I  were  included  in  my  grave. 

Green,  James  the  Fourth,  ii,  2. 


3i8  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  instances  from  Higden, 
Dunbar,  Haward,  Billingsley,  Digges,  and  Fraunce — all 
before  1588.] 

96.  Inclusive  (ALL'S  WELL,  I,  iii,  232  ;   RICHARD  III, 
IV,  i,  61). 

[Occurs  in  1515  in  the  modern  form  "  from  the  day  .  .  . 
inclusive."  See  Pitcairn's  CRIMINAL  TRIALS,  i,  261. 
Also  in  a  sixteenth-century  almanack.  See  N.  E.  D.] 

97.  Indigest  (JOHN,  V,  vii,  25). 

In  common  use.  See  Oxford  Dictionary  for  instances 
from  Trevisa  (1398),  Starkey's  ENGLAND  (1538),  and 
Knox's  HISTORY  OF  THE  REFORMATION  IN  SCOTLAND,  ed. 
1846,  i,  333- 

[Without  going  to  these  sources,  Shakespeare  had  the 
word  to  his  hand  in  the  old  TRUE  TRAGEDIE  OF  RICHARD 
DUKE  OF  YORK  (near  end),  and  twice  in  Chapman's 
HYMNUS  IN  NOCTEM,  1594.] 

98.  Indign  (OTHELLO,  I,  iii,  274). 
Classic  English  : 

Indigne  and  unworthy. 

Chaucer,  The  Clerkes  Tale,  359. * 

She  herself  was  of  his  grace  indigne. 

Spenser,  Faerie  Queene,  IV,  i,  30. 

The  most  indigne  and  detestable  thing. 

Joye,  Exposition  of  Daniel  VI,  1 546. 

[In  his  Addenda,  Mr.  Willis  by  oversight  gives  a  quota 
tion  with  the  word  endynge  ("  ending  ")  for  indign.] 

99.  Indubitate  (LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST,  IV,  i,  67). 
Classic  English.     Compare  : 

Eugene  the  fourth  .  .  .  was  very  and  indubitate  pope. 

Caxton's  Chronicle,  1480. 
The  indubitate  son  of  the  first  Clothaire. 

Fabyan's  Chronicle,  V,  cxiii,  101. 

1  This,  given  in  Tyrwhitt's  edition,  is  now  superseded  by  the 
reading  "  undigne."  But  it  was  the  old  printed  reading. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  319 

The  very  indubitate  heir-general  to  the  crown  of  France. 

Hall's  Chronicles  of  Henry  V. 

100.  Inequality  (M.  FOR  M.,  V,  i,  59). 

The  word  is  used  only  once  in  Shakespeare,  and  then 
obscurely.  What  excuse  is  there  for  ascribing  here  any 
classical  peculiarity  ? 

101.  Infest  (TEMPEST,  V,  i,  246). 

"  The  classic  sense  of  the  word,"  says  Dr.  Theobald, 
"  is  certainly  implied."  The  classic  sense  is  the  sense  ! 

102.  Infestion.     Word   not   in   the   plays.     Dr.  Theo 
bald,  following  Farmer,  conjectures  that  "infection  "  in 
RICHARD  II  (II,  i,  44)  is  a  misprint  for  "  infestion."      But 
there  is  no  Latin  word  infestio  !    There  is  only  the  post- 
classical  infestatio.     The  case  thus  collapses. 

103.  Inform  ( =  fashion,    shape  :    CORIOLANUS,  V,  iii, 
70). 

This  again  was  the  primary,  the  old,  and  still  a  usual, 
meaning. 

To  inform  their  judgments. 

Adams'  Sermons  II,  43, 
[Add: 

Enform  them  well  .  .  .  sin  to  forsake. 

Coventry  Mysteries,  Sh.  Soc.  ed.  p.  41. 

For  to  enforme  and  teche  any  other  persoone  a  bileeve  and  a 
feith  of  any  certain  article. 

Pecock,  Book  of  Faith,  Pt.  i,  ch.  2,  p.  129,  ed. 

Morison. 

Infinite  shapes  of  creatures  men  do  find 
Informed  in  the  mud  [of  Nile]  on  which  the  sun  hath  shined. 

Spenser,  F.  Q.,  Ill,  vi,  8. 
To  inform  their  mind  with  some  method. 

Hooker,  Ecdes.  Pol.,  B.  I,  ch.  xvi,  par.  i. 
She  hath  him  with  her  wordes  wise 
Of  Cristes  faith  so  full  enformed 
That  they  thereto  ben  all  conformed. 
Gower,    Confessio  Amantis,  B.    II,  Morley's  ed. 
p.  104. 


320  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Informed,  reformed,  and  transformed  from  his  original 
cynicism. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  v,  2.] 

104.  Inhabitable  ( =  not   habitable  :     RICHARD   II,    I, 

i,  164). 

A  common  usage.  Dr.  Theobald  admits  that  it  occurs 
in  the  CATILINE  (V,  i,  54)  of  Ben  Jonson,  "  who  was 
classic  to  the  point  of  pedantry."  It  would  seem  to 
follow  that  it  is  pedantically  used  by  Shakespeare.  But 
it  occurs  in  Fairfax's  tr.  of  Tasso.  Compare  Wiclif's 
Bible,  Jer.  ii,  6. 
[Add: 

Lest  that  thy  beauty  make  this  stately  town 
Inhabitable  like  the  burning  zone. 
The  Taming  of  A  Shrew,  1594,  Hazlitt's  Sh.  Lib.VI,  531.] 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  instances  from  Fish, 
SUPPLICATION  OF  BEGGARS  (1529)  and  Stubbes  (1583). 

105.  Inherit,      Inheritor      (RiCHARD     II,     V,     i,     85  ; 
ROMEO,  I,  ii,  30  ;  TEMPEST,  II,  ii,  179  ;  IV,  i ;  L.  L.  L., 

II,  i,  5,  &c.)- 

[Shakespeare  uses  the  word  in  various  senses — "  make 
heir,"  "  acquire,"  "  possess  "  ;  of  all  of  which  see  instances 
in  N.  E.  D.  The  "  all  which  it  [the  globe]  inherit  " 
passage  is  not  cited  in  the  Dictionary  as  giving  an  unusual 
instance  of  the  force  of  the  term  ;  and  it  is  clearly  not 
specially  classical.  The  sense  of  "  possess,"  which  is 
commonly  ascribed  to  the  word  in  that  passage,  was 
clearly  common,  as  in  the  gospel  phrase  "  inherit  the 
earth  ' '  (Matt,  v,  5) .  Tyndale  translates  the  same  passage, 
"  possess  the  earth  "  (Exposition  of  Matthew,  1531). 
Latimer  repeatedly  uses  the  phrase  "  true  inheritors  of 
hell  "  (FIRST  SERMON  ON  THE  CARD).] 

106.  Insinuation  ( =  thrusting  in,  intervention  :  HAMLET, 
V,  ii,  58). 

Another  common  usage  : 

Insinuate  themselves  in  the  company  of  flatterers 

Lilly's  Euphues,  Arber's  rep.  p.  134. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  321 

Insinuate  and  wind  in  with  their  ranks  and  files. 

Holland's  Livy,  1600,  p.  1197. 

A  serpent  he  was  in  Paradise,  winding  and  insinuating  himself 
into  the  very  bosoms  of  our  ancestors. 

Huish  on  the  Lord's  Prayer,  Lect.  18,  p.  13  (1623). 
Winding  and  insinuating  themselves  into  our  thoughts. 

Id.  Lect.  19,  p.  59. 
Insinuate  themselves  into  thy  presence. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  v,  3. 

[Add: 

To  insinuate  with  my  young  master. 

Id.  Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  ii,  2. 
Such  a  ready  insinuation  of  present  prattle. 

Greene's  Mourning  Garment :   Works,  ix,  131. 
To  insinuate  in  our  secrets. 

Hey  wood,  The  English  Traveller,  i,  2.] 

107.  Insisture,    Insisting    (CORIOLANUS,    III,    iii,     17 ; 
TROILUS,  I,  iii,  87). 

There  is  no  point  whatever  in  the  citation  of "  insisting." 

"  Insisture  "  occurs  once  only  in  all  the  plays.      It  is 

not  a  "  classic  "  coinage,  having  no  classic  original.     It 

is  further  of  quite  uncertain  meaning,  and  is  as  likely 

as  not  to  be  a  typographical  corruption. 

108.  Instant  ("  instant  way  "  :  TROILUS,  III,  iii,  153). 
Merely  a  variant   of  the  common-sense  "  immediate." 
See  N.  E.  D.  for  others,  before  Shakespeare. 

109.  Insult,    Insultment    ("insult   on":    TITUS,    III, 
ii,  71  ;    "  insult  o'er,"  3  HENRY  VI,  I,  iii,  14 ;    "  insult- 
ment,"  CYMBELINE,  III,  v,  145). 

Thus  to  insult  over  simple  men. 

Lambarde,  Perambulation  of  Kent,  1576,  p.  174. 
Because  they  insist  so  much  and  so  proudly  insult  thereon. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Polity,  B.  V,  c.  xxi,  §4. 

Violence  and  rapine  insulting  o'er  all. 

Sandys'  Travels,  1610,  pref. 

[Add: 

And  with  a  light-wing'd  spirit  insult  o'er  woe. 

Middleton,  Blurt,  Master-Constable  (1602)  i,  i. 

X 


322  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Do  not  insult  upon  calamity. 

Daniel,  Philotas,  1605,  1.  1503. 

"  Insolency  "  is  frequently  used  in  the  sense  of  arro 
gance.  E.g.  Stubbes,  ANATOMIE  OF  ABUSES,  Collier's 
rep.  p.  59.] 

no.  Intend  ( =  plan,  head  for,  or  direct :  ANTONY, 
V,  ii,  200,  &c.). 

One  of  the  usual  senses  of  the  word  in  the  period  : 

Eretikes  there  are  that  entenden  the  subversion  of  the  Christian 
faith.  In  Rymer's  Fcedeva,  x,  474. 

Leisure  to  intend  such  business. 

Harvey's  Four  Letters,  1592,  p.  13. 

Iff  ye  entende  hyddre  word  [hitherward]. 

Paston  Letters,  No.  776. 

[Add: 

An  exact  parallel  to  the  use  of  the  word  in  ANTONY 
occurs  in  Hooper  : 

For  faith  intendeth  and  always  maketh  haste  unto  this  port. 
Declaration  of  Christ  and  his  Office,  1 547,  Parker 

Soc.  rep.  p.  77. 
Compare  : 
Intend  well,  and  God  will  be  your  adjutory. 

Interlude  of  Mankind,  c.  1475,  Farmer's  Lost  Tudor 

Plays,  p.  12. 
The  will  intendeth  rather  to  command  than  obey. 

Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay,   1587, 

ed.  1604,  p.  94. 
We  ought  not  to  tend  or  intend  to  any  other  than  him. 

Id.  p.  300. 
While  you  intend  circumstances  of  news. 

Jonson,  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  1599,  i,  i. 
Look  only  forward  to  the  [study  of]  law  :  intend  that. 

Id.  Poetaster,  1601,  i,  i.] 

in.  Intentively  (=  attentively  :  OTHELLO,  I,  iii,  154). 
"  Used  in  this  sense  from  1290  downwards/'  remarks 
Judge  Willis. 
[Compare  : 

The  conningest  of  you 
That  serveth  most  ententifelich  and  best. 

Chaucer,  Troilus  and  Criseyde,  i,  332. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  323 

That  thou  so  longe  trewely 
Hast  served  so  ententifly. 

Id.  House  of  Fame,  616. 
Mark  their  life  intentifely. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528  :   Whitting- 

ham's  rep.  p.  98. 
Intentifly. 

Twice  in  Elyot's  Governour  :  i,  20  ;  iii,  18  ;  Dent's 

rep.  pp.  89,  289. 
Fulgence,  an  ententive  doctor. 

Bale,  Examination  of  William  Thorpe,  Parker  Soc. 
vol.  p.  93. 

Is  not  Chrysostom  an  ententive  doctor  ? 

Id.  p.  113. 
With  eyes  intentive  to  bedare  the  sun. 

Peele,  David  and  Bethsabe. 
Why  are  you  so  intentive  to  behold  .  *,..  $ 

Greene,  James  the  Fourth,  v,  I. 
His  too  intentive  trust  to  flatterers. 

Id.  ii,  2.] 

112.  Intrinse,  intrinsecate  (LEAR  II,  ii,  79  ;    ANTONY, 
V,  ii). 

"  Intrinse  "  is  a  "  freak  "  word.  The  Quartos  read 
"  to  intrench  "  ;  the  folio  "  t'  intrince."  "  Intrinse  " 
is  neither  Latin  nor  English.  "  Intrinsecate  "  is  pre- 
Shakespearean  : 

An  intrinsecate  matter  which  they  understand  not. 

Whitehorne,  Arte  of  Warre,  1560,  p.  409. 
Intrinsecate  strokes  and  words. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  v,  2. 

Marston,  girding  at  Jonson  or  another,  speaks  of  "  new- 
minted  epithets,  such  as  real  [used  by  himself],  intrinse 
cate,"  Delphic,  &c. — thus  giving  them  further  currency. 
(SCOURGE  OF  VILLANIE,  1598.) 

113.  Mere,   merely    (OTHELLO,    II,    ii,    3 ;    MACBETH, 
IV,  iii,  152). 

The  primary  and  common  meaning  of  the  words.  E.g.  : 

Of  our  certain  knowledge  and  mere  motion. 

Commission  of  Edward  VI  to  his  Council,  1552. 


324  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Mere  grace  :  mere  mercy  :  mere  liberality  :  mere  goodness. 
Trans,  of  Calvin  On  Deuteronomy,  pp.  270,  322,  323. 
[Add: 
Bestoweth  his  mercedes  of  his  own  mere  motion  [i.e.  unsolicited]. 

Puttenham,  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  Arber's  rep.  p.  302. 
Of  his  own  mere  motion  and  fantasy. 
Latimer,  First  Sermon  on  the  Card,  1529.     Dent's  rep.  p.  2. 

An  argument  to  ravish  and  refine 
An  earthly  soul,  and  make  it  mere  divine. 

Chapman,  Hymnus  in  Cynthiam,  1594. 
Of  his  cwne  mere  mocion  only,  without  sute  of  fryndes. 

The  Vocacyon  of  John  Bale,  in  Harl.  Misc.  1808,  i,  330. 

I  esteem 

Mere  amity,  familiar  neighbourhood, 
The  cousin-german  unto  wedded  love. 
Porter,  The  Two  Angry  Women  of  Abington,  i,  i. 
For  meere  compassion  and  verie  ruth  that  pearsed  his  sorrowf ull 
hart. 

Holinshed,  in  Boswell  Stone's  Sh.  Holinshed,  p.  37. 
We  ...  of  our  especial  grace,  certaine  knowledge,  and  mere 
motion,  did,  &c. 

King's    authorization,    pref.    to    Constitutions   and 

Canons  Ecclesiasticall,  1604. 
Sprung  from  no  man,  but  mere  divine. 

Chapman,  trans,  of  Iliad,  vi,  183. 
Keep  us  mere  English. 

Daniel,  Civil  Wars,  B.  v,  st.  88.J 

114.  Merit  ( =  that  which  is  deserved  :    RICHARD  II, 

I,iii,  156). 

[This  meaning  is  implicit  in  the  theological  use  of  the 
term,  as  in  "  the  merits  of  Christ's  passion,"  used  thrice 
in  one  page  by  Foxe,  ed.  Cattley,  i,  72.  Hooper  has  "  the 
merits  of  Christ's  passion,"  "  the  merits  of  the  mass," 
"  the  merits  of  such  virtues,"  &c.  (CHRIST  AND  His  OFFICE; 
1547  :  Parker  Soc.  rep.  pp.  52,  55,  60).  Middleton  has: 

My  love's  merit  was  most  basely  sold  to  him  by  the  most  false 
Violetta. 

Blurt  Master-Constable,  v,  i. 

Jonson  has  : 

I  shall  never  stand  in  the  merit  of  such  bounty,  I  fear. 

Cynthia's  Revels,  iv.  i. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  325 

Daniel  has  : 

Though  she  deserved  no  merit. 

Cleopatra,  1.  293. 
To  pay  this  thy  injustice  her  due  merit. 

Id.  1036. 
A  lingring  death  with  thee  deserves  no  merit. 

Id.  1159.3 

Hooker  notes  that  "  The  ancient  Fathers  use  meriting  ior 
obtaining,  and  in  that  sense  they  of  Wittenberg  have  in 
their  Confession  :  .  .  .  "  Good  works  ...  by  the  free 
kindness  of  God  .  .  .  merit  their  certain  rewards " 
Sermon  II,  §  21). 

115.  Modesty,  (=  moderation,  sobriety:  HAMLET,  II, 
ii,  461,  &c.).  Cited  by  Dr.  Theobald  as  an  illustration 
of  "  the  poet's  large  Latinity,"  and  "  a  reflection  of  the 
Baconian  philosophy/'  It  was  current  English,  then  as 
now  : 

Whereupon  the  Consuls  .  .  .  went  to  speak  unto  the  people 
.  .  .  and  used  great  modesty  in  persuading  them. 

North,  tr.  of  Life  of  Coriolanus  : 

Skeat's  Sh.  Plutarch,  p.  18. 

They  seemed  to  pass  the  bounds  of  modesty  in  abusing  some 
men. 

Wilson's  trans,  of  Demosthenes'  third  Philippic  (1570). 
God  doth  by  such  institutions  teach  the  faithful  modesty. 
Trans,  of  Calvin's  Harmony  of  the  Evangelists,  1584,  p.  623. 

[Add: 

If  it  be  cold  and  temperate,  the  style  also  is  very  modest. 

Puttenham,  Arte  of  Poesie,  Arber's  rep.  p.  161. 
The  meane  and  modest  mind.  Id.  ib. 

Which  modest  measure  of  beauty. 

Eastward  Ho,  1605,  i,  i. 
She  humbled  herself  as  she  might  with  modesty. 

Greene,  Menaphon  :   Works,  vi,  in. 
Let  not  your  words  pass  forth  the  verge  of  reason, 
But  keep  within  the  bounds  of  modesty. 

Porter,  The  Two  Angry  Women  of  Abington,  i,  i. 
Within  some  bounds  of  modesty  and  subjection. 

More's  Life  of  Richard  III,  Murray's  rep.  p.  194. 


326  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Whom  afterward  by  a  more  modest  name  men  called 
philosophers. 

Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay,  1587, 
ed.  1604,  p.  9.3 

116.  Obliged  ("  obliged  [  =  pledged]  faith  "  :  MER 
CHANT  OF  VENICE,  II,  vi,  7).  Obligation  =  a  legal  in 
strument  (TROILUS,  IV,  v,  122  ;  MERRY  WIVES,  I,  i,  9  ; 
&c.) 

Both  old  usages.     Compare  Wiclif  (1382)  : 

Taak  thin  obligacion  and  sitte  doon  and  write  fifti. 

Trans,  of  Luke  xvi,  6. 

[Add: 

We  dare  not  oblige  us  thus  to  be  bound  en  to  you. 

Bale,  Examination  of  William  Thorpe  (1382),  pub. 

1544,  Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  86. 
A  strong  bond,  a  firm  obligation,  good  in  law,  good  in  law. 

King    Leir    and    his    Three    Daughters    (1594).    in 
Hazlitt's  Sh.  Library,  Pt.  II,  vol.  ii,  p.  337. 

The  forfeit  of  an  obligation. 
Greene  and  Lodge,  Looking-Glass  for  London,  Sc.  3. 

He  hath  bound  and  obligated  his  church. 

Hooper,  Christ  and  his  Office,  1547.   Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  31. 

Confirmed  with  obligations  sealed  interchangeably. 

Id.  Answer  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  p.  136. 

Sealed  me  an  obligation. 

Lilly,  Mother  Bombie,  v,  3. 
The  copy  of  that  obligation 
Where  my  soul's  bound  in  heavy  penalties. 

Dekker,  The  Honest  Whore,  iv,  i. 

As  it  were,  obliged  themselves  by  obligation  to  the  devil. 

Stubbes,  Anatomic  of  Abuses,  Collier's  rep.  p.  62. 
Some  tyme  this  world  was  so  stedfast  and  stable, 
That  mannes  word  was  obligacioun. 

Chaucer's  Balade,  Lak  of  Stedfastnesse. 

And  in  an  obligacyon  I  had  him  bound 
To  paye  me  at  a  certain  daye. 

Impatient  Poverty,  1560  ;  Farmer's  rep.  p.  12.] 

117.  Occident  (RICHARD  II,  III,  iii,  65  ;    CYMBELINE, 
IV,  ii,  372). 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  327 

As  old  as  Chaucer,  MAN  OF  LAWE'S  TALE,  1.  295.  Also 
in  Caxton's  GOLDEN  LEGEND  : 

The  sonne,  moone,  sterres,  and  pianettes  move  from  th'  oryent 
to  th'  occidente. 

Yet  again,  twice,  in  Cornish  or  Heywood's  interlude, 
THE  FOUR  ELEMENTS;  Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  i,  18,  38. 
(Percy  Soc.  rep.  pp.  16,  39.) 

[Add: 

Over  all  the  world,  from  east  to  Occident. 

Lydate,  cited  in  Ben  Jonson's  English  Grammar. 
That  brave  with  streams  the  watery  Occident. 

Greene,  Orlando  Furioso,  Dyce's  ed.  p.  103. 
What  worlds  in  th'  yet  unformdd  Occident 
May  come  refin'd  with  th'  accents  that  are  ours. 

Daniel,  Musophilus,  11.  961-2.] 

118.  Oppugnancy  (TROILUS,  I,  iii,  no). 

Bacon  has  "mainly  oppugn";  and  Dr.  Theobald 
affirms  that  "  mere  oppugnancy  "  and  "  mainly  oppugn  " 
are  evidently  the  coinage  of  one  mint.  Oppugnancy, 
he  asserts,  "  is  not  English  at  all." 

"  Oppugn  "  was  current  English.  See  it  in  Bradford's 
Letter  of  July  4,  1553  (Bickersteth,  ed.  of  LETTERS  OF 
MARTYRS,  p.  19),  and  in  Hooker,  ECCLES.  POL.  B.  v,  Ed. 
1823,  ii,  10.  ["Oppugnancy,"  by  whomsoever  coined,  is 
exactly  analogous  to  "  repugnancy,"  found  in  Sidney  and 
Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay  (1587),  ed.  1604,  p.  143 
and  elsewhere.] 

119.  Ostent,  ostentation  (MERCHANT,  II,  ii,  205 ;  MUCH 
ADO,  IV,  i,  206). 

The  first  passage,  says  Dr.  Theobald,  "  reflects  Bacon's 
theory  of  behaviour."  It  reflects  a  well-worn  common 
place.  For  the  word  "  ostent  "  and  the  "  theory  "  see 
Elyot,  GOVERNOUR,  Croft's  ed.,  GLOSSARY.  Compare  : 

The  papists  ostent  their  merits  on  earth. 

Adams'  Sermons,  ii,  563. 
Their  ostentate  charity. 

Id.  p.  57. 


328  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

The  Temple  then  shall  yield  a  dire  ostent. 

Sandys'  Travels. 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 
Which  miraculous  ostent  .  .  .  was  sent  of  God. 

Foxe,  Martyrs  ;   ed.  1684,  ">  94  > 

and  adds  instances  from  Chapman,  Argument  to  Sestiad 
iv  of  Marlowe's  HERO  AND  LEANDER  ;  trans,  of  ILIAD,  ii, 
280. 

Dr.  Theobald  affirms  that  Shakespeare's  use  of  "  osten 
tation  "  ("  ostentation  of  despised  arms  ";  "  a  mourning 
ostentation";  "some  delightful  ostentation  or  show  ") 
is  "  exclusively  classic."  It  is  simply  the  primary  and 
then  normal  force  of  the  word.  Compare  : 
In  the  ostentation  of  his  lucky  wit. 

Adams'  Sermons,  i,  90-91. 
[Add: 

With  such  other  false  ostentations  of  immanitie. 

Declaration  as   to   treatment   of   Catholic   traitors, 
1583.     Rep.  in  Harl.  Misc,  ed.    1808,  i,   545. 

Wise  Jove  is  he  hath  shown 
All  the  dire  ostents  of  Jove. 

Chapman,  trans,  of  Iliad,  v  (Shepherd's  ed.  p.  77  b). 
Can  ostent  or  show  a  high  gravity. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  B.  ii,  14  ;  Dent's  rep.  p.  192.] 

120.  Paint,  painted. 

"  Painted,"  says  Dr.  Theobald,  "  is  a  favourite  meta 
phor  with  Shakespeare."  It  is !  Also  with  nearly 
every  other  Elizabethan  writer.  [See  below,  p.  419.] 

121.  Palliament  (TiTUS,  I,  i,  182). 

[The  word  is  Peele's  :  HONOUR  OF  THE  GARTER,  1.  92. 
See  the  present  writer's  DID  SHAKESPEARE  WRITE  '  TITUS 
ANDRONICUS  '  ?  p.  64.] 

122.  Part   (vb.,  JULIUS  CESAR,  V,  v,  80 ;     RICHARD 
III,  V,  iii,  26).     Party,  partial,  &c. 

Ordinary  Tudor  English. 

123.  Perdition  (  =  loss,  not  eternal :    TEMPEST,  I,  ii, 

30). 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  329 

The  original  meaning.  The  modern  is  secondary. 
Hooker  speaks  of  endless  perdition  and  Raleigh  of  eternal 
perdition.  "  Perdition  of  their  treasure "  occurs  in 
THE  GOLDEN  BOKE  [of  Marcus  Aurelius :  Bourchier's 
trans,  of  Guevara's  Spanish  version,  1534  and  I546], 
Let.  ii.  cited  by  Richardson.  In  the  same  section  occurs 
the  sentence  : 

The  cause  gooeth  to  such  loss  and  pardicion  that  these  mis 
chievous  people  are  our  homely  and  familiar  enemies. 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 

Loss  and  perdicion  of  so  many  noble  captains  and  strong 
soldiers. 

Hall,  Chron.  Henry  VII  (1548)  27  6. 

[And  "  my  own  perdition "  in  Gascoigne's  SUPPOSES 
(Cunliffe's  ed.  of  Works,  i,  214)  means  "  my  own  harm."] 

124.  Perdurable  (HENRY  V,  IV,  v,  7). 

[Common  in  Chaucer.     See  above,  p.  266,  and  compare  : 

Triumphant  Arks,  of  perdurable  might. 

Daniel,  Civil  Wars,  V,  176.] 

125.  Peregrinate  (put  as  a  fantastic  term  :    L.  L.  L., 
V,  i,  14). 

See  under  Peregrine,  Peregrination,  Peregrinator  in 
N.  E.  D. 

126.  Permission  ("  of  the  will  "  :  OTHELLO,  I,  iii,  339). 
["  Clearly  a  reflection  of  the  Latin  word  permissus  or 

permissio,  which  is  very  frequently  used  by  Bacon  in 
his  philosophical  writings,"  says  Dr.  Theobald,  who  gives 
a  page  to  the  proposition.  The  passage  is  perfectly 
intelligible  in  itself  without  any  such  illustration  :  "  Per 
mission  "  means  "  letting  loose,"  "  letting  go  "  ;  and  to 
call  this  "  the  Latin  sense  "  is  mere  mystification.] 

127.  Pernicious  (=  provocative  :  L.  L.  L.,  IV,  i,  66). 
[Accepting  the  derivation  of  the  word  from  Lat.  pernix, 

Dr.  Theobald  describes  that  as  "  derived  probably  from 


330  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

per  and  nitor — much  struggling ;  hence  brisk,  nimble 
(not  to  be  got  rid  of,  troublesome),"  adding  "  much 
striving  is  the  sense  in  Shakespeare  "  (Mucn  ADO,  I,  i, 
130).  "But  probably,"  he  concludes,  with  an  unusual 
misgiving,  "  the  word  is  used  in  a  sort  of  slang  style  in 
these  passages."  He  refers  to  Horace,  EPOD.  ii,  42, 
pernicis  uxor  Apuli,  concerning  which  his  cousin,  Mr. 
William  Theobald,1  defines  pernix  as  "  active."  The 
simple  solution  of  all  this  puzzling  is  that  the  common 
Latin  words  pernix  (  =  velox),  pernicior,  pernicitas,  and 
perniciter  had  given  "pernicious"  the  secondary  force 
of  "  swift,"  and  the  tertiary  force  of  "  provocative  "  or 
"  inflammatory."  So  in  Milton  : 

Pernicious  with  one  touch  to  fire  .  .  . 

Paradise  Lost,  vi,  521. 

This  is  the  sense  of  the  word  in  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST  ; 
and  this  sense  occurs  frequently  in  Elizabethan  literature. 
The  term  had  first  been  made  common  by  Catholic 
controversialists,  who  used  it  in  the  sense  (moral)  of 
"  incendiary."  Then  it  became  general.  E.g.  : 

Yet  their  disorder  in  our  civil  streets. 
May  be  pernicious  and  breed  mutiny. 

A  Larum  for  London,  Simpson's  rep.  p.  46. 

Go  to  the  Achive  fleet, 
Pernicious  dream  [vision,  in  ist  ed.]. 

Chapman,  tr.  of  Iliad,  ii,  8. 

It  is  expressly  used  in  this  sense  by  Elyot  (1533)  : 

There  is  nothing  to  the  strength  of  man's  body  more  profitable 
than  wyne,  ne  to  voluptuouse  appetites  more  pernicious. 

Governour,  B.  iii,  c.  22.] 

128.  Perpend  (HAMLET,  II,  ii,  104  ;  MERRY  WIVES, 
II,  i,  119;  &c.). 

"  The  word  [in  Shakespeare]  is  used,"  says  Dr.  Theo 
bald,  "  only  by  pedantical  speakers  or  professional  fools." 
How  this  supports  the  thesis  of  the  dramatist's  classical 

1  The  Classical  Element  in  the  Shakespeare  Plays,  1909,  p.  42.  (., 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  331 

proclivity,  he  does  not  explain.  Judge  Willis  justly 
remarks  tha»t  "  the  word  was  used  by  grave  writers  before 
Shakespeare  wrote,  and  in  the  sense  in  which  he  used  it." 
For  instances  : 

I  desire  you  therefore  to  perpend. 

Bale,  Apologie,  p.  17. 
Let  this  also  be  perpend. 

Foxe,  Martyrs,  sub.  ann.  975. 
[Add: 

Herein  the  intent  of  the  law  is  to  be  perpended. 

Stubbes,  Anatomic  of  Abuses,  Collier's  rep.  p.  123. 

Confer  the  times,  perpend  the  history. 

T.  Newton  "  To  the  Reader,"  pref.  to  Higgins'  add. 
to  the  Mirrour  for  Magistrates,  ed.  1587. 

I  began  to  perpend  within  myself. 

Feme,  The  Blazon  of  Gentrie,  1586,  Ep.  Ded. 

It  is  finally  impossible  here  to  see  what  Dr.  Theobald  is 
driving  at.  He  has  not  made  even  the  semblance  of  a 
case.] 

129.  Persian  (LEAR  III,  vi,  84). 

"  This,"  says  Dr.  Theobald  occultly,  "  is  not  unlike 
the  Horatian  exclamation,  Persicos  odi,  puer,  apparatus, 
which  Mr.  Gladstone  translates,  "  Off  with  Persian  gear, 
I  hate  it."  The  commentator  Steevens  had  previously 
observed,  with  equal  profundity,  that  the  passage  alludes, 
"  perhaps,  to  Clytus  refusing  the  Persian  robes  offered 
him  by  Alexander."  The  classicists  have  their  choice  ! 

130.  Person  (  =  persona,  part  sustained  :    2  HENRY 
IV,  IV,  vii,  73). 

Bacon,  Dr.  Theobald  points  out,  used  the  word  in  a 
similar  sense.  So  did  many  other  Elizabethan  writers. 
Compare  : 

When  any  man  is  sent  by  a  Prince,  in  an  embassy,  he  must  speak 
in  such  sort  that  men  may  well  perceive  he  dissembleth  not  ; 
because  he  knoweth  whose  person  he  sustaineth. 

Trans,  of  Calvin's  Sermons,  1597,  p.  18. 


332  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

The  Apostle,  speaking,  as  it  seemeth,  in  the  person  of  the 
Christian  Gentile. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol. 
[Add: 

The  Patripassians  and  Sabellians,  and  after  them  Photinus, 
and  of  late  Servetus,  define  a  person  to  be  a  certain  condition 
and  difference  of  office  :  \  as  when  we  say,  Roscius  sometime 
sustained  the  person  of  Achilles  and  sometime  of  Ulysses. 

Hutchinson,  Image  of  God,  c.  21  ;  Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  121. 
He  was  contented  to  travell  [travail]  in  it  as  in  the  person  of  a 
man  regulated. 

Fenton's  Guicciardini,  1579,  p.  299. 

Dr.  Theobald  does  not  seem  to  reflect  that  the  classic 
meaning  of  person  is  implicit  in  the  historic  description 
of  the  Christian  Trinity.] 

131.  Pervert    (  =  divert,    turn    aside :      CYMBELINE, 
II,  iv,  151  ;    M.  FOR  M.,  IV,  iii,  152,  &c.). 

The  only  uncommon  usage  in  the  passages  cited  is  that 
from  CYMBELINE,  pervert  =  turn  [anger]  aside,  divert.  In 
this  there  is  nothing  more  "  classical  "  than  in  the  various 
other  senses  of  the  word.  The  idea  of  "turn  aside" 
underlies  all  uses  of  it.  Compare  the  instances  in  the 
Oxford  Dictionary  from  Chaucer  (BOECE,  B.  ii,  pr.  i)  ; 
Rolls  of  Parlt.  1483  (vi,  240-2)  ;  and  Nashe,  "  pervert 
foundations  "  (CHRIST'S  TEARES,  1593).  Mr.  Willis  cites  : 

But  seeing  they  pervert  all  order. 

Trans,  of  Calvin's  Sermons,  1579,  p.  662. 

132.  Plant  ( =  sole  of  the  foot :  ANTONY,  II,  vii,  i). 
There  is  no  classic  innovation  here.     The  word  was 

vernacularly  used  : 

Knotty  legs  and  plants  of  clay 
Seek  for  ease  or  love  delay. 

Jonson,  Masque  of  Oberon. 

The  variorum  edition  cites,  further  : 

Grinde  mustarde  with  vineger,  and  rubbe  it  well  on  the  plants  or 
soles  of  the  feete. 

T.  Lupton,  Third  Book  of  Notable  Things,  bk.  i. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  333 

Even  to  the  low  plants  of  his  feet,  his  form  was  alter  Sd. 

Chapman,  trans,  of  Iliad   xvi  ] 

[Add: 

In  the  TENNE  TRAGEDIES  OF  SENECA,  a  version  which 
runs  much  to  the  vernacular,  we  have  the  lines  : 

Hangde  was  I  by  the  Heeles 

Upon  a  tree,  my  swelling  plants  the  fruit  thereof  yet  feeles. 

Thebais,  p.  46  a. 

Again  we  have  it  in  Nashe  : 

You  Pilgrims,  that  .  .  .  weare  the  plants  of  your  feete  to  the 
likenesse  of  withered  roots. 

Christ's    Teares    over   Jerusalem ;     Works,  ed. 
McKerrow,  ii,  63.] 

133.  Port  (ANTONY,  I,  iii,  45). 

Dr.  Theobald  thinks  the  word  here  means  gate.  It 
probably  does  not :  Sextus  held  the  sea  power.  But 
port  =  gate  is  common  old  and  Tudor  English. 

Dayly  were  issues  made  out  of  the  city  at  divers  ports. 

Hall,  Chron.  Henry  V. 

The  word  occurs  in  this  sense  thrice  in  Fairfax's  TASSO, 
B.  xii,  st.  48,  49,  51.     [Also  B.  iii,  st.  12  and  49.] 

[Port  was  the  word  for  city-gate  in  Edinburgh  from 
ancient  times  down  to  the  disuse  of  the  walls. 

Chapman  uses  the  word  constantly  in  his  trans  ations  : 

The  Scaean  ports  [of  Troy]. 

Trans,  of  Iliad  (1598),  iii,  280. 
The  ports  and  far-stretched  walls  [of  Troy]. 

Id.  iv,  64. 
The  seven-fold  ported  Thebes. 

Id.  iv,  433. 
Seven-ported  Thebes. 

Trans,  of  Hesiod,  B.  i. 
To  come  within  the  ports. 

Iliad,  vi,  77. 

By  this  had  Hector  reached  the  ports  of  Scaea,  and  the  towers. 

Id.  vi,  248. 

This  said,  brave  Hector  through  the  ports  .  .  .  made  issue. 

Id.  vii,  i. 


334  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Compare  : 

Though  strait  the  passage  and  the  port  be  made. 

Marlowe,  i  Tamb.  ii,  i. 
Till  Phoebus  with  his  beams  so  bright 
From  out  the  fiery  port. 

Ballad  of  True  Lovers  (before  1597),  Sh.  Soc.  Papers, 
1844,  vol.  ii,  p.  14.] 

134.  PORT    (  =  bearing,   status  :    MERCHANT,   III,   ii, 
282). 

So  in  Fairfax's  trans,  of  TASSO,  often. 
[Add: 

From  Princely  Port  to  tumble  down  into  poor  servile  state. 
Tenne  Tragedies  of  Seneca,  1581  ;  Thebais,  p.  530. 
With  stately  bissopes  a  greate  sorte, 
Which  kepe  a  mervelous  porte. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528. 
Honourable  port  and  majesty. 

Elyot,  Governour,  ii,  2. 
No  princely  port,  nor  wealthy  store. 
William  Byrd,  Psalms,  Sonnets,  and  Songs,  1588. 
Cast  yourself  to  bear  such  a  port 
That,  as  ye  be,  ye  may  be  known. 
H.    Medwall,    Nature    (c.    1490).    Farmer's    Lost 

Tudor  Plays,  p.  65. 
Their  decayed  port. 

Nashe,    Anatomie    of    Absurditie  :    Works,     ed. 
McKerrow,  i,  33. 

With  an  imperial  port 
Gath'ring  his  spirits  he  rises  from  his  seat. 

Daniel,  Civil  Wars,  B.  vii,  (1602)  st.  67.] 

135.  Portable   (MACBETH,   IV,  iii,  89  ;   LEAR,   III,   vi, 


The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 

A  portable  ynke  to  be  carried  in  the  forme  of  a  powder. 

Platt,  Jewell-House,  1594,  iii,  36. 
A  little  portable  case. 

Guillemeau's  French  Chirurgeon,  1597. 

[The  form  ''importable"  =  intolerable,  insupportable, 
is  common  : 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  335 

Be  relieved  and  eased  of  many  importable  charges. 

Publisher's  pref .  to  Latimer's  Second  Sermon  before 

Edward  VI. 
To  avoid  his  importable  displeasure. 

Hooper,  Answer  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  Parker 
Soc.  rep.  p.  1 10. 

0  outrageous  and  importable  arrogancy  of  man. 

Philpot,  trans,  of  Curio's  Defence  of  Christ's  Church 
(c.  1550)  in  Writings,  1842,  p.  356.] 

136.  Prefer    ( =  bring   forward,    produce  :    SHREW,    I, 
i,  96  ;  i  HENRY  VI,  III,  i,  no). 

Their  cartel  in  defiance  they  prefer. 

Daniel,  Civil  Wars. 

1  ...  my  vows  and  prayers  to  thee  preferr'd  : 

Sandys'  Travels,  1610. 

Furtherers,  preferrers,  and  defenders  on  the  King's  behalf  of 
the  said  cause. 

Foxe,  Acts  and  Monuments. 
[Add: 
To  prefer  bills  of  accusation. 

Strype,  Mem.  of  Cranmer,  ed.  1848,  i,  248-9. 
Her  goddess,  in  whose  fane  she  did  prefer 
Her  virgin  vows. 
Chapman,  Third  Sestiad  of  Hero  and  Leander,  1598.] 

137.  Premised  (=  sent  in  advance  :  2  HENRY  VI,  V, 
ii,  141). 

In  his  Addenda  Mr.  Willis  cites  (from  the  Oxford 
Dictionary)  Burnet's  HISTORY  OF  THE  REFORMATION, 
Pocock's  ed.  v,  173  :  "  Upon  pain  and  peril  premised." 
This  is  an  inadequate  parallel ;  but  the  Dictionary  cites 
from  the  1540  translation  of  Polydore  Vergil : 

The  King  premised  certain  horsemen  to  beset  all  the  sea  coast ; 
and  from  Bishop  Barlow  (1609)  : 

There  was  a  premission  of  him  [Joseph]  into  Egypt, 
which  prove  the  usage. 

138.  Preposterous    (="  behind  before":     M.   N.   D. 
Ill,  ii,  120  ;   OTHELLO,  I,  iii,  330). 

Certainly  this  is  the  "  classic  "  meaning  of  the  term. 


336  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

And  as  certainly  it  was  commonly  so  used  in  English 
before  Shakespeare  and  Bacon. 

Is  not  this  gear  preposterous,  that  Alexandria,  where  Mark 
.  .  .  was  bishop,  should  be  preferred  before  Ephesus,  where 
John  the  Evangelist  taught  and  was  bishop. 

Bradford  to  Lady  Vane,  1 5  5  3,  in  Letters  of  Martyrs, 

1837,  P-  3!3- 

Christ  does  not  deny  this  to  be  a  preposterous  order,  that  the 
unlearned  common  people  should  first  celebrate  .  .  .  the 
coming  of  the  Messias. 

Trans,  of  Calvin's  Harmony,  1584,  p.  568. 

It  is  preposterous  that  men,  being  born  to  a  better  life,  do 
wholly  occupy  themselves  in  earthly  things. 

Id.  p.  218. 

They  deal  preposterously,  which  busy  themselves  in  small 
matters  when  they  should  rather  begin  at  the  chief est. 

Id.  p.  617. 

[The  word  was  as  current,  in  its  strict  sense,  in  literary 
as  in  theological  writing.  Thus  Puttenham  writes  : 

Ye  have  another  manner  of  disordered  speech,  when  ye  ... 
set  that  before  which  should  be  behind,  et  d  converso.  We 
call  it  in  English  proverb,  the  cart  before  the  horse  :  the 
Greeks  call  it  histeron  proteron  :  we  name  it  the  Prepos 
terous.  .  .  .  One  describing  his  landing  upon  a  strange 
coast,  said  thus  preposterously  :  "  When  we  had  climbed  the 
cliffs  and  were  ashore  " 

Arte  of  English  Poesie,  Arber's  rep.  p.  181. 
A  preposterous  order,  to  set  the  cart  before  the  horse. 

Hooper,  Answer  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  Parker 
Soc.  vol.  p.  147. 

The  word  occurs  frequently  in  Tyndale's  translation  of 
Erasmus'  ENCHIRIDION,  1533.  Methuen's  rep.  pp.  26, 
155,  169,  181,  188.] 

139.  Prevent,    Prevention    ( =  go    before,    anticipate  : 

JUL.  C^:s.  V,  i,  104). 

As  normal  in  that  day  as  "  let  "  for  "  hinder." 

See  the  Collect  at  end  of  the  Communion  Service,  1547, 

which  Dr.  Theobald  actually  quotes.     Why  then  did  he 

put  the  word  as  a  classicism  ? 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  337 

140.  Probation  (=  proof :  HAMLET,  I,  i,  54 ;  OTHELLO, 
III,  iii,  365). 

The  old  and  common  use  of  the  word,  to  which  the 
sense  of  "  trial  "  is  secondary.  It  exists  to  this  day  in 
the  technical  term  "  probate,"  which  is  found  in  Hall's 
Chronicle,  HENRY  VIII,  an.  17.  Compare  : 

Bryng  forth  your  honest  probacyons  and  ye  shall  be  heard. 

Bale's  Apologie,  fol.  92. 
For  the  more  evident  probation  whereof. 

Foxe's  Martyrs,  ed.  1846,  p.  12. 

True  and  sufficient  probation  grounded  upon  the  Scripture. 

Id.  iv,  287. 
[Add: 

Let  it  be  admitted  for  the  probation  of  this  .  .  . 

Latimer,  First  Sermon  on  the  Card,  1529. 
I  dare  saye  unable  he  was 
Of  one  erroure  to  make  probacion. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528. 
A  more  plain  token  and  evident  probation. 

Tyndale's  trans,  of  Erasmus'   Enchiridion,    1533  ; 

Methuen's  rep.  p.  166. 
By  this  probation  and  argument. 

Id.,  p.  272.] 

141.  Prodi  tor  (i  HENRY  VI,  I,  iii,  31). 

An  established  term,  used  in  official  documents.  The 
Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 

In  resistence  of  your  Proditours,  Rebelles,  and  Adversaries. 
1436.  Rolls  of  Parliament,  iv,  500-2. 
As  manifest  enemy  and  proditour  to  the  Cristen  State. 

1546.  State  Papers,  Henry  VIII,  xi,  95. 

[The  word  "prodition"  occurs  in  such  popular  works 
as  Henry  MedwalTs  interlude  NATURE,  circa  1490  : 

That  thou  be  not  deceived  by  false  prodition. 

Farmer's  Lost  Tudor  Plays,  p.  48, 

and  Roye's  REDE  ME  AND  BE  NOTT  WROTHE,  1528  ;  and 
Daniel  (CiviL  WARS,  B.  iii,  st.  78)  has  "  proditorious 
wretch."  A  passage  in  Bale's  BRIEF  CHRONICLE  concern 
ing  Lord  Cobham  suggests  that  semi-punning  phrases 

Y 


338  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

about  proditors  had  long  been  current.  Bale  speaks 
(Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  16)  of  "  the  general  proctors,  yea 
rather  betrayers  of  Christ."  The  passage  in  I  HENRY  VI 
runs  :  "  Thou  most  usurping  Proditor,  and  not  Pro 
tector."  Bale's  phrase  seems  an  interpretation  of 
"  proctors,  yea  rather  proditors,"  for  the  "  yea  rather  " 
as  it  stands  is  rather  pointless.1] 

142.  Propend,     Propension     ( =  to     be     inclined    to  : 
TROILUS,  II,  ii,  190,  132). 

There  is  no  innovation  here.  "  Propension  "  is  an 
old  form  of  "  propensity,"  the  form  which  has  survived. 
Compare  : 

The  forwardness  and  propension  of  his  mind. 

King  on  Jonah,  1594,  ed.  1611,  p.  116. 
Propensity  of  heart. 

Foxe,  Martyrs,  sub  ann.  1535. 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  give  instances  of  propend  from 
Reynold,  1545,  and  Sandys,  1599  ;  and  of  propension 
(also  propensed)  from  Wolsey,  1530,  and  Barington,  1580. 

[Add: 

Women  propense  and  inclinable  to  holiness. 

Hooper,  Eccles.  Pol.  pref.  ch.  iii,  §13.] 

143.  Propugnation  (TROILUS,  II,  ii,  136). 

[Mr.  Willis  gives  no  instances,  but  the  Oxford  Diction 
ary  does :  "  Propugnation "  in  Feme's  BLAZON  OF 
GENTRIE,  1586,  ii,  62  ;  and  "  Propugnatour  "  in  THE 
MIRROUR  OF  SALVACIOUN,  1450,  and  THE  COMPLAYNT  OF 
SCOTLAND,  1549,  eP-  ded.,  P-  4-] 

144.  Pudency  (CYMBELINE,  II,  v,  n). 

Mr.  Willis  justly  remarks  that  this  word,  of  which  there 
is  no  other  recorded  instance,  is  a  very  simple  formation 

1  The  habit  of  aspersive  alliteration  was  common.  Latimer 
has  "  Bishops  !  nay  rather  Buzzards  "  (First  Sermon  before 
Edward  VI)  ;  and  he  tells  of  much  excitement  in  London  over 
the  phrase  "  Burgesses  !  nay,  Butterflies  !  "  (Sermon  of  the 
Plough}. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  339 

from  "  impudency."     [It  is  not  a  "  classic  "  adaptation  ; 
there  is  no  Latin  word  pudentia,  though  there  is  pudens.~\ 

145.  Questant,    Questrists    (ALL'S    WELL,    II,   i,    15  ; 
LEAR,  III,  vii,  16). 

Admittedly  not  yet  traced  in  pre-Shakespearean  writers. 

But  they  are  merely  variants  of  old  words  such  as 
quester  or  quaestor  (q.v.,  N.  E.  D.).  In  Pecock's  REPRES- 
SOR  OF  OVERMUCH  BLAMING  OF  THE  CLERGY  (Roll's  Ser. 
ii,  516,  540)  we  have  Questmongers  (=  informers — the 
same  thing  as  quaestor)  or  jurymen.  Questmen  were 
regularly  elected  annually  to  assist  churchwardens  in 
matters  of  ecclesiastical  police.  The  "  quest-house " 
was  the  chief  watch-house  of  a  parish.  See  Halliwell's 
and  Nares'  Dictionaries.  There  is  no  real  "  coinage  "  in 
the  matter. 

146.  Recordation  (TROILUS,  V,  ii,  116). 

He  [Xerxes]  wept  in  recordation  of  their  mortality. 

Rainold's  Lect.  on  Obadiah,    1584.    Nicholl's  ed. 

1864,  p.  35. 
Fair  and  sacred  recordations. 

Holland's  tr.  of  Plutarch's  Moralia,  1603,  p.  940. 

147.  Reduce    ( =  bring    back,    restore :     RICH.     Ill, 
V,  v,  35). 

If  the  noble  King  Edgar  had  not  reduced  the  monarchy  to  his 
pristinate  estate  and  figure.  ...  It  [England]  shall  be 
reduced  .  .  .  unto  a  public  weal  excelling  all  other 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  i,  2. 

To  reduce  the  seduced  from  their  errors. 

Sandys'  Travels,  1610,  ed.  1637,  p.  86. 

[A  very  common  usage.     Compare  : 

To  reduce  not  only  him  but  also  his  substance  to  their  former 
state  of  freedom  and  liberty. 

Rosdell's  Ep.  Ded.  to  ed.  of  Hooper's  Christ   and 
His  Office,  1582. 

To  reduce  him  that  erreth  into  the  trayne  of  virtue. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  ii,  9. 


340  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Reduced  .  .  .  the  Romans  ...  to  their  pristinate  moderation 
and  temperance. 

Id.  iii,  ii. 
Healed  and  reduced  to  his  perfection. 

Id.  iii,  26. 

Alas,  I  see,  nothing  hath  hurt  so  sore, 
But  time  in  time  reduceth  a  return. 
Surrey,    first    poem    in    Tottel's    Miscellany,    1557, 

Arber's  rep. 
Then  we  shall  show  that  he  may  be  reduced  into  health. 

Phil  pot,  trans,  of  Curio's  Defence  of  Christ's  Church 

(MS.  c.  1550),  1842,  p.  376. 
Goeth  about  to  reduce  them  into  the  way. 

Id.  ib.  p.  393. 

How  often  would  I  have  revokt,  reduced,  and  brought  you 
into  the  right  way. 

Nash,  Christ's  Teares  over  Jerusalem,  1593.    Works, 

ed.  McKerrow,  ii,  21. 
Whom  lyving,  theyr  preaching  might  have  reduced. 

Id.  ib.  p.  26. 
Let  her  reduce  the  golden  age  again. 

Hughes,  The  Misfortunes  of  Arthur,  1587,  V,  ii,  23. 
To  seek  Philomela  and  to  reduce  her  from  banishment. 

Greene,  Philomela,  1592.     Works,  xi,  193. 

When  his  reason  had  reduced 
His  flying  thoughts  back  to  some  certain  stand. 

Daniel,  Philotas,  1605,  11.  235-6.] 

148.  Refelled  ( =  rebutted,  refuted :  M.  FOR  M.,  V,  i,  93). 
A  widely  current  Elizabethan  word. 

Unless  mine  adversaries  with  true  and  sufficient  probations 
.  .  .  can  .  .  .  refel  mine  errors. 

Townshend  ed.  of  Foxe's  Martyrs,  iv,  287) 
Refel  positions. 

Hooker's  Sermon  on  Justification. 
I  stand  not  to  refel  absurdities. 

Henry  Smith  (d.  1591),  Sermon  at  Clement  Dane's. 
[Add: 

I  must  stop  their  mouths,  convince,  refel,  and  refute. 

Latimer,  Third  Sermon  before  Edward  VI. 

Strong  proofs  brought  out, 
Which  strongly  were  refell'd. 

Daniel,  Civil  Wars,  B.  iii,  st.  13. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  341 

That  which  I  say  in  company  see  thou  refell  not  openly. 

T.  Kendall,  Flowers  of  Epigrams,  1577.     Spenser 
Soc.  rep.  p.  197. 

The  lesser  [objections]  then  are  easily  refelled. 

A  Larumfor  London,  Simpson's  rep.  p.  46. 

A  plea  so  strong 
As  cannot  be  refelled. 

Famous  History  of  Sir  Thomas  Wyat,  sc.  6. 
The  devilishness  of  this  new  doctrine  of  theirs  shall  be  refelled 
in  my  books. 

Bale,  First  Examination  of  Anne  Askewe.    Parker 

Soc.  ed.  of  Works,  p.  171. 
Paul  himself  doth  refel  such  great  treacheries  easily. 

Philpot,  trans,  of  Curio's  Defence  of  Christ's  Church 

(MS.  c.  1550),  1842,  p.  371. 

Witness  how  clearly  I  can  refel  that  paradox,  or  rather 
pseudodox. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  ii,  i. 
This  argument  no  tyrant  can  refell. 

Daniel,  Philotas,  1.  2044  (2134).] 

149.  Religious-ly  ( =  scrupulous-ly  :  ALL'S  WELL;  II, 
iii,  189  ;  HENRY  V,  I,  ii,  9). 

Dr/  Theobald  refers  this  force  of  the  word  to  the  Latin 
religiosus.  By  limiting  his  quotations  he  keeps  out  of 
sight  the  fact  that  Shakespeare's  metaphorical  use  of  it 
is  simply  an  implication  of  the  common  force  of  the 
word  as  "  devout  "="  earnest."  E.g.  : 

Religious  in  mine  error,  I  adore  the  sun. 

All's  Well,  I,  iii,  211. 
A  most  devout  coward,  religious  in  it. 

Twelfth  Night,  III,  iv,  424. 

Compare  : 

Among  the  gifts  of  the  temple  which  they  would  have  regarded 
religiously  and  scrupulously. 

Udal  on  Matthew,  c.  27. 

[Add: 

Let  mortals  learn 
To  make  religion  of  offending  heaven. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  v,  3,  near  end. 
I  see  you  make  religion  of  your  word  [  —  promise]. 

A  Larumfor  London,  1599,  1.  24. 


342  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Loyal,  religious  in  love's  hallowed  vows. 

Porter,  Two  Angry  Women  of  Abington,  ii,  i. 

Do  you  think  him  honest  ? 
Religiously  ;  a  true,  most  zealous  patriot. 

Chapman,  The  Admiral  of  France,  iii,  3. 

The  opinion  of  Faeries  and  elfes  is  very  old,  and  yet  sticketh 
very  religiously  in  the  minds  of  some. 

E.  King's  Glosse  to  Spenser's  Shepheard's  Calender, 

June. 

Albe  of  Love  I  always  humbly  deemed 
That  he  was  such  an  one  as  thou  dost  say, 
And  so  religiously  to  be  esteemed. 
Spenser,  Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Again,  11.  328-30. 
But  we  .  .  . 

Do  make  religion  now  we  rashly  go 
To  serve  that  God  [Cupid]  that  is  so  greatly  dred. 

Id.  1.  797- 

Thy  most  even  and  religious  hand, 
Great  Minister  of  Justice 

Daniel,    Certaine    Epistles,    1601-3  :     To   Sir  T. 
Egerton,  11.  198-9.] 

150.  Remonstrance     (substantially   =  demonstration  : 
M.  FORM.,  V,  i,  394). 

This  was  the  sense  of  the  word  in  the  period. 

With  strong  and  invincible  remonstrance  of  sound  reason. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.  B.  par.  v,  10. 

The  manifest  odds  .  .  .  are  remonstrances  more  than  sufficient 
[to  show]  .  .  . 

Id.  par.  76. 
I  will  remonstrate  [  =  expound]  to  you. 

Jonson,  Every  man  out  of  his  Humour. 

Your  son  shall  make  remonstrance  of  his  valour. 

Barnabe  Barnes,  The  Devil's  Charter,  i,  4. 

151.  Renege  (from  med.  Lat.  renego  :  LEAR,  II,  ii,  79). 
The  fact  that  renego  is  mediaeval  Latin  would  have 

put  any  one  not  a  Baconian  on  his  guard.  The  forms 
"  reneague  "  and  "  renay,"  which  come  from  that,  are 
common  in  Middle  and  Tudor  English. 

Reneyed. 

Piers  Plowman. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  343 

Those  hath  he  reneagued  and  put  away  from  the  inheritance 
of  the  promises. 

Udal  on  Luke  i. 
In  the  mean  season  while  Peter  reneagueth. 

Id.  on  c.  22. 
A  plain  renaying  of  Christ's  faith. 

Sir  T.  More,  Works,  p.  179. 
[Add: 

Renyinge  God  allthough  they  saye  naye. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528.] 

152.  Repugn,  Repugnancy,  Repugnant  (i  H.  VI,  IV, 
i,  94  ;  TIMON,  III,  v,  42  ;  HAMLET,  II,  ii,  491). 

As  old  as  Wiclif.  See  Croft's  Glossary  to  Elyot's 
GOVERNOUR. 

Repugnant  to  his  will. 

Cranmer's  Letter    to    Queen  Mary,  in  Letters  of 

Martyrs,  p.  2. 
His  authority  .  .  .  repugneth  to  the  crown  imperial. 

Id.  p.  3- 

That  discontinuance  doth  not  repugne  with  the  prophecy  of 
Jacob. 

Trans,  of  Calvin's  Harmony,  1584,  p.  5. 

Whether  that  which  our  laws  do  permit  be  repugnant  to  those 
maxims. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.  B.  v,  par.  81. 
Repugnancy  or  contradiction. 

Id.  ib. 
A  law  contrariant  or  repugnant  to  the  law  of  nature. 

Id.  ib. 
[Add: 
To  withstand  and  repugn  against  the  truth. 

Marg.  note  to  trans,  of  Erasmus'  Enchiridion,  1533. 

Methuen's  rep.  p.  77. 
Rebel,  repugne,  lash  out  and  kick. 

The  Trial  of  Pleasure,  1567.     Percy  Soc.  rep.  p.  42. 
I  have  suaged  the  old  repugnance, 
And  knit  them  together. 

Medwall's  Interlude  of  Nature  (c.  1490),  Farmer's 
Lost  Tudor  Plays,  p.  43. 

Nature  repugnyng. 

Elyot,  Governour,  i,  14. 


344  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

To  repugne  again  reason. 

Id.  iii,  25.] 

153.  Repute  (Tixus,  I,  i,  366  ;  i  HENRY  IV,  V,  i,  54). 
Absolutely  normal  Tudor  English. 

The  Church  of  Rome  doth  not  repute  the  one  oblation  of 
Jesus  Christ  ...  to  be  perfect. 

H.  Smith  (d.  1591),  God's  Arrow  Against  Atheists, 
ed.  1611,  p.  80. 

Word  so  used  in  Sandys'  TRAVELS  (1610),  4th  ed.  pp.  91, 
107,  124,  145. 
[Add: 

Our  wrong  reputed  weakness. 

Daniel,  Letter  from   Octavia   to   Marcus   Antonius, 

1599,  st.  15. 
Nor  could  she  yet  repute  herself  secure. 

Harington,  trans,  of  Orlando    Furioso,   1591,  B.  i, 
st.  33-] 

154.  Retentive  (in    the   physical   sense :    TIMON,    III, 
iv,  81). 

What  words  (said  she)  fly  your  retentive  powers. 

Chapman,  trans,  of  Odyssey,  B.  xix. 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  examples  from  Chaucer 
(PARSON'S  TALE,  §  76,  sent.  913  ;  Holland's  Pliny,  II, 
under  Words  of  Art,  &c.) 

[Compare  : 

Retention  and  ejection  in  her  powers 
Being  acts  alike. 

Chapman,  Third  Sestiad  of  Hero  and  Leander.] 

155.  Reverb  (LEAR,  I,  i,  155). 

Not  traced  by  Mr.  Willis.  Steevens  noted  the  word 
as  perhaps  of  Shakespeare's  own  coining.  However  that 
may  be,  it  is  obviously  not  a  classicism  :  it  is  a  curtail 
ment  of  a  Latin  word,  such  as  a  good  scholar  would  not 
commit. 

156.  Rivage  (Fr.  :  Chorus  to  HENRY  V,  Act  III). 
Found  in  Pseudo-Chaucer,  CHAUCER'S  DREAME,  1. 1105. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  345 

Also  in  Gower,  B.  viii ;  in  Hall ;  and  in  Holinshed,  B.  iv, 
c.  24.  Also  in  Spenser,  FAERIE  QUEENE,  IV,  vi,  20. 

157.  Ruinate  (3  HENRY  VI,  V,  i,  8). 

Dr.  Theobald  on  this  word  remarks  that  "  Shakespeare 
often  turns  nouns  into  verbs."  Judge  Willis  errs  in 
denying  this  in  general  :  the  practice  was  common  to 
the  period.  But  he  is  right  in  denying  that  Shakespeare 
made  "ruinate"  in  that  fashion.  It  was  a  standing 
verb  : 

Till  all  was  subverted  and  ruinated. 

Henry  Smith  (d.  1591),  Sermons,  ed.  1613,  p.  62. 

The  verb  is  found  twice  in  the  old  play,  THE  DOWNFALL 
OF  ROBERT  EARL  OF  HUNTINGDON  (Hazlitt's  Dodsley, 
vol.  viii,  pp.  158, 184) ;  in  Bancroft's  PLATFORM  OF  EPISCO 
PACY  (1594),  in  Lewkenor's  trans,  of  THE  COMMONWEALTH 
OF  VENICE  (1599),  &c.  &c. 

[Add  :  Spenser,  FAERIE  QUEENE,  II,  xii,  7 ;  (adj.  V,  x, 
26)  ;  Sonnet  56  ;  Greene's  SELIMUS,  11.  150,  878  ;  PERY- 
MEDES  THE  BLACKSMITH,  1588  :  Works,  vii,  45  ;  FRIAR 
BACON,  sc.  8  :  ed.  Dyce,  p.  168  ;  Kyd's  trans,  of  Garnier's 
CORNELIA,  Act  iv  ;  Daniel,  PHILOTAS,  1.  696  ;  Chapman, 
trans,  of  ILIAD,  iv,  42.] 

158.  Sacred  ("  Sacred  wit  "  :  TITUS,  II,  i,  120). 

[Dr.  Theobald,  following  the  commentators,  takes  this 
term  in  this  place  to  mean  "  accursed."  It  probably  did 
not.  Peele,  who  probably  wrote  the  bulk  of  the  play, 
has  "  sacred  wit  "  in  his  ARRAIGNMENT  OF  PARIS,  IV,  i, 
285 .  But  the  word  occurs  with  the  "  classic  ' '  significance 
in  Massinger,  EMPEROR  OF  THE  EAST,  iv,  5.] 

159.  Scope  ( =  skopos,  view,  or  mark  or  aim :  TIMON; 
I,  i,  72)- 

Cursed  Night  that  reft  from  him  so  goodly  scope. 

Spenser,  Faerie  Queene,  III,  iv,  52. 

[Add: 

So  huge  a  scope  at  first  him  seemed  best. 

Id.  Ill,  ix,  46. 


346  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Shooting  wide  do  miss  the  marked  scope. 

Id.  Shepheard's  Calender,  November. 
Ere  they  come  unto  their  aym£d  scope. 

Id.  F.  Q.  VI,  iii,  5. 
To  aim  their  counsels  to  the  fairest  scope. 

Id.  Mother  Hubberd's  Tale,  1.  960. 
But  whither  am  I  carried  all  this  while 
Beyond  my  scope. 

Daniel,  Letter  from  Octavia  to  Marcus  Antonius, 

1599,  st.  51. 

But  since  it  hath  no  other  scope  to  go 
Nor  other  purpose. 
Id.  To  the  Angell  Spirit  of  .  .  .  Sidney,  11.  45-46. 

160.  Sect  (=  a  cutting  :   OTHELLO,  I,  iii,  335). 

[Mr.  Willis  suggests  that  sect  here  may  be  a  misprint 
for  set  (  =  setting),  which  is  unlikely,  though  Dr.  Johnson 
suggested  that  reading.  The  word  seems  to  be  used  with 
the  same  force  in  the  old  play  of  KING  LEIR  AND  HIS 
THREE  DAUGHTERS  : 

Till  I  have  rooted  out  this  viperous  sect. 

Hazlitt's  Sh.  Library,  Pt.  II,  vol.  ii,  p.  376. 

Gascoigne  again  has  : 

And  all  good  haps  that  ever  Troylus'  sect  [lovers] 
Achieved  yet  above  the  luckless  ground. 

Adventures  of  Master  F.  J.  ;  Cunliffe's  ed.  of  Works, 
i,  426. 

The  term  had  in  fact  the  sense  of  "  sort/'  "  set,"  or 
"  species."  Wiclif  constantly  applies  it  to  the  friars 
(TREATISE,  chs.  2,  3,  4,  28,  &c.),  frequently  in  the  plural, 
signifying  "  groups."  Pecock  speaks  of  "  Sarrasene 
secte  "  and  "  Cristen  sect  "  (BOOK  OF  FAITH,  Pt.  I,  ch.  2,  p. 
131,  ed.  Morison)  ;  and  Hooper  has  :  ".  neither  the  one 
secte  of  people  called  papists,  neither  the  other  called 
gospellers  "  (ANSWER  TO  THE  BISHOP  OF  WINCHESTER, 
Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  137). 
Compare  Spenser  : 

And  by  the  name  of  soldiers  us  protect, 
Which  now  is  thought  a  civil  begging  sect. 

Mother  Hubberd's  Tale,  11.  246-7  ; 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  347 

and  Jonson  : 

But  in  this  age  a  sect  of  writers  are. 

The  Silent  Woman,  prol.] 

In  his  Addenda  Mr.  Willis  cites  : 

As  if  we  and  they  had  been  one  sect. 

Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  v,  303. 

161.  Secure,     Securely,    Security     (=  unconcerned  or 
heedless  :   MERRY  WIVES,   II,   ii,   314 ;   MACBETH,   III, 
v,  32  ;   RICHARD  II,  II,  i,  265). 

Common  usages.  See  Spenser,  F.  Q.  Bk.  VI,  Canto  v  ; 
and  Daniel,  CIVIL  WARS,  B.  i :  "  lived  secure." 

[Add  :  EUPHUES,  Arber's  rep.  p.  63  ;  SELIMUS,  1.  367  ; 
A  LARUM  FOR  LONDON  (Simpson's  rep.  pp.  i,  43,  46,  50)  ; 
Marlowe,  trans,  of  Lucan,  1.  135  ;  Lilly,  ENDIMION,  ii, 

1  ;    WOMAN  IN  THE  MOON,  ii,  i ;    Lodge,  WOUNDS  OF 
CIVIL  WAR,  1.  41  ;  Gascoigne,  THE  SPOYLE  OF  ANTWERP 
(Cunliffe's  ed.  of  Works,  ii,  594 ;    Daniel,  CLEOPATRA, 
1-  533  J    Jonson,  SEJANUS,  ii,  2  ;  iii,  2.     Dr.  Theobald 
actually  notes  the  use  of  "  securely  "  in  Prov.  iii,  29,  and 
in  Ben  Jonson.     The  citation  is  thus  to  no  purpose.] 

162.  Segregration  (=  separation  :  OTHELLO,  II,  i,  10). 
Richardson's  Dictionary  gives  instances  from  Sir  T. 

More,  Feltham's  RESOLVES,  and  Wotton ;  and  the  N.  E.  D. 
one  from  Philpot,  1564.     Judge  Willis  adds  : 

Segregated  themselves  from  the  Church  of  Rome. 

Foxe,  Martyrs  (1560)  ed.  1843,  i»  P-  xxvi. 

163.  Semblable    (adj.  =  similar  ;     sb.  =  resemblance  : 

2  HENRY  IV,  V,  i,  72  ;  HAMLET,  V,  ii,  24). 

"  Either  a  French  word  or  from  the  Latin  similis," 
says  our  Baconian  philologist.  It  happens  to  abound  in 
Chaucer  !  "  Semblable  "  and  "  semblably  "  are  two  of 
the  commonest  words  in  Elizabethan  didactic  books. 
They  occur  hundreds  of  times,  for  instance,  in  Elyot  and 
in  Holland's  Plutarch.  The  passage  from  adjective  to 
noun  is  exactly  as  in  "  equal." 


348  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

164.  Sensible  ( =  perceptible  to  the  senses  :   HAMLET, 
I,  i,  56,  &c.). 

The  meaning  of  the  word  in  that  period.     E.g.  : 

Eternal  damnation  of  sensible  pain  in  the  fire  of  hell. 

Sir  T.  More,  Works,  p.  1281. 
[Compare  : 

To  what  purpose  were  the  senses  without  the  sensible  things  ? 
Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay,   1587. 

Ed.  1604,  p.  7. 

The  sensible  powers.  The  sensible  wits  and  natural  motions. 
The  sensible  powers,  that  is  to  say,  the  five  wits.  The  sensible 
wits.  Thy  sensible  wits.  Our  sensible  wits. 

Tyndale's   trans,   of   Erasmus'   Enchiridion,    1533. 

Methuen's  rep.  pp.  89,  105,  139,  140,  141,  144. 
Sensible  pleasure  and  sensible  pain. 

J.   Hey  wood,   Dialogue   on    Wit  and  Folly,    Percy 

Soc.  rep.  p.  19. 
Sensible  signs.     Sensible  things.     Sensible  sacraments. 

Tyndale,  Supper  of  the  Lord  :   Works,    Parker  Soc. 
ed.  iii,  265.     (Thrice  in  a  page.)] 

165.  Septentrion  (3  HENRY  VI,  I,  iv,  ±33). 
Occurs  several  times  in  Chaucer  : 

Both  east  and  west,  north  [slip  for  south]  and  septemtrioun. 

The  Monk's  Tale,  477. 

Septentrional  and  septentrionalis,  in  THE  ASTROLABE  ; 
and  in  BOECE  (B.  ii,  pr.  6)  "  the  colde  sterres  that  highten 
the  vii  Tryones  (that  is  to  seyn  .  .  .  the  partye  of  the 
north)." 

166.  Simular  (LEAR,  III,  ii,  54). 

As  Christ  in  the  Gospel  .  .  .  called  them  hypocrites,  that  is 
to  say,  simulars  and  painted  sepulchres. 

Tyndale,  prol.  to  Romans. 

"Simulate  (=  simulated)  chastity"  occurs  in  Bale, 
ENGLISH  VOTARIES,  Pt.  II. 

["  Dissimulers  "  occurs  in  Tyndale  (Answer  to  Sir  T. 
More.  Works,  Parker  Soc.  ed.  iii,  45),  who  also  has  the 
verb  to  "  simule,"  i,  341.] 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  349 

167.  Solemn     (=  ceremonial    or    stately:     "solemn 
hunting  "  :  TITUS,  II,  i,  112). 

The  solempne  day  of  Pask. 

Wiclif,  trans,  of  Luke  ii.  41. 
Same  term  in  the  Rhemish  New  Testament,  1580. 

Upon  ane  solempne  day  As  custom  was. 

Chaucer   [really  Henryson],  Testament  of  Creseide, 
11.  112-113. 

[Add: 

An  assembly  so  honourable  and  solemn. 

Fenton's  trans,  of  Guicciardini,  1579,  p.  6. 
Affable  and  courteous  at  meals  and  meetings,  in  open  assemblies 
more  solemn  and  strange. 

Puttenham,  Avte  of  English  Poesie,    Arber's    rep. 

p.  298. 
Solemne  feasts.     Solemn  plays.     Times  of  solemnity. 

T.  Heywood,  Apology  for  Actors,  1612,  Sh.  Soc.  rep. 
pp.  54,  56,  60. 

A  solemne  oration.     Solemn  feasts. 

Gosson,  School  of  Abuse,  1579,  Sh.  Soc.  rep.  pp.  13,  15. 
A  day  of  mirth  and  solemn  jubilee. 

Webster  and  Rowley,  A  Cure  for  a  Cuckold,  sc.  i. 

Triumph,  and  solemnize  a  martial  feast. 

Marlowe,  i  Tamb.  Hi,  3,  end.] 

168.  Sort  (=  sors,  a  lot  :  TROILUS,  I,  iii,  374).] 

Were  it  by  aventure  or  sort  or  cas  [  =  chance]. 

Chaucer,  Knight's  Tale,  1.  844. 

[The  word  occurs  also  thrice  in  TROILUS  AND  CRESEYDE, 
ii,  1754  ;  iii,  1047  ;  iv,  116,  and  elsewhere  in  Chaucer.] 

169.  Speculation    (phys.    sense :    MACBETH,    iv,    95 ; 
TROILUS,  III,  iii,  109  ;  HENRY  V,  IV,  ii,  31). 

Word  occurs  thus  in  Hooker,  ECCLES.  POL.  V,  and  in 
Holland's  trans,  of  Pliny,  B.  xviii,  c.  28. 
[Add: 

When  thei  loken  hem  in  the  speculation  or  lokynge  of  the 
devyne  thought. 

Chaucer,  Boece,  B.  V,  pr.  2. 


350  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Compare  : 

To  be  confined  to  the  speculation  of  a  death's  head. 

Chapman,  The  Widow's  Tears,  iii,  i.] 

170.  Stelled    ("  stelled    fires "  :    LEAR,    III,  vii,  59 ; 
STELL'D  :  LUCRECE,  1443). 

[Dr.  Theobald  pronounces  the  word  in  LEAR  to  be 
derived  from  stella,  a  star.  If  it  were,  it  would  be  a  most 
unscholarlike  coinage.  It  is  really  the  same  word  as 
occurs  in  LUCRECE  ;  and  the  derivation  of  that  is  not, 
as  Mr.  Theobald  supposes,  from  <rre'AAw,  but  from  A.  S. 
stellanJ] 

171.  Substituted  ( =  placed  under,  in  rank  :  2  HENRY  IV, 
I,  iii,  84). 

And  they  did  also  substitute  other  which  were  known  heads 
also. 

Sir  T.  More,  Works,  p.  821. 

[Compare  : 

Have  thrust  out  proud  Octavian's  substitute. 

Day,  Humour  out  of  Breath,  1608,  v,  2. 
Be  you  joint  governors  of  this  my  realm  : 
I  do  ordain  you  both  my  substitutes. 

The    Weakest    goeth   to   the  Watt    (anon.    pr.    with 
Webster),  i,  i. 

So  they  pay  their  yearly  tribute 
Unto  his  dyvlishe  substitute, 

Official  or  commissary. 
Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528. 
Great  Soliman,  heaven's  only  substitute. 

Kyd,  Soliman  and  Perseda,  i,  5. 
Honoured  because  they  are  the  substitutes  of  the  King. 

Gascoigne,  Glasse  of  Government,  1575,  ii,  i.] 

172.  Success  (=  sequence,  result :  e.g.  "  vile  success," 
OTHELLO,  III,  iii,  221). 

Dr.  Theobald  gravely  remarks  that  "  Bacon  also 
follows  the  Latin."  Judge  Willis  comments  :  "In  the 
sixteenth  century  every  writer  with  whom  I  am  ac 
quainted  uses  the  word  success  in  the  same  way."  This 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  351 

is  the  fact  (see  above,  p.  256)  ;  and  Dr.  Theobald's  citation 
in  this  case  might  alone  serve  as  the  proof  of  his  compre 
hensive  inacquaintance  with  Elizabethan  literature. 

173.  Suspire:    Suspiration  QOHN,  III,  iv,  79;  HAMLET, 
I,  ii,  79)- 

Suspiring  and  sighing. 

Sir  T.  More. 
The  long  suspired  Redeemer  of  the  world. 

ReliquifB  Wottoniancs,  p.  269. 
[Add: 

Throw  forth  sad  throbs  and  grievous  suspires. 
Break,  heart,  with  sobs  and  grievous  suspires. 

Locrine,  v,  4. 

As  they  do  that  enchant  the  water  of  the  font,  and  chafe  it 
with  many  a  suspire  and  deep-fet  breath. 

Hooper,    Declaration    of  the    Ten    Commandments, 

1550,  Parker  Soc.  rep,  p.  345. 
And  suspirable  death  of  so  brave  soldiers. 

Kyd,  Cornelia,  v,  287.] 

174.  Tenable   ("  tenable  in  your  silence  "  :    HAMLET, 
I,  ",  247). 

In  this  ostensible  sense  ("  retained  ")  the  word  is  not 
found  elsewhere ;  and  there  is  much  reason  to  believe 
it  a  misprint.  If  intended,  it  is  incongruous  English. 
Folios  2  and  3  read  treble.  "  Tenable,"  used  of  a  fortress, 
is  found  in  Hakluyt's  VOYAGES,  i,  614,  and  in  Howell's 
LETTERS,  B.  xi,  let.  4. 

175.  Terms  (=  limits  :   ALL'S  WELL,  II,  iii,  173). 

Eche  chaunge  hath  his  special  end  and  terme  [whereunto],  and 
therefore  accordynge  to  terme  and  ende  hath  .  .  . 

Bishop  Gardiner's  Explanation  of  the  Presence,iol.  109. 

A  perfectly  normal  usage. 

176.  Translate    (physically  remove :    M.    N.    D.,    Ill; 

ii,  3i). 
A  very  common  usage  : 

When  the  Romans  had  translated  to  themselves  the  tribute. 
Trans,  of  Calvin's  Harmony,  1584,  p.  545, 


352  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

This  translation  of  faults  from  ourselves  to  others. 

King  on  Jonah,  1594,  ed.  1611,  p.  128. 
Thither  was  the  seat  of  the  prince  translated. 

Lewkenor's  trans,  of  Contrareno's  Commonwealth  oj 

Venice,  1598,  p.  51. 
[Add: 

Thanne  is  thilke  money  precyous  when  it  is  translated  into 
other  folk. 

Chaucer,  Boece,  B.  ii,  pr.  5. 

If  kingdoms  be  translated  for  unrighteousness,  they  are 
preserved  by  righteousness. 

Hutchinson,  The  Image  of  God,  Works,   ed.  Parker 

Soc.  p.  71. 

Whole  kyngdomes  .  .  .  bee  so  soone  translated  from  one 
manne  unto  another. 

More,    Dialogue    of    Comfort     against    Tribulation, 

Dent's  rep.  p.  275. 
By  turning,  translating,  and  removing  these  marks. 

Robinson's    trans,  of  More's    Utopia,  Dent's    rep. 

p.  49. 

Is  it  [obedience]  not  altogether  translated  and  exempted  from 
your  Grace  unto  them. 

Beggars'    Petition    against    Popery,    1538,    Harl. 

Misc.  1808,  i,  221. 

This  ...  is  all  the  cause  of  translation  of  your  kingdom  so 
fast  into  their  hands. 

Id.  p.  223. 

Dreams,  extraordinarily  sent  from  [heaven  to  foreshew  the 
translation  of  monarchies. 

Nashe,  Terrors  of  the  Night ;  Works,  ed.  McKerrow, 

i,  362. 

In  the  same  year  1269  he  [Henry  III]  translated  with  great 
solemnity  the  body  of  King  Edward  the  Confessor  into  a  new 
chapel. 

Stow,  Survey  of  London,  1598.     Morley's  rep.  p.  417. 
Thither  hath  God  translated  the  body  of  Christ 

Hooper,  Declaration  of  Christ  and  his  Office,  Parker 

Soc.  rep.  p.  67. 
Useth  no  purgation  nor  translation  of  his  sin. 

Id.  ib.  p.  136. 

To  abide  perpetually  to  his  crowne,  without  translatynge 
heeroff  to  any  other  use. 

Fortescue,  Governance  of  England,  1476,  ch.  n.J 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  353 

177.  Umber'd     (  =  Shadowed,      from     Lat.     umbra  : 
HENRY  V,  iv,  Chorus,  9). 

Old  English.     Steevens  gives  the  instances  : 
Under  the  umbre  and  shadow  of  King  Edward. 

Caxton's  pref.  to  Tutty  on  Old  Age. 
Under  the  umbre  of  veryte. 

Old  poem,  The  Castett  of  Labour. 

178.  Umbrage  (  =  shadow  or  image  :   HAMLET,  V,  ii, 
124). 

The  word  is  used  fantastically,  and  certainly  not 
classically  !  It  is  remarkable  in  how  many  instances  Dr. 
Theobald  contrives  to  find  in  Shakespeare  an  expression 
which  a  classical  scholar  would  not  use,  save  facetiously. 

In  an  Appendix,  Mr.  Willis  deals  with  more  than 
twenty  words  passed  over  by  him  in  the  main  body  of  his 
book  ;  and  makes  some  additions  to  his  former  examples. 
Some  of  these  I  pass  over  here. 

179.  Abruption  (TnoiLUS,  III,  ii,  69). 

Dr.  Theobald  admits  that  the  word  "  is  not  really 
English."  Mr.  Willis  cited  "  dark  abrupted  ends  "  from 
Ford's  LOVE'S  SACRIFICE,  III,  iii ;  and  instances  of 
abrupt  and  abruptly.  But  the  plain  fact  is  that  the 
word  in  TROILUS  is  sportively  used.  It  counts  for 
nothing,  then,  for  Dr.  Theobald's  purpose. 

180.  Admiration  (  =  Lat.  admiratio,  wonder  :  HENRY 
VIII,  V,  v,  40  ;  HAMLET  I,  ii,  192). 

Quite  common  in  the  period.  E.g.  Hooker,  ECCLES. 
POL.  B.  v.  c.  77,  sec.  13,  &c. ;  A  MERRY  KNACK  TO 
KNOW  A  KNAVE  :  Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  vi,  544. 

[In  Shakespeare's  day  "  I  admire  "  often  meant  collo 
quially  "  I  wonder."  (E.g.  Jonson,  EVERY  MAN  IN  HIS 
HUMOUR,  i,  3  ;  Chapman,  THE  WIDOW'S  TEARS,  i,  i). 
The  ordinary  reader  is  supposed  to  know  the  text,  "  when 
I  saw  her  [the  scarlet  woman]  I  wondered  with  great 
admiration  "  (REVELATION,  xvii,  6).  This  form  could  not 

z 


354  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

have  been  used  in  the  Authorised  Version  of  1611  if  it 
were  not  still  regular  and  familiar,  though  "  admiration  " 
had  then  come  to  bear  its  modern  sense  also.  The  old 
usage  persisted  down  to  the  time  of  Scott  (WOODSTOCK, 
ch.  25),  and  is  even  found  in  Sir  William  Hamilton 
(DISCUSSIONS,  p.  14).  In  Shakespeare's  day  it  was 
normal.  Compare : 

Lordings,  admire  not  if  your  cheer  be  this. 

Greene,  Friar  Bacon,  sc.  9  :   ed.  Dyce,  p.  169. 

For,  if  thy  cunning  work  these  miracles, 
England  and  Europe  shall  admire  thy  fame. 

Id.  sc.  2  :   ed.  Dyce,  p.  155. 

Chrysostom  with  admiration  saith,  Miror  si  aliquis  rectorum 
potest  salvari  :  "I  marvel  if  any  ruler  can  be  saved." 

Latimer,  First  Sermon  before  Edward   VI.,  Dent's 
ed.  p.  83. 

Some  judgments  slave  themselves  to  small  desert 
And  wondernise  the  birth  of  common  wit  .  .  . 
Perhaps  such  admiration  wins  her  wit. 

Porter,  The  Two  Angry  Women  ofAbington,  iii,  2. 

And  make  her  an  example  to  the  world, 
For  after  ages  to  admire  her  penance. 
Leir  and    his  Three  Daughters,  Hazlitt's  Sh.  Lib. 
rep.  p.  365. 

Yet  are  generally  all  rare  things  and  such  as  breede  marvell 
and  admiration  somewhat  holding  of  the  undecent. 

Puttenham,   Arte   of  English   Poesie,   Arber's  rep. 
p.  294. 

This  last  writer,  under  the  rubric  "  Paradoxon,  or  the 
Wondrer  "  (p.  233),  gives  the  word  again  the  same  force  : 

Many  times  our  Poet  is  caried  by  some  occasion  to  report  of  a 
thing  that  is  marvelous,  and  then  he  will  seem  not  to  speake 
it  simply  but  with  some  signe  of  admiration.] 

181.  Argentine  (  =  silvern  :  "  Goddess  Argentine  "  : 
PERICLES,  V,  i,  251). 

Word  used  in  Hall,  CHRON.  HENRY  VIII,  ann.  12. 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  instances  from  Holme, 
T537  ;  Lyte,  1578  ;  and  Holinshed,  1577. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  355 

182.  Determine,    Determinate,    Determination     (CoRio- 
LANUS,  III,  iii,  43  ;  ANTONY,  IV,  iii,  2  ;   RICHARD  II,  I, 
iii,  150,  &c.). 

Dr.  Theobald  finally  quotes  : 

My  determinate  voyage  is  mere  extravagancy. 

Twelfth  Night,  II,  i,  n, 

with  the  comment :  "In  this  line  there  are  three  Latin 
words,  only  intelligible  by  the  help  of  a  Latin  Dictionary." 
As  Mr.  Willis  observes,  all  three  were  common  words. 
"  Mere  "  was  particularly  so.  See  No.  113.  "  Deter 
minate  "  is  in  Chaucer,  FRERE'S  TALE,  1.  161. 

183.  Extravagancy.     A    word    formed    on    ordinary 
lines,  as  ignorancy  (Hooper,  WORKS,    Parker    Soc.    ed. 
pp.  52, 108),  impudency,  temper -ancy  (Hooper,  p.  78),  &c. 

184.  Generosity      ( =  family      pride      or      character, 
CORIOLANUS,  I,  i,  215)  ;   Generous  (M.  FOR  M,   IV,   vi, 

14). 

Generosity  prognate,  and  come  from  youratavite  progenitours. 

Leache,  Letter  to  Throckmorton,  1570. 
[Add  : 

Nobility  began  in  thine  ancestors  and  endeth  in  thee  ;  and  the 
Generosity  that  they  gained  by  virtue  thou  hast  blotted  with 
vice. 

Lilly,  Euphues,  Arber's  rep.  p.  190. 

Like  to  the  eager  but  the  generous  greyhound. 

Jonson,  Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  i,  2. 
The  nobilities  and  armes  of  generositie. 

Feme,  The  Blazon  ofGentrie,  1586,  Ep.  Ded. 
Noblenesse  and  generositie  [of  birth]  hath  this  privilege. 

Id.  p.  81. 

Feme's  title-page  runs  : 

The  Blazon  of  Gentrie  |  divided  into  two  parts  |  The  first 
named  |  The  Glory  of  Generositie  |  &c. 

Compare  : 

Tis  pity  one  so  generously  derived 

Should  be  deprived  his  best  inducements  thus. 

T.  Hey  wood,  Rape  of  Lucrece,  i,  2.] 


356  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

185.  Infortunate    QOHN,    II,    i,    177 ;    2    HENRY  VI, 
IV,  ix,  18) .     Mr.  Willis  refers  to  Richardson's  Dictionary 
for    early    examples.      The    Oxford    Dictionary    gives 
instances    from    Gower,    iii,    375,    and    Hall's    CHRON. 
EDWARD  IV  (1548),  239  b. 

[The  word  occurs  also  in  Roye's  REDE  ME  AND  BE  NOTT 
WROTHE,  1528  ;  Sheet  c  in  Whittingham's  rep.  of  ed. 
1583  ;  and  in  Holinshed  (Boswell- Stone's  SHAKESPEARE'S 
HOLINSHED,  p.  350),  where  probably  Shakespeare  found 
it.  But  it  is  also  found  in  J.  Heywood's  Interlude, 
A  DIALOGUE  ON  WIT  AND  FOLLY,  Percy  Soc.  rep.  p.  20  ; 
and  in  Painter's  PALACE  OF  PLEASURE,  torn,  ii,  nov.  27  ; 
Haslewood's  rep.  p.  447. 

"  Infortune  "  was  also  current.  See  Boswell-St one's 
SHAKESPEARE'S  HOLINSHED,  p.  354.] 

186.  Ingenious  (from  ingenium,  natural  ability  :  LEAR, 
IV,  vi,  286  ;   HAMLET,  V,  i,  269). 

To  be  captious,  virtuous,  ingenious. 

Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  v,  363. 
The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 

Ingenious  wit  of  the  French. 

Hall,  Chron.  Edward  IV.  231. 

Ingenious  =  ingenuous  or  noble. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol. 
[Compare  : 

Curtesie  is  a  free,  spontaneous  and  ingenious  quality. 

Fulbroke,  cited  in  N.  E.  D. 

Mine  own  earnest  and  ingenious  love  of  him  [Homer] . 

Chapman,  pref.  to  trans,  of  Iliad,  1598. 

Most  ingenious  and  inimitable  characters. 

Id.,  Comm.  on  B.  i. 
He  is  of  an  ingenious  and  free  spirit. 

Jonson,  List  of  Characters  to  Every  Man  Out,  1.  i.] 

187.  Lethe  ( JULIUS  CESAR,  III,  i,  205). 

Dr.  Theobald  remarks  that  "  If  lethe  [sic]  represents 
the  Latin  word  letum  or  lethum,  death,  it  is  the  solitary 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  357 

instance  of  such  usage ;  but  Shakespeare  uses  Latin 
so  freely  and  inventively  that  there  is  no  antecedent 
improbability  in  this  interpretation  of  the  word ;  and 
it  is  more  suitable  to  the  context  than  the  sense  of  Lethe 
as  the  river  of  oblivion,  which  is  not  crimson  at  all." 

Neither  reading  is  really  tenable.  Mr.  Willis  quotes 
the  statement  of  Steevens  that  "  Lethe  is  used  by  many 
of  the  old  translators  of  novels  for  death."  But  Steevens' 
one  instance  does  not  prove  this,  since  there  Lethe  = 
oblivion.  "  Lethe  "  =  lethum,  for  death,  would  be  a 
bad  coinage,  and  a  poor  proof  of  scholarship.  The 
passage  is  in  all  likelihood  corrupt.  The  actual  reading 
of  the  Folio  is  "  Lethee."  Some  editors  have  plausibly 
taken  it  as  a  misprint  for  "  death  " — which  in  Tudor 
books  is  often  spelt  "  dethe." 

188.  Office,  Officious  ( =  duty,  serviceable  :  OTHELLO, 
III,  iv.  113  ;  TITUS,  V,  ii,  202). 

[Dr.  Theobald  thoughtfully  notes  that  "  Cicero's 
treatise  on  Ethics  is  entitled  De  Officiis ;  "  but  does  not 
mention  that  that  work  was  translated  into  English 
early  in  the  sixteenth  century  (1533)  by  R.  Whittington, 
under  the  title  THE  THREE  BOKES  OF  TULLIUS  OFFYCE. 
Of  this  the  fourth  edition  appeared  in  1553.  This  or 
another  translation  was  issued  in  1582  under  the  title 
TULLIES  OFFICES  IN  LATIN  AND  ENGLISH,  and  again  in 
1591 ;  Grimalde's  translation,  entitled  MARCUS  TULLIUS 
CICERO,  THREE  BOOKES  OF  DUTIES,  appeared  first  in 
1555,  and  was  reprinted  in  1556,  1558,  and  1574.  Thus 
no  Latin  classic  was  more  widely  known  in  Elizabethan 
England  ;  and  the  classic  force  of  "  office  "  was  familiar 
to  thousands  of  non-academic  readers.  The  word  in  that 
sense  is  really  old,  occurring  in  Chaucer's  PARLEMENT  OF 
FOULES,  1.  236.  Elyot,  unaware  of  this,  wrote  in  1531 
that  for  the  DE  OFFICIIS  "  yet  is  no  propre  englisshe 
word  to  be  given  "  (GOVERNOUR,  i,  n),  and  suggested 
"  dueties  and  maners."  But  Whittington's  translation 


358  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

of  1533  would  make  current  both  the  word  and  the 
meaning. 

It  is  a  normal  term  : 

In  your  Majestic  hath  been  orderly  fulfilled  all  lawes  and 
offices  of  a  devout  Neutrality. 

Ep.  Ded.  to  Fenton's  trans,  of  Guicciardini,  1579 ; 

and  the  theologians  used  it  regularly.     E.g.  : 

It  is  the  office  of  a  Christian  to  know  what  God  can  do  by  the 
word  of  God. 

Hooper,  Answer  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  Parker 
Soc.  rep.  p.  168. 

The  prelate,  the  preacher,  hath  many  diverse  offices  to  do. 

Latimer,  Sermon  of  the  Plough.} 

For  instances  of  all  the  various  meanings  of  the 
word  and  its  derivatives,  see  the  Oxford  Dictionary. 
"  Officious  "  in  the  sense  of  "  serviceable  "  was  common  : 
that  was  in  fact  the  usual  meaning  of  the  word  : 

Shew  thyself  officious  and  serviceable  still. 

Marriage  of  Wit  and  Science,  Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  ii,  339. 

[Add: 

They  make  three  sorts  of  lies,  jocosum,  perniciosum,  officiosum, 
"  jesting  lies,"  "  pernicious,"  and  "  officious  "  [  —  friendly  or 
serviceable]. 

Hutchinson,    The   Image  of  God  :    Works,   Parker 

Soc.  rep.  p.  51. 

(Hutchinson  has  "  office  "  =  "  duty,"  on  p.  332.) 
Assist  me  to  make  good  the  door  with  your  officious  tyranny. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  v,  2. 

Officiously  ( =  helpfully)  insinuate  themselves  into  thy 
presence. 

Id.  v,  3. 
Not  altogether  indutiful,  though  not  precisely  officious. 

Spenser,  Ep.  Ded.  to  Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Again.] 

189.  Periapts  (from  Gr.  TrepiaTrrov,  amulet :  i  HENRY 

VI,  V,  iii,  2). 

This  is  from  a  non-Shakespearean  play.  But  the  word 
is  used  in  Reginald  Scot's  Disco VERIE  OF  WITCHCRAFT, 
1584,  p.  230,  &c.  :  Nicholson's  rep.  pp.  185-188. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  359 

190.  Replete  (L.  L.  L.,  V,  ii,  853  ;   Sonnet  113). 
A  very  common    word,  from  Chaucer  onwards.     See 
examples  in  Richardson's  Dictionary,  and  : 

I  am  replete  with  joy  and  felicity. 

Calisto    and    Melebea,    Hazlitt's    Dodsley,    i,    87  ; 
Malone  Soc.  rep.  1.  945. 

My  heart  with  blasphemy  and  cursing  is  replete. 

A  Woman  is  a  Weathercock,  Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  xi,  13. 
[Add: 

I  am  the  prophete  called  Isaye, 
Replett  with  Godys  grett  influens. 
Coventry  Mysteries  :    VII,   The  Prophets,  Sh.  Soc. 
ed.  p.  65. 

Replete  with  yre. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528. 

Replete  with  mischievous  vengeance. 

Id. 
With  replete  spirit  went  I  to  my  bed. 

Hoccleve,  La  Male  Regie  de  T.  Hoccleve,  1.  315. 

A  man 
With  all  good  so  replete. 

A  Woman  is  a  Weathercock,  i,  I . 

His  wordes  are  demure,  replete  with  wholsom  blessynges. 

Bale's  Interlude,  John  the  Baptist,  1538.     Rep.  in 
Harl.  Misc.,  ed.  1808,  i,  209. 

The  earth  was  replete  with  iniquity. 

Latimer,  Last  Sermon  before  Edward  VI. 

With  holy,  humble  and  chaste  thoughts  replete. 

Chapman,  The  Amorous  Zodiac,  1595,  st.  17. 

Replete  with  men,  stored  with  munition. 

Locrine,  ii,  3. 

So  replete  with  the  inconstant  behaviour  and  manifest  vices  of 
Englishmen. 

Macduff's  speech  in  Holinshed  :    Boswell-Stone's 

Sh.  Holinshed,  p.  41. 
And  where  repleat  with  virgins  I  erect  thy  temples  may. 

Higgins'  add.  to  Mirrour  for  Magistrates,   1575. 

Rep.  of  1 8 10,  p.  79. 
And  every  way  replete  with  doubtful  fear. 

Hey  wood,  i  Edward  IV,  v,  i. 


360  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Repleth  by  all  experience. 
Chester  Plays  :  The  Fall  of  Lucifer,  Sh.  Soc.  rep.  p.  15. 

That  am  repleath  with  heavenlye  grace. 

Id.  ib.] 

191.  Seen  ("  well  seen  "  :   SHREW,  I,  ii,  133). 

Dr.  Theobald  gravely  records  that  "  Bacon  often  uses 
the  word  in  this  way,"  and,  finding  it  also  twice  in 
Marlowe  (FAusxus,  i,  137  ;  MASSACRE  OF  PARIS,  i,  8) 
is  the  more  convinced  that  Bacon  wrote  both  Shake 
speare  and  Marlowe  !  It  is  simply  a  common  Eliza 
bethan  idiom  : 

Though  they  be  seen  in  Greek,  Hebrew,  and  Latin. 

Tyndale,  Expos,  of  Matthew,   1531  ;    Parker  Soc. 
rep.  p.  13. 

Sir,  you  seem  well  seen  in  women's  causes. 

The  Four  P's  (1520)  ;  Hazlitt's  Dodsley,  i,  381. 
[Add: 

Fell  to  discourse,  as  one  well  seen  in  philosophy. 

Greene,  Menaphon  (1589),  Arber's  rep.,  p.  58. 

Those  that  are  better  seen  in  the  tongues  than  I. 

Tyndale,  Prol.  to  trans,  of  New  Testament. 

Well  experienced  and  seen  in  the  knowledge  of  many  countries. 
Robinson's  trans,  of  More's  Utopia,  Dent's  rep. 
p.  83. 

This  monke,  monke-like,  in  Scriptures  well  scene. 

Proemium  of  1600  to  the  Chester  Plays. 

Not  so  well  seen  in  the  English  tongue  as  perhaps  in  other 
languages. 

E.  King's  Epistle  pref.  to  Spenser's  Shepheard's 
Calender,  Globe  ed.,  p.  442. 

Weening  it  perhaps  no  decorum  that  shepherds  should  be  seen 
in  matter  of  so  deep  insight. 

Id.  General  Argument,  p.  445. 
He,  well  seen  in  the  world,  advised. 

Chapman,  tr.  of  Iliad,  i,  251. 

A  man  not  seen  in  deeds  of  arms. 

Id.  B.  v. 
But  I  that  am  in  speculation  seen. 

Greene,  James  the  Fourth,  v,  5. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  361 

He's  affable,  and  seen  in  many  things 

Heywood,  A  Woman  Killed  with  Kindness,  ii,  i. 
Finding  myself  unfurnished  of  learning  and  barely  seen  in  the 
arts  liberal. 

Churchyard's  Spark  of  Friendship,   1588,  in  Harl. 

Misc.,  1909,  ii,  in. 
In  sondry  sciences  he  is  sene. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528  (Rep.  p.  40). 
Good  wits  seen  and  studied  in  all  sciences. 

Fenton's  trans,  of  Guicciardini,  1579,  p.  2.] 


There  is  appended  to  Judge  Willis's  "  Addenda  "  a 
list  of  fourteen  of  the  words  founded  on  by  Dr  .Theobald, 
of  which  he  has  not  been  able  to  find  instances  before 
Shakespeare.  They  are :  Incarnadine,  Cadent,  Can- 
didatus,  Circum-mure,  Confix,  Ex-sufHicate,  Fracted, 
Intrinse,  Maculate,  Questant,  Questrists,  Sequent,  Sup- 
pliance,  Unseminar'd ;  and  he  adds  a  further  list  of  four 
"  used  in  an  unusual  sense,"  which  he  has  not  met  with 
in  Bacon.  These  are  : 

"  Factious,  meaning  busying  oneself  :  active. 

Name  „       Debt. 

Pernicious       „       Much  striving. 

Plague  7,       Snare." 

These  have  now  to  be  reckoned  with. 

192.  Incarnadine.  Dr.  Theobald's  position  in  regard 
to  this  word  is  remarkable.  Mr.  Willis,  unable  to  trace 
it  outside  of  Shakespeare,  stated  that  it  is  the  only  word 
in  the  Folio  "  which  cannot  be  found  elsewhere,  and 
unconnected  with  another  word."  After  the  publica 
tion  of  Mr.  Willis's  book,  Dr.  Theobald  learned  from 
Mr.  Stronach,  who  had  gone  to  the  Oxford  Dictionary, 
that  "  as  an  adjective  it  is  found  in  Sylvester  (1591)," 
and  in  a  number  of  other  writers  after  Shakespeare. 
Whereupon  Dr.  Theobald,  in  his  preface  of  1904,  com 
ments  :  "  Yet  Mr.  Willis  gravely  informs  us  that  it  is 
the  only  word  which  cannot  be  found  elsewhere."  Mr, 


362  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Willis  of  course  meant  "  before  Shakespeare,"  later 
instances  having  no  bearing  on  the  problem.  And  now 
Dr.  Theobald,  whose  own  case  is  destroyed  by  the  cita 
tion  from  Sylvester,  without  a  word  of  admission  or 
apology,  assumes  to  exult  over  Mr.  Willis's  failure  to 
discover  the  Sylvester  passage,  and  proceeds  to  impute 
to  him  an  assertion  that  no  candid  reader  would.  Finally 
Dr.  Theobald  announces :  "I  have  no  intention  of 
discussing  these  words  in  detail  "  ;  yet  he  leaves  the 
"  incarnadine "  to  pose  as  a  Baconian  "  classical " 
coinage  in  his  text. 

As  the  commentators  noted  long  ago,  the  word  is 
simply  an  Anglicising  of  the  Italian  word  incarnatino — 
a  thing  very  likely  to  be  done  in  that  age  apart  from 
literature.  As  Steevens  pointed  out,  "  carnadine  is  the 
old  term  for  carnation  "  : 

Grograms,  satins,  velvets  fine, 
The  rosy-colour 'd  carnadine. 

Anything  for  a  Quiet  Life. 

There  is  no  classical  coinage  in  the  case.  At  most 
Shakespeare  may  have  made  a  verb  out  of  an  adjective. 

193.  Cadent  (  =  falling  :    "  cadent  tears,"  LEAR,  I,  iv; 

307). 

Mr.  Willis  had  forgotten  to  consult  the  Oxford  Dic 
tionary,  which  cites  : 

If  the  part  of  fortune  be  cadent  from  the  Ascendant. 
Lupton's  Thousand  Notable  Things,  1586  (Ed.  1675,  p.  201). 

It  appears  to  have  been  a  term  in  astrology,  like  "  retro 
grade." 

194.  Candidatus   (Tixus    i;    i).     A    Latin  word,    un- 
adapted,  pedantically  used  in  a  non-Shakespearean  play. 
[By  Peele  :    see  the  author's  DID  SHAKESPEARE  WRITE 
'  TITUS  ANDRONICUS  '  ?] 

Shakespeare  did  not  know  the  Roman  usage.  See 
above,  p.  192, 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  363 

195.  Circummure  (MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE,  IV,  i,  28). 

Likely  to  be  a  word  of  Greene's,  who  has  "  counter- 
mure  "  in  EUPHUES  HIS  CENSURE  TO  PHILAUTUS  :  Works, 
vi,  218. 

196.  Confixed  (MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE,  V,  i,  232). 

A  bad  coinage,  if  not  a  corruption.  It  may  or  may 
not  be  Shakespeare's  :  it  has  not  survived.  Chapman 
has  "  infixed." 

197.  Ex-sufflicate  (OTHELLO,  III,  iii,  182). 

No  other  author  has  yet  been  cited  for  this  word. 
It  may  stand  for  what  it  is  worth  !  It  is  certainly  not 
"  classic." 

198.  Fracted  (HENRY  V,  II,  i,  130  ;  TIMON,  II,  i,  22). 
The  fact  that  in  his  first  use  of  the  word  the  dramatist 

puts  it  in  the  mouth  of  Pistol  ("  his  heart  is  fracted  and 
corroborate ")  might  have  suggested  to  Dr.  Theobald 
that  it  could  not  have  been  a  classical  neologism.  Why 
not  cite  "  corroborate "  to  the  same  purpose  ?  The 
serious  use  of  "  fracted  "  in  TIMON  was  no  innovation. 
The  word  occurs  in  Boorde's  BREVIARY  OF  HEALTH 
(1547),  §  321,  cited  in  N.  E.  D.  Boorde  also  has  "  fract." 

199.  Intrinse.     See  above,  No.  in. 

200.  Maculate :    Maculation     (L.    L.    L.     I,     ii,     96 ; 
TRIOLUS,  IV,  iv,  66). 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  "  maculated "  from 
Higden  and  from  Caxton's  GODFREY  and  ENEYDOS. 
In  the  latter  also  occurs  : 

Maculate  and  full  of  filth. 
Again  in  Barclay's  SHIP  OF  FOOLS  (1509)  we  have  : 

With  vices  maculate. 

Ed.  1570,  p.  144. 

Other  instances  occur  between  1509  and  1586. 
[Elyot  has  the  verb  "  maculate  "  ;  THE  GOVERNOUR, 
B.  i,  c.  26,    So  has  Henryson,  TESTAMENT  OF  CRESSEID, 


364  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

1.  81 ;  so  has  Northbrooke,  AGAINST  DICING,  DANCING, 
&c.  1577  :  Sh.  Soc.  rep.  p.  131 ;  so  has  Marston,  SATIRES, 
iii.  Maculation  occurs  at  least  twice  in  the  COVENTRY 
MYSTERIES  (c.  1450)  :  Sh.  Soc.  ed.  pp.  142,  193.] 

201.  Questant  and  Questrists.     See  above,  p.  339. 

It  is  possible  that  these  are  but  variants,  in  all  likeli 
hood  used  in  common  speech,  of  the  old  word  "  quest- 
monger,"  found  in  PIERS  PLOWMAN  and  repeatedly  used 
by  Bale  in  THE  FIRST  EXAMINATION  OF  ANNE  ASKEWE 
(Index  and  text :  Parker  Soc.  rep.  pp.  146,  149,  151), 
and  by  Latimer  (FOURTH  SERMON  ON  THE  LORD'S 
PRAYER).  It  is  applied  by  Bale  to  the  members  of  the 
"wicked  quest"  (p.  167)  or  jury.  But  "quest"  had 
other  meanings,  as  in  the  MORTE  DARTHUR  and  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  "  seeking  for,"  and  on  that  basis  too 
there  would  be  developments. 

202.  Sequent    ( =  successive  :     OTHELLO,    I,    ii,    40 ; 
=  a  follower  :  L.  L.  L.  IV,  ii,  142). 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  gives  : 

Their  words  fall  in,  one  after  the  other,  like  sequents. 

Blount,  HOY  a  Subseciva  (1620),  49. 
And  scho  in  hand  ane  letter  had,  quhairon 
Hir  charge  scho  red,  qhais  tennour  is  sequent. 

Holland,  Court  of  Venus,  1560,  1.  810. 

The  word  comes  through  the  French,  and  is  given  by 
Cotgrave.  "  Sequence  "  is  old. 

203.  Suppliance. 

Found  in  Chapman's  trans,  of  the  ILIAD,  ix. 

204.  Unseminar'ed  (ANTONY,  I,  v,  10). 

An  analogue  to  "  unschooled,"  in  the  common  taste 
of  the  time.  There  is  no  such  Latin  word.  But  Nashe 
has  "  seminariz'd  "  (CHRISTS  TEARES  :  Works,  ii,  60). 

205.  Factious    (=  active:  RICHARD   III,    I,   iii,   127; 
JULIUS  C^SAR,  I,  iii,  118). 

It  is  not  clear  why  Judge  Willis  should  have  felt  any 
difficulty  in  this  case  :  the  word  is  used  in  a  quite  obvious 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  365 

sense,  "  active  for  a  faction''    In  the  sense  of  "  trouble- 
making  "  we  have  Chapman's 

No  need  have  we  of  factious  Day 
To  cast,  in  envy  of  thy  peace, 
Her  falls  of  discord  in  thy  way. 
Fifth  Sestiad  of  Hero  and  Leander  :  Epithalamion  Teratos  ; 

and  Jonson's 

Instruct 
Others  as  factious  to  the  like  offence. 

Sejanus,  iii,  i. 

206.  Name  (As  You  LIKE  IT,  II,  v,  21 ;   COMEDY  OF 
ERRORS,  III,  i,  44).     Alleged  by  Dr.  Theobald  to  stand 
for  nomen  =  debt. 

There  is  nothing  "  classic  "  in  the  matter.  "  Name  " 
in  these  passages  does  not  and  could  not  mean  "  debt." 
In  the  first  cited,  the  meaning  simply  is  that  the  speaker 
takes  no  note  of  the  names,  as  a  trader  would  not  enter 
on  his  books  names  of  non-debtors ;  in  the  second  there 
is  no  shadow  of  ground  for  suggesting  any  connec 
tion  with  nomen  —  a  bond.  Judge  Willis  was  merely 
mystified. 

207.  Pernicious    (L.    L.    L.,  IV,   i,   66 ;    MUCH  ADO, 

I,  i,  130)- 

See  above,  No.  127.  Dr.  Theobald's  definition  will 
not  stand. 

208.  Plague  (  =  snare  ?  LEAR,  I,  ii,  2). 

In  putting  down  this  word  as  a  classical  innovation, 
Dr.  Theobald  avows  his  knowledge  that  the  Clarendon 
ed.  connects  it  with  the  Prayer  Book  version  of  Psalm 
xxxviii,  17:  "And  I,  truly,  am  set  in  the  plague," 
which  follows  Jerome's  Latin,  Quia  ego  ad  plagam  paratus 
sum.  Yet  he  claims  that  "  It  is  a  curious  passage,  and 
cannot  well  be  explained  without  going  outside  the 
vernacular  sense  of  the  word."  Then  what  is  the  sense 
of  the  word  in  the  Prayer  Book  ?  If  that  were  not  a 
current  phrase,  how  could  any  dramatist  have  ventured 


366  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

to  use  "  plague  "  in  the  sense  of  "  snare  "  and  count  on 
being  understood  ? 

Again  and  again  has  Dr.  Theobald  thus  inserted  in 
his  list  words  which  even  he,  by  some  chance,  has  dis 
covered  to  be  current  English  before  Shakespeare's  day. 

There  remain  to  be  noted  a  few  words  in  Dr.  Theobald's 
list  which  Mr.  Willis  has  overlooked. 

209.  Act  ("act  of  fear"  =  action:  HAMLET,  I,  ii, 
205  ;  HENRY  V,  I,  ii,  188  ;  OTHELLO,  II,  i,  229  ;  III, 
iii,  326). 

Dr.  Theobald  observes  that  this  is  "a  sense  which, 
though  rather  medieval  than  classic,  is  found  in  Bacon's 
Latin."  It  must  be  common  in  the  Latin  of  a  great 
many  other  men  of  that  time !  In  English,  act  = 
action  is  of  old  standing.  The  Oxford  Dictionary  cites 
Fabyan's  Chronicle,  1494,  vii,  579  ;  and  Drayton's 

Wise  in  Conceit,  in  Act  a  very  sot. 

Idea,  860. 

The  phrases  "  in  act  to  "  and  "caught  in  the  act"  are 
idiomatic.  "  Action  "  in  Shakespeare's  day  was  applied, 
among  other  things,  to  the  acting  of  a  play.  See 
Webster's  pref.  to  his  WHITE  DEVIL.  But  the  alleged 
"  classical  "  sense  of  "  act  "  comes  out  clearly  here  : 

There  is  in  it  [the  soul]  a  nature  and  abilitie  of  working,  and  as 
it  were  a  mere  act,  whereby  it  liveth  and  giveth  life. 

Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay  on  The 
Trewnesse  of  Christian  Religion,  1587,  ed.  1604,  p.  62. 

Compare  : 

That  .  .  .  they  be  induced  unto  the  continual  act. 

Elyot,  Governour,  B.  iii,  c.  23. 
His  limbs  so  set 

As  if  they  had  some  voluntary  act, 
Without  man's  motion. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  1601,  iii,  2. 

True  learning's  act 
And  special  object  is  ... 
Chapman,  Shepherd's  ed.  of  Minor  Poems,  p.  158. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  367 

Preparing  or  going  about  these  .  .  .  not  in  present  act  with 
them. 

Id.     Comm.  on  B.  iii  of  trans,  of  Iliad. 

Retention  and  ejection  in  her  powers 
Being  acts  alike. 

Id.     Third  Sestiad  of  Hero  and  Leander,  1598. 

210.  Consequence    (HAMLET,    II,    i,    44 ;     MACBETH, 
I,  iii,  124  ;   vii,  2). 

"The  classic  sense,"  says  Dr.  Theobald,  "gives  depth, 
richness,  and  fulness  to  the  meaning."  There  are  many 
classic  senses,  and  they  are  all  implicit  in  English  usage. 
The  logical  sense  occurs  in  Chaucer's  BOECE. 

211.  Fortitude     (strength     of     a     place :      OTHELLO, 
I,  iii,  222). 

This  is  certainly  not  a  common  usage ;  but  it  is  pre- 
cedented  in  the  non-Shakespearian  i  HENRY  VI  (II,  i, 

i7): 

Despairing  of  his  own  arm's  fortitude  ; 

and  in  Eden's  TREATISE  OF  THE  NEWE  INDIA  (1553  : 
Arber's  rep.  p.  15)  where  there  is  praise  of  the  "  forti 
tude  and  strength  "  of  the  elephant.  For  this  there  is 
"  classic  "  precedent  :  for  applying  the  word  to  a  fortress 
there  is  not.  But  Latimer  translates  the  vulgate  fortitude* 
by  "  strength." 

212.  Fraction    (TiMON,  II,  ii,  220  ;    TROILUS,    II,   iii, 
107  ;  V,  ii,  158). 

Common  :  see  the  Oxford  Dictionary  for  instances. 

213.  Gentle,   Gentility  (of   birth  :    CYMBELINE,  IV,  ii; 
39  ;  As  You  LIKE  IT,  I,  i,  21). 

Mr.  Willis  might  well  pass  over  words  so  absolutely 
common  as  these.  "  Gentles  "  was  a  customary  form 
of  stage  address,  and  variants  of  the  word  meet  us  every 
where,  from  Chaucer  onwards  : 

To  make  a  blaze  of  gentry  to  the  world. 
Nor  stand  so  much  on  your  gentility. 

Jonson,  Every  Man  -in  his  Humour,  i,  i . 


368  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Good  steps  to  gentility  too,  marry. 

Jonson,  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  v,  i . 
If  thou  claim  gentry  by  pedigree,  practise  gentleness  by  thine 
honesty. 

Lilly,  Euphues,  Arber's  rep.  p.  190. 
("  Gentleman  "  occurs  six  times  on  the  next  page.) 
Art  thou  a  gentle  ?  live  with  gentle  friends. 

Gascoigne,  The  Steele  Glas,  1576. 

But  we  waste  time  on  such  a  demonstration. 

214.  Influence  (HAMLET,  I,  i,  118 ;  TEMPEST,  I,  ii, 
181 ;  Sonnet  78). 

Says  Dr.  Theobald  :  "In  the  exact  sense  required  by 
its  Latin  derivation  this  word  is  used,  in  an  astrological 
sense,  to  express  the  stream  of  power  that  flows  from 
stars  or  planets."  Quite  so — only  the  idea  goes  further 
than  stars  or  planets.  And  it  was  absolutely  universal 
in  Tudor  times  and  long  before.  It  is  astonishing  that 
even  Dr.  Theobald  should  ignore  the  text :  "  Canst 
thou  bind  the  sweet  influences  of  Pleiades  ?  "  in  the 
Authorised  Version  (Job,  xxxviii,  31),  which  here  follows 
the  Geneva  Bible  of  1560.  See  the  Oxford  Dictionary 
for  the  history  of  the  word.  It  occurs  in  Lydgate's 
"  sixteen  staves  of  metre  royal  "  composed  for  a  London 
"  maying  "  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VI : 

Mightie  Flora  .  .  . 

Made  buddes  springen,  with  her  sweete  showres, 
By  the  influence  of  the  sunneshine. 
Quoted  by  Stow,  Survey  of  London,  Morley's  rep.  p.  124. 

in  the  old  Interlude  entitled  NATURE  (c.  1490)  : 

There  is  in  earth  no  manner  thing 

That  is  not  partner  of  my  [Nature's]  influence. 

Farmer's  Lost  Tudor  Plays,  p.  44. 

And  in  Francis  Thynne's  DEBATE  BETWEEN  PRIDE 
AND  LOWLINESS  (c.  1570)  : 

Where  but  he  [the  husbandman]  mark  the  heavens'  influence, 
Instead  of  corn  oft  shall  he  gather  dust. 

Shakespeare  Society's  rep.  p.  55. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  369 

Compare  the  line  above  cited  (under  Replete)  from  the 
COVENTRY  MYSTERIES,  and  : 

Who  addeth  to  the  sun 
Influence  and  lustre. 

Jonson,  Poetaster,  v.  i.     (Again  in  same  scene.) 
And  Jove,  the  Sun,  and  Mercury  denied 
To  shed  their  influence  in  his  fickle  brain. 

Marlowe,  i  Tamb.  i,  i. 

Should  .  .  .  the    earth    be    defeated    of    heavenly    [physical] 
influence. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.  B.  i,  ch.  iii,  §3  (1594). 
The  starres,  their  influence,  quantities,  consents. 

Histrio-Mastix,  I,  i,  37. 

If  heavens  had  vowed,  if  stars  had  made  decree, 
To  show  on  me  their  fro  ward  influence. 
Greene,  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay  :  Ed.  Dyce,  p.  171. 
What  churlish  influence  deprives  her  mind  ? 

Lilly,  Woman  in  the  Moon,  i,  i. 
I  [Jupiter]  will  inforce  my  influence  to  the  worst, 
Lest  other  planets  blame  my  regiment. 

Id.  ib.  ii,  i. 

Here,  Venus,  sit,  and  with  thy  influence 
Govern  Pandora. 

Id.  ib.  iii,  2. 
Now  other  planets'  influence  is  done. 

Id.  ib.  v,  i. 

Let  fall  a  wreath  of  stars  upon  my  head 
Whose  influence  may  govern  Israel. 

Peele,  David  and  Bethsabe,  iii,  5. 
Which  bodies  lend  their  influence  by  fire. 

Id.  iv,  2. 

Fall  stars  that  govern  his  nativity, 
And  summon  all  the  shining  lamps  of  heaven 
To  .  .  .  shed  their  feeble  influence  in  the  air. 

Marlowe,  2  Tamb.  v,  3. 
This  celestial  influence 
That  governeth  and  guides  our  days. 
Kyd's  trans,  of  Garnier's  Cornelia,    1594,  Chorus   at 

end  of  Act  ii. 
Heaven's  influence  was  ne'er  so  constant  yet. 

Id.  Act  ii. 

Blest  be  heaven,  and  guider  of  the  heavens 
From  whose  fair  influence  such  justice  flows. 

Id.  Spanish  Tragedy,  i,  2. 
2A 


370  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Yes,  heavens  are  just,  but  thou  art  so  corrupt 
That  in  thee  all  their  influence  doth  change. 

Id.  Soliman  and  Persada,  ii,  i. 

By  theyr  influens  and  constellacyons 

They  cause  here  corruptions  and  generacyons. 

Cornish  or  Heywood,  The  Four  Elements,  Percy 
Soc.  rep.  p.  8. 

Of  the  sterris  and  pianettes,  by  whose  influence 
The  see  is  compellyd  to  ebbe  and  flowe  dayly. 

Id.  p.  i i. 
Celestial  influence  preordinate  by  providence  divine. 

Elyot,  Governour,  B.  ii,  12  ;  Dent's  rep.  p.  171. 

215.  Mirable  (TnoiLus,  IV,  v,  142). 

The  word  occurs  in  the  COVENTRY  MYSTERIES  (c.  1450)  : 

A  !  myrable  God,  meche  is  thy  myth. 

Assumption  of  the  Virgin,  Sh.  Soc.  ed,  p.  389. 

which  the  Stratford  actor  may  well  have  seen  played  in 
his  youth.  The  N.  E.  D.  also  gives  an  instance  from  the 
MIROUR  OF  SALVACIOUN,  1450  ;  and  cites  the  forms 
mirabilists  (1599)  and  mimbiliaries  (1600).  Bacon  has 
mirabilaries  (1605). 

216.  Mure,    Mural    ( =  Wall :    2    HENRY    IV,  IV,  iv, 
118  ;   M.  N.  D.  v,  i,  209). 

The  Variorum  ed.  gives  : 

A  long  mure  of  ice. 
D.  Settle's  Last  Voyage  of  Captain  Frobishev,  1577. 

The  Oxford  Dictionary  adds  instances  from  Caxton, 
1471 ;  and  Leland,  1552  ;  and  instances  of  the  verb 
"  to  mure"  from  Maundey,  1440;  Fabyan's  Chronicle, 
1494  ;  and  Hawes,  1503.  In  the  sense  of  "  to  block  up  " 
again,  we  have  instances  from  Barbour,  1375  ;  Berners' 
Froissart,  1523  ;  and  Muleaster,  1581.  Compare  Spenser, 
F.  Q.  VI,  xii,  34. 

217.  Naso. 

A  pun  possible  to  any  schoolboy. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  371 

218.  Plausibly  (=  applausively  :   LUCRECE,  1.  1854). 
The   ordinary   meaning    of   the  word  in  Elizabethan 
usage  : 

Every  one  received  him  plausibly,  and  with  great  submission 
and  reverence. 

Stubbes,  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  1583.     Collier's  rep.  p.  48. 

Greene  uses  "  plausible  "  with  this  force  always  : 

Smiling  at  my  labours  with  a  plausible  silence. 

Ded.  to  The  Spanish  Masquerade,   1589:    Works,  v,  241. 

Would  deliver  up  a  hundred  verses,  though  never  a  one  plausible. 
Ded.  to  Menaphon  :    Works,  vi,  7. 

Having  ended  his  tale  with  a  plausible  silence  of  both  parts. 
Euphues  his  Censure  to  Philantus  :   Works,  vi,  199. 

Compare  : 

Affirming  that  I  deserved  a  laurel  garland,  with  sundry  other 
plausible  speeches  not  here  to  be  rehearsed. 

Gascoigne,  Ep.  ded.  to  The  Droomme  of  Doomesday,  1576. 

So  much  the  more  plausible  to  those  princes,  by  how  much  they 
were  convenient  for  their  service. 

Fenton's  trans,  of  Guicciardini,  1579,  p.  235. 

A  plausible  [=  laudable]  and  vertuous  conversation. 
Puttenham,  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  1589,  Arber's  rep.  p.  25. 

The  dactil  is  ...  most  plausible  of  all  when  he  is  founded  upon 
the  stage.  Id.  p.  139. 

Somewhat  sour  and  of  no  plausible  [=  commendatory]  utter 
ance.  Id.  p.  153. 

Old  men  .  .  .  speak  most  gravely,  wisely,  assuredly,  and 
plausibly.  Id.  p.  154. 

A  condition  so  happy,  plausible,  and  well  governed. 

Fenton's  trans,  of  Guicciardini,  1579,  p.  2. 

The  souls  of  such  as  lived  implausible. 

Chapman,  Hymnus  in  Cynthiam,  1594. 

With  the  like  plausible  alacritie  received. 

Stubbes,  as  cited,  p.  vi. 
So  excellent  and  plausible  in  the  sight  of  ... 

Painter,  Palace  of  Pleasure,  torn,  ii,  nov.  26  ;  Rep.  p.  395. 

Think  it  plausible  to  answer  me  by  silent  gestures. 

Jonson,  The  Silent  Woman,  ii,  3. 


372  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

219.  Remotion    (  —  removal:     LEAR,    II,    iv,    115; 
TIMON,  IV,  iii,  345). 

An  old  word.  Lydgate  has  it  in  the  sense  of  remote 
ness  (CHRON.  TROY,  ii,  xx,  ed.  1555).  The  Oxford 
Dictionary  further  shows  it  in  official  use  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  and  thereafter,  in  the  sense  of  removal  : 

For  the  remotion  of  such  ydelness  and  the  preferment  of  labour 

1449.     Rolls  of  Parliament,  v,  167/1,  Cp.  561/2  :  1464. 
The  remotion  of  the  monks. 

State  Papers  Henry  VIII,  i,  540. 
Remocion  of  the  faute. 

L.  Cox,  Rhetorike,  c.  1530  (ed.  1899,  p.  22). 
Negatives  or  Remotions. 

Sidney  and  Gelding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay. 
Add: 

Set  in  absolute  remotion  [  =  remoteness] . 

Chapman,  Hymnus  in  Cynthiam,  1594. 
I  dreamt  Mercy  was  hanged  :  this  was  my  vision 
And  that  to  you  three  I  would  have  recourse  and  remotion. 

Mankind,  c.  1475  (Farmer's  Lost  Tudor  Plays,  p.  29). 

220.  Roscius  (3  HENRY  VI,  V,  vi,  10  ;  HAMLET,  II, 
ii,  410). 

Mr.  Theobald  gravely  comments  :  "  Roscius  :  equiva 
lent  to  an  Actor.  A  skilful  personator  or  hypocrite  is 
called  a  Roscius.  This  was  a  classic  usage." 

It  was  a  usage  made  known  in  England  at  least  by 
Camden,  who  spoke  of  Burbage  as  Roscius  alter.  Dr. 
Theobald  either  does  or  does  not  mean  to  imply  that 
the  name  and  its  generic  significance  were  not  likely  to 
be  known  to  all  Elizabethan  actors.  If  he  does  not,  his 
citation  is  the  worst  waste  of  time  in  his  entire  enterprise. 
If  he  does,  it  may  suffice  to  say  that  tag  references  to 
Roscius  abound  in  Elizabethan  literature,  dramatic  and 
other.  E.g. : 

Stately  tragedies, 

Strange  comic  shows,  such  as  proud  Roscius 
Vaunted  before  the  Roman  emperors. 

Greene's  Friar  Bacon,  sc.  6  ;  ed.  Dyce  p.  163. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  373 

Not  Roscius  nor  Aesope,  those  admired  tragedians,  that  have 
lived  ever  since  before  Christ  was  born,  could  ever  perform  more 
in  action  than  famous  Ned  Allen. 

Nashe,  Pierce  Pennilesse's  Supplication  to  the  Divell, 
1592.     Works,  ed.  McKerrow. 

Greene  in  NEVER  TOO  LATE,  1590,  makes  Roscius  the 
representative  actor.  Lodge  in  his  DEFENCE  OF  STAGE 
PLAYS,  1580,  writes  that  "  when  Rossius  was  an  actor," 
the  "  Musitian  in  the  Theater  "  played  before  his  entrance ; 
and  again  :  "  Surely  we  want  not  a  Rossius,  neither  are 
their  great  scarcity  of  Terence's  profession  "  (Shake 
speare  Society  Papers,  vol.  ii,  1845,  p.  162).  Gosson  in 
his  SCHOOL  OF  ABUSE,  to  which  Lodge's  tract  was  a  reply, 
had  spoken  of  "  the  cunning  of  Roscius  himself  "  (Sh. 
Soc.  rep.  p.  30).  Northbrooke  in  his  TREATISE  AGAINST 
DICING,  DANCING,  &c.,  (1577)  makes  one  of  his  inter 
locutors  tell  of  Roscius,  of  Cicero's  praise  of  him,  and  of 
his  rewards  (Sh.  Soc.  rep.  p.  84).  No  theatrical 
allusion  could  have  been  more  familiar. 

221.  Salve  (L.  L.  L.  Ill,  i,  71-83). 
A  trivial  pun  ! 

222.  Stuprum  (Lat.— TITUS,  IV,  i,  18). 

Like  candidates,  a  Latin  word,  unadapted,  pedantically 
introduced,  in  a  non-Shakespearean  play.  One  might 
say  that  this  is  exactly  the  kind  of  thing  that  Shakespeare 
would  not  do.  But  even  this  would  be  no  proof  of 
"  scholarship."  In  Latimer's  Third  Sermon  before 
Edward  VI  we  have  the  Vulgate  quotation,  Auditor 
inter  vos  stuprum,  with  the  translation. 

223.  Unsisting    ("  unsisting    postern":     M.    FOR   M., 
IV,  ii,  91). 

Dr.  Theobald  comments  :  "  Latin  sisto,  stand  still  : 
with  negative  prefix  ;  unsisting  therefore  means,  never 
at  rest," — here  following  Blackstone.  On  any  possible 
interpretation,  the  word  as  it  stands  is  an  utterly  un- 
defensible  coinage.  No  one  knows  what  it  means. 


374  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Johnson  thought  the  intention  might  be  "  unfeeling," 
which  is  alien  to  the  etymology.  The  earlier  editors 
substituted  "  unresisting,"  which  spoiled  the  scansion. 
Hamner  tried  "  unresting "  ;  and  Steevens  suggested 
"  unlist'ning "  or  "  unshifting."  So  much  for  the 
alleged  influence  of  classical  scholarship  on  the  drama 
tist's  diction  !  The  thesis  ends,  as  it  began,  in  utter 
futility. 

With  this  item  we  fitly  close  our  examination  of  Dr. 
Theobald's  compilation  of  two  hundred  and  more  l 
words  alleged  to  prove  the  scholarly  knowledge  and 
practice  of  the  writer  of  the  plays.  I  see  no  reason  why 
it  should  not  have  run  to  two  thousand,  with  neither 
more  nor  less  futility  :  the  list 

Might,  ods-bobs,  sir  !  in  judicious  hands, 
Extend  from  here  to  Mesopotamy. 

The  patient  reader  who  has  taken  the  trouble  to  follow 
the  examination  can  pronounce  for  himself  on  the  result. 
Cited  to  prove  the  dramatist's  classical  knowledge,  the 
two  hundred  words  prove  only  Dr.  Theobald's  contented 
ignorance  of  Elizabethan  English,  in  which  his  "  classic  " 
terms  were  nearly  all  demonstrably  current.  We  have 
seen  the  long  array  collapse  down  to  the  forlorn  handful 
of  apparent  neologisms,  all  trivial  :  — "  confix,"  "  con- 
greeing,"  "  ex-sufflicate,"  "  reverb,"  "  insisture,"  any  or 
all  of  which  may  be  traced  to-morrow  by  some  more 
vigilant  and  more  industrious  reader.  To  impute  scholar 
ship  on  that  basis  is  beyond  the  courage  of  even  the 
Baconian. 

Dr.  Theobald  winds  up  his  weary  survey  with  the 
pronouncement  that  "It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  give 
articulate  voice  to  the  argument  arising  out  of  this  copious 
and  refined  Latinity — this  large  and  comprehensive 
familarity  with  classic  language,  classic  literature,  classic 

1  Dr.  Theobald's  numbers  go  to  230.  Some  of  his  words  have 
been  bracketed  together  in  the  foregoing  survey. 


ARGUMENT  FROM  CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP  375 

history,  classic  antiquity.  If  such  accomplishments 
could  be  the  product  of  education  in  a  remote  country 
grammar-school  of  the  sixteenth  century,  we  have 
certainly  suffered  most  lamentable  deterioration  during 
the  last  three  hundred  years."  The  summing-up  is 
worthy  of  the  evidence.  What  Dr.  Theobald,  in  his 
infatuation,  sees  as  "  copious  and  refined  Latinity," 
large  and  comprehensive  knowledge  of  classic  antiquity, 
consists  in  the  use  of  some  two  hundred  and  twenty 
words  already  current,  nearly  all  of  them  for  generations 
if  not  for  centuries,  in  English  books,  and  likely  to  be 
heard  any  day  from  the  contemporary  stage  or  pulpit. 


CHAPTER  IX 

COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  IN  SHAKESPEARE 
AND  BACON 

§i.  The  Evidential  Problem 

OF  the  three  main  lines  of  the  Baconian  case — 
the  argument  from  legal  phraseology,  that 
from  classical  allusions,  and  that  from  paral 
lelisms  of  phrase — we  have  above  reviewed 
the   first   and   second.      It   remains   to   deal   with    the 
third. 

To  the  majority  of  unprepared  readers  this  is  perhaps 
the  most  seductive.  Men  of  general  culture,  even  men  of 
legal  training,  little  acquainted  with  the  literature  of  the 
Tudor  and  early  Stuart  periods  apart  from  Shakespeare, 
are  apt,  on  a  mere  perusal  of  a  list  of  parallelisms  of  phrase 
between  Shakespeare  and  Bacon,  to  grant  inferences  of 
which  even  a  smattering  of  the  necessary  literary  know 
ledge  might  show  them  the  fallacy  and  the  absurdity. 
The  levity  with  which  such  readers  in  many  cases  accord 
their  assent  is  one  of  the  most  significant  aspects  of  the 
entire  controversy.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  they  are  kept 
in  countenance  by  a  judge  of  such  distinction  as  the  late 
Lord  Penzance,  it  seems  necessary  to  expose  their  and  his 
hallucination  with  an  amount  of  argument  and  illustra 
tion  which  for  an  instructed  reader  would  be  supereroga 
tory  and  tedious  beyond  measure. 

Of  this  line  of  Baconian  argument,  Mr.  Ignatius 
Donnelly,  of  cryptogrammatic  fame,  appears  to  be  the 
most  generally  esteemed  exponent.  Dr.  R.  M.  Theobald 
pronounces  that  Mr.  Donnelly's  first  volume,  of  which 
two-fifths  are  "  devoted  to  Parallelisms,"  "  is  the  most 

376 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  377 

masterly  and  convincing  statement  of  the  Baconian  case 
ever  published."  1 

It  should  be  mentioned  in  this  connection  that  both 
Mr.  Donnelly  and  Dr.  Theobald  have  drawn  upon  the 
earlier  labours  of  the  assiduous  judge  Nathaniel  Holmes, 
who,  though  like  them  unconcerned  to  check  his  pre 
suppositions  by  a  study  of  Elizabethan  literature  in 
general,  did  most  of  the  pioneer  work  for  the  Baconians  in 
collocating  passages  of  Bacon  and  Shakespeare.  Their 
recent  disregard  of  him  is  probably  due  to  the  fact  that  he 
repelled  in  advance  the  inference  to  which  they  are 
fatally  drawn,  that  Bacon  wrote  a  great  deal  more  of  the 
Elizabethan  drama  than  Shakespeare.  "  No  writer  of  the 
time,"  he  declares,  "neither  Ben  Jonson,  nor  Marlowe, 
nor  Raleigh,  nor  Wotton,  Donne,  or  Herbert,  whose 
poetry  approaches  nearest,  perhaps,  of  any  of  that  age  to 
the  Shakespearean  vein,  can  be  brought  into  any  doubtful 
comparison  with  this  author."  2  As  Dr.  Theobald  has 
given  Marlowe  to  Bacon,  and  others  of  the  faith  have 
given  him  a  great  deal  more,  Holmes  becomes  suspect  of 
a  fatal  leaven  of  orthodoxy.  That  being  so,  we  may 
thankfully  put  aside  his  laborious  treatise,  and  deal  with 
the  accepted  demonstrators.  And  first  as  to  Mr.  Donnelly. 

As  Mr.  Donnelly  is  shown  in  the  present  chapter  to 
have  been  grossly  and  ludicrously  ignorant  of  Elizabethan 
literature  in  general,  we  have  at  the  outset  a  measure  of 
the  knowledge  in  virtue  of  which  Dr.  Theobald  confers 
his  panegyric.  But  as  Dr.  Theobald  is  at  pains  to  preface 
his  own  contribution  to  the  same  thesis  with  a  discussion 
of  the  evidential  force  of  the  kinds  of  parallelism  in 
question,  it  may  be  well  to  examine  that  before  coming 
to  concrete  matters.  Opponents  of  this  method,  says 
Dr.  Theobald,  are  wont  to 

select  one  or  two  weak  or  doubtful  cases,  and  smuggle  in  the  assump 
tion  that  the  whole  case  rests  upon  these,  and  is  defeated  by  their 
overthrow.  Nothing  can  be  more  grossly  unfair.  The  evidence 

1  Shakespeare  Studies,  ed.  cited,  p.  223. 

8  The  Authorship  of  Shakespeare,  3rd  ed.  1875,  p.  305. 


378  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

derived  from  parallels  is  cumulative,  and  in  such  an  argument 
even  the  strongest  instance  may  be  spared,  and  yet  the  weakest 
may  possess  some  value  as  one  of  the  gossamer  threads  which 
contribute  to  the  construction  of  a  cable  strong  enough  to  resist 
the  most  violent  efforts  to  break  it.  The  argument  is  not  like  a 
chain  which  is  only  as  strong  as  the  weakest  link  :  it  is  like  a 
faggot,  the  mass  of  which  cannot  be  broken,  though  every  single 
stick  may  be  brittle  ;  or  like  a  rope,  made  by  the  accumulation  of 
a  great  number  of  slender  fibres  which  ...  in  their  combination 
can  resist  the  greatest  force .  I  do  not  think  the  Calculus  has  yet  been 
invented  *  which  will  enable  us  to  cast  the  sum  of  an  indefinite 
series  of  small  arguments.  But  it  must  be  included  in  that 
branch  of  Inductive  Logic  which  deals  with  circumstantial 
evidence, — and  it  is  well  known  how  the  detective  import  of  such 
evidence  may  be  constituted  by  a  collection  of  facts  of  which 
each  singly  would  prove  nothing — yet  each  of  which  lends  some 
atom  of  force  to  the  entire  mass,  and  the  resultant  conclusion  may 
be  as  well  sustained  as  if  it  rested  on  direct  documentary  evidence  ; 
and  perhaps  even  better.  For  documents  may  be  forged  or 
fictitious  [cryptograms,  for  instance  ?]  and  can  generally  be  dis 
puted  : — this  kind  of  circumstantial  evidence  consists  of  in 
controvertible  and  indestructible  facts.2 

The  hollowness  of  this  pretended  rebuttal  is  plain  at 
two  points.  To  say  nothing  of  the  folly  of  assuming  that 
any  cable  or  faggot  is  unbreakable — a  typical  case  of  the 
logical  dangers  of  metaphor — we  have  not  merely  sup- 
pressio  veri  but  suggestio  falsi.  The  opponents  of  the 
Baconian  argument  from  parallels  do  not  merely  "  select 
one  or  two  weak  or  doubtful  cases. ' '  They  have  presented 
hundreds  of  cases  as  to  which  there  can  be  no  rational 
doubt  whatever,  and  of  which  the  full  presentment  con 
victs  the  Baconians  of  entire  ignorance  of  precisely  those 
facts  which  are  vital  to  the  dispute.  Mr.  Donnelly 
claimed  to  make  a  case  out  of  "  identical  expressions, 
metaphors,  opinions,  quotations,  studies,  errors,  unusual 

1  In  his  preface  to  The  Classical  Element  in  the  Shakespeare 
Plays,  by  his  cousin  Mr.  William  Theobald,  Dr.  Theobald  affirms 
that  "  by  the  integration  of  a  number  of  small  or  doubtful  resem 
blances,  a  real,  finite  [sic]  result  is  secured,  the  rules  of  the 
mathematical  calculus  having  strict  affinity  with  those  of  the 
literary  one  "  (p.  8). 

*  Shakespeare  Studies  in  Baconian  Light,  ed.  1904,  p.  224. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  379 

words,"  and  so  on.  When  it  is  shown  that  the  words 
alleged  to  be  unusual  are  perfectly  common  for  the  period, 
and  that  the  cited  expressions,  metaphors,  opinions, 
errors,  and  quotations  are  in  the  same  case,  Mr.  Donnelly's 
thesis  is  annihilated. 

Upon  this  issue  Dr.  Theobald  commits  his  second 
sophism.  His  analogy  between  what  he  calls  "  weak  " 
items  in  a  "  cumulative  "  argument  and  the  weakness  of 
rods  in  a  faggot,  or  fibres  in  a  rope,  is  pure  paralogism. 
Ropes  and  fibres  are  not  in  this  connection  rationally  to  be 
styled  "  weak  "  at  all.  Unless  they  are  all  alike  rotten — 
in  which  case  neither  faggot  nor  rope  can  possibly  be 
"strong" — each  is  valid  for  its  own  purpose  to  the 
extent  to  which  it  could  be.  But  Mr.  Donnelly's  and 
Dr.  Theobald's  "  weak  cases  "  are  pure  nullities.  They 
are,  in  their  handling  of  them,  demonstrable  untruths. 
To  present  coincidences  of  phrase  in  Bacon  and  Shake 
speare  as  special  to  them,  when  such  coincidences  are 
universal,  is  to  bear  false,  howbeit  ignorant,  witness. 
Now,  so  far  from  a  series  of  proved  falsities  being  valid 
items  in  a  "  cumulative  argument  "  in  support  of  a 
general  proposition,  they  have  a  rapidly  progressive  force 
in  discrediting  that  proposition.  Even  Lord  Penzance,  I 
suppose,  would  upon  challenge  have  admitted  this.1  Dr. 
Theobald  sophistically  claims  that  in  a  case  of  circum 
stantial  evidence  the  charge  may  be  made  out  "  by  a 
collection  of  facts  each  of  which  singly  would  prove 
nothing,  yet  each  of  which  lends  some  atom  of  force  to 
the  entire  mass."  True  !  But  when  a  long  series  of  the 
alleged  facts  are  conclusively  shown  to  be  sheer  falsehoods, 
each  falsehood  has  given  the  jury  an  increasing  right  to 
suspect  the  remaining  alleged  facts.  If,  again,  the  person 
charged  with  having  committed  a  number  of  peculiar  and 
suspicious  actions  can  show  that  they  are  one  and 

1  Mr.  Donnelly,  for  his  own  purposes,  used  against  the  editors 
of  the  Folio  the  maxim  "  False  in  one  thing,  false  in  all."  This 
is  folly  ;  but  compare  it  with  the  argument  of  Dr.  Theobald  1 


380  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

all  actions  daily  committed  in  similar  circumstances  by 
all  his  neighbours,  the  case  against  him  simply  falls. 

The  only  possible  plea  left  open  to  the  Baconians,  after 
the  contrary  evidence  has  been  led,  as  hereinafter,  is  to 
claim  that  not  every  one  of  Mr.  Donnelly's  borrowed 
hundreds  of  alleged  parallels  has  been  dealt  with.  Prob 
ably  no  human  being  will  ever  take  the  trouble  of  adding 
to  my  exposure  of  a  multitude  of  the  literary  follies  of 
Mr.  Donnelly  and  Dr.  Theobald  a  similar  exposure  of  all 
the  rest.  But  when  it  is  once  shown  that  both  writers, 
through  sheer  ignorance  of  the  literature  of  which  some 
knowledge  was  the  first  requisite  to  their  having  any 
right  to  an  opinion  on  the  question,  have  in  scores  of 
cases  asserted  "  peculiar  "  coincidence  in  respect  of  words 
and  phrases  in  universal  use  in  the  Tudor  period,  all  men 
save  those  determined  to  stick  to  the  Baconian  theory  at 
any  cost  of  violation  of  truth  and  reason  will  cease  to  give 
it  further  attention. 

The  reader  will  see  that  in  the  following  confutation 
there  has  been  no  mere  picking  out  of  "  weak  or  doubtful 
cases."  Lord  Penzance,  acting  as  special  pleader,  has 
selected  from  the  mass  of  Mr.  Donnelly's  items  those 
which  seemed  to  him  the  strongest.  I  have  proceeded — 
with  two  or  three  exceptions — upon  Lord  Penzance's  selec 
tion.  Dr.  Theobald,  in  turn,  in  his  chapter  on  "  Echoes 
and  Correspondences,"  puts  forward  eighty  heads.  Of 
these  I  have  dealt  with  forty  seriatim,  missing  none  :  of 
the  remainder  I  have  selected  eighteen,  passing  over  a 
number  that  seemed  too  trivial  for  discussion. 

There  is  another  section  of  the  argument  from 
parallelisms,  from  the  examination  of  which  I  am  happily 
dispensed  by  the  notably  thorough  refutation  supplied  in 
Mr.  Charles  Crawford's  essay  on  "  The  Bacon-Shakespeare 
Question."  1  Mr.  Crawford,  while  glancing  usefully  at 
the  "  classical  "  thesis,  and  at  some  of  the  parallelisms  of 
Dr.  Theobald,  has  specially  devoted  himself  to  the 

1  In  Collectanea,  Second  Series.     Stratford-on-Avon,  1907. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  381 

Baconian  contention  that  the  multitude  of  commonplaces 
collected  by  Bacon  in  his  PROMUS  OF  FORMULARIES  AND 
ELEGANCES,  not  intended  for  publication,  were  gathered 
for  use  by  him  in  the  plays.  With  their  fatal  facility  in 
error,  the  Baconians — led  in  this  matter  by  Mrs.  Pott — 
have  maintained  that  the  PROMUS  entries  are  not  repro 
duced  in  Bacon's  published  works,  and  that  they  are 
embodied  in  the  Shakespearean  plays.  With  overwhelm 
ing  force,  Mr.  Crawford  demonstrates  (i)  that  they  are 
abundantly  reproduced  in  Bacon's  works ;  and  (2)  that 
in  a  multitude  of  instances  they  and  other  Baconian 
passages  are  closely,  sometimes  exactly,  paralleled  in  the 
writings  of  Ben  Jonson.  Thus  once  more  we  see  how  the 
Baconian  fallacy  thrives  on  lack  of  observation  and  on 
incomplete  induction.  I  invite  the  reader  who  can 
appreciate  exact  learning  and  the  vivacious  use  of  it  to 
turn  to  Mr.  Crawford's  contribution  to  the  Baconian  con 
troversy.  Whether  the  Baconians  have  noted  it,  and 
whether  or  not  they  have  in  general  proceeded  from  it  to 
the  conclusion  that  Bacon  wrote  Jonson,  I  cannot  tell. 

§2.  Lord  Penzance  and  Mr.  Donnelly 

That  an  English  Judge,  accustomed  to  the  sifting  of 
evidence,  should  have  produced  a  book  undertaking  dis 
passionately  to  establish  the  Baconian  case  after  a  survey 
of  the  debate,  was  naturally  a  ground  for  elation  in  the 
Baconian  camp.  Those  readers,  however,  who  have 
followed  our  examination  of  the  treatise  of  Lord  Campbell 
will  not  be  unprepared  to  discover  that  another  judge  has 
undertaken  to  prove  or  pronounce  upon  a  proposition  in 
regard  to  which  he  had  not  even  begun  to  realise  the  scope 
of  the  issue,  and  has  put  forth  as  evidence  a  quantity  of 
matter  of  which  the  very  citation  is  proof  positive  of 
vital  ignorance  on  the  part  of  the  propounders.  It  is  as 
if  the  judge  in  his  own  sphere  had  delivered  a  judgment 
in  terms  of  common  law  without  knowing  what  common 
law  is.  Knowing  practically  nothing  of  Elizabethan 


382  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

literature  outside  Shakespeare  and  Bacon,  he  has  staked 
everything  on  the  compilation  of  Mr.  Donnelly,  who  knew, 
if  possible,  less. 

Lord  Penzance,  professing  to  present  a  "  judicial  sum 
ming-up  ' '  of  the  debate,  has  not  only  attempted  no 
comparative  investigation  of  the  parallelisms  put  forward 
by  Mr.  Donnelly  :  he  has  not  taken  note  of  a  single 
argument  adduced  against  the  inference  founded  upon 
them.  Under  the  name  of  "  summing  up,"  the  (in 
literature)  unlearned  judge  has  presented  the  merest  c% 
parte  statement ;  and  to  examine  it  is  to  realise  once  for 
all  his  lack  of  qualification  for  the  inquiry  he  had  under 
taken.  He  could  see  the  entire  futility  of  Mr.  Donnelly's 
pretence  to  have  found  a  "  cipher  "  in  the  Plays  :  and 
he  evidently  realised  the  nugatoriness  of  many  of  the 
"  parallels  "  in  Mr.  Donnelly's  list,  since  he  makes  a 
selection  from  which  many  of  the  most  insignificant  are 
excluded.  He  does  indeed  say  1  that  "  to  do  justice  to  this 
branch  of  our  subject  you  should  study  the  complete 
compilation  to  be  found  in  that  gentleman's  book  "  ;  but 
any  reader  who  will  take  that  trouble  will  find  that  the 
passages  omitted  are  the  most  worthless  of  all.  And  yet 
how  worthless  are  those  actually  selected  !  The  first  two 
are  these  : 

SHAKESPEARE.  BACON 

It  is  very  cold.  Whereby  the  cold   becomes 

It  is  a  nipping  and  an  eager  more  eager. 

air.  Natural  History,  §  688. 

Hamlet,  i,  4. 

Light  thickens,  and  the  crow      For  the  over-moisture  of  the 
Makes    wing    to    the    rooky  brain   doth   thicken  the 

wood.  spirits  visual. 

Macbeth,  iii,  2.  Id.    §  693. 

Even  an  ex  parte  advocate  of  any  literary  culture  might 
have  been  expected  to  ask,  what  Mr.  Donnelly  seems  to 
have  been  incapable  of  considering,  whether  eager  in  this 
sense  is  not  an  established  word  in  medieval  and  Eliza- 

1  P.  168. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  383 

bethan  English.  A  glance  into  the  New  English  Dic 
tionary  would  have  revealed  to  Lord  Penzance  that  it  is 
used  by  Chaucer  (as  in  "  egre  bataile,"  "more  myghty 
and  more  egre  medicyne,"  &c.),  by  intermediate  writers, 
and  by  Holland  in  Shakespeare's  day,  in  both  the  physical 
and  moral  senses  in  which  Shakespeare  applies  it.  Any 
commentator  would  have  informed  him  that  it  is  simply 
the  French  word  aigre,  in  which  spelling  it  appears  in 
1531  in  Elyot's  BOKE  OF  THE  GOVERNOUR,  in  the  phrase 
"  fierce  and  aigre  "  (B.  iii,  c.  9).  With  that  force  it  was 
long  a  standing  term  in  ordinary  English,  as  in  THE 

VOCACYON  OF  JOHAN  BALE  (l553)  : 

I  was  sick  again,  so  eagerly,  that  no  man  thought  I  should 
have  lived. 

(Rep.  in  Harl.  Misc.  ed.  1808,  i,  341)  ; 

and  in  Webbe's  DISCOURSE  OF  ENGLISH  POETRIE  (Arber's 
rep.  p.  32)  in  the  phrase  "  very  sharpe  and  eger,"  in  1586. 
Harington  has  : 

Such  eger  fight  these  warriers  was  betweene, 

in  his  translation  of  Ariosto's  ORLANDO  FURIOSO;  1591, 
B.  i,  st.  62  ;  and  Daniel  has  : 

Altar  of  safeguard  whereto  affliction  flies 
From  the  eager  pursuit  of  severity, 

in  his  CERTAINE  EPISTLES,  1601-3  (To  SIR  THOMAS 
EGERTON,  11.  65-66)  ;  and 

Men  running  with  such  eager  violence, 

in  his  MUSOPHILUS,  1.  744.  Greene  has  "  far  more  egar 
rage "  (Alleyn  MS.  of  ORLANDO  FURIOSO,  ed.  Dyce, 
p.  107).  As  well  might  the  word  "  nipping,"  if  found 
in  any  two  authors,  be  cited  as  a  proof  of  their  identity. 
In  the  second  instance,  what  is  relied  on  is  the  analogy 
between  the  use  of  "  thicken  "  on  the  one  hand  in  regard 
to  light  and  on  the  other  in  regard  to  the  "  spirits  visual." 
But  Bacon  was  using  the  regular  terminology  of  the 
physicians  of  the  period,  which  he  seems  to  have  had  at 
his  fingers'  ends  ;  and  the  really  significant  fact  is  that 


384  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Shakespeare  not  only  never  uses  the  expression  "  visual 
spirits,"  but  only  once  (ROMEO  AND  JULIET,  iv,  i)  uses 
the  much  commoner  "  vital  spirit,"  and  seldom  even  uses 
"  spirits  "  in  the  general  physiological  sense,  in  which 
Bacon  uses  it  constantly  in  the  NATURAL  HISTORY.  1 
Shakespeare  employs  the  word  hundreds  of  times  in  the 
senses  of  unembodied  being  or  ghost,  energy,  "  good 
spirits,"  courage,  &c.,  almost  never  in  the  sense  in  which 
Bacon  applies  it  as  many  hundreds  of  times. 

The  parallel  is  worse  than  futile  for  the  Baconian's 
purpose  :  it  points  the  way  of  disillusionment  to  any  who 
will  follow.  A  simple  perusal  of  the  NATURAL  HISTORY, 
which  so  few  of  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Baconians  attempt, 
might  alone  open  one's  eyes  to  the  vastness  of  the  error 
of  ascribing  that  book  and  the  Plays  to  the  same  hand.  It 
exhibits  a  dozen  preoccupations  of  which  the  Plays  show 
no  trace ;  it  is  packed  full  of  observations  of  a  kind  at 
which  they  hardly  ever  hint ;  it  is  inspired  by  a  scientific 
bias  of  which  they  are  devoid ;  and  in  every  page  it 
presents  a  number  of  words  which  they  do  not  contain. 
It  would  be  quite  safe  to  undertake  to  produce  from 
Bacon  many  hundreds  of  words  not  found  in  the  Plays,  as 
will  be  shown  in  a  later  chapter. 

As  regards  the  coincidences,  nine  out  of  ten  are  as 
irrelevant  as  the  first  above  cited.  Mr.  Donnelly  finds 
evidence  of  common  authorship  in  the  use  of  expressions 
that  must  have  been  used  in  every  Elizabethan  pulpit. 
The  fact  that  Shakespeare  and  Bacon  speak,  one  of 
"  troublers  of  the  world's  peace,"  the  other  of  "  troublers 
of  the  world  "  was  for  him  an  electrifying  discovery. 
Devoid  of  knowledge  of  secular  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean 
literature,  he  did  not  even  know  that  "  the  troubler  of 
Israel  "  is  a  phrase  in  the  authorised  translation  of  the 
Bible;  which  here  follows  the  Bishops'  Bible  of  1560. 
Other  Biblical  allusions  to  "  troubling  Israel  "  gave  the 

1  E.g.  §§  22,  23,  30,60,66,75,98, 114,  294, -6, -7, -9,  301,- 3,- 4» 
-6,  312, -13, -14,-  15, -16,  354,  601,  &c.&c. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  385 

expression  a  universal  vogue,  as  may  be  seen  from  a 
number  of  old  discourses. 1  Shakespeare  and  Bacon  alike 
employed  household  words. 

In  the  same  way  Mr.  Donnelly  finds  evidence  of  common 
authorship  in  the  mere  use  of  such  related  words  as 
"rough-hew"  and  "  rough-hewn,"  "corrosive"  and 
"  corrosion  ;  "  such  e very-day  Tudor  words  as  "  quality," 
"  fantastical ;  "  such  common  metaphors  as  "  weeds  "  and 
"  weed-out  "  for  moral  evils  and  their  extirpation;  and 
the  metaphorical  uses  of  "  sea,"  "  ocean,"  "  garment  " — 
apart  from  any  further  coincidence  of  phrase.  If  there 
are  three  words  more  universally  used  than  others  by 
way  of  emphasis  and  metaphor  in  Elizabethan  literature 
of  every  kind,  they  are  "infinite,"  "swelling,"  and 
"  sea  "  ;  and  these  are  among  the  words  fastened  on  by 
Mr.  Donnelly  as  serving  to  identify  Bacon  with  Shake 
speare.  The  commonest  tags  and  idioms  are  for  him 
pregnant  with  mysterious  evidential  force  when  he  can 
find  them  in  both  authors.  The  simple  collocation  "  mild 
and  gentle  ' '  is  eagerly  italicised  in  such  a  case  ;  the  idiom 
"  the  top  of,"  which  was  as  common  in  Elizabeth's  day 
(e.g.  "  the  top  of  judgment  "  or  "  of  human  desires  ")  as 
"  the  height  of  "  in  the  same  sense  then  and  to-day,  is 
paraded,  without  even  one  case  of  coincidence  in  the 
completion  of  the  phrase.  One  finds  it  everywhere  in 
contemporary  drama  and  poetry  : 

Are  we  so  much  below  you 
That,  till  you  have  us,  are  the  tops  of  nature  ? 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Wit  without  Money,  iii,  i. 

The  top  of  their  felicity. 

Painter,  Palace  of  Pleasure,  torn,  ii,  nov.  26  :     Hasle- 
wood's  rep.  p.  393. 

In  the  top  of  all  thy  pride. 

Lodge,  Wounds  of  Civil  War,  1.  316. 

We  must  ascend  to  our  intention's  top. 

Chapman,  Byron's  Tragedy,  i,  i . 

1  See  illustrations  hereinafter,  p.  430. 

25 


386  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

The  top  of  his  house. 

Id.  The  Widow's  Tears,  i,  i . 
I  that  whilom  was 
The  top  of  my  house. 

Massinger,  The  Maid  of  Honour,  iv,  5 . 
The  top  of  woman. 

Jonson,  The  Devil  is  an  Ass,  iv,  i. 
His  worshipful  ambition,  and  the  top  of  it 
The  very  forked  top,  too  ! 

Id.  Ib.  ii,  i. 
My  worshipful  kinsman,  and  the  top  of  our  house. 

Id.  The  Staple  of  News,  ii,  i . 
The  highest  top  of  honour. 
Brandon,  The  Vertuous  Octavia,  1598  (Malone  Soc.  rep.  1.  no). 

The  highest  top  of  their  (poets')  profession. 

Sidney,  Apologie  for  Poetrie,  Arber's  rep.  p.  34. 

So  ignorant  was  Mr.  Donnelly  of  Elizabethan  literature, 
and  so  blind  was  he  to  the  plainest  duty  in  the  way  of 
research,  that  any  word  with  which  he  was  unfamiliar — and 
they  were  legion — served  him  at  once  as  serious  evidence 
when  he  could  find  it  both  in  Bacon  and  in  the  Plays,  and 
still  more  when  he  found  it  also  in  Florio's  translation  of 
Montaigne.  Thus  he  notes  that  Shakespeare  and  Mon 
taigne  (i.e.  Florio  :  Mr.  Donnelly  seems  to  have  regarded 
the  translation  as  an'  original  English  work  !)  "  both  used 
those  strange  words  gravelled  and  quintessence,"  and  again 
"  that  strange  word  eternizing,  found  both  in  Bacon  and 
in  Shakespeare.''  Blundering  could  no  further  go.  The 
verb  "  eternize,"  in  various  flections,  is  common  in 
Spenser,  Marlowe,  Greene,  Peele,  Nashe,  Jonson,  Lodge, 
and  Drayton,  to  say  nothing  of  Heywood  and  other  later 
dramatists.  Instances  could  be  given  by  the  score. 
"  Quintessence  "  was  a  standing  term  in  alchemy,  and  is 
found  in  Marlowe  (i  TAMB.  v.  2)  ;  twice  in  Sir  John  Davies 
(NoscE  TEIPSUM,  ed.  Grosart,  i,  40,  43)  ;  often  in  Jonson, 
VOLPONE,  ii,  i ;  THE  POETASTER,  iv,  6  (7)  ;  THE  AL 
CHEMIST,  i,  i ;  EVERY  MAN  OUT  OF  HIS  HUMOUR,  ii,  i ; 
THE  DEVIL  is  AN  Ass,  ii,  3  ;  THE  NEW  INN,  ii,  21) ;  in 
Fairfax's  translation  of  Tasso's  JERUSALEM  DELIVERED 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  387 

(B.  x,  st.  14) ;  in  Greene  (A  QUIP  FOR  AN  UPSTART 
COURTIER  ;  Works,  ed.  Grosart,  xi,  217)  ;  in  Hey  wood 
(THE  FAIR  MAID  OF  THE  EXCHANGE,  Pearson's  Hey- 
wood,  ii,  18)  ;  twice  in  one  play  of  Chapman  (ALL 
FOOLS,  i,  i  ;  v,  near  end) ;  again  in  another  (Bussv 
D'AMBOIS,  iii,  i)  ;  and  yet  again  in  the  HYMNUS  IN 
NOCTEM  in  THE  SHADOW  OF  NIGHT,  and  in  the  epistle 
dedicatory  to  his  translation  of  the  ILIAD  ;  often  in 
Lilly  (MYDAS  i,  i ;  GALLATHEA,  ii,  3  ;  ENDIMION,  iv,  3  ; 
SAPHO  AND  PHAON,  i,  4  ;  LOVE'S  METAMORPHOSIS,  ii,  2)  ; 
in  King  James's  translation  of  Du  Bartas'  URANIE 
(Arber's  rep.  p.  25)  ;  at  least  ten  times  in  six  pamphlets 
by  Nashe  (Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  i,  135,  194,  280,  351, 
373>  381  ;  ii,  10,  149,  265,  311)  ;  in  the  epistle  dedicatory 
to  WILLOBIE  AND  His  AVISA  (1596)  ;  in  Marston's 
SATIRES,  iv,  1.  49  ;  twice  in  Sidney's  ASTROPHEL  AND 
STELLA  (28,  77) — everywhere,  in  short,  in  Elizabethan  and 
early  Stuart  literature.  We  find  it  in  theology — e.g.  in 
Sidney  and  Golding's  translation  of  De  Mornay  on  the 
Christian  Religion  (1587  ;  ed.  1604,  p.  89).  It  was 
familiar  to  every  playgoer.  Massinger  puts  the  word  in 
the  mouth  of  a  cook  in  A  NEW  WAY  TO  PAY  OLD  DEBTS 
(ii,  2) — a  realistic  play  ;  and  in  that  of  a  waiting-maid  in 
THE  FATAL  DOWRY  (ii,  middle). 

"  Gravelled  "  is  so  common  a  vernacular  word  that  it 
is  astonishing  to  find  even  Mr.  Donnelly  surprised  by  it. 
Taylor,  the  Water  Poet,  avowing  his  lack  of  learning, 
tells  that, 

Having  got  from  possum  to  posset, 

I  there  was  gravelled,  could  no  further  get. 

Taylor's  Motto,  near  end. 

It  occurs  in  so  well  known  a  book  as  Ascham's  SCHOLE- 
MASTER  :  "  Any  labor  may  be  sone  gravaled  "  (Arber's 
rep.  p.  41)  ;  and  twice  in  one  page  of  Sidney  and  Golding's 
translation  of  De  Mornay  on  the  Christian  Religion  (1587)  : 

This  .  .  .  graveleth  Plutarke  more  than  all  the  rest. 

So  sore  graveled  in  this  consideration. 

Ed.  1604,  p.  286; 


388  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

and  again  : 

Utterly  amazed  and  graveled. 

Id.  p.  269. 

In  Ford's  short  tract,  HONOR  TRIUMPHANT  (1606),  I  find 
"  gravelled  "  in  the  second  sentence  of  the  epistle  dedica 
tory,  "  quintessence  "  twice,  in  two  successive  lines  of  the 
text  (Sh.  Soc.  rep.  p.  15)  and  "  gravel'd  "  again  (p.  25). 
Turning  to  Marlowe  for  "  quintessence,"  I  chance  upon 

Gravelled  the  pastors  of  the  German  church. 

Faustus,  i,  i. 
I  will  spare  the  reader  further  instances. 

Before  dealing  with  Mr.  Donnelly's  other  parallels  it 
may  be  worth  while  to  note  the  commonness  alike  of 
reiteration  and  real  copying  of  phrase  and  word  in 
Elizabethan  letters,  and  the  varying  significance  of  it. 
Such  echoings  serve  at  times  as  clues  to  authorship,  some 
writers  being  much  given  to  repeating  phrases  and  words 
of  their  own.  When  the  repetition  is  one  of  non-signifi 
cant  phrase,  a  mere  trick  of  speech,  it  may  be  a  very 
useful  clue — a  kind  of  thumb-print.  But  men  have  also 
tics  or  mannerisms  in  the  way  of  reiterating  saws  or 
commonplaces.  On  the  other  hand,  many  writers  cer 
tainly  echo  and  imitate  others.  Bacon  did  it  freely. 
Has  not  Mr.  Donnelly  put  to  his  fellow  Baconians  the 
dilemma  :  "  Either  Francis  Bacon  wrote  the  Essays  of 
Montaigne,  or  Francis  Bacon  stole  many  of  his  noblest 
thoughts  and  the  whole  scheme  of  his  philosophy  (!) 
from  Montaigne."  x  So  reasons  the  monomaniac. 
Scholars  deal  with  such  problems  rationally,  without 
talking  of  "  stealing."  Mr.  McKerrow,  whose  edition 
of  the  Works  of  Nashe  is  a  model  at  once  of  accuracy 
and  of  erudition,  points  to,  and  abundantly  illustrates 
in  his  notes,  Nashe 's  "  habit  of  almost  literal — but  un 
acknowledged — quotation."  Nashe,  in  prose,  indulged 
only  a  little  more  freely  in  the  common  habit  of  the  poets 

1  Cited  by  Mrs.  Stopes,  The  Bacon-Shakespeare  Question 
Answered,  2nd  ed.  1889,  p.  218. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  389 

and  dramatists  of  the  time.  Marlowe  deliberately  copies 
Spenser  in  a  long  and  fine  passage,  and  frequently  in 
shorter  passages.  Greene  often  echoes  Spenser,  Marlowe, 
Lilly,  and  himself ;  Peele  imitates  Marlowe  and  Spenser 
and  FERREX  AND  PORREX,  but  oftener  himself ;  and 
Shakespeare  at  times  copies  Marlowe  and  others.  Chap 
man  in  his  first  play,  THE  BLIND  BEGGAR  OF  ALEXANDRIA 
1596),  has  Marlowe's  line  (near  end)  : 

None  ever  loved  but  at  first  sight  they  loved, 
which  Shakespeare  avowedly  quotes  in  As  You  LIKE  IT 
(iii,  5).      In  his  BLIND  BEGGAR  Chapman  perceptibly 
imitates  Marlowe,  Peele,  and  Greene  ;   and  his  line, 

Kings  in  their  mercy  come  most  near  the  Gods, 
may  be  an  echo  of  Peele. 

Shakespeare  at  times  imitates  without  avowal.  The 
passage  in  2  HENRY  IV  (IV,  iv)  about  the  labour  of  the 
mind  wearing  its  covering 

So  thin  that  life  looks  through  and  will  break  out, 

copies 1  Daniel's  CIVIL  WARS  (ed.  1595  :  DISSENSION, 
B.  iii,  st.  116)  : 

Wearing  the  wall  so  thin,  that  now  the  mind 
Might  well  look  thorough,  and  his  frailty  find. 

The  echo  is  not  exactly  an  improvement.  Nor  does 
Shakespeare  improve,  in  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  (ii,  2) ,  on 
the  "  mighty  line  "  of  Marlowe,  on 

The  face  that  launched  a  thousand  ships, 

1  See  the  Variorum  ed.  in  loc.  as  to  Kurd's  fallacious  assump 
tion  that  it  was  Daniel  who  copied  Shakespeare.  In  several 
instances  Shakespeare  echoes  Daniel.  See  above,  ch.  viii,  p.  280, 
No.  9 ;  and  compare  Shakespeare's  line : 

Lest  the  wise  world  should  look  into  your  moan, 

Sonnet  71, 
with  Daniel's : 

Cannot  the  busy  world  let  me  alone, 

To  bear  alone  the  burthen  of  my  grief, 
But  they  must  intermeddle  with  my  moan  ? 
Letter  from  Octavia  to  Marcus  Antonius,  1599,  st.  44. 


390  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

which  he  certainly  had  in  mind ;  as  he  may  have  had 
Sidney's  sentence  about 

a  gentle  South-west  wind  which  comes  creeping  over  flowery 
fields  and  shadowed  waters, 

Arcadia,  p.  2, 

"  if  and  when  "  he  wrote,  in  TWELFTH  NIGHT, 

the  sweet  South  * 
That  breathes  upon  a  bank  of  violets, 

It  would  certainly  seem  that  the  words  of  Antonio  : 

The  world  .  .v, 

A  stage  where  every  man  must  play  a  part 
And  mine  a  sad  one, 

Merchant,  I,  i,  78-79, 
reproduce  Sidney's  sentence : 

For  her,  she  found  the  world  but  a  wearisome  stage  unto  her, 
where  she  played  a  part  against  her  will. 

Arcadia,  ed.  1627,  p.  208. 

In  the  Sonnets  (94  and  142)  Shakespeare  copies  two  lines 
of  the  play  EDWARD  III : 

Lilies  that  fester  smell  far  worse  than  weeds. 

That  have  profaned  their  scarlet  ornaments. 
Even  in  MACBETH,  at  the  height  of  his  power,  he  notice 
ably  echoes  passages  of  the  second-rate  WARNING  FOR 
FAIRE  WOMEN  (1599).     That  (ii,  2)  has  the  lines  : 

Oh,  sable  night,  sit  on  the  eye  of  heaven, 

That  it  discern  not  this  black  deed  of  darkness. 

Be  thou  my  coverture,  thick  ugly  night  ; 
which  he  thus  twice  transmutes  : 

Come,  thick  night, 

And  pall  thee  in  the  dunnest  smoke  of  hell, 
That  my  keen  knife  see  not  the  wound  it  makes, 
Nor  heaven  peep  through  the  blanket  of  the  dark. 

i-  5- 

Come,  seeling  night 
Scarf  up  the  tender  eye  of  pitiful  day. 

iii,  2. 

1  Sound  in  the  Folio.  It  was  probably  the  passage  in  Sidney 
that  led  Pope  to  substitute  "  South."  Sound  does  not  "  steal 
and  give  odour."  But  perhaps  Shakespeare  wrote  "  sough." 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  391 

As  the  WARNING  was  played  by  his  company,  it  is  highly 
probable  that  he  had  acted  in  it,  and  that,  as  in  plots,  so 
in  diction,  he  spontaneously  evolved  upon  his  remini 
scences  something  more  intense  and  masterlike.1  So  he 
did  when  at  one  stroke  he  reduced  to  comparative 
ineptitude  the  ambitious  line  of  Marston, 

Yet  the  sanguinolent  stain  would  extant  be, 
by  the  thunder-roll  of 

The  multitudinous  seas  incarnadine.2 

To  assume  that  all  these  "  echoes  and  correspondencies  " 
signify  the  pervading  presence  of  one  writer  would  be  to 
miss  fatuously  the  whole  lesson  of  literary  history. 
Whether  the  process  be  one  of  betterment,  as  when  the 
absurdity  of  "  sit  on  the  eye  of  heaven  "  is  partly  rectified 
by  "scarf  up  the  eye  of  day,"  or  whether  it  be  one  of 
more  or  less  successful  reproduction  of  a  remembered 
music,  it  is  all  in  the  normal  way  of  poetcraft,  as  Roger 

1  Professor  MacCallum  (Shakespeare's  Roman  Tragedies,  1912, 
p.  171)  has  noted  further  echoes  from  the  same  play  in  Julius 
CcBsar.  The  Warning  has  a  passage  in  which  a  murderer  speaks 
of  having  given  his  victim  fifteen  wounds  "  which  will  be  fifteen 
mouths.  ...  In  every  mouth  there  is  a  bloody  tongue,  which 
will  speak."  That  idea  is  twice  duplicated,  with  the  words 
italicised,  in  Antony's  speeches,  III,  i,  259  ;  III,  ii,  228.  I 
cannot  say  that  there  is  any  improvement  here,  as  Antony's 
"  dumb  mouths  do  ope  their  ruby  lips  to  beg  the  voice  "  of  his 
tongue.  The  double  repetition  of  such  matter  in  Julius  Ccssar, 
I  confess,  strengthens  my  lifelong  suspicion  (see  above,  p.  190. 
that  that  play  proceeds  upon  or  takes  up  other  men's  work, 
Baconians,  I  suppose,  will  prefer  the  inference  that  Bacon  wrote 
the  Warning  for  Faire  Women. 

8  I  am  assuming  that  Marston 's  Insatiate  Countess,  though  not 
published  till  1613,  was  written  before  Macbeth.  See  Montaigne 
and  Shakespeare,  pp.  125,  238  sq.,  256  sq.  The  problem,  however, 
is  a  very  difficult  one.  Marston  was  certainly  an  imitator  of 
Shakespeare  ;  but  if  he  wrote  his  "  sanguinolent  "  line  to  rival 
Shakespeare's  he  failed  egregiously.  What  is  clear  is  that  the 
dramatists  of  the  day  discussed  each  other's  diction.  See  Jonson's 
Poetaster,  passim,  and  Marston's  Scourge  of  Villanie,  pref.  prose. 


392  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Ascham  noted  long  before  Shakespeare.1  So  did  Virgil 
imitate  Homer,  and  Horace  Pindar;  so  did  a  hundred 
later  poets  imitate  Virgil  and  Horace ;  so  did  Spenser 
imitate  Chaucer,  who  imitated  so  many  ;  so  did  Milton  the 
translation  of  Du  Bartas  and  other  poems  of  Sylvester,2 
Spenser's  FAERIE  QUEENE,  and  the  verse  of  the  two 
Fletchers,3  as  well  as  many  a  passage  of  the  classics  ;  so 
did  Gray  jewel  his  verse  with  a  score  of  reminiscences  ;  so 
did  Wordsworth  borrow  from  Spenser  his  line  about 
Triton's  wreathed  horn ; 4  so  did  Tennyson,  in  our  age, 
reproduce  alike  classical  and  English  phrases  in  many  a 
poem  ;  and  so  did  Poe  echo  Mrs.  Browning,  as  she  in  her 
turn  had  echoed  Coleridge  and  as  he  in  turn  had  echoed 
Sir  John  Da  vies.5  To  surmise  identity  of  hand  in  such 
cases  of  copying,  even  among  contemporaries,  would 
visibly  be  the  height  of  folly.  Spenser  repeated  thrice, 
with  variations,  his  own  charming  trope  : 

Upon  her  eyelids  many  Graces  sate 
Under  the  shadow  of  her  even  browes.6 

This  is  copied  by  Drayton  (IDEA,  4)  : 

Blest  star  of  beauty,  on  whose  eyelids  sit 

A  thousand  nymph-like  and  enamoured  Graces. 

But  no  critic  would  dream  of  arguing  that  this  last 
repetition  must  also  be  Spenser's  own,  whether  or  not  he 

1  The  Scholemaster ,  B.  ii  :    Imitation.     Macrobius,  of  course, 
had  in  antiquity  made  the  matter  notorious  as  to  Homer  and 
Virgil.     Ascham  notes  how  Virgil  and  Cicero  repeat  themselves. 

2  See  Dunster's  Commentaries  on  Milton's  early  reading,  and 
the  Prima  Stamina  of  his  Paradise  Lost,  1800. 

8  See  H.  E.  Cory's  Spenser,  the  School  of  the  Fletchers,  and 
Milton.  Univ.  of  California  Press,  1912. 

•  Spenser,  Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Againe,  1.  245  ;  Words 
worth,  Sonnet  The  World  is  too  much  with  us. 

5  See  Grosart's  ed.  of  Davies,  i,  p.  xcvii.     A  number  of  such 
echoes  are  noted  in  an  old  paper  by  the  author  in  vol.  ii,  of 
Criticisms. 

6  F.  Q.  II,  iii,  25.     Cp.  Sonnet  n  ;  Hymne  in  Honour  of  Beautie, 
st.  5  from  end  ;   and  King's  Glosse  to  the  Shephcavds  Calender  : 
June. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  393 

knew  that  the  idea  is  derived  from  Musaeus.  Such  a 
conception  of  poetic  authorship  is  outside  of  argument. 
Yet  it  would  be  less  absurd  than  to  identify  the  author 
of  the  Shakespeare  Plays  with  Bacon  on  the  score  of 
parallelisms  of  phrase  such  as  are  founded  on  by  Mr. 
Donnelly.  Far  closer  parallels  are  to  be  found  between 
the  Shakespeare  Plays  and  those  of  subsequent  drama 
tists, — for  instance,  Webster,  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher. 
Take  a  handful  of  Webster's  imitations  : 

I  will  wear  him  in  my  heart's  core. 

Hamlet,  III.  2. 
the  secret  of  my  prince, 
Which  I  will  wear  on  the  inside  of  my  heart. 

Duchess  of  Malfy,  in,  2. 
I'll  put  a  girdle  round  about  the  earth. 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  ii,  2. 
He  that  can  compass  me  and  knows  my  drifts, 
May  say  he  hath  put  a  girdle  'bout  the  world.1 

Duchess  of  Malfi,  iii,  i . 
'tis  the  eye  of  childhood 
That  fears  a  painted  devil. 

Macbeth,  ii,  2. 
Terrify  babes,  my  lord,  with  painted  devils. 

The  White  Devil  (Dyce,  p.  22). 
He  doth  bestride  the  narrow  world 
Like  a  Colossus. 

Julius  CcBsar,  i,  2. 
The  high  Colossus  that  bestrides  us  all. 

Appius  and  Virginia,  iii,  i. 
Richer  than  all  his  tribe. 

Othello,  v,  2. 
More  worth  than  all  her  tribe. 

Appius  and  Virginia,  iv,  i. 
My  operant  powers  their  functions  leave  to  do. 

Hamlet,  iii,  2. 
This  sight  hath  stiff  en 'd  all  my  operant  powers. 

Appius  and  Virginia,  v,  3. 

1  Mr.  Harold  Bayley  (The  Shakespeare  Symphony,  1906,  p.  259) 
has  pointed  out  that  this  "  girdle  "  phrase,  which  occurs  twice  in 
Bacon  as  a  name  for  the  Equator,  is  poetically  used  by  Chapman, 
Massinger,  Shirley,  Ford,  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  as  well  as 
by  Webster. 


394  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

'Tis  in  my  memory  locked, 
And  you  yourself  shall  keep  the  key  of  it. 

Hamlet,  i,  3. 

You  shall  close  it  (a  promise  of  secresy)  up  like  a  treatise  of 
your  own,  and  yourself  shall  keep  the  key  of  it. 

Northward  Ho,  i,  i. 

Tke  Chapman  parallels,1  if  less  numerous,  are  no  less 
noteworthy  : 

When  sorrows  come,  they  come  not  single  spies, 
But  in  battalions. 

Hamlet. 
Afflictions 

Do  fall  like  hailstones,  one  no  sooner  drops, 
But  a  whole  shower  does  follow. 

Chapman,  Revenge  for  Honour,  ii,  i . 

Spacious  in  the  possession  of  dirt. 

Hamlet. 
Rich  in  dirt. 

All  Fools,  i,  i. 

Let  the  frame  of  things  disjoint,  both  the  worlds  surfer. 

Macbeth. 

The  breaking  of  so  great  a  thing  should  make 
A  greater  crack.     The  bound  of  the  world 
Should  have  shaked  lions  into  civil  streets. 

Julius  Cfssar. 
Methinks  the  frame 
And  shaken  points  of  the  whole  world  should  crack. 

Chapman,  Bussy  D'Ambois,  v,  i. 

Why,  man,  he  doth  bestride  the  narrow  world 
Like  a  Colossus. 

Julius  Cfssar. 
A  Colossus 
What  (PThat)  could  so  lately  straddle  o'er  a  province. 

The  A  dmiral  of  France,  iv,  i . 

A  Colossus, 
And  can  stride  from  one  province  to  another. 

Id.  ib.  ii,  i. 

Unskilful  statuaries,  who  suppose, 
In  forging  a  Colossus,  if  they  make  him 

1  Apart  from  echoes  of  phrase,  compare  D 'Olive's  account  of 
his  following  (Monsieur  D1  Olive,  v,  end)  with  Falstaff's  descrip 
tion  of  his  ragged  regiment. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  395 

Straddle  enough,  strut,  and  look  big,  and  gape, 
Their  work  is  goodly. 

Id.     Bussy  D'Ambois,  i,  i. 

Similarly  the  visibly  Shakespearean  line  : 

The  silver  livery  of  advised  age, 

in  2  HENRY  VI  (V,  ii,  47),  is  echoed  in  one  of  A  LARUM  FOR 
LONDON  (Simpson's  rep.  p.  62)  : 

The  silver  cognisance  of  age, 

and  again  in  the  Court  Prologue  to  Dekker's  OLD  FOR- 
TUNATUS : 

Clothed  in  the  livery 
Of  silver-handed  [?  headed]  age. 

Some  of  these  phrases  were  probably  current  formulas  ; 
but  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  some  are  real  echoes  ;  l 
and  similar  identities  can  be  noted  between  Webster  and 
other  contemporaries.  There  is  not  the  slightest  ground; 
however,  for  any  mystification  on  this  score  as  to  plays 
published  by  their  authors,  save  where  there  may  be 
reason  to  surmise  collaboration  or  re-casting  :  we  are 
simply  dealing  with  conscious  or  unconscious  imitation. 
The  same  verdict  holds  good  of  such  parallels  as  these 
between  Shakespeare  and  Heywood  : 

I  must  be  cruel  only  to  be  kind. 

Hamlet. 

Blanda.     Indeed  you  are  too  cruel. 
Young  Lionel.  Yes,  to  her, 

Only  of  purpose  to  be  kind  to  thee. 

The  English  Traveller,  i,  2. 
Heap  Pelion  upon  Ossa. 

Hamlet. 
Heap  Ossa  upon  Pelion. 

The  English  Traveller,  iv,  3. 

Such  phrases  may  have  been  current  tags  :  Kyd  has  : 

To  bear  up  Peleon  or  Ossa. 

Soliman  and  Perseda,  i,  3  ; 

1  It  is  not  impossible  that  Shakespeare's  "  Colossus  "  is  an 
echo  from  a  previous  Cczsar  which  he  worked  over. 


396  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

or  one  pair  may  be  the  echo  of  the  other.  The  resemblance 
between  Hamlet's  reproaches  to  his  mother  (iii,  4)  and 
those  of  young  Geraldine  to  Wincott's  wife,  however, 
suggests  actual  reminiscence  upon  Heywood's  part.  In 
any  case,  no  competent  critic  will  suspect  identity  of 
authorship,  any  more  than  in  respect  of  the  parallels 
between  Shakespeare's  Plays  and  those  of  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher : 

There's  such  divinity  doth  hedge  a  king, 

That  treason  can  but  peep  to  what  it  would. 

Hamlet. 
But  there  is 

Divinity  about  you  [the  King]  that  strikes  dead 

My  rising  passions. 

Maid's  Tragedy,  iii,  i. 

[That  passage  in  HAMLET,  as  I  have  elsewhere  noted, 
seems  to  echo  one  in  Montaigne's  essay  OF  THE  INCOM- 
MODITY  OF  GREATNESS.1  It  is  again  echoed  in  the 
anonymous  play  NERO  (1624)  : 

The  beams  of  royal  majesty  are  such 

As  all  eyes  with  it  are  amazed  and  weakened, 

But  it  with  nothing,     (v,  i.) 

The  poet  may  as  well  be  echoing  Montaigne  as  Shake 
speare  ;  or  he — and  Shakespeare  before  him — may 
instead  have  followed  Sidney,  who  before  Montaigne 
wrote  of  eyes  "  So  incredibly  blinded  with  the  over-bright 
shining  of  his  royalty." 2  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  suggest 
only  Shakespeare.] 

My  pulse  as  thine  doth  temperately  keep  time. 

Hamlet. 
Alas,  my  lord,  your  pulse  keeps  madman's  time. 

Philaster,  iv,  i. 
Hast  thou  no  medicine  for  a  mind  diseased  ? 

Macbeth. 

1  See  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  second  edition,  p.  57. 

2  Arcadia,  B.  ii,  ed.  1627,  p.  207.     Sidney  wrote  the  bulk  of 
the  Arcadia  in  1580-1  ;  and  Montaigne's  third  book,  containing 
the  essay   Of  the   Incomtnodity   of  Greatness,   appeared  only  in 
1588.     The  idea,  of  course,  goes  back  to  Augustus. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  397 

Nature  too  unkind 
That  made  no  medicine  for  a  troubled  mind. 

Philaster,-iii,  i. 

Hast  thou  no  medicine  to  restore  my  wits 
When  I  have  lost  'em  ? 

Id.  ib.  near  end. 

The  last  two  citations  may  or  may  not  be  echoes  of 
Shakespeare  :  the  tag,  a  medieval  commonplace,1  is  older 
than  MACBETH  in  Elizabethan  drama.2  In  the  SPANISH 
TRAGEDY  (iii,  8)  we  have  : 

Ah  !   but  none  of  them  will  purge  the  heart  ! 
No  !  there's  no  medicine  left  for  my  disease. 

In  Ben  Jonson,  again,  we  have  a  passage  which  may 
tell  either  of  conversations  between  himself  and  Shake 
speare,  or  of  recollection  of  Hamlet's  advice  to  the 
players  : 

That  the  glass  of  custom,  which  is  comedy,  is  so  held  up  to  me 
by  the  poet,  as  I  can  therein  view  the  daily  examples  of 
men's  lives,  and  images  of  truth  in  their  manners.  .  .  . 

The  Magnetic  Lady,  ii,  i,  end. 

Yet  it  may  be  that  both  alike  had  but  echoed  a  common 
saw,  for  in  the  old  interlude  IMPATIENT  POVERTY  (1560) 
we  have  the  line  : 

It  is  but  a  mirror  vice  to  exclude. 

Farmer's  rep.  1909,  p.  35  ; 

1  Gosson  has  "  the  surfeit  of  the  soul  is  hardly  cured."    School 
of  Abuse,  Arber's  rep.  p.  30.    And  Greene  has  : 

But  griefs  of  mind  by  salves  are  not  appeased. 

James  IV. 

2  So  with  another  ancient  saw  : 

Extreme  diseases 
Ask  extreme  remedies. 

Chapman,  All  Fools,  v,  i. 
Diseases  desperate  grown 
By  desperate  appliance  are  relieved. 

Hamlet,  iv,  3. 
This  had  occurred  earlier  in  Lilly  (twice)  and  in  Nashe. 


398  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

and  the  "  mirror "  metaphor  was  in  universal  use. 
Another  echo  almost  certainly  stands  for  reminiscence. 
The  lines  : 

Dear  Angelo,  you  are  not  every  man, 
But  one  whom  my  election  hath  designed 
As  the  true  proper  object  of  my  soul, 

The  Case  is  Altered,  \,  2, 

cannot  fail  to  recall  Hamlet's 

Since  my  dear  soul  was  mistress  of  her  choice 
And  could  of  men  distinguish,  her  election 
Hath  sealed  thee  for  herself. 

Similarly,  the  speech  of  Hippolito,  the  melancholy  lover 
in  Dekker's  HONEST  WHORE  (Pt.  I,  iv,  i),  on  a  skull,  is 
almost  certainly  an  imitation  of  Hamlet's  musings  on  the 
skull  in  the  grave-digger's  scene.     The  lines  beginning 
Perhaps  this  shrewd  pate  was  mine  enemy's, 

with  the  allusion  to 

His  quarrels,  and  that  common  fence,  his  law, 

tell  of  Shakespearean  suggestion.  It  was  inevitable,  in 
fact,  in  an  age  of  sentientous  writing,  when  playwrights 
moralised  like  everybody  else,  that  some  should  echo 
Shakespeare  as  he  echoed  others.1  But  these  parallels 
never  set  up  in  a  rational  reader  any  perplexity.  To 
every  student  it  is  clear  that  there  is  no  ground,  in  such 
cases,  for  surmising  community  of  authorship.  Yet 
Mr.  Donnelly  actually  builds  on  the  remote  resemblance 
between  Shakespeare's 

doth  bestride  this  narrow  world 
Like  a  Colossus, 

and  Bacon's  phrase,  "  For  this  giant  bestrideth  the  sea," 
when  we  actually  have  the  closer  parallels  above  noted 
between  Shakespeare's  phrase  and  those  of  Chapman  and 
Webster ;  and,  again,  he  brackets  Shakespeare's  "  such 

1  Poets  as  well  as  dramatists  echoed  him.  See  the  echoes 
in  Samuel  Nicholson's  Acolastus,  1600,  cited  in  Ingleby's  Centurie 
of  Pray se,  i,  33. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  399 

divinity  doth  hedge  a  king  "  with  a  Baconian  phrase  about 
"  the  law  which  is  the  hedge  and  fence  about  the  liberty 
of  the  subject/'  when,  as  we  have  seen,  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher  wrote  of  the  "  divinity  about  "  the  king.  If  we 
say  on  such  evidence  that  Bacon  wrote  the  Skakespeare 
Plays,  we  are  committed  to  crediting  him  with  those  of 
Webster  and  Chapman  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  also. 
It  is  plain  folly  in  any  of  these  cases  to  suppose  any 
identity  of  authorship  whatever.  We  are  simply  dealing 
with  current  tags. 

A  very  real  ground,  indeed,  for  assigning  non-Shake 
spearean  authorship  to  work  ascribed  to  Shakespeare  does 
arise  in  a  number  of  plays,  long  recognised  by  most  critics 
as  doubtful  or  as  based  upon  older  work.  Thus  we  can 
trace  the  original  HAMLET  of  Kyd  here  and  there,  in 
Shakespeare's  play,  by  such  remnants  of  Kyd's  diction  as 
the 

I  will  consent,  conceale, 

of  THE  SPANISH  TRAGEDY  (iv,  i),  found  in  the  first  quarto 
(sc.  xi.  1.  106),  and  in  other  phrases  preserved  in  the  final 
text.1  But  the  three  plays  of  the  HENRY  VI  group,  TITUS 
ANDRONICUS,  and  THE  TAMING  OF  THE  SHREW  are  the 
chief  cases  in  point,  apart  from  the  various  plays  printed 
with  his  name,  but  not  included  in  the  Folio,  and  PERICLES 
and  HENRY  VIII,  now  generally  recognised  as  composite. 
In  regard  to  the  HENRY  VI  plays  and  TITUS,  but  especially 
the  latter,  we  have  such  grounds  for  diagnosing  alien 
authorship  as  would  have  been  held  by  the  Baconians  to 
be  absolutely  decisive  if  they  had  related  to  Bacon.  The 
latter  play  contains  a  round  score  of  the  most  marked 
verbal  identities  with  passages  in  the  signed  works  of 
Peele ;  and  a  less  number  of  equally  marked  identities 
with  passages  in  the  signed  works  of  Greene.  In  Peele's 
work  in  particular,  the  significant  passages  are  not  mere 
proverbs  or  commonplaces  such  as  any  writer  might  use; 


1  See  Sarrazin's  Thomas  Kyd  und  sein  Kreis,  1892,  pp.  106-8. 


400  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

but  tricks  and  peculiarities  of  style  and  phrase  which  tell 
of  one  hand.  The  Baconians  have  never  done  anything 
so  useful  as  to  follow  clues  like  these  :  one  and  all,  they 
have  heedlessly  accepted  the  whole  traditional  Shake- 
pearean  canon,  imputing  the  entire  mass  to  Bacon. 
Should  they  chance  to  collate  the  Peelean  and  Greenean 
passages  in  TITUS,  far  from  hesitating  about  the  validity 
of  their  methods,  they  would  in  all  likelihood  proceed  in 
a  body  to  ascribe  the  entire  performance  of  those  poets 
also  to  Bacon. 

And  the  imbroglio  does  not  end  there.  Over  and  above 
the  problem  of  actual  repetitions  of  non-Shakespearean 
diction  in  the  plays  recognised  as  doubtful,  we  have  that 
of  the  signal  parallelism  of  style,  rhythm,  and  idea  (rather 
than  of  phrase)  between  the  chorus-prologues  to  HENRY  V 
and  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  and  those  to  Acts  II  and  IV 
of  Dekker's  OLD  FORTUNATUS  and  Act  V  of  Heywood's 
FAIR  MAID  OF  THE  WEST.  Precisely  because  the  two 
"  Shakespearean  "  prologues  cited  are  not  in  the  style  of 
the  plays  to  which  they  are  attached,  or  of  any  other  play 
of  Shakespeare,  we  are  moved  to  suspect  the  hand  of 
either  Dekker  or  Heywood  in  them,  Dekker's  for  choice. 
This  is  the  more  reasonable  because  Dekker  at  times 
wrote  for  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  Company,  which  was 
Shakespeare's.1  We  are  not  here  concerned  to  do  more 
than  indicate  the  problem,  and  to  note  the  difference 
between  such  a  real  ground  for  surmising  an  alien  hand 
in  choruses  attached  to  genuine  Shakespearean  plays,  and 
the  visionary  grounds  given  by  Mr.  Donnelly  and  his 
tribe  for  ascribing  those  plays  in  the  lump  to  Bacon.  He 
might  quite  as  plausibly  ascribe  to  Bacon  the  whole  of 
the  later  Elizabethan  drama. 

And  this,  it  will  be  remembered,  several  Baconians  have 

1  In  this  connection  it  is  noteworthy  that  Henslowe  has  an 
entry,  Jan.  12,  1601-2,  of  a  payment  of  los.  to  Dekker  "for  a 
prologe  and  a  epiloge  for  the  playe  of  ponesciones  pillett " — i.e. 
Pontius  Pilate. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  401 

done,  even  as  Mr.  Donnelly  ascribes  to  Bacon  Burton's 
ANATOMY  OF  MELANCHOLY  and  Florio's  translation  of 
Montaigne's  ESSAYS — here  diverging  from  others  of  the 
faith  who  ascribe  to  Bacon  the  French  original,  leaving 
Florio  the  credit  of  the  translation.  Lord  Penzance,  it 
should  be  observed,  withholds  these  items  from  his 
readers,  saying  nothing  of  the  parallels  discovered  by 
Mr.  Donnelly  between  the  ESSAYS,  Bacon,  and  the  Plays. 
He  could  not  but  apprehend  that  the  obtrusion  of  the 
whole  Baconian  case  would  make  more  laughers  than 
converts,  and  he  simply  suppresses  the  more  startling 
details.  Still,  what  he  does  present  may  suffice,  when 
critically  considered,  to  satisfy  most  readers  that  a  judge's 
judgment  on  a  literary  issue  may  be  worth  very  little. 

Mr.  Donnelly's  remaining  parallels  may  be  classed  under 
three  heads  : 

A .  Pseudo-Baconian  citations  from  the  essay  OF  DEATH 
posthumously  published  as  Bacon's  in  the  volume  of 
REMAINES  in   1648,   but   deliberately  rejected  by  Dr. 
Rawley,  who  afterwards  republished  other  things  from 
the  same  volume. 

That  this  essay  is  not  Bacon's  was  the  confident 
decision  of  Spedding,  in  which,  probably,  all  critics  now 
share  1  who  are  not  of  the  faith  of  Mr.  Donnelly.  That 
writer  presents  a  series  of  fourteen  parallels  between 
Shakespearean  passages  and  this  non-Baconian  essay; 
concerning  which  he  does  not  once  hint  that  there  is  any 
doubt  as  to  its  authenticity.  Lord  Penzance,  knowing 
nothing  else  about  it  than  Mr.  Donnelly  had  told  him, 
included  these  fourteen  illicit  parallels  in  his  selection 
from  Mr.  Donnelly.  And  even  these  parallels  are  worth 
less. 

B.  A  number  of  more  or  less  trivial  parallels  of  phrase; 
common  to  the  propaganda  of  the  whole  Baconian  school; 
of    which    samples    have    been    given    above.     I    have 

1  The  style  is  singularly  like  that  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  as 
Spedding  observed. 

2  C 


402  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

"  paralleled "  only  the  more  plausible.  Mr.  Donnelly 
finds  significant  parallels  in  the  use  of  such  phrases  as 
Shakespeare's  "  Shake  patiently  my  great  affliction  off," 
and  Bacon's  "  The  soul  having  shaken  off  her  flesh  "  ; 
"  He  is  winding  up  the  watch  of  his  wit  "  and  "  To  wind 
down  the  watch  of  their  life  "  ;  "  You're  a  fair  viol  "  and 
"  this  harp  of  a  man's  body  "  ;  "  fret  the  string  "  and 
"  struck  upon  that  string  "  ;  "  The  fingers  of  the  powers 
above  "  and  "  The  soul  shows  what  finger  hath  enforced 
her  "  ;  "  feast  of  death  "  and  "  death's  banquet."  Over 
such  "  parallels,"  and  coincidences  of  phrase  such  as 
"  infirm  of  purpose,"  "  piece  of  nature,"  "  base  and 
bloody,"  "  soft  and  tender,"  &c.,  which  can  be  found  by 
the  hundred  as  between  Bacon  and  any  other  Elizabethan 
writer,  I  do  not  propose  to  spend  time.  Their  value  may 
be  gathered  from  the  lists  which  I  shall  give  below  of 
instances  from  other  writers  of  words  specified  by  Mr. 
Donnelly  as  specially  affected  by  Bacon  and  Shakespeare. 
Of  more  plausible  parallels,  however,  there  remain  a  few 
which  may  here  be  briefly  dealt  with. 

i.  Such  proverbial  phrases  or  moral  maxims  as  "To 
thine  own  self  be  true  "  are  hardly  worth  tracing.  The 
speech  of  Polonius  to  Laertes  contains  half  a  dozen 
indisputable  echoes  of  phrase  from  Euphues'  counsel  to 
Philautus  in  EUPHUES  AND  HIS  ENGLAND.1  The  "  to 
thine  own  self  be  true  "  maxim  is  on  a  par  with  the 
others  ;  and  the  Baconian  claim  is  equally  applicable 
to  Lilly.  Daniel  has  : 

I  made  myself  unto  myself  untrue. 
Letter  from  Octavia  to  Marcus  Antonius,  1599,  st.  5  ; 
and 

How  that  deceit  is  but  a  caviller, 
And  true  unto  itself  can  never  stand. 

Musophilus,  1603,  11.  894-5. 

1  Pointed  out  by  Rushton,  in  Shakespeare's  Euphuism,  pp. 
46,  47- 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  403 

2.  Any  one  but  a  Baconian  would  divine  that  Shake 
speare's 

Love 
Must  creep  in  service  where  it  cannot  go, 

and  Bacon's  "  Love  must  creep  where  it  cannot  go,"  are 
simply  citations  of  a  proverb.  It  is  given  in  Hazlitt's 
ENGLISH  PROVERBS  : 

Love  creepeth  where  it  cannot  go, 

from  Rowland's  Tis  MERRY  WHEN  GOSSIPS  MEET  (1602). 
There  is  further  an  old  Scotch  proverb  :  "  Kindness  will 
creep  where  it  canna  gang."  It  was  evidently  current 
long  before  1600.  Greene  in  FRIAR  BACON  (sc.  5  :  ed. 
Dyce,  p.  161)  has  : 

Love  ought  to  creep  as  doth  the  dial's  shade  ; 
and  in  MENAPHON  (Arber's  rep.  p.  39)  : 

Love   creepeth   on   by   degrees.  .  .  .  Love  .  .  .  should   enter 
into  the  eye,  and  by  long  gradations  pass  into  the  heart. 

The  argument  from  such  a  quotation  for  Bacon's  author 
ship  of  Hamlet  would  make  him  author  of  : 

What  is  love  I  will  you  show  : 

A  thing  that  creeps  and  cannot  go. 

Heywood,  Rape  of  Lucrece,  1608,  ii,  i. 

3.  Shakespeare  has  "  majestical  roof  [of  heaven]  fretted 
with  golden  fire,"  and  Bacon  suggests  that  if  the  deity 
had  been  of  a  human  disposition  he  would  have  cast  the 
stars  in  works  and  orders  "  like  the  frets  in  the  roofs  of 
houses."    It  is  not  impossible  that  one  of  those  expres 
sions  may  really  have  suggested  the  other.     But  if  this  be 
made  an  argument  for  Bacon's  authorship  of  HAMLET,  it 
entails  by  parity  of  reasoning  the  claim  that  Bacon  wrote 
the  dedication  to  himself  of  Chapman's  translation  of 
Hesiod's  WORKS  AND  DAYS  (1618),  which  contains  the 
clause  :   "  wherein  your  Lordship  may  find  more  honour 
than  in  the  fretted  roofs  of  the  mighty."     Chapman's 
signed  dedication  is  emphatically  in  Chapman's  style ; 
but  that  need  not  trouble  Baconians. 


404  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

4.  Shakespeare's  passage  (RICHARD  III,  ii,  3)  about  men's 
minds  "  by  a  divine  instinct  "  anticipating  danger  as 

The  waters  swell  before  a  boisterous  storm, 

is  paralleled  in  Bacon  by  a  phrase  comparing  commotions 
in  States  to  "  secret  swelling  of  the  sea  before  a  tempest." 
Here  again  Bacon  might  very  well  be  reproducing  what 
he  had  heard  in  the  theatre.  But  all  students  are  aware 
that  the  playwright  was  simply  reproducing  a  passage  of 
Holinshed  : 

Before  such  great  things,  men's  hearts  of  a  secret  instinct  of 
nature  misgive  them,  as  the  sea  without  wind  swelleth  of  himself 
some  time  before  a  tempest. 

Cited  in  Boswell-Stone's  Shakespeare's  Holinshed,  p.  353. 

A  similar  expression  occurs  in  Hall!s  Chronicle.  Bacon 
may  have  echoed  either  the  chronicles  or  the  play ;  or 
the  phrase  may  have  had  proverbial  currency. 

5.  The  last  is  obviously  the  explanation  of  the  metaphor 
of  "  shunning  a  rock,"  that  of  a  parasite  acting  as  ivy  on 
a  tree,  and  that  of  a  man  being  "  limed  "  like  a  bird,  which 
Mr.  Donnelly  gravely  adds  to  his  list  of  parallels.     He 
does  not  blench  at  bracketing,  as  from  the  same  hand, 
Shakespeare's 

By  that  sin  [ambition]  fell  the  angels, 
and  Bacon's 

The  desire  of  power  in  excess  caused  the  angels  to  fall — 
a  homiletic  saying  which  must  have  been  uttered  by 
thousands  of  men  and  preachers  many  thousands  of  times 
in  that  generation.  The  fall  of  Lucifer  and  his  angels 
through  pride  is  one  of  the  outstanding  episodes  in  both 
the  Coventry  and  the  Chester  MYSTERIES  ;  in  the  old 
interlude  NATURE,  by  Henry  Medwall  (c.  1490)  it  is 
described  in  the  lines  : 

For  pride  and  presumption, 
Lucifer,  which  sometime  was  a  glorious  angel, 
For  that  his  offence  had  such  correction 
That  both  he  and  eke  many  a  legion 
Of  his  order  was  cast  down  to  hell. 

(Farmer's  Lost  Tudor  Plays,  p.  123)  ; 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  405 

and  similar  formulas  could  be  cited  from  a  score  of  books 
and  sermons. 

6.  Bacon  has  the  figure  :  "  High  treason  is  not  written 
in  ice  "  ;    and  Shakespeare  has  :    "  a  figure  trench'd  in 
ice,  which  .  .  .  dissolves  to  water;"  and  "  their  virtues 
We  write  in  water."    This  for  Mr.  Donnelly  goes  to  prove 
identity  of  authorship.    Then  Bacon  wrote  also  Daniel's 
MUSOPHILUS  (1601),  where  we  have  : 

Then  where  is  that  proud  title  of  thy  name 
Written  in  yce  of  melting  vanity  ?     (11.  129-130). 

7.  Wolsey's  lines  in  HENRY  VIII  about  venturing  on 
a  sea  of  glory, 

Like  little  wanton  boys  that  swim  on  bladders, 

are  bracketed  by  Mr.  Donnelly  with  a  passage  in  Bacon 
advising  the  man  "  that  seeketh  victory  over  himself  "to 
begin  cautiously,  "  and  at  the  first  .  .  .  practise  with 
helps,  as  swimmers  do  with  bladders."  There  is  no 
coincidence  whatever  in  the  sentiment  of  the  two  passages, 
in  one  of  which  the  use  of  bladders  in  swimming  is  meta 
phorically  put  as  the  taking  of  a  great  risk,  while  in  the 
other  it  is  put  as  the  cautious  way  of  going  to  work.  The 
every-day  allusion  to  the  use  of  bladders  in  swimming  is 
the  one  point  the  two  passages  have  in  common.  But  a 
more  serious  difficulty  for  the  Baconian  is  the  fact  that  by 
nearly  all  critics  the  speech  of  Wolsey  is  recognised  as  the 
work  of  Fletcher,  not  of  Shakespeare.  This  incidentally 
raises  the  question  as  to  how  Bacon  contrived  to  col 
laborate  with  Fletcher  without  endangering  his  "  secret." 
But  probably  the  Baconian  solution  will  be  that  Bacon 
wrote  Beaumont  and  Fletcher. 

Others  of  Mr.  Donnelly's  phrase-parallels  are  dealt  with 
in  the  next  chapter,  as  reproduced  by  Dr.  Theobald. 

C.  For  the  rest,  I  have  thought  fit  to  deal  in  some 
detail,  and  at  some  cost  of  time  and  trouble,  with  his 
unspeakable  list  of  citations  of  mere  words,  used  meta 
phorically  or  otherwise,  in  the  Plays  and  Works,  held  by 


406  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

him  to  be  significant  of  single  authorship.  No  other  part 
of  the  Baconian  propaganda,  I  suppose,  reveals  such 
monumental  ignorance  of  everything  that  a  student  of 
Elizabethan  literature  might  be  expected  to  know.  We 
have  seen  above  how  Mr.  Donnelly  is  thrilled  by  the  dis 
covery  that  both  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  use  such 
"  strange "  words  as  "quintessence,"  "eternize,"  and 
"  gravelled."  But  there  is  no  limit  to  his  faculty  for 
surprise.  He  solemnly  italicises  such  words  as  mortal,  ape, 
infinite,  scour,  fantastical  ;  such  metaphors  as  sea,  ocean, 
scum,  dregs,  cloud,  wilderness,  and  so  on,  which  lie  thickly 
scattered  over  the  whole  territory  of  Tudor  literature. 
The  portent  of  Mr.  Donnelly's  ignorance  in  these  matters 
transcends  my  powers  of  comment.  But  inasmuch  as 
uninformed  readers  are  found  to  be  no  less  impressed  by 
his  word-parallels  than  by  his  phrase  parallels,  I  have  put 
together  one-and-twenty  sets  of  illustrations  of  the  com 
mon  use  in  the  sixteenth  century  of  words  which  Mr. 
Donnelly  takes  to  be  so  special  to  the  style  of  Bacon- 
Shakespeare  as  to  stand  for  idiosyncrasies  of  vocabulary. 
If  the  enlightened  reader's  gorge  should  rise  at  such 
demonstrations  as  that  "  mortal  man  "  was  an  expression 
in  universal  use,  let  him  remember  that  if  I  have  tried 
him  much  I  have  spared  him  more.  And  he  is  free  to  skip. 
But  it  may  be  worth  his  while  to  realise  what  Baconians 
are  capable  of  putting  down  as  "  coincidences  "  : 

I.  Ape. 

The  ape  of  form. 

O  Sleep,  them  ape  of  death. 

Shakespeare. 

Custom  ...  an  ape  of  nature. 

Bacon. 

COMPARE 

Blind  chance,  the  ape  of  counsel  and  advice. 

Chapman,  All  Fools,  i,  near  end. 

Make  their  native  land  the  land  of  apes. 

Id.     An  Humorous  Day's  Mirth. 
(Shepherd's  ed.  p.  32. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  407 

In  all  things  his  sweet  ape. 

Id.     The  Gentleman  Usher,  iv,  i. 
Is  he  [the  devil]  not  the  ambitious  ape  of  God's  majestic  ? 

Nashe,  Christ's  T eaves  over  Jerusalem  :   Works,   ed. 

McKerrow,  ii,  40. 
The  painters,  being  the  poets'  apes. 

Lilly,  Love's  Metamorphosis,  ii. 

Man  is  God's  ape,  and  an  ape  is  Zany  to  a  man  .  .  . 
So  are  women  men's  she-apes. 

Dekker,  Seven  Deadly  Sins  of  London  ;  c.  8  : 
Apishness,  Arber's  rep.  p.  36. 
They  that  draw  shapes 
Are  but  God's  apes. 

Id.     The  Honest  Whore,  iv,  i . 
2.  Axle-tree. 

The  axle-tree  on  which  heaven  rides. 

Shakespeare. 
The  axle-tree  whereupon  I  have  turned. 

Bacon,  Letter  to  Essex,  1600. 

The  poles  and  axle-trees  of  Heaven,  upon  which  the  conversion 
is  accomplished. 

Adv.  of  Learning,  B.  ii. 

COMPARE 

The  axle-tree  of  Heaven. 

Marlowe,  2  Tamb.  i,  i. 
When  heaven  shall  cease  to  move  on  both  the  poles. 

Id.  i,  3. 

The  adverse  poles  of  that  straight  line 
Which  measureth  the  glorious  frame  of  Heaven. 

Id.  iii,  4. 
The  axis  of  the  world. 

Id.  v,  3. 

Jointly  move  upon  one  axle-tree 
Whose  terminus  is  termed  the  world's  wide  pole. 

Id.     Faustus,  ii,  2. 
The  axle-tree  about  which  Heaven  hath  his  motion. 

Chapman,  Ep.  Ded.  to  trans,  of  Iliad. 
And  may  both  points  of  heaven's  straight  axle-tree 
Conjoin  in  one,  before  thyself  and  me. 

Chapman,  Bussy  D'Ambois,  end. 

His  [night's]  ebon  car, 
Whose  axle-tree  was  jet  enchased  with  stars. 

Peele,  The  Order  of  the  Garter,  23-4. 


408  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Fire,  fire  about  the  axle-tree  of  heaven. 

Id.     Battle  of  Alcazar,  v,  prol. 
The  axel  tree  of  Heav'n. 
Heaven's  axeltree. 

Davies,  Orchestra,  1596,  stt.  36,  64. 
3.  Bowels. 

The  bowels  of  the  land. 
The  bowels  of  the  battle. 
The  bowels  of  ungrateful  Rome. 
The  bowels  of  the  deep. 

Shakespeare. 
The  bowels  of  morality. 

Factions  erected  in  the  bowels  [of  the  state]. 

Bacon. 

COMPARE 

A  civil  war  .  .  .  within  the  bowels  of  that  estate. 

Sidney,  Arcadia,  B.  i,  ed.  1627,  p.  6. 

Farewell  all  learning  which  is  not  sprung  from  the  bowels  of 
the  Holy  Bible. 

Lilly,   Euphues  :    The  Anatomy   of  Wit    (ch.  on 
Euphues  and  his  Ephcebus],  Arber's  rep.  p.  156. 

Thirty  years  together  suffered  she  [France]  her  bowels  to  be 
torn  out.  .  .  . 

Id.  c.  7,  Arber's  rep.  p.  47. 
The  wealthy  mines 
Found  in  the  bowels  of  America. 

Locrine  (before  1595),  i,  i. 
Ope  earth,  and  take  thy  miserable  son 
Into  the  bowels  of  thy  cursed  womb. 

Peele,  David  and  Bethsabe,  1594,  iii,  4. 
The  bowels  of  a  freezing  cloud. 

Marlowe,  i  Tamburlaine,  iv,  2. 
And  rent  [  ~=  rend]  the  bowels  of  the  middle  earth. 

Greene,  "  Ditty  "  in  Perimedes  the  Blacksmith,  1588. 

The  silver  streams 
That  pierce  earths  bowels. 

Peele,  David  and  Bethsabe,  i,  i . 
That  have  .  .  .  ript  old  Israel's  bowels  with  your  swords. 

Id.  ib.     Ed.  Dyce,  p.  482. 
And  rend  the  bowels  of  this  mighty  realm. 

Selimus  (pub.  1594),  1.  1044. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  409 

The  bowels  of  this  commonwealth. 

Foxe,  Acts  and  Monuments,  Cattley's  ed.  1841,  i,  164. 
The  bowels  of  these  mysteries. 

Chapman,  Hymnus  in  Cynthiam. 
The  bowels  of  the  earth. 

Id.     Ep.  ded.  to  Ovid's  Banquet  of  Sense. 
The  bowels  of  the  earth. 

Stubbes,  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  Collier's  rep.  p.  28. 
This  church,  in  the  bowels  whereof  .  .  . 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Polity,  B.  IV,  ch.  vi,  §  i. 
The  bowels  of  the  earth. 

Spenser,  Faerie  Queene,  I,  i,  39. 
The  hallowed  bowels  of  the  silver  Thames. 

Jonson,  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  Epilogue. 
Within  the  bowels  of  these  elements. 

Marlowe,  Faustus,  ii,  i. 

4.  Cloud. 

The  clouds  that  lowered  upon  our  houses. 
How  is  it  that  the  cloud  still  hangs  on  you  ? 

Shakespeare. 

This  cloud  hangs  over  the  house. 

The  cloud  of  so  great  a  rebellion  hanging  over  his  head. 
The  King  .  .  .  willing  to  leave  a  cloud  upon  him. 

Bacon. 

COMPARE 

A  fit  cloud  to  cover  their  abuse. 

Gosson,  School  of  Abuse,  (1579)  Arber's  rep.  p.  41. 
A  cloud  of  passionate  affection. 

Essaies  Politick  and  M  or  all,  by  D.  T.  Gent,  1608, 

fol.  4  recto. 
The  misty  cloud  that  so  eclipseth  fame. 

Greene,  verses  in  Penelope's  Web,  1587. 

The  cloud  of  mortal  things. 

Chaucer,  Boece,  B.  I.  Prosa  ii. 

The  cloud  of  ignorance. 

Id.  ib. 
Those  clouds  that  eclipse  her  [virtue]. 

Chapman,  Ep.  Ded.  to  trans,  of  Hesiod. 

This  black  cloud 
Of  swollen  hostility. 

A  Lamm  for  London,  Simpson's  rep.  p.  62. 


410  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

With  sorrow's  cloud  eclipsing  our  delights. 

Lilly,  Woman  in  the  Moon,  i,  i . 
With  sullen  sorrows  cloud  her  brain. 

Id.  ib. 
Swelling  clouds  that  overcast  my  brain. 

Id.  ib. 
Cloudy  mists  of  discontent. 

Patient  Grissil,  v,  2. 
Cloud  of  prejudice,  or  mist  of  passionate  affection. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Polity,  pref.  ch.  vii,  §  i. 
5.  Dregs. 

Dregs  of  the  storm. 

Dregs  of  conscience. 

Shakespeare. 
Dregs  of  this  age. 

Bacon  to  Queen  Elizabeth. 

COMPARE 

The  fresh  supply  of  earthly  dregs. 

Marlowe,  2  Tamb.  iii,  2. 
The  massy  dregs  of  earth. 

Id.  iv,  2. 
I'll  be  paid  dear  even  for  the  dregs  of  my  wit. 

The  Return  from  Parnassus  (1602),  sc.  3. 
To  pay  him  dear  for  the  very  dregs  of  his  wit. 

Nashe,  Four  Letters  Confuted;  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  i,  287. 
The  fecis  and  dragges  of  the  sayd  noble  doctrines. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  B.  i.  c.  14  (Dent's  rep.  p.  65). 
The  world  judges  such  to  be  ...  peasants  and  dregs. 

Roger  Hutchinson,  Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  302. 
They  who  know  what  quality  and  value  the  men  are  of  will 
think  ye  draw  very  near  the  dregs. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.,  pref.  ch.  iv,  §  5. 
An  infinite  rabble  of  such  dirty  dotages  and  filthy  dregs. 

Bale,  The  Image  of  Both  Churches,  ch.  vi,  §  5. 
Wit  hath  his  dregs  as  well  as  wine. 

Nashe,  Ep.  ded.  to  Christ's  Teares  over  Jerusalem. 
The  dregs  and  dross  of  mortality. 

Id.     Christ's  Teares  :  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  ii,  41. 
Dregs  of  men. 

Chapman,  De  Guiana,  Carmen  Epicum. 

The  very  dregs  of  servitude. 

Hey  wood    i  Edward  IV  ii,  3- 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  411 

Fond  fancy's  scum,  and  dregs  of  scattered  thought. 

Sidney,  Sonnet  in  English  Garner,  ed.  1904,  p.  135. 

The  stream 
Of  vulgar  humour,  mixt  with  common'st  dregs. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  Act  i,  near  end. 

6.  Fantastical. 

High  fantastical. 

A  mad  fantastical  trick. 

A  fantastical  knave. 

Fantastical  lies.  Shakespeare. 

A  fantastical  spirit. 
Fantastical  learning. 

Bacon, 

COMPARE 

For  as  well  Poets  as  Poesie  are  despised  ...  for  commonly 
whoso  is  studious  in  the  art  or  shews  himself  excellent  in  it,  they 
call  him  in  disdain  a  phantasticall ;  and  a  light-headed  or 
phantasticall  man  (by  conversion)  they  call  a  Poet  .  .  .  ;  and 
whatsoever  device  be  of  rare  invention  they  term  it  phantas 
ticall  .  .  .  ;  and  among  men  such  as  be  modest  and  grave,  and 
of  little  conversation  .  .  .  they  call  him  in  scorn  a  Philosopher 
or  Poet,  as  much  as  to  say  as  a  phantasticall  man,  very  injuriously 
(God  wot).  .  .  . 

Puttenham,  Arte  of  English  Poesie,   1589, 

Arber's  rep.  p.  34. 
Fantastical  fools. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  1531,  B.  i,  c.  i,  Dent's  rep.  p.  4. 

Fantastical  apparitions. 

More,  Dialogue  of  Comfort,  Dent's  rep.  p.  220. 

Fantastical  dreams. 
Nashe,  Anatomie  of  Absurditie  :  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  i,  1 1. 

Fantastical  of  her  mind. 

Lilly,  Mother  Bombie,  i,  I . 
Fantastical  heads. 

Gosson,  School  of  Abuse,  Afber's  rep.  p.  28. 

Fantastical  objections  and  reproofs. 

Chapman,  Ep.  ded.  to  trans,  of  Achilles'  Shield. 

Another  sort,  as  fantastical  as  the  rest. 

Stubbes,  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  Collier's  rep.  p.  52. 

Another  sort  of  fantastical  fools. 

Id.  p.  143. 


412  XHE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Fantastical  preachings. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wvofhe,  1528. 

Fantastical  devices. 

Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay,  ed.  1604,  p.  339. 

Fantastical  satirisme. 

Nashe,  Christ's  Teares  over  Jerusalem,  Pref .  To  the  Reader. 

This  phantasticall  treatise. 

Id.     Ep.  ded.  to  The  Unfortunate  Traveller. 

Dream  the  most  fantastical. 

Marston,  The  Malcontent,  i,  i. 

To  be  fantastical  or  scrupulous. 

The  Weakest  goeth  to  the  Wall,  iii,  i. 

Phantastically  attyred. 

Dekker,  Seven  Deadly  Sins,  Arber's  rep.  p.  35. 

Phantastical  apishness. 

Id.  p.  36. 
For  such  fantastical  and  fruitless  jewels. 

Chapman,  An  Humorous  Day's  Mirth  (Shepherd's  ed.  p.  24). 

'Tis  pretty  fantastical. 

Id.  ib.  p.  35. 
Too  fantastical. 

Id.  Monsieur  D'Olive,  iii,  i . 

Fantastical  opinions. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Wit  without  Money,  iv,  i . 

A  strange  fantastical  birth. 

Id.    The  Spanish  Curate,  ii,  i. 

New  fantastical  fevers. 

Id.  ib. 
(Twice  within  a  dozen  lines) 

The  papists  in  their  fantastical  religion. 

Letters  of  Bishop  Philpot,  1555  ;   Parker  Soc.  rep. 
of  Examinations  and  Writings,  1842,  p.  222. 

The  dyvel  ...  by  his  fantastical  apparitions. 

More,  Dialogue  of  Comfort  against  Tribulacion,  B.  ii, 
Everyman's  Lib.  ed.  p.  220. 

A  fantastical  body. 

Hooper,  Declaration  of  Christ  :  Works,  Parker  Soc. 
ed.  p.  62  ;  also  p.  193,  &c. 

A  fantastical  imagination. 

Id.  ib.  p.  70. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  413 

7.  Infinite. 

Conclusions  infinite. 

Fellows  of  infinite  tongue. 

Infinite  jest. 

Nature's  infinite  book  of  secresy. 

Shakespeare. 
Occasions  are  infinite. 
Infinite  honour, 
Infinite  flight  of  birds. 

Bacon, 

COMPARE 

We  have  assembled  infinites  of  men. 

Heywood,  The  Golden  Age,  161 1,  Pearson's  ed.  of  Works,  iii,  36. 
With  infinite  commands. 

Id.  Fair  Maid  of  the  West,  iii,  5. 
Infinite  sorts  of  people. 

Spenser,  Faerie  Queene,  I,  iv,  6. 
Infinite  remembrance. 

Id.  II,  ix,  56. 
Infinite  riches  in  a  little  room. 

Marlowe,  Jew  of  Malta,  i,  i.. 
Knowledge  infinite. 

Id.  i  Tamb.  ii,  7. 
As  those  are,  so  shall  these  be  infinite. 

Dekker,  Old  Fortunatus,  i,  i . 
In  this  small  compass  lies 
Infinite  treasure. 

Id.  ib.  ii,  2. 
That  infinity  of  strangers. 

Jonson,  The  Devil  is  an  Ass,  v,  i. 
You  are  infinitely  bound. 

Id.  ib.  iv,  i. 
They  (fucuses)  are  infinite. 

Id.  ib. 
Country  madams  infinite. 

Id.     A  Tale  of  a  Tub,  i,  4. 

Infinite  variety  of  matter  of  all  kinds. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Polity,  B.  I,  ch.  xiv,  §  i. 

The  differences  between  them  grew  ...  in  a  manner  infinite. 

Id.  pref.  ch.  viii,  §  7. 

Infinite  bodies  and  infinite  movings. 

Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay,  ed.  1604,  p.  i. 


414  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

And  as  my  duties  be  most  infinite, 
So  infinite  must  also  be  my  love 

Gascoigne,  Joeasta,  i,  i. 
Infinite  virtues. 

Lilly,  Endimion,  i,  i. 
Infinite  are  my  creatures. 

Id.  ii,2. 
Examples  infinite. 

Id.  iii,  i. 
Infinite  millions  of  them  [devils] . 

Nashe,  Terrors  of  the  Night :   Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  i,  349. 
It  were  an  infinite  thing. 

Id.  ib. 
Infinite  thanks  (twice  in  a  page) . 

Hutchinson,  First  Sermon  on  Lord's  Supper,  1 560. 

Infinite  jeopardies. 

Id.  First  Sermon  of  Oppression. 
Sin  in  gathering  head  grows  infinite. 

Knack  to  Know  an  Honest  Man,  1.  757. 
An  infinite  multitude  of  sheep. 

Robinson's  trans,  of  More's  Utopia,  Dent's  rep.  p.  24. 

Infinite  controversies  in  the  law.  Id.  p.  44. 

Infinite  are  my  creatures. 

Lilly,  Endimion,  I,  ii. 
Of  ripe  years  and  infinite  virtues. 

Id.  ib. 
Infinite  thanks. 

Id.  v,  i. 
An  infinite  number  of  books. 

Foxe,  Acts  and  Monuments,  Cattlay's  ed.   1841,  i, 

521.     (Pref.  on  "  The  Utility  of  this  Story.") 
Sects  and  fraternities  of  infinite  variety. 

Id.  p.  517. 
It  were  too  long,  and  a  thing  infinite. 

Id.  text,  p.  10. 
An  infinite  number  daily  do  perish. 

Stubbes'  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  Collier's  rep.  p.  33. 
Neither  can  this  infinite  power  .  .  .  stand  without   infinite 
great  dangers. 

Jewel,  Controversy  with  Harding,  Parker  Soc.  ed.  of 

Works,  p.  371. 
These  places,  and  infinite  other  like. 

Id.  p.  378. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  415 

An  infinite  number  of  people. 

Trans,  of  Calvin  on  Ephesians,  fol.  113. 

An  infinite  number  of  other  such. 

Holland's  trans,  of  Plutarch's  Moralia  ;    Dent's  ed.  p.  32. 

We  have  infinite  poets  and  pipers. 

Gosson,  School  of  Abuse,  1579,  Arber's  rep.  p.  27. 

Pleading  infinite  causes  before  the  Senate  and  judges. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  B.  i,  c.  14  (Rep.  p.  67). 

Reasons  and  examples,  undoubtedly  infinite. 

Id.  i,  3,  p.  15, 
Infinites  of  dreadful  enemies. 

Chapman,  Ccesav  and  Pompey,  i,  i 

An  infinite  number  of  thousands  of  fighting  men. 

North,  Life  of  Ccesar  (Skeat's  Sh.  Plutarch,  p.  66). 

Bale  hath  mistaken  it,  as  he  hath  done  infinite  things  in  that 
book. 

Thynne,  Animadversions  on  Speight,  (1599)  in  Todd's 
Illustrations  of  Gower  and  Chaucer,  1810,  p.  23. 

t     Whereof  infinite  examples  might  be  produced. 
Id.  p.  50. 
Infinite  in  good  wits. 
Fenton's  trans,  of  Guicciardini,  1579,  p.  2. 

Your  Majesty's  other  virtues  which  God  hath  made  infinite 
in  you. 

Id.  Ep.  ded. 
In  footmen  infinite. 

Id.  p.  21. 
Men  infinite  in  multitudes. 

Id.  ib. 
Of  infinite  report  for  shape  and  virtue. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  The  Chances,  i,  i. 

An  infinite  of  ills. 

Id.     Monsieur  Thomas,  iii,  i. 

Of  Albion's  glorious  isle  .  .  .  the  pleasures  infinite. 

Dray  ton's  Polyolbion,  11.  1-2. 

8.  Mortal. 

Mortal  men. 

Bacon. 
Mortal  men  (thrice) . 

Shakespeare. 


4i6  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

COMPARE 

Mortel  thinges. 

Chaucer,  Trans,  of  Boethius,  B.  ii,  prosa  3. 
Mortel  folk. 

Id.  ib.  prosa  4. 
Mortel  folk. 

Id.  ib.  B.  iii,  prosa  2. 
Mortel  folk. 

Id.  ib.  metrum  6. 
Mortal  hand. 

Daniel,  Cleopatra,  ii,  268. 
Mortal  man. 

Id.  1.  1406,  v,  ii. 
Mortal  eye. 

Id.  The  Queenes  Arcadia,  1.  371  (II,  i). 
Mortal  eyes. 

Sidney,  Astrophel  and  Stella,  25. 
Mortal  men. 

More,   Dialogue   of  Comfort,  &c.  B.  iii.  Dent's  rep.  p.    354 

Mortal  life. 

F  err  ex  and  Porrex,  i,  i . 
Mortal  wight. 

Sackville,  Induction  to  The  Mirrour  for  Magistrates,  st.  27. 
Mortal  men  (thrice) . 

Gascoigne,  Works,  ed.  Cunliffe,  ii,  21,  43,  261 

Mortal  men. 

Peele,  Old  Wives'  Tale  (Morley's  Peele,  p.  185) 

Mortal  man. 

Id.    Arraignment  of  Paris,  iv,  i. 
Mortal  men. 

Dekker,  Old  Fortunatus,  v,  2. 
Mortal  men. 

Id.  ib.     Epilogue  (two  successive  pages). 

Mortal  mankind. 

Sidney,  Arcadia,  B.  ii,  3rd  sent. 

One  mortal  man. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  B.  i,  c.  3. 
Mortal  man. 

Hooper,  Christ  and  His  Office,  Parker  Soc.  rep.  p.  25 

Mortal  man. 

Id.     Answer  to  Bishop  of  Winchester,  p.  169 
Mortal  men  (twice). 

Nashe,  Christ's  Teares  over  Jerusalem  :   Works,  ed 
McKerrow,  ii,  23,  60. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  417 

9.  Mountain. 

A  mountain  of  affection. 

Shakespeare. 
Mountains  of  promises. 

Bacon. 

COMPARE 

A  great  mountain  of  tribulation. 

Sir  T.  More,  Dialogue  of  Comfort,  &c.,  B.  i,  c.  2. 

Dent's  rep.  p.  133. 
To  promise  mountains  and  perform  molehills. 

Greene,  Card  of  Fancy  :  Works,  iv,  106. 
You  promise  mountains. 

Daniel,  Philotas,  1.  1576. 
Who  shall  remove  the  mountain  from  my  breast. 

Chapman,  Bussy  D'Ambois,  v,  i. 
Have  plucked  this  mountain  of  disgrace  upon  me. 

Massinger,  The  Bondman,  v,  3. 

An  atom 
To  the  mountain  of  affliction  I  pull'd  on  me. 

Id.   The  Emperor  of  the  East,  v,  2. 
Mountains  of  vexation. 

Id.  Believe  as  You  List,  iv,  2. 

Thy  promises 

Of  many  golden  mountains  to  ensue. 
Heywood,  Edward  IV,  Pt.  I,  Pearson's  ed.  of  Works,  i,  34. 

Increased  this  molehill 
Unto  that  mountain  which  my  father  left  me. 

Id.  A  Woman  Killed  with  Kindness,  iii,  i. 

Mountain  heaps  of  milkwhite  sacrifice. 

Marlowe,  Dido,  i,  i. 
This  mountain  of  my  shame, 

Patient  Grissil,  ii,  2. 
Mounts  of  mischief. 

Sackville,  Complaynt  of  Buckingham,  st.  u. 
Now  shall  the  blood  of  Servius  fall  as  heavy 
As  a  huge  mountain  on  your  tyrant  heads. 

Heywood,  Rape  of  Lucrece,  v,  2. 

10.  Ocean. 

An  ocean  of  his  tears* 
An  ocean  of  salt  tears. 

Shakespeare. 
2  D 


418  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

The  ocean  of  philosophy. 
The  ocean  of  history. 

Bacon. 

COMPARE 

Are  not  our  lives  with  mischief's  ocean  bounded  ? 

Brandon,  The  Vertuous  Octavia,  1.  1821. 

An  ocean  of  my  tears. 

The  Spanish  Tragedy,  ii,  5. 

To  what  sea  owe  these  streams  their  tribute,   but  to  your 
lordship's  ocean  ? 

Chapman,  Epist.  ded.  (to  Bacon)  of  trans,  of  Hesiod. 

In  endless  ocean  of  expected  joys. 

Lilly,  Woman  in  the  Moon,  ii,  i . 

Drowned  in  the  ocean  of  his  love. 

Field,  A  Woman  is  a  Weathercock,  iii,  3. 

Within  the  heart 's-blood-ocean. 

Porter,  The  Two  Angry  Women  of  Abington,  i,  i. 

Broad  bottomless  ocean  sea-full  of  evils. 

Beggars'  Petition,  1538,  Harl.  Misc.  ed.  1808,  i,  221. 

Our  ocean  shall  these  petty  brooks  devour. 

Famous  History  of  Sir  Thomas  Wyat,  Sc.  i. 

Oceans  of  delight. 

Sidney,  Astrophel  and  Stella,  69. 

Unto  the  boundless  ocean  of  thy  beauty. 

Daniel,  Delia,  i. 
The  boundless  ocean  of  your  worth. 

Prologue  to  The  Maydes  Metamorphosis,  1600. 

The  ocean  of  new  toils. 

Daniel,  Civil  Wars,  B.  iv,  st.  96. 

The  ocean  of  all-drowning  Sov'raintie. 

Id.  B.  vii,  st.  12. 
An  unknown  ocean  of  absolute  power. 

Sidney,  Arcadia,  ed.  1627,  p.  206. 
II.  Paint. 

A  painted  devil. 

Gilded  loam  or  painted  clay. 

Painted  word.  Shakespeare. 

But  paintings. 

Titular  and  painted  head.  Bacon. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  419 

Painted  observance. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  i    528. 

And  paint  ten  thousand  images  of  loam 
In  gaudy  silken  colours. 

Dekker,  Old  Fortunatus,  i,  i. 
Beauty  is  but  a  painting. 

Id.  ib. 
This  painted  idol. 

Id.  ib.  sc.  2. 

I  could  paint  o'er  my  cheeks 
With  ruddy-coloured  smiles. 

Id.  ib. 

Bid  him  come  in  and  paint  some  comfort, 
For  surely  there's  none  lives  but  painted  comfort. 

Spanish  Tragedy,  iii,  I2A. 

God  affects  not  any  painted  shape. 

Peele,  David  and  Bethsabe,  iii,  5. 

Paint  his  countenance  with  his  heart's  distress. 

Id.  ib.  iv,  2. 
Not  painted  yet  in  angels'  eyes. 

Id.  ib. 
Painted  flowers. 

Id.  ib.,  i  3. 
Wealth  and  painted  honours. 

Webster,  The  Duchess  of  Mai  ft,  iii,  2. 

When   in   my   face   the  painted   thoughts   would   outwardly 
appear. 

Surrey,  in  Tottel's  Miscellany,  Arber's  rep.  p.  6. 

Pish  !  these  are  painted  causes. 

Field,  A  Woman  is  a  Weathercock,  iii,  2. 

The  very  face  of  woe 
Painted  in  my  beclouded  stormy  face. 

Sidney,  Astrophel  and  Stella,  45. 

My  pen  .  .  .  shall  paint  our  joy. 

Id.  70. 
Fit  words  to  paint  the  .  .  .  face  of  woe. 

Id.  i. 
So  lively  painted  forth  in  all  things. 

Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay,  Of  the  Trewnes 
of  the  Christian  Religion,  1587,  ed.  1604,  p.  i. 

He  hath  so  painted  out  his  glory. 

Id.  p.  5. 


420  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

This  doctrine  is  not  bred  of  man's  braine,  though  it  be  painted 
there  after  some  sort. 

Id.  p.  63. 

It  [the  existence  of  God]  is  so  many  ways  and  so  lively  painted 
forth  in  all  things. 

Id.  p.  i. 
Pleasant  fields  ...  so  painted. 

F.  Thynne,  The  Debate  between  Pride  and  Lowliness 

(c.  1570),  Sh.  Soc.  rep.  p.  8. 
By  nature  painted  thus. 

Patient  Grissil,  iii,  i. 
Painting  speech. 

Chapman,  Casar  and  Pompey,  i,  i. 
Death's  the  best  painter. 

Dekker,  The  Honest  Whore,  iv,  i. 
Rather  living  virtues  than  painted  Gods. 

Lilly,  Endimion,  iv,  3. 
Therapists,  who  make  so  much  of  their  painted  sheath. 

Foxe,  pref.  to  Acts  and  Monuments,  Cattley's  ed. 

1841,  i,  519  (prolegomena). 

Others  which  sufficiently  have  painted  out  to  the  world  the 
demeanour  of  these  holy  votaries. 

Id.  i,  384  (text). 
This  painted  light. 

Chapman,  Hymnus  in  Noctem. 
When  Tellus'  herbals  painted  were. 

Id.  The  Amorous  Contention  of  Philis  and  Flora. 
Examples  .  .  .  painted  before  your  eyes  in  enterludes    and 
plays. 

Stubbes,  Anatomie  of  Abuses,  Collier's  rep.  p.  140. 
Every  one  nowadayes,  almost,  covet  to  deck  and  paint  their 
bodies. 

Id.  p.  36. 

That  he  be  never  so  gallantly  painted  or  curiously  perfumed. 

Id.  p.  41- 
12.  Scour. 
Scour  the  English  hence. 

Shakespeare. 

The  scouring  of  some  noblemen  from  her  Majesty's  presence. 

Bacon. 

COMPARE 

To  scour  the  sea  of  the  pirates. 

Sidney,  Arcadia,  B.  i,  ed.  1867,  p.  46. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  421 

Scoured  and  wasted  the  country  where  they  went. 

Nashe,  Pasquill's  Return  to  England.     Works, 

Ed.  McKerrow,  i,  77. 
Scoured  the  narrow  seas. 

Id.  Lenten  Stuff.     Works,  iii,  158. 
Scouring  along  as  if  he  would  besiege  them 
With  a  new  wall  of  fire. 

Heywood,  //  you  know  not  me,  you  know  Nobody, 

Pearson's  Heywood,  i,  340. 
Sirra,  go  you  and  scour  about  the  hill. 

Id.  The  Foure  Prentises  of  London,  Pearson,  ii,  190. 
Thou,  Prince  of  Wales,  and  Audley,  straight  to  sea. 
Scour  to  Newhaven. 

Edward  III.  II,  ii,  204-5. 
Now  merrily  sail  these  gallant  Greeks  to  Troy, 
And  scour  the  seas. 

Peele,  The  Tale  of  Troy  (1589),  1.  255. 
We  see  the  glistering  fishes  scour  along. 

Id.  Honour  of  the  Garter,  1.  41. 
Scour  all  before  them  like  a  scavenger. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Monsieur  Thomas,  iii,  i . 
And  fearless  scours  in  danger's  coasts. 

Kyd,  trans,  of  Garnier's  Cornelia,  Act.  iv,  Chorus. 
Did  scour  the  plaines  in  pursuit  of  the  foe. 

Id.  v,  1.  79. 
The  adverse  navy  sent  to  scour  the  seas. 

Id.  1.  296. 
Out  of  the  troops  that  scoured  the  plains. 

Massinger,  The  Bashful  Lover,  iii,  2. 
Choice  troops  of  horse 
Scour  o'er  the  neighbour  plains. 

Id.  The  Duke  of  Milan,  iv,  i. 
I  scour  the  street, 
And  over-tumble  every  man  I  meet. 

Chapman,  The  Gentleman  Usher,  i,  i. 
Five  hundreth  sail  of  warlike  ships  he  brings, 
Wherewith  the  frothing  Ocean  he  scours. 

Brandon,  The  Vertuous  Octavia,  1589  (Malone  Soc. 

rep.  11.  1806-7). 
Scour  the  marches  with  your  Welshmen's  hooks. 

Peele,  Edward  I.     Ed.  Dyce,  p.  384. 
Now  scour  the  streets  and  leave  not  one  alive 

Selimus,  1.  1241. 


422  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Who  after  her  as  hastily  gan  scour. 

Spenser,  Faerie  Queene,  B.  I,  c.  ii,  st.  20. 
Hoisting  up  sails  ...  we  scoured  and  returned  home. 

Greene's  Metamorphosis,  Works,  ix,  85. 
Leviathan  that  scours  the  seas. 

Greene  and  Lodge,  A  Looking  Glass  for  London, 

Dyce's  Greene  and  Peele,  p.  135. 
To  send  and  over-scour  the  earth  in  part. 

Greene,  Friar  Bacon,  sc.  15. 
And  so  scours  the  squadrons  orderly. 

Chapman,  trans,  of  Iliad,  iv,  245. 
These  are  they  that  scour 
The  field  so  bravely  towards  us. 

Id.  B.  V. 
13.  Sea. 

A  sea  of  joys.     A  sea  of  air.     A  sea  of  care.     A  sea  of  glory. 
Seas  of  tears.     Sea  of  blood.     Sea  of  woes.     Sea  of  troubles. 

Shakespeare. 

A  sea  of  multitude.     A  sea  of  air.     Vast  seas  of  time.     A  sea 
of  quicksilver.     A  sea  of  baser  metal. 

Bacon. 

COMPARE 

The  bittre  sea  of  this  lyf . 

Chaucer,  Boece,  B.  I,  Prose  iii. 
This  sea  of  fortune. 

Id.  B.  I,  Metre  v. 
Here  they  draw  in  a  sea  of  matter. 

Hooker,  Pref.  to  B.  I  of  Eccles.  Polity,  ch.  viii,  §  n. 
Seas  of  heinous  faults. 

Gascoigne,  Jocasta,  1566,  i,  i. 
Seas  of  sweet  delight. 

Id.  i,  2,  Chorus. 
The  overwhelming  seas  of  fortune. 

Daniel,  Cleopatra,  1.  140. 
A  whole  sea  of  examples. 

Sidney,  Apologie  for  Poetrie,  Arber's  rep.  p.  59. 
Seas  of  care. 

Higgins,  Mirrourfor  Magistrates,  rep.  of  ed.  1587, 

Author's  Induction,  st.  5. 
One  turbulent  sea  of  fear. 

Hey  wood,  English  Traveller,  ii,  2. 
A  sea  of  pleasure  and  content. 

Id.  Wise-Woman  of  Hodgson,  iv,  i. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  423 

You  are  the  powerful  moon  of  my  blood's  sea. 

Dekker,  Witch  of  Edmonton,  ii,  2. 
Is  he  a  prince  ?  ah  no,  he  is  a  sea. 

Greene,  Selimus,  1.  190. 
Yon  swelling  seas  of  never-ceasing  care. 

Id  A.  1761. 
A  sea  of  blood. 

Fairfax,  trans,  of  Tasso's  Gerusalemme,  x,  50. 
Shed  seas  of  blood. 

Field,  A  Woman  is  a  Weathercock,  iii,  2. 
In  this  life's  rough  seas  tossed. 

Id.  Chapman's  pref.  verses. 
A  sea  of  sins. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  The  Maid's  Tragedy,  iii,  i. 
The  sea  of  happiness  that  from  me  flows  to  you. 

Massinger,  The  City  Madam,  ii,  2. 
This  sea  of  marriage.     Call  it  rather 
A  whirlpool  of  afflictions. 

Id.  ii,  3. 
These  two  arms 
Had  been  his  sea. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  The  Scornful  Lady,  iii,  i. 

Against  the  sea  of  every  lewd  assault. 

A  Knack  to  know  an  Honest  Man,  1596,  1.  705. 
Malone  Soc.  rep. 

The  sea  of  bloody  tragedy. 

Id.  1.  47- 

To  stable  and  strength  the  walls  of  our  hearts  against  the 
great  surges  of  this  tempestuous  sea. 

More's  Dialogue  of  Comfort  against  Tribulation, 

1534.     Dent's  rep.  (with  Utopia],  p.  127. 
A  sea  of  blood. 

Mucedorus  (pr.  1598),  Induction,  59. 
Sweet  seas  of  golden  humour. 

Chapman,  The  Shadow  of  Night. 
That  dead  sea  of  life. 

Jonson,  Underwoods,  88. 
Seas  too  extreme 
Your  song  hath  stirr'd  up,  to  be  calmed  so  soon. 

Chapman,  A  Justification  of"  Perseus  and  Andro 
meda,"  ad  init. 
Shed  a  sea  of  tears. 

Massinger,  Believe  as  You  List,  i,  i . 


424  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Embarked  myself  on  a  rough  sea  of  danger. 

Id.  The  Emperor  of  the  East,  iv,  I , 
See  how  it  [law]  runs  much  like  a  turbulent  sea. 

Chapman,  Bussy  D'Ambois,  ii,  i. 
Swells  to  her  full  sea. 

Id.  Byron's  Conspiracy,  iv,  i. 
See  that  maiden-sea  of  majesty. 

Id.  ib. 
Your  mitigations  add  but  seas  to  seas. 

Id.  Revenge  for  Honour,  iii,  i. 
Calm  his  high-going  sea. 

Id.  The  Admiral  of  France,  v. 
Oh  what  a  second  ruthless  sea  of  woes. 

Id.  Monsieur  D*  Olive,  i,  i. 
Our  State's  rough  sea. 

Id.  ib.  ii,  i. 
14.  Sinews. 

Sinews  of  our  plot. 
Sinew  of  our  fortune. 

Shakespeare. 

Intercept  his  [the  King  of  Spain's],  treasure,  whereby  we  shall 
cut  his  sinews. 

Bacon,  Letter  to  Essex. 
Sinews  and  springs  of  industry. 

Nov.  Org.  i, 

COMPARE 

Lycurgus  was  wont  to  say  that  the  laws  were  the  sinews  of  a 
kingdom. 

Greene,    The  Royal  Exchange   (1589-90)  :    Works,  ed< 

Grosart,  vii,  234. 
The  sinews  of  his  dominions. 

Greene,  Menaphon,  2nd  sent, 
The  sinews  of  war. 

Lilly,  My  das,  i,  i< 
Gold  is  the  glue,  sinews,  and  strength  of  war. 

Peele,  The  Battle  of  Alcazar  (1594),  i,  2, 

Policy, 
The  sinews  and  true  strength  of  chivalry. 

Peele,  The  Tale  of  Troy,  ed.  1604,  1.  363. 
Gold  is  the  strength,  the  sinews  of  the  world. 

Dekker,  Old  Fortunatus,  i,  i. 
The  sinews  of  the  imperial  seat. 

Marlowe,  2  Tamb.  iii,  i. 


COINCIDENCES'  OF  PHRASE  425 

A  King 
Whose  welfare  is  the  sinews  of  his  realm. 

Heywood,  Pt.  II  of  Fair  Maid  of  the  West,  Pearson's 
Hey  wood,  ii,  347. 

The  sinews  of  our  war. 

Massinger,  The  Bondman,  1,3. 

The  nerves  and  sinews  of  your  war. 

Id.  Believe  as  you  List,  i,  2. 
Familiarity  and  conference, 
That  were  the  sinews  of  societies. 

Nashe,  Summer's  Last  Will  and  Testament ;  Works, 

ed.  McKerrow,  iii,  271. 

Some  other   sinews   there  are  from  which   that  overplus  of 
strength  in  persuasion  doth  arise. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Polity,  Pref.  to  B.  I,  ch.  viii,  10. 

Plato  named  anger  the  sinews  of  the  soul. 

Holland 's^ trans,   of   Plutarch's  Moralia   (1603). 
Rep.  in  "  Everyman's  Lib."  p.  21. 

The  sinews  of  tramcke  and  marchandise. 

Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay,  ed. 
1604,  p.  102. 

Blood,  strength,  and  sinews  of  my  happiness. 

Jonson,  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  i,  i . 

15.  Sovereign. 

The  Sovereign'gt  thing  on  earth. 

Shakespeare. 
Sovereign  medicines. 

Bacon. 

COMPARE 

The  sovereyn  cure  of  all  mortal  folk. 

Chaucer,  Trans,  of  Boethius,  B,  II,  Prose  IV. 

Sovereyn  blisfulnesse. 

Id.  ib. 
Sovereyn  good.     [Twice.] 

Id.  ib. 
Sovereyn  comfort, 

Id.  B.  Ill,  Prose  i. 
Sovereyn  good.     [Twelve  times.] 

Id.  B,  III,  Prose  ii. 
Beauty  soverayne. 

Spenser,  F,  Q.,  I,  vi,  12, 


426  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Sovereign  bliss. 

Puttenham,  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  Arber's  rep. 

p.  44. 
Sovereign  beauty. 

Calisto  and  Melebea,  1.  22. 
The  soveraigne  bewtie  that  me  bound. 

Surrey,  in  Tottel's  Miscellany,  Arber's  rep.  p.  24. 
Beauty's  sovereign  power. 

Drayton,  Idea,  50. 
Sovereign  balm. 

Dekker,  The  Honest  Whore,  v,  2. 
Sovereign  balm. 

Hey  wood,  Pt.  II  of  King  Edward  IV,  (Works, 

ed.  Pearson,  i,  p.  167). 
Sovereign  magic. 

Dekker,  Old  Fovtunatus,  iii,  i . 
Sovereign  poets. 

Chapman,  Hymnus  in  Noctem,  1594. 
Sovereign  help. 

Piers  Plowman,  1.  317. 
Sovereign  for  the  soul. 

Id.  1.  6026. 
Sovereign  book* 

Id.  1.  6033. 
Sovereign  good. 

Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay,  ed< 

1604,  p.  293  ;   again  p.  301. 
Sovereign  welfare. 

Id.  p.  296  ;  twice  on  p.  297  ;  four  times  on  p.  299. 
Sovereign  balm, 

Heywood,  2  Edward  IV.,  iv,  3. 
The  most  sovereign  and  precious  weed. 

Jonson,  Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  iii,  2. 
Sovereign  light. 

Daniel,  Sonnets  after  Astrophel,  3. 
Sovereign  grace. 

Drayton,  Idea,  son.  43. 
Preparations  most  sovereign. 

Medwall,  Nature  (c.  1490),  Farmer's  Lost  Tudor 

Plays,  1907,  p.  122. 
Sovereign  cordial. 

Id.  ib.  p.  125. 
Sovereign  knowledge. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  B.  i,  23. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  427 

16.  Spice. 

This  spice  of  your  hypocrisy. 

Shakespeare. 
A  spice  of  madness  i 

Bacon. 

COMPARE 

A  spyce  of  heryse. 

Interlude    of     Calisto  and    Melebea,   c.    1530, 

Obsequentia,  &c.     Malone  Soc.  rep.  1.  138. 
A  spice  of  idolatry. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  i,  19  (Dent's  rep.  p.  86). 
A  spice  of  justice. 

Chapman,  Bussy  D'Ambois,  ii,  i, 

Bites  too  hotly  of  the  Puritan  spice, 

Id.  ib,  iii,  i . 
Retain 
A  spice  of  his  first  parents, 

Id.  ib.  v,  near  end. 
A  spice  of  the  green  sickness. 

Jonson,  The  Magnetic  Lady,  i,  i . 
Any  spice  of  rashness,  folly,  or  self-love, 

Id.  Discoveries, 
A  spice  of  idolatry. 

Id.  Bartholomew  Fair,  i,  i . 
Some  spice  of  religion. 

Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay,  ed.  1604,  p.  9. 
A  spice  of  the  sciatica. 

Chapman,  The  Widow's  Tears,  ii,  2. 

17.  Swelling. 

The  swelling  act. 
The  swelling  scene. 
Noble  swelling  spirits, 

Shakespeare, 
Such  a  swelling  season, 

Bacon. 

COMPARE 

Behold  all  Persia  swelling  in  the  pride  of  their  own  power. 

Lilly,  Alexander  and  Campaspe,  iii,  4. 
Swelling  phrases. 

Sidney,  Apologie  for  Poetrie,  Arber's  rep.  p.  67. 
The  proudest  outside  that  most  swells  with  things  without  him. 

Chapman,  The  Revenge  of  Bussy  D'Ambois,  i,  i, 


428  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Can  that  swell  me 
Beyond  my  just  proportion  ? 

•  Massinger,  The  Picture,  i,  2 . 
Swelling  thoughts. 

Lodge,  Wounds  of  Civil  War,  1.  68. 
Swelling  tides. 

Id.  1.  1054. 
Swells  your  spleen  so  high  ? 

Dekker,  The  Honest  Whore,  v,  2. 

Those  golden  piles 
Which  in  rich  pride  shall  swell  before  thy  feet. 

Id.  Old  Fortunatus,  i,  i . 
As  the  bright  moon  swells  in  her  pearled  sphere. 

Id.  ib.  i,  3. 
Swelling  thoughts. 

Lilly,  Endimion,  v,  2. 
Swelling  pride. 

Id.  v,  3. 
Swelling  wrath. 

Gascoigne,  Jocasta,  i,  i. 
Swelling  hate. 

Id.  i,  2. 
Swelling  pride. 

Id.  ii,  chorus  at  end. 
Swelling  sorrows. 

Id.  iii,  i. 
Swelling  hates. 

Id.  Epilogue. 
Swelling  heart. 

Peele,  Battle  of  Alcazar,  II,  iii,  3. 
Swelling  pride. 

A  Lamm  for  London,  Simpson's  rep.  p.  52. 

Swelled  with  ire. 

Fairfax,  trans,  of  Tasso,  ii,  19. 
Our  swelling  mountain. 

Lilly,  prol.  to  Campaspe. 

Love  doth  not  frowardly,  swelleth  not  ,  .  . 

Tyndale's  trans,  of  i  Cor.  xiii,  1525  and  1535. 

Methinks  I  see  his  envious  heart  to  swell. 

Sackville,  Fencx  and  Povrex,  i,  i . 
Swelling  pride, 

Id.  ii,  i. 
Swelling  breast. 

Id,  ii,  2,  Chorus, 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  429 

Swelling  pride. 

Foxe,  Acts  and  Monuments,  ed.  cit,,  i,  33. 
Some  wits  are  swelling  and  high. 

Jonson,  Discoveries  :  Ingeniorum  discrimina,  Not .  i . 
With  pride  so  did  she  swell. 

Spenser,  F.  Q.,  I,  iv,  n. 
Swelling  seas. 

Lilly,  Woman  in  the  Moon,  1.  9. 
Swelling  thoughts. 

Lodge,  Wounds  of  Civil  War,  1.  68. 
Their  swelling  veins. 

Chapman,  May-Day,  iv,  2. 
Thy  titles,  and  swelling  offices. 

Id.  The  A  dmiral  of  France,  i,  i . 
Swelling  favour. 

Id.  ib.  iv,  end. 

18.  Tide,  current. 

A  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men,  which  taken  at  the  flood  .  .  , 

We  must  take  the  current  when  it  serves. 

Shakespeare. 

...  I  set  down  reputation,  because  of  the  peremptory  tides  and 
currents  it  hath  ;  which  if  they  be  not  taken  in  their  due  time, 
are  seldom  recovered. 

The  tide  of  any  opportunities  ,  <  .  the  periods  and  tides  of 
estates. 

The  tides  and  currents  of  received  errors . 

Bacon. 

COMPARE 

The  tide  tarrieth  no  man. 

Heywood's  Proverbs. 
Tide  and  wind  stay  no  man's  pleasure. 

Southwell,  St.  Peter's  Complaint,  1595. 

What  avails  to  strive  against  the  tide, 

Higgins,  Mirrour  for  Magistrates  :   King  Albanact, 
st,  72. 

Carried  with  full  tide  and  wind  of  their  wit. 

kAscham,  Scholemaster,  Arber's  rep.  p.  116, 
The  current  of  a  man's  reputation,  being  divided  into  so  many 
rivolets,  must  needs  grow  weak, 

Dekker,  Ep.  Ded.  to  The  Seven  Deadly  Sins  of 
London, 


430  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

The  inconstancy  of  love  that  .  .  ,  had  every  minute  ebbs  and 
tides,  sometimes  overflowing  the  banks  of  Fortune  ,  .  . 
otherwhiles  ebbing.  .  ,  » 

Greene,  Menaphon,  Arber's  rep.  p.  24. 
Honest  against  the  tide  of  all  temptations . 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Valentinian,  i,  i. 
Borne  by  the  hasty  tide  of  short  leisure. 

Sidney,  Arcadia,  ed.  1627,  p.  208. 
The  current  of  her  sway. 

Daniel,  Civil  Wars,  B.  v,  st.  70. 
And  now  that  current  with  main  fury  ran, 

Id.  st.  89. 
Borne  with  the  swelling  current  of  their  pride. 

Id.  B.  vi,  st.  78. 

19.  Troubler. 

The  troubler  of  the  poor  world's  peace. 

Shakespeare, 
The  troublers  of  the  world, 

Bacon. 

COMPARE 

Achar,  the  troubler  of  Israel. 

i  Chron.  ii,  7, 
Lest  ye  trouble  the  camp  of  Israel. 

Josh,  vi,  1 8. 
Art  thou  he  that  troubleth  Israel. 

i  Kings  xviii,  17. 
I  have  not  troubled  Israel. 

Id.  v,  1 8. 
That  troubler  of  the  public  peace. 

Bale,  Examination  and  Death  of  Cobham,  Parker 

Soc.  ed.  of  Works,  p.  19. 
Distroublers  of  holy  Church. 

Id.  Examination  of  Thorpe,  p.  75. 
Distroubled  the  communalty. 

Id.  ib.  p.  84. 
They  [friars]  say  that  they  [good  clerks]  distrouble  the  world. 

Wiclif,  Treatise  against  the  Friars,  c.  26. 
Trouble  her  that  troubles  a  whole  empire. 

Hey  wood,  Rape  of  Lucrece,  i,  2. 
Troubleth  our  estate. 

Marlowe,  Massacre  of  Paris,  i,  3. 
The  troublers  of  the  commonwealth. 

North,  Life  of  Ccesar  (Sh.  Plutarch,  p.  68). 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  431 

Busied  the  whole  State 
Troubled  both  foes  and  friends. 

Jonson,  Underwoods,  88. 
Troubler  of  the  Christen  Church. 

Vocacyon  of  Johan  Bale,  Harl.  Misc.  1808,  i,  361. 

20.  Weed. 

We'll  weed  them  all  at  last. 

The  caterpillars  of  the  commonwealth 
Which  I  have  sworn  to  weed  and  pluck  away. 

Shakespeare. 

A  man's  nature  runs  either  to  herbs  or  weeds  :  therefore  .  .  . 
water  the  one  and  destroy  the  other. 

Bacon,  Of  Nature  in  Man, 

COMPARE 

Weeds  and  briers  in  me. 

Dekker,  Witch  of  Edmonton,  in,  2. 

Thus  do  weeds  grow  up  whiles  no  man  regards  them, 

Nashe,  Pierce  Penilesse  (Works,  i,  175). 

We'll  join  to  weed  them  out. 

Jonson,  Alchemist,  v,  i. 

Would  yield  more  fruit  than  all  the  idle  weeds 
That  suck  up  your  rain  of  favour. 

Massinger,  The  Picture,  iv,  4. 

But  men  themselves,  instead  of  bearing  fruits, 
Grow  rude  and  foggy,  overgrown  with  weeds, 

Chapman,  Byron's  Trajedy,  iv,  i. 

The  greatest  worldly  hopes  .  ,  .  ye  seek  utterly  to  extirpate 
as  weeds. 

Hooker,  Pref.  to  B.  I  of  Eccles.  Polity,  ch.  viii,  3. 

I'll  follow  ye,  and  ere  I  die,  proclaim  ye, 
The  weeds  of  Italy,  the  dross  of  nature, 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Valentinian,  iv,  4. 

Weeds  of  superstition . 

Foxe,  one  of  the  prefaces  to  Acts  and  Monuments, 
Cattley's  ed.  1841,  i,  515, 

Pluck  up  these  weeds  [rebels]. 

Fairfax's  tr.  of  Tasso's  Jerusalem,  1600,  B.  iv, 
st.  16. 


432  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

21.  Wilderness. 

A  wilderness  of  sea. 
A  wilderness  of  tigers. 

A  wilderness  of  monkeys. 

Shakespeare, 
The  greatest  wilderness  of  waters. 

Bacon, 

COMPARE 

A  wide  wilderness  of  waters  deep. 

Spenser,  Muiopotmos,  1.  288. 

The  errant  wilderness  of  a  woman's  face. 

Chapman,  Bussy  D'Ambois,  v,  I. 

Ha  !  is  my  house  turn'd 
To  a  wilderness. 

Massinger,  The  Picture,  v,  3. 

I  must  admire  thy  beauty's  wilderness. 

Lilly,  Woman  in  the  Moon,  ii,  i . 
A  wilderness  of  seas. 

Heywood,  Fair  Maid  of  the  West,  iv,  4,  end. 

My  heart,  a  wasteful  wilderness  forsaken. 

Barnes,  Parthenophil  and  Parthenophe,  Son.  99. 

It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  add  that  any  other  of  the 
tropes  cited  by  Mr.  Donnelly  as  being  significantly  commor 
to  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  may  be  similarly  demonstrated 
to  be  part  of  the  common  phraseology  of  their  age.  One 
of  his  words,  "  shadow,"  is  as  universally  used  in  metaphoi 
as  any  of  those  above  exampled.  Any  student  can 
satisfy  himself  on  the  point  by  a  little  investigation,  ij 
he  needs  satisfying.  But  I  think  the  matter  has  beer 
above  decided  for  every  rational  reader. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  ARGUMENT  FROM  COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE 

ii.  DR.  R.  M.  THEOBALD 

SO  obviously  unqualified  was  Mr.  Donnelly  for  any 
inquiry  involving  acquaintance  with  Tudor  and 
Stuart  literature  that  one  turns  to  any  later 
Baconian  attempt  of  the  same  kind  with  the 
hope  of  finding  some  developed  caution,  some  concern 
for  circumspection  and  research  in  a  task  in  which  he 
showed  so  little.    And  though  Dr.  Theobald's  handling 
of  the  "  classical  "  argument  has  yielded  us  so  little  sign 
of  any  such  development,  one  still  turns  to  his  handling 
of   "  coincidences  "  in  the  hope  of  finding  something 
better  than  the  parade  of  ignorance  presented  by  his 
predecessor.    He  has  at  least  some  perception  of  the 
nature  of  the  logical  issue  involved  ;  and  he  has  actually 
sought  to  save  himself  from  the  force  of  some  rebuttals. 

The  issue  is,  in  a  word,  Are  there  such  repeated  co 
incidences  of  expression,  whether  in  idea  or  in  mere  turn 
of  phrase,  in  the  Plays  and  in  Bacon's  writings,  as  can 
justify  prima  facie  the  hypothesis  of  identity  of  author 
ship  ?  Both  kinds  of  coincidence,  we  have  seen,  occur 
as  between  Shakespeare  and  other  writers  ;  and  there 
can  be  nothing  surprising  in  finding  some  as  between 
him  and  Bacon,  in  an  age  so  given  to  the  reiteration  of 
sententious  sayings,  proverbs,  and  tropes.  But  is  there 
any  such  tissue  of  coincidences  of  mere  phrase,  say,  as 
is  found  in  TITUS  ANDRONICUS  and  the  works  of  Peele  ? 
It  will  be  found  that  nothing  of  the  kind  is  ever  produced. 
Coincidences  of  maxim  and  sentiment  there  are,  such  as 
Mr.  Crawford  has  produced  in  much  larger  number  from 

433  a  E 


434  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

the  writings  of  Bacon  and  Jonson.  On  the  Baconiar 
principles,  either  Bacon  wrote  Jonson,  or  Jonson  Bacon 
Similar  occasional  identities  of  sentiment  in  the  Play; 
and  in  Bacon  prove  nothing  more  than  in  the  case  oi 
Jonson.  But  of  any  general  coincidence  of  doctrint, 
between  the  plays  and  Bacon's  writings  there  is  and  car 
be  no  pretence.  Bacon,  like  so  many  Elizabethan  writers 
repeats  himself  many  times  without  misgiving  ;  but  oi 
doctrines  and  theses  which  so  possessed  him  that  he  was 
never  tired  of  reproducing  them,  there  is  no  trace  what 
ever  in  the  Plays.  All  that  the  Baconians  can  produce 
is  a  sorry  harvest  of  verbal  parallels,  nine-tenths  of  whicj; 
can  have  no  evidential  significance  whatever. 

Those  which  can  reasonably  challenge  attention  evoke 
at  once  the  query,  How  did  such  coincidences  in  genera] 
come  about  ?  The  answer  is  obvious.  Other  dramatists 
who  echo  Shakespeare  either  were  copying  previous 
writers  whom  he  had  followed,  or  had  heard  or  read,  01 
heard  quoted,  Shakespeare's  plays.  Such  echoes  must 
have  taken  place,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things  ;  and 
when  we  find  duplications  of  thought  in  Bacon  and  Jonson 
we  similarly  infer,  either  verbal  communication — which 
we  know  took  place  between  them — or  the  reading  oi 
hearing  by  one  of  things  said  or  written  by  the  other, 
If  the  reader,  rather  than  adopt  this  kind  of  explanation: 
proceeds  to  surmise  that  Bacon  wrote  the  works  oi 
Jonson — and,  as  regards  similar  coincidences  with  other 
writers,  their  works  also — he  need  not  further  follow  this 
argument,  which  is  not  framed  for  his  order  of  judgment. 
As  we  reason  in  regard  to  other  coincidences,  so  do  we 
reason  in  regard  to  any  real  coincidences  between  Bacon 
and  Shakespeare.  If  Jonson,  Chapman,  Webster,  and 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher  remembered  and  echoed  Shake 
spearean  sayings,  so  might  Bacon.  If  an  occasional 
identity  of  idea  and  expression  be  a  ground  for  surmising 
his  authorship  of  the  Shakespearean  plays,  equally  must 
it  be  a  ground  for  surmising  their  authorship. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  435 

To  give  Dr.  Theobald  every  advantage,  I  will  deal 
first  with  what  he  evidently  regards  as  his  very  best 
instance,  since  he  puts  it  forth  with  special  jubilation 
in  the  preface  to  his  cousin's  posthumous  work  on  THE 
CLASSICAL  ELEMENT  IN  THE  SHAKESPEARE  PLAYS.  This 
it  is.  Shakespeare  frequently  introduces  the  idea  of 
reactions  and  relations  between  the  greater  and  the  less — 
the  greater  "  hiding  "  or  overshadowing  or  obscuring  or 
absorbing  the  other,  as  in  the  case  of  lights,  griefs, 
maladies,  or  sea  and  river  (Two  GENTLEMEN,  III,  i,  353  ; 
CYMBELINE,  IV,  ii,  244  ;  LEAR,  III,  iv,  8  ;  PERICLES,  II, 
iii,  41 ;  MERCHANT,  V,  i,  89  sq.).  In  the  last -cited  case, 
Portia  remarks  to  Nerissa  (i)  that  the  greater  glory  dims 
the  less,  as  a  king  his  substitute,  who  (2)  in  the  king's 
presence  loses  his  state  as  does  a  river  entering  the  sea. 
Bacon,  in  turn,  in  one  passage  has  : 

The  greater  should  draw  the  less.  So  we  see  (i)  when  two 
lights  meet,  the  greater  doth  darken  and  drown  the  less,  and 
(2)  when  a  smaller  river  runs  into  a  greater  it  loseth  both  the 
name  and  the  stream  (Life  and  Letters,  iii,  98). 

Here  the  force  of  the  coincidence  lies  mainly  in  the  collo 
cation  of  the  two  ideas.     Either,  singly,  is  quite  common: 


Let  that  high  swelling  river  of  their  fame 

Leave  humble  streams,  that  feed  them  yet  their  name. 

Daniel,  Philotas,  1718-19  (IV,  ii). 
[Rivers]  that  have  made  their  graves 
And  buried  both  their  names  and  all  their  gold 
Within  his  [Thames']  greatness  to  augment  his  waves. 
[Whereafter  he,  the  Thames,  is]  swallowed  up  in  ocean. 

Id.     Civil  Wars,  1595,  B.  ii,  st.  7. 


Noting  that  the  collocation  is  exceptional — though 
obviously  likely — we  have  two  hypotheses  open.  Either 
both  writers  copied  a  previous  one — as  they  may  very 
well  have  done — or  Bacon,  writing  in  the  year  1603, 
recalled  some  notable  lines  he  had  heard  at  the  theatre 
about  1596-98,  or  had  read  in  or  after  1600.  What 
could  be  more  natural  ?  This  is  the  obvious  answer  to 


436  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Dr.  Theobald's  challenge  :  "If  any  one  can  explain  such 
a  coincidence  as  this  ...  by  anything  except  identical 
authorship,  I  should  like  to  know  the  alternative  explana 
tion  and  the  process  of  reasoning  by  which  it  is  reached." 
The  process  of  reasoning  is  simply  that  set  up  by  the 
multitude  of  similar  coincidences  in  other  Elizabethan 
writers,  of  which  Dr.  Theobald  has  apparently  no  know 
ledge.  He  is  in  effect  denying  that  one  author  can  ever 
copy  or  plagiarise  from  another. 

A  friend,  he  tells  us,  actually  suggested  to  him  that 
"  Bacon  may  have  heard  or  read  the  MERCHANT  OF 
VENICE  " — adding  unnecessarily  that  "  without  any 
conscious  plagiarism,  he  may  have  reproduced  the  imagery 
of  the  passage.'1  To  this  Dr.  Theobald  replies  :  "I  can 
confidently  appeal  to  any  unbiased  reader  whether  such 
an  explanation  as  this  is  not  infinitely  more  difficult  to 
accept  or  even  conceive  than  the  Baconian  one  of  common 
authorship."  If  this  asseveration  has  regard  solely  to 
the  phrase  "  without  any  conscious  plagiarism,"  it  has 
some  excuse  ;  but  that  qualification  is  as  needless  as  it 
is  indecisive.  In  the  Elizabethan  age,  nobody  troubled 
himself  about  plagiarism  :  all  men,  broadly  speaking, 
practised  it  freely,  though  they  at  times  charged  others 
with  similar  offences.  Bacon  in  his  PROMUS  positively 
heaped  up  saws,  proverbs,  maxims,  phrases  for  use  or 
comparison  f,  and  in  his  writings  he  is  perpetually  quoting, 
with  or  without  acknowledgment.  And  if  Dr.  Theobald 
means  to  affirm  the  inconceivableness  or  even  the  im 
probability  of  Bacon's  hearing  or  reading  and  recollecting 
a  passage  in  a  finely  poetic  play,  one  can  but  dismiss  his 
denial  as  idle.  Let  us  but  take  a  few  of  the  precise  co 
incidences  between  Bacon  and  Jonson,  pointed  out  by 
Mr.  Crawford  : 

If  it  be  well  weighed,  to  say  that  a  man  lieth  is  as  much  as  to 
say  that  he  is  brave  towards  God,  and  a  coward  towards  men. 
For  a  lie  faces  God,  and  shrinks  from  men. 

Essay  Of  Truth. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  437 

I  like  such  tempers  well  as  stand  before  their  mistresses  with 
fear  and  trembling  ;  and  before  their  maker  like  impudent 
mountains. 

Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  iii,  3. 

Here  Bacon  echoes  Montaigne,  and  Jonson  one  or  other. 

Reading  maketh  a  full  man. 

Essay  Of  Studies. 

An  exactness  of  study,  and  multiplicity  of  reading,  which 
maketh  a  full  man. 

Jonson 's  Discoveries  :  iv,  Lectio. 

Here  Jonson  echoes  Bacon,  as  he  does  in  many  other 
places  in  the  DISCOVERIES,  at  much  greater  length  ;  and 
again  in  the  phrase  : 

Suffrages  in  parliament  are  numbered,  not  weighed, 
which  had  been  used  by  Bacon  in  1589.  In  all  this  there 
is  no  mystery  :  the  learned  man  echoes  another,  in  some 
respects  less  learned  ;  and  so  many  of  the  phrases  in  the 
PROMUS  are  found  in  the  DISCOVERIES  that  one  wonders 
whether  Jonson  may  not  have  done  some  of  the  collecting 
for  Bacon.  But  on  the  Baconian  principle  Bacon  wrote 
the  DISCOVERIES,  as  well  as  all  the  Jonsonian  plays  in 
which  Bacon's  favourite  stories  are  used,  and,  by  conse 
quence,  all  the  rest  ! 

Rejecting  that  line  of  inference;  we  reject  the  other. 
Upon  the  most  obvious  reproduction  of  ideas,  no  in 
ference  of  community  of  authorship  is  rationally  to  be 
founded  where  (i)  the  general  circumstances  are  wholly 
repugnant  to  the  hypothesis,  and  (2)  copying  was  perfectly 
probable.  Community  of  authorship  is  rationally  to  be 
surmised — of  course  it  must  in  any  case  be  supported 
by  many  other  considerations  before  it  can  be  taken  as 
proved — where  in  two  performances  there  are  found  a 
number  of  those  small  coincidences  which  could  arise 
from  unconscious  mannerism,  but  which  are  not  mere 
cases  of  universal  usage.  It  is  reasonable,  for  instance, 
to  guess  prima  facie  at  Peele's  authorship  of  an  unsigned 
play  circa  1590,  which  contains  the  phrase  "  sandy 


438  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

plains,"  because  he  used  that  phrase  in  season  and  out 
of  season.  But  to  get  a  step  beyond  a  guess  we  should 
have  to  test  for  (i)  general  resemblances  in  rhythm; 
(2)  resemblances  in  style  and  sentiment,  (3)  resemblances 
in  versification.  That  something  might  be  proved  in  this 
way  is  recognised  by  Dr.  Theobald  when  he  attempts 
to  reply  to  Judge  Willis's  exposure,  in  THE  BACONIAN 
MINT,  of  his  most  confidently  cited  parallels.  As  we 
have  seen,1  he  attempts  to  confute  Judge  Willis  by  argu 
ing  that  a  phrase  might  be  "  curious  "  even  if  used  by 
everybody.  He  goes  on  to  deny  that  he  cited  the 
"  curious  "  phrase  "  starting-holes  "  as  one  "  coined  at 
the  Baconian  Mint." 

Not  at  all  [he  goes  on]  :  on  the  contrary,  it  was  not  likely 
to  be  used  by  Bacon  unless  it  was  already  intelligible  by  more  or 
less  frequent  usage.  It  did  not  certainly  belong  to  the  highways  of 
literary  resort,  and  as  a  somewhat  slangy  phrase  the  use  of  it  in 
common  by  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  is  worth  notice  ;  that's  all  ! 
It  is  merely  an  application  of  one  of  the  laws  of  speech  which  I  have 
elsewhere  stated  (p.  470)  :  "  No  two  writers  help  themselves 
in  precisely  the  same  way  to  the  current  phrases  and  notions  that 
may  be  floating  in  the  air  at  the  time.  Some  individuality  is 
shown  even  in  these  points  of  correspondence."  2 

Where  then  is  the  alleged  individuality  in  the  cases 
under  notice  ?  Absolutely  no  hint  is  offered  on  the 
subject.  Bacon,  we  are  shown,  uses  "  starting-holes  " 
twice,  but  he  does  it  just  as  everybody  else  did — else 
how  would  the  phrase  be  so  intelligible  as  Dr.  Theobald 
now  says  it  must  have  been  ?  The  plain  fact  is  that 
Dr.  Theobald  had  not  been  aware  of  the  currency  of  the 
phrase,  else  he  would  not  have  cited  the  occasional  use 
of  it  by  any  two  writers  as  a  noteworthy  "  echo  "  or 
"  coincidence."  He  does  reluctantly  admit  that  Mr. 
Willis  proves  him  to  have  been  mistaken  "  in  the  coupling 
of  the  words  gross  and  palpable.  But  in  this  case,"  he 
absurdly  goes  on,  "  the  Oxford  Dictionary  is  as  erring 
as  I  am  " — as  if  the  Oxford  Dictionary  claimed  to  be  a 

1  Above  p.  272.  2  Preface  to  work  cited,  ed.  1904. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  439 

dictionary  of  phrases,  with  all  instances  of  their  use! 
He  is  disingenuous  enough  to  add  that  "the  learned 
judge  overshoots  the  mark  by  giving  in  most  of  his  refer 
ences  .  .  .  not  the  coupled  but  the  separate  words, 
which  of  course  prove  nothing."  The  learned  judge,  as 
we  have  seen,  actually  gave  six  instances  of  the  coupled 
words  :  the  other  instances  were  illustrative  of  the  vogue 
of  the  terms.  And  Dr.  Theobald,  be  it  noted,  had 
solemnly  affirmed1  that  the  phrase  "  gross  and  palpable  " 
is  "  one  of  Bacon's  many  contributions  to  verbal  cur 
rency.  It  was  a  new  coin  when  it  issued  from  his  affluent 
mint.  .  .  .  Any  one  using  it  in  the  early  part  of  the 
seventeenth  century  would  have  felt  almost  obliged  to  quote 
Bacon  while  employing  it."  A  more  flagrant  example  of 
the  method  of  ignorance  it  would  be  hard  to  find.  And 
it  is  by  the  confident  application  of  this  method  that  Dr. 
Theobald  finds  Bacon  to  have  written  Marlowe  as  well 
as  Shakespeare. 

How  it  works  in  detail  we  shall  see  in  examining  Dr. 
Theobald's  presentment  of  the  mass  of  his  case — largely 
compiled  as  it  is  from  previous  Baconian  writers.  The 
series  of  "  echoes  and  correspondencies  "  in  his  twelfth 
chapter  is  made  up  indiscriminately  of  parallels  in  idea 
and  parallels  in  phrase  or  idiom.  Lest  I  be  accused  of 
unfair  selection,  I  deal  with  half  of  them  seriatim,  abridg 
ing,  of  necessity,  the  presentment  of  some,  but  giving, 
I  think,  the  full  force  of  the  argument  in  every  case  : 

i.  Comments  on  "  the  danger  attending  too  much 
success  in  public  service/' 

The  main  point  is  that  "  all  immoderate  success  extin- 
guisheth  merit,  and  stirreth  up  distaste  and  envy  " 
(Bacon  to  Essex,  Letter  in  Spedding's  LIFE,  ii,  129).  The 
idea  is  fully  expressed  in  a  speech  of  Ventidius,  ANTONY 
AND  CLEOPATRA,  III,  i,  n  sq. ;  and  less  directly  in 
CORIOLANUS,  I,  i,  267  sq. 

As  Dr.  Theobald  himself  partly  indicates,  this  is  a 
1  Work  cited,  p.  264. 


440  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Standing  commonplace,  ancient  and  modern.  Following 
Lewis  Theobald,  he  cites  Quintus  Curtius,  i,  i,  adding  : 
"  It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  poet  had  this  passage  in  mind 
when  he  was  writing  the  drama  of  ANTONY  AND  CLEO 
PATRA."  There  is  no  more  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
dramatist  had  read  Quintus  Curtius  than  that  he  had 
written  the  letter  to  Essex.  The  reflection  that  distin 
guished  success  elicits  envy  and  detraction  is  one  of  the 
most  obvious  in  the  whole  range  of  human  experience. 
In  this  case  Dr.  Theobald  can  suggest  no  correspondence 
of  diction  between  Bacon  and  Shakespeare.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  idea  is  common  in  Tudor  and  Jacobean 
literature.  E.g. :  Elyot,  THE  GOVERNOUR,  B.  iii,  ch.  27  ; 
OF  DETRACTION  ;  Holland's  trans,  of  Plutarch's  MORALIA 
(1603)  ;  OF  ENVY  AND  HATRED.  Compare  : 

Envy  doth  aye  true  honour's  deeds  despise. 

Peele,  Welcome  to  the  Earl  of  Essex. 
Yet  in  the  House  of  Fame,  and  courts  of  Kings, 
Envy  will  bite,  or  snarl  and  bark  at  least. 

Id.  Honour  of  the  Garter. 

Cicero.     Great  honours  are  great  burdens,  but  on  whom 
They  are  cast  with  envy,  he  doth  bear  two  loads. 
His  cares  must  still  be  double  to  his  joys 
In  any  dignity  ;  where,  if  he  err, 
He  finds  no  pardon,  and  for  doing  well 
A  most  small  praise. 

Jonson,  Catiline,  III,  i,  1-6. 

Sabinus.     When  men  grow  fast 
Honour'd  and  loved,  there  is  a  trick  in  state 
Which  jealous  princes  never  fail  to  use, 
How  to  decline  that  growth,  with  fair  pretext  .  .  . 
To  shift  them  forth  into  another  air 
Where  they  may  purge  and  lessen,  etc. 

Id.  Sejanus,  I,  i. 

[Envious  great  men]  armed  with  power  and  Princes'  jealousies, 
Will  put  the  least  conceit  of  discontent 
Into  the  greatest  rank  of  treacheries, 
That  no  one  action  shall  seem  innocent  .  .  . 
But  this  is  still  the  fate  of  those  that  are 
By  nature  or  their  fortunes  eminent. 
Who,  either  carried  in  conceit  too  far 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  441 

Do  work  their  own  or  others'  discontent, 
Or  else  are  deemed  fit  to  be  supprest. 
Not  for  they  are,  but  that  they  may  be  ill. 

Daniel,  Tragedy  of  Philotas,  1605,  Chorus  at  end  of  Act  II. 

Such  the  rewards  of  great  employments  are. 
Hate  kills  in  peace,  whom  Fortune  spares  in  war. 

Id.ib.U.  1738-39  (III,  ii). 

2.  Bacon's  amplification  of  the  text  in  Proverbs  :  "  As 
dead  flies  do  cause  the  best  ointment  to  stink,  so  does 
a  little  folly  him  that  is  in  reputation  for  wisdom  and 
honour."    This  is  amplified  in  the  DE  AUGMENTIS,  with 
express  reference  to  the  Bible  text  ;  and  variants  on  the 
idea  occur  in  Bacon's  speech  to  the  judges  in  1617  (LIFE, 
vi,  213)  and  his  Reply  to  the  Speaker  in  1620  (LIFE,  vii, 
178).     "It  is  important  to  remark  how  these  singularly 
subtle  and,  as  thus  expounded,  original  sentiments,  are 
reproduced  in  Shakespeare,"  in  the  rebuke  of  Mortimer 
to  Hotspur  (i  HENRY  VI,  III,  i,  180  sq.),  and  in  Hamlet's 
"  So  oft  it  chances  in  particular  men  "  speech  (HAMLET, 
I,  iv,  17). 

Here  one  of  the  most  often  quoted  sayings  of  the  Book 
of  Proverbs,  familiar  in  every  English  household,  is 
claimed  as  "  singularly  subtle  and  original  "  in  its  essential 
and  obvious  meaning  ;  and  Bacon  is  credited  with  Shake 
speare's  development  of  the  common  theme,  though 
Bacon  refers  to  the  text  and  Shakespeare  does  not ;  and 
though  there  is  no  coincidence  in  their  diction.  As 
before,  we  are  dealing  with  applications  of  a  common 
place  such  as  must  have  been  made  thousands  of  times 
by  contemporaries. 

3.  In  one  of  Bacon's  MEDITATIONES  SACR.E,  and  in  his 
speech  at  the  trial  of  Lord  Sanquhar  for  murder,  there 
are  allusions  to  the  legendary  magnanimity  of  the  lion 
towards  a  yielding  foe ;  with  a  quotation  from  Ovid, 
Corpora  magnanimo  satis  est  prostrasse  leonem  (TRISTIA, 
III,  v,  33) .     Shakespeare  has  the  idea  in  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S 
LOST  (IV,  i,  90)  and  in  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  (V,  hi,  37). 


442  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Irrelevant  parallels  are  cited  by  Dr.  Theobald  from  other 
plays. 

As  usual,  we  are  dealing  with  a  standing  commonplace. 
If  Dr.  Theobald  had  read  Puttenham  he  would  know  the 
story,  probably  then  a  household  word  in  England,  of 
Queen  Elizabeth's  answer  to  the  knight  who  had  been 
insolent  to  her  before  her  accession  and  craved  pardon 
when  she  was  queen  :  "  Do  you  not  know  that  we  are 
descended  of  the  lion,  whose  nature  is  not  to  harm  or 
prey  upon  the  mouse,  or  any  other  such  small  vermin  ?  "  1 
If  he  had  read  Greene,  he  would  have  found  this  instance 
of  the  saying  : 

The  king  of  beasts,  that  harms  not  yielding  ones. 

James  IV,  V,  iii,  24, 
with  the  variant,  in  the  same  scene  : 

I,  eagle-like,  disdain  these  little  fowls, 
And  look  on  none  but  those  that  dare  resist. 

If  he  had  read  EDWARD  III,  he  would  have  seen  the  line, 
(IV,  ii,  33  :) 

The  lion  scorns  to  touch  the  yielding  prey. 

If  he  had  consulted  Douce 's  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  SHAKE 
SPEARE  he  might  have  read  that 

in  THE  CHOISE  OF  CHANGE,  CONTAINING  THE  DIVINITIE, 
PHILOSOPHIE,  AND  POETRiE,  &c.  (1585,  4to),  a  work  evidently 
constructed  on  the  model  of  the  Welsh  triads,  we  find  the  following 
passage  : — ' '  three  things  shew  that  there  is  a  great  clemencie  in 
lions  :  they  will  not  hurt  them  that  lie  grovelling,"  &c.  Bartholo- 
maeus  [trans,  by  Batman,  1582,  folio]  says,  "their  merciefis 
known  by  many  and  oft  ensamples  :  for  they  spare  them  that  lie 
on  the  ground."  z 

Perhaps  this  may  convince  even  Baconians  that  Dr. 
Theobald  has  found  a  mare's  nest.  Inasmuch  as  some 
Shakespearean  critics  have  ascribed  EDWARD  III  to 

1  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  1589,  Arber's  rep.  p.  303. 

2  Work  cited,  ed.  1839,  p.  190.     See  the  passage  given  more  at 
length  in  Seager's  Natural  History  in  Shakespeare's  Time,  1896, 
p.  183. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  443 

Shakespeare,  Dr.  Theobald  and  the  Baconians  will  doubt 
less  do  as  much — meaning  Bacon.  Some  of  them,  I 
know,  ascribe  to  Bacon  the  work  of  Puttenham.  But 
they  can  hardly  father  on  Bacon  Bartholomew's  early 
encyclopaedia,  the  DE  PROPRIETATIBUS  RERUM,  written 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  translated  in  1397  by  John 
of  Trevisa,  and  printed  in  1495  ;  or  THE  CHOISE  OF 
CHANGE,  cited  by  Douce.  And  I  suppose  even  Sir 
Edwin  Durning- Lawrence  would  hardly  ascribe  to  Bacon 
a  poem  published  in  1557,  with  the  line  : 

The  fierce  lyon  will  hurt  no  yelden  things. 

Wyatt,  To  his  Lady  cruel  over  her  yelden  Lover ; 

to  say  nothing  of  Lilly's 

Lions  spare  those  that  couch  to  them. 

Euphues  and  his  England,  Arber's  rep.  p.  377. 

4.  Thrice  over,  Bacon  says  of  Aristotle  that  after  the 
Ottoman  fashion  he  could  not  feel  secure  in  his  kingdom 
of  philosophy  till  he  had  slain  his  brothers.  Shakespeare 
does  not  say  this  of  Aristotle  ;  but  he  makes  Henry  V 
on  his  accession  reassure  his  brothers  with  the  remark 
that 

Not  Amurath  an  Amurath  succeeds, 
But  Harry,  Harry. 

2  H.  IV,  v,  ii,  46. 

Dr.  Theobald  regretfully  admits  that  Bacon  nowhere 
names  Amurath  ;  but  stands  all  the  same  for  his  parallel  ! 
The  historic  fact1  is  that  in  1596  the  eldest  son  of  Amurath 
III  murdered  his  brethren  on  his  accession.  But  there 
had  been  previous  episodes  of  the  kind.  In  Kyd's 
SOLIMAN  AND  PERSEDA  (1592),  Amurath,  brother  of 
Soliman,  kills  his  brother  Haleb,  and  is  then  killed  by 
Soliman  (i,  5)  ;  and  in  Peele's  BATTLE  OF  ALCAZAR  (i594)» 
which  begins  with  a  dumb-show  of  the  murder  of  the  son, 
two  young  brothers,  and  the  uncle  of  "  the  Moor  "  Muly 
Mahamet,  the  name  Amurath  occurs  many  times.  Thus 
1  See  note  in  loc.  Variorum  ed. 


444  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

the  practice  and  the  name  were  already  matters  of 
theatrical  as  well  as  general  comment.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  ground  for  connecting  Bacon's  allusion  with 
that  in  the  play  as  to  authorship. 

5.  Dr.  Theobald  repeats  Mr.  Donnelly's  citation  of  the 
phrase  "  troublers  of  the  world,"  noting  that  it  is  used 
with  "  much  the  same  technical  (!)  meaning  "  by  Shake 
speare.     As  to  this  nugatory  suggestion  see  p.  430  supra. 

6.  "  In  a  very  early  State  paper  of  Bacon's,"  says 
Dr.  Theobald,  "  dating  about  the  end  of  the  year  1584; 
and  which  was  not  published  in  any  form  till  1651," 
there  occur  the  phrases  "  fair  enamelling  of  a  terrible 
danger"  and   "giving  him  a  bastinado  with  a  little 
cudgel."     Shakespeare  speaks  of  a  snake's  "  enamell'd 
skin,"  and  makes  other  allusions  to  snakes  as  dangerous 
things  ;    he  also  speaks  of  giving  "  the  bastinado  with 
his    tongue,"    adding :    "  our  ears  are  cudgell'd."     Dr. 
Theobald  infers  that  "  Bacon  had  in  his  mind  the  metallic 
lustre  of  a  deadly  snake  "  ;    and  that  the  idea  of  a 
bastinado  with  the  tongue  "  kept  lasting  hold  on  his 
mind,"  inasmuch  as  Shakespeare  twice  speaks  of  words 
as  strokes.     Comment  seems  unnecessary ;    but  it  may 
be  noted  that  the  whole  thing  happens  to  be  a  historical 
mare's  nest.     The  State  paper  in  question  is  not   and 
could  not  have  been  by  Bacon,  who  in   1584  was  in  no 
position  to  offer  State  counsel  to  Queen  Elizabeth.     It 
figures  for  historical  students  as  Lord  Burleigh's  ADVICE 
TO   QUEEN   ELIZABETH   (Harl.   Misc.   2nd  ed.   ii,   277). 
Did  Lord  Burleigh  then  write  Shakespeare  ? 

7.  Bacon  tells  the  story  of  "  Anaxarchus,  who,  when 
questioned  under  torture,  bit  out  his  own  tongue,  and 
spat  it  in  the  face  of  the  tyrant."     Shakespeare,  in  turn, 
makes  Bolingbroke  in  RICHARD  II  speak  of  doing  as 
much,  without  reference  to  Anaxarchus  or  Leaena  or  any 
other  precedent.     Dr.  Theobald  incidentally  reveals  that 
the  story  is  a  classic  commonplace,  being  related  by 
Diogenes  Laertius,  Pliny,  and  Valerius  Maximus.      He 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  445 

might  have  added  that  Plutarch  tells  it  of  Zeno.  But 
as  "it  is  not  very  likely  that  William  Shakespeare  had 
read  any  of  the  classic  authors  "  first  named,  RICHARD  II 
must  have  been  written  by  Bacon  !  The  actor,  Dr. 
Theobald  thinks,  might  have  been  equal  to  the  idea 
"  bite  my  tongue  out,"  but  not  to  the  stroke  of  spitting 
it  out  !  As  usual,  Dr.  Theobald  is  unaware  that  the 
story  is  told  by  Boethius,  without  name,  and  was  made 
known  to  English  readers  by  the  translations  of  Chaucer, 
Richard  (1525)  and  Colville  (1556).  As  little  is  he  aware 
that  it  is  told  of  Zeno,  after  Plutarch,  by  Lilly  (EuPHUES, 
Arber's  rep.  p.  146).  If  he  had  but  read  so  familiar  an 
Elizabethan  work  as  THE  SPANISH  TRAGEDY,  he  would 
have  been  aware  that  the  act  in  question  is  made  to  take 
place  in  that  play.  So  that  even  the  Stratfordian  actor 
had  necessarily  heard  of  the  conception ! 

ja.  In  this  connection,  again  resorting  to  the  fountain- 
head  of  Mr.  Donnelly,  Dr.  Theobald  notes  that  Bacon 
and  Shakespeare  both  use  "  top  "  metaphorically  for 
ne  plus  ultra  or  acme  of  achievement  or  quality.  As 
we  have  seen  (above,  p.  385),  everybody  else  in  that  day 
did  the  same.  The  "  coincidence  "  is  another  mare's 
nest. 

8.  Bacon  speaks  of  the  basilisk  and  the  cockatrice 
respectively  as  killing  by  a  glance  those  who  do  not  see 
them  first.  So  do  fifty  other  writers  of  the  period  :  the 
basilisk  is  a  standing  tag  of  the  essayists  and  the  play 
wrights.  Shakespeare  speaks  of  "  the  fatal  balls  of 
murdering  basilisks  "  (H.  V,  V,  ii,  14),  with  a  double 
reference  to  "  eye-balls  and  cannon-balls,"  and  several 
times  elsewhere  speaks  of  basilisks  and  cockatrices  as 
killing  by  their  gaze,  and  puns  about  I  and  eye.  It  does 
not  occur  to  Dr.  Theobald  to  note  that  a  dozen  other 
authors  of  the  time  did  the  same  thing  ;  and  that  Bacon 
does  not.  Shakespeare's  pun  must  for  him  be  Bacon's 
because  Bacon  "  never  could  pass  by  a  joke."  Thus 
does  Dr.  Theobald  construct  his  "  cable." 


446  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

9.  Bacon  has  allusions  to  the  pure  fire  of  the  stars, 
fire  in  "  the  heaven,"  and  so  forth  ;  while  Shakespeare 
makes  Coriolanus  swear  "  by  the  fires  of  heaven  "  ;  makes 
Hamlet  write,  "  doubt  that  the  stars  are  fire  "  ;  and 
makes  other  characters  speak  of  stars  as  fires.  Dr. 
Theobald  has  apparently  met  with  no  other  allusions 
to  star-fire  in  Elizabethan  literature.  Yet  they  occur 
in  such  numbers  that  we  are  driven  as  usual  to  our  conclu- 
clusion  that  he  limits  his  reading  to  the  authors  he  is 
concerned  to  identify. 

In  Peele's  TALE  OF  TROY,  published  in  1589,  we  have 

(1.  28)  : 

Glistening  like  stars  of  pure  immortal  fire. 

In  Spenser's  HYMNE  IN  HONOUR  OF  LOVE,  we  find  the 
lines  : 

Kindled  at  first  from  heaven's  life-giving  fire. 
Some  sparks  remaining  of  that  heavenly  fire. 

th'  immortal  flame 
Of  heavenly  light. 
The  flaming  light  of  that  celestial  fire — 

four  instances  in  two  pages.  In  the  next  of  the  "  Foure 
Hymnes " — AN  HYMNE  IN  HONOUR  OF  BEAUTIE — 
besides  various  metaphorical  allusions  to  fire,  we  have 
a  stanza  telling  how  when  the  soule  did  pass 

Down  from  the  top  of  purest  heavens  height 
To  be  embodied  here,  it  then  took  light 
And  lively  spirits  from  that  fairest  star 
Which  lights  the  world  forth  from  his  fiery  car. 

Perhaps  the  stanza  in  the  fourth  hymn  (HEAVENLY 
BEAUTY)  about  the  further  heavens,  beyond  the  visible,— 

That  need  no  sun  t'  illuminate  their  spheres 
But  their  own  native  light  far  passing  theirs — 

may  be  deemed  irrelevant ;  but  it  would  very  well  have 
served  Dr.  Theobald's  end  had  he  found  it  in  Shakespeare  ; 
as  would  the  lines  about  the  divine  light : 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  447 

In  sight  of  whom  both  Sun  and  Moon  are  dark 

That  all  about  him  sheddeth  glorious  light 

.  ,  .  that  immortal  light  which  there  doth  shine. 

and  so  on.  The  same  idea  appears  in  Sir  John  Davies' 
ORCHESTRA  (1596)  : 

Next  her  [the  Moon]  the  pure,  subtile  and  cleansing  Fire 
Is  swiftly  carried  in  a  circle  even. 

In  Ben  Jonson's  POETASTER  (1601)  we  have  : 
Ay  me,  that  virtue,  whose  brave  eagle's  wings 
With  every  stroke  blow  stars  in  burning  heaven 
For  thine  own  good,  fair  Goddess,  do  not  stay. 
Who  would  engage  [=  gage]  a  firmament  of  fires 
Shining  in  thee,  for  me,  a  falling  star  ? 

Act  iv,  sc.  6. 

The  conclusion  reached  by  the  true  Baconian  I  presume, 
will  be  that  Bacon  wrote  Peele  and  Spenser  and  Davies 
and  all  the  rest.  If,  however,  the  open-minded  reader 
will  yet  a  little  further  extend  his  reading  to  the  poetical 
works  of  Greene,  Peele,  Spenser,  Drayton,  Sidney,  and 
Daniel,  he  will  not  merely  begin  to  realise  the  universality 
of  the  modes  of  expression  supposed  by  Dr.  Theobald 
to  be  specialties  of  Bacon,  but  will  gather  some  such 
knowledge  of  Elizabethan  poetic  diction  in  general  as 
will  make  partly  clear  to  him  the  fashion  in  which  the 
poetic  faculty,  as  seen  in  Shakespeare,  handles  the 
material  of  the  scientific  or  knowledge-seeking  faculty, 
seen  speculatively  at  work  in  Bacon. 

It  is  quite  likely  that  Hamlet's  line  in  his  quatrain  to 
Ophelia  had  reference  to  the  debate,  conducted  by  Bacon 
and  other  contemporaries,  as  to  whether  the  stars  are 
fires.  He  would  find  in  Greene  the  contrary  theory  that 

The  stars  from  earthly  humours  gain  their  light, 

Melicertes'  Madrigal,  in  Menaphon  ; 

and  in  Marlowe's  FAUSTUS  he  would  note  the  question 
as  to  whether  there  was  a  sphere  of  fire.  He  must  have 
heard  at  the  Mermaid  some  mention  of  the  scientific  and 
other  speculations  of  his  day.  Even  actors  hear  of  such 


448  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

matters  !  But  to  trace  his  poetic  expressions  to  the 
speculative  physicist  who  wrote  the  NOVUM  ORGANUM 
is  possible  only  to  those  who  believed  the  Baconian  theory 
in  advance. 

10.  By  parity  of  reasoning,  Bacon  wrote  Shakespeare 
because  both  speak  in  metaphor  of  the  mobility  of  quick 
silver,  as  everybody  else  did,  and  does  now  !    E.g.  : 

As  if  our  veins  ran  with  quicksilver. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  ii,  i. 

Starting  from  his  presupposition,  the  Baconian  con 
sistently  proceeds  to  assign  to  Bacon  the  works  of  Jonson. 
And  so  on  ad  infinitum.  To  Bacon  also,  on  that  principle; 
must  be  assigned  the  plays  of  Webster  : 

My  loose  thoughts 
Scatter  like  quicksilver. 

The  White  Devil,  iv,  2. 
He  runs  as  if  he  were  ballassed  with  quicksilver. 

The  Duchess  of  Mai  ft,  i,  2. 

11.  Bacon  had  noted  the  occult  fact  that  poisons,  and 
likewise  "  certain  conditions  of  the  mind/'  often  "  cause 
swelling. "    Shakespeare,  again,  has  the  phrase : 

You  shall  digest  the  venom  of  your  spleen 
Though  it  do  split  you. 

Jul.  CCBS.  IV,  iii,  46, 

— which  Dr.  Theobald  thinks  is  meant  to  imply  a  process 
of  swelling  ;  and  the  dramatist  further  speaks  of  "  high 
blown  pride,"  "  high-swol'n  hearts,"  the  swelling  of  the 
ambitious  ocean,  persons  swelling  in  their  pride,  and  so 
on.  It  is  most  true.  But  as  the  reader  may  have  noted 
above  (p.  427),  the  other  dramatists  of  the  time,  not  to 
speak  of  the  prose-writers,  used  the  same  figure  with 
"  damnable  iteration."  If  Dr.  Theobald  had  but  read 
a  little  in  the  Elizabethan  drama,  beginning  with  FERREX 
AND  PORREX,  he  would  have  met  a  score  of  times  with 
such  figures  as  : 

Methinks  I  see  his  envious  heart  to  swell. 

Ferrex  and  Porrex,  i,  i  (1561), 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  449 

When  growing  pride  doth  fill  the  swelling  breast. 

Id.  ii,  2,  Chorus 
The  heat 
And  furious  pangs  of  his  inflamed  head. 

Id.  Hi,  i. 

My  brother's  heart  even  then  repin'd 
With  swollen  disdain  against  mine  equal  rule. 

Id.  iv,  2. 
For  fight  I  must,  or  else  my  gall  will  burst. 

Lilly,  Woman  in  the  Moon,  ii,  i. 
Pandora's  love,  that  almost  burst  my  heart. 

Id.  ib.  v,  i. 
How  my  heart  swells  at  these  miscreants'  words. 

Id.  ib. 
O  then  to  sift  that  humour  from  her  heart. 

Id  A,  l. 

His  heart  did  earne  against  his  hated  foe, 
And  bowels  so  with  rankling  poison  swelled, 
That  scarce  the  skin  the  strong  contagion  held. 

Spenser,  Muiopotmos,  11.  254-6. 
Or  fraught  with  envy  that  their  galls  do  swell. 

Id.  Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Again,  1.  760. 
That  poison  foul  of  bubbling  pride  doth  lie 
So  in  my  swelling  breast. 

Sidney,  Astrophel  and  Stella,  27. 
Princes,  whose  high  spleens  for  empery  swell. 

Dekker,  The  Honest  Whore,  Pt.  I,  ii,  3. 

Why  swells  your  spleen  so  high  ? 

Id.  v,  2. 
That  I  could 

Contract  the  soul  of  universal  rage 
Into  this  swelling  heart,  that  it  might  be 
As  full  of  poisonous  anger  as  a  dragon's. 

Chapman,  Revenge  for  Honour,  hi,  I. 
Thy  black  tongue  doth  swell 
With  venom. 

Dekker,  The  Honest  Whore,  Pt.  II,  ii,  i. 

The  state  is  full  of  dropsy,  and  swol'n  big 
With  windy  vapours. 

Hey  wood,  Rape  of  Lucrece,  i,  2. 

And  if  he  went  back  to  Langland,  he  would  find  : 

For  whoso  hath  more  than  I, 
Than  angreth  me  soore, 

2  F 


450  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

And  thus  I  live  loveless 

Like  a  luther  dog, 

That  al  my  body  bolneth  [i.e.  swelleth] 

For  bitter  of  my  galle. 

Piers  Plowman,  11.  2705-10. 

Compare  finally  the  Elizabethan  prose  of  Puttenham  : 

Men  would  and  must  needs  utter  their  spleens  in  all  ordinarie 
matters  also,  or  else  it  seemed  their  bowels  would  burst. 

Arte  of  English  Poesie,  Arber's  rep.  p.  68. 

12.  Bacon  repeatedly  uses  the  phrase  "  bleed  inwardly," 
— either  concretely  or  metaphorically.     So  does  Shake 
speare  (2  HENRY  IV,  IV,  iv,  58  ;  TIMON,  I,  ii,  211). 

So  do  many  other  writers — with  the  same  bearing  in 
metaphor — speak  of  the  danger  of  inward  bleeding. 
Mr.  Crawford  points  at  once  to  one  of  the  most  popular 
budgets  of  such  sayings.  Lilly  in  EUPHUES,  in  one 
handful  of  proverbs,  has  :  "  the  wound  that  bleedeth 
inwardly  is  most  dangerous  "  (Arber's  rep.  p.  63). 

I2#.  In  this  connection  Dr.  Theobald  cites,  as  "  still 
more  distinctly  "  applying  the  metaphor,  Hamlet's  phrase 
(IV,  iv,  27)  about "  the  imposthume  that  inward  breaks  "  ; 
and  Bacon  in  the  PROMUS  has  a  note  of  "  The  launching 
[  =  lancing]  of  the  imposthume  by  him  that  intended 
murder." 

These  too  are  pre-Shakespearean  commonplaces.  As 
Mr.  Bayley  and  Mr.  Crawford  point  out,  the  chance  of  a 
blow  breaking  an  internal  imposthume,  and  so  curing 
it,  is  dwelt  upon  in  EUPHUES  (Arber's  rep.  p.  330)  ;  and 
Ben  Jonson,  in  his  ENGLISH  GRAMMAR,  quotes  from  Sir 
John  Cheke  the  sentence  : 

Sedition  is  an  aposteam,  which,  when  it  breaketh  inwardly, 
putteth  the  state  in  great  danger  of  recovery  ;  and  corrupteth  the 
whole  commonwealth  with  the  rotten  fury  that  it  hath  putrified 
with. 

13.  Bacon  has  the  phrase  "  to  search  the  wounds  of 
the  realm  and  not  to  skin  them  over,"  and  repeats  the 
idea   in   similar   words    in    other   places.     Shakespeare 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  451 

repeatedly  puts  the  same  idea  (HAMLET,  III;  iv,  147; 
M.  FOR  M.  II,  ii,  134);  and  has  other  phrases '  about 
searching  wounds  and  applying  plasters  (Tixus,  II,  in; 
262  ;  As  You  LIKE  IT,  II,  iv,  44 ;  TEMPEST,  II,  i,  i37  ; 
Two  GENTLEMEN,  I,  ii,  114). 

All  this  is  Elizabethan  commonplace.    E.g.  : 

Such  imposthumes  as  Phantaste  is  .... 

We  must  lance  these  sores 
Or  all  will  putrify. 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  v,  3. 
I  never  yet  saw  hurt  so  smoothly  healed 
But  that  the  scars  bewrayed  the  former  wound  : 
Yea,  where  the  salve  did  soonest  close  the  skin 
The  sore  was  oft'ner  covered  up  than  cured. 
Which  festering  deep  and  filled  within,  at  last 
With  sudden  breach  grew  greater  than  at  first. 

Hughes,  The  Misfortunes  of  Arthur,  1587,  III,  i,  109-114. 

Such  sayings  are  the  common  stuff  of  homily. 

14.  Shakespeare's  phrases  about  sweet  things  pro 
ducing  sourness  or  loathing  in  digestion  (M.  N.  D.  II,  ii; 
137 ;  RICHARD  II,  I,  iii,  236)  are  paralleled  in  Bacon. 
So  are  they  a  hundred  times  elsewhere  : 

But  O  !  this  sweet  success, 
Pursu'd  with  greater  harms,  turned  soon  to  sour. 

Hughes,  Misfortunes  of  Arthur,  1587,  II,  i,  53-54. 

Such  is  the  sweet  of  this  ambitious  power, 
No  sooner  had,  than  turned  eftsoons  to  sour. 

Id.  II,  iv,  Chorus  at  end. 

Must  taste  those  sowre  distates  the  times  do  bring 
Upon  the  fulness  of  a  cloy'd  Neglect. 

Daniel,  Musophilus,  1602-3,  U-  169-170. 

Held  back  something  from  that  full  of  sweet 
To  intersowre  unsure  delights  the  more. 

Id.  Letter  from  Octavia  to  Marcus  Antonius,   1599, 
st.  40. 

140.  And  so  with  the  derivative  metaphor  about  love 
and  friendship  turning  to  hate  (RICHARD  II,  III,  ii,  335  ; 
R.  AND  J.,  II,  vi,  ii ;  LUCRECE,  867  ;  Sonnet  94). 


452  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

;    This  also  was  a  standing  commonplace  : 

Fortune.     Did  not  I  change  long  love  to  sudden  hate, 
And  then  rechange  their  hatred  into  love  ? 

Soliman  and  Perseda,  Act\,  Induction. 
So,  being  former  foes,  they  waxed  friends. 

Spenser,  Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Again,  1.  851. 

15.  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  frequently  apply  the  terms 
"  sugar  "  and  "  sugared  "  to  words  and  speech. 

So  do  nine  Elizabethan  belletrists  out  of  ten,  and  many 
divines  to  boot !  See  above,  p.  278. 

150.  But  Bacon  has  the  phrase  (PROMUS,  No.  i,  219)  : 
"  Sweet  for  speech  in  the  morning  "  and  the  Friar  in 
ROMEO  AND  JULIET  (II,  iii,  32)  asks  : 

What  early  tongue  so  sweet  saluteth  me  ? 

And  we  are  asked  to  recognise  the  utterance  of  a  single 
mind  ! 

156.  But,  again,  Bacon  asserts  that  "  sounds  are 
sweeter  as  well  as  greater  in  the  night  than  in  the  day  " 
(SYL.  SYL.  235)  ;  and  Shakespeare  has  expressions  to  that 
effect  (ROMEO  AND  JULIET,  II,  ii,  166  ;  MERCHANT,  V,  i, 
55).  If  Dr.  Theobald  found  in  Elizabethan  literature,  by 
any  chance,  an  allusion  to  the  midnight  sweetness  of  the 
song  of  the  nightingale,  he  would  doubtless  recognise  the 
unmistakable  hand  of  Bacon.  The  greater  audibility  of 
sounds  in  the  night  is  a  fact  that  perhaps  escapes  frequent 
literary  comment  by  reason  of  a  notoriety  extending  over 
several  millenniums. 

16.  "  Other  scientific  ideas  (!)  which  Bacon  held  about 
sound,"  says  Dr.  Theobald,   "  are  clearly  reflected  in 
Shakespeare  "  : 

The  lower  winds  in  a  plain,  except  they  be  strong,  make  no  noise  ; 
but  amongst  the  trees  the  noise  of  such  winds  will  be  perceived. 

Syl.Syl.  115. 

You  may  as  well  forbid  the  mountain  pines 
To  wag  their  high  tops,  and  to  make  no  noise. 

Merchant,  IV,  i,  75, 
When  the  sweet  wind  did  gently  kiss  the  trees 

And  they  did  make  no  noise. 

Id.  V,  i,  i . 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  453 

These  little  coincidences  are  rare  delights  for  the 
Baconians  ;  who  never  ask  whether  they  might  not  stand 
for  reminiscences  by  Bacon  of  phrases  heard  by  him  in 
plays.  Unhappily  they  occur  in  other  writers.  "  Ob 
serve,"  says  Dr.  Theobald,  "  how  the  little  phrase  '  make 
no  noise  '  always  refers  to  the  movement  of  wind  in  the 
trees."  Yet  there  are  such  coincidences  elsewhere  : 

When  the  least  whistling  wind  begins  to  sing, 
And  gently  blows  her  hair  about  her  neck, 
Like  to  a  chime  of  bells  it  soft  doth  ring, 
And  with  the  pretty  noise  the  wind  doth  check. 

Chester,  Love's  Martyr,  1601.     Grosart's  ed.  p.  10. 

Each  noise  the  wind  or  air  doth  cause. 

Harington's  trans,  of  Orlando  Furioso  (1591),  B.  i,  st.  34. 

The  use  of  ",  noise  "  for  a  musical  sound  is  common; 

E.g.: 

The  spouse  of  fair  Eurydice, 
That  did  enchant  the  waters  with  his  noise. 

Locrine,  i,  i. 

17.  Again,  Shakespeare  notes,  with  Bacon,  that  hearing 
is  more  acute  by  night  than  by  day  (M.  N.  D.  Ill,  ii,  177). 
This  occult  fact  has  been  already  commented  on. 

18.  Shakespeare  has  a  passage  on  the  knots  in  trees 
that  "  by  the  conflux  of  meeting  sap  "  divert  the  tree's 
growth  (TROILUS,  I,  iii,  7)  ;  and  Bacon  has  one  explaining 
how  knots  in  trees  occur  "  for  that  the  sap  ascendeth 
unequally  "  (SYL.  SYL.  589).     Obviously  the  theory  was 
a  current  one ;    and  Dr.  Theobald  admits  that  "  the 
Shakespeare  passage  shows  a  slight  variation." 

19.  Bacon  in  the  PROMUS  quotes  the  proverb  :    "He 
that  pardons  his  enemy,  the  amner  [almoner]  shall  have 
his  goods";    and  in  the  DE  AUGMENTIS  remarks  that 
"  None  of  the  virtues  has  so  many  crimes  to  answer  for  as 
clemency"    (Antitheta  on  Cruelty;    VI,  iii,   No.   18)  ; 
repeating  the  idea  more  fully  in  another  place  (VIII,  ii, 
No.  14).     Again,  he  writes  to  Buckingham  :   "  Mercy  in 
such  a  case,  in  a  King,  is  true  cruelty  "  (LIFE,  vi,  46). 


454  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

So  Shakespeare  : 

Sparing  justice  feeds  iniquity. 

Lucrece,  1686. 
Pardon  is  still  the  nurse  of  second  woe. 

M.forM.II,  i,  end. 

Compare  Richard  II,  V,  in,  57-99 ;  Timon,  III,  v,  2  ;   Romeo, 
III,  i,  last  line. 

Dr.  Theobald  admits  that  "  this  is  not  a  very  profound  or 
original  axiom."  It  is  not :  it  was  an  ancient  common 
place,  often  found  in  Elizabethan  literature  : 

He  that  for  every  little  occasion  is  moved  with  compassion  .  .  . 
is  called  piteous,  which  is  a  sickness  of  the  mind,  wherewith 
at  this  day  the  more  part  of  men  be  diseased. 

Elyot,  The  Governour,  B.  ii,  c.  7.  (Compare  c.  9.) 

For  most  oftentimes  the  omitting  of  correction  redoubleth  a 
trespass. 

Id.  B.  iii,  c.  21. 

Wrong,  wreakless  [—  unrevenged]  sleeping, 
Makes  men  die  honourless  ;  one  borne,  another 
Leaps  on  our  shoulders.     We  must  wreak  our  wrongs 
So  as  we  take  not  more. 

Chapman,  Revenge  of  Bussy  D'Ambois,  iii,  i. 

Fathers,  to  spare  these  men,  were  to  commit 
A  greater  wickedness  than  you  would  revenge. 

Jonson,  Catiline,  v,  6. 

It  had  been  put  in  currency  for  the  stage  by  Hughes  : 

No  worse  a  vice  than  lenity  in  kings. 

Remiss  indulgence  soon  undoes  a  realm. 

He  teacheth  how  to  sin,  that  winks  at  sins, 

And  bids  offend,  that  suffereth  an  offence. 

The  only  hope  of  leave  increaseth  crimes, 

And  he  that  pardoneth  one,  emboldeneth  all 

To  break  the  laws.     Each  patience  fostereth  wrongs.  .  .  . 

Rough  rigour  looks  out  right,  and  still  prevailes  : 

Smooth  mildness  looks  too  many  ways  to  thrive. 

Attonement  sield  [seldom]  defeats,  but  oft  defers 
Revenge  :  beware  a  reconciled  foe. 

The  Misfortunes  of  Arthur,  1587,  III,  i,  62-74. 

And  we  have  it  in  Fairfax's  translation  of  Tasso's 
JERUSALEM  DELIVERED  (1600)  : 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  455 

There  must  the  rule  to  all  disorders  sink, 
Where  pardons  more  than  punishments  appear. 

B.  v,  st.  39  ; 

and  in  Daniel's  CIVIL  WARS  : 

Compassion  here  is  cruelty,  my  lord, 
Pity  will  cut  our  throats. 

B.  vi,  st.  65. 

But  it  should  not  have  been  necessary  thus  to  illustrate 
the  vogue  of  a  commonplace  sure  to  be  uttered  by  a 
thousand  lawyers,  preachers,  and  laymen  on  every 
occasion  of  the  severe  repression  of  sedition. 

20.  Bacon,  in  his  HISTORY  OF  HENRY  VII,  quotes 
Chancellor  Morton  on  "  the  bastard,  and  barren  employ 
ment  of  moneys  to  usury,"  and  in  this  connection  he 
repeats  the  word  "  bastard "  twice.  Shakespeare  in 
VENUS  AND  ADONIS  (767)  speaks  of  gold  put  to  use 
begetting  gold,  using  no  term  of  disparagement ;  and  in 
the  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  (I,  iii)  makes  Antonio  speak  of 
Shylock  taking  "  a  breed  for  barren  money  of  his  friend." 
Citing  an  irrelevant  passage  from  TWELFTH  NIGHT  (III; 
i,  54),  Dr.  Theobald  pronounces  that,  "  Putting  all  these 
things  together,  Shakespeare's  opinion  seems  to  be  much 
the  same  as  Bacon's."  The  facts  are  plainly  otherwise. 
Shakespeare  puts  in  Antonio's  mouth  the  standing 
medieval  censure  of  usury — that  it  was  unnatural,  in  that 
it  made  a  barren  thing  "  breed."  (Compare :  "I  cannot 
abide  to  have  money  engender,"  in  Dekker's  HONEST 
WHORE,  Pt.  II,  ii,  i ;  and  the  exposition  in  Kyd's  transla 
tion  of  Tasso's  THE  HOUSEHOLDER'S  PHILOSOPHY  ;  Boas' 
ed.  of  Works,  pp.  279-282.)  He  does  not  call  it  "  bas 
tard  "—that  is  Bacon's  word.  The  alleged  coincidence 
turns  directly  against  Dr.  Theobald's  thesis. 

2oa.  In  this  connection,  Dr.  Theobald  notes  that  Bacon 
in  the  late  essay  on  Usury  puts  forward  contradictory 
views  on  money-lending — that  it  "  doth  dull  and  damp 
all  industries,"  but  that  at  moderate  interest  lent  money 
"  will  encourage  and  edge  industrious  and  profitable 


456  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

employments."  Shakespeare  on  the  contrary  makes 
Polonius  say  that  "  borrowing  dulls  the  edge  of  hus 
bandry."  Again  a  sharp  divergence.  Dr.  Theobald 
solves  his  problem  by  the  pronouncement  that  "  when 
HAMLET  was  written,  the  poet  does  not  seem  to  have 
advanced  quite  so  far  "  as  he  did  when  he  wrote  the  essay 
on  Usury  !  Thus  when  Shakespeare  and  Bacon  hold 
contrary  opinions,  it  is  to  count  for  nothing  against  the 
Baconian  theory,  which  in  effect  professes  to  rest  upon 
"  echoes  and  correspondencies  "  ! 

21.  Shakespeare,  in  a  passage  on  the  possibility  of 
forecasting  events  from  the  past,  speaks  of  the  "  seeds  and 
weak  beginnings  "  of  things  (2  HENRY  IV,  iii,  i,  80  sq.). 
Bacon  in  turn  speaks  of  "  a  beginning  and  seed  "  (Works, 
ed.  Spedding  and  Ellis,  vii,  4)  ;   again  of  "  the  seminary 
and  beginnings  "  of  monarchies  (LIFE,  iii,  324)  ;   and  yet 
again  of  "  fair  seeds  and  beginnings  "  (Works,  vii,  47). 
Any   critical   reader   noting   such   an   extremely   likely 
coincidence  of  phrase  would  make  some  scrutiny  before 
deciding  that  it  stood  for  identity  of  authorship.     The 
Baconian  never  makes  such  an  inquiry.     Yet  the  phrase 
is  obviously  a  natural  one,  likely  to  be  common.     Com 
pare  : 

So  that  they  have  had  their  beginning  of  themselves  in  seede, 
in  flower,  or  in  kernell. 

Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay,  on  The  Trewnesse  of 
the   Christian  Religion,    1587,   ed,    1604,   p.   6. 

22.  Similarly  Dr.  Theobald  founds  on  the  fact  that 
Shakespeare  makes  the  King  in  ALL'S  WELL  (I,  ii,  15) 
utter    the    million-times    repeated    platitude    about    a 
foreign  war  being  an  "  exercise  "  for  a  nation — a  senti 
ment  which  Bacon  gives  out  in  his  own  person  more  than 
once.     Dr.  Theobald  appears  to  think  that  he  strengthens 
his  case  by  first  adducing  the  advice  of  HENRY  IV  to  his 
son    "  to   buoy   giddy   minds   with    foreign    quarrels  " 
(2  HENRY  IV.  IV,  v,  210) — a  totally  different  proposition 
— and  even  goes  the  length  of  quoting  the  "  somewhat 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  457 

coarse  "  language  of  Parolles  (ALL'S  WELL;  II,  iii,  296). 
The  claim  is  beneath  discussion.  Shakespeare  makes  one 
king  employ  a  saying  about  war  which  had  been  uttered 
by  multitudes  of  men  in  all  time  about  every  foreign  war 
in  history  ;  and  Bacon  does  as  much  on  his  own  account. 
It  is  set  forth  by  Daniel  in  his  CIVIL  WARS,  B.  v,  st.  17. 
The  inference  of  identity  is  here  outside  discussion. 

23.  Bacon  somewhere  (Dr.  Theobald  gives  no  reference) 
speaks  of  indulgence  as  causing  weakness  by  "  expense  of 
spirit  "  ;  as  does  Shakespeare  in  Sonnet  129.     In  the  lack 
of  a  reference  the  point  can  hardly  be  discussed;    but 
here  again  the  phrase  is  in  the  common  way  of  Elizabethan 
diction  : 

Right  sacred  expense  of  his  time. 

Chapman,  pref.  to  trans,  of  Iliad. 
The  serious  expense  of  an  exact  gentleman's  time. 

Id.  Epist.  ded.  to  Seven  Books  of  the  Iliads,  1598. 
The  worthy  expense  of  my  future  life. 

Id.  ib. 
Spend  their  souls  in  sparks. 

Id.  Verses  To  M.  Harriots,  app.  to  trans,  of  Achilles1  Shield, 
Spent  his  vital  spirit. 

Spenser,  Ruins  of  Time,  1.  382, 
A  scholar  doth  disdain  to  spend  his  spirits 
Upon  such  base  employment  as  hand  labours. 

Patient  Grissil  (1599)  v.  I. 

Foolish  inamorates  who  spend  their  ages,  their  spirits,  nay 
themselves,  in  the  servile  and  ridiculous  imployments  of  their 
mistresses. 

T.  Heywood,  Apology  for  Actors,  Sh.  Soc,  rep.  p.  54. 
And  speak  away  my  spirit  into  air. 

Jonson,  Induction  to  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour. 

24.  Bacon  in  his  speech  of  Undertakers  (LIFE,  v,  43); 
speaks  of  "  the  fort  of  affection  and  the  fort  of  reason," 
and  uses  "  fort  of  reason  "  again  in  the  Discourse  on 
Fortitude  which  is  spoken  at  the  Conference  of  Pleasure. 
Shakespeare  has  "  pales  and  forts  of  reason  "  (Hamlet,  I; 
iv,  27) .     Bacon  again  (last  cit.)  has  "  fortitude  the  marshal 
of  thought,  the  armour  of  the  will  "  ;  while  Shakespeare 


458  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

writes  of  "  the  marshal  to  my  will  "  (M.  N.  D.;  II,  ii,  120) 
and  "  armour  of  the  mind." 

It  is  quite  possible  that  Bacon  had  heard  performances 
of  the  plays  cited,  and  echoed  them.  But  the  metaphors 
and  phrases  in  question  were  common.  E.g.  : 

Where  virtue  keepeth  the  fort,  report  and  suspicion  may  assail 
but  never  sack. 

Greene;  Pandosto  (1588),  Hazlitt's  Sh.  Lib.  iv,  42. 
Yet  first  he  cast,  by  treaty  and  by  trains, 
Her  to  persuade  that  stubborn  fort  to  yield. 

Spenser,  Faerie  Queene,  B.  I,  c.  vi,  st.  3. 
What  war  so  cruel,  or  what  siege  so  sore 
As  that  which  strong  affections  do  apply 
Against  the  fort  of  reason  evermore. 

Id.  II,  xi,  i. 
That  fort  of  chastity. 
That  impregnable  fort  of  chastity  and  loyalty. 

Chapman,  The  Widow's  Tears,  i,  I  ;  iii,  I. 
Thou  hast  the  goal,  the  fort  [of  chastity]  is  beaten. 

Nero  (1624),  ii,  i. 
To  summon  resignation  of  life's  fort. 

Chapman,  The  Gentleman  Usher,  iv,  i. 
Most  tender  fortress  of  our  woes . 

Chapman,  Hymnus  in  Noctem. 
I  must  confess  I  yielded  up  my  fort. 

Hey  wood,  i  Edward  IV,  v,  4. 
To  win  the  Fort,  how  oft  have  I  essayed, 
Wherein  the  heart  of  my  fair  mistress  lies. 

W.  Percy,  Sonnets  to  Ccelia,  1594,  Son.  10. 
Under  pretence  of  friendship,  where  he  hath  a  fort,  as  it  were, 
commodiously  seated. 

Holland,  trans,  of  Plutarch's  Moralia  ("To  discern 
a  Flatterer  from  a  Friend  ")  Everyman  Lib. 
selection,  p.  38. 

"  Marshal  of  the  will  "  and  "  armour  of  the  mind  "  are 
equally  common  types  of  figure.  The  second  was  made 
current  for  all  Europe  by  Boethius,  of  which  there  were 
three  English  translators.  Chaucer  has  : 

Certes  I  gave  thee  such  armours  that,  if  thou  thyself  ne  haddest 
first  cast  them  away,  they  shoulden  han  defended  thee. 

B.  i,  pr.  2. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  459 

The  idea  is  common  in  Tudor  belles  lettres  : 

Only  to  think  that  he  was  out  of  these  meditations  was  sufficient 
armour  to  defend  him  from  all  other  torments. 

Gascoigne,  Adventures    of  Master  F.  J.  Cunliffe's 
ed.  of  Works,  i,  422. 

But  the  religious  use  of  the  metaphor,  starting  from  such 
texts  as  "  the  armour  of  righteousness,"  "  the  whole 
armour  of  God  "  (2  Cor.  vi,  7  ;  Eph.  vi,  n,  13),  was 
absolutely  universal.  E.g.  Erasmus'  ENCHIRIDION,  and 
Latimer,  passim. 

25.  Bacon  says  in  a  letter  to  Villiers  (LIFE,  v,  260)  that 
the  times  require  a  King's  attorney  "  to  wear  a  gauntlet 
and  not  a  glove  "  ;  and  Shakespeare  has  : 

A  scaly  gauntlet  now  .  .  .  must  glove  this  hand. 

2  Henry  IV,  i,  i,  145. 
The  phrase  is  a  typical  Tudor  commonplace. 

26.  Bacon  "  is  fond  of  taper-light  "  ;   speaks  of  events 
as  "  lights  or  tapers  "  (LIFE,  i,  132)  ;    and  has  in  his 
PROMUS  (688)  the  proverbial  phrase  :   "To  help  the  sun 
with   lanterns  "—as   well   as   others    (686,   687)    about 
digging  a  well  by  a  river,  and  a  gold  ring  on  a  swine's 
snout.     All  these  ideas  are  claimed  to  be  "  clearly  repro 
duced  in  Shakespeare,"  in  the  passages  (i)  about  smooth 
ing  the  ice  and  adding  taper-light  to  that  of  the  sun 
(JOHN,  IV,  ii,  9)  ;   (2)  about  adding  water  to  the  sea  and 
bringing  a  faggot  to  burning  Troy  (Tixus,  III,  i,  68)  ; 

(3)  about  adding  coals  to  Cancer  (TROILUS,  II,  iii,  205)  ; 

(4)  about   the  raven  chiding  blackness   (ib.   221),   and 

(5)  about  honey  as  a  sauce  to  sugar  (As  You  LIKE  IT,  III, 
iii,  29)  ;  and  again  in  the  line  "  She  doth  teach  the  torches 
to  burn  bright." 

An  extremely  common  type  of  metaphor  and  an 
extremely  common  form  of  proverb  are  here  founded  on 
to  prove  identity  of  authorship.  Upon  that  principle 
Bacon  wrote  the  plays  of  Jonson,  who  has 

Witness  thy  youth's  dear  sweets  here  spent  untasted, 

Like  a  fair  taper,  with  his  own  flame  wasted. 

Cynthia's  Revels,  i,  i. 


460  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

and  of  Dekker,  who  wrote  : 

'Twere  impiety  then  to  dim  her  light, 
Because  we  see  such  tapers  seldom  burn. 

The  Honest  Whore,  Pt.  II,  iv,  2. 
Whose  star-like  eyes  have  power  .  ,  „  to  make  night  day. 

Old  Fortunatus,  ii,  2. 
The  tapers  of  the  night  [i.e.  the  stars]  are  already  lighted. 

Ib.  Prologue  at  Court. 
To  say  nothing  of : 

When  the  taper  of  my  heart  is  lighted. 

Barnes,  Parthenophil  and  Parthenophe  (1593),  Son.  24. 

It  was  a  common  trope  long  before  Bacon,    E.g.  : 
A  light  or  torch  to  show  man  his  filthy  and  stinking  nature. 
Hooper,  Declaration  of  Christ's  Office,  1547.     Parker 
Soc.  rep.  p.  89, 

As  to  the  phrase  about  bringing  lanterns  to  the  sun, 
nobody  but  a  Baconian  would  need  to  be  told  that  it  was 
in  everyday  use  among  common  folk.  It  emerges  even 
in  theology  : 

Man's  wisdom  giveth  as  much  light  unto  the  word  of  God,  as 
a  little  candle  giveth  unto  the  bright  sun  in  the  mid -day. 

Hooper,  Answer  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  Parker 

Soc.  vol.  p.  169. 

They  do  shewe  themselves  worthie  to  be  laughed  at,  as  which 
should  take  upon  them  to  enlighten  the  Sunne  with  a  Candle. 

Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay  Of  the  Trewnes 
of  the  Christian  Religion,  1587,  ed.  1604,  p.  i. 

Compare  a  poet : 

To  light 
A  candle  to  the  Sun. 

Daniel,  pref .  poem  to  The  Queenes  Arcadia,  1605. 

27.  Bacon  in  one  letter  speaks  of  the  solitude  "  which  is 
the  base-court  of  adversity,"  in  which  he  has  "  often 
remembered  "  the  Spanish  proverb,  "  Love  without  end 
has  no  end  "  (LIFE,  vii,  335).  Shakespeare  in  RICHARD  II 
puns  on  the  "  Base  court,  where  kings  grow  base  "  ;  and 
in  CYMBELINE  (IV,  ii,  90)  says  : 

/  have  heard  you  say 
Love's  reason's  without  reason, 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  461 

"  This,"  says  Dr.  Theobald,  "  is  evidently  a  variation  on 
the  Spanish  proverb."  It  is  simply  another  proverb  of 
the  same  very  common  cast,  and  the  twofold  parallel  is  a 
rope  of  sand. 

28.  Bacon  has  the  phrases  "  no  brewer  of  holy  water  in 
Court,"  and  "  no  dealer  in  holy  water  "  (LIFE,  i,  200 ; 
iii,  297) .     "  The  same  very  curious  phrase  occurs  in  LEAR," 
says  Dr.  Theobald  : 

O,  uncle,  court  holy  water  in  a  dry  house  is  better  than  rain  out 
o'  door.     (Ill,  ii,  10.) 

For  Dr.  Theobald,  every  obsolete  idiom  is  very  curious. 
Yet  he  cites  the  "  Clarendon  note  "  on  the  passage  to  the 
effect  that  "  Court  holy  water  "  was  a  phrase  from  the 
French.  That  is  to  say,  it  was  a  current  tag.  From  the 
variorum  edition  Dr.  Theobald  might  have  learned  that  it 
is  so  given  in  Cotgrave's  Dictionary,  1611,  and  in  Florio's 
Italian  Dictionary,  1598,  under  the  word  Mantellizare. 
The  "  coincidence  "  thus  stands  for  absolutely  nothing. 

29.  Bacon  in  a  speech  in  Parliament  said  :  "  Let  not  this 
Parliament  end  like  a  Dutch  feast,  in  salt  meats,  but  like 
an  English  feast  in  sweet  meats  "  (LIFE,  iii,  215).     Shake 
speare  in  RICHARD  II  (I,  iii,  67),  has : 

Lo,  as  at  English  feasts,  so  I  regreet 

The  daintiest  last  to  make  the  end  most  sweet. 

On  the  face  of  it,  Bacon's  remark  was  likely  to  have  been 
made  a  million  times  a  year  in  England  !  Shakespeare 
does  not  mention  the  Dutch  usage  ;  but,  as  Dr.  Theobald 
observes,  he  might  have  added  another  line  in  RICHARD  II : 

(Not  like  Dutch  feasts,  that  end  with  salted  meat.) 
And  this  is  a  "  coincidence  "  ! 

30.  Bacon  writes  to  Villiers  that  in  regard  to  his  friend 
he  is  "  covetous  "  only  to  take  away  care  from  him  (LIFE, 
vi,  115).    Henry  V  says  he  is 

not  covetous  for  gold  ,  ,  . 
But  if  it  be  a  sin  to  covet  honour, 
I  am  the  most  offending  soul  alive. 

Henry  V,  IV,  iii,  24. 


462  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

So  Bacon  evidently  wrote  Shakespeare !  By  the  same 
token  he  wrote  Ben  Jonson  : 

We  here  protest  it,  and  are  covetous 
Posterity  should  know  it,  we  are  mortal. 

Sejanus,  i,  2. 

31.  Inasmuch  as  Bacon  writes  that  "  Fame  hath  swift 
wings,  specially  that  which  hath  black  feathers  "  (LIFE, 
v,  248),  and  Shakespeare  in  Sonnet  70  has  : 

The  ornament  of  beauty  is  suspect; 

A  crow  that  flies  in  heaven's  sweetest  air, 

"  Bacon  is  interpreted  by  Shakespeare."  I  spare 
comment. 

32.  Dr.  Theobald  claims  to  find  "  the  same  picture  "  in 
Bacon's  reference  to  men's  holding  offices  after  their 
powers  are  decayed  and  Shakespeare's  allusions  to  (i)  a 
disregarded  old  tale  (WINTER'S  TALE,  V,  ii,  67  ;  JOHN  IV, 
ii,  18  ;    VENUS  AND  ADONIS,  841).    There  is  absolutely 
no  coincidence  or  parallel  whatever. 

33.  For  once  Dr.  Theobald  does  find  a  parallel.     In 
HAMLET  we  have  the  lines  (I,  ii,  n)  : 

As  'twere  with  a  defeated  joy, 
With  an  auspicious  and  a  dropping  eye, 
With  mirth  in  funeral  and  with  dirge  in  marriage  ; 

and  in  THE  WINTER'S  TALE  (V,  ii,  80)  : 

She  hath  one  eye  declined  for  the  loss  of  her  husband  ;   another 
elevated  that  the  oracle  was  fulfilled  ; 

while  Bacon  speaks  of  Perkin  Warbeck  (WORKS;  vi,  192) 
"  beginning  to  squint  one  eye  upon  the  crown  and  another 
upon  the  sanctuary";  and  of  Walpoole  in  the  Squire 
conspiracy,  as  "  carrying  a  waking  and  a  waiting  eye." 
As  this  common  employment  of  a  common  trope  is  to 
prove  identity  of  authorship,  let  us  once  more  note  in 
part  the  extent  of  Bacon's  production  : 

Avert  his  [Apollo's]  fervent  eye, 
And  turn  his  temperate. 

Chapman's  trans,  of  Iliad  (1598),  i,  62-3, 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  463 

In  which  time  came  upon  the  Stage  a  woman  clothed  with  a 
white  garment,  on  her  head  a  pillar,  double-faced,  the  foremost 
face  fair  and  smiling,  the  other  behind  black  and  lowring. 

Gascoigne,  Jocasta,  Dumb  Shew  before  Act  V, 

As  if  you  stuck  one  eye  into  my  breast, 

And  with  the  other  took  my  whole  dimensions. 

Jonson,  The  Sad  Shepherd,  iii. 

They  have  wont  to  give  their  hands  and  their  hearts  together  ; 
but  we  think  it  a  finer  grace  to  look  asquint,  our  hands  looking 
one  way  and  our  hearts  another. 

Cornwallis,  Essays,  1601. 

Her  face  was  changeable  to  every  eye  ; 
One  way  look'd  ill,  another  graciously. 

Chapman,  Third  Sestiad  of  Hero  and  Leander,  1598. 

As  if  she  had  two  souls,  one  for  the  face, 

One  for  the  heart,  and  that  they  shifted  place. 

Id.  ib. 

His  eyes  were  seats  for  mercy  and  for  law, 
Favour  in  one,  and  Justice  in  the  other. 

Greene,  A  Maiden's  Dream,  1591,  st.  9. 

34.  "  Shakespeare's  phrase  '  out  of  joint/  which  has 
passed  into  current  speech,  so  that  its  singular  and  original 
character  is  forgotten,  is  used  more  than  once  both  in 
Shakespeare  and  Bacon."  So  writes  Dr.  Theobald.  I 
invite  the  attention  of  rational  readers  to  the  frame  of 
mind  of  a  writer  who,  knowing  practically  nothing  of  pre- 
Shakespearean  literature,  affirms  that  such  a  phrase  as 
"  out  of  joint  "  was  "  original  "  about  the  year  1600. 

When  such  a  thing  can  be  written,  and  pass  into  a 
second  edition,  it  seems  necessary  to  demonstrate  the 
folly  of  the  assertion.  Any  one  noting  that  Hamlet  uses 
not  only  the  phrase  "  out  of  joint,"  but  "  disjoint  and  out 
of  frame  "  (i,  2) ;  that  Macbeth  says  "  let  the  frame  of 
things  disjoint  "  (iii,  2)  ;  and  that  "  out  of  frame  "  occurs 
also  in  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST  (iii,  i),  would  realise  that 
"  out  of  joint  "  and  "  out  of  frame  "  were  equivalent 
phrases  in  ordinary  use — unless  indeed  the  Baconian 
should  decide  that  Bacon  invented  both.  As  Mr.  Craw- 


464  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

ford  has  pointed  out,  both  are  pre-Elizabethan,  even  in 
the  moral  sense  : 

To  thy  correccion  now  haaste  and  hie, 

For  thou  hast  been  out  of  joynt  al  to  longe. 

Hoccleve's  Works  (1415) ;  Furnivall's  rep.  p.  14. 
The  londe  he  bryngeth  out  of  frame, 
Agaynst  all  goddis  forbod. 

Roye,  Rede  me  and  be  nott  Wrothe,  1528. 
Add: 

In  this  worlde  that  we  do  name 
There  is  none  so  farre  out  of  frame. 

Idem. 

The  latter  phrase,  which  Brandes  surprisingly  describes 
as  a  "  curiously  poetic  expression  "  in  HAMLET,1  occurs 
in  Latimer  : 

That  the  King's  majesty,  when  he  cometh  to  age;  willjsee  a 
redress  of  these  things  so  out  of  frame. 

First  Sermon  before  Edward  VI  ;  Dent's  rep.  p.  86. 

Brandes  traces  it  from  Shakespeare  to  Florio's  Montaigne. 
The  idea  is  common  in  Daniel,  who  uses  this  and  the 
figure  of  "  joint  "  with  a  frequency  which  indicates  the 
absolute  normality  of  the  metaphor.  Compare  : 

How  things  at  full  do  soon  wex  out  of  frame. 

The  Civil  Wars,  1595,  B.  i,  st.  8. 
As  if  the  frame  of  all  disjoynted  were. 

Id.  B.  iv,  st.  10. 
The  broken  frame  of  this  disjoynted  State. 

A  Panegyricke  Congratulatory  to  the  King,  1603,  St.  41. 

An  addition  to  the  frame 

Of  this  great  work,  squar'd  fitly  to  the  same. 

Id.  St.  43. 

Which  out  of  judgment  best  accommodates 
These  joynts  of  rule. 

Id.  St.  44. 

The  model  of  this  frame. 

Id.  St.  45. 
[Nothing] 

Could  once  disjoint  the  couplements  whereby 
It  [the  frame]  held  together  in  just  Symetry. 

Id.  ib. 
1  William  Shakespeare,  1898,  ii,  17. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  465 

And  be  so  clos'd  as  all  the  joynts  may  grow 
Together  firm  in  due  proportion. 

Id.  St.  60. 
And  lay  the  frame  of  Order  and  Content. 

Id.  St.  61. 
This  frame  of  pow'r. 

Id.  St.  63. 

And  as  for  thee,  thou  huge  and  mighty  frame, 
That  stands  corrupted  so  with  time's  despight. 

Id.  Musophilus,  1602-3,  H-  379~8o. 
Shall,  with  a  sound  incountring  shock,  disjoynt 
The  fore -contrived  frame. 

Id.  ib.  11.  870-1. 

Such  phrases  as  "  out  of  course,"  "  out  of  order/'  "  out  of 
form,"  "  out  of  square,"  "  out  of  rank,"  are  of  course 
equally  common.  In  the  literal  sense,  "  out  of  joint  " 
was  in  everyday-use  : 

When  a  member  that  was  out  of  joynt  is  set  in  again. 

Sidney  and  Golding's  trans,  of  De  Mornay,  1587. 

Ed.  1004,  p.  7. 

Doubtless,  Apollo's  axle-tree  is  cracked, 
Or  aged  Atlas'  shoulder  out  of  joint. 

Marlowe  and  Nashe's  Dido  (1594),  iv,  i. 
Not  that  he  had  put  out  of  joynt,  or  lamed 
His  arme,  his  legge,  or  any  other  part. 

Harington,  trans,  of  Orlando  Furioso,  1591,  i,  66, 

But  the  metaphor  too  was  in  dramatic  use  : 

This  resolution,  then,  hath  set  his  wits  in  joint  again. 

Chapman,  The  Widow's  Tears,  ii,  3. 

Dr.  Theobald  believed  that  Bacon-Shakespeare  invented 
the  very  phrase  "  household  words."  Such  faith,  but  no 
other,  can  conceive  either  as  inventing  "  out  of  joint." 
The  idea  is  in  Chaucer  before  Hoccleve  : 

That  the  linage  of  mankinde  ...  be  departed  and  unjoined 
from  his  welle. 

Boece,  B.  V,  pr.  iii,  end, 

What  discordable  cause  hath  to-rent  and  unjoined  the  binding 
...  of  things. 

Id.  B.  V,  Met.  iii,  beginning. 

The  phrase,  in  short,  lies  at  the  roots  of  English  "  dis- 

2G 


466  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

course."  If  it  had  been  argued  that  the  metaphor  was 
new  in  Bacon's  day,  one  could  have  set  down  the  claim  as 
one  more  instance  of  ordinary  Baconian  assumption. 
But  the  idea  that  the  phrase  was  then  originated  tells  of  a 
degree  of  credulous  folly  that  excludes  the  very  faculty 
of  judgment. 

35.  After  the  last-noted  item,  the  reader  is  not  unpre 
pared  to  learn  that  Dr.  Theobald  finds  significance  in  the 
fact  that  Bacon  sometimes  uses  the  phrase  "  money  in 
his  purse  "  ;  that  lago  says  "  Put  money  in  thy  purse  "  ; 
and  that  the  expression  repeatedly  recurs  in  Shakespeare. 
A  child  might  realise  that  such  phrases  were  likely  to  be 
in  habitual  use  ;  and  a  reference  to  Mr.  Hart's  edition  of 
OTHELLO  will  give  the  reader  two  coeval  instances  : 

No  arts  and  professions  are  now  set -by  and  in  request  but  such 
as  bring  pence  into  our  purses. 

Holland's  tr.  of  Pliny,  proem,  to  Bk.  xiv. 
Get  money  ;  still  get  money,  boy,  &c. 

Jonson,  Every  Man  In,  ii,  3. 

If  we  turn  to  a  later  play  of  Jonson's,  we  find  three 
instances  of  the  phrase  in  one  scene  : 
Has  still  money  in  his  purse,  and  will  pay  all. 
He  has  ever  money  in  his  purse. 
Thou  hast  money  in  thy  purse  still. 

Bartholomew  Fair,  ii,  i. 

Nashe  (WORKS,  ed.  McKerrow,  i,  163)  has  the  occult 
remark  that  "  He  that  hath  no  money  in  his  purse  "  must 
dine  on  credit — a  scientific  truth  which  may  be  gathered 
from  Hoccleve  in  the  previous  century. 

The  Baconians  will  presumably  argue  that  Jonson  was 
lending  to  the  Bohemians  of  his  FAIR  a  coinage  from  the 
"  Baconian  Mint."  We  can  but  speculate  as  to  what 
they  make  of  the  idea  when  it  occurs  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  earlier  : 

And  loke  ye  ringewele  in  your  purs, 

For  ellys  your  cawse  may  spede  the  wurs. 

Coventry  Mysteries,  c.  1450.     Sh.  Socs  ed.  p,  131  ; 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  467 

and  in  the  morality  MANKIND,  dating  circa  1475  : 

What  is  in  thy  purse  ?  thou  art  a  stout  fellow. 

Farmer's  rep.  p.  22. 

The  simple  sentiment  in  question  was  also  put  in  rhyme 
by  Dame  Juliana  Berners  or  another  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  in  the  epilogue  to  her  treatise  on  Hunting,  with 
its  refrain  : 

Ever  gramercy  mine  own  purse . 

It  is  only  the  plain  necessity  of  disproving,  by  chapter 
and  verse,  the  most  childish  assumptions  on  the  Baconian 
side  that  can  keep  one  in  countenance  in  thus  demonstra 
ting  that  the  most  elementary  notions  existed  in  English 
literature  before  the  reign  of  James  I. 

36.  Bacon  has  the  phrase  "  If  time  give  his  Majesty 
the  advantage,  what  needeth  precipitation  to  extreme 
remedies  ?  "  (LIFE,  v,  379).  "  Surely,"  says  Dr.  Theobald, 
"  this  is  simply  a  variation  of  the  more  condensed 
expression  of  the  same  maxim  : 

Advantage  is  a  better  soldier  than  rashness." 

Henry  V,  III,  vi,  128. 

It  is ;  and  "  surely  "  the  same  thing  must  have  been  said, 
in  similar  words,  by  ten  thousand  men  in  every  war  ! 
"  This  almost  technical  use  of  the  word  advantage,"  adds 
Dr.  Theobald,  "  as  applied  to  time,  is  distinctly  Baconian. 
It  is  equally  Shakespearean  "—citing  RICHARD  III,  IV, 
i,  49  ;  CYMBELINE,  IV,  i,  12  ;  VENUS  AND  ADONIS,  129. 
It  is  the  normal  force  of  the  word  in  Tudor  English  in 
Bacon's  day  : 

Had  you  come  one  to  one,  or  made  assault 
With  reasonable  advantage. 

Hey  wood,  Fair  Maid  of  the  West,  iv,  i . 

Conditions  such  as  it  liketh  him  to  offer  them  which  hath  them 
in  the  narrow  straits  of  advantage. 

Hooker,  Eccles.  Polity,  pref.  ch.  ii,  §4. 

He  should  never  take  her  at  the  like  advantage. 

Gascoigne,  Adventure  of  Master  F.  J.  Works,  ed. 
Cunliffe,  i,  435- 


468  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Hold  our  enemies  stilljjat  advantage. 

Gosson,  Schools-  of  Abuse,  Arber's  rep.  p.  46. 
Upon  a  good  and  a  military  advantage. 

Middleton,  Blurt,  Master-Constable  (1602)  i,  i. 
Backward  he  bears  for  more  advantage  now. 

Daniel,  Civil  Wars,  B.  iii,  St.  77. 
Make  imperfections  their  advantages. 

Id.  B.  iii,  St.  Sh. 
In  extremes  advantage  hath  no  time. 

Kyd,  The  Spanish  Tragedy,  iii,  13. 
Watch  you  Vantages  ? 

Id.  Soliman  and  Perseda,  i,  2. 
At  his  best  advantage  stole  away. 

Id.  i,  3- 
For  if  the  wife  her  at  advantage  take  .  .  . 

Higgins'  add.  to  Mirrour  for  Magistrates,    1575. 
Rep.  of  1810,  p.  68. 

38.  "  The  curious  expression  play  prizes  occurs  once  in 
Shakespeare/'  says  Dr.  Theobald,  citing  TITUS,  I,  i,  399. 
And  it  occurs  thrice  in  Bacon  !  I  know  nothing  more 
"  curious  "  in  the  Elizabethan  age  than  Dr.  Theobald's 
untiring  acclamation  of  its  household  words  when  he 
chances  to  find  them  in  both  Bacon  and  "  Shakespeare," 
never  dreaming  of  looking  further.  "  Play  his  prize," 
which  is  found  only  in  TITUS  among  the  plays  ascribed  to 
Shakespeare,  occurs  a  score  of  times  in  the  plays  and 
tales  of  Shakespeare's  day  : 

Getting  up  and  down  like  the  usher  of  a  fence  school  about  to 
play  his  prize. 

Greene,  A  Quip  for  an  Upstart  Courtier,  Works,  xi,  221. 

Why  should  not  we,  ladies,  play  our  prizes,  I  pray  ? 

Jonson,  Cynthia's  Revels,  v,  2. 
If  I  play  not  my  prize. 

Massinger,  A  New  Way  to  pay  Old  Debts,  iv,  2. 

When  I  do  play  my  prizes  in  print. 

Nashe,  Have  with  you  to  Saffron  Walden ;  Works,  iii,  128. 

Room,  let  my  prize  be  played. 

Dekker,  The  Honest  Whore,  Pt.  II,  v,  2. 

Nay,  let  me  alone  to  play  my  master's  prize. 

Id.  Pt.  I,  iv,  3. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  469 

To  play  at  the  wooden  rapier  and  dagger  at  the  end  of  a 
maister's  prize. 

Id.  Seven  Deadly  Sins,  Arber's  rep.  p.  2, 
Not  so  nimble  at  their  prizes  of  wit. 

The  Witch  of  Edmonton,  i,  2. 

As  may  be  learned  from  Steevens'  note  to  the  MERRY 
WIVES,  I,  i,  295,  the  practice  was  as  familiar  in  the  London 
of  that  day  as  cricket  in  ours.  Thus  illustrated,  the 
argument  attains  to  "  curious'st,"  as  the  Elizabethans 
would  say.  As  TITUS  is  non-Shakespearean,  it  would 
appear  in  this  connection  that  Bacon  wrote  pretty  well 
all  the  Elizabethan  plays  but  Shakespeare's. 

39.  "  Starting  holes  is  another  curious  phrase,"  con 
tinues  Dr.  Theobald.     "  Curiouser  and  curiouser."    See 
above,  p.  277. 

40.  Bacon  has  the  phrase  "as  we  now  say,  putting 
tricks  upon  them."     Essay  OF  CUNNING  (1612).     On  this 
passage  Dr.  Abbott  remarked  that  "  The  word  '  now  ' 
seems    to    apologize    for    the    new-fashioned    colloquial 
phrase,  put  tricks  on."     It  is  used  by  Stephano  in  the 
TEMPEST  (II,  ii,  62),  and  by  the  clown  in  ALL'S  WELL, 
IV,  v,  63.     "As  neither  of  these  plays  were  known  till 
1623,"  comments  Dr.  Theobald,  "  there  is  no  reason  for 
giving  the  phrase  an  earlier  date  than  the  Essay." 

We  are  thus  asked  to  believe  that  Bacon  invented  in 
1612  the  trivial  phrase  "  put  tricks  on,"  and  introduced 
it  with  the  formula  "  as  we  now  say," — putting  it  at  the 
same  time  into  a  play,  to  bear  out  his  remark  !  The 
literary  fact  is,  as  Mr.  Crawford  points  out,  that  Jonson 
uses  the  expression  in  both  versions  of  his  EVERY  MAN  IN 
HIS  HUMOUR,  so  that  it  was  already  current  in  1596.  And 
Jonson  further  uses  it  twice  in  CATILINE;  again  in  THE 
NEW  INN,  and  also  in  BARTHOLOMEW  FAIR. 

I  have  now  followed  Dr.  Theobald  seriatim  through 
forty  of  his  eighty  "  Echoes  and  Correspondencies."  The 
remainder  I  shall  merely  sample. 


470  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

41.  "  Bacon  more  than  once  uses  the  curious  verb 
stage  "  (e.g.  Letter  to  Buckingham,  LIFE,  vii,  151).  So 
Shakespeare,  M.  FOR  M.,  I,  i,  68,  ANTHONY,  V,  ii,  216. 

The  word  is  a  perfectly  normal  formation  of  early 
English  and  the  Tudor  period,  like  "  horsed,"  "  housed," 
"  shipped."  It  is  used  by  Stow  in  his  SURVEY  OF 
LONDON,  1598  : 

To  stay  and  behold  the  disguisings  and  other  disports  .  . 
showed  in  the  great  hall,  which  was  richly  hanged  with  arras,  and 
staged  about  on  both  sides. 

Morley's  rep.  p.  419. 

and  by  Hall  in  his  Chronicle  (p.  596)  : 

The  Kyng  .  .  .  caused  his  great  chambre  at  Greenwiche  to  be 
staged. 

43. 1  In  the  light  of  the  foregoing  comparisons,  there  is 
a  special  piquancy  in  Dr.  Theobald's  proclamation  that 
the  phrase  "  gross  and  palpable  "  "is  one  of  Bacon's 
many  contributions  to  verbal  currency.  It  was  a  new 
coin  when  it  issued  from  his  affluent  mint."  See  above, 
p.  276,  as  to  its  newness. 

45.  An  instance  is  actually  made  of  the  title  "  Narcissus, 
or  Self-Love, "  in  Bacon's  WISDOM  OF  THE  ANCIENTS, 
and  the  reference  to  Narcissus  and  self-love  in  LUCRECE, 
264.  Narcissus  was  "  Self-Love  "  for  all  who  knew  any 
thing  of  mythology.  It  never  occurs  to  a  Baconian  to 
wonder  why  the  plays  always  make  the  ordinary  use  of 
mythological  names  and  tales,  and  never  hint  at  those 
interpretations  or  allegorisings  of  them  which  make  up 
the  bulk  of  Bacon's  WISDOM  OF  THE  ANCIENTS. 

48.  Bacon  notes  the  observation  of  "  some  of  the 
ancients "  that  "  marigolds,  tulippas,  pimpernel,  and 
indeed  most  flowers  do  open  or  spread  their  leaves  abroad 
when  the  sun  shineth  serene  and  fair  ;  and  again  (in  some 
part)  close  .  .  .  when  the  sky  is  overcast  "  (SYL.  SYL. 
493).  Shakespeare  refers  thrice  to  this  property  in  the 

1  I  follow  Dr.  Theobald's  numbers.  His  instances  grow  more 
and  more  futile  as  they  proceed. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  471 

marigolds  only.  And  we  are  asked  to  infer  identity  of 
authorship  !  On  this  principle,  Bacon  wrote  Greene's 
MENAPHON,  where  the  relation  of  the  marigold  to  the  sun 
is  the  theme  of  a  whole  paragraph  (Arber's  rep.  p.  59). 

50.  Shakespeare  has  "  out  of  tune  and  harsh  "  (HAMLET, 
III,  i,  166)  ;  and  Bacon  has  "  duras  et  absonas  "  (NovuM 
ORGANUM,  i,  28).  Dr.  Theobald  does  not  say  whether  he 
thinks  Bacon  invented  this  phrase.  As  Mr.  Crawford 
points  out,  "  out  of  tune,"  in  the  moral  sense,  occurs  in 
Roye's  REDE  ME  AND  BE  NOT  WROTHE  (1528).  It  must 
have  been  an  extremely  common  trope.  In  Sidney  and 
Golding's  translation  of  De  Mornay  (1587)  we  have 

Our  minde  [must]  bee  brought  from  .  .  .  jarring  into  right 
tune.  Which  is  a  token  that  our  mind  is  out  of  tune  even  of  its 
own  accord,  seeing  that  it  needeth  so  many  precepts  to  set  it  in 
tune  agayne. 

Ed.  1604,  p.  282. 
And  in  the  drama  : 

Whose  voice,  if  it  should  utter  her  thoughts,  would  make  the 
tune  of  a  heart  out  of  tune. 

Lilly,  Midas,  iii,  3. 

52.  Bacon  quotes  Martial  to  the  effect  "  that  accident 
is  many  times  more  subtle  than  foresight,  and  over- 
reacheth  expectation "  (LIFE,  v,  276),  which  corre 
sponds  to  Hamlet's  "  praised  be  rashness  for  it  "  speech 
(HAMLET,  V,  ii,  6). 

As  I  have  elsewhere  shown  (MONTAIGNE  AND  SHAKE 
SPEARE,  2nd  ed.  p.  42  sq.),  Shakespeare  found  this  and  much 
other  matter  lying  to  his  hand  in  Florio's  translation  of 
Montaigne. 

54.  Dr.  Theobald  seriously  argues  that  these  lines  in 
ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  (V,  ii,  172)  : 

Or  I  shall  show  the  cinders  of  my  spirit 
Through  the  ashes  of  my  chance, 

were  not  written  till  the  issue  of  the  folio  in  1623,  because 
Bacon  wrote  "  the  sparks  of  my  affection  .  .  .  under  the 
ashes  of  my  fortune  "  in  a  letter  in  1621  !  The  figure  was 


472  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

in  common  use.     In  Sidney  and  Golding's  translation  of 
De  Mornay  we  have  : 

Drawen  some  small  sparkes  of  truth  and  wisdome  of  them  as 
out  of  some  little  fire  raked  under  a  great  heap  of  ashes. 

Pref.  To  the  Reader. 

Greene  has  : 

Having  the  sparks  of  honour  fresh  under  the  cinders  of  poverty. 

Menaphon,  Arber's  rep.  p.  82. 

The  figure  is  as  old  as  Chaucer  : 

Looke  how  that  fire  of  smale  gleedes,  that  been  almoost  deede 
under  ashen,  wollen  quike  agayn  when  they  been  touched  with 
brymstoon.  Right  so  ire  wol  evermo  quyken  agayn  when  it  is 
touched  by  the  pride  that  is  covered  in  mannes  herte. 

Parson's  Tale  :   Sequitur  de  Ira. 
Yet  in  our  asshen  olde  is  fyr  y-reke. 

Prologue  to  the  Reeve's  Tale. 

55.  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  both  speak  of  money  and 
worldly  goods  as  "  trash."  Ergo — /  Fifty  preachers  and 
playwrights  had  done  so  before  them.  E.g.  : 

Therefore  must  I  bid  him  provide  trash,  for  my  master  is  no 
friend  without  money. 

Greene,  James  IV,  iii,  i. 

Kneel  hinds  to  trash  :  me  let  bright  Phoebus  swell 
With  cups  full  flowing  from  the  Muses'  well. 

Jonson,  Poetaster,  I.  i.  (Rendering  of  the   Ovidian 
motto  of  Shakespeare's  Venus  and  Adonis]. 

59.  Bacon  writes  hyberbolically  to  the  King  that  unless 
his  Majesty  works  a  miracle  "  I  shall  still  be  a  lame  man 
to  do  your  service  "  if  others  are  "  put  in  before  me." 
And  Shakespeare  has  : 

So  I,  made  lame  by  fortune's  dearest  spite.     (Son.  37.) 
and  again  : 

Speak  of  my  lameness  and  I  straight  will  halt.     (Son.  89.) 
Therefore  Bacon  wrote  the  Sonnets  ! 

61.  Bacon  speaks  of  "  the  wrong  of  time  "  (ADVANCE 
MENT,  I,  viii,  6)  ;  and  so  does  Shakespeare  (Sonnet  19), 
It  was  a  current  trope  : 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  473 

Books,  tractations,  and  monuments,  which  hitherto,  by  iniquity 
of  time,  could  not  be  contrived. 

Foxe,  Ep.  Ded.to  2nd  ed.  of  Acts  and  Monuments, 

I570- 
Time's  despight. 

Daniel,  Musophilus,  1603,  1.  380. 
Wicked  Tyme. 

Spenser,  Faerie  Queene,  III,  vi,  39. 
Wicked  Time. 

Id.  ib.  IV,  ii,  33. 

63  and  64.  Bacon  speaks  of  Caesar  as  a  stag  at  bay  • 
Antony  says,  "  How  wast  thou  bay'd  "  ;  and  Bacon  speaks 
of  the  Revenge  in  the  sea-fight  as  "  like  a  stag  among 
hounds  at  the  bay"  (LIFE,  vii,  491).  Again,  Bacon  has 
"  Truth  prints  Goodness  "  ;  and  Prospero  in  the  TEMPEST 
calls  Caliban  a  slave  "  which  any  print  of  goodness  will 
not  take."  I  spare  the  reader  comment  and  confutation. 

66.  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  both  use  the  expression 
"  pray  in  aid."    They  well  might !     As  the  commentator 
Hanmer  pointed  out   a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago, 
"  Praying  in  aid  is  a  term  used  for  a  petition  made  in 
a  court  of  justice  for  the  calling  in  of  help  from  another 
that  hath  no  interest  in  the  cause  in  question." 

67.  Bacon  uses  the  expression  "to  be  retrograde  '* 
(LIFE,  i,  357),  as  does  Shakespeare  (HAMLET,  I,  ii,  114; 
ALL'S  WELL,  I,  i,  210).     An  "unusual  expression"  Dr. 
Theobald  calls  it,  as  usual.     It  was  a  common  term  in 
astrology,  current  in  general  literature  : 

Ramp  up  thy  genius  ;  be  not  retrograde. 

Jonson,  Poetaster,  1601  (parodying  Marston,  who 
had  used  the  word). 

Let's  be  retrograde. 

Id.  Cynthia's  Revels,  1600,  v.  2. 

You  must  be  retrograde. 

Id.  ib. 

Till  all  religion  become  retrograde. 

Daniel,  Civil  Wars,  B.  vi,  st.  36. 

Or  in  our  birth  the  stars  were  retrograde. 

The  Play  of  Stucley,  1605,  1.  2098. 


474  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

70.  Bacon  and  Shakespeare  both  use  the  expression 
"  stand  in  (or  within)  his  danger  "  (HISTORY  OF  HENRY  VII ; 
Works,  vi,  36 ;  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE,  IV,  i,  180).  Ergo — ! 

This  is  one  of  the  most  futile  of  Dr.  Theobald's  many 
futile  citations.  The  phrase,  to  begin  with,  is  as  old  as 
Chaucer. 

In  daunger  hadde  he  at  his  owne  gyse 
The  yonge  girles  of  the  diocyse. 

Prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales,  663-4  (665-6)  • 

The  old  French  word  meant  "  power,  dominion  "  ;    and 
this  is  its  sense  in  the  lines  : 

Narcisus  was  a  bachelere 

That  Love  had  caught  in  his  daungere. 

Romaunt  of  the  Rose,  1469-70. 
This  world  is  all  in  his  daungere. 

Id.  1049. 
We  find  it  in  the  MORTE  DARTHUR  : 

Then  said  the  knight  unto  Arthur,  thou  art  in  my  danger 
whether  me  list  to  save  thee  or  slay  thee. 

B.  I,  ch.  xxi; 

in  Fabyan's  CHRONICLE,  Hen.  Ill,  ann.  38  : 

How  they  passed  out  of  the  Kynges  dannger,  I  finde  not ; 
<in  the  Interlude  of  CALISTO  AND  MELEBEA  (circa  1530)  : 

Out  of  his  daunger  will  I  be  at  lyberte. 

Malone  Soc.  rep.  1.  33  ; 

in   Tyndale's    PATHWAY    UNTO   THE    HOLY   SCRIPTURE 
(Parker  Soc.  ed.  p.  9)  : 

In  sin,  and  in  danger  to  death  and  hell  ;x 
and  in  Bale's  Interlude  of  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST  (1538)  : 

If  ye  mynde  therefor,  of  God  to  avoyde  the  daunger. 

Rep.  in  Harl.  Misc,  ed.  1808,  i,  208. 

It  continued  to  be  common  : 

Betray  his  fame  and  safety 
To  the  law's  danger  and  your  father's  justice. 

Chapman,  Revenge  for  Honour,  iii,  i . 

1  The  Parker  Soc.  editor  notes  that  Bishop  Fisher  has  : — 
"  What  suppose  ye  that  Luther  would  do,  if  he  had  the  Pope's 
holiness  in  his  danger  ?  " 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  475 

Had  brought  herself  in  danger  of  la  we  through  ignorance. 

Brief  Discourse  of  the  Murder  of  Saunders,  1573,  in 

Simpson's  School  of  Shakespeare,  ii,  225. 
Against  the  pride  of  Tarquin,  from  whose  danger 
None  great  in  love,  in  counsel,  or  opinion, 
Can  be  kept  safe. 

Hey  wood,  Rape  of  Lucrece,  ii,  i . 
Not  to  run 
Within  the  danger  of  the  Gods . 

Chapman,  trans,  of  Iliad,  B.  vi,  161. 

71.  "  Bacon  has  a  trick  of  using  the  word  twenty  to 
express  a  large  and  indefinite  number  "  ;    and  so  has 
Shakespeare.     It  is  most  true  !     And  the  trick  was  in 
universal  use.     It  was  ordinary  in  Chaucer's  time  : 
In  twenty  manere  coude  he  tripp  and  daunce§ 

The  Miller's  Tale,  1.  142. 
And  let  me  slepe,  a  twenty  devel  way . 

Id.  1.  527. 
It,  was  normal  on  the  stage  : 

Comparing  it  to  twenty  gracious  things, 

Kyd,  Soliman  and  Perseda,  i,  2. 

I  open  Bishop  Hooper  at  random  and  find  : 

It  is  a  ceremony  instituted  by  bishops  more  than  twenty. 

Answer  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  (1546)  Parker 
Soc.  rep.  p.  176. 

The  expletive  given  in  Chaucer  was  current  in  Tudor 
times  : 

Come  on,  in  twenty  devils'  way. 

Gammer  Gurfon's  Needle,  i,  3,  end. 

Dr.  Theobald  would  presumably  assign  to  Bacon  the 
pseudo-Shakespearean  play  THE  PURITAN,  where  (i,  2) 
Mary  says  : 

Where  I  spend  one  tear  for  a  dead  father,  I  could  give  twenty 
kisses  for  a  live  husband  ; 

and  likewise  Chapman's  continuation  of  Marlowe's  HERO 
AND  LEANDER  : 

A  tender  twenty -coloured  eye. 

A  light  of  twenty  hues. 

Third  Sestiad, 


476  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Freckled  with  twenty  colours. 

Fourth  Sestiad. 
Wanton  Air  in  twenty  sweet  forms. 

Fifth  Sestiad. 

But  there  would  still  remain  the  problem  of  the  Interlude 
of  THE  TRIAL  OF  TREASURE,  printed  in  1567  : 

I  holde  twenty  pounde  it  is  Baalam's  asse. 
I  holde  twenty  pounde  the  knave  is  lousy. 

Percy  Soc.  rep.  pp.  6,  23  ; 

and  of  the  older  Interlude,  NATURE  (c.  1490)  : 

It  would  have  done  me  more  good 
Than  twenty  shillings  of  fee. 

Farmer's  Lost  Tudor  Play$,  p.  no  ; 

and  of  the  Interlude  REPUBLICA  (1553)  : 

Each  one,  twenty  and  twenty  score 
Of  that  ye  most  long  for. 

Id.  p.  182  ; 
Any  time  within  these  years  twice  twenty. 

Ib.  p.  214; 
to  say  nothing  of  Ben  Jonson's 

Ere  you  can  call  twenty. 

Bartholomew  Fair,  Indue.  2nd  sentence. 

76.  Dr.  Theobald  turns  directly  to  Baconian  account 
the  fact  that  Shakespeare  makes  Ford  (MERRY  WIVES, 
II,  ii,  223)  speak  of  "  a  fair  house  built  on  another  man's 
ground,"  with  a  legalist  application,  while  Bacon  writes 
of  "  another  man's  ground  "  without  that  application. 
(See  above,  p.  40.)  Be  it  noted  that  here  the  lawyer 
does  not  talk  law. 

78.  Bacon  tells  the  hackneyed  story  of  the  ancient 
musician  [often,  an  artist]  who  said  to  a  meddling  king, 
"  God  forbid  that  your  fortune  should  be  so  bad  as  to 
know  these  things  better  than  I  "  ;  and  Shakespeare 
partially  reproduces  the  idea  in  dialogue  (L.  L.  L.  V,  ii, 
493) .  The  story  told  by  Bacon  had  been  told  ad  nauseam 
by  previous  sixteenth  century  writers. 

Dr.  Theobald  actually  alleges  a  "correspondency" 
between  Bacon's  advice  to  a  traveller  to  frequent  good 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  477 

company  "of  the  nation  where  he  travelleth "  and 
Rosalind's  satirical  advice  to  Jaques  to  "  disable  all  the 
benefits  of  your  own  country  "  ! 

•  •  «  , 

In  conclusion,  after  justly  observing  that  "  all  these  " 
illustrations  of  his  "  might  be  almost  indefinitely  multi 
plied,"  Dr.  Theobald  undertakes  to  show  that  such 
every-day  colloquialisms  as  "it  is  strange,"  "  it  is  won 
derful,"  "it  is  certain,"  "  I  am  very  sure,"  "  surely," 
"  out  of  question,"  "  to  say  the  truth,"  "  questionless," 
"  out  of  doubt,"  are  peculiar  to  Bacon  and  Shakespeare. 
"  So  far  as  my  reading  of  Elizabethan  literature  goes," 
he  declares,  doubtless  with  perfect  truth,  "  the  same 
phrases,  habitually  employed,  are  not  to  be  found  in  any 
other  writer." 

This  thesis  is  perhaps  the  uttermost  mark  of  Dr. 
Theobald's  aberration.  It  stands  for  an  amount  of 
inattention  to  pre-Shakespearean  English  literature  that 
seems  impossible  of  attainment  by  an  educated  man. 
Even  in  reading  Shakespeare,  Dr.  Theobald  must  have 
seen  Falstaff's  phrase,  "  A  rascally  yea-forsooth  knave  "  ; 
and  in  reading  the  New  Testament  he  must  have  noted 
the  expression ' '  Verily. ' '  Any  excursion  into  Elizabethan 
drama  would  have  revealed  to  him  that  "  forsooth  "  and 
"  verily  "  are  types  of  a  number  of  terms  of  asseveration 
in  constant  use  in  common  talk.  If  he  had  begun  his 
investigation  with  Chaucer,  he  might  have  noted  the 
perpetual  use  of  "  certes,"  "  trewely,"  "  soothly,"  "  for- 
sothe,"  "  certeyn,"  "  in  good  sothe,"  "  verrayment,"  and 
so  on.  In  verse,  such  terms  might  conceivably  be  line- 
padding  ;  but  in  Chaucer's  prose  translation  of  Boethius 
they  occur  to  the  number  of  at  least  twenty  in  the  first 
book  ;  and  in  the  prose  TALE  OF  MELIBEUS  they  are  still 
more  frequent — eleven  times  in  two  paragraphs  (§§  14, 15). 
The  usage  is  continuous.  In  the  old  REVELATION  OF  THE 
MONK  OF  EVESHAM,  first  printed  about  1482,  "  sothly  " 
and  "  trewly  "  occur  eight  times  in  the  three  short 


478  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

opening  chapters.  Thus  in  English  as  in  other  tongues 
the  habit  of  emphasis,  exclamation,  and  asseveration  was 
established  in  literature  as  in  talk  long  before  the  age  of 
Bacon  and  Shakespeare.  And  in  their  day  it  remained 
normal ;  one  can  hardly  open  a  Tudor  book  without 
seeing  a  multitude  of  such  instances  as  these  : 

And  Plato  verily  was  of  this  opinion  .  .  . 

Holland's  trans,  of    Plutarch's  M  or  alia  (Dent's 

Selection,  p.  4). 
And  verily  Aristotle  used  these  principles  and  grounds. 

Id,  ib. 
•    And  verily  the  poet  Homer  most  excellently  expresseth. 

Id.  p.  5- 
And  yet  verily  it  is  reported  also  of  Zeno. 

Id.  p.  6. 

(Four  instances  in  three  successive  pages.) 
This  verily  is  the  chief  cause  that  hath  encouraged  me  .  .',. 
Ralph  Robinson,  Ep.  Ded.  to   trans,   of   More's 

Utopia,  Dent's  rep.  p.  4. 
Of  a  surety  that  thing  could  I  [not]  have  performed. 

Id.  More's  pref.  epist.  p.  7. 
If  you  cannot  remember  the  thing,  then  surely  I  will  write . 

Id.  ib.  p.  9. 
And  I  think  verily  it  shall  be  well  done . 

Id.  ib. 
Howbeit,  to  say  the  very  truth,  I  am  not  yet  fully  determined  .  .  . 

Id.  ib.  p.  10. 
Cuthbert  Tunstall,  a  man  doubtless  out  of  comparison. 

Id.  Utopia,  p.  13. 

What  by  his  natural  wit,  and  what  by  daily  exercise,  surely  he 
had  few  fellows. 

Id.  pp.  12-13. 

(Seven  instances  in  seven  successive  pages.) 
As  I  suppose.     As  God  judge  me. 

Sir  Thomas  Elyot,  "  Proheme  "  to  the  Governour. 
Wherefore  undoubtedly.  ...     Id.  B.  i,  c.  2, 
And  1  verily  do  suppose.     Id.  c.  iv. 
And  yet  no  man  will  deny.     Id.ib. 

I  dare  affirm,  ...     As  I  might  say.  .  .  ,     But   verily  mine 
intent.  .  .  .    c,  8, 
And  surely.  ...     c.  9.     And  what  doubt  is  there.  .  .  .     c.  10. 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  479 

And  surely.  .  .  .  c.  n.  Surely  if  a  nobleman  do  thus c.  u. 

Surely,  as  I  have  diligently  marked.  .  .  .  c.i2.  Verily.  0.12,0.13. 

Verily.  ,  .  .  Undoubtedly.  .  .  .  To  say  the  truth.  .  Un 

doubtedly.  ...  As  I  might  frankly  say.  .  .  .  (The  last 
five  instances  in  two  pages.) 

Dr.  Theobald's  argument  on  this  head  is  of  a  piece  with 
Mrs.  Pott's  amazing  attribution  to  Bacon  of  the  invention 
of  the  most  ordinary  forms  of  accost  in  Elizabethan 
England.  As  to  that  see  Mr.  Crawford's  essay  on  "  The 
Bacon-Shakespeare  Question." 

In  other  chapters,  going  about  to  connect  Bacon  with 
Shakespeare  by  other  "  echoes  and  correspondencies,"  Dr. 
Theobald  claims  to  find  proofs  of  community  of  author 
ship  by  bringing  together  ideas  which  in  his  opinion  are 
complementary.  For  instance  (ch.  x,  p.  179)  he  notes 
how  Bacon  harps  on  the  idea  that  "money  is  like  muck, 
not  good  except  it  be  spread,"  and  then  cites  from 
Shakespeare  (Con.  II,  ii,  128)  the  phrase,  "  As  they  were 
the  common  muck  of  the  world."  Whereon  we  have  this 
gloss  : — "  The  only  comment  on  this  which  I  have  been 
able  to  find  is  a  suggestion  that  muck  is  equivalent  to 
vilia  rerum.  The  poet  certainly  intended  to  suggest  a 
good  deal  more  than  this,  but  the  rich  suggestiveness  of 
the  passage  cannot  be  easily  brought  out  if  Bacon's  use 
of  the  word  is  not  remembered."  This  is  of  course  sheer 
fiction  :  the  phrase  of  Cominius  simply  means,  "  as  if  they 
were  dirt."  But  supposing  Shakespeare  had  meant  to 
convey  an  implication  about  muck  —  manure,  what 
ground  is  there  for  bringing  in  Bacon  ?  As  Mr.  Crawford 
has  remarked,  the  rustic  saw  about  muck  being  good  only 
when  spread  abroad  was  already  current  in  ballad  poetry 
(GERNUTUS,  in  Percy's  Reliques)  and  on  the  stage  (Jonson, 
EVERY  MAN  OUT,  iii,  2)  ;  and  "  muck,"  for  "  money  "  or 
"  riches,"  was  a  universal  figure  : 

Worldly  muck. 

Wiclif,  Against  the  Order  of  Friars,  c.  48. 


480  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

To  get  falsely  muck  to  Antichrist's  convent.  Id.  ib.  c.  19. 

Winning  of  stinking  muck. 

Id.  ib.  c.  26. 

The  people  give  them  [the  friars]  more  dirt  than  is  needful  or 
profitable. 

Id.  ib.  c.  29. 
Worldly  muck. 

J.  Redford,  Interlude  of  Wit  and  Science,  Farmer's 

Lost  Tudor  Plays,  p.  138. 
Our  mucky  money. 

Editorial  pref .  to  Latimer's  Second  Sermon  before 

King  Edward,  end. 
The  wicked  muck  and  mammon  of  the  world. 

Hooper,  Declaration  of  Christ  and  his  Office,  Works, 

Parker  Soc.  ed.  p.  43. 
For  glory  vain,  nor  yet  for  muck. 

Bauldwin,  Treatise  of  Moral  Philosophy,  ed.  1600, 
B.  i,  c.  19. 

Shakespeare  uses  the  Baconian  simile  neither  in  the  case 
of  money  nor  in  that  of  manure.  Jonson  uses  the  proverb 
about  manure  ;  the  balladist  partly  applies  it  to  things 
moral.  Surely  Dr.  Theobald's  proper  conclusion  is  that 
Bacon  wrote  the  ballad  of  GERNUTUS  THE  JEW,  and 
Jonson's  plays  ! 

As  to  Dr.  Theobald's  wonder  over  rinding  in  LUCRECE 
and  elsewhere  the  ancient  sentiment  about  griefs  being 
lightened  by  the  knowledge  that  they  are  shared,  I  refer 
the  reader  to  Mr.  Crawford's  comments.  Dr.  Theobald, 
proceeding  by  the  method  of  ignorance,  announces  that 
the  Latin  proverb  Solamen  miseris  socios  habmsse  doloris 
[or  malorum],  which  is  found  in  Marlowe's  FAUSTUS, 
published  in  1604,  "  was  probably  invented  by  the  author 
of  FAUSTUS  " — that  is,  in  Dr.  Theobald's  system  of 
mythology,  Bacon.  "  How  it  came  to  appear  in 
LUCRECE,"  he  adds,  "is  an  enigma  which  awaits  its 
solution."  The  enigma  is  of  Dr.  Theobald's  own  making. 
As  his  previous  extracts  show,  the  sentiment  occurs  in  a 
whole  series  of  the  Shakespearean  plays  ;  and  if  he  had 
but  had  a  little  knowledge  of  previous  literature,  he  would 


COINCIDENCES  OF  PHRASE  481 

have  known  it  to  be  an  established  moral  commonplace. 
Not  only  is  the  idea  expressed  in  Kyd's  CORNELIA  (ii, 
226-7)  in  1594,  but,  as  Mr.  Crawford  notes,  the  Latin  line 
occurs  in  Greene's  MENAPHON,  1589,  and  in  Lodge's 
ROSALIND,  1590  ;  and  the  English  equivalent  is  given  in 
EUPHUES,  1579  (Arber's  rep.  p.  96).  It  is  apparently  a 
line  of  Renaissance  poetry,  in  part  contradiction  of 
Cicero's  Levis  est  consolatio  ex  miseria  aliorum  (AD.  FAM., 
VI,  iii,  4)  and  Seneca's  Malevoli  solacii  genus  est  turba 
miserorum  (DE  CONSOL.  AD  MARC.,  xii,  5).  But  in  the 
Senecan  tragedy  we  have  Duke  mcerenti  populus  dolentum 
(TROADES,  1014)  ;  and  an  old  SYNOPSIS  COMMUNIUM 
LOCORUM  (1742,  c.  70)  gives  under  the  head  of  the  Solamen 
miseris  phrase  a  series  of  other  approximations.  The  line 
is  given  as  a  standing  quotation  by  M.  Neander,  ETHICE 

VETUS    ET    SAPIENS   VETERUM    LATINORUM,  Lipsiae,  1590, 

p.  41 1.1  Only  a  Baconian  could  for  a  moment  suppose 
that  such  a  saying  had  been  left  for  Bacon  to  invent.  The 
English  form  of  the  saying  was  already  a  current  proverb  in 
the  time  of  Chaucer,  who  reproduces  it  again  and  again : 

For  wel  sit  it,  the  sothe  for  to  seyne 
A  woful  night  to  han  a  drery  fere. 

Troilus  and  Criseyde,  i,  2. 
Men  seyn,  to  wrecche  is  consolacioun 
To  have  an-other  felawe  in  his  peyne. 

Id.  i,  102. 

For  unto  shrewes  loye  it  is  and  ese 
To  have  hir  felawes  in  peyne  and  disese. 

Chanoun  Yemannes  Tale,  193-4. 

Latimer  in  turn  has  : 

It  is  consolatio  miserorum  :  it  is  comfort  of  the  wretched  to  have 
company. 

Third  Sermon  before  Edward  VI,  Dent's  rep.  p.  116. 

And  Dr.  Theobald  finds  it  an  "  enigma  "  that  the  senti 
ment  should  occur  in  LUCRECE  ! 

i  See  W.  F.  H.  King's  Classical  and  Foreign  Quotations,  1904. 
Mr.  King  gives  a  substantially  equivalent  passage  from  Thucy- 
dides,  vii,  75. 

2H 


482  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

I  will  not  carry  the  "  quest  "  further.  It  has  its  dis 
tressing  as  well  as  its  ridiculous  side.  These  divagations 
of  men  utterly  possessed  by  a  foregone  conclusion,  blind 
to  all  countervailing  evidence,  hypnotised  by  a  hallucina 
tion,  tell  of  an  "  expense  of  spirit  "  in  error  that  is  not  to 
be  contemplated  without  discomfort.  It  is  the  desire  to 
minimise  the  amount  of  such  aberration  in  future  that  has 
sustained  me,  as  I  trust  it  may  do  some  readers,  through 
the  tedium  of  a  detailed  confutation. 


CHAPTER  XI 
PROSE  STYLE  IN  SHAKESPEARE  AND  BACON 

IT  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  argue,  even  as  against 
Baconians,  that  every  powerful  or  original  writer, 
in  any  long  series  of  writings,  must  betray  some 
peculiarities  of  diction,  phraseology,  clause  forma 
tion,  and  so  on,  which  are  as  special  to  him  as  are  the 
technical  methods  of  any  artist  to  his  work,  or  the  gait, 
accent,  or  intonation  of  each  of  us  to  himself.  The 
Baconians  actually  subsume  this,  however  vaguely,  in 
their  attempts,  hereinbefore  discussed,  to  detect  Baconian 
phraseology  in  the  plays.  But,  of  course,  they  have 
attempted  no  deeper  investigation.1  The  idea  of  com 
paring  the  general  movement  and  rhythm  of  the  abundant 
prose  in  the  plays  with  those  of  Bacon's  signed  writings 
is  not  one  which  would  naturally  occur  to  critics  conscious 
of  no  initial  difficulty  in  supposing  that  the  Plays  and  the 
Essays  came  from  the  same  hand. 

Let  the  open-minded  reader,  however,  take  the  trouble 
to  compare  the  way  of  the  prose  in  the  plays  with  that 
of  the  prose  of  Bacon,  and  he  will  realise  one  more  vital 
and  irreducible  divergence  between  the  two  bodies  of 
work.  In  the  course  of  the  inquiry  he  may  or  may  not 
detect  such  differences  in  the  verse  movement  of  certain 
of  the  plays  as  will  make  clear  to  him  why  some  critics 
deny  that  those  plays  are  wholly,  or  it  may  be  at  all, 

1  Mr.  Appleton  Morgan,  of  New  York,  who  had  a  "  New  Theory  " 
of  his  own  about  the  authorship  of  the  Plays  (an  adaptation  of 
Delia  Bacon's,  that  of  a  group  of  young  nobles  collaborating), 
avowed  that  "  experts  have  proved  that  the  styles  of  Bacon  and 
Shakespeare  are  as  far  apart  as  the  poles."  (Cited  by  Mrs.  Stopes, 
The  Bacon-Shakespeare  Question  Answered,  2nd  ed.  1889,  p.  187.) 

483 


484  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

the  work  of  the  author  of  OTHELLO  and  MACBETH  and 
LEAR  and  CORIOLANUS.  But  this  is  another  issue.  What 
is  here  proposed  is  a  comparison  of  the  prose  of  the  unchal 
lenged  plays  with  that  of  the  undisputed  work  of  Bacon. 

The  first  general  proposition  to  be  put  in  this  connection 
is  that  Shakespeare's  prose  is  neither  so  masterly  nor  so 
variously  rhythmical  as  his  blank  verse.  To  put  the 
matter  bluntly  I  would  say,  pace  certain  panegyrists, 
that  Shakespeare  is  not  a  great  writer  of  prose.  Greatness 
in  any  mode  of  art  is  imputable  only  to  exceptional  power 
or  exceptional  variety  of  execution.  Shakespeare's  prose, 
compared  with  that  of  great  prose  writers,  cannot  be 
said  to  exhibit  either.  And  if  any  reader,  before  scanning 
the  data,  be  hastily  moved  to  dispute  the  thesis,  let  him 
first  bethink  himself  how  rarely,  in  literary  history,  have 
men  acquired  enduring  fame  in  both  orders  of  expression. 

Dry  den  was  in  his  day  reputed  a  great  poet  and  a  good 
writer  of  prose  :  in  the  latter  regard  he  stands  higher 
to-day  than  in  the  former ;  but  no  one  would  to-day 
put  him  in  the  highest  rank  of  either  art.  Dante  wrote 
both  prose  and  verse ;  no  one  ever  ranked  him  with  the 
great  prosists.  Milton  has  as  high  a  twofold  fame  as 
any ;  but  criticism  to-day  leans  more  and  more  to  the 
opinion  that  his  finest  English  tractate,  which  is  practi 
cally  all  that  men  read  of  his  large  prose  output  is  rather 
"  a  splendid  example  of  mistaken  prose,"  a  rhetorical 
tour  de  force,  than  a  triumph  of  prose  art  comparable 
with  his  poetry.  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  both  wrote 
some  excellent  prose  and  some  perfect  verse  :  both  would 
to-day  be  admitted  by  almost  any  good  critic  to  have 
produced  much  more  of  inferior  verse  than  of  good. 
Shelley's  prose  never  won  much  laud,  though  it  has  fine 
qualities,  and  some  warm  admirers.  Byron  and  Keats 
wrote  letters  and  notes  which  certainly  exhibit  plenty 
of  prose  power ;  but  neither  ever  attempted  a  prose 
work.  Tennyson  and  Browning — Tennyson  in  particular 
— hardly  attempted  to  write  prose  save  by  way  of  jottings. 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  485 

In  all  literature  we  shall  find  but  some  half-dozen  great 
or  fine  poets  (apart  from  Milton,  Wordsworth  and 
Coleridge,  dealt  with  above)  whose  prose  notably  com 
petes  in  fame  with  their  verse.  They  are  :  Goethe, 
Heine,  Poe,  Leopardi,  Hugo,  and  Arnold  ;  and  in  not 
one  of  these  cases,  I  think,  is  the  poet's  prose  style,  as 
style— matter  apart— such  as  to  win  him  rank  as  a  great 
prose  artist.  Goethe's  fame  on  that  side  is  understood 
to  be  latterly  in  occultation  among  his  countrymen. 
Hugo  and  Poe  are  (diversely)  famous  rather  as  writers 
of  prose  romances  than  as  writers  of  prose  ;  Leopardi 
certainly  lives  less  in  his  prose  than  in  his  poetry ;  and 
even  Arnold  and  Heine,  charming  prosists  both — if  we 
may  so  speak  of  Arnold,  who  strove  with  success  to  be 
something  more  than  charming — are  less  eminent  as 
prose  artists  than  as  poets. 

But  all  this  is  perhaps  an  unnecessary  if  not  a  useless 
preamble  to  the  demonstration  that  the  prose  of  Shake 
speare  lacks  the  distinction,  the  artistic  mastery,  of  his 
incomparable  blank  verse.  His  supremacy  in  that  is 
unchallenged  and  unchallengeable.  To  read  him  beside 
his  predecessors  is  to  perceive  a  new  departure  in  rhythmic 
progression.  They  rarely  exceed  the  chance  adventure 
of  a  single  run-on  line ;  and  it  is  at  that  stage  that  we 
see  him  begin,  if  we  can  be  sure  of  seeing  his  handiwork 
in  the  opening  scene  of  the  COMEDY  OF  ERRORS,  a  work 
which  he  almost  certainly  did  but  elaborate  or  collaborate- 
in  or  re-fashion.  Of  verse  as  a  continuous  rhythm  they 
had  hardly  a  conception  :  they  write  verses  rather  than 
verse,  matching  unrhymed  lines  as  they  had  been  wont 
to  match  rhymed,  and  measuring  lengths,  at  best,  like 
men  pacing  a  cage  or  a  ship's  deck.  With  Shakespeare 
there  begins  a  new  species  of  motion,  differing  from 
theirs  almost  as  does  that  of  the  bird  on  the  wing  from 
its  little  runs  of  hops  upon  the  sward.  For  an  inorganic 
series  of  self-contained  lines,  we  have  a  prolonged  organic 
pulsation  in  which  sense-pauses  and  clause-pauses  can 


486  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

occur  anywhere,  the  rhythm  or  measure  becoming  but 
as  the  bars  in  music,  cognised  only  by  the  rhythmic  sense. 
There  is  nothing  to  compare  with  it  in  previous  English 
verse  :  only  alongside  of  Shakespeare,  in  some  of  the 
best  verse  of  Jonson,  do  we  see  the  perception  of  the  new 
possibilities  beginning ;  and  what  in  Shakespeare  seems 
to  have  been  an  effortless  evolution  is  for  Jonson  visibly 
a  matter  of  laborious  construction.  But  there  are  com 
pensations.  As  Ben  notes  in  his  DISCOVERIES  :  "  Virgil's 
felicity  left  him  in  prose,  as  Tully's  forsook  him  in  verse." 
There  is  no  such  absolute  cleavage  in  the  case  of  either 
Shakespeare  or  Jonson,  but  there  is  a  certain  approxima 
tion  to  it. 

As  in  ancient,  so  in  modern  literature,  the  possibilities 
of  prose  were  discovered  later  than  those  of  verse.  As 
a  purposely  artistic  instrument,  it  discernibly  begins  to 
act  in  English  in  the  BOECE  of  Chaucer,  a  solitary 
performance  no  more  improved  upon,  aesthetically  speak 
ing,  than  his  verse,  down  to  the  Tudor  age.  Chaucer 
is  in  fact  almost  more  noteworthy  as  a  prose-writer,  in 
respect  of  that  performance,  than  as  a  writer  of  verse. 
As  a  poet  he  belongs  to  the  age  of  simple  and  marked 
measures,  which  he  handles  with  a  skill  that  distinguishes 
him  from  his  English  contemporaries,  but  with  a  facility 
and  fluency  that  as  a  rule  exclude  greatness  of  cadence. 
With  his  measures,  the  grand  style  was  practically  in 
compatible.  But  in  his  rendering  of  Boethius,  albeit 
he  draws  on  the  French  version  to  eke  out  his  Latin,1  he 
is  visibly  awake  to  the  aesthetic  effects  of  classic  prose, 
and  goes  about,  however  experimentally,  to  produce  in 
English  something  independently  beautiful. 

This  judgment  ostensibly  conflicts  with  that  of  Ten 
Brink,  who  is  quoted  as  saying  that  in  the  BOECE  "  we 

1  The  inaccuracy  of  the  translation,  remarks  a  close  student  of 
Boethius,  "  is  not  that  of  an  inexperienced  Latin  scholar,  but 
rather  of  one  who  was  no  Latin  scholar  at  all."  H.  F.  Stewart, 
Boethius  :  An  Essay,  1891,  p.  226. 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  487 

can  see  as  clearly  as  in  any  work  of  the  middle  ages  what 
a  high  cultivation  is  requisite  for  the  production  of  a 
good  prose. ' ' l  This  is  most  true,  as  is  Ten  Brink's  remark 
that  the  translation,  "  in  the  undeveloped  state  of  prose 
composition  so  characteristic  of  that  age,"  is  "  often 
quite  unwieldy."2  But  when  Ten  Brink  goes  on  to  grant 
that  "  there  is  no  lack  of  warmth,  and  even  of  a  certain 
colouring,"  and  to  quote  a  passage  in  illustration,  he 
seems  to  me  to  have  partly  missed  sight  of  the  aesthetic 
success  to  which  Chaucer  does  attain.  The  passage  he 
cites  does  not  at  all  fully  reveal  it.  Where  Chaucer  was 
not  clear  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  original,  and  had  to 
deal  with  complicated  constructions,  he  naturally  produces 
unwieldy  sentences.  But  at  times  even  in  following  the 
prose,  and  often  when  he  is  rendering  or,  rather,  abundantly 
paraphrasing  the  "  metres  " — from  his  version  of  one  of 
which  Ten  Brink  rightly  quotes — he  attains  to  a  charm 
of  cadence,  of  balanced  movement,  and  of  harmonious 
diction,  which  is  in  itself  a  new  and  specific  enjoyment 
for  those  who  read.  Richard  Rolle  of  Hampole,  his 
predecessor,  who  writes  with  the  eager  sincerity  that 
counts  for  so  much  in  good  prose,  never  aimed  at  such 
aesthetic  ends  as  these.  Let  the  lover  of  good  prose — 
not  necessarily  identical  with  the  lover  of  books  and 
literary  studies — compare  with  the  following  passages 
any  English  prose  before  the  age  of  Shakespeare,  and  say 
whether  they  can  be  matched  for  beauty.  I  modernise 
one  or  two  words,  and  the  spelling  of  some  of  the  particles, 
in  the  interest  of  the  slothful  reader  : 

Blissful  was  the  first  age  of  men.  They  held  them  apayed  3 
with  the  meats  that  the  true  fields  broughten  forth.  They  ne 
destroyed  ne  deceived  not  themselves  with  outrage.4  They 
were  wont  lightly  to  slake  their  hunger  at  even  with  acorns 
of  oaks.  They  could  not  mingle  5  the  gift  of  Bacchus  with  the 

1  Chaucer  Studien,  p.  141,  cited  by  Stewart,  pp.  226-7- 

2  History  of  English  Literature,  Eng.  trans,  ii,  78-9. 
8  Contented.  '  Excess. 

5  Medle  in  orig. 


488  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

clear  honey,  nor  could  they  mingle  1  the  bright  fleeces  of  the 
country  of  Syria  with  the  venom  of  Tyre.  .  .  .  They  s.lepen 
wholesome  sleeps  upon  the  grass,  and  dranken  of  the  running 
waters,  and  layen  under  the  shadows  of  the  high  pine  trees.  No 
guest  or  stranger  carved  yet  the  high  sea  with  oars  or  ships  ; 
nor  had  they  yet  seen  new  strands  to  leden  merchandise  into 
diverse  countries.  Then  were  the  cruel  clarions  full  hushed  and 
full  still.2 

Here  we  have  the  successful  use  of  the  short  sentence  : 
brief  pausation  without  haste  or  jolting  :  a  quality  not 
soon  reached  in  prose,  though  it  began  in  some  such  way, 
like  verse.  In  the  next  book  comes  a  good  sample  of  a 
larger  and  more  canorous  movement  : 

It  liketh  me  to  show  by  subtle  song,  with  slack  3  and  delightable 
sound  of  strings,  how  that  Nature,  mighty,  inclineth  and  flitteth  * 
the  governments  of  things  ;  and  by  which  laws  she,  purveyable, 
keepeth  the  great  world  ;  and  how  she,  binding,  restraineth  all 
things  by  a  bond  that  may  not  be  unbound.  .  .  .  And  the 
jangling  bird  that  singeth  on  the  high  branches,  and  after  is 
enclosed  in  a  strait  cage,  although  that  the  playing  busy-ness 
of  men  giveth  them  honeyed  drinks  and  large  meets  with  sweet 
studies,  yet  natheless  if  thilke  bird  skipping  out  of  her  strait 
cage  seeth  the  agreeable  shadow  of  the  woods,  she  defouleth  5 
with  her  feet  her  shed  meats,  and  seeketh  mourning  only  the 
wood,  and  twittereth  desiring  the  wood  with  her  sweet  voice.6 

This  is  prose  written  with  a  new  perception  of  the  possi 
bilities  of  cadence,  of  gracious  movement  without  metre, 
of  long  breathing  and  restful  fall.  In  yet  another  passage 
the  quest  for  beauty  is  still  more  intent.  It  tells  the  tale 
of  Orpheus  : 

The  poet  of  Thrace,  that  whilom  had  right  great  sorrow  for 
the  death  of  his  wife,  after  that  he  had  maked  by  his  weeply 
songs  the  woods  moveable  to  run,  and  had  maked  the  river  to 
standen  still,  and  had  maked  the  harts  and  the  hinds  to  join 
dreadless  their  sides  to  cruel  lions,  for  to  hearkenen  his  song, 
and  had  maked  that  the  bear  was  not  aghast  of  the  hound  which 
was  pleased  with  his  song,  so  when  the  most  ardent  love  of  his 
wife  burned  the  entrails  of  his  breast,  not  even  the  songs  which 

1  Medic  in  orig.  2  B.  ii,  met.  5. 

3  Probably  a  copyist's  error.  *  ?  Fitteth. 

ft  N.B.     Not  defileth.     Defouleth  =  treadeth  under  foot. 
6  B.  iii,  met.  2. 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  489 

had  overcomen  all  things  might  assuage  his  lord.  He  plained 
him  of  the  heaven  gods  that  were  cruel  to  him.  He  went  him  to 
the  houses  of  hell,  and  there  he  tempered  his  blandishing  songs 
with  resounding  strings,  and  spake  and  sung  in  weeping  all  that 
ever  he  had  received  and  laved  out  of  the  noble  wells  of  his 
mother  Calliope,  the  goddess.  .  .  .  Cerberus,  the  porter  of  hell 
with  his  three  heads,  was  caught  and  all  abashed  for  the  new 
song.  And  the  three  goddesses,  furies  and  vengeresses  of  felony, 
that  tormenten  and  aghasten  the  souls  by  annoy,  woxen  sorrowful 
and  sorry,  and  wepen  tears  for  pity.  Then  was  not  the  head  of 
Ixion  tormented  by  the  overthrowing  wheel.  And  Tantalus, 
that  was  destroyed  by  the  madness  1  of  long  thirst,  despiseth 
the  floods  to  drinken.2 

The  mere  alternation  of  short  sentences  with  long  is 
aesthetically  calculated,  with  a  sense  of  the  repose  it  lends 
to  the  whole  movement.  Chaucer  had  had  vision  of 
what  Whitman  was  later  to  call  "  the  diviner  heaven 
of  prose/'  in  which  freedom  from  rhymed  metre  could 
mean  a  sweep  and  flow  of  speech  that  such  verse  could 
not  compass.  Only  an  artist  could  have  written  so  ; 
and  few  were  the  artists  who  could  so  weave  words  even 
in  the  sixteenth  century.  Bishop  Hooper,  in  his  DECLARA 
TION  OF  CHRIST  AND  His  OFFICE,  shows  some  of  the  in 
stinctive  gift  for  balanced  prose  movement,  being  one 
of  the  writers  who  prove  that  the  controlled  sentence 
was  not  a  discovery  of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  merely 
a  rediscovery,  after  an  age  of  devotion  to  "voluble" 
construction ;  but  only  in  Nashe,  perhaps,  among  the 
bellettrists  of  Shakespeare's  day— Nashe,  so  wooden  in 
his  verse — do  we  find  a  born  writer  of  prose  as  prose  ; 
and  only  in  his  CHRIST'S  TEARS  OVER  JERUSALEM,  perhaps, 
does  he  deliberately  endeavour  after  a  large  and  grave 
harmony  of  artistic  diction— in  a  not  very  sincere  treatise. 
In  this  endeavour,  I  repeat,  Shakespeare  did  not  share. 
Master  of  the  freest  of  verse-forms,  he  had  not  Chaucer's 
motive  to  seek  for  beauty  in  prose  ;  but  there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  his  genius  could  there  have  attained 
supremacy  if  he  had  sought  it.  Jonson's  dramatic  prose 
1  Woodness  in  orig.  2  B.  iii,  met.  12. 


490  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

often,  and  his  non-dramatic  prose  always,  is  more  true 
to  the  laws  of  prose-form,  more  easeful,  more  balanced, 
larger-limbed,  than  that  of  Shakespeare,  yet  felicitous 
and  spontaneous.1  True,  the  very  purpose  of  writing 
prose  for  reading  means  a  different  technique  :  the  prose 
of  dramatic  speech  would  miss  its  purpose  if  it  ran  to 
spacious  or  cadenced  composition  :  even  the  crisp  anti 
theses  of  Lilly  defeat  illusion.  But  Jonson's  feeling  for 
prose  frequently  asserts  itself  even  in  his  plays,  and 
Shakespeare  in  his  dedications  and  in  the  "  Argument  " 
to  LUCRECE  shows  no  more  concern  for  prose  artistry, 
as  apart  from  mere  pointed  statement,  than  in  the  prose 
of  the  plays.  His  faculty  is  first  and  last  for  verse. 

And  herein  he  differs  radically  from  Bacon,  whose 
scanty  verse,  as  verse,  is  without  spontaneity,  but  whose 
prose,  though  hardly  ever  written,  so  to  speak,  for  prose's 
sake,  is  always  magistral,  long-breathed  even  when  most 
expressly  concise,  easily  spacious,  effortless  in  its  opulence. 
As  an  Elizabethan  would  say,  it  is  cothurnate,  yet  it  is 
always  instinct  with  nervous  strength.  There  is  no 
aesthetic  kinship  or  community  between  any  of  Shake 
speare's  prose  and  that  of  the  ESSAYS,  early  or  late,  the 
ADVANCEMENT  OF  LEARNING,  and  the  HISTORY  OF  HENRY 
SEVENTH.  Let  us  take  first  a  representative  selection 
of  prose  passages  from  the  plays,  grave  and  gay,  didactic 
and  impassioned,  philosophic  and  narrative.  We  shall 
find  infinite  verve  and  vivacity,  fluency  and  fire  ;  an  end 
less  fecundity  of  phrase,  image,  and  epithet ;  but  we  shall 
not  find  a  great  architectonic  prose. 

Falstaff.  Not  a  penny.  I  have  been  content,  sir,  you  should 
lay  my  countenance  to  pawn  :  I  have  grated  upon  my  good 
friends  for  three  reprieves  for  you  and  your  coach-fellow,  Nym  ; 
or  else  you  had  looked  through  the  grate,  like  a  geminy  of 
baboons.  I  am  damned  in  hell  for  swearing  to  gentlemen  my 
friends  you  were  good  soldiers  and  tall  fellows  :  and  when 

1  "  For  his  prose  I  must  confess  a  deep  and  reverent  partiality." 
J.  A.  Symonds,  Ben  Jonson,  1886,  p.  6i« 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  4gl 

mistress  Bridget  lost  the  handle  of  her  fan,  I  took't  upon  mine 
honour  thou  hadst  it  not. 

Pistol.     Didst  thou  not  share  ?  hadst  thou  not  fifteen  pence  ? 

Falstaff.  Reason,  you  rogue,  reason  :  think'st  thou  I'll 
endanger  my  soul  gratis  ?  At  a  word,  hang  no  more  about  me  I 
am  no  gibbet  for  you  :— go.— A  short  knife  and  a  thong  -—to 
your  manor  of  Pickt-hatch,  go.— You'll  not  bear  a  letter  for  me, 
you  rogue  ! — You  stand  upon  your  honour  ! — Why,  thou  uncon- 
fmable  baseness,  it  is  as  much  as  I  can  do  to  keep  the  terms  of 
my  honour  precise.  I,  I,  I  myself  sometimes,  leaving  the  fear 
of  heaven  on  the  left  hand,  and  hiding  mine  honour  in  my  necessity, 
am  fain  to  shuffle,  to  hedge,  and  to  lurch  ;  and  yet  you,  rogue' 
will  ensconce  your  rags,  your  cat-a-mountain  looks,  your  red- 
lattice  phrases,  and  your  bold-beating  oaths,  under  the  shelter 
of  your  honour  !  You  will  not  do  it,  you  ? 

Merry  Wives,  Act  II,  Scene  2. 

Provost.  A  man  that  apprehends  death  no  more  dreadfully  but 
as  a  drunken  sleep  ;  careless,  reckless,  and  fearless  of  what's  past, 
present,  or  to  come  ;  insensible  of  mortality ,  and  desperately  mortal. 

Duke.     He  wants  advice. 

Provost.  He  will  hear  none  ;  he  hath  evermore  had  the 
liberty  of  the  prison  ;  give  him  leave  to  escape  hence,  he  would 
not  :  drunk  many  times  a  day,  if  not  many  days  entirely  drunk. 
We  have  very  oft  awaked  him,  as  if  to  carry  him  to  execution, 
and  showed  him  a  seeming  warrant  for  it  :  it  hath  not  moved 
him  at  all. 

Duke.  More  of  him  anon.  There  is  written  in  your  brow, 
provost,  honesty  and  constancy  :  if  I  read  it  not  truly,  my 
ancient  skill  beguiles  me  ;  but  in  the  boldness  of  my  cunning, 
I  will  lay  myself  in  hazard.  Claudio,  whom  here  you  have 
warrant  to  execute,  is  no  greater  forfeit  to  the  law  than  Angelo 
who  hath  sentenced  him.  To  make  you  understand  this  in  a 
manifested  effect,  I  crave  but  four  days'  respite  ;  for  the  which 
you  are  to  do  me  both  a  present  and  a  dangerous  courtesy. 

Measure  for  Measure,  Act  IV,  Scene  2. 


Beatrice.  What  should  I  do  with  him  ?  dress  him  in  my 
apparel,  and  make  him  my  waiting-gentlewoman  ?  He  that 
hath  a  beard  is  more  than  a  youth  ;  and  he  that  hath  no  beard 
is  less  than  a  man  :  and  he  that  is  more  than  a  youth  is  not  for 
me  ;  and  he  that  is  less  than  a  man  I  am  not  for  him.  Therefore, 
I  will  even  take  sixpence  in  earnest  of  the  bearward,  and  lead 
his  apes  into  hell. 

Much  Ado,  Act  II,  Scene  i. 


492  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Beatrice.  Not  till  God  make  men  of  some  other  metal  thai 
earth.  Would  it  not  grieve  a  woman  to  be  over-masterec 
with  a  piece  of  valiant  dust  ?  to  make  account  of  her  life  to  ; 
clod  of  wayward  marl  ?  No,  uncle,  I'll  none  :  Adam's  sons  ar< 
my  brethren  ;  and  truly  I  hold  it  a  sin  to  match  in  my  kindred 

Beatrice.  The  fault  will  be  in  the  music,  cousin,  if  you  b 
not  wooed  in  good  time  :  if  the  prince  be  too  important,  tel 
him  there  is  measure  in  everything,  and  so  dance  out  the  answer 
For  hear  me,  Hero  ;  wooing,  wedding,  and  repenting,  is  as  ; 
Scotch  jig,  a  measure,  and  a  cinque-pace  :  the  first  suit  is  ho 
and  hasty,  like  a  Scotch  jig,  and  full  as  fantastical  ;  the  wedding 
mannerly  modest,  as  a  measure  full  of  state  and  ancientry 
and  then  comes  repentance,  and,  with  his  bad  legs,  falls  into  th 
cinque-pace  faster  and  faster,  till  he  sink  into  his  grave. 

Id.  Act.  II,  Scene  i. 

Orlando.  Why,  how  now,  Adam  !  no  greater  heart  in  thee 
Live  a  little  ;  comfort  a  little  ;  cheer  thyself  a  little  :  if  thi 
uncouth  forest  yield  anything  savage,  I  will  either  be  food  fo 
it,  or  bring  it  for  food  to  thee.  Thy  conceit  is  nearer  deat 
than  thy  powers.  For  my  sake,  be  comfortable  ;  hold  deat: 
awhile  at  the  arm's  end  :  I  will  here  be  with  thee  presently 
and  if  I  bring  thee  not  something  to  eat  I  will  give  thee  leave  t 
die  :  but  if  thou  diest  before  I  come  thou  art  a  mocker  of  m 
labour.  Well  said  !  thou  look'st  cheerly  :  I'll  be  with  the 
quickly. — Yet  thou  liest  in  the  bleak  air  :  come,  I  will  bear  the 
to  some  shelter  ;  and  thou  shalt  not  die  for  lack  of  a  dinnei 
if  there  live  anything  in  this  desert.  Cheerly,  good  Adam  ! 

As  You  Like  It,  Act  II,  Scene  6. 

Rosalind.  No  ;  I  will  not  cast  away  my  physic  but  on  thos 
that  are  sick.  There  is  a  man  haunts  the  forest  that  abuse 
our  young  plants  with  carving  Rosalind  on  their  barks  ;  hang 
odes  upon  hawthorns,  and  elegies  on  brambles  ;  all,  forsootl 
deifying  the  name  of  Rosalind  :  if  I  could  meet  that  fancymonge 
I  would  give  him  some  good  counsel,  for  he  seems  to  have  th 
quotidian  of  love  upon  him. 

Id.  Act  III,  Scene  2. 

Rosalind.  A  lean  cheek  ;  which  you  have  not  :  a  blue  eye 
sunken  ;  which  you  have  not  :  an  unquestionable  spirit 
which  you  have  not :  a  beard  neglected  ;  which  you  have  not  :- 
but  I  pardon  you  for  that  ;  for,  simply,  your  having  in  beard  i 
a  younger  brother's  revenue. — Then  your  hose  should  t 
ungartered,  your  bonnet  unbanded,  your  sleeve  unbuttonec 
your  shoe  untied,  and  everything  about  you  demonstrating 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  493 

careless  desolation.  But  you  are  no  such  man  ;  you  are  rather 
point-device  in  your  accoutrements,  as  loving  yourself,  than 
se.eming  the  lover  of  any  other. 

Id.  Act  III,  Scene  2. 

Rosalind.  Yes,  one  ;  and  in  this  manner.  He  was  to  imagine 
me  his  love,  his  mistress  ;  and  I  set  him  every  day  to  woo  me  ; 
at  which  time  would  I,  being  but  a  moonish  youth,  grieve,  be 
effeminate,  changeable,  longing,  and  liking  ;  proud,  fantastical, 
apish,  shallow,  inconstant,  full  of  tears,  full  of  smiles  ;  for  every 
passion  something,  and  for  no  passion  truly  anything,  as  boys 
and  women  are  for  the  most  part  cattle  of  this  colour  :  would 
now  like  him,  now  loathe  him  ;  then  entertain  him,  then  forswear 
him  ;  now  weep  for  him,  then  spit  at  him  ;  that  I  drave  my 
suitor  from  his  mad  humour  of  love,  to  a  living  humour  of  madness; 
which  was,  to  forswear  the  full  stream  of  the  world,  and  to  live 
in  a  nook  merely  monastic.  And  thus  I  cured  him  ;  and  this 
way  will  I  take  upon  me  to  wash  your  liver  as  clean  as  a  sound 
sheep's  heart,  that  there  shall  not  be  one  spot  of  love  in't. 

Id.  Act  III,  Scene  2. 

Jaques.  I  have  neither  the  scholar's  melancholy,  which  is 
emulation  ;  nor  the  musician's,  which  is  fantastical  ;  nor  the 
courtier's,  which  is  proud  ;  nor  the  soldier's,  which  is  ambitious  ; 
nor  the  lawyer's,  which  is  politic  ;  nor  the  lady's,  which  is  nice  ; 
nor  the  lover's,  which  is  all  these  ;  but  it  is  a  melancholy  of 
mine  own,  compounded  of  many  simples,  extracted  from  many 
objects,  and,  indeed,  the  sundry  contemplation  of  my  travels, 
in  which  my  often  rumination  wraps  me  in  a  most  humorous 
sadness. 

Id.  Act  IV,  Scene  i. 

Fabian.  She  did  show  favour  to  the  youth  in  your  sight, 
only  to  exasperate  you,  to  awaken  your  dormouse  valour,  to  put 
fire  in  your  heart,  and  brimstone  in  your  liver.  You  should 
then  have  accosted  her  ;  and  with  some  excellent  jests,  fire- 
new  from  the  mint,  you  should  have  banged  the  youth  into 
dumbness.  This  was  looked  for  at  your  hand,  and  this  was 
baulked  ;  the  double  gilt  of  this  opportunity  you  let  time  wash 
off,  and  you  are  now  sailed  into  the  north  of  my  lady's  opinion  ; 
where  you  will  hang  like  an  icicle  on  a  Dutchman's  beard,  unless 
you  do  redeem  it  by  some  laudable  attempt,  either  of  valour  or 

Twelfth  Night,  Act  III,  Scene  2. 

Sir  Toby.  Now  will  I  not  deliver  his  letter  :  for  the  behaviour 
of  the  young  gentleman  gives  him  out  to  be  of  good  capacity 


494  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

and  breeding  ;  his  employment  between  his  lord  and  my  niece 
confirms  no  less  ;  therefore  this  letter,  being  so  excellently  igno 
rant,  will  breed  no  terror  in  the  youth, — he  will  find  it  comes 
from  a  clodpole.  But,  sir,  I  will  deliver  his  challenge  by  word 
of  mouth  ;  set  upon  Aguecheek  a  notable  report  of  valour  ; 
and  drive  the  gentleman  (as  I  know  his  youth  will  aptly  receive 
it)  into  a  most  hideous  opinion  of  his  rage,  skill,  fury,  and 
impetuosity.  This  will  so  fright  them  both,  that  they  will  kill 
one  another  by  the  look,  like  cockatrices. 

Id.  Act  III,  Scene  4. 

Enobarbus.  Under  a  compelling  occasion,  let  women  die  :  it 
were  pity  to  cast  them  away  for  nothing  ;  though,  between 
them  and  a  great  cause,  they  should  be  esteemed  nothing. 
Cleopatra,  catching  but  the  least  noise  of  this,  dies  instantly  j 
I  have  seen  her  die  twenty  times  upon  far  poorer  moment  : 
I  do  think  there  is  mettle  in  death  which  commits  some  loving 
act  upon  her,  she  hath  such  a  celerity  in  dying. 

Antony  and  Cleopatra,  Act  I,  Scene  2. 

Enobarbus.  Why,  sir,  give  the  gods  a  thankful  sacrifice.  When 
it  pleases  their  deities  to  take  the  wife  of  a  man  from  him,  it 
shows  to  man  the  tailors  of  the  earth  ;  comforting  therein, 
that  when  old  robes  are  worn  out  there  are  members  to  make 
new.  If  there  were  no  more  women  but  Fulvia,  then  had  you 
indeed  a  cut,  and  the  case  to  be  lamented  ;  this  grief  is  crowned 
with  consolation  ;  your  old  smock  brings  forth  a  new  petticoat  : — 
and,  indeed,  the  tears  live  in  an  onion  that  should  water  this  sorrow, 

Id.  Act  I,  Scene  2. 


Duke.  The  Turk  with  a  most  mighty  preparation  makes 
for  Cyprus. — Othello,  the  fortitude  of  the  place  is  best  known 
to  you  :  and  though  we  have  had  there  a  substitute  of  mosl 
allowed  sufficiency,  yet  opinion,  a  more  sovereign  mistress  oi 
effects,  throws  a  more  safer  voice  on  you  :  you  must  therefore 
be  content  to  slubber  the  gloss  of  your  new  fortunes  with  this 
more  stubborn  and  boisterous  expedition. 

Othello,  Act  I,  Scene  3. 

Edmund.     This  is  the  excellent  foppery  of  the  world  !  that,  when 
we  are  sick  in  fortune,  (often  the  surfeit  of  our  own  behaviour) 
we  make  guilty  of  our  disasters  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  :    aj 
if  we  were  villains  on  necessity  ;   fools  by  heavenly  compulsion 
knaves,    thieves,    and    treachers,    by   spherical    predominance 
drunkards,  liars,  and  adulterers,  by  an  enforced  obedience  oJ 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  495 

planetary  influence  ;  and  all  that  we  are  evil  in,  by  a  divine 
thrusting  on.  An  admirable  evasion  of  whoremaster  man  to 
lay  his  goatish  disposition  on  the  charge  of  a  star  ! 

Gloster.  These  late  eclipses  in  the  sun  and  moon  portend 
no  good  to  us  :  though  the  wisdom  of  nature  can  reason  it  thus 
and  thus,  yet  nature  finds  itself  scourged  by  the  sequent  effects  • 
love  cools,  friendship  falls  off,  brothers  divide  :  in  cities,  mutinies  j 
in  countries,  discord  ;  in  palaces,  treason  ;  and  the  bond  cracked 
'twixt  son  and  father.  This  villain  of  mine  comes  under  the 
prediction  ;  there's  son  against  father  :  the  king  falls  from  bias 
of  nature  ;  there's  father  against  child.  We  have  seen  the  best 
of  our  time  :  machinations,  hollowness,  treachery,  and  all 

ruinous   disorders,   follow  us   disquietly  to  our   graves  ! Find 

out  this  villain,  Edmund  ;  it  shall  lose  thee  nothing  ;  do  it  care 
fully. — And  the  noble  and  true-hearted  Kent  banished  !  his 
offence  honesty  ! — 'Tis  strange  ! 

King  Lear,  Act  I,  Scene  2 . 

Letter  of  Macbeth.  They  met  me  in  the  day  of  success  ;  and  I 
have  learned  by  the  perfectest  report,  they  have  more  in  them 
than  mortal  knowledge.  When  I  burned  in  desire  to  question 
them  further,  they  made  themselves  air,  into  which  they  vanished. 
Whiles  I  stood  rapt  in  the  wonder  of  it,  came  missives  from  the 
king,  who  all-hailed  me,  Thane  of  Cawdor  ;  by  which  title,  before, 
these  weird  sisters  saluted  me,  and  referred  me  to  the  coming 
on  of  time,  with,  Hail,  king  that  shall  be  !  This  have  I  thought 
good  to  deliver  thee,  my  dearest  partner  of  greatness  ;  that 
thou  mightest  not  lose  the  dues  of  rejoicing,  by  being  ignorant 
of  what  greatness  is  promised  thee.  Lay  it  to  thy  heart,  and 
farewell. 

Macbeth,  Act  I,  Scene  5 . 
•  •  •  « 

Camillo.  Sicilia  cannot  show  himself  over -kind  to  Bohemia, 
They  were  trained  together  in  their  childhoods  ;  and  there 
rooted  betwixt  them  then  such  an  affection  which  cannot  choose 
but  branch  now.  Since  their  more  mature  dignities  and  royal 
necessities  made  separation  of  their  society,  their  encounters; 
though  not  personal,  have  been  royally  attorneyed,  with  inter 
change  of  gifts,  letters,  loving  embassies  ;  that  they  have  seemed 
to  be  together,  though  absent  ;  shook  hands,  as  over  a  vast  ; 
and  embraced,  as  it  were,  from  the  ends  of  opposed  winds.  The 
heavens  continue  their  loves  ! 

The  Winter's  Tale,  Act  I,  Scene  r. 


496  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Polixenes.  As  thou  lovest  me,  Camillo,  wipe  not  out  the  rest 
of  thy  services,  by  leaving  me  now  :  the  need  I  have  of  thee 
thine  own  goodness  hath  made  ;  better  not  to  have  had  thee 
than  thus  to  want  thee.  Thou,  having  made  me  businesses  which 
none  without  thee  can  sufficiently  manage,  must  either  stay 
to  execute  them  thyself,  or  take  away  with  thee  the  very  services 
thou  hast  done  :  which  if  I  have  not  enough  considered,  (as  too 
much  I  cannot,)  to  be  more  thankful  to  thee  shall  be  my  study  ; 
and  my  profit  therein,  the  heaping  friendships.  Of  that  fatal 
country,  Sicilia,  pr'ythee  speak  no  more  :  whose  very  name 
punishes  me  with  the  remembrance  of  that  penitent,  as  thou 
callest  him,  and  reconciled  king,  my  brother  ;  whose  loss  of  his 
most  precious  queen  and  children  are  even  now  to  be  afresh 
lamented.  Say  to  me,  when  sawest  thou  the  prince  Florizel, 
my  son  ?  Bangs  are  no  less  unhappy,  their  issue  not  being 
gracious,  than  they  are  in  losing  them  when  they  have  approved 
their  virtues. 

Id.  Act  IV,  Scene  i . 

i  Gentleman.  I  make  a  broken  delivery  of  the  business. — 
But  the  changes  I  perceived  in  the  king  and  Camillo  were  very 
notes  of  admiration  :  they  seemed  almost,  with  staring  on  one 
another,  to  tear  the  cases  of  their  eyes  ;  there  was  speech  in  their 
dumbness,  language  in  their  very  gesture  ;  they  looked  as 
they  had  heard  of  a  world  ransomed,  or  one  destroyed  :  a  notable 
passion  of  wonder  appeared  in  them  :  but  the  wisest  beholder, 
that  knew  no  more  but  seeing,  could  not  say  if  the  importance 
were  joy  or  sorrow  ;  but  in  the  extremity  of  the  one  it  must 
needs  be.  Here  comes  a  gentleman,  that  happily,  knows  more. 
The  news,  Roger o  ? 

Id.  Act  V,  Scene  2. 

Lafeu.  They  say,  miracles  are  past  ;  and  we  have  our  philo 
sophical  persons,  to  make  modern  and  familiar,  things  spiritual 
and  causeless.  Hence  is  it  that  we  make  trifles  of  terrors  ; 
ensconcing  ourselves  into  seeming  knowledge,  when  we  should 
submit  ourselves  to  an  unknown  fear. 

All's  Well,  Act  II,  Scene  3. 

i  Lord.  I,  with  a  troop  of  Florentines,  will  suddenly  surprise 
him  ;  such  I  will  have  whom  I  am  sure  he  knows  not  from 
the  enemy  :  we  will  bind  and  hoodwink  him,  so  that  he  shall 
suppose  no  other  but  that  he  is  carried  into  the  leaguer  of  the 
adversaries,  when  we  bring  him  to  our  own  tents.  Be  but  your 
lordship  present  at  his  examination  :  if  he  do  not,  for  the  promise 
of  his  life,  and  in  the  highest  compulsion  of  base  fear,  offer  to 
betray  you,  and  deliver  all  the  intelligence  in  his  power  against 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  497 

you,  and  that  with  the  divine  forfeit  of  his  soul  upon  oath,  never 
trust  my  judgment  in  anything. 

Id.   Act  III,  Scene  6. 

Falstaff.  No,  I'll  be  sworn  :  I  make  as  good  a  use  of  it  as 
many  a  man  doth  of  a  death's  head,  or  a  memento  mori  :  I  never 
see  thy  face  but  I  think  upon  hell-fire,  and  Dives  that  lived  in 
purple  ;  for  there  he  is  in  his  robes,  burning,  burning.  If  thou 
wert  any  way  given  to  virtue,  I  would  swear  by  thy  face  ;  my 
oath  should  be,  By  this  fire  :  but  thou  art  altogether  given  over  ; 
and  wert  indeed,  but  for  the  light  in  thy  face,  the  son  of  utter 
darkness.  When  thou  rannest  up  Gadshill  in  the  night  to  catch 
my  horse,  if  I  did  not  think  thou  hadst  been  an  ignis  fatuus,  or 
a  ball  of  wildfire,  there's  no  purchase  in  money.  O,  thou  art  a 
perpetual  triumph,  an  everlasting  bonfire-light  !  Thou  hast 
saved  me  a  thousand  marks  in  links  and  torches,  walking  with 
thee  in  the  night  betwixt  tavern  and  tavern  :  but  the  sack  that 
thou  hast  drunk  me  would  have  bought  me  lights  as  good  cheap 
at  the  dearest  chandler's  in  Europe.  I  have  maintained  that 
salamander  of  yours  with  fire,  any  time  this  two  and  thirty  years  ; 
Heaven  reward  me  for  it  ! 

King  Henry  IV.  Pt.  I,  Act  III,  Scene  3. 

Falstaff.  If  I  be  not  ashamed  of  my  soldiers  I  am  a  soused 
gurnet.  I  have  misused  the  king's  press  damnably.  I  have 
got,  in  exchange  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  soldiers,  three  hundred 
and  odd  pounds.  I  press  me  none  but  good  householders,  yeomen's 
sons  :  inquire  me  out  contracted  bachelors,  such  as  had  been  asked 
twice  on  the  banns  ;  such  a  commodity  of  warm  slaves  as  had  as 
lief  hear  the  devil  as  a  drum  ;  such  as  fear  the  report  of  a  caliver 
worse  than  a  struck  fowl,  or  a  hurt  wild  duck.  I  pressed  me  none 
but  such  toasts  and  butter,  with  hearts  in  their  bellies  no  bigger 
than  pins'  heads,  and  they  have  bought  out  their  services  ;  and 
now  my  whole  charge  consists  of  ancients,  corporals,  lieutenants, 
gentlemen  of  companies,  slaves  as  ragged  as  Lazarus  in  the 
painted  cloth,  where  the  glutton's  dogs  licked  his  sores  :  and  such 
as,  indeed,  were  never  soldiers  ;  but  discarded  unjust  serving 
men,  younger  sons  to  younger  brothers,  revolted  tapsters,  and 
ostlers  trade -fallen  ;  the  cankers  of  a  calm  world  and  a  long  peace  ; 
ten  times  more  dishonourable  ragged  than  an  old -faced  ancient  : 
and  such  have  I,  to  fill  up  the  rooms  of  them  that  have  bought 
out  their  services,  that  you  would  think  that  I  had  a  hundred 
and  fifty  tattered  prodigals,  lately  come  from  swine -keeping, 
from  eating  draff  and  husks.  A  mad  fellow  met  me  on  the  way, 
and  told  me  I  had  unloaded  all  the  gibbets,  and  pressed  the 
dead  bodies.  No  eye  hath  seen  such  scarecrows.  I'll  not 

21 


498  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

march  through  Coventry  with  them,  that's  flat, — Nay,  and  the 
villains  march  wide  betwixt  the  legs,  as  if  they  had  gyves  on  ; 
for  indeed  I  had  the  most  of  them  out  of  prison.  There's  but  a 
shirt  and  a  half  in  all  my  company  ;  and  the  half-shirt  is  two 
napkins  tacked  together,  and  thrown  over  the  shoulders  like  a 
herald's  coat  without  sleeves  ;  and  the  shirt,  to  say  the  truth, 
stolen  from  my  host  of  Saint  Albans,  or  the  red-nose  innkeeper 
of  Daventry  :  but  that's  all  one  ;  they'll  find  linen  enough  on 
every  hedge. 

Id.  Act  IV,  Scene  2. 

1  Citizen.     We  are  accounted  poor  citizens  ;    the  patricians 
good .     What  authority  surfeits  on  would  relieve  us .     If  they  would 
yield  us  but  the  superfluity,  while  it  were  wholesome,  we  might 
guess  they  relieved  us  humanely  ;  but  they  think  we  are  too  dear 
the  leanness  that  afflicts  us,  the  object  of  our  misery,  is  an  inven 
tory  to  particularise  their  abundance  ;    our  sufferance  is  a  gain 
to  them. — Let  us  revenge  this  with  our  pikes,  ere  we  become 
rakes  :    for  the  gods  know,  I  speak  this  in  hunger  for  bread, 
not  in  thirst  for  revenge. 

Coriolanus,  Act  I,  Scene  i. 

Menenius.  Our  very  priests  must  become  mockers,  if  they 
shall  encounter  such  ridiculous  subjects  as  you  are.  When 
you  speak  best  unto  purpose,  it  is  not  worth  the  wagging  of  you 
beards  ;  and  your  beards  deserve  not  so  honourable  a  grave 
as  to  stuff  a  botcher's  cushion,  or  to  be -entombed  in  an  ass's 
pack-saddle.  Yet  you  must  be  saying,  Marcius  is  proud  ;  who, 
in  a  cheap  estimation,  is  worth  all  your  predecessors  since  Deuca 
lion  ;  though,  peradventure,  some  of  the  best  of  'em  were 
hereditary  hangmen.  Good  den  to  your  worships  ;  more  of  your 
conversation  would  infect  my  brain,  being  the  herdsmen  of  the 
beastly  plebeians  :  I  will  be  bold  to  take  my  leave  of  you. 

Id.  Act  II,  Scene  i. 

2  Officer.     He  hath  deserved  worthily  of  his  country  :   and  his 
ascent  is  not  by  such  easy  degrees  as  those  who,  having  been 
supple   and   courteous   to  the   people,    bonneted,    without   any 
further  deed  to  have  them  all  into  their  estimation  and  report  : 
but  he  hath  so  planted  his  honours  in  their  eyes,  and  his  actions 
in  their  hearts,  that  for  their  tongues  to  be  silent,  and  not  confess 
so  much,  were  a  kind  of  ingrateful  injury  ;    to  report  otherwise 
were  a  malice,  that,  giving  itself  the  lie,  would  pluck  reproof  and 
rebuke  from  every  ear  that  heard  it . 

Id.  Act  II,  Scene  2. 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  499 

Hamlet.  I  will  tell  you  why  ;  so  shall  my  anticipation  prevent 
your  discovery,  and  your  secrecy  to  the  king  and  queen  moult 
no  feather.  I  have  of  late,  (but,  wherefore,  I  know  not,)  lost  all 
my  mirth,  forgone  all  custom  of  exercises  :  and,  indeed,  it  goes 
so  heavily  with  my  disposition,  that  this  goodly  frame,  the  earth, 
seems  to  me  a  sterile  promontory  ;  this  most  excellent  canopy i 
the  air,  look  you, — this  brave  o'erhanging  firmament — this 
majestical  roof  fretted  with  golden  fire,  why,  it  appears  no  other 
thing  to  me,  than  a  foul  and  pestilent  congregation  of  vapours. 
What  a  piece  of  work  is  man  !  How  noble  in  reason  !  how 
infinite  in  faculty  !  in  form  and  moving  how  express  and  admir 
able  !  in  action  how  like  an  angel  !  in  apprehension  how  like  a  god  ! 
the  beauty  of  the  world  !  the  paragon  of  animals  !  And  yet, 
to  me,  what  is  this  quintessence  of  dust  ?  man  delights  not  me, 
nor  woman  neither  ;  though  by  your  smiling  you  seem  to  say  so. 

Hamlet,  Act  II,  Scene  2. 

Hamlet.  I  heard  thee  speak  me  a  speech  once,  — but  it  was  never 
acted  ;  or,  if  it  was,  not  above  once  ;  for  the  play,  I  remember, 
pleased  not  the  million ;  'twas  caviare  to  the  general  :  but  it 
was  (as  I  received  it,  and  others,  whose  judgments,  in  such 
matters,  cried  in  the  top  of  mine,)  an  excellent  play  :  well  digested 
in  the  scenes  ;  set  down  with  as  much  modesty  as  cunning.  I 
remember,  one  said,  there  were  no  sallets  in  the  lines,  to  make  the 
matter  savoury  ;  nor  no  matter  in  the  phrase  that  might  indite 
the  author  of  affectation  ;  but  called  it  an  honest  method,  as 
wholesome  as  sweet,  and  by  very  much  more  handsome  than 
fine.  One  chief  speech  in  it  I  chiefly  loved  :  'twas  ^Eneas'  tale 
to  Dido  ;  and  thereabout  of  it  especially,  where  he  speaks  of 
Priam's  slaughter  :  if  it  live  in  your  memory,  begin  at  this  line  ; 
let  me  see,  let  me  see  ;  .  .  . 

Hamlet.  Speak  the  speech,  I  pray  you,  as  I  pronounced  it 
to  you,  trippingly  on  the  tongue  :  but  if  you  mouth  it,  as  many 
of  our  players  do,  I  had  as  lief  the  town-crier  had  spoke  my  lines . 
Nor  do  not  saw  the  air  too  much  with  your  hand,  thus  :  but  use 
all  gently  :  for  in  the  very  torrent,  tempest,  and  (as  I  may  say) 
the  whirlwind  of  passion,  you  must  acquire  and  beget  a  temper 
ance,  that  may  give  it  smoothness.  O,  it  offends  me  to  the  soul, 
to  hear  a  robustious  periwig-pated  fellow  tear  a  passion  to  tatters, 
to  very  rags,  to  split  the  ears  of  the  groundlings  ;  who,  for  the 
most  part,  are  capable  of  nothing  but  inexplicable  dumb  shows 
and  noise  :  I  could  have  such  a  fellow  whipped  for  o'erdoing 
Termagant  :  it  out-herods  Herod  :  Pray  you,  avoid  it. 

Id.  Act  III,  Scene  2. 


500  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Hamlet.  Be  not  too  tame  neither,  but  let  your  own  discretion 
be  your  tutor  :  suit  the  action  to  the  word,  the  word  to  the  action  ; 
with  this  special  observance,  that  you  o'erstep  not  the  modesty 
of  nature  ;  for  anything  so  overdone  is  from  the  purpose  of  playing, 
whose  end,  both  at  the  first  and  now,  was,  and  is,  to  hold,  as 
't  were,  the  mirror  up  to  nature  ;  to  show  virtue  her  own  feature, 
scorn  her  own  image,  and  the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time  his 
form  and  pressure.  Now  this,  overdone,  or  come  tardy  off, 
though  it  make  the  unskilful  laugh,  cannot  but  make  the  judicious 
grieve  ;  the  censure  of  the  which  one,  must,  in  your  allowance, 
o'erweigh  a  whole  theatre  of  others.  O,  there  be  players,  that 
I  have  seen  play,  and  heard  others  praise,  and  that  highly,  not 
to  speak  it  profanely,  that,  neither  having  the  accent  of  Christians, 
nor  the  gait  of  Christian,  Pagan,  nor  man,  have  so  strutted,  and 
bellowed,  that  I  have  thought  some  of  Nature's  journeymen 
had  made  men,  and  not  made  them  well,  they  imitated  humanity 
so  abominably. 

Id.  Act  III,  Scene  2. 

In  all  these  extracts,  serious  and  humorous  alike,  there 
is  a  similarity  of  movement  which  cannot  be  overlooked. 
All  alike  are  vivacious,  crisp,  incomplex,  proceeding  by 
clear  sequences  of  short  clauses,  lacking  in  fugal  breadth. 
There  is  no  indication  of  what  prose  may  be  made  by 
exfoliation,  no  large  progression,  no  polyphony.  It  is 
true,  once  more,  that  even  if  he  would,  the  dramatist 
cannot  often  put  reading  prose  in  the  mouths  of  his  cha 
racters  ;  and  that  the  greatest  prose  must  always  be 
that  penned  for  reading.  But  oratory  is  spoken  prose  ; 
and  there  is  no  sign  that  Shakespeare  could  have  made 
a  character  deliver  a  prose  speech  comparable  in  sonority 
and  sweep  with  any  of  the  blank-verse  speeches  in  the 
plays,  addressed  to  audiences  of  more  than  one  or  two. 
Let  us  take  the  only  two  pieces  of  non-dramatic  prose 
which  Shakespeare  has  left  us — the  dedications  to  his 
two  long  poems.  I  do  not  cite  the  "  Argument  "  to 
LUCRECE,  which  follows  usage  in  being  bald  and  com 
pressed  in  diction :  the  dedications  yield  the  better 
test: 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  501 

DEDICATION  TO  '  VENUS  AND  ADONIS' 

To  The 

Right  Hon.  Henry  Wriothesly, 
Earl  of  Southampton,  and  Baron  of  Titchfield. 
Right  Honourable. 

I  know  not  how  I  shall  offend  in  dedicating  my  unpolished 
lines  to  your  Lordship,  nor  how  the  world  will  censure  me  for 
choosing  so  strong  a  prop  to  support  so  weak  a  burden  :  only, 
if  your  Honour  seem  but  pleased,  I  account  myself  highly  praised', 
and  vow  to  take  advantage  of  all  idle  hours,  till  I  have  honoured 
you  with  some  graver  labour.  But  if  the  first  heir  of  my  inven 
tion  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  survey,  and  your 
Honour  to  your  heart's  content  ;  which  I  wish  may  always 
answer  your  own  wish,  and  the  world's  hopeful  expectation. 
Your  Honour's  in  all  duty. 

DEDICATION  TO  THE  '  RAPE  OF  LUCRECE ' 

To  The 

Right  Hon.  Henry  Wriothesly, 
Earl  of  Southampton,  and  Baron  of  Titchfield. 
The  love  I  dedicate  to  your  Lordship  is  without  end  ;  whereof 
this  pamphlet,  without  beginning,  is  but  a  superfluous  moiety. 
The  warrant  I  have  of  your  honourable  disposition,  not  the 
worth  of  my  untutored  lines,  makes  it  assured  of  acceptance. 
What  I  have  done  is  yours,  what  I  have  to  do  is  yours  ;  being 
part  in  all  I  have,  devoted  yours.  Were  my  worth  greater,  my 
duty  would  show  greater  :  meantime,  as  it  is,  it  is  bound  to  your 
Lordship  :  to  whom  1  wish  long  life,  still  lengthened  with  all 
happiness . 

Your  Lordship's  in  all  duty, 

There  is  finally  no  escape  from  the  conclusion  before 
reached.  He  who  in  blank  verse  commands  so  many 
styles,  and  in  all  is  easily  spacious  and  organically  con 
tinuous — master  of  an  ever-evolving  roll  of  cadenced 
utterance  of  every  order,  from  the  rippling  flow  of  Mercutio, 
the  large  discourse  of  Ulysses,  and  the  eager  torrential 
thought  of  Hamlet,  to  the  noble  andante  of  Macbeth  and 
the  thunder  of  Coriolanus — the  master  poet  is  in  his  prose 
style  (wit  and  wisdom  apart)  an  ordinary  Elizabethan 
dramatist,  rather  more  staccato  than  most  of  the  rest. 


502  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Compare  any  of  those  quick-stepping  runs  of  prose 
with  the  swing  of  the  verse,  going  as  a  great  bird  wheeling 
on  mighty  wings.  See  how  the  movement  lifts  and  soars 
when  the  poet  touches  his  true  instrument  : 

Wouldst  thou  be  window'd  in  great  Rome  and  see 
Thy  master  thus,  with  pleached  arms,  bending  down 
His  corrigible  neck  ;   his  face  subdued 
To  penetrative  shame  ;  whilst  the  wheeled  seat 
Of  fortunate  Caesar,  drawn  before  him,  branded 
His  baseness  that  ensued  ? 

Antony  and  Cleopatra. 

Whether  it  be 

Bestial  oblivion,  or  some  craven  scruple 
Of  thinking  too  precisely  on  the  event, 
A  thought  which,  quartered,  hath  but  one  part  wisdom, 
And  ever  three  parts  coward,  I  do  not  know, 
Why  yet  I  live  to  say,  '  This  thing's  to  do  '  ; 
Sith  I  have  cause  and  will  and  strength  and  means 
To  do  it. 

Hamlet. 

You  common  cry  of  curs,  whose  breath  I  hate 
As  reek  o'  the  rotten  fens  ;   whose  loves  I  prize 
As  the  dead  carcases  of  unburied  men 
That  do  corrupt  my  air,  7  banish  you, 
And  here  remain  with  your  uncertainty. 

Coriolanus. 

O  Proserpina  ! 

For  the  flowers  now,  that  frighted  thou  let'st  fall 
From  Dis's  waggon  !     Daffodils 
That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty  ;   violets  dim, 
But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes 
Or  Cytherea's  breath. 

Winter's  Tale. 

The  remarkable  thing  is  that  the  primary  movement 
or  clause  formation  here  is  broadly  the  same  as  in  the 
prose  :  it  is  from  the  same  mint,  so  to  speak.  The  pro 
gression  is  as  it  were  linear,  by  short  clauses,  the  images 
being  added  to  each  other  without  involution.  There 
is  the  same  "  bright  speed,"  as  of  a  vivacious  talker,  with 
no  more  approach  to  long  or  large  constructions  than 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  503 

in  any  of  the  prose  we  have  just  scrutinised.  A  subtle 
physiologist  might  perhaps  divine  from  either  the  poet's 
rate  of  breathing.  Let  us  turn  Antony's  speech  into 
prose,  and,  reading  by  the  comma  pauses,  note  its  struc 
tural  identity  with  the  purposed  prose  of  other  speeches  : 
Wouldst  thou  be  windowed  in  great  Rome,  and  see  thy  master, 
thus,  with  pleached  arms,  bending  down  his  corrigible  neck,' 
his  face  subdued  to  penetrative  shame,  whilst  fortunate  Caesar's 
wheeled  seat,  drawn  before  him,  branded  his  baseness  following  ? 

What  has  effected  the  profound  difference  ?  Obviously, 
the  magic  of  rhythm,  which  lays  a  transfiguring  unity 
upon  the  whole,  at  once  creating  a  new  aesthetic  fact  and 
force.  First  and  last,  once  more,  this  man  is  a  master 
of  metrical  rhythm,  the  very  genius  of  blank  verse,  a 
fundamentally  different  thing  from  prose,  whereof  the 
rhythm  goes  by  clause  and  sentence,  not  by  metre,  and 
wherein  the  relation  of  clauses  is  one  of  balance  rather 
than  of  sequence. 

Turn  we  now  to  the  prose  which  was  Bacon's  instru 
ment,  as  verse  was  Shakespeare's.  Like  every  good 
prosist,  Bacon  can  vary  his  tempo ;  and  we  have  from 
him  alternately  curt  and  stately,  simple  and  ornate 
diction.  But  in  every  kind  there  is  a  pulsation,  a  pro 
gression,  a  stride  that  is  not  Shakespeare's.  Let  us 
first  sample  him  from  the  ESSAYS  : 

Examine  thy  customs  of  diet,  sleep,  exercise,  and  the  like  ; 
and  try,  in  anything  thou  shalt  judge  hurtful,  to  discontinue  it 
by  little  and  little  ;  but  so  as  if  thou  dost  find  any  inconvenience 
by  the  change  thou  come  back  to  it  again  ;  for  it  is  hard  to  dis 
tinguish  that  which  is  generally  held  good  and  wholesome  from 
that  which  is  good  particularly,  and  fit  for  thine  own  body.  .  .  . 
As  for  the  passions  and  studies  of  the  mind  :  avoid  envy  ; 
anxious  fears,  anger  fretting  inwards  ;  subtle  and  knotty  inquisi 
tions  ;  joys  and  exhilarations  in  success  ;  sadness  not  commu 
nicated.  Entertain  hopes  ;  mirth  rather  than  joy  ;  variety 
of  delights,  rather  than  surfeit  of  them  ;  wonder  and  admiration, 
and  therefore  novelties  ;  studies  that  fill  the  mind  with  splendid 
and  illustrious  objects,  as  histories,  fables,  and  contemplations  of 
nature.1 

1  Essay  XXX,  Of  Regiment  of  Health. 


504  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Observe,  first,  the  deliberation  and  balance  of  the 
exposition,  the  fore-planned  arrangement  of  the  thoughts, 
in  contrast  with  the  kindling  process  of  the  poet  ;  next 
the  instinctive  balancing  of  the  clauses  in  point  of  rhythm  ; 
and  thirdly,  the  climaxing  movement  to  a  full  and  poly- 
phonous  closing  phrase — the  natural  method  of  prose, 
and  the  exact  opposite  of  the  practice  of  Shakespeare, 
whose  typical  period-endings  are  sudden  or  vehement 
arrests  of  speech  in  mid-line,  as  of  a  horse  reined  back 
on  his  haunches  : 

Life's  but  a  walking  shadow,  a  poor  player 
That  struts  and  frets  his  hour  upon  the  stage 
And  then  is  heard  no  more  :  it  is  a  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury, 
Signifying  nothing. 

Do  not,  as  some  ungracious  pastors  do, 
Show  me  the  steep  and  thorny  way  to  heaven, 
Whiles,  like  a  puff  d  and  reckless  libertine, 
Himself  the  primrose  path  to  dalliance  treads, 
And  recks  not  his  own  rede. 

Rather  a  ditch  in  Egypt 

Be  gentle  grave  unto  me  !   rather  on  Nilus'  mud 
Lay  me  stark  nak'd,  and  let  the  water-flies 
Blow  me  into  abhorring  !   rather  make 
My  country's  high  pyramides,  my  gibbet 
And  hang  me  up  in  chains  ! 

There  are  hundreds  of  these  speech-endings  in  the  plays  ; 
and  in  the  prose  there  is  the  same  habit  of  the  quick  stop, 
which  is  as  alien  to  Bacon's  way  of  writing  as  it  would 
have  been  to  his  way  of  walking,  in  court  or  garden. 
In  the  essay  before  us,  the  very  preoccupation  about 
health  and  diet  is  a  mark  of  Bacon,  absent  from  Shake 
speare,  who  did  not  smoke,  but  never  discussed  tobacco 
even  to  gratify  James  !  And  in  that  single  extract  of 
three  sentences  there  are  seven  words  and  phrases  never 
used  by  Shakespeare  :  "  little  by  little,"  "  fretting  inwards," 
"studies  of  the  mind,"  "inquisitions,"  "exhilarations," 
"  contemplations  "  ;  "  novelties."  Observe  the  Baco 
nian  plurals,  much  seldomer  lound  in  Shakespeare's 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  505 

prose.  The  word  "  exhilaration  "  never  occurs  in  the 
plays  at  all,  in  any  flexion  :  "  splendid,"  a  common 
word  with  Bacon,  is  found  only  once,  in  the  dubious 
2  HENRY  VI ;  "  knotty  "  occurs  only  twice  ;  "  dis 
continue  "  only  once  ;  "  inconvenience  "  only  once  in 
a  homogeneous  play. 

Another  piece  of  Baconian  prose,  from  the  essay  preced 
ing  that  just  cited,  will  convey  the  same  lessons  : 

There  may  be  now,  for  martial  encouragement,  some  degrees 
and  orders  of  chivalry,  which  nevertheless  are  conferred  promis 
cuously  upon  soldiers  and  no-soldiers  ;  and  some  remembrance 
perhaps  upon  the  scutcheon  ;  and  some  hospitals  for  maimed 
soldiers  ;  and  such-like  things.  But  in  ancient  times,  the 
trophies  erected  upon  the  place  of  the  victory  ;  the  funeral 
laudatives  and  monuments  for  those  that  died  in  the  wars  ; 
the  crowns  and  garlands  personal  ;  the  style  of  Emperor,  which 
the  great  kings  of  the  world  after  borrowed  ;  the  triumphs  of 
the  generals  upon  their  return  ;  the  great  donatives  and  largesses 
upon  the  disbanding  of  the  armies,  were  things  able  to  inflame 
all  men's  courages.  But  of  all,  that  of  the  triumph  amongst 
the  Romans,  was  not  pageants  or  gaudery,  but  one  of  the  wisest 
and  noblest  institutions  that  ever  was. 

Again  we  have  a  handful  of  words  and  phrases  never 
found  in  the  plays  :  "  promiscuously,"  "  soldiers  and  no- 
soldiers,"  "  orders  of  chivalry,"  "  hospitals  "  (the  word 
"  hospital  "  occurs  only  once  in  Shakespeare),  the  position 
of  the  adjective  in  "  crowns  and  garlands  personal," 
"  laudatives,"  "  donatives,"  "  largesses,"  "  disbanding" 
"  courages,"  "  gaudery  " — in  the  course  of  a  dozen  lines, 
five  words  and  three  plurals  never  found  in  the  plays. 
This  habitual  use  of  the  plural  is  a  specialty  of  Bacon, 
not  of  Shakespeare  ;  and  by  small  peculiarities  of  that 
kind  the  idiosyncrasy  of  a  writer  is  much  more  truly  to 
be  traced  than  by  merely  occasional  use  of  current  saws 
and  formulas.  Even  "  institutions,"  common  in  Bacon, 
occurs  only  once  in  Shakespeare.  And  always  the  style 
of  Bacon  is  radically  different  from  that  of  the  dramatist 
— reflective  rather  than  impassioned,  deliberate  rather 


506  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

than  eager  ;  calm,  not  quick,  measured  in  quite  another 
sense  than  is  the  poet's  verse. 

Not  a  single  essay,  I  believe,  will  fail  to  yield  the  same 
order  of  proofs.  We  have  dipped  into  Essays  XXX  and 
XXIX  :  let  us  turn  to  XXXI,  OF  SUSPICION.  It  opens 
with  a  series  of  short  "  sententious  "  sentences  : 

Suspicions  amongst  thoughts  are  like  bats  amongst  birds, 
they  ever  fly  by  twilight.  Certainly  they  are  to  be  repressed,  or 
at  the  least  well  guarded  ;  for  they  cloud  the  mind  ;  they  lose 
friends  ;  and  they  check  with  business,  whereby  business  cannot 
go  on  currently  and  constantly.  They  dispose  kings  to  tyranny, 
husbands  to  jealousy  ;  wise  men  to  irresolution  and  melancholy. 

Here,  in  three  sentences,  we  have  three  non-Shake 
spearean  words  :  "  repressed,"  "  currently,"  "  irresolu 
tion,"  and  the  form  "  check  with,"  never  found  in  the 
plays  ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  opening  string  of  Baconian 
plurals.  "  Suspicions  "  occurs  only  once  in  Shakespeare. 
In  the  two  short  essays  OF  REGIMENT  OF  HEALTH  and 
OF  SUSPICION  may  be  found  several  more  words  never 
found  in  the  plays  :  "  excesses,"  the  name  Celsus, 
"  benign,"  which  in  Shakespeare  occurs  only  in  the  non- 
Shakespearean  prologue  of  Gower  in  PERICLES  (ii), 
"  masteries,"  "  buzzes,"  the  phrase  "  of  a  middle  temper," 
"  stout^,"  the  phrase  "  discern  of,"  and  the  peculiar 
form  "  owing  to  "  in  the  sense  of  "  accruing  to  " — 
"  strength  of  nature  in  youth  passeth  over  many  excesses, 
which  are  owing  to  a  man  till  his  age."  ("  Owing  "  occurs 
only  once  in  Shakespeare.) 

But  the  question  of  vocabulary  calls  for  separate 
treatment  ;  and  our  immediate  business  is  with  prose 
style.  If  the  reader  be  not  convinced  by  our  few  selec 
tions  from  the  Essays,  let  him  turn  to  the  ADVANCEMENT 
OF  LEARNING.  Here  will  be  found  a  multitude  of  sonorous 
and  long-breathed  sentences  in  a  style  never  to  be  found 
in  Shakespeare's  prose.  The  second  paragraph  begins 
with  a  sentence  of  nearly  two  hundred  words — a  para 
graph  in  itself.  The  third  paragraph  consists  of  one  such 
sentence  : 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  507 

Therefore  did  I  conclude  with  myself  that  I  could  not  make 
unto  your  Majesty  a  better  oblation  than  of  some  treatise  tending 
to  that  end  ;  whereof  the  sum  will  consist  of  these  two  parts  : 
the  former  consisting  of  the  excellency  of  learning  and  knowledge' 
and  the  excellency  of  the  merit  and  true  glory  in  the  augmenta 
tion  and  propagation  thereof  ;  the  latter,  what  the  particular 
acts  and  works  are  which  have  been  embraced  and  undertaken  for 
the  advancement  of  learning,  and  again  what  defects  and  under 
values  I  find  in  such  particular  acts  ;  to  the  end  that  though 
I  cannot  positively  or  affirmatively  advise  your  Majesty,  or 
propound  unto  you  framed  particulars,  yet  I  may  excite  your 
princely  cogitation  to  visit  the  excellent  treasure  of  your  own 
mind,  and  thence  to  extract  particulars  for  this  purpose  agreeable 
to  your  magnanimity  and  wisdom. 

There  is  no  such  interwoven,  periodic  writing  as 
this  in  the  whole  range  of  Shakespeare.  One  more 
sentence  will  suffice  to  illustrate  the  stately  and  archi 
tectonic  style  which  is  normal  in  Bacon,  and  of  which 
the  plays  afford  no  sample  : 

And  as  for  those  particular  seducements  or  indispositions  of 
the  mind  for  policy  and  government,  which  learning  is  pretended 
to  insinuate,  if  it  be  granted  that  any  such  thing  be,  it  must  be 
remembered  withal,  that  learning  ministereth  in  every  of  them 
greater  strength  of  medicine  or  remedy  than  it  offereth  cause  of 
indisposition  or  infirmity. 

If  anywhere  Bacon  might  be  expected  to  approximate 
to  the  prose  style  of  the  plays,  it  would  be  in  the  CON 
FERENCE  OF  PLEASURE  or  in  the  HENRY  VII.  But  there 
we  have  the  same  measured  utterance,  the  same  enchain 
ing  of  clauses.  In  the  former,  "  The  Praise  of  Fortitude  " 
sets  out  with  half  a  dozen  short  and  crisp  "  sententious  " 
sentences  ;  then  comes  one  of  eighty  words,  marked  by 
the  Baconian  enchainment  of  clauses.  The  History 
begins  : 

After  that  Richard,  the  third  of  that  name,  king  in  fact  only, 
but  tyrant  both  in  title  and  regiment,  and  so  commonly  termed  and 
reputed  in  all  times  since,  was  by  the  Divine  Revenge,  favouring 
the  design  of  an  exiled  man,  overthrown  and  slain  at  Bosworth 
Field,  there  succeeded  in  the  kingdom  by  the  Earl  of  Richmond 
thenceforth  styled  Henry  the  Seventh. 


508  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

This  is  a  type  of  the  style  of  the  book — interlocked  and 
jointed,  not  merely  sequent  clauses,  with  a  periodic 
rise  and  fall.  And  in  the  second  sentence  occurs  the 
word  "  militar,"  always  Bacon's  form  of  the  adjective 
(though  sometimes  spelt  militar e  "),  and  never  found  in 
the  plays,  whether  in  prose  or  verse.  There  the  word 
is  always  "  militarie  "  or  "  military."  Thus  in  the  most 
truly  significant  details  of  style,  verbal  and  structural 
alike,  the  prose  writer  is  once  for  all  marked  off  from  the 
poet,  even  as  he  is  in  a  hundred  points  of  doctrine,  cer 
tainly  not  always  to  his  advantage.  But  as  a  writer, 
he  is  all  the  more  clearly  differentiated  ;  and  as  a  teacher 
turned  man  of  letters  to  fulfil  a  mission,  he  belongs  to 
another  world.  Bacon,  indeed,  is  not  the  supreme  master 
of  prose  that  Shakespeare  is  of  blank  verse.  He  has  not 
the  signally  elastic  movement  of  Nashe,  the  magical 
cadence  of  Browne,  or  the  endless  flow  of  Jeremy  Taylor. 
With  all  his  professed  contempt  for  rhetorical  artifice, 
too,  he  was  capable  at  times,  by  the  avowal  of  Spedding, 
of  "a  certain  affectation  and  rhetorical  cadence  .  .  . 
agreeable  to  the  taste  of  the  time."1  But  this,  as  the 
same  critic  goes  on  to  claim,  was  "  so  alien  to  his  own 
individual  taste  and  natural  manner,  that  there  is  no 
single  feature  by  which  his  style  is  more  specially  distin 
guished,  wherever  he  speaks  in  his  own  person,  whether 
formally  or  familiarly,  whether  in  the  way  of  narrative, 
argument,  or  oration,  than  the  total  absence  of  it."  In 
short,  he  could  fault,  as  Shakespeare  faulted  ;  but  he 
stands  to  the  prose  as  Shakespeare  stood  to  the  verse  of 
his  time,  as  a  witness  for  the  root  truth  in  regard  to  all 
writing,  that  to  be  great  it  must  be  sincere.  And  this, 
with  his  large  faculty  for  phrase,  cadence,  and  diction, 
makes  him  one  of  the  great  writers,  inasmuch  as  he 
habitually  makes  style  a  vesture  for  thought,  and  not 
a  decoration  of  it.  But  he  was  an  artist  in  spite  of  him 
self.  To  dislike  and  reject  bad  rhetoric  is  to  crave  for 
1  Letters  and  Life  of  Bacon,  i,  119. 


PROSE  STYLES  COMPARED  509 

good  ;  to  detect  false  ornament  is  to  cherish  the  true  ; 
and  Bacon  is  spontaneously  an  artist  in  his  handling  of 
prose.  With  a  burden  of  thought  such  as  was  never 
given  to  Nashe  or  Browne  or  Taylor,  and  a  range  of 
reason  far  wider  than  that  of  Hooker,  he  far  outweighs 
all  three  as  a  contributor  to  the  store  of  human  wisdom. 

And  with  all  this  it  is  the  more  wildly  incredible  that 
he  should  have  been  the  greatest  master  of  verse  as  well 
as  the  chief  master  of  philosophic  prose  in  his  age.  Mon 
strous  as  is  the  thesis  that  he,  taking  all  knowledge  as  his 
province,  and  tied  by  destiny  to  the  vocations  of  law 
and  politics,  yet  secretly  supplied  during  twenty  years 
of  his  crowded  life  the  main  stock  of  the  new  plays  of  a 
London  theatre,  and  penned  VENUS  AND  ADONIS  and 
LUCRECE  and  the  SONNETS — monstrous  in  every  respect 
as  is  that  fantasy,  it  is  hardly  more  incredible  at  bottom 
than  would  be,  for  those  who  can  realise  the  conditions 
of  artistic  genius,  the  conception  of  the  combination  in 
one  man  of  a  faculty  not  far  short  of  supreme  for  prose 
and  for  prose  themes  with  a  quite  supreme  faculty  for 
impassioned  verse.  The  thesis  has  arisen  and  won  vogue, 
in  fact,  among  men  as  little  wont  to  consider  the  psy 
chology  of  genius  as  to  study  the  literary  facts  by  which 
any  theory  of  authorship  is  to  be  tested.  And  even  that 
is  not  the  end  of  the  purely  literary  demonstration  of  the 
folly  of  the  Baconian  creed. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  Baconians  will  be  moved 
by  the  argument  from  prose  style.  All  these  years,  they 
have  gone  on  comparing  Bacon  and  the  Plays  without 
detecting  any  difference  of  style  or  manner  of  sentence, 
any  more  than  they  can  discern  the  antipodal  difference 
of  preoccupation  and  habit  of  mind.  Being  wholly 
occupied  in  looking  for  resemblances  in  the  trees,  they 
never  get  a  view  of  the  woods  ;  and  having  always  stated 
their  case  mainly  on  illusory  "correspondencies," 
"echoes,"  and  "classical"  and  "legal"  mares'  nest-, 
they  are  not  likely  to  consent  to  any  other  kind  of  test. 


510  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

For  the  hitherto  perplexed  but  open-minded  reader, 
however,  the  argument  from  style  form  will  doubtless 
carry  its  due  weight  ;  and  it  has  here  accordingly  been 
presented,  after  strict  examination  of  the  three  orders 
of  Baconian  argument  specified. 

The  further  argument  from  constant  disparities  in  the 
two  writers,  introduced  in  our  incidental  citation  of 
Baconian  words  and  phrases  not  found  in  the  plays,  may 
possibly  make  some  appeal  even  to  some  Baconians, 
seeing  that  it  turns  their  own  method  of  particular  com 
parison  against  their  own  thesis.  To  that,  then,  we  shall 
devote  a  separate  chapter,  before  we  deal  in  conclusion 
with  some  of  the  fundamental  considerations  which  ought 
to  have  vetoed  the  Baconian  theory  from  the  first. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  VOCABULARIES  OF  SHAKESPEARE  AND  BACON 

f     •     ^HE  range  of  Shakespeare's  vocabulary  is  an 
old  theme  among  his  admirers  ;  and  on  the 
strength  of  some  very  loose  statistical  guessing 
-A  and  plainly  inadequate  statistical  comparison 

he  has  been  credited  with  supremacy  in  this  as  in  other 
literary  aspects.  Even  careful  comparisons  between  the 
plays  of  Shakespeare  and  the  verse,  say,  of  Milton,  the 
bulk  of  whose  output  is  prose,  could  not  carry  the  con 
clusions  founded  on  the  hand-to-mouth  statistics  in 
question.  For  a  just  estimate  of  a  writer's  verbal  range 
we  require,  it  would  seem,  comparison  of  his  work  with 
an  approximately  equal  quantity  of  matter  by  another 
writer  ;  and  it  might  have  been  expected  that  the  Baco 
nians  would  give  some  special  attention  to  the  respective 
vocabularies  of  the  two  writers  they  identify.  Signifi 
cantly  enough,  however,  there  has  been  almost  no  attempt 
among  them  to  compare  the  general  use  of  words  in  the 
two  writers,  apart  from  such  wholly  nugatory  under 
takings  as  that  of  Mr.  Donnelly  and  Dr.  Theobald,  above 
discussed,  to  find  special  identities  in  the  use  of  the 
commonest  terms;  phrases  and  figures  of  the  period. 
When,  seeking  a  rational  test,  we  compare  the  vocabu 
laries  in  general,  we  find,  instead  of  any  noticeable 
similarity  or  uncommon  measure  of  coincidence,  a  much 
wider  divergence  than  could  well  have  been  reckoned  on. 
So  clear  is  this  divergence  that  a  little  careful  study  of 
this  one  point  might  open  the  eyes  of  any  reasonable 
student  to  the  nullity  of  the  Baconian  hypothesis. 

Not  only  does  Bacon,  as  we  have  seen,  employ  fre- 


512  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

quently  in  particular  works,  as  the  NATURAL  HISTORY, 
a  large  number  of  special  terms  such  as  Shakespeare 
very  rarely  uses,  and  many  which  he  never  uses  at  all  : 
the  language  of  Bacon's  philosophic  and  general  works 
diverges  no  less  signally  from  that  of  the  Plays  in  respect 
of  the  use  of  a  multitude  of  words  which  never  occur 
there. 

Of  Bacon,  unfortunately,  there  is  no  concordance  : 
the  Baconians  have  done  nothing  so  useful  as  that.     But 
a  sufficiently  fair  test  may  be  set  up  by  taking  any  un 
biased  selection  of  pages  from  Bacon  and  noting  the 
words  therein  which  do  not  occur  in  the  Shakespeare 
concordance.    The  result  will  perhaps  be  found  surprising 
by  non-Baconians  as  well  as  by  the  Baconians  who  will 
make  the  experiment.     In  dealing  with  the  question  of 
prose  style  I  have  already  shown  that  a  few  passages 
from  the  Essays  yield  a  handful  of  words,  phrases,  and 
plurals,  which  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  Plays — the  three 
opening  sentences  of  one  essay  presenting  three  non- 
Shakespearean   words,   though   the   words   in    question 
are  not  at  all  out  of  the  way  (save  as  regards  the  crucial 
case  of  "  militar,"  which  is  worth  a  hundred),  and  the 
phrases  are  more  or  less  idiomatic.     But  it  may  be  sus 
pected  by  some  that  the  essays  and  passages  in  question 
are  exceptional,  and  have  been  selected  for  that  reason. 
In  order,  therefore,  to  secure  an  indisputably  fair  com 
parison,  I  have  taken  (i)  the  first  two  pages  (in  Rout- 
ledge's  edition)   of  the  ADVANCEMENT  OF  LEARNING  ; 
(2)  the  last  page  of  Book  First  and  the  first  of  Book 
Second  ;    (3)  the  last  two  pages  of  Book  Second  ;    (4)  a 
sequence,  taken  at  random,  of  four  pages  in  the  same 
book  ;    (5)  the  first  and  the  last  of  the  ESSAYS  ;    (6)  the 
first  page  of  THE  NEW  ATLANTIS  ;  and  (7)  the  first  two 
and  the  last  two  pages  of  the  HISTORY  OF  HENRY  VII. 
The  result  is  the  following  set  of  lists  of  mostly  common 
Baconian  words  which  either  do  not  occur  at  all  in  the 
Plays  or  occur  there  only  in  the  rare  instances  specified. 


VOCABULARIES  5!3 

FIRST  PAGE  OF  "  ADVANCEMENT  OF  LEARNING  " 

(Routledge's  ed.  of  Works,  p.  42) 

branching  *•  penetration  (mental)   propriety  (=  pro- 

elocution  proficience  perty  =  quality) 

oblation  2  tabernacle 

SECOND  PAGE 

affirmatively        .         politiques  tacit 

amplification  propagation 3  triplicity 

compendious  propound  *  undervalues   sb.) 

extraction  (s)  propriety  (=  pro-       universality 

illumination  perty  =  quality  5)     veneration 

oblation  signature 

LAST  PAGE  OF  B.  I.  (Ed.  cited,  p.  74)  (Short  page) 
barleycorn  generate  knowledges  (twice) 

benign  illumination  magnified 

consociate  immersed  renovation 

demolish  (ed)  incorruptible 

FIRST  PAGE  OF  B.  II  (Ed.  cited,  p.  75)  (Short  page) 
amplitude  overcomen  transitory 

benign  proficience  transmit 

foresight  renovation  (s) 

SECOND  LAST  FULL  PAGE  OF  B.  II  (Ed.  cited,  p.  174) 

commonplace  (s)           edition  (  =  giving  liturgy 

concordance  (s)                  out)  privatively 

conservation                 effectually  prolix 

dispersedly                    harmonies     (lite-  summary  (adj.)  7 
rary)  6 

1  "  Branching  itself."     Shakespeare  only  once  has   "  branch  " 
as  a  verb. 

2  Occurs  in  the  Shakespeare  plays  only  in  a  clearly    non- 
Shakespearean  part  of  Pericles. 

8  Used  by  Shakespeare  once  only,  and  then  in  another  and 
peculiar  sense,  "  propagation  of  a  dower  "  (M.for  M.,  I,  ii,  154). 

4  Shakespeare  has  only  "  propounded,"  and  that  only  once, 
in  the  doubtful   2  Henry  VI.     The    word   is    very   common   in 
Bacon. 

5  Often  used  by  Bacon  in  this  sense.     Shakespeare  has  the  word 
only  twice,  and  both  times  in  the  modern  sense. 

6  Shakespeare  often  has  "  harmony  "  in  the  ordinary  sense  ; 
never  in  this. 

7  "  The  works  of  God  summary."     Shakespeare  has  the  noun 
twice,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  never  the  adjective. 

2  K 


THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 


atheism 
compatible 
confutation  (twice) 
declination  (s) 
deducing 
deficience 


ULL  PAGE  OF  B.  II. 

(P-   175) 

elevation 

proficience 

libertine  (adj.) 

receded 

liturgy 

receding 

occupate 

retribution 

preoccupate 

tares 

privative 

unsown 

FOUR  PAGES  IN  SEQUENCE  TAKEN  AT  RANDOM  FROM  B.II 
(Ed.  cited,  p.  166) 


animation 
animosities 
aphorisms 
certificate  1 
contrariwise 
deficience 

emergent 
futility 
intelligence 
(=  mind)  2 
judicially 
lawmaker  (twice) 

multiplicity 
preamble  (s) 
propound 
response  (s) 
rigorously 

P.  167  (short) 

peregrinations  3 
propriety  (  =  pro 
perty  —  quality) 

reprehension 
Sabaoth 
vivacity 

_ 

P.  1  68  (short) 

idiom 
libertine  (adj.) 
mystical 

participant 
reluctation  (twice) 
righteousness 

theology 

P.  169 

analogy 
chess 
contradictories 
deduce  (th) 
deficience 
dialectic 
draughts  (  =  writ 
ten  rules) 

enucleating 
examinable 
grift  (=  graft) 
imposture 
interdicteth  4 
latitude 
(Mahomet) 
mediocrity  5 

medium 
nonsignificants 
relatively 
surd 
ward  (of  a  lock) 

1  Occurs  in  Shakespeare  only  in  the  doubtful  2  Henry  VI. 

2  Shakespeare  always  uses  this  word  in  the  sense  of  information. 
8  Shakespeare  has  only  "  peregrinate,"  and  that  only  once. 

4  Shakespeare  has  only  "  interdiction,"  and  that  only  once. 

5  Bacon  has  "  golden  mediocrity."     So   has    Jonson.     Shake 
speare  has  not  even  "  mediocrity." 


allay  (-  alloy) 
comparable 
discoursing 
embaseth 


VOCABULARIES 

FIRST  ESSAY  (whole) 

illumination  shrunken  2 

mummeries  theological 

poles  (of  truth — 

metaph.) 
Phrase  "  at  a  stand." 


515 


LAST  ESSAY  (whole) 

exhaust  (  =  ex 

over-power    (sb.)  * 

hausted) 

philology 

generate 

populate 

hemisphere 

sanguinary 

luxuriant 

schism 

magnitude 

suit  (=  sequence) 

(Mahomet) 

sustentation 

martyrdom 

version  (  =  direc 

mountainous 

tion) 

(  =  living  in  the 

vicissitude  (7  times) 

mountains) 

voluptuous 

abstruse 

accurate 

arietations 

astrologer 

computing  3 

concurrence 

conflagration 

degenerating 

desolated  (vb.) 

dispeople 

enervate 

These  lists,  it  should  be  explained,  mostly  cover 
flexions  of  words,  in  the  senses  in  which  they  are  used 
by  Bacon.  That  is  to  say,  Shakespeare  never  uses 
"  extraction  "  or  "  undervalue  "  (sb.)  or  "  immerse  "  or 
"  magnify  "  or  "  commonplace  "  or  "  concordance  "  or 
"  declination  "  or  "  tare  "  or 
or  "  recede,"  &c. 
met  "  5  and  "  confutation,"  do 
and  are  here  included  on  the  confident  assumption  that 
that  is  a  non-Shakespearean  play.  Its  presumed  authors, 
Marlowe,  Greene,  and  Peele,  all  use  the  name  Mahomet 
frequently  :  "  Shakespeare  "  uses  it  in  no  other  play. 
"  Certificate  "  I  have  noted  as  occurring  in  the  doubtful 
2  HENRY  VI.  "  Effectually,"  again,  occurs  in  TITUS 

1  Shakespeare  often  has  the  verb  "  allay  "  :    the  noun  only 
once,  and  then  in  the  sense  of  alleviation. 

2  Shakespeare  has  "  shrunk,"  never  "  shrunken." 

3  Shakespeare  has  only  "  computation." 

4  Shakespeare  has  neither  the  noun  nor  the  verb. 

*  I  note  a  proper  name  in  this  case,  because  its  use  has  a  moral 
significance. 


draught  "    (=  writing) 
Two  of  the  Bacon  words,  "  Maho- 
occur  iii  i  HENRY  VI, 


516  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

ANDRONICUS,  but  in  no  other  play  ascribed  to  Shake 
speare  ;  and  here  again  the  word  is  included  on  the 
confident  assumption  that  the  play  in  question  is  non- 
Shakespearean.  "  Benign/'  again,  as  already  noted, 
occurs  in  the  Plays  only  in  Gower's  prologue  to  Act  II 
of  PERICLES — generally  admitted  to  be  non-Shakespearean 
matter.  In  no  other  case  in  these  lists  does  this  question 
arise,  unless  it  be  specified.  "  Inferring,"  used  by  Bacon 
(p.  174),  occurs  in  Shakespeare  only  in  the  doubtful 
3  HENRY  VI,  but  is  not  here  included.  "  Edition  " 
Shakespeare  uses  once,  and  once  only,  in  the  now  normal 
sense  ;  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  used  by  Bacon,  as  above 
cited,  he  never  uses  it  at  all.  "  Shrunken  "  I  include, 
as  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  always  has  "  shrunk  "  is 
in  its  degree  significant. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  lists  under  notice  include 
both  common  and  uncommon  words,  terms  seldom  used 
even  by  Bacon,  and  terms  often  used  by  him  and  by  many 
other  writers.  "  Benign,"  for  instance,  is  a  favourite 
word  of  his.  The  remarkable  thing  is  the  number  of 
quite  ordinary  words  used  by  Bacon  that  are  never  found 
in  the  Plays.  This  appears  from  the  lists  before  us,  and 
can  be  further  proved  ad  libitum.  Thus  Shakespeare 
never  uses  words  so  common  in  Bacon  and  in  Elizabethan 
literature  as  :  abstruse,  accurate,  animate,  animation, 
animosity,  atheist,  atheism,  astrology,  astrologer,  analogy, 
amplitude,  alloy,  allegory,  architecture,  benign,  common 
place,  conflagration,  compendious,  comparable,  com 
patible,  compression,  chess,  concurrence,  condense,  con 
trariwise,  contexture,  collectively,  compacted,1  delicacy, 
deficience,  or  deficiency,  deduce,  or  deducing,  disbanding, 
dialectic,  elocution,  extraction,  elementary,  elevation, 

1  Twice  in  one  page  in  the  Advancement,  with  "compaction." 
Shakespeare  has  "compacted  "  once  in  Lucrece  ;  never  in  the 
Plays.  Of  course,  he  often  has  compact  =  compacted.  Both 
forms  were  current  :  the  dramatist  takes  one ;  the  prosist  the 
other 


VOCABULARIES  517 

generate,  geometrical,  geometry,  imposture,  illumina 
tion,  immerse,  intelligence  (=mind),  knowledges,  lati 
tude,  liturgy,  libertine  (adj .  —  Shakespeare  has  the 
noun),  luxuriant,  magnitude,  martyrdom,  medium, 
mediocrity,  magnify,  mystical,  multiplicity,  oblation, 
overpower,  prolix,  proficience  or  proficiency,1  physics, 
physical  (general  sense2),  recede,  renovation,  relatively, 
repress,  resplendent,  retribution,  righteousness,  signature, 
sanguinary,  subdivide,  similitude,  tacit;  tabernacle, 
theology,  theological,  transmit,  transmission,  transitory, 
version  (in  any  sense),  voluptuous,  veneration,  vicissitude, 
&c.  &c.  Hardly  less  remarkable  is  the  number  of  common 
words  that  occur  only  once.  In  the  first  few  pages  of 
the  Concordance  I  note  :— abashed  (abash  does  not  occur 
at  all),  abet,  abetting,  abjectly,  abler,  abominably, 
abomination,  abounding,  abrogate,  abrupt,  abruptly, 
abstains  (abstain  does  not  occur),  abstemious,  abundantly, 
accessible,  acclamation  (pi.),  accommodate,  accompany 
ing,  accomplice  (pi.),  accomplishing,  accomplishment; 
accrue,  accumulate,  accumulated, accumulation — twenty- 
five  from  "  ab  "  to  "  ace."  The  full  list,  which  would 
run  to  thousands,  includes  such  words  as  freewill,  apostles, 
apostle  (both  in  doubtful  plays), immortality, indisposition, 
magnificence  (so  common  in  Bacon),  maxim,  inference, 
syllogism,  reciprocal,  navigation. 

Such  facts  raise  various  questions  as  to  the  alleged 
range  of  the  Shakespearean  vocabulary.  For  instance, 
of  the  15,000  words  said  to  be  found  in  the  Plays,3  how 

1  Proficient  occurs  once  in  the  Plays. 

a  Shakespeare  has  the  word  twice  in  the  sense  of  "  medicinal," 
never  in  the  general  sense. 

8  Max  Miiller,  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Language,  6tn  ed.  i, 
309,  citing — of  all  authorities — Kenan's  Histoire  des  Languos 
Semitiques  !  I  cannot  find  the  passage  in  my  copy  (2nd  ed.)  of 
Renan.  Mr.  G.  C.  Bompas  (Problem  of  the  Shakespeare  Plays, 
1902,  p.  iv)  characteristically  asserts  that  the  "  estimate  "  is 
Max  Muller's  own.  Marsh  (Student's  English  Language,  8th  ed. 
pp.  126,  1 80)  makes  the  same  statement  as  Miiller  cites  from 
Renan,  giving  no  authority.  Elze  (William  Shakespeare,  Eng. 


5i8  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

many  are  mere  plurals  and  verb-flexions  ?  how  many 
occur  only  in  the  doubtful  or  non-genuine  plays  ?  and 
how  many  are  proper  names  ?  And  how  does  the  Shake 
spearean  vocabulary  compare  with,  say,  that  of  Ben 
Jonson  ?  The  question  involved  is,  broadly,  whether 
the  vocabulary  of  the  Plays  is  or  is  not  that  of  a  scholarly 
man,  of  very  wide  reading  and  far-gathered  vocabulary, 
or  that  of  a  poet  with  immense  power  of  poetic  expression 
in  the  range  of  words  of  an  ordinary  cultured  man. 

Leaving  the  question  of  comparative  range  of  vocabu 
lary  to  fuller  statistical  inquiry,  we  may  note  the  bearing 
on  the  Bacon-Shakespeare  theory  of  the  evidence  before 
us.  Putting  aside  for  separate  discussion  the  problem 
of  the  intellectual  interests  involved  or  suggested,  let  us 
ask  how  it  could  come  about  that  the  same  man,  repeatedly 
using  in  his  non-dramatic  writings  such  familiar  terms 
as  atheism,  theology,  theological,  knowledges,  illumina 
tion,  renovation,  magnify,  magnitude,  amplitude,  defi- 
cience,  proficience,  tacit,  transitory,  signature,  chess, 
analogy,  medium,  mystical,  imposture,  commonplace, 
recede,  tares;  deduce,  mediocrity,  immersed,  benign, 
righteousness,  alloy,  generate,  magnet,  superlative — and 
many  hundreds  more,  equally  common — could  contrive 
to  write  (as  the  Baconians  hold)  thirty-seven  plays, 
covering  a  productive  period  of  some  twenty  years, 
without  once  using  any  of  them  dramatically  ?  How 
should  he  chance  to  avoid,  in  all  his  play-writing,  the 
use  of  two  such  common  idioms  as  "at  a  stand  "  and 

trans,  p.  389)  copies  Miiller  verbatim,  and  cites  him,  Renan,  and 
Marsh  !  Mr.  Grant  White  (Studies  in  Shakespeare,  p.  300)  cites 
the  15,000  estimate  with  an  "it  is  said,"  avowing  that  it  seems 
to  him  excessive.  I  know  not  who  made  the  estimate,  or  whether 
it  has  ever  been  checked.  Mrs.  Cowden  Clarke  and  Mr.  Bartlett 
offer  no  estimate  in  their  Concordances.  An  allowance  of  8000 
words  for  Milton  has  the  same  loose  currency.  Mr.  Morton  Luce 
(Handbook  to  Shakespeare's  Works,  1906,  p.  435)  writes  that 
"  Of  course  the  range  of  his  [Shakespeare's]  vocabulary  is  far 
greater  than  that  of  any  other  writer,"  No  evidence  is  offered. 


VOCABULARIES  519 

"  at  a  stay,"  when  these  came  to  him  quite  naturally 
in  his  other  writings  ?  How  should  Bacon  use  the  terms 
"  theory  "  and  "  theoretic  "  freely  in  his  didactic  works, 
and  only  "  theorick  "  (and  that  only  thrice)  in  the  thirty- 
seven  plays  ?  How,  after  writing  often  of  "  politiques  " 
in  his  avowed  works,  should  he  always  write  "  politicians  " 
in  his  alleged  plays,  when  other  dramatists  (e.g.  Ben 
Jonson)  used  "  politiques  "  ?  Using  the  metaphor  of 
"  oblation  "  so  frequently  in  his  signed  works,  how  could 
he  abstain  from  using  it  once  in  the  plays  ?  Or  will  the 
Baconians  insist  on  giving  him  one  of  the  worst-written 
scenes  in  PERICLES  because  it  there  occurs  in  the  plural, 
and  in  the  literal  sense  ?  Why  should  he  write  "  over- 
comen  "  and  "  holpen  "  in  his  prose  and  never  in  his 
poetry  ?  Why  should  he  always  use  the  spelling 
"  drought  "  in  his  signed  works,  and  "  drouth  "  when 
writing  dramatically  ?  How  should  it  be  possible  to 
him  to  write  of  "  vicissitude  "  seven  times  in  one  essay 
and  never  once  in  thirty-seven  plays  ?  How  should  he 
chance  frequently  to  use  the  word  "  voluptuous  "  in 
didactic  writings,  and  never  once  in  so  many  plays  in 
which  the  notion  is  so  often  suggested  P1  And,  having 
a  habit  of  speaking  of  "  knowledges  "  in  his  books,  how 
should  he  abstain  from  using  that  plural  in  twenty  years 
of  play-writing  ? 

Once  more,  why  should  he  always  use  the  spelling  and 
scansion  "  militarie  "  or  "  military  "  in  the  Plays,  and 
invariably  "  militar  "  or  "  militare  "  in  the  books  ?  How, 
yet  again,  should  it  come  about  that,  while  in  his  books 
.  he  often  employs  the  word  regiment  =  rule,  which  at 
the  time  was  in  universal  English  use,  in  all  the  thirty- 
seven  plays  he  uses  it  only  once,  though  it  is  there  seven 
times  employed  in  the  special  sense  which  has  latterly 
become  the  sole  one— that  of  a  body  of  soldiers  ?  Naming 
Solomon  as  he  does,  with  seriousness,  thirty  or  forty 

1  Shakespeare  has  "  voluptuously  "  once,  and  "  voluptuous 
ness  "  twice  ;  but  "  voluptuous  "  never. 


520  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

times  in  his  signed  works,  how  came  he  to  name  him  only 
twice  in  the  plays,  and  that  with  levity,  in  the  LOVE'S 
LABOUR'S  LOST?  Why,  using  the  word  "temporary" 
so  constantly  in  his  serious  writing,  did  he  use  it  only  once 
in  the  thirty-seven  plays,  and  then  frivolously,  in  the 
phrase  "  a  temporary  meddler  "  ?  How  came  he  in  all 
the  Plays  to  use  only  once  each  such  words  as  "  erudition," 
"  rigorously  "  [in  a  non- Shakespearean  play],  "  totally," 
which  he  uses  so  often  in  his  didactic  writings  ? 

To  put  these  questions  is  to  point  to  the  answer.  Of 
all  the  coincidences  of  diction  and  phrase  claimed  by  the 
Baconians,  there  are  not  half  a  dozen  worth  serious  dis 
cussion  ;  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred,  as  we  have  seen, 
are  normal  uses  of  every-day  language  ;  while  the  diver 
gences  are  innumerable  and  overwhelming  in  their  eviden 
tial  force.  The  vocabularies  of  Shakespeare  and  Bacon 
are  markedly  and  decisively  distinct.  Words  frequent 
in  one  are  wholly  absent  from  the  other.  Of  two  synonyms, 
the  first  habitually  uses  one  ;  the  second  the  other. 
Bacon  uses  a  number  of  participles  in  "  ate,"  as  "  occu- 
pate,"  "  preoccupate,"  which  are  not  to  be  found  in  the 
Plays.  Whereas  he  uses  "  lawmaker  "  twice  in  one  page, 
the  Plays  not  only  have  not  "  lawmaker,"  they  have  not 
even  "  lawgiver."  He  uses  such  verbs  as  "to  desolate," 
which  Shakespeare  never  employs.  He  has  the  locutions 
"  evading  from,"  "  chasing  after,"  "  conlude  with  my 
self,"  and  many  more,  all  unknown  in  the  Plays.  Here 
we  are  considering  not  the  special  employment  of  sets 
of  terms  proper  to  particular  researches  or  topics,  but 
differences  in  the  habitual  use  of  a  common  language. 
We  are  contemplating  two  different  verbal  outfits,  so  to 
speak  ;  two  largely  different  selections  from  the  store 
of  words  common  to  all  for  all  purposes  ;  two  diverging 
sets  of  preferences — in  a  word,  the  output  of  two  differ 
ently  cultured  men.1 

1  Mr.  G.  C.  Bompas  (The  Problem  of  the  Shakespeare  Plays, 
1902,  p.  iv)  alleges — here  merely  following  an  old  statement  by 


VOCABULARIES  521 

Incidentally  it  appears  that  the  man  of  special  culture 
has,  as  might  be  expected,  the  larger  vocabulary  in  a 
given  space.  None  of  the  computators  seems  to  have 
sought  to  estimate  quantitatively  Bacon's  vocabulary ; 
and  I  can  only  give  my  own  impression.  But  it  is  founded 
on  the  above-noted  facts.  In  every  thousand  consecutive 
words  of  Bacon's  text  as  above  sampled,  roughly  speaking, 
there  are  from  ten  to  thirty  words  not  to  be  found  in  the 
Plays.  With  due  allowance  made  for  repetitions,  this 
would  soon,  I  think,  give  us  over  a  thousand  ordinary 
words  which  occur  in  Bacon  and  not  in  Shakespeare  ; 
and  a  collation  of  the  SYLVA  SYLVARUM  would  greatly 
swell  the  list.  In  no  similar  set  of  selections  of  sequent 
words  from  Shakespeare,  I  think,  will  there  be  found  any 
such  proportion  of  words  not  to  be  found  in  Bacon,  though 
in  some  single  pages  there  may  be.  This,  of  course,  is 
not  an  issue  that  affects  our  conclusion  as  to  the  non 
identity  of  the  two  writers.  If  it  be  found  that  the  Plays 
contain  as  large  a  number  of  terms  not  to  be  found  in 
Bacon  as  we  have  found  vice  versa,  the  inference  as  to 
non-identity  will  in  fact  be  pro  tanto  strengthened.  I 
mention  my  own  view  of  the  proportions  by  way  of 
suggesting  that  the  playwright  was  really  not  a  man  of 

Mrs.  Pott — that  "  Bacon's  vocabulary  is  practically  the  same 
as  that  of  the  Shakespeare  plays."  The  assertion  is  repeated 
at  p.  25.  I  know  no  more  flagrant  instance  of  the  levity  of 
assertion  with  which  the  Baconian  case  is  put.  Mr.  Bompas 
sticks  at  nothing.  He  alleges  (p.  39)  that  "  there  seems  scarcely 
a  sentiment  or  opinion  expressed  in  the  plays  which  has  not 
its  counterpart  in  the  acknowledged  works  of  Bacon." 
Without  blenching,  he  adopts  the  monumental  nonsense  put 
forth  by  Mrs.  Pott  as  to  there  being  only  three  instances  before 
1 594  of  the  salutation  ' '  good  morrow, "  "  good  day, "  etc .  (Upon 
this  particular  deliration,  see  Mr.  Crawford's  "  Bacon-Shakespeare 
Question  "  in  his  Collectanea.}  As  illustrative  of  Mr.  Bompas 's 
first-hand  knowledge  may  be  noted  his  assertion  (p.  51)  that 
Thomas  Kyd  "  is  not  known  to  have  translated  from  the  Italian." 
He  cannot  even  have  looked  into  Professor  Boas's  edition  of 
Kyd's  Works.  I  am  told,  however,  that  he  is  an  esteemed 
exponent  of  Baconics, 


522  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

supremely  large  vocabulary  for  his  time  :  the  impression 
set  up  by  a  long  scrutiny  of  the  concordance  is  rather  one 
of  surprise  at  the  large  number  of  words  familiar  to 
educated  men  which  do  not  appear  in  it,  and  the  large 
number  which  appear  only  once.  Multitudes  of  them, 
of  course,  he  must  have  known  ;  and  it  is  fairly  arguable 
that  for  the  purposes  of  a  dramatist,  the  expression  of 
human  passions  and  the  narrative  of  common  human 
actions,  there  is  needed  a  much  narrower  range  of  vocabu 
lary  than  is  required  for  the  ratiocinative  purposes  of 
such  a  thinker  as  Bacon.  This  granted,  the  resulting 
critical  conclusion  is  that  the  kind  of  aesthetic  effect 
produced  by  Shakespeare  is  one  of  the  inspired  use  of  an 
ordinarily  fecund  writer's  vocabulary,  and  not,  as  the 
idolaters  have  assumed,  one  of  abnormal  command  of 
variety  of  terms.  True,  he  has  always  an  abundant 
diction  ;  and  in  some  plays,  as  TROILUS,  he  resorts  so 
much  to  literate  terms  as  to  convey  an  impression  of 
special  largeness  of  vocabulary.  But  the  literate  diction 
of  TROILUS,  however  it  is  to  be  accounted  for,  is  not  that 
of  his  purest  poetry  or  his  intensest  feeling.  His  most 
thrilling  effects  are  commonly  produced  by  the  exquisite 
collocation  and  cadenced  flow  of  familiar  words.  Such 
lines  as  : 

Finish,  good  lady,  the  bright  day  is  done  ; 
And  we  are  for  the  dark. 

Unarm,  Eros  :  the  long  day's  work  is  done. 
Re  visit  'st  thus  the  glimpses  of  the  moon. 

Nothing  of  him  that  doth  fade 
But  doth  suffer  a  sea  change 
Into  something  rich  and  strange. 

The  prophetic  soul 
Of  the  wide  world  dreaming  on  things  to  come. 

And  Beauty  making  beautiful  old  rhyme. 

Daffodils 

That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty. 


VOCABULARIES  523 

Give  me  my  robe,  put  on  my  crown  :  I  have 

Immortal  longings  in  me  :  now  no  more 

The  juice  of  Egypt's  grape  shall  moist  this  lip. 

As  she  would  take  another  Antony 
In  her  strong  toil  of  grace. 

Life's  but  a  walking  shadow,  a  poor  player, 
That  struts  and  frets  his  hour  upon  the  stage 
And  then  is  heard  no  more. 

Spirits  are  not  finely  touched 
But  to  fine  issues. 

In  thrilling  region  of  thick-ribbed  ice. 

We  are  such  stuff 

As  dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep 

these  and  a  hundred  more  immortal  touches  of  rhythmic 
diction  are  not  the  yields  of  a  great  vocabulary  :  they 
are  the  masterstrokes  of  a  poet  working  in  the  eternal 
and  universal  stuff  of  human  feeling  and  passion,  dis 
tilling  their  quintessences  .by  his  own  alchemy.  To 
assume  that  they  were  possible  only  or  specially  to  a 
man  of  learning,  a  "  courtier,"  a  trained  lawyer,  a 
methodically  practised  reasoner,  is  an  exorbitance  of 
misconception  that  remains  revolting  alike  to  the  literary 
sense  and  to  common  sense  after  any  amount  of  reflection. 
Sidney  the  courtier,  Da  vies  the  lawyer  and  the  dialectician 
in  verse,  have  no  such  jewels  as  these.  And  if  there 
were  any  general  conclusion  rightly  to  be  drawn  either 
a  priori  or  a  posteriori  it  would  be  that  those  starry  points 
of  song  could  not  be  the  creation  of  the  learned  lawyer 
and  would-be  renovator  of  the  sciences,  great  as  was  his 
literary  gift  in  his  own  large  province.  Not  in  all  litera 
ture  is  there  a  known  instance  of  a  literary  prodigy  that 
could  be  remotely  compared  with  such  a  miracle  as  the 
production  of  the  NOVUM  ORGANUM  and  LEAR,  the  NEW 
ATLANTIS  and  TWELFTH  NIGHT,  ROMEO  AND  JULIET 
and  the  essay  on  LOVE,  by  the  same  man,  even  if  we 
consider  them  solely  as  forms  of  literary  output,  without 


524  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

reference  to  the  intellectual  predilections  involved. 
Lawyers  have  written  on  philosophy  ;  men  of  science 
have  penned  verse  ;  and  historians  have  produced  poetic 
dramas  ;  but  where  in  the  whole  roll  of  human  achieve 
ment  is  there  such  a  confounding  combination  of  such 
utterly  disparate  forms  of  gift  for  mere  utterance  as 
would  be  the  writing  of  HAMLET  and  the  DE  AUGMENTIS, 
MACBETH  and  the  NATURAL  HISTORY,  HENRY  IV  and 
the  HISTORY  OF  KING  HENRY  THE  SEVENTH  by  the 
same  pen  in  the  same  period  ? 

Those  who  are  not  repelled  by  the  "  fierce  impossi 
bility  "  of  such  a  conjuncture  have  thus  far  had  set 
before  them  a  number  of  the  concrete  proofs  that  it  did 
not  take  place.  But  the  proofs  are  not  even  yet  all 
specified.  After  dealing  with  the  claims  founded  on 
false  assumptions,  we  have  considered  the  rebutting 
evidence  of  style  and  vocabulary.  It  remains  to  consider 
that  which  is  furnished  by  (i)  a  contrast  of  the  intel 
lectual  interests  obtruded  by  Bacon's  whole  work  with 
the  whole  tone,  aim,  and  content  of  the  Plays,  and  (2)  a 
notation  of  the  circumstantial  facts  of  the  history  of  the 
Plays  and  the  personal  positions  of  the  two  men. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  INTELLECTUAL  INTERESTS  OF 
SHAKESPEARE   AND   BACON 

IF  we  survey  the  written  life's  work  of  Bacon,  we  find 
it  broadly  dividing  into  three  main  masses,  of 
which  one  intellectually  if  not  quantitatively  out- 
bulks  the  others.     As  a  lawyer,  he  did  a  certain 
amount  of  purely  professional  writing,  marked  by  the 
customary  composure  and  ease  of  his  style.    To  a  lay 
man's  eye  these  papers  indicate  plenty  of  legal  learning  ; 
and  indeed,  whatever  Coke  might  say,  Bacon's  competence 
as  a  lawyer  and  a  judge  was  never  doubted  among  his 
unprejudiced  contemporaries.     But  Bacon,  be  it  observed, 
does  not  lard  with  law  his  writings  on  other  subjects,1  as 
the  Baconians  make  him  out  to  have  done  in  the  Plays — 
a  circumstance  which  alone  might  have  served  to  guard 
careful  readers  against  the  notion  that  the  law  tags  in 
the  Plays  come  from  his  pen. 

Much  more  keenly  was  he  interested  in  the  political 
problems  which  pressed  upon  the  governments  of  Eliza 
beth  and  James  ;  and  to  these  he  devoted  an  amount  of 
earnest  and  sagacious  thought  which  makes  his  political 
writings  still  the  most  interesting  of  their  kind  in  his 
period.  Only  in  Hooker's  ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY,  in 
that  age,  is  there  any  such  union  of  thought  and  style, 
insight  and  power  of  speech;  and  Hooker,  in  the  less 
rational  world  of  the  church,  is  not  more  bent  than  Bacon 
on  the  right  guidance  of  contemporary  life.  But  the 

1  The  express  claim  of  Mr.  G.  C.  Bompas  is  that  of  250  lavy 
terms  occurring  in  the  Plays  "  200  are  treated  with  more  or  less 
fulness  in  Bacon's  law  tracts."  (Th»  Problem  of  the  Shakespeare 
Plays,  1902,  p.  29.) 

525 


526  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

greatest  of  all  Bacon's  preoccupations  is  that  to  which  he 
gave  the  bulk  of  his  published  matter — the  comprehensive 
revision  and  reconstruction  of  scientific  lore  of  all  kinds, 
naturalist  and  humanist. 

To  this,  his  master-purpose,  he  directed  the  ADVANCE 
MENT  OF  LEARNING  (expanding  it  from  two  books  in 
English  into  seven  in  Latin),  the  NOVUM  ORGANUM,  and 
the  series  of  short  treatises  which  lead  up  to  and  anticipate 
that  ;  striving  further  to  accumulate  scientific  material 
in  the  NATURAL  HISTORY,  the  HISTORIA  VENTORUM,  the 
HISTORIA  VIT.E  ET  MORTIS,  and  the  HISTORIA  DENSI  ET 
RARI.  The  WISDOM  OF  THE  ANCIENTS,  written  in  Latin 
like  the  NOVUM  ORGANUM,  was  penned  to  the  same 
general  end  of  reforming  men's  habits  of  thought  ;  and 
THE  NEW  ATLANTIS  heads  in  the  like  direction.  All  are 
parts  of  a  high-aiming  and  high-hoping  propaganda,  im 
pelled  by  a  devouring  aspiration,  which  overrode  all  the 
engrossing  preoccupations  of  professional  and  political 
life.  His  few  excursions  into  pure  belles  lettres,  apart  from 
the  ESSAYS,  are  but  passing  diversions  :  the  CONFERENCE 
OF  PLEASURE,  the  version  of  a  few  of  the  Psalms,  tell  of 
small  predilection  to  pure  literature  for  literature's  sake. 
Of  the  ESSAYS  and  the  HISTORY  OF  HENRY  THE  SEVENTH 
alone  among  his  larger  undertakings  could  it  be  said  that 
they  are  in  any  large  measure  outside  the  social  and 
philosophical  purposes  which  mainly  swayed  their  author  ; 
and  even  these,  partly  written  as  they  were  with  an  eye 
to  getting  an  audience  for  the  other  works,  are  so  far 
concurrents.  Wide  as  it  is,  then,  the  mental  outlook  of 
Bacon  has  one  prevailing  bent.  Persistently  he  strove 
and  hoped  to  lead  the  mind  of  his  time  in  matters  of 
natural  science  by  better  paths  than  those  it  appeared  to 
him  to  be  treading.  Of  the  merits  and  demerits  of  his 
lead,  we  are  not  here  concerned  to  speak  :  the  matter  in 
hand  is  the  nature  of  his  intellectual  ambition.  The  fact 
stands  out  so  clearly  that  no  one  has  ever  questioned  it 
save  by  way  of  those  imputations  of  sheer  self-seeking 


INTELLECTUAL  INTERESTS  527 

which  still  to  some  extent  darken  critical  counsel  concern 
ing  Bacon  ;  and  for  our  purpose  these  are  irrelevant. 
Even  if  we  should  subscribe  to  the  sophism  that  Bacon's 
intellectual  ambition  was  wholly  of  a  piece  with  that  of  a 
Cecil  or  an  Essex — a  purely  self-regarding  impulse— the 
fact  would  still  emerge  that  his  master  passion  was  one 
of  edification,  of  propaganda,  of  persuasion.  And  the  full 
perversity  of  the  theory  which  identifies  him  with  the 
author  of  the  Shakespearean  plays  is  to  be  realised  only 
when  we  reflect  on  the  absolute  obstacle  to  the  over 
powering  preoccupation  of  his  avowed  intellectual  life 
that  would  be  involved  in  the  devotion  of  an  incalculable 
amount  of  its  space  and  energy  to  the  production  of  the 
dramas  in  question. 

Unless  they  deny  it,  the  Baconians  must  be  presumed 
to  see  that  Bacon  throughout  the  mass  of  his  avowed 
writings  has  an  end  in  view  ;  that  he  is  profoundly  con 
cerned  to  influence  opinion.  Yet  they  impute  to  him  the 
deliberate  assumption  of  the  time-devouring  task  of 
writing  dozens  of  stage  plays,  in  not  one  of  which  are  his 
intellectual  purposes  so  much  as  hinted  at.1  They  con 
ceive  him  writing  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST  and  the  MID 
SUMMER  NIGHT'S  DREAM  and  the  COMEDY  OF  ERRORS  and 
VENUS  AND  ADONIS  and  the  RAPE  OF  LUCRECE  at  one  end 
of  the  task,  and  THE  TEMPEST  and  CYMBELINE  and 
HENRY  VIII  and  the  WINTER'S  TALE  at  the  other,  with 
all  his  life's  ambition  still  unfulfilled  ;  with  the  sciences 
all  in  his  opinion  still  misdirected  ;  with  the  "  idols  "  of 
the  tribe  and  the  cave,  the  theatre  and  the  market-place, 
all  along  in  command  of  the  general  allegiance.  Possessed 
as  he  was  by  the  vision  of  a  world  to  reform,  both  on  the 
intellectual  and  on  the  political  side,  we  are  to  conceive 

1  Mr.  Harold  Bayley,  in  his  Baconian  mood  (The  Shakespeare 
Symphony,  1906,  p,  356),  pictures  Bacon  as  penning  plays,  not 
only  the  Shakespearean  but  others,  in  order  to  forward  "  the  New 
Philosophy."  Neither  he  nor  any  one  else  has  pointed  to  one  clear 
enunciation  in  the  Plays  of  one  of  Bacon's  leading  ideas.  Dr. 
Theobald's  theses  on  that  head  are  idle. 


528  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

him  bending  his  powers  year  after  year  to  the  entertain 
ment  of  the  audiences  at  the  Globe  Theatre. 

As  the  Baconians  cannot  see  the  incredibility  of  this  in 
the  mass,  it  behoves  us  to  indicate  it  in  some  detail.  To 
give  the  slightest  primary  plausibility  to  their  thesis  on 
this  side  they  must  assume  one  of  two  contrary  positions 
which  they  may  be  defied  to  defend.  Either  they  must 
stand  to  the  old  German  theorem  of  some  profound 
didactic  purpose  that  inspires  all  the  Plays,  from  TITUS 
ANDRONICUS  to  PERICLES,  thus  crediting  the  dramatist 
with  a  moralising  aim  in  writing  alike  the  Falstaff  scenes 
and  the  First  Part  of  HENRY  VI  and  ALL'S  WELL  THAT 
ENDS  WELL — an  extravagance  of  fable  which  almost 
competes  with  the  Baconian  theory  itself — or  they  must 
make  the  assumption  that  Bacon  wrote  the  Plays  in  order 
to  get  away  mentally  from  all  his  didactic  ideals.  As  the 
didactic  ideals  of  his  works  are  specific  and  reiterated, 
while  any  implied  in  the  plays  are  simply  those  of  normal 
and  accepted  ethics,  they  can  have  no  refuge  save  in  the 
second  alternative.  They  must  imagine  Bacon  striving 
to  drown  his  scientific  cares  in  drama  as  other  men  seek 
to  drown  pecuniary  cares  in  drink.  Whatever  they  may 
say  about  his  doctrine  of  dramatic  teaching  in  the 
ADVANCEMENT  OF  LEARNING,  they  can  find  no  trace  in 
the  plays  of  any  attempt  to  further  the  aims  of  that 
treatise.  They  must  picture  Bacon  as  a  literary  Jekyll- 
and-Hyde,  alternately  absorbed  in  an  immense  philosophic 
ambition  and  in  a  nerve-wearing  career  of  theatrical 
craftsmanship  from  which  every  thought  of  Baconian 
propaganda  was  expelled. 

At  times,  by  way  of  proving  that  the  same  hand  wrote 
HAMLET  and  the  NOVUM  ORGANUM,  they  dwell  on  such 
coincidences  as  Hamlet's  phrase  about  the  stars  being 
fire  and  the  handling  of  that  very  thesis  in  several  of 
Bacon's  writings.  There  is  here  a  real  point  of  coincident 
interest  or  contact  ;  as  again  in  the  speech  of  Polixenes 
to  Perdita  about  the  art  that  adds  to  nature  being  an  art 


INTELLECTUAL  INTERESTS  529 

that  nature  makes.*  Those  two  topics,  and  some  others, 
had  undoubtedly  occupied,  in  however  different  degrees', 
the  thought  of  both  writers.  But  on  the  theory  that  the 
two  were  one,  why  have  we  only  these  few  coincidences 
of  subject-matter  ?  If  it  were  worth  Bacon's  while  to 
raise  didactically  the  issue  of  Art  versus  Nature  in  THE 
WINTER'S  TALE,  why  should  he  restrict  himself  to  a  single 
brief  discussion  of  that  and  a  bare  mention  of  the  problem 
about  the  physics  of  the  stars  in  HAMLET  ?  Were  these 
alike  uncontrollable  aberrations  from  the  policy  pursued 
(on  the  Baconian  theory)  throughout  all  the  other  plays, 
of  saying  nothing  whatever  about  the  main  aims  to  which 
Bacon  devoted  the  mass  of  his  signed  writing  ?  And  was 
it  by  way  of  self -mortification  that  the  publicist,  who  in 
his  publications  quotes  and  discusses  Aristotle  over  a 
hundred  times,  makes  but  two  jejune  allusions  to  him  in 
the  Plays  ?  If  so,  why  even  these  two,  seeing  that  Plato, 
quoted  or  criticised  over  fifty  times  in  Bacon's  prose,  is 
never  named  in  the  Plays  at  all  ? 

Even  to  a  Baconian  there  must  surely  be  something 
baffling  in  the  contrariness  which  excludes  from  the  Plays 
all  mention  of  Copernicus,  about  whose  theory  Bacon 
was  so  much  concerned,  and  whose  doctrine  was  so 
interesting  a  topic  for  so  many  Elizabethans.  To  a 
student,  the  crudely  conventional  and  ignorant  references 
to  Machiavelli  in  i  and  3  HENRY  VI  are  no  matter  for 
surprise,  the  passages  being  so  plainly  non- Shakespearean  ; 
but  to  the  Baconian,  for  whom  all  "  Shakespeare  "  is 
Bacon,  it  must  at  times,  one  thinks,  seem  odd  that  a 
writer  who  in  his  prose  makes  so  many  intelligent  allusions 
to  Machiavelli  should  write  of  him  so  obtusely  in  blank 
verse.  The  playwright  of  the  Baconians  is  a  mere  miracle 

1  In  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  2nd  ed.  pp.  203-211,  I  have 
traced  the  development  and  vacillation  of  Bacon's  thought  on  this 
problem,  and  noted  its  final  divergence  from  Shakespeare's.  It 
may  well  be  that  both  writers  had  talked  on  the  theme  with  Ben 
Jonson,  the  friend  of  both, 

2L 


530  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

of  self-renunciation.  He  will  not  allow  himself  a  word 
in  promotion  of  his  dearest  scheme.  In  the  ESSAYS  and 
in  his  State  Papers  concerning  Ireland  he  is  deeply  con 
cerned  about  "  plantations  "  :  in  all  the  Plays  the  word 
occurs  but  once,  in  the  line  : 

Had  I  plantation  of  this  isle,  my  lord. 

Tempest,  II,  i,  143. 

In  his  traceable  literary  life,  Bacon  stands  confessed  a 
lover  of  Virgil,  quoting  him  at  least  fifty  times.  In  the 
Plays,  there  are  barely  three  palpable  Virgilian  echoes, 
and  these  of  the  most  hackneyed  kind,  made  in  English  ; 
while  there  are  many,  also  in  English,  from  Ovid,  for 
whom  the  prose-writing  Bacon  shows  much  less  liking. 
But  passing  strange  above  all  this,  on  the  Baconian 
theory,  is  the  fact  that  the  essayist  and  propagandist  who 
was  so  concerned  about  atheism  and  theology  never 
mentions  either  word  in  the  Plays  ;  that  he  who  in  so 
many  philosophical  writings  speaks  of  "  the  light  of 
nature  "  should  never  use  the  phrase  in  his  alleged  work 
in  drama  ;  and  that,  after  devoting  so  many  critical 
pages  to  philosophy,  he  there  uses  the  term  "  philo 
sophical  "  only  once,  in  pure  levity  ! 

It  is  all  too  blankly  unplausible  for  more  detailed 
discussion.  The  Plays  are,  in  a  word,  the  composition  of 
a  man  not  at  all  preoccupied  with  problems  of  scientific 
reform,  though  in  one  passage  he  disposes  unanswerably, 
once  for  all,  of  an  old  theoretic  confusion  over  which 
Bacon  wavered,  seeing  now  clearly  and  now  cloudily. 
The  author  of  THE  TEMPEST  and  THE  WINTER'S  TALE 
had  indeed  brooded  intensely  over  some  of  the  great 
riddles  of  existence,  but  he  was  not  the  schemer  of  a  "  New 
Instauration  "  of  the  sciences  ;  and  as  little  did  he  aspire 
to  reconstruct  the  life  of  Ireland.  He  was  in  no  wise 
zealous  either  to  vindicate  dogmatic  orthodoxy  or  to 
persuade  dogmatists  to  change  their  hearts  and  study 
Nature  with  open  minds  :  it  is  with  a  smile  that  he  makes, 


INTELLECTUAL  INTERESTS  531 

Perdita  propound  their  Polynesian  principles.  Echoing 
Montaigne,  he  will  put  in  the  mouth  of  a  person  in 
a  drama  a  proposition  flouting  naturalist  speculation, 
which  Bacon  would  have  repugned  with  emphasis  ;  yet 
he  is  pervadingly  non-religious  in  his  outlook.  He  was 
no  fulminator  against  atheism,  no  zealous  flatterer  of 
King  James,  no  striver  against  Aristotelian  scholasticism. 
Despite  all  that  has  been  loosely  said  of  his  observation 
of  Nature,  he  was  no  watchful  student  of  her  processes  : 
like  Bacon,  he  loved  flowers,  but  not  with  his  botanical 
bias.1  Of  the  Latin  classics  he  knew  little,  else  he  must 
have  quoted  Virgil  as  lovingly  as  Bacon  does  :  his  Ovid 
he  knew  mainly  from  translation,  partly  by  reminiscence 
from  his  school-days.  To  realise  the  futility  of  the  pre 
tence  that  the  playwright  was  a  good  classical  scholar, 
and  therefore  was  Bacon,  we  have  but  to  turn  from  the 
few  scraps  of  Latin  which  here  and  there  dot  the  Plays, 
— chiefly  three  or  four  which  are  not  of  his  making — 
to  the  pages  of  the  ADVANCEMENT  and  the  ESSAYS,  where, 
for  many  pages  together,  Latin  enters  into  almost  every 
other  sentence,  and  classical  allusion  is  omnipresent. 

One  of  the  standing  theses  of  the  Baconians,  not  thus 
far  considered  in  our  survey,  is  that  Bacon's  proclivity  to 
drama  is  manifested  not  only  by  his  share  in  the  planning 
of  the  masques  at  Gray's  Inn,  but  by  his  allusions  to 
dramatic  poetry  and  the  theatre  in  the  Latin  version  of 
the  ADVANCEMENT  OF  LEARNING,2  and  at  the  close  of  the 
sixth  book  of  the  expanded  treatise.3  It  would  be 
difficult  to  cite  a  better  proof  of  Bacon's  aloofness  from 
the  contemporary  theatre.  He  expressly  complains  that 
though  "  the  stage  is  capable  of  no  small  influence  both  of 
discipline  and  corruption,"  "  Now  of  corruptions  of  this 

1  Mr.  Bayley  notes  (Shakespeare  Symphony,  p.  320)  that  "  A 
knowledge  and  love  of  flowers  as  great  as  that  of  Bacon  and 
Shakespeare  is  exhibited  by  the  minor  dramatists." 

2  DeAugmentis,  ii,  13. 

3  Mr.  G.  C.  Bompas  (Problem  of  the  Shakespeare  Plays,  1902, 
p.  22)  puts  this  passage  (vi,  4,  end)  "  in  the  second  book.'* 


532  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

kind  we  have  enough,  but  the  discipline  has  in  our  times 
been  plainly  neglected."  The  DE  AUGMENTIS  was 
published  in  1623,  the  very  year  of  the  publication  of  the 
Shakespeare  Folio.  What  then  is  the  Baconian  position 
here  ?  That  Bacon  meant  his  sweeping  dispraise  to  apply 
only  to  other  people's  plays,  he  having  for  his  part  been 
carrying  on  for  twenty  years  the  discipline  which  he 
declared  to  have  been  "  in  our  times  plainly  neglected  "  ? 
The  procedure  could  be  fitly  described  only  in  the  verna 
cular — as  "  crying  stinking  fish."  If  Bacon  had  taken 
the  pains  to  write  seven-and-thirty  plays,  he  must  be 
supposed  to  have  intended  them  to  be  witnessed.  Here 
he  is  warning  all  men  off.  The  disparagement  of  the 
whole  Elizabethan  drama  can  mean  only  one  thing,  that 
it  did  not  at  all  realise  Bacon's  ideal  of  moral  propaganda. 
In  his  blame  he  included  perforce  much  if  not  all  of  the 
work  of  his  sworn  admirer,  Ben  Jonson.  Would  the  man 
who  blamed  that  for  lack  of  moral  purpose,  and  who  saw 
nothing  but  lack  of  discipline  in  Dekker  and  Webster  and 
Heywood,  no  less  than  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
eulogise  in  the  mass  the  Plays  of  Shakespeare  ?  Bacon, 
in  a  word,  had  not  the  playgoing  temperament.  He  was 
all  for  moral  and  intellectual  improvement,  not  for  spon 
taneous  life,  the  pell-mell  of  poetry  and  ribaldry,  tragedy 
and  farce,  that  crowded  the  Elizabethan  boards.  It  does 
not  follow  that  before  his  official  advancement  he  had  not 
from  time  to  time  seen  a  play  and  carried  away  with  him 
a  line  or  two  ;  but  he  was  verily  no  haunter  of  theatres. 
The  passage  at  the  end  of  the  sixth  book  is  equally  a 
confutation  of  the  Baconian  claim  founded  on  it .  Recom 
mending,  in  his  admiration  of  the  Jesuit  methods  of 
pedagogy,  the  teaching  of  the  art  of  acting  in  the  schools, 
he  pronounces  stage-playing  (actio  theatralis)  "  a  thing 
indeed,  if  practised  professionally,  of  low  repute  ;  but,  if 
it  be  made  a  'part  of  discipline,  ...  of  excellent  use." 
This  is  not  a  recommendation  of  the  theatre  :  it  is  a 
recommendation  to  avoid  it,  and  to  promote  the  acting 


INTELLECTUAL  INTERESTS  533 

of  didactic  plays  in  the  schools  under  pedagogic  auspices. 
And  there  is  on  record  even  a  more  pronounced  expression 
of  Bacon's  substantial  antipathy  to  the  theatre  of  his  day. 
When,  in  1614,  the  Thames  watermen,  led  by  John 
Taylor,  the  Water-Poet,  presented  their  petition  to  the 
King  to  put  a  stop  to  the  removal  of  the  playhouses  from 
the  south  to  the  north  side  of  the  river,  a  change  which; 
they  said,  took  away  half  their  livelihood,  it  was  referred 
by  James  to  his  "  Commissioners  for  Suits,"  who  then 
included  Sir  Francis  Bacon.  The  King's  Players  (Shake 
speare's  company)  put  in  a  counter  petition.  But,  says 
Taylor, 

our  extremities  and  cause  being  judiciously  pondered  by  the 
Honourable  and  Worshipfull  Commissioners,  Sir  Francis  Bacon 
very  worthily  said  that  so  farre  forth  as  the  Publike  weale  was  to 
be  regarded  before  pastimes,  or  a  serviceable  decaying  multitude 
before  a  handful  of  particular  men,  or  profit  before  pleasure,  so 
far  was  our  suite  to  be  preferred  before  theirs. 

Before  any  decision  was  come  to,  the  Commission  was 
dissolved,  and  the  matter  dropped,  poor  Taylor  being  in 
due  course  accused  by  his  fellow  watermen  of  taking  bribes 
from  the  players  to  let  the  suit  fall.1 

The  Baconians,  no  doubt,  are  honestly  ignorant  of  the 
existence  of  this  record  ;  and  now  that  it  is  cited  they 
will  probably  seek  to  explain  it  away.  Bacon  had 
declared  against  the  cause  of  the  very  company  of  players 
who,  according  to  the  Baconians,  were  acting  his  plays  ; 
disparaging  their  work  as  "  pastime,"  even  as  he  later 
disparaged  the  theatre  in  general  as  devoid  of  the  "  dis 
cipline  "  he  cared  about.  We  shall  be  told,  doubtless, 
that  he  had  to  conceal  his  connection  with  the  players — 
that  connection  which,  according  to  the  same  theorists, 
was  actually  known  all  the  while  to  Ben  Jonson  and  many 
others  !  Thus  does  the  Baconian  theory  proceed  from 
inconsequence  to  inconsequence. 

1  The  True  Cause  of  the  Watermen's  Suit  concerning  Players,  in 
Taylor's  Workes,  1630,  Section  Second,  pp.  172-3- 


534  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

The  rational  reader,  following  all  Bacon's  pronounce 
ments  on  dramatic  and  theatrical  matters,  can  see  that 
they  consist  with  each  other,  and  tell  of  a  general  dis 
satisfaction  with  what  is  being  done.  Dramatic  Poesy  he 
commended  as  a  vehicle  for  moral  instruction  ;  and 
perhaps  FERREX  AND  PORREX  might  have  satisfied  him 
as  a  duly  didactic  performance.  The  plays  he  wanted  to 
be  performed  in  the  schools  could  not  conceivably  be 
those  which  the  Baconians  declare  him  to  have  written. 
In  the  matter  of  the  watermen's  petition  he  took  up  his 
usual  protectionist  attitude.  The  watermen  were  losing 
much  of  the  custom  by  which  they  lived,  and  he  was 
perfectly  willing  to  meet  their  wishes,  on  the  professed 
principle  of  putting  "  profit  before  pastime,"  when  in 
point  of  fact  the  profit  in  question  depended  solely  on  the 
continuance  of  the  pastime  in  a  particular  place.  If 
Bacon  disapproved  of  the  change,  his  "  tool  "  Shake 
speare  and  the  rest  of  the  company  were  flouting  the 
wishes  of  their  own  playwright  ;  and  he  in  turn,  by  seek 
ing  to  thwart  them,  was,  on  the  Baconian  hypothesis, 
provoking  them  to  reveal  his  secret.  The  rational  and 
natural  reading  of  the  facts  yields  a  perfectly  intelligible 
situation  :  the  Baconian  theory  reduces  it,  as  usual,  to 
nightmare.  Yet  I  doubt  not  that  some  Baconians  will 
promptly  accuse  their  idol  of  gross  hypocrisy  in  order  to 
maintain  their  theory  of  his  authorship. 

But  perhaps  the  wildest  inconsequence  of  all  in  the 
Baconian  case  is  its  utter  disregard  of  the  fact,  witnessed- 
to  alike  by  the  precept  and  the  practice  of  Bacon,  that  he 
was  latterly  either  so  convinced  of  the  coming  "  bank 
ruptcy  "  of  the  modern  languages  as  to  be  moved  to  put 
forth  all  his  serious  didactic  matter  in  Latin,  or  anxious 
enough  for  foreign  appreciation  to  forego  much  of  the 
audience  he  might  have  secured  at  home  by  writing  in  his 
mother  tongue.  The  Baconians  would  have  us  believe 
that  the  Bacon  who  composed  even  the  WISDOM  OF  THE 
ANCIENTS  in  Latin,  rather  than  spend  less  time  in  putting 


INTELLECTUAL  INTERESTS  535 

it  forth  in  English,  determinedly  gave  himself  to  the 
writing  of  thousands  of  pages  of  plays  in  English,  mostly 
in  verse,  with  a  great  deal  of  "  comic  relief  "  in  prose, 
much  of  it  to  be  spoken  by  stage  clowns.  And,  as  if  this 
were  not  enough  in  mass,  they  would  have  him  be  author 
of  a  play  (RICHARD  II)  the  reproduction  of  which1  in 
1601  at  the  request  of  the  fellow  conspirators  of  Essex, 
on  the  day  before  his  rising,  brought  upon  the  theatre  the 
sharp  displeasure  of  the  Government,  and  a  veto  on 
further  performance — this  at  a  time  when  Bacon  was 
compelled  by  his  official  position  to  repudiate  all  share  in 
his  former  patron's  proceedings  (as  he  had  long  done), 
and  was  on  the  eve  of  being  called  upon  to  prosecute  the 
rebels,  as  law  officer  of  the  crown.  Do  the  Baconians, 
one  wonders,  suppose  that  Bacon  was  playing  fast  and 
loose,  running  with  the  hare  and  hunting  with  the 
hounds  ?  If  so,  they  outgo  his  enemies  in  imputation 
against  him. 

It  is  all  of  a  piece  with  the  perversity  that,  without 
blenching,  ascribes  to  Bacon  the  authorship  of  the  Sonnets, 
wherein  the  poet  avows  his  "  rude  ignorance,"  as  in  the 
dedication  of  the  LUCRECE  he  had  spoken  of  his  "  un 
tutored  lines  "  ;  avows  that  he  is  one  whose  "  name 
receives  a  brand/'  so  that 

Almost  thence  my  nature  is  subdued 

To  what  it  works  in,  like  the  dyer's  hand  ;  2 

making  the  actor's  confession  : 

It  is  most  true,  I  have  gone  here  and  there, 

And  made  myself  a  motley  to  the  view, 
Gored  mine  own  thoughts,  sold  cheap  what  is  most  dear, 

Made  old  offences  of  affections  new  ; 3 

1  Messrs.  Clark  and  Wright  in  their  Clarendon  Press  ed.  of 
Richard  II  say  "  it  is  certain  that  this  was  not  Shakespeare's  play." 
I  know  not  whence  they  derived  their  certainty.     Few  other 
scholars  share  it.     Had  Shakespeare's  company  two  plays  on 
Richard  II  ? 

2  Sonnet  in.  3  Sonnet  110. 


536  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

and  telling  of  an  unhappy  love-affair  of  which  there  is  no 
faintest  trace  or  hint  in  Bacon's  biography. 

At  every  turn  in  the  investigation,  the  monstrosity  of 
the  whole  theorem  becomes  more  amazing,  the  incre 
dibility  more  mountainous.  The  form  which  it  has 
finally  taken — the  proposition  that  Bacon,  writing  the 
Plays  during  a  period  of  twenty  years,  chose  as  his  literary 
representative  a  "  clown  "  who  could  not  even  sign  his 
name  (for  to  this  complexion  the  argument  has  come), 
contriving  that  a  secret  thus  alleged  to  be  necessarily 
known  to  a  whole  theatrical  company,  and  inferrible  by 
all  Shakespeare's  fellow  dramatists,  should  be  absolutely 
withheld  from  public  or  official  knowledge  ;  and  yet  all 
the  while  planning  endless  crazy  "  ciphers  "  which  would 
reveal  not  only  that  "  secret  "  but  a  hundred  others  to  a 
remote  posterity  in  the  event  of  that  cipher  being  guessed 
at — the  total  allegation  is  a  critical  chimera  which 
staggers  judgment  and  beggars  comment. 

Yet  it  will  go  on  being  propounded,  by  men  who  make 
no  attempt  to  rebut  confutations,  heaping  farce  on 
fallacy,  facing  no  difficulty,  ignoring  mountains  of  dis 
proof.  Again  we  can  foresee  the  form  of  answer  which 
such  partisans  will  make  to  the  argument  of  this  chapter. 
They  will  revert  for  the  nonce  to  one  of  the  terms  of  Mr. 
William  Theobald's  self-contradiction.  After  claiming 
that  Bacon  "  reveals  "  himself  in  the  plays  by  duplica 
tions  of  phrase,  idea,  and  word,  they  will  now  argue  that 
on  the  contrary  he  could  not  put  his  ideas  in  the  plays 
because  he  would  thereby  "  reveal  "  his  identity.  Re 
turning  to  the  "  coincidences,"  they  will  again  claim  to 
stand  on  these  as  revelations.  Heads,  the  Baconian 
wins ;  tails,  the  Stratfordian  loses.  Two  mutually 
exclusive  principles  are  alternately  employed  to  defend 
one  proposition  ;  and  a  semblance  of  reasoning  serves  to 
accredit  two  theses  which  contrarily  flout  reason.  If 
Bacon  had  reason  to  fear  being  known  to  be  a  playwright; 
why  in  the  name  of  common  sense,  should  he  have  put 


INTELLECTUAL  INTERESTS  537 

himself  in  jeopardy  by  adapting  or  writing  or  collaborating 
in  thirty-seven  plays  in  collusion  with  a  fraudulent  actor, 
whose  secret  is  alleged  to  have  been  actually  divined  by 
his  literary  contemporaries,  must,  and  in  the  terms  of 
the  case,  have  been  known  to  his  colleagues  ?  If  Bacon 
desired  to  keep  secret  his  authorship,  why,  in  the  name  of 
sanity,  should  he  sow  the  bulk  of  the  plays  with  law 
phrases  which,  according  to  the  Baconians,  reveal  the 
deepest  legal  knowledge,  when,  all  the  while,  he  puts  no 
such  legal  seasoning  in  his  signed  works  of  a  non-legal 
character  ?  If  Bacon  dared  not  turn  his  plays  to  any  of 
the  purposes  of  his  life,  why,  in  the  name  of  Baconism, 
did  he  write  them  ?  And  if,  finally,  he  dared  not  reveal 
himself,  why  did  he  supererogatorily  reveal  himself  to 
contemporaries  as  the  Baconians,  most  of  the  time,  allege 
that  he  did  ?  To  these  questions  there  is  no  answer. 
Stat  pro  ratione  voluntas. 

To  convince  such  reasoners,  be  it  plainly  said,  is  not 
even  desirable.  But  to  prevent  the  recruiting  of  the  army 
of  the  deluded  by  minds  yet  capable  of  rational  enlighten 
ment  may  be  possible  ;  and  to  that  charitable  end  it  may 
be  well  to  indicate  one  more  set  of  facts,  singly  sufficient 
to  satisfy  any  reasonable  reader,  not  only  that  the  Plays 
were  the  work  of  a  man  of  the  theatre,  an  "  insider  "  and 
not  an  outsider  ;  but  that  whatever  may  have  been  the 
measure  of  occasional  collaboration  in  the  Plays  from 
outside,  and  whatever  the  amount  of  adaptation  of  other 
men's  work  in  them,  the  general  authorship  and  the 
source  of  adaptation  can  be  vested  in  no  other  man  than 
the  actor-partner,  Shakespeare. 


i 


CHAPTER  XIV 

EXTERNAL  AND   CIRCUMSTANTIAL   EVIDENCE: 
LIVES   AND   PERSONALITIES 

§1 

Baconian  hypothesis,  it  is  obvious,  arises  in 
a  certain  tendency  to  an  a  priori  view  of  what 
was  likely  to  have  been  the  preparation,  and 
what  was  likely  to  have  been  the  way  of  life,  of 
the  supreme  dramatist.  All  worship  presupposes  worship 
ful  characteristics  ;  and  in  regard  to  literary  genius,  more 
than  to  any  other  form  of  human  faculty,  men  are  prone 
to  associate  other  forms  of  excellence  with  those  put  in 
evidence  by  the  writer's  work.  One  result  of  this  pro 
pensity,  as  I  have  elsewhere  remarked,  is  that  nearly 
every  full  biography  of  a  great  man  of  letters  sets  up 
disappointment.  A  Southey  may  gain  from  biography  ; 
a  Shakespeare  cannot,  simply  because  literary  admiration 
has  given  him  every  possible  advance  on  credit.  We 
know  that  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  delightful  as  it 
was  to  be  to  later  generations,  for  whom  Dr.  Johnson 
was  not  a  dictator  in  letters  and  morals,  was  a  shock  to 
many  of  his  admirers  in  that  which  received  it  ;  and  that 
Lockhart's  perfectly  loyal  Life  of  Scott,  in  respect  of 
its  revelations  of  the  great  man's  financial  and  other 
weaknesses,  actually  set  up  speculation  as  to  whether  the 
son-in-law  wrote  with  a  hostile  animus.  Milton  and 
Shelley  and  Keats  and  Coleridge  are  similarly  disad- 
vantaged  for  adoring  readers  of  their  verse  by  the  publica 
tion  of  their  lives  and  letters.  And  so  it  has  been;  for 
men  of  our  idealising  age,  with  the  short  and  simple 
annals  of  the  greatest  of  English  dramatic  poets.  Men 

538 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  539 

not  given  to  the  study  of  the  psychology  of  genius  frame 
for  themselves  an  unreal  conception  of  its  conditions  and 
bases.  It  is  only  after  a  cool  comparative  study  of  the 
lives  of  the  masters  of  speech  and  portraiture  and  song— 
as  Catullus  and  Poe,  Tourguenief  and  Dostoyevsky, 
Villon  and  Burns,  Goethe  and  Heine,  Carlyle  and  Ruskin-^ 
that  we  are  qualified  to  check  our  instinctive  expectation 
by  a  real  knowledge  of  probabilities. 
^  Emerson  had  not  done  so  when  he  wrote  concerning 
Shakespeare  that  he  "  could  not  marry  this  man's  life  to 
his  verse."  He  had  formed  an  ideal  of  a  supreme 
intellect,  identifying  genius  for  utterance  with  genius  for 
universal  judgment,  a  commanding  power  of  speech  with 
command  over  all  environment.  And  Emerson's  lead 
has  been  followed  by  those — university  men  and  others — 
unable  to  conceive  how  the  greatest  English  poet  can 
have  been  a  man  of  short  schooling,  who  gathered  what 
knowledge  he  had  outside  of  libraries  and  colleges.  They 
first  grossly  exaggerate  his  knowledge  under  the  spell  of 
his  art,  ascribing  to  him  scholarship  and  legal  and  other 
acquirements  which  he  did  not  possess  :  then  they  call 
for  a  man  who  shall  square  with  their  ideal.  And  so  we 
have  the  "  Baconian "  theory  and  the  "  anti-Strat- 
fordian  "  argument.  I  propose  now  to  examine  the 
a  priori  side  of  these  positions,  testing  it  by  the  relevant 
considerations,  as  we  have  tested  all  the  attempts  to 
reinforce  it  by  literary  evidence,  beginning  with  the  more 
concrete. 

§2 

One  of  the  surprises  of  the  controversy  is  the  readiness 
with  which  a  number  of  men  avowedly  incline  to  accept 
any  hypothesis  of  the  non-Shakespearean  authorship  of 
the  plays  on  the  score  of  the  strangeness  of  the  actor's 
apparent  indifference  to  their  preservation.  The  assump 
tion  is  that  none  of  the  quartos  printed  in  Shakespeare's 
lifetime  was  authorised  :  and  that  the  actor's  abstention 


540  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

from  issuing  a  collected  edition  implies  an  indifference 
which  in  his  case  would  be  unintelligible.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  issue  of  the  Folio  in  1623  can  by  such  reasoners 
be  without  misgiving  set  down  to  Bacon,  though  the 
actor-partners  who  caused  it  to  be  published  ascribe  the 
plays  to  Shakespeare  in  the  most  unqualified  terms,  as 
does  Ben  Jonson  in  his  prefixed  poem.  This  ascription, 
declared  to  be  deliberately  false,  is  regarded  as  a  trifle 
that  puts  no  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  Baconian  theory  ; 
while  the  actor's  mere  delay  in  publishing  his  plays,  to 
which  he  had  been  adding  up  to  and  even  after  the 
time  of  his  retirement  (presumably  in  broken  health),  is 
regarded  as  an  inexplicable  phenomenon,  on  the  assump 
tion  of  his  authorship. 

A  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  Farmer  put  the  rational 
explanation  that  the  plays  were  not  Shakespeare's  to 
publish  ;  that  they  belonged  to  the  theatre-partnership  ; 
and  that  it  was  not  to  its  interest  to  print  plays  which 
continued  to  draw  audiences.  This  reasonable  suggestion 
might  very  well  serve  to  allay  any  reasonable  wonder. 
But  even  in  the  eighteenth  century  it  was  urged  that  all 
the  quarto  issues  could  not  plausibly  be  held  to  have  been 
piratical ;  and  in  the  latest  and  most  competent  discussion 
of  the  problem,  Mr.  A.  W.  Pollard's  SHAKESPEARE  FOLIOS 
AND  QUARTOS  (1909),  this  contention  is  pressed  to  good 
purpose.  The  common-sense  view  of  the  case  is  that, 
seeing  the  piratical  publication  of  plays — whether  from 
stenographers'  notes  or  from  stolen  manuscripts — was 
clearly  a  source  of  profit,  the  actors  who  owned  plays 
would  naturally  publish  them  when  they  ceased  to 
"  draw,"  or  when  for  any  reason  the  theatres  were  closed. 
This  is  the  reasonable  explanation  of  the  uncommonly 
abundant  publication  of  plays  in  1593-94,  when  the 
theatres  were  closed  for  a  spell  of  eight  months  on  account 
of  the  plague  ;  and  again  in  1600,  when  the  number  of 
the  licensed  theatres  was  reduced  to  two,  and  their 
performances  .to  two  per  week,  with  a  close  time  for  Lent. 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  541 

In  each  of  the  two  short  periods  specified,  the  number  of 
plays  entered  in  the  Stationers'  Register  rises  to  twenty- 
eight  ;  whereas  in  the  eight  years  1585-92  only  nine 
plays  were  entered,  and  in  the  years  1596-99  (after 
January  1596)  only  nine  more.1 

Further,  we  find  that  with  the  single  exception  of  , 
LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST,  all  the  quartos  which  are  found  ' 
to  have  "  good  "  texts,  or  to  have  been  used  in  preparing  j 
the  Folio,  were  duly  entered  in  the  Register  before  being 
printed  ;  whereas  all  the  quartos  with  "  bad  "  texts  were  * 
either  not  entered  prior  to  publication  or  entered  in  a 
suspicious  fashion,  and  printed  by  a  dubious  printer. 
There  thus  arises  the  inference  that  the  "  good  "  quartos 
had  been  printed  by  authority.  To  this  exposition 
Mr.  Pollard  adds  a  convincing  demonstration  that  certain 
of  the  "  1600  "  and  other  quartos  were  really  reprints  of 
1619,  and  may  conceivably  have  formed  part  of  an 
intended  complete  issue  of  the  plays  in  separate  quartos. 
With  this  very  interesting  matter,  however,  we  are  not 
here  concerned.  It  suffices  for  us  that — whether  it  was 
he  or  the  partnership  that  suggested  the  genuine  issues  of 
the  quartos — Shakespeare  is  shown  not  to  have  been  so 
indifferent  to  the  preservation  of  his  plays  as  has  com 
monly  been  supposed,  and  was  thus  no  such  prodigy  of 
literary  unconcern  as  to  justify  any  resort  to  a  desperate 
search  for  another  author,  who,  moreover,  in  the  terms  of 
the  case,  showed  no  more  anxiety  than  he  did. 

Still,  there  can  be  no  pretence  that  Shakespeare  did 
show  anxiety  to  have  his  plays  properly  printed.  Some 
of  the  authorised  quartos  seem  to  have  been  printed 
either  to  suppress  piracies  or  to  prevent  them.  They 
were  not  supervised  by  Shakespeare.  It  is  clear  that  he 
did  not  properly — if  at  all — read  the  proofs  even  of  the 
"  good  "  quartos  ;  and  if  one  might  hazard  a  speculation 
on  that  head,  it  would  be  that  he,  who  so  constantly 
outran  the  clock  in  his  plot  construction,  and  wrote  with 
i  Pollard,  as  cited,  pp.  9-10. 


542  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

an  ease  of  composition  which  it  annoyed  Ben  Jonson  to 
hear  of,  was  not  likely  to  be  a  good  proof  reader  if  he 
tried.  Further,  it  is  well  that  we  should  make  the  effort 
to  conceive  that  the  supreme  master  of  dramatic  objec 
tivity,  whose  highest  gift  lay  precisely  in  his  power  of 
projecting  himself  into  other  personalities,  may  not  have 
been  much  exercised  to  see  his  plays  in  print.  Signally 
spontaneous  in  his  first  composition,  he  was  as  ready  as 
other  men  to  see  need  for  revision  later  ;  better  than  any 
one,  he  knew  the  weakness  of  the  alien  work  he  had  taken 
over  ;  and  he  may  well  have  felt  that  a  mere  printing  of 
all  the  plays  as  they  had  left  his  hand  would  give  him 
more  vexation  than  pleasure.  He  could  hardly  have 
foreseen  that  an  adoring  posterity  would  come  to  read 
with  reverence,  as  his,  all  the  bombast  and  platitude  and 
bad  versification  by  other  men,  which  he  had  left  in  the 
stage  versions  ;  and  if  he  could  have  foreseen  it,  he  might 
fitly  be  credited  with  disrelish  for  such  uncritical  worship. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  surely  not  inconceivable  that  he 
may  have  scrupled  to  claim,  in  the  perpetuity  of  print, 
over  his  name,  the  credit  for  a  quantity  of  invention  by 
other  men  to  which  he  may  have  been  modest  enough  to 
attach  some  importance.  On  the  one  hand,  he  had  the 
choice  of  the  toil  of  rewriting  all  that  inferior  work  at  a 
time  of  failing  health  ;  on  the  other  hand  he  had  the 
choice  of  publishing  all  that  composite  work,  of  so  much 
of  which  he  of  all  men  best  knew  the  poverty,  with 
elaborate  explanations  of  its  literary  history,  telling  how 
this  scene  was  mainly  Greene's  or  Marlowe's  ;  and  that 
other  mainly  his  own  rewriting  of  their  or  Peele's  verse  : 
how  in  this  case  he  had  elected  to  rewrite  an  entire  play 
(as  LEAR)  and  how  in  another  (as  HAMLET)  he  had 
continuously  recast,  yet  retained  some  little  of,  the  old 
material.  What  should  move  him  to  either  of  these 
burdensome  courses  ?  We  are  here  facing  a  problem 
never  glimpsed  by  the  Baconians  ;  but  one  which  Mr. 
Greenwood  is  both  able  and  bound  to  face,  though  he  has 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  543 

not  considered  it  in  his  book,  which  runs  so  much  to  the 
uncritical  and  unprofitable  endorsation  of  Lord  Campbell 
and  the  classicists. 

And  it  is  a  problem  constantly  ignored  by  those  who 
dilate  on  the  "  strangeness  "  of  Shakespeare's  unconcern. 
If  any  one  accustomed  to  stand  at  that  point  of  view  will 
reflect  that  certainly  in  much,  and  probably  in  most,  of 
Shakespeare's  ostensible  work  there  is  old  matter  either 
worked  over  or  simply  retained,  or  matter  actually 
supplied  by  collaborators,  he  will  realise  that  for  Shake 
speare  to  publish  all  his  Plays  as  his  works  would  have 
been  a  very  different  thing  from  the  undertaking  to  that 
effect  by  Ben  Jonson.  Shakespeare  had  in  his  youth 
been  railed  at  by  Greene,  the  dying  playwright,  for 
eking  out  his  and  others'  handiwork ;  and  a  friend  of 
Greene's  had  later  asserted  openly  that  men  who  had 
eclipsed  Greene's  fame  in  comedy  had  stolen  his  plumes, 
challenging  them  to  deny  it.  Supposing — as  we  so  well 
may — that  several  of  Shakespeare's  comedies  were  recasts 
of  Greene's  originals,  and  recognising  as  we  must  that  a 
number  of  the  history-plays  and  tragedies  were  un 
doubtedly  either  revisions  or  recasts  of  other  men's  work, 
we  must  surely  realise  that  for  a  man  of  moderately 
sensitive  literary  conscience — such  as  the  great  master 
presumably  was — it  was  not  possible  to  issue  the  plays 
as  his  own  work  in  the  fashion  in  which  the  partners  did 
it  after  his  death.  To  buy  and  adapt  and  revise  and 
recast  for  the  theatre  was  both  permissible  and  customary ; 
and  as  a  play  had  to  have  a  responsible  author  for  all 
purposes,  he  had  no  need  to  scruple  over  being  named  as 
the  author  of  the  acting  plays  in  which  his  own  work  was 
incomparably  the  best,  where  he  had  done  any  recasting. 
Assuredly  he  wrote  "  for  gain,  not  glory,"  in  the  first 
instance  ;  though  genius  irresistibly  had  the  casting  vote. 
After  the  two  "  first-fruit  "  poems  he  prepared  nothing 
for  the  press,  definitely  electing  to  be  a  writer  for  the 
stage.  To  leave  his  composite  plays  to  the  chances  of  the 


544  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

stage  and  the  guardianship  of  his  partners  was  really  as 
congruous  a  course  on  his  part  as  some  have  thought  it 
incongruous. 

And  if  we  make  a  further  effort  in  the  way  of  compara 
tive  criticism  we  may  realise  that,  even  apart  from  the 
fact  that  the  fathering  of  the  plays  in  print  would  have 
made  him  permanently  responsible  for  a  quantity  of 
matter  which  not  only  was  not  his  but  was  in  every  way 
inferior  to  his,  there  is  a  further  consideration  which 
should  at  least  appeal  to  those  theorists  whom  I  am  now 
answering.  To  publish  one's  own  plays  in  that  day  was 
in  a  manner  to  acknowledge  that  they  had  no  very  sure 
future  on  the  stage.1  A  feeling  of  this  kind  might  fairly 
have  been  credited,  in  the  name  of  modesty,  to  Ben 
Jonson,  who  in  1616  published  his  collected  plays  and 
poems,  in  folio,  as  his  "  Works,"  and  thereby  incurred 
much  derision  for  his  vanity.  No  playwright  had  ever 
done  it  before,  as  indeed  no  other  playwright  well  could. 
Jonson  had  doubtless  to  receive  many  owners'  permis 
sions,  which  he  would  get  the  more  easily  because  so  many 
of  his  plays  had  no  abiding  attraction  on  the  boards. 
After  all,  if  Shakespeare  in  his  latter  years — when  the 
competition  of  new  men  like  Beaumont  and  Fletcher 
moved  him  to  compare  with  them  in  the  matter  of 
elaborate  plot -construction,  as  in  CYMBELINE  and  THE 
WINTER'S  TALE  2 — were  concerned  rather  to  hope  for 
continued  vogue  in  the  theatre  than  to  fall  back  on  the 
solace  of  sales  among  the  reading  public,  it  would  really 
have  been  a  disposition  on  his  part  sufficiently  human  to 
appeal  to  those  who  profess  to  find  it  incredible  that  such 
an  author  should  have  "  left  his  works  to  chance.'* 
Publication  would  have  meant  for  him  not  so  much 
success  as  withdrawal ;  and  we  are  really  not  entitled  to 

1  Or  else  to  cheat  the  theatre,  as  Heywood  implies  that  some 
playwrights  did. 

2  Compare  on  this,   Mr.   Barrett  Wendell's   William  Shake 
speare,  1894, 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  545 

suppose  that  when  he  retired  to  Stratford  he  thought 
himself  played  out  as  a  dramatist. 

But  now,  supposing  this  line  of  reasoning  to  be  still 
resisted  by  the  "  anti-Stratfordians,"  what  is  to  be  said 
of  the  Baconian  theory  in  the  same  connection  ?  It 
simply  disappears.  The  proposition  that  Bacon  did 
cause  the  Plays  to  be  published  collectively  in  1623, 
without  any  supervision  of  the  press,  with  all  their 
imperfections  and  their  alloy  on  their  heads,  in  order  to 
preserve  his  work  for  posterity,  breaks  down  instantly  on 
confrontation  with  the  typographical  facts.  The  Folio 
text,  though  printed  from  authorised  quartos  and  from 
theatre  manuscripts,  abounds  in  the  most  baffling  misprints 
and  confusions,  which  no  author  could  have  passed, 
and  which  are  not  to  be  paralleled  in  any  book  of  Bacon's. 
And,  having  regard  to  the  fortuitous  late  inclusion  of 
TROILUS,  and  the  omission  of  PERICLES,  it  is  inconceivable 
that  the  responsible  author  had  any  hand  in  the  business. 
All  the  while,  upon  the  very  argument  with  which  we  are 
dealing,  Bacon  must  be  held  to  have  shown  just  such 
disregard  for  his  literary  progeny  as  Shakespeare  is  said 
to  have  done  ;  for  Bacon,  in  the  terms  of  the  theory, 
allowed  his  plays  to  lie  uncollected  or  unpublished  till 
1623,  and  set  himself  to  issue  them  only  after  his  fall  had 
given  him  new  and  utterly  unexpected  leisure.  If  it  be 
argued  that  up  till  then  he  had  delayed  the  matter  for 
lack  of  leisure,  it  follows  that  but  for  his  ruin  he  might 
never  have  issued  them  at  all.  Thus  the  argument  from 
"  strange  indifference  "  recoils  upon  and  destroys  the 
Baconian  case. 

§3 

But  this  is  only  the  beginning  of  the  circumstantial 
exposure  of  the  insanity  of  the  Baconian  theory. 

It  has  evidently  never  occurred  to  the  Baconians  to 
wonder  why  the  philosopher-playwright  of  their  fantasy  soi 
strictly  bent  himself,  not  to  any  philosophic  plan  or  any 

2M 


546  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

exposition  of  his  own  intellectual  aims,  but  to  the  simple 
commercial  needs  of  a  going  theatre,  on  lines  dictated  by 
the  theatrical  circumstances.  Even  on  the  most  conser 
vative  view,  the  Plays  are,  as  we  have  said,  largely 
adaptations  or  reconstructions  of  previous  plays.  KING 
JOHN  and  HENRY  V  and  the  HENRY  VI  group  and 
RICHARD  III  are  certainly  based  on  previous  plays  ;  as 
are  HAMLET,  LEAR,  ROMEO  AND  JULIET,  MEASURE  FOR 
MEASURE,  THE  TAMING  OF  THE  SHREW,  and  probably 
OTHELLO  and  THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE.  MACBETH, 
TROILUS,  PERICLES,  TIMON,  and  HENRY  VIII,  are  all 
admittedly  either  reconstructions  of  previous  plays  or 
works  of  collaboration  ; 1  and  a  similar  thesis  might  be 
put  as  to  the  COMEDY  OF  ERRORS,  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST, 
THE  Two  GENTLEMEN,  and  ALL'S  WELL.  RICHARD  II 
and  JULIUS  CAESAR  both  raise  problems  of  derivation.  As 
to  TITUS  ANDRONICUS,  apart  from  the  Germans  and  a 
few  English  critics,  even  those  who  suppose  Shakespeare 
to  have  had  some  hand  in  the  play  limit  his  share  narrowly, 
recognising  that  there  was  certainly  a  previous  play  on 
the  subject.  All  these  critical  data,  at  which  the 
Baconians  hardly  ever  glance,  are  part  of  the  problem  for 
real  students. 

Now,  the  facts  in  question  go  as  naturally  with  Shake 
speare's  authorship  as  they  are  irreconcilable  with  Bacon's. 
The  actor-partner  dealt  with  old  plays  as  an  actor- 
partner  would.  He  supplied  his  company  on  business 
like  lines,  revising  and  recasting  plays  which  had  actually 
been  found  to  attract  the  public,  and  making  new 
experiments  from  time  to  time.  But  the  Baconian  theory_ 
invites  us  to  contemplate  Bacon  as  habitually  arranging 
with  the  theatre  people,  during  a  period  of  twenty  years, 
for  adaptations,  adjustments,  revisions,  expansions,  and 
reconstructions  of  plays  previously  on  the  boards — nay, 
as  collaborating  from  time  to  time  with  other  dramatists 

1  In  Macbeth,  the  non-Shakespearean  element  is  small,  but  it  is 
unmistakable. 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  547 

— and  all  the  while  counting  on  having  his  secret  kept  by  all 
concerned.  I  believe  that  any  one  who  simply  takes  a 
little  pains  to  realise  what  a  state  of  things  is  thus  posited 
will  need  no  further  persuasion  to  dismiss  the  Baconian 
theory-^though  a  sufficiency  of  confutation  on  other  lines 
has,  I  rfope,  been  supplied  in  the  foregoing  chapters.  And 
to  the  unknown  lawyer  of  Mr.  Greenwood's  nugatory 
hypothesis,  the  "  busy  man  "  writing  plays  and  poems 
during  a  lifetime  under  the  name  of  an  actor,  never  dis 
closing  his  identity,  the  concrete  recognition  of  the 
situation  involved  is  no  less  fatal. 

Incongruities  of  detail  as  between  the  literary  facts  and 
their  theory  are  acknowledged  by  some  Baconians.  Even 
Dr.  Theobald  admits  that  the  contrast  between  the 
handling  of  love  in  the  Plays  and  that  in  the  Essay  OF 
LOVE  has  staggered  many  of  the  faith.  He  proceeds  to 
resolve  it  by  arguing  that  Bacon  in  the  different  cases  had 
different  objects  in  view  ;  that  the  Essay  is  a  deliberately 
objective  and  as-it-were  scientific  study  ;  whereas  in  the 
Plays  love  is  naturally  handled  as  the  great  force  it  is  in 
human  life  ;  though  even  there,  Dr.  Theobald  contends, 
love  is  always  "  subordinate."  I  leave  it  to  the  reader 
to  pronounce  for  himself  on  this  precious  philosopheme. 
Thus  far  I  have  been  careful  to  meet  every  concrete 
Baconian  argument  with  a  concrete  rebuttal ;  but  when 
it  comes  to  the  aesthetic  appraisement  of  the  total  literary 
and  psychic  content  of  the  Plays  and  the  Works,  one 
may,  in  passing,  fitly  meet  Baconian  asseveration  with 
flat  counter-claim.  And  I  submit  to  the  reader  who  has 
an  aesthetic  sense,  that  the  kind  of  feeling  or  temperament 
and  the  land  of  literary  faculty  underlying  the  Plays  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  Works  on  the  other,  are  about  as 
different  as  those  of  Burns  and  Hume,  or  those  of  Rabelais 
and  Descartes.  I  have  lived,  I  suppose,  as  much  in  the 
spiritual  society  of  both  Shakespeare  and  Bacon  as  the 
majority  of  men  of  letters,  and  I  have  never  for  a  moment 
felt  it  to  be  otherwise  than  a  ludicrous  fantasy  to  conceive 


548  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

of  Bacon  as  writing  either  the  Falstaff  scenes  in  HENRY  IV 
or  the  love  scenes  in  ROMEO  AND  JULIET.  I  would 
suggest  to  any  reader  who  claims  to  have  an  open  mind, 
a  perusal  of  the  scene  in  which  Antony  explodes  at  the 
sight  of  Thyreus  kissing  Cleopatra's  hand  : 

Approach  there  !     Ah,  you  kite  !     Now,  gods  and  devils, 

Authority  melts  from  me  :  of  late,  when  I  cried  "  Ho  !  " 

Like  boys  unto  a  muss,  kings  would  start  forth 

And  cry,  "  Your  will  ?  " 

Have  you  no  ears  ?     I  am  Antony  yet ! 

Enter  Attendants. 
Take  hence  this  Jack,  and  whip  him. 

Eno.     (Aside.)  'Tis  better  playing  with  a  lion's  whelp 
Than  with  an  old  one  dying. 

Ant.  Moon  and  Stars  ! 

Whip  him  ! 

and  I  would  then  invite  him  to  say  whether  he  can 
conceive  Bacon  writing  it.  One  can  go  vaguely  through 
some  conceptual  process  of  imagining  Bacon  composing 
one  of  the  "  philosophical  "  passages  in  the  plays,  where 
his  thought — versification  apart — could  chime  with  the 
author's  ;  but  to  associate  him  with  the  lightning  flash  of 
fury  which  Shakespeare  can  lend  to  Antony  or  Coriolanus, 
Othello  or  Cleopatra,  is  as  impossible,  to  my  thinking, 
for  any  one  who  has  really  lived  with  Bacon,  as  to  imagine 
that  stately  personage  drinking  with  Falstaff  or  breathing 
out  his  soul  to  Juliet. 

But  all  this  is  by  the  way.  Baconians  ostensibly  either 
can  imagine  these  things  or  can  make  up  their  minds  on 
the  critical  problem  without  realising  that  any  such  things 
are  implied.  Let  purely  aesthetic  convictions  then  be 
waived  ;  and  let  the  theory  be  tested  as  it  might  be  by 
judges  competently  versed  in  the  literary  subject-matter 
and  morally  indifferent  to  the  issue.  Let  what  is  a  thesis 
in  literary  history  be  judged  in  the  light  of  all  historical 
facts  available.  Let  us  simply  try  to  suppose  Bacon, 
gifted  with  any  order  of  literary  faculty  we  may  care  to 
ascribe  to  him,  writing  the  Shakespeare  plays  under  the 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  549 

known  theatrical  conditions  in  the  given  period,  and  the 
hypothesis  must  be  relegated  to  outer  darkness. 

§4 

Considering  it  all  comprehensively,  one  realises  that 
what  plausibility  it  can  ever  have  had  for  ordinarily 
reasonable  men  must  have  arisen,  as  aforesaid,  from  some 
spontaneous  difficulty  in  conceiving  that  a  Stratford  lad, 
who  left  school  in  his  early  or  middle  teens,  married  before 
he  was  out  of  them,  and  soon  thereafter  fared  to  London 
to  make  a  living  as  an  actor  and  actor-partner,  cannot 
well  have  been  the  author  of  what  so  many  men  of  so 
many  nations  pronounce  to  be  the  greatest  total  achieve 
ment  in  pure  literature.  Most  of  this  difficulty,  I  think 
we  have  seen,  either  proceeds  upon  or  takes  shape  through 
the  common  assumption  or  acceptance  of  the  "  orthodox  " 
form  of  the  doctrine  that  the  author  of  the  plays  was  at 
once  a  skilled  lawyer  and  a  deep  classical  scholar.  We 
have  seen,  I  think,  how  baseless  are  both  of  those 
positions,  whether  as  put  by  Baconians  or  by  idolatrous 
Shakespeareans.  Much  of  what  is  not  thus  accounted 
for  in  the  difficulty  felt  about  the  writing  of  the  plays  by 
the  "  Stratford  actor  "  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  state  of 
mind  set  up  by  other  idolatrous  propositions  to  the  effect 
that  Shakespeare  was  a  profound  naturalist,  a  master  of 
Italian  literature,  a  deep  student  of  medicine  and  biology, 
a  man  of  absolutely  universal  reading,  and  so  forth. 
Every  one  of  these  extravagances  can  be  as  decisively 
disposed  of  as  the  "  legal  "  and  "  classical  "  theories. 
Mr.  Greenwood,  who  is  professedly  not  a  Baconian, 
unwittingly  puts  not  merely  a  stumbling-block  in  the 
way  of  Baconians;  but  a  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the 
"  Stratfordians  "  when,  proceeding  upon  the  QUARTERLY 
REVIEW  article  of  1894,  on  "  Shakespeare's  Birds  and 
Beasts,"  he  goes  about  to  establish  the  view  that  the 
author  of  the  plays  was  no  observant  or  studious 
naturalist.  Quite  so,  we  answer.  That  was  part  of  the 


550  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

idolatrous  conception  of  the  playwright  as  the  Superman. 
And  the  rejection  of  it,  so  far  from  putting  any  difficulty 
in  the  way  of  the  "  Stratfordian  "  view,  gives  that  a  new 
force  of  rationality.  We  are  not  in  the  least  bound  to 
suppose  that  Shakespeare  must  have  been  an  accurate 
naturalist  because  he  spent  his  youth  at  Stratford.  It 
was  no  scientific  observer  who  went  from  Stratford  to 
London  to  start  as  play  actor  and  play  maker  :  it  was  a 
youth  with  a  genius  for  the  perception  and  the  rhythmic 
utterance  of  human  feeling.  But,  above  all,  it  was  not 
the  would-be  naturalist  Bacon  who  versified  a  description 
of  a  horse  from  Du  Bartas,  and  one  of  a  bee-hive  from 
Lilly  or  Elyot  or  Bartholomew  or  another  ! 

But  while  thus  unintentionally  helping  Shakespeareans 
to  rectify  their  conception  of  Shakespeare,  Mr.  Greenwood 
is  at  pains  to  demonstrate  that  somehow  the  Plays  are 
at  once  incommensurable  with  the  potentialities  of  the 
"  Stratford  actor  "  and  perfectly  compatible  with  the 
training  of  a  thorough  professional  lawyer.  He  scouts 
the  idea  that  "  genius  "  with  scanty  schooling  could 
capacitate  any  human  being  to  write  even  VENUS  AND 
ADONIS.  Agreeing  with  me  that  it  is  absurd  to  suppose 
that  Shakespeare  wrote  the  poem  in  his  teens  and  kept 
it  by  him  unpublished  till  1593,  he  proceeds  to  say  *•  that 
in  his  judgment  "  the  real  absurdity  is  in  the  belief  that 
the  *  Stratford  rustic  '  could  have  written  such  a  poem 
at  all.  .  .  .  In  Shakespeare's  time,  and  for  a  youth  in 
Shakespeare's  environment,  it  would  have  been  a  miracle 
of  tenfold  marvel.  The  truth  is  that  we  do  not  gather 
figs  from  thistles,  nor  can  we  make  a  silk  purse  out  of  a 
sow's  ear.  Even  '  Genius  '  cannot  do  this." 

I  confess  to  being  somewhat  mystified  by  these  forcible 
propositions.  Mr.  Greenwood  cannot  mean  that  the  being 
born  and  bred  in  a  country  town  constituted  a  man  an 
irreclaimable  "  rustic,"  a  moral  "  thistle,"  an  intellectual 
"  sow's-ear,"  even  if  the  town  were  "  squalid  "  and  the 
1  Work  cited,  p.  64,  note. 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  551 

man  were  a  son  of  "  illiterate  parents,"  whether  in  the 
Elizabethan  era  or  in  ours.  He  must  mean;  I  take  it, 
that  to  make  such  a  youth  capable  of  writing  the  Plays 
and  Poems  there  would  have  been  required  an  elaborate 
education  ;  and  that  this  Shakespeare  did  not  receive* 
But  perplexity  remains.  What  kind  of  education  does 
Mr.  Greenwood  suppose  is  required  to  qualify  a  genius 
for  writing  plays  and  poems  ?  What  kind  or  degree  of 
culture,  for  instance,  does  he  ascribe  to  Sappho,  to  i 
Terence,  to  Catullus,  to  Hans  Sachs,  to  Bunyan,  to  Burns,  / 
to  Keats,  to  Jane  Austen,  to  Balzac  ? 

Being  myself  responsible  for  a  thesis  on  "  The  Economics 
of  Genius,"  to  the  effect  that  genius  undoubtedly  requires 
culture-opportunities  for  its  evocation — that,  in  short, 

Haud  facile  emergunt  quorum  virtutibus  obstat 
Res  angusta  domi — 

I  am  not  going  to  dispute  the  importance  of  culture  to 
poets.  But  I  think  Mr.  Greenwood  misconceives  the 
nature  of  the  culture  they  require.  It  is  true  that,  on  a 
general  survey  of  literary  history,  what  we  term  university 
culture  counts  for  a  great  deal,  the  great  majority  of  our 
great  poets  having  had  that  or  its  equivalent.  But  the 
exceptions  are  sufficient  to  warn  us  to  reject  the  notion 
that  it  is  essential.  Keats  will  rank  with  any  poet  of  his 
age  in  respect  of  (i)  "  rhythmical  creation  of  beauty," 
and  (2)  sympathetic  seizure  of  the  spirit  of  classical 
antiquity.  Yet  Keats  certainly  had  small  Greek ;  his 
sonnet  ON  FIRST  READING  CHAPMAN'S  HOMER  tells  as 
much  ;  and  though  he  learned  Latin  enough  to  do  in  his 
teens  (so,  at  least,  we  are  told)  a  prose  translation  of  the 
JiNEiD — with  what  accuracy  or  what  crib  help  no  one 
now  can  say — he  "  was  in  childhood  not  attached  to 
books.  His  penchant  was  for  fighting.  He  would  fight 
any  one — morning,  noon,  and  night,  his  brother  among 
the  rest.  It  was  meat  and  drink  to  him."  So  testifies 
an  admiring  schoolfellow.1  It  was  only  in  his  last  few 
i  Colvin's  Keats,  p.  8. 


552  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

terms  at  school,  in  his  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  years;  that 
he  took  earnestly  to  books  and  studies  ;  and  at  fifteen  he 
was  bound  apprentice  to  a  surgeon.  At  nineteen  he 
became  a  medical  student  at  Guy's  ;  and  save  for  that 
he  had  no  "  college  "  education.  At  twenty-one  he 
produced  ENDYMION,  and  at  twenty-three  the  ODE  TO 
A  NIGHTINGALE.  His  effective  culture  thus  came  sub 
stantially  from  the  reading  of  English  literature. 

Now,  concerning  the  schooling  of  Shakespeare  we  know 
very  little  ;  but  we  do  know  that  he  was  entitled  to  free 
tuition  at  the  Stratford  Grammar  School ;  and  it  would 
be  as  irrational  to  doubt  that  he  had  it  as  it  would  be  to 
reject  Ben  Jonson's  testimony  that,  nevertheless,  he  had 
"  small  Latin  and  less  Greek,"  which,  after  all,  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  saying  that  he  had  none.  On  the 
other  hand  we  have  really  no  testimony  that  can  justify 
us  in  saying  that  he  left  school  "  very  early."  Sir  Sidney 
Lee,  on  the  strength  of  Aubrey's  late  recital  of  the  state 
ment  of  old  neighbours  that  "  when  he  [Shakespeare]  was 
a  boy  he  exercised  his  father's  trade,"  of  a  butcher — 
which  was  one  of  his  father's  trades — writes  (after 
Halliwell-Philipps)  that  "  probably  in  1577,  when  he  was 
thirteen,  he  was  enlisted  by  his  father  in  an  effort  to 
restore  his  decaying  fortunes."  For  this  "  probably  " 
there  is  no  clear  basis.  As  we  have  seen,  the  "  decaying 
fortunes  "  have  been  inferred,  not  proved  ;  and  there  is 
a  strong  contrary  inference.  But  even  if  we  knew  that 
at  thirteen  Shakespeare  helped  his  father  in  the  village- 
butcher  business,  we  should  not  be  entitled  to  say  that 
he  then  left  school.  Boys  may  help  their  fathers  and  still 
go  to  school.  I  did,  for  one.  Having  myself,  neverthe 
less,  left  school  at  thirteen,  with  small  Latin  and  no 
Greek,  I  am  not  prepared  to  admit  that  such  an  experi 
ence  excludes  a  boy  from  future  culture  ;  but  I  am  con 
cerned  here  simply  to  stipulate  for  strict  adherence  to  the 
evidence.  Mr.  Greenwood  argues  that  inasmuch  as  he 
accepts  the  "  tradition  "  that  Shakespeare  went  to  the 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  553 

Grammar  School,  he  is  entitled  to  press  the  "  tradition  " 
that  the  boy  left  school  at  "an  unusually  early  age  "  ; 
but  he  has  really  no  tradition  to  that  effect  to  go  upon. 
Aubrey  specifies  no  age  ;  and  Shakespeare  would  be 
"  a  boy  "  at  fifteen. 

That,  however,  is  really  not  the  vital  point.  Shake 
speare's  special  culture  for  his  life's  work  began  when  he 
went  to  see  the  players,  or,  it  may  be,  to  the  little 
customary  court  at  Stratford  ; 1  and  his  effective  culture 
would  come  to  him  after  he  had  gone  to  London.  If  he 
went  thither,  as  is  commonly  reckoned,  in  1586  or  1587, 
he  spent  some  six  or  seven  years  as  an  actor  before  he 
published  VENUS  AND  ADONIS.  Mr.  Greenwood  seems  to 
take  it  for  granted  that  this  actor's-life  meant  the  negation 
or  exclusion  of  "  culture."  2  I  cannot  imagine  a  more 
thoughtless  view  of  the  case,  unless  it  be  taken  in  terms  of 
a  conception  of  culture  which  seems  to  me  wholly  irrele 
vant.  Discussing  the  VENUS,  Mr.  Greenwood  quotes 
approvingly  Mr.  Appleton  Morgan's  hyperbolical  account 
of  it  as  "  the  most  elegant  verses  which  the  age  produced, 
and  which  for  polish  and  care  surpass  his  very  latest 
works  "  ;  and  adds  :  "  Polished,  indeed,  and  scholarly,  is 
this  extraordinary  poem,  and,  above  all,  it  is  impressed 
throughout  with  that  which  we  now  call  Culture.  It  is, 
in  fact,  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  highest  culture  of 
the  age  in  which  it  was  written."  3 

In  support  of  this  assertion,  what  data  are  offered  ? 
Simply  these  :  a  few  borrowings  from  Ovid  ;  a  borrowing 
of  the  description  of  the  horse  from  Sylvester's  translation 
—then  in  MS.— of  Du  Bartas  ;  and  a  possible  imitation 

1  It  may  be  worth  while  here  to  recall  Grote's  luminous  ex 
position  of  the  relation  of  the  Athenian  drama  to  the  Athenian 
Dikasteries. 

2  At  the  same  time  he  notes  that  even  the  art  of  acting  is  not 
to  be  learned  in  a  day.     Quite  so.     It  is  only  the  art  of  play- 
making  that,  in  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Greenwood  and  the  Baconians 
alike,  requires  no  apprenticeship  ! 

3  Work  cited,  p.  59. 


554  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

of  the  ODE  DE  LA  CHASSE  of  Etienne  Jodelle,  which  also, 
in  the  terms  of  the  case,  may  have  been  current  in  an 
English  MS.  translation.  That  is  all ;  unless  we  are 
to  understand  Mr.  Greenwood  as  implying  that  the 
legal  allusions  in  the  poem  belong  to  "  the  highest 
culture  of  the  age."  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  dwell 
on  the  utter  inadequacy  of  the  evidence  to  the  assertion. 
The  borrowings  from  Ovid  are  made  through  Golding's 
translation ; 1  but  even  if  they  were  not,  it  is  merely 
ridiculous  to  describe  them  as  standing  for  "  the  highest 
culture  of  the  age."  The  poem  shows  no  such  range  of 
knowledge  as  does  Sidney's  APOLOGY  FOR  POETRIE,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  earlier  poems  of  Chapman.  Considered 
as  a  psychic  distillation  of  knowledge  of  life,  the  VENUS 
might  fairly  be  said  to  stand  for  want  of  "  culture  "  in  the 
modern  and  larger  sense  of  the  term.  But  the  kind  of 
culture  it  shows,  the  fluent  and  mellifluous  use  of  English 
verse,  the  multiplicity  of  image,  the  superfcetation  of 
verbal  fancy,  the  unlimited  play  of  description — all  this 
was  just  what  Shakespeare,  given  genius  to  start  with, 
would  acquire  in  his  six  or  seven — or  even  five — years  of 
acting. 

To  deny  it  would  be  to  refuse  recognition  of  the  obvious 
fact  that  as  an  actor  Shakespeare  was  habitually  using 
more  or  less  academic  as  well  as  poetic  diction,  speaking 
a  language  above  the  level  of  that  of  common  talk  ; 
inflated,  doubtless,  but  copious,  colorate,  rhythmic, 
eloquent.  Even  the  acting  of  the  more  literary  Interludes 
must  have  meant  considerable  training  in  diction,  a  good 
vocabulary,  a  fair  range  of  literary  and  classical  associa 
tion  ;  and  the  young  Shakespeare  had  a  larger  range  open 
to  him  than  that.  When  not  engaged  in  acting,  he  could 
turn  to  the  literature  of  the  Tudor  age — the  prose  and 
verse  of  Elyot,  More,  Greene,  Gascoigne,  Lilly,  Spenser, 
Sidney,  Peele,  Lodge,  Nashe,  Sackville,  Latimer,  and  the 
divines  ;  much  miscellaneous  English  poetry,  down  to 
1  See  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  2nd  ed.  pp.  309-316. 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  555 

Lodge's  GLAUCUS  AND  SCILLA,  the  model  of  the  VENUS  ; 
Chaucer  ;  the  treatises  of  Puttenham  and  Webbe  on 
English  Poetry  ;  the  Chronicles  ;  a  number  of  Voyages  ; 
many  translations  of  Latin  classics  and  of  Italian  prose 
and  poetry ;  and,  from  the  Greek,  Herodotus  and 
Thucydides,  Hall's  ILIAD,  three  orations  of  Demosthenes, 
a  good  deal  of  Isocrates,  some  of  Lucian,  the  Axiochus, 
Diodorus,  Appian,  Mian,  the  Ethics  of  Aristotle,  Epic- 
tetus,  Xenophon's  Cyropsedia,  North's  Plutarch,  some 
thing  of  Theocritus,  something  of  Hippocrates  and  Galen, 
and  the  ^thiopic  History  of  Heliodorus.  How  much  or 
how  little  Shakespeare  read  in  these  translations  no  man 
can  say  ;  but  there  they  were,  in  English — a  great  deal 
more  of  culture  material  than  any  one  can  pretend  to 
find  behind  the  VENUS  AND  ADONIS  and  the  LUCRECE. 
And  when  we  remember  that  Taylor  the  Water-Poet,  a 
Thames  waterman,  living  by  his  boat,  avowedly  devoid 
of  all  scholarship,  had  read  in  English  in  Ovid,  Homer, 
and  Virgil,  Plutarch's  Morals  and  Lives,  Marcus  Aurelius, 
Seneca,  Suetonius,  and  Cornelius  Agrippa,  as  well  as  in 
Fairfax's  Tasso,  Du  Bartas,  Montaigne,  Guevara,  Jose- 
phus  ;  and  in  Chaucer,  Sidney,  Spenser,  Daniel,  Nashe, 
Camden,  Purchas,  Speed,  Fox,  and  Holinshed  1 — we  are 
really  not  entitled  to  doubt  that  the  Stratford  actor  could 
have  read  widely  enough  in  English  to  give  him  all  the 
"  culture  "  manifested  in  the  Plays  and  Poems.  Mr. 
Greenwood  will  not  deny  that  the  Stratford  actor  could 
read  ;  and  as  he  cannot  without  a  petitio  principii  deny 
him  genius,  his  primary  case  is  thus  quashed  and  done 
with.  For  nothing  more  than  genius  and  culture  in 
English,  with  some  smattering  of  Latin,  is  needed  to 
account  for  the  Plays  and  the  Poems. 
The  "  polish  "  of  VENUS  AND  ADONIS  is  just  the  kind  of 

1  Last  section  of  Taylor's  Motto  :  Et  Habeo,  et  Caveo,  et  Curo  : 
Workes,  1630,  section  II,  p.  57.  Taylor  was  then,  by  his  own 
account,  in  his  later  forties.  It  is  here  that  he  tells  how  he  never 
got  beyond  possum,  posset. 


556  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

polish  that  an  actor  who  was  also  a  poet  of  genius  could 
acquire.  In  all  ages  some  actors,  without  university 
training,  have  spoken  their  own  language  like  men  of 
culture,  acquiring  facility  in  it  from  the  nature  of  their 
work  ;  and  if  genius  be  added,  there  is  no  special  problem 
to  solve  in  the  case  of  Shakespeare.  The  general  problem 
of  genius  lies  outside  the  issue.  A  supreme  gift  for 
rhythmic  speech  involves  of  necessity  a  spontaneous  study 
of  language  ;  and  Shakespeare,  so  conceived,  must  have 
read  much  belles  lettres  in  his  own  tongue,  as  did  Burns, 
and  as  did  Keats.  If  they  with  their  culture  could 
produce  masterpieces  in  song  ;  why  in  the  name  of  reason 
should  not  he  have  done  so  in  drama  ?  His  actorship, 
which  Mr.  Greenwood  and  the  Baconians  so  strangely 
assume  to  have  been  a  bar  thereto,  was  part  of  the  special 
culture  that  made  him  supreme.  Given  poetic  genius,  the 
practice  of  acting  was  the  very  discipline  required  to  make 
him  transcend  the  declamation  of  his  academic  pre 
decessors,  and  reach  the  ring  of  living  utterance  where 
they  had  mostly  vended  conventional  rhetoric. 

In  failing  to  see  the  significance  of  Shakespeare's 
experience  as  an  actor,  Mr.  Greenwood  seems  to  me  to  be 
obsessed  by  what  I  would  term  the  university  fallacy. 
He  makes  a  strenuous  attempt  to  rebut  the  argument  of 
Sir  Theodore  Martin  to  the'  effect  that  the  early  life  of 
Shakespeare  was  no  more  a  bar  to  the  development  of 
his  genius  than  was  that  of  Dickens  to  his.  Dickens, 
replies  Mr.  Greenwood,  actually  found  in  his  early  life  the 
material  upon  which  his  adult  genius  worked  ;  but  he 
will  have  it  that  Shakespeare's  "  material  "  was  the  kind 
of  "  culture  "  he  claims  to  find  in  VENUS  AND  ADONIS. 
Denying  that  there  is  any  noteworthy  scholarly  culture 
in  that  poem,  I  deny  that  there  is  any  force  in  Mr. 
Greenwood's  attempted  rebuttal.  It  was  not  scholarly 
culture  that  went  to  the  writing  of  either  the  comedies  or 
the  tragedies  ;  still  less  could  such  culture  have  prepared 
the  poet  to  create  Falstaff.  But  as  regards  the  writing  of 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  537 

living  verse  and  the  creation  of  living  characters,  his 
training  as  an  actor  was  relevant  culture  of  the  most 
important  kind. 

Classical  culture  prepared  Ben  Jonson  to  write  SEJANUS 
and  CATILINE  and  the  POETASTER  and  CYNTHIA'S  REVELS  ; 
but  what  part  had  it  in  EVERY  MAN  IN  HIS  HUMOUR  and' 
THE  ALCHEMIST  and  BARTHOLOMEW  FAIR  ?  And  which 
were  his  more  successful  plays  ?  Such  culture  was 
possessed,  in  some  degree,  by  Greene  and  Peele  ;  but  was 
it  classical  example  or  actual  experience  in  play-writing 
that — with  quickly  growing  faculty — made  Greene  capable 
of  rising  from  ALPHONSUS  KING  OF  ARRAGON  to  JAMES 
THE  FOURTH  ?  and  was  it  the  scholarship  indicated  in 
the  TALE  OF  TROY  that  went  to  the  making  of  what 
dramatic  success  was  attained  to  by  Peele  ?  If  (a  very 
large  if)  it  was  university  training,  and  not  genius,  that 
made  Marlowe  capable  of  writing  the  blank  verse  of 
TAMBURLAINE  and  FAUSTUS,  does  it  follow  that  it  took 
more  scholarly  training  to  make  the  poet  of  MACBETH  and 
CORIOLANUS  write  blank  verse  far  finer  and  greater  ? 
The  broad  culture-fact  is  that  every  one  of  the  dramatists 
above-named  exhibits  far  more  of  mere  classical  scholar 
ship,  in  the  way  of  quotation  and  allusion,  than  does 
Shakespeare,  who  finally  writes  a  verse  incomparably 
superior  to  theirs.  If  we  are  to  frame  an  a  priori  hypo 
thesis  at  all,  should  it  not  be  to  the  effect  that  the  visibly 
less  learned  poet  vitalised  his  English  diction  and  rhythms 
as  he  did  in  virtue  of  not  having  had  a  regular  scholarly 
training,  and  of  having,  besides  genius,  a  practical  training 
in  the  actual  handling  of  the  verse  of  the  other  men  ? 

I  do  not  stand  on  such  a  proposition  :  I  merely  urge  its 
relative  reasonableness.  I  note  that  whereas  Spenser  and 
Peele  and  Chapman  held  to  the  vicious  old  usage  of 
falsifying  final  accents  to  make  rhymes,  Shakespeare, 
perhaps  encouraged  by  Greene,  never  once  conformed  to 
it.  He  seems  to  have  been  as  free  of  mere  archaism  as 
he  was  of  pedantry,  though  he  had  his  own  faults  of 


558  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

diction.  The  VENUS  AND  ADONIS  is  for  its  time  an 
essentially  modern  piece  of  work  ;  and  I  do  not  remember 
that  any  of  the  contemporaries  who  praised  its  "  sweet 
ness  "  ever  said  a  word  about  its  learning.  So  far  as  we 
know,  no  one  in  that  day  ever  asked,  How  came  the 
Stratford  actor  to  produce  this  distillation  of  culture  ? 
I  do  not  ask  Mr.  Greenwood  to  accept  the  "  tradition  "  ; 
but  I  do  ask  him  how,  on  his  view  of  the  impossibility  of 
the  actor's  having,  with  his  culture,  written  such  a  poem 
at  his  age,  not  one  of  the  actor's  contemporaries,  so  far  as 
we  know,  ever  so  much  as  remarked  that  any  notable 
culture  was  required  to  write  it.1 

Much  has  been  made,  further,  of  the  "  difficulty  "  of 
supposing  a  mere  actor  to  be  permitted  to  dedicate 
poems  to  the  Earl  of  Southampton.  There  is  really  not 
a  grain  of  good  ground  for  suggesting  any  difficulty  in 
the  matter  ;  and  the  very  reason  assigned — the  difference 
of  status  between  poet  and  patron — destroys  itself  the 
moment  it  is  understood.  If  it  be  held  unlikely  that  a 
literature-loving  nobleman  in  Shakespeare's  day  should 
allow  a  mere  actor  to  dedicate  to  him,  as  to  a  friendly 
patron,  two  poems,  how  in  the  name  of  common  sense 

1  Mr.  G.  C.  Bompas  (Problem  of  the  Shakespeare  Plays,  1902, 
p.  70)  is  responsible  for  the  statement  that  "  One  of  Shakespeare's 
contemporaries,  the  author  of  Polimanteia  (1595)  .  .  .  wrote 
that  Shakespeare  was  both  a  '  schollar  '  and  also  a  member  of  one 
or  more  of  the  'three  English  universities,  Cambridge,  Oxford, 
and  the  Inns  of  Court.'  "  No  such  passage  is  known  to  the 
commentators.  Dr.  Ingleby  (Centurie  of  Prayse,  i,  12)  cites  the 
marginal  note  from  Polimanteia  which  runs  "  All  praise  worthy 
[Lucrecia]  Sweet  Shakespeare,"  and  classes  the  poet  with  "well- 
graced  authors."  In  a  footnote,  Dr.  Ingleby  mentions  that 
probably  it  was  on  the  strength  of  this  side-note  that  the  late 
Rev.  N.  J.  Halpin  arrived  at  the  rather  hazardous  conclusion  that 
Shakespeare  was  a  member  of  "one  (or  perhaps  more)  of  the 
English  Universities."  See  his  Dramatic  Unities  of  Shakespeare, 
1849,  p.  12,  note.  This  appears  to  be  the  source  of  the  hallu 
cination  of  Mr.  Bompas.  He  has  been  guilty  of  more  "  howlers  " 
than  any  other  Baconian,  except  perhaps  Mr.  Donnelly. 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  559 

are  we  to  suppose  that  the  nobleman  would  let  all  the 
world  go  on  believing  that  the  poems  were  so  dedicated 
if  they  really  were  not  ?  The  cavil  is  sheer  absurdity. 

§5 

And,  once  more,  if,  ignoring  that  absurdity,  we  are  to 
suppose  that  the  publication  of  the  VENUS  and  LUCRECE 
as  his  own  by  Shakespeare  the  actor  was  a  pure  fraud, 
what  kind  of  solution  have  we  offered  us  of  the  mystifica 
tion  ?  Mr.  Greenwood  must  have  a  lawyer  who  was  a 
"  courtier,"  but  will  not  say  it  was  Bacon,  herein  taking 
up  a  singularly  weak  position.  He  naturally  resents 
being  called  a  Baconian  when  he  is  not  ;  but  he  will  not 
say  No  to  the  Baconians,  and  leaves  the  question  open, 
with  a  mere  "  anti-Stratfordian  "  negative.  When  he 
comes  to  the  positive  Stratfordian  evidence,  he  can  offer 
nothing  but  confessedly  inconclusive  cavils.  The  testi 
mony  of  Ben  Jonson,  a  solid  rock  of  first-hand  proof,  he 
vainly  seeks  to  get  round,  as  we  have  seen,  by  suggesting 
that  Ben's  prose  is  inconsistent  with  his  poem  prefaced 
to  the  Folio  ;  and  that  the  players'  preface,  presumably 
written  by  Jonson,  is  inconsistent  with  the  facts  as  to  the 
sources  of  the  Folio.  The  inconsequence  of  the  whole 
argument  is  staggering.  To  what  exorbitance  of  self- 
contradiction  this  line  of  reasoning  leads,  we  have  partly 
noted  in  dealing  with  the  positions  of  Mark  Twain  ;  but 
there  are  further  enormities  of  fallacy  involved.  If 
Jonson  had  spoken  of  the  player  Shakespeare  to  Drum- 
mond  as  a  mere  actor,  or  had  so  described  him  in  the 
DISCOVERIES,  there  would  indeed  have  been  a  rift  in  the 
lute  of  his  evidence.  But  the  very  criticisms  to  which 
Mr.  Greenwood  so  strangely  points  as  somehow  invalidat 
ing  or  countervailing  the  poetic  tribute  prefaced  to  the 
Folio  are  explicit  avowals  of  the  artistic  productivity  of 
the  man  named.  Ben,  in  talk  with  Drummond,  said  of 
Shakespeare  that  he  "  wanted  art,  and  sometimes  sense," 
even  as  he  said  of  Donne  that  "  for  not  keeping  of  accent 


560  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

he  deserved  hanging."  To  the  same  Donne  he  wrote, 
sending  his  Epigrams  : 

If  I  find  but  one 

Marked  by  thy  hand,  and  with  the  better  stone, 
My  title's  seal' d.1 

Does  Mr.  Greenwood  infer  from  this  either  that  Jonson 
thought  Donne  a  good  critic  but  a  bad  poet,  or  that  he 
believed  some  one  else  had  written  Donne's  verses  ?  Or  is 
he  restrained  merely  by  the  fact  that  Drummond  cites  also 
the  praise  :  "He  esteemed  him  [Donne]  the  first  poet  in 
the  world  for  some  things  "  ?  Without  that  praise,  the 
testimony  to  Donne's  authorship  of  poems  would  be  just 
as  valid  ;  and  the  very  criticism  passed  to  Drummond 
upon  "  Shakespeare  "  is  a  testimony  that  in  Jonson 's 
belief  "  Shakespeare  "  wrote  THE  WINTER'S  TALE.  It  is  a 
criticism  of  the  author,  whosoever  he  was  :  Mr.  Greenwood 
unintelligibly  cites  it 2  as  somehow  hinting  a  knowledge 
that  the  putative  was  not  the  real  author.  In  what  police 
court  would  Mr.  Greenwood  venture  to  advance  such  an 
argument  ? 

The  mystification  set  up  over  Ben  Jonson's  testimony 
is  the  most  gratuitous  thing  in  the  whole  debate.  Jonson 
was  notoriously  a  man  both  jealous  and  generous,  given 
to  cavilling  and  quarrelling,  with  a  high  sense  of  his  own 
value,  and  a  very  critical  eye  for  other  men's  work. 
Ready  to  flout  and  contemn,  to  strive  and  blame,  he  was 
also  ready  to  forgive  and  praise.  After  his  quarrels  with 
Marston  and  Dekker,  he  became  reconciled  to  both.  It 
is  reasonably  to  be  inferred  that  in  the  "  Apologetical 
Dialogue  "  appended  to  THE  POETASTER  he  alludes  to 
Shakespeare  among  others  of  his  censors  in  the  lines  : 

Only,  amongst  them,  I  am  sorry  for 
Some  better  natures  by  the  rest  so  drawn, 
To  run  in  that  vile  line  ; 

seeing  that  in  THE  RETURN  FROM  PARNASSUS  the  players 
tell  how  their  fellow  Shakespeare  had  administered  to 

1  Epigram  96,  2  Shakespeare  Problem,  p.  482 , 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  561 

Jonson  "  a  purge/'  Ben  for  his  part  had  in  his  EVERY 
MAN  OUT  OF  HIS  HUMOUR  jeered  at  Shakespeare's  coat  of 
arms,  parodying  the  Non  sans  Droit  by  the  motto  Not 
without  Mustard  ;  and  had  well  deserved  his  "  purge  "  in 
other  ways.  But  he  was  one  who  could  give  and  take, 
forgive  and  forget.  In  his  lines  to  Donne  he  praises  him 
expressly  for  his  freedom  in  criticism  : 

Who  shall  doubt,  Donne,  whe'r  I  a  poet  be, 

When  I  dare  send  my  Epigrams  to  thee  ? 

That  so  alone  canst  judge,  so  alone  dost  make; 

And,  in  thy  censures,  evenly,  dost  take 

As  free  simplicity  to  disavow 

As  thou  hast  best  authority  t'  allow. 

These  are  the  very  qualities  that  he  would  have  claimed 
for  himself.  That  such  a  man,  alive  to  the  greatness, 
and,  by  his  own  avowal,  to  the  lovableness  of  Shakespeare, 
should  pen  a  splendid  panegyric  for  the  Folio,  touching 
even  that  with  critical  qualification,  and  should  at  other 
times,  in  critical  talk  with  Drummond  and  in  his  DIS 
COVERIES,  comment  on  what  he  held  to  be  flaws  in 
Shakespeare's  work,  is  so  perfectly  compatible  not  only 
with  literary  but  with  ordinary  human  nature  that  it  is 
astonishing  that  either  a  layman  or  a  lawyer  should 
profess  to  find  in  it  anything  strange. 

By  Mr.  Greenwood's  tests,  we  should  be  led  to  believe 
that  in  Jonson's  opinion  Daniel  wrote  none  of  his  signed 
verses  save  the  CIVIL  WARS,  inasmuch  as  Jonson  (i)  told 
Drummond  that  Daniel,  who  wrote  that  work,  was  no 
poet,  and  (2)  wrote  of  Daniel  that  he  was  a  "  verser,"  and 
again  of  Du  Bartas  that  "  He  was  no  poet  but  a  verser, 
because  he  wrote  not  fiction."  Again,  Mr.  Greenwood 
seems  bound  to  deny  to  Marston  the  authorship  of  his 
plays,  because  Jonson  told  Drummond  that  "  Marston 
wrote  his  father-in-law's  preachings,  and  his  father-in- 
law  his  comedies."  Gifford  in  fact  offers  the  Baconians 
an  opening  in  advance,  by  his  footnote  with  the  query  : 
"  But  who  was  this  father-in-law  ?  Nay,  who  was 

2N 


562  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

Marston  ?  "  Unfortunately,  Gifford  supplies  particulars 
in  respect  of  which,  he  tells  us,  "I  flatter  myself  that  I 
have  here  recovered  both  father  and  son  " — as  well  as 
father-in-law. 

Jonson's  gibe  at  Marston,  obviously,  is  a  mere  jest  : 
his  comments  on  Shakespeare  are  one  and  all  criticisms 
of  a  recognised  author.  And  if  Mr.  Greenwood  here 
raises  afresh  his  nugatory  protest  that  the  contemporary 
encomiasts  of  Shakespeare  do  not  tell  us  "  who  "  he  was, 
it  suffices  to  answer  that  neither  did  Jonson  tell  Drum- 
mond  "  who  "  Donne  or  Daniel  or  Spenser  or  Drayton 
was.  It  was  really  not  customary  to  say  "  who  "  a 
man  was  when  you  praised  him  by  his  name,  for  his 
known  works.  As  for  the  astonishing  argument  (i)  that 
the  famous  reference  to  the  original  form  of  the  "  Know, 
Caesar  doth  not  wrong  "  passage  may  have  meant  that 
"  Shakespeare  the  player  misquoted  the  passage  on  the 
stage,"  and  (2)  that  "  surely  it  is  of  the  player,  not  the 
poet,  that  Jonson  speaks  when  he  says  that  his  volubility 
was  such  that,  like  Aterius,  he  had  to  be  (or  ought  to  have 
been)  shut  up,"  *  I  find  myself  at  a  loss  to  discuss  it  with 
gravity.  Where  will  Mr.  Greenwood  stop  ?  The  sentence 
he  cites  is  from  the  paragraph  in  the  DISCOVERIES  in 
which  Jonson  tells  how  "  the  players  have  often  mentioned 
it  as  an  honour  to  Shakespeare  ['  their  friend  '],  that  in 
his  writing  (whatsoever  he  penned)  he  never  blotted  out  a 
line.  My  answer  hath  been,  Would  he  had  blotted  a 
thousand.  Which  they  thought  a  malevolent  speech." 
And  the  very  sentence  ending  with  the  allusion  to 
Haterius  tells  that  Shakespeare  "  had  an  excellent 
phantasy,  brave  notions,  and  gentle  expressions,  wherein 
he  flowed  with  that  facility  that  ..."  Has  Mr.  Green 
wood  found  any  Apella  who  can  credit  his  theory 
here? 

Such  a  fantasy  is  of  a  piece  with  the  desperate 
suggestion  of  "  a  learned  German,  Dr.  Konrad  Meier,"  a 
1  Work  cited,  p.  481. 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  563 

little   hesitatingly   welcomed   by   Mr.   Greenwood  in  a 
footnote,1  that  Jonson's  line  : 

And  though  them  hadst  small  Latin  and  less  Greek, 
is  to  be  read  in  the  sense  "  And  if,"  or  "  even  if,"  = 
"  even  had  it  been  true  that."  Need  it  really  be  pointed 
out  that  while  "  and  if  "  could  have  meant  "  and  though," 
"  and  though  "  could  not  mean  "  and  if  "  in  the  sense 
suggested  ?  '  Though  "  can  stand  for  "  if  "  when  put 
before  a  hyperbole  :  as  in  "  though  I  speak  with  the 
tongues  of  men  and  angels  "  ;  not  before  a  carefully 
quantified  proposition  such  as  "  small  Latin  and  ^ss 
Greek  " — a  specification  if  ever  there  were  one.  Mr. 
Greenwood,  for  the  rest,  really  should  have  spared 
English  readers  Dr.  Meier's  theorem  that  the  "  would  "  in 
the  following  line  : 

From  hence  to  honour  thee  I  would  not  seek, 

"  is  conditional,"  and  that  "as  in  every  conditional 
sentence,  the  conditional  word  would  points  to  the  unreal 
alternative,  which  is  to  be  taken  as  the  opposite  of  the 
actual  fact."  It  is  from  a  translation  in  BACONIAN  A  for 
October  1907  ("  into  which,  by  the  way,  an  error  seems 
to  have  crept  ")  that  Mr.  Greenwood  derives  this  precious 
philological  sophism.  It  "  would  "  seem,  then,  that  we 
must  explain  to  Mr.  Greenwood  as  well  as  to  Dr.  Meier 
and  the  Baconians,  that  "  I  would  "  is  perfectly  normal 
English  for  "  I  will  "  in  predication.  Has  Mr.  Greenwood 
never  said  to  an  audience,  "  I  would  now  direct  your 
attention  .  .  ."  ?  or  "  Before  sitting  down,  I  would 
like  .  .  ."  ?  Anti-Stratfordianism  has  made  him  ac 
quainted  with  strange  allies.  Jonson's  lines  simply 
mean  :  "  Though  you  had  small  Latin  and  less  Greek,  I 
would  not  on  that  account  seek  merely  to  pit  you  against 
other  unlearned  men,  but  would  back  you  against  all  the 
classic  dramatists,  from  jEschylus  to  Seneca."  Mr. 
Greenwood  is  as  hard  pressed  for  pleas  when  he  seeks  to 
1  Work  cited,  p.  475- 


564  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

get  behind  that  testimony  as  when  admitting  that  the 
"  sweet  swan  of  Avon  "  line  "  undoubtedly  .  .  .  to  all 
outward  appearance  "  identifies  the  dead  dramatist  "  with 
Shakspere  of  Stratford."  Mr.  Greenwood  can  find  no 
better  shift  than  to  echo  Dr.  Ingleby's  wish  "  that  Ben 
had  said  all  this  in  Shakespeare's  lifetime."  O  lame  and 
impotent  conclusion  ! 

The  cavilling  about  the  players'  statement  that  they 
had  "  scarce  received  from  him  [Shakespeare]  a  blot  in 
his  papers  "  is  no  better.  The  assertion  that  "  we  now 
know  that  this  statement  is  ridiculous," 1  is  utterly 
unwarranted.  We  do  know  that  Shakespeare  revised 
plays  after  they  had  been  for  some  time  played  :  we  do 
not  know  that  he  sweated  over  his  anvil  in  first  composi 
tion  as  Jonson  did  ;  and  Jonson's  claim,  in  the  panegyric, 
that  every  writer  of  living  lines  must  so  sweat  is  an 
impeachment  of  Jonson's  consistency,  not  of  the  players' 
veracity,  or  of  their  common  sense.  Elsewhere,  he 
accepted  their  statement  as  true.  The  suggestion  of 
Stevenson,  confidently  repeated  by  Mr.  Greenwood,  that 
the  unblotted  manuscripts,  if  such  there  were,  must  have 
been  merely  fair  copies,  is  idle.  Unless  Shakespeare 
deliberately  tricked  his  partners — a  hypothesis  which 
Jonson  did  not  advance,  and  which  Mr.  Greenwood  had 
better  not  raise — they  must  have  known  that  whereof 
they  spoke.  Neither  Ben  Jonson  nor  Stevenson  was 
qualified  to  say,  nor  is  Mr.  Greenwood  entitled  to  reaffirm, 
that  the  abnormal  genius  who  wrote  the  plays  could  not 
compose  in  verse  otherwise  than  did  Jonson  and  Steven 
son.  Jonson  did  later  accept  the  statement  of  the  players 
as  true  ;  and  the  fact  that  he  nevertheless  made  his 
general  assertion  about  the  indispensableness  of  "  sweat  " 
proves  simply  that  he  could  contradict  himself  on  a 
question  of  that  kind  as  he  and  most  men  could  and 
can  on  others.  But  to  suggest  that  such  inconsistency 
discredits  his  evidence  as  to  his  personal  knowledge  that 
1  Work  cited,  p.  480, 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  565 

Shakespeare  was  a  man  of  genius,  is  really  as  unworthy 
of  a  practical  lawyer  as  it  is  of  a  man  of  letters.  Either 
Jonson  was  a  deliberate  and  unscrupulous  liar  or  he  was 
not.  If  he  was,  neither  Mr.  Greenwood  nor  the  Baconians 
can  make  anything  of  his  testimony,  one  way  or  the  other. 
If  he  was  not,  his  evidence  overthrows  and  overwhelms 
all  their  cavils.  He  did  not  think  that  the  plays  and 
poems  could  have  been  written  only  by  a  professional 
lawyer.  He  held  that  Shakespeare  had  small  Latin  and 
less  Greek,  yet  had  no  hesitation  in  believing  that  his 
unlearned  friend  wrote  the  plays  which  he  declared  to  be 
"  for  all  time."  And  his  opinion  on  that  head  surely  has 
as  much  weight  as  any. 

§6 

In  dealing  with  the  Baconian  argument  from  Jonson's 
Scriptorum  Catalogus  in  the  DISCOVERIES,  in  which  Bacon 
is  extolled  and  Shakespeare  is  not  mentioned,  Mr. 
Greenwood  candidly  warns  his  Baconian  allies  that  the 
matter  will  not  bear  their  inference  ;  that  Jonson  is 
thinking  of  "  wits  "  or  orators  as  such,  and  not  framing 
a  comprehensive  list.  In  point  of  fact,  the  list  names  no 
playwright  whatever  ;  only  one  or  two  poets,  and  those 
of  a  bygone  generation  ;  and  indeed  only  a  few  writers  in 
all.1  Yet  Mr.  Greenwood  goes  on  to  argue  that  "  still  " 
it  is  "  remarkable  "  that  Shakespeare  is  not  named.  If 
the  paragraph  were  meant  as  a  "  bead-roll  "  it  would  be 
no  less  strange  that  Spenser  and  Marlowe  are  also 
unnamed  :  the  only  really  remarkable  thing  is  that 
Jonson  or  any  one  else  should  ever  have  headed  such  a 
jotting  as  a  "  Catalogus."  But  Mr.  Greenwood,  with 
sorrow  be  it  said,  proceeds  from  this  trifling  cavil  to 
endorse  the  truly  "  Baconian  "  argument  that  there  is  a 
deep  significance  in  Jonson's  use  of  the  phrase  about 
"  insolent  Greece  and  haughty  Rome  "  in  his  eulogy  of 
Bacon,  after  using  it  in  his  poem  on  Shakespeare. 

1  The  critic  cited  by  Mr.  Greenwood,  who  called  the  Catalogus 
"  a  bead-roll  of  English  writers,"  has  something  to  answer  for. 


THE  BACONIAN  HERE  5  Y 

This  particular  divagation,  I  may  note,  really  gives 
a  good  excuse  to  those  critics  who  describe  Mr.  Greenwood 
as  a  Baconian,  though  he  apparently  does  not  perceive 
that  he  has  supplied  them  with  any  pretext.  He  insists 
upon  his  specific  denials ;  but  to  what  purpose  has  he 
dwelt  upon  the  fact  that  Jonson  applies  one  phrase  of 
panegyric  to  both  Bacon  and  Shakespeare?  Through 
seven  pages  he  dwells  on  the  "  remarkable/'  "  more 
remarkable,"  and  "  most  remarkable  "  aspects  of  that 
item.  He  finds  it  "  extraordinary  "  that  Jonson,  after 
Bacon's  fall,  wrote  of  the  ruined  great  man's  character 
in  the  highest  terms,  and  yet  has  not  "  left  us  any  noble 
eulogy  of  Ms  sort  consecrated  to  the  memory  of  Shake 
speare."  Is  not  the  panegyric  prefixed  to  the  Fofio  a 
noble  eulogy  in  its  sort  ?  After  thus  maVing  a  mystery 
out  of  nothing,  he  proceeds  to  dilate  on  the  line : 

Thou  stand's!  as  if  some  mystery  then  didst, 

in  Jonson's  Ode  on  Bacon's  Birthday.  The  phrase 
simply  means  that  on  Bacon's  birthday  the  "  Genius 
of  the  pile  "  stands  among  the  guests  as  might  a  priest 
celebrating  a  rite ;  but  Mr.  Greenwood  will  have  it  that 
"  the  Stratfordians  ...  are  unable  to  give  any  plausible 
explanation  of  Jonson's  meaning,"  as  against  the 
Baconian  thesis  that  Jonson  knew  "  the  secret  Shake 
spearean  authorship."1  After  this,  how  can  he  complain 
of  being  reputed  a  Baconian  ?  The  poem  itself,  after 
speaking  of  "  some  mystery,"  goes  on :  "  Pardon,  I 
read  it  in  thy  face."  None  are  so  blind  as  those. who 
will  not  see  aught  but  then-  own  theory.1 

All  the  while,  the  argument  from  Jonson's  double  use 

1  Is  it  suggested,  I  wonder,  that  Bacon  was  ttUing  las  guests 
that  he  had  written  the  plays  ?  The  phrase  "  as  if  some  mystoy 
thou  didst  "  plainly  points  to  a  quasi-riU  or  sacr amentum,  not  to 
a  "  mystery  "  in  the  modern  sense. 

?  The  point  was  made  clear  by  Mrs.  Stopes  four-and-twenty 
years  ago.  Yet  Mr.  Lang  oddly  acquiesced  in  Mr.  Greenwood's 
cry  of  "  mystery." 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  567 

of  the  phrase  "  insolent  Greece  and  haughty  Rome  "  is 
simply  the  crowning  instance  of  the  futility  of  non- 
comparative  study  over  the  whole  field  of  our  problem. 
Jonson  did  but  repeat  himself  in  that  case  as  he  did  hi 
many  others.  I  put  to  Mr.  Greenwood  this  simple  and 
sufficient  challenge.  Jonson  in  his  Ode  on  Bacon's 
Birthday  speaks  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  as  one 

Whose  even  thread  the  fates  spin  round  and  full, 
Out  of  their  choicest  and  their  whitest  wool— 

—alas  for  the  forecast !  In  THE  HUE  AND  CRY  AFTER 
CUPID  the  same  Ben  Jonson  writes  of 

A  prince  that  draws 

By  example  more  than  others  do  by  laws 
That  was  reserved  unlit  the  Parcae  spun 
Their  whitest  wool ;  and  then  his  thread  begun. 

Does  this  passage  suggest  any  misgivings  to  Mr.  Green 
wood  ?  Does  he  find  it  "  most  remarkable  of  all  "  that 
Jonson  should  have  used  the  same  figure  in  benison  of 
Bacon  and  of  King  James  ?  And  does  he  see  fit  to 
suggest  that  Jonson  had  cause  to  think  that  King  James 
wrote  Bacon  ?  Will  he  not  rather  grant  me  that  Jonson, 
who  uses  this  same  figure  yet  another  time  in  his  APOLO 
GETIC  AL  DIALOGUE  appended  to  THE  POETASTER— 
The  Fates  have  not  spun  him  the  coarsest  thread — 

applying  it  to  himself,  and  who  hi  the  same  Dialogue  as 
well  as  in  his  ODE  TO  HIMSELF  wrote  of  "  the  wolf's 
black  jaw  and  the  dull  ass's  hoof,"  was  simply  prone  to 
repeat  a  sounding  phrase  upon  which  he  "  fancied 
himself"? 

If  not ;  if  Mr.  Greenwood  still  elects  to  minister 
platonically  to  the  Baconians,  he  will  do  well  to  frame 
either  for  them  or  for  himself  some  presentable  rebuttal 
to  the  bayonet-line  of  challenge  which  faces  him  and 
them.  The  hero  of  the  Baconians,  presumably,  stopped 
writing  plays  when  Shakespeare  died  because,  even  in 
view  of  his  miraculous  luck  in  having  his  literary  secret 


568  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

thus  far  kept  for  him,  he  could  not  find  another  "  mask." 
Mr.  Greenwood's  occult  lawyer,  perhaps,  was  similarly 
swayed.  For  both  sets  of  theorists,  then,  Shakespeare 
at  least  had  the  somewhat  weighty  merit  of  supplying 
the  learned  and  legal  author  with  a  means  of  vent  for 
his  plays  and  poems  which  would  otherwise  have  been 
unattained.  There  is  no  more  new  "  Shakespeare " 
after  Shakespeare's  death,  under  any  signature.  And 
Mr.  Greenwood's  lawyer  is  as  hardly  pressed  as  Bacon 
by  the  demand  of  those  who  insist  that  an  author  shall 
prove  his  reality  by  having  his  manuscripts  regularly 
printed.  Mr.  Greenwood's  Man  in  the  Paper  Mask, 
affirmed  to  be  lawyer  enough  to  make  Venus  talk  like 
one,  secretly  produces  poems,  plays,  and  sonnets,  Bacon- 
wise,  over  a  period  of  twenty  years  ;  then  lays  down  his 
pen  or  dies ;  and  either  in  his  own  despite  or  with  no 
touch  of  supervision  from  him,  has  his  work  perpetuated 
in  an  inextricable  blend  with  that  of  other  men,  and 
flawed  by  a  multitude  of  printers'  blunders,  at  the  hands 
of  the  player-partners,  who,  in  the  view  of  Mr.  Greenwood 
and  the  Baconians,  either  lied  venally  or  were  strangely 
deluded  for  twenty  years  by  an  impostor,  their  partner. 

I  am  not  going  to  play  the  panegyrist  for  the  actor- 
partners,  who  have  it  standing  to  their  account  that, 
with  the  literary  heedlessness  of  their  age,  they  published 
what  they  must  have  known  to  be  a  mass  of  largely 
composite  work  without  a  hint  to  help  posterity  to  dis 
criminate.  But  if  we  deal  with  evidence  in  the  common- 
sense  spirit  in  which  the  sane  lawyer  is  supposed  to  deal 
with  it,  we  are  bound  to  say  that,  under  the  reservation 
mentioned,  their  general  testimony  far  outweighs  all 
the  cavils  of  the  various  schools  of  critics.  They  have 
been  harshly  and  heedlessly  accused,  even  by  "  orthodox  " 
scholars,  of  falsely  professing  to  print  solely  from  true 
original  copies  when  they  were  supplying  the  printer 
with  printed  quartos  for  "  copy."  That  attack,  un 
important  at  best,  is  disposed  of  by  the  argument  which 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  569 

proves  certain  quartos  to  have  been  authorised,  and 
therefore  to  stand  reasonably  enough  for  the  "  true 
original  copies."  The  alleged  "difficulties"  of  the 
"  Stratfordian "  case  are  thus  as  dust  in  the  balance 
against  the  insanities  of  the  other  ;  which  posits  a  night 
mare  of  protracted  conspiracy  and  fraud  unexampled 
out  of  Bedlam. 

§7 

A  number  of  other  items  in  Mr.  Greenwood's  negative 
case  seem  to  me  hardly  to  deserve  discussion.  All  the 
problems  he  raises  as  to  the  young  Shakespeare's  life  at 
Stratford,  apart  from  the  schooling,  are  practically  outside 
our  problem  :  it  matters  not  to  the  question  of  the  author 
ship  what  were  young  Will's  relations  with  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy,  or  what  were  the  precise  circumstances  of  his 
marriage.  Equally  irrelevant  to  our  inquiry  is  the  pother 
over  the  portraits.1  As  to  Mr.  Greenwood's  unhappy 
chapter  on  "  The  Silence  of  Philip  Henslowe,"  I  confess 
to  being  somewhat  at  a  loss  for  comment.  The  chapter 
seems  to  have  been  written  without  any  examination  of 
Henslowe's  Diary,2  upon  some  vague  inferences  from 
remarks  by  Collier  and  Judge  Stotsenburg.  Mr.  Green 
wood  argues  that  whereas  the  unknown  lawyer  of  his 
fantasy  would  naturally  not  take  any  payments  from 
such  an  entrepreneur  as  Henslowe,  the  actor,  on  the 
contrary,  readily  would  ;  and  that  accordingly  the  absence 
of  the  name  of  Shakespeare  (or  Shakspere  or  Shaksper, 
&c.)  from  Henslowe's  Diary  "  is  certainly  a  very  remark 
able  phenomenon,  and  one  .  .  .  very  difficult  to  reconcile 
with  the  supposition  that  Player  Shakspere  wrote  plays."3 
In  the  name  of  mystery,  why  ?  Mr.  Greenwood  claims 

1  Long   ago   Dr.    Ingleby   pointed   out  :     "  As   to   portraits, 
Edmund  Spenser  stands  in  precisely  the  same  position  as  Shake 
speare.     The    portraits    claimed    for    him    are    hopelessly    dis 
crepant  "  (Shakespeare  :  The  Man  and  the  Book,  Pt.  I,  1877,  p.  78). 

2  Mr,  Lang,  who  has  an  amusing  chapter  in  reply  to  Mr.  Green 
wood's,  seems  also  not  to  have  studied  the  Diary. 

3  Work  cited,  p.  360. 


570  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

to  solve  his  own  enigma  by  the  simple  pronouncement 
that  "  Neither  Shakspere  [i.e.  the  actor]  nor  '  Shake 
speare  '  [i.e.  Mr.  Greenwood's  unknown  lawyer]  ever 
wrote  for  Henslowe."  In  other  words,  the  actor  (in  Mr. 
Greenwood's  opinion)  could  not ;  and  the  mysterious 
lawyer,  who  provided  the  plays  for  the  actor  and  his 
partners,  would  not  write  for  Henslowe.  Q.E.D. 

I  collect  myself  to  ask,  How  on  earth  can  Mr.  Green 
wood  know  this  ?  That  Shakespeare  ever  "  wrote  for 
Henslowe "  I  do  not  affirm :  there  are  no  means  of 
determining  what  were  the  business  relations  between 
Henslowe  and  the  Chamberlain's  (Shakespeare's)  company 
when  they  played  in  either  of  Henslowe's  theatres.  I 
am  disposed  to  surmise  that  whatever  refurbishing  of  old 
or  writing  of  new  plays  Shakespeare  did  while  his  com 
pany  was  playing  at  either  the  Rose  or  the  Newington 
Theatre,  in  the  years  1592-96,  was  done  "  for  "  his  com 
pany  and  not  "  for  "  Henslowe.  But  seeing  that  the 
Diary  does  not  contain  any  entry  of  payment  to  any 
writer  for  playwriting  before  1597,  *  when  Shakespeare's 
company  were  successively  at  the  Theater  and  the  Curtain, 
and  had  no  longer  any  dealings  with  Henslowe,  the  non- 
existence  of  any  note  of  any  payment  to  him  is  obviously 
neither  here  nor  there.  The  payments  beginning  in  1597 
are  noted  as  made  "  for  my  Lord  Admirall's  men,"  for 
whom  Shakespeare  never  wrote.  It  is  simply  impossible 
to  understand  the  use  of  such  an  argument  as  Mr.  Green 
wood's  save  on  the  inference  that  he  never  examined  the 
Diary  at  all.  He  notes  Collier's  remark  that  in  the 
years  1594-96  the  Admiral's  men  and  the  Chamberlain's 
men  were  jointly  or  alternately  using  one  of  Henslowe 's 
theatres ;  and  he  exclaims  accordingly.  But  had  he 

1  These  entries  begin  on  Folio  43v.,  p.  82  of  Mr.  Greg's  edition. 
Earlier  in  the  book,  which  is  not  continuous  in  order  of  time, 
occur  similar  entries  for  1599 — Folio  29,  p.  57.  Even  Collier's 
forgeries,  it  should  be  noted,  begin  only  in  1597.  See  ed.  cited, 
introd. 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  571 

gone  to  the  Diary  he  would  have  found  that  in  those 
years  there  is  no  note  of  a  payment  to  a  playwright  for 
either  company. 

As  to  the  period  from  1596  onwards,  there  is  simply  no 
rational  ground  for  expecting  to  find  any  note  of  a  pay 
ment  from  Henslowe  to  Shakespeare,  seeing  that  Shake 
speare  and  his  company  had  no  more  dealings  with  that 
personage.  In  1599  tneY  settled  at  the  Globe,  for  good. 
Henslowe  paid  the  playwrights  who  worked  for  him  or 
for  the  Admiral's  company ;  and  his  Diary  is  simply  a 
day-book  of  his  many  receipts,  loans,  and  payments, 
theatrical  and  other,  with  a  few  "  receipts  "  of  the  other 
sort  and  some  notes  of  agreements,  &c.  Obviously, 
Mr.  Greenwood's  theory  disposes  of  itself.  If  an  outside 
friend  could  solely  supply  Shakespeare,  who  catered  solely 
for  his  company,  then  Shakespeare,  a  partner,  might  so 
supply  his  own  company,  if  he  had  the  required  literary 
capacity.  Mr.  Greenwood,  I  trust,  will  not  insist  on 
begging  the  question  throughout  the  discussion !  Now, 
that  Shakespeare  should  go  on  steadily  supplying  his 
own  company  with  plays  instead  of  writing  for  Henslowe 
was  not  only  natural :  it  was  the  way  of  advantage  as 
against  the  way  of  disadvantage.  Mr.  Greenwood,  pre 
sumably,  does  not  deny  that  Shakespeare  the  actor  was 
from  about  1594  a  partner  in  the  Lord  Chamberlain's 
(first  known  as  Lord  Strange's J)  company  of  actors,  who 
successively  played  at  the  Rose  and  at  Newington  and 
ran  "the  Theater"  and  the  Globe  Theatre.  There  is, 
says  Mr.  Fleay,  "  no  vestige  of  evidence  that  Shakespeare 
ever  wrote  for  any  company  but  one/'2  This  holds 
whether  we  think  of  Shakespeare  the  actor  or  of  Bacon- 
Shakespeare  or  of  Mr.  Greenwood's  unknown  literary 
lawyer.  And  what  could  be  more  a  matter  of  course 

1  Originally,  in  all  likelihood,  Lord  Leicester's,  but  this  is 
matter  of  inference.  See  Fleay's  Life  of  Shakespeare,  pp.  91-6, 
As  to  the  changes  in  the  company's  name,  see  Fleay,  pp.  114-5. 
128,  2  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p ,  1 1 5  • 


572  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

than  that  Shakespeare  the  actor  should  supply  with  plays 
the  company  in  which  he  was  a  profit-sharing  partner, 
instead  of  selling  plays  outright  to  Henslowe  for  a  few 
pounds  ?     By  the  former  course  he  enriched  himself  ; 
by  the  latter,  he  would  insanely  have  condemned  himself 
to  the  life  of  chronic  beggary  led  by  all  the  other  play 
wrights  of  the  day,  including  even  Jonson.     That  Mr. 
Greenwood  should  see  something  "  very  remarkable  " 
in  such  a  choice  is  quite  the  most  remarkable  thing  in 
his  remarkable  tissue  of  error  and  paralogism.     All  his 
attacks  upon  "  the  Stratfordian  editors  "  and  others  in 
this  connection  are  a  mere  fiasco.      They  and  Sir  Sidney 
Lee,  as  it  happens,  did  not  say,  as  Mr.  Greenwood  alleged,1 
that  Shakespeare  began  his  dramatic  career  "  by  writing 
plays   for   Henslowe "  :     they   said   that    Shakespeare's 
work    "  doubtless  "  began2  at  the  Rose  theatre,  about 
1592.     As  Mr.  Greenwood  does  not  himself  believe  that 
the  plays  there  and  then  played  by  Shakespeare's  com 
pany  were  Shakespearean,  it  is  hard  to  see  why  he  took 
to  this  line  of  argument  at  all.     But  when  he  exults  in 
this  connection  over  "  a  delightful  specimen  of  Strat 
fordian  reasoning,"  and  proclaims  it  "  the  more  extra 
ordinary — indeed  incredible — that  the  old  manager  should 
have  made  no  mention  "  of  Shakespeare  in  his  DIARY, 
his  Stratfordian  foes  are  truly  avenged.     It  would  have 
been   extraordinary,   "  indeed  incredible,"   if   Henslowe 
had  been  found  entering  payments  to  Shakespeare  for 
plays  he  did  not  write,  in  a  period  of  years  in  which  the 
Diary  records  no  payments  to  any  other  playwrights  for 
the  plays  they  did  write,  whether  "for  Henslowe"  or 
for  any  of  the  companies  who  used  his  theatres. 

When  Mr.  Greenwood  goes  on  to  quote  Judge  Stotsen- 
burg  as  to  Henslowe's  payments  for  a  "  King  Leare  " 
and  "  The  Tamynge  of  a  Shrowe,"  he  strangely  abets 

1  Work  cited,  pp.  353,  354. 

2  Sir  Sidney  Lee's  words  are  :  "The  earliest  scene  of  Shake 
speare's  pronounced  successes  "  (Life,  2nd  ed.  p.  37). 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  573 

another  gratuitous  confusion.  Judge  Stotsenburg  is 
quoted1  as  saying,  concerning  those  two  plays,  and  TITUS; 
and  HENRY  THE  SIXTH,  that  "  since  these  plays  have 
the  same  names  as  those  included  in  the  Folio  of  1623 
the  presumption  is  that  they  are  the  same  plays  until 
the  contrary  is  shown."  Mr.  Greenwood  is  well  aware 
that  the  old  "  Leare  "  was  KING  LEIR  AND  HIS  THREE 
DAUGHTERS  ;  that  the  old  TAMING  OF  a  SHREW  is  not 
the  TAMING  OF  the  SHREW  ;  and  that  both  of  the  old 
plays  named  are  extant.  As  he  expressly  admits  that 
TITUS  and  the  HENRY  VI  plays  are  non-Shakespearean 
(save  for  adaptations  in  the  latter),  his  entire  use  of  Judge 
Stotsenburg's  argument  is  a  mere  confounding  of  con 
fusion.  Of  the  same  order  is  his  use  of  Judge  Stotsen 
burg's  contention  in  regard  to  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA. 
The  production  of  a  non-Shakespearean  TROILUS  by 
Dekker  and  Chettle  in  1599  was  perfectly  well  known  to  all 
of  us,  like  the  rest  of  Henslowe's  record ;  and  the  existence 
of  plainly  non -Shakespearean  matter  in  the  Shakespearean 
TROILUS  is  an  old  story  among  the  critics.  But  if  Mr. 
Greenwood  means  to  suggest — as,  apparently,  does  Judge 
Stotsenburg — that  what  is  generally  accepted  as  Shake 
spearean  matter  in  TROILUS  was  really  written  by  Dekker 
and  Chettle,  I  am  content  to  leave  the  question  to  Shake 
spearean  readers,  undebated.  That  Dekker  could  have 
written  the  great  speeches  in  TROILUS  is  a  proposition 
which  I  cannot  conceive  to  be  advanced  by  any  critic 
who  has  read  Dekker,  and  who  can  discern  the  qualities 
of  a  style.  As  to  the  non-Shakespearean  matter  in 
JULIUS  CESAR,  careful  analytical  research  is  highly 
desirable  ;  but  it  does  not  seem  likely  to  be  supplied  by 
the  school  of  Judge  Stotsenburg.  It  seems  to  me  a 
rather  lamentable  thing  that  a  critic  like  Mr.  Greenwood; 
who  might  be  doing  real  service  to  the  study  of 
Shakespeare  by  furthering  the  scientific  dissection  of 
the  composite  plays,  should  join  hands  with  con- 
1  By  Mr.  Greenwood,  p.  35 5 « 


574  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

fusion-mongers  who  merely  darken  counsel  by  ignorant 
inference. 

It  all  comes  of  parti  pris  ;  and,  as  Johnson  said  of 
Capell,  of  "  acquiescence  in  his  first  thoughts."  In 
his  resolve  to  disparage  the  Stratford  actor,  he  will  not 
even  attach  rational  weight  to  Heywood's  testimony 
that  when  Jaggard  in  1612  published  an  edition  of  THE 
PASSIONATE  PILGRIM  with  two  poems  of  Heywood's 
unwarrantably  included,  "  the  author,  I  know,  was  much 
offended  with  Mr.  Jaggard  that  (altogether  unknown 
to  him)  presumed  to  make  so  bold  with  his  name." 
"  Here,"  says  Mr.  Greenwood,1  "  we  observe  that  Hey- 
wood  does  nothing  to  identify  '  the  author  '  with  the 
player.  He  is  somebody  of  whom  Heywood  speaks  in  very 
deferential  terms."  And  Mr.  Greenwood  adds  that  "  '  the 
author  '  does  not  seem  to  have  raised  any  protest  as  Hey 
wood  did."  What  possible  justification  can  Mr.  Green 
wood  have  for  this  assertion  ?  He  appears  to  be  bent 
at  once  on  disparaging  the  actor  and  affirming  the  author 
ship  of  the  literary  lawyer  ;  for  he  argues  on  the  one  hand 
that  had  not  Heywood  interfered,  the  publisher's  fraud 
would  have  been  acquiesced  in,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  the  hypothetical  real  author — "  a  courtier,  for 
instance,  holding  or  aspiring  to  high  office  in  the  state  " 
might  have  thought  it  expedient  to  hold  his  tongue. 
Yet  he  implies  that  Heywood  knew  who  this  real  author 
was,  and  that  it  was  somebody  in  high  station.  So  the 
secret  was  known  to  Heywood — and  to  how  many  beside  ! 
What  concern,  then,  had  the  "courtier"  shown  for 
expediency  when  he  had  already  let  his  secret  be  thus 
known  ?  The  whole  argument  is  an  irreparable  mess. 
The  plain  answer  to  all  Mr.  Greenwood's  cavils  on  these 
heads  is  that  he  knows  and  can  know  nothing  whatever 
as  to  what  Shakespeare  the  actor  spontaneously  did  or 
said  when  his  works  were  pirated  or  other  men's  works 
were  ascribed  to  him.  These  were  not  occasions  for 
1  Work  cited,  p.  349. 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  575 

public  announcements,  and  no  one  has  any  right  to  allege 
that  "  the  author,"  whoever  he  were,  did  not  do  whatever 
little  was  in  his  power  to  stop  the  printers.1 

It  is  hardly  necessary,  finally,  to  debate  Mr.  Green 
wood's  claim  to  support  his  case  from  subsidiary  conflicts 
of  opinion  among  those  whom  he  lumps  together  as 
"  Stratfordians."  He  actually  challenges  us  all,  under 
that  name,  to  deal  with  the  "  difficulty  "  of  the  author 
ship  of  ARDEN  OF  FEVERSHAM,  which  some  Shakespeareans 
have  assigned  to  Shakespeare.  The  historical  fact  is 
that  two  "  Stratfordians,"  Mr.  Fleay  and  Mr.  Crawford, 
have  in  turn  claimed,  and  the  second  demonstrated,  that 
ARDEN  is  a  work  of  Kyd.  The  problem  is  exactly  the 
same  for  Mr.  Greenwood  as  for  the  Stratfordians ;  and 
to  suggest  that  any  conflict  on  such  issues  discredits  the 
common  conviction  that  the  Stratford  actor  wrote  the 
plays,  is  to  "suborn"  a  sophism.  As  well  might  it  be 
said  that  a  conflict  of  views  among  students  of  Bacon  as 
to  his  character  and  capacity  is  a  reason  for  doubting 
his  authorship  of  any  of  his  signed  works.  There  will 
long  continue  to  be  dispute  among  students  of  Shake 
speare  as  to  his  share  in  some  of  the  works  assigned  to 
him,  whether  canonical  or  apocryphal :  it  is  the  business 
of  Shakespearean  scholars  to  go  on  with  those  quests 
as  do  other  scholars  with  theirs.  A  desire  to  further  this 
legitimate  mission  has  helped  in  the  penning  of  these 
pages.  But  it  is  hard  to  see  how  it  can  be  otherwise 
than  very  indirectly  furthered  by  contributions  to  the 
great  "  anti-Stratfordian "  enterprise  of  straining  at 
gnats  and  swallowing  camels. 

§8 

Something  must  be  said,  finally,  concerning  the  so- 
called  arguments  founded  on  the  facts  that  Shakespeare 
in  his  will  left  only  his  second-best  bed  to  his  wife,  and 

1  If  he  had  sued  them,  would  not  Mr.  Greenwood  have  accused 
the  Stratford  actor  of  oppressing  poor  tradesmen  ? 


576  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

that  the  signature  to  the  will  is  tremulous — or,  as  some 
say,  "  illiterate."  To  me  personally  it  has  always  been 
so  astonishing  that  reasoning  men  should  treat  such 
items  as  having  a  real  bearing  on  the  question  of  author 
ship,  that  I  have  some  little  difficulty  in  discussing  it 
without  raising  the  question  of  their  good  faith.  Their 
positions  appear  to  be  (i)  that  the  bequest  of  the  second- 
best  bed  proved  Shakespeare  to  have  been  on  bad  terms 
with  his  wife  ;  (2)  that  a  man  capable  of  being  on  bad 
terms  with  his  wife  could  not  be  a  man  of  genius  ;  and 
(3)  that  bad  handwriting  is  incompatible  with  great 
literary  production.  It  seems  necessary  to  meet  these 
propositions  seriously. 

Whether  Shakespeare  was  or  was  not  on  bad  terms 
with  his  wife  I  do  not  pretend  to  say.  No  one  has  any 
clear  right  to  an  opinion  on  the  subject.  It  seems  unlikely 
that  the  "myriad-minded"  dramatist  should  put  as  a 
general  proposition,  on  the  strength  of  his  own  experience, 
the  passage  in  the  TEMPEST  in  which  Prospero  warns 
Ferdinand  against  anticipating  the  marriage  rite  :  he 
must  have  known  some  strictly  conventional  households 
in  which  the  conjugal  relation  was  inharmonious.  My 
own  youthful  surmise,  on  first  reading  the  will,  was  that 
the  second-best  bed  had  been  the  marriage  bed  ;  and 
that  Anne  desired  to  have  it  secured  to  her,  dwelling  on 
her  past  as  elderly  women — and  men — so  often  do.  The 
most  probable  solution  seems  to  be  that  she  was  either 
physically  or  mentally  in  a  condition  which  made  it 
desirable  that  she  should  not  be  left  a  control  of  property. 
But,  on  any  conceivable  view  of  the  case,  what  has  the 
bequest  to  do  with  the  question  of  the  authorship  ?  I 
will  not  go  into  the  cases  of  Jonson,  Moliere,  Byron, 
Shelley,  Milton,  Victor  Hugo,  Hazlitt,  Goethe,  and 
Dickens,  who  were  so  variously  infelicitous  in  their 
married  lives  :  I  will  take  simply  that  of  Bacon.  He 
made  a  will  in  which  he  devised  a  great  deal  of  money 
that  he  did  not  possess,  so  that  it  had  to  be  administered 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  577 

by  creditors,  who  got  about  seven  shillings  in  the  pound— 
a  circumstance  that  does  not  seem  ever  to  have  troubled 
the  Bacon-Shakespeareans.     To  that  will,  in  which  he 
had  made  an  abundant  nominal  provision  for  his  "  loving 
wife,"  Bacon  added  a  codicil,  curtly  declaring  :   "  What 
soever  I  have  given,  granted,  or  appointed  to  my  wife,  I 
in  the  former  part  of  this  my  will,  I  do  now,  for  just  and 
great  causes,  utterly  revoke  and  make  void,  and  leave  j 
her  to  her  right  only."     Does  that  codicil,  one  asks,  in 
any  way  affect  the  question  of  Bacon's  authorship  of 
anything  he  did  or  did  not  claim  to  have  written  ?     If 
not,  what  is  the  difference  in  the  case  of  the  will  of 
Shakespeare  ? 

As  the  Baconian  argument  on  this  topic  remains  purely 
ridiculous  for  me,  while  appearing  to  have  for  some  people 
a  mysterious  force,  ^  all  cite  one  more  case  of  a  literary 
man's  will,  which  .ie/,jes  the  question  about  books,  much 
discussed  by  then^pconians.  The  will  of  the  poet  Samuel 
Daniel  is  extaKipt  It  begins  with  the  customary  "  com 
mitting  "  of  l/'o^^and  soul  to  their  respective  destinations. 
It  then  allot^  "to  my  sister,  Susan  Bowre,1  one  feather 
bed,  and  witft  tfae  furniture  thereto  belonging,  and  such 
linen  as  I  shall  «?.fcave  at  my  house  at  Ridge."  There 
follow  four  bequests  of  ten  pounds  each  to  members  of 
the  Bowre  family,  and  "  for  the  disposing  of  all  other 
things  "  the  testator's  brother  is  left  a  free  hand,  as 
executor.  There  is  not  a  word  about  books  or  wife, 
though  Daniel  is  supposed  to  have  had  a  wife.  "  When 
he  was  married,  and  to  whom,  still  remain  unknown."5 
Does  all  this  set  up  any  doubt  as  to  the  existence  of 
Samuel  Daniel,  his  authorship  of  the  books  to  which 

1  The  Rev.  Mr.  Grosart,  who  prints  the  will,  mentions  that 
Daniel  "  had  no  sister,  so  far  as  appears  "—another  "  mystery/' 
which  I  do  not  attempt  to  solve.     See  Grosart 's  ed.  of  Daniel's 
Works,    1885,   i,   pp.  xxv-xxvi.     [In  his  Index,  I  find,  Grosart 
admits  his  oversight,  and  says  he  cannot  account  for  it.] 

2  Grosart,   as  cited,  p.  xxiv.     Jonson  told  Drummond  that 
Daniel  "  had  no  children." 

2  0 


578  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

he    put    his    name,    and    his   reading   of   many    other 
books  ?  l 

The  question  of  the  handwriting  calls  for  no  more 
elaborate  treatment.  The  allegation  that  the  signatures 
to  the  will,  written  near  the  death  of  the  testator,  are 
those  of  an  "  illiterate  "  person,  is  a  sample  of  the  way 
in  which  Baconians  persuade.  Mr.  Greenwood  does  not 
scruple  to  write  of  "  the  hopeless  scrawls  that  do  duty 
for  his  signatures."2  I  know  not  what  the  palaeographers 
say  on  the  subject :  to  me,  on  a  comparison  of  the  Shake 
speare  signatures  with  others  of  the  period,  the  assertion 
seems  simply  false.  The  recently  discovered  half -signa 
ture  to  the  deposition  of  1612  3  is  indeed  very  hastily  and 
badly  written — apparently  with  the  kind  of  impossible 
pen  still  so  commonly  supplied  for  public  use  in  banks 
and  other  offices.  But  such  a  sign^re  was  on  any  view 
a  matter  of  no  formal  importance  ^  and  Shakespeare 
could  conceivably  have  been  much  bo^s\by  the  Mount- 
joye  case,  and  impatient  to  get  away  f^p£  it-  And  the 
Baconian  attack,  as  it  happens,  had  b^  j^-iiade  on  the 
signatures  already  known.  Now,  the  sifCfc'-rtures  to  the 
deeds  of  1612-13,  in  particular  tlae  second,  seem  to  me 
those  of  a  good  and  firm  penman  \  vtiose  to  the  will, 
written  within  a  month  of  death,  are  surely  not  out-of- 
the-way.4  Mr.  Greenwood  is  able  to  cite  Sir  Sidney  Lee 

1  The  book  query  arises  in  regard  to  Reginald  Scot,  author 
of    The  Discoverie   of  Witchcraft   (1584).      He   must  have   read 
many  books,  and  surely  owned  some,  but  no  book  is  alluded  to 
in  his  will.     (See  it  in  Nicholson's  rep.  p.  xxvii.) 

2  Shakespeare  Problem,  p.  14. 

3  Art.  New  Shakespeare  Discoveries,  by  Dr.  C.  W.  Wallace,  in 
Harper's  Magazine,  March  1910.     This  half-signature  goes  far  to 
validate  the  similar  one  on  the  Bodleian  Ovid.     The  abbreviated 
form  will  probably  be  exclaimed  over  by  Baconians.     I  may  note 
that  I  have  seen  just  such  a  half-signature  by  a  distinguished  living 
statesman. 

4  I  once  had  the  idea,  put  by  Mr.  Nesbit,  that  the  tremulousness 
of  the  signatures  to  the  will  might  stand  for  a  nervous  malady, 
the   likely   cause   of    Shakespeare's   retirement.     But    within    a 
month  of  death,  any  cause  might  so  operate. 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  579 

as  having  pronounced,  on  the  strength  of  the  five  signa 
tures,  that  Shakespeare's  handwriting  was  of  an  "  illegi 
ble  "  type.  It  is  rarely  that  Mr.  Greenwood  and  Sir 
Sidney  are  at  one  :  in  this  case  I  take  leave  to  deny  the 
assertion  of  both.  But  the  whole  of  Mr.  Greenwood's 
argument  on  the  subject  is  obscure.  He  seems  to 
imply  that  either  to  write  or  to  sign  in  the  old  "  Gothic  " 
script  as  late  as  1600  was  to  give  evidence  of  lack  of 
culture  ;  but  the  suggestion  that  men  who  then  wrote 
usually  in  the  Italic  script  might  sign  law  deeds  in  the 
old  script  he  meets  by  citing  Sir  Sidney  Lee  to  the  effect 
that  educated  Englishmen  in  those  days  wrote  their 
letters  usually  in  the  old  character  and  signed  their  names 
in  the  new  Italian  hand.  How  such  a  question  is  to  be 
settled  ;  how  we  can  know  whether  or  not  Shakespeare 
usually  wrote  in  modern  script,  I  am  unable  to  under 
stand.  Sir  Sidney  Lee  and  Mr.  Greenwood  seem  for 
once  to  have  united  in  a  dogmatic  and  unprovable  asser 
tion  of  the  kind  that  Sir  Sidney  usually  eschews  and 
Mr.  Greenwood  professes  to  reprobate. 

The  common  sense  of  the  matter  is  that  either  hand 
could  be  written  with  facility  ;  that  probably  the  actors 
had  been  taught,  as  Shakespeare  probably  was,  the  old 
English  script  at  school ;  and  that  he  was  therefore  not 
unlikely  to  have  written  his  plays  for  them  in  the  said 
script.1  That  wills  and  deeds,  written  in  old  script, 
should  be  signed  in  old  script,  seems  natural ; 2  but  I  am 
content  to  leave  that  an  open  question,  knowing  of  no 
adequate  research  on  the  subject.  In  any  case,  there 

1  The  MS.  of    The  Birth  of  Hercules  (written  after  1600),  of 
which  gome  facsimiles  are  given  in  the  Malone  Society's  edition, 
is  in  old  script,  with  names  in  italic. 

2  Mr.  Greenwood  jeers  vigorously  (p.  14)  at  Dr.  Garnett  and 
Dr.  Philip  Gosse  for  this  suggestion.     They  had  used  the  phrase, 
"  appropriate  for  business  matters  "  ;    and  he  asks  why  the  old 
should  be  more  appropriate  for  business  matters  than  the  new 
script.     He   knows  that   by    "business   matters"  they  meant 
legal  matters.     Will  he  explain  why  an  old  script  is  still  partly 
retained  in  engrossing  ? 


580  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

would  have  been  nothing  out-of-the-way  in  Shakespeare's 
adherence  to  the  old  script  all  his  life,  if  he  did  adhere 
to  it.  Spedding  notes  that  Bacon  wrote  the  old  script 
in  his  early  youth,  and  later  adopted  the  new.  I  have 
seen  a  number  of  books  of  Shakespeare's  age,  in  which 
marginal  annotations  are  made  in  the  old  English  script. 
The  writing  is  often  firmer,  doubtless,  than  that  of  the 
signatures  to  Shakespeare's  will ;  to  say  nothing  of  the 
hasty  half-signature  to  the  deposition  of  1612  ;  but,  as 
already  remarked,  the  other  signatures  seem  firm  enough. 
But  what  if  they  were  otherwise  ?  Supposing  they 
had  been  all  alike  tremulous,  or  penned  with  apparent 
difficulty,  what  would  follow  ?  Anti-Stratfordians  either 
are  or  are  not  aware  (i)  that  many  literary  men 
and  scholars  have  written  very  illegibly  all  their  lives  ; 
(2)  that  men  who  could  once  write  clearly  and  neatly  have 
through  some  nervous  affection  or  cramp  ceased  to  be 
able  to  do  so.  The  whole  argument  from  the  signatures 
is  for  me  so  nugatory  that,  not  knowing  what  its  sup 
porters  have  in  their  minds,  I  think  it  well  to  mention 
(i)  that  the  late  Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  one  of  the  most  cul 
tured  and  one  of  the  most  productive  men  of  letters  of 
his  time,  wrote  (latterly,  at  least)  one  of  the  very  worst 
hands  ever  seen  ;  (2)  that  several  financial  magnates  of 
our  day,  in  the  case  of  whose  signatures  legibility  would 
seem  to  be  important,  notoriously  sign  in  scrawls  which 
defy  decipherment,  and  are  recognised  at  the  banks  as 
a  species  of  mark  ;  (3)  that  cramp  or  other  nerve  affec 
tions  will  render  stiff  or  tremulous  the  hand  even  of  a 

i  man  of  genius  ;  and  (4)  that  when  we  are  near  death, 
infirmity  of  body  is  likely  to  occur  in  the  case  of  any  one 
of  us. 

/  Having  thus  put  briefly  all  the  arguments  that  seem 
to  me  necessary1  to  meet  the  Baconian  case  concerning 

1  See,  however,  Mr.  Lang's  posthumous  work,  and  the  smaller 
book  of  Canon  Beeching,  for  other  and  weighty  confutations  of 
Baconian  inferences  of  this  order. 


LIVES  AND  PERSONALITIES  581 

the  will  and  the  signatures,  as  I  understand  it,  I  will  not 
seek  finally  to  disguise  my  conviction  that  those  who 
have  advanced  or  been  impressed  by  it  have  suffered 
either  intellectually  or  morally  from  the  contagion  of  a 
malady  of  opinion.  When  before  was  a  literary  man's 
faculty  or  authorship  challenged  on  the  score  of  the 
badness  of  his  handwriting,  or,  for  that  matter,  of  his 
spelling  ?  l  And  when  before  were  a  man's  relations  with 
his  wife  considered  to  have  a  bearing  on  the  question  of 
his  possession  of  literary  genius?  The  Baconians  tell 
us  that  Shakespeare  did  not  properly  educate  his  daugh 
ters.  Did  Milton,  who  caused  his  to  learn  the  mere 
alphabets  of  dead  languages  so  that  they  might  read  aloud 
to  him  without  understanding?2  In  an  age  in  which 
most  women,  especially  in  the  provinces,  did  not  learn 
to  write,  is  there  anything  astonishing  in  Shakespeare's 
following  of  the  general  usage  ?  And  even  if  there  were, 
has  the  matter  any  more  evidential  bearing  on  the  ques 
tion  of  the  authorship  of  the  plays  than  has  the  fact  of 
Milton's  'display  of  repellent  characteristics  upon  the 
question  whether  he  wrote  PARADISE  LOST  as  it  stands; 
or  whether  the  poem  was  "  edited  "  as  Bentley  main 
tained  ? 

1  In  the  two  letters  of  Bacon  first  printed  by  Dr.  Grosart  in 
the  introduction  to  his  ed.  of  Sir  John  Davies,  six  separate 
words  are  given  up  as  "  illegible,"  and  the  spelling  is  lax. 

2  Mr.  Greenwood  (p.  204)  has  a  note  on  this  subject,  in  which  he 
strives  to  show  that  Milton  did  more  for  his  daughters  than 
Shakespeare  for  his.     Denouncing  the  "  pitiful  "  pleas  of  "  Strat 
ford  apologists,"  he  strives  to  evade  the  fact  that  Milton  forced 
his  daughters  to  read  to  him  in  languages  which  they  did  not 
understand.     All  the  while,  he  has  never  faced  the  real  issue — 
the  probable  difference  between  the  culture-standards  of  Stratford 
in  Shakespeare's  day  and  those  of  London  in  Milton's.     Milton 
had  his  daughters  taught  to  read,  but  not  to  know  any  language 
save  their  own,  because  "one  tongue  was  enough  for  a  woman." 
In  the  end  he  was  fain  to  teach  the  youngest  Latin.     The  others, 
forced  to  read  in  languages  they  knew  not,  came  to  hate  their 
father.     Mark  Pattison  was  more  severe  on  Milton  in  this  connec 
tion  than  is  Mr.  Greenwood  on  Shakespeare.    (Milton,  pp.  i47~8-) 


582  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

POSTSCRIPT 

Even  Mr.  Lang,  in  the  act  of  confuting  the  "  anti- 
Stratfordian  "  case,  seems  to  me  to  make  one  unwarranted 
concession  to  it.  On  the  strength  of  Shakespeare's  four 
law  suits  to  recover  small  debts,  he  pronounces  him  a  "  hard 
creditor."  Now,  it  is  not  inconceivable  that  the  author  of 
the  Plays  may  have  been  a  hard  creditor  ;  but  it  seems  to  me 
unlikely  ;  and  the  four  small  law  suits  are  very  inadequate 
proof  of  such  a  charge.  It  ignores  (i)  the  far  greater  common 
ness  of  such  litigation  in  that  day  than  in  ours  ;  and  (2)  the 
obvious  possibility  that  Shakespeare  was  dealing  with  slippery 
debtors.  Shakespeare,  described  by  Jonson  as  of  "  an  open 
and  free  nature,"  might  well  have  to  leave  such  matters  to  his 
attorney.  John  Shakespeare,  as  we  have  seen,  ran  many  more 
law  suits  than  his  son  ever  did,  some  of  them  with  his  personal 
friends.  Moi  qui  parle,  I  once  sued  a  rascally  debtor  for  a 
small  debt,  because  he  was  brazenly  bilking  me  ;  and  he 
succeeded,  despite  the  court's  order  against  him  !  I  cannot 
on  that  score  reckon  myself  a  hard  creditor — I  never  sued 
anybody  else — and  I  can  conceive  that  Shakespeare,  in  a 
day  of  lower  standards  than  ours,  found  more  than  one  of 
his  debtors  dishonest,  or  otherwise  exasperating.  Still,  the 
point  is  quite  irrelevant  to  the  question  of  authorship  or 
genius — as  irrelevant  as  is  that  of  Bacon's  laxness  and  in 
debtedness,  or  Scott's  indefensible  and  unprofessional  specu 
lations,  or  Burns's  or  Musset's  drinking,  or  Defoe's  trickeries, 
or  Heine's  malice,  or  Tourguenief 's  timidity,  or  the  aberrations 
of  Poe,  or  the  fanaticism  of  Dante,  or  the  lying  of  Pope,  or 
the  scurrility  of  Milton,  or  the  brutal  quarrelling  of  Jonson, 
to  the  question  of  the  faculty  of  any  of  these  writers. 


CHAPTER  XV 

CONCLUSION 

ON  a  broad  retrospect,  the  Baconian  theory  con 
stitutes  a  singular  example  of  what  men  call 
"  the  irony  of  fate."  If  there  was  one  task 
upon  which  Bacon  was  more  bent  than  on  any 
other;  it  was  that  of  goading  or  leading  men  to  sound 
methods  of  induction.  The  "idola"  of  his  antipathy 
were  the  heedless  presuppositions  and  prejudices,  the 
arbitrary  persistences  in  "  fore-deeming "  which  with 
most  men  did  duty  then,  as  they  do  now,  for  the  spirit 
of  inquiry  and  truth-seeking.  He  miscarried  often  enough 
in  his  own  inductions,  constructive  and  negative ;  but 
his  great  service  to  thought  and  science  consisted  precisely 
in  the  force  and  instancy  of  his  warnings  against  the 
snares  of  intellectual  "  will- worship."  And  it  has  been 
left  to  the  professed  "  Baconians  "  of  to-day  to  supply 
the  most  flagrant  instance  in  modern  history,  theology 
apart,  of  the  intellectual  sin  which  he  so  forcefully 
denounced.  They  have  trodden  his  law  underfoot. 
They  have  gone  about  their  task  with  a  more  complete 
disregard  of  the  first  principles  of  inductive  research  than 
was  shown  by  any  alchemist  or  physicist  in  Bacon's  age. 
Catching  at  a  conventional  falsism  as  to  the  legal  know 
ledge  in  the  Shakespeare  plays,  they  have  made  it  an 
article  in  their  creed  without  an  attempt  to  check  it  by  a 
collation  of  other  men's  plays.  Starting  with  the  other  con 
ventional  falsism  as  to  the  classical  knowledge  exhibited 
in  the  plays,  they  have  but  angrily  flouted  all  contrary 
contentions  in  a  spirit  of  sheer  fanaticism,  and,  instead 
of  checking  their  first  data  by  inductive  comparison, 

583 


5 14  THE  BACONIAN  HER 

have  heaped  a  Pefion  of  nonsense  upon  an  Qssa  of 


If,  again,  there  was  one  thing  that  a  tnte  Baconian 
ought  to  have  done  before  drawing  an  inference  from 
random  coincidences  in  the  Plays  and  the  Works,  it  was 
to  turn  to  the  plays  and  works  of  coeval  writers,  to 
ascertain  whether  the  coincidences  were  special  or  general. 
Not  one  in  a  hundred  of  the  professed  "  Baconians  '*  has 
ever  made  the  attempt ;  a  few  read  one  other  dramatist 
and  decide  straightway  that  Bacon  wrote  his  works  also ; 
a  few  read  a  little  more  widely  and  decide  that  Bacon 
wrote  everything.  We  are  witnessing,  not  a  process  of 
induction,  but  a  process  of  absurdity,  not  easily  distin 
guishable  from  monomania.  But  the  monomaniac  who 
affirms  th^t  Bacon  wrote  all  the  KMyahetban  drama  and 
Spenser  and  Montaigne  and  Puttenham  and  Burton  and 
Nashe,  and  in  addition  did  the  Authorised  Version  of 
the  Bible,  is  only  persisting  in  extending  the  primary 
fallacy  of  the  inference  that  Bacon  wrote  Shakespeare 
because  similar  expressions  occur  in  the  Plays  and  the 
Works.  His  wildest  extravagance  is  what  men  quaintly 
call  a  "  logical  '*  extension  of  the  first  absurdity,  said  to 
have  been  embraced  by  John  Bright. 

True ;  but,  once  more,  he  and  they  have  thus  mud/, 
extended  that  play  of  uncritical  belief  and  heedless 
advocacy  which,  as  Bacon  saw,  pervades  more  or  less 
the  thinking  and  the  propaganda  of  most  men.  We  have 
had  gross  nonsense  from  Lord  Campbell ;  and  only  rather 
grosser  nonsense  from  the  Baconians ;  he  doing  his  special 
pleading  with  half -prof esstonal  unconcern  for  pure  truth  ; 
they  doing  theirs  with  all  the  zest  of  self-pleasing  fanatics, 
as  little  awake  as  he  to  the  laws  of  intellectual  righteous 
ness.  And  other  forms  of  "  orthodox  "  dogmatism  have 
sinned  about  as  heedlessly  against  the  true  Baconian 
statute.  A  generation  ago  the  general  body  of  Shake 
spearean  scholars  either  violently  affirmed  or  tacitly 
accepted  as  final  the  "  expert "  dictum  that  poor  Peter 


CONCLUSION 

Cunningham's  discoveries  in  the  "  Revell "  papers; 
assigning  to  "  Shaxberd "  certain  plays  performed  at 
court  on  certain  dates,  were  impudent,  \virkrd.  ,uul  m  , 
less  forgeries.  And  now  Mr.  Ernest  Law  convincingly 
affirms,1  with  the  highest  backing  from  expert  authom  \ . 
that  they  are  not  forgeries  at  all.  In  a  world  in  which 
such  things  happen,  we  cannot  dismiss  the  Bacuni.m 
heresy  as  a  mere  negligible  freak  of  human  nature. 

Not  that  I  suppose  it  possible  to  lead  zealous  Bacon  i  m 
back  to  common  sense.  A  preliminary  passage  in  Dr. 
Theobald's  SHAKESPEARE  STUDIES  IN  BACONIAN  Ln;nr 
(p.  2)  tells  how,  after  reading  Bacon  and  Shakespeare 
"  in  perpetual  juxtaposition  for  years" — that  is  to  say, 
with  no  corrective  resort  to  the  writings  of  other  Elizabethans 
— "  the  persuasion  which  came  by  a  flash  of  perception,8 
ripened  into  a  strong  and  well-grounded  conviction; 
resting  on  facts  and  arguments,  solid  and  secure  as  mathe 
matical  demonstration."  Oniteso.  All  the  vital  counter 
vailing  facts  and  arguments  had  been  ignored,  and  the 
resulting  conviction,  obtained  like  that  derived  from  a 
mathematical  demonstration  of  the  squaring  of  the 
circle,  is  held  like  an  article  of  religious  faith.  Such  a 
psychosis  is  not  corrigible.  I  should  as  soon  expect  to 
convert  a  bishop  to  rationalism  as  one  of  Dr.  Theobald's 
way  of  reasoning  to  the  comparative  method. 

But  something  may  be  done  to  prevent  the  spread  of 
such  hallucination  among  the  normally  uncritical.  The 
Baconian  chimera  will  persist,  and  may  even  be  outgone. 
There  has  recently  been  produced,  by  Professor  Celestin 
Demblon  of  Brussels,  a  new  "  demonstration  "  that  the 
Plays  were  written  by  Roger  Manners,  Earl  of  Rutland 
(1576-1613),  who  married  the  daughter  of  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  and  shared  in  the  insurrection  of  Essex.  It  will 
be  interesting  to  follow  the  relations  of  M.  Demblon  with 
the  Baconians  :  no  one  else  need  intervene.  Transcend- 

i  Some  Supposed  Shakespeare  Forgeries,  1911. 

8  Word  so  corrected  by  hand  in  my  copy  of  the  reissue  of  1904 


586  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

ing  their  method  as  they  have  done  that  of  common 
sense,  M.  Demblon  in  his  opening  Vue  d'ensemble  tells 
us  the  circumstances  under  which  Lord  Rutland  wrote 
the  plays,  and  why  he  wrote  them,  sparing  us  the  trouble 
of  digesting  any  evidence  to  show  that  he  did  write  them. 
So  far  as  I  can  gather,  the  whole  proof  is  contained  in 
the  plea  that  he  might  have  written  them,  chronologically 
speaking,  if  we  do  not  date  any  of  the  plays  too  early. 
Of  either  external  or  internal  evidence  to  show  that 
Rutland  had  anything  to  do  with  the  plays,  or  wrote  any 
thing  else,  M.  Demblon  produces  not  a  scrap.1  He  pre 
sents  us  with  the  hero's  portrait,  that  of  a  sweetly  pretty 
young  man.  For  the  rest,  we  learn  that  this  youth 

has  successively  depicted  himself  in  Biron  of  Love's  Labour's 
Lost,  in  Bassanio  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  in  Romeo,  in  Benedict 
in  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  in  Jaques  of  As  you  Like  It,  in 
Hamlet,  in  Brutus  of  Julius  Cessar,  in  Prospero  of  The  Tempest — 
as  did  Goethe  in  Werther,  Hermann,  Faust,  and  Tasso  ;  as  did 
Honore  de  Balzac  in  Raphael,  in  Balthasar  Claes,  in  Albert 
Savarus,  &c.2 

1  M.  Demblon  appears  to  have  built  his  entire  hypothesis  on 
the  discovery  that  at  Rutland's  death  his  brother,  acting  as  his 
executor,  paid   "To  Mr.  Shakspeare  in  gold,  about  my  Lordes 
impreso,  xlivs.  ;    To  Richard  Burbage  for  painting  and  making 
it,   xlivs."     An    "impreso,"  more  correctly   "impresa,"  was  a 
personal   "  device  "  or  badge,  often  worn  in  tournaments  and 
masques.     M.  Demblon  asserts  that  the  payment,  as  noted  in 
the  family  accounts,  was  to  "  William  Shakspeare."     It  was  not : 
there  is  no  prenomen.     M.  Demblon  is  evidently  unaware  that  it 
has  been  shown  (by  Mrs.  Stopes,  in  the  Athencsum,  May  16,  1908) 
that    "Mr.  Shakspeare  "   was   probably  one  John    Shakspeare, 
a  fashionable  bit -maker  of  the  time,  concerning  whom  there  are 
many  entries  in  the  Wardrobe  Accounts  of  Charles  I,  as  prince 
and  as  king.     Among  other  things  he  made  "  guilt  bosses  charged 
with  the  arms  of  England."     Such  an  artist  was  very  likely 
to  be  employed  to  do  the  metal  work  of  an  impresa.     Mr.  John 
Shakspeare  would  seem  to  have  been  a  cousin  of  the  poet,  which 
would  explain  the  connection   with  Burbage.     Et  voild  tout — 
for  the  theory  of  M.  Demblon. 

2  Lord  Rutland  est  Shakespeare.     Par  Celestin  Demblon.     Paris; 
Ferdinando,  1912.     P.  16. 


CONCLUSION  587 

The  details  are  filled  in  with  the  same  masterly  sim 
plicity.  Rutland  was  incarcerated  for  his  rebellion  from 
1601  till  1603,  and  "  exhala  sa  douleur  dans  le  premier 
HAMLET,  ecrit  en  1602."  Why  he  chose  for  this  purpose 
the  old  HAMLET  of  Kyd,  and  how  he  managed  to  arrange 
the  matter  with  the  players  while  he  remained  in  custody, 
are  questions  that  M.  Demblon  neither  asks  nor  answers. 
In  his  second  chapter,  the  Professor  informs  us  that 
"  notre  etude  d'ensemble,"  published  in  the  GRANDE 
REVUE,  "  a  fait  beaucoup  de  bruit,  dans  la  presse  euro- 
peenne,  notamment  a  Paris,  a  Rome,  a  Milan,  a  Madrid, 
a  Cologne,  a  Berlin,  a  Moscou,  et  quelque  pen  a  Londres 
et  a  New- York.  Ce  n'est  qu'un  commencement."1  So 
one  would  suppose.  But  when,  citing  some  of  the  com 
ments,  for  the  most  part  skilfully  non-committal,  of  his 
continental  critics,  M.  Demblon  deals  with  that  of  M. 
Henri  Roujon,  of  the  Academic  Francaise,  he  dashes  the 
cup  of  promise  from  our  lips.  In  the  best  French  manner, 
M.  Roujon  had  written  : — "  As  for  the  proofs,  in  the  sense 
in  which  the  word  would  be  understood  by  a  magistrate, 
it  appears  that  M.  Celestin  Demblon  reserves  them  for 
a  book  which  he  is  going  to  publish.  He  will  pardon  our 
waiting  till  then  to  adhere  to  his  theory."  To  which 
M.  Demblon  replies  :  "  While  thanking  M.  Roujon  for 
his  kindness,  we  permit  ourselves  not  to  be  of  his  opinion  : 
with  the  French  ex-Minister  of  whom  we  have  spoken, 
with  M.  de  Pawlowski,  with  the  scholars  of  England,  of 
Germany,  and  of  New  York  who  have  written  to  us,  we 
believe  our  first  chapter  to  be  absolutely  decisive."  2  And 
there  the  matter  rests  !  "  That  does  not  signify,"  adds 
M.  Demblon,  "  that  we  have  not  a  quantity  of  new  proofs 
to  give  !  Our  whole  book  so  testifies,  and  some  more 
will  be  found  already  in  this  chapter."  The  further 
"  proofs  "  are  of  like  kind  with  those  which  M.  Roujon 
was  unable  to  detect  in  the  first  chapter  :  that  is  to  say, 
there  is  not  a  grain  of  evidence  in  the  book.  Running  to 
1  Work  cited,  p.  27.  *  Work  cited,  p.  29. 


588  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

559  Pages >  it  is  occupied  chiefly  with  the  thesis  "  Shaxper 
de  Stratford  hors  cause."  Incidentally  M.  Demblon 
discusses  at  great  length  many  biographical  and  literary 
points,  sometimes  quite  intelligently ;  but  as  to  his 
grounds  for  asserting  the  authorship  of  Lord  Rutland 
he  is  resolutely  uncommunicative. 

It  is  rather  hard  on  the  Baconians.  He  has  calmly 
annexed  all  their  case  against  "  Shaxper  "  ;  and  for  the 
rest  he  simply  tells  them  that  they  are  mistaken  about 
Bacon,  who  did  not  and  could  not  write  the  plays.  It 
is  quite  conceivable  that  he  may  convert  some  of  them  : 
confidence  of  assertion  seems  to  be  the  way  to  get  at  the 
Baconian  mind ;  and  as  he  spares  them  all  worry  over 
parallel  passages  he  offers  them  some  spiritual  compensa 
tion  for  the  loss  of  Bacon.  They  are  not  required  by 
him  to  ascribe  to  Rutland  the  whole  of  the  Elizabethan 
drama,  and  the  rest  of  the  Baconian  load.  It  should 
be  noted  that  he  provides  Mr.  Greenwood  with  his  lawyer  ; 
for  Rutland  had  done  some  legal  study  at  Gray's  Inn. 
Whether  Mr.  Greenwood  finds  this  sufficient  to  dispose 
of  his  difficulties,  I  leave  to  him  to  say. 

At  one  or  two  points,  M.  Demblon  and  Mr.  Greenwood 
are  partly  in  agreement.  They  concur — or  incline  to  do 
so — in  making  Jonson's  line, 

And  though  thou  hadst  small  Latin  and  less  Greek, 

and  the  sequel,  mean  :  "  and  if  you  had  small  Latin  and 
less  Greek  I  would  none  the  less, "  &c.  The  other  obstacles 
presented  by  Jonson's  testimony  M.  Demblon  gets  round 
very  much  as  Mr.  Greenwood  does.  On  his  own  account 
he  has,  as  might  be  expected  from  his  Vue  d' ensemble, 
the  courage  to  allege  that  the  reminiscences  of  Ovid  in 
the  VENUS  and  the  LUCRECE  "  recall  always  the  original 
text,  never  the  text  o/Golding."1  "  La  verite  a  ses  droits," 
is  nevertheless  one  of  M.  Demblon's  propositions.2  Like 
Mr.  Greenwood,  he  has  assumed  that  those  who  deny 

1  Work  cited,  p,  49.  *  P.  68. 


CONCLUSION  589 

Shakespeare's  possession  of  classical  scholarship  represent 
him  as  being  "  presque  inculte " — almost  devoid  of 
education.  This  nobody  but  a  Baconian  ever  did. 
"  Comme  s'il  avait  jamais  existe  un  grand  poete  inculte  !  " 
continues  M.  Demblon.  "  Comme  si  Ton  pouvait  m£me 
en  concevoir  un  !  "  It  may  be  worth  while  to  say  a 
final  word  on  that  head. 

If  by  inculte  M.  Demblon  means  a  modern  who  had 
not  read  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics,  he  in  effect  destroys 
his  own  case  later,  for  he  is  willing  to  accept  Plautus  as 
knowing  no  tongue  but  Latin,  and  Robert  Burns,  "  ce 
charmant   poete,"   as  having   "  fait   de  bonnes   etudes 
primaires  et  lu  des  livres  dont  il  nous  cite  lui-meme  les 
titres."1    This  is  just  a  trifle  too  puerile.     No  one  with 
whom  M.  Demblon  has  to  debate  ever  suggested  that 
Shakespeare  had  not  read  as  many  books  as  did  Burns. 
The  whole  question,  once  more,  is  as  to  whether  the 
Shakespeare  of  the  Plays  needed  much  classical  culture 
to  write  them.     If  M.  Demblon  means  to  assert  this,  we 
need  not  argue  with  him  as  to  whether  Plautus  had  read 
any  Greek.  On  his  principles  a  Homer  could  not  have  been 
a  great  poet,  whether  or  not  he  could  read  or  write.    M. 
Demblon  is  at  pains  to  remind  us  that  Musset  made 
"  bonnes  etudes  dont  il  ne  fait  jamais  etalage,"  and  to 
argue  that  Balzac  was  not  an  ignoramus  because  he 
assigned  to  a  depute  a  fictitious  department.     Quite  so  : 
the  question  about  the  "  sea-coast  of  Bohemia  "—copied 
from  Greene's  tale— has  really  nothing  to  do  with  the 
case ;  though  that  was  certainly  not  a  lapse  possible  to 
Bacon.     But  when  we  are  discussing  Balzac,  is  nothing 
to  be  said  on  the  question  whether  his  "  Comedie  humaine" 
was  or  could  have  been  constructed  without  classical 
culture  ?     Balzac   (concerning  whom  posterity  may  be 
presented  with  a  new  Baconian  myth,  on  the  score  that 
the  family  name  was  really  "Balssa"),  was  certainly 
no  scholar.     He  left  school  at  seventeen.     Is  it  alleged 
1  Pp.  42-43- 


590  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

that  the  smattering  of  classics  he  had  at  a  college  made 
possible  for  him  a  work  of  imaginative  creation  such  as 
the  schooling  and  actor-training  of  Shakespeare  made 
for  him  impossible  ?  I  am  content  to  leave  the  issue  at 
that — and  M.  Demblon  to  the  Baconians. 

In  one  attitude  of  mind  they  are  truly  akin.  Deter 
mined  to  deny  that  the  "  Stratford  actor  "  can  have 
produced  the  Plays,  they  never  once  balk  at  the  notion 
of  their  being  produced  as  a  kind  of  recreation  by  any 
university  man,  however  otherwise  engaged.  Uncon 
cerned  as  they  are  to  inquire  how  their  exalted  hero 
contrived  to  be  man-of-all-work  to  a  theatre-company, 
they  are  if  possible  still  less  moved  to  wonder  how  that 
manifold  mass  of  dramaturgy  was  created  secretly  by 
a  man  of  affairs,  ostensibly  occupied  throughout  his  life 
in  wholly  different  ways.  Even  Mr.  Greenwood  has  no 
misgiving  in  suggesting  that  his  unknown  lawyer-author 
was  a  "  busy  man,  whose  aim  it  was  to  use  the  stage  as 
a  means  to  convey  instruction  to  the  people,  and  to 
teach  them  a  certain  measure  of  philosophy  "I1  All 
that  mighty  mass  of  poetic  creation  was  a  by-product 
of  a  busy  lawyer  ;  and  its  aim — from  Falstaff  to  Corio- 
lanus,  from  Juliet  to  Perdita — was  "  to  convey  instruction 
to  the  people  "  !  For  the  Baconians,  it  is  not  even  a 
problem  that  the  full-handed  Bacon  should  have  added 
the  seven-and-thirty  Plays  to  a  performance  which,  apart 
from  these,  ranked  him  with  the  great  thinkers  and 
workers  of  his  time.  For  M.  Demblon,  it  is  not  even  a 
matter  for  surprise  that  his  young  Earl  threw  off  the 
Plays  in  the  intervals  of  travel,  study,  rebellion,  and 
court  life.  The  work  of  the  greatest  of  all  dramatists, 
it  appears,  could  be  written  "  standing  on  one  foot," 
provided  one  had  only  been  at  a  university  ! 

There  need,  then,  be  no  limit  to  the  list  of  claimants. 
From  Mr.  Greenwood's  book,  as  above  noted,  and  from 
an  Appendix  to  Mr.  Harold  Bayley's  entitled  THE  SHAKE- 
1  Shakespeare  Problem,  p.  514. 


CONCLUSION  59I 

SPEARE  SYMPHONY  (1906),  I  learn  that  an  "able  work" 
has  been  written  by  Judge  Stotsenburg,  under  the  head 
ing  AN  IMPARTIAL  STUDY  OF  THE  SHAKESPEARE  TITLE, 
to  show,  says  Mr.  Bayley,  "•  that  the  Shakespeare  Plays 
are  not  the  work  of  one  single  author,  but  of  a  poetic 
syndicate,  including  among  others  Drayton,  Dekker, 
Heywood,  Webster,  Middleton,  and  Porter.  To  this 
group  Bacon  was  merely  a  polisher  and  reconstruct  or." 
This  last  idea  is,  in  Judge  Stotsenburg 's  own  words,  "  a 
conclusion  that  forces  itself  upon  my  mind  because, 
first,  I  believe  that  Bacon  if  he  originated  the  plays 
would  have  observed  the  unities,  and  secondly,  because 
his  philosophical  views  and  peculiarities  are  interwoven 
in  some  of  them."  I  confess  to  having  abstained  from 
taking  the  trouble  to  read  Judge  Stotsenburg 's  book. 
One  must  draw  the  line  somewhere.  The  judges  have 
an  awful  record  in  this  business  :  only  Judge  Willis  has 
stood  for  critical  investigation  and  common  sense,1  as 
against  Lord  Campbell,  Lord  Penzance,  Judge  Webb, 
Judge  Holmes,  and  Judge  Stotsenburg.  Ne  sutor  ultra 
crepidam  :  a  judge  is  no  judge  in  a  literary  problem  when 
he  lacks  either  due  knowledge  or  literary  judgment.  The 
last  seems  to  be  Judge  Stotsenburg 's  weak  point. 

His  "  syndicate  "  theory  appears  to  be  a  modification 
of  that  of  Delia  Bacon.  How  he  can  assign  the  great 
tragedies  to  any  combination  of  the  writers  above-named, 
and  why  he  does  not  assign  all  their  works  to  other  men, 
I  am  not  concerned  to  inquire.  If  he  had  been  able  to 
recognise  in  the  really  alien  or  composite  plays  the  hands 
of  Peele,  Greene,  Marlowe,  and  Kyd,  he  would  have 
creditably  marked  himself  oft  from  the  Baconians  ;  and 
if  he  could  indicate  in  TROILUS  or  TIMON  or  JULIUS  C^SAR 
the  hand  of  any  of  the  writers  he  has  named  (Dekker,  I 
have  suggested,  wrote  the  Prologue  to  TROILUS),  he  would 
be  doing  some  critical  service.  That  there  is  something 

1Even  Judge  Willis  did  strange  things  in  his  mock-trial 
of  the  Bacon-Shakespeare  question  ! 


592  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

of  Middleton  in  MACBETH  was  argued  by  others  before 
Judge  Stotsenburg.  But  to  assign  the  whole  of  the 
Shakespeare  plays  to  a  syndicatejof  which  not  one  (at 
least  of  those  named  by  Mr.  Bayley)  was  capable  of 
writing  the  finest  Shakespearean  poetry,  is  merely  to 
out-Bacon  Delia  and  the  Baconians.  Mr.  Greenwood 
notes  that  the  learned  judge  assigns  the  Shakespeare 
Sonnets  to  Sir  Philip  Sidney  ;  and  Mr.  Greenwood  does 
not  wince  !  The  learned  judge,  says  Mr.  Bayley,  "  has 
collected  a  large  number  of  parallel  passages  from  the 
writers  I  have  dealt  with  ;  but,  curiously  enough,  he 
notes  none  of  those  which  happen  to  have  struck  me." 
That  would  seem  to  mean  that  the  learned  Judge,  reading 
the  Elizabethan  dramatists,  has  failed  to  notice  (as  Mr. 
Bayley  has  noticed)  the  multitude  of  tags  and  echoes  and 
coincidences  which  might  have  revealed  to  him  how 
those  playwrights  could  have  tags  and  sentiments  in 
common  without  community  of  genius. 

Probably  the  whirligig  of  Time  will  cast  up  yet  other 
fantasies  in  far  greater  numbers  than  rational  contribu 
tions  to  Shakespeare  study.  I  do  not  despair  of  seeing 
seriously  advanced  the  theory  that  the  Plays  were  written 
by  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  was  a  good  classical  scholar, 
and  must  have  heard,  from  her  law  officers,  a  good  deal 
about  law.  Sir  John  Davies  pronounced  her  the  "  richest 
mind  "  of  all  time.1  And  if  any  man  tell  us — as  we  are 
at  times  tempted  to  tell  ourselves — that  in  a  world  in 
which  folly  is  thus  forever  heading  this  way  and  that, 
like  an  uncontrollable  epidemic,  it  is  a  waste  of  time  to 
reason  with  or  against  it  even  when  it  affects  thousands, 
we  can  but  rest  on  the  analogies  of  civic  life.  If  we  are 
well  employed  when  we  strive  to  minimise  disease  in 
the  body  politic  and  the  body  corporal,  we  are  surely  not 
much  less  rationally  employed  when  we  seek  to  minimise 
delusion  in  the  life  intellectual. 

Perhaps    we    may   overrate  the  importance   of  that 
1  Dedication  to  Nosce  Teipsum. 


CONCLUSION  593 

on  the  aesthetic  side.  But  here  again  we  can  plead  the 
common  human  interest.  If  we  be  asked,  Who  and  what 
was  this  Shakespeare,  that  you  should  spend  so  much 
time  and  trouble  in  settling  exactly  what  he  wrote  ? 
we  answer  that  it  is  all  part  of  the  eternal  tribute  men 
pay  to  genius,  as  to  beauty,  were  it  only  because  each 
is  so  rare.  The  very  vogue  of  the  Baconian  delusion 
is  to  be  traced  to  that  "  witchcraft  of  the  wit,"  that 
dominion  of  masterly  speech,  which  has  won  Shakespeare 
his  sovereignty.  In  seeking  to  dethrone  one  potentate 
of  the  aesthetic  life,  the  Baconians  have  not  chosen  a 
commonplace  substitute.  It  needed  a  great  power  over 
men's  spirits  to  move  such  a  multitude  even  of  unscientific 
reasoners  to  acclaim  in  Bacon  a  possible  claimant  to 
Shakespeare's  realm.  And  if  they  have  loved  not  wisely 
but  too  well,  they  have  therein  shown  themselves 
members  of  the  human  family. 

The  trouble  is  that,  set  agoing  as  they  were  by  the 
rebound  of  the  idolatrous  habit  in  regard  to  Shakespeare, 
they  have  developed  a  more  extravagant  idolatry  in 
regard  to  Bacon.  As  the  old  Shakespeare-worshipper 
saw  in  his  idol  the  sum  of  all  intellectual  excellence,  the 
Baconian,  carrying  credulity  to  new  extremes,  proclaims 
a  double  miracle,  and,  giving  two  kingdoms  to  one  man, 
quadruples  every  folly  of  his  predecessor.  There  has 
never  been  a  truly  critical  procedure  in  his  whole  develop 
ment.  Instead  of  correcting  the  faults  of  omission  and 
commission  in  the  idolatrous  criticism  of  Shakespeare; 
he  has  wholly  abandoned  Shakespearean  analysis,  taking 
the  entire  mass  of  the  plays  without  question  as  wholly 
one  man's  work,  and  fathering  on  Bacon  a  quantity  of 
matter  of  which  the  considerate  Shakespearean  was  long 
ago  glad  to  relieve  Shakespeare's  credit.1  At  that  level 
of  delusion,  no  corrective  thinking  is  possible.  Even 

1  From  such  blame  Mr.  Greenwood  is  honourably  exempt.  His 
discussions  of  the  composite  and  spurious  plays  are  the  soundest 
parts  of  his  book. 

2P 


594  THE  BACONIAN  HERESY 

the  conceivably  possible  gain  from  a  reaction  against 
idolatry  of  Shakespeare  has  been  turned  to  naught  by 
the  Baconian  resort  to  mere  vilification  of  the  rejected 
divinity.  Uncontrolled  in  animosity  as  in  adoration, 
the  heretic  will  see  no  kind  of  merit  in  the  renounced 
God,  seeing  all  things  in  the  new.  Worshipping  a  man 
who  was  fain  to  leave  his  reputation  to  "  men's  charitable 
speeches,"  they  catch  at  every  pretext  for  defaming  the 
man  of  Stratford.  Refusing  to  accept  any  tradition  to 
his  credit,  as  they  are  entitled  to  do,  they  gloat  over  the 
tradition,  caught  from  a  village  vicar  of  a  much  later 
time,  that  the  worshipped  poet  had  died  of  a  drinking- 
bout  with  old  friends  who  visited  him  from  London. 
Mr.  Greenwood,  standing  partly  outside  the  Baconian 
fold,  has  the  fairness  to  admit  that  this  is  in  all  likeli 
hood  a  myth  ;  but  the  Baconians  are  not  that  way 
inclined. 

The  argument  appears  to  be  that  if  once  Shakespeare 
can  be  proved  to  have  misconducted  himself,  the  case 
against  his  authorship  is  strengthened.  Such  a  method 
would  make  short  work  of  the  claims  of  Marlowe  and 
Greene  and  Peele  and  Jonson  to  their  plays  ;  and  it  is 
to  be  hoped  that  saner  critical  methods  will  in  future 
reign  even  among  the  "  anti-Stratfordians."  In  so  far 
as  they  are  sincerely  perplexed,  with  Emerson,  to  "  marry 
this  man's  life  to  his  verse,"  and  are  exercised  by  all  the 
"  difficulties  "  they  find  in  it,  they  may  usefully  ask 
themselves  how  they  can  hope  to  solve  these  by  a  hypo 
thesis  which,  whether  they  insert  Bacon  or  merely  Mr. 
Greenwood's  unknown  lawyer,  involves  on  the  bare  issue 
of  the  fact  the  most  mountainous  improbability  in  literary 
history.  And  perhaps  they  may  no  less  usefully  ask 
themselves  how,  on  their  principles,  we  are  to  solve  the 
difficulty  of  the  strange  incongruity  between  Bacon's 
precepts  for  the  right  management  of  personal  finance 
and  the  laxity  of  practice  which  wrought  his  ruin.  A 
little  extension  of  this  field  of  inquiry  may  lead  them  to 


CONCLUSION 


595 


perceive  that  there  are    "  difficulties  "  in  reducing  to 
strict  congruity  the  life  of  any  man. 

Whatever  may  be  the  developments  on  that  side  of 
the  dispute,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  something  has  been 
done  in  the  foregoing  pages  to  force  it  out  of  the  field  of 
literary  and  philological  myth-mongering  upon  which 
the  "  anti-Stratfordian  "  case  has  been  so  largely  founded 
by  all  its  advocates.  That  at  least  seems  worth  doing. 
On  any  view,  in  the  house  of  science  there  are  many 
mansions,  and  the  method  of  science  is  as  reasonably  to 
be  applied  to  any  one  problem  as  to  any  other.  After 
all,  it  may  be  as  humanly  useful  to  settle  "  aesthetic  " 
questions  of  this  sort  as  to  develop  the  law  of  projectiles, 
to  the  end  of  more  easily  and  surely  destroying  life  in 
war,  or  even  as  it  may  be  to  perfect  the  theory  of  "  the 
grip  "  in  golf. 


GENERAL  INDEX 


ABLATIVE  absolute,  the,  226 
Actors,  status  of  in  Tudor  times, 

27,  28 
Adams,  Thomas,  legal  phraseology 

in  sermons  of,  170 
Adonis,  "  gardens  "of,  183  sq. 
^Esthetic  taste,  as  arbitrator,  8, 14 
Against     Dicing,     Dancing,     &c., 

classical  matter  in,  1 82 
All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  law  and 

legal  phraseology  in,  65  sq.,  85 
Anacreon,    Shakespeare's   alleged 

knowledge  of,  215 
Anthon,  Prof.,  cited,  188 
Anti-Stratfordians,  the,  i,  5,  594 
Antony      and      Cleopatra,      legal 

phraseology  in,  84 
Appius  and   Virginia,  Webster's, 

trial  scene  in,  1 62  sq. 
A  rden  of  Fever  sham,  legal  allusions 

in,  61,  68 

written  by  Kyd,  575 
Ariosto,  249 

Aristotle,  Bacon  and,  529 
Arnold,  prose  and  verse  of,  485 
Artist  and  King,  story  of,  476 
Ascham,  on  English  vocabulary, 

259 

on  poetic  imitation,  392 
Asseveration,  terms  of,  477 
Astrophel,  Spenser's,  17  n. 
Astrophel  and  Stella,  91-2 
As  You  Like  It,  legal  phraseology 

in,  47  sq. 

"  Atheistic  academy,"  the,  25 
Augustine,      St.,      Shakespeare's 

alleged  knowledge  of,  203 

BACON,  Delia,  Theory  of,  1 1  n. 
Bacon,  Francis,  i,  2 

our    knowledge    of,    through 

Rawley,  23 
Baconus  or  Baco  ?,  3 
personality  of , contrasted  with 

Shakespeare's,  7,  547  sq. 
claims  for,  by  Baconians,  5 
and  Montaigne,  5 
on  the  bankruptcy  of  modern 

languages,  534 
handwriting  of,  580,  581  n. 
essays  of,  6,  526 


Bacon,  Francis,  character  of,  527 
does   not   talk   law  in   non- 

legal  works,  17,  525 
and  Essex,  32 
occupations  of,  32,  384 
didactic  ideals  of,   528,   534, 

583 

imitates  Montaigne,  386 
prose  style  of,   490,    503  sq., 

507  sq. 

vocabulary  of  ,  504  s#.,  511  sq. 
intellectual  interests  of,  384, 

5.2  5  sq. 
attitude   of,   to   the  theatre, 

S3i  sq. 

will  of,  576  sq. 
Bacon    and    Shakespeare,     8    n., 

ii  n. 

Bacon  is  Shakespeare,  3 
Bacon-Shakespeare  Question,  The, 

vii 
Bacon-Shakespeare    Question    A  n- 

swered,  The,  $66n.,  586^ 
Baconian  Mint,  The,  272,  276 
Baconian  Theory,  the,  i  sq.,  6,  7, 

9,  10 
advocated  by  Mr.  Donnelly, 


Ssq. 
.  The 


Dr.  Theobald,   v,    5,  94, 

201  sq.,  253  sq.,  376 
Wm.  Theobald,  218  sq. 
Sir  E.  Durning-Lawrence, 

Mr.  Castle,  with  qualifica 

tions,  127  sq. 
Delia  Bacon,  11  n. 
W.  H.  Smith,  1  1  n. 
Mark  Twain,  12-14 
not  accepted  by  Mr.  Green 

wood,  38 
extension  of,  beyond  Shake 

speare,  5 
motived      by      "  orthodox  " 

doctrine,  6 
never  accepted  by  a  trained 

English  scholar,  8 
insanities  of,  221,  382  sq.,  509, 

528,  536,  545,  584 
its  defiance  of   Bacon's  pre 

cepts,  583 
doubly  idolatrous,  593 


596 


GENERAL  INDEX 


597 


Baconians,    attitude    of,    9,    221, 

534.  536,  594 
Bacon's      precepts     trodden 

under  foot  by,  583  sq. 
Bale,  cited,  85  n.\  vocabulary  of, 

262 

Baluffe,  A.,  cited,  30  n. 
Balzac,  culture  and  performance 

of,  589  sq. 

Bancroft,   T.,   eulogy  of   Shakes 
peare  by,  21 
Banquet  of  Jests,  A,  20 
Barnes,  Barnabe,  "  legal  "  sonnets 

by,  88  sq. 
Bartholomew,  206 
Bayley,  Harold,  on  word-creation, 

265  n. 

on  Judge  Stotsenburg,  592 
Baynes,  Prof.,  182 
Beaumont,  97 

and  Fletcher,  use  of  "  pur 
chase  "  by,  99  sq. 
legal  phraseology  of,  ch. 

iii,  passim 

echo  Shakespeare,  396 
rivalled    Shakespeare  in 

plot -making,  544 
Beaching,  Canon,  xii,  580  n. 
Bees,  described  by  Shakespeare, 
Elyot,  Lilly,  and  others,  204  sq. 
Bentley,    on    the     "  gardens    of 

Adonis,"  184  sq. 
Berni,  249 
Bible,  translation  of,  ascribed  to 

Bacon,  5 

Shakespeare's  alleged  know 
ledge  of,  68,  145 

Biography,    lack    of,    in    Shake 
speare's  age,  24  sq. 
Blackstone,  208 
Blind  Beggar  of  Alexandria,  The, 

legal  matter  in,  168 

Bompas,  G.  C.,  on  Shakespeare's 

vocabulary,  517  n.,  520-1  n. 

miscarriages,  of,  521  n.,  558  n. 

on  Bacon's  use  of  law  terms, 

525  n. 

Brandes,  G.,  249  sq.,  251 
Burns,  culture  of,  556 
Breton,  N.,  104 
Browne,  Sir  T.,  prose  of,  508 
Browning,  prose  and  verse  of,  484 
Burbage,  Richard,  586  n. 
Burton's    Anatomy,    ascribed    to 

Bacon,  401 
Butler,  J.  D.,  184 
Byron,  prose  and  verse  of,  484 


C/ESAR,  on  vocabulary,  259 
Camden,  on  Spenser's  funeral,  1 5 
Campbell,  Lord  Chief  Justice,  on 
Shakespeare's      legal      ac 
quirements,  35  sq. 
inconsistencies    of,    37,    156, 

I57S?. 

Carlyle,  on  Emerson,  etc.,  17 
Carter,  Rev.  T.,  cited,  145  sq. 
Castle,    E.    J.,    on   Shakespeare's 
legal     knowledge,     36-37, 
127  sq. 
on  law  in  Macbeth,   39  ;    in 

Titus,  173 
theory  of,  as  to  "  legal  "  and 

"non -legal"  plays,  127 
on  Lord  Campbell,  127-8 
uninformed     as     to     Eliza 
bethan  literature,  128 
blunder    of,    as    to    use    of 

"  colour,"  128  sq. 
blunder     of,     as     to     name 

"  Escalus,"  134 
follows  Mr.  Donnelly,  1 38  sq. 
Catullus,     Shakespeare's    alleged 

knowledge  of,  208,  214 
Centurie  of  Prayse,  22 
Cervantes,  30 
Chaucer,  19,  26,  102,  260 

prose  and  verse  of,  486  sq. 
scholarship  of,  486 
Cheke,   Sir   John,  on  neologism, 

258 

influence  of,  262 
Chambers'  Journal,  art.  in,  on  the 

authorship  of  the  plays,  1 1  n. 
Chapman,  20 

legal  allusions  by ,"40,  76,  78 

(ch.  iii,  passim),  168 
use  of  "  purchase  "  by,  I  T  I 
use  of  legal  maxims  by,  40,  u  9 
on  legal  delays,  141 
on  law  courts,  145 
use  of  forms  of  trial  by,  1 53 
imitates  Shakespeare,  394 
imitations  by,  389 
word  formations  by,  266  n. 
Chloris,  91 
Cicero,  203 

Ciphers,  Baconian,  2,  3,  536 
Clarke,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cowden,  201 
Caelia,  91 

Coincidences   of   phrase,    alleged, 
between    Bacon    and    Shakes 
peare,  376  sq.,  433  sq. 
Cokaine,    Sir    Aston,    on    Shake 
speare,  21 


598 


GENERAL  INDEX 


Coleridge,  echoes  Davies,  392 
prose  and  verse  of,  484 
effect  of  biography  of,  538 
Collier,  J.  P.,  36  sq. 
Collins,   J.  Churton,  on  classical 
knowledge    in    the    plays, 
ix  sq.,  34,  17955.,  182,  190 
on  Farmer,  194 
on  MS.  translations  of  classics, 

195 

on  law  terms  in  Titus,  39,  171 
Colman,  223 

Comedy   of  Errors,   legal   phrase 
ology  in,  46 
composite  authorship  of,  197 

sq.,  485 

Contention  of  .  .  .  York  and  Lan 
caster,  73 
Copernicus,  doctrine  of,  rejected 

by  Bacon,  5  n.,  529 
Coriolanus,  legal  phraseology  in, 

84,  122 

sources  of,  191  n. 
alleged  classical  learning  in, 

192 

Cornelius  Agrippa,  208 
Cornish,  181  n. 
Cowley,   allusion  to   Shakespeare 

by,  20 
Craik,    Prof.,    on    Julius    Ccesar, 

191  n. 

Crawford,     C.,     on    the     Bacon- 
Shakespeare  Question,  vii, 
7,  276,  380,  433 
on   authorship   of    Arden   of 

Fever  sham,  575 
Creighton,    Dr.,    on    Shakespeare 

and  Barnes,  89  n, 
Cryptogram,  Mr.  Donnelly's,  2 
Cunningham,    Peter,    vindicated, 
584-5 

DANIEL,  echoed  by  Shakespeare, 

280,  389 
Johnson  on,  561 
will  of,  577 

Dante,  prose  and  verse  of,  484 
Davenant,    Sir   W.,    his    Ode   to 

Shakespeare,  21 
Davies,      Sir      John,      "  gulling 

sonnets  "  by,  93 
echoed  by  Shakespeare,  189 
poetry  of,  523 
on  Queen  Elizabeth,  592 
Davis,  Senator  Cushman,  on  law 
in  Shakespeare,i 2 1  sq.,  174 
on  Jonson's  law,  123 


De  CivitateDei,1he,  Shakespeare's 

alleged  use  of,  203  sq. 
De  Proprietatibus  Rerum,  206 
Dekker,  scanty  details  as  to  life 

of,  23-4 

imprisonment  of,  64 
legal  phraseology  in,  ch.  iii 

passim 

use  of  "  purchase  "  by,  109 
use  of  forms  of  trial  by,  1 54 
echoes  Shakespeare,  395,  398 
wrote   prologue    to  Troilus  ?, 

400 
share    in    pre-Shakespearean 

Troilus,  573 
Delia,  91 

Demblon,  Prof.  C.,  his  thesis   of 
Lord  Rutland's  authorship 
of  the  Plays,  585  sq. 
his  treatment  of  facts,  588 
on  the  possibility  of  a  great 

uncultured  poet,  589 
Devecmon,  on  law  in  Shakespeare, 

60,  157,  162,  174 
on  law  in  Webster,  157,  171 
Devil's  Law  Case,  The,  50,  61-2, 

157  sq.,  173 
Diana,  91 
Dickens,  17,  556 
Digges,    Leonard,    his   eulogy   of 

Shakespeare,  20-22 
Dogberry  and  Verges,  52 
Donne  and  Ben  Jonson,  560,  561 
Donnelly,    I.,   theories  of,   2,    16, 

183  sq. 

on  Bacon-Shakespeare  paral 
lels,  376,  401  sq. 
scholarship  of,  183 
on  Bacon  and  Montaigne,  388 
ascribes    Burton's    A  natomy 

to  Bacon,  401 
Double-endings  in  Shakespeare's 

plays,  198 
Drake,  scanty  details  as  to  life  of, 

26 
Drayton,  his  lines  to  Shakespeare, 

20,  22 

his     knowledge    of    Shakes 
peare,  22 
legal  phraseology  in  sonnets 

of,  92 
influence  of,  on  Shakespeare's 

sonnets,  92 

description  of  a  trial  by,  145 
echoes  Spenser,  392 
Drummond  and  Ben  Jonson,  17, 
20,  559 


GENERAL  INDEX 


599 


Dryden,  prose  and  verse  of,  484 
Dugdale,  Shakespeare  monument 

shown  by,  ix 
Durning-Lawrence,      Sir    Edwin, 

Baconian  arguments  of,  v,  3,  4, 

5,  H 

ECONOMICS  of  Genius,  the,  551 
Edward    III.    echoed   by   Shake 
speare,  390 

Edward  IV.  Pt.  II.  legal  phrase 
ology  in,  144 

"  Eitherside,  Serjeant,"  38,  115 
Elegies,  Elizabethan,  17  n. 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  Sir  John  Davies 

on,  592 
Elyot,  Sir  T.,  on  country  sessions, 

149 
on  civil  polity  and  that  of  the 

bees,  204  sq. 

on  study  of  languages,  262 
Elze,  on  Shakespeare's  vocabulary, 

517-8  n. 

Emerson,  on  Shakespeare's  life,  539 
Enchiridion  militis  Christiani,  1 8 1 
Epitaph,  Shakespeare's,  by  Basse, 

20 

Mrs.  Hall's,  29 

Erasmus,  classical  matter  in  En 
chiridion  of,  1 8 1-2 
Errors    common    to    Bacon    and 

Shakespeare,  244 
''  Escalus,"  Mr.  Castle's  theory  as 

to,  134 

Essex,  trial  of,  32 
Euphuism,  41,  91 

Faerie  Queene,  legal  matter  in,  1 52 
Farmer,  Dr.,  on  the  learning  of 
Shakespeare,  182,  192,  194, 
222 

high  qualifications  of,  viii 
on  Shakespeare's  abstention 

from  publication,  540 
Favorinus,  on  vocabulary,  260 
Fees  payable  by  prisoners,  64  sq. 
Feltham,  Owen,  praise  of  Shake 
speare  by,  21 
Fides sa,  91,  93 
Fiske,  Prof.,  182 
Fleay,   F.    G.,  on   Julius   Ccesar, 

191  n. 
on    Shakespeare's    company, 

on    authorship   ol    Arden    of 

Fever  sham,  575 
Florio,  5,  1 6  n. 


Flowers,  allusion  to,  in  the  minor 

dramatists,  531  n. 
Folio    (1623),    references    to,    20, 

220,  540,  545,  559 
Fortescue,  Sir  John,  cited,  56 
Four  Elements,  The,  181 
Fournier,  E.,  cited,  29  n.,  30  n 
Foxe,  48 
Furnivall,  Dr.,  220 

GASCOIGNE,      George,      "  legal  " 

sonnet  by,  88  n. 
comedy   of    Supposes   trans 

lated  by,  223 

Genius,  literary,  assumptions  and 
misconceptions  as  to,  538  sq. 
and  culture,  550  sq. 
George-a-Greene,  125 
Gifford.on  Marston's  family,  561-2 
Gloster,  story  of  Duke  of,  1  38 
Goethe,  prose  and  verse  of,  485 
"  Golden  Hind,  The,"  26 
Gosson,  61 
Greene,  scanty  details  as  to  life 

of,  23 

development  of,  557 
share  of  in  Titus,  35,  399 
resort  of  to  legal  phraseology, 
41,  ch.  iii,  passim,  150  sq., 

155 

use  of  "  purchase  "  by,  105 
anecdote  of,  125 
plagiarised  from  Thynne,  151 
hostile  to  Shakespeare,  219, 

543 

on  neologism,  258 
imitations  by,  389 
Greenwood,  G.   G.,   positions  of, 


x,  9,  14,  15  sq.,  18, 
his  imaginary  playwright,  547, 

553  ".,  559,  568 
on  Shakespeare's  death,  16,  17 
on  allusions  to  Shakespeare, 

19.  39 
on   Shakespeare's  knowledge 

of  law,  34,  35 
use  of  Lord  Campbell's  thesis 

by,  35,  38,  60,  161,  171  sq., 

176 

his  position  negative,  34,  559 
on   legal   allusions  in    Titus, 

39,  65,  171,  173    . 
follows    Grant   White    as    to 

"  purchase,"  99 
argument   of,    as   to   law   in 

Webster,    157  sq.,    161   sq., 

171  sq. 


6oo 


GENERAL  INDEX 


Greenwood,  G.  G.,  on  the  law  in 
Adams' sermons,  170 

argument  of,  as  to  proofs  of 
Shakespeare's  legal  know 
ledge,  171  sq.,  176 

follows  Lord  Penzance,  173 

blames  Mr.  Devecmon  in 
error,  174 

recognises  alien  elements  in 
the  Plays,  183 

his  theory  of  Shakespeare's 
"  culture,"  192  sq.,  550  sq. 

its  exiguous  basis,  193 

misconceptions  of  the  author 
by,  195-6,  199  sq. 

faced  by  problem  of  com- 
positeness  of  plays,  542-3 

on  genius  and  culture,  550  sq., 
55659. 

obtrudes  the  "  university 
fallacy,"  556 

on  the  testimony  of  Jonson, 
55959.,  5645?. 

misinterprets  it,  562 

rejects  Baconian  theory,  38 

but  gives  excuse  for  calling 
him  a  Baconian,  566 

on  "  The  Silence  of  Philip 
Henslowe,"  569 

use  of  Judge  Stotsenburg's 
argument  by,  573 

treatment  of  Heywood's  tes 
timony  by,  574 

on  authorship  of  Arden  of 
Fever  sham,  575 

on  Shakespeare's  signatures, 
577  sq. 

on  the  education  of  Mil 
ton's  and  Shakespeare's 
daughters,  581 

holds  that  the  Plays  were 
written  to  convey  instruc 
tion  to  the  people,  590 

recognises     their     composite 

character,  593 
Griffin,  B.,  sonnets  by,  93 
Grosart,    Rev.    Dr.,    on    Daniel, 

577  n. 

Grote,   on   Athenian   drama   and 
j|,  Dikasteries,  553  n. 

HABINGTON,  W.,  alludes  to  Shake 
speare,  21 

Hales,    of    Eton,    praises    Shake 
speare,  21 

Prof.,  on  Spenser's  life,  26 
Sir  James,  78 


Hales  v.  Petit,  78,  176 
Hall,  H.,  on  Elizabethan  litigious- 
ness,  44,  143 
Mrs.  Susanna,    28  ;     epitaph 

of,  28-29 

Hallam,  on  neologism  in  Shake 
speare,  253  sq. 
Halliwell-Phillipps,  on  Stratford- 

on-Avon,  28 

on    the    learning    of    Shake 
speare,  183 

Halpin,  Rev.  N.  J.,  558  n. 
Hamlet,  authorship  of,  32,  399 
legal  allusions  in,  63,  77  sq., 

121 

Handwriting,  literary  men's,  580 
Hannibal,  Missouri,  23 
Hannibal,  name  used  for  Cannibal, 

236 
Hawthorne,     on     Delia     Bacon's 

theory,  n  n. 

Heine,  prose  and  verse  of,  485 
Henry  IV  (i),  legal  allusions  in, 

69  sq. 

wholly  Shakespearean,  200 
Henry  V.  alleged  classical  learning 

in,  203  sq. 

prologues      to,      non-Shake 
spearean,  400 
Henry  VI  (i),  authorship  of,   135, 

183,  201 
(2)  legal  phraseology  in,  73  sq., 

122,  136 
Henry  VIII,  48 

legal  phraseology  in,  48 
authorship  of,  118  n. 
Henslowe,  25,  56959. 

Shakespeare's  relations  with, 

570  sq. 

Heresy,  the  word,  i 
Herring,  The  Praise  of  the,  4,  5 
Hey  wood,    John,    vocabulary   of, 

263 
Thomas,     his     allusions     to 

Shakespeare,  21,  22 
legal  phrases  in  his  plays,  ch. 

iii.  passim. 

use  of  "  purchase  "  by,  107  sq. 
use  of  legal  maxims  by,  119 
scanty  details  of  life  of,  23, 

24,  40 

echoes  Shakespeare,  395 
his     relations     with     Shake 
speare,  574 

Historie  of  Error,  The,  197 
Holland,    Hugh,    his    eulogy    of 
Shakespeare,  20 


GENERAL  INDEX 


60 1 


Holmes,     Judge     N.     and      the 
"  American  School,"  n  n. 
positions  of,  377 
cited,  12  n. 
Hooker,  263,  509,  525 
Hooper,  Bishop,  legalising  of,  70, 

169-70 
prose  of,  489 
Hopkins,  version   of   Psalms   by, 

in  n. 
Horace,      Shakespeare's     alleged 

knowledge  of,  193,  207 
Tudor  translations  of,  208 
Hughes,  C.  E.,  22 
Hugo,  prose  and  verse  of,  485 
Hunt,    Leigh,    on    Shakespeare's 

scholarship,  201-2 
Hutchinson,  Roger,  103 
on  lawsuits,  141 


Idea,  91,  92 

Idolatry  of   Shakespeare, 


32, 


538  sq.,  549  sq.,  593 
//  You  Know  not  Me,  &c.,  scenes 

in,  142—4 

Imitation,  poetic,  388  sq. 
Impresa,  the  Rutland,  586 
In  re  Shakespeare's  Legal  A  cquire- 

ments,  157 
Indictments,      legal,      in      stage 

trials,  65  sq. 
Ingleby,     Dr.,     his     Centurie     of 

Prayse,  22 
cited,  558  n. 
on  portraits  of  Shakespeare 

and  Spenser,  569 
Is  Shakespeare  Dead  ?  12 

JAGGARD,  W.,  cited,  36  n. 
Jaggard,    the    Elizabethan    pub 
lisher,  574 
James,  King,  81 
Jeronymo,  25 
Johnson,  Dr.,  effect  of  biography 

of,  538 
Jonson,       Ben,       and       Bacon's 

"  secret,"  2,  566 
scanty  details  as  to  life  of, 

23,  25 
on  Shakespeare,  20,  22,  27-28, 

34,  559,  562 
on  Spenser's  death,  1 5 
conversations  of,  with  Drum- 

mond,  17,  20,  559 
temperament  of ,  18,  560 
Mark  Twain  on,  19 


Jonson,  Ben,  his  knowledge  of 
Shakespeare,  22, 27-28, 2 19 
560,  561 

critical  inconsistencies  of,  564 
on     Shakespeare's     classical 

knowledge,  34,  563,  565 
on  the  "gardens  of  Adonis  " 

188 

use  of  legal  phraseology  by, 
ch.    iii,     passim,     115  sq., 
123  sq.,    l$2sq. 
use  of  "  purchase  "  by,  106 
legal  maxims  by,  119 
forms  of  trial  by,  1 52  sq., 

165  sq. 

imprisonment  of,  64 
parallels  between  Bacon  and, 

381,  434,  437  s?. 
imitates  Shakespeare,  377-8 
prose  and  verse  of,  486,  489 
culture  of:  its  effect  on  his 

art,  557 

and  Donne,  560,  561 
on  Daniel  and  Marston,  561 
Catalogus  Scriptorum  of,  565 
His   Ode  on   Bacon's  Birth 
day,  566  sq. 
Repetition    of    phrases    by, 

565-7 

Jonsonus  Virbius,  21 
Judges,  choleric,  in  Tudor  times, 

84-5 
wicked,  in  Tudor  and  Stuart 

drama,  135 
record  of,  on  the  Baconian 

question,  591 

Julius  Ccesar,  originals  and  sources 
of,  19059.,  392  «.,  573 

KEATS,  prose  and  verse  of,  484 
effect  of  biography  of,  538 
culture  of,  551  sq.,  556 
Kenyon,  Lord, "legal "  verses  by,87 
King  John,  legal  phraseology  in, 

King,  Edward,  on  English  vocabu 
lary,  259 
Knight,   Charles,  on  learning  of 

Shakespeare,  190,  203 
Kyd,  scanty  details  as  to  life  of, 

23,  25 

author  of  the  first  Hamlet,  399 
possible  share  of  in  Titus,  35 
alluded  to  by  Nashe,  38 
use  of  "  purchase  "  by,  105 
author  of  A  rden  of  Fever  sham, 
575 


602 


GENERAL  INDEX 


LAMB,  Charles,  7 
Lang,  A.,  viii  sq.,  569  n. 
handwriting  of,  580 
Langland,  56,  103 
Latimer,  103,  263 
on  lawsuits,  142 
on  kinds  of  sessions,  148 
Latinisms  in,  261 
Latin  elements  in  English,  255  sq. 
Laughton,  Prof.,  on  Drake,  26 
Laura,  gi 

Law,  Ernest,  on  Peter  Cunning 
ham,  585 

Law,  Shakespeare's  alleged  know 
ledge  of,  x,  13,  31  sq.g6sq., 
117  sq. 
general     proclivity     to,     in 

Shakespeare's  age,  44 
courts  much  resorted  to,  145 
Lawsuits,  duration  of,  71  sq. 
Lawyers,  and  clients,  44-45,  62-63 
incompetent  pronouncements 
by,  on  law  in  Shakespeare, 
94 

Lear,  legal  phraseology  in,  75  sq. 
Lee,  Sir  Sidney,  88,  572  n.,  579 
Leir,  pre -Shakespearean  play  on, 

573 

Leopardi,  prose  and  verse  of,  485 
Licia,  91 

Lilly,  scanty  details  as  to  life  of,  24 
legal  phraseology  of,  ch.  iii, 

passim,  114  sq. 
use  of  "  purchase  "  by,  105 
Litigation  and  Legalism  in  Eliza 
bethan  England,  140  sq. 
Looking-Glass  for  London,  A ,  trial 

scene  in,  155 
Love-philtres,  246 
Lover's  Complaint,  A,  i6n. 
Love's  Labour's  Lost,  legal  phrase 
ology  in,  52 

Love's  Labour's  Won,  200 
Lowell,  179 
Luce,   Morton,   on  Shakespeare's 

vocabulary,  518  n. 
Lumley,    Lady,    version  of  Euri 
pides  by,  196 

MACAULAY,  G.  C.,  cited,  vii 
Macbeth,  "  law  "  in,  39,  80 
alien  elements  in,  546 
MacCallum,     Prof.,     on     Shake 
speare's  Roman  plays,  191,  391 
Machiavelli,  Bacon  and,  529 
McKerrow,  388 
Maginn,  Dr.,  182 


Magnetic  Lady,  The,  legal  matter 

in,  165  sq. 

Malone,  on  Shakespeare's  law,  34 
on  authorship  of  i  Henry  VI. 

135 

cited,  208 
Mark  Twain,  attitude  of,  to  the 

problem,  v,  10,  12  sq. 
followed  Mr.  Greenwood,  14, 

19,  34 

ill-informed  as  to  details,  18, 

20,  22,  23 

ignorant   as   to    Elizabethan 

life,  23 

his  case  summarised,  1 3 
his  adoption  of  the  legalist 

case,  31  sq.,  176 
Marlowe,    plays    of,    ascribed    to 

Bacon,  5,  377 

use  of  "  purchase  "  by,  105 
probable  author  of   i   Henry 

VI,  189 

scholarship  of,  189 
echoed  by  Shakespeare,  208, 

389 

echoes  Spenser,  389 
Marsh  on  Shakespeare's  vocabu 
lary,  517  n. 

Marston,  imprisonment  of,  64 
family  connections  of,  561 
Jonson  and,  560 
vies  with  Shakespeare,  391 
Martin,  Sir  T.,  on  the  culture  of 

Dickens,  556 

Massinger,  legal   phraseology  in, 
54,  ch.  iii,  passim,  112  sq. 
use  of  "  purchase"  by,  no 
use  of  legal  maxims  by,  1 19  sq., 

121 

trial  scenes  in,  155 
Maxims,  legal, in  Shakespeare  and 

Bacon,  40,  119  sq.,  144 
Measure  for  Measure,  legal  phrase 
ology  in,  44  sq.,  133 
plot  of,  1 34 
Meier,  Dr.  K.,  562  sq. 
Merchant    of    Venice,    The,    legal 
forms  and  phraseology  in, 
55-61,  123,  161,  173 
wholly  Shakespearean,  200 
Merry    Wives    of    Windsor,    legal 

phraseology  in,  40  sq. 
Middleton,  legal  procedure  in,  1 56 
Milton   on   Shakespeare,    20,    22, 

202 

on  the  "  gardens  of  Adonis," 
185  sq. 


GENERAL  INDEX 


603 


Milton,  imitates  Sylvester,  392 
prose  and  verse  of,  484 
vocabulary  of,  518  n. 
effect  of  biography  of,  538 
education    of    daughters    of, 

58i 
Moliere,     prejudice     of     pietists 

against,  29  n. 
scanty  biographical  details  of, 

30 

Montaigne,  Florio's  translation, 
Shakespeare's  use  of,  190, 
207,  396 

imitated  by  Bacon,  388 
More,  Sir  T.,  vocabulary  of,  261 
Morgan,   Appleton,   on  styles  of 
Shakespeare    and    Bacon, 

483  «• 

on  Venus  and  Adonis,  553 
Much   Ado  About  Nothing,   legal 

phraseology  in,  52  sq. 
Miiller,    Max,    on    Shakespeare's 
vocabulary,  517  n. 


NASHE,  cited,  4,  5 

doctrine    of    Copernicus    re 
jected  by,  5  w. 
scanty  details  of  life  of,  23 
Epistle    to    Greene's    Mena- 

phon,  38 
legal  phraseology  in,  ch.  iii, 

passim 

use  of  "  purchase  "  by,  109 
knowledge     of     law     courts 

shown  by,  135 
on  lawyers  and  statutes,  137 
on  English  litigiousness,  140 
use  of  forms  of  trial  by,  1 50 
plagiarisms  by,  388 
prose  of,  487 

Neologisms,  Elizabethan,  91,  258 
alleged,  in  Shakespeare,  253  sq. 

Nero,  396 

New  English  Dictionary,  The,  265, 

438-9 

North's  Plutarch,  191-2 
Northbrooke,  182 
Nosce  Teipsum,  189 


"ORTHODOX  "errors,  9,  10,  538^., 

549  sq.,  584 

Othello,  legal  phraseology  in,  81  sq. 
Ovid,  Bacon's  and  Shakespeare's 

use  of,  530,  531 
Oxford  Dictionary ,  the,  265, 438-9 


Palladis  Tamia :  Wit's  Treasury   5 
Pattison,  Mark,  on  Milton's  con 
duct  as  a  father,  481 
Pecock,  257 

Peele,  our  lack  of  knowledge  of,  23 
share  of  in  Titus,  35,  216,  399 
use  of  "  purchase  "  by,  105 
use  of  forms  of  trial  by,  1 52 
translation    from    Euripides 

by,  196 

imitations  by,  389 
culture   and   dramatic   work 

of.  557 

Penzance,  Lord,  35,  95,  173,  381 
on  classical  knowledge  in  the 

plays,  183  sq.,  190  sq. 
on      coincidences      between 
Bacon    and    Shakespeare, 
380  sq. 
Persius,  207 
Phillis,  91 
Plagiarism  in  Elizabethan  period, 

388,  436 

Plato,  supposed  knowledge  of  by 
Shakespeare,  x  sq.,  1845^.,  189 
sq.,  202,  203  sq.  529 
Playmaking,  supposed  by  "anti- 
Stratfordians  "    to    require    no 
training,  553  n.,  590 
Plays,  sale  of,  by  theatrical  com 
panies,  540 
Pliny,  on  "gardens  of  Adonis," 

187 
Plowden,  78  sq. 

Bacon  and,  529 
Poe,  echoes  Mrs.  Browning,  392 

prose  and  verse  of,  485 
Polimanteia,  558w. 
Pollard,  A.  W.,  on  authorised  and 

unauthorised  quartos,  540  sq. 
Pott,  Mrs.,  381,  521  n. 
Promus  of  Formularies  and  Ele 
gances,  381,  436 
Prose,  Shakespeare's  and  Bacon's, 

483  sq. 
Proverbs,  currency  of,  179 

RALEIGH,  25,  171 

Ramsay,  H.,  his  praise  of  Shake 
speare,  21^ 

Ramus,  5  n. 

Rape  ofLucrece,  The,  legal  phrase 
ology  in,  87 

Rawley,  Dr.,  his  account  ot 
Bacon,  23 

Renan,  on  Shakespeare's  vocabu 
lary,  517  n 


604 


GENERAL  INDEX 


Rhythm,  magic  of,  503 

Richard  II,  played  for  the  Essex 

conspirators,  535 
Richard  III,    composite    author 
ship  of,  198  n. 
Rhymes,  vicious,  used  by  Spenser, 

Peele,  and  Chapman,  557 
Rolle,  Richard,  487 
Romeo   and  Juliet,   legal   phrase 
ology  in,  85  sq. 
Rowley  and  Dekker,  121 
Rutland,      Lord,      Shakespeare's 

plays  ascribed  to,  585  sq. 
Rushton,  W.  L.,  on  law  in  Shake 
speare,  40,  117  sq. 
copied    by    Lord    Campbell, 

36  n. 
on  Lord  Campbell's  mistakes, 

117 
on  Shakespeare's  Euphuism, 

117 
"  Rustic,  the  Stratford,"  550  sq. 

SCOT,  Reginald,  will  of,  578  n. 
Scott,  effect  of  biography  of,  538 
Shakespeare,  Anne,  575  sq. 
Shakespeare,    John,    litigiousness 

of,  145  sq. 

a  Puritan  recusant  ?,  145-8 
supposed    impecuniosity    of, 

146-7 
Shakespeare,    John,    of    London, 

586  n. 

Shakespeare  a  Lawyer,  36  n. 
Shakespeare,  Bacon,  Jonson,  and 

Greene,  36 
Shakespeare   Folios    and   Quartos, 

540 

Shakespeare  Forgeries,  Some  Sup 
posed,  585 
Shakespeare's  Legal  Acquirements 

Considered,  36  sq. 
Shakespeare     Problem     Re-Stated, 

The,  34 

Shakespeare,  Puritan    and    Recu 
sant,  146 

Shakespeare  Studies  in  Baconian 
Light,     201    sq.,     2 S3  sq.,    377, 
433  sq.,  585 
Shakespeare  Symphony, The,  26$n., 

590-1 

Shakespeare,  boyhood  of,  147,  552 
bust  of,  ix,  10 
portraits  of,  569 
allusions    to,     contemporary 

and  later,  20-21 
schooling  of,  552  sq. 


Shakespeare,  corrupt  passages  in 

3,  4 

alleged  knowledge  of  law  in, 
ix,  13,31  sq.,147  sq.,i?ssq. 

(See  Campbell,  Castle,  Devec- 
mon,  Rushton,  and  Green 
wood) 

alleged  classical  learning 
shown  by,  ix,  20-21,  22,  34, 
178  sq.,  192  sq.,  216,  253  sq. 

death  and  funeral  of,  16,  17 

epitaph  of,  18 

alleged  knowledgeof  theBible, 

68,  145 
of  Italian,  249  sq. 

biography  of,  26 

and  Lord  Southampton,  558 

Roman  plays  of,  190 

general  culture  of,  192  sq.,  554 

early  work  of,  199 

doubtful  plays  of,  210  n. 

alleged  large  vocabulary  of, 
265  n.,  511  sq.,  517 

actual  vocabulary  of,  266  n., 
504  sq.,  511  sq. 

imitations  of  and  by,  389  sq. 

prose  and  verse  of,  483  sq. 

the  genius  of  blank  verse,  503, 

inspired  phrasing  of,  522 
moral  attitude  of,  530 
non-religious  outlook  of,  521 
avowals  of,  in  the  Sonnets, 

535 

could  not  gain  from  bio 
graphy,  538 

inaction  of,  as  to  publishing 
his  plays,  $39sq. 

not   given   to   proof-reading, 

54i 

composite  character  of  many 
plays  of,  542  sq.,  546  sq. 

produced  plays  on  business 
lines,  543 

temperament  of,  contrasted 
with  Bacon's,  547-8 

not  a  studious  naturalist,  549 

special  culture  of,  553 

knew  Ovid  chiefly  in  transla 
tion,  554 

culture  opportunities  open  to, 

554,  556 

avoided  vicious  rhymes,  557 
and  Jonson,  560 
unblotted     manuscripts     of, 

562-4 
actor -partners  of,  568 


GENERAL  INDEX 


605 


Shakespeare,    relations    of,   with 

Henslowe,  570  sq. 
will  of,  575  sq. 
signatures     and     script     of, 

578  sq. 
and  his  daughters'  education, 

S8i 

was  he  a  hard  creditor  ?,  582 
sonnets  of,  ascribed  to  Sid 
ney,  592 

Shelley,  effect  of  biography  of,  538 
Shick,  Prof.,  25  n. 
Sidney,  elegies  on,  17  n. 
sonnets  of,  91 
echoed  by  Shakespeare  ?,  390, 

396 

poetry  of,  523 
culture  of,  554 
Sir    John    Oldcastle,    "  law "    in, 

125  sq. 

Smith,    Mr.    Pearsall,    on    Shake 
speare's  vocabulary,  266  n. 
Society  in  the  Elizabethan  Age,  44 
Sonnets,  Shakespeare's,  29,  535 
legal  phraseology  in,  87 
written  by  an  actor,  535 
Elizabethan,     legal     phrase 
ology  in,  88  sq. 
imitativeness  of,  91 
Soulie,  cited,  30  n. 
Southampton,  Lord,  89,  558 
Spanish  Tragedy,  The,  25  n. 
Spencer,  H.,  7 

Spenser,  Baconian  claim  as  to,  5 
death  and  funeral  of,  15,  16, 

J7 
scanty  details  as  to  life  of,  23, 

25,  26 
elegy  of,   on  Sidney   (Astro- 

phel),  17  n. 

use  of  "  purchase  "  by,  104 
use  of  form  of  trial  by,  1 52 
on  the  "  gardens  of  Adonis," 

1845?.,  188 
vocabulary  of,  260 
imitates  Chaucer,  392 
repeats  his  tropes,  392 
portraits  of,  569 
need  for  annotated  edition  of, 

viii 

Stapfer,  202  n. 
Steevens,  34,  53 
Stevenson,  on   Shakespeare's  un- 

blotted  manuscript,  564 
Stonyhurst's  Virgil,  194 
Stopes,  Mrs.  C.  C.,  566  n.,  586  n. 
Stotsenburg,  Judge,  572  sq.,  591 


Stratford -on -A  von,  20,  28 
Shakespeare's  life  at,  23 
lack  of  Shakespeare  cult  at,  27 
Puritanism  in,  28 
illiteracy  in,  23 
law-courts  at,  145 

Stubbes,     Philip,   legal     phrase 
ology  in,  48,  and  ch.  iii,  passim 

Suckling,    praise   of   Shakespeare 
by,  21 

Supposes,  223 

Sylva    Sylvarum,    vocabulary   of 

520,  521 
matter  of,  384 

Symonds,  J.  A.,  cited,  24,  25  n. 

Taming  of  the  Shrew,  legal  phrase 
ology  in,  61  sq. 
authorship  of,  201,  399 
Taming  of  a  Shrew,  573 
Tartuffe,  29  n. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  prose  of,  508 
Taylor,  the  "  Water  Poet"  cited, 

20,  387 
Farmer  on  classical  matter  in, 

194 
evidence   of,   as   to    Bacon's 

view  of  the  theatre,  533 
culture  of,  555 
Ten  Brink  on  Chaucer,  486 
Tennyson,  17 

prose  and  verse  of,  48  4 
Terms  (seasons),  legal,  72 
Terrent,  J.,  praise  of  Shakespeare 

by,  21 

Theatre  in  Tudor  times,  29 
Theobald,  Lewis,  182,  192,  202  n., 

204 
Theobald,  Dr.  R.  M.,  v,  5,  94 

on  "  law  "  in  Shakespeare's 

Sonnets,  94 
on  the  classical  scholarship  of 

the  plays,  201  sq.,  253  sq. 
follows  Mr.  Donnelly,  202,  376 
his  list  of  "  coined  "  words, 

253  sq. 
attempted    reply    to    Judge 

Willis  by,  272,  274 
argument   of,    on    "  cumula 
tive  "    force    of   instances, 
377  sq. 
on  Bacon's  treatment  of  love, 

547 

intellectual  processes  of,  585 
Theobald,   W.,  on  Classical  Ele 
ment  in  Shakespeare's  Plays, 
218  sq. 


6o6 


GENERAL  INDEX 


Theobald,  W.,  on  Sir  Sidney  Lee, 

220 

on  Furnivall,  220 
on  Farmer,  222 
suicidal  thesis  of,  221,  536 
confusions  of,  222  sq. 
Theology,    Tudor,    legal    phrase 
ology  in,  70,  169 

Titus  Andronicus,  authorship  of, 
vii,  35,  135,  183,  201,  216,  399, 
546 

Tobacco,  Shakespeare  and,  504 
Translations,    MS.,    modern    and 

Tudor,  196 
Trial  of  Treasure,    The,  classical 

matter  in,  180-1 
Trial  by  combat,  63,  137,  160  sq, 
Trials,  dramatic,  57, 1235(7.,  1495*7. 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  legal  phrase 
ology  in,  75 
authorship  of,  573 
prologue     to,     plainly     non- 

Shakespearean,  400 
pre -Shakespearean     play    of 

same  title,  573 
Troublesome  Raigne  of  King  John, 

67 

Twelfth  Night,  date  of,  200 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  author 
ship  of,  200 

Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  The,  author 
ship  of,  126 
Tyndale,  260,  262 

UNIVERSITY  culture,   fallacies  as 

to,  556  sq. 
Upton,  1 82, 192 

VELASQUEZ,  i 

Velvet -Breeches    and    Cloth- 
Breeches,  150 
Venus,  the  Rokeby,  i 
Venus  and  Adonis,  legal  phrase 
ology  in,  86  sq. 
Shakespeare's  first  complete 

work,  199 
kind  of  culture  revealed  in, 

550  sq.,  553  sq.,  558 
Virgil, Shakespeare's  alleged  know 
ledge  of,  193,  531 
Bacon's  love  of,  530 
Vitu,  A.,  cited,  30  n. 
Vocabulary,  the  Elizabethan,  257 
sq. 


Vocabulary,   Bacon's  and  Shake 
speare's,  5045?.,  511  sq. 

WALLACE,  Dr.  C.  W.,  on  Tudor 

interludes,  181  n. 
Warner,  version  of  the  Men&chmi 

by,  19? 
Warning  for  Faire  Women,  A,  trial 

scene  in,  1 54 
echoed  by  Shakespeare,  390, 

391  n. 

Warren,  John,  his  lines  to  Shake 
speare,  21 
Warton,  187  n. 

Webster,    his    praise    of    Shake 
speare,  22 
legal  phraseology  in,    ch.  iii, 

passim,  i  57  sq. 
use  of  "  purchase  "  by,  106  sq. 
trial  by  combat  in,  63, 160  sq. 
use  of  forms  of  trial  by,  1 5  7, 5*7. , 

162  sq. 

much  more  given  to 
"  legalisms  "  than  Shake 
speare,  162 

imitates  Shakespeare,  393 
Wendell,  Barrett,  cited,  544 
West,     Richard,     his     praise     of 

Shakespeare,  21 

White,  R.  Grant,  54,  84,  249,  252 
argument  by,  on  legal  phrase 
ology  in  Shakespeare,  96  sq. , 
172 

follows  Lord  Campbell,  96 
theory  of,   on   Shakespeare's 

legal  training,  96  sq. 
mistakes  of,  on  the  legal  issue, 

98 

blunders  of,  on  the  classical 
issue,  184  sq.,  189  sq.,  202, 
203  sq. 

on  Shakespeare's  vocabu 
lary,  518  w. 

Whitman  on  prose,  487 
Willis,  Judge,  confutation  of  Dr. 
Theobald  by,  272  sq.,  276  sq. 
Winter's  Tale,  The,  legal  phrase 
ology  in,  64  sq. 
Woodward,  Parker,  v,  5  n. 
Words  used  by  Bacon  and  not  by 

Shakespeare,  511  n.,  512  sq. 

Wordsworth,  echoes  Spenser,  392 

prose  and  verse  of,  484 

ZEPHERIA,  90  sq. 


INDEX  OF  WORDS  DISCUSSED 

A  large  number  of  words  not  here  included,  used  by  Bacon  and 
not  by  Shakespeare,  will  be  found  in  chap.  xii. 


ABRUPTION,  264-5,  267,  353 
Academe,  264,  278 
Accite,  264,  279 
Acknown,  264,  273,  279 
Act,  366 
Admire.  256 
Admiration,  353 
Advantage,  467 
Affy,  171 

Aggravate,  273,  280 
Alloy,  515  n. 
Antic,  267,  270 
Antres,  281 
Ape,  1 39,  406 
Argentine,  354 
Arrest,  86 
Artificial,  281 
Aspersion,  282 
Assubjugate,  242,  267 
Attainted,  87 
Axle-tree,  407 

BAIL,  87-9 
Basilisks,  445 
Bay'd,  473 
Benign,  516 
Bowels,  408 

CACOD^MON,  282 
Cadent,  362 

Candidatus,  192,  242,  362 
Capable,  76 
Capricious,  283 
Captious,  224 
Cast,  283 
Casual,  283 
Caveat,  157,  175 
Cerements,  267,  271 
Certificate,  514  n. 
Charter,  89 
Circummure,  363 
Circumscribed,  284 
Civil,  284 
Cloud,  409 
Collect,  285 
Collection,  286 
Colon,  266  n. 
Colossus,  393,  394.  39$ 
Colour,  128  sq.,  174 


Comforting,  77,  286 
Compact,  253-4,  5i6w. 
Complement,  286 
Composition,  287 
Composure,  287 
Compound,  287 
Concents,  204,  205,  213,  288 
Conduce,  288 
Conflux,  267,  268 
Congreeing,  290 
Congruent,  290 
Constancy,  253-4 
Constringed,  291 
Continents,  253-4,  292 
Contraction,  293 
Contrive,  293 
Conveniences,  293 
Convent,  294 
Corpse,  256 
Courage,  256 
Covetous,  461 
Craven,  63,  161 
Credent,  267 
Crescive,  298 
Crisp,  298 

Computation,  515  n. 
Conduct,  288 
Confine,  289 
Confixed,  363 
Consequence,  367 
Consign,  291 
Consist,  291 
Contain,  292 
Conversation,  298 
Convict,  297 
Convince,  297 

DANGER,  474 
Decimation,  299 
Deformed,  233 
Defused,  299 
Degenerate,  299 
Deject,  299 
Delated,  300 
Delation,  300 
Demerits,  301 
Demise,  301 
Depend,  301 
Deprave,  301 

607 


6o8 


INDEX  OF  WORDS 


Deracinate,  267 
Derogate,  267,  270,  303 
Desert,  260  n. 
Desolate,  520 
Determine,  &c.,  355 
Dilated,  303 
Discoloured,  303 
Distract,  305 
Document,  305 
Dolours,  267-8 
Double,  306 
Dregs,  410 
Drouth,  519 

EAGER,  229,  382  sq. 
Edition,  516 
Effectually,  515 
Election,  398 
Enfeoff'd,  70  sq. 
Epitheton,  307 
Err,  errant,  erring,  308 
Erudition,  257,  520 
Eternize,  386 
Evacuate,  257 
Evitate,  237,  267,  273,  308 
Exempt,  309 
Exhaust,  309 
Exhibition,  309 
Exigent,  225,  310 
Exorcist,  310 
Expedient,  310 
Expostulate,  310 
Expulsed,  311 
Exsufflicate,  363 
Extent,  48-9 
Extenuate,  254,  312 
Extern,  267,  271 
Extirp,  312 
Extracting,  313 
Extravagancy,  355 
Extravagant,  313 

FACINOROUS,  313 
Fact,  313 
Factious,  361,  364 
Fantastical,  411 
Fatigate,  314 
Fee,  77,  86,  171 
Feoffee,  &c.,  115 
Festinate,  267,  314 
Fine,  314 
Fluxive,  267 
Forfeit,  82,  113 
Forfeiture,  98,  112,  113 
Fortitude,  367 
Fracted,  363 


Fraction,  367 
Frustrate,  314 

GALATHE,  243 
Garment,  385 
Generosity,  &c.,  355 
Gentle,  ge'ntility,  &c.,  367 
Girdle,  393 
Gratulate,  314 
Gravelled,  386-8 

HARMONY,  513  n. 
Holpen,  519 

Honorificabilitudinitatibus,  3,  224 

ILLUSTRATE,  314 
Illustrous,  228 
Immanity,  273,  315 
Imminent,  315 
Immure,  273,  315 
Impertinency,  "316 
Implorators,  230,  316 
Imponed,  316 
Imposed,  316 
Imposthume,  450 
Incarnadine,  235,  361 
Incense,  316 
Incertain,  317 
Incony,  267-8 
Include,  317 
Inclusive,  318 
Indenture,  67  sq.,  98 
Indigest,  318 
Indign,  318 
Indubitate,  318 
Inequality,  319 
Infection,  239 
Infest,  319 
Infestion,  239,  319 
Infinite,  385,  413 
Influence,  368 
Inform,  319 
Infortunate,  356 
Ingenious,  356 
Inhabitable,  320 
Inherit,  320 
Insinuation,  320 
Insisture,  321 
Instant,  321 
Insult,  321 
Intelligence,  514  n 
Intend,  322 
Intentively,  322 
Interdict,  514  n. 
Interrogatories,  61 
Intrinse,  325 
Ire,  257 


INDEX  OF  WORDS 


KNOWLEDGES,  519 

LAWMAKER,  520 
Lease,  87-88 
Leets,  61,  81-83 
Lethe,  356 
Lethe'd,  224 
Liberal,  238 
Lurched,  245 

MACULATE,  363 
Maculation,  363 
Mahomet,  515  n. 
Mediocrity,  514  n. 
Mere,  217,  323 
Merit,  324 
Metaphysical,  244 
Microcosm,  227 
Military,  508,  519 
Mirable,  370 
Modesty,  325 
Mortal,  415 

Mortgage,  87-88,  112,  113 
Mountain,  417 
Much,  479 

Multitudinous,  235,  266  n 
Mure,  &c.,  370 

NAME,  361,  365 
Narcissus,  470 
Naso,  370 
Nonsuits,  81-83 
Notary,  86 

OBLATION,  513  n.,  519 
Obligation,  326 
Obliged,  326 
Occident,  326 
Occupate,  520 
Ocean,  417 
Office,  357 
Officious,  357 
Oppugn,  327 
Oppugnancy,  327 
Ostent,  327 
Ostentation,  327 
Overcomen,  519 
Overpower,  514  n. 

PAINT,  328,  418 
Palliament,  242,  328 
Pantheon,  242 
Part,  328 
Perceive,  118 
Percussion,  226 
Perdition,  328 
Perdurable,  266,  329 


609 


Peregrinate,  329,  514,*. 

Perge,  233 

Periapts,  358 

Permission,  329 

Pernicious,  329,  361 

Perpend,  330 

Persian,  331 

Person,  331 

Pervert,  332 

Physical,  517 

Piece,  240 

Plague,  365 

Plant,  332 

Plantations,  530 

Plausibly,  371 

Plea,  87 

Pleading,  86 

Politique,  519 

Port  (=  gate),  333 

Port  (=  bearing),  334 

Portable,  334 

Posset,  229 

Praemunire,  48-50 

Prefer,  335 

Premised,  335 

Preoccupate,  520 

Preposterous,  335 

Prevent,  336 

Print,  473 

Probation,  337 

Proditor,  232,  337 

Proficience,  517 

Progeny,  226 

Propagation,  5 1 3  « 

Propend,  338 

Propension,  338 

Propound,  513  n. 

Propriety,  513  n. 

Propugnation,  338 

Prosecution,  225 

Pudency,  338 

Purchase,  84,  96  sq.,  99  sq.,  171 

QUANTITY,  253 
Questant,  339 
Questrists,  339 
Quicksilver,  448 
Quintessence,  386-8 

RECEIPT,  234 
Recordation,  339 
Reduce,  256,  339 
Refelled,  340 
Regiment,  519 
Register,  86 
Religious,  341 
Remainder,  98 


6io 


INDEX  OF  WORDS 


Remonstrance,  342 
Remotion,  242,  372 

Stuprum,  373 
Substituted,  350 

Renege,  342 

Success,  256,  350 

Replete,  359 
Repugn,  &c.,  343 
Repute,  344 
Retentive,  344 
Retrograde,  473 
Reverb,  273,  344 
Reversion,  98 

Sugared,  278 
Summary,  513  n. 
Super  sedeas,  83,  152 
Suppliance,  364 
Suspire,  351 
S  welling,  385,  427,  448 

Rigorously,  520 
Rivage,  345 
Roscius,  372 
Ruinate,  273,  345 

TAPERS,  459 
Temporary,  520 
Tenable,  351 
Tenants,  88-89,  I7I 

SACRED,  243,  345 
Sagittary,  243 
Salve,  373 
Scarcity,  241 
Scope,  345 
Scour,  420 
Sea,  385,  422 
Seal,  67  sq.,  75  sq.,  86 
Sect,  346 
Secure,  &c.,  347 
Seen,  360 
Segregation,  347 
Semblable,  347 

Tenure,  98 
Terms,  351 
Theory,  519 
Thicken,  382 
Thrice,  237 
Tide,  429 
Top,  278,  385,  445 
Torches,  459 
Totally,  520 
Translate,  253-4,  35  1 
Trash,  249,  472 
Troubler,  430 
Twenty,  475 

Sensible,  348 

Septentrion,  348 
Sequent,  364 
Several,  176-7 

UMBER'D,  353 
Umbrage,  353 
Unseminar'ed,  364 

Sessions,  81-83,  86 

Unsisting,  373 

Shadow,  432 

Shrunken,  514  n. 

VASSALAGE,  87 

Sibylla,  211 

Very,  217 

Simular,  232,  273,  348 

Vicissitude,  519 

Sinews,  424 

Virtue,  232 

Solemn,  349 

Voluptuous,  519 

Solomon,  519 

Sort,  349 
Sovereign,  425 

WARRANT,  41-43,  171 
Wax,  86,  89,  113 

Speculation,  349 

Weeds,  385,  431 

Spice,  427 

Wilderness,  432 

Spirits,  384 

Witness,  41 

Stage,  470 

Statutes,  112,  113,  115,  168,  175  w. 

YES,  &c.,  261 

Stelled,  350 

Your,  217 

INDEX  OF  PHRASES  DISCUSSED 


Absque  hoc,  72,  231 
Accident  subtlerthan  foresight,47 1 
Action  of  battery,  45,  72,  82,  84 
Ad  melius  inquirendum,  171—2 
Adonis'  gardens,  183  sq. 
A  edificatum  solo  solo  cedit,  40  w. 
Aedificium  cedit  solo,  40 
Amurath  an  Amurath  succeeds,  443 
Aristotle's  checks,  239 
Armour  of  the  mind,  458 
Art  adding  to  nature,  528 
As  heart  can  wish,  &c.,  74,  136 
As  tongue  can  speak,  &c.,  74 
At  a  stand,  518 
At  a  stay,  519 
Attorney,  the  heart's,  86 
Auspicious    and    dropping    eye, 
462  sq. 

BATHE  in  blood,  244 

Barren  money,  455  sq. 

Beat  the  breast,  239 

Be  it  known  unto  all  men,  &c.,  47 

Before  the  judgment,  46 

Biting  out  the  tongue,  444 

Bleed  inwardly,  450 

"  Borne  boon  for  boon,"  3-4 

Branching  itself,  513  n. 

Break  his  day,  55-56,  143 

Brother  justice,  45 

Built  on  another  man's  ground,  40 

By  attorney,  50-51 

By  that  sin  fell  the  angels,  404 

C«SAR  and  his  Fortune,  231 
Caesar  doth  not  wrong,  562 
Chasing  after,  520 
Candle  to  the  Sun,  460 
Cinders  under  ashes,  471       .• 
Common  and  several,  176-7 
Conflux  of  meeting  sap,  453 
Continente  rip  a,  253 
Counsellors  and  Clients,  44-45 
Court  holy  water,  461 
Crow  like  a  craven,  63,  172 

DELIGHTED  spirit,  236 
Desperate  diseases  .  .  .  remedies, 
J97 


6n 


Devour  the  way,  208-9 
Discourse  of  reason,  215 
Divinity  hedging  a  king,  396,  399 
Docet  tolerare  labores,  179 
Double  voucher,  98 
Dutch  feasts,  461 

ELM  and  vine,  209 
Enamelling  of  a  danger,  444 
Entail  the  crown,  122 
Evading  from,  520 
Expense  of  spirit,  457 
Extinctus  amabitur  idem,  214 
Eye,  the,   "sees  not  itself,"  189, 
203,  247 

FAME  with  black  feathers,  462 
Fat  paunches  have  lean  pates,  179 
Fee  farm,  44,  82,  85,  98 
Fee  simple,  41-44,  85-86,  98, 114, 

122 

Feoffee,  &c.,  70,  115 
Fine  and  recovery,  41,  46,  98 
Fires  of  heaven,  446 
Flies  in  the  ointment,  441 
Fort  of  reason,  457 
Fretted  roofs,  403 
Fretting  inwards,  504 

GALLOP  apace,  239 

Gardens  of  Adonis,  1 84  sq. 

Gauntlet  and  glove,  459 

Giving  the  bastinado,  444 

Greater  drawing  the  less,  435 

Green  wounds,  230 

Gross  and  palpable,  276,  438,  470 

HEART'S  attorney,  86,  91' 
Heart's  solicitor,  91 
House    built   on   another    man's 
ground,  40,  476 

IMMEDIATELY  provided,  53 
Indentures  tripartite,  69 
Infandum,  regina,  jubes,  &c.,  209 
Insolent     Greece     and     haughty 

Rome,  565  sq. 
In  time  the  savage  bull,  &c.,  246 

KEEP  his  day,  55-56 

Keep  your  fellows'  counsel,  Ac.,  52 


6 12 


INDEX  OF  PHRASES 


Laus  Deo,  bene  intelligo,  3,  233 

Lawful  prize,  81-83 

Lease  of  Nature,  80 

Leets  and  law  days,  81-83 

Liar  towards  God,  436 

Lilies  that  fester,  &c.,  390 

Lion  spares  a  yielding  foe,  441  sq 

Little  by  little,  504 

Livery  and  seisin,  46,  70  sq.t  115, 

Livery,  sue  his,  71 
Loss  of  question,  236 
Love  changing  to  hate,  452 
Love  must  creep,  &c.,  403 
Lovers'  perjuries,  Jove  laughs  at, 

212 

Love's  reason's  without  reason, 460 
Lurched  all  swords  of  the  garland, 

245 

MAKE  extent,  48 
Man  and  wife  one  flesh,  121 
Many-headed  multitude,  211,  246 
Marigolds  following  the  sun,  470 
Medicine  for  the  mind,  397 
Mercy  in  this  case  is  cruelty,  453 
Method  in  madness,  207 
Mind  diseased,  396-7 
Mirror  to  nature,  397 
Money  in  thy  purse,  466 
Most  sure,  the  Goddess  !,  193 
Mouse-hunt,  244 
Multitudinous  seas,  391 

NOISE  of  winds,  452 
Non  est  inventus,  73,  171 
Nul  tort,  nul  disseisin,  1 50-1 

ON  the  case,  46 
Out  of  frame,  463  sq 
Out  of  joint,  463  sq. 
Out  of  tune,  471 

PLAY  prizes,  468 
Pole-dipt  vineyard,  241 
Possession  nine  points  of  the  law, 

121 

Praying  in  aid,  473 
Prophetic  fury,  249 
Put  tricks  on,  469 

READING  maketh  a  full  man,  437 

SANDY  plains,  438 
Sanguinolent  stain,  391 
Scarlet  ornaments,  390 
Sea-coast  of  Bohemia,  589 
Seal-manual,  86 
Sea  of  troubles,  247 
Sea  of  wax,  241 


Seeds  and  beginnings,  456 
Serjeant  Death,  52,  78 
Shake  afnction  off,  402 
Sleeping  bet  ween  term  and  term,  50 
Small  Latin  and  less  Greek,  563,  588 
Smooth  runs  the  water,  &c.,  244 
Solamen  miser  is,  &c.,  480 
Spirits  of  sense,  190 
Stand  in  his  danger,  474 
Stars  and  fire,  446  sq.,  528 
Starting-hoJes,  277,  438,  469 
Statute  staple,  147,  151 
Statutes  marchant,  98,  114,  116, 

147.  151 

Studies  of  the  mind,  504 
Success  evoking  envy,  439 
Suffrages  numbered,  not  weighed, 

437 

Suum  cuique,  171 
Sweet  and  sour,  451 
Sweet  for  speech  in  the  morning, 

452 

Sweet  south,  390 
Swimming  on  bladders,  405 

TAKE  a  bond  of  fate,  80,  1 1 8 
Tears  of  joy,  243 
Thrice  armed,  209 
Thrice  blessed,  &c.,  237 
Time  .  .  .  the   common   arbitra 
tor,  51-52 

the  old  Justice,  51 

tries  all,  51,  248 
Time's  iniquity,  473 
To  thine  own  self  be  true,  402 
Tossing  thoughts,  295 
Troublers  of  the  world,  384,  430, 

444 
Turn  upon  your  right  hand,  &c. 

212 
Two  may  keep  counsel,  &c.,  248 

UNDISCOVERED  country,  the,  208 
Unhouseled,     disappointed,     un- 
aneled,  179 

VIRTUES  (must  "go  forth  of  us"), 
213 

WAR  exercise  for  a  nation,  456 

Waters  swelling  before  a  storm,  404 

Way  of  life,  235 

What  with,  217 

Who  steals  my  purse,  &c.,  245 

Wicked  Hannibal,  236 

Wool  spun  by  the  Fates,  567 

Writ  of  ejectione  firma,  46 

Written  in  ice,  405 

Wrong  of  time,  472 


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