The Bacon Shakspere question

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By C. S TO PES.

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THE

BACON-SHAKSPERE QUESTION.

n

THE

BACON SHAKSPERE
QUESTION.

BY

C, STOPES.

T. G. JOHNSON, 121 Fleet Street, E.G.
1 SSS.

fC

PREFACE.

THE great Shaksperean scholars consider it
beneath their dignity to answer the asser-
tions of the Baconians. " Silence " may be
" golden " in defence of the character of the living,
but in regard to the character of the dead, I think
that speech is golden when it answers speech ; and
proof, when it contests proof. Hence I thought it
not in vain to put together the main results of the
studies I had undertaken on my own account
during the past two years. These may help to
turn the balance of opinion in some wavering
minds, or to aid some warm Shakspereans (that
are too busy to go through original work on
their own account) to reconsider the subject justly,
and " give a reason for the faith that is in them."

C. Stopes.

,-\ / .

^*# study in preparatmi for a series of articles
on Stiimdants in the Trade Journal Wine,
Spirit & Beer, suggested to the Author the
force of proof available on this question; and
its subsequent expansion in the present form.

INTRODUCTION.

THE practical use of an introduction may best
be served by quoting a few writers on
the general question — as, for instance, Dr<
Ingleby's remarks on the controversy : " It serves
to call particular attention to the existence of a
class of minds, which, like Macadam's sieves,
retain only those ingredients that are unsuited to
the end in view. Mix up a quantity of matters
relevant and irrelevant, and those minds will
eliminate from the instrument of reasoning every
point on which the reasoning ought to turn, and
then proceed to exercise their constitutional per-
versity on the residue." " Of all men who have
left their impress on the reign of the first Maiden
Queen, not one can be found who was so deficient
in human sympathies as XorcrijaclDn. As for such
a man portrayiiTg" a woman' in all her natural sim-
plicity, purity and grace ; as to his imagining and
bodying forth in natural speech and action such
exquisite creations as Miranda, Perdita, Cordelia,
Desdemona, Marina — the supposition is the height
of absurdity." Professor Dowden also gives a
suggestive paragraph : " Bacon and Shakspere _
stand far apart. In moral character and in gifts'
of intellect and soul, we should find little resem-
blance between them. While Bacon's sense of the
presence of physical law in the Universe was for
his time extraordinarily developed, he seems prac-
tically to have acted upon the theory that the
moral laws of the world are not inexorable, but
rather by tactics and dexterity may be cleyerly__

viii The Bacon- Shakspere Qitestmi,

7^ evaded. Their supremacy was acknowledged by
Shakspere in the minutest as well as in the
greatest concerns of human life. Bacon's superb
intellect was neither disturbed nor impelled by
the promptings of his heart. Of perfect friend-
ship or of perfect love, he may, without reluctance, yc^
be pronounced incapable. Shakspere yielded his '
whole nature to boundless and measureless de-
votion. Bacon's ethical writings sparkle with a
frosty brilliancy of fancy, playing over the worldly
maxims which constituted his wisdom for the
conduct of life. Shakspere reaches to the ulti-
mate truths of human life and character through
a supreme and indivisible energy of love, ima-
gination and thought. Yet Bacon and Shakspere
belonged to the one great movement of humanity." *
But perhaps Carlyle should specially be quoted,
on account of the strange use that Mr. Donnelly
has made of some of his phrases, and because of
the further support we know he would have given
to us now, had he lived. " Given your hero, what
is he to become — conqueror, king, philosopher,
or poet? ... He will read the world and its
laws ; the world with its laws will be there to
read. He must be able to be all, to be any. . . .
They have penetrated into the sacred mystery of
the Universe, what Goethe calls ' The open
secret.' It is unexampled, that calm creative
perspicacity of Shakspere. The thing he looks
at reveals not this or that face of it, but its in-
most heart and generic secret ; it dissolves itself
in light before him, so that he discerns the per-
fect structure of it. . . . Novum Orgamim and
all the intellect you will find in Bacon is of a
quite secondary order — earthy, material, poor, in
comparison with this. He had the Seeing Eye. . .
Sceptical dilettantism, the curse of these ages — a
curse; hat will not last for ever — does indeed,
in this the higher province of human things, as

* ]\Ti)id and Art of SJiahspere.

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. ix

in all provinces, make sad work, and our rever-
ence for great men, all crippled, blinded, paralytic,
as it is, comes out in poor plight, hardly recog-
nisable. But now, were dilettantism, scepticism,
triviality, and all that sorrowful brood, only cast
out of us ! " * The perplexity of the question seems
to rise from the difficulty of believing that a heaven-
born genius should have arisen amid upper-class
tradesmen and farmers. Yet surely in a country
that, from a lower peasant class of the farming
community, produced a Carlyle and a Burns, this
extraordinary event need not be considered impos-
sible, even had it not been proved true.

* I/crocs and Ilcro-ivorsJiip.

BIOGRAPHICAL DATES.

1536 — 160S. Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, and Earl

of Dorset (dramatic poet).
1552 — 1596. George Peele (dramatic poet).
1552 — 1618. Sir Walter Raleigh (poet and historian).
1553 — 1599. Edmund Spenser (poet).
1554 — 1601. John Lyly (dramatic poet, and author of

Eitphucs).
1554 — 1586. Sir Philip Sydney (soldier, poet, and author

of the Arcadia).
1554 — 1628. Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (philosophic

poet).
1556 — 1625. Thomas Lodge (dramatist and prose-writer).
1557 — 1634. George Chapman (dramatic poet, translator).
155S — 1609. William Warner {All>io)i''s England, historical

poem).
1560 — 1592. Robert Greene (dramatist and pamphleteer).
1561 — 1512. Sir John Harington : publishes his translation

of Ariosto, 1591.
1570. — 1632. Edward Fairfax: publishes his version of

Tasso, 1600.
1501 — 1626. Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, Viscount St.

Alban (philosopher, historian, &c.).
1562 — 1619. Samuel Daniel (poet).
1562 — 1593. Christopher Marlowe (dramatist and poet).
1563 — 1618. John Davies of Hereford.
1563 — 1631. Michael Drayton (poet, author oi rolyolhiou).
1563 — 1618. Joshua Sylvester (translates Du Bartas).
1564 — 1616. William Shakspere.

1567 — 1600. Thomas Nash (dramatist and pamphleteer).
156S — 1639. Sir Henry Wotton (essayist and poet).
1569 — 1640. John Webster (dramaiic poet).
1565 — 1626. Sir John Davies (philosophic poet).
1573 — 1631. Dr. John Donne (poet and preacher).
1574 — 1626. Richard Barnefield (poet).
1574 — 1637. Ben Jonson (dramatist).

The Bacon- Sliakspere Question.

1575—1634. John Marston (dramatist).
1576 — 1625. John Fletcher (dramatist and poet).
1586 — 1615. Francis Beaumont (dramatist and poel).
Minor Dramatists : —

Henry Chettle.

Thomas Dekker.

Thomas Middleton.

Robert Taylor.

William Rowley.

Cyril Tourneur.

Thomas Nabbes.

John Day.

William Ilaughton.

SOME INTRODUCTORY DATES.
1558— 1603. Elizabeth's Reign,

1575 The Lord Mayor expels players from London.
They settle outside the liberty.

1576 Theatres built outside the liberty: —

1st. The Theatre.
2nd. The Curtain.
3rd. Blackfriars, by Burbage.
4th. The Globe on Bankside,
A great controversy rises as to morality of
plays.

1576-9 Gosson, after trying his hand at writing for the

stage, alters his views, and brings out Tlie
Sclioolc of Abuse, censuring plays, &c. ; dedi-
cated to Sir Philip Sydney.

1583 Philip Stubbes, in his Anatomy of Abuses,

exposes and denounces Stage Plays and thcii-
Evils.

1586 Sydney dies. Shakspere comes to London.

1592 Greene, Nash, and Harvey engage in a literary

controversy.

1593 — 1594' VlUUs and Adonis and I.uctcce published
and dedicated by the author to Lord South-
ampton.

^595 Sydney's Apoloc^y for Poetry, in which he

takes the opposite view to Stubbes, is pub-
lished. Clarke, in his PoUmanlcia, first refers
to Venus and Adonis and Liicrece as Shaks-
pere'.s.

xii The Bacon-Shakspere Qiiestmi.

1597 Bacon's iS'^jrt'^'j published by the author. Shaks-

pere's /i/c//ard //., Richard III., and Romeo
andyuliet published by the printers as Shaks-
pere's.

159S Francis Meres, M.A., a graduate of both Uni-

versities, notices Shakspere with praise in
Palladis Tamia.

1599 John Rainoldcs publishes his Overtlircnu of

Siage Flays.

1 601 John Shakspere died.

1601-2. (Jan. 18.) Merry J Fives of Windsor, as originally
written, licensed for the press ; printed 410,
1602. Said to have owed its origin to the
Queen's express desire to see Falstaff on the
stage in love. The play is remarkable and
unique as containing the sole attempt by
Shakspere in the direction of a panegyric on
royalty.

1606 The Return fro7n Parnassus, acted about 1602,

is printed with a highly eulogistic account and
flattering estimate of Shakspere.

1607 Shakspere's daughter Susanna marries Dr. Ilall.

1609 Sonnets published.

1610 Ilistrio-mastix; or, the Player Whipt.

161 2 Apology for Actors by Thomas Heywood,

is printed.

1 61 3 Globe Theatre burnt during performance of

Henry VIII.

1614 Shakspere, according to contemporary testi-

mony, expresses a strong repugnance to the
enclosure of common lands near Stratford.

161 5 Gxee.r\c'?, Refutation of the^^ Apology for ActorsJ'

1616 Shakspere's daughter Judith marries Richard

Quiney.
1616 Shakspere dies. Jonson at Stratford.

1616 AH Jonson's papers burned. (Did he take

Shakspere's to London ? — C. Brown.) Great

fire at Stratford.
1623 Shakspere's wife, Anne Hathaway, dies.

Ileming and CondcU bring out his collected

works.
1642 Edict against plays.

THE

BACON-SHAKSPERE QUESTION:

WITH A SPECIAL ILLUSTRATION
FROM THE CONSIDERATION OF STIMULANTS.

By C. Stopes.

Chapter I.

THE CHARACTER AND EDUCATION OF THE WRITER
OF THE PLAYS.

The attempt to dethrone Shakspere, wliirh
has been made in the columns of tlie Daily
Telegraphy is not a new thing. Dr. Jamieson, the
anonymous writer in Chambers's Journal^ was, I
beheve, the first to create a reasoned doubt of
Shakspere having written these plays, and suggest
that "he kept a poet." IMiss Delia Bacon, who
believed that poet to have been Bacon, was never-
theless so inconsistent as to dwell over every
souvenir of Shakspere, to haunt the places where he
lived, to spend even a night in Stratford Church by
his tomb, and lost her reason in her perplexity.
But she suggested the idea in America, where many
writers have worked at it. In England, Mr. W. H.
Smith wrote a book to prove the same proposition ;
and then Mrs. Potts took it up, and gave her Thirly-
two Reasons for believing that Bacon wrote Shaks-
pere. She does not give the one reason that "he
did so;" which Mr. Donnelly tries to do now,
though he is not very successful.

2 The Bacon-SJiakspcre Question.

I may divide my answer into four groups.

I St. The probability from known character and
education of the writer of the plays.

2nd. Internal evidence, gained by comparing
Shakspere's plays and the works of Bacon, and
referring each to the character of the ascribed
author and supposed author.

3rd. The external evidence of most of the poems
and plays being at some time claimed by Shakspere,
and never by Bacon.

4th. The external evidence of the writings of
contemporaries, some of whom personally knew
both these great men.

The question is too large to be discussed fully in
these pages, yet I must briefly notice each of our
heads, and consider specially the rather novel
question : What is the relation these two writers
hold to the views regarding wine, spirits, and beer
expressed in either set of works?

The proceedings of the Bacon Society tell us
" the contention of the Baconians is that William
Shakspere had no hand whatever in the production
of either the plays or the poems — that he was
an uneducated man, who could just manage
to write his own name ; that there is not a particle
of evidence that he ever wrote, or could write,
anything else." They also accuse him of every
sin and crime, short of murder, to take away his
character, and thus argue from his want of character
an incapacity to have produced his poems. It is
reasoning in a circle with a vengeance, when the
arguine7itum ad Jwininein is thus made to contradict
the argumeniwn ad rem.

ist. I cannot imagine any literary student
asserting Bacon's claim; we cannot imagine any
psychological student believing in its possibility.
The psychologic aspect is of prime importance in
such a discussion, and this will be expanded in the
internal evidence. It has been well said, " Some
men are born colour-blind, and cannot distinguish

The Baco)i-Shakspere (Question. 3

colour ; they who could believe the Baconian theory
would seem to have been born character-blind."

Jean Paul Richter said that every poet ought to
choose to have himself born in a small town, so
as to grow up having the advantages of town and
country life. This happened in Shakspere's case,
and every other condition known of his life is
essentially congruous with the idea of a poet's de-
velopment. Warwickshire is a central county, the
great Roman roads from Dover to Chester and
from Totnes to Lincoln met there, so that much
traffic and interchange of ideas must have
sharpened the natives. Drayton speaks of it as
" Warlike Warwickshire." It was the border-
land between the Celtic and Teutonic races.
Shakspere is the type Englishman who has com-
bined the mobility and fancy of the Celt, with the
depth and energy of the Teuton, and the place of
his birth must not be ignored. Further, it was
formerly the district of J/tvr/^e, whither King Alfred
sent for Scholars, and which gave the literary
language to later England.* Stratford was no
inconsiderable town. In Speede's county map of
England, i6ic,t we find it marked as of the same
size and importance as Warwick, and second only
to Coventry in the county. It possessed the first
highway bridge over the iA.von below Warwick,
and much traffic must therefore have passed
through it. Shakspere was born of one of
the best families within that town.ij: His father
had passed through the various grades of municipal
dignity, being successively Ale-taster, one of the
four Constables, one of the four Affeerors, then
High Alderman or Bailiff of Stratford ; and a sense
of importance and general interest must have risen
in his house. He was evidently much respected,

* Becon, in his Dedication to the Princess Elizalx-'th of
the Fcarl of Joy, 1549, mentions that Warwickshire was
distinguished amony; the English counties for ihc intelligence
of its inhabitants. — Eu.

t See Appendix, Note I. X See Appendix, Note 2.

4 The BaconShakspere QtiestioJi.

and he must have met the best society to be had.
His wife, an heiress of the neighbouring old family
of Arden, of good connexions, would doubtless pour
into the youthful ears of her children the family and
local legends, for tradition in those days took the
place of much of our modern education ; a sense of
the romance of war, and the pomp of courts would
thus arise in young Shakspere's heart. We can see
how he would appreciate the martial suggestion in
his patronymic so much made of by his contem-
poraries.* He would certainly get the best oppor-
tunities of education the place could afford. Nine
years before his birth, King Edward VI. specially
interested himself in the re-establishment by Royal
Charter of the Free Grammar school of Stratford,
which had been suppressed at the dissolution of the
religious houses in his father's reign. Mr. Baynes
gives a list of the books used there. But I imagine
that to this list should be added Thomas Wilson's
Art of Rhetoric, y^WoXx was dedicated in 1557 to
the Earl of Warwick, to whom Stratford belonged.
Not only does he explain how "Three things are
required of an orator, to teache, to delight, and to
persuade ; " but lago's speech, which the Baconians
insist is from untranslated Berni, is found therein.
William must have learned something at school. But
the river, the stile-paths, the woods, the wild flowers,
the clouds, and the birds must have been an attrac-
tion to the natural poet-soul. The old chap-books
and romances must have floated many a time between
the pages of his Latin Grammar and his eyes. He
lived on storied ground. Guy of Warwick and

* A record of the name appears in Kent in 1279 : " Some
are named from that they carried, as Pahiier . . . Long
sword, Broadspear, and, in some such respect, Shakespeare. "
— Camden'' s Rcniaincs, Ed. 1605. " Bieakspcar, Shakspear,
and the like, have bin surnames imposed upon tlie first
bearers of them for valour and feates of amies." — Verstegan's
Restilution of Decayed Intelligence, Ed. 1605. In Poly-
doron (undated) " Names were first questionlesse given for
distinction, facultie, consanguinity, desert, quality ....
Armstrong, Shakspere of high quality."

The Bacon-Shahpere Question. 5

Heraud of Arden formerly roamed there. Eves-
ham and Bosworth were fought on the borders of the
Shire. Layamon and Piers Ploughman and Wycliffe,
were writers of the district. Henry VII. and Eliza-
beth had slept in Coventry, where the Mysteries
lingered until Shakspere's youth. The neighbour-
hood was haunted by suggestions. The town lay in
the fair forest of Arden, placed on the sweet Avon,
whose scenery is often suggested in his works.

No doubt he often was dreaming and indolent ;
he might remember himself when he wrote of the
" School-boy creeping unwillingly to school," or play-
ing truant from facts to weave his fancies " of imagin-
ation all compact." Doubtless the temptations of
beautiful Mother Nature were often too much for
him, and he would rush off from the chattering
town to the sweet solemn silences of the Forest of
Arden, thinking, " I know a bank whereon the
wild thyme blows ; " and perhaps he would dream
there till he saw the Fairy Queen as evening fell,
and was sworn into her service like Thomas of
Ercildoune. It was all so natural, however, for
one like him to have merry times with young
fellows as he grew older, and to play big school-
boy pranks on Sir Thomas Lucy and his keepers.
We cannot but think there must have been some
foundation for the legend of deer-stealing. It was
a part of the romance of youth to follow the
legends of the past. The law of the time proves
that no dreadful consequences would have ensued
on such a deed, even if Lucy wished to
enforce them, which was not likely, when the
culprit was a child of his old neighbour, Mary
Arden. My own opinion is that Lucy had with-
drawn from intimacy with the family at the time of
its waning fortunes, and roused a bitter feeling
thus, echoed in Timon. But it was not Sir Thomas
Lucy that drove Shakspere from Stratford.

His over-early and impetuous love, suddenly
sobered by a hasty marriage, suggests many a poetic
thought in his love scenes. But it was his too rapid

6 The Bacon- Shakspere Question.

awakening to the responsibilities of paternity that
changed the current of his Hfe. His father had a
large family to support upon the lands and the trade
slipping from him ; and more than enough domestic
help to perform the various employments that
farmers combined in those days before the division-
of-labour-system had arisen. Times or people
had changed, and the fortunes of the family grew
darkest just before its rising dawn. Its eldest-
born son rose to its rescue. There is no doubt
that the money difficulties of that period acted as a
peculiar, and perhaps necessary training for the
free poet soul, and were the real cause of his after
industry and worldly success. When, in the midst
of his father's money anxieties (that he evidently
sympathised in), he complicated matters by marry-
ing Anne Hathaway before he could support
her, he certainly felt that he must give tip
his future life to duty. Yet that he had power
to combine two dissimilar aims, and succeed in
both, showed no common mind. In choosing a
career, he allowed his inclinations some play ;
buckled on his knapsack, and, like many another
man, went to seek his fortune in London, and
found it. He went not unknown. His mother
had good friends; but it is more than likely he
went straight to his old school-fellow Field, who
was a printer in Blackfriars. In Blackfriars also
were the players that had been down in Stratford,
Warwickshire men, Burbage among them. To
them would he go, possibly with Veims and
Adonis, the " first heir of his invention," in his
pocket. If he went to London in 1586, he must
have returned to Stratford in 15S7, for he then
concurred with his parents in giving up his right to
inheritance in Asbies, that they might transfer it
freely to Lambert, for a further sum of ;^2o.
Several companies of players were in Stratford that
year, and it is more than likely he went to London
along with them. His father had always been fond
of spectacle, had been kind to the players in the

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 7

day of his power, and they, more than likely, had
a kindly feeling towards the young Benedict of
their own neighbourhood, on whom the cares of
domestic life were now pressing so heavily. For
there is no doubt his parents and younger brethren
leaned on him, as well as Anne and his three children.
His player-friends could not help him outside of their
own circle, but " they would see what they could
do for him." He was young, handsome, healthy,
and ambitious, a charming companion, a versatile
genius. They very soon discovered his gifts,
taught him to act, and seeing his power in
impromptu, set him to alter and freshen up
some of their old stock of plays. His success
in that department kindled him to spend his powers
on original work, and in a few years he was famous,
how few relatively may be calculated, by comparing
with his, the number of years it generally takes a
poet to get written about by other poets, or by
professors of literature. The universality of his
genius, his power of thought, his congruity of dic-
tion and sweetness of versification must have been
fed by a wonderful power of observation, and reten-
tive force of memory. His mind was like a magnet
that drew all grains of iron to itself, and impressed
its power on what it drew.

Just think how rapidly he would develope then.
Transplanted from the centre of a small town
where everyone knew him, to the fringes of a great
city unknown to him, the unknown ; how small the
unit to him would seem before the mass of
humanity. Instead of the Coventry Mysteries of
his boyhood, and the travelling players of his
youth, he would gaze from the best theatres at the
best plays of the time.* At first a spectator, he soon
entered behind the scenes. f The stage is a different
thing when one treads it ; life is a different thing
when seen from behind the footlights. The people
would become the actors to him, and he learned
their ways by heart. He was endowed with a

* See Appendix, Note 3. f See Appendix, Note 4.

8 The Bacon-Sliakspcre Qiiestion.

determination to make the best possible of every
opportunity. Among the stage-properties would
be a large stock of manuscript and printed plays,
accepted and rejected. The Drama was then a
modern revival. It was not long since Sackville's
" Ferrex and Porrex " had initiated Tragedy, and
Nicholas Udall's " Ralph Roister Doister " had led
off true Comedy. How eagerly he would pore
over the ripening powers of Lyly, Greene, Peele,
INTarlowe, Kyd, and Lodge, with a preliminary rap-
ture that kindled his own soul.

We knoiu that he had a volume of Montaigne's
Essays.* This was translated by Florio, who taught
the French and Italian languages, and lived in the
pay of the Earl of Southampton, whom he called
the " Pearl of Peers." From this connexion he
probably knew Shakspere, and might have given
him this copy of Montaigne's Essays. It is evident
he had read them. I think that, beyond Hall,
Holinshed, and the Bible, all his further book
knowledge can have been extracted from the
publications by VautroUier, the printer, whom Field
succeeded, and with whom he lived.

People have often asked, Where is Shakspere's
Library ? I feel inclined to answer, There ! Be-
cause the list of the publications of that firm
seems to supply all that is wanting for the material
of the plays and poems. We give this list in
the Notes.! We can well imagine his first period in
London, spent in sharing the same room widi
Field, eagerly reading the books thus naturally
brought within his reach, and fiUing up the gaps in
his education with an interest that no scholastic
method could have done. Perhaps even, as Mr.
Blades suggests with more forcible arguments than
are brought forward to prove Shakspere belonging
to any other profession, he might have learned type-
setting and proof-correcting then, as there are in his
works so many phrases that, to a printer's eye,

* See Appendix, Note 5. f See Appendix, Note 6.

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 9

intimate special knowledge of his trade. Mr.
Halliwell-Philips suggests that he must, at least,
have gone carefully over his dedicated poems, as
the title-page and the typography are so superior to
anything else of the time. At the same time he learns
old London life. We hear later of his wit-combats
at "the Mermaid," where, among all Avits, he was the
chief. And there must we seek the origin of many
a tavern-scene and word-combat in the plays.

There probably he became acquainted with the
best wits of the age — noble, or fighting the battle
of life like him, for bread — and he became the
Poet of them all, feeling, thinking, expressing for all.
He would meet no man without learning some-
thing from him ; so there would be suggestions
from Burbage and all the players ; from the poets
and lawyers that met at the Mermaid ; from
Southampton and Elizabeth and all the nobles \
mingling with memories of the rustic homely souls
he knew in Stratford, modifying himself iho. under-
lying substratum of all.

Hence in a period when the dicta of Pastoral
Poetry had been pushed to an absurdity, when
every poet was a " Shepherd," even on the sea or
the battlefield, there arose a new and unexpected
vision. A real Shepherd, sprung from a real inland
farm, appeared and conquered the whole realm of
poetry ; and the masks of the mock-shepherd poets
were cast away tor ever. But the chivalric romance,
the Arcadianism and the Euphuism ; the Mystery
and the Morality ; the Tragedy and the Comedy ;
the History of the nation and the Life of the
people that had been rising like the four sides of a
pyramid up to its apex, ended there in him. No one
has ever risen higher. There need so many and so
varied elements to the making of an all-round man.

The determination of his poetic form he owed
to his worldly success, as well as his worldly
misfortunes. The litigation* between Burbage's

♦ See Appendix, Note 4.

10 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

sons and other intending partners, show the true
meaning of Greene's jealousy of him, and of the
ruling power he had acquired in five years.

Turn to Bacon, full of ambitions, with no
personal duty to others to raise or purify them.
Essentially a city youth, a University student, a
classic critic, an observant traveller, a man of the
world, a statesman born and bred, a lawyer, a
member of Parliament, an essayist, a scientist, a
philosopher — in short, the author of " The greatest
birth of Time."

That was his secret work, the idea of his life,
his happiness, his hope, his Alpha and Omega.
His own acknowledged poems are scarcely third-
rate : his masques, such as the " Conference of
Pleasure," pompous speeches, with flattery in them,
as a means to display magnificent robes. In his
later years he gives a translation of the Psalms
of commonplace type, occasionally even with crude
rhymes, such as —

" The huge Leviathan
Doth make the sea to seethe as boiling pan."

Maurice calls him, "This enemy of poets and
poetry," because his very definitions of poetry are
defective ; he considers the drama far from what
it ought to be ; " it is not good to remain long in
the theatre." He writes an Essay on Love ; he can
analyse its elements ; neither in life nor writing
does he acknowledge its power. His faults were
essentially unpoetical, his character was selfish and
self-centred, he never did an impulsive thing in his
life ; he fell in love at forty-three, and married at
forty-six a young and eligible maiden ; did not
make her happy, and was not very happy with her
himself. A hunter for place and reward all his life,
he pUed his sovereign with petitions, and, beside
his sovereign, all his sovereign's favourites. He
might have loved Essex in his own way, but he
deserted him ; he could not have honoured James
and Villiers, but he loaded them with adulation.

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. ii

His undoubted superiority gave him rivals; his
eagerness to please made him enemies ; his speeches
in Parliament offended Elizabeth, who thought
him more showy than deep ; his secret experi-
ments and " speculations " disgusted his relative,
Burleigh. Writing poetry would have been a venial
offence compared to this of " speculation." Buck-
hurst, Raleigh, Davies, Spenser, and many others
were known poets and in office. Doubtless Eliza-
beth's shrev/d eye read his inner character better
than he thought, better than her successor did. Under
James his efforts to rise were crowned with success,
and he fell a victim rather to his vanity and his rivals
than to his crimes.* His tremendous energy and
perseverance are worthy of note. From sixteen to
sixty he kept making expermients, studying philo-
sophy, noting facts, writing and rewriting his mar-
vellous collection of philosophic works — some of
them even twelve times ; attending to his health,
diet, and medicines in a very special way ; besides
the work of Parliament, of office, of society, of
gaiety, of masque-writing, with occasional acting
and shows to make him like the other gay men of
the period.

We must remember, also, he was before his
limes. The practical nature of his science was
considered degrading, and his philosophy confusing.
It did not develop so naturally as that of Bruno,
writing at the same period. The Instatiratio
Magna was presented to Sir Edward Coke in 1620,
who wrote on the title page —

Edw. C, ex done Auctoris,

" Auctori Consilium,
Instaurare paras vcterum documcnta sophovum,
Instaurare Leges Justitiamqiie prius."

And over the device of the ship passing between
Hercules' pillars. Sir Edward wrote —

" It deseiveth not to he read in Schooles^
But to be freighted in the ' Ship of Fooles.' "

* See Appendix, Note 7 '

12 The Baco7i-Shakspere Question.

Mr. Henry Cuffe said that '* a fool could not have
written this work, and a wise man would not."
And King James used to say the book was "like
the peace of God, that passeth all understanding."
Yet while in advance of many, he was behind
some. He did not agree with Galileo ; Sir Thomas
Bodley, while praising, criticised sharply both his
style and works. Harvey would not allow him to
be a great scholar, saying, " He writes philosophy
like a Lord Chancellor." Sir Toby Matthew seemed
his most faithful admirer through life and death.

He was constantly occupied either in his pro-
fessional or his literary and scientific ambitions.
How the Baconians imagine he could find time
to write the plays, even if he had the inspiration,
I know not. The question of time taken, even for
his acknowledged writings, occurs to his own mind.
In his Epistle Dedicatory to the King, prefacing
his great work, he says : " Your Majesty may
perhaps accuse me of larceny, having stolen from
your affairs so much time as was required for this
work. I know not what to say for myself. For
of time there can be no restitution, unless it be that
what has been abstracted from your business, may,
perhaps, go to the memory of your name and the
honour of your age."

Further, the plays are evidently the work of an
actor of the very modern English school of dramatic
art. Bacon would have scorned their scholar-
ship, despised their neglect of the unities, denied
their passion, and ignored their wit, and he did so,
in a general way, throughout his writings. Ben
Jonson was more near to him in every way, and it
would have been much more natural to say that he
wrote Ben Jonson's plays to teach Sliakspere how
to do it.

The plan I have proposed to myself is more
general than verbally critical. The Baconians are
unwise, they try to prove too much. They say
Shakspere was utterly illiterate and unable to write
any of his works. If I can only prove he wrote

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 13

" some," or even that he was capable of writing
"any," we can prove their universal assertion /c/y*?
by a particular.

The personal animus shown in the way their
proofs are treated, discounts from the validity of
their conclusions. But before we take the opinion
of witnesses, we must see what each of these
writers had to say for himself. The contrast
between their opinions on poetry, drama, the stage,
love, marriage, fatherhood, life, space, time and
eternity have been treated elsewhere. I have
tested them on hitherto untried ground, that
of their manner of viewing stimulants, and I
consider the result satisfactory.

14 The Bacon- Shakspere Question.

Chapter II.

THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF SHAKSPERE'S PLAVS
AND bacon's books.

One very striking point of contrast has not
been sufficiently noted elsewhere. Bacon is
essentially a subjective writer — subjective to an
extraordinary degree, even when he is scientific.
He writes much in the first person ; his very
experiments are narrated as "singular" or "in
consort ; " his great Idea is an invitation to mankind
to work with Jiim. The hundreds of his letters
which have been preserved support this peculiarity :
he says, " I know I am censured of some conceit
of mine ability."

Shakspere, on the other hand, is objective to
as extraordinary a degree. He never writes in the
first person, except in the Sonnets, and even there
we can notice an objective dominating power, and
a suggestion that they too might have been written
dramatically, or as a natural expression or ydxctfor
the friends to whom he gave them to express their
feelings to their friends. In all other writings
the man Shakspere never brings himself forward by
word or suggestion. The actor-element in him
throws him so intensely into the real life of the being
he delineates, that he becomes, as it were, simply
a vehicle to carry the thoughts of a Romeo, a
Hamlet, a Cossar, a Lear, where even the use of
the first and second persons are practically the
third to him.

The unobtrusiveness of Shakspere's life re-
flected itself in his wiitings. His dramatic form
veiled him, as he intended it should. It could not
have veiled Bacon. You would at once have been

\

The Bacon- Shahpere Question. 15

able to pick out which character he meant most
nearly to represent himself, as you can do in
Byron. When Bacon writes for the stage, he
writes masques, utterly unlike Shakspere, and
just like himself— thoughtful, heavy, and adulatory.
" They answer very well to the general description
in Bacon's Essays of Avhat a masque should be,
with its loud and cheerful music, abundance of
light and colour, graceful motions and forms, and
such things as do naturally take the sense."
(Spedding's Bacoji).

With the same exception of the Sonnets, Shak-
spere also writes little to the second person.
Bacon is always intensifying its use, and is full of
flattery as well as dedication. Not only does he
pile it on to Elizabeth and James, but to every one
who could in any way help him. That it was the
position and not the man he honoured, may be
seen by the way he forgot the warm helpful
cordiality of Essex ; and prepared adulation and
advice for succeeding royal favourites, however
unworthy. This, though partly a part of character,
is also an element of style, only to be discovered
now in the literary works of each.

The simple, manly character of Shakspere
prevented him ever writing " Panegyrics,"
"Elegies," Dedications, of the fulsome type in
which Bacon constantly indulged. He never
mentions EHzabeth except in Cranmer's speech
in " Henry VHI." He never alludes to James
except in " Macbeth." The simple dedication
of "Venus and Adonis" to Southampton by
Shakspere, may be compared to Bacon's dedica-
tion of his "Advancement of Learning" to James.

The whole structure of language in the two
writers is as characteristic, and, therefore, as
different as is possible in the case of two great
men living at the same time, in the same city,
serving the same sovereign, rubbing shoulders with
the same men, conversing with the same wits,
hoping the same national thoughts.

1 6 The Bacon-Shakipere Question.

No author more often repeats similar phrases,
and ideas sometimes identical, than Bacon, because
he was a Scientist ; while the recurrences of
Shakspere arc few, and are modified by the mood
and the circumstance as becomes a Poet and a
Philosopher.

Just as one can say it is impossible that
Shakspere could have written Bacon, without a
learning he did not possess, so we can say it was
impossible for Bacon to have written Shakspere
without putting into the poems some of the
learning he did possess.

The relation each holds to wine, spirits, and
beer is peculiar. Bacon was a scientist ; he con-
sidered no experiment too vulgar to be regarded.
Trade facts and habits were collected and
criticised by his thoughtful mind. He notices wine
more than beer ; cyder and perry a little ; spirits,
in any separate modern form, not at all. He gives
advice as to the process of wine-making — methods
of grafting vines, of training and manuring them,
of ripening and preserving grapes, of the must,
clarification, maturation, and methods of treatment,
such as burymg, heating, cooling. He tests the
relative weights of wine and water. He treats of
barley as seed, as growing corn, drying corn,
as malt, as mash, as beer, and of other forms
of grain that might be used as malt. He writes
of hops, of finings, of casking, of bottling, of
preserving, of doctoring. He gives valuable
historical information as to the taxes on ale-
houses, and the monopoly of sweet wines ; legal
information regarding felony, pardonable when a
man is mad, but not when he is drunk. He writes
the " Natural History of Drunkenness and its
Effects." He gives some preventives against
inebriety — i.e., by burning wine, taking sugar with
it — taking large draughts rather than small ones
— and recommends oil or milk as an antidote to
its after-effects.

The moral question never touches him ; not even

The Bacofi-Shahpcre Question. 17

in his " Colours of Good and Evil," does he con-
sider drink in relation to character. The psycho-
logical effect is treated only physiologically. Man,
to him, is but a means of experimenting upon the
various etitects of spirit in wine. We do not hear
of Bacon mingling with the "people," or indulging
in their "small ales," though he uses beer chiefly
with medicine. Being a gentleman, and moving
only among gentlemen, he chiefly affected wine,
probably of expensive sorts, as he was a connoisseur.

Shakspere, in his non-dramatic poems — i.e.^
"Venus and Adonis," " Lucrece," "Passionate
Pilgrim," "Sonnets," &c., never mentions wine or
strong drink, as if it did not play so large a part
in his life as the Baconians give it.

But it is different when we turn from the poems
that shadow forth his own thoughts, to those that
represent the thoughts of others. He knows that
stimulants form an important element, not only of
action, but also of character. The author of
Shakspere was always ready to suggest what
knowledge he had gleaned on every subject. Had
he been Bacon, he could not have avoided some
allusions to his knowledge and experiments on this
point. Among the many trades and professions,
the critics have " proved " that Shakspere " must
have practised," no one has hitherto suggested his
being a brewer, distiller, wine-maker, maltster, or
lecturer on the art of manufacturing liquors, as one
might well have said of Bacon. Indeed, Mrs. Potts
gives as one reason that he could not have written
the plays, that he did not allude to a brewing, &c.
Now, we see that this test acts quite on the other
side. It is rather amusing to find that in Mr.
Donnelly's book, that has come out since these
articles were penned for the magazine, he says
that Shakspere li'as a brriver. I am not going
to contest this question ; only this is just the
point in which he would require most help from
Bacon. Shakspere in his plays, at least, receives
and knows only the " finished product," and treats

1 8 The Bacon-Shakspere Questmu

it only in relation to man. We find he knows the
value of "froth and lime" and "sugar" to the
Tapster, probably learned when, in some holiday,
he enacted the part he gave to Prince Henry. He
knew that tapsters sometimes put water in their
beer ; that brewing was one of the duties of a good
housewife ; that ale and beer were the drinks of the
people ; and where they could Lest be got. He
was aware that wine was the drink of some foreign
nations, who considered themselves on that account
superior to the "ale-drinking Englishman;" that
wine was the drink of the upper classes in this
country, probably from its greater cost and its
higher and more subtle effects. The habit of
drinking healths was in full fashion in his day ; and
the " heavy drinking " had begun amongst English-
men, which had previously prevailed among the
Germans and Dutch. A number of interesting
phrases are preserved to us in relation to this
special subject. One little geographical notice
tells powerfully in favour of Shakspere, if not
against Bacon. In the induction to the Taming of
the Shrew, he praises the power of the " Wincot
Ale," which sent Christopher Sly to sleep. Now,
Wincot was the birth-place of Shakspere's mother,
Mary Arden, and the place of her inheritance — a
village at a walking distance from Stratford, famed
for its ale, which no doubt he had often tasted on
his youthful wanderings.

Perry and cyder are never mentioned. No
allusion appears in any drinking scene to spirits
by any modern name, except aqua vitce, which
appears twice — once in connexion with an Irish-
man, hence not meaning brandy. When Juliet's
nurse calls out, "Some aqica vi/cv, ho !" it is sup-
posed to be simply a restorative. But while giving
thus comparatively little information on the objec-
tive nature of these drinks, Shakspere has given us
a masterly analysis of the subjective effects of
stimulants in various degrees on different minds,
and the views they have of it. The simple honest

The Bacoji-Shakspere Question, 19

Adam, in As Ybu Like It, considers his abstinence
in youth the cause of his health and strength in
age ; the bloated Falstaff gives as the reason of
Prince Henry's superiority over his father, the free
use of wine. Lady Macbeth is made " bold " by
what had made her attendants drunk. Falstaff is
always requiring a reinforcement of Dutch courage, in
" an intolerable deal of sack to a halfpenny-worth of
bread." The degradation of a higher nature is shown
in Mark Anthony ; but the most masterly descrip-
tion of the effects on an imaginative, sensitive, and
hot-blooded man is shown in Cassio. He knows
he cannot stand much wine ; he has already suffered
in the past ; he has resolved to have no more than
one cup ; tempted to his destruction by the cold-
blooded villain lago, by specious pretexts, he feels
the full shame of his broken resolve to himself, of
his broken faith to Othello, as a moral death.

In several of his plays, Shakspere makes no men-
tion of any stimulant ; these are the Midsummer
Night's Dream, Loves Labours' Lost, Winter s Tale,
Airs Well That Ends Well, Comedy of Errors,
Richard II., Part 3, Henry VI., and Titus
Andronicus. The only allusion in Much Ado
About Nothing is Leonato's invitation to Dogberry,
" Drink some wine ere you go " ; and in King
John the only suggestion lies in Faulconbridge's
exclamation : —

St. George — that swinged the dragon, and ere since,
Sits on his horseback at mine hostess' door,
Teach us some fence !

It is interesting to note the different kinds
of stimulant and the names of the vessels and
accessories named in different plays : —

"Cup of Charncco," "sack," "pot of double
beer," "Three-hooped pot," "Claret," "Wine,"
and "beer." {Henry VI., Part 2.)

"Butt of Malmsey," "Sop," "Wine." {King
Richard II.)

"Pot of small ale," "Pot of the smallest ale,"

20

The Bacon- Shakspere Questioji.

" Stone jugs and sealed quarts," "Fat alewife,"
"Sheer ale," " On the score." (Ind. to Taming of
the Shrew)

" Muscadel and sops." {Taming of the Shretc.)

" Wine and wassail," " Drink." (Macbeth.)

" Drunken spilth of wine," " Subde juice o' the
grape," " Honest water." {Timon of Athens)

"Cup us," "Vats," "Tippling," "Wine." i^Antony
and Cleopatra)

"Stoops of wine," " Measure," "Potations pottle
deep," "Flowing cups," "Old fond paradoxes to
make fools laugh in the alehouse," "Chronicle
small beer," '' The wine she drinks is made of
grapes," " Cup,"" Canakin," " Potent in potting,"
"Pottle," " Pint," " Dead drunk." {Othello.)

" Stoops [or, as in first folio, stopes] of wine,"
" Flagon of Rhenish," " The Queen carouses,"
" Throw a union in the cup," " A stoup of liquor."
{Hamlet)

" Can," " Canary," " Cakes and ale," " Stoop of
wine." {Twelfth Night)

''Aqua vitce^ "Healths five fathom deep."
{Romeo and Juliet.)

"Pot of ale," " Cups of ales." {Hemy V)

" Quart of sack," " Toast," "Spigot," "Canary,"
"Pipe-wine," "Wine and sugar," " Pottle of burnt
sack," "Toast," ''Aqua vita bottle," " Fap."
{Merry Wives of Windsor. )^

" Ale and cakes," " Baiting of bumbards [ale-
barrels]." {King Henry VIII.)

" Glasses* is your only drinking," says Falstaff,
when his landlady complains she must sell her
silver if he will not pay her bill. _ But " glass," to
hold liquor, was then an innovation, as shown in
contemporary literature ; and it is only mentioned
elsewhere once — i.e., in Met- chant of Venice.

" Sack," " Bottle," " Wme." {Tempest.)

" Bowl of wine" (m Julius Caesar, Pericles, and
Richard III.).

* See Appendix, Note 8,

TJie Bacon-Shakspere Question, 21

" Bottle brandished," " Sherris," "Sherrissack,"
"The poor creature, small beer," "Canaries,"
"Crack a quart," "Pottlepot." y^Hcnry IV., Part 5.)

" These mad, mustachio, purple-hued malt
worms," " Bombard of sack," "A brewer's horse,"
" Madeira," " Pint," " Cup of wine," " Brown
bastard," "Tavern," "Bottle." (^^//^^/K, Part i.)

Shakspere also shews many of the habits pre-
vailing in the country at his time. While alluding
to " brewers " and to " brewer's horses," he shews
the prevalence of private brewing, chiefly by
women, and the habits of drinking beer in those
days, before the importation of tea and coffee.

In the Tzao Getitle/nen of Verona, Speed, in giving
a " cate-log" of a maiden's conditions, says : —

She brews good ale.

Launce. And thereof comes the proverb, "Blessing o' your
heart, you brew good ale."

Speed. She will often praise her liquor.

Launce. If her liquor be good, she shall ; if she will not, I
will ; for good things should be praised. (Act 2, Scene i.)

Also Doctor Caius has for his housekeeper Mrs.
Quickly {Merry Wives of Windsor) : —

Quickly. I keep his house ; and I wash, wring, brew,
bake, scour, dress meat and drink, make the beds, and do all
myself.

Simple. 'Tis a great charge to come under one body's hands.

(Act I, Scene 4.)

In Act 3, Scene 3, Mrs. Ford says to her
menservants, " Be ready here, hard by in the brew-
house."

He tells us that " Good wine needs no bush. . .
Yet to good wine they do use good bushes." (Epi-
logue ioAs you Like it.)

We find a general use of *' sops in wine."

In the Taming of the Shrew, Act 3, Scene 2 :— '

After many ceremonies done,
lie calls for wine : " A health," quoth ho, as if
He had been aboard, carousing to his mates
After a storm ; quaffed oil the muscadel

22 The Bacon-Shakspere QuestioJi.

And threw the sops all in the sexton's face,

Having no other reason,

But that his beard grew thin and gingerly,

And seemed to ask him sops, as he was drinking.*

Sir John Falstaff was much attracted by " sops "
in wine, " toasts " in his sack, in his ordinary life
and an allusion to the habit is given in Richard I I I . ,
when the \st Murderer says, —

Throw him [Clarence] in the Malmsey butt in the next
room.

2nd Murderer. Oh ! excellent device, and make a sop of
him. (Act I, Scene 4.)

" Cakes and ale " seemed to have been given at
christenings, for at Westminster the porter beats
back the crowd, at the christening of the infant,
afterwards Queen Elizabeth.

You must be seeing christenings ?
Do you look for ale and cakes here, you rude rascals ?

{King Henry VIII. , Act 5, Scene 3.)

In the Merry Wives of Windsor and King
Henry IV., we have an example of the jolly side
of tavern-life — not the lowest, and one often
redeemed with touches of humour, wit, and wisdom.
Act I, Scene i, Merry Wives, Slender says : —

Though I cannot remember what I did when you made
me drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.

Falst. What say you, Scarlet and John ?

Bard, Why, sir, for my part, I say, the gentleman had
drunk himself out of his five sentences.

Evans. It is his five senses : fie, what the ignorance is !

Bard. And being fap, sir, was as they say, cashiered ; and
so conclusions passed the careers.

* We find in Laneham's Letter (1575), Leland's
Colhctanca, that it was the custom then, at the marriage
of the humblest as well as of the highest, for a " bride-
cup," sometimes called a "knitting-cup," to be quaffed in
church. At the marriage of Philip and Mary in Winchester
Cathedral in 1554, after mass was done, wine and sops
were hallowed and delivered to them both. And there is
another description of a real rustic wedding, when the
sweet "bride-cup" attracted the flies around.

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 23

Slender. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no
matter : I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest,
civil, godly company, for this trick : if I be drunk, I'll be
drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with
drunken knaves.

Evans. So Got judge me, that is a virtuous mind.

Foi'd promises them a " pottle of burnt sack,"
and as Mrs. Quickly said—

In such wine and sugar of the best and fairest, as would
have won any woman's heart

Bard. Sir John, there's one Master Brook below would
fam speak with you, and be acquainted with you ; and hath
sent your worship a morning draught of sack.

Falst. Call him in. Such Urooks are welcome to me,
that o'erflow such liquor

Ford. I will rather trust an Irishman with my aqua vitje
bottle. (Act 2, Scene 2.)

Host. I will to my honest Knight Falstaff, and drink
canary with him.

Ford {aside). I think I shall drink in pipe-wine first with
"""• (Act 3, Scene 2.)

Falst. Go fetch me a quart of sack : put a toast in it.
Have I lived to be carried in a basket? . . . Come let
me pour in some sack to the Thames water. . . . Take
away these chalices : Go brew me a pottle of sack finely.

Bard. With eggs, sir ?

Falst, Simple of itself ; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.

(Act 3, Scene 5.)

In King Henry IV. Part i. —

Falst. Now, Hal, what time o' day is it, lad ?

P. Henry. Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old
sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon
benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demantl that
truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hast
thou to do with the time of day ? unless hours were cups of
sack.

Poins. What says Sir John Sack-and-Sugar ? Jack, how
agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest
him on Good Friday last, for a cup of Madeira, and a cold
capon's leg ? . . .

Falst. Rare words, brave world, Hostess, my breakfast
come ?
O, I could wish this tavern were my dmm ! (Act I, Scene 2i)

34 ^^^ Bacon-Shakspen Question.

In Part 2, Silence sings : —

A cup of wine that's brisk and fine,
And drink unto the leman mine ;
And a merry heart lives long-a. . . .

Shal. You'll crack a quart together. Ha ! will you not,
Master Bardolph ?
Bard, Yes, sir, m a pottle-pot. (Act 5, Scene 3.)

The payment for these pleasures puzzled many,
as it did Falstaff : —

Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry ; fill me a bottle of
sack.

Bard. Will you give me the money, captain ?

Falst. Lay out, lay out.

Bard. This bottle makes an angel.

Falst. An' if it do, take it for thy labour ; if it make twenty,
take them all, I'll answer the coinage.

(Part I, Act 4, Scene 2.)

This aspect is also suggested in Cyinheline. The
Gaoler says to Posthumus : —

A heavy reckoning for you, sir : But the comfort is, you
shall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern
bills, which are often the sadness of parting, as the procuring
of mirth ; you come in faint for want of meat, depart reeling
with too much drink ; sorry that you have paid too much,
and sorry that you are paid too much ; purse and brain both
empty, — the brain the heavier for being too light, the purse
too light being drawn of heaviness. (Act 5, Scene 4.)

This light way of considering death is illus-
trated in Measure for Measure, when the Gaoler

says : —

Look you, the warrant's come.

Barnard. You rogue, I have been drinking all night, I am
not fitted for it.

Cloiu)i. O, the better, sir ; for he that drinks all night, and
is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the sounder all
the next day. (Act 4, Scene 3.)

The Merry Wives of Windsor illustrates the
Elizabethan tapster : —

Host. I will entertain Bardolph ; he shall draw, he shall
tap ; said I well, bully Hector?
Fah. Do so, mine host.

The Bacon-Shakspcre Question. 25

Host. I have spoke ; let him follow. Let me see thee
froth and lime ; I am at a word ; follow 1

Fals. Bardolph, follow him ; a tapster is a good trade ; an
old cloak makes a new jerkin ; a withered serving-man a
fresh tapster : Go, adieu.

Bar. It is a life I have desired : I will thrive.

Pistol. O, base Hungarian wight ! Wilt thou the spigot
wield ? (Act I, Scene 3.)

Steevens explains the above phrase by saying,
"the beer was frothed by putting soap in the
tankard, and the sack sparkling by lime in the
glass." He does not give his authority for this
very peculiar recipe of the tapster's craft Shaks-
pere, however, alludes to the habit elsewhere :
in Measure for Measure: — for instance —

Escal. Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master Froth,
I would not have you acquainted with tapsters ; they will draw
you, Master Froth, and you will hang them. Get you gone,
and let me hear no more of you.

Froth. I thank your worship : For mine own part, I never
come into any room in a taphouse, but I am drawn in.

(Act 3, Scene i.)

In King Henry IF,, Part i , Poins asks : —

Where hast been, Hal ?

P. Hmry. With three or four loggerheads, with three or
our score hogsheads. I am sworn brother to a leash of
drawers. . . . They call drinking deep, dyeing scarlet. . . .
To conclude, I am so good a proticient in one quarter of an
hour, that I can drink with any tinker in his own language
during my Hfe. . . . But, sweet Ned, to sweeten which name
of Ned I give thee this pennyworth of sugar. . . • clapped
even now into my hand by an under-skinker ; one that never
spake other English in his life than " eight shillings and six-
pence," and "You are welcome," with this shrill addition,
" Anon, anon, sir ! Score a pint of Bastard in the I lalf-
moon," or so. But, Ned, to drive away time till FalstafY
come, I prithee do thou stand in some by-room, while I
question my puny drawer to what end he gave me the
sugar. . . . How long have you to serve, Francis ?

Fran. Forsooth, five years. . . .

P. Henry. Five years 1 by'r Lady, a long lease for the
clinking of pewter. . . . Your brown bastard is your only
drink : for, look you, Francis, your white doublet will sully :
in Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so much. . . .

26 Tiie Bacon- S/iakspcn Question,

Fals, A plague of all cowards ! Give me a cup of
sack. . . You rogue, here's lime in this sack too. . , Yet a
coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. . .

(Act 2, Scene 4.)

In relation to the heavy drinking * said to have
been lately imported from the Flemings and
Germans by the English soldiers who campaigned
abroad, we may note that Mrs. Page calls Sir John
Falstaff " The Flemish Drunkard."

In the Merchant of Venice, Nerissa asks : —

How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's
nephew ?

For. Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober ; and
most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk ; when he is
best, he is a little worse than a man : and when he is worst,
he is little better than a beast ; an the worst fall that ever
fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him.

Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right
casket, you should refuse to perform your father's will, if
you should refuse to accept him.

For. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a
deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket ; for, if
the devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he
will choose it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be
married to a sponge. (Act i, Scene 2.)

But the habit seems to have been widely spread
by Shakspere's time, and coupled with that of
" drinking healths," as we see in Stubb's " Anatomy
of Abuses," and Nash's " Pierce Penilesse's Suppli-
cation to the Devil." For instance, in Romeo and
lidicf, Mercutio says Queen Mab makes a soldier
dream *' of healths 5 fathom deep." We may also
refer to the carousals in Twelfth Night: —

Sir Toby. These clothes are good enough to drink in, and
so be these boots too ! an they be not, let them hang them-
selves in their own straps.

Mar. That quaffing and drinking will undo you : I heard
my lady talk of it yesterday. . . They add moreover, Sir
Andrew's drunk nightly in your company.

Sir Toby. With drinking healths to my niece. I'll drink
to her as long as there is a passage in my throat, and drink
in lUyria. He's a coward, and a coystril, that will not

* See Appendix, Note 9.

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 27

drink to my niece, till his brains turn o' the toe like a
parish-top. . . .

Sir Toby. O Knight, thou lackst a cup of canary, when
did I see thee so put down ?

Sir Andrevj. Never in your life, I think, unless you see
canary put me down : Methinks sometimes I have no more
wit than a Christian, or an ordinary man has ; but I am a
great eater of beef, and that does harm to my wit.

(Act I, Scene 2.)

Olivia. What's a drunken man like, fool ?

Clown. Like a drowned man, a fool and a madman ; one
draught above heat makes him a fool : the second mads him,
and a third drowns him.

Olivia. Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o*
my coz ; for he's in the third stage of drink, he's drowned :
go look after him.

Clo7un. He is but mad yet, and the fool shall look to
the madman. (Act i, Scene 5.)

Sir Toby. A false conclusion, and I hate it as an
unfilled can. ... Do not our lives consist of the four
elements ?

Sir And. 'Faith, so they say ; but I think, it consists rather
of eating and drinking.

Sir Toby, Thou art a scholar : let us therefore eat and
drink. Marian, I say, a stoop of wine. . .

Clotun. . , . The Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses. . .

Mai. Do you make an alehouse of my lady's house, that
ye squeak out your cozier's catches without any instigation or
remorse of voice ? . . .

Sir Toby. Out o' time ? Sir, ye lie. Art any more than
a steward ? Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there
shall be no more cakes and ale ? .... A stoop of wine,
Maria ! . . . (Act 2, Scene 2.)

Sir Toby. Sot, didst see Dick Surgeon, Sot ?

Clozan. Ah, he's drunk, Sir Toby, an houragone ; his eyes
were set at 8 this morning.

Sir Toby. Then he's a rogue, and a passy-measures pavin.
I hate a drunken rogue. . .

Clo7un^s Song.
But when I came unto my bed,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain.
With toss-pots still had drunken head
For the rain it raineth every day.

(Act 5, Scene i.)

Shakspere does not often prophesy into a
future beyond his own time; but one of these

28 The BacoJi-Shakspere Question.

cases occurs when in King Lear, Act 3, Scene 3,
the Fool says : —

I'll speak a prophecy ere I go . . .

When Brewers mar their malt with water . . .

Then shall the realm of Albion

Come to great confusion.

He makes Cranmer prophesy of Elizabeth at
her christening in Westminster —

In her days every man shall eat in safety
Under his own vine, what he plants :

{Henry VII L)

which suggests a more general cultivation of the
vine than might have been supposed.

He notices " the vines of France " in King Lear ;
also in Henry K, Burgundy groans that the war
should hurt France :

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart, unpruned dies . . .
And as our vineyards, fallows, meads and hedges
Defective in their natures, grow to wildness.

Wine is the drink of France, the trade of France.
Hence the French cannot appreciate ale.

Constable. Can sodden water,

A drench for sur-rein'd jades, their barley broth,
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat ?
And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine.
Seem frosty ? {Hcivy V., Act 3, Scene 5.)

He imphes, also, that wine is a drink ot
the upper classes and of those who ape them.

Mateiiius. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and
one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of
allaying Tiber in't, . . if the drink you give me touch my
palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it.

(Coriolamis, Act 2, Scene i.)

This distinction between ale and wine is noted
in the Socialistic creed propounded 300 years ago
by Shakspere as Jack Cade. The expressions in
some points are very much like the present ideas

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 29

of socialism among the masses, though Jack Cade
meant to be "KING" of these masses — a good
king, however, who should bring in a millennium.

Caae. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves
sold for a penny : the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops ;
and I shall make it felony to drink small beer : all the realm
shall be in common ; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to
grass. . . . There shall be no money ; all shall eat and drink
on ray score. . . . (Henry VI., Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2.)

And here, sitting upon London-stone, I charge and com-
mand that, at the city's cost, the conduit run nothing but
claret wine, this first year of our reign. (Act 4, Scene 6.)

It is also illustrated in the Induction to the
Taming of the Shreiv, where the " Wincot Ale " was
too much for Christopher Sly :—

Sly. For God's sake, a pot of small ale.

I Servant, Will't please your lordship drink a cup of
sack? . . .

Sly. I never drank sack in my life. . . .

Lord. Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour. . . .

Sly. Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly's son of Burton
Heath ; by birth a pedlar, by education a cordmaker, by
transmutation a bear-herd, and now, by present profession, a
tinker. Ask Marian Racket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if
she know me not : if she say I am not fourteen-pence on the
score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in
Christendom.

Lord. Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord. . . .

Sly. I do not sleep ; I see, I hear, I speak.
Upon my life I am a lord indeed.
And once again, a pot o' the smallest ale, . . .

Serv. These fifteen years you have been in a dream,
Or when you waked, so waked as if you slept.

Sly. These fifteen years ? By my fay, a goodly nap —
But did I never speak of all that time ?

Set-v. Ah yes, my lord, but very idle words —
For though you lay here in this goodly chamber
Yet would ye say, ye were beaten out of doors.
And rail upon the hostess of the house
And say you would present her at the leet*
Because she brought stone jugs and no scaled quarts.

* At the leet, or court-leet, of a manor, the jury presented
those who used false weights and measures, and amongst
others, those who, like the " fat alowife of Wincot," used jugs
of irregular capacity instead of the scaled and licensed quarts.

30 The Bacon- Shakspcrc Question.

We also see the social distinction of the quality
of the drink noted in Ki7ig Henry IV., Part 2,
Act 2, Scene 2 : —

P. Henry. Dotli it not show vilely in me to desire sma
beer?

Poins. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as
to remember so weak a composition.

P. Henry. Belike, then, my appetite was not princely got,
for in truth I do remember the poor creature, small beer. . . .

As Shakspere makes the beer-drinking English
beat the wine-drinking French, so he makes
the beer-drinking EngUsh beat the wine-drinking
English in the judicial combat :—

\st Neigh. Here, neighbour Horner, I drink to you in a
cup of sack : and fear not, neighbour, you shall do well
enough.

2.nd Neigh. And here, neighbour, here's a cup of charneco.

yd Neigh. And here's a pot of good double beer,
neighbour : and fear not your man.

Horner. Let it come, i'faith, and I'll pledge you all : and
a fig for Peter ! . . .

\st Prent. Here, Peter, I drink to thee, and be not afraid.

■znd Prent. Be merry, Peter, and fear not thy master;
fight for the credit of apprentices.

Peter. I thank you all : drink and pray for me, I pray
you; for, I think, I have taken my last draught in this
world

York. Take away his weapon : Fellow ! Thank God and
the good wine in thy master's way.

{King Henry VI., Part 2, Act 2, Scene 4.)

The only two characters who emphatically drink
water instead of wine, are Adam and Apemantus
the former in As You Like It says : —

Though I look old, yet am I strong and lusty,

For in my youth I never did apply

Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood. (Act 2, Scene 3.)

And Apemantus in Timon : —

Ay ; to see meat fill knaves and wine heat fools. . .
If I were a huge man I should fear to drink at meals
Lest they should spy my windpipe's dangerous notes :
Great men should drink with harness on their throats.
Tim. My lord, in heart : and let the health go round.
Lord. Let it flow this way, my good lord.

The Bacon-Sliahpcre Qiiestmi. 31

Apcm. Flow this way ?
A brave fellow ! He keeps his tides well.
Those healths will make thee and thy state look ill, Timon,
Here's that which is too weak to be a sinner,
Honest water, which ne'er left man i' the mire :
This and my food are equals ; there's no odds,
Feasts are too proud to give thanks to the gods.

(Act r, Sc. I, 2.

The only real "praise of wine " he puts in the
mouth of Falstaff : —

This same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me '.
nor a man cannot make him laugh ; but that's no marvel, he
drinks no wine. There's never any of these demure boys come
to any proof; for their drink doth so over-cool their blood. . .
A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It
ascends me into the brain ; dries me there all the foolish,
and dull and crudy vapours which environ it, makes it appre-
hensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, delectable
shapes ; which, delivered o'er to the voice (the tongue),
which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second
property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the
blood ; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white
and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice ;
but the sherris warms it, and makes it course from the
inwards to the parts extreme. It illumineth the face, which
as a beacon gives warning to the rest of this little kingdom,
man, to arm : and then the vital commoners, and inland
petty spirits, muster me all to their captain, the heart ; who,
great and puffed up with this retinue, dolh any deed of
courage ; and this valour comes of sherris : so that skill in
the weapon is nothing without sack ; for that sets it awork ;
and learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil ; till sack
commences it, and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it
that Prince Henry is valiant, for the cold blood he did naturally
inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land,
manured, husbanded, and tilled, with excellent endeavour of
drinking good, and good store of fertile sherris ; that he is
become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the
principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin
potations, and to addict themselves to sack.

(Hcmy IV., Part I, Act 4, Scene 4.)

He certainly lived up to his creed in the use o
wine, but the wine lived not up to his ideas of the
making a man of him, and his cowardice gives a
whole "Morality "in this one character. Prince

32 The Bacoii-Shakspere Question.

Henry, when imitating his father in giving his opinion
of Falstaff, said : —

Why dost thou converse with that huge trunk of humours.
. . . That Bombard of Sack. . . Wherein is he good but
to taste sack and drink it ? . . .

Then in the scene where Prince Henry picks his
pockets : —

Let's see what they be — read his papers.

Poins. Item, a capon 2s. 2d. ; Item, sauce, 4d. ; Item, sack,
two gallons, 5s. 8d. ; anchovies and sack after supper, 2s. 6d. ;
Item, bread, a half-penny. Ob.

P. Henry. O monstrous ! But one halfpenny-worth of
bread to this intolerable deal of sack.

(Henry JV., Part i, Act 2, Scene 4.)

The general impression given is, that people
thought that wine, in the first instance, Jills the
veins 7vith bloody as in Pericles, Thaisa says to her
suitor : —

The King, my father, sir, hath drunk to you . . .
Wishing it so much blood unto your life.
Per. I thank both him and you, and pledge him freely.

(Act 2, Scene 3.)

Memnius. He was not taken well, he had not dined,
The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and then
We pout upon the morning, are unapt
To give or to forgive ; but when we have stuffed
These pipes and these conveyances of our blood,
With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls
Than in our priest-like fasts. {Coriolanus^ Act $, Scene I.

That it acts medicinally; see the Tempest, when
Stephano finds CaUban.

If he have never drunk wine afore, it will go near to
remove his fit if I can recover him, and keep him tame . . .
Here is that which will give language to you. (Act 2, Sc. 2.)

I am weary — yea, my memory is tired ;

Have we no wine here? (Coriolamts, Act i, Scene 9.)

I will see what physic the tavern affords.

{Henry VI., Act 2, Scene 3.)

The Bacon-Shahpere Question. 33

That it heats the Hood, as in King Henry VIII.

Sands. The red wine first must rise
In their fair cheeks, my lord, then we shall have them
Talk us to silence. (Act i, Scene 4.)

In Troiliis and Crcssida, Achilles says : —

I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night,

Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow.

Patroclus, let us feast him to the height. (Act 5. Scene I.)

That it fires the face. The effect on Bardolplis
complexion illustrates this.

P. Henry. O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen
years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since
thou hast blushed extempore. (Part i. Act 2, Scene i.)

Fal. The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph * irrecoverable,
and his fate is Lucifer's private kitchen, where he doth
nothing but roast malt worms. (Part 2, Act i. Scene 4.)

'Tis in the nose of thee, Bardolph. Thou art the knight of
the burning lamp . . . Thou art a perpetual triumph, an
everlasting bon-fire light. Thou hast saved me a thousand
marks in links and torches walking with thee in the night
between tavern and tavern : but the sack that thou hast
drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap, at
he dearest chandler's in Europe. (Part 2, Act 3, Scene 3.

That it fevers the heart: —

Charm, I had rather heat my liver with drinking.

{A7it. and CUo., Act I, Scene 2.)

Timon says : —

Go suck the subtle juice o' the grape

Till the high fever seethe your blood to froth,

And so scape hanging. (Act 4, Scene 3.)

Thus it makes some natures bold — like Lady
Macbeth's ; and by just a turn in the scale this
courage develops into quarrelsomeness and mur-
derousness.

Fluellcn. * Alexander in his rages, and his furies, and his
cholers, and his moods, and his displeasures, and his in-
dignations, and also being a little intoxicated in his prains,
did, in his ales and his angers, look you, kill his pest friend,
Clylus. (King Henry V., Act 4, Scene 7.)

* Bardolph and Fluellen are names found in Stratford
Records.

34 The Bacon- Shakspere Question.

That it drow7is the reason. — Macheth's grooms
sink in " swinish sleep."

Lady M. . . . His two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so convince,
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only.

(Macbeth, Act i. Scene 7.)

A Senator says of his friend to Alcibiades : —

He's a sworn rioter : he has a sin

That often drowns him, and takes his valour prisoner

If there were no foes, that were enough

To overcome him : in that beastly fury

He has been known to commit outrages

And cherish factions ; 'tis inferred to us

His days are foul and his drink dangerous.

(Timoti, Act 3, Scene 5.)

Macbeth's Porter considers " Drink is a great
provoker of three evil things ; " but though " drink
gave him the lie last night " " he requited him for
his lie, and made a shift to cast him."

And finally degrades the man. — " Antony and
Cleopatra " shows the degrading power of habitual
intoxication on noble natures. Enobarbus says
the fortunes of all shall be " drunk to bed." Caesar
says of Antony :

He fishes, drinks, and wastes the lamps of night in
revel. . . . He sits and keeps the turn of tippling with a
slave, and reels the streets at noon. . . . Antony, leave thy
lascivious wassailes.

E710. Ay Sir, we did sleep day out of countenance, and
made the night light with drinking. (Act 2, Scene 2.)

Cleopatra even shows a trace of scorn : —

And next morn
Ere the ninth hour I drunk him to his bed
Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst
I wore his sword Philippan.

The banquet in Scene 7, Act 2, is a sermon on
Temperance, with the moral of the fates of the guests.

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 35

Menas tells Pompey, *' Thou art, if thou darest be,
the earthly Jove."

Men, For my part I am sorry it is turned to a drinking.
Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.

Pompey. . . . Desist and drink.

Eno. . . . Here's to thee, Menas. . .

Pompey. Fill till the cup be hid.

Eno. There's a strong fellow, Menas.

Menas. Why?

Eno. 'A bears the third part of the world. Man, seest not ?

Men. The third part then is drunk. Would it were all,
that it might go on wheels.

Eno. Drink thou, increase the reels.

Pomp. This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.

Ant. It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels, ho !
Here is to Cctsar.

Cctsar. 1 could well forbear it.

It is monstrous labour, when I wash my brain
And it grows fouler. ... I had rather fast
From all, four days, than drink so much in one. . . .

. . . Gentle lords, let's part.
You see we have burnt our cheeks : strong Enobarbus
Is weaker than the wine ; and mine own tongue
Splits what it speaks ; the wild disguise hath almost
Anticked us all."

Eno. Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals
And celebrate our drink ?

Pomp. Let's ha't, good soldier I

Ant. Come, let us all take hands ;
Till that the conquering wine hath steeped our sense
In soft and delicate Lethe.

Eno. All take hands ;

Make battery to our ears with the loud music
The while I'll place you. Then the boy shall sing.
The holding every man shall bear, as loud
As his strong sides can volley.

Come, thou monarch of the vine,
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne.
In thy vats our cares are drowned ;
W'ith thy grapes our hairs are crowned ;
Cup us, till the world go round ;
Cup us, till the world go round I

Pompey dropped out ; Antony still followed the
same life. In Act 4, Scene 9, Antony cried :—

Come,
Lets have one other gaudy night ; call to me
All my sad captains ; till our bowls ; once more

36 The Bacon-Shahpere Qimiion.

Let's mock the midnight bell. . . .

Scant not my cups, and make as much of me

As when mine empire was your fellow, too,

And suffered my command. . . . Let's to supper ; come,

And drown consideration.

And so the end was wrought, and hence came
Cleo's prophecy : —

The quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels : Antony
Shall be brought drunken forlli. . . . Now no more
The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip. (Act 5, Sc. 2.)

And thus these great Hves ended. The meta-
physic tendency of Shakspere's mind leads him
to sad and solemn thoughts of the carelessness
of man, of the shortness of Hfe, the evanescence of
glory, the dominance of the Unseen. Man per-
ceives not the real and the permanent, he drops
the reality to pursue shadows ; after all, all men
are like drinkers at a banquet. Sad as he leaves
us in the sunset of the earthly glory of Antony,
there is even a greater sadness written in Othello
in the fate of Cassio. For, with him it was not a
frequent habit, nor even a natural inclination, but
an insidious temptation ; he suffered, not for a
course of riotous living, but for one false step, and
he dragged down with him other good and pure
lives. In Othello there is another " revel," a
Cyprian banquet (Act 2, Scene 3) : —

lago. Come, lieutenant, I have a stoop of wine ; and here
without are a brace of Cyprus gallants, that would fain have
a measure to the health of black Othello.

Cassio. Not to-night, good lago ; I have very poor and
unhappy brains for drinking. I could well wish courtesy
would invent some other custom of entertainment.

lago. O ! they are our friends ; but one cup. I'll drink
for you.

Cassio. I have drunk but one cup to-night, and that was
craftily qualified, too, and behold what innovation it makes
here : I am unfortunate in the infirmity, and dare not tax
my weakness with any more. . . .

lago. If I can fasten but one cup upon him,
With that which he hath drunk to-night already,

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 37

He'll be as full of quarrel and offence

As my young mistress' dog. Now, my sick fool Roderigo,

Whom love has turned ahnost the wrong side out,

To Desdemona has to-night caroused

Potations pottle-deep ; and he's to watch :

Three lads of Cyprus — noble swelling spirits —

Have I to-night flustered with flowing cups ;

And they watch, too. Now, 'mongst this flock of drunkards

Am I to put my Cassio.

Cassio. 'Fore heaven, they have given me a rouse already.

Mon. Good faith, a little one, not past a pint, as I am a
soldier.

lago. Some wine, hoa !

And let the canakin clink, clink.

And let the canakin clink :
A soldier's a man ; a man's life's but a span.

Why, then, let a soldier drink.

Some wine, boys.

Cassio. 'Fore heaven, an excellent song.

lago. I learned it in England, where, indeed, they are
most potent in potting; your Dane, your German, and your
swag-bellied Hollander — Drink, hoa ! — are nothing to your
English.

Cas. Is your Englishman so exquisite in his drinking?

lago Why, he drinks you with facility, your

Dane dead drunk ; he sweats not to overthrow your Almain,
he gives your Hollander a vomit ere the next pottle can be
filled.

Cassio. To the health of our general.

lago. Some wine, hoa ! . . .

Cassio. Do not think, gentlemen, I am drunk ; this is my
ancient — I can stand well enough, I can speak well
enough. . .

lago. You see this fellow that is gone before,
He is a soldier fit to stand by Caesar
And give direction : and do but see his vice ;
'Tis to his virtue a just equinox,
The one as long as the other : 'tis a pity of him,
I fear the trust Othello puts him in
On some odd time of his infirmity.
Will shake this island. . .

Then, after tempting him, lago leads the excited
Cassio to quarrel with the excited Roderigo, taking
care that witnesses are prepared to carry the news
to Othello. Meanwhile, Cassio is sobered, and
horrified by being told he is "drunk," and l.iy
seeing Othello approach. . . .

4

38 The Bacon-Shakspcre Question.

lago. What, are you hurt, lieutenant ?

Cassio. Ay, past all surgery,

lago. Marry, heaven forbid !

Cassio. Reputation, Reputation, Reputation. O, I have
lost my Reputation ! I have lost the immortal part, sir,
of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,
lago, my reputation !

/ago. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received
some bodily wound ; there is more offence in that, than in
reputation. . . .

Cassio. I will rather sue to be despised, than to deceive so
good a commander with so slight, so drunken, so indiscreet
an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot, and squabble?
swagger? and swear? and discourse fustian with one's own
shadow ? Oh, thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no
name to be known by, let us call thee devil ? . . .

lago. What had he done to you ?

Cassio. I remember a mass of things, but nothing
distinctly: a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O, that men
should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their
brains ; that we should, with joy, pleasure, revel, and
applause, transform ourselves into beasts.

lago. Why, but you are now well enough : How came you
to be recovered ?

Cassio. It hath pleased the devil, drunkenness, to give
place to the devil, wrath : one imperfectness shows me
another, to make me frankly despise myself.

/ago. Come, you are too severe a moraler : As the time,
the place, and the condition of this country stands, I could
heartily wish this had not befallen ; but since it is as it is,
mend it for your own good.

Cassio. I will ask him for my place again ; he shall tell
me I am a drunkard ! Had I as many mouths as Hydra,
such an answer would stop them all. To be now a sensible
man, by and by a fool, presently a beast I O strange 1 —
Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is
a devil.

lago. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature,
if it be well-used ; exclaim no more against it. And good
lieutenant, I think you think I love you ?

Cassio. I have well approved it, sir. I ? drunk ?

lago. You, or any man living, may be drunk at a time,
man. . . .

lago, like Mephistopheles, attempts to harden his
conscience. Desdemona, hke the angels, pardoning
his fault, would remove his penalty : —

And yet his trespass, in our common reason
(Save that, they say, the wars must make example
Out of their best) is not almost a fault
To incur a private check. (Act 3, Scene 2.)

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 39

Though there is a good deal said about wine in
the Tempest, it illustrates no great question. And
in the Masque, Ceres is addressed as the bounteous
lady who spreads the rich leas with wheat, rye,
barley and pole-clipped vineyards.

Trinculo echoes Falstafif, " Was there ever a
man a coward that drank so much sack as I
to-day ? "

The death-scene in Hamlet represents his uncle
following the classic usage of throwing a pearl into
the cup to honour a special guest, to conceal the
poison.

Set me the stoup^ of wine upon that table.
The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath ;
And in the cup an union shall he throw. . . .
Stay, give me drink : Hamlet, this pearl is thine ;
Here's to thy health. Give him the cup.
Qtieen. The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

The result of my reading is to make me
believe that Shakspere approved of stimulant in
exceeding moderation ; that he preferred beer
to wine ; and that, even when drinking im-
moderately, it was better to drink beer than
wine. In spite of Falstaff's praise, the series of
quotations I have given show that the evils of
excessive drinking chiefly came through the use of
" wine " — the Irishman's aqua vitcc being little
known. All his characters that came to evil
through drink (like Edgar in King Lear) — " Wine
loved they dearly." He never blames that "poor
creature, small beer."

But the important consideration in regard to
the discussion is, that in treating the drinking-
customs of difterent peoples, or ancient times — for
instance, in Ki/ig Lear, Antony and Cleopatray
Liamlet, &c. — Shakspere commits anachronisms
and incongruities impossible to such a thorough
student of history and literature as was Bacon, and
yet these very errors were in keeping with the
canons of dramatic art at the time, of which
Bacon disapproved.

40 The Bacon-Shakspere Quest ion.

The- learning of Shakspere is just such as
might have been commenced, amid varied interrup-
tions, at a good Grammar-school, and finished by
later reading and conversation. Though, like Keats,
he was keenly sympathetic with ancient story and
literature, his classics were eclectic and uncertain ;
his linguistic education fragmentary ; his science
undeveloped. He was acquainted with the use of
stimulants as known in a home, an inn, or an ale-
house, as he had proved in many a parish between
Stratford and London. What was written in the
plays might well have been written by Shakspere
with such an experience as he was known to have
had ; and with such humour, genius and morality
as he possessed.

It is very different when we turn to Bacon's works.
The learning of Bacon ranged over all that was
known and had been known to man, in history,
philosophy and science, and he supplemented this
by continual experiments, observations and corre-
spondence. He knew several languages, read
largely in all, and wrote much in Latin. From his
position, as well as from his mission, he was able to
learn much of our subjects, and he was, in several
peculiar ways, connected with " The Trade." His
friend Essex, according to Queen Elizabeth's own
profession, fell through his urgency in desiring a re-
newal of the farm of sweet wines. In James's reign,
Bacon arranged the settlement of this monopoly on
the Lady Arabella. At his own fall, the twenty-
seventh charge brought against him was that he had
been bribed by the French merchants to force their
wines upon unwilling London vintners, by putting
their persons illegally in prison. Another charge
was that he had accepted bribes from three parties,
when the Company of Apothecaries separated from
the Grocers. Previously to this, he had not been
considered free of blame in allowing Christopher
Villiers, the brother of the Duke of Buckingham,
to oppress the keepers of alehouses by extortions
and fines, in his monopoly of licensing powers,

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 41

In his purely intellectual relations to the subject
he is more honourably known. In his " Advice to
Sir George Villiers," regarding home industries, we
find he notes : " First, for the home trade, I first
commend unto your consideration the encourage-
ment of tillage, which will enable the kingdom to
bring forth corn for the natives. . . . Third, plant-
ing of orchards, in a soil and air fit for them is very
profitable as well as pleasurable ; cyder and perry
are notable beverages in sea-voyages. . . . Fifth,
the planting of hopyards are found very profitable
for the planters." Not only did he give political
counsel to those in power, but he gave scientific
counsel to those in practice, which, though occa-
sionally confused by superstition and credulity, was
wonderfully sound and suggestive, considering the
state of advancement in his time. He showed the
dignity of dietetics. "Among the particular arts,
those are to be preferred which exhibit, alter and
prepare natural bodies and materials of things,
such as agriculture, cooking and chemistry." (Para-
sceve V. and elsewhere.)

He notices the paucity of technical literature, and
suggests "A Catalogue of Particular Histories that
ought to be written." "55. History of the Food ot
Man, and of all things Eatable and Drinkable, and
of all Diet; and of the variety of the same ac-
cording to nations and smaller differences. 83.
History of AVine. 84. History of the Cellar and
of dift'erent kinds of Drinks. 128. Miscellaneous
History of Common Experiments that have not
yet been raised into an art." These histories we
are now helping this great Suggestor to complete ;
these experiments we have kept working out that
he begun. In his Advaticement of Learnings
Book II., he says : " For history of Nature,
wrought or mechanical, I find some collections
made of agriculture, and likewise of manual arts,
but commonly with a rejection of experiments
familiar and vulgar. For it is esteemed a kind of
dishonour unto learning, to descend to inquiry or

42 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

meditation upon matters mechanical, except they be
such as may be thought secrets, rarities, and special
subtilties." Bacon thereupon by example, aswellasby
precept, went on to show the value of " experiments
familiar and vulgar." We may consider a few of
these in relation to our subjects. He suggests the
soaking of cornseeds in various liquids before
planting {Nat. Hist., c. v., 402), and gives the
experiments he performed himself. After the corn
has grown, " winds are injurious to the corn crops
at 3 seasons — namely, on the opening of the flower,
at the shedding of the flower, and near the time of
ripening ; " and he gives the reasons of this. {History
of Winds, 24.) He advises men to inquire more
into the diseases of corn. {Nat. Hist., c. vii., 661),
696, 670.) He notices the importance of "waters"
in making malt, &c., in Nat. Hist., c. iv., 391, 392,
393 ; and in 394 he adds : " Fourthly, try them
by making drinks stronger or smaller with the same
quantity of malt ; and you may conclude that that
water which maketh the stronger drink is the more
concocted and nourishing, though perhaps it be
not so good for medicinal use. Such water is
commonly the water of large and navigable rivers,
or of large and clean ponds of standing water, for
upon both them the sun hath more power than
upon fountains and small rivers. And I conceive
that chalk water is next them the best for going
furthest in drink, for that also helpeth concoction."
Nat. Hist., c. vii., 647, he notes that "Barley, as
appeareth in the maltmg, being steeped in water
three days, and afterwards the water drained from
it, and the barley turned upon a dry floor, will
sprout half an inch long at least, and if it be let
alone, and not turned, much more, until the heart
be out." 648. " Malt in the drenching will swell ;
and that in such a manner, as after the putting
forth in sprouts, and the drying upon the kiln, there
will be gained at least a bushel in eight ; and yet
the sprouts are rubbed off; and there will be a
bushel of dust besides the malt, which I suppose

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 43

to be, not only by the loose and open lying of the
parts, but by some addition of substance from the
water." In Nat. Hist., c. ix., 857, he tells us
" Barley in the boiling swelleth not much, wheat
swelleth more, rice extremely," and gives the
reasons. 649. " Malt gathereth a sweetness to the
taste, which appeareth yet more in the wort. The
dulcoration of things is worthy to be tried to the
full : for that dulcoration importeth a degree to
the nourishment, and the making of things inali-
mental to become alimental, may be an experiment
of great profit for making new victual."

In Nat. Hist., c. i., 49, "Indian maize hath of
certain an excellent spirit of nourishment, I judge
the same of rice." 24. " In the same way, if beer
were to be brewed not only of the grains of wheat,
barley, oats or peas, but should likewise have about
a third part of roots or fat pulps, as potato roots,
the pith of artichokes, burdocks, or any other sweet
and esculent roots, I conceive it would be a drink
much more conducive to longevity than beer made
of grain." It is evident that the modern definition
of " Pure Beer " had not then arisen as a standard
on a battle-field.

In the History of Dense and Rare he treats
I, of Must: "New beer, and the like, when
casked, swell and rise exceedingly, so that, unless
they obtain a vent, they will burst the cask ; but if
this be given them they rise and froth up, and, as it
were, boil over." He gives a whole series of
experiments on beer.

In the same way he treats of wine from the begin-
ning. Nat. Hist., c. vii., 668 : " The grafting of
vines upon vines, as I take it, is not now in use ; the
ancients had it, and had three ways, the first was
incision, which is the ordinary manner of grafting ;
the second was terebration through the middle of
the stock, and pulling in tlie scions there \ and the
third was paring of two vines that grew together to
the marrow, and binding them close."

Nat. Hist.^ c. i., 35, is on *' Making vines

44 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

fruitful. It is reported of credit, that if )-ou lay
good store of kernels of grapes about the root of a
vine, it will make the vine come earlier and
prosper better. The cause may be, for that the
kernels draw out of the earth juice fit to nourish
the tree, as those that would be trees of themselves,
though there were no root ; but the root, being of
greater strength, robbeth and devoureth the
nourishment when they have drawn it." And in
c. v., 457, "It is reported that trees will grow
greater and bear better fruit, if you put lees of
wine to the root."

In Nat. Hist., c. vii., 638 : "As for the vine it
is noted that it beareth more grapes when it is
young ; but grapes that make better wine when it
is old ; for that the juice is better concocted, and
we see that some wine is inflammable, so as it hath
a kind of oiliness."

664. " Showers, if they come a little before the
ripening of fruits do good to vines, but it is rather
for plenty than for goodness, for the best vines are
in the driest vintages." 666. " It is strange which
is observed by some of the ancients, that dust
keepeth the fruitfulness of vines, insomuch as they
cast dust upon them of purpose. It should seem
that that powdering, when a shower cometh, niaketh
a kind of soiling to the tree, being earth and water
finely laid on. And they note, that countries
where the fields and ways are dusty bear the best
wines."

Next after his favourite scents of violets and
musk-roses and decaying strawberry leaves, he
prefers the scent of the vine-flower, and suggests
utilising it in wine.

He notices in his essay Of Judicature (L. vi.),
" Where the wine-press is hard wrought, it yields
a harsh wine, that tastes of the grape stone."

In De Aiiginentis Scientiaruin (L. v.). He
speaks of cider, &c., according to the Roman
adage, "one cluster of grapes ripens faster
by the side of another. . . . Our cyder

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 45

makers have an excellent way of imitating the
operation. For they take care not to bruise or
squeeze the apples till they have lain together for
awhile in heaps, and so ripened by mutual contact ;
that the too great acidity of the drink may be
corrected." This fact is repeated, like most of the
other facts that interest him, several times in his
writings ; and he certainly was much interested in
cider, as also in perry.

Yet he does not ignore mead. In the History
of Life and Death, Part II., 22: "Mead, I
imagine, would not be bad if strong and old ; but
since all honey has some acidity in it (as rnay be
seen by the corrosive water that the chemists
extract from it, which can even dissolve metals), it
would be better to make a similar drink with sugar,
not lightly infused, but incorporated as firmly as
honey in mead, and keep it for a year or six
months, so that the water may lose its crudity, and
the sugar may acquire subtlety."

He does not forget the various steps in finishing
any drink. Nat. Hist., c. iii., 30S : "The longer
malt or herbs, or the like, are infused in liquor, the
more thick and troubled the liquor is ; but the longer
they be decocted in the liquor, the clearer it is.
The reason is plain, because in infusion the longer
it is, the greater is the part of the gross body that
goeth into the liquor, but in decoction, though
more goeth forth, yet it either purgeth at the top,
or settleth at the bottom. And therefore the most
exact way to clarify is, first to infuse, and then to
take off the liquor and decoct it ; as they do in
beer, which hath malt first infused in the li(|uor,
and is afterwards boiled with the hop. This is
referred to separation."

In Nat. Hist., c. iv., 301, he goes on to the
Clarification of Liquors : " Liquors are many of
them at the first tliick and troubled, as muste, wort,
juices of fruits, or herbs expressed, and by time
they settle and clarify. But to make them clear
before the time is great work ; for it is a spur to

46 The Bacon-Shaksperc Question.

nature, and putleth her out of her pace : and
besides it is of good use for making drinks and
sauces potable and serviceable speedily. But to
know the means of accelerating clarification, we
must first know the causes of clarification. The
ist cause is, by the separation of the grosser parts
of the liquid from the finer; the 2nd, by the equal
distribution of the spirits of the liquor, with the
tangible parts, for that ever representeth bodies
clear and untroubled ; the 3rd, by the refining the
spirit itself, which thereby giveth to the liquor more
splendour and more lustre."

The following paragraphs continue the subject:
302 treats of " Separation by weight, by heat ; by
adhesion, as when a body more viscous is mingled
with the liquor; by percolation, &c." 303. "Of
the even distribution of spirits by heat, motion,
time, or mixture of some other body." . . .

304. " Of heat, motion, and mixture of some
other body which hath virtue to attenuate."

305. " It is in common practice to draw wine and
beer from the lees, which we call racking, whereby
it will clarify much the sooner ; for the lees, though
they keep the drink in heart and make it lasting,
yet withal, they cast up some spissitude, and this
instance is to be referred to separation." In 306,
he gives experiments to show that " it were good
to try what the adding to the liquor more lees
than his own will work ; " and also in 307, " Take
new beer, and put in some quantity of stale beer
into it, and see if it will not accelerate the
clarification." In 309, he advises experiments
by putting hot embers, renewed daily, round the
bottles of new beer ; and lime quenched and
unquenched, and notice the effect on even distri-
bution or refining of the spirit. 310. He suggests
shaking — " Take bottles and swing them, or carry
them in a wheelbarrow over rough ground twice
a-day ; but then you may not fill the bottles full,
but leave some air, for if the liquor come close to
the stopple, it cannot play nor flower; and when

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 47

you have shaken them well either way, pour the
drink into another bottle, stopped also close after
the usual manner, for if it stay with much drink in
it, the drink will pall ; neidier will it settle so
perfectly in all the parts. Let it stand some
twenty-four hours ; then take it, and put it again
into a bottle with air, /// supra; and thence into
a bottle stopped, /// supra; and so repeat the
operations for seven days. Note, that in the
emptying of one bottle into another you must do
it swiftly, lest the drink pall. This instance is
referred to the even distribution of the spirits by
motion." Elsewhere he suggests ropes in the cask.
In 311, he treats of clarification by percolation, or
separation by adhesion — Let " milk be put into
new beer, and stirred with it, for it may be that
the grosser part of the beer will cleave to the milk;
the doubt is, whether it will sever again, which is
soon tried. It is usual in clarifying Hippocras to put
in milk, which after severeth and carrieth with it the
grosser parts of the Hippocras, as hath been said
elsewhere. Eggs are tried by some. Also for
the better clarification by percolation when they
thin new beer; they use to let it pass through a
strainer ; and it is like, the finer the strainer is the
clearer it will be."

Nat. Hist., c. iv., 312, he goes on to maturation :
"For the maturation of drinks, it is wrought by
the congregation of the spirits together, whereby
they digest more perfectly the grosser parts ; and
it is effected partly by the same means that
clarification is, whereof we spake before; but then
note that an extreme clarification doih spread the
spirits so smooth as they become dull and the
drink dead, which ought to have a little flowering.
And therefore all your clear amber drink is flat."
313. " We see the degrees of maturation of drinks :
in niuste, in wine (as it is drunk ), and in vinegar.
Whereas muste hath not the spirits well congre-
gated ; wine hath them well united, so as they
make the parts somewhat more oily ; vinegar hath

48 27te Bacon-Shakspere Quesimi.

them congregated, but more jejune and in smaller

quantity, the greatest and finest spirit part being
exhaled : for we see vinegar is made by setting the
vessel of wine against the hot sun ; and therefore
vinegar will not burn, for that the finer part is
exhaled." 314. "The refreshing or quickening
of drink palled or dead, is by enforcing the motion
of the spirit ; so we see that open weather relaxeth
the spirit, and maketh it more lively in motion.
We see also bottling of beer or ale, while it is new
and full of spirit, so that it spirteth when the
stopple is taken forth, maketh the drink more
quick and windy, A pan of coals in the cellar
doth likewise good, and maketh the drink work
again. New drink, put to drink which is dead,
provoketh it to work again ; nay, which is more,
as some affirm, a brewing of new beer set by old
beer maketh it work again. It were good also to
enforce the spirits by some mixtures, that may
excite and quicken them ; as by putting into the
bottles, nitre, chalk, hme, &c." 3x5. "It is
tried, that the burying the bottles of drink well-
stopped, either in dry earth, a good depth ; or in
the bottom of a well within water ; and best
of all, the hanging of them in a deep well some-
what above the water for some fortnight's space, is
an excellent means of making drink fresh and
quick ; for the cold doth not cause any exhaling of
the spirits at all, as heat doth, though it rarefieth
the rest that remain ; but cold maketh the spirits
vigorous and irritates them, whereby they incorpo-
rate the parts of liquor perfectly."

Novum Orgaman, xlvii. : " Among prerogative
instances in the 23rd place is quantity ; which
borrowing a term from medicine, I call also doses
of nature. ... All particular virtues act according
to the greater or less quantity of the body. Large
quantities of water corrupt slowly, small ones
quickly. Wine and beer ripen and become fit to
drink much more quickly in bottles than in casks."

Nat, Hist., c. ix., 861. "Time doth change fruit,

The Bacon-Shahpere Question. 49

as apples, pears, &c., from more sour to more
sweet ; but contrariwise liquors, even those that
are of the juice of fruit, from more sweet to more
sour ; as wort, muste, new verjuice, &c. The
cause is, the congregation of the spirits together;
for in both kinds the spirit is attenuated by time :
but in the first kind it is more diffused, and more
mustered by the grosser parts, which the spirits do
but digest. But in drinks the spirits do reign,
and finding less opposition of the parts, become
tliemselves more strong, which causeth also more
strength in the liquor; such as if the spirits be of
the hotter sort, the liquor becometh apt to burn ;
but in time, it causeth likewise, when the higiier
spirits are evaporated, more sourness."

Novum Organuj/i, Book 2nd, 1. " Polychrest
instances, or instances of general use. ... I
remember to have heard of bottles of wine being
let down into a deep well to cool ; but through
accident or neglect being left there for many years,
and then taken out, and that the wine was not only
free from sourness and flatness, but much finer
tasted, owing, it would seem, to a more exquisite
commixture of its parts."

In Life arid Death, Part II., 23 : "Age in wine
or liquor engenders subtlety in the parts of the
liquor and acrimony in the spirits ; whereof the
first is beneficial, the second hurtful. To avoid,
therefore, this complication, put into the cask,
before the wine has settled at all, a piece of well-
boiled pork or venison, that the spirits of the wine
may have something to prey upon and devour, and
thereby lose their pungency."

Of Heat and Cold: "The sunbeams do ripen
all fruits, and addeth to them a sweetness or fat-
ness ; and yet some sultry, hot days, overcast, are
noted to ripen more than bright days. The sun-
beams are thought to mend distilled waters, the
glasses being well-stopped ; and to make them
more virtuous and fragrant. The sunbeams do
turn wine into vinegar, but query whether they

50 The Bacon-Sliakspere Question.

would not sweeten verjuice ? The sunbeams do
pall any wine or beer that is set in them. Bitter
frosts do make all drinks to taste more dead and
flat. Paracelsus reporteth, if a glass of wine be set
upon a terrass in a bitter frost, it will leave some
liquor unfrozen in the centre of the glass, which
excelleth spirit us vini drawn by fire."

Nat. Hist., c. ix., 898. " The turning of wine into
vinegar is a kind of putrefaction ; and in making
of vinegar they use to set vessels of wine over
against the noon sun, which calleth out the more
oily spirits, and leaveth the liquor more sour and
hard. We see also that burnt wine is more hard
and astringent than wine sunburnt. It is said that
cyder in navigations under the line ripeneth, when
wine or beer soureth. It were good to set a
rundlet of verjuice over against the sun in summer,
as they do vinegar, to see whether it will ripen and
sweeten."

In History of Dense and Rare, 3. '' I have heard
that new wine just trodden out, and still fermenting,
when put into a strong and thick glass (the mouth
of the glass being so closed and sealed that the
must could neither burst it nor break through), as
the spirit could find no vent, has with continued
circulation and vexation, completely transformed
itself into tartar, so that nothing remained in the
glass except vapour and lees. But of this I am not
certain."

Nat. Hist., c. viii., 781. " It is said they have a
manner to prepare the Greek wines, to keep them
from fuming and inebriating, by adding some
sulphur or alum, whereof the one is unctuous, the
other is astringent. And certain it is, that those
two natures do most repress fumes. This experi-
ment should be transferred unto other wine and
strong beer by putting in some like substances,
while they work, which may make them both to
fume less and to inflame less."

Nat. Hist., c. iv., 339. " All moulds are inceptions
of putrefaction." 341. "The ist means of prevent-

The Bacon- Shaksperc Question. 51

ing putrefaction is cold ; for so we see that meat and
drink will keep longer unputrified or unsoured in
winter than in summer. . . . put in conservatories
of snow, will keep fresh. This worketh by the de-
tention of the tangible parts." 342. "The 2nd is
astringents." 343. " The 3rd is excluding the air,
and again exposing to the air, &c. . . ." 344. "The
4th is motion and stirring. . . ." 345. "The 6th is
the strengthening of the spirits of bodies. It should
be tried also whether chalk put into water or drink
doth not preserve it from putrefying or speedy
souring. So we see that strong beer will last longer
than small; and all things that are hot and aro-
matical do help to preserve liquors." 347. "The
7th is the separation of cruder parts." 348. " The
8th is the drawing forth continually of the part
where putrefaction beginneth." 349. " The 9th is a
commixture of something that is more oily and
sweet." 350. " The loth is the commixture of
something that is dry." In 378, he again mentions
hanging bottles of wine, beer, and milk in wells in
various stages, and the results.

He notices that " all bodies have their own
dimensions and gravities ; water has more weight
but less dimension than wine." In De Aiigm.
Scient. he has numerous experiments to prove this
scattered all over the work.

The idea of stimulants seemed to run much in his
head — many of his figures of speech being taken from
their technology. " Silence is the fermentation of
thought " {De Aiigm, Sciejit.). In Novum Orgauum
(xx.), he calls his first group of collected instances his
" First Vintage." He gives the action of yeast as
an example of natural magic (li.). He explains
poetically the Greek fable of Dionysus or
P.acchus. Illustrations from ancient Theogony and
Mythology. Example of Dionysus or Bacchus :
"In his early youth he was the first to invent and
explain the culture of the vine, and the making
of wine and its use ; whereby becoming illustrious,
he subdued the whole world. . . His sacred

52 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

tree was the ivy. " Founders and uniters of States
were honoured but with titles of worthies or demi-
gods, as Hercules ; on tlie other side, such as were
inventors and authors of new arts, endowments,
and commodities towards man's life, were ever con-
secrated amongst the gods themselves — as Ceres
and Bacchus." In his prose poem, which con-
tained his ideas of a perfect state — The New
Atlantis — he said : " There were two long galleries,
one in which were patterns and samples of all rare
inventions, and in the other were statues of all the
principal inventors, such as the Inventor of Wine,
the Inventor of Bread, the Inventor of Sugar."
*' We had also drink of three sorts, all wholesome
and good ; wine of the grape ; a drink of grain,
such as is with us our ale, but more clear ; and a
kind of cyder made of a fruit of that country — a
wonderful pleasing and refreshing drink."

After describing the festivities of the " Son of
the Vine," with his cluster of golden grapes, the
narrator tells him, "We have also large and various
orchards and gardens . . where trees and berries
are set, whereof we make divers kinds of drinks,
besides the vineyards. ... I will not hold you
long with recounting of our brew-houses and bake-
houses and kitchens where are made divers drinks,
breads, and meats rare, and of special effects.
Wines we have of grapes ; and drinks of other
juice, of fruits, of grains, and of roots, and of
mixtures with honey, sugar, manna, and fruits
dried and decocted. Also of the tears or wound-
ings of trees, and of the pulp of canes. And
these drinks are of several ages, some to the age
or last of forty years. We have these drinks also
brewed with several herbs and roots and spices ;
yea, with several fleshes and w:hite meats, whereof
some of the drinks are such as they are in effect
meat and drink both. And, above all, we strive
to have drinks of extreme thin parts to insinuate
into the body, and yet without all biting and sharp-
ness, or fretting ; insomuch as some of them put upon

The Bacon- Shakspere Question. 53

the back of your hand will, with a little stay, pass
through to the palm, and yet taste mild to the mouth.
We have also waters which we ripen in that fashion
as they become nourishing ; so that they are indeed
excellent drink, and many will use no other."

The health-question was ever-present to his mind,
and he is always considering the substances con-
ducive to longevity, combining them with beer and
wine, and daily using them. As he says himself, he
was always "puddering in medicines," and he
considered all medicines made more powerful by
being mixed with wine or beer. Paul's advice to
Timothy was not lost upon Bacon. " Take a Utile
wine for thy stomach's sake and for thy frequent
infirmities." His special combinations are worthy
of a separate paper — e.g., his " Capon-Beer,"
"Wine for the spirits, "Wine against adverse
melancholy," "Restorative wines," "Ale of
raisins," "Methusalem water," &c. In his
History of Life and Death (vii. 12), he has "The
preparation of drinks suited to longevity may be
comprised in one precept. Of water-drinkers there
is no need to speak, for as has been said elsewhere,
such a diet may continue life for a certain time, but
can never prolong it to any great extent. But in
other spirituous liquors (as wine, beer, mead, and
the like) the one thing to be aimed at and observed
as the sum of all, is to make the parts of the Hquor
as fine, and the spirit as mild as possible." And
he repeats various experiments to make it so.

" I do much marvel that no Englishman, or
Dutchman, or German doth set up brewing in
Constantinople, considering they have such quantity
of barley. For, as for the general sort of men,
frugality may be the cause of drinking water, for
that it is no small saving to pay nothing for one's
drink, but the better sort might well be at the cost.
And yet I wonder the less at it, because I see
France, Italy, or Spain, have not taken into use
beer or ale ; which, perhaps, if they did would
better both their healths and their complexions.

5

54 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

It is likely it would be matter of great gain to any
that should begin it in Turkey." — A^at. Hist. 705.

In Nat. Hist., c. viii., 727, he tells us, " The use
of wine in dry or consumed bodies is hurtful; in
moist and full bodies it is good ; " and gives the
reasons. He also brings forward a precept of
Aristotle that " wine be forborne in all consump-
tions." " If it must be taken, let it be burnt."

He gives the quaintest causes for the effects of
drunkenness in Nat. Hist., c. viii., 724, 725.
" Drunken men reel, they tremble, they cannot
stand, nor speak strongly. They imagine every-
thing turneth round ; they imagine also that things
come upon them ; they see not well things afar off;
those things that they see near at hand they see out
of their place, and sometimes they see things double.
The cause of the imagination that things turn round
is, for that the spirits themselves turn, being com-
pressed by the vapour of the wine, for any liquid
body upon comjDression turneth, as we see in water,
and it is all one to the sight whether the visual spirits
move, or the object moveth, or the medicine
moveth. And we see that long turning round
breedeth the same imagination. The cause of the
imagination that things come upon them is, for that
the spirits visual themselves draw back, which
maketh the object seem to come on ; and besides,
when they see things turn round and move, fear
maketh them think they come upon them. The
cause that they cannot see things afar off, is the
weakness of the spirits ; for in every megrim or
vertigo there is an obtenebration joined with a
semblance of turning round, which we see also in
the hghter sort of swoonings. The cause of seeing
things out of their place is the refraction of the
spirits visual ; for the vapour is an unequal
medium, and it is as the sight of things out of place
in water. The cause of seeing things double, is
the swift and unquiet motion of the spirits, being
oppressed, to and fro ; for, as was said before, the
motion of the spirits visual, and the motion of the

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 55

object, make the same appearances ; and for the
swift motion of the object, we see, if you filHp a
lute string, it sheweth double or treble."

726. Men are sooner drunk with small draughts
than with great. And again, wine sugared
inebriateth less than wine pure. The cause of the
former is, for that the wine descendeth not so fast
to the bottom of the stomach, but maketh longer
stay in the upper part of the stomach and sendeth
vapours forth to the head, and therefore inebriateth
sooner. And for the same reason sops in wine,
quantity for quantity, inebriate more than wine of
itself. The cause of the latter is, for that the
sugar doth inspissate the spirits of the wine, and
maketh them not so easy to resolve into vapout.
Nay, farther, it is thought to be some remedy
against inebriating, if wine sugared be taken after
wine pure. And the same effect is wrought, either
by oil or milk, taken upon much drinking.

The works of Bacon on " Drinks " would fill a
large volume, which might be called, " VVme, Beer,
and Cider." He never mentions spirits or aqua
vitic. He has very little original matter amusing,
and Shakspere's wit is not suggested in his works.
Some co\{tc\.^^ quotations^ however, may be deemed
so, as for instance : —

Apophthegm, 108. One was examined upon
certain scandalous words spoken against the king.
He confessed them, and said : " It is true I spake
them \ and if the wine had not failed, I had said
much more."

Apophthegm, 53. "A physician advised his
patient that had sore eyes, that he should abstain
from wine \ " but the patient said : " I think, rather,
Sir, from wine and water, for I have often marked
it in blue eyes, and I have seen water come forth,
but wine never."'

Apophthegm, 134. Alonso of Arragon was wont
to say in commendation of age, *' That age appeared
best in four things — old wood to burn ; old wine to
drink ; old friends to trust ; and old authors to
read."

56 The Bacon-Sliakspere Question.

" Let therefore the drinks in use be subtle, yet
free from all acrimony and acidity ; as are those
wines, which, as the old woman says in Plautus;
' are toothless with age.' "

Apophthegm 29. The Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas
Bacon, was asked his opinion by Queen Ehzabeth
of one of these monopoly licenses? And he
answered, " Madam, will you have me speak the
truth? Ltccntice detcriores sianiis" We are all the
worse for licenses. A good motto for Sir Wilfrid.

" It is written of Epicurus, that, after his disease
was judged desperate, he drowned his stomach and
senses with a large draught and ingurgitation of
wine — hence he was not sober enough to taste
any bitterness in Stygian waters." {Adv. of
Learning II.)

As Spedding notices, he was very careless in
giving his authorities, often even appropriating
ideas wholesale, without acknowledging the debt.

In his Pronius (1594-96), edited by Mrs. Potts,
are many phrases and several proverbs in English
and foreign languages, intended as suggestions for
future work. Much has been made of parallelisms
between the Froniiis and the plays of Shakspere ; but
anything found there is certain not to be original,
so nothing can be based on it. For instance,
Nash says, " softer fire makes sweeter malt," and
Shakspere, in "As You Like It," says, "Good
wine needs no bush." We need not, however,
be surprised to find that Bacon, either from them
or from others, had heard the phrases and booked
them.

470. Soft fire makes sweet malt.

512. Linuc radiis non 7naturescit Botriis. The
cluster does not ripen in the rays of the moon.

517. Good wine needs no bush.*

* John Davies, of Hereford, says —
" Good wine doth need no bush, Lord, who can tell,
How oft this old said saw, hath praised new books."

{1603.)

The Bacon-Shakspcre Question. 57

582. Buon vin cattiva testa, dice il Griega. Good
wine makes a bad head, says the Greek.

583. Buon vin favola lunga. Good wine talks
long.

631. As he brews, so must he drink,

777. Ad vinwn diserti. Eloquent at wine.
\Eras7n.)

878. An owles egg. It was an old superstition,
that if a child ate of an owles egg before it had
tasted wine it would be a total abstainer all its life.

910. The vinegar of sweet wine.t

999. I?i vino Veritas.

1605. Vin sur lait sonhait; I ait snr vin, venin.

1608. A la trogne on cognoist Vyvrogne.

16 1 2. Vin vieux, amy vieux.^ et or vieiix, sont
aim'es en tons lieux.

In the Adv. of Lear?wig, Book II., as Philocrates
sported with Demosthenes, " You may not marvel,
Athenians, that Demosthenes and I do differ, for
he drinketh water and I drink wine." And like as
we read of the ancient parable of the two gates of
Sleep in Virgil, if we put on sobriety and attention,
we shall find it a sure maxim in knowledge, that
the more pleasant liquor of wine is the more
vaporous, and the braver gate of ivory sendeth
forth the falser dreams." In the Interpretation of
Nature (cxxii.), "I may say then of myself that
which one said in jest" (since it marks the dis-
tinction so truly), " It cannot be that we should
think alike, when one drinks water and the other
drinks wine. Now, other men, as well in ancient
as in modern times, have in the matter of sciences
drunk a crude liquor like water, whereas I pledge
mankind in a liquor strained from countless grapes,
from grapes ripe and fully seasoned, collected in
clusters, and gathered and then squeezed in the
press, and finally purified and clarified in the vat.

The sweetest wine turneth to the sharpest vinegar."
Euphucs' Ai!ato»iy of Wit, 1579

58 Tlic Bacon- Shahpere Question.

And, therefore, it is no wonder if they and I do
not think aUke."

The authors of Shakspere's and of Bacon's works -vLx^
drank different Hquors; and therefore they did -7^
not think ahke. The first drank nectar ; the
second, wine and beer. The first could not have
yoked the horses of Apollo to the car of common-
place experiment, the second would have fallen like
Icarus, with melted wings from his high flight, had
he essayed it.

The Bacon- Shakspere Qiiestion. 59

Chapter III.
Whether were the Poems and Plays

CLAIMED BY ShAKSPERE OR BaCON ?

Shakspere wrote his Sonnets and gave them
to his friend?, which Meres proves ; he wrote his
poems, printed them, signed and dedicated them
lo Southampton — which was never till now con-
sidered less than proof he composed them ; he
wrote his plays and sold them to his company,
which credited him with them by giving him place
and power, and publishing them with his name after
his death. He acted his own plays and others, so
that he knew just what would tell on an audience,
and thence he won his fame.

The Sonnets expressly say he was a player, and
did not like his profession ; they say he was a poet,
whose lofty rhymes should live, and that his name
was Will. They harmonise with his expressions
elsewhere, and with the general tone of feeling in

the plays : —

Sonnet ex.

" Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gored mine own fancies, sold cheap what is
most dear,
Made old offences of affections new :
Most true it is, that I have looked on truth
Askance and strangely ; . . ."

Sonnet cxi.

" Oh, for my sake do you with fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not belter for my life ])rovide
Than public means, which puljlic manners
breeds."

Co The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

Sonnet cxxxvi.

" If thy soul check thee, that I come so near,

Swear to thy blind soul tliat I was thy IViU." . . .
Make but my name thy love, and love that still.
And then thou lov'st me — for my name is Will."

Though considering that the Sonnets would live,
he evidently considered himself able for higher
work. I rather fancy that in this one instance his
feeling and Bacon's coincided, and that he would
have named them " toys," even if he did not really
mean them as a satire on the romantic sonnets of
the period, as Mr. Brown suggests. If he did so,
then in them, as in the character of Falstaff, he was
a fellow-worker with his famous contemporary
Cervantes, in killing with ridicule the last outbursts
of mediaeval chivalry, then dead at heart and root.

1593. We have already pomted out that Shaks-
pere'only wrote two dedications, both simple,
manly, and like modern forms ; nevertheless, the
first, the dedication to Venus and Adonis, is written
as to a patron : —

To the Right Honourable Henry Wriothesly,
Earl of Southampton, &c. : —

Right Honourable,

I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my un-
polished 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.
I)Ut if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall
be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so
barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I
leave it to your honouralile 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,

William Shakspere,

Consider the meaning of the phrases " unpolished
lines," " take advantage of all idle hours," " First
heir of my invention," "The world's hopeful
expectation " — these cannot fit into the Baconian

The Bacon-SJiahspcre Question. 6i

story in any way. In one year, however, the
admiration of his poetic power had caused
Southampton to receive him and honour him as
a friend, by which degree of intimacy Shakspere
opened his heart Hke a flower to the sun. Hence
the second dedication is to a friend — a friend
superior in rank, but one who could feel Burns'
idea even then common to the heart of man :

"The rank is but the guinea stamp
TI:ie man's the gowd and a' tliat."

1594. Dedication of The Rape of Lucrece, in the
following year : —

To the Right Honourable Henry Wriothesly,
Earl of Southampton, &c.: —

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 accept-
ance. ^\ hat I have done is yours ; what I have to do k 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 I wish long life, still
lengthened with all happiness.

Your Lordship's in all duty,

William Shaksperk.

He acknowledges his love, his duty, and confesses

his hnes to be ii7iti/fored, which Bacon could not
have done. He confesses all past and future work
devoted to Southampton, which Bacon could not
have done, as he shared his dedications among
many, reserving his best for Queens and Kings.

I do not think Baconians gather the full import
of these simple dedications. The fawning servility,
and ambitious expediencies in Bacon's dedications,
though harmonious enough to the ideas of the time,
are not so to ours. They remind us of one of the
Apophthegms he preserved. "Of the like nature
was the answer which Aristippus made, when,
having a petition to Uionysius and no ear given to
him, he fell down at his feet, whereupon Dionysius
staid, and gave him the hearing and granted it ;

62 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

and afterwards some person, tender on behalf of
philosophy, reproved Aristippus that he would offer
the profession of philosophy such an indignity, as
for a private suit to fall at a tyrant's feet ; but he
answered that it was not his fault, but the fault of
Dionysius, that had ears in his feet."

1599. The first edition of The Passionate Pilgrim
was published ; a second edition published has not
been preserved.

In 161 2 the third edition was repubUshed as
Shakspere's by William Jaggard. Two of Thomas
Heywood's sonnets were included ; and in an
Apology for Actors^ 161 2, Hey wood said that
his Epistle of ""^ Helen to Paris^' and ^^ Paris
to Helen" had been printed in his Troja
Britaimica, 1609, which might make the world
think he had stolen them from Shakspere,
and that Shakspere, to do himself right, had
reprinted them ; " but as I must acknowledge my
lines not worth Shakspere's patronage, under whom
Jaggard hath published them, so the author I
know to be much offended with ]\I. Jaggard, that
altogether unknown to him, presumed to make so
free with his name." And Jaggard was forced to
publish his next edition without Shakspere's name
on the title-page.

That "friendly Shakspere," as Scoloker calls
him, should have thus sided with Hey wood and
others in regard to their claims, may be taken as
an inverse assumption of the property of the re-
mainder of the verses, unclaimed by others. The
world then knew very much of private matters,
and made these as public as possible, as we may
see in the Nashe-Harvey scurrilous series of
pamphlets, rising out of Greene's, but not a word
is said against Shakspere. The plays printed under
his name would have been contested by some rival,
made a handle for attacks by some enemy, had
they not been really his ; pirated as they doubtless
often were, he gives a negative assent by silence.

Robert Chester, in 1601, printed Loves Martyr,

The Bacon-Shaksperc Question. 63

or Rosalinds Complaint, allegorically shadowing the
Truth of I.ove in the constant fate of the Phoenix
and Turtle. " To these are added some new
compositions .... done by the best and
chiefest of our modern e writers, with their names
subscribed to their particular workes ; never before
extant ; and now first consecrated by them all
generally, to the love and merit of the true-noble
knight, Sir John Salisburie," among whom Shaks-
pere writes and signs his only philosophic poem,
in which he makes a notice of the obsequies of
the Phoenix and the Turtle-dove figure forth
mystically the idea of spiritual union. There is no
flattery in it either to Chester or Salisbury.

Bacon ?iever, at any time, claimed any of Shaks-
pere's works. Bacon's habit was first to plan a
work, then by slow steps of experiment and verifi-
cation to execute it ; he wrote, re-wrote, altered,
improved, translated. He preserved every scrap
he ever wrote, he kept even copies of his private
letters, notes of his speeches, memoranda of his
smart sayings, even of things he only meant to
have said, and quotations from his reading, and
he signed his name to all his own composi-
tions. He had no faith in the perpetuity or
universality of the English language, and had
most of his works translated into Latin, that all
might read. "These modern languages will play
the bankrupt with books," he said. Further, as he
copies his works, some of them even twelve times,
and " alters ever as he adds, writes, or translates,"
" nothing is finished until all is finished." Each of
his copies, to himself and his executors, is a
separate entity, however separated by language or
time. In his last will he charged his executors
that " ALL his writings should be printed, and
sent in books fair-bound to the King's Library,
to the University of Cambridge, to Trinity and
Benet's Colleges there, to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and to Eton College, that they nii^^ht
not be forgotten in this country."

64 The Bacoti-Shakspere Question.

Is it likely that a man so careful of every scrap,
of every duplicate, so desirous of fame, after all
possible danger was over of losing his mother's
affections or his Queen's advancement, as the
Baconians dream, because of his passion for
writing plays, would have voluntarily ignored at
death a mass of writings that, even in bulk, bore
no mean proportion to those he had acknow-
ledged, and that in quality bore a nobler impress
of genius and thought than any he had printed ?

At the end of The Resuscitation published in 1657,
Dr. Rawley gives what he entitles " a perfect List of
his Lordship's works both in English and Latin,"
which he concludes by these words, " As for other
pamphlets, whereof there are several put forth
under his Lordship's name, they are not to he
owned for his."

Is it possible that executors or dependents, so
devoted as Matthew and Rawley, could have
examined his papers without finding some rough
draft, some memorandum, some private copy, some
cipher, that would have revealed that these poems
and plays had also a right to be bound in the
"fair volumes" and sent to all the learned Uni-
versities? The Promits was the only scrap un-
printed by them, because they knew it contained
nothing original even in arrangement ; and the
Conference of Pleasure in its complete form, which
was found in the box of papers in Northumberland
House. The speeches are, however, in a separate
form incorporated in his works.

The only ghost of authority for a claim that has
been brought forward is connected with this North-
umberland MS. But it is a ghost that was never
alive. There Bacon's Conference of Pleasure is
copied by a clerk, probably for some of his patrons,
who were to act in it, or dress and speak in it.
The paper volume formerly contained other works
now lost. A list appears on the outer page, among
which are " Richard II., Richard III., Asmutid and
Cornelia, Isle of Dogs, by Nashe and inferior plaiers."

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 65

Over the page is scribbled " Shakspeare," " Bacon,''
" Neville," " Ne vile velis," &c. — probably by some
fine thread of association or classification. The old
" Percy'' may have played in these other pieces too.
But there is no claiming the authorship of any of
them for anybody. The prosy and flattering
speeches of the Squire, the Hermit, the Soldier,
the Statesman, and the reply of the Squire, are just
as like Bacon as they are unlike anything of
Shakspere's. Certainly The Isle of Bogs was by
Nash.''' The Asinund and Cornelia might have
been his also — but though the Baconians give it to
Bacon, no one in the British Museum knows any-
thing about it. Whether the Richard II. and II L
were Shakspere's rendering of these histories we
have no means to prove. Yet this chance scribble
of a copying clerk is one of the strongest pillars
of the Baconian edifice ! And the other is like
to it.

Bacon writes a letter to the poet Sir John Davies,t
asking him to help his advancement and be good
to " conceled poets;" but one has only to turn to
his remarks on poesy to understand what he means
by that. We can see that he separates the matter
from the form, that he sees parabolical poetry
above dramatic, and calls it an artifice for conceal-
ment, independent of the conditions of verse or
prose.

" The measure of words has produced a vast
body of art — namely. Poesy, considered with refer-
ence not to the matter of it, but to the style and
form of it, that is to say, metre and verse. But for
Poesy, whether we speak of Inventions or metre, it
is like a luxuriant plant that comes out of the lust
of the earth, without any formal seed. Wherefore,
it spreads everywhere and is scattered far and wide,
so that it would be vain to take thought about the

* He was imprisoned for it. " As Acta;on was worried of
his own hounds, so is Tom Nash of his Isle of Dogs,^'

t See Appendix, Note 10.

66 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

defects of it. With this, therefore, we need not
trouble ourselves."— Z?^ Ai/gm. Sci. libr. vi.

(P^esy — feigned History or Fables.) De Aug-
ineiiiis, Book II. " It is concerned with indi-
viduals ... it commonly exceeds the measure of
nature, joining at pleasure things which in nature
would never have come together, and introducing
things which in nature would never have come
together, and introducing things which in nature
would never have come to pass. . . . This is the
work of Imagination."

Chap. xiii. " Under the name of Poesy, I treat
only of feigned History. . . . Narrative poetry is a
mere imitation of History. . . . Dramatic poetry
is History made visible ; for it represents actions
as if they were present, whereas History represents
them as past." "A sound argument may be drawn
from Poesy to show that there is agreeable to the
spirit of man a more ample greatness, a more
perfect order, and a more beautiful variety than it
can anywhere find in nature. . . . Dramatic poetr}'^,
which has the Theatre for its world, would be of
excellent use if well directed. For the stage is
capable of no small influence both of discipline and
corruption. Now of corruptions of this kind we
have enough ; but the discipline has in our times
been plainly neglected. And though in modern
states play-acting is esteemed but as a toy,
except when it is too satirical and biting ; yet
among the ancients it was used as a means
of educating men's minds to virtue. Nay, it
has been regarded by learned men and great
philosophers as a kind of musician's bow by which
men's minds may be played upon. And certainly,
it is most true, and one of the great secrets of
nature, that the minds of men are more open to
impressions and affections wlien many are gathered
together than when they are alone. . . . True
history may be written in verse, and feigned history
in prose. ... It is of double use, and serves for
contrary purposes, for it serves for an infoldment ;

The Bacon-Shakspere Questioji. 67

and it likewise serves for illustration. In the latter
case the object is a certain method of teaching ; in
the former, an artifice for concealment. . . . The
numbers of Pythagoras, the enigmas of the Sphinx,
the fables of ^sop, the apophthegms of ancient
sages were parabolical poesy ... a mystery in-
volved in many of them." . . .

The JVe70 Atlantis and the Masques would
quite fit his definitions. On the other hand,
he distinctly states to the Earl of Essex : " I
profess not to be a poet ; but I prepared _a
sonnet directly tending^ to_drawonHer Majesty's
reconcilement to my Lord^wHich~l remember^
also showed to a great person, one of my Lord's
nearest friends, who commended it. This though
it be, as I said, but a toy, yet it showed plainly in
what spirit I proceeded." We may rest assured
that, if Bacon did not profess to be a poet, he was
not one. The " Lines to a Retired Courtier "
are not claimed by Bacon, but given to him
by Baconians. I should much rather think
them by Raleigh. Much is also made of the
phrase, " Tragedy and Comedy are of the same
Alphabet." That can be read simply enough, if
we take it to mean that the same letters and words
re-arranged differently can tell of woes and death,
or mirth and joy. This idea is supported by another
sentence written to Sir Toby Mathew (1621),
"Set the Alphabet in a frame, as you can very
well do." Even if it meant something more, it
could easily be explained from the table of the
Greek Alphabet, under which he classifies all the
branches of his learning and works, not a purely
poetical idea.*

* Bacon's " Alphabet of Nature." The Alphabet is con-
structed and directed in this manner. The history and
experiments occupy first place, &c. : — •

Earth . . Greater masses t r t t 67th enquiry.
Water . . Greater masses v v v v 6Sth enquiry.
Air . . Greater masses </) (p cp (j) 69th enquiry.

[/•or continuation of Fool-note sec p. 6S.

68 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

He distinctly states what he would do, if left to
himself: "The call for me, it is book learning."
** I confess I have as vast contemplative ends, as I
have moderate civil ones." " I am like ground
fresh. If I be left to myself, I will grow and bear
natural philosophy ; but if the King will plow me
up again and sow rae on, I hope to give him some
yield. ... If active, I should write —

1. The Reconciling of Laws.

2. The Disposing of Wartls.

3. Limiting the Jurisdiction of Courts.

If contemplative I would write —

1. Going on with the story of Henry VIII,

2. General treatise of De Legibus et Justitia.

3. The Holy War."

Writing to Sir Thomas Bodley, he says : " There-
fore calling myself home, I have now for a time
enjoyed myself, whereof likewise I desire to make
the world partake. My labours, if I may so term
that which was the comfort of my other labours, —
I have dedicated to the king." And this was
Cogitaia et Visa — i.e., philosophical writings — no
claim for poetry. His being " wholly exercised
in inventions " is also evidently explained by the
experiments and inventions he made. "I have
taken all knowledge to be my province ; and if I

Fire. . . Greater masses XX X X 7°*^ enquiry.
Heavens Greater masses y ^j (/. »/j7ist enquiry.
Meteors Greater masses w w to w 72nd enquiry.

Conditions of Beings.
Existence and non-existence a a a a 73rd enquiry.
Possibility and impossibility (3 ^ (i ^ 74th enquiry.
Much and Little . . . . y y y 7 75th enquiry.
Durable and transitoiy . . S S S S 76th enquiry.
Natural and unnatural .. e e t £ 77th enquiry.
Natural and artificial . . c C G C 7Sth enquiry, &c.

Such then is the rule and plan of the Alphabet. May God
the Maker, the Preserver, the Renewer of the universe, of
His love and compassion to man, protect and guide this
work, both in its ascent to His glory, and in its descent to
the good of man, through His only Son, God with us. —
Spedciing's Bacon.

The Bacou-Shakspcre Queslioii. 69

could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the
one with disputations, confutations and verbosities,
the other with bhnd experiments and auricular
traditions and impostures, hath committed so many
spoils; I hope I should bring in, industrious obser-
vations, grounded conclusions, and profitable iiiven-
tions and discoveries ; the best state of that province.
This, whether it be curiosity or vain glory, or
nature, or if one take it favourably, philanthropia,
is so fixed in my mind that it cannot be removed."
Letter to Jh/rg/iky, 1592. He often uses the word
in this sense, as well as his previous one — a poetic
conception of a fictitious tale, such as would suggest
our modern novel. Therefore we may exonerate
Bacon from claiming the Plays.

But not only were the Poems and Plays printed
as Shakspere's at the outset, both in the early
editions and the standard editions of 1623 and
1632, but they continued to be so by the old
stationers and by the modern editors without excep-
tion or scepticism. We must not forget the old
proverb, " Possession is nine points of the law." Our
arguments, then, do not require to be one-quarter
as strong as those of the other side to overwhelm
them. But we have an opinion, shared by many,
that they are stronger. Of the translations of
certain Psalms into English verse by Bacon 1624,
Spedding says: "These were the only verses cer-
tainly of Bacon's making that have come to us, and
probably with one or two slight exceptions the
only verses he ever wrote."

70 The Bacon-Shakspere Qiusiion.

Chapter IV.
External Evidence.

We have, further, the psychological improbability
tliat so many men must have been in the secret,
if secret there was ; and that all should have been
able to keep it, not to only keep it even in silence,
but to go out of their way to falsify the focts.
We hold that truth is more natural to men than
untruth; and that a truth depending upon a simple
definite fact of yes or no, would have been sure to
have leaked out through some of the many confede-
rates necessary to so great and complex a plot as
this must necessarily have been, had it been.

The unanimous external evidence of other
people's writings, however, is the most convincing
proof.

1592. The earliest printed notice which alludes to
Shakspere is in Greene's Groaf s-worth of Wit, where
he, in an oft-quoted passage, evidently aims at Shak-
spere's growing fame and his entrance on a dra-
matic career as the actor and adapter of other
men's dramas, and calls him " an absolute y<?//(Z//«df
Factotum " and " the only Shakescene in a country."
It suggests that he also assisted in stage-manage-
ment, and points to the fact that he was dominant
by that time, and that other witty writers were subject
to his pleasures.

Greene's scorn of the actors, the "puppits,'' the
"buckram gentleman," seems embittered by the
fact that one of them should be " able to bumbast
out a blanke verse as well as the best of you." As
a rival of Shakspere, it is wonderful he had so little
else to say against him.

The Bacon- Shaksperc Quesiion. 71

Green's Groat s-'ivorth of Wit. " Young Juvenal
that biting satyrist.* And thou no less de-
serving than the other two. . . . Base-minded
men all three of you, if by my rniserie ye be not
v/arned ; for unto none of you (like me) sought
those burres to cleave: those Puppits (I meane)
that speak from our mouths, those anticks garnished
in our colours. Is it strange that I, to whom they
all have been beholding ; is it not like that you, to
v/hom they all have been beholding, shall (were
ye in that case that I am now) be both at once of
them forsaken ? Yes, trust them not : for there is
an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that
with his t Tiger's Heart Wrapt in a Players Hide
supposes he is as well able to bunibast out a blanke
verse as the best of you ; and being an absolute
Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only
Shakescene in a countrie. Oh, that I might
intreate your rare wits to be employed in more
profitable courses ; and let these Apes imitate your
past excellence, and never more acquaint them with
your admired inventions. . . . Whilst you
may, seeke you better maisters, for it is pittie men
of such rare wits] should be subject to the pleasures
of such rude groomes. In this I might insert two
more that both have writ against these buckram
gentlemen. For other new comers I leave them
to the mercy of those painted monsters, who, I
doubt not, will drive the best-minded to despise
them."

This and Greene's Quippe for an upstati Courtier
really led to the Nash-Harvey dispute, as Nash
was by some supposed to have aided Greene ; by
others, Chetile, the editor, was blamed. The one
point, however, in which all concerned agreed was
the praise of Shakspere, and the clearing his name
from any blame.

* Nash.

t " Oh, Tyger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide." — 3rd Part,
King Jlcnry VI.

X .Marlow, Lodge iJid Nash.

72 The Bacon'Shakspcre Questiofi.

*' Greene, the coney-catcher of this dreame, the
autour — for his dainty device deserveth the Hauter
. . . . I would not wish a sworn enemie to be
more basely valued, or more vilely reputed than
the common voice of the citie esteemelh him that
sought fame by diffamation of other, but hath
utterly discredited himself, and is notoriously
grown a proverbe of infamy and contempt. . . .
Honour is precious, worship of value, fame in-
valuable. They perillously threaten the Common-
wealth that go about to violate the inviolable partes
thereof, many will sooner lose their lives than the
least jott of their reputation. "§

1592. In Fierce Fe?i?nlesse, by Thomas Nash, we
find " Other newes I am advertised of, that a scald
triviall lying pamphlet called Green's Groafs-7vortIi
of Wit is given out to be of my doing. God never
have care of my soule, but utterly renounce me, if
the least word or syllable in it proceeded from my
pen." Further, " How would it have joyed brave
Talbot (the terror of the French) to thinke that
after he had lyen two hundred yeares in his
toombe, he should triumph again on the stage, and
have his bones new embalmed with the teares of
10,000 spectators at least (at several times) who,
in the tragedian that represents his person imagine
they see him fresh-bleeding." And again, " If
you tell them what a glorious thing it is to have
Henry V. represented on the stage leading the
French King prisoner and forcing both him and
the Dolphin to swear fealtie. Aye, but (will they
say) what doo we get by it? respecting neither
the right of fame that is due to the nobility deceased,
nor what hopes of eternity are to be proposed to ad-
venturous minds, to encourage them forward."
Nash further praises plays in general.

1592. In Foiire Letters and certain Sonnets,
especially touching Robert Greene and other parties
by him abused, Gabriel Harvey praises Shakspere,

§ Very suggestive of Casslo's regard for "reputation."

The Bacon- Shakspere Question. 73

and also says : " If any distresse be miserable, dif-
famation is intolerable, especially to mindes that
would rather deserve just commendation than un-
just slander. That is done, cannot de facto be un-
done ; but I appeale to wisedome how discreetly,
and to justice, how deservedly it is done ; and
request the one to do us reason in shame of Im-
pudency, and beseech the other to do us right in
reproach of Calumny. It was my intention so to
demeane myself in the whole, and so to temper my
stile in every part, that I might neither seeme
blinded with affection, nor enraged with passion ;
nor partiall to friend, nor prejudicial! to enemie ,
nor injurious to the worst, nor offensive to any, but
mildely and calmly shew how discredite reboundeth
upon the autors, as dust flyeth back into the wag's
eyes, that will need be puffing it out." And, in the
next year, in Pierce's Supererogation he adds,
" He is very simple who would fear a rayling
Greene."

1592. Greene's friend Chettle, who had edited
Greene's " Groatsworth," publishes Kind Barfs
Dream, in which he says of Shakspere, "I am
as sorry as if the originall fault had beene my
fault, because myselfe have scene his demeanour
no less civille than he, exelent in the qualitie he
professes. Besides, divers of worship, have reported
his uprightness of deahng, which argues his
honesty, and his facetious grace in writing which
aprooves his art." This proves him no "rude
groome," but of civil demeanour, excellent in the
" qualitie he professes " — Le., acting and improving
on plays, with a facetious grace in writing with art
and with good friends.

I shall now set down in order of time the re-
markable sequence of witnesses for Shakspere's
title to be regarded as the author of the plays and
poems : —

1593. A letter written to Lord de Chfford
styles Shakspere " our English Tragedian." In this
year Venus and Adonis was printed.

74 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

1594. Henry Willobie, in his Avisa, says : —

" And Shakspere paints poor Lucrece rape."

In his introductory verses on his love-troubles,
Willobie consults his friend Shakspere, " who not
long before had tried the courtesy of a like
passion."

1594. " You that to shew your wits have taken toyle
In registering the deeds of noble men,
And sought for matter on a forraine soyle
As worthier subjects of your silver pen,
Whom you have raised from dark oblivion's den ;
You that have writ of chaste Lucretia
\Vhose death was witness of her spotless life ;
Or penned the praise of sad Cornelia,
Whose blameless name hath made her name to rise
As noble Pompey's most renowned wife.
Hither unto your home direct youre eies
Whereas unthought on, much more matter lies."

(Sir William Herbert : Epicedium of Lady
Helen Branch.')

1594. " Lucrece, of whom proud Rome hath boasted long
Lately revived to live another age."

(Drayton's Matilda.)

1594. Still finest wits are 'stilling Venus' rose.

(Robert Southwell.)

1595. "All praiseworthy Lucretia of sweet Shakspere."

(Marg. note to Clark's Polimanteia.)

1595- " And there though last, not least is Action
A gentler shepherd may nowhere be found,
Whose muse, full of high thought's invention,
Doth like himself heroically sound."*

(Spenser's Colin Clonfs come home again.)

1595. In George Markham's tragedy of Sir
Richard Grefwille, he addresses Southampton thus:

" Thou, the laurel of the muses' hill,
Whose eyes doth crown the most victorious pen."

— meaning Shakspere.

1596. The Prologue to Ben Jonson's Every

* This surely could not be Bacon, Action means eagle-
flight, suggesting his poetry. Shakspere was the only heroic
name of the period. All poets then were poetically called
shepherds.

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 75

Man in His Humour alludes to Shakspere's
Henry V. and Henry VI. He said that the
world had had enough of Shakspere's style, and
that he was going to shew it how plays should be
written.

" Though need make many poets, and some such
As art and nature have not bettered much ;
Yet ours for want hath not so loved the stage,
As he dare serve the ill customs of the age,
Or purchase your delight at such a rate
As, for it, he himself must justly hate ;
To make a child now swaddled, to proceed
Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed,
Past threescore jears ; or, with three rusty swords,
And help of some few foot and half-foot words,
Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars,
And in the tyring-house bring woundb to scars ;
He rather prays you will be pleasdl to see,
One such to-day, as other plays should be,
Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas.
Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please ;
Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard
The gentlewomen ; nor roll'd bullet heard
To say, it thunders ; nor tempestuous drum
Rumbles, to tell you when the storm doth come ;
But deeds and language, such as men do use,
And persons, such as comedy would choose,
When she would show an image of the times
And sport with human follies, not wiih crimes.
Except we make them such, by loving still
Our popular errors, where we know they're ill ;
I mean such errors as you'll all confess.
By laughing at them, they deserve no less :
Which, when you heartily do, there's hope left then
You, that have so graced monsters, may like men."

1596. "Will you reade Catullus ? Take Shak-
spere," says Richard Carew, in his Essay on The
Excelle7icy of the Efiglish Tongue, attached to
his Survey of Cornwall.

1596. The Be JVitt Papers, lately discovered
at Berlin, give interesting notices of the four London
theatres — the Theatre, the Curtain, the Rose, and
the Crown — and say how large (^fitted for 3,000),
and how beautiful they were.

1598. The familiar passage in the Palladis

76 The Bacon- Shakspere Question.

Tamia of Francis Meres, which places Shakspere
in this year above all ancient or modern Avriters,
was republished in the edition of 1634.

This history of literature (written probably in
1596) shows that in about ten years Shakspere
had taken the first rank in literature as well
as on the stage, and no one, so much as Francis
Meres, Professor of Rhetoric in Oxford, would
have naturally studied the subject so care-
fully and critically in his period. "As the
soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in
Pythagoras, so the sweet wittie soule of Ovid
lives in mellifluous and hony-tongued Shakspere.
Witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his
sugred Sonnets among his private friends, &c. . . .
As Piautus and Seneca are accounted the best for
Comedy and Tragedy among the Latins, so
Shakspere among ye Englishe is the most ex-
cellent in both kinds for the stage ; for comedy,
witness his Getitlemen of Verona, his Errors, his
Love's Labour Lost, his Love's Labour Wonne,
his Midsummer A^ig/it''s Dream, and his Alerchajite
of Venice ; for tragedy, his Richard II., Richard
ILL, Henry IV., King John, Titus Andronicus,
and his Romeo and Juliet. As Epius Stolo said
that the Muses would speak with Piautus'
tongue, if they would speak Latine, so I say,
that the muses would speak with Shakspere's
fine-filed phrase if they would speak English.
As Ovid said . . and as Horace saith of his
works ... so say I severally of Sir Philip
Sydney's, Spenser's, Drayton's, Daniel's, Shaks-
pere's, and Warner's works. . . As Pindarus
Anacreon, and Callimachus among the Greeks
and Horace and Catullus among the Latines . .
so Shakspere. . . . For tragedie, our best are . .
Shakspere, &c.; for comedie, our best are . .
Shakspere, &c. The most passionate among us
to bewail the perplexities of love . . . Shakspere,
&c." — Meres' Wit's Treasury. One interesting
fact may be noted, that Meres, at the time of

The Baeo7i-Shakspere Question. 77

this publication, was living near the Globe Theatre,
and must have heard Shakspere, andmost probably
knew him personally.

1598. Richard Barnfield, in his Remembrance
of some English Poets, praises Shakspere for his
Litcrece.

" And Shakspere, thou whose honey-flowing vaine
(Pleasing the world) thy praises doth olitaine ;
Whose Venus and whoje Lucrece, (sweet and chaste)
Thy name in Fame's immorteil Booke have placed.
Live ever you — at least, in fame live ever —
Well may the body dye, but Fame dies never."
{A Remembrance of some Em^lish Poets.)

1598. John Marston, in his Scourge of Villainy,
says : —

"A hall! A hall!
Room for the Spheres, the Orbes celestial
Will dance Kemp's jigge. . .
I set thy lips abroach, from whence doth flow
Nought but pure Juliet and Romeo.
Say, who acts best ? Drusus or Roscio ?
Now I have hmi, that nere of oughte did speake
But when of playes or plaiers he did treate,
Hath made a common-place book out of plaies,
And speaks in print ; at least what e'er he sayes
Is warranted by Curtaine plaudeties.*
If ere you heard him courtmg Lesbia's eyes.
Say (courteous Sir) speaks he not movingly
From out some new pathetic tragedy.
He writes, he rails, he jests, he courts, what not
And all from out his huge long-scraped stock
Of well-penned playes."

{Ilumonrs, Satyr 10.)

Drusus being -a name applied to Shakspere for his
noble bearing, and Roscius to Burbage.
In Satyr 7, Marston also says, 1598 :

" A man, a man ; a kingdom for a man.
Why, how now, currish mad Athenian? "

1598. Gabriel Harvey's note on Speght's
Chaucer.

" The younger sort take much deliglit in Shakspere's
Venus and Adonis ; but his Lucrece, and his tragedy oi

♦ See Appendix, Note 9.

78 The Bacon-Shakspere Qitestion.

Hamld Prince of Dctimark have it in them to pL-ase the
wiser sort."

1599- Jo^''^! Weever, Ad Gidieltmim Shaksperc : —

*' Honie-tongued Shakspere, when I saw thine issue,
I swore Apollo got them and none other,
Their rosie-tinted features clothed in tissue
Some heaven-born godesse said to be their mother.
Rose-cheeked Adonis with his amber tresses,
Faire fier-hot Venus charming him to love her —
Chaste Lucretia, vergine like her dresses,
Prowd lust-stung Tarquine seeking still to prove her,
Romeo, Richard ; more whose names I know not.
Their sugred tongues and power attractive beauty,
Say they are saints although that saints they shew not,
For thousand vowes to them subjective dutie,
They burne in love thy childre Shakspere bet the
Go, woo thy muse, more nymphibh brood beget the."

(Epigrams in Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion.)

1600. Samuel Nicolson compliments Shakspere
by cribbing largely from him without acknowledg-
ment in '■'■ Acolastiis his After ■ Wittc ;" which,
however, only proves the existence of the plays,
and Nicolson's knowledge and appreciation of
them. We must remember that the Drama, ap-
plied to pleasure apart from instruction, was not
fifty years old at this time.

1600. Shakspere is mentioned 79 times in
England's Farnassits. Editor, Robert Allot. In
England's Helicon, edited by Bodenham, among
other pieces appears the lines from LoTe's Labour
Lost, beginning, '' On a day, alack the day," with
the name of Shakspere attached to it.

1600. J. M, The 7ic7ve Metamorphosis ; a Feast
0/ Fancie.

" It seems 'tis true that \V(iIliam) S(hakspcre) ^aid,
When once he heard one courting of a mayde,

' Beleeve not thou men's fained flatteries.
Lovers will tell a Ijushelful of lies.' "

1602. The Return from Parnassus, of which the
value cannot be overstated, publicly acted by the
students of St. John's College, Cambridge.

The Dacon-Shakspere Question. 79

The Return from Parnassus, or The Scourge of
Simony, publicly acted by the students of St.
John's College in Cambridge in January 1602, was
printed in 1606. The reprint is edited by E.
Arber. The Introduction tells us of it : —

"A comedy written by a University pen in 1601, ami
addressing itself to one of the most cultivated audiences
possible at that time in the country ; which thus publicly
testifies on the stage, in the character of Richard ISurbage
and William Kempe (Shakspere"s fellow-actors) to his
confessed supremacy at that date, not only over all University
dramatists, but also over all the London professional play-
wrights, Ben Jonson included. , . . We must point out
important testimony first, to the disreputability, and then to
the profitableness of the new vocation of tire professional,
play-actor ; not of the poet-actor, like Shakspere and
Jonson. It was probably owing to the fact that they had
written no plays that Burbage and Kempe were singled out
for their posts in the play."

" The Pilgrimage to Pernassus and the Rcturnc
from Pernassus, have stood the honest stage-keepers
in many a crown's expense."*

In judging the various poets, Ingenioso asks
Judiciot what he thinks of William Shakspere —
referring to the Sonnets, &c.

" Who loves Adonis love or Lucre's rape,
His sweeter verse containes Hart-robbing life.
Could but a graver subject him content,
Without love's foolish languishment?"

The French phrases in the play bear a strong
resemblance to those of Shakspere.
Act 4, Scene 5, IJurbagc, Kempe. :j:
Kempe makes criticism on Cambridge acting.

Burbage. A little teaching will mend these faults, and it
may be besides they will be able to pen a part.

k'enife. Few of the University pen plaies well, they smell
too much of that writer Ovid, and that writer Metamorphoses,

* This was the third play by the same writer.

t The criticism by Ingenioso and Judicio is of Francis
Meres' List of Poets — among whom is William Shakspere.
"These being modern and extant poets, that have lived
together, from many of their cxtantc workes and some I:cp(
in private. "

X 'ihe Kempe of ihtfigge and the Nine Days' U'omter.

8o The Bacon- Shakspere Question. '

and talke too much of Proserpina and Juppiter. Why, here's
our fellow Shakspere puts them all downc, aye, and Beu
Jonson, too. O, that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow, he
brought up Horace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow
Shakspere hath given him a purge that made him bewray his
credit.

Burba^e. It's a shrewd fellow indeed. . . .

Kempc. Be merry, my lads ; you have happened upon the
most excellent vocation in the world for money ; they come
north and south to bring it to our playhouse, and for honours.,
who of more report than Dick Burbage and Will? . . .

Kenipe to Philornnsits. Thou wilt do well in time, if thou
wilt be ruled by thy betters — that is, by myself and such grave
aldermen of the playhouse.

Burbage. I like your face and the proportion of your body
for Richard III. I pray, M. Philomusus, let me see you act
a little of it.

/'////. Now is the winter of our discontent,

Made glorious summer by the sonne of York.

Allusion is made also to the " Isle of Dogs."
1603. A Mournful Dittie, entituled ElizabetKs
Losse : —

" You poets all, brave Shakspere, Jonson, Greene,
Bestow your time to write for England's Queene,

Lament, lament, &c.
Returne your songs and sonnets and your layes,
To set forth sweet Elizabetha's praise.

Lament, lament, &c."

1603. Chettle's England's Mournifig Garment:
" Nor doth the silver-tongued Melicert,
Drop from his honied muse one sable teare
To mourne her death, who graced his desert.
And to his laies opened her Royall eare
Shepherd, remember our Elizabeth,
And sing her rape, done by that Tarquin, Death."

1603. Davies of Hereford's Micro cosmos^* re-
printed in 1605. To W. S. and R. B. :—

Stage- Some followed her by acting all men's parts,

plaiers. These on a stage she raised in scorne to fall.
And made them mirrors by their acting arts,

W S & ^^ 'I'^rein men saw their faults though ne'er so small.

R.' B.' Yet some she guerdoned not to their deserts.
But other some were but ill-action all,
Who while they acted ill, ill stayed behinde
(By custom of their manners) in their minde.
Players, I love you and your qualitie,

* See Appendix, Note 10.

The Baco7i-Shakspere Question. 8i

As you are men that pass time not abused ;

And some I love for painting poesie,
Sinionldes And say fell Fortune cannot be excused,
saith That hath for better uses you refused :

speakmg^ Wit, courage, good shape, good parts and all good,
painting. As long as all these goods are no worse used.

And though the stage doth stain pure gentle blood,

Vet generous ye are in minde and mood.

(77/^ Civil Warrcs of Death or Fortune.)

1604. Scoloker,in the Introduction to Z>/,r7///a;/^//j-,
refers to " friendly Shakspere's tragedies."

1604. " It should come home to the vulgar's element, like
friendly Shakspere's Tragedies, where the comedian rides,
where the tragedian stands on tip-toe. Faith, it should
please all, like Prince Hamlet. But in sadnesse, then it were
to be feared he would run mad ; in bOoth, I will not be moon-
sick to please ; nor out of my wits though I displease all."
— (Anthony Scoloker, Diaphantits, or tJu Passions of Love,
1604.)

1604. John Cook's Epigrams* In the twelfth
we find : —

" Some dare do this, some other humbly craves.
For helpe of spirits in their sleeping graves,
As he that calde to Shakspere, Johnson, Greoic
To write of their dead noble Queene."

Cook's evidence is unusually weighty, as he also
was an actor, and knew the truth behind the scenes.
Cook was the author of the play Green's Tii Quoque,
1614.

1605. Camden, in his Remaines^ brackets
Shakspere with Sydney and other foremost wits
of that time.

" These may suffice for some poetical descriptions of
our ancient pods. If I would come to our time, what a
world could I present to you out of Sir Philip Sydney. . . .
William Shakspere and other most prc;^i),inl wits of these our
times, whom succeeding ages may justly admire."

(Reiiiaines coneernin!; Britainc, William Camden, 1605.)

* Cook's authorship of the volume cited is ascertained
from the Stationer's Register.

82 The Bacon-Shakspcre Question.

1606. Ratsey's Ghost appears in which we can
view the way a spendthrift rival sees other people's
economy and self-denial. As this was only an
imaginary memoir of a great burglar who had been
hanged, we have the views of the writer probably
superimposed upon the known opinions of Ratsey
himself. A company of actors in the provinces
had played before Ratsey for forty shillings, of
which money the highwayman robbed them, and
he advised the chief man to go to London to a
manager supposed to be Burbage.

*' There shalt thou learn to be frugal (for players were
never so thrifty as they are now about London). . . . When
thou feelest thy purse well-lined, buy thee some place of lord-
ship in the country, that, growing weary of playing, thy
money may bring thee to dignity and reputation ; then thou
needest care for no man."

The Player answers : —

" I have heard, indeed, of some that have gone to London
very meanly, and have come in time to be exceeding
wealthy.''

As Shakspere had not retired at this time, but
was still working to support his family and widowed
mother, Ratsey's satire may not be meant for him,
though he had already bought New Place ; others
were also rich — as Alleyn. I think, however, that
the Player's answer does refer to him. We may-
take the tract as at least of contemporaneous
interest.

1607. Barkstead's Mirrha, the mother of Adonis.

" But stay, my muse ! in thine own confines keep,
And wage not warre with so deare loved a neighbour.
But having sung thy day-song, rest and sleepe.
Preserve thy small fame, and his greater favour.
His song was worthy merit (Shakspere hee),
Sung the faire blossom, thou the withered tree,
Laurell is due to him, his art and wit
Hath purchased it. Cypress thy brow will fit."

Barkstead, like Kempe and Cook above-cited,
was a player.

The Bacon-Shakspere Qnesiion. Zt^

1609. ^Dedication by Thorpe to Mr. W. H. of
*' Shakspere's Sonnets," as they are expUcitly termed
on the laconic title, which reminds us of Venus and
Adonis, and Lucrece.

To the onlie begetter of

These ensuing sonnets

f Mr. \V. H. All happinesse

And that eternitie

promised

by

Our ever-living poet

wisheth

The well-wishing

Adventurer in

setting

forth.

T. T., M.iy 20, 1609.
Never before imprinted. \

This could not have been addressed to William
Herbert, afterwards Earl of Pembroke, as it is not
reverent enough. Poems by a Mr. W. H. appear
in England's Helicon, 1600. Whether it was
William Hughes, or whoever it was, it refers only
to the person who got them or collected them for
Thorpe, not to the inspirer or composer.

1609. § Troilus and Crcssida is published with
a preface headed Newes, praising Shakspere, ||

"A never writer to an ever reader. Newes. Eternal
reader you have here a new play never staled with the stage. "If

* Thomas Thorpe was a Warwickshire man. ViJc un-
published MSS. of Rev. J. Hunter, British Museum.

t Was this the same W. Hammond, to whom in an early
M.S. copy of Middleton's IVitch that drama is inscribed?
Hammond is there mentioned as a patron of literature.— Ed.

\ Edward Alleyn notes that he bouglit a copy for five-
pence, which price is mentioned on tlie copy possessed by
Earl Spenser.

§ See Appendix, Note 12.

!l It was a time when an enigmatic vein must have been in
favour, for in a tract of 1607, a translation from the Dutch,
the I'.ditor heads a sort of Preface in this same fashion.
"Newes to the Reader, or to whom the Buyer desires to
send Newes." — Ed.

•il This phrase was a mistake, and afterwards withdrawn.

84 The Baco7i-Shakspere Question.

and concluding thus : —

" and beleeve this that when bee is gone and his Coni-
medies out of sale, you will scramble for them and set up
a new English inquisition."

1 6 10 — 161 1. * Davies of Hereford mentions
Shakspere in the most comphmentary manner, as
a man fit to be a companion to a king.

" Some say (good Will), which I, in sport do sing ;
Hadst thou not played some kingly parts in sport,
Thou hadst been a companion for a king —
And beene a king among the meaner sorte.
Some others rail, but rail as they think fitt.
Thou hast no rayling but a raygning witt.
And honesty thou sow'st which they do reape,
So to increase their slock which they do keepe."

[^Thc Scourge of Folly,')

1 610. Bis t no Mastix ; or. The Player Whipt,
alludes to Shakspere.

1610. Dr. Simon Forman notes in his Diary th.a.t
he had witnessed the performance of Macbeth^
Winter's Tale, &c, and criticises them.

1612. Preface to Webster's White Devil co\y^t%
Shakspere with Dekker and Heywood, and praises
their "right happy and copious industry."

" Detraction is the sworn friend to ignor-
ance ; for my own part, I have ever truly cherished
my good opinion of other men's worthy labours ;
especially of that full and heightened style of
Master Chapman, the laboured and understanding
works of Master Jonson, the no less worthy com-
posures of the both worthily excellent Master
Beaumont and Master Fletcher ; and lastly (with-
out wrong last to be named) the right happy and
copious industry of Master Shakspere, Master
Dekker, and Master Heywood ; wishing what I
write may be read by their light ; protesting that,
in the strength of mine own judgment, I know them

* See Appendix, Note 10.

The Bacon-Shakspcrc Question. 85

so worthy ; that though I rest silent in my own
work, yet to most of theirs I dare (without flattery)
fix that of Martial, '' Non norunt hsec monumenta
mori." Preface to The White Devil: or, Vittoria
Corrof7ibonar' John Webster.

161 3. Globe Theatre burned down.

1614. Sir Wilham Drummond.

" The last we have are Sir William Alexander and
Shakspere, who have lately published their works."

In 1 6 14, Thomas Freeman to Master William
Shakspere : —

" Shakspere, that nhnble merciuy, thy brain.

Lulls many hundred Argus-eyes asleepe ;
So fit, for so thou fashioneih thy vaine,

At the horse-foote fountain thou hast drunke full deepe.
Vertues or vice, the theme to thee all one is.

Who loves chaste life, there's Lucrece for a teacher ;
Who list read lust, there's Venus and Adonis,

Tnie model of the most lascivious leatcher.
Besides in plays thy wit winds like Meander,

Whence needy new composers borrow more
Than Terence doth from Plautus and Menander.

But to praise thee aright I want thy store ;
Then let thine own works thine own worthe upraise

And help to adorne thee with deserved bales.''
(Freeman's Epigrams, Runne and a Great Cast.)

1614. Christopher Brooke, Ghost of Richard III.
celebrates the author of the antecedent drama, but
does not name him.

" To him that imped my Fame with Clio's quill.
Whose magick raised her from Oblivion's den.
That writ my slorie on the Muses' Mill,

And with my actions dignified his pen ;
He that from Helicon sencls many a rill.
Whose nectared veines are drunke by thirstie help ;
Crowned be his stile with fame, his head with bays;
And none detract, but gratulare his praise."

(The Ghost of Riiihard III. expressing himself.)

16 15, John Stow'a Chronicles, augmented by

* \Ve should prize this attestation particularly, as it brings
Shakspere before us as a diligent student and painstaking
■writer ; as we know otherwise he must have been.

86 The Bacon-Shakspere Qutsiion.

Edmund Howes, mention Shakspere : " Our mo-
dern and present excellent poets, which worthily
flourish in their owne workes, and all of them in
my own knowledge, lived together in this Queene's
raigne ; according to their priorities as neere as I
could, I have orderly set downe " . . . the 13th is
" M. Willie Shakspeare."

16 1 5. Henry Vaughan's sacred poems say that
George Herbert's poems gave the first check to
Shakspere, " a most flourishing and advanced wit "
of his time.

1 616. Inscription on Shakspere's Tomb : —

" Judicio Pylium, Genio Socratem, Arte Maronem,
Terra Tegit, Populus Maeret, Olympus Habet."
" Stay passenger, why goest thou by so fast ;

Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath placed
Within this monument — Shakspere, with whome
(^uick Nature dide ; whose name doth deck ys tombe
Far more than cost ; see all yt he hath writt
leaves living art, but page to serve his wilt."

Obiit. Ano. Doi. 1616, ylitatis 53, Die 23 Ap.
" Good frend, for Jesu's sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare ;
Blest be ye man yt spares these stones
And curst be he yt moves my bones."

j6i8. Ben Jonson to Drummond : "Shakspere
wanted art and sometimes sense ; for, in one of
his plays, he brought in a number of men saying
they had been shipwrecked in Bohemia, where is
no sea by near a hundred miles."

1 62 1 . Burton's Atiatotfiy of Melatulwly alludes to
Venus and Ado fiis, Ro?iieo and Julkt, Benedict and
Betteris.

1623. We now come to the credentials presented
by the introduction to the first folio.

To THE Reader.

This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut.

Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature to outdo the life.

Ah, could he but have drawne his wit

The BiUon-S/iakspere Question. 87

As well in t.rasse as he hath hit
His face ; the print would then surpass

All that was ever wri*. in brasse ;
But since he cannot, reader, looke

Not on his picture but his book.

(Prefixed to Drocshout's portrait of Shakspere.)

B. T.

Dedication, To the most noble and Incomparable
paire of Brethren, William Earl of Pembroke, &c.
and Philip Earl of Montgomery, <S:c. '• Right
Honourable — Vvhilst we studie to be thankful in
one particular for the many favours we have
received from your lordships, we are falne upon
the ill fortune, to mingle two the most diverse
things that can be, feare and rashnesse ; rashnesse
in the enterprize and feare of the successe. For,
when we valew the places your Highnesses sustaine,
we cannot but know their dignity greater than to
descend to the reading of these trifles ; and, while
we name them trifles, we have deprived ourselves
of the defence of our Dedication. But, since your
lordships have been pleased to consider these trifles
something heretofore, and have prosecuted both
them and their author living with so much favour,
we hope that (they out-living him and he not
having the same fate, common with some, to be
executor to his owne writings) you will use the
like indulgence toward them, you have done unto
their parent. There is a great difference whether
any booke choose his patrones or find them. This
hath done both. For so much were your Lordship's
likings of the severall parts when they were acted,
as before they were published, the volume asked to

be yours We have collected them and done

an oflice to the dead to procure his orphanes
guardians ; without ambition either of self-profit or
fame, only to keep the memory of so worlliy a friend
and fellowe alive, as was our Shakspere, by humble
offer of his playes, to your most noble patronage.
. . . Wemost humbly consecrate to your Highnesses
these reraames of your servant Shakespeare ; that

88 TJic Bocon-Shal:spcre Question.

what delight is in them may be ever your lord-
ships', the reputation his, and the faults ours, if
any be committed by a payre so careful to show
their gratitude both to the living and the dead as is
your lordships most bounden,

John Hemingk.

Henry Condell.

To THE Great Variety of Reader.

From the most able to him that can but spelL
There you are numbered. We had rather you
were weighed. Especially when the fate of all
bookes depends upon your capacities, and not of
your heads alone but of your purses. Well ! it is
now publique, and you will stand for your privileges
wee know, to read and censure. Do so, but buy it
first. That doth best commend a book, the
stationer sayes. Then, how odde soever your
braines be, or your wisedomes, make your license
the same, and spare not. . . Whatever you do, buy.
Censure will not drive a trade or make the Jacke
go. And though you be a magistrate of wit, and
sit on the stage at Black Friars, or the Cock Pit,
to arraigne plays daily, know these playes have
had their trial already, and stood out all appeales
and do now come forth quitted rather by a decree
of Court than any purchased letters of recom-
mendation.

It had been a thing, we confesse, worthy to
have been wished that the author himself had
lived to have set forth and overseen his owne
writings, but since it hath been ordained otherwise,
and he by death departed from that right, we pray
you do not envie his friends the office of their care
and paine, to have collected and published them,
and so to have published them, as where (before)
you were abused with diverse stolen and surrep-
titious copies, maimed and deformed by the
frauds and stealths of injurious impostors, that
exposed them ; even those are now offered to
your view cured, and perfect of their limbes ; and

The Bacon-Shaksperc Question. 89

all the rest as he conceived them. Who, as he was
a happy imitator of nature, lie was a most gentle
expresser of it. His mind and hand went together,
and what he thought he uttered with that easiness
that we have scarce received from him a blot in
his papers. But it is not our province, who onely
gather his works and give them you, to praise him.
It is yours that reade him. And there we hope,
to your divers capacities, you will find enough, both
to draw and hold you \ for his wit can no more lie
hid, than it could be lost. Read him theretore
again and again ; and then, if you do not like him,
you are in some manifest danger, not to understand
him.

John Hemtnge.
Henry Condell.

To the memorie of M. W. Shakspere.

Wee wondred (Shakspere) that thou wentst so sooiie,

From the world's stage to the grave's tyring-roome.

Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth

Tels thy spectators that thou went'st but forth,

To enter with applause. An actor's art

Can dye and live, to acte a second part

Thai's but an exit of mortalitie,

This, a re-entrance to a Plaudite. J. M.

1623. The verses before the book by W. Basse,
On Mr. William Shakspere : —

" Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Beaumont, and rare Beaumont ly
A little nearer Chaucer to make roome
For Shakspere, in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
To lodge all four in one bed make a shift
Until Domesday, for hardly will a fifte
Betwixt this day and that by fate be slaine
For whom the curtains shall be drawn again.
But if l*recedency in death doe barre,
A fourth place in your sacred sepulcher
In this uncarved marble of thy own,
Sleep, brave Tragedian, Shakspere sleep alone.
Thy unmolested rest, unshared cave
Possesse as Lord, not tenant, to thy grave,
That unto others it may counted be
Honour hereafter to be laid by thee."

9° The Bacoji-Shakspcre Qimiioti.

1623. Hugh Holland upon the lines and life of
the famous scenic poet Master William Shakspere.

"Those hands, which you so clapt, go now and wring
You Britaine's brave ; for done are Shakspere's day-.
His days are done that made the dainty playes,
WTiich make the globe of Heaven and Earth to ring.
Dried is that vein, dried is tlie Thespian Spring,
Turned ail to teares, and Phoebus clouds his rays.
That corps, that coffin now bestick with bays,
Which crowned him Poet first, then Poet's King.
If Tragedies might any Prologue have
All those he made, would scarce make one to this,
Where fame, now that he gone is to the grave,
(Death's public tyring-house) the Nuncius is.
For though his line of life went soone about
The life yet of his lines shall never out."

1623. The magnificent eulogy of Jonson is
almost a household word, so to speak, in our
literature.

" Ben Jonson. To the memory of my beloved ;
the Author, Mr. William Shakspere : —

To draw no envy (Shakspere) on thy name,

Am I thus ample to thy Booke and Fame ;

While I confess thy writings to be such

As neither man nor muse can praise too much.

'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. . .

I therefore will begin. Soule of the Age !

The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our stage ;

My Shakspere, rise ! I will not lodge thee by

Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye

A little further to make thee a roome ;

Thou art a monument, without a tombe,

And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live,

And we have wits to read, and praise to give. . .

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greeke

Yrom thence to honour thee, I would not seeke

For names ; but call for thundering yEschylus,

Euripides, and Sophocles to us ;

Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead

To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,

And shake a stage ; or, when thy socks were on,

Leave thee alone for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome

Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.

Triumph, my Britaine, thou hast one to shesve

To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. (ji

He was not for an age, but for all time.
Nature herselfe was proud of his designes,
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines
Which were so richly spun, and woven to fit
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
Yet must 1 not give nature all ; thy art.
My gentle Shakspere, must enjoy a part ;
For, though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion, and that he
Who casts to write a living line must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and strike the seconde heat
Upon the mule's anvil, turn the same
(And himself with it) that he thinks to frame,
Or for the laurel he may gain a scorne,
For a good poet's made, as well as born ;
And such wert thou.

Look how the Father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race ;
Of Shakspere's mind and manners brightly shines
In his wellturned and true-tiled lines.
S*eet Swan of Avon ! what a sight it were
To see thee in our vvaters yet appeare,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did lake Eliza and our James !
But stay, 1 see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there !
Shine forth thou star of pocts, and with rage
Or influence chide or cheere the drooping stage,
Which, since thy flight fro hence hath mourned like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volumes light.

— Ben Jo7uoti.

Yet Drummond says of Jonson, " He is a great
lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and
scorner of oihers." * Therefore his praise is stronger
than that of others.

* John Davies, of Hereford, says to Ben Jonson, in his
Scourge of Folly, 1 6 U : —

" Thou art sounde in body ; hut some say, thy soule
Envy doth ulcer ; yet corrupted hearts
Such censurers must have."

Dryden concurred with Rowe in thinking these verges
sparing and invidious, while Boswell thought them sincere
because so appropriate. Supported by the passage in
Timber, I think there is no doubt he felt and meant all
he said.

92 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

1623. Leonard Digges writes a poem to the
memory of the deceased author, Maister William
Shakspere : —

Shakspere, at length thy pious fellows give

The world thy works ; thy workes by which outlive

Thy tomb, thy name must, when that stone is rent

And time dissolves thy Stratford momument,

Here we alive shall view thee still. This Booke,

When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke,

Fresh to all ages ; when Posteritie

Shall loathe what's new, think all is prodegie

That is not Shakspere's ; every line, each verse

Here shall revive, redeeme thee from thy Herse.

Nor fire, nor cankering age, as Naso said

Of his, thy wit-fraught book shall once invade,

Nor shall I e'er believe, or thinke thee dead

(Though mist) untill our Bankroul stage be sped

(Impossible) with some new strain to out-do

Passions of Juliet and her Romeo ;

(Jr till I heare a scene more nobly take

Than when thy half-sword parleying Romans spake.

Till these, till any of thy volumes' rest,

Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprest,

Be sure, our Shakspere, thou canst never dye.

But crowned with laurel, live eternally. L. Digs^es.

This portion of the Anti-Baconian evidence is a
singularly valuable and representative series of
affidavits, so to speak, from men who knew
Shakspere in many relations. Condell was pro-
bably a native of Stratford or the immediate
vicinity, where a family of this not very common
name remains.

1623. The Office-book of Sir Henry Herbert,
Master of the Revels to James I., Charles I., and
Charles H, Variorum, vol. HI, 1623-36. To the
Duchess of Richmond, in the King's absence, was
given the Winter s Tale, by the K. Company the
J 8th Jan., 1623. At Whitehall.

Upon New Year's night, the Prince only being
there, the first part of Sir John Fal staff, by the
King's Company. At Whitehall, 1624.

For the King's players. An olde playe, called
Winter's Tale, formerly allowed of Sir George
Bucke, and likewise by mee, on Mr. Hemmings his

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 93

worde that there was nothing profane, added or
reformed, though the allowed booke was missinge ;
and therefore I returned it without a fee, this 19th
August, 1623.

Received from Mr. Hemmings in their company's
name, to forbid the playing of Shakspere's plays to
the Red Bull Company, this nth of April, 1627.
£S OS. od.

On Saturday, the 17th of November (mistake
for 1 6th), being the Queen's Birthday, Kicharde the
Thirde was acted by the K. players at St. James,
when the King and Queene were present, it being
the first play the Queene sawe since her M"^'^
delivery of the Duke of York, 1633.

On Tuesday night, at Saint James, the 26th of
November, 1633, was acted before the King and
Queene, the lainiiige of the Shrezc. I.ikt.

On Wednesday niglit the first of January, 1633,
Cyynbelyne was acted at Court by the King's
players. Well likt of the King.

The White?-'' s Tale was acted on Thursday night
at Court, the i6th January, 1633, by the K. players
and likt.

/ulius Cccsar at St. James, the 31st January,
1636. This, of course, only proves that Shakspere
wrote plays. Those mentioned we know, from
other sources, to be his.

1625. Richard James to Sir Henry Bourchier : —

" A young gentle Lady of your acquaintance,
having read ye works of Shakspere, made me this
question. How Sir John Falstaffe or Fastolf, as he
is written in ye Statute Book of Maudlin College in
Oxford, where every day that society were bound to
make memorie of his soule, could be dead in ye
time of Harrie ye fifte, and again live in ye time of
Harrie ye Sixt, to be banished for cowardice." —
D. Ingleby's Centurie of Praysc.

1625. Ben Jonson's Timber, or Discoveries.

De Shakspeare Nostrat. — Augustus in Hat.

" I remember the players have often mentioned
it as an honour to Shakspere, that in his writing

94 The Bacon-S/iakspere Question.

(whatsoever he penned), he never blotted out a
hne. My answer hath been, would he had blotted
a thousand — which they thought a malevolent
speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their
ignorance, who chose that circumstance to
commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted ;
1 to justify mine own candour : for I loved the man,
and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as
much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an
open and free nature ; had an excellent phantasy,
brave notions, and gentle expressions ; wherein he
flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was
necessary he should be stopped. ' Snfflamin-
andus erat,^ as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit
was in his own power, would the rule of it had been
so too. Many times he fell into those things,
could not escape laughter; as when he said in the
person of Caesar, one speaking to him, * Csesar,
thou dost me wrong," he replied, ' Caesar did never
wrong but with just cause,' and such like, which
were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with
his virtues. There was ever more in him to be
praised than pardoned." This conclusively proves
that Jonson loved " the man," and not the works
only, and that the man had extraordinary conversa-
tional powers. It is but a step to the writing of
thoughts, which here is also proved ; so that, even
had Bacon written the plays, Shakspere is shown
capable of having done so himself.

1627. Drayton's Epistle to Henry Reynolds : —

" Shakspere, thou had'st as smooth a comicke vaine,
Fitting the socks, and in thy natural braine,
As strong conception and as clear a rage
As anyone that trafficked with the stage."

1630. Abraham Cowley's Poetical Revenge : —

" May hec,
Bee by his father in his study tooke,
At Shakspere's plays instead of the Lord Cooke."

The Bacon- SJiakspere Quesiioti. 95

1630. John Taylor (the Water-Poet), in his
Travels in Bohemia, alludes to Shakspere's seaports
there.

1630. The Praise of Hemp Seed. Works III. : —

Spenser and Shakspere did in art excel
Sir Edward Dyer, Greene, Nash, Daniel.

(John Taylor, the IVater-Poet. )

1630. Archy's Ba7u/i(e/ 0/ /esfs (first printed in
1630) has a story of one travelling through
Stratford, " a town most remarkable for the birth
of famous William Shakspere."

1630. John Milton's splendid Epitaph, thougli
printed later in the editions of 1632 and 1640, was
said to have been written in this year. Coming
from a Puritan, printed in the lime of Puritan
ascendency, it is very powerful in his argument.

•' An Epitaph on the admirable dramatic poet,,
William Shakspere : —

What needs my Shakspere, for his honoured bones.

The labour of an age in piled stones?

Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid

Under a star y-pointing pyramid ?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name.

Thou, in our wonder and astonishment.

Hast built thy.sell a live lung monument.

For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art,

Thy easy numbers llow ; and that each lieart

Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,

Those Delphic lines with deep impression look.

Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,

Dost make us marble with too much conceiving.

And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie.

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die."

(/ohn Milton.)

1632. Milton also alludes to Shakspere in
EAlkgro.

"Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned socks be on ;
Or sweetest Shakspere, Fancy's child,
-" Warble his native wood-notes wild."

g6 The Bixcon-Shakspere Question.

1632. Thomas Randolph alludes to some of the
plays.

1632. " Read Jonson, Shakspere, Beaumont, Fletcher, or
Thy neat limned pieces, skilful Massinger."
(Sir Aston Cokaine, lines prefixed to Massinger.)

1632. The 2nd folio edition repeats the portraits
and lines by Jonson. It is printed by Thomas
Cotes for Robert Allot ; but the address to Lords
Pembroke and Montgomery remain.

Then comes the lines " Upon the effigies of my
worthy friend, the author, Master William
Shakspere : —

Spectator, this life's shadow is to see.
The truer image of a livelier he.
Turn reader ; but observe his comic vaine,
Laugh and proceed next to a tragic strain.
Then weep, so when thou find'st two contraries,
Two different passions from thy rapt soul rise.
. Say (who alone effect such wonders could)

Rare Shakspere to the life thou dost beholde."

1633. On worthy Master Shakspere and his
poems : —

" A mind reflecting ages past, whose cleere
And equal surface can make things appeare
Distant a thousand years, and represent
Them in their lively colours just extent. . .
In that deepe duskie dungeon to discerne
A Royal Ghost from Churls ; by art to learne
The physiognomic of shades and give
Them suddaiiie birth, wondering how oft they live.
What story coldly tells, what poets faine
At secondhand, and picture without braine.
Senseless and soullesse showes. To give a stage
(Ample and true with life) voyce, action, age ;
To raise our ancient sovereigns from their hearse ;
Make kings his subjects by exchanging verse. . .
This and much more, which cannot be exprest
But by himselfe, his tongue, and his owne brest,
Was .Shakespeare's freehold, which his cuning braine
ImjDroved by favour of the nine-fold traine.
The buskined Muse, the Comick Queen, the grand
And louder tone of Clio : nimble hand,
And nimbler foote of the melodious paire,

The Baco7i-S}iakspere Question. 97

The silver-voiced lady, the most faire

Calliope, whose speaking silence daunts,

And she whose prayse the heavenly body chants.

These joynlly woo'd him, envying one another

(Obeyed by all as spouse but loved as brother),

And wrought a curious robe of sable grave,

Fresh greene, and pleasant yellow, red most brave,

And constant blew, rich purple, guiltless white,

The lowly russet, and the scarlet bright,

Brancht and embroidered like the painted spring ;

Each leaf matched with a flower, and each string

Of golden wire, each line of silke : there run

Italian workes, whose thread the sisters spun ;

And there did sing, or seem to sing, the choyse

Birdes of a forrayn note and curious voyce. . .

Now when they could no longer him enjoy

In mortall garments peat, death may destroy,

They say, his body, but his verse shall live.

And more than nature takes our hands shall give.

In a lesse volume but more strongly bound,

Shakespeare shall breathe and speake, in laurel crowned

Which never fades. Fed with Ambrosian meate.

In a well-lined vesture rich and neate.

So with this robe they clothe him, bid him weare it,

For time shall never staine nor envy teare it."

— /. M. S.

1633. John Hales of Eton, " In a conversation
between Sir John Stickhng, Sir Wilham Davenant
Endymion Porter, Mr. Hales of Eaton, and Ben
[onson, Sir John Suckling, who was a professed
admirer of Shakspere, had undertaken his defence
against Ben Jonson with some warmth; Mr. Hales,
who had sat still some time hearing Ben frequently
reproaching him with the want of learning and
Ignorance of the Antients, told him at last ' that,
if Mr. Shakspere had not read the Antients, he
had likewise not stolen anything from them (a
fault that the other made no conscience of), and
that if he would produce any one Topick finely
treated by any of them, he would undertake to
show sotnething upon the same subject, at least as
well written, by Shakspere.'" — Roivc's Life.

1633. A marginal note to William Prynne's His-
triowasiix refers to Shakspere's plays as printed on
finer paper and more in demand than the Bible.

98 The Bacon- Shakspe re Question.

" Some play-bookes since I first undertook this sub
ject are grown from quarto into folio ; which yet
bear so p;ood a price and sale, that I cannot but
with grief relate it, they are now new printed in
far better pnper than most octavo or quarto Bibles."
.... " Note, Shakspere's plays are printed in
the best crown paper, far better than most Bibles.
Above 40,000 play-books have been printed and
vented within these two years." — To the Christian
Reader.

Habington glances at this in his Castara, 1634.

1634. William Habington to a friend inviting
him to a meeting upon promise :

" May you drinke beare, or that adulterate wine,
Which makes the zeale of Amf,terdam divine,
If you make breache of promise. T have now
So rich a sacke, that even your selfe will bow
T' adore my Genius. Of this wine should Prynne
Drinke but a plenteous glasse, he would beginne
A health to Shakspere's ghost." Castara.

1635. T. Hey wood's Hierarchy of the Blessed
Angels, alluding to the writers and actors being
called by their Christian names, specifies " the en-
chanting quill of mellifluous Shakspere."

" Our moderne poets to that passe are driven,
Those names arc curtailed that they first had given. . . .
Mel'iflunus Shakspere, whose enchanting quill
Commanded mirth and passion, was but Witt."

1636. Sir John Suckling's Fraginenta Aurea.

" The sweat of learned Jonson's brain
And gentle Shakspere's easier strain."

1636. Sir John Suckling's Prologue to the Goblins.

" When Shakspere, Beaumont, Fletcher ruled the stage,
There scarce were ten good pallats in the age.
More curious cooks than guests ; for men would eat
Most heartily of any kind of meat."

1636. Sir John Suckling's Letters : " We are at
length arrived at that river, about the uneven
running of which my friend Mr. William Shakspere

The Bacon-Shaksperc Qiiesilon. 99

makes Henry Hotspur quarrel so highly with his
fellow-rebels."

Other minor tributes appear in this year.

1637. " Who without Latine helpes had been as rare

As Beaumont, Fletcher, or as Shakspere were."

(Jasper Mayne, Jonsonuis V'irbiiis.)

1637. "Yet Shakspere, Beaumont, Jonson, these three shall
Make up the Gem in the point verticall."

(Owen Feltham, _/(7;/.r^«/«^ Virbtits.)

1637. " Shakspere may make grief merry ; Beaumont's stile
Ravish, and melt anger into a smile."

(Richard West, yi^wjow/wi Jlrhius.)

1637. " That Latine hee reduced and could command

That which your Shakspere scarce could understand."
(H. Ramsey, yofisofiius Virbins.)

1637. Samuel Holland's Don Zara del Fogo (not
printed till 1656) mentions that "Shakspere and
others [were] willing to water their bays with their
blood rather than part with their proper right."

1638. P^pitaph on Jonson, Jasper Mayne : —

" Though the priest had translated for that time
The Liturgy, and buried thee in rime.
So that in meter we had heard it said,
Poetique dust is to poetique laid ;

And though that dust being Shakspere's thou mightst have
Not his roome, but the I'oet for thy grave. . . .
Who without Latine helps hadst been as rare
As Beaumont, Fletcher, or as Shakspere were ;
And, like them, from thy native stock couldst say,
Poets and kings are not born every day."

1638. Davenant's Ode: "In remembrance of
Master William Shakspere."

1638. James Mervyn prefixed to Shirley's Royal
Master—

" That limbus I could have believed thy brain
Where Beaumont, Fletcher, Shakspere, and a traine
Of glorious poets in their active heate
Move in that orbe as in their former scale.
Fach casting in his dose, Beaumont his weight,
Shakspere liLs mirth, and Fletcher his conceit."

loo The Biicon Shakspe7-e Question.

164c. Thomas Bancroft to Shakspere : —

" Thy muse's suc;ared dainties seem to us
Like the famed apples of old Tantahis ;
For we (a(hiiiring) see and hear thy straincs,
But none 1 see or heare those sweets attaines. . .
Thou hast so used thy pen or fshooke tliy sficare),
Tliat poets startle, nor thy wit come neere."

1640. The i2mo. edition of the poems of Shak-
spere gives new testimonials : —

To the Reader, — I here presume under favour
to present to your view some excellent and sweetely
composed poems of Master William Shakspere,
which in themselves appeare of the same purity,
the Authour himselfe then living avouched; they
had not the fortune by reason of their Infancie in
his death, to have the due acomodation of propor-
tionable glory with the rest of his ever living works,
yet the lines of themselves will afford you a more
authentick approbation than my assurance any way
can, to invite your allowance, in your perusall you
shall finde them seren, cleere and elegandy plaine.
such gentle straines as shall recreate, and not per-
plexe your braine, no intricate or cloudy stuff to
puzzell your intellect, but perfect eloquence, such
as will raise your admiration to his praise : this
assurance I know will not differ from your acknow-
ledgment. And certain I am my opinion will be
seconded by the sufficiency of these ensuing lines.
I have been somewhat solicitous to bring this forth
to the perfect view of all men, and in so doing, glad
to be serviceable for the continuance of glory to
the deserved Author in these his poems.

John Bensok.

Of Mr. William Shakspere.

What, lofty Shakspere, art again revived?
And virbius-like now shows't thyself twice-lived
'Tis love that thus to thee is showne
The labours his, the glory still thine owne
These learned poems amongst thine after-birth
That makes thy name immortall on the earth,

The Bacon- Shakspere Question. lOi

Will make the learned still admire to see
The muses' gifts so full, infused on thee.
Let carping Momus barke, and bite his fill,
And ignorant Davus slight thy learned skill.*
Yet those who know the worth of thy desert,
And with true judgment can discern thy art,
"Will be admirers of thy high-tuned straine,
Amongst whose number let me still remain.

John Warren.

Upon Master William Shakspere.

Poets are borne not made, when I would prove

This truth, the glad rememberance I must love

Of never dying Shakspere who alone

Is argument enough to prove that one.

First that he was a poet none could doubt,

That heard the applause of what he sees set out

Imprimed ; where thou hast (I will not say)

Reader, his workes for to contrive a play ;

(To him 'twas none) the patterne of all wit

Art without art unparalleled as yet.

Next Nature onely hclpt him, for looke thorovv

This whole booke thou shalt finde he doth not borowe.

One phrase from Greekes nor Latines imitate,

Nor once from vulgar languages translate,

Nor plagiari-like from others gleane,

Nor begges he from each witty friend a scene

To piece his Acts with ; all that he doth write

Is pure his owne, plot, language, exquisite.

Then vanish upstart Writers to each stage,

You needy Poetasters of this age. . . .

I doe not wonder when you offer at

Black-Friers, that you suffer, 'tis the fate

Of richer veines, prime judgments that have fared

The worse with this deceased man compared.

So have I scene, when Caesar would appeare

And on the stage at half-sword parley were

Brutus and Cassius ; oh, how the audience

Were ravished, with what wonder they went thence,

When some new day they would not brook a line

Of tedius, though well-laboured Catiline.

Sejanus too, was irksome, they prized more

Honest lago or the jealous Moore.

And though the Fox and subtle Alchemist

Long intermitted, could not quite be mist,

Though these have shamed all Ancients, and might raise

Their authours' merit with a crown of Bayes.

* There were some carpers even in those days.

8

102 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

Yet these sometimes, even at a friend's desire,

Acted, have scarce defrayed the sea-cole fire,

And doore-keepers ; when let but Falstaffe come,

Hal, Poines, the rest, you scarce shall have a roome.

All is so pestered ; let but Beatrice

And Benedicke be scene ; loe, in a trice

The cockpit, galleries, boxes, all are full

To heare Malvoglio, that cross-gartered gull,

Briefe, there is nothing in his wit-fraught booke,

\Vhose sound we would not heare, or whose worth looke

Like old coyndgold, whose lines in every page

Shall passe true currant to succeeding age,

Leonard Digges.

After the elegies by J. M. and W. B., reprinted
from the 1632 edition, comes "An Elegie on
the Death of that famous Writer and Actor,
Mr. WiUiam Shakspere." —

' • • Let learned Johnson sing a dirge for thee,

And fill our Orbe with mournful harmony.

But we neede no remembrancer, thy fame

Shall still accompany thy honoured name

To all posterity, and make us be

Sensible of what we lost in losing thee.

Being the Age's wonder, whose smooth rhimes

Did more reforme than lash the looser times.

Nature herselfe did her own selfe admire,

As oft as thou wert pleased to attire

Her in her native lusture and confesse

Thy dressing was her chiefest comlinesse.

How can we then forget thee, when the age.

Her chiefest tutor, and the widdow'd stage.

Her onely favourite in thee hath lost ;

And Nature's selfe, what she did bragge of most.

Sleep then, rich Soule of numbers, whilst poor we,

Enjoy the profits of thy legacie.

And think it happinesse enough we have

So much of thee redeemed from the grave

As may suffice to enlighten future times,

With the bright lustre of thy matchless rhimes.

Anon.

To Mr. William Shakspere : —

" Shakespeare, we must be silent in thy praise,
'Cause our encomiums will but blast thy bays,
Which envy could not, that thou didst so well.
Let thine own histories prove a chronicle. ''

Anon

The Bacon-Shakspen Question. 103

1641. A complaint of poor players out of
occupation because of the plague — and doubtless,
also, Puritan ascendancy.

1642. James Shirley, Prologue to The Sisters.

" To Shakspere comes, whose mirth did once beguile,
Dull hours, and buskined, made even sorrow smile."

1643. Sir Richard Baker's Chronicle says : —

" For writers of Plays, and such as had been Players
themselves, William Shakspere and Benjamin Jonson have
specially left their names recomirrended to posteritie."

1644. Mercurius Britamiicus, No. 20, gives an
account of the misfortunes befalling a man who
edited a Sunday newspaper : " Aulicus " is "a wofuU
spectacle and object of dulnesse, and tribulation,
not to be recovered by the Protestant or Catholique
liquor, either ale or strong beer, or sack or claret,
or hippocras, or muscadine, or rosalpis, which
has been reputed formerly by his grandfather
Ben Jonson, and his uncle, Shakspere ; and his
cowzen Germains Beaumont and Fletcher, the
onely blossoms for the brain, the restoratives for
the wit, the bathing for the nine muses ; but none
of these are nov^^ able either to wann him into a
quibble, or to inflame him into a sparkle of inven-
tion, and all this because he hath prophaned the
Sabbath by his pen."

1644-5. '^^^^ great Assises holden in Parnassus
by Apollo and his Assessours, at which sessions
are arraigned the newspapers of the time.

In this one point 1 specially notice the peculiar
manner the Baconians have of disobeying their
great master, to seek after *' negative instances "
of any opinion one may hold. They bring forward
the title page to prove that Bacon was set high
above Shakspere, and only next Apollo, and
therefore the author of the plays ; and they ivith-
hold the contents.

Lord Verulam is Chancellor, as fitted his office,

164 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

and placed among the learned men, who have also
benefited by the printer's art. Shakspere is placed
among the jurors, as z. poet among poets. Joseph
Scaliger, the Censor, tells Apollo, considering
typography : —

'* This instrument of Art is now possest
By some who have in Art no interest."

Apollo sends for Torquato Tasso with troops to
bring in all that had defiled the Press with
scurrilous pamphlets, to

" Where Phoebus on his high tribunall sate,
With his assessours in triumphant state,
Sage Verulam, sublimed for science great,
As Chancellor, next him had the first seat."

The others were arranged in order of considera-
tion of their learning, and the amount of detraction
they had suffered at the hands of the newspapers.
Jonson was made the keeper or jailor. He first
brought fortli " Mercurius Britannicus." Then the
jury was impanelled, twelve good men : —

*' Hee who was called first in all the list,
George Withers hight, entitled satyrist ;
Then Gary, May, and Davenant were called forth,
Renowned poets all and men of worth,
If wit may passe for worth. Then Sylvester,
Sands, Drayton, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger,
Shakespeare and Heywood, poets good and free ;
Dramatic writers all but the first three.
These were empanelled all, and, being sworne,
A just and perfect verdict to returne. . .
Then Edmund Spenser, Gierke of the Assize,
Read the endictment loud, which did comprise
Matters of scandall and contempt extreme.
Done 'gainst the Dignity and Diademe
Of great Apollo, and that legal course
Which throughout all Parnassus was in force."

The prisoner, Mercurius Britannicus, pleads not
guilty, and requests the jurors' names to be read
over again, excepting to George Withers on the
plea that he himself was " a cruel satyrist." He

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 105

next tried to set aside two other able jurors, on the
plea they were translators — ■

" Deserving Sands and gentle Sylvester,"
But Apollo judges that translators can be poets.
The next culprit, Meicurius Aulicus, is blamed for
bringing in the exploded doctrine of the Florentine
MacchiaveUi. He objects to the juror May,
because, though a poet, he " cannot trust his
truth." Another prisoner objects to other jurors,
but Apollo quenches him —

" He should be tried
By twelve who were sufficient men and fit,
Both for integrity and pregnant wit."

Bribery is attempted, but Apollo scorns it, and
puts the briber in prison under " Honest Ben."
Another prisoner objects to to Gary for a " luxurious
pen " " with foule conceits." The last prisoner
objected —

" By Ilistrionicke Poets to be tryed,
'Gainst whom he thus mahciously enveighed.
Shakspere's a mimicke, Massinger a sot,
I ley wood for Aganippe takes a plot.
Beaumont and Fletcher make one poet ; they
Single dare not adventure on a play. . . .
Thus spake the prisoner, then among the crowd
Plautus and Terence 'gan to mutter loud,
And old Menander was but ill-apayd,
While Aristophanes his wrath bewrayed
With words opprobrius, for it galled him shrewdly
To see dramatic poets taxed so lewdly."

Another prisoner, Spye, objects to Drayton.
Apollo is indignant.

" How boldly hath this proud traducing Spye
And his comrades our honest poets checkt,
Who from the best have ever found respect."

There is nothing for Bacon — all for Shakspere
here.

1646. S. Shepherd, in his Tlie Times displayed in
Six Sestiads, says : —

" See him whose tragic scean Euripides
Doth equal, and with Sophocles we may
Compare great Shakspere."

ic6 The Bacon-Shaksptre Que it ion.

1647. " '-ihz.'^^yat to thee was dall, whose best wit lies
I' the Lady's question and the Fool's replies,
Old fashioned wit, which walked from town to town.
William Cartwright on Fletcher. "

1647. " The flowing compositions of the then-expired
Sweet Swan of Avon — Shakspere."

(James Shirley, Dedicatory EputU oj Ten Players,

lieaumont & Fletcher's works )
1647. " When Jon-Vjn, Shakspere, and thyself did sit
And swayed in the triumvirate of wit.
Yet what from Jonson's oyle and sweat did flow.
Or what more easy nature did bestow
(m Shakspere's gentler muse, in thee full-grownc,
Their graces doth appeare."

(Sir John Denham on Fletcher.)

Others also connect these names.

1649. Milton in Eikonoklastes says that "Shak-
spere was the closet companion of Charles ; " as
also says Cooke, Appeal to Rational Mirth.

1649. The epitaph upon his daughter, Mrs.
.Susanna Hall, shows the estimation of his
character : —

" Here lyeth ye Ujdy of Savanna, wife to John Hall, Gent.,
ye daughter of William Shakspere, Gent. She deceased ye
llth of July, A,D. 1649, aged 66.

" Witty above her sexe, but that's rot all—
WLse to salvation was goo<-l Mistress Hall.
Something of Shakspere was in that, but this
Wholy of f lim with whom she's now in blisse.
Then, passenger, hast ne'ere a teare
To weepe with her, that wept with all ?
That wept, yet set herself to chere
Them up with comfort's o-jrdiall.
Her love shall live, her merc7 spread
\^Tien ihou hast ne'er a tear to shed."

1650. Henry Vaughan testifies to George
Herbert's Poems having rendered Shakspere less
popular. It was the Puritan time.

165 1. S, Sheppard, in his Epigrams, includes
one on Shakspere.

" I. Sacred Spirit, while thy lyre

Echoed o'er the Arcadian plains
Even Apollo did admire
Orpheus wondered at thy strains.

The Bacon- Shakspere Question. 107

3. Who wrote his lines with a sunbeame,

More durable than Time or Fate ;
Others boldly do blaspheme

Like those who seem to preach, but prate.

4. Thou wert truly priest-elect,

Chosen darling to the nine,
Such a trophy to erect

By thy wit and skill divine.

5. That were all their other glories

(Thine excepted) torn away,
By thine admirable stories

Their garments ever shall be gay.

6. Where thy honoured bones do lie,

As Statins once to Maro's urn,
Thither every year will I

Slowly tread and sadly turn."

1652. A Hermeticall Banquet, drest by a Spagiri-
call Cooke : —

"Poeta is her minion, to whom she (Eloquentia) resigns
the whole government of her family. Ovid she makes Major
Domo ; Homer, because a merry Greek, Master of the Wine-
cellars ; Shakspere, Butler ; Ben Jonson, Clerk of the
Kitchen; Ir'enner, his Turnspit ; and Taylor, his scvdlion."

1653. Sir Richard Baker's Chronicles : —

" Richard Burbage and Edward AUeyne — two such actors
as no age must ever look to see the like. . . . For writers of
plays, and such as had been players themselves, William
Shakspere and Benjamin Jonson have specially left their
names recommended to posterity."

1653. Sir Aston Cokaine, Prelude to Broioi's
Plays.

" Shakspere (more rich in humours) entertaine
The crowded Theatres with his happy vaine."

1656. Samuel Holland, Wit and Fancy in a
Maze : —

" Behold Shakspere and Fletcher appeared (bringing with
them a strong party) as if they meant to water the bays with
bloud, rather than part with their proper right, which indeed
Apollo and the Muses had (with much justice) conferred
upon them, so that now there is likely to be a trouble in
Triplex. . . . Shakspere and Fletcher, surrounded with
their life-guard — viz., Gosse, Massinger, Decker, Webster,
Suckling, Cartwright, Carew."

loS The Bacon SJiahpere Question.

1658. In verses to Mr. Clement Fisher, of
Wincot, accompanying his Small Poems, Sir Aston
Cokaine says : —

" Shakspere, your Wincot Ale hath much renowned,*.
That fox'd a beggar so (by cliance was founde
Sleephig), that there needed not many a word
To make him to believe he was a Lord ;
But you affirm (and in it seem most eager)
'Twill make a Lord as drunk as any beggar.
Bid Norton brew such Ale as Shakspere fancies
Did put Kit Sly into such Lordly trances,
And let us meet there (for a fit of Gladnesse),
And drink ourselves merry in sober sadness."

Also,
" Now, Stratford-upon-Avon, we would choose
Thy gentle and ingenuous Shakspere Muse. . . .
Our Warwickshire the heart of England is.
As you most evidently have proved by this."

1660. Restoration.

1660. {Circa.) Richard Flecknoe writes : —
" For playes, Shakspere was one of the first who inverted

the Dramatic Stile, from dull History to quick Comedy. . . .

upon whom Jonson refined." (Essays on the English Stage.)

1660. Sir Richard Baker's Chronicles cj
England: —

" Poetry was never more resplendent, nor more graced ;
wherein Jonson, Silvester, Shakspere, iS:c., not only excelled
their own countrymen, but the whole world beside."

166 1. An Antidote against Melancholy, made up
in Pi lies cotnpounded of M^itty Ballads, Jovial Songs,
and Merry Catches. At p. 72 of this collection of
ballads, we have a catch : —

" Wilt thou be fatt, I'll tell thee hovv

Thou shalt quickly do the feat,
And that so plump a thing as thou

Was never yet made up of meat.
Drink off thy Sack ! 'twas only that
Made Bacchus and Jack Falstaffe fat."

1662. Fuller's JF^^/Y/wV^, under Warwickshire, has:
_" William Shakspere was born at Stratford on Avon in

this county ; in whom three eminent poets may seem to be
confounded, i. Martial, in the warlike sound of his sur-
name (whence some conjecture him of a military extraction.)
Hastivibrans or Shakspeare. 2. Ovid, the most natural and

* Alluding to the Induction to the Tatnhig of the Shrew.

The Bacon- Shakspere Question. 109

witty of all poets. 3. Plautus, who was an exact comedian,
yet never any scholar, as our Shakspeare (if alive) would
confess himself. Add to all these, that though his genius
generally was jocular, and inclining him to festivity, yet he
could, when so disposed, be solemn and serious, as appears
by his tragedies; so that Heraclitus himself (I mean if
secret and unseen) might afford to smile at his comedies,
they were so merry ; and Democritus scarce forbear to
sigli at his tragedies, they were so mournful. He was an
eminent instance of the truth of that rule, Poela non fit
sed nascitnr. [One is not made, but born a poet.] Indeed,
his learning was very little. . . . Nature itself was all
the art which was used upon him. Many were the wit
combats betvvixc him and Ben Jonson, which two I beheld
like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war.
Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learn-
ing, solid but slow in his performances ; Shakspere, like the
English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing,
could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of
all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention."*

To Mr. Davenport, Sheppard says : —
" Thou rival'st Shakspere, though thy glory's less."

1648 to 1679. Diary of Rev. J. Ward, Vicar of
Stratford : " Shakspere frequented the plays all his
younger time, but in his elder days lived at Strat-
ford, and supplied the stage with two plays every
year."

While we survey such an extraordinary assem-
blage of certificates, which speak of William
Shakspere's clear and indefeasible title to the works,
which have always been taken by the world to be
his and his alone, we feel that the authenticity
of no other poet could be attested by so many or
so powerful allusions, within a period, through
which he might have lived. It is a singular con-
sensus of opinion on the part of intelligent and
educated persons, many of whom were contem-

* " What things we have seen
Done at the Mermaid. Heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame
As if that every one from whom they came
Had meant to put his whole soul in a jest."

Beaumont's lines on the Mermaid Tavern.

no The Bacon-Shakspere Qiiestion.

poraries, and to some of whom the poet was as
perfectly well known as Tennyson or Swinbuine
IS to the present age. The attestations are clear
and definite. They all tell one story. There are a
few other traditions regarding him, of the gossiping
conglomerate style, that may or may not be true,
but do not bear on the point.

The Traditional period begins after this — namely,
with Aubrey in 1680.=^' Every one knows how
easily he was imposed upon. To understand this,
one may refer to the Ontlmes of the Life of Shakspere,
by Mr. Halliwell-Phillips, for the history of the
Davenant Scandal, and others. The critical period
begun with Dryden, the elaborative period in our
own century, the sceptical outburst in our own life-
time. We have only dealt with facts and contem-
porary witnesses.

We find that Warwickshire and Stratford were con-
sidered honoured for being the birth-place of Shak-

* Most of the "traditions " arise from him, though several
came into existence as late as 1748. Though John Aubrey
had a good education, and intellectual tastes, he was cre-
dulous and inexact to an extraordinary degree. Malone said
he was a dupe to every gossip. Perhaps a list of his other
works best give the qualities of his mind : —

I. Miscellanies ; Day-Fatality ; Local-Fatality ; Ostenta ;
Omens ; Dreams ; Apparitions ; Voices ; Impulses ; Knock-
ings ; Blows Invisible ; Prophecies ; Marvels ; Magic ;
Transportation in the Air ; Visions in a Beril, or Glass ;
Converse with Angels and Spirits ; Corps-Candles in Wales ;
Oracles ; Exstacy ; Glances of Love ; Envy ; .Second-sighted
Persons.

II. A Perambulation of the County of Surrey.

III. I. The Natural History of Wiltshire.

2. Architectonica Sacra.

3. An Apparatus for the Lives of our English and
other Mathematical Writers.

4. An Interpretation of Villare Anglicanum.

5. The Life of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (his
friend).

6. An Idea of Education of Young Gentlemen.

7. Designatio de Easton Piers in Com. Wilts, per me
(eheu) infortunatum J ohannem Aubrey, R.S. Socium.

The Bacoii-Sliakspere Qiteslion, iii

spere ; that he had come to town to seek his fortune,
was handsome and gifted, welcomed and loved
by the actors ; adored by the people, received
by the nobles, and honoured by both sovereigns ;
jealously spoken of only by Greene, whose opinion
was worth nothing, and by Ben Jonson''' in the first
instance, who nobly made up for it, d.wdi perhaps by
the jealous author oi Ratsefs Ghost. At that time
of savage attacks and gross raillery, no other word
was ever said against Shakspere — whose life must
have been open to the Argus-eyed scrutiny of
many rivals. Beyond and above rancour or reply,
he was called "gentle," "honey-tongued," "friendly,"
"silver-tongued," "noble," "rare," "having no
rayling but a rayning wit." There would be no-
thing peculiar in considering so dominant a per-
sonality capable of writing poems, had he not
been proved to have done so. His wit and
conversation made him reig7i in his own circles ;
his acting powers were great ; his literary powers
unparalleled. Had this great cheat been per-
petrated, Ben Jonson must have known. Upon
what principle could we explain his panegyric to
the beloved " departed sweet Swan of Avon," if
applied to the " living Lord Keeper of York
House, Strand ? " Had the Baconians demanded
the honour for AfitJiony Bacon, it would not have
been so utterly incongruous ; for he was dead, yet
at the same time obviously a man whose life had
not shown the fruits of wit possible to it. Had
they demanded it for Raleigh ; for Beaumont, or
Fletcher, or any one of the other drama-writers,
there might have seemed some probability in it.
An actor must have written the plays.

But reading has only increased my conviction,
that, whoever wrote the plays, Bacon did not, and
his editor, Spedding, thought the same.

There are no contemi)orary or early suggestions
of Bacon's authorship. The first dreams of it have

* Appendix, Note 13.

1 1 2 The Bacon- Shakspen Question.

arisen in this century. Much has been said and
])roved, contested and disproved, regarding the
authorship of the fourth Gospel. This attempt at
disproving our fiftJi Gospel is another outcome of
the same destructive creed, but, fortunately, the
laws regarding the authenticity of testimony and
credility of witnesses can be fully satisfied in this
case, and the attack resisted. The Daily Telegraph
committed a fallacy in using the question-begging
epithet '"'•Dethroning Shakspere" ; without doubt,
it was an attenpt to do so — success requires greater
strength than that. The " attempt and not the
deed confounds it." Some good comes out
of all evil. The good for us in this discussion is,
that it sends us back, from second-hand traditions
and repeated errors, forgeries, misstatements and
misconstructions, to read anew the real authors, and
their real friends and foes, in the living reality of
time and space contemporary with them. The
more one reads of them, the less it seems necessary
to answer the Baconian statements ; the answers
seem so simple and self-evident.

The Bacoji-Shakspere Question.

.M.

Chapter V.

Thirty-two Reasons for Believing that Bacon
Wrote Shakspere : and, Did Francis Bacon
Write Shakspere ? — By Mrs. Potts.

These are the most reasonable of the expositions
of the Baconian theory, though of course I
disagree with most of its statements, and with all
its conclusions. Nevertheless, they might have
had some validity and have been considered
gravely, if the plays had really come down to us
anonymously, and not universally attributed to
Shakspere. Still, it is well to hear both sides of the
question ; and I condense the statements : —

I. " That nothing in his life makes it impossible
for Bacon to have wTitten the plays."

II. "That chronological order, dates, and other }/^
particulars coincide with facts in the life of Bacon." ^/ ^ J

III. " The hints given by the author's experiences '^P\
applicable to Bacon and not with Shakspere." ^ "^

I disagree wholly with these three statements.

IV. " That Bacon was a poet." /^
Butso were many others, better able than he to

write the plays.

V. That Bacon was addicted to the theatre, got
up masques, and wrote The Confere?ice of Pleasure,
The Gesta Grayonun, Alasqueof an Indian Princey
No person who could write the plays woiild have
written these ; but as I have said so much on this
point already in the general question I must
pass on.

VI. "The Earls of Southampton and Pembroke .^
are not shown to have any intimacy with Shakspere -' i-l

114 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

but they had with Bacon." The "dedications"
would have been all the more impossible to Bacon,
had they been written to an intimate. But it is
distinctly proved that Shakspere knew at least
Southampton, just in the way the dedications
suggest. The Baconians make so much use of
tradition that they also should remember the very
persistent one, that Southampton gave Shakspere
the money to buy New Place as a present from
himself.

VII. " Many of the wits and poets acknowledge
Bacon their chief." No doubt Bacon was a great
man, but there are a greater number of acknow-
ledgments of Shakspere's superiority.

The Great Assises of Parnassus. We have shown
how entirely the interior of this pamphlet, of which
the title page is quoted here, supports Shakspere in
his true position as actor and dramatic poet.

VIII. " That Ben Jonson used the same words
in addressing both." Only one similar phrase,
and I show elsewhere how that might arise.
" Ben Jonson does not put Shakspere among the
sixteen greatest wits of the day." That can easily
be accounted for. " Sir Henry Wotton does not
mention him at all." As, however, he also omitted
Spenser, and other great poets, this is not so sur-
prising.

IX. "That in the time of Bacon's poverty, 1623,
Ben Jonson tried to push the sale of Shakspere's
works." The conclusion desired non-seqidtur.
These were printed by Isaac Jaggard and Edward
Blount, at the charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount,
J. Smithweeke, and W. Apsley, and all profits were
shared by these, with probably a commission to
Ben Jonson, and no share to Bacon.

X. "That Bacon had some connexion with
Shakspere." This is, however, only shown by the
same clerk scribbling their names on the same
sheet of paper in the Northumberland MS,
explained in Chap. III.

The Bacon- Shakspere Question. 115

XI. "That he uses 'the alphabet."' This is
the "Alphabet of the Sciences." See Spedding's
Bacon and page 67, a^ite.

XII. "That Sir Toby Matthew's letter from
abroad adds — P.S. The most prodigious wit that
ever I knew of my nation, on this side of the sea is
of your lordship's name, though he be known by
another." This of course refers to his brother,
Anthony Bacon ; when on his secret service missions
abroad he used an alias. " This side of the sea "
excludes the possibility of his meaning Francis
Bacon, as Matthew did not meet him • there, when
in his extreme youth he was abroad. " Invention "
he repeatedly uses, as the application of imagination
to experiment so as to make discoveries.

XIII. "That he called himself a 'concealed
poet ' to Sir John Davies." * Unless it had meant
that Bacon had written Davies' Nosce Teipsmn
for him, how was Davies to know what he meant ?
If Bacon wrote Shakspere's plays and spoke of it,
he would not be a 'concealed poet.' It really
refers to his parabolical writings. See his defini-
tions of poetry referred to in Chap. III.

XIV. and xv. " The knowledge in the plays is
that of Bacon," &c. But Bacon's knotvledge is
much more extensive and thorough than that of the
plays, and of a different nature. As Shakspere
had a cousin, and many friends lawyers ; as he
lived near the Law Courts, frequenting the same
taverns ; as his father had been in an office that
required some legal knowledge ; as all people of
the period seemed to go through numerous petty
litigations ; and as most dramatic writers of the
time used law phrases freely, it is not unnatural
Shakspere should have done so. Shakspere for his
classical stories used the translations then so
abundant — North's translation of riutarch's Livcs^
published by Vautrollier ; translations of Ovid and
Cicero by the same ; Diana of Monteniayor,

* See Appendix, Note 10.

ii6 The Bacon- Shakspere Qicestion.

translated by Thomas Wilson ; The Menaechmi of
Plautus translated earlier, and published in
1595; Montaigne's Essays, translated by Florio;
Baudwin's "Collection of the sayings of all the
wise, 1547."'^ Then there was Lilly's Euphues,
Sidney's Arcadia, Greene's plays and novels, with
those of Marlowe and others; histories, travels,
essays, probably Bacon's among the number, which
had probably been pirated; as, "like those who
have an orchard ill-neighboured, he had been
forced to gather too early to save his fruit," or
publish to keep his profits and credit.

" Shakspere's Library " has been collected by
Collier and Hazlitt.

The general science of the plays comes not from
Bacon's mind. The flowers of Shakspere are those
naturally observed by a poet born amid rich
woodland and river scenery, and trans])orted to the
suburbs of a large city, where woods were still
within walking distance, and where some plants
not very common were found by Gerard in the
very Theatre-Field. (See Gerard's " Historic of
Plants," 1597).

XVI. " That the subjects which engross them are
the same."

XVII. " That the observations on character are
the same."

I can only say I disagree with both these
propositions.

XVIII. That the scientific errors are the same."
That is very natural, and depends on the advance-
ment of the times ; the scientific knowledge, how-
ever, is different both in kind and in degree.

XIX. " Bacon's studies of any time introduced
into plays of the same date," and

XX. " In several editions of a play. Bacon's
increased knowledge shown in the later editions."
There are different means of accounting for the
element of truth that lies in these ; as well as in
the

* See Appendix, Note 14.

The Bacon-SJiakspcrc Question. 1 1 7

XXI. " Vocabulary very much the same."

XXIII. "Baconian ideas and groups of ideas appear
in the plays." I have shown elsewhere, however,
that Bacon, no less than Shakspere, read much and
borrowed much.

XXIV. " Mrs. Cowden Clarke's ninety-five points
of Shakspere's style common to Bacon."

XXV. ** Shakspere grammar of Dr. Abbott serves
for Bacon."

XXVI. " Figures of speech frequently the same."

XXVII. " The Promus notes do not appear in
Bacon's works, but in Shakspere's plays." Very
probably they were taken from them, or from
common sources. None of them were original ;
but we see that many of the proverbs and headings
do appear in Bacon's works and not in Shakspere's :
for instance, phrases regarding wine.

XXVIII. "Superstitious and religious belief the
same." I think them quite different.

XXIX. " Bacon's favourite authors Shakspere's
also." But we must remember Bacon's age was
nearly the same as Shakspere's, his period, his
place of residence, his public, his Sovereign, some
of his friends, and many of his circumstances. Is
there no resemblance between other two writers in
the same period, or of Dryden's period, or Words-
worth's period, of a similar nature ?

XXX. " Striking omissions from the plays fit the
character and circumstances of Bacon. No village
experiences, no brewing, cider-making, or baking."
We have shown that just in these points Bacon
was more interested than Shakspere, and more
likely to mention them. " No children are men-
tioned, therefore the childless Bacon wrote them."
I think Mrs. Potts trips here, Macduff's feeling
for his children could only be pourtrayed by a
father. Constance and Arthur and other parents
and children appear. But the interests of the times

9

ii8 Ihc Bacon-Shakspere Question.

were more centred in adult life, and Shakspere sup-
plied a demand.

XXXI. "That the Folio of 1623 included Plays
never before heard of." That is to say, it included
Plays of which the criticism by name has not come
down to us. But these were collected by the pro-
prietors of the theatre to which he sold them 3 and
who had no interest in publishing the plays beyond
the loving desire to " keep the memory of their
worthy fellow alive," even at the cost of their copy-
right. " The Folio was published two years after
Bacon's fall, when he was trying to publish every-
thing on account of poverty and failing health."
But how, without a free confession, would he get
his hands into the manuscript chest of the theatre, so
as to select, and reconstruct the number he wished
printed ? How did he bribe so many concerned —
proprietors, poets, printers, publishers, Ben Jonson
in particular, not only to tell liberal lies, but to
stick to them ? What profit could come to him as
his proportion of the reprint ? But we know from
his life he was otherwise employed at the time.

XXXII. *' That the difficulties which have to be
explained away are much less in the case of Bacon
than of Shakspere." I do not think so.

The other pamphlet — " Did Francis Bacon turile
Shakespeare ? " — gives the parallels more calmly
and dispassionately than other Baconian writings
do. But I cannot see how any one could consider
them either proofs or reasonings. The first proof
brought forward is, " Bacon's mother was a lady,
Shakspere's mother of a peasant family."* Though
this contrast is quite irrelevant to the subject in
hand, genius being above social distinction, one
cannot accept it. The family of the Ardens was
very far above the rank of peasants : a comfortable,
well-to-do, well-connected family, farming their

* See Appendix, Note 2.

The Bacon- Shahspere Question. 119

own lands, and living in houses very much above
the average of the times, having a memory of a
higher past, and aspirations towards a higher
future, that could not have entered a peasanfs brain.
It is very evident that Mary Arden was at once
possessed of powers and charms. She was her
father's favourite daughter, and a methodical help-
meet for her ambitious but unpractical husband.
She was the mother of a powerful and charming
man, and as men generally take after their mothers,
we may suppose her also to be susceptible to the
beauties of nature, and human life. A happier
and more healthy-minded mother was she for a
great man, than the learned, ambitious, narrow,
masterful Lady Bacon, whose mind preyed on itself
until it went crazy.

" It will tax ingenuity to invent any satisfactory
explanation of the facts that some of Shakspere's
plays appeared during his life-time without his
name, and some did not appear till after his death,
supposing William Shakspere to have been the
author." The very simple and satisfactory ex-
planation is, that the habits of these days in regard
to publication were perfectly different from ours ;
that it was perfectly common for writers to publish
even their own writings without name or signature ;
and to do so in some editions and not in others ;
that Shakspere v/rote for the stage, and therefore
for the proprietors, and it was not to their interest
to publish ; and his later plays, when his name
had been famous some time, were more likely to
be jealously guarded than the earlier. But the
pirates were always about, and either put on names
or no names on the title page, to suit their own
convenience. "After his retirement," the Rev. John
Ward, vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, in 1663 writes
that "Shakspere wrote two ilays every year for the
stage, for which he was so well paid, he could
spend at the rate of a thousand a year."

I believe it was a sense that, being removed
from the sphere of pure poetry, by the mercantile

120 The Bacon- SJiakspcrc Question.

impulse towards them, lliey fell so far short of his
ideas of what they should be, which prevented his
caring to publish them. Various other queries
and difficulties are brought forward, all the
important points of which could be answered.
The parallelisms only shew how well the industry
of Shakspere kept him abreast of the literature of
the time. But we could not go through each
trifling dispute in detail, without writing a mighty
volume. Our ignorance of many facts is to be
deplored. But we believe we have shewn enough^
to prove that Bacon is utterly innocent of making"
any claim to the plays, and that Shakspere stands
firm on the rock of his rights.

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 12 r

CHAPTER VI.
Bacon's Ciphers.

Bacon sometimes, as in Valerius Terminus,
wrote his doctrines in a purposely abrupt and
obscure style, such as would " choose its reader."
He did not give his philosophy in a form which
" whoso runs may read," and was scornful of " the
general reader." But there is not the slightest
grounds in his works for beUeving there was a
cipher in them. Nay rather, he apologised for
introducing ciphers as a part of learning at all.
His connexion with Essex, with his brother
Anthony, with so many treasonable and state
affairs, must have taught him the value of
thoroughly understanding the powers of conceal-
ment in writing ; and we are not surprised he con-
siders ciphers in his general survey of learning.
But he gives them no prominence.

In the 6th Book of De Aug}?ieniis, Chapter I.,
Bacon treats of Ciphers and the method of De-
ciphering. " Communications may either be written
by the common alphabet (which is used by every-
body), or by a secret or private one agreed upon
by particular persons, called Ciphers. There are
many kinds, simple and mixed, those in two
different letters ; wheel-ciphers, key-ciphers, word-
ciphers, and the like. There may be a double
alphabet of significants and non-significants. The
three merits of a cipher are: ist, easy to write ;
2nd, safe, or impossible to be deciphered without
the key ; 3rd, such as not to raise suspicion." " Now
for this elusion of enquiry there is a new and
useful contrivance for it, which, as I have it by
me, why should 1 set it down among the desiderata.

122

The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

instead of propounding the thing itself? It is
this — let a man have two alphabets, one of true
letters, the other of non-significants, and let him
unfold in them two letters at once, the one
carrying the secret, the other such a letter as the
writer would have been likely to send. Then if
anyone be strictly examined as to the cipher, let
him offer the alphabet of non-significants for the
true letteis, and the alphabet of true letters for the
non-significants. Thus the examiner will fall upon
the exterior letter, which, finding probable, he will
not suspect anything of another letter written." He
then alludes to his own contrivance in his early
youth in Paris (which he gives in full), and is the
same as that mentioned in Every Boy's Book.
" But for avoiding suspicion altogether, I will add
another contrivance. The way to do it is this —
first let all the letters of the alphabet be resolved
into transpositions of two letters only. For the
transposition of two letters through five places will
yield 32 differences, much more than 24 which is
the number of letters in our alphabet."
Example of an alphabet in two letters : —

A

B

c

D

E

F

aaaaa

aaaab

aaaba

aaabb

aabaa

aabab

G

II

I

K

L

M

aabba

aabbb

abaaa

abaab

ababa

ababb

N

0

r

Q

R

S

.ihbaa

abbab

abbba

abbbb

baaaa

baaab

T

V

W

X

Y

Z

baaba baabb babaa babab babba babbb

" Nor is it a slight thing which is thus by the way
effected. For hence we see how thoughts may be
communicated at any distance of place by means
of any objects perceptible either to the eye or ear,
provided only those objects are capable of two
dift'erences. It was subject to this condition
that the infolding writing shall contain five times
as many letters as the writing infolded, and no
other condition or restriction is implied.

The Bacon-Shaksperc Question. 123

" When you prepare to write you must reduce the
interior epistle to this Hteral alphabet. Let the
interior epistle be

FLY.

Example of Reduction.

FLY

aabab ababa babba

Have by you at the same time another alphabet in
two forms ; I mean one in which each of the letters
of the common alphabet, both capital and small, is
exhibited in two different forms — any forms that
you find convenient. Then take your interior
epistle, reduced to the bi-literal shape, and adapt
to it, letter by letter, your exterior epistle in the
bi-form character, then write it out. The exterior
epistle is "Do not go till I come."

Example of Adaptation,
FLY
aa bab ab aba b a bba
Do not go till I come.

" The doctrine of cyphers carries with it another
doctrine, which is its relative. This is the doctrine
of deciphering, or of detecting ciphers, though one
be quite ignorant of the alphabet used or the
private understanding between the parties, a thing
requiring both labour and ingenuity, and dedicated,
as the other likewise is, to the secrets of princes.
By skilful precaution indeed it may be made useless ;
though as things are, it is of very great use, for if
good and safe ciphers were introduced, there are
very many of them which altogether elude and
exclude the decipherer, and yet are sufficiently con-
venient and ready to read and write. But such is
the rawness and unskilfulness of secretaries and
clerks in the courts of Kings, that the greatest
matters are commonly trusted to weak and futile
ciphers."

In paragraph 202 Bacon speaks of a cipher
within a cipher : " You write in a common cipher,

124 T^^^ Bacon-Shakspere Question.

with an alphabet of eighteen letters, the cipher
being such that the five vowels are used as nulls ;
then by the last cipher the five vowels are made
significant and give the hidden sense." He seems
to speak of this as his own. Mr. Ellis's notes to
Spedding's Bacon say: "The earliest writer
on ciphers, except Trithemius, whom he quotes, is
John Baptist Porta, whose work De Occiiltis
Literarum Notts was reprinted at Strasburg in
1606. The wheel-cipher is described in chapters
7, 8, and 9. The Ciphra Clavis, described by
Porta, is a cipher of position. The cipher of words
is worked at both by Trithemius and Porta. The
Traitc. des Chiffres on secretes manieres d'escnre par
Blaise de Vigenere, Boiu-bomiais, Paris 1587, brings
forward another cipher. The two authors whom
he chiefly mentions are Trithemius and Porta.
The key cipher of which Porta speaks he
ascribes to a certain Belasio, who employed
it as early as 1549, Porta's book not being
published until 1563: " Auquel il a insere le
chiffre sans faire mention dont il le tenoit."
Porta's book, he goes on to say was not " en vente "
till 1568. The invention was ascribed to Belasio
by the Grand Vicar of St. Peter's at Rome, who
was a great scholar in ciphers. Vigenere gives an
account of ciphers in which letters are represented
by combinations of other letters, which Porta
already had done. But he also gives the bi-
literal alphabet and the combinations above. The
transition from this to Bacon's cipher is so easy,
that the credit given to him must materially be re-
duced.

The Baconians have been driven to the desperate
attempt of seeking and finding a cipher in the plays
to prop up their otherwise unsupported conclusions.
The strange thing is, that }io cipJier suggested is
draion cither from Bacoiis works, or from those of
his instructors. Another point worthy of considera-
tion is, that more than one different cipher reader
professes to find a different cipher under different

The Bacon-Shakspere Qiiestion. 125

conditions in the same works, giving the same chief
conclusions, with different accessories. How many
ciphers can the same works enrol at the same time
is a new puzzle, as difficult to solve as the author-
ship of Shakspere's plays.

Mrs. C. F. A. Windle, of San Francisco, has one
pamphlet addressed to the New Shakspere Society in
i88r, and another to the Trustees of the British
Museum in 1882, " On the Discovery of the Cipher
of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, alike in his prose
writings and the Shakspeare dramas, proving that
he wrote the latter." She quotes Bacon on cipher :
" Writing in the received manner no way obstructs
the pronunciation, but leaves it free. . . . But to
prevent all suspicion we shall annex a cipher of
our own which has the highest perfection of a
cipher, that oi ^x^vixi'^'va'g omnia per omnia.'''' Mrs.
Windle says, " There is not so much as a single
line of all Bacon's prose works or letters, as he
has, with omniscient security and provision trans-
mitted them, without, as it now appears, its definite
design of a final conjoinder with this great resur-
rection, and its assigned part in the fulfilment and
proof of the predestined miracle." She claims
Montaigne's Essays for him, and also adds : " I
have already hinted my belief that the marvellous
psychological phenomenon of his future recognition
l3y another mind was pre-conceived by Lord
Verulam as a part of the value to the world of his
anticipated resurrection. It stamps his work with
the miracle of prophecy and fulfilment. . . . For
myself, it were stupid and soulless in me not to
have felt in this revelation, as it has come to me, a
direction and inspiration something more than
merely natural ; a mysterious intercommunication
with the spirit of this first of all the departed, as
still existent, apart from, no less than in the
immortal work, in which it has been mine, as the
favoured human agent, to recover him to the
world. ... I feel the deepest responsibility rest-
ing on me to fulfil perfectly lliis duty, devolved ow me

126 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

from the unseen realm ; more especially as I realise
that iflef/ to another the tnie expositmi 7vill never be
made." One example given is from Cymbeline :
" When at the time that a Posthumous fame, borne
of a British Lion shall, unconsciously and without
seeking, find itself embraced by the tender ' Ariel '
of its own Book, Ah, Rare one! and when the
branches of Bacon's poetry, philosophy, and virtue,
which lopped from the stately Cedar of Britain's
renown have been dead many years, shall after-
wards revive, be jointed to the old stock, and
freshly grow, then shall the misery of his delayed
recognition terminate, Britain be fortunate and
flourish in peace and plenty." "I am assured
that the recognition of Bacon's title cannot be
much longer delayed."

A great contrast to the slender bulk of Mrs.
Windle's Cryptogram, are Mr. Donnelly's mighty
volumes of the Great Cryptogram :

"That the Cipher is there; that I have found
it out, that the narrative given is real, no man can
doubt who reads this book to the end."

" A more brain-racking problem was never sub-
mitted to the intellect of man."

" I was often reminded of the Western story of
the lost traveller whose highway changed into a
wagon-road, his wagon-road disappeared in a
bridle-path, his bridle-path merged into a cow-path
and his cow-path at last degenerated into a squirrel-
track, which ran zip a tree ! "

I quote three of Mr. Donnelly's own sentences,
with the Jirst of which I disagree.

I have honestly done my duty, and have read
the whole of Mr. Donnelly's weighty volumes from
beginning to end. They reflect great credit in the
first place on Messrs. Sampson Low «Sc Co., who
have admirably performed a difficult task. There
are some chapters in the work that possess interest
and value ; for instance, those on the parallelisms
and identities in thought, expression, constructions
and errors in Bacon and Shakspere. I respect

The Bacon- Shakspere Question, 127

the industry and perseverance that have led the
author through labours equal to those of Hercules,
and I only wish that more exactitude, honesty,
fairness, learning, and common sense had been
added to the industry, so that a book had been
produced creditable alike to Mr. Donnelly and his
country.

The work divides itself naturally into two parts^
the resume of what is called the Baconian theory,
and Mr. Donnelly's own special contribution, which
he calls the Great Cryptogram, possibly to dis-
tinguish it from others. In regard to the general
question, I consider that "The great assizes
holden in Parnassus" would not permit Mr. Don-
nelly to be a judge, or even to be a juryman or
witness in such a question, because he is — ist, too
violent a partisan. A personal " animus " against
Shakspere is shown in every line, in every noun
and adjective he flings at him. 2nd. He is illogical
in the reasonings he brings to bear on facts. 3rd.
He is inconsistent in the adducing of the facts he
reasons from. 4th. He sometimes falsifies facts,
either through ignorance or selection. He says of
Shakspere's editors, "False in one point, false in
all." — " O noble judge ! A Daniel come to judg-
ment ! I thank thee (Donnelly) for teaching me
that word." 5th. The current of his faith and
imagination carries him away. Mr. Donnelly was
evidently intended to be an original poet.

Fortunately for us, the laws of authenticity of
testimony and credibiHty of witnesses decide that
the witness of the large group of contemporaries
who knew Shakspere and Bacon, is more valid
than the opinion of one man born about 300 years
after them, in another hemisphere, even when he is
backed by a following of iriends who think it would
be more congruous to their own thought that Bacon
wrote Shakspere.

The previous chapters have shown the weak-
ness of his case, the real points of difference in

128 The Bacon-Shakspere Questioti.

character, in the works of the men, and in the
testimony for each.

Mr. Donnelly is a master of bathos. "Here I
would remark that it is sorrowful, nay pitiful, nay
shameful, to read the fearful abuse which in sewer-
rivers has deluged the fair memory of Francis
Bacon within the last four months." I think
Mr. Donnelly does not believe he is the worst
sinner in this respect, nor does he imagine that the
sentence might much more naturally be written of
the Baconians in their abuse of Shakspere. They
have dwelt upon unauthenticated tradition (when
it is uncomplimentary), misjudged it, garbled it,
and set it in opposition to well authenticated
writings. Truly, as was once said of the Pharisees,
" Ye have made the Scriptures of none effect
through your tradition." And when Mr. Donnelly
does judge from writings he selects the unsavoury,
dwells on them, magnifies them, and clouds there-
with his style and reasoning, ignoring all points
that tell against him, and attempting to make his
readers do the same. What though Stratford
was at times " unsavoury " ? All towns of the
period were. Great ladies carried sweet odoured
balls " to smell to," when they became aware of
the offensive. Can a poet not escape to the
woodlands and the primrose banks? And, after
all, even though the whole question is utterly irrele-
vant, is open-air drainage more injurious to brain-
power than a drainage that gives a superficial
tidiness and sends the deadly drain-poisoned airs
through chink and cranny to suck the life out of
body and soul like a vampire bat ?

Mr. Donnelly says Shakspere had nearly every
vice, and was disgraced in the eyes of men in
every way ; that he was coarse, vulgar, and ugly ;
was indeed the original of Falstaff, of crooked
Richard, and of Caliban ! Has he not read Dr.
Ingleby's " Centurie of Prayse ? '' His superiority
to " his fellows" and those who wrote for the stage
may be seen by the position he had taken towards

The Bacon- Shahspcre Question. 129

them in seven years after his arrival in London.
" In the greatest age of Enghsh Uterature the
greatest man of his species Uves in London for
nearly 30 years, and no man takes any note of his
presence." This need not be re-answered. "Com-
pare the Uttle we know of him, and the much we
know of Ben Jonson." The men are different ;
Jonson is Uke Bacon, and likes to let men know
about him.

Yet one thing that Mr. Donnelly says of him as
a crowning insult, I might have believed. He
says : "I have proved he was a brewer." "We
peep into the kitchen of New Place, Stratford, and
we see the occupant brewing beer." I wished to
welcome him into the guild, for which he would
certainly have needed Bacon's knowledge to fit
him ; and looking back to the early chapter that
proves it, I find it really must be transcribed as
a fine specimen of the style of Mr. Donnelly's
" reasonings."

"Shakspere a brewer. He carried on brewing
* in New Place. It is very probable the alleged
" author of Hamlet carried on the business of
" brewing beer in his residence at New Place. He
" sued Philip Rogers in 1604 for several bushels of
*' ' malt ' sold him at various times between March 27
" and the end of May of that year, amounting in all
" to the value of ;,^ I 15s. lod. The business of beer-
" making was not unusual among his townsmen.

"George Perrye, besides his glover's trade,
" useth buying and selling of wool and yarn and
" making of malte. Robert Butler, besides his
"glover's occupation, useth making of malte.

"Rychard Castell, Rother Market, useth his
" glover's occupation, his wife uttering weeklye by
" bruyinge ij strikes of malte. INIr. Persons for a
" long tymc used malting of malte and bruyinge to
"sell in his house." — {did MSS., 1595.)

(This is taken from the notes to Mr. Halliwell-
Philipps's book without the context.)

130 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

•* Think of the author of Hamlet and of Lear
brewing beer ! "

But Mr. Donnelly has tripped here. // is no
proof, that he should hold malt, and that other men
who held malt brewed beer to sell. Malt was
often received as rent. Malting and brewing were
carried on in every gentleman's house of the king-
dom at that time ; but the only home in which it
is proved that the Head of the House concerned
himself with the manufacture was Bacon s ; because
we have his experiments, written with his own hand.
Therefore, if Bacon did write Hamlet and Lear^
we ;;/z/j/ " think of the author of these plays as
brewing beer," And why should he not? Mortal
men do not live the whole twenty-four hours on
the Mount of Transfiguration.

" The identities of the question of temperance ; "
I find the strongest contrasts.

" It is a little surprising that a writer whose sym-
pathies were always with the aristocracy should
convert the finest house in Stratford, built by Sir
Hugh Clopton, into a Brewery, and employ himself
peddling out malt to his neighbours and sueing
them when they did not pay promptly. And taken
in connection with the sale of malt, there is another
curious fact that throws some light upon the
character of the man of the household. In the
Chamberlain's account of Stratford we find a charge
in 1614 for 'one quart of sack and one quart of
clarett wine given to a preacher at the New Place.'
What manner of man must he have been who
would require the town to pay for the wine he
furnished his guests?" It seems to be forgotten
that towns often gave handsome gifts to indi-
viduals ; that in this case the smallness of the gift
to the preacher who had pleased them all depended
on the knowledge that he had been liberally treated
at the best house in the place. The choice of
wine was not unusual for a gift.

It appears original to this work that " Shakspere
was a Brewer." We would be willing to accept

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 131

him as such without proof, were it only to see in
it more than a coincidence that the hberaUty of his
successors, Messrs. Flower & Son, has enabled the
Stratford of to-day to do fitting honour to the
greatest native of Stratford.

Mr. Donnelly follows the well-known legal trick
classed among the Logical Fallacies — "No case;
abuse the plaintiff's attorney, or himself." So he
abuses Warwickshire, Stratford, the house where
Shakspere was born ; forgetful that for the period
it was large and substantial enough for a man in a
very good position. He abuses his name, his
family and himself, and his supporters, in every
possible way.

He (Donnelly) tries to suggest vile thoughts of
Shakspere, and even that there "was something
wrong in the breed," because Shakspere's first child
appeared sooner than is usual after marriage. Pope's
biography can prove that no explanation ot this need
be necessary, but we must further remember that
the habits of the time were different from ours ; that
the pre-contract or betrothal had a more binding
force than the engagement of our days, and was
equivalent to a civil marriage. Surely in times
when the same thing happened in the cases of Sir
Walter Raleigh and Earl Southampton, at older age,
without blame or disgrace, there is no need to
annihilate a man so young for a fault that he
repaired as fully as he could, if there were a fault
at all. And we must emphatically assert, there is
no authority for any suspicion of a further blot on
his fair fame through life.

Mr. Donnelly says Shakspere was a "usurer."
I think that he was a man wlio had discovered
the uses of adversity, and learned the lessons of ex-
perience, and that, seeing that his father had lost
his fair chances for himself and family by careless-
ness in money matters, he had determined the value
alike of exactitude and economy.

" He combined with others to oppress the poor,
when an attempt was made to enclose the public

132 The Bacon-Shakspcre Question.

lands " ; while the fact remains on record that he
opposed and prevented the enclosures. " He was
a mean peasant, and lied to beg a coat of arms for
his father."'^ Facts are against Mr. Donnelly here
also. Shakspere's honour was unimpeached and
unimpeachable. " The author of the plays was a
profound scholar and laborious student, and
therefore must be Bacon." I differ from Mr.
Donnelly in the degree of profundity apparent,
which would take a volume as large as his own
to contest, and I have proved that Shakspere also
was a "laborious student." Mr. Donnelly does not
seem to be aware of the numerous translations of
foreign authorities then extant ; nor of the character
his fellow-dramatist, Webster, gave Shakspere for
his "right happy and copious industry;" nor of the
opportunities he had for education late in life, even
if he had neglected his school.

Some questions are asked which I should
like to be able to answer. There are, of
course, some extraordinary things in connexion
with him, or Mr. Donnelly would not have
had the chance of writing this book. Five-and-a- ^
half volumes of the large catalogues of names of ,
books in the British Museum are occupied by
editions of Shakspere, or books written about him.
The chief difficulty in studying him is this fact.
But we must remember that fires happened fre-
quently then, and were often on the trail of Shak-
spere ; that the Globe was burned down in 1613 ;
that Ben Jonson was in Stratford-on-Avon in 1616,
at the time of Shakspere's death ; that probably he
took some of Shakspere's papers to London with
him ; that Ben Jonson's papers were destroyed by
fire late in the same year. The will of his son-in-
law, Dr. Hall, who with his wife was his residuary
legatee in 1635, says: "Concerning my study of
bookes, I leave them to my sonn Nash, to dispose
of them as you see good. As for my manuscripts,

♦ Appendix, Note 2.

The Bacon- Shakspere Question. 133

I would have given them to Mr. Boles if he had
been here ; but forasmuch as he is not here present,
you may, son Nash, burn them, or do with them
what you please." Some of these were original*
though some may have been Shakspere's. There
is a tradition that a grand-nephew of his had a large
box of his papers, which were destroyed in the great
fire at Warwick.

Mr. Donnelly supports his case on Carlyle,
who makes this most significant speech : " The
wisdom displayed in Shakspeare was equal in
profoundness to the great Lord Bacon's Novum
OrganuniT Our edition of Carlyle says otherwise :
"It is unexampled, that calm creative perspicacity
of Shakspere. . . . Novum Organum^ and all
the intellect you will find in Bacon, is of a quite
secondary order — earthy, material, poor in com-
parison with this." t

He tries to prove that because Bacon writes a
better hand than Shakspere he was more likely to
write the plays. It may be peculiar to my collec-
tion of autographs, but I find there the boldest
and best handwritings are those of the fools.

Mr. Donnelly strengthens his position by as-
serting, "The writer of the plays must have been
in Scotland." Bacon is not proved to have gone
so far, while Burbage's company played in Edin-
burgh in t6oi, and it is more than possible Shaks-
pere was with them. It is discovered that Ben

* " Select Obsen-ations on English liodies, or Cures both
Kmpericall and Ilistoricall performed upon very eminent
persons in desperate diseases, first written in Latin by Mr.
Jolin Hall, Physician, living at Stratford-on-Avon, in War-
wickshire, where he was very famous, as also in the counties
adjacent, as appears by these Observations drawn out of
several! hundreds of his, as choysest ; now put into English
for common benefit by James Cooke, rractitioner in Physick •
and Chinirgery," 1657.

[ " Heroes and Hero- Worship."

10

134 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

J onson uses the same phrase once in regard to Bacon
and Shaksperc. Of Shakspere, in 1623,
" When thy socks are on
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome."

This phrase impressed J onson as a good one,
and after the manner of his patron Bacon, he
serves it up again rechauffe in his Discoveries
when he placed Bacon among the great Orators
that treated oratory as an art. It is possible he
had thought of Mark Antony's oration when he
applied that phrase to Shakspere, and by asso-
ciated ideas, quoted it for Bacon.

"Bacon's imagination is revealed in his works;"
for instance, " For as statues and pictures are dumb
histories, so histories are speaking pictures." This,
like many others of Mr. Donnelly's, is an unfor-
tunate selection, as it is cribbed from Simonides
without any acknowledgment, a common habit of
Bacon's. Mr. Donnelly acknowledges Spedding to
be a high authority, and we have his authority for
this patent fact, as well as for the other, that Bacon
wrote little else than his metrical paraphrases of the
Psalms in verse.

" Bacon took part in many plays." He wrote some
Masques, which nobles played in, but he chiefly
concerned himself with the decorative part of the
getting-up of others. " Why was it the fountain
of Shakspere's song closed as soon as Bacon's
necessities ended ?" asks Mr. Donnelly. Odier
Baconians insist that because they kept appearing
after Shakspere's death Bacon wrote them.

"The whole publication of the folio of 1623, is
based on a fraudulent statement. . . . False in one
thing, false in all." The MSS. of Heming and
Condell were probably the play-house copies, the
earlier editions being pirated from eager listeners
catching up the occasionally varied acting forms,
■ and, as it is perfectly certain that Shakspere in
acting would modify his phrases to his peculiar
mood at the time, that quite accounts for

The Baccn-Shakspere Question. 135

the singular variations in the texts. " If
the Plays are not Shakspere's, then the whole
make-up of the folio is a fraud, and the dedi-
cation and the introduction are probably both
from the pen of Bacon " — which means, in short, if
Shakspere wrote the plays it was a fraud, if Shak-
spere did not write the plays it was a fraud ; but
either Shakspere or Bacon wrote the plays, so in
either case it was a fraud. Query, would the fraud
be nobler if Bacon perpetrated it than if Heming
and Condell did ? Would not the falseness affect
Bacoji in this case more radically than the loving-
liearted slips of an actor who wished to commemo-
rate his dead poet ?

Mr. Donnelly gives us a syllogism in Carnestres,
to prove Shakspere could not have written the
plays, and that a lawyer did so ; but if he converts
this into Celarent and a true Universal, he will
find a strange conclusion from strange premises.
He says afterwards, " Nothing is more conclu-
sively proved than that the author of the plays was
a lawyer." I am sorry for the stability of things,
if " nothing " is stronger than this.

" Bacon is naturally given to secretiveness, and
seeks a disguise." That may be true. In his
Essay on Truth, he says, " The admixture of a lie
doth ever make truth more pleasant." " His works
were dangerous to worldly success." Why did
poems not hinder the worldly advancement of
others — Sackville, Raleigh, Sir John Davies even ?
To this latter Bacon wrote asking, as he asked
all his correspondents, for help — " be good to con-
cealed poets " — and this is the climax of the proof
he wrote Shakspere's plays. But how was Davies
to know this ? Is it not more likely that he wrote
Nosce teipsnm — that went about in Davies' name ? ^

I do indeed wonder that Mr. Donnelly did not
claim this for him when he was at it. If Bacon
wrote all his own works, all Shakspere's, all

* See Appendix, Note 10,

1 36 TlieBacon-Shaksperc Question.

Montaigne's, all Burton's, all Marlowe's and the
minor Dramatists' productions, all anonymous
works (as is demanded for him), surely this sen-
tence might have engulphed those of Sir John
Davies also, who writes a philosophic work and
metrical translation of some Psalms. Mr. Donnelly
proves so much, that the same reasonings would
prove much more. Burton's Anatomy of Melan-
cJioly is not at all unlike his style, therefore he
wrote it. It was not signed in the first edition
(162 1 ), but was in the second of 1632. But Mr.
Donnelly did not remember that Bacon was a
Cambridge man, and tliat Burton's Anatomy of
Me/afic/to/y was published at Oxford, then a keener
rival than it is now. Mrs. Windle had first sug-
gested that Bacon wrote Montaigne ; Mr. Donnelly
clings to the idea. " We are brought face to face
with this 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." The
choice is fair, but there is no dilemma at all.
Bacon invariably takes every good thing he finds
in his reading, assimilates it, uses it, thanks God
and himself for it, and says nothing of the debt
to his ignorant public.

We now come to the Cipher. We cannot but
remark the extraordinary manner in which the
Cipher supports, in a coarse, vulgar, pointless
story, the opinions of the Baconian Theory.
Yet surely no insult to the dignity and character
of Bacon ; no insult to his knowledge and style
was ever offered by any one like to this. That
HE could have invented and inserted Donnelly's
Cipher in the plays ! It crowns all. The con-
clusions that might be drawn from it are these :
I St, Mr. Donnelly's, that Bacon wrote the plays,
and inserted the Cipher. No man that had any
notion of the dignity of poetry could so degrade
it by making it a pack-horse to bear a burden
of mean prose-gossip. Were that supposition

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. (37

granted, his character is stained, and he is
proved a liar, a hypocrite and a plagiarist of no
ordinary meanness. For beside all the dishonesty
of the publications and dedications of the Folio,
he would have to bear the odium of copying
Plutarch, Tacitus, &c., and cribbing all other
previous playwrights' works, without having any
right to do so. And we must remember that what
in Shakspere — actor, manager, playwright, as well
as poet — was justified and justifiable, in Bacon
would be gross plagiarism and contemptible
literary robbery.

2nd. " But another of those luminous intellects
(whose existence is a subject of perpetual per-
plexity to those who reverence God) has made the
further suggestion that granted there is a Cipher in
the plays. Bacon put it there to cheat Shakspere out
of his just rights and honours." There is much to
be said in support of this "luminous intellect."
If Bacon could crib from ISIontaigne enough to fix
Mr. Donnellyjbetween the two horns of a dilemma,
why should he not do more ? " False in one point,
false in all." We thank thee for that word, again
and again. And the very Cipher which Bacon
claims, which suggested to Mr. Donnelly his years
of patient labour, was cribbed from Vigenere's
volume, and taken possession of ivithoiit acknmv-
Icdgmcnt. If he stole the Cipher, what was there
to prevent him stealing the plays, think some. We
do not think so. Bacon only appropriated what
he valued, and his own works prove that he did
not value the plays.

3rd. A third conclusion has come to some that Mr.
Donnelly put there what he found there, or manipu-
lated things to the obscuring of the senses, after
the principles of Messrs. Maskelyne & Cooke. As
Mr. Donnelly assures us he did not, we accept his
word, though we think it one of the most slip-shod
Ciphers that ever have been found out, and one
that Bacon would have been ashamed of. Cer-
tainly this is more intricate and ingenious than that

138 The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

of Mrs. Windle, but she had the advantage of
priorit}'. The tales she educes are also more
poetically told. But we come here to the new puzzle.
How may ciphers co-exist in the same works,
at the same time, under different conditions, to be
opened only by " luminous intellects ?" Does " one
nail not drive out another " here ?

4th. But there is a fourth possibility that I
claim as original. Most things connected with
Shakspere are uncommon. As men used to seek
the Sortes Virgilia/uc, many have sought the Sortes
ShaksperiancE. Is it not possible that what
materialists might call chance, fatalists fate, or
superstition-mongers the ministers of the black art,
might have arranged the words so as to have
tempted Mr. Donnelly to find a sequence in the un-
connected and a story in chance words ? The style
of the Cryptogram narrative is wonderfully like the
Oraailar. That these same powers generally help
a man to spell out what he wants to see is very
well-known.

" Black spirits and white,

Red spirits and grey.
Mingle, mingle, mingle,

You that mingle may."

But the general experience is that the "mingling"
is neither profitable nor pleasant in the long run.
Macbeth began "to doubt the equivocation of the
fiend that lied like truth," and concluded : —

" Be these juggling fiends no more believed
That palter with us in a double sense ;
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope."

Though fiends and faith have ahke gone out of
fashion, it is just possible that the "mingling"
remains, and that this is a specimen.

I could find a possible fifth conclusion,
but will not suggest it, so here is a Tetra-
lemma, a more horned animal even than the
Montaigne Dilemma. The worst of it is, that

The Bacon-Shakspcre Question. 139

each horn buffets somebody — either Bacon, whom
we reverence for what he has really done or
been ; or Mr. Donnelly, whom we ought to rever-
ence for what he wanted to do. None of them
affect Shakspere at all.

Mr. Donnelly says Bacon was the original
" Hamlet " and " Prospero." " Miranda " is " the
Works of Alphabet;" but that is worked out by
the application of Mrs. Windle's Cipher. INIr.
Donnelly's is too intricate to give anything so
simple. According to his own showing, the in-
tricacies of the Cipher pressed as heavily upon
Bacon as on himself.

" The cipher pressed him hard when he wrote
such a sentence as this : " The horse will sooner
con an oration." ( Troilus and Cressida, act ii.
so. i). "As there is no Francisco present or any-
where in the play, this is all rambling nonsense,
and the word is dragged in for a purpose." " Are
there any other plays in the world where characters
appear for an instant, and disappear in this extra-
ordinary fashion, saying nothing and doing
nothing?'' "What was the purpose of this
nonsensical scene, which, as some one has said, is
about on the par of a negro-minstrel shew ? . . .
It enabled the author to bring in the name of
Francis twenty times in less than a column."
" The complicated exigencies of the cipher com-
pel Bacon to talk nonsense." And so Mr.
Donnelly is content. He fancies that he proves
that the plays are too good to be written by
Shakspere, that Bacon wrote them ; but that, at
the same time, they contain much "nonsense."
Be sure that Mr. Donnelly could not prove that
without talking much nonsense himself. " Let us
examine this. The word Bacon is an unusual
word in literary work. ... I undertake to say
that the reader cannot find in any work of prose
or poetry, not a biography of Bacon, in that age,
or any subsequent age, where no reference was
intended to be made to the man Bacon, such

140 The Bacon-SIiaksperc Question.

another collocation of Nicholas — Bacon — Baconfed
— Bacons. I challenge the sceptical to undertake
the task ! " And I, the sceptical, accept the
challenge. In "Gammer Gurton's Needle,"'*
printed 1575, Mr. Donnelly will find "Bacons"
enough to prove that play written by Queen
Elizabeth's little Lord Keeper at the age of
thirteen.

The conclusion of our argument is this — while
the philosophic spirit urges us to doubt, so as to
" prove all things," it also impels us to believe those
facts that satisfy the needs and nature of proof;
and such a proved fact we beUeve this to be — that
Shakspere wrote the plays and poems that have
always been attributed to him.

" Our Shakspere wrote, too, in an age as blest.
The happiest poet of his time and best.
A gracious Prince's favour cheered his muse,
A constant favour he ne'er feared to lose."

OXWAY.

* See Appendix, Note 15.

7 he Bacon-Shakspere Question. 141

APPENDIX.

Note I.

Specdc's County Map of England was ])ublished 1610.
lie draws the relative size and importance of the towns ami
villages by a condensed little group of buildings, and, in
spite of the scorn thrown at " the peasant-village of Strat-
ford," we lind it is marked the same size as Warwick, and
second only to Coventry in the county. It has the first
highway bridge over the Avon below Warwick, so that much
traffic would have necessarily passed through the town.
Snitterfield, the residence of Shakspere's uncle, is also
sketched as large as Charlecote. Stratford belonged to the
liarls of Warwick. It was incorporated in i553- The parish
of old Stratford was fifteen miles in circumference, and in-
cluded Shottery, Clopton, Little Wilmcote, &c. " The Col-
lege " had been well endowed, and up to 1535 supported
four priests at ;^5 6s. Sd., and a schoolmaster at ;i^io salary ;
so education was then honoured. At the dissolution of ' ' the
Holy Cuild," the town received the possessions together with
the great tithes, to maintain a vicar, a curate, and a school-
master, to pay the almspeople, and repair the chapel, bridge,
and other public buildings. Half of these tithes Shakspcrc
bought at the suggestion of Abraham Sturley to his brother-
in-law, Richard Quiney. " It seemeth by your father that
our countryman, ^Nlr. Shakspere, is willing to disburse some
money. . . . Move him to deal in the matter of our tithes.
liy the instructions you can give him thereof, and by the
friends he can make therefore. ... It obtained would advance
him in deed, and would do us //inch gvoiL" The Grammar
School, founded by the Rev. Mr. Jolape in Henry VI. 's reign,
had got into difficulties in Henry VIII. 's reign, but the
charter of Edward VI. guaranteed the schoolmaster an an-
nual stipend of /['20 and a free house. This being liberal for
the period, it is likely they had as good work as could be
done at the time. Mr. IJaynes gives a list of the books used
at the time in education. I think it very probable that to
his list would be added Thomas Wilson's j4)-i oj Rhetoric,
dedicated to the Earl of Warwick in 1557. Not from ]>erni,
but from this book, at some period of his life, did Shakspere
borrow lago's speech, " Who steals my purse, steals trash."

14^ The Bacon-Shakspere Question.

Note 2.

A. W. C. Ilallen's Pedigree of Shakspere's Family :—

In the draft of the grant of arms, John Shakspere is styled
gentleman, and his great grandfather referred to as having
rendered faithful and valiant service to Henry VII. A fac-
simile of the grant of arms by Sir William Dethick, Garter,
20th October, 1596, also of the assignment of arms to Mary
Ardcn, his wife, in 1599, appeared Kn Miscellanea Genealogica
aT\(X Heraldic a, 3rd series, July, 1SS4, page 109. It has been
proved that her father was the descendant in the male line
of Turchill de Arden (temp. Will. I.), who was descended
from the Saxon Earls of Warwick, who were dispossessed at
the Conquest, and then took their name from Arden, their
principal manor in Warwickshire.

(See Mr. Russel French's Shakspereana Genealogica.)

The Grant of Arms to Shakspere : —

The original, in the Heralds' Office, is marked G. 13, p.
349. There is also a manuscript in the Heralds' Office,
marked W. 2, p. 276, where notice is taken of this coat, and
that the person to whom it was granted had borne magis-
tracy at Stratford-on-Avon.

(Waldron's Shaksperian Miscellany.)

The armorial bearings appropriate to the family of Shaks-
pere are : Or, on a bend sable, a tilting speare of the first
point upwards, headed argent ; crest, a falcon displayed
argent, supporting a spear in pale or.

^ '^^ (R. K. W^helcr.)

Note 3.

(Waldron's Shaksperian Miscellany.)

" Early in Elizabeth's reign, the established players
of London began to act in temporary theatres in the yards
of inns."

In the time of Shakspere were seven theatres ; three
private houses — viz., I?lackfriars, W'hitefriars, the Cockpit or
Phoenix in Druiy Lane ; and four public theatres. The
Globe on the Bank Side ; the Curtain in Shoreditch ; the
Red Bull at the upper end of St. John Street; and the
Fortune in Whitecross Street.

Note 4.

1635. A collection of ]iapers relating to shares and sharers
in the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres, preserved among the
official manuscripts of the Lord Chamberlain at St. James's

The Bacon- Shakspere Questwii. 143

Palace. Eenefield, Swanstown, and Pollard appealed to be
allowed to buy a share in these : Cuthbert Burbage, and
Winifred, his brother's wife, and William, his son, petitioned
"not to be disabled of our livelihoods by men so soon shot
up, since it hath been the custom that they should come to
it by far more antiquity and desert than these can justly attri-
bute to themselves. . . . The father of us, Cuthbert and
Richard Burbage, was the first builder of playhouses, and
was himself in his younger years a player. The Theatre he
built with many hundred pounds taken up at interest, . . .
and at like expense built the Globe, with more summes
taken up at interest ; and to ourselves we joined those
deso-jing men, Shakspere, Hemings Condell, Philipps, and
others, partners in the profittes of that they call the house.
. . . Now for the Blackfriars, that is our inheritance ; our
father purchased it at extreme rates, and made it into a play-
house with great charge and trouble, . . . and placed men
players, which were, Hemings, Condell, Shakspere, tic."

Note 5.

The authenticity of the autograph of Shakspere in tlic
YXono's Montaigne oi 1603 in the British Museum has been
questioned. But it can be traced to Warwickshire, and as
having been in the possession of a gentleman there prior to the
Ireland epoch. See Sir F. Madden's pamphlet, 1838.

Note 6.

Vautrollier's Publications, London and Edinburgh.

1 566- 1605.

Balnaves. Confession of Faith containing iiow the
troubled man should seek refuge of his God. 1584.

Bacon, Thomas. The sicke man's salve, where the
faithful Christians may learn to behave themselves pacicntly
and thankfully. 1584-

Bdlot, Jacques. Le jardin de vertus et bonnes mceurs.

Beio's Theodore de Works, 1570.

Bible. In many editions.

Bright, Timothy. A Treatise on Melancholy, containing
the causes thereof, and reasons of the strange effects it
worketh in our minds and bodies. 15S6.

Bruno's Giordano. Philosophy.

Calvin, Jean. The institution of the Christian Religion,
written in Latine by Mr. John Calvine, and translated into
English by Thomas Norton, 1578.

i.|.4 The Bacon-Shakspcrc Question.

Ckalona; Sir Thomas. De Regis Anglorum inslauranda
Libri decern.

Ciceyo's Oi-ationes (ad imprimendum solum).

Coligny, Gaspard Dc, Admiral of France. The lyfc of
this most godly Captain, &c.

Dc Bean Cliesne. Translated by J ohn Baildon. A book
containing divers sorts of hands, &c.

De la Motte. A brief introduction to music. Collected
by r. de La Motte, a Frenchman. Licensed. London, Svo.
1574.

De Sainliens, Claude. The French Littleton, etc., Campu
di Fior, or else the flourie field of foure languages for the
futherance of the learners of the Latine. French, English,
but chiefly of the Italian tongues. 1583.

Fulkc. Two treatises written against the Papists.

GcntUis. " Disputatio dc Auctoribus et Spectaloribus
Tabularum non notandis." Reprinted. Shakspere Society.
Series V.

Giiicciardini's " Description of the Low Countries." 1 567.

Ilemmingscii. The faith of the Church Militant.
James /, The works of.

La Ramce,

Lcntiilits. An Italian grammar written in Latin by M.
Scipio Leululo, and turned into English by Henry Grantham.
1578 and 1587.

Leo7vita. An Astrological Catechism, Englished by
Turner.

VEspine.

Manzio, A. <^ P. Phrases Linguii: Latin.L'. 1579.

J\Ierbtir£.

Mnllasler's " Ovid's Metamorphoses.'' " Ovid's Epistles."
" Ovid's Art of Love."

" Plutarch's Lives." From the French of Amyoll.
Englished by Sir Thomas North. Folio. 1579.

Saluste die Bavins. Scribonins. Verniii^U. Virgil.

Also histories of England and Scotland.

A treatise on French verbs. 1581.

A most easie, perfect and absolute way to learn the French
tungue. 1581.

(Field republishes many of these — as also a long list of his
own, some of them very suggestive.)

TIic Bacou'Shakspere Question. 145

Ariosto Lodovico. " Orlnndo Fiuioso in English Ilernicri!
Verse."

/?anvui;/i, Philip. " Tlic Method of Phisick," &c.

P)ig°s, Walter. " A summary and true discourse of Sir F.
Drake's West Indian Voyage," &c.

Calvin. Ca}?ideii,

Campion, Thoinas. " Observations in the Art of English
Poesie."

Cogan, Tlwvias. ' ' The haven of health, chiefly made for
the use of Students."

Datiiice, Edward. "A brief discourse, dialogue, wish, iScc."

Desainliens. Digges. Herring.

Hume, David (of Godscrofl). " Daphnis-Amaryllis."

Jiivenalis {Decinms Junius). "J.J. et A. Persii Flacci
Satyrae."

Shakspere's " Venus and Adonis."
Shakspcre's " Rape of Lucrece."

Note 7.

Ben Jonson on Bacon — "Timl)er" — "My conceit of his
person was never increased towards him by his place or
honours, but I have and do reverence him for tlie greatness
that was only proper to himself, in that beseemed to me ever,
by liis work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of
admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity, 1
even prayed that God would give him strength ; for greatness
he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or
syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to
virtue, but rather help to make it manifest."

Note S.

In Lodge's Illustrations (jf British History, Vol. II., p. 251
(edition I'ygi), there is a letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury.
1599, to Thomas Baudewyn, in which the postscript says : " 1
wold have you bye me glasses to drink in : Send me word
what olde plat yeldes the ounce, for I wyll not leve me a
cuppe of sylvare to drink in, but I wyll see the next terme his
creditors payde." Whether the Earl sold his plate and his
example made " glasses " fashionable, Shakspere in Henry
//'., Part II., makes Falstaff say, "Glasses are the only
drinking." . . .

Note 9.

Tiie English of the days of Elizabeth accused the
people of the Low Countries witii having taught them to

146 The Bacon-Shakspen Question.

drink to excess. The " men of war " who had cam-
paigned in Flanders, according to Sir John Smythe, in
his Discourses, 1590, introduced this vice amongst us,
"whereof it is come to pass that now-a-days there are very
few feasts where our said men of war are present, but that
they do invite and procure all the company, of what calling
soever they be, to carousing and quaffing ; and because they
will not be denied their challenges, they, with many new
songes, ceremonies, and reverences, drink to the health and
prosperity of princes, to the health of counsellors, and unto
the health of their greatest friends both at home and abroad,
in which exercise they never cease till they be dead drunk,
or, as the Flemings say, " Doot drunken." He adds, " And
this aforesaid detestable vice hath within these six or seven
years taken wonderful root amongst our English nation, that
in times past was wont to be of all nations of Christendom
ime of the soberest."

Note 10.

John Davies, of Hereford, 1563 — 1618, was a writing-
master. He writes The Scourge of Folly, Microcosmus,
Urate's Pilgrimage^ The Muse^ s Saci-ijice, and many minor
poems; as well as versified translations of the Psalms. He
writes praises of Shakspere, as our English Terence, &c., and
in one poem says —

" Good wine doth need no bush. Lord, who can telle
How ofte this old-said saw hath praised new books?"

We mention this because the proverb is one of the identities
given by the Baconians.

Sir John Davies, a lawyer and Iriend of Bacon's, 1569 —
1626, publishes Orchestra, 1596; Hymns to Asira-a (Eliza-
beth), 1599; Metrical Psalms, N^osce Tcipsitm, 1599. Went
to Scotland to " welcome " King James in i6or. Bacon
asked him then to be good to '• conceled poets," and he
doubtless was so, as we find James ready to receive Bacon
when he came to England. Query, Whether did Bacon
write his Orchestra, Psalms, or Nosce Teipsum, or all three ?

Note II.

An amusing illustration of the life of the times may be
found in Deckar. Deckar's GitWs Hornbook, 1609, is
addressed to gulls in general.

Chap. 6 shows " How a young gallant should behave him-
self in a play-house."

" The theatre is your Poet's Royal Exchange, on which
their muses (they are now turned to merchants) meeting,

The Bacon- Shakspere Question. 147

barter away that light commodity of words, for a lighter
ware than words, Plaudities and the Breaih of the Oreat
Beast, which (like the threatening of two cowards), vanish all
into the aire. Seat yourself on the very rushes where tlie
Commedy is to dance. For do but cast up a rcclconing what
large commings in are pursed up by sitting on the stage, first a
conspicuous eminence is gotten, by which means the best and
most essential! parts of a gallant (good cloaths and a pro-
portionable legge, white hands, the Persian lock, and a
tolerable beard) are perfectly revealed. Ly sitting on the
stage you have a signed patent to engross the whole com-
modity of censure, may lawfully presume to be a girder,
stand at the helme to steere the passage of scenes, yet no
man shall once offer to hinder you from obtaining the title
of an insolent over-weening coxcombe." lie goes on to tell
him satirically how to draw attention to himself by applaud-
ing in the wrong place. " To conclude, hoord up the finest
play-scraps you can get upon which your leane witte may
most savourly feede, for want of other stuffe, when the
Arcadian and Euphuis'd gentlewomen have their tongues
sharpened to set on you ; that quality (next to your shittle-
cocke) is the only furniture to a courtier that is but a new
beginner and is but in his A.B.C of complement."

Note 12.

The preface to the first edition of Troilns and Cressida
1609: " A never writer, to an ever reader, Newes, Eternall
reader, you have heere a new play, never staled with the
stage, never clapper-clawed with the palmes of the vulgar,
and yet passing full of the palme comicall ; for it is a birth of
the brain that never undertooke anything comicall vainly ;
and were but the vaine names of commedies changed for the
titles of commodities, or of playes for pleas, you should see
all those grand censors, that now stile them such vanities,
flock to them for the maine grace of their gravities ;
especially this author's commedies, that are so framed to the
life that they serve for the most common commentaries of all
the actions of our lives ; showing such a dexteritie and power
of witte, that the most displeased with plays are pleased with
his commedies. And all such dull and heavy-witted
worldlings as were never capable of the witte of a commedie,
coming by report of them to his representations, have found
that witte there that they never found in themselves, and have
parted better-wittied than they came ; feeling end edge of wit
set upon them, more than ever they dreamed they had brain
to grind it on. . . . Amongst all there is none more
witty than this. . , . It deserves such a labour as well
as the best commedie in Terence or I'lautus, and believe this,
that when hee is gone, and his commedies out of sale, you
will scramble for them, and set up a new English
Inquisition."

148 The Bacon- Shakspere Question.

Note 13.
l.vi. Epigram. I'oet-Ape.

Poor Poet-Ape, that would he thought our chief,

Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit
From bondage is Ijecome so liold a thief,

As we the robbed, leave rage, and pity it.
At first he made low-shifts, would pick and glean,

Buy the reversion of old plays ; now grown
To a little wealth, and credit in the scene,

He takes up all, makes each man's wit his own.
And, told of this, he slights it. Tut, such crimes

The sluggish gaping auditor devours ;
He marks not whose 'twas first : and after times

May judge it to be his, as well as ours.
Fool ! as if half eyes will not know a fleece
From locks of wool, or shreds from the whole piece?

Ben Jonson is supposed to have expressed in this his feel-
ings of jealousy towards Shakspere's successes in his early
days, before he knew and "loved the man."

Note 14.

William Baudwin, author of the Myrroiir for Magistrates,
has a poem on Richard H. and on Richard IH. 1571.

He is the compiler of a "Treatise of Morall Philosophy,
contayning the sayings of the wyse wherein you maye see the
worlhie and wittie "sayings of the Philosophers, Emperors,
Kynges and Orators, of their lyvcs, their aunswers, of what
linage they come of ; of what countrie ihey were, whose
worthy and notable precepts, counsailes, parables and
semblables, doe hereafter followe." The editions of 1547,
1567, 1575, 1584, 1587, 1591, iSglJ, 1610, 1620, 1630, are in
the British Museum.

His 1st Book is—

Of Lives and Aunswers.

2nd. Of Philosophical Theologie.

3rd. Of Kynges and Rulers, and of Lawe.

4th. Of Sorrow and Lamentation.

5th. Of Mental Powers and Virtues.

6th. An admonition to avoid all kinds of vices.

This has been a rich field for readers and writers of the
period, and one can trace much of Shakspere's knowledge and
])hilosophy to it.

Note 15.

Gammer Gurton's Needle, by Mr. S., Master of Arts, acted
at Christ's College, Cambridge, was pubhshed 1575; and

The Bacon-Shakspere Question. 149

though later than Nicholas Udall's Ralph Roister Doister, is
by many considered the first English Comedy.

(First Act. First Scene.)

Diccon. Many a peece of bacon have I had out of their bailees,
In roming over the countrie in long and wery walkes.
. . . When I saw it booted not, out at doores I hied mee,
And caught a slip of bacon, when I saw none spyed mee.
Which I intend, not far hence, unless my purpose fayle,
Shall serve for a shoeing home to draw on two pots of ale

2nd Act. The Song. " Back and side go bare," &c.

Diccon. Well done, by Gog's Malt, well sung and well

sayde. . . .
Hodge. A pestilence light on all ill luck, chad thought yet for
all this,
Of a morsel of bacon behinde the dore, at worst should not

misse.
But when I sought a slyp to cut, as I was wont to do —
Gog's soul, Diccon, Gyp our cat, had eat the bacon too.
(W^ich bacon Diccon stole, as is declared before.)
Diccon. Ill luck, quod he ? Mary swere it Hodge, this day
the truth tel.
Thou rose not on thy right side, or els blest thee not wel,
Thy milk slopt up, thy bacon filched, that was too bad
luck — Hodge !

T. G. Johnson, Printer, 121 Fleet Street, E.G.

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