Was the Shakespeare after all a myth

UC-NRLF

iiiiiii|iiiiii!ir

^B ^fl3

7^fl

^1?

>V'

Was THE Sma

1 \ I— V J 1

•5F A

■//,.:.

\

;x:

>

;eist of ,':^ublications.

f.4«rattiitltf(ti!itcr:

LL. D.

Muter of Arti, C«lombU Collcfa, of Stw York, 1871— Hon. Mem. Clareodoii HUl. Soc„ Kdlnbonh. SeolUnd ; of the Sew BroMwIck

HIaC 8oe., St. John, Canada; of the Riit. Soe. of MlnoowU. MooUna, New Jerwjr. ke.; Life Mem. Royal IlUt. Sjo. of

Oraat Britain. London, Kng.; Mem. MaatiehappiJ Xaderlanitiche. I^ettorkunde, Lejden. Ilolland. ke., ke.— Colonel

X. T. S. I , ISIC. aaitened for "wuriiorUm* amducC to command of lid Reglmenul Dittrict, M. F. S. N. T^

IMS, Brigadier General for*tii>portan< Mn>ie«"rflr«t appointment— In N.Y. Sute — to that rank, hUbcr*

to •toeUre], lUl. M. P. S. S. T.— Adjutant General. 3 N. T , lU:^ Breret MaJor.Gcncral,

8. S. T., for "mtritoriouM terrice*" \>j 'Special Act" or "ConcurTent RcaoluUon,"

X. T.Sute Legislature. April. 18W (Bnt and only General offl er rcc«irinf

tnch an honor (the higheit) from S. X T., and the only oOlcer

MtM brrretlad (Major.General) In the United flute*.]

AUTHOR OF

Rp.poRTS— ist. On the Organizations of the National Guards and Municipal Military Institutions of
Europe, and the Artillery and Arms best adapted to the State Service, 1852. (Reprinted by order
of the N. Y. State Legislature, Senate Documents, No. 74, March 26, 1853.) 2d. Organizations of
the English and Swiss Militia, the French, Swiss, and Prussian Fire Departments. Suggestions
for the Organization of the N. Y. Militia, &c. 1853.

Life of (the Swedish Field Marshal) Leonard Torstenson (rewarded with three splendid Silver Medals,
&c., by H. R. M. Oscar L, King of Sweden). 1855.— Thirty Years War, and Military Services of
Field-Marshal Generalissimo Leonard Torstcmson (Series), N. Y. Weekly Mail, 1873 '. A Hero of the
XVn. Century (Torstenson).— The Volunteer, Weekly Mag., Vol. L,No. L, 1869.— The Career of the
celebrated Condottiere Fra Morcale, Weekly Mail, 1873.— Frederic the Great. (Series.) Weekly Mail,
1873. — Eulogy of Torstenson, ^to., 1872.

The Dutch at the North Pole, and the Dutch in Maine. 1857.

Appendix to the Dutch at the North Pole, &c. 1858.

Ho, for the North Pole ! i860.—" Littell's Living Age."— The Dutch Battle of the Baltic. 1858.

The Invincible Armada. (Series.) 18C0. — Examples of Intrepidity, as illustrated by the Exploits and
Deaths of the Dutch Admirals. (Scries.) 1860-1. Military Gazette.

Gems from Dutch History. (Series.) 1855.— A Tale of Leipsic, Peabody's Parlor Mag., 183a.

Carausius, the Dutch Augustus, and Emperor of Britain and the Menapii. 1858.

The Ancient, Medizval and Modem Nctherlanders. 1859.

Address to the Officers of the New York Sute Troops. 1858.

Life of Lieut. -Gen. (famous "Dutch Vauban" — styled the "Prince of Engineers") Menno, Baron
Cohom. ( Series.) i860.— Military Lessons. ( Series.) 1861-3.— Winter Campaigns. 1862.

Practical Strategy, as illustrated by the Life and Achievements of a Master of the Art, the Austrian
Field-Marshal, Traun. 1863. — Personal and Military History of Major-General Philip Keamy,
512 pp., 8vo. 1869. — Secession in Switzerland and the United States compared ; being the Annual
Address, delivered 20th October, 1863, before the Vermont State Historical Society, in the Hall of
Representatives, Capitol, Montpelier. 1864.

Incidents connected with the War in Italy. (Series.) 1859.

Mortality among Generals. (Series.) 1861. — The Battle of King'* Mountain. (Series.) 1861-2, 1880.
Oriskany, 1878 — Monmouth, 1878— Rhode Island, 1878.

Facts or Ideas Indispensable to the Comprehension of War; Notions on Strategy and Tactics. (5>eries.) t86i-
2. Eclaireur, Military Journal. (Edited.) 1854-8.- In Memoriam. (Edited.) ist, 1857 ; 2d, i86a.
The Bible in Prison. 1853. — A Discourse on the Tendency of High Church Doctrines. 1855.

A Night with Charles XII. of Sweden. A Nice Young Man. Parlor Dramas. 1860-1.

Aculco, Oriskany, and Miscellaneous Poems, i860.

Genealogical References of Old Colonial Families, &c. 1851.

Biographical Notices of the de Peyster Family, in connection with the Colonial History of New York.
1861. — Biographies of the Watts, de Peytter, Reade, and Leake Families, in connection with
Trinity Churchyard. 1862.— Military (1776-1779) Transactions of Major, afterwards Colonel Sth or
King's Foot, B. A., Arent Schuyler de Peyster and Narrative of the Maritime Discoveries of hi*
namesake and nephew, Capt. Arent Schuyler de Peyster, N. Y., 1870. — Local Memorials relating to
the de Peyster and Watts and affiliated families. 1881.— In Memoriam, Frederic de Peyster, Esq.,
LL.D., Prest. N. Y. Historical fwriety, St. Nicholas Society, St. Nicholas Club, Ac, Ac. 1882.

• •• -•

. . . • •

• • • • *

Was THE Shakespeare, after all, a Myth?

"No Royal Road to Learni.m;. "

I have long believed that Shakespeare, according to the world's accepta-
tion of the " Divine William," is a myth— a phantasm— and that, possessing a
bright mind, he simply absorbed, refined down and finished the coarser
labors of other men. "There is no royal road to learning." A man may be
a genius, gifted with marvellous ability, wlio can apply what he has learned
to greater advantage than his contempories, but still is ignorant of branches
which cannot be acquired without study or exceptional opjjortunities. Now,
the worshippers of Shakespeare claim that he understood classical lore, law,
theology, medicine, art, science ; in fact, foresaw discoveries which after-
wards aroused the wonder of the world ; one, for exam])le, the circulation
of the blood, which is credited to Harvey in 1619, after the death of tlie

f)oet. Tiie plays of Shakespeare show that wlioever wrote them was very
earned in many and varied directions. The str<»lling player and hard-
worked manager had no chance whatever to attain proficiency or even a
smattering of the vast lore displayed in the writings attributed to him.
Though it may not be proven tiiat " Racon was Shakespeare," there is
enough evidence adduced to sliow that the Shakespeare of a crowd of wor-
shippers like Hudson and Grant White, was not the Shakespeare who lived
and played, and there is much more likelihood, judging a priori, that
Shakespeare was rather only an able editor, adapter, or compiler. To accept
the Shakespeare of the Shakespearians is like faith without reason.

In my first monagraph of two pages was worked out, printed
many years ago. the results arrived at in different ways by divers
writers and before any of the works founded on the Baconian
theory had seen thch'ght. The revolt of mind or common sense
to dethrone the impossible Shakespeare, had not as yet organized
and sounded the assault upon a citadel of error, before which,
as yet, only a few malcontents had appeared and threatened the
war for which matured reflection was marshalling forces for a
complete investment and overthrow. Hart's declaration of
hostilities, in 1848, is almost unknown. It was an episode in-
serted in a work entirely foreign to such a subject, commencing
with the journal of a sea-voyage and ending with a dictionary of
nautical terms. Very few had heard of it or knew of its existence.

M195475

It is not even referred to in later works upon the subject.
Like a faint meteor it had shone upon the ordinary sky and was-
lost in the superior light of the permanent constellations ; was
regarded as something unworthy the consideration of the acut-
est observer of the golden patines alluded to by Lorenzo in one
of the greatest dramas credited to a genius which did not con-
cieve them ; was not a sufficient genius for such conceptions.
If any one had reflected upon the Book of bot)ks he would have
found therein a question which in itself dissipates the myth of
Shakespeare. "How knoweth this man letters, having never
learned. " This truth was ignored by the unreflecting in the case
of the play-actor, and manager, transmuted into an unsurpassed
and unsurpassable genius by blind imagination and credulity,
and finally idolatry. The iron rule "There is no royal road to
learning " has never had an exception. The Warwickshire
butcher-boy, adventurer and thrifty money-getter, could not —
even with the transcendent gift of inventive perspicacity — have
mastered the knowledge, art, science, philosophy and language
displayed in his poetry and plays. Such a genius would be
more than a miracle, because human after all, — without a
transcendent miracle greater than any which the world has yet
witnessed, and without the personal exertion of divine powers
by divinity a sheer impossibility.

J. W. DE P.

" *0h, Shakespeare — Immortal bard — Mighty genius — Swan
of Avon — thou unapproachable ! Are there no more fish, no
more krakens in that wondrous sea from which thou wert taken ^
Shall there be no more cakes and ale.' * [as poor Artemus
Ward said, "X. B. This is Sarkassum/ "]

How prone the English people are to kill off their great
men ! They first raise them up to the loftiest pinnacle of fame,
and then, like the eagle with the tortoise, or the monkey which
mounts the highest tree with his cocoa-nut, they dash their
victims "all to pieces" upon the rocks below. Thus, also, they
play the game of nine-pins with all their great statesmen. They
set them up, ay, "set them up, my boy!" for the pleasure of
knocking them down. And then, again, they drink to the full,
at the Castalian fount and the inclination is irresistible to-
demolish the vessel that has served them :

*• Sweet the pleasure
Afler drinking — to break the glasses ! "

> ' ~

* This and what follows froMi -^ Page 2, lo -^-^ Page 24, is quoted with
notes by J. \V. de P. from "The || Romance of Yachting; |{ Voyage the
First." II By Joseph C. Hart, || Author of '« Miriam Coffin " &c., || NewYork,||
Harper and Brothers, Publishers, || 82 Clifll' Street, || 1848. Pages 209 to 243,

It is thus they have raised up Shakespeare ; and now they
are demolishing him, without remorse.

Was he not in our own time, the "unapproachable,"' the
"immortal bard," the "not for a day but for all time," the
glorious," the " Sivee/ Swan of Avon," the "poet of true genius
and invention, "the "modest," the "heaven-born," the "creator,"
the "poet of all climes," the bard who "stole the Promethean
fire," "the glass of fashion and the mould of form," the "man
on whom each god did seem to set his seal," in short the "top-
sawyer " of all the poetical geniuses of all ages ? Ay, all this
and much more. But where is he now ? Alas ! — where .-' How
the ghosts of old authors would pitch into him, among the
infernal, if Dante had to do with him !

After "the bard " had been dead for one hundred years and
utterly forgotten, a player and a writer of the succeeding century,
turning over the old lumber of a theatrical "property room,"
find bushels of neglected plays and the idea of a "speculation "
occurs to them. They dig at hazard and promiscuously and
disentomb the literary remains of many a "wit" of a former
century, educated men, men of mind, graduates of Universities,
yet starving at the door of some theatre, while their plays are in
the hands of an ignorant and scurvy manager, awaiting his
awful tiat. They die in poverty and some of absolute starvation.
Still their plays, to the amount of hundreds, remain in the hands
of the manager, andbecome in some way or other his "property."
A '^^ factotum" is kept to revise, to strike out, to refit, revamp, inter-
polate, disfigure, to do anything to please the vulgar and vicious
taste of the multitude. No play will succeed without it is well
peppered with vulgarity and obscenity. The "property-room"
becomes lumbefed to repletion with the efforts of genius. It
was the fashion of the day for all literary men to write for the
theatre. There was no other way to get their productions
before the world. In the process of time, the brains of the
" factotum ' teeming with smut and overflowing all the while
with prurient obscenity, the theatre becomes indicted for a
nuisance, or it is sought to be "avoided, " by the magistrate for
its evil and immoral tendency. The managers are forced to
retire; and, one, who ^'owns all the properties," leaves the
hundreds of original or interpolated plays to the usual fate of
garret lumber, some with the supposed mark of his "genius"
upon them. They are useless to him, for he is a player and a
manager no longer. A hundred years pass, and they and their
reputed " oivner" are forgotten and so are the poets who wrote
and starved upon them.

Then comes the resurrection — "o« speculation." Bettertox,
the player, and Rowe, the writer, make a selection from a

promiscuous heap of plays found in a garret, nameless as to
authorship. " 1 want a hero ! " said Byrox, when he commenced
a certain poem :

[ I want a hero : an uncommon want

When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till after cloying tlie j^azettes with cant

The age discovei-s he is not the true one ;
Of such as these I do not care to vaunt, —

Don yuan, Canlo /, Stanza /.]

"I want an author for this selection of plays ! '' said Rowe.

'.' I have it," said Betterton "call them Shakespeare's ;" and
Rowe, the Commentator, commenced to puff them as "the
Bard's,' ?L\\dio write a history of his hero in -which there was
scarcely a word of truth that had the foinidation to rest upon.

This is about tJie sum and substance of the manner of setting up
Shakespeare : and the manner of pullin«^ him down, may be
gathered from the succeeding commentators — not one of whom,
perhaps, dreamed of such a possibility while he was trying to
immortalize his idol. But each one, as they succeeded one
another, thought it necessary to outdo his predecessor in learning
and research, and developed some startling antiquarian fact,
which, by accumulation, worked the light of truth (?) out of
darkness; until, one after the other the leaves of the chaplet
woven for Shakespeare "the immortal," fall, withered, to the
ground ; his monument, high as huge Olympus, crumbles into
dust, and his apotheosis vanishes into thin air.

Alas, Shakespeare! Lethe is upon thee ! but if it drown thee,
it will give up and work the resurrection of better men and more
worthy, 'i'hou hast had thy century ; they are about having theirs.
' ' A singular and unaccountable mystery, " says Rees, ' ' is attached to
Shakespeare's private life ; and, by some strange fatality, almost
every document concerning him has either been destroyed or
still remains in obscurity. "The first jniblished Memoir of him
was drawn up by Nicholas Rowe in 1709, nearly one hundred
years after the decease of tlie poet, and the materials for this, were
furnished by Beitertox the player. And it is not a little remark-
able, that Jonson seems- to have maintained a higher place in the
estimation of the public in general, than our j^oet (Shakespeare),
for more than a century after the death of the latter. Within
that period Jonsons works are said to have passed through
several editions and to have been read with avidity, while
Shakespeare's [works attributed to him] were comparatively
neglected till the time of Rowf. " At the time of his becoming
in some degree a public character, we naturally expected to
find many anecdotes recorded of his literary history : but,
strange to say, the same destitution o/"authkntic incidenh marks

EVERY stage o/'HIS LIFE.

''Even the date at which his first play appeared is unknown;
and the greatest uncertainty prevails in respect to the chrono-
logical order in which the whole series were written, exhibited,
or published."

Shakspkare was born on the 23d of April, 1564, and died on
the 23d ot April, 1616. His age was therefore 52 years at the
time of his death. In 1589, he had been some time, it is sup-
posed, about four years in London.

In the latter year he was one of the 16 shareholders in the
^'Black-friars" Theatre, his name being the 12th on the list.
In 1603, his name appears among others in a license of James I.,
to perform not merely in London but in any part of the Kingdom,
"These actors," says a commentator, "rendered themselves
justly obnoxious to the citizens of London by their satirical, we
might truly say, \hQ\x licentious representations." "The wisdom
of men and the fidelity of women," were openly antl wantonly
attacked on the stage." "A complaint was formally made to the
Royal Council '' accordingly. Instead of abating the nuisance, at
once, a petition is received from managers and entertained by
the authorities having charge of the complaint. Compensation
for the establishment threatened with demolition, and for its
"properties" is prayed for with earnestness, and a negotiation
ensued, in the course of which the following fact appears :

In an estimate " for avoiding the play-house in the precinct
of the Black-friars," or abating it as a nuisance, the following
item occurs :

''Item. W. Shakespp:are asketh for the 'wardrobe and
properties of the same play-house /"soo, and for his four shares
the same as his fellows, Burbidge and Fletcher, viz. ^"933 6s.
8d.— /1433. 6s., Sd."

Heminges and Coxdei.l had each two shares ; Joseph Taylor
one share and a half; Lowing one share and a half; and "four
more players with one-half share to each of them." — Total 20
shares. "Moreover the hired men of the companie demaund
some recompense for the great losse, and the widovvs and
orphanes of playeres, who are paide by the shares, at divers
rates and proportions, so as in the whole it will coste the Lo.
Mayor and the citizens at least /"yooo. "

From this document the material fact is obtained, that
Shakespeare was the owner of all the "properties '' of the theatre,
which includes the plays possessed by the establishment. They
necessarily have been very numerous, as will be made manifest
by what shortly follows.

"Of Shakespeare's youth we know nothing,' says one
commentator. ' ' Of Shakespeare's last years we know absolutely
nothing," says another "The whole, however,"' says Alexander

Chalmers, commenting upon Rowe, Malone and Steeven's
labored attempts to follow Shakespeare in his career, "is unsatis-
factory. Shakespeare in his private character, in his friendship,
in his amusements, in his closet, in his family, is no where
be/ore tis. "

Yet, notwithstanding all this mystery, and the absence of
any positive information, learned and voluminous commentators
and biographers, in great numbers, have been led to suppose
and asserl a thousand things in regard to Shakespeare's history,
pursuits and attainments, which cannot he suhiantiated by a particle
of proof . Among these is the authorship of the plays grouped
under his name, which they assume as his for a certainty and
beyond dispute. This egregious folly is beginning to react
upon those who have been engaged in it, and some of them
are placed in a very ridiculous position — especially Pope, the
poet, who, on the score of the supposed great learning of
Shakespeare, has contributed not a little to the delusion concern-
ing him.

A writer in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia undertakes to give
us the history of his family ; from which I gather that John
Shakespeare, the father of William, was very poor and very
illiterate, notwithstanding what the ambitious commentators
may say to the contrary. So says Lardner, and he proves it
beyond dispute. The coat-of-anns and the heraldry obtained for
the family, afterwards, was procured by fraud : and was pro-
nounced discreditable to "the bard" who had a hand in it.
But the poverty of the family is nothing in this case, except to
show that William Shakespeare must necessarily have been an
uneducated boy. He grew up in ignorance and viciousness,
and became a common poacher — and the latter title, in literary
matters, he carried to his grave. He was not the mate of the
literary characters of the day, and no one knew it better than
himself. // is a fraud upon the world to thrust his surreptitious
fame upon us. He had none that was worthy of being trans-
mitted. The inquiry will be, 'icho ivere the able hterary men
7vho ivrote the dramas imputed to liitnp The plays themselves, or
rather a small portion of them, will live as long as English
literature is regarded worth pursuit. The authorship of the
plays is no otherwise material to us, than as a matter of curiosity
and to enable us to render exact justice ; but they shoutd not be
assigned to Shakespeare alone, if at all. From the Cabinet
Cyclopa'dia already referred to, conducted by the Rev. Dr.
Lardner, assisted by eminent IJterary and Scientific men, Vol.
n, London edition, 1837, we may gather many particulars
concerning this subject which I [Joseph C. Hart] have condensed
below.

The writer commences by observing that our ancient
Drama is, indeed, a rich mine ; but the dross outweights the ore
in the proportion of at least a thousand to one. A person may
dig long days before he discovers anything worth the trouble
■of picking up. Of the stage and dramatic writers immediately
preceding the appearance of Shakespeare, and cotemporaneously
with him, the writer observes : — The custom, indeed, of later
dramatists — Shakespeare among the rest — was to adopt old
pieces as the bases of their labors, to add or curtail, to condense
or expand, as might seem best suited to the time. The tragedy
of "Taucred and Gismund," which was exhibited ( 1568) before
Elizabeth, at the Inner Temple, was the first play in our
language founded on an Italian original : — a source soon to
become fruitful enough. It was taken from one of the
Boccaccio novels, and was the composition of fri^e different
persons. Another play, ^^ The Mis/ortunes 0/ Arthur," was
written by Thomas Hughes, and seven others persons, one of
whom was Lord Bacox. The ''Yorkshire Tragedy,'' some
critics have not hesitated to ascribe to Shakespeare, and also
many others which he probably never heard of even by name.
Two plays, notoriously not his, were published with his name on
Jhe title page in his lifetime, and no effort appears to have been
made on his part to set the matter right. It is evident that the
intellectual activity, so conspicuous in the latter half of the
sixteenth century, has never been surpassed. We ( the writer
continues ) have already alluded to fi/ty-t-ivo pieces, of which
no vestige now remains, unless the substance of them lives in
more recent productions : and these arose and fell in twelve
years viz. : from 1 568 to 1 580. That the later years were not less
prolitic, may be proved by the instances of Anthony Ml'ndav,
Henry Chettle, Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, George
Peele, and others, wrote innumerable dramas, though most
-of them have not come down to our days.

But the most striking illustration of this subject is afforded
by the fact that from 1591 to 1597, one hundred and ten new
pieces were performed, and that from 1597 to 1603, one hundred
and sixty more were added to the list. This places at least 270
manuscript plays in the absolute possession of the theatre at the
time Shakespeare was one of its managers, and the ozvner of its
"■properties."

We have now arrived (says the writer) at Shakespeare's
dramatic contemporaries — men who began to write before he did,
who not only lived at the same time, but divided with him the
attention of the play-going world.

Robert Greene is mentioned, who, at one time, was one of
ihe Queen's chaplains, and had taken the Master's degree at a

8

University. It was sufficient for the world to know that he was
a popular writer. In a letter which Greene wrote in his last
illness, in fact on his death-bed, to his boon-companions and
brother play-writers, or dramatists, as they were called, Marlowe,
Lodge, and Peele, appears the first authentic information we
have of Shakespeare's literary thievery. The youthful propen-
sity for stealing deer and game, which drove him from Stratford,
seems to have remained in the bone and ripened into a con-
lirmed habit. "To those gentlemen,' the letter of the dying
Greene begins, "his quondam acquaintance, that spend their wit
in making plays, Robert Greene wishes a better exercise.
Wonder not (for with thee will I first begin), thou famous
"gracer of tragedies, ' etc. This allusion is to Marlowe, "with
thee,'' continues Greene. "I join yo\xr\g Juvefia I (Lodge), that
biting satirist, that lastly with me together writ a comedy.
Might I advise thee,'' etc. The letter then proceeds, "And thou
no less deserving than the other two (Peele), in some things
rarer, in nothing inferior, driven (like myself) to extreme shifts,"
etc. — "Base minded men, all three of you, if by my misery ye
be not warned : for unto none of you, like me, sought those
burs to cleave — those puppets I mean, that speak from our
mouths, those antics garnished in our colors. Is it not strange
that I, to whom they all have been beholding, shall be left of
them at once forsaken? Yes, trust them not; for there is an
upstart croiv, beautified rvitJi our feathers, that M'ith his tiger's
heart wrapped in a player s hide, supposes he is as well able to
bombast out a blank verse as the best of you ! And, being an
absolute John Factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-
scene in a countr}-. Oh that I might entreat 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." By the "upstart crow, beau-
tified with our feathers," and "he is, in his own conceit, the
only Shake-scene in a country,'' a Mr. Tyrwhitt thinks (and
the facts prove it) Shakespeare is meant.

The commentator then proceeds: "But in what manner,
the inquisitive reader may inquire, was Shakespeare indebted
to Greene and his dramatic friends.-* To understand the subject
more clearly, we must observe, that in the beginning of his
(Shakespeare's) career, for years, indeed, after he became can'
nee ted with the stage, that extraordinary [.•*] man was satisfied with
reconstructing the pieces which others had composed ; he was
NOT the author but the adaitkr of them to the stage. Indeed, we
are of the opinion that the number of plays which he thu*
re-cast, as well as those in which he made very slight alterations^
is greater than any of his commentators have supposed."

"The second and third parts of Kingf Henry VI. were, we
all know, founded on two old pieces viz. : ' The hvo famous
Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, ' and ' TTie true Tragedie of
Richarde Duke of Yorke.' Hence the allusion of Greene has
been thought confirmatory of the suspicions that he or some of
his friends had written one, at least, of these tragedies ; and
that Shakespeare, more suo [and a manner peculiar to himself
it turns out to be], had adapted them to the stage. This may
very well have been the case ; and it is also probable that
Greene may aludc to another fable of his, which the bard of
Avon dramatised. 'The Winter's Tale' is entirely founded on
^ Pandosto, or the Triuimph of Time" which Greene published in
1588. Suthcient is the fact that the play scrupulously follows
the tale, so closely indeed, as to make Bohemia a maritime
country, and vessels to reach the capital.

"But this is not all: — Sixteen, at least, of the dramas
ascribed to Shakespeare, are, beyond all question, derived from
more ancient pieces !''

There were also '' Six Old Plays" in which Shakespeare
founded his Measure for Measure — Comedy of Errors — Taming
the Shrew — King John — King Henry IV. — King Henry V. — and
King Lear. They were afterward gathered into two volumes
and published in London in 177Q.

" Marlowe is positively said by Ch.\lmers to have written
^Tlie true Tragedy of Richard Duke of Yorke,' which Shakespeare
remodelled and transferred into one of the parts of Henry VI.
He may also have written (so says the commentator). The
History of Henry the Sixth and the whole contention between the
tivo famous houses, Lancaster and I'ork. All these were in
existence before Shakespeare began to write for the stage, and
his (Shakespeare's) additions are few. '

Thomas Kyd was the author of two plays, one called at first
"feronimo," and afterwards "7%^' Spanish Tragedy.' Some
additions were made to this play, after the author's death, by
no less a writer than Bex Jonson. " These additions were con-
sidered of greater value than the original. The fable of the trag-
edy is not founded in history: it is entirely a creation. A re-
semblance between this play and the i7awz/e/ attributed to Shakes-
peare has been discovered. In both, a ghost appears to urge
revenge on the procrastinating relative ; in both, there is a play
within a play. It shows that Shakespeare was not so much a
creator as is supposed. He was frequently satisfied with im-
proving the conceptions of others. Hensi.owe, as we find in
his old Diary, recently dug up from obscurity, paid the sum of
X. s. (probably for refreshments) to Drayton, Wilson, Munday
and Hathaway, the joint authors of the play of ''Sir John

10

Oldcastle" after its first performance. This play was printed as
one of Shakespeare's, and is the original of all the '^ Sir John
Falstaffs " improperly said to he the creations of Shakespeare.

There were four partners, as it appears, in the above play,
so pertinaciously claimed for Shakespeare from its " internal
evidence" upon which those, who have imposed the Shakes-
perian fraud upon us, always affect to rely. They know
Shakespeare by instinct* [^'^Sarkassum."']

Drayton, Chettlf, and Decker wrote the " Famous wars of
Henry I."

Ben Jonson and Decker wrote the " Page of Plymouth," for
which the very highest price of that day was given, namely
eleven pounds.

These facts I gather from Henslowe : and it appears from
another authority that Beaumont and Fletcher wrote in conjunc-
tion, or in partnership ; one furnishing the funds and the other
the brains [like Chancellor Livingston & Fulton towards the first
American steam navigation], this was the taste of the age. Dur-
ing the last thirteen years of Elizabeth's reign, and during all
that of James I., partnerships of two, three, or four, and even
five writers, in the same dramatic piece, were more common
than single labors of the kind. One authority asserts that Shakes-
peare wrote in that way. It is very likely. We can easily dis-
cover the part he wrote by its filth. By that mark you may
invariably know where his hand has been at work.

Cartwright, who wrote thirty years after Shakespeare's
death, is the only early writer who has said anything of Shakes-
peare's peculiar cjuality ; that quality for which alone he is cel-
ebrated, namely, vulgarity and "obscene wit." Here is the

*[" Horace & Aristophanes! are fitting ushers for Moliere, 7vho is the
greatest of all 'ivr iters of conudy, holding his 07i<n by the side <?/" SHAKESPEARE
even. For the dramatist of to-day Moliere is a sounder example than
Shakespeare, as the theatre of our time has broken away from the tradi-
tions of Shakespeare, while it has been developed along the line which
Moliere traced. Before they can be acted now, Shakespeare's plays require
rearranging to an extent not suspected by those who have not compared the latest
acting edition with the author's text ; but Moliere's comedies call only for a
cutor two here and there, and not always even for this. ^^^No doubt Shakes-
peare 'iuas as adroit in stage-craft as any man of his age; but the best stage-
craft of his age is now outworn.'©?^ Between the age of Elizabeth and that of
Louis XIV. the technicalities of play-making — technicalities which are of
vital import when the conditions of the theatre are considered — were im-
proved rapidly, and with Moliere's help stage-craft was so far elaborated
that the " Precieuses Ridicules'''' and •' Tartufe^^ may still serve as models
for the comic dramatist, whereas the comedy of Shakespeare is a most
unsafe guide for the poet of the present who wishes to see his play
performed." Page 317 "77/^ Forum^'' for November, 1887, Art. IX.,
" Books that helped me," by Brander Matthews.]

II

only true and tangible record of Shakespeare's character, as an
author extant, written by one almost his contemporary :

*' Shakespeare, whose best jest lies
r the lady's questions and the fool's replies;
Whose wit our nicer times would obsceneness call,
And which made the bawdry pass for comical.'''

The whole literary history of Shakespeare is thus written,
without compression, in four lines.

George Peele was one of the persons to whom (ireene ad-
dressed his impressive farewell letter. "And thou, no less de-
serving than the other two " (Marlowe and Lodge). He took
his degree at Oxford in 1577. He is the author of "The famous
Chronick History of King Edward the First," which Shakespeare
is supposed to have borrowed "wore suo." He also wrote
"The Old Wives' Tale," from which Milton borrowed his
^^ Conius.' Nash calls Peele an "Atlas in poetry;" and Thomas
Campbell says of him that " we may justly cherish the memory
of Peele as the oldest genuine dramatic poet of our language."

Henry Chettle died in 16 10. He was concerned in 38 plays
•within the short space of seven years.

Thomas Lodge, who died in 1626, was a voluminous writer.
He is the "Juvenal '* to whom Green refers in his letter. Lodge
deserves to be known and remembered from the fact that one
of his works, "Rosalinde," was pirated by Shakespeare, and
forms the basis of ".i4s You Like It.' It is more than likely that
it is the same play.

The facts above stated will serve to illustrate the state of
the Drama when the commentators suppose Shakespeare to have
flourished as a writer. There were ample materials, certainly,
for a person of the very moderate talents he possessed, and the
pirating propensity he evinced, to luxurate in. They will also
account for the circumstance, that puzzles all his biographers,
namely, that he should have left no record of his literary labors.
With many of these dramatic cotemporaries around him, I sup-
pose it would have been dangerous to claim their labors as his
own which afterwards were attributed to him.

"The indifference of cotemporaries, and even the generations
after the death (observes one commentator), to the perso7ial his-
tory of Shakespeare, has often been matter of astonishment
Nobody, indeed, so much as cared for the knowledge. Sir
William Dugdale, a native of Coventry, about twenty miles from
Stratford upon Avon, who published the antiquities of Warwick-
shire, thirty years only after the poet's death, and who might
have seen a score of persons once familiar with him, did not
trouble himself to make a single enquiry on the subject. Ful-
ler was equally careless. Edward Phillips, author of ''Theatrum
Poetarum," just condescends to mention such a man. Lang-
baine and Blount and Gildon copy their predecessors. Anthony

i Wood, one of the most industrious writers England ever pro'
duced, who was born fourteen years after Shakespeare's decease,
and who lived within thirty-six miles of the place where so much
information might have been obtained, has not a syllable about
the dramatist, though he found room for many other writers who
never saw Oxford. Even Shakespeare's family might have been
consulted. In short, there never was a person of whom more
might /uive bee?t, of whom so little was collected, until the
attempt was vain. Whence arose this indifference ? " Had the
editor •who furnished the foregoing extract, recurred to his own
writings, immediately before him, he might easily have found
the reason for the indifference he complains of. He has told
up pretty satisfactorily where nearly all the Shakespeare (not
Shakspeare's) plays came from originally, and it is hardly to be
expected that a man Avho merely adapted other people's works
to ihe playing stage, like a Theatrical Factotum, as Greene calls
him (and he was nothing else), is worthy of any further
remembrance than such fact would warrant. He has shown us
conclusively that he scarcely deserves the name oi author. But
the lame answer of this editor, insulting to the intelligence of
the age about which he writes, is as follows: "The causes of
this neglect are obvious. The great body of readers are incapa-
ble of comprehending a master. " How would this writer rank
Bex Jonson. The great body of readers comprehended him then,
and comprehend ///;« now; and many, not without good reason,
suppose that he has no equal as a dramatic poet. But, perhaps,
the logical point of the above writer consists in a man's being a,
master only in proportion to the dithculty of understanding him.
It certainly has taken a hundred commentators to elucidate
Shakespeare, where scarcely one has been needed to tell us what
the undefiled English of Jonson means. V^ Even Milton
studied Jonsons style intently as the most perfect of any then
existing in the English language. "1^ The singular and perti-
nacious endeavors of Pope to work out a fictitious literary repu-
tation for Shakespeare by declaring that he must necessarily
have been well versed in classic lore, and citing the authors
which he must have read to produce some of his plays, is thus
summarily and conclusively disposed of by the writer in Lard-
NER : "All this, he says, "shows what we did not expect to find
in Pope, namely, an almost entire ignorance of our early litera-
ture " — whence, in fact, the plays were mostly derived, some-
times without alteration or emendation. Byron, it appears,
regarded the Shakespeare mania as a sort of periodical epidemic ',

" To be, or not to be ! That is the question."
Says Shakespeare who Just new, is much in fashion !

13

Byron had not read Plato in the original, or he would
have substituted that philosopher's name for Shakespeare's,
perhaps.

' 'To speak the language of Shakspeare, '" is a common expres-
sion. That expression applied to Americans, was uttered by
one interested in England on the occasion of a public dinner
At which he was a guest. The words used were that the
"Americans speak the language of Shakespeare ; " intended,
doubtless, to convey the idea that we speak the English in its
purity. But under favor, he did us great injustice, and heaped
upon us an egregious wrong; for who ever speaks the language
which Shakespeare used, speaks in the language of the Five
Points, or of the obscene Fish Women of England. * If however,
he had said that Americans speak the language of "Rare Ben
Jonson" he would have given us the idea of perfect pruity of
style and elegance of diction. Ben never descended from the
high position of a true poet, except perhaps to utter some invec-
tive like the following. Hear him. in the most poetical and
indignant words, while he speaks of the stolen wares of his vul-
gar cotemporary from Stratford :

" I can approve
The state of poesy, such as it is,

* After reading a great deal lately about Shakespeare, any one having
a common-sense mathematical mind must arrive at the conviction that there
was no more possibility of the generally accepted Shakespeare ever having
existed than there is of making a silk purse out of the auricular appendage
of a female meml)er of tlu* porcine genus. After gathering together quite
a little library on the sul>ject, nothing is found to convince tiie student
that Bacon, aiofu; was Sliakespeare, but an immense amount to prove that
the Sliakespeare accepted by most people, never wrote what has been attrib-
uted to him. Just in the same way that Burns, even at tlie end of his life,
could not write King's Englisii but always Scotch-English, even so it was
impossible for an uneducatetl young nuin to come up from Warvvickshire,
a country where a rude dialect wiis spoken, and at once compose a poem
in the clioicest English of the time which he dedicated to an English Lord ;
wlio, in return for his poetry, j)resented the author with ;^i,ooo equivalent
iit this day to ten or twelve times that amount. The whole thing is assertion
without proofs and to a candid mind, superlative "Bosh," supremely
ridiculous. If Lord Southampton did give Shakesjieare such an enormous
sum, it is more likely it was as a brokerage or reward for the kind of
services alluded to by Appleton Morgan in his '* The Shakespearian Myth,"
Page 273. And soon throughout the narration of Simkespeare's life and
doings. Almost every statement except that he was born, lived and died is
without proof. One more consideration excites the question : Would you
reader, would any educated man, possessed of property, ha\ing a position
in society sufficient to entitle you to the possession of a coat of-arms, granted
to you, — which certainly presupposes some superiority — would such a per-
son allow his children to grow up in such gross ignorance as not to be able
even to sign their names. Shakespeare himself, with all his alleged ability
as a writer nevertheless signed in several (5 ?) different ways— if he ever
sijrned anvthine at all. Does it stand to reason ?

14

Blessed, eternal, and most true divine :
Indeed, if you will look on poesy,
As she appears in many, poor and lame,
Patch'd up in remnants and old worn out rags.
Half starved for want of her peculiar food.
Sacred Invention; then I must confirm
Both your conceit and censure of her merit."
* * ♦ *

Nor is it any blemish to her fame,

That such lean, ignorant, and blasted wits.

Such brainless gulls, should utter their stolen wares.

With such applauses in our vulgar ears ;

Or that their slubbered lines have current pass,

From the fat judgments of the multitude ; —

But that this barren and infected age

Should set no difference twixt these empty spirits.

And a true poet : — than which reverend name

Nothing can more adorn humanity.

O, rare Ben Jonson ! Can anyone doubt that "Big Ben"
["Honest Ben," Drydens " Father Ben "] meant Shakspeare,
that smallest of poetasters, in these his forcible and manly cen-
sures .'' The greatest dramatic poet of England, speaking of the
meanest and the least: "Of Shakespeare's moral character we
know nothing," says the commentator, and then shortly informs
us that he kept a mistress in London. In fact he never went
back but twice to Stratford to see his wife (Anne Hathaway,
who was eight years older than himself), whom he married
when he was eighteen. The same writer then asks the follow-
ing question — to which he applies an answer of unquestionable
truth : — "But is there nothing in the works of this celebrated
man to justify the suspicion of immorality.'* Who ever has
looked into the original editions of his dramas, will be disgusted
with the obscenity of his allusions. They absolulely teem 7vith
the grossest impurities — jnore gross by far than can be found in
any cotemporary dramatist:' Another writer says, and with
equal truth, that Shakespeare's obscenity exceeds that of all the
dramatists that existed before him, and cotemporaneously with
him ; and he might have included all that ever came after him.
This was the secret of his success with the play-goers. The
plays he purchased or obtained surreptitiously, which became
his "property," and which are now called his, were never set
upon the stage in their original state. They were just spiced
with obscenity, blackguardism and impurities, before they were
produced ; and this business he voluntarily assumed and faith-
fully did he perform his share of the management in that respect.
It brought money to the house. No wonder the " Lord Mayor
and the Citizens " wished to " avoid " the play-house in which
he was concerned.

15

Whalley speaks of Shakespeare's ^'remarkable modesty.''
But GiFFORD, the best critic England ever had, observes, "wg
shall he at a loss to discover it. "

"His offensive metaphors and allusions, " says Steevens,
"are undoubtedly more frequent than those oi all his predeces-
sors or cotemporaries. "

His profanity is thus noticed by Gifford — "He is, in
truth, the Coryphoeus of profanation. "

"All his sonnets are licentious," says another, and quotes
the libidinous lines to his mistress. Many of the plays attributed
by the moderns to Shakespeare were acted at a rival Theatre of
which old Henslowe was treasurer or proprietor. A most
singular discovery of facts, tending positively to disprove the
authorship of Shakespeare to several of the dramas imputed to
him, is found in Henslowe's Diary. It was discovered but a
few years ago (1845), and is now in possession of the Shakes-
peare Society of London, but is the property of Dulwich college.
The orthography of Henslowe is exceedingly "cramp" — but it
is sufficient evidence to be brought into court. Its date runs
from 1 59 1 to 1609. The name of Shakespeare is not mentioned
therein while those of nearly all the writers of mark of that day
are repeatedly spoken of. I have extracted several passages
from it.

" If Shakespeare,' observes the commentator in Lardner,
"had little of what the world calls learning, he had less of
invention, so far as regards the fables of his plays. For every
one of them he was indebted ta a preceding piece."

1. The Two Gentlemen of Verona. — The writer of this play
is indebted for many of its incidents to two works, the Arcadia
q/" Sidney, and the Diana 0/ Monte may or, the latter work trans-
lated into English during the latter part of the i6th century. By
some commentators this drama is held not to be Shakespeare's.
The commentator adds, "we should by no means contend that
he wrote the whole, or even the greater part of this drama.
During the earlier years of his professional career, he rather
improved the inventions of others than invented himself. It
was easier for him to remodel old pieces, than to write new ones.
Hence the reproach of Greene that he was beautified by the
feathers of others. "

2. The Comedy of Errors. — Whoever wrote this play was
indebted to the Mencechmi of Plautus, which was translated
into English some years before Shakespeare left Stratford. Yet
whether Shakespeare (if he is the author) was immediately
indebted to it, or to a Comedy founded upon it, entitled the
" History of Error, " and performed before Queen Elizabeth in
1576, is doubtful. It is supposed he did no more than slightly

retouch the old Comedy ; and some commentators reject the
play as being Shakespeares altogether. ' ' He retouched it " says
one "probably at the request of the manager!" This commen-
tator has hit the fact exactly, not only in regard to this play but
to all the others attributed to him, except perhaps one, "The
Merry Wives of Windsor,' which is probably Shakespeare's
from its obscene "internal evidence. ' In a note at the bottom
of the page where some of the above facts are stated, the
following words appear :

" Six old plays, on which Shakespeare founded his Measure
for Measure, Comedy of Errors, Taniing the ShrciV, King Jolm,
King Henry IV., King Henry V., King Lear.'

3. Love's Labor Lost. — ' ' We read of an old play of Holof ernes,
acted before the Princess Elizabeth as early as 1556; and on
this the comedy before us was based. In fact there is no one
drama of our author prior to 1600, perhaps not one after that
year, that was not derived from some other play ! '" " During
the earlier years of his dramatic career he did little more than
alter a piece that had become obsolete."

4. The Merchant of J^enice. — "This play was derived partly
from the Pecorone of (jiqvaxxi Fiorentixo ; partly from the
Gesta Romaxorum, an old English ballad, and Marlowe's /«:«; of
Malfa. In Gosson's School of Abuse, published as early as 1579,
there is a distinct allusion to a play containing the characteristic
incidents in this Merchant of Venice.

5. A Midsummer N'ight's Dream. — The fable of this play
is not now considered Shakespeare's. Mr. Tyrwhiit, supposes
one part of it to be taken from Pluto and Proserpina of Chaucer:
but Guy.y.'se'?, fimes the Fourth is doubtless the foundation of the
play ; and both Chaucer and Greene are supposed to have had
some common current legend of the day from which they
derived their materials.

6. The Taming of the Shrew. — This play is founded
entirely on an old comedy of the same name, inserted in the
published book of the "Six Old Plays," which existed before
the day of Shakespeare.

7. Romeo and Juliet. — The story of this play was first
related by a Novelist of Vicenza, as early as 1 535. It also formed
the subject of a novel of Bandello, printed in 1554. Bristkau, a
French novelist, soon gave it a French form ; and Brooke, in
1562, transferred it into English verse. Painter, also, in the
Palace of Pleasure, took his story of Rhomeo and Julietta from
the French, and not from the Italian novel. The writer of
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet followed Brooke, but availed
himself of some things from Painter. With all this knowledge
before one commentator, who is determined to hear nothing

17

^against the " genius" of " the bard," he says — " The genius of
Shakespeare cannot suffer from the fact that he borrowed the
foundation of all his plots. What others left unfinished, he
perfected : he turned the dross of others into fine gold. "I am
forced to the opinion that he, or the one who wrote the play in
question, took the gold itself ("wore sud"), without resort to
the process of transmutation by the crucible of his "genius."

8. As you Like It. — This play has no greater originality
than the preceding. It is taken from a novel of Thomas Lodgk,
QnixWed Rosalinde. The "crow in borrowed feathers," spoken
of by Greene, refers to this piracy as well as to others. ' ' Shakes-
peare," says Malone, " has followed Lodge's novel more exactly
than is his general custom. " "Whole sentences, besides the
plot, are taken from it."

9. Much Ado About Xothing. — The original is from Ariosto;
but Shakespeare knew nothing of Italian, and it is therefore to
be presumed that this play is written by some other hand. A
novel of Belkforest translated from Bandei.lo, contains the same
story of the play, and in default of a reference to these, the
Genevra of Tuberville could well furnish the material. The
story is an old one ; and dramatising a novel, using the material
freely, was as common a thing then as now. But who at this
day thinks of claiming credit, or laying claim to "genius" for
such paltry "literary fishery.'"

10. Hamlet. — With the exception of the grave-digger's
scene, inserted to catch the groundings, which may possibly be
the production of the "genius of Shakespeare," this play owes
its paternity elsewhere. The foundation of Hamlet is notor-
iously to be found in Saxo Grammaticus, which Shakespeare
could not read, notwithstanding Mr. Pope supposes he must
have been a great scholar. If he wrote Hamlet, Pope was
probably near the truth ; and it is upon the supposition that he
wrote all the plays attributed to him, that Pope says he must
have been conversant with the classics, familiar with Plautus,
Dares Phrygius, and Plutarch, and he might have added Plato.
What confiding men biographers and historians are, when they
have a favorite theory to carry out ! In addition to a printed
story called The Historie of Hamhlet then extant, there was a
play called Hamlet (acted as early as 1589) ; and another play
of Hamlet was also acted at a rival Theatre in London, in the
year 1594. at which old Henslowe was treasurer. His entry is
thus : — "Received at Hamlet viii s." "A poor night's receipts,
that ! Shakespeare probably got this play afterwards, and inserted
the grave-digger's scene to render it popular with the play-
goers. That was his vocation. At any rate the soliloquy of
"To BE, OR NOT TO BE," is a literal translation from Plato, and

judging from that and the deep philosophy of the whole piece
(always excepting the Shakespearian blot upon it), it must have
been the creation of an educated man, which Shakespeare was
NOT. It is probably a partnership concern. The only man of
that day, of poetical power sufficient to write the higher parts of
this tragedy, was Ben Joxson, the greatest Dramatic Poet
England ever produced. Langhorne, in his preface to Plutarch,
referring to the time of Shakespeare, says — "The celebrated
soliloquy 'To he, or not to he,' is taken almost verbatim from that
philosopher (Plato); yet we have never found that Plato was
translated in those times." Montaigne is the base of Hamlet.

11. The Merry Wives of Windsor. — If any play of the
whole catalogue is Shakespeare's, this comes nearest the mark.
The impress of his vulgar and impure mind is upon every page.
Tradition asserts that it was composed at the express command
of Queen Elizabeth, who "wished to see Falstaff in love." It
is probably, like all the other traditions relating to the "genius"
of Shakespeare, without foundation, except in the brain of his
admiring commentators. But he has no originality even in this
revolting piece of trash. The author was indebted to a transla-
tion of Pecorixo, and to Tarleton's News out of Purgatory, for
his plot and incidents ; and his Sir fohn Falstaff \s the Sir John
Oldcastle of Drayton, Wilson^ Munday and Hathaw.\y.

12. Triolus and Cressida. — Whoever wrote this play took
the plot and materials from the Italian, and from Chaucer, and
from Lydgate's Boke of Troye. The authorship is settled by an
entry in Henslowe's Diary on the 7th of April, 1599, in these
words: '' Lent unto Thomas Downton, to lende unto Mr. Dickers
and Harrey Cheatell, in earneste of their boockes called Troydes
and Creassedaye, the some of iij li." [This, if his, is one of
Shakespeare's best pieces of work.]

13. Measure for Measure. — Founded on and taken from
Whetstone's play of Promos and Cassandra, one of the Six Old
Plays already referred to.

14. Othello. — Was derived entirely from the Italian of one
of Ci.NTHio's novels : but Shakespeare knew nothing of Italian,
even the translation could not be his, independent of the structure
of the play. A French translation appeared in 1584 ; but of the
French Shakespeare was as ignorant as of the Italian.

1 5. King Lear. — The story of Lear is drawn from Geofferv
OF Monmouth ; but the play is one of the Six Old Plays, to
which something was contributed by way of amendment, per-
haps, from the Arcadia, and the Mirror of Magistrates. Hens-
lowe had the play at his Theatre, as is evident from an entry in
his book : "8th of April, 1594, received at King lea re XXVI S."
It is therefore not Shakespeare's — for he had no interest in the

19

rival play-house, and Henslowe must have owned the play as
his " property."

1 6. Al/'s Well tliat Ends Well. — May be found in Boccaccio.
In Painter's Palace of Pleasure the story is called Giletta of
Narbon. This play may have been among the "properties"
of the Theatre to which Shakespeare was attached, upon the
suppression of that drarnatic nuisance, by the Lord "Mayor and
citizens." The only wonder is that Betterton and Rowe, in
getting up their " Sliakespeare Speculation," did not give us a
second series of a like number of plays while they were about
it, and call them new discoveries. Who does not remember the
''Shakespeare forgeries" of Ireland, which deceived the very
elect — !

17. Macbeih. — The incidents of the story, founded on
Scottish history, are all in Hector Boece! "but of Hector, observes
one critic, "Shakespeare knew as much as he did of Hesiod."
Could he read Hesoid, think you } The writer of the play prob-
ably consulted Hollinshed for a guide. Buchanan thought
the subject a fit one for the stage, and some of the "Wits" of
the day took his hint and produced it. Part of this play is bor-
rowed from MiDDLETONS production entitled The Witch. So
says Steevens, or rather he says the "bard of Avon" was not
the originator.

18. Twelfth Night. — Derived remotely from the Italian of
Bandello and more immediately from Beli.eforest : and partly
from The Historic of Appolonius and Silla, a tale in the collec-
tion of Barnaby Riche.

19. Jtditis Ccesar. — From Plutarch, inacessible to Shakes-
peare's "genius." He could not read it in the original, nor in
the French translation of it by Amiot. The Earl of Striling had
already written a tragedy of that title. The Julius Caesar
attributed to Shakespeare is undoubtedly the following, as
noticed by old Henslowe, the theatrical treasurer: " 22d of
May, 1602, lent unto the companye to geve unto Antoney
Monday and Mikell Drayton, Webster, Mydleton and the rest,
in earneste of a Boocke called st'sers Falle, the some of V li."
It is possible that Shakespeare's managers purchased this play
and set it upon their stage.

20. Atitonv and Cleopatra. — The foundation of this play is
derived from the same sources as Julius Caesar — namely, the
classic historians. There were two tragedies in being when the
above was produced, one c^Wed Antony, by Lady Pexbroke, and
the other Cleopatra, by Daniel. Both Daniel and her ladyship
were indebted to a translation of Gamier, whose tragedy had
great celebrity. The writer of Antony and Cleopatra, is greatly
indebted to all three of the above-named authors.

20

21. Cymheline. — This play is derived from three sources,
a novel of Boccaccio, an English tale called Westward for Smells,
and Geoffery's British Chronicle. The common remark of the
commentators; when a poor thing turns up, which is to be Shakes-
peare's, is a stereotype phrase. Here is one : "Cymbeline is a
poor drama, and perhaps one that Shakespeare did not compose,
but merely improved.'" Very likely.

2 2. Tinion of Athens. — The commentator says this play is
of the "same stamp" as the foregoing. It was certainly
indebted to a former tragedy of the name, never printed, but
well known in MS. The incidents are taken from Painter's
Palace of Pleasure, and Plutarch."

23. Coriolanus. — This play is also derived from Plutarch.
It is therefore none of Shakespeare's — not because it was
derived from Plutarch, but because it must have been written
by some writer of classic mind and education, who could look
into the original. // is as far beyond Shakespeare's powers as
Hamlet, fl^" Shakespeare was a vulgar and unlettered man — or
his commentators and biographers belie him in their facts. What
they suppose is another thing.

24. The Winter Tale. — The paternity of this play belongs
to Robert Greene ; the obscenity to Shakespeare. The commen-
tator, seeing that the play is unworthy of a passing thought,
except unmitigated contempt, says "it is unworthy of Shakes-
peare's genius. '" He is wrong there, it smells of his "genius"
all over. "The substance of it, ' he continues, "must have
appeared in some earlier drama. "

25. The Tempest. — Founded on an Italian novel ; and on
Robert Greene's ^//>//o;isf/5. The commentator says "there is
more invention in this piece than in any other that Shakespeare
has left us." Doubtless — but Shakespeare was no inventor, nor did
he write this piece, though he may have had it among his
"properties,"

26. King John. — Founded on a former play of that name,
and, in fact, written by Rowley. If it ever was the "property"
of Shakespeare, he paid the usual fee for it, to wit from 5 to 10/.
"It is founded on one of the six old plays " of that name.

27. Richard 11. — There was a play of this title, which is
referred to by Camden, long prior to the time of Shakespeare.
The commentator gives this play up also, thus: "probably
Shakespeare did no time more than alter the one already in
possession of the stage. This supposition is confirmed by
internal evidence. It is decidedly inferior to some of his other
historical plays ; and the manner seems to be different." As to
"manner," all of the series may be said to differ from each
other; they were all written by different hands.

21

28. Henry IV. — "The two parts of Henry IV, were cer-
tainly founded on preceding dramas : the old play of The

famous Victories of King Henry V., which appeared in 1519,
furnished one author with many of his characters and incidents
and secondly the play of Sir John Oldcastle." Thus much for
the confession of the critic. Fuller says, " Stage poets have
been very bold with, and others very sorry at the memory of
Sir John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a boon companion,
a jovial royster, and a coward to boot. The best is. Sir John
Falstaff has relieved the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of
late is substituted buffoon in his place. " The play of Sir John Old-
castle, referred to before, was printed and claimed as one of
Shakespeare's, with as much pertinacity as the rest ; but was
withdrawn and given up to the owners, Drayton and company,
notwithstanding the "internal evidence of Shakespeare's
genius," with which it was thought to be imbued. Let Falstaff
change his name to Oldcastle, and he is no longer Shakespeare's.
Oh, those "Six Old Plays! " "Sir John Oldcastle" ceased to receive
encomium, as soon as it ceased to be claimed for Shakespeare.

29. King Henry V. — Founded, by universal concession,
on preceding dramas with the same title. Nash refers to one
as early as 1592, well known on the stage, which had been
represented prior to 1588. In 1594 was another — "probably the
same," several others appeared afterwards. In the " Six Old
Plays ' there is a drama with the same title, " probably the
one to which Nash alluded." Henslowe records having
" received at hary the V.," several sums of considerable amount,
on its representation at his theatre. That fact alone is (luite
sufficient to show that it was none of Shakespeare's.

30. A'ing Henry VI. — "The three parts of King Henry VI,
were assuredly not the work of Shakespeare, though he
retouched all of them, except perhaps the tirst,' so says his
commentator. They were founded on the old dramas of the
"■First part of the contention of the two Houses of I'orke and
Lancaster ;" and the " True Tragedy of Richard Duke of Fork,
and the Death of goed King Henry the Sixth. " The former of
these old dramas was printed in 1594, and the latter in 1595, but
both were represented long before. To Greene, Peele and
Marlowe, their authorship is attributed. Hence Greene's
expressions, on his dying bed, already referred to, in his letter
to Marlowe, Lodge and Peele, of "upstart crow beautified
with our feathers "' and a parodied quotation from the First Part
of the Contention of the two Houses, " O tiger's heart, wrapt in a
players hide I"' Shakespeare had used their plays probably
without paying for them, " more suo," and they still form part of
Shakespeare's list of plays ; at least his editors print them as such.

22

31. J^ing- Richard III. — This great drama, one that has
kept the stage longest and with the greatest poi)ularity, seems to
be given up without a struggle, notwithstanding the "internal
evidence.'' " Here, " the commentator says, " Shakespeare had
also prior dramas * before him, some of them are enumerated in
the last edition of Malone by Boswell: and a mutilated copy of
one, zvhtch our draviafist had certainly in view, is printed in the
19th volume of that laborious work." Henslowe has this entry
in his diary: '^ Lent unto benjanty /ohnsone, in earneste of a
Boocke called Richard Crookbnke, ajid for new odicyons for
feronyme, the sum of X li."

It should be remembered, however, that the playing copy
of Richard, now used, is greatly altered from the original. All
the most striking arid beautiful passages are the work of modern
hands. Garrick first undertook to remodel it, and several pro-
fessional hands have since been at work at it. Indeed this is
the case with all the "Shakespeare " acting dramas. The
originals, with their obsolete and obscene defects and blemishes,
would not be tolerated for a moment upon the present English
or American stage. 9^ The authors that wrote them originally,
could not, by any possibility, recognize them in the present
text.^t

32, King Henry VIII. — It has heretofore been believed,
upon pretty good grounds, that Rowley was the author of this
play, or at least furnished the foundation and material for its
construction. The title of his drama is TJie Famous Chronicle
History of King Henry the Eighth. Rowley was cotemporary with

* ' ' The True Traf^edie of Richard, Duke of Yorke, and the Death of good
King Henrie the Sixth. "With the whole contention betweene tlie two
Houses of Lancaster and Yorke As it was sundrie times acted by the Right
Honourable, the Eari.e of Pembroke, his Servants."

" Printed at London, by P. S. for Thomas Mh.lington, and are to be
sold at his Shoppe, under Saint Peter's Church, in Cornwal, 1595.

"This is in Duodecimo. It is, in the eyes of Collectors, invaluable.
Mr. Chalmers purchased it for something more than six pounds, at the sale
of Dr Pegge's books: but if it were now exposed to sale, it would not
improbably produce fifty.

"Mr. Chalmers iti his Supplemental Apology, has produced some most
extraordinary and convincing proofs, that Shakespeare copied much of this {his)
play from one of Marlow' s on the same subject. I shall only produce two lines,
and refer the curious reader, for other particulars, toMrChalmer's volume,
above referred to, p 293 et. seq.

"Marlow. Glos. "What! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
Sink into the ground, I had thought it would have mounted."

Shakkspeark. Glos. " What ! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
Sink in the ground, I thought it would have mounted"

Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books by the Rev William Beloe^
Translator of Herodotus, &c., In two Volumes, Vol I. London, 1807, pages
364-5-

23

"Shakespeare, but, recently, a partnership with Rowley in its
authorship has been discovered. Henslowes Diary has the
following entry : "J/Zf Jttnc, 1601. Lent «wA>Samweli. Rowlye
to pay same unto marye CHETTELL,yor writtinge the Boocke ofCarnall
Woheye lyfe the stim XX s." The inference is irresistible, that
Shakespeare is as innocent of the production of this play, as of
those which are more plumply denied because they are
" unworthy of his genius." It is idle to speculate in the face of
such positive testimony. He was the mere "factotum" of a
theatre — a copyist for the prompter — and an arranger of the
parts with the cues copied out for the actors : a very responsible
and laborious station, certainly — but it does not make an
author nor give him any title to the authorship of the pieces he
sets upon the stage.

^■^ . Pericles. — The ' 'bard's" chronicler says that ' 'Pericles is
certainly not the offspring of Shakespeare's genius. No inge-
nuity can show that there is the least affinity between the
mind which produced it and that of our author. It would
disgrace even the third rate dramatist of Shakespeare's age."
[The dirt in some of Shakespeare's dramas is simply atrocious.
Without attempting to specify scenes it is glaring in the Two
Gentlemen 0/ Verona ; wherever Falstaff cum suis is introduced ;
in Measure for Measure ; in Lear, Hamlet, Timon 0/ Athens,
Troilus and Crcssida ; even in Romeo and Juliet, but is most
-atrocious in Pericles. There is no need however of dwelling
further upon this subject. The refined reader is often startled
that even a rude age should have tolerated such Aristophanic
nastiness. ]

This is no proof one way or the other. But the denial of his
chronicles would seem to establish the fact, if assertion goes for
anything, that it was absolutely Shakespeare's, except that
Shakespeare does not come up to the level of a third rate
dramatist of any age. When his admirer asserts that a play
belongs absolutely to Shakespeare, he finds himself negatived by
positive proof: and it is fair to presume if there is the usual
"internal evidence" of blackguardism in Pericles, it is Shakes-
peare's or at least that part, which is thus marked, is his.

34. Titui^ Andronicus. — The same remarks precisely, both
of chronicler and underwriter, as above given, apply here.
This play, however, like that of Pericles, continues to be
presented as Shakespeare's, and is claimed for Shakespeare. The
following entries, however, in the books of the rival Theatre or
rather in old Henslowe's diary, settle the question as to its not
being Shakespeare's " 1594 "at several dates, ''received at titus
Mnd ondronicus, 3I. 8s. ; — 2 1. ; — XX xi is ; — 7s. " [The drift of this play
is for the most part simply brutal without redeeming beauties.]

?4

The audiences must have been slim in those days ! Verily
that "speculation" of Rowe and Betiertgn has been the cause
of mighty contention among the learned commentators of this
age. How much good Christian ink has been spent in writing
up a worthless subject, I mean Shakespeare in person, and
how much scholarship and research have been exhausted to
furnish the means of sending him to "quod!" The question put
into the mouth of Lady Bettys waiting maid in High Life
below Stairs, " Who wrote Shakespeare?" was laughed at, as a
good theatrical joke, some years ago ; but, when it is new asked,
there is ' ' not so vuich laughi?ig as formerly. " And the theatrical
pleasantry of playing one of Shakespeare's plays without
speaking a word from Shakespeare, was actually carried out by
John Kemble, who, in setting Hamlet upon the stage, left out the
grave-digger's scene [which in some respects, if not in all, may
be due to Lord Vere] as unworthy of the play ; and thus the
play was played, and well played too, doubtless, without a
word being uttered from Shakespeare — for that scene is all that
is his. Upon the same principle that the Shakespeare series of
plays selected by Rowe and Bettertox are called Shakespeare's,
might we call the rare old tracts and papers of the Harleian
Miscellany, the Earl of Oxford's, because they were found in
his library, and some of them copied in his handwriting. If
they had been buried a century or two, he certainly would have
been their author with the commentators of the calibre of those,
generally, who have written upon Shakespeare.

About a century hence, when our old Metropolitan Theatre
of the Park [on Park Row] shall be turned into a brewery of
beer, or a huge manufactory of some future Solomon's Balm of
Gilead, or some life-preserving Panacea of an unborn Swaim,
those who come after us may find its "properties" barrelled
up and stowed away in some lumber garret Then will some
"speculating Rowe and Betterton " gloat over the tons of plays
and operas that have been acted in our day, and the chirography
of our industrious and respectable Mr. Peter Richixgs (*) will be
recognized, in perhaps an hundred plays prepared by him for
the prompter ; and perhaps the music of a score of operas
copied in his own handwriting, will be found as well. Then

* One of the smartest and most genial stage managers and most versa-
tile, favorite, popular actors and warl>lers and ''general utility" members of a
company whom the New York stage has ever known. The writer remembers
him well and knows the high appreciation felt for him by the select and
critical audiences of the preceding generation. Few could set or control
a company upon the stage, with more discretion or effect, better than he.
He is ever present like a speaking picture to the memory, especially in
parts requiring silent humor or digni^ed fun.

25

will the forgotten play-writers of our day have a resurrection
and Mr. Richings an uncoveted immortality.

Mozart and Rossini, too, sunk perhaps in the night of the
intervening age, will tome forth anew, and the handwriting of
that useful attache of the Park, will be enquired about, and
identified after long and indefatigable research. The operas
and the manuscript plays will be his by the same token, and that
"internal evidence "" (the handwriting), will be the proof by
which to test the identity and authorship of all those cotem-
porary productions.

Richings ! — Your fate is posthumous fame, by this process
— And even little Oliffe, the keeper of the" property room"
and player of all the big soldier parts, will have a glorious run
for immortality !

Here ends Hart !

From * Page 2 to * * 25 is quoted from "The || Romance of
Yachting : || Voyage the First. " || By Joseph C. Hart, || Author of
"Miriam Cotlfin," &c., || New York, || Harper & Brothers, Pub-
lishers, II 82 Cliff Street, || 1848. Pages 209 to 243. The remarks
or sentences, etc., between [ ] and notes are by J. W. de P.
The Ninth Edition of the Encyclopu'dia Britannica concedes that
Harts book was "first work containing doubt of Shakespeare's
Authorship," and here let it be remarked that the whole
article on Shakespeare in the Encylopu'dia Britannica is what
might be termed sensational or, perhaps more properly, emo-
tional— gush — certainly not biography or trustworthy authority:
and such also to as great a degree, although to less extent as to
power of influencing opinion, is the article in Pierre Larousse's
French Universal Lexicon of the XIX century. The editor,
so often grandly independent, in this case appears to pin his
faith on the opinion of Victor Hugo, who may in some respects-
be termed a genius but is often what calm or cold Anglo-Saxon
minds consider as verging on the charlatan, realizing the expres-
sion of Napoleon that " there is but one step from the sublime to
the ridiculous. "

Even in regard to the Portraits of Shakespeare, we have
nothing that is trustworthy. If Jonson's eulogistic lines were
written to go with Shakespeare's portrait to which they are
appended, — then the reputed likeness represents "as stu-
pified, stultified, and insignificant a human countenance as was
ever put upon an engraver's surface, " — /. e. , paper — and those lines
stamp the poet as a miserable perverter of the truth, positively
mendacious. Such lines and such a portrait do not belong to-
each other. The probability is that Jonson wrote the lines for an
entirely different portrait, that of another man — and they were

26

altered to suit the case of Shakespeare ''/or a consideration. " What
is more, comparing the favorable verses, which Jonson is said to
have written in regard to Shakespeare, with the vast aggregate
that it is well-known, he wrote adversely to him, honest criti-
cism is placed in the dilemma, either to grasp one horn of it and
believe that Honest Ben was Dishonest Ben and wrote pro or con
with a hireling pen, or else that other parties stole or otherwise
appropriated Jonson's praises of some other poet and used, or
rather Misused them, to assist or insure the sale of the works
attributed to Shakespeare. Moliere has been highly lauded for
his wholesale appropriation of the wit and wisdom of others
and justified on his plea, that " he took his own {i.e.: stole what
suited him) wherever he found it." This is all very good as
regards the effect upon the public — its gratification ; but it cer-
tainly does not go far to establish the original genius or
•even the honesty of a writer who, like Moliere, omits
quotation marks and references to the authors from whom
he purloined gems of thought. However tasty and astonishing
the setting may be, gems derive no intrinsic value from
the jewelry work around them. Take them out of the
metal and they will sell just the same as when set and they
are often taken out and weighed before sold — and therefore
an honest man qualifies a collection of brilliant thoughts
from others, "as an Anthology" or else gives it some
other title which does not carry with it the idea that it is the
offspring of the editor or compiler's own brain. An honest
critic should truly be invested with the legs of one of the Wading
tribes of birds to venture into the shallows of the idolatrous
twaddle of the usual commentators on Shakespeare and to have
a very broad spread of toes to avoid sinking into the thin mud
of their brains. Or, else the critic should belong to the tribe of
Divers, to plunge down into the depths of the abstractions and
imaginations of what are termed Shakespearian scholarship, to
pull up, like the Canvas-backs, the wild celery on which such birds
fatten ; too often to be robbed of it by the more sagacious
Red-heads, who quietly remain on the surface in the full light of
the sun (of Truth) to snatch the pabulum acquired with such
difficulty and then digest it for their own immediate benefit and
the future pleasure of the many. While there are so many wild
probabilities and possibilities and babble and manufactured
testimony and even traditions, of the same kidney and respect-
ability as the PsEUDO-IsmoRE Decretals * on which and more

* See Dr. Theodore Griesinger's "Mysteries of the Vatican," London,
Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1864, Vol. I., Chapter i. "Development of the Papal
Idea," Chapter, n. "The Papacy in its glory," — Pseudo-Isidore — Pages,
159-164.

27

-such, the Papal Church founds its false claims — yes, while Shakes-
pearian scholars have little or nothing whereon to found their
visionary creations, there are plenty of facts to prove incontest-
ably where Shakespeare found his Hippocrene ; (Fountain of the
Muses) viz: in the brains, real geniuses, of such rara' aves as Plato,
Plutarch, Bacon, Montaigne, Sidney (from whom Shakespeare
is said to have derived his inspiration), while he ladled up or
received into his bowl the clear and invigorating liquid, in so
doing he unfortunately either scooped up some of the sand or
weeds at the bottom or added dirt to it afterwards.

Rogniat, one of the most philosophical of military writers,
commenting on the character of the most successful generals
who have shown extraordinary ability in various directions,
says that the genius of the greatest men is always very limited
and their success is due to the happy employment of two or
three new ideas exactly applicable to the circumstances of the
time. If such be the case with generals, how much more
is it to be the fact in regard to every other class of eminent men.
Superiority in war is often a matter of simple intuition. It is
not so in any one of the lines of superiority attributed to
Shakespeare. Poujoulat justly remarks, that "circumstances are
as indispensable to the development and success of genius as the
wind for the sails of a vessel. Genius has to be supported
and even pushed to fulfill its complete destiny." TTiis very
striking remark is exactly applicable to the case of Shakespeare.
To be what his admirers and the multitude deluded by them,
believe him to have been, needed all the support and impulse
of circumstances which did not exist in his case, and, in his time,
could not have existed. There is a vulgar expression but very
forcible which exactly expresses the truth with regard to the
psuedo "bard of Avon,'' whose is a "cooked up" reputation.
If ever there was a manufactured greatness it is his. It belongs to
the class of all successful fanaticisms and bigotries. They are not
of mushroom growth but of develo])ment. Like the Papacy once,
however, that they have taken hold of a faction or the multitude,
it would seem that reason and truth have little or no effect in
shaking the delusion. The "veiled Prophet of Khorassan," even
when he reveals his real hideousness still finds believers.

"There ye wise Saints, behold your Light, your Star,—
Ye -ti'outd be dupes and victims, and ye are."
" And they beh"e\e him ! — No, the lover may
Distrust that look which steals his soul away; —
The babe may cease to think that it can play
With Heaven's rainbow;— alchemists may doubt
The shinintj gold their crucible gives out;
But Faith, f ami tic Faith, ona- wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last. ' '

28

Therp are some kinds of delusion that can be instantly
detected by scientific tests, while they, equally apparent to the-
adept, cannot always be reached by the touch-stone of truthful
demonstration. Some are not worth the labor of disillusioniza-
tion. The frauds and assumptions of the Papacy have lasted over
one thousand years in full force and Mahomedanism almost as
long. Any one who will read that remarkable pamj)hlet of —
Andrew Dickson White, President of Cornell University, "The
Warfare of Science" will be convinced that Truth has a harder
fight for acceptation than Error, particularly if the latter is more
acceptable to the masses. Considering the shortness of human
life, it requires the faith of the true believer to find consolation
in the promise of the New Testament, that the truth will sooner
or later be made manifest. In the writer's very extensive and
valuable Library, in the compartment assigned to "Precious
Stones," is a work not as old as the 7nyth of Shakespeare which
states that "a diamond can be dissolved in goat's blood." This
assertion had been repeated as a fact in successive treatises, as
an acknowledged fact, when the first sceptic, who should try the
experiment could have discovered the falsity. For centuries it
was believed that goblets of Venetian glass and cups made out
of rhinocerous horn would, by splintering, reveal the presence
of poison. Neither of these assertions like that in regard to the
diamond, could have stood the test of actual honest expeiiment
How many centuries were people convinced that the Salamander
could exist amid flames and rather enjoy such a fiery residence.
When the naturalist threw an unhappy Salamander into the fire
he found that the miserable reptile perished at once like any
other organization exposed to such a trial. Quite a voluminous
work was devoted to the correction of "Popular Errors." The
reputation of the mythical Shakespeare can no more continue to
exist under the fiery ordeal of common sense than the Sala-
mander invested with fabulous properties can continue to live in
actual fire.

Before medicine and surgery became an exact science, it
was asserted that "an headache could be cured by kissing a
pretty girl. " In view of the innumerable headaches common
in consequence of indiscretions and debauches, it is no wonder
that caustic irony observes that "it is difficult to improve on
some such old fashioned remedies." It is doubtful if even
Solomon or Sardanapalus in the possession of their hundreds of
beauties ever had a headache, consequent upon an orgie, cured
by kissing a dozen pretty girls. This pleasant remedy is about
as true as the senseless idea that the Shakespeare of common
acceptation could have existed except through a miraculous gift
of understanding such as was bestowed upon Solomon.

29

In the course of this world's story there have been a few
individuals to whom has been ascribed the title of "Universal
(ieniuses/' Among these two stand preeminent. Of one,
formerly the subject of almost universal belief, "/Ae admirable
Crichton," his very existence is almost disproved. It is, at best,
most questionable even in a comparatively small degree. Of the
other, Pico della MiRANDOLA,it is now known that his abilities, how-
ever great, even if great at all, were only astonishing for his time,
whereas those of the reputed Shakespeare "are for all time."
There have been in/ant prodigies but none of them survived
to become great men.

"So wise, so young, did ne'er live long "
"Early Springjs make short Sunnners "

If Shakespeare was a youthful prodigy, he outlived the
ordinary length of his generation, a period of defective hygiene
and of little medical science. Nevertheless he lived to be 52 and
died of one of those "wEi-comba/s which his admirers have kindly
transmuted into " wir-to/wAa/s." Magliabecchi and Mezzokanti
were what men esteem miracles of knowledge but they were
only such in particular lines and both of them had passed the
7vho/e term of Shakespeares life before their knowledge was
developed seriatim — i. e., according to the laws which govern
such development as theirs. In fact they were examples of the
absolute proof that " There is so Royal Road to Learning.''
because their increment in knowledge was gradual and they
acquired their strength progressively — vires acquirit eundof

In conclusion to change the line of argument; how is it
possible for the idolaters of Shakespeare to explain why the
charge of ^ ^literary theft,'* under so many different shapes, can
be explained away in face of the fact that what is claimed for
him as original is to be found in the works of so many authors
who wrote in English and preceded him. In the works reputed
to belong to Shakespeare, are Thoughts almost actually, textually,
taken from Chaucer, Sidney, Lord Vere, notably the grave-
digger's song in "Hamlet" — Beaumont and Fletcher, — the
witches' incantation in Macbeth, Montaigne, Bacon, Marlowe ;
also a number of others which are all mentioned and proved by
critical investigation. To fanatic admirers it would perhaps be
utterly useless to accumulate the direct and circumstantial evi-
idence of facts and of common sense, for it is not likely they
would listen even if one arose from the dead to testify against

* Read carefully || "The Shakespearean Myth" || "William Shakes-
peare II and circumstantial Evidence" II By Appleton Morgan, A.M. LL.B.
II Cincinnati || Robert Clarke & Co., 1881, || also "The || Authorship of
Shakespeare" || by Nathaniel Holmes, Hurd & Houghton, \\ New York.
1886.

30

their idol. They would even then attribute his testimony tcf
"envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness," if they did
not assign it to the domain of utter ignorance or falsehood.
These few pages which might be swelled into hundreds, must
draw to a close with almost a repetition of the incontrovertible
axioms with which they commenced : First: it would be difficult
to "exactly tell" what any writer actually penned whose works
have undergone so much patching, overhauling, improvement
and glosses as those assigned to William Shakespeare. Take
the original of the most famous monologue "To bk or not Ta
BE." It was originally almost a rough log which different planes
have smoothed and other tools have subsequently polished. In
this and many other cases the "divine (sic. ) William" would not
know the work attributed to him. * How much belongs to
Socrates, how much to Plato, how much to Montaigne and how
much to somebody else unknown and how much to Shakes-
peare.'' "that no feller can lind out." But stronger than all such
reasoning is the opposition of the imputed, almost boundless-
knowledge of Shakespeare and his circumstances, coupled with
the conceded, inexorable fact "There is no Royal Road to learn-
ing." Again, when the jews carried away by their astonishment
at the vast capacity and doctrines of the Divine Exemplar they
asked the reasonable question "How knoweth this man letters,
having never learned .■'" For the real Shakespeare to have been
the suppositious Shakespeare would involve an extra exertion of
nature, and nature never wastes force, nor would it perform a
miracle, almost without parallel, simply in favor of a play-actor
or manager certainly among the least valuable or beneficial
constituents of this worlds economy or machinery.

There is an all sufficient answer and complete explanation
in regard to the Divine Exemplar. The Teacher was Divinity. Novf
it is hardly possible that the wildest enthusiast for the reputation
of the Warwickshire "Ale tester's son, play-actor and manager
would dare to claim for him (Shakespeare) the gift which God
VOUCHSAFED TO SoLOMON or the POSITIVE INSPIRATION and undwelUng
of Divinity.

♦Seepage "Shakespeare and Montaigne; il and endeavor to

explain the tendency of "Hamlet" from allusions || in contemporary
works. II By Jacob Feis, II London: |l Kegan, Paul, Trencii & Co., Pater-
noster Square II 1884.

Appended to, and constituting part of an attractive little work " Shakespeare's
Insomnia, and the Causes Thereof," bv Franklin H. Head, Boston and New York,
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1887, are a nutiiber of letters printed from copies furnished by
the British Museum, purporting to have been written to, not by, Shakespeare. Without
questioning the authenticity of these but judging from what the Shakespearians style
'• inttrnal evidence" i. e. style, etc., — the writer feels without seeing the originals — , that
they were all written by the' same person.

31

A BIOGRArillCAL SKETCH,

By Richard Grant Whitk,

Uh fanatico per la Dramina " ed il Genio di Shakespeare cunstitutes an
article on the "Divine (sic.) William" in Johnson's New Universal Cyclo-
pcedia, andastlie Doctor was limited in space, liis work may be considered a
concrete of all that a "yawaZ/Vt?" knew on the subject. To analize iiis life-lonj^
studies, he commences by '* supposinj^'' the date of Shakespeare's birth and
except as to his parents' names, their actual position in society is to a great
degree surmise "Of Shakespeare's early life until he married, we ktiont/
nothing,^'' White observes, adding, "// is probable,'^ as to his education,
occupation, his mode of living, etc. His wife unquestionably received
very little attention while he lived and less consideration in his will. After
Shakespeare made his way to London, "ere long we find him engaged as an
actor and as a playwright!" This became his profession. On the stage, he
made no figure, tilling "minor parts" and was rated no higher than an actor
with "a position of what is known as 'general utility'." White conceded
tiiat the various comi)anies of players kept "several playwrights in their
l)ay, who, working together, produced new plays and patched ujxild ones;"
that there is good reason for believing that Shakespeare wrote " in con-
Junction with Marlowe, Greene, I'eele and others;" that Greene character-
ized Shakespeare as a "pretentious plagiarist;" and that the "divine (sic.J
William" was "facetious," which White asserts meant "skilful and of a del-
icate fancy and 'of wt)rship' " significant "of social rank andconsideiation"
This is sheer assumption and reminds a close historical student of the
various applications of "gloriosus''^ in connection with Kothwell,- not the
evU-genius but the victim of .Mary .Stuart. According to the enemies of the
great Earl, who, great tlirough his genius and graces was a white crow
among the flock of biaek ones, the Scottish i\oh\\\iy—b/ack in every sense,
morals and mode of life— Glorisus signified " vain-glorious or boastful;"
whereas friends and neutrals applied it in speaking of Hothwell, in its

a fitting epithet to her heroes." How aptly the panegyrist can cunningly
wist a term: " facetious" a man of worship! ! !

Of the assertion that Lord Southampton gave Shakespeare "^^i.ccx),
quite equal to $30,000 in this day and country (the United States), White
adds "the story is probable." // is most improbable. That nobleman wa»
not in circumstances to make such a donation, unless the insinuation of
Appleton Morgan is accepted; that the "divine {sic.) William" served his
patron in a way which would now be accepted as a stigma, namely for
services which have made one of the most prominent characters of Shakes-
peare's "wisest play" — if his — Trolius and Cressida, known by an epithet
to which the prototype feelingly alludes in the concluding lines of the
drama. White further on observes that his prodigy "produced his plays
only in the way of business," and is honest enough to concede that his
Sonnets "remain a literary puzzle to this day" and "although inferior to the
plays, they are far superior to the other poems," and yet it is asserted,
that for two of the latter, one Venus and Adonis, "the first heir of his inven-
tion," Lord Southampton, bestowed upon him a small fortune. All these
"probabilities" not only do not amount to possibility but indubitably da
not even approach the boundaries of fact. White, even amid his supreme
admiration, his "blind worship," acknowledges that Shakespeare had a
share only in a number of the dramas attributed to him and that in almost
all the best known, another mind or other minds must share the credit, ex-
hibiting the " the marks of another hand."

32

"Iri this [White's] order of production" [of the plays attributed to him
Shakespeare] "we see evidence that although Shakespeare was a miracle,
like the sun and the stars in their daily rising and setting, his mind devel-
oped and his power grew like that of any ordinary mortal." It has been
stated as a fact, in the foregoing pages, that nature never wastes its forces
and would never have performed a miracle to create a "theatrical factotum"
at a time when playactors were regarded as vagabonds, tramps. But,
conceding Shakespeare was a miracle of intuitive force, such a gift would
not have conferred knowledge or science, the inevitable result of study
and opportunities which latter did not then exist. It almost seems ridicu-
lous to talk about the writings of any man when "not a line of his has come
down to us— not even a word, except his own signature." Is it a matter of
possibility or probability that if Shakespeare wrote so well in every sense
of the word and such a vast amount, that no manuscript of his, good, bad
or indifferent, has been preserved, when the writings of so many men of
far lesser note, conceding any greatness to Shakespeare, should not only
exist but abound. Finally general opinion concurs in the correctness of
the story that Shakespeare lost his life through a fever brought on by one
of those drinking-bouts or WET-combats — which his blind worshippers insist
were «//V-combats-- which, the wet-combats, were so common in his day
and generation.

It" any writer devoid of bias and free from prejudice, possessed of
sufficient means and pleasant manners and with ample means and proper
introductions, with leisure and power of investigation and analysis, and
master of a clear and agreeable style, would go to England and examine
every source of licit information and authority, and then communicate
nothing else but facts to the world, then, indeed, those interested in the
subject, might have something worthy the title of a biography of Shakes-
peare and a history of his doings, sayings and compositions. As it is, the
actuality of the Shakespearian story holds the same proportion to legend or
tradition, sentiment or gush, probability or possibility, buncombe or high-
for-Newtonism, that FalstafTs half-penny worth of bread did to the two gal-
lons of sack, the capon and sauce, the anchovies and the sack, after a sup-
per, costing IDS. lod. — which led Prince Henry to exclaim "Oii monstrous I
but one half-penny worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack" /. e.
sherry (?) wine. The superstition which elevates Shakespeare into a philo-
sophical god is preposterous.

Articles published in United Servict Magazine (equal in matter to lamo. volumes): Torstenson and
the Battle of Janikau, July, 1879 '■> Joshua and the Battle of Beth-horon — Did the Sun and Moon
stand still? February, 1880; Hannibal, July, 1880; Gustavus Adolphus, Sept., 18S0 ; Cavalry,
I., Sept., 1880 ; Cavalry, II., Nov., 1880 ; Cavalry, III., Dec, 18S0; Army Catastrophes — Desttuc-
tion of Pharaoh and his host ; how accomplished, &c., &c. February, 1881. — Hannibal's Army of
Italy, Mar., 1881 ; Hannibal's Last Campaign, May, 1881 ; Infantry, I., June, 1881 ; Infantry, II.,
Aug., 1881 ; Battle of Eutaw Springs, 1781, Sept., i83i ; Siege of Yorktown, 1781, Nov. 1881 ;
Infantry, III, April, 1882; Waterloo, July, 1882; Vindication of James Hepburn, Earl of Both-
well, Sept., 1882, Oct., 1882 ; From the Rapidan to Appomattox Court House, July, 1883.— Curgoyne's
Campaign, July-Oct., 1777, and Appendix, Oct., 188 -j. — Life and Achievementsof Field-Marshal Gene-
ralissimo Suworrow, November-December, 1883. — Biographical Sketch of Maj.-Gen. Andrew Atkinson
Humphreys, U. S. A., March 1884.— Addres.s, Maj.-Gen. A. A. Humphreys, before the Third Army
Corps Union, 5th May, 1884. Character and Services of Maj.-Gen. A. A. Humphreys, U. S. A.,
Manhattan, N. V., Monthly Magazine, August, 1884.

Suggestions which laid the basis for the present admirable Paid Fire Department in the City of New
York, in which, as well as in the Organization of the present Municipal Police of New York
City, Gen. de Peyster was a co-laborer with the Hon. Jas. W. Gerard, and G. W. Matsell, for
which latter Dep-irtment he caused to be prepared and presented a Fire Escape, a model of sim-
plicity and inestimable utility. Republished in the AVw York Historical Magaain*. Supple-
ment, Vol. IX., 1G65. John G. Shea, Editor and Proprietor.

The Pearl of Pearls, or the "Wild Brunswicker" and his "Queen of Hearts :" a novel, founded on
facts. J865.— Mary Stuart : a Study. 1883 ; James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell : a Vindication,
1883; Bothwell and Mary Stuart: an Enquiry and a Justification. 1883.— Bothwell, an Historical
Drama, 1884. — The Life and Military Servces of Sir John Johnson, Bart. 1883. — Notices and Corre-
spondence of Col. A. S. de Peyster and Brig.-Gen. Sir John Johnson, Bart., during and after the
American Revolution, 1776, &c. 1884.

State Sovereignty. 1861. — Life and Services of the great Russian Field-Marshal Suworrow. 1883. —
La Royale, the Grand Hunt [or Last Campaign ol the Army of the Potomac], Nos. I., II., III.,
IV., v., VI., 1872 ; VII., 1873; VIII., 1871.— Battles of Fredericksburg, Chancel lorsville and Get-
tysburg, in Onward^ a monthly. i86)-7o. — And Gettysburg and Williamsport, in the Solditri*
Friend, a weekly, 1870.— Col. J. Watts de Peyster, Jr., U. S. V., A Threnody. 1874.— Sir John
Johns6n, Bart. : An Address delivered before the N. V. Historical Society, 6th Jan., 1880, with
two voluminous Appendices of Authorities.

Centennial Sketches of the American Revolution, which appeared in the N. Y. Timet, and especially in
the N. Y. Evening Mail, and Mail »nd Express. 1776-82. — Decisive Conflicts of the late Civil War
or " Slaveholders' Rebellion :" I. Shiloh, Antietam, Ac, 1867 ; II. Murfreesboro to Chattanooga, &c.,
i866 ; III. Gettysburg, 1S67 ; IV. Nashville, 1875. — Biographical notices of Major-Generals Philip
Schuyler — Address delivered before the N. Y. Historical Society, ad Jan., 1877 ; Geo. H. Thomas,
Gikewise two Addresses delivered on the .same subject before the N. Y. Historical Society, 5th Jan.
1875, and Jan. 1876); also, of Bancroft, Burnside, Crawford, Heintzleman, Hooker. Humphreys,
McAllister, Mahone, Meade, Edwards Pierrepont, Pleasanton, Sickles, Tremaine, &c., &c.

The B.ittlcs of Monmouth and Capture of Stony Point : a series of voluminous and exhaustive articles
published in the Monmouth Enquirer, N. J., 1879. — Eclaireur (The), A Military Journal, Vols.
II. and III., edited 1854-5.

History of the Third Corps, Army of the Potomac, 1861-65. This title, although not technically, is vir-
tually correct, for in a series of elaborate articles in dailies, weeklies, monthlies, monographs, ad-
dresses, &c., everything relating to this Corps, even to smallest details, from 1861 to 1865, was pre-
pared with care, and put in print. These articles appeared in the Citizen, and the Citizen and
Round Table: in Foley's Volunteer, and Soldiers' and Sailors' Hal/~Dime Tales 0/ the late
Rebellion: in Mayne Reid's magazine Onward: in Chaplain Bourne's Soldiers' Friend: in "La Royale
or Grand Hunt [or the Last Campaign] 0/ the Army o/tke Potomae, from Petersburg to Appomat-
tox Court House, April 2-j. 1S65," illustrated with engraved likenesses of several of the prominent
Generals belonging to the corps, and careful maps and plans ; in the life of Major-General Philip
Kearny ; in the "Third Corps at Gettysburg ; General Sickles Vindicated" ♦ ♦ Vol. I., Nos. xi.,
xii., xiii. The Volunteer ; in a Speech delivered before the Third Army Corps Union, 5th May,
187J profusely illustrated with portraits of Generals who commanded, or belonged to that organiza-
tion, &c. These arranged and condensed would constitute a work of five or six volumes 8vo.,
such as those prepared by Prof. John W. Draper, entitled the "Civil War in America," but were
never given as bound volumes to the public, because the expense was so great that the author,
who merely writes for credit and amusement, was unwilling to assume the larger outlay, in addition
to what he had already expended on the purchase of authorities, clerk-hire, printing, &c., &c.

M\\\ ^iVatto rtc deniotcv, ^i. \^.

; X. y. S. I

Uistnct, M,
-lit i;5 N. \ . M..IC I.
*■ :. Mt S. N, v., in Km

:ii organization "f ;,
ent with I'ire F,-.

: ; Brevet M

' t. 'oncinTer^i

Supplementar> 1. t if Publications

■'leu of tiic Revoluniinar- : j With likcui-ss ci.

■ , ,,- :,,.->; correct by Wayne"s(it'scii. ;,.;.: .\f<if/.isiiit; nr' Ainen'rn .,.
'/■</, Fcin-uary, 180(1.

iiv Wsnne, Vlajor-lTcneral, Third Gcncralin-Chii-i : ip l jMi.ii

. >" Annv. Witii likciK-ss endorsed as most conecl by Wayne's <l(—

lants. (Matter dilferenl from, and uddilioaal to, tliat published ii-

M.ujiizlne of Aii(£rii'(tii, ffis/on/.) United Stu'cice Mdfj'iizine, Marcii. 18Si''.

Anthony Wavne. >fajor-Oene>--d, Tliird Gk-neral in Chief of the Uiuted

--:,•.-' \v; " ■ \: r tile Constitulit)n. (.Matt«'r dilTereni.

ii. ; at in previous sketclies alrea<lv men-

' = • and Marshall Colh'ge ! •■■'":)-i.' ,

. neral U. S. Volunteer-.
V Jf,if/(izi/ir, >Iareli. lf<y}
(leneral, U. S. V., Bri
keness and plans, .Ma(/<r
■uiat matter). (October, IS^

1. U. 8. v., Chief (tf biail,
and Chief of Kncineeis,
! rttiKiMi and Marshall Coile,i?e, Lan

, :i. \ new and important consideration^

,-,i, .\..s ■' •■'-! DecemlKT, \^^**

■ue, "The'i .///Vy,^»/v.,y'.). '^'

■ in.t--tcr I ul]iture ;illi! Im:

Mcfiicis.

^ler, PeniJ-

imous |)i

■. d Addn— .
■cietv of N

Tic II li..

With ^^

M195475

11 4(1

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
BERKELEY

Return to desk from which borrowed.
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

2Nov'48||W
2;Dec'48Rp2

UBRARfUSK

WAY 2 9 1957

REC'D t.D

MAY 29 1967

Ku 10 1962

LD 21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476

il

k