Bacon and Shakespeare 18

Bacon and Shakespeare 18

Dr. N. H. Hudson, in his _Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Character_,

has on the Baconian theory four things to say:--1. Bacon’s requital of

the Earl’s bounty (the Earl of Essex) was such a piece of ingratitude

as I can hardly conceive the author of _King Lear_ to have been guilty

of. 2. The author of Shakespeare’s plays, whatever he may have been,

certainly was not a scholar. He had certainly something far better than

learning, but he had not that. 3. Shakespeare never philosophises.

Bacon never does anything else. 4. Bacon’s mind, great as it was,

might have been cut out of Shakespeare’s without being missed.

 

But if, in the absence of anything bearing an even remote resemblance

to proof, we find ourselves compelled to make a synopsis of expert

opinion on the subject, we shall find no man’s conclusions more

deserving of respect and acceptance than those of the late James

Spedding. Without intending to cast any reflection upon the critics

and others who have plunged with ebullient enthusiasm into this

controversy, it may not be out of place to point out that Spedding is

head and shoulders above all disputants in knowledge, and second to

none in critical ability. His knowledge of Shakespeare was intimate

and profound, and he knew his Bacon more thoroughly than it has been

the lot of any other man of letters to be known by his fellow man. He

gave up his position in the Colonial Office, and declined the position

of Under-Secretary of State, with £2,000 a year, in order to devote

his whole time to the study of the life and works of Lord Bacon--a

task which occupied him for nearly thirty years. Sir Henry Taylor, in

a letter to a friend in 1861, wrote as follows:--“I have been reading

Spedding’s _Life and Letters of Lord Bacon_ with profound interest

and admiration--admiration not of the perfect style and penetrating

judgment only, but also of the extraordinary labours bestowed upon

the works by a lazy man; the labour of some twenty years, I believe,

spent in rummaging among old records in all places they were to be

found, and collating different copies of manuscripts written in the

handwriting of the 16th century, and noting the minutest variations of

one from another--an inexpressibly tedious kind of drudgery, and, what

was, perhaps, still worse, searching far and wide, waiting, watching,

peering, prying through long years for records which no industry could

recover. I doubt whether there be any other example in literary history

of so large an intellect as Spedding’s devoting itself, with so much

self-sacrifice, to the illustration of one which was larger still, and

doing so out of reverence, not so much for that largest intellect,

as for the truth concerning it.” Sir Henry Taylor, in this passage,

not only does justice to the diligence and genius of the author, but

recognises the spirit in which the work was undertaken. Spedding spent

thirty years in quest of the truth concerning this remarkable man,

and having discovered it, he was prepared to maintain his conclusions

with all the power of his knowledge and commanding intelligence. These

qualities he exercised with paralysing effect against Lord Macaulay’s

_Essay on Bacon_. It has been claimed by one champion of Shakespeare’s

cause that Macaulay’s “well-known depth of research, comprehensive

grasp of facts and details, and his calm method of presenting honest

conclusions, renders him pre-eminent as a safe authority.” The exact

opposite is, of course, the case, but the possession of these very

qualities are revealed by Spedding in his _Evenings with a Reviewer_,

to the utter spoliation of a great number of Macaulay’s cherished

calculations and conclusions. “No more conscientious, no more sagacious

critic,” according to G. S. Venables, “has employed in a not unworthy

task the labour of his life,” and the same writer has also declared

that “the historical and biographical conclusions which he (Spedding)

established depend on an exhaustive accumulation of evidence arranged

and interpreted by the clearest of intellects, with an honesty which

is rarely known in controversial discussion.” Spedding is, in brief,

universally acknowledged to be not only the greatest authority on

Bacon, but also of the times in which he lived. His acquaintance

with Elizabethan literature, its history, and its manuscripts was

unique--he was, it may be said without fear of contradiction, a master

of his period. “His knowledge of Shakespeare,” says Venables, in the

prefatory notice to _Evenings with a Reviewer_, “was extensive and

profound, and his laborious and subtle criticism derived additional

value from his love of the stage.” The opinion of such an authority on

such a subject as the authorship of plays attributed to Shakespeare is,

in default of proof to the contrary, of the highest possible value--to

a close student of Spedding it must appear incontrovertible.

 

Spedding’s article on the question, which is included in the volume of

_Reviews and Discussions_ (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1879) was written

in reply to Professor Nathaniel Holmes’ treatise on _The Authorship

of Shakespeare_. In his opening sentence, he says, “I have read your

book ... faithfully to the end, and if my report of the result is to

be equally faithful, I must declare myself not only unconvinced, but

undisturbed.”

 

He is instant and decisive with his reasons. “To ask me,” he continues,

“to believe that a man who was famous for a variety of other

accomplishments, whose life was divided between public business, the

practice of a laborious profession, and private study of the art of

investigating the material laws of nature--a man of large acquaintance,

of note from early manhood, and one of the busiest men of his time, but

who was never suspected of wasting his time in writing poetry, and is

not known to have written a single blank verse in all his life--that

this man was the author of fourteen comedies, ten historical plays, and

eleven tragedies, exhibiting the greatest, and the greatest variety,

of excellence that has been attained in that kind of composition, is

like asking me to believe that Lord Brougham was the author, not only

of Dickens’s novels, but of Thackeray’s also, and of Tennyson’s poems

besides.”

 

Spedding, himself a genius, finds no difficulty in appreciating

the quality of genius in Shakespeare. It was not scholarship, or

environment, or training that enabled William Shakespeare to become

the author of the most wonderful series of dramas in the world. Of

Shakespeare’s gifts, he frankly states the wonder is that any man

should have possessed them, not that the man to whose lot they fell

was the son of a poor man called John Shakespeare, and that he was

christened William. If Shakespeare was not trained as a scholar, or a

man of science, neither do the works attributed to him show traces of

trained scholarship or scientific education. Given the faculties (which

nature bestows as fully on the poor as on the rich) you will find that

the required knowledge, art and dexterity which the Shakespearean

plays imply, were easily attainable by a man who was labouring in his

vocation, and had nothing else to do.”

 

[Illustration: ANN HATHAWAY’S COTTAGE AT SHOTTERY.]

 

What Spedding failed to grasp was the difficulty which the Baconians

find in believing that Shakespeare was as likely to be the author of

the plays as any other man of his generation. In endeavouring to solve

the extraordinary difficulty of the old theory of the authorship of

the plays by substituting a new one, they have only made confusion

worse confounded. “That which is extraordinary in the case,” Spedding

maintains, “is that any man should possess such a combination of

faculties as must have met in the author of these plays. But that is

a difficulty which cannot be avoided. There must have been _somebody_

in whom the requisite combination of faculties did meet, for there

the plays are; and by supposing that this somebody was a man who, at

the same time possessed a combination of other faculties, themselves

sufficient to make him an extraordinary man too, you do not diminish

the wonder, but increase it.... That a human being possessed of

the faculties necessary to make a Shakespeare should exist, is

extraordinary. That a human being possessed of the faculties

necessary to make a Bacon should exist, is extraordinary. That two

such human beings should have been living in London at the same time

was more extraordinary still. But that one man should have existed

possessing the faculties and opportunities necessary to make both,

would have been the most extraordinary thing of all.”

 

It may be contended, and with justice, that in the foregoing we have

arguments that did not require the special knowledge and experience of

a Spedding to prefer. It may not be, it probably is not, regarded by

Baconians as serious argument, and, as Mr. R. M. Theobald would say, it

would be simply a waste of time and words to discuss it. Certain is it

that none of the pro-Bacon writers realise the necessity of answering,

and, if possible, contravening these simple arguments. It is difficult

to find any satisfactory reason for their reticence. But whether it is

that they question the value of the views of the greatest student of

Bacon on this subject, or are ignorant of his essay, or--what is more

likely--are unable to combat so plausible a view coming from so eminent

an authority, the fact remains that Spedding’s opinion is consistently

disregarded.

 

It is not, however, that part of his argument which we have quoted,

but the part which follows which carries conviction to those who are

familiar with the work both of Bacon and of Spedding. The resemblances

in thought and language, which are to be found in Shakespeare and

Bacon, are accepted by Spedding as inevitable between writers nourished

upon a common literature, employing a common language, and influenced

by a common atmosphere of knowledge and opinion. “But to me,” he

declares, “I confess, the resemblances between Shakespeare and Bacon

are not so striking as their differences. Strange as it seems that two

such minds, both so vocal, should have existed within each other’s

hearing without mutually affecting each other, I find so few traces of

any influence exercised by Shakespeare upon Bacon, that I have great

doubt whether Bacon knew any more about him than Gladstone (probably)

knew about Tom Taylor (in his dramatic capacity). Shakespeare may have

derived a good deal from Bacon. He had, no doubt, read the _Advancement

of Learning_ and the first edition of the _Essays_, and most likely

had frequently heard him speak in the Courts and in the Star Chamber.

But among all the parallelisms which you have collected with such

industry to illustrate the identity of the writer, I have not observed

one in which I should not have inferred, from the difference of style,

a difference of hand. Great writers, being contemporary, have many

features in common; but if they are really great writers, they write

naturally, and nature is always individual. I doubt whether there are

five lines together to be found in Bacon which could be mistaken for

Shakespeare, or five lines in Shakespeare which could be mistaken for

Bacon, by one who was familiar with their several styles, and practised

in such observations. I was myself well read in Shakespeare before I

began with Bacon, and I have been forced to cultivate what skill I have

in distinguishing Bacon’s style to a high degree; because in sifting

the genuine from the spurious, I had commonly nothing but the style

to guide me. And to me, if it were proved that any one of the plays

attributed to Shakespeare was really written by Bacon, not the least

extraordinary thing about it would be the power which it would show in

him of laying aside his individual peculiarities and assuming those of

a different man.”

 

There we have Spedding’s reasons for rejecting the Baconian theory--let

us summarise his conclusions in his own words: “If you had fixed upon

anybody else rather than Bacon as the true author,” he says--“anybody

of whom I knew nothing--I should have been scarcely less incredulous,

because I deny that a _prima facie_ case is made out for questioning

Shakespeare’s title. But if there were any reason for supposing that

somebody else was the real author, I think I am in a condition to say

that, whoever it was, it was not Bacon. The difficulties which such a

supposition would involve would be almost innumerable, and altogether

insurmountable. But,” he adds, “if what I have said does not excuse me

from saying more, what I might say more would be equally ineffectual.”

 

 

 

 

_Were Shakespeare and Bacon Acquainted?_

 

 

If we are to believe in the existence of the cipher, it follows as a

matter of course that Bacon and Shakespeare were acquainted. Nothing

is more probable. Bacon was at Court during the whole time that

Shakespeare’s plays were presented there. Bacon must at one period

have been acquainted with Shakespeare’s patron, Lord Southampton, who

was the bosom friend of Bacon’s patron, the Earl of Essex. Bacon was

certainly in touch with Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s friend and co-worker.

It is scarcely conceivable that the two most prominent figures in the

literary world of the day should have been unknown to one another,

although there is no authentic evidence to show that they were. In

_Shakespeare’s True Life_ (1890), Major James Walter publishes an

illustration of Bacon’s house at St. Margaret’s, Richmond, “where

Shakespeare was a frequent visitor.” “Twickenham,” says the writer,

“is a main connecting link with what is known of Shakespeare’s visits

to the neighbourhood; doubly interesting as clearly indicating his

intimacy with Bacon, then living at his house, only a short distance

on the other side of St. Margaret’s, in Twickenham Park.” Again, “It

was just shortly before this plague fright, Shakespeare and Bacon had

been jointly engaged in getting up one or more of his plays in Gray’s

Inn, and it comes with the saying they should be frequently together in

the eminently charming retreat just acquired by Bacon at the munificent

hand of Elizabeth’s Favourite (the Earl of Essex).” “Catholic

tradition,” the same authority assures us, “asserts that Bacon wrote

the first portion of his great essays under the cedars of Twickenham

Park; others go further, and say our information is that Shakespeare

and Bacon had a special fondness for the two old cedars, and spent

much time on occasions of Shakespeare’s visiting and resting with his

friend at Twickenham, in reading and converse under the shade of these

widespreading venerable trees.” In another part of the same book we

read: “Some families, whose past histories should afford information

bearing on Shakespeare’s life, assert that he met Spenser and Sir

Walter Raleigh on more than one occasion at Richmond, and that Bacon

was in the habit of receiving them together at his St. Margaret’s home.”