Bacon and Shakespeare 7

Bacon and Shakespeare 7

Mr. Theobald is scarcely complimentary to Shakespeare’s champions

in this controversy, but his language is positively libellous when

he refers to Shakespeare himself. His personality is “small and

insignificant;”--he is a “shrunken, sordid soul, fattening on beer, and

coin, and finding sweetness and content in the _stercorarium_ of his

Stratford homestead”--a “feeble, and funny, and most ridiculous mouse.”

Mr. Theobald almost argues himself not a Baconian by his assertion that

“no Baconian, so far as I know, seeks to help his cause by personal

abuse, or intolerant and wrathful speech.”

 

 

 

 

_Was Shakespeare the “Upstart Crow?”_

 

 

All that we can allege with any certainty about Shakespeare, between

1586 and 1602, is that he must have obtained employment at one or other

of the only two theatres existing in London at that time (The Theatre,

and The Curtain)--perhaps, as Malone has recorded, in the capacity of

call-boy--that he became an actor, was employed in polishing up the

stock-plays presented by the Company, and that _Love’s Labour’s Lost_

was produced in the Spring of 1591. Assuming that Shakespeare was

the author of this play--assuming, that is to say, that Ben Jonson,

John Heming, and Henry Condell were neither arrant fools, nor wilful

perjurers--it is evident that the “insignificant,” “shrunken, sordid

soul,” “this ridiculous mouse” had education, application, a natural

taste for the stage; and what is more--and more than Mr. Theobald can

comprehend--he had genius. Mr. Theobald does not arrive at any such

conclusion. Apart altogether from Mrs. Gallup’s cipher revelations,

he is convinced by another “flash of intuition” that Ben Jonson was

a fellow conspirator with Bacon in the ridiculous plot of foisting

Bacon’s plays upon the world as the work of Shakespeare, and that

Heming and Condell were but the tools of the disgraced Lord Chancellor.

 

But if Shakespeare was not advancing towards prosperity by the feasible

methods I have conjectured, how can Mr. Theobald account for his

ultimately emerging from the “depths of poverty” into a position of

comparative affluence? The explanation is simplicity itself: “If a

needy, and probably deserving vagabond” (page 11).--Why deserving?

He was a “shrunken, sordid soul” on page 7!--“dives into the abyss

of London life, lies _perdu_ for a few years, and then emerges as

a tolerably wealthy theatrical manager; you know that he must have

gained some mastery of theatrical business.” So far the inference

is legitimate and convincing; but how? Must he not have disclosed

exceptional ability as an actor or playwright, or--? listen to Mr.

Theobald!--“he must have made himself a useful man in the green room, a

skilful organiser of players and stage effects--he must have found out

how to govern a troop of actors, reconciling their rival egotisms, and

utilising their special gifts; how to cater for a capricious public,

and provide attractive entertainments. Anyhow, he would have little

time for other pursuits--if a student at all, his studies would be very

practical relating to matters of present or passing interest. _During

this dark period he has been carving his own fortune, filling his

pockets, not his mind; working for the present, not for the future. But

it was exactly then that the plays began to appear._”

 

Mr. Theobald’s argument can only be described as a reckless,

illogical, and absurd distortion of possibilities, and it is the more

inconsequential since it proceeds to defeat its primary object. In

the first place it is supremely ridiculous to assume that the paltry

services of Shakespeare in the green room and the carpenter’s shop,

secured for him his pecuniary interest in the Globe Theatre, or the

respect and friendship of the leading dramatists of his day, or even

the enmity of jealous rivals in the craft. Yet Mr. Theobald attempts

to substantiate his conclusions by distorting the obvious meaning of

Robt. Greene’s reference to Shakespeare in _A Groat’s Worth of Wit_.

Greene was not an actor, but a dramatist; he was a man of dissolute

habits, a poet of rare charm, but a playwright of only moderate ability

and repute. He was a gentleman by birth, and a scholar by training. He

had the lowest opinion of actors--he envied them their success, and

despised their avocation. In _The Return from Parnassus_ he betrays his

prejudice in the following lines, which are put into the mouth of a

poor and envious student:--

 

“England affords these glorious vagabonds,

That carried erst their fardels on their backs,

Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets,

Sweeping it in their glaring satin suits,

And pages to attend their masterships;

With mouthing words that better wits had framed,

They purchase lands, and now esquires are made.”

 

To the jaundiced mind of Robert Greene, the accumulation of means

by an actor was a crime in itself, but that a mere mummer should

dare to compete with the scholar and the poet in the composition of

plays--more, that he should write plays that exceeded in popularity

those of the superior person, the student--was a personal affront. On

his death-bed, in 1592, Greene found an outlet for his resentment in

writing an ill-natured farewell to life, in which he girded bitterly

at the new dramatist, whose early plays had already brought him into

public notice. He warns his three brother playwrights--Marlowe, Nash,

and Peele--against the “upstart crow, the only Shake-scene in the

country” who “supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse

as the best of you.” How it is possible to interpret these words to

mean that the “upstart crow” was not an author, “but only an actor

who pretended to be an author also,” the oldest inhabitant of Colney

Hatch and Mr. Theobald must decide between them. These anything but

“cryptic” words, as Mr. Theobald describes them, can have but one

interpretation, and that is the one their author intended. They do

not imply that Shakespeare, the “upstart crow,” is not the author of

the plays imputed to him, but that he considers his plays as good

as those of the older dramatists. His profession of authorship is

not questioned, but the quality of his work is savagely challenged.

Any other construction put upon the passage is sheer nonsense. Mr.

Theobald appeals to the “most gentle and gentlemanly critics” to be

patient and tolerant with the Baconians--“men as sound in judgment

and as well equipped in learning as yourselves”--but it is high time

that this kind of wilful misrepresentation and perversion of common

sense should be condemned in plain language. If Greene had believed

that Shakespeare was wearing feathers that did not rightfully belong

to him, if he were pretending to be what he really was not; if, in Mr.

Theobald’s confident explanation, he had no right to profess himself an

author at all, we may be quite certain that Greene would have said so

outright--he would not have adopted a “cryptic” style, and left it for

Mr. Theobald to decipher his meaning.

 

Mr. Theobald’s alternative theory that the word “Shake-scene” does

not refer to Shakespeare at all, is even more preposterous. “In 1592

‘Shakespeare’ did not exist at all, and only two or three of the

plays which subsequently appeared under this name could have been

written.” But those two or three plays included, as far as we can

tell, _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, and _The

Comedy of Errors_--plays of sufficient promise to secure any author

recognition as a poet and dramatist. If Mr. Theobald entertains

any serious doubts as to the identification of Shakespeare in the

“Shake-scene” of Greene, he may be advised to read the apology for

this attack which Henry Chettle, the publisher, prefixed to a tract

of Greene’s in the same year. “I am as sorry,” Chettle wrote, “as if

the originall fault had been my fault, because myselfe have seene his

(_i.e._, Shakespeare’s) demeanour no lesse civill than he (is) exelent

in the qualitie he professes, besides divers of worship have reported

his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty and his facetious

grace in writing that aprooves his art.”

 

[Illustration: St. MICHAEL’S CHURCH.

 

Extract from the Will of Lord Bacon.

 

“For my burial I desire it may be in St. Michael’s Church, near St.

Albans; there was my Mother buried, and it is the only Christian Church

within the walls of Old Verulam.

 

“For my name and memory I leave it to men’s charitable speeches, and to

foreign nations, and the next ages.”]

 

This apology put forth by Henry Chettle is an invaluable attestation to

the character and literary standing of Shakespeare--“his uprightness

in dealing” is a matter of public report, and “his facetious grace

in writing” is frankly acknowledged. At a period when professional

rivalries ran strong, and no man’s reputation was above attack, a

publisher and fellow author is seen regarding Shakespeare not only as

a man to whom an apology was due, but to whom it appeared expedient

to make one. In treating of the personal history of Shakespeare, it

must be borne in mind that although the duly-attested facts regarding

him are regrettably few, the poet was widely known to the leading

literary and theatrical men of his day. Ben Jonson, his brother actor

and dramatist, and Michael Drayton were his intimate friends. Condell

and Heming remained in close relationship with Shakespeare until his

death, and Richard Burbage was his partner in the business of the Globe

Theatre. In _Pericles_ and _Timon_, Shakespeare worked in collaboration

with George Wilkins, a dramatic writer of some repute, and William

Rowley, a professional reviser of plays. There were besides, the

members of the Globe Company, men who lived their lives beside him,

rehearsed under him, learned from him, interpreted him. Yet none of

these men appear to have entertained the slightest doubt upon the

genuineness of his claims to authorship, while every contemporaneous

reference to him is couched in terms of affection and admiration. The

only possible explanation of this remarkable fact is that Shakespeare

and Bacon were one and the same person--a theory that the most hardened

Baconian has not yet thought it advisable to advance.

 

 

 

 

_Wm. Shakespeare, Money Lender and Poet._

 

 

Mr. Theobald is unfortunate in his selection of the points he raises in

Shakespeare’s career in order to belittle the character of the poet.

He writes: “His known occupations, apart from theatre business, were

money-lending, malt-dealing, transactions in house and land property.”

There is not the slightest evidence to show that Shakespeare traded

as a money-lender; his only interest in malt-dealing was confined to

one transaction, and his transactions in houses and lands were those

of any man who invests his savings in real estate. The phrase is, as

the most superficial Shakespeare student will recognise, misleading in

substance, and incorrect as a statement of fact. In another part of his

determinedly one-sided book, Mr. Theobald dismisses, in a paragraph,

the contention that Shakespeare’s poems are illuminated and illustrated

by Shakespeare’s life. The obvious rejoinder is that there is nothing

in the life of Shakespeare that makes it difficult for us to accept him

as the author of the Plays, whereas the whole life and character of

Bacon makes his pretensions more than difficult, even impossible, of

acceptance.

 

In 1593, _Venus and Adonis_ was published by Shakespeare’s friend and

fellow townsman, Richard Field, and in the following year _Lucrece_ was

issued at the sign of the White Greyhound in St. Paul’s Churchyard.

Both poems were dedicated to Shakespeare’s first and only patron, the

Earl of Southampton, with whom Bacon is not known to have sought any

intimacy until 1603, when he addressed to him a characteristic letter

of conciliation. (In 1621, when Bacon was accused of corruption,

the Earl of Southampton pointed out the insufficiency of the Lord

Chancellor’s original confession, and it was largely the result of

his firm and unfriendly attitude that Bacon’s abject submission and

acknowledgment of the justice of the charges, was placed before the

Lords). These poems constituted Shakespeare’s appeal to the reading

public. The response was instantaneous and enthusiastic. “Critics vied

with each other,” writes Mr. Sidney Lee, “in the exuberance of the

eulogies, in which they proclaimed that the fortunate author had gained

a place in permanence on the summit of Parnassus.” _Lucrece_, Michael

Drayton declared, in his _Legend of Matilda_ (1594), was “revived to

live another age.” In 1595, William Clerke, in his _Polimanteia_, gave

“all praise” to “Sweet Shakespeare” for his _Lucrecia_. John Weever,

in a sonnet addressed to “honey-tongued” Shakespeare in his _Epigrams_

(1595), eulogised the two poems as an unmatchable achievement,

although he mentions the plays _Romeo_, and _Richard_, and “more whose

names I know not.” Richard Carew, at the same time, classed him with

Marlowe, as deserving the praises of an English Catullus. Printers and

publishers of the poems strained their resources to satisfy the demands

of eager purchasers. No fewer than seven editions of _Venus_ appeared

between 1594 and 1602; an eighth followed in 1617. _Lucrece_ achieved

a fifth edition in the year of Shakespeare’s death. The Queen quickly

showed him special favour, and until her death in 1603, Shakespeare’s plays were repeatedly acted in her presence.