Chapter II: Part 2

The genesis of the _Prince’s Masque_ was probably on this wise:
assuming that Bacon was bent on disowning his plays, the
publication of them, however generous in intention, could at best
be only a left-handed compliment to him. Consequently if the scheme
was to yield any true satisfaction to its originators (or any
suitable consolation to Bacon regarded as the victim of malicious
if not disloyal persecution), it would have to give scope for some
direct (_ad virum_) expression, in their own persons if possible,
of love and admiration for their hero. A prince brought up in the
court of James the First would be sure to decide that a Masque was
the thing and Ben Jonson the man. As the audience would necessarily
be select and discreet (Court influence being potent), the risk of
disclosure was not serious; and even if it had been, Jonson’s skill
would have been equal to the task of hoodwinking any probable
audience. On this occasion luck helped cunning. In the nick of
time, George Wither, a “prodigious pourer forth of rhime,” happened
to publish a volume of _Satirical Essays_ in rhyme, with a
ridiculous dedication of the thing to himself as patron and
protector. This I fancy gave Jonson just what he wanted--a red
herring to draw across the scent.

The _Prince’s Masque_ had another, and for our purpose far more
significant title--_Time Vindicated to Himself and His Honours_.
Time, no Time of long ago, but the age that was then passing, had
been slandered, taxed with being mean and dull and sterile, and the
intention of the Masque or Pageant was to refute these calumnies in
presence, not of an inquisitive world, but of Time’s living
ornaments (as well as himself). If report speak true, it was
presented on the 19th of January, 1623--the Sunday in that
memorable year which fell nearest to Bacon’s birthday--presented in
circumstances of unprecedented splendour, “the Prince leading the
Measures with the French embassador’s wife.” The Masque (as given
in Jonson’s _Works_) is sub-divided into Antimasque and Masque
proper.

Fame, the accredited mouthpiece of the author, is by far the most
important personage in the Antimasque. Her first business is to
proclaim that she has been sent to invite to that night’s “great
spectacle,” not the many, but the few who alone were worthy to view
it. An inquisitive mob nicknamed The Curious at once begins to
heckle Fame. A thrasonical personage called Chronomastix, a
caricature compounded in unequal proportions of George Wither and
the Ovid Junior of Jonson’s _Poetaster_, then appears on the scene.
Chronomastix, I may say in passing, seems to have deluded John
Chamberlain, for he (J. C.) tells a correspondent that Jonson in
the _Prince’s Masque_ “runs a risk by impersonating George Withers
as a whipper of the times, which is a dangerous jest.” At sight of
Chronomastix The Curious jeer at Fame for not recognising their
idol, while Chronomastix himself has the effrontery to call her his
“mistress,” and tells her it is for her sake alone that he “revells
so in rime.” Fame retorts (in effect): “Away thou wretched
Impostor! My proclamation was not meant for thee or thy kind; goe
revell with thine ignorant admirers. Let worthy names alone.”
Chronomastix is furious, brags of his popularity, and appeals to
The Curious to “come forth ... and now or never, spight of Fame,
approve me.” The stage direction here runs: “At this, the Mutes
come in.” The first Mute, an elephantine creature, meant of course
for Jonson himself, is about to bring forth a “male-Poem ... that
kicks at Time already.” (Jonson’s Ode to Shakespeare was probably
ruminated, if not written, at the very time that this “male-Poem”
was struggling to be born.) The second Mute, a quondam
Justice--reminding one of Justice Clement in Jonson’s earliest
comedy--is in the habit of carrying Chronomastix about “in his
pocket” and crying “‘O happy man!’ to the wrong party, meaning the
_Poet_, where he meant the subject.” (This I take for a hint at the
confusion of mind that must have existed among lovers of the drama
as to who Shakespeare really was.) The succeeding pair of Mutes
are, the one a printer in disguise who conceals himself and “his
presse in a hollow tree, and workes by glow-worm light, the moon’s
too open”; the other a compositor who in “an angle inhabited by
ants will sit curled whole days and nights, and work his eyes out
for him.”[29] The fifth Mute is a learned man, a schoolmaster, who
is turning the works of the caricature Chronomastix into _Latine_.
(“Some good pens”--as we learn from his letters--were at this time
engaged in turning Bacon’s _Advancement of Learning_ into Latin,
the “general language.”) The sixth and last Mute is a “Man of
warre,” reminiscent of Gullio in the _Return from Parnassus_, who
it may be remembered worships “sweet Mr. Shakspeare,” talks
“nothing but Shakspeare,” etc. Not one of the Mutes ever opens his
mouth, and all that the audience knows of them is told by The
Curious, whose function is to connect the Antimasque with the
Masque and act as nomenclators for the elephantine poet and his
suite. The Mutes came, or seemed to come, at the bidding of
Chronomastix, in order to snub Fame for having insulted him. But
Chronomastix himself is the person actually snubbed by them, seeing
that they ignore him utterly. As for Fame, she treats the Mutes
very coolly, her only comment being “What a confederacy of _Folly_
is here!”

Following hard on this observation (of Fame’s) comes a dance, in
which The Curious adore Chronomastix and then carry him off in
triumph. Afterwards The Curious come up again, and one of them,
addressing Fame, asks: “Now, Fame, how like you this?” Another
chimes in: “He scornes you, and defies you, has got a _Fame_ of
his owne, as well as a Faction.” A third adds: “And these will
deify him, to despite you.” Fame answers: “I envie not the
_Apotheosis_. ’Twill prove but deifying of a Pompion.” (If The
Curious had scented what Fame was about, a retort like this would
have been enough to let them into the secret. But this hint, as
well as her previous taunt, “My hot inquisitors, what I am about is
more than you understand,” was lost on them and they continue their
futile cackle.) Fame gets rid of The Curious at last by means of
the Cat and Fiddle, who, according to the stage direction, “make
sport with and drive them away.”

Relieved of the presence of all who were unfit to view the “great
Spectacle” now on the point of being exhibited “with all
solemnity,” Fame at last lets herself go: “Commonly (says she) The
Curious are ill-natured and, like flies, seek _Time’s_ corrupted
parts to blow upon, but may the sound ones live with fame and
honour, free from the molestation of these insects.”

The stage direction here runs: “Loud musique. To which the whole
scene opens, where Saturne sitting with Venus is discovered above,
and certaine Votaries coming forth below, which are the Chorus.”

Addressing the King, Fame announces that Saturn (Time) urged by
Venus (emblem of affection) had promised to set free “certaine
glories of the Time,” which, though eminently fitted to “adorn that
age,” had nevertheless for mysterious reasons been kept in
“darknesse” by “Hecate (Queene of shades).” Venus puts in her word;
assures Time that the liberation of the “glories” is a “worke
(which) will prove his honour” as well as exceed “men’s hopes.”
Saturn answers her gallantly and then addressing the Votaries says:
“You shall not long expect: with ease the things come forth (that)
are born to please. Looke, have you seene such lights as these?”

This is the very climax of the Masque. “The _Masquers_ (so runs the
stage direction) are discovered and that which obscured them
vanisheth.” The Votaries exclaim with rapture: “These, these must
sure some wonders be.... What grief, or envie had it beene, that
these and such had not beene seene, but still obscured in shade!
Who are the glories of the _Time_ ... and for the light were made!”

(Who were these “glories” whom Fame, the Prince, Ben Jonson, and
the rest had with difficulty rescued from the underworld, in whose
behalf inquisitive intruders had been excluded, about whom absurd
mistakes of identity had been made, and who according to Fame were
destined to play parts in the “apotheosis” of a pumpkin?[30] The
only answer that occurs to me is that the spectacle consisted
essentially of a selection from among the _dramatis personæ_ who
were about to figure in the First Folio, especially characters out
of the sixteen or twenty then unpublished plays.)

The Masque ends with an exhortation to charity, the final words
being:

Man should not hunt mankind to death,
But strike the enemies of man.
Kill vices if you can:
They are your wildest beasts:
And when they thickest fall, you make the Gods true feasts.

(Bearing in mind that Bacon was probably regarded by the audience
as an ill-used man, this exhortation sorts well with what I take to
be the true interpretation of the Masque. So does the motto with
which it opens. In that motto Martial bids ill-natured censors to
leave him alone and keep their venom for self-admirers, persons
vain of their own achievements. From first to last, therefore,
_Time Vindicated_ seems to have been deliberately adjusted to
Bacon.)

The second part of this quasi-national scheme for doing honour to
Shakespeare-Bacon falls now to be considered. The First Folio was
published, it would seem, towards the end of 1623. Though not
entered on the Stationers’ Register till November, it may well have
been on the stocks before that, for the difficulties of collecting,
arranging with interested printers, editing, adapting (_The
Tempest_ for example), and so forth, must have been extraordinary.
The volume is introduced by some doggerel, signed “B. I.,” which
tells the reader:

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

Derision and mystification, twin motives or causes of the guy
Chronomastix, are equally the motives of this grotesque “figure.”
Whether this were also intended to parody the doggerel inscribed on
Shakespeare’s gravestone in Stratford Church may be open to doubt.
That inscription runs:

Good frend, for Jesus sake forbeare
To digge the dust encloased heare;
Bleste be the man, etc.

Warned by “B. I.” that laughter is in that air, we turn to the
famous Ode itself which is signed “Ben: Ionson”(not “B. I.”) This
Poem opens with a significant hint that the “_name_” Shakespeare,
as distinct from his “book” and his “_fame_,” was a delicate
subject to handle. After having assured himself with much ado that
Shakespeare’s (true) name is now in no danger, Jonson proceeds to
inform him that he (Shakesspeare) is alive still, “a moniment
without a tombe.” Then comes the line: “And though thou hadst small
Latin and less Greek,” which is generally mistaken for a
categorical statement that Shakespeare lacked Latin, whereas it
should be understood as equivalent to “Supposing thou hadst small
Latin,” etc. The word “would” in the next sentence (“From thence to
honour thee I would not seek”) shows this to be the reading.

Then come the triumphant verses in which, after having challenged
“insolent Greece or haughtie Rome” to produce a greater than
Shakespeare, Jonson exclaims:

Triumph my Britaine, thou hast one to showe,
To whom all Scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When like Apollo he came forth, etc.

(Compare this with what Jonson wrote of Bacon not many years later:
Bacon “is he, who hath filled up all numbers; and performed that in
our tongue, which may be compared or preferred, either to insolent
_Greece_ or haughty _Rome_. In short, within his view and about his
times were all the wits born that could honour a language, or helpe
study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downe-ward, and _Eloquence_
growes back-ward. So that hee may be named, and stand as the
_marke_ and _akme_ of our language.... Hee seemed to mee ever, by
his worke, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration
that had beene in many Ages.” The similarity between the two
eulogies strikes one the moment they are brought into
juxtaposition, and this helps to explain the exclusion of the Ode
from the collected _Workes of Ben: Jonson: 1640-1_.)

After this rapturous outburst the mood changes, and we are bored by
a number of didactic lines about the need of toil and sweat as well
as genius, “for the good poet’s made as well as born.” The passage
is one among many symptoms of Jonson’s long-standing quarrel with
Shakespeareolators--a quarrel which at a later date found
expression in the _Discoveries_--for refusing to see that the
carelessness of their idol was at times not less conspicuous than
his genius. Satisfied with having vindicated his own consistency,
Jonson goes on to declare that each “well-torned and true-filed”
line of Shakespeare’s “seemes to shake a lance as brandished at the
eyes of ignorance.” (Obviously, therefore, Jonson had in view a
peculiar kind of ignorance, one which the mere technique displayed
in the First Folio would, but for a misunderstanding, have put to
flight. The quondam Justice of _Time Vindicated_ who was wont to
cry “O happy man! to the wrong party,” suggests the
misunderstanding in question. What, moreover, are we to make of the
“stage” shaking and “lance” shaking and brandishing? How reconcile
this punning upon _shake_ and _spear_ with the opening lines of the
Ode which breathe forth reverence for “thy name.” It had been
difficult, short of direct statement, to give plainer indications
that Jonson was out for a juggle with a pair of names, one of them
an _alias_.)

On the heels of the lance-brandishing jest comes the passionate
utterance: “Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were to see thee in
our waters yet appeare, and make those flights upon the bankes of
Thames, that so did take Eliza and our James!” (Here _suggestio
falsi_ is carried to the verge of the lie. What Jonson would have
us think he felt about Warwick and its Avon is one thing. What he
actually thought may be gathered from a fragment of rather later
date in which he jeers at “Warwick Muses” for choosing a
“Hoby-horse” as their favourite mount--“the _Pegasus_ that uses to
waite on _Warwick_ Muses,” etc. Be this as it may, the ethics of
the case would cause him no uneasiness. A secret had to be kept in
deference to the wishes of one whom Jonson regarded as almost the
greatest and most admirable of men, one too whose right to an
incognito no living man of letters was likely to dispute.)

Jonson’s yearning to see Shakespeare once more “upon the bankes of
Thames” is suddenly arrested by a vision. Turning his poetic eye
upwards and catching sight of the constellation Cygnus, he affects
to be thrilled by the conceit that Shakespeare had been
metamorphosed, “advanced” to a higher sphere--“the hemisphere” as
he calls it. (The Ode belongs, as has been said, to 1622-23. Some
ten or a dozen years earlier, Shakspere, preferring humdrum
Stratford to London and poetry, had turned his back on the Capital.
If this yearning had been uttered in 1612-13, instead of 1622-23,
it might have been meant for the Stratford man. So with the vision
and the thrill, if we could have referred them to 1616-17, they
would have provoked no question. But as things stand, question is
inevitable. Had the yearning been kept under since 1612, and why?
The vision too and the thrill, what had they to do with the
testator of 1616? What more likely than that Jonson had in his mind
the social elevation of the wonderful man who long before 1623 had
broken his magic wand, doffed his singing robes, and taken leave of
the stage for ever?)

The Ode closes on a note akin to despair at the low estate of
Poetry ever since Shakespeare had ceased to enrich and adorn it. A
similar note, it will be remembered, marks the close of Jonson’s
appreciation of Bacon: “Now things daily fall: wits grow
downe-ward, and Eloquence growes back-ward” etc. Here again the
thoughts of Jonson were evidently running on Shakespeare; for with
Jonson Eloquence was Poetry, or rather--to speak by the
book--Poetry was “the most prevailing Eloquence, and of the most
exalted Charact.”

The contention of this article may be compressed into one sentence:
The _Prince’s Masque_ and the famous Ode to Shakespeare were a
signal act of homage in two parts to one man, and that man Francis
Bacon. The proposition does not admit of demonstrative proof. High
probability is all that is claimed, and if the claim be rejected
the fault is with the advocate.

Such being the Preface, let us now turn to the further Essay on the Masque of _Time Vindicated_, which Edward Smithson left for, alas, posthumous publication.

Proprietas denique illa inseparabilis, quae _Tempus_ ipsum
sequitur, ut veritatem indies parturiat. _De Aug: Scientiarum_,
1623.

The year 1623 was a memorable one for literature. First in order of date came a masterpiece of Ben Jonson’s, the Masque of _Time Vindicated_. This was followed by Bacon’s _De Augmentis Scientiarum_, an expanded version of his _Advancement of Learning_, written many years earlier. The finest gift of that year was the First Folio of _Shakespeare_.

_Time Vindicated_ consists of two violently contrasted parts; jest and earnest, antimasque and masque proper. The most conspicuous figure in the farcical part is CHRONOMASTIX, an enigmatical creature, so greedy of publicity (for fame is denied him) that his only “end” is “to get himselfe a name,” to ingratiate himself with “rumor” (he would have said _Fame_) as an inspired poet or maker.[31] CHRONOMASTIX is escorted by a doting mob of inquisitive adorers, the CURIOUS, who are obsessed by the expectation that they are about to assist at the deification of a great poet, their own incomparable CHRONOMASTIX as they fondly imagine. FAME, the mouthpiece of Jonson, derides the CURIOUS at every turn, and when they tell her that CHRONOMASTIX “has got a _Fame_ of his owne, as well as a Faction: and these will deifie him, to despite you,” FAME replies: “I envie not the _Apotheosis_. ’Twill prove but deifying of a Pompion.” The antimasque closes with the ignominious expulsion of CHRONOMASTIX and his votaries; obviously because the “great spectacle,” which _Time_ intended that “night to exhibit with all solemnity,” was too august for prying eyes to see.

The Masque proper opens with an address to King James, the gist of which is that “certaine glories of the _Time_,” till then artificially concealed, were about to be freed “at Love’s suit” or intercession because admirably fitted “to adorne the age.” The climax of the Masque follows this address almost immediately. The stage direction runs: “The _Masquers_ are discovered, and that which obscur’d them, vanisheth.” The CHORUS of the Masque is delighted by the vision of the _Masquers_, and cries out: “What griefe, or envie had it beene, that these, and such (as these) had not beene seene, but still obscur’d in shade! Who are the glories of the Time, ... and for the light were made!”

The essential fiction of _Time Vindicated_, known also as _The Prince’s Masque_, is that Time had been reproached with incapacity to produce masterpieces comparable anyway with those of Greece and Rome; and that the revelation of these Masquers was a triumphant refutation of the calumny. To suppose that this result was achieved by the Prince and his companions would be to insult Ben Jonson, the Prince, and all concerned. The all-important feature of the revelation must have been the _make-up_ of the Masquers.

For several months previous to 1623 Jonson’s mind had necessarily been concentrated on Shakespeare; collecting manuscripts; squaring rival publishers; appreciating contributions offered by admirers (Fletcher perhaps and Chapman among others); amending originals, _Julius Cæsar_ for instance; acting as editor-in-chief of the great book; meditating his Ode to “Shakespeare,” _the man he lov’d and honoured (on this side idolatry) as much as any_. (See _Discoveries_, 1641, for this italicised passage).

There are many and various indications to justify the hypothesis that the Masque as a whole was a tribute of love and admiration for “Shakespeare.” Here are some of them. (1) _Love_ is the incentive to the freeing of the “wonders”--the “glories”--that so charmed the CHORUS of the Masque. Love for “Shakespeare” was probably Jonson’s leading motive for undertaking all the drudgery connected with the First Folio. (2) The mention of “envie” by the CHORUS gives one to think. Deprecation of _envy_ is the burden of the enigmatical and portentous exordium of Jonson’s Ode to Shakespeare. (3) For reasons unexplained by his accredited biographers, the plays of Shakespeare had long been held back or secluded, but were then on the eve of publication or disclosure; not indeed “cured and perfect of their limbes”--to quote the editorial figment in the First Folio--but certainly less damaged, and imperfect than even Jonson, at an earlier stage, can have expected. (4) The audience of _Time Vindicated_ is given to understand that “the Bosse of _Belinsgate_,” a nickname for Jonson, “has a male-_poem_ in her belly now, big as a colt, that kicks at _Time_ already.” In my opinion this _Time_-defying _poem_ was none other than the famous Ode to Shakespeare. These indications alone are sufficient to justify the above-mentioned hypothesis that the Masque as a whole was a tribute of love and admiration for “Shakespeare.” On no other hypothesis would the title, _Time Vindicated_, have been appropriate or even excusable. Whereas no other conceivable title would have been so absolutely appropriate, if “Shakespeare” were, as I believe he was, the hero of the Masque; in precisely the same sense, by the way, in which he was the hero of the Ode; the only Poet worthy to be compared, in the words of the Ode, with “all that insolent Greece or haughtie Rome sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.”

Another significant feature of the Masque is the display of anxiety to safeguard the spectacular revelation of the Masquers from the attentions of inquisitive observers, an anxiety which requires the drastic expulsion of the CURIOUS. This anxiety, as I read it, betokened a secret intimately connected with the First Folio. Before developing this contention, it may be well to clear the ground, not only of Heminge and Condell, but also of the Stratford gentleman’s representatives. Heminge and Condell were probably mere dummies who gave Jonson _carte blanche_ to say in their names anything whether strictly true or not, which he thought conducive to the end in view; the prefatory address ostensibly subscribed by them is too Jonsonian to admit of any doubt on this score. As for “Mr. Shakspere,” he had long been dead and buried, and his commonplace Will knows nothing of plays, manuscripts, books, or anything that matters. And as for his representatives--had they been consulted at all--they would have welcomed, rather than vetoed publicity.

The object of these precautions to secure secrecy must have been a _persona grata_ to the King, Prince, and Court; this might go without saying. A significant conjuration against hunting “Mankind to death” suggests that he was also considered, by the Prince among others, a victim of malicious persecution. For other clues we have to go back to the Antimasque. The CURIOUS have contrived to pick up several very useful items of information about the mysterious object in question. They know for instance that he is or has been served by printers and compositors so devoted to him, that they were quite content to “worke eyes out for him,” in dark holes and corners, the better to “conceale” them. They know too that a typical admirer of certain “_poems_,” which he was in the habit of carrying about “in his pocket,” made the ridiculous mistake of addressing his congratulations “to the wrong party”: to CHRONOMASTIX, the “subject” of the Antimasque, whom he mistook for the “_Poet_.” This blunder is crucial. The secret so ostentatiously safeguarded was a secret of pseudonymity. The _Poet_ of the Masque (and of our quest)--the very antithesis of the blatant poetaster of the Antimasque--was a “maker” who concealed his personality behind a pen-name.

The evidence that Francis Bacon was a “concealed” poet is incontestable. A private letter of his is conclusive, though Aubrey’s corroborative evidence is by no means negligible. Moreover, Bacon, besides being a _persona grata_ at Court, was probably regarded by many notabilities not as a criminal, but rather as a sufferer for the faults of his day and generation. Ben Jonson’s views may be gathered from his _Discoveries_ (1641) where he tells that Bacon was “one of the greatest men ... that had beene in many Ages ... perform’d that in our tongue which may be compar’d or preferr’d to, either insolent _Greece_ or haughtie _Rome_.... So that hee may be nam’d and stand as the _marke_ and _akme_ of our language.... In his adversity I ever prayed that _God_ would give him strength: for _Greatnesse_ he could not want.” Francis Bacon then was the mysterious poet of _Time Vindicated_. That Bacon was not the only concealed poet of those days is probably true. London might have teemed with concealed poets. But the only concealed poet who satisfies the many other conditions is Francis Bacon. Additional evidence that we are on the right track is supplied by the Antimasque. The “Nosed” ones among the CURIOUS have smelt out _apropos_ of CHRONOMASTIX that “a schoolmaster is turning all his workes into Latin.” Now it happens that about 1623 Bacon wrote to an intimate friend: “My labours are most set to have those works ... _Advancement of Learning_ ... the _Essays_ (etc), well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens that forsake me not.” The _Advancement of Learning_ in Latin form, _De Aug: Scientiarum_, appeared in 1623, dedicated to Prince Charles the dedicatee of our Masque (and Camden, Jonson’s “reverend” master may have helped in the translation--but this is mere conjecture).[32]

The figure CHRONOMASTIX is not easy to range or class; for he is not a caricature proper. He salutes FAME with impudent assurance (in the Antimasque) as his “Deare Mistris” and tells her that “he revells so in rime” for no other “end” than “to serve _Fame_ ... and get himselfe a name.” FAME, here as elsewhere, the mouthpiece of Jonson, browbeats the blatant creature: “Away, I know thee not, wretched Impostor, Creatire of glory, Mountebanke of witte, selfe-loving Braggart, ... Scorne of all the Muses, goe revell with thine ignorant admirers, let worthy names alone.” A little abashed by this rebuff, CHRONOMASTIX appeals to the CURIOUS for sympathy; tells them that his “glorious front and word at large triumphs in print at my admirers charge”; and finishes his harangue by this invitation to his friends and admirers: “Come forth that love me, and now or never, spight of _Fame_, approve me.” CHRONOMASTIX therefore whatever he be, is the very antithesis of a self-effacing poet or maker. He belongs I think to the same genus as those fantastic portraits, _Landru chez lui_, etc., lately exhibited in Piccadilly by the National Portrait Society, partly to amuse the public and partly to puzzle quidnuncs. He was a freak in other words, and his function was to amuse outsiders and put curiosity off the scent.

Turn we now from the figure CHRONOMASTIX, to the “Figure” which mars the front page of the First Folio: the sorry “Figure ... wherein the Graver had a strife with Nature to out-doo the life”; as “B. J.” (Ben Jonson) significantly informs “the Reader.” “B. J.’s” innuendo does not stop here; he follows it up by explicitly warning all readers to “looke not on” the “picture,” but on the “Booke.” The warning seems almost superfluous; for the effigy cannot be identified with portrait or bust of any human being. Twin brother to CHRONOMASTIX, the thing is a freak expressly designed to prevent inquisitive persons, ourselves among others, from scrutinising the fiction then launched on the world.

Reverting once more to the Antimasque and the orgiastic dance at the end of which the CURIOUS carry away their deity CHRONOMASTIX: one or other of the deluded adorers taunts FAME in these words: “He scornes you and defies you, h’as got a _Fame_ on’s owne, as well as a Faction, and these will deifie him, to despite you.” FAME replies: “I envie not the _Apotheosis_. ’Twill prove but deifying of a Pompion.” When these words were spoken, it is quite possible that neither the figure, nor the Ode, nor the prefatory addresses had reached finality. But Jonson’s inside knowledge of the whole project would enable him to forecast important results. One of these results, in my opinion, was that a Pumpkin would be deified by posterity. In this forecast a note of misgiving is perceptible enough; but of spitefulness there is hardly a trace; for after all, the pumpkin is a _deserving_ vegetable--the stress here is on the word _deserving_, since that is the epithet by which the surviving Burbages, in perfect good temper, described the deceased Shakspere. This apotheosis idea, I may add, is also prominent in the Shakespeare Ode at the point where Jonson pulls himself up: “But stay, I see thee to the hemisphere advanced and made a constellation there.” In the Ode however the apostrophe--half banter, half congratulation--is entirely free from regret or misgiving.

From the point of view of the privileged few who were in the secret, _Time Vindicated_ and the Shakespeare Folio were, I consider, parts of a superlative Act of Homage to the greatest of modern poets. From Jonson’s special point of view they were a pious fraud, in which at the behest of disinterested love and admiration for Bacon, he consented to undertake the chief rôle. After the death of Bacon Jonson’s mood may have undergone some modification. Certain it is that the Ode, his finest poem, is excluded from the first edition, Vol. II, of his collected Works, and that in his _Discoveries_ he tells “posterity” certain truths about Shakespeare which were not even suggested in the Ode.

Hitherto our thoughts have been preoccupied with Ben Jonson. They shall now be devoted more closely to Bacon and the state of his mind and feelings about 1623. In a pathetic letter of his to King James, Bacon comforts himself with the knowledge that his fall was not the “act” of his Sovereign, and then proceeds: “For now it is thus with me: I am a year and a half old in misery ... mine own means through mine own improvidence are poor and weak.... My dignities remain marks of your favour, but burdens of my present fortune. The poor remnants ... of my former fortunes in plate and jewels I have spread upon poor men unto whom I owed, scarcely leaving myself bread.... I have often been told by many of my Lords (of your Council), as it were in excusing the severity of the sentence, that they knew they left me in good hands.... Help me, dear Sovereign ... so far as I ... that desire to live to study, may not be driven to study to live.”

Here it is to be observed that the proceeds of sale of the Shakespeare Folio, “printed at his admirers’ charge,” would help towards relieving the fallen man’s pecuniary distress, whilst the august compliment conveyed by the Masque would tend to soothe his lacerated feelings.

The attitude of a concealed poet to his art is rarely explicit, or concealment would be next to impossible. In this connection I ask leave to quote from an Essay, _Shakespeare-Bacon_, by E. W. S., published many years ago.[33] The essayist, after having stated that Bacon’s qualifications for dramatic work were of a high order, and that some at least of his recognised Elizabethan output actually were dramatic, runs on: “Moreover, curious as is Bacon’s manner when treating of ‘poesie,’ his manner when dealing with dramatic poetry is more curious still. The _Advancement of Learning_ though not published till the reign of her successor, belongs to the age of Queen Elizabeth, in conception, observation, reflection, and substance generally. In this work, after having mapped out the “globe” of human knowledge into three great continents of which poetry is one, he finds himself face to face with dramatic poetry. Compelled to give the thing a name, he rejects the almost inevitable word _dramatic_, in favour of the distant word _representative_. And what he permits himself to say about ‘representative’ poetry, in that the natural, and appropriate place for saying it, seems intended to suggest--what of course was absurdly untrue--that he was all but a stranger to anything in the nature of a dramatic performance. The suggestion too is strangely out of keeping with passages of unexpected occurrence in other parts of the book. For instance, in handling what he calls the ‘Georgics of the mind,’ he describes poetry (along with history) in terms which so admirably characterise the very best dramatic poetry of the age, that it is difficult to resist the conviction that he must have been thinking chiefly of the masterpieces of Shakespeare. ‘In poetry,’ says he, ‘we may find painted forth with great life, how affections are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves, how they work, how they vary, how they gather and fortify, how they are inwrapped one with another, and how they do fight and encounter one with another ... how to set affection against affection, and to master one by another; even as we use to hunt beast with beast,’ etc. Another of these unexpected passages seems to imply that Bacon, writing at the close of the Elizabethan epoch, was so convinced of the paramount importance of dramatic poetry, as to have forgotten that there was any poetry at all, except what had to do with the theatre. In this passage Bacon has been claiming that ‘for expressing the affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are more beholding to the poets than to the philosophers’--at this point he suddenly breaks off with an ironical: ‘But it is not good to stay too long in the theatre.’[34]

A question that has probably been intriguing some of my readers is: Why did Bacon abandon the poet’s Crown to which his genius entitled him? From among the complex of conceivable reasons it will suffice to pick out three. (1) In dedicating the _De Augmentis Scientiarum_ to Prince Charles, 1623, Bacon writes: “It is a book I think will live, and be a citizen of the world which English books are not.” Again, a letter, of about the same date, to an intimate friend contains this passage: “For these modern languages will play the bank-rowtes with books; and since I have lost much time with this age, I would be glad, as God shall give me leave, to recover it with posterity.” “_Play the bank-rowtes_” means, I suppose, put a stop to the currency; and “_lost much time with this age_” is probably an allusion to pseudonymous work. These and similar passages justify the conclusion that by this time Bacon had convinced himself that English as a literary language, was doomed to go under to Latin. (2) The poet in Bacon, as in Wordsworth and others, had expired with the passing of youth. (3) Bacon imagined himself the Discoverer of a New Instrument or method, by which human life would be so beatified that posterity would revere him as one of its greatest benefactors; _if_ only men of science (such as Harvey) were for ever deprived of excuse for pooh-poohing the _Novum Organum_, merely because its inventor was none other than Shakespeare, sonneteer and dreamer of dreams.

* * * * *

[_Note by the Editor_]. There appears to be no doubt that in “Chronomastix” Jonson was lampooning George Wither, whose “Abuses Stript and Whipt, or Satiricall Essayes,” was published by Budge in 1622, (there had been an earlier edition in 1613) and was followed by a poem called “The Scourge.” In “Abuses Stript and Whipt” we find the following lines:

And though full loth, ’cause their ill natures urge,
I’ll send abroad a satire with a scourge,
That to their shame for this abuse shall strip them,
And being naked in their vices whip them.
And to be sure of those that are most rash
Not one shall ’scape him that deserves the lash.

There is also an Epigram to “Time,” in which Wither asks:

Now swift-devouring, bald, and ill-fac’t Time,
Dost not thou blush to see thyself uncloak’t?

Another Epigram is to “Satyro-Mastix,” the last lines of which are:

Then scourge of Satyrs hold thy whip from mine,
Or I will make my rod lash thee and thine.

“Withers Motto” (1621) was “_nec habeo nec careo nec curo_.” This was satirised by John Taylor, the Water-Poet, in the words “et habeo, et careo, et curo,” and is obviously alluded to in Jonson’s Masque, where “_Nose_” says “The gentleman-like _Satyre_ cares for nobody.”

Wither, moreover, quarrelled with the Stationers’ Company and the printers (who disapproved of his independent method of business), which also was a subject for Jonson’s ridicule in the Masque:

One is his Printer in disguise, and keepes
His presse in a hollow tree, where to conceale him,
He workes by glow-worme light, the moon’s too open, etc., etc.

In the _Dict: of National Biography_ we are told that “Jonson quarrelled with Alex. Gill the elder for having quoted Wither’s work with approval in his ‘Logonomia Anglica’ (1619), and Jonson revenged himself by caricaturing Wither under the title of ‘Chronomastix’ in the Masque of _Time Vindicated_ presented at Court 1623-4,” and allusion is made to Jonson’s sarcasm with regard to Wither’s quarrel with his printers.

Further, we find John Chamberlain writing to Sir Dudley Carleton, on January 25, 1622-3, as follows with reference to the Masque of _Time Vindicated_: “Ben Jonson they say is like to hear of it on both sides of the head for personating George Withers, a poet or poetaster he terms him, as hunting after some, by being a Chronomastix, or whipper of the time, which is become so tender an argument that it must not be admitted either in jest or earnest.” (_The Court and Times of James the First._ Ed. 1848. Vol. II, p. 356.)

These facts seem to have been well known to Mr. Smithson, for not only does he quote John Chamberlain’s letter in his _Nineteenth Century_ article, where he expresses the opinion that “Chronomastix” is “a caricature compounded in unequal proportions of George Wither and the Ovid Junior of Jonson’s _Poetaster_ (as to which see an interesting chapter in _Shakespeare-Bacon_, headed “A Caricature of some Notable Elizabethan Poet,” together with the chapter following), but among his manuscripts were found certain Notes with reference to George Wither which I cite lower down. It will be seen, however, that he was convinced that Jonson, while lampooning and ridiculing Wither, the scourger of the time, had for his main object the glorification of the Shakespearean drama under cover of a _Masque_--those glorious works wherein “Time,” which had been vilified by Wither, found its all-sufficient and splendid “Vindication.”[35]

The following are Mr. Smithson’s Notes to which I have made reference:

“Wither sends

Abroad a Satyr with a scourge;
That to their shame for this abuse shall strip them,
And being naked in their vices whip them.
(_Abuses Stript and Whipt._ Ed. 1622, p. 305.)

He gives Justices of Peace a warning lest they be put out of the Commission for partiality (p. 318). Ruffling Cavaliars also are touched (p. 320).

In the address to the reader of _Shepheard’s Hunting_, Wither to some extent recants his disgust at Time--says he has been ‘persuaded to entertain a better opinion of the Times than I lately conceived, and assured myself, that Virtue had far more followers than I supposed.’ Curiously enough, therefore, Wither’s frame of mind in 1622[36] seems to have been similar to that of Jonson in _Time Vindicated_. The coincidence would help perhaps to mislead the judgment of the time, and may have so commended itself to Jonson.

I don’t think Wither knows why, or by whom he was persecuted. (See Philarate to Willy in Eclogue I, and last page but two of ‘Address to the Reader.’)

He calls Time ‘bald and ill-fac’d,’ ‘shameless time,’ speaks of his ‘deformities,’ ‘blockish age,’ that ‘truth’ in this age gets ‘hatred,’ ‘while love and charitie are fled to heaven.’

He took upon him to scourge Time, and he was certainly arrogant enough, in form at any rate, for Chronomastix.

I therefore take him to have been the stalking-horse or blind used by Jonson, the Prince, and some others, to conceal the true object.”

SHAKESPEARE--A THEORY

[_The Notes of this Essay (except those inserted by the Editor)
which are denoted by Roman Numerals, will be found at the end of
it._]

The recent discovery of an entry in a domestic expenses account book of the Mannours or Manners family has attracted some notice. According to Mr. Sidney Lee[37] the terms of the entry, under the head “Payments for household stuff, plate, armour,” etc., are: “1613. Item 31 Martii to Mr. Shakspeare in gold about my Lorde’s impreso [the terminal _o_ should be _a_] xliiij^{s}., to Richard Burbadge for paynting and making yt in gold xliiij^{s.}. [Total] iiij^{li}viij^{s.}” An impresa Camden describes as “a device in picture with his motto or word borne by noble and learned personages to notifie some particular conceit of their own,” its nearest modern analogue being the book-plate.[38] Burbage seems to have made, as well as painted, the thing. What there was for Mr. Shakespeare to do is by no means clear. The motto, if motto there were, would to a certainty be designated by the “noble and learned personage” himself. Moreover, some three years later (1616) Burbage appears to have executed a similar commission for the same Earl of Rutland, entirely without assistance. That the clerk who made the entry denied to Burbage the “prefix of gentility” which he bestowed upon “Mr. Shakespeare” is a fact of trivial import. If--to take an imaginary case--Nick Bottom had been living “on his means” at South Place, Stratford-at-the-Bow, this clerk would have dubbed him Mr. Bottom as a matter of course in the same circumstances. Mr. Lee is of opinion that “the recovered document discloses a capricious sign of homage on the part of a wealthy and cultured nobleman to Shakespeare.” If he had suggested that the two-guinea payment to “Mr. Shakespeare” may have been preceded by a hearty meal in the buttery, without exciting any feeling of resentment on the part of either recipient that the meal was not served in the dining-hall, I should have been more disposed to agree with him.

The situation is a curious one. But any serious discussion of it would be premature until we are actually in possession of the “rich harvest of new disclosures” which Mr. Lee teaches us to expect.[39] Meanwhile the Bacon theory regarded as a development of the hypothesis that Shakespeare was a pen-name of Bacon’s is certainly not crushed, if it be not actually encouraged, by this Belvoir disclosure, since no one in his senses would think of denying the existence of “Mr. Shakespeare” or his acquaintance with Richard Burbage.

In Gilbert Wats’ English version (1640) of Bacon’s _Instauratio Magna_, Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Vicont St. Alban, who is designated as “Tertius a Platone Philosophiæ Princeps,” is represented pen in hand, tall hat on head, a voluminous lace ruff round his neck, in the act of inditing: _Mundus Mens Connubio Jungam Stabili_.[40] On the opposite page two worlds, a _Mundus Visibilis_ and a _Mundus Intellectualis_ are shown clasping hands across space, in order, no doubt, to give emphasis to the idea of a world and mind _connubium_. The picture typifies the conception of Bacon which has prevailed ever since. A skater on his way to the Engadine declared he was at a loss to understand why anyone ever went to Switzerland in summer for _pleasure_. Some of us would have been tempted to smile at the remark. But the prevailing conception of Bacon is probably quite as inadequate as this skater’s conception of Switzerland. The age of Queen Elizabeth probably had no presage--not a hint--that Francis Bacon would ever develop into a “prince of philosophy.” In my opinion the Bacon known to it was not a natural philosopher{1} even in aspiration, but an artist--an artist in words, who, if circumstances, more especially family circumstances, had been favourable any time between 1580 and 1590 would have openly confessed that poetry was his ideal, and declared himself a poet. As it was, he took the line of least friction, and sooner or later acquired the title of “concealed poet.” How far the concealment extended in the early days it is impossible to discover. To Sir Philip Sidney,{2} Sir J. Harrington, and other accomplished young men of their class, the true state of the case was doubtless an open secret.

Professor Nichol (_Francis Bacon_, Part I), though he thinks that Bacon “did not write Shakespeare’s plays,” considers that “there is something startling in the like magnificence of speech in which they find voice for sentiments, often as nearly identical when they anticipate as when they contravene the manners of thought and standards of action that prevail in our country in our age. They are similar in this respect for rank,” etc. Shelley discerned that Bacon “was a poet,” and Macaulay perceived that the “poetical faculty” was “powerful” in Bacon. Taine held that Bacon “thought as artists and poets habitually think,” that he was one of the finest of a “poetic line,” that “his mental _procédé_ was that of the creator, not reasoning but intuition.” Bacon, then, was essentially a poet, belonged to the same race as Sidney for example. Sidney died young, and his poetic activity ceased some time before he died. Yet Sidney’s poetical achievement has come down to our day. What has become of Bacon’s poetical achievement? Was it also concealed?

Hallam, in the _Introduction to the Literature of Europe_, confessed he was unable to identify “the young man who came up from Stratford, was afterwards an indifferent player in a London theatre, and retired to his native place in middle life, with the author of Macbeth and Lear.” Emerson (_Representative Men_) declared: “The Egyptian verdict of Shakespearean societies comes to mind, that Shakespeare{3} was a jovial actor and manager. I cannot marry this fact to his verse. Other admirable men have led lives in some sort of keeping with their thought; but this man in wide contrast.” It would be easy to adduce other evidence pointing in the same direction. But Hallam and Emerson, unexceptionable witnesses, will serve the turn. On one side, then, we are brought into contact with a poet or maker whose poems elude us. On another side we are confronted with poems whose poet or maker eludes us--some of us. What if Shakespeare were to Bacon what Callisthenes, Aristophanes’ actor-friend, was to Aristophanes? Suppose by way of working hypothesis that such was the case, that Shakespeare was a pen-name of Bacon’s. In that case his ultimate intention as to dropping or retaining the mask of pseudonymity would be affected by various considerations extending far beyond the family circle. (a) To be “rewarded of” the stage-manager was probably nothing less than degrading to a man of good birth. (b) The conditions under which the hypothetical Shakespeare must have written, were unfavourable to careful work. A man who is half ashamed of what he is doing is hardly likely to do his best, especially when more or less concealed. Certainly many of the plays suffer from faulty construction, inconsistency, obscurity, bombast and so forth, and what is more important, Shakespeare himself{4} was probably quite as conscious of these blemishes as were any of his critics. (c) With us the daily paper exerts a certain influence on public opinion. In Bacon’s day the theatre was one of the most effective means of appeal to any considerable audience, and in that way the name Shakespeare probably got entangled in controversies with which Bacon felt no desire to meddle autonymously.{5} (d) The moral tendency of Shakespearean work published before 1609, _Venus and Adonis_ for example, was not such as to forward any of the hypothetical author’s schemes for place. (e) Early in the seventeenth century Bacon seems to have convinced himself that for purposes of moment Latin was destined to supplant English. He was haunted moreover by fear of impending civil commotions, and augured ill for that “fair weather learning which needs the nursing of luxurious leisure.” (f) Had there been no other considerations than these, Bacon, even after he became Solicitor-General, might have been induced himself to give to the world some at least of his hypothetical offspring really “perfect of their limbes as he conceived them.” It is not to be supposed that he would ever have claimed all or nearly all that passed for Shakespeare’s. Much would have been disavowed altogether, and many of the more inconvenient things would, quite fairly, have been ascribed to collaboration, misprints, inexperience, haste, carelessness, etc. But the action of the ill-conditioned group which in 1609 engineered the publication of the _Sonnets_ of Shakespeare, must have greatly reduced the chance that Bacon would ever consent to edit anything of Shakespeare’s. So far as intimate friends were concerned, the piratical publication, however irritating,{6} would be comparatively innocuous, and as for charitable strangers, they might be trusted to discover extenuating circumstances in the youth of the author and the fashion of the time. But the great indiscriminating public, unaccustomed to make allowances, and led by an enemy like Sir Edward Coke, would chortle over the self-revelations suggested by the book, and put the worst construction on everything. Rather than face such a prospect, Bacon would be willing to pay almost any price, and the price he may be supposed to have paid was to seem to know nothing and care nothing about “Shakespeare” or anything that was his. Adherence to this policy would not necessarily involve any visible change of attitude or conduct. On the contrary, the hypothetical Shakespeare would be urged to hold on his usual course by the fear that any sudden stoppage, of the supply of plays for instance, might arouse suspicions which otherwise would have slept. Parenthetically it may be observed that Bacon had already known what it was to give to the world things--the Essays of 1597--which he would rather have kept back, but was compelled to publish because “to labour the state of them had been troublesome and subject to interpretation.”