Chapter VI: Part 6

Now, on this state of things, Mr. Dowse vehemently contends that the list on the outside cover is not, and never was meant to be a “table of contents.” He asserts that all this matter could not have been either accidentally lost, or (as seems much more probable) intentionally abstracted from the volume. First, because he says the volume originally consisted of a quire and no more; but as I have already said this is a mere conjecture, which in the face of Mr. Spedding’s evidence, is quite untenable. Secondly, because, “on the said assumption, the MS, as found, should have shown a considerable bulge, from top to bottom, alongside the fold,” and Spedding must have seen this “considerable bulge” if it had been there, and must have mentioned it if he had seen it! Mr. Dowse goes on to say that there is other “evidence on the point quite sufficient to satisfy reasonable beings,” which is an expression commonly used when a writer wishes to imply that those who do not accept his conclusions are not endowed with the reasoning faculty. Mr. Dowse’s idea of “evidence” is, as I shall show, somewhat peculiar, but in any case, I do not think many of his readers will be much impressed with the “considerable bulge,” or “the silence of Mr. Spedding” line of argument, especially as Mr. Spedding, though not mentioning the “bulge,” has definitely put on record his opinion that the volume may have originally included much more matter than it now contains. It is almost certain, for example, that it contained, with the other speeches written by Bacon for Essex’s _Device_ in 1595, _The Squire’s speech in the tilt-yard_, as well as the beginning and the end of _Leycester’s Common Wealth_. But let us hear Mr. Spedding. After enumerating the speeches written for this _Device_, which are now contained in the volume (viz., The Hermits fyrst speach: The Hermits second speach: The Soldier’s speach: The Squire’s speach), he writes: “These are the speeches written by Bacon for a _Device_ presented by the Earl of Essex on the Queen’s day 1595, concerning which see _Letters and Life of Francis Bacon_, vol. I. pp. 374-386. The principal difference between this copy and that at Lambeth, from which the printed copy was taken, is that this does _not_ contain ‘The Squire’s speech in the tilt-yard,’ with which the other begins, and _does_ contain a short speech from the Hermit--‘the Hermitt’s fyrst speach’--which seems to be a reply to it. It is possible that the beginning has been lost, _as any number of sheets may have dropped out at this place, without leaving any evidence of the fact_.”

Further on (p. xix), after giving the list of the titles on the outside cover, which he takes to have been a table of contents, Mr. Spedding writes: “The principal difficulties which I find in it are, first, the absence from the list of all allusion to the _Advertisement touching the controversies of the Church of England_, which can never have been separated from the volume, and has all the appearance of having been transcribed about the same time, and is too large a piece to have been overlooked; secondly, the absence from the volume itself of all trace of the _Earl of Arundell’s letter to the Queen_, which appears in the list, and thirdly, the misplacing of the entry of Sir Philip _Sydney’s Letter against Monsieur_, which stands higher in the list than it should. All this however may be explained by a few suppositions, not in themselves improbable, namely that the transcriber of the first five pieces left his list of contents incomplete; that the transcriber who followed him set down the contents only of his own portion; that the first sheet or two of his transcript has been lost, and that Sydney’s letter had been at first overlooked. I have already observed that the sheet on which the fifth piece ends and what is now the sixth begins, is the middle sheet of the volume; and therefore if _anything came between these two, it may have been taken out without leaving any traces of itself_. I have noticed also that Sir Philip’s letter has no heading, and may therefore have been easily overlooked. Now if we may suppose that the Earl of Arundell’s letter, having been transcribed on a central sheet, has dropped out, and that Sir Philip’s having been overlooked, the title was entered afterwards in the place where there was most room, we shall find that the first four titles represent correctly the rest of the contents of the volume.... The titles which follow have nothing corresponding to them in this manuscript, _but probably indicate the contents of another of the same kind, once attached to this and now lost_.”

Thus Mr. Spedding, who had the great advantage of seeing the manuscripts as they were found in 1867. But Mr. Le Marchant Dowse will have nothing of all this. He speaks loftily of the “folly” of supposing that the list on the outside page was a table of contents. Apparently he cannot tolerate the idea that two plays of Shakespeare, before they found their way into print, should have been transcribed by the same man, and included in the same volume, with certain works of Francis Bacon! _Id sane intolerandum._ But if not a table of contents what is the meaning of this outside list? How did it come to be written “at all, at all”? Well, Mr. Dowse’s theory is as follows: The supposed “quire” originally contained only the “Praises.” It came into the possession of the Earl of Northumberland. “It then came under the control of somebody (I shall name him hereafter) who jotted down at intervals the titles of other papers which he judged worth copying, or which were of interest as having reference to, or connexion with, or as having been written by, people whom he knew; but, on the one hand, he probably found it difficult to procure the papers he wanted; and meanwhile, on the other hand, papers that he had not previously thought of were unexpectedly placed at the Earl’s disposal; and these were copied as they came to hand.” According to this theory, therefore, a scribe in the employ of the Earl of Northumberland, entrusted with a paper volume in which four speeches, composed by Bacon for Lord Essex, had been transcribed, and very carefully and beautifully transcribed,[94] and finding these noted on the outside cover, which up to that point certainly had done duty as a “table of contents,” amuses himself by jotting down beneath, and on the same page, the titles of a number of works which he had not in his possession but which he “judged worth copying,” or thought of interest, such as the orations at Gray’s Inn, and Bacon’s _Essays_, and Shakespeare’s plays of _Richard II_ and _Richard III_. These, on this hypothesis, he was never able to procure, and therefore their titles on the cover stood for nothing, except as reflections of his inner consciousness. But, meanwhile, other papers, “that he had not previously thought of, were unexpectedly placed at the Earl’s disposal; and these were copied as they came to hand.” This theory we are asked, nay ordered, to accept on pain of being dismissed as creatures beyond the pale of reason. Quite unappalled by that terrible threat I venture to think that Mr. Dowse’s theory is itself unreasonable. I do not think a scribe entrusted with a nobleman’s manuscript volume, in which his duty was to enter further transcripts, would be at all likely to act in such a manner. I think it far more reasonable to suppose that these works had been copied or entered, that they were originally included in the volume, the original dimensions of which it is now impossible to estimate, and that they were subsequently abstracted, probably for some very good reason. In fact I think the evidence of Mr. Spedding, the eyewitness, is a great deal better than the hypothesis and conjectures of Mr. Dowse.

But the fact is that Mr. Dowse entered upon his investigation with two preconceived ideas. In the first place his purpose was to have a tilt at the Baconians who had founded some arguments on the close juxtaposition of the names, and certain of the works, of Bacon and Shakespeare in this manuscript. And, secondly, his purpose was to find evidence for his preconceived belief that John Davies of Hereford was the “scribbler” who had written so freely on the outside page of the volume. So much Mr. Dowse, unless I much misunderstand him, himself confesses. “The following investigation,” he says in his Preface, “was suggested to me by sundry mistaken notions respecting the MSS. hereinafter examined, which had found their way into print, and so had caught my eye from time to time.” Mr. Dowse, as will be seen, is violently anti-Baconian, by which I mean that he is not only altogether contemptuous of “the Baconian theory,” but also that he entertains a very low conception indeed of the personal character of Francis Bacon. I think, therefore, I have correctly interpreted the meaning of the above extract. Then as to “the writer of the scribble,” he says, “in point of fact upon my first scrutiny, several years ago, of Spedding’s facsimile, I provisionally formed an opinion as to who the scribbler was.” It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Dowse set out to prove that the scribbler was John Davies, though, of a certainty, the bare inspection of Spedding’s facsimile of the outer page of the manuscript could not justify any belief in the matter, and could, at most, only give occasion for the merest guess.

But before we come to the “scribbler” let us examine the scribble, and see what date we can assign to the writings. What Mr. Spedding calls “the title page,” forming half of the outside sheet, “which appears to be the only cover the volume ever had,” is covered all over with the so-called scribblings. “It contains,” says Mr. Dowse, “some two hundred entries, independently of the ‘Praises,’ and the list of titles.” Mr. Spedding, Mr. Dowse, and Mr. Burgoyne have reproduced this leaf in facsimile, and the latter has provided us with a modern script rendering of it. It may be said to be divided into two columns. At the top of the right-hand column stands the name “Mr. ffrancis Bacon,” followed by the list of “Praises,” which again is succeeded by what Mr. Spedding has called the table of contents. At the top of the left-hand column stands the name of Nevill, twice written, and not far below it is the punning motto of the Nevill family, _Ne vile velis_. “Perhaps,” says Mr. Burgoyne, “this gives a clue to the original ownership of the volume as it seems to indicate that the collection was written for or was the property of some member of the Nevill family.” It is suggested that this was Sir Henry Nevil (1564-1615), Bacon’s nephew, and a friend of Essex. Then high up, in the middle of the page, occur the words “Anthony Comfort and consorte,” which is, without doubt, as I think, an allusion to Anthony Bacon. Lower down in the left-hand column are the words:

Multis annis iam transactis
Nulla fides est in pactis
Mell in ore Verba lactis
ffell in Corde ffraus in factis;

as to which Mr. Burgoyne points out that among the Tenison MSS. at Lambeth Palace is a letter from Rodolphe Bradley to Anthony Bacon in which he writes: “Your gracious speeches ... be the words of a faithfull friende, and not of a courtiour, who hath _Mel in ore et verba lactis, sed fel in corde et fraus in factis_.”[95]

But the most interesting of these writings are those which refer to Shakespeare. In the right-hand column, somewhat below the centre, occurs the reference to a letter to the Queen’s Majesty “By Mr. ffrauncis Bacon.” Below this we read “Essaies by the same author.” Then the name “William Shakespeare,” with the word “Shakespear” just below, at the right-hand edge of the page. Then follows “Rychard the second,” with “ffrauncis” close under the word “second.” Then “Rychard the third.” Then, towards the bottom of the right-hand column, occurs the name “William Shakespeare” thrice repeated,[96] and besides this we find “Shakespeare,” “Shakespear,” “Shakespe,” “Shak” (several times), “Sh” (several times), “William,” “Will,” and so on; just as we find in other places “Mr. ffrauncis Bacon,” “Mr. Ffrauncis,” “ffrauncis,” “Bacon,” etc., several times repeated.

Upon this Mr. Spedding writes: “That Richard the second, and Richard the third, are meant for the titles of _Shakespeare’s_ plays so named, I infer from the fact--of which the evidence may be seen in the _facsimile_--that the list of contents being now complete, the writer (or more probably another into whose possession the volume passed) has amused himself with writing down promiscuously the names and phrases that most ran in his head; and that among these the name of _William Shakespeare_ was the most prominent, being written eight or nine times over for no other reason that can be discerned. That the name of _Mr. Frauncis Bacon_, which is also repeated several times, should have been used for the same kind of recreation requires no explanation; its position at the top of the page would naturally suggest it.”

But these are not the only Shakespearean references which we find on this remarkable page. About the centre occurs the word “_honorificabiletudine_,” a reminiscence of the “_honorificicabilitudinitatibus_” of _Love’s Labour’s Lost_. And lower down in the left-hand column we have,

revealing
day through
every Crany
peepes and ...
see
Shak

which seems to be an imperfect reminiscence of the line in _Lucrece_, “revealing day through every cranny spies,”[97] and is a very interesting contemporary notice of the poem which was first published in 1594 with the name “William Shakespeare” subscribed to the dedication addressed to the Earl of Southampton.

Here, then we have the names and the works of Shakespeare and Bacon brought into curiously close juxtaposition in (as it will presently be seen) a contemporary document. Here are speeches and Essays written by Bacon, and Plays by “William Shakespeare,” put together in the same volume (_pace_ Mr. Dowse), and we find some penman with these two names so much in his mind that he writes them both, either fully or in abbreviated form, many times over on the outside sheet of the paper book.

Now as to the date of these writings, Mr. Spedding states that he could find nothing, either in the “scribblings” or in what remains of the book itself, to indicate a date later than the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Burgoyne gives reasons for concluding that the manuscript was written not later than January, 1597, and he says “it seems more probable that no part of the manuscript was written after 1596.” There are several reasons for assigning this date to the work. One is that the outside list shows that the volume originally contained a copy of Bacon’s Essays. These--the ten short essays which appeared in the first edition--were published in January, 1597,[98] after having been extensively circulated in manuscript. After they were printed it is not likely that the expensive and imperfect method of copying in manuscript would have been resorted to.[99] Again the plays of _Richard II_ and _Richard III_ were first printed in 1597, “and issued,” says Mr. Burgoyne, “at a published price of sixpence each.” After that date, therefore, it seems reasonable to suppose that they would not have been transcribed, or noted for transcription. It is not unimportant to remember that when they were first issued the name of Shakespeare was not on them. In the editions of 1598, however, the hyphenated name, “William Shake-speare,” appears on each, and this is the first appearance of that name on any play. Nash’s “Isle of Dogs” referred to in the outside list was produced at Henslowe’s theatre in 1597, but never printed. Of course all the contents of the volume may not have been written in one year, and it is impossible to fix the exact date of the scribblings. But if, as it appears only reasonable to believe, the Shakespearean plays were transcribed (or even only noted for transcription) before 1597, we have here references to “Shakespeare” as the author of these plays before his name had come before the public as a dramatic author at all, and more than a year before his name appeared on any title page; and, what is certainly remarkable, we find this, at that time little known name closely associated with the name of Francis Bacon.

Who was the writer of the scribble? Mr. Dowse would identify him with John Davies of Hereford, who was born a year after Shakspere of Stratford and died two years after him. This John Davies was of Magdalen College, Oxford, a poet, and, says Mr. Dowse, “a competent scholar.” He took up penmanship as a calling, and “became the most famous teacher of his age; and he taught, not only in many noble and gentle families, but in the royal family itself, for in those days not even nobles and princes were ashamed to write well.” How we could wish that William Shakspere of Stratford had been among his pupils! But what is the evidence that Davies was “the Scribbler”? Let Mr. Dowse state it in his own words: “His numerous sonnets and other poems, as well as his many dedications, addressed to people of note, while friendly, are also respectful and manly (though he could neatly flatter): and their number shows the extent of the circle in which he moved. Within this circle, or rather a section of it, I felt myself to be, while dealing with the page of scribble; and that feeling has been amply justified out of the mouth, or rather by the pen of John Davies himself, for his Works show that he was directly and closely acquainted with nearly all the persons his contemporaries there mentioned; with some indeed he was friendly and familiar. The overwhelming evidence of this fact _is of itself sufficient to identify Davies as the scribbler_” (p. 8).

This strikes one as rather curious logic. Davies was closely acquainted with nearly all the persons mentioned in “the page of scribble.” _Ergo_, Davies wrote the scribble!

I hardly think a judge would direct a jury to pay much attention to “evidence” of this description. I have no prepossessions whatever against John Davies of Hereford. I am perfectly willing to believe that he was “the scribbler”; but unless some better proof than this can be adduced, I fear we must regard Mr. Dowse’s theory as mere hypothesis. However, Mr. Dowse tells us that he has other evidence. He refers to Davies’s “Dedicatory and Consolatory Epistle,” addressed to the ninth Earl of Northumberland, which is to be found in the Grenville Library at the British Museum. This, he says, is “with some verbal exceptions written in Davies’s beautiful court-hand.” And he further tells us that “no one who has studied the scribble and then turns to that ‘Consolatory Epistle’ can fail to recognise the same hand at a glance.” Here I am not competent to express an opinion, for I have not examined the Epistle in question, nor have I seen the original of the Northumberland MS., and even if I had inspected both I fear I should be in no better case, for nothing is more dangerous than this identification by comparison of handwriting. Anyone who has served an apprenticeship at the Bar knows how perilous it is to trust to the evidence of “expert witnesses” in this matter. I well remember a case in which the two most famous handwriting experts of their day, in this country at any rate, Messrs. Inglis and Netherclift, swore point blank one against the other, with equal confidence as to certain disputed handwriting, so that the judge felt constrained to tell the jury that they must leave the “expert evidence” out of the question altogether. In the Dreyfus case too, the experts, the renowned M. Bertillon included, seem to have come utterly to grief. One is reminded of the Judge’s famous categories of “liars,” viz., “liars, damned liars, and expert witnesses!” Therefore I think it well to cultivate a little healthy scepticism when Mr. Dowse identifies “at a glance” John Davies’s “beautiful court-hand” with the scribble of the Northumberland MS. Mr. Dowse quotes Thomas Fuller to the effect that “John Davies was the greatest master of the pen that England in his age, beheld”; and goes on to say: “His merits are summarized under the heads of rapidity, beauty, compactness, and _variety of styles_; which last he so mixed that he made them appear a hundred!” I think one ought to be more than ordinarily cautious in judging of the handwriting of a man who had a hundred different styles. Yet Mr. Dowse undertakes to tell us which of the entries on the outer leaf of the volume are by John Davies, and which by somebody else! I repeat I am quite willing to accept John Davies as the scribbler, but I fear that at present I must regard the hypothesis as “not proven.” I fear Mr. Dowse may have been a little too anxious to find the verification of his preconceived opinion, on his “first scrutiny of Spedding’s facsimile,” that Davies was the man who wrote the scribble. However the fact that Davies seems to have been for some years in the service of Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland, as teacher of his family (that is, I presume mainly as writing master[100]), and possibly as copyist lends some probability to Mr. Dowse’s surmise.

Mr. Dowse speaks in very bitter terms of Francis Bacon, perhaps unconsciously allowing his bitterness to be accentuated (as we so often find to be the case) by his abhorrence of the Baconian theory of authorship. It is, at any rate, so strong as to lead him into criticism so obviously, and indeed absurdly, unfair as to carry its own refutation with it, and to impair very seriously the value of the critic’s judgment. He assumes that Davies wrote the words “Anthony Comfort, and Consorte,” though why the writing master, who was, according to the hypothesis, in the service of the Earl of Northumberland at the time, should have made this entry it is rather difficult to conjecture. However, says Mr. Dowse, it “shows that he was aware of the relations subsisting between the two brothers--that Anthony was the companion and support of Francis the spendthrift, whom to keep out of prison he impoverished himself, and then did not succeed. It also suggests a rebuke of the toadyism of Francis in selecting and, _more suo_, grossly flattering the terrible old termagant on the throne as the ‘worthiest person’ in preference to such a brother.” When we remember that “the praise of his soveraigne” was, with the other speeches, written in 1592, to be spoken at a _Device_ presented by Essex before Elizabeth (the idea being, of course, to conciliate the Queen in favour of Essex, and the very fact of Bacon’s authorship being concealed), the suggestion that Davies had in his mind to rebuke Bacon for his “toadyism” because of this purely dramatic performance is, I submit, sufficiently absurd. But that is far from being the worst. I make no complaint whatever that Mr. Dowse will have nothing at all to do with Spedding’s attempted vindication of Bacon in the matter of Essex, or that he will make no allowance whatever for the exigencies of Bacon’s position as counsel in the service of the Crown. Everyone has the right to form his own opinion upon that, as upon other matters of historical controversy. But, says Mr. Dowse, in view of the sentiments which Davies entertained with regard to the families of Northumberland and Essex, “we can imagine how he would feel towards those who were instrumental in bringing Essex to the block.... The man that did more than anyone else towards securing the death of Essex was Francis Bacon, but the MS. was planned, and probably in great part executed, before that repulsive procedure, or the contents might have been very different.” In plain English, Davies, the assumed writer of the scribble, must, after the Essex affair, have felt nothing but hatred and scorn for Francis Bacon, and had Essex’s death taken place before this manuscript was planned, and (probably) in great part executed, “the contents might have been very different”; the meaning of which is, I suppose, either that Bacon’s works would have been omitted altogether, or that the writer would have put on record “a bit of his mind” with regard to the author. But it so happens that some years after this, viz., about 1610, Davies published, in his _Scourge of Folly_, a sonnet addressed to Bacon in which he speaks of him in highly eulogistic terms. How does Mr. Dowse explain this? I will place his remarks before the reader, and afterwards quote the sonnet in full, and then ask judgment on this very remarkable style of anti-Baconian criticism. “It seems,” writes Mr. Dowse, “that Bacon had recently made him (Davies) a present of money, or more probably had paid him lavishly for some assistance. But the poet’s gratitude takes a singular form:

Thy _bounty_, and the beauty of thy Witt
_Compells_ my pen to let fall shining ink!

Further on he speaks of Bacon ‘keeping the Muse’s company _for sport_ twixt grave affairs’--an apology for Bacon’s amateur verses.”

Now, first of all be it observed that the italics and the note of admiration in the above quotations are Mr. Dowse’s own contribution.[101] And what is the suggestion, again to put it into plain English? It is that Davies, though in his heart regarding Bacon with contempt and abhorrence, had accepted a large sum of money from him, and therefore felt _compelled_, however reluctantly, to write a poem in his honour! Observe that Mr. Dowse in other places speaks of Davies in the highest terms, and cites him as a witness of unimpeachable honesty and honour in favour of Shakspere, player and author. Yet he allows his bitter feelings against Bacon to carry him so far that rather than recognise what must be plain to every impartial reader, viz., that Davies was writing _ex animo_ as a friend and admirer of Bacon, he would have us believe, in vilification of his own witness, that the poet was induced by filthy lucre to write entirely insincere, and, therefore, particularly nauseous flattery of a man whom he hated and despised!

And now I will set before the reader the sonnet _in extenso_ (preserving the italics as in the original), and ask him whether there is any possible reason to suppose that it is not an honest expression of the writer’s genuine admiration for Bacon:

* * * * *

To the royall, ingenious, and all learned Knight, Sir Francis Bacon.

Thy _bounty_ and the _Beauty_ of thy Witt
Comprisd in Lists of _Law_ and learned _Arts_,
Each making thee for great _Imployment_ fitt
Which now thou hast (though short of thy deserts)
Compells my pen to let fall shining _Inke_
And to bedew the _Baies_ that _deck_ thy _Front_;
And to thy health in _Helicon_ to drinke
As to her _Bellamour_ the _Muse_ is wont:
For, thou dost her embozom; and dost use
Her company for sport twixt grave affaires:
So utterst Law the livelyer through thy _Muse_.
And for that all thy _Notes_ are sweetest _Aires_;
_My Muse thus notes thy worth in ev’ry Line,
With yncke which thus she sugers; so to shine._

Now this “sugred sonnet” is I think a very remarkable one. Considering the inflated style in use for laudatory poems of the time, it is written in singularly moderate language, and I think no reader, after considering it as a whole, could possibly put upon it the malignant construction suggested by Mr. Dowse, unless his judgment be warped by very bitter prejudice. But it is not only an honest eulogy of Bacon as a man, it is valuable as bearing witness to the fact, doubtless well known to Davies, that Bacon was a poet. Mr. Dowse speaks contemptuously of Davies’s “apology for Bacon’s amateur verses,” but I fear Mr. Dowse’s sight is distorted by a fragment of that broken magic mirror whereof Hans Anderson has written so charmingly. Davies drinks to Bacon’s health in “Helicon”--not in “the waters of the Spaw,” but in “the waters of Parnassus,”

As to her Bellamour the Muse is wont.

It is true that Bacon was engaged in “grave affaires”--he had been made Solicitor-General in 1607--and therefore, though he wooed the Muse, could only “use her company” by way of recreation in intervals of more serious employment. Nevertheless he is fully recognised as her “Bellamour.”

We may be grateful to Mr. Dowse for once more calling attention to this very high and remarkable tribute of praise.

Mr. Dowse goes on to cite Davies’s testimony--which is here, of course, to be taken very seriously indeed--to the excellence of William Shakspere. “In his ‘Microcosmos,’ in a stanza beginning ‘Players, I love,’ Davies singles out Shakespeare and Burbage for his highest admiration. He attributes to them ‘_wit_ (i.e. intellect), _courage_, _good shape_, _good partes_, and ALL GOOD!’”

Now I will again set forth the lines _in extenso_ in order that the reader may form his own opinion as to their meaning and evidentiary value. It is to be observed that Davies does not mention Shakespeare (or Shakspere) or Burbage by name, but there are, in a marginal note to the third line, the letters W. S. R. B., which are generally interpreted as bearing reference to those two “deserving men.”[102] Whether he attributes to them all the excellencies so largely writ in Mr. Dowse’s interpretation the reader shall judge. Why Mr. Dowse has written the words “all good” in such startlingly large letters I am unable to say, and I really do not think the poet, who according to Mr. Dowse was of a very strict, if not sanctimonious, turn of mind, intended to attribute ALL GOOD to poor Will Shakspere and Dick Burbage; while as to his being “over exquisite in depreciating their calling,” this fault--if fault it be--he certainly shares with all the other writers of his time concerning the profession and _status_ of the Players. Here is the poem published in the _Microcosmos_ or “The Discovery of the Little World, with the Government thereof,” 1603:

_Players_, I love yee, and your _Qualitie_,
As ye are Men, _that_ passtime not abus’d;
And some I love for _painting_, _poesie_,
And say fell _Fortune_ cannot be excus’d,
That hath for better _uses_ you refus’d:
_Wit_, _Courage_, _good shape_, _good partes_, and all _good_,
As long as al these _goods_ are no _worse_ us’d,
And though the _stage_ doth staine pure gentle _bloud_,
Yet generous yee are in _minde_ and _moode_.

Mr. Dowse follows this by a reference to Davies’s poem addressed to

Our English Terence, Mr. Will.
Shake-speare.[103]

which appeared, with the sonnet to Bacon already quoted, in the _Scourge of Folly_ (1610-11). On this poem Mr. Dowse waxes eloquent. This, he tells us “in short compass gives us a number of important particulars about him [Shakespeare]. Thus, he acted ‘kingly parts,’ which means lordly manners and bearing and elocution; and if he had not _played_ those parts (the stage again!)[104] he would have been a fit companion for a King; indeed he would have _been_ a king among the general ruck of mankind. He had then (as now) his detractors, but he was above detraction, and never railed in return; for he had a ‘reigning wit,’ i.e. a sovereign intellect.”

I will quote this poem also. _The Scourge of Folly_ by the way, is, we read, a work “consisting of Satyricall Epigramms and others.” I fancy there is a good deal of the “Satyricall” in the following:

Some say (good _Will_) which I, in sport, do sing,
Hadst thou not plaid some Kingly parts in sport,
Thou hadst bin a companion for a _King_;
And, beene a King among the meaner sort.
Some others raile; but, raile as they think fit,
Thou hast no rayling, but a raigning Wit.
_And_ honesty _thou sow’st, which they do reape_;
_So_, to _increase their_ Stocke _which they do keepe_.

So Davies, singing “in sport,” suggests that according to the saying of some, if the Player had not been a Player he might have been a companion for a King (I rather suspect some esoteric meaning here to which, at this date, we cannot penetrate), and have been himself a King “among the meaner sort.” As Miss L. Toulmin Smith writes (Ingleby’s _Centurie of Prayse_, p. 94) “it seems likely [? certain] that these lines refer to the fact that Shakespere was a player, a profession that was then despised and accounted mean.” The poem, of course, has some value for the supporters of the Stratfordian faith, for, if Davies is here writing in sober seriousness, and with no ironical _arrière pensée_, it certainly seems to imply that he supposed “Mr. Will Shake-speare, our English Terence,” to be identical with player Shakspere. To which the anti-Stratfordian would reply that, if he did so mean, he was misled, as others were, by the use of the pseudonym Shakespeare. Poems and Plays were published in that name “as it was always _printed_ in those days, and not as he [Shakspere] himself in any known case ever wrote it.”[105] In any case Davies’s lines can hardly be said to be the high eulogy of Player Shakspere that Mr. Dowse would have them to be.[106]

A word more and I have done with Mr. Dowse. As I have already said, that which I still venture to call the “table of contents,” on the outer page of the paper volume, is headed by Bacon’s “Of tribute,” and a list of his four “Praises.” Now, about an inch below the last “Praise” occurs the word _fraunces_, and a little below and to the right of that is the word _turner_. These we are told are “in different hands,” though whether or not they are samples of Davies’s hundred different styles it would seem rather difficult to say. Mr. Dowse, however, thinks that _fraunces_ was written by the copyist of the “Praises,” and _turner_ by “the scribbler,” and that the latter word was “apparently intended to stand as if related in some way to _fraunces_.” He then tells us how pondering over this a brilliant idea struck him. In the middle of the reign of James I occurred the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, instigated by Frances Howard, Lady Essex, and one of this lady’s “principal agents” was a Mrs. Anne Turner. What can be clearer than that we have here a reference to these two notorious criminals? It follows from this that “the MS. was ‘knocking about,’ or at any rate open for additions to the scribble on the cover, as late as 1615.”[107]

This is going to one’s conclusion _per saltum_ with a vengeance. It is to be observed that _fraunces_ is written just under the _ffrauncis_ of “Mr. ffrauncis Bacon,” and just above that stands “Mr. Ffrauncis.” It seems very probable therefore, that _fraunces_ is only written as a variety of, or at least suggested by, the name “ffrauncis,” though Mr. Burgoyne does not seem to be right in transcribing it in the latter form. The idea that it stands for the “_Christian name_” of Lady Essex, and “_turner_” for the _surname_ of her “principal agent” seems an altogether wild one, and I should imagine that no serious critic would seek to fix the date of any part of the scribble by such a hare-brained supposition.[108]

I turn then from Mr. Dowse’s singularly injudicial tract to Mr. Burgoyne’s more sober comment. “As to the penman who actually wrote the manuscript,” says Mr. Burgoyne, “nothing certain is known. The writing on the contents page is chiefly in one hand, with occasional words in another, and a few words mostly scrawled across the page at an angle appear to be written by a third. The main body of the work is in two or more handwritings, and the difference is especially to be noted in ‘Leycester’s Commonwealth,’ which appears to have been written in a hurry, for the writing has been overspaced in some pages and overcrowded in others, as if different penmen had been employed. There are also noticeable breaks on folios 64 and 88, and the difference in penmanship on these pages is specially remarkable. This points to the collection having been written at a literary workshop or professional writer’s establishment. It is a fact worthy of notice, that Bacon and his brother Anthony were interested in a business of the kind about the time suggested for the date of the writing of this book. Mr. Spedding states:--[109] “Anthony Bacon appears to have served [Essex] in a capacity very like that of a modern under-secretary of State, receiving all letters which were mostly in cipher in the first instance; forwarding them (generally through his brother Francis’s hands) to the Earl, deciphered and accompanied with their joint suggestions; and finally, according to the instructions thereupon returned, framing and dispatching the answers. Several writers must have been employed to carry out with promptitude such work as here outlined, and we find in a letter from Francis Bacon to his brother,[110] dated January 25th, 1594, that the clerks were also employed upon other work.... ‘I have here an idle pen or two ... I pray send me somewhat else for them to write out besides your Irish collection.’” etc., etc.

In a well-known letter to Tobie Mathew, Bacon writes: “My labours are now most set to have those works, which I had formerly published ... well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens that forsake me not.” In this connection Mr. Burgoyne writes: “It is worthy of notice that in ‘The Great Assises holden in Parnassus by Apollo and his Assessours,’ printed in 1645, the ‘Chancellor’ is declared to be ‘Lord Verulam,’ and ‘Ben Johnson’ is described as the ‘Keeper of the Trophonian Denne.’”[111] “It seems not unlikely,” says Mr. Burgoyne, “that this literary workshop, was the source of the ‘Verulamian Workmanship’ which is referred to by Isaac Gruter in a letter to Dr. William Rawley (Bacon’s secretary and executor) written from Maestricht, and dated March 20, 1655. This letter was written in Latin, and both the original and the translation are printed in ‘Baconiana, or certain genuine Remains of Sir Francis Bacon,’ London, 1679.” Mr. Burgoyne gives the following extract:

“If my Fate would permit me to live according to my Wishes I would
flie over into _England_, that I might behold whatsoever remaineth,
in your cabinet of the _Verulamian_ Workmanship, and at least make
my eyes witnesses of it, if the possession of the Merchandize be
yet denied to the Publick.... At present I will support the Wishes
of my impatient desire, with hope of seeing, one Day, those
[issues] which being committed to faithful Privacie, wait the time
till they may safely see the Light, and not be stifled in their
Birth.”

This letter, we note in passing, shows us that in the _Verulamian_ literary Workshop certain “Merchandize” was produced which was “denied to the public”--that in fact (as we know by other evidence to have been the case) there were many writings of Bacon “committed to faithful Privacie”--to Rawley e.g.--which were to be kept unpublished till they could “safely see the light,” but which, most unfortunately, were lost or destroyed.

The suggestion, therefore, is that this paper volume, now known as the Northumberland MS., was a product of the famous Verulamian Workshop or _Scriptorium_, and Mr. Bompas adopting (with too great facility as I think) Mr. Dowse’s hypothesis that “the scribbler” was John Davies of Hereford, and referring to the known fact that the “Praises” were written for Essex’s _Device_ in 1592, points out that at that date John Davies was only 27 and at the beginning of his career, and that it is “fifteen years later, in 1607, that an entry appears in the Northumberland accounts of a payment showing his employment by the Earl.” Mr. Bompas, therefore, suggests that in 1592 Davies might have been in Bacon’s employ; he seems, however to have overlooked the fact that, according to Mr. Dowse, the “Praises” were _not_ written by Davies, since they are “in a totally different hand.”[112] The one fact which emerges is that we really do not know who wrote any part of the Manuscript, but that it was written for Bacon by one or more of his secretaries seems entirely probable, seeing that six of the nine pieces which now form its contents are transcripts of Bacon’s works, then unpublished. How Bacon, or his secretary, came into possession of two unpublished plays of Shakespeare, is a matter for speculation.

As to the “scribble” itself Mr. Spedding writes: “At the present time, if the waste leaf on which a law stationer’s apprentice tries his pens were examined, I should expect to find on it the name of the poet, novelist, dramatic author, or actor of the day, mixed with snatches of the last new song, and scribblings of ‘My dear Sir,’ ‘Yours sincerely,’ and ‘This Indenture witnesseth.’ And this is exactly the sort of thing which we have here.” Mr. Dowse demurs to this, for, says he, “the cases are not parallel: there is nothing trivial or vulgar in our scribbler: he was a serious and even religious man: the subjects that interest him are lofty, and like his acquaintance noble.” I will not offer an opinion on this point, viz., as to whether the scribbler was merely an idle penman, or “a serious and religious” penman, but, however that may be, I do not think that Mr. Spedding’s analogy holds good. “A law stationer’s apprentice” might certainly exercise his pen on a “waste leaf” as Mr. Spedding suggests, but an outer sheet of a paper volume in which works of importance, or so considered, were transcribed, the whole volume being stitched together, can hardly be described as a waste leaf. In days when printing was far less common than it is now such a volume would be valuable. Moreover, on the outside leaf were written the contents of the volume. A law stationer’s apprentice would hardly dare to exercise his idle pen on the outside skin of a newly-engrossed deed. I am inclined, therefore, to agree with Mr. Dowse that the scribblings were to a certain extent “serious.” There is method in their madness. And they are such “acts of ownership,” that the scribbler must have had a complete _dominium_ over the document.

I have been long, and I fear, tedious over this curious work, but the more one considers Mr. Dowse’s tract the more does one find it provocative of criticism. I will now leave the regions of imagination for those of fact. Whether or not John Davies of Hereford was “the Scribbler” seems to me of comparatively little importance.[113] What is of importance is this:--We have here an undoubtedly Elizabethan manuscript volume. Its contents, as they have come down to us, are nine articles, out of which seven are by Bacon. It seems, therefore very reasonable to believe that the volume was written for Bacon and was perhaps a product of the “Verulamian workshop.” Very possibly it was presented by him either to the Earl of Northumberland, or to Sir Henry Neville, his own nephew. It is quite reasonable to believe that among the contents of the volume, as it originally stood, were the two Shakespearean plays, _Richard II_ and _Richard III_. In any case these were noted on the outer leaf either as having been transcribed, or for future transcription. Such note would not, in all probability, have been made after 1597, when these plays were first (anonymously) published, at the price of sixpence each. At that date “Shakespeare” was unknown to the public as a dramatic author, for not a play had as yet been published under that name. Here then we have the names and the works of Bacon and Shakespeare associated, in close juxtaposition, in a contemporaneous manuscript. Further, the transcriber of, at any rate, part of the work, writing not idly but with serious thought, exercises his pen by writing the names, or parts of the names of Shakespeare and Bacon, over and over again, on the outside sheet. “William Shakespeare,” the author of _Richard II_ and _Richard III_, seems to be a name familiar to him, although those plays had not as yet been published, and indeed were not published under the name of “Shake-speare” till 1598. He writes the name of “Shakespeare” “as it was always printed,” and not as Shakspere of Stratford “in any known case ever wrote it.” And not content with associating thus closely the names of Shakespeare and Bacon, on a volume containing some works by both these writers, if two they really were, he must needs, on the same outer sheet, quote a line, slightly varied, from _Lucrece_, and a word from _Love’s Labour’s Lost_. No other name of poet, or actor, appears upon “the Scribble” as distinct from the table of contents. It is all either Shakespeare or Bacon.

If a dishonest Baconian could fabricate fictitious evidence in the same way as the forger Ireland did for Shakspere, it seems to me that he might well endeavour to concoct such a document as this. But the Northumberland MS. is an undoubtedly genuine document, and it is but natural that the “Baconians” should make the most of it.--G.G.

FINAL NOTE

There is one argument in support of the contention that Bacon was the author of _Venus and Adonis_ which seems to me to deserve more attention than it has hitherto received.

It was, I believe, first put forward by the late Reverend Walter Begley, of St. John’s College, Cambridge, in his book, _Is it Shakespeare?_[114]--a work which every one interested in the Shakespeare problem ought to read, because it is replete with both information and amusement, and there is hardly a dull page in it. The argument is derived from the Satires of Marston and Hall, our early English satirists, of the sixteenth century, who wrote in bitter vein the one against the other. Both of them have a good deal to say concerning one _Labeo_, which is a pseudonym for some anonymous writer of the time. Now in 1598 Marston published a poem founded on the lines and model of _Venus and Adonis_, which he called “Pigmalion’s Image” (_sic_)--a love poem, not a satire--and as an appendix to it he wrote some lines “in prayse of his precedent Poem,” where “Pigmalion” had, according to the old legend, succeeded in bringing the image he had wrought out of ivory to life, and in this appendix occur the following lines:

And in the end (the end of love I wot),
Pigmalion hath a jolly boy begot.
So Labeo did complaine his love was stone,
Obdurate, flinty, so relentlesse none;
Yet Lynceus knowes that in the end of this
He wrought as strange a metamorphosis.

Now compare the following lines from _Venus and Adonis_ (199-200):

Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel--
Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth.

Here we have Labeo’s complaint almost word for word, and we are reminded that at the end of _Venus and Adonis_ there was the “strange metamorphosis” of Adonis into a flower, quite as strange as that of “Pigmalion’s Image.”

Is it not clear, then, that by Labeo is meant the author of _Venus and Adonis_? It may be said, of course, that it was not the author, but Venus who complained that Adonis was “obdurate, flinty,” and relentless, but that is a futile objection, for Marston evidently puts the words of Venus into Labeo’s mouth, and it can only be the author of the poem to whom he alludes.

Who, then, was _Labeo_? Well, “these University wits,” as Mr. Begley writes, “were steeped in Horace, Juvenal, Persius, and Ovid, and thence brought forth a nickname whenever an occasion required it.” Now in Horace we read:

Labeone insanior inter
sanos dicatur.

and we learn that M. Antistius Labeo was a famous lawyer, who, it is said, by too much free speaking had offended the Emperor Augustus.[115]

But what more have we about this sixteenth century Labeo? Well, Bishop Hall in his satires mentions him several times, and reflects upon him as a licentious writer who takes care to preserve his anonymity, and, like the cuttle-fish, involves himself in a cloud of his own making. Thus in the second book of his satires, which he called (after Plautus) _Virgidemiæ_, i.e., a bundle of rods, Hall attacks Labeo in the following words:

For shame! write better, Labeo, or write none;
Or betterwrite, or, Labeo, write alone.
(Bk. II, Sat. 1)

and he ends this satire thus:

For shame! write cleanly, Labeo, or write none.

From these lines we may infer, as Mr. Begley says, that Labeo did not write alone, but in conjunction with, or under cover of, another author, and also that he did not write “cleanly,” but in a lascivious style, such as the style of _Venus and Adonis_, it might be.

But there is a further passage in Hall’s _Virgidemiæ_ (Book IV, Sat. 1) which I must quote:

_Labeo_ is whipp’d and laughs me in the face:
Why? for I smite, and hide the galléd place.
Gird but the Cynick’s Helmet on his head,
Cares he for _Talus_ or his flayle of lead?

Long as the crafty _Cuttle_ lieth sure
In the black _Cloude_ of his thick vomiture,
Who list complain of wrongéd faith or fame
When he may shift it to another’s name?

It would take too long if, in this note, I were to attempt the explanation of this “Sphinxian” passage, as Dr. Grosart called it, but the general meaning seems clear enough, viz.: “I, the Satirist, whip Labeo, but Labeo merely laughs at me, for he knows he can shift the blame, and the punishment, on to another whose name he makes use of, while he himself lies, like the Cuttle, in the Cloud of his own vomiture.”[116]

Then, writes Mr. Begley, “Labeo is the writer of _Venus and Adonis_; and as there is every reason to think that Marston used the name Labeo because Hall had used it, we are therefore able to infer that Hall and Marston both mean the same man. We, therefore, advance another step, and infer that the author of _Venus and Adonis_ did not write alone, that he shifted his work to another’s name (certainly a Baconian characteristic), and acted like a cuttle-fish by interposing a dark cloud between himself and his pursuers.”

But what proof or evidence is there that Labeo stood for Bacon? Well, Marston’s Satires were published, with his “Pigmalion’s Image,” in 1598, several months after Hall’s first three books of _Virgidemiæ_ had appeared, and in his Satire IV, entitled _Reactio_, Marston goes through pretty well the whole list of writers whom Hall had attacked, and defends them, but, curiously enough, he seems to take no notice of Hall’s attack on Labeo, though that attack was a marked and recurrent one. But, says Mr. Begley, “_Labeo is there_, but concealed in an ingenious way by Marston, and passed over in a line that few would notice or comprehend. But when it _is_ noticed it becomes one of the most direct proofs we have on the Bacon-Shakespeare question, and, what is more, a genuine and undoubted contemporary proof.” What, then, is that proof? It is found in a line addressed by Marston to Hall:

What, not _mediocria firma_ from thy spite?
(Sat. IV, 77)

That is to say: “What, did not even _mediocria firma_ escape thy spite?”--or we might translate: “What, was not even _mediocria_ safe (_firma_) from thy spite?”

“_Mediocria firma_,” therefore, stands for a writer, and one who had been attacked by Hall. And who was that writer? Of this there can, surely, be no doubt. “Mediocria firma” was Bacon’s motto, and we find it engraved over the well-known portrait of _Franciscus Baconus Baro de Verulam_, which appears at the commencement of his _Sylva Sylvarum_. Moreover, it is a motto which has never been used except by the Earls of Verulam or the Bacon family. “Mediocria firma,” therefore, stands for Bacon. But is “Mediocria firma” identical with “Labeo”?

Well, “Labeo,” as used by Marston, stands for the author of _Venus and Adonis_. Of that, I think, there can be no doubt. And Hall’s “Labeo,” the elusive author of a lascivious poem, who writes under a pseudonym and who is always prepared to shift the responsibility upon somebody else, seems eminently characteristic of Francis Bacon. And it is Bacon, under the guise of “Mediocria firma,” the spiteful attacks upon whom in Hall’s Satires are deprecated by Marston. In fine, it seems to be eminently probable, though it cannot be said to be absolutely proved, that “Labeo” and “Mediocria firma” are one and the same.