Chapter IX: Letter VIII: of the Casket Letters from Mary to Bothwell. In this (we (3)

Mr. Pollard is much more lenient than his fellow-scholars towards the Editor or Editors of the Folio. He concludes that “manuscript copies of the plays were easily procurable.” Sixteen out of the thirty-six plays existed in quartos. Eight of the sixteen were not used for the Folio; five were used, “with additions, corrections, or alterations” (which must have been made from manuscripts). Three quartos only were reprinted as they stood. The Editors greatly preferred to use manuscript copies; and showed this, Mr. Pollard thinks, by placing plays, never before printed, in the most salient parts of the three sets of dramas in their book. {215a} They did make an attempt to divide their plays into Acts and Scenes, whereas the quartos, as a general rule, had been undivided. But the Editors, I must say, had not the energy to carry out their good intentions fully—or Bacon or Bungay, if the author, wearied in well-doing. The work is least ill done in the Comedies, and grows worse and worse as the Editor, or Bacon, or Bungay becomes intolerably slack.

A great living author, who had a decent regard for his own works, could never have made or passed this slovenly Folio. Yet Mr. Greenwood argues that probably Bungay was still alive and active, after Shakspere was dead and buried. (Mr. Greenwood, of course, does not speak of Bungay, which I use as short for his Great Unknown.) Thus, _Richard III_ from 1597 to 1622 appeared in six quartos. It is immensely improved in the Folio, and so are several other plays. Who made the improvements, which the Editors could only obtain in manuscripts? If we say that Shakespeare made them in MS., Mr. Greenwood asks, “What had he to work upon, since, after selling his plays to his company, he did not preserve his manuscript?” {216a} Now I do not know that he did sell his plays to his company. We are sure that Will got money for them, but we do not know what arrangement he made with his company. He may have had an author’s rights in addition to a sum down, as later was customary, and he had his regular share in the profits. Nor am I possessed of information that “he did not preserve his manuscript.” How can we know that? He may have kept his first draft, he may have made a fair copy for himself, as well as for the players, or may have had one made. He may have worked on a copy possessed by the players; and the publisher of the quartos of 1605, 1612, 1622, may not have been allowed to use, or may not have asked for the latest manuscript revised copy. The _Richard III_ of the Folio contains, with much new matter, the printer’s errors of the quarto of 1622. I would account for this by supposing that the casual Editor had just sense enough to add the new parts in a revised manuscript to the quarto, and was far too lazy to correct the printer’s errors in the quarto. But Mr. Greenwood asks whether “the natural conclusion is not that ‘some person unknown’ took the Quarto of 1622, revised it, added the new passages, and thus put it into the form in which it appeared in 1623.” This natural conclusion means that the author, Bungay, was alive in 1622, and put his additions and improvements of recent date into the quarto of 1622, but never took the trouble to correct the errors in the quarto. And so on in other plays similarly treated. “Is it not a more natural conclusion that ‘Shakespeare’” (Bungay) “himself revised its publication, and that some part of this revision, at any rate, was done after 1616 and before 1623.” {217a}

Mr. Greenwood, after criticising other systems, writes, {217b} “There is, of course, another hypothesis. It is that Shakespeare” (meaning the real author) “did not die in 1616,” and here follows the usual notion that “Shakespeare” was the “_nom de plume_” of that transcendent genius, “moving in Court circles among the highest of his day (as assuredly Shakespeare must have moved)—who wished to conceal his identity.”

I have not the shadow of assurance that the Author “moved in Court circles,” though Will would see a good deal when he played at Court, and in the houses of nobles, before “Eliza and our James.” I never moved in Court circles: Mr. Greenwood must know them better than I do, and I have explained (see _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, and _Shakespeare_, _Genius_, _and Society_) how Will picked up his notions of courtly ways.

“Another hypothesis,” the Baconian hypothesis,—“_nom de plume_” and all,—Mr. Greenwood thinks “an extremely reasonable one”: I cannot easily conceive of one more unreasonable.

“Supposing that there was such an author as I have suggested, he may well have conceived the idea of publishing a collected edition of the plays which had been written under the name of Shakespeare, and being himself busy with other matters, he may have entrusted the business to some ‘literary man,’ to some ‘good pen,’ who was at the time doing work for him; and why not to the man who wrote the commendatory verses, the ‘Lines to the Reader’” (opposite to the engraving), “and, as seems certain, the Preface, ‘to the great variety of Readers’?” {218a}

That man, that “good pen,” was Ben Jonson. On the “supposing” of Mr. Greenwood, Ben is “doing work for” the Great Unknown at the time when “the business” following on the “idea of publishing a collected edition of the plays which had been written under the name of Shakespeare” occurred to the illustrious but unknown owner of that “_nom de plume_.” In plain words of my own,—the Author may have entrusted “the business,” and what was that business if not the editing of the Folio?—to Ben Jonson—“who was at the time doing work for him”—for the Author.

Here is a clue! We only need to know for what man of “transcendent genius, universal culture, world-wide philosophy . . . moving in Court circles,” and so on, Ben “was working” about 1621–3, the Folio appearing in 1623.

The heart beats with anticipation of a discovery! “On January 22, 1621, Bacon celebrated his sixtieth birthday with great state at York House. Jonson was present,” and wrote an ode, with something about the Genius of the House (_Lar_ or Brownie),

“Thou stand’st as if some mystery thou didst.”

Mr. Greenwood does not know what this can mean; nor do I. {219a}

“Jonson, it appears” (on what authority?), “was Bacon’s guest at Gorhambury, and was one of those good ‘pens,’” of whom Bacon speaks as assisting him in the translation of some of his books into Latin.

Bacon, writing to Toby Mathew, June 26, 1623, mentions the help of “some good pens,” Ben Jonson he does not mention. But Judge Webb does. “It is an undoubted fact,” says Judge Webb, “that the Latin of the _De Augmentis_, which was published in 1623, was the work of Jonson.” {219b} To whom Mr. Collins replies, “There is not a particle of evidence that Jonson gave to Bacon the smallest assistance in translating any of his works into Latin.” {219c}

_Très bien_, on Judge Webb’s assurance the person for whom Ben was working, in 1623, was Bacon. Meanwhile, Mr. Greenwood’s “supposing” is “that there was such an author” (of transcendent genius, and so on), who “may have entrusted the editing of his collected plays” to some “good pen,” who was at the time “doing work for him,” and “why not to”—Ben Jonson. {220a} Now the man for whom Ben, in 1623, was “doing work”—was BACON,—so Judge Webb says. {220b}

Therefore, by this hypothesis of Mr. Greenwood, {220c} the Great Unknown was Bacon,—just the hypothesis of the common Baconian.

Is my reasoning erroneous? Is the “supposing” suggested by Mr. Greenwood {220d} any other than that of Miss Delia Bacon, and Judge Webb? True, Mr. Greenwood’s Baconian “supposing” is only a working hypothesis: not a confirmed belief. But it is useful to his argument (see “Ben Jonson and Shakespeare”) when he wants to explain away Ben’s evidence, in his verses in the Folio, to the Stratford actor as the Author.

Mr. Greenwood writes, in the first page of his Preface: “It is no part of my plan or intention to defend that theory,” “the Baconian theory.” Apparently it pops out contrary to the intention of Mr. Greenwood. But pop out it does: at least I can find no flaw in the reasoning of my detection of Bacon: I see no way out of it except this: after recapitulating what is said about Ben as one of Bacon’s “good pens” with other details, Mr. Greenwood says, “But no doubt that way madness lies!” {221a} Ah no! not madness, no, but Baconism “lies that way.” However, “let it be granted” (as Euclid says in his sportsmanlike way) that Mr. Greenwood by no means thinks that his “concealed poet” is Bacon—only some one similar and similarly situated and still active in 1623, and occupied with other business than supervising a collected edition of plays written under his “_nom de plume_” of Shakespeare. Bacon, too, was busy, with supervising, or toiling at the Latin translation of his scientific works, and Ben (according to Judge Webb) was busy in turning the _Advancement of Learning_ into Latin prose. Mr. Greenwood quotes, without reference, Archbishop Tenison as saying that Ben helped Bacon in doing his works into Latin. {221b} Tenison is a very late witness. The prophetic soul of Bacon did not quite trust English to last as long as Latin, or he thought Latin, the _lingua franca_ of Europe in his day, more easily accessible to foreign students, as, of course, it was. Thus Bacon was very busy; so was Ben. The sad consequence of Ben’s business, perhaps, is that the editing of the Folio is notoriously bad; whether Ben were the Editor or not, it is infamously bad.

Conceivably Mr. Greenwood is of the same opinion. He says, “It stands admitted that a very large part of that volume” (the Folio) “consists of work that is not ‘Shakespeare’s’ at all.”

How strange, if Ben edited it for the Great Unknown—who knew, if any human being knew, what work was “Shakespeare’s”! On Mr. Greenwood’s hypothesis, {222a} or “supposing,” the Unknown Author “may well have conceived the idea of publishing a collected edition of the plays which had been written” (not “published,” _written_) “under the name of Shakespeare, and, being himself busy with other matters, he may have entrusted the business to” some “good pen,” “and why not to”—Ben. Nevertheless “a very large part of that volume consists of work that is not ‘Shakespeare’s’ at all.” {222b} How did this occur? The book {222c} is “that very doubtful ‘canon.’” How, if “Shakespeare’s” man edited it for “Shakespeare”? Did “Shakespeare” not care what stuff was placed under his immortal “_nom de plume_”?

It is not my fault if I think that Mr. Greenwood’s hypotheses {222d}—the genuine “Shakespeare” either revised his own works, or put Ben on the editorial task—are absolutely contradicted by his statements in another part of his book. {222e} For the genuine “Shakespeare” knew what plays he had written, knew what he could honestly put forth as his own, as “Shakespeare’s.” Or, if he placed the task of editing in Ben’s hands, he must have told Ben what plays were of his own making. In either case the Folio would contain these, and no others. But—“the _plat contraire_,”—the very reverse,—is stated by Mr. Greenwood. “It stands admitted that a very large portion of that volume” (the Folio) “consists of work that is not ‘Shakespeare’s’” (is not Bacon’s, or the other man’s) “at all.” {223a} Then away fly the hypotheses {223b} that the auto-Shakespeare, or that Ben, employed by the auto-Shakespeare (apparently Bacon) revised, edited, and prepared for publication the auto-Shakespearean plays. For Mr. Greenwood “has already dealt with _Titus_ (_Andronicus_) and _Henry VI_,” {223c} and proved them not to be auto-Shakespearean—and he adds “there are many other plays in that very doubtful ‘canon’” (the Folio) “which, by universal admission, contain much non-Shakespearean composition.” {223d} Perhaps! but if so the two hypotheses, {223e} that either the genuine Shakespeare {223f} revised (“is it not a more natural solution that ‘Shakespeare’ himself revised his works for publication, and that some part, at any rate, of this revision {223g} was done after 1616 and before 1623?”), or {223h} that he gave Ben (who was working, by the conjecture, for Bacon) the task of editing the Folio,—are annihilated. For neither the auto-Shakespeare (if honest), nor Ben (if sober), could have stuffed the Folio full of non-Shakespearean work,—including four “non-Shakespearean” plays,—nor could the Folio be “that very doubtful canon.” {224a} Again, if either the auto-Shakespeare or Ben following his instructions, were Editor, neither could have, as the Folio Editor had “evidently no little doubt about” _Troilus and Cressida_. {224b}

Neither Ben, nor the actual Simon Pure, the author, the auto-Shakespeare, could fail to know the truth about _Trodus and Cressida_. But the Editor {224c} did _not_ know the truth, the whole canon is “doubtful.” Therefore the hypothesis, the “supposing,” that the actual author did the revising, {224d} and the other hypothesis that he gave Ben the work, {224e} seem to me wholly impossible. But Mr. Greenwood needs the “supposings” of pp. 290, 293; and as he rejects _Titus Andronicus_ and _Henry VI_ (both in the Folio), he also needs the contradictory views of pp. 351, 358. On which set of supposings and averments does he stand to win?

Perhaps he thinks to find a way out of what appears to me to be a dilemma in the following fashion: He will not accept _Titus Andronicus_ and _Henry VI_, though both are in the Folio, as the work of _his_ “Shakespeare,” his Unknown, the Bacon of the Baconians. Well, we ask, if your Unknown, or Bacon, or Ben,—instructed by Bacon, or by the Unknown,—edited the Folio, how could any one of the three insert _Titus_, and _Henry VI_, and be “in no little doubt about” _Troilus and Cressida_? Bacon, or the Unknown, or the Editor employed by either, knew perfectly well which plays either man could honestly claim as his own work, done under the “_nom de plume_” of “William Shakespeare” (with or without the hyphen). Yet the Editor of the Folio does not know—and Mr. Greenwood does know—_Henry VI_ and _Titus_ are “wrong ones.”

Mr. Greenwood’s way out, if I follow him, is this: {225a} “Judge Stotsenburg asks, ‘Who wrote _The Taming of a Shrew_ printed in 1594, and who wrote _Titus Andronicus_, _Henry VI_, or _King Lear_ referred to in the Diary?’” (Henslowe’s). The Judge continues: “Neither Collier nor any of the Shaxper commentators make (_sic_) any claim to their authorship in behalf of William Shaxper. Since these plays have the same names as those included in the Folio of 1623 the presumption is that they are the same plays until the contrary is shown. Of course it may be shown, either that those in the Folio are entirely different except in name, or that these plays were revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they” (who?) “called Shakespeare.”

Mr. Greenwood says, “My own conviction is that . . . these plays were ‘revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they called Shakespeare.’” {226a} (Whom _who_ called Shakespeare?) In that case these plays,—say _Titus Andronicus_ and _Henry VI_, Part 1,—which Mr. Greenwood denies to _his_ “Shakespeare” were just as much _his_ Shakespeare’s plays as any other plays (and there are several), which _his_ Shakespeare “revised, improved, and dressed.” Yet _his_ Shakespeare is _not_ author of _Henry VI_, {226b} not the author of _Titus Andronicus_. {226c} “Mr. Anders,” writes Mr. Greenwood, “makes what I think to be a great error in citing _Henry VI_ and _Titus_ as genuine plays of Shakespeare.” {226d}

He hammers at this denial in nineteen references in his Index to _Titus Andronicus_. Yet Ben, or Bacon, or the Unknown thought that these plays _were_ “genuine plays” of “Shakespeare,” the concealed author—Bacon or Mr. Greenwood’s man. It appears that the immense poet who used the “_nom de plume_” of “Shakespeare” did not know the plays of which he could rightfully call himself the author; that (not foreseeing Mr. Greenwood’s constantly repeated objections) he boldly annexed four plays, or two certainly, which Mr. Greenwood denies to him, and another about which “the Folio Editor was in no little doubt.”

Finally, {227a} Mr. Greenwood is “convinced,” “it is my conviction” that some plays which he often denies to his “Shakespeare” were “revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they called Shakespeare.” That some one, if he edited or caused to be edited the Folio, thought that his revision, improvement, and dressing up of the plays gave him a right to claim their authorship—and Mr. Greenwood, a dozen times and more, denies to him their authorship.

One is seriously puzzled to discover the critic’s meaning. _The Taming of a Shrew_, _Titus_, _Henry VI_, and _King Lear_, referred to in Henslowe’s “Diary,” are not “Shakespearean,” we are repeatedly told. But “my own conviction is that . . . ” these plays were “revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they called Shakespeare.” But to be revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they called Shakespeare, is to be as truly “Shakespearean” work as is any play so handled “by Shakespeare.” Thus the plays mentioned are as truly “Shakespearean” as any others in which “Shakespeare” worked on an earlier canvas, and also _Titus_ “is not _Shakespearean_ at all.” Mr. Greenwood, I repeat, constantly denies the “Shakespearean” character to _Titus_ and _Henry VI_. “The conclusion of the whole matter is that _Titus_ and _The Trilogy of Henry VI_ are not the work of Shakespeare: that his hand is probably not to be found at all in _Titus_, and only once or twice, if at all, in _Henry VI_, Part I, but that he it probably was who altered and remodelled the two parts of the old _Contention of the Houses of York and Lancaster_, thereby producing _Henry VI_, Parts II and III.” {228a}

Yet {228b} _Titus_ and _Henry VI_ appear as “revised, improved, and dressed” by the mysterious “some one whom they called Shakespeare.” If Mr. Greenwood’s conclusion {228c} be correct, “Shakespeare” had no right to place _Henry VI_, Part I, and _Titus_ in his Folio. If his “conviction” {228d} be correct, Shakespeare had as good a right to them as to any of the plays which he revised, and improved, and dressed. They _must_ be “Shakespearean” if Mr. Greenwood is right {228e} in his suggestion that “Shakespeare” either revised his works for publication between 1616 and 1623, or set his man, Ben Jonson, upon that business. Yet neither one nor the other knew what to make of _Troilus and Cressida_. “The Folio Editor had, evidently, no little doubt about that play.” {228f}

So neither “Shakespeare” nor Ben, instructed by him, can have been “the Folio Editor.” Consequently Mr. Greenwood must abandon his suggestion that either man was the Editor, and may return to his rejection of _Titus_ and _Henry VI_, Part I. But he clings to it. He finds in Henslowe’s Diary “references to, and records of the writing of, such plays” as, among others, _Titus Andronicus_, and _Henry VI_. {229a}

Mr. Greenwood, after rejecting a theory of some one, says, “Far more likely does it appear that there was a great man of the time whose genius was capable of ‘transforming dross into gold,’ who took these plays, and, in great part, rewrote and revised them, leaving sometimes more, and sometimes less of the original work; and that so rewritten, revised, and transformed they appeared as the plays of ‘Shake-speare.’” {229b}

This statement is made {229c} about “these plays,” including _Titus Andronicus_ and _Henry VI_, while {229d} “_Titus_ and the _Trilogy of Henry VI_ are not the work of Shakespeare . . . his hand is probably not to be found at all in _Titus_, and only once or twice in _Henry VI_, Part I,” though he probably made Parts II and III out of older plays.

I do not know where to have the critic. If _Henry VI_, Part I, and _Titus_ are in no sense by “Shakespeare,” then neither “Shakespeare” nor Ben for him edited or had anything to do with the editing of the Folio. If either or both had to do with the editing, as the critic suggests, then he is wrong in denying Shakespearean origin to _Titus_ and _Henry VI_, Part I.

Of course one sees a way out of the dilemma for the great auto-Shakespeare himself, who, by one hypothesis, handed over the editing of his plays to Ben (_he_, by Mr. Greenwood’s “supposing,” was deviling at literary jobs for Bacon). The auto-Shakespeare merely tells Ben to edit his plays, and never even gives him a list of them. Then Ben brings him the Folio, and the author looks at the list of Plays.

“Mr. Jonson,” he says, “I have hitherto held thee for an honest scholar and a deserving man in the quality thou dost profess. But thou hast brought me a maimed and deformed printed copy of that which I did write for my own recreation, not wishful to be known for so light a thing as a poet. Moreover, thou hast placed among these my trifles, four plays to which I never put a finger, and others in which I had no more than a thumb. The Seneschal, Mr. Jonson, will pay thee what is due to thee; thy fardels shall be sent whithersoever thou wilt, and, Mary! Mr. Jonson, I bid thee never more be officer of mine.”

This painful discourse must have been held at Gorhambury,—if Ben edited the Folio—for Francis.

It is manifest, I hope, that about the Folio Mr. Greenwood speaks with two voices, and these very discordant. It is also manifest that, whoever wrote the plays left his materials in deep neglect, and that, when they were collected, some one gathered them up in extreme disorder. It is extraordinary that the Baconians and Mr. Greenwood do not see the fallacy of their own reasoning in this matter of the Folio. They constantly ridicule the old view that the actor, Will Shakspere (if, by miracle, he were the author of the plays), could have left them to take their fortunes. They are asked, what did other playwrights do in that age? They often parted with their whole copyright to the actors of this or that company, or to Henslowe. The new owners could alter the plays at will, and were notoriously anxious to keep them out of print, lest other companies should act them. As Mr. Greenwood writes, {231a} “Such, we are told, was the universal custom with dramatists of the day; they ‘kept no copies’ of their plays, and thought no more about them. It will, I suppose, be set down to fanaticism that I should doubt the truth of this proposition, that I doubt if it be consonant with the known facts of human nature.” But whom, except Jonson, does Mr. Greenwood find editing and publishing his plays? Beaumont, Fletcher, Heywood? No!

If the Great Unknown were dead in 1623, his negligence was as bad as Will’s. If he were alive and revised his own work for publication, {231b} he did it as the office cat might have done it in hours of play. If, on the other side, he handed the editorial task over to Ben, {232a} then he did not even give Ben a list of his genuine works. Mr. Greenwood cites the case of Ben Jonson, a notorious and, I think, solitary exception. Ben was and often proclaimed himself to be essentially a scholar. He took as much pains in prefacing, editing, and annotating his plays, as he would have taken had the texts been those of Greek tragedians.

Finally, all Baconians cry out against the sottish behaviour of the actor, Will, if being really the author of the plays, he did not bestir himself, and bring them out in a collected edition. Yet no English dramatist ventured on doing such a thing, till Ben thus collected his “works” (and was laughed at) in 1616. The example might have encouraged Will to be up and doing, but he died early in 1616. If Will were _not_ the author, what care was Bacon, or the Unknown, taking of his many manuscript plays, and for the proper editing of those which had appeared separately in pamphlets? As indolent and casual as Will, the great Author, Bacon or another, left the plays to take their chances. Mr. Greenwood says that “_if the author_” (Bacon or somebody very like him) “_had been careless about keeping copies of his manuscripts_ . . . ” {232b} What an “if” in the case of the great Author! This gross neglect, infamous in Will, may thus have been practised by the Great Unknown himself.

In 1911 Mr. Greenwood writes, “There is overwhelming authority for the view that _Titus Andronicus_ is not _Shakespearean_ at all.” {233a} In that case, neither Bacon, nor the Unknown, nor Ben, acting for either, can have been the person who put _Titus_ into the Folio.

XII BEN JONSON AND SHAKESPEARE

THE evidence of Ben Jonson to the identity of Shakespeare the author with Shakspere the actor, is “the strength of the Stratfordian faith,” says Mr. Greenwood. “But I think it will be admitted that the various Jonsonian utterances with regard to ‘Shakespeare’ are by no means easy to reconcile one with the other.” {237a}

It is difficult to reply briefly to Mr. Greenwood’s forty-seven pages about the evidence of Jonson. But, first, whenever in written words or in reported conversation, Ben speaks of Shakespeare by name, he speaks of his _works_: in 1619 to Drummond of Hawthornden; in 1623 in commendatory verses to the Folio; while, about 1630, probably, in his posthumously published _Discourses_, he writes on Shakespeare as the friend and “fellow” of the players, on Shakespeare as his own friend, and as a dramatist. On each of these three occasions, Ben’s _tone_ varies. In 1619 he said no more to Drummond of Hawthornden (apparently on two separate occasions) than that Shakespeare “lacked art,” and made the mistake about a wreck on the sea-coast of Bohemia.

In 1619, Ben spoke gruffly and briefly of Shakespeare, as to Drummond he also spoke disparagingly of Beaumont, whom he had panegyrised in an epigram in his own folio of 1616, and was again to praise in the commendatory verses in the Folio. He spoke still more harshly of Drayton, whom in 1616 he had compared to Homer, Virgil, Theocritus, and Tyræus! He told an unkind anecdote of Marston, with whom he had first quarrelled and then made friends, collaborating with him in a play; and very generously and to his great peril, sharing his imprisonment. To Drummond, Jonson merely said that he “beat Marston and took away his pistol.” Of Sir John Beaumont, brother of the dramatist, Ben had written a most hyperbolical eulogy in verse; luckily for Sir John, to Drummond Ben did not speak of him. Such was Ben, in panegyric verse hyperbolical; in conversation “a despiser of others, and praiser of himself.” Compare Ben’s three remarks about Donne, all made to Drummond. Donne deserved hanging for breaking metre; Donne would perish for not being understood: and Donne was in some points the first of living poets.

Mr. Greenwood’s effort to disable Jonson’s evidence rests on the contradictions in his estimates of Shakespeare’s poetry, in notices scattered through some thirty years. Jonson, it is argued, cannot on each occasion mean Will. He must now mean Will, now the Great Unknown, and now—both at once. Yet I have proved that Ben was the least consistent of critics, all depended on the occasion, and on his humour at the moment. This is a commonplace of literary history. The Baconians do not know it; Mr. Greenwood, if he knows it, ignores it, and bases his argument on facts which may be unknown to his readers. We have noted Ben’s words of 1619, and touched on his panegyric of 1623. Thirdly, about 1630 probably, Ben wrote in his manuscript book _Discourses_ an affectionate but critical page on Shakespeare as a man and an author. Always, in prose, and in verse, and in recorded conversation, Ben explicitly identified Shakspere (William, of Stratford) with the author of the plays usually ascribed to him. But the Baconian Judge Webb (in extreme old age), and the anti-Shakespearean Mr. Greenwood and others, choose to interpret Ben’s words on the theory that, in 1623, he “had his tongue in his cheek”; that, like Odysseus, he “mingled things false with true,” that _they_ know what is true from what is false, and can undo the many knots which Ben tied in his tongue. How they succeed we shall see.

In addition to his three known mentions of Shakespeare by name (1619, 1623, 1630?), Ben certainly appears to satirise his rival at a much earlier date; especially as Pantalabus, a playwright in _The Poetaster_ (1601), and as actor, poet, and plagiarist in an epigram, _Poet-Ape_, published in his collected works of 1616; but probably written as early as 1602. It is well known that in 1598 Shakespeare’s company acted Ben’s _Every Man in His Humour_. It appears that he conceived some grudge against the actors, and apparently against Shakespeare and other playwrights, for, in 1601, his _Poetaster_ is a satire both on playwrights and on actors, whom he calls “apes.” The apparent attacks on Shakespeare are just such as Ben, if angry and envious, would direct against him; while we know of no other poet-player of the period to whom they could apply. For example, in _The Poetaster_, Histrio, the actor, is advised to ingratiate himself with _Pantalabus_, “gent’man parcel-poet, his father was a man of worship, I tell thee.” This is perhaps unmistakably a blow at Shakespeare, who had recently acquired for his father and himself arms, and the pleasure of writing himself “gentleman.” This “parcel-poet gent’man” “pens lofty, in a new stalking style,”—he is thus an author, he “pens,” and in a high style. He is called _Pantalabus_, from the Greek words for “to _take up all_,” which means that, as poet, he is a plagiarist. Jonson repeats this charge in his verses called _Poet-Ape_—

“_He takes up all_, makes each man’s wit his own,
And told of this, he slights it.”

In a scene added to _The Poetaster_ in 1616, the author (Ben) is advised not

“With a sad and serious verse to wound
Pantalabus, railing in his saucy jests,”

and obviously slighting the charges of plagiarism. Perhaps Ben is glancing at Shakespeare, who, if accused of plagiary by an angry rival, would merely laugh.

A reply to the _Poetaster_, namely _Satiromastix_ (by Dekker and Marston?), introduces Jonson himself as babbling darkly about “Mr. Justice Shallow,” and “an Innocent Moor” (Othello?). Here is question of “administering strong pills” to Jonson; _then_,

“What lumps of hard and indigested stuff,
Of bitter _Satirism_, of _Arrogance_,
Of _Self-love_, of _Detraction_, of a black
And stinking _Insolence_ should we fetch up!”

This “pill” is a reply to Ben’s “purge” for the poets in his _Poetaster_. Oh, the sad old stuff!

Referring to Jonson’s _Poetaster_, and to _Satiromastix_, the counter-attack, we find a passage in the Cambridge play, _The Return from Parnassus_ (about 1602). Burbage, the tragic actor, and Kempe, the low-comedy man of Shakespeare’s company, are introduced, discussing the possible merits of Cambridge wits as playwrights. Kempe rejects them as they “smell too much of that writer Ovid, and that writer Metamorphosis . . . ” The purpose, of course, is to laugh at the ignorance of the low-comedy man, who thinks “Metamorphosis” a writer, and does not suspect—how should he?—that Shakespeare “smells of Ovid.” Kempe innocently goes on, “Why, here’s our fellow” (comrade) “Shakespeare puts them all down” (all the University playwrights), “aye, and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow, he brought up Horace” (in _The Poetaster_) “giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge . . . ”

The Cambridge author, perhaps, is thinking of the pill (not purge) which, in _Satiromastix_, might be administered to Jonson. The Cambridge author may have thought that Shakespeare wrote the passage on the pill which was to “fetch up” masses of Ben’s insolence, self-love, arrogance, and detraction. If this be not the sequence of ideas, it is not easy to understand how or why Kempe is made to say that Shakespeare has given Jonson a purge. Stupid old nonsense! There are other more or less obscure indications of Jonson’s spite, during the stage-quarrel, against Shakespeare, but the most unmistakable proof lies in his verses in “Poet-Ape.” I am aware that Ben’s intention here to hit at Shakespeare has been denied, for example by Mr. Collins with his usual vigour of language. But though I would fain agree with him, the object of attack can be no known person save Will. Jonson was already, in _The Poetaster_, using the term “_Poet-Ape_,” for he calls the actors at large “apes.”

Jonson thought so well of his rhymes that he included them in the Epigrams of his first Folio (1616). By that date, the year of Shakespeare’s death, if he really loved Shakespeare, as he says, in verse and prose, Ben might have suppressed the verses. But (as Drummond noted) he preferred his jest, such as it was, to his friend; who was not, as usually understood, a man apt to resent a very blunt shaft of very obsolete wit. Like Molière, Shakespeare had outlived the charge of plagiarism, made long ago by the jealous Ben.

Poet-Ape is an actor-playwright “_that would be thought our chief_”—words which, by 1601, could only apply to Shakespeare; there was no rival, save Ben, near his throne. The playwright-actor, too, has now confessedly

“grown
To a little wealth and credit in the scene,”

of no other actor-playwright could this be said.

He is the author of “works” (Jonson was laughed at for calling his own plays “works”), but these works are “the frippery of wit,” that is, a tissue of plagiarisms, as in the case of _Pantalabus_. But “told of this he slights it,” as most successful authors, when accused, as they often are, of plagiarism by jealous rivals, wisely do;—so did Molière. This Poet-Ape began his career by “picking and gleaning” and “buying reversions of old plays.” This means that Shakespeare _did_ work over earlier plays which his company had acquired; or, if Shakespeare did not,—then, I presume,—Bacon did!

_That_, with much bad humour, is the gist of the rhymes on Poet-Ape. Ben thinks Shakespeare’s “works” very larcenous, but still, the “works,” as such, are those of the poet-actor. I hope it is now clear that Poet-Ape, who, like _Pantalabus_, “takes up all”; who has “grown to a little wealth and credit in the scene,” and who “thinks himself the chief” of contemporary dramatists, can be nobody but Shakespeare. Hence it follows that the “works” of Poet-Ape, are the works of Shakespeare. Ben admits, nay, asserts the existence of the works, says that they may reach “the after-time,” but he calls them a mass of plagiarisms,—because he is in a jealous rage.

But this view does not at all suit Mr. Greenwood, for it shows Ben regarding Shakespeare as the “Ape,” or Actor, and also as the “Poet” and author of the “works.” Yet Ben’s words mean nothing if not that an actor is the author of works which Ben accuses of plagiarism. Mr. Greenwood thinks that the epigram proves merely that “Jonson looked upon Shakspere (if, indeed, he refers to him) as one who put forward the writings of others as his own, or, in plain English, an impostor.” “The work which goes in his name is, in truth, the work of somebody else.” {244a} Mr. Greenwood put the same interpretation on Greene’s words about “Shakescene,” and we showed that the interpretation was impossible. “The utmost we should be entitled to say” (if Shake-scene be meant for Shakspere) “is that Greene accuses Player Shakspere of putting forward, as his own, some work or perhaps some parts of a work, for which he was really indebted to another.” {245a} We proved, by quoting Greene’s words, that he said nothing which could be tortured into this sense. {245b} In the same way Ben’s words cannot be tortured into the sense that “the work which goes in his” (Poet-Ape’s) “name is, in truth, the work of somebody else.” {245c} Mr. Greenwood tries to find the Anti-Willian hypothesis in Greene’s _Groatsworth of Wit_ and in Ben’s epigram. It is in neither.

Jonson is not accusing Shakespeare of pretending to be the author of plays written by somebody else, but of “making _each man’s_ wit his own,” and the _men_ are the other dramatists of the day. Thus the future “may judge” Shakespeare’s work “to be his as well as _ours_.”

It is “we,” the living and recognised dramatists, whom Shakespeare is said to plagiarise from; so boldly that

“_We_, _the robbed_, leave rage, and pity it.”

Ben does not mean that Shakespeare is publishing, as his own, whole plays by some other author, but that his works are tissues of scraps stolen from his contemporaries, from “us, the robbed.” Where are to be found or heard of any works by a player-poet of 1601, the would-be chief dramatist of the day, except those signed William Shak(&c.). There are none, and thus Ben, at this date, is identifying Will Shakspere, the actor, with the author of the Shakespearean plays, which he expects to reach posterity; “after times may judge them to be his,” as after times do to this hour.

Thus Ben expresses, in accordance with his humour on each occasion, most discrepant opinions of Will’s works, but he never varies from his identification of Will with the author of the plays.

The “works” of which Ben wrote so splenetically in _Poet-Ape_, were the works of a Playwright-Actor, who could be nobody but the actor Shakespeare, as far as Ben then knew. If later, and in altered circumstances, he wrote of the very same works in very different terms, his “utterances” are “not easily reconcilable” with each other,—_whoever_ the real author of the works may be. If Bacon, or Mr. Greenwood’s anonymous equivalent for Bacon, were the author, and if Ben came to know it, his attitudes towards the _works_ are still as irreconcilable as ever.

Perhaps Baconians and Mr. Greenwood might say, “as long as Ben believed that the works were those of an Actor-Playwright, he thought them execrable. But when he learned that they were the works of Bacon (or of some Great One), he declared them to be more than excellent”—_but not to Drummond_. I am reluctant to think that Jonson was the falsest and meanest of snobs. I think that when his old rival, by his own account his dear friend, was dead, and when (1623) Ben was writing panegyric verses about the first collected edition of his plays (the Folio), then between generosity and his habitual hyperbolical manner when he was composing commendatory verses, he said,—not too much in the way of praise,—but a good deal more than he later said (1630?), in prose, and in cold blood. I am only taking Ben as I find him and as I understand him. Every step in my argument rests on well-known facts. Ben notoriously, in his many panegyric verses, wrote in a style of inflated praise. In conversation with Drummond he censured, in brief blunt phrases, the men whom, in verse, he had extolled. The Baconian who has not read all Ben’s panegyrics in verse, and the whole of his conversations with Drummond, argues in ignorance.

We now come to Ben’s panegyrics in the Folio of 1623. Ben heads the lines,

“TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED
THE AUTHOR
MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
AND
WHAT HE HATH LEFT US.”

Words cannot be more explicit. Bacon was alive (I do not know when Mr. Greenwood’s hidden genius died), and Ben goes on to speak of the Author, Shakespeare, as dead, and buried. He calls on him thus:

“Soul of the Age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our Stage!
My Shakespear rise: I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument, without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.”

Beaumont, by the way, died in the same year as Shakespeare, 1616, and, while Ben here names him with Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare, his contemporaries have left no anecdotes, no biographical hints. In the panegyric follow the lines:

“And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee I would not seek
For names, but call forth thund’ring Æschylus,”

and the other glories of the Roman and Attic stage, to see and hear how Shakespeare bore comparison with all that the classic dramatists did, or that “did from their ashes come.”

Jonson means, “despite your lack of Greek and Latin I would not shrink from challenging the greatest Greek and Roman tragedians to see how you bear comparison with themselves”?

Mr. Greenwood and the Baconians believe that the author of the plays abounded in Latin and Greek. In my opinion his classical scholarship must have seemed slight indeed to Ben, so learned and so vain of his learning: but this is part of a vexed question, already examined. So far, Ben’s verses have brought not a hint to suggest that he does not identify the actor, his Beloved, with the author. Nothing is gained when Ben, in commendatory verses, praises “Thy Art,” whereas, speaking to Drummond of Hawthornden (1619), he said that Shakespeare “wanted art.” Ben is not now growling to Drummond of Hawthornden: he is writing a panegyric, and applauds Shakespeare’s “well-turned and true-filed lines,” adding that, “to write a living line” a man “must sweat,” and “strike the second heat upon the Muses’ anvil.”

To produce such lines requires labour, requires conscious “art.” So Shakespeare _had_ “art,” after all, despite what Ben had said to Drummond: “Shakespeare lacked art.” There is no more in the matter; the “inconsistency” is that of Ben’s humours on two perfectly different occasions, now grumbling to Drummond; and now writing hyperbolically in commendatory verses. But the contrast makes Mr. Greenwood exclaim, “Can anything be more astonishing and at the same time more unsatisfactory than this?” {249a}

Can anything be more like Ben Jonson?

Did he know the secret of the authorship in 1619? If so, why did he say nothing about the plays of the Great Unknown (whom he called Shakespeare), save what Drummond reports, “want of art,” ignorance of Bohemian geography. Or did Ben _not_ know the secret till, say, 1623, and then heap on the very works which he had previously scouted praise for the very quality which he had said they lacked? If so, Ben was as absolutely inconsistent, as before. There is no way out of this dilemma. On neither choice are Ben’s utterances “easy to reconcile one with the other,” except on the ground that Ben was—Ben, and his comments varied with his varying humours and occasions. I believe that, in the commendatory verses, Ben allowed his Muse to carry him up to heights of hyperbolical praise which he never came near in cold blood. He was warmed with the heat of poetic composition and wound up to heights of eulogy, though even _now_ he could not forget the small Latin and less Greek!

We now turn to Mr. Greenwood’s views about the commendatory verses. On mature consideration I say nothing of his remarks on Ben’s couplets about the bad engraved portrait. {250a} They are concerned with the supposed “_original_ bust,” as represented in Dugdale’s engraving of 1656. What the Baconians hope to make out of “the _original_ bust” I am quite unable to understand. {250b} Again, I leave untouched some witticisms {250c} on Jonson’s lines about Spenser, Chaucer, and Beaumont in their tombs—lines either suggested by, or suggestive of others by an uncertain W. Basse, “but the evidence of authorship seems somewhat doubtful. How the date is determined I do not know . . . ” {251a} As Mr. Greenwood knows so little, and as the discussion merely adds dust to the dust, and fog to the mist of his attempt to disable Ben’s evidence, I glance and pass by.

“Then follow these memorable words, which I have already discussed:

“‘And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek . . . ’” {251b}

In “these memorable words,” every non-Baconian sees Ben’s opinion about his friend’s lack of scholarship. According to his own excellent Index, Mr. Greenwood has already adverted often to “these memorable words.”

(1) P. 40. “ . . . if this testimony is to be explained away as not seriously written, then are we justified in applying the same methods of interpretation to Jonson’s other utterances as published in the Folio of 1623. But I shall have more to say as to that further on.”

(2) P. 88. Nothing of importance.

(3) P. 220. Quotation from Dr. Johnson. Ben, “who had no imaginable temptation to falsehood,” wrote the memorable words. But Mr. Greenwood has to imagine a “temptation to falsehood,”—and he does.

(4) P. 222. “And we have recognised that Jonson’s ‘small Latin and less Greek’ must be explained away” (a quotation from somebody).

(5) P. 225. Allusion to anecdote of “Latin (latten) spoons.”

(6) Pp. 382, 383. “Some of us” (some of whom?) “have long looked upon it as axiomatic . . . that Jonson’s ‘small Latin and less Greek,’ if meant to be taken seriously, can only be applicable to Shakspere of Stratford and not to Shakespeare,” that is, not to the Unknown author. Unluckily Ben, in 1623, is addressing the shade of the “sweet Swan of Avon,” meaning Stratford-on-Avon.

(7) The next references in the laudable Index are to pp. 474, 475. “Then follow these memorable words, which I have already discussed:

“‘And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,’

words which those who see how singularly inappropriate they are to the author of the _Plays_ and _Poems_ of Shakespeare have been at such infinite pains to explain away without impeaching the credit of the author, or assuming that he is here indulging in a little Socratic irony.”

_I_ do not want to “explain” Ben’s words “away”: I want to know how on earth Mr. Greenwood explains them away. My view is that Ben meant what he said, that Will, whose shade he is addressing, was no scholar (which he assuredly was not). I diligently search Mr. Greenwood’s scriptures, asking How does he explain Ben’s “memorable words” away? On p. 106 of _The Shakespeare Problem Restated_ I seem to catch a glimmer of his method. “Once let the Stratfordians” (every human and non-Baconian person of education) “admit that Jonson when he penned the words ‘small Latin and less Greek’ was really writing ‘with his tongue in his cheek.’ . . . ”

Once admit that vulgarism concerning a great English poet engaged on a poem of Pindaric flight, and of prophetic vision! No, we leave the admission to Mr. Greenwood and his allies.

To consider thus is to consider too seriously. The Baconians and Anti-Willians have ceased to deserve serious attention (if ever they did deserve it), and virtuous indignation, and all that kind of thing, when they ask people who care for poetry to “admit” that Ben wrote his verses “with his tongue in his cheek.” Elsewhere, {253a} in place of Ben’s “tongue in his cheek,” Mr. Greenwood prefers to suggest that Ben “is here indulging in a little Socratic irony.” Socrates “with his tongue in his cheek”! Say “talking through his throat,” if one may accept the evidence of the author of _Raffles_, as to the idioms of burglars.

To return to criticism, we are to admit that Jonson was really writing “with his tongue in his cheek,” knowing that, as a fact, “_Shakespeare_” (the Great Unknown, the Bacon of the Baconians) “had remarkable classical attainments, and they, of course, open the door to the suggestion that the entire poem is capable of an ironical construction and esoteric interpretation.” {254a}

So this is Mr. Greenwood’s method of “explaining away” the memorable words. He seems to conjecture that Will was not _Shakespeare_, not the author of the plays; that Jonson knew it; that his poem is, as a whole, addressed to Bacon, or to the Great Unknown, under his “_nom de plume_” of “William Shakespeare”; that the address to the “Swan of Avon” is a mere blind; and that Ben only alludes to his “Beloved,” the Stratford actor, when he tells his Beloved that his Beloved has “small Latin and less Greek.” All the praise is for Bacon, or the Great Unknown (Mr. Harris), the jeer is for “his Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, And what he hath left Us.”

As far as I presume to understand this theory of the “tongue in the cheek,” of the “Socratic irony,” this is what Mr. Greenwood has to propose towards “explaining away” the evidence of Ben Jonson, in his famous commendatory verses. When we can see through the dust of words we find that the “esoteric interpretation” of the commendatory verses is merely a reassertion of the general theory: a man with small Latin and less Greek could not have written the plays and poems. Therefore when Ben explicitly states that his Beloved, Mr. Shakespeare of Stratford, the Swan of Avon _did_ write the plays, and had small Latin and less Greek, Ben meant that he did _not_ write them, that they were written by somebody else who had plenty of Greek and Latin. It is a strange logical method! Mr. Greenwood merely reasserts his paradox, and proves it, like certain Biblical critics of more orthodoxy than sense, by aid of his private “esoteric method of interpretation.” Ben, we say, about 1630, in prose and in cold blood, and in a humour of criticism without the old rancour and envy, or the transitory poetic enthusiasm, pens a note on Shakespeare in a volume styled “Timber, or Discoveries, made upon men and Matter, as they have flowed out of his daily Readings; or had their reflux to his peculiar Notion of the Times.” Ben died in 1637; his MS. collection of notes and brief essays, and reflections, was published in 1641. Bacon, of whom he wrote his impressions in this manuscript, had died in 1626. Ben was no longer young: he says, among these notes, that his memory, once unusually strong, after he was past forty “is much decayed in me . . . It was wont to be faithful to me, but shaken with age now . . .” (I copy the extract as given by Mr. Greenwood. {255a}) He spoke sooth: he attributes to Orpheus, in “Timber,” a line from Homer, and quotes from Homer what is not in that poet’s “works.”

In this manuscript occurs, then, a brief prose note, headed, _De Shakespeare nostrati_, on our countryman Shakespeare. It is an anecdote of the Players and their ignorance, with a few critical and personal remarks on Shakespeare. “I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare that (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, ‘Would he had blotted a thousand,’ which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by (that) wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. ‘_Sufflaminandus erat_,’ as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too! Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him, ‘Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.’ He replied, ‘Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause’; and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.” Baconians actually maintain that Ben is here speaking of Bacon.