"Leave thee alone for the comparison

Of all, that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come."

These lines are addressed, of course, to "Shakespeare," that is, to the author of the plays. It will be remembered that at or about the time of the publication of the First Folio Jonson was one of Bacon's private secretaries, or "good pens," as he calls them, and in a position to know what was going on. This seems to bring Bacon pretty close to, at least, an editorial association with the Folio.

or

At Jonson's death he left a book in manuscript called "Timbre, or Discoveries Made upon Men and Nature." It contains two passages which should be compared with this poem. The first refers to Francis Bacon, and he says of him that he filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece haughty Rome . . . so that he may be named and stand as the mark and acme of our language;" exactly, it will be observed, what he had previously said about the author of Shakespeare plays, while of William Shakspere, the player, he said that he "loved the man and honored his memory," but that "he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary that he be stopped-snuffed out." "But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever

the

more in him to be praised than pardoned." In the same volume he enumerates greatest "wits" of his time. The list is: More, Wyatt, Surrey, Challoner, Smith, Eliot, Gardiner, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Philip Sidney, Hooker, Essex, Raleigh, Savile, Sandys, Egerton and Francis Bacon. Has he omitted him whom he declared to be the greatest of all, or has he mentioned him by another name?

Lack of space forbids my dwelling on the comparison between Jonson's splendid poetic tribute to "Shakespeare" and his other writings. They should be carefully compared by those seeking light on the subject. I have but thrown out hints.

Brief mention of two more matters connected with the subject and I am done.

In the "Address to the Readers" Heminge and Condell-or whoever wrote the address signed by them-say that they have so published the plays that “as where before you were abused with divers stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors, that exposed them; even those are now offered to your view, cured and perfect of their limbs and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived them and what he thought he uttered with that easiness that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers."

Now, whatever that means, it does not mean literally what it says, as is shown by the fact that the printers of the Folio followed as their copy, in many cases, the quartos-the "stolen and surreptitious copies"-even to repeating their misprints, and Ben Jonson in his introductory poem says: "He who casts to write a living line must sweat (such as thine are) and strike the second heat upon the Muses' anvil," and he speaks of his "well turned and true. filed lines." This is hardly consistent with the idea that the plays were struck off at a white heat without a blot-an erasure or emendation-and, besides, we know in the cases of plays that ran through a number of editions that they were worked over many times.

On January 22, 1621, Bacon celebrated his sixtieth birthday. Jonson was present and read a poem beginning thus:

"Hail, happy Genius of this ancient pile! How comes it all things so about thee smile? The fire, the wine, the men! And in the midst Thou stand'st as if some mystery thou didst! Pardon, I read it in thy face-"

What was the "mystery?"

This is not an attempt to prove that "Bacon wrote Shakespeare." It is simply a suggestion that he might have had some connection with the production and publication of the immortal plays, worthy of consideration, and not justly to be dismissed by a few words of vituperation.

OF LETTERS

Joseph Conrad

The full name of Joseph Conrad is Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski and he was born in Poland in 1856. He learned French at the same time that he learned his own tongue; he did not begin to learn English until he was nineteen years old. Yet he writes in English and his style is worthy of serving as a model to many native Englishmen.

As a lad Conrad went to sea and as a sailor visited all parts of the world. He did not think of writing as a career, did not think of it at all, in fact, though he read much of the best in both French and English literature. It was in 1894 that a desire for rest seized him and he resolved to spend six months on shore. He took lodgings in London, found a life of inactivity intolerable and suddenly was moved to write. He was thirty-eight at this time. His first impulse was to use French as a vehicle for expression, but he had been sailing under the British flag for a long time and was largely English in his sympathies. So he wrote in English and his first book was "Almayer's Folly," which has since been followed by "Tales of Unrest;" "The Nigger of the Narcissus :" "Lord Jim;" "Youth;" "Typhoon" and the last book in collaboration with Mr. Hueffer, "Romance."

In his own words, Mr. Conrad thus defines his literary creed,

"It is only through complete, unswerving devotion to the perfect blending of form and substance; it is only through an unremitting, never-discouraged care for the shape and the ring of sentences that an approach can be made to plasticity, to color; and the light of magic suggestiveness may be brought to play for an evanescent instant over the commonplace surface of words: of the old, old words, worn thin, defaced by ages of careless usage. The sincere endeavor to accomplish that creative task, to go as far on that road as his strength will carry him, to go undeterred by faltering, weariness, or reproach, is the only valid justification for

the worker in prose. And if his conscience is clear, his answer to those who, in the fullness of a wisdom which looks for immediate profit, demand specifically to be edified, consoled, amused; who demand to be promptly improved, or encouraged, or frightened, or shocked, or charmed, must run thus: My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feelit is, before all, to make you see. That-and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there, according to your deserts, encouragement, consolation, fear, charm-all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask."

The expression is a bit pompous and upon first thought even seems bombastic but when one remembers what Mr. Conrad has accomplished, justification of the aim becomes clear. He does make the reader "see things and hear things."

* * *

Mr. Maurice Hewlett, who is in Italy, finishing his book, "The Tuscan Crown," recently visited Certaldo, the There Mr. Hewlett home of Boccaccio. in Italy Mr. Hewlett found some strange things. In writing of

the Certaldesi, he says,

"Their women are handsome, as they ought to be, with green eyes, dusky skins, fair, tangled hair. They carry themselves bolt upright, like all mountaineers, but with better reason than most, for their figures are remarkable. The men sing gay songs, are happy and free mannered, and if Boccaccio is not at the bottom of it the mischief is. If you set these deductions down to my fancy you will be wrong. I saw here what I have never seen elsewhere in all long Italy, a man stop and kiss a girl in open street. No offense, either. He was a baker, who came-a floury amorino-saw, and considered the bend of her industrious head, and stooped and kissed her as she sat sewing at her door. Her lovers and acquaintances about her saw nothing amiss, nor was she at all put out. After so flagrant an achievement, the madcap went a whole progress of gallantry down the street, none resenting his freedom. He danced with one good wife, chucked another's chin, and lifted a third bodily into the air, singing all the while."

journalist, and the husband of Alice Meynell, the poet and essayist. Mr. Meynell introduced me to his wife, and they asked me to take supper at their house the next night, which happened to be Sunday. 'We are going to have a guest that will interest you,' said Mr. Meynell. 'She is an acrobat. and just now she is performing at The Aquarium, here in London.' He also urged me to go to The Aquarium that night to see her perform, and I asked him how he had made the acrobat's acquaintance. One afternoon,' he explained. 'quite by chance. I went into The Aquarium and saw Madame Antonio. I was so delighted with the courage and the grace she showed in leaping backward from the top of the building into the net, that I wrote a little paragraph about her in my paper. A few days later I received from her a letter of thanks. Then I took my wife to see the performance, and a little later Mrs. Meynell called on Madame Antonio, and we all became good friends.' That night I went to The Aquarium and, like Mr. Meynell, I was enthusiastic over Madame Antonio. The next night I met her at supper and I met also her husband who. I was told, acted as her manager. After the meal I sat at table with some of the men. smoking, and, in course of the conversa

tion, one of them remarked that the husband of the acrobat had been a man of business in Paris and, on seeing Madame Antonio in the circus, had fallen in love with her performance. As soon as I heard that remark I knew that I had a plot for a story. The psychology of the situation was what attracted me. As a matter of fact, however, there is no resemblance whatever, between my heroine and Madame Antonio and their histories, except that they perform practically the same feats. For several months the plot stayed in my mind, and, by the time I began to write the story, it had practically shaped itself. Three-quarters of the book were written in Paris, and the remaining chapters I wrote in the little village of Giverny, in Normandy, where Monet, the impressionistpainter, lives, and where I had gone to pass a few weeks of the spring and summer."

A Literary Unique

* * *

Dr. Emil Reich is a man of striking personality. His wife is a little French lady, and their home in London is noted for its hospitality. Dr. Reich is described as "a smooth-faced, handsome, middle-aged Hungarian savant, who has the gift of speech to an almost miraculous degree." He is endowed with a remarkable though engaging candor even to the extent of being able to tell English women that they are a tame lot without arousing their anger. He seems to think the French woman only incomparable and expresses himself plainly on the shortcomings of the American woman.

* * *

Thomas E. Watson, author of "Napoleon" and other popular biographies, has been chosen for the Presidential candidate of the Populist Party. Certain literary

Watson for President

men seem to be dividing their attention with conscientious scrupulousness between politics and literature. Booth Tarkington, Alfred Henry Lewis and Winston Churchill in particular, are devoted politicians. We may yet have "White House Memoirs" by Watson, "A Romance of the Great Convention" by Tarkington and "The Advance" by Churchill, the last including as many details as possible concerned in the first four years of twentieth century American history and describing with minuteness the promised exciting Presidential campaign. As for Mr. Lewis, nothing less can be expected of him than an epic of American politics. "The Boss," "The President." will it be "The Senator" next?