FICTION NOT FOUNDED ON FACT.

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published them . . . absolute in their numbers, as he conceived them." These words certainly do not contain any of the detail which Mr. S. Lee thinks proper to state as if it were well-ascertained fact. There is nothing to enable us to determine whether the "collecting" was made by hunting in the theatres, or turning over the poet's own papers and searching his pigeon-holes. Now, inasmuch as the whole of the introductory matter prefixed to the 1623 Folio is matter for keen debate, since the Cambridge editors and others find so much suggestio falsi as to deprive all its unproved assertions of any authority, as no one knows whether the professed editors (who were, of course, genuine persons) were men of straw, or responsible editors; and as the whole prefatory matter, including Ben Jonson's poem, may be as much a dramatic performance.

or

"Induction" as that prefixed to the Taming of the Shrew, Mr. S. Lee's detailed statement, explaining the sources of the Folio, may be considered as somewhat hazardous. And Shakspere biography, if it is to be complete, if its distressing lacunæ are to be filled up or bridged over, so as to bring it into relation with the Renaissance Drama, must be buttressed and supplemented by such guesses and fictions as Mr. S. Lee and the rest of them substitute for facts. Under these circumstances it might be supposed that the poet's biography must be reconstructed, perhaps even transferred to another personality. Assuredly this hypothesis is not unreasonable.

I have said that the most trustworthy life of William Shakspere is that by Halliwell Phillipps. And what sort of personality does he produce? We see a rustic peasant, a country townsman, born and bred in a "bookless neighbourhood," among utterly uneducated people. The youth is not destitute of some qualities that make for advancement in life. If no good, yet not much harm is known of him, if the circumstances connected with his over hasty and early marriage are neglected. After a somewhat stormy youth he forsakes his native town, when a very

young man, in order to push his fortunes in London. He succeeds beyond his expectations, becomes rich on the gains of theatrical management, and after some years returns to the town where his family had continued to reside, and spends the rest of his days in commercial and money-lending transactions, which, if fairly respectable, were not very noble, never sparing any defaulting creditor, but pursuing him with the utmost rigour of the law. His speculations seem to have been generally fortunate, he becomes a land-owner and lives in a fine house which he has purchased. And this is all! Not a trace of such occupations as those in which the author of Shakespeare might be supposed to be most interested, no mention of books or studies, or any literary property, not even in his will; not a scrap of his writing preserved except five or six shockingly written signatures, variously spelt, nothing to show literary education, or acquired learning or literary performance. As to the works which we now call Shakespeare they are leagues away from the subject of Mr. Halliwell Phillipps' biography, and not a single significant or really valuable commentary on any one. passage in them is to be derived from anything we positively know concerning the man to whom they are traditionally attributed.

The paradox and anomaly of all this is so infinite that even highly orthodox Shakespeareans are obliged sometimes to admit as much, and, as to the detachment of the Shakespeare drama from all that relates to the man, no one has exposed it with more cynical frankness than Richard Grant White, who bore the proud title of "Shakespeare's Scholar." The chapter on Stratford-on-Avon, in his book "England Within and Without," concludes with these remarkable words: “Thus ended my visit to Stratford-onAvon, where I advise no one to go who would preserve any elevated idea connected with Shakespeare's personality. There is little there to interest and much to dishearten a 'passionate pilgrim' to the scenes of the

A DESECRATED SHEKINAH.

31

earlier and later life of him who is the great glory of our literature. As I drove out of the town, on my

way to Kenilworth ... the last object which caught my eye was a large sign over a little shop, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, SHOEMAKER. A fitting close, I thought, of my pilgrimage. It would have annoyed the 'gentleman born' much more than it annoyed me, and for quite another reason. The only place in England which he who is sometimes honoured with the name of 'Shakespeare's Scholar' regrets having visited, is that where Shakespeare was born and buried." And these words were written by the man who cannot find terms of insult too gross to hurl at those who, when they wish to visit the ancient haunts of the Shakespeare poet, do not go to Stratford-on-Avon, but to Gorhambury and St. Albans.

In conclusion, let me add that the two books, which supply the most powerful arguments for the negative side of our case the anti-Shakspere side-are, Halliwell Phillipps' "Outlines," and Ingleby's "Century of Praise." Of Dr. Ingleby's "Collection of Allusions," extending over a hundred years, I may confidently assert that it does not contain one single testimony to authorship which need give the least tremor to Baconians. Not one of these allusions complies with the conditions defined in the second number of our list of Probabilities, see p. 16. This is, of course, of no importance to Baconians; it is exactly what they are prepared for. The real perplexity is for Shakespeareans. Where, they may ask, is Mr. William Shakspere, of Stratford-on-Avon, in this crowded catalogue of allusions? Where is he? And echo answers -Where?

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CHAPTER III.

FRANCIS BACON.

1. THE SCHOLAR AND MAN OF THe World. THAT Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare, I have no more doubt than that he wrote the Novum Organum. William Shaxpur is impossible, and as he retreats, enter the noble and majestic form of Francis Bacon! No one else can be seriously suggested as the author: if the Stratford townsman is dethroned, Bacon immediately steps into the vacant place. He alone is known to have had all the knowledge shewn in the poetry. Nearly all that was knowable in his time, he knew. His mind was well stored with classic lore. It may sound paradoxical, yet it is true, that one very significant indication of this is his constant habit of inaccurate quotation. He does not seem to have made a practice of looking up passages in the original: he quotes from memory, and although he always gives either the true sense or an improvement upon it, yet he very often does not give the ipsissima verba; and this habit of inaccurate quotation is, I think, the mark of a scholar retaining ideas but not always reproducing precise words. One or two specimens will suffice; scores may be found in Reynolds' edition of the "Essays." In the Essay of "Adversity," Bacon quotes Seneca in this form: "Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei." The exact words, as Mr. Reynolds points out, are, "Ecce res magna, habere imbecillitatem hominis securitatem Dei." In the Essay of "Seditions and Troubles," Tacitus is thus quoted: "Conflata magna invidia, seu bene, seu male gesta

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premunt." The words are, "Inviso semel principe, seu bene seu male facta premunt."

This verbal inaccuracy must be remembered when the small errors in fact or allusion of Shakespeare are referred to as proof of deficient scholarship and as impossible for Bacon. Such mistakes are not only no argument against the Baconian theory, they are consistent with it, and even help to sustain it.

There is not, I believe, a single hint of knowledge contained in the plays which may not be illustrated by reference to Bacon's acknowledged works. And the gifts of fancy, imagination, wit, genius are his in rich abundance. Every page of his writings sparkles with gems of fancy. He could not write a letter on the dryest subject without some gleam of poetic embellishment. His was a royal mastery of language never surpassed, never perhaps equalled, such a mastery as we see in Shakespeare and no where else. He was the most accomplished lawyer of his age, not excepting even Lord Coke; not willingly,for he would have preferred to devote himself to other pursuits,—but, as he was obliged to live by his profession, so, by slow, gradual advancement, by sheer force of merit, he won his way to its very summit, and acquired that command of legal science and phraseology which is so marked a feature of the plays. He was a courtier, and a statesman, the son of a Lord Chancellor, nearly related to or closely intimate with the most eminent men in the kingdom; a constant associate with royal and aristocratic persons. His native region was the Court of princes and the halls of nobles. He was skilled in foreign languages, French, Spanish and Italian; had lived in France and travelled in the South of Europe in his early youth, and knew by his own eyesight, and by his own marvellous gifts of perception, the Italian scenes and skies which are so well described in the early plays. Several letters, written by Bacon in French, are published in Spedding's life.

D