Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown

Shakespeare, Bacon and the
Great Unknown

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Title: Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown

Author: Andrew Lang
Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5127] [Yes, we are more than
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Transcribed from the 1912 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by David
Price, email [email protected]

SHAKESPEARE, BACON AND THE GREAT UNKNOWN

INTRODUCTION

The theory that Francis Bacon was, in the main, the author of
"Shakespeare's plays," has now been for fifty years before the learned
world. Its advocates have met with less support than they had reason to
expect. Their methods, their logic, and their hypotheses closely
resemble those applied by many British and foreign scholars to Homer;
and by critics of the very Highest School to Holy Writ. Yet the
Baconian theory is universally rejected in England by the professors
and historians of English literature; and generally by students who have
no profession save that of Letters. The Baconians, however, do not lack
the countenance and assistance of highly distinguished persons, whose
names are famous where those of mere men of letters are unknown; and

in circles where the title of "Professor" is not duly respected.
The partisans of Bacon aver (or one of them avers) that "Lord Penzance,
Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Palmerston, Judge Webb, Judge Holmes (of
Kentucky, U.S.), Prince Bismarck, John Bright, and innumerable most
THOUGHTFUL SCHOLARS EMINENT IN MANY WALKS OF
LIFE, AND ESPECIALLY IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION . . . " have
been Baconians, or, at least, opposed to Will Shakspere's authorship.
To these names of scholars I must add that of my late friend, Samuel
Clemens, D.Litt. of Oxford; better known to many as Mark Twain. Dr.
Clemens was, indeed, no mean literary critic; witness his epoch-making
study of Prof. Dowden's Life of Shelley, while his researches into the
biography of Jeanne d'Arc were most conscientious.
With the deepest respect for the political wisdom and literary taste of
Lord Palmerston, Prince Bismarck, Lord Beaconsfield, and the late Mr.
John Bright; and with every desire to humble myself before the judicial
verdicts of Judges Holmes, Webb, and Lord Penzance; with sincere
admiration of my late friend, Dr. Clemens, I cannot regard them as, in
the first place and professionally, trained students of literary history.
They were no more specially trained students of Elizabethan literature
than myself; they were amateurs in this province, as I am an amateur,
who differ from all of them in opinion. Difference of opinion
concerning points of literary history ought not to make "our angry
passions rise." Yet this controversy has been extremely bitter.
I abstain from quoting the "sweetmeats," in Captain MacTurk's phrase,
which have been exchanged by the combatants. Charges of ignorance
and monomania have been answered by charges of forgery, lying,
"scandalous literary dishonesty," and even inaccuracy. Now no mortal
is infallibly accurate, but we are all sane and "indifferent honest." There
have been forgeries in matters Shakespearean, alas, but not in
connection with the Baconian controversy.
It is an argument of the Baconians, and generally of the impugners of
good Will's authorship of the plays vulgarly attributed to him, that the
advocates of William Shakspere, Gent, as author of the plays, differ

like the Kilkenny cats among themselves on many points. All do not
believe, with Mr. J. C. Collins, that Will knew Sophocles, Euripides,
and AEschylus (but not Aristophanes) as well as Mr. Swinburne did, or
knew them at all--for that matter. Mr. Pollard differs very widely from
Sir Sidney Lee on points concerning the First Folio and the Quartos:
my sympathies are with Mr. Pollard. Few, if any, partisans of Will
agree with Mrs.