Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown | Page 5

serve Davies, or should not serve him, in his search for a Roman
parallel to "good Will." But Mr. Greenwood also writes, "if he"
(Shakespeare) "was to be likened to a Latin comedian, surely Plautus is
the writer with whom he should have been compared." {0k} Yet

Plautus was the very man who cannot be used as a parallel to
Shakespeare. Of course no Roman nor any other comic dramatist
closely resembles the AUTHOR of As You Like It. They who selected
either Plautus or Terence meant no more than that both were celebrated
comic dramatists. Plautus was no parallel to Will. Yet "surely Plautus is
the author to whom he should have been compared" by Davies, says Mr.
Greenwood. If Davies tried Plautus, the comparison was bad; if
Terence, it was "curious," as Terence was absurdly accused of being
the "nom de plume" of some great "concealed poets" of Rome. "From
all the known facts about Terence," says a Baconian critic (who has
consulted Smith's Biographical Dictionary), "it is an almost
unavoidable inference that John Davies made the comparison to
Shakspere because he knew of the point common to both cases." The
common point is taken to be, not that both men were famous comic
dramatists, but that Roman literary gossips said, and that Baconians and
Mr. Greenwood say, that "Terence" was said to be a "mask-name," and
that "Shakespeare" is a mask-name. Of the second opinion there is not a
hint in literature of the time of good Will.
What surprises one most in this controversy is that men eminent in the
legal profession should be "anti-Shakesperean," if not overtly Baconian.
For the evidence for the contemporary faith in Will's authorship is all
positive; from his own age comes not a whisper of doubt, not even a
murmur of surprise. It is incredible to me that his fellow-actors and
fellow-playwrights should have been deceived, especially when they
were such men as Ben Jonson and Tom Heywood. One would expect
lawyers, of all people, to have been most impatient of the surprising
attempts made to explain away Ben Jonson's testimony, by aid, first, of
quite a false analogy (Scott's denial of his own authorship of his novels),
and, secondly, by the suppression of such a familiar fact as the constant
inconsistency of Ben's judgments of his contemporaries in literature.
Mr. Greenwood must have forgotten the many examples of this
inconsistency; but I have met a Baconian author who knew nothing of
the fact. Mr. Greenwood, it is proper to say, does not seem to be
satisfied that he has solved what he calls "the Jonsonian riddle." Really,
there is no riddle. About Will, as about other authors, his
contemporaries and even his friends, on occasion, Ben "spoke with two

voices," now in terms of hyperbolical praise, now in carping tones of
censure. That is the obvious solution of "the Jonsonian riddle."
I must apologise if I have in places spelled the name of the Swan of
Avon "Shakespeare" where Mr. Greenwood would write "Shakspere,"
and vice versa. He uses "Shakespeare" where he means the Author;
"Shakspere" where he means Will; and is vexed with some people who
write the name of Will as "Shakespeare." As Will, in the opinion of a
considerable portion of the human race, and of myself, WAS the
Author, one is apt to write his name as "Shakespeare" in the usual way.
But difficult cases occur, as in quotations, and in conditional sentences.
By any spelling of the name I always mean the undivided personality of
"Him who sleeps by Avon."
CHAPTER I
: THE BACONIAN AND ANTI-WILLIAN POSITIONS

Till the years 1856-7 no voice was raised against the current belief
about Shakespeare (1564-1616). He was the author in the main of the
plays usually printed as his. In some cases other authors, one or more,
may have had fingers in his dramas; in other cases, Shakespeare may
have "written over" and transfigured earlier plays, of himself and of
others; he may have contributed, more or less, to several plays mainly
by other men. Separately printed dramas published during his time
carry his name on their title-pages, but are not included in the first
collected edition of his dramas, "The First Folio," put forth by two of
his friends and fellow-actors, in 1623, seven years after his death.
On all these matters did commentators, critics, and antiquarians for
long dispute; but none denied that the actor, Will Shakspere (spelled as
heaven pleased), was in the main the author of most of the plays of
1623, and the sole author of Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, and the
Sonnets.
Even now, in England at least, it would be perhaps impossible to find

one special and professed student of Elizabethan literature, and of the
classical and European literatures, who does