My object in giving these two quotations is only to show that there is nothing in them to lead up to the arresting praise of Bacon expressed in my next quotation, which comes after a list of English writers or wits, the elder Wiat, the Earl of Surrey, Sir Philip Sidney (a “great Master of wit,”) Lord Egerton, the Chancellor, and runs thus:
But his [the his refers to L. C. Egerton] learned and able, though unfortunate Successor, is he, who hath fill’d up all numbers, and perform’d that in our tongue, which may be compar’d, or preferr’d, either to insolent Greece, or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and about his times, were all the wits borne, that could honour a language, or help study. Now things daily fall; wits grow downe-ward, and Eloquence growes back-ward: So that hee may be nam’d, and stand as the marke and akme of our language.[51]
In order to appreciate this passage, the reader should grasp (1) that Jonson’s mind at the time was full of memories of Bacon; (2) that in a subsequent Discovery—De Poetica—he distinguishes Poetry from oratory as “the most prevailing,” “most exalted” “Eloquence,” and describes the Poet’s “skill or Craft of making” as the “Queene of Arts”; (3) that Jonson, proud of his own métier as poet, would never have allowed, still less asserted, that Bacon had “filled up all numbers,” had he not known that Bacon was a great poet. Where is this wonderful poetry to be found? The answer is ready to hand. The famous writer who, according to the Discovery, had “perform’d that in our tongue” which neither Greece nor Rome could surpass, is the very man who, according to the Ode, had achieved that in English which defied “comparison” with “all” that Greece or Rome, or the civilisations that succeeded Greece and Rome, had given to the World. Bacon is that Man, and Shakespeare was his pen-name.
This hypothesis—that Shakespeare was the pen-name of Bacon—will pilot us through our difficulties. The disclaimer (in the Ode) for example, of any intention to injure the august name need puzzle us no longer. Bacon’s reputation was imperilled by publication of the great Book; for if the Public once got wind that he had trafficked with “common players” his name, already smirched by the verdict of the House of Peers, would have been irreparably damaged. A passage from an anonymous Essay of mine (Bacon-Shakespeare; projected 1884-5: published 1899), may be tolerated here. The Essay, after having suggested that Greene’s allusion to Shakespeare as having a “tiger’s heart wrapt in a player’s hide” pointed to concealment behind an actor, proceeds:
John Davies ... characterises poetry (contemporaneous) as “a worke of darkness,” in the sense of a secret work, not in disparagement: Davies loved poetry and poets too well for that. The anonymous author of Wit’s Recreations, in a kindly epigram “To Mr. William Shake-speare,” says: “Shake-speare we must be silent in thy praise, cause our encomions will but blast thy bayes.” ... Edward Bolton in the ... sketch (or draft) of his Hypercritica, ... after having mentioned “Shakespeare, Beaumont, and other writers for the stage” thinks it necessary to remind himself that their names required to be “tenderly used in this argument.” (accordingly) He ... excluded the name of Shakespeare ... from the published version of his Hypercritica.
To return again to the Ode. Its jests about shaking a stage (compare Greene’s “Shakescene”), shaking a lance, and its ecstatic vision of Shakespeare enthroned among the stars were no doubt intended to amuse the two Earls, and other patrons of the famous Folio.
As for the sweeping accusation in the Timber or Discoveries, that Poetry had been a mean Mistress to openly professed as distinguished from furtive or concealed poets, it would have been unpardonable had the Stratford man been a poet; for William Shakspere, Esq., of New Place, Stratford-on-Avon, spent his last years in the odour of prosperity.
Other testimony, quite independent of Jonson’s, to the existence of an intimate relation between Bacon and the Muses, Apollo, Helicon, Parnassus, is abundant enough. Here are a few samples: Thomas Randolph shortly after Bacon’s death accuses Phœbus of being accessory to Bacon’s death, lest the God himself should be dethroned and Bacon be crowned king of the Muses.[52] George Herbert calls Bacon the colleague of Apollo. Thomas Campion, addressing Bacon says: “Whether ... the Law, or the Schools (in the sense of science or knowledge), or the sweet Muse allure thee,” etc. At a somewhat later date, Waller said that Bacon and Sidney were nightingales who sang only in the spring (the reference has escaped me, and memory may possibly deceive me).[53] Coming to comparatively recent times we find Shelley, an exceptional judge of poetry, was of opinion that Bacon “was a poet.” It may possibly be objected that Bacon’s versified Psalms (in English) are not poetical.[54] But these Psalms belong to about 1624, when Bacon—ex hypothesi—had turned his back on poetry for ever. What they prove, if they prove anything, is that Bacon was a literary Proteus who could take on any disguise that happened to suit his purpose, a faculty which no student of Bacon would ever think of disputing.
Inferences drawn from Bacon’s reticence or extracted from his works have yet to be weighed. In the nineties of the sixteenth century he can be shown to have devoted much time and thought to the writing and preparation of a species of dramatic entertainment known as Devices. Even after he became Lord Chancellor, he risked injuring his health rather than deny himself the pleasure of assisting at a dramatic performance given by Gray’s Inn. As a student of human nature, moreover, he had scarcely an equal (bar “Shakespeare.”) And yet he seems to have been ignorant of the existence of any such person as Shakespeare, although that name must have been bandied about and about in the London of his day, especially among members of the various Inns of Court, his own Gray’s in particular.