Strict proof, I reply, is hardly to be expected either now or hereafter. A high degree of probability, resting on evidence of various kinds and different degrees of cogency, is all that the writer has ever contended for. The history of literature abounds in instances of pseudonymity. Of these one of the most apposite that occurs to me is that of Aristophanes, who made use of the name Callistratus, a contemporary actor, to mask his (own) authorship of the Birds, Lysistrata, etc. There are differences, of course, between the two cases, one being that in that of Aristophanes there were no very obvious reasons for concealment, whereas in the case of Bacon there were several. Whether it really matters who the great poet was depends on the word “really.” It certainly does not matter in the sense in which the high price of coal, the low price of Consols, England’s relations with other Powers, etc., matter. It does matter for The Tempest, the symbolism of which probably extends beyond Miranda and Prospero, as far as Neapolis, and possibly further. It cannot fail to affect the interpretation of other plays of Shakespeare. It solves, or helps to solve, interesting problems in the life and acknowledged works of Bacon. It matters in short for all genuine admirers of English literature. As to plasticity—where the fable to be juggled is vague, undocumented, variously and incoherently documented, or frugal of features, the operation will be child’s play. With such a fable as The Tempest the trick can only be brought off by singling out one or two features and shutting the eye to all the rest. One objection only remains to be dealt with. The reference to Bedlam with which it concludes might have been omitted, but no discussion of this question seems quite in order without some innuendo that the unorthodox person is mad or a crank. The objection itself (though the phrasing might be challenged as favouring the objector) is pertinent enough, and may be answered as follows: Bacon was an inveterate treasure-seeker. The unsunned treasures he sought were not material things like gold and silver, but gems of thought hidden away in the dreamlands of poetry. The genesis of this habit was no doubt closely related to his theory that poesy enables the artist in words to retire and obscure ... secrets and mysteries by involving them in fables invented for the purpose, a practice by no means uncommon, he firmly believed, among the poets of antiquity when they wished to reserve information for selected auditors.
So far the discussion has been grave to the point of dullness. Would that I had been able to enliven it, if only because The Tempest is a comedy—heads the file of the comedies in the First Folio. Possibly the following quotation from the work of an eminent critic may help to remedy the fault: Miranda ... and her fellow Perdita are idealizations of the sweet country maidens whom Shakspere (sic) would see about him in his renewed family life at Stratford.[75]]
THE COMMON KNOWLEDGE OF SHAKESPEARE AND BACON
Many years ago, when, not having bestowed a thought upon the subject, I was, naturally, of the orthodox Stratfordian faith, and knew nothing of the Baconian “heresy” except the time-honoured joke that “Shakespeare” was not written by Shakespeare, but by another gentleman of the same name (which I thought “devilish funny”) I happened to be reading Bacon’s Essay on Gardens. This passage at once arrested my attention: “In April follow, the double violet; the wall-flower; the stock-gilliflower; the cowslip; flower-de-luces, and lillies of all natures.” Why, thought I, those last words are almost identical with some used by Perdita at the conclusion of her lovely catalogue of flowers! I turned to the Winter’s Tale (IV. 4) and there read:
lillies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one.
For at least half a minute I thought, in my innocence, that I had made a discovery! But reflection of course, told me that so startling a parallelism must have been observed by hundreds before me. “Lillies of all kinds,” says Shakespeare; “lillies of all natures,” says Bacon; and each specifies “the flower-de-luce” as one of them! Surely, I said to myself, this is no mere coincidence! Surely one of these writers must have, consciously or unconsciously, taken the words from the other! On closer inspection, too, I found a remarkable resemblance between the two lists of flowers, Bacon’s and Shakespeare’s; that they are in fact substantially the same. Did then Shakspere borrow from Bacon? Very possibly, I thought; but on investigation I found that the Essay on Gardens was first printed in 1625, nine years after player Shakspere’s death. Well, then, did Bacon borrow from Shakspere in this instance? Few, I think, would be inclined to adopt that hypothesis. The author of the Essay had made a life-long study of gardens, and, as Mr. James Spedding writes (though I did not discover this till years afterwards), “it is not probable that Bacon would have anything to learn of William Shakespeare [i.e., Shakspere of Stratford] concerning the science of gardening.” “Moreover,” says the same writer, “the scene in Winter’s Tale where Perdita presents the guests with flowers ... has some expressions which, if the Essay had been printed somewhat earlier, would have made me suspect that Shakespeare had been reading it!”[76] Yes, indeed, and these “expressions,” almost identical in both, have made some persons “suspect” that the same pen wrote both the Essay and the Scene.
There are, as all those who have studied the two authors are aware, many other striking coincidences to be found in the writings of Shakespeare and Bacon. In this chapter I propose to consider some of them only, namely those which, nearly twenty years ago, formed the subject of a controversy between the late Judge Webb, and the late Professor Dowden.
In the year 1902 the late Judge Webb, then Regius Professor of Laws, and Public Orator in the University of Dublin, published a book which he called The Mystery of William Shakespeare.