[12] Boyet in the play (II. 1) calls upon the Princess (or Queen) to reflect that her mission to Navarre was to raise a claim “of no less weight than Aquitaine, a dowry for a Queen.”
[13] Vol. II, ch. 7.
[14] Sous le Masque, vol. I, 21. He might, I think, have included certain editors of newspapers and magazines in his statement, though not always “érudits.”
[15] M. Abel Lefranc, it may be mentioned, is Professeur au Collège de France, and one of our highest authorities on Rabelais and the period of the Renaissance, not to mention Moliére, and other historical periods. “But, surely, we need not go to a Frenchman for enlightenment on our great English poet!” wrote a British commentator in the Press the other day—a most characteristic utterance, and superbly illustrative of the insular conceit which no entente cordiale seems to have the power to dissipate. But is it not highly probable that a French scholar, applying himself to the study of the Shakespeare Problem with an impartial mind, with no innate or national prejudices to obscure his vision, being himself an enthusiastic worshipper at the shrine of Shakespeare, the poet and dramatist, might be able to throw light upon many things which are “beyond the skyline” of those who have grown up in the school of an old and unquestioned tradition to which they cling as though it were part and parcel of the British constitution, and, as it were, a necessary ingredient of the national glory?
[16] I am, I need scarcely say, very far from denying the possible existence of ciphers, cryptograms, and anagrams, whether in “Shakespeare’s” plays and poems or in other literature of that day. It is known that such things were frequently made use of by writers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Bacon himself gives us an example of the biliteral cipher, and it is known that he often employed such cryptic methods of writing. It is none the less true that the search for these things by “Baconian” enthusiasts of the present day has frequently led to very distressing results, for “that way madness lies.”
[17] Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1899.
[18] This Masque, also called “The Prince’s Masque,” forms the subject of two chapters (VI and VII) in Mr. Smithson’s book, Shakespeare—Bacon.
[19] The title-page bears date 1899. [G. G.]
[20] I may be allowed to refer to my booklet, Ben Jonson and Shakespeare (Cecil Palmer, 1921). [G. G.]
[21] But Lord Campbell cannot be quoted as a “Baconian.” [G. G.]