He hammers at this denial in nineteen references in his Index to Titus Andronicus. Yet Ben, or Bacon, or the Unknown thought that these plays were “genuine plays” of “Shakespeare,” the concealed author—Bacon or Mr. Greenwood’s man. It appears that the immense poet who used the “nom de plume” of “Shakespeare” did not know the plays of which he could rightfully call himself the author; that (not foreseeing Mr. Greenwood’s constantly repeated objections) he boldly annexed four plays, or two certainly, which Mr. Greenwood denies to him, and another about which “the Folio Editor was in no little doubt.”
Finally, [227a] Mr. Greenwood is “convinced,” “it is my conviction” that some plays which he often denies to his “Shakespeare” were “revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they called Shakespeare.” That some one, if he edited or caused to be edited the Folio, thought that his revision, improvement, and dressing up of the plays gave him a right to claim their authorship—and Mr. Greenwood, a dozen times and more, denies to him their authorship.
One is seriously puzzled to discover the critic’s meaning. The Taming of a Shrew, Titus, Henry VI, and King Lear, referred to in Henslowe’s “Diary,” are not “Shakespearean,” we are repeatedly told. But “my own conviction is that . . . ” these plays were “revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they called Shakespeare.” But to be revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they called Shakespeare, is to be as truly “Shakespearean” work as is any play so handled “by Shakespeare.” Thus the plays mentioned are as truly “Shakespearean” as any others in which “Shakespeare” worked on an earlier canvas, and also Titus “is not Shakespearean at all.” Mr. Greenwood, I repeat, constantly denies the “Shakespearean” character to Titus and Henry VI. “The conclusion of the whole matter is that Titus and The Trilogy of Henry VI are not the work of Shakespeare: that his hand is probably not to be found at all in Titus, and only once or twice, if at all, in Henry VI, Part I, but that he it probably was who altered and remodelled the two parts of the old Contention of the Houses of York and Lancaster, thereby producing Henry VI, Parts II and III.” [228a]
Yet [228b] Titus and Henry VI appear as “revised, improved, and dressed” by the mysterious “some one whom they called Shakespeare.” If Mr. Greenwood’s conclusion [228c] be correct, “Shakespeare” had no right to place Henry VI, Part I, and Titus in his Folio. If his “conviction” [228d] be correct, Shakespeare had as good a right to them as to any of the plays which he revised, and improved, and dressed. They must be “Shakespearean” if Mr. Greenwood is right [228e] in his suggestion that “Shakespeare” either revised his works for publication between 1616 and 1623, or set his man, Ben Jonson, upon that business. Yet neither one nor the other knew what to make of Troilus and Cressida. “The Folio Editor had, evidently, no little doubt about that play.” [228f]
So neither “Shakespeare” nor Ben, instructed by him, can have been “the Folio Editor.” Consequently Mr. Greenwood must abandon his suggestion that either man was the Editor, and may return to his rejection of Titus and Henry VI, Part I. But he clings to it. He finds in Henslowe’s Diary “references to, and records of the writing of, such plays” as, among others, Titus Andronicus, and Henry VI. [229a]
Mr. Greenwood, after rejecting a theory of some one, says, “Far more likely does it appear that there was a great man of the time whose genius was capable of ‘transforming dross into gold,’ who took these plays, and, in great part, rewrote and revised them, leaving sometimes more, and sometimes less of the original work; and that so rewritten, revised, and transformed they appeared as the plays of ‘Shake-speare.’” [229b]
This statement is made [229c] about “these plays,” including Titus Andronicus and Henry VI, while [229d] “Titus and the Trilogy of Henry VI are not the work of Shakespeare . . . his hand is probably not to be found at all in Titus, and only once or twice in Henry VI, Part I,” though he probably made Parts II and III out of older plays.
I do not know where to have the critic. If Henry VI, Part I, and Titus are in no sense by “Shakespeare,” then neither “Shakespeare” nor Ben for him edited or had anything to do with the editing of the Folio. If either or both had to do with the editing, as the critic suggests, then he is wrong in denying Shakespearean origin to Titus and Henry VI, Part I.
Of course one sees a way out of the dilemma for the great auto-Shakespeare himself, who, by one hypothesis, handed over the editing of his plays to Ben (he, by Mr. Greenwood’s “supposing,” was deviling at literary jobs for Bacon). The auto-Shakespeare merely tells Ben to edit his plays, and never even gives him a list of them. Then Ben brings him the Folio, and the author looks at the list of Plays.
“Mr. Jonson,” he says, “I have hitherto held thee for an honest scholar and a deserving man in the quality thou dost profess. But thou hast brought me a maimed and deformed printed copy of that which I did write for my own recreation, not wishful to be known for so light a thing as a poet. Moreover, thou hast placed among these my trifles, four plays to which I never put a finger, and others in which I had no more than a thumb. The Seneschal, Mr. Jonson, will pay thee what is due to thee; thy fardels shall be sent whithersoever thou wilt, and, Mary! Mr. Jonson, I bid thee never more be officer of mine.”