UT, having taken the liberty of doubting whether—as matter of record—one William Shakespeare, of Stratford town, in England, sometime part-proprietor of the Globe and Blackfriars Theaters in London, could have very well been himself and the author of what are known popularly to-day as "the plays of Shakespeare," although there seemed to be ground for supposing that he might have cast them into something of the acting form they possess as preserved to us; and having come to the conclusion that—once this presumption is lifted—all the evidence procurable as to the life and times of the actual William Shakespeare is actually evidence cumulative to the truth of the proposition as to the record: let us proceed to inquire whether—on review—a case rested on this evidence can be rebutted by those certain considerations and matters, by way of rejoinder, which are stereotype and safe to come to the surface whenever these waters are troubled—which whoever ventures to canvass the possibilities of an extra Shakesperean authorship of the dramas can so infallibly anticipate.
Granted that the Shakespeare Will does not prove the testator oblivious of his own copyrights or rights in the nature of copyrights; granted that the story of the deer-stealing was actual invention and not merely rejected by the Shakespereans, because conceived to be unworthy of the image they set up; granted that the fact of the circulation of the blood was a familiar fact in the days of William Shakespeare; that the "Menæchmi" of Plautus; that Iago's speech in "Othello" and the stanza of Berni's Orlando Innamorato were mere coincidences; or, better yet, admit that there was an English version of the Italian poem in Shakespeare's day *—admit, if required—that the "Hamlet" of Saxo, had been translated; that the law in "The
* When Iago utters the often quoted lines, "who steals my
purse steals trash, etc.," he but repeats, with little
variation, this stanza of the Orlando Innamorato of which
poem, to this day, there is no English version.
"Chi ruba un corno un cavallo, un anello E simil cose, ha
qualcha discrezione,
E patrebbe chimarsi ladroneello;
Ma quel ehe ruba la reputazione E de l'altrai patiehe si fa
bello,
Si puo chiamare assassino e ladrone;
E tanto piu del dover trapassa il segno?"
As no English translation has been made of the Orlando
Innamorato, I must ask the reader who can not command the
original to be content with this rendering of the above
stanza:
"The man who steals a horn, a horse, a ring,
Or such a trifle, thieves with moderation,
And may be justly called a robberling;
But he who takes away a reputation And pranks in feathers
from another's wing His deed is robbery—assassination,
And merits punishment so much the greater As he to right and
truth is more a traitor."
Shakespeare, by R. G. White, vol. I, p. 23.
** Of Saxo Grammaticus, the Danish historian from whom the
plot of the "Hamlet" was taken, Whalley says, writing in
1748, that "no translation hath yet been made," must have
been read by the writer of "Hamlet" in the original. "An
Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare," etc. By Peter
Whalley, A. B.,
Fellow of St. John's College, London. Printed for J. Waller
at the Crown and Mitre, 1748—And see a suggestion that the
"Hamlet" came from Germany, in a pamphlet "On the Double
Personality of the Hamlet of Saxo Grammaticus, the Hamlet of
Shakespeare. Its Relation to the German Hamlet." By Dr.
Latham, Royal Society of Literature Transactions. 1878.
Also, "Shakespeare in Germany. Alfred Cohn. Berlin and
London. 1874.
"Merchant of Venice" was "Venetian" instead of "crowner's quest" Jaw; admit that William Shakespeare "had the advantages in school of something more than the mere rudiments of learning;" admit that "his devotion to his family drove him forth from the rural seclusion of Stratford into the battle of the great world;" that the immortal gift of the second-best bed was, (we quote from Mr. Grant White, who is apparently willing to sacrifice anybody's reputation if he can thereby prove his William to have been a prodigy of virtue no less than of genius), explained by the fact that, at the time of the hurried marriage, a husband had to be provided for Mistress Hathaway without loss of time, and that little Susannah was as much of a surprise to William as to any body—in other words, that Anne was "no better than she should be," (oblivious of the fact that "the premature Susannah" was William Shakespeare's favorite child; that he, at least, never doubted her paternity, for he left her the bulk of his fortune in his will);or even that—according to Steevens, that testamentary second thought was actually "a mark of rare confidence and devotion;" granted all these—if they have anything to do with the question—and a dozen more, and we only attenuate, by the exact value of these, the mountain of probability, nothing less than the complete dilapidation and disappearance of which could leave room for substitution, In the stead of the probability, the possibility of such a suspension of the laws of nature as is required by the Shakespearean theorists. For, as we have said, the evidence is cumulative, and, therefore, no more to be waived or disposed of by doubts as to, or even the dispelment of, this or that or the other item—or disintegration of this or that or the other block—of evidence than the Coliseum has been wiped away and disposed of because its coping has crumbled, or because, for some centuries, the petty Roman princes built their palaces from its debris.
And we may as well remark that, just here, it is always in order to mention Archbishop Whately's "Historic Doubts." We wish some of the gentlemen who cite it so glibly, would take the trouble to read that clever little book. It is a logical, not a whimsical effort. It was intended by its author as an answer to "Hume's Essay on Miracles." Hume's argument being, in the opinion of the Archbishop, reducible to the proposition that miracles were impossible because they were improbable, his lordship wrote his little work to show that the history of Napoleon was actually most improbable, and, written of feigned characters, would read like the most extravagant fable. Surely it can not be necessary to reiterate the difference between the Archbishop's brochure and the proposition of "The Shakspearean Myth!" The one was the argument from improbability, applied to facts in order to show its dangerous and altogether vicious character. The other is the demonstration that history—that the record—when consulted, is directly fatal to a popular impression, and directly contradictory of a presumption, born of mere carelessness and accident, and allowed to gather weight by mere years and lapse of time.
But, for the sake of the argument, let us leave the discussion, for the moment, just where it stands, and take still bolder ground. Instead of sifting evidence and counting witnesses, let us assume that, when we painted William Shakspeare—who lived between the years 1564 and 1616—as an easy-going rural wag, with a rural wit, thereafter to be sharpened by catering to the "gods" of a city theater; a poacher on occasion, and scapegrace generally in his youth, who chose the life of "a vagabond by statute"—i. e. a strolling player—but who turned up in London, and found his way into more profitable connection with a permanent play-house; and, in his advancing years, became thrifty, finally sordid—we had only taken the liberty of conceiving, like every other who ever wrote on a Shakespearean theme, yet one more William Shakespeare; so that, instead of ten thousand William Shakespeares, no two of which were identical, there were now ten thousand and one! Admitting that, the next question would of necessity be—and such an investigation as the present must become utterly valueless if prosecuted with bias or with substitution of personal opinion for historical fact—whose William Shakespeare is probably most a likeness of the true William Shakespeare, who did wander from Stratford to London, who did sojourn there, and who did wander back again to Stratford, and there was gathered to his fathers, in the year 1616?
The popular William Shakespeare, built to fit the plays, is a masterless philosopher, a matchless poet, a student of Greek manuscripts and classic manners, of southern romance and northern sagas, a traveler and a citizen of the world, a scientist, a moralist, a master of statecraft, and skilled in all the graces and amenities of courtly society! Which of these two portraits is nearest to the life? Let us take an appeal to History.
There appears to be but one way to go about to discover; that way is to appeal to the truth of history; to go as nearly back as we can get to the lifetime of the actual man we are after, and inquire, wherever a trace of him can be touched, what manner of man he was. How, it happens that the very nearest we can come to an eye-witness as to the personnel of William Shakespeare is the Reverend John Ward, Vicar of Stratford, who wrote in that town a diary or memoranda, between February, 1662, and April, 1663, say forty-seven years after William Shakespeare's death. The following meager references to his late fellow-townsman are all (except an entry to the effect that he had two daughters, etc.; and another memorandum, "Remember to peruse Shakespeare's plays, etc.,) thought worth while by Dominie Ward, viz:
"I have heard that Mr. Shakespeare was a natural wit, without any art at all; he frequented the plays all his younger time, but in his elder days he lived at Stratford, and supplied the stage with two plays every year, and for that he had an allowance so large that he spent at the rate of £1,000 a year, as I have heard."
"Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merrie meeting, and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a feaver there contracted."