Nineteenth Century Questions

by James Freeman Clarke

The greatest of English poets is Shakespeare. The greatest prose writer in English literature is probably Bacon. Each of these writers, alone, is a marvel of intellectual grandeur. It is hard to understand how one man, in a few years, could have written all the masterpieces of Shakespeare,—thirty-six dramas, each a work of genius such as the world will never let die. It is a marvel that from one mind could proceed the tender charm of such poems as "Romeo and Juliet," "As You Like It," or "The Winter's Tale;" the wild romance of "The Tempest," or of "A Midsummer Night's Dream;" the awful tragedies of "Lear," "Macbeth," and "Othello;" the profound philosophy of "Hamlet;" the perfect fun of "Twelfth Night," and "The Merry Wives of Windsor;" and the reproductions of Roman and English history. It is another marvel that a man like Bacon, immersed nearly all his life in business, a successful lawyer, an ambitious statesman, a courtier cultivating the society of the sovereign and the favorites of the sovereign, should also be the founder of a new system of philosophy, which has been the source of many inventions and new sciences down to the present day; should have critically surveyed the whole domain of knowledge, and become a master of English literary style. Each of these phenomena is a marvel; but put them together, and assume that one man did it all, and you have, not a marvel, but a miracle. Yet, this is the result which the monistic tendency of modern thought has reached. Several critics of our time have attempted to show that Bacon, besides writing all the works usually attributed to him, was also the author of all of Shakespeare's plays and poems.

This theory was first publicly maintained by Miss Delia Bacon in 1857. It had been, before, in 1856, asserted by an Englishman, William Henry Smith, but only in a small volume printed for private circulation. This book made a distinguished convert in the person of Lord Palmerston, who openly declared his conviction that Bacon was the author of Shakespeare's plays. Two papers by Appleton Morgan, written in the same sense, appeared last year in "Appletons' Journal." But far the most elaborate and masterly work in support of this attempt to dethrone Shakespeare, and to give his seat on the summit of Parnassus to Lord Bacon, is the book by Judge Holmes, published in 1866. He has shown much ability, and brought forward every argument which has any plausibility connected with it.

Judge Holmes was, of course, obliged to admit the extreme antecedent improbability of his position. Certainly it is very difficult to believe that the author of such immortal works should have been willing, for any reason, permanently to conceal his authorship; or, if he could hide that fact, should have been willing to give the authorship to another; or, if willing, should have been able so effectually to conceal the substitution as to blind the eyes of all mankind down to the days of Miss Delia Bacon and Judge Holmes.

What, then, are the arguments used by Judge Holmes? The proofs he adduces are mainly these: (1st) That there are many coincidences and parallelisms of thought and expression between the works of Bacon and Shakespeare; (2d) that there is an amount of knowledge and learning in the plays, which Lord Bacon possessed, but which Shakespeare could hardly have had. Besides these principal proofs, there are many other reasons given which are of inferior weight,—a phrase in a letter of Sir Tobie Matthew; another sentence of Bacon himself, which might be possibly taken as an admission that he was the author of "Richard II.;" the fact that some plays which Shakespeare certainly did not write were first published with his name or his initials. But his chief argument is that Shakespeare had neither the learning nor the time to write the plays, both of which Lord Bacon possessed; and that there are curious coincidences between the plays and the prose works.

These arguments have all been answered, and the world still believes in Shakespeare as before. But I have thought it might be interesting to show how easily another argument could be made of an exactly opposite kind,—how easily all these proofs might be reversed. I am inclined to think that if we are to believe that one man was the author both of the plays and of the philosophy, it is much more probable that Shakespeare wrote the works of Bacon than that Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare. For there is no evidence that Bacon was a poet as well as a philosopher; but there is ample evidence that Shakespeare was a philosopher as well as a poet. This, no doubt, assumes that Shakespeare actually wrote the plays; but this we have a right to assume, in the outset of the discussion, in order to stand on an equal ground with our opponents.

The Bacon vs. Shakespeare argument runs thus: "Assuming that Lord Bacon wrote the works commonly attributed to him, there is reason to believe that he also wrote the plays and poems commonly attributed to Shakespeare."

The counter argument would then be: "Assuming that Shakespeare wrote the plays, and poems commonly attributed to him, there is reason to believe that he also wrote the works commonly attributed to Bacon."

This is clearly the fair basis of the discussion. What is assumed on the one side on behalf of Bacon we have a right to assume on the other on behalf of Shakespeare. But before proceeding on this basis, I must reply to the only argument of Judge Holmes which has much apparent weight. He contends that it was impossible for Shakespeare, with the opportunities he possessed, to acquire the knowledge which we find in the plays. Genius, however great, cannot give the knowledge of medical and legal terms, nor of the ancient languages. Now, it has been shown that the plays afford evidence of a great knowledge of law and medicine; and of works in Latin and Greek, French and Italian. How could such information have been obtained by a boy who had no advantages of study except at a country grammar school, which he left at the age of fourteen, who went to London at twenty-three and became an actor, and who spent most of his life as actor, theatrical proprietor, and man of business?

This objection presents difficulties to us, and for our time, when boys sometimes spend years in the study of Latin grammar. We cannot understand the rapidity with which all sorts of knowledge were imbibed in the period of the Renaissance. Then every one studied everything. Then Greek and Latin books were read by prince and peasant, by queens and generals. Then all sciences and arts were learned by men and women, by young and old. Thus speaks Robert Burton—who was forty years old when Shakespeare died: "What a world of books offers itself, in all subjects, arts and sciences, to the sweet content and capacity of the reader! In arithmetic, geometry, perspective, opticks, astronomy, architecture, sculptura, pictura, of which so many and elaborate treatises have lately been written; in mechanics and their mysteries, military matters, navigation, riding of horses, fencing, swimming, gardening, planting, great tomes of husbandry, cookery, faulconry, hunting, fishing, fowling; with exquisite pictures of all sports and games.... What vast tomes are extant in law, physic, and divinity, for profit, pleasure, practice.... Some take an infinite delight to study the very languages in which these books were written: Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Chaldee, Arabick, and the like." This was the fashion of that day, to study all languages, all subjects, all authors. A mind like that of Shakespeare could not have failed to share this universal desire for knowledge. After leaving the grammar school, he had nine years for such studies before he went to London. As soon as he began to write plays, he had new motives for study; for the subjects of the drama in vogue were often taken from classic story.

But Shakespeare had access to another source of knowledge besides the study of books. When he reached London, five or six play-houses were in full activity, and new plays were produced every year in vast numbers. New plays were then in constant demand, just as the new novel and new daily or weekly paper are called for now. The drama was the periodical literature of the time. Dramatic authors wrote with wonderful rapidity, borrowing their subjects from plays already on the stage, and from classic or recent history. Marlowe, Greene, Lyly, Peele, Kyd, Lodge, Nash, Chettle, Munday, Wilson, were all dramatic writers before Shakespeare. Philip Henslowe, a manager or proprietor of the theatres, bought two hundred and seventy plays in about ten years. Thomas Heywood wrote a part or the whole of two hundred and twenty plays during his dramatic career. Each acted play furnished material for some other. They were the property of the play-houses, not of the writers. One writer after another has accused Shakespeare of indifference to his reputation, because he did not publish a complete and revised edition of his works during his life. How could he do this, since they did not belong to him, but to the theatre? Yet every writer was at full liberty to make use of all he could remember of other plays, as he saw them acted; and Shakespeare was not slow to use this opportunity. No doubt he gained knowledge in this way, which he afterward employed much better than did the authors from whom he took it.