Why is it that Shakesperians have been so sure that their claimant must have had a classical education, that they have searched the records of Oxford and find no entry? Why do I find “Aula Cervina” Antonius Sherlye, 1579—equitis aurati fil. 14 ann. Hart Hall is thus described by a contemporary, 1st Elizabeth: “By the advantage of the most famous and learnedest of tutors he acquired a knowledge not common of the Greek and Latin tongues, of philosophy, of history, of politicks and other liberal sciences.”—Would not Shakesperians have been delighted if they could have this said of the tutors W. Shakespere studied under!!
Why, as Clement’s Inn is mentioned, are they sure he must have had a legal training, but can find no mention? Why, when I go to the Library of the Inner Temple, do I find at once the name and record I want, covering just the very date I need for my theory? “1583, November, admitted Inner Temple Sir Anthony Shirley, Wiston, Sussex, the second of the celebrated brothers, died 1630.” Extract from “Members admitted to the Inner Temple 1547–1660.” Why is it the writer is so familiar with the ins and outs, and changes, and intricate governments, and of Italian states and cities, and their laws and ways? Why does he mention what puzzles so many commentators, viz. that Bohemia had a sea-board? [38] Why in everyday talk does he bring in Venetian proverbs and ways of speech. “Fico,” Heylin, p. 124, “When they intend to scoff a man, are wont to put their thumb between two of their fingers, saying, ‘Ecco le Fico.’” This would answer to our “taking a sight.” Must not the familiar use of this and similar proverbs point to residence? “Basta,” what a useful word one finds in it when dwelling in Italy. “A Bergomask dance” (Midsummer Night’s Dream). Who could know, unless resident, that the Venetians looked down on them as coarse and vulgar? Notice also all sorts of trifling incidents which prove the writer was a dweller at Venice, and moved about among the Italian States. Why is he always harping upon ancient families being ruined, and the hardship of banishment? Why are all his provincialisms Sussex and south country? “The many musits through which he goes” (Venus and Adonis). “A hare wee found musing on her meaze” (Return from Pernassus). Surrey Provincialisms, G. Leveson Gower, “Meuse, a hole in the hedge made by a fox, hare, or rabbit, alias a run.” Musit occurs in Two Noble Kinsmen, III. i. 97. Halliwell has muse and muset. “Maund, a basket” (Ray’s South Country Glossary). Why does he so accurately, in smallest details, describe the horrors of a battle-field, the sacking of a town, the horrible scenes and impossibility of keeping in hand the soldiers? How, if he had not been present, could he have imagined the meeting in conclave and settling over night the lines of to-morrow’s battle? What did either Shakespere or Bacon know of that phase of camp life, of battle in retreat and advance, the field before and after, prisoners and their ransom, all true to the letter, of one who had been with Philip Sidney and knighted on the very field of battle in Brittany by the King of France, and sent to the Fleet by Elizabeth’s jealousy because he was so knighted?
“Have I not heard in my time lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea puffed up with winds
Rage like an angry boar, chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heavens artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard
Loud ’larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?”(Taming of the Shrew.)
All this had Anthony Sherley heard and seen. Had Bacon? Had John Bull’s Stratford pet? Then, as for field sports, hunting in every form or fashion, he describes as none but he and Jorrocks could. (R. S. Surtees, of Hamsterley, I know, drew all his pictures from originals, and that is why they hold their own.) The dying hare, “Venus and Adonis,” was there ever anything more touching? The same repeated, “As You Like It,” Act II. i. the dying deer, and Jacques weeping over it.
Unless at home he had had an early introduction to stable and kennel management, that sort of learning could not be acquired in after-life; his love for his “crop-eared roan,” the descriptions in so many places of his devotion to horses and hounds, he knows them all by name. “Taming of the Shrew,” scene 1, “Huntsman, tender well my hounds;” see also Henry VI. scene 2. His description of deer and deer hunts shows that he had watched their habits, couchant and in chase. What a fund of similar knowledge is there in the Return from Pernassus, not Parnassus, distinguishing between the names at different seasons of their life, and also the same of “Roa-bucke,” “rode on a roan gelding,” “the buck broke gallantly,” and then comes a similar touching description to that of the death of the hare in the Sonnets, “the hounds seized upon him, he groaned, and wept, and dyed, in good faith it made me weep too.” The truth is, when you compare the words and sentiments and expressions with those in Shakespeare’s plays, [40] you feel that one and the same writer was author of them both. Recollect that the modern Pernassus was in the neighbourhood of Bergamo, from whence Kemp had just returned from his visit to Anthony Sherley (see An Almond for a Parrot), and, as Heylyn tells us, “Crema,” the inhabitants of, on the destruction “of Parnassus, a town of Lombardy, where before they lived, were permitted to build here.” Then it is evident that whoever wrote these plays was a Romanist, he sneers at Churchmen and Puritans alike, whilst with regard to Friars and Romanists, he mostly speaks of them with respect. Well, in S. P. O. there is a letter from one Phillipp employed by Cecil “to intercept letters and spy out secrets,” dated Rome, 1601: “He (Anthony Sherley) denyeth himself to have been a Protestant ever since his first being at Venice, and here also he hath used to frequent confession every seven or eight days, and upon Easter Eve he did communicate here; upon Easter Day he dined here in the English Colledge.”
This will account for the attack on Sir John Oldcastle, egged on by his Jesuit friends, and his dropping the subject when he found that the wave of public opinion ran high against him. Last, but not least, we have a few landmarks of localities. “Burton” and “Wincot” stand out in eminence. Far and near have they been sought after by Shakesperians, but from Dan to Beersheba it is all barren; they locate poor Christopher Sly here, there, and everywhere, or else declare there must be mis-spelling; as follows is what one of the best and shrewdest of the commentators is driven to: Steevens: “I suspect we should read Barton Heath. Barton and Woodmancot, or as it is vulgarly pronounced, Woncot, are both of them in Gloucestershire, near the residence of Shakespeare’s old enemy Justice Shallow. Very probably also this fat ale wife might be a real character.” Dr. Samuel Ireland, 1795: “From the similarity of the name and the consideration that no such place as Barton Heath has been by any inquiry of mine discovered in the neighbourhood, I am led to conceive that Barton Heath, which lies in this county about 18 miles from Stratford, must have been the spot to which Shakespeare refers. It is worth hazarding a conjecture to have even a chance of tracing him in any one of his haunts.” Well, I need not such subterfuges, but go down to Stanford’s and buy an Ordnance Map of Sussex, and find both places within an easy reach of Wiston. Names thereabouts seem to be strangely contracted, Wystoneston=Wiston, St. Botulph’s Bridge=Bootle Bridge, so also Woodmancote and Edburton; but if that will not please for Christopher Sly’s residence (when at home?), there is another Burton proper, within a few miles of Wiston; Woodmancote and Edburton are next parish to Wiston, aye, and joining on “Nightingale” Hill, how fond he was of them, he gives us even their notes; his father’s woods were as full of them as his park of deer. There is no question, it appears to me, I cannot answer, no puzzled point I cannot explain, no stumbling-block to commentators I cannot take out of their way. Why then not believe me? “All the world against nothing,” Romeo, III. 5. Although I have run a dark horse, he has run straight and true, and distanced Bacon, whilst Shakespere has alike dropped out of both betting and running. [42] Shakesperians have left their Dagon on the ground and hardly lift the feather of a quill to raise him up. Their last resource in argument is (fact) inspiration! in opposition ridicule! As to their other candidate, that weakly youth never could have been physically equal to have taken his share in youthful sports. Campbell’s Life of Bacon: “Francis was sickly and unable to join in the rough sports suited for boys of robust constitution,” if so he could not have described them so vividly and true; his poetry, such specimens as we have, is hardly-third rate, his prose on stilts, his history discredited. Preface to Bacon’s Essays, 1814: “His History of Henry VII. is in these days only consulted by a few.” Can this be said of his contemporary’s Historical plays? Whilst I have known those who have taken Bacon up and laid him down, I have hardly ever known one who after he had put Shakepeare down with reluctance, but longed for the time to take him up again,—the one interested and enchanted, the other bored. Never both the product of the same brain, or writings of the same man. I have told my tale and run my (paper) chase, and now leave it to my umpires, the British and American readers, to decide whether, as Stratford has been pulled up and Bacon distanced, I may not claim from every unprejudiced mind that Sherley has been well ridden and won in a canter. “De l’audace, de l’audace et encore de l’audace!”
THE AUTHOR,
Dinsdale-on-Tees,
Darlington.
August 13th, 1888.
STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, PRINTERS, HERTFORD.