CHAPTER IX. — Mr. Sidney Lee and the Stratford Bust.
One word to the Stratfordians. The "Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon" myth has been shattered and destroyed by the mass of inexactitudes collected in the supposititious "Life of Shakespeare" by Mr. Sidney Lee, who has done his best to pulverise what remained of that myth by recently writing as follows:—
"Most of those who have pressed the question [of Bacon being the real Shake-speare] on my notice, are men of acknowledged intelligence and reputation in their own branch of life, both at home and abroad. I therefore desire as respectfully, but also as emphatically and as publicly, as I can, to put on record the fact, as one admitting to my mind of no rational ground for dispute, that there exists every manner of contemporary evidence to prove that Shakspere, the householder of Stratford-on-Avon, wrote with his own hand, and exclusively by the light of his only genius (merely to paraphrase the contemporary inscription on his tomb in Stratford-on-Avon Church) those dramatic works which form the supreme achievement in English Literature."
As a matter of fact, not a single scrap of evidence, contemporary or otherwise, exists to show that Shakspere, the householder of Stratford-on-Avon, wrote the plays or anything else; indeed, the writer thinks that he has conclusively proved that this child of illiterate parents and father of an illiterate child was himself so illiterate that he was never able to write so much as his own name. But Mr. Sidney Lee seems prepared to accept anything as "contemporary evidence," for on pages 276-7 (1898 edition) of his "Life of Shakespeare" he writes
"Before 1623 an elaborate monument, by a London sculptor of Dutch birth, Gerard Johnson, was erected to Shakespeare's memory in the chancel of the parish church. It includes a half-length bust, depicting the dramatist on the point of writing. The fingers of the right hand are disposed as if holding a pen, and under the left hand lies a quarto sheet of paper."
As a matter of fact, the present Stratford monument was not put up till about one hundred and twenty years after Shakspeare's death. The original monument, see Plate 3 on Page 8, was a very different monument, and the figure, as I have shewn in Plate 5, instead of holding a pen in its hand, rests its two hands on a wool-sack or cushion. Of course, the false bust in the existing monument was substituted for the old bust for the purpose of fraudulently supporting the Stratford myth.
When Mr. Sidney Lee wrote that the present monument was erected before 1623 he did not do this consciously to deceive the public; still, it is difficult to pardon him for this and the other reckless statements with which his book is filled. But what are we to say of his words (respecting the present monument) which we read on page 286? "It was first engraved—very imperfectly—in Rowe's edition of 1709." An exact full size photo facsimile reproduction of Rowe's engraving is shown in Plate 19, Page 77.
[Illustration: Plate. XIX. The Original Stratford Monument, from Rowe's Life of Shakespeare, 1709]
As a matter of fact, the real Stratford monument of 1623 was first engraved in Dugdale's "Warwickshire" of 1656, where it appears opposite to page 523. We can, however, pardon Mr. Sidney Lee for his ignorance of the existence of that engraving; but how shall we pardon him for citing Rowe as a witness to the early existence of the present bust? To anyone not wilfully blinded by passion and prejudice, Rowe's engraving [see Plate 19, Page 77] clearly shews a figure absolutely different from the Bust in the present monument. Rowe's figure is in the same attitude as the Bust of the original monument engraved by Dugdale, and does not hold a pen in its hand, but its two hands are supported on a wool-sack or cushion, in the same manner as in the Bust from Dugdale which I have shewn in Plate 5, on Page 14.