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Transcribed from the 1912 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by David
Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
SHAKESPEARE, BACON AND THE GREAT UNKNOWN
INTRODUCTION
The theory that Francis Bacon was, in the main, the author of
"Shakespeare's plays," has now been for fifty years before the
learned world. Its advocates have met with less support than they
had reason to expect. Their methods, their logic, and their
hypotheses closely resemble those applied by many British and foreign
scholars to Homer; and by critics of the very Highest School to Holy
Writ. Yet the Baconian theory is universally rejected in England by
the professors and historians of English literature; and generally by
students who have no profession save that of Letters. The Baconians,
however, do not lack the countenance and assistance of highly
distinguished persons, whose names are famous where those of mere men
of letters are unknown; and in circles where the title of "Professor"
is not duly respected.
The partisans of Bacon aver (or one of them avers) that "Lord
Penzance, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Palmerston, Judge Webb, Judge
Holmes (of Kentucky, U.S.), Prince Bismarck, John Bright, and
innumerable most THOUGHTFUL SCHOLARS EMINENT IN MANY WALKS OF LIFE,
AND ESPECIALLY IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION . . . " have been Baconians,
or, at least, opposed to Will Shakspere's authorship. To these names
of scholars I must add that of my late friend, Samuel Clemens,
D.Litt. of Oxford; better known to many as Mark Twain. Dr. Clemens
was, indeed, no mean literary critic; witness his epoch-making study
of Prof. Dowden's Life of Shelley, while his researches into the
biography of Jeanne d'Arc were most conscientious.
With the deepest respect for the political wisdom and literary taste
of Lord Palmerston, Prince Bismarck, Lord Beaconsfield, and the late
Mr. John Bright; and with every desire to humble myself before the
judicial verdicts of Judges Holmes, Webb, and Lord Penzance; with
sincere admiration of my late friend, Dr. Clemens, I cannot regard
them as, in the first place and professionally, trained students of
literary history.
They were no more specially trained students of Elizabethan
literature than myself; they were amateurs in this province, as I am
an amateur, who differ from all of them in opinion. Difference of
opinion concerning points of literary history ought not to make "our
angry passions rise." Yet this controversy has been extremely
bitter.
I abstain from quoting the "sweetmeats," in Captain MacTurk's phrase,
which have been exchanged by the combatants. Charges of ignorance
and monomania have been answered by charges of forgery, lying,
"scandalous literary dishonesty," and even inaccuracy. Now no mortal
is infallibly accurate, but we are all sane and "indifferent honest."
There have been forgeries in matters Shakespearean, alas, but not in
connection with the Baconian controversy.
It is an argument of the Baconians, and generally of the impugners of
good Will's authorship of the plays vulgarly attributed to him, that
the advocates of William Shakspere, Gent, as author of the plays,
differ like the Kilkenny cats among themselves on many points. All
do not believe, with Mr. J. C. Collins, that Will knew Sophocles,
Euripides, and AEschylus (but not Aristophanes) as well as Mr.
Swinburne did, or knew them at all--for that matter. Mr. Pollard
differs very widely from Sir Sidney Lee on points concerning the
First Folio and the Quartos: my sympathies are with Mr. Pollard.
Few, if any, partisans of Will agree with Mrs. Stopes (herself no
Baconian) about the history of the Stratford monument of the poet.
About Will's authorship of Titus Andronicus, and Henry VI, Part I,
the friends of Will, like the friends of Bacon, are at odds among
themselves. These and other divergencies of opinion cause the
Baconians to laugh, as if THEY were a harmonious circle . . . ! For
the Baconian camp is not less divided against itself than the camp of
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