Nothing follows from all this: we merely see that, in Mr. Greenwood’s private opinion, the actor might write even better than George Wilkins, but could not write Venus and Adonis. Will, therefore, though bookless, is not debarred here from the pursuits of literature, in partnership with Wilkins. We have merely the critic’s opinion that Will could not write Hamlet, even if, like Wordsworth, “he had the mind,” even if the gods had made him more poetical than Wilkins.
Again, “he had had but little schooling; he had ‘small Latin and less Greek’” (as Ben Jonson truly says), “but he was a good Johannes Factotum; he could arrange a scene, and, when necessary, ‘bumbast out a blank verse.’” 26
The “Johannes Factotum,” who could “bumbast out a blank verse,” is taken from Robert Greene’s hackneyed attack on an actor-poet, “Shake-scene,” published in 1592. “Poet-Ape that would be thought our chief,” is from an epigram on an actor-poet by Ben Jonson (1601–16?). If the allusions by Greene and Jonson are to our Will, he, by 1592, had a literary ambition so towering that he thought his own work in the new art of dramatic blank verse was equal to that of Marlowe (not to speak of Wilkins), and Greene reckoned him a dangerous rival to three of his playwright friends, of whom Marlowe is one, apparently.
If Jonson’s “Poet-Ape” be meant for Will, by 1601 Will would fain “be thought the chief” of contemporary dramatists. His vanity soared far above George Wilkins! Greene’s phrases and Jonson’s are dictated by spite, jealousy, and envy; and from them a true view of the work of the man whom they envy, the actor-poet, cannot be obtained. We might as well judge Molière in the spirit of the author of Elomire Hypocondre, and of de Visé! The Anti-Willian arguments keep on appearing, going behind the scenes, and reappearing, like a stage army. To avoid this phenomenon I reserve what is to be said about “Shake-scene” and “Poet-Ape” for another place (pp. 138–145 infra). But I must give the reader a warning. Concerning “William Shakespeare” as a “nom de plume,” or pseudonym, Mr. Greenwood says, “Some, indeed, would see through it, and roundly accuse the player of putting forth the works of others as his own. To such he would be a ‘Poet-Ape,’ or ‘an upstart crow’ (Shake-scene) ‘beautified with the feathers of other writers.’” 27
If this be true, if “some would see through” (Mr. Greenwood, apparently, means did “see through”) the “nom de plume,” the case of the Anti-Willians is promising. But, in this matter, Mr. Greenwood se trompe. Neither Greene nor Jonson accused “Shake-scene” or “Poet-Ape” of “putting forth the works of others as his own.” That is quite certain, as far as the scorns of Jonson and Greene have reached us. (See pp. 141–145 infra.)
If an actor, obviously incapable of wit and poetry, were credited with the plays, the keenest curiosity would arise in “the profession,” and among rival playwrights who envied the wealth and “glory” of the actors. This curiosity, prompting the wits and players to watch and “shadow” Will, would, to put it mildly, most seriously imperil the secret of the concealed author who had the folly to sign himself “William Shakespeare.” Human nature could not rest under such a provocation as the “concealed poet” offered.
This is so obvious that had one desired to prove Bacon or the Unknown to be the concealed author, one must have credited his mask, Will, with abundance of wit and fancy, and, as for learning – with about as much as he probably possessed. But the Baconians make him an illiterate yokel, and we have quoted Mr. Greenwood’s estimate of the young Warwickshire provincial.
We all have our personal equations in the way of belief. That the plot of the “nom de plume” should have evaded discovery for a week, if the actor were the untutored countryman of the hypotheses, is to me, for one, absolutely incredible. A “concealed poet” looking about for a “nom de plume” and a mask behind which he could be hidden, would not have selected the name, or the nearest possible approach to the name, of an ignorant unread actor. As he was never suspected of not being the author of the plays and poems, Will cannot have been a country ignoramus, manifestly incapable of poetry, wit, and such learning as the plays exhibit. Every one must judge for himself. Mr. Greenwood fervently believes in what I disbelieve. 28
“Very few Englishmen.. in Elizabethan times, concerned themselves at all, or cared one brass farthing, about the authorship of plays.. ” says Mr. Greenwood.
Very few care now. They know the actors’ names: in vain, as a rule, do I ask playgoers for the name of the author of their entertainment. But in Elizabeth’s time the few who cared were apt to care very much, and they would inquire intensely when the Stratford actor, a bookless, untaught man, was announced as the author of plays which were among the most popular of their day. The seekers never found any other author. They left no hint that they suspected the existence of any other author. Hence I venture to infer that Will seemed to them no unread rustic, but a fellow of infinite fancy, – no scholar to be sure, but very capable of writing the pieces which he fathered.
They may all have been mistaken. Nobody can prove that Heywood and Ben Jonson, and the actors of the Company, were not mistaken. But certain it is that they thought the Will whom they knew capable of the works which were attributed to him. Therefore he cannot possibly have been the man who could not write, of the more impulsive Baconians; or the bookless, and probably all but Latinless, man of Mr. Greenwood’s theory. The positions already seem to me to be untenable.
II
THE “SILENCE” ABOUT SHAKESPEARE
Before proceeding further to examine Mr. Greenwood’s book, and the Baconian theories, with the careful attention which they deserve, we must clear the ground by explaining two points which appear to puzzle Baconians, though, to be sure, they have their own solutions of the problems.
The first question is: Why, considering that Shakespeare, by the consent of the learned of most of the polite foreign nations, was one of the world’s very greatest poets, have we received so few and such brief notices of him from the pens of his contemporaries?
“It is wonderful,” exclaims Mr. Crouch-Batchelor, “that hundreds of persons should not have left records of him. 29 We know nearly as much about the most insignificant writer of the period as we know of him, but fifty times more about most of his contemporaries. It is senseless to try to account for this otherwise than by recognising that the man was not the author.”
Mr. Crouch-Batchelor is too innocent. He sees the sixteenth century in the colours of the twentieth. We know nothing, except a few dates of birth, death, entrance at school, College, the Inns of Court, and so forth, concerning several of Shakespeare’s illustrious contemporaries and successors in the art of dramatic poetry. The Baconians do not quite understand, or, at least, keep steadily before their minds, one immense difference between the Elizabethan age and later times. In 1590–1630, there was no public excitement about the characters, personalities, and anecdotage of merely literary men, poets, and playwrights, who held no position in public affairs, as Spenser did; or in Court, Society, and War, as Sidney did; who did not write about their own feuds and friendships, like Greene and Nash; who did not expand into prefaces and reminiscences, and satires, like Ben Jonson; who never killed anybody, as Ben did; nor were killed, like Marlowe; nor were involved, like him, in charges of atheism, and so forth; nor imprisoned with every chance of having their ears and noses slit, like Marston. Consequently, silence and night obscure the lives and personalities of Kyd, Chapman, Beaumont, Fletcher, Dekker, Webster, and several others, as night and silence hide Shakespeare from our view.
He was popular on the stage; some of his plays were circulated separately in cheap and very perishable quartos. No collected edition of his plays appeared during his life; without that he could not be studied, and recognised in his greatness. He withdrew to the country and died. There