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| SHAKSPEARE. | |||
| About twenty years ago a very clever article, entitled "The Philosophy of Shakspeare's Plays Unfolded," appeared in Putnam's Magazine. The writer, afterward ascertained to be Miss De- lia Bacon, advanced the theory that the plays were written by Lord Bacon, and supported her view by many ingenious but specious arguments. By most readers the article was taken for a rath- er ponderous jeu d'esprit, designed to see how far the public could be taken in. It soon ap- peared, however, that the lady was in dead ear- nest; her reasoning had convinced herself, if few others could accept her theory. The essay was afterward enlarged to a volume, but the author simply extended her first arguments without adding a single new item of proof, and the sub- ject gradually dropped out of sight, greatly to the relief of sensible people. Miss Bacon vis- ited England in the prosecution of her inquiries, and tried to obtain permission to have Shaks- peare's tomb opened, in the hope of finding therein documentary evidence of her theory. Her request was of course refused. It is a little sin- gular that simultaneously with the publication of Miss Bacon's essay a book appeared in Lon- don, written by a Mr. Smith, on the same the- ory. Each author appears to have written in complete ignorance of the other's speculations. The Baconian theory received the support of very able minds both in England and this coun- try. It found a firm believer in the late Lord Palmerston, who used to maintain that Bacon wrote the plays, and passed them off under the name of an actor for fear of compromising his |
professional prospects and philosophic gravity, actors and play-writers being in rather low re- pute in his time. But the most ponderous and perhaps the most ingenious contribution to the literature of this controversy was furnished by the Hon. Nathaniel Holmes, of Cambridge, Massa- chusetts, who, in 1866, published an octavo volume of 600 pages, in which he sought toprove the claim made for Bacon. The work made but little impression, either in England or this country, and had sunk entirely out of sight, when attention was again called to it and to the general subject by an interesting article in a late number of Fraser's Magazine, which gave a very readable analysis of the author's argument. The book seeks to ground the belief in the the- ory that Bacon and not Shakspeare wrote the plays upon scientific rather than circumstantial evidence. Stripped of digressive verbiage, the gist of the argument is that Shakspeare, a man of little school learning could not have written plays abounding with evidence of familiarity with husbandry, farming, gardening, and do- mestic economy, military and nautical affairs, the fine arts, trade, politics, and government, handicraft, horses, and field sports, and even the language and arts of thieves and rogues. This conceded, the question was, Who did write these superhuman plays? Who among all the writers of Shakspeare's age fulfilled all the conditions? The only person whom Miss Bacon and Mr. Smith could find to answer these requirements was Francis Bacon. Their theory received some slight contemporary corroboration from a sup- |
posed allusion
to SHAKSPEARE as an upstart crow decorated in feathers that were not his own, which occurs in a pamphlet written by Robert Greene. They also laid great stress upon the fact that Bacon in his writing made use of the sentiment that the best method of teaching history was by means of the drama, and on the circumstance that the gaps in Bacon's fragmentary history of England are exactly filled by Shaks- peare's plays, while what Shakspeare has omitted is found in the history. Judge Holmes adduces in support of the theory a number of parallelisms in thought and expression which occur in the dramas and in Bacon's works. On the other hand, those who support the Ba- conian theory overlook the all-important fact that in all Bacon's acknowledged works there is not a single trace of the poetic and creative fac- ulty, not a trace of imagination, which is the soul of poetry, none of that play of humor and fancy that flashes through the comedies of Shakspeare. Surely some trace of these traits must have appeared had he possessed them. Bacon's acknowledged verse -- for he wrote what he considered poetry -- is of the dreariest kind. Here and there may be found a vigorous line and felicitous expression, but these only serve to set the rest in a still worse light. The great philosopher cuts a sorry figure when he "drops into poetry." It is rather too much to be asked to believe that Bacon would allow his name to go down to posterity as the author of wretched doggerel, and not assert his claim to the "Son- |
nets," if they were his and not Shakspeare's; for thoug opprobrium might attach to the name of a play-writer, there was no degradation in writing sonnets. But, after all is said, it is impossible to get over the fact that Shakspeare's contemporaries knew and acknowledged him to be the author of the play that bear his name. It is indeed dif- ficult to explain the vast and comprehensive knowledge evinced by the dramatist; but, as the learned Shakspearean scholar, Mr. Furness, has well said, "Who shall define the limits of the powers of assimilation possessed by so great a genius? A stray hint, a passing allusion, dropped in conversation by the learned men of the time at meetings on social evenings at the `Mermaid,' may have been sufficient to bear such fruit as we see displayed in his works." It is unfortunate for the "Baconians" that after Shakspeare died the muse of Bacon produced no more dramas. Was Shakspeare the only man in England whom he could trust in carry- ing out the deception? A lively interchange of views in the columns of a daily contemporary has revived interest in this discussion, the humorous side of which is presented in our illustration on page 824. Our large engraving represents the youthful Shaks- peare before the justices on the charge of poach- ing. He has apparently been caught in the act, and the evidence of his misdemeanor lies before him in the shape of the dead deer. |
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