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 Sorne Shakespearean cpmme^^^^^ 
 
Some 
 
 Shakespearean 
 Commentators 
 
 APPLETON MORGAN 
 
 CINCINNATI 
 ROBERT CLARKE & CO 
 1882 
 
With the Compliments of 
 
 ROBERT CLARKE & CO., 
 
 Publishers, 
 
 CINCINNATI. 
 
 SHAKESPEAREAN 
 
 COMMENTATORS 
 
 APPLETON MORGAN 
 
 CINCINNATI 
 
 ROBERT CLARKE & CO 
 
 1882 
 
 FIFTY COPIES PRINTED FOR SAXE. 
 
SHAKESPEAREAN 
 
 COMMENTATORS 
 
 APPLETON MORGAN 
 
 CINCINNATI 
 
 ROBERT CLARKE & CO 
 1882 
 
 FIFTY COPIES PRINTED FOR SALE. 
 
^. 
 
 j7^//? 
 
 UNIVERSITYl 
 
 Copyright, 1882, 
 By APPLETON MOEGAN. 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 If William Shakespeare is to go — there go witli 
 liim lofty societies patronized by Royalty, with long 
 lists of titled Vice-Presidents; vested rights in archae- 
 ological picnics, commemorative dinners and junket- 
 ing tours to Stratford-on-Avon ; volumes of learned 
 " transactions," " discoveries," papers read and ordered 
 printed; not to mention whole copyrights and stocks 
 in trade of hundreds of eminent commentators! A 
 few forgeries more or less, like Ireland's, Collier's, or 
 Cunningham's can be hushed up. But if everybody 
 is to be allowed to rummage around, asking trouble- 
 some questions about this Stratford boy, there is no 
 knowing what may turn up. The interests are too 
 immense to be jeopardized by a few " crakit folk." 
 No wonder there is panic among the authorities : 
 that they have issued their ukase that William 
 Shakespeare is not to be looked into too closely! 
 But the world outside-^that hug to their hearts this 
 Shakespearean Drama — tremble not at the prospect. 
 To these, each consideration of the genesis and origin 
 of that Drama, is an interest the more, instead of an 
 interest the less, in its stud/; a contribution to, rather 
 than a subtraction from the great body of its exegesis, 
 l^or will they be loth to clear away the laborious rub- 
 bish which indiscriminate conjecture and commentary 
 have piled up — covering Dramas, Text, authors, and 
 editors alike, under a dusty mass of dilettante guess- 
 work and silly surmises. 
 
4 SOME SHAKESPBABEAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 ., THE MIRACLE. 
 
 The very few critics of an anti-Shakespeareau theory 
 who succumb not to the temptation of popping oft" 
 yet once more the antique ordnance kept shotted and 
 primed for destruction of " Baconians " and " Baconian 
 Thfories" — the very few who appear to recognize 
 that History and Facts can not be sUenced by demon- 
 strating that Francis Bneon could not or did not write 
 certain random morsels of the plays — insist that the 
 whole Shakespearean phenomena is so marvelous 
 that we should accept it as a Miracle; that is, as a 
 miracle undoubtedly should be accepted — standing 
 and in silence. This sort of cloture has been often 
 worked before, and often successfully. You are not to 
 examine miracle B. because it is a part of miracle A. 
 Yon must not ask how stars shine and snows fall, be- 
 cause those phenomena are parcel of the great mira- 
 cle of the universe, of life, and death and repro- 
 duction. The trick is something rusty. It is begin- 
 ning to work clumsily. 
 
 This English Renaissance was not a revival of let- 
 ters merely. It was much more. It was a revival of 
 Thought. Art, Philosophy, Science, Commerce, So- 
 ciety, all partook of the afflatus, as well as Letters. 
 All these and their subdivisions shared in the marvel- 
 ous reaction of this marvelous Elizabethan asce. Of 
 this great Renaisssmce, what we call "Shakespeare" 
 was and is the most permanent expression. And Ben 
 Jonson may compete forever with Marlowe, or JSTashe 
 withGreene, or Beaumont with Dekkar for front rank 
 as playriglit or dramatist, without affecting the calm 
 of that majestic epitome of Elizabethan Thought we 
 call the Shakespearean Drama. Mere litei'ature is 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 5 
 
 not and can never be a thing to stir and shake the hu- 
 man heart. The history of mere literature shows 
 that it has been invariably a thing ruled by the tran- 
 sient taste of a day or cycle : the " tune of the time," 
 as Hamlet said of Osric's flourishes. Often the teni- 
 porary taste of the cycle has been put in the custody 
 of one man or one clique, whose firmans were ratified, 
 and whose bulls respected by the mass in thankful 
 silence. The thing is even now and then attempted 
 in this nineteenth century. Some months ago I 
 read a paper by Mr. Frederic Harrison on " The 
 Choice of Books." I read it to the end, and laid it 
 down with the feeling that there could be no such 
 thing as " a choice of books" if the advice of gentle- 
 men like Mr. Harrison was to be followed. We 
 would simply have to read tl:e books they selected 
 aiid be done with it. I may be doing Mr. Harrison 
 an injustice, but, at this moment, the capital impres- 
 sion I remember to have received by his advice, was — 
 that we were simply to go on reading Walter Scott 
 indefinitely. I once had an edition of Walter Scott 
 on my shelves for seventeen years, and the only use 
 ever made of it to my knowledge, was, on one oc- 
 casion, when a gentleman i disagreed with me as to 
 whether a certain incident occurred in " Guy Man- 
 nering" or "the Antiquary." My friend took down 
 one of those volumis and I the other, and we flipped 
 over the leaves for a catchword, exactly as we would 
 have used an encyclopedia. I could not help con- 
 trasting Mr. Harrison's effort with Carlyle's address, 
 " On the Choice of Books," on the occasion of his in- 
 stallation as Lord Rector of the University of Edin- 
 burgh in 1866, in which thatMncomparable old man 
 
6 SOMK SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 mentioned no books at all, but insisted that, under 
 healthy conditions, whatever a man's appetite most 
 craved, that he should read the most of. 
 
 I think a paper " On Sham Admiration in Litera- 
 ture," by Mr. James Payn, which appeared somewhat 
 later than Mr. Harrison's effort, in tl^je Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury, comes much nearer than Mr. Harrison's to the 
 truth in these matters. Mr. Payn writes of those 
 excellent people who, having heard that " Paradise 
 Lost" is magnificent, and "Rasselas" chai-ming, are 
 fond of diverting conversation to literary subjects in 
 order to advance those opinions respectively. Most 
 of us would be ashamed to confess that our knowledge 
 of " Paradise Lost" is mainly derived from the selec- 
 tions in the " Fourth Reader" and " Sixth Reader" 
 of our schoolboy-hood. My own familiarity with " Ras- 
 selas" entirely consists of the first paragraph (repeated 
 to me long ago by an old gentleman of seventy, who 
 declared it the finest sentence in the English lan- 
 guage) and of the tradition that it was written to de- 
 fray' the expenses of somebody's funeral. I suppose a 
 man could not be acquitted of murder on the ground 
 of hereditary insanity on it being established that his 
 grandfather read " Rasselas;" but how if the accused 
 himself could be proved to have read it? And so 
 with Pope, Addison, Crabbe, Young, and the rest of 
 those volumes which no gentleman's library should be 
 without. We are not perhaps honest enough to ad- 
 mit that nothing less than a mental aberration would 
 find us opening one of them, but I am inclined to be- 
 lieve that such is the case. To tell us what to admire 
 is the cant of the mutual admiration society. The 
 society where A. edits the works of B., and B. edits 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 7 
 
 the works of A. ; where 0. apostrophises the genius of 
 D. and D. apostrophises the genius of C. ; where A., 
 B., and C. write anecdotes of and "evenings with" 
 D. E. and F., while D., E., and F. write anecdotes of 
 and "hours with" A., B., and C; where each com- 
 piles selections from the writings of all the others, 
 and where the ^'oung lady friends of the whole alpha- 
 bet prepare from their volumes "birth-day books" and 
 " leaflets," and moral maxims for the kindergarten 
 press. Even the soil of free America is not uncon- 
 scious of specimens of the like of these to-ilay; and 
 no soil or cycle yet has hi-en entirely free from theni. 
 
 But there was once — not one nor two, but near 
 three centuries ago — a book written that does not 
 sleep quietly inurned on our bookshelves, with its 
 epitaph in the Catalogue of English Classics. A book 
 that no schoolmaster advises us to rend and no censor 
 tells us to admire. It did not catch the temporary ear 
 of its day and century. It overshot the century after 
 it. The " ladies of quality" of Mr. Joseph Addison's 
 day yawned over Hamlet, and simpered over Macbeth 
 "When will the dear witches enter?" But to-day 
 this book is our horizon, "the horizon beyond which, 
 at present, we do not see." The indifference of the 
 seventeenth century was bad enough. The impudent 
 patronage of the eighteenth century was bad enough. 
 The homage of the ninetefenth is well enough. But 
 the curiosity of the nineteenth ! — that must be stifled 
 at all hazards ! But I doubt if it can be stifled by the 
 cry of " Miracle." The world has a habit of moving 
 in this last quarter of the nineteenth century. We 
 have a way of cross-examining witnesses and of de- 
 manding proof before yielding assent even to what 
 
8 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 our ancestors implicitly believed. The days of the 
 solar spectrum and stored electricity are scarcely days 
 for accepting the fact that a thing was believed in our 
 nursery times as competent warrant for never disturb- 
 ing it. Is all progress, improvement and light to be 
 monopolized by the physical sciences, while every 
 other department of human reason remains chained 
 to the pillar of authority ? 
 
 This call for the previous question, at an early stage 
 of the debate, is really reducible to two propositions 
 both of which have been fired at us before — viz : 
 
 1st. If there is any ground for disturbing the pre- 
 sumption as to William Shakespeare now, it has al- 
 ways existed ai>d would have been discovered before. 
 
 2d. There is no use in raising the question at this 
 late da}'. We liavc the Great Book, that is enough. 
 
 1. As to the first proposition, it might sufiice to re- 
 mind this gentry that there was a iime when even 
 gravitation waited to be discovered. But it may be as 
 well to dispose of their position more explicitly. If 
 these Plays were real estate they would undoubtedly 
 have long siuee belonged, by the common-law rule of 
 adverse possession, to their claimant. But there is no 
 statute of limitations as to matters literary ; no lapse 
 of ac(puescent time, after which one must cease to 
 gaze for the font of inspiration. The presumption 
 that the world was flat did not quiet Galileo. And 
 the presumption — for a time "so long that the memory 
 of man runneth not to the contrary" — cannot quiet 
 the title of even "William Shakespeare to a literature 
 not his, if it should, by any chance, be found not to 
 be his. The myths of William Tell and Pope Joan 
 and Prester John and the man in the moon "passed 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 9 
 
 unquestioned" for quite as? many centuries as the 
 Shakespearean title was " [lassed unquestioned." But 
 it would be traveling backward to begin making oath 
 to them to-day. 
 
 2. Those who believe that there is no use in asking 
 for the author or authors of the foremost literature of 
 the world have no call indeed to pursue the question. 
 For those who believe differently, no task is so conge- 
 nial, even if the}'' go solitary and alone in the pursuit. 
 
 The closest examination of this Shakespearean 
 question need not injure the character and standing 
 of "William Shakespeare. A butcher's apprentice, 
 who ran away from poverty and the village consta- 
 ble; entered a profession the law abhorred as vaga- 
 bondage ; and, in the days when money was scarce and 
 accumulation slow — with a wife and growing family 
 on his hands to support meanwhile — became, by toil 
 and thrift, rich and prosperous ; dying the local great 
 man of the village whence he stole away in breach ol' 
 ban — would have been a man of character and stand- 
 ing if he had never written a line. 
 
 HBMINGES AND CONDELL. 
 
 It was the publication of the first folio in 1623 
 which actually raised a Shakespearean Myth. The 
 question dates from the day that volume left the 
 presa. That it was not agiftited then, but lay dormant 
 for two hundred and thirty-seven years, is certainly 
 remarkable. But it may be accounted for. The con- 
 temporaries of ilemingcs and Condell were not literary 
 controversialists or textual critics. They and the 
 ages that followed were entirely indifterent to the 
 Shakespearean treasury. They did not debate the 
 
10 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 origin of a diamond they supposed a bit of broken 
 glass. If our motives for investivating the genesis of 
 the Plays had existed in 1623, the controversy vrould 
 have begun then. We need not doubt that. 
 
 There vv^as certainly incongruity enough on the face 
 of Heminges and Condell's selection. Of thirty-six 
 Plays known as William Shakespeare's in his lifetime, 
 they printed only twenty, or scarcely more than half. 
 Of seven plays contemporary with this list (to only 
 one of which, on its appearing in a second edition, was 
 William Shakespeare's name ever attached) they in- 
 cluded all. They added one play which belonged to 
 a rival company to Shakespeare's (Lord Strango's 
 Players) and which was performed in his lifetime at 
 "The Rose" theater, an establishment that competed 
 with the Globe; one that first appeared five years 
 after Shakespeare's death, and eight that were never 
 known before their appearance in this First Folio. 
 (The discrepancy between these figures and those of 
 the Table on page 289 of the " Shakespearean Myth' 
 arises from my following here later authority than 
 Mr. Grant White^ to whom I am indebted for the fig- 
 ures tabulated there. The result of each is the same. 
 Thirty-six plays in the First Folio, and sixteen re- 
 jected or doubtful.) Heminges and Condell thus 
 bring their list up to thirty-six, the number of Plays 
 claimed, or suffered to be called Shakespeare's, in his 
 lifetime. But it is nothing like the same list. " Will- 
 iam Shakespeare" had been a well-known name in 
 London seven years before. It had been signed to a 
 dedication addressed to a noble Lord. Had there 
 been an Athenceum or a Saturday Review in those days, 
 we need not doubt that tliey would have called on 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 11 
 
 Heininges and Condell to give their reasons for dis- 
 carding substantially one-half of what had parsed 
 current as " Will Shakespeare's Plays," for so many 
 years. Nevertheless, this Hemiiiges and Condell list 
 of thirty-six plays begins and continues to " pass un- 
 questioned." It certainly does contain, has always 
 been admitted to contain, the best of the plays in- 
 cluded in the lifetime list of Shakespeare. Are not 
 the Shakespeareans, then, entitled to claim, as proved, 
 the proposition that this selection of Hominges and 
 Condell was at-ceptod hj contemporaries and has stood 
 the closest aj)plication of modern textual criticism — 
 in other words — that it stands sustained by both the 
 INTERNAL and the external evidence ? 
 
 If the Shakespeareans are permitted to plead a Lit- 
 erary statute of limitations (perhaps overlooked by 
 Littleton and Nov), then unquestionably the answer is 
 Yes. But let us see what the answer would be should 
 this plea be overruled. If the limitation be over- 
 ruled, it will appear : 
 
 I. That the plays rejected by Heminges and Con- 
 dell HAVE "passed unquestioned" as William Sliakes- 
 peare's from that day to this. 
 
 II. That the plays retained by Heminges and Con- 
 dell HAVE NOT "passed unquestioned" as WilHam 
 Shakespeare's from that day to this. 
 
 These propositions sound bold. To demonstrate 
 them completely would be to write a history of Shakes- 
 pearean criticism from 1623 to 1882. But the truth 
 of the first proposition appears from tlie fact that, in 
 order to make the Shakespearean caiion thirty-seven 
 plays instead of thirty-six, the Shakespeareans them- 
 selves have invariably drawn from this rejected list the 
 
12 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 extra Shakespearean play required. Sometimes this 
 play is "Sir John Oldcastle," sometimes "The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen," but usually it is " Pericles." Indeed 
 it would require considerable search to find a modern 
 edition of "Shakespeare" that does not contain the 
 " Pericles " at least. Mr. Hudson's new " Harvard " 
 edition retains both "The Pericles" and "The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen," making Mr. Hudson's particular 
 ''canon" thirty-eight plays. The trutli of the second 
 proposition appears from the fact that no Shakes- 
 pearean has yet arisen willing to accept the Heminges 
 and Condell list as final. Almost unanimously they 
 have rejected one of Ihe list, tlie Titns Andronicus. 
 Even Theobald and Malone rejected one of the three 
 parts of Henry VI., in which their successors mostly 
 agree with them. Mr. Speddimr and the new Shakes- 
 pearoans reject the Henry VIII. In this way five 
 have succumbed to criticism, while some of the hitest 
 editors have declared that at least six of the First- 
 Folio list must be forever discarded. 
 
 WILLIAM J. ROLFE. 
 
 Mr. William J. Rolfe disposes of the Shakespearean 
 Myth as follows: (1.) "These works were published 
 as his (William Shakespeare's) and were generally 
 believed to be his both in liis lifetime and after his 
 death." And again, (i) '-Thiit this man's name was 
 William Shakespenre we have no good reason to 
 doubt." (We have transposed the order of these two 
 sentences. — Literari/ World, February 25, 1882, p. 59.) 
 
 (1.) Admitted. (2.) It would not be very diflicult 
 to prove that Mr. William J. Rolfe for one, has (or 
 claims to have) "good reason to doubt." For he is 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 13 
 
 the editoi" of a most excellent expurgated edition of 
 the Plays, in which he throws out, expurgates, and 
 discards not only words and sentences, hut whole 
 scenes included in tlie Hominges and Condell first 
 folio. And it is equally apparent that Mr. Rolfe 
 unhesitatingly accepts the two propositions we have 
 noted in Roman numerals above; for not only does he 
 reject whole handfuls of the first folio's text — show- 
 ing that the plays retained by llemiiiges and Condell 
 ham not "passed unquestioned" as William Shakes- 
 peare's (which was Proposition II.) with himself at least; 
 but he says (in a review of his follow-commentator — 
 Hudson's Edition of 1882 {Literary World, December 
 5, 1881, p. 400) : " The editor has done well to in- 
 clude the 'Two Noble Kinsmen,' which has a better 
 claim to a place than 'Titus Andronicus' to say the 
 least. ' Pericles' he gives in full." Whence it appears 
 " that the plays rejected by Ileminges and Condell have 
 'passed unquestioned' as William Shakespeare's" 
 (which was Proposition I.) with Mr. William J. Rolfe, 
 at all events. But Mr. Rolfe knows that he has the 
 utmost right to query and disbelieve, and to select a 
 "Shakespeare" for himself. All his predecessor com- 
 mentators have done the same, and he is entitled to 
 the perfect license of his school. What editor yet 
 has felt under any conscientious obligation to accept 
 either the Lifetime List or the- Ileminges and Condell 
 List as " Shakespeare?" !N"ot one. The Second Folio 
 was a revision of the First. The Third, in 1663, con- 
 tained "seven plays never before printed in Folio." 
 The Fourth, in 1685, also included them. Rowe, in 
 1709, did the same; but his publisher, Tonson, added 
 a volume of poetry (edited by Sewall, containing 
 
14 SOME SHAKESPEAKEAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 "Venus and Adonis, " Tarquin and Lucrece," but no 
 sonnets) to Rowe. Pope, in 1725, throws out the 
 seven Plays but retains the poetry selected by Ton- 
 son. In 1766, Stevens printed twenty Plays plus the 
 Sonnets and " The Lover's Complaint :'' that is his 
 " Shakespeare." Neither Johnson, in 1765, nor Johnson 
 and Steevons, 1773 (a second edition in 1778), nor Ma- 
 lone, in 1790, include either these seven "doubtful" 
 plays or the poems or sonnets. Malonc subse- 
 quently became the greatest manufacturer of " Shakes- 
 peares" ever known. (We have only to scratch a 
 Shakespearean fact to-day to find — Edmund Malone.) 
 As a beginner — and timid, ho added a supplement to 
 Steevens's edition of 1778, containing the seven " doubt- 
 ful" plays, and all poems and sonnets. He was 
 willing Steevens should have them, though, as yet, 
 delicate about standing their sponsor himself, (Stee- 
 vens himself accepts "Pericles" as a compromise, in 
 his edition of 1803.) But, in 1821, Mr. Malone has 
 waxed bold. His " Variorum " of that year (known, 
 par excellence, as " The Variorum,") contains every- 
 thing. 
 
 Long before this date (1821) the editors had be- 
 come legion. We have not mentioned Theobald 
 (whose honest and discriminating work is yet ap- 
 pealed to), Hanmer, "Warburton, Oapell, and others; 
 Since that date it would require a volume to enumer- 
 ate them, and several to follow the vagaries of their 
 selections among the- two lists of plays. Not only 
 have more modern editors drawn and rejected from 
 each at will, but have taken from the Second Folio of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher (1679) a play, "The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen," which they declare " a good enough 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 15 
 
 'Shakespeare' till after election" at least; and un- 
 hesitatingly bind up in standard editions. 
 
 If there is any such thing, then, as a Canon List of 
 Shakespearean Plays it is a periodical Canon List. 
 Nor is there yet any intimation of its becoming final. 
 When the average student of Shakespeare comes to 
 understand that the volume before him is — not what 
 William. Shakespeare suffered to be called his; not 
 ■what the two fellow-actors named in Shakespeare's 
 Will declared was his ; but simply what the particular 
 editor of that particular volume chooses to label 
 "Shakespeare" — then this average student, we say, 
 will be well on the road to comprehension of. the fact 
 that this " Shakespearean Mj'th " is not a sick man's 
 dream, or a midsummer madness ; nor yet a nine- 
 teenth century chimera; but a doubt dating from 
 the days of William Shakespeare himself. The 
 Shakespearean genesis will then become to him a 
 study collateral with the study of the Text itself; 
 and he will be una,ble to pursue either study without 
 the other, with either safety or profit. 
 
 Instead of insisting that Shakespeare and the 
 Shakespearean authorship have "passed unquestioned," 
 and that there "is no good reason to doubt," in the 
 premises — in the teeth of their own acts and admis- 
 sions, and when every step they take is a confession 
 of the very doubt of which they deny the existence — 
 would it not be better and more honest for the 
 Shakespeareans to admit — what almost everybody 
 knows already; viz: that "Shakespeare" is simply 
 the label they have agreed to attach to whatever their 
 commentators shall from time to time pronounce to be 
 the best of the Elizabethan plays ? 
 
16 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 COMPARATIVE CRITICISM. 
 
 Mr. Rolfe thinks my failure to grasp the Internal 
 Evidence of Authorship is due to a sort of color 
 blindness. Perhaps it is. ^ But I fail, at this moment, 
 to recall any very startling successes of comparative 
 criticism. Comparative criticism does not point with 
 pride to its performances in the Ireland case; and, 
 had it not been for Mr. Hamilton's microscope and 
 acids, it might be still in doubt as to the Perkins 
 folio, and the hibor of " the old corrector." Nobody 
 denies the proposition that a letterless clown could 
 not successfully forge the style of a master of Enghsh. 
 But we are not yet convinced that the converse is not 
 true, and that the master of English could not suc- 
 cessfully forge the style of the letterless clown. 
 Thackeray did clever work in this latter line in joke; 
 and it might be possible in earnest. At any rate, the 
 list of services rendered exact truth by the unsub- 
 stantiated verdicts of comparative critics is not yet so 
 e.xtended as to warrant us in accepting their own 
 assertions as to the final character of their pronounce- 
 ments. I do not understand Mr. Rolfe to asssert that 
 the Instrument of Evidence, known as " cross-exam- 
 ination," is "mere trickery and sophistry" (though 
 his words admit of that construction) ; but only that 
 upon application to a Shakespearean question — this 
 Instrument becomes " mere trickery and sophistry." I 
 have no doubt that, if Mr. Rolfe were ever accused 
 of larceny, he would be very grateful for, and speak 
 very respectfully of, the cross-examination that would 
 expose the perj ury of his accusers. Further down (Lit. 
 World, Feb. 25, 1882), Mr. Rolfe quotes the opening 
 sentence of one of my paragraphs to prove my " con- 
 
SOME SHAKEgPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 17 
 
 tempt" for "internal evidence." If it had happened 
 to be Mr. Rolfe's purpose to show that my " contempt " 
 (the word is his, I should have chosen one less 
 strong) was — not for " internal evidence," but for the 
 inconsistent readings of it by Shakespeareans — each 
 Shakespearean construes it for himself and no two 
 of the constructions agree — they elect no spokesman — 
 he would have quoted the remainder of my para- 
 graph. But that did not happen to be his purpose at 
 the time. 
 
 THE POEMS. 
 
 The same inequality appears among the poems as- 
 signed to William Shakespeare, that so puzzles among 
 the plays. 
 
 The space between Hamlet and Titus Andronicus is 
 not greater ihan that between the magnificent " Yenus 
 and Adonis" and "Lucrece" (published in 1593 
 and 1594 respectively), and the "Passionate Pil- 
 grim," " A Lover's Complaint," " Lampoons," " Epi- 
 taphs," etc., which followed them — all assigned to 
 William Shakespeare. The dedication of " Venus 
 and Adonis " and " Lucrece," by their putative author, 
 to Southampton, raised a ray of hope. Southampton 
 was a well-knowia name in the chronicle and record 
 of these time, and the continued connection of that 
 name Avitb the shadowy name it was sought to lo- 
 calize, was a most welcome foothold of solid ground 
 from which to survey plays as well as poems, and 
 nail a name to each. But, unfortunately, after these 
 two dedications, Southampton's name disappears for- 
 ever from any neighborhood in which William Shakes- 
 peare figures, and the closest historical scrutiny fails 
 to trace any relations or negotiations between them. 
 
18 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 The next poetical matter under the name " William 
 Shakespeare," however, does appear under circum- 
 stances Avhich give us at once a presumptive clue to the 
 character and value of the name " "William Shakes- 
 peare" attached to any literature of this age. In 
 1599 is printed a collection of disconnected short 
 poems, sonnets, or verses, under the title " The Pas- 
 sionate Pilgrim, by William Shakespeare." Among 
 the verses are one or more by Thomas Heywood, a 
 verse by Marlowe, three sonnets by Barnefield, and 
 another by Griffin. Heywood appears to have been 
 the only one of them who cared to complain of the 
 piracy. Ho did protest, however, and upon a third 
 edition (the second cannot be found) the name of 
 " William Shakespeare " was removed from the collec- 
 tion. Such a transaction, to-day, would suffice to 
 throw a reasonable doubt over anything bearing the 
 detected name, and it is difficult to believe that it did 
 not suffice then. Griffin, Barnefield, and Marlowe, or 
 their friends, appear to have acquiesced in the matter, 
 and Mr. Grant White, though forced to admit that 
 " no evidence of any public denial on Shakespeare's 
 part is known to exist," does not appear to see thiit 
 the performance throws the slightest doubt or question 
 upon a name associated with the fraud. But Mr. Grant 
 White is no more artless thiiu his fellow-commenta- 
 tors, none of whom — so far as we know — lay any 
 stress upon, or suggest any explanation or " white- 
 wash" for this affiiir of the "Passionate Pilgrim." 
 We shall see by how simple a process Mr. Malone 
 recovered himself from this stumbling-block, later on. 
 In 1609, other poetical matter, consisting of one hun- 
 dred and fifty-four stanzas, in sonnet form, is printed 
 
SOME SHAKS3PBA.EBAN COMMENTATORS. 19 
 
 under the name, " Shakespeare's Sonnets, never before 
 imprinted.." Two of these stanzas or Sonnets hud 
 been, however, " before imprinted " in this very " Pas- 
 sionate Pilgrim" as to which such grave charges of 
 piracy were made at the time. This collection of 
 Sonnets is printed by one Thomas Thorpe, who makes 
 the entry, " 20 May, 1609. Tho. Thorpe, a book called 
 Shakespeare^ s Sonnets," in the Kegisterof the Stationer's 
 Company. iVlr. Thorpe dedicates this collection to 
 'Mr. W. H., over his own initials, " T. T." From 
 1609 until 1838, Mr. Thorpe's word was taken for it 
 that these were " Shakespeare's Sonnets." But in or 
 about that year, on reading tham, it was discovered 
 that these Sonnets were not Sonnets at all, but stanzas 
 forming one connected poem. Up to that time the 
 dozens of learned gentlemen who, since 1766, had 
 "edited" these "Sonnets," do not seem to have be- 
 lieved it necessary to read them ! 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 As to Ben Jonson's poem, the contradiction lies, not 
 in the fact that he related certain familiar anecdotes 
 of Shakespeare to Drummond, of Hawthornden, as 
 Rolfe (Literary Wor-ld, February 25, 1882, p. 59), seems 
 to infer, but tliat, in his " Discoveries," Ben enumer- 
 ates all the great authors of his time, and never once 
 mentions Shakespeare. Surely it can not long escape 
 remark that Ben's deliberate enumeration of his illus- 
 trious contemporary writers, not only does not include 
 even the name of " William Shakespeare," but delib- 
 erately hands over to another (Francis Bacon), the 
 laurels he had once hung on Shakespeare's brow; 
 laurels which people who only read Ben's poetry be- 
 lieve arc hanging there yet. 
 
20 
 
 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 EDMUND MALONE. 
 
 If there wua anything in the nature of a doubt as 
 to William Shakespeare, Mr. Edmund Malone was the 
 man to clear it up. No difficulty could daunt him, 
 and he saw nothing that be did not conquer. To 
 prove that William Shakespeare, of Stratford, and lie 
 only, wrote the plays and poems, it is only necessary 
 to prove when he wrote them. When you know the 
 year in which a man wrote a thing, you know at 
 once that he did write it. Mr. Malone proceeds at 
 once to construct his celebrated " Chronology," with 
 the result we partially append. That it may be ap- 
 preciated at a glance we suggest that the reader group 
 it in a tabulated form, of which the secoud column 
 shall give the year in which William Shakespeare 
 wrote the play named, and the third, the way iu 
 which Mr. Malone discovered that year. As for ex- 
 ample : 
 
 NAME OP 
 PLAY. 
 
 DATE ASSIGNED 
 BY ME. MALONE. 
 
 MR. MALONE'S BEASON.S FOU ASSIGNING THAT 
 DATE. 
 
 Jlerry Wires 
 of Windsor. 
 
 Tempest. 
 
 Merchant of 
 Venice. 
 
 All's Well thn 
 Ends WeU. 
 
 Henry V. 
 
 Corlolanus. 
 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 After Raleigh's 
 
 Return from 
 
 (iiiinea. in 159G. 
 
 1009. 
 
 1504. 
 
 1606. 
 
 Between April 
 
 and Sept., l.iOO. 
 
 1609 or 1610. 
 
 A short time 
 previous to the 
 death of Eliza- 
 beth. I 
 
 Because in Act II., Scene 3, occur the words, 
 "Sail like my pinnace to these golden 
 shores." 
 
 Because Sir George Snmers was wrecked on 
 the Bermudas in July. 1609. 
 
 Because Portia says, ''Even as a flouri.sh, 
 when true subjects bow before a new- 
 crowned monareli." 
 
 Because of a (fancied) allusion to the fanati- 
 cism -of the Puritans. 
 
 Because of an allusion to Essex's advance in 
 Ireland, iu the chorus to Act V. 
 
 Because most of the other plays have been rea- 
 sonably referred to other years, and there- 
 fore this play might naturally be ascribed to 
 a time when he (S.) had ceased to write, and 
 was probable unemployed ; and partly from 
 the mention of the mulberry tree by Volu- 
 mina — the white variety of which was in- 
 troduced into lingland in 1609— though other 
 varieties had been introduced previously. 
 
 From the prophetic eulogium on Elizabetli in 
 the last scene ; and from the imperfect man- 
 ner in which thepanegyric on hersuccessor 
 is connected with the foregoi ng. 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 21 
 
 The curious reader, armed with Mr. Malone's works, 
 can construct such a table at his leisure, and will 
 enjoy the results. This Malone chronology has been 
 something pieced and clipped by commentators since, 
 but those familiar with the subject know that it is 
 still substantially the one quoted and accepted by 
 them all. 
 
 Mr. Malone disposes of -the "Passionate Pilgrim" 
 affair by the still simpler process of quietly removing 
 the verses by Heywood, Marlowe and Barnelield, and 
 restoring William Shakespeare's name to the whole, 
 where it remains to this day. By an oversight, it is 
 true, he neglected removing the sonnet by Grifiin ; 
 which likewise remains to this day, a part of the 
 "Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare." But 
 it makes no sort of difference 1o anybody. Mr. 
 Malone explains to us that, since the sonnets were 
 dedicated to " Mr. W. H." (which, every body can 
 see, stands for " Earl Southampton ") the sonnets also 
 were written by William Shakespeare. And so every 
 thing is lovely, and there is no discrepancy anywhere. 
 
 Mr. Malone's efforts to set every thing right have 
 always been most ably seconded by gentlemen like 
 Mr. Grant White and Mr. Dowden, who write histo- 
 ries of William Shakespeare's " Mind and Art;" — 
 and who show (by intricate analysis of their subject) 
 the easy stages of that Mind, from Titus Andronicus 
 up to Hamlet. Mr. Dowden's, especially, is a most 
 delightful book. He shows the development of Wil- 
 liam Shakespeare's mind and character, and his 
 "moral progress," as traced in the plays thus chro- 
 Tiologically arranged. " When Hamlet was written, 
 his will had been tested; he had been reached and 
 
22 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 touched by the shadows of some of the deep myster- 
 ies of human existence. Somehow a relation between 
 his soul and the dark and terrible forces of the world 
 was established," etc., etc. We venture to suspect 
 that Mr. White and Mr. Dowden are gentlemen who 
 keep liank accounts and collect their rents, and regu- 
 late tiieir worldly aftairs by common sense, and reason 
 sometimes backward from effects to causes. Perhaps 
 it is not to be expected that one should bring to bear 
 on a Shakespearean question quite the same quality 
 of " horse sense " by which he governs his daily and 
 household aftairs. If it were, it might have occurred 
 to some of this gentry that a man, who, prior to 1593, 
 had written " Venus and Adonis," was not quite the 
 man — some five years later, in 1598 — to have perpe- 
 trated the blood-thirsty drivel of " Titus Andronicus" 
 — and even less could have (as some of the more art- 
 ful of the Commentators suggest) consented to 
 "touch it up," and allow his great name — the honored 
 and ambitious name of the author of "Venus and 
 Adonis" and of the "Lucrece" — to stand sponsor 
 for a farrago of trash. 
 
 JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. 
 
 The moral of Mr. Malone's career is, evidently, that 
 Dates are terrible things. But even his frightful 
 example has not deterred other gentlemen from 
 attempting to write history without them. The very 
 last of these appears to be Mr. James Freeman 
 Clarke, who was so unfortunate as to contribute to 
 the North American Review, in February, 1881, a paper 
 entitled: "Did William Shakespeare write Lord 
 Bacon's Works?" 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 23 
 
 Poor Mr. Clarke probably would never wish to hear 
 ot n'ls unfortunate essay again : would be thankful if 
 he could only accelerate its oblivion. Nor can we 
 blame him. It was bad enough to be misled by a 
 quotation at second hand of one of Bacon's letters 
 (for that Mr. Clarke would garble the letter to suit 
 his own purposes nobody itnagines) and to make 
 Bacon confess that he was writing his own works in 
 1623 "by the help of some good pens that forsake me 
 not;" whereas, if Mr. Clarke had been at the trouble 
 to turn to Bacon's 'letter (Bacon writes it- to Tobie 
 Mathew in 1623) he would have discovered that the 
 "certain good pens" (they were Thomas Hobbes, 
 George Herbert, Ben Jonson and Dr. Rawley), were 
 not wriling, but translating Bacon's works into Latin, 
 under his supervision in that year. This, we say, was 
 bad enough; but to rush into print with the con- 
 jecture that William Shakespeare could have been 
 one of the "good pens" employed by Bacon in 1623, 
 seven years after his (William Shakespeare's) funeral 
 in 1616, Avas a blunder that must be terrible for 
 Mr. Clarke to look back upon. We will let Mr. 
 Clarke's mare's nest die as gently as ho himself could 
 wish. But it is a frightful example indeed of what 
 may happen to the man wiio forgets his Dictionary of 
 Dates, in writing of accessible men and times. 
 
 HENRY N. HUDSON. 
 
 Mr. S. N. Hudson gives four reasons why Bacon 
 could not possibly have had any .hand in the text 
 of the Plays, viz : 
 
 1. Bacon's ingratitude to Essex was such as the 
 author of Lear never could have been guilty of. 
 
24 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 2. Who ever wrote the Playa of Shakespeare was 
 not a scholar. He had something vastly better than 
 that — ^but he had not that. 
 
 3. Shakespeare never philosophizes. Bacon never 
 does anything else. 
 
 4. Bacon's mind, great as it was, might have been 
 cut out of Shakespeare's and never been missed. 
 
 As to No. 1. I once had the temerity to exclaim — 
 " Conceive of the man who gave the wife of his youth 
 an old bedstead, and sued a neighbor for malt 
 delivered, penning Antony's oration above Caesar, or 
 the soliloquy of Macbeth debating the murder of 
 Duncan ; the invocation to sleep in King Henry lY. 
 or the myriad sweet or noble or tender passages 
 that only a human heart could utter ! " But I was 
 speedily silenced by a Shakespearean critic, who 
 assured me that men often wrote down their best sen- 
 timents and acted on their worst. 
 
 As to No. 2. Most of Mr. Hudson's contemporary 
 Shakespeareans not only claim that tlie author of the 
 plays was " considerable of a scholar," but show us 
 exactly how he became one. That he knew, or 
 guessed something of the law of gravitation, of the 
 circulation of the blood; had studied the Geneva 
 translation of the Bible, owned a " Florio " and so on. 
 
 As to No. 3. Most of us were under the impression 
 that the author of the plays did sometimes philoso- 
 phize, at any rate, that he made some of his fools 
 (Lear's perhaps) philosophize. 
 
 As to No. 4. If the question should happen to be 
 "Who was Shakespeare?" or "Who was the author 
 of the Plays?" Mr. Hudson's No. 4 would be a very 
 transparent begging of that question. 
 
ROME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 25 
 
 DR. INSLEBY. 
 
 To Mr. Hudson's four reasons, Dr. lugleby adds a 
 fiftli, viz : 
 
 No. 5. Bacon excelled all writers of his day in 
 prose. But tHe very best of the verses attributed to 
 him (not all his, by the "way) are fourth rate } while 
 . Shakespeare's verse is every- where incomparably better 
 than his prose, and he thus excelled where Bacon 
 most faulted. 
 
 This is another thrust at that unhappy " Paraphrase 
 of the Psalms." This paraphrase is indeed doggerel. 
 Is it altogether impossible to su{)p()se that Bacon 
 INTENDED it to be doggerel ? Bacon believed in bring- 
 ing all things to all men, and in the good of every- 
 thing. The smallest atom of investigation, the least 
 incident iii life or manners, was considered in his 
 philosophy. That was his Novum Organuni, his new 
 method. He believed in the Drama, he laid down 
 rules for planting kitchen gardens. He neglected no 
 details, however trivial. These Psalms were to be 
 sung by congregations in churches. They were, 
 being doggerel, more nearly "up" to the comprehen- 
 sion of the congregations they were written for, than 
 if they had been in the elegant and sententious 
 English of which Bacon was master. At any rate 
 he did not write them for the court. He did not 
 lock them up in Latin, and leave them by his testa- 
 ment "to the next ages," nor give any reasons for 
 believing that he thought them immortal. But even 
 suppose that he did not intend them to be doggerel! 
 They are, as they stand, no wor^e doggerel than Stern- 
 hold and Hopkins, and their successors made, in 
 attempting to put the stately idiom of the Hebrew 
 
26 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 Scriptures into jingle it was never expected to fit. I 
 confess that, for one, I can discover no reason — in 
 what we know to-day of Francis Bacon — for believ- 
 ing that he could not see the difference between the 
 style of his "Essays" and the style of his "Para- 
 phrase of the Psalms," quite as clearly as those com- 
 parative critics, the Shakespeareaiis, can see it. And, 
 if there is any doubt as to whether he could or not,' 
 then I think that Francis Bacon's contributions to 
 the world's stores, and his services to science, at least 
 entitle him to the benefit of the doubt. Mr. Tenny- 
 son has not scorned to write much that has been 
 pronounced most abject doggerel (such as "Hands 
 all Round"), and to print it side by side v/ith all the 
 magnificent poetry that has preceded it from his pen. 
 Very few great men have lived who have not nodded 
 sometimes, as well as " bonus Homerus," and it is 
 only matter of speculation whethei- they nodded " a 
 purpose," or because they could not help it. At any 
 rate, we do not let their nods destroy their godlike 
 moods. The- Shakespearean commentators spend 
 their lives in telliug us that "absolute" means com- 
 plete, and "defiuement" definition — that "trace" 
 means /o^ioMJ, "nomination " naming; that "bonnet" 
 means a cap, "meed" merit, "fit" convenient, and so 
 on by the hundred pages,* They are so emaciated by 
 
 * These 'ccmmentaries" are taken at random from Mr. . 
 Rolfe's edition of Hamlet. But, as that edition is prepared for 
 schools, perhaps it would be' fairer to select some other. In the 
 Valpy edition of Macbeth before us, we find the following: 
 
 " In 'he great hand of God Ij Note. — "Hand" Ta.aa.Tis "power." (ActH, 
 stand." i scene I.) 
 
 " Our fears in Banquo * » *) Note. — "Royalty of nature" means " no-, 
 and in liis royalty of nature." ( blencss of nature." (Act HI, scene I.) 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 27 
 
 microscopic analysis of the "tune of the time" which 
 Osric sung, that the atmosphere of a theory as to the 
 sources of the thought and insight of Hamlet is too 
 tonic for* them. As a rule, Shakespeareans answer 
 all anti-Shakespearean arguments by looking the other 
 way. But, now and then, some of the bolder com- 
 mentators, like Mr. "W". J. E,olfe and Professor Taver- 
 ner, peep through their fingers into Delia Bacon, or 
 Smith, or Holmes: absorb an atom or so of their ob- 
 jections (say abo'ut one-eighth of one per cent) : rush 
 into print, confute that atom, and assure mankind that 
 they have exploded the anti -Shakespearean case. Ac- 
 cordingly, Mr. Rolfe has assured us that any contem- 
 porary testimony against Shakespeare was "ill-nat- 
 ured;" and Professor Taverner has demonstrated that 
 the songs in the plays and Bacon's edition of the 
 Psalms of David scan quite differently — cannot be 
 sung to the same tunes — and that the coesura occurs in 
 different places in each. No doubt these gentlemen 
 suppose they have settled matters forever. But to 
 anybody who has ever had occasion to weigh proba- 
 bilities and look facts in the face, their labors are 
 sciircely worth smiling at. 
 
 If Bacon had any hand in the Plays, it was 
 undoubtedly with their Text that he had to do. 
 Nobody, so far as I can learn, has ever suspected him 
 of theii' stage editorship. It is said that, if he ever 
 had anything to do with the plays, he was most 
 
 " of sorriest fancies your com- j Note. — "Sorriest" means "mostmelan- 
 panions making." j choly." (Act III, scene II.) 
 
 And where Macbeth calls his wife " dearest chuck,'' we are told 
 
 by the learned editor in his foot note, that " dearest chuck " is 
 
 " a term of endearment ! " 
 
28 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 astoiiiidingly indifferent to them afterwards. He 
 could not well have been more indifferent to them 
 than "William Shakespeare was, if he had anything to 
 do with them. The author and proprietor of thirty- 
 six plays, grown rich by their presentation, seems to 
 have had no personal effects in his great house at 
 Stratford, at his death, save a second best bed and 
 bedclothes. 
 
 THE WASHINGTON POST. 
 
 The Post (Washington, April 24th, 1882) says: 
 " The author makes the gigantic and incomprehen- 
 sible blunder common to the controversialists, of rea- 
 soning by analogy. When it is remembered that 
 the forty-two plays are without parallel in any litera- 
 ture ; that the author, whoever he was, showed 
 a profound unconsciousness of their stupendous 
 value, it may be assumed that the workings of that 
 mighty intelligence can have no parity with any 
 writer or any mode with which the world is 
 acquainted. * * * The result of his (my) labor is 
 that the author, like tlie plays, has no parallel, which 
 is cheerfully conceded." I might retort that, if these 
 " forty-two plays arc without parallel in any litera- 
 ture," it is hard that the Shakespeareans will only 
 allow us to call tiiirty-seven of them " Shakespeare :" 
 and I might claim that the premiss rather than the 
 "result" of my labors was "that the author like the 
 plays, has no parallel." But, since the gravamen of 
 this criticism is evidently that I reason " by analogy," 
 let us look a little into this statement. 
 
 The work is devoted to an examination of such 
 records of the Ages of Elizabeth and James as run 
 into any neighborhood of William Shakespeare, his 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 29 
 
 theaters, his witnesses, or the plaj-s ca,lled his. The 
 only analogies I remember in the work are those 
 drawn between William Shakespeare and Bunjan 
 and Burns respectively. Eacii of these two latter 
 was a genius. But, in each of them, it is claimed 
 that there can be traced — nay, has been traced — the 
 color given to his genius and his work, by his individual 
 circumstances, studies and surroundings. Since wq 
 do know pretty accurately the circumstances and sur- 
 roundings, if not the studies, of William Shakespeare, 
 I am tempted to quote a few lines from Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer's " Study of Sociology " (p. 34) for the benefit 
 of the Post's accomplished critic, i-atber timn attempt 
 a demonstration of my own. " True, if yini please to 
 ignore all that common observation, verified by psy- 
 chology teaches," says Mr. Spencer, " if jou. assume 
 that two European parents may proiluce a Negro 
 child, or that from woolly-haired prognathous Papuans 
 may come a fair, straight-haired infant of Oaucassian 
 type, you may assume that the advent of the great 
 man can occur any- where and under any circum- 
 stances. If, disregarding these accumulated results of 
 experience which current proverb^ and the generaliza- 
 tions of psychologists alike express, you suppose that a 
 Newton might be born in a Hottentot family; that a 
 Milton might spring up among^the Andamanese, that 
 a Howard or a Clarkson might have Fiji parents, then 
 you may proceed with facility' to explain social pi'o- 
 gress as caused by the actions of the great man. But 
 if all biological science, enforcing all popular belief, 
 convinces you that by no possibility will an Aristotle 
 come from a father and mother with facial angles of 
 fifty degrees; and that out of a' tribe of cannibals, 
 
30 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 whose chorus' in preparation for a feast of human 
 flesh is a kind of rhythmical roaring, there is not the 
 remotest chance of a Beethoven arising — then you 
 must admit that the genesis of the great man depends 
 on the long scries of complex influences which has 
 produced the race in wluch he appears, and the social 
 state into which that race has slowly grown. If it he 
 a fact that a great man may modify his nation iu its 
 structure and actions, it is also a fact that there must 
 have been those antecedent modifications, constituting 
 national progress, before he could be evolved. Before 
 he can re-make his society, his society must make 
 .him. So that all those changes of lohich he is the proxi- 
 mate imitator have their chief causes in the generations he 
 is descended from. If tliere is to be any thing like a 
 real explanation of these changes it must be sought 
 in that aggregation of conditions out of which both 
 he and they have arisen. But if wo were to grant the 
 absurd supposition that the genesis of the great man 
 does not depend on the antecedents furnished by the 
 society ho is born in, there would still be the quite 
 BufHcient facts that he is powerless in the absence of 
 the material and mental accumulations which his 
 society inherits from the past, and that he is power- 
 less in the absence of the co-existing ]iopulation, 
 charactei", intelligence and social arrangements." The 
 sentence I have put into italics seems to meet the 
 difficulty the Fost experiences with my " analogy." 
 
 THE TRIBUNE. 
 
 The Tribune (N"ew York, JSTovember 25, 1881) says : 
 " It would require a very diligent search to find any- 
 where in literaturfe a better example than this work 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 31 
 
 ('The Shakespearean Myth') affords of which Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer calls 'Bias.'"' I incline to believe 
 that what Mr. Spencer means by " Bias " is the sort 
 of incubus which a man's particular creed or party, 
 caste or special education may be allowed to raise, to 
 squat upon and weigh down his reason, so that it can- 
 not perform its functions ; rather than that particular 
 ex-parte function which an advocate uses in summing 
 up the merits of one side of a case, "^ut, if the latter 
 is the sense in which the Tribune prefers the word, 
 then I may reply, that I think it would require a still 
 more " diligent seai'ch " among the methods laid down 
 for ascertaining the facts on any given case, to find 
 one surer and safer than this very same " bias," We 
 fail to see of what value the decision of the most 
 competent tribunal could Well be, unless preceded by 
 the fullest and most exhaustive argument of each 
 side. An honest advocate must necessarily possess a 
 " bias " for his own side. He can well leave the other 
 side to the " bias " of his learned and courteous oppo- 
 nent; and both will contribute quite as rnuch, and be 
 quite as entitled to their share of the merit of the 
 righteous outcome of the trial, as the judge who 
 delivers the judgment or charges the jury for its ver- 
 dict. It seems to me that the only indictment the 
 honest advocate need fear, is that of a slovenly, or 
 half-hearted or feeble preseutation of the side assumed 
 by him or entrusted to his care. Let him only be 
 faithful and diligent, and he can well afford to leave 
 the responsibility of the decision to the court that 
 have heard the " bias " of each side and weighed 
 between them. I do not think the Shakespeareans 
 should raise this cry. They certainly have had ample 
 
32 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 time to present their side. Their " day in court" has 
 lengthened out to over two centuries. They surely 
 do not propose to confess, at this late day, that they 
 have half-heartedl}', feebly and imperfectly presented 
 their own case, or feel incompetent to be entrusted 
 with it further ! 
 
 The statement of the Tribune, that " nothing can 
 be more obvious than that Mr. Morgan really believes 
 his book to be an essay in criticism," when that book 
 not only contains no word of criticism, but expressly, 
 and in so many words, waived any attempt at criticism, 
 awakens, in a sincere mind, a doubt as to whether the 
 ninth commandment has any jurisdiction over the 
 book reviewer wlio, to quote Mr. Huxley, " acquires 
 his knowledge from the book he judges — as the 
 Abyssinian is said to provide himself with steaks 
 from the ox whicii carries him." 
 
 THE AMERICAN. 
 
 The American (Philadephia, November 26, 1881), 
 says: "Mr. Morgan's solution is the heroic one. He 
 can not untie the knot, so he cuts it. He believes that 
 William Shakespeare availed himself of the work of 
 playwrights, which reached the stage door in those 
 times as now, and adapted them for representation. 
 They were not the work of a single hand ; but through 
 ingenious handling, much as Mr. Bouccicault has 
 worked in his day and generation, they acquired a 
 family likeness." This is the suggestion of an Edi- 
 torial Theory. But why " A Theory ? " Does any- 
 body, in his senses, believe that these plays were never 
 "edited" until the commentators took hold of them? 
 That they passed instanter from the author's hands to 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 33 
 
 the boards of the playhouse and the mouth? of the 
 actors? Plays, to-day, iu the United States, where 
 there is ii) stage censorship, can hardly reach the 
 stage without at least a re-reading or a rehearsal, either 
 by their authors or by somebody else. But in Eliza- 
 beth's day it was not only improbable, but impossible 
 for a play to reach, even its first ji-ehearsal, without the 
 very closest official scrutiny. 
 
 Indeed, it is difficult to see how — as they stand in 
 our modern editions — these particular plays could 
 liave been performed at all in Elizabeth's day. One 
 of Elizabeth's first enactments decreed that no plays 
 were to be jierformed wherein "either matters of re- 
 ligion or of the Government of the Estate of the 
 Commonwealth shall be handled or treated," a statute 
 which would- seem very effectually to shut out the 
 presentation of the Shakes[ieareau Drama. And, in 
 this policy, Elizabeth, in whatever else she wavered, 
 persisted to the end of her reign. She would not 
 allow her own preachers to dwell on topics on which 
 she was not consulted beforehand ; — and there is a 
 well-known story of Dean Knowell, who preaching 
 before her majesty at St. Paul's, touched severely on 
 the subject of the use of images in public worship. 
 "To your text, Mr. Dean," shouted the Queen, "to 
 your subject." These plays, as we now have them, to 
 have flourished under Elizabeth's eye, must have re- 
 ceived some very judicious lopping and pruning at 
 their earlier rehearsals. Nut only the politics, but 
 their other abstruse speculations, must have been kept 
 in the background for Elizabeth's audience. To sup- 
 pose that Elizabethan audiences went to their thea- 
 ters to listen to philosophical and classical discussions. 
 
34 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS, 
 
 or to doubt that they would have hooted the meta- 
 physicians ofF the boards, and tossed the learned 
 Thebans in blankets, is to misread the history of the 
 English stage. That several of the plays did go 
 through a stage-editor'd hands is apparent enough, 
 even from our popular editions. In "Measure for 
 Measure," "Love's L.abor Lost," "As you Like It," 
 "Merry Wives of Windsor," etc., we find songs in- 
 serted that are readily traceable to sources outside of 
 the text. And these were probably not the only 
 plays that underwent stage preparation. Many of the 
 anachronisms, historical and geagraphical blunders, 
 suggest themselves as blunders occurring in the 
 course of this editorship rather than as belonging in 
 the text. For example: in "Julius Csesar," Act II, 
 Scene 1, the conspirators at Brutus's house are made 
 to disperse at tiie striking of a clock. This is cited 
 as an anachronism of Shakespeare's,, and perhaps it 
 was. But the striking clock is a stage exigency, and 
 is evidently introduced as a signal for the dispersion 
 of the conference. For, in the text, a few moments 
 before, Brutus is seen endeavoring to ascertain the 
 time by the position of the stars — 
 
 " I cannot, by the progress of the stars, 
 Give guess how near to day," 
 
 which he certainly would not have done if there 
 had been a clock in the room. The same hand, 
 probably, did not write both text and stage di- 
 rection. And so the gnnpov^der at the siege of 
 Troy is a stage effect (a mere discharge of musketry, 
 behind the scenes, to indicate, at the proper place in 
 the text, that a battle was in progress). And these, 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMBNTATOKS. 35 
 
 toOjare evidently to be distinguished from the learned 
 errors bf the text. Such errors might be committed 
 by a scholar writing hastily from memory, but are not 
 mistakes of an ignorant man. When, in the 
 "Midsummer's Nights Dream," for example, the 
 classical king Theseus is confounded with the mediae- 
 val duke of that name — ^that is the pen-slip of at least 
 a reader of history, quoting from memory^-just as 
 Bacon wrote " moi-al philosophy " when he meant 
 "political philosophy," or " Moses's rod that budded" 
 when he meant Aaron's rod, as any other man might 
 slip with his pen. A compiler, with a book of refer- 
 ence at his side, would have put it down correctly. In 
 " Antony and Cleopatra," Oharmian suggests a game 
 of billiards. But this is not, as is supposed, an ana- 
 chronism, for the human encyclopedia who wrote that 
 senence appears to have known^what very few peo- 
 ple know now-a-days — that the game of billiards is 
 older than Cleopatra. 
 
 A few years ago Mr. Boucicault brought out, at 
 Booth's Theater in New York, a play he called 
 " Venice Preserved." It was a modern play, in which, 
 indeed, Otway had a great share. But, if I recollect 
 aright, besides Otway, Mr. Boucicault had very skill- 
 fully interpolated a soliloquy from Manfredj and 
 numerous points from writers more nearly contem- 
 porary. Is there not a snggeslion here of how Wil- 
 liam Shakespeare might have worked ? In the days 
 when members of Elizabeth's parliament, coming 
 from different countries, could not comprehend each 
 other's dialect; when the recruits for Elizabeth's 
 armies could not understand the word of command 
 unless pl-onounced by officers from their own neigh- 
 
36 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 borhood; — a Warwickshire peasant lad wiites two 
 poems in the purest and most limpid English — the 
 English of the court to-day. If textual criticism 
 could show that tlie author of tlie plays was a native 
 of Warwickshire, that would be only a small step 
 towards proviu'^ his name to have been William 
 Shakespeare. It is sometimes claimed that tliis step 
 has been securely taken ; because Warwickshire 
 names and the Warwicksliiro dialect has been found 
 in certain passages of certain of these plays. For 
 example: lu the "Merry Wives of Windsor," and in 
 the " Induction" to the " Taming of the Shrew," a large 
 proportion of the characters are made to bear War- 
 wickshire names: such as Ford, Page, Evans, Hugii, 
 (/iirtis, Elj', Oliver, Sly, " Clarion Hackett the fat ale- 
 wife of Wincott" and the like; and that certain 
 expressions — such as " make straight" (meaning make 
 haste), '-qnoth" (meaning "weut"), "mc" (meaning 
 "for me"), "old" (for frequent), and the like, are 
 Warwickshire usages and known in no other part of 
 England. But, most unfortunately for this discovery, 
 these wonderful plays are quite as rich in all the 
 other British dialects, argots and provincialisms, as 
 they are in Warwickshire. And these argots and dia- 
 lects are, as a rule, used iii the proper localities. " The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor" use Warwickshire words, 
 indeed ; and the names of the personages in the plays 
 are Warwickshire names, but it is because Windsor is 
 in Warwickshire, not because William Shakespeare 
 was a Warwickshire man. In this very " Induction," 
 where one of the Commentators, (Mr. King) fondly 
 insists that only Warwickshire is spoken. Sly says to 
 the hostess " I'll pheeze you, i' faith." " I'll-pheeze " 
 
SOME SHAKESPEARBAN COMMENTATORS. 37 
 
 is Norfolk for "I'll torment or harass j^ou," "I'll put 
 you in a passion." And not only do these plays deal 
 in all the English dialects, but if their author or 
 authors had had one of our modern " Dictionaries of 
 the Provincialisms used in Shakespeare" at their 
 elbows, they could not have been more accurate in 
 distinguishing nice shades of meaning in these argots. 
 For instance : the Scotch have a local word " braid" 
 meaning " impudent," " forward" — and quite another, 
 ^^ braided" meaning "wrinkled or creased," as when 
 kept folded on a shelf or in a closet (whence, natur- 
 ally, second-hand and, afterwards, cheap). This dis- 
 tinction is used most accurately in the plays. Diana 
 uses the first in "All's Well that Ends Well " when 
 
 she says : 
 
 " Since Frenchmen are so braid 
 I'll live and die a maid — " 
 
 ■while the clown in " Winter's Tale " uses the second, 
 when he asks Autolycus if lie " has any uvbraided 
 wares." This phenomena of the dialect (as to which 
 treatises and dictionaries have been — and are yet to 
 be — written), is only one more of those constantly 
 recurring features in this Drama which forces this 
 editorial theory to the front, to aid — if it can — in the 
 solution of the mystery before us. That it satisfies 
 more of the difficulties than any other so far sug- 
 gested, is, some think, apparent. But, whether Wil- 
 liam Shakespeare did or did not speak Warwickshire, 
 he probably did not speak all other known British 
 dialects. The condition in life implied by a man's 
 employment of one patois, would seem to shut out 
 the probability of his possessing facilities for acquir- 
 ing half-a-ciozen others. And to suppose that the 
 
38 SOME Shakespearean commentators. 
 
 rich owner of the Globe theater, in enjoyment of an 
 income fast approximating to §25,000 ii year, wrote 
 every line, exit, entrance, dot, comma and pen stroke 
 of the plays mounted on his 'boards, is to harbor, at 
 least, some very crude and simple notions of men and 
 of affairs. 
 
 THE WESTMINSTER, SATURDAY, AND BRITISH QUARTERLY 
 REVIEWS. 
 
 These three Reviews seem to agree that "The 
 Shakespearean Myth " proves too much ; since, if the 
 anti-Shakespearean case fails as to Bacon, it fails alto- 
 gether. 
 
 The question is, however, not what " The Shakes- 
 pearean Myth " proves, but what facts and the record 
 prove. These Reviews do not allege that the " The 
 Shakespearean Myth " contains a misstatement of 
 fact or an erroneous citation of the record. Even if 
 it did, it could hardly be more unreliable than the 
 Shakespearean biographies, which — while complain- 
 ing of the scantiness of contemporary material — ^will 
 not print what there is, but only such selections as 
 make for their own ideal Shakespeare: as, for exam- 
 ple, when they give us an item from Dominie Ward's 
 diary to the effect that William Shakespeare in retire- 
 ment furnished his theater with " two plays a year," 
 but draw their pens through the next entry on the 
 page, to the effect that he died of over drink. Neither 
 is it apparent how, if the anti-Shakespearean case fails 
 as to Bacon, it fails altogether — unless the process is 
 as follows: If William Shakespeare did not write 
 every word of the Dramas, then Francis Bacon wrote 
 them. But Francis Bacon did not write some 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 39 
 
 of them — ergo, Shakespeare wrote every line of 
 them — Q. E. D. — which may be satisfactoiy to some 
 minds, but does not appear to be pure syllogistic rea- 
 soning. Snrel^'i our Protean Shakespeareans can not be 
 allowed to accept the Baconian theory to fight off anti- 
 Shakespearoans, and the anti-Shakespearean theory 
 to fight off the Baconians. The anti-Shnkespearean 
 theory, to be exact, ought to precede the Baconian or 
 any other unitary or positive theory. Before the 
 name of Bacon or of anybody else can be placed on 
 the title page of the Plays, destructive criticism must 
 remove the name of William Shakespeare. I am 
 not a Baconian and never can be. But when these 
 Shakespearean authorities announce that a penniless 
 and briefless young barrister, with a fluent and an 
 itching pen, could not, by any possibility, have had 
 any hand in the anonymous literature of his town and 
 time — it still seems to me a most ridiculous assump- 
 tion of Infallibility. 
 
 MR. HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS' "OUTLINE." 
 
 It is gratifying, so soon after appearance of " The 
 Shakespearean Myth," to find the greatest living 
 Shakespearean (a gentleman who, in forty-five years, 
 has printed two hundred and twenty-one monographs 
 on Shakespearean themes) rejecting,, for the first 
 time, at least three of the propositions attacked in my 
 work. But Mr. Ilalliwell-Phillipps (in his "Out-I 
 lines of the Life of Shakespeare," just published), as- 
 sumes that these three claims — never before omitted by 
 a biographer — are groundless, viz : 
 
 (1.) That the "Venus and Adonis" could have 
 boen the first heir of the invention of a raw rustic 
 
40 SOME SHAKESPEAUEAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 from "Warwickshire, or could Iiave been written by 
 such an one, in Stratford-on-Avon, where the pro- 
 nounced Warwickshire patois was exclusively em- 
 ployed. (Page 71.) 
 
 (2.) That the collection of Sonnets, published in 
 Shakespeare's lifetime, could have been authorized by 
 him, or was dedicated by him to anybody-^to South- 
 ampton or to anybody else. (Pago 150.) 
 
 ■ (3.) That Chettle's apology for Green's expression 
 of opinion on Shakespeare, was not in Chettle's inter- 
 est, but in Green's, and afl'ects whatever historical 
 value attaches to Green's charges. (Page 68.) 
 
 Besides which, by preserving a complete silence as 
 to the other stories shown, in " The Shakespearean 
 Myth," to be baseless, viz : the autograph letter of 
 King James; the Southampton loan of £25,000; Eliz- 
 abeth's ap[iearance on Shakespeare's stage; the vol- 
 ume of Montaigne's " Florio," and the like — Mr. Halli- 
 weli-Phillipps has had the honesty and courage to 
 admit that not one of them has any contemporary 
 foundation. 
 
 In the appended matter to his " Outlines," Mr. Hal- 
 liwell;Phillipps gives the documents whose produc- 
 tion was ciiallcnged in "The Shakespearean Myth." 
 Here are the pleadings in all William Shakespeare's 
 lawsuits; the bonds given and taken ; the conveyances, 
 deeds, leases, assignments, entries in the stationers' 
 books ; every item of record as to himself, his houses, 
 investments, neighboi-s ; from the minutes made of his 
 baptism to the probate of his Will. Will any student 
 of the Elizabethan remains — who has scoffed at a 
 question as to the Shakespearean authorship as too 
 baseless for investigation — read anew, as gathered 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 41 
 
 here, this chronicle of William Shakespeare, the man 
 of affair.^, of lawsuits, and of investments, and point 
 ont a hint of William Shakespeare, the poet, philoso- 
 pher, and seer — the man who read the deepest mys- 
 teries of the human heart and reported them, in im- 
 perishahle verse, for every age and clime? 
 
 THE IMPEACHED WITNESSES. 
 
 'No cross-examination — not even that wliose pros- 
 pect so paralyzes Mr. Rolfe — coald so effectiially dis- 
 pose of the Shakespearean witnesses as the Shakes- 
 peareans themselves dispose of two of them — John 
 Heminges and Henry Condell. The Shakespearean s 
 had already convicted them of falsehood, ?. e., in as- 
 serting that they printed the first folio from " the true 
 original copies" (Sliakespeare's own unblotted manu- 
 scripts, in their own exclusive possession), when what 
 they did in fact print from were the identical " stolen 
 and sui'reptitious copies" against which they warned 
 their readers — old fragments of quartos and tattered 
 remnants of playhouse scores. And now Mr. Rolfe, 
 and his authorities, Fleay, Furnivall & Co., charge 
 them with the boldest and most unblushing forgery, 
 in deliberately employing hack writers, to pad out the 
 " Timon of Athens," to till gaps in the pagination of 
 their First Folio — which padding Mr. Rolfe believes to 
 amount to something more than three-sevenths of the 
 play, as they printed it. (Rolfe's Timon of Athens, 
 Int. pp. 10-14.) But I cannot find that this rascality 
 anywhere deters Messrs. Fleay, Furnivall, or Rolfe 
 from accepting the testimony of this very firm of 
 forgers and falsifiers whenever it tallies with their 
 purpose to do so If, as Mr. Rolfe complains, I have 
 
42 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMEKTATORS. 
 
 ever shown any "contempt" in this business, it is for 
 the procedure of gentlemen who will accept the de- 
 position of a witness in one line and impeach it in the 
 next, and then 'threaten with the straight-jacket and 
 the mad-house, anybody who declines to swallow whole 
 the product they manufacture out of this selected evi- 
 dence {Literary World, Oct. 21, 1882). Fortunately 
 for the Philistines, Mr. Rolfe and his friends do not 
 control the mad-houses of the country, and could not 
 send a kitten to one of them. But the threat is in- 
 teresting, as showing the logical bent of their minds. 
 To lock up -those one cannot answer, is a happy 
 tlioughf, familiar as long back as Galileo and Gior- 
 dano Bruno. > 
 
 Mr. Eolfe is perfectly right in calling the Shakes- 
 pearean witnesses " worthless fellows." There are not 
 a dozen of them, all told; their written testimony 
 would not fill one of these pages ; it is impossible to 
 verify it as quoted, or to find out whether they said it 
 themselves, or whether somebody else said it. for them. 
 Still, such as it is, it is all the evidence we have. But 
 it cannot be accepted (as Mr. Rolfe imagines) when 
 pro-Shiikespearean, and rejected as "ill-natured" when 
 anti-Shakespearean. It must stand or fall by the rules 
 which every nation, savage or civilized — which the 
 whole world insists on ; namely, that the witness who 
 swears falsely in one thing, is apt to swear falsely 
 in all ; and that evidence is to be construed in accord- 
 ance with, rather than dead against, human experi- 
 ence and the phenomena of l^ature. If I have some- 
 times accepted the evidence of these " worthless fel- 
 lows," as against Shakespeare, it is because it follows, 
 as an irresistible corollary from the two above rules, 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 43 
 
 that the testimony of a man of bad reputation for 
 veracity is preferable, when in conformity with experi- 
 ence, to the testimony of a better man, as against it. 
 I make no doubt that even Mr. Rolfe would prefer to 
 believe the veriest liar in his neighborhood, who swore 
 that the sun set at the proper hour last evening, rather 
 than the parson himself that it staid up all night. 
 
 It seems to me that only those who are afraid or 
 ashamed to look into it, deny the existence of a rea- 
 sonable doubt as to the Shakespearean authorship. 
 But, if there is such a doubt, nothing can be clearer 
 than that it will never be solved by the mutual admi- 
 rationists, whose idea of Shakespearean research is to 
 hail every guess of their predecessors and associates 
 iis a revelation, and who think the compilation of 
 an inventory of these revelations down to date, plus 
 one, original surmise of their own, constitutes them 
 writers of biography and Siiuker^pearean authorities. 
 I believe that we are liappily coming to the end of 
 these gentlemen ; that William Shakespeare is slipping 
 out of their custody; and that a school of critics is 
 arising who have tlie courage to look, and to say 
 what they find. In Mr. Brander Matthews' " French 
 Dramatists of the I^ineteenth Century," which is, 
 much more than its title implies, a careful Essay in 
 dramatic criticism, I find, on page 282, this sentence: 
 "Shakespeare and Moliere owed no small share of 
 their success to their complete mastery over the tools 
 of their trade; besides being the hack dramatist of 
 his eompanj', each was actor and manager, and had a 
 share in the takings at the door." This is not, per- 
 haps, as exhilarating reading as Dr. Ingleby's saxon, 
 or Mr. Freeman Clarke's aerostatics, or Mr. Rolfe's 
 
44 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 artless prattle as to the enormity of cross-examina- 
 tion, and general crookedness of lawyers. But I be- 
 lieve it is a shadow of what good things we may 
 yet realize, if we live until the reign of Gush shall en- 
 tirely yield to the reign of facts, of reason, and of 
 common sense. 
 
 THE NEW YORK HERALD. 
 
 Contrasting with the efforts of those literary and 
 other newspapers which propose to burke any ques- 
 tion as to the authority of the works called " Shakes- 
 peare," and to freeze out the doubters at any cost, is 
 the action of the New York Herald. That great 
 daily devoted its columns for an entire month (Sep- 
 tember 6tli to October 5th, 1874) to a discussion of the 
 complete field. The Herald deserves nothing but 
 praise from Shakespearean scholars, at least for its 
 recognition of the truth, that it is no answer to an 
 argument to bblJ that similar arguments have been 
 heard before — or that anybody can deny a proposi- 
 tion — and the like; and of tbe existence of a doubt 
 as to whether the Shakespearean heretics can be dis- 
 persed by reading them the Riot Act to-day, how- 
 ever it might have silenced them twenty-five years ago. 
 
 Appleton Morgan. 
 
SOME SHAKBSPEAKBAN COMMENTATOKS, 45 
 
 ROBERT CLARKE & CO., Publishers. 
 
 Morgan's The Shakespearean Myth. 
 
 Tlie Shakespearean Myth; or, William SJiaJcespeare and Oircum- 
 stantial Evidence. By Appbton Morgan, A.M., LL.B., aw- 
 thor of " Law of Literature," " Notes to Besfs Principle.^ of 
 Evidence," "Legal Maxims," " Angh-American Ldernational 
 CopyrigU," etG.,dc. 12mo. pp.342. $2 00 
 
 Sent Postpaid on Receipt of Price. 
 
 This volume is devoted to an examination of the contempo- 
 rary records, legal instruments, public documents and tradi- 
 tions of the years covered by the life and career of AVilliam 
 Shakespeare. That the work is worthy of study and capable 
 of consideration from any standpoint, we believe will appear 
 from the following extracts from its reviewers : 
 
 "The book is a notable and interesting one, and we shall be greatly 
 surprised if many of our readers are not smitten with curiosity to posr 
 sess it, when wo tell them the nature of its contents. . . . Wo 
 invite our readers to see how much can be said on the tabooed question 
 of the SLakespearean authorship by those who approach the question 
 with competent knowledge and judicial impartiality. Mr. Appleton 
 Morgan's examination of the question differs in some essential respects 
 from that of Judge Holmes. The latter has written a work full of 
 interest, partly critical, partly speculative, on the relation of Bacon to 
 the Shakespearean drama, and he endeavors to prove that these dramas 
 form a part of the great scheme of philosophy of which another part 
 was given in the Hovum Organum, and that the complete expression 
 of Bacon's mind must be sought for in the pictures of life and char- 
 acter contained in these 'feigned histories' of dramatic poetry, as 
 
46 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 well as in the more didactic and scholastic prose writings. Mr. Mor- 
 gan looks at the question as one of evidence, as a lawyer accustomed 
 to weiijh lacts and probabilities, and leaves larger questions un- 
 touched." — Mr. R. AI. Theobald, in The Nonconformist, June 1, 1882. 
 
 "The theory certainly has grown in importance of late years. It 
 is no longer ilouted as impossible. It is admitted as ingenious, as pos- 
 sible, and even as highly probable by many persons who have gone 
 carefully into the question. It is one of the many j^uzzles of history 
 and literature which are full of attraction to certain minds. It is very 
 doubtful whether the question can ever be definitely settled. Those, 
 however, who feel inclined to make some little investigation for them- 
 selves into the matter, will find Mr. Appleton Morgan's volume ex- 
 ceedingly interesting. Whoever takes the trouble of going through 
 it will find practically all the facts necessary to enable him to form his 
 own judgment in the matter." — Westminster Review, April, 1882. 
 
 "Such works can be read only as strange examples of entertaining 
 paradox; but we must say that in the present instance the paradox is 
 well worked out and cleverly sustained, and persons who, in this age 
 teeming with books really worth attention from educated men, have 
 leisure for such amusements, may occupy some hours profitably in 
 studying the theory of the ' Shakespearean Myth.' " — London Saturday 
 Review, January 28, 1882. 
 
 "Under the title 'The Shakespearean Myth,' Mr. Appleton Mor- 
 gan, who is known as a writer on the ' Law of Literature ' and the 
 ' Principles of Evidence,' has collected a large amount of evidence of 
 various kinds to prove that Shakespeare did liot write the plays attrib- 
 uted to him. He discusses the theory that they were written by Bacon 
 alone, and the theory that they were written by Bacon and other lit- 
 erary men of that age. The decision to which he comes, and to which 
 he brings facts, satire, criticism, and strong feeling, is that Shake- 
 speare was the editor, and not the author, of the plays. The authors 
 are unknown, but in all human probability Bacon was the chief of the 
 group who wrote them. Shakespeare, the rough, uneducated wit, added 
 the coarser and more popular characters and scenes, and it is doubt- 
 ful whether these liberally edited works can ever be apportioned 
 among the true authors. Mr. Morgan is an enthusiastic admirer of 
 the Shakespeare plays ; it is because they are to him the greatest work 
 in all literature, the work 'that will be close to the hearts of every age 
 and cycle of man, till time shall be no more,' that he can not believe 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 47 
 
 that tUey were written by one unlettered man, of whom so little is 
 known. He declares that if William Shakespeare wrote the plays, it 
 was a miracle. But he does not believe in such a miracle, and he 
 finds that the miraculous element, and Shakespeare with it, disappears 
 in the light of external evidence and historical research. The book 
 is interesting, whether one agrees with it or n6t, summing up, as it 
 does, all the doubts in the question that have for a hundred years been 
 made public." — -Boston Daily Advertiser, Vol. 38, No. 123. 
 
 ' The TdooIc will interest Shakespearean students, whether they re- 
 gard its paradox as honest or merely as an exhibition of the author's 
 wide reading and controversial acuteness. It is in a measure a bib- 
 liography of Shakespearean literature." — Cincinnati Gazette, Novem- 
 ber 15, 1881. 
 
 " Such an addition as this volume to the evfdence in the case against 
 Shakespeare is a noteworthy event in the literary world. . . . Mr. 
 Morgan's book, gathering up in lawyer fashion the scattered threads 
 of inconsistencies and improbabilities, is a valuable and welcome addi- 
 tion to the evidence in this controversy. . . . The questions raised 
 long ago and now presented in form, make up an indictment which 
 the Shakespeareans must break down by cogent explanations, or yield 
 to the growing belief that, whether the "myriad minded'' Shakes- 
 peare be metaphor or fact, he never vvrote all that has come down 
 the centuries as his, to rank his name with those of the immortals." 
 — Pioneer-Press, St. Paul, November, 1881. 
 
 "It must rank among the most notable of the attempts to prove 
 that Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare." — The Literary World, 
 Boston, December 3, 1881. 
 
 " It is part and parcel of the skepticism of the age which would 
 pull down without the power of raising any thing of equal good in its 
 place." — Inter Ocean, Chicago, November 19, 1881. 
 
 "We repeat that those desirous of knowing something of the 
 'Shakespearean Myth,' now engaging the attention of literary men 
 can not do better thah to avail themselves of the aid which Mr. Mor- 
 gan's book will give them." — The Register, Sandusky, O., November 
 19, 1881. 
 
 "The volume before us excites in us no sentiment of resentment at 
 what Shakespearean worshipers may think the ' flat blasphemy' of the 
 
48 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 author, but only a feeling of mingled admiration and regret; admira- 
 tion for the laborious research and ingenious argument; regret for 
 the unavoidable failure attaching to such an enterprise." — Sacramento 
 Record- Union, November 1ST, 1881. 
 
 " The key-note of Mr. Morgan's work, which seems to sum up his 
 whiilo Shakespearean difficulty, is a sentence on page 114 : ' The story 
 that this boy (Shakespeare) ever stole deer is rejected as resting on 
 insufficient evidence. But no evidence is required to prove his au- 
 thorsliip of the topmost books in the history or the literature of Eng- 
 land.'" — Toledo Blade, December 3, 1881. 
 
 '"The Shakespearean Myth' has bothered a good many people 
 besides Mr. Appleton Morgan, but by none has it bc^en examined 
 more thoroughly and, we may say, candidly than by him in his work 
 with that title published by Kobert Clarke & Co." — The Dial, Chicago, 
 January, 1882. 
 
 " A very concise, terse and decided style, that must be attractive to 
 all readers who love to follow a man of strong convictions, with abil- 
 ity to give a reason for the faith that is in him." — Intelligencer, Wheel- 
 ing, December 16, 1881. 
 
 " A concise and vivid summary of the anti-Shakespearean ease alone, 
 and to this recapitulation of previously expressed opinion is added no 
 small amount of original exposition." — Milwaukee Sentinsl, February 
 13, 1881. 
 
 "A new reading of the old riddle. . . . Mr. Morgan does not 
 use the study and comparison of the text as an argument, inasmuch 
 as there are no other known writings of Shakespeare, and as he is try 
 ing to demonstrate, not who did, but who did not write the plays." 
 — Journnl, Indianapolis. 
 
 " No matter on which side of the controversy you stand, this work 
 of Mr. Morgan is worthy of study. The author is an enthusiastic 
 admirer of the great bard, and his book is an interesting addition to 
 Shakespearean literature, as it examines and expounds the various 
 speculations as to what Shakespeare really was." — Dramatic Notes, 
 Turf, Field and Farm. 
 
 "It is an ex-parte examination into purely external evidence, such 
 as history still affords us of Shakespeare's life and habits. The work 
 has been cleverly if not convincingly done, and a perusal of Mr. Mor- 
 
SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. 49 
 
 gan's work shows how well a skillful writer can mystify his readers 
 on most any subject and make them almost question their own sanity. 
 The subject is debatable. Mr. Morgan sums up all tlie arguments 
 that can be advanced on his side of the question." — Chicago Tribune. 
 
 " Mr. Morgan's argument is ingenious throughout, and people fond 
 of speculations of the kind can hardly fail to be entertained by it. 
 . . . How many minds he may unsettle on one of the cardinal 
 points of literature is problematical ; possibly — the book has a pesky 
 sense of reality — he may do a considerable work in that way." . . . 
 — The American, Philadelphia, November 26, 1881. 
 
 . . . " An appeal to history . . has led Mr. Morgan to the 
 conclusion that what little is known neither substantiates the author- 
 ship nor indicates any qualities of head or heart which by any possi- 
 bility could be the foundation for such a claim. . . . TheJonsonian 
 testimony is made to read quite differently from what most readei-s 
 suppose. . . . Every Shakespearean scholar should get the book 
 and read it. . . . It has the further quality of presenting afresh, 
 and concisely the substance of all the destructive arguments going be- 
 fore, slightly modified." — The Interior, Chicago, January 26, 1882. 
 
 " The admirer of Shakespeare, as well as the disbeliever in his au- 
 thorship, will find pleasure in these pages, free and candid as t.hey are 
 in argument and agreeable in manner of diction. The different theo- 
 ries are all faithfully and fully reviewed." — AUa California, San Fran- 
 Cisco, November 28, 1881. 
 
 "There is doubtless ingenuity, research and close writing in this 
 volume. . . . The author aims, with a greater degree of logical — 
 we might almost say legal — acumen, to establish, tho,ugh with some 
 modifications, the theory of Miss Delia Bacon, that the plays of Shake- 
 speare were not really written by him, but that, as an astute theater 
 manager, he obtained work from other hands and cunningly fathered 
 it. Miss Bacon pushed her argument too rashly in favor of the com. 
 plete authorship for Lord Bacon. Mr. Morgan is wider in his scope.'' 
 . . . — British Quarterly Review, July, 1882. 
 
 " For cool literary impudence and effrontery Mr. Morgan's whis- 
 tling down the wind Shakespeare's poems, " Venus and Adonis," " Lu- 
 orece," and the sonnets, is unsurpassed." — The Critic, January 14, 1882. 
 
 •' A lawyer's argument agaiitst Shakespeare's uuthorship of the plays 
 
50 SOME SHAKESPEARIAN COMMENTATORS. 
 
 which bear his name, not without cleverness and ingenuity. Such 
 heretics as Mr. Morgan we would not answer. Were they not in 
 parUbus infideltum, America and Australia, wo would have them con- 
 veyed away, secretly tried by.a tribunal of the orthodox, when, unless 
 reconciled, they might look for the san benito and the faggots. ' — The 
 Academy, London, September 16, 1882. 
 
 " As a matter of fact this work of Morgan's does not, except inci- 
 dentally, belong in a biography of the Shakespeare- Bacon controversy. 
 Logically it precedes any such literature. It should be studied before, 
 rather than after, the works of Bacon, Smith, Holmes and Thomson, 
 all of whom believed that Lord Bacon had the lion's share in the com- 
 position of the plays." — Madison State Journal, July 22, 1882. 
 
 "A brief against Shakespeare. . . . If we dwell upon the law- 
 yer-like attitude of Mr. Morgan toward the q jeslion he discusses, it is 
 only because that attitude determines the whole character of his work. 
 . . . . Mr. Morgan examines the several ' extra Shakespearean' 
 theories, and expounds each at some length, defending all of them in 
 their denial of Shakespeare's capacity to write the plays, and ends by 
 suggesting the superiority of what we may call the editorship theory, 
 namely, that "William Shakespeare was the editor, not the author, of 
 the plays, whether originally they came from one or from many 
 hands."— r/(c Tribune. Xew York, November 25, 1881. 
 
 "To those who are not posted on the true nature of these apparently 
 wanton attacks on the fame of Shakespeare, Mr. Appleton Morgan's 
 papers may command an historic interest apart from their no less 
 distinctive character jia curiosities of literature." — Kinderhook Itoujh 
 Notes. 
 
f