Bacon is Shake-Speare. Durning-Lawrence Edwin

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СКАЧАТЬ allowance and consideration for the practice of the time and country to enable us to contemplate with equanimity – satisfaction is impossible."

      "The biographer of Shakespeare must record these facts because the literary antiquaries have unearthed and brought them forward as new particulars of the life of Shakespeare. We hunger and receive these husks; we open our mouths for food and we break our teeth against these stones."

      Yes! The world has broken its teeth too long upon these stones to continue to mistake them for bread. And as the accomplished scholar and poetess the late Miss Anna Swanwick once declared to the writer, she knew nothing of the Bacon and Shakespeare controversy, but Mr. Sidney Lee's "Life of Shakespeare" had convinced her that his man never wrote the plays. And that is just what everybody else is saying at Eton, at Oxford, at Cambridge, in the Navy, in the Army, and pretty generally among unprejudiced people everywhere, who are satisfied, as is Mark Twain, that the most learned of works could not have been written by the most _un_learned of men.

      Yes! It does matter that the "Greatest Birth of Time" should no longer be considered to have been the work of the unlettered rustic of Stratford; and the hour has at last come when it should be universally known that this mighty work was written by the man who had taken all knowledge for his province, the man who said "I have, though in a despised weed [that is under a Pseudonym] procured the good of all men"; the man who left his "name and memory to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next ages."

      CHAPTER VII

      Bacon acknowledged to be a Poet.

      In discussing the question of the Authorship of the plays many people appear to be unaware that Bacon was considered by his contemporaries to be a great poet. It seems therefore advisable to quote a few witnesses who speak of his pre-eminence in poetry.

      In 1645 there was published "The Great Assises holden in Parnassus by

      Apollo and his assessours" a facsimile of the title of which is given on page 57. This work is anonymous but is usually ascribed to George

      Withers and in it Bacon as Lord Verulan is placed first and designated

      "Chancellor of Parnassus" that is "Greatest of Poets."

      After the title, the book commences with two pages of which facsimiles are given on pages 58, 59.

      [Illustration: Plate XVI. Facsimile Title Page]

      [Illustration: Plate XVII. Facsimile of Page III of "The Great Assises"]

      [Illustration: Plate XVIII Facsimile of Page IV of "The Great Assises"]

      Apollo appears at the top, next comes Lord Verulan as Chancellor of Parnassus, Sir Philip Sidney and other world renowned names follow and then below the line side by side is a list of the jurors and a list of the malefactors.

      A little examination will teach us that the jurors are really the same persons as the malefactors and that we ought to read right across the page as if the dividing line did not exist.

      Acting on this principle we perceive that George Wither [Withers] is correctly described as Mercurius Britanicus. Mr. Sidney Lee tells us that Withers regarded "Britain's Remembrancer" 1628 and "Prosopopaeia Britannica" 1648 as his greatest works.

      Thomas Cary [Carew] is correctly described as Mercurias Aulicus – Court

      Messenger. He went to the French Court with Lord Herbert and was made

      Gentleman of the Privy Chamber by Charles I who presented him with an estate at Sunninghill.

      Thomas May is correctly described as Mercurius Civicus. He applied for the post of Chronologer to the City of London and James I wrote to the Lord Mayor (unsuccessfully) in his favour.

      Josuah Sylvester is correctly described as The Writer of Diurnals. He translated Du Bartas "Divine Weekes," describing day by day, that is "Diurnally," the creation of the world.

      Georges Sandes [Sandys] is The Intelligencer. He travelled all over the world and his book of travels was one of the popular works of the period.

      Michael Drayton is The Writer of Occurrences. Besides the "Poly-Olbion," he wrote "England's Heroicall Epistles" and "The Barron's Wars."

      Francis Beaumont is The Writer of Passages. This exactly describes him as he is known as writing in conjunction with Fletcher. "Beamount and Fletcher make one poet, they single dare not adventure on a play."

      William Shakespeere is "The writer of weekely accounts." This exactly describes him, for the only literature for which he was responsible was the accounts sent out by his clerk or attorney.

      Turning over the pages of the little book on page 9 the cryer calls out "Then Sylvester, Sands, Drayton, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, Shakespeare (sic) and Heywood, Poets good and true." This statement seems to be contradicted so far as Shakespeare is concerned by the defendant who says on page 31 "Shakespear's (sic) a mimicke" (that is a mere actor not a poet).

           "Beamount and Fletcher make one poet, they

            Single, dare not adventure on a play."

      Each of these statements seems to be true. And on Page 33

      Apollo4 says

           "We should to thy exception give consent

            But since we are assur'd, 'tis thy intent,

            By this refusall, onely to deferre

            That censure, which our justice must conferre

            Upon thy merits; we must needs decline

            From approbation of these pleas of thine."

      That is, Apollo admits that Shakespeare is not a poet but a "mimic," the word to which I called your attention in the "Return from Parnassus" in relation to "this mimick apes." In this little book Shakespeare's name occurs three times, and on each occasion is spelled differently.

      This clear statement that the actor Shakespeare was not a poet but only a tradesman who sent out his "weekly accounts" is, I think, here for the first time pointed out. It seems very difficult to conceive of a much higher testimony to Bacon's pre-eminence in poetry than the fact that he is placed as "Chancellor of Parnassus" under Apollo. But a still higher position is accorded to him when it is suggested that Apollo feared that he himself should lose his crown which would be placed on Bacon's head.

      Walter Begbie in "Is it Shakespeare?" 1903, p. 274, tells us: – That Thomas Randolf, in Latin verses published in 1640 but probably written some 14 years earlier says that Phoebus was accessory to Bacon's death because he was afraid lest Bacon should some day come to be crowned King of poetry or the Muses. Farther on the same writer declares that as Bacon "was himself a singer" he did not need to be celebrated in song by others, and that George Herbert calls Bacon the colleague of Sol [Phoebus Apollo].

      George Herbert was himself a dramatic poet and Bacon dedicated his "Translation of the Psalms" to him "who has overlooked so many of my works."

      Mr. Begbie also tells us that Thomas Campion addresses Bacon thus "Whether the thorny volume of the Law or the Schools or the Sweet Muse allure thee."

      It may be worth while here to quote the similar testimony which is borne by John Davies of Hereford who in his "Scourge of Folly" published about 1610, writes

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