insensibility to the allurements of fame induced William Shakespeare to do? It was not to bury himself in obscurity, or to take the profit arising from certain plays, leaving the glory to another, but actually to appropriate to himself the credit of having penned the masterpieces of our dramatic literature, which credit belonged by right to Francis Bacon. It must not be forgotten that the merit of these dramas was recognized in the days of Bacon and Shakespeare. Everybody possessed of a particle of common sense or discernment understood that they were immeasurably superior to anything in our language, in fact, to all compositions of the kind in universal literature. The man, "careless of fame, intent upon moneygetting," filches the former and relinquishes the gains without compunction. "Careless of fame," he wraps himself in the mantle of Bacon's reputation; "intent upon money-getting," he perpetrates this great wrong, in order to replenish Bacon's exhausted treasury. "Careless of fame," he receives the homage, to which he was by no means entitled, of poets, statesmen, and crowned heads; "intent upon money-getting," he hands over the cash to Francis Bacon. Admiring audiences, enraptured students, patrons of learning and literature, pay tribute after tribute to his genius, and William Shakespeare receives them, and allows the press to pour forth edition after edition of particular plays, of which the authorship was assigned to him, without uttering a word of remonstrance, while the noble intellect that produced these masterpieces pined in comparative obscurity.

Reasoning more absurd never appeared in print; Mr. William Henry Smith actually endeavours to draw from these facts a conclusion diametrically opposed to the one they naturally convey. It is obvious that had Shakespeare done as this sagacious critic insinuates, he would have shown himself greedy of fame, and careless as to the

* Pamphlet, p. 6.

reward. Had he permitted one of his contemporaries to take the credit of having written his dramas, in return for pecuniary satisfaction, he must then have pleaded guilty to the imputation of having been "careless of fame, intent upon money-getting; but this is not the charge Mr. William Henry Smith wishes to fix upon him; and this over clever disputant has argued upon false premises and come to an opposite conclusion to the one which he wished to establish. In fact he has lost himself in a maze, and while seeking to show that Shakespeare was "careless of fame and intent upon money-getting," has, if his arguments are to be regarded as trustworthy, proved the very contrary.

In order to afford Mr. William Henry Smith every possible advantage, we append the view taken of his pamphlet in the communication of an intelligent though over-credulous correspondent of "Notes and Queries." This writer says: "As your correspondent has furnished a somewhat striking coincidence* between an expression of Shak

to.

* The following is the "somewhat striking coincidence" alluded

"In the play of Henry V., Act iii. Sc. iii., occurs the following line:

'The gates of mercy shall be all shut up.'

And again in Henry VI. :—

'Open the gate of mercy, gracious Lord!'

"Sir Francis Bacon uses the same idea in a letter written to King James a few days after the death of Shakspeare:-'And therefore, in conclusion, he wished him (the Earl of Somerset) not to shut the gate of your majesty's mercy against himself by being obdurate any longer.' 198

This, at the most, can only prove that Bacon took the expression from Shakespeare. Henry V. was printed in 1600, and this letter was written as late as 1616. It is probable that both authors got the idea from the Bible, in which "gate of the Lord," "gate of righteousness," and similar terms, frequently occur.

Notes and Queries, Second Series, No 40, p. 267.

speare and a passage of a letter written by Lord Bacon, it may be worth while to preserve in 'N. and Q.' a summary of Mr. W. H. Smith's argument on the point in question. He contends: 1. That the character of Shakspeare, as sketched by Pope, is the exact biography of Bacon. 2. That Bacon possessed dramatic talent to a high degree, and could, according to his biographers, assume the most different characters, and speak the language proper to each with a facility that was perfectly natural.' 3. That he wrote and assisted at bal-masques, and was the intimate friend of Lord Southampton, the acknowledged patron of Shakspeare. 4. That the first

folio of 1623 was not published till Bacon had been driven to private life, and had leisure to revise his literary works; and that as he was obliged to raise money by almost any means, it is at least probable that he did so by writing plays. 5. That Shakspeare was a man of business rather than poetry, and acknowledged his poems and sonnets, but never laid claim to the plays."

This is, after all, as good a summary as can be given of the wretched arguments upon which Mr. William Henry Smith bases his new, preposterous, and altogether untenable theory. They may be dismissed in a few sentences. 1. Shakespeare's character could not possibly be the biography of another man. 2. Bacon's ability for dramatic composition cannot be accepted as a proof that he wrote plays to the authorship of which he never laid claim, and which were attributed to, and acknowledged by, one of his contemporaries. 3. Lord Southampton, the friend of Shakespeare and Bacon, is, as we shall see more fully in another chapter, a witness against Mr. William Henry Smith and his theory. 4. Bacon's leisure and want of funds will never justify even the suspicion that he wrote the plays of Shakespeare. 5. The assertion that Shakespeare was a man of business rather than poetry is directly

*Notes and Queries, Second Series, No. 45, p. 369.

at variance with the truth, as any person who has perused the "Venus and Adonis," "Lucrece," and the Sonnets, will at once admit. It is equally false to assert that Shakespeare did not claim the authorship of these dramas. He allowed them to be published with his name affixed to them, not denying his right to be regarded as their author, although he condemned the illegal manner in which copies had been obtained by greedy publishers; he received and accepted various and numerous tributes of commendation, not only from friends and associates, but even from statesmen and rulers; and he permitted bis contemporaries to give him the credit of having penned these inimitable productions without offering a remonstrance.

If these do not constitute a claim to their authorship, and one that cannot be upset, save by unimpeachable evidence, we should be glad to know upon what grounds we can attribute any works we may possess to any particular writer. If the summary of Mr. William Henry Smith's arguments is to be enshrined in "Notes and Queries,” or any other periodical published in the United Kingdom, let the refutation, which is simple enough, be placed at its side, that the younger wayfarers on the great highroads of learning may not be led astray, even for a moment, by what we cannot honour with a better term than the flimsiest productions of a disordered brain.

Mr. William Henry Smith quotes what he calls "these remarkable words," from Lord Bacon's will:— My name and memory I leave to foreign nations ; and to my own countrymen, after some time be passed over." That this passage contains no secret allusion to the authorship of Shakespeare's plays must be evident to any one acquainted with Lord Bacon's history. He merely expressed a hope that the lapse of time might set him right with posterity, and that the conduct which led to his dismissal from office, degradation, and amercement, might at some future day be regarded in a more favourable light. He trusted that the stain that blotted his lofty repu

tation, and somewhat tarnished the splendour of his deeds, might, after a short interval, be removed, and that his countrymen would some day consider him great in the true acceptation of the term. Moreover, Lord Bacon needed not the credit of having written the dramas of Shakespeare his renown is colossal; and of all Englishmen he has the least to gain by filching from the reputations of others.

Mr. William Henry Smith brings his pamphlet to a close with the following letter.

"To the Lord Viscount St. Alban.

"MOST HONOURED LORD.-I have received your great and noble token and favour of the 9th of April, and can but return the humblest of my thanks for your Lordship's vouchsafing so to visit this poorest and unworthiest of your servants. It doth me good at heart, that, although I be not where I was in place, yet I am in the fortune of your Lordship's favour, if I may call that fortune, which I observe to be so unchangeable. I pray hard, that it may once come in my power to serve you for it; and who can tell, but that, as fortis imaginatio generat casum, so strange desires may do as much? Sure I am, that mine are ever waiting on your Lordship; and wishing as much happiness, as is due to your incomparable virtue, I humbly do your Lordship reverence.

"Your Lordship's most obliged and humble servant "TOBIE MATTHEW. "POSTC.-The most prodigious wit, that ever I knew of my nation, and of this side of the sea, is of your Lordship's name, though he be known by another."

The Italics in the last line are Mr. William Henry Smith's; and although that gentleman does not condescend to offer note, comment, or explanation, either upon the epistle itself or its author, he evidently wishes his