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The Mystery of William Shakespeare, a Summary of Evidence

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The Mystery of William Shakespeare, a Summary of Evidence THE.Mystery of William Shakespeare A SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE BY HIS HONOUR JUDGE WEBB SOMETIME FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF LAWS AND PUBLIC ORATOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN § LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1902 Printed at the By Ponsonby <i Weldrick. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOu.,. SAINTA BARBARA \J3 PAGE Proem ...... I Of the Tzvo SJiakespcrian Problems 5 i Of the Unity of Shakespeare 19 ii Of the ScholarsJiip of Shakespeare 32 V Of the Identity of Shakespeare • 52 V Of Shakespeare and the Two Players 79 vi Of Shakespeare and Ben fonson . 103 vii Of Shakespeare as a Lazvyer 140 viii Of Shakespeare as a Alan of Science 170 ix Of certain Plays of Shakespeare • 199 X Of the Concbision of the wiiole Matter • 232 Appendix—Notes .... 251 Ijtdex ...... 283 ERRATA Page 142, note, for 'Letters of Apology'' read ' Letter of Apology \ and for^ i^G-j, 1568, 1569' read'i^<)~, 1598, and 1599'. y^;- ,, 206, 'Declarations', ;-c^(/ 'Declaration'. ,, 22!\, for 'Dick Hatteraick' read 'Dirk Hatteraick'. ,, 254,/c;- 'Wincot and Clement Parkes ', read • AVoncot and Clement Perkes'. Proem OF late years a number of valuable and interest- ing* works on the subject of Shakespeare have issued from the press. With an industry which nothing could exhaust, and a research which nothing could escape, Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps has furnished us in his Outlines with ' an authentic collection of all the known facts respecting the personal and literaryhistory of the great dramatist.' Mr. Sidney Lee, who, in his Life of ShakespearCy for the moment, has superseded Mr. Phillipps in popular regard, has given us a most interesting account of the Elizabethan Sonneteers, and has shown, in opposition to the received opinion, that the Sonnets of Shakespeare were addressed to Lord Southampton. Mr. Wyndham, amid his preoccupations as a politician, has found time to publish an edition of Shakespeare's Poems, in which he too has given us a valuable reading on B 2 Proem the Sonnets, and, differing from Mr. Lee, regards them as addressed to the young lord who was after- wards the Earl of Pembroke. Mr. Castle, one of His Majesty's Counsel, in his Study, has followed the footsteps and completed the work of Lord Campbell on the legal acquirements of Shakespeare, and has advanced a novel and ingenious theory on the subject. Mr. Justice Madden, the Vice- Chancellor of the University of Dublin, claims to have discovered the ' distinctive note ' of * the workmanship of Shakespeare,' and, in his Diary of Master William Silence^ has interwoven the Poet's allusions to Elizabethan sport in a romance which in point of interest may be compared to Queenkoo-Hall, as animated by the magic wand of Scott. And, last and not least, Mr. Swinburne, in his Study of Shakespeare has shown the laborious and elaborate revision to which the Shakespearian Plays were subjected by their author, and has for ever dispelled the notion that the great Poet was insensible to the value of his writings, and indifferent to their fate. The Critical Study of the Professor of Literature in the University of Dublin, after a lapse of thirty years, retains its popularity as an analysis of the ' Mind and Art ' of the great Dramatist ; but the works which have been mentioned justify, if the}^ do Pro em not necessitate, a reconsideration of the notions which we are accustomed to entertain of Shakespeare. Nor can we overlook the obligations under which America has laid us in the discussion of all Shake- spearian questions. Judge Holmes, Mr. Donnelly, and Mr. Reed have received but scant considera- tion from the accredited organs of opinion on this side of the Atlantic, but the services which these distinguished writers have rendered to the literature of the subject cannot be ignored. Their prede- cessors, from the time of Farmer, had confined their attention to the discovery of parallelisms between the works of Shakespeare and the works of the Ancients. The American writers, on the contrary, have directed their efforts, with remark- able success, to the discovery of parallelisms between the works of Shakespeare and the acknow- ledged works of Bacon ; and If they have not succeeded In convincing the world that Bacon and Shakespeare were really one, they have given a powerful stimulus to the study of two of the greatest men that the world has ever seen, if we are still to consider them as two. Moreover, it is not merely the question of the Identity of Shakespeare which Is Involved in the discussions which they have raised. These discussions Involve the question of his Unity, the question of the extent of his Authorship, and B 2 4 Proem above all the question whether in the received text we possess his writings ' cur'd and perfect ' of their limbs ' and absolute in their numbers as he conceived them.' In spite of all that has been written, there is a vague feeling of unrest as to Shakespeare in the public mind ; and a new study on the subject may, perhaps, be welcomed. Whoever the great dramatist was, we can form no adequate concep- tion of his mind ; but what Lord Rosebery says of Napoleon is equally true of Shakespeare. Man- kind will always delight to scrutinise something that indefinitely raises its conceptions of its own powers and possibilities, and will seek, though eternally in vain, to penetrate the secret of this. prodigious intellect. Of the Two Shakespearian Problems is strange that, in discussing- Shakespearian IT questions, we must commence with the discus- sion of a name. In the time of Elizabeth, the name Shakespeare, under which the Shakespearian works were published, was to be found, as Mr. Phillipps tells us, in every part of England. In Warwick- shire, as appears from contemporary records, the name was spelt in some twenty or thirty different ways, all of them, however, pronounced as Shaxpere —a form which it frequently assumed. In the case of the Stratford family the name ultimately crystallised into Shakspere. This is shown by the extracts from the Stratford Register, which Mr. Phillipps has given in his Outlines {\\. 51), and by the facsimiles with which Mr. Lee has ornamented the Library Edition of his Life. The Parish Register of Stratford contains an entry of every event in the domestic life of its famous townsman, and his name appears as Shakspere in the entries of his bap- tism (p. 8), of the baptism of his first child (p. 21), 6 Of the Two Shakespearian Problems of the baptism of his twins (p. 23), of the burial of his only son (p. 149), of the marriage of his elder daughter (p. 216), of the marriage of his younger daughter (p. 219), and of the burial of himself (p. 221). As every one knows, the only specimens of his handwriting that we possess are the two signatures to the deeds which he executed in 16 1 2, the three signatures to the will which he executed in 1616, and the words * By me,' with which the will is vouched. The three signatures to the will are all but undecipherable, and three different opinions have been expressed as to what they reall}^ are ; but there can be no difference of opinion as to the signatures of the deeds, a tran- script of which is given by Mr. Phillipps (ii. 34, 36). In the body of the deeds, and in the delivery clause of each, the grantee is described by the drafts- man as Williain Shakespeare, but when the grantee comes to execute the instruments he does not recognise that form of the name, but signs him- self William Shakspere. To this spelling, accord- ing to Mr. Hallam, there are no exceptions in his autographs, and Mr. Spedding, in his observations on the Northumberland Papers, gives expression to the same opinion. Accordingly, Mr. Coleridge, Professor Dowden, and Mr. Boas adopt the spelling of the owner of the name, while Mr. Swinburne ' * rejects the new Shakspere ' as .r? novics hoiiio^ with whom he has no desire to be acquainted (p. 256). It may be thought that as long as we ; Of the Two Shakespearian Problems 7 have the Sonnets, the Poems, and the Plays of Shakespeare, it Is idle to dispute about a name but here the dispute about the name involves a dispute about the man. The Legitimist spells an equally famous name as BtLonaparte to intimate that Napoleon was an Italian, while the Imperialist spell it Bonaparte to indicate that he was French ; and in a somewhat similar way there is a school of critics who employ the word Shakspere to designate the Stratford Player, and reserve the word Shake- speare to designate the eminent person whom they regard as the Author of the Plays. The world has refused to make any such dis- tinction. For well nigh three hundred years it has identified the Player with the Playwright. The feel- ing with which he is regarded has been consecrated by authority, and has become venerable by the lapse of time. Admiration has risen to reverence, and reverence has been exalted into worship, and the Shakspere cult has overspread the world. Stratford- on-Avon has been converted into a literary Mecca, and thirty thousand pilgrims annually visit its Parish Church as their Caaba. And yet it is wonderful how little we know of the man we venerate so much ; Mr. Hallam., indeed, In his History of Literature, declares that we know scarcely anything at all. From his baptism In 1564 to his marriage in 1582 we have no record of his existence.
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