23 CHAPTER IV. THE BACONIAN THEORY. "I had rather be a tick in a sheep, than such a valiant ignorance." TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. THERE is nothing more remarkable in the annals of English literature than the vicissitudes that have attended both the fame and the writings of Shakespeare. During the Great Rebellion that broke out soon after his death, the Puritans endeavoured to root out the stage from among the institutions of the country, and to obliterate all traces of dramatic literature. Not only were the writings of Shakespeare and those of his contemporaries, sought out and destroyed, but his character was libelled, and his fair fame assailed. Then came the adapters and mutilators of every kind, and various denominations. Some cut down, others amended; some struck out a scene, others annihilated a character. Improvement of Shakespeare was their great canon of criticism. According to the general idea, he had become famous by accident, and grew a poet in his own despite. Schlegel in Germany, and Coleridge in this country, first instituted a more genial kind of criticism, and succeeded in restoring Shakespeare to the pedestal from which he had been unjustly displaced. "Let me now proceed," says Coleridge, "to destroy, as far as may be in my power, the popular notion that he was a great dramatist by mere instinct, that he grew immortal in his own despite, and sank below men of second or third-rate power, when he attempted aught beside the drama-even as bees construct their cells and manufacture their honey to admirable perfection; but would in vain attempt to build a nest. Now this mode of reconciling a compelled sense of inferiority with a feeling of pride, began in a few pedants, who having read that Sophocles was the great model of tragedy, and Aristotle the infallible dictator of its rules, and finding that the Lear, Hamlet, Othello, and other masterpieces, were neither in imitation of Sophocles, nor in obedience to Aristotle, and not having (with one or two exceptions) the courage to affirm, that the delight which their country received from generation to generation, in defiance of the alterations of circumstances and habits, was wholly groundless,-took upon them, as a happy medium and refuge, to talk of Shakspeare as a sort of beautiful lusus naturæ, a delightful monster,-wild, indeed, and without taste or judgment, but, like the inspired idiots so much venerated in the East, uttering, amid the strangest follies, the sublimest truths. In nine places out of ten in which I find his awful name mentioned, it is with some epithet of 'wild,' 'irregular,' 'pure child of nature,' &c. If all this be true, we must submit to it; though to a thinking mind it cannot but be painful to find any excellence, merely human, thrown out of all human analogy, and thereby leaving us neither rules for imitation, nor motives to imitate;—but if false, it is a dangerous falsehood; for it affords a refuge to secret self-conceit, enables a vain man at once to escape his reader's indignation by general swollen panegyrics, and merely by his ipse dixit to treat as contemptible, what he has not intellect enough to comprehend, or soul to feel, without assigning any reason, or referring his opinion to any demonstrative principle;-thus leaving Shakspeare as a sort of grand Lama, adored indeed, and his very excrements prized as relics, but with no authority or real influence. I grieve that every late voluminous edition of his works would enable me to substantiate the present charge with a variety of facts, one-tenth of which would of themselves exhaust the time allotted to me. Every critic, who has or has not made a collection of black-letter books-in itself a useful and respectable amusement-puts on the seven-league boots of self-opinion, and strides at once from an illustrator into a supreme judge, and, blind and deaf, fills his three-ounce phial at the waters of Niagara; and determines positively the greatness of the cataract to be neither more nor less than his three-ounce phial has been able to receive." His character, like his dramas, was assailed in every possible manner. He was said to have been a papist, a bad husband, a drunkard. Yet no sooner was a rigorous investigation instituted, than the scales began to fall from the eyes of the critics. He whom they had all made their butt, came out of the ordeal unscathed; and at length it was established in the most satisfactory manner, that the life and conduct of this glorious genius were as fully entitled to respectful admiration as his works. Both life and writings were found to be in all respects worthy of a great soul-of a king amongst mankind. On broad and substantial grounds he has become an object of veneration to the majority of Englishmen, as well as to thousands of kindreds and countries, who have learned, in his own expressive language, to believe that "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," when Mr. William Henry Smith starts his new theory, which we have not the slightest hesitation in denouncing as the most infamous and wanton attack that has yet been made, either at home or abroad, by insidious or avowed enemy, upon his reputation. Innovators and their admirers would doubtless claim merciful and lenient treatment for this assailant of Shake speare and Bacon. Has he dealt tenderly with them? has he respected their reputations? If what he advances be correct, is not Shakespeare branded as a cheat and an impostor ?-does not another stain fall on the escutcheon of the lord of St. Alban? That criticism alone can be honest which is fearless, and shrinks not from calling things by their right names. Mr. William Henry Smith declares Shakespeare to be a rank impostor; and we say, without fear of contradiction, that such an accusation ought to have been accompanied by proofs. It is neither a light nor a trivial charge that he has brought against the Bard of Avon; it is one which no man of delicate and refined feelings would have advanced against the meanest of his fellows, unless able to substantiate it by proofs that nothing could shake. The literary merits of Shakespeare afford a fair and legitimate field for criticism and discussion-his private character ought to be sacred from attack. Mr. William Henry Smith tells us, in the coolest manner possible, that Shakespeare did not write one of the dramas which he palmed off upon his contemporaries and posterity, and that he was content to strut in "borrowed plumes." To prop up an assertion so rash, he does not adduce one iota of evidence: on a bare surmise, he would consign to eternal infamy the two names that stand first in the roll of England's great spirits. Are we, then, to spare one who shows no mercy towards others--to crouch before a critic who scatters calumnies at hazard? It is this weak toleration of every new folly and absurdity, to use the mildest terms, that has filled our literature with false forms, raised up erroneous standards, and given a certain semblance of importance to a mushroom class of writers, who, although they make a stir now, will be surely overwhelmed by the advancing tide of time, and be as speedily forgotten. It would be easy to show from Bacon's writings, his position, his failures in poetical composition, and many collateral circumstances, that he did not write the dramas of Shakespeare; but in this inquiry we intend to take higher ground. Were Bacon's claim disposed of, Mr. William Henry Smith would probably look about for another candidate, or perhaps assert, as some have, we believe, hinted, that these inimitable compositions were produced by a dramatic manufacturing company, formed upon the soundest principles, with limited liability. We hope, therefore, after disposing of his wretched pamphlet, with its theories and its calumnies, to adduce proofs—incontestable proofs-sufficient so satisfy any reasonable man, that Shakespeare's claim to be regarded as the author of the dramas that bear his name cannot be for one moment disputed it is clear and unassailable, established as certainly as any fact in our literary annals, and never ought to have been called in question. The new theory is artfully introduced; and in order to pave the way for its reception, the principal events in the life of the poet are summed up in the most partial manner. The reader will perceive that such is the case from the following table, in which Mr. William Henry Smith's summary of what he would have the world suppose to be known respecting Shakespeare and his family, and the facts established by recent researches, are placed in opposite columns. Mr. William Henry Smith's re "It will be desirable, in the first instance, to bring together the best-established facts specting the family and conduct of Shakespeare, whose history, disconnected from his plays, is as ordinary and intelligible as can possibly be. His father, a humble tradesman at Stratfordupon-Avon, by patient industry and perseverance conciliated the respect and regard of his fellowtownsmen; and being admitted a member of the Corporation, rose, through the offices of Aletaster, Constable, and Chamberlain, to that of Alderman and Bailiff, and became, consequently, Facts established by the latest investigations. 66 the Richard Shakespeare, poet's grandfather, was a holder of land; and "thus," says Halliwell, we find the poet of nature rising where we would wish to find him rise, from the inhabitants of the valley and woodland, carrying in his blood the impress of the healthiest and most virtuous class possessed in these days by England." John Shakespeare, the poet's father, took up his residence at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1551. As early as 1556, he became the holder of two copyhold estates, and in 1557 married Mary Arden, the daughter of a landed pro |