Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

1608; the event on which the story is founded did not happen until 1604; and although there may be no decisive reasons, grounded on internal evidence merely, why it may not have been a careless and hasty production of this author, it is difficult to believe that he could have produced such a play at about the same time that he was writing the "Hamlet," the "Lear," the "Macbeth," and the "Julius Cæsar." The best judges concur in rejecting it as not written by him.

The London Prodigal" was published in 1605, as played by the "King's Majesty's Servants" of the Globe, and as written by William Shakespeare; but Malone, Knight, and White reject it altogether. And of the other three, while it appears that one of them, the "Lord Cromwell," was performed by his company, the evidence is still more satisfactory, that they were all written by some other person, and probably by William Smith. Concerning the other list, the evidence is more uncertain; but while some critics have believed that Shakespeare might have written at least some of them, the weight of fact and opinion is pretty decidedly against them all.

On the whole, it would seem to be very certain that plays were published in his name, in his own time, of which he was not the author. Nor does it appear that he ever took the least trouble to prevent this unwarrantable use of his name: no denial, or other vindication of his reputation, has come down to us. We know that it was not an unusual thing, in those days, for "sharking booksellers" to set a great name to a book "for sale-sake." The name of Sir Philip Sidney was used in this manner, and even that of Shakespeare was set to Heywood's translation of Ovid, by Jaggard, in 1612; but Mr. Halliwell finds some intimation, coming from Heywood himself, that Shakespeare was "much offended" with Jaggard for this liberty with his name: it is more probable, in this instance, that Heywood would be the most offended man of the two. It may be

taken as sufficiently established, that this good-natured actor and manager was in the habit of publishing, or suffering to be published, in his name or initials, the plays which were owned by his theatre, as they were produced on the stage, of some of which it is well ascertained that he was not the author; that he was not particular about shining thus in borrowed feathers; that he never took the least care of his reputation as an author, either before or after his retiring from the stage; and so, that the simple fact, that the plays and poems appeared under his name, and being reputed to be his, in his own time, so passed into the traditional myth, must lose nearly all force of evidence as touching the question of the real authorship. In a word, he was just such a character as would naturally be hit upon as a convenient and necessary cover for an aspiring and prolific genius, an irrepressible wit, a poetic imaginator, a man of all knowledge, classical learning, and a world-wide soul, who was at the same time ambitious of promotion in the state, in which direction lay the plan of his life, though never basely obsequious to power withal (as some have imagined), still suf fering by neglect and "the meanness of his estate," soliciting in vain, lacking advancement, and "eating the air, promise-crammed"; and who had determined to "profess not to be a poet," but felt that he had a mission beyond the exigencies of the hour, and what is more, that his light must shine, though he should conceal his name in a cloud, "And keep invention in a noted weed."

Sonnet lxxvi.

But if any one shall deem it necessary to assign some of these doubtful plays to this author, he will consider that this argument loses nothing in strength or force on that account. Between the time of Bacon's becoming an utter barrister of Gray's Inn, in 1582, and the publication of the "Venus and Adonis," there was a period of ten years, in which a number of such plays may much better have been written by him. than by William Shakespeare. They were not admitted

[ocr errors]

into the Folio of 1623; the editors, whether Heming and Condell, or some other, either knew them to be spurious, or rejected them as youthful and inferior productions, and as unworthy to take a place among the greater works of the author before the tribunal of posterity; and all critics seem to concur in that opinion of their relative merit. It may have been for the same reason that the "Pericles" was not included in the Folio, though undoubtedly a work of this author. It is quite possible, however, that the copyright had been sold, and could not be regained. The play appears to have been founded upon a very ancient and popular tale, and it is highly probable that it was an early work, though by no means a weak or an immature production. The best critics seem to agree that it had been retouched by the hand of the master in his better style before it was brought out anew in 1607-8, and printed in 1609, as "the late and much admired play called Pericles, Prince of Tyre,'” and as it hath been divers and sundry times acted by his Majesty's Servants at the Globe on the Banckside," with the name of William Shakespeare on the title-page. The text (say Harness and White) is very corrupt and full of errors; and the reason of this may lay precisely in the fact that it was not revised by the real editor of the Folio, nor printed under his supervision. The story is more ancient than the time and countries in which the scene is laid. It is a deeply interesting and touching dramatic romance, as addressed not to modern rose-water criticism merely, but to the human heart of the world's theatre, and rather as it was in the ancient than in the modern times; and the spirit of the Greek drama, and even much of the touching simplicity of the tales of the Odyssey, is preserved in it. The first scene of the fifth act, in particular, bears a close resemblance to the style and manner of the dramatic dialogue of Euripides. So, likewise, the "Titus Andronicus' is, in some points of substance rather than in the form, a near imitation of the more serious Greek tragedy; and it

[ocr errors]

furnishes indubitable evidence that the author was familiar with the ancient drama. The main topics of this history of the Prince of Tyre afford occasion, also, for those profound exhibitions of human nature in the opposite extremes of vice and virtue which came within the range of this author's studies. And after a manner which is at least not improbable for the younger hand of Francis Bacon, who, throughout his life, held knowledge and virtue to be superior to riches; who, in his youth, had taken all knowledge to be his province, and, as he said himself, "rather referred and aspired to virtue than to gain ;" who pursued that immortality which makes a man a god, confessing he was by nature "fitter to hold a book than play a part"; and who made a study of all arts, and was particularly curious in his investigations into the medicinal virtues. of plants and minerals, as well as into all the hidden mysteries of Nature, being also much in the habit of turning over authorities; Lord Cerimon speaks thus in the "Pericles":

"I held it ever,

Virtue and cunning were endowments greater
Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs

May the two latter darken and expend;

But immortality attends the former,
Making a man a god. 'T is known I ever
Have studied physic, through which secret art,
By turning o'er authorities, I have
(Together with my practice) made familiar
To me and to my aid the blest infusions
That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones;

And I can speak of the disturbances

That Nature works, and of her cures; which gives
A more content in course of true delight

Than to be thirsty after tottering honour,

Or tie my treasure up in silken bags,

To please the Fool and Death.". -Act III. Sc. 2.

1 Letter to Egerton.

§ 8. THE AUTHOR'S ATTAINMENTS.

It will be unnecessary to undertake to demonstrate at large herein, from the internal evidence contained in the plays themselves, that their author was a classical scholar, was acquainted with several foreign languages, was an adept in natural science, was a lawyer by profession, was a profound metaphysical philosopher, and was in general a man of high and polished culture and extensive learning for his time in all branches of human knowledge, in addition to the largest amount of natural genius and intellectual power which may reasonably be allowed to any mortal. The most competent judges in these matters have so pronounced. The inference has been, not that any other man was in fact the author of these works (at least, until Miss Delia Bacon ventured so to declare1), but that the received biography of William Shakespeare was a myth and a mistake; and so the chief critics have proceeded to imagine for him some unwritten and unknown biography. But we shall have to accept the known personal history as at last the true account (in the main) of the man William Shakespeare. The later inquiries of modern scholars, the Shakespeare Society included, have ended only in rendering the supposition still more extravagant and absurd than it was before; for the results, which have been carefully summed up by Mr. Halliwell and later biographers, furnish no data on which the previous account of his life can be in any material degree modified in respect of this matter. the contrary, the new facts (such as are not forgeries) only concur with what was known before in representing him to us as a man whose heart and soul were more intent upon business, social affairs, and (what Lord Coke took to be the chief end of man) industrious money-getting, than upon. anything that pertained to the literary part of his profession. The essential problem still remains.

1 Phil. of Shakes. Plays Unfolded. Boston, 1857.

On

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »