FINAL NOTE

Multis annis iam transactisNulla fides est in pactisMell in ore Verba lactisffell in Corde ffraus in factis;

as to which Mr. Burgoyne points out that among the Tenison MSS. at Lambeth Palace is a letter from Rodolphe Bradley to Anthony Bacon in which he writes: “Your gracious speeches ... be the words of a faithfull friende, and not of a courtiour, who hathMel in ore et verba lactis, sed fel in corde et fraus in factis.”[95]

But the most interesting of these writings are those which refer to Shakespeare. In the right-hand column, somewhat below the centre, occurs the reference to a letter to the Queen’s Majesty “By Mr. ffrauncis Bacon.” Below this we read “Essaies by the same author.” Then the name “William Shakespeare,” with the word “Shakespear” just below, at the right-hand edge of the page. Then follows “Rychard the second,” with “ffrauncis” close under the word “second.” Then “Rychard the third.” Then, towards the bottom of the right-hand column, occurs the name “William Shakespeare” thrice repeated,[96]and besides this we find “Shakespeare,” “Shakespear,” “Shakespe,” “Shak” (several times), “Sh” (several times), “William,” “Will,” and so on; just as we find in other places “Mr. ffrauncis Bacon,” “Mr. Ffrauncis,” “ffrauncis,” “Bacon,” etc., several times repeated.

Upon this Mr. Spedding writes: “That Richard the second, and Richard the third, are meant for the titles ofShakespeare’splays so named, I infer from the fact—of which the evidence may be seen in thefacsimile—that the list of contents being now complete, the writer (or more probably another into whose possession the volume passed) has amused himself with writing down promiscuously the names and phrases that most ran in his head; and that among these the name ofWilliam Shakespearewas the most prominent, being written eight or nine times over for no other reason that can be discerned. That the name ofMr. Frauncis Bacon, which is also repeated several times, should have been used for the same kind of recreation requires no explanation; its position at the top of the page would naturally suggest it.”

But these are not the only Shakespearean references which we find on this remarkable page. About the centre occurs the word “honorificabiletudine,” a reminiscence of the “honorificicabilitudinitatibus” ofLove’s Labour’s Lost. And lower down in the left-hand column we have,

revealingday throughevery Cranypeepes and ...seeShak

which seems to be an imperfect reminiscence of the line inLucrece, “revealing day through every cranny spies,”[97]and is a very interesting contemporary notice of the poem which was first published in 1594 with the name “William Shakespeare” subscribed to the dedication addressed to the Earl of Southampton.

Here, then we have the names and the works of Shakespeare and Bacon brought into curiously close juxtaposition in (as it will presently be seen) a contemporary document. Here are speeches and Essays written by Bacon, and Plays by “William Shakespeare,” put together in the same volume (paceMr. Dowse), and we find some penman with these two names so much in his mind that he writes them both, either fully or in abbreviated form, many times over on the outside sheet of the paper book.

Now as to the date of these writings, Mr. Spedding states that he could find nothing, either in the “scribblings” or in what remains of the book itself, to indicate a date later than the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Burgoyne gives reasons for concluding that the manuscript was written not later than January, 1597, and he says “it seems more probable that no part of the manuscript was written after 1596.” There are several reasons for assigning this date to the work. One is that the outside list shows that the volume originally contained a copy of Bacon’s Essays. These—the ten short essays which appeared in the first edition—were published in January, 1597,[98]after having been extensively circulated in manuscript. After they were printed it is not likely that the expensive and imperfect method of copying in manuscript would have been resorted to.[99]Again the plays ofRichard IIandRichard IIIwere first printed in 1597, “and issued,” says Mr. Burgoyne, “at a published price of sixpence each.” After that date, therefore, it seems reasonable to suppose that they would not have been transcribed, or noted for transcription. It is not unimportant to remember that when they were first issued the name of Shakespeare was not on them. In the editions of 1598, however, the hyphenated name, “William Shake-speare,” appears on each, and this is the first appearance of that name on any play. Nash’s “Isle of Dogs” referred to in the outside list was produced at Henslowe’s theatre in 1597, but never printed. Of course all the contents of the volume may not have been written in one year, and it is impossible to fix the exact date of the scribblings. But if, as it appears only reasonable to believe, the Shakespearean plays were transcribed (or even only noted for transcription) before 1597, we have here references to “Shakespeare” as the author of these plays before his name had come before the public as a dramatic author at all, and more than a year before his name appeared on any title page; and, what is certainlyremarkable, we find this, at that time little known name closely associated with the name of Francis Bacon.

Who was the writer of the scribble? Mr. Dowse would identify him with John Davies of Hereford, who was born a year after Shakspere of Stratford and died two years after him. This John Davies was of Magdalen College, Oxford, a poet, and, says Mr. Dowse, “a competent scholar.” He took up penmanship as a calling, and “became the most famous teacher of his age; and he taught, not only in many noble and gentle families, but in the royal family itself, for in those days not even nobles and princes were ashamed to write well.” How we could wish that William Shakspere of Stratford had been among his pupils! But what is the evidence that Davies was “the Scribbler”? Let Mr. Dowse state it in his own words: “His numerous sonnets and other poems, as well as his many dedications, addressed to people of note, while friendly, are also respectful and manly (though he could neatly flatter): and their number shows the extent of the circle in which he moved. Within this circle, or rather a section of it, I felt myself to be, while dealing with the page of scribble; and that feeling has been amply justified out of the mouth, or rather by the pen of John Davies himself, for his Works show that he was directly and closely acquainted with nearly all the persons his contemporaries there mentioned; with some indeed he was friendly and familiar. The overwhelming evidence of this factis of itself sufficient to identify Davies as the scribbler” (p. 8).

This strikes one as rather curious logic. Davies was closely acquainted with nearly all the persons mentioned in “the page of scribble.”Ergo, Davies wrote the scribble!

I hardly think a judge would direct a jury to pay much attention to “evidence” of this description. I have no prepossessions whatever against John Davies of Hereford. I am perfectly willing to believe that he was “the scribbler”; but unless some better proof than this can be adduced, I fear we must regard Mr. Dowse’s theory as mere hypothesis. However, Mr. Dowse tells us that he has other evidence. He refers to Davies’s “Dedicatory and Consolatory Epistle,” addressed to the ninth Earl of Northumberland, which is to be found in the Grenville Library at the British Museum. This, he says, is “with some verbal exceptions written in Davies’s beautiful court-hand.” And he further tells us that “no one who has studied the scribble and then turns to that ‘Consolatory Epistle’ can fail to recognise the same hand at a glance.” Here I am not competent to express an opinion, for I have not examined the Epistle in question, nor have I seen the original of the Northumberland MS., and even if I had inspected both I fear I should be in no better case, for nothing is more dangerous than this identification by comparison of handwriting. Anyone who has served an apprenticeship at the Bar knows how perilous it is to trust to the evidence of “expert witnesses” in this matter. I well remember a case in which the two most famous handwriting experts of their day, in this country at any rate,Messrs. Inglis and Netherclift, swore point blank one against the other, with equal confidence as to certain disputed handwriting, so that the judge felt constrained to tell the jury that they must leave the “expert evidence” out of the question altogether. In the Dreyfus case too, the experts, the renowned M. Bertillon included, seem to have come utterly to grief. One is reminded of the Judge’s famous categories of “liars,” viz., “liars, damned liars, and expert witnesses!” Therefore I think it well to cultivate a little healthy scepticism when Mr. Dowse identifies “at a glance” John Davies’s “beautiful court-hand” with the scribble of the Northumberland MS. Mr. Dowse quotes Thomas Fuller to the effect that “John Davies was the greatest master of the pen that England in his age, beheld”; and goes on to say: “His merits are summarized under the heads of rapidity, beauty, compactness, andvariety of styles; which last he so mixed that he made them appear a hundred!” I think one ought to be more than ordinarily cautious in judging of the handwriting of a man who had a hundred different styles. Yet Mr. Dowse undertakes to tell us which of the entries on the outer leaf of the volume are by John Davies, and which by somebody else! I repeat I am quite willing to accept John Davies as the scribbler, but I fear that at present I must regard the hypothesis as “not proven.” I fear Mr. Dowse may have been a little too anxious to find the verification of his preconceived opinion, on his “first scrutiny of Spedding’s facsimile,” that Davies was the man who wrote the scribble. However the fact thatDavies seems to have been for some years in the service of Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland, as teacher of his family (that is, I presume mainly as writing master[100]), and possibly as copyist lends some probability to Mr. Dowse’s surmise.

Mr. Dowse speaks in very bitter terms of Francis Bacon, perhaps unconsciously allowing his bitterness to be accentuated (as we so often find to be the case) by his abhorrence of the Baconian theory of authorship. It is, at any rate, so strong as to lead him into criticism so obviously, and indeed absurdly, unfair as to carry its own refutation with it, and to impair very seriously the value of the critic’s judgment. He assumes that Davies wrote the words “Anthony Comfort, and Consorte,” though why the writing master, who was, according to the hypothesis, in the service of the Earl of Northumberland at the time, should have made this entry it is rather difficult to conjecture. However, says Mr. Dowse, it “shows that he was aware of the relations subsisting between the two brothers—that Anthony was the companion and support of Francis the spendthrift, whom to keep out of prison he impoverished himself, and then did not succeed.It also suggests a rebuke of the toadyism of Francis in selecting and,more suo, grossly flattering the terrible old termagant on the throne as the ‘worthiest person’ in preference to such a brother.” When we remember that “the praise of his soveraigne” was, with the other speeches, written in 1592, to be spoken at aDevicepresented by Essex before Elizabeth (the idea being, of course, to conciliate the Queen in favour of Essex, and the very fact of Bacon’s authorship being concealed), the suggestion that Davies had in his mind to rebuke Bacon for his “toadyism” because of this purely dramatic performance is, I submit, sufficiently absurd. But that is far from being the worst. I make no complaint whatever that Mr. Dowse will have nothing at all to do with Spedding’s attempted vindication of Bacon in the matter of Essex, or that he will make no allowance whatever for the exigencies of Bacon’s position as counsel in the service of the Crown. Everyone has the right to form his own opinion upon that, as upon other matters of historical controversy. But, says Mr. Dowse, in view of the sentiments which Davies entertained with regard to the families of Northumberland and Essex, “we can imagine how he would feel towards those who were instrumental in bringing Essex to the block.... The man that did more than anyone else towards securing the death of Essex was Francis Bacon, but the MS. was planned, and probably in great part executed, before that repulsive procedure, or the contents might have been very different.” In plain English, Davies, the assumed writer of the scribble, must, after the Essex affair,have felt nothing but hatred and scorn for Francis Bacon, and had Essex’s death taken place before this manuscript was planned, and (probably) in great part executed, “the contents might have been very different”; the meaning of which is, I suppose, either that Bacon’s works would have been omitted altogether, or that the writer would have put on record “a bit of his mind” with regard to the author. But it so happens that some years after this, viz., about 1610, Davies published, in hisScourge of Folly, a sonnet addressed to Bacon in which he speaks of him in highly eulogistic terms. How does Mr. Dowse explain this? I will place his remarks before the reader, and afterwards quote the sonnet in full, and then ask judgment on this very remarkable style of anti-Baconian criticism. “It seems,” writes Mr. Dowse, “that Bacon had recently made him (Davies) a present of money, or more probably had paid him lavishly for some assistance. But the poet’s gratitude takes a singular form:

Thybounty, and the beauty of thy WittCompellsmy pen to let fall shining ink!

Further on he speaks of Bacon ‘keeping the Muse’s companyfor sporttwixt grave affairs’—an apology for Bacon’s amateur verses.”

Now, first of all be it observed that the italics and the note of admiration in the above quotations are Mr. Dowse’s own contribution.[101]And whatis the suggestion, again to put it into plain English? It is that Davies, though in his heart regarding Bacon with contempt and abhorrence, had accepted a large sum of money from him, and therefore feltcompelled, however reluctantly, to write a poem in his honour! Observe that Mr. Dowse in other places speaks of Davies in the highest terms, and cites him as a witness of unimpeachable honesty and honour in favour of Shakspere, player and author. Yet he allows his bitter feelings against Bacon to carry him so far that rather than recognise what must be plain to every impartial reader, viz., that Davies was writingex animoas a friend and admirer of Bacon, he would have us believe, in vilification of his own witness, that the poet was induced by filthy lucre to write entirely insincere, and, therefore, particularly nauseous flattery of a man whom he hated and despised!

And now I will set before the reader the sonnetin extenso(preserving the italics as in the original), and ask him whether there is any possible reason to suppose that it is not an honest expression of the writer’s genuine admiration for Bacon:

To the royall, ingenious, and all learned Knight, Sir Francis Bacon.

Thybountyand theBeautyof thy WittComprisd in Lists ofLawand learnedArts,Each making thee for greatImploymentfittWhich now thou hast (though short of thy deserts)Compells my pen to let fall shiningInkeAnd to bedew theBaiesthatdeckthyFront;And to thy health inHeliconto drinkeAs to herBellamourtheMuseis wont:For, thou dost her embozom; and dost useHer company for sport twixt grave affaires:So utterst Law the livelyer through thyMuse.And for that all thyNotesare sweetestAires;My Muse thus notes thy worth in ev’ry Line,With yncke which thus she sugers; so to shine.

Now this “sugred sonnet” is I think a very remarkable one. Considering the inflated style in use for laudatory poems of the time, it is written in singularly moderate language, and I think no reader, after considering it as a whole, could possibly put upon it the malignant construction suggested by Mr. Dowse, unless his judgment be warped by very bitter prejudice. But it is not only an honest eulogy of Bacon as a man, it is valuable as bearing witness to the fact, doubtless well known to Davies, that Bacon was a poet. Mr. Dowse speaks contemptuously of Davies’s “apology for Bacon’s amateur verses,” but I fear Mr. Dowse’s sight is distorted by a fragment of that broken magic mirror whereof Hans Anderson has written so charmingly. Davies drinks to Bacon’s health in “Helicon”—not in “the waters of the Spaw,” but in “the waters of Parnassus,”

As to her Bellamour the Muse is wont.

It is true that Bacon was engaged in “grave affaires”—he had been made Solicitor-General in 1607—and therefore, though he wooed the Muse, could only “use her company” by way of recreation in intervals of more serious employment. Nevertheless he is fully recognised as her “Bellamour.”

We may be grateful to Mr. Dowse for once more calling attention to this very high and remarkable tribute of praise.

Mr. Dowse goes on to cite Davies’s testimony—which is here, of course, to be taken very seriously indeed—to the excellence of William Shakspere. “In his ‘Microcosmos,’ in a stanza beginning ‘Players, I love,’ Davies singles out Shakespeare and Burbage for his highest admiration. He attributes to them ‘wit(i.e. intellect),courage,good shape,good partes, and ALL GOOD!’”

Now I will again set forth the linesin extensoin order that the reader may form his own opinion as to their meaning and evidentiary value. It is to be observed that Davies does not mention Shakespeare (or Shakspere) or Burbage by name, but there are, in a marginal note to the third line, the letters W. S. R. B., which are generally interpreted as bearing reference to those two “deserving men.”[102]Whether he attributes to them all the excellencies so largely writ in Mr. Dowse’s interpretation the reader shall judge. Why Mr. Dowse has written the words “all good” in such startlingly large letters I am unable to say, and I really do not think the poet, who according to Mr. Dowse was of a very strict, if not sanctimonious, turn of mind, intended to attribute ALL GOOD to poor Will Shakspere and Dick Burbage; while as to his being “over exquisite in depreciating their calling,” this fault—if fault it be—he certainly shares with all the other writers of his timeconcerning the profession andstatusof the Players. Here is the poem published in theMicrocosmosor “The Discovery of the Little World, with the Government thereof,” 1603:

Players, I love yee, and yourQualitie,As ye are Men,thatpasstime not abus’d;And some I love forpainting,poesie,And say fellFortunecannot be excus’d,That hath for betterusesyou refus’d:Wit,Courage,good shape,good partes, and allgood,As long as al thesegoodsare noworseus’d,And though thestagedoth staine pure gentlebloud,Yet generous yee are inmindeandmoode.

Mr. Dowse follows this by a reference to Davies’s poem addressed to

Our English Terence, Mr. Will.Shake-speare.[103]

which appeared, with the sonnet to Bacon already quoted, in theScourge of Folly(1610-11). On this poem Mr. Dowse waxes eloquent. This, he tells us “in short compass gives us a number of important particulars about him [Shakespeare]. Thus, he acted ‘kingly parts,’ which means lordly manners and bearing and elocution; and if he had notplayedthose parts (the stage again!)[104]he would have been a fit companion for a King; indeed he would havebeena king among the general ruck of mankind. He had then (as now) his detractors, but he was above detraction, and never railed in return; for he had a ‘reigning wit,’ i.e. a sovereign intellect.”

I will quote this poem also.The Scourge of Follyby the way, is, we read, a work “consisting ofSatyricall Epigramms and others.” I fancy there is a good deal of the “Satyricall” in the following:

Some say (goodWill) which I, in sport, do sing,Hadst thou not plaid some Kingly parts in sport,Thou hadst bin a companion for aKing;And, beene a King among the meaner sort.Some others raile; but, raile as they think fit,Thou hast no rayling, but a raigning Wit.Andhonestythou sow’st, which they do reape;So, toincrease theirStockewhich they do keepe.

So Davies, singing “in sport,” suggests that according to the saying of some, if the Player had not been a Player he might have been a companion for a King (I rather suspect some esoteric meaning here to which, at this date, we cannot penetrate), and have been himself a King “among the meaner sort.” As Miss L. Toulmin Smith writes (Ingleby’sCenturie of Prayse, p. 94) “it seems likely [? certain] that these lines refer to the fact that Shakespere was a player, a profession that was then despised and accounted mean.” The poem, of course, has some value for the supporters of the Stratfordian faith, for, if Davies is here writing in sober seriousness, and with no ironicalarrière pensée, it certainly seems to imply that he supposed “Mr. Will Shake-speare, our English Terence,” to be identical with player Shakspere. To which the anti-Stratfordian would reply that, if he did so mean, he was misled, as others were, by the use of the pseudonym Shakespeare. Poems and Plays were published in that name “as it was alwaysprintedin those days, and not as he [Shakspere] himself in any known case ever wrote it.”[105]In any case Davies’s lines can hardly be said to be the high eulogy of PlayerShakspere that Mr. Dowse would have them to be.[106]

A word more and I have done with Mr. Dowse. As I have already said, that which I still venture to call the “table of contents,” on the outer page of the paper volume, is headed by Bacon’s “Of tribute,” and a list of his four “Praises.” Now, about an inch below the last “Praise” occurs the wordfraunces, and a little below and to the right of that is the wordturner. These we are told are “in different hands,” though whether or not they are samples of Davies’s hundred different styles it would seem rather difficult to say. Mr. Dowse, however, thinks thatfraunceswas written by the copyist of the “Praises,” andturnerby “the scribbler,” and that the latter word was “apparently intended to stand as if related in some way tofraunces.” He then tells us how pondering over this a brilliant idea struck him. In the middle of the reign of James I occurred the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, instigated by Frances Howard, Lady Essex, and one of this lady’s “principal agents” was a Mrs. Anne Turner. What can be clearer than that we have here a reference to these two notorious criminals? It follows from this that “the MS. was ‘knocking about,’ or at any rate open for additions to the scribble on the cover, as late as 1615.”[107]

This is going to one’s conclusionper saltumwith a vengeance. It is to be observed thatfrauncesis written just under theffrauncisof “Mr. ffrauncis Bacon,” and just above that stands “Mr. Ffrauncis.” It seems very probable therefore, thatfrauncesis only written as a variety of, or at least suggested by, the name “ffrauncis,” though Mr. Burgoyne does not seem to be right in transcribing it in the latter form. The idea that it stands for the “Christian name” of Lady Essex, and “turner” for thesurnameof her “principal agent” seems an altogether wild one, and I should imagine that no serious critic would seek to fix the date of any part of the scribble by such a hare-brained supposition.[108]

I turn then from Mr. Dowse’s singularly injudicial tract to Mr. Burgoyne’s more sober comment. “As to the penman who actually wrote the manuscript,” says Mr. Burgoyne, “nothing certain is known. The writing on the contents page is chiefly in one hand, with occasional words in another, and a few words mostly scrawled across the page at an angle appear to be written by a third. The main body of the work is in two or more handwritings, and the difference is especially to be noted in ‘Leycester’s Commonwealth,’ which appears to have been written in a hurry, for the writing has been overspaced in some pages and overcrowded in others, as if different penmen had been employed.There are also noticeable breaks on folios 64 and 88, and the difference in penmanship on these pages is specially remarkable. This points to the collection having been written at a literary workshop or professional writer’s establishment. It is a fact worthy of notice, that Bacon and his brother Anthony were interested in a business of the kind about the time suggested for the date of the writing of this book. Mr. Spedding states:—[109]“Anthony Bacon appears to have served [Essex] in a capacity very like that of a modern under-secretary of State, receiving all letters which were mostly in cipher in the first instance; forwarding them (generally through his brother Francis’s hands) to the Earl, deciphered and accompanied with their joint suggestions; and finally, according to the instructions thereupon returned, framing and dispatching the answers. Several writers must have been employed to carry out with promptitude such work as here outlined, and we find in a letter from Francis Bacon to his brother,[110]dated January 25th, 1594, that the clerks were also employed upon other work.... ‘I have here an idle pen or two ... I pray send me somewhat else for them to write out besides your Irish collection.’”etc., etc.

In a well-known letter to Tobie Mathew, Bacon writes: “My labours are now most set to have those works, which I had formerly published ... well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens that forsake me not.” In this connectionMr. Burgoyne writes: “It is worthy of notice that in ‘The Great Assises holden in Parnassus by Apollo and his Assessours,’ printed in 1645, the ‘Chancellor’ is declared to be ‘Lord Verulam,’ and ‘Ben Johnson’ is described as the ‘Keeper of the Trophonian Denne.’”[111]“It seems not unlikely,” says Mr. Burgoyne, “that this literary workshop, was the source of the ‘Verulamian Workmanship’ which is referred to by Isaac Gruter in a letter to Dr. William Rawley (Bacon’s secretary and executor) written from Maestricht, and dated March 20, 1655. This letter was written in Latin, and both the original and the translation are printed in ‘Baconiana, or certain genuine Remains of Sir Francis Bacon,’ London, 1679.” Mr. Burgoyne gives the following extract:

“If my Fate would permit me to live according to my Wishes I would flie over intoEngland, that I might behold whatsoever remaineth, in your cabinet of theVerulamianWorkmanship, and at least make my eyes witnesses of it, if the possession of the Merchandize be yet denied to the Publick.... At present I will support the Wishes of my impatient desire, with hope of seeing, one Day, those [issues] which being committed to faithful Privacie, wait the time till they may safely see the Light, and not be stifled in their Birth.”

This letter, we note in passing, shows us that in theVerulamianliterary Workshop certain “Merchandize” was produced which was “denied to the public”—that in fact (as we know by otherevidence to have been the case) there were many writings of Bacon “committed to faithful Privacie”—to Rawley e.g.—which were to be kept unpublished till they could “safely see the light,” but which, most unfortunately, were lost or destroyed.

The suggestion, therefore, is that this paper volume, now known as the Northumberland MS., was a product of the famous Verulamian Workshop orScriptorium, and Mr. Bompas adopting (with too great facility as I think) Mr. Dowse’s hypothesis that “the scribbler” was John Davies of Hereford, and referring to the known fact that the “Praises” were written for Essex’sDevicein 1592, points out that at that date John Davies was only 27 and at the beginning of his career, and that it is “fifteen years later, in 1607, that an entry appears in the Northumberland accounts of a payment showing his employment by the Earl.” Mr. Bompas, therefore, suggests that in 1592 Davies might have been in Bacon’s employ; he seems, however to have overlooked the fact that, according to Mr. Dowse, the “Praises” werenotwritten by Davies, since they are “in a totally different hand.”[112]The one fact which emerges is that we really do not know who wrote any part of the Manuscript, but that it was written for Bacon by one or more of his secretaries seems entirely probable, seeing that six of the nine pieces which now form its contents are transcripts of Bacon’s works, then unpublished. How Bacon, or his secretary, came into possession of twounpublished plays of Shakespeare, is a matter for speculation.

As to the “scribble” itself Mr. Spedding writes: “At the present time, if the waste leaf on which a law stationer’s apprentice tries his pens were examined, I should expect to find on it the name of the poet, novelist, dramatic author, or actor of the day, mixed with snatches of the last new song, and scribblings of ‘My dear Sir,’ ‘Yours sincerely,’ and ‘This Indenture witnesseth.’ And this is exactly the sort of thing which we have here.” Mr. Dowse demurs to this, for, says he, “the cases are not parallel: there is nothing trivial or vulgar in our scribbler: he was a serious and even religious man: the subjects that interest him are lofty, and like his acquaintance noble.” I will not offer an opinion on this point, viz., as to whether the scribbler was merely an idle penman, or “a serious and religious” penman, but, however that may be, I do not think that Mr. Spedding’s analogy holds good. “A law stationer’s apprentice” might certainly exercise his pen on a “waste leaf” as Mr. Spedding suggests, but an outer sheet of a paper volume in which works of importance, or so considered, were transcribed, the whole volume being stitched together, can hardly be described as a waste leaf. In days when printing was far less common than it is now such a volume would be valuable. Moreover, on the outside leaf were written the contents of the volume. A law stationer’s apprentice would hardly dare to exercise his idle pen on the outside skin of a newly-engrossed deed. I am inclined, therefore, to agreewith Mr. Dowse that the scribblings were to a certain extent “serious.” There is method in their madness. And they are such “acts of ownership,” that the scribbler must have had a completedominiumover the document.

I have been long, and I fear, tedious over this curious work, but the more one considers Mr. Dowse’s tract the more does one find it provocative of criticism. I will now leave the regions of imagination for those of fact. Whether or not John Davies of Hereford was “the Scribbler” seems to me of comparatively little importance.[113]What is of importance is this:—We have here an undoubtedly Elizabethan manuscript volume. Its contents, as they have come down to us, are nine articles, out of which seven are by Bacon. It seems, therefore very reasonable to believe that the volume was written for Bacon and was perhaps a product of the “Verulamian workshop.” Very possibly it was presented by him either to the Earl of Northumberland, or to Sir Henry Neville, his own nephew. It is quite reasonable to believe that among the contents of the volume, as it originally stood, were the two Shakespearean plays,Richard IIandRichard III. In any case these were noted on the outer leaf either as having been transcribed, or for future transcription. Such note would not, in all probability, have been made after 1597, when these plays were first (anonymously) published, at the price of sixpence each. At that date “Shakespeare” was unknown to the public asa dramatic author, for not a play had as yet been published under that name. Here then we have the names and the works of Bacon and Shakespeare associated, in close juxtaposition, in a contemporaneous manuscript. Further, the transcriber of, at any rate, part of the work, writing not idly but with serious thought, exercises his pen by writing the names, or parts of the names of Shakespeare and Bacon, over and over again, on the outside sheet. “William Shakespeare,” the author ofRichard IIandRichard III, seems to be a name familiar to him, although those plays had not as yet been published, and indeed were not published under the name of “Shake-speare” till 1598. He writes the name of “Shakespeare” “as it was always printed,” and not as Shakspere of Stratford “in any known case ever wrote it.” And not content with associating thus closely the names of Shakespeare and Bacon, on a volume containing some works by both these writers, if two they really were, he must needs, on the same outer sheet, quote a line, slightly varied, fromLucrece, and a word fromLove’s Labour’s Lost. No other name of poet, or actor, appears upon “the Scribble” as distinct from the table of contents. It is all either Shakespeare or Bacon.

If a dishonest Baconian could fabricate fictitious evidence in the same way as the forger Ireland did for Shakspere, it seems to me that he might well endeavour to concoct such a document as this. But the Northumberland MS. is an undoubtedly genuine document, and it is but natural that the “Baconians” should make the most of it.—G.G.

Thereis one argument in support of the contention that Bacon was the author ofVenus and Adoniswhich seems to me to deserve more attention than it has hitherto received.

It was, I believe, first put forward by the late Reverend Walter Begley, of St. John’s College, Cambridge, in his book,Is it Shakespeare?[114]—a work which every one interested in the Shakespeare problem ought to read, because it is replete with both information and amusement, and there is hardly a dull page in it. The argument is derived from the Satires of Marston and Hall, our early English satirists, of the sixteenth century, who wrote in bitter vein the one against the other. Both of them have a good deal to say concerning oneLabeo, which is a pseudonym for some anonymous writer of the time. Now in 1598 Marston published a poem founded on the lines and model ofVenus and Adonis, which he called “Pigmalion’s Image” (sic)—a love poem, not a satire—and as an appendix to it he wrote some lines “in prayse of his precedent Poem,” where “Pigmalion” had, according to the oldlegend, succeeded in bringing the image he had wrought out of ivory to life, and in this appendix occur the following lines:

And in the end (the end of love I wot),Pigmalion hath a jolly boy begot.So Labeo did complaine his love was stone,Obdurate, flinty, so relentlesse none;Yet Lynceus knowes that in the end of thisHe wrought as strange a metamorphosis.

Now compare the following lines fromVenus and Adonis(199-200):

Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel—Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth.

Here we have Labeo’s complaint almost word for word, and we are reminded that at the end ofVenus and Adonisthere was the “strange metamorphosis” of Adonis into a flower, quite as strange as that of “Pigmalion’s Image.”

Is it not clear, then, that by Labeo is meant the author ofVenus and Adonis? It may be said, of course, that it was not the author, but Venus who complained that Adonis was “obdurate, flinty,” and relentless, but that is a futile objection, for Marston evidently puts the words of Venus into Labeo’s mouth, and it can only be the author of the poem to whom he alludes.

Who, then, wasLabeo? Well, “these University wits,” as Mr. Begley writes, “were steeped in Horace, Juvenal, Persius, and Ovid, and thence brought forth a nickname whenever an occasion required it.” Now in Horace we read:

Labeone insanior intersanos dicatur.

and we learn that M. Antistius Labeo was a famous lawyer, who, it is said, by too much free speaking had offended the Emperor Augustus.[115]

But what more have we about this sixteenth century Labeo? Well, Bishop Hall in his satires mentions him several times, and reflects upon him as a licentious writer who takes care to preserve his anonymity, and, like the cuttle-fish, involves himself in a cloud of his own making. Thus in the second book of his satires, which he called (after Plautus)Virgidemiæ, i.e., a bundle of rods, Hall attacks Labeo in the following words:

For shame! write better, Labeo, or write none;Or betterwrite, or, Labeo, write alone.(Bk. II, Sat. 1)

and he ends this satire thus:

For shame! write cleanly, Labeo, or write none.

From these lines we may infer, as Mr. Begley says, that Labeo did not write alone, but in conjunction with, or under cover of, another author, and also that he did not write “cleanly,” but in a lascivious style, such as the style ofVenus and Adonis, it might be.

But there is a further passage in Hall’sVirgidemiæ(Book IV, Sat. 1) which I must quote:

Labeois whipp’d and laughs me in the face:Why? for I smite, and hide the galléd place.Gird but the Cynick’s Helmet on his head,Cares he forTalusor his flayle of lead?Long as the craftyCuttlelieth sureIn the blackCloudeof his thick vomiture,Who list complain of wrongéd faith or fameWhen he may shift it to another’s name?

Labeois whipp’d and laughs me in the face:Why? for I smite, and hide the galléd place.Gird but the Cynick’s Helmet on his head,Cares he forTalusor his flayle of lead?

Long as the craftyCuttlelieth sureIn the blackCloudeof his thick vomiture,Who list complain of wrongéd faith or fameWhen he may shift it to another’s name?

It would take too long if, in this note, I were to attempt the explanation of this “Sphinxian” passage, as Dr. Grosart called it, but the general meaning seems clear enough, viz.: “I, the Satirist, whip Labeo, but Labeo merely laughs at me, for he knows he can shift the blame, and the punishment, on to another whose name he makes use of, while he himself lies, like the Cuttle, in the Cloud of his own vomiture.”[116]

Then, writes Mr. Begley, “Labeo is the writer ofVenus and Adonis; and as there is every reason to think that Marston used the name Labeo because Hall had used it, we are therefore able to infer that Hall and Marston both mean the same man. We, therefore, advance another step, and infer that the author ofVenus and Adonisdid not write alone, that he shifted his work to another’s name (certainly a Baconian characteristic), and acted like a cuttle-fish by interposing a dark cloud between himself and his pursuers.”

But what proof or evidence is there that Labeo stood for Bacon? Well, Marston’s Satires were published, with his “Pigmalion’s Image,” in 1598, several months after Hall’s first three books ofVirgidemiæhad appeared, and in his Satire IV, entitledReactio, Marston goes through pretty well the whole list of writers whom Hall had attacked, and defends them, but, curiously enough, he seems to take no notice of Hall’s attack onLabeo, though that attack was a marked and recurrent one. But, says Mr. Begley, “Labeo is there, but concealed in an ingenious way by Marston, and passed over in a line that few would notice or comprehend. But when itisnoticed it becomes one of the most direct proofs we have on the Bacon-Shakespeare question, and, what is more, a genuine and undoubted contemporary proof.” What, then, is that proof? It is found in a line addressed by Marston to Hall:

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