Sacramento daily record-union., 1881-11-19

coiaborators, if we accept the New Theory.
Ihese men must have been unnaturallv
negligent of that which all men are most
concerned about. They must have burned
the midnight oil for the most soreid pur.
poses, since all that they could look for in
the way OF compensation was the little
money manager Shakespeare could give
them. But il southampton, Raleigh and
Essex wrote these plays, it was clearly not
Tor money they worked. On the contrary,
they are supposed to have paid Shakespeare
to produce their plays, and to father them.
Sc that they simply squandered both qepius
and fortune. for no other possible end than to
crafty public which each and ali of them
heartily despisedl Surely this hypothesis is
extraVagant In the extreme and as SUBJ
| stitute for the current tradition, absolutely
inadmissable. Add to all these objections
the further one that these men were actively
engaged in politics, statecraft, warfare. the
law, and ether epgrossing avocations. Bacon
has produced works which, together with his
current occupations as Judge and State Uoun-
cilor, account for quite as much time as his
life affords. There is no gap in his life such
as would have been needed to support this
theory. But of Shakespeare's early life we
know scarcely everything. Hi5 first FIVE and
twenty years are virtually sealed book to
us. Now in these twenty. five years it is pos.
sible that he may have laid the>foundation
for his future greatness, and it is much
easier to believe that this was the case than
to accept either the Baconian or the New
Theory.
Again, we think il demonstrable that the
book-knowledge of the writer of the Shake
spearean plays has been over-estimated. tis
not necessary to have anything more than
passing acquaintance with the classics, in
order to quote them. a very slight knowl-
edge of philosophy may be made to suggest
much more profound degree of information.
The true literary artist possesses the faculty
of absorbing knowledge almost instinctively
from Thousand sources, and of reproducing
it in new setting. The transcendent natural
forces of such mind as Shakespeare's would
have transformed the mental food it had as
simulated almost beyond recognition. And it
cannot be doubted that in the very highest
order Of human intelligence there is
rapidity of appropriation and appreciation
closely resembling intuition, The difference
between genius and mediociity is the differ
ence of mental capacity. Set man of genius
and an ordinary man to the same studies, and
they will not bring away the same results.
The ordinary man viii at most learn all
that his textbooks contain. But the man of
genius will have brought TO his studies an
innate power of perception and comprehen-
sion which enable him to grasp conclusions
extending far beyond the text books, and
reaching TO the very foundations of the SUBJ
jects. We certainly do not know enough
concerning Shakespeares life to assert his
inability to have written the plays and poems
which bear his name. The fact that
what we do know initiates against
belief in his possession of those
magnificent powers which are displayed in
these works cannot be given the significance
which fIr. Morgan wishes to attach to it.
It is no doubt very perplexirg that Shake
nave iuhuISsGeu 50 At5t6 III
terest in his own works as he appears to
have done. But it is impossible to get
over this difficulty by suggesting that half
dozen other men were even more in
different to their fame. What we do
know of Shakespeare does not supply US with
the clue to his literary character. But when
the attempt to substitute some one else for
him has been made with every advantage of
research and ingenuity, the result seems to us
to be more complete demonstration of the
fact that il we abandon the theory of real
Shakespeare as the author of the Shakespear-
can plays, we shall only lose ourselves in a
fog, which becomes thicker the farther we
grope our way into it. And this being the
case we prefer to retain the belief that Ben
Jonson and his contemporaries knew what
they were talking about when they pro-
nounced William Shakespeare that ''Star of
"poets which all the world has since ac-
knowledged him to be.