New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1886-05-09
BACON OR SHAKESPEARE I
WHO WROTE THE PLAYsi

It Is impossible to read the work of Judge Holmes
without respect for bis industry and candor, and
regret that his excellent qualities should be so la
boriously misapplied 1t is twenty years since
he first published his elaborate argument
In support Of poor crazy Della Bacon's
theory that Francis Bacon was the
author Of the plays which have passed
for more than two centuries and half under the
name of William Shakespeare and the original
book has been several times expanded to take in
what the author looked upon as new evidence for
his side. 1t does not seem to us that the case has
made any Roadway during this interval. Judge
Holmes has not strengthened it by his appendices
and supplements and If such questions the
Bacon Shakespeare inquiry were ever settled by
the ordinary rules Of the fantastic Baconian
theory would long ago have been put at rest. But
| there are minds for which certain varieties
of moonshine have an irresistible fascination They
are not to be turned away from 1t by argument
They will follow it to the end of thcr lives; and 1t
will be strange If their very persistence do not per-
suade some people that There is much to be said
on both sides Of the question:" Tho plays are al
most miracle, whoever wrote them They are so
stupendously rich In thought, observation insight,
fancy, language and allusion that the desire to at.
| tribute them to the most illustrous thinker and
scholar Of their age is not unnatural; and consider
ing the vast literary field which they cover, and
the free use which they make of all library
materials apt for their writer's hand,
1t is not surprising that resoute Baconian should
find In them or less exact parallels with pass
| ages from genius so various and diffusive as
Bacon; it is rather surprising that the parallels
are few Most of the rescmblances which are
cited as proofs of common authorship are too triv-
ial for serious consideration. Some are obviously
to be accounted for by the in both of pop
ular phrases, proverbs, etc. Some are mere conci-
dences such as literature abounds with. But the
greater part of the alleged paralelisms are quite
imaginary,-fancful resembances which could
only have occurred to thcorist bent upon finding
them.
Much of the new matter in Judge Holiness book
relates to the testimony from supposed parallel
sms. In his original work he dIscoursed pretty
fully upon the argument from biography. from
character from the philosophy and literary style of
Bacon ETC., an argument which in the nature Of
things could never be conclusive, and to which he
gives no reason why we should now return. He
sent copy of his book to Mr. SPEEDING, the dstin-
guished editor and bographer of Bacon and re-
ceved from him a courteous but crushing answer,
the force Of which he was little able to feel that
he printed the letter, with singularly weak
rejOinder in q later edition. Judge Holmes
showed in this incident the strange insensbility to
the nature of evidence which distinguishes nearly
all the advocates of the Baconian deluson. He
shows it still more clearly in his fresh supplement,
where he enarges upon the parallellsms discovered
or imagined by Mrs. Henry Pott between the plays
and the newly deciphered "PrOmus of Formu-
laries," a memorandum book in which Bacon set
down, either for library for aids to memory,
variety Of quotations, proverbs aphorisms,
phrases, words, etc. That readers may how
Ind Wn hal
"Promus" entries which he regards
arguments One is Quod erpatus faciie relinquit
What one has tried he readily rclln-
quishes); and Judge Holmes compares it with the
exclamation of Lafeu in "Al's well that ends
WELL" " To be reiinqulshed of the artists that
is, given up by the physicians, Here there is no
similarity of thought the only point IS tho use of
the word relinquished or its Latin equivalent.
But surely that not peculiar to Bacon. Mrs.
Pott remarks that "renquished" is used nowhere
else i'll the plays; an argument which, II 1T cut at
ALL would cut both ways The Promus" enters
the phrase Neither too heavy nor too hot"
Judge Holmes actually traces to it Polonius's
Seneca cannot be too heavy nor Plautus
too light" The "Promus" contains
quotation from Erasmus, Serpens nis sopentsm
comedeyit III drao0 "a serpent does not become
dragon unless it has eaten serpent). which Mrs.
Pott compares with one of Bacon's Essays The
strong and powerful become more 50 at the cost of
the less powerful, Aarons rod turned into SER
pent, swallowed up those Of the magciansn and
this composite arrangement is then set beside
passage from Perlces":
Sd fisherman. Master marvel how the fishes live in
lst Fisherman Why, as men do a-land: the great
msers to nothing 80 fty as to whae a. plays and
tumbles driving the poor fry before him. and a. last do
o. the land who leave gaping till they've swal.
lowed the whole parish church. steepe bells and all.
1.-THE identity of thought here" remarks Judge |
Holmes. :" is very papable." The thought is so
common as to be almost commonplace; the mode
of expression in the two cases has similarity at
ALL and the images employed entirely different,
unless Judge Holmes will have it that a serpent is
very like whale. saying in the PRO
mus" runs 1--WE omit the LATIN: Hope
remained in the jar, but not as an antldote.
but as q worse disease "a reference Of course to
the fable of Pandora Mrs. Pott quotes, apropos Of
this " The miserable have no other medium but
only hope" C' Measure for Measure ", and With
some sweet obyOus antidote" I" Macbeth y. 1t
needs the perverse ingenuity of Captain Fluellen
to discover resemblances here. You shall find in
the comparisons between Macedon and Mon
mouth" says that gallant dlsputant. :" that the
situations is both alike. There is a river in Mace
don and there is also moreover river in
Monmouth, and there is salmons in both" There
is hope In the Promus," and hope in Measure for
Measure but the thought Is exactly at contrares
in the two passages. AS for the Promus" and
" Macbeth" it is true that there is antidotes IN
both but if Bacon wrote all the books of his time
which contain the words " hope" and antidOte"
ne must have been a busy man. Hero is something
till worse the " Promus has: &c AS please the
,aynter. A nosce tepsam "a Gliding or disgrace).
Know thyself" And Mrs. Pott and Judge Holmes
ind repetition Of this maxim in the following
ines from Timon":
All Serr.-What are we, Apemantusf
Apem.-Asses.
All Serr.-Whyf
Apsm,.-Th you ask what you are and do not
mo yourselves.
Absurdity could hardly go further but here is
mother "parallelism" which presses IL hard:
Inn hmm he al ienke |