The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-01-14
A PLAYWRIGHT.

A contributor of the London IU,tS- tra ed Nepsgives the following reasons why Shakespeare could have written the plays which are and which al- ways will be attributed to the trolic- ing genius of Avon:
 Of all men that ever lived, Shakes peare had perhaps the most perfect federation for human tollles; yet surely even Shakespeare's gentle temper would have been little veXed by the inanities that come upon us regularly in the silly season-whereof the most inane, think, is the contention Chow become as chronic as the sea serpent) that Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays IL does not need serious answer: yet one may point out (since this has per haps not been pointed out lately) that, while the Donnellies of this earth struggle furiously to bring forth some scrap of evidence that Bacon was the author of "Ilamlet," "As You Like It," "Lear," there is not the slightest evidence that Shakespeare was not. Yet the assumption that the actor could not have written the tragedies he played in underlies their whole ar gument.
 Why not? The writer of "lIamlet" was Gas Englishmen will at all events admiO the greatest genius that ever lived. Had he been born of poor par ents as Burns, as Carlyle's-had his fo f fhnr haan o nt lsl-n Dhtl:,~ Aq.s singers vigorous mind would have fought its way up, even as did theirs: if bricklayer like Ben Jon son could make himself the equal of the finest classical scholars of the age, Shakespeare as bricklayer need not have been dismayed.
 But Shakespeare was not brick layer. Shakespeare's father was Gas Prof. Dowden tells us in his "Life'') "a prosperous burgess of Stratford"- aglover and farmer, who rose, in course of time, ito the honorable posts of chamberlain, alderman and high bail lt." Mrs. Shakespeare was Miss Arden, an heiress, of good family "the Ardens were Warwickshire gen try since before the conquest, and two of the family had held places of dis tinction in the household of Henry VII" Mary Arden's father left her a considerable piece of landed property ln possession and one much more val uable in reversion.
 It is true that after about 1878 John Shakespeare suffered great and increas- ing losses; but by this time Williams education at the Stratford grammar school would, in those days, have been nearly ver-Wolsey took his degree at fifteen, and we may be fairly sure that Shakespeare was not backward boy! With such start in life as this-a far better one than half our greatest scholars-any man of high ability could easily have acquired the learning of Shakespeare-what could not "the greatest genius that ever lived" do?
 It is objected by some that "Ham- let" could not have been written by a poacher. Have these good people ever read "Venus and Adonis"-and will they point out any form of riot ous and rebellious living into which ito tthPCtuOuc WOuIQ 3tOt nave thrown himself? Would he not have shocked and aggrieved in every con- ceivablc way the rural magnates as certainly as he would have run after all the pretty girls of the neighbor- hood? His adventures with Anne Hathaway, and his precipitate mar riage at eighteen to woman eight years older than himself, agree as com pletely with the "Venus and Adonis" and one may add, with his sad and serious advice in later years that woman should wed "an older than her. self"-as does the life of Byron with his sDon Juan."
 And then he became an actor-as, one may, it was certain that he must. Since the writer of "Hamlet" 30 loved the theatre that he thought it worth while to give it the greatest work of his genius, one may be sure that his impetuous nature would sooner or