St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-03-28
LITERARY ATHLETES,
Famous Scholars Debate the
Authorship Of the Shake
speare Plays.
Senator Donnelly Tells Why
Bacon Was Perfopce
the Author.
Professor Freeman DiseloSes
Errors Ppeeluding Such
a Possibility.
A Rafting Discussion, in
Which the Sage Has the
Best Of 1t.

ence that assembled at the Peoples
church was of cultured ladies and gen.
tlemen. The athletes were lgnatluS
DoDnelly, the noted champion of the
theory that ascribes tt Lord Bacon the
authorship OF the so-called Shakespeare
plays. and Prof. Freeman, Of the Uniyer-
sity of Wisconsin, famous Shakespear-
ian scholar and champion. Gov. Merriam
was prevented, by illness in the family,
from being present, and Senator w.
Is. Dean gracefully presided and intro
duced the diSputants. The subject was:
did Francis Bacon write the Shake
speare playS?" and the arrangement was
that DOnnelly should have fortyfive
minutes to open, to be followed by
Freeman for the same time,
and each to have fifteen minutes,
III turn. to close the debate.
A little more than that time was al
lowed each, and two notable arguments
resulted. While the applause was lib
orally distributed, it was the consensus
of opinion that Donnelly had the best
OF the dispute. The space allowed was
too short for anything like fair expo
sition of either side of the question, but
the Sage reSorted to argument and left
the rIdicule to the collegian; the ridicule
reacted somewhat and the professor was
the sufferer thereby.
The Sage's Opening.
Senator Donnely began with an argu-
ment to show that the author of the
Shakespeare plays could not have been
a man OF Shakespeare meager attain
mentS. lie paid an eloquent tribute to
the genius OF that author and took up
the first head: The author must have
been a man sOundIy verSed in the law.
Whenever a layman attempted to handle
law terms he blundered, but Chief JUS
tice Campbell has declared that ''from
the law Of Shakespeare there is no APP
peal" That author was also profound
philosopher, and such was Bacon and
such was not Shakespeare. The speaker
gave quotations to show the knowledge
of physics that the author must have
possessed. That author must also have
been an arlStOcrat, as every line of the
plays shows his feelings and sympa-
thieS TO have been against the lower
classes. This also fitted Bacon and
could not have applied to the butcher
boy" Shakespeare. The author
must also have been phil
anthropist and must have had an
ingrained opposition to kingcraft.
He painted monarchS in the most re
pulsiYe colOrS, and selected of the Eng
liSh kings only thOSe-Save Henry "
of deSpicable character. The same
feelings came out in his dedication of
tyrant murder in the tragedy of Julius
Cesar. This was all characteristic of
Bacon, not Shakespeare.
In flowing language Mr.. Donnelly
went Oh to show the evidences of re-
fined scholarship in the works. He
showed the results of work by English
photographers, in which the letter ''a''
alone was covered. showing Shake
speare's plays had added in that letter
23S new words, or, in proportion. 5000
new words to the English Ian
The evident effort to select elegance
of language was a type of Bacon
and not of Shakespeare, and this point
was admirably eulogized upon. The
author OF Shakespeare, he proved very
conclusiyely, must have been Protest
ant, as was Bacon, and not a Catholic,
as was Shakespeare. He must also
have been an adherent of the Essex
party, as Bacon certainly was. Here
followed some remarkable paralleliSms
from Bacon's works and the Shake
Speare plays. The famous letter of Sir
Toby Matthews was given and Ben
JohnSon's famous tribute to Bacon,
which appears in the same language on
the title page of the early Shakespear-
ian edition. The speaker also cited
the fact of Bacon's refusal to try
Essex for playing part of Richard H.,
and the reasons given as plainly show
ing Bacon'S authorship. Considerable
time was interestingly occupied in
showing how impossible it was for any
but the cultured, classical and travelled
Bacon to have produced the plays, and
the speaker turned to diagram illus
trating his ''Great Cryptogram." In
this he showed the system of combining
page numbers and italics and producing
words showing the hidden authorship.
As an example he produced the words
Francis Bacon, son of Nicholas Ba-
con-" He was in the midst of this eX-
PLANTATION when his time expired.
Freeman Responds.
Prof. Freeman, who was received
with loud applause, followed Mr.. Don
nelly, and in satirical manner pro.
ceeded to show that the plays of Shake
speare could not have been written by
a man so pre-eminently philosophical
and learned as was Sir Francis Bacon.
His opening remarks were made in the
| form of a pleading by an attorney be-
phraseology. Remarks were made
on some of the works of his
opponent. which were not strictly in the
| line of the debate, but personality was
soon forgotten and the speaker attacked
! the keystone of the Baconian arch
| which was, that man without scho
| lastic training could not have written
the plays of Shakespeare" If such a
| proposition held good, why then il
might be said that Abraham Lincoln,
who never received any college educa
| ton, could not have written any of his
| inaugural addresses or composed any OF
| his famous speeches. Yet no one ever
| doubted that Abraham Lincoln had com
| posed these works. or was the author Of
| the famous short speech delivered a
Gettysburg. Prof. Freeman then reac
a number of quotations from the Shakes
peare plays. showing that in ''PericleS'
reference was made to a ''piStol,
when the time of the play was hundred!
| of years before the pistol was invented
| In King John" the word ''cOmmoner'
wsS used, yet in King Johns time com
mons were not in existence. In the
same manner Jack Cade is made t.
speak of printing, generation before
its invention by CaXton. Aristotle i:
! quoted i'll '"lroilus and Cresseda" cen
turleS before the time when the action
of the play takes place. So in "COrio
lanuS," the characters of Alexander
| Cato and Galen are introduced some
hundreds of years before they saw the
light of day. Bohemia is made a sea
port country when it is inland, whict
is as grave an error as if Mr.. Blaine il
a dispatch stated that Colorado bordereC
on Lake Michigan. These errors, sale
Prof. Freeman, proved conclusively tina
a man so learned in all the arts, classic.
and geography of the time a;
was Sir Francis Bacon coult
never have written the plays
Could learned man like Bacor
have spoken Of Christian burial as be
ing contemporary with an emperor oil
Russia and the heather worship of the
oracle of Delphi? Yet these glaring in
consistencies existed in the 'sWinter'
Eale." Bacon, the student of Greeial
and Roman history, would never have
| placed Spanish rapiers in the hands O
1 s,1Er