New-York tribune., 1902-01-28

They had personally known Shakespeare. They
! had acted in the dramatic company of which
! he was a member They had known him both
| as an actor and author They state. in their
| Dedication. that Pembroke and Montgomery
had, at a time previous to the publication. treat
ed the plays "and their author living with
much favor. They also declare that, in collect
/ ing Shakespeare's plays, they have done an
Office the dead. to procure his orphans guard
! ians," and that they have done this only TO
keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fell
low alive as was our Shakespeare" They allude
to the author as your servant Shakespeare"
It is known of Heminge and Condell that they
were men of talent character and intelligence.
They were neither knaves simpletons.
Heminge is said to have been a Warwickshire
man, and. If so. probably he knew Shakespeare
as a native of the same county. Heminge and
Condell mentioned in Shakespeares will
He left to them "twenty-six shillings and eight
pence apiece to buy them rings" They were
intimate and esteemed friends of his. He liked
them. and he remembered them in one of the
most solemn and mOmentOus actions of his life
Their language with reference to him. seven
years after he died. is affectionate and reverent
To Them beyond doubt the writer of Shake
speare's plays was Shakespeare. their old friend
their fellow player their comrade Heminge'
when the Folio was published, with his sanction,
was sixty-eight years old-a time of life when
the Judgment is mature and when a man
knows the world. In what way did Ba-
con deceive these men, and not only these
men but the others, five in number, with
whom they were associated in the publlca-
ton of the Folio? In what way did he obtain
access to that work, that he could regulate
the typographical arrangement of its contents
and make it harbor a cryptogram? The Folio
to I,,-,y theory
a secret cipher a thing dependent on absolute
accuracy either would, or could, be intrusted, by
a scholar or by anybody, to a book containing
typographical errors is foolish But assuming
that Bacon did obtain access to this Folio, how
did he manage the fraud? And why did lie au-
thorze needless lie, in the Dedication and in
the Address? Heminge and Condell, in their Ad-
dress, make use of these words: 1T hath been Il
thing we confess worthy to have been wished,
that the author himself had lived to have set
forth and overseen his own writings; but since
it hath been ordained otherwise and he by death
departed from that right. pray you do not
envy his friends the office of their and pain,
to have collected and published them"
If Bacon had the control or that Folio, why did
he not prevent the publication of this unneces-
sary and to him, injurious lie-that the author
was dead? If he did not have control or the
Folio why not? Seeing that he was committing
to It a secret OF such importance.-why not? The
plays, 1t is alleged, were his own. Who was to
prevent him from executing his plan? Why
were Heminge and Condell, and other persons,
introduced into the scheme? And how does it
happen that they were introduced and managed
clumsy?
And what Of Pembroke and Montgomery?
They had personally known Shakespeare. They
asses that they could not tell whether he was
clever man or a dolt? They had not only ap-
proved the plays: they had favored "the au-
thor" What author had they favored? When
Heminge and Condell spoke thus TO them about
a whom they had once known and person.
ally favored. and called him by name and de-
plored him as dead TO whom did they suppose
this reference to be made? Surely not the
Viscount OF st. Adams. who then still liv-
ing! How does 1t happen that in a book in
which Bacon subtly laborfng to record ard
transmit to posterty vital secret with respect
10 himself. he should have taken. allowed 10
be taken such extraordinary precautions to
prevent posterity from believing that ever he
had anything to do with the natter
Reading" said Bacon, "maketh a full man;
conference a ready man; and writing an exact
man. Bacon was all OF these-full ready and
exact: scholar, lawyer. orator. logican; an acute
reasoner. especially skilled in mathematics and
rational philosopher His avowed works
printed under his personal supervision, are re-
markable for many merits. but especially for
the merit of scholastic accuracy. He wrote the
"Novum Organum" twelve times over. How
then does 1t happen,-supposing him to have
written the plays of Shakespeare-that those
plays abound with mispronunciaton Of proper
names and with anachronisms. being pre-
cisely the kind of errors that such a writer
could not possibly have made? A few of
them may be mentioned by way of example
The tragedy OF King Lear" period. Ammo
Mundi 3O15-about 900 r. C.-contains allusion
to paper holy water "steeples." "Bedlam
beggars.' Saint Withhold" "Childe Roland"
and the Turks. all these things being of later
date and unknown to the Britain of Lear's time
Edgar, in the same play, ailudes to Nero, IAN
angler in the lake of darkness Nero CA. D.
1853 did not live till centuries after the time
of Lear In Macbeth" there Is mention of
dollars and of Cannon" neither of which in
the period of Macbeth. 1910 1861 was any
where in existence. In the Comedy OF Errors"
the scene of which is the ancient city OF
Ephesus. there is talk Of Adam" Noah"
Satan a Christian Henry " of France"
"rapier" striking clock" and the "abbess
of a nunnery": about rational as to talk of
of King Solomon Playing cards invented in
time in the fifteenth century,-probably about
the period Of Richard III,-are mentioned in
King John" who died in 1916, and so are
cannon and so the coins called angels
first struck. in England in 1465. Paper. which