New-York tribune., 1902-01-28

scholar be a great poet--does II seem to be
at all miraculous that mind capable Of finding
pleasure in the manufacture of secret ciphers
should also he capable of conceiving such a
tragedy as "Othello," or such a comedy as
Twelfth Night,"-a thing about as rational and
credible as that Robert Burns wrote Nautilus on
Population, that William Wordsworth was the
author of the Rejected Addresses" and that
Longfellow composed La Belle Helene"
The persons who assert that the plays Of
Shakespeare were written by Bacon declare
that Bacon made a private contract with
Shakespeare. whereby Shakespeare was to as
sume the authorship Of the plays as one by
one they were written. procuring their presenta-
tion on the stage, and sharing with their writer
any profits that might accrue from them No
evidence in support of this declaration has ever
been offered: it rests conjecture and 1t Is
absolutely theoretical. 1t ignores all the ascer-
tanned and admitted facts of Shakespeare's life.
all the ascertained and admitted facts of Bacon's
life. and all the records relative to the produc-
tion and publication of the plays and it makes
both Of these men contemplate.
"
The reasoning of the Baconians-if reasoning
1t can be caled,-proceeds somewhat as follows
THE plays of Shakespeare are prodigies of lit
erary and dramatic art. and. in every particular,
being true). Such things could only have been
created by man who had been thoroughly edu-
Gated Shakespeare had not been thoroughly
educated. and therefore Shakespeare did not
create them-the fact that some of them were
published. during his lifetime. with his name on
the title-page that of the author, being
fact of no Importance. and the fact that shortly
after his death they collected and published
by his personal friends and comrades of the
theatre being equally circumstance of no
force meaning. Bacon had been thor
oughly educated. Bacon was one Of the most
learned men of his time. and the only man of his
time by whom those plays could have been writ
ten. Therefore Bacon wrote them. But it would
and q politician to have admitted their author
ship, and, accordingly, he hired an actor. namely
Shakespeare, to figure publicly their author,
to peddle them in the theatre, and 70 share the
profits
That, substantially is the Baconian If
the Baconians are asked for any proof Of 1t,
they reply that the facts self-eyident. In
what way Bacon. anybody else. would. or
could, have been disgraced, by an avowal of the
authorship of those plays, nobody knows. and
nobody takes the trouble to explain. Thomas
Sackvlle. Lord Buckhurst and Earl of Dorset.
the author of "Gorboduc" (''Ferrex and Por-
rex'D, the first tragedy written in the English
language Q562), and the third piece Of English
blank verse, not ashamed to own it. The
Gentlemen of the Inner Temple, all of them law
yers law students, acted in It, before Queen
Elizabeth, at Whitehall. and participant in
the performance seems to have felt disgraced.
In 1888 a Masque, by Thomas Hughes. called
THE Misfortunes of Arthur" was acted before
the Queen at Greenwich, and Francis Bacon.
then Bencher of Grays Inn. took part in that
rSo both nd
tributor OF speeches; and there is no record that
he was ashamed of those proceedings. Why
should he have Stunned distinction as the writer
of plays that far transcend IN merit all the
Mosques that written? Bacon had
nothing to lose by an avowal Of superb dramatic
and poetic authorship on the contrary, he had
much to gain. The drama was popular; was
esteemed at court; enjoyed equally by the
monarch and the citizen. Why should Bacon,
II he possessed the genius and the ability OF
great poet and a dramatist, have hestated to
exert them and to appropriate their honors and
rewards? And. If he did exert them. why should
1t be assumed that he such exception to
all the known laws of the human mind that he
must have desired to conceal it? Has anybody
ever heard of an author who did not, sooner
later, claim the honor of his works? Sir Philip
Francis to be sure did not declare himself to
be "Junus": but this was rationai-for. If he had
so declared himself he would have assumed the
infamy of having been a spy, a traitor, and
rascal. His lips were sealed. In the putative
case OF Bacon there adequate motive
there was motive at all-for secrecy. The
world is asked to believe that mind great
enough to create Hamlet" Macbeth" "Othel-
To-" King Lear" and all the rest of that Won
derful body of poetic literature could be so
little. mean patry, insane as TO
Hate he po Of for
OF losing social caste.
To be sure the Baconians affirm, by way of
squarng themselves with common sense, that
Bacon. from the first. intended TO claim credit
with posterity, and that, possessing diploma
lists skill in making and using secret cipher
writings, he concealed in the First Folio edition
of Shakespeare (some of them say by the use of
words. and some by the use Of different
fonts OF type). a cryptogram narrative declar-
ing himself to be the author of the plays, and
stigmatizng Shakespeare impostor and a
dissoute blackguard. But the entire machinery
Of the cryptogram has, by DR.. A. Nicholsons
pamphlet, mo Cipher in Shakespeare" 1SSS-a
work that meets the mathematical argument
with a completely overwhelming mathematical
confutation-been shattered into fragments,
and the whole Bacon case has thus been rele-
gated into the cloudy, fantastic realm Of theory
and inference: and theory and inference are
completely worthless, as opposed to recorded
facts and obvious truths. The cryptogram,"
says Mr.. Nicholson lis a contrivance by means
Of which any story can be ELECTED from the
words on the page. The words doubt in
most cases, there; but they are in Web
ster's Dictionary. The cryptogram
tell any story wanted. The cipher tells
any story under the manipulation of the oper-
ator-" This was the late lamented Donnelly's
fabric. Mr.. Nicholson, by perfectly fair, legit-