an author's name on the title-page, though each was dedicated to Southampton, in an address dedicatory, sigued "William Shakespeare." This is all that the Harrison evidence amounts to, except that Dr. Ingleby says, "It is to me quite incredible that IIarrison would have done this unless Shakespeare had written the dedications, or at least had been a party to them."1 As to Meres, anybody can see by reading him that he wrote as a critic, and not as an historian. To subpoena Greene as a witness to Shakespeare's genius, is at least a bold stroke; for, as has been seen, Greene is very emphatic to the effect that William Shakespeare was a mere "Johannes Factotum," or Jack-of-all-trades, who trained in stolen plumage, and the Shakespeareans (Dr. Ingleby alone excepted) have universally exerted themselves to break the force of this testimony by proving Greene a drunkard, jealous, etc.3 Greene

1 Ibid.,

p. 42.

Palladis Tamia, Wit's Commonwealth," 1598.

3 That Robert Greene was much more than a drunkard and a pretender, but that, to the contrary, he had many admirers who were not unaware of the effrontery of his debtor, Shakespeare, a search among the old literature of the day would reveal. In a quarto tract, dated 1594, “Greene's Funeralls, by R. B., Gent.," is a copy of verses, the last stanza of which runs :

"Greene is the pleasing object of an eye

Greene pleased the eye of all that looked upon him;
Greene is the ground of every painter's dye,

Greene gave the ground to all that wrote upon him:
Nay, more; the men that so eclipsed his fame,
Purloined his plumes, can they deny that same?"

Hallam believes that the last two lines are directed principally at William Shakespeare. ("Literature of Europe," Part II., ch. vi., p. 32, note.)

A selection of his poems, edited by Lamb, is printed in Bohn's Standard Library. But by far the most careful ac

was a graduate of Cambridge-a learned man-" one of the fathers," says Lamb, "of the English stage." He does not seem to have approved of William Shakespeare's borrowing his plumes; but the impression that he was a monster of debauchery and drunkenness is derived wholly from his own posthumous work, "The Confessions of Robert Greene," etc., London, 1592, which lays the black paint on so thickly that it should have put the critics on their guard. Greene was probably no worse than his kind. Henry Chettle edited Greene, and personally deprecated some of its hard sayings as to Shakespeare, on account of his (Shakespeare's) being a clever, civil sort of fellow, and of "his facetious grace in writing;" but more particularly, no doubt, because "divers of worship" had taken him up, and he (Chettle) did not wish to appear as approving slander of a reigning favorite. Heminges and Condell were men of straw, whose names are signed to the preface to the "first folio," who otherwise bear no testimony one way or the other, but whose book, as will be demonstrated further on, is an unwilling witness against its purported author. And Ben Jonson, who brings up the rear of this precious seven, has been already disposed of. That theory must be pretty soundly grounded in truth, against which there is nothing but rhetoric to hurl, and, in our opinion, it would be entirely safe-if not for the Baconians, for the antiShakespeareans, at least-to rest their case on the arguments for the other side. And we believe the more count of Greene's career, as connected with William Shakes peare, is to be found in "The School of Shakespeare," by Richard Simpson, London: Chatto & Windus, 1878, Vol. II., p. 339.

thoughtful among Shakespeareans are beginning to recognize it, and coming to comprehend that, if they are to keep their Shakespeare they must re-write their "Biographies;" spend less time in proving him to have been an epitome of the moral virtues-beyond the temptation of deer stealing, beer drinking, and skylarking, etc.—and devote more attention to his opportunities for acquiring the lore and technical knowledge his alleged pages so accurately handle. Especially has Mr. Halliwell Phillips, in his little book (in which he binds himself to cite no dates or authorities subsequent to 1616), impressed us as endeavoring to meet this emergency. But we find that he has not met it. He has, indeed, developed many details of curious interest-as that John Shakespeare was, in April, 1552, fined twelve pence for throwing muck into the street in front of his house; and that he was several times a candidate for high bailiff of Stratford (or mayor, as the office was afterward called) before finally arriving at that dignity in 1568; that July 15, 1613, there was heard at Worcester Assizes a curious lawsuit, brought by Dr. John Hall, Shakespeare's sonin-law, against a neighbor for slandering his wife (Susannah Shakespeare), which suit appears to have been "fixed" in some way before coming to trial. Mr. Phillips brings much learning to prove that William may have been "pre-contracted" to Anne Hathawaythat his death may have been from malarial fever

1Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare. Brighton. Printed for the Author's friends, 1881. We should add to our list of books Mr. O. Follett's two able pamphlets on the Baconian theory. Sandusky, Ohio, 1880.

rather than inebriation-which have nothing at all to do with the question or the practical difficulties cited by the anti-Shakespeareans, one way or the other. But as to those practical difficulties, he brings no light and has no word to say.

PART VI.

THE NEW THEORY-THE SONNETS-CONCLUSION.

F a matter so indifferent as the number of pebbles in Demosthenes' mouth when he practiced oratory on the beach, no effort of

credulity can be predicated. But when a proposition is historical and capable of proving itself, it is, indeed, the skeptic who believes the most. It would be interesting, for example, to compile a catalogue of the reasons why A, B, and C, and their friends, doubt the real Shakespeare story, and cling to the manufactured tradition. A will tell us he believes it because somebody else (Bacon will do as well as anybody) wrote enough as it was, and was not the sort of man who would surrender any of the glory to which he was himself entitled, to another. B, because, when somebody else wrote poetry (for example, Bacon's "Paraphrase of the Psalms "), his style was quite another than the style of the dramas. C, because he is satisfied that William Shakespeare spent some terms at Stratford school, and was any thing but unkind to his wife. D, because the presumption is too old to be disturbed; as if we should always go on believing in William Tell and the man in the moon, because our ancestors believed in them! And so on, through the alphabet. It is so much easier, for instance, to believe that miracles should appear by the page, or that universal wisdom should spring fully