the Baconian theory, taken from another standpoint it is quite as strongly corroborative. For on the one hand, Bacon was alive when this folio was printed, and the man who rewrote his essays eleven times would scarcely have allowed his plays to go to the public so shiftlessly printed. But on the other hand, if the book was printed without consulting him, that insurmountable barrier-the fact that Bacon never claimed these plays-is swept away at once. We have simply to assume that he always intended, at some convenient season, to acknowledge them that he was not satisfied with them as they appeared in the Heminges and Condell edition, and proposed revising them himself before claiming them, (we know how difficult he found it to satisfy his own censorship) or that he purposed completing the series, (for which the sketch of the Henry VII may have been placed among his private memoranda) at his leisure. We have then only to imagine that death overtook him suddenly (his death was sudden) before this programme had been completed, and his not acknowledging them; not leaving them-incomplete as he believed them to "the next ages," was characteristic of the man. "If I go, who remains? If I remain, who goes?" said Dante to the Council of Florence. Take the Shakespearean pages away from English literature, and what remains? Retain them, and what departs? And yet are men to believe that the writer of these pages left no impress on the history of his age and no item in the chronicle of his time? that, in the intensest focus of the clear, calm, electric-light of nineteenth century inspection and investigation, their author stands only revealed in the gossip of goodwives or the drivel of a pot-house clientage? Who is it-his reason and judgment once enlisted-who believes this thing? Columbus discovered the continent we call after the name of another. Where shall we find written the names of the genii whose fruit and fame this Shakespeare has stolen. Having lost "our Shakespeare" both to-day and forever, it will doubtless remain—as it is the question, "Who wrote the Shakespearean dramas?" The evidence is all in-the testimony is all taken. Perhaps it is a secret that even Time will never tell, that is hidden deep down in the crypt and sacristy of the Past, whose seal shall never more be broken. In the wise land of China it is said that when a man has deserved well of the state, his countrymen honor, with houses and lands and gifts and decorations, not himself, but his father and his mother. Perhaps, learning a lesson from the Celestials, we might rear a shaft to the fathers and the mothers of the Immortality that wrote the Book of Nature, the mighty book which "age can not wither, nor custom stale" and whose infinite variety for three centuries has been and, until Time shall be no more, will be close to the hearts of every age and cycle of men— household words for ever and ever, The Bookthank heaven!—that nothing can divorce from us. THE END. INDEX. A. Actors, names of Shakespeare's printed by mistake in first folio, Actors, fellows of W. S. Did they suspect imposition? 37. Of Shakespeare's day, expected to improvise, 260. Addison, Joseph, his estimate of Shakespearean plays, 26. Althea, classical error as to, 210. Angling, knowledge of, displayed in plays, 228. Or pseudonymic, fashionable in those days, 176. A compromise of, suggested, 300. Areopagitica, Milton's, first asserted author's rights, 108. Protest against them, 274, note. Purchased with Shakespeare's first earnings, 274. Why Shakespeare purchased, 274. Article in Chambers' Journal first raises authorship question, 185. Expert evidence of, 303–304. Audiences. See Plays. Did not want scientific treatises, 229. Formative days of, 263. Not critical, 13. The Shakespearean, 114-259. Author, his interest to be anonymous, 113. Compensation, how obtained, 108. Author of the plays. See Plays. His fidelity to national characteristics, 42. Insight of, into the human heart, no guess work, 43. Authorship of Henry VI., R. G. White's idea of, 303. Anonymous or pseudonymic authorship, prevalent, 176. See Joint authorship. Insecurity of. See Author, Copyright, Nashe, Printers, Insecurity of authorship. See Star Chamber. B. Bacon, and Shakespeare misquote passage of Aristotle, 241. Appears in New Theory, 284. Believes in teaching history by drama, 242. Could have appraised the S. Drama 180. Did William Shakespeare write works of, 38, 39. Driven to "the Jews,' 233. See "Shylock." His acquirements, 232. His estimate of the theatre, 203. His letter to the Queen, 237. His "Northumberland MS.," 242. His reasons for concealment, 201, 316. His "Sonnet" what may be, 280, 281. His youth compared with Shakespeare's, 232. May have brought together first folio, 236. No cause to mourn for Elizabeth, 243. Not mentioned to Shakespeare by Jonson, 145. |