And towards the end we find another play on words suited to the times and the occasion. Bacon, the man whose sixtieth birthday is being celebrated, is to be extolled. Is it likely that such a poem should terminate with lines referring to another person? Does the word "King," at the end, really refer to King James? Never! If we listen attentively, we shall find that also that word refers rather to Bacon. The meaning of the two last lines is: "Give me a deep-bowl'd crown, that I may sing, in raising him (Bacon), the wisdom of my King." No doubt, it was very nice of Ben Jonson to extol the wisdom of King James, who had appointed Bacon Lord Chancellor. But the idea which the witty author of those verses had in his mind surely was; I, the poet, Ben Jonson, in extolling the poet Bacon, sing the praises of my King, the King of England's Poets, Shakespeare, the ancient Pile, who did a mystery.

We shall soon hear Ben Jonson repeating the play on the word "pile," this time in Latin, and that in a most telling and important passage, viz., in the first sentence of the translation of the Essays.

In conclusion, we would mention, as bearing on the subject, that passage from the prayer: "O Lord, And ever as my worldly blessings were exalted, so secret darts from thee have pierced me." The rhyme sets in with "secret darts" God's "secret darts" pierced

the exalted "Shakespeare!"

V

THE MYSTERIOUS MANNER OF THE ACTOR

SHAKSPERE (SIC!)

Sus rostro si forte humi

A literam impresserit, num propterea
Suspicabere integram Tragoediam, veluti

Literam unam, ab ea posse describi ?

FRANCISCI BACONI Temporis Partus

What though a pig perchance may dig

Maximus.

And print an A i'th ground with burrowing greedy
snout,

Do you think it possible, say, a tragic play such a pig

Could essay, like th' A?

were-big!

Who would doubt such conceit

FRANCIS BACON'S The Greatest Birth
of Time.

Now the man whose name answered to the ideas conveyed by hurling-spear and spear-hurler, the man of whom Ben Jonson said he seemed "to shake a Lance," that man's name, as we already stated, was never mentioned by Francis Bacon, one so excellently versed in all things pertaining to literature, and who for years had been the Literary Counsellor to Queen Elizabeth.

The name of the actor William, however, known

to the world as "Shakespeare," for that is how the name is spelt on the printed title-pages-was not really "Shakespeare," but " Shakspere," or "Shackspere." He bore a similar but not the same name.

Without attributing too much importance to this fact, let us examine the relationship in which the actor stood to the works of William Shakespeare.

Whatever the numerous works dealing with the personality of the actor, more especially the latest work by Mr. Sidney Lee, may have brought to light as positive facts regarding his life and literary work—it is very little, little more than nothing. Those that pretend to know sufficient about the personality of the actor in his assumed capacity as a poet, deceive themselves, and others, in saying so. We know the Shakespeare works and some facts about their publication; but as to the actor and his relationship to the works, these have foiled all efforts of research; the investigators all together have brought next to nothing to light; the mystery baffles the cunning.

Diligent research has, in the first place, proved beyond doubt that the father of the actor could not write (he made a cross in place of his name), that the mother could not write (she signed her name with a cross), that the daughter Judith could not write (she signed her name with a wriggling attempt at a flourish scarcely resembling the initial letter of her name).

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We also know for a fact that the five preserved signatures of the actor all present more or less the form "Shakspere" or Shackspere" (not Shakespeare), and that nothing more, not one other line written by his hand, has been preserved. The five

signatures, however, prove that the man wrote an awful hand. They are even drawn in such a childish fashion that some graphologists have concluded therefrom, that the man could write nothing beyond his own name.

As regards the education of the actor, we know for a positive fact that it was very deficient. True, he frequented the Free Grammar School at Stratford, but not for long. The fact that he is said (!) to have been a lawyer's clerk for a short time, was not likely to render him a scholar. His early marriage and the fact that he forsook his wife and three children, were feats but ill-calculated to stamp him as the literary hero of his day.

As to the personality of the man, we are told that he became an actor in London, and that later on he rose to be one of the chief part-owners, or one of the leading members of the company. But little is positively known as to the parts he played. It is probable that he mostly took the comic parts. Ben Jonson informs us that in his extemporising on the stage he at times o'ershot the mark.

At the age of forty-five, or thereabouts, he finally retired from London life and returned to his native town Stratford-on-Avon, where he died in 1616. In his Last Will no mention is made of any literary rights or claims upon any plays or books; nothing is said of books or manuscripts, to be left to his heirs, whereas in other details he even goes so far as to dispose of his second-best bedstead.

At his death not a line was penned in all England, not a word, deploring the loss of a great poet.

In direct contrast to all these facts stands the

tremendous literary knowledge of the author of the dramas. Numerous investigators have proved beyond doubt that the poet was not only thoroughly acquainted with English literature, but was also equally versed in the literatures and languages of the Romans, Greeks, Italians, French, and Spaniards, that he possessed an exhaustive knowledge of English and of Roman history, that he was an authority on all natural, legal, political, and medical sciences, commanding a vocabulary of the English language such as hitherto no mortal had ever called his own. He was also familiar with the philosophic systems of the Greeks and Romans, and with the mythology of remote antiquity, all of which he put to good use. In short, the works, bearing on their front the name of "William Shakespeare" are inconsistent with what we know about the personality of the man "William Shakspere."

The contrast is still more striking when we come to consider the periods in, and the various conditions under, which the Shakespeare dramas were published.

At first, a whole series of those dramas, which in subsequent, or revised editions, bear the name of "William Shakespeare," appeared without any name, i.e., as anonymous works; viz., King John, The Taming of a Shrew, four King Henry plays, Richard the Second, Richard the Third, The Comedy of Errors, and Romeo and Juliet. All these were printed anonymously in the years 1591 to 1598. A nobleman who wrote plays had every reason to conceal his name, as a playwright. Why an actor, a man of the theatrestage, should disguise his authorship, no one can give us a plausible reason.

And it surprises us all the more that, just at the