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Of the Two Shakespearian Problems

T is strange that, in discussing Shakespearian questions, we must commence with the discussion of a name. In the time of Elizabeth, the name Shakespeare, under which the Shakespearian works were published, was to be found, as Mr. Phillipps tells us, in every part of England. In Warwickshire, as appears from contemporary records, the name was spelt in some twenty or thirty different ways, all of them, however, pronounced as Shaxpere -a form which it frequently assumed. In the case of the Stratford family the name ultimately crystallised into Shakspere. This is shown by the extracts from the Stratford Register, which Mr. Phillipps has given in his Outlines (ii. 51), and by the facsimiles with which Mr. Lee has ornamented the Library Edition of his Life. The Parish Register of Stratford contains an entry of every event in the domestic life of its famous townsman, and his name appears as Shakspere in the entries of his baptism (p. 8), of the baptism of his first child (p. 21),

of the baptism of his twins (p. 23), of the burial of his only son (p. 149), of the marriage of his elder daughter (p. 216), of the marriage of his younger daughter (p. 219), and of the burial of himself (p. 221). As every one knows, the only specimens of his handwriting that we possess are the two signatures to the deeds which he executed in 1612, the three signatures to the will which he executed in 1616, and the words By me,' with which the will is vouched. The three signatures to the will are all but undecipherable, and three different opinions have been expressed as to what they really are; but there can be no difference of opinion as to the signatures of the deeds, a transcript of which is given by Mr. Phillipps (ii. 34, 36). In the body of the deeds, and in the delivery clause of each, the grantee is described by the draftsman as William Shakespeare, but when the grantee comes to execute the instruments he does not recognise that form of the name, but signs himself William Shakspere. To this spelling, according to Mr. Hallam, there are no exceptions in his autographs, and Mr. Spedding, in his observations on the Northumberland Papers, gives expression to the same opinion. Accordingly, Mr. Coleridge, Professor Dowden, and Mr. Boas adopt the spelling of the owner of the name, while Mr. Swinburne rejects the new Shakspere' as 'a novus homo,' with whom he has no desire to be acquainted (p. 256). It may be thought that as long as we

have the Sonnets, the Poems, and the Plays of Shakespeare, it is idle to dispute about a name; but here the dispute about the name involves a dispute about the man. The Legitimist spells an equally famous name as Buonaparte to intimate that Napoleon was an Italian, while the Imperialist spell it Bonaparte to indicate that he was French; and in a somewhat similar way there is a school of critics who employ the word Shakspere to designate the Stratford Player, and reserve the word Shakespeare to designate the eminent person whom they regard as the Author of the Plays.

The world has refused to make any such distinction. For well nigh three hundred years it has identified the Player with the Playwright. The feeling with which he is regarded has been consecrated by authority, and has become venerable by the lapse of time. Admiration has risen to reverence, and reverence has been exalted into worship, and the Shakspere cult has overspread the world. Stratfordon-Avon has been converted into a literary Mecca, and thirty thousand pilgrims annually visit its Parish Church as their Caaba.

And yet it is wonderful how little we know of the man we venerate so much; Mr. Hallam, indeed, in his History of Literature, declares that we know scarcely anything at all. From his baptism in 1564 to his marriage in 1582 we have no record of his existence. From his marriage in 1582 till his arrival in London in 1587, we know nothing of his circumstances but

the birth and baptism of his children. From 1587 to 1592 there is not a particle of evidence respecting his career; and from 1592 till his death in 1616, all that we actually know of him is that he was a successful player, that he made money on the stage and invested it in land, that he retired from the stage when he was comparatively young, and that he died in April 1616, without having claimed the authorship of the works associated with his name, and without having shown the slightest interest in their fate.

To fill up the lacunæ of his life a variety of expedients have been adopted. According to Mr. Phillipps, literature has been afflicted for many generations by the reception of unscrupulous forgeries, that have corrupted nearly every branch of inquiry which relates to the life or works of the great dramatist' (ii. 161); and of such forgeries Mr. Lee has furnished us with examples in the forged autographs, the forged letters, and the forged entries, which he has exposed in the appendix to his book (pp. 302-6). More innocent, but equally worthless in a biographical point of view, are the fancies in which critics of the highest reputation have indulged. Assuming the famous Player to have been the author of the Plays, they have represented him as being everything that the author must have been. The Plays exhibit a professional knowledge of the Law; and Malone assumed that he was a Lawyer's Clerk. They display a semi

professional knowledge of Medicine; and eminent Physicians have converted him into a Médecin malgrè Lui. The Plays abound in classical quotations and allusions; and Professor Baynes is of opinion that he was a trained classical Scholar, and that even as a lad at school he was a master of 'conversational and epistolary Latin.' The Plays are full of expressions, French, Spanish, and Italian; and accordingly Mr. Boas maintains that, though he never swam in a gondola, he had acquired a knowledge of two or three European languages. The Plays are wholly exempt from all provincialisms of thought and speech; and Mr. Castle indulges in the pleasant fancy, that he went to London as a mere lad, and that he was taken in hand by some high-born and well-bred ladies, who taught him those high notions of the sex which he afterwards embodied in his heroines' (p. 154). Castle admits that all this is very speculative, not amounting to evidence, but of that, he confesses, we have none (p. 153). This is the characteristic of all these fancy Shaksperes. In order to bring the works as we possess them and the reputed author into strict accord, his devotees have made him a Schoolmaster, a Soldier, a Printer, a Courtier, a Lawyer, a Man of Science-an ever-shifting and elusive Proteus. Of all these fancy Shaksperes the most charming is the one presented to us by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dublin in his Diary of Master William Silence. In defiance of

Mr.