This testimony is so strong, so direct, so authoritative;
and so uncheapened, unwatered by guesses, and surmises,
and maybe-so’s, and might-have-beens, and could-have-beens,
and must-have-beens, and the rest of that ton of plaster
of Paris out of which the biographers have built the
colossal brontosaur which goes by the Stratford actor’s
name, that it quite convinces me that the man who
wrote Shakespeare’s Works knew all about law
and lawyers. Also, that that man could not have
been the Stratford Shakespeare—and wasn’t.
Who did write these Works, then?
I wish I knew.
----- 1. From Chapter XIII of the Shakespeare problem restated. By
George G. Greenwood, M.P. John Lane Company, publishers.
Did Francis Bacon write Shakespeare’s Works?
Nobody knows.
We cannot say we know a thing when that thing
has not been proved. Know is too strong
a word to use when the evidence is not final and absolutely
conclusive. We can infer, if we want to, like
those slaves. . . . No, I will not write that
word, it is not kind, it is not courteous. The
upholders of the Stratford-Shakespeare superstition
call us the hardest names they can think of,
and they keep doing it all the time; very well, if
they like to descend to that level, let them do it,
but I will not so undignify myself as to follow them.
I cannot call them harsh names; the most I can do
is to indicate them by terms reflecting my disapproval;
and this without malice, without venom.
To resume. What I was about to say was, those
thugs have built their entire superstition upon inferences,
not upon known and established facts. It is
a weak method, and poor, and I am glad to be able to
say our side never resorts to it while there is anything
else to resort to.
But when we must, we must; and we have now arrived
at a place of that sort. . . . Since the Stratford
Shakespeare couldn’t have written the Works,
we infer that somebody did. Who was it, then?
This requires some more inferring.
Ordinarily when an unsigned poem sweeps across the
continent like a tidal wave whose roar and boom and
thunder are made up of admiration, delight, and applause,
a dozen obscure people rise up and claim the authorship.
Why a dozen, instead of only one or two? One
reason is, because there are a dozen that are recognizably
competent to do that poem. Do you remember “Beautiful
Snow”? Do you remember “Rock Me to
Sleep, Mother, Rock Me to Sleep”? Do you
remember “Backward, turn, backward, O Time, in
thy flight! Make me a child again just for tonight”?
I remember them very well. Their authorship
was claimed by most of the grown-up people who were
alive at the time, and every claimant had one plausible
argument in his favor, at least—to wit,
he could have done the authoring; he was competent.
