It is positively asserted here, that the play was a new ɔne, and that it had never been upon the stage, nor been sullied with the smoky breath of the multitude. The writer must have known this. It was first produced at Court, and was no doubt addressed rather to the refined and learned personages that would be there assembled to hear it, than to the unlettered multitude; and these being "the grand possessors," and the play being such as he knew it to be, he did not hesitate to tell the public, that they might be thankful that they ever got it at all, and, if they knew what was good for themselves, they should rather pray to have it than be prayed to take it; and this is as true today as it was then; for as we know, it seldom appears upon the public stage, though full of the loftiest wisdom. But very soon after it was printed, it found its way to the theatre, and shortly after it had appeared upon the stage, and in the same year, a second edition was issued from the same type, only suppressing this preface, and announcing the play on the title-page "as it was acted by the King's Majesty's Servants at the Globe: Written by William Shakespeare." It had now come to be a Shakespeare's play. From this significant allusion to the "grand possessors' wills," both Tieck and Knight have inferred that the manuscript came from the possession, or control, either of the King himself, or of some great personage about the Court, and that Shakespeare had written this "wonderful comedy" for that person and for the use of the revels at Court, and not for the public stage; an inference, which would seem to carry upon its face the appearance of a forced construction. In view of all that will be offered herein touching the question of this authorship, it may appear more probable, and these very facts may give us some intimation, that the great personage in question was himself the author of the play, being no other (as it will be shown) than Sir Francis Bacon, then lately become Solicitor-General. At least, not inconsistent with this conclusion, is Mr. Verplanck's excellent appreciation of the play itself, in these words: — "Its beauties are of the highest order. It contains passages fraught with moral truth and political wisdom-high truths, in large and philosophical discourse, such as remind us of the loftiest disquisitions of Hooker, or Jeremy Taylor, on the foundations of social law. Thus the comments of Ulysses (Act I. Sc. 3) on the universal obligation of the law of order and degree, and the confusion caused by rebellion to its rule, either in nature or in society, are in the very spirit of the grandest and most instructive eloquence of Burke. The piece abounds too in passages of the most profound and persuasive practical ethics, and grave advice for the government of life; as when in the third act, Ulysses (the great didactic organ of the play) impresses upon Achilles the consideration of man's ingratitude for good deeds past,' and the necessity of perseverance to keep honor bright."" And in further confirmation of this view, we find in this play one of those numerous instances of similarity, not to say identity, of thought and language, which, independent of extraneous circumstances, though not absolutely conclusive in themselves, are, nevertheless, scarcely less convincing than the most direct evidence when considered with all the rest; for, in the "Advancement of Learning,”. treating of moral culture, Bacon quotes Aristotle as saying, "that young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy," because "they are not settled from the boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and experience." And in the "Troilus and Cressida," we have the same thing in these lines: : "Not much Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought Unfit to hear moral philosophy." Act II. Sc. 2. Mr. Spedding notices that Aristotle speaks only of "political philosophy," and he observes that the error of Bacon, in making him speak of "moral philosophy," had been followed by Shakespeare. The "Advancement" was published in 1605, and this appears to have been a new play in 1608, (if, indeed, that older play of 1602 were not a first sketch of the same piece,) and so, it is barely possible that William Shakespeare may have seen the "Advancement" before those lines were written. But the whole tenor of the argument in the play is so exactly in keeping with Bacon's manner and mode of dealing with the subject, that it is hard to believe a mere plagiarist would have followed him so profoundly. Bacon expresses the same opinions somewhat more fully in the De Augmentis, (published in 1623,) that "young men are less fit auditors of policy than of morals, until they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion and the doctrine of morals and duties; for, otherwise, the judgment is so depraved and corrupted that they are apt to think there are no true and solid moral differences of things, and they measure everything according to utility or success, as the poet says: 'Prosperum et fælix scelus virtus vocatur." 1 Now, this is precisely the depraved judgment of young Paris, according to his speech in the play. He argued that it would be disgraceful to the Trojan leaders to give up Helen, on terms of base compulsion": he 66 "would have the soil of her fair rape Wip'd off in honorable keeping her." To which Hector replies altogether too much in Bacon's own style, not to have participated in his studies: "Hect. Paris and Troilus, you have both said well; And on the cause and question now in hand The reasons you allege, do more conduce 1 De Aug. Lib. VII., Works (Boston), III. 45 'Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge Of any true decision. Nature craves All dues be render'd to their owners: now, If Helen, then, be wife to Sparta's king,— Of nature and of nations speak aloud To have her back return'd: thus to persist In doing wrong extenuates not wrong, But makes it much more heavy.”. - Act II. Sc. 2. In addition to the similarity of idea in respect of the errors of young men as to the doctrine and foundation of morals, there is an outcropping of identical expression in such phrases as these: "not settled from the boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and experience," and "to the hot passion of distemper'd blood"; "the judgment is so depraved and corrupted," and "if this law of nature be corrupted through affection"; "no true and solid moral differences of things," and "these moral laws of nature and of nations"; "the soil of her fair rape wip'd off in honorable keeping her," and "scelus virtus vocatur"; which are altogether too special, palpable, and peculiar, to be accidental, or to be due to any common usage of that or any age; and there would seem to be no room left for the possibility of a doubt as to the identity of the authorship. § 7. DOUBTFUL PLAYS. Not only these plays and poems, but six other plays, which did not appear in that Folio, and which have never been received into the genuine canon, were likewise published, in Shakespeare's lifetime, under his name, or initials, viz: the "Sir John Oldcastle" in 1600, the "London Prodigal" in 1605, the "Yorkshire Tragedy" in 1608, (and the "Pericles" in 1609,) under his name in full; and the "Locrine" in 1595, the "Thomas Lord Cromwell" in 1602, and the "Puritan, or Widow of Watling Street" in 1607, under the initials "W. S.," which some critics have taken to mean William Shakespeare, while others, with Malone, have agreed that they meant William Smith, and, with Pope, that Shakespeare never wrote a single line of them. These plays were in the possession of his theatre, and doubtless came into the hands of the printers in like manner with many of the others, which were in like manner reputed to be his. And not only these, but still another list was imputed to him, in his own time and afterwards, viz: the "Arraignment of Paris,” the "Arden of Feversham," the "Edward III.," the "Birth of Merlin," the “Fair Em; the Miller's Daughter,” and the "Mucedorus,” as well as the "Merry Devil of Edmonton," acted at the Globe, and printed, in 1608, under the names of Shakespeare and Rowley, and the "Two Noble Kinsmen," printed after the death of Shakespeare under his name and that of Fletcher; most of which have been rejected by nearly all critics as not Shakespeare's. Of the three that were published under his name in full, in his lifetime, there is scarcely any room to doubt that they were written by other authors. According to Malone, the "Sir John Oldcastle" was written by Munday, Drayton, Wilson, and Hathwaye. The first and second parts of it were entered in the books of the Stationers' Company, in 1600; the first part was printed in the name of William Shakespeare, in that year, as performed at Henslowe's theatre; and an entry in Henslowe's diary shows that, in 1599, he paid those authors for both parts; but the second part was never printed. Mr. Knight and other later critics concur in the judgment of Malone, that it is clearly not a play of Shakespeare. The "Yorkshire Tragedy" was entered and printed in |