Numbers in bold brackets [] indicate original page numbers.
The Stratfordian View
VII
The only thing that can be described as a reliable personal reference to William Shakspere in the whole course of his life was made in 1592 when Greene attacked him as an "upstart crow," beautiful in the feathers of others. Chettle the publisher's subsequent apology is couched in terms which indicate [50] the intervention of highly placed and powerful patrons. Clearly Shakspere had behind him some friend that writers and publishers could not afford to ignore. At that time nothing had been published under his name, his London career was just opening, and this, we repeat, is the only thing that can be called a personal incident in the whole of his London record, which according to modern Stratfordians continued for twenty years after this affair. As a matter of fact his own attitude in this so-called incident was purely passive, Chettle's apology making no reference to any protest or resentment on the part of the man attacked, but solely to the "divers of worship" who had made representations on his behalf. After this it would appear that no one ventured upon personal references, good, bad, or indifferent. The experience of Chettle was evidently a warning to others.
Subsequently, "Venus" and "Lucrece" were published with "Shakespeare's" name as author, and we then get a few references to the poems, such as any reader of the works might have penned.
"Yet Tarquyne pluckt his glistering grape,
And Shake-speare paints poore Lucrece rape."(1594. The year of the publication of "Lucrece.")
"All praise worthy Lucrecia: Sweet Shak-speare."
(1595.)
"And Shakespeare, thou whose hony flowing vaine
. . . . .
Whose Venus, and whose Lucrece sweet and chaste,
Thy name in fames immortall booke have plac't."(1598.)
This is all that we have in the period prior to the actual publication of the dramas. They are self-evidently inspired by the poems, make no reference to the plays, and [51] have nothing more to do with the man than could be learnt from the works: a fact to which the spelling and splitting up of the name "Shake-speare" bears witness. Nor have they anything to do with him as an actor.
Not till we reach the year 1598, the year in which the first of the dramas with "Shakespeare's" name were published, do we meet with any contemporary reference to "Shakespeare" as a writer of plays; by this time we are justified in supposing that William Shakspere was duly established at Stratford. Here, again, there is no personal reference: the name merely appearing in long lists of ancient and contemporary writers with an occasional remark upon the quality or contents of the work published under their names. This work of Francis Meres - his "Palladis Tamia" - at the same time bears testimony to what may be called the high classic quality of "Shakespeare's" English in the eyes of contemporary scholars, and also to "Shakespeare's" familiarity with the ancient classics.
In 1599 we meet with another literary reference in which, in addition to "Venus" and "Lucrece," the plays of "Romeo" and "Richard" (II or III) are referred to. These plays had already been published.
In 1600 the name again occurs in a list of over twenty poets of Elizabeth's reign.
In 1604 his name appears along with Jonson's and Greene's in couplets calling for verses in honour of Elizabeth.
Again in 1604, the year of the revised edition of Hamlet, the name occurs in a literary reference to this play: and in 1603 or 5 in another list of contemporary poets. In the "Returne from Pernassus" (written 1602, printed 16o6) he is first and most particularly mentioned as the author of "Venus"' and "Lucrece," and afterwards as one of those that "pen plaies."
Such is the character of all the contemporary references which the industry of Halliwell-Phillipps has brought [52] together: references, that is to say, of people who knew "Shakespeare" in print, but who have nothing to tell us about William Shakspere in the flesh. The single instance of a contemporary reference to the man, after the 1592 affair ("The sole anecdote of Shakespeare that is positively known to have been recorded in his lifetime," S. L.), is a wretched immoral story; evidently the invention of some would-be wit: a story which is rightly discarded, as apocryphal, by most authorities on both sides of the question. The magnitude of this omission of real contemporary reference to the personality of the man can only be appreciated by those who, for any special purpose, have had to search into the collections of Elizabethan documents that have been published, or who know anything of the immense amount of personal details, concerning the most unimportant of people, preserved in our various local histories. Such a silence seems only explicable on the assumption that the utmost care was taken to keep the man out of sight.
It has already been pointed out that none of his activities in Stratford has left the slightest trace of a letter from his pen. The same strange feature marks his middle period in London. Again, it is not merely preserved autograph letters which are conspicuously absent, but there is a total absence of evidence, or even rumour, that he ever corresponded with a single soul. At the same time literary men of recognized inferiority to "Shakespeare" were the regular correspondents of the aristocratic patrons of literature; and even when the actual letters are missing traces of such correspondence can be found in the literary history of the times. In William Shakspere's case there is not the faintest trace. Even Ben Jonson, separated by many miles and for many years from his idol, makes no suggestion of letters having passed between them at any time. Nor during these years is there the slightest record of any of those things by which a genius impresses his personality upon his contemporaries. Outside the printed works nothing but blank negation meets [53] us whenever we seek to connect this man with any of those things by which eminent literary men have left incidental impressions of themselves upon contemporary life. As then we have the best authority for saying that he had nothing to do with the publication of the dramas - and even the poems which contained "Shakespeare's" dedication to the Earl of Southampton had no author's name on their title-pages - if William Shakspere were not a mere mask for another writer, perhaps some Stratfordian will tell us what else he could have done, or left undone, to make it appear that such was the part he was, playing.
In addition to William Shakspere's own silence we must not overlook the complete silence of "Shakespeare's" great contemporary Edmund Spenser in respect to everything Shakespearean. His reference to "Willie" in his poem, the "Tears of the Muses," it is very commonly agreed nowadays, could not, on account of its date, have any reference to William Shakspere. The only possible allusion to Shakespeare which he makes is in 1595, in his poem "Colin Clout's Come Home Again." That his "Aetion" has anything to do with Shakespeare is pure conjecture, based upon the assumption that only "Shakespeare" could deserve the high praise which Spenser bestows upon the poet so designated. When, however, in the following lines he places Sir Philip Sidney first amongst the poets to whom he is alluding, we cannot accept "Aetion" as Shakespeare - that is to say, as a poet inferior, in Spenser's judgment, to Sidney - without discrediting Spenser's judgment. In other words, we destroy the very grounds upon which we originally suppose that "Aetion" is Shakespeare. In any case, the allusion is only to "Shakespeare" the poet, whose poems might have reached Spenser ("Colin Clout") in Ireland prior to his coming home. If, however, we accept the date which Spenser himself attaches to the dedication of the poem to Sir Walter Raleigh, namely 1591, it is evident that "Aetion" could not be "William Shakspere," and could [54] have no connection with the great "Shakespeare" poems, which were not published until 1593 and 1594.