Numbers in bold brackets [] indicate original page numbers.
[1] As a much graver responsibility attaches to the publication of the following pages than is usual in the case of treatises on literary subjects, it is impossible to deal with the matter as impersonally as one might wish. The transference of the honour of writing the immortal Shakespeare dramas from one man to another, if definitely effected, becomes not merely a national or contemporary event, but a world event of permanent importance, destined to leave a mark as enduring as human literature and the human race itself. No one, therefore, who has a due sense of these things is likely to embark upon an enterprise of this kind in a spirit of levity or adventure; nor will he feel entitled to urge convictions, tending to bring about so momentous a change as if he were merely proposing some interesting thesis. However much the writer of a work like the present might wish to keep himself in the background he is bound to implicate himself so deeply as to stake publicly his reputation for sane and sober judgment, and thus to imperil the credit of his opinion on every other subject. It would therefore have been more discreet or diplomatic to have put forward the present argument tentatively at first, as a possible or probable, rather than an actual solution of the Shakespeare problem. The temptation to do this was strong, but the weight of the evidence collected has proved much too great and conclusive to permit of this being done with even a fair measure o justice either to the case or to my own honest convictions. Only one course then was open to me. The greater responsibility had to be incurred; and therefore some remark upon the circumstances under which the investigations came to be undertaken is not only justifiable but necessary.
[2] For several years in succession I had been called upon to go through repeated courses of reading in one particular play of Shakespeare's, namely "The Merchant of Venice." This long continued familiarity with the contents of one play induced a peculiar sense of intimacy with the mind and disposition of its author and his outlook upon life. The personality which seemed to run through the pages of the drama I felt to be altogether out of relationship with what was taught of the reputed author and the ascertained facts of his career. For example, the Stratford Shakspere was untravelled, having moved from his native place to London when a young man, and then as a successful middle-aged man of business he had returned to Stratford to attend to his lands and houses. This particular play on the contrary bespoke a writer who knew Italy at first hand and was touched with the life and spirit of the country. Again the play suggested an author with no great respect for money and business methods, but rather one to whom material possessions would be in the nature of an encumbrance to be easily and lightly disposed of : at any rate one who was by no means of an acquisitive disposition. This was hardly the type of man to have risen from poverty to affluence by his own efforts when but little more than thirty years of age, nor was such a man likely, to have been responsible for some of the petty money transactions recorded of the Stratford man. Other anomalies had forced themselves upon my attention and had done much to undermine my faith in the orthodox view. The call of other interests, however, prevented my following up the question with any seriousness.
A recurrence of the old doubts under new circumstances led me at length to look more closely into the problem and to consult writers who had dealt with it. These convinced me that the opponents of the orthodox view had made good their case to this extent, that there was no sufficient evidence that the man William Shakspere had written the works with which he was credited, whilst there was a [3] very strong prima facie presumption that he had not. Everything seemed to point to his being but a mask, behind which some great genius, for inscrutable reasons, had elected to work out his own destiny. I do not maintain that any single objection, to what for convenience sake we must call the Stratfordian view, afforded by itself sufficient grounds for regarding it as untenable; for most of these objections have been stoutly combated severally, by men whose opinions are entitled to respect. It was rather the cumulative effect of the many objections which, it appeared to me, made it impossible to adhere with any confidence to the old view of things, and so gave to the whole situation an appearance of inexplicable mystery.
Here, then, were the greatest literary treasures of England, ranked by universal consent amongst the, highest literary achievements, of mankind, to all intents and purposes of unknown origin. The immediate effect of such a conviction was the sense of a painful hiatus in the general outlook upon the supreme accomplishments of humanity; a want much more distressing than that which is, felt about the authorship of writings like the Homeric poems, because the matter touches us more directly and intimately. It was impossible, I felt, to leave things thus, if by any means the problem could be solved and the gap filled up. I resolved, therefore, notwithstanding the extreme boldness, or rather presumption, of the undertaking to attempt a solution of the problem.
At the beginning it was mainly the fascination of an interesting enquiry that held me, and the matter was pursued in the spirit of simple research. As the case has developed, however, it has, tended increasingly to assume the form of a serious purpose, aiming at a long overdue act of justice and reparation to an unappreciated genius who, we believe, ought now to be put in possession of his rightful honours; and to whose memory should be accorded a gratitude proportionate to the benefits he has conferred [4] upon mankind in general, and the lustre he has shed upon England in particular.
That one who is not a recognized authority or an expert in literature should attempt the solution of a problem which has so far baffled specialists must doubtless appear to many as a glaring act of overboldness; whilst to pretend to have actually solved this most momentous of literary puzzles will seem to some like sheer hallucination. A little reflection ought, however, to convince any one that the problem is not, at bottom, purely literary. That is to say, its solution does not depend wholly upon the extent of the investigator's knowledge of literature nor upon the soundness of his literary judgment. This is probably why the problem has not been solved before now. It has been left mainly in the hands of literary men, whereas its solution required the application of methods of research which are not, strictly speaking, literary methods. The imperfection of my own literary equipment, of which I was, only too conscious, was therefore no reason why I should not attempt the task; and if the evidence collected in support of any proposed solution should of itself prove satisfactory, its validity ought not to be in any way affected by considerations purely personal to the investigator.
I proceeded accordingly to form plans for searching for the real author of Shakespeare's plays. These plans were outlined before taking any step, and will be fully explained in due course. Personally, I have not the slightest doubt as to their having succeeded. Whether I shall be able to so present the case as to establish an equally strong conviction in the minds of others, is, of course, a vastly different matter. The force of a conviction is frequently due as much to the manner in which the evidence presents itself, as to the intrinsic value of the evidence. For example, when a theory, that we have formed from a consideration of certain facts, leads us to suppose that certain other facts will exist, the later discovery that the facts are actually in accordance with our inferences becomes a much [5] stronger confirmation of our theory than if we had known these additional facts at the outset. We state this principle in matters of science when we affirm that the supreme test and evidence of the soundness of a scientific theory is its power of enabling us to foresee some events as a consequence of others. The manner, therefore, in which facts and ideas have been arrived at becomes itself an important element in the evidence; and it is this consideration which has decided for me the method most suitable for presenting the case.
Though it is impossible ever to carry the minds of others through precisely the same processes as those by which one's own settled beliefs have been reached, it has seemed to me that in this instance some attempt of the kind should be made in order that the reader, in seeing how readily newly discovered particulars have arranged themselves in a clear order around an original hypothesis, may come to feel something of the same certainty which these things have produced in my own mind. As a matter of fact, some of the most convincing evidence presented itself after my theory of the authorship had already assumed the form of a settled conviction, and indeed after this work was virtually completed; thus, rendering my receding from the theory practically impossible. To others, however, who might only see it in the general mass of accumulated evidence, it could not appeal with anything like the same compelling force. These considerations have decided me to present the case as far as possible in the form of a representation of the various stages through which the enquiry was pursued, the manner in which the evidence was collected, and the process by which an accumulating corroboration transformed a theory into an irresistible conviction.
What at first blush may appear a pedantic description of a method ought, therefore, to be viewed as in itself a distinctive form of evidence. I would ask, then, that it be regarded as such, and that what would otherwise be [6] an unseemly obtrusion of personality be excused accordingly.
The reader's indulgence must also be sought on another score. The first steps in an enquiry pursued according to the method I had to adopt were inevitably slow, and this may import a measure of tediousness into the introductory stages of an exposition following on the same lines. Yet without a patient attention to the various steps of the enquiry the unity and conclusiveness of the argument as a whole might be missed. Although these pages are addressed to the general reader rather than to literary scholars, I am obliged to assume a serious desire to discover the truth and a willingness to take some trouble to arrive at it. Especially must I ask for that concentrated individual reflection by which alone the various parts of the argument may be seen as a whole: a practice which, we are afraid, is somewhat alien to the purely literary mind.
In one or two instances I have no doubt made use of books that are somewhat rare, the most critical chapter of the work, in fact, depending wholly upon a work, copies of which are not readily accessible to every one: nevertheless it will be found that nothing important in the argument rests upon newly unearthed data. Everything has been accessible for years to any one who might have been on the lookout for the facts, and was prepared to take trouble to ascertain them. Even where personal judgments constitute important elements in the evidence, as is natural in enquiries of this nature, the case has been made to rest at almost every critical stage, not upon my own judgment alone, but upon the statements of writers of recognized standing and authority whose works have for some time been before the public. In most cases it will be found that the authorities quoted are writers of the Stratfordian school. Great as are my obligations specially to Sir George Greenwood's work, I have purposely refrained from quoting from it when I might often have done so with advantage to my own argument, and preferred resting upon the authority [7] of writers of the opposite school. How completely these writers support my thesis, will I trust be apparent in the sequel. This being so, the question might reasonably be asked: how comes it that the discovery which is claimed has not been made before now? The answer to this question is to be found in the history of almost all the important advances that man has made. The basic facts of his discoveries have usually been well known for some time before. What has been of special consequence has been the perception, sometimes purely accidental, of a relationship amongst these facts hitherto not noticed. Once detected, however, other facts have become grouped and co-ordinated by it, and the resultant discovery, for which mankind had probably waited long, appears at last so natural and obvious, that men wonder that it had not been thought of before. This may be taken as a compendium of human discovery generally.
In almost every such case there has been a preparatory movement towards the discovery; a movement in which many minds have participated; and the one who has been fortunate enough to make the discovery has frequently been, in important respects, inferior to those into whose labours he has entered. Now, I have no doubt that Shakespearean study has of late years been making surely towards the discovery of the real author of the works. I can detect two distinct currents of literary interest, which, it seems to me, were bound ultimately to converge, and in their converging disclose the authorship. The first of these has been the tendency to put aside the old conception of a writer creating everything by the vigour of his imagination, and to regard the writings as reflecting the personality and experiences of their author. The result has been the gradual rise of a conception of the personality of "Shakespeare," differing very widely from the conventional figure: an outstanding expression of this tendency being Mr. Frank Harris's work on "The Man Shakespeare." The second current, only faintly perceptible as yet, has been [8] slowly forcing from obscurity, into our knowledge of Elizabethan literature and drama, the name and figure of one still quite unknown to the vast mass of his countrymen. These two movements, if continued, had in them the possibility of the discovery; though how long that discovery might have been deferred, no one can say.
What I have to propose, however, is not an accidental discovery, but one resulting from a systematic search. And it is to the nature of the method, combined with a happy inspiration and a fortunate chance, that the results here described were reached.
In presenting a thesis the strength of which must depend largely upon the convergence of several separate lines of argument, a certain amount of repetition of particular facts is unavoidable, and in this matter I have preferred to risk an unnecessary reiteration rather than an incomplete statement of any particular argument. The reason for such repetition it is hoped will not be overlooked. My object being to solve an important problem rather than to swell the supply of literature, all merely literary considerations have been kept subordinate to the central purpose.
One other matter affecting the general presentation of the argument remains to be mentioned. As originally written the work contained no special examination of Stratfordianism, but merely incidental observations scattered throughout the various chapters. My feeling was that sufficient had already been written by others upon the subject; that short of absolute proof of the negative, the anti-Stratfordians had established their case, and that what was wanted was not more evidence but a serious attention to what had already been written, and above all a reasonable positive hypothesis to put in the place of the old one. From this point of view it seemed possible to begin my argument at the point where others, had left off. I was, however, advised by friends, more capable than myself of judging the needs of readers, to make my argument complete in itself, by presenting first of all the case for the negative [9] view, and thus clearing the way for my own special investigations. This change of plan is bound to involve what might appear like wanton and pointless repetition in several instances, and may interfere with the unity of the constructive scheme of exposition. I would, however, urge the reader not to linger unduly over the things that are destined to pass away, but to press on to a consideration of those matters which, if there be truth in my thesis, will endure, at least so long as the English language is understood.