Part 27 (1/2)

This forged paper is in the Public Record Office, and was first printed in Collier's 'History of English Dramatic Poetry' (1831), vol i p

297, and has been constantly reprinted as if it were genuine

{367b} 1596 (_circa_) A letter signed H S(_ie_ Henry, Earl of Southa protection for the players of the Blackfriars Theatre, and e and Shakespeare by name

First printed in Collier's 'New Facts'

1596 (_circa_) A list of sharers in the Blackfriars Theatre, with the valuation of their property, in which Shakespeare is credited with four shares, worth 933 pounds 6s 8d This was first printed in Collier's 'New Facts,'

1835, p 6, froust 6) Notice of the perfore's 'players'

before Queen Elizabeth when on a visit to Sir Thoed account of disbursee, fro to the Earl of Elles the Works of Shakespeare,' 1836, and again in Collier's edition of the 'Egerton Papers,' 1840 (Camden Society)) pp 342-3

1603 (October 3) Mention of 'Mr Shakespeare of the Globe' in a letter at Dulwich froenuine First published in Collier's Memoirs of Edward Alleyn,' 1841, p 63 {368} 1604 List of the na's Coenuine letter at Dulwich College fro the Lord Mayor per's players

Printed in Collier's 'Memoirs of Edward Alleyn,' 1841, p 68 {368b} 1605 (Noveed entries in Master of the Revels' account-books (now at the Public Record Office) of perfor's players of the 'Moor of Venice'--_ie_ 'Othello'--on November 1, and of 'Measure for Measure' on Deceham's 'Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court' (pp 203-4), published by the Shakespeare Society in 1842 Doubtless based on Malone's trustworthy enuine papers formerly at the Audit Office at Somerset House {369a} 1607 Notes of performances of 'Hamlet' and 'Richard II' by the crews of the vessels of the East India Company's fleet off Sierra Leone First printed in 'Narratives of Voyages towards the North-West, 1496-1631,'

edited by Thomas Rundall for the Hakluyt Society, 1849, p 231, from what purported to be an exact transcript 'in the India Office' of the 'Journal of Willia,'

captain of one of the vessels in the expedition Keeling's manuscript journal is still at the India Office, but the leaves that should contain these entries are now, and have long been,Robert Daborne, William Shakespeare, and others instructors of the Children of the Revels Froewater House MSS first printed in Collier's 'New Facts,' 1835

1609 List of persons assessed for poor (April 6) rate in Southwark, April 6, 1609, in which Shakespeare's name appears

First printed in Collier's 'Meed paper is at Dulwich {369b} 1611 (Noveed entries in Master of the Revels' account-books (now at the Public Record Office) of perfor's Players of the 'Tempest' on November 1, and of the 'Winter's Tale' on Noveham's 'Extracts from the Revels Accounts,'

p 210 Doubtless based on Malone's trustworthy enuine papers formerly at the Audit Office at Somerset House

{369c} II--THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY

Its source Toby Matthew's letter

The apparent contrast between the homeliness of Shakespeare's Stratford career and the breadth of observation and knowledge displayed in his literary work has evoked the fantastic theory that Shakespeare was not the author of the literature that passes under his nan his works to his great contereat conteued that Shakespeare's plays ee of lahich was possessed by no contemporary except Bacon; that there are es in Shakespeare's and passages in Bacon's works, {370} and that Bacon matic references in his correspondence to secret 'recreations' and 'alphabets' and concealed poeed employment as a concealed dramatist can alone account Toby Mattherote to Bacon (as Viscount St Albans) at an uncertain date after January 1621: 'The ious wit that ever I knew of my nation and of this side of the sea is of your Lordshi+p's na sentence is distorted into conclusive evidence that Bacon wrote works of co the to the only sane interpretation of Mattheords, his 'lishman named Bacon whom he met abroad--probably a pseudonymous Jesuit like most of Matthew's friends (The real surname of Father Thomas Southwell, as a learned Jesuit domiciled chiefly in the Low Countries, was Bacon He was born in 1592 at Sculthorpe, near Walsingha son of Thomas Bacon of that place, and he died at Watten in 1637)

Chief exponents Its vogue in America

Joseph C Hart (US Consul at Santa Cruz, _d_ 1855), in his 'Ro' (1848), first raised doubts of Shakespeare's authorshi+p There followed in a like teust 7, 1852, and an article by Miss Delia Bacon in 'Putnams'

Monthly,' January, 1856 On the latter was based 'The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare unfolded by Delia Bacon,' with a neutral preface by Nathaniel Hawthorne, London and Boston, 1857 Miss Delia Bacon, as the first to spread abroad a spirit of scepticis the established facts of Shakespeare's career, died insane on September 2, 1859 {372} Mr Williaested the Baconian hypothesis in 'Was Lord Bacon the author of Shakespeare's plays?--a letter to Lord Ellesmere' (1856), which was republished as 'Bacon and Shakespeare' (1857) The e theory was Nathaniel Holmes, an American lawyer, who published at New York in 1866 'The Authorshi+p of the Plays attributed to Shakespeare,' a enuity (4th edit 1886, 2 vols) Bacon's 'Proancies,' a co in the British Museum (London, 1883), was first edited by Mrs Henry Pott, a voluminous advocate of the Baconian theory; it contained many words and phrases common to the works of Bacon and Shakespeare, and Mrs Pott pressed the argument from parallelisms of expression to its extremest limits The Baconian theory has found its widest acceptance in America There it achieved its wildest ram: Francis Bacon's Cypher in the so-called Shakespeare Plays' (Chicago and London, 1887, 2 vols), which was the work of Mr Ignatius Donnelly of Hastings, Minnesota The author pretended to have discovered a Bacon's papers a nu at certain intervals in the pages of Shakespeare's First Folio, and the selected letters for that Bacon was author of the plays Many refutations have been published of Mr Donnelly's arbitrary and baseless contention

Extent of the literature