9* s. x. AUG. IB, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
125
display proves not only that the plays and
poems are by a profound Greek and Latin
scholar, but that tnat scholar must have been
Bacon. Ben Jonson is constantly mentioned
by them as one whose work is in striking
contrast to that of Shakespeare, and Mrs.
Pott could hardly find a single line in his
work to parallel any of the ' Promus ' entries.
Well, let readers judge for themselves. The
work of Ben Jonson is that of a man who
was steeped to the lips in classical authors ;
consequently we shall find him repeating the
learning of Bacon with a literalism that is
almost painfully different from Shakespeare,
whose knowledge of the classics was derived
almost entirely through English channels.
Once or twice only does Shakespeare happen
to bring into his plays Latin tags noted by
Bacon, although they can be found by the
score in others ; but in Ben Jonson they
abound, and not unfrequently in a context
that is manifestly stolen from Bacon.
There is no evidence to prove conclusively that Bacon and Shakespeare ever met, or were acquainted with each other. But the case of Ben Jonson is different. Jonson at one time acted as a kind of secretary to Bacon, and translated, or assisted to translate, his essays into Latin. Jonson's 'Discoveries,' moreover, prove that he had often been in Bacon's company. The fact that Bacon and Jonson were known to each other is not disputed ; but it is not known, even by those who are most versed in Bacon's work, that certain entries in the ' Promus ' have a direct relation to Ben Jonson's masques and plays. I will deal with these entries in the proper place. All I urge now is that if parallels can be used to filch from a man the work that was uni- versally assigned to him by contemporaries if we must ignore all tradition, and the voice of a cloud of witnesses if gross and palpable differences in the style of writers are to count for nothing then Shakespeare must be thrown overboard by the Baconians, and they must elect Ben Jonson in his place, because Jonson repeats Bacon much more nearly than Shakespeare does, and because, on their own showing, the writer of the Jonson plays is a different man from the writer of the Shakespeare plays and poems. Shakespeare does not and cannot be made to illustrate many of the 'Promus' entries in the way that Bacon and Jonson illustrate
kthem ; and the ludicrous manner in which Mrs. Pott essayed the task only serves to show that it is an easy matter to prove by such parallels that Bacon must have written everything that had been penned up to- his
time, including the Bible, and not forgetting
that portion of it which' is entitled the Book
of Judges. For it is a truth, and one that
we should ponder over when we begin to
flatter ourselves and imagine what clever
people we are, that the range of our thoughts
is extremely limited, and that the number of
essentially different ideas that man is capable
of expressing or of cogitating in his mind
is on about a par with the number of
the letters in the alphabet. These ideas,
like the letters of the alphabet, which can
be made to represent all sounds and all
knowledge, are simply capable of being
expanded and varied by an infinite number
of combinations ; yet, when all is said, it
comes to this, that the greatest of the philo-
sophers and the most lofty of the poets
cannot express a thought which cannot be
paralleled out of the crude notions of the
ignorant ploughman. It is, therefore, easy
to explain why Shakespeare can be made to
illustrate, with more or less faithfulness, the
things which Bacon noted in his ' Promus,'
or which have been brought from his prose
works. Mrs. Pott thinks it a legitimate thing
to parallel a Greek saying with a time-worn
English proverb, or a Bible sentence with a
bit of Ovid or of Virgil which Shakespeare
caught up from son^ English writer, and to
use the same passage many times over and
under various headings which only agree in
containing the same notion in a more or less
crude form. I say again, if one is to decide
on parallels of that land, then Bacon must
have written everything that had been
written up to his time and during the time
that he lived. Is it any wonder, then, that
the critics who work upon such a plan as
that, and who, just as the ostrich when it sees
an enemy buries its head in the sand, refuse
to read or who ignore the writings of all other
men because they would convict them, con-
fining their reading to Shakespeare and Bacon
is it any wonder that they are able to pre-
sent a specious case against Shakespeare and
to impose on men who either have not the time
or lack the critical faculty to see through
their false and preposterous resemblances ?
Bacon calls that kind of work legerdemain,
and he compares it to the tricks of tumblers,
who only thrive until their tricks are known.
C. CRAWFORD. 53, Hampden Road, Hornsey, N. (To be continued.)
SHAKESPEARE'S SEVENTY-SIXTH SONNET.
In Judge Webb's recent book 'The Mystery
of William Shakespeare ' there is one special
argument against the ordinarily received
