how William Shakespeare, under the conditions of life which environed him, could by any possibility have attained to. It is to be noted, also, that the first sketches of the three parts of the "Henry VI." (and perhaps, also, of the

King John "), the earliest plays of the historical series, written, it may be, before the entire plan was fully conceived, and before the first play in the historical order of the wars of the Roses, the "Richard II.," was produced, were taken up again, afterwards, and rewritten, greatly elaborated, and reproduced, in conformity with the rest of the series; and, of the first part of the " Henry VI.,” which exhibits greater care and maturity of judgment in the execution than the other parts, which, nevertheless, contain passages that may stand before the throne of the tragic muse beside the Greek tragedy itself without blushing, done in the finest lyric style of the ancients, and plainly intended to be, to some extent at least, in imitation of the classic model, we hear nothing, until it appears for the first time in the Folio of 1623, beyond the bare fact that such a play existed, in some form, with the other parts, at an early date. The "Romeo and Juliet," produced in 1595, though conceived on profoundly philosophical principles, bearing strong traces of the "Fable of Cupid” and the "Nemesis' of Francis Bacon (as will be shown), does not exhibit the same degree of matured strength and finish as the later productions, though one of the most attractive of the plays upon the stage. The "Midsummer Night's Dream," undoubtedly written about the year 1594, though there appears to be no certain mention of it before 1598, having been first printed in 1600, is a wonderful creation, indeed, and entirely fit to be performed, as it was, before the Queen's Majesty at Whitehall; but the writer had not yet wholly freed himself from the shackles of rhyme, nor from the glowing fancy and "strong imagination" of

"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,"

nor from the philosophy of Cupid and the allurements of the Court, as is evident in these lines:

"Ober. That very time I saw (but thou could'st not),
Flying between the cold moon and the Earth,
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took

At a fair vestal, throned by the West,

And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon,
And the imperial vot'ress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free." —Act II. Sc. 1.

Between 1594 and 1600, the "Romeo and Juliet," the "As You Like It,” the “Richard III.,” the “Merchant of Venice," and the two parts of the "Henry IV.,” may take rank, in many respects, with the greater plays; but after 1600, come the “Twelfth Night,” the "Othello,” the “ Hamlet," the "Measure for Measure," the "Lear," the "Macbeth," the "Julius Cæsar," the "Antony and Cleopatra," the "Troilus and Cressida," the "Coriolanus," the “Cymbeline,” the "Winter's Tale," the "Tempest," the "Henry VIII.,” and the "Timon," splendid dramas all, the most masterly productions of their author, and, beyond all question, the work of a profound thinker, a critical philosopher, a practised writer, a learned scholar, and a polished culture, as well as of that artistic genius and high order of intellectual endowment, which nature might give to any man. Twelve of these fifteen plays were published, for the first time, in the Folio of 1623: of some four or five of them it is not positively known that they had been performed at all on the stage; and nearly all of them were of such a kind and character as to attract less the attention of the theatre and the public, though really among the greatest of the author's works; and they were not printed. Some other of the more philosophical plays, as the "Romeo and Juliet," the "Midsummer Night's Dream," the " Hamlet," the "Lear," and the "Measure for Measure," had more

66

attractive qualities for the public eye and ear, perhaps, and they kept the stage and were printed. The "Troilus and Cressida," which was altogether too philosophically profound and stately, too learnedly abstruse and lofty, to be popular on the stage, was even printed first, and only went to the theatre afterwards, where its stay seems to have been short.

Of the ten earlier plays which were first printed in the Folio, or first in complete form, some, it seems, had seldom appeared upon the stage, and others had been printed, at an early date, as first draughts, or as stolen copies. Of those which had been printed before 1623, there were, among the more attractive and popular plays on the stage, the "Richard II.," the "Richard III.," the "Merchant of Venice," the two parts of the "Henry IV.," the “ Henry V.," the "Love's Labor's Lost," and the "Much Ado About Nothing," and of these, printed editions had been more in demand. But this part of the subject is so dark, that it is difficult to arrive at any certain conclusion, or any clear notion, in what manner these plays came to be printed at all. Doubtless there were some stolen copies and surreptitious editions, especially before 1600. The "Titus Andronicus" was entered as early as 1594, but it is not known to have been printed before 1600. The first sketch of the second part of the "Henry VI.," printed in 1594 under the title of "The First Part of the Contention of the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster," and that of the third part, printed in 1595 under the style of "The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York," both without the name of the author, were very probably surreptitious copies of the early plays, which appear to have been upon the stage as early, at least, as 1587-88. The "Merry Wives of Windsor," first printed in 1602, was so imperfect, even as a first sketch of the play, that it has been presumed by the critics to have been a stolen and mangled copy, as the “Hamlet ” of 1603 most certainly was. So far as we have any posi

tive knowledge, the second edition of the "Richard II.," which was printed in 1598, with the scene of deposing King Richard left out, was the first one that bore the name of William Shakespeare on the title-page; and there may have been some special reasons, as well for the publication of it at that time as for a close concealment of the real author's name (as we shall see below); especially when it is considered that, only one year later, Dr. Hayward was actually sent to the Tower for publishing the "First Yeare of King Henry the Fourth," which contained little else than the deposing of Richard II., which the Queen took to be a seditious and treasonable pamphlet; and that the Earl of Essex was charged with "undutiful carriage" toward her Majesty, in that he allowed it to be dedicated to him; though, on being warned of her anger, he had made all haste to have the book called in and suppressed.

On the other hand, some of the previous quartos approach so nearly to the more perfect copies of the Folio, and are so correctly printed, that it would seem to be highly probable that the author himself had had some hand in the supervision of the press. And when it is considered how many of those that had been printed in quarto were remodelled, rewritten, enlarged, elaborated, corrected, or amended, before they appeared again in the Folio, and how many of the plays were published therein for the first time, and of what kind they were, we may easily believe, not only that the editors had much benefit from the possession of the "true original copies," but that even the true original copies themselves had undergone much revision. and emendation, before they appeared for the last time in the finished and perfected form of the Folio of 1623; nor need we be surprised at the announcement of the Preface, that they had so published them "as where (before) you were abused with divers stolne and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious imposters, that exposed them: even those are now offered to

your view cured, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers as he conceived them": omnibus numeris suis absolutam !

And that such was the fact, the history of the "Timon of Athens" may furnish at least some slight confirmation. It has been observed that the old play of “Timon was the work of some other author altogether; and the studies of the later critics, especially Mr. Knight, have shown that the materials and the story of this play must have been drawn from other sources than that old play, or North's translation of Plutarch; and, in fact, that they came chiefly from the untranslated Greek of Lucian. There appears to be no mention on record of any performance of this play on the stage in those times, nor does the existence of it appear to have been known, until it was published in this Folio and (as it will be shown) there is so much in the matter and style of it that so aptly accords with the external history of Lord Bacon's life, and especially with his later. years, and so many distinct traces of himself in it, that it is not difficult to believe it was the latest production of his dramatic muse.

§ 5. ASSOCIATES.

;

That Francis Bacon, during the earlier portion of the period in which these plays were produced, comprising also nearly the whole period of the sonnets and minor poems, was an intimate personal friend, acquaintance, and associate of the Earls of Essex, Southampton, Rutland, Pembroke, and Montgomery, and other young lords and courtiers, who were also, at the same time, the especial patrons and constant frequenters of Shakespeare's theatre, may be taken as an indubitable fact. Not only in the relations of these great personages, but in the manners of the court and time, there are many circumstances which tend strongly to confirm the view here taken of this authorship. A few of them may be particularly noticed, even at the risk of some