Ben Jonson and Shakespeare

[42] Although I have no intention of appearing as an advocate of the "Baconian" hypothesis, it seems desirable to say a word here concerning the relations between Bacon and Jonson.

There is, I think, good warrant for saying that in some of his dramas Jonson made satirical allusions to Bacon, but, however this may be, it is certain that in later years the two were on very intimate terms, and that Jonson entertained feelings of the highest respect and esteem towards " the large-browed Verulam." * I do not know that there is evidence to show just how it was that such intimacy commenced, but we learn from his conversation with Drummond that when Ben was setting forth, in the summer of 1618, on his walk to Scotland, Bacon laughingly told him that "he loved not to see Poesy go on other feet than poetical Dactylus and Spondams." We know, too, that Bacon wrote in 1623, the very year of the publication of the Shakespeare Folio, "My labours are now most set to have those works which I had formerly published. . . . well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens that forsake me not" ** ; and that Jonson was one of these "good pens" we know, because, in " Remains now set forth by him under the title of Baconiana," Arch bishop Tenison relates that the Latin translation of Bacon's Essays "was a work performed by diverse hands by those of Dr. Hackett (late Bishop of Lichfield), Mr. Benjamin Johnson (the learned and judicious poet), and others whose [43] names I once heard from Dr. Rawley, but I cannot now recall them."

But there is evidence that Jonson was working for Bacon some years before 1623. We find, for example, Thomas Meautys writing to Lord St. Alban in 1621-2, "Your books are ready and passing well bound up. Mr. Johnson will be with your lordship to-morrow." *** But, further, we know that on January 22, 1621, Bacon had kept his sixtieth birthday at York House, and that Jonson had been with him, and had composed his well-known Ode in honour of that event. ****

We find, then, Jonson a frequent visitor, if not also a resident, at York House, on intimate terms with Bacon, writing a highly complimentary ode to him on his birthday, and translating his works into Latin in 1623, the date when the Shakespeare Folio first saw the light.

We find, further, that Jonson is if not actually editing that work, at any rate taking great and responsible part in its publication. Nor can we omit to notice that if Jonson challenges "com parison" of Shakespeare's works with "all that insolent Greece, or haughtie Rome sent forth, or since did from their ashes come," he writes of Bacon in exactly the same terms, viz.: that he has "performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome"—truly a most extraordinary coincidence, however much the "Stratfordians" may endeavour to make light of it.

Now that Bacon, whether or not he wrote any [44] of the plays, was concerned in their collection and publication in 1623, although he himself was as usual, working "behind the scenes," appears to me eminently probable, and it is to say the least of it, very possible that if we only knew the real circumstances in which that precious volume was given to the world a flood of light might be thrown on the Jonsonian utterances.

A powerful writer, and highly distinguished literary man, thus writes concerning the "Shakespeare Problem": "I am sort of haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practised on a patient world. The more I turn him round and round the more he so affects me. But that is all—I am not pretending to treat the question or to carry it any further. It bristles with diffi culties and I can only express my general sense by saying that I find it almost as impossible to conceive that Bacon wrote the plays as to conceive that the man from Stratford, as we know the man from Stratford, did." So wrote Henry James to Miss Violet Hunt in August, 1903. (Letters, Macmillan, 1920, Vol. I., p. 432). Henry James, therefore, found it almost impossible to conceive that Bacon wrote the plays, but quite impossible to conceive that "the man from Stratford " wrote them. But this was written nearly twenty years ago, and much critical water has flowed beneath the Stratford bridge since that date, and it is but truth to say that all recent criticism and investigation have enormously strengthened the "anti Stratfordian" case. The belief that the plays and poems of Shakespeare were written by "the man from Stratford" is one of the greatest of the many delusions which have afflicted "a patient world."

Note A - Jonson and Bacon