INTRODUCTORY

[v] IN the summer of 1908 Mr. John Lane published on my behalf a book called The Shakespeare Problem Restated. Five years afterwards—viz., in 1913—there appeared a work called The Baconian Heresy, from the pen of Mr. J. M. Robertson, M.P. (Herbert Jenkins, Ltd.), wherein I found that my book—which, by the way, did not advocate the Baconian theory—was made the subject of a violent attack, embellished with all that elegant vocabulary which is so familiar to those who are acquainted with Mr. Robertson’s peculiar style of controversy. In a subsequent work, Is There a Shakespeare Problem? (John Lane, 1916), I took up the main points of that attack, and, as I venture to think, answered them with some success. Whereupon Mr. J. M. Robertson once more assailed me, with even greater bitterness, in two articles published in the Literary Guide, a monthly journal printed and published by Messrs. Watts & Co., of Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street. (See the issues of that journal for January and February, 1916.)

In the second of these two articles Mr. Robertson thought fit to write as follows: "Since Mr. Greenwood will not be taught, he must just be exposed" (my italics); and he thereupon proceeded, as he fondly imagined, to visit me with the threatened "exposure."

Now, when a man, in the pages of a public journal, announces that he is going to "expose" another, it is needless to say that he makes use of an expression perhaps as offensive as it is possible for him to employ outside the law of libel. Nevertheless, if he can make [vi] good his threat, if he can succeed in convicting the subject of that threat of fraud, or gross ignorance, or false pretences, or whatever it may be that he has undertaken to "expose," the individual aimed at must even put up with it as best he may.

When, however, it turns out that the threat of "exposure" is based upon ignorance, then he that makes it stands convicted of sheer insolence, if not of something worse.

In the present case I have shown that Mr. Robertson’s threat to "expose" me is simply based upon ignorance.

I replied to Mr. Robertson’s articles, through the courtesy of the Editor, in the Literary Guide of March and April, 1916, and I had purposed to reprint all four articles verbatim; but I was informed that Mr. Robertson objected to the publication by me of his articles, with further comments thereon, unless I consented to join with them a sur-rejoinder which was sent for my perusal, and which contained, inter alia, a scandalous, but, doubtless, unintentional, false statement concerning myself. This I naturally declined to do, though I should have had no objection to publish the rest of the document with comments of my own. I will now, therefore, state Mr. Robertson’s accusations seriatim, as far as possible in his own language, and will deal with them very faithfully.*

But my main object in now publishing this paper is to consider Mr. Robertson in two aspects. Two familiar questions concerning Shakespeare have been again much mooted of late: (1) What was the extent of his legal knowledge as evidenced by his works? and (2) What was the extent of his classical knowledge so evidenced? [vii]

Now, I have no intention of making another examination of these questions at the present time with the view of arriving, if possible, at definite conclusions with regard to them. To do that would require a volume of very considerable length, upon which I have no desire to embark. But, as Mr. Robertson has undertaken to instruct the public both as to Shakespeare’s law and Shakespeare’s classical knowledge, I propose to consider what qualifications he appears to possess for such a task. In so doing I shall have the opportunity of examining and replying to many charges which he has brought against me. I will commence, therefore, with the consideration of Mr. Robertson as an exponent of law, after which I will ask my readers to form an estimate of his authority on the "classical" question; and, lastly, I will deal with such accusations as still remain unanswered.

I will only add, to bring these prefatory remarks to a conclusion, that a personal controversy such as this is hateful to me. Moreover, I am acutely conscious of the absurdity involved in the fact that two presumably reasonable beings should be at daggers-drawn and fighting à outrance over such questions as Shakespeare’s knowledge of law and of classics—more especially at a time when the world is convulsed by the most terrible war that it has ever known. But, as in real war, so it is in the case of this ridiculous travesty of it. We all recognize that war is monstrous, insensate, insane; yet we recognize further that the action of "the Huns" made it impossible for us to keep out of it. And such, too, as I opine, was my case in view of Mr. Robertson’s grand "offensive." I venture to say, also, that such an aggressive attack was quite uncalled for. The late Lord Chief Justice Cockburn used to admonish counsel at the Bar that they should fight "with the rapier of the gentleman, and not with the dagger of the assassin." Well, Mr. Andrew Lang assailed me "with the rapier of the gentleman," [viii] and his written attack was none the less effective—indeed, was all the more effective because it was always couched in terms of perfect courtesy; and so far was it from leading to anything like acrimonious controversy that it resulted in a pleasant correspondence between us, and I still preserve a letter, which he was so kind as to write to me in the train, on his way to Scotland, shortly before his lamented death. It would, of course, be unreasonable to expect anything of this sort from my present assailant. He is not so constituted. His controversial manners really have not that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

I am not now writing, however, merely to answer a personal attack. I should be quite content to leave the personalities to die a natural death. But Mr. Robertson is well known not only as a distinguished politician, but also as a strong controversialist and a writer of great ability (more particularly on such subjects as economics, and Rationalism, and the history of Free Thought); and I fear many readers have been led by his authority into serious errors with regard to Shakespeare and his works. What some of these errors are I endeavour to demonstrate in the following pages, and I would ask the reader kindly to take note that my arguments in the present brochure are quite independent of the question of the Shakespearean authorship. They are addressed to the "orthodox" and the "unorthodox" alike.

Mr. Robertson threatens to "go for" me again in a second edition of The Baconian Heresy, but as, possibly, I "may not be here" when that new edition makes its appearance, I think it best to adopt the motto of dear old David Harum—viz.: "Do to the other fellow what he wants to do to you—and do it first"!

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* I do not doubt that I had the legal right to publish Mr. Robertson's articles, together with mine in reply, whether he objected or not; but, in the circumstances, I thought it best not to do so. back