It is not easy to find a parallel to the conduct with which Ben is charged.  But suppose that Scott lived unsuspected of writing his novels, which, let us say, he signed “James Hogg,” and died without confessing his secret, and without taking his elaborate precautions for its preservation on record.

Next, imagine that Lockhart knew Scott’s secret, under vow of silence, and was determined to keep it at any cost.  He therefore, writing after the death of Hogg of Ettrick, and in Scott’s lifetime, publishes verses declaring that Hogg was his “beloved” (an enormous fib), and that Hogg, “Sweet Swan of Ettrick,” was the author of the Waverley novels.

To complete the parallels, Lockhart, after Scott’s death, leaves a note in prose to the effect that, while he loved Hogg on this side idolatry (again, a monstrous fable), he must confess that Hogg, author of the Waverley novels, often fell into things that were ridiculous; and often needed to have a stopper put on him for all these remarks.  Lockhart, while speaking of Hogg, is thinking of Scott—­and he makes the remarks solely to conceal Scott’s authorship of the novels—­of which, on the hypothesis, nobody suspected Scott to be the author.  Lockhart must then have been what the Baconian Mr. Theobald calls Mr. Churton Collins, “a measureless liar,”—­all for no reason.

Mr. Greenwood, starting as usual from the case, which is no parallel, of Scott’s denying his own authorship, goes on, “for all we know, Jonson might have seen nothing in the least objectionable in the publication by some great personage of his dramatic works under a pseudonym” (under another man’s name really), “even though that pseudonym led to a wrong conception as to the authorship; and that, if, being a friend of that great personage, and working in his service” (Ben worked, by the theory, in Bacon’s), “he had solemnly engaged to preserve the secret inviolate, and not to reveal it even to posterity, then doubtless (’I thank thee, Jew’ (meaning Sir Sidney Lee), ’for teaching me that word’!) he would have remained true to that solemn pledge.” {270a}

To remain “true,” Ben had only to hold his peace.  But he lied up and down, and right and left, and even declared that Bacon was a friend of the players, and needed to be shut up, and made himself a laughing-stock in his plays,—­styling Bacon” Shakespeare.”  All this, and much more of the same sort, we must steadfastly believe before we can be Baconians, for only by believing these doctrines can we get rid of Ben Jonson’s testimony to the authorship of Will Shakspere, Gent.

CHAPTER XIII:  THE PREOCCUPATIONS OF BACON

Let us now examine a miracle and mystery in which the Baconians find nothing strange; nothing that is not perfectly normal.  Bacon was the author of the Shakespearean plays, they tell us.  Let us look rapidly at his biography, after which we may ask, does not his poetic supremacy, and imaginative fertility, border on the miraculous, when we consider his occupations and his ruling passion?