Moreover, Mr. Greenwood, as a practising barrister, is a judge of legal evidence; and, being a man of sense, does not “hold a brief for Bacon” as the author of the Shakespearean plays and poems, and does not value Baconian cryptograms.  In the following chapters I make endeavours, conscientious if fallible, to state the theory of Mr. Greenwood.  It is a negative theory.  He denies that Will Shakspere (or Shaxbere, or Shagspur, and so on) was the author of the plays and poems.  Some other party was, in the main, with other hands, the author.  Mr. Greenwood cannot, or does not, offer a guess as to who this ingenious Somebody was.  He does not affirm, and he does not deny, that Bacon had a share, greater or less, in the undertaking.

In my brief tractate I have not room to consider every argument; to traverse every field.  In philology I am all unlearned, and cannot pretend to discuss the language of Shakespeare, any more than I can analyse the language of Homer into proto-Arcadian and Cyprian, and so on.  Again, I cannot pretend to have an opinion, based on internal evidence, about the genuine Shakespearean character of such plays as Titus Andronicus, Henry vi, Part I, and Troilus and Cressida.  About them different views are held within both camps.

I am no lawyer or naturalist (as Partridge said, Non omnia possumus omnes), and cannot imagine why our Author is so accurate in his frequent use of terms of law—­if he be Will; and so totally at sea in natural history—­if he be Francis, who “took all knowledge for his province.”

How can a layman pretend to deal with Shakespeare’s legal attainments, after he has read the work of the learned Recorder of Bristol, Mr. Castle, K.C.?  To his legal mind it seems that in some of Will’s plays he had the aid of an expert in law, and then his technicalities were correct.  In other plays he had no such tutor, and then he was sadly to seek in his legal jargon.  I understand Mr. Greenwood to disagree on this point.  Mr. Castle says, “I think Shakespeare would have had no difficulty in getting aid from several sources.  There is therefore no prima facie reason why we should suppose the information was supplied by Bacon.”

Of course there is not!

“In fact, there are some reasons why one should attribute the legal assistance, say, to Coke, rather than to Bacon.”

The truth is, that Bacon seems not to have been lawyer enough for Will’s purposes.  “We have no reason to believe that Bacon was particularly well read in the technicalities of our law; he never seems to have seriously followed his profession.” {0a}

Now we have Mr. Greenwood’s testimonial in favour of Mr. Castle, “Who really does know something about law.” {0b} Mr. Castle thinks that Bacon really did not know enough about law, and suggests Sir Edward Coke, of all human beings, as conceivably Will’s “coach” on legal technicalities.  Perhaps Will consulted the Archbishop of Canterbury on theological niceties?