CHAPTER VIII:  “THE SILENCE OF PHILIP HENSLOWE”

When Shakespeare is mentioned as an author by contemporary writers, the Baconian stratagem, we have seen, is to cry, “Ah, but you cannot prove the author mentioned to be the actor.”  We have seen that Meres (1598) speaks of Shakespeare as the leading tragic and comic poet ("Poor poet-ape that would be thought our chief,” quoth Jonson), as author of Venus and Adonis, and as a sonneteer.  “All this does nothing whatever to support the idea that the Stratford player was the author of the plays and poems alluded to,” says Mr. Greenwood, playing that card again. {155a}

The allusions, I repeat, do prove that Shak(&c.), the actor, was believed to be the author, till any other noted William Shak(&c.) is found to have been conspicuously before the town.  “There is nothing at all to prove that Meres, native of Lincolnshire, had any personal knowledge of Shakespeare.”  There is nothing at all to prove that Meres, native of Lincolnshire, had any personal knowledge of nine-tenths of the English authors, famous or forgotten, whom he mentions.  “On the question—­who was Shakespeare?—­he throws no light.”  He “throws no light on the question” “who was?” any of the poets mentioned by him, except one, quite forgotten, whose College he names . . .  To myself this “sad repeated air,”—­“critics who praise Shakespeare do not say who Shakespeare was,”—­would appear to be, not an argument, but a subterfuge:  though Mr. Greenwood honestly believes it to be an argument,—­otherwise he would not use it:  much less would he repeat it with frequent iteration.  The more a man was notorious, as was Will Shakspere the actor, the less the need for any critic to tell his public “who Shakespeare was.”

As Mr. Greenwood tries to disable the evidence when Shakespeare is alluded to as an author, so he tries to better his case when, in the account-book of Philip Henslowe, an owner of theatres, money-lender, pawn-broker, purchaser of plays from authors, and so forth, Shakespeare is not mentioned at all.  Here is a mystery which, properly handled, may advance the great cause.  Henslowe has notes of loans of money to several actors, some of them of Shakespeare’s company, “The Lord Chamberlain’s.”  There is no such note of a loan to Shakespeare.  Does this prove that he was not an actor?  If so, Burbage was not an actor; Henslowe never names him.

There are notes of payments of money to Henslowe after each performance of any play in one of his theatres.  In these notes the name of Shakespeare is never once mentioned as the author of any play.  How weird!  But in these notes the names of the authors of the plays acted are never mentioned.  Does this suggest that Bacon wrote all these plays?