of the legal body-guard of the Queen” at a time when he had often to be examining persons accused of conspiracy,—­and do not forget his long and poignant anxiety about Essex, his constant efforts to reconcile him with Elizabeth, and to advocate his cause without losing her favour; and, finally, the anguish of prosecuting his friend, and of knowing how hardly the world judged his own conduct.  Follow him into his relations with James I; his eager pursuit of favour, the multiplicity of his affairs, his pecuniary distresses, and the profound study and severe labour entailed by the preparation for and the composition of The Advancement of Learning (1603-5).  He must be a stout-hearted Baconian who can believe that, between 1599 and 1605, Bacon was writing Hamlet, and other masterpieces of tragedy or comedy.  But all is possible to genius.  What Mr. Greenwood’s Great Unknown was doing at this period, “neither does he know, nor do I know, but he only.”  He, no doubt, had abundance of leisure.

At last Shakspere died (1616), and had not the mead of one melodious tear, as far as we know, from the London wits, in the shape of obituary verses.  This fills Mr. Greenwood with amazement.  “Was it because ‘the friends of the Muses’ were for the most part aware that Shakespeare had not died with Shakspere?” Did Jonson perchance think that his idea might be realised when he wrote,

“What a sight it were,
To see thee in our waters yet appear”?

and so on.  Did Jonson expect and hope to see the genuine “Shakespeare” return to the stage, seven years after the death of Shakspere the actor, the Swan of Avon?  As Jonson was fairly sane, we can no more suspect him of having hoped for this miracle than believe that most of the poets knew the actor not to be the author.  Moreover Jonson, while desiring that Shakespeare might “shine forth” again and cheer the drooping stage, added,

“Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like Night, And despairs day, but for thy volume’s light,”

that is—­the Folio of 1623.  Ben did not weave the amazing tissue of involved and contradictory falsities attributed to him by Baconians.  Beaumont died in the same year as Shakspere, who died in the depths of the country, weary of London.  Has Mr. Greenwood found obituary poems dropped on the grave of the famous Beaumont?  Did Fletcher, did Jonson, produce one melodious tear for the loss of their friend; in Fletcher’s case his constant partner?  No?  Were the poets, then, aware that Beaumont was a humbug, whose poems and plays were written by Bacon? {174a}

I am not to discuss Shakespeare’s Will, the “second-best bed,” and so forth.  But as Shakespeare’s Will says not a word about his books, it is decided by Mr. Greenwood that he had no books.  Mr. Greenwood is a lawyer; so was my late friend Mr. Charles Elton, Q.C., of White Staunton, who remarks that Shakespeare bequeathed “all the rest of my goods, chattels, leases, &c., to my son-in-law, John Hall, gent.”  (He really was a “gent.” with authentic coat-armour.)