Our English Homer; Or, Shakespeare Historically Considered (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1892 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIX. AUTHORSHIP OF THE PLAYS, CONTINUED. Francis Bacon, the Reviser. It is quite likely that Shakespeare, after the success of 'Hamlet'--and of its success there can be no doubt--should propose to Bacon the revision of all the plays he obtained from other authors; and that Bacon's want of money, which Hep worth Dixon has so vividly portrayed, may have induced Bacon to accept this proposal. And that, in our opinion, is what actually occurred. But we can all understand that Bacon would wish the fact kept secret. To have written a play was one thing--the Earl of Dorset and the Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, had done the same--but it was another thing to figure as the paid servant of the players, men whose evil life and pernicious example were a constant theme of animadversion to the municipal authorities of London and Westminster. No doubt the Court patronized them; but it was only as it patronized the bulls, bears, and apes, which were baited for.the queen's amusement. Shakespeare would, of course, be willing to keep the secret, being far too keen to overlook the advantage of posing as author of the dramas he was producing. We think, it was this revision which Greene mistook for Shakespeare's own work, when he said, he supposes he is " as well able to bombast out a blank verse, as the best of you; and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country." And such revision is all that the more reasonable commentators claim for William Shakespeare. Thus Malone, writing in 1790, says of the second and third parts of 'Henry VI.' The Contention of the two famous houses of York and Lancaster, in two parts, was published in 4to in 1600; and the first part was entered on the stationer's, as Mr. Steevens has obs...