The Shakespearean Myth, Part I [pp. 112-126]

THE SHAKESPEAREAN MYTIH.
traveler. One of them is known to have read
the Bible, then what we understand to-day by a
"current work." Together these two men possess in themselves about all of their age with
which subsequent ages care to connect themselves. But it is not suggested that these two
men, Bacon and Raleigh, might have written the
book for which an author is wanted. Oh, no;
we are to pass them by, and sift the dust at their
illustrious feet, if haply we may find a fetich to
fall down before and worship!
Must the man that wrote the dramas have
visited Italy? Mr. Halliwell and others inform
us of Shakespeare's visit to Verona, Venice, and
Florence. Must Shakespeare have been at the
bar? My Lord Campbell writes us a book to
show his familiarity with the science of jurisprudence. (That book has traveled far upon a lordly name. It is an authority until it happens to
be read. Once we open it, it is only to find that
the passages of the Shakespearean dramas which
stamp their author's knowledge of the common
law are the passages his lordship does not cite,
while over the slang and dialect which any smatterer might have memorized from turning the
pages of an attorney's hornbook his lordship
gloats and postulates and relapses into ecstasy.)
Must Shakespeare have been a physician? There
has not been wanting the book to prove him
that.* And, crowning this long misrule of absurdity, comes an authority out of Philadelphia, to
assure us that the youth Shakespeare, on quitting
his virgin Stratford for the metropolis, was scrupulous to avoid the glittering temptations of
London; that he eschewed wine and women;
that he avoided the paths of vice and immorality, and piously kept himself at home, his only
companion being the family Bible, which he read
most a-dently and vigorously! t It is to be
* " The Medical Acquirement of Shakespeare." By
C. W. Steams, M. D. New York, i865.
t "Shakespeare and the Bible." By John Rees, etc.,
etc. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger,
i876.
We commend to readers of this paper this latest authority, and can not forbear noting a few of his "discoveries." Mr. Rees has found out (p. 37) not only that
William Shakespeare wrote the lines On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before (" The Tempest," i. 2),
but that he took them from Deuteronomy viii. 4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did
thy foot swellwhich is a very fair sample of the wonderful disclosures
of his book.
So he finds (p. 34) in "The Tempest," i. 2, the
lines.... All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel.
.... Not a hair perished.
hoped, for Charity's sweet sake, that our latest
author has truth for his color and testimony for
his oil. The picture has at least the freshness
and charm of utter novelty!
And so the work of Shakespeare-making goes
on. The facts are of record. We may run as
we read them! Unless, indeed, it be necessary,
out of reverence to the errors of our fathers, that
we refuse to read at all, and accept instead the
ideal of Halliwell and De Quincey, of Grant
White, and of ten thousand more, who prefer to
write their biographies of William Shakespeare,
not in the first person, like Baron Miinchhausen,
nor in the second person, like the memoirs of
Sully, but in the probable and supposititious person of "it is possible he did this," and "it is
likely he did that."
Columbus discovered the continent we call
after the name of another. Where shall we find
written the name of the genius whose fruit and
fame this Shakespeare has stolen? Having lost
"our Shakespeare," both to-day and forever, it
will doubtless remain-as it is-the question,
" Who wrote the Shakespearean dramas?"
The evidence is all in-the testimony is all
taken. Doubtless it is a secret that even Time
will never tell, since it is hidden deep down
in the crypt and sacristy of the Past, whose
seal shall never more be broken. In the wise
land of China, when a man has deserved well of
the state, his countrymen honor, with houses,
and lands, and gifts, and decorations, and public
testimonials, not himself, but his father and his
And in Acts xxvii. 34:
There shall not a hair fall from the head of any of
you.
In which the parallelism is in the word hair!!
Or, again (p. 36)
Though they are of monstrous shape,...
Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of
Our human generation you shall find
Many, nay, almost any (" The Tempest," iii. 3);
and also:
In the same quarters were possessions of the chief
man of the island, whose name was Publius; who received us, and lodged us three days courteously,...
who also honored us with many honors; and when we
departed, they laded us with such things as were necessary.-(Acts xxviii. 7-IO.)
In which-unless it be in the fact that one of these
passages is in an act and the other in Acts-the reader
must find the parallelism for himself, without assistance
from Mr. Rees.
Shakespeare, Mr. Rees tells us, never neglected his
Bible, because (p. 28) "he was indebted to one whose
love added a bright charm to the holy passages she
taught him to read and study-to his mother was Shakespeare indebted for early lessons of piety, and a reverence for a book from whose passages in after-life he
wove himself a mantle of undying fame"!
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