SECTION 9. OBSERVATION. 69 



Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays is directly attributable to the 

 exceptionally high estimate placed on Shakespeare's plays. 

 Such being the general opinion three centuries after Shake- 

 speare's death, to question it is regarded as verging on boorish 

 ignorance or lamentable eccentricity. 



Our problem, then, is to inquire into the soundness of the 

 present-day attitude towards Shakespeare. 



As we might anticipate from the drift of our special studies 

 generally, Shakespeare was no freak of nature nor an eccentric. 

 Shortly before he began to write, a number of remarkable 

 dramas appeared on the stage. And so far as the lighter side 

 was concerned, it was well represented by John Lyly, who 

 was in diverse ways one of Shakespeare's prototypes, and by 

 Robert Greene's James the Fourth, which is a sort of model 

 for Shakespeare's comedies. Shakespeare's common people, 

 his brilliant repartee, certain of his famous comic figures, and 

 his typical women, are foreshadowed in Lyly, as well as his 

 superior poetical and reflective vein. Again, Marlowe was one 

 of Shakespeare's exemplars on the side of tragedy, of historical 

 plays, and of the grand style. His indebtedness to his pre- 

 decessors has been not infrequently acknowledged, as, for in- 

 stance, by Sir Sidney Lee, in his Life of Shakespeare, who 

 writes: "Kyd and Greene left more or less definite impressions 

 on all Shakespeare's early efforts. But Lyly in comedy and 

 Marlowe in tragedy may be reckoned the masters to whom he 

 stood in the relation of disciple on the threshold of his career. 

 With Marlowe there is evidence that he was for a brief season 

 a working partner." (Op. cit., p. 95.) 



Indeed, the authorship, in part or wholly, of several of Shake- 

 speare's early plays, has been frequently called into question. 

 The generality of scholars favours the view that Titus Androni- 

 cus has been mistakenly ascribed to Shakespeare; that the 

 three parts of Henry VI. were slightly adapted, rather than 

 written, by Shakespeare; and that sundry other early plays of 

 his were more or less adaptations or imitations. These' dis- 

 cussions affect us fundamentally, for if scholars are divided in 

 opinion in respect of authorship of plays or part plays, the 

 self-evident implication is that there was only a measurable 

 difference and distinction between Shakespeare's dramatic- 

 efforts and those of his contemporaries. If he were really 

 unique, there could be no disagreement among experts. 



In 1598 appeared Francis Meres' Palladis Taniia, wherein the 

 list of Shakespeare's plays to date is given, and where his work 

 is repeatedly and highly lauded. According to this volume, 

 Shakespeare was then already recognised as a first-class play- 

 wright and poet; but nevertheless his name appears frequently 

 in the lists placed lower than the names of others. There is 

 certainly no intimation in Meres that Shakespeare was in any 

 way unique, requiring to be classed apart. The subjoined quo- 



