CHAPTER XIX.

THE DIVERSE SPELLING OF THE NAMES.

Exceedingly well read, and profited

In strange concealments."

-First Henry IV, iii, 1.

Before proceeding to an examination of the plays and poems, it may be profitable to the reader, in forming an opinion as to the authorship, to consider the fact that the man of Stratford-on-Avon never spelled his own name in the way the surname appeared on the title pages of the various publications, viz., Shake-speare, Shakespeare, and Shakspeare. If the reader should have "Smith" for a surname, and he should be written about as "Smythe," he would naturally and rightly presume that the person so writing was not very intimately acquainted with him. Benjamin Jonson was a voluminous writer of plays and poems, and yet no educated intimate friend ever wrote to him or about him as "Johnson," although the insertion of an "h" would have been a very pardonable mistake in the case of a stranger. I had to use, as to Jonson, the word "educated," for I find that the ignorant Henslowe wrote of him twice as follows: at page 80 of the Diary, "R'd of Bengemene Johnsones share as follows 28 of July 1597," and at page 256 he wrote, "Lent unto Bengemyne Johnson," etc. Drayton's name was never written "Dreyton" or "Draton" by his associates; and no very intimate friend made any mistake as to Chapman, Chettle, Fletcher, Marston, or Middleton. If we should read commendations in verse or prose by contemporaries of Dryden, Cowper, Addison, Gladstone, Dickens, or Tennyson, and

the name of the commended writer should be spelled by the commender as "Driden," or "Couper," or "Adison," or "Gladestone," or "Dikkens," or "Tenison," while we might admire the commendatory verses, we should naturally presume and believe that the authors were not personally acquainted with the men whom they praised, or if acquainted, not very familiarly. Any author, honestly desiring to eulogize a contemporary writer, living or dead, by means of a poem or prose writing, would be very careful to properly spell the name of the person to be eulogized.

In this matter of the Shakespeare plays and poems, while it is not very important if William Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon did not write them, to ascertain whether Shaksper or some one else was pointed at by other writers as Shakespeare or Shake-speare, yet the inquiry may serve as an aid in elucidating the truth as to their authorship. Taking for granted, therefore, that the Shaksper of Stratford did not write the plays and poems, the reader should have before him the statements of writers of that

And first in order comes Francis Meres, who, in 1598, in his "Palladis Tamia," wrote as follows: "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines; so Shakespeare, among ye English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage. For comedy, witnes his Gentleme of Verona, his Errors, his Love's Labor's Lost, his Love's Labor's Wonne, his Midsummer Night's Dreame, and his Merchant of Venice; for tragedy, his Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet."

Thomas Heywood may be properly called next as a witness. He was not, like Ben Jonson, a man who would

resort to flattery or fawning; neither would he be disposed to knowingly exalt an ignoramus to the position of a great poet, and this is what he wrote in his "Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells," published in 1635:

"Mellifluous Shake-speare, whose enchanting quill
Commanded mirth or passion, was but Will;
And famous Jonson, though his learned pen
Be dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben.

Fletcher and Webster, of that learned packe
None of the mean'st, yet neither was but Jacke.
Deckers but Tom, no May nor Middleton;

And hee's now but Jacke Foord that once was John."

It will be noticed by the reader that Heywood hyphenates the word we are investigating, so that it is written in his book as "Shake-speare."

John Webster is the next witness, and this slow but surely great writer was not trying to deceive anybody when, in the year 1612, in his labored and careful introduction to the play of the "White Devil," he penned the following:

"Detraction is the sworn friend to ignorance; for mine own part, I have ever truly cherished my good opinion of other men's worthy labours; especially of that full and heightened style of Master Chapman; the laboured and understanding works of Master Jonson; the no less worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher; and lastly (without wrong last to be named), the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker, and Master Heywood; wishing what I write may be read by their light; protesting that, in the strength of mine own judgment, I

know them so worthy, that though I rest silent in my own work, yet to most of theirs I dare (without flattery) fix that of Martial,

'Non norunt haec monumenta mori.'

This introduction was slowly and dispassionately penned. There is no humor about it, nor is there any attempt in the composition to deceive or cajole the reader. He deservedly and truthfully lauds Chapman, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Dekker, Heywood, and with the two last named "the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare." No attempt is made to use the name of this industrious Shakespeare for any purpose of gain; and the compliment to all the poets named is unquestionably written in sincerity. As in the matter of Heywood's allusion heretofore quoted, it will be noticed that he calls the writer "Shakespeare" not "Shaksper," and it is worthy of notice that Webster, like Heywood, entirely omits Michael Drayton.

Let the reader now notice what is said of a poet Shakespeare by Michael Drayton himself. I quote from his elegy in the shape of a poem descriptive of poets and poesy to his most dearly beloved friend, Henry Reynolds:

"Neat Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave translunary things
That the first poets had, his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear;
For that fine madness still he did retain
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.
And surely Nash, though he a proser were,
A branch of laurel yet deserves to bear,
Sharply satiric was he, and that way

He went, since that his being to this day
Few have attempted, and I surely think
Those words shall hardly be set down with ink
Shall scorch and blast so as his could, where he
Would inflict vengeance; and be it said of thee,
Shakespeare, thou hadst as smooth a comic vein,
Fitting the sock, and in thy natural brain

As strong conception and as clear a rage,
As any one that trafficked with the stage."

It is evident that, unless Drayton was speaking of himself in the way of an aside by using the expression "And be it said of thee," he was eulogizing a person who was called by the name of Shakespeare and recognized as a poet.

Richard Barnfield also, in his "Remembrance of Some English Poets," published in 1598, mentions Shakespeare in the following poem which, for the reader's convenience, is here inserted in full:

"Live Spenser in thy Fairy Queen;

Whose like (for deep conceit) was never seen.
Crowned mayst thou be, unto thy more renown,
(As king of poets) with a laurel crown.

And Daniel praised for thy sweet chaste verse,
Whose fame is grav'd on Rosamond's black hearse;
Still mayst thou live and still be honored,

For that rare work, the White rose and the Red.

And Drayton, whose well written tragedies,

And sweet epistles soar thy fame to skies:
Thy learned name is equal with the rest,
Whose stately numbers are so well addrest.

And Shakspear, thou whose honey-flowing verse,
(Pleasing the world) thy praises doth contain,