" All
interested readers knew who they were: and also knew who
"Shakespeare" or "Will Shakespeare" was. No other Will Shak(&c.) was
prominently before the literary and dramatic world, in 1592-1616,
except the Warwickshire provincial who played with Burbage.
But though the mere names of the poets, Ben Jonson, Kit Marlowe,
Frank Beaumont, Harry Chettle, and so forth, are accepted as
indicating the well-known men whom they designate, this evidence to
identity does not satisfy Mr. Greenwood, and the Baconians, where
Will is concerned. "We should expect to find allusions to dramatic
and poetical works published under the name of 'Shakespeare'; we
should expect to find Shakespeare spoken of as a poet and a
dramatist; we should expect, further, to find some few allusions to
Shakespeare or Shakspere the player. And these, of course, we do
find; but these are not the objects of our quest. What we require is
evidence to establish the identity of the player with the poet and
dramatist; to prove that the player was the author of the PLAYS and
POEMS. THAT is the proposition to be established, and THAT the
allusions fail, as it appears to me, to prove," says Mr. Greenwood.
He adds, "At any rate they do not disprove the theory that the true
authorship was hidden under a pseudonym" {136a}--which raises an
entirely different question.
Makers of allusions to the plays must identify Shakespeare with the
actor, explicitly; must tell us who this Shakespeare was, though they
need not, and usually do not, tell us who the other authors mentioned
were; and though the world of letters and the Stage knew but one
William Shakspere or Shakespeare, who was far too familiar to them to
require further identification.
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