But even if the makers of allusions
did all this, and said, "by W. Shakespeare the poet, we mean W.
Shakespeare the actor"--THAT is not enough. For they may all be
deceived, may all believe that a bookless, untutored man is the
author. So we cannot get evidence correct enough for Mr. Greenwood.
Destitute as I am of legal training, I leave this notable way of
disposing of the evidence to the judgement of the Bench and the Bar,
a layman intermeddleth not with it. Still, I am, like other readers,
on the Jury addressed,--I do not accept the arguments. Miror magis,
as Mr. Greenwood might quote Latin. We have already seen one example
of this argument, when Heywood speaks of the author of poems by
Shakespeare, published in The Passionate Pilgrim. Heywood does
nothing to identify the actor Shakspere with the author Shakespeare,
says Mr. Greenwood. I shall prove that, elsewhere, Heywood does
identify them, and no man knew more of the world of playwrights and
actors than Heywood. I add that in his remarks on The Passionate
Pilgrim, Heywood had no need to say "by W. Shakespeare I mean the
well-known actor in the King's Company." There was no other William
Shakspere or Shakespeare known to his public.
It is to no purpose that Mr. Greenwood denies, as we have seen above,
that the allusions "disprove the theory that the true authorship was
hidden under a pseudonym.
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