Greenwood, after saying "it is clear that it is as an
actor rather than as an author that 'Shake-scene' is attacked,"
{142a} concedes {142b} that it "certainly looks as if he" (Greene)
"meant to suggest that this Shake-scene supposed himself able to
compose, as well as to mouth verses." Nothing else can possibly be
meant. "The rest of you" were authors, not actors.
If not, why, in a whole company of actors, should "Shake-scene" alone
be selected for a special victim? Shake-scene is chosen out because,
as an author, a factotum always ready at need, he is more apt than
the professed playwrights to be employed as author by his company:
this is a new reason for not trusting the players.
I am not going to take the trouble to argue as to whether, in the
circumstances of the case, "Shake-scene" is meant by Greene for a pun
on "Shake-speare," or not. If he had some other rising player-
author, the Factotum of a cry of players, in his mind, Baconians may
search for that personage in the records of the stage. That other
player-author may have died young, or faded into obscurity. The term
"the only Shake-scene" may be one of those curious coincidences which
do occur. The presumption lies rather on the other side. I demur,
when Mr. Greenwood courageously struggling for his case says that,
even assuming the validity of the surmise that there is an allusion
to Shakspere, {143a} "the utmost that we should be entitled to say is
that Greene here accuses Player Shakspere of putting forward, as his
own, some work, or perhaps some parts of a work, for which he was
really indebted to another" (the Great Unknown?).
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