Mr. Greenwood says that "IF THE
AUTHOR" (Bacon or somebody very like him) "HAD BEEN CARELESS ABOUT
KEEPING COPIES OF HIS MANUSCRIPTS . . . " {232b} What an "if" in the
case of the great Author! This gross neglect, infamous in Will, may
thus have been practised by the Great Unknown himself.
In 1911 Mr. Greenwood writes, "There is overwhelming authority for
the view that Titus Andronicus is not SHAKESPEAREAN at all." {233a}
In that case, neither Bacon, nor the Unknown, nor Ben, acting for
either, can have been the person who put Titus into the Folio.
CHAPTER XII: BEN JONSON AND SHAKESPEARE
The evidence of Ben Jonson to the identity of Shakespeare the author
with Shakspere the actor, is "the strength of the Stratfordian
faith," says Mr. Greenwood. "But I think it will be admitted that
the various Jonsonian utterances with regard to 'Shakespeare' are by
no means easy to reconcile one with the other." {237a}
It is difficult to reply briefly to Mr. Greenwood's forty-seven pages
about the evidence of Jonson. But, first, whenever in written words
or in reported conversation, Ben speaks of Shakespeare by name, he
speaks of his WORKS: in 1619 to Drummond of Hawthornden; in 1623 in
commendatory verses to the Folio; while, about 1630, probably, in his
posthumously published Discourses, he writes on Shakespeare as the
friend and "fellow" of the players, on Shakespeare as his own friend,
and as a dramatist.
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