We have now passed in review the chief Baconian and Anti-Willian
arguments against Will Shakespeare's authorship of the plays and
poems. Their chief argument for Bacon is aut Diabolus, aut
Franciscus, which, freely interpreted, means, "If Bacon is not the
author, who the devil is?"
We reply, that man is the author (in the main) to whom the works are
attributed by every voice of his own generation which mentions them,
namely, the only William Shakespeare that, from 1593 to the early
years of the second decade of the following century, held a prominent
place in the world of the drama. His authorship is explicitly
vouched for by his fellow-players, Heminge and Condell, to whom he
left bequests in his will; and by his sometime rival, later friend,
and always critic, Ben Jonson; Heywood, player and playwright and
pamphleteer, who had been one of Henslowe's "hands," and lived into
the Great Rebellion, knew the stage and authors for the stage from
within, and HIS "mellifluous Shakespeare" is "Will," as his Beaumont
was "Frank," his Marlowe "Kit," his Fletcher, "Jack." The author of
Daiphantus (1604), mentioning the popularity of Hamlet, styles it
"one of friendly Shakespeare's tragedies." Shakespeare, to him, was
our Will clearly, a man of known and friendly character. The other
authors of allusions did not need to say WHO their "Shakespeare" was,
any more than they needed to say WHO Marlowe or any other poet was.
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