THE ELUSIVE IMAGE.

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]

Sta,—Your reviewer, who is (shall we confess to our public?) new to the trade of Shakespearean reviewing and unable to write D.Litt. or even B.Litt. after his name, now under- stands why the average literary article is so non-committal and cautious. It is not so much that the writer has an eye on the circulation of the journal he is working for ; the trouble really is that he is terrified of saying anything worth saying for fear of the avalanche of correspondence (passed to him for necessary action and return, please) that his wandering steps may dislodge. Well, Sir, this time I must go through with it ; but in future Sir Sidney Lee shall be my shepherd in the narrow and beaten path : " Lord, shall a lamb of Israel's sheepfold stray ? "

Your reviewer wishes to record a strong objection against the modern habit of making history, which is by ancient tradition a living muse, into a dead science, demanding certificates and passports for every statement and every assumption that a lively writer puts forward. To deal first with the most pleasing letter " To the Editor of the Spectator" of four that demand an answer

your article in the Spectator of November 4th, on " The Elusive Image," the writer mentions a copy of Shakespeare belonging to an Elizabethan Spanish Ambassador which, according to Mrs. Humphry Ward, was copiously annotated by its possessor, and was unfortunately destroyed some forty or fifty years ago in a Spanish library. Does this statement refer to the copy of the Shakespeare First Folio belonging to the famous Spanish Ambassador to James I., Count Gondomar, which is mentioned by Sir Sidney Lee in his article on the First Folio in a Valladolid Library, which appeared in the Times in June, 1922, and which, according to Sir Sidney, was given about 1873 by Gondomar's then representative to the Royal Library at Madrid ? It would be very interesting to know this for certain, as, under present circumstances in Spain, it would be easy, beyond all doubt, for a competent critic to get permission to study the Gondomar folio, and it is difficult to believe that such a work can have been wantonly destroyed when in the possession of such a library as the Spanish Royal Library at any time since it was presented to it. Can any of your Spanish readers

answer this question 7—Yours faithfully, H. READE. Much Dewchurch, Hereford.

Come forward you Spanish readers at once I It was Mrs. Humphry Ward's story not mine, and I liked it so much that I slipped it into my article with gratitude ; but I can remember no more than what I retailed. If the book is still surviving it is quite likely to decide definitely whether or not Miss Winstanley's view of Shakespeare's political activities is one of the most remarkable literary discoveries of our times or a most circumstantial mare's nest.

Next writes Doctor Patterson :—

Sta,—In an article entitled " The Elusive Image," which appears in your issue of November 4th, 1922, two books are reviewed, Mr. Hookham's WiU o' the Wisp ; or, the Elusive Shakespeare, and Mr. Mathew's An Image of Shakespeare. I venture to differ from most of the opinions expressed in this article by your reviewer, but I would not presume to draw attention to the article if it were quite free from inaccuracies. There are, however, two careless misstatements of fact :— (1) " Jonson, Marston, and Chapman nearly lost their heads by slighting reference in it (Eastward Ho I) to the King's nationality." The exact words of Drummond of Hawthornden are : " The report was that they should then [have] had their ears cut and noses." (2) " Sir Sidney Lee, as is well known, takes the Mr. W. H. to whom the Sonnets were addressed as the Earl of Southampton, with the initials reversed and the ` Mr.' to mislead still further." As a matter of fact, Sir Sidney Lee, while he identifies the youth to whom many of the Sonnets are addressed with the Earl of Southampton, makes out a strong case that " Mr. W. Ii." is one William Hall, an assistant to the pirate Thorpe, or, in Gilbert's words, " a promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band." —Yours faithfully, H. F. PATTERSON, D.Litt. 10 Dunure Street, Maryhill, Glasgow, Nov. 5th, 1922.

I am generously ready to concede Doctor Patterson his three noses and six ears in the sacred name of exact scholarship,

But isn't it true that Jonson's old mother in the merry- making that followed the reprieve of these actors told the company that she had been prepared to take poison, being

no churl, in the event of any serious happening to her son ? who, as a matter of fact, had voluntarily joined Chapman and Marston in gaol. I deduced from that that the good old body was afraid that Ben's nose and ears might be cut off—

at the neck.

When using the historic present tense with Sir Sidney Lee one should bear in mind that he has proved himself a scholar with the rare gift of graceful recantation. I had forgotten, careless fellow, all about Mr. William Hall, Sir Sidney's apprentice in the whitewashing trade. But it makes small odds really. In 1891 Mr. Lee wrote : " Shakespeare's young friend was doubtless William Herbert, Earl of Pem- broke, himself . . . Nothing in the Sonnets directly contra- dicts the identification of W. H., their hero and onlie begetter,' with William Herbert and many minute internal details directly confirm it." In 1897 he wrote that " some phrases in the dedication to Lucreee ' so clearly resemble expressions that were used in the Sonnets to the young friend as to identify the latter with Southampton." In 1898 he confuted " the popular theory that Shakespeare was a friend and protégé of William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, who has been put forward quite unwarrantably as the hero of the Sonnets." Southampton's initials were H. W., and though Dr. Drake, who in 1817 first suggested Southampton as the hero of the Sonnets, was accepting Chalmer's inter- pretation (in 1799) of the word " begetter " as meaning " procurer " (which is not etymologically possible), and therefore thought Mr. W. H. was not the same as Shake- speare's " Master-Mistress," most present-day Southampton- ites build a lot on the H. W. initials as being a reversal of W. H. and abandon Chalmer's interpretation of " begetter."

Sir Sidney Lee, who at first identified, as we have seen, " the onlie begetter " with " the master-mistress," was frightened out of this position, but whether he had made Southampton into the master-mistress, as being a W. H. (reversed) to take the place of his previous W. H. (Herbert) before being frightened out of that position I cannot say, but it seems probable. William Hall (of Hackney, they tell me) was a brilliant improvisation which commands my respect, but it doesn't explain " that eternity of fame promised by our ever-living poet."

Next writes the author of The Elusive Shakespeare himself :—

SIRS I sincerely thank your reviewer for his very fair treatment of my little book Will o' the Wisp ; or, the Elusive Shakespeare— treatment in strong contrast with what I have met with elsewhere. Yet it seems to me, though I may be wrong, that even his attitude is not quite that of the scientific inquirer. He seems to ask himself the question not simply, Is this or that probably true ? but, How can this or that be reconciled with a certain view ? In a scientific inquiry to wish a conclusion is recognized as a defect in the inquirer ; it is an obstacle to arriving at truth. Your reviewer will, I hope, pardon me if I say that he seems to wish, even strongly to wish, a conclusion • and consequently to that extent the scales are weighted. He says I have my knife into Sir Sidney Lee ; but I notice that neither he nor any other of my critics has attempted that writer's defence.—Your obedient servant, Willersey, Glos., Nov. 9th. GEORGE HOOKRAM.

Mr. Hookham is a good sportsman and a charming writer, and I wish to break no lances with him. But I gave him a reason for not identifying the author of the dramas with Bacon, and if I did not give him a reason why I was a Strat- fordian that was an oversight : it would only have been the rather stupid one that Shakespeare the actor certainly came from Stratford, married there, and died there, and that he was for two and a-half centuries at least accepted without question as the author of the dramas. And, anyhow, we know enormously more about him than about Webster and Ford, two other contemporary poets of the first rank.

The last letter is as follows :—

SIR,—Would your reviewer under above heading be so good as to say where the indictment is to be found or seen, whether in a printed book or at the Public Record Office, of the Earl of Essex, of which one of the counts is that " he had employed Shakespeare's company for political purposes." The late Mr. Jardine, Magistrate at Bow Street, says nothing of it in the trial of Essex, in his Criminal Trials. Also what is the precise authority for saying that the play of Richard IL "was performed some forty times during the period of the conspiracy ' ? The active conspiracy lasted from the morning to the evening of Sunday, February 8th, 1601: the period of inception some weeks previously. The usual statement is that the play was acted on Saturday, the day pre- touslY only. Also the authority for saying that " Shakespeare's

company were so deeply involved that they remained in disgrace and had to tour the provinces."—I am, Sir, &c., G. B. M.

G. B. M. can find the evidence of Shakespeare's company having been used for political purposes in the State Papers (Dowertie, 1601-2). Augustine Phillips was examined as to the playing of Richard II. and gave himself as belonging to the Lord Chamberlain's Company ; that is, Shakespeare's. Wyndham, in his edition of the Poems of Shakespeare, gives the facts about Richard II. having been played forty times about the period of the conspiracy.

Boas, in his Shakespeare and His Predecessors, gives the facts that prove Shakespeare's company to have been touring in disgrace when Hamlet was written—Miss Winstanley has summarized the whole matter in her Hamlet and the Scottish Succession.

To be more strictly accurate than before, Coke was tech- nically the Senior for the Crown in the Essex prosecution, but at one point the whole case seemed to be breaking down, and Bacon came forward against etiquette, took the case out of the hands of his Senior, and conducted it to the end. He could have got Essex off by simply holding his tongue.

This letter must now come to an end, as the reviewer's brood are about his knees waiting to be told a story. He will not tell the story of the Three Bears this time, because Jenny will be sure to object. " No, father, Silver Locks tried the soup first and then the chairs, not the chairs first and then the soup " ; and David, who has also got rather tired of the story, will inquire how the story-teller knows that it is true, and will sniff perhaps at the authority of Southey, a most unhistorical writer.

So their father will tell them instead the story of the Khoja who had to answer the Sultan's question, " Where is the exact centre of the earth ? " and replied, " Under my donkey's near hind hoof," immediately challenging them to prove it was not so. To the Sultan's further question, "How many hairs are there in my beard ? " the Khoja replied, "As many as there are in my donkey's tail." " Prove it " the Sultan said, getting in the first word this time. The Iihoja replied, " I will alternately pluck out a hair of your beard and a hair of my donkey's tail and we shall soon see if I speak the truth." But Jenny and David will not, I am afraid, see the point of the story, which will not be addressed to them so much, Sir, as to certain of our correspondents above.—I am,