Edmund Spenser and the Impersonations of Francis Bacon. By E.
G. Harman. (Constable and Co. 16s. net.)—The craze for attributing nearly the whole of Elizabethan literature to Bacon is one of the most curious literary aberrations that have ever led scholars astray. Here is Mr. Harman,- a widely read student and in other respects a man of sound judgment, writing a portly volume of nearly six hundred pages to prove that Bacon was the real author of the works commonly attribUted to Spenser, not to speak of such trifles as Sidney'd Apologie for Poetrie, Gilbert's Discourse, and Raleigh's Die. covery of Guiana. Of course, it is taken for granted that Bacon wrote the plays and poems of Shakespeare—incident- ally Mr. Harman assures us that Ralegh sat as the model for Othello! Anyone who can believe that the same man. wrote Hamlet and The Faerie Queene must be, like Habakkuk, capable de tout. So we shall not argue with Mr. Harman—but merely ask him ivhether it would not be a simpler explanation of certain coincidences of thought and style to suppose that Bacon hired Shakespeare or Spenser to write the Essays and The Advancement of Learning.
Previous page
