Bacon's DictionaryAppendices

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The exhibits and miniatures of which are found in this section, are designed to assist the serious student and reader in following the path of the Authorship Controvesy that has been so laboriously persued by many authors and researchers during its commence.

These exhibits have been placed here as not to interrupt the flow of reading in the Baconian Dictionary sections, being a finding list of Bacon’s works, his history, his thoughts and his aims, which are a subject of study and discussion.

Henslowe’s Diary

Edward Alleyn, who had married Henslowe’s step-daughter, retired from the stage about 1604, and some ten years later he founded the College of God’s Gift at Dulwich. Into his hands Henslowe’s papers, the Diary among them, passed, presumably on the latter’s death in 1616, and they thus found their way into the library of the College. Here they remained unmolested for more than a century and a half. It was not till 1780 that their existence became known to Edmond Malone, and when he then approached the authorities of Dulwich, the Diary proved to have been mislaid. Shortly before 1790, however, the MS., was discovered and entrusted to Malone, who was then engaged upon his Variorum edition of Shakespeare. He caused a transcript of such portions as he deemed of importance to be prepared, and of this he printed an abstract in the appendix to the History of the Stage with the addition of a few other documents from the same source. This transcript was collated with the original by Malone himself, and contains a variety of notes and corrections in his hand. He possibly intended to make more extended use of it in the revised edition of his Shakespeare, for which he spent many years collecting material, but which he left to James Boswell the younger to bring out after his death. Malone, it would appear, kept the original in his possession till his death in 1812, when it was returned to Dulwich by his literary executor. Boswell, however, when he published the revised Variorum of 1821 (Vol. III. p. 295), appears merely to have reprinted the extracts as they stood in Malone’s previous edition, though the transcript was in his possession at the time and appeared in the sale of his books in 1825 (No. 3141). The transcript reappeared in the Heber sale, whence it passed into the possession of Sir Thomas Phillipps, and after his death again came into the market in 1895. On this last occasion it was purchased, on the recommendation of Dr. Warner, by the Governors of Dulwich College, and now forms part of that library.

The next person, so far as is known, to make use of the MS., was J.P. Collier, who had recourse to it when engaged on his History of Dramatic Poetry (1831), and reprinted the whole, so far as it relates to dramatic affairs, for the Shakespeare Society in 1845. Since Collier’s edition appeared many scholars have inspected the volume either for the sake of the evidence it supplies concerning the conditions of the Elizabethan drama, or else attracted by the controversy which long raged round certain entries which were alleged to have been forged in it. The volume was described, and a careful though not quite complete list of the forgeries given, by Dr. G.F. Warner in his invaluable Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Monuments of Alleyns College of God’s Gift at Dulwich (1881). Finally, at the suggestion of Mr. A.H. Bullen, in the autumn of 1902, permission was given from the Governors of the College to have the MS., temporarily deposited at the British Museum, in order to prepare a new edition, a request to which they most generously and courteously acceded, and the transference of the precious document was effected through the kind mediation of Professor, Sir Robert Douglas. (Greg). 1

There are only two names mentioned in the Diary that are of interest to our connecting Henslowe at this point with either Francis Bacon or Shakespeare though they are not mentioned directly, except for the following in regards that Henslowe “lent unto Thomas Downton the 14 of December 1602 to pay unto Mr Mydelton for a prologue & a epilogue for the play of Bacon for the Court the sum of…” nothing further is mentioned about this play and without further facts that the mention here of Bacon’s name may be alluded to the play Bacon and Friar Bungay. (Greg). 2 The following plays that are of interest that were performed by Lord Stranger’s men at the Rose, February 19, 1592 to February 1593 and mentioned in the Diary are: 3

Friar Bacon: Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, entered Stationers’ Register May 14, 1594 and printed the same year as written by Greene and played by the Queen’s men. These were presumably the original owners and may have sent the play to press. Greene may have written it in 1589 when St. James’s Day fell on a Friday (ed. Collins, 1. 137), but it certainly seems a maturer work than Orlando. It is clearly later than Faustus (1588). From the Queen’s men it probably passed in 1591 to Alleyn, and through him to Henslowe, who lent it to Strange’s men in 1592, back to the Queen’s in 1594, and to the Admiral’s in 1602. With these it probably remained, since, according to the 1630 title page, it was later acted by the Palsgrave’s men, and not by the Lady Elizabeth’s, the last company with which Henslowe was connected.

Henry VI.: Printed as I Henry VI., in the 1623 folio of Shakespeare’s Plays, after being erroneously entered as the third part in the Stationers’ Register, November 8. It is possible, or probable, that there was an earlier version of this play which may have belonged to the Queen’s men, and that it was only “new” owing to the addition of the Talbot scenes by Shakespeare. There may also have been a later revision. The whole question is well treated by Fleay in his Shakespeare, pp. 255–63.

King Lear: King Leir and his three Daughters, entered the Stationers’ Register May 14, 1594 but not printed till 1605. Since the play does not occur in the Sussex list of 1593–94 it must be assigned to the Queen’s men. The authorship is doubtful. Fleay assigns it to Lodge and Kyd, but the Queen’s men did not act any of the undoubted plays by either of these authors.

Hamlet: This piece, the basis of Shakespeare’s work (1601?), is commonly and plausibly assigned to Kyd. It was certainly produced before Augus 1589, being mentioned in Nashe’s preface to Menaphon (entered the Stationers’ Register August 23), but the upward limit of March 29, 1588 the date of entry of Perimines suggested by Fleay, is less sure.

The Taming of a Shrew: Entered the Stationers’ Register May 2, 1594 and printed the same year as acted by Pembroke’s men. The play, like Titus Andronicus, seems to have belonged to the Chamberlain’s men and have come to them from Pembroke’s. It was this piece that Shakespeare altered, but an intermediate revision, as suggested by Fleay, is not improbable. The authorship of the original play is doubtful. It seems too Marlowan to be Marlowe’s; and if we reject Fleay’s suggestion of Kyd, which is not unlikely but wants confirmation, we must fall back on Malone’s “George Peele or Robert Greene.” Ward’s suggestion of a revision of an older play by an imitator of Marlowe is interesting and not unplausible. Courthope’s resuscitation of the theory of Shakespearian authorship need not be seriously entertained. The whole question is ably discussed by Bond. 4

Henry V.: Shakespeare’s play for the Chamberlain’s men was later than this, even if we suppose the extant text to represent a revision. The older play, known as the Famous Victories of Henry V., was entered the Stationers’ Register May 14, 1594 and printed in 1598 as acted by the Queen’s men. (The later edition, 1617, has King’s men, but this is obviously an attempt to pass it off as Shakespeare’s play). Probably the Queen’s men sold the MS., of this to the printer, Creede, when they were in London in 1594, but the Admiral’s men appropriated and revised the play and stayed the publication till 1598 when Creede printed it from the original MS. The play appears several times in the Admiral’s inventories.

Troilus and Cressida: The final payment for this piece, probably £2 (a steep price considering the First Folio was sold for £1) or so, may have been recorded on one of the leaves now missing. Fleay thinks that the composition of this play was the cause of the secession from the Admiral’s men of Chapman, whose Iron Age (see Troy, p. 92) covered the same ground. Collier suggested that the entry of Troilus and Cressida, in the Stationers’ Register February 7, 1603 might apply to this rather than to Shakespeare’s play. The fact that the play is there described as acted by the Chamberlain’s men puts this out of the question and serves to show how little Collier understood the history of the companies. The wording of the entry might of course have been fraudulent (cf. Henry V, 82), but that would equally prove the existence of Shakespeare’s play, which Collier proposed to date 1609.

Sir John Oldcastle: The transference of the play from the Admiral’s to Worcester’s men, a point not noticed by Fleay, is curious. Whether both parts passed is doubtful. Both parts were entered in the Stationers’ Register August 11, 1600 and twice printed with that date as acted by the Admiral’s men, and once as written by Shakespeare. This, of course, was before Dekker’s additions, supposing these to have been to Fleay gives an elaborate division of parts s.v. Munday. His statement that Drayton wrote three-quarters of part two evidently rests on the fact that the £4 were paid to him alone, and is a very risky inference.