A striking contrast with what happened when Ben Jonson, and
Francis Bacon, and Spenser, and Raleigh, and the other distinguished
literary folk of Shakespeare's time passed from life! No praiseful voice
was lifted for the lost Bard of Avon; even Ben Jonson waited seven years
before he lifted his.
SO FAR AS ANYBODY ACTUALLY KNOWS AND CAN PROVE, Shakespeare of
Stratford-on-Avon never wrote a play in his life.
SO FAR AS ANY ONE KNOWS, HE RECEIVED ONLY ONE LETTER DURING HIS LIFE.
So far as any one KNOWS AND CAN PROVE, Shakespeare of Stratford wrote
only one poem during his life. This one is authentic. He did write that
one--a fact which stands undisputed; he wrote the whole of it; he wrote
the whole of it out of his own head. He commanded that this work of art
be engraved upon his tomb, and he was obeyed. There it abides to this
day. This is it:
Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare:
Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones
And curst be he yt moves my bones.
In the list as above set down will be found EVERY POSITIVELY KNOWN fact
of Shakespeare's life, lean and meager as the invoice is. Beyond these
details we know NOT A THING about him. All the rest of his vast history,
as furnished by the biographers, is built up, course upon course, of
guesses, inferences, theories, conjectures--an Eiffel Tower of
artificialities rising sky-high from a very flat and very thin foundation
of inconsequential facts.
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