My suaded to believe, on Greene's ground of his complaint. A unsupported testimony, that scholar and a university wit Shakespeare was not the himself, he looked askance, author of his own plays. Nor now and then, at the rival do I see any avowal in the who had reached a loftier attack that Greene, "a satellite height than he, and by a of the Stanley family," had shorter route. What he said already divined his master's to Drummond he did but amseoret. However, that is a plify in his "Timber.” "I specimen of the process which remember," remember," says he, says he, "the serves M. Abel Lefranc for players have often mentioned argument, and it is not strange it as an honour to Shakethat, having extracted more speare, that in his writing from Greene's attack than (whatsoever he penn'd) he lurks therein, he makes very never blotted out line. light of Chettle's apology. answer hath beene, would he Now Chettle, who printed the had blotted a thousand. I 'Groatsworth of Wit,' was as had not told posterity this, sorry, after Greene's death, but for their ignorance, who "as if the original fault had choose that circumstanee to been his fault." He himself commend their friend by, had seen Shakespeare's "de- wherein he most faulted. meanour no less civil than And to justifiing mine owne he excellent in the quality candor (for I lov'd the man, he professes." Nor was this and doe honour his memory all: "besides," he adds, for this side Idolatry) as much "divers of worship have re- as any." Thereafter follows as ported his uprightnes of deal- fine a piece of criticism as ing, which argues his honesty, Shakespeare has ever evoked. and his facetious grace in Is it, then, all sent to the writing, that aprooves his wrong address? Was Ben Art." What now becomes of the Jonson, when he wrote that irony, which cannot be carried "his wit was in his owne further in human affairs? power; would the rule of it had beene so too," thinking of the Earl of Derby, or of the Earl of Rutland, or of Francis Bacon, or of any other candidate whom fanaticism is minded to suggest? It is wholly incredible. Ben Jonson was neither duped nor suborned. He had lived and worked with Shakespeare, and he knew his man, and he described him with what measure of justice was in him. It is characteristic of the oritics, who laugh hilariously at the But it is Ben Jonson who is the fiercest lion in the path of those who would strip Shakespeare of his bays. They can neither evade him nor slay him in his tracks. Jonson wrote of Shakespeare with candour and without equivocation. He saw in the author of "King Lear" no mystery, but a plain honest poet whom he could admire and criticise. "Shakespeare," he told Drummond, "wanted art." That, indeed, was the constant "Stratfordian doctrine," that, incredible, in accordance with while they involve Ben Jonson in the common charge of Stratfordianism, they do not dare to tackle honestly and straightforwardly the unsolicited testimony which he presents against them. It was the publication of the First Folio which gave Ben Jonson his happiest chance of eulogy. The verses which he penned "to the memory of my beloved, the Author, Mr William Shakespeare and what he hath left us," stint nothing in the praise of their subject. In talk across the table, Jonson may have loved his jest better than his friend. When it came to honouring the memory of the dead poet, he gave an easy rein to his eloquence "I therefore will begin. Soule of the Age! The applause! delight! the wonder of the Stage! My Shakespeare, rise." And presently, that there may be no doubt as to whom he meant, he openly declares him self what the new oritios would call a Stratfordian "Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appeare, And make these flights upon the That did so take Eliza, and our Truly it would be a mystification if Shakespeare, being nothing better than a poor illiterate barnstormer, should have completely deceived so astute a critic and so good a friend as Ben Jonson. M. Abel Lefrano, finding it a heresy picked up in America, to believe the simple truth that the greatest poet of our land was born of humble parentage at Stratford-on-Avon, hands over all the poet's works to William, sixth Earl of Derby. For this lavish transference of another man's goods and another man's glory there is, of course, no warrant. M. Abel Lefrano tenders us no evidence. He does not attempt to confute the unimpeachable testimony of many title-pages, vouched for by tradition, and supported by the unanimous authority of contemporaries. How, indeed, should he? He is content to tell us, on Gabriel Fenner's authority, that in 1599 the Earl of Derby was "busyed in penning comedies for the hundred others at that busy mocommon players.' So were a ment, who were not the authors of "Hamlet" and "Othello." It is idle to argue about a mere phantasy, and I do not propose to say another word in opposition to M. Abel Lefrano's can didate. But I should like in to inquire, what the French professor calls "the search for truth and the knowledge of human psychology," what motive there could have been for this vast imposture, and how it could possibly have been carried out. It is not every man of genius who would be content to forgo the honour and glory of his art. Peers are more common than poets, and there seems no reason why the Earl of Derby should have refused a crown far greater than that which had been worn by the 二租 Earl of Surrey or Sir Philip Sidney. M. Abel Lefrane's simplicity, always "a wonder for wise men,' makes no difficulty. "When William Stanley," he writes, "published the 'first born of his invention,' 'Venus and Adonis,' his father W88 still alive. It is clear that such a publication would have displeased the Earl of Derby." Why should it have displeased him? And if it had, why should William Stanley, a grown man, have acquiesced in his father's lack of reason? M. Abel Lefranc piles assumption upon assumption. Having assumed that the publication of "Venus and Adonis " was displeasing to the Earl of Derby, he continues bravely: "That is why, not having put his name on the title-page, he signed his dedication to the Earl of Southampton with a pseudonym; he took the name of one of the actors in his brother's company. To be sure, nothing could be easier. We know now what William Stanley's father thought of "Venus and Adonis." Why did his displeasure extend, I wonder, to "Romeo and Juliet' or "Love's Labour's Lost"? Again, I should like to know in the interest of "human psychology," how the vast conspiracy was kept up, how the self-denying gentleman, whoever he was, that composed the plays of Shakespeare, and blushed at his own fame, managed to guard his secret. What two or three know is known to the world, and it is plain that half a dozen must have pierced the mystery of William Stanley. Greene had already divined it, we are told, as early as 1592, and Edmund Spenser must even then have been admitted into the innermost shrine, since, in "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," he makes a clear reference to the great and hidden poet "And there, though last not least, Aetion, A gentler shepherd may no where be found." Thus he writes of one who is of course the Earl of Derby! Who so ohurlish as to doubt the obvious truth that "Aetion" refers to the familiar orest of the Stanleys-an eagle preying upon a child in its oradle? Spenser, then, knew who his great contemporary was, but he did not reveal the truth to his nearest friend, Gabriel Harvey. For that benighted man remained Stratfordian" to the end of his days. "The younger sort," he wrote, "take much delight in Shakespeare's 'Venus and Adonis'; but his 'Lucrece' and his tragedy of 'Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke,' have it in them to please the wiser sort." This was surely an unfriendly act on Spenser's part-to leave his dear companion immersed in that heavy bog of the Stratfordian heresy, from which Ben Jonson could never extricate himself. And by what ingenious means was Ben Jonson kept in the dark, when Greene and Spenser and Fletcher were all walking about in broad daylight? He was a man who lived in the world, who haunted great houses as well as taverns, who loved talk and his fellows as much as he loved books. He also loved Shakespeare, and had every chance of discovering the fraud, if fraud it were, in which his friend is now said to be implicated. But from him too the secret was hidden, as it seems to have been hidden from all the sons of men, until it was revealed in a flash to M. Abel Lefrano. Here, then, is a skein too closely confused for me to disentangle, which the new criticism runs through its supple fingers without let or hindrance. To put new names upon old titles seems to be a pleasant parlour game, if we may judge by the number and the energy of the players. And truly its scope is infinite. By the method of M. Abel Lefrano we can solve all the literary problems which perplex us. For instance, there are certain difficulties in the life and work of Lord Tennyson which have always seemed to me insuperable. How was it that he, the son of a country clergyman in Lincolnshire, should have been familiar with Courts, and basked in the sun of royal smiles? Is not the dedication of the "Idylls of the King" an unpierced mystery? "These to His Memory-since he held them dear." That surely is not a becoming address from one who was, when he is said to have penned it, a mere com moner. Nor is this all. The works of Tennyson have from the very first been suspected of femininity. Their supposed author, after the publication of the first book, was known as "Miss Alfred." An acute eritio of "In Memoriam" divined the sex of the writer when he surmised, with an ingenuity equal to the stoutest anti-Stratfordian's, that the poem was composed by "the widow of a military man." Again, does not "The Princess" wholly baffle our judgment until we acknowledge that it is the work not of & man but of a woman? Who, then, is the real author of the works now foolishly ascribed by Aldworthians to Alfred Tennyson? It is plainly none other than the Duchess of Sutherland, who, being Mistress of the Robes to Queen Victoria, was intimately acquainted with the customs and manners of the Court, and who naturally preferred to hide her great gifts of poetry under another's name. The importanoe of this discovery, which, by the way, did not come from America, cannot be overrated. It gives a new meaning and a new purpose to the poems, hitherto unworthily claimed by a mere amanuensis. Moreover, it points out to us the true path which literary critioism ought to follow. There are too many upstart orows about us, beautified with the feathers of others, and it is the duty of the critic to pluok them bare. Here, then, is a work, or a sport, in which all may engage; and the work will not be done, the sport will not be finished, while a single name now inscribed upon a titlepage holds its place unquestioned. CHARLES WHIBLEY. THE STORY OF OUR SUBMARINES.-V. BY KLAXON. IN 1916 we began to look to Germany to produce something very unpleasant in the way of submarines. We were certain she would follow the obvious course indicated by the lessons all belligerents were learning, and produce the big U-cruiser. Very fortunately for us, she produced nothing of the sort until well into 1918, when one small U-oruiser did us a great deal of damage. The point was this-We were worrying and chasing U-boats with trawlers, motor-boats, destroyers, and numbers of other comparatively small and weakly-armed oraft. If a U-oruiser, armed with, say, four 6-inch guns, and armoured along her topstrakes, had risen to fight her tormentors-well, it is clear that our small patrol-vessel service would have become suddenly very expensive. Each convoy would have required oruiser protection, and we had not enough cruisers to provide this. In 1917, by our constructor's reckonings, there was no reason why a German submarine could not have been produced which could proceed safely to the East Indies (round the Cape), and repeat (on a bigger scale) the exploits of the Emden. Well, the Germans didn't do it; they produced U-cruisers with I. We two 5.9 guns apiece in 1918, but the type was unsatisfactory and unstable. It is still a puzzle to us that the idea came to them so slowly. We had K-class boats with the fleet in 1916 of 2600 tons, and had shown that a big submarine was a working proposition. (The K-boat, of course, is not a cruiser-submarine; she is a fast and lightlygunned type for use in battle only, and she does not leave the fleet except when detached for watching patrols.) produced the M-class in 1917, and for obvious reasons-we kept the type as secret as possible until the Armistice. The M-boat is rather smaller than the K, and is of only seventeen knots speed, but she has far better under-water capabilities than her big companion. She carries, besides her torpedo armament, 12-inch gun of the normal battleship type. This gun can be carried loaded submerged by the use of a watertight tampion and breech. The boat can rise in the wake of an enemy, fire as she "breaks surface," and submerge again all in a matter of seconds. The type was extremely successful, and one can only be thankful that such boats were not on the enemy's side. They would have been the very devil |