D

(A SOMEWHAT PERSONAL NARRATIVE.)

OCTOR JAMES APPLETON MORGANcommonly called Appleton Morgan-is a personage of no small interest to Baconians. As a spokesman for all of us I may offer him our hearty congratulations on the honours lately conferred upon him, when, on the Shakespearean Saint's day, April 23-this being the twentieth anniversary of the New York Shakespeare Society, of which he is President and Founder-a silver loving-cup and a banquet were dedicated to him-a festive function honourable alike to the company and their guest. It is this circumstance that brings him again to our notice.

To Baconians, Appleton Morgan is best known by his ingenious, brilliant book, published in 1881, entitled, "The Shakespearean Myth:-William Shakespeare and Circumstantial Evidence." In this masterly volume the negative side of our case was conclusively proved by absolutely unanswerable argument. And although the Baconian alternative-the positive side-was not fully endorsed, it was well stated, and few readers would resist the conclusion that the author was a convinced Baconian. However, ten years afterwards, in 1891, another volume appeared from his pen, "Shakespeare in Fact and Criticism"; and, although it contained nothing to neutralise the force of the earlier volume, yet the effect of it was to shew that the author wished to eat his own words, and found them difficult of digestion he was still professedly a Shakespearean, in the usual sense of the term. For him the Stratford gentleman was such an interesting person that it was worth while to write an elaborate discussion of the question which is the heading of one of his chapters,

"Have we a Shakspere among us?" i.e., are any of his lineal descendents living in America? If so, let us know all about them; let them shine in the reflected light of their illustrious ancestor. (N.B.-Is not this a typical specimen of Shakespearean research!) To me (to us, I might say, but it is necessary just here to speak personally), at the time this seemed monstrous nonsense, and I expressed my contempt of it, and of the general volte face character of the volume, pretty plainly in the Bacon Journal. The book was a mystery, and so it still is-and so also is its author. For Appleton Morgan still seems to hold those two self-contradictory opinions. And yet he is, I feel persuaded, a genuine Baconian, and not even he himself can convince me to the contrary. In plenty of public and private utterances Appleton Morgan shews not only that the Shakespere creed is a baseless fiction, but that the Baconian is the necessary alternative. And accordingly we must not trouble ourselves with insoluble personal problems, but take him as he is. And he is worth having with or without his paradoxes: besides being extremely clever and well informed, he is a most genial and generous-hearted man, and I wish I could unsay the hard things I wrote about him-but I cannot. So I must in my turn be paradoxical and say, "You are a Shakespearean Baconian, a monstrous inconsistency; but—a man and a brother, and withal thy faults we love thee still!" I have especial reason for this friendly attached detachment, or detached attachment; for after the stern castigation given in the Bacon Journal I never expected a civil word from him again. Yet, soon after the publication of my "Studies," I received from him the following letter (he will excuse my breach of copyright in publishing it) :—

"SIR,-Will you permit a forgotten acquaintance, and an old anti-Shakespearean protagonist, and a gentleman

whom you once honoured by describing him as ‘bowing himself down in the house of Rimmon,' to say that he has spent a delightful evening over your 'Shakespeare Studies in Baconian Light.' You complain, dear sir, that the orthodox say that the Baconians are 'half-educated,' 'halfbaked,' 'idiots,' 'fools,' 'lunatics,' etc., etc.; that they are abusive and scurrilous. Now, my dear Sir, did you ever hear of a person abusing or slandering his inferiors, or those whom he considers so? I am getting to be a rather old party, and may not live to see its fulfilment; but I will venture to register a prophecy, viz., The time will come when Shakespeareans will claim that they always knew that Bacon wrote 'Shakespeare'; that they only pretended the contrary to draw out the facts; and-just as the late Lord Beacons. field fought the Reform Bill with all his power until he was ready to bring it in himself—that they were waiting their own entire convenience, and incidentally amusing themselves with the poor Baconians. With sincere regard, believe me, etc."

As to this delicious prophecy may we not say, "which thing is a parable, and Appleton Morgan is the interpretation thereof." This unexpected and most gratifying letter led to some very friendly correspondence, and we exchanged portraits. On the back of his cabinetsized counterfeit presentment,' he wrote, "R. M. Theobald, Esq., from his gentle enemy, Appleton Morgan.

"As Peace should still her wheaten garland wear

And stand a comma 'tween their amities.'-Bacon."

My own portrait was similarly flanked by the motto, "Non idem dicere, sed idem spectare, debemus.”—Bacon. In a subsequent letter he writes :

"In the eleven years since you wrote me the House of

*I do not know where Dr. Morgan found these literary sweetmeats; certainly not in my book. They are true reports, but I have never condescended to quote them; I have only rebuked them in general terms.

Rimmon letter I have been trying with all my might and main to believe that Shakspere wrote the Shakespeare plays-every word of them. And, unlike the man of our town, who was wondrous wise, I have been unable to scratch my eyes in again. I can't find Shakespere in the plays at all. I can't hear a line or read a line without the mental comment, 'Did Shakspere of Stratford, etc., etc., etc., ever say that?' And yet I believe thoroughly in Shakespeare, and you people must reconcile me with myself if you can. If not judge me as you see fit."

Except for the "As yet," I also might say "I believe thoroughly in Shakespeare." But taking the whole collection, published and unpublished, I do not remember ever to have met with a more extraordinary specimen of paradox-it is a literary ballet dance, a whirling waltz of a most nimble contortionistbalancing himself on one toe and alternately facing and backing his onlookers. He may say he is a Shakespearean and a Baconian as well-as an Anarchist may profess to be also a Conservative-but we have no judgment to pass upon him; we simply give up the enigma and, taking him as he is, are quite content with moral if not intellectual accommodations.

Recently Appleton Morgan held a debate with Dr. Isaac Hull Platt on the Baconian theory, Appleton Morgan taking the Shakespere side. I never read a stronger or more ingenious statement of the case for

• The phrase was not in a letter, but in the review of his book published in the Bacon Journal. It may be well to quote the passage :-"We expect soon to hear of Mr. Morgan, arm-in-arm with Mr. Furnivall, mooning amongst the Stratford and Charlcote meadows, trying to study Shakespeare by watching the cows 'whisking their tails' in those consecrated pastures. We leave Mr. Morgan in the custody of his masters, bowing his manly front in the House of Rimmon. Whatever genuflections and incense he may choose to offer at this discredited shrine does not in the least concern us."

William Shakspere, a more typical illustration of the frequent fact that the most forcible representation of a case may be given by an opponent. For the defence is evidently a piece of special pleading, such as an accomplished lawyer (which Appleton Morgan is) might offer in defence of a prisoner whom he knew to be guilty.

As the President of the New York Shakespeare Society Appleton Morgan might be supposed to belong to the Shakspere Camp; but he expressly, in his after-dinner speech, claimed entire liberty of thought for all members of the Society, and that Baconian belief is no obstacle to membership - nor to Presidency, I may add. The speech is interesting, like everything from the pen or tongue of Appleton Morgan, and the readers of BACONIANA will be glad to possess it. The account of the Dinner in the New York Evening Post of April 27th, 1905, which has been sent to me, says :

"In the course of his reply, Dr. Morgan said :—Our precept, 'In brief, sir, study what you most affect,' taken together with our impulse first of all to be catholic, was meant to admit anybody who came to us for loving study of the dates and environment and biography of William Shakspere, and of the history of the text of the plays and poems of William Shakspere, and also to welcome whatever individual views he might have, so that with us he could study what he himself 'did most affect.' If he was of opinion that William Shakespeare was a pseudonym for Queen Elizabeth, or for Lord Bacon, well-he would be lonesome, but he would find that belief quite optional, and he would be welcome to be one of us. We would not dismiss a poor Baconian into outer darkness. Baconians, with all their deficiencies, do, at least, know how to read and write, and they know how to be a woeful thorn in the flesh to us, too; they are far too well informed for us plodding Shakespeareans.

"They have read too many books, have constructed too many brilliant paradoxes, ask us altogether too many troublesome questions; and while we orthodox people are plodding