to show, only too intimately; but Shakespeare was not connected
with it--that is, in the capacity of its author. In what capacity would
be but too evident when he mentioned the names of the two leading
ruffians concerned in the murder of the principal character--Black Will
and Shakebag. The single original of these two characters he need
scarcely pause to point out. It would be observed that a double
precaution had been taken against any charge of libel or personal attack
which might be brought against the author and supported by the
all-powerful court influence of Shakespeare's two principal patrons, the
Earls of Essex and Southampton. Two figures were substituted for one,
and the unmistakable name of Will Shakebag was cut in half and divided
between them. Care had moreover been taken to disguise the person by
altering the complexion of the individual aimed at. That the actual
Shakespeare was a fair man they had the evidence of the coloured bust at
Stratford. Could any capable and fair-minded man--he would appeal to
their justly honoured Founder--require further evidence as to the
original of Black Will Shakebag? Another important character in the play
was Black Will's accomplice and Arden's servant--Michael, after whom the
play had also at one time been called _Murderous Michael_. The single
fact that Shakespeare and Drayton were both of them Warwickshire men
would suffice, he could not doubt, to carry conviction with it to the
mind of every member present, with regard to the original of this
personage. It now only remained for him to produce the name of the real
author of this play. He would do so at once--Ben Jonson. About the time
of its production Jonson was notoriously engaged in writing those
additions to the _Spanish Tragedy_ of which a preposterous attempt had
been made to deprive him on the paltry ground that the style (forsooth)
of these additional scenes was very like the style of Shakespeare and
utterly unlike the style of Jonson. To dispose for ever of this pitiful
argument it would be sufficient to mention the names of its two first and
principal supporters--Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (hisses
and laughter). Now, in these "adycions to Jeronymo" a painter was
introduced complaining of the murder of his son. In the play before them
a painter was introduced as an accomplice in the murder of Arden. It was
unnecessary to dwell upon so trivial a point of difference as that
between th