The philosopher glared at the poet from under brows which met in a frown such as he used perhaps to bend upon suitors in court while his pockets bulged with their offerings to justice. His pipe had now gone out, and he went about lighting it with the effect of having quite finished what he had to say.

"Well!" the poet prompted.

"There is nothing more/' the philosopher answered, in cold resentment, and began pulling at his pipe.

"But that parallel?"

"I thought you preferred your trifling."

"My joke is dear to me, but not so precious as your interest in my biography."

"And I, if I may venture to entreat your lordship," I put in, "should think myself greatly the loser if I failed of your parallel. I don't think anything like it has been offered, yet, in proof of our friend's authorship of his plays."

His lordship continued silent for a little longer; then he severely resumed. "I had thought of enforcing the parallel with other examples, but it is not necessary, and I will only suggest in refutation of the argument that Shakespeare could not have written Shakespeare because he has left no handwriting of his behind except two or three autographs differently spelled from each other, that we have no signature of Chaucer's, though he was an eminent diplomat and went upon many embassies to the continent, requiring signatures. It is not certainly known who his father was, or precisely his wife. None of his poems survive in his own manuscript, and it isn't known which were irrefutably his; just as some of our friend's plays here are of doubted origin, and none were printed from his own handwriting. Your two poets are alike, moreover, in certain alleged violations of the law: Shakespeare is said to have stolen deer, and Chaucer to have taken part in the abduction of a young girl; probably neither did either; but the interesting fact is that uncertainties cloud the history of the courtier as well as the life of the player. Seven years of Chaucer's time left no record, just as nine of Shakespeare's left none. But when you come to speak of the paucity of biographical material in the case of our friend here, I would have you contrast its abundance with the want of facts concerning most of his eminent contemporaries and predecessors. It is perfectly known who his father and mother were and their origin. The year and almost the day of his birth are known, but not so clearly the place; though it was certainly Stratford and certainly not the Birthplace. The day of his baptism is ascertained, and when and where he went to school — almost. There is no doubt whom he married, and if not where, then when, and reasonably why. At fixed dates his three children are baptized. In a certain year and month he goes to London, where he becomes not so much personally a holder of gentlemen's horses at the theater, as a sort of horse-holding syndicate or Trust, and an employer of skilled labor in the boys trained by himself for the purpose. From this business eminence he sinks to be a poet, a playwright, and even a player by distinctly dated gradations, and is enviously attacked for his success in the drama by a brother dramatist. The dates of his successive plays are fairly approximated in their production at the theater and their reproduction from the press, and the time of his buying New Place is fixed. His unbroken relation to Stratford during his London years can be traced by the dates of his various purchases and lawsuits and participation in local affairs. His devotion to his family expressed itself in all filial, paternal and fraternal sorts; he marries his daughters to his liking; he stands godfather to his friends' children; when his mother dies he yields to the homesickness always in his heart, and comes back to end his days in Stratford. He wishes to be a principal citizen and a man of social standing; he buys tithes and joins in fencing the people's commons; he rejoices in a coat-of-arms, and likes to be known as William Shakespeare, Esquire, trusting that his low-class career as actor-manager in London will not be remembered against him. But he likes to be remembered by his old dramatic friends, and he welcomes Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson to New Place, where he lives till his death in peace, if not affection, with his wife. He even engages to excess in their jolly riot, for, as a Vicar of Stratford recalls some fifty years later, 'Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Drayton had a merie meeting, and itt seems drank too hard, and Shakespeare died of a fevour there contracted.' Others, however, hold that his fever was a filth disease contracted from the pigsties that then ran the length of New Place in Chapel Lane. But it is enough," his lordship ended, with a dignified gesture of his pipe-stem, "that he died full of glory and honor."

Shakespeare, who had been listening more and more restively, wincing from time to time at facts which I thought his guest might better have spared him, rose and stretched himself, saying: "I didn't realize before that I was such an unquestionable celebrity." Then, as I rose too and thanked his lordship for his convincing statement, but said I must really be going, Shakespeare, as if he would escape some merited reproach, said he would go a little way with me, if I didn't mind, and we hurried off together. We had not got as far as the bridge when he answered the tacit question in my mind, as the custom is among disembodied spirits.

"Yes, he is often very tiresome company, especially when he gets to harping on my record and its sufficiency for all the practical purposes of the biographer. But I haven't the heart to stop him, for I know it forms his escape from grievous thoughts about himself which otherwise he could not bear."

"You mean his conviction of bribery, and his dishonor before the world; that heavy fine, which was the least of his burdens, and his deposition from the high office which he had held with such pride and splendor?"

"No, no; not chiefly that. He settled with that when he owned it, saying, 'I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defense.'"

"But why not supremely that immeasurable fall?" I insisted. "Above all other great men — for he was one of the very greatest — he 'loved the world and the world's law' of luxury and state and flattery. He crawled and truckled to those who could forward him, and he took their snubs and insults almost with thanks, as for so much condescension. He knew himself the sublimest intellect in the realm; why should he show himself the basest lickspittle in it to that old harridan Elizabeth and that slobbering pedant James, and his own ungracious kinsmen, their ministers?"

"Ah, it's a strange anomaly," my companion answered. "He is a riddle that I don't often attempt to read. But what I say is that he has long ago ceased to feel shame for his dishonor, but when he returns to earth the ingratitude and treachery he used toward those who trusted him are again an unquenched fire in his memory. He still writhes in pity of the poor man Aubrey, whose bribe he took and then pronounced 'a killing decree' against him. And his friend Essex, who enriched him with gifts and never tired of, showing him good will and doing him good deeds, and whom he repaid by hunting him to his death and stopping every chance of mercy which the law might have left him — in the remembrance of Essex he suffers as if Essex would be living yet but for his pitiless pursuit. I don't know how he bears it; and since he finds some little respite from his remembrance of the wrong he did by righting the little wrong which he thinks has been done me, I can't deny it him."

"No, of course not," I agreed, "but I could have wished that his argument had been a little less in the nature of special pleading."

"You mean in regard to that famous old saying of Hallam's that 'no letter of Shakespeare's writing, no record of his conversation has been preserved?' Why, I thought he met that fairly. People used not to keep their correspondents' letters, and I was never a great correspondent. But the encyclopedist, whom he mainly followed in his argument, cites as to my conversation the interview my kinsman Thomas Greene had with me in London concerning the inclosure of the common lands, at Stratford and Welcombe; and there were other meetings with the friends of the scheme, when I told them distinctly that I 'was not able to favor the inclosing of Welcombe.' This is not only proof that I could and did talk with people and that they remembered it; but it ought to be remembered by those who imagine I cared nothing for the poor, that in these meetings I defended their interests and not mine, in opposing the fencing of the common lands."

There was more warmth of feeling in Shakespeare's voice than he usually allowed to be felt in it; for the most part it was expressive of a kindly, if ironical humor, as though the matter in hand were not worth very serious consideration, though he liked playing with it. I was about to say that I was glad to have him express himself so decidedly, in this connection, when I was aware of being alone, and I pursued my way across the bridge and kept on in one of those rambles through the town which were mostly as aimless as they were eventless.