Such is Mr. Parker Woodward, who in 1912 included among Francis Bacon’s Works (Acknowledged, Vizarded, or Suspected) those of Lyly, Greene, Spenser, Shakespeare, Kyd, Peele, Marlowe, Gosson, Bright, Burton, Webbe, Nashe, Watson, and others, including a part of Ben Jonson’s. And such is Peter Alvor, who in 1911 (Anthony Bacon: Die Lösung des Shakespeare-Problems) pointed out that the Bacon who wrote Shakespeare was not Francis, but his brother Anthony.
Of late years, however, the preachers of Shakespearean dissent have manifested a tendency to abandon Bacon in order to exploit newer aspirants to the laurel. The revelation of Mr. J. C. Nicol, in The Real Shakespeare, is couched in mystical language: ‘I, Fortinbras, otherwise Posthumus, quarried and on 7th December, 1905, plainly discovered Henry Wriotheslie, third Earl of Southampton, undoubtedly to be the sole Author and begetter of the so-called poems and plays known as Shakespeare’s Works . . . producing innumerable offspring in Art, with other various names, notably (as Marlowe) from the age of 13.’ A contemporary work by Peter Alvor (Das neue Shakespeare-Evangelium, ca. 1907) ascribed Shakespeare to a judicious partnership between the Earls of Southampton and Rutland. In 1912 M. Célestin Demblon (Socialist Deputy from Liège) maintained through 559 pages the thesis: Lord Rutland est Shakespeare. In 1914, the late Henry Pemberton, Jr., did as much for Ralegh in Shakespeare and Sir Walter Ralegh. In 1919 appeared the two impressive volumes of Professor Abel Lefranc, in nomination of another candidate: Sous le Masque de “William Shakespeare”: William Stanley VI° Comte de Derby; and in 1920 the most
