They also introduce Kempe, the low comedy man of Shakespeare's
company, speaking to Burbage, the chief tragic actor, of Shakespeare
as a member of their company, who, AS AN AUTHOR OF PLAYS, "puts down"
the University wits "and Ben Jonson too." The date is not earlier
than that of Ben's satiric play on the poets, The Poetaster (1601),
to which reference is made. Since Kempe is to be represented as
wholly ignorant, his opinion of Shakespeare's pre-eminent merit only
proves, as in the case of Gullio, that the University wits decried
the excellences of Shakespeare. In him they saw no scholar.

The point is that Kempe recognises Shakespeare as both actor and
author.

All this "is quite consistent with the theory that Shake-speare was a
pseudonym," {147a} says Mr. Greenwood. Of course it is, but it is
NOT consistent with the theory that Shakespeare was an uneducated,
bookless rustic, for, in that case, his mask would have fallen off in
a day, in an hour. Of course the Cambridge author only proves, if
you will, that HE thought that KEMPE thought, that his fellow player
was the author. But we have better evidence of what the actors
thought than in the Cambridge play.

In 1598, as we saw, Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia credits
Shakespeare with Venus and Adonis, with privately circulated sonnets,
and with a number of the comedies and tragedies. How the allusions
"negative the hypothesis that Shakespeare was a nom de plume is not
apparent," says Mr. Greenwood, always constant to his method. I
repeat that he wanders from the point, which is, here, that the only
William Shak(&c.) known to us at the time, in London, was credited
with the plays and poems on all sides, which proves that no