inconsistent with his honour to be the secret proprietor of a
publishing and a printing business. This is the unexplained moral
paradox in the career of a man of chivalrous honour and strict
probity: but the fault did not prevent Scott from writing his novels
and poems. Why, then, should the few bare records of Shakspere's
monetary transactions make HIS authorship impossible? The objection
seems weakly sentimental.

Macaulay scolds Scott as fiercely as Mr. Greenwood scolds Shakspere,-
-for the more part, ignorantly and unjustly. Still, there is matter
to cause surprise and regret. Both Scott and Shakspere are accused
of writing for gain, and of spending money on lands and houses with
the desire to found families. But in the mysterious mixture of each
human personality, any sober soul who reflects on his own sins and
failings will not think other men's failings incompatible with
intellectual excellence. Bacon's own conduct in money matters was
that of a man equally grasping and extravagant. Ben Jonson thus
describes Shakespeare as a social character: "He was indeed honest,
and of an open and free nature . . . I loved the man and do honour
his memory on this side idolatry as much as any." Perhaps Ben never
owed money to Shakspere and refused to pay!

We must not judge a man's whole intellectual character, and declare
him to be incapable of poetry, on the score of a few legal papers
about matters of business. Apparently Shakspere helped that
Elizabethan Mr. Micawber, his father, out of a pecuniary slough of
despond, in which the ex-High Bailiff of the town was floundering,--
pursued by the distraint of one of the friendly family of Quiney--
Adrian Quiney. They were neighbours and made a common dunghill in
Henley Street. {171a} I do not, like Mr. Greenwood, see anything "at