Shakespeare."

Let me repeat that, to the best of my powers of understanding and of
expression, and in my own words, so as to misquote nobody, I have now
summarised the views of the Baconians sans phrase, and of the more
cautious or more credulous "Anti-Willians," as I may style the party
who deny to Will the actor any share in the authorship of the plays,
but do not overtly assign it to Francis Bacon.

Beyond all comparison the best work on the Anti-Willian side of the
controversy is The Shakespeare Problem Restated, by Mr. G. G.
Greenwood (see my Introduction). To this volume I turn for the
exposition of the theory that "Will Shakspere" (with many other
spellings) is an actor from the country--a man of very scanty
education, in all probability, and wholly destitute of books; while
"William Shakespeare," or with the hyphen, "Shake-speare," is a "nom
de plume" adopted by the Great Unknown "concealed poet."

When I use the word "author" here, I understand Mr. Greenwood to mean
that in the plays called "Shakespearean" there exists work from many
pens: owing to the curious literary manners, methods, and ethics of
dramatic writing in, say, 1589-1611. In my own poor opinion this is
certainly true of several plays in the first collected edition, "The
Folio," produced seven years after Will's death, namely in 1623.
These curious "collective" methods of play-writing are to be
considered later.

Matters become much more perplexing when we examine the theory that
"William Shake-speare" (with or without the hyphen), on the title-
pages of plays, or when signed to the dedications of poems, is the