se trompe. Neither Greene nor Jonson accused "Shake-scene" or "Poet-
Ape" of "putting forth the works of others as his own." That is
quite certain, as far as the scorns of Jonson and Greene have reached
us. (See pp. 141-145 infra.)

If an actor, obviously incapable of wit and poetry, were credited
with the plays, the keenest curiosity would arise in "the
profession," and among rival playwrights who envied the wealth and
"glory" of the actors. This curiosity, prompting the wits and
players to watch and "shadow" Will, would, to put it mildly, most
seriously imperil the secret of the concealed author who had the
folly to sign himself "William Shakespeare." Human nature could not
rest under such a provocation as the "concealed poet" offered.

This is so obvious that had one desired to prove Bacon or the Unknown
to be the concealed author, one must have credited his mask, Will,
with abundance of wit and fancy, and, as for learning--with about as
much as he probably possessed. But the Baconians make him an
illiterate yokel, and we have quoted Mr. Greenwood's estimate of the
young Warwickshire provincial.

We all have our personal equations in the way of belief. That the
plot of the "nom de plume" should have evaded discovery for a week,
if the actor were the untutored countryman of the hypotheses, is to
me, for one, absolutely incredible. A "concealed poet" looking about
for a "nom de plume" and a mask behind which he could be hidden,
would not have selected the name, or the nearest possible approach to
the name, of an ignorant unread actor. As he was never suspected of
not being the author of the plays and poems, Will cannot have been a
country ignoramus, manifestly incapable of poetry, wit, and such