These times were not as our own, and must not be judged by ours.
Whoever wrote the plays, the actor, or Bacon, or the Man in the Moon;
whoever legally owned the manuscripts, was equally incurious and
negligent about the preservation of a correct text. As we shall see
later, while Baconians urge without any evidence that Bacon himself
edited, or gave to Ben Jonson the duty of editing, the first
collected edition (1623), the work has been done in an indescribably
negligent and reckless manner, and, as Mr. Greenwood repeatedly
states, the edition, in his opinion, contains at least two plays not
by his "Shakespeare"--that "concealed poet"--and masses of "non-
Shakespearean" work.

How this could happen, if Bacon (as on one hypothesis) either revised
the plays himself, or entrusted the task to so strict an Editor as
Ben Jonson, I cannot imagine. This is also one of the difficulties
in Mr. Greenwood's theory. Thus we cannot argue, "if the actor were
the author, he must have been conscious of his great powers.
Therefore the actor cannot have been the author, for the actor wholly
neglected to collect his printed and to print his manuscript works."

This argument is equally potent against the authorship of the plays
by Bacon. He, too, left the manuscripts unpublished till 1623. "But
he could not avow his authorship," cry Baconians, giving various
exquisite reasons. Indeed, if Bacon were the author, he might not
care to divulge his long association with "a cry of players," and a
man like Will of Stratford. But he had no occasion to avow it. He
had merely to suggest to the players, through any safe channel, that
they should collect and publish the works of their old friend Will
Shakspere.