Proof that Shakespeare’s Thought and Imagery Dominate
Oxford’s Own Statement of Creative Principles:
A Discussion of the Poet Earl’s 1573 Letter To the Translator of “Hamlet’s Book”
Copyright 1946 by Charles Wisner Barrell
First published in The Shakespeare Fellowship Quarterly, October 1946.

IN GIVING SOME of the facts relative to the Earl of Oxford’s 1573 publication of Thomas Bedingfield’s translation of Jerome Cardan’s De Consolatione, (1) reference was made to the letters that passed between the translator and his friendly patron, two of which Oxford printed in the volume now known as “Hamlet’s Book.”

We have already discussed portions of Bedingfield’s letter to Oxford, complete copy of which may be read in Ward’s biography of the Earl. But the correspondence evidently continued after Oxford had read his friend’s manuscript and had expressed a desire to see it in print. Doubting his own success in clothing the thoughts of the Renaissance philosopher in appropriate English, however, Bedingfield seems to have tried to dissuade Oxford from putting the translation into type.

Whether assumed or not, such modesty was characteristic of the Elizabethan gentry. For it seems that the public display of all such scholarly “virtues” must invariably be accompanied by personal disclaimers of serious intent. No member of the aristocracy—regardless of his fitness for the calling —could adopt the vocation of a practitioner of the arts without losing prestige thereby. The worried references which we find in the letters of Sir Philip Sidney’s father, concerning Philip’s unaccountable addiction to “his book” are typical of the general point of view. Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was also a distinctively off-standard representative of the class into which he had been born. Every one of the many contemporary references to his preoccupation with the creative arts reacted against him as a member of the ancient feudal nobility.

The youthful Sidney died young—and in battle. Several years after he passed out in a blaze of military glory, his chief writings were collected and printed by a pirate-publisher. But Oxford lived into his fifty-fifth year. His chief writings were not published under his own name or title, and after the first flush of his enthusiasm for philosophy and poetry had settled into serious intent, he obviously took pains to conceal his own connection with the great works that bear the unmistakable impression of his personality.

The Earl’s decision to print Bedingfield’s Cardanus Comforte in the vernacular with a flourish of individual endorsement was a daring departure for the Lord Great Chamberlain of England. In Court circles it unquestionably caused a lifting of eyebrows and a repetition of such phrases as “light-headed,” “passing odd,” and “what next?”

In any event, the literary nobleman never again so openly expressed his own convictions regarding the creative worker’s manifest duty to guide public thought into those channels that give the Shakespearean Age its cosmopolitan dynamics. Oxford’s 1573 letter to Bedingfield is, therefore, a document of considerable importance in the history of English literature. For it gives us, primarily the creative credo of the young “Shakespeare.” And a truly noble credo it proves itself to be—worthy in all essentials of the spirit that animates the Shakespearean masterpieces.

Commentators, bibliographers, biographers and critics innumerable have, incidentally, been baffled by their failure to find William Shakespeare’s personal endorsement on a single book, pamphlet or manuscript written or published by any one of his contemporaries. And this despite the fact that the elusive Bard is himself described as “friendly,” “generous” and “gentle.” In a day when every other prominent writer both gave and received such commendations with frequency, Shakespeare’s absence from these pages of professional courtesy has been considered inexplicable—not to say astounding. The reason is now plain. Bereft as he was of property and virtually all political influence during the last decade of Elizabeth, the premier Earl of England who had sacrificed so much to pursue the thorny paths of creative genius, simply did not dare court further social obloquy by publicly declaring himself a professional playwright and poet. Hence the masking pseudonym of William the silent.

But twenty years earlier, here in the introductory pages to Cardanus Comforte, the youthful Oxford, bursting with energy, crackling with ideas and warmly enthusiastic in the cause of good literature, really lets himself go. The result warrants close attention. For it shows this “passing singular odd man” 2 to be already at the age of twenty-three in possession of a breadth of view, seriousness of purpose and facility of verbal expression patently capable of development into Shakespearean patterns. The letter to Bedingfield runs as follows:

To my loving friend Thomas Bedingfield Esquire, one of Her Majesty’s Gentlemen Pensioners.

After I had perused your letters, good Master Bedingfield, finding in them your request far differing from the desert of your labour, I could not choose but greatly doubt whether it were better for me to yield to your desire, or execute mine own intention towards the publishing of your book. For I do confess the affections that I have always borne towards you could move me not a little. But when I had thoroughly considered in my mind, of sundry and diverse arguments, whether it were best to obey mine affections, or the merits of your studies; at the length I determined it were better to deny your unlawful request than to grant or condescend to the concealment of so worthy a work. Whereby as you have been profited in the translating, so many may reap knowledge by the reading of the same that shall comfort the afflicted, confirm the doubtful, encourage the coward, and lift up the base-minded man to achieve to any true sum or grade of virtue, whereto ought only the noble thoughts of men to be inclined.

And because next to the sacred letters of divinity, nothing doth persuade the same divinity, nothing more than philosophy, of which your book is plentifully stored, I thought myself to commit an unpardonable error to have murdered the same in the waste bottom of my chests; and better I thought it were to displease one than to displease many; further considering so little a trifle cannot procure so great a breach of our amity, as may not with a little persuasion of reason be repaired again. And herein I am forced, like a good and politic captain, oftentimes to spoil and burn the corn of his own country, lest his enemies thereof do take advantage. For rather than so many of your countrymen should be deluded through my sinister means of your industry in studies (whereof you are bound in conscience to yield them an account) I am content to make spoil and havoc of your request, and that, that might have wrought greatly in me in this former respect, utterly to be of no effect or operation. And when you examine yourself, what doth avail a mass of gold to be continually imprisoned in your bags, and never to be employed to your use? Wherefore we have this Latin proverb: Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter. What doth avail the tree unless it yield fruit unto another? What doth avail the vine unless another delighteth in the grape? What doth avail the rose unless another took pleasure in the smell? Why should this tree be accounted better than that tree but for the goodness of his fruit? Why should this rose be better esteemed than that rose, unless in pleasantness of smell it far surpassed the other rose?

And so it is in all other things as well as in man. My should this man be more esteemed than that man but for his virtue, through which every man desireth to be accounted of? Then you amongst men, I do not doubt, but will aspire to follow that virtuous path, to illuster yourself with the ornaments of virtue. And in mine opinion as it beautifieth a fair woman to be decked with pearls and precious stones, so much more it ornifieth a gentleman to be furnished with glittering virtues.

Wherefore, considering the small harm I do to you, the great good I do to others, I prefer mine own intention to discover your volume, before your request to secrete the same; wherein I may seem to you to play the part of the cunning and expert mediciner or physician, who although his patient in the extremity of his burning fever is desirous of cold liquor or drink to qualify his sore thirst or rather kill his languishing body; yet for the danger he doth evidently know by his science to ensue, denieth him the same. So you being sick of so much doubt in your own proceedings, through which infirmity you are desirous to bury and insevill your works in the grave of oblivion: yet I, knowing the discommodities that shall redound to yourself thereby (and which is more unto your countrymen) as one that is willing to salve so great an inconvenience, am nothing dainty to deny your request.

Again we see, if our friends be dead we cannot show or declare our affection more than by erecting them of tombs, whereby when they be dead in deed, yet make we them live as it were again through their monument. But with me behold it happeneth far better; for in your lifetime I shall erect you such a monument that, as I say, in your lifetime you shall see how noble a shadow of your virtuous life shall hereafter remain when you are dead and gone. And in your lifetime, again I say, I shall give you that monument and remembrance of your life whereby I may declare my good will, though with your ill will, as yet that I do bear you in your life.

Thus earnestly desiring you in this one request of mine (as I would yield to you in a great many) not to repugn the setting forth of your own proper studies, I bid you farewell. From my new country Muses of Winehole, wishing you as you have begun, to proceed in these virtuous actions. For when all things shall else forsake us, virtue will ever abide with us, and when our bodies fall into the bowels of the earth, yet that shall mount with our minds into the highest heavens.

From your loving and assured friend, E. Oxenford.

The dominating spirit of this epistle will be immediately recognized as expressive of the highest principles that could govern or inspire any writer. Here we have not only noblesse oblige, but a clear-cut recognition of the creative artist’s social obligation to use his talents for the education and betterment of mankind in general. Literary accomplishments are not to be hidden under a bushel or confined to a small circle of admiring intimates. They belong to the world, that

Many may reap knowledge by the reading of the same that shall comfort the afflicted, confirm the doubtful, encourage the coward, and lift up the base-minded man to achieve to any true sum or grade of virtue, whereto ought only the noble thoughts of men to be inclined.

Let all those who have put themselves on record as disbelievers in Edward de Vere’s mental capacity to plan and execute the synthesis of human understanding and guidance represented in the Shakespearean output ponder the above words carefully. Then they may tear out the page, coat it with peanut butter, slowly masticate and swallow. Any public dispensary will treat resulting cases of indigestion free of charge.

Using the word virtue as it is used so frequently in the plays and sonnets to define skill, merit or efficacy rather than moral goodness, Oxford insists that Bedingfield is “bound in conscience to yield (his countrymen) an account” of his accomplishments—and will brook no action to the contrary. Despite the ironical raillery of his arguments against the translator’s assumed modesty, there can be no doubt of the Earl’s sincerity. Not the faintest indication of any such broad concept of social duty can be discerned in the documented records of the Stratford citizen’s career. Indeed, a whole series of such records, covering the hoarding of grain, the legal hounding of small debtors, and the schemes to enclose public lands, speaks authoritatively to the negative.

Let us now see how realistically further analysis of the thought and literary construction of this 1573 letter identifies Oxford as the fledgling Bard.

There are typical Shakespearean antitheses in the opening paragraph:

. . . your request far differing from the desert of your labour, I could not choose but greatly doubt whether it were better for me to yield to your desire, or execute mine own intention towards the publishing of your book.

The phrase execute mine own intention recalls:

This sudden execution of my will.
1 Henry VI, V. 5

. . . the affections that I have always borne towards you could move me not a little.

These pretty pleasures might me move.
Passionate Pilgrim.

But when I had thoroughly considered in my mind. . .

I have considered in my mind
The late demand that you did sound me in.
Richard III, IV. 2.

. . . of Sundry and diverse arguments . . .

The sundry dangers of his will’s obtaining.
Lucrece, 128.

. . . whether it were best to obey mine affections, or the merits of your studies . . .

My sword, made weak by my affection, would
Obey it on all cause.
Ant. and Cleop., III, 2.

That clear honour
Were purchased by the merits of the wearer.
Merchant of Venice, II, 9.

. . . at the length I determined it were better to deny your unlawful request than to grant or condescend to the concealment of so worthy a work. Whereby as you have been profited in the translating, so many may reap knowledge by the reading of the same . . .

. . . condescend to help me now.
1 Henry VI, V. 8

. . . well read
And profited in strange concealments.
1 Henry IV, III, 1.

To report a little of that worthy work perform’d.
Coriolanus, II. 2.

. . . I profited in the knowledge of myself.
Twelfth Night, V. 1.

. . . that shall comfort the afflicted . . .

for this affliction has a taste as sweet
As any cordial comfort.
Winter’s Tale, V. 3.

I’ll give thee . . . adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee.
Romeo and Juliet, III, 3.

. . . confirm the doubtful . . .

Our souls religiously confirm thy words.
King John, IV, 3.

In defining the word confirm as to make firm or more firm, to add strength, etc., Murray’s New English (Oxford) Dictionary, the chronological authority, attributes first literary use of the word to Shakespeare (1591) in 1 Henry VI, V. 5: “His alliance will confirm our peace.” Yet here we find Lord Oxford anticipating Shakespeare in 1573. One for the book, indeed! Moreover, the Oxford Dictionary is doubly wrong, for the composition of King John, from which we have quoted, would appear to antedate 1 Henry VI by some years.

. . . encourage the coward . . .

Encourage myself in my certainty.
—Parolles, the “notable coward” of All’s Well.

. . . and lift up the base-minded man. . .

I’ll ne’er bear a base mind . . .
2 Henry IV, III, 2.

Here again the New English Dictionary attributes first literary use of base in the sense of low in the moral scale, without dignity of sentiment or opposed to high-minded to Shakespeare (1593) in 3 Henry VI, I. 1: “Base, fearful and despairing Henry.” And once more this great authority on English words—historically arranged—is seen to be erroneous. For aside from the Earl’s striking coinage of the base-minded phrase twenty years earlier, the 2 Henry IV example we have given should take precedence in time over the 3 Henry VI instance.

. . . to achieve to any true sum or grade of virtue . . .

To leave for nothing all thy sum of good.
Sonnet 109.

Sum, meaning, ultimate end or goal, was used from 1340 onwards, says the New Dictionary, but in citing its use by an Elizabethan, our authority overpasses both Oxford’s 1573 letter and the 1609 sonnet in favor of a 1635 example by Richard Bolton.

. . . Whereto ought only the noble thoughts of men to be inclined.

Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
Is in base durance.
2 Henry IV, V, 5.

I should sin
To think but nobly of my grandmother.
Tempest, I, 2.

And because next to the sacred letters of divinity, nothing doth persuade the same more than philosophy, of which your book is plentifully store . . .

She will play with reason and discourse,
As well she can persuade.
Measure for Measure, I. 2.

The Oxford Dictionary quotes Shakespeare’s use of persuasion in King John (composition of which is given as 1595), but again overlook’s Oxford’s early use of persuade.

. . . I thought myself to commit an unpardonable error to have murdered the same in the waste bottom of my chests.

The Earl’s whimsical use of murdered in connection with Bedingfield’s manuscript is a characteristic Shakespearean hyperbole that Stratfordian pundits will not be able to laugh off readily, for it vividly recalls Pistol’s threat to Doll Tearsheet in 2 Henry IV:

God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.

Also, Gloster’s cruel quip to Buckingham in Richard III:

Come, cousin, canst thou quake and change thy colour,
Murder thy breath in middle of a word. . .

A significant sidelight is likewise worth noting in Oxford’s reference to the use of chests for the storage of manuscripts. There is a communication from him to his father-in-law, Lord Burghley, dated three years later, in which the earl complains that a chest containing his private writings, which was entrusted to his steward, one Hubbard, during Oxford’s travels on the Continent, is now being withheld from him. Plus Gabriel Harvey’s public reference in 1578 to this nobleman’s preoccupation with “bloodless books and writings that serve no useful purpose.” Oxford’s personal remarks regarding his chests of manuscripts tell much to anyone who has studied his connection with the Shakespeare authorship. The number of literary productions now extant which bear Edward de Vere’s name or titular initials could easily enough fit into an ordinary correspondence envelope. If, on the other hand, in the early 1570’s it required chests to hold the manuscripts in which he was personally interested, this would certainly indicate that he had a hand in many creative undertakings. Also that the bulk of these were printed under some name other than his own. That they actually were printed, all who are now reading this exuberantly vocal nobleman’s exhortations to Bedingfield regarding an author’s duty to his public, should have no difficulty whatever in believing.

. . . and better I thought it were to displease one than to displease many; further considering so little a trifle cannot procure so great a breach of our amity . .

There’s fall’n between him and my lord an unkind breach.
Othello, IV, I.

I pray you make us friends; I will pursue the amity.
All’s Well, II. 5.

. . . as may not with a little persuasion of reason be repaired again.

By fair persuasions mixed with sugar’d words.
1 Henry VI, III, 3.

And herein I am forced, like a good and politic captain. . .

I have neither the scholar’s melancholy. . .nor the Soldier’s . . . which is politic.
I have been politic with my friend . . .
As You Like It, I. 14; and V. 4.

. . . oftentimes to spoil and burn the corn of his own country lest his enemies thereof , do take advantage.

Your grace, that fed my country with your corn.
Pericles, III. 3.

For rather than so many of your countrymen should be deluded through my sinister means . . .

I have deluded you.
1 Henry VI. V. 4.

I am very comptible, even to the least sinister usage.
Twelfth Night, 1, 5.

. . . of your industry in studies (whereof you are bound in conscience to yield them an account) . . .

I am bound in charity against it.
Henry VIII, III, 2.

Dost thou in conscience think,—tell me, Emilia . . .
Othello, V, 3.

Call him to so strict account,
That he shall render every glory up.
1 Henry IV, III, 2.

. . . I am content to make spoil and havoc of your request.

. . . fortune made such havoc of my means.
Much Ado, IV, 1.

. . . and that, that might have wrought greatly in me in this respect, utterly to be of no effect or operation.

And seek to effect it to my uttermost.
Othello, III, 4.

. . . utterly shamed.
Merry Wives, IV, 2.

By all the operation of the orbs.
King Lear, I, 1.

And when you examine yourself, what doth avail a mass of gold to be continually imprisoned in your bags, and never to be employed to your use?

Tie my treasure up in silken bags,
To please the fool and death.
Pericles, III, 2.

Of more value
Than stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags.
Merry Wives, III, 4.

. . . life imprisoned in a body dead.
Lucrece, 1456.

Wherefore we have this Latin proverb: Scire tuum, nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter. (3)

The Latin proverb which Oxford quotes is of realistic significance in identifying the literary peer with the Shakespearean creative background. From the little known Roman poet and satirist, Persius Flaccus Aulus (34-62, A.D.), it can be translated literally as, Your knowledge is nothing, unless others know you posses it. Or, as more commonly expressed, A man is known by his works. The fact that Lord Oxford read Persius at first hand ties in constructively with the discovery of the late Professor John Churton Collins that Shakespeare also had the most intimate and striking familiarity with the thought and imagery of this Roman poet—whose works were not translated into English until long after the unschooled Stratford native’s death. Writing of “Shakespeare As a Classical Scholar” in his Studies In Shakespeare. Collins states:

Of Persius, of whose satires also there was no translation, we are reminded in Hamlet, v. 1.:

From her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring.

Nunc non e tumulo fortunataque favilla
Nascentur violæ?
(Satire 1, 39-40)

and again in Act IV, Scene 7, lines 11, 29-32 are apparently suggested by Persius, II. 29-30; while in Macbeth’s

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death

we have but a noble paraphrase of Persius, Satire V, 66-9:

‘Cras hoc fiet.’ Idem cras fiet. ‘Quid? quasi magnum Nempe them donas.’ Sed quum lux altera venit, Jam cras hesternum consumimus. Ecce eliud cras Egerit hos annos et semper paulum erit ultra.

What doth avail the tree unless it yield fruit unto another?
What doth avail the vine unless another delighteth in the grape?
What doth avail the rose unless another took pleasure in the smell?

Generous, not to say liberal as Nature herself, the creative principles Oxford lays down here are expressed in familiar Shakespearean metaphors. The tree and its fruit, the vine and the grape, the rose and its perfume reappear in so many figures of speech throughout the plays and poems that it would take too long to enumerate them. In fact, every last one of Oxford’s metaphors is basic, unadulterated Shakespeare.

Why should this tree be accounted better than that tree but by the goodness of its fruit?

If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree . . .
1 Henry IV. II. 4.

Why should this rose be better esteemed than that rose, unless in pleasantness of smell it far surpassed the other rose?

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odor which doth in it live.
Sonnet 54.

And so it is in all other things as well as in man. Why should this man be more esteemed than that man but for his virtue, through which every man desireth to be accounted of?

Do our eyes read aright? Is this the proud and haughty Elizabethan courtier, foppish, quarrelsome, extravagant and egotistically overbearing in asserting his social superiority to the “good Sir Philip Sidney” and his patient and long-suffering father-in-law, Burghley—the “ill-conditioned” wastrel that Froude, Lee and other approved historians of the period picture? Some one has made a mistake, surely, for the 17th Earl of Oxford tells us here in so many words that the only social prestige worth having is that based upon such personal accomplishments as good scholarship, clear thinking and able writing. Social rank, per se, is pointedly ignored. No wonder Oxford was considered “light-headed” and unpredictable by the fawning reptilia at Court. He preferred to be esteemed for his knowledge and accomplishments, rather than for the “idle rank” that he derogates both above and in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 122.

Then you amongst men. I do not doubt, but will aspire to follow that virtuous path, to illuster yourself with the ornaments of virtue.

Virtue, its worth and its lack, is referred to more than three hundred times in the plays and poems. Typical examples, paralleling Oxford’s advice to Bedingfield, are:

To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds . . .
Taming of the Shrew, I. 1.

His right noble mein, illustrious virtue and honourable carriage.
Timon, III, 2.

And in mine opinion as it beautifieth a fair woman to be decked with pearls and precious stones, so much more it ornifieth a gentleman to be furnished with glittering virtues.

Not deck’d with diamonds and Indian stones . . .
3 Henry VI, III, 1.

If she be furnished with a mind so rare,
She is alone the Arabian bird.
Cymbeline, I. 6.

Wherefore, considering the small harm I do to you, the great good I do to others, I prefer mine own intention to discover your volume, before your request to secrete the same . . .

That which I would discover,
The law of friendship bids me to conceal.
Two Gentlemen, III, 1.

. . . wherein I may seem to you to play the part of the cunning and expert mediciner or physician, who although his patient in the extremity of his burning fever is desirous of cold liquor or drink to qualify his sore thirst or rather kill his languishing body: yet for the danger he doth evidently know by his science to ensue, denieth him the same.

Plutus himself,
That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine,
Hath not in nature’s mystery more science
Than I . . .
All’s Well, V, 3.

The physician’s knowledge, skill and usefulness is made much of by the Bard. A physician’s daughter, who has inherited his ability as a healer, is the heroine of All’s Well. And who can forget the remarkable dramatic use that Shakespeare makes of the Court doctor in Macbeth? His prototype is now recognized in the physician who treated Mary Queen of Scots after the murder of Darnley. In Devils, Drugs and Doctors, Dr. Haggard of the faculty of Yale says that Shakespeare’s medical expert in Macbeth was centuries in advance of his profession when he diagnosed insanity as “a mind diseased.”

The adjective cunning, which the Earl uses, once more bears witness to the chronological unreliability of the great Oxford Dictionary. For—again overlooking the Bedingfield letter—the editors credit Hanmer with first literary use of the word in the 16th century. It is quoted from his Ecclesiastical History, written in 1577, but not printed until 1619.

The Oxfordian phrase, burning fever, turns up in 2 Henry IV, IV, 1:

We are all diseased . . .
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever.

And to qualify his sore thirst anticipates Shakespeare in:

But qualify the fire’s extreme rage.
Two Gentlemen, II, 7.

Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
Hamlet, IV, 7.

So you being sick of so much doubt in your own proceedings. . .

I am sick of many griefs . . .
Julius Caesar, IV, 3.

I was not sick of any fear from thence.
Sonnet 86.

Quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge . . .
Ant. and Cleop., I, 3.

. . . through which infirmity you are desirous to bury and insevill your works in the grave of oblivion . . .

The old French word ensevelier, meaning to bury is the source of insevill. It does not appear that Oxford used it afterwards in his Shakespearean writings. But the metaphor otherwise is one of the poet’s favorites:

And deeper than oblivion we do bury
The incensing relics . . .
All’s Well, V, 3.

. . . with many things of worthy memory,
which now shall die in oblivion and
thou return unexperienced to thy grave.
Taming of the Shrew, IV, 1.

. . . yet I, knowing the discommodities that
shall redound to yourself thereby
(and which is more unto your countrymen) . . .
As all things shall redound unto your good.
2 Henry VI, IV, 9.

Once again emphasizing the patriotic, social aspect of the writer’s calling, Lord Oxford’s point of view echoes in 2 Henry VI, I, 1:

While these do labour for their own preferment,
Behooves it us to labour for the realm.

. . . as one that is willing to salve so great an inconvenience, am nothing dainty to deny
your request.

I would have salved it with a longer treatise.
Much Ado, I, 1.

Let us not be dainty of leave-taking . . .
Macbeth, II, 3.

Again we see, if our friends be dead we cannot show or declare our affection more than by erecting them of tombs, whereby when they be dead in deed, yet make we them live as it were again through their monument. But with me behold it happeneth far better; for in your lifetime I shall erect you such a monument . . .

This passage is so explicitly Shakespearean in both thought and imagery that it has impressed many students of Oxford’s career from the time that Looney first reproduced the Bedingfield letter in 1921. Percy Allen’s shrewd and convincing commentary in his Life Story of Edward de Vere as “William Shakespeare” should be read again. Forrest S. Rutherford’s remarks in the same connection come most recently to mind. Again and again in the plays and sonnets the Bard returns to this exact mood:

And thou in this shall find thy monument . . .
Sonnet 107.

If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies,
he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings.
Much Ado V, 2.

. . . that, as I say, in your lifetime you shall see how noble a shadow of your virtuous life shall hereafter remain when you are dead and gone.

First Elizabethan employment of the word shadow in the sense of a painted portrait is credited to John Lyly (Oxford’s private secretary) in Euphues and His England (1580) which Lyly dedicated to the Earl. First use of the same word to represent a reflected image during the same period is credited to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Here again the evidence all favors Oxford as the actual pioneer. Moreover, King John, II. 1, undoubtedly gives us an earlier mirrored shadow than Julius Caesar, to wit:

The shadow of myself, formed in her eye.

He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone.
Hamlet, IV, 5.

And in your lifetime, again I say, I shall give you that monument and remembrance of your life . . .

His good remembrance, sir,
Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb.
All’s Well, I, 2.

. . . whereby I may declare my good will, though with your ill will, as yet that I do bear you in your life.

I should do it,
With much more ease; for my good will is to it,
And yours it is against.
Tempest, III, 1.

Thus earnestly desiring you in this one request of mine (as I would yield to you in a great many) not to repugn the setting forth of your proper studies, I bid you farewell.

When Edward de Vere calls upon his friend “not to repugn the setting forth” of Cardan’s Comforte, he uses a word not commonly met with in Elizabethan letters. It is from the French répugner, meaning to oppose; and none but a cosmopolitan scholar would know its value. Yet Shakespeare employs this same unusual word in 1 Henry VI, IV, 1:

When stubbornly he did repugn the truth.

From my new country Muses, of Winehole, (4) wishing you as you have begun, to proceed in these virtuous actions. For when all things shall else forsake you, virtue will ever abide with us, and when our bodies fall into the bowels of the earth, yet that shall mount with our minds into the highest heavens.

In closing we are obliged once more to question the chronological authority of the New English Dictionary. For again we find it in error in crediting first Elizabethan literary use of the word bowel as the interior of anything; heart or center to Whetstone in the Mirror for Magistrates (1584). Here we see the poet Earl antedates Whetstone in print by eleven years. And under his pen-name he repeats the now universally used phrase in 1 Henry IV, I, 3:

Out of the bowels of the harmless earth.

Oxford’s final metaphor is also impressively Shakespearean, as witness 2 Henry VI, IV, 7:

Ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith ice fly to heaven.

Thus the young Shakespeare ends his first discourse to be printed in the English language as he began it—with exhortations to high endeavor in “virtuous” undertakings. And although this remarkably human document is addressed to Thomas Bedingfield, its message is manifestly directed to all men of dynamic good will. Moreover, its underlying theme of personal service for the enlightenment of mankind is consistent with the ethical motivation of the immortal plays and poems.

At last, it appears, we have a Shakespeare whose reactions as a man among men are convincing and of whose attested creative creed we can all be genuinely proud.

Notes

1. See “The Playwright Earl Publishes Hamlet’s Book” in the July, 1946 QUARTERLY.

2. From Dr. Gabriel Harvey’s extremely interesting satirical penportrait of Lord Oxford, printed in pseudo-English hexameters (1580). See Works of Gabriel Harvey, edited by Grosart, Vol. I, p. 83.

3. For tracing this proverb to its source. I am endebted to my good and scholarly friend Nathaniel S. Olds of Greenwich Village, New York. The first English translations of Persius were by John Dryden, 1693.

4. The literary retreat which Oxford favored in 1573 was unquestionably Wivenhoe Manor near the mouth of the Colne River, in Essex, as Ward states: but it is spelled as above in the pages of Cardanus Comforte.

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