Bacon and Dr Rowse
Sir: The Chairman of the Francis Bacon Society purports to answer my letter but significantly fails in his letter (7 November) to deal with the gravamen of the points raised. Might I be permitted to pin him down? As he concedes that the refer- ences by the Bard's contemporar- ies are to the Stratford Man, will he answer the obvious question as to why these people, friends and enemies alike, should all engage in a conspiracy to make the name of Shakespeare immortal? Why did Greene carp about the 'up- start crow' instead of denouncing the provincial bumpkin as a fraud and an imposter? What on earth possessed Jonson, an acknowl- edged genius in his own right, to pen that moving tribute to his 'sweet swan of Avon' after Shakes- peare's death, if he too knew that he had lived and died a sham? Mr Fermor must surely realise that the conspiracy theory looks just plain nonsense to ordinary people and that the onus is on him to try and make sense out of it by giving clear answers to the kind of ques- tions I have posed instead of duck- ing them. Meanwhile he should not be so careless as to suggest that the argument about the impossi- bility of a man of so little formal education producing these immor- tal works is my point. It was in fact the only point of even seem- ing substance in the long anti- Shakespeare letter to which I was replying and I am obliged to him for the splendid way he demol- ishes it.
Lastly, readers may be interested to know that no sooner had my letter appeared in your columns than I received a free copy of a booklet by a see-mama reader be- ing a collation of anti-Shakespeare quotes over recent years. There are about a score of such pieces of 'evidence' each one of which, taken singly, weighs precisely noth- ing. Your readers will know the value of twenty nothings. I would just mention the final 'authority' which is an extract from an Ameri- can Express guide for Yankee tour- ists visiting Windsor! To such barrel-scrapings are the anti- Shakespearians reduced. I see no reason to apologise for endorsing Dr Rowse's contempt.
L. E. Weidberg 14 Templewood Avenue, London Nw3
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