MYSTERY BY GEORGES CONNES PROFESSOR OF (English) literature at the UNIVERSITY OF DIJON ABRIDGED AND TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY A MEMBER OF THE SHAKESPEARE FELLOWSHIP P CECIL PALMER FORTY NINE CHANDOS STREET 822.8 S530 075 t FIRST ENGLISH EDITION 19 27 COPY- PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY PURNELL AND SONS 3-3-28 16645 ? "Some again, who, after they have got authority, or, which is less, opinion by their writings to have read much, dare presently to feign whole books and authors, and lie safely. For what never was, will not easily be found, not by the most curious." BEN. JONSON. Timber or Discoveries, 1641. ? PREFACE DURING the year 1925 Professor Connes delivered to his class of literary students a course of twelve lectures on the subject of the Shakespeare Mystery. These lectures were published by him in book form in 1926, and as they present a summary view of the vexed question of the authorship of the plays and poems generally attributed to William Shakspere, a selection of these lectures has been translated-some in full and others in part-for the benefit of English readers who may wish to learn something about the question without having to embark on a long course of controversial books. The first serious doubts as to the attribution of the authorship to William Shakspere of Stratford, were put forward in 1857, by Delia Bacon, in her book: The Philosophy of Shakespeare's Plays Unfolded. The view she expressed was that the plays were the work of a school, or group, at the head of which was Sir Walter Raleigh, other members of the group being Lord Buckhurst, Lord Paget, and the Earl of Oxford, the philosopher of the group being Francis Bacon. As her book was mainly devoted to showing the correspondence between the philosophy of the plays and the philosophy of Francis Bacon as given in his Advancement of Learning, Novum Organum, and other |