THE HERBERT-FITTON THEORY

"WITH

A Reply

ITH the disposal of the allegation that 'Mr. W. H.' represented the Earl of Pembroke's youthful name, the whole theory of that Earl's identity with Shakespeare's friend collapses." Thus asserts Mr. Sidney Lee in the Fortnightly Review for February 1898. The fabric, then, the foundation of which was laid some seventy years since, is gone, disappearing with the assault made on one of the buttresses" by the redoubtable champion just named. Yet, after searching scrutiny, the building seems to me to stand more firmly than ever, without having suffered the slightest crack or fissure. The "collapse" must surely be a dream of Mr. Lee's. And when one considers the huge labour entailed on the editor by publishing every three months a volume of that prodigious work, the Dictionary of National Biography, and by previously weighing and assessing the merits of the multitudinous claimants to a place in the Temple of Fame, it need not in the least excite wonder, if the doorkeeper has for a moment "nodded o'er his keys.” One is tempted the more strongly to take such a view of the matter by the fact that, in the article on "William Herbert" in the Dictionary (1891), Mr. Lee asserted that

Shakespeare's young friend was doubtless Pembroke himself, and the dark lady' in all probability was Pembroke's mistress, Mary Fitton."

In asserting that the designation "Mr. William Herbert " could never, in the mind of Thomas Thorpe or any other contemporary, have denominated the Earl at any moment

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of his career, Mr. Lee displays a want of accurate knowledge concerning the use and value of proper names and titles of dignity in Shakespeare's days, such as may seem unlikely to promote a reputation for extended and intimate acquaintance with Elizabethan history and literature. However strange the fact may at first sight appear, yet fact it is, that the personal name was not then merged in the title to the extent that it is at present, notwithstanding our alleged advance towards a pure democracy. The case of Thomas Sackville, pointed out by the late Professor Minto, though controverted by Mr. Lee, is very much to the purpose. Sackville had gained distinction as a poet when, in 1567, at an age somewhat over thirty, he was created Baron Buckhurst. "From this period to the day of his death," says his biographer, the Hon. and Rev. R. W. Sackville West, "he was almost wholly occupied with public affairs." In 1600, when he had been Baron Buckhurst for some threeand-thirty years, and when it might have been supposed that the "Thomas Sackville" would have been merged in "Lord Buckhurst," appeared the poetical collection entitled England's Parnassus. This collection contains again and again pieces with the accompanying name given as "M. (that is Mr., or Maister) Sackville," this name being, however, variously spelled. Nor is this all. Sackville's poetical "Induction," preceding "The Complaint of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham," in the Mirror for Magistrates, had gone through repeated editions with the same prefix (Maister) to Sackville's name. In the prefatory "Epistle" to the Second Part of the Mirror (1578) we have pretty clear proof of the use of the name Sackville and the title Buckhurst contemporaneously: "I, without any further determination, gallopped through the rest, which when leysure shall give you leave to reade, ceasse then to thinke on the L. Buchurst or Sackuyll, let Gascon and Churchyarde be forgotten." Again, the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc, with which Sackville was credited as being partly

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the author, was first published in 1565. Subsequently appeared the second and the third editions, the last named in 1590, and it is very noticeable that it bears the title The Tragedie of Gorboduc, whereof three Actes were written by T. Norton and the two last by T. Sackvyle. Here we may observe not only that the printer and publisher would seem to have been under no fear of being called to account by the Star Chamber or any other legal authority for defamation," as, it would seem, they ought to have been. They do not even give Sackville the honorific prefix M. or Maister, though, according to Mr. Lee, he came into the world possessing this: he "was born plain 'Mr. Sackville.'" And it is important, as showing the difference with respect to the matter under consideration between Elizabethan times and our own, that now under similar circumstances, whether the publication was authorised or not, we should in all probability have the name exchanged for the title, or at least there would be added, to make the work somewhat more inviting to purchasers, "now Lord Buckhurst." Titles, it would seem, were viewed differently in Elizabethan times, and therefore what Mr. Lee says about "Viscount Cranborne and "Mr. James Cecil" cannot be regarded as pertinent.

Late in life Sackville became Earl of Dorset. Joshua Sylvester published subsequently a translation from Du Bartas, with a sonnet dedicating one of the parts of this translation "To the right Honorable the Earle of Dorset," &c. But not only was an anagram on the name Sacvilus" appended; the twelfth line of the sonnet is

"This Tract I sacre unto Sackuil's name."

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The name, it should be observed, is neither "Dorset" nor Buckhurst," though either the one or the other would have suited the metre. Another portion of the work was dedicated "To the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembroke." But here again the name "William Harbert " is

appended, and an anagram, "With liberall arm," answering to the line

"Whose noble Bounty all the Muses binds ;"

a line which may remind us of what Shakespeare says in Sonnet 53 concerning a "bounty' like "the foison of the year."

But to return to Sackville. The allegation that his poetry was all written before he was knighted or became a peer will give no adequate explanation of the facts which have been mentioned. There still remains a difference from the usage of our own times. And supposing that the "M." or "Mr." was scrupulously employed with regard to Sackville's status during his literary career, it can scarcely be denied that there could not possibly have been any "defamation" in calling a nobleman by his proper personal name. A similar scrupulousness to that observed in the case of Lord Buckhurst would require that, when the Sonnets were published in 1609, the title "Earl of Pembroke " should not be employed. The name to be employed would rather be such as would have been suitable at the time when, by his acquaintance with Shakespeare, he became the "begetter" of the Sonnets. This name, we are assured, would not be "William Herbert," but the courtesy title "Lord Herbert." Even apart from what has been just before said concerning titles and personal names, there was an obvious reason why the designation "Lord Herbert " should not be employed. It would not have distinguished Shakespeare's patron from at least one other Lord Herbert (see my Introduction to the Sonnets, p. 54). And if this designation were abbreviated into "Lord H." it would become exceedingly ambiguous.

Now, however, we have to meet the allegation that such an "insignificant publisher" or "adventurer in setting forth" (finding the money, no doubt, to pay for the printing) "was incapable of venturing on the meaningless mis