Bill Nye's Chestnuts Old and New
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CHESTNUT-BURR. I. – THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON PUZZLE WRESTLED WITH CONSCIENTIOUSLY
Why Bill favors the Claims of Bill Shakespeare – His Handwriting skillfully touched upon – Its Likeness to Horace Greeley's – Difference between Shakespeare and Bacon – A kind Lift for the Yeomanry.
Trusting that it will not in any way impair the sale of Mr. Donnelly's book, I desire to offer here a few words in favor of the theory that William Shakespeare wrote his own works and thought his own thinks. The time has fully arrived when we humorists ought to stand by each other.
I do not undertake to stand up for the personal character of Shakespeare, but I say that he wrote good pieces, and I don't care who knows it. It is doubtless true that at the age of eighteen he married a woman eight years his senior, and that children began to cluster about their hearthstone in a way that would have made a man in a New York flat commit suicide. Three little children within fourteen months, including twins, came to the humble home of the great Bard, and he began to go out and climb upon the haymow to do his writing. Sometimes he would stay away from home for two or three weeks at a time, fearing that when he entered the house some one would tell him that he was again a parent.
Yet William Shakespeare knew all the time that he was a great man, and that some day he would write pieces to speak. He left Stratford at the age of twenty-one and went to London, where he attracted very little attention, for he belonged to the Yeomanry, being a kind of dramatic Horace Greeley, both in the matter of clothes and penmanship. Thus it would seem that while Sir Francis Bacon was attending a business college and getting himself familiar with the whole-arm movement, so as to be able to write a free, cryptogamous hand, poor W. Shakespeare was slowly thinking the hair off his head, while ever and anon he would bring out his writing materials and his bright ready tongue, and write a sonnet on an empty stomach.
Prior to leaving Stratford he is said to have dabbled in the poaching business in a humble way on the estates of Sir Thomas Lucy, since deceased, and that he wrote the following encomium or odelet in a free, running hand, and pinned it on the knight's gate:
O, deer Thomas Lucy,Your venison's juicy,Juicy is your venison;Hence I append my benison. The rose is red; the violet's blue;The keeper is a chump and so are you,Which is why I remark and my language is plain,Yours truly,High Low JackAnd the Game.Let me now once more refer to the matter of the signature. Much has been said of Mr. Shakespeare's coarse, irregular and vulgar penmanship, which, it is claimed, shows the ignorance of its owner, and hence his inability to write the immortal plays. Let us compare the signature of Shakespeare with that of Mr. Greeley, and we notice a wonderful similarity. There is the same weird effort in both cases to out-cryptogam Old Cryptogamous himself, and enshrine immortal thought and heaven-born genius in a burglar-proof panoply of worm fences, and a chirography that reminds the careful student of the general direction taken in returning to Round Knob, N. C., by a correspondent who visited the home of a moonshiner, with a view toward ascertaining the general tendency of homebrewed whisky to fly to the head.
If we judge Shakespeare by his signature, not one of us will be safe. Death will wipe out our fame with a wet sponge. John Hancock in one hundred years from now will be regarded as the author of the Declaration of Independence, and Compendium Gaskell as the author of the Hew York Tribune.
I have every reason to believe that while William Shakespeare was going about the streets of London, poor but brainy, erratic but smart, baldheaded but filled with a nameless yearning to write a play with real water and a topical song in it, Francis Bacon was practicing on his signature, getting used to the full-arm movement, spoiling sheet after sheet of paper, trying to make a violet swan on a red woven wire mattress of shaded loops without taking his pen off the paper, and running the rebus column of a business college paper.
Poets are born, not made, and many of them are born with odd and even disagreeable characteristics. Some men are born poets, while it is true that some acquire poetry while others have poetry thrust upon them. Poetry is like the faculty, if I may so denominate it, of being able to voluntarily move the ears. It is a gift. It cannot be taught to others.
So Shakespeare, with all his poor penmanship, with his proneness to poach, with his poverty and his neglect of his wife and his children, could write a play wherein the leading man and the man who played the bass drum in the orchestra did not claim to have made the principal part.
Shakespeare did not want his plays published. He wanted to keep them out of the press in order to prevent their use at spelling schools in the hands of unskilled artists, and so there was a long period of time during which the papers could not get hold of them for publication.
During this time Francis Bacon was in public life. He and Shakespeare had nothing in common. Both were great men, but Bacon's sphere was different from Shakespeare's, While Bacon was in the Senate, living high and courting investigation, Shakespeare had to stuff three large pillows into his pantaloons and play Falstaff at a one-night stand.
Is it likely that Bacon, breathing the perfumed air of the capitol and chucking the treasury girls under the chin ever and anon, hungered for the false joys of the under-paid and underscored dramatist? Scarcely!
That is one reason win I prefer to take the side of Shakespeare rather than the side of Bacon.
Mr. Donnelly's book shows keen research, and preserves the interest all the way through, for the reader is impressed all along with the idea that there is a hen on, if I may be permitted to coin a phrase; but so far my sympathies and kind regards go with Shakespeare. He was one of the Yeoman of Stratford, and his early record was against him; but where do poets usually come from? Do they first breathe in the immortal sentiments which, in after years, enable their names to defy the front teeth of oblivion while stopping at one of our leading hotels? Did Burns soak his system with the flavor and the fragrance of the Scotch heather while riding on an elevated train? Did any poet ever succeed in getting up close to Nature's great North American heart by studying her habits at a twenty-five dollar german? I trow not. Moreover, every one who studies the history of our great poets and orators will trow likewise. Lord Tennyson wrote better things before he tried to divide his attention between writing poetry and being a Lord. So I say that from our yeomanry frequently spring the boys whose rare old rural memories float in upon and chasten and refine their after-lives even when fame comes, and fills them full of themselves and swells their aching heads as they swoop gayly across the country in a special ear.
I do not go so far as some of the friends of Shakespeare, and say that while he was a lovely character and a great actor, that Bacon was a ham. I do not say that, for Bacon had his good points.
The thing that has done more to injure Shakespeare in the eyes of the historian than aught else, perhaps, was his seeming neglect of his wife. But we should consider both sides of the question before we pass judgment. The Hathaways were queer people, and Anne was unusually so. Her father snubbed her in his will just as her husband did, which shows that Mrs. Shakespeare was not highly esteemed even by her parents. The brief notice which Anne received in these two wills means a good deal, for there is nothing quite so thoroughly unanswerable as a probate snub.
Shakespeare in his own will gave to his wife his second-best bed, and that was all. When we remember that it was a bed that sagged in the middle, and that it operated by means of a bed-cord which had to be tightened and tuned up twice a week, and that the auger-holes in the bedstead seemed ever to mutely appeal for more powder from Persia's great powder magazine, we will be forced to admit that William did not passionately love his wife.
I know that Shakespeare has been severely criticised by the press for leaving his family at Stratford while he himself lived in London, only visiting home occasionally; but I am convinced that he found they could live cheaper in that way. Help in the house was very high at that time in London, and the intelligence offices were doing a very large business without giving very much intelligence. Friends of his told him that it was not only impossible to get enough help in the homes of London, but that there was hardly enough servants to prevent a panic in the Employment Bureaus. Seven, offices were in fact compelled to shut down for a half day at a time, one using the limited stock in the forenoon and the other in the afternoon.
Shakespeare was a perfect gentleman, having been made so by the Herald's College, which invested his father with coat armor. This coat armor made a gentleman of the elder Shakespeare, and as William's mother was already a gentleman under the code, William became one also both on his father's and on his mother's side. Of course all this is mere detail and is dull and uninteresting; but I refer to it to show that those who have read things in Shakespeare's works that they did not like, and who, therefore, say that he was no gentleman, do the great Bard an injustice.
I think I like Shakespeare's expurgated poems best, and I often wish that he had confined himself entirely to that kind. If I had a son who seemed to lean toward poesy and felt like twanging his lyre now and then, I would advise him to write expurgated poems exclusively.
I do not say that Shakespeare was the author of his own works, and it would not look well in me to set up my opinion in opposition to that of scholars, experts and savants who have had more advantages than I have, for I would never take advantage of any one; but I say that somehow the impression has crept into the papers that he was a pretty good little play-writer, and I am glad that Mr. Childs has had a testimonial made and sent over to England that will show an appreciation, at least, of his ability to keep before the people.
It will be noticed by the alert and keen-scented littérateur that I have carefully avoided treading on the tail of Mr. Donnelly's cipher. Being rather a poor mathematician anyway, I will not introduce the cipher at this time, but I will say that although the whole thing happened about three hundred years ago, and has now nearly passed out of my mind, to the best of my recollection Shakespeare, though he was the son of a buckwheater, and though he married his wife with a poetic license, and though he left his family at Stratford rather than take them to live in a London flat, wrote the most of his plays with the assistance of an expurgator who was out of the city most all of the time.
I cannot show Shakespeare's ready wit better at this time than by telling of his first appearance on the stage as I remember it. He came quietly before the footlights with a roll of carpet under one arm and a tack hammer under the other. In those days it was customtomary to nail down stage carpets, and while doing so "Shake," as we all called him then, knocked the nail off his left thumb, whereupon he received an ovation from the audience. Some men would have been rattled and would have "called up," as we say, but Shakespeare was always ready to please his friends or respond to an encore; so putting his right thumb up against a large painted rock in a mountain scene, he obliged by knocking off the other thumb-nail.
Shakespeare wrote the poem called "Venus and Adonis," during the absence of his expurgator, and sent it to the editor of the Stratford Appeal, who deadheaded the paper to him for a year and told him that he wished he would write up any other gossip that might come to his knowledge in that part of the country, especially if it promised to be spicy.
Shakespeare was one of the few Englishmen who never visited this country for two weeks, for the purpose of writing an eight pound book on his impressions of America.
CHESTNUT-BURR II – HOW THE GLORIOUS FOURTH WAS CELEBRATED AT WHALEN'S GROVE LAST YEAR
An Oration by a Self-Made Man which had Bones in it – Suggestions of Deep Interest to Taxpayers – Freedom as it Suggests Itself to a Hickory Township Man – Our Duties to a Common Country.
There were patriotic remarks and greased-pig exercises at Whalen's Grove last year on the Fourth, all of which, according to the Sandy Mush Record-Statesman, passed off with marked success. From the opening prayer to the base-ball contest and greased-pole doings, everything was harmonious, and the receipts were satisfactory. Col. L. Forsyth Heeley acted as marshal of the day, wearing a maroon sash, and mounted on his well-known horse, Mambrino King. A serious accident in the early morning was happily averted by Col. Heeley's coolness and self-possession. A lady from Lower Hominy, whose name could not be ascertained, while actively engaged in listening to the band, and holding her young child so that it could get a good view of the sun, became entangled in her train, which had worked around in front, and while recovering herself Col. L. Forsyth Heeley came down the street in advance of the fire laddies. The horse was rearing high in the air, and going sideways with a squeaking sound, which seemed to be caused by the friction between his second and third stomach. His mouth was wide open, and his fiery-red gums could be seen as far as the eye could reach. Almost every one thought there would be a holocaust; but at that trying instant, as if by magic, Col. Heeley decided to go down the other street.
Our fire ladies made a fine appearance, in their new, hot uniforms, and were not full during the parade, as was stated by the Hickory township World.
Everybody seemed to feel an interest in patriotism, with the exception of an old party from a distance, who opened the exercises by cutting a large watermelon and distributing it with a lavish hand among himself. He then went to sleep in the corner of a fence, where he would have been greatly pestered by flies if he had found out about it in time.
After a pleasant and courteous prayer by rev. Mr. Meeks, in which he laid before the Lord a national policy which he felt certain would make a great hit, our Glee Club sang
Oh, say can you see, etc.Judge Larraby read the Declaration of Independence in a rich dark red voice, and a self-made man from Hickory township delivered the following impromptu address, the manuscript of which he kindly furnished to the Record-Statesman:
"Fellow Citizens: This is the anniversary of the day when freedom towards all and malice towards none first got a foothold in this country. And we are now to celebrate that day. I say that on that day Tireny and uzurpation got a set-back that they will never recover from. We then paved the way for the poor, oppressed foreigner, so that he could come to our shores and take liberties with our form of government. To be a foreigner here in America to-day is one of the sweetest boons. If I could be just what I would like to be, I would be an oppressed foreigner, landing on pur shores, free from the taxation and responsibility of government, with no social demands made on me, with nothing in my possession but a hearty Godspeed from both political parties, and a strong yearning for freedom. Oh, why was I not born an alien, that both parties wouldn't dast to reproach; an alien that can come here and find a government already established, with no flies on to it; a government of the people, by the people and for the people? (Fire-crackers and applause.)
"On the day that Button Gwinnett put his name to the statement that all men was created more or less equal, the spot on which we now stand was a howling wilderness. Where yonder lemonade-stand now stands and realizes a clean profit of forty-seven dollars and thirty-five cents on an investment of six dollars and fifty cents, the rank thistle nodded in the wynd, and the wild fox dag his hole unscared. If you do not believe this I refer you to the principal of our public school, who is to-day assisting in the band, and who is now in the act of up-ending his alto horn to pour out about a teacupful of liquid melody that he had left over from the last tune.
"And why is this? Why are we to-day a free people, with a surplus in the treasury that nobody can get at? (Loud applause and squeal from a grass-fed horse tied to a tree who is being kicked by a red two-year-old, owned by the Pathmaster of Road District 3.)
"Why are our resources so great that they almost equal our liabilities? Why is everything done to make it pleasant for the rich man and every inducement held ont for the poor man to accumulate more and more poverty? Why is it that so much is said about the tariff by men who do not support their families? Why is it that when we vote for a president of the United States, we have to take our choice between a statesmanlike candidate with great ability and proclivities for grand larceny – why is it that we are given our choice between this kind of a man and what Virgil refers to in his 'Childe Harold' as a chump? (Cheers and cries of 'That's so' from a man who is riveted to the spot by means of a new pitch-plank on which he is sitting and which will not permit him to move out of the sun.)
"One hundred years ago the tastes of our people were simple. Now it takes so much simplicity to keep Congress going that the people don't get a chance at it. A century ago common, home-made rum was the only relaxation known to a plain but abstemious people. Now it takes a man with a mighty good memory to recall the names of some of the things he has drunk when his wife asks him about it on the following morning. I claim to have a good memory of names and things generally, but if you want to get me mixed up and have fun with me, you can do it that way.
"But, fellow-citizens, how can we best preserve the blessing of freedom and fork it over unimpaired to our children? How can we enchance the blood-bought right, which is inherent in every human being, of the people, for the people and by the people, where tyrant foot hath never trod nor bigot forged a chain, for to look back from our country's glorious natal day or forward to a glorious, a happy and a prosperous future with regard to purity of the ballot and free speech. I say for one we cannot do otherwise. (Prolonged applause.)
"I would rather have my right hand cleave to the roof of my mouth than to utter a sentiment that I would regret; but I say that as a people, as a nation or as an inalienable right which no man can gainsay or successfully controvert, not for political purposes, and yet I am often led to inquire whither are we drifting, not only as a people and as a nation, but as a country and as a joint school district, No. 6, where we now stand, and when we are paying a school teacher this summer twenty-two dollars a month to teach the children, little prattling children, during the hot summer weather, how many feet of intestines there are in the human body and what is best to do for it? Last winter we paid thirty-four dollars per month to a man who opened the school with prayer and then made a picture of the digestive organs on the blackboard. And still we wonder that politics is corrupt.
"I tell you that the seeds of vice and wickedness is often sowed at school in the minds of the young by teachers who are paid a large salary to do far different. What do you think of a man who would open a school with prayer and then converse freely about the alimentary canal? Such a man would lead a life of the deepest infamy if he had the least encouragement.
"So I say, fellow-citizens, that we must guard against the influences of the public schools as a nation, for the people, of the people, and by the people. Education is often a blessing in disguise, but we should not pry into things that the finite mind has no business with. How much was Galileo ahead in the long run for going out of his sphere? He was boycotted from morning till night and died poor. Look at Demosthenes. Look at Diogenes. They pried into science, and both of them was poor providers and have since died. Of course their names are frequently used in debating schools, and some claim that this is big pay for what they went through; but I say give me a high-stepping horse, the bright smile of dear ones who are not related to me in any way, the approval of the admiring throng, a large woolly dog that will do as I tell him, a modest little home and unlimited credit at the store, and I do not care how much B. will have to use off from the diameter of a given grindstone, for which he paid an undivided one-fifteenth.
"I know that this is regarded as a queer doctrine by what is called our more Advanced Thinkers but I say let every man who pants for fame select his own style of pant and go ahead. I bid him a most hearty godspeed and hope he will do well.
"But what makes me mad is for a man to come to me and dictate what I shall pant for. This is called intolerance by people who can afford to use words of that size. Intolerance is a thing that makes me tired. Whether it's religious, political or social intolerance, I dislike it very much. People that think I will enjoy voting for a yaller dog that had been picked out for me, or that I will be tickled to death to indorse the religious dogmas of an effete monicky with my eyes shot, don't know me. I say, let every man rely solely on his own thinker, and damned be he who first cries hold, enough! I am not a profane man, but I quote from a poem in using the above quotation.
"But again. In closing, let me say that we owe it to our common country to be peaceable citizens and pay our taxes without murmuring. The time to get in our fine work is on the valuation, and it is too late to kick after that. Let us cultivate a spirit of lofty patriotism, but believe nothing just to oblige others. I used to be a great believer in anything that was submitted for my approval. That was what kept me back. Now, if a man like Jay Gould says he is not feeling so well as he did, I make him show me his tongue.
"We are here to-day to celebrate the birthday of American freedom, as I understand it, and I am here to say that whatever may be said against our refinement and our pork, our style of freedom is sought for everywhere. It is a freedom that will stand any climate and I hear it very highly spoken of wherever I go.
"I am here to state that, as boy and man, I have been a constant user of American freedom for over fifty years, and I can truly say that I feel no desire to turn back; also that there will be a grand, free-for-all scuffle for a greased pig on the vacant lot south of the church at seven o'clock, after which fireworks will be served to those who desire to remain."
And thus did the Fourth of July pass with all its glories in Whalen's Grove in the year of our independence the 110th.
ENCOURAGING GREEN JOKES
I want to encourage green jokes, that have never trotted in harness before, and, besides, I must insist on using my scanty fund of laugh on jokes of the nineteenth century. I have got to draw the line somewhere.
CHESTNUT-BURR III – BILL NYE FINDS COLOROW FULL OF ODD TRAITS
A Copper-complexioned Gentleman of Few Words – A Generous Offer of "Two Sleeps" that was Promptly Accepted – A Speech from Colorow that Proved Fatal to Ills Hapless Stenographer.
The recent ruction on the part of William H. Colorow, Duke of Rawhide Buttes and heir presumptive to the throne of Yellow Jacket Park, brings the Indian once more to our notice and teaches us that eternal vigilance is the price of government land on the frontier.
Sig. Colorow is of Indian parentage and his lineage, such as it is, is very long. His ancestors run back as far as the earliest dawn of the Christian era. They claimed the land extending in a southerly direction from the North Pole, and seemed to ignore the fact that it had been sold for taxes. The Indian has always been in favor of representation without taxation, and Colorow has believed in a community of grub, allowing the white man to retain a controlling interest in common, wet-browed toil. He has always been willing to divide his bread with the pale face. He has offered, time and again, to give the white man the bread that was sweetened with honest sweat, while he took his plain. He says that to prefer bread that tastes of perspiration shows a depraved taste.