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The term "the only Shake-scene" may be one of those curious coincidences which do occur. The presumption lies rather on the other side. I demur, when Mr. I do more than demur, I defy any man to exhibit that sense in Greene's words. "The utmost that we should be entitled to say," is, in my opinion, what we have no shadow of a title to say. Look at the poor hackneyed, tortured words of Greene again.
I am not going to take the trouble to argue as to whether, in the circumstances of the case, "Shake-scene" is meant by Greene for a pun on "Shake-speare," or not. If he had some other rising player- author, the Factotum of a cry of players, in his mind, Baconians may search for that personage in the records of the stage. That other player-author may have died young, or faded into obscurity.
The only exception is a reference to him in Greene's Groat's-worth of Wit, as "an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tyger's heart wrapt in a player's hide supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you ... and is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a countrie."
One called him "an upstart Crow, beautified in our feathers . . . in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in the country."* But for the most part Shakespeare made friends even of rival authors, and many of them loved him well. He was good-tempered, merry, witty, and kindly, a most lovable man.
Greenwood says, "Some, indeed, would see through it, and roundly accuse the player of putting forth the works of others as his own. But, in this matter, Mr. Greenwood se trompe. Neither Greene nor Jonson accused "Shake-scene" or "Poet- Ape" of "putting forth the works of others as his own." That is quite certain, as far as the scorns of Jonson and Greene have reached us.
But this Shake- scene, this Poet-Ape, is merely our Will Shakespeare as described by bitterly jealous and envious rivals. Where are now the "works" of "Poet-Ape" if they are not the works of Shakespeare which Ben so nobly applauded later, if they are not in the blank verse of Greene's Shake-scene? "Shakespeare's plays" we call them.
"There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tyger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Iohannes fac-totum, is in his owne conceit the only Shake-scene in a countrie." The best critics agree that the "upstart Crow" and "Shake-scene" refer to Shakespeare.
"The rest of you" were authors, not actors. If not, why, in a whole company of actors, should "Shake-scene" alone be selected for a special victim? Shake-scene is chosen out because, as an author, a factotum always ready at need, he is more apt than the professed playwrights to be employed as author by his company: this is a new reason for not trusting the players.
"In his own conceit" he is "the only Shake-scene in a country." "Seek you better masters," than these players, who have now an author among themselves, "the only Shake-scene," where the pun on Shakespeare does not look like a fortuitous coincidence. But it may be, anything may happen. The sense, I repeat, is pellucid. But Mr.
Greenwood who adds "beautified with the feathers which he has STOLEN from the dramatic writers." Greene does not even remotely hint at plagiarism on the part of Shake-scene: and the feathers, the plays of Greene and his friends, were not stolen but bought.
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