Mr. Greenwood again expresses his views about this dark suspicious mystery, the absence of Shakespeare or Shakspere (or Shak, as you like it), from Henslowe’s accounts, if Shak(&c.) wrote plays. But the mystery, if mystery there be, is just as obscure if the actor were the channel through which Bacon’s plays reached the stage, for the pretended author of these masterpieces. Shak—was not the man to do all the troking, bargaining, lying, going here and there, and making himself a motley to the view for £0, 0_s._ 0_d._ If he were a sham, a figure-head, a liar, a fetcher-and-carrier of manuscripts, _he would be paid for it_. But he did not deal with Henslowe in his bargainings, and _that_ is why Henslowe does not mention him. Mr. Greenwood, in one place, {161a} agrees, so far, with me. “Why did Henslowe not mention Shakespeare as the writer of other plays” (than _Titus Andronicus_ and _Henry VI_)? “I think the answer is simple enough.” (So do I.) “Neither Shakspere nor ‘Shakespeare’ ever wrote for Henslowe!” The obvious is perceived at last; and the reason given is “that he was above Henslowe’s ‘skyline,’” “he” being the Author. We only differ as to _why_ the author was above Henslowe’s “sky-line.” I say, because good Will had a better market, that of his Company. I understand Mr. Greenwood to think,—because the Great Unknown was too great a man to deal with Henslowe. If to write for the stage were discreditable, to deal (unknown) with Henslowe was no more disgraceful than to deal with “a cry of players”; and as (unknown) Will did the bargaining, the Great Unknown was as safe with Will in one case as in the other. If Will did not receive anything for the plays from his own company (who firmly believed in his authorship), they must have said, “Will! dost thou serve the Muses and thy obliged fellows for naught? Dost thou give us two popular plays yearly,—gratis?” Do you not see that, in the interests of the Great Secret itself, Will _had_ to take the pay for the plays (pretended his) from somebody. Will Shakspere making his dear fellows and friends a present of two masterpieces yearly was too incredible. So I suppose he did have royalties on the receipts, or otherwise got his money; and, as he certainly did not get them from Henslowe, Henslowe had no conceivable reason for entering Will’s name in his accounts. Such are the reflections of a plain man, but to an imaginative soul there seems to be a brooding mist, with a heart of fire, which half conceals and half reveals the darkened chamber wherein abides “The Silence of Philip Henslowe.” “The Silence of Philip Henslowe,” Mr. Greenwood writes, “is a very remarkable phenomenon . . . ” It is a phenomenon precisely as remarkable as the absence of Mr. Greenwood’s name from the accounts of a boot-maker with whom he has never had any dealings.