Of course, it can be well urged that all this is mere negative evidence; that not only three but three million of men might be found who had never mentioned {152}or ever heard of Shakespeare, without affecting the controversy either way. But, under the circumstances, in view of what the Shakespearean plays _are_, and of what their author must have been, and of when and where these three men--Bacon, Raleigh, and Matthew--lived and flourished, the chronicles left by these three men--Bacon, Raleigh, and Matthew--constitute, at the very least, a "negative pregnant" not to be omitted in any review of our controversy that can lay the faintest claim to exhaustiveness or sincerity; and, moreover, a negative pregnant which--if we admitted all the Ben Jonson testimony, in prose and poetry, as evidence on the one side--could not be excluded as evidence on the other. In which event it is fairest to the Shakespeareans to rule Ben out altogether. ** * And we might add to these Sir John Davies, Selden, Sir John Beaumont, Henry Vaughn, Lord Clarendon and others. ** It is fair to note that another "negative pregnant" arises here, to which the Shakespeareans are as fairly entitled as the other side to theirs. Sir Tobie Matthew died in 1655. He survived Shakespeare thirty-nine years, Bacon twenty-nine years, and Raleigh thirty-seven years! Left in possession of the secret of the Baconian authorship, how could such a one as Matthew let the secret die with him? Although we do not meet with it among the arguments of the Shakespeareans, this strikes us as about the strongest they could present, except that the answer might be that at the date of Matthew's death, 1655, the Shakespearean plays were not held in much repute, or that Matthew might have reserved his unbosoming of the secret too long; but it is only one fact among a thousand. Besides, Ben is what the Scotchmen call "a famous witness" (if the commentators, who enlarge on Shakespeare's bounty and loans to him, can be relied upon), as being under heavy pecuniary obligation to the stage manager, and so his testimony is to be scrutinized with the {153}greatest care, though he certainly did not allow his obligations to over-master him when writing the "Discoveries." But, in any event, it would be easier to believe that Ben Jonson once contradicted himself for the sake of a rhyme, and to "do the handsome thing" by the memory of an old friend and unpaid creditor, than to swallow the incredible results of a literal version of his prose and poetry, read by the light of the Bacon, Raleigh, and Matthew remains. And the conclusion of the matter, it seems to us, must be: either that the poetry was the result of his obligations to William Shakespeare and to William Shakespeare's memory, or that, having sworn on both sides, Mr. Ben Jonson stands simply dehors the case--a witness for neither.