-50-
Baconian
rearcher N. B. Cockburn in his The Bacon-Shakespeare Question (1989),
had this comment on the above:
“This
charming Elizabethan joke may have had some oral circulation, especially in Sir
Nicholas's lifetime. But is Shakspere, who was 14 when Sir Nicholas died in
1579, likely to have heard of it? There can be little doubt, as some
Stratfordians recognize, that it prompted the lines by Evans and Mistress
Quickly“. Note—he uses the spelling of
“Shakspere” to indicate the actor from Stratford as opposed to “Shakespeare”
the author, whomever he may have been.
There were
two Quartos of this play and this scene is not in the first Quarto of
1602. Nor was there any character named “William” in it. It was inserted
into the second Quarto published in 1619, 3 years after the Stratford actor’s
death. Here’s the link to the first Quarto:
http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Annex/Texts/Wiv/Q1/work/
Now, on page
53 of the Histories, we’re in the play the 1st
Part King Henry IV. And in the first column (11th line from the
bottom), there is the phrase “Gammon of Bacon”, which, interestingly, is in a
section of text after the word ‘rose’ and before the word ‘cross’ and which are
separated by 100 words. “Anon” [Kay count of 67] is used twice just prior to
this. In the second column we twice have the name “S. Nicholas”
(resembling “Sir” Nicholas though modern editions emend this to “Saint
Nicholas” or “St. Nicholas”). And both times on this page 53 is S. Nicholas
associated with hanging. The second instance has the word “Hangman” beginning
the line. Immediately following the second instance of S. Nicholas, the
character Gadshill says: “What talkest thou to me of the Hangman? If I hang,
Ile make a fat payre [pair] of Gallowes. For, if I hang, old Sir John
[Falstaff] hangs with mee, and thou know’st hee’s no Scarveling.”
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