Chapter IV: Part 4

“It is intended to prove that the author of Shakespeare, being a
scholar, a courtier, a lawyer, master of all the knowledge and
science of his age, could not have been a rustic adventurer,
ill-educated, untraveled, unfamiliar with court life, busy in
making money, and with no time for self-culture. Mr. Morgan is
unable to believe this amazing paradox, and accordingly rejects
it.”

173 THE GENIUS AND METHODS OF SHAKESPEARE. By E. W. TULLIDGE. In _Tullidge’s Quarterly Magazine_, Salt Lake, Utah, July, 1882. 12 pages.

_Anti-Sh._

174 “THE SHAKESPEAREAN MYTH.” Notice of Morgan’s book in the _British Quarterly Review_, London, July 1, 1882.

_Pro-Sh._

175 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE LITERATURE. Compiled by W. H. WYMAN. 8vo. pp. 8. Cincinnati, July 1, 1882. 63 titles.

_Unc._

This was privately-printed, and contained all the ascertained titles up to the time of issue. The present Bibliography is an extension of it.

176 SHAKESPEARE, BACON AND CHRISTIANITY. By HENRY G. ATKINSON. In the _Philosophic Inquirer_, Madras, India, July 2, 1882. 1 column.

_Anti-Sh._

177 DID SHAKESPEARE WRITE HIS OWN WORKS? An editorial article in the Oshkosh (Wis.) _Northwestern_, July 17, 1882.

_Pro-Sh._

The Editor, Gen. T. S. ALLEN, calls attention to a lecture by the late Hon. GEORGE B. SMITH, of Madison, Wisconsin, delivered at Chicago, Madison, and other places a few years since. Mr. Smith’s lecture was never printed. It was a forcible presentation of the Baconian theory.

178 AN ANTI-SHAKESPEAREAN PLEA. By J. W. B. [JOHN W. BELL]. In the Madison (Wis.) _State Journal_, July 22, 1882. 1 column.

_Anti-Sh._

Occasioned by the Bibliographical article and summary in the same paper, April 24, 1882.

179 THE BACON CIPHER. The ruin it wrought on a strong intellect. A strange discovery in Literature. In the San Francisco _Chronicle_, August 20, 1882. (Copied in the Cincinnati _Enquirer_, Sept. 19, 1882.) 1½ columns.

_Unc._

This article refers to Mrs. Windle and her writings. An extract from it will be found in connection with Mrs. W.’s second pamphlet (title 165).

180 QUERY 4929. In _Notes and Queries_ column of the _Evening Transcript_, Boston.

_a_--Query as to merits of the question, August 21, 1882.

_b_--Answers to above, September 24, 1882.

_Unc._

181 BACON AS A MAN OF LETTERS. By HENRY G. ATKINSON. In the _Secular Review_, London, September 23, 1882. 1 column.

_Anti-Sh._

182 NOTICE of the bibliography of the discussion, in the _Bibliographer_, London, October 22, 1882, page 151.

_Pro-Sh._

After mentioning the early authorities, the editor says: “but before this we believe an Englishman lectured to such people as would listen to him on his theory that Shakespeare’s plays were written by the monks.”

183 SHAKESPEARE, BACON AND FREE THOUGHT. By HENRY G. ATKINSON, in the _National Reformer_, London, October 22, 1882.

_Anti-Sh._

184 SOME SHAKESPEAREAN COMMENTATORS. By APPLETON MORGAN. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1882. Fifty copies printed for sale. Pamphlet, 12mo. pp. 44.

_Anti-Sh._

This pamphlet is a general answer by Mr. MORGAN to the criticisms of the _Shakespearean Myth_. The following extract from a summary of it will indicate some of the points made by the author:

“So far from being new-fangled, a doubt as to _what were_
Shakespeare’s plays and poems is as old as the first folio
itself; that the name was often pirated, and the piracies often
detected; that there was a statute in Elizabeth’s day that would
have operated to forbid the publication of plays without being
first editorially scrutinized; that these plays must have had an
editor or editors, as well as an author or authors; and that if
produced anonymously, it was much more likely that they should
pass by their editors’ then by their authors’ names. Further,
that instead of laying this question at rest, the labors of
the Shakespeareans are only emphasizing it, and adding to its
difficulty.”

The Milwaukee _Sentinel_ (title 202) has this in its summary:

“In the present treatise Mr. Morgan simply recapitulates some of
his previous statements; touches at some length on the general
absurdity of Edmond Malone; discusses the views of Wm. J. Rolfe,
James Freeman Clarke, Henry N. Hudson, and Dr. Ingleby; and
finally proceeds to review several disagreeable reviewers, each
one of whom, Mr. Morgan intimates, through a very pithy quotation
from Huxley, ‘acquired his knowledge from the book he judges--as
the Abyssinian is said to provide himself with steaks from the ox
who carries him.’”

185 THE ABSURDITY OF THE THEORY THAT LORD BACON WROTE THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE. By J. WILSON ROSS. In _Modern Thought_, London, for December, 1882. 4 pages.

_Pro-Sh._

186 THE AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE. By HENRY G. ATKINSON. In the _National Reformer_, London, December 31, 1882.

_Anti-Sh._

187 THE PROMUS OF FORMULARIES AND ELEGANCIES (being Private Notes, _circ._ 1594, hitherto unpublished) by Francis Bacon, illustrated and elucidated by passages from Shakespeare. By Mrs. HENRY POTT. With preface by E. A. ABBOTT, D.D., Head Master of the City of London School, 1883. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (with fac-simile sheet of Promus). 8vo. pp. 628.

_Anti-Sh._

This book is the latest important contribution to the Baconian theory.

The MSS. known as the _Promus_ form a part of the Harleian Collection in the British Museum, and have never before been published. They consist of fifty sheets or folios, nearly all in the handwriting of Bacon, containing 1655 different entries or memorandums. The whole seems to have been kept by Bacon as a sort of commonplace book, in which he entered at different times brief forms of expression, phrases, proverbs, verses from the Bible; and quotations from Seneca, Horace, Virgil, Erasmus, and many other writers. These are in various languages--English, French, Italian, etc. As to the use of this collection, we give Mrs. Pott’s explanation:

“The _Promus_, then, was Bacon’s shop or storehouse, from which
he would draw forth things new and old--turning, twisting,
expanding, modifying, changing them, with that ‘nimbleness’
of mind, that ‘aptness to perceive analogies,’ which he notes
as being necessary to the inventor of aphorisms, and which,
elsewhere, he speaks of decidedly, though modestly, as gifts with
which he felt himself to be specially endowed.

“It was a storehouse also of pithy and suggestive sayings, of
new, graceful, or quaint terms of expression, of repartee, with
bright ideas jotted down as they occurred, and which were to
reappear, ‘made-up,’ variegated, intensified, and indefinitely
multiplied, as they radiated from that wonderful ‘brayne cut with
many facets.’”

Mrs. Pott believes that Bacon prepared these notes for use in his literary works, and she elaborates her theory that Bacon wrote “Shakespeare” by taking up in review the whole of the 1655 entries, and citing, by the thousand, what she claims to be parallel thoughts and passages in the plays. To prove that the forms of expression used in the _Promus_ are not contained in contemporary or precedent literature, the author gives, in an appendix, a list of upwards of five thousand works which she has examined for that purpose and in which she claims they are almost unknown.

“It must be held, then, that no sufficient explanation of the
resemblances which have been noted between the writings of Bacon
and Shakespeare is afforded by the supposition that these authors
may have studied the same sciences, learned the same languages,
read the same books, frequented the same sort of society. To
satisfy the requirements of such a hypothesis, it will be
necessary further to admit that from their scientific studies
these two men derived identically the same theories; from their
knowledge of languages the same proverbs, turns of expression,
and peculiar use of words; that they preferred and chiefly quoted
the same books in the Bible and the same authors; and last, not
least, that they derived from their education and surroundings
the same tastes and the same antipathies, and from their
learning, in whatever way it was acquired, the same opinions and
the same subtle thoughts.

* * * * *

“We should almost have to bring ourselves to believe that Bacon
took notes for the use of Shakespeare, since in the _Promus_
may be found several hundred notes of which no trace has been
discovered in the acknowledged writings of Bacon, or of any
contemporary writer but Shakespeare, but which are more or less
clearly reproduced in the plays, and sometimes in the Sonnets.

“Such things, it must be owned, pass all ordinary powers of
belief, and the comparison of points such as those which
have been hinted at impress the mind with a firm conviction
that Francis Bacon, and he alone, wrote all the plays and
sonnets which are attributed to Shakespeare, and that William
Shakespeare was merely the able and jovial manager, who, being
supported by some of Bacon’s rich and gay friends (such as Lord
Southampton and Lord Pembroke), furnished the theatre for the due
representation of the plays, which were thus produced by Will.
Shakespeare, and thenceforward called by his name.”

(Mrs. POTT resides in London. This book, to which she has devoted many years of labor, is, we believe, her only literary work. But it is understood that she has another work in preparation, devoted to the historical side of the question, which will probably appear within a few months, under the title of “_Francis Bacon, Poet, Philosopher, and Dramatist_.”)

188 ARTICLES in _Shakespeariana_, in the _Literary World_, Boston, of dates following:

_a_--Letter from Appleton Morgan, Jan. 13, 1883.

_b_--Bacon’s _Promus_, January 27, 1883.

_Unc._

189 WAS BACON SHAKESPEARE? The New Evidences from the Harleian Collection. In the _Advertiser_, Boston, January 13, 1883. (Copied in the _Tribune_, Chicago, January 20, 1883.) 1½ columns.

_Unc._

190 THE PROMUS, etc. [By RICHARD J. HINTON]. In the _Gazette_, Washington, D. C., January 14, 1883. 1 column.

_Anti-Sh._

A mention of the _Promus_, with a sketch of Mr. O’Connor’s “Harrington” theories, and some reminiscences of Delia Bacon.

191 BACON’S NOTES IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS. In the _World_, New York, Jan. 15, 1883. 1½ columns.

_Pro-Sh._

A review of the _Promus_:

“Mrs. Pott has really made the most important, because it is the
most direct and scientific, contribution to the Baconian side of
the controversy, but her book does little to confirm any theory
except the theory that great minds think alike.”

192 BACON-SHAKESPEARE. By Rev. EDWARD C. TOWNE. A series of three articles in the Boston _Evening Transcript_, January 19, 23, and 25, 1883. 3 columns each.

_Pro-Sh._

In these papers are comprised a very complete general review of the whole subject; an account of the various theories and the books containing them; and a comparison of the intellect, character and writings of Bacon and Shakespeare. A short extract as to style:

“Bacon’s style is stiff and weighty, where Shakespeare’s is
free and light. Bacon is classical, while Shakespeare is
natural. Bacon has always the same formal mode of expression,
his own mode only, even if he tries to write dialogues and to
represent characters; while Shakespeare easily introduces a
high variety--always, too, in character. The hand that wrote
the plays could easily have imitated Bacon, but there is not a
page of Shakespeare which Bacon could have written. The style of
Shakespeare is as impossible to Bacon as violets to a pumpkin
vine, or tea roses to a prize cabbage. The one was the most
prosaic of classical writers, a Latinist more than an English
writer; while the other was as thoroughly English as he was
perfectly poetical.”

193 THE NEW LITERARY CONUNDRUM. Was it Shakespeare or Bacon? The Story the Plays tell. A letter in the New York correspondence of the _Evening Post_, Hartford, Conn., January 20, 1883. 2 columns.

_Pro-Sh._

194 A MINUTE AMONG THE AMENITIES. (_Ad finem_). By WILLIAM THOMSON, Garnoch, South Yarra, Melbourne, Feb. 1, 1883. Pamphlet, 8vo. pp. 24.

_Anti-Sh._

The _amenities_ in this are undiscoverable. Dr. THOMSON, in his peculiar style, answers his critics of the _Leader_, the _Argus_, the _Academy_ and the _Australasian_, claiming that he was denied a hearing in those periodicals, and forced to reply in a pamphlet. His _ad finem_ was prophetic, as it was his last work.

195 A NEW SHAKESPERIAN COMMENTARY. Review of the _Promus_. In the _Saturday Review_, London, February 3, 1883. 2 columns.

_Pro-Sh._

“It appears that, having been engaged for many years in proving
‘from internal evidence Bacon’s authorship of the plays known
as Shakespeare’s,’ Mrs. Pott’s attention was called to these
manuscripts by some remarks made by Mr. Spedding in his edition
of Bacon’s works. These remarks led Mrs. Pott to suppose that
a further examination might produce corroborative evidence of
the points she was laboring to establish. This hope has been
fulfilled, she considers, ‘to a degree beyond expectation,’ and
the notes, she adds, ‘whatever may be the views taken of the
commentary upon them, possess in themselves a value which must be
recognized by all the students of language.’ * * * That she has
been instrumental in producing an extremely interesting volume,
as everything must be interesting that contributes in any way to
our knowledge of such a man as Bacon, we allow, and for so much,
as we have said, we tender her our most hearty thanks; but that
its publication tends in any way to establish her theory--of the
theory itself it is quite unnecessary to speak--we do no less
heartily deny.”

196 THE PROMUS OF FORMULARIES AND ELEGANCIES. A review in the _Athenæum_, London, February 3, 1883. 3 columns.

_Pro-Sh._

197 BACON AND SHAKESPEARE. An article on the _Promus_ from the _Courant_, Hartford, February 7, 1883. (Copied in the _Record_, Philadelphia, February 12, 1883.) 1 column.

_Unc._

198 WAS LORD BACON THE AUTHOR OF SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS? A communication in the _Sun_, New York, copied in the _Tribune_, Denver, Colorado, February 17, 1883.

_Unc._

199 BACON’S PROMUS. By A. A. A. [Hon. ALVEY A. ADEE, of Washington, D. C.] In the _Republic_, Washington, February 17, 1883. 8 columns.

_Pro-Sh._

A very complete and comprehensive _critique_ of the _Promus_. Mr. Adee thinks the work valuable to the philologist rather than as a confirmation of the Baconian theory. “The lovers of the works,” he says, “which, to adopt a favorite phrase of the Baconians, ‘go about’ under the name of Shakespeare, owe a debt of gratitude to this untiring delver in a new and rich mine of virgin ore for her painstaking contribution to the general knowledge.” He takes up in review a large number of the _Promus_ entries; questions the correctness of many of Mrs. Pott’s citations, and differs from her entirely as to their value as parallelisms in proving the Baconian authorship.

“A critical, and above all, impartial and unbiased revision of
this work, with the single aim of selecting only such passages
of the Poet’s work as shall, by their context and their true
spirit and intent, be found to present unquestionable analogy
with the _Promus_ entries, would give invaluable aid to the
earnest student. It would not be venturesome to assert that,
in such a case, the 4404 parallelisms discerned by Mrs. Pott
would shrink to a much more manageable number. Nor would it be
hazardous to surmise that a like impartial re-reading of the
six thousand works through which Mrs. Pott has labored in vain
would be rewarded with the discovery of analogies which have
escaped her toilsome scrutiny. It would, perhaps, be unkind to
hint that, while the most distant allusions and constructions
found in the Poet’s canon have been seized upon, nothing short
of practical identity would seem to have been admitted in the
case of parallelisms between the _Promus_ and other precedent
or contemporary writings. But an impression that this is the
Darwinian law of selection which has governed the survival of the
fittest phrases for the purpose in hand, must inevitably grow on
the unprejudiced mind of the reader.

* * * * *

“Of making books, or rather of Mrs. Pott’s manner of making
books, there is no end. Given commonplace texts, time, patience,
the power of reaching conclusions ‘by sudden flight,’ and a
Concordance--and ‘’tis as easy as lying.’ As honest Touchstone
says: ‘I’ll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners
and suppers and sleeping hours excepted; it is the right
butter-women’s rank to market.’

“Still, Mrs. Pott’s book is a step in the right direction, and
serves a good turn. It may not instantly convince the world
that Bacon wrote Shakespeare, or even that Shakespeare wrote
the _Promus_, as Dr. Abbott seems to insinuate, but the insight
it gives into structural peculiarities and turns of speech
is well-nigh priceless. * * * As regards the analogies and
parallelisms sought to be shown, the kindest course is to say as
little as possible about them.”

200 SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. Judge Holmes gives his reasons for believing Bacon was Shakespeare. And Father Higgins, S. J., gives his for thinking Shakespeare was himself. In the _Republican_, St. Louis, Feb. 17, 1883. 1 column.

_Unc._

An account of two interviews, called out by the publication of the _Promus_. The first is with Judge Holmes, who claims that the received accounts of Shakespeare’s life do not warrant the supposition of his authorship, and continues:

“To this is opposed the supposition that the plays were written
by one [Bacon] whose mind was well disciplined from early
infancy, whose life was spent in the prosecution of the deepest
and most important studies known to man, with results of the
greatest magnitude produced in whatever path his genius may have
chosen for itself to tread. He was surrounded by influences the
most cultured, and those most likely to give him insight into
the lives of the great, which is so prominent a feature in the
plays which give rise to the controversy; and yet he possessed,
from the positions of trust which he held, every opportunity
for looking into and examining the motives for action, even
amongst the most lowly. In the plays as we have them there occur
numberless passages, referring to classical authors, the Latin,
the Greek, the Italian, the German, the French and the Spanish,
and these references are not such as could be learned from
translation, for many of those found in these plays are there for
the first time expressed in the English language. Is it at all
likely one of whom Ben Jonson wrote that he knew ‘little Latin
and less Greek,’ could by any possibility have picked up in his
rather shambling career, the familiarity with these authors which
the plays set forth?”

* * * * *

Rev. Father Higgins, of the St. Louis University, takes the opposite view. We give one point only:

“There is another objection to the Baconian claim which is of
much weight. The author of the dramas was either a Catholic or
one whose early mind had been imbued with Catholic ideas. If
there be any one religion which is supported by the plays it
is the Catholic faith. You remember the passage in _Hamlet_
concerning the time in which the mass is celebrated, and in other
places he refers pointedly to a purgatory. If Lord Bacon wrote
the plays these passages could never have occurred, since his
position in regard to the events which were happening at that
time, and which had already happened, would have made him anxious
to blot out all remembrances of the customs of the religion which
was in such disfavor at the court. Shakespeare may not have been
a Catholic, though there are other things which point to his so
being, but at least in the position which he held he would have
had no reasons such as existed in Bacon’s mind for trampling out
traditions, which he has only fastened more closely in men’s
minds, and has done so in a very beautiful manner.”

201 GAMMON OF BACON. In the London _Punch_, February 17, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

Occasioned by the publication of the _Promus_:

“SCENE--Lord Bacon’s library. Bacon recumbent and meditating as
usual (‘_Sic Sedebat_’), in his arm-chair.

BACON--The proof of the pudding lieth in the eating and
experiment, and not in the supposition or imagination thereof.
(_A gentle tap at the door._) Come in! (_Enter_ SHAKESPEARE.)
What, WILL! Thou art right welcome. Sit thee down, WILL.
(SHAKESPEARE _sits_.) And now, how doth business at the Globe?
How goeth our _Hamlet_?

SHAKESPEARE--Indifferent well, my Lord.

BACON--Why, so. Playest thou the _Ghost_ still?

SHAKESPEARE--Aye, my good Lord, even yet, at times, so please you.

BACON--It pleases me well. Talk of your _Ghost_, doth the Ghost
at the G. continue to walk as he ought?

SHAKESPEARE--Punctually, my Lord, in good sooth, every Saturday
night.

BACON--Good. I will therefore thank thee to hand me over the
balance of our little account.

SHAKESPEARE--I shall, my Lord, incontinently. Meanwhile, so
please your Lordship, I must become yet further your Lordship’s
debtor for the wealth, I mean the workmanship, of your wit. My
Lord, Her Majesty the Queen did last night come to see _Henry the
Fourth_. After the play she called me to her presence, and did
declare her pleasure that I should produce her a piece, with a
part for _Falstaff_, and therein present _Falstaff_ in love.

BACON--How didst thou answer her?

SHAKESPEARE--In your Lordship’s own words--‘I shall in all my
best obey you, Madam.’

BACON--And what then said she?

SHAKESPEARE--Straightway capped your line, my Lord, saying, ‘Why
’tis a loving and a fair reply.’

BACON--Long live the Queen! But, _Falstaff_ in love! A most
inconceivable suggestion and unimaginable fancy of Her Most
Gracious Majesty’s, in respect both of love and of _Falstaff_.

SHAKESPEARE--But how, then, my Lord, may we in anywise manage to
perform her Royal command?

BACON--About my brains! Methinks I seem to spy some glimmer of a
way. A gross fat man fallen into the conceit that some fair dame
is enamoured of him, lured on to make love to her after his own
fashion. _Falstaff_ in love _c’y pres_, as we say at Westminster.

SHAKESPEARE--That would serve, my Lord.

BACON--_Falstaff_ thereto befooled, moreover, by the contrivance
of some merry women. Merry? Ha! So! Why, certainly it seems to
myself that all this hath passed through my mind before--as we
do sometimes feel. I must have dreamt of writing such a play.
Methinks I even recollect the name on’t. Merry! Yea, marry,
quotha--_Merry Wives of Windsor_.

SHAKESPEARE--A title passing good, my Lord, and a taking. Truly,
a happy thought.--Let me pray your Lordship about it presently.

BACON--Marry and shall, with all the expedition I may. As soon as
possible, I’ll send it to thy playhouse.

SHAKESPEARE--A thousand thanks, my Lord.

BACON--In the meantime, I prithee forget not that small balance.

SHAKESPEARE--Trust me, my Lord.

BACON--Needs must I until thou render me the needful.

SHAKESPEARE--Your Lordship shall be straightway satisfied. I
humbly take my leave.” [_Exit_ SHAKESPEARE.]

202 SHAKESPEAREAN CONTROVERSY. Appleton Morgan’s Valiant Fight with the Shakespeareans. In the _Sentinel_, Milwaukee, February 18, 1883. 1 column.

_Anti-Sh._

203 SHAKESPEAREAN PARALLELS. By A. A. A. [Hon. ALVEY A. ADEE]. In the _Republic_, Washington, February 24, 1883. 5 columns.

_Pro-Sh._

In this article, apropos of the “parallelisms” of Judge Holmes and Mrs. Pott, the writer says:

“Theorists such as these appear to lose sight of the circumstance
that, in the limitless mines of human knowledge, there are ideas
so simple and trite in themselves, so natural to all minds, that
their recurrence in varying setting, through successive ages, is
a foregone conclusion.”

The writer takes the _Imitation of Christ_, by Thomas-a-Kempis (the first translation into English being printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1502) as an illustration, and finds many striking analogies and parallelisms with the plays of Shakespeare, a few of which he gives. He adds that “treated as Dr. Holmes has treated Bacon’s works, the alleged identities may be made almost countless.” We quote from the concluding paragraphs:

“It is a relief to lay down the cap and bells, and cast the
cocks’-comb truncheon aside, and look for a moral to point
this idle tale. What is it? Simply this, that the fount of
commonplace is inexhaustible from generation to generation, and
that whosoever dippeth therein, whether with a golden goblet
or a pipkin of common clay, whether he be a Thomas-a-Kempis, a
Shakespeare, or a Tupper, brings up, after all, but triteness
and commonplace. What wonder, then, that parallels abound in the
writings of all times?

* * * * *

“And yet it must be confessed that to many readers, whose reason
cannot penetrate the mere mask of words and discern behind it the
mystery of style, the soul that fills the form with the breath
of supremest life, this analysis by parallels may be misleading,
even to a sense of partial conviction. To such can only be said,
in the words of the ever-living Poet:

“O place, O form!
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false meaning.”
(_Measure for Measure, II, iv, 12._)”

204 TO CERTAIN THEORISTS. A sonnet. By W. L. SHOEMAKER. In _Shakespeariana_, in the _Literary World_, Boston, February 24, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

Mr. SHOEMAKER’S sonnet is the only poetry yet discovered in this prosaic controversy:

“Still must I hear the noise of those who claim
That Shakespeare was not Shakespeare, but was Bacon!--
Seeking from him by whom the stage was shaken
With mightiest buskin, to filch all his fame.
O bats and owls, how impotent your aim!
How purblind, by a little _Promus_ taken,
Drowsing yourselves to think the world to waken,
To exalt the courtier, and the player to shame!
Our “Star of Poets” did not Jonson know,
And praise in lines that well your prate confute,
And put your feminine theories to scorn?
Yea; spite of Greene and every later foe,
His shade serene smiles at the senseless bruit--
Greatest in drama of all souls yet born.”

205 SHAKESPEARE’S GEHEIMNISZ UND BACON’S PROMUS. In the _Allgemeine Zeitung_, Stuttgart and Munchen: March 1, 1883. 4 columns.

_Anti-Sh._

The first German article. A translation of this title will be found below.

206 SHAKESPEARE’S SECRET AND BACON’S “PROMUS.” An article in the _Allgemeine Zeitung_ of March 1, 1883. Translated from the German, and printed by special request. Price three pence. H. Wills, Printer, Loughborough, England. Pamphlet, 12mo. pp. 12.

_Anti-Sh._

This article is anonymous. It is nominally a review of the _Promus_, but discusses the question generally, and is most vehemently Baconian throughout:

“In the eyes of the masses [in England] Shakespeare passes for a
supernatural being. He who doubts of his divinity is guilty of
high treason, or even of blasphemy.

“Such prejudice is unknown in America. There it has long
been accepted as an acknowledged fact that Bacon wrote the
Shakespearean dramas.”

207 SHAKESPEARE _v._ BACON. A review of the _Promus_ in the _Spectator_, London, March 3, 1883. 2 columns.

_Pro-Sh._

208 DR. EDWIN A. ABBOTT, MRS. HENRY POTT, AND LORD BACON. In the _St. James’s Gazette_, London, March 10, 1883. 1 page.

_Pro-Sh._

209 MRS. POTT ON SHAKESPEARE’S WOMEN. In _Shakespeariana_, in the _Literary World_, Boston, March 10, 1883.

_a_--Note from A. A. A. [Adee] on the _Promus_.

_Pro-Sh._

Mr. ROLFE takes issue with Mrs. Pott as to her opinions of Shakespeare’s women, and quotes from a foot-note on page 479 of the _Promus_:

“From the entries which referred to women we see that Bacon
formed very unfavorable views regarding them, views which
unhappy passages in his own life probably tended to confirm. The
Shakespeare Plays seem to exhibit the same unfavorable sentiments
of their author. There are 130 female personages in the Plays,
and the characters of these seem to be easily divisible into six
classes:

“1. Furies or viragoes, such as Tamora, Queen Margaret, Goneril,
Regan, and even Lady Macbeth in the dark side of her character.

“2. Shrews and sharp-tongued women, as Katherine, Constance, and
many others, when they are represented as angry.

“3. Gossiping and untrustworthy women, as most of the maids,
hostesses, etc., and as Percy insinuates that he considers his
wife to be.

“4. Fickle, faithless, and artful--a disposition which seems
assumed throughout the Plays to be the normal condition of
womanhood.

“5. Thoroughly immoral, as Cleopatra, Phrynia, Timandra, Bianca.

“6. Gentle, simple, and colorless, as Hero, Olivia, Ophelia,
Cordelia, etc.

“Noteworthy exceptions, which exhibit more exalted and truer
pictures of good and noble women, are the characters of Isabella,
of Volumnia, and of Katherine of Arragon; but these are not
sufficient to do away with the impression that, on the whole, the
author of the Plays had but a poor opinion of women; that love he
regarded as youthful passion, marriage as a doubtful happiness.”

It will be noticed that Mrs. Pott omits to classify Imogen, Rosalind, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Viola, Miranda, and others.

In answer, Mr. Rolfe quotes from Charles Cowden-Clarke, “who is one of the most sympathetic and appreciative of critics (partly, no doubt, because Mary Cowden-Clarke was his wife and fellow-worker):”

“Of all the writers that ever existed, no one ought to stand so
high in the love and gratitude of women as he. He has indeed been
their champion, their laureate, their brother, their friend. * *
* He has asserted their prerogative, as intellectual creatures,
to be the companions (in the best sense), the advisers, the
friends, the equals of men. He has endowed them with the true
spirit of Christianity and brotherly love, enduring all things,
forgiving all things, hoping all things; and it is no less
remarkable that, with a prodigality of generosity, he has not
unfrequently placed the heroes in his stories at a disadvantage
with them.”

Cowden-Clarke proceeds to illustrate this by Hero and Claudio in
_Much Ado_ (the play he is discussing at the time), and quotes
also, in confirmation of the statement, the characters of Bertram
in _All’s Well_, of Posthumus in _Cymbeline_, of Leontes in the
_Winter’s Tale_, and of Proteus in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_.
He adds:

“All these characters not only appear at a disadvantage by,
but they are unworthy of the women with whom they are united.
Shakespeare has himself made the Duke in _Twelfth Night_ say:

However we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
Than women’s are.

A remarkable confession that for a man! Therefore Shakespeare
is the writer, above all others, whom women should most take to
their hearts; for it may be said to have been mainly through
his influence that their claims in society were acknowledged in
England, when throughout the civilized world their position was
that of mere domestic drudges.”

210 THE PROMUS, etc. A review in the _Tribune_, New York, March 11, 1883. 1¼ columns.

_Pro-Sh._

“We have made a very thorough examination of these 1655
Promus memorandums, and of the passages which are produced in
illustration and elucidation of them; we have read every word
that the authoress has written in support of her theory; we
have done so, we are sure, in a candid spirit, but we have to
say, as the result of our examination, that we have not found
an instance, not one, in which a passage in the plays is shown
to have its origin in the Promus. The method of elucidating the
Promus by ‘Shakespeare’ seems to have been to fix upon the most
salient word in one of Bacon’s notes, and then to take up Mrs.
Cowden-Clarke’s Concordance to Shakespeare, and find by its aid
passages in which that word occurs, or more rarely a phrase which
expresses in some modified or related form the idea conveyed by
the Promus word or phrase. The result is a display of a word
or a phrase on one side and several like words or phrases on
the other; but of any necessary connection between them, of any
inkling of a growth of the latter from the former, there is an
utter and total absence.”

211 THE PROMUS, etc. A review in the _Nation_, New York, March 15, 1883. 2 columns.

_Pro-Sh._

212 THE AUTHORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE. An editorial article. [By J. G. PYLE]. In the _Pioneer Press_, St. Paul, Minn., March 25, 1883. 1 column.

_Anti-Sh._

A notice of the _Promus_, introducing Morgan’s review.

“While there can be no doubt that the editress has carried her
comparisons to the last degree of attenuation, and has discovered
resemblances where there is nothing but the recurrence of a
single unimportant word in the Promus and in the Plays on which
to stand, yet, when these instances are eliminated, there remains
a body of coincidences which cannot be dismissed with a cool
assumption of superiority to all modern ‘vagaries,’ and which
will require some more coherent explanation than the article by
Richard Grant White in the last _Atlantic_.”

213 A REVIEW OF BACON’S PROMUS. BY APPLETON MORGAN. In the _Pioneer Press_, St. Paul, Minn. Part I, March 25, 1883; Part II, April 1, 1883. 5 columns.

_Anti-Sh._

In this paper, besides going into a general review of the subject, Mr. Morgan gives a summary, under twelve heads, of the _Net Results of the Promus_, at the conclusion of which he says:

“Now which existing anti-Shakespearean theory does the evidence
of this Promus most clearly corroborate? There are four of these
theories, all of which have many parts in common, but no two of
which are exactly alike, viz:

“1. That Bacon and the rest of a coterie of political
philosophers and moralists wrote in Hermetic or cryptographical
compositions a philosophy for ‘the next ages’ which they dared
not promulgate in Elizabeth’s reign (Miss Delia Bacon’s theory).

“2. That Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare (the Baconian theory).

“3. That the coterie (perhaps the same as that Miss Bacon
suggested) wrote the plays to amuse themselves--and induced
William Shakespeare to father them for a consideration (the New
theory).

“4. That whoever wrote them, William Shakespeare was stage editor
only of the plays (the Editorial theory).

“It seems to us that the new evidence offered by the Promus
marshals itself, with the least violence, on the side of either
Theory 2 or Theory 4, and, as between these latter, most
naturally on the side of Theory 4.”

214 THE AUTHORSHIP OF MISS BACON’S BOOK. In the _Sunday Telegraph_, Milwaukee, Wis. Three articles of dates following:

_Unc._

_a_--AN ODD LITERARY SENSATION. [Editorial, by Col. E. A. CALKINS]. March 25, 1883.

“Miss Bacon, as she alleged to be the case with Shakespeare,
was not the author of her own book. It was written throughout
by T. C. Leland, then a stenographic reporter on the New York
_Tribune_. * * * Mr. Leland stated to literary gentlemen with
whom he became acquainted at Madison [in 1853] that he was
engaged in this labor, and had partly completed Miss Bacon’s
work. * * * He did not claim to be more than her mere amanuensis,
though in fact he was something more, as he furnished the forms
of expression which Miss Bacon employed while transferring her
views to paper.”

_b_--MISS DELIA BACON. Letter from W. H. W. [W. H. WYMAN]. April 8, 1883.

“Doubtless there would be a poetic or retributive justice in
denying to Delia Bacon the authorship of her own book, but,
unfortunately for this theory, I cannot see how it can have
the slightest foundation in fact. * * * [References are given
to Mrs. Farrar’s _Recollections_, and to Hawthorne’s _Preface_
to Miss Bacon’s work.] * * * These extracts show conclusively
that neither of her works on this subject were written in this
country, nor until some years after the reported conversations;
and even that in England she could have had no assistance is
clear, from the fact that she was alone, and it was with the
utmost difficulty that she sustained herself during that time.
* * * I do not call your attention to these misapprehensions
because I have any belief in Delia Bacon’s theories, but simply
that justice may be done to the memory of a woman whose sad fate
has caused her to be greatly misunderstood.”

_c_--LETTER FROM T. C. LELAND, dated New York, August 22, 1883; printed September 9, 1883.

“I think it was in the late fall of 1852, or perhaps it was
December, I was engaged to report some lectures delivered in this
city by Miss Delia Bacon, on the Art and Culture of Egypt and
other ancient nations. Though she was a very ready, fluent, and,
at times, eloquent speaker, yet when she came to take up her pen
she wrote slowly and with difficulty. She expressed a wish one
day that I should help her in this respect. I suggested that,
if she could dictate to me, an audience of one, as fluently and
happily as she did to an audience of hundreds, she would be a
perfect success. We agreed to make the experiment, but, on trial,
she found that an amanuensis was practically somewhat better,
but not much, than a pen. There was, on trial, one advantage;
that occasionally she would have inspired moments and a spurt
of thought and rapid utterances; and these gushes I could take
down and save, which otherwise she could not have traced rapidly
enough on paper, and would have lost. * * * But in all this I
played the part, simply and only, of an amanuensis, putting down
her words conscientiously without any change or amendment of
mine. My short-hand notes were translated into long-hand copy
just as she delivered the words, and handed to her. I suppose
that these notes were the basis, in whole or in part--probably a
larger part--of her subsequent book.”

215 BACON’S PROMUS AGAIN. By A. A. A. [ADEE]. In the _Republic_, Washington, March 31, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

216 THE SHAKESPEARE-BACON QUESTION. A Bibliographical list of the works on the subject in the Boston Public Library. In the _Bulletin_ of the Library for April, 1883. 38 titles.

_Unc._

217 THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE. By RICHARD GRANT WHITE. In the _Atlantic Monthly_ for April, 1883. (See pages 507-521.)

_Pro-Sh._

In this paper, Mr. White expresses his personal indifference as to whether Bacon, Shakespeare, or anybody else is to be credited with the authorship, as it “affects in no way the value or interest of the plays;” he gives a very complete and unfavorable review of the _Promus_, occupying ten pages; instances the sonnets, as impossible to have been written by Bacon, who did not therefore write the plays; and makes a brilliant comparison between Bacon and Shakespeare, showing “the unlikeness of Bacon’s mind and of his style to those of the writer of the plays.” The following is an extract from the concluding paragraph:

“As to treating the question seriously, that is not to be done
by men of common sense and moderate knowledge of the subject. *
* * It is as certain that William Shakespeare wrote (after the
theatrical fashion, and under the theatrical conditions of his
day) the plays that bear his name, as it is that Francis Bacon
wrote the Novum Organum, the Advancement of Learning, and the
Essays. The notion that Bacon also wrote Titus Andronicus, The
Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, King Lear, and Othello, is not worth
five minutes’ consideration by any reasonable creature.”

218 RICHARD GRANT WHITE and “THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE.” By F. [EDWARD FILLEBROWN]. In the _Commonwealth_, Boston, March 31, 1883. 1 column.

_Anti-Sh._

219 “THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE.” Letter of APPLETON MORGAN in the _Post_, Boston, April 2, 1883. ¼ column.

_Anti-Sh._

220 “THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE” of Richard Grant White. By O. F. [O. FOLLETT]. In the _Register_, Sandusky, O., April 5, 1883. 1 column.

_Anti-Sh._

221 THE PROMUS, etc. A notice of the book in the _Mercury_, Leeds, England, April 11, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

222 SHAKESPEARE’S SCHOOLING, WITH SOME LIGHT AS TO THE ELIZABETHAN BOY. Letter from APPLETON MORGAN. In the _Pioneer Press_, St. Paul, Minn., April 15, 1883. ½ column.

_Anti-Sh._

A dissertation on the insufficiency of the schools in Shakespeare’s day. In illustration of this, Mr. Morgan quotes schoolmaster Evans and his pupil William, in _Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act IV, Scene 1.

223 THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE THEORY. In the _Morning Journal_, Cincinnati, April 16, 1883. 1 column.

_Pro-Sh._

224 SHAKESPEARIAN CIRCLE-SQUARING. A criticism of the _Promus_, in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, London, April 20, 1883. 1½ columns.

_Pro-Sh._

225 ARTICLES in _Shakespeariana_, in the _Literary World_, Boston, April 21, 1883.

_a_--Cleopatra’s “Billiards.” Note from Hon. A. A. Adee, with remarks by the Editor.

_b_--Mr. Grant White on Bacon and Shakespeare.

_Pro-Sh._

Mr. ADEE calls attention to the fact that the often quoted (but disputed) anachronism in _Antony and Cleopatra_--where _Cleopatra_ says to her attendant, _Charmian_, “let’s to billiards”--was doubtless obtained from Chapman, who uses the word “billiards” similarly in his _Blind Beggar of Alexandria_, printed ten years before _Antony and Cleopatra_, was written. As to the anachronisms generally, Mr. Rolfe says:

* * * “If, to preserve his incognito, Bacon had refrained from
any parade of his scholarship, and had even put occasional
anachronisms into the mouths of his characters, we cannot
imagine him showing the habitual ignorance in such matters that
Shakespeare does. He could never have made Coriolanus talk of
‘graves in the holy church-yard,’ or Menenius, in the same
play, of ‘Galen’--‘an anachronism of near 650 years,’ as Dr.
Grey called it--or Mark Antony, of coming to ‘bury’ Cæsar, and
the like. These frequent and free-and-easy blunders, so utterly
inconsistent with the scholarly habit of mind, are of themselves
a sufficient refutation of the theory that ‘Bacon wrote
Shakespeare.’”

226 SHAKESPEARE. By Rev. EDWARD C. TOWNE. Two articles in the _Evening Transcript_, Boston. I, April 28, 1883; II, August 3, 1883. 3 columns each.

_Pro-Sh._

These articles are devoted principally to the life, genius, and character of Shakespeare as disproving the Baconian theory.

227 “OUR SHAKESPEARE CLUB.” Remarks of SAM. TIMMINS, Chairman. In the _Daily Mail_, Birmingham, England, April 24, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

Mr. TIMMINS presided at the annual dinner of the club on the birth-day of Shakespeare, at the Plow and Harrow Hotel, Birmingham, and made the opening address, opposing all the anti-Shakespearian theories.

228 “BACON’S PROMUS.” Two letters of APPLETON MORGAN of this title. In the _Republic_, Washington, April 28, and March 24, 1883.

_Anti-Sh._

229 SHAKESPEARE AS A MYTH. By HENRY HOOPER. In the _Commercial Gazette_, Cincinnati, April 29, 1883. 3 columns.

_Pro-Sh._

Occasioned by Morgan’s _Shakespearean Myth_, to which it is a reply.

“If Shakespeare alone wrote these plays, then it is the greatest
miracle on record, says Mr. Morgan. If it be a miracle for one,
it would be a combination of miracles for ten, or even two,
to compose _Hamlet_ or _Othello_. * * * The joint composition
theory is as improbable and impossible as it would be for an
orchestra to invent a Symphony of Beethoven. You might just as
well say that Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is the joint work of a
number of musicians, viz: that the violin players composed the
string parts, the reed players the flute and oboe parts, and the
trombones and double basses their scores. This is not more absurd
than the theory that a pale student, a needy scholar, a ready
writer, an actor and a stage manager produced _Twelfth Night_ and
_King Lear_.”

230 WHO WAS SHAKESPEARE? Address by Mr. WILLIAM LEIGHTON, JR., at the Shakespeare Club Banquet, Wheeling, W. Va., April 23, 1883. In the _Sunday Register_, Wheeling, April 29, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

In Mr. LEIGHTON’S address the authorship is only incidentally referred to.

“Genius is the touch of God’s hand, an inspiration that comes
not out of any college, but is evoked from the soul by its own
tendencies and aspirations; and, so born, can only be fostered
into healthy maturity by unremitting labor. The attempt to take
from Shakespeare’s brow the laurel crown of the most glorious of
bards is a vain effort to rob a dead man of well-earned honors;
and why? Because a yeoman must not presume to stand above a
nobleman; or a poet, who has not been to college, dare to mount
the winged steed. But Shakespeare’s honors can not be taken from
him by idle sophistry or arbitrary dogmatism; he has entrenched
himself in the hearts of his countrymen, and his position is
impregnable.”

231 WHO IS SHAKESPEARE? Address by Mr. JOSEPH CROSBY, at the Shakespeare Club Banquet, Wheeling, W. Va., as above. In the _Sunday Register_, Wheeling, April 29, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

Mr. CROSBY--whose views will be found under title 126--devotes a portion only of this address to the authorship.

232 LETTER FROM APPLETON MORGAN. In the _Church Eclectic_, Utica, N. Y., for May, 1883. 3 pages.

_Anti-Sh._

A reply to the letter of Mr. Crosby’s in the same magazine for November, 1880. We quote one point only:

“I am sure I can refer the writer to at least half a score of
authorities which will agree that the tuition in provincial
grammar-schools of the Sixteenth Century was simply ridiculous,
and a travesty; a little of A, B, C, and Lily’s Accidence, and
a good deal of birch; and that however it made boys truants, it
hardly graduated ‘men of letters.’”

233 BOSH ABOUT BACON. By A. B. B. [A. B. BRALEY, Madison, Wis.] In the _Sunday Telegraph_, Milwaukee, Wis., May 20, 1883, 1½ columns. Also, THE BACON CRANKS. Evidence of Shakespeare’s Contemporaries. In the same paper, June 10, 1883. 1½ columns.

_Pro-Sh._

234 SHAKESPEARE AT HOME. Letter from M. D. C. [MONCURE D. CONWAY], from Stratford-on-Avon, April 21, 1883. In the _Commercial Gazette_, Cincinnati, May 26, 1883. 2 columns.

_Unc._

An interesting letter from Mr. Conway on the occasion of one of the commemorative celebrations at Stratford.

Referring to Delia Bacon’s book:

* * * “Perhaps there never was such a monument of wasted
ability. There is hardly anything in it of a negative character,
very little that shows apprehension of the real points in the
Shakespearean traditions that tempt skepticism. Her book dwells
on the affirmation that Bacon wrote the plays; that may easily be
answered by any one who will turn from a page of Shakespeare to
one of Bacon, which, to most people, is turning from a winged to
an earth-bound genius. But the incidental theory that Shakespeare
did _not_ write these plays, though at present the fad of a few,
is not unlikely to acquire large proportions in the future. Such
is the inevitable doom of every set of traditions that have not
been subjected to severe skeptical criticism.

* * * * *

“For the back-ground of miracle is always present--namely, that
the village lad, son of a man who could not write his name, wrote
all these mighty works, died at the age of fifty-three, and yet
left no manuscript, no records, so that not even his birth-day is
known.

“Yet here are the works. Somebody wrote them. Or it would be
truer to say that somebody recognized the great world-histories
and legends, exhumed them, covered them with flesh and blood, and
breathed into them the breath of life. For here we are enjoying
them, and finding amid all these creations the presence of a
central mind, however inapprehensible.”

235 WHO WROTE JULIUS CÆSAR? By H. I. In the _Times-Star_, Cincinnati, May 29, 1883. 2 columns.

_Anti-Sh._

The writer takes the occasion of the Cincinnati Dramatic Festival to make this inquiry:

“The Dramatic Festival of this city was inaugurated by the
production, at immense cost and great splendor, of the play
of Julius Cæsar. It must have been ‘indeed an oasis’--with
McCullough and Murdoch, Barrett, Louis James, and Miss Forsyth
in the fore-front, five hundred Roman citizens and soldiers in
perfect drill--a spectacle this to have gladdened with happy
moisture the eyes, could they have seen it, of--the--author. Who
was he?”

The writer professes his belief that the author was Francis Bacon, and advances a claim of parallel thoughts, etc., between the plays and the _Advancement of Learning_ in support of his opinion.

236 HAT FRANCIS BACON DIE DRAMEN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S GESCHRIEBEN? Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der geistigen Verirrungen. Von Dr. EDUARD ENGEL, Leipzig, 1883. (DID FRANCIS BACON WRITE WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS? A contribution to the history of Intellectual Errors.) Pamphlet, pp. 43.

_Pro-Sh._

Dr. ENGEL takes for his text Mrs. Pott’s _Promus_, and this pamphlet is in answer to that work, and to the favorable notice of it appearing in the _Allgemeine Zeitung_ (see titles 205 and 206), which he ascribes to ‘Herr V.’ He strongly opposes all anti-Shakespearian theories.

“It would be deplorable, and would contradict all the
history of the world’s literature, if Lord Bacon had written
Shakespeare’s plays. It would be deplorable--and this decides
the matter--because it would then be shown, for the first time
in the history of mankind, that a poetical genius of the highest
sublimity, and a character of the lowest baseness, could exist in
one and the same man.”

Dr. Engel closes his essay with a quotation from Herder:

“I have in my mind an immense figure of a man, sitting high on a
rocky summit; at his feet, storm, tempest, and the raging of the
sea; but his head in the beams of heaven. This is Shakespeare.
Only, with this addition, that far below, at the foot of his
rocky throne, are murmuring crowds, who expound, preserve,
condemn, defend, worship, slander, over-rate, and abuse him--and
of all this he hears nothing.”

237 BACON AND SHAKESPEARE. In _Shakespeariana_, in the _Literary World_, Boston, June 2, 1883.

_Pro-Sh._

The editor introduces in this article an extract from a letter received by Mr. JOSEPH CROSBY from “one of the most learned and philosophical of living Shakespearian critics.” The writer of the letter [Dr. INGLEBY, of England] says, after expressing his dissent from the opinions of those who believe that it is immaterial whether the plays were written by Shakespeare or Bacon:

“And I cannot without concern witness the crazy efforts of these
would-be critics to separate what history has joined together,
and to make over the better half of Shakespeare’s fame to a man,
not only immeasurably his inferior, but of a totally different
order of mind. * * * I have read, studied, and written upon
Francis Bacon, and seem to myself to know the man well; as well
as I know Shakespeare, through his works. I do not hesitate to
say that Bacon’s strength lay in his Analysis: he was a most
acute and sagacious critic of the past, and moreover knew the
needs of man, and in what direction those needs could be met,
and to some extent satisfied. But this made him a tremendous
Apollyon--a destructive force of the greatest, the most momentous
character. He succeeded as a destroyer, but when he attempted to
construct, he made a conspicuous failure. * * * Such a man write
Shakespeare! It is really not worth five minutes’ discussion.”

238 ABOUT SHAKESPEARE. By JOSEPH A. WOODHULL. In the _Republican_, Angola, Ind., June 27, 1883. 1½ columns.

_Pro-Sh._

239 A BIT OF THE BACONIAN THEORY. A letter from CONSTANCE M. POTT. [Mrs. HENRY POTT.] In the _Pioneer Press_, St. Paul, Minn., July 15, 1883. 1 column.

_Anti-Sh._

This letter is mainly a description of St. Albans, the residence of Lord Bacon, with its historical associations and its objects of archæological interest, as compared with Stratford-on-Avon, and what R. Grant White calls its “museum of doubtful relics and gimcracks.”

240 WILLIAM DONE FOR. By JOHN W. BELL. In the _Commercial Gazette_, July 21, 1883. ½ column.

_Anti-Sh._

An answer to Mr. Hooper’s article (title 229) in same paper.

241 Mr. O’CONNOR’S LETTER. In BUCKE’S life of _Walt Whitman_. Philadelphia, August, 1883. (See pages 88 to 93.)

_Anti-Sh._

This is an introductory letter by William D. O’Connor to his _Good Grey Poet_, printed in the appendix to the above work.

“The main scope and purpose of the Shakespeare drama are
definitely given by Lord Bacon in connection with his assertion
that the compilation of the natural history of the human passions
is the first duty of philosophy, and that it is particularly
the province of poetry. In this connection he describes the
Shakespearean work perfectly. Therein, he says, ‘we may find
painted forth, with great life, how passions are kindled and
incited; how pacified and refrained; and how again contained
from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves; how
they work; how they vary; how they gather and fortify; how they
are inwrapped, one within another; and how they do fight and
encounter one with another; and other the like particulars.’
‘That is to say,’ remarks Dr. Kuno Fischer, quoting this passage:
‘Bacon desires nothing less than a natural history of the
passions; _the very thing_ that Shakespeare has produced.’

* * * * *

“The only supreme tyrant is ignorance. If I sought to express the
Shakespeare drama in the image of a person, I would not choose
the eidolon of any feudal emperor. My choice would be a man like
Francis Bacon, * * * wise with all the lore of all the ages, the
companion and counsellor of princes, the familiar of gypsies,
and tinkers, and sailors as well; deep-eyed, with long insight
into the minds of men of every degree; master of multiform
experiences; traveled, elegant, courtly, august, intrepid, loyal,
gentle, compassionate, sorrowful, beautiful; clothed, from
fondness for sumptuous apparel, in purple three-piled velvet,
rich laces, and the hat with plumes, yet loving--another anecdote
tells of him--to ride with bared head, in the warm and perfumed
rains of spring, that he might feel upon him, he said, the
universal spirit of the world.”

242 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE EXHUMATION QUESTION. By Dr. C. M. INGLEBY. In _Shakespeare’s Bones_. London: Trübner & Co., 1883. 4to. pp. 48.

_Unc._

This Bibliography is appended to Dr. INGLEBY’S book, and is pertinent to this question only in its references to an exhumation as likely to set at rest the theories (Miss Bacon’s, for instance) as to documents being deposited in the tomb of Shakespeare.