acquaintance. They 'chaff' Shakespeare about his affection for his
'sovereign;' great Gloriana's praises are stained with sack in
taverns, and perfumed with the Indian weed. And Bacon, careful
toiler after Court favour, 'thinks it all wery capital,' in the
words of Mr. Weller pere. Moreover, nobody who hears Shakespeare
talk and sees him smile has any doubt that he is the author of the
plays and amorous fancies of Bacon.

It is needless to dwell on the pother made about the missing
manuscripts of Shakespeare. 'The original manuscripts, of course,
Bacon would take care to destroy,' says Mr. Holmes, 'if determined
that the secret should die with him.' If he was so determined, for
what earthly reason did he pass his valuable time in vamping up old
plays and writing new ones? 'There was no money in it,' and there
was no reason. But, if he was not determined that the secret should
die with him, why did not he, like Scott, preserve the manuscripts?
The manuscripts are where Marlowe's and where Moliere's are, by
virtue of a like neglect. Where are the MSS. of any of the great
Elizabethans? We really cannot waste time over Mr. Donnelly's
theory of a Great Cryptogram, inserted by Bacon, as proof of his
claim, in the multitudinous errors of the Folio. Mr. Bucke, too,
has his Anagram, the deathless discovery of Dr. Platt, of Lakewood,
New Jersey. By manipulating the scraps of Latin in 'Love's Labour's
Lost,' he extracts 'Hi Ludi tuiti sibi Fr. Bacono nati': 'These
plays, entrusted to themselves, proceeded from Fr. Bacon.' It is
magnificent, but it is not Latin. Had Bacon sent in such Latin at
school, he would never have survived to write the 'Novum Organon'
and his sonnets to Queen Elizabeth. In that stern age they would
have 'killed him--with wopping.' That Bacon should be a vamper and
a playwright for no appreciable profit, that, having produced his