in 'The Cornhill Magazine.' The earlier part of the essay on
Shakespeare and Bacon appeared in 'The Quarterly Review.' The
author is obliged to the courtesy of the proprietors and editors of
these serials for permission to use his essays again, with revision
and additions.*

*Essays by the author on 'The False Pucelle' and on 'Sir Edmund
Berry Godfrey' have appeared in The Nineteenth Century (1895) and in
The Cornhill Magazine, but these are not the papers here presented.

The author is deeply indebted to the generous assistance of Father
Gerard and Father Pollen, S.J.; and, for making transcripts of
unpublished documents, to Miss E. M. Thompson and Miss Violet
Simpson.

Since passing the volume for the press the author has received from
Mr. Austin West, at Rome, a summary of Armanni's letter about
Giacopo Stuardo. He is led thereby to the conclusion that Giacopo
was identical with the eldest son of Charles II.--James de la
Cloche--but conceives that, at the end of his life, James was
insane, or at least was a 'megalomaniac,' or was not author of his
own Will.





I. THE VALET'S TRAGEDY