evidence.

Shall I set down the rest of the Conjectures which constitute the
giant Biography of William Shakespeare? It would strain the
Unabridged Dictionary to hold them. He is a Brontosaur: nine
bones and six hundred barrels of plaster of paris.



CHAPTER V



"We May Assume"

In the Assuming trade three separate and independent cults are
transacting business. Two of these cults are known as the
Shakespearites and the Baconians, and I am the other one--the
Brontosaurian.

The Shakespearite knows that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's Works;
the Baconian knows that Francis Bacon wrote them; the Brontosaurian
doesn't really know which of them did it, but is quite composedly
and contentedly sure that Shakespeare DIDN'T, and strongly suspects
that Bacon DID. We all have to do a good deal of assuming, but I
am fairly certain that in every case I can call to mind the
Baconian assumers have come out ahead of the Shakespearites. Both
parties handle the same materials, but the Baconians seem to me to
get much more reasonable and rational and persuasive results out of
them than is the case with the Shakespearites. The Shakespearite