The Rest of the Equipment

The author of the Plays was equipped, beyond every other man of his
time, with wisdom, erudition, imagination, capaciousness of mind,
grace and majesty of expression. Every one has said it, no one
doubts it. Also, he had humor, humor in rich abundance, and always
wanting to break out. We have no evidence of any kind that
Shakespeare of Stratford possessed any of these gifts or any of
these acquirements. The only lines he ever wrote, so far as we
know, are substantially barren of them--barren of all of them.


Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare:
Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones
And curst be he yt moves my bones.


Ben Jonson says of Bacon, as orator:


His language, WHERE HE COULD SPARE AND PASS BY A JEST, was nobly
censorious. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more
weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he
uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his (its) own
graces . . . The fear of every man that heard him was lest he
should make an end.