all out of the way" in the circumstance "that a man should be writing
Hamlet, and at the same time bringing actions for petty sums lent on
loan at some unspecified interest." {171b} Nor do I see anything at
all out of the way in Bacon's prosecution of his friend and
benefactor, Essex (1601), while Bacon was writing Hamlet. Indeed,
Shakspere's case is the less "out of the way" of the two. He wanted
his loan to be repaid, and told his lawyer to bring an action. Bacon
wanted to keep his head (of inestimable value) on his shoulders; or
to keep his body out of the Tower; or he merely, as he declares,
wanted to do his duty as a lawyer of the Crown. In any case, Bacon
was in a tragic position almost unexampled; and was at once
overwhelmed by work, and, one must suppose, by acute distress of
mind, in the case of Essex. He must have felt this the more keenly,
if, as some Baconians vow, HE WROTE THE SONNETS TO ESSEX. Whether he
were writing his Hamlet when engaged in Essex's case (1601), or any
other of his dramatic masterpieces, even this astonishing man must
have been sorely bestead to combine so many branches of business.

Thus I would reply to Mr. Greenwood's amazement that Shakspere, a
hard creditor, and so forth, should none the less have been able to
write his plays. But if it is meant that a few business transactions
must have absorbed the whole consciousness of Shakespeare, and left
him neither time nor inclination for poetry, consider the scientific
preoccupation of Bacon, his parliamentary duties, his ceaseless
activity as "one of the legal body-guard of the Queen" at a time when
he had often to be examining persons accused of conspiracy,--and do
not forget his long and poignant anxiety about Essex, his constant
efforts to reconcile him with Elizabeth, and to advocate his cause
without losing her favour; and, finally, the anguish of prosecuting
his friend, and of knowing how hardly the world judged his own