the advocates of William Shakspere, Gent, as author of the plays,
differ like the Kilkenny cats among themselves on many points. All
do not believe, with Mr. J. C. Collins, that Will knew Sophocles,
Euripides, and AEschylus (but not Aristophanes) as well as Mr.
Swinburne did, or knew them at all--for that matter. Mr. Pollard
differs very widely from Sir Sidney Lee on points concerning the
First Folio and the Quartos: my sympathies are with Mr. Pollard.
Few, if any, partisans of Will agree with Mrs. Stopes (herself no
Baconian) about the history of the Stratford monument of the poet.
About Will's authorship of Titus Andronicus, and Henry VI, Part I,
the friends of Will, like the friends of Bacon, are at odds among
themselves. These and other divergencies of opinion cause the
Baconians to laugh, as if THEY were a harmonious circle . . . ! For
the Baconian camp is not less divided against itself than the camp of
the "Stratfordians." Not all Baconians hold that Bacon was the
legitimate son of "that Imperial votaress" Queen Elizabeth. Not all
believe in the Cryptogram of Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, or in any other
cryptograms. Not all maintain that Bacon, in the Sonnets, was
inspired by a passion for the Earl of Essex, for Queen Elizabeth, or
for an early miniature of himself. Not all regard him as the author
of the plays of Kit Marlowe. Not all suppose him to be a
Rosicrucian, who possibly died at the age of a hundred and six, or,
perhaps, may be "still running." Not all aver that he wrote thirteen
plays before 1593. But one party holds that, in the main, Will was
the author of the plays, while the other party votes for Bacon--or
for Bungay, a Great Unknown. I use Bungay as an endearing term for
the mysterious being who was the Author if Francis Bacon was not.
Friar Bungay was the rival of Friar Bacon, as the Unknown (if he was
not Francis Bacon) is the rival of "the inventor of Inductive
reasoning."