on. Again, I cannot pretend to have an opinion, based on internal
evidence, about the genuine Shakespearean character of such plays as
Titus Andronicus, Henry VI, Part I, and Troilus and Cressida. About
them different views are held WITHIN both camps.

I am no lawyer or naturalist (as Partridge said, Non omnia possumus
omnes), and cannot imagine why our Author is so accurate in his
frequent use of terms of law--if he be Will; and so totally at sea in
natural history--if he be Francis, who "took all knowledge for his
province."

How can a layman pretend to deal with Shakespeare's legal
attainments, after he has read the work of the learned Recorder of
Bristol, Mr. Castle, K.C.? To his legal mind it seems that in some
of Will's plays he had the aid of an expert in law, and then his
technicalities were correct. In other plays he had no such tutor,
and then he was sadly to seek in his legal jargon. I understand Mr.
Greenwood to disagree on this point. Mr. Castle says, "I think
Shakespeare would have had no difficulty in getting aid from several
sources. There is therefore no prima facie reason why we should
suppose the information was supplied by Bacon."

Of course there is not!

"In fact, there are some reasons why one should attribute the legal
assistance, say, to Coke, rather than to Bacon."

The truth is, that Bacon seems not to have been lawyer enough for
Will's purposes. "We have no reason to believe that Bacon was
particularly well read in the technicalities of our law; he never