his life, than we know about the actor; while about "the
potentialities of genius," we know--very little.

Thus, with all Bacon's occupations and preoccupations, he had, the
Baconians will allow, GENIUS. By the miracle of genius he MAY have
found time and developed inclination, to begin by furbishing up older
plays for a company of actors: he did it extremely well, but what a
quaint taste for a courtier and scholar! The eccentricities of
genius MAY account for his choice of a "nom de plume," which, if he
desired concealment, was the last that was likely to serve his turn.
He may also have divined all the Doll Tearsheets and Mrs. Quicklys
and Pistols, whom, conceivably, he did not much frequent.

I am not one of those who deny that Bacon might have written Hamlet
"if he had the mind," as Charles Lamb said of Wordsworth. Not at
all; I am the last to limit the potentialities of genius.

But suppose, merely for the sake of argument, that Will Shakspere too
had genius in that amazing degree which, in Henry V, the Bishop of
Ely and the Archbishop of Canterbury describe and discuss in the case
of the young king. In this passage we perceive that the poet had
brooded over and been puzzled by the "miracle" (he uses the word) of
genius. Says Canterbury speaking of the Prince's wild youth,


"Never was such a sudden scholar made."


One Baconian objection to Shakespeare's authorship is that during his
early years in London (say 1587-92) he was "such a sudden scholar