I have said my say. The omniscient Baconians know that all the early
works ascribed to the actor were impossible, to a man of, say thirty-
-who WAS no more, and KNEW no more, than they know that the actor was
and knew; and as for "Genius," it cannot work miracles. Genius
"bestows upon no one a knowledge of facts," "Shakespeare, however
favoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned."

Precisely, but genius as I understand it (and even cleverness) has a
way of acquiring knowledge of facts where the ordinary "dull
intelligent man" gains none. Keen interest, keen curiosity, swift
observation, even the power of tearing out the things essential from
a book, the gift of rapid reading; the faculty of being alive to the
fingertips,--these, with a tenacious memory, may enable a small boy
to know more facts of many sorts than his elders and betters and all
the neighbours. They are puzzled, if they make the discovery of his
knowledge. Scott was such a small boy; whether we think him a man of
genius or not. Shakspere, even the actor, was, perhaps, a man of
genius, and possessed this power of rapid acquisition and vivid
retention of all manner of experience and information. To what I
suppose to have been his opportunities in London, I shall return.
Meanwhile, let the doubter take up any popular English books of
Shakespeare's day: he will find them replete with much knowledge
wholly new to him--which he will also find in Shakespeare.

A good example is this: Judge Webb proclaimed that in points of
scientific lore (the lore of that age) Shakespeare and Bacon were
much on a level. Professor Tyrrell, in a newspaper, said that the
facts staggered him, as a "Stratfordian." A friend told me that he
too was equally moved. I replied that these pseudoscientific "facts"
had long been commonplaces. Pliny was a rich source of them.