BACON IS SHAKESPEARE.



CHAPTER I.


"What does it matter whether the immortal works were written by
Shakespeare (of Stratford) or by another man who bore (or assumed) the
same name?"

Some twenty years ago, when this question was first propounded, it was
deemed an excellent joke, and I find that there still are a great number
of persons who seem unable to perceive that the question is one of
considerable importance.

When the Shakespeare revival came, some eighty or ninety years ago,
people said "pretty well for Shakespeare" and the "learned" men of that
period were rather ashamed that Shakespeare should be deemed to be
"_the_" English poet.

"Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy and England did adorn,
. . . . . . . . . .
The force of Nature could no further go,
To make a third she joined the other two."

Dryden did not write these lines in reference to Shakespeare but to
Milton. Where will you find the person who to-day thinks Milton comes
within any measurable distance of the greatest genius among the sons of