come down to us anonymously, had the labor of discovering the author been imposed upon after generations, I think we could have found no one of that day but F. Bacon to whom to assign the crown. In this case it would have been resting now on his head by almost common consent?" Said Edwin P. Whipple, in 1869: "To this individuality we tack on a universal genius, which is about as reasonable as it would be to take the controlling power of gravity from the sun and attach it to one of the asteroids." And Cardinal Newman, in 1870: "What do we know of Shakespeare? Is he much more than a name, vox et præterea nihil?" The same year James Russell Lowell wrote: "Nobody believes any longer that immediate inspiration is possible in modern times; and yet everybody seems to take it for granted of this one man Shakespeare"; and so on; Gervinus, Hawthorne, Ruggles, Dickens, Holmes, Walt Whitman, Professor Winchell, Whittier, Parkman; it would require a large volume to record all the testimony of this nature, and I adduce the foregoing to show that more than a century ago, students of the "Shakespeare" Works, seeking an acquaintance with the Stratford actor, realized how impossible it was for him to have been their author.

This feeling extended until the question was pressed, in 1848, "Who were the able literary men who wrote the dramas imputed to him?" It was evident to most critics that in spite of some differences of style they were the product of one mind. Who, then, was this great literary genius? A new interest was awakened in Elizabethan literature. Naturally the search began with dramatists and poets; Marlowe for a time was discussed and dropped; so were others. Deeper students, realizing that the poetic gems in the works which charmed so many were strung on a precious thread of philosophy, sought a poet among the philosophers, having taken a hint from Sydney who said: "The philosophers of Greece durst not a long time appear to the world but under the mask of poets. So Thales, Empedocles, and Parmenides sang their national

philosophy in verse. So did Pythagoras and Phocylides their moral counsels."

At this juncture Spedding's work on Bacon was published, in which it was seen that the great philosopher applied to himself the now famous phrase, "A concealed poet"; and from this time attention was focused upon him, and the sentiment of thousands outside the influence of the Stratford cult, that there was but one man in England to whom the authorship of the "Shakespeare" Works could be assigned, became conviction.

Spedding's work was published in 1857, and it was in this year that Delia Bacon in America, and William Henry Smith in England, simultaneously published the two pioneer works which opened the case of Bacon vs. Shakspere.1 Doubtless many had long entertained the opinions then made public, but withheld them, unwilling to face the storm of ridicule and abuse which threatened their announcement. Smith says that he formed his opinions twenty years before publishing them, and no doubt Miss Bacon had matured her views long before giving them to the world. She was a woman of remarkable intellect, a profound scholar, and merits a high place among the literary women of America; yet she and Smith, as well as Holmes, Mrs. Pott, Reed, and other faithful and conscientious students who have followed them, have been viciously assailed by those interested in Shaksperian books as authors, owners of copyright, their friends, and would-be friends; in fact, they have suffered the usual martyrdom of advocates of new truth by our modern Ephesians.

Said Lee, "Why should Baconian theorists have any following outside lunatic asylums?" Dana, "The Mattoid flourishes in America because we have so large a proportion of half

1 The spelling of the actor's name is so variable that we give, in all quotations, the forms found in them. When referring to him we use the form adopted by Knight, "Shakspere," or the term "actor." When speaking of the "Works," we use the form "Shakespeare," as it appeared on the title-page of the First Folio.

educated minds." Churton Collins, "And so this epidemic spreads till it has now assumed the proportions, and many of the characteristics of the Middle Ages." A writer in the "Literary World" calls Mr. Reed's scholarly books, "A positive disgrace to literature." Brandes says, "A troop of less than half-educated people have put forth the doctrine that Shakespeare did not write the plays and poems attributed to him. Here it has fallen into the hands of raw Americans and fanatical women." Elze, "The so-called Bacon Theory is a disease of the same species as table-turning." Townsend, "Dirty work requires its peculiar instruments. The "Athenæum, " "Mr. Smith denies the appropriation of Miss Delia Bacon's theory. The question may be of slight importance which of two individuals first conceived a crazy notion." Furnivall wrote to Reed, "Providence is merciful, and the U.S. folk are tolerant; you'd have been strung up on the nearest lamp-post else"; and Stapfer sneeringly alluded to it as "The famous paradox brought forward from time to time by some lunatic." Engel stigmatized Baconians as "Orthodoxminded lunatics, distinguished from such as tenant asylums in that they are still at large. People of this brain-sick habit, maniacs, are as hard to convince of their error as they who imagine themselves God Almighty, or the Emperor of China, or the Pope"; and said White, "When symptoms of the Bacon-Shakspere craze manifest themselves, the patient should be immediately carried off to an asylum, etc."; and Robertson, in this year of grace, is nearly as vitriolic, yet his book, "The Baconian Heresy," is but an apology for a defense of his thesis.

I could quote a number as vulgar as the following from a writer in the New York "Herald," who signs his name, B.J.A.: "The idea of robbing the world of Shakespeare for such a stiff, legal-headed old jackass as Bacon, is a modern invention of fools."

There is no hope for men who treat fellow students in any

field of literary labor in this manner. The charge they make against them is lunacy, and, especially, lack of scholarship; both words are favorites with them; yet Disraeli, Gervinus, Hawthorne, Judge Nathaniel Holmes, Lowell, Dickens, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Massey, Gladstone, Winchell, Whittier, Professor Cantor, Judge Wilde, and many others who have expressed opinions adverse to these monopolists of scholarship, occupy quite as high rank in the world of letters as they; indeed, when we examine the work of the Stratfordian revilers, we are astounded at its character and lack of accuracy. Probably in all literature there is no more faulty work to be found than in their treatment of the "Shakespeare" Works, from Rowe to Lee, as I expect to show. It is probable that having laid myself so fully open to query, I shall be asked whether I also am able to swallow what several of the gentlemen I have quoted denominate "The Cipher fraud." In reply, as my object is to present to the critical reader a view of the Bacon-Shakspere controversy in its varied aspects, I shall not fail to treat this branch of the subject in its proper place; but were I to omit doing so, I am hoping that the reader will find the evidence produced to be far more than needed to sustain the thesis I advocate. Should I be right or wrong in harboring this hope, I shall be especially grateful to receive the reader's opinion frankly expressed.

I was asked by a friend why I had devoted so much time and thought to this subject, and he frankly remarked that to him it seemed to be of questionable importance, since we had the "Shakespeare" Works, and need not care who wrote them. Lest others be of the same mind, I will say that I replied to him that we owe an immense debt to the author of these works which we cannot afford to ignore by shirking the question of their authorship; that it is a question of the greatest literary importance, and simple justice demands that it be settled righteously, if possible. Whether I have contributed toward accomplishing this the reader must judge. In the

elucidation of my subject I have carefully studied and compared the work of the various authors and critics who have written upon it, the earliest editions of pre-Stuart and Stuart works bearing upon it; the letters and works of Bacon; the annals and correspondence, as well as the literature of the period, — and assure my readers that they do not have second-hand quotations in any case. I have supplied footnotes for their ready verification. All quotations from the "Shakespeare" Works are taken from the Folio of 1623, or the Quartos preceding it.

One of the studies to which I devoted much labor and research very early in my work, and prepared it for the press, I recently found had been treated by an excellent writer, and several phrases used by him are so near my own that it might appear that I had been inspired by his more recent work. I have not thought it necessary to change these expressions inasmuch as I have presented the subject much more exhaustively, and students, in our day, realize that men pursuing the same course of thought may fall quite naturally into similar forms of expression.

My endeavor has been to meet all worthy arguments which have been urged against Bacon's authorship of the "Shakespeare" Works, that the reader may have a clear view of the greatest of Literary Problems.