Bacon and Shakespeare.
Francis Bacon.
From a miniature by Peter Oliver.
belonging to His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch.
BY
ALBERT F. CALVERT.
London:
DEAN & SON, LIMITED,
160A, Fleet Street.
1902.
Taunton:
E. GOODMAN AND SON, PHŒNIX PRINTING WORKS.
Preface.
To anticipate for this little book that it may prove themeans of convincing a single Baconian of the error of hisways, would be to express a hope that has only the faintestchance of realisation. Baconianism is so wilful and soobstinate that it is not amenable to any treatment that hasyet been invented. It has its root in an entire misconceptionof the character and temperament of the man Bacon; it isnourished on the grossest misrepresentation of the manShakespeare that the memory of an author has ever beensubjected to. So long as the fallacy, backed up by speciousargument, was confined to the consideration of the mightyfew, it was scarcely necessary to enter into the lists withthe Baconian champions, but the new and energetic movewhich is now being made to cast down Shakespeare from the“topmost pinnacle in the temple of fame,” and to set up thefigure of Bacon in his stead, has had the result of bringingthe subject once more into public view. In the circumstances,the publication of the following summary of theevidence may be found not inopportune. It may not effectvia cure in the case of confirmed Baconians, but I have amodest hope that it will enable the unprejudiced inquirer tobe on his guard against the hallucination. The Baconianshave woven a cunning mesh of fact and fable to entangle themind of the unwary; the task I have set myself is to reviewthe premises, test the arguments, and combat the conclusionsupon which Bacon’s pretensions to the authorship of Shakespeare’splays is alleged to rest, and to explain the reasonsthat we hold for ascribing the authorship of the Plays toShakespeare.
While the majority of Shakespearean students are impatientof discussion, the disciples of the Baconian theory are promptand eager and voluminous in the propagation of theirarguments. Indeed, they have, all along, had the lion’sshare in the controversy, and by their much speaking, havestormed the ears of that section of the public which neitherthinks for itself, nor will be at the trouble to verify what itis told. Bacon has been born again in the biographies ofhis devotees, and Shakespeare, by the same agency, has beenedited out of recognition. Bacon’s brilliant intellectualqualities have been taken as the basis of all argument, thehuman and temperamental side of his character has beenboldly made amenable to the exigencies of argument, and hismany glaringly repreh