The striking resemblances above set out are chiefly found in the plays which Meres, in his "Palladis Tamia" thus mentions:

"As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage.

"For comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love's Labor's Lost, his Love's Labor's Won, his Midsummer Night's Dream, and his Merchant of Venice. For tragedy, his Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet."

All these plays had, therefore, been written before 1598, for this book of Meres was published in the summer of that year. We know from Henslowe's Diary that Titus Andronicus was acted on the stage as early as January 28, 1594; and Love's Labor's Lost, called "Beronne" and 'Burbon" by the ignorant Henslowe, from Biron, one of the principal characters, was put upon the stage on November 2, 1597.

I feel that every reader will coincide with me in the belief, virtually amounting to a certainty, that the poem of Venus and Adonis was written entirely by one person, and that that person was the author, in part at least, of the plays attributed to Shaksper, quotations from which are set out in this chapter.

The following are peculiar and noteworthy words: Aidance, clepes, cleped, clepeth, disjoined, enchanting, eyne, manage (as a noun), needs't, petitioners, proceedings, quoth (used seventeen times), repine (as a noun), and whereat (used seven times)."

I am well aware that the collocation of phrases in this chapter will not interest the general reader, but it may be of some little value to the student of English literature who is seeking for the true Shakespeare. I am only striving to give facts in aid of the search for the truth, coupled with my own opinion based upon those facts, and I leave the reader free to use the facts either for the purpose of forming his own opinion or of gathering more facts to enable him ultimately to reach a right conclusion. In trying to reach a conclusion he might be disturbed by the thought that perhaps the writers of that era may have borrowed from the Venus and Adonis phrases. Such may have been the case as to some of them, but the many striking resemblances in phrase and words between the Venus and Adonis and the plays lead the disinterested student to the conviction that such similarity was not the work of mere imitators.

CHAPTER XXV.

FRANCIS BACON CONSIDERED.

"Such a one is a natural philosopher."

As You Like It, iii, 2.

The question as to the authorship of the Venus and Adonis is narrowed down in my opinion to three men, Francis Bacon, Thomas Dekker, and Michael Drayton. Were these men worthy of such authorship?

Before further examination and decision on the merits, I will briefly consider and state the poetical history of each, in the order above stated.

Francis Bacon was born on the 22d day of January, 1561, and died on the 9th day of April, 1626. In a letter to Sir John Davies, he speaks of himself as a concealed poet. Spedding, his best biographer, says that Bacon had all the natural faculties which a poet wants-a fine ear for metre, a fine feeling for imaginative effect in words, and a vein of poetic passion.

Taine, in his "History of English Literature," thus describes him: "In this band of scholars, dreamers, and inquirers, appears the most comprehensive, sensible, originative of the minds of the age, Francis Bacon, a great and luminous intellect, one of the finest of this poetic progeny, who, like his predecessors, was naturally disposed to clothe his ideas in the most splendid dress; in this age, a thought did not seem complete until it had assumed form and color. But what distinguishes him from all others is, that with him an image only serves to concentrate meditation. He reflected long, stamped on his mind all the parts and rela

tions of his subject; he is master of it, and then, instead of exposing this complete idea in a graduated chain of reasoning, he embodies it in a comparison so expressive, exact, lucid, that behind the figure we perceive all the details of the idea, like liquor in a fine crystal vase." Again he says, "He is a producer of conceptions and of sentences. The matter being explored, he says to us, 'Such it is; touch it not on that side; it must be approached from the other.' Nothing more; no proof, no effort to convince; he affirms and does nothing more; he has thought in the manner of artists and poets, and he speaks after the manner of prophets and seers."

On the 28th of February, 1587-8, a tragedy called "The Misfortunes of Arthur" and certain dumb-shows in which Bacon assisted were presented before the Queen at Greenwich. The dumb-shows and additional speeches were prepared by Bacon and others.

In the year 1595, Bacon composed a device called "The Conference of Pleasure" for his friend Essex, which was presented before Queen Elizabeth on November 17, 1595, the anniversary of the accession of the Queen. This device is printed in the letters and memorials of state of the Sidney family, and consisted in part of a dumb-show. Four characters are introduced, an old Hermit, a Secretary of State, a brave Soldier, and an Esquire. The Esquire presents them each in turn to her Majesty. The Hermit recommends the gift of the Muses. I will give an extract from each to show Bacon's style. The Hermit, inter alia,

says:

Whether he believe me or no, there is no prison to the thoughts, which are free under the greatest tyrants. Shall any man make his conceit as an anchorite, mured

up with the compass of one beauty or person, that may have the liberty of all contemplation? Shall he exchange the sweet travelling through the universal variety for one wearisome and endless round or labyrinth? Let thy master offer his services to the Muses. It is long since they received any into their court. They give alms continually at their gate; but few they have ever admitted into their palace. There shall he find secrets not dangerous to know; sides and parties not factious to hold; precepts and commandments not penal to disobey. The gardens of love, wherein he now placeth himself, are fresh to-day and fading to-morrow, as the sun comports them or is turned from them. But the gardens of the Muses keep the privileges of the golden age: they ever flourish and are in league with time. The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power. The verses of a poet endure without a syllable lost, while States and Empires pass many periods. Let him not think that he shall descend; for he is now upon a hill as a ship is mounted upon the ridge of a wave, but that hill of the Muses is above tempests, always clear and calm; a hill of the goodliest discovery that man can have, being a prospect upon all the errors and wanderings of the present and former times."

The Soldier, in his turn, recommends the profession of arms.

"Then for the dignity of the military profession," he says, "is it not the truest and perfectest practice of all virtues? of wisdom in disposing those things, which are most subject to confusion and accident; of justice in continually distributing rewards; of temperance in exercising of the straitest discipline; of fortitude in toleration of all labors and abstinence from effeminate delights; of con