his learned and able (but unfortunate) successor is he, that hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue, which may be compared and preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and about his times, were all the wits born, that could honor a language, or help study. Now things daily fall: wits grow downward, and eloquence grows backward: so that he may be named, and stand as the mark and acme of our language.'

Sir Tobie Matthew calls him a literary monster. In his Address to the Reader, appended to his collection of letters, he says:

"We have also rare compositions of minds amongst us, which look so many fair ways at once that I doubt it will go near to pose any other nation of Europe to muster out in any age four men who, in so many respects, should excel four such as we are able to show-Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, Sir Philip Sidney, and Sir Francis Bacon; for they were all a kind of monsters in their several ways.

"The fourth was a creature of incomparable abilities of mind, of a sharp and catching apprehension, large and faithful memory, plentiful and sprouting invention, deep and solid judgment for as much as might concern the understanding part:-a man so rare in knowledge, of so many several kinds, indued with the facility and felicity of expressing it all, in so elegant, significant, so abundant and yet so choice and ravishing a way of words, of metaphors, and allusions, as perhaps the world has not seen since it was a world.

"I know this may seem a great hyperbole and strange kind of riotous excess of speech; but the best means of

putting me to shame will be for you to place any man of yours by this of mine. And, in the meantime, even this little makes a shift to show that the Genius of England is still not only eminent, but predominant, for the assembling great variety of those rare parts, in some single man, which used to be incompatible anywhere else."

Osborne, a contemporary, has this to say of his ability: "And my memory neither doth (nor I believe possibly ever can) direct me to an example more splendid in this kind than the Lord Bacon, Earl of St. Albans, who in all companies did appear a good proficient, if not a master, in those arts entertained for the subject of every one's discourse. So as I dare maintain, without the least affectation of flattery or hyperbole, that his most casual talk deserveth to be written, as I have been told his first or foulest copies required no great labour to render them competent for the nicest judgments: high perfection attainable only by use and treating with every man in his respective profession, and which he was most versed in.

"So as I have heard him entertain a country lord in the proper terms relating to hawks and dogs, and at another time outcant a London chirurgeon. Thus he did not only learn himself, but gratify such as taught him, who looked upon their calling as honoured by his notice. Nor did an easy falling into arguments (not unjustly taken for a blemish in the most) appear less than an ornament in him; the ears of his hearers receiving more gratification than trouble; and no less sorry when he came to conclude, than displeased with any that did interrupt him. Now, the general knowledge he had in all things, husbanded by his wit and dignified with so majestical a carriage he was known to own, struck such an awful reverence in those he

questioned, that they durst not conceal the most intrinsic part of their mysteries from him, for fear of appearing ignorant or saucy. All which rendered him no less necessary than admirable at the council-table, when in reference to impositions, monopolies, etc., the meanest manufacturers were an usual argument; and, as I have heard, he did in this baffle the Earl of Middlesex, who was born and bred a citizen, etc. Yet, without any great (if at all) interrupting his abler studies, as is not hard to be imagined of a quick apprehension, in which he was admirable."

In considering Francis Bacon, the reader and I are not concerned about his character or conduct or the incidents of his life, except as they bear upon the present investigation. It is not necessary for us to draw his frailties from their dread abode. Whether he was false to Essex or subservient to Buckingham, or guilty of accepting bribes without any palliating circumstances, concerns us not in this investigation. Was he a poet and a good one and was he, as he himself declares, a concealed poet? Was he an adept in philosophy? Was he a ready writer? Did he have all knowledge for his province? Had he the time, the inclination and the ability to compose or revise, amplify and embellish such plays as Hamlet, Othello, and Measure for Measure? One thing we do know about him that bears directly upon the subject-matter of our inquiry, and that is that he declared and implicitly believed that "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."

CHAPTER XXVI.

THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED.

"Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy."

-Two Gentlemen of Verona, iii, 2.

Very little is known of Thomas Dekker by the reading public, and yet he was one of the best poets of the Elizabethan period. If what I have written or shall write about him will be the means of inducing students of English literature to closely investigate the facts as to his life, especially in connection with the contemporary poets and dramatists, much of the fog which has hitherto enveloped the question of Shakespearean authorship would be dispelled. No careful search has ever been made to obtain the facts as to Dekker's birth, parentage, family history and surroundings, or the time and place of his death.

His birthplace doubtless was London, because, in a book written by him, called "The Seven Deadly Sins of London," and printed in 1606, speaking of the city of London, he says, "O, thou beautifullest daughter of the two united Monarchies! from thy womb received I my being; from thy breast, my nourishment."

The term of his life probably extended over seventy years, because in the dedication of another book of his, entitled "English Villainies, seven several times pressed to death," and dated in February, 1637, he says, "I preach without a pulpit: This is no sermon, but an epistle dedicatory which dedicates these discoveries, and my threescore years devotedly yours in my best service."

In another book called "Wars, wars, wars," issued in

1628, he writes, "For my heart danceth sprightly when I see (old as I am) our English gallantry."

There is another allusion to his age in the dedication affixed to his tragi-comedy called "Match Me in London," printed in 1631. Therein he says, "I have been a priest in Apollo's temple many years; my voice is decaying with my age, yet yours being clear and above mine shall much honor me if you but listen to my old tunes."

He is first directly mentioned in Henslowe's Diary on page 117, under the name of "Dickers," on the eighth day of January, 1597, as appears by the following entry: "Lent unto thomas Douton, the 8 of Janewary 1597 twenty shillinges to by a booke of Mr Dickers Lent XX s." What the name of the play was is not specified. On the next page are the following entries: "Lent unto the Company the 15 of Janewary 1597 to bye a book of Mr Dickers called Fayeton fower pounde. I say lent." The next entry on the same page shows that poor Dekker was in trouble, having been imprisoned in jail for debt. Henslowe, on page 118, records the following: "Lent unto the Company the 4 of febreary 1598 to disecharge Mr Dicker out of the counter of the poultrey the some of fortie shillinges.

"I sayed, d to Thomas Douton xxxx s."

As a matter of fact, before 1597 he had written for the theatres, and his productions were received with much favor.

The pleasant comedy of old Fortunatus must have been written by Dekker prior to or in the early part of the year 1595, for Henslowe, in his Diary, at page 64, makes the following entry: "16 of Febreary 1595 Rd at Fortunatus xxxx s." It was a popular and paying play. The entries