The request concerning the Essay on Friendship particularly interesting. The first edition of the Essays, published in 1597, contains only ten pieces, and not one amongst these that treats upon Friendship. The same thing occurs in the editions of 1598 and 1606; but in 1612, an enlarged edition appeared, containing thirtyeight (the table of contents gives forty) essays, with one upon Friendship standing thirteenth upon the list. It is very short, differs materially from the text of the one now in general use; and as it may not be within the reach of all readers, we append it.

66 OF FRIENDSHIP.

"There is no greater desert or wilderness then to be without true friends. For without friendship, society is but meeting. And as it is certaine, that in bodies inanimate, union strengtheneth any naturall motion, and weakeneth any violent motion; so amongst men, friendship multiplieth joies, and divideth griefes. Therefore, whosoever wanteth fortitude, let him worshippe Friendship. For the yoke of Friendship maketh the yoke of fortune more light. There bee some whose lives are, as if they perpetually plaid upon a stage, disguised to all others, open onely to themselves. But perpetuall dissimulation is painfull; and hee that is all Fortune, and no Nature, is but an exquisit Hierling. Live not in continuall smother, but take some friends with whom to communicate. It will unfold thy understanding; it will evaporate thy affections; it will prepare thy businesse. A man may keepe a corner of his minde from his friend, and it be but to witnesse to himselfe, that it is not upon facility, but upon true use of friendship that he imparteth himselfe. Want of true friends, as it is the reward of perfidious natures; so it is an imposition upon great fortunes. The one deserve it, the other cannot scape it. And therefore it is good to retaine sincerity, and to put it into the reckoning of Ambition, that the higher one

goeth, the fewer true friends he shall have. Perfection of friendship is but a speculation. It is friendship, when a man can say to himselfe, I love this man without respect of utility. I am open-hearted to him, I single him from the generality of those with whom I live; I make him a portion of my owne wishes."

Our readers will readily perceive that the text of this differs very materially from that of the Essay upon the same subject, with which they are generally acquainted. In 1625, a newly augmented edition of these Essays made its appearance, in which the Essay upon Friendship was greatly enlarged, being put forth, in fact, in pretty much the form in which we find it in more modern editions ; and it came twenty-seventh, in a list of fifty-eight. The Essay on Friendship was, in all probability, rewritten and extended in deference to the request of Tobie Matthew; and we may reasonably suppose that Lord Bacon had his friend in view when engaged in this charming composition.

Sir Tobie survived his friend nearly thirty years; many of his letters have been published; and it is evident that, had he been possessed of any such secret as that to which Mr. William Henry Smith refers, it I would have been revealed. He was fond of mixing himself up in the affairs of celebrated people, and was not the kind of person to have carried with him to the grave a secret, the disclosure of which must have created a profound sensation at the time, and produced quite a revolution in men's minds respecting one of the most important matters in English literature.

Many of Bacon's letters and papers have been published at different times, and the absence from these of any allusion to this supposed authorship is an additional proof, were more required, that he did not write these dramas.*

*The new edition of Bacon's works, now in progress, in which the public are promised some additional letters and MSS., will doubtless still further confirm this view.

Moreover, not a scrap of blank verse is to be found amongst his papers; and it is utterly incredible that a man who had composed between thirty and forty of the finest plays in our language, should not have left any trace of his peculiar facility for dramatic composition, either in his other works, or amongst his private letters and manuscripts.

One more fact before we turn to another branch of the subject. In his will, Lord Bacon gave directions respecting the disposal of his papers. One portion of it is as follows:-"But towards that durable part of Memory, which consisteth in my Writings, I require my Servant, Henry Percy, to deliver to my Brother Constable all my Manuscript Compositions, and the Fragments also of such as are not finished; to the end that, if any of them be fit to be published, he may accordingly dispose of them. And herein I desire him to take the advice of Mr. Selden, and Mr. Herbert, of the Inner Temple, and to publish or suppress what shall be thought fit. In particular, I wish the Elegie, which I writ in felicem memoriam Elizabethæ, may be published."*

Lord Bacon says nothing of any dramatic works. Neither those persons to whom his papers were intrusted, nor others who have since submitted them to a searching examination, chanced to hit upon any such disclosure, or it would long since have furnished fresh matter of astonishment to all who take an interest in what is passing in the world of letters.

* Baconia, or Certaine Genuine Remaines of Francis Bacon, p. 203.

48

CHAPTER V.

PROOFS.

"Remember,

First to possess his books; for without them
He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not

One spirit to command."

THE TEMPEST.

Ir is fit and proper that we should so far humour the proposer of this new theory, as to exhibit the kind of proofs which he deems sufficient to establish his charges of fraud and imposture against the most honoured name in literature. At the ninth page of this pamphlet, Mr. William Henry Smith remarks :

"I purposely abstain from any attempt to compare the writings of the author I am about to mention with the plays which are attributed to Shakespeare, not merely because that is a labour too vast to enter upon now, but more particularly because it is essentially the province of the literary student."

The writer might have added, because such a comparison must be altogether delusive, and could prove nothing. A startling array of parallel passages might lead one to suppose that Bacon had borrowed from Shakespeare, or that Shakespeare had borrowed from Bacon, as the case might be, but they could not be received as demonstrating that the latter was the author of those dramas, which have, for more than two centuries, passed current as the productions of William Shakespeare.

Towards the close of his squib-for the effusion really merits no better title-Mr. William Henry Smith states,

"It is not my intention Now to adduce proofs ;" and the pamphlet is dated Brompton, Sept., 1856. It would, however, appear that the author managed to achieve the "vast labour" to which he referred, or found some 68 literary student" to do it for him; for in "Notes and Queries" of the 27th of December, a paper was published, entitled "Bacon and Shakspeare," bearing the signature "W. H.S." and dated from "Brompton, Middlesex." The initials reveal the true state of the case. The correspondent is Mr. William Henry Smith, who avails himself of the medium of a deservedly-popular periodical to bring his proofs before the public. As curiosities of the aberrations to which human intellects are but too prone, or illustrations of the extremes into which men run in pursuit of a favourite theory, they deserve especial notice; and we accordingly append them. We have made no alteration whatever either in the wording or arrangement of these quotations, which are indeed very carelessly thrown together, and are not taken from the best editions; and have merely numbered them for facility of reference.

BACON AND SHAKSPEARE.

1. ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING :

Poetry is nothing else but feigned history.
TWELFTH NIGHT, Act i. Sc. ii. :
Viola.-'Tis poetical.

Olivia.-It is more likely to be feigned.

AS YOU LIKE IT, Act iii. Sc. vii. :
The truest poetry is the most feigning.

2. ON BUILDINGS :

He that builds a fair house upon an ill seat committeth himself to prison; neither do I reckon that an ill seat only, where the air is unwholesome, but likewise where it is unequal.

E