ancients of his own country, from the use he has made of Chaucer in Troilus and Cressida, and in the Two Noble Kinsmen, if that play be his, as there goes a tradition it was."

We will now give a short extract from Coleridge:

"O, when I think of the inexhaustible mine of virgin wealth in our Shakespeare; that I have been almost daily reading him since I was ten years old; that the thirty intervening years have been unintermittingly and not fruitlessly employed in the study of the Greek, Latin, English, Italian, Spanish, and German belle lettrists—the last fifteen years, in addition, still more intensely, in the analysis of the laws of life and reason, as they exist in man; and that upon every step I have made forward-in taste, in acquisition of facts from history or my own observation-in knowledge of the dif ferent laws of being and their apparent exceptions from accidental collision of disturbing forcesthat, at every new accession of information, after every successful exercise of meditation, and every fresh presentation of experience-I have unfailingly discovered a proportionate increase of wisdom and intuition in Shakespeare."

We propose now to consider the history-the

brief and admitted history of the man, to whom the genius of Pope and the intellect of Coleridge offer this homage.

There is reason to suppose that Shakespeare His father was a

was born in the year 1564. humble tradesman at Stratford-upon-Avon, who at one time had so much improved his position as to attain to the office of bailiff of the borough. He afterwards, however, became very much reduced in circumstances. Any education that William Shakespeare received, he most probably obtained at the free school at Stratford; that it was very superficial, is now generally admitted. At about the age of eighteen, he contracted or was inveigled into a marriage with a woman eight years older than himself; and about the year 1586, when he was twenty-two years old, he left his wife and family at Stratford, and came to London; and very shortly afterwards was actively engaged in the management of a theatre, and continued to be so until about the year 1611, when, having made a considerable fortune, he retired to Stratfordupon-Avon, to enjoy the fruits of his active industry, and died there in 1616.

Francis Bacon was born in 1561. His father was the famous Sir Nicholas, so many years Lord

Keeper. His mother was a very learned woman. Francis Bacon was carefully brought up at home until he was twelve years old. He then went to Cambridge, and had completed his studies by the time he was sixteen years old.

In 1576 he went abroad; and upon the death of his father in 1579, returned to England; and, finding himself in straitened circumstances, unwillingly took to the study of the law, and became a member of Gray's Inn.

He seems to have had but little practice as a barrister, and to have vainly solicited for Government employment, and been in embarrassed circumstances during the whole of Queen Elizabeth's reign. With the accession of James in 1603, his prospects improved; he was appointed SolicitorGeneral in 1607, and rapidly rose, until eventually he became Lord Chancellor, from which office he was removed, with disgrace, in 1621, and died in 1626.

The object in stating these biographies is, to show how identical were the periods in which these two men flourished. If Shakespeare wrote these plays, he most probably did so between the years 1586 and 1611; if Bacon wrote them, he most probably did so between the years 1580 and 1607.

Having stated what Pope and Coleridge predicate of the qualifications of the author of these plays, we should hardly expect to recognise in a person, born and brought up as we have represented Shakespeare to have been, the probable possessor of such vast and varied acquirements.

CHAPTER IV.

WIT AND POETIC FACULTY OF BACON AND SHAKESPEARE.

In the following extracts from that able essayist Mr. Macaulay, anatomising and describing the genius and character of Bacon, the reader will recognise peculiarities bearing a strong affinity to those which characterise these plays. The extent and variety of Bacon's knowledge are so well known and universally admitted, that it is unnecessary to dwell upon that point, though the beautiful language and imagery with which Mr. Macaulay has illustrated it, might well excuse a quotation.

Of his wit he says:-" In wit, if by wit be meant the power of perceiving analogies between things which appear to have nothing in common, he never had an equal; not even Cowley-not even the author of Hudibras. Indeed he possessed this faculty, or rather it possessed him, to a morbid degree.