CONTENTS. II.-A Brief History of Shakespeare IV.-Wit and Poetic Faculty of Bacon and V.-Bacon's Powers of Mind, in Youth and VI.—Evidence in favour of Shakespeare VII.-Parallel Passages, and Peculiar Phrases, in XI.-Athenæum and other Objectors answered . : 90 XII.- XIII.-Tate, Kemble, &c., their Knowledge of XIV.-An Epitome of what has gone before APPENDIX.—A Brief Description of a curious MS., entitled TO HIS READERS AND REVIEWERS. By the Scotch Review, which bears the outward semblance of Buchanan, we have been reviled as a “Caviller” and a “Smith.” The editor might have reflected that our names and lineaments we inherit, whilst our words and actions are our own. If his pages were as full of wisdom as ours are free from cavil, the visage without his book, would not be regarded as a mask, whose brains we vainly seek within; and the Review might yet hope to attain a fame coextensive with our namema name which some wise, and many worthy men, have borne--which, though not unique, is perfectly genteel -- and which has, of late years, become such a tower of strength that, for it, a King of the French was glad to forego his own high-sounding title. In our little pamphlet (a letter to Lord Elles mere), it is written—"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 but more is a labour too vast to enter upon now, particularly because it is essentially the province of the literary student." We did not, and do not, pretend to be equal to a literary labour. We merely, to úse an expression of Bacon's, "have taken upon us to ring a bell, to call other wits together, which is the meanest office.” But as, like unready servants, they stared at the bell instead of answering it, we are com pelled to do our own errand, and reluctantly make some further entrance into the subject. |