e
people, I, Francis Bacon, a gentleman of gentlemen, have been taking
in secret my share of the coppers and shillings taken at the door
of those low playhouses, he would have been ruined. If he had put
the plays forth simply as poetry it would have ruined his legal
reputation." What do you think of this?

_Answer_. I hardly think that Shakespeare was a myth. He was
certainly born, married, lived in London, belonged to a company of
actors; went back to Stratford, where he had a family, and died.
All these things do not as a rule happen to myths. In addition to
this, those who knew him believed him to be the author of the plays.
Bacon's friends never suspected him. I do not think it would have
hurt Bacon to have admitted that he wrote "Lear" and "Othello,"
and that he was getting "coppers and shillings" to which he was
justly entitled. Certainly not as much as for him to have written
this, which if fact, though not in exact form, he did write: "I,
Francis Bacon, a gentleman of gentlemen, have been taking coppers
and shillings to which I was not entitled--but which I received as
bribes while sitting as a judge." He has been excused for two
reasons. First, because his salary was small, and, second, because
it was the custom for judges to receive presents.

Bacon was a lawyer. He was charged with corruption--with having
taken bribes, with having sold his decisions. He knew what the
custom was and knew how small his salary was. But he did not plead
the custom in his defense. He did not mention the smallness of
the salary. He confessed that he was guilty--as charged. His
confession was deemed too general and he was called upon by the
Lords to make a specific confession. This he did. He specified
the cases in which he had received the money and told how much,
and begged for mercy. He did not make his confession, as Mr.
Donnelly is reported to have said, to get his fine remitted. The
confession was made before the fine was imposed.

Neither do I think that the theatre in which the plays of Shakespeare
were represented could or should be called a "low play house."
The fact that "Othello," "Lear," "Hamlet," "Julius Caesar," and
the other great dramas were first played in that playhouse made it
the greatest building in the world. The gods themselves should
have occupied seats in that theatre, where for the first time the
greatest productions of the human mind were put upon the stage.

--_The Tribune_, Mi