as do you or I. Our case is not so
strong that the arguments of these gentlemen can be ignored; and
naughty temper does but hamper us in the task of demolition. If Bacon
were proved to have written Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, would
mankind be robbed of one of those illusions which are necessary to its
happiness and welfare? If so, we have a good excuse for browbeating the
poor Baconians. But it isn't so, really and truly.

Suppose that one fine morning, Mr. Blank, an ardent Baconian, stumbled
across some long-sought document which proved irrefragably that Bacon
was the poet, and Shakespeare an impostor. What would be our
sentiments? For the second-rate actor we should have not a moment's
sneaking kindness or pity. On the other hand, should we not experience
an everlasting thrill of pride and gladness in the thought that he who
had been the mightiest of our philosophers had been also, by some
unimaginable grace of heaven, the mightiest of our poets? Our pleasure
in the plays and sonnets would be, of course, not one whit greater than
it is now. But the pleasure of hero-worship for their author would be
more than reduplicated. The Greeks revelled in reverence of Heracles by
reason of his twelve labours. They would have been disappointed had it
been proved to them that six of those labours had been performed by
some quite obscure person. The divided reverence would have seemed
tame. Conversely, it is pleasant to revere Bacon, as we do now, and to
revere Shakespeare, as we do now; but a wildest ecstasy of worship were
ours could we concentrate on one of those two demigods all that
reverence which now we apportion to each apart.

It is for this reason, mainly, that I wish success to the Baconians.
But there is another reason, less elevated perhaps, but not less strong
for me. I should like to watch the multifarious comedies which would
spring from the downfall of an idol to which for three centuries a
whole world had been kneeling. Glad fancy makes for me a few extracts
from the issue of a morning paper dated a week after the publication of
Mr. Blank's discovery. This from a column of Literary Notes:

From Baiham, Sydenham, Lewisham, Clapham, Herne Hill and Peckham comes
news that the local Shakespeare Societies have severally met and
decided to dissolve. Other suburbs are expected to follow.

This from the same column:

Mr. Sidney Lee is now busily engaged on a revised edition of his
monumental biography of Shakesp