started that Shakespeare was merely an
obscure actor who never wrote a line, and that the Shakespearean plays
were actually written by his great contemporary, Francis Bacon, who was
pleased to let these products of his own genius appear under the name
of another man. This delusion is usually considered as beginning with
an article by Miss Delia Bacon in _Putnam's Monthly_ (January, 1856),
although the idea had been twice suggested during the eight years
preceding.

The Baconian arguments fall into four groups. First, they argue that
there is no proof to establish the identity of Shakespeare, the actor,
with the author of the plays. This is untrue. We have more than one
reference by his contemporaries, identifying the actor with the poet,
some so strong that the Baconians themselves can explain them away only
by assuming that the writer is speaking in irony or that he willfully
deceives the public. By assumptions like that, any one could prove
anything.

The second point of the Baconians is that a man of {213} Shakespeare's
limited education could not have written plays replete with so many
kinds of learning. This argument is weak at both ends. It assumes as
true that Shakespeare had a limited education and that his plays are
full of knowledge learned from books rather than from life. The first
of these points rests on vague tradition only, and the second is still
a debatable question. But even if we admit these two points, what
then? Shakespeare was twenty-nine years old and had probably lived in
London for five or six years when the first book from his hand appeared
in its present form. Any man capable of writing _Hamlet_ could educate
himself during several years in the heart of a great city.

Thirdly, a certain lady found in Bacon's writings a large number of
expressions which seemed to her to resemble similar phrases in
Shakespeare. Except to the mind of an ardent Baconian many of these
show no likeness whatever. Most of those which do show any likeness
were proverbial or stock expressions which can be found in other
writers.

Lastly, various Baconians have repeatedly asserted that they had found
in the First Folio acrostic signatures of Bacon's name; that one could
spell Bacon or Francis Bacon by picking out letters in the text
according to certain rules. But unfortunately either these acrostics
do not work out, or else the rules are so loose that similar acrostics
can be found anywhere, in mode