which was the work of Mr. Ignatius Donnelly of Hastings,
Minnesota. The author pretended to have discovered among Bacon's papers
a numerical cypher which enabled him to pick out letters appearing at
certain intervals in the pages of Shakespeare's First Folio, and the
selected letters formed words and sentences categorically stating that
Bacon was author of the plays. Many refutations have been published of
Mr. Donnelly's arbitrary and baseless contention.

Extent of the literature.

A Bacon Society was founded in London in 1885 to develop and promulgate
the unintelligible theory, and it inaugurated a magazine (named since May
1893 'Baconiana'). A quarterly periodical also called 'Baconiana,' and
issued in the same interest, was established at Chicago in 1892. 'The
Bibliography of the Shakespeare-Bacon Controversy' by W. H. Wyman,
Cincinnati, 1884, gives the titles of two hundred and fifty-five books or
pamphlets on both sides of the subject, published since 1848; the list
was continued during 1886 in 'Shakespeariana,' a monthly journal
published at Philadelphia, and might now be extended to fully twice its
original number.

The abundance of the contemporary evidence attesting Shakespeare's
responsibility for the works published under his name gives the Baconian
theory no rational right to a hearing while such authentic examples of
Bacon's effort to write verse as survive prove beyond all possibility of
contradiction that, great as he was as a prose writer and a philosopher,
he was incapable of penning any of the poetry assigned to Shakespeare.
Defective knowledge and illogical or casuistical argument alone render
any other conclusion possible.

III.--THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON.

Southampton and Shakespeare.

From the dedicatory epistles addressed by Shakespeare to the Earl of
Southampton in the opening pages of his two narrative poems, 'Venus and
Adonis' (1593) and 'Lucrece' (1594), {374a} from the account given by Sir
William D'Avenant, and recorded by Nicholas Rowe, of the earl's liberal
bounty to the poet, {374b} and from the language of the sonnets, it is
abundantly clear that Shakespeare enjoyed very friendly relations with
Southampton from the time when his genius was nearing its maturity. No
contemporary document or tradition gives the faintest suggestion that
Shakespeare was the friend or _protege_ of any man of rank other than
Southampton; and the student of Shakespea