Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-05-13

the queen EOuid not De Persuaded rnar fr was
his writing whose name was to it, but that II
he'd some more InischieyouS author, and SID
with great indignation that she would have
lin racked to produce his author, rerliei:
/ Nay. madame, never rack his peTSou but
rack his stile; LEI aim have pens, i,t ans,
paper. and help of books, and be enioizled 70
continao the story where il leaves off. and |
viii uEde-t@t-c by collecting tie stiles to
judge whether lie was the author or no'
Observe the sly huulor with which Bacon
attempts to divert the queen BY speaking OF
plagiarism ss felony But Mr. DonneIly
finds confirmation of the foregoing account
in the cipher story, one paragraph OF which
reads:
''His men turn their backs. and my crafty
old friend Hence-low tHe1slowel flies at TIE
first appearance Of danger, stumbling under
the heavy weight"
The first to question William ShakspeH's
authorship was his rival and enemy, ore
Greene; but this wes attributed to envy.
Alexander Smith, the essayist, made the OBJ
servation that Bacon seems to have written
his essays with Shakespeare's pen" Horace
Walpole classed thaauthorship Of the plays
among his Historic Doubts" In 1852 Mr.
SPEEDING printed a paper, "Who Wrote
Shakespeares Henry VIA" Soon after
Chambers Edinburgh journal published an
anonymous paper entitled, WHO wrote
Shakespeare and the author arrived at the
conclusion that Shakspere kept poet In
1856 Miss Della Bacon the identity Of name
with the Lord keepers is only coincidence sn
American lady, sister Of Rev. Leonard Bacon,
first propounded the theory that Lord Bacon
was the Shakespeare wanted; and from that
date it began to assume the dignity of q
theory, and what was down 10 that time
oaly an insignificant literary heresy, its ad-
herents having no ranying point, has since
grown TO be the faith OF a united and ag
gressive- party, numbering tens Of thousands,
among them many OF the ablest critics and
scholars Of the time. During the last thirty
years some go books and pamphlets have
been written upon the subject. Some four
years ago Mr. DonneIiy announced 10 the
world that he had discovered q cipher story
interviewer in the plays which would end all
discussion The proposition was one so
astonishing, that its very statement almost
carried its own confUtation Even Bacon
ians stood aghast, as if in awe Of the very
miracle they had invoked The whole dis
cusSiou had grown out of the fact that for
moro than 200 years the production OF
the plays by Shakespeare had been
considered literary miracle, and the dispo-
sition Of an increduIous age to eliminate il:
and now, what was the result CT all this
labor but transpositionEa magnifying Of
the miraclsi For.what other is it than a
miracle if we add SIX cubits and span to
the stature of Gohah: or increase the strength
of Hercules by superadding Sarlson's; or
augment the wisdom Of Solomon with
that OF Socratesl For surely he does
no less than these who doubles the in
tellectual stature of Francis Bacon, who,
from his known works, is adjudged by almost
all great critics to have been the greatest man
that ever Hved-Shakespeare alone, if any,
matching him in greatness. If it should be
proved that Bacon should stand upon the
shoulders Of his only supposed conpeer to be
measured for bis niche IN faInes temple;
that, bisected, be was the greatest two men
that ever IiveG-have we not nliracles No
But we have more, for there be phenomena
that are greater than any miracle, and this
is one If the pen that wrote tie Essays,
the Advancement of Learning and the new
Organon, wrote, also. not only Lear"
ssIIamlet," Macbeth" "Othellon and "Ju-
Ius Cesar" but Romeo and Juliet, Mid