Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-07-17

The heat of summer, hard times and all
the ills flesh is heir to do not throw any re-
strant about the ardor of Shakespearian
students. OF late such western lumnaries
as Waite and Pennoyer have led the world
at large to look upon Ignatius Donnelly as
a lesser light But the American Bac )nians
have recently received unexpected succor
from a German scholar. Edwin Bormann.
He has issued a book entitled 1.-The Shakes
peare Secret" This contains comparisons
between the prose and verse writings of
Lord Bacon in Latin and English with the
works of the so-caled greatest pet of the
world. A recent reviewer of the work says:
ain so doing he had recourse to no less
than 40 works, some of them very little
known, besides a great number of lesser
writings, pamphlets, etc. He shows how
the Bacon thoughts are embodied, often in
almost identical words, in the plays and
sonnets, and that even the scientific errors
of Bacon are reproduced. After this long
period of time Shakespeare died April %,
| 1910; Bacon died April 10, 1860 the
evidence adduced is, of course, cir
cumstantial and inferental only; never
theless, the unbiased mind must come to the
conclusion that Bormann has irref1ta-
bly, established his case. 1t is interesting
to note some of the points on which his de-
ductions are based: 0) Bacon strongly
advocated secretiveness (silence,) leaving
neither memoirs nor autobiography behind
him; (2) he does not mention Shakspere,
nor does Shakspere Cor rather Shakespeare
mention him, although they must have been
well known to each other, and yet in both
writings are to be found illusions
| BY the one to the other; (3)
this fact is in direct conflict with the
copous notes made by Bacon as aids to
memory; (4) Bacon was strong advocate
of the theatre as a means of teaching scien-
titic and other truths, and of these the plays
are made up; 90 he declares parabolic poe
try to be the highest form of that art and in
cludes verse among the sciences; (6) Bacon
wrote a very clear and evidently flowing
hand whereas Shakespeare evidently copied
his labored signatures from printed type;
| % Shakespeare's daughter, Judith, at
the age of 81 signed document with
what is little better than a hieroglyph;
! (S) he passed (probably) the last ten to
twelve years of his life at his native place,
| far from any literary entre,wnereas bacon
lived in the midst of literary surroundings;
90 the appearance of fresh plays followed
the completion of new prose works by Ba-
con, and these new productions came to
light in proportion to the leisure at Bacon's
disposal; D0l Bacon's parents were both
highly cultured. Bormanu shows as fol-
lows; namely, (D that The Tempest" is
a dramatic parable on 1.-THE His
tory of the Winds" CD Hamlet
lis the outcome of Bacon's Anthropol-
ogy (''The History of Life and Death, of
the Spirit of all things, the Animal and
Human Soul" etc. y (3) liking Lear" a.
Loves Lsbours Lost and (5) king
Henry VII" are intended to depict the
passions, virtues and vices of the respective
characters appearing therein and that (6)
in these plays all but those filling minor
parts have names appropriate thereto. The
author of this epoch-making work has sur
prised those who do not know him more
closely by his profound pathological and
philosophical knowledge, by his logic and
inductive reasoning"