Bacon and Shakspere Part 9

Shakspere at 21 is still living at Stratford, the father of three children-two of them twins. His father is said to have been a butcher as well as a dealer in wool; and gossiping John Aubrey says he was told by some of the neighbors that when the boy William "kill'd a calfe, he wold doe it in a high style, and make a speeche."

Mr. Richard Grant White guesses that William may have gone to London this year or the next.

[48]

A. D. 1586.

Bacon at 25 writes a letter, May 6th, to Lord Treasurer Burleigh, his uncle, saying:

"I find in my simple observation that they which live as it were _in umbra_ and not in public or frequent action, how moderately and modestly soever they behave themselves, yet _laborant inmdia_. I find also that such persons as are of nature bashful (as myself is,) whereby they want that plausible familiarity which others have, are often mistaken for proud. But once I know well, and I most humbly beseech your Lords.h.i.+p to believe that arrogancy and overweening is so far from my nature, as, if I think well of myself in anything, it is in this, that I am free from that vice."

He is again elected to Parliament. The conspirators who attempted to liberate Mary of Scotland have been tried, condemned, and sentenced. The case is brought before the Parliament. Bacon is one of the speakers in "the Great Cause," and one of the committees to whom it is referred.

Shakspere at 22 is probably still at Stratford, though Mr. White presumes he has become connected with the London stage this year, or perhaps a little later.

[To be continued to the end of both lives, making a book of 300 pages or more, including this pamphlet as an appendix, with important additions. All the essential facts of Lord Bacon's life will be presented, whereby his secret authors.h.i.+p will be more abundantly proved, and his moral character vindicated against the aspersions of 260 years.]