Had no child after twenty years' marriage. "The noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men. -Bacon's Essays, 1612. Admitted to the bar at Child born five months after marriage. "The less that is said about the matter the better." - White's Shak., p. 49. Absconded from Stratford to London at twentytwenty-two or twenty-three. twenty-one; elected to An ideal tableau of the youthful statesman is gaily depicted by Wm. Hepworth Dixon, in his "Personal History of Lord Bacon:" "How he appears in outward guise and aspect among these courtly and martial contemporaries the miniature of Hilyard helps us to conceive. Slight in build, rosy and round in flesh, dight in a sumptuous suit, the head well-set, erect, and framed in a thick starched fence of frill; a bloom of study and travel on the fat, girlish face, which looks far younger than his years; the hat and feather tossed aside from the white brow, over which. crisps and curls a mane of dark, soft hair; an English nose, firm, open, straight; a mouth delicate and small-a lady's or jester's mouth-a thousand pranks and humors, quibbles, whims. and laughters lurking in its twinkling, tremulous lines;—such is Francis Bacon at the age of twenty-four." Bearing in mind that Bacon is three years and three months older than Shakspere, we will now parallel their lives by successive years. *If the Parliament met November 23, 1584, as Mr. Spedding, distinctly says, then Bacon was not yet twenty-four. A. D. 1585. Bacon at 24, in a letter to the Queen's principal secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham, urges his some time pending suit, which is to determine his " course of practice "supposed to mean a shortening of the five years' probation required to become a pleader. He writes an essay entitled "Greatest Birth of Time," foreshadowing his scientific works. His mother in her zeal for the Nonconformists urges their cause in person before Lord Treasurer Burleigh, and follows it by a letter to the same in which she says: "I confess as one that hath found mercy, that I have profited more in the inward feeling knowledge of God his holy will, though but in small measure, by an ordinary preaching within these seven or eight years, than I did by hearing odd sermons at Paul's well nigh twenty years together." 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 Wilłiam may have gone to London this year or the next. he not a concealed poet? Was he not "Corydon "? Was he not "Ignoto"? But what evidence is there that Raleigh used that signature? The "Faery Queen" was publicly dedicated to him, and in the Sonnet addressed to him as one of Spenser's patrons, a forthcoming poem by Raleigh is announced thus: "Yet, till that thou thy poem wilt make known, Let thy fair Cynthia's praises be thus rudely shown." That poem was known to Spenser, who in the Dedication said he had fashioned his Queen "according to your [Raleigh's] own excellent conceit of Cyn. thia," i. e., Queen Elizabeth. Furthermore, Raleigh contributed two Sonnets in praise of Spenser's "Faery Queen;" these he subscribed with his own initials. Did he at the same time write another encomium and sign it "Ignoto"? There are sixteen pieces in the "Helicon" subscribed "Ignoto." One of these, "The Nymph's Reply" is ascribed to Raleigh on the testimony of Walton in 1653; and two others are believed by the editor of the third edition, 1812, to belong to Raleigh, because in an early copy of the same "Ignoto" was found pasted over "W. R." Upon such flimsy evidence the modern editor infers that the signature "Ignoto" was "generally, though not exclusively, (his own italics,) subscribed to the pieces of Sir Walter Raleigh." The next piece after "The Nymph's Reply" in the "Helicon " is the following by "Ignoto:" Another of the same nature made since. And we will revel all the year, In plains and groves, on hills and dales, There shall you have the beauteous pine, The seat for your disport shall be Where silver sands and pebbles sing There shall you see the nymphs at play, The birds, with heavenly tuned throats, Upon the bare and leafless oak Ten thousand glow-worms shall attend, Your lodging with most majesty. Then in mine arms will I enclose Lily's fair mixture with the rose; Thus as we pass the welcome night Who will say that this is not equal to the first song ascribed to Marlowe? What couplet in that surpasses this one? "Where silver sands and pebbles sing Or this? "Ten thousand glow-worms shall attend, And all their sparkling lights shall spend.” For parallels with the first of these couplets take the following: "Silver stream." Much Ado, iii, 1. "Sing no more ditties." Ibid, ii, 1. K. John, ii, 1. “ The murmuring surge That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes." Ibid, iv, 6. For a single parallel with the second couplet take this: "Twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be." M. W. Windsor, v, 5. Similar parallels may be found with other lines of the song. Now are we to believe that Marlowe wrote the first song, and Raleigh the other two signed "Ignoto "? Is it not far more rational and consistent to believe that all three were written by the same pen? Again, Barnfield has two pieces in the "Helicon," and the editor ascribes to him another signed “Ignoto ”—No. xxi, "As it fell upon a day "—while Allibone, in his Dictionary of Authors, makes him the |