There was nothing within the range of human thought, within the horizon of intellectual effort, that he did not touch. He knew the brain and heart of man—the theories, customs, superstitions, hopes, fears, hatreds, vices and virtues of the human race.
He knew the thrills and ecstasies of love, the savage joys of hatred and revenge. He heard the hiss of envy's snakes and watched the eagles of ambition soar. There was no hope that did not put its star above his head—no fear he had not felt—no joy that had not shed its sunshine on his face. He experienced the emotions of mankind. He was the intellectual spendthrift of the world. He gave with the generosity, the extravagance, of madness.
Read one play, and you are impressed with the idea that the wealth of the brain of a god has been exhausted—that there are no more comparisons, no more passions to be expressed, no more definitions, no more philosophy, beauty, or sublimity to be put in words—and yet, the next play opens as fresh as the dewy gates of another day.
The outstretched wings of his imagination filled the sky. He was the intellectual crown o' the earth.
V.
THE plays of Shakespeare show so much knowledge, thought and learning, that many people—those who imagine that universities furnish capacity—contend that Bacon must have been the author.
We know Bacon. We know that he was a scheming politician, a courtier, a time-server of church and king, and a corrupt judge. We know that he never admitted the truth of the Copernican system—that he was doubtful whether instruments were of any advantage in scientific investigation—that he was ignorant of the higher branches of mathematics, and that, as a matter of fact, he added but little to the knowledge of the world. When he was more than sixty years of age he turned his attention to poetry, and dedicated his verses to George Herbert.
If you will read these verses you will say that the author of "Lear" and "Hamlet" did not write them.
Bacon dedicated his work on the Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human, to James I., and in his dedication he stated that there had not been, since the time of Christ, any king or monarch so learned in all erudition, divine or human. He placed James the First before Marcus Aurelius and all other kings and emperors since Christ, and concluded by saying that James the First had "the power and fortune of a king, the illumination of a priest, the learning and universality of a philosopher." This was written of James the First, described by Macaulay as a "stammering, slobbering, trembling coward, whose writings were deformed by the grossest and vilest superstitions—witches being the special objects of his fear, his hatred, and his persecution."
It seems to have been taken for granted that if Shakespeare was not the author of the great dramas, Lord Bacon must have been.