Yet he does not forget finally to add "I do ... require my Dukedome of thee, which perforce I know thou must restore."
The falsely crowned and gilded king of the Island who had stolen the wine (the poetry) "where should they find this grand liquor that hath gilded them" and whose name is Stephanos (Greek for crown) throws off at the close of the play, his false crown while Caliban says "What a thrice double asse was I to take this drunkard for a God."
The mighty Magician Prospero says "knowing I lov'd my bookes, he furnished me from mine own Library, with volumes, that I prize above my Dukedome." Bacon when he was dismissed from his high offices, devoted himself to his books. Not a book of any kind was found at New Place, Stratford. Bacon's brother "whom next himself he loved" was called Anthony. "Gentle" Shakespeare of Stratford died from the effects of a "Drunken" bout!
It does matter whether it is thought that the Immortal works were written by the sordid money-lender of Stratford, the "Swine without a head, without braine, wit, anything indeed, Ramping to Gentilitie"; or were written by him who was himself the "Greatest Birth of Time"; the man pre-eminently distinguished amongst the sons of earth; the man who in order to "do good to all mankind," disguised his personality "in a despised weed," and wrote under the name of William Shakespeare.
It does matter, and England is now declining any longer to dishonour and defame the greatest Genius of all time by continuing to identify him with the mean, drunken, ignorant, and absolutely unlettered, rustic of Stratford who never in his life wrote so much as his own name and in all probability was totally unable to read one single line of print.
The hour has come for revealing the truth. The hour has come when it is no longer necessary or desirable that the world should remain in ignorance that the Great Author of Shakespeare's Plays was himself alive when the Folio was published in 1623. The hour has come when all should know that this the greatest book produced by man was given to the world more carefully edited by its author as to every word in every column, as to every italic in every column, as to every apparent misprint in every column, than any book had ever before been edited, and more exactly printed than there seems any reasonable probability that any book will ever again be printed that may be issued in the future.
The hour has come when it is desirable and necessary to state with the utmost distinctness that
BACON IS SHAKESPEARE.
[Illustration: Plate XX. Reduced Facsimile of Page 136 of the Shakespeare Folio, 1623]
[Illustration: Plate XXI. Portion of Page 136, full size, as in the Shakespeare Folio 1623]