"Taming of the Shrew."—I cannot help thinking that Christopher Sly merely means that he is fourteenpence on the score for sheer ale,—nothing but ale; neither bread nor meat, horse housing, or bed.
He has drunk the entire amount, and glories in his iniquity, like a true tippler.
G. H. K.
Lord Bacon and Shakspeare.—Can any of those correspondents of "N. & Q." who have devoted attention to the lives of two of England's greatest worthies, Francis Bacon and William Shakspeare, account for the extraordinary fact that, although these two highly gifted men were cotemporaries, no mention of or allusion to the other is to be found in the writings of either? Bacon was born in 1561, and died in 1626; Shakspeare, who was born in 1563, and died ten years before the great chancellor, not only loved
"To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy,"
but breathes throughout every page of his wondrous writings a spirit of philosophy as profound as his imagination is unlimited; yet nowhere, it is believed, can he be traced as making the slight allusion to the great father of modern philosophy. Bacon, on the other hand, whom one can scarcely suppose to have been ignorant of the writings of the dramatist, but who indeed may rather be believed to have known him personally, seems altogether to ignore his existence, or the existence of any of his matchless works. As the solution of this problem could not but throw much light on that most interesting subject,—the history of the minds of Shakespeare and Bacon,—I venture to throw it out as a fit subject for the research of some of your contributors versed in the writings of these great spirits of their own age, no less than of all time.
Theta.
Minor Notes.
Decomposed Cloth.—In Mr. Wright's valuable work on The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, p. 308., is mentioned the discovery at York of a Roman coffin, in which were distinctly visible "the colour, a rich purple," as well as texture of the cloth with which the body it had contained had been covered.