The Bacon- Shakespeare Folly 355 



ballad theory is dead and buried, and lie who would 

 read its obituary may find keen pleasure, as well 

 as many a wholesome lesson in sound criticism, in 

 the sensible and brilliant book by Andrew Lang 

 on &quot; Homer and the Epic.&quot; 



The Bacon-Shakespeare folly has never been 

 set forth by scholars of commanding authority, 

 like Wolf and Lachmann, or Niese and Wila- 

 mowitz Moellendorff. Among Delia Bacon s fol 

 lowers not one can by any permissible laxity of 

 speech be termed a scholar, and their theory has 

 found acceptance with very few persons. Never 

 theless, it illustrates as well as the Wolfian theory 

 the way in which such notions grow. It starts 

 from a false premise, hazily conceived, and it sub 

 sists upon arguments in which trivial facts are 

 assigned higher value than facts of vital impor 

 tance. Mr. Lang s remark upon certain learned 

 Homeric commentators, &quot; that they pore over the 

 hyssop on the wall, but are blind to the cedar 

 of Lebanon,&quot; applies with tenfold force to the 

 Bacon-Shakespeare sciolists. In them we always 

 miss the just sense of proportion which is one of 

 the abiding marks of sanity. The unfortunate 

 lady who first brought their theory into public 

 notoriety in 1857 was then sinking under the cere 

 bral disease of which she died two years later, and 



