356 A Century of Science 



her imitators have been chiefly weak minds of the 

 sort that thrive upon paradox, closely akin to the 

 circle-squarers and inventors of perpetual niotion. 

 Underlying all the absurdities, however, there is 

 something that deserves attention. Like many 

 other morbid phenomena, the Bacon-Shakespeare 

 folly has its natural history which is instructive. 

 The vagaries of Delia Bacon and her followers 

 originated in a group of conditions which admit of 

 being specified and described, and which the histo 

 rian of nineteenth-century literature will need to 

 notice. In order to understand the natural history 

 of the affair, it is necessary to examine the Delia 

 Bacon theory at greater length than it would other 

 wise deserve. Let us see how it is constructed. 



It starts with a syllogism, of which the major 

 premise is that the dramas ascribed to Shakespeare 

 during his lifetime, and ever since believed to be 

 his, abound in evidences of extraordinary book- 

 learning. The minor premise is that William 

 Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon could not have 

 acquired or possessed so much book-learning. The 

 conclusion is that he could not have written those 

 plays. 



The question then arises, Which of Shake 

 speare s contemporaries had enough book-lore to 

 have written them ? No doubt Francis Bacon had 



