390 A Century of Science 



of all writers in the world Shakespeare is the most 

 completely objective, the most absorbed in the 

 work of creation. In the one writer you are al 

 ways reminded of the man Bacon ; in the other 

 the personality is never thrust into sight. Bacon 

 is highly self-conscious ; from Shakespeare self- 

 consciousness is absent. 



The contrast is equally great in respect of 

 humour. I would not deny that Bacon relished 

 a joke, or could perpetrate a pun ; but the bub 

 bling, seething, frolicsome, irrepressible drollery of 

 Shakespeare is something quite foreign to him. 

 Read his essays, and you get charming English, 

 wide knowledge, deep thought, keen observation, 

 worldly wisdom, good humour, sweet serenity; 

 but exuberant fun is not there. In writing these 

 essays Bacon was following an example set by 

 Montaigne, but, as contrasted with the delicate effer 

 vescent humour of the Frenchman, his style seems 

 sober and almost insipid. Only fancy such a man 

 trying to write &quot; The Merry Wives of Windsor &quot; ! 



Both Shakespeare and Bacon were sturdy and ra 

 pacious purloiners. They seized upon other men s 

 bright thoughts and made them their own without 

 compunction and without acknowledgment; and 

 this may account for sundry similarities which may 

 be culled from the plays and from Bacon s works, 



