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 " The Merry Wives of Windsor " I 



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, 



