PVAS LORD BACON AUTHOR OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS? 675 



Nebraska, to Camden, Mo., and bones, teeth and fragments of the tusks of extinct 

 mammals found in this county. The leg bone is now over forty inches. It must 

 have been originally more than four feet; molar more than eleven inches across 

 the crown longest diameter. One of the largest of the extinct mammals ever 

 found. 



Archseology, Shell beads and fish vertebrae found in vase in a mound at 

 Weston, Mo., pottery and rough stone implements from "Old Fort," Saline Co., 

 Mo., and other points along the Missouri River from Omaha, Neb., to St. Louis, 

 Mo, Human bones found in Kansas City eighteen feet beneath the surface em- 

 bedded in the loess. A fine meteorite, and two beautiful cases of minerals. 



All of these were tastefully and appropriately arranged in the rooms of the 

 Institute in the basement of the Unitarian Church on Baltimore Avenue, between 

 loth and nth Streets. 



The officers of the Kansas City Institute are as follows : President, Hon. 

 A. Krekel, Judge U. S. District Court; Vice-President, Hon. Turner A. Gill, 

 Circuit Court No. i, Kansas City; Recording Secretary, Captain E. H. Webster; 

 Corresponding Secretary, Warren Watson, Clerk U. S. District Court ; Treasurer, 

 J. S. Chick; Collector and Curator, Judge E. P. West. 



WAS LORD BACON THE AUTHOR OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS ? 



Mrs. Pott has lately published in England a book concerning Lord Bacon's 

 Promus. The following notes reproduce its striking points : 



The writer of the Preface is of the opinion that the similarities to Bacon in 

 Shakespeare arise merely from the latter having borrowed from Bacon. Many 

 attribute them to their having studied the same books. But this obliges us to 

 believe that from these books two men so different derived identically the same 

 theories and turns of expression, tastes, and antipathies. In looking at the Promus 

 it really seems as if Bacon had been taking notes for Shakespeare. We find in it 

 hundreds of notes of which no trace has been discovered in any of his own writ- 

 ings, or in those of any of his contemporaries except Shakespeare. 



In almost every department of knowledge and opinion we have Bacon's mind 

 in Shakespeare's writings. 



In many cases we have identical forms of speech, words, and uses of words 

 not found in previous or contemporary writers. 



There are recorded in the Promus 203 English proverbs, of which no less 

 than 150 are to be found in Shakespeare, while scarcely one of them is to be 

 found in Bacon's own writings. Why would he have noted them if he had not 

 intended to use them ? 



In one case we find two proverbs combined in the Promus and also in the 

 plays, and yet they do not occur together in the book from which Bacon took 

 them. 



