Separately printed dramas published
during his time carry his name on their title-pages, but are not
included in the first collected edition of his dramas, "The First
Folio," put forth by two of his friends and fellow-actors, in 1623,
seven years after his death.
On all these matters did commentators, critics, and antiquarians for
long dispute; but none denied that the actor, Will Shakspere (spelled
as heaven pleased), was in the main the author of most of the plays
of 1623, and the sole author of Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, and the
Sonnets.
Even now, in England at least, it would be perhaps impossible to find
one special and professed student of Elizabethan literature, and of
the classical and European literatures, who does not hold by the
ancient belief, the belief of Shakespeare's contemporaries and
intimates, the belief that he was, in the sense explained above, the
author of the plays.
But ours is not a generation to be overawed by "Authority" (as it is
called). A small but eager company of scholars have convinced
themselves that Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespearean plays. That is
the point of agreement among these enthusiasts: points of difference
are numerous: some very wild little sects exist. Meanwhile
multitudes of earnest and intelligent men and women, having read
notices in newspapers of the Baconian books, or heard of them at
lectures and tea-parties, disbelieve in the authorship of "the
Stratford rustic," and look down on the faithful of Will Shakespere
with extreme contempt.
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