He may also have divined all the Doll Tearsheets and Mrs. Quicklys
and Pistols, whom, conceivably, he did not much frequent.
I am not one of those who deny that Bacon might have written Hamlet
"if he had the mind," as Charles Lamb said of Wordsworth. Not at
all; I am the last to limit the potentialities of genius.
But suppose, merely for the sake of argument, that Will Shakspere too
had genius in that amazing degree which, in Henry V, the Bishop of
Ely and the Archbishop of Canterbury describe and discuss in the case
of the young king. In this passage we perceive that the poet had
brooded over and been puzzled by the "miracle" (he uses the word) of
genius. Says Canterbury speaking of the Prince's wild youth,
"Never was such a sudden scholar made."
One Baconian objection to Shakespeare's authorship is that during his
early years in London (say 1587-92) he was "such a sudden scholar
made" in various things.
The young king's
"addiction was to courses vain,
His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow,"
precisely like Shakespeare's courses and companions at Stratford
"Had never noted in him any study."
Stratford tradition, a century after Shakespeare left the town, did
not remember "any study" in him; none had been "noted," nor could
have been remembered. To return to Henry, he shines in divinity,
knowledge of "commonwealth affairs,"
"You would say, it hath been all in all his study.
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