Like Alceste
(in Le Misanthrope of Poquelin), he might say,
"L'Ami du genre humain n'est point du tout mon fait."
In London, not in Stratford, he could and did find his mob. This
reminds one to ask, how did the Court-haunting, or the study-
haunting, or law-court, and chamber of criminal examination-rooms
haunting Bacon make acquaintance with Mrs. Quickly, and Doll
Tearsheet, and drawers, and carters, and Bardolph, and Pistol, and
copper captains, and all Shakespeare's crowd of people hanging loose
on the town?
It is much easier to discover how Shakespeare found the tone and
manners of courtly society (which, by the way, are purely poetic and
conventional), than to find out where Bacon got his immense knowledge
of what is called "low life."
If you reply, as regards Bacon, "his genius divined the Costards and
Audreys, the Doll Tearsheets and tapsters, and drawers, and
Bardolphs, and carters, from a hint or two, a glance," I answer that
Will had much better sources for THEM in his own experience of life,
and had conventional poetic sources for his courtiers--of whom, in
the quick, he saw quite as much as Moliere did of his Marquis.
But one Baconian has found out a more excellent way of accounting for
Bacon's pictures of rude rustic life, and he is backed by Lord
Penzance, that aged Judge. The way is short. These pictures of
rural life and character were interpolated into the plays of Bacon by
his collaborator, William Shakspere, actor, "who prepared the plays
for the stage.
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