If Bacon was the “true Shakespeare,” as Mr. Theobald calls him, the question naturally arises as to his motive in concealing the authorship of the plays and the poems. Baconians explain this extraordinary act of reticence on the ground that dramatic authorship was held in low esteem, and that the fact, if known, would have proved an obstacle to his advancement at Court. This contention, though fully borne out by Bacon’s cipher writings, is ridiculous in the extreme. In the first place, it was not the profession of dramatic authorship, but the calling of the actor that was held in low esteem. Furthermore, poetry was not under the ban that attached to the stage, and it cannot be denied that the acknowledged authorship of _Venus and Adonis_, of _Lucrece_, or of the _Sonnets_, would have won for Bacon more favour at Elizabeth’s Court than he ever secured by his philosophy. Poetry was held in high esteem; sonneteering was the vogue. Buckingham, in the next reign, wrote a play, _The Rehearsal_, and Essex had composed a masque. The publication of _The Faerie Queene_, in 1589, secured for Edmund Spenser an introduction to the Queen, who made him her poet laureate in the same year. Why should Bacon have persisted in devoting himself to a branch of literature which appears to have advanced his interests so little? Elizabeth was never impressed by his genius; she acknowledged his great wit and learning, but accounted him “not deep.” James criticised his philosophy with lofty captiousness, and compared his _Novum Organum_ to “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.” It would be neither discreditable to his pride as a poet, nor contrary to the nature of the man, to believe that if he could safely have claimed the authorship of _Lucrece_ and _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, he would not have hesitated for an hour in so doing. _Venus and Adonis_ won for Shakespeare the favour of Elizabeth, while, under the sovereignty of her successor, Shakespeare’s company gave between forty and fifty performances at Court during the first five years of his reign. Is it not rather absurd to believe that Bacon should have remained quiescent while his unavowed work was being acclaimed as “immortal,” and the works published under his own name were either neglected, or treated to a contemptuous _mot_ by the very person whose admiration he was feverishly striving to attract?