Yet the Baconians find no difficulty in accepting this explanation of secrecy--Mr. A. P. Sinnett regards the motive as perfectly intelligible. Bacon, he contends, was not writing his plays for fame, but for the money it brought him. Mr. Theobald contends that the plays could not have been written by Shakespeare because he was too busily employed in “carving his own fortune” ... “filling his pockets” ... “working for the present, not for the future,” to devote the necessary leisure to literary pursuits. Bacon himself, according to the bi-literal cipher discoveries of Mrs. Gallup, declares that so far from receiving remuneration for his plays, he paid “a sufficient reward in gold” to Shakespeare for the use of his name. “He was left quite without resources,” Mr. Sinnett explains, “and he took up dramatic writing for the sake of the money it earned him.” Before we are won over by this fallacious explanation, we would inquire how it was that Bacon, who was left without resources in 1577, did not produce his first play until 1591, and then paid for the luxury of concealing his indiscretion. Mr. Sinnett’s next sentence is instructive as a specimen of Baconian reasoning. “After Bacon obtained an office of profit at forty-six, no more Shakespeare plays appeared, though the reputed author lived for ten more years in dignified leisure at Stratford.” It may, of course, be regarded as a “shallow objection” to raise, but Bacon was fifty-one years of age when Shakespeare retired to Stratford. Moreover, Bacon obtained no office of profit in 1611. He was made Solicitor-General, and became a rich man, in 1607, but until his appointment to the Attorney-Generalship in 1613 he was continually suing for promotion and applying for a better paid office. It is, indeed, significant that Bacon was silent as a playwright from the time of Shakespeare’s retirement. When he was Chancellor, and enjoyed a yearly income equal to between £60,000 and £70,000 of our money, he continued to compose his scientific works, and he was still actively engaged in the task between 1621 and 1626 when he was again reduced to comparative penury, and the more remunerative employment of play-writing would have relieved his financial position without detriment to his political prospects. The source from whence he could have augmented his inadequate income was neglected while he employed himself in writing a _Digest of the Laws of England_, _The History of Henry VII._, _Sylva Sylvarum_, _Augmentis Scientiarum_, _The Dialogue of the Holy War_, some additional _Essays_, and the translation of “certain Psalms into English verse.” Bacon, according to Baconians, produced his plays during the busiest period of his political career, and in the days of his leisure and impecuniosity--“when Shakespeare was not present to shield him from the disgrace of possessing poetic and dramatic genius”--he produced his versification of the Psalms. [Illustration: ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX. O.B. 1601.