except to their provincial neighbours,” proves that both these works were composed after Shakespeare had been for some time a resident in London, and indeed it is ridiculous to suppose that it took him eight years to find a publisher for _Venus and Adonis_. Donnelly deciphered the Bishop of Worcester’s opinion that Shakespeare was “a butcher’s rude and vulgar apprentice,” who “in our opinion was not likely to have writ them (the Plays).” “In our opinion” is scarcely evidence. Mr. Bayley’s contemptuous reference to Shakespeare’s handwriting as “five strange scrawls,” is combated by Spedding’s authoritative dictum, and his immediately succeeding conclusion that the classical allusions and references in the Plays prove the author to have been “a cultured aristocrat,” robs his entire argument of sapiency or merit. Mr. Harold Bayley’s _The Tragedy of Francis Bacon_, is, in my opinion, an inconsequential contribution to the controversy. In the chapter on Papermarks, his contention that every fresh device necessitates a new mould (p. 38) is correct, but his deductions are senseless; the fact being that the paper is contributed from very many--mostly foreign--mills. Take one of Caxton’s books--say, _The Golden Legend_--and you will find 50 different water-marks in one volume; if all the copies could be examined, probably double or treble the number would be revealed. One hasn’t the patience to follow Mr. Bayley’s “reasoning”: he believes one of the paper-marks (No. 55) to be Rosicrucian--it is the Divine monogram, and traceable to the first century. No. 14, the “fool’s-cap,” gives the name to a size of paper still extant--so of the vase, or “pott.” The symbols are allusive, heraldic, or “canting,” mostly emblematic, or in rebus form. That is all. What more natural for the paper-maker _Lile_ than to take the Fleur-de-lys for his trade symbol? With respect to printers’ headlines, tail-pieces, etc., they were (and are) simply fancy types used for decorative purposes. The oak, and its fruit the acorn--the rose, Tudor or otherwise, the lily, typifying our conquest of France, only erased from the Royal Arms _temp._ George III., would all, from a national standpoint, become the commonest form of ornament, and each, in its turn, lend itself to the fancy of the designer, who, Mr. Bayley would have us think, were all under the direction of Francis Bacon, who wove a wonderful story by this puerile means. As for the printers’ “hieroglyphics,” as Mr. Bayley calls them, they have been used almost from the invention of the art to the present time. Amongst publishers, too, they are common. The printer of _The Tragedy of Sir Francis Bacon_ employs one: a lion supporting the trade symbol of Aldus. I have not consulted Mr. Whittingham, but (if he knows anything at all about it) he would probably say the device signifies that he is the English successor of the Venetian printer! [Illustration]