It may be worth while here to quote the similar testimony which is borne by John Davies of Hereford who in his "Scourge of Folly" published about 1610, writes "To the royall, ingenious, and all-learned Knight,-- Sr Francis Bacon. Thy _bounty_ and the _Beauty_ of thy Witt Comprisd in Lists of _Law_ and learned _Arts_, Each making thee for great _Imployment_ fitt Which now thou hast, (though short of thy deserts) Compells my pen to let fall shining _Inke_ And to bedew the _Baies_ that _deck_ thy _Front_;-- And to thy health in _Helicon_ to drinke As to her _Bellamour_ the _Muse_ is wont: For thou dost her embozom; and dost vse Her company for sport twixt grave affaires; So vtterst Law the liuelyer through thy _Muse_. And for that all thy _Notes_ are sweetest _Aires_; _My Muse thus notes thy worth in eu'ry Line, With yncke which thus she sugers; so, to shine_." But nothing can much exceed in value the testimony of Ben Jonson who in his "Discoveries," 1641, says "But his learned, and able (though unfortunate) _Successor_ [Bacon in margin] is he, who hath fill'd up all numbers, and perform'd that in our tongue, which may be compar'd or preferr'd either to insolent _Greece_, or haughty _Rome_." "He who hath filled up all numbers" means unquestionably "He that hath written every kind of poetry."[5] Alexander Pope the poet declares that he himself "lisped in numbers for the numbers came." Ben Jonson therefore bears testimony to the fact that Bacon was so great a poet that he had in poetry written that "which may be compar'd or preferr'd either to insolent _Greece_ or haughty _Rome_." But in 1623 Ben Jonson had said of the AUTHOR of the plays _"Or when thy sockes were on Leaue thee alone, for the comparison Of all, that insolent_ Greece _or haughtie_ Rome _Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come."_ Surely the statements in the "Discoveries" were intended to tell us who was the AUTHOR of the plays. After perusing these contemporary evidences, and they might be multiplied, it is difficult to understand how anyone can venture to dispute Bacon's position as pre-eminent in poetry. But it may be of interest to those who doubt whether Bacon (irrespective of any claim to the authorship of the plays) could be deemed to be a great poet, to quote here the words of Percy Bysshe Shelley, who in his "Defence of Poetry" says "Bacon was a poet. His language has a sweet and majestic rhythm, which satisfies the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his philosophy satisfies the intellect. It is a strain which distends and then bursts the circumference of the reader's mind, and pours itself forth together with it into the universal element with which it has perpetual sympathy."