"Lord BACON arrives at Stratford disguised as a bargee. His midnight visit to SHAKSPEARE'S house. The poaching plot hatched. In the churchyard. The Ghost among the tombs. The Ghost discovered to be Queen ELIZABETH, who had followed BACON to Stratford disguised as a Tilbury fish-wife. The Queen buried alive in Stratford churchyard by BACON and SHAKSPEARE. The good Vicar bribed. Their scheme to dress up ANNE HATHAWAY as Queen. Its success. ANNE HATHAWAY reigns twenty years, everybody taking her for ELIZABETH. SHAKSPEARE (stricken with remorse) appears suddenly at the bedside of BACON. Threatens to disclose all. BACON murders SHAKSPEARE. Takes all SHAKSPEARE'S Plays (hitherto unacted, having been rejected by the Managers of the period as 'wholly devoid of dramatic power') out of his pocket, and produces them next day as his own. Success of this plot also. How BACON repents at last. Invents the Cryptogram. Inserts it in the Plays on his deathbed." You will see from this abstract that there are elements of far greater interest in my theory than in Mr. DONNELLY'S, and my publishers sincerely trust that you will insert this letter, as a gratuitous advertisement may help the sale of my forthcoming work, entitled, _Who Killed Shakspeare and Queen Elizabeth?_ Your obedient servant, ARTFUL PLODDER. SIR,--Surely it is impossible to doubt any longer that BACON wrote _Hamlet_. Why, in that play you find him actually confessing his cowardice in not claiming the authorship of his own plays! What else _can_ these words mean? "What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are _arrant knaves all_." Then occurs this truly remarkable sentence:-- "God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another." Given _whom_? Why, BACON himself! Did he not make his face into another's, namely, SHAKSPEARE'S? The case is as clear as noonday. Let the insular cavillers at DONNELLY, just because he is an American, hide their diminished heads. ANTI-HUMBUG. DEAR SIR,--Would one of your readers kindly inform me how Friar BACON could have written SHAKSPEARE? I see by _Little Arthur's History of England_ that the former lived three hundred years before SHAKSPEARE was born. This seems to be a conclusive proof that Mr. DONNELLY is wrong; but though I am very fond of history, I do not profess to be a great historical critic. TILLY SLOWBOY. SIR,--In looking over _Macbeth_, I have found a really remarkable confirmation of Mr. DONNELLY'S cryptographic story. The story relates how, when CECIL told Queen ELIZABETH that SHAKSPEARE'S plays were treasonable, she "rises up, beats HAYWARD with her crutch, and nearly kills him." In Act III., Scene 4, of _Macbeth_, occurs this line,-- "It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood"-- _i.e._, Queen ELIZABETH, being a person of good blood, or high lineage, _will_ have blood, _i.e._, from the head of the person she beats with the crutch.