Mr. Wilkes, however, may reasonably reply that while he may or may not agree with this view of English literature, there is in either case an American point of view as to every subject--a view taken from the position in which Americans stand politically and socially; a position which affects their vision and their judgment of all subjects, including literature, even in the form of dramatic poetry, the most absolute form in which it can exist. He is to a certain extent right; and waiving the question as to whether such a view is likely to have any peculiar value, particularly in regard to dramatic poems produced in the other hemisphere nearly three hundred years ago, let us see what in this guise Mr. Wilkes has to present to us. He opens his book with a reference to the "Baconian theory," as it is called; that is, the notion that the plays published in 1623 as "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies," were actually written by the great Bacon, incorrectly called Lord Bacon. This notion, which may in a certain sense be called "American," because of its setting forth by Miss Delia Bacon, a New England woman, some twenty years ago, is not and never was worth five minutes' serious consideration by any sane human being. It is too foolish to be talked about. No man who really knows anything about the subject has ever given this fancy a moment's entertainment; and we regret to see that Mr. Wilkes is at the pains of examining it carefully all through his book. It is not worthy of refutation. We therefore set small store by the probabilities which he accumulates against it. There is no more ground for reasonable doubt that William Shakespeare did and Francis Bacon did not write the plays attributed to the former than there is for doubt that Horace Greeley did and William Henry Seward did not edit the "Tribune" between the years 1845 and 1865. That Bacon was their author is indeed an American point of view, it having been taken not only by Miss Bacon, but by Judge Holmes of Missouri, and by an unknown American writer in "Frazer's Magazine" for August, 1874. But we are inclined to think that Miss Bacon's book is unknown to Mr. Wilkes except at second hand, else he would not speak of that tremendous octavo tome as a "pamphlet," which he does twice. It was as heavy metaphorically as it was in avoirdupois. It fell dead from the press. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote the introduction to it, says in his "Old Home" that he believes that it never had but one reader, a young man of his acquaintance. He probably had not seen Mr. Grant White's statement, made in some of his Shakespearian books or writings, that "for his sins" he had read every word of it. And we must say from our knowledge of it, that the reading ought to go largely to his credit in his account with purgatory. Judge Holmes's book is very able and ingenious; so much so that it is to be regretted that he did not give his learning and his reasoning powers to better business.