TWO GERMAN OPINIONS ON SHAKESPEARE AND BACON. Dr. G. G. Gervinus, the eminent German Historian and Professor Extraordinary at Heidelberg, published in 1849 his work, "Shakespeare Commentaries." This was years before any suggestion had been made that Bacon was in any way connected with the authorship of the Shakespearean dramas. In the Prospectus of "The New Shakespeare Society," written in 1873, Dr. F. J. Furnivall says:-- "The profound and generous 'Commentaries' of Gervinus--an honour to a German to have written, a pleasure to an Englishman to read--is still the only book known to me that comes near the true treatment and the dignity of its subject, or can be put into the hands of the student who wants to know the mind of Shakespeare." The book abounds with references to Bacon. From the Preface to the last chapter Gervinus appears to have Bacon continually suggested to him by the thoughts and words of Shakespeare. In the Preface, after speaking of the value accruing to German literature by naturalizing Shakespeare "even at the risk of casting our own poets still further in the shade," he says:-- "A similar benefit would it be to our intellectual life if his famed contemporary, Bacon, were revived in a suitable manner, in order to counterbalance the idealistic philosophy of Germany. For both these, the poet as well as the philosopher, having looked deeply into the history and politics of their people, stand upon the level ground of reality, notwithstanding the high art of the one and the speculative notions of the other. By the healthfulness of their own mind they influence the healthfulness of others, while in their most ideal and most abstract representations they aim at a preparation for life _as it is_--for _that_ life which forms the exclusive subject of all political action." In the chapter on "His Age," written prior to 1849, the Professor pours out the results of a profound study of the writings attributed to both men in the following remarkable sentences:-- "Judge then how natural it was that England, if not the birthplace of the drama, should be that of dramatic legislature. Yet even this instance of favourable concentration is not the last. Both in philosophy and poetry everything conspired, as it were, throughout this prosperous period, in favour of two great minds, Shakespeare and Bacon; all competitors vanished from their side, and they could give forth laws for art and science which it is incumbent even upon present ages to fulfil. As the revived philosophy, which in the former century in Germany was divided among many, but in England at that time was the possession of a single man, so poetry also found one exclusive heir, compared with whom those later born could claim but little.