or to whatever the nearest actor or scene-shifter may happen to hit on when he wants the poor little "supernumerary," and "Joannes Factotum"--actually lived to clamber astride of the most immortal birthright of bis own or of any century, and has clung thereon like another old man of the sea on Sinbad's shoulders, and been carried down through these three hundred years, and is being carried yet, down or up, to an undeterminate immortality of fame that is the true estate of somebody else! For, not only has the world not yet gotten its eyes half open, but it contumaciously refuses, to open them to the facts in the case, and prefers to hug as tightly as it ever did this stupendous hoax--("_Shakespearean_" indeed, in that it has outlasted and outlived all the other hoaxes put together--the witchcraft hoax, the Chatterton hoax, the Ossian hoax, the moon hoax, and all the rest of them); that has carried all sorts of parasite hoaxes, like Ireland's, Collier's, and Cunningham's upon its back, until their little day has been accomplished, and they have dropped off, just as, one of these days, the present hoax must drop off, and breathe its last, without a single mourner to stand by the coffin, and confess himself its disciple. {174} PART IV. EXTRA SHAKESPEAREAN THEORIES: THE DELIA BACON THEORY. [Illustration: 9180] HERE is a legal maxim to the effect that he who destroys should be able to build up. The anti-Shakespeareans have not neglected to observe it. The days when William Shakespeare first appeared in London, happened to be the days when the Renaissance had reached England, and the drama which began then for the first time to be produced, was the English Renaissant Drama--just throwing off the crudities of the old miracle and mystery plays borrowed from the continent, and beginning to be English and original. Moreover, letters and learning, so long exclusively confined to the rich and gentle, began to find expressions in other ranks. "The mob of gentlemen who write with ease" were, one and all, beginning to use their pens. There were no village newspapers with their "Poet's Corners," and these writers sent their manuscripts through the only channel at hand--the green-room door.