* Had the plays come down to us anonymously, had the labor of discovering the author been imposed upon after- generations, I think we could have found no one of that day but Bacon to whom to assign this crown. In this case it would have been resting now on his head by almost common consent."--(W. H. Furness to Judge Holmes, third edition of "Authorship of Shakespeare," p. 628). The gray-haired Queen, who in youth had called him her little Lord Keeper, will not lift a hand to aid him in his poverty, or to advance him in the State, regarding him as a man of study rather than of practice and experience; and so Bacon is known to have remained, bemoaning (as he himself says in a letter to Burleigh, written in 1592) "the meanness of my [his] estate; for though I can not accuse myself that I am either prodigal or slothful, yet my health is not to spend, nor my course to get." * This is the very year, 1592, in which Robert Greene "discovers that a new poet has arisen who is becoming the only shake-scene in a county;" and so far forgets himself as to become "jealous" of "William Shakespeare, who, up to this time, has only been a "Johannes Factotum," of not much account until he borrows "our feathers." ** And so, until 1611, Bacon is driven to the Jews. Why should he not, in his pressing necessity for "lease of quick revenue," bethink him of the resources within himself, and seek a cover whereunder--without embarrassing his hope of future preferment--he may turn into gold his years of study and travel, by means of a quick pen? In 1611, when he is suddenly created attorney-general, the Shakespearean plays cease abruptly, to appear no more for ever. William Shakespeare closes out his theatrical interest in London, and retires, to moneylending (as some say), in Stratford. He dies in 1616. * Speckling, "Letters and Life of Bacon," vol. i, p. 108. ** Ante, p. 125 Lord Bacon reaches his highest pinnacle of greatness, {234}and falls, in 1621. In 1623, while Bacon is again spending his time in the strictest privacy and retirement, there suddenly appears a folio, "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare," amended, revised, enlarged, and improved, including at least seventeen (Mr. Smith says twenty-three) plays which had never appeared or been heard of in Shakespeare's lifetime.