As to Miss Bacon's question, "What did William Shakespeare do with Bacon's manuscripts?" Mr. Thompson ** seems to think that they may yet be brought to light. They "appear to have been so many times hypothetically burned, at Stratford, in the Globe theater, the London fire, by their owners (by purchase) at the play-house, to hinder rivals from using them," that Mr. Thompson argues that "it is probable they are still to the fore." Bacon's Will directs certain papers laid away in boxes, cabinets, and presses, to be collected, sealed up, and put away, "so as not to have them ready for present publication." * Id., p. 200. * Renascence Drama, or History made Visible. By "William Thompson. Melbourne, 1880. He was "not ignorant that those kind of writings would, with less pains and embracement (perhaps), yield more luster and reputation to my name, than those other which I {245}have in hand." They could bide their time, and, since William Shakespeare and his fellows do not dispose of them, the inference is that they were not allowed to retain them. The Baconian theory, it is to be noticed, is quite indifferent as to whether William Shakespeare, on first turning up at London, found employment (as Mr. Grant White asserts) in his "cousin's law-office" or not: or whether, at any stage in his career, either in Stratford or London, he was an attorney's clerk, hard 'prentice at the trade of "noverint." (By which slur Mr. Fullom believes that Nash meant, not that Shakespeare was a "noverint," but that the young "nove-rints" of the time were "Shakespeare's;" that is to say, that they scribbled, out of hand, for the stage.) The Shakespearean problem is neither increased nor diminished by the proposition; even an attorney's clerk could not have written all the Shakespearean pages. Should it be necessary, however, to find a law-student in London who could have managed some of them, why not allow Francis Bacon his claim among the rest? He has, at least, this advantage of his rival; that, while it is the general impression now-a-days that William Shakespeare was not a law-student, as a matter of fact Francis Bacon _was_. * * And too good a law student, we think, to have written the law in the "Merchant of Venice." For, although Lord Bacon was apt to discover the public feeling, and quick to array himself on the right side (and spitting at Jews has always been accounted of Gentiles for righteousness), he must have seen that Shylock had a standing in court on the merits of his case.