{246}As to the bibliography of the Baconian theory, there are two volumes which will probably always remain its text-books, viz., Judge Holmes's book, of which the first edition appeared in 1862; and Mr. Smith's, printed in 1857, which made a convert of {247}Lord Palmerston. Mr. Wilkes's exceedingly fresh and readable work, "Shakespeare from an American Point of View," and Mr. King's "Bacon versus Shakespeare; a Plea for the Defendant," as textbooks on the other side, could hardly be expected to produce much disorder in Messrs. Holmes and Smith's stern and compact columns of facts and argument. Mr. Wilkes * decides off-hand against this Baconian theory at the start, and then goes on, like his predecessors, to construct a Shakespeare to suit himself. It is to his praise that he has endeavored to construct this Shakespeare out of the Shakespearean pages, rather than to have unreined his fancy. But he makes his own particular Shakespeare, nevertheless. The Wilkes Shakespeare is a Romanist. We consider this to William Shakespeare's praise, for to be a good Romanist is to be a good Christian, and to be one in a Protestant reign is to be a consistent Christian as well. But this is all the good Mr. Wilkes's Shakespeare is. Beyond that he is base-born, a man despised of his equals, and a flunkey and tidewaiter at the knees of an aristocracy to which he can not attain--an obscene jester, etc., etc.--and this author he calls Shakespeare. Such a one, whoever he is, is neither Bacon nor Raleigh, at all events. In 1880, Mr. Thompson, of Melbourne, Australia, published a volume, "Renascence Drama; or, History made Visible," ** devoted to an accumulation of fact and argument--rather than to a presentation of the case already made--in favor of the Baconian theory. * Shakespeare from an American Point of View. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1877. ** Melbourne: Sands & McDougall, Collins street, west, 1880. Mr. {248}Thompson aims to answer the more refined objections to that theory, by showing that Bacon's mind and art rather overgrasped than undergrasped the matter and form of these Shakespearean drama, and his work is an extremely valuable and charming contribution to the pro-Baconian view.