According to the chronicles and the record, then, one William Shakespeare, a "general utility" actor, and _Johannes Factotum_, lived and thrived in London, some two hundred and fifty odd years ago. At about that date a book is likewise written. Who are these who find this book, and make this man to fit it? {059}Verily, there are none so blind as those who are determined not to see! To have written that book one must needs have been, let us say--for he was at least all these--a philosopher, a poet, a lawyer, a leech, a naturalist, a traveler, a student of Bible history! Strange to say, at the time this book--in portions--is making its appearance, there are two men living, each of whom is a poet, a philosopher, a student of laws and of physics, and a traveler over the by-ways of many lands beside his own. One of them is known to have read the Bible, then what we understand to-day by a "current work." Together, these two men possess in themselves about all of their age with which subsequent ages care to connect themselves. But it is not suggested that these two men, Bacon and Raleigh, might have written the book for which an author is wanted. We are to pass them by, and sift the dust at their illustrious feet, if haply we may find a fetich to fall down before and worship! Must the man that wrote the dramas have visited Italy? Mr. Halliwell and others inform us of Shakespeare's visit to Verona, Venice, and Florence. Must Shakespeare have been at the bar? My Lord Campbell writes us a book to show his familiarity with the science of jurisprudence. (That book has traveled far upon a lordly name. It is an authority until it happens to be read. Once we open it, it is only to find that, the passages of the Shakespearean dramas which stamp their author's knowledge of the common law are the passages his lordship does not cite, while over the slang and dialect which any smatterer might have memorized from turning the pages of an attorney's hornbook, his lordship gloats and postulates and re{060}lapses into ecstasy). Must Shakespeare have been a physician? There have not been wanting the books to prove him that. * And, crowning this long misrule of absurdity, comes an authority out of Philadelphia, to assure us that the youth Shakespeare, on quitting his virgin Stratford for the metropolis, was scrupulous to avoid the glittering temptations of London; that he eschewed wine and women; that he avoided the paths of vice and immorality, and piously kept himself at home, his only companion being the family Bible, which he read most ardently and vigorously! ** * "The Medical Acquirement of Shakespeare." By C. W. Stearns, M. D. New York, 1865. Shakespeare's Medical Knowledge. By Dr. Bucknill. London. 1860. ** "Shakespeare and the Bible." By John Bees, etc., etc. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, 1876.