sickly and unable to join in the rough sports suited for boys of robust constitution,” if so he could not have described them so vividly and true; his poetry, such specimens as we have, is hardly-third rate, his prose on stilts, his history discredited. Preface to Bacon’s Essays, 1814: “His History of Henry VII. is in these days only consulted by a few.” Can this be said of his contemporary’s Historical plays? Whilst I have known those who have taken Bacon up and laid him down, I have hardly ever known one who after he had put Shakepeare down with reluctance, but longed for the time to take him up again,—the one interested and enchanted, the other bored. Never both the product of the same brain, or writings of the same man. I have told my tale and run my (paper) chase, and now leave it to my umpires, the British and American readers, to decide whether, as Stratford has been pulled up and Bacon distanced, I may not claim from every unprejudiced mind that Sherley has been well ridden and won in a canter. “De l’audace, de l’audace et encore de l’audace!” THE AUTHOR, DINSDALE-ON-TEES, DARLINGTON. _August_ 13_th_, 1888. * * * * * * * * * * STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, PRINTERS, HERTFORD. Footnotes {20} See Sonnets, 135, 136, 105. {32} Motto, “_only one_.” {36} There is some meaning unknown in the play everywhere on the word “_Will_,” also on frequent mention of _Sun_, _Sunbeams_, etc. See Malone, vol. i. p. 271. In an Eclogue made long since on the death of Sir Philip Sidney (Davidson’s Poetical Rhapsody, 1602), we find that celebrated writer lamented in almost every stanza by the name of Willy! “Willy is dead,” “of Willie’s pipe,” etc., etc., A. Sherley’s friend and fellow in command at Zutphen = Suid-fen = South fen, or it may be his brother-in-law, Lord Southampton, to whom he dedicated his early works. {38} Freeman’s Geography of Europe—“Ottokar King of Bohemia, the power of that King for a moment reached the Baltic as well as the Adriatic.”—Vol. i. p. 319. See also Peter Heylin, 1682, Italy, p. 103. {40} Love’s Labour Lost, scene 2, names of deer given same as in Pernassus—death of the deer. {42} See W. Howitt’s Visit to Remarkable Places, 1840, p. 84.