Of course, men of small learning, who know very little of classics and still less of law, do not experience any of these difficulties, because they are not able to perceive how great is the vast store of learning exhibited in the plays.
There is also shewn in the plays the most perfect knowledge of Court etiquette, and of the manners and the methods of the greatest in the land, a knowledge which none but a courtier moving in the highest circles could by any possibility have acquired.
In his diary, Wolfe Tone records that the French soldiers who invaded Ireland behaved exactly like the French soldiers are described as conducting themselves at Agincourt in the play of "Henry V," and he exclaims, "It is marvellous!" (Wolfe Tone also adds that Shakespeare could never have seen a French soldier, but we know that Bacon while in Paris had had considerable experience of them.)
The mighty author of the immortal plays was gifted with the most brilliant genius ever conferred upon man. He possessed an intimate and accurate acquaintance, which could not have been artificially acquired, with all the intricacies and mysteries of Court life. He had by study obtained nearly all the learning that could be gained from books. And he had by travel and experience acquired a knowledge of cities and of men that has never been surpassed.
Who was in existence at that period who could by any possibility be supposed to be this universal genius? In the days of Queen Elizabeth, for the first time in human history, one such man appeared, the man who is described as the marvel and mystery of the age, and this was the man known to us under the name of Francis Bacon.
In answer to the demand for a "mechanical proof that Bacon is Shakespeare" I have added a chapter shewing the meaning of "Honorificabilitudinitatibus," and I have in Chapter XIV. shewn how completely the documents recently discovered by Dr. Wallace confirm the statements which I had made in the previous chapters.
I have also annexed a reprint of Bacon's "Promus," which has recently been collated with the original manuscript. "Promus" signifies Storehouse, and the collection of "Fourmes and Elegancyes" stored therein was largely used by Bacon in the Shakespeare plays, in his own acknowledged works, and also in some other works for which he was mainly responsible.