But it isn't so, really and
truly.
Suppose that one fine morning, Mr. Blank, an ardent Baconian, stumbled
across some long-sought document which proved irrefragably that Bacon
was the poet, and Shakespeare an impostor. What would be our
sentiments? For the second-rate actor we should have not a moment's
sneaking kindness or pity. On the other hand, should we not experience
an everlasting thrill of pride and gladness in the thought that he who
had been the mightiest of our philosophers had been also, by some
unimaginable grace of heaven, the mightiest of our poets? Our pleasure
in the plays and sonnets would be, of course, not one whit greater
than it is now. But the pleasure of hero-worship for their author
would be more than reduplicated. The Greeks revelled in reverence of
Heracles by reason of his twelve labours. They would have been
disappointed had it been proved to them that six of those labours had
been performed by some quite obscure person. The divided reverence
would have seemed tame. Conversely, it is pleasant to revere Bacon, as
we do now, and to revere Shakespeare, as we do now; but a wildest
ecstasy of worship were ours could we concentrate on one of those two
demigods all that reverence which now we apportion to each apart.
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