Excerpt from Bacon and Shakespeare: An Inquiry Touching Players, Playhouses, and Play-Writers in the Days of Elizabeth My mistake was perhaps a natural one, although unquestionably the treatment of the subject in your Letter to the Earl of Ellesmere differs widely from that adopted by Miss Bacon. But as I knew that a rumour of her theory had been widely, though vaguelycirculated, for some years past, on both sides of the Atlantic, and also that she had preceded you in publication, it really never occurred to me to doubt that, at least, some wandering seed had alighted in your mind, and germinated into your pamphlet. Under urgent circumstances, I had taken upon myself to write a few prefatory and explanatory words for my countrywoman's book. It was impossible to avoid some allusion to yourpamphlet; and I made such reference as seemed due to an attempt to take an easy advantage of a discovery (allowing it to be such) on which Miss Bacon had staked the labour and happiness of her life, and to develop which she had elaborated a very remarkable work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.