"
That is, Apollo _admits_ that Shakespeare is not a poet but a "mimic,"
the word to which I called your attention in the "Return from Parnassus"
in relation to "this mimick apes." In this little book Shakespeare's
name occurs three times, and on each occasion is spelled differently.
This clear statement that the actor Shakespeare was not a poet but only
a tradesman who sent out his "weekly accounts" is, I think, here for the
first time pointed out. It seems very difficult to conceive of a much
higher testimony to Bacon's pre-eminence in poetry than the fact that he
is placed as "Chancellor of Parnassus" under Apollo. But a still higher
position is accorded to him when it is suggested that Apollo feared that
he himself should lose his crown which would be placed on Bacon's head.
Walter Begbie in "Is it Shakespeare?" 1903, p. 274, tells us:--That
Thomas Randolf, in Latin verses published in 1640 but probably written
some 14 years earlier says that Phoebus was accessory to Bacon's death
because he was afraid lest Bacon should some day come to be crowned King
of poetry or the Muses. Farther on the same writer declares that as
Bacon "was himself a singer" he did not need to be celebrated in song by
others, and that George Herbert calls Bacon the colleague of Sol
[Phoebus Apollo].
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