But it may be of
interest to those who doubt whether Bacon (irrespective of any claim to
the authorship of the plays) could be deemed to be a great poet, to
quote here the words of Percy Bysshe Shelley, who in his "Defence of
Poetry" says
"Bacon was a poet. His language has a sweet and majestic rhythm, which
satisfies the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his
philosophy satisfies the intellect. It is a strain which distends and
then bursts the circumference of the reader's mind, and pours itself
forth together with it into the universal element with which it has
perpetual sympathy."
The immortal plays are the "Greatest Birth of Time," and contain a
short summary of the wisdom of the world from ancient times, and they
exhibit an extent and depth of knowledge in every branch which has
never been equalled at any period of the world's history. In classic
lore, as the late Mr. Churton Collins recently pointed out, they evince
the ripest scholarship. And this is confirmed by classical scholars all
the world over.
None but the profoundest lawyers can realise the extent of the knowledge
not only of the theory but of the practice of Law which is displayed.
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