Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/261

 of public circles would have tainted him with the "vulgar scandal" of being a playwright. No doubt it would, and have effectually barred advancement. For he was known, watched, dreaded, appraised, opposed by too many people. His secret would not have waited two centuries for another Bacon to discover. How much worse for the aspiring statesman would have been an exposed concealment. The more exacting the motive for concealment appears, the more exacting appears the motive for doing nothing that required concealment.

All which Bacon did for the Court, from a politic disposition, in getting up masques and entertainments, was openly done. The labored and jejune speeches, and other matters, which he prepared for masques, have come down to us. He could be tolerated in this, and not in writing for the theatre, because a writer of plays could not wrest from public opinion the grave and stately responsibilities which he was eager to assume. Other lawyers of the day wrote for the stage; but they were not born in the line of England's chancellors.

And in those days the emoluments of a playwright were too trifling to attract a man like Bacon, who managed to keep himself so deeply in debt that once, at least, he breathed the air of a spunging-house. Nothing but place, retainers, royal donations of rented estates, and official fees, could save him from the moneylenders.

As it is supposed that Shakspeare was not well acquainted with the Latin writers, we are asked to account for the appearance of classical quotations in