For many years past, the lack of absolutely any evidence that William Shakespeare, the actor, wrote the plays bearing his name, the similarity of their diction and style to that of Francis Bacon, the gradually increasing evidence that a master of languages, lore and science, of law and poesy, of philosophy and arts, must have been the only begetter of these and other works, bearing the names of Spenser, Marlowe, Greene, Peele and others, all these things have driven men to ascribe their origin to the great Chancellor of England, who bore the name of Sir Francis Bacon.