Various

“ Then occurs this truly remarkable sentence:—
"God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another."
Given whom? Why, Bacon himself! Did he not make his face into another's, namely, Shakspeare's? The case is as clear as noonday. Let the insular cavillers at Donnelly, just because he is an American, hide their diminished heads. Anti-Humbug.
Dear Sir,—Would one of your readers kindly inform me how Friar Bacon could have written Shakspeare? I see by Little Arthur's History of England that the former lived three hundred years before Shakspeare was born. ”

“ Donnelly's, and my publishers sincerely trust that you will insert this letter, as a gratuitous advertisement may help the sale of my forthcoming work, entitled, Who Killed Shakspeare and Queen Elizabeth? Your obedient servant, Artful Plodder.
Sir,—Surely it is impossible to doubt any longer that Bacon wrote Hamlet. Why, in that play you find him actually confessing his cowardice in not claiming the authorship of his own plays! What else can these words mean?
"What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all." ”

“ Donnelly's cryptogram, showing Bacon to be the author of all Shakspeare's plays, is a wonderful discovery. The principle only needs to be applied with sufficient ingenuity and perseverance, to revolutionise the whole field of literary history. ”

“ Let us proclaim to the world without that we, as Gentlemen and as Gargoyles, repudiate, that we loathe, that we abhor, that we abominate," (Hartupp seems to be screwing all these verbs out of himself, and throwing them defiantly at Duff,) "the grovelling tendency of our animal nature to ignore the joys of the soul and the pleasures of the intellect, and place its highest enjoyment in the ignoble pursuit of creature comforts!" ”

“ Macduff here is cryptographic for Shakspeare. When summoned by the Queen to answer Cecil's charge, Shakspeare did deny his person at her bidding. Mr. Donnelly's is a great discovery. The world does advance, in spite of Lord Salisbury. Yours, Radical.
Dear Sir,—How long will the British public allow an impudent Yankee to lead it astray? Mr. Donnelly has evidently never read my historical novel, A Tale of the Invincible Armada, which somehow failed to meet with the enthusiasm it deserved, or he would know that Cecil valued Shakspeare most highly. ”

“ For example, speaking as a mediævalist, or one of the middle-ages, if I see a huge coloured picture on a hoarding representing several sensational situations which form a frame for the culminating horror of the play in the centre, as an old stager I know that play from beginning to end, and take in the whole plot at a glance. ”

“ The Queen buried alive in Stratford churchyard by Bacon and Shakspeare. The good Vicar bribed. Their scheme to dress up Anne Hathaway as Queen. Its success. Anne Hathaway reigns twenty years, everybody taking her for Elizabeth. Shakspeare (stricken with remorse) appears suddenly at the bedside of Bacon. Threatens to disclose all. Bacon murders Shakspeare. Takes all Shakspeare's Plays (hitherto unacted, having been rejected by the Managers of the period as 'wholly devoid of dramatic power') out of his pocket, and produces them next day as his own. ”

“ Terry's Theatre during its run, which I am bound to add I am afraid will not be a long one. The construction of the three-act farce (as it is called) is feeble in the extreme, and suggests that the author, from a literary point of view, has a great deal to learn. I do not think (unless his future pieces are very unlike The Woman Hater) that he will have much chance of gaining a permanent position in the Temple of Fame. This is merely a matter of opinion, but, speaking for myself, had I a theatre (which I should call of course Mr. Thingembob's Theatre, or the Theatre Royal Dash Blank, Esq.) ”

“ With this, Naylor sat down suddenly, apparently very little depressed by the total absence of applause—he knew that a fearless critic is never popular.
After that we had a little speech from dear old Kirkstone, who rose to tell us an anecdote, which the subject had suggested to him. Appropriate anecdotes are always occurring to Kirkstone, and he applies them in the neatest and happiest manner, being gifted with the keenest sense of humour of any one in our Society. ”

“ But, Sir, I hope that we, by our vote to-night, will afford no encouragement to the gross and contemptible materialism which is the curse of the present day, and of which, I am compelled to add," (here he glances reproachfully at the unconscious Duff, who is sharpening a pencil) , "we have been afforded so melancholy an example this evening. ”

“ It is quite possible he may be much more at home in tragedy. As a fact, there is a sort of gloomy glamour about The Woman Hater that suggests the reflection that, after all, the play might have been more exciting if a murder had been skilfully introduced into Act I., and it had been written throughout in blank verse. ”

“ At the house of Nat Langham young men were taught how to use their hands skilfully years agone; at the home of the Langham their hands are trained with equal care and discretion, with a different end in view. ”

“ Having thus apologised in advance to any honourable Gargoyle who may consider himself misrepresented or insufficiently reported, let me present, as the first instalment of these papers, some extracts from notes taken at a most instructive debate last session upon the motion (brought forward by Plumley Duff; opposed by Gaspard Hartupp) , that:
"In the opinion of this House, Science has been productive of more real benefit to the Human Race than Art." ”

“ Then the compulsory service of their employés in the Volunteers, insisted upon by all the West End Tradesmen and employers of labour throughout the land, had the best effects. Why some of the finest troops in the world came from Schoolbred's, Whiteley's, the Army and Navy Stores, and Smith and Sons."
"And the Inns of Court, the Universities, and the Medical Colleges also insisted upon continued efficient service in the Volunteer ranks to secure the advantage of audience in the Courts and Registration as Doctors, didn't they?" ”

“ It is really very kind of the Managers to provide for outsiders in this way, but the outsiders remain outsiders, and have no desire to enter these chambers of Dramatic Horrors. As a supporter of shows and exhibitions, with considerable experience, I know well enough that the representation outside the booth is very much superior to the reality within ”

“ Lord Bacon arrives at Stratford disguised as a bargee. His midnight visit to Shakspeare's house. The poaching plot hatched. In the churchyard. The Ghost among the tombs. The Ghost discovered to be Queen Elizabeth, who had followed Bacon to Stratford disguised as a Tilbury fish-wife. ”

“ Duff rubs his nose, and evidently wonders whether Hartupp has been saying anything worth noticing) —"would find the universe none the poorer had Praxiteles carved nothing more immortal than an occasional cold fowl; had Homer swept his lyre, not in commemoration of the fall of an ancient Troy, but to celebrate the rise of a new soap (Hartupp rather prides himself on his talent for antithesis) ”

“ Mr. Grain fails to do himself justice when he assumes an elderly air inconsistent with the number of his summers. Such an assumption can but cause pain—to his contemporaries!
On Thursday last The Woman Hater was produced for the first time in London at Mr. Terry's Theatre (on the grounds that familiarity breeds contempt, I prefer to allow the actor to retain his titular prefix) , with more or less success. On the whole I condole with our country cousins if they have been allowed to see this strange play very frequently. Personally I would not care to form a part of any audience at Mr. ”

“ But he has gone wrong lamentably on this Irish Question, and all the righteous acts of his life—that is to say, steps in which he has chanced to walk in time with me—are obliterated. It is true that, at one time, it was I who was the foremost Apostle of Irish National feeling. At this date people with inconvenient memories are constantly raking up passages in my speeches about Ireland, and the English yoke which, except that they are too finely cut, and of too noble a style of eloquence, would exactly suit Gl-dst-ne to-day. ”

“ But my cryptogram leads to an entirely different result from Mr. Donnelly's, who has, I am certain, being led off on a false scent. Instead of multiplying every 270th word, as he does, by the number of full-stops in the page, and then dividing the result by the number of years during which Anne Hathaway is supposed to have resided at Stratford-on-Avon, he should first have discovered the total quantity of words in all Shakspeare's plays and sonnets, and after that the quantity in the Novum Organon ”

“ Donnelly's cryptographic story. The story relates how, when Cecil told Queen Elizabeth that Shakspeare's plays were treasonable, she "rises up, beats Hayward with her crutch, and nearly kills him." In Act III., Scene 4, of Macbeth, occurs this line,—
"It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood"—
i.e., Queen Elizabeth, being a person of good blood, or high lineage, will have blood, i.e., from the head of the person she beats with the crutch. ”

“ Well, my reply to that is——" (here Naylor has another wrestle with his notes and comes up triumphant) "that's his opinion. I wouldn't. Next, someone asked, 'What practical use was Shakspeare to any man?'" (A pause.) "I've got an answer to that on my notes, somewhere, only I can't find it. But, anyhow," (cheerfully) "I know it was rather sticking up for Shakspeare, to a certain extent. Then, didn't someone else say, 'Music elevated the mind?'" (A Member acknowledges the responsibility of this bold sentiment.) ”

“ Well, and the friend asked 'how he got on with his Steam-plough.' And the old farmer says—hork-hork!—he says, 'Don't talk to me 'bout no Steam-plough—ki-hee-hee!—when there's my darter at home, and she—crick, crick, criggle!' (Kirkstone proceeds gallantly, but is unintelligible until the close) —'with her darned pianner—haw-haw-haw!' Well, the House can apply the moral of that themselves—I thought it was rather to the point myself. That's all I got up to say."
I am afraid Kirkstone thinks we are all of us rather dull.
A DRAMATIC ORATORIO.
Mr. ”