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The Baconian Heresy, a Confutation (Classic Reprint)
The Baconian Heresy a Confutation - Classic Reprint Author:J. M. Robertson THE BACONIAN HERESY — CHAPTER I — THE CONDITIONS OF THE PROBLEM — IT is to be hoped that the term " heresy " will not be resented by those to whom it may here apply. The present writer, being himself open to indictment for serious heresy in more than one field of doctrine, is not likely to employ it as an aspersion. A heresy is but a mode of opinio... more »n, the word having originally meant a sect; and it serves conveniently to specify a dissent from an opinion or belief normally held. It is a heresy, for instance, to hold that the " Rokeby Venus " is not the work of Velasquez ; and that heresy the present writer inclines to share, being indeed prone to give a hearing to heresy of all kinds. But a heresy, to start with, is an opinion like another, as likely to be wrong as right; and the belief that the " plays of Shakespeare '' were written by Bacon is to be termed a heresy until it can establish itself.
That it has never done so for careful students is put by many of these as a reason f
Table of Contents
CONTENTS; CHAPTER I; THE CONDITIONS OF THE PROBLEM; The Status of " Heresy " : Sources of the Baconian bias : Its extremer forms : Ciphers: Sir E Burning Lawrence on " Honorificabilitudinitatibus " : Rational forms of the debate ; Inadequacy of literary taste as arbitrator : Need for evidence and ratiocination pp i-io; CHAPTER II; THE POSITION OF MARE TWAIN; English origin of Baconian theory : American developments : Mark Twain's theses : The supposed contemporary disbelief in Shakespeare's authorship a chimera : The literary testimonies before and after 1616 : Scantiness of all biographical record of men of letters in Shakespeare's age : The Puritan attitude towards him in Stratford : Biographical records of Shakespeare, Cervantes, and MolieTe pp i r-30; CHAPTER III; THE ARGUMENT FROM LEGAL ALLUSIONS IN SHAKESPEARE : LORD; CAMPBELL'S CASE; The thesis as to the legal knowledge shown in« less