“It must be so, for miracles are ceased.”

And thus the miracle of genius baffles the poet, for Henry’s had been “noisy nights,” notoriously noisy.

Now, as we shall later show, Bacon’s rapid production of the plays, considering his other contemporary activities and varied but always absorbing interests, was as much a miracle as the sudden blossoming of Henry’s knowledge and accomplishments; for all Bacon’s known exertions and occupations, and his deepest and most absorbing interest, were remote from the art of tragedy and comedy.  If we are to admit the marvel of genius in Bacon, of whose life and pursuits we know much, by parity of reasoning we may grant that the actor, of whom we know much less, may have had genius:  had powers and could use opportunities in a way for which Baconians make no allowance.

We now turn to Mr. Greenwood’s chapter, “Shakespeare and ‘Genius.’” It opens with the accustomed list of poor Will’s disqualifications, “a boy born of illiterate parents,” but we need not rehearse the list. {91a} He “comes to town” (date unknown) “a needy adventurer”; in 1593 appeared the poem Venus and Adonis, author’s name being printed as “W.  Shakespeare.”  Then comes Lucrece (1594).  In 1598 Love’s Labour’s Lost, printed as “corrected and augmented” by “W.  Shakespere.”  And so on with all the rest.  Criticism of the learning and splendour of the two poems follows.  To Love’s Labour’s Lost, and the amusing things written about it by Baconians, I return; and to Shakespeare’s “impossible” knowledge of courtly society, his “polish and urbanity,” his familiar acquaintance with contemporary French politics, foreign proverbs, and “the gossip of the Court” of Elizabeth:  these points are made by His Honour Judge Webb.

All this lore to Shakespeare is “impossible”—­he could not read, say some Baconians, or had no Latin, or had next to none; on these points I have said my say.  The omniscient Baconians know that all the early works ascribed to the actor were impossible, to a man of, say thirty--who was no more, and knew no more, than they know that the actor was and knew; and as for “Genius,” it cannot work miracles.  Genius “bestows upon no one a knowledge of facts,” “Shakespeare, however favoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned.”

Precisely, but genius as I understand it (and even cleverness) has a way of acquiring knowledge of facts where the ordinary “dull intelligent man” gains none.  Keen interest, keen curiosity, swift observation, even the power of tearing out the things essential from a book, the gift of rapid reading; the faculty of being alive to the fingertips,—­these, with a tenacious memory, may enable a small boy to know more facts of many sorts than his elders and betters and all the neighbours.  They are puzzled, if they make the discovery of his knowledge.  Scott was such a small boy; whether we think him a man of genius or not.  Shakspere, even the actor, was, perhaps, a man of genius, and possessed this power of rapid acquisition and vivid retention of all manner of experience and information.  To what I suppose to have been his opportunities in London, I shall return.  Meanwhile, let the doubter take up any popular English books of Shakespeare’s day:  he will find them replete with much knowledge wholly new to him—­which he will also find in Shakespeare.