> Thus the riduculous attributions to Bacon
agreed, as I believe the great James Spedding said "if Bacon wrote Shakespeare, that would leave an even more difficult question to answer - who wrote Bacon?"
but
> [Bacon had] a lot of wit and wisdom but no touch of poetry (he was
> after all an attorney)...
[USer use of "attorney" - Bacon was admitted utter barrister at the age of 22 ] but in any event - John Donne? Goethe?
> Sir Edward Coke, the greatest lawyer and judge of his era
that certainly was Coke's opinion. lawyer, perhaps. a far more effective, ambitious, vicious and "social climbing" prosecutor than Bacon ever was. but judge, no. as Spedding - who knew more of this period than either of us ever will - says (in regard to Egerton - a far greater judge than Coke - assessing that Coke's Reports were less than honest in their accounts of precedent) "where a man's temper is not judicial, his learning will supply him with reasons for the wrong conclusion as easily as for the right; and the blindest admirer of Coke's gifts will hardly say that he was gifted with a judicial temper" (Bacon's Works, Vol.XIII, pp.85-6)
> and a personal enemy of Bacon's
that is certainly true. in 1617, when Coke decided, in order to further Coke's own career (i.e., become again a judge), to marry to the idiot brother of King James' favorite & lover Villiers the daughter (by a previous marriage) of his wife - Lady Hatton - against the girl's will, she ran away - with her mother's assistance. Coke got a warrant from the King's secretary (NOT from a judge) and with a group of armed men broke down the doors of the house where she was hiding, seized her and beat her. the mother went to Bacon, then Lord Chancellor, and got a warrant requiring of Coke that he give up custody of her daughter. Bacon of course got in serious trouble with Villiers and King James as a result of doing the right thing. not of course the standard whiggish account of the obsequious Bacon and the defiant Coke - but that's what happened. (id., pp.221 et seq.)
john mage