WCP3299

[1]¹

49 Micheldever Road

LEE, S.E.

January 26. 1911

Dear Dr Alfred Wallace,

Thank you for your letter. It seems to me that you will allow any amount of "assumption" for Shakespearians but none for Baconians². You assume that Shakespeare was educated in the Stratford school: There is no evidence.

You assume that he was a great [2] poetical genius — No evidence.

You assume that the master of Stratford school was a classical enthusiast; — Not a scrap either of evidence or probability. You assume that he was a companion of many educated men & classical scholars, at various places. Surely some evidence of this might be expected to exist. There is none. You assume that Ben Jonson³ admired and loved him, i.e. [3] as a poet, and not merely as a man. There is no evidence. You assume that his fellow players and publishers admired and loved him. There is no evidence.

These assumptions you call "real massive facts". How can you call them so I cannot conceive. Assumptions are not facts.— The "overwhelming fact" that no writer claimed Shakespearean authorship for [4] Bacon, is really of small importance. It was not a critical age — more an age in which literary controversy flourished. The plays had not gained such notoriety as to prompt any deliverance on such a question.

What you call 'bothering such details' is an attempt at an induction, in which every small fact has its weight.

Let me send you my book !!

I believe the documentary evidence you require will soon be given.

R. M. Theobald [signature]⁴