Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown, page 177 by Andrew Lang
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rstand the literary soil in which the genius of Shakespeare blossomed as rapidly as the flowers in "Adonis' garden." The whole literature was, to an extent which we find tedious, saturated with classical myths, anecdotes, philosophic dicta--a world of knowledge of a kind then "in widest commonalty spread," but now so much forgotten that, to Baconians and the public, such lore seems recondite learning.
The gallants who haunted the stage, and such University wits as could get the money, or had talent (like Crichton) to "dispute their way through Europe," made the Italian tour, and, notoriously, were "Italianate." They would not be chary of reminiscences of Florence, Venice, and Rome. Actors visited Denmark and Germany. No man at home was far to seek for knowledge of Elsinore, the mysterious Venetian "tranect or common ferry," the gondolas, and the Rialto. There was no lack of soldiers fresh and voluble from the foreign wars. Only dullards, or the unthinking, can be surprised by the ease with which a quick-witted man, having some knowledge of Latin, can learn to read a novel in French, Italian, or Spanish. That Shakespeare was the very reverse of a dullard, of the clod of Baconian fancy, is proved by the fact that he was thought capable of his works. For courtly manners he had the literary convention and Lyly's Court Comedies, with what he saw when playing at the Court and in the houses of the great. As to untaught nobility of manners, there came to the Court of France in 1429, from a small pig-breeding village on the marches of Lorraine, one whose manners were deemed of exquisite grace, propriety, and charm, by all who saw and heard her: of her manners and swift wit and repartee, the official record of her trial bears concordant evidence. Other untaught gifts she possessed, and the historic record is unimpeached as regards that child of genius, Jeanne d'Arc.
"Ne me dites jamais cette bete de mot, impossible," said Napoleon: it is indeed a stupid word where genius is concerned.
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