Bacon and Dr Rowse
Sir: With reference to Mr Weid- berg's letter in your issue dated 21 October, I would ask him to remember that 'contempt' is no substitution for discussion on the Shakespeare authorship question which clearly neither he nor Dr A. L. Rowse has studied.
The contemporary references to Shakespeare which he quotes are obviously to the playwright, and it is a petitio principii to assume that the Stratford Man is meant. Those in the secret of the authorship could hardly avoid using the nom- de-plume used in the title pages of the Plays, but it is significant that there is no recorded instance of William Shaksper using the spelling adopted for the First Folio.
As to your correspondent's point that a man with so little formal education could not have produced the world's greatest literary works perhaps I may reply in Ralph Waldo Emerson's words: I cannot marry the man to his works.
Noel Fermor Chairman, The Francis Bacon Society, Islington, London Ni
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