LITERARY LETTER FROM LONDON.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14993, 13 June 1914, Page 9

LITERARY LETTER FROM LONDON.

fFROM A COHRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, April 29. ■ Rudyard Kipling, whose poems on national questions„ and ©vents used always to appear in "The Times," now gives them to the "MoTning Post" instead. This, however, is not much loss to the one paper or much gain to the other, for it is hard to recall a single recent poetical deliverance of the "people's laureate" that has thrilled anybody, bat the fact of the change remains. It is explained by the circumstance that Kipling and Lord Bathurst, who married a daughter of Lord Glenesk, the proprietor of tho "Post," ar.e old cronies, and one is reminded of this by noting that Kipling is tho guest of the Bathursts at Cirohcester this week to see the steeplechasing. Some people deduce therefrom that* ho J£° ?«>« irin e a taste for sport, iiitnerto ho has not shown a violent hkmg (or it, and Lis references to flannelled.fools" ai>! "muddied oafs" still rankle in -the national memory Poor old Sir Edwin Burning Lawrence, who believed more implicitly, perhaps, than anyone that ever lived that Bacon was Shakespeare, died this week at his big house in millionaire WMr S? 1^ 0 r Te 4 rra «e, whore ho hud William Waldorf Astor as one near neighbour and the Right Hon. A J Balfour as another. Sir Edwin could find no printable language bad enough to describe Shakespeare the man, but he did his stigmatising him as the "drunken, illiterate clown of Strat-ford-on-Avon." Not so very long ago the present writer spent a whole morning with Sir Ldwin, and, in spile of the madness of many of his ideas, oould not help being impressed with his great learning. It anyone ever -was an ekpert on Elizabethan literature it was he, and everything he read convinced him more firmly that Francis Bacon was the author of practically tho whole of it. y r How many thousands of pounds ho spent on trying to convince the world that Bacon was Shakespeare nobody but himself knew, but bo told mo that hi? wonderful collection of Baconia alone.-had cost him over £.50,000. A copy'of his ".book, "Bacon is' Shakespeare ' (whoso publication in 1910 the baronet believed had been -foreseen by Bacon), had, ho said, been presented to even- library of any importance in the world, including those of Japan, and he added that once, when he liad wanted to buy a. certain book, he sent j out over 3000 advertisements for it, ' finally locating it in Italy, J He reminded one irresistibly, by the ' way, of the picture that H. "G. Wells drew of Mr Pondcrevo in his novel, "Tono-Bungay," for he had the .same trick of uttering a triumphant at the end of a sentence which he fancied had driven home whatever point he was attempting to make. And out would come his cheque-book without a second's delay whenever it was a case of "spreading the light." as ho termed it, by means of pamphlet or whatnot. " I had come avowedly to »coff, but could not help being a. bit impressed with the way in which ho pulled down volume after volume of Elizabethan literature, and showed how their text and illustrations contained what appeared like direct references to Bacon. It; did seem too much for mere coincidence, too, when, alter declaring that 53 (not 23) was v key-nnmbor chosen by Uacou, he showed on each page 53 of the First Folio of Sbukespeiiro such phrases an "Hang-hog is Latton for Bacon I warrant you." and "I havo a gammon of bacon.'' Again, ,on what the baronet declared was the "invisible" page 53 —i.e., counting from the back—one found three lines commencing with the words "Pompey," "in." and "got," initials which, of course, spell pig as plain as plain can be. At tho least, it was quite curious. Sir Edwin added, by the way, that when a member of the House of Commons ho had once prevented war between England and Russia, but I coiiid not persuade him to give mc the details.