Shakespeare's Roman Plays, Bacon's Essays, etc.

 "Where, even in Plutarch's pages, are the aristocratic republican tone and the tough muscularity of mind, which characterized the Romans, so embodied as in Shakespeare's Roman plays? Where, even in Homer's song, the subtle wisdom of the crafty Ulysses, the sullen selfishness and conscious martial might of broad Achilles; the blundering courage of thick-headed Ajax; or the mingled gallantry and foppery of Paris, so vividly portrayed as in Troilus and Cressida?"

- Richard Grant White

"As for my Essays, and some other particulars of that nature, I count them but as the recreations of my other studies; though I am not ignorant that those kind of writings would, with less pains and embracement, perhaps, yield more lustre and reputation to my name than those other which I have in hand." 

-Bacon -  An Advertisement Touching an Holy War

“The most prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation, and of this side of the sea, is of your lordship’s name, though he be known by another”

- Tobie Matthew, Bacon's close friend