"Thus we see that Bacon and Shakspere both flourished at the same time, and might, either of them, have written these works, as far as dates are concerned, and that Bacon not only had the requisite learning and experience, but also that his wit and poetic faculty were exactly of that peculiar kind which we find exhibited in these plays." . also "For upwards of twenty years I have held the opinion that Bacon was the author of the Shakespeare Plays." so from about 1837, preceeding Delia Bacon's publication of 1857.
-- Wiliam Henry Smith, 1857
"I am one of the many who have never been able to bring the life of William Shakespeare and the plays of Shakespeare within planetary space of each other. Are there any two things in the world more incongruous? Had the plays come down to us anonymously, had the labor of discovering the author been imposed upon after generations, I think we could have found no one of that day but Francis Bacon to whom to assign the crown. In this case it would have been resting now on his head by almost common consent".
- Dr. W. H. Furness, the eminent American scholar in a letter to Nathaniel Holmes, Oct. 29, 1866
"Nobody believes any longer that immediate inspiration is possible in modern times; . . . And yet everybody seems to take it for granted of this one man Shakspere."
--James Russell Lowell, 1870.
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