continuous education of the rising generation of voters must be carried on without intermission or relaxation. It is useless to await the approach of a crisis; the Socialists and Communists, heavily subsidised in many cases by foreign money, are ceaselessly at work instilling their pernicious doctrines amongst the less educated classes. These doctrines can be refuted by the facts, but the facts must be forced home in many quarters where the Socialist propaganda alone is at present heard: The most strenuous work for the next four or five years is indispensable, if the Conservative party is to retain that authority and power which are necessary for the right government of these islands and the security of the Empire.

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THE fact that little or nothing is known of Shakespeare's handwriting except for four or five signatures has caused mountains of paper to be covered with speculations and theories, which have even gone so far as to deny that he was the author of the plays ascribed to him. It seems to be overlooked that there is no manuscript, or even a fragment of the plays in any handwriting, and that the same causes which destroyed Shakespeare's manuscripts appear also to have destroyed those of all the other people to whom ingenious persons have ascribed them, though other writings of theirs have been preserved. Now and again something crops up which appears to throw a little light on the subject, and it is hoped that the following statements may have a value in that respect. The writer has to thank his Grace the late Duke of Northumberland for having made it possible to study the subject at leisure by the loan of a copy of the 'Conference of Pleasure,' a work dealing with an Elizabethan manuscript.

In the year 1867 there was discovered in Northumberland House a manuscript containing copies of some of Francis Bacon's early writings. Two of these had appeared in print in the year 1734 in the supplement to a volume of 'Letters of Lord Chancellor Bacon,' known as 'Stephens' second collection.' They were among the papers submitted to Stephens by Lord Oxford, and are known as Mr Bacon's discourse in prayse of his Soveraigne,' and 'Mr Bacon in prayse of Knowledge.'

As the speech in praise of Elizabeth appears by the
Copyright in the United States of America.

Vol. 244.-No. 484.

opening sentence to have been preceded by three others, it had been suspected that these compositions formed part of some 'device,' or 'masque,' and the surmise was proved to have been correct when the above-mentioned manuscript was found. The following remarks, written in 1870, on the 'Conference of Pleasure,' the title given to the manuscript, are from the pen of James Spedding, the author of the 'Life and Times of Bacon.'

'In 1867, Earl Percy, now Duke of Northumberland, wishing to have the papers in his possession properly examined, preserved, and those of public interest turned to account, had requested the late Mr John Bruce to inspect them. In one of the bundles submitted to him, he found a paper book much damaged by fire about the edges, though not so much as to make the contents generally undecipherable, and the piece which stood first, under the odd and not very significant title of " Mr Fr. Bacon of tribute or giving that which is due," proved on examination to be a copy of the entire "masque or "device" of which the "prayse of knowledge" and "the prayse of his Soveraigne" formed part, and which was presented before Queen Elizabeth in 1592. The "device" consisted of four discourses, "in praise of the worthiest << the worthiest affection," virtue," the worthiest power," and the "praise of the worthiest person," concerning which last no doubt was allowed to remain that Queen Elizabeth herself was the object of the praise.

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The manuscript is a folio volume of twenty-two sheets, which have been laid one upon the other, folded double as in an ordinary quire of paper and fastened by a stitch through the centre. The pages are not numbered and the fastening is gone. The volume may once have contained more, and if we may judge by what is still legible on the much bescribbled outside leaf which once served for a table of contents, there is some reason to suspect that it did. The last leaf of the volume is part of the outside sheet which appears to have been the only cover the volume ever had and of which the other half forms the title-page. (This title-page is here given in facsimile.)

This leaf has suffered from fire like the rest. But before that it had the ill-luck to be so used by some idle penman, either for trial of his pens, or for experiments in handwriting, or for mere relief from idleness, that it is difficult to make out what its proper contents were.

At the top, however, distinguished from the rest by ink of