As is only natural, I have met many interesting people since I
embarked on my career. I remember once lunching with rare Ben Jonson
at the Mermaid Tavern--this would be back in Queen Elizabeth's time,
when I was beginning to be known in the theatrical world--and seeing a
young man with a nobby forehead and about three inches of beard doing
himself well at a neighboring table at the expense of Burbage the
manager.

"Ben," I asked my companion, "who is that youth?" He told me that the
fellow was one Bacon, a new dramatist who had learned his technique by
holding horses' heads in the Strand, and who, for some reason or
other, wrote under the name of Shakespeare. "You must see his
_Hamlet_," said Ben enthusiastically. "He read me the script last
night. They start rehearsals at the Globe next week. It's a pippin. In
the last act every blamed character in the cast who isn't already dead
jumps on everyone else's neck and slays him. It's a skit, you know, on
these foolish tragedies which every manager is putting on just now.
Personally, I think it's the best thing since _The Prune-Hater's
Daughter_."

I was skeptical at the moment, but time proved the correctness of my
old friend's judgment; and, having been present after the opening
performance at a little supper given by Burbage at which sack ran like
water, and anybody who wanted another malvoisie and seltzer simply had
to beckon to the waiter, I was able to conscientiously praise it in
the highest terms.

I still treasure the faded newspaper clipping which contains the
advertisement of the play, with the legend, "Shakespeare has put one