1. If the Parliament met November 23, 1584, as Mr. Spedding distinctly says, then Bacon was not yet twenty-four.

An ideal tableau of the youthful statesman is gaily depicted by Wm. Hepworth Dixon, in his “Personal History of Lord Bacon:”

“How he appears in outward guise and aspect among these courtly and martial contemporaries the miniature of Hilyard helps us to conceive. Slight in build, rosy and round in fleshy dight in a sumptuous suit, the head well-set, erect, and framed in a thick starched fence of frill; a bloom of study and travel on the fat, girlish face, which looks far younger than his years; the hat and feather tossed aside from the white brow, over which, crisps and curls a mane of dark, soft hair; an English nose, firm, open, straight; a mouth delicate and small—a lady’s or jester’s mouth—a thousand pranks and humors, quibbles, whims and laughters lurking in its twinkling, tremulous lines;—such is Francis Bacon at the age of twenty-four.”

Bearing in mind that Bacon is three years and three months older than Shakspere, we will now parallel their lives by successive years.

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