Francis Bacon and Shakespeare had lived in the same country in the same era, the England of Queen Elizabeth I, and of the two men, Bacon was by far the more distinguished, a child prodigy who graduated from Trinity College at age fifteen, studied law, served in Parliament, became lord chancellor, won the lofty titles of Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans, and wrote manifestoes that heralded the dawn of the scientific age and inspired generations of inventors and revolutionaries. Charles Darwin idolized Francis Bacon; Thomas Jefferson thought Bacon was among the two or three greatest men who
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