He needed high office to gain the requisite influence, and being known as a dramatist, an allegedly low-class profession, would have impeded his prospects (see stigma of print). Realising that play-acting was used by the ancients "as a means of educating men's minds to virtue", and being "strongly addicted to the theatre" himself, he is claimed to have set out the otherwise-unpublished moral philosophical component of his Great Instauration project in the Shakespearean oeuvre.
He needed high office to gain influence, and as a playwright, an allegedly low-class profession, would have hindered his prospects (see stigma of print). Recognizing that acting was used by the ancients to educate men's minds to virtue, and being himself "strongly addicted to the theatre", he is said to have incorporated the otherwise-unpublished moral philosophical component of his Great Instauration project into Shakespeare's work.