"Shakespeare's" self-confidence was unlimited, and he firmly believed that his poetry would live for ever.
In Sonnet 55 we find the words :

"Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of Princes, shall outlive this powerful Rhyme";

and in

Sonnet 18, "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

Francis Bacon's self-confidence was also unlimited. He claimed to have been "born for the service of mankind," and begins one of his works with the words:

"Francis of Verulam thought thus";

and it was his opinion that both the living and posterity ought to know the method he persued and the conclusions he reached.
Is it a coincidence that "Shakespeare" and Bacon were equally self-confident that their own writings were immortal?

SirBacon.org - Sir Francis Bacon's New Advancement of Learning