The mystery of Francis Bacon, by William T. Smedley. / Smedley, William Thomas, b. 1851

i 




Francis Bacon at 9 Years of Age. 

From tlie bust at Gorliambiiry. 



Ex Libria 
C. K. OGDEN 



THE MYSTERY 



OF 



FRANCIS BACON 



BY 

WILLIAM T. SMEDLEY. 



Ad D.B. 

" Si bene qui latuit, bene vixit, tu bene vivis : 

Ingeniumque tuum grande latendo patet." 

— John Owen's Epigrammatum, 1612. 



LONDON : 

ROBERT BANKS & SON, 

RACQUET COURT, FLEET STREET E.C. 

19 I 2. 



" But such is the infelicity and imhappy disposition 
of the human mind in the course of invention that it 
first distrusts and then despises itself: first will not 
believe that any such thing can be found out; and 
when it is found out, cannot understand how the world 
should have missed it so long." 

— " Novum Organum," Chap. CX. 






LTBRA}?Y 
UNIVER!^TT":;' "^ ' '^.NTA 

SANT/v : , . 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface ... ... ... ... ... ... 5 

CHAPTER 

I. — Sources of Information ... ... ... ... 9 

II. — The Stock from which Bacon Came ... ... 14 

III. — Francis Bacon, 1560 to 1572 ... ... ... 19 

IV.— At Cambridge ... ... ... ... ... 25 

V. — Early Compositions ... ... ... ... 29 

VI. — Bacon's " Temporis Partus Maximus" ... ... 36 

VII. — Bacon's First Allegorical Romance ... ... 47 

VIII. — Bacon in France, 1576 — 1579 ... ... ... 52 

IX. — Bacon's Suit on His Return to England, 1580 ... 62 

X. — The "Rare and Unaccustomed Suit" ... ... 76 

XI. — Bacon's Second Visit to the Continent and After 82 
XII. — Is it Probable that Bacon left Manuscripts Hidden 

Away? ... ... ... ... ... 94 

XIII. — How the Elizabethan Literature was Produced ... 98 

XIV. — The Clue to the Mystery of Bacon's Life ... 103 

XV. — Burghley and Bacon ... ... ... ... 114 

XVI.— The 1623 Folio Edition of Shakespeare's Plays... 123 

XVII. — The Authorised Version of the Bible, 1611 ... 126 
XVIII.— How Bacon Marked Books with the Publication 

of Which He Was Connected ... ... 132 

XIX. — Bacon and Emblemata ... ... ... 140 



IV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XX. — Shakespe.irc's Sonnets ... ... ... ... 148 

XXI. — Bacon's Library ... ... ... ... 156 

t— -XXII. — Two German Opinions on Shakespeare and Bacon 161 
XXIII. — The Testimony of Bacon's Contemporaries ... 170 

XXIV. — The Missing Fourth Part of " The Great Instaura- 

tion " ... ... ... ... ... 177 

XXV. — The Philosophy of Bacon ... ... ... 187 

Appendix ... ... ... ... ... 193 



PREFACE. 



Is there a mystery connected with the life of Francis 
Bacon ? The average student of history or literature 
will unhesitatingly reply in the negative, perhaps quali- 
fying his answer by adding : — Unless it be a mystery that 
a man with such magnificent intellectual attainments 
could have fallen so low as to prove a faithless friend 
to a generous benefactor in the hour of his trial, and, 
upon being raised to one of the highest positions of 
honour and influence in the State, to become a corrupt 
public servant and a receiver of bribes to pervert justice. 
— It is one of the most remarkable circumstances to be 
found in the history of any country that a man admit- 
tedly pre-eminent in his intellectual powers, spoken of 
by his contemporaries in the highest terms for his 
virtues and his goodness, should, in subsequent ages, be 
held up to obloquy and scorn and seldom be referred to 
except as an example of a corrupt judge, a standing warn- 
ing to those who must take heed how they stand lest 
they fall. Truly the treatment which Francis Bacon 
has received confirms the truth of the aphorism, "The 
evil that men do lives after them ; the good is oft interred 
with their bones." 

It is not the intention in the following brief survey of 
Bacon's life to enter upon any attempt to vindicate his 
character. Since his works and life have come promi- 
nently before the reading public, he has never been 
without a defender. Montagu, Hepworth Dixon, and 
Spedding have, one after the other, raised their voices 
against the injustice which has been done to the memory 

B 



6 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

of this qroiit En<:;lishman ; and although Macaulay, in 
his misleading and inaccurate essay,* abounding in 
paradoxes and inconsistencies, produced the most power- 
ful, though prejudiced, attack which has been made on 
Bacon's fame, he may almost be forgiven, because it pro- 
vided the occasion for James Spedding in "Evenings 
with a Reviewer," to respond with a thorough and 
complete vindication of the man to whose memory he 
devoted his life. There rests on every member of the 
Anglo-Saxon race an obligation — imposed upon him by 
the benefits which he enjoys as the result of Francis 
Bacon's life-work — to read this vindication of his charac- 
ter. Nor should mention be omitted of the essay by 
Mr. J. M. Robertson on " Francis Bacon " in his excellent 
work "Pioneer Humanists." All these defenders of 
Bacon treat their subject from what may be termed the 
orthodox point of view. They follow in the beaten 
track. They do not look for Bacon outside his acknow- 
ledged works and letters. Since 1857, however, there 
has been steadily growing a belief that Bacon was 
associated with the literature of the Elizabethan and 
early Jacobean periods, and that he deliberately con- 
cealed his connection with it. That this view is scouted 
by what are termed the men of letters is well- 
known. They will have none of it. They refuse 
its claim to a rational hearing. But, in spite of 

■^ Attention is drawn to one of the inaccuracies in " An Intro- 
duction to Mathematics," by A. W. Whithead, Sc.D., F.R.S., pub- 
lished in the Home University Library of Modern Knowledge. 
The author says : " Macaulay in his essay on Bacon contrasts the 
certainty of mathematics with the uncertainty of philosophy, and 
by way of a rhetorical example he says, • There has been no 
re-action against Taylor's theorem.' He could not have chosen 
a worse example. For, without having made an examination of 
English text-books on mathematics contemporary with the pub- 
lication of this essay, the assumption is a fairly safe one that 
Taylor's theorem was enunciated and proved wrongly in every 
one of them." 



PREFACE. 7 

this, as years go on, the number of adherents to 
the new theory steadily increases. The scornful 
epithets that are hurled at them only appear to whet 
their appetite, and increase their determination. Men 
and women devote their lives with enthusiasm to the 
quest for further knowledge. They dig and delve in the 
records of the period, and in the byeways of literature. 
Theories which appear extravagant and untenable are 
propounded. Whether any of these theories will come 
to be accepted and established beyond cavil, time alone 
can prove. But, at any rate, it is certain that in this 
quest many forgotten facts are brought to light, and the 
general stock of information as to the literature of the 
period is augmented. 

In the following pages it is sought to establish what 
may be termed one of these extravagant theories. How 
far this attempt is successful, it is for the reader to 
judge. Notwithstanding all that may be said to the 
contrary, by far the greater part of Francis Bacon's life 
is unknown. An attempt will be made by the aid of 
accredited documents and books to represent in a new 
light his youth and early manhood. It is contended 
that he deliberately sought to conceal his movements 
and work, although, at the same time, he left the land- 
marks by which a dihgent student might follow them. 
In his youth he conceived the idea that the man Francis 
Bacon should be concealed, and be revealed only by his 
works. The motto, '' Mente videbov''^ — by the mind I 
shall be seen — became the guiding principle of his life. 



THE MYSTERY 

OF 

FRANCIS BACON. 



Chapter I. 
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 

The standard work is " The Life and Letters of Francis 
Bacon," b}^ James Spedding, which was published from 
1858 — 1869. It comprises seven volumes, with 3,033 
pages. The first twenty years of Bacon's life are 
disposed of in 8 pages, and the next ten years in 95 
pages, of which 43 pages are taken up with three tracts 
attributed to him. There is practically no information 
given as to what should be the most important years of 
his life. The two first volumes carry the narrative to 
the end of Elizabeth's reign, when Bacon had passed 
his fortieth year. There is in them a considerable con- 
tribution to the history of the times, but a critical 
perusal will establish the fact that they add very little 
to our knowledge of the man, and they fail to give any 
adequate idea of how he was occupied during those 
years. In the seven volumes 513 letters of Bacon's are 
printed, and of these no less than 238 are addressed to 
James I. and the Duke of Buckingham, and were 
written during the last years of his life. The biographies 
by Montagu and Hepworth Dixon are less pretentious, 
but contain little more information. 



10 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

The iirst published Life of Bacon appears to have been 
unknown to all these writers. In 1631 was published in 
Paris a translation of the '* Sylva Sylvarum," as the 
" Histoire Naturelle de Mre, Francois Bacon." Pre- 
fixed to it is a chapter entitled "Discours sur la vie de 
Mre. Francois Bacon, Chancelier D'Angleterre." Refer- 
ence will be made to this important discourse hereafter. 
It is sufficient for the present to say that it definitely 
states that during his youth Bacon travelled in Italy and 
Spain, which fact is to-day unrecognised by those who 
are accepted as authorities on his life. In 1647 there 
was published at Leyden a Dutch translation of forty- 
six of Bacon's Essays — the " Wisdom of the Ancients " 
and the " Religious Meditations." The translation is 
by Peter Boener, an apothecary of Nymegen, Holland, 
who was in Bacon's service for some years as domestic 
apothecary, and occasional amanuensis, and quitted his 
employment in 1623. Boener added a Life of Bacon 
which is a mere fragment, but contains testimony by a 
])ersonal attendant which is of value. In 1657 William 
Rawley issued a volume of unpublished manuscripts 
under the title of " Resuscitatio," and to these he added 
a Life of the great Philosopher. Rawley is only once 
mentioned by Bacon. His will contains the sentence : 
"I give to my chaplain, Dr. Rawleigh, one hundred 
pounds." Rawley was born in 1590. When he became 
associated with his master is not known, but it could 
only have been towards the close of his life. Bacon 
appears to have reposed great confidence in him. In 
1627,* the year following Bacon's death, he published the 
" Sylva Sylvarum." This must have been in the press 
before Bacon's death. Rawley subsequently published 
other works, and was associated with Isaac Gruter 
during the seventeenth century in producing on the 
continent various editions of Bacon's works. 

• There are copies of this work bearing date 1626, the year in 
which Bacon died. 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION. II 

Rawley's account of Bacon's life is meagre, and, 
having regard to the wealth of information which must 
have been at his disposal, it is a very disappointing 
production. Still, it contains information which is not 
to be found elsewhere. How incomplete it is may be 
gathered from the fact that there is no reference in it to 
Bacon's fall. 

In 1665 was published a volume, " The Statesmen 
and Favourites of England since the Reformation." It 
was compiled by David Lloyd. The biographies of the 
Elizabethan statesmen were written by someone who 
was closely associated with them, and who appears to 
have had exceptional opportunities of obtaining informa- 
tion as to their opinions and characters.* As to how 
these lives came into Lloyd's possession nothing is 
known. Prefixed to the biographies are two pages con- 
taining " The Lord Bacon's judgment in a work of this 
nature." The chapter on Bacon is a most important 
contribution to the subject, but it also appears to have 
escaped the notice of Spedding, Hepworth Dixon, and 
Montagu. In 1658 Francis Osborn, in Letters to his 
son, gives a graphic description of the Lord Chancellor. 
Perhaps one can better picture Bacon as he was in the 
strength of his manhood from Osborne's account of him 
than from any other source. Thomas Bushell, another 
of Bacon's household dependents, published in 1628 
*' The First Part of Youth's Errors." In a letter therein 
addressed to Mr. John Eliot, he has left contributions to 
our stock of knowledge. There are also some miscel- 
laneous tracts written by him, and published about the 
year 1660, which contain references to Bacon. 

* The concluding paragraph of the Epistle to the Reader is as 
follows : " It's easily imaginable how unconcerned I am as to the 
fate of this Book either in the History, or the Observations, since 
I have been so faithful in the first, that it is not my own, but the 
Historians ; and so careful in the second that they are not mine, 
but the Histories." 



12 THE MVSTKKY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

Fuller's Worthies (1660) gives a short account of his 
life and character, eulogistic but sparse. In 1679 was 
published " Baconiana," or Certain Genuine Remains 
of Sir Francis Bacon, &c., by Bishop Tennison, but it 
contains no better account of his life. Winstanley's 
Worthies (1684) relies entirely on Rawley's Life, which is 
reproduced in it. Aubrey's brief Lives were written about 
1680. There are references to Bacon in Arthur 
Wilson's •■* History of the Reign ot James L" ; in " The 
Court of James L," by Sir W. A. ; in " Simeon D'Ewes' 
Diary " ; and, lastly, in his " Discoveries," Ben Jonson 
contributes a high eulogy on Bacon's character and 
attainments. 

In 1702 Robert Stephens, the Court historiographer, 
published a volume of Bacon's letters, with an introduc- 
tion giving some account of his life ; and there was a 
second edition in 1736. In 1740 David Mallet published 
an edition of Bacon's works, and wrote a Life to accom- 
pany it. This was subsequently printed as a separate 
volume. As a biography it is without interest, as it 
contains no new facts as to his life. 

In 1754 memoirs of the reign of Queen Elizabeth 
from the year 1581 to her death appeared, edited by 
Dr. Thomas Birch. These memoirs are founded upon 
the letters of the various members of the Bacon family. 
In 1763 a volume of letters of Francis Bacon was issued 
under the same editor. 

Such are the sources of information which have come 
down to us in biographical notices. 

In the British Museum, the Record Office, and else- 
where are the originals of the letters and the manuscripts 
of some of the tracts which Spedding has printed. 

The British Museum also possesses two books of 
Memoranda used by Bacon. The Transportat is 
entirel}', and the Promus is partly, in his handwriting. 
Beyond his published works, that is all that so far has 
been available. 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 13 

Spedding remarks*: "What became of his books 
which were left to Sir John Constable and must 
have contained traces of his reading, we do not know, 
but very few appear to have survived." 

Happily, Spedding was wrong. During the past ten 
years nearly 2,000 books which have passed through 
Bacon's hands have been gathered together. These are 
copiously annotated by him, and from these annotations 
the wide range and the methodical character of his 
reading may be gathered. Manuscripts which were in 
his library, and at least four common-place books in his 
handwriting, have also been recovered. Particulars of 
these have not yet been made public, but the advantage 
of access to them has been available in the preparation 
this volume. 



" Life and Letters," Vol. VIL, page 552. 



14 



Chapter II. 
THE STOCK FROM WHICH BACON CAME. 

" A PRODIGY of parts he must be who was begot by 
wise Sir Nicholas Bacon, born of the accomplished 
Mrs. Ann Cooke," says an early biographer. 

Nicholas Bacon is said to have been born at Chi.sle- 
hurst, in Kent, in 1509. He was the second son of 
Robert Bacon, of Drinkstone, in Suffolk, Esquire and 
Sheep-reeve to the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds. It is 
believed that he was educated at the abbey school. 
He speaks of his intimacy with Edmund Rougham, a 
monk of that house, who was noted for his wonderful 
proficiency in memory. He was admitted to the 
College of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, and took the 
degree of B.A. in 1526-7. He went to Paris soon after- 
wards, and on his return studied law at Gray's Inn, 
being called to the Bar in 1533, and admitted ancient 
in 1536. He was appointed, in 1537, Clerk to the Court 
of Augmentations. In 1546 he was made Attorney of 
the Court of Wards and Liveries, and continued as 
such under Edward VI. Upon the accession of Mary 
he conformed to the change of religion and retained 
his office during her reign. Nicholas Bacon and 
William Cecil, each being a widower, had married 
sisters. When Elizabeth came to the throne Cecil 
became her adviser. He was well acquainted with 
Nicholas Bacon's sterling worth and great capacity for 
business, and availed himself of his advice and assist- 
ance. The Queen delivered to Bacon the great seal, 
with the title of Lord Keeper, on the 22nd December, 
1558, and he was sworn of the Privy Council and 
knighted. By letters patent, dated 14th April, 1559, 



THE STOCK FROM WHICH BACON CAME. 15 

the full powers of a Chancellor were conferred upon 
him. In 1563 he narrowly escaped the loss of his office 
for alleged complicity in the issue of a pamphlet 
espousing the cause of the House of Suffolk to the 
succession. He was restored to favour, and continued 
as Lord Keeper until his death in 1579. The Queen 
visited him at Gorhambury on several occasions. Sir 
Nicholas Bacon, in addition to performing the im- 
portant duties of his high office m the Court of 
Chancery and in the Star Chamber, took an important 
part in all public affairs, both domestic and foreign, 
from the accession of Elizabeth until his death. He 
first married Jane, daughter of William Fernley, of 
West Creting, Suffolk, by whom he had three sons and 
three daughters. For his second wife he married Anne, 
daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, by whom he had two 
sons, Anthony and Francis. It is of more importance 
for the present purpose to know what type of man was 
the father of Francis Bacon. The author of the " Arte 
of English Poesie " (1589) relates that he came upon 
Sir Nicholas sitting in his gallery with the works of 
Quintillian before him, and adds: "In deede he was a 
most eloquent man and of rare learning and wisdome 
as ever I knew England to breed, and one that joyed 
as much in learned men and good witts." This author, 
speaking of Sir Nicholas and Burleigh, remarks, "From 
whose lippes I have seen to proceede more grave and 
naturall eloquence then from all the oratours of Oxford 
and Cambridge." 

In his " Fragmenta Regalia " Sir Robert Naunton 
describes him as "an archpeece of wit and wisdom," 
stating that "he was abundantly facetious which took 
much with the Queen when it was suited with the 
season as he was well able to judge of his times." 
Fuller describes him as " a man of rare wit and deep 
experience," and, again, as "a good man, a grave 
statesman, and a father to his country." Bishop 



l6 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

Burnet speaks of him as " not only one of the most 
learned and pious men, but one of the wisest ministers 
this nation ever bred." The observations of the author 
of " The Statesmen and Favourites of England in the 
Reign of Queen Elizabeth" are very illuminating. 
"Sir Nicholas Bacon," he says, "was a man full of 
wit and wisdome, a gentleman and a man of Law with 
great knowledge therein." He proceeds : " This gentle- 
man understood his Mistress well and the times better : 
He could raise factions to serve the one and allay them 
to suit the others. He had the deepest reach into affairs 
of any man that was at the Council table : the knottiest 
Head to pierce into difficulties : the most comprehensive 
Judgement to surround the merit of a cause: the strongest 
memory to recollect all circumstances of a Business 
to one View : the greatest patience to debate and con- 
sider ; (for it was he that first said, let us stay a little 
and we will have done the sooner :) and the clearest 
reason to urge anything that came in his way in the 
Court of Chancery. . . . Leicester seemed wiser than 
he was, Bacon was wiser than he seemed to be ; 
Hunsden neither was nor seemed wise. . . . Great 
was this Stateman's Wit, greater the Fame of it ; 
which as he would say, being nothing, made all things. 
For Report, though but Fancy, begets Opinion ; and 
Opinion begets substance. . . . He neither affected 
nor attained to greatness : Mediocria firnia, was his 
principle and his practice. When Queen Elizabeth 
asked him, Why his house was so little ? he answered, 
Madam, my house is not too little for me, but you have 
made me too big for my House. Give me, said he, a good 
Estate rather than a great one. He had a very Quaint 
saying and he used it often to good purpose. That he loved 
the Jest well but not the loss of his Friend. . . . He 
was in a word, a Father of his country and of Sir 
Francis Bacon." 

Before speaking of Lady Ann Bacon, it is necessary 



THE STOCK FROM WHICH BACON CAME. 17 

to give some account of her father, Sir Anthony Cooke. 
He was a great-grandson of Sir Thomas Cooke, Lord 
Mayor of London, and was born at Giddy Hall, in Essex. 
Again the most valuable observations on his character 
are to be found in " The Lives of Statesmen and 
Favourites " before referred to. The author states that 
Sir Anthony "was one of the Governors to King 
Edward the sixth when Prince, and is charactered by 
Mr. Camden Vir antiqua serenitaie. He observeth him 
also to be happy in his Daughters, learned above their 
Sex in Greek and Latine : namely, Mildred who married 
"William Cecil, Lord Treasurer of England ; Anne who 
married Nichlas Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England ; 
Katherine who married Henry Killigrew ; Elizabeth 
who married Thomas Hobby, and afterwards Lord 
Russell, and Margaret who married Ralph Rowlet." 

"Gravity," says this author, " was the Ballast of Sir 
Anthony's Soul and General Learning its leading .... 
Yet he was somebody in every Art, and eminent in all, 
the whole circle of Arts lodging in his Soul. His Latine, 
fluent and proper ; his Greek, critical and exact ; his 
Philology and Observations upon each of these lan- 
guages, deep, curious, various and pertinent : His Logic, 
rational ; his History and Experience, general ; his 
Rhetorick and Poetry, copious and genuine ; his Mathe- 
matiques, practicable and useful. Knowing that souls 
were equal, and that Women are as capable of Learning 
as Men, he instilled that to his Daughters at night, 
which he had taught the Prince in the day, being 
resolved to have Sons by education, for fear he should 
have none by birth ; and lest he wanted an Heir of his 
body, he made five of his minde, for whom he had at 
once a Gavel-kind of affection and of Estate." 

"Three things there are before whom (was Sir 
Anthony's saying) I cannot do amis : i, My Prince ; 2, 
my conscience ; 3, my children. Seneca told his sister. 
That though he could not leave her a good portion, he 



l8 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON, 

would leave her a 5::;ood pattern. Sir Anthony would 
write to his Daughter Mildred, My example is your in- 
heritance and viy life is your portion . . . 

" He said first, and his Grandchilde my Lord Bacon 
after him, That the Joys of Parents are Secrcts,andso are 
their Griefs and Fears. . . . Very providently did 
he secure his eternity, by leaving the image of his 
nature in his children and of his mind in his Pupil. 
. . . The books he advised were not many hut choice : 
the business he pressed was not reading, but digesting 

. . Sir John Checke talked merrily, Dr. Coxe 
solidly and Sir Anthony Cooke weighingly : A faculty 
that was derived with his blood to his Grandchilde 
Bacon." 

Such then was the father of Lady Anne Bacon. She 
and her sisters were famous as a family of accomplished 
classical scholars. She had a thorough knowledge of 
Greek and Latin. An Apologie ... in defence of the 
Churche of England by Dr. Jewel, Bishop of Salis- 
bury, was translated by her from the Latin and pub- 
lished in 1564. Sir Anthony had been exiled during 
Mary's reign, for his adherence to the Protestant 
faith. His daughter, Anne, inherited, not onl}^ his 
classical accomplishments, but his strong Puritan faith 
and his hatred of Popery. Francis Bacon describes 
her as "A Saint of God." There is a portrait of her 
painted by Nathaniel Bacon, her stepson, in which she 
appears standing in her pantry habited as a cook. In 
feature Francis appears to have resembled his mother. 
He " had the same pouting lip, the same round head, 
the same straight nose and Hebe chin." 



19 



Chapter III. 
FRANCIS BACON, 1560 to 1572. 

In the registry of St. Martin's will be found this entry : 
Mr. Franciscus Bacon 1560 Jan 25 {films D^m Nicho 
Bacon Magni AnglicB sigilli custodis).'" Rawley in his 
" Life of the Honourable Author" says: "Francis Bacon, 
theglory of his age and nation, was born in York House 
or York Place, in the Strand, on the two and twentieth 
day of January in the year of our Lord 1560." He 
relates that " His first and childish years were not 
without some mark of eminency ; at which time he was 
endued with that pregnancy and towardness of wit, as 
they were pressages of that deep and universal appre- 
hension which was manifest in him afterward." " The 
Queen then delighted much to confer with him, and to 
prove him with questions unto whom he delivered him- 
self with that gravity and maturity above his years that 
Her Majesty would often term him * Her young Lord 
Keeper.'' Being asked by the Queen how old he was 
he answered with much discretion, being then but a 
boy* that he was two years younger than Her Majesty's 
happy reign, with which answer the queen was much 
taken." In the " Lives of the Statesmen and Favourites 
of Queen Elizabeth " there is reference to the early de- 
velopment of his mental and intellectual faculties. The 
author writes : — " He had a large mind from his Father 
and great abilities from his Mother ; His parts improved 
more than his years, his great fixed and methodical 
memory, his solide judgement, his quick fancy, his ready 
expression, gave assurance of that profound and univer- 

^ Lloyd states that this occurred when he was seven years of 
age. 



20 THE MVSTIiKV OF FRANCIS BACON. 

sal comprehension of things which then rendered him 
the observation of great and wise men ; and afterwards 
the wonder of all." The historian continues: — "He 
never saw anything that was not noble and becoming," 
" at twelve his industry was above the capacity and his 
minde beyond the reache of his contemporaries." 

This boy so marvellously endowed was brought up 
in surroundings which were ideal for his development. 
His father, a man of erudition, a wit and orator, 
occupying one of the highest positions in the country, 
his mother a lady of great classical accomplishments, 
who had enjoyed the benefits of an education and 
training by her father, that eminent scholar. Sir 
Anthony Cooke, and, lastly, there was this man — his 
grandfather — living within riding distance from his 
home. It seems inevitable that the natural powers of 
young Francis must have excited a keen interest in the 
old tutor of Edward VI., who had devoted his evenmgs 
to imparting to his daughters what he had taught the 
Prince during the day, so that if he left behind him no 
heirs of his body, he might leave heirs of his mind. 
The boy Francis was, indeed, a worthy heir of his mind, 
and it is impossible to believe otherwise than that Sir 
Anthony Cooke would throw himself heart and soul 
into the education of his grandchild, but no statement 
or tradition has come down to this effect. It may be, 
however, that a sentence which has already been quoted 
from " The Lives of Statesmen and Favourites" is in- 
tended to imply that Francis was the pupil of Sir 
Anthony : " He said first and his Grandchilde my Lord 
Bacon after him. That the Joys of Parents are 
Secrets, and so their Griefs and Fears. . . Very 
providently did he secure his Eternity, by leaving the 
image of his nature in his Children and of his mind in 
his Pupil." The pupil referred to was not Edward VI., for 
he died twenty-three years before Sir Anthony, and he 
could not, therefore, have left the image of his mind in 



FRANCIS BACON, 1560 TO 1572. 21 

the young King. Following directly after the sentence 
" He said first and his Grandchilde Lord Bacon after 
him " it is possible that the reference may be to the boy 
Francis, Certainly Sir Anthony " would secure his 
eternity " if he left the image of his mind in his " Grand- 
childe." In any case the prodigious natural powers 
of the boy were placed in an environment well suited 
for their full development. 

The historian says that " at twelve his industry was 
above the capacity and his mind beyond the reache of 
his Contemporaries." Who were the contemporaries 
alluded to ? Those of his own age, or those who were 
living at the time ? A boy of twelve, he excelled others 
in his great industry and the wide range of his mind. 
This industry appears to have accompanied him 
through life, for Rawley states that "he would ever 
interlace a moderate relaxation of his mind with his 
studies, as walking or taking the air abroad in his coach 
or some other befitting recreation ; and yet he would 
lose no time, inasmuch as upon the first and immediate 
return he would fall to reading again, and so suffer no 
movement of time to slip from him without some 
present improvement." It is a remarkable fact on 
which too much stress cannot be laid that in the two 
Lives of Bacon, scanty as they are, by contemporary 
writers, his exceptional industry is pointed out. There 
are certainly no visible fruits of this industry. 

Although there is no definite information as to what 
was the state of Francis Bacon's education at twelve, 
there is testimony as to that of some of his contempo- 
raries. Three instances will suffice. 

Philip Melancthon (whose family name was Schwart- 
zerd) was born in 1497. His education was at an early 
age directed by his maternal grandfather, John Renter. 
After a short stay at a public school at Bretten he was 
removed to the academy at Pforzheim. Here, under 
the tutorship of John Reuchlin, an elegant scholar and 

c 



22 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

teacher of languages, he acquired the taste for Greek 
hterature in which he subsequently became so dis- 
tinguished. Here his genius for composition asserted 
itself. Amongst other poetical essays in which he in- 
dulged when eleven years of age, he wrote a humorous 
piece in the form of a comedy, which he dedicated to 
his kind friend and instructor, Reuchlin, in whose 
presence it was performed by the schoolfellows of the 
youthful author. After a residence of two years at 
Pforzheim, Philip matriculated at the University of 
Heidelberg on the 13th October, 1509, being eleven 
years and nine months old. Young as he was, he 
appears to have been employed to compose most of the 
harangues that were delivered in the University, be- 
sides writing some pieces for the professors themselves. 
Here, at this early age, he composed his "Rudiments 
of the Greek Language," which were afterwards pub- 
lished. 

Agrippa d'Aubigne was born in 1550 and died in 1630. 
At six years of age he read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. 
When ten years he translated the Crito. Italian and 
Spanish were at his command. 

Thomas Bodley was born in 1544 ^.nd died in 1612. 
In the short autobiography which he left he makes the 
following statement as to how far his education had 
advanced when his father decided to fix his abode in 
the city of Geneva in 1556 : — 

" I was at that time of twelve yeares age but through my 
fathers cost and care sufficiently instructed to become an 
auditour of Chevaleriits in Hebrew, of Berealdus in Greeke, of 
Calvin and Beza in Divinity and of some other Professours in 
that University, (which was newly there erected) besides my 
domesticall teachers, in the house of Philibertus Saracenus, a 
famous Physitian in that City with whom I was boarded ; when 
Robertus Constantinus that made the Greek Lexicon read Homer 
with me." 

Bodley was undoubtedly proficient in French, for 



FRANCIS BACON, 1560 TO I572. 23 

Calvin and Beza lectured in French. The " Institu- 
tion of the Christian Religion," Calvin's greatest work, 
although published in Latin in 1536, was translated by 
him into French, and issued in 1540 or 1541. This 
translation is one of the finest examples of French 
prose. Bodley's English was probably very poor, and 
for a very good reason — there was no English language 
worthy of comparison with the languages of France, 
Italy, or Spain. It had yet to be created. 

It is fair to assume that at twelve years of age 
Francis Bacon was as proficient in languages as were 
Philip Melancthon, Agrippa d'Aubigne, or Thomas 
Bodley at that age. He, therefore, had at least a good 
knowledge of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and such 
English as there was. 

Another class of evidence is now available. It has 
already been stated that a large number of Bacon's books 
have been recovered, copiously annotated by him. Some 
of these books bear the date when the annotations were 
made. For the most part the marginal notes appear to 
be aids to memory, but in many cases they are critical 
observations of the text. These are, however, dealt 
with in a subsequent chapter. 

Gilbert Wats, in dedicating to Charles I. his interpre- 
tation of " The Advancement of Proficiency of Learn- 
ing " (1640), makes a statement which throws light 
on the course of Bacon's studies, and this strongly 
supports the present contention. He says : — 

" He (Bacon) after he had survaied all the Records of An- 
tiquity, after the volume of men, betook himselfe to the study of 
the volume of the world ; and having conquerd whatever books 
possest, set upon the Kingdome of Nature and carried that 
victory very farre." 

Speaking of him as a boy his biographer* describes his 
memory as "fixed and methodical," and in another 

* " The Lives of Statesmen and Favourites of Elizabeth." 



24 THE MYSTERY OF FRANXIS BACON. 

place he says " His judgment was solid yet his memory 
was a wonder," 

The extent of his reading at this time had been very 
wide. He had already taken all knowledge to be his 
province, and was with that industry which was beyond 
the capacity of his contemporaries rapidly laying the 
foundations which subsequently justified this claim. 



25 



Chapter IV. 
AT CAMBRIDGE. 

Francis Bacon went to reside at Trinity College, 
Cambridge, in April, 1573, being 12 years and 3 months 
of age. While the plague raged he was absent from the 
end of August, 1574, until the beginning of March 
following. He finally left the University at Christmas, 
1575, about one month before his fifteenth birthday. 

Rawley says he was there educated and bred under 
the tuition of Dr. John Whitgift,* then master of the 
College, afterwards the renowned Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, a prelate of the first magnitude for sanctity, learn- 
ing, patience, and humility ; under whom he was ob- 
served to have been more than an ordinary proficient in 
the several arts and sciences. 

Amboise, in the " Discours sur la vie de M. Bacon," pre- 
fixed to the "Histoire Naturelle," Paris, 1631, says : " Le 
jugement et la memoire ne furent jamais en aucun home 
au degre qu'ils estoient en celuy-cy ; de sorte qu'en bien 
peu de temps il se rendit fort habile en toutes les 
sciences qui s'apprennent au College. Et quoi que 
deslors il fust juge capable des charges les plas im- 
portantes, nean-moins pour ne tomber dedans la mesme 
faute que sont d'ordinaire les jeunes gens de son estoffe, 
qui par une ambition trop precipitee portent souvent au 
maniement des grandes affaires un esprit encore tout 
rempli des crudites de I'escole, Monsieur Bacon se 
voulut acquerir cette science, qui rendit autres-fois 
Ulysse si recommandable et luy fit meriter le nom de 

• Dr. Whitgift was a man of strong moral rectitude, yet in 
1593 he became one of its sponsors on the publication of " Venus 
and Adonis." 



26 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

sage, par la connoissance des moeurs de tant de nations 
diverses," That is all that can be said about his career 
at Cambridge except that Rawley adds : 

"Whilst he was commorant in the University, about 
sixteen years of age (as his lordship hath been pleased 
to impart unto myself), he first fell into the dislike of 
the philosophy of Aristotle ; not for the worthlessness of 
the author, to whom he would ever ascribe all high 
attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way ; being 
a philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong 
for disputations and contentions, but barren of the pro- 
duction of works for the benefit of the life of man ; in 
which mind he continued to his dying day." 

As Bacon left Cambridge at Christmas, 1575, before 
he was 15 years of age, Rawley's recollection must have 
been at fault when he mentions the age of 16 as that 
when Bacon formed this opinion. 

There is another account of this incident in which it 
is stated that Francis Bacon left Cambridge without 
taking a degree as a protest against the manner in 
which philosophy was taught there. In the preface to 
the " Great Instauration " Bacon repeats his protest : 
"And for its value and utility, it must be plainly avowed 
that that wisdom which we have derived principally 
from the Greeks is but like the boyhood of knowledge 
and has the characteristic property of boys : it can talk 
but it cannot generate : for it is fruitful of controversies 
but barren of works." 

This is merely a re-statement of the position he took 
up when at Cambridge. So this boy set up his opinion 
against that of the recognised professors of philosophy 
of his day, against the whole authority of the staff of 
the University, on a fundamental point on the most 
important question which could be raised as to the 
pursuit of knowledge. It is not too much to say that 
he had at this time covered the whole field of knowledge 



AT CAMBRIDGE. 27 

in a manner more thorough than it had ever been 
covered before, and with his mind, which was beyond 
the reach of his contemporaries, he began to lay down 
those laws which revolutionised all thought and have 
become the accepted method by which the pursuit of 
knowledge is followed. 

It is necessary again to seek for parallels to justify the 
position which will be claimed for Francis Bacon at 
this period. 

Philip Melancthon affords one and James Crichton 
another. At Heidelberg Melancthon remained three 
years. He left when he was 15, the principal cause of 
his leaving being disappointment at being refused a 
higher degree in the University solely, it is alleged, on 
account of his youth. In September, 1512, he was 
entered at the University of Tubingen, where, in the 
following year, before he was 17 years of age, he was 
created Doctor in Philosophy or Master of Arts. He 
then commenced a course of public lectures, embracing 
an extraordinary variety of subjects, including the 
learned languages, rhetoric, logic, ethics, mathematics, 
and theology. Here in 1516 he put forth his revision 
of the text of Terence. Besides he entered into an 
undertaking with Thomas Anshelmus to revise all the 
books printed by him. He bestowed great labour on a 
large work in folio by Nauclerus, which he appears to 
have almost entirely re-written. 

So much romance has been thrown around James 
Crichton that it is difficult to obain the real facts of his 
life. Sir Thomas Urquhart, in " Discovery of a Most 
Exquisite Jewel, " published in 1652, gives a biography 
which is, without doubt, mainly apocryphal. Certain 
facts, however, are well established. He was born in 
the same year as was Bacon (1560). At 10 years of age 
he entered St. Andrew's University, and in 1575 (the 
year Bacon left Cambridge) took his degree, coming 
out third in the first class. In 1576 he went to France, 



28 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

as did Bacon — to Paris. In the College of Navarre he 
issued a universal challenge. This he subsequently 
repeated at Venice with equal success ; that is, to all 
men, upon all things, in any of twelve languages named. 
The challenge is broad and formal. He pledged him- 
self to review the schoolmen, allowed his opponents 
the privilege of selecting their topics — mathematics, no 
less than scholastic lore — either from branches publicly 
or privately taught, and promised to return answers in 
logical figure or in numbers estimated according to 
their occult power, or in any of a hundred sorts of verse. 
He is said to have justified before many competent 
witnesses his magnificent pretensions. 

What Philip Melancthon was at fifteen, what James 
Crichton was at sixteen, Francis Bacon may have been. 
All the testimony which his contemporaries afford, 
especially having regard to his after life, justify the 
assertion that in knowledge and acquirements he was at 
least their equal. 

About eighteen months later his portrait was painted 
by Hilliard, the Court miniature painter, who inscribed 
around it, as James Spedding says, the significant 
words — the natural ejaculation, we may presume, of the 
artist's own emotion — " Si tabula daretur digna animum 
mallem.'^ If one could only find materials worthy to 
paint his mind. 



Chapter V. 
EARLY COMPOSITIONS. 

It is at this stage that the mystery of Francis Bacon 
begins to develop. Every channel through which in- 
formation might be expected appears to be blocked. 
Besides a few pamphlets, in the production of which 
little time would be occupied, there came nothing 
from his pen until 1597 when, at the age of y], the first 
edition of the essays was published — only ten short 
essays containing less than 6,000 words. In 1605, when 
45, he addressed to James I. the "Two Books on the 
Advancement of Learning," containing less than 60,000 
words. It would require no effort on Bacon's part to 
write either of these volumes. He could turn out the 
' ' Two Books of the Advancement of Learning " with the 
same facilitj' that a leader writer of the Times would 
write his daily articles. He was to all intents and pur- 
poses unoccupied. Until 1594 he had not held a brief, 
and he never had any practice at the Bar worth con- 
sidering. He was a member of Parliament, but the 
House seldom sat, and never for long periods. Bacon's 
life is absolutely unaccounted for. It is now proposed, 
by the aid of the literature of the period from 1576 to 
1620, and with the help of information derived from 
his own handwriting, to trace, step by step, the results 
of his industry, and to supply the reason for the con- 
cealment which he pursued. 

There is an entry in the Book of Orders of Gray's Inn 
under date 21st November, 1577, that Anthony and 
Francis Bacon (who had been admitted members 27th 
June, 1576, " de societaie magistronim '') be admitted to 
the Grand Company, i.e.^ to the Degree of Ancients, 



30 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

a privilege to which they were entitled as sons 
of a judge. From a letter subsequently written 
by Burghley, it is known that one Barker was ap- 
pointed as their tutor of Law. Apparently it was in- 
tended that they should settle down to a course of legal 
training, but this plan was abandoned, at any rate, as 
far as Francis was concerned. Sir Amias Paulet, who 
was Chancellor of the Garter, a Privy Counsellor, and 
held in high esteem by the Queen,* was about to pro- 
ceed to Pans to take the place of Dr. Dale as Ambassa- 
dor at the Court of France. There is a letter written 
from Calais, dated 25th September, 1576, from Sir 
Amias to Lord Burghley, in which this paragraph 
appears: "My ordinary train is no greater than of 
necessity, being augmented by some young gentlemen, 
whereof one is Sir Nicholas Throgmorton's son, who was 
recommended to me by her Majesty, and, therefore, I 
could not refuse him. The others are so dear to me 
and the most part of them of such towardness, as my 
good hope of their doing well, and thereafter they will 
be able to serve their Prince and country, persuades me 
to make so much to excuse my folly as to entreat you to 
use your favour in my allowance for my transportations, 
my charges being increased by these e.Ktraordinary 
occasions." 

Francis Bacon was one of this group of young gentle- 
men. Rawley states that " after he had passed the circle 
of the liberal arts, his father thought fit to frame and 
mould him for the arts of state ; and for that end sent 
him over into France with Sir Amyas Paulet then 
employed Ambassador lieger into France." 

There are grounds for believing that Bacon's literary 
activity had commenced before he left England. There 
is abundant evidence to prove that it was the custom at 
this period for authors who desired to conceal their 

- It was to Sir Amias that the custody of Mary Queen of Scots 
was committed. 



EARLY COMPOSITIONS. 3I 

authorship to substitute for their own names, initials or 
the names of others on the title-pages. Two instances 
will suffice : " The Arte of English Poesie " was pub- 
lished in 1589, but written several years previously. 
The author says : — *' I know very many notable Gentle- 
men in the Court that have written commendably, and 
suppressed it agayne, or els suffred it to be publisht 
without their owne names to it as if it were a discredit 
for a Gentleman to seeme learned, and to shew him- 
self amorous of any learned Art." There is a bare- 
faced avowal of how names were placed on title-pages 
in a letter which exists from Henry Cuffe to Mr. 
Reynolds. Cuffe, an Oxford scholar of distinction, was 
a close companion and confidant of Essex. After the 
capture and sacking of Cadiz by Essex and Howard, the 
former deemed it important that his version of the affair 
should be the first to be published in England. Cuffe, 
therefore, started off post haste with the manuscript, but 
was taken ill on his arrival at Portsmouth, and could 
not proceed. He despatched the manuscript by a 
messenger with a letter to " Good Mr. Reynoldes," who 
was a private Secretary of Essex. He was to cause a 
transcript to be made and have it delivered to some 
good printer, in good characters and with diligence to 
publish it. Reynoldes was to confer with Mr. Greville 
(Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke) " whether he 
can be contented to suffer the two first letters of his 
name to be used in the inscription." "If he be 
unwilling," adds Cuffe, "you may put R.B. which 
some no doubt will interprete to be Beale, but it skills 
not." That this was a common practice is admitted 
by those acquainted with Elizabethan literature. If 
any of Bacon's writings were published prior to the trifie 
which appeared in 1597 as Essaies, his name was sup- 
pressed, and it would be probable some other name 
would appear on the title-page. There is a translation 
of a classical author, bearing date 1572, which is in 



32 THE MYSTEKV OF FRANCIS BACON. 

the Baconian style, hut which need not be claimed for 
him without further investigation. 

The following suggestion is put forward with all 
diffidence, but after long and careful investigation. 
I'Vancis Bacon was the author of two books which were 
published, one before he left England, and the other 
shortly alter. The first is a philosophical discourse 
entitled " The Anatomie of the Minde." Newlie made 
and set forth by T.R. Imprinted at London by I.C. for 
Andrew Maunsell, 1576, i2mo. The dedication is 
addressed to Master Christopher Hatton, and the name 
of Tho. Rogers is attached to it. There was a Thomas 
Rogers who was Chaplain to Archbishop Bancroft, and 
the book has been attributed to him, apparently only 
because no other of the same name was known. 
There was published in 1577 a translation by Rogers 
of a Latin book "Of the Ende of the World, etc." and 
there are other translations by him published between 
then and 1628. There are several sermons, also, but 
the style of these, the matter, and the manner of treat- 
ment are quite distinct from those of the book under 
consideration. There is nothing of his which would 
support the assignment to him of " The Anatomic of 
the Mind." It is foreign to his style. 

Having regard to the acknowledged custom of the 
times of putting names other than the author's on title- 
pages, there is no need for any apology for expressing 
doubt as to whether the book has been correctly placed 
to the credit of the Bishop Bancroft's chaplain. In the 
address To the Reader the author says : " I dyd once for 
my profite in the Universitie, draw into Latin tables, 
which since for thy profite (Christian Reader) at the 
request of a gentleman of good credite and worship, I 
have Englished and published in these two books." 
There is in existence a copy of the book with the 
printer's and other errors corrected in Bacon's own 
handwriting:. 



EARLY COMPOSITIONS. 33 

Bearing date 1577, imprinted at London for Henri 
Cockyn, is an octavo book styled, ^^ Beautiful Blossoms " 
gathered by John Byshop from the best trees of all kyndes, 
Divine, Philosophicall, Astronomicall, Cosmographical, 
Historical and Humane that are growing in Greece, 
Latiuni, and Arabia, and some also in vulgar orchards 
as wel fro these that in auncient time were grafted, as also 
from them which with skilful head and hand beene of late 
yeare's, yea, and in our dayes planted : to the unspeakable, 
both pleasure and profte of all such as wil vouchsafe to use 
them. On the title-page are the words, " The First 
Tome," but no further volume was published. As to 
who or what John Byshop was there is no information 
available. His name appears on no other book. The 
preface is a gem of musical sounding words. It con- 
tains the sentence, "let them pass it over and read the 
rest which are all as plaine as Dunstable Way." 
Bacon's home was within a few miles of Dunstable 
Way, which was the local term for the main road. 

It is impracticable here to give at length the grounds 
upon which it is believed that Francis Bacon was the 
author of these two books. Each of them is an outpour- 
ing of classical lore, and is evidently written by some 
young man who had recently assimilated the writings 
of nearly every classical author. In this respect both 
correspond with the manner of " The French Academie," 
to which the attention of the reader will shortly be 
directed, whilst in "The Anatomie of the Minde"the 
treatment of the subject is identical with that in the 
latter. Failing actual proof, the circumstantial evidence 
that the two books are from the same pen is almost as 
strong as need be. 

Some time in October, 1576, Sir Amyas Paulet would 
reach Paris, accompanied by Bacon. The only frag- 
ment of information which is given by his biographers 
of any occurrence during his stay there is obtained from 
Rawley. He states that " Sir Amias Paulet after a 



34 TIIK MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

while held him fit to be entrusted with some message, 
or advertisement to the Queen, whicli having performed 
with great approbation, he returned back into France 
again with intention to continue for some years there." 
In his absence in France, his father, the Lord Keeper, 
died. This was in February, 1578-g. If he returned 
shortly after news of his father's death reached him, 
his stay on the Continent would cover about two and 
a-half years. As to what he was doing nothing is 
known, but Pierre Amboise states that " France, Italy, 
and Spain as the most civilised nations of the whole 
world were those whither his desire for Knowledge 
carried him." 



35 



Chapter VI. 
BACON'S "TEMPORIS PARTUS MAXIMUS." 

Francis Bacon was at Blois with Sir Amias Paulet ia 
1577. In the same year was pubHshed the first edition 
of the first part of " Academie Francoise par Pierre de 
la Primaudaye Esceuyer, Seignor dudict lieu et de la 
Barree, Gentilhomme ordinaire de la chambre du Roy," 
The dedication, dated February, 1577 {i.e., 1578) is 
addressed, "Au Tres-chrestien Roy de France et de 
Polongne Henry III. de ce nom," The first English 
translation, by T. B., was " published in 1586 ■'••, im- 
printed at London by Edmund Bollifant for G. Bishop 
and Ralph Newbery." Other parts of " The Academy " 
followed at intervals of years, but the first and only 
complete edition in English bears date 16 18, and was 
printed for Thomas Adams. Over the dedication is 
the well-known archer emblem. It is a thick folio 
volume, with 1,038 pages double columns. It may be 

'- In the " Gesta Grayorum " one of the articles which the 
Knights of the Helmet were required to vow to keep, each 
kissing his helmet as he took his vow, was " Item — every Kni-^ht 
of this Order shall endeavour to add conference and experiment 
to reading ; and therefore shall not only read and peruse ' Guizo,' 
' The French Academy,' ' Galiatto the Courtier,' ' Plutarch,' ' The 
Arcadia,' and the Neoterical writers from tmie to time," etc. 
The "Gesta Grayorum," which was written in 1594, was not 
published until 1687. The manuscript was probably incorrectly 
read as to the titles of the books, "Galiatto," apparently, should 
be '' Galateo," described in a letter of Gabriel Harvey as " The 
Italian Archbishop brave Galateo.'' The "Courtier" is the 
Italian work by Castiglione which was Englished by Sir Thomas 
Hoby. " Guizo " should be " Giiazzo." Stefano Guazzo's " Civil 
Conversation" — four books — was Englished by G. Pettie and 
Young. 



36 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

termed the first Encyclopaedia which appeared in any 
language, and is, perhaps, one of the most remarkable 
productions of the Elizabethan era. Little is known 
of Pierre de la Primaudaye. The particulars for his 
biography in the " Biographie Nationale " seem to 
have been taken from references made to the author 
in the "French Academie " itself. In the French 
Edition, 1580, there is a portrait of a man, and under 
it the words "Anag. de L'auth. Par la priere Dieu 
m'ayde." The following is an extract from the dedica- 
tion : — 

"The dinner of that prince of famous memorie, was a second 
table of Salomon, vnto which resorted from euerie nation such as 
were best learned, that they might reape profit and instruction. 
Yours, Sir, being compassed about with those, who in your 
presence dailj' discourse of, and heare discoursed many graue 
and goodly matters, seemeth to be a schoole erected to teach men 
that are borne to vertue. And for myselfe, hauing so good hap 
during the assemblie of your Estates at Blois, as to be made 
partaker of the fruit gathered thereof, it came in my mind to 
offer vnto your Maiestie a dish of diuers fruits, which I gathered 
in a Platonicall garden or orchard, otherwise called an Academie, 
where I was not long since with certaine yoong Gentlemen of 
Anion my companions, discoursing togither of the institution in 
good maners, and of the means how all estates and conditions 
may Hue well and happily. And although a thousand thoughts 
came then into my mind to hinder my purpose, as the small 
autlioritie, which youth may or ought to hauein counsell amongst 
ancient men : the greatnes of the matter subject, propounded to 
be handled byyeeresof so small experience ; the forgetfulness of 
the best foundations of their discourses, which for want of a rich 
and happie memorie might be in me : my iudgement not sound 
ynough, and my profession vnfit to set them downe in good 
order : briefly, the consideration of your naturall disposition and 
rare vertue, and of the learning which you receiuve both by reading 
good authors, and by your familiar communication with learned 
and great personages that are neere about your Maiestie (whereby 
I seemed to oppose the light of an obscure day, full of clouds 
and darkness, to the bright beames of a very cleere shining 
Sonne, and to take in hand, as we say, to teach Minerua). I say 



BACONS "TEMPORIS PARTUS MAXIMUS. " 37 

all these reasons being but of too great weight to make me 
change my opinion, yet calling to mind manie goodlie and graue 
sentences taken out of sundry Greeke and Latine Philosophers, 
as also the woorthie examples of the Hues of ancient Sages and 
famous men, wherewith these discourses were inriched, which 
might in delighting your noble mind renew your memorie with 
those notable sayings in the praise of vertue and dispraise of vice, 
which you alwaies loued to heare : and considering also that the 
bounty of Artaxerxes that great Monarke of the Persians was 
reuiued in you, who receiued with a cheerfull countenance a 
present of water of a poore laborer, when he had no need of it, 
thinking to be as great an act of magnanimitie to take in good 
part, and to receiue cheerfully small presents offered with a 
hartie and good affection, as to giue great things liberally, I 
ouercame whatsoeuer would haue staled me in mine enterprise." 

It appears, therefore, that the author by good hap was 
a visitor at the Court of Henry III. when at Blois ; 
that he was there studying with certain young gentlemen 
of Anjou, his companions; that he was a youth, and of 
years of small experience ; that his memory might not 
be sufficiently rich and happy, his judgment not enough, 
and his profession unfit in recording the discourses of 
himself and his companions. 

"The Author to the Reader" is an essay on Philo- 
sophy, every sentence in which seems to have the same 
familiar sound as essays which subsequently appeared 
under another name. The contents of the several 
chapters are enumerated thus : " Of Man," " Of the 
Body and Soule," etc. 

The first chapter contains a description of how the 
" Academic " came about. An ancient wise gentleman 
of great calling having spent the greater part of his 
years in the service of two kings, and of his country, 
France, for many and good causes had withdrawn him- 
self to his house. He thought that to content his mind, 
which always delighted in honest and vertuous things, 
he could not bring greater profit to the Monarchic of 
France, than to lay open and preserve and keep youth 

D 



38 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

from the corruption which resulted from the over great 
license and excessive liberty granted to them in the 
Universities, He took unto his house four young 
gentlemen, with the consent of their parents who were 
distinguished noblemen. After he had shown these 
young men the first grounds of true wisdom, and of all 
necessary things for their salvation, he brought into his 
house a tutor of great learning and well reported of his 
good life and conversation, to whom he committed their 
instruction. After teaching them the Latin tongue and 
some smattering of Greek he propounded for their chief 
studies the moral philosophy of ancient sages and wise 
men, together with the understanding and searching 
out of histories which are the light of life. The four 
fathers, desiring to see what progress their sons had 
made, decided to visit them. And because they had 
small skill in the Latin tongue, they determined to have 
their children discourse in their own natural tongue of 
all matters that might serve for the instruction and 
reformation of every estate and calling, in such order 
and method as they and their master might think best. 
It was arranged that they should meet in a walking 
place covered over with a goodly green arbour, and 
daily, except Sundays, for three weeks, devote two hours 
in the morning and two hours after dinner to these 
discourses, the fathers being in attendance to listen to 
their sons. So interesting did these discussions become 
that the period was often extended to three or four 
hours, and the young men were so intent upon prepara- 
tion for them that they would not only bestow the rest 
of the days, but oftentimes the whole night, upon the 
well studying of that which they proposed to handle. 
The author goes on to say : — " During which time it 
was my good hap to be one of the companie when they 
began their discourses, at which I so greatly wondered 
that I thought them worthy to be published abroad." 
From this it would appear that the author was a visitor, 



bacon's "temporis partus MAXIMUS." 39 

privileged, with the four fathers and the master, to listen 
to the discourses of these four young men. But, a little 
further on the position is changed ; one of the four 
young men is, without any explanation, ignored, and 
his father disappointed ! For the author takes his place, 
as will be seen from the following extract : — 

" And thus all fower of us followed the same order daily until 
everie one in his course had intreated according to appointment, 
both by the precepts of doctrine, as also by the examples of the 
lives of ancient Sages and famous men, of all things necessary 
for the institution of manners and happie life of all estates and 
callings in this French Monarchic. But because I knowe not 
whether, in naming my companions by their proper names, 
supposing thereby to honour them as indeede they deserve it, I 
should displease them (which thing I would not so much as 
thinke) I have determined to do as they that play on a Theater, 
who under borrowed maskes and disguised apparell, do repre- 
sent the true personages of those whom they have undertaken to 
bring on the stage. I will therefore call them by names very 
agreeable to their skill and nature : the first Aser which sig- 
nifieth Felicity : the second Amana which is as much to say 
as Truth : the third Aram which noteth to us Highness ; and to 
agree with them as well in name as in education and behaviour. 
I will name myself Achitob* which is all one with Brother of 
goodness. Further more I will call and honour the proceeding 
and finishing of our sundry treatises and discourses with this 
goodlie and excellent title of Academic, which was the ancient 
and renowned school amongst the Greek Philosophers, who were 
the first that were esteemed, and that the place where Plato, 
Xenophon, Poleman, Xenocrates, and many other excellent per- 
sonages, afterward called Academicks, did propound & discourse 
of all things meet for the instruction and teaching of wisdome : 
wherein we purposed to followe them to our power, as the 
sequele of our discourses shall make good proof e." 

And then the discourses commence. 
"Love's Labour's Lost" was published in 1598, and 
was the first quarto upon which the name of Shakespere 

" " Hit " is used by Chaucer as the past participle of " Hide." 
The name thus yields a suggestive anagram, " Bacohit." 



40 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

was printed. The title-page states that it is " newly 
corrected and augmented," from which it may be inferred 
that there was a previous edition, but no copy of such is 
known. The commentators are in practical agreement 
that it was probably the first play written by the 
dramatist. 

There are differences of opinion as to the probable date 
when it was written. Richard Grant White believes this 
to be not later than 1588, Knight gives 1589, but all this 
is conjecture. 

The play opens with a speech by Ferdinand : — 

" Let Fame that all hunt after in their lives, 
Live registred upon our brazen Tombes, 
And then grace us, in the disgrace of death : 
When spight of cormorant devouring time, 
Th' endevour of this present breath may buy : 
That honour which shall bate his sythes kcene edge, 
And make us heyres of all eternitie. 
Therefore brave Conquerours, for so you are. 
That warre against your own affections, 
And the huge Armie of the worlds desires. 
Our late Edict shall strongly stand in force, 
Navar shall be the wonder of the world. 
Our Court shall be a little Achademe, 
Still and contemplative in living Art. 
You three, Berowne, Doumaine, and Longavill, 
Have sworne for three yeeres terme, to live with me, 
My fellow Schollers, and to keepe those statutes 
That are recorded in this schedule heere. 
Your oathes are past, and now subscribe your names ; 
That his owne hand may strike his honour downe, 
That violates the smallest branch heerein : 
If you are arm'd to doe, as sworne to do. 
Subscribe to your deepe oathes, and keepe it to." 

Four young men in the French "Academic" asso- 
ciated together, as in "Love's Labour Lost," to war 
against their own affections and the whole army of the 
world's desires. Dumaine, in giving his acquiescence to 
Ferdinand, ends : — 



bacon's "temporis partus maximus." 41 

"To love, to wealth, to pompe, I pine and die 
With all these living in Philosophie." 

Philosophie was the subject of study of the four young 
men to the " Academic." 

Berowne was a visitor, for he says : — 

" I only swore to study with your grace 
And stay hecre in your Court for three yeeres' space.'' 

Upon his demurring to subscribe to the oath as drawn, 
Ferdinand retorts : — 

Well, sit you out : go home, Berowne : adue." 

To which Berowne replies : — 

No, my good lord ; I have sworn to stay with you." 

Achitob was a visitor at the Academie in France. 
There are other points of resemblance, but sufficient has 
been said to warrant consideration of the suggestion 
that the French "Academie" contains the serious 
studies of the four young men whose experiences form 
the subject of the play. 

The parallels between passages in the Shakespeare 
plays and the French " Academie " are numerous, but 
they form no part of the present contention. 

One of these may, however, be mentioned. In the 
third Tome the following passage occurs ■•• : — 

Psal. xix. : " It is not without cause that the Prophet said (The 
heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth sheweth the 
workes of his handes) For thereby he evidently leacheth, as with 
the finger even to our eies, the great and admirable providence 
of God their Creator ; even as if the heavens should speake to 
anyone. In another place it is written (Eccles. xliii.) : (This high 
ornament, this cleere firmament, the beauty of the heaven so 
glorious to behold, tis a thing full of Majesty)." 

On turning to the revised version of the Bible it will 
be found that the first verse is thus translated: **The 

* 1618 Edition, page 712. 



42 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

pride of the height, the cleare firmament the beauty of 
heaven with his glorious shew." The rendering of the 
text in "The French Academy" is strongly suggestive 
of Hamlet's famous soliloquy. " This most excellent 
canopy, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majes- 
tical roof fritted with golden fire, why it appears to me 
no other than a foul and pestilent congregation of 
vapours." The author has forsaken the common-place 
rendering of the Apocrypha, and has adopted the same 
declamatory style which Shakespeare uses. It is strongly 
reminiscent of Hamlet's famous speech, Act H., scene ii. 

Only one of the Shakespeare commentators makes 
any reference to the work. The Rev. Joseph Hunter, 
writing in 1844, points out that the dramatist in "As 
You Like It," describing the seven ages of man, follows 
the division made in the chapter on "The Ages of 
Man " in the " Academic." •■■ 

The suggestion now made is that the French 
" Academic " was written by Bacon, who is repre- 
sented in the dialogues as Achitob — the first part when 
he was about 18 years of age, that he continued it 
until, in 1618, the complete work was published. In the 
dedication the author describes himself as a youth of 

• In addition to this and to the " Gesta Grayorum " (1692) I have 
only been able to find two references to " The French Academy " 
in the works of English writers. 

J. Payne Collier, in his " Poetical Decameron," Vol. II., page 
271, draws attention to the epistle "to the Christian reader " pre- 
fixed to the second part, and suggests that the initials T.B. which 
occur at the end of the dedicatory epistle stand for Thomas 
Beard, the author of "Theatre of God's Judgments." Collier 
does not appear to have read " The French Academy." Dibdin, 
in " Notes on More's Utopia," says, "But I entreat the reader to 
examine (if he be fortunate enough to possess the book) "The 
French Academy of Primaudaye," a work written in a style of 
peculiarly impressive eloquence, and which, not very improb- 
ably, was the foundation of Derham's and Paley's "Natural 
Theology." 



BACON S "TEMPORIS PARTUS MAXIMUS." 43 

immature experience, but the contents bear evidence of 
a wide knowledge of classical authors and their works, 
a close acquaintance with the ancient philosophies, 
and a store of general information which it would be 
impossible for any ordinary youth of such an age to 
possess. But was not the boy who at 15 years of age 
left Cambridge disagreeing with the teaching there of 
Aristotle's philosophy, and whose mental qualities and 
acquirements provoked as "the natural ejaculation of 
the artist's emotion " the significant words, " Si tabula 
daretur digna animiim mallem,^^ altogether abnormal? 

Was the ''French Academie" Bacon's temporis partus 
maximus ? It is only in a letter written to Father 
Fulgentio about 1625 that this work is heard of. Bacon 
writes: "Equidem memini me, quadraginta abhinc 
annis, juvenile opusculum circa has res confecisse, quod 
magna prorsus fiducia et magnifico titulo 'Temporis 
Partum Maximum ' inscripsi." * 

Spedding says: "This was probably the work of 
which Henry Cuffe (the great Oxford scholar who was 
executed in 1601 as one of the chief accomplices in the 
Earl of Essex's treason) was speaking when he said that 
' a fool could not have written it and a wise man would 
not.' Bacon's intimacy with Essex had begun about 
thirty-five years before this letter was written." 

Forty years from 1625 would carry back to 1585, the 
year preceding the date of publication of the first 
edition in English. If Cuffe's remark was intended to 
apply to the "French Academy," it is just such a 
criticism as the book might be expected to provoke. 

The first edition of '* The French Academie " in 
English appeared in 1586, the second in 1589, the third 
(two parts) in 1594, the fourth (three parts) in 1602, 
the fifth in 1614 (all quartos), then, in 1618, the large 

"^ " II being now forty years as I remember, since I composed 
a juvenile work on this subject which with great confidence and 
a magnificent title I named " The greatest birth of Time." 



44 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

folio edition containing the fourth part "never before 
pubUshed in English." It appears to have been more 
popular in England than it was in France. Brunet in 
his i8j8 edition mentions neither the book nor the 
author, Primaudaye. The question as to whether there 
was at this time a reading public in England sufficiently 
wide to absorb an edition in numbers large enough to 
make the publication of this and similar works possible 
at a profit will be dealt with hereafter. In anticipation 
it may be said that the balance of probabilities justifies 
the conjecture that the issue of each of these editions 
involved someone in loss, and the folio edition involved 
considerable loss. 

A comparison between the French and English 
publications points to both having been written by 
an author who was a master of each language rather 
than that the latter was a mere translation of the 
former. The version is so natural in idiom and style 
that it appears to be an original rather than a transla- 
tion. In 1586 how many men were there who could 
write such English ? The marginal notes are in the 
exact style of Bacon. "A similitude" — "A notable 
comparison " — occur frequently just as the writer finds 
them again and again in Bacon's handwriting in 
volumes which he possesses. The book abounds in 
statements, phrases, and quotations which are to be 
found in Bacon's letters and works. 

One significant fact must be mentioned. The first 
letter of the text in the dedication in the first English 
translation is the letter S. It is printed from a wood 
block (Fig. I.). Thirty-nine years after (in 1625) when 
the last edition of Bacon's Essays — and, with the ex- 
ception of the small pamphlet containing his versifica- 
tion of certain Psalms, the last publication during his 
life — was printed, that identical wood block (Fig. II.) 
was again used to print the first letter in the dedication 
of that book. Every defect and peculiarity in the one 



45 




Fig. I. 

The first letter in the text of the dedication of the 1st edition 
of the English translation of the "French Academie," 1586, 
Printed at London by G. Bollifant. The block is also used in a 
similar manner in the 2nd edition, 1589. Londini Impensis, 
John Bishop. 




Fig. II. 

The first letter in the text of the dedication of the 1625 
edition of Bacon's Essays, printed in London, by John Haviland. 



Both letters were printed from the same block. 



46 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

will be found in the other. A search through many 
hundreds of books printed during these thirty-nine 
years — 1586 to 1625 — has failed to find it used else- 
where, except on one occasion, either then, before, or 
since. 

Did Bacon mark his first work on philosophy and 
his last book by printing the first letter in each from 
the same block ? * 



~ The block was used on page 626 of the 1594 quarto edition 
of William Camden's "Britannia,"' published in London by 
George Bishop, who was the publisher of the 1586, 1589, and 
1594 editions of " The French Academy." There is a marginal 
note at the foot of the imprint of the block commencing "' R. 
Bacons." Francis Bacon is known to have assisted Camden in 
the preparation of this work. The manuscript bears evidence 
of the fact in his handwriting. 



47 



Chapter VII. 
BACON'S FIRST ALLEGORICAL ROMANCE. 

There is another work which it is impossible not to 
associate with this period, and that is John Barclay's 
"Argenis." It is little better known than is "The 
French Academy," and yet Cowper pronounced it the 
most amusing romance ever written. Cardinal Richelieu 
is said to have been extremely fond of reading it, and 
to have derived thence many of his political maxims. 
It is an allegorical novel. It is proposed now only to 
mention some evidence connected with the "Argenis" 
which supports the contention that the 1625 English 
edition contains the original composition, and that its 
author was young Francis Bacon. 

The first edition of the "Argenis" in Latin was 
pubhshed in 1621. The authority to the publisher, 
Nicholas Buon, to print and sell the "Argenis" is 
dated the 21st July, 162 1, and was signed by Barclay 
at Rome. The Royal authority is dated on the 31st 
August following. 

Barclay's death took place between these dates, on 
the i2th of August, at Rome. It is reported that the 
cause of death was stone, but in an appreciation of him, 
published by his friend, Ralph Thorie, his death is 
attributed to poison. 

The work is an example of the highest type of 
Latinity. So impressed was Cowper with its style that 
he stated that it would not have dishonoured Tacitus 
himself. A translation in Spanish was published in 
1624, and in Italian in 1629. The Latin version was 
frequently reprinted during the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries — perhaps more frequently than 
any other book. 



48 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

In a letter dated nth May, 1622, Chamberlain, 
writing to Carleton, says : " The King has ordered 
Ben Jonson to translate the ' Argenis,' but he will not 
be able to equal the original." On the 2nd October, 
1623, Ben Jonson entered a translation in Stationers' 
Hall, but it was never published. About that time 
there was a fire in Jonson's house, in which it is said 
some manuscripts were destroyed ; but it is a pure 
assumption that the " Argenis " was one of these. 

In 1629 an English translation appeared by Sir 
Robert Le Grys, Knight, and the verses by Thomas 
May, Esquire. The title-page bears the statement : 
"The prose upon his Majesty's command." There is 
a Clavis appended, also stated to be "published at his 
Majesties command." It was printed by Felix Kyng- 
ston for Richard Mughten and Henry Seile. In the 
address to " The understanding Reader " Le Grys 
says, "What then should I say? Except it were to 
entreate thee, that where my English phrase doth not 
please thee, thou wilt compare it with the originall 
Latin and mend it. Which I doe not speak as think- 
ing it impossible, but as willing to have it done, for the 
saving me a labour, who, if his Majesty had not so much 
hastened the publishing it, would have reformed some 
things in it, that did not give myselfe very full satisfac- 
tion." 

In 1622 King James ordered a translation of the 
"Argenis." In 1629* Charles I. was so impatient to 
have a translation that he hastened the publication, thus 
preventing the translator from revising his work. Three 
years previously, however, in 1625 — if the date may be 
relied on — there was published as printed by G. P. 
for Henry Seile a translation by Kingesmill Long. 
James died on the 25th March, 1625. The "Argenis" 
may not have been published in his lifetime ; but if the 

'■ One copy of this edition bears the date 1628. 



bacon's first allegorical romance. 49 

date be correct, three or four years before Charles 
hastened the publication of Le Grys's translation, this 
far superior one with Kingesmill Long's name attached 
to it could have been obtained from H. Seile. Surely 
the publisher would have satisfied the King's impatience 
by supplying him with a copy of the 1625 edition had it 
been on sale. The publication of a translation of the 
" Argenis " must have attracted attention. Is it possible 
that it could have been in existence and not brought to 
the notice of the King ? There is something here that 
requires explanation. The Epistle Dedicatorie of the 
1625 edition is written in the familiar style of another 
pen, although it bears the name of Kingesmill Long. 
The title-page states that it is " faithfully translated 
out of Latine into English," but it is not directly 
in the Epistle Dedicatorie spoken of as a translation. 
The following extract implies that the work had 
been lying for years waiting publication : — 

" This rude piece, such as it is, hath long lyen by me, since it 
was finished ; I not thinking it worthy to see the light. I had 
always a desire and hope to have it undertaken by a more able 
workman, that our Nation might not be deprived of the use of so 
excellent a Story : But finding none in so long time to have 
done it ; and knowing that it spake not English, though it 
were a rich jewell to the learned Linguist, yet it was close lockt 
from all those, to whom education had not given more languages, 
than Nature Tongues : I have adventured to become the key to 
this piece of hidden Treasure, and have suffered myselfe to be 
overruled by some of my worthy friends, whose judgements I 
have alwayes esteemed, sending it abroad (though coursely done) 
for the delight and use of others.'' 

Not a word about the author ! The translations, 
said to be by Thomas May, of the Latin verses in the 
1629 are identical with those in the 1625 edition, 
although Kingesmill Long, on the title-page, appears 
as the translator. Nothing can be learnt as to who or 
what Long was. 



50 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

Over lines "Authori," signed Ovv : Fell:* in the 
1625 edition is one of the well-known light and dark A 
devices. This work is written in flowing and majestic 
English ; the 1629 edition in the cramped style of 
translation. 

The copy bearing date 1628, to which reference has 
been made, belonged to John Henry Shorthouse. He 
has made this note on the front page: "Jno. Barcla3''s 
description of himself under the person of Nico- 
pompus Argenis, p. 60." This is the description to 
which he alludes : — 

" Him thus boldly talking, Nicopompus could no longer 
endure : he was a man who from his infancy loved Learning ; 
but who disdaining to be nothing but a booke-man had left the 
schooles very young, that in the courts ot Kings and Princes, he 
might serve his apprenticeship in publicke affairs ; so he grew 
there with an equall abilitie, both in learning and imployment, 
his descent and disposition fitting him for that kind of life : wel 
esteemed of many Princes, and especially of Meleander, whose 
cause together with the rest of the Princes, he had taken upon 
him to defend." 

This description is inaccurate as applied to John 
Barclay, but in every detail it describes Francis Bacon. 

A comparison has been made between the editions of 
1625 and 1629 with the 1621 Latin edition. It leaves 
little room for doubting that the 1625 is the original 
work. Throughout the Latin appears to follow it 
rather than to be the leader ; whilst the 1629 
edition follows the Latin closely. In some cases the 
word used in the 1625 edition has been incorrectly 
translated into the 1621 edition, and the Latin word re- 
translated literally and incorrectly in view of the sense 
in the 1629 edition. But space forbids this comparison 
being further followed ; suffice it to say that everything 
points to the 1625 edition being the original work. 

As to the date of composition much may be said ; 

* Probably Owen Felltham, author of " Felltham's Resolves." 



bacon's first allegorical romance. 51 

but the present contention is that " The French 
Academie," "The Argenis," and "Love's Labour's Lost " 
are productions from the same pen, and that they all 
represent the work of Francis Bacon probably between 
the years 1577 and 1580. At any rate, the first-named 
was written whilst he was in France, and the others 
were founded on the incidents and experience obtained 
during his sojourn there. 



52 



Chapter VIII. 
BACON IN FRANCE, 1576— 1579. 

This brilliant young scholar landed with Sir Amias 
Paulet at Calais on the 25th of September, 1576, and 
with him went straight to the Court of Henry III. 
of France. It is remarkable that neither Montagu, 
Spedding, Hepworth Dixon, nor any other biographer 
seems to have thought it worth while to consider under 
what influences he was brought when he arrived there 
at the most impressionable period of his life. Hepworth 
Dixon, without stating his authority, says that he 
"quits the galleries of the Louvre and St. Cloud with 
his morals pure," but nothing more. And yet Francis 
Bacon arrived in France at the most momentous epoch 
in the history of French literature. This boy, with 
his marvellous intellect — the same intellect which 
nearly half a century later produced the " Novum 
Organum " — with a memory saturated with the records 
of antiquity and with the writings of the classical 
authors, with an industry beyond the capacity and a 
mind beyond the reach of his contemporaries, skilled in 
the teachings of the philosophers, with independence of 
thought and a courage which enabled him to condemn 
the methods of study followed at the University where 
he had spent three years; this boy who had a "beam 
of knowledge derived from God" upon him, who "had 
not his knowledge from books, but from some grounds 
and notions from himself," and above and beyond all 
who was conscious of his powers and had unbounded 
confidence in his capacity for using them; this boy 
walked beside the English Ambassador elect into the 
highest circles of French Society at the time when the 



BACON IN FRANCE, 1576 — 1579. 53 

most important factors of influence were Ronsard and 
his confreres of the Pleiade. He had left behind him in 
his native country a language crude aud almost bar- 
baric, incapable of giving expression to the knowledge 
which he possessed and the thoughts which resulted 
therefrom. 

At this time there were few books written in the 
English tongue which could make any pretence to be 
considered literature: Sir Thomas Eliot's "The 
Governor," Robert Ascham's "The Schoolmaster," 
^^y■'^ and Thomas Wright-'s "Arts of Rhetoric," almost 
exhaust the list. Thynne's edition, 1532, and Lidgate's 
edition, 1561, of Chaucer's works are not intelligible. 
Only in the 1598 edition can the great poet be read with 
any understanding. The work of re-casting the poems 
for this edition was Bacon's, and he is the man referred 
to in the following lines, which are prefixed to it : — 

The Reader to Geffrey Chaucer. 

Ren. — Where hast thou dwelt, good Geffrey al this while, 

Unknown to us save only by thy bookes ? 
Cliaii. — In haulks, and hemes, God wot, and in exile, 

Where none vouchsaft to yeeld me words or lookes : 
Till one which saw me there, and knew my friends. 
Did bring me forth : such grace sometimes God sends. 
Rea. — But who is he that hath thy books repar'd. 

And added moe, whereby thou are more graced ? 
Chau. — The selfe same man who hath no labor spar'd, 
To helpe what time and writers had defaced : 
And made old words, which were unknoun of many, 
So plaine, that now they may be knoun of any. 
Rca. — Well fare his heart : I love him for thy sake, 

Who for thy sake hath taken all this pains, 
Chau. — Would God I knew some means amends to make, 
That for his toile he might receive some gains. 
But wot ye what ? I know his kindnesse such, 
That for my good he thinks no pains too much : 
And more than that ; if he had knoune in time, 
He would have left no fault in prose nor rime. 



54 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

There is a catalogue of the Hbrary of Sir Thomas 
Smith* on August i, 1566, in his gallery at Hillhall. It 
was said to contain nearly a thousand books. Of these 
only live were written in the English language. Under 
Theologici, K. Henry VIII. book ; under Juris Civilis, 
Littleton's Tenures, an old abridgement of Statutes ; 
under Historiographi, Hall's Chronicles, and Fabian's 
Chronicles and The Decades of P. Martyr ; under 
Mathematica, The Art of Navigation. The remainder 
are in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian. Burghley's 
biographer states that Burghley "never read any books 
or praiers but in Latin, French, or Italian, very seldom 
in Englishe." 

At this time Francis Bacon thought in Latin, for his 
mother tongue was wholly insufficient. There is abun- 
dant proof of this in his own handwriting. Under 
existing conditions there could be no English literature 
worthy of the name. If a Gentleman of the Court 
wrote he either suppressed his writings or suffered 
them to be published without his name to them, as it 
was a discredit for a gentleman to seem learned and to 
show himself amorous of any good art. Here is where 
Spedding missed his way and never recovered himself. 
Deep as is the debt of gratitude due to him for his 
devoted labours in the preparation of "Bacon's Life 
and Letters " and in the edition of his works, it must be 
asserted that he accomplished this work without seeing 
Francis Bacon. There was a vista before young 
Bacon's eyes from which the practice of the law and 
civil dignities were absent. He arrived at the French 
Court at the psychological moment when an object- 
lesson met his eyes which had a more far-reaching effect 

■^ Sir Thomas Smith (15 12 — 1577) was Secretary of State under 
Edward VI. and EHzabeth — a good scholar and philosopher. He, 
when Greek lecturer and orator at Cambridge, with John Cheke, 
introduced, in spite of strong opposition, the correct way of 
speaking Greek, restoring the pronunciation of the ancients. 



BACON IN FRANCE, I576 — 1579. 55 

on the language and literature of the Anglo-Saxon race 
than any or all other influences that have conspired to 
raise them to the proud position which to-day they 
occupy. It is necessary briefly to explain the position 
of the French language and literature at this juncture. 

The French Renaissance of literature had its beginning 
in the early years of the sixteenth century. It had been 
preceded by that of Italy, which opened in the fourteenth 
century, and reached its limit with Ariosto and Tasso, 
Macchiavelli and Guicciardini during the sixteenth 
century. Towards the end of the fifteenth century 
modern French poetry may be said to have had its 
origin in Villon and French prose in Comines. The 
style of the former was artificial and his poems abounded 
in recurrent rhymes and refrains. The latter had 
peculiarities of diction which were only compensated 
for by weight of thought and simplicity of expression. 
Clement Marot, who followed, stands out as one of the 
first landmarks in the French Renaissance. His grace- 
ful style, free from stiffness and monotony, earned for 
him a popularity which even the brilliancy of the 
Pleiade did not extinguish, for he continued to be read 
with genuine admiration for nearly two centuries. He 
was the founder of a school of which Mellia de St. 
Gelais, the introducer of the sonnet into France, was 
the most important member. Rabelais and his followers 
concurrently effected a complete revolution in fiction. 
Marguerite of Navarre, who is principally known as the 
author of "The Heptameron," maintained a literary 
Court in which the most celebrated men of the time 
held high place. It was not until the middle of the 
sixteenth century that the great movement took place 
in French literature which, if that which occurred in 
the same country three hundred years subsequently be 
excepted, is without parallel in literary history. 

The Pleiade consisted of a group of seven men and 
boys who, animated by a sincere and intelligent love of 



56 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

their native language, banded themselves together to re- 
model it and its literary forms on the methods of the 
two great classical tongues, and to reinforce it with new 
words from them. They were not actuated by any desire 
for gain. In 1549 Jean Daurat, then 49 years of age, was 
professor of Greek at le College de Coqueret in Paris. 
Amongst those who attended his classes were five 
enthusiastic, ambitious youths whose ages varied from 
seventeen to twenty-four. They were Pierre de Ronsard, 
Joachim du Bellay, Remy Belleau, Antoine de Baif, 
and Etienne Jodelle. They and their Professor asso- 
ciated themselves together and received as a colleague 
Pontus de Tyard, who was twenty-eight. They formed 
a band of seven renovators, to whom their countrymen 
applied the cognomen of the Pleiade, by which they will 
ever be known. Realising the defects and possibilities 
of their language, they recognised that by appropriations 
from the Greek and Latin languages, and from the 
melodious forms of the Italian poetry, they might 
reform its defects and develop its possibilities so com- 
pletely that they could place at the service of great 
writers a vehicle for expression which would be the 
peer if not the superior of any language, classical or 
modern. It was a bold project for young men, some of 
whom were not out of their teens, to venture on. That 
they met with great success is beyond question ; the 
extent of that success it is not necessary to discuss here. 
The main point to be emphasised is that it was a 
deliberate scheme, originated, directed, and matured by 
a group of little more than boys. The French Renais- 
sance was not the result of a spontaneous bursting out 
on all sides of genius. It was wrought out with sheer 
hard work, entailing the mastering of foreign languages, 
and accompanied by devotion and without hope of 
pecuniary gain. The manifesto of the young band was 
written by Joachim de Bellay in 1549, ^-nd was entitled, 
"La Defense et Illustration de la lansrue Francaise." 



BACON IN FRANCE, I576 — 1579- 57 

In the following year appeared Ronsard's Ode — the 
first example of the new method. Pierre de Ronsard 
entered Court life when ten years old. In attendance 
on French Ambassadors he visited Scotland and 
England, where he remained for some time. A severe 
illness resulted in permanent deafness and compelled 
him to abandon his profession, when he turned to 
literature. Although Du Bellay was the originator of 
the scheme, Ronsard became the director and the 
acknowledged leader of the band. His accomplish- 
ments place him in the first rank of the poets of the 
world. Reference would be out of place here to the 
movement which was after his death directed by Mal- 
herbe against Ronsard's reputation and fame as a poet 
and his eventual restoration by the disciples of Sainte 
Beuve and the followers of Hugo. It is desirable, how- 
ever, to allude to other great Frenchmen whose labours 
contributed in other directions to promote the growth 
of French literature. Jean Calvin, a native of Noyon, 
in Picardy, had published in Latin, in J536, when only 
twenty-seven years of age, his greatest work, both from 
a literary and theological point of view, " The Institu- 
tion of the Christian Religion," which would be 
accepted as the product of full maturity of intellect 
rather than the firstfruits of the career of a youth. 
What the Pleiade had done to create a French language 
adequate for the highest expression of poetry Calvin 
did to enable facility in argument and discussion. A 
Latin scholar of the highest order, avoiding in his 
compositions a tendency to declamation, he developed 
a stateliness of phrase which was marked by clearness 
and simplicity. Theodore Beza, historian, translator, 
and dramatist, was another contributor to the literature 
of this period. Jacques Amyot had commenced his trans- 
lations from " Ethiopica," treating of the royal and 
chaste loves of Theagenes and Chariclea three years 
before Du Bellay's manifesto appeared. Montaigne, 



58 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

referring to his translation of Plutarch, accorded to 
him the palm over all French writers, not only for the 
simplicity and purity of his vocabulary, in which he 
surpassed all others, but for his industry and depth of 
learning. In another held Michel Eyquem Sieur de Mon- 
taigne had arisen. His moral essays found a counter- 
part in the biographical essays of the Abbe de Bran- 
tome. Agrippa D'Aubigne, prose writer, historian, and 
poet ; Guillaume de Saluste du Bartas, the Protestant 
Ronsard whose works were more largely translated 
into English than those of any other French writer ; 
Philippes Desportes and others might be mentioned as 
forming part of that brilliant circle of writers who had 
during a comparatively short period helped to achieve 
such a high position for the language and literature of 
France. 

In 1576, when Francis Bacon arrived in France, the 
fame of the Pleiade was at its zenith, Du Bellay and 
Jodelle were dead, but the fruit of their labours and of 
those of their colleagues was evoking the admiration of 
their countrymen. The popularity of Ronsard, the 
prince of poets and the poet of princes, was without 
precedent. It is said that the King had placed beside 
his throne a state chair for Ronsard to occupy. Poets 
and men of letters were held in high esteem by their 
countrymen. In England, for a gentleman to be 
amorous of any learned art was held to be discreditable, 
and any proclivities in this direction had to be hidden 
under assumed names or the names of others. In 
France it was held to be discreditable for a gentleman 
not to be amorous of the learned arts. The young men 
of the Pleiade were all of good family, and all came 
from cultured homes. Marguerite of Navarre had set 
the example of attracting poets and writers to her 
Court and according honours to them on account of 
their achievements. The kings of France had adopted 



BACON IN FRANCE, I576 — 1579. 59 

a similar attitude. During the same period in England 
Henry VIII., Mary, and Elizabeth had been following 
other courses. They had given no encouragement to 
the pursuit of literature. Notwithstanding the repeti- 
tion by historians of the assertion that the good Queen 
Bess was a munificent patron of men of letters, litera- 
ture flourished in her reign in spite of her action and 
not by its aid. 

Bacon implies this in the opening sentences of the 
second book of the "Advancement of Learning." He 
speaks of Queen Elizabeth as being "a sojourner in 
the world in respect of her unmarried life, rather than 
an inhabitant. She hath indeed adorned her own time 
and many waies enricht it ; but in truth to Your 
Majesty, whom God hath blest with so much Royall 
issue worthy to perpetuate you for ever ; whose youth- 
full and fruitfull Bed, doth yet promise more children ; 
it is very proper, not only to iradiate as you doe your 
own times, but also to extend your Cares to those Acts 
which succeeding Ages may cherish, and Eternity itself 
behold : Amongst which, if my affection to learning 
doe not transport me, there is none more worthy, or 
more noble, than the endowment of the world with 
sound and fruitfull Advancement of Learning : For 
why should we erect unto ourselves some few authors, 
to stand like Hercules Columnes beyond which there 
should be no discovery of knowledge, seeing we have 
your Majesty as a bright and benigne starre to conduct 
and prosper us in this Navigation." As Elizabeth had 
been unfruitful in her body, and James fruitful, so had 
she been unfruitful in encouraging the Advancement of 
Learning, but the appeal is made to James that he, 
being blessed with a considerable issue, should also 
have an issue by the endowment of Learning. 

What must have been the effect on the mind of this 
brilliant young Englishman, Francis Bacon, when he 
entered into this literary atmosphere so different from 



60 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

that of the Court which he had left behind him ? There 
was hardly a classical writer whose works he had not 
read and re-read. He was familiar with the teachings 
of the schoolmen ; imbued with a deep religious spirit, 
he had mastered the principles of their faiths and the 
subtleties of their disputations. The intricacies of the 
known systems of philosophies had been laid bare before 
his penetrating intellect. With the mysteries of mathe- 
matics and numbers he was familiar. What had been 
discovered in astronomy, alchemy and astrology he had 
absorbed ; however technical might be a subject, he had 
mastered its details. In architecture the works of Vit- 
ruvius had been not merely read but criticised with the 
skill of an expert. Medicine, surgery — every subject — 
he had made himself master of. In fact, when he 
asserted that he had taken all knowledge to be his pro- 
vince he spoke advisedly and with a basis of truth which 
has never until now been recognised. The youth of 17 
who possessed the intellect, the brain and the memory 
which jointly produced the " Novum Organum," whose 
mind was so abnormal that the artist painting his port- 
rait was impelled to place round it " the significant 
words," "si tabula daretiir digna, animinn mallem,'' who 
had taken all knowledge to be his province, was capable 
of any achievement of the Admirable Crichton. And this 
youth it was who in 1576 passed from a country of liter- 
ary and intellectual torpor into the brilliancy of the 
companionship of Pierre de Ronsard and his associates. 
It is one of the most stupendous factors in his life. 
Something happened to him before his return to Eng- 
land which affected the whole of his future life. It may 
be considered a wild assertion to make, but the time will 
come when its truth will be proved, that " The Anatomie 
of the Minde," "Beautiful Blossoms," and " The French 
Academy," are the product of one mind, and that same 
mind produced the "Arte of English Poesie," "An 
Apology for Poetrie," by Sir John Harrington, and " The 



BACON IN FRANCE, I576 — 1579- 61 

Defense of Poetry," by Sir Philip Sydney. The former 
three were written before 1578 and place the philosopher 
before the poet ; the latter three were written after 1580 
and place the poet — the creator — before the philosopher. 
Francis Bacon had recognised that the highest achieve- 
ment was the act of creation. Henceforth he lived to 
create. 

Sir Nicholas Bacon died on or about the 17th of 
February, 1578 — g. How or where this news reached 
Francis is not recorded, but on the 20th of the following 
March he left Paris for England, after a stay of two and 
a-half years on the Continent. He brought with him to 
the Queen a despatch from Sir Amias Paulet, in which 
he was spoken of as being " of great hope, endued with 
many and singular parts," and one who, " if God gave 
him life, would prove a very able and sufficient subject 
to do her Highness good and acceptable service." * 



State Paper Office ; French Correspondence. 



62 



Chapter IX. 

BACON'S SUIT ON HIS RETURN TO 
ENGLAND, 1580. 

Spedding states that the earliest composition of Bacon 
which he had been able to discover is a letter written in 
his 20th year from Grays Inn. From that time for- 
ward, he continues, compositions succeed each other 
without any considerable interval, and in following them 
we shall accompany him step by step through his life. 
What are the compositions which Spedding places as be- 
ing written but not published up to the year 1597, when 
the first small volume of 10 essays containing less than 
6,000 words was issued from the press ? These are 
they : — 

Notes on the State of Christendom * (date 1580 to 

1584). 

Letter of Advice to the Queen (1584 — 1586). 

An Advertisement touching the Controversies of the 
Church of England (1586 — 1589). 

Speeches written for some Court device, namely, Mr. 
Bacon in praise of Knowledge, and Mr. Bacon's dis- 
course in praise of his Sovereign (1590 — 1592). 

Certain observations made upon a libel published this 
present year, 1592, 

A true report of the Detestable Treason intended by 
Dr. Roderigo Lopez, 1594. 

Gesta Grayorum, 1594, parts of which are printed by 
Spedding in type denoting doubtful authorship. 

Bacon's device, 1594 — 1598. 

* Spedding prints this in small type, being doubtful as to the 
authorship. 



bacon's suit, etc. 63 

Three letters to the Earl of Rutland on his travels, 
1595— 1596. 

That is all ! These are the compositions which fol- 
low each other without considerable interval, and by 
which we are to accompany him step by step through 
those seventeen years which should be the most impor- 
tant years in a man's life ! He could have turned them 
out in ten days or a fortnight with ease. We expect 
from Mr. Spedding bread, and he gives us a stone ! 

This brilliant young man, who, when 15 years of age, 
left Cambridge, having possessed himself of all the know- 
ledge it could afford to a student, who had travelled in 
France, Spain and Italy to " polish his mind and mould 
his opinion by intercourse with all kinds of foreigners," 
how was he occupying himself during what should be 
the most fruitful years of his life ? Following his 
profession at the Bar ? His affections did not that way 
tend. Spedding expresses the opinion that he had a 
distaste for his profession, and, writing of the circum- 
stances with which he was surrounded in 1592, says : 
"I do not find that he was getting into practice. 
His main object still was to find ways and means for 
prosecuting his great philosophical enterprise." What 
was this enterprise? "I confess that I have as vast 
contemplative ends as I have moderate means," he says, 
writing to Burghley, " for I have taken all knowledge 
to be my province." This means more than mere 
academic philosophy. 

In 1593, when Bacon was put forward and upheld 
for a year as a candidate for the post of Attorney- 
General, Spedding writes of him; " He had had little 
or no practice in the Courts ; what proof he had 
given of professional proficiency was confined to his 
readings and exercises in Grays Inn. . . . Law, 
far from being his only, was not even his favourite 
study ; . . . his head was full of ideas so new and 



64 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

large that to most about him they must have seemed 
visionary." 

Writing of him in 1594 Spedding says: "The 
strongest point against Bacon's pretensions for the 
Attorneyship was his want of practice. His opponents 
said that 'he had never entered the place of battle.'* 
Whether this was because he could not find clients or 
did not seek them I cannot say." In order to meet 
the objection, Bacon on the 25th January, 1593 — 4, 
made his first pleading, and Burghley sent his secretary 
" to congratulate unto him the first fruits of his public 
practice." 

There is one other misconception to be corrected. It 
is urged that Bacon was, during this period, engrossed 
in Parliamentary life. From 15S4 to 1597 five Parlia- 
ments were summoned. Bacon sat in each. In his 
twenty-fifth year he was elected member for Melcombe, 
in Dorsetshire. In the Parliament of 1586 he sat for 
Taunton, in that of 158S for Liverpool, in that of 1592-3 
for Middlesex, and in 1597 for Ipswich. 

But the sittings of these Parliaments were not of long 
duration, and the speeches which he delivered and the 
meetings of committees upon which he was appointed 
would absorb but a small portion of his time. It must 
be patent, therefore, that Spedding does not account 
for his occupations from his return to England in 1578 
until 1597, when the first small volume of his Essays 
was published. 

During the whole of this period Bacon was in 
monetary difficulties, and yet there is no evidence that 
he was living a life of dissipation or even of extrava- 
gance. On the contrary, all testimony would point 
to the conclusion that he was following the path of a 
strictly moral and studious young man. On his return 
to England he took lodgings in Coney Court, Grays 

■•' That is, never held a brief. 



bacon's suit, etc. 65 

Inn. There Anthony found him when he returned from 
abroad. 

There are no data upon which to form any reliable 
opinion as to the amount of his income at this time. 
Rawley states that Sir Nicholas Bacon had collected a 
considerable sum of money which he had separated 
with intention to have made a competent purchase of 
land for the livelihood of his youngest son, but the 
purchase being unaccomplished at his death, Francis 
received only a fifth portion of the money dividable, by 
which means he lived in some straits and necessities in 
his younger years. It is not clear whether the *' money 
dividable " was only that separated by Sir Nicholas, or 
whether he left other sums which went to augment 
the fund divisible amongst the brothers. His other 
children were well provided for. Francis was not, 
however, without income. Sir Nicholas had left certain 
manors, etc., in Herts to his sons Anthony and Francis 
in tail male, remainder to himself and his heirs. Lady 
Ann Bacon had vested an estate called Markes, in 
Essex, in Francis, and there is a letter, dated i6th 
April, 1593, from Anthony to his mother urging her to 
concur in its sale, so that the proceeds might be applied 
to the relief of his brother's financial position.* 

• I am indebted to Mr. Harold Hardy for this interesting in- 
formation. There is an entry in the State Papers, 1608, Jan. 31 : 
Grant at the suit of Sir Francis Bacon to Sir William Cooke, Sir 
John Constable, and three others, of the King's reversion of the 
estates in Herts above referred to. Sir Nicholas, to whom it had 
descended from the Lord Keeper, conveyed the remainder to 
Queen Elizabeth her heirs and successors " with the condition 
that if he paid ^100 the grant should be void, which was 
apparently done to prevent the said Sir Francis to dispose of 
the same land which otherwise by law he might have done." 
When Lady Anne conveyed the Markes estate to Francis it was 
subject to a similar condition, namely, that the grant was to be 
null and void on Lady Ann paying ten shillings to Francis. This 
condition made it impossible for Francis to dispose of his interest 



66 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

Lady Bacon lived at Gorhambury. She was not ex- 
travagant, and yet in 1589 she was so impoverished that 
Captain Allen, in writing to Anthonj^ speaking of his 
mother, Lady Bacon, says she "also saith her jewels be 
spent for you, and that she borrowed the last money of 
seven several persons." Whatever her resources were, 
they had by then been exhausted for her sons. Anthony 
was apparently a man of considerable means. He was 
master of the manor and priory of Redburn, of the 
manor of Abbotsbury, Minchinbury and Hores, in the 
parish of Barley, in the county of Hertford ; of the 
Brightfirth wood, Merydan-meads, and Pinner-Stoke 
farms, in the county of Middlesex.* 

But within a few years after his return to England 
Anthony was borrowing money wherever he could. 
Mother and brother appear to have exhausted their 
resources and their borrowing capabilities. There is 
an account showing that in eighteen months, about 
1593, Anthony lent Francis ^^373, equivalent to nearly 
/'3,ooo at to-day's value. In 1597 Francis was arrested 
by the sheriff for a debt of £300, for which a money- 
lender had obtained judgment against him, and he was 
cast into the Tower. Where had all the money gone ? 
There is no adequate explanation. 



The first letter of Francis Bacon's which Spedding 
met with, to which reference has already been made, 
is dated nth July, 1580, to Mr. Doylie, and is of little 
importance. The six letters which follow — all there 

in the estate, hence Anthony's request in the letter above referred 
to. It is obvious that his relatives considered that Francis was 
not to be trusted with property which he could turn into money. 
There was evidently some heavy strain on his resources which 
caused him to convert everything he could into cash. 

* "Story of Lord Bacon's Life." Hepworth Dixon, p. 28. 



bacon's suit, etc. 67 

are between 1580 and 1590 * — relate to one subject, and 
are of great significance. The first is dated from Grays 
Inn, i6th September, 1580, to Lady Burghley. In it 
young Francis, now ig years of age, makes this re- 
quest : "That it would please your Ladyship in your 
letters wherewith you visit my good Lord to vouchsafe 
the mention and recommendation of my suit ; wherein 
your Ladyship shall bind me more unto you than I can 
look ever to be able to sufficiently acknowledge." 

The next letter — written on the same day — is ad- 
dressed to Lord Burghley. Its object is thus set forth: — 

" My letter hath no further errand but to commend unto your 
Lordship the remembrance of my suit which then I moved unto 
you, whereof it also pleased your Lordship to give me good 
hearing so far forth as to promise to tender it unto her Majesty, 
and withal to add in the behalf of it that which I may better 
deliver by letter than by speech, which is, that although it must 
be confessed that the request is rare and unaccustomed, yet if it 
be observed how few there be which fall in with the study of the 
common laws either being well left or friended, or at their own 
free election, or forsaking likely success in other studies of more 
delight and no less preferment, or setting hand thereunto early 
without waste of years upon such survey made, it may be my 
case may not seem ordinary, no more than my suit, and so more 
beseeming unto it. As I force myself to say this in excuse of my 
motion, lest it should appear unto your Lordship altogether un- 
discreet and unadvised, so my hope to obtain it resteth only upon 
your Lordship's good affection towards me and grace with her 
Majesty, who methinks needeth never to call for the experience 
of the thing, where she hath so great and so good of the person 
which recommendeth it." 

~= The two letters of i6th September, 1580, and that of 15th 
October, 1580, are taken from copies in the Lansdowne collec- 
tion. That of the 6th May, 1586, is in the same collection, 
and is an original in Bacon's handwriting. The letter of 
25th August, 1585, is also in his handwriting, and is in the 
State Papers, Domestic. The letter without date, written to 
Burghley presumably in 1591, is from the supplement to the 
" Resuscitatio,'' 1657. 



68 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

What was this suit ? Spedding cannot suggest any 
explanation. He says : "What the particular employ- 
ment was for which he hoped I cannot say ; something 
probably connected with the service of the Crown, to 
which the memory cf his father, an old and valued 
servant prematurely lost, his near relationship to the 
Lord Treasurer, and the personal notice which he had 
himself received from the Queen, would naturally lead 
him to look. . . . The proposition, whatever it was, 
having been explained to Burghley in conversation, is 
only alluded to in these letters. It seems to have been 
so far out of the common way as to require an apology, 
and the terms of the apology imply that it was for some 
employment as a lawyer. And this is all the light I 
can throw upon it." Subsequently Spedding says the 
motion was one •■■ "which would in some way have 
made it unnecessary for him to follow ' a course of 
practice,' meaning, I presume, ordinary practice at the 
Bar." 

Another expression in the letter makes it clear that 
the object of the suit was an experiment. The Queen 
could not have "experience of the thing," and Bacon 
solicited Burghley's recommendation, because she 
would not need the experience if he, so great and so 
good, vouched for it. 

Burghley appears to have tendered the suit to the 
Queen, for there is a letter dated i8th October, 1580, 
addressed to him by Bacon, commencing : 

"Your Lordship's comfortable relation to her Majesty's 
gracious opinion and meaning towards me, though at that time 
your leisure gave me not leave to show how I was affected there- 
with, yet upon every representation thereof it entereth and 
striketh so much more deeply into me, as both my nature and 
duty presseth me to return some speech of thankfulness.'' 

Spedding remarks thereon: "It seems that he had 

- " Life and Letters," Vol. L p. 57. 



bacon's suit, etc. 69 

spoken to Burghley on the subject and made some over- 
ture, which Burghley undertook to recommend to the 
Queen ; and that the Queen, who though slow to bestow 
favours was careful always to encourage hopes, enter- 
tained the motion graciously and returned a favourable 
answer. The proposition, whatever it was, having been 
explained to Burghley in conversation, is only alluded 
to in these letters," 

Spedding dismisses these three letters in 22 lines of 
comment, which contain the extracts before set out. He 
regards the matter as of slight consequence, and admits 
that he can throw no light upon it. But he points out 
that it was " so far out of the common way as to require 
an apology." Surely he has not well weighed the 
terms of the apology when he says they "imply that it 
was for some employment as a lawyer." 

There had been a conversation between Bacon and 
Burghley during which Bacon had submitted a project 
to the accomplishment of which he was prepared to 
devote his life in the Queen's service. It necessitated 
his abandoning the profession of the law. Apparently 
Burghley had remonstrated with him, in the manner of 
experienced men of the world, against forsaking a 
certain road and avenue to preferment in favour of any 
course rare and unaccustomed. Referring in his letter 
to this. Bacon's parenthetical clause beginning "either 
being well left or friended," etc., is confession and 
avoidance. In effect he says : — Few study the common 
laws who have influence ; few at their own free elec- 
tion ; few desert studies of more delight and no less 
preferment ; and few devote themselves to that study 
from their earliest years. Since there are few who, 
having my opportunities, devote themselves to the 
study of the common laws, my position in so doing 
would not be an ordinary one, no more than is my suit. 
Therefore, why should I, having your [Burleigh's] 
influence to help me, sacrifice my great intellectual 



70 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

capabilities fitting me to accomplish my great con- 
templative ends ? Why should I sacrifice them to a 
study of the common laws ? 

The sentence may be otherwise construed, but in 
any case it involves an apology for the abandonment 
of the profession which had been chosen for him. 

The next letter is addressed to the Right Honourable 
Sir Francis Walsingham, principal secretary to her 
Majesty, and is dated from Grays Inn, 25th of August, 
1585. Spedding's comment on it is as follows : — 

" For all this time, it seems, the suit (whatever it was) which he 
had made to her through Burghley in 1580 remained in suspense, 
neither granted nor denied, and the uncertainty prevented him 
from settHng his course of life. From the following letter to 
Walsingham we may gather two things more concerning it : it 
was something which had been objected to as unfit for so young 
a man ; and which would in some way have made it unnecessary 
for him to follow 'a course of practice' — meaning, I presume, 
ordinary practice at the Bar." 

This is the letter : — 

" It may please your Honour to give me leave amidst your 
great and diverse business to put you in remembrance of my 
poor suit, leaving the time unto your Honour's best opportunity 
and commodity. I think the objection of my years will wear 
away with the length of my suit. The very stay doth in this 
respect concern me, because I am thereby hindered to take a 
course of practice which, by the leave of God, if her Majesty 
like not my suit, I must and will follow : not for any necessity of 
estate, but for my credit sake, which I know by living out of 
action will wear. I spake when the Court was at Theball's to 
Mr. Vice-Chamberlain," who promised me his furderance ; which 
I did lest he mought be made for some other. If it may please 
your Honour, who as I hear hath great interest in him, to speak 
with him in it, I think he will be fast mine." 

Spedding remarks : " This is the last we hear of this 
suit, the nature and fate of which must both be left to 

'- This was Sir Christopher Hatton. 



bacon's suit, etc. 71 

conjecture. With regard to its fate, my own conjecture 
is that he presently gave up all hope of success in it, 
and tried instead to obtain through his interest at Court 
some furtherance in the direct line of his profession." 

He adds : "The solid grounds on which Bacon's preten- 
sions rested had not yet been made manifest to the 
apprehension of Bench and Bar ; his mind was full of 
matters with which they could have no sympathy, and 
the shy and studious habits which we have seen so 
offend Mr. Faunt would naturally be misconstrued in 
the same way by many others." * 

This passage refers to a letter to Burghley dated the 
6th of the following May, i.e., 1586, from which it will be 
seen that the last had not been heard of the motion. 
Burghley had been remonstrating with Bacon as to 
reports which had come to him of his nephew's pro- 
ceedings. Bacon writes : — 

" I take it as an undoubted sign of your Lordship's favour 
unto me that being hardly informed of me you took occasion 
rather of good advice than of evil opinion thereby. And if 
your Lordship had grounded only upon the said information of 
theirs, I mought and would truly have upholden that few of the 
matters were justly objected ; as the very circumstances do induce 
in that they were delivered by men that did misaffect me and 
besides were to give colour to their own doings. But because 
your Lordship did mingle therewith both a late motion of mine 
own and somewhat which you had otherwise heard, I know it to 
be my duty (and so do I stand affected) rather to prove your 
Lordship's admonition effectual in my doings hereafter than 
causeless by excusing what is past. And yet (with your Lord- 
ship's pardon humbly asked) it may please you to remember 
that I did endeavour to set forth that said motion in such sort as 
it mought breed no harder effect than a denial, and I protest 
simply before God that I sought therein an ease in coming 
within Bars, and not any extraordinary and singular note of 
favour.'' 

May not the interpretation of the phrase " I sought 

'- " Life and Letters," Vol L p. 59. 



72 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

therein an ease in coming within Bars" be "I sought 
in that motion a freedom from the burden (or necessity) 
of coming within Bars." The phrase "an ease in " is 
very unusual, and unless it was a term used in connec- 
tion with the Inns it is difficult to see its precise 
meaning. In other words, he sought an alternative 
method to provide means for carrying out his great 
philosophical enterprise. 

There is an interval of five years before the next and 
last letter of the six was written. It is undated, but an 
observation in it shows that it was written when he was 
about 31 years of age, thus fixing the date at 1591. 

From an entry in Burghley's note book,* dated 29 
October, 1589, it appears that in the meantime a grant 
had been made to Bacon of the reversion of the office of 
Clerk to the Counsel in the Star Chamber. This was 
worth about ^Ti, 600 per annum and executed by deputy, 
but the reversion did not fall in for twenty years, so it 
did not affect the immediate difficulty in ways and 
means. 

There are occasional references to Francis in 
Anthony's correspondence which show that the brothers 
were residing at Grays Inn, but nothing is stated as to 
the occupation of the younger brother. 

At this time, according to Spedding,| who, however, 
does not give his authority, Francis had a lodge at 
Twickenham. Many of his letters are subsequently 
addressed from it, and three years later he was keeping 
a staff of scriveners there. 

The last letter is addressed to Lord Burghley, who 
is in it described by Bacon as " the second founder of 
my poor estate," and contains the following : — 

" I cannot accuse myself that I am either prodigal or slothful, 
yet my health is not to spend nor my course to get. Lastly, I 
confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have 

" Cott. MSS. Tit. ex. 93. 
■f " Life and Letters," Vol. I., p. no. 



bacon's suit, etc. 73 

moderate civil ends : for I have taken all knowledge to be my 
province. This whether it be curiosity or vain glory, or (if one 
takes it favourably) philanthropia, is so fixed in my mind as it 
cannot be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any 
reasonable countenance doth bring commandment of more wits 
than of a man's own, which is the thing I greatly affect. And 
for your Lordship, perhaps you shall not find more strength and 
less encounter in any other. And if your Lordship shall find 
now, or at any time, that I do seek or affect any place, where- 
unto any that is nearer to your Lordship shall be concurrent, 
say then that I am a most dishonest man. And if your Lordship 
will not carry ime on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who 
reduced himself with contemplation unto voluntary poverty ; but 
this I will do, I will sell the inheritance that I have, and purchase 
some lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain that shall be 
executed by deputy, and so give over all care of service and 
become some sorry bookmaker, or a true pioneer in that mine of 
truth, which he said lay so deep. This which I have writ to your 
Lordship is rather thoughts than words, being set down without 
all art, disguising or reservation." 

The suit has been of no avail. Once more Bacon 
appeals (and this is to be his final appeal) to his uncle. 
He is writing thoughts rather than words, set down 
without art, disguising or reservation. But if his 
Lordship will not carry him along he has definitely 
decided on his course of action. The law is not now 
even referred to. If the object of the suit was not 
stated in 1580, there cannot be much doubt now but 
that it had to do with the making of books and pioneer 
work in the mine of truth. For ten years Francis Bacon 
had waited, buoyed up by encouragements and false 
hopes. Now he decides to take his fortune into his own 
hands and rely no more on assistance either from the 
Queen or Burghley. 

One sentence in the letter should be noted : " If your 
Lordship shall find now, or at any time, that I do seek 
or affect any place whereunto any that is nearer unto 
your Lordship shall be concurrent, say then that I am a 
most dishonest man." Surely this was an assurance on 



74 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

Bacon's part that he did not seek or affect to stand in 
the way of the one — the only one, Robert Cecil — who 
stood nearer to Burghley in kinship. 

It therefore appears evident from the foregoing 
facts : — 

(i) That Francis Bacon at 17 years of age was an 
accomplished scholar ; that his knowledge was 
abnormally great, and that his wit, memory, and 
mental qualities were of the highest order — probably 
without parallel. 

(2) That in the year 1580, when 19 years old, he 
sought the assistance of Burghley to induce the 
Queen to supply him with means and the oppor- 
tunity to carry out some great work upon the achieve- 
ment of which he had set his heart. The work was 
without precedent, and in carrying it out he was pre- 
pared to dedicate to her Majesty the use and spending 
of his life. 

(3) That for ten years he waited and hoped for the 
granting of his suit, which was rare and unaccustomed, 
until eventually he was compelled to relinquish it and 
rely upon his own resources to effect his object. 

(4) But he desired to command other wits than his 
own, and that could be more easily achieved by one 
holding place of any reasonable countenance. He 
therefore sought through Burleigh place accompanied 
by income, so that he might be enabled to achieve the 
vast contemplative ends he had in view. 

(5) That during the years 1580 to 1597, in which 
he claims that he was not slothful, there is no evidence 
of his being occupied in his profession or in State 
affairs to any appreciable extent, and yet there do not 
exist any acknowledged works as the result of his 
labours. Rawley states that Bacon would " suffer no 
moment of time to slip from him without some present 
improvement." 

(6) He received pecuniary assistance from his uncle, 



BACON S SUIT, ETC. 75 

Lord Burghley. He strained the monetary resources 
of his mother and brother, which were not inconsider- 
able, to the utmost, exhausted his own, and heavily 
encumbered himself with debts, and yet he was not 
prodigal or extravagant. 

(7) Money and time he must have to carry out his 
scheme, which, if one takes it favourably, might be 
termed philanthropia, and he therefore decided that, 
failing obtaining some sinecure office, he would sell the 
inheritance he had, purchase some lease of quick 
revenue or office of gain that could be executed by a 
deputy, give over all care of serving the State, and 
become some sorry bookmaker or a true pioneer in the 
mine of truth. 

(8) Spedding says, " He could at once imagine like a 
poet and execute like a clerk of the works " ; but what- 
ever his contemplative ends were there is nothing 
known to his biographers which reveals the result of 
his labours as clerk of the works. 

(9) If he carried out the course of action which he 
contemplated it is clear that he decided to do so without 
himself appearing as its author and director. From 
1580 to 1590 something more was on his mind than the 
works he published after he had arrived at sixty years 
of age. " I am no vain promiser," he said. Where can 
the fulfilment of his promise be found ? Can his course 
be followed by tracing through the period the trail which 
was left by some great and powerful mind directing the 
progress of the English Renaissance ? 



76 



Chapter X. 
THE RARE AND UNACCUSTOMED SUIT. 

What was this rare and unaccustomed suit of which 
the Queen could have had no experience and which, 
according to Spedding, would make it unnecessary for 
Bacon to follow "ordinary practice at the bar"? 
Historians and biographers have founded on this suit 
the allegation that from his earliest years Bacon was a 
place hunter, entirely ignoring the fact, which is made 
clear from the letter to Walsingham written four years 
after the application was first made, that he had resolved 
on a course of action which, if her Majesty liked not his 
suit, by the leave of God he must and would follow, not 
for any necessity of estate, but for his credit sake. Here 
was a young man of twenty years of age, earnestly 
urging the adoption of a scheme which he had con- 
ceived, and which he feared Burghley might consider 
indiscreet and unadvised. Failing in obtaining his 
object, as will be proved by definite evidence, under- 
taking at the cost of Thomas Bodley and other friends a 
course of travel to better fit him for the task he had 
mapped out as his life's work — returning to England 
and, four years after his first request had been made, 
renewing his suit — grimly in earnest and determined to 
carry the scheme through at all costs, with or without 
the Queen's aid. This is not the conduct of a mere 
place hunter. If these letters be read aright and the 
reasonable theory which will be advanced of the nature 
of the suit be accepted — all efforts to suggest any 
explanation having hitherto, as Spedding admits, proved 
futile — a fresh light will be thrown upon the character 
of Francis Bacon, and the heavy obligation under which 



THE RARE AND UNACCUSTOMED SUIT. 'J'] 

he has placed his countrymen for all ages will for the 
first time be recognised. 

In the seven volumes of " Bacon's Life and Letters " 
there is nothing to justify the eulogy on his character 
to which Spedding gave utterance in the following 
words: — "But in him the gift of seeing in prophetic 
vision what might be and ought to be was united with 
the practical talent of devising means and handlmg 
minute details. He could at once imagine like a poet 
and execute like a clerk of the works. Upon the con- 
viction This must he done followed at once How may it 
be done ? Upon that question answered followed the 
resolution to try and do it." But although Spedding 
fails to produce any evidence to justify his statement, 
it is nevertheless correct. More than that, the actual 
achievement followed with unerring certainty, but 
Spedding restricts Bacon's life's work to the establish- 
ment of a system of inductive philosophy, and records 
the failure of the system. 

William Cecil was a man of considerable classical 
attainments, although these were probably not superior 
to those of Mildred Cooke, the lady who became his 
second wife. He was initiated into the methods of 
statesmanship at an early age by his father, Richard 
Cecil, Master of the Robes to Henry VHL Having 
found favour with Somerset, the Protector of Edward 
VI., he was, when 27 years of age, made Master of 
Requests. When Somerset fell from power in 1549 
young Cecil, with other adherents of the Protector, was 
committed to the Tower. But he was soon released 
and was rapidly advanced by Northumberland. He 
became Secretarj' of State, was knighted and made a 
member of the Privy Council. Mary would have con- 
tinued his employment in office had he not refused her 
offers on account of his adhesion to the Protestant faith. 
He mingled during her reign with men of all parties and 
his moderation and cautious conduct carried him 



78 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

through that period without mishap. On EHzabeth's 
accession he was the first member sworn upon the 
Privy Council, and he continued during the remainder 
of his life her principal Minister of State. Sagacious, 
deliberate in thought and character, tolerant, a man of 
peace and compromise, he became the mainstay of the 
Queen's government and the most influential man in 
State affairs. Whilst he maintained a princely mag- 
nificence in his affairs, his private life was pure, gentle 
and generous. This was the man to whom the 
brilliant young nephew of his wife and the son of his 
old friend, Sir Nicholas Bacon, disclosed, some time 
during the summer of 1580, his scheme, of which there 
had been no experience, and entrusted his suit, which 
was rare and unaccustomed. The arguments in its 
favour at this interview may have followed the follow- 
ing outline : — 

I need not remind you of my devotion to learning. 
You know that from my earliest boyhood I have fol- 
lowed a course of study which has embraced all sub- 
jects. I have made myself acquainted with all 
knowledge which the world possesses. To enable 
me to do this I mastered all languages in which books 
are written. During my recent visit to foreign lands, I 
have recognized how far my country falls behind others 
in language, and consequently in literature. I would 
draw your special attention to the remarkable advance 
which has been made in these matters in France during 
your lordship's lifetime. When I arrived there in 1576 
I made myself acquainted with the principles of the 
movement which had been carried through by 
Du Bellay, Ronsard, and their confreres. They recog- 
nized that their native language was crude and lacking 
in gravity and art. First by obtaining a complete 
mastery of the Greek and Latin languages, as also of those 
of Italy and Spain, they prepared themselves for a study 
of the literatures of which those languages, with their 



THE RARE AND UNACCUSTOMED SUIT. 79 

idioms and peculiarities, form the basis. Having obtained 
this mastery they reconstructed their native language 
and gave their country a medium by which her writers 
might express their thoughts and emotions. They have 
made it possible for their countrymen to rival the poets 
of ancient Greece and Rome. They and others of their 
countrymen have translated the literary treasures of 
those ancient nations into their own tongue, and 
thereby enabled those speaking their language, who are 
not skilled in classical languages, to enjoy and profit 
by the works of antiquity. Your lordship knows well 
the deficiencies of the language of our England, the 
absence of any literature worthy of the name. In these 
respects the condition of affairs is far behind that 
which prevailed in France even before the great move- 
ment which Ronsard and Du Bellay initiated. I do 
not speak of Italy, which possesses a language 
melodious, facile, and rich, and a literature which can 
never die. 

I know my own powers. I possess every qualification 
which will enable me to do for my native tongue what 
the Pleiade have done for theirs. I ask to be permitted 
to give to my country this great heritage. Others may 
serve her in the law, others may serve her in affairs of 
state, but your Lordship knows full well that there are 
none who could serve her in this respect as could I. 
You are not unmindful of the poorness of my estate. 
This work will not only entail a large outlay of money 
but it necessitates command of the ablest wits of the 
nation. This is my suit : that her Majesty will 
graciously confer on me some office which will enable 
me to control such literary resources and the services 
of such men as may be necessary for the accomplish- 
ment of this work ; further, that she may be pleased 
from time to time to make grants from the civil list to 
cover the cost of the work. I need not remind your 
Lordship what fame will ever attach to her Majesty 



80 THE MVSTEKY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

and how glorious will be the memory of her reign if 
this great project be effected in it. Your Lordship 
must realise this because you and her Ladyship, my 
aunt, are by your attainments qualified to appreciate 
its full value. My youth may be urged as an objection 
to my fitness for such a task, but your Lordship knows 
full well — none better — that my powers are not to be 
measured by my years. This I will say, I am no vain 
promiser, but I am assured that I can accomplish all 
that I contemplate. The Queen hath such confidence 
in the soundness of your judgment that she will listen 
to your advice. My prayer to you therefore is that it 
may please your Lordship both herein and elsewhere to 
be my patron and urge my suit, which, although rare 
and unaccustomed, may be granted if it receives your 
powerful support. 

The suit was submitted to the Queen, but without 
result. Probably it was not urged with a determina- 
tion to obtain its acceptance in spite of any objections 
which might be raised by the Queen. Five years after, 
Bacon, still a suppliant, wrote to Walsingham : " I think 
the objection to my years will wear away with the 
length of my suit." Cautious Lord Burghley would 
give full weight to the force of this objection if it were 
advanced by the Queen. He loved this boy, with his 
extraordinary abilities, but he had such novel and far- 
reaching ideas. He appeared to have no adequate 
reverence for his inferior superiors. On leaving Cam- 
bridge he had arrogantly condemned its cherished 
methods of imparting knowledge. Before power was 
placed in his hands the use he might make of it must 
be well weighed and considered. What effect might 
the advancement of Francis Bacon have on Robert 
Cecil's career ? Granted that the contentions of the 
former were sound, and the object desirable, should not 
this work be carried out by the Universities ? Never 
leap until you know where you are going to alight was 



THE RARE AND UNACCUSTOMED SUIT. 8l 

a proverb the soundness of which had been proved in 
Lord Burghley's experience. What might be the out- 
come if this rare and unaccustomed suit were granted ? 
Better for the Queen, who, though slow to bestow 
favours, was alwa3^s ready to encourage hopes, to follow 
her usual course. She might entertain the motion 
graciously and return a favourable answer and let it 
rest there. And so it did. 

Then there was a happening which has remained 
unknown until now. 



82 



Chapter XI. 

BACON'S SECOND VISIT TO THE 

CONTINENT AND AFTER. 

In the "Reliquiae Bodleianse," published in 1703, is a 
letter written without date by Thomas Bodley to 
Francis Bacon, This letter does not appear to have 
been known to Mallett, Montague, Dixon, Spedding, or 
any of Bacon's biographers. It had been lost sight 
of until the writer noticed it and reproduced it in 
Baconiana. This is the letter : — 

My Dear Cousin, — According to your request in your letter 
(dated the 19th October at Orleans, I received here the i8th of 
December), I have sent you by your merchant ^^30 (the thirty 
is written thus 30 1 ) sterling for your present supply, and had 
sent you a greater sum, but that my extraordinary charge this 
year hath utterly unfurnished me. And now, cousin, though I 
will be no severe exactor of the account, either of your money or 
time, yet for the love I bear you, I am very desirous, both to 
satisfy myself, and your friends how you prosper in your travels, 
and how you find j'ourself bettered thereby, either in knowledge 
of God, or of the world ; the rather, because the Days you have 
already spent abroad, are now both sufficient to give you Light, 
how to fix yourself and end with counsel, and accordingly to 
shape your course constantly unto it. Besides, it is a vulgar 
scandal unto the travellers, that few return more religious (nar- 
row, editor) than they went forth ; wherein both my hope and 
Request is to you, that your principal care be to hold your 
Foundation, and to make no other use of informing your self in 
the corruptions and superstitions of other nations, than only 
thereby to engage your own heart more firmly to the Truth. You 
live indeed in a country of two several professions, and you shall 
return a Novice, if you be not able to give an account of the 
Ordinances, strength, and progress of each, in Reputation, and 
Party, and how both are supported, ballanced and managed by 



bacon's second visit, etc. 83 

the state, as being the contrary humours, in the Temper of Pre- 
dominancy whereof, the Health or Disease of that Body doth 
consist. These things you will observe, not only as an English- 
man, whom it may concern, to what interest his country may 
expect in the consciences of their Neighbours ; but also, as a 
Christian, to consider both the beauties and blemishes, the hopes 
and dangers of the church in all places. Now for the world, I 
know it too well, to persuade you to dive into the practices 
thereof; rather stand upon your own guard, against all that 
attempt you there unto, or may practise upon you in your 
Conscience, Reputation, or your Purse. Resolve, no Man is wise 
or safe, but he that is honest : And let this Persuasion turn your 
studies and observations from the Complement and Impostures 
of the debased age, to more real grounds of wisdom, gathered 
out of the story of Times past, and out of the government of 
the present state. Your guide to this, is the knowledge of the 
country and the people among whom ye live ; For the country 
though you cannot see all places, yet if, as you pass along, you 
enquire carefully, and further help yourself with Books that are 
written of the cosmography of those parts, you shall sufficiently 
gather the strength. Riches, Traffick, Havens, Shipping, com- 
modities, vent, and the wants and disadvantages of places. 
Wherein also, for your good hereafter, and for your friends, it 
will befit to note their buildings, Furnitures, Entertainments ; 
all their Husbandry, and ingenious inventions, in whatsoever 
concerneth either Pleasure or Profit. 

For the people, your traffick among them, while you learn 
their language, will sufficiently instruct you in their Habilities, 
Dispositions, and Humours, if you a little enlarge the Privacy of 
your own Nature, to seek acquaintance with the best sort of 
strangers, and restrain your Affections and Participation, for your 
own countrymen of whatsoever condition. 

In the story of France, you have a large and pleasant Field in 
three lines of their Kings, to observe their alliances and suc- 
cessions, their Conquests, their wars, especially with us ; their 
Councils, their treaties ; and all Rules and examples of experi- 
ences and Wisdom, which may be Lights and Remembrances to 
you hereafter, to Judge of all occurants both at home and abroad. 

Lastly, for the Government, your end must not be like an 
Intelligencer, to spend all your time in fishing after the present 
News, Humours, Graces, or Disgraces of Court, which happily 
may change before you come home ; but your better and more 



84 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACOX. 

constant ground will be, to know the Consanguinities, Alliances, 
and Estates of their Princes ; Proportion between the Nobility 
and Magistracy ; the Constitutions of their Courts of Justice ; the 
state of the Laws, as well for tiie making as the execution 
thereof ; How the Sovereignty of the King infuseth itself into 
all Acts and Ordinances ; how many ways they lay Impositions 
and Taxations, and gather Revenues to the Crown. 

What be the Liberties and Servitudes of all degrees ; what 
Discipline and Preparations for wars ; what Invention for in- 
crease of Traffick at home, for multiplying their commodities, 
encouraging Arts and Manufactures, or of worth in any kind. 
Also what establishment, to prevent the Necessities and Discon- 
tentvicnt of People, To cut off suits at Law, and Duels, to suppress 
thieves and ail Disorders. 

To be short, because my purpose is not to bring all your 
Observations to Heads, but only by these few to let you know 
what manner of Return your Friends expect from you ; let me, 
for all these and all the rest, give you this one Note, which I 
desire you to observe as tlie Counsels of a Friend, .Yo^ to spend 
your Spirits, and the precious time of your Travel, in a Captious 
Prejudice and censuring of all things, nor in an Infectious Col- 
lection of base Vices and Fashions of Men and Women, or 
general corruption of these times, which will be of use only 
Among Humorists, for Jests and Table-Talk : but rather strain 
your Wits and Industry soundly to instruct your-self in all things 
between Heaven and Earth whicia may tend to Virtue, Wisdom, 
and Honour, and which may make your life more profitable to 
your country, and yourself more comfortable to your friends, 
and acceptable to God. And to conclude, let all these Riches 
be treasured up, not only in your memory, where time may lessen 
your stock ; but rather in good writings, and Books of Account, 
which will keept them safe for 3'our use hereafter. 

And if in this time of your liberal Traftick, you will give me 
any advertizement of your commodities in these kinds, I will 
make you as liberal a Return from my self and your Friends 
here, as I shall be able. 

And so commending all your good Endeavours, to him that 
must either wither or prosper them, I very kindly bid you 
farewel. 

Your's to be commanded, Thomas Bodley. 

Spedding prints this letter (V^ol. II. p. 16) com- 



bacon's second visit, etc. 85 

mencing with the words, "Yet for the love I bear," to 
the end, with the exception of the last sentence, as a 
letter written probably by Bacon for Essex to send to 
the Earl of Rutland, He identifies it as "the letter 
which the compiler of Stephens' Catalogue took for a 
letter addressed by Bacon to Buckingham," which he 
says it could not be. The original is at Lambeth (MSS. 
936, fo. 218). The seal remains, but the part of the 
last sheet which contained the signature on one side, 
and the superscription on the other, has been torn off. 
The letter commences, "Afy good Lord/^ and ends, 
" Your Lordship's in all duty to serve you.'" It would 
appear, therefore, that someone had access to Bodley's 
letter to Bacon, and, approving its contents, used its 
contents a second time. 

There are two palpable deductions to be drawn from 
this letter : (i) That Bacon was on a journey through 
several countries to obtain knowledge of their customs, 
laws, religion, military strength, shipping, and whatso- 
ever concerneth pleasure or profit. There is a striking 
correspondence between Bodley's advice and the de- 
scription of Bacon's travels found in the "Life" pre- 
fixed to " L'Histoire Naturelle." (2) That Bacon was 
being supported by Bodley and other of his friends, 
who desired him to keep a record of all that he observed 
and learnt, and to report from time to time as he pro- 
gressed, and in return, said Bodly, "I will make you 
as liberal a return from myself and your friends here 
as I shall be able." This letter was written from 
England, and there is a paragraph in Bodley's "Life," 
written by himself, which makes it possible to fix the 
year : — 

" My resolution fully taken I departed out of England anno 
1576 and continued very neare foure yeares abroad, and that in 
sundry parts of Italy, France, and Germany. A good while 
after my return to wit, in the yeare 1585 I was employed by the 
Queen," etc. 

G 



86 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

If this letter was written between 1576 and 1579 it 
would appear strange that Bodley and others should 
be providing Bacon with money for his travels, and 
requiring reports from him, whilst his father. Sir 
Nicholas Bacon, was alive and prosperous. No such 
difficulty, however, arises, for the letter, being sent from 
England, could not have been written between the date 
of Bacon's first departure for France in 1576 and his 
return on his father's death in 1579, for during the 
whole of that time Bodley was abroad. It is stated 
in it that Bacon wrote from Orleans a letter dated 
igth October, the year not being given. This could 
not be in 1580, for Bacon wrote to Lord Burghley from 
Gray's Inn on the i8th October, 1580. Spedding com- 
mences the paragraph immediately following this letter 
by saying, "From this time we have no further news 
of Francis Bacon till the 5th of April, 1582," and 
although he does not reproduce the letter, he relies on 
a letter from Faunt to Anthony Bacon, to which that 
date is attributed in Birch's " Memorials," Vol. I. 
page 22. In it Faunt refers to having seen Anthony's 
mother and his brother Francis. Faunt left Paris for 
England on the 22nd March, 1582. This letter was 
written on the 15th of the following month, so no trace 
has been found of Francis being in England between 
i8th October, 1580, and 5th of April, 1582. Bodley's 
letter, must, therefore, have been written in December, 
1581, when Bacon was abroad making a journey 
through several countries. From the foregoing facts it 
is impossible to form any other conclusion. Now for 
the first time this journey has been made known. There 
is a letter amongst the State papers in the Record 
Office, dated February, 1581, written by Anthony Bacon 
to Lord Burghley, enclosing a note of advice and in- 
structions for his brother Francis. Anthony was an 
experienced traveller, and was then abroad. It reads 
as though he was sending advice and instructions to his 



bacon's second visit, etc. 87 

younger brother, who was about to start on travels 
through countries with which Anthony was famihar. 
If so, Francis would leave England early in March, 
1581 — that is, if he had not left before this letter was 
received by Burghley. 

Having established beyond reasonable doubt the fact of 
this journey, a new and remarkable suggestion presents 
itself. Spedding, when dealing with the year 1582, 
prints "Notes on the State of Christendom," -■• with the 
following remarks : — 

" If that paper of notes concerning ' The State of Europe ' 
which was printed as Bacon's in the supplement to Stephens' 
second collection in 1734, reprinted by Mallet in 1760, and has 
been placed at the beginning of his political writings in all 
editions since 1563, be really of his composition, this is the period 
of his life to which it belongs. I must confess, however, that I 
am not satisfied with the evidence or authority upon which it 
appears to have been ascribed to him." 

Robert Stephens, who was Historiographer Royal in 
the reign of William and Mary, states that the Earl of 
Oxford placed in his hands some neglected manuscripts 
and loose papers to see whether any of the Lord Bacon's 
compositions lay concealed there and were fit for pub- 
lication. He found some of them written, and others 
amended, with his lordship's own hand. He found 
certain of the treatises had been published by him, and 
that others, certainly genuine, which had not, were fit 
to be transcribed if not divulged. Spedding states that 
he has little doubt that this paper on the state of Europe 
was among these manuscripts and loose papers, for the 
editor states that the supplementary pieces (of which 
this was one) were added from originals found among 
Stephens' papers. The original is now among the Har- 
leian MSS. in the British Museum. Spedding thus 
describes it : — 

* " Life and Letters," Vol. L, page 16, 



88 THli MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

''The Harleian MS. is a copy in an old hand, probably con- 
temporary, but not Francis Bacon's. A few sentences have been 
inserted afterwards by the same hand, and two by another which 
is very like Anthony Bacon's ; none in Francis's. The blanks 
have all been filled up, but no words have been corrected, tliough 
it is obvious that in some places they stand in need of correction. 

" Certain allusions to events then passing (which will be pointed 
out in their place) prove that the original paper was written, or 
at least completed, in the summer of 1582, at which time Francis 
Bacon was studying law in Gray's Inn, while Anthony was 
travelling in France in search of political intelligence and was in 
close correspondence with Nicholas Faunt, a secretary of Sir 
Francis Walsingham's, who had spent the previous year in 
France, Germany, Switzerland, and the north of Italy, on the same 
errand ; and was now living about the English Court, studying 
affairs at home, and collecting and arranging the observations 
which he had made abroad, ' having already recovered all his 
writings and books which he had left behind him in Italy and in 
Frankfort ' (see Birch's ' Memoirs,' I. 24), and it is remembered 
that if this paper belonged to Anthony Bacon, it would naturally 
descend at his death to Francis and so remain among his 
manuscripts, where it is supposed to have been found. 

"Thus it appears that the external evidence justifies no in- 
ference as to the authorship, and the only question is whether 
the style can be considered conclusive. To me it certainly is 
not. But as this is a point upon which the reader should be 
allowed to judge for himself, and as the paper is interesting in 
itself and historically valuable and has always passed for Bacon's, 
it is here printed from the original though (to distinguish it 
from his undoubted compositions) in a smaller type." 

Spedding's difficulty in accepting this paper as from 
Bacon's pen really lay in the fact that from the internal 
evidence it is obvious that it was written by one who 
had himself travelled through, at any rate, some of the 
countries described. The results of personal observation 
are again and again apparent. According to Spedding, 
Bacon was in 1581 — 1582 studying law at Gray's Inn ; 
according to Bodley he was on the Continent making 
observations for his future guidance. The reader can 
judge of the value of the external evidence. It is not con- 



bacon's second visit, etc. 89 

elusive, but the draft being found amongst papers which 
were unquestionably Bacon's writings and being adopted 
as Bacon's and pubhshed as such by those who found 
it, the balance of probabilities is distinctly in favour of 
its being his. As to the internal evidence much may be 
said. It corresponds as closely as it is possible with 
Bodley's requirements as set forth in his letter of Decem- 
ber. It is exactly " the manner of return " Bodley 
wrote to Francis "your friends expect from you." 
"And," he added, "if in this time of your liberal 
Traffick, you will give me any advertisement of your 
commodities in these kinds, I will make you as liberal a 
return from myself and your friends here as I shall be 
able." 

The date agrees with that of Bacon's second visit to 
the Continent. In Spedding's Life and Letters it 
occupies twelve and a-half pages, of which five are 
occupied by descriptions of Italy, one of Austria, two of 
Germany (chiefly a recital of names and places), two of 
France, three-quarters of Spain, one and three-quarters 
of Portugal, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden. This may 
have been Bacon's itinerary in 1581 — 2. 

Italy is treated with considerable detail and was 
undoubtedly described from personal observation, as 
were France and Spain. In a less degree the descrip- 
tion of Austria, Poland and Denmark produces this 
impression ; in a still smaller degree Portugal and 
Sweden, and it is quite absent from the description of 
Germany. Florence, Venice, Mantua, Genoa, Savoy, 
are dealt with in most detail. Rawley states that it was 
Bacon's intention to have stayed abroad some years 
longer when he was called home by the death of his 
father, to find himself left in straightened circum- 
stances. Then followed his ineffectual suit, which he 
still persisted in. Bodley evidently was, if not the in- 
stigator, at any rate the paymaster for this second 
journey. Anthony's letter of February, 1581, points to 



90 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

Burghley as a participator in the project. He would 
assist not only out of kindly feeling, but the journey 
would at any rate get this ambitious, determined young 
man out of the way for a time, and possibly the 
journey might get this unaccustomed suit out of his 
mind. Thus it came about. 

From Faunt's letters, Spedding says we derive what 
little information we have with regard to Francis's 
proceedings from 1583 to 1584. "From them we 
gather little more than that he remained studying at 
Gray's Inn, occasionally visiting his mother at Gor- 
hambury, or going with her to hear Travers at the 
Temple and occasionally appearing at the Court." 

But the suit was not abandoned, for there is the 
letter of 25th August, 1585, to Walsingham, when 
Bacon writes : " I think the objection of my years 
will wear away with the length of my suit. The very 
stay doth in this respect concern me, because I am 
thereby hindered to take a course of practice which by 
the leave of God, if her Majesty like not of my suit, I 
must and will follow : not for any necessity of estate, 
but for my credit sake, which I know by living out of 
action will wear." 

Again, the old, "rare and unaccustomed suit" of 
which the Queen could have had no experience ! Either 
the persuasive powers of Burghley had failed or he had 
not exerted them. Probably the latter, because the 
troublesome, determined young man is now worrying 
Walsingham and Hatton to urge its acceptance with the 
Queen. The purport of the foregoing extract effectually 
precludes the possibility of this suit referring to his 
advancement at the bar. For five years it has been 
proceeding — he has been indulging in hopes which 
have been unfulfilled. Now he will wait no longer, 
but he will adopt a course which, if her Majesty like 
not his suit, by the leave of God he must and will 
follow, not for any necessity of making money but be- 



bacon's second visit, etc. 91 

cause he feels impelled to it by a sense of responsibility 
which he must fulfil. Walsingham and Hatton do not 
appear to have helped the matter forward. There was 
little probability of them succeeding in influencing the 
Queen where Burghley had failed. There was still less 
probability of them attempting to influence her if Burgh- 
ley objected. Had this suit referred to advancement in 
the law it would have been granted with the aid of 
Burghley's influence years before. Had it referred to 
some ordinary office of State, friends so powerful as 
Burghle}', Walsingham and Hatton could and would 
have obtained anything within reason for this brilliant 
young son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, for there was no 
complication with Essex until after 1591, But this 
rare and unaccustomed suit of which there had been no 
experience was another matter. 

Six more years pass, and although there is now no suit 
to the Queen there is the same idea prevailing in the 
letter to Burghley — a seeking for help to achieve some 
great scheme upon which Bacon's mind was so fixed " as 
it cannot be removed," " whether it be curiosity, vain- 
glory or nature, or (if one take it favourably) philan- 
thropia," Still he required the command of more wits 
than of a man's own, which is the thing he did greatly 
affect. Still his course was not to get. Still the deter- 
mination to achieve the object without help, if help 
could not be obtained — to achieve it by becoming some 
sorry bookmaker or a pioneer in that mine of truth which 
Anaxagoras said lay so deep. This is emphasised. 
These are " thoughts rather than words, being set down 
without all art, disguising or reservation." 

There are two significant sentences in this letter 
written to Burghley when Bacon was 31 years of age. 
He describes Burghley as "the second founder of my 
poor estate," and, further, he uses the expression "And 
if your Lordship will not carry me on." What can 
these allusions mean but that Burghley had been render- 



92 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

ing financial assistance to his nephew? If the theory 
here put forward as to the nature of the suit be correct, 
the object was one which would have Burghley's cordial 
support. That he had expressed approval of it must be 
deduced from the letter of the i6th of September, 1580. 
The object was one which, without doubt, would find 
still warmer support from Lady Mildred. But the suit 
was so unprecedented that it is not to be wondered at 
that Burghley did not try to force it through. The work 
was going forward all the time — slowly for lack of 
means and official recognition. Burghley, generous 
in his nature, lavish in private life, might, however, be 
expected to help a work which he would be glad to see 
carried to a successful conclusion. 

Had he been less cautious and let young Francis have 
his head, what might not have happened ! But there 
was always the fear of letting this huge intellectual 
power forge ahead without restraint. It was, however, 
working out unseen its scheme and that, too, with 
Burghley's help and that of others. The period from 
1576 to 1623 — only 47 years — sees the English language 
developed from a state of almost barbaric crudeness to 
the highest pitch which any language, classical or 
modern, has reached. There was but one workman 
living at that period who could have constructed that 
wonderful instrument and used it to produce such mag- 
nificent examples of its possibilities. It is as reasonable 
to take up a watch keeping perfect time and aver that 
the parts came together by accident, as to contend that 
the English language of the Authorised Version of the 
Bible and the works of Shakespeare were the result of a 
general up-springing of literary taste which was diffused 
amongst a few writers of very mediocre ability. The 
English Renaissance was conceived m France and born 
in England in 1579. It ran its course and in 1623 
attained its maturity ; but when Francis Bacon was no 
more — he who had performed that in our tongue which 



BACON S SECOND VISIT, ETC. 93 

may be preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty 
Rome — "things daily fall, wits grow downward, and 
eloquence grows backward : so that he may be named 
and stand as the mark and axM of our language." 



94 



Chapter XII. 
IS IT PROBABLE THAT BACON LEFT 
MANUSCRIPTS HIDDEN AWAY? 

It is difficult to leave this subject without some refer- 
ence to the articles which have appeared in the press 
and magazines referrinj^ to the suggestion that there 
were left concealed literary remains of Bacon hitherto 
undiscovered. 

In an article which recently appeared in a Shake- 
spearean journal, a writer who evidently knows little 
about the Elizabethan period said : " But why should 
Bacon want to bury manuscripts, anyhow ? Who does 
bury manuscripts? Besides, they had been printed and 
were, therefore, rubbish and waste paper merely." 
The manuscript of John Harrington's translation of 
Ariosto's " Orlando Furioso " may be seen in the 
British Museum. It is beautifully written on quarto 
paper. It was, apparently, the fair copy sent to the 
printer from which the type was to be set up. Be this 
as it may, it was undoubtedly a copy upon which 
Bacon marked off the verses which are to go on each 
page and set out the folio of each page and the printer's 
signature which was to appear at the bottom. It also 
contains instructions to the printer as to the type to be 
used. This manuscript was net considered " rubbish 
and waste paper merely." 

Francis Bacon has again and again insisted upon 
the value of history. In the " Advancement of Learn- 
ing" he points out to the King "the indignity and 
unworthiness of the history of England as it now is, in 
the main continuation thereof." No man appreciated 
as did Bacon the importance in the history of England 



HIDDEN MANUSCRIPTS. 95 

of the epoch in which he hved. That a truthful 
relation of the events of those times would be 
invaluable to posterity he knew full well. He of all men 
living at that time was best qualified to write such a 
history. He recognised that there were objections to a 
history being written, or, at any rate, published, where- 
in the actions of persons living were described, for he 
said "it must be confessed that such kind of relations, 
specially if they be published about the times of things 
done, seeing very often that they are written with 
passion or partiality, ot all other narrations, are most 
suspected." It is hardly conceivable that Bacon should 
have failed to provide a faithful history of his own times 
for the benefit of posterity, or, at any rate, that he should 
have failed to preserve the materials for such a history. 
Neither the history nor such materials are known to be 
in existence. Supposing Bacon had prepared either the 
one or the other, what could he do with it? Hand it 
to Rawley with instructions for it to be printed ? 
With a strong probability, if it were a faithful history, 
that it would never be published, but that it would be 
destroyed, he would never take such a risk. There 
would only be one course open to him. To conceal it 
in some place where it would not be likely to be dis- 
turbed, in which it might remain in safety, possibly for 
hundreds of years. And then leave a clue either in 
cypher or otherwise by which it might be recovered. 

It is by no means outside the range of possibility that 
Bacon as early as 1588 had opened a receptacle for books 
and manuscripts which he desired should go down to 
posterity, and fearing their loss from any cause, he care- 
fully concealed them, adding to the store from time to 
time. If he did so he left a problem to be solved, and 
arranged the place of concealment so that it could only 
be found by a solution of the problem. 

The emblems on two title-pages of two books of the 
period are very significant. *' Truth brought to Light 



96 THE MYSTERY OF FKANXIS BACON. 

and discovered by Time " is a narrative history of the 
first fourteen years of King James' reign. One portion 
of the engraved title-page represents a spreading tree 
growing up out of a coffin, full fraught with various 
fruits (manuscripts and books) most fresh and fair to 
make succeeding times most rich and rare. In the 
Emblem (Fig. III.) now reproduced, which is found on 
the title-page of the first edition of " New Atlantis," 
1627,* Truth personified by a naked woman is being 
revealed by Father Time, and the inscription round the 
device is " Tempore paiet occulta Veritas — in time the 
hidden truth shall be revealed." 

Then, in further confirmation of this view, there is 
the statement of Rawley in his introduction to the 
" Manes Verulamiani." Speaking of the fame of his 
illustrious master he says, " Be this moreover enough, 
to have laid, as it were, the foundations, in the name of 
the present age. Every age will, methinks, adorn and 
amplify this structure, but to what age it may be vouch- 
safed to set the finishing hand — this is known only to 
God and the Fates." 



* There is a copy bearing date 1626. 



97 




Fig. III. 
From the Title Page of ''New Atlantis," 1627. 




Fig. IV. 

From the Title Page of 

Peacham's "Minerva Britannia," 1612. 



98 



Chapter XIII. 

HOW THE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 
WAS PRODUCED. 

The half century from 1576 to 1625 stands by itself in 
the history of the literature of this country. During that 
period not only was the English language made, not only 
were there produced the finest examples of its capacities, 
which to-day exist, but the knowledge and wisdom pos- 
sessed by the classical writers, the histories of the 
principal nations of the world, practically everything 
that was worth knowing in the literature which existed 
in other countries were, for the first time, made avail- 
able in the English tongue. And what is still more 
remarkable, these translations were printed and pub- 
lished. These works embraced every art and subject 
which can be imagined. Further, during this period 
there were issued a large number of books crowded with 
information upon general subjects. The names on the 
title-pages of many of these works are unknown. It is 
astonishing how many men as to whom nothing can 
be learnt, appear about this time to have written one 
book and one book only. 

These translations were published at a considerable 
cost. For such works, being printed in the English 
language, purchasers were practically confined to this 
country, and their number was very limited. The 
quantity of copies constituting an edition must have 
been small. It is impossible to believe that the sale of 
these books could realise the amount of their cost. 

Definite information on this point is difficult to obtain, 
for little is known as to the prices at which these books 
were sold. 



ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE. 99 

It appears from the " Transcripts of the Stationers' 
Registers" that the maximum number of copies that 
went to make up an edition was in the interest of the 
workman fixed at 1,250 copies, so that if a larger 
number were required the type had to be re-set for each 
additional 1,250 copies. Double impressions of 2,500 
were allowed of primers, catechisms, proclamations, 
statutes and almanacs. But the solid literature which 
came into the language at this period would not be 
required in such quantities. The printer was not usually 
the vendor of the books. The publisher and bookseller 
or stationer carried on in most cases a distinct business. 

Pamphlets, sermons, plays, books of poems, formed 
the staple ware of the stationer. The style of the book 
out of which the stationer made his money may be 
gathered from the following extract from The Return 
from Parnassus, Act I, scene 3 : — 

Ingenioso. — Danter thou art deceived, wit is dearer than thou 
takest it to bee. I tell thee this libel of Cambridge 
has much salt and pepper in the nose : it will sell 
sheerely underhand when all those bookes of exhor- 
tations and catechisms lie moulding on thy shop- 
board. 
Danter. — It's true, but good fayth, M. Ingenioso, I lost by your 
last booke ; and you know there is many a one that 
pays me largely for the printing of their inventions, 
but for all this you shall have 40 shillings and an 
odde pottle of wine. 

Ingenioso. — 40 shillings ? a fit reward for one of your reumatick 
poets, that beslavers all the paper he comes by, 
and furnishes the Chaundlers with wast papers to 
wrap candles in : . . . it's the gallantest Child my inven- 
tion was ever delivered off. The title is, a Chronicle 
of Cambridge Cuckolds ; here a man may see, what 
day of the moneth such a man's commons were in- 
closed, and when throwne open, and when any 
entayled some odde crownes upon the heires of their 
bodies unlawfully begotten ; speake quickly, ells I 
am gone. 



lOO THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

Daiiier.— Oh this will sell gallantly. He have it whatsoever it 
cost, will you walk on, M. Ingenioso, weele sit over 
a cup of wine and agree on it. 

The publication of such works as Hollingshed's 
" Chronicles," North's "Plutarch's Lives," Grimston's 
"History of France," and "The French Academy," 
could not have been produced with profit as the object. 
A large body of evidence may be brought forward to 
support this view, but space will only permit two 
examples to be here set forth. 

In the dedication to Sir William Cecil, of Holling- 
shed's " Chronicles," 1587, the writer says : 

Yet when the volume grew so great as they that were to defraie 
the charges for the impression were not willing to go through 
with the whole, they resolved first to publish the histories of 
England, Scotland, and Ireland with their descriptions. 

John Dee spent most of the year 1576 in writing a 
series of volumes to be entitled " General and Rare 
Memorials pertayning to the perfect Art of Navigation." 
In 1577 the first volume was ready for the press. In 
June he had to borrow ^40 from one friend, ;;^20 from 
another, and ;/|"27 upon "the chayn of gold." In the 
following August John Day commenced printing it at 
his press in Aldersgate. The title was " The British 
Monarchy or Hexameron Brytannicum," and the edition 
consisted of 100 copies. 

The second volume, " The British Complement," was 
ready in the following December. It was never pub- 
lished. Dee states in his Diary that the printing would 
cost many hundreds of pounds, as it contained tables 
and figures, and he must first have "a comfortable 
and sufficient opportunity or supply thereto." This he 
was unable to procure, so the book remained in manu- 
script.* 

• " John Dee," by Charlotte Fell Smith, 1909. Constable and 
Co., Ltd. 



ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE. lOI 

Books of this class were never produced with the 
object of making profit. The proceeds of sale would 
not cover the cost of printing and publishing, without 
any provision for the remuneration of the translator or 
author. Why were they published, and how was the 
cost provided ? 

There was, however, another source of revenue open 
to the author of a book. Henry Peacham, in " The 
Truth of our Time," says : — 

" But then you may say, the Dedication will bee worth a great 
matter, either in present reward of money, or preferment by your 
Patrones Letter, or other means. And for this purpose you pre- 
fixe a learned and as Panegyricall Epistle as can," etc. 

It is beyond question that an author usually obtained 
a considerable contribution towards the cost of the pro- 
duction of a book from the person to whom the dedica- 
tion was addressed. A number of books published 
during the period from 1576 to 1598 are dedicated to 
the Queen, to the Earl of Leicester, and to Lord 
Burghley. One can only offer a suggestion on this 
point which may or may not be correct. If Francis 
Bacon was concerned in the issue of these translations 
and other works, and Burghley was assisting him 
financially, it is probable that Burghley would procure 
grants from the Queen in respect of books which were 
dedicated to her, and would provide funds towards the 
cost of such books as were dedicated to himself. " The 
Arte of English Poesie " was written with the intention 
that it should be dedicated to the Queen, but there 
was a change in the plans, and Burghley's name was 
substituted. "When Bacon, in 1591, is threatening to 
become " a sorry bookmaker," he describes Burghley 
as the second founder of his poor estate, and uses the 
expression, " If your Lordship will not carry me on," 
which can only mean that as to the matter which is 
the subject of the letter, Burghley had not merely been 

H 



SAN' 



102 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

assisting byt carrying him. The evidence which exists 
is strong enough to warrant putting forward this theory 
as to the frequency of the names of the Queen and 
Burghley on the dedications. 

The Earl of Leicester desired to have the reputation 
of being a patron of the arts, and was wilhng to pay 
for advertisement. He was the Chancellor of Oxford 
University, and evidently recognised the value of print- 
ing, for in 15S5 he erected, at his own expense, a new 
printing press for the use of the University. If he paid 
at all for dedications he would pay liberally. But, 
of course, the Queen, Burghley, and Leicester were 
accessible to others besides Bacon, and the argument 
goes no further than that towards the production of 
certain books upon w'hich their names appear the 
patrons provided part of the cost. The recognition of 
this fact, however, does not detract from the import- 
ance of the expressions used by Bacon in his letter to 
Burghley. 

There is abundant testimony to the fact that it was 
the custom, during the Elizabethan age, for an author 
to suppress his own name, and on the title-page * sub- 
stitute either the initials or name of some other person. 
The title-pages of this period are as unreliable as are 
the names or initials affixed to the dedications and 
epistles "To the Reader." 

In 1624 w-as published " The Historie of the Life and 
Death of Mary Stuart Queene of Scotland." The dedi- 
cation is signed Wil Stranguage. In 1636 it w^as re- 
printed, the same dedication being signed W. Vdall. 
There are numerous similar instances. 



See page 31. 



103 



Chapter XIV. 

THE CLUE TO THE MYSTERY OF 
BACON'S LIFE. 

The theory now put forward is based upon the assump- 
tion that Francis Bacon at a very early age adopted the 
conception that he would devote his life to the con- 
struction of an adequate language and literature for his 
country and that he would do this remaining invisible. 
If he was the author of "The Anatomic of the Mind," 
1576, and of " Beautiful Blossoms," 1577, he must have 
adopted this plan of obscurity as early as his sixteenth 
year. It is possible, however, that it may be shown 
that at a date still earlier he had decided upon this course. 
This, however, is beyond doubt — that if Francis Bacon 
was associated in any way with the literature of 
England from 1570 to 1605, with the exception of the 
small volume of essays published in 1597, he most care- 
fully concealed his connection with it. 

"Therefore, set it down," he says in the essay Of 
Simulation and Dissimulation, " that a habit of secrecy 
is both politic and moral," and in Examples of the Anti- 
theta* " Dissimulation is a compendious wisdome." 
Here again is the same idea : " Beside in all wise 
humane Government, they that sit at the helme, doe 
more happily bring their purposes about, and insinuate 
more easily things fit for the people by pretexts, and 
oblique courses ; than by . . . downright dealing. 
Nay (which perchance may seem very strange) in things 
meerely naturall, you may sooner deceive nature than 
force her ; so improper and selfeimpeaching are open 
direct proceedings ; whereas on the other side, an 

'^ " Of the Advancement of Learning," 1640, page 312. 



104 "^"^ MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

oblique and an insinuating way, gently glides along, and 
compasseth the intended effect. "••■ 

It is noteworthy that Bacon had a quaint conceit of 
the Divine Being which he was never tired of repeating. 
In the preface to the "Advancement of Learning" 
(1640), the following passage occurs : — 

" For of the knoii'Jedges which contemplate the works of Nature, 
the holy Philosopher hath said expressly ; that the glory of God is 
to conceal a thing, but the glory of the King is to find it out : 
as if the Divine Nature, according io the innocent and sweet play of 
children, which hide themselves to the end they may be found ; took 
delight to hide his works, to the end they might be found out ; and of 
his indulgence and goodness to mankind, had chosen the Soule of 
man to be his Play-fellow in this game." 

Again on page 45 of the work itself he says : — 

" For so he (King Solomon) saith expressly, The Glory of God 
is to conceale a thing, but the Glory of a King is io find it out. As 
if according to that innocent and affectionate play of children, 
the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his works, to the end to 
have them found out, and as if Kings could not obtain a greater 
Honour, then to be God's play-fellou^es in that game, especiall}' 
considering the great command they have of wits and means, 
whereby the investigation of all things may be perfected." 

Another phase of the same idea is to be found on 
page 136. 

In the author's preface to the "Novum Organum" 
the following passage occurs : — 

"Whereas of the sciences which regard nature the Holy 
Philosopher declares that ' it is the glory of God to conceal a 
thing, but it is the glory of the King to find it out.' Even as 
though the Divine Nature took pleasure in the innocent and 
kindly sport of children playing at hide and seek, and vouched- 
safe of his kindness and goodness to admit the human spirit for 
his play fellow in that game." 

In almost identical words Bacon suggests the 

* "Of the Advancement of Learning," 1640, pages 115, 116. 



THE CLUE TO THE MYSTERY. IO5 

same conception in "In Valerius Terminus" and in 
" Filum Labyrinthi." 

In the Epistle Dedicatorie of " The French Academie " 
and elsewhere the author is insisting on the same idea 
that " He (God) cannot be scene of any mortal crea- 
ture but is notwithstanding known by his works." 

The close connection of Francis Bacon with the 
works (now seldom studied) of the Emblem writers is 
vouched for by J. Baudoin. 

Oliver Lector in " Letters from the Dead to the Dead " 
has given examples of his association with the Dutch 
and French emblem writers. Three Englishmen appear 
to have indulged in this fascinating pursuit — George 
Whitney (1589), Henry Peacham (1612), and George 
Withers (1634). From the Baconian point of view 
Peacham's " Minerva Britannia " is by far the most 
interesting. The Emblem on page 34 is addressed 
"To the most judicious and learned, Sir Francis 
Bacon Knight." On the opposite leaf, paged thus, '2,3,* 
the design represents a hand holding a spear as in the 
act of shaking it. But it is the frontispiece which 
bears specially on the present contention. The design 
is now reproduced (Fig. IV). A curtain is drawn to hide 
a figure, the hand only of which is protruding. It has 
just written the words " Mente Videbor " — " By the 
mind I shall be seen." Around the scroll are the words 
" Vivitur ingenio cetera mortis erunt " — one lives in 
one's genius, other things shall be (or pass away) in 
death. 

That emblem represents the secret of Francis Bacon's 
life. At a very early age, probably before he was 
twelve, he had conceived the idea that he would imitate 
God, that he would hide his works in order that they 
might be found out — that he would be seen only by his 
mind and that his image should be concealed. There 

■~ 33 is the numercial value of the name " Bacon." The stop 
preceding it denotes cypher. 



I06 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

was no haphazard work about it. It was not simply 
that having written poems or plays, and desiring not to 
be known as the author on publishing them, he put 
someone else's name on the title-page. There was first 
the conception of the idea, and then the carefully- 
elaborated scheme for carrying it out. 

There are numerous allusions in Elizabethan and 
early Jacobean literature to someone who was active in 
literary matters but preferred to remain unrecognised. 
Amongst these there are some which directly refer to 
Francis Bacon, others which occur in books or under 
circumstances which suggest association with him. It 
is not contended that they amount to direct testimony, 
but the cumulative force of this evidence must not be 
ignored. In some of the emblem books of the period 
these allusions are frequent. 

Then there is John Owen's epigram appearing in his 
" Epigrammatum," published in 1612. 

AD. D.B. 

" Si bene qui latuit, bene vixit, tu bene vivis : 
Ingeniumque tuum grande latendo patet." 
" Thou livest well if one well hid well lives, 
And thy great genius in being concealed is revealed." 

D. is elsewhere used by Owen as the initial of 
Dominus. The suggestion that Ad. D.B. represents 
Ad Dominum Baconum is therefore reasonable. 

Thomas Powell published in 1630 the ** Attourney's 
Academy." The book is dedicated "To True Nobility 
and Tryde learning beholden To no Mountaine for 
Eminence, nor supportment for Height, Francis, Lord 
Verulam and Viscount St. Albanes." Then follow 
these lines : — 

" O Give me leave to pull the Curtaine by 
That clouds thy Worth in such obscurity. 
Good Seneca, stay but a while thy bleeding, 



THE CLUE TO THE MYSTERY. 10/ 

T' accept what I received at thy Reading : 

Here I present it in a solemne strayne, 

And thus I pluckt the Curtayne backe again." 

In the " Mirrour of State and Eloquence," published 
in 1656, the frontispiece is a very bad copy of Marshall's 
portrait of Bacon prefixed to the 1640 Gilbert Wat's 
"Advancement of Learning." Under it are these 
lines : — 

" Grace, Honour, virtue, Learning, witt. 
Are all within this Porture knitt 
And left to time that it may tell, 
What worth within this Peere did dwell." 

The frontispiece previously referred to of "Truth 
brought to Light and discovered by Time, or a discourse 
and Historicall narration of the first XIIII. yeares of 
King James Reign," published in 1651, is full of cryptic 
meaning and in one section of it there is a representa- 
tion of a coffin out of which is growing 

" A spreading Tree 
Full fraught with various Fruits most fresh and fair 
To make succeeding Times most rich and rare." 

The fruits are books and manuscripts. The volume 
contains speeches of Bacon and copies of official docu- 
ments signed by him. 

The books of the emblem writers are still more 
remarkable. "Jacobi Bornitii Emblemata Ethico 
Politica," 1659, contains at least a dozen plates in 
which Bacon is represented. A suggestive emblem is 
No. I of Cornelii Giselberti Plempii Amsterodarnum 
Monogrammon, bearing date 1616, the year of Shake- 
peare's death. It is now reproduced (Fig. V.). It will 
be observed that the initial letters of each word in the 
sentence — Obsccenumque nimis crepint Fortima Batavis 
appellanda — yield F. Bacon. There are in other designs 
figures which are evidently intended to represent 
Bacon. Emblem XXXVI. shows the inside of a 



I08 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON, 

printer's shop and two men at work in the foreground 
blacking and fixing the type. Behind is a workman 
setting type, and standing beside him, apparently 
directing, or at any rate observing him, is a man with 
the well-known Bacon hat on. 

The contention may be stated thus : — Francis 
Bacon possessed, to quote Macaulay, *'the most 
exquisitely constructed intellect that has ever been 
bestowed on any of the children of men." Hallam 
described him as " the wisest, greatest of mankind," 
and affirmed that he might be compared to Aristotle, 
Thucydides, Tacitus, Philippe de Comines, Machiavelli, 
Davila, Hume, "all of these together," and confirming 
this view Addison said that " he possessed at once all 
those extraordinary talents which were divided amongst 
the greatest authors of antiquity." At twelve years of 
age in industry he surpassed the capacity, and, in his 
mind, the range of his contemporaries, and had acquired 
a thorough command of the classical and modern 
languages. "He, after he had survaied all the Records 
of Antiquity, after the volumes of men, betook himself 
to the volume of the world and conquered whatever 
books possest." Having, whilst still a youth, taken all 
knowledge to be his province, he had read, marked, and 
absorbed the contents of nearly every book that had 
been printed. How that boy read ! Points of import- 
ance he underlined and noted in the margin. Every 
subject he mastered — mathematics, geometry, music, 
poetry, painting, astronomy, astrology, classical drama 
and poetry, philosophy, history, theology, architecture. 

Then — or perhaps before — came this marvellous con- 
ception, "Like God I will be seen by my works, 
although my image shall never be visible — Mente 
videbor. By the mind I shall be seen." So equipped, 
and with such a scheme, he commenceed and success- 
fully carried through that colossal enterprise in which 
he sought the good of all men, though in a despised 



THE CLUE TO THE MYSTERY. lOQ 

weed. " This," he said, " whether it be curiosity or 
vainglory, or (if one takes it favourably) philanthropia, 
is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed." 

Translations of the classics, of histories, and other 
works were made. In those he no doubt had assistance 
by the commandment of more wits than his own, which 
is a thing he greatly affected. Books came from his 
pen — poetry and prose — at a rate which, when the truth 
is revealed, will literally "stagger humanity." Books 
were written by others under his direction. He saw 
them through the pres.s, and he did more. He had 
his own wood blocks of devices, some, at any rate, of 
which were his own design, and every book produced 
under his direction, whether written by him or not, 
was marked by the use of one or more of these wood 
blocks. The favourite device was the light A and the 
dark A. Probably the first book published in England 
which was marked with this device was De Rep. 
Anglorum Instauranda libri decern, Authore Thoma 
Chalonero Equite, Anglo. This was printed by Thomas 
Vautrollerius,* and bears date 1579. 

Vautrollier, and afterwards Richard Field, printed 
many of the books in the issue of which Bacon was con- 
cerned from 1579 onwards. Henry Bynneman, and 
afterwards his assignees Ralph Newbery and Henry 
Denham and George Bishop, who was associated with 
Denham, were also printing books issued under his 

* Vautrollier was a scholar and printer who came to England 
from Paris or Roan about the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, and 
first commenced business in Blackfriars. In 1584 he printed 
Jordanus Brunus, for which he was compelled to fly. In the next 
year he was in Edinburgh, where, by his help, Scottish printing 
was greatly improved. Eventually his pardon was procured by 
powerful friends, amongst whom was Thomas Randolph. In 
1588 Richard Field, who was apprenticed to Vautrollier, married 
Jakin, his daughter, and on his death in 1589 succeeded to the 
business. 



no THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

auspices, and later Adam Islip, George Eld and James 
Haviland came in for a liberal share of his patronage. 

The cost of printing and publishing must have been 
very great. If the facts ever come to light it will pro- 
bably be found that Burghley was Bacon's mainstay for 
financial support. It will also be found that Lady Anne 
Bacon and Anthony Bacon were liberal contributors to 
the funds, and that the cause of Francis Bacon's 
monetary difficulties and consequent debts was the 
heavy obligation which he personally undertook in con- 
nection with the production of the Elizabethan 
literature. 

In the Dedications, Prefaces, and Epistles "To the 
Reader" also Francis Bacon's mind may be recognised. 
When Addison wrote of Bacon, " One does not know 
which to admire most in his writings, the strength of 
reason, force of style, or brightness of imagination," 
his words might have been inspired by these prefixes 
to the literature of this period. When once the student 
has made himself thoroughly acquainted with Bacon's 
style of writing prefaces he can never fail to recognise 
it, especially if he reads the passages aloud. The 
Epistle Dedicatorie to the 1625 edition of Barclay's 
" Argenis," signed Kingesmill Long, is one of the finest 
examples of Baconian English extant. Who but the 
writer of the Shakespeare plays could have written that 
specimen of musical language ? To hear it read aloud 
gives all the enjoyment of listening to a fine composition 
of music. It is the same with the Shakespeare plays ; 
only when they are read aloud can the richness and 
charm of the language they contain be appreciated. 

Bacon's work can never be understood by anyone who 
has not realised the marvellous character of the mind of 
the boy, his phenomenal industry, and the fact that "he 
could imagine like a poet and execute like a clerk of the 
works." It has been suggested that he had a secret 
Society, by the agency of which he carried through his 



THE CLUE TO THE MYSTERY. Ill 

works, but it is difficult to find any evidence that such 
a Society existed. It may be that he had helpers with- 
out there having been anything of the nature of a 
Society. 

From 1575 to 1605 (thirty years) with the exception 
of the trifles published as Essays in 1597, there are no 
acknowledged fruits of his work to which his name is 
attached. Even the two books of the "Advancement 
of Learning," published in 1605, would have made little 
demands on his time. Edmund Burke said : " Who is 
there that hearing the name of Bacon does not instantly 
recognise everything of genius the most profound, of 
literature the most extensive, of discovery the most 
penetrating, of observation of human life the most dis- 
tinguished and refined." For such a man to write " The 
two books " would be no hard or lengthy task. 

The wonder is that Francis Bacon should have 
attached his name to the 1597 edition of the essays. He 
had written and published under other names tomes of 
essays of at least equal merit. In Aphorism 128 of 
the " Novum Organum " Bacon says, " But how sincere 
I am in my profession of affection and goodwill towards 
the received sciences my published writings, especially 
the books on the Advancement of Learning, sufficiently 
shew." What are the published writings referred to? 
The only works which bore his name were the incom- 
plete volume of the Essays and the "Wisdom of the 
Ancients," to neither of which the words quoted are 
applicable. 

Anthony Bacon, writing to Lady Anne in April, 1593, 
referring to her " motherly offer " to help Francis out 
of debt by being content to bestow the whole interest 
in an estate in Essex, called Markes, said "beseeching 
you to believe that being so near and dear unto me as 
he is, it cannot but be a grief unto me to see a mind 
that hath given so sufficient proof of itself in having 
brought forth many good thoughts for the general to be 



112 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

overburdened and cumbered with a care of clearing his 
particular estate." 

In 1593 nothing had been published under Bacon's 
name, and there is not any production of his known 
which would justify Anthony's remark. What was his 
motive in selecting this insignificant little volume of 
essays whereby to proclaim himself a writer? One can 
understand his object in addressing James in The Two 
Books of the Advancement of Learning, He obtained in 
1606, as Peacham has it, "preferment by his Patrone's 
letter" by being appointed Solicitor-General. 

During all this period — 1575 to 1605 — "the most 
exquisitely constructed mind that has ever been bestowed 
on any of the children of men " appears to have been 
dormant. Take the first three volumes of Spedding's 
" Life and Letters, " and carefully note all that is recorded 
as the product of that mind during the years when it 
must have been at the zenith of its power and activity. 
All the letters and tracts accredited to Bacon in them 
which have come down to us would not account for 
six months — not for three months — of its occupation. 

The explanation that he was building up his great 
system of inductive philosophy is quite inadequate. 
Rawley speaks of the " Novum Organum " as havmg 
been in hand for twelve years. This would give 1608 
as the year when it was commenced. The " Cogitata 
et Visa," of which it was an amplification, was prob- 
ably written in i5o6 or 1607, for on the 17th February, 
1607-8, Bodley writes acknowledging the receipt of it 
and commenting on it. 

Rawley says that it was during the last five years 
of Bacon's life that he composed the greatest part of 
his books and writings both in English and Latin, 
and supplies a list which comprises all his acknow- 
ledged published works except the " Novum Organum " 
and the Essays. 

In " The Statesmen and Favourites of England 



THE CLUE TO THE MYSTERY. II3 

since the Reformation," it is stated that the universal 
knowledge and comprehension of things rendered Fran- 
cis Bacon the observation of great and wise men, and 
afterward the wonder of all. Yet it is remarkable 
how few are the references to him amongst his con- 
temporaries. Practically the only one that would 
enable a reader to gain any knowledge of his person- 
ality is Francis Osborn, who, in letters to his son, 
published in 1658, describes him as he was in the last 
few years of his life. No one has left data which 
enables a clear impression to be formed of Francis 
Bacon as he was up to his fortieth year. The omis- 
sion may be described as a conspiracy of silence. How 
exactly the circumstances appear to fit in with the first 
line of John Owen's epigram to Dominus B., pub- 
lished in 1612! — "Thou livest well if one well hid 
well lives " ; and if the suggestion now put forward be 
correct that Bacon deliberately resolved that his image 
and personality should never be seen, but only the fruits 
of his mind — the issues of his brain, to use Rawley's 
expression — how apt is the second line of the epigram : 
" And thy great genius in being concealed, is revealed." 



114 



Chapter XV. 
BURGHLEY AND BACON. 

There was published in 1732 "The Life of the Great 
Statesman William Cecil, Lord Burghley." The 
preface signed by Arthur Collins states : — 

The work I have for several years engaged in, of treating 
of those families that have been Barons of this Kingdom, 
necessarily induced me to apply to our Nobility for such helps, 
as might illustrate the memory of their ancestors. And several 
Noblemen having favour'd me with the perusal of their family 
evidences, and being recommended to the Right Honourable the 
present Earl of Exeter, his Lordship out of just regard to the 
memory of his great Ancestor, was pleased to order the manu- 
script Life of the Lord Burghley to be communicated to me. 

Which being very old and decayed and only legible to such 
who are versed in ancient writings it was with great satisfaction 
that I copied it literatim. And that it may not be lost to the 
world, I now offer it to the view of the publick. It fully appears 
to be wrote in the reign of Queen Elizabeth soon after his Lord- 
ship's death, by one who was intimate with him, and an eye 
witness of his actions for the last twenty-five years. It needs no 
comment to set it off ; that truth and sincerity which shines 
through the whole, will, I don't doubt have the same weight with 
the Readers as it had with me and that they will be of opinion 
it's too valuable to be buried in oblivion. 

This " Life of Lord Burghley " is referred to by Nares 
and other of his biographers as having been written by 
"a domestic." It contains about 16,000 words and is 
the most authentic account extant of the great states- 
man's life. The narrative is full, but the observations 
on the character and habits of Burghley are by far the 
most important feature. The method of treatment of 
the subject is after Bacon's style ; the Life abounds 
with phrases and with tricks of diction, which enable it 



BURGHLEY AND BACON. II5 

to be identified as his. The concluding sentences could 
only have been written with Bacon's pen : — 

And so leaving his soule with God, his fame to the world, and 
the truth to all charitable mynds, I leave the sensure to all 
judicious Christians, who truly practising what they professe, will 
better approve, and more indifferentlie interpret it, than envie or 
malice can disprove it. The best sort will ever doe right, the 
worst can but imagine mischief and doe wrong ; yet this is a 
comfort, the more his virtues are troden downe, the more will 
theire brightnes appeare. Virtus vulnerata virescit. 

In 1592 the " Responsio ad edictum Reginse Angliae " 
of the Jesuit Parsons had appeared, attacking the Queen 
and her advisers (especially Burghley), to whom were 
attributed all the evils of England and the disturbances 
of Christendom. The reply to this was entrusted to 
Francis, Bacon, who responded with a pamphlet en- 
titled " Certain observations upon a libel published this 
present year, 1592." It was first printed by Dr. Rawley 
in the " Resuscitatio " in 1657. At the time it was 
written it was circulated largely in manuscript, for at 
least eight copies, somewhat varying from each other, 
have been preserved.* It is quite possible that it was 
printed at the time, but that no copy has survived. 
Throughout the whole work there are continual 
references to Burghley. Chapter VI. is entirely devoted 
to his defence and is headed "Certain true general notes 
upon the actions of the Lord Burghley." Either "The 
Life " and the " Observations on a Libel " are by the 
same writer or the author of the former borrowed the 
latter very freely. 

It is to be regretted that the original manuscript of 
the "Life "cannot now be found. In 1732 it was at 
Burghley House. Application has been made to the 

* Harl. MSS., 537, pp. 26 and 71 ; additional MSS., 4,263, p. 
144 ; Harl. MSS., 6,401 ; Harl. MSS., 6,854, p. 203 ; Cambridge 
Univ. Lib., Mm. V. 5 ; Cotton MSS., Tit., Chap. VII., p. 50 b ; 
Harl. MSS., 859, p. 40 ; Cotton MSS., Jul., F. VI., p. 158. 



Il6 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

present Marquis of Exeter for permission to inspect it, 
but his Lordship's hbrarian has no knowledge of its 
existence. If it could be examined it is probable that if 
the text was not in Bacon's handwriting some notes or 
alterations might be recognised as his. The writer says 
he was an eye witness of Burghley's life and actions 
twenty-five years together — that would be from 1573 
to 1598, which wonld well accord with the present 
contention. If Bacon was the author it throws con- 
siderable light on his relations with Burghley and 
establishes the fact that they were of the most cordial 
and affectionate character. It is reported that Bacon 
said that in the time of the Burghleys — father and son — 
clever or able men were repressed, and mainly upon this 
has been based the impression that Burghley opposed 
Francis Bacon's progress. 

Burghley's biographer refers to this report. He 
writes: "He was careful and desirous to furder and 
advaunce men of quality and desart to be Councellors 
and officers to her Majesty wherein he placed manie and 
laboured to bring in more . . . yet would envy with 
her slaunders report he hindered men from rising ; but 
howe true it is wise men male judge, for it was the 
Queene to take whom she pleased and not in a subject 
to preferree whom he listed." 

It will eventually be proved that such a report conveys 
an incorrect view. In the letter of 1591,* addressed to 
Burghley, Bacon says : — " Besides I do not find in myself 
so much self-love, but that the greater parts of my 
thoughts are to deserve well (if I were able) of my friends 
and namely of your Lordship; who being the Atlas of 
this Commonwealth, the honour of my house, and the 
second founder of my poor estate, I am tied by all 
duties, both of a good patriot, and of an unworthy 
kinsman, and of an obliged servant, to employ whatso- 
ever I am to do your service," and later in the letter he 

* See page 72. 



BURGHLEY AND BACON. II7 

employs the phrase, "And if your Lordship will not carry 
me on," and then threatens to sell the inheritance that 
he has, purchase some quick revenue that may be 
executed by another, and become some sorry bookmaker 
or a pioneer in that mine of truth which Anaxagoras 
said lay so deep. 

Again, in a letter to Burghley, dated 31st March, 1594, 
he says : — " Lastly, that howsoever this matter may go, 
yet I may enjoy your lordship's good favour and help as 
I have done in regard to my private estate, which as I 
have not altogether neglected so I have but negligently 
attended and which hath been bettered only by yourself 
(the Queen except) and not by any other in matter of 
importance." Further on he says: "Thus again 
desiring the continuance of your Lordship's goodness 
as I have hitherto found it on my part sought also to 
deserve, I commend," etc. 

It is very easy, with little information as to Bacon's 
actions and little knowledge of the period, to form a 
definite opinion as to the relations of Bacon and 
Burghley. The more information as to the one and 
knowledge of the other one gets, the more difficult does 
it become to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. Here 
was the son of Eli2abeth's great Lord Keeper, the 
nephew of her trusted minister, himself from his boy- 
hood di persona grata with the Queen, of brilliant parts 
and great wisdom — if he had been a mere place-hunter 
his desires could have been satisfied over and over 
again. There was some condition of circumstance, of 
which nothing has hitherto been known, which prevented 
him from obtaining the object of his desires. That he 
had a definite object, and had mapped out a course by 
which he hoped to achieve it, is evident from his letters * 
already quoted. It is equally clear that the course he 
sought to pursue entailed his abandoning the law as a 
profession. Either he would only have such place as 

* See pages 70, 72. 



Il8 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

he desired, and on his own terms, or he was known to be 
following some course which, although not distasteful 
to his close friends, caused him to be held in suspicion, 
if not distrust, by the courtiers with whom Elizabeth 
was surrounded. Every additional fact that comes to 
light seems to point to the truth being that through his 
life Burghley was Francis Bacon's staunch friend and 
supporter. Upon Sir Nicholas Bacon's death Burghley 
appears with Bodley to have been maintaining Bacon 
in his travels abroad. Upon his return to England 
Burghley gave him financial support in his great project. 
In 1591 there was a crisis — someone had been spending 
money for the past twelve years freely in making English 
literature. That cannot be gainsaid. Burghley appears 
to have pulled up and remonstrated ; hence Bacon's 
letter containing the threat before referred to. It is 
significant that it was immediately after this letter was 
written that Bacon's association with Essex com- 
menced. Bacon would take him and Southampton into 
his confidence and seek their help. Essex was just the 
man to respond with enthusiasm. Francis introduced 
Anthony to him. The services of the brothers were 
placed at his disposal, and he undertook to manage the 
Queen. The office of Attorney- General for Francis 
would meet the case. " It was dangerous in a factious 
age to have my Lord Essex his favour," says the 
biographer before quoted.* 

That Burghley was favourable to his appointment as 
Attorney-General two letters written by Francis to 
Lord Keeper Puckering in 1594 testify. In the first 
Bacon writes : " I pray your Lordship to call to remem- 
brance my Lord Treasurer's kind course, who affirmed 
directly all the rest to be unfit. And because vis unita 
fortior I beg your Lordship to take a time with the 
Queen when my Lord Treasurer is present." 

In a second letter he writes : " I thought good to 

='' See Appendix. 



BURGHLEY AND BACON. II9 

remember your good Lordship and to request you as I 
touched in my last that if my Lord Treasurer be absent 
your Lordship would forbear to fall into my business 
with her Majesty lest it mought receive some foil before 
the time when it should be resolutely dealt in." 

Only Burghley was found to support Essex's advocacy, 
and on the whole this was not to be wondered at. Such 
an appointment, to say the least, would have been an 
experiment. Possibly Essex was the stumbling-block, 
but it may be that the real objection on the part of the 
Queen and her advisers was that Bacon was known to 
be so amorous of certain learned arts, so much given 
over to invention, that the consensus of opinion was 
that he was thereby unfitted to hold an important office 
of the State. Or it may be that he was discredited by 
his suspected or known association with certain printers. 
There was some reason of which no explanation can 
now be traced. 

It has been suggested that in 1591 there was a crisis 
in Bacon's hfe. That is evident from the letter to 
Burghley written in that year. John Harrington's 
translation of "Orlando Furioso" was published about 
this time. The manuscript, which is in a perfect 
condition, is in the British Museum, and has been 
marked in Bacon's handwriting throughout. The 
pagination and the printer's signature are placed at the 
commencement of the stanzas to be printed on each 
page, and there are instructions to the printer at the 
end which are not in his hand. 

There are good grounds for attributing the notes at 
the end of each chapter to Bacon. 

It is very improbable that Sir John Harrington had 
the classical knowledge which the writer of these notes 
must have possessed. There is a letter written by him 
to Sir Amias Pawlett, dated January, 1606-7. He is 
relating an interview with King James, and says : 
"Then he (the king) enquyrede muche of lernynge and 



120 



THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 



showede me his owne in such sorte as made me remem- 
ber my examiner at Cambridge aforetyme. He soughte 
muche to knowe my advances in philosophie and 
utterede profounde sentences of Aristotle and such lyke 
wryters, whiche I had never reade and which some are 
bolde enoughe to saye others do not understand." It 
would be difficult to mention any classical author with 
whose works the writer of these notes was not familiar, 
or to believe that "Epigrams both Pleasant and 
Serious " (1615) came from the pen of that writer. 

At the end of the thirty-seventh chapter the following 
note occurs : "It was because she (Porcia) wrote some 
verses in manner of an Epitaph upon her husband after 
his decease : In which kind, that honourable Ladie 
(widow of the late Lord John Russell) deserveth no 
lesse commendation, having done as much for two hus- 
bands. And whereas my author maketh so great host 
only of one learned woman in Italic, I may compare 
(besides one above all comparison that I have noted in 
the twentith booke) three or foure in England out of one 
family, and namely the sisters of that learned Ladie, as 
witness that verse written by the meanest of the foure 
to the Ladie Burlie which I doubt if Cambridge or Ox- 
ford can mend." 

The four Si mihi quern cupio cures Mildreda She wrote 
daughters of remitti to Lady Bur- 
Sir Anthonie Tu bona, tu melior, tu mihi sola lie to send a 
Cooke — soror ; kinsman of 
Ladie Bur- Sin mali cessando retines, & trans hers into 
lie, mare mittis, Cornwall, 
Ladie Rus- Tu mala, tu peior, tu mihi nulla where she 
sell, soror. dwelt, and to 
Lady Ba- Is si Cornubiam, tibi pax sit & stop his go- 
con, omnia Iseta, ing beyond 
Mistress Sin mare Cecilias nuncio bella. sea. 
Killygrew. Vale.''^ 



** If you, O Mildred, will take care to send back tome him whom 
I desire, 
You will be my good, my more than good, my only sister ; 



BURGHLEY AND BACON. 121 

The writer of the Latin verse was not Ladie Russell, 
and it was written to Ladie Burlie, so she must either 
be Ladie Bacon or Mistress Killigrew. It is not an 
improbable theory that Ladie Bacon was writing to her 
sister Mildred, who had, through her husband, power 
either to send Francis to Cornwall or permit him to 
be sent away over the seas. 

There is a copy of Machiavelli's " History of 
Florence," 1595, with Bacon's notes in the margins.* 

At the end is a memorandum giving the dates when 
the book was read "in Cornwall at," and then follow 
two words, the second of which is " Lake," but the 
first is undecipherable. 

Is it possible that Lady Anne Bacon had a house in 
Cornwall which Francis Bacon, inheriting after her 
death, was in the habit of visiting for retirement ? But 
this is conjecture. 

The following point is of interest. In the '* Life of 
Burghley" (1598) it is said that: "Bookes weare so 
pleasing to him, as when he gott libertie to goe unto 
his house to take ayre, if he found a book worth the 
openinge, he wold rather loose his ridinge than his 
readinge ; and yet ryding in his garden walks upon his 
litle moile was his greatest Disport : But so soone as he 

But if, unfortunately, by doing nothing you keep him back and 

send him across the sea, 
You will be bad, more than bad, nay no sister at all of mine. 
If he comes to Cornwall, peace and all joys be with you, 
But if he goes by sea to Sicily I declare war. Farewell. 

"■ One note on tliis book contains an interesting historical fact 
hitherto unknown. On page 279 the text states : " Among the 
Conspirators was Nicholo Fedini whom they employed as Chaun- 
cellor, he persuaded with a hope more certaine, revealed to Piero, 
all the practice argreed by his enemies, and delivered him a note 
of all their names.'' Bacon has made the following note in the 
margin : " Ex (i.e., Essex) did the like in England which he burnt 
at Shirfr Smiths house in fenchurch Street." 



122 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

came in he fell to his readinge againe or els to dis- 
patchinge busines." 

Rawley, in his " Life of Bacon " (1657), attributes an 
exactly similar habit to the philosopher, and almost 
in identical phrase : " For he would ever interlace a 
moderate relaxation of his mind with his studies as 
walking, or taking the air abroad in his coach or some 
other befitting recreation ; and yet he would lose no 
time, inasmuch as upon his first and immediate return 
he would fall to reading again, and so suffer no 
moment of time to slip from him without some present 
improvement." 

It is difficult to approach any phase of the life of 
Bacon without being confronted with what appears to 
be evidence of careful preparation to obscure the facts. 
This observation does not result from imagination or 
prejudice ; Bacon's movements are always enshrouded 
in mystery. Investigation and research will, however, 
eventually establish as a fact that there was a closer 
connection between Burghley and Bacon than his- 
torians have recognised, and that they had a strong 
attachment for each other. 



123 



Chapter XVI. 

THE 1623 FOLIO EDITION OF SHAKE- 
SPEARE'S PLAYS. 

Sir Sydney Lee has written*: — "As a specimen of 
typography, the First Folio is not to be commended. 
There are a great many contemporary folios of larger 
bulk far more neatly and correctly printed. It looks as 
though Jaggard's printing office was undermanned. 
The misprints are numerous, and are especially con- 
spicuous in the pagination." In the same year was 
published " The Theater of Honour and Knighthood," 
translated from the French of Andreu Favine. William 
Jaggard was the printer. It is a large folio volume 
containing about 1,200 pages, and is referred to as being 
issued by Jaggard as an example of the printer's art to 
maintain his reputation, which had suffered from the 
apparently careless manner in which the Shakespeare 
Folio was turned out. Both books contain the same 
emblematic head-pieces and tail-pieces. There are, 
however, some considerable mispaginations in **The 
Theater of Honour." Mispaginations were not infrequent 
in Elizabethan and Jacobean literature, but it is quite 
possible that they were not unintentional. The most 
glaring instance is to be found in the first Edition of 
" The Two Bookes of Francis Bacon — Of the Pro- 
ficience and Advancement in Learning, Divine and 
Humane," published by Henrie Tomes (1605). Each leaf 
(not page) is numbered. The 45 leaves of the first book 
are correctly numbered. In the second book there is no 
number on leaf 6. Leaf g is numbered 6, the right figure 
being printed upside down ; 30 is numbered 33 ; from 

* "A Life of Shakespeare," 1589, 2nd Edition, p. 308. 



124 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

31 to 70 the numbering is correct, and then the leaves 
are numbered as follows : — 70, 70, 71, 70, 72, 74, "j^t, 74, 
75, 69, n, 78, 79. 80, ^T, 74, 74, 69, 69, 82, 87, 79, 89, 
91. 92, 93. 94. 95. 99. 97, 99. 94. 100, 99, 102, 103, 103, 
93, 106, and on correctly until the last page, 118, except 
that 115 is numbered 105. 

It is impossible to attribute this mispagination to the 
printer's carelessness. This was the first work pub- 
lished bearing Bacon's name, excepting the trifle of 
essays published in 1597. There does not appear to 
have been any hurry in its production. It is quite a 
small volume, and yet the foregoing remarkable mis- 
paginations occur. There must be some purpose in this 
which has yet to be found out. 

The 1623 Shakespeare Folio will be found to be one 
of the most perfect examples of the printer's art extant, 
because no work has been produced under such difficult 
conditions for the printer. There are few mistakes 
in pagination or spelling which are not intentional. 
The work is a masterpiece of enigma and cryptic 
design. The lines "To the Reader" opposite to the 
title-page are a table or code of numbers. The same 
lines and the lettering on the title-page form another 
table. The ingenuity displayed in this manipulation of 
words and numbers to create analogies is almost beyond 
the comprehension of the human mind. The mis- 
paginations are all intentional and have cr3'ptic mean- 
ings. The acme of wit is the substitution of 993 for 
399 on the last page of the tragedies ; a hundred has 
been omitted in " Hamlet," 257 following 156, and other 
errors made in order to obtain this result on the last 
page. The manner in which the printer's signatures 
have been arranged with the pages is equally wonder- 
ful. The name William Shakespeare must have been 
created without reference to him of Stratford, who 
possibly bore or had assigned to him a somewhat similar 
name. A great superstructure is built up on the exact 



THE 1623 FOLIO EDITION. 125 

spelling of the words William Shakespeare. The year 
1623 was specially selected for the issue of the complete 
volume of the plays, because of the marvellous relations 
which the numbers composing it bear to the names 
William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon, to the year 
1560, in which the birth of Bacon is registered, and to 
1564 and 16 16, the reputed dates of the birth and death 
of the Stratford man. Nor do the wonders end here. 
The use of numerical analogies has been carried into 
the construction of the English language. All this, and 
much more, will be made manifest when the work of 
Mr. E. V. Tanner comes to be investigated and appre- 
ciated. He has made the greatest literary discovery 
of all time. The wonder is how it has been possible 
for anyone to pierce the veil and reveal the secrets of 
the volume. The value of the Shakespeare Folio 1623 
will be enhanced. It will stand alone as the greatest 
monument of the achievements of the human intellect. 
To any literary critic who should honour this book 
by noticing it, it is probable the foregoing statements 
may seem extravagant and untrustworthy. To such 
the request is now made that before making any 
comment he will inspect the proof of the foregoing 
statements which are in the writer's possession. The 
dramas of Shakespeare are, by universal consent, 
placed at the head of all literature. The invitation 
is now put forth in explicit terms, and facilities are 
offered for the investigation of the truth, or otherwise, 
of every statement made in the foregoing paragraph. 



126 



Chapter XVII. 

THE AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE 
BIBLE, 1611. 

Is it not strange that there is no mention of any 
connection of Francis Bacon with this work ? There 
was a conference held at Hampton Court Palace before 
King James on ^January, 1603, between the Episco- 
palians and Puritans. John Rainoldes urged the 
necessity of providing for his people a uniform trans- 
lation of the Bible. Rainoldes was the leader of the 
Puritans, a person of prodigious reading and doctrine, 
and the very treasury of erudition. Dr. Hall, Bishop 
of Norwich, reports that "he alone was a well furnished 
library, full of all faculties, of all studies, of all learning 
— the memory and reading of that man were near a 
miracle." The King approved the suggestion and 
commissioned for that purpose fifty-four of the most 
learned men in the universities and other places. 
There was a "careful selection of revisers made by 
some unknown but very competent authority." The 
translators were divided into six bands of nine each, 
and the work of translation was apportioned out to 
them. A set of rules was drawn up for their guidance, 
which has happily come down to modern times — almost 
the only record that remains of this great undertaking. 
These concise rules have a homogeneity, breadth and 
vigour which point to Bacon as their author. Each 
reviser was to translate the whole of the original 
allocated to his company ; then they were to compare 
their translations together, and, as soon as a company 
had completed its part, it was to communicate the 
result to the other companies, that nothing might pass 



AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE BIBLE. 127 

without the general consent. If any company, upon 
the review of the translation so sent, differed on any 
point, they were to note their objection and state their 
reasons for disagreement. If the differences could not 
be adjusted, there was a committee of arbitration which 
met weekly, consisting of a representative from each 
company, to whom the matter in dispute was referred. 
If any point was found to be very obscure, letters were 
to be addressed, by authority, to learned persons 
throughout the land inviting their judgment. The work 
was commenced in 1604. Rainoldes belonged to the 
company to whom Isaiah and the 'prophets were 
assigned. He died in 1607, before the work was com- 
pleted. During his illness his colleagues met in his 
bedroom so that they might retain the benefit of his 
learning. Only forty-seven out of the fifty-four names 
are known. When the companies had completed their 
work, one complete copy was made at Oxford, one at 
Cambridge, and one at Westminster. Those were sent 
to London. Then two members were selected from 
each company to form a committee to review and 
polish the whole. The members met daily at Stationers' 
Hall and occupied nine months in their task. Then a 
final revision was entrusted to Dr. Thomas Bilson and 
Dr. Miles Smith, and in i6og their labours were com- 
pleted and the result was handed to the King. Many 
of the translators have left specimens of their writing in 
theological treatises, sermons, and other works. A 
careful perusal of all these available justifies the asser- 
tion that amongst the whole body there was not one 
man who was so great a literary stylist as to be able to 
write certain portions of the Authorised Version, 
which stamp it as one of the two greatest examples of the 
English language. Naturally the interest centres on Dr. 
Thomas Bilson and Dr. Miles Smith, to whom the final 
revision was entrusted. There are some nine or ten 
theological works by the former and two sermons by 



128 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

the latter. Unless the theory of a special divine inspira- 
tion for the occasion be admitted, it is clear that neither 
Bilson nor Miles Smith could have j^iven the final 
touches to the Bible. And now a curious statement 
has come down to us. In i6og the translators handed 
their work to the King, and in 1610 he returned it to 
them completed. James was incapable of writing 
anything to which the term beautiful could be applied. 
What had happened to the translators' work whilst it 
was left in his hands ? 

James had an officer of state at that time of whom a 
contemporary biographer wrote that " he had the con- 
trivance of all King James his Designs, until the match 
with Spain." It will eventually be proved that the 
whole scheme of the Authorised Version of the Bible 
was Francis Bacon's. He was an ardent student not 
only of the Bible, but of the early manuscripts. St. 
Augustine, St. Jerome, and writers of theological works, 
were studied by him with industry. He has left his 
annotations in many copies of the Bible and in scores 
of theological works. The translation must have been 
a work in which he took the deepest interest and which 
he would follow from stage to stage. When the last 
stage came there was only one writer of the period who 
was capable of turning the phrases with that matchless 
style which is the great charm of the Shakespeare plays. 
Whoever that stylist was, it was to him that James 
handed over the manuscripts which he received from the 
translators. That man then made havoc of much of 
the translation, but he produced a result which, on its 
literary merits, is without an equal. 

Thirty years ago another revision took place, but, 
notwithstanding the advantages which the revisers of 
1880 had over their predecessors of 1611, their version 
has failed to displace the older version, which is too 
precious to the hearts of the people for them to 
abandon it. 



AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE BIBLE. I29 

Although not one of the translators has left any 
literary work which would justify the belief that he was 
capable of writing the more beautiful portions of the 
Bible, fortunately Bacon has left an example which 
would rather add lustre to than decrease the high 
standard of the Bible if it were incorporated in it. As 
to the truth of this statement the reader must judge 
from the following prayer, which was written after his 
fall, and which was described by Addison as resembling 
the devotion of an angel rather than a man : — 

Remember, Lord, how Thy servant hath walked before 
Thee ; remember what I have first sought, and what been 
principal in mine intentions. I have loved Thy assemblies ; 
I have mourned for the divisions of Thy Church ; I have 
delighted in the brightness of Thy sanctuary. 

This vine, which Thy right hand hath planted in this 
nation, I have ever prayed unto Thee that it might have the 
first and the latter rain, and that it might stretch her 
branches to the seas and to the floods. 

The state and bread of the poor and oppressed have been 
precious in mine eyes. I have hated all cruelty and hard- 
ness of heart. I have, though in a despised weed, procured 
the good of all men. 

If any have been mine enemies, I thought not of them, 
neither hath the sun almost set upon my displeasure ; but I 
have been as a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness. 
Thy creatures have been my books, btit Thy scriptures 
much more. I have sought Thee in the courts, fields, and 
gardens, but I have found Thee in Thy temples. 

Thousand have been my sins and ten thousand my trans- 
gressions, but Thy sanctifications have remained with me, 
and my heart, through Thy grace, hath been an unquenched 
coal upon Thine altar. 

Lord, my strength, I have since my youth met with 
Thee in all my ways, by Thy fatherly compassions, by Thy 
comfortable chastisements, and by Thy most visible provi- 



130 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

deuce. As Thy favours have increased upon me, so have 
Thy corrections, so that Thotc hast been ever near me, O 
Lord ; and ever, as Thy worldly blessings were exalted, se 
secret darts from Thee have pierced me, and when I have 
ascended before men, I have descended in humiliation before 
Thee. 

And now, when I thought most of peace and honour, Thy 
hand is heavy upon me, and hath humbled me according to 
Thy former lovingkindness, keeping me still in Thy fatherly 
school, not as a bastard but as a child. Just are Thy judg- 
ments upon me for my sins, which are more in number than 
the sands of the sea, but have no proportion to Thy mercies ; 
for what are the sands of the sea to the sea ? Earth, heavens, 
and all these are nothing to Thy mercies. 

Besides my innumerable sins, I confess before Thee that I 
am debtor to Thee for the gracious talent of Thy gifts and 
graces, which I have neither put into a napkin, nor put it 
{as I ought) to exchangers, where it might have made jnost 
profit, but misspent it in things for which I was least fit so 
that I may truly say my soul hath been a stranger in the 
course of my pilgrimage. 

Be merciful unto me, O Lord, for my Saviour's sake, 
and receive me into Thy bosom or guide me in Thy ways. 

There is another feature about the first editions of 
the Authorised Version which arrests attention. In 
1611 the first foHo edition was published. The design 
with archers, dogs and rabbits which is to be found 
over the address "To the Christian Reader" which 
introduces the genealogies is also to be found in 
the folio edition of Shakespeare over the dedica- 
tion to the most noble and Incomparable paire of 
Brethren, over the Catalogue and elsewhere. Except 
that the mark of query which is on the head of the 
right hand pillar in the design in the Bible is missing 
in the Shakespeare folio, and the arrow which the archer 
on the right hand side is shooting contains a message in 



AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE BIBLE. I3I 

the design used in the Bible and is without one in the 
Shakespeare foHo, 

In the 1612 quarto edition of the Authorised Version 
on the title-page of the Genealogies are two designs ; 
that at the head of the page is printed from the identical 
block which was used on the title-page of the first 
edition of "Venus and Adonis," 1593, and the first 
edition of "Lucrece," 1594. At the bottom is the 
design with the light A and dark A, which is over the 
dedication to Sir William Cecil in the "Arte of English 
Poesie," 1589. An octavo edition, which is now very 
rare, was also published in 1612, On the title-page of 
the Genealogies will be found the design with the light 
A and dark A which is used on several of the Shake- 
speare quartos and elsewhere. (Figure XXI.) 

The selection of these designs was not made by 
chance. They were deliberately chosen to create 
similitudes between certain books, and mark their 
connection with each other. 

The revised translation of the Bible was undertaken 
as a national work. It was carried out under the 
personal supervision of the King, but every record of 
the proceedings has disappeared. The British Museum 
does not contain a manuscript connected with the 
proceedings of the translators. In the Record Office 
have been preserved the original documents referring to 
important proceedings of that period. The parlia- 
mentary, judicial, and municipal records are, on the 
whole, in a complete condition, but ask for any records 
connected with the Authorised Version of the Bible 
and the reply is : " We have none." And yet it is 
reasonable to suppose that manuscripts and documents 
of such importance would be preserved. Where are 
they to be found ? 



132 



Chapter XVIII. 

HOW BACON MARKED BOOKS WITH THE 

PUBLICATION OF WHICH HE WAS 

CONNECTED. 

At a very early period in the history of printing, the 
custom was introduced of placing on title-pages, at the 
heads and ends of the chapters, emblematical designs. 
In English printed books these are seldom to be found 
until the latter half of the i6th century. 

An investigation of the books of the period reveals 
the fact that the same blocks were used by different 
printers. Articles have been written on the migration 
of printer's blocks, but, so far, no explanation has been 
offered as to any object other than decoration for which 
these blocks were used. 

Among other designs in use between 1576 and 1640 
are a number of variants of a device in which a light A 
and a dark A form the most conspicuous points. 
Camden, in his "Remaines Concerning Britaine," 1614, 
commences a chapter on " Impresses," at the head of 
which the device is found, thus : — " An Imprese (as the 
Italians call it) is a device in picture with his Motto, or 
Word, borne by noble and learned personages, to 
notifie some particular conceit of their owne : as 
Emblemes (that we may omitte other differences) doe 
propound some general instructions to all." Then 
follow a number of examples, and amongst them this : — 

" Variete and vicissitude of humane things he seemed 
to shew which parted his shield, Per Pale, Argent & 
Sables and counter-changeably writte in the Argent, 
Ater and in the Sables Albus." 



HOW BACON MARKED BOOKS. I33 

But even if the light A and dark A are used in the 
design of the head-piece to represent Albus and Ater it 
does not afford any satisfactory explanation as to why 
they are so used. 

In MDCXVI. was published " Les Emblemes 
Moraulx et Militaires du Sieur Jacob De Bruck Anger- 
mundt Nouvellement mis en Lumiere A Strasbourg, 
Par Jacob de Heyden Graveur." 

In Emblem No. i8, now reproduced, the light A and 
the dark A will be found in the branch of the tree 
which the man is about to cut off. (Figure VI.)* 

Another Emblem does not contain the light A and 
dark A, but the bark of the trunk and branches of the 
tree on the design exhibit a strong contrast between the 
dark and light, which feature is represented in most of 
the title-pages of books in which the device is found, 
(Figure VII.) 

Mr. Charles T. Jacob, Chiswick Press, London, who 
is the author of " Books and Printing " (London, 1902), 
and several works on typography, referring to an article 
on the migration of woodblocks, said : — 

It is a well-known fact to Bibliographers that the same blocks 
were sometimes used by different printers in two places quite 
far apart, and at various intervals during the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries. That the same blocks were employed is 
apparent from a comparison of technical defects of impressions 
taken at different places, and at two periods. There was 
no method of duplication in existence until stereotyping was first 
invented in 1725 ; even then the details were somewhat crude, and 
the process being new, it met with much opposition and was 
practically not adopted until the early part of the nineteenth 
century, Electrotyping, which is the ideal method of repro- 
ducing woodblocks, was not introduced until 1836 or there- 
abouts. Of course, it was quite possible to re-engrave the same 
design, but absolute fidelity could not be relied on by these 
means, even if executed by the same hand, 

" Plates Nos, VI, to XXI. will be found after the Appendix. 

K 



134 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

The earliest date which appears on a book in which 
the head-piece, containing the device of the light A and 
dark A is found, is 1563. The book is " De Furtivis 
Literarum Notis Vulgo. De Ziferis," loan. Baptista 
Porta Neapolitano Authore. Cum Privilegio Neapoli, 
apud loa. Mariam Scotum. MDLXIII. (Figure VIII.) 

It is only used once — over the dedication loanni 
Soto Philippi Regis. There is no other head-piece in 
the book. John Baptist Porta was, with the exception 
of Trithemius, whom he quotes, the first writer on 
cyphers. At the time at which he wrote cypher-writing 
was studied in every Court in Europe. It is significant 
that this emblematic device is used in the earliest period 
in which head-pieces were adopted, in a book which is 
descriptive and is in fact a text-book of the art of 
concealment. This has, however, now been proved to 
be a falsely dated book. 

The first edition of this work was published in Naples in 
1563 by loa. Marius Scotus, but this does not contain the 
A A design. In 1591 the book was published in London 
by John Wolfe ; this reprint was dedicated to Henry 
Percy, Earl of Northumberland. After the edition had 
been printed off, the title-page was altered to correspond 
with the 1563 Naples publication. The dedication was 
taken out, and a reprint of the original dedication was 
substituted, and over this was placed the A A head- 
piece ; then an edition was struck off, and, until to-day, 
it has been sold and re-sold as the first edition of 
Baptista Porta's work. It is difficult to offer any 
explanation as to why this fraud was committed. 

The first occasion upon which this device was used 
appears to be in a book so rare that no copy of it can 
be found, either in the British Museum or the Bodleian 
Library. Unfortunately, in the copy belonging to the 
writer, the title-page and the two first pages are 
missing. The work is called " Hebraicum Alphabethum 
Jo. Bovlaese." It is a Hebrew Grammar, with proof- 



HOW BACON MARKED BOOKS. I35 

sheets added. It is interleaved with sheets of English- 
made paper, containing Bacon's handwriting. Bound 
up with it is another Hebrew Grammar, similarly 
interleaved, called " Sive compendium, quintacunque 
Ratione fieri potuit amplessimum, Totius linguae," 
published in Paris in 1566. The book ends with the 
sentence : " Ex coUegio Montis — Acuti 20 Decembris 
1576 " ; then follow two pages in Hebrew, with the 
Latin translation over it, headed "Decern Prcecepta 
decalogi Exod." Over this is the design containing the 
light A and the dark A, and the squirrel and rabbits. 
(Figure IX.) One thing is certain, that the copy now 
referred to was in the possession of Bacon, and that 
the interleaved sheets of paper contain his handwriting, 
m which have been added page by page the equivalents 
of the Hebrew in Greek, Chaldaeic, Syriac and Arabic. 

In 1577 Christophor Plantin published an edition of 
Andrea Alciat's "Emblemata." On page 104 is Emblem 
No. 45, "Indies mehora." This has been re-designed 
for the 1577 edition. It contains at the back the pillars 
of Hercules, with a scroll around bearing the motto : 
"Plus oltre." These pillars stand on some arches, 
immediately in front of which is a mound or pyramid, 
two sides of which are seen. On one is to be found the 
light A and on the other the dark A. The design was 
appropriated by Whitney, and appears on page 53 in 
the 1586 edition of his Emblems. From this time forth, 
A A devices are to be found in numbers of books 
published in England, and on some published on the 
Continent. Amongst the former are the first editions 
of "Venus and Adonis," " Lucrece," the "Sonnets," 
the quarto editions of Shakespeare's plays, the folio 
edition (1623) of his works, and the first quarto and 
octavo editions (1612) of the Authorised Version of the 
Bible. 

There are fourteen distinct designs, in all of which, 
varying widely in other respects, the light A and the 



136 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

dark A constitute the outstanding figure. The use of 
the two letters so shaded must have had a special sig- 
nificance. In nearly every case it will be observed that 
the letter A is so drawn as to make the letter C on 
the inside. Was its significance of general knowledge 
amongst printers and readers, or was it an earmark- 
ing device used by one person, or by a Society ? 

A possible interpretation of the use of the light and 
dark shading, is that the book in which it is used 
contains more than is revealed ; that is to say, the overt 
and the concealed. 

A copy of " ^sopiphrygis vita et fabellae cum latina 
interpretatione " exists, date 1517. The book is annotated 
by Bacon. On one side is the Greek text and on the 
opposite page the Latin translation. On pages 102 and 
103 are two initial letters printed from blocks of the 
letter A. These are coloured so that the one on the 
left hand side is a light A, and that on the opposite page 
a dark A. 

There are other designs which are used apparently 
as part of a scheme. The identical block (Figure X.) 
which was used at the top of the title page of " Venus 
and Adonis " (1593) and " Lucrece " (1594) did service on 
the title page of the Genealogies in the quarto edition of 
the Authorised Version of the Bible, 1612, This design 
was, so far as can be traced, only used twice in the 
intervening nineteen years — on "An Apologie of the Earl 
of Essex to Master Anthony Bacon," penned by himself 
in 1598, and printed by Richard Bradocke in 1603, and 
in 1607, on the " World of Wonders," printed by 
Richard Field. It was of this book that Caldecott, the 
bibliophile and Shakespearean scholar, wrote : " The 
phraseology of Shakespeare is better illustrated in this 
work than in any other book existing." The design 
which is found on the title page of the " Sonnets 
of Shakespeare," 1609, is found also in the first edition 
of Napier's "Mirifici Logarithmorum," 1611, but printed 



HOW BACON MARKED BOOKS. I37 

from a different block. The design with archers shoot- 
ing at the base of the central figure is to be found in 
a large number of the folio editions of the period. 
Amongst these are the Authorised Version of the 
Bible, 1611, the " Novum Organum," 1620, and the 1623 
edition of Shakespeare's works. 

There are other designs which are usually found 
accompanying the light A and dark A and the other 
devices before referred to. 

These designs were first brought into use from 1576 
and practically cease to appear about 1626. Afterwards 
they are seldom seen except in books bearing Bacon's 
name, and eventually they lapse. The last use of an 
AA device is over the life of the author in the second 
volume of an edition of Bacon's Essays edited by 
Dr. William Willymott, published by Henry Parson in 
1720. After an interval of about 60 years a new design 
is made, which is not one of those employed by Bacon. 
By means of these devices a certain number of books 
may be identified as forming a class by themselves. 

There is another feature connected with them which 
is of special interest. One man appears to have con- 
tributed to all the books thus marked — either the dedi- 
cation, the preface,* or the lines "To the Reader " ; in 
some cases all three. It may be urged in opposition to 
this view that in those days there was a form in which 
dedications and prefaces were written, and that this 
was more or less followed by many writers, but this 
contention will not stand investigation. There are 
tricks of phrasing and other peculiarities which enable 
certain literary productions to be identified as the work 
of one man. Some of the finest Elizabethan literature 

* In the "Advancement of Learning " Bacon says that Demos- 
thenes went so far in regard to the great force that the entrance 
and access into a cause had to make a good impression that he 
kept in readiness a stock of prefaces. 



138 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

is to be found in the prefaces and dedications in these 
books. 

The theory now put forth is that Francis Bacon was 
directing the production of a great quantity of the 
Ehzabethan Hterature, and in every book in the pro- 
duction of which he was interested, he caused to be in- 
serted one of these devices. He kept the blocks in his 
own custody ; he sent them out to a printer when a 
book was approved by him for printing. On the com- 
pletion of the work, the printer returned the blocks to 
Bacon so that they could be sent elsewhere by him as 
occasion required. 

The most elaborate of the AA designs is Figure XII., 
and the writer has only found it in one volume. It is 
"Le Historic della Citta Di Fiorenza," by M, Jacopo, 
published in Lyons by Theobald Ancelin in 1582. 

" Exact was his correspondence abroad and at home, 
constant his Letters, frequent his Visits, great his 
obligations," states the contemporary biographer, speak- 
ing of Francis Bacon. It is difficult to arrive at the 
exact meaning of these words. There is little corre- 
spondence with those abroad remaining, no record of 
visits, no particulars of the great obligations into which 
he entered. In the dedication of the 1631 edition of 
the "Histoire Naturelle " to Monseigneur de Chasteau- 
neuf, the author speaking ot Bacon writes: — " Le 
Chancelier, qu'on a fait venir tant de fois en France, 
n'a point encore quitte I'Angleterre avec tant de 
passion de nous decouvrir ses merveilles que depuis 
qu'il a sceu le rang dont on avoit reconnu vos vertus." 

These frequent visits to France are unrecorded else- 
where, but here is definite testimony that they were 
made. 

There are good grounds for believing that Bacon was 
throughout his life, until their deaths, in constant com- 
munication with Christopher Plantin (1514 — 1589), 
Aldus Manutius, Henry Stephen (1528— 1598), and also 



HOW BACON MARKED BOOKS. I39 

with Robert Stephens the third (1563 — 1640). All these 
men were not only printers, but brilliant scholars and 
writers. If search be made, it is quite possible that 
correspondence or other evidence of their friendship 
may come to light. Be that as it may, there were 
undoubtedly a number of books published on the conti- 
nent between 1576 and 1630 which in the sparta upon 
them bear testimony to Bacon's association with their 
publication. 

The following are instances of where the several 
designs which are reproduced may be found. They 
however occur in many other volumes. 

Figure IX. — "The Arte of English Poesie," 1589. 

,, XIII.—" Orlando Furioso," 1607. 

,, XIV. — Spencer's " Fairie Queen." 

,, XV. — " Florentine History translation, 1595, 
and 1636 edition of Barclay's 
" Argenis." 
XI.— "Sonnets." 

„ XVI. — Simon Pateriche's translation of *' Dis- 
course against Machiavel." 

,, XVII. — Lodge's translation of *' Seneca," 1614. 

,, XVIII.— Shakespeare Folio, 1623. 

„ XIX. — " Daemonologie," 1603. 

,, XX. — Alciat's "Emblems," published in 
Paris, 1584. 



140 



Chapter XIX. 
BACON AND EMBLEMATA. 

In " Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers " the Rev. 
Henry Green endeavours to show the similarities of 
thought and expression between the great poet and the 
authors of Emblemata, but the line of enquiry which 
he there opened does not appear to have been followed 
by subsequent writers. To-day the Emblemata litera- 
ture is a terra incognita except to a very few students, 
and yet it is full of interest, romance, and mystery. 
Emblem literature may be said to have had its origin 
with Andrea Alciat, the celebrated Italian jurisconsult, 
who was famous for his great knowledge and power of 
mind. In 1522 he published at Milan an " Emblematum 
Libellus," or Little Book of Emblems. Green says : 
"It established, if it did not introduce, a new style of 
emblem literature, the classical in the place of the 
simply grotesque and humorous, or of the heraldic and 
mythic." The first edition now known to exist was 
published at Augsburg in 1531, a small octavo con- 
taining eighty-eight pages with ninety-seven emblems, 
and as many woodcuts. It was from time to time 
augmented, and passed through many editions. For 
some years the Emblemata appears to have been pro- 
duced chiefly by Italians, with a few Frenchmen. Until 
the last half of the sixteenth century the output of books 
of this character was not large. Thenceforth for the 
next hundred years the creation of emblems became a 
popular form of literary exercise. The Italians con- 
tinued to be prolific, but Dutch, French, and German 
scholars were but little behind them. There were a few 
Englishmen and Spaniards who also practised the art. 



BACON AND EMBLEMATA. I4I 

In 1905 was published a book called "Letters from 
the Dead to the Dead," by Oliver Lector. In it atten- 
tion is drawn to the remarkable features of some of the 
books on emblems printed during Bacon's life, and to 
the evidence that he was in some manner connected 
with the publication of many of these volumes. The 
author claims this to be especially the case with the 
"Emblemata Moralia et Bellica," 1615, of Jacob de 
Bruck, of Angermundt, and the " Emblemata Ethic 
Politica" of J. Bornitius. 

The emblem pictures for the most part appear to be 
picture puzzles. In the " Critique upon the Mythology 
of the Ancients " Bacon says : — 

• It may pass for a farther indication of a concealed and secret 
meaning, that some of these fables are so absurd and idle in 
their narration as to proclaim and shew an allegory afar off. A 
fable that carries probability with it may be supposed invented 
for pleasure, or in imitation of history ; but, those that would 
never be conceived or related in this way, must surely have a 
different use.'' 

If this line of reasoning be applied to the illustrations in 
the emblem books, it is clear that they conceal some 
hidden meaning, for they are apparently unintelligible, 
and the accompanying letterpress does not afford any 
illumination. 

Jean Baudoin was the translator of Bacon's " Essaies " 
into the French language (1626). Baudoin published 
in 1638 — 9 " Recueil D'Emblemes divers avec des Dis- 
cours Moraux, Philos. et Polit." In the preface he 
says : " Le grand chancelier Bacon m'ayant fait naitre 
I'envie de travailler a ces emblemes . . . m'en a fourni 
les principaux que j'ai tires de I'explication ingenieuse 
qu'il a donnee de quelques fables et de ses autres 
ouvrages." Here is definite evidence of Bacon's asso- 
ciation with a book of emblems. 

The first volume of Emblemata in which traces of 
Bacon's hand are to be found is the 1577 edition of 



142 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON, 

Alciat's " Emblems," published by the Plantin Press, 
with notes by Claude Mignault. It is in this edition, in 
Emblem No. 45, " In dies meliora," that for the first 
time the light A and the dark A is to be found. In 
previous editions this device is absent. For this volume 
a new design has been engraved in which it appears. 

In the emblem books written in Italian Bacon does 
not appear to have been concerned, unless an exception 
be made of Ripa's " Iconologia," a copy of which con- 
tains his handwriting and initials. In some way he had 
control of a large number of those written in Latin, and 
bearing names of Dutch, French, and some Italian 
authors, and also of several written in Dutch and of 
the English writers. The field is a very wide one, and 
only a few of the principal examples can be mentioned. 

The most important work is the " Emblemata Moralia 
et Bellica " of Jacob a Bruck, of Angermundt, 1615. 
" Argentorati per Jacobum ab Heyden." With many 
of the designs in this volume Oliver Lector has dealt 
fully in "Letters from the Dead to the Dead,""-"' before 
referred to. There is another volume bearing the name 
of Jacob a Bruck, published in 1598. Only one copy ot 
this book is known to be in existence, and that is in 
the Royal Library of St. Petersburg. 

The "Emblemata Ethico Politica of Jacobus Borni- 
tius, 1659, Moguntiae," is remarkable because many of 
the engravings contain portraits of Bacon, namely, in 
Sylloge Prima, Plates Nos. vii., xxiii., xliv,, xlv., xlvix. ; 
and in Sylloge II., Plates ix. and xxxvi. Oliver Lector 
says: "I have not met with an earlier edition of 
Bornitius than 1659. My conjecture, however, is 
that the manuscript came into the hands of Gruter 
with other of Bacon's published by him in the year 

1653." 

There are two productions of Janus Jacobus Boissardus 
in which Bacon's hand may be recognised — " Emblemes 

• Bernard Quaritch, 1905. 



BACON AND EMBLEM AT A. I43 

Latines avec I'lnterpretation Fran9oise du I. Pierre loly 
Messin, Metis, 1588," and " Emblematum liber. Ipsa 
Emblemata ab Auctore delineata : a Theodoro de Bry 
sculpta et nunc recens in lucem edita," 1593, Frankfort. 
Two editions of the latter were printed in the same 
year. The title-pages are identical, and the same plates 
have been used throughout, but the letterpress is in 
Latin in the one, and in French in the other. In both, 
the dedications are addressed in French to Madame de 
Clervent, Baronne de Coppet, etc. The dedication 
of the former bears the name Jan Jacques Boissard at 
the head, and addresses the lady as "que come estes 
addonnee a la speculation des choses qui appartiennent 
a ^instruction de Tame." The dedication of the latter 
is signed loly, who explains that he has translated the 
verses into French, so that they may be of more service 
to the dedicatee. 

Otho Van Veen enjoys the distinction of having had 
Rubens for a disciple. A considerable number of 
emblem books emanated from him. In 1608 were pub- 
lished at Antwerp two editions of his *' Amorum Em- 
blemata." In one copy the verses are in Latin, German, 
and French, and in the other in Latin, English, and 
Italian. There are commendatory verses in the latter, 
two of which are by Daniel Heinsius and R. V., who 
was Robert Verstegen, the author of '*A Restitution of 
Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities." The dedication 
is "To the most honourable and worthie brothers 
William Earle of Pembroke, and Phillip Earle of Mont- 
gomerie, patrons of learning and chevalrie," who are 
" the most noble and incomparable paire of brethren" 
to whom the 1623 Shakespeare Folio was dedicated. 
In this volume Bacon has left his marks. 

*' Emblemata door Zacharias Heyns," published in 
Rotterdam in 1625, comprises four books bound to- 
gether. The inscriptions over the plates are in Latin. 
The letterpress, which is in Dutch and French, 



144 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

apparently bears very little reference to the illustra- 
tions. 

Johannis de Brunes I.C. Emblemata of Sinne-Werck, 
Amsterdam, 1624, is written in Dutch. Emblem VIII. 
contains an indication that the number 1623 is a key. 

The '* Silenus Alcibiades sive Proteus " was published 
at Middleburgh in 1618. There is no author's name on 
the title-page, but the Voor-reden, written in Dutch, is 
signed J. Cats. Attached to two of the preliminary 
complimentary verses are the names of Daniel Heyns 
and Josuah Sylvester, the translator of " Du Bartas." 
The verses are in Latin, Dutch, and French. Im- 
mediately following the title-page is a preface in Latin, 
signed by Majores de Baptis. Over this is the familiar 
emblem containing the archers, rabbits, and dogs, with 
the note of query on the right-hand side, and the 
message on the arrow. This volume is one of the 
most remarkable of the emblem books. The Latin 
preface is autobiographical. If the writer can be 
identified as the author of "Venus and Adonis," it 
becomes one of the most important contributions to his 
biography. 

In 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, was pub- 
lished at Amsterdam a book bearing on its title-page the 
inscription: " Cornelii Giselberti Plempii Amstero- 
damum Monogrammon." It contains fifty illustrations, 
with Latin verses attached. Emblem I. is reproduced 
(Fig. V.) On reference to it, it will be seen that Fortune 
stands on a globe, and with one hand is pushing off 
from the pinnacle of fame a man dressed as a player with 
a feather in his hat ; with the other hand she is raising 
up a man who is wearing the Bacon hat, but whose face 
is hidden. The prophecy expressed by the emblem is now 
being fulfilled. It will be seen that the initial letters of 
each word in the sentence of the letterpress — Obscasnum- 
que nimis crepuit, Fortuna Batavis appellanda — yield F. 
Bacon. Bacon's portrait is found in several of the 



C PLEMPir. 

EMBLEMATA. 

E M B L. I. 




Fig. V. 



lEn Tor tuna : manu cjuos rupem ducic in altam^ 

Pr^cipites abigit : camtjicwa Dea efl. 
Tirmaglobo im^ni %)oluerunt fata cadMcam, 

fppi quoque tupojfet nfus, (^ effe iocus. 
Oltm unBos Saltj qm pr^zfdtere per utres^ 

Rtdebant caderetf quapuella male. 
O qptam fxpe falesyplaufumque merente ruina 

Eruhuit 'vttimnfors tnhonejiaftium \ 
Objccenumque nimis crepuityFortima Batavu 

Appellanda • fono^qm ^aa curt^ iiocant. 
Quoquefono ^ve teres oltmfuajurta Latini : 

Vt ncc^Homare^mali nomen odoris'amcs.. 



146 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

illustrations in this book. Other emblem writers whose 
works bear traces of Bacon's co-operation are G. Rol- 
lenhagen, J. Camerius, J. Typotius, D. Hensius. 

There yet remain to be mentioned two English emblem 
writers. A "Choice of Emblems" by Geffrey Whitney was 
published in 1586 by Francis Raphelengius in the house 
of Christopher Plantin at Leyden. The dedication is to 
Robert Earle of Leicester. There are only from fifteen 
to twenty original designs out of 166 illustrations. The 
remainder are taken from other emblem writers, chiefly 
from Alciat, Sambucus, Paradin, and Hadrian Junius. 
On page 53 is the design headed "In dies meliora " 
found in the 1577 edition of Alciat, but the letterpress, 
which is in English, is quite different from the Latin 
verse attached to it in the Alciat. 

The " Minerva Britanna " of Henry Peacham was 
published in 1612. The emblem on the title-page* 
represents the great secret of Francis Bacon's life, and 
on page '^^ is an emblem in which the name Shake- 
speare is represented. The volume is full of devices 
which will amply repay a careful study. 

Apart from any connection which Bacon may have 
had with this remarkable class of books, they are of 
great interest to the student of the Elizabethan and 
Jacobean periods. They contain pictorial representa- 
tions full of information as to the habits and customs of 
the people. With the exception of Whitney's " Choice 
of Emblems," a facsimile reprint of which was published 
in 1866, edited by the Rev. Henry Green, no reprint of 
any of these curious books has been issued. As the 
original editions of many of them are very rare, and of 
none of them plentiful, their study is a matter of diffi- 
culty, and few students find their way to this fascinating 
field of research. How close Bacon's connection was 
with the writers of these books, or with their pub- 
lishers, it is difficult to say, but there is considerable 

* See page 105. 



BACON AND EMBLEMATA. 147 

evidence that in some way he was able to introduce 
into every one of the books here enumerated, and 
many others, some plates illustrative of his inductive 
philosophy. 



148 



Chapter XX. 
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. 

"Shakespeare's Sonnets never before Imprinted," 
have afforded commentators material for many volumes 
filled with theories which to the ordinary critical mind 
appear to have no foundation in fact. Chapters have 
been written to prove that Mr. W. H., the only begetter 
of the Sonnets, was Henry Wriothesley, Earl of 
Southampton, and chapters have been written to prove 
that he was no such person, but that William Herbert, 
Earl of Pembroke, was the man intended to be desig- 
nated. Theories have been elaborated to identify the 
individuals represented by the Rival Poet and the dark 
Lady. Not one of these theories is supported by the 
vestige of a shred of testimony that would stand in- 
vestigation. There has not come down any evidence 
that Shakspur, of Stratford, knew either the Earl of 
Southampton, the Earl of Pembroke or Marie Fitton. 
The truth is that Mr. W. H. was Shakespeare, who was 
the only begetter of the Sonnets, and the proof of this 
statement will in due time be forthcoming. It may be 
well to try and read some of the Sonnets as they stand 
and endeavour to realise what is the obvious meaning 
of the printed words. 

The key to the Sonnets will be found in No. 62. The 
language in which it is written is explicit and capable 
of being understood by any ordinary intellect. 

" Sinne of selfe-love possesseth al mine eie 
And all my soule, and al my every part ; 
And for this sinne there is no remedie, 
It is so grounded inward in my heart. 
Me thinkes no face so gratious is as mine, 
No shape so true, no truth of such account, 



Shakespeare's sonnets. 149 

And for my selfe mine owne worth do define, 

As I all other in all worth's surmount 

But when my glasse shewes me my selfe indeed 

Beated and chopt with tand antiquitie, 

Mine own selfe love quite contrary I read 

Selfe, so selfe loving were iniquity. 

Tis thee (my-selfe) that for myself I praise 
Painting my age with beauty of thy dales." 

The writer here states defi nitely that he is domi- 
nated b y the sin of self -love ; it possesseth~Tiis eye, Tiis 
soul, and every part of him. There can be found no 
remedy for it ; it is so grounded in his heart. No face is 
so gracious as is his, no shape so true, no truth of such 
account. He defines his worth as surmounting that of 
all others. This is the frank expression of a man who 
not only believed that he was, but knew that he was 
superior to all his contemporaries, not only in intellectual 
power, but in personal appearance. Then comes an 
arrest in the thought, and he realises that time has been 
at work. He has been picturing himself as he was when 
a young man. He turns to his glass and sees himself 
beated and chopt with tanned antiquity ; forty summers 
have passed over his brow.* 

Francis Bacon at forty years of age, or thereabouts, 
unmarried, childless, sits down to his table, Hilliard's 
portrait before him, with pen in hand, full of self-love, 
full of admiration for that beautiful youth on whose 
counterfeit presentment he is gazing. His intellectual 
triumphs pass in review before him, most of them known 
only to himself and that youth — his companion through 
life. That was the Francis Bacon who controlled him 
in all his comings and goings — his ideal whom he 
worshipped. If he could have a son like that boy ! His 
pen begins to move on the paper — 

" From fairest creatures we desire increase 
That thereby beauty's rose might never die, 

* Sonnet No. 2. 



150 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

But as the riper should by time decrease 
His lender heire might bear his memory." 

The pen stops and the writer's eye wanders to the 
miniature : — 

" But ihou* contracted to thine own bright eyes.'' 

And so the Sonnets flow on, without effort, without 
the need of reference to authorities, for the great, fixed 
and methodical memory needs none. 

How natural are the allusions — 

" Thou art thy mother's ghisse and she in thee 
Calls backe the lovely Aprill of her prime." 



" Be as thy presence is, gracious and kind, 
Or to th3'selfe at least kind hearted prove, 
Make thee another self, for love of me 
That beauty may still live in thine or thee." 



*' Let those whom nature hath not made for store, 
Harsh, featureless and rude, barrenly perish ; 
Look, whom she best indow'd she gave the more ; 
Which bountious guift thou shouldst in bounty cherrish 
She carv'd thee for her scale, and ment therby 
Thou shouldst print more, not let that coppy die.'" 



" O that you were yourselfe, but love you are 
No longer yours, then you yourselfe here live, 
Against this cunning end you should prepare. 
And your sweet semblance to some other give 

Who lets so faire a house fall to decay 

O none but unthrifts, deare my love you know 
You had a Father, let your Son say so." 

" But wherefore do not you a mightier waie 
Make warre uppon this bloodie tirant Time ? 
And fortifie your selfe in your decay 

■•■ 'Tis thee myself e, Sonnet 62. 



SHAKESPEARE S SONNETS. I51 

With meanes more blessed, then my barren rime ? 
Now stand you on the top of happie houres 
And many maiden gardens, yet onset, 
With virtuous wish would beare you living flowers 
Much liker than your painted counterfeit: 

Who will beleeve my verses in time to come 

If it were fil'd with your most high deserts ? 

Though yet heaven knows, it is but as a tombe 

Which hides your life, and shewes not halfe your parts : 

If I could write tlie beauty of your eyes 

And in fresh numbers number all your graces, 

The age to come would say this Poet lies, 

Such heavenly touches nere toucht earthly faces. 

So should my papers (yellowed with their age) 

Be scorn'd, like old men of lesse truth than tongue, 

And your true rights be termd a Poets rage 

And stretched miter of an Antique song. 

But were some childe of yours alive that time, 
You should live twise, in it and in my rime.'' 

" Yet doe thy worst, ould Time, dispight thy wrong 
My love shall in my verse ever live young." 

He realises that he no longer answers Ophelia's 
description: 

"The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword : 
The expectancy and rose of the fair state 
The glass of fashion and the mould of form, 
The observed of all observers. . , . 
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth." 

But he cannot forget what he has been, he cannot 
realise that he is no longer the brilliant youth whose 
miniature he has before him, with the words inscribed 
around, " Si tabula daretur digna animum mallem " 
— If materials could be found worthy to paint his mind 
(" O could he but have drawn his wit") and then with 
a burst of poetic enthusiasm he exclaims : — 

'"Tis thee (myselfe) that for myselfe I praise, 
Painting my age with beauty of thy dales." 



152 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

This is the common experience of a man as he 
advances in hfe. So long as he does not see his retlec- 
tion in a glass, if he tries to visualize himself, he sees 
the youth or young man. Only in his most pessimistic 
moments does he realise his age. 

There is no longer any difficulty in understanding 
Shakespeare's Sonnets. They were addressed by 
"Shakespeare," the poet, to the marvellous youth who 
was known under the name of Francis Bacon, and they 
were written, with Milliard's portrait placed on his table 
before him. 

In that age (please God it may be the present age), 
which is known only to God and to the fates when the 
finishing touch shall be given to Bacon's fame,* it will 
be found that the period of his life from twelve to thirty- 
five years of age surpassed all others, not only in bril- 
liant intellectual achievements, but for the enduring 
wealth with which he endowed his countrymen. And 
yet it was part of his scheme of life that his connection 
with the great renaissance in English literature should 
lie hidden until posterity should recognise that work as 
the fruit of his brain : — " Mente Videbor " — " by the 
mind I shall be seen." 

How lacking all his modern biographers have been in 
perception ! 

Every difficulty in those which are termed the pro- 
creation Sonnets disappears with the application of this 
key. Only by it can Sonnet 22 be made intelligible : — 

" My glass shall not persuade me I am old, 
As long as youth and thou are of one date ; 
But when in thee time's furrow I behold, 
Then look, I death my days would expirate 
For all that beauty that doth cover thee 
Is but the steady raiment of my heart. 
Which in my breast doth live, as thine in me. 
How can I then be older than thou art ? 

* See Rawley's Introduction to " Manes Verulamiana." 



Shakespeare's sonnets. 153 

O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary 
As I, not for myself, but for thee will ; 
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary 
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill. 

Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain ; 

Thou gavest me thine, not to give back again." 

But nearly every Sonnet might be quoted in support 
of this view. Especially is it of value in bringing an 
intelligent and allowable explanation to Sonnets 40, 
41, and 42, which now no longer have an unsavoury 
flavour. 

Sonnet No. 59 is most noteworthy, because it implies 
a belief in re-incarnation. Shakespeare expresses his 
longing to know what the ancients would have said of 
his marvellous intellect. If he could find his picture in 
some antique book over 500 years old, see an image of 
himself as he then was, and learn what men thought of 
him ! 

" If their bee nothing new, but that which is 
Hath beene before, how are our braines begulld, 
Which laboring for invention, beare amisse 
The second burthen of a former child ? 
Oh that record could with a back-ward looke, 
Even of five hundredth courses of the Sunne, 
Show me your image in some antique booke, 
Since minde at first in carrecter was done, 
That I might see what the old world could say 
To this composed wonder of your frame ; 
Whether we are mended, or where better they. 
Or whether revolution be the same. 
Oh sure I am, the wits of former dales, 
To subjects worse have given admiring praise." 

There is the same idea in Sonnet 71, which suggests 
that in some future re-incarnation Bacon might read 
Shakespeare's praises of him. 

Conjectures as to who was the rival poet may be 
dispensed with. The following rendering of Sonnet 
No. 80 makes this perfectly clear : — 



154 '^'^^^ MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

"O how I (the poet) faint when I of you (F.B.) do write, 
Knowing a better spirit (lluit of iltc philosopher) doth use your 

name 
And in the praise thereof spends all his might 
To make me tongue tied, speaking of your fame ! 

{Shakespeare never refers to Bacon or vice-versa) 
But since your [F.B.'s) worth wide as the ocean is, 
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, 
My saucy bark {that of the poet) inferior far to his {that of the 

philosopher), 
On your broad main doth wilfully appear. 
Your shallowest help will hold me {the poet) up afloat 
Whilst he {the philosopher) upon your soundless deep doth 

ride." 

It is impossible to do justice to this subject in the 
space here available. By the aid of this key every line 
becomes intelligible. The charm and beauty of the 
Sonnets are increased tenfold. Every unpleasant 
association of them is removed. No longer need 
Browning say, " If so the less Shakespeare he." 

These are not "Shakespeare's sug'rd* Sonnets 
amongst his private friends " to which Meres makes 
reference. They are to be found elsewhere. 

If there had been an intelligent study of Elizabethan 
literature from original sources the authorship of the 
Sonnets would have been revealed long ago. It was a 
habit of Bacon to speak of himself as some one apart 
from the speaker. The opening sentence of Fihim 
Labyrinthi, Sivo Forma Inqtiisitiones is an example. 
Ad Filios — " Francis Bacon thought in this manner." 
Prefixed to the preface to Gilbert Wats' interpretation 
of the "Advancement of Learning " is a chapter com- 
mencing, " Francis Lo Verulam consulted thus : and 
thus concluded with himselfe. The publication whereof 
he conceived did concern the present and future age." 

"~" The expression "sugr'd Sonnets" refers to verses which were 
written with coloured ink to which sugar had been added. When 
dry the writing shone brightly. 



Shakespeare's sonnets. 155 

Nothing that has been written is more perfectly 
Baconian in style and temperament than are the Son- 
nets, They breathe out his hopes, his aspirations, his 
ideals, his fears, in every line. He knew he was not for 
his time. He knew future generations only would render 
him the fame to which his incomparable powers entitled 
him. He knew how far he towered above his contem- 
poraries, aye, and his predecessors, in intellectual 
power. His hopes were fixed on that day in the distant 
future — to-day — when for the first time the meshes 
which he wove, behind which his life's work is obscured, 
are beginning to be unravelled. 

The most sanguine Baconian, in his most enthusi- 
astic moments, must fail adequately to appreciate the 
achievements of Francis Bacon and the obligations 
under which he has placed posterity. But Bacon knew 
— and he alone knew — their full value. It was fitting 
that the greatest poet which the world had produced 
should in matchless verse do honour to the world's 
greatest intellect. It was a pretty conceit. Only a 
master mind would dare to make the attempt. The 
result has afforded another example of how his great 
wit, in being concealed, was revealed. 



156 



Chapter XXI. 
BACON'S LIBRARY. 

In the "Advancement of Learning" Bacon refers to 
the annotations of books as being deficient. There was 
living at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the 
seventeenth century a scholar through whose hands at 
least several thousand books passed. He appears to 
have made a practice of annotating in the margins every 
book he read. The chief purpose, however, of the 
notes, apparently, was to aid the memory, for in some 
books nearly every name occurring in the text is carried 
into the margin without comment. The notes are also 
accompanied by scrolls, marks, and brackets, which 
support the contention that they are the work of one 
man. The annotation of books was not a common 
practice then, nor has it been since. If a reader takes 
up a hundred books in a second-hand book shop hs 
will probably not find more than one containing manu- 
script notes, and not one in five hundred in which the 
annotations have been systematically carried through. 
There does not appear to have been any other scholar 
living at that time, with the exception of this one, who 
was persistently making marginal notes on the books 
he read. 

Spedding writes : " What became of his (Bacon's) 
books, which were left to Sir John Constable and must 
have contained traces of his reading, we do not know ; 
but very few appear to have survived." 

Mrs. Pott, in "Francis Bacon and his Secret Society," 
draws attention to the mystery as to the disappearance 
of Bacon's library. "Which is a mystery," she adds, 
" although the world has been content to take it very 



bacon's library. 157 

apathetically. Where is Bacon's library ? Undoubtedly 
the books exist and are traceable. We should expect 
them to be recognisable by marginal notes ; yet those 
notes, whether in pencil or in ink, may have been 
effaced. If annotated, Bacon and his friends would 
not wish his books to attract public attention." And 
further on: "It is probable that the latter {i.e., the 
books) will seldom or never be found to bear his name 
or signature." And again: "Yet it may reasonably 
be anticipated that some at least are ' noted in the 
margin,' or that some will be found with traces of 
marks which were guides to the transcriber or amanu- 
ensis as to the portions which were to be copied for 
future use in Bacon's collections or book of common- 
places." Mrs. Pott's words were written in a spirit of 
true prophecy. 

The collecting together of these books originated 
with that distinguished Baconian scholar, Mr. W. 
M. Safford. For years past he has been steadily 
engaged in reconstituting Bacon's Library. The 
writer has had the privilege of being associated with 
him in this work during the past three years. A 
collection of nearly two thousand volumes has been 
gathered together. The annotations on the margins of 
these books are unquestionably the work of one man, 
and that man, or rather boy and man, was undoubtedly 
Francis Bacon. The books bear date from 1470 to 
1620. It is impossible to enumerate them all here, but 
they include the works of Seneca, Aristotle, Plato, 
Horace, Alciat, Lucanus, Dionysius, Catullus, Lactinius, 
Plutarch, Pliny, Aristophanes, Plautus, Cornelius 
Agrippa, Cicero, Vitruvius, Euclid, Virgil, Ovid, Lucre- 
tius, Apuleius, Salust, Tibullus, Isocrates, and hundreds 
of other classical writers ; St. Augustine, St. Jerome, 
Calvin, Beza, Beda, Erasmus, Martin Luther, J. Cam- 
merarius. Sir Thomas Moore, Machiavelli, and other 
more modern writers. 



158 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

The handwriting varies,* but there is a particular 
hand which is found accompanied by a boy's sketches. 
There are drawings of lull-length figures, heads of men 
and women, animals, birds, reptiles, ships, castles, 
cathedrals, cities, battles, storms, etc. The writing is a 
strong, clerkly student's hand. There is a passage in 
"Hamlet," Act V., scene ii., which is noteworthy. 
Hamlet, speaking to Horatio, says : — 

" I sat me down 
Devised a new commission ; wrote it fair ; 
I once did hold it, as our statists do, 
A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much 
How to forget that learning ; but, Sir, now 
It did me yeomans service." 

The nature of this statement is so personal that it 
could only have been written as the result of experience. 
Hamlet had been taught, when young, to write a hand 
so fair that he was capable of producing a fresh com- 
mission which would pass muster as the work of a 
Court copyist. The annotation of these books possessed 
the same qualification. In the margins of these books 
are abundant references in handwriting to the whole 
range of classical authors. 

A copy of the " Grammatice Compendium " of Lactus 
Pomponius, a very rare book printed by De Fortis in 
Venice in 1484, contains on the margins the boy's 
scribble and drawings, besides a number of manuscript 
notes. It bears traces of his reading probabl}^ at eight 
3'ears of age. A large folio volume entitled " T. Livii 
Palvini Latinae Historise Principis Decades Tres," pub- 
lished by Frobenius in 1535, is a treasure. It is most 
copiously annotated and embellished with sketches. 
The notes are usually in Latin, but interspersed with 
Greek and sometimes with English, Obviously the 

• Edwin A. Abbot, in his work, " Francis Bacon," p. 447, 
writes, " Bacon's style (as a writer) varied almost as much as his 
handwriting." 



bacon's library. 159 

writer thought in Latin, and the character of the draw- 
ings justifies the assumption that, at the time, his age 
would be from ten to fourteen years. 

The most remarkable reference to these annotations 
is to be found in the " Rape of Lucrece." The fifteenth 
stanza is as follows : — 

" But she that never cop't with straunger eies, 
Could picke no meaning from their parling lookes, 
Nor read the subtle shining secrecies 
Writ in the glassie margents of such bookes, 
Shee toucht no unknown baits, nor feared no hooks, 
Nor could shee moralize his wanton sight 
More than his eies were opend to the light." 

It would be difficult to conceive a more inappropriate 
simile for the lustful looks in Tarquin's eyes than "the 
subtle shining secrecies, writ in the glassie margents of 
such books." That this is lugged in for a purpose outside 
the object of the poem is manifest. How many readers 
of "Lucrece" would know of such a practice? Nay. 
If it did exist, was not its use very rare ? 

But the margin of the verse itself yields a subtle 
shining secret ! The initial letters of the lines are 
B, C, N, W, Sh, N M. It is only necessary to supply 
the vowels — BaCoN, W. Sh., NaMe. Sh is on line 
103, which is the numerical value of the word Shake- 
speare. The numerical value of Bacon is 33. In view 
of this the line ^^ is significant: — "Why is Colatine 
the publisher ? " The use of the word publisher here is 
quite inappropriate. It is introduced for some reason 
outside the purpose of the text. 

The " Rape of Lucrece " commences with Bacon's 
monogram and, as the late Rev. Walter Begley pointed 
out, ends with his signature. 

The theory now advanced is that when Bacon read a 
book he made marginal notes in it — the object being 
mainly to assist his memory, but the critical notes are 
numerous. It does not follow that all these books con- 
stituted his library. He would read a book and it 



l60 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

having served his purpose he would dispose of it. Some 
books no doubt he would retain and these would form 
his library. 

The annotations are chiefly in Latin, but some are in 
Greek, some in Hebrew, French and Spanish. When 
these have been examined and translated the meaning 
of the phrase that he had taken all knowledge to be his 
province will be better understood. Rawley says: " He 
read much and that with great judgment and rejection 
of impertinences incident to many authors." 

The writer having examined annotations, many and 
varied, of books in his library, and having enjoyed the 
privilege of free access to those collected by Mr. 
Safford, ventures to assert that much of the ripe learn- 
ing of the Shakespeare plays can be traced therein to 
its proper origin. Amongst the former is a copy of 
Alciat's Emblems, 1577, in the early part profusely 
annotated. Ben Jonson in his " Discoveries " has 
incorporated the translation of a portion of one of the 
Emblems and has also incorporated a portion of the 
annotations from this very book. 



i6i 



Chapter XXII. 

TWO GERMAN OPINIONS ON SHAKESPEARE 
AND BACON. 

Dr. G. G. Gervinus, the eminent German Historian 
and Professor Extraordinary at Heidelberg, published in 
1849 his work, "Shakespeare Commentaries." This 
was years before any suggestion had been made that 
Bacon was in any way connected with the authorship 
of the Shakespearean dramas. 

In the Prospectus of " The New Shakespeare 
Society," written in 1873, Dr. F. J. Furnivall says: — 

" The profound and generous ' Commentaries ' of Gervinus — 
an honour to a German to have written, a pleasure to an 
Englishman to read — is still the only book known to me that 
comes near the true treatment and the dignity of its subject, or 
can be put into the hands of the student who wants to know the 
mind of Shakespeare." 

The book abounds with references to Bacon. From 
the Preface to the last chapter Gervinus appears to have 
Bacon continually suggested to him by the thoughts 
and words of Shakespeare. 

In the Preface, after speaking of the value accruing 
to German literature by naturalizing Shakespeare 
"even at the risk of casting our own poets still further 
in the shade," he says : — 

"A similar benefit would it be to our intellectual life if his 
famed contemporary, Bacon, were revived in a suitable manner, 
in order to counterbalance the idealistic philosophy of Germany. 
For both these, the poet as well as the philosopher, having 
looked deeply into the history and politics of their people, stand 
upon the level ground of reality, notwithstanding the high art 
of the one and the speculative notions of the other. By the 



l62 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

healthfulness of their own mind they influence the healthfulness 
of others, while in their most ideal and most abstract representa- 
tions they aim at a preparation for life as it is — for that life 
which forms the exclusive subject of all political action." 

In the chapter on "His Age," written prior to 1849, 
the Professor pours out the results of a profound study 
of the writings attributed to both men in the following 
remarkable sentences : — 

" Judge then how natural it was that England, if not the birth- 
place of the drama, should be that of dramatic legislature. Yet 
even this instance of favourable concentration is not the last. 
Both in philosophy and poetry everything conspired, as it were, 
throughout this prosperous period, in favour of two great minds, 
Shakespeare and Bacon ; all competitors vanished from their 
side, and they could give forth laws for art and science which it 
is incumbent even upon present ages to fulfil. As the revived 
philosophy, which in the former century in Germany was divided 
among many, but in England at that time was the possession of 
a single man, so poetry also found one exclusive heir, compared 
with whom those later born could claim but little. 

'• That Shakespeare's appearance upon a soil so admirablj' 
prepared was neither marvellous nor accidental is evidenced 
even by the corresponding appearance of such a contemporary 
as Bacon. Scarcely can anything be said of Shakespeare's 
position generally with regard to mediaeval poetry which does 
not also bear upon the position of the renovator Bacon with 
regard to mediaeval philosophy. Neither knew nor mentioned 
the other, although Bacon was almost called upon to have done 
so in his remarks upon the theatre of his day. It may be pre- 
sumed that Shakespeare liked Bacon but little, if he knew his 
writings and life ; that he liked not his ostentation, which, with- 
out on the whole interfering with his modesty, recurred too 
often in many instances ; that he liked not the fault-finding 
which his ill-health might have caused, nor the narrow-minded- 
ness with which he pronounced the histrionic art to be infamous, 
although he allowed that the ancients regarded the drama as a 
school tor virtue ; nor the theoretic precepts of worldly wisdom 
which he gave forth ; nor, lastly, the practical career which he 
lived. Before his mind, however, if he had fathomed it, he must 
have bent in reverence. For just as Shakespeare was an inter- 



TWO GERMAN OPINIONS. 163 

preter of the secrets of history and of human nature, Bacon was 
an interpreter of lifeless nature. Just as Shakespeare went 
from instance to instance in his judgment of moral actions, and 
never founded a law on single experience, so did Bacon in 
natural science avoid leaping from one experience of the senses 
to general principles ; he spoke of this with blame as anticipat- 
ing nature ; and Shakespeare, in the same way, would have 
called the conventionalities in the poetry of the Southern races 
an anticipation of human nature. In the scholastic science of 
the middle ages, as in the chivalric poetry of the romantic 
period, approbation and not truth was sought for, and with one 
accord Shakespeare's poetry and Bacon's science were equally 
opposed to this. As Shakespeare balanced the one-sided errors 
of the imagination by reason, reality, and nature, so Bacon led 
philosophy away from the one-sided errors of reason to experi- 
ence ; both with one stroke, renovated the two branches of 
science and poetry by this renewed bond with nature ; both, dis- 
regarding all by-ways, staked everything upon this ' victory in 
the race between art and nature.' Just as Bacon with his new 
philosophy is linked with the natural science of Greece and 
Rome, and then with the latter period of philosophy in western 
Europe, so Shakespeare's drama stands in relation to the 
comedies of Plautus and to the stage of his own day ; between 
the two there lay a vast wilderness of time, as unfruitful for the 
drama as for pliilosophy. But while they thus led back to 
nature, Bacon was yet as little of an empiric, in the common 
sense, as Shakespeare was a poet of nature. Bacon prophesied 
that if hereafter his commendation of experience should prevail, 
great danger to science would arise from the other extreme, and 
Shakespeare even in his own day could perceive the same with 
respect to his poetry ; Bacon, therefore, insisted on the closest 
union between experience and reason, just as Shakespeare effected 
that between reality and imagination. While they thus bid adieu 
to the formalities of ancient art and science, Shakespeare 
to conceits and taffeta-phrases, Bacon to logic and syllogisms, 
yet at times it occurred that the one fell back into the 
subtleties of the old school, and the other into the constrained 
wit of the Italian style. Bacon felt himself quite an original 
in that which was his peculiar merit, and so was Shake- 
speare ; the one in the method of science he had laid down, 
and in his suggestions for its execution, the otlier in the 
poetical works he had executed, and in the suggestions of their 



164 THE MYSTERY OF FRANXIS BACON. 

new law. Bacon, looking back to the waymarks he had left for 
others, said with pride that his words required a century for 
their demonstration and several for their execution ; and so too 
it has demanded two centuries to understand Shakespeare, but 
very little has ever been executed in his sense. And at the 
same time we have mentioned what deep modesty was inter- 
woven in both with their self-reliance, so that the words 
which Bacon liked to quote hold good for the two works : — 
' The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.' Both 
reached tliis height from the one starting point, that Shake- 
speare despised the million, and Bacon feared with Phocion 
the applause of the multitude. Both are alike in the rare 
impartiality with which they avoided everything one-sided ; 
in Bacon we find, indeed, youthful exercises in which he 
endeavoured in severe contrasts to contemplate a series of 
things from two points of view. Both, therefore, have an equal 
hatred of sects and parties ; Bacon of sophists and dogmatic 
philosophers, Shakespeare of Puritans and zealots. Both, there- 
fore, are equally free from prejudices, and from astrological 
superstition in dreams and omens. Bacon says of the alchemists 
and magicians in natural science that they stand in similar 
relation to true knowledge as the deeds of Amadis to those of 
Cassar, and so does Shakespeare's true poetry stand in relation to 
the fantastic romance of Amadis. Just as Bacon banished 
religion from science, so did Shakespeare from Art ; and when 
the former complained that the teachers of religion were against 
natural philosophy, they were equally against the stage. From 
Bacon's example it seems clear that Shakespeare left religious 
matters unnoticed on the same grounds as himself, and took the 
path of morality in worldly things ; in both this has been equally 
misconstrued, and Le Maistre has proved Bacon's lack of Christi- 
anity, as Birch has done that of Shakespeare. Shakespeare 
would, perhaps, have looked down just as contemptuously on the 
ancients and their arts as Bacon did on their philosophy and 
natural science, and both on the same grounds ; they boasted of 
the greater age of the world, of more enlarged knowledge of 
heaven, earth, and mankind. Neither stooped before authorities, 
and an injustice similar to that which Bacon committed against 
Aristotle, Shakespeare perhaps has done to Homer. In both a 
similar combination of different mental powers was at work ; and 
as Shakespeare was often involuntarily philosophical in his pro- 
foundness. Bacon ivas not seldom surprised into the imagination 



TWO GERMAN OPINIONS. 165 

of the poet. Just as Bacon, although he declared knowledge in 
itself to be much more valuable than the use of invention, insisted 
throughout generally and dispassionately upon the practical use 
of philosophy, so Shakespeare's poetry, independent as was his 
sense of art, aimed throughout at bearing upon the moral life. 
Bacon himself was of the same opinion ; he was not far from de- 
claring history to be the best teacher of politics, and poetry the 
best instructor in morals. Both were alike deeply moved by the 
picture of a ruling Nemesis, whom they saw, grand and power- 
ful, striding through history and life, dragging the mightiest and 
most prosperous as a sacrifice to her altar, as the victims of their 
own inward nature and destiny. In Bacon's works we find a 
multitude of moral sayings and maxims of experience, from which 
the most striking mottoes might be drawn for every Shakespearian 
play, aye, for every one of his principal characters (we have 
already brought forward not a few proofs of this), testifying to a 
remarkable harmony in their mutual comprehension of human 
nature. Both, in their systems of morality rendering homage to 
Aristotle, whose ethics Shakespeare, from a passage in Troilus, 
may have read, arrived at the same end as he did — that virtue 
lies in a just medium between two extremes. Shakespeare would 
also have agreed with him in this, that Bacon declared excess to 
be ' the fault of youth, as defect is of age ;' he accounted ' defect 
the worst, because excess contains some sparks of magnanimity, 
and, like a bird, claims kindred of the heavens, while defect, only 
like a base worm, crawls upon the earth.' In these maxims lie 
at once, as it were, the whole theory of Shakespeare's dramatic 
forms and of his moral philosophy." 

Dr. Kuno Fischer, the distinguished German critic 
and historian of philosophy, in a volume on Bacon, 
published in 1856, writes : — 

The same affinity for the Roman mind, and the same 
want of sympathy with the Greek, we again find in 
Bacon's greatest contemporary, whose imagination 
took as broad and comprehensive a view as Bacon's 
intellect. Indeed, how could a Bacon attain that 
position with respect to Greek poetry that was un- 
attainable by the mighty imagination of a Shakspeare ? 
For in Shakspeare, at any rate, the imagination of the 
Greek antiquity could be met by a homogeneous power 

M 



l66 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

of the same rank as itself; and, as the old adage says, 
"like comes to like." But the age, the spirit of the 
nation — in a word, all those forces of which the genius 
of an individual man is composed, and which, moreover, 
genius is least able to resist — had here placed an 
obstacle, impenetrable both to the poet and the 
philosopher. Shakspeare was no more able to exhibit 
Greek characters than Bacon to expound Greek poetry. 
Like Bacon, Shakspeare had in his turn of mind some- 
thing that was Roman, and not at all akin to the Greek. 
He could appropriate to himself a Coriolanus and a 
Brutus, a Caesar and an Antony ; he could succeed 
with the Roman heroes of Plutarch, but not with the 
Greek heroes of Homer. The latter he could only 
parody, but his parody was as infelicitous as Bacon's 
explanation of the " Wisdom of the Ancients." Those 
must be dazzled critics indeed who can persuade them- 
selves that the heroes of the Iliad are excelled by the 
caricatures in " Troilus and Cressida." The success of 
such a parody was poetically impossible ; indeed, he that 
attempts to parody Homer shows thereby that he has 
not understood him. For the simple and the naive do not 
admit of a parody, and these have found in Homer their 
eternal and inimitable expression. Just as well might 
caricatures be made of the statues of Phidias. Where 
the creative imagination never ceases to be simple and 
naive, where it never distorts itself by the affected or 
the unnatural, there is the consecrated land of poetry, 
in which there is no place for the parodist. On the 
other hand, where there is a palpable want of simplicity 
and nature, parody is perfectly conceivable ; nay, may 
even be felt as a poetical necessity. Thus Euripides, 
who, often enough, was neither simple nor naive, could 
be parodied, and Aristophanes has shown us with what 
felicity. Even iEschylus, who was not always as simple 
as he was grand, does not completely escape the 
parodising test. But Homer is safe. To parody Homer 



TWO GERMAN OPINIONS. 167 

is to mistake him, and to stand so far beyond his scope 
that the truth and magic of his poetry can no longer be 
felt ; and this is the position of Shakespeare and Bacon. 
The imagination of Homer, and all that could be 
contemplated and felt by that imagination, namely, the 
classical antiquity of the Greeks, are to them utterly 
foreign. We cannot understand Aristotle without 
Plato ; nay, I maintain that we cannot contemplate 
with a sympathetic mind the Platonic world of ideas, 
if we have not previously sympathised with the world of 
the Homeric gods. Be it understood, I speak of the 
form of the Platonic mind, not of its logical matter ; in 
point of doctrine, the Homeric faith was no more that 
of Plato than of Phidias, But these doctrinal or logical 
differences are far less than the formal and aesthetical 
affinity. The conceptions of Plato are of Homeric 
origin. 

This want of ability to take an historical survey of 
the world is to be found alike in Bacon and Shakspeare, 
together with many excellencies likewise common to 
them both. To the parallel between them — which 
Gervinus, with his peculiar talent for combination, has 
drawn in the concluding remarks to his "Shakespeare," 
and has illustrated by a series of appropriate instances 
— belongs the similar relation of both to antiquity, their 
affinity to the Roman mind, and their diversity from 
the Greek. Both possessed to an eminent degree that 
faculty for a knowledge of human nature that at once 
pre-supposes and calls forth an interest in practical life 
and historical reality. To this interest corresponds the 
stage, on which the Roman characters moved ; and here 
Bacon and Shakspeare met, brought together by a 
«ommon interest in these objects, and the attempt to 
depict and copy them. This point of agreement, more 
than any other argument, explains their affinity. At the 
same time there is no evidence that one ever came into 
actual contact with the other. Bacon does not even 



l68 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

mention Shakspeare when he discourses of dramatic 
poetry, but passes over this department of poetry with a 
general and superficial remark that relates less to the 
subject itself than to the stage and its uses. As far as 
his own age is concerned, he sets down the moral value 
of the stage as exceedingly trifling. But the affinity of 
Bacon to Shakspeare is to be sought in his moral and 
psychological, not in his assthetical views, which are too 
much regulated by material interests and utilitarian pre- 
possessions to be applicable to art itself, considered with 
reference to its own independent value. However, even 
in these there is nothing to prevent Bacon's manner of 
judging mankind, and apprehending characters from 
agreeing perfectly with that of Shakspeare; so that human 
life, the subject-matter of all dramatic art, appeared to 
him much as it appeared to the great artist himself, who, 
in giving form to this matter, excelled all others. Is not 
the inexhaustible theme of Shakspeare's poetry the 
history and course of human passion ? In the treatment 
of this especial theme is not Shakspeare the greatest of 
all poets — nay, is he not unique among them all ? And 
it is this very theme that is proposed by Bacon as the 
chief problem of moral philosophy. He blames Aristotle 
for treating of the passions in his rhetoric rather than 
his ethics; for regarding the artificial means of exciting 
them rather than their natural history. It is to the 
natural history of the human passions that Bacon 
directs the attention of philosophy. He does not find 
any knowledge of them among the sciences of his time. 
"The poets and writers of histories," he says, "are the 
best doctors of this knowledge ; where we may find 
painted forth with great life how passions are kindled 
and incited; and how pacified and refrained ; and how 
again contained from act and further degree ; how they 
disclose themselves ; how they work ; how they vary ; 
how they gather and fortify ; how they are inwrapped 
one within another ; and how they do fight and en- 



TWO GERMAN OPINIONS. 169 

counter one with another ; and other the like par- 
ticularities."* Such a lively description is required by 
Bacon from moral philosophy. That is to say, he desired 
nothing less than a natural history of the passions — the 
very thing that Shakspeare has produced. Indeed, 
what poet could have excelled Shakspeare in this 
respect ? Who, to use a Baconian expression, could 
have depicted man and all his passions more ad 
vivum ? According to Bacon, the poets and historians 
give us copies of characters ; and the outlines of these 
images — the simple strokes that determine characters — 
are the proper objects of ethical science. Just as 
physical science requires a dissection of bodies, that 
their hidden qualities and parts may be discovered, 
so should ethics penetrate the various minds of men, in 
order to find out the eternal basis of them all. And not 
only this foundation, but likewise those external con- 
ditions which give a stamp to human character — all 
those peculiarities that "are imposed upon the mind 
by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health and 
sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which 
are inherent and not external ; and, again, those which 
are caused by external fortune "t — should come within 
the scope of ethical philosophy. In a word, Bacon 
would have man studied in his individuality as a 
product of nature and history, in every respect de- 
termined by natural and historical influences, by 
internal and external conditions. And exactly in the 
same spirit has Shakespeare understood man and his 
destiny ; regarding character as the result of a certain 
natural temperament and a certain historical position, 
and destiny as a result of character. 

* "Advancement of Learning," II. "Da Augment. Scient.," 
VII. 3. 

f " Advancement of Learning," II. For the whole passage com- 
pare " De Augment. Scient.,'' VII. 3. 



170 



Chapter XXIII. 

THE TESTIMONY OF BACON'S 
CONTEMPORARIES. 

A DISTINGUISHED member of the Bench in a recent 
post-prandial address referred to Bacon as "a shady 
lawyer." Irresponsible newspaper correspondents, when 
attacking the Baconian theory, indulge in epithets of 
this kind, but it is amazing that any man occupying a 
position so responsible as that of an English judge 
should, either through ignorance or with a desire to be 
considered a wit, make use of such a term. 

Whatever may have been Francis Bacon's faults, one 
fact must stand unchallenged — that amongst those of 
his contemporaries who knew him there was a consensus 
of opinion that his virtues overshadowed any failings 
to which he might be subject. 

The following testimonies establish this fact : — 

Let Ben Jonson speak first : 

" Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, 
who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language 
(where he could spare or pass a jest) was nobly 
censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more 
pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less 
idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech, 
but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not 
cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He com- 
manded where he spoke ; and had his judges angry and 
pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections 
more in his power. The fear of every man that heard 
him was, lest he should make an end," and, after refer- 
ring to Lord Ellesmere, Jonson continues : — 



bacon's contemporaries. 171 

" But his learned and able (though unfortunate) 
successor, {i.e., Bacon) is he who hath filled up 
all numbers, and performed that in our tongue, 
which may be compared or preferred either to insolent 
Greece, or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, 
and about his times, were all the wits born, that could 
honour a language, or help study. Now things daily 
fall, wits grow downward, and eloquence grows back- 
ward : so that he may be named, and stand as the mark 
and aKwrj of our language. 

" My conceit of his person was never increased 
toward him by his place, or honours : but I have and 
do reverence him, for the greatness that was only 
proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his 
work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of 
admiration, that had been in many ages. In his 
adversity I ever prayed God would give him strength ; 
for greatness he could not want. Neither could I 
condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no 
accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to 
make it manifest." 

Sir Toby Matthew describes Francis Bacon as 

"A friend unalterable to his friends ; 
A man most sweet in his conversation and ways " ; 

and adds : 

*' It is not his greatness that I admire, but his virtue." 

Thomas Bushel, his servant, in a letter to Mr. John 
Eliot, printed in 1628, in a volume called " The First 
Part of Youth's Errors," says : 

"Yet lest the calumnious tongues of men might 
extenuate the good opinion you had of his worth and 
merit, I must ingenuously confess that my selfe and 
others of his servants were the occasion of exhaling his 
vertues into a darke exlipse ; which God knowes would 



172 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

have long endured both for the honour of his King and 
the good of the Commonahie ; had not we whom his 
bountie nursed, laid on his guiltlesse shoulders our base 
and execrable deeds to be scand and censured by the 
whole senate of a state, where no sooner sentence was 
given, but most of us forsoke him, which makes us bear 
the badge of Jewes to this day. Yet I am confident 
there were some Godly Daniels amongst us. . . . 
As for myselfe, with shame I must acquit the title, and 
pleade guilty ; which grieves my very soule, that so 
matchlesse a Peer should be lost by such insinuating 
caterpillars, who in his owne nature scorn'd the least 
thought of any base, unworthy, or ignoble act, though 
subject to infirmites as ordained to the wisest." 

In Fuller's " Worthies " it is written : 

" He was a rich Cabinet filled with Judgment, Wit, 
Fancy and Memory, and had the golden Key, Elocution, 
to open it. He was singular in singulis, in every 
Science and Art, and being In-at-all came off with 
Credit. He was too Bountifull to his Servants, and 
either too confident of their Honesty, or too conniving 
at their Falsehood. 'Tis said he had 2 Servants, one 
in all Causes Patron to the Plaintiff, the other to the 
Defendant, but taking bribes of both, with this Con- 
dition, to restore the Mony received, if the Cause went 
against them. Such practices, tho' unknown to their 
Master, cost him the loss of his Office," 

In "The Lives of Statesmen and Favourites of 
Elizabeth's Reign " it is said : — 

" His religion was rational and sober, his spirit 
publick, his love to relations tender, to Friends faithful, 
to the hopeful liberal, to men universal, to his very 
Enemies civil. He left the best pattern of Government 
in his actions under one king and the best prmciples of 
it in the Life of the other." 



bacon's contemporaries. 173 

The following is a translation from the discourse on 
the life of Mr. Francis Bacon which is prefixed to the 
"Histoire Naturelle," by Piere Amboise, published in 
Paris in 1631 : 

"Among so many virtues that made this great man 
commendable, prudence, as the first of all the moral 
virtues, and that most necessary to those of his pro- 
fession, was that which shone in him the most brightly. 
His profound wisdom can be most readily seen in his 
books, and his matchless fidelity in the signal services 
that he continuously rendered to his Prince. Never was 
there man who so loved equity, or so enthusiastically 
worked for the public good as he ; so that I may aver 
that he would have been much better suited to a 
Republic than to a Monarchy, where frequently the 
convenience of the Prince is more thought of than that 
of his people. And I do not doubt that had he lived in 
a Republic he would have acquired as much glory from 
the citizens as formerly did Aristides and Cato, the one 
in Athens, the other in Rome. Innocence oppressed 
found always in his protection a sure refuge, and the 
position of the great gave them no vantage ground 
before the Chancellor when suing for justice. 

"Vanity, avarice, and ambition, vices that too often 
attach themselves to great honours, were to him quite 
unknown, and if he did a good action it was not from 
the desire of fame, but simply because he could not do 
otherwise. His good qualities were entirely pure, with- 
out being clouded by the admixture of any imperfec- 
tions, and the passions that form usually the defects in 
great men in him only served to bring out his virtues ; 
if he felt hatred and rage it was only against evil-doers, 
to shew his detestation of their crimes, and success or 
failure in the affairs of his country brought to him the 
greater part of his joys or his sorrows. He was as truly 
a good man as he was an upright judge, and by the 
example of his life corrected vice and bad living as 



174 1'"E MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

much as by pains and penalties. And, in a word, it 
seemed that Nature had exempted from the ordinary 
fraihties of men him whom she had marked out to deal 
with their crimes. All these good qualities made him 
the darling of the people and prized by the great ones 
of the State. But when it seemed that nothing could 
destro}' his position, Fortune made clear that she did 
not yet wish to abandon her character for instability, 
and that Bacon had too much worth to remain so long 
prosperous. It thus came about that amongst the great 
number of officials such as a man of his position must 
have in his house, there was one who was accused 
before Parliament of exaction, and of having sold the 
influence that he might have with his master. And 
though the probity of Mr. Bacon was entirely exempt 
from censure, nevertheless he was declared guilty of the 
crime of his servant and was deprived of the power that 
he had so long exercised with so much honour and 
glory. In this I see the working of monstrous ingratitude 
and unparalleled cruelty — to say that a man who could 
mark the years of his life rather by the signal services 
that he had rendered to the State than by times or 
seasons, should have received such hard usage for the 
punishment of a crime which he never committed ; 
England, indeed, teaches us by this that the sea that 
surrounds her shores imparts to her inhabitants some- 
what of its restless inconstancy. This storm did not at 
all surprise him, and he received the news of his disgrace 
with a countenance so undisturbed that it was easy to 
see that he thought but little of the sweets of life since 
the loss of them caused him discomfort so slight." 
Thus ended this great man whom England could 
place alone as the equal of the best of all the previous 
centuries." 

Peter Boener, who was private apothecary to Bacon 
for a time, wrote in 1647 a Life, of portions of which 
the following are translations : — 



bacon's contemporaries. 175 

"But how runneth man's future. He who seemed 
to occupy the highest rank is alas ! by envious 
tongues near King and ParHament deposed from 
all his offices and chancellorship, little consider- 
ing what treasure was being cast in the mire, as 
afterwards the issue and result thereof have shown 
in that country. But he always comforted him- 
self with the words of Scripture — nihil est novi ; that 
means * there is nothing new.' Because so is Cicero 
by Octavianus ; Calisthenes by Alexander ; Seneca (all 
his former teachers) by Nero ; yea, Ovid, Lucanus, 
Statius (together with many others), for a small cause 
very unthankfully the one banished, the other killed, the 
third thrown to the lions. But even as for such men 
banishment is freedom — death their life, so is for this 
author his deposition a memory to greater honour and 
fame, and to such a sage no harm can come, 

** Whilst his fortunes were so changed, I never saw 
him — either in mien, word or acts — changed or disturbed 
towards whomsoever ; ira enirn hominis iion implet 
jusiitiam Dei, he was ever one and the same, both in 
sorrow and in joy, as becometh a philosopher ; always 
with a benevolent allocution — manus nostrce sunt oculatcB, 
cvedunt quod vident. ... A noteworthy example and 
pattern for everyone of all virtue, gentleness, peaceful- 
ness, and patience." 

Francis Osborn, in his "Advice to a Son," writes : — 

"And my memory neither doth nor (I believe possible 
ever) can direct me towards an example more splendid 
in this kind, than the Lord Bacon Earl of St. Albans, 
who in all companies did appear a good Proficient, if 
not a Master in those Arts entertained for the Subject of 
every ones discourse. So as I dare maintain, without 
the least affectation of Flattery or Hyperbole, That his 
most casual talk deserveth to be written. As I have been 



176 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

told his first or foulest Copys required no great Labour 
to render them competent for the nicest jud^^ments. A 
high perfection, attainable only by use, and treating 
with every man in his respective profession, and what 
he was most vers'd in. So as I have heard him enter- 
tain a Country Lord in the proper terms relating to 
Hawks and Dogs. And at another time out-Cant a 
London Chirurgeon. Thus he did not only learn him- 
self, but gratifie such as taught him ; who looked upon 
their Callings as honoured through his Notice ; Nor did 
an easie fallmg into Arguments (not unjustly taken for a 
blemish in the most) appear less than an ornament in 
Him : The ears of the hearers receiving more gratifica- 
tion, than trouble ; And (so) no less sorry when he came 
to conclude, than displeased with any did interrupt 
him. Now this general Knowledge he had in all things, 
husbanded by his wit, and dignifi'd by so Majestical a 
carriage he was known to own, strook such an awful 
reverence in those he question'd, that they durst not 
conceal the most intrmsick part of their Mysteries from 
him, for fear of appearing Ignorant, or Saucy. All which 
rendered him no less Necessary, than admirable at the 
Council Table, where in reference to Impositions, Mono- 
polies, &c. the meanest Manufacturers were an usual 
Argument : And, as I have heard, did in this Baffle, the 
Earl of Middlesex, that was born and bred a Citizen &c. 
Yet without any great (if at all) interrupting his other 
Studies, as is not hard to be Imagined of a quick 
Apprehension, in which he was Admirable." 



177 



Chapter XXIV. 

THE MISSING FOURTH PART OF "THE 
GREAT INSTAURATION." 

It has been urged by critics that Bacon, whilst pro- 
fessing to take all knowledge for his province, ignored 
one-half of it — that half which was a knowledge 
of himself; that to him the external world was every- 
thing, the internal nothing. All that Nature revealed 
was external ; nothing that was internal was of much 
importance. 

It must be remembered that all that we have of 
Bacon's was written as he was passing into the "vale 
of life." Of his early productions nothing has come 
down to the present times under his own name. The 
following extracts from his acknowledged works estab- 
lish two facts : — (i) That the foregoing criticism is 
unfounded, for he placed the study of man's mind and 
character above all other enquiries. (2) That he had 
prepared examples, being "actual types and models, by 
which the entire process of the mind and the whole 
fabric and order of invention from the beginnmg to 
the end in certain subjects and those various and 
remarkable should be set, as it were, before the eyes." 
Where are these works to be found ? 

Bacon never tires of quoting from the Roman poet 
the line — 

" Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci," 

which, in an Elizabethan handwriting, may be seen in 
a contemporary volume thus rendered — 

" He of all others fittest is to write 
Which with some profit allso ioynes delight." 



178 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

He repeats in different forms, until the reiteration be- 
comes almost tedious, the following incident : — 

"And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say, of the 
expedition of the French for Naples, that the}' came 
with chalk in their hands to marke up their lodgings 
not with weapons to fight ; so we like better, that 
entry of truth, which comes peaceably where the 
Mindes of men, capable to lodge so great a guest, 
are signed, as it were, with chalke ; than that which 
comes with Pugnacity, and forceth itselfe a way by 
contentions and controversies." 

The same idea is embodied in the following example 
of the antitheta: — 

"A witty conceit is oftentimes a convoy of a Truth 
which otherwise could not so handsomely have been 
ferried over." 

In the "Advancement of Learning," Lib. II., again 
the same view is insisted on : — 

" Besides in all wise humane Government, they 
that sit at the helme, doe more happily bring their 
purposes about, and insinuate more easily things fit 
for the people, by pretexts, and oblique courses ; than 
by downe-right dealing. Nay (which perchance may 
seem very strange) in things meerely naturall, you may 
sooner deceive nature, than force her ; so improper, 
and selfe impeachmg are open direct proceedings ; 
whereas on the other side, an oblique and an insinu- 
ing way, gently glides along and compasseth the intended 
effect." 

One other fact must be realised before the full import 
of the quotations about to be made can be appreciated. 
In the "Distributio Operis " prefixed to the "Novum 
Organum " the following significant passage occurs * : — 

• Translation by Spedding, " Works," Vol.'IV., p. 23. 



"THE GREAT INSTAURATION. 179 

"For as often as I have occasion to report anything 
as deficient, the nature of which is at all obscure, so 
that men may not perhaps easily understand what I 
mean or what the work is which I have in my head, I 
shall always (provided it be a matter of any worth) take 
care to subjoin either directions for the execution of 
such work, or else a portion of the work itself executed 
by myself as a sample of the whole : thus giving 
assistance in every case either by work or by counsel." 

In the " Advancement of Learning," Book II,, chap, i., 
it is written : 

"That is the truest Partition ot humane Learning, 
which hath reference to the three Faculties of Man's 
soule, which is the feat of Learning. History is referred 
to Memory, Poesy to the Imagination, Philosophy to 
Reason. By Poesy, in this place, we understand nothing 
else, but feigned History, or Fables. As for Verse, that 
is only a style of expression, and pertaines to the Art of 
Elocution, of which in due place." 

" Poesy, in that sense we have expounded it, is like- 
wise of Individualls, fancied to the similitude of those 
things which in true History are recorded, yet so as 
often it exceeds measure ; and those things which in 
Nature would never meet, nor come to passe. Poesy 
composeth and introduceth at pleasure, even as Painting 
doth : which indeed is the work of the Imagination." 

And in the same book. Chapter XIII. : — 

" Drammaticall, or Representative Poes}^, which 
brings the World upon the stage, is of excellent use, if 
it were not abused. For the Instructions, and Corrup- 
tions, of the Stage, may be great ; but the corruptions 
in this kind abound, the Discipline is altogether 
neglected in our times. For although in moderne 
Commonwealths, Stage-plaies be but estimed a sport or 
pastime, unlesse it draw from the Satyre, and be mor- 
dant ; yet the care of the Ancients was, that it should 



l8o THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

instruct the minds of men unto virtue. Nay, wise men 
and great Philosophers, have accounted it, as the 
Archet, or musicall Bow of the Mind. And certainly it 
is most true, and as it were, a secret of nature, that the 
minds of men are more patent to affections, and impres- 
sions. Congregate, than solitary." 

The third chapter of Book VII. of the "De Aug- 
mentis" is devoted to emphasising the importance of a 
knowledge of the internal working of the mind and of 
the disposition and character of men. The following 
extracts are of special moment : — 

"Some are naturally formed for contemplation, others 
for business, others for war, others for advancement of 
fortune, others for love, others for the arts, others for a 
varied kind of life; so among the poets (heroic, satiric, 
tragic, comic) are everywhere interspersed, representa- 
tions of characters, though generally exaggerated and 
surpassing the truth. And this argument touching the 
different characters of dispositions is one of those 
subjects in which the common discourse of men (as 
sometimes, though very rarely, happens) is wiser than 
books." 

The drama as the only vehicle through which this can 
be accomplished at once suggests itself to the reader. 
But in order to emphasize this point he proceeds — 

"But far the best provision and material for this 
treatise is to be gained from the wiser sort of historians, 
not only from the commemorations which they com- 
monly add on recording the deaths of illustrious persons, 
but much more from the entire body of history as often 
as such a person enters upon the stage." 

Bacon becomes still more explicit. He continues: — 

" Wherefore out of these materials (which are surely 
rich and abundant) let a full and careful treatise be 



"THE GREAT INSTAURATION." l8l 

constructed. Not, however, that I would have their 
characters presented in ethics (as we find them in 
history, or poetry, or even in common discourse) in the 
shape of complete individual portraits, but rather the 
several features and simple lineaments of which they 
are composed, and by the various combinations and 
arrangements of which all characters whatever are made 
up, showing how many, and of what nature these are, 
and how connected and subordinated one to another ; 
that so we may have a scientific and accurate dissection 
of minds and characters, and the secret dispositions of 
particular men may be revealed ; and that from a know- 
ledge thereof better rules may be framed for the treat- 
ment of the mind. And not only should the characters 
of dispositions which are impressed by nature be received 
into this treatise, but those also which are imposed upon 
the mind by sex, by age, by region, by health and 
sickness, by beauty and deformity and the like ; and 
again, those which are caused by fortune, as sove- 
reignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy, 
privateness, prosperity, adversity and the like." 

Shortly after follows this remarkable pronouncement. 

" But to speak the truth the poets and writers of 
history are the best doctors of this knowledge,* where 
we may find painted forth with great life and dissected, 
how affections are kindled and excited, and how 
pacified and restrained, and how again contained from 
act and further degree ; how they disclose themselves, 
though repressed and concealed ; how they work ; how 
they vary ; how they are enwrapped one within another ; 
how they fight and encounter one with another ; and 
many more particulars of this kind ; amongst which this 
last is of special use in moral and civil matters ; how, I 
say, to set affection against affection, and to use the aid of 

*The knowledge touching the affections and perturbations 
which arc the diseases of the mind. 

N 



l82 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

one to master another; like hunters and fowlers who use 
to hunt beast with beast, and catch bird with bird, which 
otherwise perhaps without their aid man of himself 
could not so easily contrive ; upon which foundation is 
erected that excellent and general use in civil govern- 
ment of reward and punishment, whereon common- 
wealths lean ; seeing these predominant affections of fear 
and hope suppress and bridle all the rest. For as in 
the government of States it is sometimes necessary to 
bridle one faction with another, so is it in the internal 
government of the mind." 

In his '* Distributio Operis " Bacon thus describes 
the missing fourth part of his " Instauratio Magna " : — 

"Of these the first is to set forth examples of inquiry 
and invention * according to my method exhibited by 
anticipation in some particular subjects ; choosing such 
subjects as are at once the most noble in themselves 
among those under enquiry, and most different one from 
another, that there may be an example in every kind. 
I do not speak of these precepts and rules by w^ay of 
illustration (for of these I have given plenty in the 
second part of the work) ; but I mean actual types and 
models, by which the entire process of the mind and the 
whole fabric and order of invention from the beginning 
to the end in certain subjects, and those various and 
remarkable, should be set as it were before the eyes. 
For I remember that in the mathematics it is eas}' to 
follow the demonstration when you have a machine 
beside you, whereas, without that help, all appears in- 
volved and more subtle than it really is. To examples 
of this kind — being, in fact, nothmg more than an 
application of the second part in detail and at large — 
the fourth part of the work is devoted." 

The late Mr. Edwin Reed has, in his "Francis Bacon 

• Tabulae inveniendi. 



"THE GREAT INSTAURATION." 183 

our Shakespeare," page 126, drawn attention to a re- 
markable circumstance. In 1607 Bacon had written 
his "Cogitata et Visa," which was the forerunner of 
his "Novum Organum." It was not pubhshed until 
twenty-seven years after his death, namely, in 1653, by 
Isaac Gruter, at Leyden. In 1857 Mr. Spedding found 
a manuscript copy of the " Cogitata " in the library of 
Queen's College at Oxford. This manuscript had been 
corrected in Bacon's own handwriting. It contained 
passages which were omitted from Gruter's print. 
Spedding did not realise the importance of the omitted 
passages, but Mr. Edwin Reed has made this manifest. 
The following extract is specially noteworthy, the 
portion printed in italics having been omitted by 
Gruter : — 

"... So he thought best, after long considering the 
subject and weighing it carefully, first of all to prepare 
TabtdcB Inveniendi or regular forms of inquiry ; in other 
words, a mass of particulars arranged for the under- 
standing, and to serve, as it were, for an example and 
almost visible representation of the matter. For nothing 
else can be devised that would place in a clearer light 
what is true and what is false, or show more plainly 
that what is presented is more than words, and must 
be avoided by anyone who either has no confidence in 
his own scheme or may wish to have his scheme taken 
for more than it is worth. 

^^ But when these Tabiclce Inveniendi have been put 
forth and seen, he does not doubt that the more timid 
wits will shrink almost in despair from imitating them 
with similar productions with other materials or on other 
subjects ; and they will take so much delight in the speci- 
men given that they will miss the precepts in it. Still, 
many persons will be led to inquire into the real meaning 
and highest use of these writings, and to find the key to 
their interpretation, and thus more ardently desire, in some 
degree at least, to acquire the neiv aspect of nature which 



1S4 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

such a key icill reveal. But he intends, yielding neither 
to his own personal aspirations nor to the wishes of others, 
but keeping steadily in view the success of his under- 
taking, having shared these writings with some, to with- 
hold the rest until the treatise intended for the people 
shall he published.'" 

Now what conclusions may be drawn from the fore- 
going extracts ? Bacon attached the greatest import- 
ance to the consideration of the internal life of man. 
He affirms that dramaticall or representative poesy, 
which brings the world upon the stage, is of excellent 
use if it be not abused. The discipline of the stage 
was neglected in his time, but the care of the ancients 
was that it should instruct the minds of men unto 
virtue, and wise men and great philosophers accounted 
it as the musical bow of the mind. He has devoted 
the fourth part of his " Instauratio Magna" to setting 
forth examples of inquiry and invention, choosing such 
subjects as are at once the most noble in themselves 
and the most different one from another, that there 
may be an example in every kind. He is not speaking 
of precepts and rules by way of interpretation, but 
actual types and models by which the entire process of 
the mind, and the whole fabric and order of invention, 
should be set, as it were, before the eyes. 

Not only should the characters of dispositions which 
are impressed by nature be received into this treatise, 
but those also which are imposed upon the mind by 
sex, by age, by region, by health and sickness, by 
beauty and deformity, and the like ; and, again, those 
that are caused by fortune, as sovereignty, nobility, 
obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy, privateness, 
prosperity, adversity, and the like. 

The fourth part of Bacon's " Great Instauration " is 
missing. The above requirements are met in the 
Shakespeare plays. Could the dramas be more accu- 
rately described than in the foregoing extracts ? 



"THE GREAT INSTAURATION." 185 

From a study of the plays let a list be made out of the 
qualifications which the author must have possessed. It 
will be found that the only person in whom every 
qualification will be found who has lived in any age 
of any country was Francis Bacon, Any investigator 
who will devote the time and trouble requisite for an 
exhaustive examination of the subject can come to no 
other conclusion. 

One cannot without feeling deep regret recognise that 
we have to turn to a foreigner to give " reasons for the 
faith which we English have in Shakespeare." It was 
a German, Schlegel, who discovered the great dramatist, 
and to-day we must turn to his "Lectures on the 
Drama " for the most penetrating description of his 
plays. The following is a translation of a passage 
which in describing the plays almost adopts the words 
Bacon uses in the foregoing passages as to the scope 
and object of the fourth part of his "Great Instaura- 
tion." 

" Never, perhaps, was there so comprehensive a talent 
for the delineation of character as Shakespeare's. It 
not only grasps the diversities of rank, sex, and age, 
down to the dawnings of infancy ; not only do the king 
and the beggar, the hero and the pickpocket, the sage 
and the idiot speak and act with equal truth ; not only 
does he transport himself to distant ages and foreign 
nations, and portray in the most accurate manner, with 
only a few apparent violations of costume, the spirit of 
the ancient Romans, of the French in their wars with 
the English, of the English themselves during a great 
part of their history, of the Southern Europeans (in the 
serious part of many comedies), the cultivated society 
of that time, and the former rude and barbarous state of 
the North; his human characters have not only such 
depth and precision that they cannot be arranged under 
classes, and are inexhaustible, even in conception ; no, 
this Prometheus not merely forms men, he opens the 



lS6 THE MYSTERY OF FKANCIS BACON. 

j;ates of the magical world of spirits, calls up the mid- 
night ghost, exhibits before us his witches amidst their 
unhallowed mysteries, peoples the air with sportive 
fairies and sylphs ; and these beings, existing only in 
imagination, possess such truth and consistency that 
even when deformed monsters like Caliban, he extorts 
the conviction that if there should be such beings they 
would so conduct themselves. In a word, as he carries 
with him the most fruitful and daring fancy into the 
kingdom of nature ; on the other hand, he carries nature 
into the regions of fancy, lying beyond the confines of 
reality. We are lost in astonishment at seeing the ex- 
traordinary, the wonderful, and the unheard of in such 
intimate nearness." 

" If Shakespeare deserves our admiration for his 
characters he is equally deserving of it for his exhibition 
of passion, taking this word in its widest signification, 
as including every mental condition, every tone from 
indifference or familiar mirth to the wildest rage and 
despair. He gives us the history of minds, he lays open 
to us in a single word a whole series of preceding con- 
ditions. His passions do not at first stand displayed to us 
in all their height, as is the case with so many tragic poets 
who, in the language of Lessing, are thorough masters 
of the legal style of love. He paints, in a most inimit- 
able manner, the gradual progress from the first origin. 
' He gives,' as Lessing says, ' a living picture of all the 
most minute and secret artifices by which a feeling 
steals into our souls ; of all the imperceptible advantages 
which it there gains, of all the stratagems by which 
every other passion is made subservient to it, till it 
becomes the sole tyrant of our desires and our aver- 
sions.' Of all poets, perhaps, he alone has portrayed 
the mental diseases — melancholy, dehrium, lunacy — with 
such inexpressible, and in every respect definite truth, 
that the physician may enrich his observations from 
them in the same manner as from real cases." 



1 8; 



Chapter XXV. 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. 

To attempt anything of the natureof a review of Bacon's 
acknowledged works is a task far too great for the scope 
of the present volume. To attempt a survey of the 
whole of his works would reciuire years of diligent study, 
and would necessitate a perusal of nearly every book 
published in England between 1576 and 1630. Not that 
it is suggested that all the literature of this period was 
the product of his pen or was produced under his super- 
vision, but each book published should be read and con- 
sidered with attention to arrive at a selection. 

There has been no abler judgment of the acknow- 
ledged works than that which will be found in William 
Hazlitt's " Lectures on the Literature of the Age of 
Elizabeth." Lecture VH. commences with an account 
of the "Character of Bacon's Works." 

It may not, however, be out of place here to try and 
make plain in what sense Bacon was a philosopher. 

In Chapter CXVI. of the " Novum Organum " he 
makes his position clear in the following words : — 

" First then I must request men not to suppose that 
after the fashion of ancient Greeks, and of certain 
moderns, as Telesius, Patricius, Severinus, I wish to 
found a new sect in philosophy. For this is not what 
I am about ; nor do I think that it matters much to 
the fortunes of men what abstract notions one may 
entertain concerning nature and the principles of things ; 
and no doubt many old theories of this kind can be 
revived, and many new ones introduced; just as many 
theories of the heavens may be supposed which agree 



l88 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

well enouf]:h with the phenomena and yet differ with 
each other. 

"For my part, I do not trouble myself with any 
such speculative and withal unprofitable matters. My 
purpose on the contrary, is to try whether I cannot in 
very fact lay more firmly the foundations and extend 
more widely the limits of the power and greatness of 
man ... I have no entire or universal theory to pro- 
pound." 

So the idea that there was what is termed a system 
of philosophy constructed by Bacon must be abandoned. 
What justification is there for calling him the father 
of the Inductive Philosophy ? 

It is difficult to answer this question. Spedding 
admits that Bacon was not the first to break down the 
dominion of Aristotle. That followed the awakening 
throughout the intellectual world which was brought 
about by the Reformation and the revival of learning. 
Sir John Herschel justifies the application to Bacon of 
the term " The great Reformer of Philosophy " not on 
the ground that he introduced inductive reasoning, but 
because of his " keen perception and his broad and 
spirit-stirring, almost enthusiastic announcement of its 
paramount importance, as the Alpha and Omega of 
science, as the grand and only chain for linking to- 
gether of physical truths and the eventual key to ever}' 
discovery and application." 

Bacon was 60 years of age when his "Novum Or- 
ganum " was published. It was founded on a tract he had 
written in 1607, which he called "Cogitataet Visa," not 
printed until long after his death. He had previously 
published a portion of his Essays, the two books on " The 
Advancement of Learning "and "The Wisdom of the 
Ancients." Just at the end of his life he gave to the 
world the "Novum Organum," accompanied by "The 
Parasceve." Certainly it was not understood in his 
time. Coke described it as only fit to freight the Ship of 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. 189 

Fools, and the King likened it "to the peace of God 
which passeth all understanding." It is admittedly in- 
complete, and Bacon made no attempt in subsequent 
years to complete it. It is a book that if read and re- 
read becomes fascinating. Taine describes it as " a 
string of aphorisms, a collection as it were of scientific 
decrees as of an oracle who foresees the future and 
reveals the truth." " It is intuition not reasoning," he 
adds. The wisdom contained in its pages is profound. 
An understanding of the interpretation of the Idols 
and the Instances has so far evaded all commentators. 
Who can explain the " Latent Process " ? But the book 
contains no scheme of arrangement. Therein is found 
a series of desultory discourses — full of wisdom, rich in 
analogies, abundant in observation and profound in 
comprehension. From here and there in it with the 
help of the "Parasceve" one can grasp the intention 
of the great philosopher. 

In Chapter LXI. he says : — "But the course I pro- 
pose for the discovery of sciences is such as leaves but 
little to the acuteness and strength of wits, but places 
all wits and understandings on a level." How was this 
to be accomplished ? By the systemization of labour 
expended on scientific research. A catalogue of the 
particulars of histories which were to be prepared is 
appended to the "Parasceve." It embraces every 
subject conceivable. In Chapter CXI. he says, " I 
plainly confess that a collection of history, natural 
and experimental, such as I conceive it, and as it ought 
to be, is a great, I may say a royal work, and of much 
labour and expense." 

In the " Parasceve " he says : — " If all the wits of all 
the ages had met or shall hereafter meet together ; if the 
whole human race had applied or shall hereafter apply 
themselves to philosophy, and the whole earth had 
been or shall be nothing but academies and colleges 
and schools of learned men ; still without a natural and 



igo THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

experimental history such as I am going to prescribe, no 
progress worthy of the human race could have been 
made or can be made in philosophy and the sciences. 
Whereas on the other hand let such a history be once 
provided and well set forth and let there be added to it 
such auxiliary and light-giving experiments as in the 
very course of interpretation will present themselves or 
will have to be found out ; and the investigation of 
nature and of all sciences will be the work of a few 
years. This therefore must be done or the business 
given up." 

To carry out this work an army of workers was 
required. In the preparation of each history some were 
to make a rough and general collection of facts. Their 
work was to be handed over to others who would 
arrange the facts in order for reference. This accom- 
plished, others would examine to get rid of super- 
fluities. Then would be brought in those who would 
re-arrange that which was left and the history would 
be completed. 

t rom Chapter CIII. it is clear that Bacon contem- 
plated that eventually all the experiments of all the 
arts, collected and digested, should be brought within one 
inaji's knowledge and judgment. This man, having a 
supreme view of the whole range of subjects, would 
transfer experiments of one art to another and so lead 
" to the discovery of many new things of service to the 
life and state of man." 

Nearly three hundred years have passed since Bacon 
propounded his scheme. The arts and sciences have 
been greatly advanced. They might have proceeded 
more rapidly had the histories been prepared, but since 
his time there has arisen no man who has taken "all 
knowledge to be his province " — no man who could 
occupy the position Bacon contemplated. 

The method by which the induction was to be fol- 
lowed is described in Chapter C\'. There must be an 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. IQI 

analysis of nature by proper rejections and exclusions, 
and then, after a sufficient number of negatives, a con- 
clusion should be arrived at from the affirmative 
instances. " It is in this induction," Bacon adds, 
"that our chief hope lies." 

Bacon's new organ has never been constructed, and 
ail wits and understandings have not yet been placed on 
a level. 

We come back to the mystery of Francis Bacon, the 
possessor of the most exquisite intellect that was ever 
bestowed on any of the children of men. As an his- 
torian, he gives us a taste of his quality in " Henry VII." 
In the Essays and the " Novum Organum," sayings 
which have the effect of axioms are at once striking 
and self-evident. But he is always desultory. In per- 
ceiving analogies between things which have nothing in 
common he never had an equal, and this characteristic, 
to quote Macaulay, "occasionally obtained the mastery 
over all his other faculties and led him into absurdities 
into which no dull man could have fallen." His 
memory was so stored with materials, and these so 
diverse, that in similitude or with comparison he 
passed from subject to subject. In the "Advancement 
of Learning " are enumerated the deficiencies which 
Bacon observed, nearly the whole of which were supplied 
during his lifetime. 

The " Sylva Sylvarum " is the most extraordinary 
jumble of facts and observations that has ever been 
brought together. It is a literary curiosity. The 
" New Atlantis " and other short works in quantity 
amount to very little. Bacon's life has hitherto re- 
mained unaccounted for. In the foregoing pages 
an attempt has been made to offer an intelligible 
explanation of the work to which he devoted his life, 
namely, to supply the deficiences which he had himself 
pointed out and which retarded the advancement of 
learning. 



192 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

Hallam has said of Bacon : " If we compare what 
may be found in the sixth, seventh, and eighth books 
of the *De Augmentis,' and the various short treatises 
contained in his works on moral and poHtical wisdom and 
on human nature, with the rhetoric, ethics, and pohtics 
of Aristotle, or with the historians most celebrated 
for their deep insight into civil society and human 
character — with Thucydides, Tacitus, Phillipe de 
Comines, Machiavel, David Hume — we shall, I think, 
find that one man may almost be compared with all ot 
these together," 

Pope wrote : " Lord Bacon was the greatest genius 
that England, or perhaps any other country, ever pro- 
duced." If an examination, more thorough than has 
hitherto been made, of the records and literature of 
his age establishes beyond doubt the truth of the sug- 
gestions which have now been put forward, what more 
can be said ? This at any rate, that to him shall be 
given that title to which he aspired and for which he 
was willing to renounce his own name. He shall be 
called "The Benefactor of Mankind." 



193 



APPENDIX. 

Sir Thomas Bodley left behind him a short history 
of his Hfe which is of a fragmentary description. One- 
fourth of it is devoted to a record of how much he 
suffered in permitting Essex to urge his advancement 
in the State. The following is the passage : — 

" Now here I can not choose but in making report of 
the principall accidents that have fallen unto me in 
the course of my life, but record among the rest, that 
from the very first day I had no man more to friend 
among the Lords of the Councell, than was the Lord 
Treasurer Burleigh : for when occasion had beene 
offered of declaring his conceit as touching my service, 
he would alwaies tell the Queen (which I received from 
her selfe and some other ear-witnesses) that there was 
not any man in England so meet as myselfe to undergoe 
the office of the Secretary. And sithence his sonne, 
the present Lord Treasurer, hath signified unto me in 
private conference, that when his father first intended 
to advance him to that place, his purpose was withall 
to make me his Colleague. But the case stood thus 
in my behalf : before such time as I returned from the 
Provinces united, which was in the yeare 1597, and 
likewise after my returne, the then Earle of Essex did 
use me so kindly both by letters and messages, and 
other great tokens of his inward favours to me, that 
although I had no meaning, but to settle in my mind 
my chiefest desire and dependance upon the Lord 
Burleigh, as one that I reputed to be both the best able, 
and therewithall the most willing to worke my advance- 
ment with the Queene, yet I know not how, the Earle, 
who fought by all devices to divert her love and liking 



194 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

both from the Father and the Son (but from the Sonne 
in special!) to withdraw my affection from the one and 
the other, and to winne mee altogether to depend upon 
himselfe, did so often take occasion to entertaine the 
Queene with some prodigall speeches of my sufficiency 
for a Secretary, which were ever accompanied with 
words of disgrace against the present Lord Treasurer, 
as neither she her selfe, of whose favour before I was 
thoroughly assured, took any great pleasure to preferre 
me the sooner, (for she hated his ambition, and would 
give little countenance to any of his followers) and both 
the Lord Burleigh and his Sonne waxed jealous of my 
courses, as if under hand I had beene induced by the 
cunning and kindnesse of the Earle of Essex, to oppose 
my selfe against their dealings. And though in very 
truth they had no solid ground at all of the least 
alteration in my disposition towards either of them 
both, (for I did greatly respect their persons and places, 
with a settled resolution to doe them any service, as 
also in my heart I detested to be held of any faction 
whatsoever) yet the now Lord Treasurer, upon occasion 
of some talke, that I have since had with him, of the 
Earle and his actions, hath freely confessed of his 
owne accord unto me, that his daily provocations were 
so bitter and sharpe against him, and his comparisons 
so odious, when he put us in a ballance, as he thought 
thereupon he had very great reason to use his 
best meanes, to put any man out of hope of raising 
his fortune, whom the Earle with such violence, to 
his extreame prejudice, had endeavoured to dignifie. 
And this, as he affirmed, was all the motive he had to 
set himselfe against me, in whatsoever might redound to 
the bettering of my estate, or increasing of my credit 
and countenance with the Queene. When I hae 
thoroughly now bethought me, first in the Earle, of the 
slender hold-fast that he had in the favour of the Queene, 
of an endlesse opposition of the cheifest of our States- 



APPENDIX. 195 

men like still to waite upon him, of his perillous, and 
feeble, and uncertain advice, as well in hisowne, as in all 
the causes of his friends : and when moreover for my selfe 
I had fully considered how very untowardly these two 
Counsellours were affected unto me, (upon whom before 
in cogitation I had framed all the fabrique of my future 
prosperity) how ill it did concurre with my naturall dis- 
position, to become, or to be counted either a stickler or 
partaker in any publique faction, how well I was able, 
by God's good blessing, to live of my selfe, if I could be 
content with a competent livelyhood ; how short time 
of further life I was then to expect by the common 
course of nature : when I had, I say, in this manner 
represented to my thoughts my particular estate, 
together with the Earles, I resolved thereupon to pos- 
sesse my soule in peace all the residue of my daies, to 
take my full farewell of State imployments, to satisfie 
my mind with that mediocrity of worldly living that I 
had of my owne, and so to retire me from the Court, 
which was the epilogue and end of all my actions and 
endeavours of any important note, till I came to the age 
of fifty-three." 

The experience of Bodley and Bacon appears to have 
been identical. It certainly materially strengthens the 
case of those who contend that Bacon's conduct to 
Essex was not deserving of censure on the ground of 
ingratitude for favours received from him. 

The words which Robert Cecil addressed to Bodley, 
namely, that " he had very great reason to use his best 
meanes, to put any man out of hope of raising his 
fortune whom the Earle with such violence, to his 
extreame prejudice had endeavoured to dignifie," would 
with equal force have been applied to Bacon's case. 
The drift of Bodley's account of the matter points to 
his feeling that Essex's conduct had not been of a 
disinterested character, and suggests that he felt the 
Earle had been making a tool of him. 



196 THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON. 

The effect of this was that Bodley adopted the course 
which Bacon threatened to adopt when refused the 
office of Attorney-General, soHcited for him by Essex 
— he took a farewell of State employments and retired 
from the Court to devote himself to the service of his 
"Reverend Mother, the University of Oxford," and to 
the advancement of her good. To this end he became 
a collector of books, whereas Bacon would have be- 
come " some sorry book-maker or a true pioner in 
that mine of truth which Anaxagoras said lay so deep." 



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