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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Bacon and Shakespeare.
 
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 . BY . 
 
 ALBERT F. CALVERT. 
 
 DEAN & SON, LIMITED, 
 
 160"^, Fleet Street. 
 1902.
 
 'CauntoM : 
 
 J| K. GOODMAN AND SON, I'HCENIX I'lMNTlNG WORKS.
 
 ■pp 
 
 
 Preface. 
 
 To anticipate for this little book that it may prove the 
 means of convincing a single Baconian of the error of his 
 ways, would be to express a hope that has only the faintest 
 chance of realisation. Baconianism is so wilful and so 
 obstinate that it is not amenable to any treatment that has 
 yet been invented. It has its root in an entire misconception 
 of the character and temperament of the man Bacon ; it /s 
 nourished on the grossest misrepresentation of the man 
 Shakespeare that the memory of an author has ever been 
 subjected to. So long as the fallacy, backed up by specious 
 argument, was confined to the consideration of the mighty 
 few, it was scarcely necessary to enter into the lists with 
 the Baconian chajiipions, but the new and energetic move 
 which is now being made to cast dozen Shakespeare from the 
 '' topmost pinnacle in the teniple of fame,'' and to set up the 
 figure of Bacon in his stead, has had the result of bringing 
 the subject cnce more into public view. In the circum- 
 stances, the publication of the folloioing summary of the 
 evidence may be found not inopportune. It may not effect 
 
 »" 
 
 «
 
 VI. 
 
 a curt' in the case of co)ifiniiciI naco}iiivis, hut I Jiavc a 
 modest hope that it will enable the unprejudiced inquirer to 
 be on his i^uard a^i^ainst the Jiallucination. The Baconians 
 have woven a cunnin<^ mesh of fact and fable to cniaui^le the 
 mind of the unuujry : the task I liavc set myself is to review 
 the premises, test the arguments, and combat the conclusions 
 upon ichich Bacon's pretensions to the authorship of Shake- 
 speare's plays is allei^ed to rest, and to explain the reasons 
 that we hold for ascribiui^' the authursltip of tJie Plays to 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 While the majority of Shakespearean students are impatient 
 of discussion, the disciples of the Baconian tlieniy are prompt 
 and eai^'cr and volumimnis in the propagation of their 
 arf^nments. Indeed, they liave, all aloni;;, had the lion's 
 share in the cfoilroversy, and by their iiuicJi speaking, have 
 stormed the ears of that section of the public which neither 
 thinks for itself, nor will be at the trouble to verify what it 
 is told. Hacon has been bmii again in the biographies of 
 his devotees, and Shakespeare, by the same agoicy, has been 
 edited out of recoi^iiition. Baco)rs brilliant intellectual 
 qualities have been taken as the basis of till argument, the 
 human and temperanienial side of his character has been 
 boldly made amenable to the exigencies of argument, and his 
 niany glaringly reprehensible actions have been carejully 
 ignored. I have endeavoured, in the ensuing pages, not so 
 much to give a picture of the complete man, as to show what 
 he was capable of in the way of selfishness, trickery and 
 sutiterfu'^t. lie was capable (f the basest ingratitude and
 
 . Vll. 
 
 meanness, of the cinploynient of barbarity li'lien it suited his 
 purpose, of unctuous servility and boundless egoism. He had 
 neither the temperament nor the poetical ability nor the 
 time to write the Plays ; had lie the meanness of spirit to 
 claim them as his own ? We shall see ! 
 
 The conclusions I have formed with respect to the two 
 cipher revelations which are now agitating the minds, of both 
 SJiakespeareans and Baconians are derived partly from my 
 estimate of tJie character of Bacon, partly from the apparent 
 sincerity of Mrs. Gallup, and partly again from what I 
 know' of other and entirely independent decipherations of 
 further Bacon messages, i>,'hicli are now being actively made 
 in this country. Of Mrs. Gallup I only know that which 
 her book and her publishers reveal. Of Dr. Orville W. 
 Owen, the discoverer of the word-cipJier I learn, from an 
 American source, quoted by way of a testimonial in one of 
 the doctor's books, tJiat he is " a man who has reached 
 middle age,'' and who has "never shown the slightest sign 
 of possessing unusual or extraordinary literary skill, or 
 gejiius.'' In other words, his sponsors assure us that he is 
 incapable of writing tJiose portions of Sliakespeare which 
 form so great a part of his decipherations, or even the 
 connecting passages which appear to have been contributed 
 by Bacon. We must accept t]iis opinion as a tribute of 
 personal character. 
 
 Concerning the illustrations, I may be allowed to say a 
 few explanatory words. Tlie two photogravure reproduc- 
 tions are taken respectively from a miniature by Peter
 
 \lll. 
 
 Oliver, beluiii^itii; to the Duke of Buccleiich, ami froDi a 
 very rare print of Bacon. The print from \'anso)ner's 
 
 painting, the picture' if Bacon's indiniiiitiil. aiul the portraits 
 
 of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Nathaniel Bacon, the Earl of 
 
 Essex anil Qiicoi Elizabeth, luul the views of Stratford-on- 
 
 Avon and Gorhanibnry will, I trust, be found if ij^oicral 
 
 interest. The facsiniilc pa<{es front " Syhui Sylvaruiii" a)id 
 
 the " Xovuni Ori^anuni," with their allegorical devises and 
 
 fine workmanship, illustrate the contrast between the manner 
 
 in which the icorks of Bacon and those of Shakespeare were 
 
 ^iven to the world. The portraits of Shakespeare contained 
 
 here are xvell known to students. The reproduction if the 
 
 bust li'ill be familiar to all visitors to Stratford, the 
 
 " Droeshoiit " En^ravin^ is the picture which forms the 
 
 frontispiece to the Eirst Eolio, and the original of the 
 
 Cliandos portrait is now in the National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 Albert F. Calvert. 
 
 '■'■ Royston,'' Eton Avenue, 
 
 London, .V.H'.
 
 List of Illustrations. 
 
 Page. 
 
 P'rancis Bacon, fyo»i a Miniature by Oliver . . Frontispiece. 
 Francis Bacon (aged i8), fruin a Miniature by Hilliard . 4 
 Francis Bacon as Lord Chancellor (Vansonier) ... 12 
 
 Francis Bacon as Lord Chancellor 16 
 
 Francis Bacon's Monument in St. Michael's Church ... 20 
 
 Sir Nicholas Bacon, Portrait and Autographs 24 
 
 Anna Lady Bacon, Mother of Francis Bacon 32 
 
 Sir Nathaniel Bacon 36 
 
 St. Michael's Church 44 
 
 Queen Elizabeth 48 
 
 Robert Devereu.x, Earl of Essex 52 
 
 Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester 56 
 
 Frontispiece to Sylva Sylvaruin 60 
 
 Frontispiece to Novum Organuni .... .... 68 
 
 GoRHAMBURY, Three Views, 1568, 1795, 1821 72 
 
 William Shakespeare, The Droeshout Etching 80 
 
 William Shakespeare, The Chandos Portrait 84 
 
 William Shakespeare, The Bust at Stratford-on-Avon . . 96 
 
 Shakespeare's House 108 
 
 Chancel of Trinity Church (Stratford-on-Avon) . . . .112 
 
 Shakespeare Autographs 116 
 
 Ann Hathawav's Cottage at Shottery 120 
 
 Dr. Owen's Wheel for Deciphering 128
 
 Contents. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Bacon, the Product of His Age i 
 
 Bacon, the Friend of Essex and Cecil 9 
 
 Bacon, as the Creature of Buckingham i8 
 
 Bacon and Shakespeare Contrasted /i5 
 
 Baconian Fallacies Respecting Shakespeare 29 
 
 Mr, Theobald, a Baconian by Intuition 35 
 
 Was Shakespeare the "Upstart Crow?" 40 
 
 Wm. Shakespeare, Money Lender and Poet 46 
 
 The "True Shakespeare" 50 
 
 Mr, Theobald's Parallels and Mr, Bayley's Conclusions 55 
 
 The Bi-Literal Cipher 62 
 
 Bacon's "Sterne and Tragicle History" 71 
 
 Bacon, the Author of all Elizabethan -Jacobean 
 
 Literature 78 
 
 Bacon and "Divine Aide" 88 
 
 Shakespeare and Bacon in Collaboration 92 
 
 The Tragical Historie of our Late Brother Robert, 
 
 Earl of Essex 99 
 
 Bacon, the Poet 107 
 
 "Did Shakespeare Write Bacon?" iii 
 
 The Case for Shakespeare 115 
 
 Were Shakespeare and Bacon Acquainted? 124 
 
 In Conclusion 129
 
 BACON & SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Bacon, tlic Product of His Age. 
 
 IT is impossible to sympathise with, or even to regard 
 seriously, the spirit in which a small, but growing section 
 of the reading public of America, and of this country, has 
 plunged into the controversy respecting the authorship of 
 the so-called Shakespeare plays. The fantastic doubt 
 which compelled individual scholars to investigate a theory 
 of their own inventing, to lay, so to speak, the ghost the}' 
 had themselves raised, has inspired distrust in the minds 
 that had no beliefs, and generated scepticism in those 
 where no faith was. The search for the truth has degener- 
 ated into a wild-goose chase ; the seekers after some new 
 thing have made the quest their own ; ignorance has 
 plagiarised from prejudice ; the " grand old Bacon- 
 Shakespeare controversy," as Whistler said of Art, is 
 upon the town — "to be chucked under the chin by the 
 passing gallant — to be enticed within the gates of the 
 householder — to be coaxed into company as a proof of 
 culture and reiinement." The difficulties that such a 
 
 B
 
 controvers}- present to the tea-table oracles are both 
 numerous, and exceedinj^j obstinate. The people who 
 read Shakespeare form a pitiably insignihcant proportion 
 of the community, but they are multitudinous compared 
 with those who have the remotest acquaintance w ilh thr 
 works of Francis liacon. liacon is known to some as 
 Elizabcth"s little Lord Keeper, to others his name recalls 
 the fact that he was James the First's Lord Chancellor, 
 but outside his Essays, and, perhaps, The New Atlantis, his 
 great philosophical dissertations, the pride and treasure 
 which he so carefully preserved in Latin, lest they should 
 be lost in the decay of modern languages, are a sealed 
 book to all, except a few odd scholars at the Universities. 
 Bacon is an extinct volcano. The fact is not creditable 
 to the culture of the age, but it is incontrovertible. 
 
 It has, on this account, been found necessary for 
 Baconians to describe to their readers what manner of man 
 this was whom they would perch on Shakespeare's pedestal, 
 and they have accomplished their task in the manner best 
 calculated to lend plausibility to their theories. Moreover, 
 they have displayed a subtle appreciation of the magnitude 
 of their undertaking. The Shakespeare plays, in common 
 with all great works, reflect in some degree the personality 
 cjf their creator. The Baconian students cannot deny that 
 there are many characteristics in their candidate whi( h 
 only the most devout can reconcile wilii the spirit of the 
 plays. It, therefore, became further necessary to ring the 
 changes on their candidate ; to employ the arguments of 
 induction and deduction as best suited the exigencies of 
 the task. In creating the idol of Bacon, much had to be 
 read into the subject, and it would seem that the simplest 
 method by which they could advance the claims of IJacon 
 was by discrediting the claims of Shakespeare. In 
 estimating the character of Viscount St. Alban, we have
 
 the solid foundation of fact for our guidance: the personal 
 details of Shakespeare's career may be written upon a page 
 of note paper. The original Baconians seized upon these 
 few details to distort them to their own ends, and their 
 followers have done their best to perpetuate the outrage. 
 
 In the scope of this volume it is not possible, nor is it 
 necessary, to attempt an intimate analysis of the characters 
 of Bacon and Shakespeare, but a resume of the leading 
 incidents in their lives, a brief review for the purpose of 
 making a comparison of their respective temperaments, 
 will not be out of place. In the following pages my endeav- 
 our has been to arrange, as systematically as possible, 
 the reasons for my belief — for these I invite a courteous 
 hearing ; as for the conclusions I have formed, I am 
 content to abide by them. 
 
 My last desire in dealing with the career of Lord 
 Bacon has been to find reasons for supposing him to be 
 the author of Shakespeare's plays. That endeavour has 
 been made by his many champions with more sanguinity 
 than I could display, and I have carefully weighed every 
 argument and fact advanced in his favour. I have read, 
 and re-read, and argued against myself, the claims which 
 have been put forward with so much earnestness and evident 
 conviction. But against these I have had to set the bald 
 facts that make the claim untenable. The biographers of 
 Bacon have been burdened with the ungrateful necessity of 
 finding excuses, and of making endless apologies for their 
 hero. Bacon's greatest editor, the scholar who devoted 
 some 30 years to the work — who brought more knowledge, 
 and disclosed more analytical acumen and skilled judgment 
 in his task than any editor ever brought to bear upon the 
 life and works of a single author — has stated his reasons 
 for his disbelief in the Baconian theory. When it is 
 remembered that Spedding's knowledge of Shakespeare
 
 was "extensive and profound, anM hi- laborious and subtle 
 criticism deri\'ed additional \aliu' from his l(i\c of the 
 stage," his decision on the subject must be accepted, if 
 not as incontrovertible, at Kast, as the most damaging 
 blow to the Baconian theory we shall ever get. 
 
 A wrll-kuown writer, in declaring that a man's morality 
 has nothing to do with his prose, perpetrated an aphorism 
 which Baconians have adduced to reconcile the psycho- 
 logical differences which we find between Bacon, the man, 
 and Bacon, the author of the plays traditionally attributed 
 to Shakespeare. The least erudite student of Shakespeare 
 has felt the magic of the dramatist's boundless sympathy, 
 his glowing imagination, his gentleness, truth and sim- 
 plicit}'. His mind, as Ha/litt recognised, contained within 
 itself the germs of all facult}- ami feeling, and Mr. Sidney 
 Lee, in his general estimate of Shakespeare's genius, has 
 w ritten, " In knowledge of human nature, in wealth of 
 humour, in depth of passion, in fertility of fancy, and in 
 soundness of judgment, he has not a ri\al." Henry 
 Chettle refers to "his uprightness of dealing which argues 
 his h(jnest}'," the author of The Return from Parnassus 
 apostrophised him as "sweet Master Shakespeare," and 
 Ben Jonson, his friend and fellow labourer, wrote of him, 
 "I loved the man, and do honour liis meuiorx', on this 
 side idolatry as much as anw He was indeed honest, and 
 of an open and free nature." 
 
 An author's morality, or rather his lack of it, may not 
 detrac^t from the grace and clarity of his style, but 
 it must inevitably leave its mark in his matter. There is 
 poetry that reveals ouly the brilliance of the writer's brain 
 — if such can be termed poi'try ; there is prose which lays 
 bare the writer's heart. In Shakespeare we have verse 
 wliieh evidences the possession of both the mental and the 
 temperamental ijualitits in the highest perfe(?tion. There is
 
 FRANCIS BACON. 
 
 AGED 18. 
 
 1578. 
 
 From a Miniature by Hilliard.
 
 Shakespeare the genius, the artist, the creator, the master 
 manipulator of theatrical machinery. There is Shakespeare 
 the man — the citizen of whom Jonson wrote in terms of 
 the warmest affection. In what degree do we find these 
 qualities which are inseparably associated with Shakespeare 
 in the character of Francis Bacon ? 
 
 For every act of Bacon's life we are met with apologies, 
 explanations, and extravagant defences. Lord Macaulay's 
 bitter and brilliant analysis of the Lord Chancellor (a 
 retaliatory treatise prompted by the ingenuity and per- 
 versions of his enamoured champions), has been robbed of 
 its sting by the less brilliant, but more knowledgable 
 and judicious Spedding, who in his Evenings with a 
 Reviewer, clearly and dispassionately reduces Macaulay's 
 estimate to its correct biographical and critical level. But 
 there are acts in the life of Bacon that, shorn of all the 
 swaddling clothes of specious explanation, reveal the man 
 in a light which, in spite of valiant speculation and 
 portentous argument, in spite even of Bacon's sworn 
 word, render his claims to the mantle of Shakespeare an 
 absurdity — and an impertinence. 
 
 Francis Bacon, the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, 
 Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, by his second wife (Ann, 
 daughter of Sir Anthony Coke), was born on 22nd 
 January, 1561. He was the product of the age in which 
 he lived. A politician by heredity, a student by nature, a 
 courtier and place-seeker by force of circumstances, he 
 fulfilled his inevitable destiny. In a court in which the 
 politics were based on the teachings of Machiavelli, in 
 which intrigue was a sport and a fine art, where flattery 
 and lying were necessities, and personal advancement the 
 one incentive to every a.6i, Bacon intrigued, supplicated, 
 flattered, cringed, and lied himself into prominence. Nor 
 must the future Lord Chancellor be judged too harshly on
 
 that account. He was only gambling with the curirnt 
 coin of his en\ii"onmcnt. By nature, he was averse to 
 Jesuitry, but he was forced by circumstances ami his 
 ambitions to emplo\- it. "W hat the art of oratory was in 
 democratic Athens," Dr. Edwin A. Abbott writes, "that 
 the art of lyinj:,' and llattcry was for a courtier in the latter 
 part of the Elizabethan monarchy." In this atmosphere 
 of falseness and deception Bacon, with ^'ood credentials, 
 a tine intellect, little money, man}- intluential acquaintances, 
 but few true friends, had to battle for his own fortunes. 
 It is evident that he early recognised the exigencies of the 
 warfare. He absorbed and assimilated the poison of his 
 surroundings; he was both malleable and inventive. His 
 frame of mind is best illustrated by two of his maxims. 
 Truth, he declares is noble, and falsehood is base ; yet 
 " mixture of falsehood is like alloy in the coin of gold and 
 silver, which nia}- make the metal work the better." Again, 
 "The best composition and temperament is to have open- 
 ness in fame and opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimulation in 
 seasonable use, and a power to feign if there be no remedy." 
 In the Elizabethan Court, the man who desired 
 preferment had to plead for it. At the age of i6, F"rancis 
 Bacon, after leaving Cambridge, had been admitted as 
 "an ancient" of Gray's Inn, and in the following year 
 was sent to Paris in the suite of Sir Amias Paulet, the 
 English Ambassador. Two }-ears later, on the death of 
 his fatlu T, he returned to England, to find himself destitute 
 (){ the patrimon\- hi' had expe(^ted to inherit, and forced 
 to select the alternative of inmu'diate work or the accumu- 
 lation of debts. In this emergency he applied to his uncle. 
 Lord Burghley, for advancement, and atteinpted to win 
 the favour of the Queen by addressing to her a treatise 
 entitled. Advice to Queen Elizabeth. This letter is 
 remarkable for its lofty tone, its statesmanship, and
 
 boldness, but it is marred by the appendix, in which the 
 author states that he is bold to entertain his opinions, 
 "till I think that you think otherwise." This fatal pliancy, 
 this note of excessive obsequiousness, lasted him through 
 life. 
 
 The want of success, which attended his first efforts to 
 gain official recognition, caused Bacon to decide, once and 
 for all, upon his choice of a career. His path lay either in 
 the way of politics, which meant preferment, power, and 
 wealth ; or science, philosophy, and the development of 
 the arts and inventions that tend to civilise the life of 
 man. No work seemed to him so meritorious as the 
 latter, and for this he considered himself best adapted. 
 "Whereas, I believe myself born for the service of 
 mankind," he declared, in 1603, in the preface to The 
 Interpretation of Nature; and in a letter to Lord Treasurer 
 Burghley, " I have taken all knowledge to be my province." 
 Again, " I found in my own nature a special adaptation 
 for the contemplation of truth. . . . Imposture in every 
 shape I utterly detested." But, as he proceeds to explain, 
 "my birth, my rearing, and education," pointed not 
 towards philosophy, but towards " politics ; " love of 
 truth and detestation of imposture was in his heart, but 
 "the power to feign if there be no remedy" was there 
 engraved also; the practical value of the "mixture of 
 falsehood" was in his blood. And the want of money 
 influenced him in forming his decision. In 1621, when 
 his public career came to its disgraceful close, he declared 
 that his greatest sin had been his desertion of philosophy 
 and his having allowed himself to be diverted into politics. 
 " Besides my innumerable sins," he cries out in his 
 confession to the " Searcher of Souls," " 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
 
 8 
 
 iKipkin, nor put it us I ought to exchangers, where it might 
 have made most profit: but misspent it in things for which 
 I was least fit, so that I may truly sa}-, m\- soul has been a 
 stranger in the course of ni}- [ulgrimage." At the beginning 
 of his history, Bacon pleads his birth, his rearing and 
 education as excuses for his choice of a career, and at its 
 close, in Dc AiigDientis, he throws the blame on " destiny " 
 for carr}-ing him into a political vortex. Dr. Abbott sums 
 up his life-story in a phrase — uinltum incula ; with it his 
 public career began and ended.
 
 Bacon, the Friend of Essex and Cecil. 
 
 HAVING failed to secure the goodwill of Burghley, 
 Bacon addressed himself to the Earl of Essex, and 
 when, in 1593, Francis came under the Queen's displeasure, 
 Essex pleaded for his re-instatement in the Royal favour. 
 Bacon himself practised every abasement, and, ever 
 failing, debased himself to what he himself described as 
 an exquisite disgrace. From this time until the day 
 when there were " none so poor to do him reverence," the 
 Earl of Essex was Bacon's warm friend, patron, and 
 benefactor. He tided him over his monetary difficulties, 
 made him his counsellor, and among other gifts presented 
 him with a piece of land worth between ;£'7,ooo and ;£'8,ooo. 
 Bacon repaid his friendship with advice, which, it may be 
 presumed, was well meant. But Bacon, the alleged author 
 of the plays which portray an unrivalled knowledge of 
 human nature, betrayed a singular and unaccountable lack 
 of intuition into character. His counsel was, in a large 
 measure, sound and sagacious, but it was utterly spoiled 
 by the trickiness which breathes through every precept. 
 If Bacon had possessed the knowledge of men that we 
 find in Shakespeare, he would have known that his 
 maxims were peculiarly unfit for Essex, who was the last
 
 10 
 
 man in the world to cany into effect such a scheme of 
 systematic dissimulation. Dr. Abbott considers that few 
 thinjjjs did the Karl more harm than that thi,' friiiid in 
 whom he j:)laced most trust ^ave him advice that was 
 rather cuniiiii,^^ than wise. Indeed, ]'2ssrx was following 
 the counsi'l of Uacon when he offered himsc-lf, in 15991 
 for lliL- command in Ireland, From this command he 
 returned to luigland a disgraced man. and his downfall 
 culminated in his death two years later. .Vnd in the hour 
 of his humiliation and dite need, when the Royal disfavour 
 kept all his friends from him, Ikicon's elder brother, Sir 
 Anthony Bacon, and the author of the Sidney papers 
 regarded Bacon as one of the active enemies of his former 
 patron. 
 
 Bacon's biographers have strained evir\- effort in 
 explaining and excusing his action in {\\r ensuing trials. 
 Not only have they failed to exculpate him, but themselves 
 must realise the futility of their most ingenious endeavours 
 to clear his character of this foul blot. Abbott, his impartial 
 biographer, says: "We may acquit him of everything 
 but a cold-blooded indifference to his friend's interest and 
 a supreme desire to pose (even at a friend's cost) as a 
 loyal ami murh-persecuted servant of the Oueen." Ihit, 
 triiK-, the most that can be said in cxtcnualioii of his 
 bclia\ioiii-, is littk' indeed, when the friend is a man to 
 whom he had wiitten, " I do think ms'self more beholding 
 to \'oii than to any man." 
 
 What, however, are the facts? When the hrst pro- 
 ceedings were taken against Essex in the Star Chamber, 
 Bacon absented himself from the Court, his excuse to the 
 Queen being, he said. " Some indisposition of body." His 
 actual letter to Kli/abeth ex[)lains that his :d)sence was 
 comjielled 1)\- threats of violence on tlu: i)art ol the Karl's 
 fcjllowers, whom he openl\- charges with a purpose to take
 
 II 
 
 the Queen's life. " My life has been threatened, and my 
 name libelled. But these are the practices of those . . . 
 that would put out all your Majesty's lights, and fall on 
 reckoning how many years you have reigned," Abbott 
 considers that we need not accuse Bacon of deliberately 
 intending by these words to poison the Queen's mind 
 against his former friend, while Professor Gardiner 
 adduces this imputation as a proof that Bacon was liable to 
 "occasional ill-temper." Contemporary judgment did not 
 so interpret the wording of the excuse. The treacherous 
 nature of the insinuation provoked a feeling of amazement 
 and anger. That his brother Anthony believed Bacon to 
 be capable of so great vileness is evident, and even Lord 
 Cecil, the Earl's greatest enemy, wrote to Francis begging 
 him to be, as he himself was, "merely passive, and not 
 active," in insuring the fallen Favourite's utter ruin. 
 
 In the face of these warnings and remonstrances, Bacon 
 wrote to the Queen expressing his desire to serve her in the 
 second stage of the proceedings against Essex, He asked 
 that an important role might be assigned to him, but 
 although he was only entrusted with a subsidiary part, he 
 performed his task so adroitly as to earn the deep resent- 
 ment of the friends of Essex, Within a fortnight of the 
 Earl's liberation Bacon again offered his services to Essex, 
 who accepted them ! 
 
 What followed ? Bacon devised a plan to secure the 
 Earl's re-instatement in the Royal favour. The artifice 
 employed was to bring before the notice of Elizabeth, a 
 correspondence — ostensibly between Essex and his brother 
 Anthony — exhibiting the loyalty and love of the former 
 for the Queen, The letters were composed by Bacon, and 
 while they are interesting as specimens of the author's 
 literary power, and are illustrative of his " chameleonlike 
 instinct of adapting his style to his atmosphere," they
 
 12 
 
 were calculated, by the interpolation of artful {)assages, to 
 advance the interests of Bacon, rather than those of Essex, 
 with the Oueen. It is significant also that the demeanour 
 which Bacon in these letters caused the ICarl to assume, 
 he used against him when Essex was subsequently arraigned 
 for treason. Unless we are prepared to accept the state- 
 ments of Bacon in this connection, it is impossible to view 
 his participation in this second trial without a feeling of 
 the deepest abhorrence. Bacon had no right to be in Court 
 at all. As one of the " learned counsel," his presence was 
 not required, but in the capacity of " friend of the accused," 
 his evidence could not fail to be greatly damaging to the 
 Earl's case. He proffered his evidence, not only with 
 readiness, but with a ferocious efficacy. We have no 
 evidence beyond Bacon's own word — the word of a man 
 who was striving to put the best complexion on a foul act 
 of treachery — that he deprecated the task. " Skilfully 
 confusing together " the original proposal, and the abortive 
 execution of Essex's outbreak, he insisted that the rising, 
 which in truth was a sudden after-thought, was the result 
 of three months' deliberation, and he concentrated all his 
 efforts on proving that Essex was " not only a traitor, 
 but a hypocritical traitor." No other piece of evidence 
 adduced at the trial had greater weight in procuring 
 the verdict against the Earl. Bacon subsequently pleaded 
 in extenuation of his behaviour that he was acting under 
 pressure from the Crown, but we have; the knowledge 
 that on the first occasion he had offered his services, and 
 we can onlv conclude that at the price of sacrificing 
 the friund who had loaded him with kindnesses, he had 
 determined to make this trial a stepping-stone to Royal 
 favour. To serve this rui]. friendship, honour, obligation 
 were brushed aside; for, as Bacon has said in one of his 
 essays, the man who wishes to succeed " must know all the
 
 iJf^/ui^y^n /c^vptr 
 
 Vniiso'iicr.
 
 13 
 
 conditions of the serpent." The price Bacon received for 
 the blood of Essex was /^i, 200, or ^6,000 in our currency. 
 "The Queen," he wrote to a friendly creditor, " hath done 
 somewhat for me, though not in the perfection I hoped." 
 Bacon had, it is fair to infer from this remark, betrayed 
 his friend ; had, in fact, dehvered him to the headsman for 
 the hope of pecuniary reward. 
 
 In what degree Bacon was responsible for the drawing 
 up of a Declaration of the Treasons of Essex, which Lord 
 Clarendon described as a "pestilent libel," is impossible 
 to decide. He tells us that his task was little more than 
 that of an amanuensis to the Council and the Queen, but 
 this excuse fails him in the case of his Apology, put forth 
 as a vindication of the author in the estimation of the 
 nobles, from the charge of having been false to the Earl 
 of Essex. The paper is admittedly full of inaccuracies, 
 conveying to us the picture, " not of his actual conduct, 
 but of what he felt his conduct ought to have been." Dr. 
 Abbott dismisses this literary and historical effort as inter- 
 esting only as a " psychological history of the manifold 
 and labyrinthine self-deception to which great men have 
 been subjected." 
 
 On the accession of James I., Bacon again threw 
 himself into the political arena, determined to neglect no 
 chance of ingratiating himself with the new Sovereign. 
 He poured forth letters to any and everybody who had the 
 power to forward his cause. He dwelt in these epistles 
 upon the services of his brother Anthony, who had carried 
 on secret and intimate negotiations with Scotland. Sir 
 Thomas Challoner, the confirmed friend of Essex, received 
 a letter from him ; he appealed to the Earl of Northumber- 
 land ; and became the " humble and much devoted " 
 servant of Lord Southampton, on the eve of that noble- 
 man's release from the Tower (where Bacon had helped to
 
 14 
 
 place him as an acconiplic:o of Essex). To each ho turned 
 with the same request that they would l)ur\' the axe, and 
 " further his Majesty's good conceit and inclination 
 towards me." 
 
 At this time, Ikicon, desperately apprehensive of rebuff, 
 was anxious to conciliate all parties, and to secure friends 
 at Court. He was willing, nay, eager, to be Greek, Roman, 
 or Hebrew, in order to attain his object — even he would 
 avow a gift of poesy to make his calling and election sure. 
 W riting to Sir John Davies, the poet. Bacon, the politician 
 and philosopher, who did not publish two lines of rhyme 
 until twenty-one years later, desired him to ''be good to 
 concealed poets." Reading this statement in connection 
 with the other epistles he indicted at the same crisis, we 
 realise how little dependence can be placed upon the 
 implied confession that he had written anonymous poetry. 
 His letters to Southampton, to Michael Hickes (Cecil's 
 confidential man), to David Foules and Sir Thomas 
 Challoner, and to the King himself, all betray the same 
 feverish desire to be all things to all men. He assured 
 Hickes that Lord Cecil is "the person in the State" 
 whom he "loves most," and at the same moment he 
 placed his whole services at the disposal of Cecil's rival, 
 the Earl of Xortluiinberland ! When the star of North- 
 umberland began to pale. Bacon importuned Cecil to 
 procure him a knighthood to gratify the ambition of an 
 "Alderman's daughter, a handsome maiden," whom he 
 had found " to my liking." But for a while Bacon found 
 the struggle for recognition unavailing. The King found 
 him an accjuired taste — or rather a taste that his Majest}' 
 had yet to acquire^and after grovelling to all and sundry, 
 he desisted at the moment from the attempt to gain the 
 King's grace, " because he had completely failed, and for 
 no other reason."
 
 15 
 
 But although Bacon went into retirement, he divided 
 his leisure between his Hterary labours and his quest for 
 political advancement. In all his political pamphlets, his 
 one ambition was to divine and reflect the Royal views. 
 In 1590 he had nothing but condemnation for the Noncon- 
 formist party : in 1604 he had strenuously pleaded the cause 
 of Nonconformity ; in 1616 he as strenuously opposed the 
 slightest concession being made to the Nonconformers. In 
 1604 he was returned to Parliament ; three years later, his 
 zeal in anticipating the King's wishes, and supporting his 
 proposals, was rewarded by his appointment to the 
 Solicitor-Generalship. In the following year he was made 
 clerk of the Star Chamber, and immediately set himself 
 to secure the displacement of Hobart, the Attorney-General. 
 
 Bacon's conduct towards the Earl of Essex has already 
 been considered. Had this been the only instance of the 
 kind in his career, his apologists would have achieved 
 something more than public opinion can grant them in 
 their endeavours to explain it away. But his behaviour 
 towards Cecil is another lurid illustration of his duplicity 
 and ingratitude. During the last fourteen years of his 
 life Cecil had been the friend and patron of Bacon, whose 
 letters to him are couched in almost passionate terms of 
 loyalty and "entire devotion." In one epistle he declares 
 himself "empt}- of matter," but " out of the fulness of my 
 love," he writes to express " my continual and incessant 
 love for you, thirsting for your return." Cecil was his 
 refuge and deliverer in 1598, and again in 1603, when he 
 was arrested for debt, and Bacon was not empty of reason 
 when he asserted in another letter, " I write to myself in 
 regard to my love to you, you being as near to me in 
 heart's blood as in blood of descent." In 1611, a short 
 while before Cecil's death, he wrote this last profession of 
 his affection : —
 
 i6 
 
 "■ I do jMotcst before God, without cornpliinent, that if 
 I knew in what course of hfe to do }-ou best service, I 
 would take it, and make my thoughts, which now \\y to 
 many pieces, be reduced to that centre." 
 
 In May of 1612 Cecil died. Within a week Ikicon 
 had proffered his services to the King in the place of his 
 cousin, of whom he wrote: — 
 
 " He (Cecil) was a fit man to keej) things from growing 
 worse, but no very tit man to reduce things to be much 
 better ; for he Un-cd to keep the eyes of all Israel a little 
 too much upon himself." 
 
 To another, he wrote that Cecil " luul a good method, 
 if his means had been upright," and again to the King, on 
 the same subject : — 
 
 " To have your wants, and necessities in particular, as 
 it were hanged up in two tablets before the eyes of your 
 Lords and Commons, to be talked of for four months 
 together; to stir a number of projects and then blast them, 
 and leave your Majesty nothing but the scandal of them ; 
 to pretend even carriage between your Majesty's rights 
 and the ease of the people, and to satisfy neither — these 
 courses, and others the like, I hope, are gone with the 
 deviser of them." 
 
 Less than a year before, liacon had protested before 
 God, " without compliment,"" his desire to serve Cecil, 
 and now he protests to God in this letter to the King, that 
 when he noted "your zeal to deliver the Majesty of God 
 from the vain and indign comprehension of heresy and 
 degenerate philosoph}' . . . percnlsitilico aniiiiiiDi ihnt God 
 would shortly set upon \()u some visible favour; and let me 
 not live if I thought not of the taking away of that man " 
 — the man as '' near to me in heart's blood as in the blood 
 of descent." 
 
 The King, who had grown weary of Cecil, may have
 
 ^^/ttM.r'^.f^: 
 
 ^arorv' l t^THiA. 
 
 Ui/ti, ana f' ij-a?-u,?it t^fj/Z/t. 
 
 =JlortC i-^Uah. loA, 
 
 a >icei 
 
 '//(^r-r/ Gncriii 7ia. 

 
 17 
 
 accepted his death as a visible favour of God, but the 
 favour did not evidently embrace the substitution of Bacon 
 in his cousin's stead. His application for the vacant post 
 of Lord Treasurer was passed over by the King, but Bacon 
 became Attorney-General in the following year.
 
 L 
 
 Bacon as the C nature of Bitckiui^^haui. 
 
 V.T us re,L,'ard another trait in the character of this 
 many-sided statesman. To reheve the King's pressing 
 necessities it was proposed that vohintary contributions 
 should be made by the well-affected. The contributions, 
 commonly known as Benevolences, were rarel\- \oluntary; 
 the " moral pressure " that was employed in their collec- 
 tion made them in reality extortions, and, as such, they 
 were the cause of national dissatisfaction. During the 
 search of the house of a clergyman named Peacham, 
 consequent on some ecclesiastical charge, a sermon was 
 found predicting an uprising of the people against this 
 oppressive tax, and foretelling that the King might die 
 like Ananias or Xabal. The sermon had neither been 
 issued nor uttered, but the unfortunate rector, a very olii 
 man, was indicted ftjr conspirac-y and, in contravenlifin 
 of the law, put io the torture. Peacham had not been 
 con\icted of treason, though Bacon " hopes that the end 
 will be good;" or, in other words, that he will I)e able to 
 wring frr)m the condemned man a confession to make 
 good the charge. 
 
 The wretched old clergyman, after being examined in 
 Bacon's jiresence, "before torturt', in torture, between 
 torture, and after torture," could not be made to convict
 
 19 
 
 himself, and Bacon's comment to the Kinij^ is that the 
 man's " raging devil seemeth to be turned into a dumb 
 devil." It will be noted that this infamous act of illegality 
 and Bacon's commentary are the deed and words of the 
 man who is supposed by some to have declared, 
 
 " The quality of mere}' is not strain'd : 
 It droppeth as llie gentle rain from heaven 
 Upon the place beneath ; it is twice bless'd ; 
 It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes ; 
 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 
 The throned monarch better than his crown." 
 
 We have seen Bacon as the ingrate, and Bacon as the 
 brute; let us observe him "the meanest of mankind," as 
 Pope described him — who, as Abbott admits, although he 
 refuses Pope's description, " on sufficient occasion could 
 creep like a very serpent." The sufficient occasion was the 
 sudden advance into fame of George Villiers, afterwards 
 Duke of Buckingham. The disgrace and imprisonment of 
 Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, whose conviction Bacon 
 laboured so strenuously to accomplish, doubtless inspired 
 the Attorney-General with the hope of becoming the chief 
 adviser of the Sovereign. Great must have been his mor- 
 tification when he discovered the impregnability of Villiers 
 in the favour of the King. But although cast down. 
 Bacon was not abashed. He had, on a previous occasion 
 of disappointment, declared that " service must creep 
 where it cannot go" (i.e. walk upright), and he at once 
 determined to creep into the King's confidence through the 
 medium of the rising Favourite. Instantly, Bacon was on 
 his knees to the new star. " I am yours," he wrote, with 
 more servile want of restraint than he had disclosed in his 
 letters to Essex or Cecil, " surer to you than to my own 
 life." In speech and behaviour he lived up to his protest. 
 He beslavered Villiers with flattery to his face, and he
 
 20 
 
 carolled his praises to those whom he felt assured would 
 repeat his words to the spoiled Favourite. His reward was 
 not loni,' in the coinin<i:. In loi; lie was made Lord 
 Keeper. He took his scat in Chancer}- with the most 
 extravagant pomji, his retinue exceeding all his prede- 
 cessors, says a correspondent of Carlcton, " in the bravery 
 and multitude of his servants." The following day he 
 wrote of the ceremony to \'illiers, " There was much ado, 
 and a great deal of the world. But this matter (^( pomp, 
 which is hca\en to some men, is hell to me, or purgatory 
 at least." This expression, if not an affectation entirely, 
 is, at least, strangely inconsistent with the account of the 
 vulgar pomp and display of a Feast of the Family, which 
 is described by Bacon with so much detail in The New 
 Atlantis. 
 
 In this year Bacon dared to interpose, for a fitful instant, 
 between \'illiers and his desires ; the next moment he is 
 reduced to a state of pathetic contrition. l)Ut the evan- 
 escent display of a spirit of independence nearly cost the 
 Lord Keeper his position at Court. For purely personal 
 reasons Bacon regarded, with aversion, the projed^ed mar- 
 riage between Sir John \'illiers, a brother of Buckingham, 
 and the daughter of his old rival and enemy, Sir hZdward 
 Coke. In a letter to the Earl of Buckingham he so far forgot 
 himself and his repeated promises to hold himself as a mere 
 instrument in the hands of the King, as to protest against 
 the proposed marriage. Realising immediately the folly of 
 this want of ta(^,he wrote to the King, and to Buckingham, 
 justifying, or rather excusing his temerit}'. The King replied 
 with a sharp ri.-buke, the Favourite in a short, angry note. 
 Further letters elicited additional curt corrections from the 
 angered Monarch, and from Buckingham. Bacon then, 
 for the first time, realised the enormity of his presumption. 
 His position was in danger. Excuse and justification
 
 "^^. 
 
 scicv^riASTM L\Tce:s. rArvysLs: Las 
 
 SIC SEJjSBAT; 
 
 £r cirius aacaxa EitLvrsscr £^ _ 
 
 !C*1VIWE DECaETVM EXPLiTTT ^^^- 
 
 - CCMPOSITA SOI.M1STVK ^S" 
 
 Ji.-U.-T' txrz 
 
 t*mt: visr 
 
 SVIXKSnTl* CViTCR 
 
 :;-■.•:■ ; - - m...r. 
 
 THE MONUMENT OF LORD BACON 
 IN St. MICHAEL'S CHURCH.
 
 21 
 
 were unavailing to conciliate his angry masters; absolute 
 submission was the only way out of his predicament. 
 Bacon submitted ; he even offered to put his submission 
 into writing to the Favourite. Buckingham, in a pencilled 
 note, couched in tones in which arrogance is mixed with 
 acrimonious reflection on " his confused and childish " 
 presumption, notified his forgiveness. In reply, Bacon 
 protested his gratitude to " my ever best Lord, now better 
 than yourself," and concluded, " it is the line of my life, 
 and not the lines of my letter, that must express my 
 thankfulness; wherein, if I fail, then God fail me, and 
 make me as miserable, as I think myself at this time 
 happy, by this reviver through his Majesty's clemenc}- and 
 your incomparable love and favour." 
 
 His submission nullified his early resolve not to tolerate 
 any attempts to interfere with the course of law, and 
 delivered him bodily into the hands of Buckingham. 
 The Favourite took the Lord Keeper at his word, and 
 although he put his loyalt)' to constant and severe tests, 
 by making frequent application to him in favour of chancery 
 suitors. Bacon never again forgot that " the lines of his 
 life " must progress in undeviating conformity with the 
 Favourite's will. It is not profitable here to attempt to 
 determine whether or not he gave verdicts against his own 
 judgment, but we have the letters to show that he listened, 
 replied, and complied with Buckingham's requests, and in 
 1618 he was made Lord Chancellor, doubtless by the 
 influence, and on the advice, of the Favourite. 
 
 During the period of Bacon's temporary disgrace, 
 " when the King and Buckingham had set their faces 
 against him, and all the courtiers were yelping at his 
 heels," the only friend who remained staunch and constant 
 to him was Sir Henry Yelverton, the Attorney-General. 
 Yelverton, whose admiration for, and loyalty towards the
 
 22 
 
 Lord Chancellor were unswervinj:^, would truckle neither 
 to the I-'avourite nor to the Kinj^; although the former had 
 assured him that those who opposed him " should discern 
 what favour he had h\- the power he would use." Within 
 a year of Bacon's restoration to faxonr Yelverton came 
 into collision with Buckingham, and the Attorney's acci- 
 dental misconstru(ftion of the King's verbal instructions, 
 served as an excuse for an information to bi: hud against 
 him in the Star Chamber. \\'c> iiave seen how Bacon 
 could repay friendship with ingratitude, and kindness with 
 baseness in the case of Essex and of Cecil, but, in the 
 instance of Yelverton, even his admirers are forced to 
 admit that his behaviour was "peculiarly cold-blooded 
 and ungrateful." But the; "lines of his life" had made 
 him the serf of the Favourite, and "whatever other resolu- 
 tions Bacon may have broken, none can accuse him of 
 breaking this." \Mien the case came on, and when " the 
 bill was opened by the King's Sergeant bneily, with tears 
 in his eyes, and Mr. Attorney, standing at the Bar, amid 
 the ordinary Counsellors, with dejected looks, weeping 
 tears, and a brief, eloquent, ami humble oration, made a 
 submission, acknowledging his error, but denying the 
 corruption " — the Lord Chancellor did his utmost to resist 
 the merciful proposal of the majority to submit the 
 Attorney's submission to the King. 'Ihc King declined 
 to interfere, and the termination of the case was announced 
 to Buckin^liam 1)\' 15acon, in thr following self-satishcd 
 and congratulator}' note : — " Yesterda\- we made an cutl 
 of Sir Ilcnr}- Yelverton's causes. I have almost killed 
 myself with sitting almost eight hours. But I was 
 resolved to sit it through." llr then gives the terms of 
 the sentence, and adds: " How I stirred the Court I leave 
 it to others to speak ; but things passed to his Majesty's 
 great honour." In other words, a blunt, straightforward,
 
 23 
 
 and honourable man, who had refused to purchase his 
 office by bribes, or by flattery, had been condemned, on a 
 charge of corruption (of which his judges knew him to be 
 guiltless), to a fine of ;£'4,ooo and imprisonment during the 
 King's pleasure, for the offence of refusing to cringe to 
 Buckingham. These were the things that, in Bacon's 
 judgment, "passed to his Majesty's great honour." 
 
 In 1618 Bacon became Baron Verulam of Verulam ; 
 three vears later he was created Viscount St. Alban, 
 " with all the ceremonies of robes and coronet." But his 
 disgrace and discomfiture were soon to come. " In a few 
 weeks," writes Lord Macaulay, "was signally brought to 
 the test the value of those objec^ts for which Bacon had 
 sullied his integrity, had resigned his independence, had 
 violated the most sacred obligations of friendship and 
 gratitude, had flattered the worthless, had persecuted 
 the innocent, had tampered with judges, had tortured 
 prisoners, had plundered suitors, had wasted on paltry 
 intrigue all the powers of the most exquisitely constructed 
 intellecft that has ever been bestowed on any of the 
 children of men." On March the 14th, 1621, Bacon was 
 charged by a disappointed suitor with taking money for 
 the dispatch of his suit. On April the 30th, in the 
 House of Lords, was read " the confession and humble 
 submission of me, the Lord Chancellor." On May the 3rd, 
 the Lords came to a general conclusion that " the Lord 
 Chancellor is guilty of the matters wherewith he is 
 charged," and it w^as resolved that he should be fined 
 ^^40,000, imprisoned in the Tower during the King's 
 pleasure, declared incapable of any office, place, or em- 
 ployment in the State or Commonwealth, and that he 
 should never sit in Parliament, nor come within the verge 
 of the Court. Five years later, on April the gth, 1626, he 
 died at Highgate of a chill and sudden sickness, contracted
 
 24 
 
 by exposure when stuffiiifj a fowl with snow to test the 
 effe(5l of snow in ]-)rcscr\int,' tlesh friMn jMitrcfacftion. He 
 wrote, on his death bed, to Lord Arundel, to whose house 
 he had been carried : " As for the experiment it succeeded 
 exceedinf^ well. "
 
 SIR NICHOLAS BACON. 
 
 From the original of Zucohero, in the collection of 
 His Grace the Duke of Bedford.
 
 Bacon and Shakespeare Contrasted. 
 
 THE argument of the Baconians — the term is uni- 
 formly employed here to mean the supporters of the 
 Baconian theory of the authorship of Shakespeare — is 
 based on the honest belief that the varied qualifications 
 necessary for the produ(?tion of the Plays were possessed by 
 only one man of the period in which they were written. 
 And having resolutely determined that the man could be 
 no other than Francis Bacon, they set themselves to work 
 wath the same resoluteness, to bend, twist, and contort all 
 fa(5ts and evidence to suit their theory. It is clearly 
 impossible to credit any of Shakespeare's contemporary 
 dramatists with the authorship, because their acknowledged 
 work is so immeasurably inferior to his, that any such 
 suggestion must appear ridiculous. It is safe to assume 
 that no writer who had produced poems or plays inferior 
 to those of Shakespeare could be attributed with the 
 authorship of these plays — Shakespeare can only be com- 
 pared with himself. And the only author who cannot 
 be compared, in this way, to his instant discomfiture, 
 is Bacon, whose published work is, in form and style 
 and essence utterly dissimilar from that of Shakespeare. 
 If a brilliant intellect, wide knowledge, and classical
 
 attainments were the only requisite qualifications for the 
 production of the greatest poetry of the world, then l)ac()n's 
 claim would stand on a sure foundation. He was inti- 
 mately acqiKiinti'd, no man better, with the philosophy of 
 the law ; he was an eminent classical scholar, a writer of 
 beautiful ICnglish, compact in expression, and rich in fancy. 
 He had an extensive acquaintance with literature and 
 history, he was a brilliant orator: but unto all these great 
 gifts was not added the gentle nature, the broad sympathy 
 and knowledge of humanity, the wealth of humour, the 
 de{)tli of passion, the creative power of poetr\-, which is so 
 strikingly manifested in the plays of William Shakespeare. 
 Our knowledge of the gentleness of Shakespeare's 
 nature, his ujMightncss, his honesty, his modesty, is dis- 
 closed in his poems, and corroborated by the evidence 
 of his contemporaries. His poetry breathes the gentleness 
 and the lovable nature with which his personal friends 
 credited him. \\'hat is there in an\- analysis of Bacon, 
 beyond his marvellous mental attainments, which single 
 him out as the probable, even possible, creator of King 
 Lear, l'>rutus, fuliet, Rosrdiiid, and Shylock? Coldness of 
 heart, antl ni'^anness of spirit, are faults of temperament 
 which cannot, by the greatest stretch of imagination be 
 associated with the author of Lear's desolating pathos 
 and Artliin's di'epK' pathetic appeal to Hubert. The 
 points in Bacon's career, which have been dealt with in 
 the foregoing pages, were selected of malice pyepcnsc : not 
 to detract from the greatness of the Lord Chancellor, as 
 a literar\' genius and jihilosopher, but as demonstrating 
 the impossibility of associating such a nature with the 
 authorship of the poetry attributed to him. l^y his deeds 
 we know him to have been a man whose nature was largely 
 made up of ingratitude, untruth, flattery, meanness, 
 cruelty, and ser\ilit\-. His treatment of Essex, of Cecil,
 
 27 
 
 and of Yelverton, can only be stigmatised as "peculiar!}' 
 cold-blooded and ungrateful;" his persecution of Peacham 
 convicts him of cruelty, bordering on savageness ; his 
 meanness is illustrated by the selfish unreasonableness 
 displayed by his attitude towards Trott, his long-suffering 
 creditor. His servile submission to Buckingham has 
 scarcely a parallel in English history. 
 
 Deep as was his mind, and profound his knowledge, 
 Bacon possessed no high standard of virtue or morality ; 
 he had no intuitive knowledge of mankind, and even as 
 regards his dealings with the people amongst whom his life 
 was passed, he evidenced a singular defectiveness as a reader 
 of character. The sweeping generalities of his observations 
 would be a poor stock-in-trade for a writer of melodrama. 
 In his books he exhibits the cunning, the casuistry and 
 unscrupulousness of an Elizabethan politician and time 
 server. His advice and his opinions betray a mean view 
 of life and its obligations. He had no sense of duty 
 towards his fellow men where duty clashed with his 
 personal interests. His methods are instinct: with craft, 
 artifice, and finesse — his advice to Essex, and to the King, 
 was, for this very reason, misleading and abortive. It is 
 incontrovertible that Bacon's writings and Shakespeare's 
 plays are crammed with all kinds of erudition, and Coleridge 
 has claimed for the latter that they form " an inexhaust- 
 ible mine of virgin wealth." But not a single argument 
 can be advanced to show that Shakespeare could not 
 easily have acquired such erudition and scholarship as the 
 writing of the plays entailed, while we have all the books 
 of Bacon to prove that the poetic genius, the colossal 
 personality, the deep, intense appreciation of nature, and 
 the unrivalled knowledge of man, which are the sovereign 
 mark of the Plays, were not possessed by Bacon. 
 
 In editing the existing biographies of Lord Bacon to
 
 28 
 
 bolster up their theory, the Baconians have only con- 
 formed to the laws of absolute necessity The cold, 
 unvarnished fads that have been set forth in the foregoing 
 pages are so contrary to the popular impression of what 
 constitutes a "concealed poet," that a more than ordinary 
 amount of colorisation was required to make them accept- 
 able in the author of The Toiipest. But although there is 
 reasonable excuse, and even some justification for this 
 rose-colorisation process as applied to Bacon — for great men 
 have almost invariably been given, by their biographers, 
 the greatest benefit that be derived from all doubts — the 
 champions of Bacon have far exceeded their prerogative in 
 their attempts to defame and belittle Shakespeare. So 
 much incorrect dedudlion, so much groundless suspicion, 
 and so much palpable inaccuracy have been put forward 
 by the IJaconians, that it is imperative the few known 
 fa(fts in the poet's life should be clearly stated. The 
 following sketch is frankly intended, not so much to 
 support the claim of Shakespeare as the author of the 
 PkiN's, as to refute the many misconceptions and untruths 
 by which his enemies have endeavoured to traduce him.
 
 Baconian Fallacies Respecting Shakespeare. 
 
 IT is only necessary to read the fa(5ts concerning Shake- 
 speare's ancestry and parentage to dissipate some of 
 the absurd suggestions as to the obscurity and ilHteracy of 
 the family. The poet came of good yeoman stock, and 
 his forebears to the fourth and fifth generation were fairly 
 substantial landowners. John Shakespeare, his father, 
 was at one period of his life a prosperous trader in 
 Stratford-on-Avon. He played a prominent part in 
 municipal affairs, and became successively Town Coun- 
 cillor, Alderman, one of the chamberlains of the borough, 
 and auditor of the municipal accounts. The assertion 
 that he could not write is a distinct perversion of fact, as 
 "there is evidence in the Stratford archives that he could 
 write with facility." 
 
 On the subject of the education of William Shakespeare 
 it is inevitable that there should be confli(5ting opinions. 
 Those who would deck out the memory of Bacon with 
 the literary robe, "the garment which," according to Mr. 
 R. M. Theobald, is "too big and costly " for the "small 
 and insignificant personality " of Shakespeare, will not 
 concede that he was better educated than his father, who 
 — the error does not lose for want of repetition — "signed
 
 30 
 
 his name by :i in:u"k." Supporters of tlie traditional theory, 
 however, reply, " we do not require evidence to show that 
 he was an educated man — we have his works, and the 
 evidence of hen Jonson, J(;hn Heminj^, and Henry Condi:ll 
 ti) prove it." Mr. Theobald argues that because there is 
 no positive proof that he had an}- sciiool education, it is 
 lo<^ical to conclude that he had none. Mr. A. P. Sinnett, 
 with the same reckless disregard for facts, says, " We 
 know that he (William Shakespeare) was the son of a 
 tradesman at Stratford, who could not read or write." And 
 in another place, "there is no rag of evidence that he 
 (William Shakespeare) ever went to school." Mr. W. H. 
 Mallock describes him, still without "a rag of evidence" to 
 support his assertion, as "anotoriousl}- ill-educated acftor, 
 who seems to have found some difficulty in signing his own 
 name." All evidence we have to guide us on this point 
 of Shakespeare's schooling is that he was entitled to free 
 tuition at the Grammar School at Stratford, which was 
 re-constituted on a medirtval foundation by Edward \T. 
 As the son of a prominent and prosperous townsman, he 
 would, for a moral certaint}', have been sent b\- his father 
 to school (Mr. Sidne}- Lee favours the probability that he 
 entered the school in 157 1), where he would receive the 
 ordinary instrudUon of the time in the Latin language and 
 literature. The fact that the French passages in Henry 
 r. are grammatically correct, but are not idiomatic, 
 makes it certain that the}- were written b}- a school-taught 
 linguist, and not b}- a man like Uacon, who, from his 
 lengthy residence on the Continent, must have been a 
 master of colloquial, idiomatic French. I^en Jonson, in 
 his profound, and somewhat self-conscious command of 
 classical knowledge, spoke slightingly of Shakespeare's 
 " small Latin and less Greek," which is all that his plays 
 would lead us to credit him with. His liberal use of
 
 31 
 
 translations, and his indebtedness to North's translations 
 of Plutarch's Lives, also substantiates this theory. 
 
 We cannot regard, as a great scholar, an author who 
 " gives Bohemia a coast line, makes Cleopatra play 
 billiards, mixes his Latin, and mulls his Greek." Mr. 
 Reginald Haines, who has made a study of Shakespeare 
 for the express purpose of testing his classical attainments, 
 denies emphatically that he shows any acquaintance with 
 Greek at all. His conclusions are worthy of considera- 
 tion : " Of course there are common allusions to Greek 
 history and mythology such as every poet would have at 
 command, but no reference at first hand to any Greek 
 writer. ... As far as I know there are but four real Greek 
 words to be found in Shakespeare's works — threne, caco- 
 demon, practic, and tlicoric. It is impossible to suppose 
 that Bacon could have veiled his classical knowledge so 
 successfully in so extensive a field for its display, or that 
 he could, for instance, have perpetrated such a travesty of 
 Homer as appears in Troilus and Cressida. With Latin, 
 the case is somewhat different. Shakespeare certainly 
 knew a little grammar-school Latin. He was familiar 
 with Ovid, and even quotes him in the original ; and he 
 certainly knew Mrgil, and Seneca, Caesar, and something 
 of Terence and Horace, and, as I myself believe, of 
 Juvenal. But he very rarely quotes Latin, unless it be 
 a proverb or some stock quotation from Mantuanus or a 
 tag from a Latin grammar. When he uses conversational 
 Latin, as in Love's Labour's Lost, the idiom is shaky. The 
 quotations from Horace, &c., in Titus Andronicus are 
 certainly not by Shakespeare. Nor are the Latinisms like 
 " palliament " in that play. Still he has a very large 
 vocabulary of Latin words such as renege, to gust (taste), 
 and we may fairly say that Shakespeare knew Latin as 
 well as many sixth form boys, but not as a scholar.'" Two
 
 3-2 
 
 j-ears ago a writer in the Quarterly Reviexc, who liad j^oiie 
 throu;j;h all the alleged examples of erudition and evidences 
 of wide and accurate classical scholarship in the Shake- 
 spearean plays, showed tiiein to be entiril\- iniaginarx'. 
 
 In 1582, before he was nineteen years of age, Shakespeare 
 married Anne Hathaway, and three years afterwards he 
 left Stratford for London. It was during this period, says 
 Mr. Theobald, that "the true Shakespeare was studying 
 diligently, and tilling his mind with those vast stores of 
 learning — classic, historic, legal, scientific — which bare such 
 splendid fruit in his after life." As Mr. Theobald's con- 
 tention is that Hacon was the " true Shakespeare," let us 
 consider for a moment how young Francis was employing 
 his abilities at this particular time. In 1579 he returned 
 to England after a two }-ears'' residence in France. He 
 had revealed an early disposition to extend his studies 
 beyond the ordinary limits of literature, and to read the 
 smallest print of the book of nature. He was already 
 importuning his uncle, Lord Burghley, for some advance- 
 ment which might enable him to dispense with the 
 monotonous routine of legal studies. Failing in this 
 endeavour, he was admitted as a barrister of Gray's Inn, 
 was elected to Parliament for Melcombe Regis, composed 
 his first philosophical work, which he named "with great 
 confidence, and a magnificent title," llic Greatest Birth of 
 Time, and another treatise entitled. Advice to Queen 
 lilizabetJi. In the case of the poet we have no record ; in 
 that of the fiitme Lord Chancellor we get the key of the 
 nature whi( h rendered the man as " incapable of writing 
 ILviilet as of making this i)lanet." 
 
 William ]-5eeston, a ijlh century actor, has left it on 
 record that, after leaving Stratford, Shakespeare was for 
 a time a country schoolmaster. In 151S6 he arrived in 
 Loiulon. His onl\- friend in the Metropolis was Richard
 
 ANNA LADY BACON, 
 MOTHER OF FRANCIS BACON. 
 
 (Fpom an original picture in the collection of Lord Verulam 
 at Gorhambury).
 
 33 
 
 Field, a fellow townsman, whom he sought out, and with 
 whom, as publisher, he was shortly to be associated. It 
 is uncertain when Shakespeare joined the Lord Chamber- 
 lain's company of actors, but documentary evidence proves 
 that he was a member of it in 1594, and that in 1603, 
 after the accession of James I., when they were called the 
 King's Players, he was one of its leaders. This company 
 included among its chief members Shakespeare's life-long 
 friends, Richard Burbage, John Heming, Henry Condell, 
 and Augustine Phillips, and it was under their auspices 
 that his plays first saw the light. 
 
 Before they opened at the Rose on the Bankside, 
 Southwark, in 1592, the Lord Chamberlain's company had 
 played at The Theatre in Shoreditch, and in 1599 they 
 opened at the Globe,which was afterwards the only theatre 
 with which Shakespeare was professionally associated. In 
 this year he acquired an important share in the profits of 
 the company, and his name appears first on the list of those 
 who took part in the original performance of Ben Jonson's 
 Every Man in His Hmnour. Mr. Theobald states that 
 Shakespeare had become a fairly prosperous theatre 
 manager in 1592, but as he did not secure his interest 
 in the business until seven years later, what probably is 
 meant is that Shakespeare was combining the duties of 
 stage manager, acting manager, and treasurer of the 
 theatre. It would appear that, recognising the fact that 
 the period in Shakespeare's life between 1588 and 1592 
 is a blank "which no research can fill up," Mr. Theobald 
 considers that he is justified in making good the deficiency 
 out of his own inner consciousness. 
 
 As occasion will require that Mr. Theobald's contri- 
 bution to the controversy shall presently be dealt with, it 
 may not be out of place here to explain the object, so far 
 as it is intelligible, of his Shakespeare Studies in Baconian 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 Light (Sampson Low, 1901). It would have been a fair 
 thinj^ to assume that the design of the author of this 
 vohmic of over 500 pages, was to prove the Baconian 
 authorship of Shakespeare, but as Mr. Theobald has since 
 written to the Press to protest against this interpretation 
 of his motives, we must take his words as he gives his 
 parallels "for what they are worth." In the opening 
 lines of his preface, Mr. Theobald declares that while the 
 greatest name in the world's literature is Shakespeare, 
 there is in the world's literature no greater name than 
 Bacon. Reallw it would seem that if his object is not 
 to prove that the two names stand for one and the same 
 individual, this statement is sheer nonsense. Before the 
 end of the preface is reached, he frankly avows his belief 
 that "when the time comes for a general recognition of 
 Bacon as the true Shakespeare, the poetry will still be 
 called " Shakespeare," and that no one will tind anything 
 compromising in such language, an)- more than we do 
 when we refer to George Eliot or George Sand, meaning 
 Miss Evans or Madame Dudevant." But if Mr. Theobald 
 was as versed in his study of the subje(5I: as Mrs. Gallup, 
 Dr. Owen, Mr. A. P. Sinnett, or even Bacon himself, he 
 would know that when this general recognition comes to 
 pass the author of the Plays will not be called Shake- 
 speare, or Ikicon, but bVancis " Tidder. or Tudor" — 
 otherwise Francis 1. of England — provided, of course, 
 that the bi-literallists can substantiate their cipher. r)nt 
 as Mr. Theobald does not design to prove the Baconian 
 theory, he does not, of course, require the evidence of the 
 great Chancellor, or he may, as a disparager of cipher 
 speculations, accept such evidence "for what it is worth."
 
 Mr. Theobald, a Baconian by Intuition. 
 
 MR. THEOBALD'S "preliminaries" are chiefly re- 
 markable for three diverse reasons. We learn there- 
 from that he is a Baconian by intuition — "the persuasion 
 took hold of his mind" as soon as Holme's Authorship of 
 Shaliespeare was placed in his hand — that he does not 
 admit the existence of genius, and that he is intolerant 
 of " clamours and asperities, denunciations and vitu- 
 perations," and the personal abuse employed by anti- 
 Baconians, whom he alludes to as Hooligans, and 
 compares with geese. So long as he keeps to the 
 trodden path of Baconian argument, he is only about 
 as perverse and incorrect as the rest of — to use his 
 own expression as applied to Shakespearean students — 
 "the clan." But he becomes amusing when he ventures 
 to present new arguments in support of Bacon's claim, 
 variously abusive in his references to Shakespeare, and 
 desperately dogmatic in his pronouncement of the faith 
 that is in him. 
 
 " Among the many shallow objections brought against 
 the Baconian theory," writes Mr, Theobald in his chapter 
 on Bacon's literary output, " one is founded on the 
 assumption that Bacon was a voluminous writer, and that 
 if we add to his avowed literar}' productions, the Shake-
 
 36 
 
 spearean dramas, he is loaded with such a stupendous 
 Hterary progeny as no author could possibl}' generate. 
 Moreover, he was so busy in state business as a lawyer, 
 judge, counsellor, member of Parliament, confidential 
 adviser totlu' King, and the responsible rulers in Statiand 
 Church, that he had very little spare time for authorship." 
 In order to demonstrate that this shallow objection, as 
 Mr. Theobald calls it, is a well-founded and irrefutable 
 statement of fact, we have onh' to refer to Lord Bacon's 
 life and to his letters. From 1579, when he returned from 
 France, until the end of his life he was distracted between 
 politics and science ; he put forward as his reason for 
 seeking office that he might thereby be able to help on 
 his philosophic projects which with him were paramount, 
 and the poignant regret of his last years was that he 
 had allowed himself to be diverted from philosophy into 
 politics. He found " no work so meritorious," so service- 
 able to mankind, "as the discovery and developnunt of 
 the arts and inventions that tend to civilise the life of 
 men." In his letter to Lord Burghley in 1592, he expressed 
 the hope that in the service of the State he could " bring 
 in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and 
 profitable inventions and discoveries — the best state of 
 that province" — the province embracing all nature which 
 he had made his own. But office was denied him, and he 
 returned to " business " and to his constant bewailings of 
 the fact that he had no time for literature. In 1607 he 
 settled the plan of the histatiratio Ma'^na ; which had 
 been foreshadowed in his Advanceiiioit of Lcann'n<^, 
 published two years previously. In 1609 he wrote to Toby 
 Mathew, " My Instauratio sleeps not," and again, in the 
 same year, " My great work goeth forward ; and after my 
 manner I alter ever when I add ; so that nothing is 
 finished till all is finished." From 1609 to 1620 Bacon
 
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 SIR NATHANIEL BACON. 
 
 From the original, in tiie collection of 
 The Right Honble the Earl of Verulam.
 
 spent such leisure as he could snatch from his other work 
 in revising the Novum Orgamun (the second part of his 
 Magna Instauratio), of which his chaplain, Rawley, says 
 that he had seen " at least twelve copies revised year 
 b}- year, one after another, and amended in the frame 
 thereof." In 1620, when the Novum Organnni was 
 published, the author sent it into the world uncompleted, 
 because he had be^^un to number his days, and " would 
 have it saved." This was the book he alluded to as " my 
 great work "■ — the work of his life, and he issued it as a 
 fragment because he had not been able to find time to 
 finish it. The belief that he had " ver}- little spare time 
 for authorship " is no shallow objection brought against 
 the Baconian theory — it is an irrefutable fact, proved not 
 only out of the month, but in the life, of Lord Bacon. 
 
 In spite, however, of all positive evidence to the 
 contrary, Mr. Theobald proceeds to bolster up his con- 
 tention that Bacon had time, and to spare, for literary 
 pursuits, by the following most amazing piece of logic. 
 He contends, in the first place, that "an estimate of the 
 entire literary output of Bacon, as a scientific and philo- 
 sophical writer, proves the amount to be really somewhat 
 small." He takes the fourteen volumes of Spedding's 
 Life and Works, subtracts the prefaces, notes, editorial 
 comments, and the biographical narrative, puts aside as of 
 " no literary significance whatever," all business letters, 
 speeches. State papers, etc., and thus reduces the total 
 amount of literature to Bacon's credit in the seven 
 volumes devoted to the Life to some 375 pages. " If we 
 calculate the whole amount contained in the fourteen 
 volumes, we shall find it may be reckoned at about six such 
 volumes, each containing 520 pages. On this method of 
 calculation and selection, all that Mr. Theobald can find, 
 " for his whole life, amounts to about 70 pages per annum,
 
 38 
 
 less th;in six pages a month.'" TuriiinL,' from IJacnn {n 
 Shakespeare, Mr. I'heobalil liiuls that hcic again is a man 
 whose literary output has hc-cn ,i;reatl\- exaggerated, for "if 
 the Shakespeare poetry was the only work of W'ilham 
 Shakespeare, certainl}- he was not a voluminous writer. 
 Thivty-oiic years may be taken as a moderate estimate of tlic 
 duration of his literary life, i.e., from 15CS5 //// his ddith in 
 IGIC). .\nd the result is 37 plays and the minor poems — 
 not two plays for each year." Mr. Theobald, it will be 
 seen, possesses the same weakness for statistics that Mr. 
 Dick evinced for King Charles' head; he drops in his 
 little estimate in season and out of season, and his 
 appraisements are as manifold as the}' are fallacious. The 
 period of Shakespeare's dramatic output was confined to 
 twenty years, from 1591 to 161 1 — if he had continued 
 writing plays till his death in 1616, Bacon's alleged 
 playwriting would not have ceased with such significant 
 suddenness in lOii. But what conclusion does Mr. 
 Theobald arrive at as the result of his estimates ? No less 
 than this, that if the whole of Shakespeare, and the whcjle 
 of Bacon's acknowledged works belong to the same author, 
 "the writer was not a voluminous author — }iot by any 
 means so voluminous as Miss Braddon or Sir Walter Scott." 
 That Mr. Theobald should not hesitate to class Miss 
 Braddou's novels with the pla}'S of Shakespeare, which 
 belong to the supreme rank of literature, or even with 
 Bacon's "royal mastery of language never surpassed, 
 never perhaps ecjualled," is the most astounding link in 
 this astounding chain of so-called evidence. But Mr. 
 Theobald advances it with the utmost confidence. "There- 
 fore," he sums up, "let this objection stand aside; it 
 vanishes into invisibility as soon as it is accurately tested" 
 — i.e., weighed n|), like groceries, by the pound. 
 
 Mr. Theobald is scarcely comj)limentary to Shakespeare's
 
 39 
 
 champions in this controversy, but his language is positively 
 libellous when he refers to Shakespeare himself. His 
 personality is "small and insignificant;" — heisa "shrunken, 
 sordid soul, fattening on beer, and coin, and finding 
 sweetness and content in the stercorarium of his Stratford 
 homestead " — a " feeble, and funny, and most ridiculous 
 mouse." Mr. Theobald almost argues himself not a 
 Baconian by his assertion that " no Baconian, so far as I 
 know, seeks to help his cause by personal abuse, or 
 intolerant and wrathful speech."
 
 Was S/iiikiSpi(iir tJic '' Ups/dr! Cnn,'?'' 
 
 ALL that we can allege with any certaint\- about 
 Shakespeare, between 1586 and 1602, is that he must 
 have obtained employment at one or other of the onl\- two 
 theatres existing in London at that time (The Theatre, 
 ;ind The Curtain) — perhaps, as Malone has recorded, in 
 the capacity of call-boy — that he became an actor, was 
 employed in polishing up the stock-plays presented by the 
 Coiiipan}-, and that Love's Labour s Lost was produced in 
 the Spring of 1591. Assuming that Shakespeare was the 
 author of this play — assuming, that is to say, that Ben 
 Jonson, John Heming, and Henry Condell were neither 
 arrant fools, nor wilful perjurers — it is evident that the 
 " insignificant," " shrunken, sordid soul."" " this ridiculous 
 mouse" had education, application, a natural taste for the 
 stage; and what is more — and more than Mr. Theobald 
 can comprehend — he had genius. Mr. Theobald does not 
 arrive at an}- such conclu-ion. Apart altogether from Mrs. 
 Gallup's cipher revelations, he is convinced by aiiotlur 
 "flash of intuition" that Wvn joiison was a fellow con- 
 spirator with Bacon in the richculous plot of foisting 
 Bacon's plays upon the world as the work of Shakespeare, 
 and that Heming and Condell were but the tools of the 
 disgraced Lord Chancellor.
 
 But if Shakespeare was not advancing towards pros- 
 perity by the feasible methods I have conjectured, how 
 can Mr. Theobald account for his ultimately emerging 
 from the " depths of poverty " into a position of com- 
 parative affluence? The explanation is simplicity itself: 
 " If a needy, and probably deserving vagabond" (pageii). — 
 \\'hy deserving? He was a "shrunken, sordid soul" on 
 page 7! — "dives into the abyss of London life, Vies perdu 
 for a few years, and then emerges as a tolerably wealthy 
 theatrical manager ; you know that he must have gained 
 some mastery of theatrical business." So far the inference 
 is legitimate and convincing; but how? Must he not have 
 disclosed exceptional ability as an actor or playwright, or — ? 
 listen to Mr. Theobald ! — "he must have made himself a 
 useful man in the green room, a skilful organiser of players 
 and stage effects — he must have found out how to govern 
 a troop of actors, reconciling their rival egotisms, and 
 utilising their special gifts ; how to cater for a capricious 
 public, and provide attractive entertainments. Anyhow, 
 he would have little time for other pursuits — if a student 
 at all, his studies would be very practical relating to 
 matters of present or passing interest. During this dark 
 period he has been carving his own fortune, filling his pockets, 
 not Jiis mind ; ivorking for the present, not for the future. 
 But it icas exactly then that the plays began to appear/' 
 
 Mr. Theobald's argument can only be described as a 
 reckless, illogical, and absurd distortion of possibilities, 
 and it is the more inconsequential since it proceeds to 
 defeat its primary object. In the first place it is supremely 
 ridiculous to assume that the paltry services of Shake- 
 speare in the green room and the carpenter's shop, secured 
 for him his pecuniary interest in the Globe Theatre, or the 
 respect and friendship of the leading dramatists of his 
 day, or even the enmity of jealous rivals in the craft. Yet
 
 42 
 
 Mr. Theobald attempts to substantiate his conclusions by 
 distorting the obvious meaning of Robt. Greene's reference 
 to Shakespeare in .1 (}roat's Worth oj Wit. Greene was 
 not an actor, but a dramatist : he was a man of dissolute 
 habits, a poet of rare charm, but a playwright of only 
 moderate ability and repute. He was a gentleman by 
 birth, and a scholar by training. He had the lowest 
 opinion of actors — he envied thcin their success, and 
 despised their avocation. In The Rctiini from Parnassus 
 he betrays his prejudice in the following lines, which are 
 put into the mouth of a poor and envious student : — 
 " England affords these glorious vagabonds, 
 That carried erst their fardels un their backs, 
 Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets, 
 Sweeping it in their glaring satin suits. 
 And pages to attend their masterships ; 
 With mouthing words that better wits had framed, 
 They purchase lands, and now esquires are made." 
 
 To the jaundiced mind of Robert Greene, the accumu- 
 lation of means by an acitor was a crime in itself, but that a 
 mere mummer should dare to compete with the scholar and 
 the poet in the composition of plays — more, that he should 
 write plays that exceeded in popularity those of the superior 
 person, the student — was a personal affront. On his death- 
 bed, in 1592, Greene found an outlet for his resentment in 
 writing an ill-natured farewell to lifi', in which he girded 
 bitterly at the new dramatist, whose early plays had already 
 brought him into i>ul)lic notice. He warns his three 
 brother playwrights — Marlowe, Nash, and Peele— against 
 the "upstart crow, the only Shake-scene in the country" 
 who "supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke 
 verse as the best of you." I low it is possible to interpret 
 these words to mean that the " upstart crow" was not an 
 author, " but only an actor who pretended to be an author 
 also," the oldest inhabitant of Colney Hatch and Mr.
 
 43 
 
 Theobald must decide between them. These anything but 
 "cryptic" words, as Mr. Theobald describes them, can 
 have but one interpretation, and that is the one their 
 author intended. They do not imply that Shakespeare, 
 the " upstart crow," is not the author of the plays imputed 
 to him, but that he considers his plays as good as those of 
 the older dramatists. His profession of authorship is 
 not questioned, but the quality of his work is savagely 
 challenged. Any other construdtion put upon the passage 
 is sheer nonsense. Mr. Theobald appeals to the "most 
 gentle and gentlemanly critics" to be patient and tolerant 
 with the Baconians — "men as sound in judgment and 
 as well equipped in learning as yourselves " — but it is 
 high time that this kind of wilful misrepresentation and 
 perversion of common sense should be condemned in 
 plain language. If Greene had believed that Shakespeare 
 was wearing feathers that did not rightfully belong to him, 
 if he were pretending to be what he really was not ; if, in 
 Mr. Theobald's confident explanation, he had no right to 
 profess himself an author at all, we may be quite certain 
 that Greene would have said so outright — he would not 
 have adopted a " cryptic " style, and left it for Mr. 
 Theobald to decipher his meaning. 
 
 Mr. Theobald's alternative theory that the word " Shake- 
 scene" does not refer to Shakespeare at all, is even more 
 preposterous. "In 1592 'Shakespeare' did not exist at 
 all, and only two or three of the plays which subsequently 
 appeared under this name could have been written." 
 But those two or three plays included, as far as we can 
 tell. Love's Labour's Lost, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and 
 The Comedy of Errors — plays of sufficient promise to 
 secure any author recognition as a poet and dramatist. 
 If Mr. Theobald entertains any serious doubts as to the 
 identification of Shakespeare in the "Shake-scene" of
 
 44 
 
 Greene, he may be advised to read the apolo^'v for this 
 attack which Henry Chettle, the pubHsher, prefixed to a 
 tract of Greene's in the same year. '• I ;im as sorry," 
 Chettle wrote, "as if the originall fault had been my 
 fault, because myselfe have seene his {i.e., Shakespeare's) 
 demeanour no lesse civill than he (is) exelent in the 
 (jualitie he professes, besides divers of worship have 
 reported his u[M-i,<,ditness of dealing, which arj^ues his 
 honesty and liis facetious grace in writing,' that aprooves 
 his art." 
 
 This apology put forth by Henry Chettle is an invalu- 
 able attestation to the character and literary standing of 
 Shakespeare — "his uprightness in dealing " is a matter of 
 public report, and '' his facetious grace in writing " is 
 fraiikh- acknowledged. At a pericxl when professional 
 rivalries ran strong, and no man's npiitaticm was above 
 attack, a publisher and fdlow author is seen regarding 
 Shakespeare not only as a man to whom an apology was 
 due, but to whom it appeared expedient to make one. In 
 treating of the personal history of Shakespeare, it must 
 be borne in mind that although the duly-attested facts 
 regarding him are regrettably few, the poet was widely 
 known to the leading literary and theatrical men of 
 his day. Ben Jonson, his brother actor and dramatist, 
 and Michael Drayton were his intimate friends. Condell 
 and Hcming remained in close relationship with Shake- 
 speare until his death, and Kirhard Burbage was his 
 partner in the business of tlu- Globe Theatre. In Pericles 
 and 'riiiio)i, Shakespeare worked in collaboration with 
 George W'ilkins, a dramatic writer of some repute, and 
 William Rowley, a professional reviser of plays. There 
 were besides, the members of the Globe Company, men 
 who lived thcii- lives beside him, rehearsed under him, 
 learned from him, interpreted him. Yet none of these
 
 St. MICHAEL'S CHURCH. 
 
 Extract fi'om the Will of Lord Bacon. 
 
 "jFov mv: Iniiial 5 Jcsivc it nun: be in St. /iDicbacFs CFnircl?, iicav St. Blbans : tbcrc 
 was nu: /IDotbcv Inincf, anJ it is tbc onlv Cbvistinn CInucb witbin tbc walls ot" Ol^ 
 IVnulain. 
 
 "dfor mv name an^ mcmovv 3- leave it to meii's cbavitablc spcccbes, an^ to foreiqn 
 nations, an^ tbe ncit aiies."
 
 45 
 
 men appear to have entertained the sHghtest doubt upon 
 the genuineness of his claims to authorship, while every 
 contemporaneous reference to him is couched in terms 
 of affection and admiration. The only possible explana- 
 tion of this remarkable fac5t is that Shakespeare and Bacon 
 were one and the same person — a theory that the most 
 hardened Baconian has not yet thought it advisable to 
 advance.
 
 H';//. S/iakcspcnir, Money Lender and Poif. 
 
 MR. THEOBALD is unfortunate in his selection of 
 the points he laiscs in Shakespeare's career in order 
 to belittle the character of the poet. He writes : " His 
 known occupations, apart from theatre business, were 
 money-lending, malt-dealing, transactions in house and 
 huul property." There is not the slightest evidence to show 
 (li;it Slhikespeare traded as a mone}'-lcn(lcr : his only 
 interest in malt-dealing was conhned to one transaction, 
 and his transactions in houses and lands were those of an}- 
 man who invests his savings in real estate. The phrase is, 
 as the most superficial Shakespeare student will recognise, 
 misleading in substance, and incorrect as a statement nl 
 fact. In another part of his determinedly one-sided book, 
 M 1 . Tliuobald dismisses, in ;i paragraph, the contention that 
 Shakespeare's poems are illnininati'd ami illustrated by 
 Shakespeare's life. Tiic obNious rejoiiuli r is liiat tlure 
 is nothing in the life of Shakespeare that makes it difticult 
 for us to accept him as the author of the Plays, whereas 
 the wholi life and character of Bticon makes his preten- 
 sions more than diltic nit, cmh impossible, of acceptance.
 
 47 
 
 In 1593, Venus and Adonis was published by Shake- 
 speare's friend and fellow townsman, Richard Field, and in 
 the following year Lncrece was issued at the sign of the 
 White Greyhound in St. Paul's Churchyard. Both poems 
 were dedicated to Shakespeare's first and only patron, 
 the Earl of Southampton, with whom Bacon is not 
 known to have sought any intimacy until 1603, when he 
 addressed to him a characteristic letter of conciliation. 
 (In 1621, when Bacon was accused of corruption, the Earl 
 of Southampton pointed out the insufficiency of the Lord 
 Chancellor's original confession, and it was largely the 
 result of his firm and unfriendly attitude that Bacon's 
 abject submission and acknowledgment of the justice of 
 the charges, was placed before the Lords). These poems 
 constituted Shakespeare's appeal to the reading public. 
 The response was instantaneous and enthusiastic. "Critics 
 vied with each other," writes Mr. Sidney Lee, "in the 
 exuberance of the eulogies, in which they proclaimed that 
 the fortunate author had gained a place in permanence on 
 the summit of Parnassus." Lncrece, Michael Drayton 
 declared, in his Legend of Matilda (1594), was " revived to 
 live another age." In 1595, William Clerke, in his 
 Polinianteia, gSiwe " all praise " to "Sweet Shakespeare" 
 for his Lucrecia. John Weever, in a sonnet addressed to 
 " honey-tongued " Shakespeare in his Epigrams (1595), 
 eulogised the two poems as an unmatchable achievement, 
 although he mentions the plays Romeo, and Richard, 
 and " more whose names I know not." Richard Carew, 
 at the same time, classed him with Marlowe, as deserving 
 the praises of an English Catullus. Printers and publishers 
 of the poems strained their resources to satisfy the 
 demands of eager purchasers. No fewer than seven 
 editions of Venus appeared between 1594 and 1602 ; an 
 eighth followed in 1617. Lncrece achieved a fifth edition
 
 4« 
 
 in the year of Shakespeare's death. The ( hieen quickly 
 showed liiin sprc-ial fa\-oiir, and until her death in i6oj, 
 Shakes[)eaic's pla}S were repeatedly aclrd in lur presence. 
 When the sonneteering vogue reaclnd l',n-land from 
 Ital\- and l^^rance, Shakespeare applied hini.scli to the 
 composition of sonnets, witii all the force of his poetic 
 genius. Of the hundred and lift\--foiir sonnets that 
 survive, the greater number were probabl}' composed in 
 1593 and 1594. Many are so burdened with conceits and 
 artiticial (juibbles that their litcrar}- \aluc is scarcely 
 discernible ; but the majorit}', on the other hand, attain 
 to supreme heights of poetic e.xpression, sweetness, and 
 imagery. They are of peculiar interest, as disclosing 
 the relationship that existed between Southampton and 
 Shakespeare. No less than twenty of the sonnets are 
 undisguisedly addressed to the patron of the poet's verse : 
 three of them are poetical transcriptions of the devotion 
 which he expressed to Southampton in his dedicatory 
 preface to Lucrece. The; references are direct and unmis- 
 takable. In 1603, when the accession of James I. opened 
 the gates of Southampton's prison, Bacon was meekly 
 writing to him : '' I would have been very glad to have 
 presented my humble service to your Lordship by my 
 attendance if I could have foreseen that it should not ha\'c 
 been unpleasing to you," and h\-pocriticall\- assuring him, 
 " How credible soever it may seem to you at first, }-et it is 
 as true as a thing God knowcth, that this great change 
 {i.e., the release of Southampton, and his favour with the 
 new monarch, whose good-will Hacon ardently desired), 
 hath wrought in mc no other change towards your Lord- 
 ship than this, that I ma)' safely be now that which I was 
 trul}' before." 'Ihe Larl of Southampton considered these 
 protestations rif friendship so incredible, as coming from 
 the man who IkuI consi''iied I'Lssex, IJacon's own friend

 
 49 
 
 and patron, to the headsman, and sent Southampton 
 himself to the Tower, that he appears to have made no 
 response to this letter, and twenty years afterwards he 
 materially contributed to the Lord Chancellor's discom- 
 fiture. One has only to compare this letter with the 
 sonnet with which Shakespeare saluted his patron on his 
 release from the Tower, to recognise the impossibility of 
 regarding the two compositions as the work of the same 
 man.
 
 Tlic " True SJiakespcarc'' 
 
 IV Bacon was the '* true Shakespeare," as Mr. Theobald 
 calls him, the ([iiestion naturally arises as to his motive 
 in concealing the authorship of the plays and the poems. 
 Baconians explain this extraordinar}- act of reticence on 
 the ground that dramatic authorship was held in low 
 esteem, and that the fact, if known, would have proved 
 an obstacle to his advancement at Court. This contention, 
 though fully borne out b\' Bacon's cipher writings, is 
 ridiculous in the extreme. In the first place, it was not 
 the profession of dramatic authorship, but the calling of 
 the actor that was held in low esteem. Furthermore, 
 poetry was not under the ban that attached to the stage, 
 and it cannot be denied th;it the acknowledged authorship 
 of Venus and Adonis, of Lucvccc, or of the Smuuis, would 
 have won for Dacon more favour al lCii;;abeth's Court 
 than he ever secured I)}- his philosophy. Poetry was held 
 in high esteem ; sonneteering was the vogue. Buckingham, 
 in the next reign, wrote a play, The Rclieaysal, and Essex 
 had composed a masque. The publication of The Faerie 
 Qiieenc, in 1589, secured for Edmund Spenser an intro- 
 duction to the Oueen, who made him her poet laureate in 
 the same year. \\\\y should Bacon have persisted in 
 devoting himself to a branch of literature which appears
 
 to have advanced his interests so Httle ? Elizabeth was 
 never impressed by his genius ; she acknowledged his 
 great wit and learning, but accounted him " not deep." 
 James criticised his philosophy with lofty captiousness, 
 and compared his Novum Organmn to " the peace of God, 
 which passeth all understanding." It would be neither 
 discreditable to his pride as a poet, nor contrary to the 
 nature of the man, to believe that if he could safely 
 have claimed the authorship of Lncrece and A Midsiinuner 
 Nighfs Dream, he would not have hesitated for an hour in 
 so doing. Venus and Adonis won for Shakespeare the 
 favour of Elizabeth, while, under the sovereignty of her 
 successor, Shakespeare's company gave between forty and 
 fifty performances at Court during the first five years of 
 his reign. Is it not rather absurd to believe that Bacon 
 should have remained quiescent while his unavowed work 
 was being acclaimed as "immortal," and the works 
 published under his own name were either neglected, or 
 treated to a contemptuous mot by the very person whose 
 admiration he was feverishly striving to attract ? 
 
 Yet the Baconians find no difficulty in accepting this 
 explanation of secrecy — Mr. A. P. Sinnett regards the 
 motive as perfectly intelligible. Bacon, he contends, w^as 
 not writing his plays for fame, but for the money it brought 
 him. Mr. Theobald contends that the plays could not 
 have been written by Shakespeare because he was too 
 busily employed in "carving his own fortune " . . . . 
 " filling his pockets "... . "working for the present, 
 not for the future," to devote the necessary leisure to 
 literary pursuits. Bacon himself, according to the bi- 
 literal cipher discoveries of Mrs. Gallup, declares that so 
 far from receiving remuneration for his plays, he paid " a 
 sufficient reward in gold " to Shakespeare for the use of 
 his name. " He was left quite without resources," Mr.
 
 5-^ 
 
 Sinnett explains, " and he took up dramatic writing:; for 
 the sake of the nionu}' it earned him."" IJefore we are won 
 o\'er b\- this fallacious cxplanalioii, we woiikl impiirc Imw 
 it was that Hacoii, who was ictt willunil resources in 1577, 
 did not produce his first play until 1591. and then paid for 
 the luxury of concealing his indiscretion. .Mr. Sinuclt"s 
 next sentence is instructive as a specimen of Baconirm 
 reasoning. "After Ikicon obtained an office of prolil at 
 forty-six, no more Shakespeare plays appeared, though the 
 reputed author lived for ten more years in dignified leisure 
 at Stratford." It may, of course, be regarded as a 
 "shall(»w objection" to raise, but Hacon was fift}'-one 
 years of age when Shakespeare retired to Stratford. 
 Moreover, Bacon obtained no office of profit in iGii. He 
 was made Solicitor-General, and became a rich man, in 
 1607, but until his appointment to the Attorney-General- 
 ship in 1613 he was continually suing for promotion and 
 applying for a better paid office. It is, indeed, significant 
 that Bacon was silent as a pla}wright from the time of 
 Shakespeare's retirement. When he was Chancellor, and 
 enjoyed a yearly income equal to between £"60,000 and 
 £70,000 of our money, he continued to compose his 
 scientific works, and he was still actively engaged in the 
 task between 1G21 and 1626 when he was again reduced 
 to comparative penury, and the more remunerative employ- 
 ment of play-writing would have relieved his financial 
 position without detriment to Iiis political prospects. 
 The source from whence he could ha\e augmented his 
 inadequate income was neglected while he employed 
 himself in writing a Digest of the Laws of England, The 
 History of Henry I'll., Sylvn Sylvantin, Angmentis Scienli- 
 ariini, The Dialogue of the Holy War, some additional 
 Essays, and the translation of "certain Psalms into English 
 verse." Bacon, according to Baconians, produced his
 
 ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX. 
 O.B. 1601. 
 
 From the original of Hilliard, in the collection of 
 The Right Honble the Earl of Verulam.
 
 53 
 
 plays during the busiest period of his pohtical career, 
 and in the days of his leisure and impecuniosity — " when 
 Shakespeare was not present to shield him from the 
 disgrace of possessing poetic and dramatic genius" — he 
 produced his versification of the Psalms. 
 
 Mr. Sinnett, in common with Mr. Theobald and, indeed, 
 all other upholders of the Baconian theory, has a dis- 
 tinctly original way of dealing with matters of fact. Mr. 
 Theobald invents his facts to suit his argument ; Mr. 
 Sinnett ignores all facts that prove intractable. Thus 
 Mr. Sinnett in The National Review : " All through the 
 plays there is no allusion to Stratford." And again : 
 " While Bacon seems to have gone North to curr}' favour 
 with James on his accession, Macbeth was written just after 
 that event. Certainly there is no reason to suppose that 
 Shakespeare ever went to Scotland." What nonsense 
 is all this ! Although personalities are rare in the Plays, 
 there are a number of literal references to Stratford, and 
 Shakespeare's native county, in The Taming of the Shrew ; 
 and local allusions are also to be found in the second part 
 of Henry IW and The Merry Wives of Windsor. In his 
 Life of William Shakespeare, Mr. Lee enumerates several 
 instances in point. " Barton Heath," we read is, " Barton- 
 on-the-Heath, the home of Shakespeare's aunt, Edmund 
 Lambert's wife, and of her sons. The tinker, in The Taming 
 of the Shrew, confesses that he has run up a score with 
 Marian Racket, the fat ale wife of Wincot. The references 
 to Wincot and the Rackets are singularly precise. The 
 name of the maid of the inn is given as Cicely Racket, 
 and the ale-house is described in the stage direction as 
 'on a heath.'" Again, in Henry I]\, the local reference 
 to William \'isor, of Woncot, and the allusions to the 
 region of the Cotswold Rills, and the peculiar Cotswold 
 custom of sowing " red lammas " wheat at an unusually
 
 54 
 
 early season of the agricultural year, are unmistakable. 
 Mr. Sinnett's assumptions that Bacon went to Scotland 
 and that Shakespeare did not, are entirely arbitrary. In 
 point of fact we may be (juite sure that IJacon did not 
 '^o to Scotland, and we have no reason to believe that 
 Shakespeare was ever in \'enice, or Sardis, or " a wood 
 near Athens." The author of the Letters froui Hell was 
 not under suspicion because he could not claim to have 
 been ferried across the Styx to get his local colour. 
 
 If we are to accept the Baconian opinion of Shakespeare 
 it is difticult to understand how Bacon came to allow him 
 to make a successful application on behalf of his father, 
 John Shakespeare, to the College of Heralds for a grant 
 of arms in 1597. Bacon was an aristocrat and a firm 
 believer in his order. If he knew Shakespeare to be a 
 notoriously ill-educated a(?tor, a man little better than a 
 vagabond, an impostor, a villain with "some humour," 
 whom Bacon employed as the original model for Sir John 
 Falstaffe and Sir Toe-be — as Mr. Harold Bayley states — 
 why did he not prevent his intimate friend, the Earl of 
 Essex, the Earl of Southampton, and William Camden, 
 the great scholar and antiquary, from being hoaxed by 
 this impudent rogue, and prevent the Shakespeares from 
 obtaining the desired grant 'f 'I'hese three friends of 
 Shakespeare certainly facilitated the proceedings.
 
 Mr. Theobald's Parallels and Mr. Baylcy's 
 Conclusions. 
 
 WHEN Mr. Theobald gets away from his biographical 
 pabulum and plunges into the literary arguments 
 for Bacon's authorship of the plays, he has little that is 
 original to reveal, but much that is new in the way of 
 parallels and coincidences. In the first place, he takes it for 
 granted that Shakespeare could not, by any possibility, have 
 written the plays. He does not prove it, but — cela va sajis 
 dire. Then he proceeds, to the extent of some four hundred 
 pages of matter, to demonstrate, by reference to the signifi- 
 cant Baconian characteristics in the plays, and the still 
 more significant parallels between the poetry of Shake- 
 speare and the philosophy of Bacon, that Bacon must be 
 the author of both. Bacon, for instance, appears to have 
 had a " very curious habit " of striking himself on the 
 breast when he wished to emphasise an argument. Brutus, 
 Ophelia, Clarence's little boy, and Claudio, are all repre- 
 sented as using a similar gesture. Some such lamentations 
 as Bacon may be supposed to have uttered after his 
 fall, are to be found in King Lcav, and Lucrece's self- 
 condemnation of herself to death for an offence of which 
 she is entirely innocent is, of course, inspired by Bacon's 
 behaviour in making a full and humble submission to the
 
 Lords in respect of offences which he never committed. 
 
 The mere fact that Liicrecc was published in 1594. and that 
 
 Bacon's downlall did not take place until i'i_'i, is a point 
 
 of no moment — we can readily agree with Mr. Theobald 
 
 that "there is a ver3'curious reflection of Bacon's character 
 
 and temperament in the poem of Lucvccc.'' Lucrece 
 
 absolves herself in thr reflection, 
 
 " The poison'd fountain clears itself again, 
 And why not I from this compelled stain ?' 
 
 Everybody knows that Bacon, " for some time after his 
 condemnation, expected to resume his ordinary fundtions 
 as counsellor to Parliament, and ad\iser to the King" — 
 ergo Lucrece was Bacon's prototype — in petticoats. More- 
 over, in the Essays, Bacon affixes to a meditative reflection 
 in one of his philosophical propositions the phrase, " I 
 cannot tell." The same phrase, scarcely remarkable in 
 itself, occurs several times in the Plays. Mr. Theobald 
 devotes a whole chapter of his book to emphasising this 
 remarkable coincidence. He advances pages of historical 
 parallels, and he remarks, almost enthusiastically, that 
 both Shakespeare and Bacon have dilated with pitiless 
 logic on " the uselessness of hope." 
 
 But Mr. Theobald is most amusing when he compares 
 Bacon's Jissay 0/ Love with the treatment of L(n e in 
 Shakespeare. We know Bacon's opinion of love, as ex- 
 pressed in the Essay, and we find it ditiii iilt to reconcile 
 it with the rhapsodies that we lind in the Plays ; we 
 remember Romeo and Juliet, and the cxcjuisite coinnuiit, 
 " Imagine Juliet as ' the party, loved " — or, rather, we 
 should do so, if Mr. Theobald was not at our elbow to 
 explain the apparent contradiction in thought and term. 
 Love, it would appear, has two sides. There is the 
 "bosom" side, and tht; business side. Here we ha\e a 
 full and com incing explanation of the difference between
 
 ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER. 
 
 Fponi an original painting in the possession of 
 
 The IVlarquis of Salisbury.
 
 57 
 
 the views of love as expressed in the Essay, and the 
 Shakespearean appHcation of the sentiment as displayed in 
 his dramas. In the Plays, Bacon regarded love from the 
 "bosom" point of view, while in the Essay, the "very 
 brief, very aphoristic, very concentrated, never discoursive 
 or rhetorical, but severely reflective and pra(5tical essay," 
 he was dealing with Juliet as a " business " detail — a 
 contracting party, in short — "the party loved." Nothing 
 could be more convincing ! It would almost lead us to 
 entertain a greater admiration for Bacon than Spedding 
 could hope for. He has not only voiced two such entirely 
 contradictory views of love as we find in the Essay of 
 Bacon and the plays of Shakespeare, but he has, with the 
 aid of Mr. Theobald, showed that, " curiously enough," the 
 two conflicting expressions are " significantly identical." 
 There is surely no need to proceed further. Mr. Theobald 
 has proved his contention, and we must perforce accept 
 his conclusions that Shakespeare, the arch-impostor, the 
 champion literary fraud of all time, was " either entirely 
 uneducated, or very imperfe(5tly educated ; that his Latin 
 was small, his Greek less, and his pure English least of 
 all; that such hand-writing as his could never have 
 figured on a University examination paper — this is the 
 opinion, it will be observed, of an M.A., and a former 
 editor of The Bacon Journal — that his whole life was too 
 full of business, too much devoted to money to leave any 
 extensive opportunities for study, or for large, broad, 
 world-covering experience." 
 
 But if we make it a sine qua non that the writer of the 
 Plays was a man of leisure not devoted to mammon, "with 
 ample opportunity for study, and of a broad-world covering 
 experience " (whatever that may precisely mean), it is 
 proof positive that he was not the man whom we know 
 as Francis Bacon. Bacon's whole life was devoted to
 
 58 
 
 business, and to the getting of money; he had no leisure, 
 as he is for ever telhng us, for his Hfe's work, and his 
 experience of the world of men was so superficial and 
 misleading that it sent Essex to the block, brought the 
 King to loggerheads with his Parliament, and encompassed 
 the utter downfall and disgrace of the cunning Chancellor. 
 We need not be flustered by Mr. Theobald's hysterical 
 opinion that Shakespeare's writing was "so execrably 
 bad, so unmistakabl}' rustic and plebean, that one may 
 reasonably doubt whether his penmanship extended be}ond 
 the capacity of signing his name to a business document," 
 because we have Spedding's statement that Shakespeare's 
 signature is simply characteristic of the caligraphy of the 
 time, and we know b\- comparison that it is in advance, 
 both in style and legibility, of that of Sir Nicholas Bacon, 
 the father of the great Pretender. 
 
 Mr. Harold Hayley, the author of Tlic Triv^cdy of Sir 
 Francis Bacon, is, in the same degree, disdainful of facts. 
 He declares that he will quote verbatim from Mr. Sidney 
 Lee's well-known Life of Shakespeare which would be most 
 commendable in him if he did it — but he doesn't. Rather 
 he quotes the opinion of Richard Grant White, who says 
 that " Shakespeare was the son of a Warwickshire 
 peasant," who "signed his name with a mark,"' and that 
 the Poet wa«; "apprenticed to a butcher.'' It is but waste 
 of space to repeat that such assertions are palpably false. It 
 may be true, as Mr. Bayley states, that Stratford, in 1595, 
 was in an unsanitary condition, and that the Metropolitan 
 theatres were the resort of undesirable persons — even that 
 Shakespeare entered the play-house as a servitor, but all 
 this proves nothing. It is also true that, up to the time that 
 Shakespeare's plays began to be produced, "there had been 
 nothing in his career that would cause us to suppose he was 
 a sublime genius," but until Homer, or Michael Angelo,or
 
 59 
 
 Rudyard Kipling began to produce their masterpieces, we 
 knew of nothing in them to make us accept them as heaven- 
 born geniuses. Mr. Bayley assumes that Shakespeare left 
 Stratford-upon-x\von in 1585 with "]'enns and Adonis, 
 Lucrece, and, perhaps, Hamlet, in his pocket." The reason 
 for his assumption is not vouchsafed to us. True, our 
 dramatist left Stratford in 1585, but Venus was not pub- 
 lished until 1593, and it was not until 1602 that Hamlet 
 was produced. The mere fact that "in the sixteenth 
 century the provincial dialects were so marked that the 
 county gentry . . . had difficulty in making themselves 
 understood, except to their provincial neighbours," proves 
 that both these works were composed after Shakespeare 
 had been for some time a resident in London, and indeed 
 it is ridiculous to suppose that it took him eight years to 
 find a publisher for Ven}is and Adonis. Donnelly deciphered 
 the Bishop of Worcester's opinion that Shakespeare was 
 "a butcher's rude and vulgar apprentice," who "in our 
 opinion was not likely to have writ them (the Plays)." 
 " In our opinion " is scarcely evidence. Mr. Bayley's 
 contemptuous reference to Shakespeare's handwriting as 
 " five strange scrawls," is combated by Spedding's 
 authoritative dictum, and his immediately succeeding 
 conclusion that the classical allusions and references in 
 the Plays prove the author to have been " a cultured 
 aristocrat," robs his entire argument of sapiency or merit. 
 Mr. Harold Bayley's The Tragedy of Francis Bacon, is, 
 in my opinion, an inconsequential contribution to the 
 controversy. In the chapter on Papermarks, his contention 
 that every fresh device necessitates a new mould (p. 38) is 
 correct, but his deductions are senseless ; the fact being 
 that the paper is contributed from very many — mostly 
 foreign — mills. Take one of Caxton's books — say, The 
 Golden Legend — and }ou will find 50 different water-marks
 
 6o 
 
 in one volume; if ;ill the copies could be examined, 
 probably double or treble tiie number would be revealed. 
 One hasn't the patience to follow Mr. Hayley's "reasoning": 
 he believes one of tht' [)aper-niarks (No. 55) to be Rosi- 
 crucian — it is the I)i\ inc monogram, and traceable to the 
 first century. No. i,(, the " foors-caj)," gives the name to 
 a size of paper still extant — so of the \ase, or " pott."' 
 The symbols are allusive, heraldic, or "canting," mostl\- 
 emblematic, or in rebus form. That is all. What more 
 natural for the paper-maker Lilc than to take the Fleur-de- 
 lys for his trade symbol ? With respect to printers' head- 
 lines, tail-pieces, etc., they were (and are) simply fancy 
 types used for decorative purposes. The oak, and its fruit 
 the acorn — the rose, Tudor or otherwise, the lily, typifying 
 our conquest of France, only erased from the Royal Arms 
 temp. George III., would all, from a national standp(unt, 
 become the commonest form of ornament, and each, in its 
 turn, lend itself to the fancy of the designer, who, Mr. 
 Bayley would have us think, were all under the direction 
 of Francis Bacon, who \vo\e a wonderful story by this 
 puerile means. As for the printers' "hieroglyphics," as 
 Mr. F)ayley calls them, the\- have been used almost from 
 the invention of the art to the present time. Amongst 
 publishers, too, they are C(;mmon. The printer of The 
 Tragedy of Sir Francis Bacon eniplo}s one : a lion supp< uting 
 the trade symbol of Aldus. I ha\-e not consulted Mr. 
 Whittingham, but (if he knows anything at all about it) 
 he would probabl}' say the device signifies that he is the 
 English successor of the Venetian printer I 
 
 So far as Shakespeare's handwriting is concerned, I do 
 not propose at the present moment to go beyond the 
 f)pinion of Spedding. It would profit nothing to enter 
 into a discussion on the subject until one has something 
 tangible in the way of evidence to offer. Shakespeare's
 
 ^K
 
 6i 
 
 Will, for instance, has always been regarded as a witness 
 for the I)aconian case, but if the result of the investi- 
 gations I am prosecuting confirm my suspicions, it will 
 become a piece of important evidence for Shakespeare. 
 The hona-fides of this Will have always appeared to be 
 more than questionable, and I am hopeful of being in a 
 position shortly to connect it with the great fraud which I 
 am satisfied has been perpetrated by Bacon.
 
 The lyi-LiUnil Cipher. 
 
 np H IC most interesting^ feature of the Bacon-Shakespeare 
 -■- controversy at the present moment is the alleged dis- 
 covery by Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup, of Detroit, U.S. A., of 
 a bi-literal cipher by liacoii, which appears in no fewer than 
 forty-tive books, published between 1591 and 162S. Mrs. 
 Gallup was assisting Dr. Or\ille \\\ Owen (also of Detroit, 
 U.S.A.), in the preparation of the later books of his Sir 
 Francis Bacon's Cipher Story, ami in the stud}' of the 
 "great word cipher," discovered by Dr. Owen, when she 
 became convinced that the \ery full explanation found in 
 De Augmentis Scientiarum of tlie bi-literal method of 
 cipher-writing, was something more than a mere treatise 
 on the subject. She applied the rules gi\tn to the 
 pe-culiarly italicised words, and "letters in two forms," as 
 they appear in the photographic facsimile of the 1623 folio 
 edition of the Shakespeare plays. The surprising dis- 
 closures that resulted from the e.xperiment, sent her to the 
 original editions of Bacon's known works, and from those 
 to all the authors whose books Bacon claimed as his own. 
 The bi-literal cipher, according to Mrs. Gallup, held true in 
 every insatnce, and she is fully entitled to have her 
 discovery thoroughly investigated before it is condemned
 
 63 
 
 as a " pure invention." Mrs. Gallup solemnly declares her 
 translation to be "absolutely veracious," and until it is 
 authoritatively declared that the bi-literal cipher does not 
 exist in the works in which she professes to have traced it, 
 I am not prepared to question her bond fides. Her conclu- 
 sions are absurd, but her premises may be proved to be 
 impregnable. She is convinced of the soundness of her 
 discoveries, and she forthwith leaps to the conclusion that 
 "the proofs are overwhelming and irresistible, that Bacon 
 was the author of the delightful lines attributed to Spenser 
 — the fantastic conceits of Peele and Greene — the historical 
 romances of Marlowe — the immortal plays and poems put 
 forth in Shakespeare's name — as well as the Anatomy of 
 Melancholy of Burton." Mrs. Gallup shows scant appre- 
 ciation of the illimitable genius she claims for Bacon in 
 this sentence. 
 
 The inaccurately described bi-literal cipher, which 
 Bacon, who claims to have invented it, explained with 
 great elaboration in his De Angnientis Scientiarnni, has 
 nothing whatever to do with the composition or the 
 wording of the works in which it is said to exist. It 
 depends not on the author, but on the printer. It is 
 altogether a matter of typography. One condition alone 
 is necessary — control over the printing, so as to ensure its 
 being done from specially marked manuscripts, or altered 
 in proof. It shall, as Bacon says, be performed thus : — 
 " First let all the letters of the alphabet, by transposition, 
 be resolved into two letters only— hence bi-literal — for the 
 transposition of two letters by five placings will be sufficient 
 for 32 differences, much more than 24, which is the number 
 of the alphabet. The example of such an alphabet is on 
 this wise : —
 
 64 
 
 A 
 
 a a a a a 
 
 r, 
 
 a a a a b 
 
 c 
 
 a a a h a 
 
 D 
 
 a a a b b 
 
 E 
 
 a a b a a 
 
 F 
 
 a a b a b 
 
 r, 
 
 a a b 1) a 
 
 H 
 
 a a b b b 
 
 T or J 
 
 J 
 
 
 K 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 N 
 
 
 () 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 (.) 
 
 
 a a a 
 
 a a 1 
 a b ; 
 a b 1 
 b a : 
 b a 1 
 b b : 
 b b 
 
 S 
 T 
 or \" 
 W 
 
 baa 
 
 b a a ; 
 
 b a a 1 
 
 b a a 1 
 
 b a b ; 
 
 X b a b : 
 
 V b a b 1 
 
 / b a b 1 
 
 For the purpose of introducing this alphabet into the book 
 which is to contain the secret message, certain Utters are 
 taken to stand for " a's" and others for " b's." In l^acon's 
 iUiislratiiMi. he cinplo_\-cd two different founts of itahc type, 
 using the letters of fount " a" to stand for " a's," and the 
 letters of fount " b" to stand for "b's." Bacon takes the 
 word "fuge" to exhibit the application of tlu' alphabet, 
 thus : — 
 
 FUGE. 
 aabab baabb aabba aabaa 
 
 The word is enfolded, as an illustration, in the sentence 
 Manerc te volo donee venero, as follows : — 
 
 Manere te volo donec venero. 
 
 aabab 
 F. 
 
 b a a b b I a a 1) b a 
 U. I G. 
 
 a a b a a 
 E. 
 
 A more ample e.\am|ile of the cipher is gi\en on the 
 page which is here reproduced bom Mrs. Gallup's book. 
 The work in which the " interiour" letter isenfrjlded is the 
 first Epistle of Cicero, and the cipher letter it contains is 
 as follows: 
 
 All is lost. .Mimlanis is killed The soldiers want food. 
 We can neither get hence nor stay longer here.
 
 Cicero's First Epistle. 
 
 Jn all dnty or rather piety towards 
 
 a a aaii\abad a\ ct b a b a\a h a a a\i> a aaS\aba3 
 A I L \ L \ I \ S \ L 
 
 you, I satisfy everybody except myself. 
 
 a \ a i b a b\i a a a b \ b a a b a\a b a b b \ a b a a a \ a b b a a \ a 
 I O \ S \ T \ Af \ / \ N \ 
 
 OAyself y never satisfy. For so great are 
 
 a a b b\a a a a a \b a a a a\ b a a b b I b a a ab\aiaaa\baa 
 
 d\a\r\u\ S I / \ S 
 
 the services which you have rendered me, 
 
 a b\a baablabaa a \ a b a b a\a b a b a\a abaa\aaab b \ b 
 \ K \ I \ L \ L \ E \ D \ 
 
 that , seeing you did not rest in your en- 
 
 a a b a I a a b b b\a a b a' a\b a aab\abba b \a b a b a \ a a 
 T \ H \ E \ S \ O \ L \ 
 
 deavours on my behalf till the thing was 
 
 abb\abaaa\aa b a a\b a a a a \ b a a a b\b a b a a\a a a a n\ 
 D \ I \ E \ R \ S \ W \ A I 
 
 done, J feel as if life had lost all its sweet- 
 
 abba a \ b a a b a\a a b a b\a b bab\nbba b\a a abb\babaa I 
 // \T\F\o\o\D\iy\ 
 
 ness, because y cannot do as much in this 
 
 a a b a a\a a a b a \a a a a a \ a b b a a \ a b b a a\a a b a a\a b 
 £ \ C \ A Ia^I N 1^1 
 
 cause of yours. The occasions are these: 
 
 a a a \ b a a b a \ a a b b b\ a a iaa\baaaa\ii abb a\a a h a 
 
 I \ T \ H \ E \ R \ G \ E 
 
 z/lmmoniiis, the king' s ambassador, open- 
 
 a \ b a a b a\ a a bbb\aaba a \ a. b b a a\a a a b a \ a a b a 
 I T \ H \ E \ N \ C \ E 
 
 ly besieges us with money. The business 
 
 a\a b b a a\a b b a. b \b a a a a \ h a a a b I b a a, ba\aaaaci\h 
 \ N \ O \ R \ ^1 T 1^1 
 
 is carried on through the same creditor s 
 
 a b b a\a b a b a \ a b b a b \a b b a, a\a a- b b a \ a a.baa\baaaa\ 
 Y \ L \ O \ N \ O \ E \ R \ 
 
 who were employed in it when you were 
 
 a a b b b\a a b a a\b a a a a \ a a b a a\ a a a a a a a a a a 
 H \ E \ R \ E I 
 
 here &• c. 
 
 (Note )— This Translation from Spedding, Cllis & Heath Ed.
 
 66 
 
 Bacon had a three-fold motive for puttinj:;^ his cipher 
 into cvcr\- book of merit that \vaspublisln'd in his day. In 
 the first place, it allowed him to claim the authorship of 
 the book. In the second, in Mrs. (iallii[)"s own words, " it 
 was the means of conveying to a future time the truth 
 which was being concealed from the worUl ccjucerniiig 
 himself — his right to be King of Mnglaiul --secrets of State 
 regarding Uueen Elizabeth — -his mother -and other [)rumi- 
 nent characters of that day — the correction of l'2nglish 
 historvin important particulars, the exposure of the wrongs 
 that had been put upon liim;" and, equally important, 
 thirdly, of publishing his version of the wrongs he had 
 done to others, and to Essex in particular. Concerning the 
 amazing diversity of style displayed in the many works, he 
 says in his cipher : "I varied my stile to suit men, since no 
 two shew the same taste and like imagination. . . ." 
 "When I have assum'd men's names, th' next step is to 
 create for each a stile naturall to the man that yet should 
 let my owne bee scene, as a thrid cjf warpe in my entire 
 fabricke." His explanation of the diversity of merit that 
 is displayed in the works of Robert Greene and of Shakes- 
 peare, is not less interesting and instructive. " It shall bee 
 noted in truth that some (plays) greatly exceede their 
 fellowes in worth, and it is easily explained. Th' theame 
 varied, yet was aiway^'s ;i subject well selected to convey 
 the secret message. Also the plays being given out as 
 tho'gh written by the actor, to whom each h;id bin 
 consign'd, turne one's genius suddaiuHe many times to 
 suit tir nt'W man." 
 
 " In this actour that wee now emploie (the cipher 
 appears in the 1611 quarto edition of Hamlet), is a wittie 
 veyne different from any formerly employ'd. [Bacon 
 appears to have forgotten that he employed the ' masque ' 
 of Shakespeare in the quarto editions of A' /c/hr/'J //. (159'S),
 
 6; 
 
 Midsummer Nighfs Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The 
 Merchant of Venice (1600), and of King Lear, Henry V. 
 (1608), and Pericles (i6og)] . In truth it suiteth well with a 
 native spirrit, humourous and grave by turnes in ourself. 
 Therefore, when wee create a part that hath him in minde, 
 th' play is correspondingly better therefor." 
 
 In the cipher story which is found by Mrs. Gallup in 
 Titus Andronicus, Bacon again recurs to the superior 
 merit of the plays put forth in Shakespeare's name, and he 
 extols the merits of Shakespeare as an interpreter of these 
 dramas : — 
 
 " We can win bayes, lavvrellgyrlo'ds and renowne, and 
 we can raise a shining monumente which shale not suffer 
 the hardly wonne, supremest, crowning glory to fade. 
 Nere shal the lofty and wide-reaching honor that such 
 workes as these bro't us bee lost whilst there may even a 
 work bee found to afforde opportunity to actors — who may 
 play those powerful parts which are now soe greeted with 
 great acclayme — to winne such names and honours as Wil 
 Shakespear, o' The Glob' so well did win, acting our dramas. 
 
 "That honour must to earth's final morn yet follow 
 him, but al fame won from th' authorshippe (supposed) of 
 our plays must in good time — after our owne worke, 
 putting away its vayling disguises, standeth forth as you 
 (the decipherer) only know it — bee yeelded to us." 
 
 If Mr. Mallock reposes any confidence in his Bacon — 
 according to Mrs. Gallup — he must at once withdraw his 
 description of Shakespeare as a " notoriously ill-educated 
 actor." Bacon himself, in the foregoing, acknowledges 
 that Will Shakespeare derived a well-w6n reputation and 
 honours by acting in his dramas. At the same time Bacon 
 is confident that the dramas will win for him, as author, 
 " supremest, crowning, and unfading glory." 
 
 Here, almost at the outset of these cipher revelations, we
 
 6S 
 
 are met by a passage, plausible in itself, but which, read 
 in the light of our knowledge of Bacon's doubts upon 
 the permanency of the English language, calls for careful 
 consideration. Bacon rested his fame upon his Latin 
 writings. He wrote always forthe appreciation of posterity. 
 As he advanced in years, he appears, says Abbott, to have 
 been nioie and more impressed with the hopelessness of 
 an\- expectations of lasting fame or usefulness based upon 
 English books. He believed implicitly that posterity would 
 not preserve works written in the modern languages — 
 "for these modern languages will at one time or other 
 play the bank-rowtes (bankrupts) with books." Of his 
 Latin translation of the Advancement of Learning, he said, 
 " It is a book I think will live, and be a citizen of the 
 world, as English books will not," and he predicfted that 
 thf Latin volume of \\\s Essays would "last as long as books 
 shall last." So confident was he that his writings would 
 achieve immortality, that he dedicated his Advanceniciit </ 
 Learning to the King, in order that the virtues and mental 
 qualities of his Majesty might be handed down to succeed- 
 ing ages in " some solid work, fixed memorial, and immortal 
 monument." Bacon's pride in his work was monumental, 
 his "grasp on futurity" was conceived in a spirit of 
 " magnificent audacity;" every scrap of his writings was 
 jealously preserved and robed in the time-resisting garments 
 of a dead language. Is it conceivable in this magnificent 
 egoist that he should have displayed such gross careless- 
 ness, such wanton unconcern in his plays that, but for the 
 labours of a couple of ac^tors in collec'ting and arranging 
 them, they would have been utterly lost? It is simply 
 incredible that Bacon should have based his anticipation of 
 immortality upon plays which for years were tossed about 
 the world in pirated and mutilated editions, and in many 
 instances, until the issue of the first folio in 1623, existed
 
 HE l'£f{l^I.AMIO/ 
 Summit In ^h a: 
 
 CA:\'CELl^:7iI.>
 
 69 
 
 only in the form of the actor's prompt books. The sixteen 
 plays, in quarto, which were in print in 1616, were 
 published without the co-operation of the author. They 
 were to win for their author unfading glory, )'et he was at 
 no pains to collect them. The first folio was printed from 
 the acting versions in use by the compan}- with which 
 Shakespeare had been associated, and the editorial duties 
 were undertaken by two of Shakespeare's friends and 
 fellow actors, whose motives rather than their literary 
 fitness for the task call for commendation. It was dedicated 
 to two noblemen, with whom, so far as we know. Bacon 
 had no social or political intercourse. 
 
 Mr. Theobald considers that Bacon's " confident 
 assurance of holding a lasting place in literature," his 
 anticipation of immortality, could only have been advanced 
 by the man who voiced the same conviction in the Shake- 
 speare Sonnets. The deduction is based on arbitrary 
 conjecture, and a limited acquaintance with the literary 
 conceits of the time. But Shakespeare claimed as his 
 medium of immortality the language which Bacon pre- 
 dicted could not endure. 
 
 " So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see — 
 So long lives this, and this gives life to Thee, 
 
 wrote Shakespeare. This was English, the purest and the 
 sweetest that tongue ever uttered, and Bacon was dressing 
 his thoughts in Latin that they might outlive the language 
 which Shakespeare wrote. Ronsard and Desportes, in 
 France, and in England, Drayton, Daniel, and, indeed, all 
 the Elizabethan poets, had made the topic a commonplace. 
 In his Apologie for Poetrie, Sir Philip Sidney wrote that it 
 was the custom of poets " to tell you that they will make 
 you immortal by their verses," and both Shakespeare and 
 Bacon adopted the current conceit when they referred to 
 the "eternising" faculty of their literary effusions. It
 
 70 
 
 is not claimed by, or for, Bacon that he was the author of 
 Drayton's Idea or Daniel's Delia, but if Mr, Theobald's 
 style of reasoning is to be taken at his own valuation, the 
 master of Gorhambury, and none other, was responsible 
 for the poetic output of both these singers.
 
 Bacon's " Stcnic and Tragiclc History ^ 
 
 WE are assured by another Baconian student that the 
 Shakespeare plays were not an end, but merely a 
 means to an end, the end being the revelation of Bacon's 
 history, and the composition of further plays and poems 
 from the material which he had warehoused in the dramas 
 attributed to Shakespeare and other authors. The initial, 
 and most important fact which Mrs. Gallup's deciphered 
 story reveals, is, not that Francis Bacon was the author 
 of Shakespeare's pla}'s, but that he was the legitimate son 
 of Queen Elizabeth, by Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl 
 of Leicester. The disclosure is so startling, so quaint, so 
 incredible, and withal so interesting, that the revelation 
 both appeals to and outrages our credulity. From our 
 knowledge of Elizabeth and of Bacon, we can more readily 
 believe that the Queen was the mother of Bacon, than 
 that Bacon was the father of Shakespeare's plays. At 
 Gorhambury is to be seen a pair of oil paintings, by 
 Hilliard, of Elizabeth and Leicester. The pictures are a 
 match in size, style, and treatment. The doublet in which 
 Leicester is portrayed is of the same material as that of 
 the gown in which the Queen is represented. Moreover, 
 they were a present from Elizabeth to Sir Nicholas Bacon, 
 the foster father of Francis, who signs his cipher
 
 72 
 
 revelations, "Francis Thirst of I'lngland,"' " I'rancis l>acon 
 (Rightful) K," " F.B. or T." or " Francis of E.", as the 
 humour seized him. 
 
 The deciphered secret story, the " sterne and tragicle " 
 history of Bacon's pohtical wrongs commences in the first 
 edition of Edmund Spenser's Co;/?/)/az';;/.s (1590 and 1591); 
 but it was not until the Faerie Queene was pubhshed (1596) 
 that he appropriates the authorshij) of Spenser's works. 
 His first care is to establish his claim to the throne : 
 
 "Our name is Fr. Bacon, by adoption, yet it shall be 
 different. Being of blood roial (for the (jueen, our 
 sov'raigne, who married by a private rite the Earle 
 Leicester — and at a subseque't time, also, as to make 
 surer thereby, without pompe, but i' th' presence o' a 
 suitable number of witnesses, bound herselfe by those 
 hymeneall bands againe — is our mother, and wee were not 
 base-born, or base-begot), we be Tudor, and our stile shall 
 be Francis First, in all proper cours of time, th' King of 
 our realme. 
 
 " Early in our life, othe (oath) — or threat as binding in 
 effect as othe, we greatly doubt — was made by our wilful 
 parent concerning succession, and if this cannot bee 
 chang'd, or be not in time withdrawn, we know not how 
 the kingdome shall be obtain'd. But 'tis thus scene or 
 shewn that it can bee noe other's by true descc't, then is 
 set down. To Francis h'irst doth th' crowne, th' honor 
 of our land belong " 
 
 Thus Bacon states his case, and through the succeeding 
 368 pages of Mrs. Gallup'sbook he repeats the assertion ad 
 nauseam. He makes no attempt to prove his claim — he 
 early allows it to be understood that he is unable to 
 verify his asseverations, nor does he explain how or why 
 his name should be Tuder, or Tidder. As the son of Lord 
 Robert Dudley, he would be a Dudley. The circumstantial
 
 ■^. 
 
 GORHAMBURY, A.D. 1568. 
 
 GORHAMBURY, A.D. 1795. 
 
 GORHAMBURY, A.D. 1821.
 
 n 
 
 evidence with which he supports his case is interesting, but 
 valueless ; his conclusions are unproven, his facts are some- 
 thing more than shaky. But let us pursue the story : 
 
 " We, by men call'd Bacon, are sonne of the Sov'raigne, 
 Queene Elizabeth, whoconfin'di' th'Tow'r, married Ro. D." 
 
 Elizabeth, it appears, was once "so mad daring" as 
 to dub Bacon, " as a sonne of Follie," to " th' courageous 
 men of our broadland." But — 
 
 " No man hath claime to such pow'r as some shal se in 
 mighty England, after th' decease of Virgin Queene 
 
 E by dull, slow mortalls, farre or near, loved, wooed 
 
 like some gen'rously affected youth-loving mayden, whylst 
 she is both wife to th' noble lord that was so sodainly cut 
 off in his full tide and vigour of life and mothe' — in such 
 way as th' women of the world have groaninglie bro't 
 foorth, and must whilst Nature doth raigne — of two 
 noble sonnes, Earle of Essex, trained up by Devereux, 
 and he who doth speake to you, th' foster sonne of two 
 wel fam'd frie'ds o' th' Que., Sir Nichola' Bacon, her 
 wo'thie adviser and counsellor, and that partne' of loving 
 labor and dutie, my most loved Lady Anne Bacon. . . ." 
 
 "... My mother Elizabeth . . . join'd herselfe in 
 a union with Robert Dudley whilst th' oath sworne to one 
 as belov'd yet bound him. I have bene told hee aided in 
 th' removall of this obstructio', when turni'g on that 
 narrowe treach'rous step, as is naturall, shee lightly leaned 
 upon th' raile, fell on th' bricks — th' paving of a court — 
 and so died." 
 
 " In such a sonne," Bacon proceeds, " th' wisest our 
 age thus farr hath shewen — pardon, prithee, so u'seemly a 
 phrase, I must speake it heere — th' mother should lose 
 selfish vanitie, and be actuated only by a desire for his 
 advancement." 
 
 Bacon is confident that the Queen would have acknow-
 
 7-( 
 
 ledged his claims but for the advice of a " fox seen at our 
 court in th' form and outward appearance of a man named 
 Robbert Cecill, the hunchback," who poisoned Eh';iabeth's 
 mind against her " sonnc of FolHe." Both "Francis 
 Tudor" (or Tidder), and his brotht^r Essex, the " wrong'd 
 enfan's of a Uueene," learned that their " ro}'all aspirations" 
 were to receive "a dampening, a checke soe great, it 
 co'vinc'd both, wee wcru hojijng for advancemo't we might 
 never attaine." 
 
 The " royall aspirations" of the Earl of Essex were 
 cut short by the sentence of death that was passed upon 
 iiim by " that mere and my owne counsel. Yet this truth 
 must at some time be knowne ; had not I allow'd myselfe 
 to give some countenance to th' arraingement, a subsequent 
 triall, as wel as th' sentence, I must have lost th' life that 
 I held so pricelesse." And Bacon, or I'rancis Tidder, 
 solaces himself, and condones his part in the deed with the 
 reflection that, " Life to a schola' is but a pawne for 
 mankind." 
 
 yueen Elizabeth, Bacon tells us, though already 
 wedded "secretly to th' Earle, my father, at th" Tower of 
 London, was afterwards married at the house of Lord 
 P . . ." 
 
 Briefly, then, we have it, on the authority of the cipher 
 translation, that " Bacon was the son of l"Ji/abeth and 
 Robert Dudley, who were married in the Tower between 
 1554 and 155S. Leicester's wife liid not meet with her 
 fatal accident until 1560. Baron was born in January, 
 1561. His parents were subsequentl}' re-married, at a date 
 not stated, at the house of Lord P ." 
 
 In 161 1 ( ShepJicanV^ Calendar) Bacon declares " Ended 
 is now my great desire to sit in I'ritish throne. Larger 
 worke doth invite my hatid than majestic doth offer ; 
 to wield tir penne dothe ever require a greater minde
 
 75 
 
 then to sway the royall scepter. Ay, I cry to th' 
 Heavenly Ayde, ruHng ore all, ever to keepe mysoule thus 
 humbled and contente." But in 1613 (Faerie Qtieene), 
 he says, that "in th' secrecy o' my owne bosome, I do 
 still hold to th' faith that my heart has never wholly 
 surrendered, that truth shall come out of error, and 
 my head be crowned ere my line o' life be sever'd. How 
 many times this bright dreeme hath found lodgement in 
 my braine ! ... It were impossible, I am assurr'd, 
 since witnesses to th' marriage, and to my birth (after a 
 proper length of time) are dead, and the papers certifying 
 Iheir presence being destroyed, yet is it a wrong that will 
 rise, and a crye that none can hush." In 1620 (Novum 
 Organuni) he has lost his^feure, l-esJ: my secret bee s'ented 
 forth by some hound o' Queen Elizabeth ; " but " the 
 jealousy of the King is to be feared, and that more in 
 dread of effecte on the hearts of the people, then any feare 
 of th' presentation of my claime, knowing as he doth, 
 that all witnesses are dead, and the requir'd documents 
 destroy'd." 
 
 Bacon, according to the cipher, was sixteen years of age 
 when he learned the truth of his parentage through the 
 indiscretion of one " th' ladies o' her (the Queen's) train, 
 who foolish to rashnesse did babble such gossip to him as 
 she heard at the Court." Bacon, it seems, taxed the Queen 
 forthwith with her motherhood of him, and Elizabeth, with 
 "muchmalicioushatred" and " in hastie indignation," said: 
 
 " You are my own borne sonne, but you, though truly 
 royall, of a fresh, a masterlie spirit, shall rule not England, 
 or your mother, nor reigne on subjects yet t' bee. I bar 
 from succession forevermore my best beloved first borne 
 that bless'd my unio' with — no, I'll not name him, nor 
 need I yet disclose the sweete story conceal'd thus farre so 
 well, men only guesse it, nor know o' a truth o' th' secret
 
 76 
 
 marriages, as rij^htfiill to ltikucI the name o' a Oueene, as 
 of a maid o' this rcahn. It woiiKl well heseeme you to 
 make such tales sulk out of si<^^ht, hut this suiteth not t' 
 your kiu'ly spirit. A sonne like mine lifteth hand uero in 
 aide to her who brought him f(K)rth : hcc'd rather ii[)lift 
 craven maides wfio tattle thus whencre my face (aigre enow 
 e\''r, the\' say) turneth from tlu-m. What will this brave 
 boy do ? Tell a. b, c's ? " 
 
 " Weeping and sobbing sore," Bacon hin-ries to Mistres 
 Bacon's chamber and entreats her to assure him that he is 
 
 " the sonne of herselfe and her honored husband 
 
 When, therefore, my sweet mother did, weeping and 
 lamenting, owne to me that I was in very truth th' sonne o' 
 th' Oueene, I burst into maledictio's 'gainst th' Oueene, 
 m}- fate, life, and all it yieldeth. ... I besought her to 
 speak my father's name. . . . She said, ' He is the Earle 
 of Leicester. ... I tooke a solemne oath not to reveale 
 your storie to you, but you may hear m}- untinish'd tale to 
 th' end and if you will, go to th' midwife. Th' doctor would 
 be ready also to give proofes of your just right to be named 
 th' Prince of this realm, and heire-apparent to the throne. 
 Nevertheless, Queen Bess did likewise give her solemn oath 
 of bald-faced deniall of her marriage to Lord Leicester, as 
 well as to her motherhood. Her oath, so broken, robs me 
 of a Sonne. O Francis, I'rancis, bieaki' not \'oiir mother's 
 hearte. I cannot U't \'ou go forth after all the years \'ou 
 have beene the sonne o' m\- heart. But night is falling. 
 To-day I cannot speak to you of so weighty a matter. 
 This hath mo\-'d you deeply, and though you now drie 
 your eyes, you have yet many teare marks upon your little 
 cheeks. Go now ; do not give it place i' thought or word ; 
 a brain-sick woman, though she be a Queene, can take my 
 Sonne from me.'" So Bacon leaves her, not to search for. 
 the iiii<l\\ife,or cross-question the doctor, but to "di'eame of
 
 11 
 
 golden scepters, prou' courts, and by-and-bye a crowne on 
 mine innocent brow." 
 
 All Bacon's confessions, if true, prove him to have been 
 a bastard, but this logical and inevitable conclusion he 
 repeatedly denies. He claims his mother's name, and for 
 his father, a nobleman whose wife was living at the time 
 of his bigamous marriage with Elizabeth. If the marriage 
 was valid, why were Leicester and the Queen re-married at 
 the house of Lord P., and in what year did the second 
 ceremony take place? But although anti-Baconians m.ain- 
 tain that Bacon was not a fool, and therefore could not 
 have seriously advanced such claims; that if he had done 
 so he would have made a more plausible story of his wrongs : 
 that he was not a dunce, and therefore could not have 
 written the "maudlin and illiterate drivel" attributed to 
 him by Mrs. Gallup, it is still inconceivable that this cipher 
 story is a gigantic fraud. Mr. Andrew Lang, who makes 
 no doubt that Mrs. Gallup has honourably carried out her 
 immense task of deciphering, has arrived at the conclusion 
 that Bacon was obviously mad. 
 
 /
 
 Bacon, the Aiif/ior of all FJizabcthaii- Jacobean 
 
 Literature. 
 
 BUT interesting as it is to find in Bacon yet another and 
 hitherto an unsuspected pretender to the throne of 
 England, his pretensions to the authorship of Shakespeare's 
 plays is a feature of even more dazzling interest. His 
 reasons for denying the authorship while he lived have 
 hitherto deinanded a great deal of speculative explanation. 
 The general theory of the Baconites is that Bacon con- 
 cealed his authorship of the plays because such writing 
 was held in low esteem, or as Mr. Sinnett puts it, Bacon 
 "shrank from compromising his social reputation by any 
 open connection with the despised vocation of the play- 
 wright." The difticiilty of accepting this assumption has 
 hithiTtd been fuiiiid in (lie fact that there was no reason 
 \\li\- iiacoii shiMild have confiiKii himself tn the writing 
 of plays. In the case of Shakespeare, it was <iuite 
 understandable, for he was an actor, and the stage was 
 his li\fliho()d. Bacon, nn the other hand, had no love 
 for the theatre ; he looked upon play-acting as a toy, and 
 masques as things un\\orth\- of serious observations. The 
 tone of his comments is contemptuous, and his criticism 
 discloses a lack of knowledge and interest in the subject.
 
 79 
 
 Why should this man, who regarded the stage with ill- 
 concealed repugnance, have written plays which he was 
 ashamed to own, while all imaginative literature was open 
 to him. The stigma which it is erroneously alleged was 
 attached to play-writing was not associated with poetry ; 
 if the playwright was under a ban, the poet was on the 
 pedestal. There must have been a more tangible reason 
 for Bacon's concealment, but we have had to wait for 
 Mrs. Gallop's book to disclose it. Bacon's object in writing 
 was to unfold the secrets of his birth and to ventilate his 
 wrongs ; he chose plays as his medium because, like Mr. 
 George Bernard Shaw, he found blank verse easier to 
 write than prose. He employed the pseudonyms of 
 Greene and Peele, and the pen name of Marlowe ere taking 
 that of Wm. Shakespeare as his masque or vizard, "that 
 we should remayne unknowne, inasmuch as wee, having 
 worked in drama, history that is most vig'rously supprest, 
 have put ourselfe soe greatly in dange' that a word unto 
 Queene Elizabeth, without doubt, would give us a sodaine 
 horriblle end — an exit without re-entrance — for in truth 
 she is authoress and preserve' of this, our being." 
 
 Bacon's first claim to authorship, apart from the works 
 which were issued under his own name, is to be found, 
 according to the cipher, in the 1596 edition of the Faerie 
 Queeiie : 
 
 " E. Sp. could not otherwise soeasilie atchieve honours 
 that pertyne to ourself. Indeed, this would alone crowne 
 his head, if this were all — I speake not of golden crowne, 
 but of lawrell — for our pen is dipt deepe into th' muses' 
 pure source." 
 
 The first mention of Shakespeare as Bacon's masque 
 appears in the J. Roberts' edition (1600) of Sir Jolin Old- 
 castle and The Merchant of Venice : 
 
 " See or read. In the stage-plaies, two, the oldest or
 
 So 
 
 earliest devices prove these twentie phu's to have been put 
 upon our sta^e by theadtor that is suppos'd to sell dramas 
 of value, yet 'tis rightlie mine owne labour." 
 
 In the Advanceuicnt of Leaniinf;; (1605) Bacon extends 
 his claim to embrace the works of Robert Greene, Peele, 
 Marlowe, and Ben Jonson : 
 
 " My staf^e plaies have all been dis^aiis'd (to wit, man}- 
 in Greene's name, or in Peele's, Marlowe's, a fewe, such as 
 the Queen's Masques and others of this kind published for 
 me by Jonson, my friend and co-worker) since I relate a 
 secret history therein, a story of so sterne and tragick 
 qualite, it ille suited my lighte" verse, in the earlier works." 
 
 The only other persons who are permitted the privilege 
 of communicating with posterity, through the medium of 
 the cipher, are Bacon's "friends and co-workers," Ben 
 Jonson and William Rawley. In the folio edition of 
 Jonson's plays (1616) at Bacon's " constanth- urged 
 request," Jonson, who had his friend's "fame in heart as 
 much as my honour and dignitie," writes to the decipherer : 
 
 " It shall be noted, indeed, when you uncover his stile, 
 m\' works do not all come from mine owne penne, for I 
 shall name to you some plays that come forth fro' Sir F. 
 Bacon, his worthy hand or head, I bein' but the masque 
 behind which he was surely hid. Th' play entitled 
 Sejanits was his drama, and th' King's, Uueen's, Prince's 
 Entertainments ; the Queen s Masques are his, as also th' 
 short Panegyre.'" 
 
 lUit we learn thai, in addition to Jonson, " my foster- 
 brother Anthony, my owne brother Robert, Ben Jonson, 
 my friend, adviser and assistant, and our private secretary," 
 were also "cogniza't of the work," and indeed after Bacon's 
 death in 1G26, William Rawley, his private secretary, took 
 up the cipher story, and completed it in Burton's Anatomy 
 of Melancholy, and in the 1635 editions of Sylva Sylvarum
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 The Droeshout Etching, from the 1623 Folio Edition. 
 
 To the Reader. 
 
 This Figure, that chou here feeft pur, 
 
 It was for gentle Shakefpeare cut; 
 Wherein the Graucr had a ftrife 
 
 with Nature, toout-doothehfe : 
 0,cou!d he but haue dra wne his wit 
 
 As well in brafle, as he hath hit 
 Hisface ,• the Print would thenfurpafle 
 
 All, that was cuer vvric in brafle. 
 But, fince he cannot, Reader, looke 
 
 Not on his Pidure, but his Book e. 
 
 B.I.
 
 8i 
 
 SLud the Neiv Atlantis. It has been objected that Bacon 
 could not have dropped the cipher into books pubhshed 
 after his death, but this obje(5tion " vanishes into invisi- 
 bihty," as Mr. Theobald would say, when we remember 
 that faithful old Rawley was living long after Bacon's work 
 had been "cut short by th" sickel o' death." He bobs up 
 serenely in Sylva Sylvarum, drops in another thirty pages 
 of Bacon's cipher lamentations, and winds up with a dozen 
 lines of his own " to speak of th' errata." This last 
 instalment was, it may be assumed, written prior to 
 1626, and entrusted to Rawley to make use of on the first 
 opportunity, i.e., as soon as he could obtain command of 
 the proofs of another book. 
 
 In the first folio, published twenty years after the death 
 of Elizabeth, Bacon still appears to be affrighted by the 
 memory of the Queen ; his life would still be forfeit if 
 his identity were discovered, " since she is my mother ; " 
 but in his valedicftory address to his decipherer, he declares 
 that it is " not feare, but disstaste of th' unseemly talk and 
 much curiosity of the many who read these cipher histories, 
 that makes him still desirous to preserving his incognito." 
 
 " My time of feare went from me with my greatness, 
 but I still wish to avoid many questionings — and much 
 suspicion, perchance on the side of the King, in his owne 
 prope' person. I have neede of the very caution which 
 kept these secrets from the many, when my mother made 
 me swear secrecy, and my life was the forfeit ; nor may I 
 now speake openly, yet many men for a kingdom would 
 break their oathes." 
 
 It is possible that Bacon may have considered that 
 " since witnesses to th' marriage and to my birth. . . are 
 dead, and the papers certifying their presence" were 
 destroyed, he would have a better chance of obtaining 
 credence for his story a few centuries hence than in his 
 
 G
 
 82 
 
 own day. His belief in the creiiulit} of posterit\- did in it 
 desert him : 
 
 " l-)Ut my kin,i;(lome is in immortull j^loi"}- amon^i^ men 
 from generatio' unto coming generations. An unending 
 fame will crowne my browe, and it is farre better worthe 
 in any true thinking mind, I am assured, than man\- a 
 crowne which kings do have set on with shewe and 
 ceremonie. Vet when I ha\e said it, my heart is sad for 
 the great wrong that I must for ever endure." 
 
 Hacon appears to have foreseen that some future sceptic 
 would (juestion the justice of his claims ; would ask, for 
 instance, how the hand that wrote Macbeth and I'he 
 Tempest, came to produce such comparatively indifferent 
 stuff as A Quip for an Upstart Courtier, and he meets the 
 anticipated question with the following explanation : — 
 
 " It shall bee noted in truth that some greatly exceede 
 their fellowes in worth, and it is easily explained. Th' 
 theame varied, yet was always a subject well seleci^ed to 
 convey the secret message. Also the plays being given out 
 as tho'gh written by the adtor to whom each had been 
 consigned, turne one's genius suddainlie many times to 
 suit th' new man. 
 
 " In this actour that wee now emploie, is a wittie vayne 
 different from any formerly employed. In truth it suiteth 
 well with a native spirrit, humorous and grave by turnes 
 in ourselfe. Therefore when we create a part that hath 
 him in minde th" play is correspondingly better therefor. It 
 must be evident. . . . that these later dramas (this cipher 
 message is in the 1611 quarto of Hamlet ) are superior in 
 nearlie all those scenes where our genius hath swaie" . . 
 
 Over and over again, with almost childish iteration, the 
 cipher repeats the names of the authors whose works he 
 claims as his own : 
 
 " Spenser, Greene, Peele, Marlowe have sold nie theirs
 
 83 
 
 (their names) — two or three others I have assumed upon 
 certaine occasions such as this (Ben Jonson's Masques), 
 besides th' one I beare among men." , . . 
 
 " My plaies are not yet finisht, but I intend to put 
 forth severall soone. However, bi-hterall work requiring 
 so much time, it will readily be seene that there is much to 
 doe aftee a booke doth seeme to be ready for the presse, 
 and I could not say when other plays will come out. The 
 next volume will be under \\\ Shakespeare's name. As 
 some which have now beene produced have borne upon the 
 title page his name though all are my owne w^ork, I have 
 allow'd it to stand on manie others which I myselfe regard 
 as equall in merite." 
 
 " My next work is not begun here : much of it shall bee 
 found in th' playes o' Shakespeare which have not yet 
 come out. We having put forth a numbe' of plays i' his 
 theatre, shall continue soe doing since we doe make him 
 th' thrall to our will. Our name never accompanieth anie 
 play, but it frequently appeareth plainly in cipher for witty 
 minds to transla'e from Latine and Greeke. . . ." 
 
 "This history (The Tragical Historic of the Earl of 
 Essex ) is contained fi.e., hidden in cipher) in some stage 
 plays that came out in Shakespeare's name. Ere long 
 there will be many of like stile, purpose and scope added 
 thereto, which shall both ayd and instrucft you in th' work. 
 This should make it cleare, e.g., sixty stage-plays which, in 
 varyi'g stiles that are contrary to my owme well-known stile 
 of expression, whylst for more of our lighter work an 
 impenetrable mask, for a history, much too varied : hence 
 these great plays have been devis'd which, being similar, 
 often held this inne' history therein unsuspected. . . ." 
 
 " Several comedies, which be now strangers, as might 
 be said, bearing at th' most such titles 'mongst the plaiers 
 as they would remember, but th' author's name in disguise.
 
 84 
 
 if it bee seen at all. will, as soone as may 1)l' found toward 
 and propitious, be publisht b}' Shakespeare, i.e., in his 
 name, haNMii-,' inasqiied thus manic of the best plaies that 
 we have beene able to produce. To these we are steadily 
 making additions, writing: from two to six stage plays every 
 year. . . ." 
 
 " All that learne that I. who accompte th' truth better 
 than wicked vanitie, publish'd manie late playes under 
 other cognomen will think the motive some distaste of the 
 stage. In noe respect is it true. ..." His real reason 
 is, firstly, that " rdl men who write stage-playes are held 
 in co'tempte," and, secondly, the plays are employed 
 to "send out much hidden dang'rous matter." " In my 
 plays matters are chosen not alone for value as a subject 
 to heare and no longer heed. Each play is the meane or 
 th' medium, l)y which cipher histories are sent forth." 
 
 "Severall small works under no name wonne worth}- 
 praise ; next in Spenser's name, also, they ventured into an 
 unknowne world. W^hen I, at length, having written in 
 diverse stiles, found three who, for sufficient reward in 
 gold added to an immediate renowne as good pens, 
 willingly put forth all workos which I had compos'd I was 
 bolder. . . ." 
 
 " Th' evidence such plays give of being from the brajme 
 of one who hath for manie years made himself acquaintc^d 
 with th* formes and th' methode — or art — of this dranuitick 
 (jr representative poetry, maketh also my claime to other 
 workes, which have beene publisht in various names, 
 undeniable. The workc, despight a \ariety of stales, is 
 mine owne. . . .'" 
 
 "So few (plays) can bee put forth as first written 
 without a slighte revision, and many new being also made 
 ready, my penne hath little or noe rest. I am speaking of 
 those plaies that were suppos'd W^m. Shakespeare's. . . .""
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 The Chandos Portrait.
 
 85 
 
 " . . . small portions (of the cipher story) being used at 
 one time, sometimes in our Spenser's name, Marlowe's, 
 Peele's, and Shakespeare's, anon Greene's, mine, also Ben 
 Jonson's, affording our diverse masques another colour, 
 as 'twere, to baffle all seekers, to which we shall add 
 Burton's. . . ." 
 
 " Th' worke beareth the title of the Anatomy of Melan- 
 choly, and will bee put forth by Burton." 
 
 Here is Bacon's announcement of the publication of the 
 First Folio : 
 
 '•' In our plaies . . . being in the name of a man not 
 living, there is still more of this secret historic. . . . We 
 have not lost that maske tho' our Shakespeare no longer 
 liveth, since twoo others, fellowes of our play a(?tor — who 
 would, we doubt not, publish those plays — would disguise 
 our work as well. . . ."' 
 
 "Our plaies are of diverse kindes — historic, comedie, 
 and tragedie. Many are upon th' stage, but those already 
 put forth in Wm. Shakespeare's name, we doe nothing 
 doubt, have won a lasting fame, — comedy, th' historick 
 drama and tragedy, are alike in favour. . . ." 
 
 " My best playes, at present, as William Shakespeare's 
 work fost'red, will as soone as one more plaie be completed, 
 weare a fine but yet a quiet dresse, as is seemely in 
 plaies of as much valew and dignity as sheweth cleerly 
 therein, and be put foorth in folio enlarged and multiplyed 
 as th" history conceal'd within th' comedies, histories, or 
 tragedies required." 
 
 Then follows a number of further recapitulations of his 
 masques : 
 
 " Francis of \'erulam is author of all the plays hereto- 
 fore published by Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Shakespeare, 
 and of the two-and-twenty now put out for the first time. 
 Some are altered to continue his history. . . ."
 
 86 
 
 " Next write a comedy, a quaint device for making 
 knowne th' men that do give, lend, sell, or in anie othe' 
 waye, have put mc into possession of thrir names. These 
 I have us'd as disguises that my name might not bee seen 
 attached to any poem, stage-play, or anie of th' light 
 workes o' this da)-. . . ." 
 
 " As I have often said . . . yon have poems and prose 
 workes on divers theames in all such various stiles, as are 
 put before th' world as Greene's, as Shakespeare's, Burto's, 
 as Peele's, Spenser's, as Marlowe's, as Jonso' dramas . . . 
 for I varied my stile to suit different men, since no two 
 shew th' same taste and like imagination. . . ." 
 
 " Any play publisht as Marlowe's, came from th' same 
 source as all which }-ou will now work out. . ." 
 
 "Greene, Spense', Peele, Shakespeare, Burton, and 
 Marley, as you may somewhere see it, or, as it is usually 
 given, Marlowe, have thus farre been m}- masques. . ." 
 
 " A few workes also beare th' name o' my friend, lien 
 Jonson — these are SejaiiKs and th' Masques, used to 
 conceale the Iliads chiefly and to make use o' my newe 
 cipher. . . ." 
 
 " I masqued manie grave secrets in m}' poems which I 
 have publisht, now as Peele's or Spenser's, now as my 
 owne, then againc in th" name uf authours, so cald, who 
 plac'd workes of mixt sort before a reading world, prose 
 and poetry. To Robt. Greene did I i ntruste most of that 
 work. . ." 
 
 l^acon has limited our s[K'culati(ins upon the c.xli'nt of 
 his litcrar}- work by definitely mentioning the works which 
 he wrote in a cipher discovered b}- Dr. Owen : 
 
 ** We will enumerate them by their whole titles 
 
 From the beginning to the end : William Shake- 
 speare,
 
 87 
 
 Robert Greene, George Peele, and Christopher 
 
 Marlowe's 
 Stage plays ; The Faerie Queen, Shepherd's Calendar, 
 And all the works of Edmund Spenser; 
 The Anatomy of Melancholy of Robert Burton, 
 The History of Henry VII., The Natural History, 
 The Interpretation of Nature, The Great Instauration, 
 Advancement of Learning, The De Augmentis Scien- 
 
 tiarum, 
 Our Essays, and all the other works of our own." 
 
 Even when we note that the Advancement and De 
 Augmentis are the English and Latin versions of the same 
 work — a fact that Dr. Owen appears to have overlooked — 
 Mr. Theobald must acknowledge that this represents a 
 very fair literary output, but it does not form the full list 
 of his works. The names of his cipher or interiour works, 
 are enumerated by Mrs. Gallup : 
 
 " There are five histories as followes : The Life o' 
 Elizabeth, The Life of Essex, The White Rose o' Britaine, 
 The Life and Death of Edward Third, The Life of Henry 
 tW Seventh ; five tragedies : Mary Queene o' Scots, Robert th' 
 Earl o' Essex (my late brother), Robert th' Earle o' Leicester 
 (my late father), Death o' Marlowe, Ann Bullen ; three 
 comedies : Seven Wise Men o' th' West, Solomon th' Second, 
 The Mouse-Trap.''
 
 Bacon and ^'■Divine Aide.'' 
 
 BACON himself appears to have been struck with the 
 immensity of his produd^ion, and he cast about for 
 some plausible explanation that would justify it in the eyes 
 of his twentieth century admirers. Human endurance and 
 fecundity would, he foresaw, be regarded as unequal to the 
 strain — Divine assistance alone could make so colossal a 
 task possible : 
 
 " Whosoever may question assertions that tend to shew 
 y' mankinde evidences of a Divine thought interfusing th' 
 human minde, hath but to prove it by experiment. He 
 would not bee ready to cavil, or laugh to scorn this asser- 
 tion, which I may repeate anon, that Divine aide was 
 given me in m\- work. I have, at th' least, accomplished a 
 great work in fewe yeares, work of such a (lilticiilt nature 
 that no one hand could accomplish, except other than 
 myselfe upheld or directed it." And "anon,"" he repeats, 
 " surely nn- hand and brainc have but short rest. I fn"mly 
 believe it were not in the power of humane beings to do 
 anie more than I have done, yet I am but j);irtlie satisfied." 
 
 These excerpts, which have been given at some length, 
 disclose not only the exacl:t nature and extent of the alleged 
 claims, but the style and manner in which they are 
 couched. I'here is nothing of the literary polish and
 
 89 
 
 elegance in the cipher writing which we find in all of 
 Bacon's acknowledged works, but taking into consideration 
 the difficulties of dropping the cipher into the books in 
 which it is said to appear, and the even greater difficulties 
 of interpreting it, it seems manifestly unfair to dismiss the 
 entire thing as an imposture on that account. Mr.Mallock's 
 contention is that Mrs. Gallup's theory is sufficiently 
 plausible to merit it an unprejudiced investigation. If 
 the cipher proves to be altogether false, the manner in 
 which it has been elaborated will, Mr. Mallock submits, 
 form a curious incident in literary history ; while should 
 it prove true, it will be more curious still. Apart from the 
 cipher, Mr. Sinnett declares, there are floods of reasons 
 for disbelieving that Shakespeare could have written the 
 plays. Mr. Sinnett, and the other leaders of the Baconian 
 cult, do not appear to see that if their theory is to outlast 
 the present controversy, the cipher business must be 
 thrown overboard forthwith. 
 
 As Mr. William Archer has said with reference to 
 these ciphers, the point at issue is as plain as a pike-staff. 
 We are not concerned, while we deal with this phase of the 
 subject, in the verbal parallels between Shakespeare's 
 writings and those of Bacon, nor with the vehemently 
 expressed conviction of students and scholars that Bacon 
 did not write SJiakespeare. All we desire to know is 
 whether the ciphers which Mrs. Gallup and Dr. Owen 
 contend are contained in certain books (the Fint Folio 
 Shakespeare among others) really exist. Mr. Mallock says 
 that until an examination by experts in typography has 
 negatived this theory, he is inclined to believe it. His 
 position is unassailable. Nothing further can be argued 
 or asserted (with conviction) until a committee of experts 
 have made their report. If they declare that the cipher 
 has no foundation in fact, the students who have carefully
 
 90 
 
 perused Mrs. (lalliip's great work — great iiu'ention it will 
 then be — an<l Dr. Owen's niaiu- xoliwnes of hadly-eon- 
 stnicted, ridiculous plaj's and pouuis, will gix'c holh Mrs. 
 Gallup :ind Dr. Owen credit for a verilahK- triumph of 
 misapplied energ}- and endurance — for ha\ing conceived a 
 masterpiece of diabolical inventiveness, for having revealed 
 a perfect genius for the perpetration of literary fraud. 
 
 Personall}-, I do not expect to learn that they will be 
 convicted of the possession of such an exceptional gift of 
 of deception. Their labours smack of honest}-; their 
 conclusions betra\- an ingenuous credulity that calls for 
 respect. It will, indeed, surprise most people who have 
 made a study cjf their works, if it is proved that the 
 cipher they claim to have discovered, and manipulated 
 with such marvellous results, is a m\'th. Hut assuming 
 that a pro[)erl}--constituted comnnttee tlid declare that the 
 cipher was U) be found in all the books indicated, and 
 that the investigation corroborated the revelations made 
 by Mrs. (iallup and Dr. Owen, there would still remain 
 the (question as to who concealed the statements in the 
 different volumes, and whether there is au}- truth in them. 
 
 I think, nay I claim, that in the event of the cipher being 
 verified, and the translations being confirmed, that fai The 
 cipher could have been introduced by no other n^^an than 
 I->acon ; and that (b) The whole of the statements found 
 therein are false from beginning to end. In a searching 
 investigation into the cipher undertaken by a correspondent 
 of the Times, a single page of the cipher was tested, but the 
 test is not, as the Times claims for it, luUirel}- convincing. 
 The method of investigation eniplo}ed is excellent. A 
 greatly enlarged photograph is taken of a page from tlu; 
 Epistle Dedicatory to the Ruine of Time in the 1591 edition 
 of Spenser's Complaints, and the "A" and "!>" letters 
 which Mrs. Gallup herself assigns to the parts respectively
 
 91 
 
 are cut out and arranged in parallel columns. When these 
 two sets of letters are seen side by side it would, indeed, 
 be difficult for the untrained eye to distinguish any marks 
 of dissimilarity between them. But as Mr. Mallock tells 
 us, "although even the naked eye can be soon trained to 
 perceive that in many cases the letters belong to different 
 founts, yet these differences are of so minute a kind that in 
 other cases they allude the eye without the aid of a magni- 
 fying glass ; and even with the aid of a magnifying glass, 
 the eye of the amateur, at all events, remains doubtful, and 
 unable to assign the letters to this alphabet or to that." 
 The correspondent of the Times leads us to infer that he 
 has been unable to verify the existence of the cipher in the 
 page he has tested, and Mr. Lee has declared, without 
 hesitation, that the cipher does not exist in the Shakespeare 
 First Folio. On the other hand, Mr. Mallock had little 
 difficulty in distinguishing the different founts in the 
 facsimiles from the Novum Organ itm and Spenser's Com- 
 plainis. He experimented with a large number of passages, 
 and comparing his interpretation with that of Mrs. Gallup, 
 he found that it coincided with hers, sometimes in four 
 cases out of seven, and not infrequently in five. " It 
 appears to me," Mr. Mallock writes, "to be almost incon- 
 ceivable that multiplied coincidences such as these can be 
 the work of chance, or that they can originate otherwise 
 than in the fact that in these pages at all events — the 
 preface to the Novum Organum, printed in 1620, and in 
 the Dedication of Spenser's Complaints, printed in 1591 — a 
 bi-literal cipher exists, in both cases the work of Bacon ; 
 and if such a cipher really exists here, the probabilities are 
 overwhelming that Mrs. Gallup is right, and that we shall 
 find it existing in the first folio of Shakespeare also."
 
 Sh(ikcsf^C(ii\' (iiiil Juhoii in Cidlahdvatinu. 
 
 BACON'S ciphers,whichwere,accordingto the evidence 
 adduced frnm tlu: bi-literal, six in number, grew one 
 out of the other. IJacon evidently expected the bi-hteral 
 to be discovered first, ior in this cipher he explains the 
 word-cipher, in which his hidden, or " interiour "' works 
 are concealed. Dr. Owen discovered this word-cipher 
 without the aid of the bi-literal, and by followin<:( its 
 directions he has deciphered over a thousand pages of blank 
 verse, comprising Letters to the Decipherer, A Description of 
 Queen Elizabeth, a poem entitled The Spanish Annada. .1;/ 
 Account of Bacon's Life in France, and several plays. In 
 the Epistle to the Decipherer, Bacon says, "For thirty-three 
 years have we gone in traxail, with tlicsi', the children of 
 our wit," and proceeds to adjure the unknown to 
 
 " Svvare by my sword never to speak of this 
 That you have fouml while we do li\'e;" 
 
 and again — 
 
 " Sweare never t(j publish that we conceal under the names 
 Of others our own till we are dead, 
 Sweare never to reveal the secret cipher words 
 That guide your steps from part to part, 
 Nor how it is gathered, joined or put together, 
 Till we be dead, so help you Ciod ! " 
 
 The chief point to be noted about these cipher stories,
 
 93 
 
 biographies and plays is that they are buih up of quota- 
 tions from the works of all the authors whose writings 
 Bacon claims to be his own. Dr. Owen asks us, in all 
 seriousness, to believe that Bacon composed the plays of 
 Shakespeare, Marlowe, Peel, and Greene, and the poems 
 by Spenser, as they appear in the cipher translation, and 
 that he subsequently "decomposed and composed them 
 again" for circulation in his own day, under the names of 
 the various authors who a(5ted as his masques. " When 
 deciphered and replaced in their original form," Dr. Owen 
 asserts, "they mean something which they do not in the 
 plays." Such a statement, as anyone can prove by turning 
 to these curious deciphered books, is both fallacious and 
 absurd. 
 
 Let us see what these passages which nican nothing in 
 the plays mean in the cipher stories. The pledge which 
 Hamlet imposes upon Horatio and Marcellus after the 
 interview with the ghost is a serviceable case in point. 
 Hamlet's words are almost too familiar to need repeating : 
 
 " So help you mercy, that how strange 
 Or odd soe'er I bear myself — 
 As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet 
 To put an antic disposition on — 
 That you, at such times seeing me, never shall, 
 With arms encumber'd thus, or this head shake, 
 Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, 
 As 'Well, well, we know;'— or 'We could, and if we would;' 
 Or ' If we list to speak ; ' — or, ' There be, an if they might : ' — 
 Or such ambiguous giving out, to note 
 That you know aught of me ; — This not to do. 
 So grace and mercy at your most need help you, 
 Swear." 
 
 No one can question the fitness and perfeft appro- 
 priateness of the foregoing passage in Hamlet, but it is 
 doubtful if anybody, other than Dr. Owen, will recognise
 
 94 
 
 their cof]^ency when they are addressed by Bacon to his 
 
 unknown decipherer. 
 
 Hacon declares that Bottom's recital of his dream, 
 
 wiiicii commences, 
 
 " The eye of man hath not heard, 
 The ear of man hath not seen," 
 is 
 
 " Simply and plainly, the ingenious means of writing 
 Without creating suspicion;" 
 
 and he goes on to explain that the decipherer can, by 
 changing 
 
 " The words from one end to another, make it read aright." 
 
 Bacon heartens his timorous decipherer with the words, 
 " Be thou not, therefore, afraid of greatness " — the great- 
 ness that he will attain as the reward of his decipherations. 
 " Some," he assures the unknown, in the memorable 
 words, "have greatness thrust upon them," and he further 
 reminds him that 
 
 " There is a tide in the affairs of man. 
 Which taken at the flood, 
 Leads on to glorious fortune." 
 
 " Nature and fortune joined to make you great," Bacon 
 tells his decipherer, from the text of Kin^ John, and one 
 can almost imagine Dr. Owen blushing with conscious 
 pride, as he translated this borrowed gem. He implores 
 the modest unknown to free his (Bacon's) name from the 
 disgraceful part he had in the death of the Earl of Essex, 
 and cries — 
 
 " Uh. if I could 
 I would make a willow cabin at your gate, 
 And call upon your soul within the house. . . 
 You should not rest 
 Between the elements of earth and air. 
 But you should pity me " 
 
 Words full of passion and beautiful imager}- when spoken 
 by Viola, on behalf of Orsino, to the haughty and
 
 95 
 
 unresponsive Lady Olivia, but sheer drivel when taken as 
 Bacon's exhortation to the discover of his wrongs. * 
 
 But one travels in this precious cipher from foolishness 
 to foolishness — from destruction to damnation, in quick, 
 long strides. In the Spanish Armada, Elizabeth receives 
 and answers the ambassadors of the King of Spain in the 
 words that Henry \'. employs in parley with the mes- 
 sengers of the Dauphin. She proclaims her physical 
 superiority to her sister in the braggart language of 
 Faulconbridge before King John beginning 
 
 " An' if my brother had my shape. . . . 
 If my legs were two such riding rods," 
 
 and the next dozen pages are a literal transcription of the 
 first act of Henry V. A hundred pages further on we 
 are introduced to Bacon's brother Anthony. The brothers 
 meet during the progress of a storm — the storm that is 
 described in Act I. Sc. III. of Julius Ccesar. The scene is 
 placed in Dover, and Bacon who 
 
 "... never till to-night, ne\er till now. 
 Did I go through a tempest dropping fire," 
 
 happened in the streets upon 
 
 " A common slave," who 
 
 " Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn 
 
 Like twenty torches joined ; and yet his hand, 
 
 Not sensible of fire, remained unscorched. 
 
 Against the Citadel I I met a lion, 
 
 Who glared upon me, and went surly by 
 
 Without annoying me." 
 
 Bacon, in his normal moods, employs the royal style of 
 "we" and "us" when referring to himself, but in moments 
 of agitation, when, for instance, slaves and lions promenade 
 the thoroughfares of Dover, he drops, instinc5tively, like a 
 Scotchman into his native manner. "Whilst walking 
 thus," he continues : 
 
 " Submitting me unto the hideous night, 
 And bared my bosom to the thunderstone,"
 
 96 
 
 " I met foster-brother Anthony," who said, 
 
 "O Francis, this disturbed city is not to walk in, 
 Who ever knew the heavens menace so ?. , . . 
 
 Let's to an inn." 
 
 It iiii^dit he thouj^'lit that the fore^^oinj.^ instances have 
 been carefully sought out imd employed to italicise the 
 foolishness of Dr. Owens' statement that the plays were 
 first composed in this form, and that in this form alone is 
 their true meaning and relevancy fulK- demonstrated. 
 Such, however, is far from heing the fact. If the reader 
 will take the trouble to wade through the mass of 
 incoherent commonplace, illuminated as it is by passages 
 of Shakespeare's brilliant wit and inspired poesy which 
 make up these five volumes, he will find scores upon scores 
 of such meaningless and inopportune mis-quotations. 
 
 Dr. Owen himself concedes that "some parts of the 
 deciphered material " — viz., those parts which have not 
 their origin in Shakespeare, Spenser, and the works of the 
 other masques — "are not equal in literary power, poetic 
 thought, nor artistic construcftion to the well-known efforts 
 of Shakespeare," but he accounts for this inequality on the 
 ground that " the necessities for concealment were so great 
 as to make the difficulties of the cipher serious, and artistic 
 rc-construction impossible." If it be granted, for the sake of 
 argument, that the quotations from the plays, which appear 
 ill these " interi(jur "' works, were from the pen ot Shakes- 
 peare, and that the original parts are the produd; of Bacon, 
 then Spedding's contention that there are not " i\\e lines 
 together to be found in Bacon which could be mistaken for 
 Shakespeare, or five lines in Shakespeare which could be 
 mistaken for Bacon, b\- one who was familiar with their 
 several styles, and praftised in such observations," is 
 proved ui)to tlie hilt. Indeed, and without any such con- 
 cession being allowed, it is impossible to compare the
 
 
 
 
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 ■- 
 
 
 
 w 
 
 1 
 
 ) 
 
 ) 
 
 J 
 i 
 J 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 4-. 
 
 - ■*■- 
 
 ^ • "V 
 
 
 
 
 ft 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 %i 
 
 m 
 
 S'^/7rf7Vyax 
 
 |^^u|||Btt||to|^j^^ ......... 
 
 - 
 
 f5^>S J 
 
 ^"^ 
 
 THE BUST OF SHAKESPEARE AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON.
 
 97 
 
 original lines with the pirated passages in these cipher 
 books, and accept the two as the work of the same hand. 
 Dr. Owen, who is evidently neither " familiar with the 
 several styles" of Shakespeare and Bacon, nor "praftised 
 in such observations," invites his readers " to set aside the 
 different names upon the title pages, and ask themselves 
 whether two or more men could have written so exaftly 
 alike." His conclusions are equally destitute of logic or 
 critical acumen : " Either Francis Bacon and William 
 Shakespeare were the same man, at least so far as the 
 writings are concerned ; or else, for once in the history 
 of mankind, two men, absolutely dissimilar in birth, in 
 education, and in bringing up, had the same thoughts, 
 used the same words, piled up the same ideas, wrote upon 
 the same subjec^ts, and thought, wrote, talked, and dreamed 
 absolutely alike." It is true that Shakespeare, in cipher, 
 bears an amazing likeness to Shakespeare in the plays, but 
 if the Shakespeare in the cipher is to be compared with the 
 Bacon either here or in his recognised works, Dr. Owen's 
 conclusions are palpably absurd. 
 
 Dr. Owen promises still further cipher revelations of the 
 same startling nature, which will explain how Bacon suc- 
 ceeded in using his various masques during the lifetime of 
 the alleged authors. " In the decipherings which will 
 appear in their regular order," he says, " I have found an 
 epitome of the lives of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Green (he 
 is probably referring to Greene), Barton, Peele and Spenser 
 . . . the circumstances under which they were employed, 
 and the sums of money paid to each for the use of his 
 name. Anthony Bacon, the foster-brother of Francis, was 
 the unknown owner of the Globe Theatre. Shakespeare, 
 while uneducated, possessed a shrewd wit, and some talent 
 as an aftor. He received, as a bribe, a share in the proceeds 
 of the theatre, and was the reputed manager. Bacon, 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 with his (^)urt C(hic;iti<>ii :ind aristocratic associations, 
 could not be known as the author of phi\'s or the associate 
 of phiy actors, and put Shakespeare forward as the mask 
 which covered his p^reatest work."
 
 TJic Tragical Historic of our Late Brother Robert, 
 
 Earl of Essex. 
 
 E\' EN at the risk of wearying my readers, it is necessary 
 for the purposes of this book, to make a critical 
 inspecftion of one of the " interiour " plays which Dr. Owen 
 has deciphered from many of the principal works of the 
 Elizabethan-Jacobean era. As all these hidden plays are 
 derived from the same source — the writings of Shakespeare, 
 Spenser, Greene, Marlowe, Peele, and Burton — the choice 
 of a subjeft for consideration would appear to be imma- 
 terial. The Tragedy of Mary Queen of Scots, a " remarkable 
 produ(51;ion," according to Dr. Owen, and one that " has 
 been pronounced a masterpiece," would seem to have the 
 first claim upon our attention. The selection of "The 
 Tragical Historic of our late brother Robert, Earl of Essex, 
 by the author of Hamlet, Richard III., Othello, &c.," has 
 been decided upon, however; because, in the first place, 
 it is a later produd^ion, and in the second, it is declared by 
 Dr. Owen to bear " the impress of greater skill, more 
 experience, and far more intense personal feeling." In the 
 Publisher's Note, we are informed that it is " one of the 
 marvels of hterature," and "a work of the most thrilling 
 interest and historical value." The prologue, which takes 
 the form of a soliloquy, embodies "the deepest philosophy
 
 100 
 
 concernin.i,^ thing's natural and spiritual, tt'in[)oral and 
 eternal." h can, moreover, " only be measured from the 
 point of \-ic\v of its author, I'rancis Bacon." This 
 "wonderful p^roloj^'ue," which cDuiprises some 200 lines of 
 blank verse, is really a wonder (^f misapplied misappro- 
 priation. It opens with the Seven A^es of Man, to which 
 Bacon adds an ci<;hth, " which rounds out and finishes 
 the story, with the "e.xit" from human view of all that is 
 
 mortal : 
 
 " Last scene of all 
 
 That ends this strange eventful history, 
 
 The old man dies ; and on the shoulders of his brethren, 
 
 To the heavy knoiied bells, is borne 
 
 In love and sacred pity, throu^'h the gates 
 
 Of the holy edifice of stone, where, all in white. 
 
 The goodly vicar meets them and doth say: — 
 ' I am the resurredion and the life :' 
 
 And then doth mount the pulpit stairs and doth begin : — 
 ' O Lord, have mercy on us wretched sinners !' 
 
 The people answering cry as with one voice, 
 * O Lord, have mercy on us wretched sinners !' 
 
 Then through the narrow winding churchway paths. 
 
 With weary task foredone, under the shade 
 
 Of melancholy boughs gently set down 
 
 Their venerable burden, and from the presence 
 
 Of the sun they lower him into the tomb." 
 
 The "ei^'hth" a,L;e,it will be observed, is not an age at all, 
 but a funeral. To this striking addition to one of Shake- 
 speare's best known passages, Baccm tacks on the whole of 
 Hamlet's soliloquy, "To be or not to be," commencing with 
 " To sleep, perchance to dream : ay, there's the rub ; " helps 
 himself to a pinch of Hamlet's lines, " Oh, that this too 
 solid flesh would melt," acknowledges in the language of 
 the King that " Our offence is rank, it smells to Heaven !" 
 
 promises that 
 
 . . .'■ When our younger brothers' play is done, 
 We'll play a comedy, my lord, wherein 
 The players that come forth, will to the life present 
 The pliant men that we as masks employ; "
 
 lOI 
 
 borrows from Hamlet's advice to the players, and so — 
 
 "The curtain's drawn. Begin." 
 
 The entire mosaic is the most unintelligible, inept, and 
 
 exasperating mixture of pathos, bathos, and sheer drivel 
 
 that has ever been claimed as the work of a learned, sane 
 
 man. 
 
 The first a.6t opens outside the Queen's hunting lodge. 
 
 Elizabeth alludes to her hounds in the lines allotted by 
 
 Shakespeare to Theseus (.4 Midsummer Night's Dream), 
 
 and has an interview with the Earl of Essex, who comes to 
 
 bring news of the Irish rising; and Bacon, who remains 
 
 mute during the entire scene. In the second scene, Essex 
 
 and Mr. Secretary Cecil come to open rupture in the 
 
 presence of the Queen. Cecil cries, in Shylock's words, 
 
 " Thou call'st me a dog before thou hast a cause, 
 But since I am a dog, beware my fangs ;" 
 
 and Essex retorts, in the prayer of Richard II., 
 
 " Now put it, heaven, in his physician's mind 
 To help him to his grave immediately ! 
 The lining of his coffers shall make coats 
 To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars." 
 
 In the mouth of King Richard II., these words had 
 some meaning, for it was the King's intention to seize the 
 possessions of old John of Gaunt after his demise, and 
 Gaunt was on his death-bed. But Cecil is in excellent 
 good health, and if he were likely to die not a shilling of 
 his personalty would have reverted to the crown. If this 
 was the original form in which Bacon composed the plays 
 of Shakespeare, he was undoubtedly mad. 
 
 The Queen then administers to Essex the historical box 
 on the ear, which so enrages the choleric nobleman that 
 he " essays to draw his sword," and is summarily dismissed 
 by the Queen, who, immediately repenting upon the reflec- 
 tion.
 
 102 
 
 " How bravely did he brave me in my seat, 
 Methoufjht he bore him here as doth a lion,'' 
 
 despatches Cecil to follow and brinij liiiii back. Essex 
 boxes Cecil's ear, refuses to listen to his wife's reproof, 
 and having sent for his brother, Francis Bacon (who greets 
 
 him with 
 
 " Brother, to fall from heaven unto hell, 
 
 To be cubbed up upon a sudden, 
 Will kill you " ) 
 
 dismisses the smug, but "rightful Prince of Wales," and 
 
 soliloquises — 
 
 ..." ]5ui I'll use means to make my brother King ; 
 Yet as he, Francis, has neither claimed it, 
 Or deserved it — he cannot have it ! 
 His highness ' Francis First,' shall repose him 
 At the tower ; fair, or not fair, I will 
 Consign my gracious brother thereunto. 
 Yes, he must die; he is much too noble 
 To conserve a life in base appliances." . . . 
 
 Taken as poetry, or as logic, the effort is not a masterpiece ; 
 it is, presumably, one of those portions in which " the 
 necessities for concealment" were so great as to make 
 "artistic constru(5lion impossible." But it certainly 
 explains, in a way, the reason of the traitorous behaviour 
 of Bacon towards Essex in the hour of the latter's 
 adversity. The poetry improves again in the next scene. 
 By misquoting the words of Junius Brutus respedling 
 Caius Marcus, 
 
 " AH speak praise of him, and the bleared sights 
 Are spe(5tacled to see him pass along," &c. 
 
 (it is impossible to determine whether the inaccuracies in 
 quotation should be blamed upon Bacon or Dr. Owen), and 
 adding thereto the jealous Richard II.'s contemptuous 
 reference to Bolingbroke : 
 
 "A brace of draymen did God-speed him well, 
 And had the tribute of his supple knee," &c.
 
 103 
 
 Bacon discloses Elizabeth's mental attitude towards the 
 recalcitrant Earl. Directly Essex enters, however, the 
 Queen promises him that he will soon be known as Duke 
 of York, and she meets his objec^tion, 
 
 " My princely brother 
 Francis, your quondam son, tells me flatly 
 He is the only rightful Prince of Wales," 
 
 with 
 
 " The proud jack ! 'tis true, if it comes to that, 
 
 He is the Prince of Wales. But". . . 
 
 Now Bacon must have known, as well as Elizabeth, 
 
 that neither he, nor Essex, nor anybody else would be 
 
 Prince of Wales unless so created by the reigning 
 
 monarch. But Essex is so full of his Irish command 
 
 that he overlooks such trifles, and in the next scene he 
 
 sends a captain to the Queen for a thousand pounds, with 
 
 the admonition, 
 
 " Be secret and away, 
 
 ' To part the blessings of this happy day.' " 
 
 In the third act, the Queen does the sleep-walking scene 
 from Macbeth. Essex returns to England, uttering the 
 words used bv Richard II. on his own safe arrival from 
 Ireland, to be upbraided by the Queen in the Duke of 
 York's words to Bolingbroke : 
 
 " Why have those banished and forbidden legs ? &c." 
 
 A half-dozen lines of description (from Coriolanus) of Caius 
 Marcus' return to Rome, illustrate the reception that 
 London tendered to the disobedient Earl. Essex revolts, 
 and fortifies himself in his house in London. When 
 ordered by the Chief Justice of England to surrender, 
 Essex replies in the magnificent curse which Mark Antony 
 utters against Rome over the corpse of the murdered 
 Caesar. The lack of enthusiasm which the citizens of 
 London display in the Essex rebellion is related to the 
 Earl in the report which Buckingham makes to the King,
 
 104 
 
 of London's reticence in rebellion (Richard III.) com- 
 mencing 
 
 " The citizens are muni, say not a word." 
 
 And when the insurrecftion dies out for want of fuel, he 
 finds solace for his grief in quoting Richard II. 's lines — 
 
 • . . " Of comfort, no man speak, 
 
 Let's talk of graves, of worms, of epitaphs," &c. 
 
 The unsuccessful Essex in parley with Lord Lincoln 
 
 employs the passage between Northampton and the King 
 
 in Richard IL, and in the subsequent Star Chamber trial, 
 
 the Chief Justice dismisses Essex to execution in the 
 
 words that Henry \'. applied to Scroop, Cambridge, and 
 
 Grey : 
 
 " Get you, therefore, hence 
 
 Poor miserable wretches, to your death," &c. 
 
 But the marvel of inept plagiarism, of consummate 
 wrongheadedness, and ignorance in the bestowal of stolen 
 property, is seen in the last act of this marvellous play. 
 Herein, Essex is discovered in a dungeon in the tower. He 
 is a man 34 years of age, and it is somewhat of a surprise 
 to find him declaring, in the (revised) language of little 
 Prince Arthur {King John) : 
 
 " So I were out of prison and kept sheep, 
 I should be merry as the day is long ; 
 And so I should be here, but that I doubt 
 That Cecil pradices more harm to me : 
 He is afraid of me, and I of him." 
 
 But it is more than a surprise to learn that this hardy 
 man of war is to be compelled by Bacon (Shakespeare 
 aiding) to play young Arthur to the bitter end. After being 
 surfeited with Francis Bacon's choicest philosophy, the 
 Lord Keeper arrives with a com mission to deliver Essex to 
 the jailers: " I will not reason what is meant thereby! " 
 
 It is impossible, without quoting the whole of this 
 culminating passage, to convey a correa impression of the
 
 I05 
 
 ludicrousness of the finale to this "marvel of literature," 
 — this play of " most thrilling interest and historical value." 
 
 [Exit Keeper.] 
 First jfaiUr. Oh, he is bold, and blushes not at death. 
 Essex. Avaunt thou hateful villain, get thee gone ! 
 First Jailer. There's the great traitor. 
 Second jfailcr. Ingrateful fo.\, 'tis he. 
 First Jailer. Bind fast his corky arms. 
 Essex. Help, — help, — help, —help! 
 
 Here's a man would murder me. Help, — help, — help ! 
 I will not struggle, I will stand stone still. 
 First Jailer, Bind him, I say. 
 Second Jailer. Hard, hard ! O filthy traitor ! 
 First Jailer. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here : 
 
 To this chair bind him. 
 Essex. Let me not be bound : 
 
 Alas, why need you be so boistrous rough ? 
 O I am undone, O I am undone ! 
 Do me no foul play, friend ! 
 First Jailer. Read here, traitor. 
 
 Can you not read it ? Is it not writ fair ? 
 Essex. How now, foolish rheume ; 
 
 Must you, with hot irons, burn out both mine eyes ? 
 O Heaven, that there were but a moth in yours, 
 A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair. 
 Any anno)'ance in that precious sense : 
 Then feeling what small things are boisterous there. 
 Your vile intents must needs seem horrible. 
 O spare mine eyes, though to no use but still to look on you ! 
 Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold, 
 And would not harm me— O men, if you will. 
 Cut out my tongue, so that I may still keep 
 Both mine eyes to see. 
 First Jailer. To see some mischief ! 
 
 See shall thou never: (fellow, hold the chair:) 
 Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot 1 
 Essex. He thitt will ihink to live till he be old. 
 
 Give me some help ! O save me, — save me ! — help ! 
 
 [Tliey tear out one of his eyes.) 
 Oh cruel ! Oh God, — O God, — O God ! my eyes are out I 
 Oh, I am slain !
 
 inG 
 
 First ya'iler. My Lord, you have one eye left ! 
 
 One side will mock another ; th' other too. 
 ( )iit, vile jelly ! where is thy lustre now ? 
 
 {They tear out tin- other eye.) 
 Essex. All dark and comfortless! — 
 
 O God, enkindle all the sparks of nature 
 To quit this horrid ad. 
 First Jailer. Away with him ; lead him to the block. 
 
 [Exeunt Otinies. 
 
 In the cpiloj.,aic, the two jailers bkickiiiail Mr. Secretur}- 
 Cecil as he walks in his garden with his decipherer, and the 
 book ends w^th the following cryptic lines : 
 
 " This is the cruel man (Cecil) that was employed 
 To execute that execrable tragedy, 
 And you can witness with me this is true " 
 (Onuus) " This is the strangest tale that e'er I heard." 
 
 This amazing adaptation of a perfec^l: piece of dramatic 
 writing to the exigencies of biography is, it may be 
 assumed, without parallel in the history of literature. 
 Comment would be superfluous: imagine Mr. Daniel Leno 
 sustaining the part of Essex in a performance of the 
 drama, and the illusion is complete.
 
 Bacon, tlic Poet. 
 
 THE whole of the new matter that we find in the play 
 under notice is so dissimilar from that of Shakespeare in 
 style, language, and expression, that it might be the work of 
 any author, American or English, even — if we accept the 
 statement of Spedding — of Bacon himself. It is difficult to 
 form any corre(5t estimate of Bacon's talent as a poet, 
 because, apart from his own description of himself as a 
 "concealed poet," and his versification of the Psalms, we 
 have nothing to guide us. Spedding doubtless had these 
 Psalms in his mind when he pronounced so emphatically 
 upon the absence of simiilarity between the writings of 
 Shakespeare and Bacon. There is little extant verse of the 
 period which is so un-Shakespearean as this produdl 
 of Bacon's maturity, which was dedicated to the pious 
 and learned George Herbert, whose verses on Bacon were 
 printed in 1637. The publication is a proof that Bacon 
 thought well of his work — it is not on record that any- 
 body else has endorsed that opinion. Indeed, these seven 
 Psalms give us all that we have, or want, of Bacon's 
 poetr}-. The following is an extract from the first psalm : 
 
 " He shall be like the fruitful tree, 
 Planted along a running spring. 
 Which, in due season, constantly 
 A goodly yield of fruit doth bring ;
 
 io8 
 
 Whose leaves continue always green, 
 And are no prey to winter's pow'r : 
 
 So shall that man not once be seen 
 Surprised with an e\ il hour." 
 
 His renderinj^ of the (joth psalm is not all as bald and 
 discordant as the following : 
 
 " Bej^in Thy work, O I-ord, in this our age, 
 Shew it unto Thy servants that now live; 
 But to our children raise it many a stage, 
 That all the world to Thee may glory give. 
 
 Our handy-work likewise, as fruitful tree, 
 Let it, O Lord, blessed, not blasted be." 
 
 The heautiiul 14th and i^lh verses of the 104th psahn are 
 thus rendered b}- our " concealed poet " : 
 
 " Causing the earth put forth the grass for beasts. 
 And garden herbs, served at the greatest feasts. 
 And bread that is all viands firmament. 
 And gives a firm and solid nourishment, 
 And wine, man's spirits for to recreate. 
 And oil, his face for to exhilarate." 
 
 There can be no two opinions as to the merits of these 
 metrical efforts, vvhich Bacon thought good enough to print 
 and to dedicate to his friend George Herbert. Speckling 
 says of them, " In compositions upon which a man would 
 have thought it a culpable waste of time to bestow any 
 serious labour, it would be idle to seek cither for indications 
 of his taste or for a measure of his powers." And again, 
 " of these verses of I)acon's, it has been usual to speak 
 not only as a failure, but as a ridiculous faihu"c : a censure 
 in which 1 cannot concur. An unpractised versifier (fancy 
 styling the author of the Faerie Qneenc and Adonis, 
 an * unpra(5tised versifier!') — who will not take time and 
 trouble about the work, must, of course, leave man\' bad 
 verses ; for poetic feeling and imagination, though tin y will 
 dislike a wrong word, will not of themselves suggest a 
 right one that will suit metre and rh}ine : and it would be
 
 ^ ¥*'*-'... -.-,4 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S HOUSE.
 
 log 
 
 easy to quote from the few pages, not only many bad lines, 
 but many poor stanzas." Spedding concludes with the 
 comment : " Considering how little he cared to publish 
 during the first sixty years of his life, and how many things 
 of weightier charad\er and more careful workmanship he 
 had then by him in his cabinet, it was somewhat remark- 
 able that he should have given these Psalms to the world." 
 Dr. Abbott, another friendly biographer and admirer of 
 Bacon's " magnificent prose," says : — " Some allowance 
 must be made (no doubt) for the fact that Bacon is trans- 
 lating, and not writing original verse. Nevertheless a true 
 poet, even of a low order, could hardly betray so clearly 
 the cramping influence of rhyme and metre. There is far 
 less beauty of di(R:ion and phrase in these verse translations 
 than in any of the prose works that are couched in an 
 elevated style. . . . But I cannot help coming to the 
 conclusion that, although Bacon might have written 
 better verse on some subject: of his own choosing, the 
 chances are that even his best would not have been very 
 good." 
 
 But despite the appalling evidence of poetical incapacity 
 presented by this versification of the Psalms, a staunch 
 Baconian, by a train of argument which is only equalled 
 by that employed by Mr. Theobald, has proved, to his own 
 satisfaction, that Bacon was a poet, by locating the 
 position which the Plays occupy in the scheme of Bacon's 
 works. This ingenious logician has discovered that the 
 two most extraordinary fatrts connected with Bacon's 
 philosophy are (a) that the most eminent students have 
 been unable to understand his " method of interpretation," 
 and (b) that the last three parts of the Instauratio Magna 
 are apparently wholly lost. Because Ellis and Spedding 
 both declare that " of his philosophy they can make 
 nothing," and that " he failed in the very thing in which
 
 1 lU 
 
 he was most bent," therefore he must be a poet. Because 
 the last three books of the Iiistaiiratio are " apparently 
 wholly lost " — which is the writer's perversion of the 
 indubitable fact that they were never written — therefore 
 the comedies, histories, and traf^edies of Shakespeare 
 actually form the fourth, fifth, and sixth books of " the 
 great work." Firstly (to present this argument fairly), 
 Bacon declared his intention to insinuate his philosophy 
 into men's minds by a method which would [)rovoke no 
 controversy; secondly (this is not exactly proxcd, hut just 
 stated as a fact). Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare ; 
 and thirdly, the Plays arc the treasure house of all art, 
 science, and wisdom. The luitural and inevitable deduction 
 is that they must form the missing — i.e., the unwritten — 
 parts of the Instauratio Magna. 
 
 I am afraid that we must decline to accept so ingenious 
 a piece of sophistry. Until it is proved that the Psalms 
 are a forgery, or that they have been erroneously attributed 
 to Bacon, we have a gauge of his poetical ability which is 
 fatal to his pretensions to the authorship of the Plays, of 
 Spenser, or of any one of the books which we are asked to 
 believe emanated from his stupendous intellect.
 
 " Did Sliakcspearc ]]'rifc Bacon 
 
 :> " 
 
 MR. LESLIE STEPHEN, with amazing nerve and 
 a fine sense of humour, has carried the war of the 
 rival claims into the enemies' country, and propounded the 
 theory, with no little plausibility, that so far from Bacon 
 being the author of the Plays, Shakespeare was the real 
 writer of Bacon's philosophical works. Mr. Theobald 
 claims to prove that Bacon had ample leisure in which to 
 write all Shakespeare and his own books as well. Mr. 
 Stephen has come to the conclusion that his time was so 
 fully occupied with business, and political and financial 
 anxieties, that he never found the opportunity he was 
 always seeking to perfect his great philosophical reform. 
 Up to the year of the accession of James L, he had not 
 been able to prepare any statement of his philosophic 
 ideas. His desire, as we know from his letters, was to 
 stand well with the King ; his scruples, as we also gather 
 from his letters, did not make him hesitate to employ 
 questionable practices when he had his own interests to 
 serve. If he had not time to write, he could get a book 
 written for him. He selecl;ed Shakespeare, who at this 
 period had a great reputation as the author of Hamlet, 
 for the purpose. Why Shakespeare, it may be asked ? 
 Because, says Mr. Stephen, he knew Shakespeare through
 
 112 
 
 Ren Jonson ; he knew Southampton as a friend and patron 
 f)f Shakespeare, aiul he therefore employed Shakespeare 
 throupjh Southampton — the present of ^i,ooo, which it is 
 known was made to Shakespeare b\- his youthful pation, 
 being monrx- [>aid 1)\' Racou on account, for the writing of 
 the Advanconcnt of Lcarniiu^. 
 
 If the supposition th;it Shakespeare wrote this book for 
 Hacon be correct, argues Mr. Stephen, " lu' might iuiturall\- 
 tr\- to insert some intimationof authorship to whichhe could 
 appeal in case of necessity." Mr. Stephen sought for the 
 intimation in the Advancement, and he discovered it in the 
 .first Si letters. The opening words are, "There were 
 under the law, excellent King, both daily sacrifices and free 
 will offerings the one pro " (ceeding, &c.) These letters (to 
 the end of pro) can be re-arranged to make the following: 
 " Crede Will Shakespeare, green innocent reader; he was 
 the author of excellent writing : V . 1>. X. fifth idol, lye." 
 For the assistance of an\' one who cares to verify the 
 cipher, Mr. Stephen explains that in both cases (the 
 original and the decipheration) A occurs in 4 places, 15 in 
 I, C in 3, 1) in 3, E in 15, I*" in 4, G in 2, H in 4, I in f), K 
 in I, L in 6, N in 6, O in 4, V in i, R in 7, S in 3, T in 5, U 
 in I, \\' in 3, X in i,and V in i. 
 
 Mr. Stephen assumes that Shakespeare explained this 
 saucy little anagram to hJacon when the work was 
 published, and that I)acon retaliated h\ "getting at" the 
 printers (jf the folio after Shakespeare's death, and in- 
 serting a cryptogram claiming the authorship for himself. 
 Bacon is imagined to have said to himself, " If Shakespeare 
 succeeds in claiming my philoS()[)h\', I will take his plays 
 in exchange." " He had become," says our theorist, 
 "demoralised to the point at which he could cheat his 
 conscience by such lamentable casuistry." In 1608 Bacon 
 was Solicitor-General, and a rich man. He approached
 
 THE CHANCEL OF TRINITY CHURCH, 
 STRATFORD-ON-AVON.
 
 113 
 
 Shakespeare a second time with the object of having his 
 great philosophical work continued. Three years after- 
 wards, Shakespeare left the stage, and retired to pass the 
 last five years of his life at Stratford. Why did he retire ? 
 "■ Because," says Mr. Stephen, " Bacon had grown rich and 
 could make it worth his while to retire to a quiet place 
 where he would not be tempted to write plays, or drink at 
 the ' Mermaid,' or make indiscreet revelations." If it 
 should be asked what he was doing, the answer is obvious. 
 He was writing the Novum Organum. Baconians and Mr. 
 Leslie Stephen are agreed that the Novum Organum is the 
 work of a poet, and that it was written by the author of 
 the Plays. But if it is conceded that Shakespeare wrote 
 Novum Organum, it still remains a mystery to Baconians 
 as to who wrote Shakespeare. After Shakespeare's death, 
 Bacon, in De Angmentis, wrote that " the theatre might be 
 useful either for corruption or for discipline : but in modern 
 times there is plenty of corruption on the stage, and no 
 discipline." Mr. Stephen deduces from this that in order 
 to aim a back-handed blow at Shakespeare, Bacon would 
 blaspheme the art of which he claimed to be master — that 
 he was, in fa(5t, according to our other theorist, fouling the 
 fourth, fifth, and sixth books of his Instauratio Magna. 
 
 Neither of the theories we have just reviewed need be 
 taken seriously. We know that Bacon himself gave an 
 account of the scheme of the Magna Instauratio in a 
 se(?tion of the Novum Organum, called the Distributio 
 Operis. The fourth book was to have contained examples 
 of the "new method," and of the results to which it led. 
 The fifth was to contain what Bacon had accomplished in 
 Natural Philosophy without the aid of his own method, 
 and the sixth was to set forth the New Philosophy — the 
 results of the application of the new method, and all the 
 Phenomena of the Universe. Mr. Leslie Ellis tells us that 
 
 I
 
 114 
 
 Bacon never hoped to complete the sixth part ; he speaks 
 of it as a thin^,' ct supra vires et ultra spes nostras collncata. 
 Mr. LesHe Stephen's whimsical retort to the In^tauratio 
 theory may be regarded as ?i jcu iVcsprit.
 
 The Case for Shakespeare. 
 
 IN propounding their theory that Bacon was the author 
 of the plays attributed to Shakespeare, the Baconians 
 rely on two main arguments: the plausibility of the idea that 
 they should have emanated from the man whom Macaulay 
 declared to possess the " most exquisitely constructed 
 intellect that has ever been bestowed on any of the 
 children of men," and the extraordinary unlikelihood that 
 a man of Shakespeare's origin and antecedents should 
 have written them. More recently, the disclosure of the 
 bi-literal and the " word " ciphers, running through certain 
 editions of the plays, and in Bacon's works, have placed a 
 new weapon in the hands of Shakespeare's traducers. 
 Already some of the supporters of Bacon's claims have 
 assumed a sceptical attitude towards the " cipher specula- 
 tions " — partly, I suspect, on account of their American 
 origin — and Mr. A. P. Sinnett, whilst claiming that if the 
 bi-literal cipher is substantiated, the Bacon case is demon- 
 strated up to the hilt, hedges himself behind the assertion 
 that the curious allegations now brought forward do not 
 affect, one way or the other, the general force of the literary 
 argument that supports the Baconian idea. But, unless 
 a gigantic fraud is being attempted — which we have no 
 reason to suppose is the case — Mrs. Elizabeth Wells
 
 1x6 
 
 Galliip's bi-liteial cipher can easily be substantiated. 
 When this is accomplished, we only get to the point that 
 Bacon claims to have been the auth<H- of the plays put 
 forth 1)\- all his contemporaries, while the convicftion still 
 remains, as it was expressed by ('arl\le, that " I)acon 
 could no more have written Hauilct than he could have 
 made this planet." 
 
 It is interestinj; in this connection to briefly sum up the 
 concensus of expert opinion that the leading scholars and 
 students of Eli;^abethan literature hold on the subjecft. 
 Mr. Sidney Lee, whose Life of William Shakespeare has 
 been called " the most useful, the most judicious, and the 
 most authoritative of all existing biographies of the poet," 
 regards the theory as "fantastic." The substance of Mr. 
 Lee's conclusions is that "the abundance of the contem- 
 porary evidence attesting Shakespeare's responsibility for 
 the works published under his name, gives the Baconian 
 theory no rational right to a hearing ; while such authentic 
 examples of Bacon's effort to write verse as survi\e prove, 
 beyond all possibility of contradiction, that great as he was 
 as a prose writer and a philosopher, he was incapable 
 of penning any of the poetry assigned to Shakespeare. 
 Defed^ive knowledge and illogical, or casuistical, argument 
 alone render any other conclusion possible." 
 
 Dr. N. II. Hudson, in his Shakespeare : His Life, Art, 
 and Character, has on the liaconian theory four things to 
 say : — i. Bacon's requital of the Earl's bounty (the Earl of 
 Essex) was such a piece of ingratitude as I can hardly 
 conceive the author of King Lear to have been guilty of. 
 
 2. The author of Shakespeare's plays, whatever he ma\- 
 have been, certainly was not a scholar. He had certainly 
 something far better than learning, but lu' had not that. 
 
 3. Shakespeare never philosophises. Bacon ne\er does 
 anything else. 4. Bacon's mind, great as it was, might
 
 oliakespeaxe Auto6raplis 
 
 ^^^^% 1f^'^&^r 
 
 C 
 
 Jnorf-^a^e of JIolls& ltl 
 
 r pT-r ■ Bla.c'kIrux.rs,7JC-MarckjQ2. 
 
 LorLYCycLTtce oh JtocLse. vn. 
 
 BUckfrta.r-s , 10 "^ March , 1612 . 
 
 live thrte^ signxLiLcres to tke Will, 25 ''f^ MaLTchy, 1616 . 
 
 1. 
 
 
 2. 
 
 
 3. 
 
 /if9vU^x^^ ^floJf-P,^^^.^
 
 117 
 
 have been cut out of Shakespeare's without being missed. 
 But if, in the absence of anything bearing an even 
 remote resemblance to proof, we find ourselves compelled 
 to make a synopsis of expert opinion on the subject, we 
 shall find no man's conclusions more deserving of respe(ft 
 and acceptance than those of the late James Spedding. 
 Without intending to cast any reflection upon the critics 
 and others who have plunged with ebullient enthusiasm 
 into this controversy, it may not be out of place to point 
 out that Spedding is head and shoulders above all disputants 
 in knowledge, and second to none in critical ability. His 
 knowledge of Shakespeare was intimate and profound, and 
 he knew his Bacon more thoroughly than it has been the 
 lot of any other man of letters to be known by his fellow 
 man. He gave up his position in the Colonial Office, and 
 declined the position of Under-Secretary of State, with 
 ^2,000 a year, in order to devote his whole time to the 
 stud}' of the life and works of Lord Bacon — a task which 
 occupied him for nearly thirty years. Sir Henry Taylor, in 
 a letter to a friend in 1861, wTote as follows : — " I have 
 been reading Spedding's Life and Letters of Lord Bacon 
 with profound interest and admiration — admiration not of 
 the perfect style and penetrating judgment only, but also 
 of the extraordinary labours bestowed upon the works by 
 a lazy man ; the labour of some twenty years, I believe, 
 spent in rummaging among old records in all places they 
 were to be found, and collating different copies of manu- 
 scripts written in the handwriting of the i6th century, and 
 noting the minutest variations of one from another — an 
 inexpressibly tedious kind of drudgery, and, what was, 
 perhaps, still worse, searching far and wide, waiting, 
 watching, peering, prying through long years for records 
 which no industry could recover. I doubt whether there 
 be any other example in literary history of so large an
 
 ii8 
 
 intelledt as Spedding's devoting itself, with so much self- 
 sacrifice, to thr illustration of one which was hu^er still, 
 and doing so out of reverence, not so much fir that largest 
 intellect, as for the truth concerning it." Sir Henry Taylor, 
 in this passage, not only does justice to the diligence and 
 genius of the author, but recognises the spirit in which 
 the work was undertaken. Spedding spent thirty years in 
 quest of the truth concerning this remarkable man, and 
 having discovered it, he was prepared to maintain his 
 conclusions with all the power of his knowledge and 
 commanding intelligence. These qualities he exercised 
 with paralysing effect against Lord Macaulay's Essay on 
 Bacon. It has been claimed by one champion of Shake- 
 speare's cause that Macaulay's " well-known depth of 
 research, comprehensive grasp of facets and details, and his 
 calm method of presenting honest conclusions, renders him 
 pre-eminent as a safe authority." The exact opposite is, of 
 course, the case, but the possession of these very qualities are 
 revealed by Spedding in his Evenings icith a Reviewer, to the 
 utter spoliation of a great number of Macaulay's cherished 
 calculations and conclusions. " No more conscientious, no 
 more sagacious critic," according to G. S. Venables, " has 
 employed in a not unworthy task the labour of his life," 
 and the same writer has also declared that " the historical 
 and biographical conclusions which he (Spedding) estab- 
 lished depend on an exhaustive accumulation of evidence 
 arranged and interpreted by the clearest of intellects, with 
 an honesty which is rarely known in controversial dis- 
 cussion." Spedding is, in brief, universally acknowledged 
 to be not only the greatest authority on Bacon, but also of 
 the times in which he lived. His acquaintance with 
 Elizabethan literature, its history, and its manuscripts was 
 unique — he was, it may be said without fear of contradidlion, 
 a master of his period. " His knowledge of Shakespeare,"
 
 iig 
 
 says \'enables, in the prefatory notice to Evenings with a 
 Reviewer, " was extensive and profound, and his laborious 
 and subtle criticism derived additional value from his love 
 of the stage." The opinion of such an authority on such 
 a subjecT: as the authorship of plays attributed to Shake- 
 speare is, in default of proof to the contrary, of the highest 
 possible value — to a close student of Spedding it must 
 appear incontrovertible. 
 
 Spedding's article on the question, which is included in 
 the volume of Reviews and Discussions (Kegan Paul, Trench 
 & Co., 1879) was written in reply to Professor Nathaniel 
 Holmes' treatise on The Authorship of Shakespeare.'' In his 
 opening sentence, he says, " I have read your book. . . . 
 faithfully to the end, and if my report of the result is 
 to be equally faithful, I must declare myself not only 
 unconvinced, but undisturbed." 
 
 He is instant and decisive with his reasons. " To ask 
 me," he continues, " to believe that a man who was famous 
 for a variety of other accomplishments, whose life was 
 divided between public business, the practice of a laborious 
 profession, and private study of the art of investigating the 
 material laws of nature — a man of large acquaintance, of 
 note from early manhood, and one of the busiest men of 
 his time, but who was never suspe(5^ed of wasting his time 
 in writing poetry, and is not known to have written a 
 single blank verse in all his life — that this man was the 
 author of fourteen comedies, ten historical plays, and eleven 
 tragedies, exhibiting the greatest, and the greatest variety, 
 of excellence that has been attained in that kind of com- 
 position, is like asking me to believe that Lord Brougham 
 was the author, not only of Dickens's novels, but of 
 Thackeray's also, and of Tennyson's poems besides." 
 
 Spedding, himself a genius, finds no difficulty in appre- 
 ciating the quality of genius in Shakespeare. It was not
 
 120 
 
 scholarship, or environment, or traininp^ that enabled 
 William Shakespeare to become the author of the most 
 wonderful series of dramas in the world. Of Shakespeare's 
 gifts, he frankl\- states the wonder is that any man should 
 have possessed them, not that the man to whose lot they 
 fell was the son of a poor man called John Shakespeare, 
 and that he was christened William. If Shakespeare was 
 not trained as a scholar, or a man of science, neither do 
 the works attributed to him show traces of trained 
 scholarship or scientific education. GiNcn the faculties 
 (which nature bestows as full}- on the poor as on the rich) 
 you will find that the required knowledge, art and dexterity 
 which the Shakespearean plays imply, were easily attainable 
 by a man who was labouring in his vocation, and liad 
 nothing else to do." 
 
 W'liat Spedding failed to grasp was the difficulty which 
 the Baconians find in believing that Shakespeare was as 
 likely to be the author of the plays as any other man of his 
 generation. In endeavouring to solve the extraordinary 
 difticulty of the old theory of the authorship of the plays 
 by substituting a new one, they have only made confusion 
 worse confounded. "That which is extraordinary in the 
 case," Spedding maintains, " is that any man should 
 possess such a C(jmbination of faculties as must have met 
 in the author of these plays. I'xit that is a difficulty which 
 cannot be avoided. There must ha\e been somebody in 
 whom the requisite combination of faculties did meet, for 
 there the plays are ; and by supposing that this somebody- 
 was a man who, at the same time possessed a combination 
 of other faculties, themselves sufficient to make him an 
 extraordinary man too, you do not diminish the wonder, 
 but increase it. . . . That a human being possessed of the 
 faculties necessary to make a Shakespeare should exist, is 
 extraordinary. That a human being possessed of the
 
 ANN HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE AT SHOTTERY.
 
 121 
 
 faculties necessary to make a Bacon should exist, is extra- 
 ordinary. That two such human beings should have been 
 living in London at the same time was more extraordinary 
 still. But that one man should have existed possessing 
 the faculties and opportunities necessary to make both, 
 would have been the most extraordinary thing of all." 
 
 It may be contended, and with justice, that in the 
 foregoing we have arguments that did not require the 
 special knowledge and experience of a Spedding to prefer. 
 It may not be, it probably is not, regarded by Baconians as 
 serious argument, and, as Mr. R. M. Theobald would say, it 
 would be simply a waste of time and words to discuss it. 
 Certain is it that none of the pro-Bacon writers realise the 
 necessity of answering, and, if possible, contravening 
 these simple arguments. It is difficult to find any satis- 
 fadtor}- reason for their reticence. But whether it is that 
 they question the value of the views of the greatest student 
 of Bacon on this subject, or are ignorant of his essay, or 
 — what is more likely- — are unable to combat so plausible a 
 view coming from so eminent an authorit}', the fact remains 
 that Spedding's opinion is consistently disregarded. 
 
 It is not, however, that part of his argument which we 
 have quoted, but the part which follows which carries 
 convidtion to those who are familiar with the work both of 
 Bacon and of Spedding. The resemblances in thought 
 and language, which are to be found in Shakespeare and 
 Bacon, are accepted by Spedding as inevitable between 
 writers nourished upon a common literature, employing a 
 common language, and influenced by a common atmosphere 
 of knowledge and opinion. " But to me," he declares, " I 
 confess, the resemblances between Shakespeare and Bacon 
 are not so striking as their differences. Strange as it seems 
 that two such minds, both so vocal, should have existed 
 within each other's hearing without mutually affecting each
 
 122 
 
 Other, I find so few traces of any iiiHuence exercised by 
 Shakespeare upon Bacon, that I have ^reat doubt whether 
 Bacon knew any more about him than Gladstone (pro- 
 bably) knew about Tom Taylor (in his dramatic capacity). 
 Shakespeare may have derived a ^ood deal from Bacon. 
 He had, no doubt, read the Advancement of Leamini^ and 
 the tirst edition of the Essays, 2ind. most likely had freciiuntly 
 heard him speak in thr ("nnrts and in tln^ Star rhamhcr. 
 But amon^' all the parallelisms whi( h ymi ha\e collected 
 with such industry to illustrate the icKiitity of the writer, 
 I have not observed one in which I should not have 
 inferred, from the difference of st}le, a difference of hand. 
 Great writers, being contemporary, have many features in 
 common : but if they are really great writers, they write 
 naturally, and nature is always individual. I doubt whether 
 there are fi\e lines together t(j be f(jund in Bacon whirh 
 could be mistaken for Shakespeare, or fi\elincs in Shakes- 
 peare which could be mistaken for l>aeoii, b\' one who was 
 familiar with their several stales, and practised in such 
 observations. I was myself well read in Shakespeare before 
 I began with Bacon, and I have been forced to cultivate 
 what skill I have in distinguishing Bacon's style to a high 
 degree ; because in sifting the genuine from the spurious, 
 I had commonly nothing but the style to guide me. And 
 to me, if it were jiro\ed that any one of the plays attri- 
 buted to Shakespeare was reall}' written by r>acon, not 
 the least extraordinary thing about it would be the power 
 whirh it would show in him of lading aside his individual 
 peculiarities and assuming those of a difterent man." 
 
 There; we have Spedding's reasons for rejecting the 
 Baconian theory — let us summarise his conclusions in his 
 own words : "If you had fixed upon anybody else rather 
 than Bacon as the true author," he says — "anybody of 
 whom I knt.w nothing — I should have been scarcely less
 
 123 
 
 incredulous, because I deny that ^ prima facie case is made 
 out for questioning Shakespeare's title. But if there were 
 any reason for supposing that somebody else was the real 
 author, I think I am in a condition to say that, whoever 
 it was, it was not Bacon. The difficulties which such a 
 supposition would involve would be almost innumerable, 
 and altogether insurmountable. But," he adds, " if what I 
 have said does not excuse me from saying more, what 
 I might say more would be equally ineffecftual."
 
 Wen' SIiiiktspL'dir and Ihicoii . i cquaintcd ? 
 
 IV we are to believe in the existence of the cipher, 
 it follows as a matter of course that Bacon and 
 Shakespeare were acciuainted. Xothinf^ is more prob- 
 able. Bacon was at Court during the whole time that 
 Shakespeare's plays were presented there. Bacon must 
 at one period have been acquainted with Shakespeare's 
 patron, Lord ScMithainptoii, who was the bosom friend of 
 Bacon's patron, the ICurl of Kssix. Bacon was certainly in 
 touch with 15(11 fonson, Shakespeare's friend and co- 
 worker. It is scarcely conceivable that the two most 
 prominent lij^nires in the literary world of the da\' should 
 have been unknown to one another, although there is 
 no authentic evidence to show that they were. In 
 Shakespeare's True Life (1890), Major James Walter 
 publishes an illustration of Bacon's house at St. Margaret's, 
 Richmond, " where Shakespeare was a frcquint visitor." 
 "Twickenham," says the writer, "is a main conne(5ling 
 link with what is known of Shakespeare's visits to the 
 neighbourhood : doubly interesting as clearly indicating 
 his intimacy with I-Jacon, then living at his house, only a 
 short distance on the other s\dr. of St. Margaret's, in 
 Twickenham Park." Again, " It was just shortly before 
 this plague fright, Shakespeare and IJacon had been
 
 jointly engaged in getting up one or more of his plays in 
 Gray's Inn, and it comes with the saying they should be 
 frequently together in the eminently charming retreat just 
 acquired by Bacon at the munificent hand of Elizabeth's 
 Favourite (the Earl of Essex)." "Catholic tradition," 
 the same authority assures us, "asserts that Bacon 
 wrote the first portion of his great essays under the 
 cedars of Twickenham Park ; others go further, and say 
 our information is that Shakespeare and Bacon had a 
 special fondness for the two old cedars, and spent much 
 time on occasions of Shakespeare's visiting and resting 
 with his friend at Twickenham, in reading and converse 
 under the shade of these widespreading venerable trees." 
 In another part of the same book we read : " Some 
 families, whos^ past histories should afford information 
 bearing on Shakespeare's life, assert that he met Spenser 
 and Sir Walter Raleigh on more than one occasion at 
 Richmond, and that Bacon was in the habit of receiving 
 them together at his St. Margaret's home." 
 
 Interesting as are these details, they are, it will be 
 observed, quite unsupported. What the Major says is, 
 unfortunately, " not evidence." If Major Walter had given 
 us chapter and verse for all this information, we might have 
 verified his evidence for ourselves, but " Catholic tradi- 
 tion " and the unnamed "families with past histories," 
 and the "others" are too vague to pin one's faith to. 
 We may, however, assume that Shakespeare was not 
 unknown to Bacon, that they met when Shakespeare was 
 appearing at Gray's Inn; and it is quite possible, if not 
 probable, that Shakespeare consulted Bacon on the legal 
 references and similes that we find in the Plays. 
 
 Bacon, although disloyal, and capable of shameless 
 ingratitude towards his benefactors, had the love of his 
 secretary Rawley, and the warm esteem of such men as
 
 126 
 
 Ik'ii Jonson, Boener, and Toby Matthew. Abbott, who is 
 fully awake to his many faults, notes this curious incon- 
 sistency in his nature, and explains it in the conclusion 
 that " whenever he found men naturally and willinj^jly 
 dependinj:;; on him, and co-operatinj; with him . . . his 
 natural and general benevolence found full pla}." If we 
 accept this explanation, and it would appear to be the 
 correct solution of his enigmatic character, we can readily 
 understand that Bacon, in a patronising, but good-hearted 
 way, would extend no little faxour to a man of Shakes- 
 peare's position and reputation. Shakespeare would be 
 familiar with Bacon's works, he may even have had the 
 run of Bacon's library in Gray's Inn — an assumption of 
 their intimacy, which, if supported by documentary 
 evidence, would establish the theory that the poet used 
 the philosopher as his model for Polonius. Bacon, the 
 great philosopher, and tlu' iutluuntial politician, would 
 certainly have "the tribute of the supple knee" of all 
 aspirants to literary fame. Authors would be proud to 
 attract his notice, publishers would be flattered to allow 
 him to glance through the proofs of any books that they 
 were issuing. It is quite natural to suppose that if 
 Shakespeare w'as known to Bacon, Heming and Condell 
 would have been aware of the fact, and an offer to render 
 them some assistance in publishing the First Folio would 
 have been accepted with alacrity. Such an offer may have 
 been made through Rawley, his faithful secretary; it might 
 have come direct from Bacon to the publishers. How he 
 obtained command of the proofs it is impossible to 
 conjecture with any contidence, but if it is proved that 
 "^ the cipher exists in the Folio, and the other works 
 
 mentioned — and I am satisfied to believe that it does, until 
 a properly constituted committee reports that it is non- 
 existent — it will be evident that somebody must have
 
 127 
 
 overcome the difficulties that the task presented. The law 
 at that time recognised no natural right in an author to the 
 creation of his brain, and the full owner of a MS. copy of 
 any literar}- composition was entitled to reproduce it, or to 
 treat it as he pleased, without reference to the author's 
 wishes. Thomas Thorpe, and the other pirates of the 
 period, were always on the look-out for written copies of 
 plays and poems for publication in this manner. AH 
 Shakespeare's plays that appeared in print were issued 
 without his authority, and, in several instances, against his 
 expressed wish. How did Thorpe and his tribe obtain 
 possession of the manuscripts of King Lear, Henry F., 
 Pericles, Hamlet, Titus Andronicns, and the rest of the 
 sixteen plays which were in print at the date of the 
 author's death ? If we knew for certain that Shakespeare 
 and Bacon were on terms of intimacy, it would be a 
 justifiable conjecture to suppose that the latter might have 
 had a hand in the business, but if the existence of the 
 cipher in these pirated quartos is verified, we maybe quite 
 sure that Bacon was the publishers' accessory in securing 
 the MSS. for publication. 
 
 It is, however, more difficult to satisfactorily explain 
 the claim of Bacon to the authorship of the Anatomy of 
 Melancholy. The first edition, in quarto form, was published 
 in 1621 ; the cipher appears in the folio that was issued in 
 1628. In the preface to this edition, the author announces 
 that he will make no more changes in his work : " I will 
 not hereafter add, alter, or retract; I have done." What 
 do we gather from that, Mrs. Gallup may ask ? — surely 
 that Bacon felt his strength failing when he wrote those 
 words ; he certainly did not live to see the book through 
 the press. But the fact remains that four more editions were 
 published within Burton's lifetime, each with successive 
 alterations and additions. The final form of the book was
 
 128 
 
 the sixth edition (1051-52), printed from an annotated copy 
 given just before I>iirton's death to the publisher, Henry 
 Cripps, who gained, Anthony a Wood tells us, great prohts 
 out of the book. This is one <>f the points upon which we 
 shall hope to hear from Mrs. (ialhip. 
 
 In this 1628 folio of the Aiuitoiiiy of Melancholy, Mrs. 
 Gallup has deciphered some ninety pages of a {lartial 
 translation of Homer's Iliad. r>ut on comparing this 
 translation with that of Alexander Pope, written about a 
 century later, it becomes clear that it is not taken from the 
 original Greek of Homer, but is, in fact, a prose rendering 
 of Pope's version. But Mrs. Galluj) in a letter to the 
 Times, which appears as these pages are going through the 
 press, declares that an examination of six different English 
 translations of the Ilitul, and one Latin, shows her such 
 substantial accord that either of them could be called 
 with equal justice a paraphrase of Pope, or that Pope had 
 copied from the others.
 
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 Ill Conclusion. 
 
 THREE of the main arguments which Baconians urge 
 against the claims of Shakespeare to the authorship 
 of the Plays are, firstly, that Shakespeare left no books ; 
 secondly, that only five of his signatures have come down to 
 us; and, thirdly, that he makes no reference to his plays in 
 his Will. When we come to investigate these objections, it 
 may be said, without hesitation, that they do not amount 
 to a row of pins. There isn't a rag of evidence, to 
 employ Mr. Sinnett's phrase, to show that he left no books, 
 it is quite certain that he left as much manuscript as Peele 
 or Marlowe or any of the dramatists of his period, and it 
 would have been something more than extraordinary if he 
 had made any reference to copyrights which he did not 
 possess. The professional playwrights of the period sold 
 their plays outright to one or other of the acting com- 
 panies, and they retained no legal interest in them after 
 the manuscript had passed into the hands of the theatrical 
 manager. When Shakespeare had disposed of his dramas, 
 he washed his hands of them, so to speak, and not a 
 single play of the sixteen that were published during his 
 lifetime was issued under his supervision. They belonged 
 to the theatre for which they were written. Shakespeare 
 was only conforming to the general custom in this matter 
 
 K
 
 in betraying no interest in work which did not belong to 
 him. He was consistently and characteristically indifferent 
 as to what became of his plays, and in this he forms a 
 striking contrast to liacon, who had a mania for preserving 
 and publishing every particle of his writings. In Shake- 
 speare, this neglect, if surprising, is at least consistent; in 
 Bacon it is too antagonistic to what is known of his 
 idiosyncracics to be entertained for a single moment. 
 Bacon must have realised that his versification of the 
 Psalms was of less merit than the poetry in the plays. 
 Yet he carefully superintended the publication of the 
 Psalms, in the same year in which the)- wc-rc written, 
 and kept no copies of such plays as The Tcinpest, The Two 
 Gentlemen, Measure for Measure, Comedy of Errors, As You 
 Like It, Airs Well, Twelfth Night, Winter's Tale, Henry 
 VL, Henry VIIL, Coriolanus, Timon, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, 
 Antony and Cleopatra, and Cymbcline. These works of 
 " supreme literary interest " were rescued from the dust- 
 bin of the theatres, by the energy and affection of two of 
 Shakespeare's brother actors, what time IJacon was trans- 
 lating his philosophical works into Latin, and publishing 
 the Psalms. 
 
 In the foregoing pages, Bacon's character, and the 
 incidents in his life have, it may be objected, been dealt 
 with in a iiarsh and unsympathetic manner. Yet the facfts 
 set down are matters of history, and I claim for the 
 comments, and the conclusions derived therefrom, that 
 they are neither misleading nor exaggerated. It has been 
 my endeavour to show that, while all that we know of 
 Bacon's private life and his public career — the evidence of 
 his deeds, his sentiments, his prose, and his verse — prove 
 him to have been a man incapable of conceiving the poetry
 
 131 
 
 of the Plays, there is nothing in the Hfe of Shakespeare, 
 when freed of the miserable misrepresentations and base- 
 less accusations introduced by his traducers, which makes 
 it difficult for us to regard him as the rightful author. One 
 thing we must recognise in the writer of the greatest 
 poetry of all times — his genius. We cannot argue that 
 Shakespeare had genius — and, therefore, he wrote the plays 
 — but we may transpose the argument and declare that 
 Shakespeare wrote the plays, and therefore he had genius. 
 But, cries the Baconian, Bacon also possessed genius. The 
 fact is incontrovertible. His genius inspired him to draw 
 up the scheme of his Magna Instanratio, to write his Essays, 
 to invent a new philosophy, and a most ingenious cipher, 
 but it did not prevent him from composing some miserably 
 poor verses or enable him to discern the singular absence 
 of merit in his metrical effusions. There is not a single 
 "literary" argument of the hundreds put forward in 
 support of Bacon's claims to the authorship of the Plays 
 which has validity, or even plausibility, to recommend it. 
 There is not a single argument of the hundreds that have 
 been advanced to deprive Shakespeare of his mantle which 
 can stand the test of investigation. Carlyle declared Bacon 
 to be as incapable of writing Hamlet as of making this 
 planet. Spedding, who devoted thirty years of his life to 
 the study of Bacon, emphatically asserts that, " if there 
 were any reason for supposing that somebody else was the 
 real author (of Shakespeare), I think I am in a condition 
 to say that, whoever it was, it was not Bacon." We know 
 that Shakespeare put the plays on the stage, and acted in 
 them, and that his intimate friends, his fellow actors, and 
 the public, believed him to be the writer. We know, too, 
 that Bacon had a distaste, if not a contempt, for the stage;
 
 132 
 
 that his Hfelon^ complaint was his iiiabihty to secure time 
 for his philosophir studies. To sum up in a sentence, it 
 may be said that there is no reason to suppose that Bacon 
 was the author of tiie Plays, while there is every reason 
 to believe that he was not : aiul with respect to Shake- 
 speare, there is no reason to believe he was not what he 
 claimed to be, and there is tradition, the testimony of all 
 who had the best means of knowing, to prove that he was. 
 Until very recent times, one of the most tangible 
 arguments of the Shakespeareans was that IJacon had not 
 claimed the authorship of the Plays. That argument, if it 
 has not now been thrown down, is, at least, suspended. 
 The existence of the bi-literal cipher which Mrs. Gallup 
 preaches, though vigorously attacked, has not yet been 
 exploded. lUit if the cipher which contains these claims 
 is verified, in the face of all circumstantial evidence that 
 prove the claims to be baseless and preposterous, we are 
 practically convicting Bticon of one of the greatest and 
 most impudent literary frauds that was ever perpetrated. 
 Yet that is what I am prepared to find is the case. Nor 
 am I without warrant for holding this opinion. When the 
 existence of the bi-literal, and the word-cipher has been 
 acknowledged, we shall find that there are four other forms 
 of cipher, the " Capital Letter ; Time, or as more oft called, 
 Clocke ; Symboll ; and Anagrammaticke . . . which wee 
 have us'd in a few* of owr bookes." These ciphers are now 
 being applied to decipher other messages which Bacon 
 sent down the ages by this secret medium. Of the nature 
 of these claims, I am, at the moment, unable to speak, 
 but I am in a position to say that the contents are more 
 sensational than any that have yet been revealed. The 
 absolute proof of the authorship of the Pla}'s is promised
 
 133 
 
 — but again we shall get no more than what Bacon con- 
 sidered constituted proof. In reality, it will form part of a 
 gigantic fraud committed by one of the cleverest men that 
 ever lived, it will disclose the flaw in " the most exquisitely 
 constructed intellect that has ever been bestowed on any 
 of the children of men ; " it will prove, up to the hilt, the 
 madness of Francis Bacon. 
 
 Finis. 
 
 E. Goodman &• Son, Phcenix Printing ]\'oi'ks, Taunton.
 
 liUlorhe b\: the same Hutbor 
 
 coMi'ivisixc. : 
 
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