Baconian theory
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Sir Francis Bacon was the first alternative candidate proposed as the true author of Shakespeare's plays and was the leading candidate in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
The Baconian theory of Shakespearean authorship holds that Sir Francis Bacon, lawyer, philosopher, essayist and scientist, wrote the plays conventionally attributed to William Shakespeare, and that the historical Shakespeare was merely a front to shield the identity of Bacon, who could not take credit for the works because being known as a lowly playwright for the public stage would have impeded his ambition to hold high office.
Bacon was the first alternative candidate suggested as the true author of Shakespeare's plays. The theory was first put forth in the mid-nineteenth century, based on perceived correspondences between the philosophical ideas found in Bacon’s writings and the works of Shakespeare. Legal and autobiographical allusions and cryptographic ciphers and codes were later found in the plays and poems to buttress the theory. All but a few academic Shakespeare scholars reject the arguments for Bacon authorship, as well as those for all other alternative authors.
The Baconian theory gained great popularity and attention in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, although since the mid-twentieth century the primacy of his candidacy as the true author of the Shakespeare canon has been supplanted by that of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Despite the academic consensus that Shakespeare wrote the works bearing his name and the decline of the theory, supporters of Bacon continue to argue for his candidacy through organizations, books, newsletters, and websites.
Contents [hide]
1 Terminology
2 History of Baconian theory
3 Autobiographical evidence
4 Credentials for authorship
5 The Tempest
6 Gray's Inn revels 1594–95
7 Verbal parallels
7.1 Gesta Grayorum
7.2 Promus
7.3 Published work
8 Raleigh's execution
9 Critical reception
10 See also
11 References
12 Notes
13 External links
13.1 General Non-Stratfordian
13.2 Baconian
13.3 Stratfordian
[edit]Terminology
See also: Spelling of Shakespeare's name
Sir Francis Bacon was a major scientist, philosopher, courtier, diplomat, essayist, historian and successful politician, who served as Solicitor General (1607), Attorney General (1613) and Lord Chancellor (1618). Those who subscribe to the theory that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespeare work generally refer to themselves as "Baconians", while dubbing those who maintain the orthodox view that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote them "Stratfordians".
Baptised as "Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere" (William son of John Shakspere), the traditionally-accepted author used several variants of his surname during his lifetime, including "Shakespeare". Baconians use "Shakspere"[1] or "Shakespeare" for the glover's son and actor from Stratford, and "Shake-speare" for the author to avoid the assumption that the Stratford man wrote the work.
[edit]History of Baconian theory
A pamphlet entitled The Story of the Learned Pig (c1786) and alleged research by James Wilmot have been claimed to be the earliest instances of the claim that Bacon wrote Shakespeare's work, but the Wilmot research has been exposed as a forgery and the pamphlet makes no reference to Bacon.[2]
The idea was first proposed by Delia Bacon in lectures and conversations with intellectuals in America and Britain. William Henry Smith was the first to publish the theory in a letter to Lord Ellesmere[3] published in the form of a sixteen-page pamphlet entitled Was Lord Bacon the Author of Shakespeare's Plays?[4] Smith suggested that several letters to and from Francis Bacon that apparently hinted at his authorship. A year later, both Smith and Delia Bacon published books expounding the Baconian theory, though in Delia Bacon's model Francis worked in collaboration with other writers and scholars.[5][6] In the latter work, Shakespeare was represented as a group of writers, including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, whose agenda was to propagate an anti-monarchial system of philosophy by secreting it in the text.
In 1867, in the library of Northumberland House, one John Bruce happened upon a bundle of bound documents, some of whose sheets had been ripped away. It had comprised numerous of Bacon's oratories and disquisitions, had also apparently held copies of the plays Richard II and Richard III, The Isle of Dogs and Leicester's Commonwealth, but these had been removed. On the outer sheet was scrawled repeatedly the names of Bacon and Shakespeare along with the name of Thomas Nashe. There were several quotations from Shakespeare and a reference to the word Honorificabilitudinitatibus, which appears in Love's Labour's Lost and in Nashe's Lenten Stuff. The Earl of Northumberland sent the bundle to James Spedding, who subsequently penned a thesis on the subject, with which was published a facsimile of the aforementioned cover. Spedding hazarded a 1592 date, making it possibly the earliest extant mention of the Shakespeare.
After a diligent deciphering of the Elizabethan handwriting in Francis Bacon's wastebook, the Promus of Formularies and Elegancies, Constance Mary Fearon Pott (1833–1915) noted that many of the ideas and figures of speech in Bacon's book could also be found in the Shakespearean plays. Pott founded the Francis Bacon Society in 1885 and published her Bacon-centered theory in 1891.[7] In this, Pott developed the view of W.F.C. Wigston,[8] that Francis Bacon was the founding member of the Rosicrucians, a secret society of occult philosophers, and claimed that they secretly created art, literature and drama, including the entire Shakespeare canon, before adding the symbols of the rose and cross to their work.
The late 19th-century interest in the Baconian theory continued the theme that Bacon had hidden encoded messages in the plays. In 1888, Ignatius L. Donnelly, a U.S. Congressman, science fiction author and Atlantis theorist, set out his notion of ciphers in The Great Cryptogram.
Baconian theory developed a new twist in the writings of Orville Ward Owen and Elizabeth Wells Gallup. Owen's book Sir Francis Bacon's Cipher Story (1893-5) claimed to have discovered a secret history of the Elizabethan era hidden in cipher-form in Bacon/Shakespeare's works. The most remarkable revelation was that Bacon was the son of Queen Elizabeth. According to Owen, Bacon revealed that Elizabeth was secretly married to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who fathered both Bacon himself and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, the latter ruthlessly executed by his own mother in 1601.[9] Bacon was the true heir to the throne of England, but had been excluded from his rightful place. This tragic life-story was the secret hidden in the plays.
Elizabeth Gallup developed Owen's views, arguing that a bi-literal cipher, which she had identified in the First Folio of Shakespeare's works, revealed concealed messages confirming that Bacon was the queen's son. This argument was taken up by several other writers, notably Alfred Dodd in Francis Bacon’s Personal Life Story (1910) and C.Y.C. Dawbarn in Uncrowned (1913).[10][9] In Dodd's account Bacon was a national redeemer, who, deprived of his ordained public role as monarch, instead performed a spiritual transformation of the nation in private though his work: "He was born for England, to set the land he loved on new lines, 'to be a Servant to Posterity'".[11]
Much later the cryptographers William and Elizabeth Friedman, who spent many years with Mrs.Gallup, showed that the method is unlikely to have been employed.[12]
Friedrich Nietzsche expressed interest in and gave credence to the Baconian theory in his writings. The German mathematician Georg Cantor believed that Shakespeare was Bacon. He eventually published two pamphlets supporting the theory in 1896 and 1897.
Orville Ward Owen had such conviction in his own cipher method that, in 1909, he began excavating the bed of the River Wye, near Chepstow Castle, in the search of Bacon's original Shakespearean manuscripts. The project ended with his death in 1924. Nothing was found.
The American art collector Walter Conrad Arensberg (1878–1954) believed that Bacon had concealed messages in a variety of ciphers, relating to a secret history of the time and the esoteric secrets of the Rosicrucians, in the Shakespearean works. He published a variety of decipherments between 1922 and 1930, concluding finally that, although he had failed to find them, there certainly were concealed messages. He established the Francis Bacon Foundation in California in 1937 and left it his collection of Baconiana.
More recent Baconian theory ignores the esoteric following that the theory had earlier attracted.[13] Whereas, previously, the main proposed reason for secrecy was Bacon's desire for high office, this theory posits that his main motivation for concealment was the completion of his Great Instauration project.[14][15] The argument runs that, in order to advance the project's scientific component, he intended to set up new institutes of experimentation to gather the data (his scientific "Histories") to which his inductive method could be applied. He needed to attain high office, however, to gain the requisite influence,[16] and being known as a dramatist (a low-class profession) would have impeded his prospects (see Stigma of print). Realising that play-acting was used by the ancients "as a means of educating men's minds to virtue",[17] and being "strongly addicted to the theatre"[18] himself, he is claimed to have set out the otherwise-unpublished moral philosophical component of his Great Instauration project in the Shakespearean work (moral "Histories"). In this way, he could influence the nobility through dramatic performance with his observations on what constitutes "good" government (as in Prince Hal's relationship with the Chief Justice in Henry IV, Part 2).
[edit]Autobiographical evidence
It is known that, as early as 1595, Bacon employed scriveners,[19] which, one could argue, would protect his anonymity and account for Heminge and Condell, two actors in Shakspeare's company, remarking about Shakspere that "wee [sic] have scarce received from him a blot in his papers".[20] Baconians point out that Bacon's rise to the post of Attorney General in 1613 coincided with the end of Shakespeare the author's output. They also stress that the First Folio was published in a period (1621–1626) when Bacon was publishing his work for posterity after his fall from office gave him the free time.
Henry VIII (1613) may be interpreted as alluding to Bacon's fall from office in 1621, suggesting that the play had been altered at least five years after Shakspere's death in 1616. The argument relates to Cardinal Wolsey's forfeiture of the Great Seal in the play, which might be construed as departing from the facts of history to mirror Bacon's own loss. Bacon lost office on a charge of accepting bribes to influence his judgment of legal cases, whereas Wolsey's crime was to petition the Pope to delay sanctioning King Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Nevertheless, in 3.2.125-8, just before the Great Seal is reclaimed, King Henry's main concern is an inventory of Wolsey's wealth that has inadvertently been delivered to him:
King Henry. [...] The several parcels of his Plate, his Treasure,
Rich stuffs, and ornaments of household, which
I find at such a proud rate, that it outspeaks
Possession of a subject.
A few lines later, Wolsey loses the Seal with the stage direction:
Enter to Cardinal Wolsey the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey
and the Lord Chamberlaine.
However, in history, only the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk performed this task,[21] and Shakespeare has inexplicably added the Earl of Surrey and the Lord Chamberlaine. In Bacon's case, King James "commissioned the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlaine, and the Earl of Arundel, to receive and take charge of it".[22] Given that Thomas Howard was the 2nd Earl of Arundel and Surrey, then the two noblemen that Shakespeare has added may be construed as references to two of the four that attended Bacon.
[edit]Credentials for authorship
"If we must look for an author outside of Shakespeare himself," said Caldecott, "the only possible candidate that presents himself is Francis Bacon."[23] Proposed the illustrious Shakespearean scholar Horace Howard Furness, "Had the plays come down to us anonymously – had the labour of discovering the author been imposed upon future generations – we could have found no one of that day but Francis Bacon to whom to assign the crown. In this case it would have been resting now upon his head by almost common consent."[24] "He was," agreed Caldecott, "all the things that the plays of Shakespeare demand that the author should be – a man of vast and boundless ambition and attainments, a philosopher, a poet, a lawyer, a statesman."[25]
In relation to the extensive vocabulary used in the plays, we have the words of Dr. Samuel Johnson, author of the first dictionary: "[... A] Dictionary of the English language might be compiled from Bacon's writing alone".[26] The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley testifies against the notion that Bacon's was an unwaveringly dry legal style: "Lord Bacon was a poet. His language has a sweet majestic rhythm, which satisfies the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his intellect satisfies the intellect [...]."[27] Ben Jonson writes in his First-Folio tribute to "The Author Mr William Shakespeare",
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece and haughtie [sic] Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
"There can be no doubt," said Caldecott, "that Ben Jonson was in possession of the secret composition of Shakespeare's works." An intimate of both Bacon and Shakespeare – he was for a time the former's stenographer and Latin interpreter, and had his debut as a playwright produced by the latter[28] – he was placed perfectly to be in the know. He did not name Shakespeare among the sixteen greatest cards of the epoch but wrote of Bacon that he "hath filled up all the numbers,[29] and performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or to haughty Rome [...] so that he may be named, and stand as the mark[30] and acme of our language."[31] "If Ben Jonson knew that the name 'Shakespeare' was a mere cloak for Bacon, it is easy enough to reconcile the application of the same language indifferently to one and the other. Otherwise," declared Caldecott, "it is not easily explicable."[32]
Some time subsequent to Shakespeare's expiry, Jonson tackled the panoptic task of setting down the First Folio and casting away the originals. This was in 1623, when Bacon had lapsed into penury. Jonson would have been keen to allay his friend's straits, and the folio's yield would have fitted the bill nicely.
In 1645 a satirical poem was published entitled The Great Assizes Holden in Parnassus by Apollo and his Assessours. This describes an imaginary trial of recent writers for crimes against literature. Apollo presides at a trial. Bacon ("The Lord Verulam, Chancellor of Parnassus") heads a group of scholars who act as the judges. The jury comprises poets and playwrights, including "William Shakespere". One of the convicted "criminals" challenges the court, attacking the credentials of the jury, including Shakespeare who is called a mere "mimic".
That Bacon took a keen interest in civil history is evidenced in his book History of the Reign of Henry VII (1621), his article the Memorial of Elizabeth (1608) and his letter to King James in 1610, lobbying for financial support to indite a history of Great Britain: "I shall have the advantage which almost no writer of history hath had, in that I shall write of times not only since I could remember, but since I could observe."[33]
Bacon and Shake-speare cover completely the monarchs of the period 1377 to 1603 without duplicating one another's historical ground. In 1623, Bacon gave different excuses to Prince Charles for not working on a commissioned treatise on Henry VIII (which had already been covered by the Shake-speare play in 1613).[34] In the end, he wrote only two pages.
[edit]The Tempest
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Numerous scholars[who?] believe that the main source for Shakespeare's The Tempest was a letter written by William Strachey known as the True Reportory (TR)[35] sent back to the Virginia Company from the newly established Virginia colony in 1610, about a year before the play's first known performance.[36] It was discovered when Richard Hakluyt, one of the eight names on the First Virginia Charter (1606), died in 1616 and a copy was found among his papers. Scholars have suggested that the letter was “circulated in manuscript”[37] without restriction and that “there seems to have been an opportunity for Shakespeare to see the unpublished report, or even to have met Strachey”.[38] However, Baconians point to evidence that the letter was restricted to members of the Virginia Council which included Sir Francis Bacon (and 50 other Lords and Earls) but not William Shakspere. For example, Item 27 of the governing Council’s instructions to Deputy Governor Sir Thomas Gates before he set out for the colony charges him to “take especial care what relacions [accounts] come into England and what lettres are written and that all thinges of that nature may be boxed up and sealed and sent to first of [sic] the Council here, ... and that at the arrivall and retourne of every shippinge you endeavour to knowe all the particular passages and informacions given on both sides and to advise us accordingly."[39] Louis B. Wright explains why the Virginia Company was so keen to control information: “[the TR gave] a discouraging picture of Jamestown, but it is significant that it had to wait fifteen years to see print, for the Virginia Company just at that time was subsidising preachers and others to give glowing descriptions of Virginia and its prospects".[40] Baconians argue that it would have been against the interests of any Council member, whose investment was at risk, to present a copy of the TR to Shakspere, whose business was public.
On November 1610, conscious that the criticisms of the returning colonists might jeopardise the recruitment of new settlers and investment, the Virginia Company published the propagandist True Declaration (TD) which was designed to confute “such scandalous reports as have tended to the disgrace of so worthy an enterprise” and was intended to “wash away those spots, which foul mouths (to justify their own disloyalty) have cast upon so fruitful, so fertile, and so excellent a country”.[41] The TD relied on the TR and other minor sources and it is clear from its use of “I” that it had a single author. There are also verbal parallels between (a) the TD, and (b) Bacon's Advancement of Learning[42] that suggest that Sir Francis Bacon as Solicitor General might have written the TD and so, by implication, had access to the TR which sourced The Tempest. Some examples of these are presented together with their correspondence to (c) the Shake-speare work.
Parallel 1
(a) The next Fountaine [sic] of woes was secure negligence
(b) but to drink indeed of the true fountains of learning (p.121)
(c) Thersites. Would the fountain of your mind were clear again,
that I might water an ass at it!
(1602-3 Troilus and Cressida, 3.3.305-6)
Parallel 2
(a) For if the country be barren or the situation contagious as famine
and sickness destroy our nation, we strive against the stream of reason
and make ourselves the subjects of scorn and derision.
(b) whereby divinity hath been reduced into an art, as into a cistern, and
the streams of doctrine or positions fetched and derived from thence. (p.293)
(c) Timon. Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,
That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,
And drown themselves in riot!
(1604-7 Timon of Athens, 4.1.26-8)
Lysander. scorn and derision never come in tears:
(1594-5 A Midsummer Night's Dream, 3.2.123)
Parallel 3
(a) The emulation of Cæsar and Pompey watered the plains of Pharsaly
with blood and distracted the sinews of the Roman monarchy.
(b) We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to the ancient
opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief and distrust (p.273)
(c) Henry V. Now are we well resolved; and, by God's help,
And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
Or break it all to pieces:
(1599 Henry V, 1.2.222-5)
William Strachey went on to write The History of Travel into Virginia Britannica, a book that avoided duplicating the details of the TR. First published in 1849, three manuscript copies survive dedicated to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland; Sir William Apsley, Purveyor of his Majesty’s Navy Royal; and Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor. In the dedication to Bacon, which must have been composed after he became Lord Chancellor in 1618, Strachey writes “Your Lordship ever approving himself a most noble fautor [supporter] of the Virginia Plantation, being from the beginning (with other lords and earls) of the principal counsel applied to propagate and guide it”.[43]
The 1610-11 dating of The Tempest however, has been challenged by a number of scholars, most recently by researchers Roger Stritmatter and Lynne Kositsky[44] who argue that Strachey's narrative could not have furnished an inspiration for Shakespeare, claiming that Strachey's letter was not put into its extant form until after The Tempest had already been performed on 1 Nov. 1611. The notion of an early date for The Tempest has in fact a long history in Shakespearean scholarship, going back to 19th century scholars such as Hunter[45] and Elze,[46] who both critiqued the widespread belief that the play depended on the Strachey letter. However, the cogency of their work has been challenged by Vaughan[47] and Reedy[48] who reaffirm the Strachey letter's use a source for The Tempest.
[edit]Gray's Inn revels 1594–95
Gray's Inn law school traditionally held revels over Christmas: dancing and feasting were complemented by plays and masques. The evidence suggests that, prior to the revels of 1594 and '95, all performed plays were amateur productions.[49] In his commentary on the Gesta Grayorum, a contemporary account of the 1594–95 revels, Desmond Bland[50] informs us that they were "intended as a training ground in all the manners that are learned by nobility [...:] dancing, music, declamation, acting." James Spedding, the Victorian editor of Bacon's Works, thought that Sir Francis Bacon was involved in the writing of this account.[51]
William Shakespeare remunerated for a performance at Whitehall on Innocents Day 1594.
The Gesta Grayorum[52] is a pamphlet of 68 pages first published in 1688. It informs us that The Comedy of Errors received its first known performance at these revels at 21:00 on 28 December 1594 (Innocents Day) when "a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus his Menechmus) was played by the Players [...]." Whoever the players were, there is evidence that Shakespeare and his company were not among them: according to the royal Chamber accounts, dated 15 March 1595 – see Figure[53] – he and the Lord Chamberlain's Men were performing for the Queen at Greenwich on Innocents Day. E.K. Chambers[54] informs us that "the Court performances were always at night, beginning about 10pm and ending at 1am", so their presence at both performances is highly unlikely; furthermore, the Gray's Inn Pension Book, which recorded all payments made by the Gray's Inn committee, exhibits no payment either to a dramatist or to professional company for this play.[55] Baconians interpret this as a suggestion that, following precedent, The Comedy of Errors was both written and performed by members of the Inns of Court as part of their participation in the Gray's Inn celebrations. One problem with this argument is that the Gesta Grayorum refers to the players as "a Company of base and common fellows",[56] which would apply well to a professional theatre company, but not to law students. But, given the jovial tone of the Gesta, and that the description occurred during a skit in which a "Sorcerer or Conjuror" was accused of causing "disorders with a play of errors or confusions", Baconians interpret it as merely a comic description of the Gray's Inn players.
Gray's Inn actually had a company of players during the revels. The Gray's Inn Pension Book records on 11 February 1595 that "one hyndred marks [£66.67] [are] to be layd out & bestowyd upon the gentlemen for their sports and shewes this Shrovetyde at the court before the Queens Majestie ...."[57]
Francis Bacon's letter either to Lord Burghley (before 1598) or Lord Somerset (1613) "I am sorry the joint masque from the four Inns of Court faileth".
There is, most importantly to the Baconians' argument, evidence that Bacon had control over the Gray's Inn players. In a letter either to Lord Burghley, dated before 1598, or to the Earl of Somerset in 1613,[58] he writes, "I am sorry the joint masque from the four Inns of Court faileth [.... T]here are a dozen gentlemen of Gray's Inn that will be ready to furnish a masque".[59][verification needed] The dedication to a masque by Francis Beaumont performed at Whitehall in 1613 describes Bacon as the "chief contriver" of its performances at Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple.[60] He also appears to have been their treasurer prior to the 1594–95 revels.[61]
The discrepancy surrounding the whereabouts of the Chamberlain's Men is normally explained by theatre historians as an error in the Chamber Accounts. W.W. Greg suggested the following explanation:
"[T]he accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber show payments to this company [the Chamberlain's Men] for performances before the Court on both 26 Dec. and 28 Dec [...]. These accounts, however, also show a payment to the Lord Admiral's men in respect of 28 Dec. It is true that instances of two court performances on one night do occur elsewhere, but in view of the double difficulty involved, it is perhaps best to assume that in the Treasurer's accounts, 28 Dec. is an error for 27 Dec."[62]
[edit]Verbal parallels
[edit]Gesta Grayorum
'Greater lessens the smaller' figure from Gesta Grayorum.
The final paragraph of the Gesta Grayorum – see Figure – uses a "greater lessens the smaller" construction that occurs in an exchange from the Merchant of Venice (1594–97), 5.1.92-7:
Ner. When the moon shone we did not see the candle
Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less,
A substitute shines brightly as a King
Until a King be by, and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brooke
Into the main of waters ...
The Merchant of Venice uses both the same theme as the Gesta Grayorum (see Figure) and the same three examples to illustrate it – a subject obscured by royalty, a small light overpowered by that of a heavenly body and a river diluted on reaching the sea. In an essay[63] from 1603, Bacon makes further use of two of these examples: "The second condition [of perfect mixture] is that the greater draws the less. So we see that when two lights do meet, the greater doth darken and drown the less. And when a small river runs into a greater, it loseth both the name and stream." A figure similar to "loseth both the name and stream" occurs in Hamlet (1600–01), 3.1.87-8:
Hamlet. With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
Bacon was usually careful to cite his sources but does not mention Shakespeare once in any of his work. Baconians claim, furthermore, that, if the Gesta Grayorum was circulated prior to its publication in 1688 – and no one seems to know if it was – it was probably only among members of the Inns of Court.[citation needed]
[edit]Promus
In the 19th century, a notebook entitled the Promus of Formularies and Elegancies[64] was discovered. It contained 1,655 hand written proverbs, metaphors, aphorisms, salutations and other miscellany. Although some entries appear original, many are drawn from the Latin and Greek writers Seneca, Horace, Virgil, Ovid; John Heywood's Proverbes (1562); Michel de Montaigne's Essays (1575), and various other French, Italian and Spanish sources. A section at the end aside, the writing was, by Sir Edward Maunde-Thompson's reckoning, in Bacon's hand; indeed, his signature appears on folio 115 verso. Only two folios of the notebook were dated, the third sheet (5 December 1594) and the 32nd (27 January 1595 [that is, 1596]). Many of these entries also appear in Shakespeare's First Folio:
Parallel 1
Parolles. So I say both of Galen and Paracelsus (1603-5 All's Well That Ends Well, 2.3.11)
Galens compositions not Paracelsus separations (Promus, folio 84, verso)
Parallel 2
Launce. Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin for her living (1589-93, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 3.1.307-8)
Now toe on her distaff then she can spynne/The world runs on wheels (Promus, folio 96, verso)
Parallel 3
Hostesse. O, that right should o'rcome might. Well of sufferance, comes ease (1598, Henry IV, Part 2, 5.4.24-5)
Might overcomes right/Of sufferance cometh ease (Promus, folio 103, recto)
The orthodox view is that these were commonplace phrases; Baconians claim the occurrence in the last two examples of two ideas from the same Promus folio in the same Shakespeare speech is unlikely.[citation needed]
[edit]Published work
There is an example in Troilus and Cressida (2.2.163) which shows that Bacon and Shakespeare shared the same interpretation of an Aristotelian view:
Hector. Paris and Troilus, you have both said well,
And on the cause and question now in hand
Have glozed, but superficially: not much
Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy:
The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passion of distemper'd blood
Bacon's similar take reads thus: "Is not the opinion of Aristotle very wise and worthy to be regarded, 'that young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy', because the boiling heat of their affections is not yet settled, nor tempered with time and experience?"[65]
What Aristotle actually said was slightly different: "Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; [...] and further since he tends to follow his passions his study will be vain and unprofitable [...]."[66] The added coincidence of heat and passion and the replacement of "political science" with "moral philosophy" is employed by both Shakespeare and Bacon. However, Shakespeare's play precedes Bacon's publication, allowing the possibility of the latter borrowing from the former.
[edit]Raleigh's execution
Spedding suggests that lines in Macbeth refer to Sir Walter Raleigh's execution, which occurred two years after Shakespeare of Stratford's death and fourteen years after the Earl of Oxford's.[67] The lines in question are spoken by Malcolm about the execution of the "disloyall traytor [sic] / The Thane of Cawdor" (1.2.53):
King. Is execution done on Cawdor?
Or not those in Commission yet return'd?
Malcolme. My Liege, they are not yet come back,
But I have spoke with one that saw him die:
Who did report, that very frankly hee [sic]
Confess'd his Treasons, implor'd your Highnesse [sic] Pardon
And set forth a deepe [sic] Repentance:
Nothing in his Life became him,
Like the leaving it. He dy'de [sic],
As one that had been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,
As 'twere a carelesse [sic] Trifle.(1.4.1)
Several sources have remarked upon Raleigh's frivolity in the face of his impending execution[68][69] and the assertion that "[the Commission who tried him] are not yet come back" could refer to the fact that his execution was swift: it took place the day after his trial for treason.[70] Raphael Holinshed, the main source for Macbeth, mentions "the thane of Cawder [sic] being condemned at Fores of treason against the king"[71] without further details about his execution, so whoever wrote the lines in the play went beyond the original source.
In Raleigh's trial at Winchester on 17 November 1603, his statement was read out: "Lord Cobham offered me 10,000 crowns for the furthering the peace between England and Spain".[72] In 1.2.60-4 of Macbeth, the King's messenger reports on the king of Norway, who has been assisted by the thane of Cawdor:
Rosse. That now
Sweno, the Norwayes [sic] king, craves composition:
Nor would we deigne [sic] him burial of his men,
Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes ynch [sic],
Ten thousand Dollars to our general use.
Shake-speare was known for his use of anagrams (e.g. the character Moth in Love's Labour's Lost represents Thomas Nashe)[73] and here he has altered Cawder to Cawdor, an anagram of "coward". Some Baconians see this as an allusion to Raleigh's poem the night before his execution.[citation needed]
Cowards [may] fear to die; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.[74]
Some scholars[75] believe that Macbeth was later altered by Middleton, but a reference to Raleigh's execution would be particularly advantageous to the Baconian theory because Bacon was one of the six Commissioners from the Privy Council appointed to examine Raleigh's case.[76]
But more than one Elizabethan traitor put on a brave show for his execution. In 1793, George Steevens suggested that the speech was an allusion to the death of the Earl of Essex in 1601 (a date that does not conflict with Shakespeare's or Oxford's authorship): "The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor corresponds in almost every circumstance with that of the unfortunate Earl of Essex, as related by Stow, p. 793. His asking the Queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold are minutely described."[77] As Steevens notes, Essex was a close friend of Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton.[78] Essex also employed Bacon as an adviser in the latter's early career in Parliament, until Essex fell out of favour and was prosecuted with Bacon's help.
Most editors of Macbeth simply assume the speech to be fictional and not a deliberate allusion to a specific event.
[edit]Critical reception
Mainstream Stratfordian academics reject the Baconian theory (along with other "alternative authorship" theories), citing a range of evidence – not least of all its reliance on a conspiracy theory. As far back as 1879, a New York Herald scribe bemoaned the waste of "considerable blank ammunition [...] in this ridiculous war between the Baconians and the Shakespearians",[79] while Richard Garnett declared that "Baconians talk as if Bacon had nothing to do but to write his play at his chambers and send it to his factotum, Shakespeare, at the other end of the town."[80]
Mainstream academics reject the anti-Stratfordian claim[81] that Shakespeare had not the education to write the plays. Shakespeare grew up in a family of some importance in Stratford; his father John Shakespeare, one of the wealthiest men in Stratford, was an Alderman and later High Bailiff of the corporation. It would be surprising had he not attended the local grammar school, as such institutions were founded to educate boys of Shakespeare's moderately well-to-do standing.[82]
Stratfordian scholars[who?] also cite Occam's razor, the principle that the simplest and best-evidenced explanation (in this case that the plays were written by Shakespeare of Stratford) is likely the correct one. A critique of all alternative authorship theories may be found in Samuel Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives.[83] Questioning Bacon's ability as a poet, Sidney Lee asserted: "[...] such authentic examples of Bacon's efforts to write verse as survive 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."[84]
At least one Stratfordian scholar claims Bacon privately disavowed the idea he was a poet, and, seen in the context of Bacon's philosophy, the 'concealed poet' is something other than a dramatic or narrative poet.[85] A mainstream historian of authorship doubt, Frank Wadsworth, asserted that the 'essential pattern of the Baconian argument' consisted of:
'expressed dissatisfaction with the number of historical records of Shakespeare's career, followed by the substitution of a wealth of imaginative conjectures in their place.'[86]
[edit]See also
[show]v · d · eShakespeare authorship question (History)
[edit]References
Bacon, Delia: The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded (1857); The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded
Bacon, Francis: Advancement of Learning (1640)
Bacon, Francis, The Major Works (Oxford University Press: 2002)
Bland, Desmond: Gesta Grayorum (Liverpool University Press, 1968)
Boswell, James: The Life of Samuel Johnson 1740-1795
Caldecott, Harry Stratford: Our English Homer; or, the Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy (Johannesburg Times, 1895)
Chambers, Edmund Kerchever: The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 1 (Clarendon Press: 1945)
Dean, Leonard: Sir Francis Bacon's theory of civil history writing, in Vickers, Brian, (ed.): Essential Articles for the Study of Sir Francis Bacon (Sidwick & Jackson: 1972)
Dobson, Michael, and Wells, Stanley, The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (Oxford University Press: 2005)
Feil, J.P. (1967), "Bacon-Shakespeare: The Tobie Matthew Postscript", Shakespeare Quarterly (Folger Shakespeare Library) 18 (1): 73–76, doi:10.2307/2868068, JSTOR 2868068?
Fletcher, Reginald (ed.): The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569-1669, Vol. 1 (1901)
Friedman, William and Friedman, Elizabeth: The Shakespearian ciphers examined (Cambridge University Press, 1957)
Garnett, Richard, and Edmund Gosse. English Literature: An Illustrated Record. Vol. II. London: Heinemann, 1904.
Heminge, John; Condell, Henry: First Folio (1623)
Holinshed, Raphael, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1587)
Jonson, Ben: Timber: or, Discoveries; Made Upon Men and Matter (Cassell: 1889)
Hall, Joseph: Virgidemarium (1597–1598)
Jardine, Lisa, and Stewart, Alan: Hostage to Fortune, The Troubled Life of Sir Francis Bacon (Hill and Wang: 1999)
Kermode, F. (ed.), The Tempest, Arden Shakespeare (London, Methuen: 1958)
Lambeth Palace MS 650.28
Lambeth Palace MS 976, folio 4
Marston, John: The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image And Certaine Satyres (1598)
Michell, John: Who Wrote Shakespeare (Thames and Hudson: 2000)
Morgan, Appleton: The Shakespearean Myth: William Shakespeare and Circumstantial Evidence (R. Clarke, 1888)
New York Herald. 19 September 1879.
Pott, Constance: Francis Bacon and His Secret Society (London, Sampson, Low and Marston: 1891); Sirbacon.org, Constance Pott
Pott, Henry; Pott, Constance Mary Fearon: Did Francis Bacon Write "Shakespeare"? (R. Banks & Son, 1893)
Public Record Office, Exchequer, Pipe Office, Declared Accounts, E. 351/542, f.107v
Purchas, Samuel, Hakluytus posthumus; or, Purchas his pilgrimes (William Stansby, London: 1625)
Shelly, Percy Bysse: Defense of Poetry (1821)
Smith, William Henry: Bacon and Shakespeare: An Inquiry Touching Players, Playhouses, and Play-writers in the Days of Elizabeth (John Russell Smith, 1857)
Smith, William Henry, letter to Egerton, Francis: Was Lord Bacon the author of Shakespeare's plays? (William Skeffington, 1856)
Spedding, James: "Of the Interpretation of Nature" in Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, 1872
Spedding, James: The Works of Francis Bacon (1872)
Vaughan, V.M., and Vaughan A.T., The Tempest, Arden Shakespeare (Thomson Learning: 1999)
Various: A Mirror for Magistrates (1559)
Wigston, W.F.C.: Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians (1890)
Wigston, W.F.C.: Hermes Stella or Notes and Jottings Upon the Bacon Cipher (London: G. Redway, 1890)
Wright, Louis B., A Voyage to Virginia 1609 (University Press of Virginia: 1904)
Wright, Louis B., The Cultural Life of the American Colonies (Courier Dover Publications: 2002)
[edit]Notes
^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 7.
^ James Shapiro, "Forgery on Forgery," TLS (March 26, 2010), 14-15. The argument concerning the pamphlet depends on the assumption that the "pig" is a coded reference to the name "bacon".
^ PDF download of letter from William Henry Smith to Lord Ellesmere.
^ Smith, William Henry: Was Lord Bacon the author of Shakespeare's plays?, a pamphlet-letter addressed to Lord Ellesmere (William Skeffington, 1856).
^ Smith, William Henry: Bacon and Shakespeare: An Inquiry Touching Players, Playhouses, and Play-writers in the Days of Elizabeth (John Russell Smith, 1857).
^ Bacon, Delia: The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded (1857); The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded.
^ Pott, Constance: Francis Bacon and His Secret Society (London, Sampson, Low and Marston: 1891); Sirbacon.org, Constance Pott.
^ Wigston, W.F.C.: Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians (1890).
^ a b Helen Hackett, Shakespeare and Elizabeth: the meeting of two myths, Princeton University Press, 2009, pp.157-60
^ Michael Dobson & Nicola J. Watson, England's Elizabeth: An Afterlife in Fame and Fantasy, Oxford University Press, New York, 2004, p.136.
^ Alfred Dodd, Francis Bacon's Personal Life Story, London: Rider, 1950, preface.
^ Friedman, William and Friedman, Elizabeth: The Shakespearian ciphers examined (Cambridge University Press, 1957).
^ Michell, John: Who Wrote Shakespeare (Thames and Hudson: 2000) pp. 258-259.
^ Spedding, James: The Works of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol.4, p.112 (Bacon comments on whether his idea of compiling Histories (some of which he wrote up himself for the natural sciences) and then applying his inductive method to them, should only apply to natural science or whether Histories were also required for ethics and politics: "It may be asked [...] whether I speak of natural philosophy only, or whether I mean that the other sciences, logic, ethics, and politics, should be carried on by this method. Now I certainly mean what I have said to be understood of them all [...]."
^ Dean, Leonard: Sir Francis Bacon's theory of civil history writing, in Vickers, Brian, (ed.): Essential Articles for the Study of Sir Francis Bacon (Sidwick & Jackson: 1972), p. 219: "Bacon believed that the chief functions of history are to provide the materials for a realistic treatment of psychology and ethics, and to give instruction by means of example and analysis in practical politics."
^ Spedding, James: "Of the Interpretation of Nature" in Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, 1872). Bacon writes, "I hoped that, if I rose to any place of honour in the state, I should have a larger command of industry and ability to help me in my work [...]."
^ Bacon, Francis: Advancement of Learning (1640), Book 2, p. xiii.
^ Pott; Pott: Did Francis Bacon Write "Shakespeare"?, p. 7.
^ Lambeth Palace MS 650.28, written in Bacon's hand to his brother Anthony: "I have here an idle pen or two [...] thinking to have got some money this term; I pray send me somewhat else for them to write [...].') Some scholars believe that Anthony and others contributed to the composition of the Shakespearean plays, too, "content to see their work performed and preserved without the beggarly ambition of advertising their names on the title pages". See Caldecott: Our English Homer, pp. 10-11.
^ Heminge, John; Condell, Henry: First Folio (1623), dedication "To the great variety of Readers".
^ Holinshed, Raphael, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1587), pp. 796-7: "the king sent the two dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to the cardinal's place at Westminster [...] that he should surrender up the greate [sic] seal into their hands".
^ Spedding, James, Life and Letters of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol. 7, p. 262.
^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 11. Caldecott held that the Shakespearean work was of such an incalculably higher calibre than that of such contemporaries as Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, George Peele, Robert Greene, John Marston, George Chapman and John Ford that it could not possibly have been the making of any of them.
^ Quoted in Morgan: The Shakespearean Myth, p. 201.
^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, pp. 11-12.
^ Boswell, James: The Life of Samuel Johnson 1740-1795, Chapter 13.
^ Shelley, Percy Bysshe: Defense of Poetry (1821), p. 10.
^ Jonson's familiarity with Shakespeare is further evidenced in his communication with Drummond of Hawthornden.
^ Verses.
^ Target.
^ Jonson, Ben: Timber: or, Discoveries; Made Upon Men and Matter (Cassell: 1889), pp. 60-61. (Definitions: number (n.) 1. (plural) verses, lines, e.g. "These numbers will I tear and write in prose", Hamlet II, ii, 119; mark (n.) 1. target, goal, aim, e.g. "that's the golden mark I seek to hit" (Henry VI, Part 2, I, i, 241). Source: Crystal, David; Crystal, Ben: Shakespeare's Words (Penguin Books, 2002).
^ Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 15.
^ Spedding, James: The Works of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol. 6, p. 274.
^ Spedding, James: The Works of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol. 6, p. 267. In a letter to his friend Tobie Matthew, dated 16 June 1623, Bacon writes, "Since you say the Prince hath not forgotten his commandment touching my history of Henry the Eighth, I may not forget my duty. But I find Sir Robert Cotton, who poured forth what he had in my former work, somewhat dainty in his materials in this". In a letter to Prince Charles in late October 1623, he continues, "For Henry the Eighth, to deal truly with your Highness, I did so despair of my health this summer, as I was glad to choose some such work as I might encompass within days: so far was I from entering into a work of any length".
^ Purchas, Samuel, Hakluytus posthumus; or, Purchas his pilgrimes, (William Stansby, London: 1625), p.1758; in four volumes, beginning page 1734 in vol. IV. Published as Purchas His Pilgrimes, Vol. 19 (James MacLehose and Sons: 1904). Includes extracts from the True Declaration
^ Vaughan, V.M., and Vaughan A.T., The Tempest, Arden Shakespeare (Thomson Learning: 1999), pp.41
^ Dobson, Michael, and Wells, Stanley, The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (Oxford University Press: 2005), p.470
^ Kermode, F. (ed.), The Tempest, Arden Shakespeare (London, Methuen: 1958), p. xxviii
^ Swem, E.G., (Ed.), “The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London”, in Jamestown 30th Anniversary Historical Booklets 1–4 (Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation: 1957), p.66
^ Wright, Louis B., The Cultural Life of the American Colonies (Courier Dover Publications: 2002), p.156
^ A True Declaration of the estate of the Colony in Virginia, with a confutation of such scandalous reports as have tended to the disgrace of so worthy an enterprise. Published by advice and direction of the Council of Virginia, London. Printed for William Barret, and are to be sold at the Black Bear in Paul’s Church yard, 1610.
^ Bacon, Francis, The Major Works (Oxford University Press: 2002)
^ "A True Declaration of the state of the Colony in Virginia with a confutation of such scandalous reports as have tended to the disgrace of so worthy an enterprise" in Wright, Louis B., A Voyage to Virginia 1609 (University Press of Virginia: 1904), p.xvii
^ Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited, Stritmatter and Kositsky Review of English Studies, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2007; 58, abbreviated Web version
^ Hunter, Rev. Joseph, Disquisition on the Scene, Origin, Date & etc. of Shakespeare's Tempest
^ Elze, Karl. "The Date of the Tempest" in Essays on Shakespeare, translated with the author's sanction by Dora L. Schmitz. London: Macmillan & Co., 1874
^ Vaughan, A., "William Strachey's True Reportory and Shakespeare: A closer look at the evidence", Shakespeare Quarterly, 59(2008), 245-73
^ Reedy, T., "Dating William Strachey's a True Reportory", Review of English Studies, Advance access published 16 January 2010
^ Chambers, E.K.: The Elizabethan Stage (Clarendon Press, 1945), Vols I-IV. Gordobuc was presented before the Queen at Whitehall on 12 January 1561, written and acted by members of the Inner Temple. Gray's Inn members were responsible for writing both Supposes and Jocasta five years later; Catiline was performed by 26 actors from Gray's Inn before Lord Burghley on 16 January 1588, see British Library Lansdowne MS 55, No. iv )
^ Bland, Desmond: Gesta Grayorum (Liverpool University Press: 1968), pp. xxiv-xxv.
^ Spedding, James: The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol.1, p. 325: "his connexion with it, [al]though sufficiently obvious, has never so far been pointed out".
^ Gesta Grayorum, The History Of the High and Mighty Prince Henry (1688), printed by W. Canning in London, reprinted by The Malone Society (Oxford University Press: 1914)
^ Public Record Office, Exchequer, Pipe Office, Declared Accounts, E. 351/542, f.107v, p. 40: "To William Kempe, William Shakespeare, & Richard Burbage, seruants [sic] to the Lord Chamberleyne [sic ...] upon the Councelle's [sic] warrant dated at Whitehall xv. to Marcij [sic] 1595, for twoe severall comedies or enterludes shewed by them before her majestie [sic] in Christmas tyme laste [sic] past viz St. Stephens Day and Innocents Day [...].")
^ Chambers, Edmund Kerchever: The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 1 (Clarendon Press: 1945), p. 225.
^ Fletcher, Reginald, (Ed.) The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569–1669, Vol. 1 (1901).
^ W.W. Greg (ed.): Gesta Grayorum, p. 23.
^ Fletcher, Reginald (ed.): The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569–1669, Vol. 1 (London: 1901), p. 107.
^ Spedding, James, Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, Vol. II (New York: 1890), p.370; Vol. IV (New York: 1868), pp.392-95
^ British Library, Lansdown MS 107, folio 8
^ Nichols, John: The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First, Vol. II (AMS Press Inc, New York: 1828), pp. 589-92.
^ Fletcher, Reginald, (ed.): The Gray's Inn Pension Book 1569–1669, Vol. 1 (London: 1901), p.101.
^ W.W. Greg (ed.): Gesta Grayorum. Malone Society Reprints. Oxford University Press (1914), p. vi. This theory is echoed by Charles Whitworth (ed.) The Comedy of Errors (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 3.
^ Spedding, James: A Brief Discourse tounching the Happy Union of the Kingdom of England and Scotland (1603), in The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol. 3, p. 98.
^ British Library MS Harley 7017. A transcription can be found in Durning-Lawrence, Edward, Bacon is Shakespeare (Gay & Hancock, London 1910).
^ Bacon, Francis: De Augmentis, Book VII (1623).
^ Ross, W.D. (translator), Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics, Book 1, iii (Clarendon Press, 1908). The translation "political science" is given by Griffith, Tom (ed.): Aristotle: The Nichomachean Ethics (Wordsworth Editions: 1996), p. 5.
^ Spedding, James: Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, Vol.6, p. 372.
^ Williams, Norman Lloyd, Sir Walter Raleigh (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1962), p. 254. The Dean of Westminster wrote to Sir John Isham, "when I began to encourage him against the fear of death, he seemed to make so light of it that I wondered at him [...].")
^ Spedding, James: Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, Vol. 6, p. 373. Dudley Carelton wrote, "[H]e knew better how to die than to live; and his happiest hours were those of his arraignment and execution."
^ Stow, John: Annales, or Generall Chronicle of England (London, 1631), p. 1030.
^ Holinshed, Raphael: Chronicles, Vol. V: Scotland (1587 ), p. 170.
^ Williams, Norman Lloyd: Sir Walter Raleigh (Eyre and Spottiswoode: 1963), p. 188.
^ Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur, and Dover Wilson, John, Love's Labour's Lost (Cambridge University Press: 1923), pp.xxi-xxiii
^ Raleigh's Remains, (edited 1661), p.258
^ Muir, Kenneth (Ed.), Macbeth, The Arden Shakespeare (Thomson Learning: 2005), p.xxxii
^ Spedding, James: The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon, Vol. 6 (1872), p. 356.
^ George Steevens's 1793 edition of Shakespeare, quoted in A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: Vol. 2: Macbeth, ed. Horace Howard Furness (Philadelphia: Lipincott, 1873), p. 44.
^ Earls Southampton and Pembroke, to whom the poems of Shakespeare were dedicated, were both friends of Bacon, but there is no evidence (the dedications aside) that Shakespeare knew them. It is a notable fact that the dedication to Southampton was withdrawn from subsequent editions of the poems "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece", after he had ended his friendship with Bacon, whose involvement in Essex's schemes against the Queen riled him. See Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 12.
^ New York Herald 1879.
^ Garnett and Gosse 1904, p. 201.
^ that the author would have had to have had a keen understanding of foreign languages, modern sciences, warfare, aristocratic sports such as tennis, statesmanship, hunting, natural philosophy, history, falconry and the law to have written the plays ascribed to him. It is therefore significant, say Baconians,[who?] that Bacon, in his 1592 letter to Burghley, claims to have "taken all knowledge to be [his] province".
^ T.W. Baldwin, "William Shakespeare's "Small Latin and Less Greek", University of Illinois Press, 1944.
^ Schoenbaum, Shakespeare's Lives (OUP, New York, 1970)
^ Bate, Jonathan, The Genius of Shakespeare, (Picador: 1997), p.88
^ Stopes 2003, pp. 65–67
^ Wadsworth 1958, p. 17
[edit]External links
[edit]General Non-Stratfordian
The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition, home of the "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identify of William Shakespeare" -- a concise, definitive explanation of the reasons to doubt the case for the Stratford man. Doubters can read, and sign, the Declaration online.
The Shakespeare Authorship Trust, survey of all the authorship candidates, a site patronised by the acclaimed actor Mark Rylance and Dr. William Leahy of Brunel University, UK
[edit]Baconian
Barry R. Clarke, "The Shakespeare Puzzle - A Non-esoteric Baconian Theory"
http://www.baconsocietyinc.org - the first official champions of the Baconian cause. Since 1886 the Francis Bacon Society has engaged with the authorship question and publishes the journal Baconiana.[1]
Peter Dawkins: The Shakespeare Enigma, Polair Publ., London 2004, ISBN 0-9545389-4-3 (engl.)
Amelie Deventer von Kunow, Francis Bacon: Last of the Tudors, trans. Willard Parker (1924)
Why I'm Not an Oxfordian, by Jerome Harner
[edit]Stratfordian
The Shakespeare Authorship Page
The Bard's Beard—A Time Article
Also,
An Authorship Analysis
Francis Bacon as Shake-speare
0 Cogency What's New?
0.0 Reason, Fallacy, and Proof
0.0.0
Essays: Of Truth
0.0.1
Novum Organum: Preface
0.0.2
Novum Organum: Book I, Aphorisms 1-68
0.1 Authorship Ascription
0.1.0
Venus & Adonis: "Art thou obdurate, flintie...?"
0.1.1
Certaine Satyres: The Authour in prayse of his precedent Poem.
0.1.2
Bacon Family Motto: "Mediocria Firma"
0.1.3
Venus & Adonis: "honors wracke"
0.1.4
Certaine Satyres: REACTIO.
0.1.5
Virgidemiarvm: Lib. II, Sat. I.
0.1.6
Additional Virgidemiarvm "Labeo" passages
1 Intent
1.0 Advancement of Humanity
1.0.0
Of the Interpretation of Nature: Proem
1.0.1
Letter: "to bring about the better ordering of man's life"
1.0.2
Letter: "my writings should not court the present time"
1.0.3
A Choice of Emblemes: Scripta manent
1.0.4
Essays: Of Great Place
1.0.5
The Life of The Right Honourable Francis Bacon
1.0.6
Francis Bacon: Viscount St. Alban
1.1 Pandemic
1.1.0
Comments on Variation of Design
1.1.1
Letter: "I have taken all knowledge to be my province"
1.1.2
Meditationes Sacrae: Of the Innocency of the Dove
2 Poesy
2.0 Education
2.0.0
Wisdom of the Ancients: Preface
2.0.1
Wisdom of the Ancients: Orpheus; or Philosophy
2.0.2
Advancement of Learning: History, Poesy, Philosophy (2:1)
2.0.3
Advancement of Learning: Poesy (2:13)
2.0.4
Advancement of Learning: Appendices of the Art of Transmission (6:4)
2.1 Drama
2.1.0
Gesta Grayorum Introduction: "contribution to the Gray's Inn revels"
2.1.1
Gesta Grayorum: The Prince's Council
2.1.2
Of Tribute: Praise of Knowledge
2.1.3
Love and Self-love
2.1.4
Masque of Flowers: Dedication
2.1.5
Masque of the Inner Temple: Dedication
2.1.6
Letter: "joint masque from the four Inns of Court"
2.1.7
Essays: Of Masques and Triumphs
2.2 Attribution
2.2.0
Poems of Edmund Waller: Dedication
2.2.1
Scourge of Folly: Sr Francis Bacon
2.2.2
Manes Verulamiani
2.2.3
Minerva Brittana: Sir Francis Bacon
3 Concealment
3.0 Necessity
3.0.0
Essays: Of Simulation and Dissimulation
3.0.1
Letter: "be good to concealed poets"
3.0.2
Letter: "I think the greatest inquisitor in Spain will allow it"
3.0.3
Letter: "I will not publish while I live"
3.0.4
Letter: "communicate them to others according to your discretion"
3.0.5
Emperor of the East Dedication: "feare to bee censur'd"
3.1 Pseudonymity
3.1.0
Valerius Terminus Preface: "the supposed author"
3.1.1
Valerius Terminus of the Interpretation of Nature
3.1.2
Contents page images
3.1.3
Back cover note
3.2 Ghostwriting
3.2.0
Of Tribute Introduction: "my Lord of Essex his device"
3.2.1
Love and Self-love Introduction: "My Lord of Essex's device"
3.2.2
Letter: "Your Majesty's ... servant, Essex"
3.2.3
Letter: "as in the name of Mr. Anthony Bacon"
3.2.4
Letter: "framed as from the Earl"
3.2.5
Sir Francis Bacon His Apologie
3.2.6
Letter: "Your loving Friend, Francis Walsingham"
3.3 Attribution
3.3.0
To True Nobility
3.3.2
Letter: "your poetical example"
3.4 Steganography
3.4.0
Early Cryptology
3.4.1
Baconiana: A False Dated Book
3.4.2
Advancement of Learning: Knowledge of Cyphers
3.4.3
Letter: "works of the Alphabet"
4 Players
4.0 Shakspere
4.0.0
Documentation Detail
4.0.1
Documentation Summary by Year
4.0.2
Documentation Summary by Category
4.0.3
Last Will and Testament
4.1 Jonson
4.1.0
Timber: or, Discoveries: Dominus Verulanus
4.1.1
Timber: or, Discoveries: De Shake-speare nostrat
4.1.2
Every Man Out Of His Humour extracts
4.1.3
Poetaster extracts
4.1.4
Every Man In His Humour extract
4.1.5
Seianvs his Fall extracts
4.1.6
Under-Woods: Lord Bacon's Birth-day
4.2 Shake-speare
4.2.0
Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies Frontmatter
4.2.1
Shake-speares Sonnets
Gesta Grayorum
[gestus: artificial gesture of an actor.]
Introduction by James Spedding
[A] vacation gave [Francis Bacon] leisure for work, and Christmas brought festivities for recreation. And it happens luckily that some traces remain of the manner in which he improved both. It was on the 5th of December, 1599, that he commenced that "Promus of Formularies and Elegancies," of which I have given a particular account in the 'Literary Works;' in which may be traced (if I have read it right) the footprints of a journey in the mind over a large field of reading and meditation, with a view to fix the leading features in memory and store them for future use. And it was on the 29th of the same month that he was called in to assist in "recovering the lost honour of Gray's Inn," which had suffered the night before by the miscarriage of a Christmas revel.
For the more serious labour I may refer the reader to the other part of this work, to which it more properly belongs. But a contribution to the Gray's Inn revels belongs unquestionably to the "occasional" department; and to be properly understood, must be taken in connexion with the surrounding circumstances. These are indeed set forth at full length in a tract which is not difficult to procure, having been reprinted in Nichols's 'Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.' But as Bacon's name does not appear upon the face of the narrative; and as his connexion with it, though sufficiently obvious, has never so far as I know been pointed out or suspected; I assume that the little story which I am going to tell (presenting as it does a curious and very picturesque illustration of the manners of the time and the humours of the people among whom all his early and middle life was spent) is not so familiar to the students of his works but that they will be glad to see it here.
"I trust they will not mum nor mask nor sinfully revel" (so writes Lady Bacon to her son Anthony, on the 5th of December,) "at Gray's Inn. Who were sometime counted first, God grant they wane not daily and deserve to be named last." But it was too late for praying. The youth of Gray's Inn were already deep in sinful consultation. Their revels, in which they used to excel, had been intermitted for the last three or four years, and they were resolved to redeem the time by producing this year something out of the common way. Their device was to turn Gray's Inn, "with the consent and advice of the Readers and Ancients," into the semblance of a court and kingdom, and to entertain each other during the twelve days of Christmas licence with playing at kings and counsellors. They proceeded accordingly to elect a prince -- the Prince of Purpoole. They provided him with a Privy Council for advice in matters of state; with a presence-chamber for audience, and a council-chamber for business; with all officers of state, law, and household; with gentlemen pensioners to wait on his person, and a guard, with a captain of the guard, to defend it. They raised treasure for the support of his state and dignity, partly by a benevolence, which was granted by those who were present, and partly by "letters in the nature of privy seals" which were directed to those who were away. They sent to "their ancient allied friend, the Inner Temple," a formal communication of their proceedings, with request that an ambassador from that state might be sent to reside amongst them; which was with equal formality accorded, "as ancient amity and league required and deserved." On the 20th of December, the Prince with all his state, after the pattern of a royal procession exactly marshaled, proceeded to the great hall of Gray's Inn, and took his seat on the throne. The trumpets sounded thrice, the King-at-arms proclaimed his style and blazoned his arms; the Champion rode in in full armour and threw down his gage in defiance of all disputers; the Attorney made his speech of congratulation; the Solicitor recited the names of all homagers and tributaries, with the nature of their tenures and services (a recital which gave occasion to many jocose allusions, veiled under legal phraseology -- and many of them much in need of a veil to the manners, customs, and occupations of the several suburban localities), and summoned them to appear and do homage. A Parliament, which was to have been held, was given up, owing to the necessary absence of "some special officers;" but as a subsidy was obtained and a general pardon granted notwithstanding, the jest was rather improved perhaps than injured by the omission. The pardon was read at full length; an elaborate burlesque, beginning with a proclamation of free pardon for every kind of offense for which a name could be invented, and ending with a long list of cases excepted, which does in fact include every offense which could possibly be committed. Then the Prince, having made a short speech to his subjects, called his Master of the Revels, and the evening ended with dances.
This was the first day's entertainment; and though the humour has lost its edge for us, it hit the fancy of the time so well and raised such great expectation that the performers were encouraged to enlarge their plan and raise their style. They resolved therefore (besides all this court-pomp and their daily sports among themselves) to have certain "grand nights," in which something special should be performed for the entertainment of strangers. But the same expectation which suggested the design spoiled the performance. For on the first of these "grand nights" (which was intended for the special honour of the Templarians), when the Ambassador had arrived in great state, and been conducted to the presence with sound of trumpet, and after interchange of elaborate compliments seated beside the Prince, and the entertainment was ready to begin before a splendid company of "lords, ladies, and worshipful personages that did expect some notable performance," -- the throng grew suddenly so great and the stage so crowded with beholders that there was not room enough for the actors; and nothing could be done. The ambassador and his train retired in discontent; and when the tumult partly subsided they were obliged (in default of those "very good inventions and conceipts" which had been intended) to content themselves with ordinary dancing and revelling; and when that was over, with "a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus his Menechmus)," which "was played by the players." This performance seems to have been regarded as the crowning disgrace of this unfortunate Grand Night; a fact, by the way, indicating (if it were Shakespeare's play, as I suppose it was) either rich times or poor tastes; for the historian proceeds, "so that night was begun, and continued to the end, in nothing but confusion and errors; whereupon it was ever afterwards called the Night of Errors."
This was on the 28th of December. The next night was taken up with a legal inquiry into the causes of those disorders. A commission of Oyer and Terminer was issued. A certain "sorcerer or conjurer that was supposed to be the cause of that confused inconvenience" was arraigned before a jury of twenty-four gentlemen, on several charges; of which the last was "that he had foisted a company of base and common fellows to make up our disorders with a play of errors and confusions." He met the charge by a counter-statement, set forth in a petition which was presented and read by the Master of Requests, showing that all was due to negligence on the part of the Council and great officers, and appealing to the Prince; who finding the allegations in the petition to be true, pardoned and released the prisoner; but finding them also to be offensive, as taxing the government, and therefore not proper to pass unpunished, ordered to the Tower (along with the Attorney and Solicitor, whose delinquencies it exposed) the Master of Requests, who had been acquainted with its contents.
After this broad parody upon the administration of justice by the Crown in Council, they proceeded to "hold a great consultation for the recovery of their lost honour;" which ended in a resolution "that the Prince's Council should be reformed, and some graver conceipts should have their places, to advise upon those things that were propounded to be done afterward." And here it is that the story begins to bare an interest for us. It is most probable that one of these "graver conceipts" was Bacon himself. It is certain that an entertainment of a very superior kind was produced a few days after, in the preparation of which he took a principal part.
Friday, the 3rd of January, was to be the night. "Divers plots and devices" were arranged. Order was taken to prevent overcrowding and confusion. A great number of great persons, among them the Lord Keeper, the Lord Treasurer, the Vice-Chamberlain, and several other Privy Councillors, were invited and came. When all were seated, the Prince came in full state and took his throne. The Ambassador from Templaria followed with his train, and was placed by the Prince's side; and the performance began, after the fashion of those entertainments, with a dumb-show; the object of which was to represent the reconciliation between Gray's Inn and the Temple, which had been disturbed by the Night of Errors.
The curtain being withdrawn discovered the Arch-flamen of the Goddess of Amity standing at her altar, and round it nymphs and fairies singing hymns in her praise, and "making very pleasant melody with viols and voices." Then came in, pair by pair, all the heroic patterns of friendship, Theseus and Pirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Pylades and Orestes, Scipio and Laelius, each pair offering incense upon the altar as they passed; "which shined and burned very clear without blemish." Last came Graius and Templarius, lovingly, arm in arm; but when they offered their incense the flame was choked with "troubled smoke and dark vapour," until the Arch-flamen performed certain mystical ceremonies and invocations, and the nymphs sang hymns of pacification, upon which the flame burnt up clearer than it had ever done before, and continued longer, and the Arch-flamen pronounced them to be as true and perfect friends as any of those others, and divined that their love would be perpetual; "and so with sweet and pleasant melody the curtain was drawn as it was at the first."
The show being ended, the Prince in token of satisfaction invested the Ambassador and twenty-four of his retinue, with the Collar of the Knighthood of the Helmet; upon which the King-at-Arms, -- having first declared how the Prince had instituted this Order in memory of the arms he bore, which were given to one of his ancestors for saving the life of the then sovereign, "in regard that as the helmet defendeth the chiefest part of the body, the head, so did he then defend the head of the state," -- proceeded to read the articles of the Order; which they were all to vow to keep, each kissing the helmet as he took his vow.
These articles present in a strain of playful satire so elegant an illustration of the fashions and humours of those days, that I shall transcribe them at length; the rather as forming part of an entertainment in the preparation of which Bacon certainly had a hand, though not, I think, in the execution of this part of it.
Imprimis, Every Knight of this Honourable Order, whether he be a natural subject or stranger born, shall promise never to bear arms against his Highness's sacred person, nor his state; but to assist him in all his lawful wars and maintain all his just pretences and titles; especially his Highness' title to the land of the Amazons and the Cape of Good Hope.
Item, No Knight of this Order shall, in point of honour, resort to any grammar-rules out of the books de Duello, or such-like; but shall out of his own brave mind and natural courage deliver himself from scorns, as to his own discretion shall seem convenient.
Item, No Knight of this Order shall be inquisitive towards any lady or gentlewoman, whether her beauty be English or Italian, or whether with care-taking she have added half a foot to her stature; but shall take all to the best. Neither shall any Knight of the aforesaid Order presume to affirm that faces were better twenty years ago than they are at this present time, except such knight have passed three climacterical years.
Item, Every Knight of this Order is bound to perform all requisite and manly service, be it night-service or otherwise, as the case requireth, to all ladies and gentlewomen, beautiful by nature or by art; ever offering his aid without any demand thereof; and if in case he fail so to do, he shall be deemed a match of disparagement to any of his Highness's widows or wards-female; and his Excellency shall in justice forbear to make any tender of him to any such ward or widow.
Item, No Knight of this Order shall procure any letters from his Highness to any widow or maid, for his enablement or commendation to be advanced in marriage; but all prerogative, wooing set apart, shall for ever cease as to any of these Knights, and shall be left to the common laws of this land, declared by the statute Quia electiones liberae esse debent.
Item, No Knight of this honourable Order, in case he shall grow into decay, shall procure from his Highness [for his] relief and sustentation any monopolies or privileges, except only these kinds following; that is to say, upon every tobacco-pipe, not being one foot wide. Upon every lock that is worn, not being seven foot long. Upon every health that is drunk, not being of a glass five foot deep. And upon every maid in his Highness' province of Islington, continuing a virgin after the age of fourteen years, contrary to the use and custom in that place always had and observed.
Item, No Knight of this Order shall have any more than one mistress, for whose sake he shall be allowed to wear three colours. But if he will have two mistresses, then must he wear six colours; and so forward, after the rate of three colours to a mistress.
Item, No Knight of this Order shall put out any money upon strange returns or performances to be made by his own person; as to hop up the stairs to the top of St. Paul's without intermission; or any other such-like agilities or endurances; except it may appear that the same performances or practices do enable him to some service or employment; as if he do undertake to go a journey backward, the same shall be thought to enable him to be an ambassador into Turkey.
Item, No Knight of this Order that hath had any licence to travel into foreign countries, be it by map, card, sea, or land, and hath returned from thence, shall presume upon the warrant of a traveler to report any extra ordinary varieties; as that he hath ridden through Venice on horseback post, or that in December he sailed by the Cape of Norway, or that he hath traveled over the most part of the countries of Geneva, or such-like hyperboles, contrary to the statute Propterea quod qui diversos terrarum ambitus errant et vagantur, etc.
Item, Every Knight of this Order shall do his endeavour to be much in the books of the worshipful citizens of the principal city next adjoining to the territories of Purpoole; and none shall unlearnedly, or without booking, pay ready money for any wares or other things pertaining to the gallantness of his Honour's Court; to the ill example of others and utter subversion of credit betwixt man and man.
Item, Every Knight of this Order shall apply himself to some or other virtuous quality or ability of learning, honour, and arms: and shall not think it sufficient to come into his Honour's presence-chamber in good apparel only, or to be able to keep company at play and gaming. For such it is already determined that they be put and taken for implements of household, and are placed in his Honour's inventory.
Item, Every Knight of this Order shall endeavour to add conference and experience to reading; and therefore shall not only read and peruse Guizo, the French Academy, Galiatto the Courtier, Plutarch, the Arcadia, and the Neoterical writers, from time to time; but also frequent the theatre and such-like places of experience; and resort to the better sort of ordinaries for conference, whereby they may not only become accomplished with civil conversation and able to govern a table with discourse; but also sufficient, if need be, to make epigrams, emblems, and other devices appertaining to his Honour's learned revels.
Item, No Knight of this Order shall give out what gracious words the Prince hath given him, nor leave word at his chamber, in case any come to speak with him, that he is above with his Excellency, nor cause his man when he shall be in any public assembly to call him suddenly to go to the Prince, nor cause any packet of letters to be brought at dinner or supper time, nor say that he had the refusal of some great office, nor satisfy suitors to say his Honour is not in any good disposition, nor make any narrow observation of his Excellency's nature and fashions, as if he were inward privately with his Honour; contrary to the late inhibition of selling of smoke.
Item, No Knight of this Order shall be armed for the safeguard of his countenance with a pike in his mouth in the nature of a tooth-picker, or with any weapon in his hand, be it stick, plume, wand, or any such-like: Neither shall he draw out of his pocket any book or paper, to read, for the same intent; neither shall he retain any extraordinary shrug, nod, or any familiar motion or gesture, to the same end; for his Highness of his gracious clemency is disposed to lend his countenance to all such Knights as are out of countenance.
Item, No Knight of this Order that weareth fustian, cloth, or such statute-apparel, for necessity, shall pretend to wear the same for the new fashion's sake.
Item, No Knight of this Order in walking the streets or other places of resort, shall bear his hands in his pockets of his great rolled hose with the Spanish wheel, if it be not either to defend his hands from the cold, or else to guard forty shillings sterling, being in the same pockets.
Item, No Knight of this Order shall lay to pawn his Collar of Knighthood for an hundred pounds; and if he do, he shall be ipso facto discharged; and it shall be lawful for any man whatsoever that will retain the same Collar for the sum aforesaid, forthwith to take upon him the said Knighthood, by reason of a secret virtue in the Collar; for in this Order it is holden for a certain rule that the Knighthood followeth the Collar, and not the Collar the Knighthood.
Item, That no Knight of this Order shall take upon him the person of a malcontent, in going with a more private retinue than appertaineth to his degree, and using but certain special obscure company, and commending none but men disgraced and out of office; and smiling at good news, as if he knew something that were not true; and making odd notes of his Highness' reign, and former Government; or saying that his Highness' sports were well sorted with a Play of Errors; and such-like pretty speeches of jest, to the end that he may more safely utter his malice against his Excellency's happiness; upon pain to be present at all his Excellency's most glorious triumphs.
Lastly, All the Knights of this honourable Order and the renowned Sovereign of the same, shall yield all homage, loyalty, unaffected admiration, and all humble service, of what name or condition soever, to the incomparable Empress of the fortunate Island.
The ceremony of investiture was followed by a "variety of consort-music" and a running banquet served by the Knights of the Helmet who were not strangers: and so this part of the entertainment ended.
Next follows the part in which we are more especially concerned, -- that part for the better illustration of which I have thought it worth while to tell the story.
This being done (proceeds the narrator) there was a table set in the midst of the stage before the Prince's seat; and there sate six of the Lords of his Privy Council, which at that time were appointed to attend in Council the Prince's leisure. Then the Prince spake to them in this manner: --
My Lords,
We have made choice of you, our most faithful and favoured counsellors, to advise with you not any particular action of our state, but in general of the scope and end whereunto you think it most for our honour and the happiness of our state that our government should be rightly bent and directed. For we mean not to do as many princes use, which conclude of their ends out of their own humours and take counsel only of the means, abusing for the most part the wisdom of their counsellors [to] set them in the right way to the wrong place. But we, desirous to leave as little to chance or humour as may be, do now give you liberty and warrant to set before us to what part, as it were, the ship of our government should be bounden. And this we require you to do without either respect to our affections or your own; neither guessing what is most agreeable with our disposition, wherein we may easily deceive you, for Princes' hearts are inscrutable; nor on the other side putting the case by yourselves, as if you would present us with a robe whereof measure were taken by yourselves. Thus you perceive our mind and we expect your answer.
[@ Works VIII, 325-322]
The First Counsellor, advising
the Exercise of War
The Second Counsellor, advising
the Study of Philosophy
The Third Counsellor, advising
Eternizement and Fame by Buildings and Foundations
The Fourth Counsellor, advising
Absoluteness of State and Treasure
The Fifth Counsellor, advising him
Virtue and a gracious Government
The Sixth Counsellor, persuading
Pastimes and Sports
The Prince's Answer and Conclusion to
the Speeches of the Counsellors
My Lords,
We thank you for your good opinions; which have been so well set forth, as we should think ourselves not capable of good counsel if in so great variety of persuading reasons we should suddenly resolve. Meantime it shall not be amiss to make choice of the last, and upon more deliberation to determine of the rest; and what time we spend in long consulting, in the end we will gain by prompt and speedy executing.
The Prince (proceeds the reporter) having ended his speech, arose from his seat and took that occasion of revelling. So he made choice of a Lady to dance withal; so likewise did the Lord Ambassador, the Pensioners, and Courtiers attending the Prince. The rest of that night was passed in those pastimes. The performance of which night's work being very carefully and orderly handled, did so delight and please the nobles and the other auditory, that thereby Gray's Inn did not only recover their lost credit and quite take away all the disgrace that the former Night of Errors had incurred; but got instead thereof so great honour and applause as either the good reports of our honourable friends that were present could yield, or we ourselves desire.
Thus ended one of the most elegant Christmas entertainments, probably, that was ever presented to an audience of statesmen and courtiers. That Bacon had a hand in the general design is merely a conjecture; we know that he had a taste in such things and did sometimes take a part in arranging them; and the probability seemed strong enough to justify a more detailed account of the whole evening's work than I should otherwise have thought fit. But that the speeches of the six councillors were written by him, and by him alone, no one who is at all familiar with his style either of thought or expression will for a moment doubt. They carry his signature in every sentence. And they have a much deeper interest for us than could have been looked for in such a sportive exercise belonging to so forgotten a form of idleness. All these councillors speak with Bacon's tongue and out of Bacon's brain; but the second and fifth speak out of his heart and judgment also. The propositions of the latter contain an enumeration of those very reforms in state and government which throughout his life he was most anxious to see realized. In those of the former may be traced, faintly but unmistakably, a first hint of his great project for the restoration of the dominion of knowledge, -- a first draft of "Solomon's House," -- a rudiment of that history of universal nature, which was to have formed the third part of the 'Instauratio,' and is in my judgment (as I have elsewhere explained at large) the principal novelty and great characteristic feature of the Baconian philosophy. This composition is valuable therefore, not only as showing with what fidelity his mind when left to itself pointed always, in sport as in earnest, towards the great objects which he had set before him, but also as giving us one of the very few certain dates by which we can measure the progress of his philosophical speculations in these early years.
It remains for me to give what account I can of the narrative in which it is preserved. It is a quarto pamphlet of 68 pages; printed in 1685, for "W. Canning, at his shop in the Temple Cloisters;" with a dedication to Matthew Smith, Esq., Comptroller of the Inner Temple; apparently from a manuscript written by some member of Gray's Inn who was an eye-witness of what he relates; and bearing the title "Gesta Grayorum, or the History of the high and mighty Prince, Henry, Prince of Purpoole, etc., who reigned and died A.D. 1594." Whom it was by, where and when it was found, how it came into the publisher's hands, we are not informed. We can only gather from the dedication that it was found by accident, and printed without alteration. The dedication is signed W. C., which stands, I presume, for W. Canning, the printer. But Nichols, who re-printed the pamphlet (without the dedication) in his 'Progresses of Queen Elizabeth' (III. 262), tells us that "the publisher was Mr. Henry Keepe, who published the 'Monuments of Westminster.'"
It is a pity that the publisher, whoever he was, did not tell us a little more about the manuscript, though it is probable enough that he had not much more to tell. Nothing is more natural than that such a narrative should have been written at the time for the amusement and satisfaction of the parties concerned; should have been laid by and forgotten; and found again Iying by itself, without anybody to tell its story for it. There is more of it; the historian proceeding to record other achievements of the Prince of Purpoole, whose reign was prolonged beyond the days of ordinary licence, and did not end before Shrove Tuesday. But I look in vein for any further traces of Bacon's hand.
[@ Works VIII, 341-43]
Gesta Grayorum
The First Counsellor, advising
the Exercise of War
MOST excellent Prince: Except there be such amongst us, as I am fully persuaded there is none, that regardeth more his own greatness under you than your greatness over others, I think there will be little difference in choosing for you a goal worthy your virtue and power. For he that shall set before him your magnanimity and valour, supported by the youth and disposition of your body; your flourishing Court, like the horse of Troy, full of brave commanders and leaders; your populous and man-rife provinces, overflowing with warlike people; your coffers, like the Indian mines when that they were first opened; your storehouses and arsenals, like to Vulcan's cave; your navy like to an huge floating city; the devotion of your subjects to your crown and person, their good agreement amongst themselves, their wealth and provision; and then your strait and unrevocable confederation with these noble and honourable personages, and the fame and reputation without of so rare a concurrence, whereof all the former regards do grow; how can he think any exercise worthy of your means but that of conquest? For in few words, what is your strength, if you find it not? your fortune, if you try it not? your virtue, if you show it not? Think, excellent Prince, what sense of content you found in yourself, when you were first invested in our state; for though I know your Excellency is far from vanity and lightness, yet it is the nature of all things to find rest when they come to due and proper places. But be assured of this, that this delight will languish and vanish; for powers will quench appetite and satiety will induce tediousness. But if you embrace the wars, your trophies and triumphs shall be as continual coronations, that will not suffer your glory and contentment to fade and wither. Then when you have enlarged your territories, ennobled your country, distributed fortunes, good or bad, at your pleasure, not only to particulars but to cities and nations; married the computations of times with your expeditions and voyages, and the memory of places by your exploits and victories; in your later years you shall find a sweet respect into the adventures of your youth; you shall enjoy your reputation; you shall record your travels; and after your own time you shall eternise your name, and leave deep footsteps of your power in the world. To conclude, excellent Prince, and most worthy to have the titles of victories added to your other high and deserved titles, Remember, the divines find nothing more glorious to resemble our state unto than a warfare. All things in earnest and jest do affect a kind of victory; and all other victories are but shadows to the victories of the wars. Therefore embrace the wars, for they disparage you not; and believe that if any Prince do otherwise it is either in the weakness of his mind or means.
The Second Counsellor, advising
the Study of Philosophy
It may seem, most excellent Prince, that my Lord which now hath spoken did never read the just censures of the wisest men, who compared great conquerors to great rovers and witches, whose power is in destruction and not in preservation; else would he never have advised your Excellency to become as some comet or blazing star, which should threaten and portend nothing but death and dearth, combustions and troubles of the world. And whereas the governing faculties of men are two, force and reason, whereof the one is brute and the other divine, he wisheth you for your principal ornament and regality the talons of the eagle to catch the prey, and not the piercing sight which seeth into the bottom of the sea. But I contrariwise will wish unto your Highness the exercise of the best and purest part of the mind, and the most innocent and meriting conquest, being the conquest of the works of nature; making this proposition, that you bend the excellency of your spirits to the searching out, inventing, and discovering of all whatsoever is hid and secret in the world; that your Excellency be not as a lamp that shineth to others and yet seeth not itself, but as the Eye of the World, that both carrieth and useth light. Antiquity, that presenteth unto us in dark visions the wisdom of former times, informeth us that the [governments of] kingdoms have always had an affinity with the secrets and mysteries of learning. Amongst the Persians, the kings were attended on by the Magi. The Gymnosophists had all the government under the princes of Asia; and generally those kingdoms were accounted most happy, that had rulers most addicted to philosophy. The Ptolemies in Egypt may be for instance; and Salomon was a man so seen in the universality of nature that he wrote an herbal of all that was green upon the earth. No conquest of Julius Caesar made him so remembered as the Calendar. Alexander the Great wrote to Aristotle, upon the publishing of the Physics, that he esteemed more of excellent men in knowledge than in empire. And to this purpose I will commend to your Highness four principal works and monuments of yourself: First, the collecting of a most perfect and general library, wherein whatsoever the wit of man hath heretofore committed to books of worth, be they ancient or modern, printed or manuscript, European or of the other parts, of one or other language, may be made contributory to your wisdom. Next, a spacious, wonderful garden, wherein whatsoever plant the sun of divers climates, out of the earth of divers moulds, either wild or by the culture of man brought forth, may be with that care that appertaineth to the good prospering thereof set and cherished: This garden to be built about with rooms to stable in all rare beasts and to cage in all rare birds; with two lakes adjoining, the one of fresh water the other of salt, for like variety of fishes. And so you may have in small compass a model of universal nature made private. The third, a goodly huge cabinet, wherein whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine hath made rare in stuff, form, or motion; whatsoever singularity chance and the shuffle of things hath produced; whatsoever Nature hath wrought in things that want life and may be kept; shall be sorted and included. The fourth such a still-house, so furnished with mills, instruments, furnaces, and vessels, as may be a palace fit for a philosopher's stone. Thus, when your Excellency shall have added depth of knowledge to the fineness of [your] spirits and greatness of your power, then indeed shall you be a Trismegistus; and then when all other miracles and wonders shall cease by reason that you shall have discovered their natural causes; yourself shall be left the only miracle and wonder of the world.
The Third Counsellor, advising
Eternizement and Fame by Buildings and Foundations
My Lords that have already spoken, most excellent Prince, have both used one fallacy, in taking that for certain and granted which was most uncertain and doubtful; for the one hath neither drawn in question the success and fortune of the wars, nor the other the difficulties and errors in the conclusions of nature. But these immoderate hopes and promises do many times issue forth, those of the wars into tragedies of calamities and distresses; and those of mystical philosophy into comedies of ridiculous frustrations and disappointments of such conceipts and curiosities. But on the other side, in one point my Lords have well agreed; that they both according to their several intentions counselled your Excellency to win fame and to eternise your name; though the one adviseth it in a course of great peril, and the other of little dignity and magnificence. But the plain and approved way, that is safe and yet proportionable to the greatness of a monarch, to present himself to posterity, is not rumour and hearsay, but the visible memory of himself in the magnificence of goodly and royal buildings and foundations, and the new institutions of orders, ordinances, and societies; that is, that [as] your coin be stamped with your own image, so in every part of your state there may be somewhat new, which by continuance may make the founder and author remembered. It was perceived at the first, when men sought to cure mortality by fame, that buildings was the only way; and thereof proceeded the known holy antiquity of building the Tower of Babel; which as it was a sin in the immoderate appetite of fame, so it was punished in the kind; for the diversities of languages have imprisoned fame ever since. As for the pyramids, the colosses, the number of temples, colleges, bridges, aqueducts, castles, theatres, palaces, and the like, they may show us that men ever mistrusted any other way to fame than this only, of works and monuments. Yea even they which had the best choice of other means. Alexander did not think his fame so engraven in his conquests, but that he thought it further shined in the buildings of Alexandria. Augustus Caesar thought no man had done greater things in military actions than himself, yet that which at his death ran most in his mind was his building, when he said, not, as some mistake it, metaphorically, but literally, I found the city of brick but I leave it of marble. Constantine the Great was wont to call with envy the Emperor Trajan, wallflower, because his name was upon so many buildings; which notwithstanding he himself did embrace in the new founding of Constantinople, and sundry other buildings; and yet none greater conquerors than these two. And surely they had reason; for the fame of great actions is like to a landflood which hath no certain head of spring; but the memory and fame of buildings and foundations hath, as it were, a fountain in an hill, which continually feedeth and refresheth the other waters. Neither do I, excellent Prince, restrain my speeches to dead buildings only, but intend it also to other foundations, institutions, and creations; wherein I presume the more to speak confidently, because I am warranted herein by your own wisdom, who have made the first-fruits of your actions of state to institute the honourable Order of the Helmet; the less shall I need to say, leaving your Excellency not so much to follow my advice as your own example.
The Fourth Counsellor, advising
Absoluteness of State and Treasure
Let it not seem pusillanimity for your Excellency, mighty Prince, to descend a little from your high thoughts to a necessary consideration of your own estate. Neither do you deny, honourable Lords, to acknowledge safety, profit, and power to be of the substance of policy, and fame and honour rather to be as flowers of well ordered actions than as good ends. Now if you examine the courses propounded according to these respects, it must be confessed that the course of wars may seem to increase power, and the course of contemplations and foundations not prejudice safety. But if you look beyond the exterior you shall find that the first breeds weakness and the latter nurse peril. For certain it is during wars your Excellency will be enforced to your soldiers and generally to your people, and become less absolute and monarchical than if you reigned in peace; and then if your success be good, that you make new conquests, you shall be constrained to spend the strength of your ancient and settled provinces to assure your new and doubtful, and become like a strong man that by taking a great burden upon his shoulders maketh himself weaker than he was before. Again, if you think you may intend contemplations with security, your Excellency will be deceived; for such studies will make you retired and disused with your business, whence will follow a diminution of your authority. As for the other point, of erecting in every part of your state something new derived from yourself, it will acquaint your Excellency with an humour of innovation and alteration, which will make your reign very turbulent and unsettled; and many times your change will be for [the] worse, as in the example last touched of Constantine, who by his new translation of his estate ruinated the Roman Empire. As for profit, there appeareth a direct contrariety between that and all the three courses; for nothing causeth such a dissipation of treasure as wars, curiosities, and buildings; and for all this to be recompensed in a supposed honour, a matter apt to be much extolled in words, but not greatly to be prized in conceipt, I do think it a loser's bargain. Besides that many politic princes have received as much commendation for their wise and well-ordered government as others have done for their conquests and glorious affections; and more worthy, because the praise of wisdom and judgment is less communicated with fortune. Therefore, excellent Prince, be not transported with shows. Follow the order of nature, first to make the most of that you possess, before you seek to purchase more. To put the case by a private man (for I cannot speak high), if a man were born to an hundred pounds by the year, and one show him how with charge to purchase an hundred pounds more, and another should show him how without charge to raise that hundred pounds unto five hundred pounds, I should think the latter advice should be followed. The proverb is a country proverb, but significative, Milk the cow that standeth still; why follow you her that flieth away? Do not think, excellent Prince, that all the conquests you are to make be foreign. You are to conquer here at home the overgrowing of your grandees in factions, and too great liberties of your people; the great reverence and formalities given to your laws and customs, in derogation of your absolute prerogatives: these and such-like be conquests of state, though not of war. You want a Joseph, that should by advice make you the only proprietor of all the lands and wealth of your subjects. The means how to strain up your sovereignty, and how to accumulate treasure and revenue, they are the secrets of your state; I will not enter into them at this place: I wish your Excellency as ready to [desire] them, as I have the means ready to perform them.
The Fifth Counsellor, advising him
Virtue and a gracious Government
Most excellent Prince, I have heard sundry plats and propositions offered unto you severally; one to make you a great Prince, another to make you a strong Prince, and another to make you a memorable Prince, and a fourth to make you an absolute Prince. But I hear of no invention to make you a good and a virtuous Prince; which surely my Lords have left out in discretion, as to arise of your own motion and choice; and so I should have thought, had they not handled their own propositions so artificially and persuadingly, as doth assure me their speech was not formal. But, most worthy Prince, fame is too light, and profit and surety are too low, and power is either such as you have or ought not so to seek to have. It is the meriting of your subjects, the making of golden times, the becoming of a natural parent to your state; these are the only [fit] and worthy ends of your Grace's virtuous reign. My Lords have taught you to refer all things to yourself, your greatness, memory, and advantage; but whereunto shall yourself be referred? If you will be heavenly you must have influence. Will you be as a standing pool that spendeth and choketh his spring within itself, and hath no streams nor current to bless and make fruitful whole tracts of countries whereby it runneth? Wherefore, first of all, most virtuous Prince, assure yourself of an inward peace, that the storms without do not disturb any of your repairers of state within. Therein use and practise all honourable diversions. That done, visit all the parts of your state, and let the balm distill everywhere from your sovereign hands, to the medicining of any part that complaineth. Beginning with your seat of state, take order that the faults of your great ones do not rebound upon yourself; have care that your intelligence, which is the light of your state, do not go out or burn dim or obscure; advance men of virtue and not of mercenary minds; repress all faction be it either malign or violent. Then look into the state of your laws and justice of your land; purge out multiplicity of laws, clear the incertainty of them, repeal those that are snaring, and press the execution of those that are wholesome and necessary; define the jurisdiction of your courts, repress all suits and vexations, all causeless delays and fraudulent shifts and devices, and reform all such abuses of right and justice; assist the ministers thereof, punish severely all extortions and exactions of officers, all corruptions in trials and sentences of judgement. Yet when you have done all this, think not that the bridle and spur will make the horse to go alone without time and custom. Trust not to your laws for correcting the times, but give all strength to good education; see to the government of your universities and all seminaries of youth, and to the private order of families, maintaining due obedience of children towards their parents, and reverence of the younger sort towards the ancient. Then when you have confirmed the noble and vital parts of your realm of state, proceed to take care of the blood and flesh and good habit of the body. Remedy all decays of population, make provision for the poor, remove all stops in traffic, and all cankers and causes of consumption in trades and mysteries; redress all -- But whither do I run, exceeding the bounds of that perhaps I am not demanded? But pardon me, most excellent Prince, for as if I should commend unto your Excellency the beauty of some excellent Lady, I could not so well express it with relation as if I showed you her picture; so I esteem the best way to commend a virtuous government, to describe and make appear what it is; but my pencil perhaps disgraceth it; therefore I leave it to your Excellency to take the picture out of your wise observation, and then to double it and express it in your government.
The Sixth Counsellor, persuading
Pastimes and Sports
When I heard, most excellent Prince, the three first of my Lords so careful to continue your fame and memory, methought it was as if a man should come to some young prince as yourself is, and immediately after his coronation be in hand with him to make himself a sumptuous and stately tomb. And, to speak out of my soul, I muse how any of your servants can once endure to think of you as of a prince past. And for my other Lords, who would engage you as deeply in matters of state, the one persuading you to a more absolute, the other to a more gracious government, I assure your Excellency their lessons were so cumbersome, as if they mould make you a king in a play, who, when one could think he standeth in great majesty and felicity, he is troubled to say his part. What! nothing but tasks, nothing hut working-days? No feasting, no music, no dancing, no triumphs, no comedies, no love, no ladies? Let other men's lives be as pilgrimages, because they are tied to divers necessities and duties; but princes' lives are as progresses, dedicated only to variety and solace. And [as] if sour Excellency should take your barge in a summer evening, or your horse or chariot, to take the air; and if you should do any the favour to visit him; yet your pleasure is the principal, and that is but as it falleth out; so if any of these matters which have been spoken of fall out in the way of your pleasure, it may be taken, but no otherwise. And therefore leave your wars to your lieutenants, and your works and buildings to your surveyors, and your books to your universities, and your state-matters to your counsellors, and attend you that in person which you cannot execute by deputy: use the advantage of your youth: be not sullen to your fortune; make your pleasure the distinction of your honours, the study of your favourites, the talk of your people, and the allurement of all foreign gallants to your Court. And in a word, sweet sovereign, dismiss your five counsellors, and only take counsel of your five senses.
[@ Bacon, Works VIII, 332-42].
