Bacon is Shake Speare
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Sir Edwin Durning Lawrence >> Bacon is Shake Speare
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Stratfordians tell us that the above is written in reference to a poet
whom Shakespeare "evidently" regarded as a rival. But it is difficult to
imagine how sensible men can satisfy their reason with such an
explanation. Is it possible to conceive that a poet should write
_against a rival_
"Your name from hence immortall life shall haue
Though I (once gone) to all the world must dye"
or should say _against_ a _rival_,
"The Earth can yeeld me but a common graue
While you intombed in men's eyes shall lye."
or should have declared "_against_ a _rival_,"
"Your monument shall be my gentle verse"
No! This sonnet is evidently written in reference to the writer's mask
or pseudonym which would continue to have immortal life (even though he
himself might be forgotten) as he says
"Although in me each part will be forgotten."
It is sometimes said that Shakespeare (meaning the Stratford actor) did
not know the value of his immortal works. Is that true of the writer of
this sonnet who says
"my gentle verse
Which eyes not yet created shall ore read"
No! The writer knew his verses were immortal and would immortalize the
pseudonym attached to them
"When all the breathers of this world are dead."
Perhaps the reader will better understand Sonnet 81 if I insert the
words necessary to fully explain it.
Or shall I [Bacon] live your Epitaph to make,
Or you [Shakespeare] survive when I in Earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name [Shakespeare] from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I [Bacon] once gone to all the world must die,
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie,
Your monument shall be my [not your] gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall ore read,
And tongues to be your being [which as an author
was not] shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead,
You [Shakespeare] still shall live, such vertue
hath my pen [not your own pen, for you never wrote a line]
Where breathe most breaths even in the mouths of men.
This Sonnet was probably written considerably earlier than 1609, but at
that date Bacon's name had not been attached to any work of great
literary importance.
After the writer had learned the true meaning of Sonnet 81, his eyes
were opened to the inward meaning of other Sonnets, and he perceived
that Sonnet No. 76 repeated the same tale.
"Why write I still all one, euer the same,
And keep inuention in a noted weed,
That euery word doth almost sel my name,
Shewing their birth and where they did proceed?"
(Sel may mean spell or tell or possibly betray.)
Especially note that "Invention" is the same word that is used by Bacon
in his letter to Sir Tobie Matthew of 1609 (same date as the Sonnets),
and also especially remark the phrase "in a noted weed," which means in
a "pseudonym," and compare it with the words of Bacon's prayer, "I have
(though in a 'despised weed') procured the good of all men."
[Resuscitatio, 1671.] Was not the pseudonym of the Actor Shakespeare a
very "despised weed" in those days?
Let us look also at Sonnet No. 78.
"So oft have I enuoked thee for my Muse,
And found such faire assistance in my verse,
As every _alien_ pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poesy disperse."
Here again we should understand how to read this Sonnet as under:--
"So oft have I enuoked thee [Shakespeare] for my Muse,
And found such faire assistance in my verse,
As every _alien_ pen hath got my use,
And under thee [Shakespeare] their poesy disperse."
"Shakespeare" is frequently charged with being careless of his works and
indifferent to the piracy of his name; but we see by this Sonnet, No.
78, that the real author was not indifferent to the false use of his
pseudonym, though it was, of course, impossible for him to take any
effectual action if he desired to preserve his incognito, his mask, his
pseudonym.
CHAPTER IX.
Mr. Sidney Lee and the Stratford Bust.
One word to the Stratfordians. The "Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon"
myth has been shattered and destroyed by the mass of inexactitudes
collected in the supposititious "Life of Shakespeare" by Mr. Sidney Lee,
who has done his best to pulverise what remained of that myth by
recently writing as follows:--
"Most of those who have pressed the question [of Bacon being the real
Shake-speare] on my notice, are men of acknowledged intelligence and
reputation in their own branch of life, both at home and abroad. I
therefore desire as respectfully, but also as emphatically and as
publicly, as I can, to put on record the fact, as one admitting to my
mind of no rational ground for dispute, that there exists every manner
of contemporary evidence to prove that Shakspere, the householder of
Stratford-on-Avon, wrote with his own hand, and exclusively by the light
of his only genius (merely to paraphrase the contemporary inscription on
his tomb in Stratford-on-Avon Church) those dramatic works which form
the supreme achievement in English Literature."
As a matter of fact, not a single scrap of evidence, contemporary or
otherwise, exists to show that Shakspere, the householder of
Stratford-on-Avon, wrote the plays or anything else; indeed, the writer
thinks that he has conclusively proved that this child of illiterate
parents and father of an illiterate child was himself so illiterate that
he was never able to write so much as his own name. But Mr. Sidney Lee
seems prepared to accept _anything_ as "contemporary evidence," for on
pages 276-7 (1898 edition) of his "Life of Shakespeare" he writes
"Before 1623 an elaborate monument, by a London sculptor of Dutch birth,
Gerard Johnson, was erected to Shakespeare's memory in the chancel of
the parish church. It includes a half-length bust, depicting the
dramatist on the point of writing. The fingers of the right hand are
disposed as if holding a pen, and under the left hand lies a quarto
sheet of paper."
As a matter of fact, the _present_ Stratford monument was not put up
till about one hundred and twenty years _after_ Shakspeare's death. The
original monument, see Plate 3 on Page 8, was a very different monument,
and the figure, as I have shewn in Plate 5, instead of holding a pen in
its hand, rests its two hands on a wool-sack or cushion. Of course, the
false bust in the existing monument was substituted for the old bust for
the purpose of fraudulently supporting the Stratford myth.
When Mr. Sidney Lee wrote that the present monument was erected before
1623 he did not do this consciously to deceive the public; still, it is
difficult to pardon him for this and the other reckless statements with
which his book is filled. But what are we to say of his words
(respecting the _present_ monument) which we read on page 286? "It was
first engraved--very imperfectly--in Rowe's edition of 1709." An exact
full size photo facsimile reproduction of Rowe's engraving is shown in
Plate 19, Page 77.
[Illustration: Plate. XIX. The Original Stratford Monument, from Rowe's
Life of Shakespeare, 1709]
As a matter of fact, the real Stratford monument of 1623 was first
engraved in Dugdale's "Warwickshire" of 1656, where it appears opposite
to page 523. We can, however, pardon Mr. Sidney Lee for his ignorance of
the existence of that engraving; but how shall we pardon him for citing
Rowe as a witness to the early existence of the present bust? To anyone
not wilfully blinded by passion and prejudice, Rowe's engraving [see
Plate 19, Page 77] clearly shews a figure absolutely different from the
Bust in the present monument. Rowe's figure is in the same attitude as
the Bust of the original monument engraved by Dugdale, and does not hold
a pen in its hand, but its two hands are supported on a wool-sack or
cushion, in the same manner as in the Bust from Dugdale which I have
shewn in Plate 5, on Page 14.
What are we to say respecting the frontispiece to the 1898 edition of
what he is pleased to describe as the "Life of William Shakespeare,"
which Mr. Sidney Lee tells us is "from the 'Droeshout' painting now in
the Shakespeare Memorial Gallery at Stratford-on-Avon"?
As a matter of fact there is no "Droeshout" painting. The picture
falsely so called is a manifest forgery and a palpable fraud, for in it
all the revealing marks of the engraving by Martin Droeshout which
appeared in the 1623 folio are purposely omitted. A full size photo
facsimile of Martin Droeshout's engraving is shewn in Plate 8, pp.
20-21. In the false and fraudulent painting we find no double line to
shew the mask, and the coat is really a coat and not a garment cunningly
composed of two left arms.
Still it does seem singularly appropriate and peculiarly fitting that
Mr. Sidney Lee should have selected as the frontispiece of the romance
which he calls the "Life" of Shakespeare, an engraving of the false and
fraudulent painting now in the Stratford-on-Avon Gallery for his first
edition of 1898; and should also have selected an engraving of the false
and fraudulent monument now in Stratford-on-Avon Church as the
frontispiece for his first Illustrated Library Edition of 1899.
Mr. Sidney Lee is aware of the fact that Martin Droeshout was only
fifteen years old when the Stratford actor died. But it is possible that
he may not know that (in addition to the Shakespeare Mask which
Droeshout drew for the frontispiece of the 1623 folio edition of the
Plays of Shakespeare, in order to reveal, to those who were able to
understand, the true facts of the Authorship of those plays), Martin
Droeshout also drew frontispieces for other books, which may be
similarly correctly characterised as cunningly composed, in order to
reveal the true facts of the authorship of such works, unto those who
were capable of grasping the hidden meaning of his engravings.
One other point it is worth while referring to. The question is
frequently asked, if Bacon wrote under the name of Shakespeare, why so
carefully conceal the fact? An answer is readily supplied by a little
anecdote related by Ben Jonson, which was printed by the Shakespeare
Society in 1842, in their "Notes of Ben Jonson's conversations with
William Drummond of Hawthornden".
"He [Ben Jonson] was dilated by Sir James Murray to the King, for
writting something against the Scots, in a play Eastward Hoe, and
voluntarly imprissonned himself with Chapman and Marston who had written
it amongst them. The report was that they should then [have] had their
ears cut and noses. After their delivery, he banqueted all his friends;
there was Camden, Selden, and others; at the midst of the feast his old
Mother dranke to him, and shew him a paper which she had (if the
sentence had taken execution) to have mixed in the prisson among his
drinke, which was full of lustie strong poison, and that she was no
churle, she told, she was minded first to have drunk of it herself."
This was in 1605, and it is a strange and grim illustration of the
dangers that beset men in the Highway of Letters.
It was necessary for Bacon to write under pseudonyms to conceal his
identity, but he intended that at some time posterity should do him
justice and it was for this purpose that, among the numerous clues he
supplied to reveal himself he wrote "The Tempest" in its present form,
which Emile Montegut writing in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ in 1865
declared to be the author's literary Testament.
The Island is the Stage. Prospero the prime Duke, the great
Magician, represents the Mighty Author who says "my brother ...
called Anthonio who next thyself of all the world I lov'd" ...
"graves at my command have wak'd their sleepers op'd and let them
forth by my so potent Art" ...
"and deeper than ever plummet sound
He drown my booke."
Yet he does not forget finally to add "I do ... require my Dukedome of
thee, which perforce I know thou must restore."
The falsely crowned and gilded king of the Island who had stolen the
wine (the poetry) "where should they find this grand liquor that hath
gilded them" and whose name is Stephanos (Greek for crown) throws off
at the close of the play, his false crown while Caliban says "What a
thrice double asse was I to take this drunkard for a God."
The mighty Magician Prospero says "knowing I lov'd my bookes, he
furnished me from mine own Library, with volumes, that I prize above my
Dukedome." Bacon when he was dismissed from his high offices, devoted
himself to his books. Not a book of any kind was found at New Place,
Stratford. Bacon's brother "whom next himself he loved" was called
Anthony. "Gentle" Shakespeare of Stratford died from the effects of a
"Drunken" bout!
It does matter whether it is thought that the Immortal works were
written by the sordid money-lender of Stratford, the "Swine without a
head, without braine, wit, anything indeed, Ramping to Gentilitie"; or
were written by him who was himself the "Greatest Birth of Time"; the
man pre-eminently distinguished amongst the sons of earth; the man who
in order to "do good to all mankind," disguised his personality "in a
despised weed," and wrote under the name of William Shakespeare.
It does matter, and England is now declining any longer to _dishonour_
and _defame_ the greatest Genius of all time by continuing to identify
him with the mean, drunken, ignorant, and absolutely unlettered, rustic
of Stratford who never in his life wrote so much as his own name and in
all probability was totally unable to read one single line of print.
The hour has come for revealing the truth. The hour has come when it is
no longer necessary or desirable that the world should remain in
ignorance that the Great Author of Shakespeare's Plays was himself alive
when the Folio was published in 1623. The hour has come when all should
know that this the greatest book produced by man was given to the world
more carefully edited by its author as to every word in every column, as
to every italic in every column, as to every apparent misprint in every
column, than any book had ever before been edited, and more exactly
printed than there seems any reasonable probability that any book will
ever again be printed that may be issued in the future.
The hour has come when it is desirable and necessary to state with the
utmost distinctness that
BACON IS SHAKESPEARE.
[Illustration: Plate XX. Reduced Facsimile of Page 136 of the
Shakespeare Folio, 1623]
[Illustration: Plate XXI. Portion of Page 136, full size, as in the
Shakespeare Folio 1623]
CHAPTER X
Bacon is Shakespeare.
Proved mechanically in a short chapter on the long word
Honorificabilitudinitatibus.
The long word found in "Loves Labour's lost" was not created by the
author of Shakespeare's plays. Mr. Paget Toynbee, writing in the
_Athenoeum_ (London weekly) of December 2nd 1899, tells us the history
of this long word.
It is believed to have first appeared in the Latin Dictionary by
Uguccione, called "Magnae Derivationes," which was written before the
invention of printing, in the latter half of the twelfth century and
seems never to have been printed. Excerpts from it were, however,
included in the "Catholicon" of Giovanni da Geneva, which was printed
among the earliest of printed books (that is, it falls into the class of
books known as "incunabula," so called because they belong to the
"cradle of printing," the fifteenth century).
In this "Catholicon," which, though undated, was printed before A.D.
1500, we read
"Ab _honorifico, hic_ et _hec honorificabilis,--le_ et
--hec honororificabilitas,--tis_ et _hec
honorificabilitudinitas_, et est longissima dictio,
que illo versu continetur--
Fulget Honorificabilitudinitatibus iste."
It is perhaps not without interest to call the reader's attention to the
fact that "Fulget hon|orifi |cabili|tudini|tatibus|iste" forms a neat
Latin hexameter. It will be found that the revelation derived from the
long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus is itself also in the form of a
Latin hexameter.
The long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus occurs in the Quarto edition
of "Loues Labor's Lost," which is stated to be "Newly corrected and
augmented by W. Shakespere." Imprinted in London by W.W. for Cutbert
Burby. 1598.
This is the very first play that bore the name W. Shakespere, but so
soon as he had attached the name W. Shakespere to that play, the great
author Francis Bacon caused to be issued almost immediately a book
attributed to Francis Meres which is called "Palladis Tamia, Wits
Treasury" and is stated to be Printed by P. Short for Cuthbert Burbie,
1598. This is the same publisher as the publisher of the Quarto of
"Loues Labor's lost" although both the Christian name and the surname
are differently spelled.
This little book "Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury" tells us on page 281,
"As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy
among the Latines, so Shakespeare among ye English, is the most
excellent in both kinds for the stage; for Comedy, witness his Gentlemen
of Verona, his Errors, his Love Labors lost, his Love Labours wonne, his
Midsummers night dreame, and his Merchant of Venice: for Tragedy, his
Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King John, Titus Andronicus,
and his Romeo and Juliet."
Here we are distinctly told that eleven other plays are also
Shakespeare's work although only Loues Labors lost at that time
bore his name.
We refer on page 138 to the reason why it had become absolutely
necessary for the Author to affix a false name to all these twelve
plays. For our present purpose it is sufficient to point out that on the
very first occasion when the name W. Shakespere was attached to any
play, viz., to the play called "Loues Labor's lost," the Author took
pains to insert a revelation that would enable him to claim his own when
the proper time should arrive. Accordingly he prepared the page which is
found F 4 (the little book is not paged) in the Quarto of "Loues Labor's
lost" which was published in 1598. A photo-facsimile of the page is
shewn, Page 105, Plate 22.
So far as is known there never was any other edition printed until the
play appeared in the Folio of 1623 under the name of "Loues Labour's
lost," and we put before the reader a reduced facsimile of the whole
page 136 of the 1623 Folio, on which the long word occurs, Page 86,
Plate 20, and we give also an exact full size photo reproduction of a
portion of the first column of that page. Page 87, Plate 21.
On comparing the page of the Quarto with that of the Folio, it will be
seen that the Folio page commences with the same word as does the Quarto
and that each and every word, and each and every italic in the Folio is
exactly reproduced from the Quarto excepting that Alms-basket in the
Folio is printed with a hyphen to make it into two words. A hyphen is
also inserted in the long word as it extends over one line to the next.
The only other change is that the lines are a little differently
arranged. These slight differences are by no means accidental, because
Alms-basket is hyphened to count as two words and thereby cause the long
word to be the 151st word. This is exceedingly important and it was only
by a misprint in the Quarto that it incorrectly appears there as the
150th word. By the rearrangement of the lines, the long word appears on
the 27th line, and the line, "What is A.B. speld backward with the horn
on his head" appears as it should do on the 33rd line. At the time the
Quarto was issued, when the trouble was to get Shakespere's name
attached to the plays, these slight printer's errors in the Quarto--for
they are printer's errors--were of small consequence, but when the play
was reprinted in the Folio of 1623 all these little blemishes were most
carefully corrected.
The long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus is found in "Loues Labour's
lost" not far from the commencement of the Fifth Act, which is called
Actus Quartus in the 1623 folio, and on Page 87, Plate 21, is given a
full size photo facsimile from the folio, of that portion of page 136,
in which the word occurs in the 27th line.
On lines 14, 15 occurs the phrase, "Bome boon for boon prescian, a
little scratcht, 'twil serve." I do not know that hitherto any rational
explanation has been given of the reason why this reference to the
pedantic grammarian "Priscian" is there inserted.
The mention of Priscian's name can have no possible reference to
anything apparent in the text, but it refers solely and entirely to the
phrase which is to be formed by the transposition of the twenty-seven
letters contained in the long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus; and it
was absolutely impossible that the citation of Priscian could ever have
been understood before the sentence containing the information which is
of the most important description had been "revealed." We say "revealed"
because the riddle could never have been "guessed."
The "revealed" and "all revealing" sentence forms a correct Latin
hexameter, and we will proceed to prove that it is without possibility
of doubt or question the real solution which the "Author" intended to be
known at some future time, when he placed the long word
Honorificabilitudinitatibus, which is composed of twenty-seven letters,
on the twenty-seventh line of page 136, where it appears as the 151st
word printed in ordinary type.
The all-important statement which reveals the authorship of the plays in
the most clear and direct manner (every one of the twenty-seven letters
composing the long word being employed and no others) is in the form of
a correct Latin hexameter, which reads as follows--
HI LUDI F. BACONIS NATI TUITI ORBI
These plays F. Bacon's offspring are preserved for the
world.
This verse will scan as a spondaic hexameter as under
HI LU |DI F | BACO | NIS NA | TI TUI | TI ORBI
HI One long syllable meaning "these."
LUDI Two long syllables meaning "stage plays,"
and especially "stage plays"
in contradistinction to "Circus games."
(Suetonius Hist:
Julius Caes: 10. Venationes autem Ludosque
et cum collega et separatim edidit).
F, One long syllable. Now for the first time
can the world be informed why the sneer
"Bome boon for boon prescian, a little
scratcht, 'twil serve" was inserted on lines
14, 15, page 136 of the folio of 1623. Priscian
declares that F was a mute and Bacon mocks
him for so doing. Ausonius while giving the
pronunciation of most letters of the alphabet
does not afford us any information respecting
the sound of F, but Quintilian xii. 10, s. 29,
describes the pronunciation of the Roman F.
Some scholars understand him as indicating
that the Roman F had rather a rougher sound
than the English F. Others agree with Dr.
H.J. Roby, and are of opinion that Quintilian
means that the Roman F was "blown out
between the intervals of the teeth with no
sound of voice." (See Roby's Grammar of
the Latin language, 1881, xxxvi.) But Dr. A.
Bos in his "Petit Traite de prononciation
Latine," 1897, asserts that the old Latin manner
of pronouncing F was effe. Even if Dr.
A. Bos is correct it is not at all likely that effe
was a dissyllable, but most probably it would
be sounded very nearly like the Greek "[Greek: phi],"
that is as "pfe." In any case (even if it
were a dissyllable) F would, with the DI
of LUDI, form two long syllables and scan
as a spondee. The use of single consonants
to form long or short syllables was very
common among the Romans, but such appear
mostly in lines impossible to quote.
But the Great Author was well acquainted
with such instances, and in this same page 136,
in lines 6, 7, 8, he gives an example, shewing
that the letter "B," although silent in debt,
becomes, when debt is spelled, one of the four
full words--d e b t, each of which has to be
counted to make up the number "151."[6]
This, which is an example of the great value
and importance of what, in many of the plays,
appears to be merely "silly talk" affords a
strong additional evidence of the correctness
of the "revealed" and "revealing" sentence
which we shew was intended by the author to
be constructed out of the long word. Bacon
therefore was amply justified in making use
of F as a long syllable to form the second
half of a spondee.
BACONIS Three long syllables, the final syllable
being long by position. Pedantic grammarians
might argue that natus being a
participle ought not to govern a genitive
case, but should be followed by a preposition
with the ablative case, and that we
ought to say "e Bacone nati" or "de
Bacone nati." Other pedants have declared
that natus is properly, i.e., classically, said
of the mother only, although in low Latin,
such as the Vulgate, we find 1 John v. 2,
"Natos Dei," "born of God." But the
Author of the plays, who instead of having
"small Latin and less Greek" knew "_All_
Latin and very much Greek," was well aware
that Vergil, Aeneid i. 654 (or 658 when the
four additional lines are inserted at the
beginning) gives us "Maxima natarum
Priami," "greatest of the daughters of
Priam," and in Aeneid ii. 527 "Unus natorum
Priami," "one of the sons of Priam." There
exists therefore the highest classical authority
for the use of "Nati" in the sense of "Sons"
or "offspring" governing a genitive case.
"F. Baconis nati," "Francis Bacon's offspring,"
is therefore absolutely and classically
correct.
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