Bacon is Shake Speare
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Sir Edwin Durning Lawrence >> Bacon is Shake Speare
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[Illustration: Plate XXVII. Facsimile Title Page.]
[Illustration: Plate XXVIII. Left-Handed Portion, much enlarged, of
Plate XXVIII.]
[Illustration: 202.--Royal Eagle. Facsimile from p. 93 of Boutell's
English Heraldry, 1899. If this is compared with the bird in
Plate XXVIII. it will at once be seen that the later is an Eagle
in full flight.]
[Illustration: Plate XXIX. Right-Hand Portion, much enlarged, of
Plate XXVII.]
[Illustration: Plate XXX. Top Portion of Plate XXVII., much enlarged.]
[Illustration: Plate XXXI. Bottom Portion of Plate XXVII., much
enlarged.]
Look first at the whole title page; on the top is a tempest with flaming
beacons, on the left (of the reader) is a gentleman giving something to
a spearman, and there are also other figures; on the right is a man on
horseback, and at the bottom in a square is a much dressed up man taking
the "Cap of Maintenance" from a man writing a book.
Examine first the left-hand picture shewn enlarged, Plate 28, Page 118.
You see a man, evidently Bacon, giving his writing to a Spearman who is
dressed in actor's boots (see Stothard's painting of Falstaff in the
"Merry Wives of Windsor" wearing similar actor's boots, Plate 32, Page
127). Note that the Spearman has a sprig of bay in the hat which he
holds in his hand. This man is a Shake-Spear, nay he really is a correct
portrait of the Stratford householder, which you will readily perceive
if you turn to Dugdale's engraving of the Shakespeare bust, Plate 5,
Page 14. In the middle distance the man still holding a spear, still
being a Shake-Speare, walks with a staff, he is therefore a Wagstaffe.
On his back are books--the books of the plays. In the sky is seen an
arrow, no, it is not sufficiently long for an arrow, it is a Shotbolt
(Shakespeare, Wagstaffe, Shotbolt, of Camden's "Remains"). This Shotbolt
is near to a bird which seems about to give to it the scroll it carries
in its beak. But is it a real bird? No, it has no real claws, its feet
are Jove's lightnings, verily, "it is the Eagle of great verse."
Next, look on Plate 29, Page 119, which is the picture on the right of
the title page. Here you see that the same Shake-spear whom we saw in
the left-hand picture is now riding on a courser. That he is the same
man is shewn by the sprig of bay in his hat, but he is no longer a
Shake-spear, he is a Shake-_spur_. Note how much the artist has
emphasised the drawing of the spur. It is made the one prominent thing
in the whole picture. We refer our reader to "The Returne from
Pernassus" (see pp. 47-48) where he will read,
"England affordes those glorious vagabonds
That carried earst their fardels on their backes
Coursers to ride on through the gazing streetes."
Now glance at the top picture on the title page (see Plate 27, Page
115,) which is enlarged in Plate 30, Page 122. Note that the picture is
enclosed in the magic circle of the imagination, surrounded by the masks
of Tragedy, Comedy, and Farce (in the same way as Stothard's picture of
the "Merry Wives of Windsor," Plate 32, Page 127).
[Illustration: Plate XXXII. Scene from "The Merry Wives of Windsor,"
painted by Thomas Stothard.]
The engraving represents a tempest with beacon lights; No; it represents
"The Tempest" of Shakespeare and tells you that the play is filled with
Bacon lights. (In the sixteenth century Beacon was pronounced Bacon.
"Bacon great Beacon of the State.")
We have already pointed out that "The Tempest," as Emile Montegut shewed
in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ in 1865, is a mass of Bacon's revelations
concerning himself.
At the bottom (see Plate 27, Page 115, and Plate 31, Page 123), within
the "four square corners of fact," surrounded with disguised masks of
Tragedy, Comedy, and Farce, is shewn the same man who gave the scroll
to the Spearman, see Plate 29, Page 118 (note the pattern of his
sleeves). He is now engaged in writing his book, while an Actor, very
much overdressed and wearing a mask something like the accepted mask of
Shakespeare, is lifting from the real writer's head a cap known in
Heraldry as the "Cap of Maintenance." Again we refer to our quotation
on page 48.
"Those glorious vagabonds....
Sooping it in their glaring Satten sutes."
Is not this masquerading fellow an actor "Sooping it in his glaring
Satten sute"? The figure which we say represents Bacon, see Plate 28,
wears his clothes as a gentleman. Nobody could for a moment imagine that
the masked creature in Plate 31 was properly wearing his own clothes.
No, he is "sooping it in his glaring Satten sute."
The whole title page clearly shows that it is drawn to give a
revelation about Shakespeare, who might just as well have borne the
name of Shotbolt or of Wagstaffe or of Shakespur, see "The Tempest,"
Act v., Scene I.
"The strong bass'd promontorie
Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluckt up."
There are also revealing title pages in other books, shewing a spear and
an actor wearing a single spur only (see Plate 35, Page 153).
It will be of interest to shew another specially revealing title page,
which for upwards of a hundred years remained unaltered as the title
page to Vol. I. of Bacon's collected works, printed abroad in Latin. A
different engraving, representing the same scene was also published in
France. These engravings, however, were never reproduced or used in
England, because the time for revelation had not yet come. Bacon is
shewn seated (see Plate 33, Page 131). Compare his portrait with the
engraving of the gentleman giving his scroll to the Spearman in the
Gustavus Silenus frontispiece, Plate 27, Page 115, and Plate 28, Page
118. Bacon is pointing with his right hand in full light to his open
book, while his left hand in deepest shadow is putting forward a figure
holding in both its hands a closed and clasped book, which by the cross
lines on its side (the accepted symbol of a mirror) shows that it
represents the mirror up to Nature, i.e., Shakespeare's plays.
Specially note that Bacon puts forward with his LEFT hand the figure
holding the book which is the mirror up to Nature. In the former part of
this treatise the writer has proved that the figure that forms the
frontispiece of the great folio of Shakespeare's plays, which is known
as the Droeshout portrait of Wm. Shakespeare, is really composed of two
LEFT arms and a mask. The reader will now be able to fully realise the
revelation contained in Droeshout's masked figure with its two left arms
when he examines it with the title page shown, Plate 33, Page 131.
[Illustration: Plate XXXIII. Facsimile Title Page.]
Bacon is putting forward what we described as a "figure"; it is a "man"
with false breasts to represent a woman (women were not permitted to act
in Bacon's time), and the man is clothed in a goat skin. Tragedos was
the Greek word for a goat skin, and Tragedies were so called because the
actors were dressed in goat skins. This figure therefore represents the
Tragic Muse. Here in the book called _De Augmentis Scientiarum_, which
formed one part of the Great Instauration, is placed an engraving to
show that another part of the Great Instauration known as Shakespeare's
Plays was issued LEFT-HANDEDLY, that is, was issued under the name of a
mean actor, the actor Shakespeare. This title page is very revealing,
and should be taken in conjunction with the title page of the
Cryptographic book which under the name of Gustavus Silenus, "_Homo
lunae_," the "Man in the Moon," was published in 1624 in order to form a
key to certain cyphers in the 1623 Folio of Shakespeare's Plays.
These two title pages were prepared with consummate skill in order to
reveal to the world, when the time was ripe, that
BACON IS SHAKESPEARE.
CHAPTER XII.
The "Householder of Stratford."
We have in Chapter II. printed Mr. George Hookham's list of the very
few incidents recorded concerning Shakespeare's life, but, as we have
already shewn, a great deal of the "authentic history" of the Stratford
clown has in fact been revealed to us. Ben Jonson calls the Stratford
man who had purchased a coat of arms "Sogliardo" (scum of the earth),
says he was brother to Sordido, the miser (Shakspeare was a miser),
describes him as an essential clown (that means that he was a rustic
totally unable to read and write), shews that he speaks "i' th'
straungest language," and calls Heralds "Harrots," and finally sums him
up definitely as a "Swine without a head, without braine, wit, anything
indeed, Ramping to Gentilitie." In order that there should be no
mistake as to the man who is referred to, "Sogliardo's" motto is stated
to be "Not without Mustard," Shakespeare's motto being "Not without
right" (Non sanz droict). Ben Jonson's account of the real Stratford
man is confirmed by Shakespeare's play of "As You Like it," where
Touchstone, the courtier playing clown, says, "It is meat and drinke to
me to see a clowne" (meaning an essential clown, an uneducated rustic);
yet he salutes him as "gentle," shewing that the mean fellow possesses
a coat of arms.
The Clown is born in the Forest of Ardennes (Shakespeare's mother's name
was Arden). He is rich, but only so-so rich, that is rich for a clowne
(New Place cost only L60). He says he is wise, and Touchstone mocks him
with Bacon's words, "The Foole doth think he is wise, but the wise man
knows himself to be a Fool." He says he has "a prettie wit" (pretty wit
is the regular orthodox phrase as applied to Shakespeare). But when
asked whether he is learned, he distinctly replies "No," which means
that he says that he cannot read one line of print. A man who could read
one line of print was at that period in the eye of the law "learned,"
and could not be hanged when convicted for the first time except for
murder. If any persons be found to dispute the fact that the reply "No"
to the question "Art thou learned?" meant in Queen Elizabeth's day "I
cannot read one line of print" such persons must be totally unacquainted
with Law literature.[9]
The play "As You Like it" confirms Ben Jonson's characterisation of
Shakespeare being "an essential clowne." Next let us turn to Ratsei's
_Ghost_ (see p. 49), which, as Mr. Sidney Lee, in his "Life of William
Shakespeare," p. 159, 1898 ed., confesses, refers to Shakespeare. Ratsei
advises the young actor to copy Shakespeare, "and to feed upon all men,
to let none feede upon thee" (meaning Shakespeare was a cruel usurer).
As we shew, page 53, Grant White says: "The pursuit of an impoverished
man for the sake of imprisoning him and depriving him both of the power
of paying his debts and supporting himself and his family, is an
incident in Shakespeare's life which it requires the utmost allowance
and consideration for the practice of the time and country to enable us
to contemplate with equanimity--satisfaction is impossible."
Ratsei continues, "Let thy hand be a stranger to thy pocket" [like the
miser, Shakespeare], "thy hart slow to perform thy tongues promise"
[like the lying rascal Shakespeare], "and when thou feelest thy purse
well lined, buy thee a place of lordship in the country" [as Shakespeare
had bought New Place, Stratford] "that, growing weary of playing, thy
mony may there bring thee to dignitie and reputation" [as Shakespeare
obtained a coat of arms], "then thou needest care for no man, nor not
for them that before made thee prowd with speaking their words upon the
stage." This manifestly refers to two things, one that Shakespeare when
he bought New Place, quitted London and ceased to act; the other that he
continually tried to exact more and more "blackmail" from those to whom
he had sold his name.
Now we begin at last to understand what we are told by Rowe, in his
"Life of Shakespeare," published in 1709, that is, 93 years after
Shakespeare's death in 1616, when all traces of the actual man had been
of set purpose obliterated, because the time for revealing the real
authorship of the plays had not yet come. Rowe, page x., tells us:
"There is one Instance so singular in the Magnificence of this Patron of
Shakespeare's, that if I had not been assur'd that the Story was handed
down by Sir William D'Avenant, who was probably very well acquainted
with his Affairs, I should not have ventured to have inserted, that my
Lord Southampton, at one time, gave him a thousand Pounds, to enable him
to go through with a Purchase which he heard he had a mind to."
This story has been hopelessly misunderstood, because people did not
know that a large sum had to be paid to Shakespeare to obtain his
consent to allow his name to be put to the plays, and that New Place had
to be purchased for him, 1597 (the title deeds were not given to him for
five or six years later), and that he had also to be sent away from
London before "W Shakespeare's" name was attached to any play, the first
play bearing that name being, as we have already pointed out, page 89,
"Loues Labor's lost," with its very numerous revelations of authorship.
Then, almost immediately, the world is informed that eleven other plays
had been written by the same author, the list including the play of
"Richard II."
The story of the production of the play of "Richard II." is very curious
and extremely instructive. It was originally acted with the Parliament
scene, where Richard II. is made to surrender, commencing in the Folio
of 1623 with the words--
"Fetch hither Richard, that in common view he may surrender,"
continuing with a description of his deposition extending over 167 lines
to the words--
"That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall."
This account of the deposition of a king reached Queen Elizabeth's ears;
she was furiously angry and she exclaimed: "Seest thou not that I am
Richard II."
A copy of the play without any author's name was printed in 1597,
omitting the story of the deposition of Richard II.; this was followed
by a second and probably a third reprint in 1597, with no important
alterations, but still without any author's name. Then, after the actor
had been sent away to Stratford, Shakespeare's name was put upon a
fourth reprint, dated 1598.
The story of Richard II.'s deposition was not printed in the play till
1608, five years after the death of Queen Elizabeth.[10]
This history of the trouble arising out of the production of the play of
"Richard II." explains why a name had to be found to be attached to the
plays. Who would take the risk? An actor was never "hanged," he was
often whipped, occasionally one lost his ears, but an actor of repute
would probably have refused even a large bribe. There was, however, a
grasping money-lending man, of little or no repute, that bore a name
called Shaxpur, which might be twisted into Bacon's pen-name
Shake-Speare, and that man was secured, but as long as he lived he was
continually asking for more and more money. The grant of a coat of arms
was probably part of the original bargain. At one time it seems to have
been thought easier to grant arms to his father. This, however, was
found impossible. But when in 1597 Bacon's friend Essex was Earl Marshal
and chief of the Heralds' College, and Bacon's servant Camden (whom
Bacon had assisted to prepare the "Annales"--see Spedding's "Bacon's
Works," Vol. 6, p. 351, and Letters, Vol. 4, p. 211), was installed as
Clarenceux, King-of-Arms, the grant of arms to Shakespeare was
recognised, 1599. Shakespeare must have been provisionally secured soon
after 1593, when the "Venus and Adonis" was signed with his name,
because in the next year, 1594, "The Taming of a Shrew" was printed, in
which the opening scene shews a drunken "Warwickshire" rustic
[Shakspeare was a drunken Warwickshire rustic], who is dressed up as
"My lord," for whom the play had been prepared. (In the writer's
possession there is a very curious and absolutely unique masonic
painting revealing "on the square" that the drunken tinker is
Shakspeare and the Hostess, Bacon.)
The early date at which Shakspeare had been secured explains how in
1596 an application for a grant of arms seems to have been made (we
say seems) for the date may possibly be a fraud like the rest of the
lying document.
We have referred to Shakspeare as a drunken Warwickshire rustic who
lived in the mean and dirty town of Stratford-on-Avon. There is a
tradition that Shakespeare as a very young man was one of the
Stratfordians selected to drink against "the Bidford topers," and with
his defeated friends lay all night senseless under a crab tree, that was
long known as Shakespeare's crab tree.
Shakespeare's description of the Stratford man as the drunken tinker in
"The Taming of a Shrew" shews that the actor maintained his "drunken"
character. This habit seems to have remained with him till the close of
his life, for Halliwell-Phillipps says: "It is recorded that the party
was a jovial one, and according to a somewhat late but apparently
reliable tradition when the great dramatist [Shakespeare of Stratford]
was returning to New Place in the evening, he had taken more wine than
was conducive to pedestrian accuracy. Shortly or immediately afterwards
he was seized by the lamentable fever which terminated fatally on
Friday, April 23rd."
The story of his having to leave Stratford because he got into very
bad company and became one of a gang of deer-stealers, has also very
early support.
We have already proved that Shakspeare could neither read nor write. We
must also bear in mind that the Stratford man never had any reputation
as an actor.
Rowe, p. vi., thus writes: "His Name is Printed, as the Custom was in
those Times, amongst those of the other Players, before some old
Plays,[11] but without any particular Account of what sort of Parts he
us'd to play; and tho' I have inquir'd I could never meet with any
further Account of him this way than that the top of his Performance was
the Ghost in his own Hamlet." The humblest scene-shifter could play
this character, as we shall shew later. What about being manager of a
Theatre? Shakspeare never was manager of a Theatre. What about being
master of a Shakespeare company of actors? There never existed a
Shakespeare company of actors. What about ownership of a Theatre? Dr.
Wallace, says in the _Times_ of Oct. 2nd 1909, that at the time of his
death Shakespeare owned one fourteenth of the Globe Theatre, and
one-seventh of the Blackfriars Theatre. The profit of each of these was
probably exceedingly small. The pleadings, put forth the present value
at L300 each, but as a broad rule, pleadings always used to set forth at
least ten times the actual facts. In the first case which the writer
remembers witnessing in Court, the pleadings were 100 oxen, 100 cows,
100 calves, 100 sheep, and 100 pigs, the real matter in dispute being
one cow and perhaps one calf. If we assume, therefore, that the total
capital value of the holding of W. Shakespeare in both theatres taken
together amounted to L60 in all, we shall probably, even then,
considerably over-estimate their real worth. Now having disposed of the
notion that Shakespeare was ever an important actor, was ever a manager
of a Theatre, was ever the master of a company of actors, or was ever
the owner of any Theatre, let us consider what Rowe means by the
statement that the top of his performance was the Ghost in "Hamlet."
This grotesque and absurd fable has for two hundred years been accepted
as an almost indisputable historical fact. Men of great intelligence in
other matters seem when the life of Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon is
concerned, quite prepared to refuse to exercise either judgment or
common sense, and to swallow without question any amount of preposterous
nonsense, even such as is contained in the above statement. The part of
the Ghost in the play of "Hamlet" is one of the smallest and most
insignificant possible, and can be easily played by the most ignorant
and most inexperienced of actors. All that is required is a suit of
armour with somebody inside it, to walk with his face concealed,
silently and slowly a few times across the stage. Then on his final
appearance he should say a few sentences (84 lines in the Folio, 1623),
but these can be and occasionally are spoken by some invisible speaker
in the same manner as the word "_Swear_" which is always growled out by
someone concealed beneath the stage. No one knows, and no one cares, for
no one sees who plays the part, which requires absolutely no histrionic
ability. Sir Henry Irving, usually, I believe, put two men in armour
upon the stage, in order to make the movements of the Ghost more
mysterious. What then can be the meaning of the statement that the
highest point to which the actor, Shakespeare, attained was to play the
part of the Ghost in "Hamlet"? The rumour is so positive and so
persistent that it cannot be disregarded or supposed to be merely a
foolish jest or a senselessly false statement put forward for the
purpose of deceiving the public. We are compelled, therefore, to
conclude that there must be behind this fable some real meaning and some
definite purpose, and we ask ourselves; What is the purpose of this
puzzle? What can be its real meaning and intention? As usual, the Bacon
key at once solves the riddle. The moment we realise that BACON is
HAMLET, we perceive that the purpose of the rumour is to reveal to us
the fact that the highest point to which the actor, Shakespeare, of
Stratford-on-Avon, attained was to play the part of Ghost to Bacon, that
is to act as his "PSEUDONYM," or in other words, the object of the story
is to reveal to us the fact that
BACON IS SHAKESPEARE.
Chapter XIII.
Conclusion, with further evidences from title pages.
Bacon had published eleven plays anonymously, when it became
imperatively necessary for him to find some man who could be purchased
to run the risk, which was by no means inconsiderable, of being supposed
to be the author of these plays which included "Richard II."; the
historical play which so excited the ire of Queen Elizabeth. Bacon, as
we have already pointed out, succeeded in discovering a man who had
little, if any, repute as an actor, but who bore a name which was called
Shaxpur or Shackspere, which could be twisted into something that might
be supposed to be the original of Bacon's pen name of Shake-Speare.
When in 1597 through the medium of powerful friends, by means of the
bribe of a large sum of money, the gift of New Place, and the promise of
a coat of arms, this man had been secured, he was at once sent away from
London to the then remote village of Stratford-on-Avon, where scarcely a
score of people could read, and none were likely to connect the name of
their countryman, who they knew could neither read nor write and whom
they called Shak or Shackspur, with "William Shakespeare" the author of
plays the very names of which were absolutely unknown to any of them.
Bacon, when Shackspur had been finally secured in 1597, brought out in
the following year 1598 "Loues Labor's lost" with the imprint "newly
corrected and augmented by W. Shakespere," and immediately he also
brought out under the name of Francis Meres "Wits Treasury," containing
the statement that eleven other plays, including "Richard II.," were
also by this same Shakespeare who had written the poems of "Venus and
Adonis" and "Lucrece."
Francis Meres says: "As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in
Pythagoras so the sweete wittie soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and
honytongued Shakespeare, witnes his 'Venus and Adonis,' his 'Lucrece,'
his sugred Sonnets among his private friends."
The Sonnets were not printed, so far as is known, before 1609, and they
as has been shown in Chapter 8 repeat the story of Bacon's authorship of
the plays.
Bacon in 1598, as we have stated in previous pages, fully intended that
at some future period posterity should do him justice.
Among his last recorded words are those in which he commends his name
and fame to posterity, "after many years had past." Accordingly we find,
as we should expect to find, that when he put Shakespeare's name to
"Loues Labor's lost" (the first play to bear that name) Bacon took
especial pains to secure that at some future date he should be
recognised as the real author. Does he not clearly reveal this to us by
the wonderful words with which the play of "Loues Labor's lost" opens?
"Let Fame, that all hunt after in their lyues,
Liue registred vpon our brazen Tombes,
And then grace vs, in the disgrace of death:
When spight of cormorant deuouring Time,
Thendeuour of this present breath may buy:
That honour which shall bate his sythes keene edge,
And make us heires of all eternitie."
Bacon intended that "Spight of cormorant devouring Time" ... honour....
should make [him] heir of all eternitie.
Compare the whole of this grand opening passage of "Loues Labor's lost"
with the lines ascribed to Milton in the 1632 edition of Shakespeare's
plays when Bacon was [supposed to be] dead. No epitaph appeared in the
1623 edition, but in the 1632 edition appeared the following:
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