In Archbishop Tenison's Baconiana or Certain Genuine Remains of Sr. Francis Bacon (1679), on p. 79, we read: "And those who have true skill in the Works of the Lord Verulam, like great Masters in Painting, can tell by the Design, the Strength, the way of Colouring, whether he was the Author of this or the other Piece, though his Name be not to it."

This is proof that Bacon wrote under other names, or masks, and is of the utmost significance. When Professor Nelson, for example, offers his opinion that it is "inherently ridiculous" to imagine Bacon could have written under a mask, it's clear that he must be unaware of the plain testimony of Archbishop Tenison's remark. Time and again, one finds, as here, that the orthodox and the oxfordian alike have simply failed to perform due diligence on the Baconian position. Even orthodox Bacon scholars, who shrink from the suggestion that he was Shakespeare, have nowhere to file the Archbishop's quote. That there is a great mystery assocated with the life and work of Francis Bacon, as Ben Johnson proclaimed in his tribute poem on Bacon's 60th birthday, is proven by Archbishop Tenison's remark and the question left hanging which it implies: what exactly are the works which Bacon wrote "though his Name be not on it"?

A clue might be given by this short quote included in the tribute to Bacon, the Manes Verulamiuni, published in Latin on his death (and ignored by scholars): "You have filled the world with your writings".