Bacon is Shakespeare

2009-11-21T08:55:00.034+10:30

Why I will not be signing the "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt"

The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition recently announced that two US Supreme Court judges have added their names to the list of signatories to the "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt". This brings to 1,664 the number of people who have signed the on-line petition since its inception in 2007. The aims of the Coalition and its Declaration seem modest and reasonable enough; they simply seek to have the question of the authorship of the plays opened up to legitimate discussion.

"Our goal is to legitimize the issue in academia so students, teachers and professors can feel free to pursue it."
- from the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition website

The SAC claims to be agnostic in regards to who the real author might be. They just want, they seem t be saying, to open the door to the possibility of doubting that William Shaxper of Stratford was the author.

On the surface, this all seems inoffensive enough, but I have not and will not be signing the Declaration. I regard it as a step in the direction away from the truth. The Declaration seeks as a first step in the process of legitimate discussion to dethrone William Shaxper from his position as the pre-eminent writer in the english language. But is this justified?

"Oliver Lector" was the pseudonymous author of "Letters from the Dead to the Dead"(1909). Although his words were first published exactly 100 years ago, he has something remarkably apt to say on the topic:

"William Shakespeare is the possessor of the proudest lit-
erary title in history. Whosoever shall oust him from that
possession must do so by the strength of his own para-
mount rights, and not by the weakness of the title of the
" Bard of Avon," so called. It may be argued that the pro-
duction of a book with William Shakespeare's name printed
thereon as the author is not legal evidence of his author-
ship, because there exists no writing, letter, or manuscript
to support that title, and because his name was printed on
other books to the authorship of which no claim on his be-
half is now made ; nevertheless, I should suppose his title
to all his works is prima facie good."

Precisely, I say.

William Shakespeare has his name on the title page and it did not get there by accident. The true author of the works clearly consented to this situation. He therefore has pre-eminent claim to the authorship until such time as it is definitely proven that another man was the author. In no way therefore should William Shaxper be obliged to surrender his claim to an agnostic mob.

This is the simple reason why I cannot support the aims of the Declaration, or the SAC. If William is to cede his right it can only be to one man, the true author. Now who could that be? And can we know for certain?

The crux of the position taken by the SAC is summarised in bold type at the end of the Declaration. Here it is:

"Reasonable people may differ about whether a preponderance of the evidence supports Mr. Shakspere, but it is simply not credible for anyone to claim, in 2007, that there is no room for doubt about the author."

This statement is simply and hilariously false. While it may be true enough that reasonable people might differ about Mr Shakspere's role, there was no room for doubt in 2007 and there is no room for doubt in 2009 as to the real identity of the true author of the "Shakespeare" works. That man is Francis Bacon and the case is proven. The evidence is overwhelming.

And so the true motives of the SAC stand revealed. This is not an organisation with any interest in the true author. It is interested in the claims of the false candidates, primarily Oxford. It is part of the game. Having failed to find their "smoking gun", to prove that Oxford wrote Shakespeare, attention has now turned to the only part of their argument with any merit, the observation that, indeed, William Shaxper did not write the plays. But you can't stop there. How did it come about that his name appears on the title page? The answer is because he had entered into an agreement with Francis Bacon for his name to be so used.

So the notion that William Shakespeare should cede his title to the authorship for it to be argued back and forth in the marketplace, as if it is an open question, as if any claim other than Bacon's has even remotely comparable merit, is just another delaying tactic in the inevitable rendering of just due to the true author.

As a Baconian, I do not subscribe to the suggestion that there ought to be a kind of rapprochement between the different candidates' supporters, that the "anti-Stratfordian" forces ought to band together to overthrow the false notion that William Shaxper was part of the greatest literary production of all time. He was part of it. He was an integral part of it, and he played his part to perfection. So well, in fact, that the coverstory so carefully put in place by Bacon has survived and thrived to this day.

There is no reason to dethrone William. He has kept his side of the bargain admirably. He cedes his right to no man, except the true author, with whom he made the original arrangement. That man is Francis Bacon, and to him alone is due the honour that goes with the authorship of the works which the world knows under the name of Shakespeare.

So I won't be signing, and I urge you not to either.

2009-04-06T03:21:00.005+09:30

So the deal at the Marlowe-Shakespeare blog apparently (see following entry) is that pro-Marlovian comments get posted without fuss, but comments correcting errors of fact, or providing other useful information which does not support the Marlowe position, don't get past the moderator. My first two comments only appeared there after the moderator was prodded. My third comment hasn't shown up, which is my cue to give up.

It's been instructive though. I was contacted by several of the contributors to the blog privately, eager that I should help them with information. Which I did. Which they then promptly turned inside out and upside down to see how it could be used to bolster the Marlowe theory. It's all so predictable. Here's how it works. First you decide that Marlowe, or Oxford, or whoever, was Shakespeare. Before anything else, you commit to that position, as if you are supporting your local football team. Then, you trawl the material to find things that back up the position you've already decided is the correct one.

Recipe for disaster.

What they never do is check to see whether the other candidates, like, ahem, Francis Bacon, might have a plausible case. No one does due diligence. When I say no one, I mean no one. I've made it a point over the years, when corresponding with Oxfordians, Stratfordians and Marlovians, to ask them: have you ever read, for example, Francis Bacon's Personal LifeStory by Alfred Dodd? Or The Bacon-Shakespeare Anatomy by W.S. Melsome? Or Tudor Problems by Parker Woodward? Or The Mystery of Francis Bacon by Smedley. Or, indeed, ANY BOOK WHATSOEVER laying out the Bacon case competently. I have yet to receive a single positive reply, ever, to this generic enquiry.

Not one person interested in the authorship debate, who is not a Baconian, has ever read a single Baconian book. Haha. Hilarious isn't it. Tragic is another word. If you are reading this, and you're a non-Baconian, and you have read even one Baconian book, please, get in touch with me. I am fascinated by how and why the Bacon position fails to convince sane humans, but so far, the answer is simple: because everyone refuses to read the material.

By the way, the John Michell book doesn't count, as the chapter on Bacon contains a number of errors which render it useless as an accurate summary of the Bacon case.

Here is the problem with the Marlovian theory: it starts well enough, with the observation, after Medenhall, that the works of Shakespeare and Marlowe were written by the same person. Fair enough. But in order to proceed competently to conclude that this person was Christopher Marlowe/Marley, the Cambridge graduate, spy and coin-forger, it is first necessary to prove that he himself was the author of the works posthumously attributed to him. Otherwise, and unless this is done, the possibility remains that SOME THIRD PARTY was responsible for the works of both Shakespeare and Marlowe. I mean, if the name of Shakespeare could have been a mask, the possibility exists that other names, including Marlowe, were also masks. This possibility needs to be positively eliminated to render the case for Marlowe water-tight. Why is this so hard for Marlovians to understand? Well, read their blog and you will see. It's the football team syndrome. This is not an attempt to get at the truth; it's an attempt to get our team to the top of the table.

So ignore, overlook, don't acknowledge the difficulties; just keep banging away at the goal hoping, one day, someone manages to get a ball in the back of the net. And give the opposition hell.

Reality check. There's not a shred of evidence that Marlowe survived the events of May 30 1593. Not a shred. His body was laid out at the coroner's inquest in front of the jury and witnesses, with the bloody hole in his eye. A substitute? Riiiiiiiiiight, as the kids say. Not so much as the merest shred of evidence, even after 50 years of assiduous searching, has turned up which would prove that he survived the events of Deptford. You might think it was time to rethink the basic premise. But apparently not. All it needs is some fancy new graphics and a whole new generation is ready to go down the wrong path.

There's also not a shred of evidence during Marlowe's life that links his name to writing for the theatre or poetry in any format whatsoever. But what happens when you bring this up? Attitude, that's what happens. Instead of standing back and seriously considering the possible consequences of this, the Marlovians just get all bent out of shape. Like you've dissed their football team.

Sometimes I think it must all be a joke, that these people know exactly what they are doing. How else to explain an article which calls Bacon a misogynist, and cites this as the reason why he could not be Shakespeare, which is then followed by another article by the same author waxing lyrical about The Taming of the Shrew as the key to understanding Marlowe's authorship of this and the other Shakespeare Plays. I mean, if "New Atlantis" is a misogynist tract, then one would expect that Shrew ought to give a feminist kittens. Ah, but that would be expecting consistency, and perspicacity, and insight, and that's something in short supply over in the House of the Marlovians.

My name, said Bacon, I leave to foreign nations, and my own countrymen, after some time be passed. Clearly, "some time" is yet to fully elapse. Hasten the day.

2009-03-09T18:40:00.004+10:30

A new blog on the Marlovian theory is now on-line here. A recent post there attempts to prove that Francis Bacon could not be Shakespeare. It's a mess, but it's intructive. Please do visit their site, scroll down, read the post, and then read the comments. I'll be making some more comments about that post on this blog here over the next few days. For now, let me just note the small picture that has been posted in the margin of the blog, labelled "Marlowe, Our Guy". Nothing could summarise the Marlovian theory more aptly. It is pure fantasy that this can be identified as a painting of Marlowe, just as it is pure fantasy that Marlowe survived his death in 1593, (which is the essence of their hypothesis). Pure fantasy. By which I mean: completely unsupported by the merest shred of evidence. The painting is from Corpus Christi college, and dates to the years when Marlowe was in attendance there. However, there is not the slightest indication on the painting, or associated with it in any format whatsoever that tells us it is of Christopher Marlowe, or Christoper Marley as he was actually known, the scholar, spy and coin-forger (a man. let it be noted, who was never identified even once during his lifetime as a writer for the theatre). Let me repeat: there is no reason whatsoever to suggest that the painting is of Marlowe. And let me repeat that other remarkable fact: not once during his lifetime was this Marley, or Marlowe, identified as a writer connected with the theatre in any format whatsoever. But back to that painting: at least A.D.Wraight's book, which uses the image on it's cover, has the honesty to label it a "putative" portrait, but this new Marlowe blog has no such compunction. Let's not confuse the newbies. There's enough to wrap one's head around without making it too complicated, or worrying about subtleties, or fantasies. It's "our guy". Er, no it's not. It could be anyone. Maybe Marlowe, maybe just some punter. There's no way of telling. Still, whoever it is, it's a handsome portrait. The surmise that it is a portrait of Marlowe is nothing but a wish, a guess, a hope: just like the idea that Marlowe somehow faked his death. On the other hand, the Marlovians have one part of the equation correct: the same man wrote the works of both Marlowe and Shakespeare.

2008-02-10T07:08:00.000+10:30

I've recently found this book review in the Spectator magazine from last year, of a recent book on the works of Shakespeare. The review is entitled "The Divine Pork Butcher". Keen students of divine synchronicity will be sniffing the bacon already. Comments on the review to follow...

2008-02-08T10:36:00.000+10:30

My daughter started Grade Six this year. Each week they have a new quotation. This week it is from Francis Bacon! The quote is:

All rising to a high place is by a winding stair.

What a wonderful thought to inculcate in the young minds!

The teacher explained that this Bacon fellow lived at the same time as the great William Shakespeare. Try as I might I cannot get my daughter to put up her hand and explain to the class what she already knows even at her tender age: "please, Miss: according to my crazy father: Bacon actually IS Shakespeare!!!". I forgive her. I told her I would help work it all out at parent-teacher night. Great, she said, she can hardly wait. :-)

2008-02-08T10:32:00.000+10:30

I heard on the radio the other day that Britain has recently voted January 22 as the "most miserable day of the year". Presumably they were referring to the weather at that time of the year, rather than the fact that it is the birthday of the great man himself, Francis Bacon. But I cannot help thinking that there is an underlying subconscious reason at play here for the result of this vote: Britain secretly knows in it's heart that it has denied recognition to FB for his achievements, and that this is a miserable thing to do to the man who has probably given more pleasure to Britons over the years than any other. One day, let us hope, January 22 will be celebrated as the most wonderful day of the year for Britain, and everyone will stay indoors ignoring the lousy weather and recite the works of the Bard.

2008-02-08T09:54:00.000+10:30

Parallels. Baconians have them in spades, folks. Take Nigel Cockburn's exemplary "The Bacon-Shakespeare Question: The Baconian Case Made Sane". The chapter on parallels takes up 140 pages. Even then he restricts himself to the "best" 100 parallels which come from Bacon's writings outside his "Promus" notebook, and then there are another 40-odd pages on parallels purely from the "Promus". The chapter is a revelation, a delight, a wonderful thing. Sigh: but no one reads it or will read it, because, well, if you're a Stratfordian or Oxfordian you already KNOW that your man is the man, and the rest, well, everyone is too busy with iPod or whatever. But just to give a taste, here is one example, a single parallel from Cockburn's book. The reason I like this one is because only by knowing that Bacon is Shakespeare can one explain the textual riddle here, in this case a word in the First Folio which is rendered by - - - -. None of the orthodox editors can explain what might be meant; Cockburn nails it. Read on: first comes the Shakespeare verse in question, then a series of quotes from Bacon, then Cockburn's comment.

1 Henry VI 1.1. 55-8

Bedford: A far more glorious star thy soul will make
Than Julius Caesar or bright ____

Enter a messenger

Messenger: My honourable lords, health fo you all
Sad tidings bring I to you out of France

Bacon:

Both in persons and in times there hath been a meeting and concurrence in Learning and Arms, flourishing and excelling in the same men and the same ages. For, as for men, there cannot be a better nor the like instance, as that of the pair, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar the Dictator, whereof the one was Aristotle's scholar in philosophy and the other was Cicero's rival in eloquence.
The Advancement of Learning (Spedding 3.269)

Alexander was bred and taught under Aristotle, the great philosopher, who dedicated divers of his books of philosophy to unto him...(Alexander) gave him(Aristotle) to understand that himself esteemed it more to excel other men in learning and knowledge than in power and empire. And what use he (Alexander) had of learning doth appear, or rather shine, in all his speeches and answers, being full of science, and use of science, and that in all variety...I am as willing to flatter, if they will so call it, an Alexander or a Caesar or an Antonimus that are dead many hundred years since, as any that now liveth; for it is the displaying of the glory of learning in sovereignty that I propound to myself, and not an humour of declaiming in any man's praises...there are prints and footsteps of learning in those few speeches which are reported of this prince: the admiration of whom, when I consider him not as Alexander the Great but as Aristotle's scholar, hath carried me too far. As for Julius Caesar, the excellency of his learning needeth not to be argued.
The Advancement of Learning (Spedding 3.307-11)

It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar....but the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time.
The Advancement of Learning (Spedding 3.318)

In which point I promise to myself a like future to that of Alexander the Great. (For it was said of Alexander that he) had done no more that to take courage to despise vain apprehensions. And a like judgement I suppose may be passed on myself in future ages.
Novum Organon (Spedding 4.93)

Alexander did not think his fame so engraven in his conquests but that he thought it further shined in the buildings of Alexandria.
Speech at Gray's Inn Revels (Spedding 8.336)

Cockburn comments:

The reader sees that in the Shake-Speare text the second line ends with a blank. The editors of William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion opine that "despite numerous conjectures about the intended completion of this sentence, a dramatic interruption is almost certainly intended". But Shake-Speare would hardly have broken a sentence off between an adjective and its noun. The Arden editor and most other scholars make the far more plausible suggestion that Shake-Speare wrote a second name which the compositor could not decipher; a long name with many minims may have baffled him. Names suggested havs included Sir Francis Drake, Berenice and Cassiopey. But the Bacon texts almost certainly provide the answer. They show that he greatly admired both Caesar and Alexander. Alexander fits the metre and would have to be prefaced by an adjective to fill the gap before his name since, unlike Julius Caesar, he was not known by any prenomen. Above all, he would be a natural partner for Caesar, and comparison for Henry V. "Bright" rather than "great" is an unexpected adjective for Alexander and has put editors off the scent, but Bacon's shine, used twice (my italics) explains it - he thought Alexander bright by reason of his intellectual qualities. As for flattering Caesar and Alexander, that is exactly what Shake-Speare does in line 56, if Alexander is the missing name. (Footnote: In addition to the texts noted, Bacon mentions Alexander another 32 times according to Spedding.)

2008-02-08T09:43:00.000+10:30

Arguing with Oxfordians is a silly thing to do, a waste of time and a guaranteed way to ruin your day. But here I go again. I can't resist. But that's it, I swear, no more comebacks. That's why I made this blog, so I could talk to myself about it. It's not that I haven't tried: I'm proud to say I've done my time and been thoroughly beaten up on the Oxfordian boards. Been there, done that. It is totally unproductive and a waste of everybody's time. Fun though! Still, we will have the last laugh! Labeo is deVere?: getthefuckouttahere.

2008-01-30T12:26:00.000+10:30

I've had a chance over summer to look through "The Truth Will Out", the recent book by Brenda James and Prof. William Rubinstein putting forward Sir Henry Neville as the real Shakespeare. Puh-lease, as they say. I was tempted to consider that the book is intended as a clever literary joke, a send-up of the authorship genre, but after listening to Prof Rubinstein on a recent podcast interview, it was dismayingly clear that they are serious. Oh dear. Things have come to this. All it takes apparently now is a few biographical points of identity between a life and the plays, and presto, a new candidate steps forward out of the pack to even further muddy the waters.

The book is, frankly, a disgrace, to have come from the pen of academically competent scholars in English Literature. The entire work can be despatched on their treatment of Bacon alone, which casually displays not only their ignorance, but an appalling disregard for due diligence.

It's as simple as this: James and Rubinstein are content to repeat the claim made by John Michell in Who Wrote Shakespeare? that Francis Bacon never travelled to Italy. This is a critical point; as they rightly point out, any candidate who can be proved never to have set foot in Italy can be considered a non-starter. The problem is that Bacon most definitely travelled to Italy, on at least two separate occasions. The proofs of this are exact, and detailed, and contained in several Baconian books, most notably in William Smedley's The Mystery of Francis Bacon, where an entire chapter is devoted to demonstrating conclusively this very point from contemporary documentation.

John Michell is quite wrong to make this claim in Who Wrote Shakespeare, and on it's own this error is sufficient to ruin the book. It indicates that Michell has failed to read even the basic Baconian texts, because these facts are discussed widely within this literature. OK, well, Michell made a mistake and thereby revealed his lack of background reading on the Baconian case. He's human, and he's not a professor of English. I might add that he has conceded the error in private communication.

But it is inexcusable for James and Rubinstein to simply repeat this bald mis-statement of fact. Not only does it show that they are content to use amateur paperbacks as primary sources, and not only does it show that they also have failed to spend the time reading even a basic Baconian book like Alfred Dodd FB's Personal Life Story, but they hinge their dismissal of the Bacon case on this point. From a problem-solving perspective, this is sloppy work of the worst kind. It gets worse.

James and Rubinstein are content to claim that no substantial brief of evidence for Bacon has been put forward in recent years. Astonishingly though, they actually mention Nigel Cockburn's near-unobtainable work ("The Bacon Shakespeare Question: The Baconian Theory Made Sane"; review here) in passing. It cannot be that they have actually read this book though, because if they had, they certainly would not be able to claim that there is no evidence to be found for the Bacon case. Cockburn's book is encyclopedic, erudite, even-handed and turns over every stone. It is far and away the best book ever written on the authorship question by a country mile. It settles the question beyond any shadow of doubt. It's a pity that it is almost impossible to obtain a copy and that no one has read it, but that does not excuse James and Rubinstein. They got close enough to a copy to know it exists, yet could not muster the curiousity or the time, it seems, to open the covers and learn about the case for Bacon.

If they had, this book The Truth Will Out would never have been written. By rejecting the case for Bacon on erroneous grounds without even reviwing the evidence, they render the case for Nevil dead in the water before it has begun.

What of the case they present? It is laughably weak. I reread six or seven times the extracts from the so-called Tower Notebook and for the life of me could not spot the parallels to Henry VIII which seem so convincing to the authors. Clearly, they do not know what a convincing parallel might look like. Cockburn's chapter on parallels is over 100 pages long, and even then, represents only a slice of the available evidence. Many of the parallels on their own are sufficient to prove the case beyond any reasonable doubt. I will present one such in a subsequent post here to demonstrate.

Nevil does come close to the Shakespeare mystery in one significant place, and that is on the cover of the Northumberland Manuscript. Again, the authors' treatment of this evidence is pitiful. They entirely ignore all the known writings on the cover which explicitly attribute the referenced Shakespeare works to Bacon. Naturally, they are not even aware of the discovery announced on sirbacon recently of the words "in heling" on the cover. In these two words the matter is settled: here is a contemporary, manuscript, eye-witness testimony of the precise nature of the relationship between William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon: Shakespeare's name is being used "in heling" or as a "cover" for Bacon's true authorship. No other conclusion is possible, but you won't read about this in The Truth Will Out.

I suppose we can't blame Rubinstein and James for failing to read up on the Bacon case, or for uncritically rehashing John Michell's howler, or for failing to inspect carefully the Northumberland Manuscript cover page with a bright light and high resolution pdf. They are victims of the Baconians poor handling of the material. While we fail, they can get away with this kind of pure rubbish. Meanwhile, The Truth Will Out will convince a whole new crop of readers who themselves have never been exposed to the Bacon case properly put. Meanwhile the authorship puddle gets muddier and muddier. Nevil did not write Shakespeare and not a scrap of evidence can be brought to show that he did. Francis Bacon is the true author. Give me a break.

2008-01-29T14:45:00.001+10:30

After a short hiatus, while my obsession took other forms, I return to take up yet again the cudgels for Bacon is Shakespeare. The break has been worthwhile, and given some much needed space and perspective from which to re-think the entire topic. It has become clear to me that the Baconian enterprise has essentially ground to a halt. The well-worn arguments have become encrusted with the dead weight of time. Absent an entirely fresh set of narrative facts, the movement threatens to fade away. Nothing could illustrate this better than the most recent edition of the venerable publication Baconiana, which put its recent issue on-line for the first time. It is a depressing read, full of tired, overblown, underwhelming pieces which do little to inspire newcomers or old-hands. Pomposity jostles for space with ridiculousity, if they be words. It's time to shut down Baconiana, disband the societies, throw out the jaded old arguments and start again. Let's face it: the Baconians have botched it. We have never really recovered from the blow dealt by Friedman to the writings on codes and ciphers which muddied the stream of early twentieth century Baconian writings. Meanwhile, despite the best book ever on the authorship crisis being written and published (Cockburn), it remains unknown and virtually unobtainable. The intellectual argument has been won, but the public relations battle has been comprehensively lost. We have the keys to the riddle, but have rendered ourselves mute and unable to give coherent voice to it anymore.

There is only one answer. It is pointless rehashing the same tired old narratives. It is time for an entirely fresh injection of material into the debate, and a complete recasting of the terms on which it has been fought. The Bacon enterprise 2.0 begins here, now, today.

2006-05-07T07:04:00.000+09:30

In the latest issue of academic journal Notes and Queries, March 2006,
is a short article called:

An Unnoticed Early Reference to Shakespeare

"In a recent article in the Dictionary of Literary
Biography Douglas Bruster noted that in the
second edition of Thomas Vicars's manual of
rhetoric, Cheiragogia, Manuductio ad artem
rhetoricam (1624, first edition 1621), the
author introduced a list of outstanding English
poets.2

...

What Bruster fails to mention, and what
seems to have escaped the attention of scholars
of English literature so far, is that in the
third edition of the manual, published in 1628,
Vicars added a short passage in which he
punningly alludes to Shakespeare's name.
The reference is included directly after his
mention of the other English poets, and runs as
follows: `To these I believe should be added
that famous poet who takes his name from
``shaking'' and ``spear'', John Davies, and
my namesake, the pious and learned poet
John Vicars.'5

Fred Schurink
University of Newcastle upon Tyne

Now: check it out: "the famous poet who TAKES HIS NAME"

If someone is going under the name they were born and baptised with,
it cannot be said of that person that they TAKE A NAME. They are given
a name. Only if one adopts a nom-de-plume can one be said to take a name.

Thus, here, #247, is further proof that Bacon is Shakespeare.

(Actually, ok, this only proves that Shakespeare was a pseudonym, strictly
speaking....but then its 1621/24 and the text speaks of the famous
poet in the present tense...which narrows the field down to Our Man.)

2005-05-08T07:34:00.000+09:30

"Bacon is Shakespeare" is a litmus test of sanity, a narrow gate through which the world cannot yet pass. A child can grasp it, while a professor stumbles on it.

2005-04-16T05:47:00.000+09:30

The following first hand account of Bacon was written by Francis Osborne, and was published in Part II p67 of his Advice to a Son (1658). The book is likely to have been composed some time before the date of its publication. Osborne was born in 1593, and died in 1659.

" 21. It is recorded of Solomon, that God had given him a large heart, through which he became universally knowing from the most despicable herb, to the highest cedar, and deepest secret in nature (then) under knowledge. Which may serve to answer their curiousity, who think they have done something towards the confutation of this assertion of his wisdom, when they find his sayings paralleled in other authors: since it is a sufficient manifestation of God's extraordinary grace upon him, that we are assured from his own writings, no less than from the testimony of the Sacred Scriptures, that part of the whole mass of human learning lay included in his person; and so, if equalled in one endowment, he was not exceeded by any single individual in the general knowledge of all. And as this appears by the Donor, to be none of the smallest gifts, no less than in the estimation of Solomon that did ask it, so may we strongly presume that an universal inspection is the most becoming quality a gentleman (unfixed in a settled calling) can bestow his endeavors upon. And my memory neither doth nor (I believe possible ever can) direct me towards an example more splendid in this kind, than the Lord Bacon, Earl of St Albans, who in all companies did appear a proficient, if not a master in those arts entertained for the subject of every one's discourse. So as I dare maintain, without the least affectation of flattery or hyperbole, that his most casual talk deserved to be written. As I have been told, his first our foulest copies required no great labour to render them compentent for the nicest judgements. A high perfection, attainable only by use, and treating with every man in his respective profession, and what he was most versed in. So as I have heard him entertain a Country Lord in the proper terms relating to Hawks and Dogs, and at another time out-cant a London Chirurgeon. Thus he did not only learn himself, but gratify such as taught him, who looked upon their callings as honored through his notice. Nor did any easy falling into arguments (but unjustly taken for a blemish in the most) appear less than an ornament to him: the ears of the hearer receiving omre gratification, than trouble: and (so) no less sorry when he came to conclude, than displeased with any did interrupt him. Now this general knowledge that he had in all things, husbanded by his wit, and diginifed by so majestical a carriage he was known to own, strook such an awful reverence in those h e questioned, that they durst not conceal the most intrinsic part of their Mysteries from him, for fear of appearing ignorant, or saucy.

2005-03-07T22:01:00.000+10:30

Thomas Nashe: The Anatomie of Absurdity (1589)
One requiring Diogenes judgement when it was best time to take a wife answered: for the young man not yet and for the old man, never.

Bacon, Essay On Marriage (1624):
But yet he was reputed one of the wise man that made answer to the question when a man should marry: A young man not yet and an elder man not at all.

Nashe: The Anatomie of Absurdity (1589)
A small ship in a shallow river seems a huge thing, but in the sea a very little vessel even so each trifling pamphlet, to the simpler sort, a most substantial subject, whereof the wise lightly account and the learned laughing contempt.

Bacon Apothegms (1625)
King James was wont to be very earnest with the country gentleman to go from London to their country houses. And sometimes he would say thus to them: "Gentlemen, at London you are like ships at sea, which show like nothing, but in your country villages, you are like ships in a river, which look like great things.

2005-01-24T10:48:00.000+10:30

Ecclesiastes 10:1, in the KJV:
"Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor.

Polixenes in The Winter's Tale makes a remark which obviously has this biblical verse in mind. Camillo has come to tell him that the king wants him murdered because he mistakenly believes Polixenes to have been unfaithful with his queen. Moreover, the use of the words savor and reputation, which do not occur in earlier translations, indicates that it is the KJV translation which the author was using. Wisdom and honour occur close by, giving four exact parallels of words to go with the exact parallel of meaning:

CAMILLO Sir, I will tell you;
Since I am charged in honour and by him
That I think honourable: therefore mark my counsel
...
POLIXENES O, then my best blood turn
To an infected jelly and my name
Be yoked with his that did betray the Best!
Turn then my freshest reputation to
A savour that may strike the dullest nostril
Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd,
Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection
That e'er was heard or read!

CAMILLO Swear his thought over
By each particular star in heaven and
By all their influences, you may as well
Forbid the sea for to obey the moon
As or by oath remove or counsel shake
The fabric of his folly, whose foundation
Is piled upon his faith and will continue

The KJV was published in 1611. Winter's Tale was performed in 1610. The parallel is undeniable; therefore the author of Winter's Tale had pre-publication access to the KJV Bible in translation. This is certainly true of Francis Bacon, as evidenced by orthodox Bacon bibliographers, but rather more difficult to explain in the case of William Shaxper, and downright impossible for DeVere. This parallel alone therefore eliminates both the Oxfordian and the orthodox case.

2005-01-18T07:45:00.000+10:30

"We have also rare compositions of minds amongst us which look so many fair ways at once that I doubt it will go near to pose any other nation of Europe to muster out in any age four men who, in so many respects, should excel four such as we are able to show - Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Francis Bacon; for they were all a kind of monsters in their several ways.

The fourth was a creature of incomparable abilities of mind, of a sharp and catching apprehension, large and faithful memory, plentiful and sprouting invention, deep and solid judgement for as much as might concern the understanding part: - a man so rare in knowledge and of so many several kinds, indued with the faculty and felicity of expressing it all, in so elegant, significant so abundant and yet so choice and ravishing a way of words, of metaphors and allusions, as perhaps the world has not seen since it was a world.

I know this may seem a great hyperbole and strange kind of riotous excess of speech, but the best means of putting me to shame will be for you to place any man of yours by this man of mine. And in the meantime, even this little makes a shift to show that the Genius of England is still not only eminent, but predominant, for the assembling great variety of those rare parts in some single man, which used to be incompatible anywhere else."

- Sir Tobie Matthew

2004-09-18T16:57:00.000+09:30

Uwe came from Berlin for the seminar, which was to be held in the Padua lecture theatre, at M____ University. Of course, I thought of Merchant of Venice as soon as I heard the location announced. At dinner the night before, Uwe told me about this professor in Milan who had an apartment in Padua and let him stay with his girfriend for the weekend. When we got to the workshop, there was a framed photo on the wall, so I went over to take a look. It was of an elaborate old lecture theatre with multiple circular levels rising around a central table. The caption read: "The Anatomy Theatre at Padua University. Built at his own expense by Fabricius of Acquapendente 1537-1619, a teacher of William Harvey who studied at Padua between 1599-1603". William Harvey was the English physician who discovered the circulation of the blood. After Padua he moved to London, where he became a friend of Francis Bacon. We have this description from Bacon on observing an anatomical demonstration by Harvey:

"I have oft seene Dr. William Harvey, the new doctor from Padua, at Bartholomew Hospital, in the presence of the learned doctors, force a purple, distilling liquor through the veines of a dead body, and, after it had descended to the heart, liver, and lungs, the blood-coloured liquor returneth againe to the face which blacke and full of blood, or pale, meagre, and bloodless before, doth blush and beautifie, as if with life; you would think the body breathed; the very lippe is warme to look upon; but we are mock’d with art as there is no pulse gainst the finger and though the arteries seem full, yet no life is present. The legs, waist, arms, hands, brow, and limbs seem alive, but we can never ransome nature. The doctor was enrolled at Caius College."

The idea of the circulation of the blood turns up in many Shakespeare plays, but Harvey did not make his discovery until 1617, after William of Stratford was dead. More here.

2004-08-29T11:51:00.000+09:30

From Bacon's Wisdom of the Ancients: VIII Endymion:

"This fable seems to describe the tempers and dispositions of princes, who, being thoughtful and suspicious, do not easily admit to their privacies such men as are prying, curious, and vigilant, or as it were sleepless, but rather such as are of an easy obliging nature and indulge them in their pleasures, without seeking anything farther, but seeming ignorant, insensible or as it were, lulled asleep before them."

From Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

"Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o'nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous."

2004-08-28T09:29:00.000+09:30

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".

2004-08-28T06:50:00.000+09:30

It is noteworthy that Bacon had a quaint conceit of the Divine Being which he was never tired of repeating. In the preface to the "Advancement of Learning" (1640), the following passage occurs:--"For of the knowledge which contemplates the works of Nature, the holy Philosopher hath said expressly; that the glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the King is to find it out: as if the Divine Nature, according to the innocent and sweet play of children, which hide themselves to the end they may be found; took delight to hide his works, to the end they might be found out; and of his indulgence and goodness to mankind, had chosen the Soule of man to be his Play-fellow in this game." Again on page 45 of the work itself he says:--"For so he (King Solomon) saith expressly, The Glory of God is to conceale a thing, but the Glory of a King is to find it out. As if according to that innocent and affectionate play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his works, to the end to have them found out, and as if Kings could not obtain a greater Honour, then to be God's play-fellowes in that game, especially considering the great command they have of wits and means, whereby the investigation of all things may be perfected." Another phase of the same idea is to be found on page 136. In the author's preface to the "Novum Organum" the following passage occurs:--"Whereas of the sciences which regard nature the Holy Philosopher declares that 'it is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but it is the glory of the King to find it out.' Even as though the Divine Nature took pleasure in the innocent and kindly sport of children playing at hide and seek, and vouchedsafe of his kindness and goodness to admit the human spirit for his play fellow in that game." In almost identical words Bacon suggests the same conception in "In Valerius Terminus" and in "Filum Labyrinthi". In the Epistle Dedicatorie of "The French Academie" and elsewhere the author is insisting on the same idea that "He (God) cannot be seene of any mortal creature but is notwithstanding known by his works."

from The Mystery of Francis Bacon By William T. Smedley
Chapter XIV
THE CLUE TO THE MYSTERY OFBACON'S LIFE

2004-08-27T06:42:00.000+09:30

Last week's issue of The Spectator magazine tacitly confirmed that Bacon is Shakespeare. Judith Flander's review of Rodney Bolt's new book "History Play: The Lives and Afterlives of Kit Marlowe" opened with the following paragraph, from Nabakov's 1947 novel Bend Sinister:

"‘His name is protean. He begets doubles at every corner … On the wet morning of 27 November 1582, he is Shaxpere and [his prospective wife] is a Wately of Temple Grafton. A couple of days later he is Shagsper and she is a Hathaway of Stratford-on-Avon. Who is he? William X, cunningly composed of two left arms and a mask. Who else? The person who said (not for the first time) that the glory of God is to hide a thing, and the glory of man is to find it.’ Thus Nabokov on the mystery of Shakespeare. "

The person who originally said that the "glory of God is to hide a thing, etc" was, of course, Solomon, in Proverbs 25:2, but it was Francis Bacon who made the quotation his own. It appears so frequently in his works, for example here, that one might almost say it was his favourite quotation. Beyond question then, Nabakov was identifying that it was Bacon, in his opinion, who had written the works of Shakespeare. Thus, via Bolt via Flanders the Spectator has confirmed what we know and the world will one day embrace: Bacon is Shakespeare.

2004-08-23T21:25:00.000+09:30

OFFICER: You here shall swear upon this sword of justice,
That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have
Been both at Delphos, and from thence have brought
The seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd
Of great Apollo's priest; and that, since then,
You have not dared to break the holy seal
Nor read the secrets in't.
CLEOMENES/DION: All this we swear.
LEONTES: Break up the seals and read.

- from The Winters Tale, page 287 of the Comedies in the First Folio

2004-08-13T05:45:00.000+09:30

"The spirit in Hamlet bears two names: Ghost and Spirit. Ghost is the personal name, whereas it is almost invariable referred to by the speakers as Spirit, and its statement begins with: I am thy Father's Spirit.

The word Spirit (in Latin Spiritus) also plays a great part in Bacon's scientific writings. The Spirit-theory, as will soon be briefly shown, is one of the principal points in Bacon's natural-philosophy. This spirit-doctrine is based on the views held by the natural-philosophers, Paracelsus, Telesius and Severinus Danus.

Theophrastus Paracelsus, the great Swiss thinker (he lived from 1493 to 1541) set up the theory; Bernadinus Telesius Consentinus, the Italian natural-philosopher (1508 - 1588) enlarged upon it and Petrus Severinus Danus, the Danish physician (died in 1602) reduced it to a distinct system. Bacon understood no German, or, at most, very little thereof. He can scarcely have studied the intellectually-rich and almost countless writings and pamphlets of Paracelsus as they were written in a style of German that was still clumsy and indistinct. But Bacon knew his theory from the principal work of Bernadinus Telesius of Cosenza, De Rerum Natura (Concerning the Nature of Things), of which the first two books appeared in 1565 and the whole was completed in 1586; he, furthermore, knew this theory thanks to the work of the Dane Petrus Severinus: Idea Medicinae Philosophicae (The Idea of a Philosophical Medical System), which work was written in clear and lucid Latin and serbed him (Bacon) as instructor in the science of healing, the work being based on natural science. When Bacon, in quite early youth, began to sketch out the plan of his Great Instauration - and we find traces of this aim as far back even as before his fourteenth year - the works of Telesius and Severinus were the newest in the field of natural-philosophy. Even Bacon himself, who very rarely mentions the names of other investigators, mentions the works above-named at short intervals in the 4th Chapter of the 3rd Book of his Encyclopedy: ("the Theory of Theophrastus Paracelsus, eloquently reduced into a body and harmony by Severinus the Dane; or that of Telesius of Consentium"), and he mentions two of them again (Bernadinus Telesius and Paracelsus) in the 3rd Chapter of the 4th ook, wherein he discusses the question of the human soul in detail.

But, as we shall soon see, the Spirit in Hamlet is not a being created at will by poetical imagination but clearly that personification of the natural-philosophical ideas of the spirit according to Bacon's views. And thus the views of Paracelsus accord with thos of Marcellus, while those of Bernadinus Telesius harmonise with those of Barnardo in the first act of Hamlet. And Hamlet himself represents the ideas of the third in the trio, namely, of the physician Severinus Danus (in English: the melancholy Dane). The time is out of joynt and Hamlet is born to set it right! He, like Severinus Danus, deals with comparative anatomy. Like Severinus Danus he is enamoured of that healing-art which is based on examination into natural laws."

- from The Shakespeare Secret by Edwin Bormann, 1895

2004-08-12T10:13:00.000+09:30

I emailed Prof Nelson out of courtesy to inform him that I had broadcast his privately expressed views on the Northumberland Manuscript to the world on this blog (see entry below). He wrote back promptly telling me to do what I like, that he had more important things to work on and not to contact him anymore! Here we have a perfect microscosm of the orthodox authorship position. Confronted with the undeniable evidence of Bacon's authorship, the Stratfordian can only refuse to face it. The Northumberland Manucript is a forbidden uncomfortable provocative document which at a stroke solves and determines this entire supposedly indeterminable puzzle. There can be no possible alternative interpretation of it's implication. It belonged to Bacon. It has his name and Shakespeare's all over it it. It was the cover to a bundle of manuscripts which included both works by Bacon and plays of Shakespeare. And it explicity identifies Bacon as the author of these Shakespeare plays. Think about it: here were the only known existing Shakespeare manuscripts, nestled beneath the cover which attests to their origin. This is what everyone has been searching for, the Holy Grail of Shakespeare studies. And yet, here now, in 2004, is a Professor of English Literature who has devoted his careeer to defending the proposition that William Shaxper of Stratford was the author, who simply can't handle admitting that this evidence exists. This is emotional armouring of the worst kind; the rigidified reaction of denial in the face of a physical fact which flatly and completely undermines belief. If it wasn't so tragic it would be hilarious. Oxfordians: don't you laugh too loudly either. The Northumberland Manuscript is just as threatening to your doomed cause. If this document had belonged to the Earl, and had his name on it everywhere that Bacon's appears, of course it would be loudly trumpeted and triumphantly brandished as the long-sought-for "smoking gun". But as it proves the Baconian case, it is, like the rest of the evidence, simply ignored. I am beginning to understand that the so-called authorship question is not a matter of lack of evidence or communication or logic. It is an emotional and psychological phenomenon. The Stratfordian and Oxfordian positions support and maintain careers and other deep emotional investments, and thereby, like all false cults or worn-out paradigms, cannot be overcome by mere accumulation of undeniable evidence and clear thinking. Thank you Professor Nelson for your exemplary demonstration of the head-in-the-sand attitude of the orthodox. I guess you won't be posting the Northumberland Manuscript to your witness page, as you said you would. Instead your page (here) seen in the light of Northumberland stands as a simple testament to how wrong the professional expert can be, no matter how seemingly watertight the presentation might seem. It simply ignores evidence to the contrary. Admit Northumberland, and the entire orthodox position falls apart.

2004-08-12T10:12:00.000+09:30

The Northumberland Manuscript is in fact the one and only document from the entire Elizabethan era on which the names of Bacon and Shakespeare both appear. It is a remarkable fact that nowhere, for example, in Bacon's voluminous writings or correspondence does he ever mention Shakespeare's name. James Spedding, Bacon's indefatigable nineteenth century biographer concludes from this that Bacon never met, or was even aware of, Shakespeare's existence. However, Spedding himself was unaware of the existence of the Northumberland Manuscript, which casts the problem in an entirely different light. It is impossible to conceive that Bacon could not have been aware of Shakespeare's existence. Here were the two outstanding geniuses of the day, both living and working in a city of 250,000 people during the same period of time. The plays of Shakespeare were the talk of the town, and performed frequently at court, where Bacon was a constant presence. Moreover, Ben Johnson was a concrete link between the two. Johnson was a close friend of Bacon's, even living in his house for five years. He was also intimately involved with the production of the First Folio, as his poems in tribute included in the prefatory material attest. Therefore, given the mutual connection of Ben Johnson, and given the existence of the Northumberland Manuscript which puts the two names together, it is obvious that there must be another reason for Bacon's silence in regard to Shakespeare's name, and that Spedding's contention that they were mutually unaware of each other is impossible to sustain. The only possible conclusion which takes into account these facts is that it was an intentional silence. And here now we step across the threshold of the solution to the mystery.

2004-08-11T07:25:00.000+09:30

"Henry Paul, who informs the reader that Buchanan's Historia Scotica, and Hector Boece's Historia Scotorum were used as source material for Shakespeare's Macbeth, may not be aware that copies of both these books containing Bacon's inked annotations exist, and that these annotations show Bacon's special interest in the Macbeth theme. On a page of Buchanan containing the story of Macbeth, Bacon has written "Macbethi, Macbetho, and Macbethus Tyrannus, and Bancho rigiae caedis." Many of the words in the text are underlined. And in a copy of Boece dated 1575, Bacon has written the genealogy of the Scottish Kings descended from Banquo "to, and including James V, comprising seven kings." And in his Natural History, Bacon shows the same interest in strange parts of animals that Shakespeare must have had to write the witches' scenes."
- from this review of The Royal Play of Macbeth by Henry N Paul

2004-08-08T11:11:00.000+09:30

Using a simple alphabet cipher based on the 24 letter Elizabethan alphabet, (as shown here), "Francis" adds to 67, "Bacon" to 33, and therefore "Francis Bacon" equates to 100. This cipher is found throughout the Shakespeare, Bacon and related works, as detailed extensively for example in the remarkable book "Secret Shakespearean Seals", on-line at the link in the sidebar.
It is remarkable that the word "Sonnets" also equates to 100. Given that "Shakespeare's" may be read as "Shakespeare is", this means that the title "Shakespeare's Sonnets" is equivalent by cipher substitution to "Shakespeare is Francis Bacon"!

2004-08-06T20:50:00.000+09:30

Prof Alan H. Nelson of UC Berkeley has a website defending the orthodox authorship position here. On this page, he cites 8 contemporary Elizabethan documents as "witnesses" in order to demonstrate that William Shaxper the Stratford actor was known in his lifetime as the author of the Plays. He asserts that as at least some of the owners of these documents must have been in a position to know the truth, this proves that Shaxper wrote the works. I wrote to him to point out that he had overlooked a relevant contemporary document: the Northumberland Manuscript. On refreshing his memory by looking at it (here) he expressed the opinion in private email to me that this also proved his point, as above the names of the plays Richard II and III appear the words "William Shakespeare". Amazed by his myopia, I pointed out that, apart from the fact that the document belonged to Bacon and included both works by him and "Shakespeare", right next to these words are Francis Bacon's name, so that what it actually says of Richard II and III is that they are "By Mr Francis Bacon William Shakespeare". I asked him how he could explain the presence of Bacon's name in this provocative location if Bacon had nothing to do with the authorship of Shakespeare, as he claims. He replied that he had "no idea" why it should be there, but that he "didn't need to explain everything", even while he continues to assert on his website that Bacon had nothing to do with the Shakespeare works.

I invited him, if he truly believed that the Northumberland Manuscript could be cited as evidence for Shaxper's authorship, to post this as the ninth example to his witness page and be prepared to put on record publicly his privately expressed opininion that Northumberland supports the orthodox position. He wrote to me that he would do this as soon as he had some time. But as of this writing, months later, and despite a couple of friendly reminders, he has not yet done so. Why not write to him and ask why not?

2004-07-29T08:56:00.000+09:30

"My labour as Editor of these Letters has now been brought to an end. What men may say about this book or write about it concerns them and not me. To those who are engaged in the business of erecting a national memorial to Bacon's Idol of the Theatre, William Shakespeare, I tender this unwelcome advice: - They had better lose no time. The ground beneath that Idol is heavily mined."

- Concluding paragraph of "Letters from the Dead to the Dead" by Oliver Lector, 1905

2004-07-28T07:29:00.000+09:30

The Oxford theory is a control/chaos narrative designed to provide an additional layer of "blown cover as cover" on the Shakespeare project. Bacon, perceiving that three centuries would inevitably wear away the Stratford story, incorporated false clues to point to Edward DeVere's involvement, including some minor biographical details in plays like All's Well that Ends Well. This was in order to prolong to the appointed time the revelation of his authorship of the works. Thus the twentieth century saw the rise of the movement of those enthusiasts sufficiently informed to conclude that William Shaxper could not be the writer of the greatest poetry the world has seen, but unable to grasp the enormity of implication inherent in the true origin of the plays in the mind of the greatest genius of history, Francis Bacon. Already however, the Oxford movement begins to become weary, exhausted in it's never-ending search for a non-existent smoking gun and increasingly frustrated in it's failed attempts to devise a coherent narrative which can shoehorn the undeniable historical record into the Earl's inconveniently premature death. Thus the twenty-first century sees the rise of a new Baconianism, which will reach it's full flowering on the very day that the carefully hidden manuscripts and new plays are revealed to the world, ending all speculation, and bringing forth the incontrovertible evidence of Francis Bacon's authorship of the works of Shakespeare. Hasten that day.

2004-07-24T07:34:00.000+09:30

Adam Weishaupt, dismissed from the Jesuit college at Ingolstadt, attracted the fiercer elements of European Rosicrucian Freemasonry ino a new secret cult in Bavaria. His "Illuminati", whose cover was eventually blown in order to convince public opinion that evil secret societies wre being diligently unmasked when in fact they were not, was another instance of "blown cover as cover".

- from Rulers of Evil, by F. Tupper Saussy

2004-07-24T07:26:00.000+09:30

The beginning of all creatures is veiled, the middle is manifested, and the end again is imperceptible, O Bharata (Arjuna). Why, then, lament this truth?

The source of the dancing stream of lives is secretly hidden behind the mists of delusive ignorance; the end of the same silvery stream is also shrouded in mystery. Only the middle part is visible to humanity's myopic vision. Why, then, grieve over a matter no mortal can solve? ...

The stage of the earth is well set with food, air, water and fire;man has to study Nature to his best advantage and to act out his part according to the innate guidance of his intuition. The great Dramatist-Director of this mystery play of lives on the stage of the earth remains hidden somewhere! everywhere! directing the play of His children-actors through the suggesions of conscience and innate understanding. ...

I remember occasions in the past when, finding great joy in contacting God by meditation, my mind would suddenly be very curious. "Why not ask God for further information about Jesus, Krishna, Shakespeare?"

- from II:28 Commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita by Paramahansa Yogananda

2004-07-01T06:41:00.000+09:30

At the bottom of his title-page to his 1620 'Great Instauration'
he included the Latin words from that quote:

Multi pertransibrant & augebitur scientia

'Many shall go forth and knowledge shall be increased'

But this has meanings on several different levels. The
ship is going forth in the paradigm of his intellectual globe
from the old world around the mediterranean to the New
World of the future.

In one sense he is sending his knowledge by the ship of
letters to future ages:

"If, therefore the invention of a ship was thought so noble,
which carries commodities from place to place and consociateth
the remotest regions in participation of their fruits, how much
more are letters to be valued, which, like ships, pass through
the vast ocean of time, and convey knowledge and inventions
to the remotest ages?"

In another sense this is the ship of the travellers go forth to the New Atlantis:

"Whether or not discoveries now made had been known to the ancients and the knowledge had been extinguished and rekindled with the changes of human fortune, is a matter of no great moment, just as it matters not all all whether the New World is the old Atlantis, or is now discovered for the first time."

In another sense the ship going forth tells us that it is the ship of discovery proceeding forth on his intellectual globe, and this ship is guided by his discovery device, The Intellectual Compass.

And it goes on. There are other levels and other meanings there.

- from a correspondent

2004-06-29T07:04:00.000+09:30

Bacon reminds me of those lines in Francis Thompson's poem, "No Strange Land":

"Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.'

The 'Shakespeare' writings are endlessly evocative. Everywhere there are meadows of meaning that stretch out to a world beyond our understanding and beyond anything restricted to what we understand of human possibilities.

Look at just one example from one of these miracles of art. The name of the play is "A Midsummer Night's Dream". This tells us that everything that happens is:

1. A Dream
2. That takes place on one midsummer night

There is not only the dream element, there is also a time element. As soon as we begin reading the play this time element is underscored. The first line refers to 'nuptiall houre', the second to 'foure happy daies', the third to the moon which has always been associated with the element of time.

Moreover, the number four has an association with midsummer. Midsummer is the summer solstice, meaning to stand still, i.e., the length of the days stood still for three days and on the fourth they began to get longer again. The sun is also connected with time. Figuratively time stands still for three days and begins to move again on the fourth day as the days begin
to get longer.

There is another element of time connected to this. On the fourth day we do not find the day after the summer solstice, but instead - May 1. Time has been contracted from a summer night to an hour, dilated from a summer night to four days, and even reversed by almost two months, while dilated to almost two months.

What's going on?

This all phenomena associated with dreams, but phenomena which has been discovered since Bacon's time.

Remember the classical work of the French physican Alfred Maury In the 19th century? Maury studied a collection of more than 3,000 dreams, but one is especially famous. This is his 'guillotine' dream. This dream was conspicuous for its time contraction, or conversely, time dilation element. Dreams are notorious for their time distortion element.

Maury's dream was a long convoluted series of episodes about the Reign of Terror during the Revolution. He was thrown in prison for a long period of time. He witnessed some terrible scenes of murder, and finally he himself was summoned before the Tribunal. There he saw Robespierre, Marat, Fouquier-Tinville, and all the sorry heroes of those terrible days; he had to give an account of himself, and after all manner of incidents he was finally sentenced to death. In a cart, accompanied by an enormous crowd, he made the slow procession to the place of execution, where the guillotine awaited. He mounted the scaffold; he was force to knell. His head was fastened into place. The order of was given. The knife of the guillotine fell. He felt his head severed from his trunk, and suddenly awoke, only to find that the head-board of the bed had fallen, and had struck his neck where the knife of the guillotine would have fallen.

The point was that the head-board striking his neck was the external stimuli that caused the dream, but it would have awakened him instantly so that the entire convoluted dream would have had to take place in that one fraction of a second.

So I would have to think that Bacon (who always seems to know everything)intentionaly constructed this element into the play, and there are many, many such examples. What people find in the plays is limited only by their own limitations, never by any limitations in the author.

- from a correspondent

2004-06-06T07:48:00.000+09:30

Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of the commonwealth as a kind of common property which like the air and the water belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what service I was myself best fitted by nature to perform.

Now among all the benefits that could be conferred upon mankind, I found none so great as the discovery of new arts, endowments, and commodities for the bettering of man's life. For I saw that among the rude people in the primitive times the authors of rude inventions and discoveries were consecrated and numbered among the Gods. And it was plain that the goodeffects wrought by founders of cities, lawgivers, fathers of the people, extirpers of tyrants, and heroes of that class, extend but over narrow spaces and last but for short times; whereas the work of the Inventor, though a thing of less pomp and shew, is felt everywhere and lasts for ever. But above all, if a man could succeed, not in striking out some particular invention, however useful, but in kindling a light in nature a light which should in its very rising touch and illuminate all the border regions that confine upon the circle of our present knowledge; and so spreading further and further should presently disclose and bring into sight all that is most hidden and secret in the world,that man (I thought) would be the benefactor indeed of the human race,the propagator of man's empire over the universe, the champion of liberty, the conqueror and subduer of necessities.

- from: On the Interpretation of Nature

2004-06-05T19:20:00.000+09:30

"The Celtic peoples were pagans like the Romans worshipping many Gods. Celtic Gods and Roman Gods seemed to coexist together; a Celtic-Romano Temple was excavated south of the Roman Theatre, and the remains of a Triangular Temple lie unseen in Verulamium Park.

Christianity had one God, and it had become a threat to the Roman Empire, because the followers refused to acknowledge the Emperor as divine, the consequence being - it was not tolerated, which only seemed to accelerate its growth! In Britain as elesewhere the faith was spreading, and in about the year AD209 the story and legend of St Alban begins. It is said that Alban was an affluent Roman citizen, possibly an army officer, and that during a period when Christians were being persecuted, he gave shelter to a man who has been called Amphibalus. While he stayed with him, Alban was converted to Christianity. Amphibulas got away and Alban was arrested: after a prolonged trial, during which he refused to give up his faith, he was beheaded - a privilege only allowed to Roman citizens. It is also possible that the execution took place on the hill close to where the Abbey was eventually built."

- from The St Albans Mapguide

The Mapguide goes on to suggest that the trial of St Alban actually took place in the Roman theatre which even to this day stands within the gates of the Gorhambury estate. So Francis Bacon, growing up, would have played in this very theatre, the site of St Alban's trial. Later when Bacon was made a Viscount, he chose the name Viscount St Alban. Note that he did not select the plural version, St Albans, after the town, which would have been consistent with the usual protocol to select a place-name to adorn the title, but after the man, St Alban. Thus Francis explicitly identified himself with the saint.

This becomes even more curious when one reads in the Royal Masonic Cyclopedia that the date of St Alban's martyrdom is given there as 287AD. This date is not historical, but symbolic, as may be discerned by examination of the remarkable book Secret Shakespearean Seals, available on-line at the sidebar link.

2004-05-31T18:20:00.000+09:30

I send you also a memorial of Queen Elizabeth......Of this, when you were here, I shewed you some model, though at that time me thought you were more willing to hear Julius Caesar that Queen Elizabeth commended. But this which I send is more full and hath more of the narrative. -- Letter to Tobie Matthew who was being sent a revised draft of the play 1609

2004-05-31T18:18:00.001+09:30

For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of truth; as having a Mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the Resemblances of Things (which is the chief point) and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their Subtler Differences; as being gifted by Nature with Desire to seek, patience to Doubt, fondness to Meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of Imposture. So I thought my Nature had a kind of familiarity and Relationship with Truth. On the Interpretation of Nature 1603-4

2004-05-31T18:18:00.000+09:30

About the same time I remember an answer of mine in a matter which had some affinity with my Lord's cause, which though it grew from me, went after about in other's names. For her Majesty being mightily incensed with that book which was dedicated to my Lord of Essex, being a story of the first year of King Henry the fourth, thinking it a seditious prelude to put into the people's heads boldness and faction, said she had good opinion that there was treason in it and asked me if I could not find any places in it that might be drawn within the case of treason: whereto I answered : for treason surely if found none, but for felony (plagiarism) very many. ---Apologie in Certaine Imputations concerning the Late Earle of Essex (found in The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon, Spedding)

2004-05-31T18:09:00.000+09:30

Nevertheless it is important to understand how the present is like a seer with two faces, one looking toward the future, and the other towards the past. Accordingly I have decided to prepare for your instruction tables of both ages, containing not only the past course and progress of science, but also anticipation of things to come. The nature of these tables you could not conjecture before you see them. A genuine anticipation of them is beyond your scope, nor would you be aware of the lack of it unless it was put in your hands. It is a compliment reserved to some of the choicer spirits among you whom I hope to win thereby. But generally speaking science is to be sought from the light of nature, not from the darkness of antiquity.- from the "Masculine Birth of Time"

2004-05-26T23:50:00.000+09:30

An Open Letter to Roland Emmerich:

It's reported that you are planning to make a film on Oxford as Shakespeare. I am wondering if you are planning to present this as real history. If so, I would welcome the opportunity to share with you the evidence which shows that there is simply no consistent scenario of Edward deVere's life which can account for the Shakespeare works. All Oxfordian attempts to make their man fit the case for the Bard must overlook crucial evidence. Whichever version of the Oxfordian fantasy then, for (sadly) that is what it is, becomes the narrative for your film, it will inevitably only serve to expose the fatal flaws in the case for his authorship. There is a simple reason for this, and no mystery: Oxford didn't write the plays, or the sonnets, not so much as a word. Francis Bacon is the true author and genius behind the Shakespeare works. The evidence is abundant and overwhelming: Promus, Northumberland,the gap in the Histories exactly filled by Bacon's Henry VII, letters, documents, signatures, parallels. Note in particular that evidence for Bacon's authorship dates from throughout the years of Shakespeare's career; the Promus notebook for example from 1595-6, so there is no question of Bacon somehow taking over the plays after Oxford's death, as many Oxfordians seem to believe. We would urge you therefore, before presenting the Oxford case to the world as true history, to review the evidence, for example at www.sirbacon.org, for Bacon's authorship. It might be that as a result you end up making an entirely different film than the one you have set out to create.

Bacon is Shakespeare: now that would make a great film. I have this idea for the opening scene: Francis, as a boy, playing in the ancient Roman Theatre on the grounds of Gorhambury where he grew up. This is the very same place where the trial of St Alban, the first Christian martyr on British soil, took place, whose name Bacon was to take when he became Viscount St Alban late in his life. The film opens with the boy playing at being an actor on the ancient stage, and then flashes back and forward in time, forward decades to the stage at the Globe with a production of Twelfth Nightin full swing, back more than a millennia in time to St Alban at his trial and forward to Viscount St Alban after his fall working at the First Folio. Then the credits. Then it opens proper with one of Queen Elizabeth's private visits to Gorhambury with all her entourage, as she goes to visit and take her special interest in Francis, her secret son. One month later young Francis is packed off to Cambridge. Etc Etc. Let's do lunch.

2004-05-24T20:34:00.000+09:30

Ben Johnson (speaking of Francis Bacon)

My conceit of his person was never increased toward him, by his place, or honours. But I have, and doe reverence him for his greatness, that was only proper to himselfe, in that hee seem'd to mee ever, by his worke, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had beene in many Ages. In his adversity I ever prayed, that God would give him strength: for Greatness hee could not want.

...

One, though hee be excellent, and the chiefe, is not to bee imitated alone. For no Imitator, ever grew up to his Author; likeness is always on this side Truth; Yet there hapn'd, in my time, one noble Speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where hee could spare, or passe a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more presly, more weightily, or suffer'd lesse emptinesse, lesse idleness, in what hee utter'd. No member of his speech, but consisted of the owne graces: His hearers could not cough, or looke aside from him, without losse. Hee commanded where hee spoke, and had his judges angry, and pleased at his devotion. No man had the affections more in his power. The feare of every man that heard him, was, lest hee should make an end.

...

But his learned, and able (though unfortunate) Successor (i.e.Bacon) is he, who hath fill'd up all numbers; and perform'd that in our tongue, which may be compar'd, or preferr'd, either to insolent Greece, or haughty Romy. In short, within his view, and about his times, were all the wite borne, that could honour a language, or helpe study. Now things daily fall: wits grow downe-ward, and Eloquence growes back-ward: So that hee may be nam'd, and stand as the marke and acme of our language.

2004-05-24T07:31:00.000+09:30

For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself. They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
- from The Advancement of Learning

2004-05-23T09:01:00.000+09:30

Generally speaking, Francis Bacon's biographers have never stressed the important fact that Francis Bacon was directly connected with the theatrical world of his early days at Gray's Inn, that he wrote Dramatic Plays and Shows that were acted before the Queen and composed Sonnets. Yet it is an open fact of the deepest significance. Parker Woodward in Tudor Problems suggests that Francis Bacon supplied all the Plays that were prepared and performed at Gray's Inn from 1583 for the entertainment of the Queen. It is highly probable. What we are definitely certain about is this: That Francis did prepare certain Plays that were performed before the Queen. Not only so, but it was well-known in Court Circles even in the time of James that Francis Bacon was a Past Master in the art of stage management and the creation of plays.

On 14th February, 1612-13, the Princess Elizabeth married the Count Palatine. There were the usual rejoicings which lasted several days. Chamberlain, a contemporary, wrote:

"On Tuesday, 18th February, it came to Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple's turn to come with their Masque, whereof Sir Francis Bacon was the chief contriver."

- from Francis Bacon's Personal Life-story by Alfred Dodd

2004-05-03T20:12:00.000+09:30

"Nor should we neglect to mention the prophecy of Daniel, of the last days of the world, "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased," thus plainly hinting and suggesting that fate (which is Providence) would cause the complete circuit of the globe (now accomplished, or at least going forward by means of so many distant voyages), and the increase of learning to happen at the same epoch."
Novum Organon

2004-04-21T15:33:00.000+09:30

Yesterday I was walking down Collins St, Melbourne, looking up at the tops of the buildings. To my surprise, I suddenly noticed that there was a statue of Pallas Athena prominently displayed on one, complete with helmet and spear, making it instantly recognisable. The building turned out to be The Athenaeum, prominent Melbourne theatre and landmark. Later that day I visitted one of my favourite Melbourne second-hand bookshops, and found pure gold: Letters from the Dead to the Dead, by "Oliver Lector".

2004-04-18T07:24:00.000+09:30

One word: axle-tree.

Shakespeare, Bacon and Christopher Marlowe all use it to signify the cosmic world-axis, as follows:

From "Troilus and Cressida":

ULYSSES:And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out life
I give to both your speeches, which were such
As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brass, and such again
As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver,
Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree
On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears
To his experienced tongue, yet let it please both,
Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.

From a letter of Francis Bacon to the Earl of Essex:

I desire your Lordship also to think that though I confess I love some things much better than I love your Lordship, as the Queen's service, her quiet and contentment, her honour, her favour, the good of my country, and the like, yet I love few persons better than yourself, both for gratitude's sake, and for your own virtues, which cannot hurt but by accident or abuse. Of which my good affection I was ever and am ready to yield testimony by any good offices but with such reservations as yourself cannot but allow for as I was ever sorry that your Lordship should fly with waxen wings, doubting Icarus' fortune, so for the growing up of your own feathers, specially ostrich's, or any other save of a bird of prey, no man shall be more glad. And this is the axletree whereupon I have turned 'and shall turn; which to signify to you, though I think you are of yourself persuaded as much, is the cause of my writing; and so I commend your Lordship to God's goodness. From Gray's Inn, this 20th day of July, 1600.

Your Lordship's most humbly,

FR. BACON.

From The tragical History of Doctor Faustus, attributed to Christopher Marlowe:

MEPHOSTOPHILIS As are the elements, such are the heavens,
Even from the moon unto the empyrial orb,
Mutually folded in each other's spheres,
And jointly move upon one axle-tree,
Whose terminate is termed the world's wide pole.

2004-04-16T06:45:00.000+09:30

Spedding, who rejected to the end of his life the identity of Bacon and Shakespeare, nevertheless on several occasions himself notes parallels between the works, such as here:

"The scene in the 'Winter's Tale;' where Perdita presents the guests with flowers suited to their ages, has some expressions which, if this Essay had been contained in the earlier edition, would have made me suspect that Shakespeare had been reading it. "

He cannot bring himself to consider the reverse possibility: that Bacon heard the lines at a Shakespeare play, and later incorporated them into his Essay, because that would be incompatible with the conclusion he reaches elsewhere, namely that Bacon was not aware of Shakespeare or his writings. He comes to this conclusion from the fact that nowhere in either's work is the other mentioned.

But, how then, if Bacon was unaware of Shakespeare, could he have quoted him? Spedding cannot bring himself to contemplate this small problem.

Clearly, if there are parallels between Winters Tale and the Essays, and Shakespeare couldnt have read the Essays because they hadnt been published yet, and Bacon couldnt have seen the play because he lived his entire life oblivious to Shakespeares existence, then, there is only one possibility left which can explain the situation: Bacon and Shakespeare were the same man.

This would explain how a Shakespeare play came to be performed at Gray's Inn as part of the 1594 Christmas Entertainment which was directed, written and staged by Francis Bacon. It must have put Spedding into a mental pretzel to pen the following passage and not conclude the obvious:

"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.""

2004-04-13T07:47:00.000+09:30

"His imagination was fruitful and vivid; a temperament of the most delicate sensibility, so excitable as to be affected by the slightest alterations of the atmosphere."--Montagu.

"He belongs to the realm of the imagination, of eloquence, of jurisprudence, of ethics, of metaphysics; his writings have the gravity of prose, with the fervor and vividness of poetry."--Prof. Welsh.

"He possessed at once all those extraordinary talents which were divided amongst the greatest authors of antiquity. He had the sound, distinct, comprehensive knowledge of Aristotle, with all the beautiful lights, graces, and embellishments of Cicero. One does not know which to admire most in his writings, the strength of reason, force of style, or brightness of imagination."--Addison.

2004-04-12T07:24:00.000+09:30

Let's straighten something out. Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was not reponsible for the works of William Shakespeare. He didn't write so much as a word of the Bard. The movement which has emerged to put forward his candidacy for the authorship is an intellectual cult. it's full of well meaning folk with just enough perspicacity to realise that something is very wrong with the orthodox position, but not enough clear-sightedness to see that the Oxford theory is utterly untenable. His dates are, for a start, all wrong. It's not just a question of his dying too early to have written many of the plays; the entire trajectory of the appearance of the Elizabethan theatre is utterly incongruent with his biography. Macbeth was written after the Gunpowder plot of 1605; the Tempest after the Strachey letter of 1609 and Henry VIII after Bacon's fall from grace in 1621. All objections to the contrary from Oxfordians are wishful sloppy thinking. Everything about the Oxford case crumbles to the touch: the 1000 pound annual bequest given to the Earl by the Queen is clearly stated as being for the relief of his estate after he blew the family fortune; the coat of arms allegedly used by DeVere with the "shaken spear" was actually not used by his family during his lifetime, and in any case features a broken spear, not shaken; everything is twisted, stretched, papered-over. There are some incidents from the Earl's life in the plays; they are biography, not autobiography. On this small misunderstanding, what edifices of error have been built. The entire debate is framed as William from Stratford against DeVere, and both sides wonder why they are unable to deliver the knock-out blow. Meanwhile, both the orthodox and the oxfordian resolutely refuse to perform due diligence on the case for Bacon. All assume that someone, somewhere has provided the definitive case against Bacon as Shakespeare. In fact, no one has. John Michell, sadly, in his popular book Who Wrote Shakespeare? dismisses Bacons candidacy on the basis that he never visitted Italy. In fact, contemporary documentary evidence attests to at least two trips there made by Francis Bacon.

Bacon is Shakespeare. The evidence is overwhelming: Northumberland. Promus. Parallels. Testimony of contemporaries. There is no counter-argument which stands up to scrutiny. Thus the orthodox and the oxfordians simply ignore the Baconians, as best they can. Meanwhile, the Oxfordians continue to look for the "smoking gun", which they freely admit is yet to be found. The reason it has not been found is that it does not exist; there is no smoking gun because Oxford did not write the Works; no, not even so much as a single word.

2004-04-08T07:24:00.000+09:30

Bacon: "Mr Bettenham, reader of Gray's Inn, used to say that riches were like muck; when it lay upon a heap, it gave but a stench and ill odour; but when it was spread upon the ground, then it was the cause of much fruit." (Works vii p160)

Nashe: "As the hog is still grunting, digging and rooting in the muck, so is the usurer still turning, digging and rooting in the muck of this world" (Vol. iv p150)

Shakespeare: "The common muck of the world" (money) Coriolanus ii 2

- from The Bacon Shakespeare Anatomy by W.S. Melsome (1945)

2004-03-31T12:48:00.000+09:30

"Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the inconveniences which grow from man to man, much inferior to the former, of relieving the necessities which arise from nature; which merit was lively set forth by ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus' theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled; and forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together listening unto the airs and accords of the harp; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature: wherein is aptly described the nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires, of profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace mantained; but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion."
from The Advancement of Learning

2004-03-29T18:39:00.000+09:30

"Wherefore to conclude this part, let it be observed, that there be two principal duties and services, besides ornament and illustration, which philosophy and human learning do perform to faith and religion. The one, because they are an effectual inducement to the exaltation of the glory of God. For as the Psalms and other scriptures do often invite us to consider and magnify the great and wonderful works of God, so if we should rest only in the contemplation of the exterior of them as they first offer themselves to our senses, we should do a like injury unto the majesty of God, as if we should judge or construe of the store of some excellent jeweller, by that only which is set out the street in his shop. The other, because they minister a singular help and preservative against unbelief and error. For our Saviour saith, 'You err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God'; laying before us two books or volumes to study, if we will be secured from error; first the scriptures, revealing the will of God, and then the creatures expressing his power; whereof the latter is a key unto the former: not only opening our understanding to conceive the true sense of the scriptures, by the general notions of reason and rules of speech; but chiefly opening our belief, in drawing us into a due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is chiefly signed and engraven upon his works. Thus much therefore for divine testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity and value of learning."
From The Advancement of Learning

2004-03-27T06:20:00.000+10:30

The difficulty with the case of Francis Bacon as Shakespeare is not so much in establishing that it is true. That part is relatively straightforward: the Northumberland manuscript, the Promus notebook, Ben Jonson's testimony, the Hall/Marston satires, the parallels between Bacons work and Shakespeares, the evidence from contemporary letters, his involvement in theatre at Gray's Inn and elsewhere, the tributes paid to him afer death in the Manes Verulamium, the evidence from with the Plays themselves, including plotlines, characters and signatures. No, this is not the problem. The problem is knowing when to stop. For example, by equally compelling evidence he can just as readily be shown to be the author of Don Quixote, writing under the mask of Miguel Cervantes. He was also Edmund Spenser. And Robert Greene and George Peele. Christopher Marlowe. Nashe. Montaigne. Sir Philip Sidney. Not to mention, he was also Francis Bacon, himself, let us not forget.

2004-03-16T07:52:00.000+10:30

In 1867, twenty-two old manuscript sheets, folded in half for binding and enclosed by another sheet to provide a cover was discovered in the London house of the Duke of Northumberland. It was easily determined that the manuscript has belonged to Francis Bacon since most of the enclosed writings were his, and the cover listed a number of his writings. However, the cover also listed writings published under the name of William Shakespeare, as well as phrases scrawled where his name was mingled with the name of William Shakespeare:

By mr ffrauncis Bacon
Essaies by the same author
William Shakespeare
Rychard the second
Rychard the third
Asmund and Cornelia
Ille of dogs frmnt
by Thomas Nashe
William Shakespeare

2004-03-15T23:45:00.000+10:30

"Good to be mery and wise."

Bacon's Promus Notebook, Folio 92

2004-03-11T05:49:00.000+10:30

"For of the knowledges which contemplate the works of Nature, the holy Philosopher hath said expressly; that the glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the King is to find it out: as if the Divine Nature, according to the innocent and sweet play of children, which hide themselves to the end they may be found; took delight to hide his works, to the end they might be found out; and of his indulgence and goodness to mankind, had chosen the Soule of man to be his play-fellow in this game."

2004-03-07T16:56:00.000+10:30

Nay, stage-playing has been regarded even by wise men and great philosophers as a kind of Plectrum of the Soul. And it is certainly right, and at the same time one of the great secrets of nature, that the minds of men when many are assembled together are much more open to influence and impression than when they are alone.

2004-03-06T10:51:00.000+10:30

In the Advancement of Learning, Bacon writes:

"Another diversity of method there is [he is speaking of the different methods of communicating and transmitting knowledge] which hath some affinity with the former, used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients, but disgraced since by the impostures of many vain persons, who have made it as a false light for their counterfeit merchandises; and that is enigmatical and disclosed. The pretence whereof [that is, of the enigmatical method] is to remove the vulgar capacities from being admitted to the secrets of knowledge, and to reserve them to selected auditors, or wits of such sharpness as can pierce the veil."

From Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians. W.F.C. Wigston

2004-03-05T20:18:00.000+10:30

In "An Unrecorded Elizabethan Performance of Titus Andronicus" (Shakespeare Review 14, 1961), Gustav Ungerer finds the evidence for the "only private performance [of a Shakespeare play] that is known to us to have taken place in Elizabethan times". Not only that, it is "also the sole record to prove that the tragedy was put on in the provinces as well as in London". The performance took place in January 1596, as part of the Christmas Festivities held in "grand scale" at Burley-on-the-Hill, estate of Sir John Harington.

The evidence is contained in a letter written to Anthony Bacon, found amongst his papers at Lambeth Palace Library. It was written by one Jacques Petit, a servant of Bacon's on secondment to Harington's household as tutor to his son, and briefly mentions a performance of the play by a professional company of actors from London, most likely the Chamberlain's Men. This would have involved a period of 9 days absence from London, at the height of the theatrical season, which would have been "surprisingly inconsistent with known Elizabethan practice", according to Ungerer.

Harington's translation of Orlando Furioso was published in 1591 with Francis Bacon's AA device appearing no less than 96 times in the book.

2004-03-04T06:57:00.000+10:30

There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self: the first, closeness, reservation and secrecy; when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is; the second, dissimulation in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not what he is; and the third, simulation in the affirmative; when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be that he is not.

2004-03-02T21:47:00.000+10:30

Antisthenes being asked of one, what learning was most necessary for man's life? Answered, 'To unlearn that which is nought."