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".

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.

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.""

"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.

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.

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)

"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

"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

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.

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

"Good to be mery and wise."

Bacon's Promus Notebook, Folio 92

"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."

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.

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

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.

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.

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