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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 39121 ***
+
+Produced by David Widger.
+
+
+
+
+                         *BACON AND SHAKSPERE*
+
+
+                                  _By_
+
+                          *William Henry Burr*
+
+             _PROOF THAT WILLIAM SHAKSPERE COULD NOT WRITE_
+
+            _BACON IDENTIFIED AS THE CONCEALED POET IGNOTO_
+
+                                 _1886_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    PROOF THAT SHAKSPERE COULD NOT WRITE
+    NO TRUE LIKENESS OF SHAKSPERE
+    THE SONNETS OF SHAKSPERE
+    BACON IDENTIFIED AS THE CONCEALED POET IGNOTO
+    AS THE CONCEALED POET IGNOTO
+    BACON AND SHAKSPERE A CHRONOGRAPH
+    A CHRONOGRAPHIC PARALLEL
+
+
+
+
+QUEEN ELIZABETH’S “YOUNG LORD KEEPER.” FROM BUST.
+
+
+
+
+[3]
+
+
+
+
+PROOF THAT SHAKSPERE COULD NOT WRITE
+
+
+No handwriting of Shakspere has ever been discovered except five
+autographs. In March 1613, when he was nearly 49 years old, he signed
+his name to a mortgage, and again to a deed relative to the same
+transaction. Three years later he subscribed his name to three briefs or
+sheets of his will. The five facsimiles are here reproduced:
+
+They are all such signatures as an illiterate person, unaccustomed to
+write, would be likely to scrawl; and
+
+[4]
+
+they are so different that an acquaintance with one is little help to
+the recognition of another.
+
+In the first signature he writes Wm. for William.
+
+The second and third autographs have William written above Shakspere.
+Who but an illiterate person would sign his name thus?
+
+In the last two signatures (being told perhaps that his name ought to be
+written on one line) he puts William before Shakspere; but the fourth
+William reads Willin.
+
+See now how differently each letter is formed in the name Shakspere,
+beginning with the initial:
+
+Did anybody ever write the first letter of his name so differently?
+After four attempts to form a capital S he succeeds tolerably well the
+fifth time. The second S, though of singular shape, appears to have been
+a customary one as early as 1598. (See examples of that year below.)
+Shakspere’s first attempt to form the crooked letter is a failure, but
+the second passably good. So again in 1616, when he has a different form
+to copy, his first attempt is futile, the second is passable, and the
+third quite successful.
+
+But in attempting the next letter he makes it worse every time:
+
+With the letter a he is more successful, making it legible three times
+out of five:
+
+[5]
+
+But the attempt to form a k is a signal failure:
+
+With the long s he succeeds best the first time, and worst the second
+and third:
+
+The letter p is legible the first time, but grows worse and worse to the
+last:
+
+It seems as if in the first attempt to sign his name in 1613 he thought
+it was complete when he made it end with sp e; but being reminded that
+it lacked a letter or two he undertook to add one by putting an a over
+the e thus:
+
+The next time, which was probably the same day,(1) he seems to have
+written his name Shaksper, though the terminal letters are uncertain:
+
+The third time he gets it more like Shakspoze:
+
+The deed to Shakspere and two other trustees is dated March 10 and
+signed Henry Walker. The mortgage from Shakspere and the other trustees
+is dated March 11. But for some unaccountable reason a duplicate
+verbatim copy of the deed from Henry Walker is signed by William
+Shakspere. This duplicate is in the Library of the city of London; the
+mortgage is in the British Museum. The duplicate deed we suspect was
+signed after the mortgage. Hence the improvement in the autograph; it
+was probably Shakspere’s second attempt to write. Compare it with the
+third.
+
+[6]
+
+The fourth time he seems to have tried to disguise the termination with
+awkward flourishes, making the letters totally illegible:
+
+Finally, he omits the flourishes and comes nearer legibility, but still
+it is impossible to tell whether he meant to write _ear, ere, or eare_:
+
+And now let the reader mark, that notwithstanding the orthodox spelling
+of the name from 1593 to 1616, and indeed up to the present time, was
+and is Shakespeare, there is no e in the first syllable and no a in the
+last, although some have imagined the letter a to exist in the last part
+of the final autograph.
+
+We have said that these signatures are all that. Shakspere is known to
+have written; we ought to add that he prefixed to the last one the
+following scrawl:
+
+For a long time we puzzled over this. Could it be an attempt to write
+“25th of March,” the day of the execution of the will? At last we read
+the following in Hallowell-Phillipps’s Shakspere:
+
+“It may be observed that the words By me, which, the autograph excepted,
+are the only ones in the poet’s handwriting known to exist, appear to
+have been penned with ordinary firmness.”
+
+Presuming that the signatures were made in a sick bed, the author
+concedes that the words “By me” were penned with ordinary firmness. Very
+good; but could not almost any five-year-old boy do as well the first
+time?
+
+[7]
+
+In 1775 certain papers and legal instruments were published, attributed
+to Shakspere, Queen Elizabeth, and Southampton. In 1796 Edmund Malone
+proved them to be forgeries. Here is one of the forged autographs of
+Shakspere:
+
+This is superior to any of the genuine ones, which in some degree it
+resembles. The letter a is pretty clearly written in the last syllable,
+as if the forger meant to establish the proper spelling of that part of
+the name. Malone, who at first pronounced the genuine orthography to be
+Shakspeare, subsequently declared Shakspere to be the poet’s own mode of
+spelling his name beyond all doubt. But others do not accede to this
+decision, because they think there is an a in the last of the five
+genuine signatures.
+
+The solution of the whole mystery is in the fact that Shakspere was
+unable to write or even to spell his own name.
+
+In 1598 Richard Quiney addressed a letter to him asking for a loan of
+£30, and the name was written Shackesper:
+
+In the same year among thirteen names of holders of corn in Stratford
+the last but one is Shakesper:
+
+The form of the letter a in both these fac-similes
+
+[8]
+
+was peculiar to that time. It occurs in Shakspere’s second autograph.
+Why did he thus vary the form? Probably because he followed the copy set
+for him.
+
+Note now the various spellings of his name:
+
+In 1582, as a bridegroom, Shagsper.
+
+In 1593 and 1594, as a poet, Shakespeare; and the same uniformly as a
+playwright from 1598 to 1623. but sometimes with a hyphen—Shake-speare.
+
+In 1596, as an inhabitant of Southwark, Shaksper.
+
+In 1598, as addressed by letter, Shackesper.
+
+In 1598, as owner of corn, Shakesper.
+
+In 1604, as plaintiff in a suit, Shexpere.
+
+In 1604 and 1605, as author of plays performed at Whitehall before King
+James, Shaxberd.
+
+In 1609, as plaintiff in a suit, Shackspeare.
+
+In 1612, as plaintiff in a suit, Schackspeare.
+
+In 1614, as written by his cousin, Shakspear.
+
+In 1616, as twice written in his will, Shackspeare; but in signing the
+same three times he omits the c in the first syllable, and it is
+impossible to tell what the last three or four letters are. And although
+in the two Deeds of 1613 the name is written repeatedly Shakespeare, in
+signing them he omits the e in the first syllable both times, and varies
+the termination of the name, just as an illiterate person would be
+likely to do.
+
+But there are more of these various spellings. All the records of
+Shakspere’s lifetime have been hunted up and printed. From these
+documents, consisting of deeds, bills of complaint, letters, poems,
+plays, etc.,— most of which especially concerned either the father or
+son or both—we extract the following spellings, giving; the dates:
+
+[9]
+
+Shakspere 1558, ’62, ’63, ’64, ’66, ’69, ’71, ’79, 80, ’83,
+       ’85, ’90, ’96, 1616, ’17. (John Shakspere and all his offspring
+       so registered, except Richard Shaks     peer, baptized 1574.)
+
+Shaxpere 1558, ’79, 1607, ’08.
+
+Shakspeyr 1567, (“Mr.,” meaning John.)
+
+Shakysper 1568, (“Mr. John.”)
+
+Shackespere 1573, ’89, 1602.
+
+Shakespere 1575, ’79, ’96, ’97, ’98, ’99,1602, ’04, ’06, ’08,
+       ’09, ’10, ’11, ’13.
+
+Shackspere 1579, (Deed. “Joannis Shaxpere -j-.”) 1608.
+
+Shagsper 1582, (Marriage bond—twice so written.)
+
+Shake-scene 1592, (Greene, the playwright, in derision.)
+
+Shakespeare 1593-1594, (Poems,) 1596, ’98, 1603, ’05, ’13, (and all
+Plays from 1598 to 1623.)
+
+Shaksper 1596, ’98, 1613, (Signature,) 1616.
+
+Shakesper 1598, (Owner of corn.)
+
+Shackesper 1598, (Letter from Quiney to Shakspere.)
+
+Shakspeare 1601, ’03, ’07, ’12, ’13, ’14, 1623.
+
+Shackespeare 1603, ’14, (Agreement.)
+
+Shexpere 1604, (Suit for mult sold.)
+
+Shaxberd 1604, ’05, (Dramatist, Whitehall.)
+
+Shakespear 1605, (Conveyance.)
+
+Shakesphear 1605, (Same conveyance.)
+
+Shackspeare 1608, ’12, ’14, ’16.
+
+Scliackspeare 1612, ’14, (Complaint and agreement.) Shaksp; 1613,
+(Signature.)
+
+Shakspear 1614, (Cousin’s letter.)
+
+Shaksp.... 1616, (Signatures to Will.)
+
+Shaxper 1616, (“Bell and pall for Mr. Shaxpers
+       dawghter, viii. d.”)
+
+If we divide the name between the s and p we have the following
+variations of each part:
+
+Shaks, Shakes, Shakys, Shacks, Shackes, Schacks, Shags, Shax, Shex; per,
+pere, peer, pear, peare, peyr, phear, berd, pj, p ....
+
+Shakspere’s daughter Judith in 1611 witnessed two instruments by making
+her mark. And his other
+
+[10]
+
+daughter Susanna in 1642 disputed the unmistakable handwriting of her
+deceased husband in such a manner as to betray her illiteracy.
+
+Mr. C. F. Gunther, of Chicago, claims to have obtained a copy of the
+Shakspere Folio of 1632, (i.e., the second Folio,) containing the
+author’s autograph pasted on a fly-leaf, underneath which is written:
+
+“The works of William Shakespeare. Born in April, 1564, and died in
+April, 1616.     John Ward.”
+
+And on the same fly-leaf is pasted a letter from Charles Godwin, of
+Bath, dated February 16, 1839, to Dr. Charles Severn, of London, who was
+then editing “The Diary of the Rev. John Ward, A. M.,” Vicar of
+Stratford-upon-Avon from 1648 to 1679.
+
+The book is said to have been owned by a Mormon, and is supposed to have
+been brought from England by an emigrant to Utah. Aside from the
+impossibility of such an autograph escaping from England to the wilds of
+America and remaining undiscovered so many years, the fac-simile in the
+Chicago _Current_ of May 23, 1885, betrays most certain evidence of
+fraud. Compare it with the five genuine scrawls of Shakspere. It is so
+exact a copy of the last signature to the will as to indicate that it
+was traced therefrom.
+
+Shakspere’s last signature:
+
+Pretended autograph in Chicago:
+
+[11]
+
+This close resemblance in so clumsy an autograph would be extraordinary,
+if not impossible; but how easy to forge it by first tracing it lightly
+with a pencil and then completing it with a pen. Here is a hair-line
+tracing of the spurious over the genuine autograph:
+
+Even the most illiterate man who is obliged often to sign his name, will
+do it uniformly, so that when you have seen his signature once you will
+know it again. For example, take the following autographs:
+
+The undersigned, aged 78 years, wrote the above autographs in presence
+of the two subscribing witnesses. And he never wrote and cannot write
+anything but his name, though he can read print with ease. And he
+further says that he learned to write his name in the course of one
+month in the administration of President Polk (1845-’9) while serving as
+a Capitol policeman; otherwise he would have been obliged to sign the
+pay-roll with his cross.
+
+Witness:
+
+  A. Watson,            JOHN W. SMITH.
+
+Wm. Henry Burr.
+
+Bacon required a mask, and he found it in the illiterate play-actor
+Shakspere.
+
+Washington, D. C., May 31, 1885.
+
+
+
+
+[12]
+
+
+
+
+NO TRUE LIKENESS OF SHAKSPERE
+
+
+The likeness of Shakspere in the Folio of 1623 has frequently been
+called “an abominable libel on humanity.” And yet its fidelity is
+certified by Ben Jonson in laudatory lines. Jonson was Bacon’s friend
+and enthusiastic admirer. If there was an original portrait of that
+wooden face it has never been found. If there was a better likeness of
+Shakspere in existence why was it not reproduced in that famous Folio?
+The same ugly engraving reappeared in all the later editions up tu 1685.
+
+The bust on the monument at Stratford was first noticed in 1623. It was
+not taken from life, and is unlike any picture of Shakspere. It presents
+him in the act of composition, and “the _vis comica_", says Boaden, “so
+broadens his countenance, that it is hardly a stretch of fancy to
+suppose him in the actual creation of Falstaff himself.” More likely, we
+should say, Falltaff was Shakspere—Fall-staff, Shake-spear.
+
+The most familiar pictures of Shakspere are very different from either
+of these, and generally far more intellectual and refined. They are
+pretended copies of what is called the Chandos portrait, but are not
+much like it. The Chandos picture was painted by an unknown artist, and
+has been altered by a later hand. It is said to have been owned by Sir
+William Davenant, who died in 1668; and he is said to have obtained it
+from an actor named Joseph Taylor, who died about 1653 at the age of 70.
+This we gather from Boaden’s “Portraits of Shakspere,” 1824. But now
+comes a further statement purporting to be written in Mr. Gunther’s
+Folio, by one Charles Lomax,, in 1781, as follows:
+
+“The only original picture now extant of Shakespeare was painted by
+Joseph Taylor, one of the actors,” &c.
+
+The rest of the pretended information agrees with what we find in
+Boaden’s book, which has a picture taken from the Chandos portrait quite
+different from those we generally see, and not much like the Droeshout
+engraving in the Shakspere Folio.
+
+Shakspere probably never had a portrait taken.
+
+
+
+
+[13]
+
+
+
+
+THE SONNETS OF SHAKSPERE
+
+
+WRITTEN BY FRANCIS BACON TO THE EARL OF ESSEX  AND HIS BRIDE, A. D. 1590
+
+“The mystery of the Sonnets will never be unfolded.” —Richard Grant
+White, 1865.
+
+“All is supposition; the mystery is insoluble.” —Dr. Charles Mackay,
+1884.
+
+The mystery unfolded by W. H. Burr, July 31, 1883.
+
+The first published poem of Shakspere, so far as known, was “Venus and
+Adonis,” in 1593. It was dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, then
+about twenty years of age. Five or six editions were called for in nine
+years. The “Sonnets” did not appear till 1609. The latter poem has 154
+stanzas of 14 lines each; the first 126 are addressed to a beautiful and
+ardently beloved youth; the remainder to the young man’s betrothed.
+
+As to the merits of the composition, the American Cyclopedia says:
+
+“These ‘Sonnets,’ though deformed with occasional conceits, far surpass
+all other poems of their kind in our own language, or perhaps any
+other.”
+
+The dedication is in these words:
+
+“To the onlie begetter of | these insuing Sonnets | Mr. W. H. all
+happinesse | and that eternitie | promised by | our everliving poet |
+wisheth | the well-wishing | adventurer in | setting forth | T. T.”
+
+[14]
+
+Some have believed that “Mr. W. H.” was William Herbert; and a German
+critic supposes the initials to signify “William Himself.” But the
+American Cyclopedia says:
+
+“To whom they were written, and in whose person is among the most
+difficult of unsolved literary problems.... Who this ‘onlie begetter’
+was no man has yet been able satisfactorily to show.”(1)
+
+    (1) Dr. Charles Mackay attempts to solve the problem in an
+    elaborate article in the Nineteenth Century, August, 1884,
+    entitled “A Tangled Skein Unravelled.” He claims only to have
+    found indications of mixed authorship. But this only makes the
+    tangle worse, which began with Shakspere’s ostensible
+    authorship; and the last despairing words of the astute
+    un-raveller are: “All is supposition, the mystery is insoluble.”
+
+In regard to the hypothesis that “W. H.” was William Herbert, the same
+authority says there is almost as much ground for the notion that the
+person addressed was Queen Elizabeth in doublet and hose.
+
+In 1872 we first read Nathaniel Holmes’s “Authorship of Shakspere;”
+since then we have never entertained a reasonable doubt that Bacon was
+the author of the Plays. In 1882 we reread them all in the light of that
+discovery; but until July 31, 1883, we had never read a page of the
+“Sonnets,” nor when we began to read them on that day did we remember to
+have heard who “W. H.” was supposed to be. But coming to the
+twenty-fifth sonnet, we suspected that the poem was addressed to the
+Earl of Essex, and subsequent research confirmed that suspicion.
+
+Herbert was sixteen years younger than Shakspere, and nineteen years
+younger than Bacon. If, therefore, the poem was written in 1590, which
+we purpose to show, it is impossible for Herbert to have been the
+
+[15]
+
+“onlie begetter of these Sonnets,” for he was then only ten years old.
+
+Of course no one will date their composition as late as 1609, when
+Shakspere was forty-five and Bacon forty-eight. At that time the former
+had retired from the stage, and Bacon had been for six years King’s
+counsel and three years a married man. And certainly two sonnets (138
+and 144) were composed as early as 1599, for they are repeated at the
+beginning of “The Passionate Pilgrim,” which was first published in that
+year.
+
+All the internal and external evidence points to the year 1590 as the
+date, Francis Bacon as the writer, and the Earl of Essex as the person
+addressed.
+
+It is said that Bacon made the acquaintance of Essex about 1590, but it
+would be remarkable if he did not know him years before. In sonnet 104
+the poet says:
+
+    “Three winters cold
+       Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
+    Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
+       In process of the seasons have I seen,
+    Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
+        Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.”
+
+Let us suppose that Bacon began to cultivate the Earl’s friendship in
+1590. He was then twenty-two years old; three years earlier, when Bacon
+first saw him, the Earl was “fresh now he is yet green.”(1)
+
+    1. A letter from Bacon to the Earl of Leicester, asking for his
+    furtherance in some suit which the Earl of Essex had moved in
+    his behalf, has recently been found, written in 1588.
+    (Sped-ding’s “Bacon,” 1878, i, 50, note.)
+
+Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex, was born Nov. 10, 1567, and
+was beheaded for treason
+
+[16]
+
+Feb. 25, 1601. He succeeded to the title at ten years of age. At twenty
+he was appointed master of the horse. At twenty-one the Queen created
+him captain-general of the cavalry, and conferred on him the honor of
+the garter. In the same year an expedition was undertaken against
+Portugal, and he secretly followed the armament. This was without the
+Queen’s permission, but he was quickly reconciled with her after his
+return, and at once assumed a superiority over Sir Walter Raleigh and
+Sir Charles Blount, rival competitors for royal favor. He was challenged
+by Blount and wounded in the knee, and the Queen is said to have
+expressed her gratification that some one had taken him down, as
+otherwise there would be no ruling him. He was an accomplished scholar
+and patron of literature. He erected a monument to Spenser and gave an
+estate to Bacon.
+
+But we have omitted one striking characteristic which has an important
+bearing on the question of his identity with “Mr. W. H.” The young Earl
+of Essex was a remarkably handsome man. Now the beauty of the person
+addressed in the “Sonnets” is a constantly recurring theme, and the
+burden of the poem is an appeal to the beloved and beautiful young man
+to marry. It begins thus:
+
+        “From fairest creatures we desire increase,
+    That thereby beauty’s rose might never die.”
+
+The next Sonnet begins:
+
+           “When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
+    And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
+       Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
+    Will be a tattered weed of small worth held.”
+
+The last line of Sonnet 13 reads:
+
+    “You had a father; let your son say so.”
+
+[17]
+
+The father of Essex died in 1576. In 1590 the second Earl married the
+widow of Sir Philip Sidney, Essex being twenty-two years old and she a
+little younger. The marriage was secret to avoid the opposition of
+Elizabeth. By October, concealment was no longer possible, and on the
+22d of January, 1591, (not 1592 as some have it,) the first child was
+born. (“Earls of Essex,” 1853.)
+
+The mother of Essex was celebrated for her beauty; his father was not
+handsome. (See portrait in “Earls of Essex.”) The son’s inheritance of
+his mother’s features is told in the third Sonnet:
+
+    “Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
+             Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
+     So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
+             Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.”
+
+For further description of the young Earl’s beauty, take the following:
+
+    “If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
+          And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
+          The age to come would say, ‘This poet lies;
+          Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.”
+
+    “Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
+          Is poorly imitated after you;
+          On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,
+          And you in Grecian ’tires are painted new.”
+
+Essex having become the special favorite of the Queen, of course became
+an object of envy and slander. Mark now what the poet says:
+
+        “Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won;
+        Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.”
+
+        “That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
+        For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair;
+        The ornament of beauty is suspect,
+        A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air.
+
+    [18]
+
+        So be thou good−; slander doth but approve
+        Thy worth the greater, being wooed of time.”
+
+In 1590 Bacon had acquired a reputation as an orator in the House of
+Commons, but was without available means of livelihood in keeping with
+his wants and station. Up to this time his efforts for promotion were
+thwarted by the Queen’s minister, Lord Burleigh (Cecil) who regarded him
+as a dangerous rival for his son. With the rise of young Essex into
+royal favor Bacon turned to him as a friend at court. From 1590 to 1594
+the Earl tried in vain to advance Bacon, and at last, when the vacant
+office of Attorney General was filled by another, Essex, blaming himself
+for the disappointment, insisted on presenting him with an estate worth
+£1,800.
+
+With these facts in mind, see how perfectly the following lines fit the
+persons and the time, 1590:
+
+        “Let those who are in favor with their stars,
+    Of public honor and proud titles boast,
+    Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
+    Unlooked for joy in that I honor most.”
+
+    “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
+           I all alone beweep my outcast state,
+    And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
+    And look upon myself and curse my fate,
+    Wishing me like to one more rich in hope.
+
+    Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
+    Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
+           With what I most enjoy contented least;
+    Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
+    Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
+           Like to the lark at break of day arising,
+           From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
+           For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
+           it then I scorn to change my state with kings.”
+
+           “I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
+    Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
+           Nor thou with public kindness honor me,
+              Unless thou take that honor from thy name;
+            But do not so; I love thee in such sort
+            As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
+
+            “As a decrepit father takes delight
+             To see his active child do deeds of youth,
+    So I, made lame by fortune’s dearest spite,
+              Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
+    For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
+               Or any of these all, or all, or more,
+            Entitled in my parts do crowned sit,
+    I make my love engrafted to this store.
+
+           So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
+              Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
+           That I in thy abundance am sufficed,
+               And by a part of all thy glory live.”
+
+In 1590 Shakspere was part owner of a theater.
+
+In 1590 Bacon obtained his first show of favor from the court; he became
+Queen’s counsel extraordinary, but the office was without emolument. At
+this time plays for the theater were written and rewritten again and
+again to meet the demand. Young lawyers and poets produced them rapidly.
+Each theatrical company kept from one to four poets in its pay (Amer.
+Cyc.) Shakspere appeared to be ready to father anything that promised
+success, and there are at least six plays published under his name or
+initials which most critics say are not his, nor have they ever appeared
+in the genuine canon. In 1591 a poem by Spenser was published containing
+these lines:
+
+    “And he, the man whom Nature’s self has made
+     To mock herself and truth to imitate,
+
+With kindly counter under mimic shade:
+
+    “Our pleasant Willy, ah, is dead of late:
+        With whom all joy and jolly merriment
+        Is also deaded and in dolor drent.”
+
+[20]
+
+From 1590 until Shakspere retired from the stage, how could it be said
+that he was “poor,” bewailing his “outcast state” and “cursing his
+fate?” But it is certain that Bacon’s condition answered precisely to
+that description up to November, 1594, when Essex gave him an estate
+worth £1,800; aye, even until 1604, when King James granted him a
+pension of £60; if not even up to 1607.
+
+Mark now the modesty of the poet in 1590:
+
+    “If thou survive my well contented day,
+         When that churl Death with bones my dust shall cover,
+         And shalt by fortune once more resurvey
+         These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
+         Compare them with the bettering of the time,
+         And though they be outstripp’d by every pen,
+         Reserve them for thy love, not for their rhyme,
+         Exceeded by the height of happier men.”
+
+    “My name be buried Where my body is,
+         and live no more to shame nor me nor you,
+         for I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
+         and so should you, to love things nothing worth.”
+
+We have already quoted a verse from Spenser in praise of “Willy,” first
+published in 1591; we now adduce a passage from one of “Willy” Bacon’s
+poems first published in 1599 in praise of Spenser:
+
+    “Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
+    Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
+
+    Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such
+    As, passing all conceit, needs no defense.”
+
+This verse is in “The Passionate Pilgrim,” the first two numbers of
+which are Sonnets 138 and 144 with slight variations. John Dowland, a
+musician, was born
+
+[21]
+
+in 1562 and died 1625. Spenser was eight years older than Bacon.
+
+But coupled with this modesty of the author of the “Sonnets,” note how
+he praises his friend and how famous that friend appears at the time:
+
+            “Oh, how I faint when I of you do write,
+    Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
+            And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
+    To make me tongue−tied, speaking of your fame.
+
+    But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
+    The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
+            My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
+    On your broad main doth wilfully appear;
+    Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
+    Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
+            Or being wrecked, I am a worthless boat,
+    He of tall building and of goodly pride;
+            Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
+    The worst was this: my love was my decay.”
+
+The other superior (?) poet referred to is undoubtedly Spenser, among
+whose “Sonnets, addressed by the author to his friends and patrons,” in
+January, 1590, is one “To the most honorable and excellent Lord the Earl
+of Essex, great master of the horse to her highness, and knight of the
+noble order of the garter, etc.” Essex became master of the horse in
+1587, and knight of the garter in 1588.
+
+We proceed with the quotations from the Shaksperian Sonnets:
+
+                 “Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
+            Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
+            From hence your memory death cannot take,
+            Although in me each part will be forgotten.
+
+                    Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
+            Though, I once gone, to all the world must die;
+            The earth can yield me but a common grave,
+            When you entombed in men’s eyes shall lie.
+
+    [22]
+
+            Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
+                  Which eyes not yet created shall o’er−read,
+             And tongues to be your being shall rehearse
+                 When all the breathers of this world are dead;
+            You shall still live—such virtue hath my pen—
+             Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
+
+From Sonnet 42 it appears that the young Earl had won the heart of the
+widow Sidney:
+
+    “That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
+         And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
+         That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,
+         A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
+
+        Loving offenders! thus I will excuse ye:
+        Thou dost love her, because thou know’st I love her,
+        And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
+        Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.
+
+         If I lose thee, my loss is my love’s gain,
+         And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;
+         Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
+         And both for my sake lay me on this cross:
+         But here’s the joy: my friend and I are one;
+         Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.”
+
+The second part of the “Sonnets,” after 126, is addressed to the Earl’s
+bethrothed; we quote Sonnet 134:
+
+    “So now I have confessed that he is thine.
+              And I myself am mortgaged to thy will,
+              Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine
+              Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still;
+              But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
+              For thou art covetous and he is kind;
+              He learned but surety−like to write for me,
+              Under that bond that him as fast doth bind,
+              The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
+              Thou usurer that put’st forth all to use,
+              And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;
+              So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
+
+     Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me,
+              He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.”
+
+[23]
+
+Incidentally it may be noted how familiar the writer of the above lines
+must have been with the practice of law. Shakspere’s legal knowledge has
+amazed the lawyers.
+
+The next Sonnet introduces the name of “Will,” and puns upon it
+profusely:
+
+    “Whoever hath her wish thou hast thy Will,
+    And Will to boot, and Will in overplus;
+    More than enough am I that vex thee still,
+    To thy sweet will making addition thus,
+    Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious,
+    Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
+
+            Shall will in others seem right gracious,
+    And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
+    The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,
+    And in abundance addeth to his store:
+
+    So thou being rich in Will add to thy Will
+    One will of mine, to make thy large Will more.
+
+            Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;
+    Think all but one, and me in that one Will.”
+
+How preposterous to believe that a common-place play actor, with a wife
+and children, addressed such sentiments to the bride of his dearest
+friend! At no time do the sentiments or circumstances of the poem fit
+the person of the actor, of whom the dying and dissipated playwright,
+Greene, wrote in 1592:
+
+“There is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers that with his
+Tygers heart, wrapt in a player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to
+bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute
+Johannes factotum, is, in his owne conceyt, the onely Shake-scene in a
+countne.”
+
+But, on the other hand, frequent evidence appears that Bacon, up to the
+time he was made Attorney-General in 1613, was constantly engaged in
+secret literary work. But not so secret as to be unknown
+
+[24]
+
+to a circle of friends and perchance a few enemies; for, in 1599, when
+he interceded with the Queen for his dear friend Essex, then under
+arrest on account of a treasonable pamphlet being dedicated to him, her
+Majesty flung at Bacon “a matter which grew from him, but went after
+about in others’ names,” being in fact the play of “Richard II,” which,
+in that and the preceding year, had a great run on the stage, and had
+gone through two editions, but, for prudential reasons, with the scene
+containing the deposition of the king left out.
+
+But even in the “Sonnets” the fact appears that the author has been
+writing for the stage:
+
+    “Alas, ’tis true I have gone here and there,
+         And made myself a motley to the view,
+         Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
+         Made old offenses of affections new;
+         Most true it is that I have looked on truth
+         Askance and strangely; but by all above,
+         These blenches gave my heart another youth,
+         And worse essays proved thee my best of love.”
+
+    “O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
+         The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
+         That did not better for my life provide
+         Than public means which public manners breeds.
+         Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
+         And almost thence my nature is subdued
+         To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:
+         Pity me then and wish I were renewed.”
+
+Here is not only a private confession of being compelled to produce
+plays for subsistence, but a sorrowful acknowledgment that thereby his
+“name receives a brand.”
+
+Yet it must not be supposed that Bacon was publicly known at any time as
+a play writer. His first
+
+[25]
+
+publication, the “Essays,” was in 1597, and Shakspere’s name first
+appeared on the title page of a Play in 1598, by which time nearly half
+of the Plays had been written or sketched, and six had been printed, all
+without the author’s name. And when the first collection was published
+in the “Folio” of 1623, (seven years after Shakspere’s death,) it
+included some Plays never before heard of, and eighteen never before
+printed.
+
+Lord Coke, who was Bacon’s most jealous rival and adversary, seems never
+to have suspected him of play writing. Nor did the watchful Puritanic
+mother of the two bachelors of Gray’s Inn ever dream that her studious
+younger son was engaged in such sinful work.
+
+In Sonnet 76 the writer deplores his want of variety of style, and fears
+that this fault will almost disclose his secret authorship:
+
+     “Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
+       So far from variation or quick change?
+    Why with the time do I not glance aside,
+      To new−found methods and to compounds strange?
+    Why write I still all one, ever the same,
+       And keep invention in a noted weed,
+    That every word doth almost tell my name,
+       Showing their birth and where they did proceed?”
+
+Bacon having begun to produce plays for Shakspere’s theater before 1590,
+the authorship of which was afterward assumed by the actor and
+proprietor, it became necessary also to avoid being publicly known as a
+writer of sonnets. Therefore, in view of the circulation and ultimate
+publication of this poem, he facetiously disguised the identity of the
+writer by calling himself “Will.” Three years later he dedicated a
+
+[26]
+
+published poem to his young friend Southampton under the name of
+“William Shakespeare,” and again another in 1594. But the “Sonnets” were
+not published until 1609, when Essex had been dead eight years, and his
+widow had been married six years to a third husband. It would never do
+for the Solicitor-General to be known as the author of such a poem; so
+when it came out in print it was dedicated to “Mr. W. H.” by “T. T.,”
+and no one until a few years ago ever seems to have suspected that Bacon
+wrote the poem, nor, so far as we are aware, has any one ever suspected
+until July 31, 1883, that “W. H.” was the accomplished and famous Earl
+of Essex.
+
+The young widow Sidney was the only daughter of the Queen’s principal
+secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham, for whom Bacon drafted an important
+state paper in 1588 on the conduct of the government toward Papists and
+Dissenters. And that Bacon was intimate with the Secretary’s daughter,
+aye, even one of her lovers, appears from many of the Sonnets addressed
+to her. He describes her playing on the harpsichord, envies the keys
+“that nimbly leap to kiss her hand,” and says:
+
+    “Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
+    Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.”
+
+And from other passages it is quite evident that he had often kissed
+her.
+
+No fact has been found incompatible with Bacon’s authorship of the
+“Sonnets.” The following line might seem to indicate a writer past the
+age of 29:
+
+    “Although she knows my days are past the best.”
+
+But in 1599, when Shakspere was only 35, this very verse was published
+as his in the “Passionate Pilgrim,” where Sonnet 138 appears as number
+one.
+
+[27]
+
+But again, we have a letter written in 1592 by Bacon to his uncle, Lord
+Treasurer Burleigh, in which he says:
+
+“I wax somewhat ancient; one and thirty years is a great deal of sand in
+the hour-glass.”
+
+At the age of 31 he thinks himself “somewhat ancient” two years earlier
+he apprehends that forty winters will entirely deface the youthful
+Earl’s beauty; and to the lovely young widow he says: “My days are past
+the best.”
+
+This misconception therefore, whether pretended or real, becomes a
+strong proof of Bacon’s authorship.
+
+It has been boldly alleged by some that Bacon was no poet. Such,
+however, was not the judgment of his biographer, the late James
+Spedding. Before he could have heard it claimed that Shakspere did not
+write the plays he said that Bacon might have taken the highest rank as
+a poet. And that judgment was based upon the versification of a few
+Psalms by the old man on a sick bed. Since 1867 the substantial proofs
+of Bacon’s secret authorship have been adduced. Aside from innumerable
+parallels in the works of Bacon and Shakspere there is much external
+evidence. For example:
+
+We know that Bacon wrote Sonnets to Queen Elizabeth and excused himself
+by saying: “I profess not to be a poet.”
+
+We know that he composed Masques anonymously before Shakspere’s name
+appeared as a play writer, and that those Masques were essentially
+poetical compositions, in the nature of plays, and sometimes contained
+verses in rhyme equal in merit to the average of Shakspere’s.
+
+[28]
+
+In one of those Masques a speaker is made to say: “The monuments of wit
+survive the monuments of power; the verses of the poet endure without a
+syllable lost, while states and empires pass many periods.” Two years
+later, in 1596, the composer of that speech, writing to Sir Fulke
+Greville on his studies, said: “For poets I can commend none, being
+resolved to be ever a stranger to them.” Greville (1554-1628) was a
+poet, and wrote the life of Sir Philip Sidney.
+
+In 1603 Bacon wrote a private letter to the poet John Davies, begging
+him to speak a good word for the writer to the incoming King James I.,
+and closing with these words: “So, desiring you to be good to _concealed
+poets_, I continue.”
+
+Bacon’s most intimate friend, Toby Matthew, in a letter with cancelled
+date, but as late as 1605, acknowledged the receipt of some work by
+Bacon, and added this postscript:
+
+“I will not return you weight for weight, but _Measure for Measure_.”
+
+“Mesur for Mesur,” by “Shaxberd,” was played before King James, at
+Whitehall, December 26, 1604.
+
+Again, about the time of the publication of the Shakespere Folio, 1623,
+Matthew acknowledged in a letter without date, the receipt of a “great
+and noble favor,” and added the following:
+
+“P. S.—The most prodigious wit that ever I knew, of my nation and of
+this side of the sea, is of your Lordship’s name, though he be known by
+another.”
+
+
+
+
+BACON IDENTIFIED AS THE CONCEALED POET IGNOTO
+
+
+Spenser’s “Faery Queen” was begun in 1582, and published in 1590. The
+Dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh is dated 23 January, 1589 (i. e.,
+1590.) Raleigh in return praised the poem in two Sonnets. These,
+together with five other versified encomiums by “Hobynoll” (Gabriel
+Harvey,) “R. S.,” “H. B.,” “W. L.,” and “Ignoto,” are prefixed to
+Spenser’s work.
+
+In 1599 “The Passionate Pilgrim,” a collection of twenty-one sonnets,
+songs, etc., was published with the name of W. Shakspere on the title
+page. The authorship of several of the pieces is disputed.
+
+In regard to No. xviii. “My flocks feed not,” Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps,
+says:
+
+“There is a somewhat brief version of this song in the collection of
+Madrigals, etc., by Thomas Weelkes 1597, this person being the composer
+of the music, but not necessarily the author of the words. A copy of it
+as it is seen in the Passionate Pilgrim also occurs in England’s
+Helicon, 1600, entitled ‘The Unknowne Sheepheards Complaint,’ and is
+there subscribed _Ignoto._”
+
+Again, in regard to No. xx, “Live with me and be my love,” the same
+author, says:
+
+“The first of these very pretty songs is incomplete, and the second,
+called ‘Love’s answer,’ still more so. In England’s Helicon, 1600, the
+former is given to Marlowe, the latter to _Ignoto_; and there is good
+reason to believe that Christopher
+
+[30]
+
+Marlowe wrote the song, and Sir Walter Raleigh the nymph’s reply; for so
+we are positively assured by Isaac Walton, who has inserted them both in
+his Complete Angler under the character of ‘that smooth song which was
+made by Kit Marlowe, now at least fifty years ago; and an answer to it
+which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days:—old fashioned
+poetry but choicely good.’ Both these songs were exceedingly popular and
+are afterwards found in the street ballads. The first is quoted in the
+Merry Wives of Windsor.”
+
+Again, in regard to No. xxi, “As it fell upon a day,” Mr.
+Halliwell-Phillipps, says:
+
+“This charming idyl occurs, with the absence of two lines, amongst the
+Poems in Divers Humours appended to Bamfield’s Encomion of Lady Pecunia,
+in 1598, and the first twenty-six lines with the addition of two new
+ones are found in England’s Helicon, 1600. This latter version follows
+in that work No. xviii of this list, [“My flocks feed not,”] is also
+subscribed _Ignoto_, and is headed: ‘Another of the same Sheepheards.’
+The probability is that the copies of these little poems, as given in
+the Helicon, were taken from a Common Place book in which the names of
+the authors were not recorded; the two supplementary lines just noticed
+having the appearance of being an unauthorized couplet improvised for
+the sake of giving a neater finish to the abridgment.”
+
+We will now reproduce the aforesaid poems from “England’s Helicon,”
+second edition, 1614. A brief version of the first song, No. xviii of
+“The Passionate Pilgrim,” says Halliwell-Phillipps, appeared in 1597:
+
+             *The unknown Shepherd's Complaint.*
+
+
+              My flocks feed not, my ewes breed not,
+              My rams speed not, all is amiss;
+            Love is denying, Faith is defying;
+              Hearts ren[e]ging, causer of this.
+
+            All my merry jigs are quite forgot,
+              And my lady’s love is lost, God wot:
+            Where her faith was firmly fixed in love,
+              There a nay is placed without remove.
+
+    [31]
+
+           One silly cross wrought all my loss;
+           O frowning fortune, cursed fickle Dame,
+           For now I see, inconstancy
+           More in women than in men remain.
+
+           In black mourn I, all fears scorn I,
+               Love hath forlorn me, living in thrall;
+           Heart is bleeding, all help needing,
+              O cruel speeding, fraughted with gall.
+
+           My shepherd’s pipe can sound no deal,
+               My wether’s bell rings doleful knell.
+           My curtail dog that wont to have played,
+               Plays not at all, but seems afraid.
+
+           With sighs so deep, procure to weep,
+           In howling−wise to see my doleful plight,
+           How sighs resound, through heartless ground,
+           Like a thousand vanquished men in bloody fight.
+
+           Clear wells spring not, sweet birds sing not,
+               Green plants bring not forth their dye;
+           Herds stand weeping—flocks all sleeping,
+              Nymphs back peeping fearfully.
+
+           All our pleasures known to us poor swains,
+              All our merry meeting on the plains,
+           All our evening sports from us are fled,
+               All our love is lost, for love is dead.
+
+           Farewell sweet lass, thy like ne’er was,
+           For sweet content, the cause of all my moan:
+           Poor Corydon must live alone,
+           Other help for him, I see that there is none.
+
+           Finis                         Ignoto
+
+The variations from the version of 1599 are few, the only important one
+being “ren[e]ging” for “renying.” The latter has no meaning; _the former
+is used twice in the plays._
+
+The only question in regard to the authorship of this poem is, whether
+Shakspere or “Ignoto” wrote it.
+
+The next poem printed in the “Helicon” is a part of No.xxi of the
+“Passionate Pilgrim.”:
+
+    [32]
+
+               Another of the Same Shepherds.
+
+                As it fell upon a day
+                  In the merry month of May,
+                Sitting in a pleasant shade
+                  Which a grove of myrtles made;
+                Beasts did leap, and birds did sing,
+               Trees did grow and plants did spring;
+               Everything did banish moan,
+                Save the nightingale alone.
+
+                She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
+                Lean’d her breast against a thorn;
+                And there sung the dolefull’st ditty,
+                That to hear it was great pity.
+
+                Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry;
+                Teru, teru! by and by;
+               That to hear her so complain
+                 Scarce I could from tears refrain;
+                For her griefs, so lively shown,
+              Made me think upon mine own.
+
+                Ah! thought I, thou mourn’st in vain!
+                None takes pity on thy pain:
+              Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee,
+                Ruthless beasts they will not cheer thee:
+                King Pandion he is dead;
+              All thy friends are lapp’d in lead;
+                All thy fellow birds do sing,
+                Careless of thy sorrowing!
+                Even so, poor bird, like thee,
+                None alive will pity me.
+
+                Finis.          Ignoto.
+
+The last two lines, Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps says, are new ones added to
+the first twenty-six in “The Passionate Pilgrim.” Our own edition of the
+latter has those two lines, and the only variation is in the tenth
+line—“up-till” for “against.” There are thirty lines more in our
+edition. But we have another version of the whole, omitting the
+aforesaid two lines and a subsequent couplet. This version, curiously
+enough, is
+
+[33]
+
+Leaded “Address to the Nightingale,” and is credited to Richard
+Barnfield, “about 1610.” (Encyc. of Poetry No. 121.) In 1598 it is said
+that the first twenty-six lines of this idyl appeared in an appendix to
+Barnfield’s “Encomium in 1599 it reappeared enlarged to twice the length
+and was credited to Shakspere; in 1600 the first twenty-eight lines were
+republished in “England’s Helicon” and subscribed “Ignoto.”
+
+We now transcribe from the “Helicon,” No. xx of “The Passionate Pilgrim”
+much amended and enlarged:
+
+           The Passionate Shepherd to his love.
+             Come live with me, and be my love,
+           And we will all the pleasures prove,
+            That valleys, groves, [and] hills and fields,
+              Woods, or steeple mountains yields.(1)
+
+       (1) The grammar of this verse is shocking both here and in
+       the version of 1599. And there are considerable variations
+       in the two versions. In that of 1599 the first word “Come”
+       is omitted, without which the song could hardly be sung.
+       Other slight defects of measure appear in both. But the
+       editor of Marlowe’s Works has carefully corrected the
+       grammar and the measure.
+
+            And we will sit upon the rocks,
+           Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
+           By shallow rivers, to whose falls
+             Melodious birds sing madrigals.
+
+           And I will make thee beds of roses,
+           And a thousand fragrant posies,
+            A cap of flowers and a kirtle
+              Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.
+
+           A gown made of the finest wool,
+           Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
+            Fair lined slippers for the cold,
+           With buckles of the purest gold:
+           A belt of straw, and ivy buds
+             With coral clasps and amber studs.
+
+    [34]
+
+          And if these pleasures may thee move,
+          Come live with me and be my love.
+          The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
+            For thy delights each May−morning;
+          If these delights thy mind may move,
+          Then live with me and be my love.
+
+          Finis.           Chr. Marlowe.
+
+Here we have Marlowe credited with this song in 1600, seven years after
+his death. Is there any other evidence that he wrote it? A single line
+at the close of a ditty in his “Jew of Malta” parallels with the first
+line of this, except the first word:
+
+    “Shall live with me and be my love.”
+
+The song, with many verbal amendments, and omitting the last stanza, is
+inserted in his “Works,” 1826.
+
+In the “Merry Wives of Windsor” act iii, scene ly Sir Hugh Evans sings
+the following four lines:
+
+     “To shallow rivers, to whose falls
+       Melodious birds sing madrigals;
+    There we will make our peds of roses,
+    And a thousand fragrant posies.”
+
+This play was written in the latter part of 1599. In the earliest form
+of it Sir Hugh transposes and varies the lines thus:
+
+    “And then she made him beds of roses,
+    And a thousand fragrant posies.”
+
+Then after three lines of incoherent speech:
+
+    “To shallow rivers, and to falls
+      Melodious birds sing madrigals.”
+
+It would seem as if the song was familiar to the public in 1599 We now
+add from the “Helicon” the rest of No. xx of “The Passionate Pilgrim,”
+enlarged from one stanza to six:
+
+    [35]
+
+          The Nymph's reply to the Shepherd.
+          If all the world and love were young,
+          And truth in every shepherd’s tongue,
+          These pretty pleasures might me move,
+           To live with thee, and be thy love.
+
+           Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
+          When rivers rage, and rocks grow cold;
+          And Philomel becometh dumb;
+          The rest complain of cares to come.
+
+          The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
+            To wayward Winter reckoning yields;
+           A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
+           Is fancy’s Spring, but sorrow’s fall.
+
+          Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
+           Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
+          Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,
+           In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
+
+          Thy belt of straw, and ivy buds,
+          Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
+          All these in me no means can move,
+          To come to thee and be thy love.
+
+           But could youth last, and love still breed,
+          Had joys no date, nor age no need,
+          Then these delights my mind might move,
+           To live with thee and be thy love.
+
+           Finis.                   Ignoto.
+
+The editor of the third edition of the “Helicon” 1812, says in regard to
+“Ignoto:”
+
+“This signature appears to have been generally, though not exclusively,
+subscribed to the pieces of Sir Walter Raleigh. It is also subscribed to
+one piece since appropriated to Shakspere, [No. xviii,] and to one
+Which, according to Ellis, belongs to Richard Barnfield [No. xxi.] The
+celebrated answer to Marlowe’s, ’Come live with me,’ here subscribed
+_Ignoto_, is given expressly to Raleigh by Isaac Walton in his ‘Complete
+Angler,’ first published in 1653.”
+
+[36]
+
+What could Walton know about it fifty years after the publication of the
+song and answer as above? On such worthless testimony the Nymph’s Answer
+is credited to Raleigh. And we have in the “Encyclopedia of Poetry,”
+1873, first the song by Marlowe, “_about_ 1590,” and then the Nymph’s
+Reply by Raleigh “_about_ 1610.” Strange that the Nymph should wait
+_about_ twenty years to reply, and should then repeat the lines credited
+to Shakspere in 1599 and to “Ignoto” in 1600! The song perhaps existed
+before the death of Marlowe in 1593, but was probably composed by
+“Ignoto,” who also wrote “The Nymph’s Reply” and numerous other poetical
+pieces that were published in the “Helicon” in 1600.
+
+“Ignoto” was undoubtedly a concealed poet. Marlowe, Raleigh and
+Barnfield were not. As early as January 1590, if not a little sooner,
+“Ignoto” contributed to Spenser’s first publication of the “Faery Queen”
+the following lines:
+
+        “To look upon a work of rare devise
+           The which a workman setteth out to view,
+            And not to yield it the deserved prize
+              That unto such a workmanship is due,
+           Doth either prove the judgment to be naught,
+           Or else doth show a mind with envy fraught.
+
+        “To labor to commend a piece of work
+           Which no man goes about to discommend,
+            Would raise a jealous doubt that there did lurk
+              Some secret doubt whereto the praise did tend:
+           For when men know the goodness of the wine
+             ’Tis needless for the host to have a sign.
+
+        “Thus then, to show my judgment to be such
+          As can discern of colors black and white,
+           As als to free my mind from envy’s touch,
+            That never gives to any man his right:
+       I here pronounce this workmanship is such
+         As that no pen can set it forth too much.
+
+    [37]
+
+       “And thus I hang a garland at the door;
+       Not for to show the goodness of the ware;
+       But such hath been the custom heretofore,
+       And customs very hardly broken are;
+        And when your taste shall tell you this is true,
+       Then look you give your host his utmost due.”
+
+In No. viii of “The Passionate Pilgrim” the writer says:
+
+    “Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
+      Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
+
+    Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such
+      As, passing all conceit, needs no defense.”
+
+Is not this praise of Spenser a substantial repetition of the sentiments
+expressed by “Ignoto”?
+
+Again, in Shakspere’s Sonnet lxxx we read:
+
+    “O how I faint when I of you do write,
+        Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
+    And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
+        To make me tongue−tied, speaking of your fame!”
+
+Spenser praises Essex in one of the Sonnets prefixed to his “Faery
+Queen,” which antedates the Sonnets of Shakspere.
+
+Once more. In No. xviii of “The Passionate Pilgrim” we read:
+
+    “Poor Corydon must live alone,
+    Other help for him I see that there is none.”
+
+Compare this with the following lines from Spenser’s “Colin Clout,”
+dedicated to Sir Walter Raleigh, December 27, 1591, and published in
+1595:
+
+    “And there is Corydon, though meanly waged,
+        Yet ablest wit of most I know this day.”
+
+Was not Bacon the ablest wit of that time? Was
+
+[38]
+
+he not a concealed poet? Was he not “Corydon”? Was he not “Ignoto”?
+
+But what evidence is there that Raleigh used that signature? The “Faery
+Queen” was publicly dedicated to him, and in the Sonnet addressed to him
+as one of Spenser’s patrons, a forthcoming poem by Raleigh is announced
+thus:
+
+     “Yet, till that thou thy poem wilt make known,
+    Let thy fair Cynthia’s praises be thus rudely shown.”
+
+That poem was known to Spenser, who in the Dedication said he had
+fashioned his Queen “according to your [Raleigh’s] own excellent conceit
+of Cynthia,” i. e., Queen Elizabeth.
+
+Furthermore, Raleigh contributed two Sonnets in praise of Spenser’s
+“Faery Queen;” these he subscribed with his own initials. Did he at the
+same time write another encomium and sign it “Ignoto”?
+
+There are sixteen pieces in the “Helicon” subscribed “Ignoto.” One of
+these, “The Nymph’s Reply” is ascribed to Raleigh on the testimony of
+Walton in 1653; and two others are believed by the editor of the third
+edition, 1812, to belong to Raleigh, because in an early copy of the
+same “Ignoto” was found pasted over “W. R.” Upon such flimsy evidence
+the modern editor infers that the signature “Ignoto” was “generally,
+_though not exclusively_, (his own italics,) subscribed to the pieces of
+Sir Walter Raleigh.”
+
+The next piece after “The Nymph’s Reply” in the “Helicon” is the
+following by “Ignoto”:
+
+             Another of the same nature made since.
+             Come live with me and be my dear,
+             And we will revel all the year,
+             In plains and groves, on hills and dales,
+             Where fragrant air breeds sweetest gates.
+
+
+             There shall you have the beauteous pine,
+             The cedar, and the spreading vine;
+             And all the woods to be a screen,
+             Lest Phoebus kiss my summer queen.
+
+             The seat for your disport shall be
+             Over some river in a tree;
+             Where silver sands and pebbles sing
+             Eternal ditties with the Spring.
+
+             There shall you see the nymphs at play,
+             And how the Satyrs spend the day;
+             The fishes gliding on the sands,
+             Offering their bellies to your hands.
+
+             The birds, with heavenly tuned throats,
+             Possess woods’ echoes with sweet notes;
+             Which to your senses will impart
+             A music to inflame the heart.
+
+             Upon the bare and leafless oak
+             The ring−dove’s wooings will provoke
+             A colder blood than you possess,
+             To play with me and do no less.
+
+             In bowers of laurel trimly dight,
+             We will outwear the silent night,
+             While Flora busy is to spread
+             Her richest treasure on our bed.
+
+             Ten thousand glow−worms shall attend,
+             And all their sparkling lights shall spend.
+             All to adorn and beautify
+             Your lodging with most majesty.
+
+             Then in mine arms will I enclose
+             Lily’s fair mixture with the rose;
+             Whose nice perfections in love’s play,
+             Shall tune to me the highest key.
+
+             Thus as we pass the welcome night
+             In sportful pleasures and delight,
+             The nimble fairies on the grounds
+             Shall dance and sing melodious sounds.
+
+    [40]
+
+             If these may serve for to entice
+             Your presence to Love’s paradise,
+             Then come with me and be my dear,
+             And we will straight begin the year.
+
+             Finis.                 Ignoto.
+
+Who will say that this is not equal to the first song ascribed to
+Marlowe? What couplet in that surpasses this one?:
+
+    “Where silver sands and pebbles sing
+      Eternal ditties with the Spring.”
+
+Or this?:
+
+    “Ten thousand glow−worms shall attend.
+     And all their sparkling lights shall spend.”
+
+For parallels with the first of these couplets take the following:
+
+    “Silver stream.” Much Ado, iii, 1.
+
+    “Sing no more ditties.” Ibid, ii, 1.
+
+    “Silver currents.” K. John, ii, 1.
+
+    “The murmuring surge
+    That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes.”
+
+                                     Ibid, iv, 6.
+
+For a single parallel with the second couplet take this:
+
+    “Twenty glow−worms shall our lanterns be.”
+
+                          M. W. Windsor, v, 5.
+
+Similar parallels may be found with other lines of the song. Now are we
+to believe that Marlowe wrote the first song, and Raleigh the other two
+signed “Ignoto”? Is it not far more rational and consistent to believe
+that all three were written by the same pen?
+
+Again, Barnfield has two pieces in the “Helicon,” and the editor
+ascribes to him another signed “Ignoto”—No. xxi, “As it fell upon a
+day”—while Allibone, in his Dictionary of Authors, makes him the
+
+[41]
+
+author not only of xxi, but of xx—“Come live with me and be my love”—and
+says that Raleigh’s authorship of “The Nymph’s Reply” is questioned.
+
+Thus Marlowe is robbed of the only piece ascribed to him in the
+“Helicon,” and Raleigh is left out of it entirely, unless he wrote some
+other poem signed “Ignoto.”
+
+And by the way, poor neglected Shakspere has but a single specimen
+there—“On a day, alack a day”— taken from “Love’s Labor Lost.”
+
+But the confusion about “Ignoto” is still more confounded. On page 112
+of the “Helicon” is a song entitled “The Shepherd’s Dump,” subscribed
+“S. E. D.,” supposed to mean Sir Edward Dyer, and on page 224 the same
+identical song reappears entitled “Thirsis, the Shepherd, to his pipe,”
+and signed “Ignoto.” The editor of 1812 supposes it was reprinted to
+make a few corrections in the last stanza; but as the verbal variations
+in that stanza make it positively worse, it is more likely that the
+compiler did not notice the repetition, but inadvertently put both in as
+he found them.
+
+But even this is not all. In Ellis’s “Specimens of the early English
+Poets,” 5th edition, 1845, among the pieces credited to Fulke Greville
+(Lord Brooke) is a “Song,” with these words in brackets:
+
+“To be found in ‘England’s Helicon,’ where it is signed Ignoto.”
+
+On turning to the edition of 1614 we find that song entitled “Another,
+of his Cynthia.” It is preceded by two, evidently by the same pen,
+entitled, “To his Flocks,” and “To his Love” and is followed by still
+“Another to his Cynthia.” But all these are anonymous
+
+[42]
+
+in the edition of 1614, and the editor appends to the last one the
+following remark:
+
+“These three [or four?] ditties were taken out of Maister John Dowland’s
+Book of Tableture for the Lute. The authors’ names not there set down,
+and therefore left to their owners.”
+
+But it happens that the four ditties are all credited to “Ignoto” in the
+Table of Contents, prepared by the _other editor_, so that in the
+edition of 1614 “Ignoto” has twenty pieces, besides the one assigned to
+Marlowe.
+
+With all this confusion what are we to believe in regard to “Ignoto”?
+Was he sometimes Raleigh, sometimes Barnfield, sometimes Dyer, sometimes
+Greville,
+
+and sometimes Shakspere, or some one else? Or was he a single person who
+“loved better to be a poet than to be counted so” and who affected to
+hoodwink the above-named Greville by writing to him in 1596: “For poets
+I can commend none, being resolved to be ever a stranger to them”?
+
+And here let us note a bit of internal evidence that Bacon wrote the
+little poem in praise of the “Faery Queen” signed “Ignoto.” One couplet
+of it is as follows:
+
+    “For when men know the goodness of the wine,
+    ’Tis needless for the host to have a sign.”
+
+No. 517 of Bacon’s “Promus of Formularies and Elegancies” is this:
+
+    “Good wine needs no bush.”
+
+The word “bush” as applied to wine is thus defined by Webster:
+
+“branch of ivy (as sacred to Bacchus) hung out at vintners’ doors, or as
+a tavern sign; hence a tavern sign, or the tavern itself.”
+
+“‘If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play
+needs no epilogue.’”  Shak.[As You Like It.]
+
+We leave the reader to put this and that together argument or comment is
+superfluous.
+
+
+
+
+[43]
+
+
+
+
+AS THE CONCEALED POET IGNOTO
+
+
+And now what shall we say in regard to Marlowe’s ostensible authorship
+of a popular song, which was attributed to Shakspere in 1599? Is it not
+presumable that “Ignoto,” who wrote the “Nymph’s Reply,” and followed it
+with “Another of the same nature made since” in imitation of the song
+subscribed “Chr. Marlowe”—is it not probable that “Ignoto” ascribed his
+own original song to Marlowe?
+
+Marlowe was buried June 1, 1593. In the same year Shakspere’s name first
+appeared in print as an author. And now among the startling revelations
+hitherto hidden in the Folio of 1623, but made known through Bacon’s
+cipher discovered by the Hon. Ignatius Donnelly, is this sentence:
+
+“Ever since Marlowe was killed Shakspere has been my mask.”
+
+Another Poem by Bacon in 1590.
+
+The 33d anniversary of Elizabeth’s coronation was celebrated November
+17, 1590. Sir Henry Lea, the Queen’s champion and master of the armory,
+who had conducted the exercises from the beginning, appeared for the
+last time, and, after the customary performances, resigned his office to
+the Earl of Cumberland, whereupon the celebrated vocalist, Mr. Hales, a
+servant of her Majesty, pronounced and sung the following verses,
+personating the aged man-at-arms:
+
+     “My golden locks hath time to silver turned,
+       (O Time too swift, and swiftness never ceasing!)
+    My youth ’gainst age, and age at youth hath spurned,
+       But spurned in vain; youth waneth, by increasing.
+    Beauty and strength, and youth flowers fading been,
+     Duty, faith, love, are roots and ever green.
+
+    “My helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
+       And lovers’ songs shall turn to holy psalms;
+    A man−at−arms must now stand on his knees,
+       And feed on prayers that are old age’s alms.
+
+     And so from court to cottage I depart;
+    My saint is sure of my unspotted heart.
+     “And when I sadly sit in lonely cell,
+       I’ll teach my swains this carol for a song:
+      ‘Blest be the hearts that wish my Sovereign well,
+       Curst be the souls that think to do her wrong.’
+
+    Goddess! vouchsafe this aged man his right,
+    To be your beadsman now that Was your knight.”
+
+Parallels are found in Bacon and Shakspere with almost every sentiment
+and expression in these lines. (See Mrs. Pott’s “Promus,” p. 528.)
+
+The verses were published anonymously in Dowland’s “First Book of
+Songs,” 1600, and again in 1844; both times with the pronouns changed
+from the first to the third person—e. g., “His golden locks,” etc. In
+the “Works of George Peele,” 1828, they are credited to that poet, but
+the only evidence adduced of his authorship is the fact that he, as an
+eye-witness, wrote a poetic description of the celebration in 1590. Mrs.
+Pott is doubtless right in claiming for Bacon the authorship, and is
+only mistaken in supposing that the person to whom the verses were
+intended to apply was Lord Burleigh, who about that time, on account of
+the loss of his wife, had temporarily withdrawn from court.
+
+
+
+
+BACON AND SHAKSPERE A CHRONOGRAPH
+
+
+1. If the Parliament met November 23, 1584, as Mr. Spedding distinctly
+says, then Bacon was not yet twenty-four.
+
+An ideal tableau of the youthful statesman is gaily depicted by Wm.
+Hepworth Dixon, in his “Personal History of Lord Bacon:”
+
+“How he appears in outward guise and aspect among these courtly and
+martial contemporaries the miniature of Hilyard helps us to conceive.
+Slight in build, rosy and round in fleshy dight in a sumptuous suit, the
+head well-set, erect, and framed in a thick starched fence of frill; a
+bloom of study and travel on the fat, girlish face, which looks far
+younger than his years; the hat and feather tossed aside from the white
+brow, over which, crisps and curls a mane of dark, soft hair; an English
+nose, firm, open, straight; a mouth delicate and small—a lady’s or
+jester’s mouth—a thousand pranks and humors, quibbles, whims and
+laughters lurking in its twinkling, tremulous lines;—such is Francis
+Bacon at the age of twenty-four.”
+
+Bearing in mind that Bacon is three years and three months older than
+Shakspere, we will now parallel their lives by successive years.
+
+
+
+
+[47]
+
+
+
+
+A CHRONOGRAPHIC PARALLEL
+
+
+  A. D. 1585.
+Bacon at 24, in a letter to the Queen’s principal secretary, Sir Francis
+Walsingham, urges his some time pending suit, which is to determine his
+“course of practice”—supposed to mean a shortening of the five years’
+probation required to become a pleader.
+
+He writes an essay entitled “Greatest Birth of Time,” foreshadowing his
+scientific works.
+
+His mother in her zeal for the Nonconformists urges their cause in
+person before Lord Treasurer Burleigh, and follows it by a letter to the
+same in which she says:
+
+“I confess as one that hath found mercy, that I have profited more in
+the inward feeling knowledge of God his holy will, though but in small
+measure, by an ordinary preaching within these seven or eight years,
+than I did by hearing odd sermons at Paul’s well nigh twenty years
+together.”
+
+Shakspere at 21 is still living at Stratford, the father of three
+children—two of them twins. His father is said to have been a butcher as
+well as a dealer in wool; and gossiping John Aubrey says he was told by
+some of the neighbors that when the boy William “kill’d a calfe, he wold
+doe it in a high style, and make a speeche.”
+
+Mr. Richard Grant White guesses that William may have gone to London
+this year or the next.
+
+[48]
+
+  A. D. 1586.
+Bacon at 25 writes a letter, May 6th, to Lord Treasurer Burleigh, his
+uncle, saying:
+
+“I find in my simple observation that they which live as it were _in
+umbra_ and not in public or frequent action, how moderately and modestly
+soever they behave themselves, yet _laborant inmdia_. I find also that
+such persons as are of nature bashful (as myself is,) whereby they want
+that plausible familiarity which others have, are often mistaken for
+proud. But once I know well, and I most humbly beseech your Lordship to
+believe that arrogancy and overweening is so far from my nature, as, if
+I think well of myself in anything, it is in this, that I am free from
+that vice.”
+
+He is again elected to Parliament. The conspirators who attempted to
+liberate Mary of Scotland have been tried, condemned, and sentenced. The
+case is brought before the Parliament. Bacon is one of the speakers in
+“the Great Cause,” and one of the committees to whom it is referred.
+
+Shakspere at 22 is probably still at Stratford, though Mr. White
+presumes he has become connected with the London stage this year, or
+perhaps a little later.
+
+    [To be continued to the end of both lives, making a book of 300
+    pages or more, including this pamphlet as an appendix, with
+    important additions. All the essential facts of Lord Bacon’s
+    life will be presented, whereby his secret authorship will be
+    more abundantly proved, and his moral character vindicated
+    against the aspersions of 260 years.]
+
+
+
+
+                                  ————
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 39121 ***