Part 8

In other words, the _Novum Organum_, the potent _New Instrument_ that was to enlarge man’s dominion over every province of Nature, was Bacon’s chief solace for an unparalleled renunciation. Posterity, he was determined, should never know that the inventor of that _Instrument_ had once revelled in the play of the imagination, lest men of science should have it in their power to pooh-pooh it as the fabric of a brain that had invented _A Midsummer-night’s Dream_, and _The Tempest_.

Bacon and his friends (moved by the fascination of the man, and pity for his fall) would naturally destroy all tell-tale correspondence they could lay hands on. Two private letters, and so far as we know, two only, escaped the flames. One from a bosom friend, Sir T. Mathew to Bacon (“Viscount St. Alban”), bears the following postscript: “The most prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation ... is of your Lordship’s name, though he be known by another.” This letter is given in Dr. Birch’s _Letters, etc., of Francis Bacon_, 1763. Mathew himself made a _Collection of Letters_ which included many of his own to Bacon, but excluded the one just quoted, an exclusion dictated, I imagine, by loyalty to his friend. Montague gives the letter in his _Bacon_, but I have not found it in Spedding’s Work. The other escape was a letter of Bacon’s to another of his friends, the poet Davies, written some twenty years earlier than Mathew’s letter. In this letter (to Davies), after commending himself to Davies’s “love,” and “the well using of my name ... if there be any biting or nibling at it, in that place” (the Royal Court), Bacon concludes: “So desiring you to be good to concealed poets, I continue,” etc. My quotation is from a copy dated 1657 (bound up with Rawley’s _Resuscitatio_), in which “concealed poets” is in italics. Spedding gives the words without the italics, and contents himself with saying that he cannot explain them. For another letting out of the secret we have to thank Aubrey’s notebooks, which inform us that Bacon was “a good poet but concealed, as appears by his letters.” Lastly there are the “Shakespeare” and “Bacon” scribbles on the half-burnt MS. of Bacon’s “Device,” _A Conference of Pleasure_. Possibly the “letters” referred to by Aubrey, or evidence more important, may yet be discovered in libraries unexplored, or explored only by orthodox searchers intent on proving their own case. A library in so unlikely a place as Valladolid seems, about eighty years ago, to have possessed a First Folio of Shakespeare which belonged to and was perhaps annotated by Count Gondomar, a friend of Bacon’s last years.[55] If Spain held such a treasure so recently what may not Great Britain still hold? Florence, for whose Duke Sir T. Mathew had Bacon’s _Essays_ translated into Italian, contained a copy of this translation not long ago. But my searches there, and in Venice, Milan, Padua, were far too hurried to justify any conclusion as to possible finds in Italy.

It is probably safe to take for granted that Bacon was acquainted with Shakspere; that the relation between them began maybe as early as 1588, and was concerned with playhouse property; that this property was held by Shakspere on trust for Bacon; and that it was sold, perhaps to the trustees, by Bacon’s orders some time before 1613.

The name of “Shakespeare” seems to have made its first public appearance in print with _Venus and Adonis_,[56] a poem which was dedicated in perfectly well-bred terms to an earl; licensed by an archbishop who had once been Bacon’s tutor;[57] and expressed on its title page patrician contempt for all things vulgar. By whose order was the name Shakespeare printed at foot of its Dedication to the Earl of Southampton? In the dearth of evidence the following guesses may pass muster. They are put into an unhistorical present in order to show at a glance that they, or most of them, are mere guess-work:--About 1592, Bacon makes up his mind to publish _Venus and Adonis_. Publication in his own name is vetoed by fear of offending powerful friends, his uncle Burghley in particular; and he prefers pseudonymity to anonymity. What he wants is a temporary mask which he fully expects to be able to throw off before long. In this mood, he calls on Richard Field, a London printer hailing originally from Stratford, and recommended to him by Sir John Harington, whose _Orlando Furioso_ Field has just printed. Field happens to mention Shakspere which he pronounces Shaxper. Bacon, already acquainted with the young fellow of that name, decides that a fictitious person, whose name he pronounces Shakespeare, shall be the putative father of his Poem. Little dreams he, poet though he be, that he is thereby preparing a human grave for that immortality of Fame (as poet) which he has begun to anticipate for himself. The Poem appears in 1593; and is followed next year by _Lucrece_, fathered by the same Shakespeare, and dedicated to the same young Earl. Some years later, the name is stereotyped by Meres’s _Commonwealth of Wits_, where Shakespeare is mentioned seven or eight times--as the English Ovid; as one of our best tragic and best comic poets; as one of our most “wittie” and accomplished writers, and so forth.[58] A few years later still, Bacon begins to be perplexed what to do with his Shakespeare copyright, and his perplexity rises with every advance in his profession. Before succeeding to the Attorney-Generalship he realises once for all that complications, professional, social, and various, have made it impossible for him to think of fathering even a selection of his poetical offspring. In despair to escape from the impasse, he even talks of burning MSS. But the threat is not carried out. Soon after his melancholy downfall sympathetic and admiring friends, notably the two Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery--Southampton probably stood aloof, memories of the Essex affair still rankling in his mind--take counsel together, expostulate with him, entreat him to let them bear all expenses and responsibilities connected with publication, and to clinch their argument tell him that they have sounded the literary dictator of the day, Ben Jonson, and got his promise to undertake the work of editing, collecting, writing the necessary prefatory matter, and so forth. Bacon yields consent on certain conditions, the most embarrassing of which is that the true authorship of the plays be for ever kept dark--by means of “dissimulation,” if dissimulation will serve; if not, then by “simulation,” i.e., the lie direct.[59] The conditions are accepted with misgivings on Jonson’s part. He is aware that he will have no trouble with Mr. Shakspere’s executors, their interest in the copyrights involved being as negligible as their testator’s had been. And he knows Heminge and Condell well enough to feel certain that they will not have the smallest objection, either to being assigned prominent places in the forthcoming Book, or to his putting into their mouths statements, etc., concerning Shakespeare, which he himself would shrink from uttering. But even so, the task is no sinecure.

Here guess-work ends.

The famous Folio, with its apparatus of _Dedication_, prefatory _Address, Ode_, to “my beloved the author,” etc., made its appearance in 1623. The _Dedication_ intimates (with ironical emphasis on the word “trifles”) that the author of these “trifles” was dead, “he not having the fate common with some to be exequutor to his owne writings.... We have but collected them, and done an office to the dead, to procure his Orphanes, Guardians: without ambition either of selfe-profit, or fame: onely to keepe the memory of so worthy a Friend and Fellow alive, as was our Shakespeare.”

The _Address_ expresses a wish that the Author had lived to set forth “his owne writings. But since it hath bin ordain’d otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends the office” of collection, etc. This is followed by a statement, probably half jest, half irony, that the Author uttered his thoughts with such “easinesse, that wee have scarse received from him a blot on his papers.” That Heminge and Condell had no hand in either _Dedication_ or _Address_ is sufficiently proved by turns and phrases characteristically Jonsonian. They, I suppose, had given Jonson _carte blanche_, and he made use of the gift, in the interest of literature which might otherwise have suffered irreparable loss. In this way the fiction of Shakespeare’s identity with Shakspere was so plausibly documented, that Jonson might have spared himself any further trouble on that score. But either to make assurance doubly sure, or to show his dexterity, he set about the writing of his Ode as if the fiction had not been planted already. Some of the Ode’s features need no further comment than they have received. But the “small Latin” and “Swan of Avon” allusions deserve a word or two more. Both passages point at Shakspere and away from Shakespeare. What was their _raison d’être_? They were exceptionally significant touches to an elaborate system of camouflage, by which posterity, including ourselves, was to be deluded.

Hitherto the accent has been too much on the unessentials of the Ode, and far too little on its beauties. No nobler contemporary appreciation of Shakespeare has reached our ears, and that is a cogent reason for gratitude to its author. Before taking leave of him, I venture to make free with one of his apostrophes. The lines would then run thus:

Soule of the Age! The applause! delight! the wonder of our Stage! My Bacon rise!

In order to correct misapprehensions which may have arisen through my having slipped into positive statements, where _ex hypothesi_ or conditional ones might have been desired, I wish expressly to disclaim any intention to dogmatise. Scientific certainty is out of the question. High probability we may reach, perhaps have reached. But that is the limit. That Bacon was Shakespeare, the only Shakespeare that matters, is merely a working hypothesis. Of other hypothetical Shakespeares who have been put forward, a certain Earl of Rutland would have deserved serious consideration, had he been as able a writer as was his father-in-law, Sidney. The only formidable competing hypothesis might seem to be that of a Great Unknown. But this essentially is a confession of ignorance, and some of its supporters are sceptics who amuse themselves by falling upon every hypothesis in turn.[60]

BACON AND “POESY”

Baconians hold that Francis Bacon concealed his identity under an _alias_, and this perhaps is why they are sometimes accused of slandering him, as if the use of a pen-name were a crime and not the perfectly legitimate ruse it actually is. Calumniators of Bacon there exist no doubt, and some of them are disposed to give Macaulay as an instance. Such calumniation, however, is less likely to be found among Baconians than among our orthodox opponents, whose creed effectually bars the way to any true appreciation of the great man. As for Mr. William Shakspere of Stratford, his character was, or should be, above suspicion. The Burbages, exceptionally well-informed and credible witnesses, testify that he was a “deserving” man, and Baconians accept that valuation of the man all the more readily because there is no proof that he himself ever laid claim to anything published or known as Shakespeare’s.

The serious criticism that Baconians have to face may be considered under three heads: (i) The testimony of Ben Jonson; (ii) The popular notion that Bacon was essentially a man of science; (iii) The absence of conspicuous and unmistakable evidence of identity between Bacon and Shakespeare.

(i) In spite of the obvious inconsistency and perversity of Ben Jonson’s various utterances on the subject, and the difficulty of believing that his famous Ode of 1623 could refer except in part to a death which had occurred in 1616, Ben Jonson is commonly regarded as an absolutely conclusive witness against us. An article of mine entitled _Ben Jonson’s Pious Fraud_, which appeared in the _Nineteenth Century and After_ of November 1913, was an attempt at justification, and the attempt shall not be repeated here. Some of my readers, however, may care to know that in the December (1913) number of the same review an angry opponent charged me with having libelled Ben Jonson, about the last thing of which I, a lifelong admirer of Ben Jonson’s, could really be guilty.

(ii) The second criticism we have to meet is founded on the assumption that Science--Natural Science--set her mark upon Bacon almost as soon as he entered his teens. The main business of this section will be to set forth arguments tending to show that the mark which Bacon actually bore from early youth to mature age, was the sign manual of Poetry. In the nineties of the 16th century, Bacon had serious thoughts of abandoning the legal profession into which he had been thrust, and devoting himself to literature in some form or other. Towards the close of his life, when reviewing his life’s work, he regretfully confesses to having wronged his “genius” in not devoting himself to letters for which he was “born.” In another letter of about the same date, he expresses the same conviction: that in deserting literature for civil affairs, he had done “scant justice” to his “genius.” These are not the words, nor this the attitude of a man who thought and felt that he was born for Natural Science. Possibly so, says an opponent, but if Bacon were really born for literature, how came it that his literary output, until he had passed the mature age of 40, was so small? If you, Baconians, were not blinded by prejudice, you would recognise in Bacon’s literary inactivity during youth and early manhood, something very like proof of a preoccupation with Science. In replying to this argument, I should begin by pointing out that the words “literary inactivity” beg the important question of concealment of identity. Waiving this point for the moment, the presumption of an early preoccupation with Science will be seen at a glance to be incompatible with what we know of Bacon’s attainments in that direction. A speech of his about 1592 in praise of “Knowledge”--a word which covered everything knowable--contains some of his finest and most characteristic thoughts. The praise of knowledge, he declares, is the praise of mind, since “knowledge is mind.... The minde itself is but an accident to knowledge, for knowledge is a double of that which is. The truth of being and the truth of knowing is all one.” Then comes a rhetorical question reminiscent of Lucretius’s _suave mari_, i.e.: “Is there any such happiness as for a man’s mind to be raised above ... the clowdes of error that turn into stormes of perturbations.... Where he may have a respect of the order of Nature”? “Knowledge,” the speaker continues, should enable us “to produce effects and endow the life of man with infinite commodities.” At this point he interrupts himself with the reflection that he “is putting the garland on the wrong head,” and then proceeds to inveigh against the “knowledge that is now in use: All the philosophie of nature now receaved is eyther the philosophie of the Gretians or of the Alchemist.” Aristotle’s admiration of the changelessness of the heavens is derided on the naïve assumption that there is a “like invariableness in the boweles of the earth, much spiritt in the upper part of the earth which cannot be brought into masse, and much massie body in the lower part of the heavens which cannot be refined into spiritt.”[61] Ancient astronomers are next taken to task for failing to see “how evident it is that what they call a contrarie mocion is but an abatement of mocion. The fixed starres overgoe Saturne and Saturne leaveth behind him Jupiter, and so in them and the rest all is one mocion, and the nearer the earth the slower.” As for modern astronomers, Copernicus for instance, and Galileo, he dismisses them with contumely as “new men who drive the earth about.” Then he chides himself for having forgotten that “knowledge itself is more beautiful than any apparel of wordes that can be put upon it”--a romantic sentiment reminiscent of Biron’s “angel knowledge” in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_; and a subsequent passage is reminiscent of Montaigne. The conclusion of the Speech is too fine to be abridged and must be given in full:

“But indeede facilitie to beleeve, impatience to doubte, temeritie to assever, glorie to knowe, end to gaine, sloth to search, resting in a part of nature, these and the like have been the things which have forbidden the happy match between the minde of man and the nature of things, and in place thereof have married it to vaine nocions and blynde experiments. And what the posteritie of so honorable a match may be it is not hard to consider.[62] Therefore no doubte the sovereigntie of man lieth hid in knowledge, wherein many things are reserved which Kings with their treasures cannot buy, nor with their force command: their spies and intelligencies can give no news of them: their seamen and discoverers cannot saile where they grow. Now we governe nature in opinions but are thrall to her in necessities, but if we would be led by her in invention we should command her in action.”

These are not the views nor is this the accent of one who has been devoting himself to natural science. The utterance is that of a genius for letters whose preoccupation has been the apparelling of beautiful thoughts in beautiful words.

* * * * *

The above Speech, which is part of an entertainment called a Conference of Pleasure, expresses intuitions that come from the very soul of the poet-speaker. Ample confirmation of this is to be found in the _Advancement of Learning_--Learning here being the synonym of Knowledge in the Speech--published in 1605. That work aimed at promoting “natural science” with a view above all to scientific discovery and the increase of man’s power over nature. It teems with practical allusions to and quotations from the classical poets, particularly Ovid and Vergil. It was dedicated to James the First, a prince--to quote the words of its author--“invested with the learning and universality[63] of a philosopher.” In a passage dealing with the art of medicine the author deems it very much “to the purpose” to note that poets were wont “to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man’s body and reduce it to harmony.” Another passage asserts that the wild fancies of quacks or empirics were anticipated and discredited by the poets in the fable of Ixion. What we call endowment of research, he, student of _belles lettres_ that he is, regards as provision for the making of experiments appertaining to Vulcan and Dædalus. Students of Natural Science will search the book in vain for evidence of direct familiarity with any branch of the subject. In the opinion of its author, natural history--the natural history of 1605--left little to be desired so far as normal phenomena were concerned. He ruled that the “opinion of Copernicus touching the rotation of the earth” was repugnant to “natural philosophy.” The notion that air had or could have weight is dismissed as preposterous. Among his observations on history there is no suggestion of the circulation of the blood. He sums up Gilbert in terms of contempt, his own contribution to the subject of magnetism being: “There is formed in everything a double nature of good, the one as everything is a total or substantive in itself, the other as it is a part or member of a greater or more general form. Therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy moveth to the loadstone, but yet if it exceed a certain quantity, it forsaketh the affection to the loadstone and like a good patriot moveth to the earth which is the region or country of massy bodies.”

One of the most telling arguments against the presumption that Bacon had interested himself in natural science to the exclusion of almost everything else, is the staggering value he put upon “poesy” as compared with “philosophy” or science at large. Fascinated by the wonderful discoveries of explorers in the material globe, he pictures knowledge, all knowledge, as an intellectual globe, which he then divides into three great parts or continents, History, Poesy, and Philosophy. Only a poet could have made such a distribution as that. For the continent allotted to Philosophy, as he understands it, embraced not only all the natural sciences, but also ethics, politics, mathematics, metaphysics, and many another subject besides. It would be easy, out of the _Advancement_ alone, to multiply refutations of the theory that Bacon’s early and middle life were devoted to natural science. The only difficulty is to select.

Before changing the subject it may be well to give the substance of a foot-note to the present writer’s _Shakespeare-Bacon_, 1899 (Swan Sonnenschein): “When Bacon came to review his early estimate of the importance of poetry to science or knowledge, he was evidently dissatisfied. In the _Advancement_ (1605) he had claimed that ‘for the expressing of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are beholding to poets more than to philosophers.’ In the corresponding place of the revised edition (1623) he drops this claim. In the _Advancement_ again Poesy is stated to be one of the three ‘goodly fields’[64] (history and experience being the other two), ‘where grow observations concerning the several characters and tempers of men’s natures and dispositions.’” In the corresponding place of the revised version this commendation is materially lowered, on the ground that poets are so apt to exceed the truth. The revised version, in short, goes so far towards cheapening Poesy and Imagination as to suggest that if the author had not been hampered by his earlier utterances, he would have deposed both from the high places they still were permitted to occupy in his system.

That Bacon’s relations with “Poesy” were extremely intimate and at the same time anxiously concealed from the public, his letters afford convincing evidence. Writing to the Earl of Essex in 1594-5, when his affairs were in evil plight, he assures that generous friend that “the waters of Parnassus” are the best of consolation. In a letter to Lord H. Howard he writes: “We both have tasted of the best waters to knit minds together”--the allusion being of course to the same Parnassian waters. In an open letter (1604) to the Earl of Devonshire, he confesses to having written a sonnet addressed to the Queen herself on a memorable occasion, and then, by way of proving his generosity when the welfare of Essex was at stake, directs special attention to the fact that this sonnet (affair) involved a publishing and declaring of himself--in other words a dropping of the mask that screened him as poet from the eyes of the public. That such was his meaning is explained by a confidential letter to a poetical friend in which he ranks himself among “concealed” poets. Moreover, this was evidently only one of several letters in which Bacon confessed himself a concealed poet, for John Aubrey tells us that Bacon “was a good poet, but concealed as appears by his _letters_.” Whether any of these other letters still exist is to be doubted, for the piety of Sir Tobie Mathew, Sir Thomas Meautys, and other devoted friends of the concealed poet, would naturally destroy all they could lay hands on.