"Shakespeare" is frequently charged with being careless of his works and indifferent to the piracy of his name; but we see by this Sonnet, No. 78, that the real author was not indifferent to the false use of his pseudonym, though it was, of course, impossible for him to take any effectual action if he desired to preserve his incognito, his mask, his pseudonym.
One word to the Stratfordians. The "Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon" myth has been shattered and destroyed by the mass of inexactitudes collected in the supposititious "Life of Shakespeare" by Mr. Sidney Lee, who has done his best to pulverise what remained of that myth by recently writing as follows:—
"Most of those who have pressed the question [of Bacon being the real Shake-speare] on my notice, are men of acknowledged intelligence and reputation in their own branch of life, both at home and abroad. I therefore desire as respectfully, but also as emphatically and as publicly, as I can, to put on record the fact, as one admitting to my mind of no rational ground for dispute, that there exists every manner of contemporary evidence to prove that Shakspere, the householder of Stratford-on-Avon, wrote with his own hand, and exclusively by the light of his only genius (merely to paraphrase the contemporary inscription on his tomb in Stratford-on-Avon Church) those dramatic works which form the supreme achievement in English Literature."
As a matter of fact, not a single scrap of evidence, contemporary or otherwise, exists to show that Shakspere, the householder of Stratford-on-Avon, wrote the plays or anything else; indeed, the writer thinks that he has conclusively proved that this child of illiterate parents and father of an illiterate child was himself so illiterate that he was never able to write so much as his own name. But Mr. Sidney Lee seems prepared to accept anything as "contemporary evidence," for on pages 276-7 (1898 edition) of his "Life of Shakespeare" he writes
"Before 1623 an elaborate monument, by a London sculptor of Dutch birth, Gerard Johnson, was erected to Shakespeare's memory in the chancel of the parish church. It includes a half-length bust, depicting the dramatist on the point of writing. The fingers of the right hand are disposed as if holding a pen, and under the left hand lies a quarto sheet of paper."
As a matter of fact, the present Stratford monument was not put up till about one hundred and twenty years after Shakspeare's death. The original monument, see Plate 3 on Page 8, was a very different monument, and the figure, as I have shewn in Plate 5, instead of holding a pen in its hand, rests its two hands on a wool-sack or cushion. Of course, the false bust in the existing monument was substituted for the old bust for the purpose of fraudulently supporting the Stratford myth.
When Mr. Sidney Lee wrote that the present monument was erected before 1623 he did not do this consciously to deceive the public; still, it is difficult to pardon him for this and the other reckless statements with which his book is filled. But what are we to say of his words (respecting the present monument) which we read on page 286? "It was first engraved—very imperfectly—in Rowe's edition of 1709." An exact full size photo facsimile reproduction of Rowe's engraving is shown in Plate 19, Page 77.
[Illustration: Plate. XIX. The Original Stratford Monument, from Rowe's Life of Shakespeare, 1709]
As a matter of fact, the real Stratford monument of 1623 was first engraved in Dugdale's "Warwickshire" of 1656, where it appears opposite to page 523. We can, however, pardon Mr. Sidney Lee for his ignorance of the existence of that engraving; but how shall we pardon him for citing Rowe as a witness to the early existence of the present bust? To anyone not wilfully blinded by passion and prejudice, Rowe's engraving [see Plate 19, Page 77] clearly shews a figure absolutely different from the Bust in the present monument. Rowe's figure is in the same attitude as the Bust of the original monument engraved by Dugdale, and does not hold a pen in its hand, but its two hands are supported on a wool-sack or cushion, in the same manner as in the Bust from Dugdale which I have shewn in Plate 5, on Page 14.
What are we to say respecting the frontispiece to the 1898 edition of what he is pleased to describe as the "Life of William Shakespeare," which Mr. Sidney Lee tells us is "from the 'Droeshout' painting now in the Shakespeare Memorial Gallery at Stratford-on-Avon"?
As a matter of fact there is no "Droeshout" painting. The picture falsely so called is a manifest forgery and a palpable fraud, for in it all the revealing marks of the engraving by Martin Droeshout which appeared in the 1623 folio are purposely omitted. A full size photo facsimile of Martin Droeshout's engraving is shewn in Plate 8, pp. 20-21. In the false and fraudulent painting we find no double line to shew the mask, and the coat is really a coat and not a garment cunningly composed of two left arms.
Still it does seem singularly appropriate and peculiarly fitting that Mr. Sidney Lee should have selected as the frontispiece of the romance which he calls the "Life" of Shakespeare, an engraving of the false and fraudulent painting now in the Stratford-on-Avon Gallery for his first edition of 1898; and should also have selected an engraving of the false and fraudulent monument now in Stratford-on-Avon Church as the frontispiece for his first Illustrated Library Edition of 1899.
Mr. Sidney Lee is aware of the fact that Martin Droeshout was only fifteen years old when the Stratford actor died. But it is possible that he may not know that (in addition to the Shakespeare Mask which Droeshout drew for the frontispiece of the 1623 folio edition of the Plays of Shakespeare, in order to reveal, to those who were able to understand, the true facts of the Authorship of those plays), Martin Droeshout also drew frontispieces for other books, which may be similarly correctly characterised as cunningly composed, in order to reveal the true facts of the authorship of such works, unto those who were capable of grasping the hidden meaning of his engravings.
One other point it is worth while referring to. The question is frequently asked, if Bacon wrote under the name of Shakespeare, why so carefully conceal the fact? An answer is readily supplied by a little anecdote related by Ben Jonson, which was printed by the Shakespeare Society in 1842, in their "Notes of Ben Jonson's conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden".
"He [Ben Jonson] was dilated by Sir James Murray to the King, for writting something against the Scots, in a play Eastward Hoe, and voluntarly imprissonned himself with Chapman and Marston who had written it amongst them. The report was that they should then [have] had their ears cut and noses. After their delivery, he banqueted all his friends; there was Camden, Selden, and others; at the midst of the feast his old Mother dranke to him, and shew him a paper which she had (if the sentence had taken execution) to have mixed in the prisson among his drinke, which was full of lustie strong poison, and that she was no churle, she told, she was minded first to have drunk of it herself."
This was in 1605, and it is a strange and grim illustration of the dangers that beset men in the Highway of Letters.
It was necessary for Bacon to write under pseudonyms to conceal his identity, but he intended that at some time posterity should do him justice and it was for this purpose that, among the numerous clues he supplied to reveal himself he wrote "The Tempest" in its present form, which Emile Montegut writing in the Revue des Deux Mondes in 1865 declared to be the author's literary Testament.
The Island is the Stage. Prospero the prime Duke, the great Magician, represents the Mighty Author who says "my brother ... called Anthonio who next thyself of all the world I lov'd" ... "graves at my command have wak'd their sleepers op'd and let them forth by my so potent Art" ...
Yet he does not forget finally to add "I do ... require my Dukedome of thee, which perforce I know thou must restore."
The falsely crowned and gilded king of the Island who had stolen the wine (the poetry) "where should they find this grand liquor that hath gilded them" and whose name is Stephanos (Greek for crown) throws off at the close of the play, his false crown while Caliban says "What a thrice double asse was I to take this drunkard for a God."
The mighty Magician Prospero says "knowing I lov'd my bookes, he furnished me from mine own Library, with volumes, that I prize above my Dukedome." Bacon when he was dismissed from his high offices, devoted himself to his books. Not a book of any kind was found at New Place, Stratford. Bacon's brother "whom next himself he loved" was called Anthony. "Gentle" Shakespeare of Stratford died from the effects of a "Drunken" bout!
It does matter whether it is thought that the Immortal works were written by the sordid money-lender of Stratford, the "Swine without a head, without braine, wit, anything indeed, Ramping to Gentilitie"; or were written by him who was himself the "Greatest Birth of Time"; the man pre-eminently distinguished amongst the sons of earth; the man who in order to "do good to all mankind," disguised his personality "in a despised weed," and wrote under the name of William Shakespeare.
It does matter, and England is now declining any longer to dishonour and defame the greatest Genius of all time by continuing to identify him with the mean, drunken, ignorant, and absolutely unlettered, rustic of Stratford who never in his life wrote so much as his own name and in all probability was totally unable to read one single line of print.
The hour has come for revealing the truth. The hour has come when it is no longer necessary or desirable that the world should remain in ignorance that the Great Author of Shakespeare's Plays was himself alive when the Folio was published in 1623. The hour has come when all should know that this the greatest book produced by man was given to the world more carefully edited by its author as to every word in every column, as to every italic in every column, as to every apparent misprint in every column, than any book had ever before been edited, and more exactly printed than there seems any reasonable probability that any book will ever again be printed that may be issued in the future.
The hour has come when it is desirable and necessary to state with the utmost distinctness that
[Illustration: Plate XX. Reduced Facsimile of Page 136 of the Shakespeare Folio, 1623]
[Illustration: Plate XXI. Portion of Page 136, full size, as in the Shakespeare Folio 1623]
Proved mechanically in a short chapter on the long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus.
The long word found in "Loves Labour's lost" was not created by the author of Shakespeare's plays. Mr. Paget Toynbee, writing in the Athenoeum (London weekly) of December 2nd 1899, tells us the history of this long word.
It is believed to have first appeared in the Latin Dictionary by Uguccione, called "Magnae Derivationes," which was written before the invention of printing, in the latter half of the twelfth century and seems never to have been printed. Excerpts from it were, however, included in the "Catholicon" of Giovanni da Geneva, which was printed among the earliest of printed books (that is, it falls into the class of books known as "incunabula," so called because they belong to the "cradle of printing," the fifteenth century).
In this "Catholicon," which, though undated, was printed before A.D. 1500, we read
It is perhaps not without interest to call the reader's attention to the fact that "Fulget hon|orifi |cabili|tudini|tatibus|iste" forms a neat Latin hexameter. It will be found that the revelation derived from the long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus is itself also in the form of a Latin hexameter.
The long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus occurs in the Quarto edition of "Loues Labor's Lost," which is stated to be "Newly corrected and augmented by W. Shakespere." Imprinted in London by W.W. for Cutbert Burby. 1598.
This is the very first play that bore the name W. Shakespere, but so soon as he had attached the name W. Shakespere to that play, the great author Francis Bacon caused to be issued almost immediately a book attributed to Francis Meres which is called "Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury" and is stated to be Printed by P. Short for Cuthbert Burbie, 1598. This is the same publisher as the publisher of the Quarto of "Loues Labor's lost" although both the Christian name and the surname are differently spelled.
This little book "Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury" tells us on page 281, "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among ye English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for Comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love Labors lost, his Love Labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, and his Merchant of Venice: for Tragedy, his Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet."
Here we are distinctly told that eleven other plays are also Shakespeare's work although only Loues Labors lost at that time bore his name.
We refer on page 138 to the reason why it had become absolutely necessary for the Author to affix a false name to all these twelve plays. For our present purpose it is sufficient to point out that on the very first occasion when the name W. Shakespere was attached to any play, viz., to the play called "Loues Labor's lost," the Author took pains to insert a revelation that would enable him to claim his own when the proper time should arrive. Accordingly he prepared the page which is found F 4 (the little book is not paged) in the Quarto of "Loues Labor's lost" which was published in 1598. A photo-facsimile of the page is shewn, Page 105, Plate 22.
So far as is known there never was any other edition printed until the play appeared in the Folio of 1623 under the name of "Loues Labour's lost," and we put before the reader a reduced facsimile of the whole page 136 of the 1623 Folio, on which the long word occurs, Page 86, Plate 20, and we give also an exact full size photo reproduction of a portion of the first column of that page. Page 87, Plate 21.
On comparing the page of the Quarto with that of the Folio, it will be seen that the Folio page commences with the same word as does the Quarto and that each and every word, and each and every italic in the Folio is exactly reproduced from the Quarto excepting that Alms-basket in the Folio is printed with a hyphen to make it into two words. A hyphen is also inserted in the long word as it extends over one line to the next. The only other change is that the lines are a little differently arranged. These slight differences are by no means accidental, because Alms-basket is hyphened to count as two words and thereby cause the long word to be the 151st word. This is exceedingly important and it was only by a misprint in the Quarto that it incorrectly appears there as the 150th word. By the rearrangement of the lines, the long word appears on the 27th line, and the line, "What is A.B. speld backward with the horn on his head" appears as it should do on the 33rd line. At the time the Quarto was issued, when the trouble was to get Shakespere's name attached to the plays, these slight printer's errors in the Quarto—for they are printer's errors—were of small consequence, but when the play was reprinted in the Folio of 1623 all these little blemishes were most carefully corrected.
The long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus is found in "Loues Labour's lost" not far from the commencement of the Fifth Act, which is called Actus Quartus in the 1623 folio, and on Page 87, Plate 21, is given a full size photo facsimile from the folio, of that portion of page 136, in which the word occurs in the 27th line.
On lines 14, 15 occurs the phrase, "Bome boon for boon prescian, a little scratcht, 'twil serve." I do not know that hitherto any rational explanation has been given of the reason why this reference to the pedantic grammarian "Priscian" is there inserted.
The mention of Priscian's name can have no possible reference to anything apparent in the text, but it refers solely and entirely to the phrase which is to be formed by the transposition of the twenty-seven letters contained in the long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus; and it was absolutely impossible that the citation of Priscian could ever have been understood before the sentence containing the information which is of the most important description had been "revealed." We say "revealed" because the riddle could never have been "guessed."
The "revealed" and "all revealing" sentence forms a correct Latin hexameter, and we will proceed to prove that it is without possibility of doubt or question the real solution which the "Author" intended to be known at some future time, when he placed the long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus, which is composed of twenty-seven letters, on the twenty-seventh line of page 136, where it appears as the 151st word printed in ordinary type.
The all-important statement which reveals the authorship of the plays in the most clear and direct manner (every one of the twenty-seven letters composing the long word being employed and no others) is in the form of a correct Latin hexameter, which reads as follows—
Note on Honorficabilitudinitatibus
BACONIS.—On page 131 is shewn a photogravure of the title page of Bacon's "De Augmentis," 1645, which is in fact a pictorial representation of an anagram "Hi ludi F. Baconis nati tuiti orbi." On this title page we find "Baconis" used as the genitive of Bacon's name in Latin. Baconis is also found in XIII th century manuscript copies of Roger Bacon's works, where the title reads "Opus minus Fratris Rogeri Baconis," and in 1603 there was published in 12° at Frankfurt "Rogeri Baconis ... De Arte Chymiae."
TUITI.—Pedanticgrammarians such as Priscian whom the author mocks at in the line "Bome boom for boon precian, a little scratcht, 'twil serve," falsely tel us that there is a passive verb "tueor" with a past participle "tutus." As a matter of fact it is the same verb "tueor" that is used both as a passive and as a deponent, and "tutus" or "tuitus" may be used indifferently at the pleasure of the writer. Sallust uses "tutus," not "tuitus," as the past participle of the deponent verb.
Opposite to the next page is shewn a type transcript of the cover or outside page of a collection of manuscripts in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland, which were discovered in 1867 at Northumberland House. Three years later, viz., in 1870, James Spedding published a thin little volume entituled "A Conference of Pleasure," in which he gave a full size Facsimile of the original of the outside page which is here shewn in reduced type facsimile. He also gave a few particulars of the MSS. themselves.
In 1904 Mr. Frank J. Burgoyne brought out a Collotype Facsimile of every page that now remains of the collection of MSS. in an edition limited to 250 copies I a fine Royal Quarto at the price of £4 4s. 0d. O f the MSS. mentioned on the cover nine now remain, and of these, six are certainly by Francis Bacon; the first being written by him for a masque or "fanciful devise" which Mr. Spedding thinks was presented at the Court of Elizabeth in 1592.
[Illustration: Modern Script Facsimile of MS Folio 1 Reduced to about one-third the size of the original]
[Illustration: Full-Size Facsimile of Written Ornament on Outside Page of Northumberland MSS.]
[Illustration: Full-Size Facsimile of Written Ornament in "Les Tenure de Monsieur Littleton." Annotate by Francic Bacon.]
As I have pointed out upon page 114 and upon various other pages in my book "upside down" printing is a device continually employed by the authors of certain books in order to afford revelations concerning Bacon and Shakespeare. As a whole this curious scribbled page affords remarkable evidence that William Shakespeare is "yourself" Francis Bacon.
Now and now only can a reasonable explanation be given for the first time of the purpose of the reference to Priscian, in lines 14 and 15, Plate 21, Page 87. And it is a singular circumstance that so far as the writer is aware not one of the critics has perceived that the mockery of Priscian forms a neat English iambic hexameter, indeed, in almost all modern editions of the Shakespeare plays, both the form and the meaning of the line have been utterly destroyed. In the original the line reads "Bome boon for boon prescian, a little scracht, 'twil serve."
Perhaps the reader will be enabled better to understand the sneer and the mockery by reading the following couplet—
And we still more perfectly understand the purpose of the hexameter form of the reference to Priscian if we scan the line side by side with the "revealed" interpretation of the long word honorificabilitudinitatibus.
These plays F Bacon's offspring are preserved for the world.
This explanation of the real meaning to be derived from the long word honorificabilitudinitatibus seems to be so convincing as scarcely to require further proof. But the Author of the plays intended when the time had fully come for him to claim his own that there should not be any possibility of cavil or doubt. He therefore so arranged the plays and the acts of the plays in the folio of 1623 that the long word should appear upon the 136th page, be the 151st word thereon, should fall on the 27th line and that the interpretation should indicate the numbers 136 and 151, thus forming a mechanical proof so positive that it can neither be misconstrued nor explained away, a mechanical proof that provides an evidence which absolutely compels belief.
The writer desires especially to bring home to the reader the manifest fact that the revealed and revealing sentence must have been constructed before the play of "Loues Labor's lost" first appeared in 1598, and that when the plays were printed in their present form in the 1623 folio the scenes and the acts of the preceding plays and the printing of the columns in all those plays as well as in the play of "Loues Labour's lost" required to be arranged with extraordinary skill in order that the revealing page in the 1623 folio should commence with the first word of the revealing page in the original quarto of 1598, and that that page should form the 136th page of the folio, so that the long word "Honorificabilitudinitatibus" should appear on page 136, be the 151st word, and fall upon the 27th line.
Bacon tells us that there are 24 letters in the alphabet (i and j being deemed to be forms of the same letter, as are also u and v). Bacon was himself accustomed frequently to use the letters of the alphabet as numerals (the Greeks similarly used letters for numerals). Thus A is 1, B is 2 ... Y is 23, Z is 24. Let us take as an example Bacon's own name—B=2, a=1, c=3, O=14, n=i3; all these added together make the number 33, a number about which it is possible to say a good deal.[7] We now put the numerical value to each of the letters that form the long word, and we shall find that their total amounts to the number 287, thus:
From a word containing so large a number of letters as twenty-seven it is evident that we can construct very numerous words and phrases; but I think it "surpasses the wit of man" to construct any "sentence" other than the "revealed sentence," which by its construction shall reveal not only the number of the page on which it appears—which is 136—but shall also reveal the fact that the long word shall be the 151st word printed in ordinary type counting from the first word.
On one side of the facsimile reproduction of part of page 136 of the 1623 folio, numbers are placed shewing that the long word is on the 27th line, which was a skilfully purposed arrangement, because there are 27 letters in the word. There is also another set of numbers at the other side of the facsimile page which shews that, counting from the first word, the long word is the 151st word. How is it possible that the revealing sentence, "Hi ludi F. Baconis nati tuiti orbi," can tell us that the page is 136 and the position of the long word is the 151st word? The answer is simple. The numerical value of the initial letters and of the terminal letters of the revealed sentence, when added together, give us 136, the number of the page, while the numerical value of all the other letters amount to the number 151, which is the number of words necessary to find the position of the long word "Honorificabilitudinitatibus," which is the 151st word on page 136, counting those printed in ordinary type, the italic words being of course omitted.
the initial letters of which are
their numerical values being
and the terminal letters are
their numerical values being
while the intermediate letters are
their numerical values being
The reader thus sees that it is a fact that in the "revealed" sentence the sum of the numerical values of the initial letters, when added to the sum of the numerical values of the terminal letters, do, with mathematical certainty produce 136, the number of the page in the first folio, which is 136, and that the sum of the numerical values of the intermediate letters amounts to 151, which gives the position of the long word on that page, which is the 151st word in ordinary type. These two sums of 136 and 151, when added together, give 287, which is the sum of the numerical value of all the letters of the long word "Honorificabilitudinitatibus," which, as we saw on page 99, amounted to the same total, 287.
As a further evidence of the marvellous manner in which the Author had arranged the whole plan, the long word of 27 letters is placed on the 27th line. Can anyone be found who will pretend to produce from the 27 letters which form the word "Honorificabilitudinitatibus" another sentence which shall also tell the number of the page, 136, and that the position of the long word on the page is the 151st word?
I repeat that to do this "surpasses the wit of man," and that therefore the true solution of the meaning of the long word "Honorificabilitudinitatibus," about which so much nonsense has been written, is without possibility of doubt or question to be found by arranging the letters to form the Latin hexameter.
In the previous chapter it was pointed out that using letters for numbers, Bacon's name is represented by 33.
and that the long word possesses the numerical value of 287.
In the Shakespeare folio, Page 136, shewn in Plate 20 and Plate 21, on Pages 86-7, ON LINE 33, we read "What is Ab speld backward with the horn on his head?"
The answer which is given is evidently an incorrect answer, it is "Ba, puericia with a horne added," and the Boy mocks him with "Ba most seely sheepe, with a horne: you heare his learning."
The reply should of course have been in Latin. The Latin for a horn is cornu. The real answer therefore is "Ba corn-u fool."
This is the exact answer you might expect to find on the line 33, since the number 33 indicates Bacon's name. And now, and now only, can be explained the very frequent use of the ornament representing a Horned Sheep, inside and outside "Baconian" books, under whatever name they may be known. An example will be found at the head of the present chapter on page 103. The uninitiated are still "informed" or rather "misinformed" that this ornament alludes to the celebrated Golden Fleece of the Argonauts and they little suspect that they have been purposely fooled, and that the real reference is to Bacon.
It should be noted here that in the Quarto of "Loues Labor's lost," see Plate 22, Page 105, if the heading "Loues Labor's lost" be counted as a line, we read on the 33rd line: "Ba most seely sheepe with a horne: you heare his learning." This would direct you to a reference to Bacon, although not so perfectly as the final arrangement in the folio of 1623.
Proceeding with the other lines in the page, we read:—
This means "Who, who"? [which Bacon] because in order to make the revelation complete we must be told that it is "Francis" Bacon, so as to leave no ambiguity or possibility of mistake. How then is it possible that we can be told that it is Francis Bacon? We read in answer to the question:
[Illustration: Plate XXII. Facsimile from "Loues Labor Lost," First edition 1598]