VIECHANICAL SERIES. I wield the hammer.— T/ior THE MYSTERY OF i i SHAKSPEARE" REVEALED. SIR FRANCIS BACON THE REAL AUTHOR. THE 44 MTSTEET SHAKSPEAEE" REVEALED. SIR FRANCIS BACON THE REAL AUTHOR. A BOOK IN THREE PARTS. BY DETROIT, MICH., U. S. A. DETROIT: IINTERS, 1886. John F. Eby & Co., Printers, 65 West Congress St. .Cs- Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, By WILLIAM HENRY CHURCHER, In the Ofiace of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. ALSO, International copyright— i. e., all nations, except the Dominion of Canada and Great Britain, are at liberty to copy as much as pleaseth them. TO MY MOTHER, garxe Stomas (^JxxxxcJxzXj A DESCENDANT OF THE ANCIENT BKITONS, AND FROM WHOM I INHERITED AN INSATIABLE DESIRE FOR READING, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. COl^TENTS. Part I. Brief review of forepart of Edition of Shakspeare, 1623, and of the life and times of Shakspeare and Bacon. Pages 11 to 41 Part II. Comparison of the works of Bacon with this Volume of Plays. ...... Pages 43 to 95 Part III. Reconsideration and Conclusion. , , . Pages 96 to 111 INTRODUOTION. I desire at the outset to assure my readers that this work is not by any means intended as a critical essay, but rather as a plain statement of facts and the deductions naturally arising therefrom, in a common-place manner. Hence, any reason- able sins of omission or commission may very properly be overlooked. On entering upon this work, I have two principal objects in view: the first, to discover the truth in regard to the author- ship of the works usually ascribed to Shakspeare; and, second, to assist in removing the blot now resting, undeservedly, upon the name and fame of the immortal Bacon, " whose light shall shine" when the well-worn lines of Pope shall have faded from the memory of man; the latter and greater object being in a measure dependent upon the former. To those who habitually neglect to look up citations, I will say that those employed will be truthful in letter and spirit; and to those who are more painstaking, I shall be obliged if they examine all the testimony offered, that they may " know whereof we affirm." But in confining myself as I do to this edition of " Shak- speare" of 1623, and to the acknowledged works of Bacon, lest the reader should at first glance conclude that I am calling upon them to breakfast, dine and sup upon Bacon, I have endeavored to give them enough " Shakspeare" to act as an alterative, and thus, as Mr. Bacon says of a part of his work, "I am hopeful that if the first reading move an objection, the second will make an answer." Vlll INTRODUCTION. I am persuaded that a careful perusal of the following pages will demonstrate that not only this Folio Edition of Shakspeare of 1623 was the work of Bacon's hand, and com- piled and printed with his knowledge and consent, but that he wrote, or caused to be written, the introduction and preface to the same, as well as the catalogue of the plays as we find them in this edition; and that they were purposely designed and arranged to throw the literary world off the scent of the true authorship, until such time as the works would be better appreciated; which time, I feel persuaded, has fully arrived. This view of the case fully coincides with the last words of Bacon to the world: "For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and to the next age." And that age is upon us ; and it is high time that the world was better acquainted with the works, acts and ideas of the greatest mind that the world has as yet produced. In conducting this inquiry, I have purposely refrained from quoting the opinions of others on the subject of the author- ship, and have made but two references in regard to the authenticity of this edition, upon which we rely, but have rested entirely upon the merits of the volume in question, in connection with the acknowledged works of Bacon, for they carry the proofs within themselves. If I believed in apologies, and were in the habit of making them, I might be prompted to offer one for intruding my ideas upon the world in this small compass and in such an unpolished manner; still, I am hopeful that a careful perusal will show that though diminutive in size, it is much in a little. But inasmuch as many of our best and greatest writers have favored us with technical works on various subjects whose luminosity is more or less opaque, and therefore not wholly understood by the every-day reader, I thought it not amiss for one of the common people to make a small work on this INTRODtrCTIOK. IX interesting subject, to the end that "that which is hidden should be revealed, and that which is crooked be made plain." I am well aware that there are many honest persons who dislike the idea of saying or doing anything to detract from the honor or fame heretofore accorded to anyone, but I doubt not that all such will be willing to give honor where honor is clearly shown to be due; and as right wrongs no one, they will also be willing to give the facts the greatest publicity in the common interest of right and justice, without prejudice or reproach. And now, if my readers become convinced of the truthful- ness of the foregoing propositions, and find that the " Shak- spearian myth" has been scattered into thin air, they will please thank the facts, and cheerfully admit with the author hereof, that "All's well that ends well." A ISTew Tear's Gift of Good Will to Men. Detroit, Mich., January 1, 1886. THE u MYSTERY OF "SHAKSPEARE" REVEALED. PART I. BRIEF REVIEW OF FOREPART OF EDITION OF SHAK- SPEARE 1623, AND OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SHAK- SPEARE AND BACON. It is not my purpose to enter upon an extended argu- ment, neither do I intend to " enter the lists " as a cham- pion, in any sense, but rather to handle this subject after the manner of an inquiry, to the end that the truth may be brought to light as far as the same has been revealed unto me. And if there be any Shakspearian students among my readers who have a slirine at which to worship tlieir idol, and who are unwilling to have tlie light admitted suf- ficiently to dispel the mists that have been thrown around him, let them lay these pages down e'er it is too late. But I beg to assure them that no word shall be used not deemed actually necessary in discovering the truth. I am painfully aware of the greatness of the task I have assigned myself, and of the unworthiness of the hand that wields the pen, in view of the fact that " Shakspeare," above all other works, has been criticised and commented, 12 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. copied and translated, turned inside out, and upside down, by some of the best writers that England — or America — has produced, until it would seem at first glance that noth- ing more remained to be said that could possibly be entitled to the right of claiming originality. With all due deference, then, to those who have touched upon this subject in times past, I must be permitted to affirm that the principal reason why they have failed in dis- covering the truth, and also why they so differ among them- selves that scarcely any two agree as touching the same point, is this, viz : that they have neglected going to the fountain head — to the source of the stream that flows so majestically through this volume, forming a literary laby- rinth, whose intricacies no man hath as yet threaded, and whose depths none have fully sounded, and over whose closed entrance there is placed this legend, "No admittance, except you bring the key." The reader will note, as we proceed, that the author of this volume is termed " A happy imitator of nature." ^ Mr. Bacon, in his Apothegm ]S"o. 20, third collection, says : " ^Nature is a labyrinth, in which the very haste with which you move will cause you to lose your way." And in No. 161, first collection, he says : " It is in busi- ness as it is frequently in ways ; the next way is commonly \h.Q foulest ; and if a man will go \hQ fairest way he must go somewhat about." Therefore, as it is best to begin at the beginning, the source of information to which I propose to go is the intro- duction and preface of the players' edition of Shakspeare — 1623 — the only reliable edition, according to the author- ity of Kichard Grant White, of late times, and Dr. Samuel Johnson, of last century — good authority, surely. MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 13 Dr. Johnson says of this edition, '*It is equivalent to all others;" and, "I collated them all at the beginning, but afterwards used only the first." And this Mr. White indorses. This, then, makes this edition the only relia- ble one by which to judge of the authorship, for, as this volume claims, it is the only one compiled and printed entirely from the original MSS. — all others being stolen or taken as the plays were produced on the stage, and, there- fore, more or less defective ; and, moreover, not indorsed by " Shakspeare's play-fellows." This course may, at first sight, seem a roundabout way, yet I do but follow Mr. Bacon's advice to one who was in haste : " Stay a little, and we will make an end the sooner." I can imagine you smiling at mention of a preface, for who reads them ? Probably not one in a thousand ; and I am aware that one of the keenest of English writers — Dean Swift — has written a labored preface, to prove that a preface is entirely unnecessary and uncalled for. But this introduction and preface, being so entirely unique in their way, and playing so important a part in this drama, that I ask a special consideration of them. And right here I wish to observe, that it is too late in the day to try the case, for, as it is plainly stated in this preface, the trial has been had ; the testimony is all in ; all necessary arguments have been made ; the judge has charged the jury ; the case is in their hands, and all that now remains to be done is to ad?mit a little more light into the jury-room — a proper thing to do in any case, as I am told ! My readers, being the jury, must decide for themselves. They will observe that this introduction and preface pur- 14 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE, port to have been signed by the two " play-fellows" of Shakspeare, John Heminge and Henry Condell. Observe, too, that these names are not spelled, in either case, as you will find them in the original "will" of Shak- speare, where he makes a bequest to them, and where we might reasonably expect to see them spelled correctly, if anywhere. This may seem a small matter, but I mention it in order to bar any charge or suspicion of forgery on the part of the real author of this volume of plays. I here give a copy of the introduction and preface in full, and will review them in order ; they will prove to be remarkable documents. THE DEDICATION OF THE PLAYEES, PKEFIXED TO THE FIPST FOLIO, 1623. ''7c> tlie Most Noble and Incomparable Pair of Brethren^ William^ Earle of Pembrolce^ etc.. etc., and Philip, Earle of Montgomery, etc., etc.; ''Both Knights of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, and our Singular Good Lords. ''Right Honourable, " Whilst we studie to be thankful in our particular, for the many favours we have received from your L. L., we are falne upon the ill fortune to mingle two the most diverse things that can bee, feare and rashnesse ; rashnesse in the enterprise, and feare of the successe. For, when we valew the places your H. H. sustaine, we cannot but know their dignity greater than to decend to the reading of these trifles ; and, while we name them trifles, we have deprived ourselves of the defence of our Dedication. But since your L. L. have been pleased to thinke these trifles something MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. 15 heretofore, and have prosequuted both them, and their Author living with so much favor : we hope that (they out- living him, and he not having the fate common with some to be exequutor to his owne writings) you will use the same indulgence toward them you have done unto their parent. " There is a great difference whether any booke choose his Patrons or finde them : this hath done both. For, so much were your L. L. likings of the severall parts, when the}^ were acted, as before they were published, the Volume ask'd to be yours. ^' We have hut collected them, and done an office to the dead, to procure his Orphans, Guardians ; without ambition of selfe-proiit, or fame ; onely to keepe the memory of so worthy a Friend and Fellow alive as was our Shakspeare, by humble offer of his playes to your most noble patronage. Wherein, as we have justly observed, no man to come neere your L. L. but with a kind of religious addresse, it hath been the higlith of our care, who are the Presenters, to make the present worthy of your H. H. by the perfection. But there we must also crave our abilities to he considered, my Lords. We cannot go beyond our owne powers. Country hands reach foorth milke, creame, fruites, or what they have : and many ]!^ations (we liave heard) that had not gummes and incense, obtained their requests with a leavened Cake. It was no fault of theirs to approach their Gods by what means they could : And tlie most, though meanest of things are made more precious, when they are dedicated to temples. In that name therefore, we most humbly conse- crate to your H. H. these remaines of your servant Shak- speare ; that what delight is in them may be ever your L. L., the reputation his, and the faults ours, if any be committed, by a payre so carefull to show their gratitude both to the living and the dead, as is " Your Lordshippes most bounden, " JOHN HEMINUE, "HENRY CONDELL." 16 MTSTEEY OF SHAKSPEARE. THE PEEFACE OF THE PLAYEES. PEEFIXED TO THE FIEST FOLIO EDITION PUBLISHED IX 1623: " To the Great Variety of Readers. " From the most able to him that can but spell : there YOii are number'd. We had rather yon ^vere weighed. Especially, when the fate of all Bookes depends npon your capacities : and not of your heads alone, but of your pui-ses. "Well I it is now publique and you will stand for your privilidges wee know ; to read, and censure. Do so, but buy it first, that doth best commend a Booke the Stationer saies. Then how odde soever your braines be, or your wisdomes, make your licence the same and spare not. Judge your six-pen' orth, your shilling's worth, your five shillings' worth, at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates and welcome. But whatsoever yon do. Buy. Censure will not drive a Trade, or make the Jack go. And though you be a Majestrate of wit and sit on the stage at Black-Friers, or the Cock-pit, to arraingue Plays dailie, know these Plays have had their triall alreadie, and stood out all Appeales ; aiid do noio come forth quitted rather hy a decree of Court than any jnrrchaJd Letters of commendation. " It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to have beene wished, that the Author himselfe had lived to have set forth and overseen his own writino^s : But since it hath been ordained otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you, doe not envie liis Friends, the office of their care and paine, to have collected and published them as where (before) you were abused with divers stolne, and surreptitious copies maimed and deformed, by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that exposed them : even those are now offerd to your view curd and perfect in their limbes ; and all the rest, ahsolute in their >IYSTERY OF SHAKSPEABE. IT numbers as he Gonceimd the : Who, as he was a happie imitator of H^ature^ was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together : and what he thought, he uttered with that easinesse that wee have scarce received from him a hlot in his papers. But it is not our province, who onelj gather his works, and give them to jou, to praise him. " It is yours that reade him. And there we hope, to your divers capacities, you will find enough, both to draw and hold you : for his loit can no more lie hid, than it could he lost. " Reade him, therefore ; and again, and again : And if then you doe not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him. And so we leave you to other of his Friends, whom if you need can be your guides : if you need them not, you can leade yourselves, and others. " And such readers we wish him. •' JOHN HEMINGE. "HENRIE CONDELL." In reviewing these remarkable specimens of literary com- position, I will first invite your attention to the introduc- tion, or " Dedication," as it is termed. I have italicized those portions to which I desire to call special attention, as they are the hinges upon which the whole subject turns, — the keys that unlock the whole mystery connected with this volume. It will be observed that these two play-fellows of Shak- speare profess, with great show of humility, their unworthi- ness, and also, their lack of learning and its accomplish- ments, and after continuing in this strain for a short space, they gradually and almost imperceptibly trench out in a highly dramatic style, betraying an intimate knowledge of the manners and customs peculiar to the worship of the 18 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. ancient deities, and a keen insight into the characteristics of mankind in general. And yet the edge is somewhat taken off this by their very innocent declaration, that " So we have heard." The reader hereof will also note that they denominate the works which they profess to have collected as the ''remains" of Shakspeare. A sequel to this will be fur- nished further on in its proper place. And here we will leave them for the present, giving them credit for the coun- try simplicity which they assume, with such apparent inno- cence, while we pay our respects to the address to the dedi- cation, to which we ask your special consideration. Here are two common players, who address themselves to two noble Earls in this very familiar style — William, Earl of Pembroke, and Phillip, Earl of Montgumery, a "Noble and incomparable pair of brethren." Was ever modest simplicity on such familiar terms with its betters ? And again, can any one inform us how these two noble Earls could be brethren, except in a " Pickwick- ian " sense ? I^ow, observe that these two play-fellows express a desire to have their work worthy of their highnesses by its per- fection ; and then remark very humbly, '' But our abilities are to be considered, my lords," etc. The supreme drollery of all this will be manifest when we come to understand clearly who the writer thereof really was, for these two " plaj^ers " are but puppets in the hands of the manager. But let us proceed to an examination of the " Preface " in its more important points ; and w^ien we shall have done so, one key to this mysterious book will be found. As in the dedication, these play- fellows begin in a very humble manner, but soon display an aptness and a legal MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 19 ability not their own, and coolly tell us that these plays " Have had their trial, already, — stood out all appeals, — and have come forth acquitted rather by decree of court than by purchased letters of commendation ; " a statement worthy the pen of a " limb of the law " rather than of these two unlettered boors, as they would have us believe them to be. Then these " friends," after lamenting that " our Shak- speare," as they term him, had not lived to have set forth and overseen his own writings, they beg not to be envied their "care and pains," to have collected and published them, " perfect in their limbes and absolute in their num- bers as he conceived the." Ah^ it is astonishing what great things are acGomplished in this world hy a little dash ! Let the reader please note well that these two " friends " profess to have collected and published these plays, as they came from Shakspeare's hand, free from blot, etc., but in reality they do no such thing, but only as he conceived the—. And as he conceived the dash, — or minus, — he conceived nothing in connection with the works, and conse- quently, as they received nothing from him, they can, and do, give you nothing ! Here, then, we have one key to the Shakspeare mystery ; and this ^ is the little joker that has puzzled the world from that day to this ! I believe there is no dispute as to the authorship of this volume of plays resting between Shakspeare and Bacon. Now, when this book was published, in 1623, from the original MSS. — and the only one so published entire — Shak- speare had been dead seven years ; his family did not have the MSS. in their possession, neither were they mentioned in his " will ; " and are there any who are so simple as to 20 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEABE. believe that these MSS. laid away in some " pigeon-hole " in the "green-room" of the theater, or some other out-of-the- way place, or in the pockets of some of the players during these seven years ? If so, would the MSS. have remained " perfect in their limbes and numbers ? " Now, when we consider that Bacon is said to have died in 1626, three years after this book was published, and that from 1621 to '26 he worked hard (see his life), we see that he had every opportunity to publish the works as he chose, and still retain the MSS. , which fact time will disclose. His reasons for doing this will be given in their proper place. We will now explain to the reader how it was utterly impossible for one of these "play-fellows" to have any- thing to do with the publication of this book. If the reader will take the trouble to examine the foot notes to the "will" of Shakspeare, they will learn that John Heminge had been dead ten years, at the time when his name was supposed to be signed to this preface ! He dwd in 1613 — the book was published in 1623 — perhaps this accounts for the fact that he could not spell his name twice alike ! It is proper to note here, that Stevens, a student and critic of Shakspeare, thought that Ben Jonson may have written it. But when we consider that he was an intimate friend who said "he loved him this side of idolatry, as much as any," we see that it would be absurd for him to say that "he conceived the dash," only when he (Jonson) really supposed — as far as we yet Mow — that Shakspeare was the author of the plays. Besides, would Jonson have been likely to miss the opportunity thus presented, to make his name immortal, by signing it to the preface — instead MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 21 of a dead man's — and thus obtaining an interest in this great volume, provided he did write the preface? We think not. We will now continue our examination of this remark- able document^ and see if we can discover the hand that wrote it. It will be worth the while for the reader to note the style of the signature to be found beneath the " Chandos portrait " of Shakspeare — the only true picture of him — be it remembered. This signature is a fac-simile of the truly appalling chirography of him, who has, hitherto, been accredited with the writing of this series of unequaled plays, " without blot in his papers," and yet we see two blots near the " TT" — which letter seems to be stand- ing on its last legs — with first name misspelled — the i a left out entirely, and an '' e " substituted at the top 1 Was there ever a greater caricature of a handwriting, that was said to be " easy and gentle expression of thought ?" Why, it makes the page look as if some '' fretful porcu- pine " had turned a summersault upon it ! But to continue. These two simple friends have the assurance to inform us that if, after we have read him " again and again," we do not like him, we are under some manifest danger not to understand him." Now this danger could not be manifest to the reader^ else they would remove it ; consequently the danger of not understanding him loas manifest to the writer of this pre- face, who had purposely arranged it to mislead you as to the true authorship, and, therefore, placed you in danger, also, of not understailfting this volume, as no one can understand it aright, without first becoming familiar with Bacon's acknowledged works. These friends continue in this strain : " And so we leave 22 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. you to other of his friends, whom if jou need can be your guides." Please consider this. Here are two professed friends of Shakspeare who pretend to have the orginal MSS. in their possession. Now, if they were not capable of guiding the reader to the correct understanding of him, who, in the name of reason, or logic, was there who could ? But if, as I think I have fully demonstrated, these MSS. were in the hands of Bacon, then it is clear that the "other friends " alluded to, were none other than the acknowl- edged works of Bacon, which will, if examined closely with an open eye, as surely guide the reader of Shakspeare to a correct understanding of him, as the needle points to the pole, aye, and more surely, for, whereas the needle does vary from the true northern point, the wand in the hand of this sorcerer is ever pointing directly at its object ! This will be more fully demonstrated as we proceed. And does this savor of dissimulation? Aye, but Mr. Bacon has this in his " Essay on Dissimulation :" " Therefore, set it down that a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral." And, in regard to dissimulation, " it followeth many times upon secrecy, by necessity, so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler, in some degree." Mr. Bacon, in his life of Julius Caesar, whom he considered the great man of all past ages, says of him, that though he had the reputation of being an open and sincere man, "yet he was a perfect master of dissimulation, and wholly made up of art, without leaving anything to nature, but what art had proved, and he was perfectly skilled in all the ways of men." Yet in all this, Mr. Bacon has out-Heroded Herod ! MYSTEKY OF SHA.KSPEAKE. 23 If Plato were rightly called " a greater than an Egyptian sorcerer," surely then a greater than Plato is here. For this wizard of letters, this juggler of words, this necroman- cer of ideas, this grand literary sorcerer is saying to you, on every leaf of this volume, and every leaf of his acknowledged works, " search my works in connection for they do prophesy of me." Finally, then, these friends inform us that " his wit can no more lie hid than it could be lost, etc.; " this is but another manner of telling you that the best wit of the real writer of this volume is hid, but that in the nature of things it cannot remain so indefinitely, but that some day it will be brought to light ; a thing we propose to ourself to do, for there is more wit to the square inch in the arrangement and illustration of this edition in question than can be found in all the libraries of the world. And I challenge the world to produce a piece of literary audacity equal to what we have shown in this cunningly devised preface ! These friends conclude their remarkable manifesto in this wise : '' If you do understand him, then you can lead yourselves and others ; and such readers we wish him." And such readers I wish, not only for this volume of Plays and Bacon's other worhs, but for these pages as well. " But our abilities are to be considered, my Lords." I now pass on to the consideration of the salient points in the lives and times of Shakspeare and Bacon. That Shakspeare is often mentioned, and that his life and times are as often misunderstood, or what is worse, not studied at all, goes without saying, almost. It is well 24 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. then, that we give this part of the inquiry some special attention. From what can be gathered from the statements of his friends and admirers, both in his day and since, we arrive at the following conclusions : That he came from a plain but substantial family of Warwickshire ; that he passed his boyhood in his native place much as boys in general do in a country town ; that he attended the village school some time between the ages of seven and fourteen years — the length of attendance not known ; that he was " up to " the boyish tricks of his days; that he left school to aid his father in his occupation of butcher and wool dealer ; that he married at the age of eighteen ; that he continued in his lowly way of life until about the age of twenty-three years, when he found that as he was born poor he had held his own remarkably well ; and with a growing family his prospects were none of the brightest. He had in the meantime become addicted to the use of ale and other potations, and was a " jolly good fellow " in a drinking club, and did his best to "hold his own" in a drinking bout in a neighboring village. " The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak" — too weak for the occasion — and he with others were laid out to sober off under a friendly crab-tree. That some of my readers will sympa- thize with him, I feel very certain. Finding that his prospects in life were growing less brilliant year by year, he determined to seek his fortune elsewhere ; and shortly found himself in London without means, influential friends, or any great amount of business experience — in short, he seemed to drift with the tide of humanity until he found himself at the door of the theater, penniless. Here his first occupation seems to have been to MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 26 attend to the horses and equipages of the grandees who frequented the play-house ; and it is recorded of him that he was in demand in that capacity. From this occupation he eventually obtained a place in the theater, in a minor capacity, and gradually worked his way upward. As to how he obtained this situation, I leave it to Mr. Ignatius Donnelly to inform you, as the information is not to be found in Life as published by his friends. And right here I wish to pause long enough to shake hands with Mr. Donnelly across^the chasm of non-acquaint- ance, and bid him good speed, well assured that he is on the road to ultimate success in his investigations, though it may prove that the trail he has struck, and which is so skillfully laid, is nothing less than *' Puck's Girdle," — in which case the end of the circle will scarcely be reached during this generation ! But, that he has succeeded in linking the name of Sir Francis Bacon with this volume of plays, in such a manner as to leave no reasonable doubt that it was pre-arranged, he deserves, and ought to receive, more credit than has, thus far, been accorded to him. But let us return to our author and his fortunes. Sliak- speare now passed into the theater, occupying, during a series of years, the various positions from scene-shifter to stage-manager and part owner. He arrived in London about 1587, at the age of twenty- three, and left it about 1613, after about twenty-six years of theatrical life, when he retired to his country home, and to a life almost devoid of interest till the day of his death in 1616, at the age of fifty-two years, when most men are in the prime of life, and just beginning to reap the harvest of their earlier years' activity. Yet it is said of him by one 26 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. of his admirers that " the anecdotes that are in circulation respecting this portion of his life are few and trivial." Yet while he was living this retired life, during these three years before his death, and while lie was thus free from the cares of theatrical management, we ought in reason to look for some of the results of that wit and wisdom, with the possession of w^hich he has so long been accredited. He has left off his boyish tricks ; he has graduated from the country school and his home occupations ; has passed through the London theater and back to Stratford; and now, if ever, we may expect to find something worthy of him, of whom it is written in extreme eulogy : " He shook his incumbrances from him as dew-drops from the lion's mane." But now, before giving the results of my investigations, please allow me to ask, is it reasonable to suppose — nay, is it possible that the author of this magnificent volume wrote " this, and nothing more," before or since, worth the men- tion ? I have searched the records left us by his friends — he has left none of his own — and I give the results as I find them. After his drinking bout, when he and his chums were worsted, he was invited to renew the contest, but he is said to have exclaimed : "No, I've had enough ; I've drunk with " Pipeing Pepworth, Dancing Marston, Haunted Hillbro', Hungry Grafton, Drudging Exhall, Papist Wicksford, Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford." After his deer-stealing escapade, he is said to have indited several verses, at the expense of Sir Thomas Lucy, owner of MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. 27 the deer in question, of which the following is a specimen — the spelling in all these quotations is by the book : ^' He said tVas a ryot, his men had been beat, His venson was stole, and clandestinely eat ; Soe Lucy is Lowsie, as some volke miscall it, Synge Lowsie Lucy whatever befall it." Again, Mr. Ben Jonson and Mr. William Shakspeare being merry at a tavern, Mr. Jonson began making his own epitaph in this wise : "Here lies Ben Jonson, who was once one — " And gave it to Shakspeare to finish, who presently wrote : " That while he lived was a slow thing. And now being dead is no-thing !" The next effort is said to be of a " better leer." JONSON. " If but stage actors^ all the world displays. Where shall we find spectators of their plays f SHAKSPEARE. " Little or much of what we see we do^ We are all both actors, and spectators too !" A Mr. Combe, a miserly and wealthy man, asked our Shakspeare what he would write for his epitaph provided he outlived him ; upon which Shakspeare gave him the following : ' ' Ten-in-the-hundred lies here engraved ; T'is a hundred to ten his soul is not saved ; ^ If any man ask, who lies in this tomb ? Oh, oh, quoth the Devil, t'is my John-a'-Combe !" And here is one more. It is said a drunken blacksmith reeled up to Shakspeare and inquired : " I^ow, Mr. Shakspeare, tell me if you can, The difference between a youth and a young man ?" 28 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. To which our Shakspeare instantly rejoined : " Thou son of fire, with thy face like a maple, The same difference as between a scolded and coddled apple !" This, to be sure, ought to tnahe a crab -tree wince '^ but so much for the wit, I give it for what the reader may think it worth. Now here are some epitaphs, said to be his handiwork; they do show a modicum of wisdom. Written on the tomb of Sir Thomas Stanley : "Aske who lyes here, but do not weepe ; He is not dead, he doth but sleepe. This stony register is for his bones. His fame is more perpetual than these stones ; And his own goodness, with himself being gone. Shall live, when earthly monument is none." On the same tomb : " Kot monumental stone preserves our fame, IS'or Skye aspireing pyramids our name. The memory of him for whom this stands. Shall outlive marble, and defacers' hands. When all to time's consumption shall be given, Stanley, for whom this stands, shall stand in heaven." The following epitaph for Elias James is also ascribed to Shakspeare, as are the others, on the authority of one individual : " When God was please'd, the world unwilling yet, Ehas James to Nature payd his debt. And here reposeth : as he lived, he dyde ; The saying in him strongly verrified, — Such life such death : then, the known truth to tell. He lived a godly life, and dyde as well." — Wra. Shahspeare. Now, the reader is the better judge of the amount of wisdom and poetical ability displayed in these epitaphs, be MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. 29 it more or less ; yet it has the merit of variety, bad grammar, poor spelling, and worse rhymes ; but if these beggarly, half-dozen jests and squibs, which at best may be called cute rather than cunning, are specimen results of the " Wit Combats" — see Life of Shakspeare — in which he is said to have held his own, then, shade of Caesar, what carnage was there I and what a vast amount of gore must have been spread over the regions round about ! I can call to mind but one parallel case in all history ; and that is where old Peter Stuyvesant led his valiant hosts of Dutchmen against the Swedes, intrenched at Fort Christina, on the Delaware. Surely my readers know the results of that campaign. If not, take down your Washington Irving — good, kind soul, whose greatest anxiety was how to fight a battle and have no one hurt — read him, by all means, if you haven't already done so ; you will find it a fair illus- tration of the situation. Let the reader please bear in mind that these quotations which I have given above are what the friends and admirers of Shakspeare have saved and given to us ; and we may take it for granted that they are the best, else they would not have been to the trouble of preserving them ; but when we come to compare them with the grand thoughts, ideas, facts, and gems of wit scattered through this inimitable volume of plays, we find that it is like endeavorhig to make comparison between nothing and everything — the infini- tesimally small is swallowed up in the immeasurably great ! ]^ow, when we ask our Shaksperian friends what proof they have that he was the author of this volume, they first say : " Why, of course he was !" and then, that " His two friends collected and published his works, from the original 30 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. MSS. Thus, we see, that having possession they claim nine points in the law, and beg the tenth ! But we have shown the reader that he did not have the MSS. when this volume was published, he having been dead seven years at that time ; and one of his so-called friends having died ten years before, he did not; and the family of Shakspeare did not have them, as they did not produce them after he died; neither did he mention them in his will ; and further, that as I have already shown, from the preface to this edition of 1623, they received nothing from A^V7^, and could therefore give you nothing ! Then, as a last resort, they say that Shakspeare " shook his incumbrances from him as dew-drops from the lion's mane," and genius came to his rescue. Ah, my readers, there's no such thing as genius. I would that my words could reach all English-speaking people. They who rely upon genius, rely upon a broken reed — upon a substance " thinner than the baseless fabric of a dream." "What said one of the greatest of military men when one, in his presence, alluded to "genius?" He said: "What is genius, but an ignominious attention to detail !" I think it will be obvious to all who will pause long enough to think twice, that no amount of genius can supply the learning to be obtained only from study and travel. It cannot furnish tlie results to be found only in experiment. It cannot reach conclusions to be arrived at only by com- parisons. Then, I beseech you, throw "genius" to the winds, and rely upon the faculties with which nature has endowed you, aided by your own exertions, and success awaits you in proportion. Mr. Bacon, in his laudation of Caesar, whom he considers to have been the foremost man of all past time, says : " His MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAKE. 31 powers were not the gift of nature or genius^ but the result, in most part, of careful thought and study applied during a lifetime of activity." In concluding this part of the inquiry, there are a few- prominent points to which I invite special attention. That the writer of this volume was a deep experimental philoso- pher ; a learned statesman ; a cunning courtier ; a scientific experimenter and inventor ; an adept in the use of ancient and modern languages ; a learned judge ; a traveler and a student of history, and a literary marvel, goes without saying. IN^ow, did Shakspeare ever experiment, as far as we know ? ]^o, except that it is said of him : " He kill'd a calf in high style, and made a speach" — and thereby hangs both head and tale, did we but know where to look for them ! Was he ever employed in high state matters ? E'o. Did he ever travel, until he went to London penniless? J^o, not out of his own county, or its immediate vicinity. Did he ever invent anything? J^ot that we know of. Was he a great student of history ? IS^ot in the foreign tongues, for he knew little of them. Was he skilled in judicial matters ? Hardly ; for, as his admirers inform us, what little he knew in the tricks of the law " he must have learned in attending to his father's business, collecting bills, and the like." But when we reflect that this business experience extended only through the time between fourteen and twenty-three years of age — nine years — and while he was yet young and inex- perienced, the reader can imagine the vast amount of judicial lore to be obtained therein. ]^ow, let me ask a question that seems very pertinent just here. What would a Probate Judge think of a man who made his will when in a state of sound mind and bodily 32 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. health, but who actually forgot the two principal items — his own heir at law, and his own great literary works, if he had any ? Yet this is precisely what he did — forgot his wife : the bequest to her, '' My second-best bed, with the furni- ture," being an interlineation. (See published Will of Shakspeare.) And I leave it to the imagination of the reader to judge of the extent and munificence of this bequest ! The " works " he did not allude to in his will. Query — why ? One other point in this connection seems to invite attention. The authorship of this volume rests, as you see, between a butcher and a lawyer. At first glance, these two occupations would seem to have nothing in common, but on second consideration we find this correspondence : that one flays his aniinals^ and the other his clients. l^ow, are there any accountants among my readers ? And do they ever multiply by a nought ? If so, what is the result ? Exeunt Shakspeare. Let us now pass on to a brief consideration of the life and times of Sir Francis Bacon, Baron of Yerulam, Yiscount St. Alban, who held the positions of Queen's Counsel under Elizabeth, and keeper of the " Great Seal " of England, under King James, as well as many minor offices of trust and honor, including membership in Parliament. His father, Sir I^icholas Bacon, a man of great learning and mental calibre, who, as judge, statesman and keeper of the " Great Seal," reflected honor upon his family and country. His mother was a lady of great talents and refine- ment, skilled in classical lore, and familiar with the Latin and Italian tongues. Consequently Francis Bacon had those early advantages, both of birth and education, enjoyed by few, and which were a large factor in the sum of causes MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 33 that eventually made him the master-mind of his age — if, indeed, he is not the master-mind of the world to this date — considering the scope of his achievement, and the effect he has had, and is to have, upon mankind. His acknowledged works, many in number, and exten- sive in their manner and matter, have well entitled him to be called the " father of experimental philosophy." And when the authorship of this volume of plays comes to be understood, he will be hailed as the " father of the stage " as well. Pope has, in his famous couplet, borne testimony to the fact that Bacon was the ^'wisest and brightest of mankind." He ought to have been considerate enough to have explained how, at the same time, it was possible for him to be the meanest ! To Bacon's inherited talents, he added the wisdom to be gained only by a varied intercourse with mankind, together with an exhaustive study of all great authors, ancient or modern, and the polish and refinement to be obtained by travel and intercourse with the leaders in the fields of thought and action. He was, early in life, an apt scholar in the French and Latin, Greek and Hebrew ; and at the age of seventeen had translated some of the best of the ancient authors — and not translating only, but in his later years criticising and correcting them on many points, from his standpoint of experimental philosophy. He was, while yet in his minority, a favorite at the Court of Queen Elizabeth, who called him her little " Lord Keeper ; " and at the age of twenty-eight was appointed a member of her council. After filling the positions of Attorney General and member of Parliament, he became 34 IVIYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAKE. Lord High Chancellor and Keeper of the " Great Seal," at the age of fifty-six. By this short summary of his life and times, we find that he has given evidence of those grand abilities, united with great opportunities, that show him to have been the very opposite of Shakspeare, as far as testimony outside of this volume is concerned. And when we consider that the principal characters in the plays are kings, princes, dukes, noblemen and great military heroes, of both ancient and modern times, with the circumstances of whose every day life Bacon was familiar ; and the other fact, that the niceties of kingly court life, the technicalities of the law and the bench, the heights and depths of philosophy, and the fine points of all history, are alluded to in such a manner as to show that the writer was a master spirit in them all ; this, I repeat, shows the wizard hand of Bacon. But the question is often asked — nay, indeed, it is always asked by those who have given the subject little or no con- sideration, and whenever the subject is broached — " Why should he desire to hide himself in or behind his works ? " This is a fair question, and deserves a full and candid answer. "We are informed in a foot note to this edition of 1623, that in Elizabetli's time, and after, the " Play Books " were burned, privately by the Bishops, and publicly by the Puritans. It is entirely reasonable to suppose that Bacon did not then desire to be known as a play writer, he being at that time in high favor at court. Again, Mr. Bacon informs us in liis apothegm ^N"©. 22, first collection, as follows : " The book for the deposing of King Richard the Second, and the bringing in of Henry the MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 35 Fourth, supposed to have been written by a Dr. Hayward, who was committed to the tower for it, had much incensed the Queen, and she asked Mr. Bacon, he being then of her counsel learned, " Whether there was any treason contained in it ?" Who, intending to do the doctor a pleasure, and to take off the Queen's bitterness with a merry conceit, answered, " IS^o, Madam; for treason I cannot deliver an opinion that there is any, but very much felony." The Queen apprehending it gladly, ask'd, " How and wherein ?" Mr. Bacon answered, " Because he had stolen most of his conceits from Cornelius Tacitus !" You see he knew who took them from Cornelius Tacitus, and the result was that the doctor, who was the supposed author^ as Bacon dryly says, was released. And yet it was no child's play in those days, to be com- mitted to the Tower,^ and be in danger of being obliged to contribute one^s oion head towards the advancement of the public good. But these are the excuses, merely. High above these as are the heavens above the earth — speaking poetically — is the other and greater reason. 1^0 w, I believe it is generally admitted — at least it is so within a radius of seventy-five miles from Boston — that one good question deserves another. Hence, I ask, " Hath any one seen God at any time ?" '^o. And yet he is hid in his works, is he not? Why then should he hide himself, except that those who desire him, may seek him there, and seeking him, may learn of his works. Speaking in relation to this very same subject of con- cealed truth, Mr. Bacon says, that the wise King Solomon, " although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnifi- cent buildings ; of shipping and navigation ; of service and 36 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. attendance ; of fame and renown, and the like, yet he mak- eth no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of the inquisition of truth, for so he saith expressly, * The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out ;' as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his worhs^ to the end to have them found out / and as if kings could not obtain a greater honor than to be God's play-fellows in that game, considering the great commandment of wits and means whereby nothing need to be hidden from them." All which is very fine, indeed, judging from Mr. Bacon's position, where he stands hidden behind his best work. And now, therefore, as the secrets of nature are gloriously hid, and as man is at the head of animated nature, and, therefore, is king thereof, so it is his glory to search out the secrets of nature, and make her forces subservient to hie will ; for nature doth ever reveal herself to those whe dili- gently seek her, and truth is nature's hand-maid. If, then, Mr. Bacon chose so high a standard, and did his work so effectively as to defy and defeat detection for more than two centuries, it is clear that he stands unrivaled in that field, as in so many others. What, then, must have been the intense satisfaction and the very essence of mirthful- ness experienced by Mr. Bacon as he sat in his study and beheld the literary world of his day all agog, and gazing into the heavens in astonishment at the intellectual rain- bow which they saw spanning the world from horizon to horizon, and apparently without cause, when the true solution of the mystery was to be found in the natural world on either hand. The literary lights of that day seemed to jump at the conclusion, that something could and did come from nothing', and with eyes closed and mouth MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. 37 ajar, took the bait that was prepared for them by this fisher-of-men ! They remind one, of those rare hunters from the urban districts, who display an unusual amount of ability in the way of passing unwittingly by the covert where their game is concealed. Even the great Dr. Samuel Johnson, in the succeeding century, who, by the side of others of his time, appears as a huge intellectual '' Jumbo " (see his picture in Yol. I., BoswelPs Life of Johnson), stalking the earth, his left arm uplifted, his fingers extended as if raking the air in a vain endeavor to conjure up something equal to Shak- speare ! He, too, must be classed along with those cute hunters, whose rarest achievement was the act of passing directly over the covert where their game lay hid at their feet. For if this learned Dr. Johnson could be deceived in so simple a matter as the difference between "windward and leeward," as he was in making his dictionary (see Bos- well's Life, quoted above), why msiy not he be equally easily deceived as to '' how the wind blew," in the matter of this authorship which had been so cunningly concealed ? I feel that I should not be doing justice to this part of the inquiry, did I not call the reader's attention to the really fine picture of Bacon to be found in the v6lume I have quoted from, as published by Ward, Lock & Co., London, Eng., which can be had at the book stores here ; it shows him in the prime of life, and with a peculiar smile 'round his mouth, in fact, playing over his features gener- ally, as if he were about to say : '' Mete it is, I set it down that one may smile, And smile — and be a villain." I now pass on to the consideration of the blot now rest- ing upon Bacon's name, and of the confession which caused 38 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. it. It is alleged that he was guilty of malfeasance in office. Let us examine this charge and confession, together with the sentence pronounced against him. If there was corruption in the administration of affairs of State, he was not responsible for the acts of others. When it was noised about that there were to be charges brought against him, he immediately made a confession that he was guilty. His friends among the lords expressed astonish- ment, and asked, " could it be possible," thus showing that they had not surmised it. He not only confessed, but renounced all defense, thus putting a stop to all inquiry as to the extent or kind of his fault. My Lords, said Bacon, " It is my act, my hand, my heart ; I beseach your Lord- ships to be merciful to a broken reed." Highly dramatic, you see. He is lined £40,000 ; imprisoned in the Tower at the pleasure of the king ; declared incapable of holding office ; banished from the verge of the cotirt ! ]^ow, this is a most remarkable confession and sentence, especiall}^ so when we consider that it was remitted almost as soon as passed. My theory of this whole matter is this : That as he was the prince of writers, so also was he a prince of actors — not players — and as he tells us, "it was his act." "Banishment from the -y^^'^^ of the court" was nothing to him ; he was not in the habit of staying at the verge of anything, or any place. He a broken reed? Why, the works that came from his hand — aside from this volume — both before and after the mock sentence, show him to have been the central pillar of the intellectual world in his day, indeed, if he is not so still. His confession really meant that "he had appropriated to his own use that which belonged to others ;" in other words, he had taken the knowledge of the world, and used it for the good of his MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAKE. 39 fellow men. This view coincides with his statement to his uncle, when making application for a position under the government : " I confess I have vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends ; for I heme taken all hnowledge to my jprovinceP Bacon may well be likened unto a great central power, with many outlying provinces ; these are his books. And this volume of plays is his best province, to which he has taken all the knowledge of the world, and where we find it condensed into the smallest possible space, and in the most convenient shape to reach the mass of man- kind for whose benefit it was intended. His " thieving act" was all in his eye ; in other words, there was nothing in it, and to show you that there's nothing in it, he holds it wide open, in his picture, for your inspection ! I take great pleasure in noting just here, his opinion in regard to the mechanical arts; it will show that he is entitled to the respect and highest esteem of every worker therein. In his classification of Histories, in his great book, "Ad. Learning," he says : " If my judgment be of any weight, the use of History Mechanical is, of all others, the most radical and fundamental towards natural philosophy; such natural philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of subtle, sublime, or delectable speculation, but such as shall be operative to the endowment and benefit of man's life," etc. In this he shows himself to have been a true " son of Ham," in that he was not afraid of a pair of black hands, and so deserves the esteem of all true workers. In a free commonwealth like ours, the citizens are, or by right ought to be, equal in law, yet there are many grades of humanity ; and although we have our servant the Presi- dent, and many under-servants ; we have our merchant 40 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. princes ^vith their world-wide operations ; we have our doctors of divinity, doctors of medicine, and doctors of law — for the soul, the body, and the purse — yet is the mechanic king of all. Like Saul of old, he is head and shoulders above them ; for 'tis only in obedience to the fiat issuing from his brain that the crude materials of nature change shape and assume forms of usefulness and beauty. He is indeed king of matter, and for that matter, king of all matter ; but what matters that if he does not know enough to he king ? He will sell his birthright for a mess of pottage as often as it is placed in his hands. Ergo, let the franchise rest upon the basis of a reasonable amount of intelligence. The *' franchise "' is the crown of a free man ; if he be enlightened he will not cast it at the feet of his enemy. But to return to Bacon. Others have been martyred, and crucified, but he crucified himself by casting a cloud over his own works and acts, in order to carry them forward to an age when they could, and would, be better appreci- ated. Is it not time his works were examined in connection, and justice done to the " Foremost man of all this world ? " In connection with the life and acts of Bacon, and with tlie times since, there are many of the incidents and charac- tei-s in the plays which are finely typical, as I think any one will readily see, when the attention is called thereto. King Lear typifies the British people, when they shall have come to their senses sufficiently to enable them to do justice to their best author ; while Cordelia is Delia Bacon, whose only fault was a consuming desire to discover the true authorship of '' Shakspeare," and who was driven to an untimely grave by the senseless stupidity of the British people of her day, who would not listen to her. Then, as MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 41 we see King Lear killing him who was hanging Cordelia, so will the British people finally do justice to their greatest author, by examining the proofs to be found in the plays and in his acknowledged works ; and when that is done, his enemies will be effectually kill'd off. Julius Caesar fitly typifies Bacon, and while Macaulay was his Brutus, Pope was his dam'd Casca. My readers w411 please pardon in that I am not " meek and gentle with these butchers," as was M. Antony. PART II. COMPARISON OF THE WORKS OF BACON WITH THIS YOL- r:ME OF PLATS. The following comparison of the acknowledged works of Bacon with this volume of plays is not made with the purpose in view of establishing the claims of Bacon to the authorship, as that has already been fully demonstrated, as we think, but rather it is made in the way of corroborative testimony, to make assurance doubly sure, and also to show wherein the greatest worth of the plays consists — that is to say, that although as plays they have been, and still are considered as masterpieces in the English language, yet they are as but the string upon which the pearls of scientific and philosophical thought are strung, and so placed that the common people may have access to them, even though they may never think of looking for them in the depths of thought whence they came; and unfortunately there are very many who never think of going pearl hunting for themselves. ]^ow, when we consider that the wit and wisdom of all past ages is contained in this volume of plays, and gathered by a hand, whose equal as a gleaner of knowledge the world has not yet produced, we begin to see how great a legacy Bacon has left to mankind. As he was not contented with theory simply, but tested everything by comparison and experiment, there was no field that escaped him ; and the heiglith, depth and breadth of everything yielded up its secrets, until at last in an effort MYSTEKY OF SSA:SSI» EAEE. 43 to still further add to the sum of human knowledge, he lost his life. It is recorded in the volume of Bacon's works, published by Ward, Lock & Co., London, Eng., that he contracted a severe cold in stuffing a fowl with snow to preserve the same for future experiment and study, and from the effects of which he died. But if it should transpire that he lived long enough after that to stuff the whole world, many things that now look dark and mysterious will be cleared up, and then 'twill be seen that — " There are many things in heaven and earth that phi- losophy never dream'd of." But, be that as it may, yet did we not know that with nature there is " no change or the shadow of turning," we might wish that she had dealt more gently with him than she is wont to do with common mortals. Permit me now to invite your attention to a fact, readily recognized when the attention is called thereto, viz., that there is a wonder- ful chain running through the plays, linking them together in such manner as to couvince the most casual observer that they are all the work of the same hand ; and that this was intentional on the part of the author there can be no doubt. There are certain minor characters carried through several of the plays ; there are pointed allusions made by the actors in certain plays, to well known ideas and acts of other plays, as this, from Hamlet : Horatio. "A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye." (That is to say, I give you something to stir up your wits.) 44 MYSTERY OF 8HAKSPEARE. " In the most high and palmy State of Rome, A little e'er the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets." An almost exact quotation from Julius Caesar, thus inti- mating that the writer of "Hamlet." was the author of " Caesar," as well. Then there is the connected series of the Kings Henry and their times, forming a literary chain, unmatched in the work of any other author of plays. Dr. Johnson thought that "Shakspeare designed a regular succession of these dramatic histories." And yet there is a hreak in the chain, and this ^^hreak^'' becomes a pointer — a key invaluable — in showing us where to look for the author of these plays, and in itself is conclusive evidence that the author was no other than Bacon himself. And beyond a doubt, this hreak in this connected series was intended as one of those " ciphers " by which the authorship was to be clearly shown, as I think the reader will plainly see when I dis- close the hiding place of this " missing link." We have the plays of Henrys Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth. Where is the Seventh? How is it that the greatest of the Henrys has no play in his honor ? That Henry the Seventh was the greatest of them all, Mr. Bacon fully shows us in many places in his works, notably in his great book. Ad. Learning. This is clearly seen when we consider that he it was who put an end to the Civil Wars " of the Roses," by uniting in himself and his queen the rights of the two rival houses of York and Lancaster. IS^ow, if Shakspeare had written this series of plays, would he have been so particular as to leave out the greatest hero % "Ah, there's the rub." MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 4:6 Besides, are we not informed in the life of Shakspeare, by his friends, that this same Henry the Seventh was the very one who, in times past, had given honor and prefer- ment to one of Shakspeare's ancestors. If so, how is it that he, in writing a series of historical plays, commemor- ative of the heroic times and glorious deeds in the lives of the Henrys, has utterly failed to acknowledge the claim of Henry the Seventh, but has passed by in silence the greatest hero of them all ? Does not this show ingratitude, to say the least, not to mention a want of appreciation of his times and deeds. But, on the other hand, Bacon being the author of the plays, and considering that Henry the Seventh deserved something better — more than could be condensed into the narrow limits of a play — has been particular in giving us such a history " as his times deserved." Is it possible for us to believe, with a knowledge of this fact, that Shakspeare would thus ship the greatest, and that Bacon would accidentally write ujp the same individual? We think not. As "straws show which way the wind blows," this becomes a straw of the first magnitude ! And this we denominate " Key-cipher number two." This model history becomes the "missing link," which, when placed where it belongs, at the conclusion of the play of Eichard the Third, not only completes the story, but it discloses the true authorship of this volume as well. To see the beauty of this cunning arrangement, one need only take the trouble to examine the last scene in the last act of Richard the Third, where the king rushes on the stage roaring for another horse, etc.; all this is designed to divert the reader's attention from the quiet manner in which the Earl of Eichmond — who defeats the king — is 46 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. brought in and crowned on the battle-field as King Henry the Seventh. Then, toward the last of this scene, after he is crowned by Stanley with the crown of the slain Eichard, allusion is made to his marriage with the Princess Elizabeth — the joining of the " Roses" — and the like. I^ow, after reading this part of the play, please turn to Bacon's " History of the Reign of Henry the Seventh," and note how the story is taken up, joined on, and continued unbrokenly. It speaks for itself. He has been kind enough to oblige us by writing a model history of this king, which he dedicates to the Prince of Wales. His book, "Advancement of Learning," he dedi- cates to the King — James. You see he always aimed high — no small game for him. In this history he gives us a detailed account of the two attempts to raise up a false prince as heir to the house of York ; the idea being that one of the princes was not put to death in the Tower, as the cruel Richard had commanded, but that he had been conveyed away, secretly ; which, if it had been true, would have made the title of Henry the Seventh not worth the mention. Here, then, was material for a play, such as Shakspeare, or any other man, would naturally be very glad to profit by — except, as in Bacon's case, he intended to make it 2, pointer by which to show the authorship ; and that it was so arranged, a perusal will satisfy the most skeptical. As this dedication of the " History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh," and the beginning of the history, are so pertinent to this inquiry, I cannot do otherwise than reproduce them : MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 47 "76> the most illustrious^ and most excellent Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Duhe of Cornwall, Earl of Chester, etc.: " It May Please Your Highness, — In part of my acknow- ledgement to your Highness, I have endeavored to do honor to the memory of the last king of England, that was ancestor to the King your father, and yourself ; and was that king to whom both unions may in a sort refer ; that of the "" Roses" being in him consummate, and that of the kingdoms begun ; hesides, his times deserved it ; for lie was a wise man, and an excellent king ; and yet the times were rough, and full of mutations and rare inciderits. (Kote the account of the false princes.) "As it is with times, so it is with ways, some are more up-hill and down-hill, and some are more flat and plain ; and the one is better for the liver, and the other for the writer. " I have not flattered him, but took him to the life as well as I could, sitting so far off, and having no better light. It is true your Highness hath a living pattern incompar- able of the King, your father, but it is not amiss for you also to see one of those ancient pieces. " God preserve your Highness. Your Highness' most humble and devoted servant, "FRANCIS ST. ALBAN." We will now give you a scrap of the history itself, in order to show its connection with the play of Richard the Third. The history commences as follows : "After that Richard, the third of that name, king in fact only, but tyrant both in title and regiment, and so commonly termed and reputed in all times since, was, by the Divine revenge favoring the design of an exiled man (Earl of Richmond), overthrown and slain at Bosworth field, there succeeded in the kingdom the Earl of Richmond, thence- forth styled Henry the Seventh. " The king, immediately after the victory, as one that had been bred under a devout mother, and was, in himself, by nature, a great observer of religious forms, caused ' Te 48 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. Deum Laudamus ' to be solemnly sung in the presence of the whole army upon the place, and was, himself, with gen- eral applause and great cries of joy, in a kind of military election, saluted king." The reader will note that in the jplay^ Richmond is here crowned by Stanley, Then again the history tells us : " There were fallen to his lot and concurrent in his per- son, three several titles to the imperial crown. The first, the title of the Lady Elizabeth, with whom, by precedent pad with the party that brought him in (from exile), he was to marry. " The second, the ancient and long disputed title, both by plea and arms of the house of Lancaster, to wliich he was inheritor in his own person. " The third, the title of the sword, or conquest, for he came in by victory of battle, and the king in possession was slain in the field. " Sir William Stanley, after some acclamations of the sol- diers in the field, had put a crown of ornament which Rich- ard had worn in the battle, and was found amongst the spoils, upon King Henry's head, as if that were his chief title. "And as his victory gave him the Tcnee^ so his purpose of marriage with the lady Elisebeth gave him the hearty so that both Tcnee and heart did truly bow before him." A fine figure of speech truly. I^ow if the reader will but compare all this with the last scene of Richard III., they will see that each is the counterpart of the other, with the difference only of poetical arrangement. This of itself, I think, plainly shows the true author- ship. A point which the reader will do well to bear in mind in connection, is this, that ofttimes when Richard HI. is enacted, the play is curtailed by throwing out the crowning of Richmond, as Henry YIL, by Stanley, which is the pith and point of the conclusion of the play, and thus they do MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 49 but give you the shell of the nut, and throw away the kernel ! And now I feel that I could rest this inquiry here, being well assured that the great majority of thoughtful readers will be convinced of the soundness of my conclusions, and the reliability of the proofs offered. But, inasmuch as I have hereinbefore stated that the readers of " Shakspeare " cannot understand him, unless they first become familiar with the acknowledged writings of Bacon, I deem it a duty — as it is a great pleasure — to place before my readers a few of the many parallel passages to be found all through these works of Bacon and this volume of plays, plainly denoting their origin to be from the same master-hand. IN^ow, I observe that a great writer can no more conceal his style, his manner of composition, or the general ideas peculiar to himself, than he can effectually conceal his per- sonal features from his friends, or his identity from the world at large ; consequently his writings betray him, even if he should swear they were not his own. Although I dislike to quote opinions, knowing well that they so differ among honest thinkers, yet I must be allowed the privilege for once. Dr. Samuel Johnson says the writer of this volume of plays — whom he supposes to be Shakspeare — " Doth ever follow a quibble ; " "a quibble was to him the fatal 'Cleopatra,' for which he lost the world, and was willing to lose it." Surely this very aptly applies to such a limb of the law as was Bacon, who was the son of an eminent judge ; but most assuredly not to a butcher, who was a son of a butcher ; to such a man as Bacon was known to be — not only skilled in judicial lore, but in the technicalities of the law as well, rather than to him who had spent his early manhood in the 50 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. cramped up condition in which we find him at home, and afterward in his occupation of common actor and theatrical manager. I give one quotation — a quibble — in illustration of this point, one that is supposed to have been written soon after " our Shakspeare " left home, or perhaps before, according to the best evidence we have. Hamlet — Act 2, Scene 2. Polonious. Your noble son is mad. Mad call I it : for, to define true madness, What ist, but to be nothing else but mad. But let that go. Queen. More matter, with his art. Pol. Madam, I swear, I use no art at all. That he is mad, 'tis true ; 'tis true 'tis pity ; And pity 'tis, 'tis true ; a foolish figure. But farewell it, for I will use no art. Mad let us grant him then ; and now remains That we find out the cause of this effect ; Or rather say, the cause of this defect ; For this effect, defective, comes by cause : Thus it remains, and the remainder thus." For a new beginner this is a " quibble" long drawn out, is it not ? To us it savors of the barrister's pet stjde. I will here recall the reader's attention to the Earl of Richmond, and revert to the prophecy of Henry the Sixth, concerning him, which we find in Bacon's Essays. Henry the Sixth said of Henry the Seventh, when lie was a lad, and gave him water, " This is the lad that shall inherit the crown for which we strive." This is repeated every time Richard the Third is enacted, and in Henry the Sixth it is recorded. Comment seems to be unnecessary here. We will now pass to the consideration of the play next MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 51 in order, Henry the Eighth. In Ad. Learning Mr. Bacon says, after reference to the coming in of Henry the Eighth, " Then followeth the reign of a king whose actions how- sover conducted had much intermixture with the affairs of Europe, balancing and inclining, then variable ; in whose time also began that great alteration in the State Ecclesi- astical, an action which seldom cometh upon the stageP' IN^ow, as we find that the play of Henry the Eighth is the only one of the series whose plot turns upon the ecclesi- astical pivot, we readily see the point of the last sentence in the quotation. We will now examine Mr. Bacon's ideas on the subject of love, and we will find them peculiar with him, and we shall find as well, that they are strictly exemplified throughout the plays founded upon the master passion. In his " Essay on Love," he strikes the key note in this dramatical manner : " The stage is more beholden to love than the life of man. For, as to the stage, it is ever a matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies ; but in life it doeth much mischief, sometimes like a siren, and sometimes like a fury. You may observe that amongst all the great and worthy persons, whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent, there is not one that has been transported to the mad degree of love." Here he makes two noted exceptions, one of whom is Marcus Antonius — the Marh Antony of the plays ! How odd that he should think of him ! Then in " Much Ado About Nothing " we find the following : " I do much wonder, that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behavior to love, will after he hath laughed at such shallow 52 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love." And this in Mid-Summer ^N'ight's Dream, Act 6, Scene 1. " Lovers and madmen have such seething brains — such Shaping fantasies that apprehend More than cool reason comprehends," etc. 'Now, when we consider the love characters as presented in the plays, from the crack-brained admirer of Rosalind to the devoted Romeo or Juliet; and from the jealous Othello to the superb Antony — " who for a woman's smile did throw a world away" — we see a perfect reproduction and embodiment of Bacon's love estimate. Is not this much more than a coincidence ? Let us see what Mr. Bacon has to say on the subject of doubt, a doubtful subject to be sure, yet it concludes with a point. We read in Ad. Learning : '^ If a man will begin with certainties he shall end in doubt, but if he begin with doubt, he shall end with certainties." And this in the play answers it completely : " Surety is the wound of peace, but modest doubt is the beacon of the wise." Of the ambition for power we read in Ad. Learning: " For so we see by aspiring to be like God in power, the angels transgress'd and fell." Also in " Essay on Groodness" we have this : " The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall." Then read in Henry the Eighth, Act 3, Scene 2 : " Crom- well, I charge thee, fling away ambition, by that sin fell the angels." 'Twas that same fall, you see ! In discoursing upon virtue, Mr. Bacon, alluding to the manner in which many of the old philosophers juggled the principle of virtue, to make it appear the reverse from that MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 53 it is, remarks in Ad. Learning : "As it is used in some comedies of errors, wherein mistress and maid change habits." Now, I know of bnt one '^ Comedy of Errors," and that is in this disputed vohime, in which the deeper we go the more traces we find of the wizard's work. Please turn to Comedy of Errors, Act 5, Scene 1, where you will find a mistress whose jealous husband is seeking her to wreak his vengeance ; and a maid, who seeing him first, rushes into her mistress' apartments exclaiming: "Mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself !" An odd pair of shifts, indeed, would they be, did we not know that the same hand fashioned them both ! Then again, in regard to time, and the danger of delays, he has this in his Essay on Delay : " For occasion, as it is in the cornmon verse — i. e., in the play — after she hath pre- sented her locks in front, and no hold taken, turneth a bald noddle, or at least, turneth the handle of the bottle first to be received, and after the body, which is hard to clasp." What do we find in the plays to match this ? " Take time by the/b/'6Z(9c^;" " Take the instant way ;" "Procras- tination is the thief of time," and much more in the same strain, plainly denoting a parallelism of imagery not to be found in any two writers on the same subject, I venture to say. Here, too, is Mr. Bacon's idea of place and position : " Men in great place are thrice servants. It is a strange desire to seek power and lose liberty ; or to seek power over others and to lose power over one's self. The rising into great place is laborious, and by indignities men come to dig- nities ; the standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing." 54 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. All this reads like very fatherly advice, but its true inwardness will be apparent when we have shown up the hidden meaning of the illustrations on the cover of this edition of 1623, which will be done in its proper place. Let us now turn to Henry the Eighth, Act 3, Scene 2, and we have, in the words of Cardinal Wolsey : " Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness ! This is the state of man ; to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honors thick upon him ; The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And — when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening — nips his root. And then he falls, as I do." So here we see, as Mr. Bacon has it in his "Essay on Great Place," this kind of a fall is a melancholy thing ! And to these observations, the last words of Wolsey as he applies at the convent, are a fitting conclusion : " An old man broken with tlie storms of state Has come to lay his weary bones among ye ; Give him a little earth in charity ! " Next we will give an item on the excusing of one's own faults on the score of friendship : Mr. Bacon observes in Ad. of Learning, " As if they might presume, or be bold upon them ; it dotli contrariwise indeed aggravate their fault, and turneth it from injury to impiety." And so we have it in the play — the well known quotation — " Ofttimes the excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse for the excuse." Surely reason will not excuse us from recognizing the sameness of these two quotations ! And here is one more from Ad. of Learning : " As for the marshalling of men's pursuits towards their fortune," MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 55 after showing that it is not money that is the sinew of fortune, but rather, wit, courage, resolution, industry, etc., he says : " In third place I set down reputation because of the peremptory tides and currents it hath, which if they he not taken in their due time^ are seldom recovered, it being extreme hard to play an after-game of reputation." Please compare this with that other well-known quotation from the play: "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, — neglected, all is lost." The same ink may not have been used in the production of the above, but it is very evident that the same hand guided the pen in both ! There are " ear-marks " peculiar to all great writers, and here is one to be found in Bacon's acknowledged works, and the plays in about equal proportion : In calling attention to the results of certain investigations, or considerations, he makes use of the expression " You shall have, &c.," instead of " You will find," or, " It will be seen, &c." This expres- sion is often used in his works, and the plays generally ; and by thoughtful persons, I think it will be readily seen that these " ear-marks" are the tell-tale signs of any writer of note. I desire, next in order, to call the reader's attention to the grand word-imagery employed in the plays, and to the evidence that the writer thereof was familiar with all the deities, myths, fables, legends, fairy tales and jokes to which allusion is made in any or all the past literature of the world. And also to that equally important fact that the writer thereof must have had a prodigious memory, as well as an exceedingly fertile imagination. And to show Mr. Bacon's great excellence in these qualities of mind, I 56 MYSTERY OF SHaKSPEARE. will furnish you with a few choice bits from his acknowl- edged works ; although I must of necessity be too brief to do the subject justice. Here is a scrap of every-day phi- losophy : '' But men, if they be in their own power, and do bear and sustain themselves, and be not carried away with a whirl-wind or tempest of ambition, ought, in the pursuit of their own fortune, to set before their eyes, not only that general map of the world, that ' all things are vanity and vexation of spirit,' but many other more particular cards and directions ; chiefly that being, without well-being, is a curse ; and the greater being the greater curse ; and that all virtue is most rewarded, and all wickedness most pun- ished in itself." 'No comments needed ! In regard to the great number of poor or bad books, he says: "The remedy is not in making no more hoohs, but rather in making more good hoohs, which as the serpent of Moses, might destroy the serpents of the enchanters." Of truth, he uses these words: "Yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth, that the enquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it ; the knowledge of truth which is the presence of it ; and the belief of truth which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature." Of philosophy he remarks thus : "And if it be said that the cure of men's minds belongeth to sacred divinity, it is most true ; but moral philosophy may be preferred unto her as a wise servant and humble hand-maid ; for as the Psalm saith, that 'the eyes of the hand-maid look perpetually towards the mistress.' " And now to sum up truth, in a small compass, we have this from his Essay on Truth : " Certainly it is heaven upon MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 57 earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in provi- dence, and turn upon the poles of truth." Has he not here given you the best of human action in the least possible compass t In reference to memory and its uses, he says : " It is an art that may be raised to points of austentation prodigious, and therefore I make no more estimation of repeating a great number of names, or words upon the once hearing ; or the pouring forth of a number of verses or rhymes, extempore; or the making of a satirical simile of every- thing ; or the turning of everything into a jest ; or the falsifying or contradicting of everything by cavil, or the like, than I do of the tricks of tumblers, balladims, funan- bulos and the like." Here, then, we have an inkling of where the power came from to make a " turn upon words" in every conceivable way, which we see manifested through- out the plays. Again, we read in connection with his first collection of apothegms — two hundred and ninety-five in number — that Mr. Bacon " made this collection out of his memory^ with- out turning any book." Now, when we reflect that, in them, reference is made to several hundred authors and prominent personages, and that they contain the best wit of the world, from the earliest Greek and Latin times to those of his own day, we get a glimpse of the scope of his mental power, and the extent of his literary researches. These three collections of apothegms will compare favor- ably with the best the world affords in that line ; but it is in the heading of the last collection wherein we see the point of the joke. He very bluntly tells you that " this collection was first published in the remains.^^ Kow, 58 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. there's no book of " remains," that we know of, with which he was in any manner connected, except this famous volume of plays, which those two " friends" of Shakspeare are said to have collected and published as '' his remains." Another curious coincidence, indeed, especially so, when we reflect that these jokes are snugly sandwiched in the different parts of the plays, where they seem to fit as though originally intended therefor. Ah, the more we examine into this subject, it seems to furnish us with additional proof that '•' There are many things in heaven and earth That your philosophy never dreamed of, Horatio." There is another peculiarity of Bacon's to which I will call attention. He abounds in figures of speech beyond most other writers. For example, this on ^' Poesy" in Ad. Learning : " Poesy is a part of learning, in measure of words for the most part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly refer to the imagination, which, being not tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever that which nature hath joined, and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things." And this, too, upon Riches : " I cannot call riches better than the baggage of virtue: for as the baggage is to an army, so are riches to virtue ; it cannot be spared or left behind, but it hindereth the march." Of one kind of friendship he says this : " Costly followers are not to be liked, lest while a man maketh his train longer, he maketh his wings shorter." Compare v/ith Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2 : " The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple tliem to thy soul with MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 59 hooks of steel ; but do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched, unfledged comrad." In Ad. Learning we And this : " Divide with reason, between self-love and society ; and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others." Compare this, also, with Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3 : " To thine own self be true. And it shall follow as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." Of two things, I think the reader will by this time be convinced, that if Hamlet was mad there was much phi- losophy, as well as method, in it, and that there is a perfect agreement with Bacon in both of these particulars. Thus have I shown, though in a desultory way, Mr. Bacon's great felicity in the use of those images and figures with which the plays abound. I will continue the comparisons by noting that in the life of Shakspeare, to be found in the Be v. William Harness's copy of the edition of 1623, there is mention of a verse of four lines, said to have been found in a volume of poems, and reading thus : Shakspeare on the Kino. Crowns have their compass, length of days their date ; Triumphs their tombs, felicity her fate : Of more than earth can earth make none partaker ; But knowledge makes the king most like his maker. Now, let us turn to Bacon's dedication of his book Ad. of Learning, and also to his essay on the king, and see if we can find anything like this in letter or spirit. The dedication is to the king — same King James, be it remembered : " Wherefore representing your majesty many times unto my mind, and beholding you not with the inquisitive 60 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. eye of presumption, to discover that which the Scrip- ture telle th me is inscrutable, but with the observant eye of duty and admiration, leaving aside the other parts of your virtue and fortune, I have been touched, yea, and possessed with an extreme wonder at those your vir- tues and faculties, which the philosophers call intellectual ; the largeness of your capacity, the faithfulness of your memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the penetra- tion of your judgment, and the facility and order of your elocution ; and I have often thought, that of all the persons living, that I have known, your majesty were the best instance to make a man of Plato's opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance, and that the mind of man by nature, knoweth all things, and hath but her own native and original motions (which by the strangeness and darkness of this tabernacle of the body are sequestered), again revived and restored ; such a light of nature I have observed in your majesty, and such a readiness to take flame and blaze from the least occasion presented, or the least spark of another's knowledge delivered. And as the Scripture saith of the wisest king, ' That his heart was as the sands of the sea ;' which though it be one of the largest bodies, yet it consisteth of the smallest and finest portions ; so hath God given your majesty a composition of understanding admirable, being able to compass and com- prehend the greatest matters, and nevertheless to touch and apprehend the least ; whereas it should seem an impossibility in nature, for the same instrument to make itself fit for great and small work. "For I am well assured that this which I shall say is noth- ing but a positive and measured truth ; which is, that there hath not been since Christ's time any king, or temporal monarch, which hath been so learned in all literature and erudition, divine and human. "For it seemeth much in a king, if, by the compendious extractions of other men's wits and labors, he can take hold of any superficial ornaments and shows of learning, or if he countenance and prefer learning and learned men ; but to drink indeed of tlie true fountains of learning, nay, to have such a fountain of learning in himself, in a king, and in a hing horn, is almost a miracle. And the more because there MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 61 is met in your majesty a rare conjunction, as well of divine and sacred literature, as of profane and human ; so as your majesty standeth invested of that triplicity, which in great veneration was ascribed to the ancient Hermes ; the power and fortune of a king, the knowledge and illumination of a priest, and the learning and universality of a philosopher." I have been bold to tax the patience of my readers some- what for the express purpose of showing in what estimation King James was held by Mr. Bacon, to whom, he says at the conclusion of his book, he is most bounden." This same " most bounden " is the expression used by the " play- fellows " at the conclusion of their remarkable dedication, if you remember. And now, I think, we will be enabled to see whence originated the very essence of laudation con- tained in the verse of four lines upon the king. But, as I have been so particular to show the reader how Mr. Bacon has lauded King James to the skies, behind his back, I ought also to show how he has larded him to his face ! He says, as you see, that to '' take hold of the superficial ornaments or shows of learning," or " to drink indeed of the fountain of knowledge," is much in a king ; that is to say, that if a king can and will learn anything it's some- thing to be thankful for. And, again, "To have such a fountain of learning in himself, in a king, and in a king born, is almost a miracle !" That is to say, if a king had been made from among the commwi people he might have been expected to know something in himself ; but, to be a ''king born," it was almost a miracle if he did ! This must have been royal fun for Bacon ; but it was death for the royal frog ! But to proceed. In Mr. Bacon's book, New Atlantis — an island which he locates away in the South Pacific Ocean — he describes the numerous matters in w^hich they excel, 62 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. but in reality he is giving a particular description of the arts and sciences as they were in England, and as he him- self has found, by experiment, to be possible. And among these he mentions, " Instruments also which generate heat only by motion ;" and, again, " places under the earth which by nature or art yield heat ; these divers heats we use as the nature of the operation requireth." Again, '^ We have also divers strange and artificial echoes reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it, and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller, and some deeper," etc. " We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances." " We also have engine houses where are prepared engines and instruments for all sorts of motions." " We have divers curious clocks, and other like motions of return, and some perpetual motions." Here, then, he gives us a very fair and full description of his experimental work. For, be it remembered, he is not discoursing about an island in the Pacific Ocean — far from it — but of things as he has discovered them by his untiring perseverance in study and experiment. It is plain, from the foregoing, that he had arrived at an experimental understanding of the principle of electric force and of its possible uses ; of the telephone and its application, and in his " perpetual motions," a self-gener- ating electrical apparatus ! Is it any wonder, then, that we find in the play of the " Tempest " — which was written last, but printed first in this edition — a complete account of the results of the writer's discoveries in the use of this, the greatest force of nature ? In this play we see that Prospero is the duke, whose MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 63 dukedom has been usurped by a faithless brother. He is making arrangements to get it hach again all in good time, and he has his spirit Ariel to do his bidding. Frospero is Bacon, whose rights another has usurped ; and Ariel is electric force, which Prospero has discovered and uses to effect his purposes. A writer in a late number of the Century says, " Pros- pero has power to call up spirits from the vasty deep, but Shakspeare has power to call up Prospero." He might have added that Bacon had power to call up Shakspeare ; but the question now arises, Who is he who will call up Bacon ? In " Tempest," Act 1, Scene 2, we have this : Ariel. " I boarded the king's ship, now on the beak, JS'ow in the waist, the deck, in everj^ cabin, I flam'd amazement ; sometimes, I'd divide. And burn in many places ; on the top-mast. The yards and the bowsprit, would I flame dis- tinctly. Then meet and join ; Jove's lightnings, the pre- cursors O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary And sight-outrunning were not ; etc. Prospero. My brave spirit ! Who was so firm, so constant that this coil Would not infect his reason ? Ariel. N"ot a soul -But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel Then all a-fire witli me. The king's son, Ferdi- nand, With hair up-starting (then like reeds, not hair), Was the first man that leap'd, cried Hell is empty ^ All the devils are here. As much truth as poetry in the last sentence, we observe 64 MYSTEEY OF SHAKSPEARE. Then Mr. Bacon gives us his idea of what this force will be capable of when rightly understood and used, for 'tis a raging lion while untamed, but gentle as a lamb when under proper restraint. " The lion and the lamb shall lie down together." Ariel, who is anxious to be discharged from further service, urges his claim, and is answered : Prosjpero. Dost thou forget From what a torment I did free thee ? Ariel. IS'o. Prosjpero. Thou dost, and think'st It much to tread the ooze of the salt deep ; To run upon the sharp wind of the north ; To do me business in the veins of the earth When it is baked with frost. This is precisely what is being done with the cables and wires, above and below ground, and beneath the salt sea ! Thus we see that he gives, in a poetical allegory, the effects of the force he had discovered and brought to a working experiment ; and this, too, is in perfect harmony with descriptions of his discoveries in the " J^ew Atlantis." And does he not also give an account of the same effects when telling of the prodigies that occurred before the death of Ceasar ? A slave held up his hand, in the streets of Rome, " Which did flame and burn like twenty torches joined." And all this but shows that the writer has mastered experimentally this greatest force of nature ; therefore when he puts into the mouth of Puck — in Mid-Summer Night's Dream — the expression, " I'll put a girdle about the earth in forty minutes," he but foreshadows the great uses to which this force has since been applied. From the foregoing, I think the reader will see that he MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 65 was SO far advanced in experimental electric operation that we, after two and a half centuries, are but fairly abreast of him in our practical application of the force which he had harnessed, and taught to do his bidding ; and that our ocean cable is but " Puck's girdle " realized ! I ask the reader's attention to the following selection from Ballard, a poet of the west, which was written in 1859, after the first ocean cable had been laid and broken. It was equally apropos, and prophetic : Ho Cyrus Field ! Will Keptune yield. And are thy labors done ? Or shall the cable bind the lands And warm the hearts and join the hands Of England and her son ? Thy dauntless skill and Saxon will. With ocean's fury strove : And through Atlantic's stormy waves. Above her mountain peaks and caves, The cable coils were wove. On wings of flame one message came From Albion's sea-girt shore ; The new world sent an answering word, But now the ocean's spinal cord^ Will correspond no more ! The lightning's tide will yet divide The billows of the deep. And hourly errands yet shall run Between the mother and the son, Along the cable leap ! O triumph grand ; a mortal hand Controls the lightning's swing ; And from below the billows foam Where life hath never found a home. Its trackless courses spring ! 5 66 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. It was a favorite and peculiar idea of Bacon's, and I believe, original with him, that the famous story of Plato concerning the lost island of Atlantis, referred to the con- tinent of America rather than to an island in the Atlantic ; the ancients supposing that the oceans surrounding this vast continent, or island, were one and the same. His idea was that "the vast power that came forth out of the Atlantic," mentioned by Plato, was no other than the great empire that embraced the two continents of America, and whose fleets and colonies were irresistible, until some great catastrophe so curtailed their power that their ship- ping interests and colonial enterprises suffered an almost total eclipse, and as a consequence " Atlantis " was for ages lost to the eastern world, until rediscovered by the I^orthmen, and later by Columbus and others. In this view of the case, and in the light which Bacon's book — " ISTew Atlantis" — throws upon the subject, we see that by his prophetic vision he foresaw the rise of a new nation, whose tremendous energy and great inventive powers would carry forward his experiments to grand practical results. Let the reader bear in mind that about the time "IS'ew Atlantis" was written, the great movement was in prog- ress in Great Britain, and elsewhere, which resulted in the sailing of the Ma^^flower on its momentous voyage, bearing the hopes of the new world, as a certain other barque carried Caesar and his fortunes ; and that he — Bacon — must have seen from his philosophical standpoint, the result of transplanting the British power in the new world, and that in the course of time, a "ISTew Atlantis" would arise, whose greatness would far outstrip the one of old. I find that Mr. Bacon gives to Plato the credit for being MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 67 the master mind of the ancient literary world before the time of Caesar ; consequently he quotes him often, as on the first page of his great book, Ad. Learning, and in many other places, and we need not be surprised that the same thing occurs in the plays. We cannot wonder at this in view of the fact that this great reasoner reached the conclusion of ultimate immortality for the human race six hundred years before the Christian era commenced, and, therefore, he is rightly entitled to great consideration as one of the fathers of this sublime idea. And now to leave off speculation in regard to things of the olden time, let us contiuue the examination of his works in connection with this volume of plays. We are gravely informed by the biographers of Shak- speare that Queen Elizabeth was so much pleased with the character of Falstaff, that she commanded that he be pro- duced as a love character, and that the new play was to be finished in fourteen days; 'tis said that Shakspeare accomplished the undertaking. Let us see what this amounts to. There are twenty-one pages in " Merry Wives of Wind- sor" — the play in question — finished in fourteen days — one and one half pages every twenty-four hours for four- teen consecutive days ! Surely the Queen's mirthfulness would have turned into pity, had she an inkling of the amount of wear and tear to which slie was subjecting the brain of " our Shakspeare " for her delectation. And especially so when we reflect that Johnson's best play — "Rasselas" — was finished in one day and one night ; and that Dr. Johnson wrote forty-eight pages of his life of Savage at one sitting, — or in twenty- four hours ! And yet Shakspeare is held by his admirers 68 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEABE. to have been the king of writers ! Isn't there some slight whistakey somewhere, gentlemen ? It seems to be eminently proper that we pay some little attention to the tim£ at which many of these plays are said to have been written. According to Dryden, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, was the lirst effort of Shakspeare. Again 'tis said by other of his admirers that Titus Adronicus came first from his hand ; and again Hamlet is said to have been his first effort as a " beginner." In either case the mouse labored^ and brought forth a mountain ! The dates at which these plays were first published or played, show that they must have been produced about the time that Shakspeare arrived in London, or even before, perhaps. Kow, we have seen from his life as published by his friends, that his first occupation in the city was holding the horses and attending to the equipages of those who frequented the theater '" in style ;" therefore putting that and that together, we are led to suppose that when there were no horses to hold, he was at leisure to write an act or two of that old play of the Roman period — Titus Adronicus ; or to afford us a little information as to how Prince Pericles became so " Tyre'd ;" or mayhap about that time he sat down on the curb-stone and jotted down those instructions to players which we find in Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2, wherein, as we have heretofore intimated, the new beginner may learn to commence aright, and the accomplished artist still find much to assist him in improvement. It rather over- taxes our belief, to draw it mild. As for Othello, that fine composition in which the master passion is so strongly portrayed, both in its heights and depths, and wherein it is made to " work much mischief, sometimes like a siren and sometimes like a fury," as Mr. MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 69 Bacon has it, we see that it was founded upon one of " Cynthio's Novels," which were not then printed in English, and therefore the author must have been learned in the French or Italian, in which languages it was to be found. Bacon was " at home" in both of these ; but Shakspeare — who knew "little Latin and less Greek" — was never known to exhibit the least knowledge of either of these languages. Here, then, we have four fine plays, in which are depicted all the passions that flesh is heir to, together with the best rules of conduct by which to regulate one's life — notably in Hamlet — and we are expected to exercise our credulity so far as to allow that a green countryman, fresh from the butcher shop, could thus teach the masters of theatrical art! Ah, what is this that they have been giving us all these years ? We are informed that "our Shakspeare" bore the appel- lation of " the gentle ;" and that he was so, " let me a little show it even in this," as Caesar says. Any man of twenty- three years of age, who will hold the horses while the other man does the play — he's a gentle man — and who says nay ? And here is another point in connection with the plays as published in this edition of 1623. Very many of them — about two-thirds of the whole number — were first pub- lished in this edition, thus showing that the writer must have had them in his possession at that time. And they were seldom, if ever, entered for publication in Shak- speare's name, but in the name of various parties, such as John Busby, Andrew Wise, James Eoberts, Edward Blout, etc.; and, be it remembered, this "Blout" is the same individual who figures as one of the "sponsors" — so to 70 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. speak — wlio, it is said, helped to pay for the printing of this volume. Do you not begin to see that Bacon was cunning game, and has led you a roundabout chase ? It has of late been in print that that queen of the stage, Madame Modjeska, intended to have Shakspeare done into " Polish ;" it is my earnest conviction that it would be equivalent to cruelty to angels, to allow her to proceed without due warning, for, beyond a peradventure, he will in due time, be polished off by his own country- men ; for in looking at these works in whatever light we may have, and from whichever standpoint we may choose, we invariably find a thin veneering of Shakspeare, upon a heavy backing of Bacon. We are very forcibly reminded of the course pursued by certain fire insurance companies, that make an ostentatious display, an the face of the policy, in glaring letters and large figures, of the amount in which they insure you, but on the inside thereof they inform you in small type and in a score of ways, in which they do not insure you ! For proofs of which see notes at the headings of the plays in this edition, where they indulge in all manner of conjectures in regard to time, place and circumstance in connection with the writing of the plays. I give a speci- men : " The total number of lines contained in these last two parts of Henry the Sixth," says Malone, a well-known Shakspearian critic, " is six thousand and forty-three ; of these, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-one were written by Marlowe^ or Marlowe and his associates ; two thousand three hundred and seventy-three were framed by Shakspeare on the foundation laid by his predecessors; one thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine were entirely his own composition ! " ;N"ow, as tliey have said they were not sicre about the MYSTERF OF SHAKSPEARE. 71 authorship, they ought to have informed us by what pro. cess of reasoning, or ,by what mode of arithmetical calcu- lation, they arrived at the conclusion that these accom- modating writers penned a definite number of lines each ! In view of this, then, it seems to us that it ought not to require an intellectual telescope of vast power to enable any thinking person to discover him who stands behind both Marlowe and Shakspeare. And who was Marlowe, you ask ? Why, according to this volume he was taking a hand in writing these plays ; and on the authority of Mr. Donnelly, he was acting as a cover for Bacon, until killed in a street brawl, and then Shakspeare came opportunely upon the theatrical carpet and filled the same office — putting the plays of Bacon on the stage at the bidding of his master. That the authorship of Shakspeare was at first taken for granted without investigation and afterwards let go by default, seems to me to be beyond question ; and therefore it is needless to adduce additional testimony as to Bacon's authorship, except as a means toward opening up to the world a view of one of the finest pieces of literary ingenuity that the world has as yet produced. " The seem- ing truth tliat cunning times put on, to entrap the wisest," as we find it in Merchant of Venice. And now it seems to be in order to note what Mr. Bacon has to say upon the subject of " Cipher," or writing with a hidden meaning ; and in this he shows himself to have been an adept, fully understanding the different modes in use, which he describes in Ad. Learning as Wheel Ciphers, Key Ciphers, Doubles (parallels), etc.: " Commonly in letters, or alphabets, but may be in words with intermix- tures of nulls and non-significants," etc. " But the virtues T2 MYSTERY or SHAKSPEAEE. of them, whereby they are to be preferred, are three : that they be not laborious to read ; that they be impossible to decipher ; and in some cases, that they be without suspicion. The highest degree whereof is to write omnia per omnia j which is undoubtedly possible with a proportion quintuple, at most, of the writing infolding to the writing infolded, and no other restraint whatsoever. This art of ciphering hath for a relative an art of deciphering, by supposition unprofitable, hut as things are^ of great use^ (The italics here are mine.) Aye, '' as things are" — i. e., as he has them ciphered out, it is of great use to be able to decipher them ! He continues : " In the enumeration of these private and retired arts, it may be thought I seek to make a great muster-roll of sciences, naming them for show and austen- tation, and to little other purpose ; but let those which are skilful in them judge, whether I bring them in for appear- ance, or whether in that in which I speak of them, though in few words, there be not some seed of proficience." Here, then, we have his admission that he was perfectly familiar with the theory and practice of " hidden ciphers," and of their great use, " as things are." Hence, we need not be surprised at finding that this volume of plays is a complete storehouse of hidden writing. This I will show as we proceed. And in this connection it is in order to allude to Mr. Donnelly's complete success in linking Mr. Bacon's full name with this disputed volume ; the multiplication of cer- tain words, obtained in regular order, with the number of the page on which they occur, giving the number of the word sought, counting from the beginning of the play. In this manner he obtained the following astonishing result : " Francis — Bacon — St. — Albans — Yolume — Plays — Found MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 73 — Out !" — a result, I venture to say, the like of which could not be obtained in the same manner in any other volume in all the libraries of the world. And yet this is but one of the numerous ciphers, or " keys," so cunningly placed, in various ways, throughout this book. The arrangement of the " dash" in the preface, which is first and best, in that it gives the authorship away at the start ; the allusion to " his other friends, whom, if you need can be your guides," which points the reader to the other works of Bacon, and the history of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, which is the missing link in the plays of the Henrys — these are some of the principal key ciphers, though undoubtedly most of the parallel passages were intended as such ; and although these ciphers, con- sidered singly, may be thought to be of small importance, yet by their connections become full of meaning, and capable of accomplishing great results. As we have it in the play : " And like a cipher standing in rich place, I multiply many times, I thank you !" Speaking of the works of Deity, Mr. Bacon says : " He doth often hang the greatest things on the smallest wires;" and so, following this same order he has hung great things even upon a cipher ! I have before called attention to Mr. Bacon's penchant for experimentation, and I will give a few ideas in connec- tion therewith. In the study of anatomy he was one of the first to prac- tice and recommend vivisection, in order to a more com- plete understanding of animal structure in connection with the study of the human system, and this practice made him a convert to the idea of evolution, as it is termed todaj^ ; 74 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. and in justice to his convictions, and with a strict regard for truth, he was forced to admit the ascent of man from the lower orders of animals : consequently we see in his book. Ad. Learning, that he strode over from the seven- teenth to the nineteenth century, and stood alongside of the great Darwin, in tliese remarkable words : " For cer- tainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body, but in soul he is of God," Is not this an equivalent of the expression in the play so often quoted : " A touch of nature makes all the world akin." In this connection I cannot refrain from giving one item for the especial benefit of the medical fraternity. He says in Ad. Learning : " And although a man would think by the daily visitation of the physicians that there was a perseverance in the cure ; yet let a man look into their prescripts and ministrations, and he shall find them but inconsistencies, and e very-day devices, without any settled providence or project ; " and he clinches the nail with one of his apothegms, to wit : " Archbishop Grindall was wont to say that the physi- cians here in England, were not good, at the cure of par- ticular diseases ; but had only the power of the church, to hind and to loose ! " This seems to he a bitter pill for both professions. The subject of death — on which Mr. Bacon has much to say — seems to be next in order, though I hope it will not be deemed an invidious selection! He says: "Who can see worse days than he that yet living doth follow at the funerals of his own reputation ? " "I might say much of the commodities that death can MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 75 sell a man, but, briefly, death is a friend of ours, and who- soever is not ready to entertain him, is not at home ! " In his essay on death he has this : " I have often thought upon death, and find it the least of all evils / " again : "Herein I do profess myself a stoic, to hold grief no evil, but a thing indifferent ; " and this : " But I consent with Caesar that the suddenest passage is the easiest." Let us see, then, what he has made Caesar to say on this subject. Turn to Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 2. " Cowards die many times before their deaths ; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear ; Seeing that death, a necessary end. Will come — when it will come." How odd that two authors should think and write on every subject, precisely alike ! This of Bacon's throws additional light on the subject : " Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark ; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other." This too, from " Measure for Measure," is very much to the point : "The weariest, and most loathed world of life That age, ache, penury, or imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death." He sums up in this wise: "It is worthy of observing that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death ; and therefore death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death ; love slights it ; honor 76 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. aspireth to it ; grief fleeeth to it ; nay, we read that after the Emperor Otho had slain himself, pity, which is the truest of affections, provoked many to die, out of mere com- passion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of fol- lowers." In all this we have not only a perfect agreement with Caesar's idea of death, but we have a fine example of image portraiture, such as is scattered through the plays, and in the use of which Mr. Bacon was so proficient. Again, the writer of these plays understood all the phases of society, and court life and etiquette, a knowledge to be best obtained by a participation therein ; and here, too, Mr. Bacon was at home, having been the favorite of Queen Elizabeth at the age of seventeen and after, and eventually marrying a rich alderman's daughter ; and this reminds us that when he says in his " Essay on Death," he never knew him to be welcome at the door of an alderman^ he was but poking a sad joke under the short ribs of his father-in- law! Most of my readers will, I am sure, recall the fact that it is written that, " the last enemy that shall be destroyed, is death." And it is also written that, " Mankind were in bondage through fear of death." Now, it is not the fact of death, but the fear thereof from which mankind needs redemption. And, this, bear in mind, is both Caesar's and Bacon's idea ; they seem to agree perfectly well, you see. But remove the fact of death, and mankind would become a race of cannibals in less than one century ! On the other hand, remove the fear of deaih^ and you destroy the bondage under which the race has labored through the ages even to this day ; nay more, you relieve them from the mortgages held over them by MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 77 those who deal in future options, and some one's occupation, other than Othello's, would be gone indeed ! "A consummation devoutly to be wished." But, as Mr. Bacon says, " How am I swayed from my purpose in this." Let us then return to the subject in hand, and see what he has to say about the death of Caesar in particular. In his " Essay on Friendship " he says of Brutus, who loved Csesar, and who loved him : '^ And this was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death. For when Caesar would have discharged the Senate, in regard of some ill-presages, and especially a dream of Calphurnia, his wife, this man — Brutus — lifted him gently by the arm, out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the Senate till his wife had dreamed a hetter dream ! " We will now turn to the play of Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 2, and learn what Brutus has to say on this point. Brutus has gone to Caesar's house to bring him to the Senate ; Calphurnia desires him to stay at home on account of the evil omens seen, and of her own dream, and Caesar has about decided to yield to her wishes — as all good hus- bands do — sometimes — when Brutus, to induce him to go, says : '* The Senate have concluded to give this day a crown to mighty Caesar. If you send word you will not come, their minds may change." Besides, it were a mock apt to be rendered for some one to say, '* Break up the Senate till another time, when Caesar's wife shall meet with better dreams ! " Ah, who would dream of two hands, holding the same pen at one and the same time ! That Mr. Bacon considered Julius Caesar to be the greatest man the world had produced, we see in many 78 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. places in his works, as well as in the plays, the same being quoted by Boswell in his life of Johnson. A few citations will suffice. In Ad. Learning he says: "As for Caesar, the excellency of his learning needeth not to be argued from his education, or his company, or his speaches, but in a further degree doth declare itself in his writings and works. For first we see, there is left unto us, that excellent history of his own wars, which he entitled only a comment- ary, wherein all succeeding times have admitted the solid weight of matter, and the real passages, and lively images of actions and persons expressed in the greatest propriety of words and perspicuity of narration that ever was, which, that it was not the effect of a natural gift (as 'tis said of •our Shakspeare '), but of learning and precept, is well witnessed by that work of his entitled, *De Analogia,' being a grammatical philosophy, in which he took,_as it were, the picture of words from the life of reason. So we receive from him a monument of his power and learning, the then reformed computation of the year ; well expressing that he took it to be as great a glory to himself to observe and know the laws of the heavens, as to give laws to men upon the earth.'' This, too, is from the same book : " Caesar did extremely affect the name of king ; and some were set on, as he passed by, in popular acclamation to salute him king; whereupon, finding the cry weak and poor, he put it off in a kind of jest," etc. l^ow if the reader will please compare this with the play of Caesar, where Antony offers him the crown, and the people shout in his honor, they will readily see the entire harmony of ideas expressed. And then, too, consider the expression used by Antony, where he says the conspirators MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARB. 79 " have killed the foremost man of all this world," and the picture will be complete. I will close this part of the inquiry with an item from Mr. Bacon's " Life of Caesar," compared with the play : " He was without dispute a man of great and noble soul ; though rather bent on procuring his own private advantage than good to tlie public ; for rie referred all things unto himself and was the truest centre of his own actions : for neither his country or religion ; neither good offices, rela- tives or friends, could check or moderate his designes." IS'ow we will turn to the play, Act 3, Scene 1, where the conspirators are praying him to change his order concerning a banished friend of one of them. " I could be well moved if I were as you ; If I could pray to move, prayers would move me : But I am constant as the northern star Of whose true-fixed, and resting quality. There is no fellow in the firmament. The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks, They are all fire, and everyone doth shine ; But there's but one in all doth hold his place : So, in the world ; 'tis furnished well with men, ^ And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive ; Yet in the number, 1 do know but one That unassailable holds on his rank, Unshaked of motion : and, that I am he, Let me a little shew it, even in this ; That I am constant, Cimber should be banished. And constant do remain to keep him so." And thus we see in this play, as in Bacon's life of Caesar, ^' He did refer all things unto himself, and was the truest centre of his own action." He seemed to consider himself the hub of the universe — though I believe he never lived in Boston ! How, I ask, is it possible to use words in two places and under different circumstances, and express precisely the 80 MYSTERY OF SHAK8PEARE. same meaning, any better than we see done in this ; and what two writers would, or could, do it, and not be in collusion ? And we feel constrained to ask, who, after close examination, can fail to see the wizard's hand in all this? We now give the reader an item by which to show Mr. Bacon's idea of envious people. We find this in his Essay on Goodness : " Such men, in other men's calamities, are, as it were, ever in season, and make it their practice to bring men to the bough — to hang — and yet have never a tree for the purpose in their garden as Timon had." l!^ow please turn to the play of Timon of Athens, Act 5, Scene 2. We find that Timon is quite put out with all the world, and especially with the people of Athens, and has gone out into nature's wide domain, and is actually living on roots, furnished by mother earth. By some of his acquaintances, who come from the city to see him, Timon sends his compliments to the people of Athens, and invites them all out to hang on the tree in his garden, ere he cuts it down ! In view of these characteristics of Timon, we must allow that in all probability he was an ancient ancestor of Bacon, who like him was ever rooting round to " turn up " some- thing; but while he was lashing his own sides with the tail of a pig, he was preparing to lash his own countrymen with the sting of a scorpion ! For these plays become in his hands a whip of small cords, with a sting in each. As witness this from Richard II., Act 2, Scene 1, speak- ing of England : " This dear — dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world. Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it) Like to a tenement, or pelting farm ; MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. 81 England, bound in with the triumphant sea Whose roekj shore beats back the envious siege Of watery S'eptune, is now bound in with shame ; With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds ; That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself." And now, if these two quotations, mentioned above, from the Essays of Bacon, and from Timon of Athens, do not show fruit off the same bough, then indeed are art and nature both at fault, and we do but dream by the rule of opposites ! The learned Mr. Wm. Draper, in his great M^ork, the "Conflict of Science and Keligion," has alluded to the fanciful philosophy of Bacon. He may w^ell call it fanci- ful, for in making his philosophical points, in the plays and in his other writings, he has thrown in many fanciful expressions, sometimes as a cover, but often solely to give vent to the very exuberance of his fancy ; the reader must sift the grain from the chaff ! For when he is specially desirous of covering his tracks, he is either grandiloquently eloquent, or absurdly comical. As an instance I recall the quotation from the play of Csesar, to be found in Hamlet, where, after the " tenantless graves and the sheeted dead," he gives us thirteen dashes all in a row, simpty to mark an omission in the quotation — this and nothing more — eh ? A very odd arrangement, you think ? Yes, thirteen always was considered odd, especially at a dinner table, where some one was sure to die after it ! But seriously, does any one suppose that the writer and publisher of this volume did not know the meaning and use of the dash^ but ignorantly used it in place of the asterisk to denote an omission in the quotation ? 6 82 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. There's a little innocent conundrum that will illustrate this point to a nicety — to wit : Why are these thirteen dashes equal to eleven, and no more ? Sponge up ? Because arranged in this way, they become the little 'leven that 'levens the whole lump ! But let the leaven work — " I'll use no art." 'Tis but a piece of his audacity in placing before your eyes the very stumbling block over which you tumbled in the preface ! In all this he is but giving you the sweetest kind of taffy ; nay, more, he holds you spell-bound with his ghostly witcheries, while he administers the dose ; more still, he grasps you ly the standmg locks and crams it down your throat ! But this is not all in this connection ; he has used the "dash" in every conceivable way, in season and out of season, in every play, but he has capped the climax in " All's Well that Ends Well," Act 2, Scene 3. The curing of the king is the ostensible topic, but the dash itself is the particular subject of comment, as we see in the following extract. I will bracket the "dash," in order that its full effect may be the better realized : Lafeii. I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world. Parolles. It is, indeed; if you will have it in the show- ing you shall read it in What do you call there ? (Dash.) Lafeu. A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor. Parolles. That's it, I would have said the very same. Lafeu. Why, your dolphin is not lustier; fore me, I speak in respect (of Dash). Parolles. Nay, 'tis strange, 'tis very strange, that is the brief and the tedious of it ; and he is a most facinorious spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the (Dash). Lafeu. Yery hand of heaven. MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 83 Parolles. Aje, so I say. Lafeu. In a most weak (Dasli). Parolles. And debile minister, great power, great tran- scendence : which should indeed give ns a further use to be made than alone the recovery of the king, as to be (Dash). Lafeu. Generally thankful. Parolles. I would have said it, etc. In this cunning handling of this innocent ''dash," where- in it is called "most weak," and a " dolphin," we are assured that it has something to do other than curing a king. "We should say as much ! And 'tis a dolphin because a dolphin is, in its proj^er element, a very sportive creature ; and like- wise this dash, properly placed, is capable of producing a great deal of sport. Bacon's own son, Hamlet, thus remarks : " Let it work ; For 'tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petar ; and it shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines And blow them at the moon ; O 'tis most sweet When in one line two crafts directly meet." As " our Shakspeare" conceived the dash, so also is he the engineer thereof, and it thus becomes the " petar" that will hoist him ! These two crafts are the bogus friends of Shakspeare, who are sailing under false colors — i. e.^ false names — and they meet in one line the dash ! N^ow, when they are blown at the moon, and arrive in as good order as the urgency of the case will admit of, let us be charitable enough to suppose that they will be enabled to afford us exact information as to what it is made of. We see in the Tempest — his latest play — that Prospero, who is acting the part of the wizard and necromancer, but 84 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. who is none other than Bacon himself, whose rights have been usurped, says : " But this rough magic I here abjure : and, when I have required Some heavenly music (which even now I do), To work mine end upon their senses, that This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff. Bury it certain fathoms in the earth. And, deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book." That is as if he had said, " I'll lay aside my electric oper- ations and hide my book 'till the time is ripe for their revealing," and that he has succeeded in so doing, until now, is a matter of fact. But he tells us " The queen shall have her say or the blank verse shall halt for it." So, therefore, as we have his "cue," the depths shall be sounded, his book shall come forth, and Bacon shall be interpreted, or this blank'd prose go lame to the end of time ! Has the reader ever considered how suggestive the title of the play of " Ham-let " is ? As a floweret is a little flower, so by the same rule a " Ham-let " is a little ham ; and all the world knows that ham is near akin to Bacon ! And, therefore, as Bacon is the father of Hamlet, so the ghost of Hamlet's father is the ghost of Bacon, i. e., Bacon himself ; and whatever the " Ghost " says, is none other than the words of Bacon. And hereby hangs, not only thepomt of this story, but the tale itself ! And when he tells you "he could to you a tale unfold," he is but telling you an unvarnished truth, but it was " forbid- den unto him to reveal the secrets of the prison house," simply because the fullness of thne had not yet come I It might be urged by the admirers of Shakspeare that MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 85 the reason why there are so many parallel ideas in the works quoted herein, is, that Bacon might have been a great lover of the drama, and often attended the plays, and there- fore was enabled to pick up the fine points of wit and wisdom as they dropped from the eaves of the stage, so to speak ! But when we consider the fact that his essays, and Ad. Learning, from which I have made the greater part of my selections, were published long before most of the plays came out, this objection vanishes into thin air ; unless, indeed, we take the other horn of the dilemma, and suppose that Shakspeare was a great reader of Bacon, and stood ready to appropriate everything of note as soon as it was produced ! What a relish he had for Bacon, to be sure ! It has ever been a subject of great wonderment with many of the readers and admirers of " Shakspeare," that there should be such a vast collection of the best, and the worst, the highest and the lowest, the most God-like and the most devilish, in one volume and written by the same hand. But this is accounted for in the expression used by Bacon, " I have taken all knowledge to my province ; " and he was therefore obliged to include all — the highest and the lowest, in order to compass all humanity, as well as the heights and depths of nature. Yet, occupying the position in the gov- ernment, and in society, which he did, it was policy — speak- ing in a business way — for him to act under cover ; and as he found Shakspeare — and others — willing for a considera- tion, he had him in the literary harness, and drove him whithersoever he would. Sometimes through the fields where Adonis did roam, — Or the vales w^here Yenus did dwell ; Sometimes " like mad through the gates of Kome," And anon, through the gates of hell ! 86 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. What he thought of tlie uses of remuneration, may be learned in Love's Labor Lost. Act 3, Scene 1 : "Remun- eration I why, it is a fairer name than ' French Crown ; ' I will never buy or sell out of this word." And as Costard says, in this scene, " O marry me to one ' Francis,' I smell some L'Envoy — some goose in this — " we see where Francis Bacon is hiding himself. Again we have in Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2 : Hamlet " For thou dost know, O Damon dear This realm dismantled was Of Jove himself ; and now reigns here A very, very, peacock." Horatio. " You rtiight have rhymedP Hamlet. O, good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Did'st perceive ? The meaning of all this is that young Hamlet is trying, in a roundabout way, to make plain how his father has been bereft of his riglits, but slyly mentions the " thousand pounds " as a i)ointer. The literary Jove — Bacon — is deprived of his realm by a very, very — something that rhymes with " was " — but is incontinently dubbed a pea- cock ! And he gives you the " ghost's word for it." - This remuneration business is finely brought out in Henry the Fourth, Act 2, Scene 4. Prince Henry asks his servant how much sugar he gave him — " if it was a penny- worth f — and then adds : '• I will give thee a thousand pound for it ; ask me when thou wilt and thou shalt have it." Now, we perceive that the prince is giving his servant a " Thousand pound for a mere nothing ;" so, also, we remember that Shakspeare received about these days a present of one thousand pounds ; putting that and that MYSTERY OF SHAK8PEARE. 87 togetlier, we need not the services of an authorized "weather bureau " to tell us which way the wind blows ! There is another matter alluded to in this scene, which, when examined with the eyes open, will prove of great signiiicance, the fact of the calling of " Francis " — Bacon's name — some eleven times, and the situation so arranged that the servant shall answer continually, " Anon, anon ;" this, you are told, is a " precedent," and means that '' Fran- cis" may not come to-day or to-morrow or next week, but that he will coine some time ! At the beginning of this colloqu}^ we see this expression used — and 'tis a key to what follows — " Look down into the pomegranate^ Ralph !" This is an arbitrary name applied to him who should dis- cover the truth, and is a reminder to him that after he has found the meaning he must look well down into the fruit of tr%dh and find the kernel thereof ! " Dost perceive ?" And now I think I have shown how he was in the liter- ary harness, and what the amount of the " remuneration," and if it seem a little ungrateful on my part, I say, simply, I'll never spoil a story for a namesake's sake ! Now, as we have indulged in much that might properly be called tragedy, let us vary, somewhat, and introduce a little more comedy by way of variety. Mr. Bacon very slyly remarks that " men are not used to bring in a comedy before a tragedy," and " 'tis not best to stay too long in the theater," and like expressions. You see, he desires to keep it before the reader that he is inter- ested therein^ and knows all about it. Let us, then, turn to his Apothegms, where we will find such a collection of wdt and jest as may be found nowhere else, and which consti- tuted his hanh of fun upon which he drew for the wit and jokes with which the plays abound. A perusal of these 88 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. apothegms will disclose the fact that Mr. Bacon was hand- in-glove with both Queen Elizabeth and King James, and that his was the brain of both reigns ! I give a few sam- ples : One day Queen Elizabeth told Mr. Bacon that my Lord of Essex, after great protestation of penitence and affec- tion, fell in the end upon the suit of renewing of his farm of sweet wines. He answered : "I read that in nature there be two kinds of motions, or appetites, in sympathy ; the one as of iron to the adamant, for perfection ; the other as of the vine to the stake, for sustentation ; that her majesty was one, and his suit the other." Soon after the death of a great officer, who was judged no advancer of the king's matters, the king said to his solicitor, Bacon, who was his kinsman, " ]^ow tell me truly, what say you of your cousin that is gone ?" Mr. Bacon answered : " Sir, since your majesty doth charge me, I'll e'en deal plainly with you, and give you such a character of him as if I were to write his story. I do think he was no fit counselor to make your affairs bet- ter, but yet, he was fit to have kept them from growing worse." The king said, ^' On my so'l, man, in the first thou speakest like a true man, and in the latter like a kins- man." When Mr. Attorney Coke, in the Exchequer, gave high words to Sir Francis Bacon, and stood much upon his higher place. Sir Francis said to him, "Mr. Attorney, the less you speak of your own greatness the more I shall think of it ; and the more the less." And it was not every " limb of the law" who could pick up Coke, after he was warmed up, without burning his fingers ! Mayhap Mr. MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 89 Bacon had, in his mind's eye, an inkling of the modern process of steel-making, and concluded that ofttimes a large quantity of Coke woxild be consumed in producing a limited amount of steal ! Sir Francis Bacon, who was always for moderate counsels, when one was speaking of such a reformation of the Church of England as would in effect make it no Church, thus said to him : " Sir, the subject you speak of is the eye of England ; and if there be a speck or two in the eye, we endeavor to take them off ; but he were a strange oculist who would pull out the eye." I give the following apothegm — ]S"o. 32, 1st collection — for the benefit of the legal fraternity, who will best appre- ciate the same, and understand the true significance of its counterpart to be found in Henry the Fifth : " There was a French gentleman speaking with an English of the law Salique — that women were excluded from inlieriting the crown of France. The English said : ' Yes, but that was meant of tlie women themselves, not of such males as claimed by women.' The French gentleman said : ' Where do you find that gloss V The English answered : ' I'll tell you, sir ; look on the hack side of the record of the law Salique, and there you shall find it indorsed ;' " implying there was no such thing as the law Salique, but that it is a mere fiction. Xow, in Henry the Fifth, Act 1, Scene 2, we find the king inquiring of the Archbishop of Canterbury in regard to his right to the throne of France being affected by the Salique law, as it was claimed by the French, viz.: " No woman shall succeed in Salique land." The Archbishop assures him that there is no bar to make against his highness' claim to France ; and that the " Salique 90 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. land," which the French unjustly gloze to be the realm of France, lies in Germany ! The whole is a masterly and complete argument, showing the writer to be perfectly familiar not only with the legal bearing of the case, but with the genealogies of the different lines of the royal families for many generations. The reader will do well to peruse the argument in question, for he will be well repaid for so doing. We smell some " Francis" hereabouts — seems to be bound in legal calf. This must have been the kind of a calf that " our Shakspeare" is said to have " kilPd in high style and made a speach." 'Tis a very likely tale, truly, and seems to hang well, from our point of observation. Before leaving these apothegms, it will be in order to pay special attention to the one that, evidently, was placed as a key to the collection. I refer to l^o. 36, 1st collection, where we find the Bacon family joke — the same that we find brought out to perfection in " Merry Wives of Wind- sor." It is as follows, and speaks for itself : " Sir Nicholas Bacon, being appointed a judge for the Northern circuit, and having brought his trials that came before him to such a pass, as the passing of sentence on malefactors, he was, by one of them, miglitily importuned for to save his life ; which, when nothing that he said did avail, he at length desired his mercy on account of kindred. ' Prithie,' said my lord judge, ' how came tliat in V ' Why, if it please you, my lord, your name is Bacon, and mine is Hog, and in all ages Hog and Bacon have been so near kin- dred that they cannot be separated.' ^Aye, but,' replied Judge Bacon, ' you and I cannot be kindred except you be hanged ; for Hog is not Bacon until it be well hanged !' " This joke is so practical it fairly bristles. Now we will turn to the play of " Merry Wives of Wind- sor," Act 4, Scene 1. Here we have a boy named " Wil- MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 91 Ham " who is being instructed in Latin, by his teacher, and the boy's mother is assisting, though from the situation, one would naturally conclude that she needed to be taught as well. The teacher has finally succeeded in overcoming the boy's natural ability for blundering, and has taught him to repeat the phrase '' Accusitivo, hing, hang, hog : " the boy's mother, who isn't supposed to know Latin from leather, immediately volunteers the translation of the last two words, and says, "'hang hog' is Latin for bacon, I'll war- rant you." As Mr. Donnelly has shown this word bacon was spelled in the original edition with a big " B," and therefore, with- out doubt this joke was placed here as another of those " Key Ciphers," by him who was the greatest cipherer of all, " whereof the memory remaineth." But Mr. Donnelly has neglected to give us a translation of the first part of the sentence, which is put into the mouth of William, " Accu- sitivo hing." If '^ hang-hog " is intended f oi* Bacon, as it is so declared, then by a fair rule of interpretation William is made to stand up and say in effect, " I declare this matter hinges on the name of BaconP And the fact that the boy, William — Shakspeare's name — is the dunce w4io knows "little Latin, and less Greek," is no small part of the joke by any means. Now can any thinking person, with these facts before them, bring themselves to believe that Shakspeare would thus take up the Bacon family joke, which was perpetrated years before he came to. London, and sandwich it into a play at his own expense, and thus place himself on the dunce block \ Hardly. We will take leave of this part of the inquiry by giving the " summing up," as Mr. Bacon has put it, at the conclu- 92 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. sion of his first column of apothegms, two hundred and ninety-five in number, and which he gave at one sitting^ without " turning any book," i. e.^ from his memory. He covertly adds this : " Come now, all is well ; they say he is not a wise man that will lose his friend for his wit, but he is less a wise man that will lose his friend for another man's wit." We see in this that he had no desire in his day to be known as a play writer, and so lose his friends at court where he stood high, and who would have been mortally offended at m.any things in the plays, had they have known him as the author of them. Yet he foresaw that the time would inevitably come when he who had profited by " another man's wit " would lose his friends, i. 6., the praise of posterity, when the facts should become known. So much for comedy. JS^ow we will present a farce whose equal has never been shown to a gullible public! My readers who are so fortunate as to have a complete copy of the illustrated edition of 1623, will please notice particularly the illustrations on the cover of the same. On the back is a bust of Shakspeare in a very odd style of dress, with a collar the very opposite from the gentleman's style of that day. There are, also, two womanly figures on either hand, representing comedy and tragedy, respectively. A close inspection of the same will disclose the fact that the lady of tragedy is not grasping her dagger firmly, as she ought, but that the hand is partly open, with the fore- finger pointing directly at the bust above her. It will be noticed, also, that this lady wears a look of profound scorn rather than of defiance. Then, too, on the cover, they will see a large pedestal, upon which stands a small figure of the MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. 93 same individual whose bust is on the back of the book, and at which the open-handed lady of tragedy is pointing the finger of scorn. There is, also, a second pedestal on the top of the large one, upon which the little man is leaning. The base of the pedestal is surrounded by a mass of theat- rical rubbish ; and on either hand are two more womanly figures representing music and poetry. E'ow let the reader examine these illustrations with an artistic eye, giving due consideration to proportion and elevation, and noting the frieze under the capital. It appears to be about once and a half the height of an ordinary person, and you are looking upward at, and under, the capital, but strange to say, you see the surface upon which the little figure is standing; and that instead of being in the centre of the top of the pedestal, he is placed with his toes at the very edge thereof, consequently he is standing ujpon an incline of about forty-five degrees, more or less ; a position more odd than honorable, one would think. And we desire to add, in passing, that this illustration will bear inspection with a lens, and will prove to be not only a piece of artistic excellence, but the standing joke of the world ! ISTow let us see if we can find in Mr. Bacon's works anything that will throw light upon these illustrations. Mr. Bacon has kindly volunteered his opinion in one place, that "fulsome praise is the very essence of iron3^" And in apothegm number two of the collection which lie says "was first published in the remains," we find this : Plutarch said of men of weak abilities set in great place : " That they were like little statues set on great hases, made to appear the less by their advancement ! 94 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEAEE. How, or where, could a selection be made that would give a clearer exposition of the meaning of these illustrations on the cover of this volume, wherein the open handed figure of tragedy is pointing the finger of scorn at the "little man" on the "great base?" Ah, now we begin to the beauty of Bacon's statement in regard to "high place" : " The standing is slijDpery, and the regress is either a down- fall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing." Surely the reader will, by this time, begin to see that Bacon, like "poor Yorick" was a fellow of infinite zest and merriment ; for no selection of wit or illustration could better disclose the situation, judging from Mr. Bacon's standpoint. And in this connection I feel constrained to ask, where have the wits of the world been " wool gather- ing ' ' for these two and a half centuries ? Mr. Bacon tells us at the conclusion of his book, Advance- ment of Learning, " Thus have I made, as it were, a small globe of the intellectnal world, as truly as I could dis- cover;" and he further says, "For in anything that is well set down, I am in good hope that, if the first reading move on objection, the second will make an answer." And he modestly adds : " I have tuned the instrument of the muses that they may play who have better hands." But as I have endeavored to show in these humble pages, he has bequeathed to us an intricate piece of music, along with the instrument, the same I have endeavored to decipher with such success as the reader must determine, but in looking back over my own work, it seems to be no better " Than a tale that is told ! " But if I could succeed in giving him to the world as he is, I would not exchange honors with the greatest of earth's MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 96 military heroes ; and jet I feel that I have but opened up the field, and pointed out the way in which others may follow, or go beyond, as they have more leisure and greater ability. "For our abilities are to be considered. My Lords!" PART III. RECONSIDERATION AND CONCLUSION. In reviewing tlie foregoing pages I reach the following conclusions : That by the wording of the preface to this authentic edition of 1623 — of which I have made use of the Rev. William Harness' copy — I find that '' our Shakspeare," as he is there called, was not the author ; that his so-called friends received nothing from him ; that it was impossible that they should so receive anything, from the fact that one of them — Heminge — had heen dead ten years at the time of the publication of this volume; and as they are made to declare, over their signatures, that he conceived the dash^ or 77iinus, and they give you what they received, it follows that they give you nothi7ig in connection with this edition. This, I take it, settles the question of the " Shaksperian" authorship ; and now remains that we ascertain if this inquiry has disclosed the fact of the " Bacon" authorship of these plays and the publication of this disputed volume. We are informed in very legal fashion, that the plays " had their trial, and came forth acquitted by decree of court," etc., a phrase entirely fitting as coming from the pen of Judge Bacon. Then we read, in this same preface, that if, after a third reading, we cannot understand " Shakspeare," his other friends are able to be our guides ! Now, as Shakspeare wrote no other books by which we might judge of the merits and meaning of this one, we look MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 97' in vain for the '' guides ;" unless, indeed, we go to tlie •acknowledged works of Bacon, which will, on careful perusal, most assuredly guide the reader to an understand- ing of this mysterious volume, as no one, or nothing else, can. Thus do we disclose to the reader the foundation of this plot, which deepens and thickens as we proceed ; and e'er we close we will see such a theatrical display as has never before been presented, and which will clearly demonstrate that "All the world's a stage ;" And that, although tliere are many actors, among which the fools and clowns " most do predominate," there has been but one king actor, and that was Bacon liimself ! In setting his " springs to catch woodcocks," — " the seem- ing truth which cunning times put on to intrap the wisest" — he has placed this simple , as the horizontal bar over which the athletic critics have vaulted in succession, appar- ently vicing in lofty tumbling ! Even the renowned Dr. Johnson — that ponderous literary ^'East Indiaman" — imagined he was sailing grandly to windward the while he was drifting to leeward ! And Richard Grant White was a white gentleman and scholar, I grant, but in this instance, at least, " Eichard was not him- self !" Even tliey failed to penetrate the armor of this wily author, and the latter gave to Shakspeare the credit of the authorship, the while he was impressed with a sense of his littleness as a man, judging from what we learn of him in his published life. And now I pass to a reconsideration of the known facts connected with the life of Shakspeare : That he was born in humble station, of parents whose means were very limited ; 7 98 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. that lie had from one to seven years' common schooling, which was finished at the age of fourteen, when most boys are beginning to learn ; was employed as an assistant in his father's business — butcher ; was married at the early age of eighteen ; that his business capacity did not save him from going " from bad to worse," financially ; and, finally, evi- dently thinking that any change would be for the better, we find him setting out for London, with poor prospects, and little Qr no calculation as to his future course. He seems to have drifted with the tide, and landed at the theatrical dock as near a wreck as any man may wish to come, for he not only had recourse to the most menial occupations, but there seems to be good reason for surmis- ing that he actually begged for something to appease tlie hungry wolf that ever follows the unfortunate. Yet in all this there was no disgrace, though much inconvenience, and but poor encouragement for tlie '' greatest waiter of all time." Let us hope that the proofs of the manner in which he obtained his start in theatrical life may yet be brought to light. We are given to understand that some of the best of the plays accredited to him actually appeared as soon as he arrived in London, or sliortly thereafter, and we may as safely assume that he brought them with him in his great- coat pocket, as that he ever composed them after his arrival. We see him going, almost at one bound, from the lowest round of the ladder of fame to the highest, and making more money in a given time than the best of the old actors, or even than most of the writers of his day! Query — How did he get on so fast except on account of remuneration for playing the pack-horse for a cunning master ? MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 99 After his theatrical career was over, we see him going back to his humdrum life at Stratford, for which he was, by nature, most fitted, and for the enjoying of which he now liad what was at that time considered ample means. Yet in this comparative seclusion we get nothing from him worth the paper on which it is printed, or which shows one-ten-thousandth part of the wit and wisdom contained in this volume of plays ! And yet he was now in the prime of life, and this three years of his time spent at home after his theater-life was over — from forty-nine to fifty-two — ought in all reason to liave furnished us with something worthy to be remembered. But we look in vain for even a scrap. Yerily, as like produces like, so naught produces naught, and thus we have a solution of the mystery ! As we have shown, the admirers of Shakspeare affirm his authorship of the plays without furnishing the proof, thus taking it for granted, and throwing the burden of proof upon the negative side ? Hardly fair, is it ! And on the score of " genius " I have only to say further, that nature may abhor a vacuum^ but she will require some- thing more substantial than genius with which to fill it I We have shown that the writer of this volume had all the learning of the world at his tongue's end, and the fine points of wit at the point of his pen. He had the qualities of a great statesman joined to the embodiment of judicial lore. In a word he was " The choice and master spirit of his age." Does " our Shakspeare " fill the bill ? As for those so-called friends of his who are supposed to have collected and published this magnificent volume, I have not only shown that it was utterly impossible for them to do so — except on the hypothesis that one of them had 100 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. turned Printer^ s Demi after " shuffling off this mortal coil," but that even if still in the flesh, thej had not a modicum of the sense and judgment necessary to enable them to accomplish such an undertaking, and that without means, i. <3., they passed round the hat to pay for the same ! And then, too, let the reader consider that, as we have shown, the MSS. must have laid around loose for seven or eight years, until these two boors took it into their heads to gather them up ! The following plays were not published until this players' edition came out in 1623, and they comprise two-thirds of the whole number of plays in the main collection ; so we see that some one must have kept a literary store-house, during these seven years, and yet never thought of publish- ing until these ignoramuses proposed to do it in his honor: Tempest, Two Gentlemen of Yerona, Merry "Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Kight or What You Will, Measure for Measure, As You Like It, Winter's Tale, Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, All's Well That Ends Well, King John, Henry YL, Henry YIII., Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Julius Csesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline ; and these were preserved through all these years, intact, and without special care on the part of the real writer! Oh, 'tis astonishing that such an operation should have received credence at the hands of the literary world, up to this day of grace, in the lat- ter part of this boasted nineteenth century ! And it is much more astonishing that he who wrote the doggerel verses, at the expense of Sir Thomas Lucy, should be accredited with the production of that grand poem, " Yenus and Adonis," as his first serious undertaking ! Yerily, the gullibility of mankind " is past all understanding." When this matter is thoroughly investigated, it will be MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 101 known how and why Shakspeare received one thousand pounds as a present about this time. I pass now to the more agreeable task of reviewing briefly the salient points in the life and times of the real author of this volume, Sir Francis Bacon. It is clear, from his well known life, that he inherited great natural faculties, and was fitted by study and practice, and by philosophical experiment, to fill any position within his reach; and his acknowledged works — aside from this volume — show him to have been the peer of any writer of his day, and including this book, the king writer of all time — the literary Csesar ! If he follows a quihhle^ as Dr. Johnson says, he is showing you what he knows of the lawyer's ability to tell hoth sides of a story, and not tell either in such manner as to render himself liable ! If he tells you to what extent memory can be trained, or if he wields his poetical scalpel to dissect the nine muses before your eyes, he^ but shows you what he could do if he tried ! If he puffs King James to the skies, calling him a mortal god on earth, he also flays him alive with his " essence of irony " — fulsome praise ! If he shows you clearly, the operation of electric force, he but tells you that he has grasped this " all power," and wields it as a plaything in his hands! If he explains to you how " cipher " writing may be employed to advantage, he but hints at the extensive use he has made of it in his works. And as I have heretofore shown how " Cipher Keys " have been placed here and there in the plays, I will now disclose the continuous cipher which connects all the plays in this hooh^ with the single exception of the " Yorkshire Trag- edy," which is one play in ten scenes, and has its special meaning. 102 MYSTEKY OF SHAKSPEAEE. You will observe that he expressly states in his book, Ad. Learning, that the highest degree of " cipher-writing " is to write omnia j[>6r omnia^ the writing infolding to be in quintuple proportion to the writing infolded, and no other restraint whatsoever. He has given us the best possible demonstration of this in the following : There are thirty- five plays in the main collection and six in the supplement, each and every one consisting of five acts ! The one play in the fiA^e acts — " only this and nothing more." Here, then, we have the whole volume arranged in this quintuple jprojportion. Now, when we remember that some of these plays are dis- puted by the admirers of Shakspeare, and others are said to have been the work of several hands, and that still others were corrected and augmented^ does it not seem passing strange that we should find the same regular order of arrangement, and that, too, in perfect accord with Bacon's idea of the highest degree of cipher — quintuple proportion — '' and no other restraint whatsoever T^ Arise and sing, from " Love's Labor Lost," Act 3, Scene 1 — tune, Pleyel's Hymn : " The fox, the ape and the humble-bee Were still at odds, being but three ; Until the goose came out of the door And stay'd the odds by adding four." The fox is Bacon, the ape is King James, the humble- bee is Elizabetli, the queen bee, and the curious reader can ascertain who represents the goose by gazing for the space of five minutes into any ordinary mirror ! See — la ? If the placing of the Bacon family joke in the plays is not in itself sufficient evidence, he has given us a series of parallel passages, such as can be found nowhere else in all MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 103 literature, and which becomes unimpeachable evidence as to the fact of the authorship of this volume of plays rest- ing with him. And, if it be objected that he is using dissimulation in all this, why, he tells you plainly that " if a man would be secret, he must in some sort be a dissembler," and shows us that his model great man — Caesar — " was the greatest dis- sembler." So, therefore, he himself is acting the part of the great of all time, and he doesn't stop at this, for he is still engaged in the greatest piece of acting ever done in the world, as illustrated in his statue^ of which more anon. He gives us a concise idea of his ways and purposes in Henry Fourth, Act 1, Scene 2 : " Yet herein will I imitate the sun ; Who doth permit the base, contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world, That when he please again to be himself, Being wanted, lie may be more wonder'd at, By breaking through the foul and ugly mists Of vapors, that did seem to strangle him. If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work ; But, when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come. And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. So, when this loose behavior I throw off. And pay the debt I never promis'd, By how much better than my word I am. By so much shall I falsify men's hopes ; And, like bright metal on a sullen ground. My reformation, glittering o'er my fault. Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes. Than that which hath no foil to set it off. I'll so offend, to make offense a skill ; Redeeming time, when men least think I will." That Mr. Bacon uses words with a double or triple meaning is "a thing to be remembered." For instance, in 104: MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. the play of the Tempest, where we find the very expressive expression, "Hell is empty, all the devils are here," he is but stating the plain fact that hell is a myth, as far as future place is concerned, but that the devils are wicked men right in our midst I In one place in his works he says, "For the sword is a monstrous thing to put into the hands of the common people I " His meaning is, that it is a monstrous good thing, when they have become sufficiently enlightened to be able to wield it without severing their own ears ! When he alludes to the fact that deity often uses the least of things in the accomplishment of the greatest objects, " hanging the greatest things on the smallest wires," he hints at the use he himself has made of the " greatest things" — batteries — attached to the "smallest wires," and which he has found by experiment to be capable of pro- ducing the greatest results ! In his allusions to the " Salique Law," where he dis- plays consummate skill and deep knowledge of the facts of the case, he shows himself to be an adept in the tracing of genealogies as well, "a thing to be remembered'' by some of the " old families " of England ! If I were a learned judge, an able counseloi'. a cute attorney, or even a pettifogging mutilator of Blackstone and Coke, I might, perhaps, give the legal bearing of these citations, but I content myself with simply calling attention thereto. Does not Mr. Bacon say of Csesar that he lost his life through friendship ? Yet, as we plainly see, he shows him to have been a perfect embodiment of centralized power, and that his friendship began and ended with himself ! Antony is made to say that he has "neither words nor MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 106 worth," yet he " speaks right on" — he has no room for the words he has ! In Bacon's eulogy of Csesar he alhides to the lively images (rhetorical wind) and the real passages and solid weight of matter ; in all this he is speaking with the forked tongue (double meaning), and there is much philosophy in it, if one can only " distil it out." Perhaps I ought to beg pardon for comparing him with Caesar, but that I dislike to spoil a story ! This inquiry seems to be developing some strange things, but we'll " tell the truth and shame the devil," or, indeed, if it shame some one other than '' his majesty ! " We read that — " Truth is truth wherever found, On christian, or on pagan ground," and that "all truths agree ;" these are tilings to be equally well remembered. A very interesting article was published in one of our leading magazines for January, 1886, giving a circumstan- tial account of the finding of the oldest tombstone in America, near the Rappahannock river in Virginia, by the soldiers in 1862. This stone purports to have been erected to mark the resting place of one Dr. Edmond Helder, a ExEc TioNER IN Physick. and Chyrurgery, etc. The correspondents who have labored with this stony fact con- clude that the last line in the inscription is intended for a puzzler. But the pitzzle is in the third line, quoted above, and in the word that is meant for practitioner, and it is none other than our old friend the dash placed on the Mas, i. e., at an angle of forty-five degrees, same as we see in the position of the little man's statue on the large pedestal ! The curious reader will please notice that the P R in practitioner is one letter — a P with a diagonal attachment 106 ^rrsTEKY of shakspeabe. to form the R, and the — comes next in order, making the best mixed-up word " in the Queen's English, ye knaw ! " The continuation of this interesting episode — so to speak — may be found in ^' All's Well that Ends Well," where the same " specialist " doctor cures the King's infirmity ; but to "find out the cause of this effect," will requires a more convenient season. I have heretofore alluded to the fact that it was a proper thing to " let a little more light into the jury-room." But, from time immemorial, it has been the custom to exclude it, lest perad venture the honest jury might find a verdict when they least expected to. But now, while his honor, the judge upon his bench, has his left eye closed in inno- cent slumber, and his right ditto elevated above this vale of tears, and gazing upon the vacant space hetween the stars, let us open the jury-room door — just a crack — suffi- ciently to enable us to introduce a little new evidence, to the end that truth be brought to light and justice be done, even though the time-honored (?) customs of all the courts in Christendom suffer thereby ! But, before doing so, we desire to remark, how very strange it is that Mr. Bacon should always have Queen Elizabeth or King James at his elbow whenever he desired to illustrate a point, or point a joke ! I give his Apothegm No. 1 : " Queen Elizabeth, the morrow after her coronation, it being the custom to release prisoners at the inauguration of a prince, went to the chapel, and in the great chamber one of her courtiers, who was well known to her, either out of his own motion, or by the instigation of a wiser man, presented her with a petition ; and, before a great number of courtiers, besought her with a loud voice, 'that now, this good time, there might be four or five principal prisoners more released, MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 107 those were the fo^ir evangelists and the apostle St. Paul^ who had been long shut up in an unknown tongue, as it were in a prison, so as they could not converse with the common people.' The queen answered, very gravely, that it was best to inquire of them whether they would be released or no." Now, in October, 1885, a congress of the Prison Reform Association was held in Detroit, whose avowed purpose was to endeavor to lead the world in the direction of "deal- ing gently" with the prisoners, if not in " setting the cap- tives free." Lo! here is a prisoner who has been confined in his own works, an unknown (cipher) tongue, for two hundred and sixty years ; is it not about time his tongue was loosed, and the hidden truth brought to light, or, rather, his light brought to the truth ; for his was the true light — he was the light ! Let the reader please pardon while I digress sufficiently to enable me to give the jury system a parting salute. Let us suppose a case. A poor wretch has been arrested for stealing a loaf of bread. He has been tried and convicted by a jury of his peers — twelve other thieves! Now, let not the jury retire, but let the judge come down from his high place, lay his hand in a magisterial manner upon the head of each juryman, eying him sharply, and propound the usual question, " Guilty or not guilty ?" If they do not say guilty., then indeed are we all liars ! Then let the judge place his hand upon his own head, eyeing himself the while, and ask the sa7ne question / if he be an honest judge he will pronounce guilty., sentence himself — and let the prisoner go ! In giving us his ideas on the subject of death, Mr. Bacon 108 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. foreshadows the time when death will be considered one of our best friends, instead of the terrible enemy superstition has made of him. He, Death, will be overcome but not removed, and so it will transpire that there will be a " vic- tory over him " rather than a release from his necessary visits, and the " sting of death " — i. e., the feai' thereof— will have vanished into thin air. I have endeavored to show you how Mr. Bacon has enacted the role of the great ones of all ages, and how, also, that he hides in his works in imitation of Deity, to the end that they who wish him may examine his works, and, in finding him, learn to appreciate them. And, when they come to be appreciated, it will be found that his ultimate purpose is the annihilation of those three great bugbears of the human family, viz., mock-modesty, superstition, and the fear of death. If any there are who fear lest their " occupation will be gone," why, then, " Let the gall'd jades wince," and humanity go free. We find in this wonderful volume a monument of knowl- edge, whose stones were brought from the four winds of heaven ; whose base rests upon the solid granite of experi- ment and fact, and whose summit reaches to the highest point of reasonable hope and expectation. Upon the sur- face of this monument the real author has scrawled in ungainly characters the name of Shakspeare, while he has cut his own name deep into the marble thereof ! In his book, Ad. Learning, he has not only gathered the gems of the Latin tongue, and laid them as trophies at your feet, but he has balanced the intellectual world in the hol- low of his hand. MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. 109 His apothegms furnish us with a budget of fun, in which he has rolled the wit and wisdom of the ancient and modern worlds into one well-rounded lump, adding enough of his own to leaven it, and bowled it down the course of time (see Pollock's poetry) for the common benefit of his fellow men. In his scientific works he has — with more truth than poetry — fused the body of l^ature in his crucible. Indeed, he has held the mirror so truly to ISTature that she has often blushed at the reflection of her own beauty. In his histories — aside from these plays — he has shown his power to cause the English kings to rise from the dead, pass in review before him, and "fight their battles o'er again !" And he is yet able to raise them, with a big H. In his Wisdom of the Ancients — the old boys, "ye knaw" — he has ransacked the graves of the ancient gods and brought them forth as puppets upon his fingers to do his bidding. N'ay, more than this, he has shaken their shriveled car- casses till the dry bones rattled, thus showing them to be harmless and gentle as sucking doves when once thoroughly understood. And all other gods of like nature do but await treatment at the hands of some equally skillful physician. In ancient times — and, unfortunately, in modern times as well — it was considered a great honor to stand uncovered in the presence of kings. But Mr. Bacon has reversed this rule in that he sits upon Iris monument in Westminster Abbey, in the presence of England's most illustrious dead, with his hat on ! And to borrow an expression from the Hamlet-ian Ghost : "But that I am forbidden to tell the secrets of the prison-house," I could to you a tale unfold in 110 MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. connection therewith, but for the present I forbear; let it suffice that he sits in the presence of kings, with his hat on ; and there he shall sit until this stone that the literary temple builders rejected shall become the head of the corner ! He has in his works illustrated or reproduced every fine point in literature, including the scriptures. In his history of the reign of Henry the Seventh, he has not only shown you where to look for the true authorship of the plays of the Henrys, but he has done vastly more than this : he has illustrated that part of the "revelation," as he terms it, where we read of the eight kings : "And there are seven kings, five are fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come." The five that are come and gone — " fallen" — and the one that " is," make six, and the other that is " not yet come" makes seven ; then there is another, the eighth in number, but seventh in nmne — this makes the eight. These eight kings " Henry" represent the kings there mentioned ; and this seventh Henry, vjho has no play^ and consequently was " not yet come," fills the gap and makes the bow of the eight regal stars complete. ''They that have eyes to see^ let them see .^" CONCLUSION. One conclusion in live points : '' quintuple proportion." The hand of " Ham " is the hand of the worker ; sustain it, and it will sustain you ! Do you see the points ? End of Book I. LIBRPRY OF CONGRESS III 014 068 477 6 9 \4ECHAiXICAL SERIES, I wield the corkscre'w.— Bacchus. i i THE MYSTERY OF SHAKSPE ARE" REVEALED. SIR FRANCIS BACON THE REAL AUTHOR.