Bacon and Shakespeare 1

Bacon and Shakespeare 1

Bacon and Shakespeare

Author: Albert F. Calvert

 

_Preface._

 

_To anticipate for this little book that it may prove the means of

convincing a single Baconian of the error of his ways, would be to

express a hope that has only the faintest chance of realisation.

Baconianism is so wilful and so obstinate that it is not amenable to

any treatment that has yet been invented. It has its root in an entire

misconception of the character and temperament of the man Bacon; it

is nourished on the grossest misrepresentation of the man Shakespeare

that the memory of an author has ever been subjected to. So long as

the fallacy, backed up by specious argument, was confined to the

consideration of the mighty few, it was scarcely necessary to enter

into the lists with the Baconian champions, but the new and energetic

move which is now being made to cast down Shakespeare from the “topmost

pinnacle in the temple of fame,” and to set up the figure of Bacon in

his stead, has had the result of bringing the subject once more into

public view. In the circumstances, the publication of the following

summary of the evidence may be found not inopportune. It may not

effect a cure in the case of confirmed Baconians, but I have a modest

hope that it will enable the unprejudiced inquirer to be on his guard

against the hallucination. The Baconians have woven a cunning mesh of

fact and fable to entangle the mind of the unwary; the task I have

set myself is to review the premises, test the arguments, and combat

the conclusions upon which Bacon’s pretensions to the authorship of

Shakespeare’s plays is alleged to rest, and to explain the reasons that

we hold for ascribing the authorship of the Plays to Shakespeare._

 

_While the majority of Shakespearean students are impatient of

discussion, the disciples of the Baconian theory are prompt and eager

and voluminous in the propagation of their arguments. Indeed, they

have, all along, had the lion’s share in the controversy, and by their

much speaking, have stormed the ears of that section of the public

which neither thinks for itself, nor will be at the trouble to verify

what it is told. Bacon has been born again in the biographies of his

devotees, and Shakespeare, by the same agency, has been edited out of

recognition. Bacon’s brilliant intellectual qualities have been taken

as the basis of all argument, the human and temperamental side of his

character has been boldly made amenable to the exigencies of argument,

and his many glaringly reprehensible actions have been carefully

ignored. I have endeavoured, in the ensuing pages, not so much to give

a picture of the complete man, as to show what he was capable of in

the way of selfishness, trickery and subterfuge. He was capable of the

basest ingratitude and meanness, of the employment of barbarity when

it suited his purpose, of unctuous servility and boundless egoism. He

had neither the temperament nor the poetical ability nor the time to

write the Plays; had he the meanness of spirit to claim them as his

own? We shall see!_

 

_The conclusions I have formed with respect to the two cipher

revelations which are now agitating the minds of both Shakespeareans

and Baconians are derived partly from my estimate of the character

of Bacon, partly from the apparent sincerity of Mrs. Gallup, and

partly again from what I know of other and entirely independent

decipherations of further Bacon messages, which are now being actively

made in this country. Of Mrs. Gallup I only know that which her book

and her publishers reveal. Of Dr. Orville W. Owen, the discoverer of

the word-cipher I learn, from an American source, quoted by way of a

testimonial in one of the doctor’s books, that he is “a man who has

reached middle age,” and who has “never shown the slightest sign of

possessing unusual or extraordinary literary skill, or genius.” In

other words, his sponsors assure us that he is incapable of writing

those portions of Shakespeare which form so great a part of his

decipherations, or even the connecting passages which appear to have

been contributed by Bacon. We must accept this opinion as a tribute of

personal character._

 

_Concerning the illustrations, I may be allowed to say a few

explanatory words. The two photogravure reproductions are taken

respectively from a miniature by Peter Oliver, belonging to the Duke

of Buccleuch, and from a very rare print of Bacon. The print from

Vansomer’s painting, the picture of Bacon’s monument, and the portraits

of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Nathaniel Bacon, the Earl of Essex and Queen

Elizabeth, and the views of Stratford-on-Avon and Gorhambury will, I

trust, be found of general interest. The facsimile pages from “Sylva

Sylvarum” and the “Novum Organum,” with their allegorical devises

and fine workmanship, illustrate the contrast between the manner in

which the works of Bacon and those of Shakespeare were given to the

world. The portraits of Shakespeare contained here are well known to

students. The reproduction of the bust will be familiar to all visitors

to Stratford, the “Droeshout” Engraving is the picture which forms

the frontispiece to the First Folio, and the original of the Chandos

portrait is now in the National Portrait Gallery._

 

_Albert F. Calvert._

 

_“Royston,” Eton Avenue,

London, N.W._

 

 

 

 

_List of Illustrations._

 

 

PAGE.

FRANCIS BACON, _from a Miniature by Oliver_ Frontispiece.

FRANCIS BACON (aged 18), _from a Miniature by Hilliard_ 4

FRANCIS BACON as Lord Chancellor (_Vansomer_) 12

FRANCIS BACON as Lord Chancellor 16

FRANCIS BACON’S Monument in St. Michael’s Church 20

SIR NICHOLAS BACON, _Portrait and Autographs_ 24

ANNA LADY BACON, Mother of Francis Bacon 32

SIR NATHANIEL BACON 36

ST. MICHAEL’S CHURCH 44

QUEEN ELIZABETH 48

ROBERT DEVEREUX, Earl of Essex 52

ROBERT DUDLEY, Earl of Leicester 56

FRONTISPIECE TO _Sylva Sylvarum_ 60

FRONTISPIECE TO _Novum Organum_ 68

GORHAMBURY, Three Views, 1568, 1795, 1821 72

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, _The Droeshout Etching_ 80

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, _The Chandos Portrait_ 84

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Bust at Stratford-on-Avon 96

SHAKESPEARE’S HOUSE 108

CHANCEL OF TRINITY CHURCH (_Stratford-on-Avon_) 112

SHAKESPEARE AUTOGRAPHS 116

ANN HATHAWAY’S COTTAGE AT SHOTTERY 120

DR. OWEN’S WHEEL FOR DECIPHERING 128

 

 

 

 

_Contents._

 

 

PAGE.

BACON, THE PRODUCT OF HIS AGE 1

BACON, THE FRIEND OF ESSEX AND CECIL 9

BACON, AS THE CREATURE OF BUCKINGHAM 18

BACON AND SHAKESPEARE CONTRASTED 25

BACONIAN FALLACIES RESPECTING SHAKESPEARE 29

MR. THEOBALD, A BACONIAN BY INTUITION 35

WAS SHAKESPEARE THE “UPSTART CROW?” 40

WM. SHAKESPEARE, MONEY LENDER AND POET 46

THE “TRUE SHAKESPEARE” 50

MR. THEOBALD’S PARALLELS AND MR. BAYLEY’S CONCLUSIONS 55

THE BI-LITERAL CIPHER 62

BACON’S “STERNE AND TRAGICLE HISTORY” 71

BACON, THE AUTHOR OF ALL ELIZABETHAN-JACOBEAN LITERATURE 78

BACON AND “DIVINE AIDE” 88

SHAKESPEARE AND BACON IN COLLABORATION 92

THE TRAGICAL HISTORIE OF OUR LATE BROTHER ROBERT, EARL OF ESSEX 99

BACON, THE POET 107

“DID SHAKESPEARE WRITE BACON?” 111

THE CASE FOR SHAKESPEARE 115

WERE SHAKESPEARE AND BACON ACQUAINTED? 124

IN CONCLUSION 129

 

 

 

 

BACON & SHAKESPEARE.

 

 

 

 

_Bacon, the Product of His Age._

 

 

It is impossible to sympathise with, or even to regard seriously, the

spirit in which a small, but growing section of the reading public

of America, and of this country, has plunged into the controversy

respecting the authorship of the so-called Shakespeare plays. The

fantastic doubt which compelled individual scholars to investigate a

theory of their own inventing, to lay, so to speak, the ghost they

had themselves raised, has inspired distrust in the minds that had no

beliefs, and generated scepticism in those where no faith was. The

search for the truth has degenerated into a wild-goose chase; the

seekers after some new thing have made the quest their own; ignorance

has plagiarised from prejudice; the “grand old Bacon-Shakespeare

controversy,” as Whistler said of Art, is upon the town--“to be chucked

under the chin by the passing gallant--to be enticed within the gates

of the householder--to be coaxed into company as a proof of culture

and refinement.” The difficulties that such a controversy present to

the tea-table oracles are both numerous, and exceeding obstinate. The

people who read Shakespeare form a pitiably insignificant proportion

of the community, but they are multitudinous compared with those who

have the remotest acquaintance with the works of Francis Bacon. Bacon

is known to some as Elizabeth’s little Lord Keeper, to others his

name recalls the fact that he was James the First’s Lord Chancellor,

but outside his _Essays_, and, perhaps, _The New Atlantis_, his great

philosophical dissertations, the pride and treasure which he so

carefully preserved in Latin, lest they should be lost in the decay of

modern languages, are a sealed book to all, except a few odd scholars at the Universities. Bacon is an extinct volcano. The fact is not creditable to the culture of the age, but it is incontrovertible.