Bacon's DictionaryAppendices

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The exhibits and miniatures of which are found in this section, are designed to assist the serious student and reader in following the path of the Authorship Controvesy that has been so laboriously persued by many authors and researchers during its commence.

These exhibits have been placed here as not to interrupt the flow of reading in the Baconian Dictionary sections, being a finding list of Bacon’s works, his history, his thoughts and his aims, which are a subject of study and discussion.

Jacquespierre

The first of our authors, who can be properly said to have written English, was Sir John Cower, who, in his Confession of a Lover, calls Chaucer his disciple, and may therefore be considered as the father of our poetry. One of the first who proposed a scheme of regular orthography, was Sir Thomas Smith, secretary of state to Queen Elizabeth, a man of real learning, and much practised in grammatical disquisitions. The greater bulk of the books published in England from 1576 to 1626 are known only to book collectors and second-hand booksellers, and their contents remain unexplored. Few of them have been reprinted and copies of the original editions are rare. In 1576 to an Englishman to whom “education had not given more languages than nature tongues” there were no channels through which he could obtain a general knowledge of the antiquities, the histories and geography of other countries or of his own, the customs of their people, their art, and what then passed for science. There were translations of only a few of the classics available. France, Italy and Spain were better supplied. But in 1626 all this was altered, and from books printed in English more knowledge and information could be obtained than from the combined Literatures of those countries.

There exists no evidence of any general interest in a revival of learning during this epoch. Certainly Oxford and Cambridge, the only two seats of learning, exhibit no evidence of its existence. Of Oxford at this period, Mark Patterson says: “Of any special interest in science, learning, and the highest culture, there is no trace.” Cambridge was given up to theological controversy. However thorough the search be, nowhere throughout the country will be found evidence of interest in this revival. And yet steadily was coming from the Press volume after volume, from large, ponderous folios to small octavos, translations and books on every conceivable subject. Where was the public creating the demand? The Bodley Library did not appear to require them, for few are to be found in the 1620 Catalogue. There was no demand for them from abroad, for the English language was unknown there. The cost of printing and publishing must have been enormous, to say nothing of recompense for the writers and translators. Of the solid literature, apart from theological controversial works published during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, it may be estimated, with safety, that not ten per cent, brought back from proceeds of sale one half of their cost. Large sums of money must have been provided by someone for the authors or translators, the printers and the publishers. And it is here that may be added, but not certified, that Francis Bacon was constantly in debt in providing large sums of money for the authors, translators, printers and publishers. There is no trace to be found in the records, printed or otherwise, of any man (with one exception) who took interest in the advancement of learning. But given the man with the inclination and the knowledge to pilot such a scheme, he must also have had the control of great wealth to enable him to carry it through. There is another aspect of this question, which is of importance. In the Proheme to a little volume, entitled Of that Knowledge which maketh a Wise Man A Disputation Platonike (1536), Sir Thomas Eliot states that in writing The Governor, he intended to augment our English tongue, “whereby men should as well express more abundantly the thing that they conceived in their hearts (wherefore language was ordained) having words apt for the purpose; as also interpreted out of Greek, Latin, or any other tongue into English, as sufficiently, as out of any one of the said tongues into another.” The Members of the Pléiade adopted the same method in advancing the French language to a condition capable of expressing the highest emotions and thoughts. Now, either intentionally or as a natural consequence, the production of this literature in England had a similar effect on the English language. In 1576 it may be described as barbaric.

Before 1626 and the plays of Shakespeare and The Authorized Version of the Bible had been produced, examples which Professor Saintsbury says “will ever be the twin monuments, not merely of their own period, but of the perfection of English, the complete expressions of the literary capacities of the languages.” There are other circumstances, which suggest a superintending direction in the production of these books. The movement of the work from printer to printer: Henry Bynneman, George Bishop and Richard Field were at first employed, then Adam Islip and George Eld became active, and at the end of the period William Jaggard and John Haviland were the chief producers. There appears to have been a definite scheme of printers’ blocks of special designs used as head-pieces and tailpieces to ear-mark these books. [Also see Part III: French Academy; Bacon’s Head-piece; Appendices Bacon’s Head-piece.] The identical block used by George Bishop in 1584, as the first initial letter in The French Academy, was used by John Haviland as the first initial letter in the 1625 Edition of Bacon’s Essays. The identical block used by Richard Field on the title page of Venus and Adonis in 1593 was used by Christopher Barker on the title page of the Genealogical Tables of the first quarto of The Authorized Version of the Bible in 1612. In the one case the block was preserved for thirty-nine years, in the other case for seventeen years. Moreover, some of these designs were re-engraved and used in books printed in France, which apparently form part of the same scheme. The Emblem literature of the period contains what appear to be definite references to several of these designs. This extraordinary literature appears to be absolutely neglected by students, although it was clearly produced with some definite object. If Alciati’s Emblems published fifty years before be excluded this literature was mainly the product of the period.

In the Dedications, the Prefaces and Addresses “To the Reader,” will be found some of the finest examples of the English language extant. It would be difficult to select a more perfect specimen than the Dedication prefixed to the 1625 translation of Barclay’s Argenis, to which the name of Kingsmill Long is attached. There is a peculiarity about these dedications. The writer, or the writers, must have been proficient in oratory. A writer who is not merely a good speaker but an orator, has a special style which is the result of instinct, and cannot be acquired. This instinct enables him to express his thoughts in words which give pleasure as their sound falls upon the ears of his auditors. It is no explanation to say that this was a style common to the period. It was not. The matter itself bears evidence that the writer, or writers, had a most comprehensive and familiar knowledge of classical and modern authors. The compilations abound in imagery. There are certain tricks of speech which can be recognised as those of an orator. Who were the men living at that time who could write such prose? If the number of names attached to these examples is to be taken as a guide, such stylists were plentiful as blackberries, but they never employed this style elsewhere. The writer of the preface to Barclay’s Argenis and the translator of the work, which is not, it may be remarked, a literal translation of the original, was a master of prose, but Kingsmill Long cannot be traced, and his name appears on no other work. Numbers of similar instances might be quoted.

The suggestion now made is that as early as 1576 someone conceived the idea of advancing the English language from a condition which may be described as little short of barbaric, to one in which it could stand for power of expression beside the classical languages, and at the same time of providing channels by which all knowledge was placed at the disposal of those who might employ that language. If such were the case, it was a magnificent scheme. [Also see Part III: Argenis.] Shakespeare’s earliest scholastic attacker was Robert Greene (1558–1592) who evidently set much store by his acquired gentility, as he usually signed his publications as “By Robert Greene, Master of Arts in Cambridge,” and who, withal, was a most licentious and unprincipled libertine, going, through his ill-regulated course of life, dishonoured and unwept to a pauper’s grave at the age of thirty-two.

John Florio (1553–1625), in his First Fruites, published in 1591, appears as a critic of Shakespeare’s historical dramatic work and after he had entered the service of the Earl of Southampton, though not yet assailing Shakespeare personally, as did these other scholars. In 1593 George Peele (1556–1596) in his Honour of the Garter re-echoes the slurs against Shakespeare voiced by Greene in the previous year. In the same year George Chapman  (1559–1634), who there afterwards proved to be Shakespeare’s rich enemy among the “gentlemen scholars,” caricatures him and his affairs in a new play, which he revised, in conjunction with John Marston (1576–1634), six years later, under the title of Histriomastix, or The Player Whipt. Neither the authorship, date of production, nor satirical intention of the early form of the play has previously been known. In 1594 Chapman again attacks Shakespeare in The Hymns to the Shadow of Night, as well as in the prose dedication written to his colleague, Matthew Roydon (1580–1622). In the same year Roydon enters the lists against Shakespeare by publishing a satirical and scandalous poem reflecting upon, and distorting, his private affairs, entitled Willobie his Avisa. From this time onward until the year 1609–10, Chapman, Roydon, and John Florio, who in the meantime had joined issue with them, continue to attack and vilify Shakespeare. Every reissue, or attempted reissue, of Willobie his Avisa was intended as an attack upon Shakespeare. Such reissues were made or attempted in 1596, 1599, 1605, and 1609, though some of them were prevented by the action of the public censor who, we have record, condemned the issue of 1596 and prevented the issue of 1599. As no copies of the 1605 or 1609 issues are now extant, it is probable that they also were stopped by the authorities. [Also see Part III: Willobie his Avisa.]

In 1598–99 these partisans (Chapman, Roydon, and Florio) are joined by John Marston, and a year later, also by Ben Jonson (1572–1637), when, for three or four years, Chapman, Jonson, and Marston collaborate in scurrilous plays against Shakespeare and friends who had now rallied to his side. In about 1598 Thomas Dekker (1572–1632) and Henry Chettle (1564–1607) joined sides with Shakespeare and answered his opponents’ attacks by satirising them in plays. John Florio, while not participating in the dramatic warfare, attacks Shakespeare viciously in the dedication to his Worlde of Wordes, in 1598, and comes in for his share of the satirical chastisement which Shakespeare, Dekker, and Chettle administer to them in acted, as well as in published plays. As Ben Jonson’s dramatic reputation became assured the heat of his rivalry against Shakespeare died down; his vision cleared and broadened and he, more plainly than any writer of his time, or possibly since his time, realised Shakespeare in his true proportions. Jonson, in time, tires of Chapman’s everlasting envy and misanthropy, and quarrels with him and in turn becomes the object of Chapman’s invectives. After Shakespeare’s death Jonson made amends for his past ill-usage by defending his memory against Chapman, who, even then, continued to belittle his reputation. Past critics have been utterly oblivious of the fact that Florio, Roydon, and Chapman and others colluded for many years in active hostility to Shakespeare.