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.

Alciati’s Emblem 45; Whitney’s Emblem 5 1

Comment on both these emblems by Alfred Dodd, a past Masonic brother, in his Personal Poems of Francis Bacon, 1931 edition: 2

The Two Pillars of Masonry
Upper Half, of Whitney’s Choice of Emblems (1586)

“SOW” conastantly appears in Elizabethan literature as a play on the word “Bacon.” But “S.O.W.” are the Initials for “Son of Wisdom” applied to Masons and Rosicrucians in that Era. The Figure in the Emblem points the “SOW” to the Two Pillars of Masonry which carries the motto “Plus Ultra”…i.e., “More Beyond,” a favourite motto of Francis Bacon. [Also see Part I: Plus Ultra].

The “SOW” is called “Senior Warden” because he is the special guard of the Pillars which lead to the Sanctum Sanctorum, hence the message up the Initial Capitals: “See, Senior Warden! The Sanctum Sanctorum.” In the Ritual it is only the Senior Warden who is immediately outside the Door of the Sanctum. Exoterically, “S.O.W.” = “Supt. of Works” in the Craft like the Figure above in the emblem.

The light and dark A’s are seen in the centre forming a pyramid. Francis Bacon’s favourite symbol for his philosophy. They represent also a square and compasses. [Also see Part III: Square and Compasses]. If the two A’s are placed across each other instead of by the side, they would form the well know Masonic Symbol.

The three Arches in the centre refer to the Royal Arch. The name of “F. Bacon” is spelled thus: “F.” on the right-hand side in the frame of the building: “B” is placed on the extreme right by the bottom of “F”, thus: horizontally: “A” in the centre: “C” in the third Arch: horizontally “O” is the right-hand curl at the end of the scroll across the Pillars: and “N” in the “Two Pillars” with its fancy scroll.

This emblem proves that Speculative Freemasonry was in being in 1586, the year before Shaksper left Stratford for London. Whitney was a clerk at one time in the Earl of Leicester’s employ and as such was known to Francis Bacon; hence the connection between the publication of the emblem book of Francis Bacon’s and the clerk Whitney. This is the first reference to the Pillars of Masonry in literature. They are afterwards attached to Francis Bacon’s works and were known as “Lord Bacon’s Pillars.”

Dodd ends his reference of the emblem there. In regards to his statement that “This is the first reference to the Pillars of Masonry in literature” it has always been thought that the Masonic Pillars emblem was first given referenced to in literature in 1586, however, it was given reference much earlier, as seen elsewhere, in Alciati’s edition of 1584, before Whitney placed it in his work which was a work of closer agreement than any preceding work in English; an Emblem-book’s form and subjects, of the whole title: “Choice of Emblemes and Other Devices, for the most part gathered out of sundry writers, Englished and Moralized, and divers newly devised.” It was printed at Leyden in 1586, 4to. Whitney was a native of Cheshire, and his work bears evidence to his learning. To each of his two hundred and fourty-eight Emblems, except one at p. 61, there is a woodcut as well as a motto, and one or more stanzas. The work is confessedly a compilation, and above two hundred and twenty of the mottoes and devices have been traced to their original sources; indeed two hundred and two are identical with those of the five emblematists, Andrew Alciati (1492-1550); Claude Paradin (1510–1590); John Sambucus (1531–1583); Hadrian Junius (1511–1575) and Gabriel Faerno, who died in 1561 in the prime of life and twenty-three others are gathered out of sundry other writers.