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.

Arte of English Poesie

George Puttenham is first mentioned as a writer upon English Verse by Richard Carew (Sir Anthony, Esq: “To close up these proofs of our copiousness, look into our limitations of all sorts of verses afforded by any another language, and you shall find that Sir Philip Sidney, Master Puttenham, Master Stanihurst, and divers more have made use how far we are within compass of a fore imagined possibility in that behalf.” This was from an Essay On the Excellency of the English Tongue in Camden’s Remains, 1623. It did not appear in the first edition 1605. At that period, Camden was not acquainted with Puttenham’s name, as under the head of Poems, he speaks of “the Gentleman which proved that poets were the first Politicians, the first Philosophers, the first Historiographers.” The Arte of English Poesie was written with the intention that it should be dedicated to the Queen, but there was a change in the plans, and Burghley’s name was substituted. When Bacon, in 1591, is threatening to become “a sorry bookmaker,” he describes Burghley as the second founder of his poor estate, and uses the expression, “If your Lordship will not carry me on,” which can only mean that as to the matter which is the subject of the letter, Burghley had not merely been assisting but carrying him. (Smedley). 1

Dedication to The Arte of English Poesie:

To the right honorable Sir William Cecil Knight, Lord of Burghley, Lord High Treasurer of England, R.F.

Printer wisheth health and prosperity, with the commandement and use of his continual service. This Book (right Honourable) coming to my hands, with his bare title without any Authors’ name or any other ordinary address, I doubted how well it might become me to make you a present thereof, seeming by many express passages in the same at large, that it was by the Author intended to our Sovereign Lady the Queen, and for her recreation and service chiefly devised, in which case to make any other person her highness partner in the honour of his gifts it could not stand with my duty, nor be without some prejudice to her Majesty’s interest and his merit.

Perceiving besides the title to purport so slender a subject, as nothing almost could be more discrepant from the gravity of your years and Honourable function, whose contemplations are every hour more seriously employed upon the public administration and services: I thought it no condign gratification, nor scarce any good satisfaction for such a person as you. Yet when I considered, that bestowing upon your Lordship the first view of this mine impression (a feat of mine own simple faculty) it could not cipher her Majesty’s honour or prerogative in the gifts, nor yet the Author of his thanks: and seeing the thing itself to be a device of some novelty (which commonly it giveth every good thing a special grace) and a novelty so highly tending to the most worthy praises of her Majesty’s most excellent name.

So dearer to you I dare conceive them any worldly thing besides love although I could not devise to have presented your Lordship any gift more agreeable to your appetite, or fitter for my vocation and ability to bestow, your Lordship being learned and a lover of learning, my present a Book and myself a printer always ready and desirous to be at your Honourable commandment. And thus I humbly take my leave from the Blackfriars, this 27 of May, 1589.

Your Honour’s most humble at commandment,

Richard Field.

“There is a book in being called The Art of English Poese, not written by Sidney, as some have thought, but rather by one Puttenham, sometimes a Gentleman Pensioner to Queen Elizabeth.” 2 Whereas Ballard has said the work “to be wrote by Sir Philip Sidney.” 3 In the Prerogative Court of Canterbury there is a nuncupative Will & Testament dated September 1, 1590 of George Puttenham, of London, Esquire, and probably the author, whereby, “First and principally he bequeathed his soul unto Almighty God, and his body to be buried in Christian burial). Item, he gave and bequeathed unto Mary Symes, widow, his servant, as well for the good service she did him as also for the money which she had laid forth for him, all and singular, his goods, chattels, leases, plate, ready money, linen, wool, brass, pouter, stuff of household, bills, bonds, obligations, and all other his goods and debts whatsoever, due or owing unto him. Also his goods moveable or unmoveable, of what kind nature quality or condition, and in whose hands custody or possession they then were in, or remained, as well within his dwelling house as in any other place or places within the reign of England. In the presence of Sebastian Archibould, scrivener: James Clerke, William Johnson, and divers others.” The probate act describes the defunct of Saint Bridgett’s, in Fleet Street, London, Esq. There was also a Richard Puttenham, Esquire, whose Will accords with the above as a scrivener’s form, dated October 16, 1597 he being “prisoner in her Majesty’s Bench: bequeaths all his property to his verily reported and reputed daughter Katherine Puttenham.” Considering the tenor of both Wills, the want of descendants of the name of Puttenham is no longer extraordinary. That the Christian name of Puttenham was George is confirmed by a manuscript of an unpublished work in prose, written by him, and preserved in the Harleian collection. Its general character is amply shown by the following title: “An Apologie or true defence of her Majesty’s honour and good renown against all such as have unduly sought or shall seek to blemish the same with any injustice, cruelty, or other unprincely behaviour in any part of her Majesty’s proceedings against the late Scottish Queen be it for her first surprince, imprisonment, process, attainder, or death. By very firm reasons, authorities and examples proving that her Majesty hath done nothing in the said action or otherwise, not warrantable by the law of God and of man. Written by George Puttenham to the service of her Majesty and for large satisfaction of all such persons both princely and private who by ignorance of the case, or partial ‘tis of mind shall happen to be irresolute and not well satisfied in the said cause.”

The time of George Puttenham’s birth, an observation from himself, enables us to place decidedly between the years 1529 and 1535. Neither any branch of his family, nor himself, though a professed Courtier, appear to have either inherited or obtained any patrician badge of honour, though, from his liberal education, his parents must be supposed to have moved in a sphere of life unfettered by indigent circumstances. One passage in his work introduces him in the nursery, where the acuteness of the child is improperly exercised by an old woman, to discover a riddle, which, in matter and manner, betrays the ignorance and want of decency that characterises Juliet’s loquacious nurse, and the words “my mother had an old woman in her nursery,” gives no faint idea that the family establishment was not unlike that of the wealthy Capulets.

Puttenham was an Oxford scholar, though of what College, how long resident, or whether he obtained a degree, remains unascertained. His career at Court might commence at the early age of eighteen, when he sought to gain the attention of the youthful King Edward the sixth, by an Eclogue, entitled Elpine. He made one or more tours to the continent and proved himself neither an idle nor inattentive observer.

He visited successively the Courts of France, Spain, and Italy, and was at the Spa nearly about the year 1570. It is not improbable that he had a diplomatic appointment under Henry Earl of Arundel, an old Courtier who, with the Queen’s licence, visited Italy; as he describes himself a beholder of the feast given by the duchess of Parma, to that nobleman, at the Court of Brussels. His return from abroad might be early after the above period, as appears by his report of coming to Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord Chancellor, when seated in a gallery reading Quintilian; and the eulogy on the speeches of Sir Nicholas and one of his successors would bespeak a professional pursuit, of more knowledge and interest than is usually imbibed by wiling away time as an indolent spectator in Courts of law. However, not to burthen this slight detail with too many indecisive suppositions, it may be lastly observed, that from his numerous adulatory verses addressed to Queen Elizabeth, before the time of publishing this work, he must have been a Courtier of long standing, and was then “one of her gentlemen pensioners.” 4

Among the persons who presented a new year’s gifts to Queen Elizabeth I., in 1561, occurs, with rather singular coincidence, the name of George Webster, master cook, who, for “a marchepane, being a chessboard” had in return, “one guilt tankerd, per oz. 8oz.” It is very much noted that Puttenham was also called by the name Webster. 5

Of all Puttenham’s numerous pieces The Art of English Poesie and The Partheniades are the only ones known to exist, and it seems unaccountable that not a single poem by this author found a place in those miscellaneous and fashionable repositories the Paradise of Dainty Devices, or England’s Helicon. [Also see Appendix England’s Helicon]. Although like many notable gentlemen in the Court, who having written commendable pieces, suppressed them again, or else suffered them to be published without their names he might follow the anonymous distribution; still, those pieces acknowledged, and hereafter noticed, might have been expected to have left a more distinguished trace behind. We cannot well believe that locality devoured all the Enterludes as well as the Triumphals bestowed on his royal Mistress, however, his own volume proves the neglect of the age, for of many poems noticed the avowed productions of some of our hot writers we have no other knowledge than the scraps there incidentally preserved.

In The Art of English Poesie the task of a dedication was strangely given to his printer without the assignment of a reason why. That the author, whose labours commence with offering the work as a devise to his honoured and gracious mistress, renewing his address continually, and concluding with beseeching her pardon for so long annoying her ears with a tedious trifle, should finally abandon his performance to the setting forth of a stranger appears singular. It might create a suspicion of posthumous publication, but we find Elizabeth particularly mentioned as in the “one and thirty years space of her glorious reign,” consequently close upon the time of publication and had the author recently died, the bookseller would not have noted so material a point for consideration and favourable interest with his readers, when penning the address to Sir William Cecil.

Sir John Harrington, who bowed in the crowd round the throne, and associated with the learned, after a lapse of two years, describes Puttenham as “unknown,” calls him “Ignoto” and, amidst the profusion of verses and other pieces, could only mention his works from the matters there exhibited, concluding with an opinion that the author was a poet, from which the reader may not be inclined to appeal to. In his An Apologie of Poetrie prefixed to the translation of Orlando Furioso (1591) this is what he says: “Neither do I suppose it to be greatly behoo[ve] full for this purpose, to trouble you with the curious definitions of a poet and poesie, & with the subtill distinctions of their sundry kinds; nor to dispute how high and supernatural the name of a Maker is, so christened in English by that unknown godfather, that this last year save one, viz. 1589, set forth a book called the Art of English Poetrie: and least of all do I purpose to bestow any long time to argue, whether Plato, Zenophon, and Erasmus, writing fictions and dialogues in prose, may justly be called poets, or whether Lucan writing a story in verse be an historiographer, or whether Master Faire translating Virgil, Master Golding translating Quid’s Metamorphosis, and myself in this work that you see, be any more then versifiers, as the same Ignoto termeth all translators: for as for all, or the most part of such questions, I will refer you to Sir Philip Sidney’s Apologie, who doth handle them right learnedly, or to the fore-named treatise, where they are discoursed more largely, and where, as it were a whole receipt of poetrie is prescribed, with so manic new named figures, as would put me in great hope, in this age to come, would breed many excellent poets; sane for one observation that I gather out of the very same book. For though the poor gentleman laboureth greatly to prove, or rather to make poetry an art, and reciteth as you may see in the plural number, some pluralities of patterns, and parcels of his own poetrie, with diverse pieces of Partheniads and hymns in praise of the most praiseworthy; yet whatsoever he would prone by all these, sure in my poor opinion he doth prove nothing more plainly, then that which M. Sidney and all the learneder sort that have written of it, do pronounce, namely, that it is a gift and not an art: I say he proveth it, because making himself and many others so cunning in the art, yet he sheweth himself so tender a gift in it; deserving to be commended as Martial praiseth one that he compares to Tully.”

Oldys said: “that Puttenham was a Courtier is visible; also had been a traveller, and seen the Courts of foreign Princes; wherefore his illustration, both historical and political, are drawn so familiarly from thence, that he may be called the court-critic of that reign.” This fastidious writer, ungallantly, scolded Dame as well as Squire, when found tripping, and instead of excusing venial errors he contrived to index for immediate observation those passages a more benevolent spirit would have veiled, as the offspring of an ageless delicate and cultivated than his own. 6

The Art of English Poesie has ever formed one of the scarce works of the time of Queen Elizabeth. The present edition that exists is a verbal and paginal reprint, and its character for faithfulness can alone entitle it to the sanction of the modern reader. All that is necessary on such occasions is a statement that the text is of the original, to declare that that has been uniformly preserved were an improper and arrogant assertion. The arduous and perhaps slavish task of an arbitrary collation, neither to vary from oversight, or by error of the press, is not easily performed. It were better to crave indulgence of the reader for an unintentional failure, than brave the effect of a plodding comparison; still venturing to believe there are not so many errors added to the work, as those retained in strict observance to the original.

Rev. Walter Begley’s research on this subject is interesting: 7 “George Puttenham’s Arte of English Poesie is one of the most celebrated treatises on poetry that have been handed down to us from Elizabethan times. It is in many respects superior to the other books on the same subject by Sir Philip Sidney, Webbe, and other contemporaries. “In this work,” says Hallam, who was a competent judge, “we find an approach to the higher province of philosophical criticism.” But critics have found the greatest difficulty in settling the point of authorship; for the book was published anonymously in 1589, and the printer, Richard Field, confessed that he was ignorant of the author’s name, when he dedicated it to Lord Burghley. From internal evidence, the author clearly intended it at one time to be dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, and no reason is given why Lord Burghley took the Queen’s place. Whatever the secret was, it was extremely well kept, and Sir John Harington, only two years after its first appearance, was unable to ascertain who had written it. A little later on, in 1605, Camden in his Remaines concerning Britaine, refers to the work, but apparently could not or would not name the author.”

One of the two earliest references to a name for the author is by Bolton in his Hypercritica (c.1620, though not published till 1722). He simply mentions the name of Puttenham as the reported author, “as the fame is,” he says. But he gives no Christian name and no other information except that he was one of the Queen’s Gentlemen Pensioners. Bolton’s evidence is not free from suspicion, that he seems to have known certain literary secrets, and so might have an object in throwing people off the right scent. The only other mention of this Puttenham without a Christian name is in 1614, in the second edition of Camden’s Remaines, where a certain Richard Carew of St. Anthony, writing a paper On the Excellencie of the English Tongue, speaks of Sir Philip Sydney and Maister Puttenham and Maister Stanihurst as good versifiers. Thus, the contemporary external evidence is very weak, and what makes it still less convincing is that no Puttenham can be found in the lists of the Queen’s Pensioners, as preserved in the records.

We consequently have to turn for help to the internal evidence, and what we can gather concerning the author from any autobiographical allusions we may be able to find. There are many, as it happens, but all very puzzling. First, it is known that there were two brothers, Richard and George Puttenham, who were nephews of Sir Thomas Elyot, the famous author of The Governour, and our book in question has generally been attributed to George Puttenham, the younger brother, whose Will was proved in 1590. But, as far as has been made out by careful inquiries, this George never left England, and therefore the many accounts in The Arte of Poesie of the author’s travels far and wide on the Continent quite exclude George Puttenham. Richard therefore has to be tried, and, as he was the heir of his uncle Elyot, he might well have gone with his suite when his uncle went as Ambassador to the Courts of Germany and elsewhere, and thus this internal evidence of the author’s frequent Continental travels might suit Richard, who was known to have been many years away from England, in a kind of exile, on account of gross crimes and misdemeanours.

Humane Life Characterized:

By the Right Noble Peer, Francis Viscount St Albans,

Late High Chancellor of England 8

The world’s a bubble: and the life of man

Less than a span;

In his conception wretched, from the womb,

So to the tomb:

Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years,

With cares and fears.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust,

But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

Yet, since with sorrow here we live oppressed,

What life is best?

Courts are but only superficial schools

To dandle fools.

The rural parts are turn’d into a den

Of savage men.

And where’s the city from all vice so free,

But may be term’d the worst of all the three?

Domestic cares afflict the husband’s bed,

Or pains his head.

Those that live single, take it for a curse,

Or do things worse.

Some would have children; those that have them moan,

Or wish them gone.

What is it then to have or have no wife,

But single thraldom, or a double strife?

Our own affections still at home to please

Is a disease:

To cross the sea to any foreign soil

Perils and toil.

Wars with their noise affright us: when they cease,

We are worse in peace.

What then remains, but that we still should cry

Not to be born, or being born to die.

But, again, the author says his own age was just “eighteen” when he wrote his eclogue to King Edward VI. But, according to clear documentary evidence, Richard Puttenham was then much nearer twenty-six. This seems to exclude Richard, and indeed his whole character, and what we know of his relations to his friends and acquaintances, all would tend to put him aside as an unlikely and unfit person to write such a philosophical and methodical work as The Arte of English Poesie. In fact, there is much stronger evidence against the Puttenhams as authors than in their favour. For instance, the author says he was an Oxford man, but there is no record on the University books suiting the claim or names of George or Richard Puttenham. Again, the Puttenhams were not likely to tell Field, the printer, to dedicate the book to Lord Burghley, for they were at enmity with him and his party, whereas at that time (1589) there was no one that Bacon looked up to for advancement so much as to Burghley; and the mention of Sir John Throgmorton as a “deere friend,” although prime facie it tells in favour of the Puttenham authorship, is rather discounted by papers in the Government Archives, 9 which show that there were continuous and bitter family disputes in which Sir John was implicated. Moreover, there was a young Throgmorton who went over to France with Francis Bacon in Sir Amyas Paulet’s train, but to what branch of the family he belonged is not known.

Richard Puttenham, Sir Thomas Elyot’s nephew and heir, was twenty-six years old in 1546 when his uncle died. He had an only brother George, and a sister Margery, who married Sir John Throckmorton of Feckenham in Worcestershire. Both brothers married rich wives, and both alike were in frequent litigation about family matters, and got into other troubles as well, so their life was not very peaceful. George has been generally credited with the authorship of The Arte of English Poesie, but his claim is very weak. As we have seen, two contemporary writers gave the authorship to “Maister Puttenham” but one merely on hearsay evidence or common report. Ames, who wrote in 1749, gave the author’s name as Webster Puttenham, and Ritson in his Bibliographia Poetica, follows his lead. Then we have Steevens, who called him George from a manuscript (as he termed it) of Nicolson, of which no one seems to know anything. Then the bibliophile Dr. Lort put a manuscript note in his copy sanctioning the name of Webster Puttenham, and presently Mr. Haslewood gave the public a sumptuous quarto reprint, entitled The Arte of English Poesie, by Webster, alias George Puttenham. Then a little later on Mr. Haslewood affirmed unhesitatingly that “the Christian name was certainly George.” What led him to say this was that he had found a Will & Testament of a George Puttenham, dated September 1, 1590, and also a manuscript in the Harleian Collection written by George Puttenham as an apology for Queen Elizabeth’s conduct in her treatment of Mary, Queen of Scots. Such reasons have been justly called “flimsy” by Croft, in his Life of Elyot, 10 who thinks that Richard was the author, but admits that several circumstances are hard to explain, as, for instance, the fact that the list of the Gentlemen Pensioners of Queen Elizabeth contains no Puttenham; and the author, speaking of foreign Courtiers, says that he had “very well observed their manner of life and conversation,” but adds immediately that, with regard to those of his own country, he had not had so much experience, which is much against his being a Gentleman Pensioner.

Both the brothers Puttenham are frequently referred to in the Calendar of State Papers (Domestic Series), and can easily be found by consulting the index of the different years of the Queen’s reign. They seem to have been very litigious, self-willed men. To add to the other curious coincidences of this inquiry, there is the great similarity of sound between the names Puttenham and Bodenham. We have Master Puttenham and Master Bodenham, and Christian names George and John, and by a curious coincidence we have also a contemporary John Puttanemico, who is a prominent character in the well-known Gesta Grayorum that Spedding made public property. Puttanemico is clearly a pseudonym which someone used to conceal his identity in 1594, which is a date just about midway between the Puttenham of 1589 and the Bodenham of 1598–1600. Here indeed is a tangled skein of unknown authors to unravel!

It was the early and “concealed” literary ability of Francis Bacon which gives the clue. That most wonderful and illustrious genius was, after all, not idle in those years of his early life, of which the indefatigable Spedding could give us only so meagre an account. It was not likely that a young man of such intellectual promise and with such manifold advantages of birth and training would be idle. But Spedding, who spent a life-time in gathering together all the written productions of his great countrymen, could not fill up the early years at Gray’s Inn, or even earlier in France. Spedding could give no written work to Bacon till he was approaching his thirty-fourth or thirty-fifth year, and then nothing very important, nothing more than some sound political advice in letters and pamphlets. How had Bacon been exercising that wonderful brain of his for the last fourteen or fifteen years? Did he sit in his chair at Gray’s Inn, with his head supported by his arm, deeply musing, as he appears sculptured on his memorial tomb at St. Michael’s? Did he sit there thinking and thinking, but putting hand to paper never? Surely not. He was working hard and persistently all through these fifteen years and many later ones, but it was somewhat like a mole’s continuous work that is to say, underground and hidden from the eyes of men. It is only now we are beginning to uncover that which Bacon so carefully concealed from his own generation, but left to future ones.

Let us resume, then, by getting rid of John Puttanemico as soon as we can (for he is only a subsidiary character in this exposition), and proceed at once to the main evidence. All that is known of Puttanemico will be found in the third volume of Nichols’ well-known work, The Progresses of Queen Elizabeth which contains the Gesta Grayorum of 1594, where Bacon took such a prominent part, though he was careful to keep his name well out of the proceedings. At page 302 there is a fictitious and facetious letter from sea, directed to the Lord Admiral, “which was read, with other similarly concocted letters, as part of the proceedings and fun of the entertainment. This letter is signed John Puttanemico, from the Harbour of Bridewell, January 10, 1594.” These letters were read at the latter end of the period taken up by the festivities at Gray’s Inn, which extended from before Christmas till Twelfth Night, though not, of course, continuously. The next grand night after Bacon’s speeches was Twelfth Night, “at which time the wonted honourable company of Lords, Ladies and Knights were as at other times assembled.” The Knights of the Helmet were there, and there was “much pleasant musick” and “a very stately mask,” and they “danced a new devised measure,” the Knights choosing their ladies and gentlewomen, and “danced with them their galliards.” And there was much courtly ceremony. [Also see Appendix Bacon’s Masques].

Spedding seems to think that Bacon had nothing to do with these letters: he cannot trace “Bacon’s hand.” Well, we think now that Spedding has failed to trace Bacon’s hand in a good many important passages where it certainly was latent, and therefore he may be of the wrong opinion here. If this letter of Puttanemico’s is really Bacon’s, it is a strong additional link to the chain, which seems to connect Bacon with the author of The Arte of English Poesie and its supposed author, Puttenham by name. Another curious point is that the only work we possess signed by George Puttenham is just the kind of work that Bacon laid himself out to execute for his Queen and country. George Puttenham’s acknowledged work remains in manuscript, and is a defence of Queen Elizabeth’s action in the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots. We know Bacon’s opinion on this much-debated question of State policy, and it quite tallies with what Puttenham writes. There is also a strong legal flavour in the arguments adduced, although the author endeavours to make out that he avoids all legal subtleties and gives plain reasons. Also, Bacon was just the man for this kind of work: he was used to it, skilful in the execution of the literary part, and counted upon for such matters by those in authority. What George Puttenham wrote was this: “An Apologie or true defence of her Majesty’s honour and good name against all such as have unduly sought or shall seek to blemish the same…in any part of her Majesty’s proceedings against the late Scottish Queen. By very firm reasons, authorities and examples proving that her Majesty hath done nothing in the said action against the rules of honour or arms, or otherwise, not warrantable by the law of God and of man. Written by George Puttenham to the service of her Majesty, and for the large satisfaction of all…who by ignorance of the case, or partiality of mind shall happen to be so irresolute and not well satisfied in the said cause.” This manuscript consists of sixty-nine folios, written in a good and legible hand (possibly a scrivener’s), and it has the principal paragraphs summarized in the margin. The author says nothing, of any service to us, about his own personal history. He deals mainly with commonsense arguments and with reasoning adapted for the comprehension and satisfaction of the ordinary citizen. He states towards the end that he has purposely avoided “farcing it full of texts and authorities of laws, matters only known and interpretable by judges, advocates and pleaders, but rather by veritable examples for the satisfaction of the unlearned, and by sure plain and necessary demonstration in reason, which no man of good sense will deny.” But nevertheless, as aforesaid, there is a strong flavour of “counsels’ arguments” throughout. To sum up the case for the Puttenhams, it seems as if George could not possibly be responsible for The Arte of English Poesie and that Richard had few, if any, important points of evidence in his favour.

The book is printed by Richard Field, who a few years later printed Venus and Adonis. The book is anonymous, and the printer speaks for it in an address to Lord Burleigh. This, is quite in Bacon’s manner. The author is plainly a man of good birth and Court connections, who takes the highest interest in poetry, is a critic of a high philosophical kind, and by no means a bad poet himself. Having Sir Thomas Bodley’s evidence that Francis Bacon wasted considerable time in his youth over poetry and “toys” of invention, Bacon does not seem an unlikely person to make this valuable exposition of the “arte” he was devoted to. The work is extremely “methodical” and well arranged. Bacon was most methodical, and was fond of illustrating his arguments by short tales and instances derived from his extensive reading and retentive memory. This book is interspersed with many examples of this very kind. What is more, many of the tales and incidents have reference to French Court gossip, just such as Bacon would have been likely to hear when he was in attendance on Sir Amyas Paulet in France between 1576 and 1579. There is not space to quote these many instances at length, nor yet many other suggestive passages, but brief note to the pages of the book is given in order where these things can be referred to more fully.

• The Printer’s Dedication. To begin with, this printer’s dedication seems to be written, not by Field, but by the author of Partheniades for the word “scypher” is used in the dedication and in the last poem of Partheniades in a very unusual sense, and the inference is that both were written by the same man. But Field did not write the Partheniades, therefore Field probably did not write the dedication, but had it supplied to him. Thus we are met with a Baconian device at the very vestibule.
• On page 7 is a reference to “marchants and travellers affirming that the American, the Perusine and the very Canniball do sing, and also say, their highest and holiest matters in certain riming versicles.” Now, Bacon’s interest in the New World is well known, and he mentions Peru several times in his authenticated works.
• On page 12 is one of the allusions to Alexander the Great, so frequently indulged in by Puttenham. He mentions the great value Alexander put upon the poems of Homer, “insomuch that every night they were laid under his pillow, and by day were carried in the rich Jewell coffer of Darius lately before vanquished by him in battle.”
• On page 14 we are told that the poet’s phantasm may be “so passing clear, that by it as by a glass or mirror, are represented unto the soul all merrier of beautiful visions.” And this is a thoroughly Baconian idea, as all who are acquainted with Bacon’s philosophic views will, admit without any demur.
• Page 16 has Puttenham complaining of that “notable Gentlemen in the Court” have seemed to think it “a discredit for a Gentleman to seem learned, and to show himself amorous of any good Art.” He adds: “In other ages it was not so, for we read that Kings and Princes have written great volumes and published them under their own regal titles, as to begin with Salomon the wisest of Kings, Julius Caesar the greatest of Emperors, Hermes Trismegistus the holiest of Priests and Prophets.” Puttenham cites many more, and among them one lady, “Lady Margaret of France Queen of Navarre in our time.”
• Page 22, 23 we have two whole pages taken up with remarks about heathen mythology, which are singularly consonant with Bacon’s views in his well-known De Sapientia Veterum. Moreover, Puttenham ends by referring to “our books of lerotekni,” where the matter is treated “more at large.” The “books of lerotekni,” unfortunately, are not extant. What if the manuscripts containing them furnished Bacon with what he wished the world to know in his De Sapientia Veterum, and were, in fact, his first sketch of the subject?
• On page 37 the author refers to “our Triumphals, written in honour of her Majesty’s long peace.” Now Bacon was a fine arranger and composer of such Courtly pieces.
• On page 37–39, chapter XXIV., the whole of this chapter is written in a style very similar to that used in Bacon’s Essays.
• On page 49 “He wrate” is used for “He wrote.” This occurs several times in Puttenham’s book. “I wrate” is an archaic usage, but it can be found from Spedding that Bacon also uses it in his letters.
• On page 69 are some excellent remarks on the common Elizabethan street-singers and blind harpers that used to attract boys and country fellows by getting up “upon benches and barrels heads” and singing their popular stories of old time. Puttenham gives them the name of Cantabanquit and adds some of their romantic and historical themes. For instances he gives “the tale of Sir Topas, the reports of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwick, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough.” According to the recent work by Anders on Shakespeare’s Books, pp. 160-162, Shakespeare was well acquainted with these popular tales, and passages are quoted from Twelfth Night, King Lear, Henry VIII., and Henry VI., to show that Shakespeare knew well Sir Bevis of Southampton, Sir Guy of Warwick, and Sir Topas. It should not be inferred from this that Puttenham and Shakespeare are one, but only this, that Puttenham as well as the author of the Shakespeare plays was acquainted with these heroes of popular minstrels. This goes towards the balance on the Baconian side, whereas if it could be shown that Puttenham knew nothing about these popular heroes, it certainly would weigh against his authorship of The Arte of Poesie.
• On page 75 we have the strange account of the author “being in Italy conversant with a certain gentleman” who told him all about the shaped verses of the Tartars, the Chinese and the Persians. This is certainly puzzling, for we know very little about Tartar literature even now, and perhaps the author intended to puzzle us and throw us off the track after his identity. But if Bacon went to Italy (and it seems now that he did), he would hear more there about Tartar Cans and Eastern Poetry (at Venice especially) than either in England, Spain or France; for the knowledge of Chams and Sultans in Elizabethan times was chiefly derived from Italian authors. Nashe had referred to Gabriel Harvey as a writer of shaped verses. Bacon and Gabriel Harvey were contemporaries at Cambridge, and there is every reason to infer that young Bacon would know about Harvey and his doings, Harvey being somewhat of an academic luminary at that time, and given to both Italian literature and discussions on English poetry. Puttenham or Bacon had these shaped verses brought to his notice originally by Harvey. Such verses were by no means common, and were only written as an academic tour de force, or in congratulations on weddings and such-like. Cambridge could, however, boast of others besides Harvey. There was Willes the traveller, who printed some as early as 1575. Harvey mentions him, and probably knew him personally. He was a Fellow of Peterhouse, once Professor at Perugia.
• On page 115 a chapter about ornaments for public speeches is noted. Spedding found in 1848 a private memorandum by Bacon in his Commentarius solutes to this effect: “To forward my L. of S. with ornaments for public speeches.” L. of S. means Lord of Suffolk, as Spedding supposed.
• On page 116 are long and interesting notices of the Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, the father of Francis. These notices betoken very private intercourse with Sir Nicholas in his gallery alone and at home. Succeeding remarks show the author to be well acquainted with the inside of law-courts, and, what is much more it appears that the author was a lawyer and pleader himself. His words are: “I will tell you what happened on a time myself being present when certain Doctors of the Civil Law were heard in a litigious cause betwixt a man and his wife; before a great Magistrate who (as they can tell that knew him) was a man very well learned and grave but somewhat sour, and of no plausible utterance: the gentleman’s chance was to say: my Lord the simple woman is not so much to blame as her lewd abettors, who by violent persuasions have led her into this wilfulness. Quoth the judge, what need such eloquent terms in this place, the gentleman replied, doth your Lordship mislike the term, [violent] and me thinks I speak it to great purpose; for I am sure she would never have done it, but by force of persuasion: and if persuasions were not very violent, to the mind of man it could not have wrought so strange an effect as we read that it did once in Egypt, and would have told the whole tale at large, if the Magistrate had not passed it over very pleasantly. Now to tell you the whole matter as the gentleman intended thus it was.” Puttenham then tells the whole tale.
• On page 120 and the following three pages we have much on the subject of language which is very Baconian; for especially does the author deal with the admission of new and foreign words into the general vocabulary, and defends many which he admits he has introduced in the present treatise, it being a custom or fault of his which he is “not unwilling to acknowledge.”
• On page 171 we have a translation from the Greek anthology of that very epigram which Bacon also translated freely in his best authenticated poem beginning, The world’s a bubble. [See at the beginning of this Appendix]. It was Farnaby, the famous schoolmaster, who attributed this poem to Bacon as early as 1629, or about two years after its author’s death, and Farnaby’s authority is irreproachable, for he would be a most unlikely man to make such a statement without good grounds for its truth. Moreover, Farnaby was so interested in the poem that he translated the whole of it into Greek verse, and it was the only English poem admitted into his book.
• On page 175 the author says: “When I was a scholar at Oxford they called every such one Johannes ad oppositum.” Bacon has jotted down a notice of Jo. ad oppositum in his “Letter and Discourse to Sir Henry Savile.” Moreover, this Johannes was not a gentleman generally known in society, except by such as had gone through the University curriculum, and no record can be found of the Puttenhams at either University. But Bacon was well acquainted with the academical functions and ceremonies of both Universities.
• On page 188 Puttenham quotes a famous “ditty made by the noble Knight, Sir Philip Sidney,” beginning: “My true love hath my heart, and I have his.” But the version here given by Puttenham differs from that which Sir Philip Sidney originally composed. F.T. Palgrave, in his remarks on this noted ditty, says that it had been altered by Sidney himself before it was quoted here.
• On page 188 we have a pseudo-prophecy of Chaucer quoted, ending: “Then shall the Realm of Albion be brought to great confusion.” But according to Skeat’s Chaucer, pp. 45, 46 and to Stow’s edition (1561), the prophecy was worded: “Then shall the lond of Albion.” So it seems that Puttenham, following a practice peculiarly his own, has altered or improved upon the original line, and substituted “Realm” for “lond.” 11
• On page 193 a good tale of “Paulet Lord Treasurer of England and first Marquis of Worcester.” Bacon was in the train of Sir Amyas Paulet for some years in France.
• On pages 201-206 contain by far the longest exposition in the whole book of Poetical Ornament (Lib. III.), and this third book comprises more than half of the whole treatise. So it is clear that the author, whoever he was, attached considerable importance to the subject of these pages. But what was the subject? It was none other than that of “Poetical Similitudes and Resemblances,” and these were the very subjects that Bacon plumed himself upon, as a man with a natural gift for the easy and appropriate use of such literary devices in a measure beyond that of other men.
• On page 206 is some advice given to Queen Elizabeth as to the best way to treat the Dutch and advice to Queen Elizabeth is rather Baconian.
• On page 212 Puttenham has been complaining of a contemporary plagiarizing poet, and says: “This man deserves to be endited of petty larceny for pilfering other men’s devises from them, and converting them to his own use.” This reminds one of the answer Bacon gave to the Queen about Sir John Hayward’s book. He said Hayward was guilty of felony from Tacitus. [Also see Appendix Hayward’s Pamphlet].
• On page 217 the oracles of Delphos are mentioned. This is rather a gross classical blunder, or at least a great piece of carelessness, for Delphi is the correct word. The same mistake occurs in Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale three times, and also in John Lyly’s (?) Midas.
• On page 231 begins a long chapter of Decency in Behaviour or courtesy and good manners in society. One would not expect this in a work on poetry. But if Bacon wrote the book we are considering, the matter becomes much less surprising, for Bacon’s “courtesy” was one of his most striking and attractive qualities, as everyone will admit who has studied his life, letters and works. Bacon here and there in his writings mentions the value of this quality. It is also a distinct feature of the Shakespeare plays, which abound beyond measure in terms of courtesy. And, what is more, we see the original terms lying about loose in the Promus of Francis Bacon, which was a kind of workshop from which his materials were drawn. [Also see Part IV: Bacon’s Works].
• On page 232 are two tales about Alexander the Great, a hero in whom Bacon took much interest arid often refers to. Moreover, these same tales appear together, and follow in the same order in Bodenham’s Theatre of the Little World, a work well to be considered to be attributed to Bacon.
• On page 240 we have another tale about Alexander.
• On page 254 we find some good and sensible remarks about gardening. This was not every man’s hobby, even if he always “dwelt in country quarters”; but Bacon, though he lived so much in Gray’s Inn and about town, made a great hobby of this art, and was a decided connoisseur, as witnesseth his Sylva Sylvarum. It is worthwhile to notice here that the greater part of the end of Puttenham’s second book (pp. 85–113) is taken up by comments on the scheme of applying classical metres and classical numerosity to modern English verse. Unexpected from an old man like Puttenham, who really belonged almost to the previous generation, whereas this discussion about classical measures was of comparatively recent date, and formed the chief topic of that Areopagus of English poets, where Sidney, Spenser, Fulke Greville, Sir E. Dyer, and Gabriel Harvey, were the leading spirits, and where young Francis Bacon was no stranger or outsider. Also strange in all this long discourse on English classical metres published in 1589, there is not the slightest reference to Sir Philip Sidney, Gabriel Harvey, Immerito, Drant, or anyone connected with the Court of the English Areopagus a Court especially constituted for, and chiefly engaged in, dealing with this very matter of which this long discourse treats.