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.

Willobie his Avisa

Dorrell says that he christened the work Willobie his Avisa because he supposed it was Willobie’s “doing and being written with his own hand.” He explains that the name Avisa was derived from the initial letters of the words amans vxor inviolata semper amanda and that there was “something of truth hidden under this shadow”. In 1596 Peter Colse produced a poem on the same model as Willobies Avisa, which he called Penelopes Complaint. Colse declares that “seeing an unknowns author hath of late published a pamphlet called Avisa concerning the chastity of a lady of no historical repute, lie deemed it fitting to treat of the chastity of Penelope.” Colse speaks approvingly of the unknown, author’s style and verse, which he closely imitates. To Colse’s effort Hadrian Dorrell at once replied in 1590 in a new edition of Avisa, to which he prefixed an “Apologia shewing the true meaning of Willobie his Avisa.” This was dated from Oxford “this 30 of June 1596.” Dorrell, in contradiction to his former statement, declares that the whole of Avisa was a poetical fiction which was written “thirty-five years since, and long lay among the waste papers in the author’s study, with many other pretty things of his devising including a still unpublished work called Susanna. The name Avisa he now affirms either means that the woman described had never been seen, “a” being the Greek privative particle, and “visa” the Latin participle; or was an irregular derivative from avis, a bird. At the close of the Apologie, he remarks that Willobie is lately dead. Dorrell’s general tone suggests that his two accounts of the origin and intention of the book are fictitious, while the conflict between his statements respecting the author renders it unlikely that either is wholly true, but that Dorrell had ground for his claim of intimacy with Henry Willoby, the Oxford student, seems supported by the fact that he adds to this edition of 1596 a poem in the same metre as Avisa, headed “The Victoria of English Chastitie under the fainted name of Avisa” and signed “Thomas Willoby frater Henrici Willoby nuper defunct.”

The Oxford student Henry Willoby undoubtedly had a brother named Thomas. The name of Hadrian Dorrell was apparently assumed. No Oxford student bearing that appellation is known to the university registers. It is probable that Hadrian Dorrell was sole author of Avisa and that he named his work after his friend Henry Willoby, in the same manner as Nicolas Breton named a poem, The Countess of Pembrokes Passion after the patroness in whose honour and for whose delectation it was written. The chief interest of the poem lies in its apparent bearings on Shakespeare’s biography. In prefatory verses in six-line stanzas, which are signed “Contraria Contrariis: Vigilantius: Dormitanus,” direct mention is made of Shakespeare’s poem of Lucrece, which was licensed for the press on May 9, 1594, only four months before Avisa. This is the earliest open reference made in print by a contemporary author to Shakespeare’s name. The notice of Shakespeare lends substance to the theory that the alleged friend of Willoby, who is known in the poem under the initials “W.S.” may be the dramatist himself. “W.S.” is spoken of as the old player. If this identity be admitted, there is a likelihood that the troubled amour from which “W.S.” is said in the poem to have recently recovered is identical with the intrigue that forms one of the topics of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The frivolous tone in which “W.S.” is made in Avisa to refer to his recent amorous adventure suggests, moreover, that the professed tone of pain which characterises the poet’s addresses to a disdainful mistress in his Sonnets is not to be interpreted quite seriously. Willobies Avisa droved popular, and rapidly went through six editions, but very few copies survive.

1. Of the first edition, published in 1594, two perfect copies are known one in the British Museum. Another copy is in Mr. Christie Miller’s library at Britwell.
2. A slightly imperfect copy is in the Huth Library. No copy is now known either of the edition of 1596, containing for the first time Dorrell’s Apologie and Thomas Willoby’s contribution.
3. Nor is there any trace of a third edition published after 1596 and before 1605.
4. A fourth edition (the fourth time corrected and augmented) was issued by Windet, the original printer and publisher, in 1605; and unique copy is at Britwell. Bagford, Benjamin Furley, and other collectors noted an edition of 1609, which was probably a remainder issue of the fourth edition. The work was reprinted in 1635 by William Stansby, and was described on the title-page as “the fifth time corrected and augmented.” A copy, said to be unique, is in the British Museum. Dr. Grosart reprinted privately 1880 the first edition, with extracts from the aditions first published in 1596, although now only accessible in the editions of 1609 and 1635.

The portion supposed to refer to Shakespeare was reprinted in Shakspere Allusion Books. The mention of the name Shakespeare occurs in the following introductory verses:

In Lavine land though Livie boast,

There hath beene scene a Constant Dame:

Though Rome lament that she have lost

The Gareland of her rarest fame,

  Yet now we see that heere is found,

  As great a Faith in English ground:

Though Collatine have dearely bought,

To high renowne, a lasting life,

And found, that most in vaine have sought,

To have a Faire and Constant wife,

  Yet Tarquine pluckt his glistering grape,

  And Shake-speare, paints poore Lucrece rape.

These verses are signed “Contraria Contrariis: Vigilantius: Dormitanus.” Vigilantius was an enlightened person, living at the end of the fourth century, who questioned the sanctity of relics and the superior merit of celibacy. He was furiously attacked by St. Jerome, who termed him “Vigilantius seu verius Dormantius.” The signature is therefore equivalent to Jerome, Hieronymus, or Jeronimo. [Also see Appendices Poems: Written By Wil. Shakespeare. 1640.]