Bacon's Dictionary
Appendices
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
57 58 59
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.
Bacon’s Library
What became of Bacon’s books, which were left to Sir John Constable and must have contained traces of his reading, we do not know; but very few appear to have survived. (Spedding). Mrs. Pott 1 draws attention to the disappearance of Bacon’s library. “Which is a mystery,” she adds, “although the world has been content to take it very apathetically. Where is Bacon’s library? Undoubtedly the books exist and are traceable. We should expect them to be recognisable by marginal notes; yet those notes, whether in pencil or in ink, may have been effaced. If annotated, Bacon and his friends would not wish his books to attract public attention.” And further on: “It is probable that the latter (i.e., the books) will seldom or never be found to bear his name or signature.” And again: “Yet it may reasonably be anticipated that some at least are noted in the margin, or that some will be found with traces of marks which were guides to the transcriber or amanuensis as to the portions which were to be copied for future use in Bacon’s collections or book of common places.” Pott’s words were written in a spirit of true prophecy.
The collecting together of these books originated with that distinguished Baconian scholar, Mr. W.M. Safford. He had been steadily engaged in reconstituting Bacon’s Library that a collection of nearly two thousand volumes was gathered. The annotations on the margins of these books are unquestionably the work of one man, and that man, or rather boy and man, was undoubtedly Francis Bacon. These books bear date from 1470 to 1620 and they include the works of Seneca, Aristotle, Plato, Horace, Alciati, Lucanus, Dionysius, Catullus, Lactinius, Plutarch, Pliny, Aristophanes, Plautus, Cornelius Agrippa, Cicero, Vitruvius, Euclid, Virgil, Ovid, Lucretius, Apuleius, Salust, Tibullus, Isocrates, and hundreds of other classical writers; St. Augustine, St. Jerome, Calvin, Beza, Beda, Erasmus, Martin Luther, J. Cammerarius, Sir Thomas Moore, Machiavelli, and other more modern writers. The handwriting varies 2 but there is a particular hand which is found accompanied by a boy’s sketches. There are drawings of full-length figures, heads of men and women, animals, birds, reptiles, ships, castles, cathedrals, cities, battles, storms, etc. The writing is a strong, clerkly student’s hand. There is a passage in Hamlet, 3 which is noteworthy. Hamlet, speaking to Horatio, says:
I sat me down
Devised a new commission; wrote it fair;
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour’d much
How to forget that learning; but, Sir, now
It did me yeomans service.”
The nature of this statement is so personal that it could only have been written as the result of experience. Hamlet had been taught, when young, to write a hand so fair that he was capable of producing a fresh commission which would pass muster as the work of a Court copyist. The annotation of these books possessed the same qualification. In the margins of these books are abundant references in handwriting to the whole range of classical authors. A copy of the Grammatice Compendium of Lactus Pomponius, a very rare book printed by De Fortis in Venice (1484) contains on the margins the boy’s scribble and drawings, besides a number of manuscript notes. It bears traces of his reading probably at eight years of age. A large folio volume entitled T. Livii Palvini Latinse Historiae Principis Decades Tres, published by Frobenius in 1535, is a treasure. It is most copiously annotated and embellished with sketches. The notes are usually in Latin, but interspersed with Greek and sometimes with English. Obviously the writer thought in Latin, and the character of the drawings justifies the assumption that, at the time, his age would be from ten to fourteen years. The most remarkable reference to these annotations is to be found in the Rape of Lucrece. The fifteenth stanza is as follows:
But she that never cop’t with straunger eies,
Could picke no meaning from their parling lookes,
Nor read the subtle shining secrecies
Writ in the glassie margents of such bookes,
Shee toucht no unknown baits, nor feared no hooks,
Nor could shee moralize his wanton sight
More than his eies were opend to the light.
It would be difficult to conceive a more inappropriate simile for the lustful looks in Tarquin’s eyes than “the subtle shining secrecies, writ in the glassie margents of such books.” That this is lugged in for a purpose outside the object of the poem is manifest. How many readers of Lucrece would know of such a practice? Nay. If it did exist, was not its use very rare? But the margin of the verse itself yields a subtle shining secret. The initial letters of the lines are B, C, N, W, Sh, N M. It is only necessary to supply the vowels BaCoN, W. Sh., NaMe. Sh is on line 103, which is the numerical value of the word Shakespeare. The numerical value of Bacon is 33. In view of this the line 33 is significant.
“Why is Colatine the publisher?” The use of the word publisher here is quite inappropriate. It is introduced for some reason outside the purpose of the text. The Rape of Lucrece commences with Bacon’s monogram and, as the late Begley pointed out, ends with his signature. The theory now advanced is that when Bacon read a book he made marginal notes in it the object being mainly to assist his memory, but the critical notes are numerous. It does not follow that all these books constituted his library. He would read a book and it having served his purpose he would dispose of it. Some books no doubt he would retain and these would form his library. The annotations are chiefly in Latin, but some are in Greek, some in Hebrew, French and Spanish. When these have been examined and translated the meaning of the phrase that he had taken all knowledge to be his province will be better understood. Rawley says: “He read much and that with great judgment and rejection of impertinences incident to many authors.” Amongst the books is a copy of Alciati’s Emblems (1577) in the early part profusely annotated. Ben Jonson in his Discoveries has incorporated the translation of a portion of one of the Emblems and has also incorporated a portion of the annotations from this very book. 4 [Also see Appendix: Alciati’s Emblem 45; Whitney’s Emblem 5; Part III: Bacon’s works at Lincoln’s Inn Library].