:: Bacon's Dictionary Part 3B ::

Bacon and the Rose Cross1Much has been said of Bacon’s connection with that influential Society which flourished in England in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, known as Rosicrucian, whose very existence was so carefully concealed that few outside of it’s fellowship knew of its existence. At what date in the world’s history it originated we will hardly venture to inquire; it is sufficient to our purpose that the public announcement of its existence occurred in 1614, when was published in Cassel the Allegemeine and General-Reformation der ganzen weiten Welt. This work declares that it was first formed by four persons only, and by them was made the magical language and writing, with a large dictionary, which is daily used with God’s praise and glory. Many writers have sought to discover a close connection between the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons, and some, indeed, have advanced the theory that the latter are only the successes of the former. Whether this opinion be correct or not, there are sufficient coincidences of character between the two to render the history of Rosicrucianism highly interesting to the Masonic student. 2In England, there still exists a society of Rosicrucians, which was founded upon the remains of the old German association. We are told that, modern times have eagerly accepted, in the full light of science, the precious inheritance of knowledge bequeathed by the Rosicrucians. It is not desirable, in a work of this kind, to make disclosures of an indiscreet nature. The Brethren of the Rosy Cross will never and should not, at peril and under alarm, give up their secrets. This ancient body has apparently disappeared from the field of human activity, but its labours are being carried on with alacrity, and with a sure delight in an ultimate success. 3
Among the members of the ancient Society appear these initials, Fra. F.B.; M.P.A.; which, plainly stated, stand for Francis Bacon, Magister, Pictor, Architectus. Waite, perhaps the best historian of the Rosicrucian Order, introduces it to us in these words: “Beneath the broad tide of human history there flow the stealthy undercurrents of the secret societies which frequently determine in the depths the changes that take place upon the surface. The facts and documents concerning the Fraternity of the Rose Cross are absolutely unknown to English readers. Even well informed people will learn with astonishment the extent and variety of the Rosicrucian literature, which hitherto has lain buried in rare pamphlets, written in the old German tongue, and in Latin commentaries of the later alchemists.” We close this topc by saying that a halo of poetic splendour surrounds the order of the Rosicrucians; the magic lights of fancy play round their graceful daydreams, while the mystery in which they shrouded themselves lends additional attraction to their history. But their brilliancy was that of a meteor. The literature of every European country contains hundreds of pleasing fictions, whose machinery has been borrowed from their system of philosophy, though that it has passed away. 4

Bacon as a Rosicrucian Of the fact that Bacon was a Rosicrucian, Spedding, in his preface to The New Atlantis shows himself to have been entirely oblivious. Had he known this, John Heydon’s Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians would have opened to him a line of thought which would have greatly enlightened him, for Heydon’s Voyage, largely word for word the same, would have enabled him to understand many passages in his author’s works ever which he puzzled, sometimes in vain. The New Atlantis was published in 1627, after Bacon’s death, by Dr. Rawley, his executor, in connection with the Sylva Sylvarum, as Bacon designed, says Spedding, and Solomon’s House, or The Temple of Wisdom, as Heydon has it, is nothing more than a vision of the practical results which he anticipated from the study of natural history diligently and systematically carried on through successive generations, and that of it has told us all that he was yet qualified to tell. Talbot, Heydon’s biographer, gives the date of his birth as 1630, four years after Bacon’s death. He represents him as a great traveller, and a man of high character. How it came for him to use almost the same description of his penetration into the riddle of Rosicrucianism that Bacon used in his fable which Dr. Rawley says he devised to the end that he might exhibit therein a model or description of a college instituted for the interpreting of nature, and the production of great and marvellous works for the benefit of men, under the name of Solomon’s House, or the College of the Six Days’ Works? A fair answer seems to be that Bacon used a sketch for his Atlantis familiar to the Hermetic Brotherhood, which was limned by him as its head, to exhibit what might be accomplished by wise means for the regeneration of society, making some minor changes to adapt it to a new purpose, and that Heydon, who was a Rosicrucian, unaware of the existence of Bacon’s Atlantis, preserved for the world the original or an accurate copy of it. It is, however, as reasonable to suppose that Heydon becoming acquainted with the Atlantis, in his admiration of a work in which he discerned the embodiment of the Rosicrucian spirit, adopted it as an exposition of the beauty and strength of the Holy House.
In commenting upon Bacon’s Atlantis, Spedding justly says: “Perhaps there is no single work of his which has so much of himself in it. The description of Solomon’s House is the description of the vision in which he lived, the vision not of an ideal world released from the natural conditions to which ours is subject, but of our own as it might be made if we did our duty by it, of a state of things which he believed would one day be actually seen upon this earth, such as it is, by men such as we are, and the coming of which he believed that his own labours were sensibly hastening.” The following statement comes directly from the Rosicrucian Order: 5 “According to claims in the Rosicrucian archives, a particular movement began in the Initiatory Schools of the fourteenth century and the Rosicrucian technique is derived from this, as related in the Fama Fraternitatis, the Confiessio Rosae Crucis, and other publications and manifestos of our Order. There are many references to the Rosicrucian or Rosicrucian Order and its establishment in many of the countries of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and many celebrated and great benefactors of humanity have belonged to the Rosicrucian Order.” On their Web site they have a portrait of Francis Bacon with this comment: “Count of Saint Alban, Baron of Verulam, and Imperator of the Rosicrucian Order in England (1561–1626). The original engraving of this portrait is retained at the Sovereign Headquarters of the Rosicrucian Order. When it is superimposed over a portrait of William Shakespeare, surprising coincidental similarities are observed, encouraging speculation on the validity of the theory that he was the true author of the works of Shakespeare. A famous Rosicrucian, he is considered by many to be the secret author of the works of William Shakespeare, and many indicators suggest this possibility. It is an idea worth considering, since the works attributed to Shakespeare contain cryptograms that suggest Bacon was the author.” According to Waite, 6 Rosicrucian contoversy centres in a publication, The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz, which Buhle describes as “a comic romance of extraordinary talent.” It was first published at Strasbourg in the year 1616, but it is supposed to have existed in manuscript as early as 1601–02, thus antedating by a long period the other Rosicrucian books. Two editions of the German original are preserved in the Library of the British Museum, both bearing the date 1616. 7 It was translated into English for the first time in 1690, under the title of The Hermetic Romance or The Chymical Wedding, written in High Dutch by Christian Rosencreutz, and translated by E. Foxcroft, late Fellow of King’s College in Cambridge. It was licensed and entered according to Order; printed by A. Sowle, at the Crooked Billet in Holloway-Lane, Shoreditch; and sold at the Three-Keys in Nags-Head-Court, Grace Church Street. “In the centuries that have gone by, since the Rosicrucian Order was first formed, they have worked quietly and secretly aiming to mould the thought of Western Europe through the works of Paracelsus, Boehme, Bacon, Shakespeare, Fludd and others. Each night at midnight when the physical activities of the day are at their lowest ebb, and the spiritual impulse at its highest flood tide, they have sent out from their temple soul-stirring vibrations to counteract materialism and to further the development of soul powers. To their activities, we owe the gradual spiritualization of our once so materialistic science.” (Heindel). 8

Bacon’s bi-literal cipher Connected with one which had been given by Porta, which also depends on the principle of which the old Electric Telegraph was a familiar illustration, that any number of things may be denoted by combinations of two signs, as in the binary scale of numeration. 9 Its use remained an undisclosed secret until 1895, when it was discovered and made public by Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup. By a stroke of genius, Mrs. Gallup evolved from the Standard Alphabets and Key-Examples, a system of design and rules on which to assemble Bi-formed Alphabets for use in deciphering. A Bi-formed Alphabet is required for each new work and for each font of Italics. The Italic type used are cut from Bi-formed Alphabets designed by the cipherer. The type which were used in printing the Italics in Novum Organum 1620, Henry VII., 1622, De Augmentis 1623, and Shakespeare’s works were cut after designs made by Bacon. The standard of design is embodied in the Bi-formed Alphabet, given in De Augmentis Scientiarum. 10 Here is a table of Works that Mrs. Gallup found to be ciphered in Bi-literal Cipher: 11

Bacon’s biography A short memoir exists drawn up by Dr. Rawley in 1657 and prefixed to the Resuscitatio and is still (next to Bacon’s own writing) the most important and authentic evidence concerning him that we possess. Dr. Rawley then published a Latin translation of it in 1658 as an introduction to a little volume entitled Opuscula Philosophica, and now commonly prefixed to the De Augmentis Scientiarum. This memoir was also published and printed by Blackbourne, with interpolations from Dugdale and Tenison, and placed in front of his edition of 1730, but is not to be found in any more modern editions except on the Internet. [See Chapter entitled The Life of the Right Honourable Francis Bacon for the complete text; Part IV: Bacon’s Works.]

Bacon’s character He qualified to work his way up through a court; why he was ill qualified it would be hopeless to explain, when his writings are so little read and his character so totally misunderstood; and it will be needless to explain hereafter, if his life should ever come to be studied. Such persons as are of nature bashful, whereby they want that plausible familiarity which others have, are often mistaken for proud. (Spedding). 13 Numerous passages could be cited from Bacon’s acknowledged writings to show that he was solicitous, in advance of his age, for the welfare of the people. (Harman). 14

Bacon’s emblems “Embleme” Bacon tells us, “deduceth conceptions intellectual to images sensible, and that which is sensible more forcibly strikes the memory, and is more easily imprinted than that which is intellectual.” (Bacon, Adv., Bk. V. Ch. 5). Novelties respecting Shakespeare’s genius may naturally expect to be looked upon with suspicion, and fresh notes upon his writings are a trouble to us, we can scarcely endure them; yet, though seldom alluded to and never systematically carried out, his knowledge of emblem art, as applied in books, is a truth not to be questioned by any who have examined the evidence. His peculiar aptitude for the appreciation of art of every kind, even of the highest, is proved by his exquisite judgment of the supposed statue of Hermione, of the adornment of Imogen’s chamber, of the pictures introduced into the Taming of the Shrew, and of the wonderful charms of melody and song when Lorenzo discourses to Jessica; and no man could have written the casket scene in the Merchant of Venice, nor the triumph scene as it is named in Pericles, who had not read and studied the emblem literature of the sixteenth century. To accomplish this, two sources were open to him, for both of in the opinion of Douce, Drake and Capel Lofft, he possessed competent scholarship: the one was, to read for himself the emblem books of France, Italy and Belgium; the other, to make use of the English Whitney, a work representative of the chief emblematists of those countries, and published at the very time when Shakespeare commenced his wonderful quill to manuscript. There were also open to him a translation into English by Daniell of the Worthy Tract of Paulus lovius, printed in 1585, and by one P.S. of Paradin’s Heroicall Devises, printed in 1591.
We must not however forget another English source which was open; “theworthy Tract of Paulus Jovius Contayning a Discourse of Rare Inventions both Militarie and Amorous called Imprest, Whereunto is added a Preface contaynmg the Arte of composing them with many other notable devises. By Samuel Daniell late Student in Oxenford. At London Printed for Simon Waterson 1585.” In octavo, unpaged, 72 leaves in all including the title. This rare work, of which Mr. Stirling of Keir possesses a copy, and which is also in the British Museum, is without prints or cuts of any kind, except two or three initial letters of no great merit. It is therefore not so likely to have attracted the notice of Shakespeare as Paradin, Symeoni or Whitney. It is evident from Shakespeare’s graphic lines that he was describing from some picture or device actually before him. 15 “This is a parlous world,” says an old thinker, “because of its errors,” and, unhappily, its errors outnumber its truths.” Were it not for this, the above title would never have been penned, and the world would have been saved from much distracting controversy; yet an eminent philosopher tells us that there is a law of compensation universal in its action and so even in controversy may we not expect it to serve a beneficent end, since many a precious truth has been picked out of the sludge of dissent. No thoughtful mind can fail to appreciate the inestimable importance of the Shakespearean works to mankind; no heart, which is attuned to the love of genius but desires to become acquainted with the immortal genius who was their author. Yet, strange as it may seem, the paternity of this Greatest Birth of Time is in question, and the world is about equally divided upon it; many holding to the earlier faith that it belongs to the Stratford actor, and others to the later, that it should be ascribed to Francis Bacon. This is a question, which demands careful scrutiny, a mind open to conviction, and, to reach a satisfactory conclusion, an intimate acquaintance with the two men, and with their works. [Also see Authorship controversy.]
The facts now presented tend to prove that: from their first appearance in 1282, until the latter half of the eighteenth century, the curious designs inserted into paper in the form of watermarks constitute a coherent and unbroken chain of emblems; that these emblems are Thought-fossils or Thought-crystals, in which lie enshrined the aspirations and traditions of the numerous mystic and puritanic sects by which Europe was overrun in the Middle Ages; hence that these papermarks are historical documents of high importance, throwing light not only on the evolution of European thought, but upon many obscure problems of the past; watermarks denote that papermaking was an art introduced into Europe, and fostered there by the pre-Reformation Protestant sects known in France as the Albigenses and Waldenses, and in Italy as the Cathari or Patarini; that these heresies, though nominally stamped out by the Papacy, existed secretly for many centuries subsequent to their disappearance from the sight of History; the embellishments used by printers in the Middle Ages are emblems similar to those used by papermakers, and explicable by a similar code of interpretation; the awakening known as the Renaissance was the direct result of an influence deliberately and traditionally exercised by papermakers, printers, cobblers, and other artisans; the nursing mother of the Renaissance and consequently of the Reformation was not, as hitherto assumed, Italy, but the Provencal district of France.

Bacon’s enemies In a letter from Sir Thomas Bodley, 16 is a remark to Francis Bacon, about his Cogitata et Visa, wherein he declares his opinion freely. Bodley had evidently a great affection for the old learning, but is somewhat scandalised by Bacon’s revolutionary sentiments, and thinks that if we “come babes ad regnum naturae, as we are willed by Scriptures to come ad regnum coelorum, there is nothing more certain than that it would instantly bring us to Barbarism, and after many thousand years leave us more unprovided of theoricall furniture than we are at this present.” The letter is interesting, but it betrays bewilderment and an incapacity to understand Bacon’s dissatisfaction with the existing state of things or a reform in the sciences such as he projected. And in the eighteen century, it has been disinterred from oblivion by De Maistre and other antagonists of Bacon. Far more pertinent is the unfavourable opinion of Bacon’s philosophy expressed by Harvey, as given in Aubrey: 17 “He [Harvey] had been physician to the Lord Chancellor Bacon, whom he esteemed much for his wit and style, but would not allow him to be a great philosopher. Said he to me, “He writes philosophy like a Lord Chancellor,” speaking in derision.” Harvey, however, seems to have had a peculiar dislike of the “neoteriques,” to whom, we are told he once in conversation with Aubrey applied a very unsavoury epithet. Nor perhaps did he like Bacon personally: “Dr. Harvey told me his eye was like the eye of a viper.” And from Shaw, “To know the Natural World and remain ignorant of the Moral, is a Disgrace to human Nature. That this Method is practicable appears by the example of the Lord Verulam; who had a particular turn to; and sometimes used it with such Effect, as to rise above other Men.” 18 [Also see Aubrey John; Appendices Bacon’s enemies.]

Bacon’s Epitaph to Shaksper Did Bacon write the epitaph upon Shakespeare prefixed to the Second Folio of 1632? In Bacon’s Life of Henry VII., published in 1622, pages 247 and 248, there appears as the concluding sentence an epitaph upon that King and in the Second Folio of Shakespeare, published in 1632, appears the “epitaph on the Admirable Dramatick Poet, Mr. William Shakespeare.” Both passages have, as their author’s last thought, and as their closing line, the reflection that a man is more richly sepulchred in a written monument of his fame, than in any material tomb, however sumptuous or even regal it may be. The idea is Horace’s: “Exegi monumentum aere perennius,” and therefore familiar to a scholar with a fine ear for rhythm and swing. Such learning was common enough among the courtiers of “King Elizabeth,” and the example of George Buchanan had kept it alive in the reign of Scotch “Jamie.”

The Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet Mr. William Shakespeare
2nd, 3rd, and 4th Folios

What needs my Shakespeare for
His Hallowed Bones?
A pyramid of earth in piled stones,
Or that his mortal relics should be hid
Beneath some starre-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear Son of Memory, great Heir of Fame
Why needs the world such witness of thy Name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a lasting monument,
And so sepulchred in such state dost lie,
That Kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

Bacon, Henry VII., Conclusion pp. 247, 248: “He lyeth buried at Westminster in one of the Statelyest and Daintiest Monuments of Europe both for the Chappell, and for the Sepulcher. So that he dwelleth more richly Dead in the Monument of his Tomb than he did Alive in Richmond or any of his Palaces. I could wish he did the like, in this Monument of his Fame.” Surely there must have been some cause for the omission of this tribute of an affectionate friend of such commanding genius from the First Folio, which had ceased to exist when the Second saw the light. Ben Jonson’s tribute could be prefixed, but why should this still grander one be left out? During that nine years between 1623 and 1632, the restraint, whatever it was, vanished. Why?

Bacon’s handwriting At the beginning of King James’ reign, Bacon’s writing underwent a remarkable change, from the hurried Saxon hand full of large sweeping curves and with letters imperfectly formed and connected, which he wrote in Elizabeth’s time, to a small, neat, light, and compact one, formed more upon the Italian model which was then coming into fashion.

1 Partially extracted from James Phinney Baxter’s work (1831–1921)

2 Albert G. Mackey. An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Vol. II. p.639, 1912

3 Beyond Masonic Cyclopadia London, 1877

4 C.W.Heckthorne. Secret Societies in All Ages and Countries. London, 1897

5 {www.rosicrucian-order.com}

6 Arthur Edward Waite. The Real History of the Rosicrucians, 1887

7 Chymische Hochzeit: Christian Rosencreutz. Anno 1459. Erstlick Gedrucktzor Strasbourg. Anno M.DC.XVI. The second edition was printed by Conrad Echer

8 Max Heindel. The Rosicrucian Mysteries, 1912

9 Bacon. De Augmentis, Bk. VI

10 Ignatius Donnelly. The Cipher in the Plays, and on the Tombstone, 1900

11 Charles Loughridge. Key to the Bi-literal Cipher, 1900

12 See Part III: Manuscript Play of Sir Thomas More

13 Spedding. Evenings with a Reviewer, 1881

14 Harman. Edmund Spencer and the Impersonations of Francis Bacon, 1914

15 Green. Whitney’s Choice of Emblemes, 1866

16 Originally published in Bacon’s Remains, 1648, pp. 85–87, but is missing from BL Sloane Manuscript 3078

17 Letters written by Eminent Persons in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, to which are added Lives of Eminent Men by John Aubrey Esq., 1813, Vol. II. p. 381

18 The tablet, or Real Picture of Life, 1762

Bacon’s Head-piece The Head-piece used over the dedication of Watss’ translation of The Advancement of Learning, produced at Oxford in 1640, was used six years previously by a London printer as the Head-piece to Book IV., of Moses and Aaron. There is a blemish in each of the prints conclusively proving that both were impressions from the same block. If we compare the three folio editions of Shakespeare’s plays, we are confronted at once with further instances of the same problem. The First Folio (1623) is “printed by Isaac Jaggard and Ed. Blount”; the second (1632) is “printed by Thos. Cotes for Robert Allot”; the third (1664) is “printed for P.C.” Thomas Cotes, the printer of the second folio uses at least eight blocks (including an initial letter) that were employed nine years previously by Jaggard. The printer of the third folio uses at least three blocks that were employed by Thomas Cotes thirty-two years earlier. A writer in The Library, discussing an edition of a certain disputed work, observed, “But supposing for the sake of argument that some printer had wished to reprint the work, should we expect to find him in possession of the exact similar type to that used twenty or thirty years previously and of exactly the same initial letters, head-and tail-pieces and ornaments as those used by Wolfe in 1559? I think this highly improbable.” Constant references to the pursuit and communication of knowledge are to be found in the literature of the period. It is a metaphor that was constantly employed by Francis Bacon. “Arts and Sciences,” says he, “hunt after their works.” In this “hunting and hounding of nature,” this “hunt of Pan or learned experience,” the “hunters after knowledge” hunt not for fame, but are “sagacious in hunting out works dealing with experiments.” [See Appendices Bacon’s Head-piece for the remaining of this topic.]

Bacon’s household An example of the rising petty chronicle in Bacon’s household:

Chaplains:                                           Mr. Oates, Mr. Lewis
Serjeant-at-arms:                                 Mr. Leigh
Steward:                                              Mr. Sharpeigh
Seal-bearer:                                         Mr. Hatcher
Chief Secretaries:                                Mr. John Young, Mr. Thomas Meautys
Chief Gentleman Usher:                     Mr. Johnson
Gentlemen Ushers:                              Mr. Butler, Mr. Thomas Bushell 19
Auditor:                                              Mr. Phillips
Gentleman of the horse:                      Mr. Edmund Meautys
Remembrancer for benefices:             Mr. Harris, Mr. Jones, Mr. Troughton, Mr. Borough
Clerk Commission of Peace:             Mr. Alman
Receiver of fines:                                Mr. Hunt
Gentlemen of Chamber:                      Mr. Lowe, Mr. Edney, Mr. Woder, Mr. Nicholson,
Mr. Sherborne, Mr. Goodrick
Sewer:                                                 Mr. Bassano
Gentlemen waiters:                             Captain Garrette, Mr. Kempe, Mr. Faldoe,
Mr. Travers, Mr. Wells, Mr. Bowes, Mr. Guilman,
Mr. Fletcher, Mr. Anthony, Mr. Percy, Mr. Nicholas Bacon, Mr. John Underhill, Mr. Mannering, Mr. Carrell, Mr. Parsons, Mr. Allen, Mr. Portington, Mr. Goodericke, Mr. Josline, Mr. Moyle, Mr. Walley, Mr. Hogins, Mr. Ball, Mr. Price, Mr. Pearce, Mr. Beall Saperton, Mr. Cockaine, Mr. Bettenham, Mr. Cooke, Mr. Paddon
Doorkeeper:                                        James Edwardes
Barber:                                                Robert Durant
Messenger:                                          Stephen Read
Yeomen Ushers:                                  Humphrey, Leigh, Neale
Master cooks:                                     Henry Syll
Cook:                                                  John Whitney
Gentlemen of the
Wardrobe:                                           William Ockold, John Nicolson, Christopher King,
Roger Pilkington
Gentlemen of the wine
cellar and pantry:                                Edward Isaack, John Humphrey
Butlers:                                                Richard Edwardes, Morrice Davies, John Oakes, Wood
Bottleman:                                          Richard Wood
Yeoman of the horse:                         George Prince

A list of the persons composing the domestic establishment (as it may be called) of Elizabeth I., in the middle of her reign (1582) and an account of the sums of money severally allowed to them out of the Privy purse of the Sovereign can be found in the Appendices. The payments will seem remarkably small, even allowing for the great difference in the value of money then and now. 20 The subsequent account is indorsed in the hand-writing of Lord Burghley, Lord Treasurer, in these words: “1582. The payment of the Ladies of the Privy Chamber; but it applies also to the gentlemen.”

Bacon’s house in Noble Street, Aldersgate Stow, in the Survey of London says: “This house was of old called ‘Shelley-house,’ as belonging to the family of that name. Sir Thomas Shelley, Knight, was owner thereof in the 1st of Henry IV. It was afterwards called ‘Bacon-house,’ because the same was new-built by Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. Adjoining to it was the house of Serjeant Fleetwood, Recorder of London, who new-built it. Fleetwood was Recorder from 1571 until 1591, and many of his letters to Lord Burleigh are dated from ‘Bacon-house’ where he died, February 28, 1594. In 1628 the house was purchased by the worshipful Company of Scriveners, and was used as the Hall of that Company; but, about the middle of the seventeenth century, the Scriveners sold it to a time worshipful company of Coach makers, whose Hall it became. The front in Noble-street (except the entrance to the Hall) was, however, retained by the Scriveners. The back part of the house, as rebuilt after the fire of London, may still be seen from Oat Lane, and is now occupied as a glove-manufactory. In the conveyance to the Scriveners, the house is stated to have been anciently called ‘Shelley’s tenement,’ but then ‘Bacon-house,’ and that it had formerly been in the possession of Sir Ralph Rowlett, Knight, afterwards of Sir Nicholas Bacon, then of Christopher and Robert. Sir Ralph Rowlett was Master of the Mint to King Henry VIII., and he was connected by marriage with Sir Nicholas Bacon, they married two of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke. Barker, Nicholas Goff the elder, and Nicholas Goff the younger, and subsequently of Sara Savage and George Egelshaw, physician; and it was conveyed by Sir Arthur Savage and Dame Sarah, late wife of George Smithies, Alderman, Thomas Viscount Savage, and Richard Millard, to Charles Bostock, scrivener, I presume in trust for the Company.” [See Appendices Bacon’s house in Noble Street, Aldersgate for further details.]

Bacon’s language Like the secret things of Nature, will not unfold all its treasures to the hasty passerby: he who will learn his full meaning and worth must first sojourn with him and become his friend. 21

Bacon’s library His library was scattered, probably, for few traces of it remain. His manuscripts fell into the hands of his devoted chaplain, Dr. Rawley, and his friend, Sir William Boswell. The former held far the larger share, which he jealously guarded and edited; those bequeathed to the latter were not so well cared for, and many of them were lost. (Lovejoy). In the Advancement of Learning Bacon refers to the annotations of books as being deficient. There was living at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century a scholar through whose hands at least several thousand books passed. He appears to have made a practice of annotating in the margins every book he read. The chief purpose, however, of the notes, apparently, was to aid the memory, for in some books nearly every name occurring in the text is carried into the margin without comment. The notes are also accompanied by scrolls, marks, and brackets, which support the contention that they are the work of one man. The annotation of books was not a common practice then, nor has it been since. If a reader takes up a hundred books in a second-hand book shop he will probably not find more than one containing manuscript notes, and not one in five hundred in which the annotations have been systematically carried through. There does not appear to have been any other scholar living at that time, with the exception of this one, who was persistently making marginal notes on the books he read. [See Appendices Bacon’s library for further reference on this topic.]

Bacon’s life threatened Creation of Henry Prince of Wales 1610 was Knighted one Lord Gervase Clifton, not to be confounded with another of the same name, K. B. and afterwards a Baronet. He was summoned to Parliament, July 9, 1608 as Harem Clifton of Leighton Bromswold, Huntingdonshire and was committed to the Tower in 1617, for threatening the life of the then Lord Keeper Francis Bacon, “who had decreed a cause in Chancery against him” and, in October 1618, whilst still in confinement, he took his own life. His only daughter married the Duke of Lenox, from whom the Barony has descended by female heirs to the O’Brien, Hyde, and Bligh families. Bacon’s fear his life be in serious danger was due to the popular feeling against him that grew out of his connection with the Earl of Essex, although Spedding has been able to show beyond a doubt that it was wholly misdirected and unjust. The fact of its existence, however, cannot be questioned. Bacon frequently referred to it in his correspondence during the period 1599–1601: “My life has been threatened and my name libeled.” (Bacon, Letter to the Queen). And then “As for any violence to be offered me, wherewith my friends tell me I am offered, I thank God I have the privy coat of a good conscience. I know no remedy against libels and lies.” (Bacon, Letter to Cecil). In another letter: “For my part I have deserved better than to have my name objected to envy, or my life to a ruffian’s violence.” (Bacon, Letter to Howard).

Bacon’s lost Sonnet In 1604 Francis Bacon addressed his Apologie concerning the late Earl of Essex to Mountjoy, “because you loved the Earl.” Though Bacon does “profess not to be a poet” he “prepared a sonnet directly tending and alluding to draw on her Majesty’s reconcilement to” Essex. Unfortunately this Sonnet is now lost.

Bacon’s manuscripts Some time after Bacon’s death (probably in 1627), in accordance with this provision of the will, Mr. Bosvile, or (as he is better known) Sir William Boswell, British Minister to Holland, having being in possession of the manuscripts, carried them with him to The Hague, and there committed them to his learned friend, Isaac Grüter, for publication. Grüter took the matter in hand, but determined first of all to reissue for Continental readers the works of Bacon which had previously been printed in England. Accordingly, in anticipation of his work on the manuscripts, he edited and published the following:

Sapientia Veterum, Leyden, 1633.
Historia Ventorum, 1638.
Essays, 1641 and 1644.
Novum Organum, 1645 with a frontispiece where Bacon appears seated at a table with a large open volume before him. He is pointing to this volume with the index finger of his right hand. With his left arm extended he is restraining a female figure intent upon carrying a clasped book to a temple, evidently the Temple of Fame, on a distant height. This figure is clad in a beast’s skin, and is therefore, the Muse of Tragedy, the word tragedy being derived from the two Greek words tragos and odi, meaning goat and song (literally, goat-song). In ancient Greece the goat was sacred to the drama. At every performance in the theatre, actors and even members of the chorus, wore goat-skins.
De Augmentis, 1645.
History of Henry VII., 1647.
Sylva Sylvarum, 1648.
New Atlantis, 1648.
Novum Organum, 1650.
De Augmentis, 1652.

In 1653 Grüter finally gave to the world, in a book printed at Amsterdam and entitled Francisci Baconi de Verulamio Scripta in Naturali et Universali Philosophia, nineteen of the manuscripts with which he had been entrusted by Boswell. In an “Address to the Reader,” prefixed to the volume, he tells us that he and Boswell had had many long confidential interviews on the subject; in consequence of which, as it appears, some of the papers in the collection were, for reasons not given, withheld from the public. The exact statement is as follows: “All these hitherto unpublished writings you owe, dear reader, to the most noble William Boswell, to whom they were devised by Bacon himself, together with others of a political and moral nature, which are now, by gift of the deceased, in my private keeping, and which are not to be printed for a long time to come.” On March 20, 1655 Grüter wrote to Rawley, Bacon’s old chaplain and amanuensis in London, a letter in which he expressed great impatience because he was not permitted to publish them: “At present I will restrain my impatient desires, in the hope of seeing some day those things which, now committed to faithful privacy, await the time when they may safely see the light and not be stilled in their birth.” Many of Bacon’s manuscripts have come down to us in books; great piles of letters, written, most of them, not when he was Lord Chancellor, but when he was plain Master Bacon. Even his commonplace books have found their way into the British Museum, and the very scraps of paper upon which his amanuensis tried his pen. Spedding had found an original package of the private letters of Lord Burleigh, just as they were tied up by the great Lord Treasurer’s own hand, never opened or disturbed for nigh three hundred years. In the British Museum, they have the original manuscript copies of religious plays written in the reign of Henry VI., two hundred years before the time of Shakespeare; but that marvellous collection had not a line of any of the plays written by the author of King Lear and Hamlet. (Donnelly). 22

Bacon’s Masonic affiliations Francis Bacon tells us in his work, Relations, that “the gardens of the Muses keep the privilege of the golden age; they even flourish and are in league with Time. The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power; the verses of a poet endure without a syllable lost, while states and empires pass many periods. Let him not think he shall descend, for he is now upon a hill as a ship is mounted on the ridge of a wave; but that hill of the Muses is above tempests, always clear and calm, a hill of the goodliest discovery that man can have, being a prospect upon all the errors of wanderings of the present and former times.” In Bacon’s chief works is to be found a title page engraving, the chief features of which are the two Masonic columns or pillars, which sufficiently prove Bacon’s Masonic affiliations. These two columns may be refound upon the title page engraving of the Novum Organum (1620) first edition; Sylva Sylvarum (1626–27) and Advancement of Learning (1640). [See Appendices Bacon’s Masonic affiliations for details.] Of the many curious old manuscripts preserved in the British Museum, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and other libraries, there are few extant more interesting to the antiquarian student than the Harleian MSS. They appeal also to the Masons. Speaking of Masonry, the author or authors begins with a dissertation on the seven liberal arts and sciences, viz.: “Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy.” After tracing Masonry through Noah and Moses to David and Solomon, it carries it into France by one Nymus Græcus, who had been at the building of Solomon’s Temple. From France it takes Masonry into England in the time of St. Alban, then on to the time of King Athelstane. Reference is also made in these manuscripts, to Prince Edwin, therein called Hadrian. 23 What made Bacon invent his Atlantis, his pillars, and the entire scheme? Masonry did not exist in its modern form in his age. Being a profound student of Dante and Virgil, living in an ancient Masonic centre like St. Albans, Bacon contemplated the revival and resuscitation of a secret Brotherhood and Knightly order, borrowed from the Templars and their mystic Rose. His Dialogue Of A Holy War is the most conclusive possible hint for the Temple, audits peaceful soldiery, possible to conceive. It proves, beyond doubt, Bacon was a propagandist for the reformation and the restoring of man’s fallen condition. As Ben Jonson stated, “The jewel that we find, we stop and take it, because we see it; but what we do not see, we tread upon, and never think of it.”

Bacon’s Masques These Masques that will be found in detail in Appendices Bacon’s Masques, the first is taken from the edition of the works of Beaumont and Fletcher published in 1778, where it was printed from the quarto edition published at the time. It is there justly remarked that “all the other copies of it,” of which that in the English Poets is one, “are extremely erroneous and imperfect. None of the descriptive parts are inserted in them; and to point out the blunders and other omissions would require almost as many notes as the Masque contains lines.” The insertions within brackets in the Introduction are from Howes’ Chronicle. The second Masque is from a copy in the Garrick Collection in the British Museum; another in the Gough Collection in the Bodleian Library.

Bacon’s mechanical devices Francis Bacon contrived a mechanical device with the assistance of Salomon du Caus, to hide the manuscripts which shall be revealed when some wit stumbles upon its musical tune.

Bacon’s medical theory The brain is the origin and seat of the rheum, which descends from thence and produces disease in other organs; a theory preserved in the word catarrh. (Bacon, Nov. Org., Aphorismorum XLV).

Bacon’s mention of Shakespeare Though Bacon never mentions the name of Shakespeare, he does refer to one of the plays, thus in his charge against Mr. Oliver St. John we have “and, for your comparison with Richard II., I see you follow the example of them, that brought him upon the stage in Queen Elizabeth’s time.” 24

Bacon’s name Fra. Bacon, no doubt his composition of writing his own name. [Also see Bacon’s Pedigree.]

Bacon’s nineteen motions Within the Novum Organum:

First motion: resistance in matter which is inherent in each several portion of it, and in virtue of which it absolutely refuses to be annihilated. This motion the schoolmen either denote by the axiom two bodies cannot be in one place, or call the motion to prevent penetration of dimensions.
Second motion: motion of connexion, but which bodies do not suffer themselves to be separated at any point from contact with another body; as delighting in mutual connexion and contact. This motion the schoolmen call motion to prevent a vacuum, as when water is drawn up by suction or in a pump.
Third motion: motion of liberty; by which bodies strive to escape from preternatural pressure or tension, and to restore themselves to the dimensions suitable to their nature. Schoolmen refer to under the name of motion in accordance with the form of the element.
Fourth motion: motion of matter; which is in some sort the converse of the last named motion.
Fifth motion: the motion of continuity; by which I do not mean simple and primary continuity with some other body (for that is the motion of connexion), but self continuity in a given body.
Sixth motion: motion for gain, or motion of want. It is that by which bodies, when laced among quite heterogeneous and hostile bodies, if they find an opportunity of escaping from these and uniting themselves to others more cognate, (though these others be such as have no close union with them,) do nevertheless embrace the latter and choose them as preferable; and seem to view this connexion in the light of a gain (whence the term), as though they stood in need of such bodies.
Seventh motion: motion of the greater congregation; by which bodies are carried towards masses of a like nature with themselves; heavy bodies to the globe of the earth, light to the compass of the heaven. This the schoolmen have denoted by the name of natural motion.
Eighth motion: the motion of the lesser congregation; by which the homogeneous parts in a body separate themselves from the heterogeneous, and combine together; by which also entire bodies from similarly of substance embrace and cherish each other, and sometimes are attracted and collected together from a considerable distance.
Ninth motion: the magnetic; which, though it be of the same genus with the motion of the lesser congregation, yet if it operates at great distances and on large masses, deserves a separate investigation; especially if it begin not with contact, as most, nor lead to contact, as all motions of congregation do; but simply raise bodies or make them swell, and nothing more.
Tenth motion: that of flight; a motion the exact opposite of that of the lesser congregation; by which bodies from antipathy flee from and put to flight hostile bodies, and separate themselves from them, or refuse to mingle with them.
Eleventh motion: that of assimilation, or of self-multiplication or again of simple generation. By which I mean not the generation of integral bodies, as plants or animals, but of bodies of uniform texture.
Twelfth motion: that of excitation; a motion which seems to belong to the genus of assimilation, and which I sometimes call by that name.
Thirteenth motion: the motion of impression; which also is of the same genus with the motion of assimilation, and is of diffusive motions the most subtle.
Fourteenth motion: the motion of configuration of position; by which bodies seem to desire not union or separation, but position, collocation, and configuration with respect to others.
Fifteenth motion: the motion of transition, or motion according to the passages; by which the virtues of bodies are more or less impeded or promoted by their media, according to the nature of the body and of the acting virtues, and also of the medium.
Sixteenth motion: the royal as I call it or political motion; by which the predominant and commanding parts in any body curb, tame, subdue, and regulate the other parts, and compel them to unite, separate, stand still, move, and range themselves, not in accordance with their own desires, but as may conduce to the well being of the commanding part.
Seventeenth motion: the spontaneous motion of rotation, by which bodies delighting in motion and favourably placed for it enjoy their own nature, and follow themselves, not another body; and court their own embraces.
Eighteenth motion: the motion of trepidation, to which, as understood by astronomers, I do not attach much credit.
Nineteenth motion: the last motion being one, which, though it hardly answers to the name, is yet indisputably a motion; and let us call it the motion of repose, or of aversion to move. It is by this motion that the earth stands still in its mass, while its extremities are moving toward the middle; not to an imaginary centre, but to union.

Bacon’s opinion on Galen and Paracelsus Galen was a man of the narrowest mind, a forsaker of experience, and a vain pretender. Like the dog-star, he condemned mankind to death, for he assumed that whole classes of diseases are incurable. But I could better indure thee, O Galen, weighing thy elements, than thee, O Paracelsus, adorning thy dreams. With what zeal do both of you take shelter under the authority of Hippocrates, like asses under a tree? And who bursts not into laughter at such a sight? (Bacon, Redargutio Philosophiarum).

Bacon’s opinion on the Instauratio Magna For my own part at least, in obedience to the everlasting love of truth, I have committed myself to the uncertainties and difficulties and solitudes of the ways, and relying on the divine assistance have upheld my mind both against the shocks and embattled ranks of opinion, and against my own private and inward hesitations and scruples, and against the fogs and clouds of nature, and the phantoms flitting about on every side; in the hope of providing at last for the present and future generations guidance more faithful and secure. (Bacon, In. Mag).

Bacon’s pedigree A modern motto of the Somersetshire Bacons has an ingenious rebus: ProBa-conSCIENTIA; the capitals, thus placed, giving it the double reading, Proba coniscientia, and Pro Bacon Scientia. Under our Norman Kings, bacons signified dried wood, and hosebaunde a husbandman, then a term of contempt. However, the name of Bacon has been considered to be of Norman origin, arising from some fief so called. 25 Old Richard Verstegan, famous for Saxon lore and archaeological research, explains it thus: “Bacon, of the Beechen tree, anciently called BUCON; and, whereas swinesflesh is now called by the name of BACON, it grew only at the first unto such as were fatted with BUCON or beechmast.” 26 There is one agreeable feature in this explanation, viz., which it professes somewhat naturally to account for the mysterious relation between the flesh of the unclean animal, and the name of a very ancient and honourable family. But its chief value is to be found in the singular authentication of it, which is found in Collins’ Baronetage and is given in the Appendices.In the very ample and particular account there given of the pedigree of the Premier Baronet, it will be seen that the first man who assumed the surname of Bacon, was one William (temp. Rich. I.), a great grandson of the Grimbaldus, who came over with the Conqueror and settled in Norfolk. Of course there was some reason for his taking that name; and though Collins makes no comment on it, he does in fact unconsciously supply that reason (elucidated by Verstegan) by happily noting of this sole individual, that he bore for his arms, argent, a beech tree proper. The explanation given in a former number from old Verstegan, of the original meaning of the family name of Bacon, and the application of the word to the unclean beast, with the corroboration from the pages of Collins’ Baronetage is very interesting. Of another early biographical notice of Bacon is to be found prefixed to the French edition of the Histoire Naturelle, published in Paris in 1631. The author is presumably Pierre Amboise, to whom the license to print was granted. The translation of this passage can be found in the Appendices Bacon’s pedigree.

Bacon’s philosophy He had attracted considerable notice in Italy during his lifetime, is evident from his correspondence with Father Fulgentio, from which it appears that the Venetian philosophers were extremely inquisitive about his writings. (Tenison). 27 His correspondence with Father Baranzan proves that the Novum Organum was known, and had found eager readers in the north of Italy at a surprisingly early period. It was Francis Bacon, who raised the standard, and urged on the march of discovery; so that if any considerable improvements have been made in philosophy in this age, there has been not a little owing to that great man. 28 Yet the new-born Baconian Philosophy had but little chance in the world. Bacon had been right years before in his dislike of Platonism, though he was unjust to Plato himself. It was Proclus whom he was really reviling; Proclus as Plato’s commentator and representative. The lion had for once got into the ass’ skin, and was treated accordingly. The truth is that, as of old, many men talk of Robin Hood, who never shot in his bow; and many talk of Bacon, who never discovered a law by induction since they were born. As far as our experience goes, those who are loudest in their jubilations over the wonderful progress of the age, are those who have never helped that progress forward one inch, but find it a great deal easier and more profitable to use the results which humbler men have painfully worked out, as second-hand capital for husting speeches and railway books, and flatter a mechanic’s institute of self-satisfied youths, by telling them that the least instructed of them is wiser than Erigena or Roger Bacon. (Kingsley). 29

Bacon’s prose Any attempt at analysing Bacon’s style convinces us of the futility of trying to separate matter and manner, if by matter we understand more than the mere subject of discourse. The charm of Bacon’s writings lies in his “wit,” in the broad old sense of the word, in which it means intellect as well as expression. The sagacity of the underlying thought on which we rest when we apprehend the meaning of his words is as potent an element in our impression of delight as the aptness of the phrase and the ingenuity of the allusion, it is the style, as including both matter and manner, that is the man. To read him, is to put ourselves in invigorating contact with an intellect of the utmost keenness and force, steadily centred but wide in its scope and alive at every point with a buoyant and intense vitality. Taking style in the narrower sense of “expression,” but still as including both diction and method, we find that Bacon had more than one style. Essentially a man of calculation and contrivance, he adapted his style to his purposes. [See Appendices Bacon’s prose for further comment on the topic.]

Bacon’s quoting When Bacon quotes an author as “saying” anything we are always to understand the words “in effect”. (Spedding). 30

Bacon’s reasons for concealment 31 With Bacon himself, a desire to rise in the profession of the law, or his ambition for high place in the State, the plan of life he had chosen to follow, the low reputation of a play writer, in that age, and the mean condition and estate of all poor poets, the need of a larger liberty and a more daring freedom of thought and expression than he could have ventured to take, without some danger to his fortunes, or even to his personal liberty, at times, if it had been known that he was the author of these plays, and more especially, perhaps, a desire that his reputation, both with his contemporaries and with after times, should finally rest upon his acknowledged writings and his philosophical works in particular, as of greater dignity and better becoming his station and the civil honours he sought to attain, in accordance with the ideas of that age. These, not to dwell upon other reasons of a philosophical and critical nature, and of a higher and more disinterested character, are of themselves, perhaps, a sufficient explanation of his wish to cover this authorship, and to remain a concealed poet, in his own time; and especially in the earlier part of his career, when the private arrangement, if it existed, must have been made. [See Appendices Bacon’s reasons for concealment for further explanation.]

32 Rev. Walter Begley. Bacon’s Nova Resuscitatio; Vol. III. 1905: Thomas Bushell, one of Bacon’s household dependents, gives this testimony to his master’s character in a book The First Part of Youth’s Errors written by Thomas Bushell, the Superlative Prodigall. London, 1628, 8vo., printed two years after Bacon’s death: “A Letter To his approved beloved Mr. John Eliot, Esquire. The ample testimony of your true affection towards my Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, hath obliged me your servant. Yet lest the calumnious tongues of men might extenuate the good opinion you had of his worth and merit, I must ingenuously confess that myself and others of his servants were the occasion of exhaling his virtues into a dark eclipse; which God knows would have long endured both for the honour of his King and the good of the Commonalty; had not we whom his bounty nursed, laid on his guiltless shoulders our base and execrable deeds to be scanned and censured by the whole senate of a state, where no sooner sentence was given, but most of us forsaken him, which makes us bear the badge of Jews to this day. Yet I am confident there were some Godly Daniels amongst us. As for myself, with shame I must acquit the title, and plead guilty; which grieves my very soul that so matchless a Peer should be lost by such insinuating caterpillars, who in his own nature scorn’d the least thought of any base, unworthy, or ignoble act, though subject to infirmities as ordained to the wisest.” Some personal details of Bacon’s forgiving temper are given, and bribery, corruption, and simony all denied

19 To find today’s equivelant, multiply by 100

20 Unknown Author, 1855

21 Donnelly Ignatius. Great Cryptogram

22 Harleian MSS., No. 2054, Circa A.D. 1650

23 Thos. W. White. Our English Homer, p. 136

24 Roman de Rose, Vol. II. p. 269

25 Ibid., Chap. IX. p. 299

26 Tenison. Baconiana, pp. 196, 197

27 Specimen. Controvers. cap. i. sect. 5, apud Pope Blount Censura Celeb. Auctor. p. 635

28 Kingsley. Sir Walter Raleigh and His Time, 1859

29 Works, Vol. II. p. 459

30 Nathaniel Holmes. The Authorship of Shakespeare, 1866

Bacon’s religion Protestant. Among the plans for the benefit of religious reform which Paolo Sarpi, by means of Francesco Biondi, had proposed to James I., in 1609, one was for the foundation of a Protestant college or seminary on the borders of Italy, where Protestant missionaries might be trained. This plan had won the approval of Francis Bacon, who had suggested that in case the judges decided against the validity of Thomas Sutton’s will, some of his estate might be used for the purpose of these Protestant seminaries. 31

Bacon’s Royal Society This Society, as is well known, originated in certain informal meetings during the Civil Wars (according to Dr. Wallis in 1645), though it did not receive its Charter of Incorporation till 1662. Bishop Sprat, its earliest historian, in a work written in 1667, speaks of Bacon as having “had the true imagination of the whole extent of this enterprise, as it is now set on foot.” And then he proceeds to say: “In whose books there are everywhere scattered the best arguments that can be produced for the defence of Experimental Philosophy; and the best directions that are needful to promote it. All which he has already adorned with so much art; that if my desires could have prevailed with some excellent friends of mine, who engaged me to this work: there should have been no other Preface to the History of the Royal Society, but some of his writings.” The passage is too long to quote at length, but will be found in Dr. Sprat’s History of the Royal Society, pp. 35, 36, and in Tenison’s Baconiana, pp. 264–266. [See Appendices Bacon’s Royal Society for further comment on this Society.]

Bacon’s works at Lincoln’s Inn library The Society of Lincoln’s Inn has in its library a very large number of pamphlets and other publications of a similar nature. Some of these, e.g., reports of trials, are included in the general catalogue, but the bulk of them had not been catalogued according to modern requirements, though a manuscript slip-catalogue rendered them available to a certain extent. Following is a short catalogue list from that library upon some works of Francis Bacon. 32

1600: Lent. The Learned Reading of Sir Francis Bacon, One Of her Majesty’s learned Counsel at Law, upon the Statute of Uses: being his double Reading to the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn. 42 Elizabeth. 4to, pp. 58. London: 1642. Brydall, 24, Fo. 23. Another edition: 8vo, pp. xvi, 67. London: 1785. Carleton, 16. No. 4.
1601: A Declaration of the Practises and Treasons, attempted and committed by Robert, late Earle of Essex and his Complices against her Majesty and her Kingdoms; with the very Confessions, etc. By Francis Bacon. 4to, pp. 126. London: 1601. Brydall, 31. Fo. 375.
Circa 1603. Certain Considerations touching the better Pacification, and Edification of the Church of England. Dedicated to his Most Excellent Majesty. By Francis Bacon. 4to, pp. 42; not numbered. 1640. Hill, 89. No. 12.
1610: The Office of Constables. Written by Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, his Majesty’s Attorney General in the year of our Lord 1610. Being an Answer to the Questions proposed by Sir Alexander Hay. 8vo, pp. 1 8. 1641.
1618–21: A Charge given by Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, late Lord Chancellor of England, at a Sessions holden for the Verge, (viz. Twelve Miles round the King’s Mansion House) in the Reign of the late King James; declaring the Latitude of the Jurisdiction thereof, and the Offences therein inquireable, as well by the Common Law, as by several Statutes herein mentioned. Engraved vignette, C.R., crown, etc. 4to, pp. 20. London: 1676. Hill, 18. No. 1.
1629: The Lawyers Light: or, a due direction for the Study of the Law written by J[ohn] Doddridge]; to which is annexed for the affinity of the subject, another Treatise, called the Use of the Law by Lord Bacon. 4to, pp. x, 119. London: 1629. Hill, 8. No. 4.
1630: A Collection of some Principal Rules and Maxims of the Common Laws of England, with their latitude and extent. Explicated by Sir Francis Bacon, then Solicitor General to the late renowned Queen Elizabeth, and since Lord Chancellor of England. Dedication to Queen Elizabeth. 4to, pp. xviii, 104. London: 1630.
1630: The Use of the Law, provided for Preservation of our Persons, Goods, and Good Names, according to the Practise of the Laws and Customs of this Land. By the L. Verulam, Viscount of S. Albans, &c. 4to, pp. vi, 84. London: 1630.
1630: The Elements of the Common Laws of England, Branched into a double Tract: the one containing a Collection of some principal Rules and Maxims of the Common Law; the other the Use of the Common Law, for preservation of our Persons, Goods, and good Names. By the late Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, Lo. Verulam and Viscount S. Alban. 4to, pp. xviii, 104; vi 84. London: 1630.
1637: R.P. Emanuelis Thesauri Societate Jesu, Caesares; et ejusdem varia carmina. 2nd ed. Dedication to Viscount St. Albans, Lord Keeper, by G. Herbert, Public Orator at Cambridge. 8vo, pp. iii, 151. Oxford: 1637. Brydall, 15. Fo. 252.
1641: May 15. Three Speeches of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, Solicitor General, after Lord Verulam, Viscount Saint Alban, concerning the Post-Nati, Naturalization of the Scotch in England, Union of the Laws of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland. Engraved frontispiece, Bacon in Chancellor’s Robes. 4to, pp. 88 (90). London: 1641. Hill, 101. No. 2.
1641: A Wise and Moderate Discourse concerning Church Affairs. As it was written, long since, by the famous Author Bacon of those Considerations, which seem to have some reference to this. 4to, pp. 47. 1641. Hill, 89. No. 6.
1641: Leycester’s Commonwealth, 4to, pp. v, 182. 1641. Brydall, 24. Fo. 162. Usually but wrongly attributed to Robert Parsons the Jesuit. A copy of this work was discovered in the Northumberland Manuscript. [Also see Northumberland Manuscript; Appendices with same title.]
1642: May 1st Sir Francis Bacon his Apologie, in certain imputations concerning the late Earle of Essex. Written to the Earle of Devonshire, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 4to, pp. 19. London: 1642. Brydall, 14. Fo. 120. Supplied from the British Museum copy.

Baconian Creed Twenty-nine reasons for believing that Bacon wrote Shakespeare and did Francis Bacon write Shakespeare? By Mrs. Potts:

That nothing in his life makes it impossible for Bacon to have written the plays.
That chronological order, dates, and other particulars coincide with facts in the life of Bacon.
The hints given by the author’s experiences applicable to Bacon and not with Shaksper.
That Bacon was a poet.
That Bacon was addicted to the theatre, got up masques, and wrote The Conference of Pleasure, The Gesta Grayorum, A Masque of an Indian Prince.
The Earls of Southampton and Pembroke are not shown to have any intimacy with Shaksper but they had with Bacon.
Many of the wits and poets acknowledge Bacon their chief.
That Ben Jonson used the same words in addressing both.
That in the time of Bacon’s poverty, 1623, Ben Jonson tried to push the sale of Shakespeare’s works.
That Bacon had some connexion with Shaksper.
That he uses the alphabet.
That Sir Toby Matthew’s letter from abroad adds: “P.S. The most prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation, on this side of the sea is of your Lordship’s name, though he be known by another.”
That he called himself a concealed poet to Sir John Davies.
The knowledge in the plays is that of Bacon.
That the subjects which engross them are the same.
That the observations on character are the same.
Bacon’s studies of any time introduced into plays of the same date.
In several editions of a play, Bacon’s increased knowledge shown in the later editions.
Vocabulary very much the same.
Baconian ideas and groups of ideas appear in the plays.
Cowden Clarke’s ninety-five points of Shakespeare’s style common to Bacon.
Shakespeare grammar of Dr. Abbott serves for Bacon. 33
Figures of speech frequently the same.
The Promus notes do not appear in Bacon’s works, but in Shakespeare’s plays.
Superstitious and religious belief the same.
Bacon’s favourite authors Shakespeare’s also.
Striking words from the plays fit the character and circumstances of Bacon.
That the Folio of 1623 included plays never before heard of.
That the difficulties which have to be explained away are much less in the case of Bacon than of Shaksper.

The most logical Life of Shaksper ever written was that by George Steevens, the great Shakespearean commentator, if you retract the authorship issue. It consists of the following sentence: “All that is known with any degree of certainty concerning Shaksper is, that he was born at Stratford-on-Avon, married and had children there; went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems and plays; returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried.” This was commented by George Stronach in his Mr. Sidney Lee and the Baconians, p. 6, 1904. The following list shows the fanciful might-have-beens, without which, according to Mr. F. G. Fleay, a life of Shaksper cannot apparently be compiled according to Sidney Lee’s Life of William Shakespeare:

There is every probability that his ancestors.
Probably his birthplace.
Some doubt is justifiable as to the ordinarily accepted scene of his birth.
His summons to act at Court was possibly due.
One of them doubtless the alleged birthplace.
There is no inherent improbability in the tale.
William probably entered the school.
There seems good ground for regarding.
Probably in 1577 he was enlisted by his father.
Is possible that John’s ill-luck.
Shaksper’s friends may have called the attention of the strolling players to the homeless lad.
The wedding probably took place.
The circumstances made it highly improbable.
Renders it improbable.
If, as is possible, it be by Shakespeare.
It seems possible.
Probably his ignorance of affairs.
From such incidents doubtless sprang.
He was doubtless another.
His intellectual capacity and the amiability, were probably soon recognised.
It is hardly possible to doubt.
But there seems no doubt.
All the evidence points to the conclusion.
But in all probability he drew.
Justice Shallow is beyond doubt a reminiscence of Sir Thomas Lucy.
The Rose was doubtless the earliest scene.
It was doubtless performing.
He doubtless owed all [his realistic portrayal of Italian life and sentiment] to the verbal reports of travelled friends, or to books.
Shakespeare may be credited with.
The whole of Shakespeare’s dramatic work was probably begun.
It was, doubtless, to Shakespeare’s personal relations.
Shakespeare doubtless gained.
It is just possible.
The tirade was probably inspired.
The many references to travel in the Sonnets were doubtless reminiscences.
That Shakespeare visited any part of the Continent is even less probable.
That Shakespeare joined any of these expeditions is highly improbable.
Renders it almost impossible that he could have gathered his knowledge of Northern Italy from personal observation.
There is no ground for assuming.
There is every indication that.
There is a likelihood that.
There is little doubt that Shakespeare.
It was probably about 1571 that William.
It was probably in 1596 that Shakespeare.
But in all probability he drew.
In all probability it was.
It was doubtless under Shakespeare’s guidance.
Shakespeare was doubtless withdrawn.
Doubtless, William.
Shakespeare, doubtless, travelled.

There will be fare and profound difficulty in compiling any kind of life to a person that never existed. The person called Shaksper definitely existed: he was an actor; he was the man who married Hathaway; he was son to John Shaksper; he was the father to his children; he was the resident of Stratford. He was not, definitely, without doubt, the author of the Shakespearean Literature that entails the Plays and Sonnets sealed with the name Shakespeare, with or without the hyphen. That researchers, historians, biographers, scholars, students and the humble reader, complex two names to one individual, is a travesty to Shaksper’s memory and work as an actor of his time, and a dishonourable and intentional attempt, to bury the truth from William Shakespeare’s paintings of the English language. Here is a pretty jest that would rest our suspicions: A Lawyer [Bacon] and his Clerk [Shaksper] riding on the road, the Clerk desired to know what was the chief point of the Law. His Master said if he would promise to pay for their suppers that night, he would tell him; which was agreed to. Why then, said the Master, good witnesses are the chief point in the Law. When they came to the Inn, the Master bespoke a couple of fowls for supper; and when they had supped, told the Clerk to pay for them according to agreement. O Sir, says he, where’s your witness? 34

Baconian decendents The supposition has been that all American Bacon’s are descendants of Sir Francis Bacon but this is a mistake as Bacon never had any issue. In 1640 there was a man by the name of Michael Bacon who immigrated from England to America with his three sons and settled in some one of the New England states. 35

Baconian importance In Henslowe’s Diary we can offer these importances: Caesar, Julius. (“mr Seser”). Dr., later (1603) Sir, Julius Caesar, judge of the Court of Admiralty and Master of Requests, sat in various parliaments from 1589 to 1622, was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1606, Master of the Rolls in 1614, and died in 1636. In 1597 Henslowe was “going up and down to St Catherine’s to see him about the changing of our commission”. This is not likely to refer to the internal arrangements of the Admiral’s Company at the time of their partial amalgamation with Pembroke’s Men, but may possibly or probably have to do with Henslowe and Alleyn’s attempts to secure the reversion of the Mastership of the Game of Hears, &c., in which matter we learn, June 4, 1598 that “doctor seasser hath done nothing” (MS., II. i). On March 1, 1615–16 he and Francis Bacon signed a discharge as commissioners of new buildings (Mun. 170). On August 24, 1620 Alleyn met him at dinner at the Bishop of Winchester’s, and on November 11 met the Bishop at his house. 36 Leicester, Lord. Chettle borrowed money “to arrest one with Lord Lester,” November 3, 1598[?] (51 V 10). Robert Dudley, however, died in 1588 and the title lapsed till his nephew Robert Sidney became first Earl of the fifth creation in 1618. If “Lester” is rightly interpreted as Leicester it can only be supposed that it refers to Sir Robert Dudley, the son of Elizabeth’s favourite by Douglas widow of Lord Sheffield, who about 1597 was vainly endeavouring to establish his legitimacy and consequent right to the earldoms of Leicester and Warwick.

Baconian form The two modes in which Bacon speaks of the form, namely as ipsissima res and as a law, differ only, though they cannot be reconciled, as two aspects of the same object. With regard to the doctrine of forms, it is in the first place to be observed that it is not mentioned as a part of Bacon’s system, either in Valerius Terminus or in the Partis secundæ Delineatio, or in the De Interpretatione Naturæ Sententiæ Duodecim, although in the two last-named tracts the definition of science which is found at the outset of the second book of the Novum Organum is in substance repeated. This definition makes the discovery of forms the aim and end of sciences; but in both cases the word form is replaced by causes. In the Advancement of Learning (1605) forms are spoken of as one of the subjects of Metaphysique: “whosoever knoweth any Form, knoweth the utmost possibility of super inducing that nature upon any variety of nature.”

Baconian Tarot The Rosicrucians claim to possess a volume, wherein they can learn, all that is to be found in other books, which now are, or which can even come into existence. This volume is their own reason, in which they find the prototype of all that subsists by their facility in analyzing, summa rising, and creating a kind of intellectual world, and of all possible beings; this can be seen in the philosophical, theosophical and microsmic cards. 37 “Yet there came into our memory a secret, which, through dark and hidden words and speeches of the hundred years, Brother A., the successor of D; who was of the last and second row of succession, and had lived amongst many of us, did impart unto us of the third row and succession; otherwise we must confess, that after the death of the said A., none of us had in any manner known anything of Brother C.K., and of his first fellow-brethren, then that which was extant of them in our philosophical bibliotheca, amongst which our axiomata was held for the chiefest, Rota Mundi for the most artificial, and Protheus for the most profitable. Although we do now freely confess that the world is much amended within an hundred years, yet we are assured that our axiomata shall uumovably remain unto the world’s end, and also the world in the highest and last age shall not attain to see anything else; for our Rota takes the beginning from that day when God spake Fiat, and shall end when he speaks Pereat.” 38 According to Eliphas Levi and William Postel, the Genesis of Enoch, is anterior to the Bible; for, on the ring of his symbolic key, he reads the words Rota, Tarot, Tora, the last being the sacramental name which the Jews give to their sacred book. In fact this is the Tora of Ezekiel’s Wheel, which, according to Postel, is the key of things hidden from the beginning of the world. See Appendices for further analysis of this topic.

Bergeny House On December 9, 1558 Sir Nicholas Bacon writes to Dr. Parker: “I would wish that you should repair to London with as convenient speed as you can, where you shall find me at Burgeny house in Paternoster Row.” This was the London residence of the Earls of Abergavenny and was, according to Stow, “one great house built of stone and timber at the north end of Ave Mary Lane.” In the reigns of Edward II., and III., it was the residence of John, Duke of Bretagny and Earl of Richmond, and in the reign of Richard II., of the Earl of Pembroke. The house is the one that afterwards became the Stationers’ Hall and was destroyed in the Great London Fire (1666). [Also see Fortunes of fire.]

Bi-literal alphabet The idea of a biliteral alphabet, which Bacon seems to claim as his own, is employed, though in a different manner, by Porta. His method is in effect this: he reduces the alphabet to sixteen letters, and then takes the eight different arrangements aaa, aba, &c., to represent them; each arrangement representing two letters indifferently: the ambiguity arising from hence he seems to disregard. In this manner he reduces any given word or sentence to a succession of a’s and b’s. At this point his method, of which he has given several modifications, departs wholly from Bacon’s. (Spedding). 39 “Those works of the Alphabet are in my opinion of less use to you where you are now, than at Paris; and therefore I conceived that you had sent me a kind of tacit countermand of your former request.” (Bacon). 40 Spedding confesses “What those works of the alphabet may have been, I cannot guess, unless they related to Bacon’s cipher, in which, by means of two alphabeta, one having only two letters, the other having two forms for each of the twenty-four letters, any words you please may be written so as to signify any other words. 41

Baron of Verulam By patent, dated Wanstead, July 11, 1618 Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor, was created Baron of Verulam.

Boscovich Theory Forms the basis of the ordinary mathematical theories of light, of heat, and of electricity. This theory supposes all bodies to be constituted of inextended atoms or centres of force, each of which attracts or repels and is attracted or repelled by all the rest. All the phenomena of nature are thus ascribed to mechanical forces, and all the differences which can be conceived to exist between two bodies, gold, say, and silver, can only arise either from the different configuration of the centres of force, or from the different law by which they act on one another. (Bacon, Nov. Org., Aphorismorum IV).

Book’s logic I never ordered the book; if I did you didn’t send it; if you sent it I never got it; if I got it I paid for it; if I didn’t I won’t.

Book plates Most probably had their origin in Germany several of the earliest plates being designed by the great Albert Dürer himself. The most notable of these is the ex-libris of his friend Bilibaldus Pirckheimer, the Nuremberg jurist, of whom he also engraved a portrait on copper in the year 1524. This book plate is not signed, but the best authorities agree in considering Dürer to have been its designer, although it is not generally thought that the wood block was cut by him. The first English book plates are considerably later than this the earliest known being that of Sir Nicholas Bacon. This beautiful ex-libris, bears the arms of Bacon quartering Quaplade, with a crescent for a difference, and was engraved in 1574 to be placed in the books presented by Sir Nicholas to the University of Cambridge. “It is,” said Bacon “a reverend thing to see an ancient castle or building not in decay; or to see a fair timber tree sound and perfect: how much more to behold an ancient noble family which hath stood against the waves and weathers of time.”

Bribes In Lovejoy’s Preface, 42 he says, “There is room for a sketch of this great type of official bribe-takers, the writer has exhibited this extraordinary man [Bacon] climbing to the Wool-sack and descending to the prison-cell, through the channels of unsatisfied ambition and greed for wealth, while giving to the world principles of philosophy and morality which conferred immortality alike upon his fame and his infamy. Certainly it was irregular, to say the least, for a general confession to be made, in qualified terms, to a charge which had not been formally presented to the accused, who had urged this formality as a necessary precedent to the making of either a submission or defence; so the House went into a committee of the whole, and the twenty-three charges were read.” Dr. Draper, in his Intellectual Development of Europe says: “It is true that the sacred name of philosophy should be severed from its long connection with that of one who was a pretender in science, a time-serving politician, an insidious lawyer, a corrupt judge, a treacherous friend, a bad man.” We have the offense of bribery referable to any person concerned in the administration of justice. This though, is a limited view, for there are others who are susceptible to the temptation and crime, such, for instance, as legislative or executive servants of a government. But was a Lord Chancellor (that Bacon was at the time) a judge? In the correspondence of Bacon, and to his notes touching his proposed interview with the King when he was condemend, it will be found that he used the word “judge” as applicable to himself in the role of a defendant. “The High Court of Chancery,” says Blackstone, 43 treating of the judicial system of England, which was the same in Bacon’s day, “is, in matters of civil property, by much the most important of any of the King’s superior and original courts of justice.” Judges can sit at his feet and learn to perform their functions as all should, and few do, perform them. The sectarian can learn from his controversial tracts the lesson of charity. And no man can read his popular works without meeting with some thought which is worth preserving, some lesson worth learning. In accounting for his alleged moral frailty we should not forget that he was the favourite son of an influential father; was reared in comparative affluence; was encouraged to cultivate his great natural gifts for enlistment in the advancement of knowledge and the agreeable service of his country. If we confine our judgments to his writings, then must we bow before the scholar, lawyer, reformer, statesman, moralist and philosopher. Bacon was a profound thinker and writer upon moral, social and political subjects. He was a historian, and well informed as to the lives of England’s Kings, their favourites, advisers and servants. He was a teacher of Kings, favourites, advisers and subjects. Truth and honesty belong to no age; and his contemporary, Shakespeare, were to furnish the two pillars upon which the literary fame of the Elizabethan period rests. (Lovejoy).
Of similar misfortune struck one Lionel, son of Thomas Cranfield, who was originally bred a Merchant. His introduction at Court was, we find by the following passage extracted from Mr. Chamberlain’s next Letter, owing to the Earl of Northampton: “Sir Thomas Waller, the Lieutenant of Dover Castle, is lately dead of a burning fever, and his place they say bestowed upon one Sir Lyonell Cranfield, a Merchant of this town of Ingram’s profession, who is grown in great favour of the Lord Privy Seal, and rides ordinarily in his coach with him; and by his means was knighted on Sunday last.” His after rise is attributed to the favourite Villiers, as was Bacon, with whom he was connected by their marrying two sisters. In 1616, “for his great services” (perhaps in the loan of money) he was made a Master of Requests; he was next advanced to be Master of the King’s Wardrobe, and Master of the Wards; was made a Privy Councilor and joint Commissioner of the office of Treasurer with George Calvert (the Secretary of State), in 1619; was created Baron Cranfield of Cranfield. co. Bedford, in July 1631; confirmed Lord Treasurer in the following October; and created Earl of Middlesex in 1622. His fall, as his rise, was effected by the influence of Buckingham, who seconded his impeachment before the Parliament in 1624. He was found guilty of bribery, extortion, oppression, and other misdemeanors committed in his office of Treasurer. His sentence was very similar to that of Bacon but the fine imposed on him was greater, namely, £50.000. Like Bacon, he retained his titles, which descended successively to two of his sons, and then became extinct. He survived about twenty years in peaceful retirement, and died in 1645. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a splendid monument is erected to his memory, with recumbent effigies of him and his second wife, Buckingham’s sister-in-law.

And Sir Simonds D'Ewes, in his autobiography printed in 1845 and edited by James Orchard Halliwell: "Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban, had been often questioned during this parliament in the Upper House, for his gross and notorious bribery, and though he had for divers weeks abstained from coming to the Parliament House, yet had the broad seal still remained with him till this first day of May, [1621] in the afternoon; and he, by that means, as yet remained Lord Chancellor of England. The four Lords that came for it were Henry Viscount Mandeville, Lord Treasurer, Lodowick Stewart, Duke of Lennox, Lord Steward of the King’s household, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain of the same household, and Thomas Earl of Arundel, Earl Marshal of England; they, coming to York House to him, where he lay, told him they were “sorry to visit him upon such an occasion, and wished it had been better.” “No, my lords,” replied he, “the occasion is good;” and then delivering them the great seal, he added, “It was the King’s favour that gave me this, and it is my fault that hath taken it away: Rex dedit, culpa abstulit,” or words to that effect. So leaving him, the said four Lords carried the gage they had received to Whitehall, to the King, who was overheard by some near him to say upon their delivery of it to him, “Now, by my soul, I am pained at the heart where to bestow this; for as to my lawyers, I think they be all knaves.” Which it seemeth his Majesty spake at that time to prepare a way to bestow it on a clergyman, as the Marquis of Buckingham had intended; for otherwise there were at this present divers able wise lawyers, very honest and religious men, fit for the place, in whom there might easily have been found as much integrity, and less fawning and flattery than in the clergy; and, accordingly, Doctor Williams, now Dean of Westminster, and before that time made Bishop of Lincoln, was sworn Lord Keeper, and had the great seal delivered to him.

" Never had any man in those great places of gain he had gone through, having been Attorney General before he was Lord Chancellor, so illhusbanded the time, or provided for himself. His vast prodigality had eaten up all his gains; for it was agreed by all men, that he owed at this present at least 20,000l. more than he was worth. Had he followed the just and virtuous steps of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Knt., his father, that continued Lord Keeper of the Great Seal some eighteen years under Queen Elizabeth, of ever blessed memory, his life might have been as glorious as by his many vices it proved infamous. For though he were an eminent scholar and a reasonable good lawyer, both which he much adorned with his eloquent expression of himself and his graceful delivery, yet his vices were so stupendous and great, as they utterly obscured and out-poised his virtues. He was immoderately ambitious and excessively proud, to maintain which he was necessitated to injustice and bribery, taking sometimes most basely of both sides. To this latter wickedness the favour he had with the beloved Marquis of Buckingham emboldened him, as I learned in discourse from a gentleman of his bedchamber, who told me he was sure his Lord should never fall as long as the said Marquis continued in favour. His most abominable and darling sin, I should rather bury in silence than mention it, were it not a most admirable instance how men are inflamed by wickedness, and held captive by the devil. He lived, many years after his fall, in his lodgings in Gray’s Inn, in Holborn, in great want and penury."

D’Ewes here specifically charges Bacon with an abominable offence, in language too gross for publication. He states that it was supposed by some, that he would have been tried at the bar of justice for it; and says, that his guilt was so notorious while he was at York House, in the Strand, and at his lodgings in Gray’s Inn, Holborn, that the following verses were cast into his rooms:

Within this sty a hog doth lie,
That must be hang’d for villany.

31 Spedding. Works, IV. p. 254

32 W. Paley Baildon. Catalogue Of Pamphlets, Tracts, Proclamations, Speeches, Sermons, Trials, Petitions From 1506 To 1700, in the library of Lincoln’s Inn, published in 1908

33 See also Part III: Sleepy Language

34 Complete London Jester, ed. 1771, p. 102

35 Taylor Arthur L. & Bacon Cassius F. Bacon Family Genealogy, 1922

36 MS., IX; Young, II. pp. 187, 193

37 Conspiracy against the Catholic Religion and against Crowned Heads. By the author of The Veil raised for the Curious. Paris: Crapard, 1792

38 Rosicrucian manifesto of 1614: The Fama Fraternitatis

39 Spedding. Works, Vol II. Appendix

40 Rawley. Resuscitatio, 1657, Bacon’s letter to Tobie Matthews

41 Spedding. Works, Vol. I. p. 557

42 Lovejoy Benjamin G. Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam) A Critical Review His Life And Character, 1888

43 Bl. Com. Bk. III., p. 47

Britannicis The Great Harry, a ship built in 1514 and burnt by accident in 1553. (Bacon, Hist. Vent). [Also see Part I: Ships.]

Brittaine Britain. In the edition of 1622 the word is spelt Britaine. In modern histories it is always spelt either Bretagne of Brittany. (Bacon, History of King Henry VII.).

British coins In William Camden’s Brittania, 44 describing certain early British coins, of which there are plates, he tells us: “The first is Cunobelins, who flourished under Augustus and Tiberius, upon which (if I mistake not) are engraven the heads of a two-faced Janus; possibly because at that time Britain began to be a little refined from its barbarity. The second, likewise, is Cunobelins, with his face and name; and on the reverse, the mint-master, with the addition of the word Tascia, which in British signifies a tribute-penny (as I am informed by D. David Powel, a man admirably skilled in that language), perhaps from the Latin taxatio, for the Britains do not use the letter X. The third is also the same Cunobelins, with a horse and Cuno, and with an ear of corn, which seems to stand for Camalodunum, the palace of Cunobelin. The fourth, by the Ver, seems to have been coined at Verulam. The fifth, likewise, is Cunobelins. The seventh, which is Cunobelins, with this inscription, Tase Novanei, with a woman’s head, I dare not positively affirm to have been the tribute-money of the Trinovantes, who were under his government; Apollo, with his harp, and the name of Cunobelin on the reverse, being to my mind what I have somewhere observed of the god Belinus; namely, that the ancient Gauls worshipped Apollo under the name of Belinus. And this is confirmed by Dioscorides, who expressly says that the Herba Apollinaris (in the juice whereof the Gauls used to dip their arrows) was called in Gaulish Belinuntia. From which I durst almost make this inference, that the name of Cunobelin, as also of that of Cassibelan, came originally from the worship of Apollo, as well as Phœbitius and Delphidius. The twentieth is of Cunobeline, son of Theomantius, nephew to Cassibelan, by the British writers called Kymboline.” It is believed that the ancient Britons lived on this spot for many centuries before Christ; they built a town, dug the ditch, put up palisades where those walls are, made covered ways out of it for their cattle, and were reigned over by many princes, whose coins we find in the soil, one of whom was the Cymbeline of Shakespeare. 45

Brotherhood title The title of the Brotherhood is derived from Rosa-Crux, a red rose affixed to a cross, presumably of gold. So many intellectual subtleties have been employed by fanciful theorists in attempts to explain the precise signification of these ancient symbols, believed to be older than the Christian era that their more obvious and truer significance has been unnecessarily obscured. To the Rosicrucians of the age of Elizabeth, it hardly seems questionable that the rose was the symbol of silence, as among the ancients it was originally derived from the pagan tradition that the god of Love made the first rose, which he presented to the god of Silence. From this tradition originated the custom of carving a rose on the ceilings of banquet halls, or rooms where people met for gayety and diversion, to intimate that under it, whatever was spoken or done was not to be divulged; hence our term sub rosa used to indicate secrecy. The Cross, of course, signified salvation, to which the Society of the Rose-Cross devoted itself by teaching mankind the love of God and the beauty of Brotherhood, with all that they implied.

Brownists The Brownists (so called from Robert Brown, their leader) were a religious sect that objected to the rites, ceremonies, and discipline of the English Church. They were the forerunners of the Puritans.
As for those we call Brownists, being when they were at the most, a very small number of very silly and base people, here and there dispersed, they are now (thanks be to God), by the good remedies that have been used, suppressed and worn out. (Bacon, Observations on a Libel, 1592).

44 Ch. Conjecture upon British Coins, p. 138

45 Charles Henry Ashdown. The Gossiping Guide to St. Albans, p. 24, 1891

A Finding List: Part 3.

Elizabethan Facts and Historical References

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W-X-Y-Z

B

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W-X-Y-Z