Northumberland Crannis

“In the supplement to a volume of Letters of the Lord Chancellor Bacon, published in 1734, and commonly referred to as Stephens’s second collection, several of his smaller pieces, both political and philosophical, appeared in print for the first time: among the rest, two of the most remarkable of his early compositions-namely, Mr. Bacon’s discourse in praise of his Sovereign and Mr. Bacon in praise of knowledge;-of which the history and true character has been hitherto doubtful.

“My own conjecture was that they both formed part of some fanciful device presented at the Court of Elizabeth in 1592; and accordingly in the last edition of Bacon’s Works, the arrangement of which was suggested by myself, I reserved them for their place among what I call his occasional writings of that year, and introduced them with some explanatory remarks which will form the most convenient introduction to what follows.

“”They were found,” I said, writing in 1861, “among the papers submitted to Stephens by Lord Oxford, and printed by Locker in the supplement to his second collection in 1734.” The MSS. are still to be seen in the British Museum; fair copies in an old hand, with the titles given above, but no further explanation. My reason for suspecting that they were composed for some masque, or show, or other fictitious occasion, is partly that the speech in praise of knowledge professes to have been spoken in a conference of pleasure, and the speech in praise of Elizabeth appears by the opening sentence to have been preceded by three others, one of which was in praise, of knowledge; partly that, earnest and full of matter as they both are, (the one containing the germ of the first book of the Novum Organum, the other of the Observations on a Libel, [It has been suggested that the Apology of the able Prince of Orange was composed by Languet, and Walsingham used the hand of Bacon to vindicate Elizabeth’s proceedings towards the Catholics on the one hand and the Puritans on the other, in his letter to “Monsieur Critoy, secretary of France,” circ. 1589. The greater part of that letter is reproduced in Bacon’s Observations on a Libel, and an unfinished copy of it was found in the Northumberland Manuscript. There is therefore no doubt about the authorship. That collection is headed “translated out of French into English by W. W.,” a class of ruse frequently adopted by Bacon to conceal the authorship, in this case no doubt from motives of prudence or reasons of State. It is a masterly composition, and the style is quite unmistakable. The style of the letter presented by Sidney to the Queen in 1580 is the same, though, being earlier, it is cruder. Moreover a copy of it appears among the Northumberland collection, with the entry on the outside sheet, “Philipp against Monsieur.” Spedding refers to the letter as “commonly attributed to Sir Philip Sidney,” but hazards no opinion as to the authorship. From a Latin letter written by Languet to Sidney, dated 22nd October 1580, of which the following is a translation, it appears that Sidney informed Languet that he had written the letter by the order of others, who, from the words used and the known facts, were, without much doubt, Sir Henry Sidney, Leicester, and perhaps Pembroke: “I am glad you have told me how your letter about the Duke of Anjou has come to the knowledge of so many persons; for it was supposed before that you had made it known to show that you despised him, and cared nothing for his dislike, which appeared to me by no means a safe proceeding, and inconsistent besides with your natural modesty. Since, however, you were ordered to write as you did by those whom you were bound to obey, no fair judging man can blame you for putting forward freely what you thought good for your country, nor even for exaggerating some circumstances in order to convince them of what you judge expedient.” The style is that of Francis Bacon, figurative, overloaded with ideas and reading, and, at that early date, somewhat involved. But the letter happens also to contain a striking and characteristic metaphor, which appears also (after the habit of Bacon, who makes use again and again of certain phrases and expressions) in his Observations on a Libel, 1592-93, and in his Discourse in Praise of his Sovereign, which Spedding thinks was composed about 1592. 1 ] which are nothing less than a substantial historical defence of the Queen’s government,) there is nevertheless in the style of both a certain affectation and rhetorical cadence, traceable in Bacon’s other compositions of this kind, and agreeable to the taste of the time; but so alien to his own individual taste and natural manner, that there is no single feature by which his style is more specially distinguished, wherever he speaks in his own person, whether formally or familiarly, whether in the way of narrative, argument, or oration, than the total absence of it. That these pieces were both composed for some occasion of compliment, more or less fanciful, I feel very confident; and if it should ever appear that about the autumn of 1592 (the date to which the historical allusions in the discourse in praise of Elizabeth point most nearly) a “device” was exhibited at Court, in which three speakers came forward in turn, each extolling his own favourite virtue (a form which Bacon affected on these occasions, as will appear hereafter in two notable examples), - the first delivering an oration in praise of magnanimity, the second of love, the third of knowledge, - and then a fourth came in with an oration in praise of the Queen, as combining in herself the perfection of all three; I should feel little doubt that the pieces before us were compose by Bacon for that exhibition. Unfortunately we have no detailed account of the Queen’s day in 1592; we only know that it was “more solemnised than ever, and that through my Lord of Essex his device.”

“What little we do know of the facts therefore is compatible with my conjecture. Essex adorned the triumphs of the 17th of November, 1592, with some distinguished “device,” and Bacon was about the Court. If any news-letter giving an account of the solemnities should turn up, it would probably settle the question one way or other. In the meantime, this is the proper place for the Discourse in praise of the Queen, being the date which the several allusions in it best fit; and in the absence of all other grounds of conjecture as to the time when the “Praise of Knowledge” was composed, the allusion in the opening sentence of the other is ground enough for placing it here.” 2

“Such was the state of the question up to the year 1867, when the discovery in Northumberland House of a manuscript containing copies of some of Bacon’s early writings threw a little fresh light upon it. In that year, Earl Percy [Duke of Northumberland] wishing to have the papers in his possession properly examined, preserved, and those of public interest turned to account, had requested the late Mr. John Bruce, whose loss is so deeply felt by all persons interested in historical and antiquarian literature, to inspect them. In one of the bundles submitted to him he found a paper book, much damaged by fire about the edges, though not so much as to make the contents generally undecipherable; and the piece which stood first, under the odd and not very significant title of Mr. Fr: Bacon of tribute or giving that wch is due, proved on examination to be a copy of the entire devise of which the “praise of knowledge” and the “praise of his sovereign,” formed part. It did not indeed throw any new light upon the date or the occasion, but it completely explained the order and plan to it; which is very simple. Four friends, distinguished as A, B, C, and D, meet for intellectual amusement. A assumes the direction of their proceedings, and proposes that each in turn shall make a speech in praise of whatever he holds most worthy. Upon which B (after a word or two of protest in favour of satire, as better suited to the humour of the time than praise) begins with a speech in praise of “the worthiest virtue,” namely, Fortitude. C follows with a speech in praise of “the worthiest affection,” namely, Love. D with a speech in praise of “the worthiest power,” namely, Knowledge. And A himself concludes with a speech in praise of “the worthiest person,” namely, the Queen.
“The two first of these speeches being quite new, and the transcript of the others being more correct than that used by Stephens, it was thought worth while to print the entire piece; and I have been charged with the duty of editor.

“The last two speeches present little or no difficulty. The lost words can all be supplied from the other manuscript, and little more is required than to see that they are printed correctly. How the two first should be dealt with, it was not so easy to decide. The fire has eaten away two or three words from the end of every line on all the right-hand pages, and three or four whole lines from the bottom of every page, both right and left. For the losses at the bottom it was clear that nothing could be done but to mark the place and the extent. To supply by conjecture so much as the probable import of sixty or seventy consecutive words, with no direction except to make them fit with the context before and after, is a problem which it would be idleness to attempt. Until another copy shall be discovered, those losses must be regarded as simply irretrievable. But where only two or three words are missing at the end of each line, the case is very different. The words which will fit into such a space and make both sense and grammar are so limited in number, that their general import may almost always be determined with accuracy; and in most cases a fair guess may be made at the words themselves. But all depends upon knowing how much room they filled. An attempt to make provision either for too many or too few misleads the guesser and spoils the guess. In order, therefore, that the reader may have the requisite data from exercising his own judgment on the question, it was necessary as far a possible to preserve in the printed page the due proportion between the part which remains and the part which has been lost in each line. Now this is often difficult, and sometimes impracticable, owing to the impossibility of imitating in type the various irregularities of handwriting. But the way I have attempted it is this: taking the length of a full line in the manuscript, and dividing it into small parts, and then dividing the length of the printed line into an equal number of parts, I had a scale by which I could measure any length of either upon the other; and using a bracket to mark the place where the break in the manuscript begins, I had it placed at a point in each printed line corresponding, as nearly as possible, to the point in the written line which the fire had reached. In this way the space within which conjecture may range has been defined in the printed page with as much accuracy perhaps as would be useful. Absolute accuracy it would hardly have been worth while to attempt; for even with the original paper before us the absolute number of lost letters cannot be fixed; allowance having possibly to be made either for blank spaces left at the end of lines where the next word was too long to go in, or for words written and crossed out, or for words inserted between the lines. But I think I may say that the cases are either none or very few in which any words that will fill up the portion of the printed line beyond the bracket might not gave been written in the portion of the line which is burned off, and in the natural handwriting of the same transcriber.

“The next question was whether the portions of the lines beyond the brackets should be left blank, to be supplied according to the taste of each reader, or whether an attempt should be made to assist him by supplying them conjecturally, and at least showing one way in which it may be done. The result of my own study of the mutilated manuscript has convinced me that it is best to make the attempt. The loss of two or three words at the end of every line makes it impossible to follow the sense as you read; and the necessity of stopping to make it out destroys the effect of the composition upon the imagination. Nay, even after you have made it out and filled up the blanks to your own satisfaction, a second reading, unless the words are set down in their places, will prove but an uneasy progress; and I fancy that even of diligent readers few will take pleasure in it. I have therefore filled up these blanks as well as I could; the bracket always showing where my inventions begin, and the conditions as to space which they were bound to satisfy; and if I have not hit upon the right words, I have at least made all the pages readable, except for the three or four lines at the bottom, - the loss of which, though much to be regretted, is not enough (being only three or four in every forty) to neutralize the value of the rest.

“Of what remains of the manuscript I have endeavoured to give an exact copy in all respects but one; and that is the punctuation; an exact representation of which would have made the printed page difficult to read and served no useful purpose. The transcriber was probably accustomed to copy legal documents, in which points had no value, and sentences were not divided. For though it cannot be said that there is no punctuation at all, it is introduced so irregularly that it serves rather to confuse than to explain the construction. The end of a sentence is often not marked by a full stop. The beginning of the next is rarely distinguished by a capital letter. Commas, colons, and notes of interrogation are inserted occasionally, but upon no system; and if all the points had been omitted altogether, the construction would, I think, upon the whole have been clearer. For though the composition was not meant to be independent of punctuation, there is in fact no single place in which the intended construction is really doubtful. Presuming therefore that the punctuation of the manuscript means nothing, I have taken the liberty of substituting my own, and also of putting capital letters at the beginning of sentences. In every thing else the manuscript has been exactly followed. No alteration in the spelling has been consciously allowed; and all the contractions have been carefully preserved. I have not, indeed, cared to imitate the particular form of contraction used in each case by the transcriber, but wherever a contraction occurs I have used some form of letter which will sufficiently indicate the contraction intended. This I held to be important, as bearing upon the filling up of the blank spaces; for both the spelling and the contractions make a considerable difference in the space which a word will occupy. Only in the passages which are supplied from Stephens’s manuscript (the orthography of which varies considerably from this in those parts which can be compared, and would be quite as likely to mislead the conjecturer as to guide him), I have not cared to reproduce the exact forms, nor refrained from obvious corrections of the text.

“The Northumberland House manuscript is, for the most part, remarkably clear and correct; it is very seldom that there can be any doubt what letter is intended, and the mistakes are very few. Still mistakes do occur. Here and there a word is omitted; once or twice a word or phrase is repeated: once or twice a word has evidently been misread. Nevertheless, I have tried to represent the manuscript in its original state, errors and all; reserving all corrections, as well as all explanations and illustrations, to the notes at the end. Where an interlinear insertion of an omitted word has been apparently made by the transcriber himself, I have preserved it; admitting the word into its place in the lines, if there was not. But interlinear insertions or corrections by another hand, of which there are a few, I have neglected in the text, and reserved for description in the notes. These are all conjectural emendations, sometimes certainly wrong, sometimes meant apparently for corrections, not of the text, but of the opinion expressed in it, and are clearly no part of the original writing, nor made by the writer’s authority.
“One of my chief difficulties has arisen from the irregularity of the hand-writing in point of closeness; which, though always very clear, and apparently very uniform, contrives sometimes to get more words into the line than can be printed without overcrowding, and sometimes to fill the line up with fewer than can be spread over the printed line without scattering. To meet this difficulty with the least disfigurement of the page, and yet observe the rule of printing line for line, the margin has in some pages been a little contracted or a little enlarged, as the case required.

“It will naturally be asked what else the manuscript contains. It is a folio volume of twenty-two sheets, which have been laid one upon the other, folded double (as in an ordinary quire of paper), and fastened by a stitch through the centre. 3 [Burgoyne: 4 “Since Mr. Spedding wrote, the manuscript has been taken to pieces and each leaf carefully inlaid in stout paper, and these have been bound up with a large paper copy of his pamphlet entitled A Conference of Pleasure, the manuscript in its present condition contains 45 leaves, so Mr. Spedding does not appear to have included the outside page in his enumeration. The pages are not numbered, and there are no traces of stitching or sewing; it is therefore quite impossible even to conjecture what was the number of sheets in the original volume.] But as the pages are not numbered, and the fastening is gone, it may once have contained more, and, if we may judge by what is still legible on the much bescribbled outside leaf which once served for a table of contents, there is some reason to suspect that it did. This leaf has one feature which has been thought singular enough to make it worth giving in fac-simile, and which I will speak of presently. But I will first deal with the question concerning the contents of the volume which it covered; and I begin with an account of what it contains now.

• First comes the piece which is here printed, and of which, therefore, I need say no more.
• A short essay, entitled Of Magnanimitie or heroicall Vertue. This is evidently a composition of Bacon’s; but the substance is to be found in a better form in the Advancement of Learning.
• An advertisement touching private cens[ure]. This is an enquiry concerning the limits and bounds of what we should now call “toleration” in religious disputes; a rudiment, apparently, of the piece which follows.
• An advertisement touching the controversies of the Church of England. This is Bacon’s well-known tract, first printed in 1640, and to be found in all editions of his collected works.
• A letter to a French gent: touching ye proceedings in Engl: in ecclesiasticall causes, translated out of French into English by W.W. This is an unfinished paper; but it is a copy, so far as it goes, of the same letter which was first printed in the Scrinia Sacra (Ed. 1654), with the heading, “Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary, to Monsieur Critoy, secretary of France:” a letter which I have always believe to have been written by Bacon. See Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vol. i. pp. 95-102. This copy ends abruptly towards the bottom of the second page, the other side of which is left blank.
  It is to be observed that this is the middle sheet of the volume, and if it ever contained more, this is the place where they must have come in.
• The Hermitt’s first speach.
• The Hermitt’s second speach.
• The soldier’s speach.
• The secretarie’s speach.
• The squyre’s speach.
  These are the speeches written by Bacon for a “Device” presented by the Earl of Essex on the Queen’s day, 1595; concerning which see Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vol. i. pp. 374-386. The principal difference between this copy and that at Lambeth, from which the printed copy was taken, is that this does not contain “The Squire’s speach in the tilt-yard,” with which the other begins, and does contain a short speech from the Hermit – “the Hermitt’s first speach” – which seems to be a reply to it. It is possible that the beginning has been lost, as any number of sheets may have dropped out at this place, without leaving any evidence of the fact. The other differences are not material, though here and there a better reading is suggested.
• For the Earle of Sussex at ye tilt an: 96.
  This is a speech made to be spoken at one of these Court triumphs, and is written in the artificial style which it was the fashion to affect in them; which makes it the more difficult to supply the lost words; but it is addressed to the Queen and meant apparently to convey an apology for the absence of the Earl of Essex, who was very likely keeping aloof in one of his fits of discontent.
• A letter without any heading or signature, but a very good copy (much better than that printed in the Cabala, which is full of blunders) of the letter to Elizabeth, dissuading her from marrying the Duke of Anjou, and commonly attributed to Sir Philip Sidney.
• A copy, imperfect both at the beginning and the end, of the well-known tract called Leicester’s Commonwealth. It begins with the words “A third reason of this manner of this Lady’s death may be,” &c.; and ends in the middle of the paragraph relating to the daughters of John of Gaunt.

“This brings us to the end of the volume; the last leaf being part of the outside sheet, which appears to have been the only cover the volume ever had, and of which the other half forms the title-page, here given in facsimile. This leaf has suffered from fire like the rest. But before that, it had had the ill luck to be so used by some idle penman, either for trial of his pens, or for experiments in handwriting, or for mere relief from idleness, that it is difficult to make out what its proper contents were. At the top, however, -distinguished from the rest by ink of the same colour with the earlier portions of the MS., -may be clearly read the words which I have chosen for a title page, viz.: [Burgoyne: The index, or page of contents, which forms the outer sheet and which is termed Folio I, appears from its dust-begrimed condition, to have always formed the outside cover of the collection. It is probable that the page was folded in the centre longitudinally, and short titles of the contents written upon the right-hand side of the leaf. Although the page has been scribbled over, and damaged severely by fire and dust, the following titles can still be read upon it:]

Mr. Frauncis Bacon
of tribute of giving what is dew.
The praise of the worthiest virtue.
The praise of the worthiest affection.
The praise of the worthiest power.
The praise of the worthiest person.

“And if a line be drawn down the page, ranging with these, and the interstitial scribbling be overlooked, we may still trace the following additional titles, written in order, below:

Earle of Arundell’s letter to the Queen.
Speaches for my lord of Essex at the tilt.
A speach for my lord of Sussex tilt.
Leycester’s commonwealth. Incerto auth[ore].
Orations at Graie’s inne revels.
…Queene’s Mats…
By Mr. Frauncis Bacon.
Essaies by the same author.

Richard the second.
Richard the third.
Asmund and Cornelia.
Isle of dogs fr (?), 5
by Thomas Nashe, inferior places. 6

“What follows is all scribbling; but at the head of this latter list two other titles seem to have been inserted afterwards, and are imperfectly legible, viz.:
…Phillip against Mounsieur.
Pa…revealed.

“This then I take to be all that the page originally contained, and to represent its proper business; the rest being idleness. The principal difficulties which I find in it are, 1st, the absence from the list of all allusion to the Advertisement touching the controversies of the Church of England, which can never have been separated from the volume, and has all the appearance of having been transcribed about the same time, and is too large a piece to have been overlooked; 2ndly, the absence from the volume itself of all trace of the Earl of Arundel’s letter to the Queen, which appears in the list; 7 and, 3rdly, the misplacing of the entry of Sir Philip Sidney’s Letter against Monsieur, which stands higher in the list than it should. All this however may be explained by a few suppositions, not in themselves improbable; namely, that the transcriber of the first five pieces left his list of contents incomplete; that the transcriber who followed him set down the contents only of his own portion; that the first sheet or two of his transcript has been lost; and that Sidney’s letter had been at first overlooked. I have already observed that the sheet on which the filth piece ends and what is now the sixth begins, is the middle sheet of the volume; and therefore if anything came between these two, it may have been taken out without leaving any traces of itself. I have noticed also that Sir Philip’s letter has no heading, and may therefore have been easily overlooked. Now if we may suppose that the Earl of Arundel’s letter, having been transcribed on a central sheet, has dropped out, and that Sir Philip’s having been overlooked, the title was entered afterwards in the place where there was most room, we shall find that the first four titles represent correctly the rest of the contents of the volume. The Speaches for my lord of Essex at the tilt are evidently the speeches of the hermit, the soldier, the secretary, and the squire. The Speach for my lord of Sussex at the tilt is the piece which stands next to them. And Leycester’s Commonwealth fills up the remainder of the volume.

“The titles which follow have nothing corresponding to them in this manuscript, but probably indicate the contents of another of the same kind, one attached to this, and now lost. If such a one should ever turn up, which is far from impossible, it will probably be found to contain
“1st The conclusion of Leycester’s commonwealth.
2ndly. The speeches of the six councillors to the Prince of Purpoole at the Gray’s Inn revels in 1594, (see Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vol. i. p. 332,) of which Orations at Graie’s Inne revells would be a correct description, and an independent manuscript would be valuable; for the printed copy in Gesta Grayorum is full of errors.
3rdly. Something of Bacon’s about the Queen, or addressed to her, the particulars of which I cannot make out.
4thly. A copy of Bacon’s Essays in their earliest form; that is, as printed in 1597.
5thly. Copies of Shakespeare’s plays of Richard II., and Richard III.
6thly. A piece called Asmund and Cornelia, of which I cannot hear that anything is known.
7thly. A play called the Isle of Dogs, of which the induction and the first act were written by Thomas Nashe, and the rest by the players; but of which no copy has been found. [Burgoyne: We learn that it existed from the following reference to it in Nashe’s pamphlet Lenten Stuffe, which he published in 1599. The pamphlet commences:- “The strange turning of the Isle of Dogs from a comedy to a tragedy two summers past, with the troublesome stir which happened about it, in a general rumour that hath filled all England, and such a heavy cross laid upon me, as had well near confounded me: I mean, not so much in that it sequestered me from my wanted means of my maintenance, which is as great a maim to any man’s happiness as can be feared from the hands of misery; or the deep pit of despair whereunto I was fallen, beyond my greatest friends’ reach to recover me; but that in my exile and irksome discounted abandonment, the silliest millers’ tomb, or contemptible stickleback of my enemies, is as busy nibbling about my fame, as if I were a dead man thrown amongst them to feed upon. That unfortunate imperfect embryo of my idle hours, the Isle of Dogs before mentioned, breeding unto me such bitter throws in the teaming as it did. I was so terrified with my own increase that it was no sooner borne, but I was glad to run from it. An imperfect Embryo I may well call it, for I having begun but the induction and first act of it, the other four acts, without my consent, or the least guess of my drift or scope by the players were supplied, which bred both their trouble and mine too.” Mr. Grosart states that “the play when produced roused the anger of the Queen’s Privy Council, who withdrew their licence from the theatre and flung Nashe into jail.” In the Acts of the Privy Council for 1597, edited by Mr. J. R. Dasent, an account appears of a meeting held at Greenwich on August 15th, 1597. Amongst other business, a letter was sent to Richard Topclyffe and four other magistrates. No doubt the play above referred to was the Isle of Dogs, for Gabriel Harvey in his pamphlet The Triming of Thomas Nashe, printed in 1597, writes: “Since that thy He of Dogs hath made thee thus miserable, I cannot but account thee a dog and chide and rate thee.” This pamphlet contains a rough wood-cut of Nashe in fetters. It will be noted that the entry on folio I has the words “inferior plaiers” written after it, which may be a reference to the quality of the work ascribed to Nashe.] In Halliwell’s A Dictionary of Old Plays published in 1860, the play is thus inserted: THE ISLE OF DOGS. By Thomas Nash. This comedy, which was written in 1597, was never published. In a pamphlet, called, Lenten Stuff, 1699, the author says, that having begun the induction and first act of it, the other four acts, without his consent, or the least guess at his scope, were supplied by the players. What the nature of this piece was, we cannot learn; but the consequence of it was very serious to poor Nash, who was, as he says, sequestered from the wonted means of his maintenance, and obliged to conceal himself for near two years, part of which time he resided at Yarmouth, and there wrote the pamphlet above-mentioned. The company who played it were also restrained. See Henslowe’s Diary, p. 99. And from Henslowe’s Diary it appears that “Nayshe was locked up and soon afterwards released, probably at the instance of an intervention by Francis. If Nayshe himself wrote the remaining four acts, and the quality of his work was no better than shown in the short verse called The Valentine, unearthed by Dr. Grosart from the Temple Library, he may have deserved his punishment on literary grounds alone. Possibly, after ten years’ copying in Bacon’s scrivenery, he may have tried his hand at original work. The fact, however, that the Isle of Dogs fragment is mentioned on the Northumberland House manuscript cover a document evidently emanating from the possession of Bacon or some person in his employ, probably Davies is a further proof of the true authorship of the “Nash” writings. Davies may not have known of “Nash” otherwise than as a subordinate, or, as he puts it, inferior, player. 8

“That “Richard the second” and “Richard the third” are meant for the titles of Shakespeare’s plays so named, I infer from the fact –of which the evidence may be seen in the facsimile –that, the list of contents being now complete, the writer (or more probably another into whose possession the volume passed) has amused himself with writing down promiscuously the names and phrases that most ran in his head; and that among these the name of William Shakespeare was the most prominent, being written eight or nine times over for no other reason that can be discerned. 9 That the name of Mr. Frauncis Bacon, which is also repeated several times, should have been used for the same kind of recreation requires no explanation; its position at the top of the page would naturally suggest it. In the upper corner, on the left hand, may be seen (as Mr. Aldis Wright has pointed out to me) the words ne vile velis, the motto of the Nevilles, twice repeated; and I think I see traces of the name Nevell. [Burgoyne: On the left-hand corner of the page of contents the name Nevill can be traced in two places, and near it the punning motto of the family, Ne ‘Vile ‘Velis. Perhaps this gives a clue to the original ownership of the volume, as it seems to indicate that the collection was written for, or was the property of, some member of the Nevill family. Who this was is uncertain, but it seems probable that it was Bacon’s nephew, Sir Henry Nevill. The younger Nevill, for whom it is suggested the manuscript was prepared, was therefore but three years the junior of Francis Bacon. They both entered Parliament in 1584, and were doubtless on intimate terms. It is probable that Nevill was on the Continent some time between 1590 and 1598, for he was sent as ambassador to Paris in 1599, and it is hardly likely that a man unacquainted with foreign countries would have been selected.]

“Other exercises of the same kind are merely repetitions of the titles which stand opposite, or ordinary words of compliment, familiar in the beginnings and endings of letters; with here and there a scrap of verse, such as
Revealing day through every cranie peepes,
[Shakespeare’s Lucrece: it was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 9 May, 1594 under a book entitled The Ravishment of Lucrece. The copyright of this work was passed by John Harrison to a Roger Jackson on the 1st March, 1614 and Harrison’s widow sold the copyright to John Stafford and William Gilbertson on the 15th March, 1655:

As each unwilling portal yields him way,
Through little vents and crannies of the place
The wind wars with his torch to make him stay,
And blows the smoke of it into his face,
Extinguishing his conduct in this case;
But his hot heart, which fond desire doth scorch,
Puffs forth another wind that fires the torch,

And, being lighted, by the light he spies
Lucretia’s glove, wherein her needle sticks.
He takes it from the rushes were it lies,
And, gripping it, the needle his finger pricks,
As who should say, “This glove to wanton tricks
Is not inured; return again in haste:
Thou seest our mistresss’ ornaments are chaste.”]

[Revealing day through every cranny spies,
And seems to point her out 10 where she sits weeping.
To whom she sobbing speaks: “O eye of eyes,
Why pry’st thou through my window? Leave thy peeping, 11
Mock with thy tickling 12 beams eyes that are sleeping.
Brand 13 not my forehead with thy piercing light,
For day hath naught to do 14 what’s done by night.”] 15

“or,

Multis annis jam transactis
Nulla fides est in pactis,
Mell in ore, verba lactis;
Fell in corde, fraus in factis.

[Rough translation: Nevill, Nevill, no vile intentions, many years have I transacted, no faith in the agreement, honey in mouth and milky words, cunning in heart and false in practise. Burgoyne: This verse was known to Anthony Bacon, for a letter from Rodolphe Bradley has been preserved, in which he writes “Your gracious speeches concerninge the gettinge of a prebendshippe for me…be the words of a faithfull friende and not of a courtiour, who hath Mel in ore et verba lactis, sed fel in corde et fraus in factis.” This letter is dated April 2, 1597; which is about the date suggested for the writing of the manuscript. The lines in a slightly different form also appear on the title page of Ulpian Fulwell’s book, The first parte of the Eyghth liberall Science…Ars Adulandi, published about 1580; and in Tabouret’s Les Bigarrures et Touches, Paris 1608.]

“And most of the rest appear to be merely exercises in writing th or sh. The facsimile represents the original very exactly in everything except the stains on the paper, and the curious reader can study for himself the history of the scribble. But the only thing, so far as I can see, which requires any particular notice, is the occurrence in this way of the name of William Shakespeare; and the value of that depends in a great degree upon the date of the writing; which I fear cannot be determined with any approach to exactness. All I can say is that I find nothing either in these later scribbling, or in what remains of the book itself, to indicate a date later than the reign of Elizabeth; [Burgoyne: The list of contents on the outside page shows that the manuscript originally contained a copy of Bacon’s Essays. The first edition of these appeared in 1597, but they were circulated in manuscript several years prior to that date. Bacon in his “Epistle Dedicatorie” to the first edition, dated January 30, 1597, complaining of some piratical publisher who contemplated printing them without his consent, writes as follows:- “I doe nowe like some that haue an Orcharde ill neighbored, that gather their fruit before it is ripe, to preuent stealing. These fragments of my conceites were going to print. Therefore I helde it best discreation to publish them my selfe as they passed long agoe from my pen.” This letter points to the extensive circulation of the essays in manuscript form, which would cease on their issue as a book. They were printed in January, 1597, and again in 1598, and so were easily to be procured in book form after February, 1597. This appears to fix the date of the manuscript as about that period, for it is not reasonable to suppose that the expensive and imperfect method of copying in manuscript would be continued after the printed editions had appeared. The same argument applies to the plays of “Rychard II.” and “Rychard III,” which are included in the list of contents. These also were first printed in 1597, and issued at a published price of sixpence each. It seems, therefore, reasonable to conclude that the manuscript was written not later than January, 1597, and it seems more probable that no part of the manuscript was written after 1596. Corroboration for this approximate date is obtained from the composition of the various parts of the manuscript. The first item, “Of Tribute,” was written by Bacon for a masque or device played in 1592. The “Controversies of the Church of England,” was written in 1589. The “Letter to a French gent.” was written between 1589 and 1590. The “Speeches of the Hermit, the Soldier, the Secretary, and the Squire,” were spoken in a masque performed in 1595. The Earl of Sussex’s speech was spoken “an. [15] 96.” The “Letter of Sir Philip Sydney to Queen Elizabeth” was written about 1580. The stinging political pamphlet, “Leicester’s Commonwealth,” part of which concludes the manuscript in its present state, was printed secretly on the Continent in 1584. We know that its circulation was forbidden, the copies seized and the printers prosecuted. This being so, there would be difficulty in obtaining the printed book in England, and it was therefore necessary to continue to produce manuscript copies of the pamphlet.] and if so, it is probably one of the earliest evidences of the growth of Shakespeare’s personal fame as a dramatic author; the beginning of which cannot be dated much earlier than 1598. It was not till 1597 that any of his plays appeared in print; and though the earliest editions of Richard II., Richard III., and Romeo and Juliet all bear that date, his name is not on the title-page of any of them. They were set forth as plays which had been “lately,” or “publicly,” or “often with great applause,” acted by the Lord Chamberlain’s servants. Their title to favour was their popularity as acting plays at the Globe; and it was not till they came to be read as books that it occurred to people unconnected with the theatre to ask who wrote them. It seems, however, that curiosity was speedily and effectually excited by the publication; for in the very next year a second edition of both the Richards appeared with the name of William Shakespeare on the title-page; and the practice was almost invariably followed by all publishers on like occasions afterwards. We may conclude, therefore, that it was about 1597 that play-goers and readers of plays began to talk about him, and that his name would naturally present itself to an idle penman in want of something to use his pen upon. What other inferences will be drawn from its appearance on the cover of this manuscript by those who start with conviction that Bacon and not Shakespeare was the author of Richard II., and Richard III., I cannot say; but to myself the fact which I have mentioned seems quite sufficient to account for the phenomenon. At the present time, if the waste leaf on which a law-stationer’s apprentice tries his pens were examined, I should expect to find on it the name of the poet, novelist, dramatic author, or actor of the day, mixed with snatches of the last new song, and scribbling of “My dear Sir,” “Yours sincerely,” and “This Indenture witnesseth.” And this is exactly the sort of thing which we have here. I think I am in a condition to assert that there is no trace of Bacon’s own penmanship in any part of the volume; and the name of Shakespeare is spelt in every case as it was always printed in those days, and not as he himself in any known case ever wrote it.

“Of the history of the manuscript all that is known was communicated to me by Mr. John Bruce, last August, and I give it in his own words.
““Up to about two years ago, there had remained at Northumberland House, for a long time, two black boxes of considerable size, presumed to contain papers, but nobody knew of the boxes having ever been opened, or could give any information respecting their history, or tell what kind of papers they contained. These boxes were opened at the time I have indicated, and the contents, which turned out to be papers, as had been supposed, were taken out that I might inspect them. I did so in the month of August 1867. I found them to be of a very miscellaneous character, many of them more or less connected with the history of the Percys, and others of a more general historical interest.

““Upon some of them were found notes in reference to their contents, written by the hand of Bishop Percy, the editor of the Reliques, who was domestic chaplain at Northumberland House from about 1765 to 1782. He occupied apartments in the House, and gave considerable attention to the old papers belonging to the family. It is probable that he looked through all the papers now under consideration, and that it was under his direction that they were placed in the boxes alluded to.
““Among the papers taken out of these boxes I found the transcripts of the papers of Bacon. They formed part of a miscellaneous collection, or unbound volume, of transcripts, containing among other things a copy of Leicester’s Commonwealth and other pamphlets and documents relating to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Looking hastily at the Bacon transcripts, I saw at one some matter which I recollected as already in print. Other parts of them seemed new to me. I mentioned this circumstance at the time to some members of the family of the Duke of Northumberland, who took an interest in what it was about. I pointed it out as a subject for further inquiry, and at the same time directed attention to the oddity of the recurrence and combination of the names of Bacon and Shakespeare in the scribble on the fly-lead of the MS.

““A good many of the papers taken out of the boxes had been subjected to the action of fire. Their edges were found burnt and singed in the same way as the Bacon transcripts. Among the papers thus damaged was a collection of transcripts of accounts of public ceremonials, such as royal marriages, funerals, and coronations. With this collection was found a paper on which was written, in a hand of the last century, perhaps that of Bishop Percy, although larger than his ordinary hand, a memorandum that those papers relating to ceremonials had been purchased at “Anstis’s sale,” which I understood to allude to the sale of the MSS. of the two Garters Anstis, the father and son, which took place in 1768.

““This memorandum seemed to point out the possibility that the Bacon transcripts might have come to Northumberland House in the same manner as those relating to ceremonials. I thought it right therefore to endeavour to inspect a copy of the Anstis sale catalogue. For a considerable time I was unsuccessful. There is no copy at the British Museum, nor at the Society of Antiquaries, nor in several other likely places. Ultimately one was found at the College of Arms. Unfortunately, like most of the sale catalogues of that period, the lots are described in terms so general and unprecise that it is quite impossible to say what may not have been included under words so vague. Certainly the Bacon MS. is not directly mentioned. In a miscellaneous collection of papers, thrown together into one lot, there is mention of a copy of his argument, De rege inconsulto; and in the course of the catalogue there are several copies of Leicester’s Commonwealth, but they do not occur in lots which can be identified with the MS. you are dealing with, but rather the contrary.

““What I have stated seems to lead to the conclusion that the papers were deposited in boxes after 1768. That inference is strengthened by the circumstance that the Anstis MS. is so much injured by fire that—its contents not being highly valuable—it is unlikely that it would have been bought for the Ducal Library in its burnt condition. The same conclusion is rendered more probable by the circumstance that there occurred a fire in Northumberland House on the 18th of March 1780, which destroyed a very considerable part of the front towards Charing Cross, (16.) including the apartments occupied by Dr. Percy, then Dean of Carlisle. The Gent. Mag. of the day takes pains to inform its readers that “the greatest part of the Dean’s invaluable library was fortunately preserved.” It says nothing of any MSS. of the Duke’s, but I think we may safely infer that in all probability this was the fire in which the Anstis MSS., the Bacon transcript, and several other manuscripts were injured; and if so, that they were not put into the black boxes until after March 1780.

““We may also I think find another limit. Dr. Percy was in 1782 appointed Bishop of Dromore, where he continually resided 17 from his appointment to his death in 1811. The putting these papers into the boxes, which clearly took place after the fire in 1780, looks very like the act of Dr. Percy when taking leave of Northumberland House and about to remove to Dromore. From 1782 to 1867 the history of these papers is pretty clear; I will only add that nothing has been done with them since they were found, except that the burnt and singed edges have been carefully repaired by a trustworthy person accustomed to that kind of work, and very skilful in it.” 18

“With regard to the portion of this manuscript now printed, I may observe that though the fist ten pages contain all that is absolutely new, its full value would not have been realised without an exhibition of the whole together, for those parts which have hitherto been read separately as substantive compositions will be found to acquire something of a new character from the context. If “To be or not to be,” or “All the world’s a stage,” had been found among Shakespeare’s papers and published as lines of his own, anybody can understand what a different effect they would have had, and how unexpected an aspect of Shakespeare’s mind they would have seemed to reveal. [Burgoyne: The word “ffrauncis” has been twice written (the second entry being upside down 19 and over the first) as if by this device it had been intended to emphasise the name.] In a less degree, but in the same way, an oration in praise of knowledge or of the Queen, is one thing if spoken in a man’s own person, another if only invented by him as part of a dramatic entertainment. And though I do not know that either of these contain anything which Bacon would not have been himself prepared to stand by and maintain in earnest, yet in a case where the business is amusement and the occasion a compliment, the liberties of rhetoric cannot be denied to what is in fact a rhetorical exhibition. Now among the exercises prescribed for the rhetorician, is one of which all these orations afford some example. In treating of the Desiderata in that art (De Aug. Scient. Lib. vi.), Bacon approves of Cicero’s recommendation that the forensic orator should provide himself with commonplaces, in which all questions of ordinary occurrence should be argued and handled on either side; but desires to extend it to other departments of oratory. “I would have all topics,” he says, “which there is frequent occasion to handle (whether they relate to proofs and refutations, or to persuasions and dissuations, or to praise and blame) studied and prepared before hand; and not only so, but the case exaggerated both ways with the utmost force of the wit, and urged unfairly, as it were, and quite beyond the truth.” It was as an essay towards the supply of this deficiency that he drew up his Antitheta Rerum; in which the arguments both for and against, on a variety of topics, are packed into short and sharp sentences, “to be as skeins or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large when they come to be used.” But they are for the use of the advocate, not of the judge: and these rival orations of A, B, C, and D are in like manner to be regarded as ingenious pleadings –exercises in the art of making the best or the worst of a thing –not necessarily expressions of Bacon’s personal opinion or ultimate judgment, such as we have it in the “Essays,” the “Observations on a Libel,” the discourse on the “Felicities of Elizabeth,” and other places where he speaks in his own person.”

NOTES