William Shakspere and the genius of Francis Bacon. In these verses, from which I have been quoting, he says, speaking ostensibly of Shakspere: Or when thy socks were on, Leave thee alone, for the comparison Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. Jonson died in 1637. His memoranda, entitled Ben Jonson's Discoveries, were printed in 1640. One of these refers to the eminent men of his own and the preceding era. After speaking of Sir Thomas More, the Earl of Surrey, Challoner, the elder Wyatt, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Philip Sydney, the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh, he says: Lord Egerton, a grave and great orator, and best when he was provoked; but his learned and able but unfortunate successor (Sir Francis Bacon) is he that hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome. What a significant statement is this! Francis Bacon had "filled up all numbers." That is to say, he had compassed all forms of poetical composition. Webster defines "numbers" thus: That which is regulated by count; poetic measure, as divisions of time or number of syllables; hence, poetry, verse-chiefly used in the plural. I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.—Pope. In Love's Labor Lost, Longaville says, speaking of some love verses he had written: I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move; O sweet Maria, empress of my love, But when Ben Jonson, who had helped translate some of Bacon's prose works, comes to sum up the elements of his patron's greatness, he passes by his claims as a philosopher, a scholar, a lawyer, an orator and a statesman; and the one thing that stands out vividly before his mind's eye, that looms up above all other considerations, is that Francis Bacon is a poet — a great poet — 2. poet who has written in all measures, "has filled up all numbers' -the sonnet, the madrigal, rhyming verse, blank verse. And what had he written? Was it the translation of a few psalms in his old 1 Act iv, scene 3. H age, the only specimens of his poetry that have come down to us, in his acknowledged works? No; it was something great, something overwhelming; something that is to be "compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome." And what was it that "insolent Greece and haughty Rome" had accomplished to which these "numbers" of Bacon could be preferred? We turn to Jonson's verses in the Shakespeare Folio and we read: And though thou hadst small Latine and less Greek, For names, but call forth thundering Æschilus, Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, To life again, to hear thy buskin tread, And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on, Leave thee alone, for the comparison Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. The "numbers" of Bacon are to be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome that is to say, to the best And when Ben Jonson poetical compositions of those nations. uses this expression we learn, from the verses in the Folio, what kind of Greek and Roman literary work he had in his mind; it was not the writings of Homer or Virgil, but of Eschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, etc.- that is to say, the dramatic writers. Is it not extraordinary that Jonson should not only assert that Bacon had produced poetical compositions that would challenge comparison with the best works of Greece and Rome, but that he should use the same adjectives, and in the same order, that he had used in the Folio verses, viz.: insolent Greece and haughty Rome? It was not haughty Greece and insolent Rome, or powerful Rome and able Greece, or any other concatenation of words; but he employs precisely the same phrases in precisely the same order. How comes it that when his mind was dwelling on the great poetical and secret works of Bacon- for they must have been secret — he reverted to the very expressions he had used years before in reference to the Shakespeare Plays? And it is upon Ben Jonson's testimony that the claims of William Shakspere, of Stratford, to the authorship of the Plays, principally rest. 99 If the Plays are not Shakspere's then the whole make-up of the Folio of 1623 is a fraud, and the dedication and the introduction are probably both from the pen of Bacon. Mr. J. T. Cobb calls attention to a striking parallelism between a passage in the dedication of the Folio and an expression of Bacon: Country hands reach forthe milk, cream and fruits, or what they have.1 Bacon writes to Villiers: And now, because I am in the country, I will send you some of my country fruits, which with me are good meditations, which when I am in the city are choked with business.2 And in the "discourse touching the plantation in Ireland," he asks his majesty to accept "the like poor field-fruits." We can even imagine that in the line, And though thou hadst small Latine and less Greek, Ben Jonson has his jest at the man who had employed him to write these verses. For Jonson, it will be remembered, was an accurate classical scholar, while Bacon was not. The latter was like Montaigne, who declared he could never thoroughly acquire any language but his own. Dr. Abbott, head master of the City of London school, in his introduction to Mrs. Pott's great work,' refers to "several errors which will make Latin and Greek scholars feel uneasy. For these in part Bacon himself, or Bacon's amanuensis, is responsible; and many of the apparent Latin solecisms or misspellings arise. . . from the manuscripts of the Promus." He adds in a foot-note: I understand that it is the opinion of Mr. Maude Thompson, of the British Museum manuscript department, that all entries, except some of the French proverbs, are in Bacon's handwriting; so that no amanuensis can bear the blame of the numerous errors in the Latin quotations. How "rare old Ben" must have enjoyed whacking Bacon over Shakespeare's shoulders, in verses written at the request of Bacon! XI. A GREATER QUESTION. When the crushing blow of shame and humiliation fell upon Francis Bacon in 1621, and he expected to die under it, he hurriedly drew a short will. It does not much exceed in length one page of Spedding's book, and yet in this brief document he found time to say: 1 Dedication, Folio 1623. 2 Montagu, iii, p. 20 3 Promus, P. 13. |