end. This cannot be ascribed to chance. It is plainer than most similar acrostic signatures of ancient authors.

The fifteenth stanza of "Lucrece" unmistakably reveals Bacon. We have already spoken of his habit of writing upon the margins of his books, a habit then so unusual as to be virtually unknown. The lines to which we particularly request attention, since they furnish a psychological clue to the authorship of the poem, quite as important as the acrostic in its first stanza, which cannot be ignored, are these:

But she that never copt with stranger eyes,

Could pick no meaning from their parling looks,
Nor read the subtle shining secrecies

Writ in the glassy margents of such books,

She toucht no unknown baits, nor feared no hooks,

Nor could she moralize his wanton sight,

More than his eyes were opened to the light.

The fixed habit of Bacon, alluded to above, furnished him with a constant motive to its exercise, and it was but natural, that when the conception of the hidden secrecies in the eyes of the chaste Lucrece dawned upon him, he should associate it with the secrecies "writ" on the margins of his book. The conception of this simile could only occur to one familiar with the practice of such writing, and this could not possibly have been the actor. To remove all doubt, however, the author has formed from the initial letters of this stanza, as in the former instance, an acrostic B C N W Sh N M, leaving only the vowels to be added to make "Bacon, W. Sh. Name."

This is not coincidence or chance. The care bestowed upon initial and terminal words evidence this. Note the beginnings of lines 939-58 and endings of lines 127-31, 428–34, in the sonnets for instance. This method of leaving vowels to be supplied in a verbal puzzle is no doubt familiar to the reader of the youth's column of the modern newspaper.

XII

ANONYMOUS AND PSEUDONYMOUS AUTHORSHIP

To understand Francis Bacon we must keep in view the dominant motive of his life. It is embodied in these words: "It is enough, son, that I have sown unto Posterity and the immortal God." Truth has ever been distasteful to despotism, hence the men of his day who realized the mental barrenness which prevailed in the world, and desired to enrich it, were obliged to veil their efforts from the jealous eyes of those in power. This was the reason why Rosicrucianism flourished. As its single purpose was to convey knowledge to mankind, it sanctioned some methods which to one who does not realize the dangers which encompassed it seem childish. This is one of the keys to the mystery which shrouded much of Bacon's life. That he employed a large portion of it in writing anonymously, or under the names of real or fictitious persons, cannot be successfully denied.

It is well to keep in view the important facts to which we have alluded: that Spedding, Bacon's indefatigable biographer, could not connect him with the authorship of any important published work for fifteen years after his return from the French Court; that the "Advancement of Learning," published at the age of forty-four, was his first published work of importance, and Rawley's statement that he wrote the majority of his philosophical works during the five closing years of his life. It must have been in the earlier period of his career, then, that many of the anonymous plays, afterwards published under the pen name, "Shake-speare," or "Shakespeare," were written. It is important that we should give due weight to his reputation as a poet and wit, and to the fact that his dramatic talent was always in requisition when a masque was

wanted at Court or Gray's Inn. He had "filled up all numbers," said Jonson, and many others were quite as emphatic in their praise of his poetic genius; besides, we have this positive and unquestionable statement of Rawley, "For very many poems, and the best, too, I withhold from publication; but since he himself delighted not in quantity, no great quantity have I put forth." 1

Note also these lines:

Nor need I number the illustrious works
Which he has left behind, Some buried lie;
But Rawley, his "Achates" ever true,

Has given leave that some may see the light.2

Some have endeavored to find a solution for this in his philosophical works, which others characterize as prosaic and dry.

Probably no man of his age was so indefatigable a student as he. We cannot conceive of idleness in Francis Bacon. His dominant purpose was authorship, and, says Rawley, he could not "take the air abroad in his coach or some other befitting recreation, but upon his first and immediate return, would fall to reading again, and so suffer no moment of time to slip from him without some present improvement"; and we are told how persistently he dictated his thoughts for transcription to the young men in his service whom he addressed

as sons.

He must have done more literary work during the best years of his life than write bright letters or a few masques for the entertainment of the Court, and as playwriting would have ruined his official prospects, to say nothing of sensitiveness to public clamor, he of set purpose concealed his authorship as others often have done. This was made easier by his adoption of the Rosicrucian doctrine of Silence.

Many of the ephemeral scribblers of the day were dissolute and greedy for money with which to "ruffle it," when chance 1 Manes Verulamiani (Introduction).

2 Ibid.

offered, with frequenters of the taverns and theaters, so that it was not difficult for a man like Bacon, who was on familiar terms with royalty, to borrow a name from almost any of these men. Others beside the Stratford actor did not object to the use of their names on occasions. Collaboration was common, and works were credited to men who never wrote, or, in any case, had little to do with them.

Discoveries, or supposed discoveries, of concealed authorship must necessarily encounter skepticism and ridicule. Indeed, when the writer first read of Bacon's use of the names of several men of his day, Greene, Peele, Marlowe, Burton, and, especially, Spenser, he rejected the statement impatiently. It was a potion too offensive to swallow at once. A careful study of the lives of these men in connection with their surroundings, however, discloses the fact that the claim is not so absurd as it at first sight appears. Take, for instance, the case of one of the most noted men of Elizabeth's reign.

EDMUND SPENSER

The reader will be surprised, after studying his various biographies, to find, upon stripping them of fanciful trappings, not warranted by records, how obscure he was. Oldys ventures an attempt to settle his birthplace by a "tradition" that he was born near London Tower in East Smithfield, but F. F. Spenser, of Lancashire, offsets this tradition by a will, dated 1687, of a John Spenser of "Hurstwood near Burnley," which he is said to have inherited from a great-grandfather of an Edmund.1 Some later writers have accepted Hurstwood as his birthplace upon this shadowy evidence, but Dr. Grosart says the burial registers of Burnley give the date of burial of an Edmund of Hurstwood November 9, 1577. This Edmund appears first in 1559. In 1564, Edmund and Robert were parties in a suit in the Chancery Court of Lancashire. Another Edmund, almost

1 London Notes and Queries, vol. VII, p. 303; cf. The Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1842, pp. 141 et seq.

certainly one of these two, was buried in April, 1587.1 As two Edmunds are recorded as being buried so near the

Grosart concludes as follows:

proper date,

a

Edmund Spenser, first of all Spensers, was most probably probability next door to certainty in the light of genealogical facts already given (?) — eldest son of John Spenser, who is described as "free journeyman" of Merchant Taylor's Company in 1566, and "gent" in 1571.

With the words of Stubbs in mind, "Every parish must have a history; every parish has a register; every person has a parish," the present writer has searched the registers of births and marriages of London and other parts of England with meager success. Spenser names are found in the Registers,2 but none whose birth date coincides with that of the Edmund in question. In Musgrave's "Obituaries" is the following: Spenser, "Edm. poet, 1598, æt. 86-88," with several references to sources. This would make his birth date either 1512 or 1510, as it is certain that he died in 1598. Evidently the chronicler was puzzled by discrepancies which he had noticed in the date of his death; hence he tentatively adopted both dates.3

In the Register of St. Clements Danes is the record, "26 August, 1587, Florence Spenser the daughter of Edmund." Collier claims her as the daughter of the "poet," though Todd positively asserts that he was a bachelor when he married in 1594.*

On October 1, 1569, Edmund Spenser was paid for bringing dispatches from Sir Henry Norris, the Queen's ambassador in France, "VI XIII IIIjd and besydes IX" prested to hym" by Norris.5

1 Grosart's Family of Spenser, pp. xi, lxiv.

2 Cf. Kensington, Middlesex; St. Marie Aldermarie; St. Dionis, Back Church; St. Michael, Cornhill, London.

3 Harleian Society, Musgrave's Obituaries, vol. 48, p. 326.

Cf. J. Payne Collier, F.S.A., The Works of Edmund Spenser. London, 1862;

also cf. Todd's Spenser.

5 Entry in the Office Book of the Treasurer of the Queen's Chamber.