The Mystery of Francis Bacon

CHAPTER
I.--Sources of Information 9
II.--The Stock from which Bacon Came 14
III.--Francis Bacon, 1560 to 1572 19
IV.--At Cambridge 25
V.--Early Compositions 29
VI.--Bacon's "Temporis Partus Maximus" 36
VII.--Bacon's First Allegorical Romance 47
VIII.--Bacon in France, 1576-1579 52
IX.--Bacon's Suit on His Return to England, 1580 62
X.--The "Rare and Unaccustomed Suit" 76
XI.--Bacon's Second Visit to the Continent and After 82
XII.--Is it Probable that Bacon left Manuscripts Hidden Away? 94
XIII.--How the Elizabethan Literature was Produced 98
XIV.--The Clue to the Mystery of Bacon's Life 103
XV.--Burghley and Bacon 114
XVI.--The 1623 Folio Edition of Shakespeare's Plays 123
XVII.--The Authorised Version of the Bible, 1611 126
XVIII.--How Bacon Marked Books with the Publication of
Which He Was Connected 132
XIX.--Bacon and Emblemata 140
XX.--Shakespeare's Sonnets 148
XXI.--Bacon's Library 156
XXII.--Two German Opinions on Shakespeare and Bacon 161
XXIII.--The Testimony of Bacon's Contemporaries 170
XXIV.--The Missing Fourth Part of "The Great Instauration" 177
XXV.--The Philosophy of Bacon 187
Appendix 193




PREFACE.


Is there a mystery connected with the life of Francis Bacon? The average
student of history or literature will unhesitatingly reply in the
negative, perhaps qualifying his answer by adding:--Unless it be a
mystery that a man with such magnificent intellectual attainments could
have fallen so low as to prove a faithless friend to a generous
benefactor in the hour of his trial, and, upon being raised to one of
the highest positions of honour and influence in the State, to become a
corrupt public servant and a receiver of bribes to pervert justice.--It
is one of the most remarkable circumstances to be found in the history
of any country that a man admittedly pre-eminent in his intellectual
powers, spoken of by his contemporaries in the highest terms for his
virtues and his goodness, should, in subsequent ages, be held up to
obloquy and scorn and seldom be referred to except as an example of a
corrupt judge, a standing warning to those who must take heed how they
stand lest they fall. Truly the treatment which Francis Bacon has
received confirms the truth of the aphorism, "The evil that men do lives
after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."

It is not the intention in the following brief survey of Bacon's life to
enter upon any attempt to vindicate his character. Since his works and
life have come prominently before the reading public, he has never been
without a defender. Montagu, Hepworth Dixon, and Spedding have, one
after the other, raised their voices against the injustice which has
been done to the memory of this great Englishman; and although
Macaulay, in his misleading and inaccurate essay,[1] abounding in
paradoxes and inconsistencies, produced the most powerful, though
prejudiced, attack which has been made on Bacon's fame, he may almost be
forgiven, because it provided the occasion for James Spedding in
"Evenings with a Reviewer," to respond with a thorough and complete
vindication of the man to whose memory he devoted his life. There rests
on every member of the Anglo-Saxon race an obligation--imposed upon him
by the benefits which he enjoys as the result of Francis Bacon's
life-work--to read this vindication of his character. Nor should mention
be omitted of the essay by Mr. J. M. Robertson on "Francis Bacon" in his
excellent work "Pioneer Humanists." All these defenders of Bacon treat
their subject from what may be termed the orthodox point of view. They
follow in the beaten track. They do not look for Bacon outside his
acknowledged works and letters.