The Shakespeare Myth

This important fact which can neither be disputed nor explained away, viz., that the figure upon the title page of the first Folio of the plays in 1623 put to represent Shakespeare is a doubly left-armed and stuffed dummy, surmounted by a ridiculous putty-faced mask, disposes once and for all of any idea that the mighty plays were written by the drunken, illiterate clown of Stratford-on-Avon, and shows us quite clearly that the name "Shakespeare" was used as a left-hand, a pseudonym, behind which the great author, Francis Bacon, wrote securely concealed. In his last prayer, Bacon says, "I have though in a despised weed procured the good of all men," while in the 76th "Shakespeare" sonnet he says: —

 
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keepe invention in a noted weed.
That every word doth almost sel my name
Shewing their birth, and where they did proceed.
 

Weed signifies disguise, and is used in that sense by Bacon in his "Henry VII.," where he says, "This fellow… clad himself like an Hermite and in that weede wandered about the countrie."

It is doubtful if at that period it was possible to discover a meaner disguise, a more "despised weed," than the pseudonym of William Shakespeare, of Stratford-on-Avon, Gentleman. Bacon also specially refers to his own great "descent to the Good of Mankind" in the wonderful prayer which is evidently his dedication of the "Immortal Plays."

THIS IS THE FORM AND RULE OF OUR

ALPHABET

May God, the Creator, Preserver, and Renewer of the Universe, protect and govern this work, both in its ascent to his Glory, and in its descent to the Good of Mankind, for the sake of his Mercy and good Will to Men, through his only Son (Immanuel). God us.

In the "Promus," which is the name of Bacon's notebook now in the MSS. department of the British Museum, Bacon tells us that "Tragedies and Comedies are made of one Alphabet." His beautiful prayer, described as the Form and Rule of our Alphabet, was first published in 1679 in "Certaine Genuine Remains of Sir Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam and Viscount St. Albans," where it appears as a fragment of a book written by the Lord Verulam and entituled, "The Alphabet of Nature." In the preface we are told that this work is commonly said to be lost. "The Alphabet of Nature" is, of course, "The Immortal Plays," known to us as Shakespeare's, which hold "The Mirror up to Nature," and are now no longer lost, but restored to their great author, Francis Bacon.

BACON SHEWN BY CONTEMPORARY TITLE PAGES TO BE THE AUTHOR OF THE SHAKESPEARE PLAYS

I HAVE shewn on pp. 6 to 9 that the title page of the 1623 Folio of the Plays known as Shakespeare's is adorned with a supposed portrait of Shakespeare, which is, in fact, a putty-faced mask supported on a stuffed dummy wearing a coat with two left arms, to inform us that the Stratford clown was a "left-hand," a "dummy," a "pseudonym," behind which the great Author was securely concealed.

This fact disposes once and for all of the Shakespeare myth, and I will now proceed to prove by a few contemporary evidences that the real author was Francis Bacon.

I place before the reader on page 11 a photographically enlarged copy of the engraved title page of Bacon's work, the De Augmentis, which was published in Holland in 1645. "De Augmentis" is the Latin name for the work which appeared in English as the Advancement of Learning.

This same engraved title page was for more than one hundred years used for the title page of Vol. I. of various editions of Bacon's collected works in Latin, which were printed abroad. The same subject, but entirely redrawn, was also employed for other foreign editions of the De Augmentis, but nothing in any way resembling it was printed in England until quite recently, when photo-facsimile copies were made of it for the purpose of discussing the authorship of the "Shakespeare" plays. In this title page we see in the foreground on the right of the picture (the reader's left) Bacon seated with his right hand in brightest light resting upon an open book beneath which is a second book (shall we venture to say that these are the De Augmentis and the Novum Organum?), while with his left-hand in deepest shadow, Bacon is putting forward a mean man, who appears to the careless observer to be running away with a third book. Let us examine carefully this man. We shall then perceive that he is clothed in a goat skin. The word tragedy is derived from the Greek word tragodos, which means an actor dressed in a goat skin. We should also notice that the man wears a false breast to enable him to represent a woman; there were no women actors at the time of Shakespeare's plays. The man, therefore, is intended to represent the tragic muse. With his left hand, and with his left hand only, he grips strongly a clasped sealed, concealed book, which by the crossed lines upon its side (then, as now, the symbol of a mirror) is shewn to be the "Mirror up to Nature," the "Book of the Immortal Plays," known to us under the name of Shakespeare, which, together with Bacon's De Augmentis and his Novum Organum, makes up the "Great Instauration," by which Bacon has "procured the good of all men."

Having very carefully considered this plate of the title page of the De Augmentis, 1645, let us next examine the plate on page 13, which is the title page that forms the frontispiece of Bacon's Henry VII. in the Latin edition, printed in Holland in 1642. This forms, with the 1645 edition of the De Augmentis, one of the series of Bacon's collected works which were continually reprinted for upwards of a hundred years. In this title page of Henry VII. we see the same "left-handed" story most emphatically repeated. On the right of the engraving – the reader's left – upon the higher level, Francis Bacon stands in the garb of a philosopher with grand Rosicrucian rosettes upon his shoes. By his side is a knight in full armour, who, like himself, touches the figure with his right hand. On the "left" side of the picture upon the lower level we see that the same Francis Bacon, who is now wearing actor's boots, is stopping the wheel with the shaft of a spear which, the "left-handed" actor grasps (or shall we say "shakes"), while with his "left hand" he points to the globe. This actor wears one spur only, and that upon his "left" boot, and his sword is also girded upon him "left-handedly." Above this "left-handed" actor's head, upon the wheel which the figure is turning with her "left" hand, we see the emblems of the plays; the mirror up to nature (observe the crossed lines to which we called attention in reference to the crossed lines upon the book in the title page of the De Augmentis, 1645) – the rod for the back of fools – "the bason that receives your guilty blood" (see Titus Andronicus v. 2) which is here the symbol for tragedy, – and the fool's rattle or bauble. That the man is not a knight, but is intended to represent an actor, is manifest from his wearing actor's boots, a collar of lace, and leggings trimmed with lace, and having his sword girded on the wrong side, while he wears but one gauntlet and that upon his "left" hand. That he is a Shake-speare actor is also evident because he is shaking the spear which is held by Bacon. He is likewise a shake-spur actor, as is shewn by his wearing one spur only, which is upon his "left" boot. In other emblematic writings and pictures we similarly get "Shake-spur," meaning "Shake-speare."

The reader cannot fail to remark how perpetually it is shewn that everything connected with the plays is performed "left-handedly," that is, "underhandedly" and "secretly in shadow." On the right-hand side upon the higher level the figure with her right hand holds above Bacon's head a salt box. This is in order to teach us that Bacon was the "wisest of mankind," because we are plainly told in the "Continuation of Bacon's New Atlantis" (which was published in 1660, but of which the author who is called "R. H., Esq.," has never been identified) that in "our Heraldry" (which refers to the symbolic drawings that appear mostly as the frontispieces of certain books such as those before the reader) "If for wisdom she (the virgin) holds a salt." But the reader will perceive that in her right hand she also holds something else above Bacon's head.

Only a considerable knowledge of Emblems and Emblem books enables me to inform my readers what this very curious object represents. It is absolutely certain that what she holds above Bacon's head is a "bridle without a bit," which is here put for the purpose of instructing us that the future age is not to curb and muzzle and destroy Bacon's reputation. This emblem tells us that, as the ages roll on, Bacon will be unmuzzled and crowned with everlasting fame. How do we know so much as this? In February, 1531, the first edition of the most important of all Emblem books, viz., "Alciati's Emblems," was published, and in that book there is shewn a hideous figure of Nemesis holding a bridle in which is a tremendous "bit" to destroy "improba verba," false reputations. A little more than a hundred years later, viz., in 1638, Baudoin, who had translated Bacon's essays into French, also published a book of Emblems, a task which, he tells us in the preface, he was induced to undertake by "Alciat" (printed in small letters) and by BACON (printed in capital letters). In this book of Emblems Baudoin puts opposite to Bacon's name a fine engraving of Nemesis, but which is, in fact, a figure of Fame holding a "bridle without a bit," of exactly the same shape as that shewn in the title page of "Henry VII.," which is now under the reader's eyes. I may perhaps here state that I possess books that must have belonged to a distinguished Rosicrucian who was well acquainted with Bacon's secrets, and that in my library there is a specially printed copy of Baudoin's book in which this figure of Fame that is put as the Nemesis for Bacon, is purposefully printed upside down; I do not mean bound upside down, but printed upside down, the printing on the back being reversed and so reading correctly. Other books which I possess have portions similarly purposefully printed upside down to afford revelations of Bacon's authorship to those readers who are capable of understanding symbols. This particular upside down drawing of the Nemesis placed opposite to Bacon's name in Baudoin's book is so printed in order to emphasise the author's meaning that the Nemesis for Bacon is to unmuzzle him and spread his fame over all the world. This "specially printed" copy of Baudoin's book is also "specially bound" – in contemporary binding – with Rosicrucian Emblems on the back.

The figure which turns the wheel turns it with her "left" hand, while with her right hand she holds over Bacon's head what the reader now knows to be the emblems of Wisdom and of Fame. Streaming from her head is a long lock of hair which is correctly described as "the forelock of time," and this is to teach us that as time goes on so will Bacon's reputation continually extend farther and farther.

Bacon in his will declared that he bequeathed his "name and memory… to foreign nations and the next ages."⁵ Bacon knew that much time must elapse before the world would begin to recognise how much he had done for its advancement, and there is considerable evidence that he fixed upon the year 1910, which is 287 years after the year 1623, in which the Folio edition of the immortal plays, known as Shakespeare's, first appeared.

With respect to Bacon's remarkable reference to foreign nations, we must remember that the title pages here shown and numerous other striking revelations of his authorship of the plays were never printed or published in England, but appear only in editions printed in foreign countries. I will once more repeat that the title page of the "De Augmentis" clearly tells us that Bacon has secretly with his "left hand" placed his great work, the "Immortal plays," "the Mirror up to Nature," in the hands of a mean actor, and that the title page of "Henry VII." repeats the same "lefthanded" story, and tells us that, while the history of Henry VII. is written in prose in Bacon's own name, his other histories of the "Kings of England" are set forth at the Globe Theatre by the Shakespeare actor, concealed behind whom Bacon stands secure. In other words, that Bacon's other histories of England will be found in the plays to which is attached the name of his pseudonym, the doubly "lefthanded" and masked dummy, "William Shakespeare."