CHAPTER II.

FRANCIS BACON I SOME DOUBTS CONNECTED WITH HIS PERSONAL HISTORY, AND ACTUAL WORKS AND AIMS.
" I have been induced to think that if there were a beam of knowledge derived from God upon any man in these modern times, it was upon him." — Dr. Rawley.
IT is certain that, although much is knowrn about Francis Bacon in some parts or phases of his chequered life, yet there is a great deal more which is obscure, or very inade- quately treated by his biographers.
So little has, until recently, been generally thought about him, that the doubts and discrepancies, and even the blanks which are to be found in all the narratives which concern him, have usually passed unnoticed, or have been accepted as matters of course. Yet there are points which it would be well to inquire into.
For instance, what was he doing or where was he travelling during certain unchronicled years ? Why do we hear so little in modern books of that beloved brother Anthony, who was his " comfort," and his " second self " ? And where was Anthony when he died ? Where was he buried ? And why are no particulars of his eventful life, his last illness, death, or burial, recorded in ordinary books ?
Where is the correspondence which passed for years between the brothers ? Sixteen folio volumes at Lambeth inclose a large portion of Anthony's correspondence. Letters important, and apparently unimportant, have been carefully preserved, but amongst them hardly one from Francis. And where is any correspondence of the same kind either from or to him — letters, that is, full of cipher, and containing secret communications, information concerning persons and politics, such as Anthony was engaged in collecting for his especial use ? The letters to Anthony are preserved. Where are those from him ? Then, again, of his chief friends and confidants — why do his published
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 25
letters and biographies pass over lightly, or entirely ignore, his intimate acquaintance with many remarkable men; as for instance, with Michel de Montaigne, John Florio, Father Fulgentius, and Pierre Du Moulin, with John Beaumont and Edward Alleyn, with Giordano Bruno, Theodore Beza, Ben Jonson, Galileo and many more ?
Or, turning to more general inquiries, how came there to be such an outburst of learning and wit in the immediate society of the very man who repeatedly pronounced learning and true literary power to be deficient ? How was it that, although from the first moment when he began to publish, all authors adopted his words, his expressions and his ideas; though they con- tinually echoed, paraphrased, or curtailed his utterances, and set up his judgment as a standard, working, thenceforward, on his lines, his NAME was seldom mentioned, and that, even to this day, the tremendous debts owed to him by the whole civilized world are practically ignored ? Seeing the prodigious difficulty which now meets any attempt to eradicate an old error or to gain acceptance for a new idea, how, we would ask, did Bacon contrive so to impress, not only his new diction, but his new ideas, upon the literature and upon the very life of whole nations?
In the process of collecting material for a harmony between the scientific works of Bacon, Shakespeare, and others, it became apparent that many of Bacon's works, especially the fragmentary works, Valerius Terminus, Thema Gozli, the Histories of Dense and Rare, or Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, etc., still more notably the Sylva Sylvarum, the New Atlantis, and the History of Life and Death (published together, after Bacon's death, by his secretary, Dr. Rawley), as well as the Praise of the Queen (for the publication of which Bacon left special instructions), were not that alone which they pretended to be. They profess to be works on science or history; they prove, when more closely examined and collated with the rest of Bacon's acknowledged works, to be parables, or figurative pieces, conveying a double meaning to those who had knowledge enough to receive it.
These works (like the Shakespeare Sonnets) are all more or less obscure and incomprehensible in aim or form. They are, apparently, full of allusions to other parts of his works, where
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similar expressions are applied to quite different purposes. Sometimes they are to outward appearance fragmentary, im- perfect, manifestly inaccurate or incomplete, in matters with which Bacon was acquainted, yet permitted, nay, ordered, by him to be so published.
It is well known that Bacon's great desire was to be clear, perspicuous, and easily understood. Obscurity in his writing- was, therefore, not caused by disregard of the limited com- prehensions of his readers, or by inadvertence in the choice of words, for he was an absolute master of language, and could write or speak in any style or to any pitch, high or low, which suited his subject. The obscurity, then, was, we are sure, intentional. He admits as much in many places, where he confesses that he finds it desirable " to keep some state " con- cerning himself and his works, and where he, over and over again, commends the use of reserve, secrecy, ambiguous or parabolic language, of allegory, metaphor, simile, and allusion, which are (as he says in the preface to the Wisdom of the Ancients) a veil to hide from the eyes of the vulgar things too deep and difficult for their comprehension. It is desirable that this system or method, of Bacon, should be clearly recognised and understood; it forms a very important element in the matters which are presently to be discussed, and since there are many persons ready to enter into arguments connected with Bacon, but who have never read his works, no apology is needed for reproducing passages from various places where he speaks for himself and in no uncertain tones :
" Parabolic poesy is of a higher character than others (narra- tive or dramatic), and appears to be something sacred and venerable ; especially as religion itself commonly uses its aid as a means of communication between divinity and humanity. But this, too, is corrupted by the levity and idleness of wit in dealing with allegory. It is of double use and serves for contrary purposes ; for it serves for an infoldment, and it like- wise serves for illustration. In the latter case, the object is a certain method of teaching ; in the former, an artifice for con- cealment. Now, this method of teaching, used for illustration, was very much in use in the ancient times. For the inventions and conclusions of human reason (even those that are now common and trite) being then new and strange, the minds of men were hardly subtle enough to conceive them, unless they
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 27
were brought nearer to the sense by this kind of resemblances and examples. And hence the ancient times are full of all kinds of fables, parables, enigmas, and similitudes ; as may appear by the numbers of Pythagoras, the enigmas of the Sphinx, the fables of iEsop, and the like. The apophthegms, too, of the ancient sages, commonly explained the matter by similitudes. Thus Menenius Agrippa, among the Romans (a nation at that time by no noeans learned), quelled a sedition by a fable. In a word, as hieroglyphics were before letters, so parables were before arguments. And even now, and at all times, the force of parables is and has been excellent ; because arguments cannot be made so perspicuous, nor true examples so apt.
" But there remains yet another use of poesy parabolical, opposite to the former; wherein it serves (as I said) for an infoldment ; for such things, I mean, the dignity whereof requires that they should be seen, as it were, through a veil ; that is, when the secrets and mysteries of religion, policy, and philosophy are involved in fables or parables. Now whether any mystic meaning be concealed beneath the fables of the ancient poets is a matter of some doubt. For my own part I must confess that I am inclined to think that a mystery is involved in no small number of them. Nor does the fact that they are commonly left to boys and grammarians, and held in slight repute, make me despise them ; but, rather, since it is evident that the writings in which these fables are related are, next to sacred story, the most ancient of human writings, and the fables themselves still more ancient, I take them to be a kind of breath, from the traditions of more ancient nations, which fell into the pipes of the Greeks. But *inee that which has hitherto been done in the interpretation of these parables, being the work of unskilful men, not learned beyond commonplaces, does not by any means satisfy me, I think to set down Philosophy according to the ancient parables among the desiderata, of which work I will subjoin one or two examples ; not so much, perhaps, for the value of the thing, as for the sake of carrying out my principle, which is this : whenever I set down a work among the desiderata (if there be anything obscure about it) I intend always to set forth either instructions for the execution of it, or an example of the thing ; else it might be thought that it was merely some light notion that had glanced through my mind ; or that I am like an augur measuring countries in thought, without knowing the way to enter them."
He then gives three examples (to which we will by-and-bye return, "one taken from things natural, one from things political, and one from things moral."
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From this notable passage we learn, (1) that Bacon regarded parabolic poetry as a means of communication between Divinity and Humanity, consequently as of greater importance than any other ; (2) of double use, for infoldment and illustration ; (3) that the use of parables was sanctioned by religion and Divinity itself ; (4) that it was largely employed in the philosophy of the ancients, and that, although this was a matter of doubt with others, there was no doubt in the mind of Bacon that the philosophical inter- pretation of the ancient myths was deficient, left to boys and . incapable persons ; and that (5) according to his custom, he was prepared to set forth instructions for the purpose of meeting this deficiency.
The examples given in the Advancement of Learning are but solitary instances. In the Wisdom of the Ancients (now too little read), thirty-one essays disclose to us the matured opinions of Bacon on this subject. The preface to that delightful book repeats at greater length, and in more poetic language, the senti- ments expressed in the Advancement of Learning that "parables serve as well to instruct and illustrate as to wrap up and envelope, and every man of learning must readily allow that this method is grave, sober, or exceedingly useful, and sometimes necessary in the sciences, as it opens an easy and familar passage to the human understanding in all discoveries that are abstruse and out of the road of vulgar opinions. Hence, in the first ages, when such inventions and conclusions of the human reason as are now trite and common were new and little known, all things* abounded with fables, parables, similes, compari- sons, and illustrations, which are not intended to conceal, but to inform and teach, whilst the minds of men continued rude and unpractised in matters of subtlety and speculation, or were impatient, and in a manner incapable, of receiving such things as did not directly fall under and strike the senses. And even to this day, if any man would let new light in upon the human understanding, and conquer prejudice, without raising contests, animosities, opposition, or disturbance, he must still go on in the same path, and have recourse to the like method of allegory, metaphor, and allusion." Bacon had said in the Advancement of Learning — and he repeated in the De Augmentis
" For there's figures in all things " (Henry V. iv. 7.)
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in 1623 — that such parabolic teaching and method of interpreta- tion was deficient, and that he was about to set forth examples for the instruction of others. His assertions and conclusions were never challenged or contradicted. On the contrary, his contemporaries tacitly acquiesced in his statements, and pos- terity has endorsed the estimate given by the great men of his time as to his vast and profound learning and his excellent judgment. When, therefore, we meet with other works of his time, not published under his name, but abounding in " the like method " and use of allegory, metaphor, and allusion, we may with reason question the origin of such works ; we may even consider it to be a matter of considerable doubt. In any case we shall be prepared to find Bacon's own works abounding with metaphors and similes, and his new and subtle ideas and theories "wrapped or delivered'''' in a veil of parable and allegory, and symbolic language.
Having regard to such considerations as the foregoing, it was thought necessary to test the matter by forming a kind of dictionary or harmony of the metaphors, similes, and figurative expressions in the acknowledged works of Bacon and in Shake- speare. About forty thousand of such figurative passages have been brought together from the two groups of works, and it is thus made clear that the metaphors and figures used are to a marvellous extent the same. They exhibit everywhere the same knowledge, the same opinions and tastes, and often the same choice of words ; they mutually elucidate and interchange ideas ; they are found to be connected by innumerable small links and chains with certain fixed ideas which reappear throughout the whole of Bacon's works, and which are indissolubly bound up with the system or method by which he was endeavouring to educate and reform the world. It will be observed that Bacon bases his teaching, in the first instance, upon the figures used in the Bible and by the ancient philosophers, but that he beautifies and expands every symbol, transmuting stones into gold, and making dry bones live. It is impossible to follow up the many questions which grow out of this subject without perceiving that Bacon must in his early youth have deeply studied and mastered the philosophy, not only of the Greeks and Romans (with whom he often compares himself), but also of the learned men of Asia and Africa. The works of Claudius Galen, Porphyry, Diogenes
30 FRANCIS BACON
of Babylon, Constantimis Porphyrogenitus, and Confucius seem to have been as well known to him as those of the Africans, Origen, Diophantus, Athenaeus, Athanasius, Euclid, St. Augus- tine, or Mohammed Rhazi. Many of the allegories and fanciful symbols or emblems which Bacon introduces into his writings, and which are also abundant in Shakepeare, seem derivable from such studies.
We shall presently have to consider the use which Bacon intended to make of this symbolic language and the manner in which it may be interpreted. Let it be said, in passing, that, although he seems to have made an unwearied and exhaustive research into all the ancient philosophies attainable in his time, and in his early youth seems to have been strongly attracted by the study, yet there is in his works no trace of his mind having undergone the upsetting which is perceptible in so many modern students who have " puzzled their intellects " over the origin of religion.
He observes the errors and corruptions of the old cults, although at the same time appreciating all that is worthy of praise ; and in his effort to " mingle earth and heaven," metaphysics and science, the abstract and the concrete, he never indulges in the ecstasies of mysticism or occultism, which modern students of these subjects, following the questionable guidance of the mediaeval orientalists and mystics, have allowed themselves.
Even in adopting the emblems and symbols of the ancient religions he modified them and refined them, and separating from the dross of base matter all that was pure, good, and bright, to the glory of God, and for the use of man.
Doubts as to authorship, though intensified by examination of the metaphors, etc., quickly gave rise to others.
An attempt was next made to trace, in other works not Shakespeare, the notes of Bacon's Promus, as well as his figures and peculiar terms of speech, his opinions, scientific statements, and philosophic aphorisms. So few notes of this kind were found, when compared with the multitude of them which are easily perceptible in Shakespeare, that, at the time of the publication of the Promus, we were disposed to reject as non-
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 31
Baconian most of the Elizabethan dramatists excepting " Marlowe" in whose works at least five hundred points of similarity to Baconian notes and diction are to be found. A closer (or perhaps a more enlightened) study obliges us to modify these views. For it is observed that, although, in many of these works, the Promus notes are scarce, and the entries in certain folios of that collection altogether absent, yet, wherever any Promus notes are discovered in the works of Bacon s time, or for some years later, there also will almost surely be found a number of metaphors of the same kind as those mentioned above. The majority of these will be found traceable to the ancient philosophers and to the Bible, and are always used in the same characteristic and graphic manner in Bacon's works ; the form of the metaphor being modified to suit the style and subject of the piece in which it is set.
This perceptible connection between the metaphors, the Promus notes, and the use of texts from the Bible, throughout the works of Bacon, and the school which he seems to have created, strengthened still further the growing conviction that he was the centre of a powerful and learned secret society, and that the whole of the literature contemporaneous with him was bound together by chains and links, cords and threads, forged, woven, and spun by himself.
With regard to the Promus, edited with passages from Shakespeare, and published in 1883, we would say that further study has thrown new light upon many of the entries. Some, which appeared very obscure, seem to be intimately connected with Bacon's plans for the establishment of his Secret Society. There are also many errors in the arrangement of the notes, some being divided which should have been treated as a whole, and the sheets themselves, as arranged in the Harleian collection, are not, in the editor's opinion, correctly placed. We make no apologies for deficiencies in carrying out a work which was, in the then stage of knowledge, a much more difficult business than it now appears. Ill health must have its share of blame, the editor being rendered incapable of revising proofs with the manuscript at the British Museum. A future edition shall be much more perfect.
Still prosecuting the work of comparative philology and science, the present writer was irresistibly drawn to the con-
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elusion that the works actually written by Bacon himself are far in excess of those ascribed to him by the majority even of his most enthusiastic admirers. Evidently that it would have been beyond human power for any single individual to have observed, experimented, travelled, read, written, to the extent which we find Bacon to have done, unless he had been aided in the mechanical parts of his work by an army of amanuenses, transcribers, collators, translators, and publishers, and even by powerful friends in high places, and by the control of the leading printing-presses.
Examination into Bacon's own repeated statements as to the ignorance, incapacity, and miseries of the age in which he lived, shows him pointing out, amongst other things, the " poverty " of language, the lack of words, the necessity for a mutual exchange of words through many countries, in order to perform that noble and much needed work of building up a fine model of language. He notes the absence of graceful forms of speech ; of commencements, continuations, and conclusions of sentences ; of a scientific grammar of philology, in default of which he has been obliged to make "a kind of" grammar for himself. He shows that there were, in his time, no good collec- tions of antitheta, sophisms, and arguments ; the good sayings of the ancients were lost or forgotten ; the ancient and scriptural use of parables, figures, metaphors, similes was extinct ; the sciences were "weak things" weakly handled; learning had become "words, not matter" ; " the muses were barren virgins "; poetry and the theatre at the lowest level.
So Bacon found things when he conceived his magnificent idea of the " Universal Reformation of the whole wide world." He was at that time a lad of fifteen, and there is reason to believe that he had already written, or was in process of writing, poetry and other works which passed then, and at later periods, as the productions of men of mature years, " authors " of an earlier or later date than is generally ascribed to the works of Francis Bacon.*
And as in his boyhood he found the world of science and literature, not in this country only, but also on the continent (for he makes no exceptions or qualifications to his statement as
* This has been confirmed by further research. See the publications of the Bacon Society and the Ladies' Guild of F. St. Alban.
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to the general ignorance which prevailed), so, excluding his own work from the inquiry, he found it still, when, in his old age, he for the last time summed up the wants and deficiencies of the world in all these matters. In youth, enthusiasm had led him to hope and believe in a speedy regeneration and quickening of the minds and spirits of men. In old age he had learned that "the dull ass will npt mend his pace," and that such advance could only be by slow degrees, and in the future ages. " Of myself" he says, " I am silent" but he repeats his former opinions and statements with undiminished emphasis in 1623.
In the face of such facts as these it appears monstrous to believe that there could really have been in Bacon's time that "galaxy of wits," that extraordinary blaze and outburst of light from many suns, and from a heaven full of stars of the first magnitude, such as we have been taught in our childhood not only to discern but to distinguish. It is more reasonable to suppose that one sun, one supreme spirit, the great Natural Magician and natural philosopher, like Prospero, with many " meaner ministers " to do his biddings, should have planned and carried out, by a method to be transmitted through the whole century, that Great Reformation of the whole world which had been his boyish dream, his fixed idea at the age of fifteen.* Bacon's chief biographer lays stress upon this fact, and as it is one intimately connected with the history of the Secret Society which is the subject of the following pages, it is desirable that it should be firmly established. Again, therefore, we draw attention to the eloquent and beautiful chapter with which Spedding opens his " Letters and Life of Bacon." After telling of the brilliant career of the youthful Francis at Trinity College, Cambridge, of the disappointment which he experienced in that university where he hoped to have learned all that men knew, but where, as he declared, they taught "words, not matter," Spedding says : " It was then a thought struck him, the date of which deserves to be recorded, not for anything extraordinary in the thought itself, but for its influence upon his after life. If our study of nature be thus barren, he thought, our method of study must be wrong ; might not a
* The asre, be it noted, of the " Rosicrucian Father," the elusive author, " Johan Valentin Andreas."
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better method be found ? In him the gift of seeing in prophetic vision what might be, and ought to be, was united with the practical talent of devising means and handling minute details. He could at once imagine like a poet, and execute like a clerk of the works. Upon the conviction, This may be done, followed at once the question, How can it be done? Upon that question followed the resolution to try and do it."
Of the degrees by which the suggestion ripened into a project, the project into an undertaking, and the undertaking unfolded itself into distinct propositions and the full grandeur of its total dimensions, I can say nothing. But that the thought first occurred to him during his residence at Cambridge, therefore before he had completed his fifteenth year, we know on the best authority — his own statement and that of Dr. Rawley. "I believe," says Mr. Spedding, " that it ought to be regarded as the most important event of his life ; the event which had a greater influence than any other upon his character and future course. From that moment there was awakened within his breast the appetite which cannot be satiated, and the passion which cannot commit excess. From that moment he had a vocation which employed and stimulated all the energies of his mind, gave a value to every vacant interval of time, an interest and significance to every random thought and casual accession of knowledge ; an object to live for, as wide as humanity, as immortal as the human race ; an idea to live in, vast and lofty enough to fill the soul forever with religious and heroic aspira- tions. From that moment, though still subject to interruptions, disappointments, errors, regrets, he never could be without either work, or hope, or consolation."
The biographer then shows how the circumstances of Bacon's early life tended to enlist him on the side of reform, religious, scientific, literary, and philanthropic, and to nourish in him high and loyal aspirations.
"Assuming, then," continues he, "that a deep interest in these three great causes — the cause of reformed religion, of his native country, and of the human race through all their genera- tions— was thus early implanted in that vigorous and virgin soil, we must leave it to struggle up as it may, according to the accidents of time and weather. ... Of Bacon's life I am persuaded that no man will ever form a correct idea unless he
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 35
bear in mind that from very early youth his heart was divided by these three objects, distinct but not discordant."*
In the preface to the De Interpretatione Naturoz Prcemium (circa 1603) Spedding describes that paper as of "peculiar interest for us, on account of the passage in which Bacon explains the plans and purposes of his life, and the estimate he had formed of his own character and abilities ; a passage which was replaced in the days of his greatness by a simple De nobis ipsis silemus. It is the only piece of autobiography in which he ever indulged,^ and deserves on several accounts to be carefully considered. The biographer goes on to say that Bacon's own account, written when he was between forty and fifty, of the plan upon which his life had been laid out, the objects which he mainly aimed at, and the motives which guided him, will be found, when compared with the courses which he actually followed in his varied life, to present a very remarkable example of constancy to an original design. He began by conceiving that a wiser method of studying Nature would give man the key to all her secrets, but the work would be long and arduous, and the event remote ; in the meanwhile, he would not neglect the immediate and peculiar services which, as an Englishman, he owed to his country and his religion. With regard to the last two he found, as life wore away, that the means and opportuni- ties which he had hoped for did not present themselves ; and he resolved to fall back upon the first, as an enterprise which depended upon himself alone."
Perhaps it may be found that Bacon's reason for throwing his chief weight into the work which none could execute except himself, was that he did find means and opportunities, through others, to advance not only politics and statesmanship, but re- ligion and the cause of the church. It will, however, be easily seen that if Bacon would carry forward such work, in times so " dark and dangerous," he must do it secretly, and by the aid of powerful friends and assistants. We, therefore, find ourselves engaged in tracing the workings of a great secret society ; and since, so far as we have discovered, that work depended mainly upon Bacon himself, it is necessary to regard his life and actions
* Spedding, Letters and Life of Bacon, i. 4, 5.
t This observation will, we think, require modification. " It is the only piece of autobiography which he acknowledges."
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from a totally new point of view, and to acknowledge at the out- set that, excepting in the capacity of lawyer, which he disliked and shrank from ; of courtier, for which he felt himself " unapt ; " and of statesman, for which he pronounced himself to be " least fit" very little is really known about Francis Bacon.
This lack of satisfactory information has probably led modern writers too much to copy from each other, without duly weigh- ing and examining statements made hastily, to turn a phrase, or of malice prepense. It is usual, in other cases, to lay great store by the evidence of respectable contemporary authority. Need we remind anyone of the eagerness with which such pieces of evidence, even the weakest, have been snatched at and enshrined as gems of priceless value, when they seemed to affect William Shakspere? But, with Francis Bacon, the case is altered. Evidence of contemporary writers, such as Ben Jonson, or Dr. Sprat, president of the Royal Society, or of Bacon's secretary, afterwards the Queen's chaplain, Dr. Rawley, or of his intimate friend and life-long correspondent, Sir Tobie Matthew, is waived aside, when they pour out, in eloquent language, their witness as to his greatness, his genius, his sweetness, and de- voutness of disposition and mind. Aubrey is " a gossip " when he echoes the tale, and says, emphasising the words, that " all who were good and great loved him." The rest were " prejudiced," or " partial," or did not mean what they said.
Why are such records of Bacon's closest friends, secretaries, coadjutors, and contemporaries, as well as those of his most painstaking biographers, and of his most appreciative disciples and followers, to be rejected in favour of two lines of poetry penned more than a hundred years after his death, and of a hostile review of Basil Montague's edition of Bacon's works? For many years those two lines of Pope,* and that reviewr of Macaulay, together with Lord Campbell's odious little " Life of Bacon " (based upon Macaulay's essay), were nearly all that the English public read with regard to " Francis Bacon, the glory of his age and nation, the adorner and ornament of learning," " the most prodigious wit " that the world has seen, " the bene- factor of the human race in all ages."
* Pope's " Essay of Man " is beginning to lie under suspicion. The word Mean in Bacon's times expressed mean, poor, humble, rejected — not stingy, illiberal or avaricious. See 30 examples in Shakespeare alone.
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Let us forget the foolish and cruel things which modern ignorance and prejudice have said of him, things which must be excused and partly justified by our theory that he was, throughout his life, a " concealed man " — not only a " concealed poet," but a concealed theologian and religious reformer or re- vivalist ; and that, by the very rules of his own Secret Society, not only was he bound, in tjiese capacities, to efface himself, to allow himself to be, to any extent, maligned and disgraced, rather than declare his real vocation and aims, but, also (and this is very important), his own friends must ignore him, as he must likeicise ignore them, in all relations excepting those which he " professed " — as a public character and a philosopher.
In the following chapters we shall not attempt to give a " life M of Bacon in his accepted characters of statesman, lawyer, or scientist, all of which has been faithfully, and, perhaps, ex- haustively, treated of by Spedding and others. Our efforts will be directed to selecting, from the writings of his contemporaries and later biographers and critics, some passages which seem to throw light upon the obscure or private recesses of his life — passages which are sometimes introduced in such a manner as to favour the belief that they were intended to be passed over by the general reader, whilst, to the initiated observer, they were full of suggestion and information.
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