IV. 132.)

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 129
alluded to the troubles in Ireland, with which he was con- cerned. Not only had this new play drawn crowds of courtiers and citizens to the Globe Theatre, when first it appeared, but it had a long and splendid run, being played not only in the theatre, but in the open street and in the court-yards of inns. The Earl of Essex (who, before his voyage, had been a constant auditor at the Globe) lentfthe play his countenance ; it is even said that he ordered it to be played at his own expense, when Phillips, the manager, declared that the piece had been so long before the public that another performance could not pay. No wonder, then, that the Queen was angry and disturbed by this play, which, she thought, was part of a plot to teach her subjects how to murder kings. " I am Richard" she said ; " know you not that ? "
A pamphlet by a young doctor of civil law, John Hay ward, published almost simultaneously with the play, increased the Queen's wrath and apprehension. Taking as its basis the story of the play, this pamphlet drew from it morals which were supposed to be seditious. In one place it even affirmed the exist- ence of a title superior to the Queen.* This book proved too much for Elizabeth's patience, and, sending the scribe to prison, she summoned Francis Bacon " to draw up articles against him," says the biographer ; but, perhaps, also, because she had reason to think that Bacon would know more than others about the matter. Bacon, in his Apophthegms, or witty sayings, and again in his Apologia concerning Essex, relates this episode. But he, apparently, intentionally and ingeniously confuses his stonj, in the same manner of which examples will be given in the chapter on " Feigned Histories " ; in the same way, too, as the accounts of the origin of Freemasonry are garbled and mixed up, in order to puzzle the uninitiated reader.
He remembers (he says in the Apologia) an answer of his " in a matter which had some affinity with my Lord of Essex's cause, ichich, though it grew from me, went after about in others' names.^ For her Majesty, being mightily incensed with that book which was dedicated to my Lord (being a story of the first
* See Emblems and Metaphors, Queen. We think that time may alter the judgment and interpretation of this pamphlet.
t Does this enigmatical sentence mean that the play in question was his, although it passed under the name of another?
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year of King Henry IV.), thinking it a seditious prelude to put into the people's heads boldness and faction, said she had a good opinion there was treason in it, and asked me if I could not find any places in it that might be drawn within case of treason ; whereunto I answered, for treason surely found I none, but for felony very many. And when her Majesty hastily asked me wherein ? I told her the author had committed very apparent theft, for he had taken most of the sentences of Cornelius Tacitus and translated them into English, and put them into his text."
This we see is of the play ; but the story continues : "Another time, when the Queen would not be persuaded that it was his writing whose name was to it, but that it had some more mischievous author, and said, with great indignation, that she would have him racked to produce his author, I replied, ' Nay, Madame, he is a doctor [Bacon, therefore, had note turned the argument on to Dr. Hayward's pamphlet] ; never rack his person, rack his stile ; let him have pens, ink, and paper, and help of books, and be enjoined to continue the story where it leaves off, and I will undertake, by collecting the stiles, to judge whether he were the author or no.' " It should be observed that Bacon does not propose to " collect " or collate the style of the pamphlet with that of the play, which would be the obvious thing to do if the author of the obnoxious play and the author of the equally obnoxious pamphlet were supposed to be in collusion.
His object, evidently, is to get the young doctor of law (probably a member of his secret society) out of the difficulties into which he had fallen through his complicity in the publica- tion of a political squib against tyranny, which Bacon was well aware that Dr. Hay ward did not write.
Does no one think it strange that Francis Bacon should have told the Queen that the finest passages in Richard II. are taken from Cornelius Tacitus and translated into English in that text, and yet that no commentator on Shakespeare, no student of Tacitus, should have been at the pains of pointing out these passages ? They must be cleverly used, to be so indistinguish- able to these learned readers, for they are there.
And is it to be taken as a mere matter of course that Bacon, who as a rule mentions himself so little, should have recorded
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this scene and his own speech amongst his collection of witty sayings, when that speech (which is not very witty) would have had no point if it had not been true ?
And we ask again, Did it not appear strange to Queen Elizabeth that Bacon should show such intimate knowledge of the sources from which some of the chief passages in Richard II. were derived — a knowledge beyond any which has been dis- played by the most learned and authentic Shakespeare societies which have existed until now ?
These episodes about Dr. Hayward's tract and the play of Richard II. incline us to a conviction, which is strengthened by other evidence, that Queen Elizabeth had a very shrewd suspicion, if not an absolute knowledge, that Francis was intimately connected with the revival of the stage in her times. Sometimes it almost seems as if she had a still deeper acquaintance with the aims and objects of his life ; that some- times she disapproved, and was only kept from venting upon him all the vials of her wrath, first by her strong esteem and regard for his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, and secondly, by her admiration of Francis himself. It seems not impossible that the Queen's reverence for Sir Nicholas may have been increased by her knowledge of his schemes for the revival of learning, and she may have known, probably did know, that it was the aim of the son to carry out the plans of his father. All this is conjectured, though based upon observation of small particulars. Yet it does not appear that the Queen, although she admired Francis, considered him equal to Sir Nicholas. On the contrary, she often thwarted him, or publicly passed him over in a manner which was very painful to him. Probably, as is so often the case with old people, she could not comprehend that the son, whom she looked on as a boy, would so far outshine the father that the latter should hereafter be chiefly known as " Francis Bacon's father."
On the occasion of the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the Count Palatine, February 14, 1612-13, the usual re- joicings took place ; triumphs, fire-works, sham fights upon the water, masques, running at the ring, and the rest of it, "con- cerning which," says Spedding,* " it would not have been
* Life and Letters, IV., 343.
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necessary to say anything were it not that Bacon took a principal