I. 1. % Lear, I. 5.

268 FRANCIS BACON
pity, etc. No one can doubt that Shakespeare, like Enoch, was a good Mason.
Surely, too, the eye of the perceptive intellect, the ready ear for truth (in other works, the Will, which, Bacon says, rules thought, free as it is), and the tender sympathy which is in touch with all created nature, are the three senses of hearing, seeing, and feeling, which are deemed particularly essential amongst Masons.
. Then of smelling, " that sense by which we distinguish odours," we recall " Ovidius Naso smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy ; ''* the Fool's exposition of " why one's nose stands V the middle on 's face, to keep one's eyes of either side 's nose ; that what a man cannot smell out he may spy into"^ with many other similar figures ; of smelling out villainy, f at which " Heaven stops the nose " ; § of the air and smell of the court ; of calumny ; of sin, offence and corruption ; of mortality and Heaven's breath. || Ariel's graphic description of the effect produced upon the varlets Trinculo, Stephano, and Caliban, by his music, shows the tendency throughout Bacon's works to associate many or opposite ideas in such a manner as to make them blend into one harmonius thought. Here all the five senses do their part and are shown to be mutually connected. The men were drinking, and striking out, striving to touch something. Ariel beats his tabor, and their senses are so confused that they try to see or to smell his music, following it to the detriment of their shins, the sense of hearing beguiling the sense of touch, until they are plunged into the midst of foul-svielling mud. We feel throughout that the author is illustrating his doctrine of the Biform Figure of Nature, showing how a man who takes no pains to cultivate the intellectual and spiritual side of his nature reduces himself to the level of the brutes, to which by his body he is kin.
Ari. I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking;
So full of valour that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces ; beat the ground
For kissing of their feet ; yet always bending
Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor ;
* L. L. L. IV. 2. f Lear, I. 5. % Othello, V. 2. § lb. IV. 2. || There are about fifty passages in Shakespeare alone which illustrate this one idea.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 269
At which, like unback'd colts, they prick' 'd their ears, Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses As they smelt music : so I charm'd their ears That calf-like they my lowing follow'd through Tooth'd briars, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns, Which entered their frail shins : at last I left them r the filthy-mantled -pool beyond your cell, There dancing up to the chins, that the foul lake 0"erstunk their feet*
Lastly, with regard to the organ of taste, " which enables us to make a proper distinction in the choice of our food : this sense guards the entrance of the alimentary canal, as that of smell guards the entrance of the canal for respiration. Smelling and tasting are inseparably connected, and it is by the unnatural kind of life men commonly lead in society that these senses are rendered less fit to perform their natural offices. . . . The senses are the channels of communication to the mind, and when the mind is diseased every sense loses its virtue." In the noblest arts the mind of man is the subject upon which we operate, and wise men agree that there is but one way to the knowledge of Nature's works, the way of observation and experiment. " Memory, imagination, taste, reasoning, moral perception, and all the active powers of the soul . . . constitute a proper subject for the investigation of Masons, and are mysteries known only to Nature and to Nature's God, to whom all are indebted for every blessing they enjoy." In other words, " the proper study of mankind is Man," and humanity must be led to inquire, and " to look from Nature up to Nature's God." Yet it is difficult to see how this dissertation has any true connection with the adjoining passages on architecture, or with those which immediately follow, on " geometry, the first and noblest of the sciences," the same as symmetry, and "order, Heaven's first law," unless we take the view that all this is the symbolic language. In this section God is called, in Baconian language, the Divine Artist, the Great Artificer of the Universe, the Archi- tect of Nature. The Universe itself is God's vast machine, framed by Himself, and through which, by geometry, " we may curiously trace Nature, through her various windings, to her most concealed recesses."
* Tempest, IV. 1.
270 FRANCIS BACON
In the really poetical and very Baconian description here given of the beauty and order displayed in the various parts of animate and inanimate creation, the writer delights to prove " the existence of a first cause. . . . Every blade of grass that covers the field, every flower that blows, every insect which wings its way into unbounded space, . . . the variegated carpet of the terrestrial creation, every plant that grows, every flower that displays its beauties or breathes its sweets, affords instruc- tion and delight. When we extend our views to the animal creation, and contemplate the varied clothing of every species, . . . the hues traced by the divine pencil in the plumage of the feathered tribe, how exalted is our conception of the heavenly work. . . . The apt disposition of one part to another is a perpetual study to the geometrician. . . . Even when he descends into the bowels of the earth he finds . . . that every gem and pebble proclaims the handiwork of an Almighty Creator."
In the sixth section of the second degree, previous utterances, suggestions, and lessons are repeated, still in diluted Baconian terms. Evaporating a little superfluous phraseology, we again come upon familiar exhortations to temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice. Temperance, which governs the passions. Fortitude, which he who possesses is seldom shaken, and never overthrown by the storms that surround him. Prudence, the chief jewel of the human frame. Justice, the bound of right, the cement of civil society, which, in a great measure, constitutes real goodness, and which should be the perpetual study of the good Mason. Virtue, true nobility. Wisdom, the channel through which virtue is directed and conveyed. The mind, the noblest subject of our studies. Observation and experiment, the one way to the knowledge of nature's works.
Masonry, we are repeatedly told, is a progressive science, including almost every branch of polite learning. The omission implied consists, apparently, in all matters connected with Christianity and the Church of Christ ; in fact, if, as we think, Bacon framed these rules, we see that this must be so. For, after a dissertation (still in Baconian language paraphrased), upon " geometry, the noblest of the sciences ; " . . . upon the " numberless worlds framed by the same Divine Artist, which roll through the vast expanse, conducted by the unerring laws
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 271
of nature," and of the " progress made in architecture, particu- larly in the reign of Solomon," these instructions finish up with a short explanation of the liberal arts, which are computed by the Masons to be seven in number.*
These arts are grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy (which-includes the doctrine of the spheres), geography, navigation, and the arts dependent on them. " Thus end the different sections of the second lecture," . . . which, besides a complete theory of philosophy and physics, contains a regular system of science, demonstrated on the clearest prin- ciples, and established on the firmest foundations.
Truly this must be a wonderful lecture, and it seems quite a pity that the majority of mankind should be excluded from this short cut to the seven liberal arts and sciences. Perhaps, how- ever, it only points the way, as Bacon did, to so many studies which ultimately lead to knowledge fitting its possessor for admission to the last and highest degree of initiation. For the third and last lecture consists of twelve sections, composed of " a variety of particulars, which render it impossible to give an abstract without violating the laws of the order. . . . Every circumstance that respects government and system, ancient lore and deep research, curious invention and ingenious, is accurately traced, while the mode of proceeding, on public as well as on private occasions, is explained. Among the brethren of this degree the land-marks of the order are preserved ; and from them is derived that fund of information which expert and ingenious craftsmen only can afford, whose judgment has been matured by years and experience."
"Toa complete knowledge of this lecture few attain ; . . . from this class the rulers of the craft are selected ; and it is only from those who are capable of giving instruction that we can properly expect to receive it."
It is, then, this highest class of Masons that we should con- fidently expect to find in possession of all the histories of the building and endowing of the great libraries, colleges, schools, hospitals, etc., of which we have elsewhere spoken. We should expect them not only to be able to give account of the origin
* Seven, that mystical number, which, as we have elsewhere said, is so closely associated with Masonic symbols and traditions.
272 FRANCIS BACON
and builders of these and other structures — gateways, fountains, etc., to ancient houses ; tombs and monumental tablets and sculptures ; of wood-carvings, of pulpits, choir stalls, etc. ; of ironwork in churches, gateways, and old signs ; designs in stained windows and ceilings. We should also expect from them a clear and indubitable explanation of the meaning of the peculiar designs and figures which we observe, not only in buildings, but in books, dress, furniture, and ornaments.
A very brief account of the building of the Temple of Solomon, and of the dedication of that edifice, follows. " We can," says the author, " afford little assistance to the industrious Mason in this section, as it can only be acquired by oral communi- cation.'''' A remark again plainly showing us that the temple to be built is not a mere structure of brick or stone. Two pages more bring us to an explanation of " the seven liberal arts," of which five at least seem to have nothing to do with architecture, and as these, together with "the doctrine of the spheres," are all to be included in one lecture, we may rest satisfied that this lecture is not so profound as its title might lead us to suppose.
Here we should be inclined to break off this review of Masonry, because, having extracted as much as we can of the pith and meaning and aim of these Masonic mysteries, it seems undesir- able to spend time and space upon particulars which apparently have for their object to puzzle and confuse the uninitiated reader ; though to the initiated they may, perhaps, convey some information or reminder. We continue, nevertheless, chiefly for the sake of illustrating a theory set forward in another place, with regard to feigned or disguised histories, records and biogra- phies, and changed names.
In Book III. a short paper is printed which professes to con- tain " Certayne questions, with answers to the same, concerning the mystery of Maconrye, writtene by the hande of Kynge Henrye, the sixthe of the name, and faithfullye copyed by me Johan Leyland, antiquarius, by the commande of his Highnesses Whether this document is all that it pretends to be, is not to the present purpose ; our object is to draw attention to the strange footnotes which accompany the questions, and which occupy much more letter-press than the document itself. None
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 273
of these notes appear to be both genuine and necessary ; some contain the elaborate quibbles or puns said to be irresistible to Bacon, but which, also, we think, formed a part of the secret and ambiguous language of his society ; others speak of the invention of arts which Bacon suggested or commenced ; all include touches of his style ; one mentions his name. For instance, footnote 6 turns upon a supposed confusion between Venetia and Phoenicia : " perhaps similitude of sound might deceive the clerk who first took down the examination." Then to the question, " Howe commede ytt yn Engelonde ?" we are informed that Masonry was brought by "Peter Gower, a Grecian," who, after travelling through Egypt and Syria, and every coun- try where " the Venetians " had planted Masonry, " framed a grate lodge at ' Groton.' " The footnotes again correct this passage at much length :
" Peter Gower must be another mistake of the writer. I was puzzled at first to guess who Peter Gower should be, the name being perfectly English ; or how a Greek could come by such a name. But as soon as I thought of Pythagoras, I could scarce forbear smiling to find that philosopher had undergone a metem- psychosis he never dreamt of. We need only consider the French pronunciation of his name, Pythagore, that is, Petagore, to conceive how easily such a mistake may be made by an unlearned clerk."
The true object of this note seems to be to draw attention to the connection between Pythagoras and the wisdom and religious mysteries of the Egyptians. " That he was initiated into several different orders of priests, who in those days kept all their learning secret from the vulgar" is a hint which seems to point to a similar system in Masonry, and the subsequent remarks about Pythagoras discovering the Fort}7-seventh Propo- sition of the First Book of Euclid, and that he " made every geometrical theorem a secret, and admitted only such to the knowledge of them as had first undergone a five years' silence," seems to contain a further hint concerning the nature of certain highly scientific systems of cipher-writing which we have else- where found mentioned in connection with the name of Pythagoras.
With regard to " the grate lodge " which Pythagoras is said to have founded at Groton, another footnote corrects the error after this fashion : " Groton is the name of a place in England.
274 FRANCIS BACON
The place here meant is Crotona," etc. From the many Masons made by Pythagoras " yn processe of tyme, the arte passed yn Engelonde."
In answer to the question, " Whatte artes haveth the Maconnes techedde mankynde ? " we are told that they taught agriculture, architecture, astronomy, numbers, music, poesy, chemistry, government, and " rehjgyonne " (religion). To this a footnote appends the remark, " What appears most odd is, that they reckon religion among the arts" and this appears to give another hint of the double-meanings, and symbolism, and, perhaps, of the cipher-system introduced, then as now, into religious books, pictures, designs, and edifices.
But the next note is even more suggestive. In reply to an inquiry as to what the Masons conceal, we learn that " they coneelethe the arte of ffyndynge neue artes." Here our com- mentator becomes more than usually communicative :
" The art of finding arts must certainly be a most useful art. My Lord Bacon's Novum Organum is an attempt toward some- what of the same kind. But I much doubt that, if ever the Masons had it, they have now lost it, since so few new arts have been lately invented and so many are icanted. The idea I have formed of such an art is, that it must be something proper to be employed in all the sciences generally, as algebra is in numbers, by the help of which new rules of arithmetic are and may be found.1'
The Masons, also, are said to conceal the art of keeping secrets, though what kind of an art this may be the commentator pro- fesses not to know. They also conceal " the art of changes " (but he knows not what it means) and " the f acuity e of Abrac." Here he is utterly in the dark. Lastly, Masons conceal their " universal language." The footnote to this statement might be supposed to be a mere transcription, either of some rough notes or of verbal instructions given by Bacon himself :
"An universal language has been much desired by the learned of many ages. It is a thing rather to be wished than hoped for. . . . If it be true, I guess it must be something like the language of the pantomines amongst the ancient Romans, who were said to be able, by signs only, to express and deliver any oration intelligibly to all men and languages."
Bacon makes many references to the silent language conveyed
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 275
by pictures or sculptures, but the passage just qouted may contain a hint of the instruction which may be given by dumb shows, or stage plays, for it continues as Bacon does where, in the De Augmentis, he upholds the benefits derivable from a wise use of the theatre. Yet in all that regards these arts of concealment, there are, to the mind of the present writer, strong hints of a system not so much of secret studies as of secret methods of communication, whether by means of cipher-writing, hieroglyphic designs, pantomimic gestures, or double-meaning language. This can only be tested by a comparison of many books in which veiled information of the same kind is to be found. May some industrious reader follow up the subject, which seems to become easier as we plod on.
The fourth and last book in this strange little volume professes to give " The History of Masonry in England." Whether or not anyone was ever found to believe the statements made in the opening chapters of this " History " we know not, but hitherto we have not found them repeated, excepting in Masonic dictionaries and manuals. We are to believe that " Masonry " flourished in England before the time of the Druids ; that lodges and conventions were regularly held throughout the period of Roman rule until Masonry was reduced to a low ebb through continual wars. At length the Emperor Carausius, having shaken off the Roman yoke, contrived the most effectual means to render his person and government acceptable to the people by assuming the character of a Mason. ... He raised the Masons to the first rank as his favourites and appointed Albanus, his steward, the principal superintendent of their assemblies. Later on, " he granted them a charter and commanded Albanus to preside over them as Grand Master. Some particulars of a man so truly exemplary among Masons will certainly merit attention. Albanus was born at Verulam, now St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, of a noble family." Some account of the proto- martyr, St. Alban, is then introduced ; it ends by saying that St. Alban built a splendid palace for the Emperor at Verulam, and that to reward his diligence " the Emperor made him steward of his household and chief ruler of the realm. . . . We are assured that this knight was a celebrated architect and a real encourager of able workmen; it cannot, therefore, be supposed that Free- masonry would be neglected under so eminent a patron."
276 FRANCIS BACON
This remarkable and authentic history further enlightens us as to St. Alban's munificence and liberality in paying his servants. " Whereas before that time, in all the land, a Mason had but a penny a day and his meat, St. Alban mended it," for " he gave them two shillings a day, and threepence to their cheer. . . . He also got them a charter from the King."* An additional note adds that "a MS. written in the time of James II. contains an account of this circumstance, and increases the weekly pay to 3s. 6d. and 3d. a day for the bearers of burdens/' These payments were liberal for the seventeenth century. For the days of St. Alban, martyred a.d. 303, the allowance strikes us as remarkable for labouring masons and hod-men. Perhaps we may find three shillings and sixpence per week was the pay for scribes, amanuenses, etc., and threepence a day for messengers.
The editor of the Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia is so considerate as to grant his readers the full use of their faculties in this investigation. To be sure, he complicates it as much as possible by cross-references, but it seems to be the rule rather than the exception to hinder students from obtaining any information of value without the exercise of some perseverance and considerable loss of time. Thus, we wish to ascertain the origin of Free- masonry. Finding nothing to the point under " Freemason," we try " Origin of Freemasonry," and are more happy. This article summarises the theories promulgated on the subject : " 1. Masonry derived from the patriarchs. 2. From the mysteries of the pagans. 3. From the construction of Solomon's Temple. 4. From the Crusades. 5. From the Knights Templars. 6. From the Roman Collegia of Artificers. 7. From the operative masons of the middle ages. 8. From the Rosicrucians of the sixteenth century, f 9. From Oliver Cromwell. 10. From Prince Charles Stuart, for political purposes. 11. From Sir Christopher Wren, at the building of St. Paul's. 12. From Dr. Desaguliers and his friends, in 1717."
" It is hardly necessary," adds this accommodating instructor, "to express any opinion on the point: the Fraternity has the
* Why has the Emperor become suddenly only the King ? f Observe that the Rosicrucians are here traced by the Freemasons no farther back than Bacon's time.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 277
advantage of being able to choose for itself, and, as Masonry is now worked, any dicision on the point is as impossible as the value of that decision would be futile." This is discouraging. Nevertheless, we cannot fail to observe that, amongst the twelve distinct theories as to the origin of the Freemasons, the legend of St. Alban is omittea\ The writer refers us to a previous article on the " Antiquity of Freemasonry." The words with which this article greets us are doubtless intended to deter us from investigation :
" On this subject much has been written to little purpose, and it is not proposed to further discuss them here. That mystical societies flourished long before the dawn of history, is not to be denied, but that such societies essentially resembled Freemasonry, it is more than futile to opine."
Then the writer goes off into a discussion of hieroglyphics and Egyptian symbolism, and speaks of Hiram, Osiris, and Adonis, and of Numa Pompilius, king of Rome. He is not much interested in his own remarks, and evidently does not expect anyone else to be so. " It is idle to speculate upon such a topic as the antiquity of these secret associations, and it is far wiser to accept the development, as being in essentia all that we know upon the subject."
Alas ! not everyone has so much wisdom as to find bliss in ignorance. We next try "Alban, St. — See Saint Alban."
"Saint Alban. — The proto-martyr of England, born at Verulam or Saint Alban's, in Herefordshire. He is the reputed legendary introducer of Freemasonry into England, but without much evidence."
So the writer takes no heed of all the accurate historic infor- mation about the Emperor Carausius which the " Past Master of the Lodge of Antiquity " was so particular in chronicling ! We are now referred to a sixth article on " Grand Masters of Freemasonry," which opens by again cautioning the reader against putting any trust in the information which is about to be imparted to him.
" Grand Masters of England before the Revival of Masonry in 1717. This list has been collated from several authorities. It is, however, not given as fact, but as tradition."
Here the "tradition" of St. Alban, which in Preston's Illus-
278 FRANCIS BACON
trations is presented as true history, is repeated. The first Grand Master is said to have been —
"A. D. 287. Saint Alban, a Roman Knight, when Carausius was Emperor of Britain."
Say that the origin of Freemasonry was traditional, yet what need is there to invent an Emperor Carausius ? *
After a sketch of the History of Masonry in England, under St. Augustine, King Alfred, and the Knights Templars, we are gradually made to perceive how, from very early times, the great family of the Pembrokes and the Montagues were con- nected with (or said to be connected with) Masonry. Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shewsbury, is said to have employed the fraternity in building the Tower of London. Gilbert de Clare, Marquis of Pembroke, presided over the lodges in the reign of Stephen, when the Chapel, afterwards the House of Commons, at Westminster, was built by the Masons. On the accession of Edward I., 1272, the care of the Masons was entrusted to the Archbishop of York, the Earl of Gloucester, and " Ralph, Lord of Mount Hermer, the progenitor of the family of the Mon- tagues," who finished the building of Westminster Abbey. Even when we come down to the history of Inigo Jones, as a Mason and architect of the palace at Whitehall, and of many other magnificent structures in the time of James I., we are reminded that it was to William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, that Inigo Jones owed his education ; that by his instrumentality Inigo Jones was introduced to the notice of the King, " nomi- nated Grand Master of England, and deputised by his sovereign to preside over the lodges." Again, we read that William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, became warden to Grand Master Jones, and that when the architect resigned, in 1618, the Earl of Pem- broke succeeded him, and presided over the Fraternity until 1630. Others of Bacon's friends accepted office for short periods — Henry Dan vers, Earl of Derby ; Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, and Francis Russel, Earl of Bedford. Then
* We can only suppose that Carausius was either a pseudonym for James I., whose " steward and chief ruler of the realm " Bacon really was ; or that two facts are mixed, and that a record of something connected with Prince, afterwards King Charles (Carolus) may be here hinted. Those who follow up these devices for imparting knowledge will not find either of these sug- gestions to be impossible, or exceptionally strange. (See Note to this chapter).
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in 1636, Inigo Jones returned to his office of Grand Master, which he retained till his death, in 1646. He designed Wilton House, the seat of the Earls of Pembroke, where there was a private theatre, and where Measure for Measure was first per- formed by Shakespeare's company, in order, it is said, to propitiate the King at vtime when Sir Walter Raleigh was about to be tried for his life at Winchester, and when James I. and his suite were staying at Wilton.
In the early accounts of Freemasonry, it really appears that the actual building of "fair houses/' or magnificent edifices for public utility, or for religious purposes, was the sole or chief object and mission of the Masons. Even at these early dates, however, the friends of Bacon's family were apparently always mixed up with the affairs of the society. Long after Bacon's death, the records of Masonry are seen recording the same connection. On the 27th December, 1663, a general assembly was held, at which Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, was elected Grand Master, who appointed Sir John Denham his deputy, and Mr. (afterwards Sir) Christopher Wren and John Webb his wardens.
We pause, in order to draw especial attention to a footnote appended to the name of Christopher Wren :
" He was the only son of Dr. Christopher Wren, Dean of Windsor, and was born in 1632. His genius for arts and sciences appeared early. At the age of thirteen he invented a new astronomical instrument, by the name of Pan-Organum, and wrote a treatise on Rivers."
It is, perhaps, needless to say no such " astronomical instru- ment " is known at the Royal Society ; neither is it mentioned in any other account of Sir Christopher Wren which we have met with, although the fact that he was, in 1680, chosen Presi- dent of that society, might naturally suggest some instances of his connection with mathematical science and mechanical inven- tions. Observe, that here is another precocious boy who " invents " or designs a plan for a universal Method, a Novum Organum. Will anyone produce Sir Christopher Wren's Trea- tise on Rivers, or any proof of his having written such a work ?
In no life or biography of Sir Christopher Wren do we find any of the statements which this work on Freemasonry inserts
280 FRANCIS BACON
concerning him, and which (as usual in these cases) are rele- gated to a footnote. His biographer continues :
"His other numerous juvenile productions in mathematics prove him to be a scholar of the highest eminence. He assisted Dr. Scarborough in astronomical preparations, and experiments upon the muscles of the human body ; whence are dated the first introduction of geometrical and mechanical speculations in anatomy. He wrote discoveries on the longitude ; on the varia- tions of the magnetical needle ; de re nautica veterum ; how to find the velocity of a ship in sailing; of the improvements of galleys, and how to restore wrecks. Besides these, he treated on the convenient way of using artillery on ship-board ; how to build on deep water ; how to build a mole into the sea, without Puzzolan dust or cisterns, and of the improvement of river navi- gation in joining of rivers. In short, the works of this excellent genius appear to be rather the united efforts of a whole century than the production of one man"
Here, it will be observed, the writer is saying of Sir Christo- pher Wren the same, in other words, that Dr. Sprat said of Bacon, that " though he might not allow him to be equal to a thousand men, he was at least equal to twenty"
And, looking back at the catalogue of Wren's performances, not only are we disposed to look askance upon statements which come to us in such questionable shape, and which have such a curious affinity with particulars of researches which we do know to have employed the nimble brain and the equally nimble pen of Bacon ; but further (since it is pleasant to understand what we read) will anyone inform us as to Puzzolan dust, and what can any kind of dust have to do with the building of a mole, or with cisterns? Is it possible that in Puzzolan dust we meet with one of those egregious puns, those quibbles or jests which, according to Ben Jonson, Bacon never could pass by ? Was this the dust which is to be cast in the eyes of the mind to " puzzle the understanding," or to " puzzle the will " of man ? We read in Rosicrucian works of " dusty impressions," * of brains which " trot through dust and dirt," f and the quibble is as well suited to convey its meaning as many others which we find in these and
* Bruno's Heroic Enthusiasts, Part II., p. 176, edited by L. Williams, published by Quaritch. t Quarks' Emblems, I. 11.
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similar books. Perhaps when Ben Jonson said that Bacon never could pass by a jest, he said it with a purpose, to draw attention to these endless ambiguities of speech, the trivial puns which conveyed such weighty meanings.
The names of distinguished Masons are well worthy of note. They afford much insighir into the connection between certain famous old firms in printing and kindred trades and those of to-day. It will be seen how many names well known in litera- ture, art, and science are Masons, as it were, hereditary, and handing down the lamp of tradition, each in his own line. We have noticed some interesting tombs in connection with this subject, and younger readers are advised (having filled their minds with the symbols of these societies) to keep their eyes open when visiting old churches and church-yards.
To return to the point whence we started in this chapter, we find it almost impossible to believe that the Eosicrucians and the Freemasons were separate and totally disconnected fraternities, all evidence showing them as, originally, one and the same, the Rosicrucians forming the pinnacle to the lower orders of Masons, and although a mass of suggestive evidence has come before us, by means of the Rosicrucian books and documents, the more solid historical facts have all been reached by an examination of the old works which are professedly Masonic.
It is more than probable that at some period within a hundred years from the death of Bacon the " little knowledge " of many of his followers became indeed a " dangerous thing," that the " puffed," " swelling " and " windy " pride which he reprobated took the place of the patient, humble, self-effacing spirit of his first fraternity, and that the " Free Thought " for which he laboured M from curbed license pluck'd the muzzle of restraint." Instead of exercising a gentle and benign practice of tolerance in matters of religious ceremonial or of opinion, the Masons, in many cases, seem to have lost sight of the universality or catholicity of true faith, their religious principles degenerating into mere abuse and vituperation of the Romish Church, whereas their duty was but to resist and expose its errors and imposture, and the initiation of Roman Catholics (not Papists) was per- mitted by the laws of the brotherhood. The violent and in- temperate behaviour of the Freemasons seems to have produced a rupture, and Freemasonry became not the handmaid, but the
T
282 FRANCIS BACON
enemy and opponent of Christianity, and the result affords a melancholy illustration of the saying of Bacon concerning atheism and its causes :
" The causes of atheism are divisions in religion, if they be many, for one main division addeth zeal to both sides, but many divisions introduce atheism.1'
Scandal of priests, and a custom of profane scoffing in holy matters are also causes which he notes for that atheism which to him is especially "hateful in that it depriveth human nature of the means to exalt itself above human frailty." He quotes the speech of Cicero to the conscript fathers, in which he says that they may admire themselves as much as they please, yet, neither by numbers, nor by bodily strength, nor by arts and cunning, nor by the inborn good sense of their nation, did they vanquish their many powerful antagonists; "but through our devotion and religious feeling, and this the sole, true wisdom, — they having perceived that all things are regulated and governed by the providence of the immortal gods, — have we subdued all races and nations. *
* Essay Of Atheism.
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CfiAPTER X.
PAPER-MARKS USED UNTIL THE TIME OF SIR NICHOLAS BACON.
AMONGST the helps to the understanding in the Interpreta- tion of Nature, Bacon " puts in the tenth place instances of power, or the fasces, which, also, I call instances of the wit or hands of man. These are the noblest and most consum- mate works in each art, exhibiting the ultimate perfection of it." Such works should, he says, " be noted and enumerated, especi- ally such as are the most complete and perfect ; because, starting from them, we shall find an easier and nearer passage to new works hitherto unattempted. . . . What we have to do is simply this, to seek out and thoroughly inspect all mechanical arts, and all liberal, too, as far as they deal with works, and make therefrom a collection or particular history of the great and masterly and most perfect works in every one of them, together with the mode of their production and operation. And yet, I do not tie down the diligence that should be used in such a collection, to those works only which are esteemed the master- pieces and mysteries of an art, and which excite wonder. For Wonder is the child of Rarity ; * and if a thing be rare, though in kind it be no way extraordinary, yet it is wondered at. . . . For instance, a singular instance of art is paper, a thing exceedingly common."
He proceeds to describe the nature and qualities of paper, "as a tenacious substance, that may be cut or torn,', and that, in its resemblance to the skin of an animal, and to the leaf of a vegetable, imitates Nature's workmanship ; and he winds up as he began, by pronouncing paper to be " altogether singular.11
Then, as it would at first seem, going off at a tangent from his subject, he says : "Again, as instances of the wit and hand of man, we must not altogether condemn juggling and conjuring
* Miranda : '* O brave new world that hath such creatures in it ! "
284 FRANCIS BACON
tricks. For some of them, though, in use, trivial and ludicrous, yet, in regard to the information they give, may be of much value" *
The chain of ideas in this passage — helps to the understand- ing ; many particulars united ; by the wit and hands of man ; these helps illustrated by the masterpieces and mysteries of the art of paper-making; and these arts, again, connected with juggling and tricks, suggested to the present writer the idea of examining the paper on which those books are printed, and which had already been specially noted on account of their " Baconian " matter and style ; books which also contain the numberless unaccountable typographical peculiarities which seem to have some relation to a system of cipher, to be discussed in another part of this work.
A few hours of study were sufficient to prove that the very same " method of tradition," or system of secret communica- tion, which is perceptible in the hieroglyphic pictures and wood-cuts, hereafter to be described, prevails, though in a simpler and rougher form, throughout the so-called "water- marks " or paper-marks of the Baconian books, pamphlets and manuscripts.
It was also found that the use and aim of these paper-marks, and their interpretation, are to be most easily reached by means of the metaphorical and parabolical language devised and taught by Bacon himself, and which continues to be used, whether consciously or unconsciously, not only by his acknow- ledged followers, but by the whole civilised world. These symbols were introduced with a purpose higher than that of mere decoration ; they were, in the first instance, used not only as a means of mutual recognition, but also for covertly instilling or asserting truths and doctrines, in days when bigotry, ignorance, and persecution prevented the free ventilation of opinions and beliefs. But the secret language of the Renaissance philosophers requires a full volume for its elucidation, so, for the present, we must be content to limit inquiry to its simplest manifestations, in the payer-marks of their printed books or manuscripts.
If one thing more than another can assure the inquirer into
* Nov. Org. XXXI.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 285
these subjects that here he has to do with the workings of a secret society, it is the difficulty which is encountered in all attempts to extract accurate information, or to obtain really useful books concerning paper-making, printing, and kindred crafts. In ordinary books, ostensibly instructive on such matters, the particulars, however detailed and accurate up to a certain point, invariably become hazy or mutually contra- dictory, or stop short altogether, at the period when works on the subject should teem with information as to the origin of many of our English translations of the Bible, and of the sudden outburst of literature and science in the sixteenth century. This is notably the case with one large and very important work, Sotheby's Principia Typographical which, for no apparent cause, breaks off at the end of the fifteenth century, and to which there is no true sequel.
There are, likewise, at the British Museum | eight folio volumes of blank sheets of water-marked paper. But these papers are all of foreign manufacture, J chiefly Dutch and German, and the latest date on any sheet is about the same as that at which the illustrations stop in Sotheby's Principia.
If it be worth while to collect, classify, and catalogue, in handsomely bound volumes, the water-marked papers of foreign
* Brit. Mus. Press-mark 2050 G. Principia Typographies The wood- blocks or xylographic delineations of Scripture History, issued in Holland, Flanders, and Germany during the fifteenth century, exemplified and considered in connection with the origin of printing ; to which is added an attempt to elucidate the character of the paper-marks of the period. Sam'l Leigh Sotheby. Printed by Walter McDowell, and sold by all antiquarian booksellers and printers. 1858. (Paper-Marks. See Vol. III.)
| Since there seems to be no catalogue accessible to the general reader, by which these volumes are traceable, we note the press-mark at the British Museum " Large Room,1' 318 C.
J Two loose sheets are slipped between the pages in two volumes. One is classified as Pitcher, the other as Vase. They are specimens of the one- handled and two-handled pots of which we have so much to say. These are English, and we believe of later date than any of the specimens bound up in the collection. Their presence is again suggestive. They hint at the existence of an English collection somewhere. Another particular points to the same conclusion. In " Paper and Paper-making" by Richard Herring, of which the third edition was printed in 1863 (Longmans), there are, on page 105, five illustrations of paper-marks. They are all specimens of the patterns used circa 1588 and later, and they are numbered 1418, 1446, 1447, 1449, 1450. These numbers evidently refer to a collection such as we have anxiously sought, but which we have been repeatedly assured is not known to exist. That it does exist, we have not the slightest doubt ; but where is it, and why is it withheld ?
286 FRANCIS BACON
countries before the middle of the sixteenth century, one would think that it would be of at least equal interest and importance to preserve a similar collection, such as could easily be made from the papers manufactured in England circa 1588, the date of the erection of the first great paper mill. If such matters are interesting or important in other respects, it would be natural to suppose that literary experts would find pleasure and instruction in connecting the paper with the matter printed upon it, and that a collection of paper used by the printers of all the greatest works published in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, whether that paper was home-made or imported, would have been formed by the careful observers who were so keen to preserve the older foreign papers, which concern us much less.
But such a collection, we have been repeatedly assured, does not exist at the British Museum, or indeed at any public library or museum to which authorities on such subjects can — or may — direct us.*
During this pursuit of knowledge under difficulties we have constantly been told that the subject is one of deep interest. "Instructive," "wide," "complicated," "vast," are the terms by turns applied to it by those to whom we have applied for help, so that sometimes we have been oppressed and discouraged (as was perhaps occasionally intended) by the apparent hopeless- ness of following up the quest, or of fathoming these mysterious difficulties, which seemed to have no bottom.
But then came comfort. The mysteries, such as they are, are evidently traditional, of no real use to living individuals ; no one can be personally interested in keeping them up, and where such mystifications are kept up the thing concealed is pretty sure to be something simple and easy to master when once it is reached. And there must be means of reaching it, because how can it be known that these subjects of inquiry are either in- structive or worthy of pursuit unless someone has studied and pursued them, and discovered whither they tend ?
Further effort, stimulated by reflections of this kind, have not
* Recently we have been told that the Trustees of the Bodleian Library at Oxford have secured a private collection of the kind, concerning which, however, no information is forthcoming to the present writer.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 287
been altogether unrewarded, and, although much remains to be cleared up, we trust that, regardless of scratches, we may have broken such a gap into the matter as to secure an easier passage for successors.
In A Chronology of Paper and Paper-making, * there is the following entry :
" 1716 — John Bagford, the most extraordinary connoisseur of paper ever known, died in England. His skill was so great that it is said that he could, at first sight, tell the place where, and the time when, any paper was made, though at never so many years' distance. He prepared materials for a History of Paper-Making, which are now in the British Museum, numbered 5891 to 5988." t
One hundred and eight volumes by this extraordinary con- noisseur of paper ! The hint did not remain unheeded, and it was to be hoped that at last some true and reliable information would be forthcoming. But, so far as any fresh knowledge concerning paper and paper-marks is concerned, an examination of many of these curious scrap-books and note-books has proved disappointing. Yet we glean further evidence as to the pains and care which in past years have been bestowed upon the laying of plans, and the carrying of them out in small details, for the purpose of preventing these subjects from becoming public property ; for the books bear silent witness that one of
* Joel Munsell, 4th edition, 1870 ; 5th edition, 1878.
| These form, in fact, part of the Harleian collection. For some reason the Bagford portion has recently been divided. The bulk of it now reposes in charge of the librarians of the rare old printed books, " Large Room," British Museum. The MS. portions are in the MS. department, where, until lately, the whole collection were bound together. Most of the folios are scrap-books, containing thousands of book plates and wood cuts, large and small. Of these we shall have to speak by and by. Some were moved from the collection by order of the chief librarian in 1814 and in 1828. These extracts, " transferred to the portfolios of the Print Room," are not to be found. There is said to be no record of them. Similarly, the evidences of John Bagford's extraordinary knowledge of paper are absent from these collections. Some folios are made up of paper bearing six or eight different water-marks, and there are MS. notes of printers, which may lead to further knowledge. But the whole collection gives the impression that it has been manipulated for purposes of concealment, rather than to assist students, and the authorities at the British Museum in no way encourage the idea that information on paper-marks is pro- curable from this source.
288 FRANCIS BACON
two things has occurred : Either the portions relating to paper and paper-marks, their use and interpretation, have been at some time carefully eliminated (and probably stored elsewhere), or else they never were in this collection. In the latter case, Joel Munsell, Hearne, and others, must have derived their information about John Bagford and his extraordinary and almost unique knowledge of paper, i.e., of paper-marks, from some other sources which they do not disclose, but which must be discoverable. For the present, we rest in the persuasion that all these " secrets " are in the possession of a certain Freemason circle, or perhaps, more correctly speaking, of the paper-makers' and printers' " Kings," and since it is not possible that these can a tale unfold of the secrets of the printing-house which have come to them traditionally, and under strigent vows, we must be content, as before, to grope and grub after scraps of information which, poor and despicable as they may seem in their disjointed state, afford, .when pieced together, a valuable contribution toward the " furniture " of knowledge.
Ordinary works, whether of general information, or particular instruction on matters connected with paper-making, uniformly convey the impression that "water-marks" are either mere ornaments in the paper, or else trade-marks of the paper- manufacturer. One writer defines them as " ornamental figures in wire or thin brass, sewn upon the wires of the mould, which, like those wires, leave an impression, by rendering the paper, where it lies on them, almost translucent." *
Another writer, whose book has gone through several editions, and who is cited as an authority, distinctly claims for these water-marks that they are trade signs analogous to those of a public-house, a tea store or a pawnbroker.
" The curious, and in some cases absurd terms, which now puzzle us so much, in describing the different sorts and sizes of paper, may frequently be explained by reference to the paper- marks which have been adopted at different periods. In ancient times, when comparatively few people could read, pictures of every kind were much in use where writing would now be employed. Every shop, for instance, had its sign, as well as every public-house ; and those signs were not then, as they often
* Objects in Art Manufacture. Edited by Charles Tomlinson. No. 1 Paper. Harrison, 1884.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 289
are now, only painted upon a board, but were invariably actual models of the thing which the sign expressed — as we still occasionally see some such sign as a bee-hive, a tea-cannister, or a doll, and the like.
" For the same reason printers employed some device, which they put upon the title-pages and at the end of their books, and paper-makers also introduced marks by way of distinguishing the paper of their manufacture from that of others — which marks, becoming common, naturally gave their names to different sorts of paper." *
These conclusions are, really, in no way satisfactory. They are in direct opposition to facts which present themselves in the process of collecting these water-marks — facts such as these :
1. That the same designs are often varied in the same book, some volumes containing as many as eight, twelve, or twenty- five variations of one pattern. (See Plates, Ben Jonson, Selden, etc.)
2. That similar designs appear in books of widely different periods printed and published by various firms, whilst, so far as we have found, they appear in the MS. letters of only one limited period.
3. That three kinds of water-marks (and so, according to Herring, payer from three different firms) are often found in one small book.
4. That these water-marks, infinitely varied as they are, often contain certain initial letters which seem to connect them with private persons, authors, or members of a secret society.
5. That, even in the present day, two or three firms use the same designs in their paper-mark.
These points, which it is our purpose to illustrate, assure us that it is an error to suppose either the most ancient or the most modern paper-marks to be mere trade-signs. True, that there are now some such which have been used, since the revival, as a fashion, of the hand-made or rough-edged paper. But these are quite easily distinguishable, and those who follow us in this investigation will have no hesitation in deciding to which class each paper belongs. On the other hand, Mr. Sotheby arrives,
* " Paper and Paper-making" p. 103, by Richard Herring, 3rd edition, 1863. See also Dr. Ure's " Mines and Manufactures." — Paper-making.
290 FRANCIS BACON
from his own point of departure, at the same conclusion reached by the present writer.
" I venture," he says, " to assert that until, or after, the close of the fifteenth century, there were no marks on paper which may be said to apply individually to the maker of the paper." With Jansen, he agrees that "the study of water-marks is calcu- lated to afford pretty accurate information as to the country where, and the probable period when, a book without date or place was printed. . . . Until toward the close of the fifteenth century there occur no marks in paper used for the making of books, from which we are led to infer that they were intended for the motto or device of the maker. That paper-marks were, or rather became general, and not confined to particular manu- factories, is in fact inferrible from the fact that we are able to trace similar marks in use from the commencement to the end of the fifteenth century." In some instances the varieties of the same mark are, as Mr. Sotheby says, so abundant that, " instead of the eight plates engraved by Jansen, it would require more than fifty plates of similar size to give the tracings of all the varieties of even two marks ; the letter P, and the ■ Bull's Head.' . . . Hence it is that the frequent remark, ' with little varia- tions,' is so generally found in the writings of all those, even from the earliest period to the present time, who have touched upon this subject, unaccompanied, however, by any attempt to account for or explain them."
Here we are reminded of the dictum of the Freemason Cyclo- paedia : "A very minute difference may make the emblem or symbol differ widely in its meaning," and of Bacon's similar hint as to the necessity for noting small distinctions in order to comprehend great things :
" Qui in parvis non distinguit, in magnis labitur."
This he connects with the following note :
" Everything is subtile till it be conceived" *
It is reasonable to attempt this explanation of the " little variations " that the symbol, whatever it may be — a bull's head, unicorn, fleur-de-lis, vine, or what not — illustrates some single, fundamental doctrine or idea. But the " little variations " may,
* Promus, 186, 187.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 291
as Jansen and Mr. Sotheby agree, afford pretty accurate in- formation as to the country where, and the period when, the book was written or " produced." They may even indicate the paper-maker or the printer, or that the persons connected with the writing of the book were members of a certain secret society. Jr
" The marks that are found on the paper used for the printing of the block-books assigned to the Netherlands, are/' continues Mr. Sotheby, " for the most part confined to the unicorn, the anchor, the bull's head, the letter P, the letter Y,* and, as we shall endeavour to show, the arms of the dynasties of the Duke of Burgundy, and their alliances ; initials of particular persons, and arms of the popes and bishops. It must not, however, for a moment be supposed that no marks similar to those we assign to the Netherlands occur in books printed in Germany ; but, taking it as a general rule, the paper there used for printing was, no doubt, confined to the manufactories of the country."
These remarks do not touch the matter of English books and paper-marks ; nor do they explain the appearance, simul- taneously, or at different periods, of the same marks in different countries, and sometimes with the names of different paper- makers.
If the paper used for printing books was usually made in the country where the books were printed (and this seems to be the most natural and reasonable arrangement), then we must inquire at what English mill was the paper manufactured which was to be the means of transmitting to a world then plunged in dark- ness and ignorance the myriad-minded and many-sided litera- ture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ?
* In Principia Typographica (Vol. III., Paper-mar ks), we read that plain P stood for the initial of Philip, Duke of Burgundy, surmounted in some cases by the single fleur-de-lis, arms proper of Burgundy, and that in certain copies Y is added for Isabella — thus, as the author considers, proving the date. Students will, we think, find cause for doubting this explanation of the P and Y so frequent in veiy old books, and so long used. In Hebrew the sacred name of God is associated with the letter P — Phoded or Redeemer. As is well known, this same form, with a cross drawn through the stem, was the sign adopted by the first Christian emperor of Rome, Constantine the Great. The Roman Church still uses this symbol, so frequently seen stamped upon our Books of Common Prayer. The Y is of far greater antiquity as a symbol, and was held by Pythagoras to signify the different paths of virtue and vice. Hence, says the Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, it was termed "Litera Pythagoroz."
292 FRANCIS BACON
As in everything else connected with printing, the inquirer is at once met witli difficulties and rebuffs. Authors contradict each other. Experts in the trade plead ignorance, or decline to give information, and once more we are obliged to perceive how jealously everything connected with these matters is guarded and screened from public notice by the Freemasons. The following is extracted from the little book by E. Herring, which we have already quoted :
" With reference to any particular time or place at which this inestimable invention was first adopted in England, all re- searches into existing records contribute little to our assist- ance.* The first payer-mill erected here is commonly attributed to Sir John Spielman, a German, toho established one in 1588 at Dartford, for which the honour of knighthood was afterwards conferred upon him by Queen Elizabeth, who was also pleased to grant him a license ' for the sole gathering, for ten years, of all rags, etc., necessary for the making of such paper.' It is, however, quite certain that paper mills were in existence here long before Spielman's time.t Shakespeare, in 2 Henry VI. (the plot of which is laid at least a century previously), refers to a paper-mill. In fact, he introduces it as an additional weight to the charge which Jack Cade brings against Lord Saye. ' Thou hast,' says he, ' most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm, in erecting a grammar school, and whereas, be- fore, our fathers had no other books but the score and tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and, contrary to the King, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill.' An earlier trace of the manufacture in this country occurs in a book J printed by Caxton, about the year 1490, in Avhich it is said of John Tate :
" ; Which late hathe in England doo make thys paper thynne That now in our Englyssh thys booke is printed inne.1
" His mill was situate at or near Stevenage, in Hertfordshire ; and that it was considered worthy of notice is evident from an
* The editor of the Paper-Mills Directory, in his Art of Paper-making (1874), says distinctly that the first paper mill in England "appeared in 1498 ; the second, Spielman's, sixty years later," 1558 ; a third at Fen Ditton, near Cambridge, " if it was not erected just before.1'
f The writer of an article on paper in the Encyclopaedia Britannica argues, with reason, that the cheap rate at which paper was sold, even in the inland towns of England, in the fifteenth century, affords ground for assuming that there was at this time a native industry in paper, and that it was not all imported.
X Be Proprietatibus Rerum, Wynken de Worde's edition, 1498.
AND HIS SECEET SOCIETY. 293
entry made in Henry the Seventh's Household Book on the 25th of May, 1498 : ' For a reward given at the paper mylne 16s. 3d.' And again in 1499 : ' Geven in rewarde to Tate of the mvlne, 6s. 3d.'*
" Still, it appears far less probable that Shakespeare alluded to Tate's mill (although established at a period corresponding in many respects with that of occurrences referred to in connection) than to that of Sir John Spielman.
" Standing, as it did, in the immediate neighborhood of the scene of Jack Cade's rebellion, and being so important as to call forth at the time the marked patronage of Queen Elizabeth, the extent of the operations carried on there was calculated to arouse, and no doubt did arouse, considerable national interest ; and one can hardly help thinking, from the prominence which Shakespeare assigns to the existence of a paper mill (coupled, as such allusion is, with an acknowledged liberty, inherent in him, of transposing events to add force to his style, and the very considerable doubt as to the exact year in which the play was written), that the reference made teas to none other than Sir John Spielman's establishment of 1588, concerning which we find it said :
" ' Six hundred men are set to work by him,
That else might starve or seek abroad their bread, Who now live well, and go full brave and trim, And who may boast they are with paper fed' " f
What Shakespeare lover is there who will not recall the echo of the last words in Nathaniel's answer to his fellow pedant's strictures upon the ignorance of Dull, the constable :
Holofernes. Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus ! O, thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look !
Nathaniel. Sir ; he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book ; he hath not eat paper, as it were ; he hath not drunk ink ; his in- tellect is not replenished, etc.J
The supposed date of Love's Labour's Lost is 1588-9, precisely the date of the establishment of our first great mill. Can the poet, we wonder, have been en rapport with the inditer of the
* " The water-mark used by Tate was an eight-pointed star within a double circle. A print of it is given in Herbert's Typis Antiquit. I. 200. Tate died 1514."- J. Munsell,
| Herring, pp. 41 — 44. See also A Chronology of Paper and Paper- making, by Joel Munsell, fourth edition, 1870.
X Love's Labour's Lost, IV. 2.
294 FRANCIS BACON
lines quoted by Herring (who, by the way, omits to say whence he quotes them) — and which of the two poets, if there were two, originated the notion of men being fed with paper ?
The omissions of Eichard Herring, quite as much as his state- ments, raise in our mind various misgivings and suspicions concerning him and the information which he gives. Does this writer know more than he " professes " to know ? Are these remarks, in which he draws in Shakespeare, hints to the initiated reader as to the true facts of the case ? Like the Rosicrucians, we cannot tell ; but recent research leads us more and more to discredit the notion that particulars such as these about the establishment of the first English paper-mill are unknown to those whom they chiefly concern ; or that shifting, shadowy, contradictory statements, of the kind quoted above, would pass unchallenged, were it not that an excellent mutual under- standing exists between the writer and his expert readers.
If speaking from without the charmed circle, we are expected to declare an express opinion regarding these things, it must be after this kind : Whatever paper-mills may have existed in England before the erection of Sir John Spielman's at Dartford, they must have been small, private (perhaps attached to religious houses), employed only in the manufacture of writing paper, and at all events quite inadequate to Bacon's purposes when he " was for volumes in folio," when he " feared to glut the world with his writings," and when the " Reformation of the whole wide world " was to be attempted by means of the press. The erec- tion of the first great paper-mill in England is almost coincident with the establishment of the great printing-houses, whose first and noblest work was the printing and publication of the Bible in nearly every language of the globe.
" It is certain that printing was the great instrument of the Reformation in Germany, and of spreading it throughout Europe ; it is equally certain that the making of paper, by means of the cotton or flaxen fibre, supplied the only material which has been found available for printing. Whether this coincident was simply accidental, or was the effect of that high arrangement for high purposes, which we so often find in the history of Providence, may be left to the consideration of the Christian. But it is evident that if printing had been invented in any of the earlier ages, it would have been comparatively thrown away. . . . But at the exact period when printing
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 295
was given to the world, the fabric was also given which was to meet the broadest exigency of that most illustrious invention."*
And who in those days had reason to know these things better than Francis Bacon ? Who more likely than he to have inspired the enterprise of erecting the great paper-mill which was to serve as an " instance of the wit or hands of man," and to be ranked by him amongst " Helps to the Understanding in the Interpretation of Nature " ?
Bacon never uttered opinions on subjects which he had not studied. Neither did he exhort others to undertake works which he had in no way attempted. When, therefore, we find him saying that all mechanical arts should be sought out and thoroughly inspected, and when, within a few lines, he associates these remarks with the masterpieces and mysteries of the art of paper-making, no shadow of doubt remains on our mind as to his own intimate knowledge and observation of the processes in the recently established paper-mill.
Going forward into the regions of speculation or anticipation, we can quite conceive that when Mr. Donnelly's cipher system shall be brought to bear on the second part of the play of Henry VI.9 it will be found that the erection of this mill is recorded in cipher. This seems to be the more probable because it appears that, five-and-thirty or forty years ago, it was asserted by the then occupier of North Newton Mill, near Banbury, in Oxfordshire, that this was the first paper-mill erected in Eng- land, and that it was to this mill that Shakespeare referred in the passage just quoted ; and further (take note, my readers) — this Banbury mill was the property of Lord Saye and Sele.
Now, although the late Lord Saye and Sele distinctly dis- credited the story of this mill taking precedence of Sir John Spielman's, by showing that the first nobleman succeeding to that title who had property in Oxfordshire was the son of the first Lord Saye,~\ yet it is a coincidence not to be overlooked, that the Lord Saye and Sele of modern times should possess a paper-mill with the tradition attached to it of its being the mythical mill alluded to by Shakespeare.
* Dr. Croly's introduction to Paper and Paper-making, p. xii. t Shakespeare's reference is to the first Lord Saye ; there is no hint or suspicion that his son had anything to do with a paper-mill.
296 FRANCIS BACON
The perplexity involved in these statements seems to be dis- entangled if we may venture to surmise that the cryptographer had to introduce into his play a sketch of the history of Eng- land's first great mills, erected in 1588, for the manufacture of paper for printed books* The other small mills (which, for our own part, we think, did previously exist) were probably private establishments, producing paper for the special use of religious houses, for state papers, or for the letters and other documents of important personages. In short, the earlier paper was, so far as we may yet judge, writing paper, too expensive to be used for books, but, as a rule, substituted, in important documents, for the costly parchment and vellum of earlier times.
It strikes us as a curious thing that, when our expert instructor comes to the point at which he affords some " general observa- tions^ on what are termed water-marks,''' he should, for the second time, be drawn to illustrate his subject by circumstances connected with Shakespeare. Having briefly commented upon the use which has sometimes been made of water-marks in the detection of frauds, monkish or legal, he continues in a long passage, which we abridge :
" A further illustration of the kind occurs in a work entitled, Ireland's Confessions, respecting his fabrication of the Shake- speare manuscripts, — a literary forgery even more remarkable than that which is said to have been perpetrated by Chatterton, as ' Eowley's Poems.' . . . This gentleman tells us that the sheet of paper which he used was the outside of several others, on some of which accounts had been kept in the reign of Charles the First ; and ' being at the time wholly unacquainted with the water-marks used in the time of Elizabeth, I carefully selected two half sheets, not having any mark whatever, on which I penned my first effusion.' "
After relating, with a naivete which borders on the comical, the way in which, by a payment of iive shillings to a bookseller named Verey, the narrator obtained permission to take from all the folio and quarto volumes in his shop the fly-leaves which they contained, " by which means I was stored with that com-
* Note Cade's words : " Whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used." (2 Hen. VI., IV. 7.)
| They are rightly described as general.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 297
modity," Ireland goes on to say that the quiet, unsuspecting disposition of the bookseller would, he was convinced, never lead him to make the transaction public.
" As I was fully aware, from the variety of water-marks which are in existence at the m;esent day, that they must have con- stantly been altered since the time of Elizabeth, and being for some time wholly unacquainted with the water-marks of that age, I very carefully produced my first specimens of the writing on such sheets of old paper as had no marks whatever. Having heard it frequently stated that the appearance of such marks on the papers would have greatly tended to establish their validity, I listened attentively to every remark which was made upon the subject, and from thence I at length gleaned the intelli- gence that a jug was the prevalent water-mark of the reign of Elizabeth,0 in consequence of which I inspected all the sheets of old paper then in my possession, and, having selected such as had the jug upon them, I produced the succeeding manuscripts upon these, being careful, however, to mingle with them a certain number of blank leaves, that the production on a sudden of so many water-marks might not excite suspicion in the breasts of those persons who were most conversant with the manuscripts."
" Thus," continues our guide, " this notorious literary forgery, through the cunning ingenuity of the perpetrator, ultimately proved so successful as to deceive many learned and able critics of the age. Indeed, on one occasion, a kind of certificate was drawn up, stating that the undersigned names were affixed by gentlemen who entertained no doubt whatever as to the validity of the Shakespearian production, and that they voluntarily gave such public testimony of their convictions upon the subject. To this document several names were appended by persons as conspicuous for their erudition as they were perti- nacious in their opinions.'' |
And so the little accurate information which is vouchsafed to us poor " profani," standing in the outer courts, the few acorns which are dropped for our nourishment from the wide- spreading tree of knowledge, begin and end in Shakespeare. In Shakespeare we read of the erection of the first great paper- mill — an anachronism being perpetrated to facilitate the record. In the forged Shakespeare manuscripts, the workings of that
* Readers are invited to bear in mind this sentence in italics. t Paper and Paper-making, p. iii.
V
298 FRANCIS BACON
same paper-mill, and the handing down of Bacon's lamp of tradition, are even now to be seen. These signs are so sure as to have gulled the learned, " as conspicuous for their erudition as for their pertinacity."
What further need have we of arguments to show that the true history of our paper-marks, and their especial value and importance, was perfectly well-known to the learned of two generations ago ? Are we prepared to believe that such accurate knowledge is now lost? Surely not. The Freemasons, and more particularly the Eosicrucians, could tell us all about it. But, though they could if they might, they may not. Therefore, let us persevere, and seek for ourselves to trace, classify, and interpret the multitudinous paper-marks which are to be found onward from the date at which Mr. Sotherby has thought fit to cut off our supplies.
As to other works, we have given the names of a few from which, out of an infinite deal of nothing, we have picked a few grains of valuable matter hidden in a bushel of chaff. But, indeed, the reader, if he " turns to the library, will wonder at the immense variety of books which he sees there on our subjects, and, after observing their endless repetitions, and how men are ever saying what has been said before, he will pass from admiration of the variety to astonishment at the poverty and scantiness of the subjects ; " and he will agree " that it is nowise strange if opinion of plenty has been the cause of want ; ... for by the crafts and artifices of those who have handled and transmitted sciences, these have been set forth with such parade, and brought them into the world so fashioned and masked as if they were complete in all parts, and finished. . . . The divisions seem to embrace and comprise everything which can belong to the subject. And although these divisions are ill-filled and empty cases, still, to the common mind they present the form of a perfect science." Bacon goes on to show how the most ancient seekers after truth set to work in a different way by storing up short opinions and scattered observations which did not profess to embrace the whole art. " But as the matter now is, it is nothing strange if men do not seek to advance in things delivered to them as long since perfect and complete." *
* Nov. Org. I. LXXXVI.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 299
The early paper-marks were very rude and irregular. They ■did not greatly improve until the time of the Bacons and the Renaissance. Still, they were common in all the manuscripts (whether books, letters, or other documents) which issued from religious houses, and as soon as printing began, then also began to appear these marks in printed books published on the Conti- nent, and on foreign paper imported into England.
Bat, rough as the early paper-marks are, from the very first they had a meaning; and so distinctly are they symbolic, so indubitably is their symbolism religious, that it would seem strange and incongruous to meet with them equally in the various editions of the Bible, and in the early editions of the masques and plays of the Elizabethan period, were there not strong evidence that these, and scores of other secular works, were brought out by a society established with a high religious purpose, and which, guided by Bacon's " great heart " and vast intellect, was bent upon ameliorating the condition of the world to its lowest depths, and by the simplest and least obtrusive methods.
Bacon drew no hard and fast line between religious and secular, or between good and evil, in things, in individuals, or in ideas. He thought that Nature, and pre-eminently human nature, were " biform," a mixture of the earthy and the spiritual. Man, he said, is of all creatures the most com- pounded ; and, knowing this, he appealed by turns, in the multifarious works which he wrote for man's instruction or recreation, to the many sides of the human mind, and of nature ; to the dull animal who could take in ideas only through the eye and the ear, in dumb shows, masques, or stage plays, as to the bright, keen intellect of the man whose brain he compares to a diamond cut with many facets.
Everywhere, and by all means, he would endeavour to raise u man, who by his body is akin to the brute," to the higher and more spiritual level, where he would be, in some degree, " akin to the Image of God."
So, when we find within the pages of Every Man in His Humour and Bartholomew Fair the sacred symbols of the vine, and the pot of manna, we may reflect that this is no mere accident, no advertisement of the firm who manufactured the paper. These are some of the many records handed down by
300 FRANCIS BACON
good Baconians of their " great master's " desire to draw together the most opposite ends of human society, and human thought and to mingle with the coarsest earthy matter some bright and imperishable grains of the heavenly gold of truth and knowledge.
Let us turn to the plates of illustrations, of which a complete catalogue will be found appended to this volume.
There we see, first, a reduced mark from Jansen's Essai sur VOriginc de la Gravure, etc. Jansen rocords that this is the earliest mark known ; it occurs, says Mr. Sotheby, " in an account book dated 1301 ; a circle or a globe surmounted with a cross ! A mark that is capable of suggesting much to the mind of a Christian." *
Probably the scarabeus forms (of which several may be seen on the plate) are not so capable of suggestion to most minds as the former symbol, but their deep signification is interesting, and should lead us to search into the origin of these mystical marks, admiring the wonderful way in which the wisdom of the earliest antiquity endeavoured to inform and teach, whilst the minds of men were too childish and uncultivated to receive truths except in the form of a picture or of a story.
That the matters to be instilled were in many cases eternal truths, thoughts and doctrines of the most sublime description, is seen in that these very same symbols, with a deeper intensity of meaning, and with further light shed upon them, have been,, in various forms, passed on from one nation to another, from generation to generation ; adopted and modified to suit the requirements of religious expression in many different forms of worship. However the external appearance may shadow or disguise the true substance, there are found in these symbol* the same fundamental ideas, the same great universal doctrines and conceptions of the one God — all-knowing, all-powerful, ever present — of His divine humanity, or manifestation in the flesh, of His Holy Spirit, comforting, sustaining, inspiring. The mystical teaching of the Universal Church of Christ was shown first as in a shadow or from behind a curtain, then with increasing clearness, until it reached its full development in the light of Christianity. Now with regard to the Egyptian
* Principia, III. 10.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 301
Beetle or elliptical form, introduced into the secret water-marks of Christian books. The beetle or Scarabeus, like the Peacock, or the Iris, was, on account of its burnished splendour and varied colours, a symbol of the Heavenly Messenger. In many cases it was synonymous with the mystic Phoenix and Phanes, or Pan — another name fof the Messenger or Holy Spirit. The Phoenix was supposed to return every six hundred years, upon the death of the parent bird, and thus it exemplified the perpetual destruction and reproduction of the world. The scarabeus, like the Phoenix, was the symbol of both a messenger and of a regenerated soul. It was the most frequent impression upon seals and rings in ancient Egypt, and hence the insignia of the Apocalyptic Messenger, the " Seal-opener."
With such hints as these, it is easy to see, not only why the old religious writers and secret societies used this scarabeus, mixed with the cross and other Christian symbols, but, also, the cause and meaning of the extensive adoption of ellipitical forms in engraved portraits in the mural tablets, monuments, and frames to memorial busts, on the tombs of the Rosicrucians and their friends. These memorials, when in black with gold lettering (typifying light out of darkness), reproduce absolutely the ancient idea adopted and assimilated by the Rosicrucians, of the perfect regenerate soul, destined by God to show forth His praises, who had called him out of darkness into His glorious light ! *
Where the orb or globe and the ellipse are united with the cross, or where the undulating water-line on an ill-drawn circle represents the Spirit of God, as waters upon the face of the earth, Bacon's idea is before us of the "mingling earth with heaven," which was his dream, and his perpetual endeavour.
The few specimens which are given of the various and frequent unicorns and panthers, or dogs, as ecclesiastical symbols, are curious not only from their quaintness, and the persistent manner in which, by one device or another, they exhibit the emblems of the Church, but also because here in the anchors we see spots which should incite inquiry. These have been explained as caused by the crossing or junction of wires in the
* Pet. ii. 9. The ellipse bore in ancient symbolism the same interpreta- tion as the beetle.
302 FRANCIS BACON
paper-mark, but this explanation seems to be unsatisfactory, considering the position of the spots. They are usually in places where wires do not cross ; and what is to be said of the unicorn (Plate II., fig. 1) with a line through his head ? Do not these dots suggest to the cryptographic expert some of the many systems by which words can be spelt out, or information conveyed, by means of counting, or by the relative position of dots?
. The nearest approach to the figure of a dog which we have found in Baconian times is the nondescript creature in Plate II., fig. 8. This is in some letters in Anthony Bacon's corre- spondence. * It seems to be intended to delude the eye as a serpent, but to be really the Sacred Horn, combined with the head of the dog or hound, in Hindu symbolism a type of the messenger of truth.
Serpents or serpentine lines are very frequent in early paper- marks, usually in combination with a cross, an anchor, or a Mercury's rod ; they are conspicuous in the large collection of Bull's-head water-marks which fill a folio volume in the British Museum, f
Bull's heads in every conceivable variety of size and arrange- ment, in every degree of good and bad drawing, prevail throughout most of the MS. Bibles of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Bulls with two eyes, or with one or none, with horns flat or exalted ; curved like the crescent moon, or rounded like leaves. Bulls with bland expressions and regular features, formed by the adroit arrangement of a fleur-de-lis for eyes, nose and mouth. Bulls with a Greek cross growing out at the tops of their heads, or a Mercury's rod entwined with a serpent descending from their chins, and terminated by various symbols, as the triangle, the figure 4, the Rose, or five-petaled flower, the fleur-de-lis, or the so-called Templar's or Maltese Cross. Ubiquitous as this mark is in the old paper of the continent before the da}7s of printing, and although fine speci- mens may be seen of it in letters from foreign ecclesiastics and statesmen, in Cotton's collection of Baconian MSS., we have not yet found one specimen in an English printed book. Special
* Tenison MSS., Lambeth Palace. t Press-mark 318 C, Vol. VII.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 303
attention is, however, drawn to it because we are sure that this bull's head, more and more disguised, was, in England especially, changed into the mock shields which pervade Baconian literature, and which, as we will presently show, are used in the present day by the same society which introduced them three hundred years ago. * ^
This paper-mark is peculiarly interesting, and to the present purpose as a forcible witness to the fact that the origin and meaning of these marks is distinctly religious, and the symbolism of the mediaeval and modern Churches in direct and legitimate descent from that of the most ancient forms of worship, when men, groping after truth, sought for means by which they might make visible, to those who were more dull and dark than them- selves, thoughts and aspirations which they had hardly words to express, or their hearers intelligence to comprehend.
The Bull was one of the most ancient Indian and Egyptian emblems of God ; a symbol of patience, strength, and persistency in effort. It is said to be in consequence of these attributes of the bull that Taurus became the appointed zodiacal sign at the vernal equinox; and under that sign God was adored as The Sun, or the Bull.
We read in the Bible how the Jews, despairing of the return of Moses from the mount, wished to make for themselves the image of a god who should lead them through the desert, and cast out the ungodly from before them. To this end they melted down their golden ornaments, and made the shape of a calf or bull.t
The bull's head, although not reproduced in England in its original form, was and is, as has been said, preserved in dis- guise. Plates IV. and V. show a few of the many patterns of these disguised heads in mock shields. They are exceedingly various and frequent in Baconian works, and in editions of the
* The bull is considered by Jansen to distinguish books by Dr. Faustus, or Fust. The single head belongs to Germany.
t It is said by some learned authorities that there seems to have been confusion in words, and that the Greeks put into Greek characters the Egyptian Ma-v-oein, which means the place of light, or the sun. (See commentary on the Apocalypse, III. 317.) But even this error, if it exists, only serves to show more clearly the close connection in the minds of the translators of Holy Writ between the most ancient religious symbols and those which they themselves employed. Bacon shows, in his Essay of Pan, the connection in parabolic language between horns and rays.
304 FRANCIS BACON
Bible of which Bacon, we think, superintended the revision and publication. A comparison of the specimens given from the 1632 edition of Shakespeare, the works of " Joseph Mede" 1677, and the modern-contemporary water-mark used by L. Van Gelder (Plate V.) will explain our meaning. In Van Gelder's paper the Bull's head is clearly discernible, and so is the mutual connection between this and the earlier marks. In the speci- mens from the "Diodati " Bible, 1648, there is the same general effect as in those from the Shakespeare of 1623, and Bacon's works 1638. Certain particulars are never failing — indications of horns, eyes, and in some cases protuberant ears. Doubtless these mock shields were intended to pass with the profane vulgar for coats of arms of some great personage, as Jansen and Sotheby would lead us to think them. But a pennyworth of observation will correct this notion. The sacred symbols of the fleur-de-lis, the trefoil, cross, horns, pearls, and diamonds, with the sacred monograms, numbers, and mystic or cabalistic marks, show plainly whence the old paper-maker derived them.
In the Bible, Horns are frequently used as emblems of pushing and conquest. They are, as we see on the Ninevah marbles at the British Museum, signs of prophet, priest, and king. In many emblem pictures the idea of Omnipotence is so mixed up with the further god-like attributes of Omniscience, Omnipresence, and universal beneficence, that it is often difficult to decide whether the design is most suggestive of the horns of power, the rays of spiritual and intellectual light, or the cornucopise of Abundance. Sometimes Serpents or serpentine lines found in connection with the bull, the cross, and the anchor are (espe- cially in connection with wood-cuts) so rendered as to suggest the same mixed symbolism.
To the mystics in India and Greece, as well as to the ecclesi- astics of the middle ages, and the philosophers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Serpent of Eternity was the sign of God, the Holy Spirit. The symbol is retained in the stained glass of our church windows, and in emblematic designs from the Apocalypse, where St. John the Divine is distinguished by the chalice whence issues the Serpent, typifying wisdom, or reason and speech, the gifts of the Spirit.
In the caduceus of Mercury, whilst the symbolism is somewhat
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 305
changed, the idea is similar. The rod is said formerly to have been a scroll or ancient book, and the two serpents entwined round it typify everlasting wisdom. It is likewise the emblem of peace ; for Mercury (according to pagan mythology), finding two serpents fighting, reconciled them by a touch of his wand, and thenceforward bore this symbol of reconciliation. This is held to figure the harmonising force of religion, which can tame even the venomous and cold-blooded snakes. The same line of thought may be followed up in Bacon's Essay of Orpheus, and in other places where he expounded his own views of the best methods for " tuning discords to a concord."
The old Bugle mark, of which innumerable instances are found in old letters and MS. books, and which is in use at the present day, seems to have been originally derived from the bull and his horns. In the first instance, associated with the conception of the Supreme Being and His universal power, wisdom, and good- ness, it became after a time, the bugle or trumpet which was to call forth men to their duties — the Ecclesia — called oat to do especial service for God and for Humanity.*
Bacon and his friends adopted this Bugle or Trumpet, and, giving it an additional or secondary significance, assimilated it in their hieroglyphic pictures and their parabolic phraseology. Bacon is about to treat of the " Division of the Doctrine concern- ing Man into the Philosophy of Humanity and Philosophy Civil." He shows throughout this chapter, as elsewhere, that
" The proper study of mankind is man,"
and this his prologue :
" If any one should aim a blow at me (excellent King) for anything I have said, or shall hereafter say in this matter (be- sides that I am within the protection of your Majesty), let me tell him that he is acting contrary to the rules and practices of warfare; fori am. a trumpeter, not a combatant; one, perhaps, of those of whom Homer speaks :
' Hail, heralds, messengers of Jove and men ! ' |
* Until recently, when the assizes were being held in country towns in England, the judges and council (barristers, etc.) were thus, when the court was to begin business, called out from their lodgings by the sound of a bugle or horn.
t Horn. I. 334.
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and such men might go to and fro everywhere unhurt, between the fiercest and bitterest enemies. Nor is mine a trumpet which summons and excites men to cut each other to pieces with mutual contradictions, or to quarrel and fight with one another ; but, rather, to make peace between themselves, and, turning with united forces against the nature of things, to storm and occupy her castles and strongholds, and extend the bounds of human empire as far as God Almighty in his goodness may permit." *
In the 1658 edition of the History of Life and Death, you may see a fine example of the Bugle with the SS in a shield-frame of olive, surmounted by the usual crown, with pearls, horns, and fleur-de-lis. f The Olive, commoner, even, in the hieroglyphic wood-cuts than in the paper-marks, is an evergreen, figuring eternity. This tree was sacred to Minerva, wisdom. From it was distilled the ambrosia, drink of the gods, " divinest olive oil," with which Achilles was anointed in order to make him invulnerable. " My friends, chew upon this." Try to realise the deep symbolism of that pretty water-mark. See how, by a few well-chosen outlines, within two square inches of paper, it calls up the thought of one specially endowed for the benefit and service of the whole human race, of winning for it all provinces of learning ; winning, " not as a combatant," but with sweet, smooth, and winning words of divinest poesy — that " oil of gladness " with which he was anointed above his fellows. Songs of joy and gladness are for times of peace, and " the olive is symbolical of the joy which peace diffuses. The leaves of the olive (as a wreath) suggest the thought of its oil, used for the anointing of the head. Thou anointest my head with oil, says David, recounting the abundant blessings which he had re- ceived from God ; and the ancients were accustomed to anoint the head with oil on all festive occasions." X
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God." § Gentle, conciliating, peace-making, and peace-loving ; endowed with powers and knowledge beyond all
* De Aug. IV. 1.
t Observe also the distinct form of a pot in the outline of the shield or wreath. % Free Masonry, C. I. Paton, 1873, p. 158. § Quoted 2 Hen. VI. II. 1.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 307
other men, yet modest, retiring, and totally free from dogmatism and intolerance ; a herald, not a trumpeter of his own learning — such was Francis Bacon. Apparently, in his own day, and with some of his biographers, he would have been more highly esteemed, had he asserted himself, defended himself, stood upon his rights, and refused torbe thought wrong or to confess an error even for carelessness. By nature we know that he was, according to his own showing, hasty, impatient, disposed to be over-impetuous in his zeal, and exhibiting, though at rare intervals, " the flash and outbreak of a fiery mind." But before setting forth to conquer others, he studied to conquer himself, with what result we see. The sweetness and calm beneficence which pervaded his whole being are the perpetual theme of letters and other anthentic records which remain of him. His great desire, " as much as lay in him, to live peaceably with all men," made him shrink from controversy and disputations, prefer self-effacement, misconstruction, even disgrace, to the risk of endangering the realisation of his visions and schemes for the happiness of the future ages.
And truly this " celestial peace " has perpetually hovered over his work ; truly may this work, begun in faith and meek- ness, be said to inherit the earth. For lvhere is there a region, inhabited by civilised man, which is left unpossessed by it ? Founded upon Eternal Truth, that work must be, as Bacon himself believed, imperishable as Truth itself, and rightly is it figured by evergreen branches of the olive, sacred to Pallas.*
Sometimes the mock shields sprout into wreaths of Laurel and Bay (figuring triumph and victory). These seem to have been used for books published after the author's death. Other shields, whether foreign or English, of later date than 1626, have Chains or interlinked SS, representing, perhaps, " not only the Cliain of nature and the thread of the fates, which are one and the same thing, but the famous chain of Homer, that is, the chain of natural causes" " a chain which is confederate and linked together, and which, when the mind of man beholdeth it, must needs fly to Providence and Deity." The chains have, as
* Having stumbled across a quaint coincidence which may interest some readers, we give it for what it may be worth. " Pallas (wisdom) takes her name from vibrating a lance." In other words shakes a spear, " represent- ing heroic virtue with wisdom."— (See The Book of God, III. 98).
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usual, a double and Masonic meaning. Love, friendship, and true " brotherhood " are also chains held together by many bands or links firmly soldered, and difficult to break.
Bacon moves the Queen to friendly relations with France by showing how their mutual interests should form a bond of union between them, and, by means of her Majesty's friendship, " solder the link * which religion hath broken."
He is expressing much the same thought about the Queen which is in the speech of King Philip to Pandulfo, the Pope's legate, regarding his own recent alliance with the English King :
* This royal hand and mine are newly knit, And the conjunction of our inward souls Married in league, coupled and linked together With all religious strength of sacred vows.1' f
The wise words of Ulysses, commenting upon the anger of Ajax because " Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him," come often to the mind in reading such Baconian sayings.
" The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie." t Nestor has rejoiced and laughed over the quarrel and conse- quent disunion of the two rival parties.
" All the better, their fraction is more our wish than their faction — but it was strong counsel a fool could disunite ! "
Bacon furnishes a reply. The wisest of princes, he tells us, choose true and wise friends " participes curaruto," care-sharers, for it is that which tieth the knot.§ Divisions and factions weaken the state, and " the cord breaketh at last by the weakest pull." Those are the strongest whose welfare joineth and knitteth them in a common cause, || and since religion is, after all, the chief band of human society, "it is well when church and state are alike contained within the true band of unity." If He is not so Utopian as to expect that men will ever think all alike, on any one subject — there are " certain self-pleasing and humorous minds which are so sensible of every restraint as they go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles" — yet he gives this advice according to his "small
* Compare : " They are so linked in friendship." — 3 Hen. VI. IV. 3, 116. t John III. 1. X Troilus and Cressida, II. 3. § See Essay of Friendship. jj Ess. Sedition. «[ Of Unity
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 300
model." " In veste xarietatis sit, scissura non sit.11 Uniformity not the same as Unity — the bond of peace and of all virtues — and humanity should be drawn together by the chains of sympathy and mutual dependence, not rent asunder by hatred, jealousy, and uncharitableness.
Thus we interpret the Cttains surrounding the Shields, foreign or English, to be seen amongst our drawings. These shields form links with many paper-marks, assuming the shapes by turns of mirrors or hearts, or suppressing the escutcheon in favour of the crown which should surmount it. Or the outline of the shield is marked only by a wreath, or (in works, we think, not original, but the product of many translators, editors, etc.) by the chain, which sometimes includes shells and a pendant — and which points to the order of the Golden Fleece as its origin.
The Heart Shields often contain or are surmounted by a cross something like Luther's seal, or hearts are introduced into the frame of a mirror-shield, as in the example taken from the posthumous edition of Bacon's History of Henry VII. What a parable the old paper-makers have given us here ! No need for " drawing it into great variety by a witty talent or an in- ventive genius, delivering it of plausible meanings which, it never contained." * The parabolic meaning stands out plain before our eyes as we hold that old sheet against the light for the sun to stream through.
This Shield, modified to the form of a Mirror, is " the glass of the understanding," the mirror of man's mind, which Bacon calls the Microcosm — the little World reflecting the great world without. " To hold the mirror up to nature," was one of his chief endeavours. He would " show vice its own deformity," kindly, gravely, or laughingly, "for it is good to mingle jest with earnest,"! and " what forbids one to speak truth with a laughing face ? "if
See the Bugle of which we have spoken, the Heart reminding us of the whole-hearted devotion which must be brought to the work of raising fallen humanity and regaining our paradise lost. Then the scrolls, are they not to bring to mind the magic wand of Mercury, once a scroll or book ? It was by books that this
* Pref . to Wisdom of the Ancients. | Ess. of Discourse. X Horace quoted Promus, 10-11.
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regeneration was to be chiefly effected. By the Pearls of know- ledge uniting the Scrolls, the ellipse which surrounds the mirror, and the fleur-de-lis which surmounts the whole, we are again bidden to confess that every good and perfect gift of genius, wit, or knowledge comes from the great God who has created and redeemed us, and who ever comforts, helps, and inspires us, that we may glorify Him with our bodies and with our spirits, which are His.
Returning for a minute to the bugles, we must say that it appears incomprehensible how a paragraph such as the follow- ing should be allowed to find its way into a book professedly instructive, " founded upon lectures delivered at the London Institution," and thereby claiming a certain authority :
" Post paper seems to have derived its name from the post- horn, which, at one time, was its distinguishing mark. It does not appear to have been used prior to the establishment of the General Post-office (1670), when it became the custom to blow a horn, to which circumstance, no doubt, we may attribute its introduction."
The Post-horn or Bugle, was at the time of the establishment of the post-office, more than three hundred and fifty years old. Even supposing the writer to be speaking of the bugle or horn, as used only in printed books, still it seems almost incredible that an expert should be unaware of the presence of this same "post-horn" in the works of Bacon thirty years before the establishment of the post-office. As for the bugles or "post- horns " in the writing-paper of Baconian correspondence, we pass them lightly over, on account of their multitude, but some specimens are given in the plates.
One more paper-mark, common in old religious books, is the Fool's-cap. There are, as usual, various forms, some resemb- ling a mitre, others diverging into distinct rays, five or seven, which rays sometimes develop into coronets or radiant rising suns.
The book before quoted proceeds to throw another sprinkling of " puzzling dust " in our eyes by the following observa- tions :
" The foolscap was a later device (than the jug or pot) and does not appear to have been nearly of such long continuance
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 311
as the former. It has given place to the figure of Britannia, or that of a lion rampant, supporting the cap of liberty on a pole. The name, however, has continued, and we still denominate paper of a particular size by the title of foolscap. The original figure has the cap and bells, of which we so often read in old plays and histories, as the particular head-dress of the fool who at one time formed part of every great man's establishment.
" The water-mark of a cap may sometimes be met with, of a much simpler form than just mentioned, resembling the jockey- caps of the present day, with a trifling ornamentation or addition to the upper part* The first edition of ' Shakespeare,'' printed by Isaac Jaggard and Ed Blount, 1623, will be found to con- tain this mark interspersed with several others of a different character. No doubt the general use of the term cap to various papers of the present day owes its origin to marks of this description." f
Turning our backs for a short time upon authority, we ask counsel of experience and research. First, as to the antiquity of the Fool's cap ? The earliest printed book which contains it seems to be the Golden Legend, written in 1370, but printed by Caxton. J After this it is not infrequent, especially in the modified forms which sometimes suggest a coronet or crown, sometimes the rays of a rising sun.
Perhaps the thoughts which the fool's cap suggested were akin to those in " Quarles' Emblems " :
" See'st thou this fulsome idiot : in what measure He seems delighted with the antic pleasure Of childish baubles ? Canst thou but admire The emptiness of his full desire ? Canst thou conceive such poor delights as these Can fill th1 insatiate soul, or please The fond aspect of his deluded eye ? Reader, such fools are you and I." §
The text which furnishes the motif of these lines is from Psalm lxix. 5 : " O God, Thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from Thee."
* The writer omits to say that this " addition " is a fieur-de-lis, or other sacred emblem.
t Herring, p. 104—106.
X The illustration given is copied from Sotheby's Principia.
§ Quarles' Emblems, Book III. 2.
312 FRANCIS BACON
In the modern edition, a child with a fool's cap and bauble rides astride upon the world, which wears an ass's head.
Little as we have reason to trust any printed statements on these subjects, yet there seems to be no cause for disbelieving the uncalled-for assertion that the Fool's cap gave place to the figure of Britannia, or that of a lion rampant. There are apparently no modern Fool's caps, but " Britannias " are common in English, and lions in foreign foolscap paper. So there can be no harm, for the present at least, in registering this item of knowledge. Yet we will, a little curiously, inspect our much- esteemed ruled foolscap. Holding towards the light the sheet on which we are about to write, we see that on one half it bears the inscription, " Toogood's Superfine." This is truly its trade- mark. According to our authority, on the other half we have Britannia portrayed as on our national penny, seated, and occu- pied as usual in ruling the waves.
This is the first impression. But Britannia should wear a helmet, should bear in her hand a trident, and beside her a round target or wheel, with the mixed crosses of St. George, St. Patrick, and St. Andrew, in the Union Jack.
The lady of our paper-mark seems to be crowned with five pearls. In her right hand she holds a Trefoil or fleur-de-lis, in her left a Spear tipped with a diamond. By her side rests a shield of elliptical form, and on it a plain cross. Beneath her feet are the ancient marks of waters, and her image is framed by three elliptical lines surmounted with a crown of pearls,'and the Maltese cross and orb. Pearls, fleur-de-lis, diamond, crosses, ellipses — surely again we see in the very texture of our paper a reminder of the " Sovereign Lady," Truth ; the heavenly jewel of knowledge tipping the spear which " pierces to the heart of things ; " the pearls, the dew of heaven, the celestial manna, which Truth affords. Then the threefold ellipse, the cross, trefoil, and waters, are they not reminders of the fact that knowledge without Faith is but vain, that of ourselves we can do nothing, but that " all things are possible through the Holy Spirit that strengthened us." * The trefoil which Truth holds in her extended right hand is a silent emblem of the great
* Philippians iv. 13, Vulgate, noted in Bacon's Promus, as " against con- ceyt of impossibilities." Fol. 114, 1242.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 313
doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, to which heaven and earth alike bear witness.
Would anyone endeavour to explain away such an interpreta- tion, and to say that this paper-mark either represents Britannia, or that it represents nobody in particular; that the symbols are imaginary, or that tkey have come together by chance ; in short, that this is nothing but a manufacturer's work, adopted by a certain firm, from whim or fancy, but with no especial aim ?
Such conjectures cannot be accepted. For trade-marks are, as it were, private property ; it is even actionable to appropriate a name or device previously adopted for commercial pur- poses. How, then, can we pronounce this paper-mark to be a trade-mark, when, taking up a sheet from another parcel marked " Joynson's Superfine," we find in it the same image of " Britannia," or Truth, as that in Toogood's ? * The same, that is, in all essential particulars — ellipses, pearls, diamond, cross, crown, trefoil, water — yet with differences in small details such as we hope to show in similar wood-cuts in the " Baconian '' books, and such as are perceptible in paper-marks of the same design, three hundred years old.
Joynson's mark is one-tenth of an inch smaller in all direc- tions than Toogood's. The waves are fewer, the cross on the shield of thinner proportions ; the garment of Truth, which in Toogood's pattern is loose, fits tightly in Joynson's similar design. We say, then, that this is no mere trade-mark. It is an emblematic or hieroglyphic design, deliberately adopted and reproduced by two distinct firms of paper-makers. It bears witness to a mutual understanding, and to a traditional method amongst them of transmitting secret information, and, as we think, cardinal points of religious doctrine.
For, examine, trace, catalogue as we may, we never get away from these chief and dominant ideas and meditations of Bacon upon the unity and diversity and universality of God, in religion as in nature — of the beauty, love, and order in creation — that love and truth are inseparable — that the Bible and nature are God's two great lights, the greater light to rule the day of
* Since writing this we have seen another mark where a man's figure, Time, we think, takes the place of Truth. Bacon says that Truth is the daughter of Time, not of Authority.
W
314 FRANCIS BACON
spiritual life, the lesser light to rule the night of intellectual darkness — and that man himself is the little world in which the whole great world, the universe, is reflected and mirrored.
Never for an instant are we allowed to forget that every good gift, every power or faculty of soul or intellect, the reason and speech which raise man above the level of the brute, are " God's gifts," to be used to His glory, and for the benefit of His creatures, and that all mankind is bound together by chains and links of sympathy and brotherhood, as every part of know- ledge is linked in a never-ending circle.
One more mark should be especially noted, for, although it is amongst the oldest, it was used all through the life of Bacon, not only in England, but in books and letters from abroad. "The open hand" is variously interpreted of faith and trust, or of generosity and open-handed liberality ; usually these qualities in their best examples all go together. To the open hand is sometimes added the trefoil, or the key, symbol of secrecy, or the figure 3, perhaps again an allusion to the Trinity. Every variety of size, proportion or disproportion, is to be seen in these hands, which diverge into other forms, puzzling to the copyist. Sometimes the five fingers spread out into rays, or a crown, at other times contract, so as to suggest a vase. The most notable alteration (the addition of a star) seems to have taken place in the time of Sir Nicholas Bacon, and it was retained long afterwards.
Mr. Sotheby says that an open hand with a star at the top was in use as early as 1530, and probably gave the name to the "hand" paper.
This remark again encourages the erroneous idea that these are trade-marks, rather than the secret signs of a religious, literary society, which they surely were. The addition of " the star on the top " (sometimes not a star, but a rose or a fleur- de-lis) was made just about the time when the other "Baconian" marks began to appear, in the time, that is, of Sir Nicholas Bacon.*
* Joel Munsell specifies 1539 as the " era" of the "ancient water-mark of the hand with a star at the fingers' ends." He does not mention that the star was then a new addition. By 1559 this sign must have become sufficiently familiar to excite no inquiry, for in that year Richard Tottel printed " in Flete Strete, at the signe of the Hand and Starre," a trans- lation of Seneca's Troas, made by Jasper Haywood.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 315
The few specimens given in Plate III. are chiefly selected from a very large number which are found in the paper of one of Anthony Bacon's chief correspondents — Anthony Standen. These letters were written from various parts of the continent, and under various names. Sometimes they are signed La Faye, at other times Andrieu Saadal. Under the latter name Standen was cast into prison in Spain, upon suspicion of being a political spy. The charge was disproved, and his release effected, apparently by the Bacons' influence, but Standen's history has yet to be written. Other specimens given from the Harleian, Cottonian, Lansdowne, and Hatton Finch MSS., at the British Museum, are in documents concerning the Bacons and their friends. They are chiefly in letters or documents sent from abroad, or in copies.
The secrecy attaching to all these matters is the strongest proof that at some time or other there was danger involved in the writing, printing, and disseminating of books. Now, when there is no such danger, in free England and America at least, the secrets would certainly be made public, were it not that the vows of a secret society, vows perhaps heedlessly and ignorantly taken by the large proportion of members, prevent the better educated and more fully initiated amongst them from revealing things which must, one would think, be, at the present hour, matters chiefly of history or of antiquarian curiosity — immense aids to the study of " Elizabethan " and " Jacobean " literature, but hurtful to no one.
" It is much to be regretted that in tracing so curious an art as that of the manufacture of modern paper, any definite con- clusion as to the precise time or period of its adoption should hitherto have proved altogether unattainable. The Royal Society of Sciences at Gottingen, in 1735 and 1763, offered considerable premiums for that especial object, but, unfortunately, all re- searches, however directed, were utterly fruitless." *
So says our guide. But is it credible that in the history of mechanical arts paper-making and printing are the only such mechanical arts which have no record of their own origin ?
We cannot believe it. Some day, when the secret brother- hoods, especially the higher grades, shall have persuaded them-
* Herring, Paper and Paper-making, 34.
316 FRANCIS BACON
selves that " the time is ripe," or when narrow protectionist systems shall, liberally and pro bono publico, give way to free trade in knowledge (as they have given way to Francis Bacon's other great desiderata — freedom of thought and freedom of the press) — then it will, we are convinced, be easy for those who hold the keys to unlock this closed door in the palace of Truth, and to let us know the rights about these precious and in- offensive arts and crafts.
The following is a list of the water-marks which we have found in books previous to the Baconian period, or in MSS. or other documents. The paper seems to be all foreign, from mills chiefly in Holland or Germany. Some of these figures were retained in the end of the sixteenth century and developed into other forms. Each figure seems to have been varied almost indefinitely. In our limited research we have seldom found two precisely alike, and there seem to be about sixty figures, not reckoning " nondescripts " and doubtful forms or variations : —
1. Animals. Quadrupeds. — Ape or Monkey, Bull, Cat (or Panther?), Dog (Hound or Talbot), Goat, Horse, Lamb (some- times with flag), Lion (rampant or passant), Panther, Pig, Hog, Swine, Stag (head or passant), Wolf. Birds. — Cock, Duck (or Goose ?), Eagle (sometimes spread, or with two heads or four legs), Goose, Pelican, Swan. Fish. — Carp, Dolphin, Porpoise or Dolphin. Reptiles. — Lizard, Newt, Serpent. Mythical. — Dragon or Griffin, Mermaid, Phoenix, Unicorn.
2. Flowers. — Bell-flower, Fleur-de-lis or Trefoil, Lily, Rose (five-petaled, or nondescript, four-petaled). Fruits. — Cherries, Fig, Grapes, Pear, Pomegranate.
3. Miscellaneous. — Anchor (sometimes in a circle), Angel or Acolyte, Anvil, Ark, Bars with names, letters, etc., Battle-axe, Bell, Bow and Arrows, Cross Bow, Bugle or Trumpet or Horn, Cap (see Fool's Cap), Cardinal's Hat, Cask or Water-butt, Castle or Tower,* Chalice, Circle (sometimes with cabalistic figures), Compasses, Cords or Knot, Cornucopias (or Horns), Crescent,
* N.B.— This seems to be a modification of the Mounts and to end in becoming candlesticks.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 317
Cross ^(Greek or Maltese), Crown, Fool's Cap, Globe, Golden Fleece, Hammer, Hand, Heart, Horn, Bugle, Trumpet, Cornu- copia, Key, Crossed Keys, etc., Ladder, Lamp, Lance or Spear, Letters (chiefly when alone, P and Y), Lotus (?), Mitre, Moon, Moore's Head, Mounts (3 or 7), Orb, Reliquary (for Pot ?) Scales on Balance, Shears or Scissors, Shell (or bivalve?), Shield, Ship, Spear, Spiral line or Mercury's Rod, Star, Sun or flaming disk, Sword, Triangle with cross, etc., Trumpet (see Horn), Vine (see Grapes), Water-butt (see Cask), Waves or Water, Wheel (sometimes toothed).
Interpretation of these marks seems to be tolerably complete, but the matter grows as we look at it, and is too large for these pages. We hope to include parts of it with Francis Bacon's " Figures in All Things."
318 FRANCIS BACON