CHAPTER XI.

PAPER-MARKS IN AND AFTER THE TIME OF FRANCIS BACON.
THE paper-marks which have hitherto been noticed were all used in manuscripts or printed books before Bacon began to publish, and chiefly on the continent. Many of them were retained or adopted by the members of his society. But their use became immensely expanded and diversified, and it will be seen that the Baconian literature contains these paper- marks so mixed (even within the covers of one volume) as to dispose of the idea that a certain quantity of paper of one kind, or with the mark of one maker, was apportioned for the printing of a particular book. On the contrary, it seems to have been almost the rule to use in one volume paper with three different marks, and each of these marks varied three or iive times. This system of mixture, or of ringing the changes upon a certain set of patterns, makes it easy to establish a complete chain of connection between the books belonging to the society. Several of the marks are used as well by foreign as by English printers.
There are three paper-marks which we have learnt especially to associate with Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony. They are to be seen throughout the printed books which we ascribe to Francis, and one in particular is in the paper in which he and Anthony, and their most confidential friends, corresponded, whether in England or abroad. These marks are :
1. The bunch of grapes.
2. The pot, or jug.
3. The double candlesticks.
The grapes and the pots appear, in somewhat rude forms, as early as the fourteenth century. The candlesticks seem in their earlier stages to have been towers or pillars. As candlesticks, even single, we have failed to find one earlier than 1580, and then in a MS. document. (Plate VIII. 1.) Even this example
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 319
is rather suggestive of a castle than of a candlestick, and as castles and towers of unmistakable forms (and sometimes show- ing an affinity to the mounts spoken of in the last chapter) appear in books published in Italy as early as the fourteenth century, it is possible that here we have some of the many scattered links in the chain of continuity in designs as well as ideas. *
These three marks we associate with Francis Bacon : (1) Because few of his letters are without the pot, and none of his acknowledged books without one or more in the paper-marked editions. (2) Because in works whose matter, language, and other signs, internal and external, point to him as their author, one or more of these marks runs through the book. (3) Because when the book is of the kind which Bacon " collected," by the aid of others, or revised and improved upon for other writers, one at least of these three patterns (used, perhaps, once or twice only in the whole book, or in the fly-leaves) ackowledges the touch of his hand. In such cases, the paper-marks in the body of the book are quite different, or there are none. To begin with the candlesticks, of which patterns may be seen on Plate