L. 88 ; V. 3 ; L. 3, 158.

§ Nat. Hist. X. Pref. || Speech. «[ Nov. Org. I. 82.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 325
at once/' * This is somewhat the same as Bacon's other figure of "handing down the lamp of tradition." He urges men to unite in one great effort, rather than to fritter away their powers in small detached experiments and weak works. " Were it not better for a man in a fair room to set up one great light or branching candlestick of lights, than to go about with a small watch-candle in every corner ? " |
" For mere contemplation, which should be finished in itself without casting beams of light and heat upon society, assuredly divinity knows it not." $
" Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for ourselves : for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues." §
The first twenty-six Shakespeare sonnets repeat these senti- ments. The poet reproaches his friend,
11 That thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy life's flame with self-substantial fire ; " ||
and, although he continually changes the figure, the same idea is worked out in many different ways. He speaks of the enthusiasm which gives fire to our nation, fl and which set men's hearts on fire ; of the fires of love, hatred, zeal, or sedition, which glow, burn, smoulder, are blown up into flame, or smothered and extinguished ; ** sparks which fly abroad lighting upon free and noble minds and spirits apt to be kindled ; sparks of affection, of grace, "liberty, spirit, and edge." "ft "My heart," he says in one of his prayers, "hath been an un quenched coal on thine altar."
" Have a care," says one of the councillors in Bacon's device, " The Order of the Helmet," " that the light of your state do not go out, or burn dim or obscure." Bacon was continually trying to urge upon the sovereign for the time being, her or his duties and responsibilities in regard to the handing on of the lamp. He received little encouragement from Elizabeth, but by
* Ess. of Sphinx. t Advt. of L. I. 1. Comp. with the above.
X Be Aug. VII. 1. § See M. M. I. 1, 29—40. || Son. I.
f Of Calling Pari. 1615. ** Hist. Hen. VII.
tt Advt. II., De Aug. VIII. 2, etc.
326 FRANCIS BACON
dint of impressing upon the mind of the King, not only that he ought to assist learning, but that he was learned, and capable of doing what he pleased in the fields of literature and science, he seems to have succeeded in making that dull monarch appear, and believe himself to be, something like the bright creature which Bacon so earnestly desires that he should become. There " are joined in your Majesty the light of nature, the light of learning, and the light of God's holy spirit (and that) fourth light, the light of a most wise and well-compounded counsel.1' *
A icatch-candle is the emblem of " care and obsemation." In a letter to King James (May 31, 1612) Bacon says, " My good old mistress was pleased to call me her watch-candle, because it pleased her to say I did continually burn (and yet she suffered me to waste almost to nothing).1' Elsewhere he says : " There should be a sort of night-watch set over nature, as showing herself rather by night than by day. For these may be regarded as night studies, by reason of the smallness of the candle and its continual burning." f
Amongst our candlesticks is one (Plate VIII.) from the Observations on Ccesar's Commentaries of 1609. This volume has on its title-page a medallion portrait of a young man, six- teen or seventeen years of age, who bears a striking likeness to the juvenile portraits of Francis Bacon. These Observations on " those most excellent Commentaries that Caesar writ " J are published with the name of " Clement Edmundes, Remem- brancer of the Cittie of London." To occupy such a position Edmundes must have been a man of some standing ; his, there- fore, cannot be the boyish portrait which figures at the top of this title-page. May we not rather believe it to be that of the youth who for seven years devoted himself, heart and soul, to the study of the ancient authors, and who thus speaks of these very Commentaries, with which we see that he was more than ordinarily acquainted ? §
" As for Julius Caesar, the excellency of his learning needeth
* Pacification of the Church. f Nov. Org. II. 4. $ 2 Hen. VI. IV. 7.
§ Again we insert a saving clause in regard to " Anthonie," the " deare brother," fellow-student in youth, twin in mind and face, who may prove to have been the translator or inditer of these " Commentaries."
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 327
not to be argued from his education, or his company, or his speeches ; but in a farther degree doth declare itself in his writings and works ; whereof some are extant and permanent, and some have unfortunately perished. For first . . . there is left unto us that excellent history of his oicn wars, which he entitled only a Commentary, . . . wherein all succeeding times have admired the solid weight of matter, and the real passages and lively images of actions and persons, expressed in the greatest propriety of words and perspicacity of narration that ever was." *
The one little candlestick referred to is the only one of the kind which as yet we have met with ; it may, however, be expected that other examples will be found in early editions of some of the boyish works published by his friends ; for we suppose this figure to represent some utterance or aspiration of the youthful student, that he might himself be a humble light, or candle-holder, for others. This conjecture is not un- reasonable, seeing that immediately after his death, and for fifty years subsequently, his immediate friends and followers developed and made conspicuous use of this symbol in editions of his acknowledged works, and in others which we ascribe to him.
And would anyone find it easy to devise an emblematic water-mark more suitable for works such as Francis Bacon engaged in than this of the double candlesticks, with their varied, " bifold " meanings ? Once, perhaps, the mounts of knowledge, then rocks, castles, towers difficult to scale or sur- mount— pillars of Hercules, bounding and obstructing human knowledge and aspiration — they are now converted into pillars of light, beacons for guidance and encouragement to distressed and weary travellers. They are lights of truth and beauty. The divine light of the Holy Spirit and the light of the human intellect. The light of God's Word and the light of nature. God's " two witnesses, . . . the two candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth." f
In combination with the candlesticks are fleur-de-lis, trefoil, pearls, and other symbols of the Holy Spirit ; sometimes an
* See a long criticism, from which the above is condensed. — Advance- ment of Learning, I. 1. t Revelations xi. 3, 4.
328 FRANCIS BACON
E C or C R ; almost invariably grapes piled in a pyramid or diamond. The bunch of grapes, alone, or in combination with other figures, is the second great mark in Bacon's books ; he has explained their symbolism :
"As wines which flow gently from the first treading of the grape are sweeter than those that are squeezed out by the wine- press, because these last have some taste of the stones and skin of the grape ; so those doctrines are very sweet and healthy which flow from a gentle pressure of the Scripture, and are not wrested to controversies and commonplaces." *
Again : "I find the wisdom of the ancients to be like grapes ill-trodden : something is squeezed out ; but the best parts are left behind ; " f and he likens the laws to " the grapes that, being too much pressed, yield an hard and unwholesome wine." His own " method, as wholesome as sweet," J tolerant of other men's opinions, whilst firm in his own, appears in these words :
" I may say, then, of myself (since it marks the distinction so truly), it cannot be that we should think alike, when one drinks water and the other wine. . . . Now, other men have, in the matter of sciences, drunk a crude liquor like water, either flow- ing spontaneously from the understanding, or drawn up by logic, as by wheels from a well. Whereas I pledge mankind in a liquor pressed from countless grapes — from grapes ripe and fully seasoned, collected in clusters, and gathered, and then squeezed in the press, and then, finally, purified and clarified in the vat." §
And here, in his books, are the grapes in clusters or " collec- tions " ready for the " first vintage." Books of all kinds, and in all degrees of " crudity," will be found to contain these famous symbolic paper-marks, of which only a few examples can here be given. Pray, my readers, heed them, note them, and add to the list appended to this chapter. If not in one edition, yet in another, of every work of Bacon, writ by the light of God's two candlesticks, these grapes will be found. He was at first treading the wine-press alone, and his efforts were those pioneer labours often so painful, and so unrewarded to the performer, but which " smooth successors their way."
De Aug. IX. 1. f" Controversies of the Church, t Ham. II. 2. § Nov. Org. 1. 123.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 329
" Since truth," he says, " will sooner come out from error than from confusion, I think it expedient that the understanding should be permitted " {after " a due presentation of instances," or collection of facts on the subject in hand) " to make a kind of essay, which I call the Indulgence of the Understanding, or the Commencement of Interpretation, or the First Vintage.11 Then he proceeds to press, out of {he few facts which he has been able to collect, " a first vintage," on the nature of heat.
Perhaps we may gain hints as to the degree of completion which Bacon considered that certain of his works had attained, by the number of the grapes, or the perfection of the diamond shape in which many of the bunches are arranged. In this diamond we are reminded of the " heavenly jewel " of knowledge, the reason and speech which Bacon says is especially the divine gift to man. Where there is not this form, a fleur- de-lis or the letters R C have been almost invariably found. The latter, often combined with another letter, are conjectured to be a signature of the Rosicrucian brother by whose aid the work was produced ; as, for instance, in Cynthia's Revels, two distinct forms of I R C are found, which may mean " Ionson, Rosy Cross." * The same letters are in a bar in the last page of Shakespeare, 1623, but they are differently arranged — R C I, and a reversed C, as may be seen in Plate XL 7, Plate XII. 46, 52. It is well known how Ben Jonson laboured in the pro- duction of that famous folio. But, with regard to the oft- repeated fleur-de-lis, again we are reminded that the truth which we express is itself divine ; that it is of the nature of the Holy Spirit, who Himself guides us unto all truth. " To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to another, the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit; to another, faith; ... to another, the gifts of healing ; ... to another, prophecy ; to another, divers kinds of tongues ; to another, the interpretation of tongues, but all these worketh that self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." \
The grape, more than any other fruit, furnished Bacon's bright imagination with images by which to explain his ideas of
* Often the letters are very confused or inverted, or written so that they can only be read in a mirror. This complicates matters. We do not pretend to give positive opinions about these things.
t Cor. xii. 8—11.
X
330 FKANOIS BACON
the cheering and stimulating effects of true knowledge ; its ten- dency as a vine to spread and ramify, and in its fruits to cluster. As in many places he shows that all sciences hang together like links in one great chain, so here he finds that though " chance disco vereth new inventions by one and one, science finds them by clusters" * and " axioms rightly discovered . . . produce works, not here or there one, but in clusters." | True to himself in his longing after truth, and his aversion to con- troversy, he exclaims : " God grant that we may contend with other Churches, as the vine with the olive, which of us shall bear best fruit ; and not as the briar with the thistle, which of us is most unprofitable." J
When we come to a consideration of title-pages and their hieroglyphic illustrations, we shall again see the vine in full bearing, supported by pillars or props, the powerful or wealthy authorities in Church or State, and the munificent " benefactors " of private life, who, though they could, perhaps, not contribute to the clusters or the growth of the vine, could help to protect and maintain it. For, Bacon again explains, " the sympathy of preservation is as . . . the vine which will creep towards a stake or prop that stands near it/' §
Like almost all of Bacon's chosen or adopted symbols, the vine, as the emblem of truth, is very ancient. Indian mythology represents Osiris (the Grecian Bacchus) as a wonderful con- queror who travelled over the face of the whole earth, winning territories wherever he came, yet to the advantage of those whom he subdued. Here is Bacon's figure of " taking all knowledge to be his province" for the benefit of humanity.
Osiris is said to be the son of Ehea (the Holy Spirit), and his chief attendants were Pan, Nature ; a dog, Experience ; Maro, a great planter of the vine (of knowledge) ; and Triptolemus, much skilled in husbandry. He is described with the Nine Muses and the Sciences in his train. It is needless to follow the mythical Osiris into his various connections with Apollo, music, songs, dancing, and with the arts of speech and healing. All these spring from truth, nature, and cultivation of the mind and soul {husbandry) ; and that the vine was from the earliest times the
* Instn. Nat. 11. f Gt. Instn. Plan, rep. Nov. Org. I. 70. J Controversies of the Church. § Apologia, 1603.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 331
symbol of truth, is certain from many passages of the Holy Scripture, where Jesus Christ even speaks of Himself under this figure. " I am the true Vine, and My Father is the Husband- man. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." *
The poet-philosopher has^ollected his clusters, and it remains to express them, and to store up the precious juice so that in due season it may be poured into other men's vessels.
In the Promus he condenses into two words an adage of Erasmus, " Vasis — Fons." f The man who can originate nothing, but who draws all from others is the vase ; the source whence he draws is the fountain. Bacon adopts this notion, and expands it in all directions, humbly appropriating to himself the functions of the cistern, bucket, vase, pot, or pitcher. " I am, as I formerly said, but a bucket and cistern to that fountain, and so he wrote in a Latin letter to Trinity College, Cam- bridge :
" All things, and all the growths thereof, are due to their beginnings. And, therefore, seeing that I drew my beginnings of knowledge from your fountains, I have thought it right to return to you the increase of the same."
Elsewhere he says that " the mind of man is not a vessel sufficiently capacious to comprehend knowledge without helps," and that the " Divine water of knowledge is first forced up into a cistern and thence fetched and drawn for use, or else it is re- ceived in buckets and vessels immediately where it springeth." " Divinity," he adds, " hath been reduced to an art, as into a cistern, and the streams of doctrine fetched and derived from thence." J
The means for the advancement of learning, he says, include three things :
* John xv. 1. And see Ezekiel xvii. 5 — 10. Psa. lxxx. 14, 15. Canticles i. 16 ; vi. 11 ; vii. 12 ; viii. 11, 12. Jer. ii. 21. Rev. xiv. 18. Matt. xx. 1—7, etc.
| Promus, 698, f rom Eras : Adagia, 292.
X Observe the frequency of the vase as a decoration in the architecture •of our great buildings dedicated to art, science, or literature. Although often, in modern edifices, private houses, etc., this symbol is used ignor- antly and as a mere ornament, it was not so two or three hundred years ago, nor is it always so at the present day.
332 FRANCIS BACON
" The places of learning, the books of learning, and the persons of the learned. For as water, whether it be the dew of heaven, or the springs of the earth, easily scatters and loses itself in the ground, except it be collected into some receptacle, where it may, by union, consort, comfort, and sustain itself (and for that cause the industry of man has devised aqueducts, cisterns, and pools), ... so this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend from divine inspiration, or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish into oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, traditions, and conferences, and specially in places appointed for such matters."
These passages are sufficient to show the drift of Bacon's ideas with regard to the vase or pitcher symbol. It is to remind us that the heavenly liquor of knowledge must not be wasted, but stored up and poured forth for the use and delight of others. This pitcher or pot is impressed not only on the private letters of Francis and Anthony Bacon — or perhaps it is safer to say, of the Bacon family — and their confidential correspondents, but on the pages of nearly every English edition of works acknowledged as " Bacon's," published before the eighteenth century.
There are certain accessories to the Baconian pitchers, one at least being always present : (1) A rising sun, formed by the cover or round top of the pot ; (2) five rays ; (3) pearls ; (4) fleur-de-lis ; (5) a four-petaled flower, or a Maltese cross ; (6) a moon or crescent ; (7) the bull's horns in a crown ; (8) grapes ; (9) a diamond, triangle, ellipse, or heart. Some- times there are two handles distinctly formed, as SS ; often on the body of the pot are letters — they may be initials, as A B, and F B, often found in the correspondence of the brothers ; or S S, Sanctum Sanctorum, etc. ; R C, Rosy Cross ; F or F F, Frater or Fratres ; G G, Grand Geometrician — God, according to Freemason books.
Resp. In the midst of Solomon's Temple there stands a G,
A letter for all to read and see ;
But few there be that understand
What means the letter G. Ex. My friend, if you pretend to be of this Fraternity
You can forthwith and rightly tell what means that letter G.
This letter was associated with the third sacred name of God in Hebrew — Ghadol, Magnus ; but also the Masonic Cyclo- pcedia refers it to the Syriac Gad, the German Gott, the English
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 333
God, all derived from the Persian Goda, signifying Himself. The reference to Geometry is to be seen in the concluding lines of the above doggerel, which, says the encyclopaedist, may go for what it is worth :
" By letters four and science five, This G aright doth stand, In a due art and proportion : You have your answer, friend."
The Pot was one of the earliest paper-marks ; in examples as old as 1352 we find it extremely rude in outline, like an ill- drawn pint-pot of the present day, or of the same proportions, round-bodied.* Perhaps the original mark alluded to the pot of manna said to have been laid up in the Ark of the Covenant by Aaron. This pot of manna is mentioned in the " Royal Arch Degree " in Masonry, but the author of the Royal Masonic Cyclo- pazdia rejects it, saying that it has no significance. In later specimens than Caxton's the pot becomes usually more graceful, and more like the sacramental chalice, yet without having any of the accessories enumerated above.
If Francis Bacon or his father, Sir Nicholas, helped to devise new or to develop old symbolic water-marks, this idea of a pot of manna would commend itself to them, lending itself easily to the further development of pots and jugs whence issue bunches of grapes— the fruits of knowledge ; pearls, the dew of heaven — Wisdom ; manna, the spiritual food, all symbols of the Holy Spirit, Truth, the gifts of reason and sweet speech, which link themselves together in such passages as the following from the Natural History, or Sylva Sylmrum : "f
" There be three things for sweetness : sugar, honey, manna. ... I have heard from one that was industrious in husbandry that the labour of the bee is about the wax, and that he hath known in the beginning of May honeycombs empty of honey, and within a fortnight, when the sweet dews fall, filled like a cellar.
A note in Spedding's edition of the Works says here : " Bacon's
* See " Etudes sur les Filigraves des Papiers" E. Midioux et A. Matton, 1868.
t This work, as has been said, is considered by the present writer to be a masterpiece of ambiguous writing— a study in metaphor and simile from beginning to end. These extracts concerning manna are thus interpreted See Emblems, etc.
334 FRANCIS BACON
informant took the same view of the matter as Aristotle, and probably was directly or indirectly influenced by his opinion. According to Aristotle, the bees manufacture the viax from flowers, but simply collect the honey which falls from the sky" The "informant," we think, was probably Aristotle himself, and Bacon was here thinking of his own husbandry and of the hive in which he made the frame or comb, wherein the labour consisted, whilst his busy working bees merely collected the dew of knowledge without any great exertion to themselves, but thus enabling him rapidly to store up and methodise it for the advancement of learning.
" It is reported by some of the ancients that there is a tree called Occhus in the valleys of Hyrcania that distilleth honey in the mornings. It is not unlike that the saps and tears of some trees may be sweet. It may also be that some sweet juices may be concocted out of fruits to the thickness of sugar. The like- liest are the raisins of the sun [i.e., grapes]. The manna of Calabria ... is gathered from the leaf of the mulberry tree, but not upon such mulberry trees as grow in the valleys. Manna falleth upon the leaves by night, as other dews do. . . . Cer- tainly it were not amiss to observe a little the dews that fall upon trees or herbs growing upon mountains ; for it may be many dews fall that spend before they come to the valleys ; and I suppose that he that would gather the best May-dew for medi- cine should gather it from the hills. " *
Here, as in the preceding passage, Bacon had in his mind the collecting of manna and other of the sweetest things which fall chiefly from heaven, and the " distilling " and " concocting " them into poetry — " sugared sonnets," " honeyed words," with the dew of heaven, filled with thoughts and words sweeter than manna.
What is the idea connected with all those crescent moons? It is, we think, a very deep and comprehensive thought, and to illustrate it we must turn to books of Hindu mythology, to the Rabbinical writings, and to the Masonic symbolism drawn, it would seem, from those ancient springs of mysticism, f
In the second Book of Kings xxiii. 5, it is said that Josiah
* Sylva Sylvarum, 612, 781.
t See for detailed particulars ; 260 ; III. 31, 35, 205, 316, 324, 559.)
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 335
put down them that burnt incense unto Baal (the Sun) and to the Moon, and Mazaloth. This word signifies, literally, the flowing or distillations which emanated from the Spirit of waters. And again, in Isaiah lxv. 11, we read, " Ye are they that prepare a table for God, and that furnish an offering for Meni," that is, for the Holy Spirit, called plurally the dispensers or distributers of the manna or bread from Heaven. *
Here, then, the moon and the dew, pearls, or heavenly food, are associated. " Meni," the Holy Spirit, was adored by the Arabians under the name of Ma Nah ; and this adds great interest to the symbolic miracle of the supernatural feeding of the Israelites during their stay in the wilderness. The manna with which they were supported was symbolic of the Ma Nah — the nourisher, the comforter, the Holy Spirit of God. Surely, living as they were in Arabia (the very country where Ma Nah was adored) the Israelites must have been well aware of the symbolic or mystical meaning of the heavenly food which was for many months their daily bread.
Then again we read in the Bible that the Ark of the Covenant (the sacred Chest or Coffer which was deposited in the most holy place of the Tabernacle and the Temple) was made the receptacle of the original tables of the law, of a quantity of manna in a golden pot, and of Aaron's rod that had budded. Here is, there- fore, a connection between manna and a pot. The manna was found by the Israelites in the early morning, after the dew had evaporated, and before the sun had sufficiently risen to melt it. Manna, the dew, and the rise of the sun are thus connected. An omer of the manna was preserved as a memorial in the sanctuary, testifying to God's power and willingness to give food for the subsistence of His people, in the most apparently destitute circumstances.
The names Meni and Mazaloth, used by Isaiah, f both mean the " Holy Spirit of God," the " Bread Dispensers." Meni was also Mona, and Mon (Welsh), the Sacred Mountain of Paradise ; she was Mens, the Everlasting Mind, the Logos of the Gentiles.
Now observe the highly-figurative nature of the passage lately
* This is the reading in the margin. Old editions print troop for " God," and " that number " for " Meni," thus obscuring the sense. The marginal readings of modern Bibles give the version of our text above.
t Isaiah lxv.
336
FRANCIS BACON
quoted from the Sylva Sylvarum. The manna, the sweet dews which fall in the stillness of the night, are not found upon such mulberry trees as grow in the valleys, but upon trees and herbs growing upon the mountains, the sacred hills and mounts of knowledge, the Mountain of Paradise, the Everlasting Mind. Here, indeed, we see the apparently dry notes of a commonplace book gilded by the beams of heaven-born poesy, and converted into "gold potable," a parable "deep and rich," truly "drawn from the centre of the sciences."
Observe, further, how often the pearls and rays of our pots arrange themselves in fives.
Five is the central figure in the mystical square of the Hindus, used by them as an amulet, designed to represent the whole world.
The even numbers (by a mystic symbolism which cannot here be explained) designate the earthly, and the uneven numbers the heavenly bodies. The numbers, as arranged in this cube, form in every direction the sum of fifteen, this number consisting of the sacred 3, emblem of the Supreme Being, and of 12, the number of the " Messengers " in Hindu theology.
6
7
2
1
5
9
8
3
4
The number 5 thus occupies the middle station, and designates the Sold of the World. This anima mundi, soul of the world, is a central idea in the doctrine of the microcosm — man, a little world himself. Upon this a large portion of Bacon's philosophy
in
hinges. It is also of fundamental importance in the philosophy
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 337
and mysticism of the Rosicrucians, which cannot be properly understood without some knowledge of its meaning. The Hermetic books are, as has been shown, full of allusions to it, as the Holy Light, the Holy Spirit — " air shining with ethereal light." Just so Bacon describes the soul, as " of an airy and flamy nature" and thus fiiis goddess of the Hindus and the Egyptians * is described as " The Soul of the World."
In the mystical square of 15, the Hindus draw a figure of a man with his hands and feet extended to the four corners. He is the image of the world, a real microcosm; as Bacon says, " an ancient emblem that man was a microcosm or epitome of the world." | In a work which the present writer believes to be Bacon's — written or dictated by him about the year 1600 — we read :
" Man in the beginning (I mean the substantiall inward man), both in and after his creation for some short time, was a pure Intellectual Essence, free from all fleshly, sensuall affections. In this state the Anima, or Sensitive Nature, did not prevail over the spirituall as it doth now in us. For the superior mentall part of man was united to God by an essentiall contact, and the Divine Light, being received in and conveyed to the inferiour parts of the Soul, did mortifie all carnal desires. . . . The sensuall, ccelestial, aetheral part of a man is that whereby we move, see, feel, taste, and smell, and have commerce with all material objects whatsoever. ... In plain terms, it is part of the Soul of the World."
The writer explains at some length the nature of " this medial soul or ethereal nature," and how by its means man's mind is tuned to the coelestial harmonies. He repeats, though in different words, many Baconian ideas of the vital spirits which are in all nature — "in man, in beasts, in vegetables, in minerals, and in everything this spirit is the mediate cause of composition and multiplication ; " adding remarks which echo precisely the ideas in the De Augmentis of the biform figure of nature — the sensual nature of man as contrasted or allied with the rational spirit, — the Mens, or concealed intelligence. (Here we have
* The Egyptians, though describing her as a Mother, yet use the masculine pronoun in speaking of her. See The Book of God, I. i. 147.
t The Microcosm will be fully explained when we come to speak of the Symbolic Language of Bacon's Secret Society.
338 FRANCIS BACON
the Meni, the Moon, explained before.) " Now, as the divine light flowing into the Mens (or intellect) did assimilate and con- vert the inferior portions of the soul to God, so, on the contrary, the tree of knowledge did darken and obscure the superior portions, but awaked and stirred up the sinful nature. The sum of this is — man." *
The writer winds up his treatise by " saluting the memory of Cornelius Agrippa." "He is indeed my author, and next to God I owe all that I have to Him." The Poet-philosopher then concludes with some verses to this " great, glorious penman ! "
" The spirits of his lines infuse a fire Like the World's Soul, which makes me thus aspire."
In another Eosicrucian document, or treatise (which we also attribute directly to Bacon), the same thoughts are returned to, in different language. It is not enough, says the writer, to call the inward principle of life " a form, and so bury up the riches of nature in this narrow and most absurd formality. ... To be plain, then, this principle (of rational intelligence) is the soul of the world, or the universall spirit of nature." |
In Timon of Athens there is a satirical allusion to the sad fall of man from the first " pure intellectual essence in which he was created," free from all fleshly and sensual affections. Noting the ingratitude, the " monstrousness of man," in days " when men must learn to dispense with pity, for policy sits above conscience," the First Stranger exclaims :
" Why, this is the World's Soul ; and just of the same piece Is every flatterers sport."
The pitcher, destined to receive and then pour forth the heavenly liquor, must be of rare and precious materials, finely wrought, and made in just proportions.
The dew or manna must be gathered before the full rising of the sun, lest it should be melted and dissipated by too great
* See Anthroposophia Theomagica. " Magical writings of Thos. Vaughan," edited in English by Arthur B. Waite, p. 26—33 (Redway), Kegan, Paul, Trubner & Co., 1688. It is not a difficult work, as the alarming title might lead us to suppose ; on the contrary, highly interesting with a view to the present subject.
t See Anima Magica Abscondita, also edited by A. E. Waite — in the same vol. as Anthroposophia. Published under the title of " The Magical Writings of Thos. Vaughan."
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 339
heat. The revival of learning was indeed the rising of the sun, the dawn of a new day to the world lying in darkness ; yet the dew should be collected quietly, almost secretly, and safely stored, before the blaze of a fiery zeal should injure and perhaps destroy it.
The five rays, with their five pearls (or groups of pearls), typify the soul of the world, the " divine intellectual spirit," "awakened,1' "uproused" by the sunrise. This soul of the world has been with the spirits that are in prison — " cabinned, cribbed, confined," like the soul of Hamlet or of the poet of the Anthroposophia, who concludes one chapter with verses in which are these lines :
" My sweetest Jesus ! 'twas Thy voice : ' If I Be lifted up, I'll draw all to the sky.' Yet I am here ! Fm stifled in this clay, Shut up from Thee and the fresh east of day"
The ejaculation in the third line suggests a further allusion to clay in the hands of the potter, which must surely have presented itself to poetic Bible-students such as the Bacon family certainly were. They must have thought of the pot of clay as an image of human life, a very " compounded " but a most brittle and perishable thing.
" Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, then shall the dust return to the earth as it teas ; and the spirit shall return unto God that gave it.1' •
The clay is but the poor earthy material into which all the vital spirits of nature are " infused and mixed up with the clay, for it is most true that of all things in the universe, man is the most composite." |
Falstaff is made to use almost identical words where he speaks of " This foolish compounded clay — man.1'' {
* Ecclesiastes xii. Bacon was very partial to these twelve chapters and brings in allusions to their teaching throughout his works and notes. Compare his essay or treatise of Youth and Age with As You Like It, II. 7 , and then with Eccles. xii. 3—5. The first word, Remember, seems to be a pass-word in the old Rosicrucian books.
t Essay of Prometheus.
j 2 Henry IV. I. 2. " Men are but gilded loam and painted clay Rich. II. I. 1.
UO FRANCIS BACON
" Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher ; all is vanity ; but, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people know- ledge ; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out and set in order many proverbs.* The Preacher sought to find out many accept- able words,! and that which was written was upright, words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads,! and as nails fastened by the Masters of Assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. And further by these, my son, be admonished ; of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weari- ness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil."
Here is the model of a charge from a " Master of Assemblies " to his " Sons," the Sons of Science, the Brethren in love and religious union. In their youth they must Remember their Creator, in mature years labour in the cause of truth, till the time comes when the frail pitcher is broken, even in the act of drawing fresh supplies from the heavenly fountain ; its contents or its emptiness will be seen, and every secret thing made known and judged in the broad light of day.
This digression is intended to illustrate the manner in which these Baconian ideas are linked together in one great chain, each symbol or image merging into or mixing itself up with another.
To return once more to the pitcher or pot — Bacon's special mark, the humble vessels which his friends raised to honour.
Who is so dull and unimaginative as to be incapable of fitting together the scraps of erudition here disjointedly scattered before him ? Who will check and refuse to see in this water- mark Bacon's well-conceived emblem of himself and his dis- ciples as mere " vases," " receptacles " for the heavenly manna,
* See the De Aug. VIII. 2 in which, when discoursing of The Doctrine Concerning Scattered Occasions, Bacon extols the use of proverbs like the aphorisms of Solomon, " to which there is nothing comparable," and which he expounds and comments upon through twenty octavo pages.
"1 See Bacon's record of the necessity for doing this (De Aug. VI. 1) and a few of his immense contributions to language in jottings amongst his private notes (Promus, 116—159, 272—326, 1,370—1,439, etc.).
X Quoted in the Promus, fol. 88, 239, and again in Advt. of L. I and the Wisd. of the Ancients, XXVIII., from the Vulgate Eccl. xii. 11.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 341
the dew, " the flowing and distillations which emanated from the Spirit of the Waters " ?
The pot has never the appearance of being made of earthen- ware, for it was a golden pot in which Aaron preserved the manna. " We read in Genesis that God made man out of the earth. This is a great mastery. For it was not the common pot-clay, but another, and that of a far better nature." * " As the potter hath his clay, or the limner his colours, so the Spirit that worketh in Nature, in the outward lineaments or symmetry of that which he forms, proves himself nothing but a divine, intellectual spirit." f
Those who would aid in following up these researches into the history of Bacon and his Secret Society will render efficient service if in the course of their reading (in books more particu- larly of dates between 1580 and 1680) they will give attention to the paper-marks of the volumes which they study, noting accurately the title, date, and edition of the book, and even the number of the page on which marks are found. Copies or tracings of these should be made and duly registered. Such an examination, undertaken by some dozens of pairs of observant eyes, would be extremely useful in solving doubtful questions. For many points are still very doubtful, and probably some remain altogether undisclosed, so that hitherto only these few general statements can be considered as definitely proved :
1. That in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries paper- marks were used throughout the works which were the products of the " Renaissance."
2. That these paper-marks are not mere manufacturers' signs, but that they have a mutual relation and connection, and that they were and are means of conveying secret information to the members of some widely-spread society.
3. That the society was not a mere trade-guild, but that it was moved by motives of religion, and, in its highest branches at least, was a Christian philosophical society, or a society for promoting Christian knowledge.
4. That the subject matter of the books does not necessarily affect the paper-marks.
* Anthroposophia, 22. f Anima Magica, 54.
342 FRANCIS BACON
5. That the three marks, the double candlesticks, the grapes, and the pitcher or pot, are notably "Baconian," the pot especially being found in all Bacon's acknowledged works, and throughout the correspondence of Anthony and Francis, especially when their correspondent was of the Reformed Church.
6. That, where any one pattern is varied many times in the same book, there is usually no other mark except in the fly- leaves.
7. The extraordinary but not unaccountable habit of tearing- out the fly-leaves at the beginning and end of valuable books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often makes it impossible to declare that the book in hand possessed no other mark besides those which we see.
8. The fly-leaves were wont, in many of our " Baconian " books, to be very numerous : five or eight are common numbers for the sheets. They were probably intended for the making of notes, a practice which Bacon enjoins and so highly com- mends. In old, untouched libraries there are usually some books where the fly-leaves have been thus utilised. Perhaps, when filled with notes, they were to be taken out, and forwarded to some central point of study, either to an individual or to a committee, who should by their means add to the value of any subsequent edition or " collection " which might be published. It is certain that fly-leaves have been stolen for the sake of the old paper, for etching or for forged reprints ; but this does not account for the fact that certain books, when sent, without any special orders, to be repaired by a Freemason binder, have returned with this large number of fly-leaves restored ; in many of our public libraries such extra leaves in books re-bound have paper-marks.
9. In Bacon's acknowledged works the changes are rung upon the three paper-marks, the pot, the grapes, and the candlesticks, the latter being apparently the rarest of the three. Usually one or two of these patterns are combined with one extra mark. With time enough and help to examine every edition of every