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48 FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES
time when one of the dramas, the tragedy of Richard
the Second, had, by its revolutionary tendency, roused
the anger of the Queen, the name of '
William
Shakespeare " should suddenly appear upon a number
of dramatic title-pages.
In the years 1598 to 1600
seven dramas appeared with that name on their titlepages
Richard the Second and Richard the Third,
:
hitherto printed anonymously, besides the new dramas,
Loves Labour s Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, A
Midsummer- Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice,
the Fourth.
and the Second Part of King Henry
After Hamlet had appeared
in 1603,
there was
a pause
in the publication of new Shakespeare plays.
During the whole period of eighteen years (from 1604-
1621) only one new play was published, Troylus and
Cressida. It would seem, as though the poet's mind
had suddenly become completely absorbed by totally
different matters, and had no time to prepare his works
for print.
Those were exactly the years in which
Bacon was entirely taken up with his official duties.
In the meantime, two things occurred : the actor's
final departure from London and his death at
Stratford.
Then it was, six years after the death of the actor,
at the time when Bacon was freed from all state duties,
that a new drama issued from the press ;
it was
Othello. A year after, however, appeared the large
Folio Edition, containing the goodly number of thirty
-
six plays, no fewer than fifteen of which were new, i.e.,
had never been printed before, and all the other pla\ s
had been revised. The chief part of the publication
had been supervised by Francis Bacon's friend, the
poet Ben Jonson, as is proved by the introductory