Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

108 FRANCIS BACON
craft, we find, in Macbeth, much that exhibits his acquaintance
with the History of the Winds, of his experiments on Dense
and Mare, and his observations on the Union of Mind and
Body.
A Winter's Tale is notably full of Bacon's observations on
horticulture, hybridising, grafting, etc., and on the virtues of
plants medicinal, and other matters connected with his notes
on the Regimen of Health.
Cymbeline, and Antony and Cleopatra, show him studying
vivisection, and the effects of various poisons on the human
body. The effects of mineral and vegetable poisons are also
illustrated in Hamlet, and if these plays were written so early
as some commentators suppose, then we may believe that certain
portions were interpolated after Bacon's investigations
into the great poisoning cases which he was, later on, called
upon to conduct.
The Tempest describes a wreck on the Bermudas, and Caliban,
the man-monster or devil. It was published soon after
the loss of the ship Admiral, in which Bacon had embarked
money to aid Southampton, Pembroke, and Montgomery in the
colonisation of Virginia. The ship was wrecked on the Bermudas,
the " Isle of Divils. " About this time the History of
the Winds and of the Sailing of Ships was said to be written.
Timon of Athens, showing the folly of a large-hearted and
over-generous patron in trusting to " time's flies " and " mouthfriends,
" who desert him in the time of need, seems to have
been written by Bacon after his fall and retirement, to satirise
his own too sanguine trust in parasites, who lived upon him so
long as he was prosperous, but who, on his reverse of fortune,
deserted, and left him to the kindness of the few true friends
and followers on whom he was absolutely dependent.
Henry VIII. completes the picture. In a letter from Bacon to
the King, in 1622, he quotes (in the original draft) the words
which Wolsey utters in the play of Henry VIII., iii. 2, 454-457,
though Bacon adds: " My conscience says no such thing; for I
know not but in serving you I have served God in one. But it
have pleased you, it would
may be if I had pleased men as I