Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

110 FEAN CIS BA CON
we believe, will prove to have been struck off by Francis Bacon 1
at the first heat upon the Muses' anvil. These light and unlabored
pieces were probably written, at first, chiefly for his own
amusement, or to be played (as they often were) in the Inns of
Court, or by the private " servants" of his
own houses.
Later on, we know that
friends, and in their
he took a serious view of the important
influence for good or for bad which is easily produced by
shows and " stage-plays," set before the eyes of the public. As
has been said, he always, and from the first, regarded the stage,
not as
a mere " toy," but as a powerful means of good — as a
glass in which the whole world should be reflected—" a mirror
held up to nature ; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her
own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and
pressure."
"Men," he said, "had too long 'adored the deceiving and
deformed imagery which the unequal mirrors of their own minds
had presented to them,' " the " deformities " of ignorance, superstition,
affectation, and coarseness. They should see these
deformities of vice and ignorance reflected so truly, so life-like,
that virtue shonld charm, whilst vice should appear so repulsive
that men should shrink from it with loathing.
Many of the plays which we attribute to Francis Bacon and
his brother Anthony treat of low life, and contain not a few
coarse passages. But the age was coarse and gross, and it must
be observed that, even in such passages, vice is never attractive;
on the contrary, it is invariably made repelling and contemptible,
sometimes disgusting, and in every case good and the
right are triumphant. It is a matter for serious consideration
whether the pieces which are exhibited before our lower and
middle classes possess any of the merits which are conspicuous
in the plays (taken as a whole) of the time of Elizabeth. We
see them, we admire or laugh, and we come away, for the most
part, without having heard a single phrase worthy of repetition
or record. We remember little of the play twenty-four hours
l Again we add a saving clause in favour of the little known Anthony, also
" a concealed poet."