Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

1 22 FRA NCIS BA CON
upon the startling but undeniable fact of the two Shakespeare
plays being found enumerated, with other plays not known, in a
list of Bacon's works amongst his papers, the careful editor proceeds
to make easy things difficult by explanation and commentary
:
" That Richard II. and Richard III. are meant for the titles of
Shakespeare's plays, so named, I infer from the fact— of which
the evidence maybe seen in the facsimile — that, the list of
contents being now complete, the writer (or, more probably,
another into wh >se possession the volume passed) has amused
himself with writing down promiscuously the names and
phrases that most ran in his head; and that among these the
name of William Shakespeare was the most prominent, being
written eight or nine times over for no other reason that can be
discerned. That the name of Mr. Frauncis Bacon, which is also
repeated several times, should have been used for the same
kind of recreation, requires no explanation. ... In the upper
corner . . . may be seen the words ne vile veils, the motto of
the Nevilles, twice repeated, and there are other traces of the
name of Neville. Other exercises of the same kind are merely
repetitions of the titles which stand opposite, or ordinary words
of compliment, familiar in the beginnings and endings of letters,
with here and there a scrap of verse, such as
"Or,
Revealing day through every cranio peepes,
Mtdtis annis jam transactls,
Nulla fides est In pactis,
Mel in ore, verba lactis;
Fell In corde, firaus in factis.
" And most of the rest appear to be merely exercises in writing
th or sh; . . . but the only thing, so far as I can see, which
requires any particular notice is the occurrence, in this way, of
the name of William Shakespeare ; and the value of that depends,
in a great degree, upon the date of the writing, which, I fear,
cannot be determined with any approach to exactness. All I
can say is that I find nothing ... to indicate a date later than
the reign of Elizabeth; and if so, it is probably one of the earliest
evidences of the growth of Shakspere's personal fame as
a dramatic author, the beginning of which cannot be dated
much earlier than 1598. It was not till 1597 that any of his
plays appeared in print ; and though the earliest editions of
Richard II, Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet all bear that
date, his name is not on the title-page of any of them. They
were set forth as plays which had been 'lately,' or 'publicly,' or