Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

124 FRANCIS BACON
that this witness of Bacon's own portfolio should be ignored,
were it not that we now have other and such strong proofs of a
combination to suppress particulars of this kind.
Besides the name of Shakespeare, there are, on the outer leaf
of the manuscript book, some other curious jottings which are to
our point. The amanuensis, or whosoever he may have been, who
beguiled an hour of waiting by trying his pen, scribbles, with
the name Sbakespeare, some allusions to other plays besides
Richard II. and Richard III.
Love's Labour's Lost satirises "the diseases of style," and
" errors and vanities," which Bacon complains were intermixed
with the studies of learned men, and which " caused learning
itself to be traduced." The utterances of Holofernes, Nathaniel,
Biron, and Armado, respectively, illustrate the " vain
affections, disputes, and imaginations, the effeminate and fantastical
learning, " which infected all the teaching and the books
of the period.
Making fun of the pedantic talk of Holofernes and his
friends, the pert page Moth declares that " they have been
at a feast of languages and stolen the scraps.
Costard answers "
: Oh ! they have lived long on the almsbasket
of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a
word; for thou art not so long by the head as Honor ificabilitudinitatibus.
"
This alarming polysyllable was in the mind of the amanuensis,
though his memory failed before he got through the thirteen
articulations, and he curtails it to " Honor ificabilitudino." yet
cannot we doubt that this amanuensis had seen in or about the
year 1592 the play of Love's Labour's Lost, which was not published
or acted until 1598.
The scrap of English verse, in like
manner, shows the amanuensis
to have been acquainted with the poem of Lucrece, published
for the first time in 1594, or two years after the supposed
Writing from memory, the copyist makes
date of the scribble.
a misquotation. In the poem is the line :
" Rovealing day through every cranio spies."