Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

146 FRANCIS BACON
(they add) " we conceive, without giving you false atributes,
which little need where so many are true, that you have graced
in general the societies of the Inns of Court, in continuing them
still as third persons with the nobility and court, in doing the
King honour; and particularly Gray's Inn, which, as you have
formerly brought to flourish, both in the ancicnter and younger sort,
by countenancing virtue in every quality, so now you have made
a notable demonstration thereof in the lighter and less serious
kind, by this, that one Inn of Court by itself, in time of a vacation,
and in the space of three weeks, could perform that which
hath been performed; which could not have been done but that
every man's exceeding love and respect to you gave him wings to
overtake time, which is the swiftest of things.
The words which we print in italics seem to show that the
true object of this celebrated masque was to do the King honour;
and, probably, we shall one day find that it was at some expressed
desire or regret of his that Francis Bacon was moved to
undertake this work, which had proved (as he said in his letters
to Rochester) an " impossibility" when attempted by the whole
of the four Inns of Court in conjunction.
Observe, too, the unexplained debt which Gray's Inn is said
to owe to Bacon for its flourishing condition, and the exceeding
love which the members bore to him, and which alone enabled
them to carry out his elaborate devices in the short space of
three weeks. We would like to ascertain who were J. G., W. D.
and T. B., who signed the dedication. Spedding says that,
from an allusion to their " graver studies," they appear to have
been members of the society. The allusion, coupled with the
description of the masque as
a show or " demonstration, in the
lighter and less serious hind, " made to please the King, again
carries our minds to the opening words of the Essay ofMasques:
" These things are but toys to come amongst such serious matters;
but since princes will have them," etc., they should be
properly done.
This piece, entitled The Masque of Flowers, may be seen
at full length in Nichol's Progresses: u A very splendid trifle,
and answering very well to the description in Bacon's Essays of