Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SEGBET SOCIETY.
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what a masque should be, — with its loud and cheerful music,
abundance of light and colour, graceful motions and forms, and
such things as do naturally take the sense, but haviug no
personal reference to the occasion beyond being an entertainment
given in honour of a marriage, and ending with an offering
of flowers to the bride and bridegroom. " *
In March, 1617, Bacon was installed as Lord Chancellor upon
the death of Egerton. On May 7th he rode from Gray's Inn to
Westminster Hall to open the courts in state. " All London
turned out to do him honour, and every one who could borrow a
horse and a foot-cloth fell into the train; so that more than two
hundred horsemen rode behind him. Through crowds of citizens
. . .
ofplayers from Bankside, of the Puritan hearers of Burgess,
of the Roman Catholic friends of Danvers and Armstrong, he
rode, as popular in the streets as he had been in the House of
Commons, down Chancery Lane and the Strand, past Charing
Cross, through the open courts of Whitehall, and by King Street
into Palace yard. " 2
" My friends, chew upon this.
The Bankside players, then, came in a bevy, sufficiently numerous
to be conspicuous and registered in history, and all the way'
from Southwark, in order to do honour to the newly made Chancellor.
The Essay ofMasques and Triumphs would suffice to show any
unbiased reader that the author was intimately acquainted with
the practical management of a theatre. There is something
particularly graphic in this little
essay, which we commend to
the consideration of those who interest themselves in private
theatricals. It should be remembered that Bacon would not
insert amongst his most polished and well filed essays two
pages of small particulars ivith which every one was acquainted.
He is clearly instructing those who do not know so much of the
matter as he does.
True, he takes a high ground, and prefaces his remarks with
the reflection that " these things are but toys to come amongst
such serious considerations; but yet, since princes will have such
1 Spedding, Letters and Life, iv. 394-5. 2 Story of Bacon's Life, 317.