Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

300 FEANCIS BACON
tent to limit inquiry to its simplest manifestations, in the papermarks
of their printed books or manuscripts.
If one thing more than another can assure the inquirer into
these
subjects that here he has to do with the workings of a
secret society, it is the difficulty which is encountered in all
attempts to extract accurate information, or to obtain really useful
books concerning paper-making, printing, and kindred crafts.
In ordinary books, ostensibly instructive on such matters,
particulars, however detailed and accurate up to a certain point,
invariably become hazy or mutually contradictory, or stop short
altogether, at the period when works on the subject should teem
with information as to the origin of many of our English translations
of the Bible, and of the sudden outburst of literature and
science in the sixteenth century. This is notably the case with
one large and very important work, Sotheby's Principia Typographical
l which, for no apparent cause, breaks off at the end of
the fifteenth century, and to which there is no true sequel.
There are, likewise, at the British Museum 2 eight folio volumes
of blank sheets of water-marked paper. But these papers
are all of foreign manufacture, 3 chiefly Dutch and German, and
the latest date on any sheet is about the same as that at which
the illustrations stop in Sotheby's Principia.
the
1 Brit. Mus. Press-mark 2050 G. Principia Topograph ica. The wood-blocks
or xylographic delineations of Scripture History, issued iu Holland, Flanders, and
Germany during the fifteenth century, exemplified and considered in connection
with the origin of printing; to which is added an attempt to elucidate the
character of the paper-marks of the period. Sam'l Leigh Sotheby. Printed by
Walter McDowell, and sold by all antiquarian booksellers and printers. 1858.
(Paper-Marks. See vol. iii.)
2 Since there seems to be no catalogue accessible to the general reader, by
which these volumes are traceable, we note the press-mark at the British Museum
"Large Room," 318 C.
3 Two loose sheets are slipped between the pages in two volumes. One is
classified as Pitcher, the other as Vase. They are specimens of the one-handled
and two-handled pots of which we have so much to say. These are English,
and we believe of later date than any of the specimens bound up in the collection.
Their presence is again suggestive. They hint at the existence of an
English collection somewhere. Another particular points to the same conclusion.
In " Paper and Paper-making" by Richard Herring, of which the third
edition was printed in 1803 (Longmans), there are, on page 105, five illustrations
of paper-marks. They are all specimens of the patterns used circa 1588