Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

318 FRANCIS BACON
represents the Spirit of God, as waters upon the face of the
earth, Bacon's idea is before us of the " mingling earth with
heaven," which was his dream, and his perpetual endeavour.
The few specimens which are given of the various and frequent
unicorns and panthers, or dogs, as ecclesiastical symbols,
are curious not only from their quaintness, and the persistent
manner in which, by one device or another, they exhibit the
emblems of the church, but also because here in the anchors we
see spots which should incite inquiry. These have been explained
as caused by the crossing or junction of wires in the papermark,
but this explanation seems to be unsatisfactory, considering
the position of the spots. They are usually in places where
wires do not cross; and what is to be said of the unicorn (Plate
II., fig. 1) with a line through his head? Do not these dots
suggest to the cryptographic expert some of the many systems
by which words can be spelt out, or information conveyed, by
means of counting, or by the relative position of dots?
The nearest approach to the figure of a dog which we have
found in Baconian times is the nondescript creature in Plate II.,
fig. 8. This is in some letters in Anthony Bacon's correspondence.
1
It seems to be intended to delude the eye as a serpent,
but to be really the sacred horn, combined with the head of the
dog or hound, in Hindu symbolism a type of the messenger of
truth.
Serpents or serpentine lines are very frequent in early papermarks,
usually in combination with a cross, an anchor, or a
Mercury's rod; they are conspicuous in the large collection of
bull's-head water-marks which fill a folio volume in the British
Museum. 2
Bulls' heads in every conceivable variety of size and arrangement,
in every degree of good and bad drawing, prevail
throughout most of the MS. Bibles of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. Bulls with two eyes, or with one or none,
ITenisonMSS., Lambeth Palace.
2 Pressmark 318 C. vol. vii.