Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 361
dlesticks, the latter being apparently the rarest of the three.
Usually one or two of these patterns are combined with one
extra mark. With time enough and help to examine every
edition of every book concerned in this inquiry, it is hardly to
be doubted that a real scheme could be drawn up to demonstrate
the precise method of the use of paper-marks. The following
table may be sufficient to illustrate our meaning. The,
" moons " to wbich allusion will be made are not made, like
the other paper-marks, by wires. They give the idea of having
been produced by the impression of a thumb on the soft pulp
in tbe process of paper-making. These moon-marks are of too
frequent occurrence, in certain books and during a certain
period, for any doubt to remain as to their being the result
intention and not of accident or chance. They are, therefore,
included amongst the extras in our list. The chronological
arrangement enables us to observe several particulars. First,
that the pots seem to be in one edition at least of every work
produced by Francis or Anthony Bacon, or published under
their auspices. Two handles to the pot seem to mean that
two persons helped in the construction of the book. Next, we
notice that, in republications, compilations, or " collections " of
any kind, grapes prevail, and that the candlesticks only appear
when the volume which includes them is to be considered complete.
Then, as to dates. The Baconian pots have been found
first in a book 1579-80, and not later than 1680— a period of
one hundred years.
They, like the rest of the marks, increase
in size from about one inch to seven inches. The use of the
Baconian grapes seems to have begun about 1600, and to have
continued only in France after 1680. The double candlesticks
appeared later still, after the death of Francis Bacon, and remained
in use for about fifty years. The three marks all disappeared
in England about 1680.
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