Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 43
yet Bacon, in his enumeration of deficiencies, makes no allusion
to him as the author of essays which were in their day most
famous, and which ran through a surprising number of editions
within a few years.
John Florio is supposed to have translated these French essays
into English. Now, we have documentary evidence that Florio
translated " all the works of Bacon " into foreign languages (we
suppose French and Italian), and " published them beyond the
seas.' 1 Bacon, then, must have been intimately acquainted
with Florio. Yet he never mentions him. James I. gave Florio
an annuity of £30 per annum, because he had " translated the
King's work, and all the works of Viscount St. Albans." So
James, also, was deeply interested in Bacon's proceedings. It
might have been supposed that the circumstance of his having
pensioned Florio because the latter translated Bacon's works,
would have been noted by Bacon's biographers, and that more inquiries
would have been made concerning Florio and some remarkable
works in English which are attributed to him. But no; the
whole matter seems to have been studiously kept in the background.
The documents which record the fact of tne translation
and subsequent pensioning have been printed by the Historical
Manuscripts Commission. But, although the editors and
publishers must know of them, their purport lies unheeded,
uncommented on. A paragraph inserted in Notes and Queries,
in which the inquiry was made as to any book or books of Bacon's
known to have been translated by Florio, and published on the
continent, has never been answered. Yet, amongst the transcribers,
editors, and publishers of the " Pembroke Papers " by
the Historical Commission, there must have been men who are
acquainted with the current history of Bacon, and who must
have seen something strange in the fact that James I. granted
an annuity to the supposed translator of Montaigne's Essays, on
the ground of his being the translator of all Bacon's works.
Then, again, the sixteen folio volumes of Anthony Bacon's
correspondence which rest under the dust of oblivion on the
shelves of the library at Lambeth Palace —how comes it
that
these, too, have been so much kept in the background that, on