Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 89
actually removed from their lodgings in Gray's Inn to a house in
Bisbopsgate Street, in the immediate neighborhood of The Bull Inn,
where plays and interludes were acted. These and many such
important factors in his private history are slipped over, or altogether
omitted in most accounts of him, They should not be so
passed by, for Bacon's theatrical proclivities were no mere boyish
or youthful taste ; they grew with him and formed a very
important part of his " method of discourse, " a meaus by which
he could inform those who could not read, instilling through the
eyes and ears of the body sound teaching on all sorts of subjects.
The stern morality which was often thus inculcated would not for
one instant have been listened to, with patience, from the pulpit
or the professed teacher, by the class of persons for whose benefit
we believe that Francis Bacon wrote his earliest (and unacknowledged)
plays. It will be seen that this love and respect
for the theatre was with him to the end of his life. Nearly
fifty metaphors and figures based upon stage-playing are to be
found in
his grave scientific works, and in the Latin edition of
the Advancement of Learning, published simultaneously with
the collected edition or " Folio " of the Shakespeare plays in
1623, he inserts a brave defence of stage-playing and a lament
for the degradation of the theatre in his day.
Most persons who peruse these pages are probably acquainted
with the outlines of Bacon's life. We therefore merely piece
together particulars extracted from the works of his most
painstaking and sympathetic biographer, James Spedding, and
from the shorter " lives" and biographies of his secretary, Dr.
Rawley, Hepworth Dixon, Prof. Fowler, and others.
Francis Bacon was born on the 22d of January, 1561, at York
House, in the Strand. His father, Sir Nicholas (counsellor to
Queen Elizabeth, and second prop in the kingdom), was a lord
of known prudeuce, sufficiency, moderation, and integrity.
mother, Lady Anne Cooke, a choice lady, was eminent for piety
and learning, being exquisitely skilled, for a woman, in the
Greek and Latin languages. " These being the parents," says
His
Dr. Rawley, " you may easily imagine what the issue was like