Sir Francis Bacon's Journals - Sir Francis Bacon's New ...

Lochithea 117Thomas Hughes’ The Misfortunes of Arthur 35 of contributors other than my self be WilliamFullbecke with writ of two speeches; Nicholas Trotte doth contribute the introduction;Francis Flower adds the choruses on acts I and II; Christopher Yelverton, John Lancasterand my self devise the dumb-show. Before each act of following, a Senecan tragedy,Thyestes. 36 Upon our retirement, we witness the Queen’s passing to the Temple-Bar alongFleet Street, where the Lawyers rank on one side, and the companies of the City on theother; how strange to observe the Courtiers. If they bow fi rst to the citizens, they are indebt; if fi rst to us, they are in Law. 37My appointing to the government committee and the examining of recusants insequence with organizing a series of plays, toucheth my heart and soul; in these thoughts, Ihear of dear Dr. Dee beholden by a cramp most extremely in the very centre of the calves ofboth his legs, and in the place where he hath the sudden grief last of pain so intolerable asif the veins or arteries would have broken by extreme stretching, or how else he cannot tell.The pain lasted about half a quarter of an hour. I advise his purgation of six grains and tobegin in the morning to drink the drink for the stone in the kidney. 38 He is much releasedfrom pain and forwardeth a letter to her Majesty on the defeat of the Spanish Armadawhereon I hear that a Dutchman had wrought himself into the belief of a great person,by undertaking that he could make gold: whose discourse was, that gold might be made;but that the alchemists over-fi red the work: for, he said, the making of gold did require avery temperate heat, as being in nature a subterrany work, where little heat cometh; butyet more to the making of gold than of any other metal; and therefore that he would do itwith a great lamp that should carry a temperate and equal heat; and that it was the work ofmany months. The device of the lamp be folly; but the over-fi ring now used, and the equalheat to be required, and the making it a work of some good time, are no ill discourses. 39He be of lusty opinion on our fi rst paper-mill erected in Dartford, by a German, who isknighted by her Majesty.3536373839(a) Mr. Collier’s comment of the piece in his preface: “The Misfortunes of Arthur is a dramaticcomposition only known to exist in the Garrick Collection. Judging from internal evidence,it seems to have been printed with unusual care, under the superintendence of the principalauthor. The mere rarity of this unique drama would not have recommended it to our notice; butit is not likely that such a man as Bacon would have lent his aid to the production of a piecewhich was not intrinsically good; and, unless we much mistake, there is a richer and noblervein of poetry running through it than is to be found in any previous work of the kind. It formsa sort of connecting link between such pieces of unimpassioned formality as Ferrex and Porrex,and rule-rejecting historical plays, as Shakespeare found them and left them.”—See IgnatiusDonnelly: The Great Cryptogram, vol. i, 1888 (b) “It appears that eight persons, members of theSociety of Gray’s Inn, were engaged in the production of the Misfortunes of Arthur, for the entertainmentof Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich on the 8th of February 1587.”—See Mrs. HenryPott’s The Promus, 1883Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c.4 BC–AD 65): Roman philosopher and dramatist; his nine verse tragedieswere translated in 1581Francis Bacon: ApophthegmsHalliwell: The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee, 1842Francis Bacon: Sylva Sylvarum, vol ii, century iv; Gloss of the cause