| “Shall see me rising in my throne,” | R. II. | 3-2; |
| “When I do rouse me in my throne,” | H. V. | 1-2; |
| “But one imperious in another’s throne,” | 1 H. VI. | 3-1; |
| “In that throne “Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,” | 3 H. VI. | 1-1; |
| “And shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?” | 3 H. VI. | 1-1; |
| “And see him seated in the regal throne,” | 3 H. VI. | 4-3; |
| “Once more we sit in England’s royal throne,” | 3 H. VI. | 5-7; |
| “And plant your joys in living Edward’s throne,” | R. III. | 2-2; |
| “We will plant some other in the throne,” | R. III. | 3-7; |
| “You are but newly planted in your throne,” | T. A. | 1-1; |
| “My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne,” | R. & J. | 5-1 |
Our critic has not read his Shakespeare well, if he thinks the term unusual in Bacon’s time.
He also objects to the phrase, “Every land in which the English language hath a place.” Bacon wrote his cipher history to be read, when deciphered, in all parts of the world. The reference to our colonies, etc., was a prophecy more than half realized even then, and he claimed for Elizabeth command of the sea which he called a “universal monarchy.”
Critic again quotes: “We spent our greatest labours in making cyphares’ (a noble occupation!)” Certainly, and a natural one when seeking means of communicating important matters. Some one has suggested that instead of committing his secret history to ciphers, he should have written it out and confided the papers to the keeping of trusted literary executors. But that would have been the action of mature years, or of one who believed he was about to leave this life. Bacon then was an eager youth, hardly yet upon the threshold of manhood, and he believed his claims would ultimately be acknowledged. As to the nobleness of the occupation, Bacon says of it: “These Arts (cyphers) being here placed with the principal and supreame Sciences, seeme petty thinges: yet to such as have chosen them to spende their labours studies in them, they seem great Matters”—Adv. of Learn. B. 2, p. 61. (1605).
Our critic states: “To the real Bacon Elizabeth’s movements in January 1560-1 would have been known.”
To an infant of days? That is very good. These things became known to him in the way he states.
Again, “Robert Cecil, at the period referred to, was about fourteen years of age.” Critic must have copied this from Mr. Andrew Lang who makes the same mistake. The encyclopaedias give the date of Robert Cecil’s birth as 1550. He was therefore eleven years older than Bacon and about twenty-seven years of age when, Bacon says, he caused the tempestuous scene that resulted in the disclosure to Francis that he was the son of the Queen.
Then, “Hamlet was not in 1611 a new play.”
Could Bacon record in the types of a play then appearing for the first time, that it had “breasted the wave gallantly?” Whatever the play or whenever it was “new,” it could not be the 1611 edition of Hamlet.
The critic further says: “For Bacon’s style we know—compact, well-built, grammatical, lucid; no feeble tautology, dilutions, or repetitions; harmonious, and satisfying to the ear; pregnant with meaning, and grateful to the intellect. But what about the Phantoms? Here we find clumsy and sprawling sentences of half a page, or nearly, with shambling subordinate clauses 'spatch-cocked’ in between brackets or dashes” etc.