Bacon also reveals much of himself in the play "As you like it," which of course means "Wisdom from the mouth of a fool." In that play, besides giving us much valuable information concerning his "mask" William Shakespeare, he also tells us why it was necessary for him to write under a pseudonym.
Speaking in the character of Jaques, who is the alter ego of Touchstone, he says,
Act ii, Scene 7.
"O that I were a foole,
I am ambitious for a motley coat.
Duke. Thou shalt haue one.
Jag. It is my onely suite,
Prouided that you weed your better judgements
Of all opinion that growes ranke in them,
That I am wise. I must haue liberty
Wiithall, as large a Charter as the winde,
To blow on whom I please, for so fooles haue:
And they that are most gauled with my folly,
They most must laugh....
Inuest me in my motley: Giue me leaue
To speake my minde, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foule bodie of th' infected world
If they will patiently receiue my medicine."
He also gives us most valuable information in Sonnet 81.
Or I shall liue your Epitaph to make,
Or you suruiue when I in earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten,
Your name from hence immortall life shall haue,
Though I (once gone) to all the world must dye,
The Earth can yeeld me but a common graue,
When you intombed in men's eyes shall lye,
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall ore read,
And toungs to be, your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead,
You still shall liue (such vertue hath my Pen)
Where breath most breaths euen in the mouths of men.
Stratfordians tell us that the above is written in reference to a poet whom Shakespeare "evidently" regarded as a rival. But it is difficult to imagine how sensible men can satisfy their reason with such an explanation. Is it possible to conceive that a poet should write against a rival
"Your name from hence immortall life shall haue
Though I (once gone) to all the world must dye"
or should say against a rival,
"The Earth can yeeld me but a common graue
While you intombed in men's eyes shall lye."
or should have declared "against a rival,"