CHAPTER X — Bacon is Shakespeare.
Proved mechanically in a short chapter on the long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus.
The long word found in "Loves Labour's lost" was not created by the author of Shakespeare's plays. Mr. Paget Toynbee, writing in the Athenoeum (London weekly) of December 2nd 1899, tells us the history of this long word.
It is believed to have first appeared in the Latin Dictionary by Uguccione, called "Magnae Derivationes," which was written before the invention of printing, in the latter half of the twelfth century and seems never to have been printed. Excerpts from it were, however, included in the "Catholicon" of Giovanni da Geneva, which was printed among the earliest of printed books (that is, it falls into the class of books known as "incunabula," so called because they belong to the "cradle of printing," the fifteenth century).
In this "Catholicon," which, though undated, was printed before A.D. 1500, we read
"Ab honorifico, hic et hec honorificabilis,—le et
—hec honororificabilitas,—tis et hec
honorificabilitudinitas, et est longissima dictio,
que illo versu continetur—
Fulget Honorificabilitudinitatibus iste."
It is perhaps not without interest to call the reader's attention to the fact that "Fulget hon|orifi |cabili|tudini|tatibus|iste" forms a neat Latin hexameter. It will be found that the revelation derived from the long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus is itself also in the form of a Latin hexameter.
The long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus occurs in the Quarto edition of "Loues Labor's Lost," which is stated to be "Newly corrected and augmented by W. Shakespere." Imprinted in London by W.W. for Cutbert Burby. 1598.