Then let not this disturb thy sprite,
Another age shall set thy buttons right. '
Stowe ii., p. 512-13.
In this same book, we see on the leaf following the title page the name of Apollo in large letters in an ornamental frame, and below it in the place of honour we find Francis Bacon placed as "Lord VERULAN Chancellor of Parnassus."
This means that Bacon was the greatest of poets since the world began. This proud position is also claimed for him by Thomas Randolf in a Latin poem published in 1640, but believed to have been written immediately after Bacon's death in 1626. Thomas Randolf declares that Phoebus (i.e., Apollo) was accessory to Bacon's death because he was afraid that Bacon would some day come to be crowned king of poetry or the Muses. George Herbert, Bacon's friend, who had overlooked many of his works, repeats the same story, calling Bacon the colleague of Sol, i.e., Phoebus Apollo.
Instances might be multiplied, but I will only quote the words of John Davies, of Hereford, another friend of Bacon's, who addresses him in his "Scourge of Folly," published about 1610, as follows:—
As to her Bellamour the Muse is wont;
For, thou dost her embozom; and dost use,
Her company for sport twixt grave affaires.
Bacon was always recognised by his contemporaries as among the greatest of poets. Although nothing of any poetical importance bearing Bacon's name had been up to that time published, Stowe (in his Annales, printed in 1615) places Bacon seventh in his list of Elizabethan poets.