The Mystery of Francis Bacon

by William T. Smedley

Chapter XII.
IS IT PROBABLE THAT BACON LEFT MANUSCRIPTS HIDDEN AWAY?

It is difficult to leave this subject without some reference to the articles which have appeared in the press and magazines referring to the suggestion that there were left concealed literary remains of Bacon hitherto undiscovered.

In an article which recently appeared in a Shakespearean journal, a writer who evidently knows little about the Elizabethan period said: "But why should Bacon want to bury manuscripts, anyhow? Who does bury manuscripts? Besides, they had been printed and were, therefore, rubbish and waste paper merely." The manuscript of John Harrington's translation of Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso" may be seen in the British Museum. It is beautifully written on quarto paper. It was, apparently, the fair copy sent to the printer from which the type was to be set up. Be this as it may, it was undoubtedly a copy upon which Bacon marked off the verses which are to go on each page and set out the folio of each page and the printer's signature which was to appear at the bottom. It also contains instructions to the printer as to the type to be used. This manuscript was not considered "rubbish and waste paper merely."

Francis Bacon has again and again insisted upon the value of history. In the "Advancement of Learning" he points out to the King "the indignity and unworthiness of the history of England as it now is, in the main continuation thereof." No man appreciated as did Bacon the importance in the history of England of the epoch in which he lived. That a truthful relation of the events of those times would be invaluable to posterity he knew full well. He of all men living at that time was best qualified to write such a history. He recognised that there were objections to a history being written, or, at any rate, published, wherein the actions of persons living were described, for he said "it must be confessed that such kind of relations, specially if they be published about the times of things done, seeing very often that they are written with passion or partiality, of all other narrations, are most suspected." It is hardly conceivable that Bacon should have failed to provide a faithful history of his own times for the benefit of posterity, or, at any rate, that he should have failed to preserve the materials for such a history. Neither the history nor such materials are known to be in existence. Supposing Bacon had prepared either the one or the other, what could he do with it? Hand it to Rawley with instructions for it to be printed? With a strong probability, if it were a faithful history, that it would never be published, but that it would be destroyed, he would never take such a risk. There would only be one course open to him. To conceal it in some place where it would not be likely to be disturbed, in which it might remain in safety, possibly for hundreds of years. And then leave a clue either in cypher or otherwise by which it might be recovered.

It is by no means outside the range of possibility that Bacon as early as 1588 had opened a receptacle for books and manuscripts which he desired should go down to posterity, and fearing their loss from any cause, he carefully concealed them, adding to the store from time to time. If he did so he left a problem to be solved, and arranged the place of concealment so that it could only be found by a solution of the problem.

The emblems on two title-pages of two books of the period are very significant. "Truth brought to Light and discovered by Time" is a narrative history of the first fourteen years of King James' reign. One portion of the engraved title-page represents a spreading tree growing up out of a coffin, full fraught with various fruits (manuscripts and books) most fresh and fair to make succeeding times most rich and rare. In the Emblem (Fig. III.) now reproduced, which is found on the title-page of the first edition of "New Atlantis," 1627,[30] Truth personified by a naked woman is being revealed by Father Time, and the inscription round the device is "Tempore patet occulta veritas—in time the hidden truth shall be revealed."

Then, in further confirmation of this view, there is the statement of Rawley in his introduction to the "Manes Verulamiani." Speaking of the fame of his illustrious master he says, "Be this moreover enough, to have laid, as it were, the foundations, in the name of the present age. Every age will, methinks, adorn and amplify this structure, but to what age it may be vouchsafed to set the finishing hand—this is known only to God and the Fates."

Fig. III.
From the Title Page of "New Atlantis," 1627.