There is abundant testimony to the fact that it was the custom, during the Elizabethan age, for an author to suppress his own name, and on the title-page[32] substitute either the initials or name of some other person. The title-pages of this period are as unreliable as are the names or initials affixed to the dedications and epistles "To the Reader."
In 1624 was published "The Historie of the Life and Death of Mary Stuart Queene of Scotland." The dedication is signed Wil Stranguage. In 1636 it was reprinted, the same dedication being signed W. Vdall. There are numerous similar instances.
Chapter XIV.
THE CLUE TO THE MYSTERY OF BACON'S LIFE.
The theory now put forward is based upon the assumption that Francis Bacon at a very early age adopted the conception that he would devote his life to the construction of an adequate language and literature for his country and that he would do this remaining invisible. If he was the author of "The Anatomie of the Mind," 1576, and of "Beautiful Blossoms," 1577, he must have adopted this plan of obscurity as early as his sixteenth year. It is possible, however, that it may be shown that at a date still earlier he had decided upon this course. This, however, is beyond doubt—that if Francis Bacon was associated in any way with the literature of England from 1570 to 1605, with the exception of the small volume of essays published in 1597, he most carefully concealed his connection with it.
"Therefore, set it down," he says in the essay Of Simulation and Dissimulation, "that a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral," and in Examples of the Antitheta,[33] "Dissimulation is a compendious wisdome." Here again is the same idea: "Beside in all wise humane Government, they that sit at the helme, doe more happily bring their purposes about, and insinuate more easily things fit for the people by pretexts, and oblique courses; than by ... downright dealing. Nay (which perchance may seem very strange) in things meerely naturall, you may sooner deceive nature than force her; so improper and selfeimpeaching are open direct proceedings; whereas on the other side, an oblique and an insinuating way, gently glides along, and compasseth the intended effect."[34]
It is noteworthy that Bacon had a quaint conceit of the Divine Being which he was never tired of repeating. In the preface to the "Advancement of Learning" (1640), the following passage occurs:—
"For of the knowledges which contemplate the works of Nature, the holy Philosopher hath said expressly; that the glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the King is to find it out: as if the Divine Nature, according to the innocent and sweet play of children, which hide themselves to the end they may be found; took delight to hide his works, to the end they might be found out; and of his indulgence and goodness to mankind, had chosen the Soule of man to be his Play-fellow in this game."
Again on page 45 of the work itself he says:—