[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

(1) That no facts have yet been discovered concerning the lives of either Bacon or Shakespeare which render it impossible that Bacon should have written the Plays.
(2) That many particulars in the circumstances under which the plays are known to have been produced or acted, as well as the chronological order and dates attributed to the several Plays and Poems by Dr. Delius (see “Leopold” Shakespeare) coincide with facts in the life of Bacon.
EXAMPLES.--The first play, according to this chronology (excepting Titus Andronicus), is 1 Hen. VI., in which the scene is laid in the very provinces of France through which Francis Bacon travelled on his first leaving home, his only travels “to see the wonders of the world abroad.” “The business of the mission took him in the wake of the Court, from Paris to Blois, from Blois to Tours, from Tours to Poictiers, where in the Autumn of 1577 he resided for three months” (Spedding’s Life and Letters, i. 6, 7; compare 1 Hen. VI. i. 1, 60, 65; iv. 3-45, &c.). The scene of the next Play, 2 Henry VI., carries us to Bacon’s home at St. Alban’s, whither he retired when suddenly recalled from France by the death of his father. The play is full of allusions to events and personages of which the visitor to St. Alban’s must constantly be reminded. The great battle of St. Alban’s (2 Hen. VI. v. 2) took place within a
3mile-and-a-half of Bacon’s home. In the Abbey Church are the tombs of Earl Warwick’s family (3 Hen. VI.), surmounted by the “Nevil’s Crest,” “the rampant bear chained to the ragged staff” (2 Hen. VI. v. 1, 201-2). The inscription upon the tomb of the Greys (Bacon’s kindred by marriage) alludes to the marriage of the widow of Sir John Grey (3 Hen. VI. iii. 2) to Edward IV. (3 Hen. VI. iv. 1). Near the tomb of Queen Margaret invida sed nulier (3 Hen. VI. iii. 3, 78, &c.), is that of good Duke Humphrey, of Gloucester, whose epitaph (author uncertain) was inscribed in 1625 (after Bacon’s fall and return to St. Alban’s) and records that the duke was the discoverer of the imposture of the man who pretended to have been born blind (2 Hen. VI. ii. 1).
Leaving St. Alban’s, Bacon was driven to Gray’s Inn to earn his livelihood as a working lawyer. His only own brother, Anthony, went to Italy. In the early comedies we see the influence of Anthony’s correspondence, of Francis’s studies of law and science, and of his dislike to the philosophy of Aristotle as “barren of fruits.” Francis, briefless and poor, gets into debt, is besieged by Jews and duns, complains bitterly of the behaviour of one “hard” Jew. Anthony returns from Italy, 1593; mortgages his own property, and taxes his own and his friends’ credit, in order to pay his brother’s debts. The Merchant of Venice appears soon afterwards. The “hard Jew” is immortalised in Shylock, and the generous brother Anthony in Antonio, whose conduct is represented to have been precisely the same as that of his prototype (compare Spedding’s Life and Letters, i. 322, and Mer. Ven. i. 1, 122, 185).
The Plays continue gay and joyous in tone until about 1601, when the critics unanimously declare that a “dark period” began with the Poet (Shakespeare was now particularly rich and flourishing, and contemplating retirement from London business). In this year the trial and execution of Essex took place. Anthony Bacon, Francis’s “comforte,” died. Lady Anne Bacon’s mind gave way. She seems to have gone through various stages of melancholia and lunacy until she became “frantic,” and died ten years later. From 1601 the plays describe symptoms of madness. Hamlet shows Bacon suffering under his symptom of “clouds, strangeness, superstition, and sense of peril.” In Macbeth we see him soothe James I., ruffled at the way in which actors had recently been making fun of the Scots, and of his own book on “Demonologie.” In Measure for Measure we see him enforcing his own efforts to improve the moral condition of London, and to obtain the abolition of obsolete laws. In the speeches on Mercy, put into the mouth of Isabella (ii. 2, &c.), we hear him pleading with the king for the lives of Sir Walter Raleigh and his friends. This Play was first acted at the house of Bacon’s friend, the Earl of Pembroke, before the King and Court, during the time when Raleigh and his associates were being tried for their lives at Winchester.
4In 1610 a fleet was dispatched to the West Indies to trade, and to assist in founding a colony in Virginia. Bacon, Pembroke, and other young lords were engaged in the enterprise. Their ship, “Admiral,” encountered severe storms, and was wrecked on the Bermudas, “still vexed Bermoothes.” In the following year The Tempest appeared. In Henry VIII.-apparently a play sketched in his youth and finished after his disgrace-Bacon puts into the mouth of Wolsey, the Chancellor, a description of his own sad fall, introducing a saying which he had written in the rough draft of a letter to the King (in 1621), but which he omitted in the fair copy. “Cardinal Wolsey said, that if he had pleased God as he pleased the King, he had not been ruined. My conscience saith no such thing. But it may be if I had pleased men as I have pleased you, it would have been the better with me.”
In Timon of Athens, never heard of before 1623, the ungrateful behaviour of parasite friends towards a fallen benefactor is exhibited, and Bacon seems to satirise his own over-generous use of wealth (when he had it), a prodigality described by his biographers as the counterpart of Timon’s.
(3) That the hints which the Plays and Sonnets contain of their author’s experiences, mental and physical, are infinite in number when applied to the life and experiences of Francis Bacon, but can with difficulty be strained so as to show any connection with, or self-illustration of Shakespeare.
EXAMPLES.-He was “a parlous boy, bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable. He’s all the mother’s, from the top to toe” (R. III. iii. 1, 154-6). He was at the “studious university,” then sent with the ambassador to the French Court “to see the wonders of the world abroad” (see Tw. G. Ver., i. 1-10, and i. 3, 1-43). He was “young in limbs, in judgment old” (Mer. Ven. ii. 7, 71); “a patriot born,” bent on doing his sovereign service (R. III. ii. 1, &c.), yet often in disgrace with Elizabeth, and “flying from the eyes of men” (comp. Sonnet xxix. and Letters to Sir R. Cecil, to the Earl of Essex, and to the High Treasurer (Spedding L. L. i. 350-357). At Twickenham the Queen visits him (Sonn. lvii., &c.). He is slighted by his eldest brother (As Y. L. i. 1). He was a lawyer, a student of medicine, “’Tis known I ever have studied physic.” (Per. iii. 2, 31). A natural philosopher-“In nature’s infinite book of secrecy, a little I can read” (Ant. Cl. i. 2); he experienced the depths of poverty, “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, the whips and scorns of time, the