| Cryptographic Shakespeare |
THE MANES VERULAMIANI
"Memoriae Honoratissimi Domini,
Francisci, Baronis De Verulamio,
Vice-comitis Sancti Albani Sacrum."
What first follows is by W.G.C. Gundry, Barrister-at Law. He quotes from a small book, published a few
months after the death, in April of 1626, of Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam. Someone called together thirty-two
well known scholars, Bacon's friends and contemporaries. The purpose was to do him honor as England's
foremost philosopher and as its finest poet, as we shall see.
TO THE READER
In editing a book like the present one the writer is well aware that he has to be very careful in venting opinions
unless corroborated by facts, and even in drawing conclusions therefrom, and therefore his chief duty must, and
should be, to record these. No promise is implied here that obvious inferences will not be pointedout, bearing on
the subject of the "Manes Verulamiani;" this is, indeed, the object in writing the Introduction which follows, but
the reader will, it is hoped, feel free to come to an independent judgment on the facts presented. That his
opinions on the meaning of these verses, and the significance and relevance of certain, ancillary facts, which he
will record, will be questioned by some, he cannot doubt. No exemption for any legitimate criticism is expected,
or asked, but it is deemed desirable, however, to disarm some potential critics by setting out briefly the grounds
of the possible objections.
Firstly, it may well be thought that these tributes which seek to place the laurels on Bacon's brow were
dictated by the sentiment of ""de mortuis"".
The answer to this, surely, is that the language employed is of such a superlative nature and so generally
expressed by all, or nearly all, the contributors that this objection is hardly valid; this collusive praise goes far
beyond conventional requirements: the writers of these elegies appear to have collaborated in exalting Bacon's
literary reputation to the zenith; it must also be remembered that these writers were for the most part well known
and responsible persons whose reputations would have been compromised had they been guilty of flagrant
exaggeration.
Secondly, if a reader (should there be such) happens to be unfamiliar with the question of the authorship of the
plays known as Shakespeare's, or has a nodding acquaintance merely with the real history of the lives of both
Bacon and Shakspere, if such a reader should assume the ro1e of critic, he will almost inevitably fix upon some
tradition affecting Shakspere's (The Actor) life which he thinks contravenes the contentions of the present writer:
it is extremely dangerous to use tradition as an argument in any question where Shakspere is concerned, the facts
concerning his life could be disposed of in a few sentences, and many alleged incidents in his career have been
fixed upon him posthumously "thick as autumnal leaves in Vallombrosa", and as unsubstantial.
Tradition may wear a snowy beard but this does not make it more credible. To believe that the Plays known as
Shakespeare's were the work of the Stratford Actor, and dealer in malt, is to discard the use of inductive logic and
to jettison hitherto accepted methods of reasoning. To arrive at the orthodox conviction it is necessary to follow
blindly in the wake of tradition and euhemerizing legend; to have your reason drugged, and to be dragged at the
chariot wheels of eminent "men of letters", who by incredible mental equivocations attempt to persuade
themselves and others that the most learned dramatic works in the English tongue proceeded from the mind of a
man of whose education we know nothing, and who, according to one authority, acquired his alleged learning by
"intuition"; it is necessary to banish all previously used methods of analysis and examination which past
experience has shown to be essential when considering any question of disputed authorship, and to enter a world
of illusion, where black becomes white, darkness light, falsehood truth, ugliness beauty, ignorance learning, and
Shakspere Shakespeare!
The orthodox believer becomes a mere echo in the Stratford grammar of assent, which condition manifests
itself in a moral paralysis rendering him incapable of a clear and unprejudiced consideration of the merits of the
case: These adherents to the Stratford tradition derive much of their knowledge of the Actor, not from the
fountain head of real knowledge, but by way of the polluted springs of tradition, which have gradually seeped
into the well of Truth: and so this piebald miscellany of conjecture propagates and engenders further fables.
One has only to look into any biography purporting to deal with Shakspere of Stratford, such as Sir Sidney
Lee's "Life of Shakespeare" to find it a tissue of surmise: one is at a loss which to pity or admire the more in it; to
pity the overworked adverbial handmaids of conjecture, such as, "doubtless", "probably", or "possibly"; or to
admire the writer's dexterity in ringing the changes on words implying uncertainty; the truth is that much of the
so-called life of Shakspere (the Actor) is nothing but biographical fiction distilled in the alembics of the writer's
imagination, or extruded like ectoplasm from the biographers themselves, who conjure up an ideal figure which
is but a phantasm of the works of Shakespeare; these literary mediums are unwilling to disappoint the orthodox
at their seances, they must produce something, even if it be as unauthentic as the Kesselstadt Death Mask and the
scores of alleged portraits of Shakspere (or should we write Shakespeare?).
The Droeshout portrait, stupid but inscrutable, has challenged every generation since it appeared in the First
Folio in 1623 and still remains an enigma to most people. It is a remarkable fact that only a few have as yet
realized that it is but a mask vizarding the real Author: the critics have taken the wrong prescription and
swallowed the label as well! Tradition cannot be used as an argument in a case of this kind. Much of the
Shakespearean yarn spun by the critics and biographers without reference to the life of Francis Bacon is mere
"cobwebs of learning".
It may be pointed out further by critics that there have been other claimants for the Shakespeare laurels; this is
so, there have been several, but each has come and gone like: "a poor player that struts his hour upon the stage
and then is heard no more."
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