Bacon is Shake-Speare. Durning-Lawrence Edwin

we now call the English language. The plays and the sonnets also reveal their author's life.

      In the play of "Hamlet" especially, Bacon seems to tell us a good deal concerning himself, for the auto-biographical character of that play is clearly apparent to those who have eyes to see. I will, however, refer only to a single instance in that play. In the Quarto of 1603, which is the first known edition of the play of "Hamlet," we are told, in the scene at the grave, that Yorick has been dead a dozen years; but in the 1604 Quarto, which was printed in the following year, Yorick is stated to have been dead twenty-three years. This corrected number, twenty-three, looks therefore like a real date of the death of a real person. The words in the Quarto of 1604 are as follows: —

      1

      Digges really means "When Time dissolves thy Stratford Mask".

      2

      Through the whole play the fact that Puntarvolo represents Bacon is continually apparent to the instructed reader. Note especially Act II., Scene 3, where Puntarvolo addresses his wife, who appears at a window, in a parody of the address of Romeo to Juliet. Again in Act II., Scene 3, Carlo Buffone calls Puntarvolo "A yeoman pheuterer." Pheuter or feuter means a rest or supportfor a spear – which is informing.

      3

      This fact so puzzling to Halliwell-Phillipps is fully explained when it is realised that William Shackspere of Stratford could neither read or write.

      4

      The words attriuted to Apollo, are of course spoken by his Chancellor Bacon. See note on the number 33 on page 112.

      5

      While I am perfectly satisfied that the above explanation of the meaning of the e

1

Digges really means "When Time dissolves thy Stratford Mask".

2

Through the whole play the fact that Puntarvolo represents Bacon is continually apparent to the instructed reader. Note especially Act II., Scene 3, where Puntarvolo addresses his wife, who appears at a window, in a parody of the address of Romeo to Juliet. Again in Act II., Scene 3, Carlo Buffone calls Puntarvolo "A yeoman pheuterer." Pheuter or feuter means a rest or supportfor a spear – which is informing.

3

This fact so puzzling to Halliwell-Phillipps is fully explained when it is realised that William Shackspere of Stratford could neither read or write.

4

The words attriuted to Apollo, are of course spoken by his Chancellor Bacon. See note on the number 33 on page 112.

5

While I am perfectly satisfied that the above explanation of the meaning of the expression "All numbers" is the correct one; I am not unaware that at the date at which the Discoveries appeared "All numbers" would be generally understood in its classical sense; Jonson of course not being permitted to speak too plainly. He was foreman of Bacon's good pens and one of his "left-hands"; as any visitor to Westminster Abbey may learn, the attendants there being careful to point out that the sculptor has "accidentally" clothed Jonson's Bust in a left-handed coat. (With respect to the meaning of this the reader is referred to Plate 33, page 131.) Thus far was written and in print when the writer's attention was called to the Rev. George O Neill's little brochure, "Could Bacon have written the plays?" in which in a note to page 14 we find "Numeri" in Latin, "numbers" in English, applied to literature mean nothing else than verse, and even seem to exclude prose. Thus Tibullus writes, "Numeris ille hic pede libero scribit" (one writes in verse another in prose), and Shakespeare has the same antithesis in "Love's Labour Lost" (iv., 3), "These numbers I will tear and write in prose." Yet all this does not settle the matter, for "Numeri" is also used in the sense merely of "parts". Pliny speaks of a prose work as perfect in all its parts, "Omnibus numeris absolutus," and Cicero says of a plan of life, "Omnes numeros virtutis continet" (it contains every element of virtue). So that Jonson may have merely meant to say in slightly pedantic phrase that Bacon had passed away all parts fulfilled.