Bacon is Shake-Speare

CHAPTER X

Bacon is Shakespeare.

Proved mechanically in a short chapter on the long word

Honorificabilitudinitatibus.

The long word found in "Loves Labour's lost" was not created by the author of Shakespeare's plays. Mr. Paget Toynbee, writing in the Athenoeum (London weekly) of December 2nd 1899, tells us the history of this long word.

It is believed to have first appeared in the Latin Dictionary by Uguccione, called "Magnae Derivationes," which was written before the invention of printing, in the latter half of the twelfth century and seems never to have been printed. Excerpts from it were, however, included in the "Catholicon" of Giovanni da Geneva, which was printed among the earliest of printed books (that is, it falls into the class of books known as "incunabula," so called because they belong to the "cradle of printing," the fifteenth century).

In this "Catholicon," which, though undated, was printed before A.D. 1500, we read

"Ab honorifico, hic et hec honorificabilis, – le et

– hec honororificabilitas, – tis_ et hec

honorificabilitudinitas, et est longissima dictio,

que illo versu continetur —

Fulget Honorificabilitudinitatibus iste."

It is perhaps not without interest to call the reader's attention to the fact that "Fulget hon|orifi |cabili|tudini|tatibus|iste" forms a neat Latin hexameter. It will be found that the revelation derived from the long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus is itself also in the form of a Latin hexameter.

The long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus occurs in the Quarto edition of "Loues Labor's Lost," which is stated to be "Newly corrected and augmented by W. Shakespere." Imprinted in London by W.W. for Cutbert Burby. 1598.

This is the very first play that bore the name W. Shakespere, but so soon as he had attached the name W. Shakespere to that play, the great author Francis Bacon caused to be issued almost immediately a book attributed to Francis Meres which is called "Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury" and is stated to be Printed by P. Short for Cuthbert Burbie, 1598. This is the same publisher as the publisher of the Quarto of "Loues Labor's lost" although both the Christian name and the surname are differently spelled.

This little book "Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury" tells us on page 281, "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among ye English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for Comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love Labors lost, his Love Labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, and his Merchant of Venice: for Tragedy, his Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet."

Here we are distinctly told that eleven other plays are also Shakespeare's work although only Loues Labors lost at that time bore his name.

We refer on page 138 to the reason why it had become absolutely necessary for the Author to affix a false name to all these twelve plays. For our present purpose it is sufficient to point out that on the very first occasion when the name W. Shakespere was attached to any play, viz., to the play called "Loues Labor's lost," the Author took pains to insert a revelation that would enable him to claim his own when the proper time should arrive. Accordingly he prepared the page which is found F 4 (the little book is not paged) in the Quarto of "Loues Labor's lost" which was published in 1598. A photo-facsimile of the page is shewn, Page 105, Plate 22.

So far as is known there never was any other edition printed until the play appeared in the Folio of 1623 under the name of "Loues Labour's lost," and we put before the reader a reduced facsimile of the whole page 136 of the 1623 Folio, on which the long word occurs, Page 86, Plate 20, and we give also an exact full size photo reproduction of a portion of the first column of that page. Page 87, Plate 21.

On comparing the page of the Quarto with that of the Folio, it will be seen that the Folio page commences with the same word as does the Quarto and that each and every word, and each and every italic in the Folio is exactly reproduced from the Quarto excepting that Alms-basket in the Folio is printed with a hyphen to make it into two words. A hyphen is also inserted in the long word as it extends over one line to the next. The only other change is that the lines are a little differently arranged. These slight differences are by no means accidental, because Alms-basket is hyphened to count as two words and thereby cause the long word to be the 151st word. This is exceedingly important and it was only by a misprint in the Quarto that it incorrectly appears there as the 150th word. By the rearrangement of the lines, the long word appears on the 27th line, and the line, "What is A.B. speld backward with the horn on his head" appears as it should do on the 33rd line. At the time the Quarto was issued, when the trouble was to get Shakespere's name attached to the plays, these slight printer's errors in the Quarto – for they are printer's errors – were of small consequence, but when the play was reprinted in the Folio of 1623 all these little blemishes were most carefully corrected.

The long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus is found in "Loues Labour's lost" not far from the commencement of the Fifth Act, which is called Actus Quartus in the 1623 folio, and on Page 87, Plate 21, is given a full size photo facsimile from the folio, of that portion of page 136, in which the word occurs in the 27th line.

On lines 14, 15 occurs the phrase, "Bome boon for boon prescian, a little scratcht, 'twil serve." I do not know that hitherto any rational explanation has been given of the reason why this reference to the pedantic grammarian "Priscian" is there inserted.

The mention of Priscian's name can have no possible reference to anything apparent in the text, but it refers solely and entirely to the phrase which is to be formed by the transposition of the twenty-seven letters contained in the long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus; and it was absolutely impossible that the citation of Priscian could ever have been understood before the sentence containing the information which is of the most important description had been "revealed." We say "revealed" because the riddle could never have been "guessed."

The "revealed" and "all revealing" sentence forms a correct Latin hexameter, and we will proceed to prove that it is without possibility of doubt or question the real solution which the "Author" intended to be known at some future time, when he placed the long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus, which is composed of twenty-seven letters, on the twenty-seventh line of page 136, where it appears as the 151st word printed in ordinary type.

The all-important statement which reveals the authorship of the plays in the most clear and direct manner (every one of the twenty-seven letters composing the long word being employed and no others) is in the form of a correct Latin hexameter, which reads as follows —

HI LUDI F. BACONIS NATI TUITI ORBI

These plays F. Bacon's offspring are preserved for the

world.

This verse will scan as a spondaic hexameter as under

HI One long syllable meaning "these."

LUDI Two long syllables meaning "stage plays," and especially "stage plays" in contradistinction to "Circus games." (Suetonius Hist: Julius Caes: 10. Venationes autem Ludosque et cum collega et separatim edidit).

F, One long syllable. Now for the first time can the world be informed why the sneer "Bome boon for boon prescian, a little scratcht, 'twil serve" was inserted on lines 14, 15, page 136 of the folio of 1623. Priscian declares that F was a mute and Bacon mocks him for so doing. Ausonius while giving the pronunciation of most letters of the alphabet does not afford us any information respecting the sound of F, but Quintilian xii. 10, s. 29, describes the pronunciation of the Roman F. Some scholars understand him as indicating that the Roman F had rather a rougher sound than the English F. Others agree with Dr. H.J. Roby, and are of opinion that Quintilian means that the Roman F was "blown out between the intervals of the teeth with no sound of voice." (See Roby's Grammar of the Latin language, 1881, xxxvi.) But Dr. A. Bos in his "Petit Traite de prononciation Latine," 1897, asserts that the old Latin manner of pronouncing F was effe. Even if Dr. A. Bos is correct it is not at all likely that effe was a dissyllable, but most probably it would be sounded very nearly like the Greek "[Greek: phi]," that is as "pfe." In any case (even if it were a dissyllable) F would, with the DI of LUDI, form two long syllables and scan as a spondee. The use of single consonants to form long or short syllables was very common among the Romans, but such appear mostly in lines impossible to quote.

But the Great Author was well acquainted with such instances, and in this same page 136, in lines 6, 7, 8, he gives an example, shewing that the letter "B," although silent in debt, becomes, when debt is spelled, one of the four full words – d e b t, each of which has to be counted to make up the number "151."6

This, which is an example of the great value and importance of what, in many of the plays, appears to be merely "silly talk" affords a strong additional evidence of the correctness of the "revealed" and "revealing" sentence which we shew was intended by the author to be constructed out of the long word. Bacon therefore was amply justified in making use of F as a long syllable to form the second half of a spondee.

BACONIS Three long syllables, the final syllable being long by position. Pedantic grammarians might argue that natus being a participle ought not to govern a genitive case, but should be followed by a preposition with the ablative case, and that we ought to say "e Bacone nati" or "de Bacone nati." Other pedants have declared that natus is properly, i.e., classically, said of the mother only, although in low Latin, such as the Vulgate, we find 1 John v. 2, "Natos Dei," "born of God." But the Author of the plays, who instead of having "small Latin and less Greek" knew "All Latin and very much Greek," was well aware that Vergil, Aeneid i. 654 (or 658 when the four additional lines are inserted at the beginning) gives us "Maxima natarum Priami," "greatest of the daughters of Priam," and in Aeneid ii. 527 "Unus natorum Priami," "one of the sons of Priam." There exists therefore the highest classical authority for the use of "Nati" in the sense of "Sons" or "offspring" governing a genitive case. "F. Baconis nati," "Francis Bacon's offspring," is therefore absolutely and classically correct.

NATI Two long syllables. A noun substantive meaning as shewn above "sons" or "offspring."

TUITI Two short syllables and one long syllable, which last is elided and disappears before the "o" of orbi. Tuiti which is the same word as tuti is a passive past participle meaning saved or preserved. It is derived from tueor, which is generally used as a deponent or reflexive verb, but tueor is used by Varro and the legal writers as a passive verb.

ORBI Two long syllables. The word orbi may be either the plural nominative of orbus meaning "deprived" "orphaned," or it may be the dative singular of Orbis meaning "for the world." Both translations make good sense because the plays are "preserved for the world" and are "preserved orphaned." The present writer prefers the translation "for the world," indeed he thinks that to most classical scholars "tuiti orbi," "preserved discarded," looks almost like a contradiction in terms.

Note on Honorficabilitudinitatibus

BACONIS. – On page 131 is shewn a photogravure of the title page of Bacon's "De Augmentis," 1645, which is in fact a pictorial representation of an anagram "Hi ludi F. Baconis nati tuiti orbi." On this title page we find "Baconis" used as the genitive of Bacon's name in Latin. Baconis is also found in XIII th century manuscript copies of Roger Bacon's works, where the title reads "Opus minus Fratris Rogeri Baconis," and in 1603 there was published in 12° at Frankfurt "Rogeri Baconis … De Arte Chymiae."

TUITI. – Pedanticgrammarians such as Priscian whom the author mocks at in the line "Bome boom for boon precian, a little scratcht, 'twil serve," falsely tel us that there is a passive verb "tueor" with a past participle "tutus." As a matter of fact it is the same verb "tueor" that is used both as a passive and as a deponent, and "tutus" or "tuitus" may be used indifferently at the pleasure of the writer. Sallust uses "tutus," not "tuitus," as the past participle of the deponent verb.

Opposite to the next page is shewn a type transcript of the cover or outside page of a collection of manuscripts in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland, which were discovered in 1867 at Northumberland House. Three years later, viz., in 1870, James Spedding published a thin little volume entituled "A Conference of Pleasure," in which he gave a full size Facsimile of the original of the outside page which is here shewn in reduced type facsimile. He also gave a few particulars of the MSS. themselves.

In 1904 Mr. Frank J. Burgoyne brought out a Collotype Facsimile of every page that now remains of the collection of MSS. in an edition limited to 250 copies I a fine Royal Quarto at the price of £4 4s. 0d. O f the MSS. mentioned on the cover nine now remain, and of these, six are certainly by Francis Bacon; the first being written by him for a masque or "fanciful devise" which Mr. Spedding thinks was presented at the Court of Elizabeth in 1592.

The list of contents was written upon this outside page about 1597, and among those original contents which are now missing were Richard II. and Richard III. Mr. Spedding was satisfied that these were the so-called Skakespearean plays. There are also the tiles of various other works to which it is not now necessary to allude, but the reader's attention should be especially directed to the (so-called) scribblings. Mr. Spedding says: "I find nothing either in these later scribblings or in what remains of the book itself to indicate a date later than the reign of Elizabeth." The "scribblings" are therefore written by a contemporary hand. For the purpose of reference I have placed the letters a, b, c, d, e, outside of the facsimile.

(a) "honorificabilitudine." This curious long word when taken in conjunction with the words "your William Shakespeare." which are also found upon this page, appears to have some reference to the same curious long word which is found in the ablative plural in "Loves Labour's lost," which appeared I 1597, and was the play to which Shakespeare's name was for the first time attached, and, as I shew, in Chapter X., p. 84, it was placed there in order to give with absolute certainty a key to the real authorship.

(b) "By Mr ffrauncis William Shakespeare Baco" – with ffrauncis written upside down over it and your/yourself written upside down at the commencement of the line. Baco would require Baconis as its genitive.

(c) "revealing day through every crany peepes." We think that this is an accurate statement of the revelations here afforded.

[Illustration: Modern Script Facsimile of MS Folio 1 Reduced to about one-third the size of the original]

(d) your

"William Shakespeare." Almost directly above this

your

appears also William Shakespeare.

[Illustration: Full-Size Facsimile of Written Ornament on Outside Page of Northumberland MSS.]

[Illustration: Full-Size Facsimile of Written Ornament in "Les Tenure de

Monsieur Littleton." Annotate by Francic Bacon.]

(e) The three curious scrolles at the top right-hand corner are very similar to the scrolls which are found upon the title page of a law book entitled, "Les Tenures de Monsieur Littleton," printed in 1591, in the possession of the writer, which is throughout noted in what the authorities at the British Museum say is undoubtedly the handwriting of Francis Bacon.

As I have pointed out upon page 114 and upon various other pages in my book "upside down" printing is a device continually employed by the authors of certain books in order to afford revelations concerning Bacon and Shakespeare. As a whole this curious scribbled page affords remarkable evidence that William Shakespeare is "yourself" Francis Bacon.