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Original

Having very carefully considered this plate of the title page of the De Augmentis, 1645, let us next examine the plate on page 13, which is the title page that forms the frontispiece of Bacon's Henry VII. in the Latin edition, printed in Holland in 1642. This forms, with the 1645 edition of the De Augmentis, one of the series of Bacon's collected works which were continually reprinted for upwards of a hundred years. In this title page of Henry VII. we see the same "left-handed" story most emphatically repeated. On the right of the engraving—the reader's left—upon the higher level, Francis Bacon stands in the garb of a philosopher with grand Rosicrucian rosettes upon his shoes. By his side is a knight in full armour, who, like himself, touches the figure with his right hand. On the "left" side of the picture upon the lower level we see that the same Francis Bacon, who is now wearing actor's boots, is stopping the wheel with the shaft of a spear which, the "left-handed" actor grasps (or shall we say "shakes"), while with his "left hand" he points to the globe. This actor wears one spur only, and that upon his "left" boot, and his sword is also girded upon him "left-handedly." Above this "left-handed" actor's head, upon the wheel which the figure is turning with her "left" hand, we see the emblems of the plays; the mirror up to nature (observe the crossed lines to which we called attention in reference to the crossed lines upon the book in the title page of the De Augmentis, 1645)—the rod for the back of fools—"the bason that receives your guilty blood" (see Titus Andronicus v. 2) which is here the symbol for tragedy,—and the fool's rattle or bauble. That the man is not a knight, but is intended to represent an actor, is manifest from his wearing actor's boots, a collar of lace, and leggings trimmed with lace, and having his sword girded on the wrong side, while he wears but one gauntlet and that upon his "left" hand. That he is a Shake-speare actor is also evident because he is shaking the spear which is held by Bacon. He is likewise a shake-spur actor, as is shewn by his wearing one spur only, which is upon his "left" boot. In other emblematic writings and pictures we similarly get "Shake-spur," meaning "Shake-speare."

The reader cannot fail to remark how perpetually it is shewn that everything connected with the plays is performed "left-handedly," that is, "underhandedly" and "secretly in shadow." On the right-hand side upon the higher level the figure with her right hand holds above Bacon's head a salt box. This is in order to teach us that Bacon was the "wisest of mankind," because we are plainly told in the "Continuation of Bacon's New Atlantis" (which was published in 1660, but of which the author who is called "R. H., Esq.," has never been identified) that in "our Heraldry" (which refers to the symbolic drawings that appear mostly as the frontispieces of certain books such as those before the reader) "If for wisdom she (the virgin) holds a salt." But the reader will perceive that in her right hand she also holds something else above Bacon's head.

Original

Only a considerable knowledge of Emblems and Emblem books enables me to inform my readers what this very curious object represents. It is absolutely certain that what she holds above Bacon's head is a "bridle without a bit," which is here put for the purpose of instructing us that the future age is not to curb and muzzle and destroy Bacon's reputation. This emblem tells us that, as the ages roll on, Bacon will be unmuzzled and crowned with everlasting fame. How do we know so much as this? In February, 1531, the first edition of the most important of all Emblem books, viz., "Alciati's Emblems," was published, and in that book there is shewn a hideous figure of Nemesis holding a bridle in which is a tremendous "bit" to destroy "improba verba," false reputations. A little more than a hundred years later, viz., in 1638, Baudoin, who had translated Bacon's essays into French, also published a book of Emblems, a task which, he tells us in the preface, he was induced to undertake by "Alciat" (printed in small letters) and by BACON (printed in capital letters). In this book of Emblems Baudoin puts opposite to Bacon's name a fine engraving of Nemesis, but which is, in fact, a figure of Fame holding a "bridle without a bit," of exactly the same shape as that shewn in the title page of "Henry VII.," which is now under the reader's eyes. I may perhaps here state that I possess books that must have belonged to a distinguished Rosicrucian who was well acquainted with Bacon's secrets, and that in my library there is a specially printed copy of Baudoin's book in which this figure of Fame that is put as the Nemesis for Bacon, is purposefully printed upside down; I do not mean bound upside down, but printed upside down, the printing on the back being reversed and so reading correctly. Other books which I possess have portions similarly purposefully printed upside down to afford revelations of Bacon's authorship to those readers who are capable of understanding symbols. This particular upside down drawing of the Nemesis placed opposite to Bacon's name in Baudoin's book is so printed in order to emphasise the author's meaning that the Nemesis for Bacon is to unmuzzle him and spread his fame over all the world. This "specially printed" copy of Baudoin's book is also "specially bound"—in contemporary binding—with Rosicrucian Emblems on the back.

The figure which turns the wheel turns it with her "left" hand, while with her right hand she holds over Bacon's head what the reader now knows to be the emblems of Wisdom and of Fame. Streaming from her head is a long lock of hair which is correctly described as "the forelock of time," and this is to teach us that as time goes on so will Bacon's reputation continually extend farther and farther.

Bacon in his will declared that he bequeathed his "name and memory... to foreign nations and the next ages." * Bacon knew that much time must elapse before the world would begin to recognise how much he had done for its advancement, and there is considerable evidence that he fixed upon the year 1910, which is 287 years after the year 1623, in which the Folio edition of the immortal plays, known as Shakespeare's, first appeared.

With respect to Bacon's remarkable reference to foreign nations, we must remember that the title pages here shown and numerous other striking revelations of his