Bacon, the 'Shakespeare' Leader of Poets and Writers

Francis Bacon is known to have worked with many poets and writers, with many of them forming his literary studio of ‘good pens’, including the poets Ben Jonson, John Lyly, John Florio, John Davies of Hereford, Sir John Davies, George Herbert and George Wither.

In his own words, Francis Bacon ‘rang the bell that called the wits together’, and a group of poets, writers, philosophers and other talented people soon began gathering around him. At Gray’s Inn he started writing masques and plays, and speeches for pageants and entertainments, as an important part of his great scheme (which he later came to call ‘The Great Instauration’).

Both Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony were referred to as secret poets. They ran the literary studio and, according to the Earl of Essex, wrote stage plays together:-

‘[Francis and Anthony Bacon] print me and make me speak to the world, and shortly they will play me in what form they list upon the stage.’ [1]

Bacon’s literary studio produced The Northumberland Manuscript , a collection that once contained two Shakespeare plays (Richard II and Richard III) as well as a play by Nashe (The Ile of Dogs) and an unknown play, Asmund and Cornelia, all bound with Bacon’s known writings and a cover that links Bacon with Shakespeare.

In tributes published after his death Francis Bacon is referred to as having used comedy and tragedy to rescue and renew Philosophy:-

‘So did Philosophy, entangled in the subtleties of Schoolmen seek Bacon as a deliverer… He renewed her, walking humbly in the socks of Comedy. After that, more elaborately he rises on the loftier buskin of Tragedy…’[2]

In the tribute by John Williams, Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, chaplain to James I and Bishop of Lincoln, who became Lord Keeper of the Great Seal after Francis Bacon and later Archbishop of York, Williams likens Francis Bacon to Apollo, the rarest glory of the Muses, and refers to Bacon as the chief inspirer of a group who are ‘disciples of the Muses’:-

‘How is it happened to us, the disciples of the Muses, that Apollo, the leader of our choir, should die?’[3]

In two other tributes, Bacon is likened to Pallas Athena, the Tenth Muse and ‘Spear-Shaker’, who elsewhere is referred to as the Muse of Bacon as also of Shakespeare:-

‘Ah, the tenth Muse and glory of the choir has perished. Ah, never before has Apollo himself been truly unhappy!’[4]

‘Bacon… a muse more rare than the nine Muses.’[5]

Ben Jonson gave Bacon the highest praise possible as a poet, employing the same sense and almost exactly the same words as he used in his tribute to the author Shakespeare that prefaces the Shakespeare Folio:-

'...he [Bacon] who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue, which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece, or haughty Rome.' [6]

In The Great Assizes holden in Parnassus by Apollo and his Assessours (1645), attributed to George Wither, one of Bacon's 'good pens', the author portrays Francis Bacon as the Chancellor of Parnassus, seated next to Apollo on the summit of this mountain of poetry and illumination. Together they preside over a 'High Court' of poets and playwrights assembled by Apollo for the purpose of reforming the world. William Shakespeare is included in the list of lesser poets and as one of the malefactors to be examined. When examined, he is declared by the rest of the court to be a mimic or actor pretending to be a poet.

The Bacon brothers, although not aristocrats themselves [7], belonged to the Essex-Pembroke circle of aristocrats, who were their friends. After the deaths of both Anthony and Essex in 1601, it was the Pembrokes who remained steady friends with Francis. Southampton, a member of the circle, fell out with Francis over his role in the Essex affair, when Essex was tried for treason and executed in 1601. The Pembrokes, however, remained faithful friends and supporters of Francis, even during the last years of his life when he suffered impeachment and disgrace on trumped-up charges. It was during these latter years that the 1623 Shakespeare Folio of Comedies, Histories & Tragedies was produced, dedicated to the Pembroke brothers, William and Philip, whilst the earlier, pre-1601 Shakespeare poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and Lucrece (1594), had been dedicated to Southampton.

Peter Dawkins, July 2005

(See also the author’s book, The Shakespeare Enigma)

Refs:

1. Letter from Essex to the Queen (1594). Henry IV, Parts I and II, are estimated to have been written in 1596.

2. R.P., Manes Verulamiani, Elegy 4.

3. John Williams, Manes Verulamiani, Elegy 12 (1626).

4. Anon., Manes Verulamiani, Elegy 20.

5. Samuel Collins, Manes Verulamiani, Elegy 2.

6. Ben Jonson, Discoveries (1641). 'Numbers' refers to poetry and drama.

7. Francis Bacon was knighted in 1603, but did not receive an aristocratic title until 1618, when he was created Baron Verulam, followed later, in 1621, with the title of Viscount St Alban. Anthony Bacon received neither a knighthood nor a peerage. Their father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was a peer, but only whilst he held the office of Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. It was an honour that went with the office and was not hereditary. The Bacon family were, generally speaking, members of the landed gentry.

The Francis Bacon Research Trust