Bacon is Shake-Speare: Together with a Reprint of Bacon's Promus of Formularies and EleganciesDurning-Lawrence, Edwin, Sir
History
Bacon is Shake-Speare: Together with a Reprint of Bacon's Promus of Formularies and Elegancies
Durning-Lawrence, Edwin, Sir
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Authorship -- Baconian theory
"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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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