There is another legend which connects the name of good Queen Bess with this Hall. It is said that Her Majesty was present at the performance in Gray’s Inn Hall of the masque, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ under the stage management of Shakespeare. There is no intrinsic improbability about this. Though the Pension Book does not record any visit of Elizabeth to Gray’s Inn, the nature of the entries is such that omission therefrom cannot be said to prove the non-occurrence of an event. Francis Bacon, who was made a Bencher in 1586, and was elected Treasurer in 1590, was a _persona grata_ at Court, and not only took a delight in the preparation of pageantries, but also knew Shakespeare well. It is, therefore, quite likely that Queen Elizabeth visited the Inn on the occasion of the production of a masque by Shakespeare.[64] It is at least certain that in February, 1587, eight Members of Gray’s Inn, acting apparently with the approval of the Bench, produced a play called ‘The Misfortunes of Arthur’ for the entertainment of Queen Elizaabeth at Greenwich while Her Majesty was visiting the fair. It was apparently in connection with this play that Bacon, being then Reader of Gray’s Inn, wrote to Lord Burleigh as follows: ‘There are a dozen gentlemen of Gray’s Inn that, out of the honour which they bear to your Lordship and my Lord Chamberlain, to whom at their last masque they were so much bounden, are ready to furnish a masque: wishing it were in their power to perform it according to their minds.’[65] The Benchers and Students of Gray’s Inn indulged in the Christmas _Saturnalia_ of Masques and Revels with as great, or even greater, zest than the other Societies of Lawyers. And Bacon, philosopher, statesman, and courtier, was by no means backward in his enjoyment of ‘Masques and Triumphs.’ ‘These things are but toys,’ he wrote, ‘but since Princes will have such things, it is better they should be graced with elegancy than daubed with cost.’ And accordingly he devoted some of his abundant energy to superintending the festivities in his own Inn, and even to assisting in the composition of some of the ‘Triumphs.’