Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) The Mystery of Francis Bacon _WILLIAM T. SMEDLEY_ [Illustration: FRANCIS BACON AT 9 YEARS OF AGE. _From the bust at Gorhambury._] THE MYSTERY OF FRANCIS BACON BY WILLIAM T. SMEDLEY. Ad D.B. "Si bene qui latuit, bene vixit, tu bene vivis: Ingeniumque tuum grande latendo patet." --_John Owen's Epigrammatum_, 1612. LONDON: ROBERT BANKS & SON, RACQUET COURT, FLEET STREET E.C. 1912. "_But such is the infelicity and unhappy disposition of the human mind in the course of invention that it first distrusts and then despises itself: first will not believe that any such thing can be found out; and when it is found out, cannot understand how the world should have missed it so long._" --"NOVUM ORGANUM," Chap. CX. CONTENTS. PAGE Preface 5 CHAPTER I.--Sources of Information 9 II.--The Stock from which Bacon Came 14 III.--Francis Bacon, 1560 to 1572 19 IV.--At Cambridge 25 V.--Early Compositions 29 VI.--Bacon's "Temporis Partus Maximus" 36 VII.--Bacon's First Allegorical Romance 47 VIII.--Bacon in France, 1576-1579 52 IX.--Bacon's Suit on His Return to England, 1580 62 X.--The "Rare and Unaccustomed Suit" 76 XI.--Bacon's Second Visit to the Continent and After 82 XII.--Is it Probable that Bacon left Manuscripts Hidden Away? 94 XIII.--How the Elizabethan Literature was Produced 98 XIV.--The Clue to the Mystery of Bacon's Life 103 XV.--Burghley and Bacon 114 XVI.--The 1623 Folio Edition of Shakespeare's Plays 123 XVII.--The Authorised Version of the Bible, 1611 126 XVIII.--How Bacon Marked Books with the Publication of Which He Was Connected 132 XIX.--Bacon and Emblemata 140 XX.--Shakespeare's Sonnets 148 XXI.--Bacon's Library 156 XXII.--Two German Opinions on Shakespeare and Bacon 161 XXIII.--The Testimony of Bacon's Contemporaries 170 XXIV.--The Missing Fourth Part of "The Great Instauration" 177