There are grounds for believing that Bacon's literary activity had commenced before he left England. There is abundant evidence to prove that it was the custom at this period for authors who desired to conceal their authorship to substitute for their own names, initials or the names of others on the title-pages. Two instances will suffice: "The Arte of English Poesie" was published in 1589, but written several years previously. The author says:--"I know very many notable Gentlemen in the Court that have written commendably, and suppressed it agayne, or els suffred it to be publisht without their owne names to it as if it were a discredit for a Gentleman to seeme learned, and to shew himself amorous of any learned Art." There is a bare-faced avowal of how names were placed on title-pages in a letter which exists from Henry Cuffe to Mr. Reynolds. Cuffe, an Oxford scholar of distinction, was a close companion and confidant of Essex. After the capture and sacking of Cadiz by Essex and Howard, the former deemed it important that his version of the affair should be the first to be published in England. Cuffe, therefore, started off post haste with the manuscript, but was taken ill on his arrival at Portsmouth, and could not proceed. He despatched the manuscript by a messenger with a letter to "Good Mr. Reynoldes," who was a private Secretary of Essex. He was to cause a transcript to be made and have it delivered to some good printer, in good characters and with diligence to publish it. Reynoldes was to confer with Mr. Greville (Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke) "whether he can be contented to suffer the two first letters of his name to be used in the inscription." "If he be unwilling," adds Cuffe, "you may put R.B. which some no doubt will interprete to be Beale, but it skills not." That this was a common practice is admitted by those acquainted with Elizabethan literature. If any of Bacon's writings were published prior to the trifle which appeared in 1597 as Essaies, his name was suppressed, and it would be probable some other name would appear on the title-page. There is a translation of a classical author, bearing date 1572, which is in the Baconian style, but which need not be claimed for him without further investigation.