In the "Mikrokosmos," * of which editions both in Latin and in French
were published at Antwerp in 1592, we find on page 53 a picture of
Circe's Island, which the intelligent reader will perceive represents
"the Stage." Beneath it are the words from Proverbs ix. 17, which in
our English authorised version read, "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread
eaten in secret is pleasant." Examining this engraving, we perceive
in the forefront Bacon's boar, drawn exactly as it is heraldically
portrayed in Bacon's crest, but with a man's head surmounted by a "Cap
of Liberty," and we should remember the words in Shakespeare's play, "As
You Like It" (which means'"Wisdom from the mouth of a clown"): "I must
have liberty:... to blow on whom I please, for so fools have... Invest
me in my motley: Give me leave to speak my mind, and I will through
and through cleanse the foule bodie of th' infected world, if they will
patiently receive my medicine."
* Note.--The title page is headed with the figure of a
Chameleon, which forms the "53rd" of "Alciati's Emblems."
The Chameleon was supposed to assume various appearances,
and is therefore used as an emblem for Bacon, who assumed
numerous masks in order to do good to all mankind, though in
a despised weed."
In Bacon's "Advancement of Learning," 1640, first edition in English,
we find a first page "53." In the margin of this page we find "Alexand":
(Bacon sometimes alluded to himself as Alexander). But the page 55 is
misnumbered "53," and on this second and false page "53" we read in the
margin=
`````S. FRAN
`````BACON,=
all in capital letters, almost the only marginal capital letters in the
whole of the book, which is Bacon's own book, and yet has this striking
reference to himself on the false page "53." The number of pages "53"
(very frequently falsely paged "53"), in which some reference to Bacon
or to the Plays may be discovered, is very large. I will, however, now
quote only two other instances.
In 1664, the third edition of Shakespeare's plays, containing seven
extra plays, was issued, and the editors, in order to mislead the
initiated and pretend that they had Bacon's authority for so adding some
of his inferior plays to his revised selection of the thirty-six plays
which formed the great Folio of 1623, numbered two pages 53, which they
placed opposite to each other, and on each of these we find "S. Albans"
(Bacon was Viscount S. Albans).
In 1709, the fifth edition was published by Nicholas Rowe, and in that
edition there is a proper page 53, and also 55 is misprinted 53 (the
only mispagination in the whole book of 3,324 pages), and this is made
in the false page 53 in order to afford a revelation if we carefully
read both pages "53" together.
THE NORTHUMBERLAND MANUSCRIPTS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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