Bacon Quote of the Day

[Lawrence Gerald]

"The ‘power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring." — Sir Francis Bacon

[Light-of-Truth]

7 hours ago, Lawrence Gerald said:

"The ‘power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring." — Sir Francis Bacon

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bacon's_Essays/Of_Great_Place

...Certainly, Men in Great Fortunes are strangers to themselves, and while they are in the pusle^[9] of businesse, they have no time to tend their Health either of Body or Minde. Illi Mors gravis incubat, qui, notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi^[10]. In Place, There is License to doe Good and Evill; wherof the latter is a Curse; For in Evill the best condition is not to will, The Second, not to Can^[11]. But Power to doe good is the true and lawfull End of Aspiring. For good Thoughts (though God accept them,) yet towards men are little better then good Dreames, Except they be put in Act; And that cannot be without Power and Place, As the Vantage and Commanding Ground. Merit and good Works is the End of Man's Motion^[12]; And Conscience^[13] of the same is the Accomplishment of Man's Rest. For if a Man can be Partaker of God's Theater^[14], he shall likewise be Partaker of God's Rest. Et conversus Deus, ut aspiceret Opera quæ fecerunt manus suæ, vidit quod omnia essent bona nimis^[15]; And then the Sabbath^[16].

[A Phoenix]

So Baconian. It's amazing how many times Bacon uses the theatre as a metaphor for the world and in passing in many of his acknowledged works. Anyone who says Bacon disliked the theatre and knew nothing about it, knows nothing about Bacon.

"For if a Man can be Partaker of God's Theater^[14], he shall likewise be Partaker of God's Rest."

Short video Quotes by Bacon on Poetry, Drama & Theatre

 

[Christie Waldman]

"Certainly it partakes of a higher science to comprehend the force of equity that has suffused and penetrated the very nature of human society." Francis Bacon's treatise, Aphorismi de Jure gentium maiore, sive de fontibus Justiciae et Juris (Aphorisms on the greater Law of nations, or of the fountains of Justice and Law (Aphorismi).  It's in the front of my book, Francis Bacon's Hidden Hand.

(I posted this to my Facebook author page yesterday, after a comment I had made at an Oxfordian video didn't seem visible:

"Take info gleaned from internet sources with a grain of salt, people! In a YouTube video, Tom Townsend--De-Vere's Lesser Legacy--The Legal Concept of Equity, May 15, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bnc8MhFXbI, Townsend does not do too bad a job of presenting a layman's understanding of the legal concept of equity in Shakespeare's time. HOWEVER, his attempt to connect de Vere to equity--sufficiently to even suggest he might have been Shakespeare--is strained, to say the least. My comment this morning (apparently already removed) to his video makes the point that the evidence regarding equity points to Bacon, not Oxford. My comment: "Certainly it partakes of a higher science to comprehend the force of equity that has suffused and penetrated the very nature of human society." Francis Bacon's treatise, Aphorismi de Jure gentium maiore, sive de fontibus Justiciae et Juris (Aphorisms on the greater Law of nations, or of the fountains of Justice and Law (Aphorismi). "Twenty Latin aphorisms, all by Bacon. Translated by Mark Neustadt in his docoral thesis of 1987. See Daniel R. Coquillette, Francis Bacon. Stanford University Press's Jurists: Profiles in Legal Theory Series (1992), pp. 237-43. Francis Bacon headed the chancery court of equity. It was thought to be under Bacon's leadership that the equity of redemption to foreclosure came in (J. H. Baker, Intro to English Legal History [4th ed. 313, fn 95; 3d ed., 356, fn 88]). Equity is to law what poetry is to prose. Bacon's connection to the equity in the Shakespeare works is much closer than the Earl of Oxford's. Mr. Townsend quotes a U.S. Supreme Court justice, not mentioning the source is Mark Edwin Andrews, 'Law versus Equity in The Merchant of Venice: A Legalization of Act IV Scene 1' (Justice Harlan F. Stone's letter to Andrews, quoted by J.K. Emery, editor, preface, ix). It is available on Internet Archive and Open Library. Andrews "professed not to be a Baconian" (Bacon had "professed not to be a poet," in telling us he had written a sonnet to the Queen, suggesting at least, she be merciful to Essex), but his [Andrews's] book makes it clear that he saw Bacon's influence in The Merchant of Venice. You cannot ignore Bacon and present an honest case for Oxford. Sorry." [With thanks to Lawrence Gerald for bringing this video to my attention.]

[Light-of-Truth]

We appreciate you so much around here. 🙂

https://christinagwaldman.com/

[Christie Waldman]

Thank you, Light-of-Truth! I appreciate all of you too, very much! For those who are curious, here is the quotation from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stone, in his letter to Mark Edwin Andrews in 1937, after reviewing Andrews's manuscript, Law versus Equity in The Merchant of Venice. Here's what he said: "Often, in listening to The Merchant of Venice, it has occurred to me that Shakespeare knew the essentials of the contemporary conflict between law and equity. But until I read your manuscript I had never realized how completely the play harmonized with recognized court procedure of the time." As quoted by J. K. Emery, Editor, in Andrews's Law versus Equity in The Merchant of Venus. (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1965) p. ix. 

Bacon said equity was a part of every law. I have that in my book. I couldn't find the reference just now, but I found some others. On p. 146, as to the Merchant of Venice: I wrote, "When Portia orders Antonio to bare his Breast, we gasp. Then she adds that, if Shylock spills one drop of Antonio's blood, he will owe triple damages for waste." In fn 1: Statute of Gloucester, 6 Edward I, c. 5, 1278; Mark Edwin Andrews, p. 66. Only rarely would a court of equity award damages. More often it would enjoin the waste [order the activity stopped that was causing the "waste"--like the cutting down of trees on land, or mining, by a tenant or one with a life estate, say, that was expected to leave the estate intact, not reduced in value, for the next possessor in time]. Baker, Introduction to English Literary History, [3d ed.] p. 127 n63. "The punishment for waste is strict and severe, with treble damages." [said] Francis Bacon, Arguments of the Law, The Case for the Impeachment of Waste. Spedding 7:540 .... In Merchant, Portia would wish herself treble ... a thousand times more fair, and would double and then treble the payment due on the bond (II.2.1523; III.2.1678" [1864 Globe ed., opensourceshakespeare.org]. I do not see Portia as a fraud, as is so common (and historically sexist), but as a trained legal teacher herself. She refers to herself as a teacher to Nerissa. She was on close acquaintance with Bellario, the legal expert, who gave her notes and garb in preparation for court. And I see, in her name, an allusion to Azolinus Portius, the great Bolognese jurist and teacher (1150-1237), commonly known as "Azo." "If you don't have Azo, don't go to court," it was said. He was a civilian, not a common lawyer.

Do Clarkson & Warren have this reference of Portia's to treble damages for waste in their book, The Law of Property in Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Drama? (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1942). Well no, somehow they missed it! They give no individual references to Bacon's writings on the law, only a general reference to Spedding in the bibliography. Their treatment of "waste" consists of one example and a few footnote references to Coke on Littleton and Blackstone's Commentaries. At pages 166-167, they give one "metaphorical" (as in sense of "despoiling") reference to The Merry Wives of Windsor: Mrs. Page, referring to Falstaff: "The Spirit of wantonness is sure scar'd out of him. If the devil have him not in fee simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again." But they object, saying the word should have been "trespass" because Falstaff was not a tenant.  I think they misunderstand Mrs. Page's meaning. If the devil does not own him outright now, but has a lesser possesory interest in him (less of full possession), where waste would be a concern, then we could say, we think he won't try that again, is what I think Shakespeare meant. The pun is on possession. So, it doesn't matter whether Falstaff was a tenant or not, the point is what possession the devil has. 

I like www.opensourceshakespeare.org because it is easily searchable. It brings up 79 references to the word "waste" in a number of the Shakespeare works. We see several concerning Falstaff, in several plays. We frequently see Shakespeare use the word "waste"  in reference to wasting Time. In Hamlet, Polonius says, "This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night is night, and time is time.
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go. (II.2.1179 et seq.)

Richard II says, "I wasted time, and now time doth waste me." Some are in Measure for Measure, another legal-themed play.  Portia's use that I have given was given in a specifically legal context. It was more than metaphorical. It might be worth looking further into all 79 of Shakespeare's references to the word "waste," to see if there are others that might allude to a legal meaning.

[Christie Waldman]

More on Clarkson & Warren's failure to research equity in Shakespeare and Elizabethan drama (what about Jacobean?). Clarkson & Warren say (p. 157), in discussing mortgage forfeitures in Green's play, A Looking Glass for London, that equity was a plea for justice, 'equity' being used in that sense as is usually the case in the drama." FN 286: "These references will be treated in a later volume on the law of Equity in the drama." That volume never materialized. I wonder why.  J. H. Baker in Intro. to Eng. Legal History wrote that the equity of redemption in forfeiture actions appeared to have come in during Bacon's chancellorship (1617-1621) (4th ed., p. 313, fn 95). Baker, a legal historian, has studied the matter in depth. Whereas, Clarkson & Warren only say, "Such doctrines as the right in equity to redeem a mortgage after forfeiture are not, like Venus, born full grown, but evolve slowly." (p. 157) On 151, they reference 1616 cases reported by Tothill and say by 1630 it was clear the Chancellor was granting relief from mortgage foreclosures. To me, Baker is the more reliable reference. In their index, under "Chancery," they list: pp 39 (copyholds, not so much in use in Eliz. times, they say), 134 (discussion of Henry VIII's Statute of Uses without any reference to Bacon's double reading of the Statute of Uses which is in Spedding), 210 (equity used to defeat descent of land by will), 151 (equity of redemption), 157 (Green's play, equity of redemption), 159 (equity of redemption, Dekker, If It Be Not Good, The Devil Is In It, 157-159); 272-273 (equity, payment of debts out of estate of deceased person, plays by Webster, Massinger, Middleton), 170 (downplaying the mastery displayed in the legal imagery in Shakespeare's sonnet 46 (XLVI), of which Lord Campbell had written, "I need not go further than this sonnet, which is so intensely legal in its leganage and imagery, that without a considerable knowledge of English forensic procedure it cannot be fully understood ...." Quoted with the caution that Campbell has been criticized by his contemporaries (Rushton whom he plagiarized and William Hepworth Dixon, and I think Spedding) for not [always--added on edit] being reliable. 

At p. 131, regarding the Merry Wives of Windsor comment, mentioned above, about Falstaff and waste, Clarkson and Warren cite Ritson, "Our author had been long enough in an attorney's office to learn that fee-simple is the largest estate, and fine and recovery the strongest assurance, known to English law." (fn 147, Boswell-Malone Variorum, VIII, 158, n.)They next cite Lord Campbell, "This Merry Wife of Windsor is supposed to know that the highest estate which the devil could hold on any of his victims was a fee simple, strengthened by fine and recovery. Shakespeare himself may probably have become aware of the law upon the subject, when it was explained to him in answer to questions he put to the attorney, his master, while engrossing the deeds to be executed upon the purchase of a Warwickshire estate with a doubtful title." fn 148, Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements, p. 35).

May probably? The idea that Shakespeare ever worked in a law office, having no proof, has long been abandoned. It has no current credence. In contrast, Bacon was familiar with the law on waste (his Argument for the Impeachment of Waste, for example), and he was known for his wit and for loving a good jest. 

Edited February 22 by Christie Waldman
Line 15--added "always." Line 8--typo: "they list:"

[Christie Waldman]

Some last thoughts on Clarkson & Warren on "waste": Shakespeare in Merry Wives of Windsor had already made a pun on the size of Falstaff's "waist" and "waste," so he's following through in his later punning use of "waste."

Clarkson & Warren are wrong, I think, in saying Shakespeare should have used the term "trespass" instead of "waste" in Merry Wives, because, if the devil had possession, he had only a life estate (presumably Falstaff's body is metaphorically meant), not fee simple (presumably Falstaff's soul). A life estate would be lawful possession, and trespass required unlawful possession. It's a clever pun indeed.

So, in their book, they have put "waste" in the wrong section of their book, in section 10, "Interference with Another's Possession of Land." I would say waste is not interference with present possession but with a future interest, after the one in possession is no longer in possession and the successor has come into possession.

How could Clarkson & Warren have missed Portia's "treble damages for waste" reference? Treble damages were for legal "waste." Baker says damages were usually not given for equitable waste (damages allowed in fairness, not legally required). Also, it should be noted, Clarkson & Warren gave no examples from other dramatists of the period using "waste" as a legal or equitable term.

Of course Clarkson & Warren didn't get everything right. The thing is to take everything we read with a grain of salt, and to question it, to play devil's advocate. No one likes to be found to be wrong, but ego has to take a back seat to the truth, right? Why did Clarkson & Warren not write their planned volume on the use of equity and equity terms in Shakespeare and Elizabethan [and why not Jacobean?] authors? They planned volumes on "Equity, Marriage and Divorce, Criminal Law, etc." (xxvi). They have missed, and not looked in places where they might find, evidence pointing to Bacon. They have admitted they have a bias, a dislike, of the Baconian theory, in their book (xxvi). We've been forewarned. But of course, they are not now here to defend themselves.

Looking at all the ways in which Bacon used the word "waste" would probably be interesting, not just in his legal "Argument for the Impeachment of Waste," (which he, in his mentoring role at Gray's Inn, preserved for the use of law students "as was done on the Continent," acknowledging he was the first one to do it and wishing it had fallen to one more worthy to be the first) but, I think, especially with reference to waste of Time.  He had expressed how he felt he had "wasted" his time doing things for which he was not most well suited (presumably political), instead of those for which he was (presumably literary and philosophical).

All this started with a powerful quotation from Bacon on equity.  Maybe I've gotten too far off on a tangent and this would best be put somewhere else on the forum. If so, please feel free to move it, dear friends.

[Light-of-Truth]

Christie,

Thank you again for your careful and courageous work on equity and “waste.” I used my AI tools to help me understand the legal talk better. Not that AI is making me smarter, but it make me feel smarter. 😉

It also helps me write my thoughts better. Thus my thoughts below...

Your distinction between lawful possession and unlawful possession — especially in your discussion of life estate versus fee simple — is exactly the kind of precision that makes this conversation meaningful.

The point about waste protecting a future interest rather than interfering with present possession is especially important. In common law, waste is not simply “damage” in a casual sense. It concerns the rights of the reversioner or remainder-man — someone whose interest is not yet possessory but will be. That nuance strengthens your reading of the Merry Wives passage. If the devil has Falstaff “not in fee simple” but in some lesser possessory interest, then “waste” is the more accurate and clever term. It is a pun on possession itself.

Your reference to Portia’s statement about “treble damages for waste” is also striking. Under the Statute of Gloucester, treble damages were the statutory remedy for legal waste. Equity, as you note, generally enjoined waste rather than awarding damages. That Portia invokes treble damages in a courtroom scene suggests not metaphor alone, but familiarity with statutory remedy. Clarkson & Warren’s omission of that reference is difficult to ignore.

Since you mentioned the broader field of Shakespeare’s uses of “waste,” I took a look at one of the Sonnets — Sonnet 30 — where the word appears in the line:

“...and with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste.”

What is interesting there is not only the word “waste,” but the entire legal structure of the sonnet. It opens:

“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past...”

Here is the full Sonnet 30 in original spelling and punctuation:

VVHen to the Sessions of sweet silent thought,
I sommon vp remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lacke of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new waile my deare times waste:
Then can I drowne an eye(vn-vs'd to flow)
For precious friends hid in deaths dateles night,
And weepe a fresh loues long since canceld woe,
And mone th'expence of many a vannisht sight.
Then can I greeue at greeuances fore-gon,
And heauily from woe to woe tell ore
The sad account of fore-bemoned mone,
Which I new pay,as if not payd before.
   But if the while I thinke on thee (deare friend)
   All losses are restord,and sorrowes end.

This modern spelling with a few words bolded by me:

I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
  But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
  All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

“Sessions” was the term for judicial sittings. “Summon” is procedural. Later in the sonnet we find:

“cancelled,”
“grievances,”
“account,”
“pay,”
“losses restored.”

The speaker conducts an internal audit — almost a court of memory. Debts are tallied, grievances reviewed, accounts reopened, payments made “as if not paid before.” It reads like a structured legal reckoning.

In that light, “time’s waste” takes on additional resonance. Time is treated as an estate — something expended, diminished, accounted for. While not doctrinal “waste” in the property sense, it participates in the same conceptual framework: loss measured against a future interest

This connects quietly to your observation that Bacon wrote not only about legal waste, but about the “waste of time.” His legal argument in The Case for the Impeachment of Waste shows technical familiarity with the doctrine, and his philosophical writings repeatedly treat time as a resource misapplied or squandered. The intellectual habit — viewing life, memory, and moral reckoning in juridical terms — feels consistent.

Curious if you see legal terminology in Sonnet 30 as well? I've never looked for legal ciphers, but that may be a valid path to pursue for the right person.

None of this proves authorship, of course. But it does suggest that the legal imagination in both the plays and the Sonnets is not superficial. It is structural.

Your citation of Bacon’s aphorism — that equity partakes of a higher science and suffuses human society — seems almost to describe what we are observing in these texts. Equity is not merely a court; it is a mode of thought.

Thank you again for pressing these distinctions carefully. They deserve to be examined in depth.

.............

On another thought...

I have been experimenting with creating audio “deep dives” on SirBacon.org — thoughtful, structured explorations that make complex material more accessible through dialogue and maybe a visual graphic.

Would you be open to my working with your book in that way — with your permission — perhaps creating an audio tribute that walks carefully through your research on equity and waste? I believe your scholarship deserves a wider and more accessible audience. And to be honest, I would love to know your work more than I do now. 🙂
 

[A Phoenix]

Brilliant image Rob!

[Christie Waldman]

Hi Rob,

What a wonderful post to wake up to! Thank you for taking the time and effort to understand what I was trying to say and enhance and reinforce it through your use of AI. 

I think you are right in seeing the legal language in that sonnet. What a deep expression of grief, and the consolation of friendship! Who do you suppose he was writing to? Anthony, maybe?

I think the last word in the 4th-to-the-last  line is "money," spelled mone, maybe spelled that way so it could be read either as "moan" or "money," but in the next line talks about paying. We know how he was constantly in debt., hounded by creditors.  But so many worthy men were, in that time period, heavily in debt, on the verge of losing, or losing, life, lands, or wealth to the Queen's government. Essex, for example, was ruined when the Queen did not renew his income from the sweet wine monopoly. 

I mention Portia's "treble damages for waste" in my book (p. 146), but the rest of what I've been writing about waste is new (In case I forgot to give it, in J. H. Baker, the reference to treble damages for waste, Statute of Gloucester, passed in 1278, is Intro. to Eng. Legal History, p. 265 (4th ed.)).  Another interesting connection: in Black's law dictionary, it says "wastor" was, "in old statutes, a kind of thieves [sic]." That also fits with Falstaff's being associated with the Gad's Hill robbery and with "waste." I don't know how old those statutes were, whether they went back to the time period of the play, but I suspect they did. That would be something to research. It's interesting that that play manuscript fragment which Maureen Ward-Gandy found was in Bacon's handwriting (related to the Gad's Hill robbery, in I Henry IV, was found in binder's waste (old manuscripts used as padding in book binding), in that 1588 copy of Homer's Odyssey in Greek and Latin. 

To be fair, Clarkson & Warren, writing in 1942, did not have the tool of internet searching. They undertook a huge task, trying to look at Shakespeare as well as all major Elizabethan dramatists. But, they openly expressed their bias against Bacon's authorship. They downplayed "Shakespeare's law," their theory being that he did not know it better than any other dramatist or poet. But how could they miss "treble damages for waste" in The Merchant of Venice? Especially when they give the reference in Merry Wives of Windsor (being consistent,  they can't say they're leaving "waste" for their volume on equity). And, judging from their index and list of dramatic citations, unless I have missed it, or they missed it, no other Elizabethan playwright whose works they perused made a reference or allusion to "waste." For Measure for Measure, another "legal" play, the only "legal" term they list is "widow." It all requires digging, and that takes TIME!  There are other things I am "chasing" in Clarkson & Warren right now, one at a time, but I will have more time for all of it a little later on I HOPE. There is always more to learn, isn't there! I am open to working with you, Rob, regarding my book. I am sure that play holds more secrets.

I love that sonnet! 

 

 

 

Edited February 24 by Christie Waldman
I Henry IV, not VI

[Christie Waldman]

A few more quotations for now: "For there is no law under heaven which is not supplied with equity." Francis Bacon, "The Jurisdiction of the Marches," Arguments of the Law, Spedding 7: 567-612, 602. (my book, p. 22, fn 2). 

"Allegiance began before laws . . . . The original age of kingdoms was governed by natural equity." Bacon, Calvin's Case, 1608, Arguments of the Law, Spedding 7:637-682, 666. (my book, p. 20, fn 4)

Portia: "The quality of mercy is not strain'd/It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven/Upon the place beneath . . . / . . . It becomes the Throned monarch better than his crown . . . /It is enthroned in the hearts of kings . . ./And earthly power doth then show likest God's/When mercy seasons justice . . . ." (Merchant of Venice, IV, 1, 2125, wwwopensourceshakespeare.org). 

Bacon: "Sure I am that the treasure that cometh from you to her Majesty is but as a vapour which riseth from the earth and gathereth into a cloud, and stayeth not there long, but upon the same earth it falleth again . . . ." His speech before Parliament on the motion of subsidy, Elizabeth 39 (1597-1598), Spedding 9:85-89, 86. (my book, p. 21, fn 2)en

 

I tried to put another one here, but it had a footnote, and I messed it up. I don't know if it will show or not. If it doesn't, it's all right. 

^[1]

 

[Light-of-Truth]

Christie, I can take this new video down if you don't approve. I just put it up and it is based on this SirBacon.org page:

Francis Bacon's Hidden Hand in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

A Study of Law, Rhetoric, and Authorship

Christina G. Waldman

https://sirbacon.org/francis-bacons-hidden-hand.html

 

 

 

[Lawrence Gerald]

Wow what a Bell Ringer this episode is  on MOV! FRANtastic! Thanks Rob and Christie!

[Christie Waldman]

You did all this for my book? I am humbly grateful. Wow! Thank you, Rob, and to the presenters and to anyone else who was involved with this project behind the scenes. What an excellent presentation! 

Essentially, you nailed it. 

Any writer, eight years after a book is written, might wish they had said some things a little differently. For factual errors, typos (fortunately few that I'm aware of), I've got the errata page at my website. 

Bacon seems to have had the right idea about learning something new. Of necessity, we follow clues and hunches, see where they take us, see if we were right, see where the trail leads, make adjustments as we go, and build up a context, a knowledge base. That was how the book came to be written. I just tried to keep the main focus on Bellario. They say the people who do well on standardized tests are those who are not afraid to risk guessing when they aren't sure. Plus Ultra!

Edited February 25 by Christie Waldman
PLUS ULTRA!

[Christie Waldman]

Lawrence, thank you too for your part in creating the podcast about my book! This morning, I posted this comment to it: 

Quote

It is true that the play fragment, an analog to the "Tapster scene" to "Shakespeare's" play, "The First Part of Henry the Fourth," that highly-respected forensic analyst Maureen Ward-Gandy determined was in Francis Bacon's handwriting, was found in binder's waste inside a copy of Greek-Latin copy of Homer's "Odyssey" (Geneva, 1586). While I did not specify this in "Francis Bacon's Hidden Hand" (appendix 4), the play manuscript was being used as end-leaves, extra pages inserted by the book binder between the cover and main text as padding.

Arthur Freeman, a bookseller, examined the manuscript; see his 1997 article, 'The Tapster Manuscript: An Analogue of Shakespeare's Henry the IV, Part One,' "English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700," vol 6, pp. 93-105. Notably, he freely admitted it would be impossible to precisely date the binding of the book, but it was in a later, "Oxford-style" binding. Although he was not trained as a handwriting analyst, he made his own handwriting comparison among "known dramatists"--which would leave out Bacon--finding no match. You can read Ward-Gandy's report, "Elizabethan Era Writing Comparison for Identification of Common Authorship" (1992) online by searching for it by name. It was first published in "Francis Bacon's Hidden Hand (New York: Algora Publishing, 2018)."

At the (Folger) Lost Plays Database, the manuscript fragment is called "Play of Thieves and a Gullible Tapster." Another interesting fact is that the scene depicts tobacco smoking which Sir Walter Raleigh first introduced to England--in 1586! Bacon mentions tobacco smoking in his writings several times. In his final prayer, Bacon wrote, "I have, though in a despised weed, procured the good of mankind." Sonnet 76 reads: "Why write I still alone, ever the same/And keep invention in a noted weed,/That every word doth almost tell my name." What "noted weed"? ToBACCO?

[Christie Waldman]

What I wanted to say is kind of hard to express, but my children's novel, The Voice of the Wooden Dragon, was, for me personally, kind of an allegory, a story that kind of paralleled what it felt like to be writing a first novel (first drafted in 1983) and seeing it eventually published. It struck me yesterday that it was the same sort of feeling that Bacon conveys with Plus Ultra, with the image of the ships sailing through the gates into the unknown on the cover of his Novum Organum. 

[Light-of-Truth]

5 hours ago, Christie Waldman said:

What I wanted to say is kind of hard to express, but my children's novel, The Voice of the Wooden Dragon, was, for me personally, kind of an allegory, a story that kind of paralleled what it felt like to be writing a first novel (first drafted in 1983) and seeing it eventually published. It struck me yesterday that it was the same sort of feeling that Bacon conveys with Plus Ultra, with the image of the ships sailing through the gates into the unknown on the cover of his Novum Organum. 

I treasure my autographed copy. Just now I found it in the books that Theresa had selected to read before she went into the hospital and never came home. It was next on her list. 😢

I've read a few pages, you know me, its hard to read forward. I sometimes open page 157 where Chapter Twenty-Four begins. 

You know TWENTY FOUR is 157 Simple cipher?

Elizabethan 24-Letter Ciphers: TWENTY-FOUR is 157 Simple cipher.

I could take a pic of the page number 157 on the bottom of the page, but do I need to? LOL

Christie, do I feel you arranged this on purpose? Chapter Twenty-Four to start page 157? No, not at all. 

But ask me I feel Bacon may come through all of us sometimes when doing the work he started over 400 years ago. 

My answer is a strong "Yes, he does and most of us know it and experience it at times."

And I suspect Bacon is coming through you with the manuscript fragment of the "Play of Thieves and a Gullible Tapster" you bring to Light that needs to be sleuth-ed out to its final solution. 

What a fascinating trail this could be. 

Look at this site for kicks:

https://thatguywiththebooks.com/products/medieval-binder-s-waste-fragment-study-lot-12th-15th-century-10-pieces?utm_source=chatgpt.com

 

 

 

[Christie Waldman]

That is an interesting site. I am glad someone is interested in preserving these old fragments. They seem like puzzle pieces waiting for someone to find the rest of the puzzle (but at this point, how likely is that? Still you never know ....). The way printers in Shakespeare's time used to get rid of manuscripts once they were printed is like how we get rid of paper copies when we put stuff on our computers. 

Rob, it feels like you are inviting me to talk about my book! Maybe not, and I'm doing the thing authors do. I'm eager to talk about it, but hesitant. I still have trouble distilling what it's about into one sentence. At least one famous artist refused to ever comment on his paintings. He felt they should speak for themselves. These days, though, it almost seems as if you are expected to talk about your book. How it came to be written is a story in itself. 

Back in 1983, I set out to write a children's book. I decided to write about dragons because I thought it would free up my imagination. All I really knew about dragons was that there was a story about St. George and the dragon. Good start, right? I had studied Constitutional law in the prior year, the first year of law school. It was summer break. I worked just three days a week in a legal aid office, as a secretary, and had two days free to write. What a luxury! My former husband was writing his own first novel, in the same room. He said, "Why don't you write something?" So I did. I wanted to try to illustrate for the kids some key concepts like freedom of speech and a trial by a jury of one's peers. Our freedoms were not in jeopardy then, but you never knew what the future might hold.

I had met a man, in the prior year, named Bill Loomis, in Carbondale, Illinois. "Billy." He was small in stature, with long red hair. He traveled in a wheelchair. His legs had been amputated. I had always thought it was from a war injury, but no, it was from a car accident. Paralysis, then sepsis. A friend and I had gone to take "Billy" some beer, at his small Carbondale Towers apartment. He was carving a beautiful wooden statue of a dragon. I asked him what he called it. He said, with a sly smile, "Meredith." In that moment, it came to me, almost viscerally, that my voice was "trapped inside that statue." My voice as a writer? I can't explain it any other way. I  started writing, using "Meredith" as an alter ego. This was before law school.

The first draft of the children's novel, about 70 handwritten pages, was finished that summer and put away. My husband and I graduated, moved to Rochester, New York, and had three kids. In 1992, we got our first computer. The baby was two. It seemed a good time to revisit the novel, after the kids went to bed. My eldest was 8 years old. We were homeschooling her that year. She was very excited about the story. All my kids were. They all made very sweet drawings of the characters. It might have been Jillian's idea to look up all the names of the characters in a "Baby Name" book. They seemed surprisingly apt. That was my first clue that "something was going on," that names could be clues. I kept researching. The unconscious mind can know things the conscious mind does not.

I had never heard of Giordano Bruno. That summer in 1983, I had named my magician Carlos Giordano, thinking it sounded like the name of a pizza place. I'm not kidding. The name just came to me and it sounded right. When did I learn about Bruno? Ten years later. I was looking at the Encyclopedia Britannica for some reason, and on the other page was an entry for Giordano Bruno. The name popped out at me.   

It wasn't until years later that I discovered that "Meredith" was part of the Welsh name of Owen Tudor, but the British dropped that part, and called him "Tudor," when in the Welsh way of naming, he should have been called "Meredith" (Maredudd). And there are Mark Twain connections I can't explain. For instance, Twain knew someone named John Meredith, a gentle youth, son of the town doctor. He went off to fight in the Civil War and it changed him. He became bloodthirsty, Twain wrote.

The book was so personal to me, I never wanted to let it go, to actually be finished with it, to let it "fly." But after forty years, I had to admit, it was time. The other book's being published gave me confidence. I had sent it out over the years--even to Disney in 1994--but over time, children's book markets were shrinking, and you had to get an agent, but you couldn't get an agent unless ..., etc. Mark Pogodzinski at NFB Publishing was the perfect publisher for the book. He arranged for his beta reader to give me a one page memo with the absolute best feedback, pinpointing exactly the problem spots I needed to work on. Mark let me edit to my heart's content (which, some of you will know, can test the patience). I got to use my own Lane Waldman's illustrations (which Lane made as an adult). That wasn't likely to have happened with a traditional publisher.  Mark let me keep control of the book. I got to choose the font. We tried hard to make the best book possible. 

I hope kids like the book. I think of it as inspirational. People of all ages can go through a lot, have dark times, and think things are impossible, but they just need to keep believing they have the power to make things change for the better. Spring is just around the corner, as Frog says to Toad (in Arnold Lobel's "Frog and Toad" story).

Just now, I looked at the message on a Yogi tangerine teabag I had saved to get another use out of. It said "Be fearless. All things will be provided at the right time." I was just trying to see if it was a roasted dandelion teabag or a tangerine teabag! I hadn't even realized there were messages on them. So I will be fearless, foolish maybe, and send this. I have not told all the secrets. It is a scary thing to write a work of fiction. Maybe I'm just a big chicken. I should try to write another one, but I'm telling you, it is a scary thing. No doubt, a great many authors have stories like this and have the sense to keep quiet about them, or just talk about them privately. I don't know. I never felt like it was the "right time" for the book, and then, suddenly, it was (as I was getting older, having vision problems, had grand-kids, saw that the freedoms we could take for granted in 1983 were disappearing). Thanks for the soap-box.

 

[Light-of-Truth]

The most important purpose of the SirBacon.org B'Hive forum is not to prove Bacon was Shakespeare, this is a place where we Baconians can be like a family and share our ideas, or challenges, and our experiences in a safe loving environment. 

All of us are more than welcome to share our works and our passions. If I write my books, I will be here promoting. 😉

A Phoenix knows they have a green light and we so appreciate the daily posts! Yann, Eric, FB, and new members are welcome as well to be a part of this amazing Bacon family. 

1983? My first Dead show and my first visit to Las Vegas. The show was at the Aladdin, “The Magic of Las Vegas is at the Aladdin.” When I got back home in Colorado I wondered if I hallucinated the entire three days of being in that psychedelic carnival world as it was so unreal. LOL

That was 15 years before I started to learn about Bacon. In 1983 I don't think it was Bacon who was reaching out into their future, I am sure it was Dee. 😉  

Christie, you offer a lot of valuable work, but also experience. I believe we all need to get up to speed on publishing print books and how to market them. Your memories and sharing are good for everyone. 

I am aware of my age and mortality, 1983 was a time to take life for granted. Those freedoms are indeed disappearing faster than we know. 

I know that anything I leave that is digital, and I have pumped out plenty in the past 23 years, can be gone tomorrow. Poof! Gone!

Print books will survive if not nuked in a big libraries that evaporate in a flash. I have a small Baconian collection including yours. Thank you for signing. 🙂

What if one day my book collection is uncovered from years of dust and debris and the world rediscovers Christina G. Waldman and fresh eyes ask who wrote Shakespeare.

I'm blessed to have worked with you when the Hidden Hand was coming together. I wonder if I still have the email Lawrence sent me all excited about what you were working on when I first heard your name.

Rick Wagner called a couple weeks ago or so and mentioned he has written his most important work yet. He didn't tell me much yet. 😉

Kate printed her book, I have a copy. Its not autographed, but it doesn't need electricity to read.

I had a full collection of signed Dawkins books at one time. Although some that I loaned out have not returned. 🙂

I have Penn Leary's print book, first edition I believe. I am holding an autographed copy of Prince of Dreams by Deslie McClellan in my hands right now. 

Christie, was publishing a print book worth your time and money in your experience. Are you happy you went down that path? Was it hard?

I wish I could print SirBacon.org and everything on it. 😉

 

[Christie Waldman]

17 hours ago, Light-of-Truth said:

Christie, was publishing a print book worth your time and money in your experience. Are you happy you went down that path? Was it hard?

I wish I could print SirBacon.org and everything on it. 😉

(First, ever since I posted what I did yesterday, I have wanted to ask you if I could take it down. I felt like I had said too much. But I wanted to correct myself on one thing. I don't think I ever felt overwhelmed by fear when I was actually writing something. It's just facing that blank page, the great unknown, that has to be overcome--not by force, but gently, strategically, like tacking in a sailboat. Going straight into the wind is impossible.  Everyone must find his/her/their own ways to outsmart their resistance. I'm trying to psych myself here. I wouldn't be surprised if we find something in Bacon/Shakespeare that is helpful on this. I suppose writers wonder if their follow-up act will be as good as their first books.)

I did not pay to have my books published. Unlike my experience with trying to get the children's novel published, Algora said yes right away! The book was never rejected! So, we were a good fit. I loved what they did with the cover and design of the book. They used Californian FB font which was a cool serendipity (right?). Writing Francis Bacon's Hidden Hand was a wonderful experience.  I just kept digging, deeper and deeper, with things coming together as if "meant to be." I'm so grateful I had the time to do it. I couldn't have done it without the SirBacon.org treasure chest of resources. Lawrence held my hand, virtually, and I had valuable conversations with Simon Miles who I do hope we hear from again. With both books, I felt I was in my element, doing what I was put here to do (besides being a mom and grandma). That was the feeling. So yes, I can't think of anything more worth doing that writing a book. 

As for nuts and bolts, the back-and-forth, further edits, it's like after having a baby you forget the pain of labor (they say). There's some tedium to it, but if you want to get it just right (or at least, as close as you can reasonably get) you have to do it. There are deadlines, of course. There are always things you might second-guess yourself about, but it's a baby. Once it's born, it's born. Your job changes. You hope you haven't done all that for nothing, that people will find it and read it. You at SirBacon.org and the Francis Bacon Society have been a tremendous help with that. 

As for the children's book, NFB Publishing does not ask for money from authors, except that they charged a relatively small fee for having the book available for sale at their website. People do totally self-publish, but then, I think, they are hiring out a lot of the things that need to be done--editing, formatting, choosing the font, design, illustrations, cover--all fun stuff. However, for this book, I totally needed the help of a publisher. I never could have done it all on my own. It was too formidable, the learning curve, with the time I had available. Mark Pogodzinski was the perfect  publishing partner in bringing my book to life--even when I had to put the project on hold to meet other deadlines. I don't know if I will write more books. It shouldn't be a "should," right? But, yes, it was totally worth it. I carried the novel inside myself for forty years, waiting to be "born."  

I believe in print books!  I, too, would love to see all the new Baconian research printed up in physical books. Who knows what the future will hold? I love what the internet has done and will continue to do for writers and thinkers, not the least of which is providing a sense of community that is priceless. One person alone can't do everything, but with people working together, so much more is possible.  There's a lot still on my reading list--both old and new. I look forward to reading more of the A Phoenix articles and books. I have Kate's book and have spent some time with it. Wow! I'm glad Rick Wagner is working on his next masterpiece. Barry Clarke's 2019 book being published on Routledge broke through the sound barrier. There will always be a place for the internet, too, though, won't there? There's just too much information here at SirBacon to get it all into books. It's a whole library!

[Christie Waldman]

How could I forget to mention that Francis Bacon's Hidden Hand  began right here here on SirBacon.org as Bacon is Bellario! Lawrence and Rob were publishing here online the early versions of the book, beginning in 2016 (thanks to their extreme generosity and patience), as it turned out to be a work in progress. In fact, the very idea for the book came from Lawrence's suggestion that I write a review of Mark Edwin Andrews' 1965 book, Law versus Equity in The Merchant of Venice for SirBacon.org. Please, forgive me!  It was undoubtedly a factor in obtaining the contract with Algora that they could read Bacon is Bellario online and see the potential for an e-book as well as a print volume.

Actually, the book probably has made more of an impact as an e-book, through EBSCO and such library consortiums, than it has as a print book; but still, I am glad it is a print book. I adore the (significantly) "red tawny" cover with its illustration of a medieval merchant, from a 12th century illustrated encyclopedia "authored" by a woman, an abbess, Herrad of Hohenberg: the Hortus deliciarum, or "Garden of Delights." (A good book on this is Fiona J. Griffiths, The Garden of Delights: Reform and Renaissance for Women in the Twelfth Century. The cover is all Algora's doing. Women in the twelfth century had more freedom in society than they did afterwards due to changes in church policy.

I found twelfth century connections in The Merchant of Venice. Properly understood, Portia was no fool, but rather, a legally-trained teacher herself who saved Antonio's life and made a pretty good resolution at the end. Yes, we feel sorry for Shylock, but he was going to kill Antonio! Let's not forget that!

My experience with researching names, after-the-fact, in my children's novel made me look carefully at the  names of Shakespeare's characters in The Merchant of Venice.  My first clue was learning that there was a great Italian jurist named Portius Azolinus (ca 1150-1230) (from reading Richard Helmholz's writings on Shakespeare and the canon law). Portia! Nerissa could stand for Irnerius, a liberal arts teacher in Bologna who, it is said, found long-hidden texts of Justinian and revitalized the teaching of law in Bologna which began as a university by teaching law. Bassanius was a famous student of Irnerius's who traveled to Britain to teach. Gratian (Gratianus) is very important in canon law for synthesizing it with a new infusion of Roman law. Shylock's name is trickier. I have an idea, but I haven't finished writing it all up. It's all pretty amazing and still I have not seen anyone besides me talk about this name thing (except Richard Helmholz has mentioned Gratian (in "Shakespeare and the ius commune," a Selden Society lecture, 2017, printed in M. Lobban and I. Williams eds., Networks and Connections in Legal History (Cambridge, 2020), pp. 262-284)), but honestly, it was after I had written about it and written to him about my findings, specifically Gratian/Gratianus). He is a very fine scholar and I have a lot of respect for him. 

You can read more about many great Italian jurists in Law and the Christian Tradition in Italy: The Legacy of the Great Jurists, edited by Orazio Condorelli and Rafael Domingo (London and New York: Routledge, 2021). There are chapters on Irnerius, Gratian, Azo, etc., each by a different legal scholar/historian. There are twenty-six chapters. Each contains a biographical profile of a single jurist.

What is the connection to Bacon? Well, as Daniel R. Coquillette writes in his book, Francis Bacon (Stanford: Stanford U. Press, 1992), Bacon was far more influenced by civil law (Roman law, based on Justinian) than is usually recognized. I explore that in my book. There is always more one could say. This will have to suffice for now. Thank you for letting me talk about my book. It grew up in the nurturing "soil" that is this community. Credit should be given where credit is due! 

Edited March 2 by Christie Waldman
discretion

[Allisnum2er]

Good evening Christie,

 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, which are always enriching.

To share a little coincidence with you, this morning, a reflection on the Induction of 'The Bartholomew Fair' by Ben Jonson

brought me back to a book I have already mentioned on the forum, and I just read a quote from Gratian

that I really liked and to which I hadn't paid attention the first time I studied that page.

The chapter addresses the idea of avoiding extremes, with a reference to the famous 'Ne quid nimis' by Terence,

but also to the middle way, as well as to Scylla and Charybdis.

https://archive.org/details/moralemblemswith00catsj/page/86/mode/2up

 

Never exaggerate.

'THE Wise never speak in the superlative, for that mode of speech always offends either Truth or Prudence.

Exaggerations are so many prostitutions of reputation, inasmuch as they expose the shallowness

of the understanding and the bad taste of the speaker.

Exaggeration is a species of lying ; he who exaggerates shews himself to be a man of bad taste,

and, what is worse, a man of mean intellect'. — GRACIAN.

 

 

[Christie Waldman]

PS, I should say, instead of "based on Justinian," based on the collected and codified Roman law that the Emperor Justinian commissioned during the sixth century, with the "barbarians at the gates," to preserve the Roman law as it had developed over centuries. What didn't make it into the Corpus Juris Civilis was likely lost forever. His name is "on it," as in "Code of Justinian," but he didn't write it.

[Christie Waldman]

12 minutes ago, Allisnum2er said:

Never exaggerate.

Thank you for sharing that quotation from Gratian, Yann.