William Henry Burr

“ A man-at-arms must now stand on his knees, And feed on prayers that are old age’s alms. And so from court to cottage I depart; My saint is sure of my unspotted heart. “And when I sadly sit in lonely cell, I’ll teach my swains this carol for a song: ‘Blest be the hearts that wish my Sovereign well, Curst be the souls that think to do her wrong.’ Goddess! vouchsafe this aged man his right, To be your beadsman now that Was your knight.” Parallels are found in Bacon and Shakspere with almost every sentiment and expression in these lines. ”

“ Herds stand weeping—flocks all sleeping, Nymphs back peeping fearfully. All our pleasures known to us poor swains, All our merry meeting on the plains, All our evening sports from us are fled, All our love is lost, for love is dead. ”

“ NO TRUE LIKENESS OF SHAKSPERE The likeness of Shakspere in the Folio of 1623 has frequently been called “an abominable libel on humanity.” And yet its fidelity is certified by Ben Jonson in laudatory lines. Jonson was Bacon’s friend and enthusiastic admirer. If there was an original portrait of that wooden face it has never been found. If there was a better likeness of Shakspere in existence why was it not reproduced in that famous Folio? The same ugly engraving reappeared in all the later editions up tu 1685.
The bust on the monument at Stratford was first noticed in 1623. ”

“ Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my name, Showing their birth and where they did proceed?” Bacon having begun to produce plays for Shakspere’s theater before 1590, the authorship of which was afterward assumed by the actor and proprietor, it became necessary also to avoid being publicly known as a writer of sonnets. Therefore, in view of the circulation and ultimate publication of this poem, he facetiously disguised the identity of the writer by calling himself “Will.” ”

“ But again, we have a letter written in 1592 by Bacon to his uncle, Lord Treasurer Burleigh, in which he says:
“I wax somewhat ancient; one and thirty years is a great deal of sand in the hour-glass.”
At the age of 31 he thinks himself “somewhat ancient” two years earlier he apprehends that forty winters will entirely deface the youthful Earl’s beauty; and to the lovely young widow he says: “My days are past the best.”
This misconception therefore, whether pretended or real, becomes a strong proof of Bacon’s authorship.
It has been boldly alleged by some that Bacon was no poet. ”

“ O frowning fortune, cursed fickle Dame, For now I see, inconstancy More in women than in men remain. In black mourn I, all fears scorn I, Love hath forlorn me, living in thrall; Heart is bleeding, all help needing, O cruel speeding, fraughted with gall. ”

“ To labor to commend a piece of work Which no man goes about to discommend, Would raise a jealous doubt that there did lurk Some secret doubt whereto the praise did tend: For when men know the goodness of the wine ’Tis needless for the host to have a sign. ”

“ The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward Winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy’s Spring, but sorrow’s fall. Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, In folly ripe, in reason rotten. ”

“ My curtail dog that wont to have played, Plays not at all, but seems afraid. With sighs so deep, procure to weep, In howling-wise to see my doleful plight, How sighs resound, through heartless ground, Like a thousand vanquished men in bloody fight. Clear wells spring not, sweet birds sing not, Green plants bring not forth their dye ”

“ In 1590 Bacon obtained his first show of favor from the court; he became Queen’s counsel extraordinary, but the office was without emolument. At this time plays for the theater were written and rewritten again and again to meet the demand. Young lawyers and poets produced them rapidly. Each theatrical company kept from one to four poets in its pay (Amer. Cyc.) Shakspere appeared to be ready to father anything that promised success, and there are at least six plays published under his name or initials which most critics say are not his, nor have they ever appeared in the genuine canon. ”

“ THE SONNETS OF SHAKSPERE WRITTEN BY FRANCIS BACON TO THE EARL OF ESSEX AND HIS BRIDE, A. D. 1590
“The mystery of the Sonnets will never be unfolded.” —Richard Grant White, 1865.
“All is supposition; the mystery is insoluble.” —Dr. Charles Mackay, 1884.
The mystery unfolded by W. H. Burr, July 31, 1883.
The first published poem of Shakspere, so far as known, was “Venus and Adonis,” in 1593. It was dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, then about twenty years of age. Five or six editions were called for in nine years. The “Sonnets” did not appear till 1609. ”

“ In 1591 a poem by Spenser was published containing these lines:
“And he, the man whom Nature’s self has made To mock herself and truth to imitate, With kindly counter under mimic shade:
“Our pleasant Willy, ah, is dead of late: With whom all joy and jolly merriment Is also deaded and in dolor drent.” [20]
From 1590 until Shakspere retired from the stage, how could it be said that he was “poor,” bewailing his “outcast state” and “cursing his fate?” But it is certain that Bacon’s condition answered precisely to that description up to November, 1594, when Essex gave him an estate worth £1,800 ”

“ Sir Henry Lea, the Queen’s champion and master of the armory, who had conducted the exercises from the beginning, appeared for the last time, and, after the customary performances, resigned his office to the Earl of Cumberland, whereupon the celebrated vocalist, Mr. Hales, a servant of her Majesty, pronounced and sung the following verses, personating the aged man-at-arms:
“My golden locks hath time to silver turned, (O Time too swift, and swiftness never ceasing!) My youth ’gainst age, and age at youth hath spurned, But spurned in vain; youth waneth, by increasing. ”

“ The ornament of beauty is suspect, A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air. [18] So be thou good-; slander doth but approve Thy worth the greater, being wooed of time.” In 1590 Bacon had acquired a reputation as an orator in the House of Commons, but was without available means of livelihood in keeping with his wants and station. Up to this time his efforts for promotion were thwarted by the Queen’s minister, Lord Burleigh (Cecil) who regarded him as a dangerous rival for his son. With the rise of young Essex into royal favor Bacon turned to him as a friend at court. ”

“ We will now reproduce the aforesaid poems from “England’s Helicon,” second edition, 1614. A brief version of the first song, No. xviii of “The Passionate Pilgrim,” says Halliwell-Phillipps, appeared in 1597:
*The unknown Shepherd's Complaint.* My flocks feed not, my ewes breed not, My rams speed not, all is amiss; Love is denying, Faith is defying; Hearts ren [e] ging, causer of this. All my merry jigs are quite forgot, And my lady’s love is lost, God wot: Where her faith was firmly fixed in love, There a nay is placed without remove. ”

“ Bacon at 25 writes a letter, May 6th, to Lord Treasurer Burleigh, his uncle, saying:
“I find in my simple observation that they which live as it were in umbra and not in public or frequent action, how moderately and modestly soever they behave themselves, yet laborant inmdia. I find also that such persons as are of nature bashful (as myself is,) whereby they want that plausible familiarity which others have, are often mistaken for proud. ”

“ Again, about the time of the publication of the Shakespere Folio, 1623, Matthew acknowledged in a letter without date, the receipt of a “great and noble favor,” and added the following:
“P. S.—The most prodigious wit that ever I knew, of my nation and of this side of the sea, is of your Lordship’s name, though he be known by another.” ”

“ It is so exact a copy of the last signature to the will as to indicate that it was traced therefrom.
Shakspere’s last signature:
Pretended autograph in Chicago:
[11]
This close resemblance in so clumsy an autograph would be extraordinary, if not impossible; but how easy to forge it by first tracing it lightly with a pencil and then completing it with a pen. Here is a hair-line tracing of the spurious over the genuine autograph:
Even the most illiterate man who is obliged often to sign his name, will do it uniformly, so that when you have seen his signature once you will know it again. ”

“ Bacon’s poems first published in 1599 in praise of Spenser:
“Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch Upon the lute doth ravish human sense; Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such As, passing all conceit, needs no defense.” This verse is in “The Passionate Pilgrim,” the first two numbers of which are Sonnets 138 and 144 with slight variations. ”

“ Marlowe, Raleigh and Barnfield were not. As early as January 1590, if not a little sooner, “Ignoto” contributed to Spenser’s first publication of the “Faery Queen” the following lines:
“To look upon a work of rare devise The which a workman setteth out to view, And not to yield it the deserved prize That unto such a workmanship is due, Doth either prove the judgment to be naught, Or else doth show a mind with envy fraught. ”

“ Since 1867 the substantial proofs of Bacon’s secret authorship have been adduced. Aside from innumerable parallels in the works of Bacon and Shakspere there is much external evidence. For example:
We know that Bacon wrote Sonnets to Queen Elizabeth and excused himself by saying: “I profess not to be a poet.”
We know that he composed Masques anonymously before Shakspere’s name appeared as a play writer, and that those Masques were essentially poetical compositions, in the nature of plays, and sometimes contained verses in rhyme equal in merit to the average of Shakspere’s. ”

“ And now let the reader mark, that notwithstanding the orthodox spelling of the name from 1593 to 1616, and indeed up to the present time, was and is Shakespeare, there is no e in the first syllable and no a in the last, although some have imagined the letter a to exist in the last part of the final autograph.
We have said that these signatures are all that. Shakspere is known to have written; we ought to add that he prefixed to the last one the following scrawl:
For a long time we puzzled over this. Could it be an attempt to write “25th of March,” the day of the execution of the will? ”

“ That poem was known to Spenser, who in the Dedication said he had fashioned his Queen “according to your [Raleigh’s] own excellent conceit of Cynthia,” i. e., Queen Elizabeth.
Furthermore, Raleigh contributed two Sonnets in praise of Spenser’s “Faery Queen;” these he subscribed with his own initials. Did he at the same time write another encomium and sign it “Ignoto”?
There are sixteen pieces in the “Helicon” subscribed “Ignoto.” One of these, “The Nymph’s Reply” is ascribed to Raleigh on the testimony of Walton in 1653 ”

“ But all these are anonymous
[42]
in the edition of 1614, and the editor appends to the last one the following remark:
“These three [or four?] ditties were taken out of Maister John Dowland’s Book of Tableture for the Lute. The authors’ names not there set down, and therefore left to their owners.”
But it happens that the four ditties are all credited to “Ignoto” in the Table of Contents, prepared by the other editor, so that in the edition of 1614 “Ignoto” has twenty pieces, besides the one assigned to Marlowe. ”

“ But could youth last, and love still breed, Had joys no date, nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move, To live with thee and be thy love. Finis. Ignoto. The editor of the third edition of the “Helicon” 1812, says in regard to “Ignoto:”
“This signature appears to have been generally, though not exclusively, subscribed to the pieces of Sir Walter Raleigh. It is also subscribed to one piece since appropriated to Shakspere, [No. xviii,] and to one Which, according to Ellis, belongs to Richard Barnfield [No. xxi.] ”

“ He erected a monument to Spenser and gave an estate to Bacon.
But we have omitted one striking characteristic which has an important bearing on the question of his identity with “Mr. W. H.” The young Earl of Essex was a remarkably handsome man. Now the beauty of the person addressed in the “Sonnets” is a constantly recurring theme, and the burden of the poem is an appeal to the beloved and beautiful young man to marry. ”

“ The verses were published anonymously in Dowland’s “First Book of Songs,” 1600, and again in 1844; both times with the pronouns changed from the first to the third person—e. g., “His golden locks,” etc. ”

“ In the “Works of George Peele,” 1828, they are credited to that poet, but the only evidence adduced of his authorship is the fact that he, as an eye-witness, wrote a poetic description of the celebration in 1590. Mrs. Pott is doubtless right in claiming for Bacon the authorship, and is only mistaken in supposing that the person to whom the verses were intended to apply was Lord Burleigh, who about that time, on account of the loss of his wife, had temporarily withdrawn from court.
BACON AND SHAKSPERE A CHRONOGRAPH
1. ”