The Author

(Title-page to the 1645 edition of Francis Bacon’s De Dignitate & Augmentis Scientiarum.)

Francis Bacon is shown seated on a similar chair as in the 1640 Advancement of Learning frontispiece illustration, hatted and robed as the Lord Chancellor. This ‘enthroned’ posture of his is not only taken from life but is a symbolic one, first used in the memorial statue of him erected after his death in St. Michael’s Church, St. Albans, by his principal secretary and friend, Thomas Meautys. Outwardly it epitomises Bacon as the Lord Chancellor, but symbolically also as Solomon and Apollo, by which names he was referred to by his contemporaries.

Solomon was renowned for his wisdom, for building the temple at Jerusalem, and for his songs and writings—notably, his Book of Wisdom, his Song of Songs, his Proverbs and his Natural History. He was the great patron of Israel’s Wisdom literature.

Equated with Solomon, as an archetype, is Apollo, the Greek and Roman name for the invisible, all-powerful, spiritual and intellectual effulgence of the Sun, the spirit of universal illumination. Apollo was the patron god or archetype of all the classical Mystery schools, and still features as such in Freemasonry today as an alternative emblem for Solomon. His solar chariot is drawn by a swan, the emblem of his musical and poetic abilities.

Associated with Apollo is Bacchus. Apollo, with his partner Athena and their ‘children’, Bacchus and Æsclepius, inhabit Mount Parnassus, which is their seat or throne. In the Orphic Mysteries Bacchus is associated with Orpheus, the founder and author of the Mysteries. As such, Bacchus is known as the divine author, the hidden or secret author of the Mystery plays, who wears a mask to the outer world. Theatrical comedy and tragedy derive from the Orphic Mysteries, and so Bacchus is commonly referred to as the god of Drama.

One form of Bacchus’ name is as Bacco, which is how Bacon’s name is rendered in Italian versions of his works. The symbolism connected with this word-play was used to great effect by Bacon, such as in Mistress Quickly’s line, ‘Hang-hog, is latten for Bacon, I warrant you’ (Shakespeare, Merry Wives, IV, i), alluding to the sacrifice of the pig that was made in the Orphic Mysteries. Successive editors, completely misunderstanding the meaning, have usually changed the Folio’s ‘latten’ to ‘Latin’ and reduced ‘Bacon’ to ‘bacon’, which kills the intended allusion and hidden meaning. In fact Mistress Quickly is referring to a story concerning Francis Bacon’s father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, which Francis carefully recorded for posterity:-

Bacco is also a word-play connected with the ‘noted weed’ that appears in the Shakespeare sonnet 76:-

‘Weed’ was a term used by 16th and 17th century writers to signify a disguise, as in this sonnet. Obviously it cannot refer to the actor William Shakspere, because that is his real name, not a disguise. But it does refer to the author, whose name is disguised, as he links it to himself and to the fact that every word of the noted weed ‘doth almost tell’ his name. ‘Noted’ is surely a clue.

In poetry, ‘weed’ generally meant any herb or small plant, but early on in King James I’s reign it became specifically used as a name for tobacco. James despised tobacco and wrote a treatise against the smoking of it. The State Calendar of his time names it as the ‘contemptible weed’. That is to say, it was a ‘noted weed’—noted in writing by the King as contemptible. The informal, common name for it was ‘Bacco’. To-Bacco, therefore, is the ‘noted weed’ that almost tells Bacon’s name.

Moreover, according to the English antiquarian and Clarenceux king-of-arms, William Camden, Bacco means ‘the lame’, and metaphorically both Bacchus and Shakespeare were lame: ‘So I, made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite...’ (Shakespeare Sonnet 37).

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© Peter Dawkins, FBRT, 1999