There were, however, other motives in Bacon's methods, which may, to some extent, be attributed to his social surroundings and public ambitions. The very remarkable passages in the Arte of English Poesie (1589), which I quote below, refer, in my belief, to such motives, and in general describe the nature of Bacon's genius and art:

These and many such like disguisings do we find in mans behauiour, and specially in the Courtiers of forraine Countreyes, where in my youth I was brought vp, and very well obserued their maner of life and conuersation, for of mine owne Countrey I have not made so great experience.1 Which parts, neuerthelesse, we allow not now in our English maker, because we haue geuen him the name of an honest man, and not of an hypocrite: and therefore leauing these manner of dissimulations to all baseminded men, and of vile nature or misterie, we doe allow our Courtly Poet to be a dissembler only in the subtilties of his arte: that is, when he is most artificiall, so to disguise and cloake it as it may not appeare, nor seeme to proceede from him by any studie or trade of rules, but to be his naturall: nor so euidently to be descried, as euery ladde that reades him shall say he is a good scholler, but will rather haue him to know his arte well, and little to vse it. (iii. 25.)

Also in that which the Poet speakes or reports of another mans tale or doings, as Homer of Priamus or Vlisses, he is as the painter or keruer that worke by imitation and representation in a forrein subiect, in that he speakes figuratiuely, or argues subtillie, or perswades copiously and vehemently, he doth as the cunning gardiner that vsing nature as a coadiutor, furders her conclusions and many times make her effectes more absolute and straunge. But for that in our maker or Poet, which restes onely in deuise and issues from an excellent sharpe and quick inuention,

1 It is impossible, reading this book, to believe that this statement is true. There are many others in the book of a similar character, which, in my belief, were inserted for purposes of concealment. It is possible that they were intended to apply to an assumed personality, which would be that of some person living at the time, and that the writer was prevented from using the name, and therefore published the book anonymously. The fact that the book begins and ends with a personal address to the Queen, and that the printer pretends that it came into his hands (long and elaborate as it is) without any author's name or address, supports this view. If this were so, who would pay the expenses of publication? The book is a work full of wit and wisdom, but also of strangeness and extravagance, quite out of the common road. It might, indeed, be cited as an example of the eccentricity of genius.

holpen by a cleare and bright phantasie and imagination, he is not as the painter to counterfaite the naturall by the like effects and not the same, nor as the gardiner aiding nature to worke both the same and the like, nor as the Carpenter to worke effectes vtterly vnlike, but even as nature her selfe working by her owne peculiar vertue and proper instinct and not by example or meditation or exercise as all other artificers do, is then most admired when he is most naturall and least artificiall. And in the feates of his language and vtterance, because they hold aswell of nature to be suggested and vttered as by arte to be polished and reformed. Therefore shall our Poet receaue prayse for both, but more by knowing of his arte then by vnseasonable vsing it, and be more commended for his naturall eloquence then for his artificiall, and more for his artificiall well disembled, then for the same ouermuch affected and grossely or vndiscretly bewrayed, as many makers and Oratours do.-Ibid.

Among the volumes which have been written on the genius and art of Shakespeare, I doubt if anything has been said which is so appropriate and illuminating as this.

CHAPTER VI

SPENSER'S MINOR POEMS

SPENSER, according to the story, came over from Ireland at the end of 1589 to publish his Faerie Queene, but had to return to look after his affairs in that country perhaps towards the close of 1590, or, as some suggest, after the award of his pension in February 1591. Works, however, from his pen continued to appear, and early in 1591 a volume entitled "Complaints: containing sundrie small poems of the Worlds Vanitie" was published, as by "Ed. Sp.," with an address by the Printer, who speaks of "his departure over Sea":

THE PRINTER TO THE GENTLE READER

Since my late setting foorth of the Faerie Queene, finding that it hath found a favourable passage amongst you, I have sithence endevoured by all good meanes (for the better encrease and accomplishment of your delights,) to get into my handes such smale Poemes of the same Authors, as I heard were disperst abroad in sundrie hands, and not easie to bee come by, by himselfe; some of them having bene diverslie imbeziled and purloyned from him since his departure over Sea. Of the which I have, by good meanes, gathered togeather these fewe parcels present, which I have caused to bee imprinted altogeather, for that they al seeme to containe like matter of argument in them; being all complaints and meditations of the worlds vanitie, verie grave and profitable. To which effect I understand that he besides wrote sundrie others, namelie Ecclesiastes and Canticum canticorum translated, A senights slumber, The hell of lovers, his Purgatorie, being all dedicated to Ladies; so as it may seeme he ment them all to one volume. Besides some other Pamphlets looselie scattered abroad: as The dying Pellican, The howers of the Lord,

The sacrifice of a sinner, The seven Psalmes, &c. which when I can, either by himselfe or otherwise, attaine too, I meane likewise for your favour sake to set foorth. In the meane time, praying you gentlie to accept of these, and graciouslie to entertaine the new Poet, I take leave.

The fact that this book was licensed for publication under date 29th December 1590 led Grosart to the conclusion that the "Printer" was "really Spenser himself speaking with that kind of blind or mystification found later in Pope or Swift." I agree, and I think also that the titles of some of the "sundry other " works were probably an invention with the object of conciliating the prejudice which existed against poetry.

The pieces included were:

1. The Ruines of Time.

2. The Teares of the Muses.

3. Virgils Gnat.

4. Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberds Tale.

5. The Ruines of Rome: by Bellay.

6. Muiopotmos, or the Fate of the Butterflie.

7. Visions of the Worlds Vanitie.

8. Bellayes Visions.

9. Petrarches Visions.

I, 2, 3, 4 have all carefully prepared dedications in a style indistinguishable from the Printer's address.

The Ruines of Time is dedicated to Mary, Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney's sister, who is referred to as "the Patron of my young Muses," and speaking of the death of her brother (1586) the author says that he had "conceived this small Poeme" "sithens my late cumming to England," which is difficult to reconcile with the Printer's alleged difficulties in collecting the poems, apparently at the identical time. In the dedication of Mother Hubberds Tale to Lady Compton, the author, in speaking of his "humble affection and faithfull duetie " to the house from which she sprang, says: "I have at length found occasion to remember the same, by making a simple present to you of these my idle labours; which having long sithens composed in the raw conceipt of my

youth, I lately amongst other papers lighted upon, and was by others, which liked the same, mooved to set them foorth." I am aware that it is held that these poems were first circulated in manuscript, but there would be no sense in the words quoted except in relation to publication in print, and the author has forgotten, or has not thought it worth while to trouble about, their inconsistency with the version that the printer was responsible for the publication. Similarly also in the case of the dedication for the Teares of the Muses, where the writer uses the words "to make the same universallie knowen to the world."

Internal evidence confirms the evidence of the dedication that the Ruines of Time was composed, or completed, in 1590. The poet is described as seeing an apparition of a woman representing the ancient city of Verulam, and lamenting its decay:

It chaunced me on day beside the shore
Of silver streaming Thamesis to bee,

Nigh where the goodly Verlame stood of yore,
Of which there now remaines no memorie;

and subsequently, as Old Verulam was not situated on the Thames, she is made to say that the river had left it: Seemes that the gentle River for great griefe

From my unhappie neighborhood farre fled,
And his sweete waters away with him led.

With such geographical difficulties to be overcome, why should Spenser have gone out of his way to place the scene of his lament over people who had flourished, as he had, in London-Leicester, Sidney, and others at Old Verulam ? In the case of Francis Bacon it is intelligible, as it was his father's home, and by his will he directed that he should be buried in St. Michael's church near St. Albans, both because his mother was buried there, and because it was "the only Christian church within the walls of Old Verulam,"

In the same poem occurs the well-known reference to Lord Burghley:

M