In 1601, or thereabouts, Francis writes to Anthony. "Good brother; I send you the supplication which Mr Topcliffe lent me. It is curiously written and worth the writing out for the art, though the argument be bad. But it is lent me but for two or three days. So God keep you.

This literary Bureau seems to have been in full swing for many years. In 1623 Bacon wrote to his friend Tobie Matthew;

(c My labours are now most set to have those works which I had formerly published.... well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens which forsake me not.

We have little information as to the 'good pens,' but according to Archbishop Tenison, Ben Jonson was one of the group. Others were

Hobbes the philosopher, and Thomas Bushell. Aubrey writes that the Lord Chancellor Bacon loved to converse with Hobbes. "He assisted his Lordship in translating several of his essays into Latin... His Lordship was a very contemplative person and was wont to contemplate in his delicious walks at Gorhambury and dictate to Mr. Bushell or some other of his gentlemen that attended him with ink and paper ready to set down presently his thoughts.

" 1

Peter Boëner records of his master that he "seldom saw him take up a book. He only ordered his chaplain [William Rawley] and me to look in such and such an author for a certain place and then he dictated to us early in the morning what he had invented and composed during the night.

I Life of Hobbes. Aubrey. Vol. 11. pt. 2. p. 602. 2 Spedding. Vol. 14. p. 566.

The relations between Bacon and his bodyguard of scribes and shorthand writers seem to have been of the most intimate and affectionate character. Spedding states that several of Bacon's MSS. are endorsed in his handwriting with the words " AD FILIOS; while the exalted admiration of the " sons " for their philosopher and friend evinces itself in reverential eulogy.

There is reason to believe that certainly one of the manuscripts executed at Bacon's Scrivenery is now in existence. The document in question was discovered in the year 1867 among some papers at Northumberland House, Charing Cross, and is now at Alnwick Castle in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland. By the industry of Mr. T. le Marchant Douse 1 the handwriting of this MS. has been identified as that of John Davies of Hereford, a professional scrivener and the most skilful penman of his time. His profession was to copy documents for his various employers and also to give instruction in the art of penmanship. He was also a scholar educated at Oxford University and the writer of numerous Sonnets. One of these is addressed "To the royall, ingenious and alllearned Knight, Sr. Francis Bacon.

Thy bounty and the Beauty of thy Witt Comprised in Lists of Law and learned Arts, Each making thee for great Imployment fitt Which now thou hast, (though short of thy [deserts] Compells my pen to let fall shining Inke

I The Northumberland Manuscript by T. le Marchant Douse. London. 1904.

And to bedew the Baies that deck thy Front;
And to thy health in Helicon to drinke
As to her Bellamour the Muse is wont :
For thou dost her embozom; and, dost use
Her company for sport twixt grave affaires :
So utterst Law the liuelyer through thy Muse.
And for that all thy Notes are sweetest Aires;
My Muse thus notes thy worth in ev'ry Line,
With yncke which thus she sugers; so, to
[shine.

From this, as Mr Douse observes, it seems that Bacon had recently made him a present in money, or more probably had paid him lavishly for some assistance.

Apart, however, from the evidence of this sonnet, the contents of the MS. point to the conclusion that Davies must at some time have been in Bacon's employment. Six out of the nine pieces of which the MS. consists are transcripts of Bacon's unpublished work to which an outsider would scarcely have had access. The outer sheet forms an index or table of contents, and although the page has been scribbled over and damaged severely by fire and dust, the following titles can still be read upon it.

Mr. ffrauncis Bacon.

Of tribute or giving what is dew.

The praise of the worthiest vertue.
The praise of the worthiest affection.
The praise of the worthiest power.
The praise of the worthiest person.

Philipp against Monsieur.

Earle of Arundell's letter to the Queen.
Speaches for my Lord of Essex at the tylt.
A speach for my Lord of Sussex, tilt.
Leycester's Commonwealth. Incerto autore.
Orations at Graie's Inne revells.

Queene's Mate

By Mr. ffrauncis Bacon.
Essaies by the same author.
Rychard the second.

Rychard the third.

Asmund and Cornelia.
Ile of dogs frmnt.

In addition to this list of contents the page has been scribbled over with words and phrases by some writer, either "for trial of his pens, or for experiments in handwriting." The repetition of the name "William Shakespeare," a line from Lucrece ("revealing day through every crany peepes"), and the enumeration of Richard II and Richard III, lead to the inference that that writer was employed upon copying these works of Shakespeare. As, when published, they were obtainable for a few pence, it seems irrational to imagine that anyone would waste trouble, time and expense by transcribing manuscript copies of them. If they were not published, how came one of Bacon's secretaries to be in possession of the MSS?

In addition to the works of Shakespeare we find enumerated on this interesting outer cover Asmund and Cornelia, believed to be a lost drama, and "Ile of Dogs frmnt (fragment) by Thomas Nashe inferior plaiers.'

Players, as Dyce states, seldom ventured to approach the houses of the aristocracy, and plays were "hardly regarded as literature. Milton, after mentioning that men in highest dignity have laboured not a little to be thought able to compose a tragedy, and that Seneca the philosopher is by some thought the author of those tragedies that go under another's name, concludes,

"This is mentioned to vindicate Tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many it undergoes at this day.'

" 1

How comes it that we find the 'infamous' works of Shakespeare and other "inferior" dramatists apparently engaging the attention of the decorous Francis Bacon?

It is idle to conjecture; nor do I purpose to indulge in roving guesses.

I Intro to Samson Agonistes.