INTRODUCTION "It is a point fit and necessary in the front or beginning of this work without hesitation or reservation to be professed, that it is no less true in this human kingdom of knowledge than in God's Kingdom of Heaven, that no man shall enter into it except he become first as a little child."-Bacon's Valerius Terminus. Shakespeare clothes the same truth as follows: Oft does them by the weakest minister; From simple sources; and great seas have When miracles have by the greatest been denied." The spirit of Truth breathes through these lines of Bacon's, for he had in his nature a quality of divineness. The same idea as expressed by Shakespeare is a "Truth in beauty dyed." The above quotations assimilate so well, and seem so of a piece, that I cannot divorce the one from the other, especially in these pages where their authors are so often referred to. And to confess a truth to the patient reader, they gave me courage to begin this, the second reprint of the Gesta Grayorum in 1913, and caused me to think as Helena did in All's Well, "What I can do, can do no hurt to try." Search was made at Columbia University Library, Congressional Library and British Museum, but none of these Libraries possess a copy of the Gesta Grayorum. It was not until this reprint was in book pages. that Mr. Frederic W. Erb, Supervisor of the loan department of Columbia University Library (to whom I am extremely indebted) procured from the Boston Public Library a fac-simile of the title page of its. copy of the Gesta Grayorum, which is used in this reprint. My best thanks are also due to Mr. W. A. White of Brooklyn, who kindly lent me his fine original copy of the Gesta Grayorum, from which I have copied W. Canning's Dedication to Matthew Smyth, Esq. Mr. White's library contains some of the rarest books known to collectors. An exact copy has also been made of the title page, as well as the page containing the "Capias Utlegatum" -which Attorney General Coke would have clapped upon Bacon's back. This I discovered in Sir William Noy's "Reports and Cases taken in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles," London. 1656 folio. (See frontis page.) This "Capias Utlegatum" has given birth to many cryptograms and biliteral ciphers undeserving of belief; and I venture to say they have brought more discredit on the fame of Francis Bacon than the original writ of outlawry itself. Interwoven in a web of mystery, seemed to me the two greatest names in English literature - Francis Bacon and William Shakespeare. Were it not for the Northumberland Manuscript, wherein these two names co-mingle and are forever entwined, as early as 1594 (because "Orations at Graie's Inne Revells" "By Mr. Francis Bacon," is mentioned as a part of its contents), we would never have known that Bacon composed the speeches for the six Councillors in the Gesta Grayorum. Spedding, commenting on the Gesta Grayorum and these speeches, says: "Thus ended one of the most elegant Christmas entertainments, probably, that was ever presented to an audience of statesmen and courtiers. That Bacon had a hand in the general design is merely a conjecture; we know that he had a taste in such things and did sometimes take a part in arranging them; and the probability seemed strong enough to justify a more detailed account of the whole evening's work than I should otherwise have thought fit. But that the speeches of the six councillors were written by him, and by him alone, no one who is at all familiar with his style, either of thought or expression, will for a moment doubt it. They carry his signature in every sentence. And they have a much deeper interest for us than could have been looked for in such a sportive exercise belonging to so forgotten a form of idleness. All these councillors speak with Bacon's tongue and out of Bacon's brain; but the second and fifth speak out of his heart and judgment also. The propositions of the latter contain an enumeration of those very reforms, in state and government, which throughout his life he was most anxious to see realized. In those of the former may be traced, faintly but unmistakably, a first hint of his great project for the restoration of the dominion of knowledge,-a first draft of 'Solomon's House,'-a rudiment of that history of universal nature, which was to have formed the third part of the 'Instauratio,' and is in my judgment (as I have elsewhere explained at large) the principal novelty and great characteristic feature of the Baconian philosophy. This composition is valuable, therefore, not only as showing with what fidelity his mind when left to itself pointed always, in sport as in earnest, towards the great objects which he had set before him, but also as giving us one of the very few certain dates by which we can measure the progress of his philosophical speculations in these early years."-Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, Vol. I, p. 342 et seq. Nor would we have known Francis Davison, and Thomas Campion had collaborated in the Masque of Proteus, had not Davison in his Poetical Rhapsody, 1602-1608, revealed the fact. It is by these mosaics or piecing bits together that the student must endeavor to peep behind the curtain of the Gesta Grayorum sports and revels. In Spedding's account of the Gesta Grayorum, he says: "It is a pity that the publisher, whoever he was, did not tell us a little more about the manuscript, though it is probable enough that he had not much more to tell. Nothing is more natural than that such a narrative should have been written at the time for the amusement and satisfaction of the parties concerned; should have been laid by and forgotten; and found again lying by itself, without anybody to tell its story for it."— Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, Vol. I, p. 343. The writer hopes to tell some of its story and of the actors in it. Francis Davison, the poet, who acted in the Gesta Gray orum, mentions having "lent" to "Eleaz Hodgson," "Graye's 'In Sportes' under Sir Henry Helmes." N. H. Nicolas, Ed. Poetical Rhapsody. Henry Helmes (our Prince of Portpoole) was not knighted until 1603 at Whitehall by James I. As has been said, Campion and Davison composed the Masque of Proteus which was performed before the Queen at Greenwich Palace at Shrovetide, 1594-5. In 1602 Davison brought out his Poetical Rhapsody and in one of his sonnets "To his first love" is the following: "Upon presenting her with the Speech at Gray's Consisting of three parts-the story of Proteus' The Wonders of the Adamantine Rock, and a ́ "Who in these lines may better claim a part, That sing the praises of the maiden Queen, Than you, fair sweet, that only sovereign been Of the poor kingdom of my faithful heart? Or, to whose view should I this speech impart; Where the adamantine rock's great power is shown; But to your conq'ring eyes, whose force once Makes even iron hearts loath thence to part? May better send you the new feigned story |