Bacon is Shake-Speare by Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
page 26 of 222 (11%)
page 26 of 222 (11%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
Do out appears in the name of the little instrument something like a pair of snuffer which was formerly used to extinguish the candles and called a "Doute." Therefore I have correctly substituted "extinguished" for "out-doo." At the beginning I have substituted "dummy" for "figure" because we are told that the figure is "put for" (that is, put instead of) Shakespeare. In modern English we frequently describe a chairman who is a mere dummy as a figurehead. Then "wit" in these lines means absolutely the same as "mind," which I have used in its place because I think it refers to the fact that upon the miniature of Bacon in his 18th year, which was painted by Hilliard in 1578, we read:--"Si tabula daretur digna animum mallem." This line is believed to have been written at the time by the artist, and was translated in "Spedding":--"If one could but paint his mind." In March, 1911, the _Tailor and Cutter_ newspaper stated that the Figure, put for Shakepeare in the 1623 folio, was undoubtedly clothed in an impossible coat, composed of the back and the front of the same left arm. And in the following April the _Gentleman's Tailor Magazine_, under the heading of a "Problem for the Trade," shews the two halves of the coat as printed on page 28a, and says: "It is passing strange that something like three centuries should have been allowed to elapse before the tailors' handiwork should have been appealed to in this particular manner." "The special point is that in what is known as the authentic portrait of William Shakespeare, which appears in the celebrated first folio edition, published in 1623, a remarkable sartorial puzzle is apparent." "The tunic, coat, or whatever the garment may have been called at the |
|