NOTES, QUERIES, AND MR. George Cox Bompas R. BOMPAS, who died on the 23rd of May, 1905, after a long illness, was the son of the late Mr. Sergeant Bompas and was born on the Ist of April, 1827. Educated privately, he was admitted as a solicitor in 1850 and continued to practice until the end of 1903. He was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Royal Geographical Society, the Geological Society of London, the Paleontographical Society, and a Member of the Victoria Institute. As a Member, and latterly President, of the Bacon Society, he took a great interest in the question of the authorship of the "Shakespeare" plays, and in 1902 published a small volume, entitled The Problem of the Shakespeare Plays, which epitomised the evidence in favour of the attribution of the plays to Lord Bacon. To the last he did not accept the various Cipher theories which have from time to time been put forward. A Tolstoi and Shakespeare DMIRERS of Tolstoi will read with regret the following remarks with which he is credited by the author of "The Downfall of Russia" (p. 314) : "If people were capable of approaching Shakespeare impartially, they would lose their unreasonable reverence for this writer. He is crude, immoral, a toady to the great, an arrogant despiser of the small, a slanderer of the common people. He lacks good taste in his S jests, is unjust in his sympathies, ignoble, intoxicated with the acquaintance with which a few aristocrats honoured him. Even his art is over-estimated, for in every case the best comes from his predecessors or his sources. But people are quite blind." The Ladies' Guild of Francis St. Alban ON N the initiative of Mrs. Pott this Guild has been formed with the object of assisting in ventilating and spreading abroad, by the circulation of books and by afternoon meetings, the questions and researches which engage the attention of the Bacon Society. Ladies wishing to join the Guild, or to obtain further information, are requested to send their names and addresses to the Hon. Sec., Miss Ord, 56, Longridge Road, Earls Court, S.W. Rev. Walter Begley TO THE EDITOR OF "BACONIANA.” A NEW and important contribution to the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy is now in the press, and will be shortly issued by Messrs. Gay and Bird. The general title is "Bacon's Nova Resuscitatio." It is in three parts: (1) The Resuscitatio; (2) Exit Shakspere; (3) Enter Bacon. The author is that learned and accomplished scholar and bibliophile, Rev. Walter Begley, editor and translator of Milton's "Nova Solyma," and author of "Is it Shakespeare?" This, alas! is the last literary production of the author, for he is fatally ill, and will, probably, before these words reach the reader, have already joined the great majority. His illness is most tragic and pathetic. Early this year he was attacked by ophthalmia, with persistent nasal hæmorrhage. This was evidently occasioned by malignant disease of the orbits and nasal passages; and the disease has pursued its fatal course, producing first blindness, and then gradually undermining the vital forces by exhausting and almost uncontrollable hæmorrhage. Alas that Milton's latest representative should inherit Milton's calamity! Another work on Cabalistic and Latin Anagrams a work of curious research—is also in the press: a sequel to two other books recently published by the same author, "Biblia Cabalistica" and "Biblia Anagrammatica." The duty of superintending the printing of the Baconian book has been undertaken by Mr. R. M. Theobald. At present we may be content with this simple announcement. Mr. Begley's new facts and arguments are of a very startling kind, and will bring the controversy into relation with many other books and persons of the Elizabethan age. R. M. T. Honorificabilitudinitatibus TO THE EDITOR OF "BACONIANA." THE Latin of the well-known anagram contained in the above word has been often called in question. It is, nevertheless, grammatically correct, and quite good enough for its (supposed) purpose. It runs thus:-Hi ludi sibi tuiti Fr. Bacono nati, these plays guarded by themselves originated from Fr. Bacon. Ludi alone is sometimes used by classical writers for ludi scenici, theatrical representations. Sibi is dative of the agent after the passive verb, especially the passive participle. Tuiti is the participle of the deponent verb tueor used passively. This word is what causes most difficulty. The past participles of many deponent verbs may be used passively as well as actively. Tucor, however, is not among those commonly given in the grammars. But it is used itself as a passive verb by several Latin writers, e.g., Varro, Vitruvius and the jurists Papinianus and Gaius. Varro, the most distinguished, was a friend and contemporary of Cicero, and called by Quintilian Romanorum omnium eruditissimus. He has in his treatise De Lingua Latina :—“Ibi sacra fiunt ac tuentur" (1. 6, c. ii.), and, again, in De Re Rustica :-"Majores nostri . . . in bello ab his tuebantur" (1. 3, c. i.). Bacon had an immense knowledge of Latin writers of all periods, though by no means a perfect scholar. If he concocted the anagram he would have known that tuiti "would serve." The long word infolding the anagram existed, as Mr. Stronach has proved, ages before Bacon's time; but Bacon, who was an expert at anagrams and all kinds of cryptic writing, would see what strange truths it could be made to tell of himself, and so by inserting it where he did in Love's Labours Lost, with hints and suggestions for its elucidation, he made use of a device for claiming literary or scientific property quite common in former times. This is what Dr. Platt maintains, both in previous writings and in his recent work, "Bacon Cryptograms in Shakespeare," and I think he is right. W. A. S. The "Meanest" of Mankind TO THE EDITOR OF "BACONIANA." IN his Impartial Study of the Shakespeare Title, Judge Stotsenburg writes:-"Believing as I do that Pope's familiar lines are exactly descriptive of the wise and learned Bacon, I would have much preferred, as author of the poem, the sly, waggish, and gifted Drayton" (p. 513). The misinterpreted epigram of Pope may be better understood if looked at in the light of Bacon's own words: "Our meanness attempteth great things" (Tenison's Baconiana, p. 199). A. A. LEITH. Bacon and Cheltenham TO THE EDITOR OF "BACONIANA.” THE accompanying letter may interest your readers. I came across it at the Cheltenham Public Library. A. A. LEITH. "The copy of my Lord Chancellor's Letter to Mrs. Badger. "AFTER my hearty comendacons. Whereas you are tyed by Covent. with me to find 2 fit and discreet Chaplains, and 2 Deacons, Bread and Wyne and other necessaries for the Churches and Parishioners of Cheltenham and Charleton, and to perform all other things which on my part are to be done by virtue of the Lease granted unto me by Queen Eliz., I am informed by the Peticon of the inhabitants of the sd. Parishes, that you have notwithstanding, defrauded them, not only of the 2 Deacons, Bread and Wyne, other necessaries that you ought by the Covent. to provide at your owne charge, but also have deprived them of the spiritual food of their souls, allowing yerely unto two Curates x lbs a year. Although you have given me cause to call you to accompt, for breach of your Covent. by a legal proceeding, yet have I thought good at this time to admonish you thereof, and to require you presently to reform the said abuses, by allowing unto 2 such discreet Chaplains as shall be no'inated by his Majestie or his Highness assigns 40 lb yearly unto either of them, and duely to perform covenant of the said Lease, so as there be no further cause of complaint in that behalf against you. So expecting your conformity herein, without delay, I bid you farewell. "From Yorke House, the 19 Nov., 1620 "Your loving friend, From John Goding's History of Chellenam (1863). |