Bacon is Shake-Speare | Page 6

of the plays published in 1623, which was drawn by Martin
Droeshout, is cunningly composed of two left arms and a mask. Martin
Droeshout, its designer, was, as Mr. Sidney Lee tells us, but 15 years of
age when Shakspeare died. He is not likely therefore ever to have seen
the actor of Stratford, yet this is the "Authentic," that is the

"Authorised" portrait of Shakspeare, although there is no
question--there can be no possible question--that in fact it is a
cunningly drawn cryptographic picture, shewing two left arms and a
mask.
The back of the left arm which does duty for the right arm is shewn in
Plate 10, Page 26.
[Illustration: Plate X. The Back of the Left Arm, from Plate VIII]
Every tailor will admit that this is not and cannot be the front of the
right arm, but is, without possibility of doubt, the back of the left arm.
[Illustration: Plate XI. The Front of the Left Arm, from Plate VIII]
[Illustration: (not included in list of plates) The Front of Left Arm.
From Plate VIII. The Back of Left Arm From Plate VIII. Arranged
Tailor fashion, shoulder to shoulder, as in the _Gentleman's Tailor
Magazine_, April, 1911]
Plate 11 shews the front of the left arm, and you at once perceive that
you are no longer looking at the back of the coat but at the front of the
coat.
[Illustration: Plate XII. The [Mask] Head, from the [so-called] Portrait,
by Droeshout, in the 1623 Folio]
Now in Plate 12, Page 32, you see the mask, especially note that the ear
is a mask ear and stands out curiously; note also how distinct the line
shewing the edge of the mask appears. Perhaps the reader will perceive
this more clearly if he turns the page upside down.
[Illustration: Plate XIII. Sir Nicholas Bacon, from the Painting by
Zucchero]
Plate 13, Page 33, depicts a real face, that of Sir Nicholas Bacon, eldest
son of the Lord Keeper, from a contemporary portrait by Zucchero,
lately in the Duke of Fife's Collection. This shews by contrast the

difference between the portrait of a living man, and the drawing of a
lifeless mask with the double line from ear to chin. Again examine
Plates 8, Pages 20, 21, the complete portrait in the folio. The reader
having seen the separate portions, will, I trust, be able now to perceive
that this portrait is correctly characterised as cunningly composed of
two left arms and a mask.
While examining this portrait, the reader should study the lines that
describe it in the Shakespeare folio of 1623, a facsimile of which is
here inserted.
To the Reader.
This Figure, that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the Grauer had a strife with Nature, to out-doo the life: O,
could he but haue drawne his wit As well in brasse, as he hath hit His
face; the Print would then surpasse All, that was euer writ in brasse.
But, since he cannot, Reader, looke Not on his Picture, but his Booke.
B.I.
Plate IX.
VERSES ASCRIBED TO BEN JONSON, FROM THE 1623 FOLIO
EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS.
B.I. call the ridiculous dummy a "portrait" but describes it as the
"Figure put for" (that is "instead of") and as "the Print," and as "his
Picture"; he likewise most clearly tells us to "looke not on his
(ridiculous) Picture, but (only) his Booke." It seems, therefore, evident
that he knew the secret of Bacon's authorship and intended to inform
those capable of understanding that the graver had done out the life
when he writes, "Out-doo the life." In the New English Dictionary,
edited by Sir J.A.H. Murray, there are upwards of six hundred words
beginning with "Out," and every one of them, with scarcely a single
exception, requires, in order to be fully understood, to be read reversed.
Out-law does not mean outside of the law, but lawed out by a legal
process. "Out-doo" was used only in the sense of "do out"; thus, in the
"Cursor Mundi," written centuries before the days of Elizabeth, we read

that Adam was out done [of Paradise]; and in Drayton's "Barons'
Wars," published in 1603, we find in Book V. s. li.
"That he his foe not able to withstand, Was ta'en in battle and his eyes
out-done."
The graver has indeed done out the life so cleverly that for hundreds of
years learned pedants and others have thought that the figure
represented a real man, and altogether failed to perceive that it was a
mere stuffed dummy clothed in an impossible coat, cunningly
composed of the front of the left arm buttoned on to the back of the
same left arm, as to form a double left armed apology for a man.
Moreover, this