(In the sixteenth century Beacon was pronounced Bacon.
"Bacon great Beacon of the State.")
We have already pointed out that "The Tempest," as Emile Montegut shewed
in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ in 1865, is a mass of Bacon's revelations
concerning himself.
At the bottom (see Plate 27, Page 115, and Plate 31, Page 123), within
the "four square corners of fact," surrounded with disguised masks of
Tragedy, Comedy, and Farce, is shewn the same man who gave the scroll
to the Spearman, see Plate 29, Page 118 (note the pattern of his
sleeves). He is now engaged in writing his book, while an Actor, very
much overdressed and wearing a mask something like the accepted mask of
Shakespeare, is lifting from the real writer's head a cap known in
Heraldry as the "Cap of Maintenance." Again we refer to our quotation
on page 48.
"Those glorious vagabonds....
Sooping it in their glaring Satten sutes."
Is not this masquerading fellow an actor "Sooping it in his glaring
Satten sute"? The figure which we say represents Bacon, see Plate 28,
wears his clothes as a gentleman. Nobody could for a moment imagine that
the masked creature in Plate 31 was properly wearing his own clothes.
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