He was foreman of Bacon's good
pens and one of his "left-hands"; as any visitor to Westminster Abbey may
learn, the attendants there being careful to point out that the sculptor
has "accidentally" clothed Jonson's Bust in a left-handed coat. (With
respect to the meaning of this the reader is referred to Plate 33, page
131.) Thus far was written and in print when the writer's attention was
called to the Rev. George O Neill's little brochure, "Could Bacon have
written the plays?" in which in a note to page 14 we find "Numeri" in
Latin, "numbers" in English, applied to literature mean nothing else
than verse, and even seem to exclude prose. Thus Tibullus writes,
"_Numeris ille hic pede libero scribit_" (one writes in verse another in
prose), and Shakespeare has the same antithesis in "Love's Labour Lost"
(iv., 3), "These numbers I will tear and write in prose." Yet all this
does not settle the matter, for "Numeri" is also used in the sense
merely of "parts". Pliny speaks of a prose work as perfect in all its
parts, "_Omnibus numeris absolutus_," and Cicero says of a plan of life,
"_Omnes numeros virtutis continet_" (it contains every element of
virtue).
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