Bacon's name appearing as an acrostic in the works

The Elizabethans loved acrostics; that is, verses which conceal a name or word in the initial letters of the lines, so that it may be read downwards, or upwards, as a kind of hidden message in the text. Many examples of deliberate acrostics exist by such poets as Ben Jonson and others. The first column of the first full page of text in the First Folio (page 2) contains a blatant acrostic of Bacons name. It appears in Act 1 Scene 1 of The Tempest in the very passage in which Prospero reveals to Miranda her identity:

PROSPERO      Sit down;
      For thou must now know farther.
 MIRANDA      You have often
      Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp'd
      And left me to a bootless inquisition,
      Concluding 'Stay: not yet.'
PROSPERO      The hour's now come;
      The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;
      Obey and be attentive. Canst thou remember

The possibility that this occurrence of the name F Bacon (not to mention that of his closest friend, Tobie Matthews) is a co-incidence is ruled out conclusively by the presence of other acrostics on this and the facing page of text in the Folio. For example,  the word BANNITO, meaning banished, occurs as an acrostic in the passage where Prospero describes his banishment from Milan:

PROSPERO      Well demanded, wench.
      My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,
      So dear the love my people bore me, nor set
      A mark so bloody on the business, but
      With colours fairer painted their foul ends.
      In few, they hurried us aboard a bark,
      Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
      A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
      Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
      Instinctively had quit it: there they hoist us,
      To cry to the sea that roar'd to us, to sigh
      To the winds whose pity, sighing back again,
            Did us but loving wrong.

The fact that the word chosen for the acrostic reflects the meaning of the passage not only leaves no room for doubt that this particular instance is intentional, but encourages the reader to search for other examples, given that a clear precedent of use has been established. The presence of the BANITTO acrostic therefore draws attention to the FBACON/TOBEY acrostics, and provides independent confirmation that they are deliberately inserted.

There are many other examples throughout the Folio. Here are a pair of acrostic F Bacons hidden on facing pages: the first occurs in the final verses of the play of King John, and reads with minor re-arrangement: I, fBACoN, while the second reads in reverse FBACoN, and occurs on the page facing the the King John acrostic, which is the first page of Richard II.

From King John: (final verses)
      This England never did, nor never shall,
      Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
      But when it first did help to wound itself.
      Now these her princes are come home again,
      Come the three corners of the world in arms,
      And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
      If England to itself do rest but true.

From Richard II   (on page opposite above) 
     We thank you both: yet one but flatters us,

      As well appeareth by the cause you come;

      Namely to appeal each other of high treason.

      Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object

      Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?

      BOL.       First, heaven be the record to my speech!

There is a fascinating acrostic of the consonants of the Bacon name in The Rape of Lucrece, discussed in more detail on this page.

But she, that never coped with stranger eyes,
Could pick no meaning from their parling looks,
Nor read the subtle-shining secrecies
Writ in the glassy margents of such books:
She touch'd no unknown baits, nor fear'd no hooks;
Nor could she moralize his wanton sight,
More than his eyes were open'd to the light.

And there are other many other occurences throughout the plays, including:

And at first meeting lov'd
Continued so until we thought he dyed.
By the Queenes Dramme she swallowed

Cymbeline V 5

But what trade art thou? Answer me directly.
A trade, sir, that I hope I may use, with a safe
Conscience, which is indeed, sir,  a mender of bad soules.

Julius Caesar I 1

But twenty times so much upon my
A hundred then,
Content

Taming of the Shrew

Nor stonie Tower, nor Walls of beaten Brasse,
Nor ayre-lesse Dungeon, nor strong Linkes of Iron,
Can be retentiue to the strength of spirit:
But Life being wearie of these worldly Barres,
neuer lacks power to dismisse it selfe.
If I know this, know all the World besides,
That part of Tyrannie that I doe beare,
I can shake off at pleasure.

-The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act I

But for supporting Robbers: shall we now,
Contaminate our fingers, with base Bribes?
And sell the mighty space of our large Honors
For so much trash, as may be grasped thus?

-The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act IV

Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson Rose,
And on old Hyems chinne and Icie crowne,
An odorous Chaplet of sweet Sommer buds
Is as in mockry set. The Spring, the Sommer,
The childing Autumne, angry Winter change
Their wonted Liueries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knowes not which is which;
And this same progeny of cuills,
Comes from our debate, from our dissention,
We are their parents and originall.

-Midsommer Night’s Dream

     Mar. By this I thinke the Diall points at fiue:
Anon I’me sure the Duke himselfe in person
Comes this way to the melancholly vale;
The place of depth, and sorrie execution, etc.

  -The Comedy of Errors

 

Finally, we have this example from Ben Jonson's Epigrams, given in Rev. Walter Begley's Bacon's Nova Resuscitatio, VOL. II, p. 170, whose commentary follows the Epigram :

Epigram XXXVII
On Cheveril the Lawyer

NO Cause nor chent fat, will Cheveril leese,
But as they com on both sides he takes fees,
And pleaseth both; for whoe he melts his grease
FoR this; that wins for whom he holds his peace.

Here we may read FRA. BACON by using the capitals at the head of each line of the epigram, and by beginning at the last line and reading upwards. The letter O at the second place of the last line is a null, and therefore non legitur. I hold this to be an evident intentional cipher allusion, and cannot accept the plea that it is mere chance or coincidence. The odds against such an allocation of letters being unintentional are enormous; and besides this, it is clear that a lawyer is meant, and also one who had threatened Jonson with Star Chamber processes for libel, as we see from the other epigram on Cheveril (LIV). Now, Bacon suits both these requisites, and when we find his name written into the epigram as above, it amounts to nearly a certainty that he was the man meant.
I had not noticed this letter cryptogram when I quoted the epigram in Is It Shakespeare?, p. 92, but a contributor to Baconiana tried afterwards to get Bacon’s name in a rather mixed up way from the pure acrostic of the epigram and the first letters of the title “On Cheveril the Lawyer,” and I at once saw FRA. BACON much more clearly from the epigram alone. I hold this and the B. FRA or FRA. B. of “Lucrece” to be unimpeachable.