Errata, Updates and Feedback

Errata to Francis Bacon’s Hidden Hand–Listed

• p. 3. Bacon may not have been the first to use the word hint in its modern meaning, in English, although his use was early; as was “Shakespeare’s.” See fuller discussion, below, 7-13-22.
• p. 13. Under “Spedding References by Volume”: vol 7, The Use of the Law was published in 1629, not 1929 (The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. by James Spedding et al, 14 vols (London, Longmans, 1857-1874).
• p. 43. In fn 4, the reference should be to p. xl, not p. xi, of Brian Vickers, A Critical Edition of the Major Works.
• p. 83. Portia was not speaking to Shylock but to the Prince of Aragon or possibly to Nerissa. See 2-22-22, below.
• p. 123. The date for publication of Gregorio Leti’s Vita di Sixto Quinto (The Life of Sixtus the Fifth), 2d ed., should be 1699, not 1587. For explanation, see below, under “2018” entries.
• p. 138. In fn 2, the Spedding reference should be to Bacon’s De Augmentis in Latin (Spedding 1:582 nn 2, 3), rather than to the English version (Spedding 4:375) See below, 11-12-20.
• p. 166, 171, 173, and 286. Kenneth Pennington’s chapter, “Politics in Western Jurisprudence,” is in vol 8 of Michael Lobban, A TREATISE OF LEGAL PHILOSOPHY AND GENERAL JURISPRUDENCE, edited by Andrea Padovani and Peter G. Stein (Dordrecht: Springer International, 2007).
• p. 168. There should be quotation marks around Rena N. Lauer’s article; thus: “Jewish Law and Litigation in the Secular Courts of the Late Medieval Mediterranean,” Critical Analysis of Law 3, no. 1 (2016), 127.
• p. 174. Lorenzo di Antonio Ridolfi was born in 1362, not 1462. See 10-26-2020, below.
• p. 180. 3rd par.: text should read “Francoise [not Jean] Hotman and Jacob Spiegel’s Lexicon.”
• p. 231. Footnote 1 should be to William F. Friedman, lecture 2, “Six Lectures on Cryptology,” National Cryptologic School, National Security Agency (1965), pp. 15-37, p. 32.
• p. 232. Footnote 1 should be to William Friedman, lecture 2, p. 33. Not to Wm. F. and Elizebeth S. Friedman, The Bacon Shakespeare Ciphers Examined (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1957).
• p. 237. Francis Carr was not a barrister, but a British historian.
• p. 239. As of 8-1-2018, the Lost Plays Database has been part of the Folger Library website. See 5-7-2020, below.
• p. 291. In the bibliography, I meant to include Peter Dawkins, The Wisdom of Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice (Warwickshire: I.C. Media Productions, 1998) and The Shakespeare Enigma (London: Polair, 2004); although, he does not argue authorship so much as explain its significance.
• p. 294. Cushman K. Davis belongs on p. 293, for he did believe “Shakespeare had great legal knowledge.” See 11-7-2021, below.

Errata, Updates and Feedback–Fuller Entries

Page references are to Francis Bacon’s Hidden Hand (“FBHH“), unless otherwise stated or obvious. Newer entries will include their full date of addition (I had not thought of that initially). The first date below will be the date last revised. Some material I previously had up on this page, regarding my research on “hint,” I have included in my paper, “Reports of the Death of the Case for Francis Bacon’s Authorship of Shakespeare Have Been Greatly Exaggerated,” pdf, posted at SirBacon.org, Aug. 3, 2022, pp. 2, 3, 18, https://sirbacon.org/reports-of-the-death-of-the-case-for-francis-bacons-authorship-of-shakespeare-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/.

4-17-24: In my paper, “Challenging the Lie in a Free Society: Even in Shakespeare Authorship Studies” (Nov. 20, 2023, SirBacon.org): on p. 18, I mistakenly referred to George Puttenham as the “title page author” of The Art of English Poesie (1589). In reality, the book–which was anonymously authored–bore no name on the title page. It was printed by Richard Field (publisher of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis), and dedicated “by Richard Field” to Lord Burghley. The name of the aged pensioner Puttenham (an unlikely author) name was not even mentioned in connection with the book until circa 1620 (pub. 1722) by a man named Bolton (see Walter Begley, Bacon’s Nova Resuscitatio, vol 1 (of 3), 1-80, at 2-3, as was recently discussed by “A Phoenix” and “Light-of-Truth” in the SirBacon forums, April 15, 2024). Begley also builds a case that the name “Bodenham” was a pseudonym for Bacon (see chapters 6-9, with a total of 131 references to Bodenham).

1-30-24. 1) In my paper, “Challenging the Lie in a Free Society: Even in Shakespeare Authorship Studies” (Nov. 20, 2023, SirBacon.org): on p. 6, fn 19, the full reference is: Spedding 4:13-22, 15 (Bacon’s preface to his Great Instauration); 2) On p. 15, fn 68, only the first and third references to Bacon (1561-1626) at the History of Parliament website are correct. The second reference was to a different Francis Bacon (1600-63); 3). On p. 27, I stated that Queen Hermione in The Winter’s Tale was accused of bearing a child out of wedlock. More specifically, her husband accused her of bearing a child who was not his child. On pp. 38 and 49, Prof. Helmholz’s lecture before the Selden Society was later published as R. H. Helmholz, “Shakespeare and the European ius commune,” ch 11, in Michael Lobban and Ian Williams, eds., Networks and Connections in Legal History (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

11-24-22. It has recently come to my attention through discussion with “A. Phoenix,” an anonymous independent researcher(s) and featured contributor at SirBacon.org, that an important quotation from Francis Bacon’s “Maxims of the Law” was inadvertently omitted from my book. This is a tragedy! It was in an earlier version of the paper (81 pp.) which SirBacon.org had posted in pdf on its New Page on July 28, 2016, under the name of “Bacon is Bellario with ‘Just Desserts’ For All!” The quotation is from Regula 14 of Francis Bacon’s “Maxims of the Common Laws of England” (1631). It is relevant to the “presence” of Bacon–akin to the “presence” of Bellario in The Merchant of Venice, although he never appears on stage–which I observed in my book, FBHH (p. 17), as did Simon Miles in his foreword to the book (p. 6). I am extremely grateful to A. Phoenix for bringing this to my attention.

In A Phoenix’s recent video, “46 Quotes About Sir Francis Bacon and the Shakespeare Works,” and paper, “Francis Bacon and the Shakespeare Works,” A Phoenix quotes Prof. Jonathan Lamb:

The spectral presence of Bacon permeates the fabric of The Merchant of Venice and apart from
Bassanio several other characters in the play bear a striking resemblance to Bacon. Professor
Lamb voices that not only does ‘Bassanio and Shylock resemble Bacon’, but so too its heroine
‘Portia’s legal, economic, and even religious advantages …may even suggest an association
with one of early modern England’s most famous lawyers, Francis Bacon’ and she ‘works as a
hypothesis-based scientist avant la letter, while other figures bear a striking resemblance to
what would become known as Baconian induction.

Jonathan P. Lamb, Shakespeare In The Marketplace Of Words (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 79. Quoted by A Phoenix in their video on YouTube, “46 Quotes About Sir Francis Bacon and the Shakespeare Works,” Nov. 12, 2022, and paper posted in November, 2022 to Academia.edu, “Francis Bacon and the Shakespeare Works”.

In the July, 2016, pdf, I had written that Mark Edwin Andrews, author of Law versus Equity in The Merchant of Venice: A Legalization of Act IV, Scene 1 (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1965), “offered no concrete explanation for Bacon’s uncanny, unseen “presence” in this play” (p. 7. See Andrews, p. 5, where, in his imaginative rewrite of the play in which he makes Sir Edward Coke the judge, he places Francis Bacon in the role of Bellario; on Bacon, see also 43-45, n. 22). In my book, the wording was, “Andrews seems at a loss to rationally explain Bacon’s strong “presence” within the play” (p. 17). Simon Miles, in his “Foreword” (p. 6), wrote, “She does not need to press the point, because the conclusion is all but unavoidable: the play is Bacon’s, through and through. It is permeated by his presence.” In the 2016 pdf (p. 52, fn 218), I quoted from Regula 14 of Bacon’s “Maxims of the Law”: 

Like law it is, but more doubtful, where there is not a presence, but a kind of representation which is less worthy than a presence, and yet more worthy than a name or reference’ (in explaining that a mistake in age on a portrait of a woman “tendered,” in lieu of the woman herself, in a marriage contract would not invalidate the contract).

Francis Bacon, “Maxims of the Law,” ‘Regula XXIV,’ in Spedding, Works of Francis Bacon VII (London: Longmans ed, 1857-1874), p. 381.

Here is Bacon describing the same sort of phenomenon Miles, Mark Edwin Andrews, and I were observing in The Merchant of Venice, of something less than an actual presence, yet more than nothing.  The opening paragraph of Regula 14 is about degrees of certainty and proof in the law. Presence is more important than name, he says, which is more important than demonstration or reference. Also, as to The Merchant of Venice, look at Regula 12 in Bacon’s “Maxims,” on bonds and duress. Spedding 7:378-379.

From the SirBacon.org “old” “New Page,” July 28, 2016 (archived, old Table of Contents): “Christina G. Waldman has contributed a new essay, Bacon as Bellario with “Just Deserts for All”: An explanation of Mark Edwin Andrews’ Second Argument in “Law v Equity” in “The Merchant of Venice’s Legalization of Act IV, Scene I. ” http://www.sirbacon.org/Bacon-as-Bellario-a-new-Review.pdf.” https://sirbacon.org/2016/07/.

7-13-22 (rev. 4-13-23). This material is informed by discussions with the presumably pseudonymous “Nemo,” a member of the Oxfraud Facebook Group, beginning January 26, 2022 through mid-April, https://www.facebook.com/groups/oxfraud/. To be clear, one ought not claim for certain that either Bacon or Shakespeare made the first recorded use of the word “hint,” in English, in its modern meaning of “to give a cue, clue, helpful suggestion,” as either a noun or verb, as I came close to saying in my book, FBHH (p. 3) and did say in my essay; “If Bacon is Shakespeare, What Questions Does That Answer?”last revised Nov. 27, 2020, p. 4, pdf, https://sirbacon.org/christina-waldman/). When my book was published in 2018, I had not yet consulted the English Corpora of the Early English Books Online (EEBO) database which came online in 2017. However, while the EEBO is an excellent resource shedding new light on when words were first used, it does not contain all sources, only printed books, pamphlets, and broadsides from the 1470’s to the 1690’s. No one resource covers all relevant materials. I am grateful to “Nemo” for bringing the EEBO English Corpora to my attention (see 2-8-22 to 2-22-22, https://www.facebook.com/groups/oxfraud/). One can always go deeper. After further investigation, I have included an interesting “hint” in my later paper, “Reports of the Death of the Case for Francis Bacon’s Authorship of Shakespeare Have Been Greatly Exaggerated,” pdf, posted at SirBacon.org, Aug. 3, 2022, pp. 2, 3, 18, https://sirbacon.org/reports-of-the-death-of-the-case-for-francis-bacons-authorship-of-shakespeare-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/.

As I wrote in my book (p. 3), Jeffrey McQuain and Stanley Malless in their 1998 Coined by Shakespeare claimed that Shakespeare was the first to use the word “hint,” in its modern meaning, as a noun, in Othello. Shakespeare used the word “hint” eight times. (Coined by Shakespeare (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1998), p. 95; c.f., EEBO, s.v. “hint,” 1623). Othello was performed at court as early as Nov. 1604. The first quarto of this play is dated much later, 1622 (see “Dates and Sources,” Royal Shakespeare Company, https://www.rsc.org.uk/othello/past-productions/dates-and-sources). Bacon used the word “hint” in its modern meaning around 1621 in a letter to his good friend Tobie Matthew (Spedding 14:344). The English Corpora does not record that use of “hint,” but it does record a use in Bacon’s posthumously-published Sylva sylvarum (1625), as a heading in Century 8, “Experiment solitary touching the help or hint of wine.” (Spedding 2:339-685, 573). Was he using “hint” to mean “hurt?” The English Corpora lists only thirty-nine uses of the word “hint” in the 1620-1630 decade, including another example where “hurt” makes more sense than “hint”: in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), #9, EEBO,, 1620’s (“they anoint and paint their faces, crush in their feet and bodies, and hint and crucify themselves”). The meaning of the word no doubt has changed over time.

Another interesting word Bacon used is the Latin word sinus. Meanings of sinus include “bending, curve, fold,” “windings” (as of a snake) and “bosom” (not “womb,” although several of Bacon’s translators have translated it that way; the Latin word for “womb” is alvus or uterus). We get the word “insinuate” from sinus. In sinu gaudere is “to rejoice in secret” (Cicero, Cassell’s Latin Dictionary (1968), s.v. sinus). The EEBO English-Corpora shows that “insinuate” dates back to at least 1533 and “insinuative” to the 1630’s; however, Bacon used “insinuative” before that, in The Advancement of Learning, bk 2 (1605), where he championed “insinuative reason” (See Margaret L. Wiley, “Francis Bacon: Induction and/or Rhetoric,” in The Legacy of Francis Bacon, edited by John M. Steadman, Studies in the Literary Imagination, vol 4, no. 1 (April, 1971), 65-80, 70 (citing Spedding 3:383). The EEBO did not list any uses by Bacon of “insinuate.”

Bacon used the Latin sinus in Spedding 1:362 (in English, 4:245) in the Novum Organum (bk 2, aphorism 51) to speak of “things hidden in the folds of nature.” See also De aug., bk 5, ch 2, Spedding 4:420). Bacon used the word “enfolded” when he was talking about his cipher system (see, e.g., The Advancement of Learning, Spedding 3:407). Benjamin Farrington interpreted sinu to mean “bosom” (“secrets still locked in nature’s bosom”) in his translation of the Cogitata et visa (Spedding 3:615). See Benjamin Farrington, “Thoughts and Conclusions on the Interpretation of Nature or A Science of Productive Works,” The Philosophy of Francis Bacon (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1964), 73-102, 96. Did male translators of Bacon prefer to translate sinus as “bosom” or even the erroneous “womb” when he may have meant simply “folds” or “windings?” It is interesting to consider the ramifications of that on his reputation, especially among ecofeminists.

Basil Montagu translated Bacon’s Latin words significans and innuunt as “hint” in Montagu’s translation of the Novum Organum, bk 1, #93 (1620) (Montagu, Works of Francis Bacon, vol 3 of 3-vol. of Philadelphia:A. Hart, late Carey & Hart, 1852), p. 362 (“thus plainly hinting [significans] and suggesting that Fate … would cause the complete circuit of the globe”) and #124, p. 369 (“We … are most anxious to effect the very point they hint at [innuunt] and require. For we are founding a real model of the world ….”). For the Latin, see Spedding 1: 200, 218. More there is not space to go into here. The reader is invited to check out the EEBO data on the word “hint” independently.

2-22-22 (rev. 4-13-23): In FBHH, p. 83, when Portia said, “To offend and judge are distinct offenses/and of opposed natures” (The Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene 9, 1191-92), she was, apparently, speaking to the Prince of Aragon, although perhaps to Nerissa; but not to Shylock. This was also pointed out by “Nemo” in the aforementioned conversations at the Oxfraud Facebook page.

“Nemo” also pointed out in an Oxfraud Facebook page discussion (February, 2022) that Mrs. Henry [Constance] Pott, founder of the Francis Bacon Society, seems to have mistranslated vulpeja as “vulture” instead of “vixen” in the Spanish proverb found in the Promus: El lobo & la vulpeja son todos d’ vna Conseja (FBHH, p. 83). Nemo also referenced the Oxford Francis Bacon (OFB), vol 1, translation of Chi offende, non perdona mai as “He whom you offend never forgives, citing Florio, Giardino di recreatione (“Commentary on PFE, p. 550,” B494, OFB, p. 912, 1057. Alan Stewart, editor of that volume, was unclear whether this was Bacon’s source. See OFB, 875.) I question the OFB translation, for it makes a statement that is not necessarily true, which seems unlikely in a proverb. Christians are taught to forgive. In the Confessionale generale della gran tuba (Venice, 1484), of Michele Carcano, a late fifteenth century Observant Franciscan preacher, we find cioe perdona a chi te offende and prega per chi te offende (“excuse those who insult you” and “pray for those who offend you.” Carcano preached against usury. (Fabrizio Conti, “Preachers and Confessors Against ‘Superstitions,’ The Rosarum Sermonum by Bernardino Busti and its Milanese Context (Late Fifteenth Century),” Ph.D. thesis, Central European University, Department of Medieval Studies, Budapest, Hungary, 2011, p. 67, 27, 31-33 (pdf). Published as “Preachers and confessors against ‘superstitions’. Bernardino Busti and sermon 16 of his Rosarium Sermonum,” Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, 6: 1. 62-91. (See Fabrizio Conti, publicationslist.org, http://publicationslist.org/fabrizio.conti).

In Facebook discussions in March, 2022 (23, 26, et al.), Nemo presented evidence for Nemo’s belief that it was highly unlikely that Elizabeth Wells Gallup deciphered plays using Bacon’s biliteral cipher (regarding appendix 2, “The Tragedy of Anne Boleyn” FBHH, 227-232), https://www.facebook.com/groups/oxfraud/. While cipher arguments are not crucial to a case for Bacon’s authorship of Shakespeare, and I am not a ciphers expert, I remain of the opinion that she did indeed decipher the play, The Tragedy of Anne Boleyn. Bacon was a ciphers expert who could have inserted the cipher she found. It seems more implausible to me that she would have made the whole thing up. She was not a writer of fiction or plays, and yet, a perfectly fine play emerged from her method–which she says is Bacon’s method. (I wrote about this in my book, appendix 4). This method required her to jump from one text to another, taking a line from one, then moving to the next. It is a very far-fetched method of writing a play, to be sure. In Jason Fagone’s book, The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies, he recounts Elizebeth Friedman’s remembrance, at age eighty-four, in an interview with a representative of the National Security Administration named Valaki, of what Elizabeth Wells Gallup told her/taught her about Gallup’s method of deciphering using Bacon’s cipher. As I understand Nemo’s argument, it is that the method Gallup claimed to have used could not have worked because it would have required entirely too much control over the printing process by an author. It may seem far-fetched, but I still think it could have happened. At any rate, William and his wife Elizebeth Friedman got their start in cryptography at Colonel Fabyan’s Riverbanks Lab at Geneva, Illinois, learning from Elizabeth Wells Gallup who was attempting to employ Bacon’s biliteral cipher which William Friedman went on to study for years when he was employed by the National Security Administration. Without question, the Friedmans are American WWII heroes. They also, however, may have had a reason for deflecting attention away from Bacon’s cipher. At any rate, ciphers arguments are not essential to making a plausible case that Bacon was involved in Shakespeare authorship.

11-7-2021. Prof. Andrea Padovani kindly pointed out, in a prior email, that, when I wrote, in my paper, “Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, and Tortured Secrets: Violence, Violins, and–One Day–Vindication?” http://sirbacon.org/waldman/Waldman Violence Violins Vindication final 5-21-21.pdf, that “the discipline of science did not yet exist” during Bacon’s lifetime, I was incorrect, for “the notion of science was developed and deepened from the second half of the 13th century, after the rediscovery of Aristotle’s Analitica. A work that Bacon and his contemporaries certainly knew,” as Prof. Padovani wrote to me. Also, as to the origin of the word violin, Prof. Padovani observes that some experts, including a famous Italian linguist, Salvatore Battaglia, believe the word violin derived from the French/Provencal word viola, independently of the Latin vitula or violentia.

Furthermore, Prof. Padovani pointed out that Augustin’s De haeresibus and his medieval interpreters, and also canonists, are authority for the point that the Jews were not considered heretics, as I said on p. 25 of “Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, and Tortured Secrets.” Prof. Padovani also points out that bassanos is not a Latin word, but a Greek one, meaning examination, investigation, touchstone, and, in a secondary sense, torture (re my p. 25). I am very grateful to Prof. Padovani, Professor Emeritus of History of Medieval and Modern Law, University of Bologna; and Professor of History of Canon Law, Saint Pius X Institute of Canon Law, for taking the time to read my paper and comment on it. I will surely incorporate all of his comments into my revision of the paper for any future publication.

I am considering revising my theories on who several of the characters in The Merchant of Venice could have represented or “stood for” in a hidden symbolism, but I won’t go into that here. In a sense, Bellario might stand for Bacon, as Mark Edwin Andrews seemed to suggest in his 1965 book, Law versus Equity in The Merchant of Venice: A Legalization of Act IV, Scene 1 (Boulder: U. of Colorado Press, 1965). But, his drawing of a connection between Bacon and Bellario was primarily based on the fact that in 1616 Bacon played, in real life, a role as advisor to King James similar to the one that Bellario played as advisor to the Duke in the play, twenty years after the play is thought to have been written. In my opinion, Bellario acts as a catalyst, directing the play’s action from behind the scenes. Perhaps that was often Bacon’s way of operating in his real-life roles as a statesman and lawyer. Bacon referred to himself as the “bell-ringer who calls all the wits together.” It is a play. A character can be a composite. There always seems to be another level to explore in that play. Hidden meanings would have helped to protect playwrights from the censors (See, e.g., Claire Asquith, Shadowplay (New York: Public Affairs, 2005), xiii-xvii).

In another matter: to be clear, Mark Edwin Andrews was neither an “Orthodox Shakespeare scholar” nor an “American lawyer” in the usual sense when he wrote his book, as is sometimes stated. He wrote Law versus Equity in 1935 when he was a law student at the University of North Texas, taking a summer Shakespeare course at the University of Colorado from a Shakespeare scholar, Prof. Duncan Spaeth of Princeton. After he graduated, he worked as a law instructor, an “industrialist,” and was Assistant Secretary to the Navy under President Truman for three years. Law versus Equity was praised by United States Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone (Andrews, ix).

In yet another matter, the bibliography to FBHH, Minnesota stateman Cushman K. Davis is wrongly listed under those who did not believe Shakespeare had great legal knowledge (294). Quite the opposite is true. About the law in Shakespeare, he wrote, “The abstrusest elements of the common law are impressed into a disciplined service with every evidence of the right and knowledge of commanding. Over and over again, where such knowledge is unexampled in writers unlearned in the law, Shakespeare appears in perfect possession of it ….” Cushman K. Davis, The Law in Shakespeare, 4 (St. Paul: West, 1884).

11-12-2020 (1) On p. 138, n 2 of FBHH, “footnotes 2 and 3” should refer to the Latin volume of Bacon’s De Augmentis (Spedding I, 582 nn 2, 3), rather than the English volume (Spedding IV, 375); (2) On page 180, the text should say “Francois Hotman,” not “Jean”; (3) On page 113, at fn 7, add a cross-ref to page 43, fn 3 (on Jean Hotman); (4) On page 43, fn 4, the page number reference should be “xl,” not “xi” (to Brian Vickers, A Critical Edition of the Major Works); (5) On page 168, there should be quotation marks around Rena N. Lauer’s article; thus: “Jewish Law and Litigation in the Secular Courts of the Late Medieval Mediterranean,” Critical Analysis of Law 3, no. 1 (2016), p. 127.

10-26-2020 On p. 174, the dates for Lorenzo di Antonio Ridolfi, Florentine lay canonist, should be 1362–1442/43. Not 1462.

5-7-2020 update. On p. 239, fn. 1 of FBHH, the link to David McInnes, University of Melbourne professor’s “Lost Plays Database” has changed. The site is now part of The Folger Shakespeare Library. The new page was “last modified 01 August, 2018,” https://lostplays.folger.edu/Play_of_Thieves_and_a_Gullible_Tapster. (I have created a blog post, “Fragment of I Henry IV–Found in Binder’s Waste,” 5-14-2020.)

5-7-20: update. Regarding the discussion of Launcelot Gobbo’s “trying confusions” with his father in Act II, Scene 2 (FBHH, p. 152, fns. 2 and 3) and confusio in the Ordo Bambergensis, as discussed in Bruce Brasington’s Order in the Court, ch. 5 (p. 236): a modern case in which the “doctrine of confusion” (where one is both debtor and creditor) is demonstrated is an insurance case, Lloyd’s Syndicate 457 v. Floatec LLC 388 F.Supp.3d 835 (S.D. Texas, 2019) (holding that the doctrine of confusion did not extinguish the insurer’s subrogation claim).

5-2020: Belmonte: more information: There are two more interesting places named Belmonte: the Belmonte Castle in Spain, in La Mancha (hence a Don Quixote connection), “Don Quixote Experience: Windmills, Belmonte Castle, and Local Gasronomy,” Lonely Planet, https://www.lonelyplanet.com/spain/belmonte/activities/don-quixote-experience-windmills-belmonte-castle-and-local-gastronomy/a/pa-act/v-2140P195/1321550; and Belmonte in Portugal, thirty miles from the border with Spain, home of a community of crypto-Jews which remained in hiding for five hundred years! “The Incredible Story of the Jewish People: Jews and Marranos’ Belmonte,” Jewish Wikipedia.Info, http://www.jewishwikipedia.info/belmonte.html.

2018: To clarify, in appendix IV, on p. 241, where “Bacon tells us in his elegy to her that she read St. Augustine,” “to her” refers to Queen Elizabeth, not to Queen Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream! (although one may suggest the other).

2018: On pp. 231, fn. 1 should read: William F. Friedman, lecture 2, “Six Lectures on Cryptology,” National Cryptologic School, National Security Agency (1965), pp. 15-37, p. 32. https://www.nsa.gov/new-features/declassified-documents/friedman-documents/assets/files/publications/ACC15281/41785109082412.pdf. Similarly, on page 232, fn. 1 should read: William Friedman, lecture 2, p. 33 (rather than citing to the Friedmans’ book).

2018: On p. 237, the late Francis Carr was not a barrister. He did, however, direct the Shakespeare Authorship Information Centre in Brighton, UK for many years. He wrote Who Wrote Don Quixote? (Xlibris, 2004) and “The Writer’s Finger Prints, Francis Carr explores the legal link between Quixote and Shakespeare,” excerpted from the New Law Journal, Jan. 31, 1997 (see bibliography, Francis Bacon’s Hidden Hand, p. 290).

2018: On p. 13, in “Spedding References Herein, by Volume,” under vol. VII, The Use of the Law was first published in 1629, not 1929. You probably didn’t fall for that one!

(undated): On p. 123, in the first line, the date for publication, should be 1699 (2d edition), not 1587, for Gregorio Leti’s Vita di Sixto Quinto (The Life of Sixtus the Fifth (Thanks to Jeff Hockenheimer, author of Shakespeare Movies (and what I think of them) (2019), https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1334278/ for pointing out this error which is seen, if I am not mistaken, in several sources. I took the date from Hermann Sinsheimer, Shylock: The History of a Character (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1947), pp. 74-75). Leti (1630-1701) was not alive in 1587. Leti tells of a case before the papal court which –I hope I have this right now–he says occurred in Venice, 1587. It involved a dispute between a Jew and a Christian who had bet a “pound of flesh” on whether or not Sir Francis Drake had taken the city of Santa Domingo, Haiti, in 1585 (It seems Drake took the city in 1586).

Joseph Jacobs provides details in “Shylock,” Jewish Encyclopedia (1906, online version 2002), http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13624-shylock. Sinsheimer was a Jewish refugee, writing in England. At her author’s blog, Claire Gebben noted two books about Sinsheimer in German: a publication of his letters from England to a friend back in Germany (Freinsheim) and a 2013 first release of his 1953 autobiography in its original, uncensored text, Gelebt im Paradies (“Lived in Paradise,” published by Deborah Vietor-Englander). For more information, see Claire Gebben, “Hermann Sinsheimer,” December 29, 2013, http://clairegebben.com/2013/12/29/hermann-sinsheimer/.

Pope Sixtus V’s cruelty during the Inquisition was well-known, but Leti was trying to write an entertaining book. He was not considered a reliable historian by his eighteenth century translator, Ellis Farnesworth, though Edward Gibbon cited sources that found his account of Sixtus’s life true enough (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol 6, 411, n 95). There are often changes when a story gets retold. For example, Sinsheimer calls the Jewish merchant “Simpson,” whereas Leti calls him “Sampson.” The story is online, at Gregorio Leti, Vita di Sixto Quinto, translated by Ellis Farneworth (Dublin, 1766. First pub. 1754) (pp. 401-404), HathiTrust, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435005132972.

(undated): Portia’s Ring: On page 29 of FBHH, I discussed the ethics of Portia’s accepting remuneration for her services. I discussed how Lord Normand in a speech stated that Portia’s accepting the ring from Bassanio after the matter had concluded did not constitute a judge taking a bribe, based on Bacon’s explication of sixteenth-century English law in notes for his conference with King James. Under medieval civil law, say, the analysis would be different. An advocate or jurist who had rendered services should be paid. So Azo and St. Augustine had argued, in contrast to the ancient view that only an honorarium was allowed. (John W. Cairns and Paul J du Plessis, eds., The Ius Commune: From Casus to Regula (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), p. 279; see also Kenneth Pennington, 4.4, “Politics in Western Jurisprudence,” in A History of the Philosophy of Law in The Common Law World, 1600-1900, in Michael Lobban, A TREATISE OF LEGAL PHILOSOPHY AND GENERAL JURISPRUDENCE 8, edited by Andrea Padovani and Peter G. Stein (Dordrecht: Springer International, 2007), pp. 157-211, 191; Kennedy v. Broun (barrister’s fees), 1862-63, Court of Common Pleas, The Jurist-Reports, new series, vol. 9, part 1 (London: H. Sweet, 1864), pp. 119-132, 123-24 (13 C.B. (N.S.) 677, 143 E.R. 268). Arguably, the ring was intended as an honorarium. Nevertheless, regardless of whether or not the ring transaction, as well as other behaviors of Portia, pass ethical muster under medieval or modern Italian civil law, they make for a madcap legal hypothetical.

–On pp. 166, 171, 173, and 286 of FBHH, the footnote references to Kenneth Pennington’s chapter 4 should be to vol. 8, not 7, of A TREATISE OF LEGAL PHILOSOPHY AND GENERAL JURISPRUDENCE.

(undated): Jean Hotman: More information: On p. 43, I was writing about Jean Hotman (1552-1636), son of civilian law professor/Reformation theologian Francois Hotman and himself a juris doctor. It is thought that Jean tutored Francis Bacon when he was attached to the English embassy of Sir Amias Paulet in France, from 1576-1579. Bacon resided in Paulet’s household until January, 1578 when he moved into the household of “a[n unnamed] civilian whose private conference shall stand him in great stead.” (Letter of Amias Paulet to Nicholas Bacon, 24 January 1578. Bodleian Library. Add. MS C.82, fos7b-8a, fn. 3 to Peter Dawkins, “The Bacon Brothers and France,” Francis Bacon Research Trust, 6th par., https://www.fbrt.org.uk/pages/essays/Bacon_Brothers_and_France.pdf); Bacon-Shakespeare Timeline (p. 2 of 14)). It has been inferred that this civilian was Jean Hotman. Bacon was summoned to return to England on February 20, 1579 when his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, died. It was in 1579 that Hotman moved into Sir Amias’s household and became a tutor to Sir Amias’s two sons. When Sir Amias returned to Oxford in 1580, Hotman came with him in his role as tutor. Additional sources: “Bacon, Sir Francis (1561-1626),” History of Parliament, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/bacon-sir-francis-1561-1626 (1964-2019); Will Johnson, professional genealogist, “Jean Hotman,” county historian, https://sites.google.com/site/countyhistorian/jean-hotman (2010). Why was Sir Amias so secretive? Because the young Bacon had a special status? Perhaps the unnamed civilian was not Paulet but someone else entirely. I wonder if this move in January, 1578 was not when Francis Bacon was taught by Beza in Geneva.

(undated): Bibliography: On p. 291, Peter Dawkins, The Wisdom of Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice (Warwickshire: I.C. Media Productions, 1998) and The Shakespeare Enigma (London: Polair, 2004) should have been included in the bibliography. My apologies.

(undated): Balthasar: more information: I have found another famous individual named “Balthasar.” Baltasar Gracian was a Spanish Jesuit writer born in Belmonte (1601-1658), in Aragon, Spain. This was after the The Merchant of Venice is thought to have been written (1594-96), but it’s an interesting coincidence. Gracian’s master work is The Art of Wordly Wisdom, translated by Joseph Jacobs, 1892, https://sacred-texts.com/eso/aww/aww04.htm. As you may recall, Merchant contains Spanish proverbs which Bacon had recorded in his Promus notebook.

(undated): more information: Regarding my theory that Bassanio is associated with death (FBHH,159) and also with the lead casket in Merchant, Barry R. Clarke (author of Francis Bacon’s Contribution to Shakespeare: A New Attribution Method (London: Routledge, 2019)), provides a parallel between Shakespeare and Bacon’s Promus where he wrote down proverbs, elegant expressions, etc. he wanted to remember so he could use them in his writings. Here it is:

“You leere vpon me, do you? There’s an eie / Wounds like a leaden sword” (Love’s Labour’s Lost 5.2.481).

“Plumbeo jugulare gladio [to kill with a leaden sword]” Francis Bacon’s Promus wastebook (1592-4).

A search for “leaden sword” at http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org brings up Julius Caesar III, 1:1394, Brutus: “To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony.” A search for “lead sword” brings up ten more uses of these two words within reasonably close proximity to each other (as well as “plead” and “lead” as in “leading”). They are interesting to compare. Peter Dawkins writes about lead as a metal representing the lowest level in a purification process, in alchemy and, thus, symbolically, in The Wisdom of Shakespeare in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ (Warwickshire, UK: I.C. Media Productions, 1998; now on Kindle as well), pp. 83, 95, 108.

(updated 12-9-22).