Left: ABBEY SECRET.—In Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, scaffolding soars nearly to the peak of the Gothic vaulting, and on the floor is a litter of boards and tarpaulins as if for a new-dug grave. That represents the crown of a 15year-long effort by the Baconian Society, who hope by opening the 340-year-old tomb of Edmund Spenser finally to prove that William Shakespeare was only the pen-name of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam. It is recalled that when Spenser died all the major poets of London wrote elegiac poems, farewell verses, and cast them and the quills with which they were written into the grave. It is hoped that when the grave is opened these poems will be found. If this is so the searchers hope to find a poem by Shakespeare among them. The signature on this will then be compared with the known manuscript of Bacon. If they tally the theory that the Shakespeare who wrote the plays, and Bacon, the great prose writer, were one and the same person will have received strong confirmation.
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Bibliographic details
Evening Star, Issue 23123, 24 November 1938, Page 7
Word Count
175Left: ABBEY SECRET.—In Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, scaffolding soars nearly to the peak of the Gothic vaulting, and on the floor is a litter of boards and tarpaulins as if for a new-dug grave. That represents the crown of a 15year-long effort by the Baconian Society, who hope by opening the 340-year-old tomb of Edmund Spenser finally to prove that William Shakespeare was only the pen-name of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam. It is recalled that when Spenser died all the major poets of London wrote elegiac poems, farewell verses, and cast them and the quills with which they were written into the grave. It is hoped that when the grave is opened these poems will be found. If this is so the searchers hope to find a poem by Shakespeare among them. The signature on this will then be compared with the known manuscript of Bacon. If they tally the theory that the Shakespeare who wrote the plays, and Bacon, the great prose writer, were one and the same person will have received strong confirmation. Evening Star, Issue 23123, 24 November 1938, Page 7
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