Notes. This poem on Bacon is unusual in its focus on his alleged homosexual relationship with his servant(s). To “go behind” becomes a combined allusion to bribery and sodomy. In the only known version of the poem, it is presented as the beginning of “Great Verulam is very lame the gout of go-out feeling”; however, since the latter poem is otherwise relatively stable, and widely circulated, the following lines are best considered as a discrete text.

Why shoulde poore chauncelour be condemned by a cry

Who tooke from few yett gave to many

He strove to make his Lady1 rich we finde

He lov’d her well but alas he went behinde

God knowes he husband’ not his store2

He should have done his youth less: his Lady more

But now’s the time all freely speake theire minde

Thy judgments are he wente too much behinde.

Source. Bodleian MS Eng. Poet. f.10, fol. 96r

Mii4

¹   his Lady: i.e. his wife, Lady Alice Bacon. <back>

²   God knowes...store: presumably a reference to the fact that Bacon had no children <back>