Notes. Though it assumes the form of an epitaph, this poem was written during Bacon’s life. An unpublished section of Sir Simonds D’Ewes’s Autobiography records that a more pointed variant (“Within this sty a hog doth ly,/ That must be hang’d for sodomy”) was left on a sheet of paper within Bacon’s residence, York House (BL Add. MS 47128, fol 63r; BL MS Harley 646, fol. 59r-v).

“Upon Sir F. Ba.”

Within this sty heer now doth ly

A hog wel fed with bribery

A pig, a hog, a boare, a bacon

Whom God hath left, and the Divel taken

Source. Folger MS V.a.345, p. 25

Other known sources. Bodleian MS Douce f.5, fol. 16r

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