with Italy, and that he hoped to attain his object, asked the king: Well, Sire, and what will you do then? What shall I do then, answered Pyrrhus, I shall then attack Sicily: And then? Cineas continued. Then, added the king, if the Gods favour my enterprise, I shall conquer Carthage and the whole of Africa. Then, when all that has turned out successfully, I shall enjoy the delights of peace, sacrifice to the Gods, and make merry with my friends. Alas, Sire, concluded Cineas, live happy, for you can do all that now, without going to all that trouble and pains.)

A single glance at the original English wording of the anecdote will suffice to tell us that this is no mere translation. It is not the work of a man who has set himself the task of, or who is paid for, translating from one language into the other. It is independent work, a perfectly new wording of the short story. Parts of the address have been suppressed, whereas the words "vivez content," in the closing speech of Cineas, is a perfectly new addition, inserted solely for the sake of rhyme. In the opening lines a few rhymes are heard, such as "faire la guerre,' " "venir-Sir'," but from the second third of the poem, the delight in rhyming visibly increases in all its drollery. If we were to give a line to each rhyme, we should obtain an endless set of verses; we prefer to write the poem in long lines indicating the greater part of the rhymes as internal rhymes :

Et ensuite de cela? continua Cynée.

Alors, adjousta le Roy, si les Dieux favorisent mon

entreprise,

i'espere de conquerir Carthage & toute l'Afrique :

Puis toutes les choses estant si heureusement terminées, ie gousteray les delices du repos, & feray des sacrifices aux Dieux, me resiouyssant auec mes amis.

Helas! Sire, conclud Cynée, vivez content;

car vous pouvez faire cela maintenant,

sans vous donner tant de peine.

Instead of "peine" Bacon may possibly have employed the word "bruit " as a final rhyme to "Amis " and “Puis.” The meaning is and remains: “Much Ado About Nothing," "Viel Lärm um Nichts," Beaucoup de Bruit, peu de Fruit."

The following witty, charmingly rhymed little anecdote (which, by the bye, is more profusely rhymed in French than in English) is of a youth who resembled the Emperor Augustus. Bacon probably told it oftener in French than English :

Auguste ayant sceu qu'il y auoit dans Rome vn ieune homme qui luy ressembloit grandement, commanda qu'on le fist venir: & apres l'auoir bien regardé, Parlez mon Amy, luy dit-il, vostre mere n'est-elle iamais venue à Rome? Nenny, respondit le ieune homme, mais mon pere y a bien esté quelquesfois.

(Augustus, having heard that there was a youth in Rome who bore a striking likeness to himself, had the young man brought before him. After scrutinising him for some time, he said: Tell me, my friend, has your mother never been in Rome ? No, answered the youth, but my father was there several times.)

The youth retaliated very smartly, and paid the Emperor in his own coin for the suspicion cast upon his mother. A perfect volley of rhymes is discharged the moment the words of Augustus begin:

Parlez mon Amy,

luy dit-il, vostre mere

n'est elle iamais venue à Rome ?

Nenny,
respondit

le ieune homme,

mais mon pere

y a

bien este quelquesfois.

But it is not our intention to offer a complete edition of Bacon's English and French rhymed witticisms. From the many at our disposal we shall select one more to conclude with :

Caton estant desia vieil, & sa femme morte, s'aduisa d'en espouser vne ieune. Son fils le visita quelque temps apres, & luy dit, Quoy? mon pere, vous ay-ie faict quelque offense, qui vous ait obligé a mettre vne marastre dans la maison? Nenny, respondit Caton, au contraire, ie vous ay tousiours treuué tellement à mon gré, qu'à l'aduenir ie seray bien aise d'engendrer beaucoup d'enfans telle que vous.

(Cato had grown old, and when his wife died, he made up his mind to marry a young woman. Shortly afterwards, his son called upon him, and said: How now, father, have I ever offended or hurt you, that you should have cause to bring a step-mother into the house? Not in the least, replied Cato, on the contrary, I have ever found you so to my taste, that I should be glad in future to engender more children like you.)

From the word "maison," i.e., the moment the witty answer of the aged man is taken up, one rhyme follows close upon the other :

. . vne marastre dans la maison ?

Nenny,
respondit

Caton,

au contraire, ie vous ay

tousiours treuué

tellement à mon gré,

qu'à l'aduenir ie seray
bien aise d'engendrer
beaucoup

d'enfans telle que vous.

The ear detects all the rhymes, however they may be printed. But, for the eye, an arrangement of the verses in the following manner were perhaps to be preferred: .:. vne marastre dans la maison ?

Nenny, respondit Caton,

au contraire, ie vous ay tousiours treuué
tellement a mon gré,

qu'à l'aduenir ie seray bien aise d'engendrer beaucoup
d'enfans telle que vous.

Does it seem credible that these wanton merry anecdote-rhymes, just as delightfully funny in French as they are in English, should have emanated from the same mind as the serious rhymes in the psalms, as the deeply melancholy poem, "The world's a bubble?" And yet it is so; for both books bear the same author's name, " "Francis Bacon," and both books were published in the same month and in the same town.

If the English of to-day, more especially if the philological world, knew nothing more of these concealed rhymes, I apologise if I should have offended anybody through my German ear having re-detected those rhymes. They are there, nobody can deny that fact any longer. And that they were also heard by Bacon's contemporaries is proved by Rawley's words, "Et quod tentabat scribere, Versus erat." In the course of time, so much becomes forgotten, so much is overheard, which was once known and heard. And those that still read Bacon, and not only of him, or only extracts from his works and translations, are, relatively speaking, few and far between. Not only his concealed verse, Bacon himself wants re-discovering to the world.

All that we have so far dwelt upon is merely a prelude to that which the Essays are to reveal to us.

IX

FRANCIS BACON'S ESSAY-RHYMES, AND THE

TRUTHS THEY REVEAL

To "The Translation of Certain Psalms" and the "Apophthegmes," published at Christmas 1624, a third, and the most important work, was added somewhere about Easter 1625, namely, the new edition of the "Essays." There are various reasons which justify that work being referred to in the superlative. In the first place, it was the most voluminous work of the three, and treated of the profoundest matter. In the second place, it was the last work which Bacon himself caused to be printed. In the third place, it contained still more "concealed" rhymes than the anecdotes, and such as reveal most clearly the "concealed" authorship of the Shakespeare Plays.

When the Essays were first published, in 1597, they appeared in the form of a small volume containing no