Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/18

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. ix. JAN. 3,

imagery and even the actual words of his Epitaph ; because we find inscribed upon that pyramid " Holy - RELIQUE," with the meaning of literary works, the " DIVINE pure Beauties of the Minde." All writers are agreed that ' Paradise Lost ' shows that Milton was much indebted to " Joshua Sylvester's Translation of Du Bartas His Divine Weekes and Workes," first published in 1605. In this book (with which it appears to have no possible connexion), upon page B 2, we find a pyramid, a beacon, a Bacon, surmounted by a pheon (an en- grailed broad arrow), which are the arms of Sir Philip Sidney. Below this, upon the pyramid itself, is Bacon's crest, the " wild- boar," in the proper heraldic attitude, but having round its neck a cord with a slip- knot, to show that it is a " hanged-hog " (i a Bacon," as Mrs. Quickly tells on the first page 53 in the 1623 Folio of the plays, and as Bacon himself tells us in the thirty-sixth of his ' Apophthegms,' first printed in 1671). This particular " hanged- Jiog " is, however, clothed in a porcupine's skin. (Sidney's crest is a porcupine.) Then, beneath, we find the following verses, which are printed so as to form part of the outline of the pyramid :

ENGLAND'S Apelles (rather OUR APOLLO) WORLD'S- wonder SIDNEY, that rare more-than-

man,

This LOVELY VRNUS first to LIMXE beganne, With such a PENCILI* as no PENNE dares follow : How then shold I, in Wit and Art so shallow, Attempt the Task which yet none other can ? Far be the thought that mine unlearned hand His heavenly Labour shold so much unhallow, Yet least (that Holy RELTQUE being shrin'd In some High - Place, close lockt from common

light)

My Country-men should bee debar'd the sight Of these DIVINE pure Beauties of the Minde : Not daring meddle with APELLES TABLE : This have I muddled as my MUSE was able.

To the " uninformed " (who must per- force wonder how and why this page came to be inserted into Sylvester's translation, with whi o ,h it has no possible connexion) these verses seem to be a splendid panegyric addressed to Sidney, whose name appears in the centre in very large capital letters. Why, then, does the " hanged-hog " sur- mount the whole ? The poem, however, commences with " England's Apelles," and " Apelles " means " without a skin." We must, therefore, skin off Sidney's arms, the pheon, and lo ! a beacon, a Bacon, stands revealed. And we must skin off the porcu- pine's quills from the " hanged-hog," and lo ! again we get Bacon clearly revealed. We are therefore told that Bacon wrote

under the skin, the garment, the weed, the disguise, the mask of Sir Philip Sidney a fact which is also clearly revealed by other books in my library). And we per- ceive that the whole is a grand panegyric r not upon Sidney, but upon Bacon, who i "Our Apollo," "World's -wonder," the " more - than - man." Bacon's contempo- raries spoke of him as being, as it were, " a direct ray of light from Heaven." And Thomas Randolph, in a Latin poem pub- lished in 1640, says that Phoebus (Apollo) was accessory to Bacon's death, as he was afraid lest Bacon should some day come to be crowned King of Poetry or the Muses. George Herbert also calls Bacon the col- league of Sol (Phoebus Apollo) ; while in which was published anonymously in 1645,. Bacon is placed next to Apollo as " Chan- cellor of Parnassus."
 * The Great Assises Holden in Parnassus/

But I must not further describe the mar- vellous revelations of this page B 2, excepting only to point to the fact that we find " Holy- RELIQUE " used with the same meaning as in Milton's Epitaph, which is, indeed, founded upon this page B 2, and upon the opening lines of * Love's Labour 's Lost/ which show so clearly that the mighty author was fully aware of the almost superhuman value and importance of his writings, for he says :

Let Fame that all hunt after in their lives Live registred upon our brazen Tombes, And then grace us in the disgrace of death : When spight of cormorant devouring Time, Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy That honour which shall bate his sythes keene edge. And make us heyres of all eternitie.

We must remember that, although " the Householder of Stratford " died in 1616, the real author, " Bacon," was alive in 1623, and therefore no Epitaph appeared in the First Folio of the plays. Bacon, how- ever, died in 1626, and accordingly his Epitaph appeared in the Second Folio (1632), with Milton's marvellously clear revelation that he was " Shakespeare."

EDWIN DURNING-LAWRENCE.

[It would be interesting to know how the word "Apelles" comes to mean " without a skin." To- what language does this etymology refer it ?1

THROP'S WIFE (11 S. viii. 468). In Northern vernacular thrang is generally used as the synonym for " busy." Examples will be found in the English Dialect Society's series of glossaries, ' Northumberland Words/ 1893-4, p. 729, s.v. 'Thrang/ and in the ' E.D.D./ s.v. ' Throng.' At the former