Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/371

 9 th S. X. Nov. 8, 1902.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

363

Now we come to something interest- ing, which proves how sadly Baconians are neglecting their real work in the vain and ridiculous attempt to foist the work of Shakespeare on Bacon. The entry in the 'Promus,' from a Baconian point of view, and from the scholar's point of view as well, is simply invaluable, for it decisively proves one of the so-called "spurious" 'Apoph- thegms ' to be genuine. I cfculd prove that several others are genuine, but must content myself with the one that is related to the saying of Sir Thomas More. Look closely at the ' Promus ' entry once more, and see how it is exactly repeated in the following :

"The Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was asked his opinion by my Lord of Leicester con- cerning two persons whom the queen seemed to think well of: 'By my troth, my lord,' said he, ' the one is a grave counsellor, the other is a, proper young man ; and so he will be as long as he lives.' '

Hence the entry in the 'Promus' proves the genuineness of the 'Apophthegm,' and the similarity in the sayings shows plainly that the saying of Sir Thomas More was known to Bacon's father as well as to himself. We may also conclude that neither of the sayings was a stranger to Ben Jonson.

Another of Bacon's ' Apophthegms ' is the following :

"Many men, especially such as affect gravity, have a manner after other men's speech to shake their heads. Sir Lionel Cranfield would say, ' It was as men shake a bottle, to see if there was any wit in it or no.' "

Bacon does not wish us to infer that the saying was original to Sir Lionel Cranfield, any more than he meant us to believe that Mr. Bettenham's saying that money, like muck, is best spread abroad, was a new one, or belonged to Mr. Bettenham. But, never- theless, it may be taken for granted that if either Mrs. Pott or Dr. Theobald could find Shakespeare guilty of writing what follows, we should be inundated with sermons on the subject, and be told that the saying is unique.

In ' Every Man in his Humour,' Act IV. sc. i., Master Mathew, a would-be poet, quotes as his own some lines of ' Hero and Leander,' when the following dialogue ensues :

Wellbred. How like you that ?

[Master Stephen shakes his head.

E. KndweM. 'Slight, he shakes his head like a bottle, to feel an there be any brain in it. Tradition states that Shakespeare acted the part of the Elder Knowell, who so finely illus- trates Sir Lionel Cranfield's saying.. Hence we have Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Bacon together ; for has not Dr. Theo- bald, who knows Marlowe's work so well, told us that it was written by Bacon ?

Sir Lionel Cranfield's saying was much liked by Ben Jonson, who could not help using it twice in this play, and elsewhere. Take another case of its use, which occurs in the Induction to ' Cynthia's Revels ':

2nd Child. A fifth only shakes his bottle head, and out of his corky brain squeezeth out a pitiful learned face and is silent.

By way of contrast, I will now take one of Dr. Theobald's parallels and show what it is worth. It is one of those posers that are so difficult to answer, and great store is put by it.

In the 'De Augmentis,' book iv. chap, i., Bacon mentions the case of Anaxarchus, "who, when put to the torture, bit off his tongue and spit it in the tyrant's face." The' passage is compared with Shakespeare :

Baling. Ere my tongue

Shall wound mine honour with such feeble wrong, Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear The slavish motive of recanting fear, And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace, Where shame doth heff-bour, even in Mowbray's face. ' Richard II.,' I. i. 190-95.

Dr. Theobald traces the story to Diogenes Laertius, but says that Bacon's version is taken from Pliny or Valerius Maximus. Note the thunder-like percussion of these names, and tremble, ye Shakespeareans ! Yet, as by a kind of antiperistasis, they only bring comfort to the true believer, the simple, but wholehearted Baconian; and they are as potent to him for good as was the old lady's "Mesopotamia" to her, with " Manka revania dulcne," and " Oscorbi dulchos volivorco " into the bargain.

" It is not very likely," says Dr. Theobald,

" that William,. Shakespeare had read any of the classic authors from which this story might be derived. We cannot suppose that Pliny, Valerius Maximus, or Diogenes Laertius were school-books at Stratford-on-Avon. If Bolingbroke's defiance had taken the form

[List, O list to the Muse !]

I'll bite my tongue out, ere I use it thus, it might have been regarded as a casual coinci- dence. But when he also threatens to spit it in the face of his enemy, we cannot explain it by a clause in the chapter of accidents."

Of course not ; the proof that Bacon and Shakespeare are one, and that the story in both was derived from the same source, is as clear as mud. But let us turn to John .Lyly once again :

" Zeno bicause hee would not be enforced against his will by torments, bit off his tongue and spit it in the face of the tyrant." ' Euphues,' Arber, p. 146.

C. CRAWFORD.

53, Hampden Road, Hornsey, N. (To be, continued.)