Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/472

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. x. DEC. 13, 1902.

" The force of an agent is augmented by the antiperistasis of the counteracting body, is a rule in civil states as in nature, for all faction is vehemently moved and incensed at the rising of a contrary faction."' De Aug..' book iii. chap. i. And he makes this note in the ' Promus ' :

"In circuitu ambulant impii honest by anti- peristasis."

Many passages from his work could be quoted to show that Bacon's notion of antiperistasis is quite different from the notion that can be extracted from the follow- ing, which Mrs. Pott, perhaps jokingly, cites from Shakespeare :

I '11 devise some honest slanders.

'Much Ado,' III. i.

Its fery honest knaveries.

' Merry Wives,' IV. iv.

Such parallels are enough to raise spleen in the host of angels. Let us try Ben Jonson :

Mer. Jove forbid I hinder thee ; Marry, all that I fear is Cynthia's presence, which, with the cold of her chastity, casteth such an antiperistasis about the place, that no heat of thine will tarry with the patient.

Cup. It will tarry the rather, for the antiperistasis will keep it in.

' Cynthia's Revels,' Act V. sc. iii.

Under entry No. 1443 Bacon notes in the Latin the saying of Horace that fools whilst avoiding faults fall into the opposite extremes. The same saying is quoted by Jonson :

Cor. This is right to that of Horace, Dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currunt ; so this gallant, labouring to avoid popularity, falls into a habit of affectation, ten thousand times hatefuller than the former.

' Every Man out of his Humour,' Act II. sc. i.

'The Poetaster' is a play which ought to bring joy to the ardent, if not discerning Baconian, for it is full of matter which has a direct relation to Bacon's ' Promus ' ; and, singularly enough, it can be made to cast quite a glowing colour of approval over Dr. Theobalas assertion that Bacon wrote all Marlowe's work.

Jonson brings Horace, Ovid, and Virgil on the stage, and he makes them utter many sentences which form the subject of ' Promus' notes. And strangely, too, the situations in which he places his characters, and the speeches he puts into their mouths, would lead one to imagine that Jonson was directed throughout by Bacon.

Horace appears followed by Crispinus, a vain babbler, who pursues him up and down like his ill angel, and threatens many times to recite to the poet some of his own doggerel effusions. Fortunately, Crispinus's memory is so bad that he fails to remember the children of his fancy. Yet Horace cannot get rid of his tormentor, who sticks to him like a burr,

and plies him with ridiculous twaddle. In his despair Horace compares his case with that of Bolanus : Happy thou, bold Bolanus, now I say ; Whose freedom, and impatience of this fellow, Would long ere this have call'd him fool, and fool, And rank and tedious fool ! and have flung jests As hard as stones, till thou hadst pelted him Out of the place. Act III. sc. i.

Here we may say that the threat to recite verses, and the despairing allusion of Horace to Bolanus, are the result of these two ' Promus ' entries :

1027. Nee sua vesanus scripta poeta legat.

Ovid, ' Ars Am.,' ii. 508. 1051. O te, Bolane. cerebri

Felicem ! aiebam tacitus.

Horace, Sat. I. ix. 11-12.

Ovid when he enters is chid by his angry father for neglecting the study of the law for poetry ; and in the scene at the end of the play Jonson explains his purpose in present- ing him thus, quoting these two lines to show what a repugnance Ovid had to the profession of the lawyer :

Non me verbosas leges ediscere, non me Ingrato voces prostituisse foro.

These lines, word for word, form ' Promus ' No. 440. Bacon could not have used them more neatly than Jonson does.

Again, in the first scene of Act I. Ovid recites his Elegia XV., Book I. Now there is a curious history attaching to the translation of this elegy. In Marlowe's work there are two versions of it, one only slightly differing from the other. Of the three editions of these elegies collated by Dyce the one lettered '* A," which from internal evidence appears to be the oldest, does not include the one headed "The same by B. J." which Jonson uses in 'The Poetaster.' One translation is merely an improved version of the other, and both must have come from the same pen. Ergo, the rough sketch attributed to Mar- lowe is Bacon's first attempt to translate Ovid ; and the more finished one is the one that he paraded under the name of Ben Jon- son, who became Bacon's tool after the death of Marlowe. Nothing could be clearer, the proof is plain, and Dr. Theobald is vindi- cated.

With regard to Virgil, Jonson makes Tibullus give utterance to the saying that if all the sciences were lost they might be found in Virgil. The same saying is referred to by Bacon in 'The Advancement of Learn- ing,' Book I.

Virgil recites a portion of the '^Eneid' which particularly describes Fame. Now both Jonson and Bacon were very fond of referring to Virgil's description of Fame, and