Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/150

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. ix. FEB. 22, 1902.

contemporary literature has been carefully examined, but with negative results! Not only so, it is asserted that the notes are of such an exclusive character, so uncommon in phrase and suggestion, that all English literature will be vainly searched to find them as we find them in the pages of Shakespeare.

It is a very pretty theory ; but pity 'tis, 'tis not true. Bacon does use his notes in his acknowledged works; they are not used in the same way in Shakespeare ; they are, contrary to the Baconian assertion, mostly common- places in all English literature up to the end of the seventeenth century ; and they are more frequently alluded to in Ben Jonson than in Shakespeare.

Before I enter into a minute examination of the Bacon notes, I wish to draw special attention to the assertion that Bacon used the notes in the plays, but not in his acknow- ledged works. Does any reasonable being think that a man could so order his thoughts as to divide himself, as it were, in that way to scatter through the plays, as one writer has it, allusions to his notes "as thick as grains of wheat through the surface of a fresh - sown field," and to ignore them so completely in his acknowledged work as to defy discovery of allusions to them 1 ? It will be my business to show that the Baconians have tried to prove too much, and that a further course of their master is a matter of urgent necessity. CHAELES CKAWFOKD.

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

WHERE DWELLS TRUTH? A DOZEN years ago my friend Prof. J. E. B. Mayor introduced me to the writings of August Schwarzkopff, in whose book 'Aus Natur und Welt ' (Leipzig, 1888, S. 5), among other striking verses, the following is to be found :

SPRECHT, IHR V1ER, WO \YO11NET IHR?

(Nach einer alien Sage.) Feuer, du wildes, wo finden wir dich ? " Sucht euch einen Stein im Thai, Schlagt daran mit hartem Stahl, Augenblicks spring ich heraus ; Denn das ist mein Belt und Haus Und da schlaf und wohne ich ! "

Luft, du leichte, wo finden wir dich ? " Wo ein Blilttlein bebt am Baum, Oder fliegt ein zarter Flaum, Oder ringelt grauer Rauch, Weht von meinem Mund ein Hauch Allda leb und atme ich ! "

Wasser, du feuchtes, wo finden wir dich ?

Wo die schwanke Binse steht, Grabt, bis ihr die Wurzel seht,

Da blitzt euch mein Auge an, Weil kein Berg mich bergen kann ; Horcht, da ries'le, da hause ich ! "

Wahrheit, du heil'ge, wo findeu wir dich ?

" Ach, ich hab kein Haus, noch Zelt,

Niemand will mich auf der Welt ;

Klopf ich, auf geht keine Thiir,

Ruf ich, keiner folget mir,

Lug und Hass yerjagen mich :

Drum zum Himmel fliicht ich mich ! "

Of this little poem an English version ap- peared in the Academy, and was reprinted in my * Ancoats Skylark,' but is now, in Lamb's phrase, "as good as manuscript":

Fire, so wild, where shall we find thee ? " In the valley seek a rock : Strike with steel, and at the shock In a moment outspring I : There the bed wherein I lie, There seek and ye shall find me."

Air, light air, where shall we find thee ? " Where leaflets tremble on the tree, Where the curling smoke you see, Where the down floats north or south, 'Tis the breathing of my mouth, There seek and ye shall find me."

Water bright, where shall we find thee? " Mighty mountains cannot hide Flow of spring and force of tide ; Where the roots of rushes grow You will find me, dig below, There seek and ye shall find me."

Holy Truth, where shall we find thee ? " Through the weary world 1 roam, No house have I, no place, no home. 1 knock, I call, but no reply, Therefore heavenward I must fly, There seek and ye shall find me."

The story is to be found in * A Hundred Mery Talys,' where it takes this shape :

"In the old world when all thyng could speke the iiii elementys mette to geder for many thynges whych they had to do, because they must meddell always one wyth a nother: arid had communication to gyder of dyvers maters, and by cause they could not conclude all theyr maters at that season they appoynted to breke comunicacion for that tyme, therefore ech one of them shewed to other where theyr most abydyng was and where their felows shoulde fynde them yf nede shuld requyre and fyrste the erthe sayde bretherne ye know well as for me I am permanent alway and not remouable : there- fore ye may be sure to haue me alway whan ye lyste. The wather sayde yf ye lyst to seke me ye shal be sure to haue me under a toft of grene rushes or under a woman's eye. The wynde sayde yf ye lyst to speke wyth me ye shal be sure to haue me among aspyn leuys or els in a womans tong. Then quod the fyre yf any of you lyst to seke me ye shal ever be sure to fynd me in a flynt stone or els in a w 7 omans harte.

"By thys tale ye may lerne as well the properte ot the iiii elementys as the properteis of a woman."

This forms number nineteen of Dr. Herman Oesterley 's edition, and he mentions that Hans bachs wrote 'Ein Gesprech der vier Element