Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/255

 Lord Bacon wrote some lines commending the natural defence of an upright conscience. So did Shakspeare. Let us compare them:—

"The man of life upright, whose guileless heart is free From all dishonest deeds and thoughts of vanity; The man whose silent days in harmless joys are spent, Whom hopes cannot delude nor fortune discontent,— That man needs neither towers nor armor for defence, Nor secret vaults to fly from thunder's violence."

In the second part of "Henry VI." are found the lines which are memorable to all English-speaking people:—

"What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted? Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just; And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."

We have plainly another case of paraphrase to be accounted for; and we can understand why Bacon, who used to send sonnets to Elizabeth to soften her heart towards Essex, should lament, "But I could never prevail with her."

The badness of Bacon's efforts at poetry has suggested to me the possibility that some of the didactic passages in the plays which Shakspeare altered and amended for the theatre, were left as they came from his pen; just as other passages from the playwrights of that day may be found streaking the rich Shakspearean lode, recognized by their inferiority or difference of style, but no longer imputable to the culprits by name. Pages of this un-Shakspearean matter may have drifted from Bacon's pen into the original crudeness of some of the plays, particularly into those which set forth periods of history.