Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/263

 Essay on Gardens which was not printed till 1625. So it appears that both men were acquainted with the same facts concerning the succession of flowers through the months of the year. And there is nothing strange in that; for the flowers took their same times to bloom for Shakspeare in Stratford as they did for Bacon near London, or in the retreats of Gorhambury. But it is only enough to contrast the exquisite lines of Perdita with Bacon's cataloguing prose, in which not one epithet save "pale" and "yellow" appears, to feel quite sure that the flowers breathed no charm into Bacon's fancy.

"O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall From Dis's wagon! daffodils That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phœbus in his strength."

If precious articles at public vendue—Gobelins, rare Palissys, Majolicas, and Sèvres ware—happen to tally with an auctioneer's list of the sale, does it seem quite credible that they were all the production of the auctioneer? "Merciful, wonder-making Heaven!" What a myriad-minded auctioneer!

Indeed, does any one dare to say that Shakspeare and Bacon did not compare notes upon many subjects? Many of the reputed parallelisms are indirect traces of such an intercourse; and it is not a sufficient objection that Shakspeare is nowhere mentioned by Bacon. Neither are Spenser and Marlowe; and we know that he