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102 FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES
Mr. Savill was asked by my lord of Essex his opinion
touching poets ;
who answered my lord ; He thought them the
best writers, next to those that write prose.
The point shows a short rhyme :
next to those
that write prose.
Prose-writers thus ranked above poets
;
but the
praise of the prose-writers is expressed in poetic form,
i.e.,
in a rhyme.
Antalcidas, when an Athenian said to him ;
Ye Spartans are
unlearned said ; again ; True, lor we have learned no evil nor
vice of you.
In the first part of this sentence a few rhymes may
be detected ;
but the humorous reply of the Spartan
(printed in italics in the original) again is in flowing
rhythm and rhyme
:
True,
for we have learn 'd no evil nor vice of you.
Or we might write it thus :
True, for we have learn'd no evil nor vice of you.
This is a sort of what in
Poesy" Puttenham calls " Echo sound."
" The Arte of English
Michael Angelo, the famous painter, painting in the Pope's
chapel the portraiture of hell and damned souls, made one of
the damned souls so like a Cardinal that was his enemy, as
everybody at first sight knew it.
Whereupon
the Cardinal
complained to Pope Clement, desiring it might be defaced ;
Who said to him, Why, you know very well, I have power to
deliver a soul out of purgatory, but not out of hell.
The answer of the Pope Bacon again puts into
rhymed verse, the rhyme beginning with the very first
word spoken, on " Why " :