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FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES 103
desiring it might be defaced ;
Who said to him, Why,
you know very we/l,
I have pow'r to deliver a soul out of purgatory,
but not out of hell.
In rhythm and rhyme this point resembles the poem
"The world's a bubble," iambic verses of five feet
alternating with those of two feet, only here in this case
a long line rhymes to a long line, a short line to a short
line. After each rhyme there is a comma, indicating
the pause.
Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, in a famine, sold all the
rich vessels and ornaments of the Church, to relieve the poor
with bread ;
and said, There was no reason that the dead
temples of God should be sumptuously furnished, and the
living temples suffer penury.
The comparison reminds us of the passage in Hamlet,
in which the body
is called the "temple " of the soul.
These beautiful words are rhymed throughout. Trans
lated into verse, they would run thus :
Ethelze/o/^,
Bishop of Winchester, in a famine, sold,
all the rich vessels and ornaments of the Church,
to relieve the poor with bread; and said,
There was no reason that the dead
temples of God should be sumptuous/y
fournis/W,
and the living temples suffer penury.
Bacon at once follows up the name of the worthy
Bishop with a rhyme, succeeded by lines of perfect
rhythm, embellished with internal and final rhymes :
"bread-said-dead-furnished'" (this
final syllable is
frequently emphasised in the Plays); on the other hand :
"
be-sumptuously-penury."
The poetic form given