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FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES 117
Sir Walter Ralegh'
was wont to say
of the ladies of Queen Elizabeth's privy-chamber and
bed-chamber ;
That they were like witches ;
do hurt, but they could do no good.
they could
Must we not presume that a then current word with
a more salient point coined on the ladies in attendance
upon the Queen has here been carefully suppressed ?
Surely the ladies described as but little amiable, in
attendance at a Royal Court so addicted to witticisms
and where each had a nick-name, were known by
some pet name that rhymed to " say "
or to " witches."
In the short account of the torture suffered by
King Edward II., there is a passage which most
decidedly calls for a slight change of metre and
rhyme.
When King Edward the Second was amongst his torturers,
who hurried him to and fro, that no man should know where
he was, they set him down upon a bank : and one time, the
more to disguise his face, shaved him, and washed him with
cold water of a ditch by : The King said ; Well, yet I will
have warm water for my beard. And so shed abundance of
tears.
The excellent form and the style of this deeply
serious anecdote correspond to those of the tragedy of
Edward the Second, written in genuine Shakespearetone.
The line "who hurried him to and. fro, that no
man should know" describing the manner in which
the wretched king
is driven to and fro, with its five
doleful O-sounds expressive of pain, is
tremendously
powerful and We effective. need only turn to the
scene (v. 3) in the drama bearing Marlowe's name,