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FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES 119
before, highly characteristic as describing the torturers
chasing the king to and fro.
Thus we might occupy ourselves with the English
time still.
collection of Bacon's anecdotes for a long
But we have a further surprise in store for the reader
regarding the humorist Bacon as a narrator of stories.
As a young man, Francis Bacon had for four years
been attache in France to the English Ambassador,
Sir Amias Paulet. He had spent that time at Tours,
Blois, Poitiers, and Paris, and spoke and wrote the
language fluently. How often may
it not have
happened that visitors from across the channel
dined at his table ;
who can say how often " Monsieur
mon Fils," the French Ambassador, and his friends,
were Bacon's guests
?
Naturally, he would make a
point of delighting the ears of his foreign guests.
But as they knew little or no English, he had to
entertain them in French. Bacon had, accordingly,
treated a large number of his anecdotes in the same
manner in French, as in English, i.e., he had set them
to rhyme and rhythm, as is proved by the Original
Translation of the " Apophthegmes."
In the year 1621, there had appeared a translation
of the " Essays " (based upon the second English
edition) by the Frenchman, I. Baudoiiin. That trans
lation, of course, either emanated from Bacon or was
at least supervised by him. And though the third
edition of the French Essays (based upon the third
English edition), containing also the translations of the
"Wisdom of the Ancients" and of the "Apoph
thegmes," did not appear till 1633, we may
be sure
that those translations (like the Latin ones printed
still
later) had originated under Bacon's hands. The