download PDF version: 47.1MB - Global Grey

FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES 133
Truth may perhaps come to the price
of a Pearle, that sheweth best by day :
But it will
not rise,
to the price
of a Diamond, or Carbuncle (Carbun&7'),
that sheweth best in play.
That is the " Praise of the Actor's Art "
in a tedious monotonous stanza form, but in
rhythm and rhyme, such as Tennyson
not written
brilliant
wrote in so
find a finer
masterly a style, than which we scarcely
poem anywhere in the Shakespeare Plays or in the
anecdotes or psalms.
The
" rhyme " rise and " " price must not be weighed
in the scales of modern rhyming pedants. The last
syllable of the word " Carbuncle " rhymed with " will."
The Shakespeare Plays and modern poets afford us a
number
" "
of instances in which the final syllable ble
is
pronounced " bil," "cle," "kil." Not only the
but also the position of
sense and manner of speech,
the words in the sentence " that sheweth best by day "
demand the final
rhyme " play " "
: that sheweth best in
play."
Besides, the colon which we have so frequently
noticed as indicating a rhyme seeking its companion,
occurs after "day," so that "day " is to be treated as
carrying the chief rhyme.
But those who would shrug their shoulders at
the
little alteration which we suggest had better turn
up in Hamlet, or remember, the anecdote with the
"
"second person we would also
;
remind them of the
rhyme required in the anecdote of Edward II. ;
but
we would still more earnestly advise them to wait and
hear what is said in the fifth Essay.