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136 FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES
Despicere unde queas Alios, passimque videre
Errare, atque viam palanteis quaerere vitae,
Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,
Nocteis atque dies niti praestante labore
Ad summas emergere opes, rerumque potiri.
(Sweet 'tis, from the shore, to watch another in peril on
turbulent sea, threatened by raging winds ;
not because it is
a pleasant sensation to see another tormented, but because it is
sweet to see 'gainst what evil one is guarded
one's self. It is
sweet, also, to watch valiant fighting in well-ordered battle,
without exposing one's self to danger ;
but nothing
is sweeter
than to own the firmly set serene temples, erected by the
wisdom of the wise, whence thou mayst look down upon others
erring to and fro, wandering about, seeking the way of life,
fighting for intelligence and wit, struggling for honour and
dignity, striving day and night to climb to the highest summit
of authority and reign supreme over all.)
Now let us see what in the pursuit of his object,
Bacon makes of those verses, utilising
them to draw
the reader's attention to the comedy The Tempest, or
rather to the first scene. He says in the Essay :
The Poet that beautified the Sect, that was otherwise inferiour
to the rest, saith yet excellently well It is a pleasure
:
to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tost upon the Sea :
A pleasure to stand in the window of a Castle, and to see a
Battaile, and the Adventures thereof, below : But no pleasure
is comparable, to the standing, upon the vantage ground of
Truth :
(A hill not to be commanded, and where the Ayre is
alwaies cleare and serene;) And to see the Errours, and
Wandrings, and Mists, and Tempests, in the vale below :
Look at what Bacon has done ! First of all, he
hushes up the name of the poet Lucrece (just as he
does everywhere with the name of Shakespeare). He
speaks of a " Poet that beautified the Sect." That
may refer to Lucrece, who belonged to the " Sect "
of the Epicureans but the remark may just as well
;