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FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES 155
Thus we have not only a rich
selection of allusions
of all kinds in this Essay, but the most important thing
of all : we discover Bacon eulogising the " Securitatem
Dei," the "Securitatem Nominis," the "security of a
guardian spirit," of a " pseudonym."
The very next Essay upholds such a manner of
hiding a name. It was also new in 1625, and bears a
heading which leaves no doubt as to the subject
treated of, namely: "Of Simulation and Dissimula
tion." The Latin "simulare" (derived from
" similis," similar) means to render, make similar ;
" dissimulare
" to render dissimular.
" Simulatio
" is
false pretence, " dissimulatio " disguising, masking.
" Dissimulare nomen suum
"
means, in classic Latin,
to. disguise one's name, to preserve one's incognito ;
" dissimulans, quis esset " is translated directly by
"
incognito."
In his quality of concealed Shakespeare author,
Francis Bacon was a dissimulator, he preserved his
incognito, i.e., he pretended not to be that which in
reality he was. William Shakspere, the man, whose
office it was to disguise the doings of the Lord
Chancellor, as a poet,
was a simulator, t.e., he pre
tended to be something which, in reality,
he was not.
So that the part affected by Bacon himself, the
author of the Essays,
is that of dissimulation. And
the very fact of Bacon again clothing the words on
dissimulation in rhymed poetry affords the proof that
they form the nucleus of the whole Essay. Right
among the prose, we find the sentence :
It (Dissimulation) followeth many times upon Secrecy, by
a necessity
: So that, he that will be Secret, must be a Dis
sembler, in some degree.