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FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES 157
ensem
ble un main-"
tien in
different
entre les deux, & d'estre secret,
sans faire tomber
la balance de quelque coste.
But we must return to the English original Essay
" Of Simulation and Dissimulation " of the year 1625.
For this
rhymed verselet does not settle the matter
nor does it end there. One object that Bacon pursued
in writing his Essays, especially
in those contained in
the last edition, evidently was to reveal the mystery of
his authorship as a poet. But that was not his only
object. Those Essays served Bacon rather in
elucidating also "the moral and civil" views of
the Shakespeare plays. To follow the author step by
step in what he says, would be to print the Essays
three times over from beginning to end, The Essay,
"Of Truth," affords us points of comparison with the
Shakespeare- Tempest. A number of examples
selected from classic antiquity, contained in the Essay,
'"
Of Death," show us those passages in the plays in
which the poet falls back upon those stories of
antiquity and learns and borrows from them in his own
works. The " Essay, Of Adversitie," served also to
elucidate similar passages in the plays. We need but
recall the line in As You Like It (ii. i) :
The idea agrees entirely
Sweet are the uses of adversity.
with the views of Seneca
and Bacon expressed in said Essay.
We will now closely examine and discuss that
Shakespeare-Commentary in
the Essays
with the aid