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1 82 FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES
reason for so doing : " which serveth both to keepe
themselves more in Guard, and to make others carry
it,
with more Pleasure."
Here, then, we find another reason why Bacon
wrote his Shakespeare Plays and why he " concealed "
his name, when giving them to the world. He him
self kept in the background of concealment; the jokes
and jests perpetrated as it seemed by the actor
Shakspere, were more easily borne by the Courtiers,
than if they had been hurled consciously by him, their
equal. Besides, the fact of the matter being so
wrapped in mystery added to the pleasure
of the
author and of others.
And still Bacon was not yet satisfied ;
he goes on in
the same Essay to tell us the following little story :
A sudden, bold, and unexpected Question, doth many times
surprise a Man, and lay him open. Like to him, that having
changed his Name, and walking in Pauls, Another suddenly
came behind him, and called him by his true Name, whereat
straightwaies he looked back.
All these details in the Essay, "Of Cunning," are,
as we said before, new interpolations added in the
year 1625.
The only new addition to the
Essay, " Of Seeming
Wise," is the short sentence at the end all the rest
;
having been printed as early as 1612. But a passage
that
quoted therein again shows us, how fond even at
time already, Bacon was of changing Latin prose
authors into rhymers. Bacon writes :
Some are never without a difference, and commonly by
Amusing Men with a Subtilty, blanch the matter ; Of whom