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i
9o
FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES
with them. And nobody familiar with old English
poesy will hesitate for a moment to pass such rhymes
as "passe" and "Place," "Sweat" and "it." The
above passage translated into verse would run thus :
And it
came to passe
that he was
crucified in an Open Place,
where the Sunne
made his Bodie runne
with Sweat,
and the Raine washed it.
Nor would the ear detect any difference, if we were
to change the above form into that of two Alexandrineverses
of six emphasised syllables each :
And it came to passe, that he was
crucified in an Open Place,
where the Sunne made his Bodie runne
with Sweat, and the Raine washed *'/.
Are such sentences written by accident ?
Shortly afterwards follows the prophecy
which the
ghost of Julius Caesar imparts to Brutus " : Philippis
iterum me videbis " ("At Philippi you shall see me
!
again
here ;
it is substituted by " A Phantasme." But every
").
The name of " Caesar " is carefully avoided
reader of Shakespeare knows that one of the principal
scenes in the drama is here referred to. He will also
at once recall the prophecy uttered towards the end of
The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth (iv.
6), by
Henry the King to the youth Henry Richmond (after
wards King Henry the Seventh). That prophecy
Bacon had in mind when he wrote the passage in the
Essay :