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FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES 207
Golden words, indeed !
With the exception of the
last four, which are, to use a mild expression, very
strange words, nay, they are simply nonsensical.
For how can you impute an Injury to "What you
will," to anything you like ?
The fact is, we have again rhymed verses before us,
as is shown at once by the opening words " Raising *'
and " Appaising," " Remedies " and " Contraries,"
together with a number of other rhymes, which we
leave it to the reader to discover for himself. We
would only draw attention to the concluding lines,
which translated into verse, would run thus :
And the other's, to sever, as much as may be,
the Construction of the Injury,
from the Point of Contempt Imputing :
it,
to Misunderstanding, Feare, Passion, or ... what
you will. (? !)
Following out the recipes : " This would have done
better in Poesy," and ''You might have rhymed,"
ought we not to substitute the word " wit " for ''what
vou will," the words concluding this "curiously
rhymed " verselet ?
It would certainly
fit in better, both as regards
rhyme and the thought underlying the whole passage,
while pointing out the joke which Bacon here indulges
in of bringing in the title of a Shakespeare Comedy as
the concluding words of his last Essay but one. And
the line thus recast
"
:
Imputing it, to Misunderstand
ing, Feare, Passion or Shakespeare" would not be
wide of the mark. Bacon imputed to Shakespeare,
the pseudonym-author Shakespeare, that which another
might consider as an " injury " (insult).
The next Essay even explains it all, ambiguously