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FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES
Of course, the word " rhymed " does not occur in
that passage in the psalm (as
Bacon in all his works
except in his "Last Will "carefully, "curiously,"
avoided the word*), yet the fact remains : we have dis
covered " curiously rhymed " verses in a Baconian
psalm.
The word " curiously," on the other hand, does
occur in Bacon's printed works, though
not in connec
tion with the word "to rhyme" or "to write," but
with the word " to read." In his Essay " Of Studies,"
Bacon speaks of the manner in which books are to be
read. Books should be treated in three manners,
according to the value of each. He says literally (in
the original edition of 1625)
:
Some Bookes are to be Tasted, Others to be Swallowed,
and Some Few to be Chewed and Digested
: That is. some
Bookes are to be read onely in Parts ;
Others to be read but
not Curiously ;
And some Few to be read wholly, and with
Diligence and Attention.
The sentence occurs in prose-form along with other
prose, exactly as it is reproduced here but it is
;
profusely rhymed,
" curiously rhymed," Bacon would
say. "Tasted" rhymes with "Digested," "Swal
lowed," with " read " (as is so often the case in the
Shakespeare works: "solemnised," etc.) "Few"
forms a cesural rhyme with the root of the -verb
" Chewed,"
" Chew." Further on we find
" Curiously
"
* Once only does Bacon use the word " rhymes " in his printed
works, and that is in " The Advancement of Learning," 1605, where
he praises verse as a means of impressing something firmly upon the
memory, but he jeers at, and makes fun of, extempore-speaking in
" verses or rhymes."