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2i 8
FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES
Mr. James Spedding knew "everything " about Bacon, it is
my duty to state the reasons.
Those reasons are manifold, various, and some of them
are of great moment.
1. On the title-page of every volume we may read : " The
Works of Francis Bacon. Collected and edited by James
Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath."
Thus we see that Mr. Spedding had two collaborators ;
consequently several of the chief works were not published
and furnished with notes by him, but by Ellis or Heath.
2. Mr. James Spedding takes upon himself to correct (!)
Bacon, where it is entirely out of place. The instance
which I am about to quote in proof of my statement has
of the ludicrous about it for the German. In
something
his "Notes on the Present State of Christendom," 1582,
Bacon names "Julius,
Duke of Brunswick, at the strong
castle of Wolfenbettle on Oder" and Mr. Spedding adds to
the word " Oder " the note " Occar in MS." Pray, tell me,
Mr. Spedding, since " Occar " was the name contained in
the manuscript, why did you not leave it ? Wolfenbettle is
really situated on the " Oker " (Occar), and was there even
in 1582, and not on the Oder. Bacon, the youth of twentyone,
knew that three hundred years ago. But Mr. Spedding
thought he knew it better, as he probably remembered
having once heard in his geography lessons something of a
river going by the name of "Oder" in Germany. This
involuntary joke is contained in vol. viii. p. 24.
3. In 1870 Mr. Spedding published the so-called North
umberland Manuscript which had been re-discovered in the
London Palace of the Dukes of Northumberland, as a
supplement to the complete edition of Bacon's works. The
book is entitled "A Conference of Pleasure." This little
" Device/' couched in a learned tone, was written by Bacon
in 1592. But Mr. Spedding added to his publication a
facsimile of the cover of the manuscript, from which it is