Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

242 FRANCIS BACON
tures" resulting from inundations, which have " drowned" the
fields and filled the nine men's morris with the unwholesome
"mud" which Bacon's soul abhorred. The influence of the
moon is also noted here, as in the scientific notes:
" The moon, the governess of floods,
Palo in her anger, washes all the air."
And the effect which she produces, of raising the tides
and so
of causing inundations and destruction of vegetation, is as clearly
marked as in the notes on the Ebb and Floiv of the Sea,'ov in
Sylva Sylvarum.
" The periodical winds," says Bacon, " do not bloiv at night,
but get up the third hour after sunrise. All free winds, likewise,
blow oftener and more violently in the morning and evening
than at noon and night. " So, when midnight approaches, Oberon
and his train retire, "following darkness like a dream," but
with commands to " meet me all by break of day. "
In the last scene of this charmingly spiritual piece, Pack
again declares himself the true child of Bacon's imagination.
In describing the frolics of the fairies (perhaps the " frivolous
winds," which he describes as " performing dances, of which it
would be pleasing to know the order"), Puck speaks of sprites
who are let forth to " glide about "
"... fairies that do run
By the triple Hecate's team,
From the presence of the sun."
For, Bacon says, " the winds cease at noon." Of himself.
Puck says
" I am sent with broom before,
To siveep the dust behind the door."
For as we again read in the History of Winds :
" To the
earth, which is the seat and habitation of men, the icinds serve
for brooms, siveeping and cleansing'both it and the air itself."
The poet, then, according to these observations, derived his
lovely conceptions of the fairies, in the first instance, from his
the