As I pass'd by, whose needy shop his boxes than the corresponding is stuff'd notion of... disposition."- De With beggarly accounts of empty Augmentis (1622). boxes. And in the same an aligarta hangs; Old ends of packthread, and cakes of roses Are thinly strew'd to make up a show." Romeo and Juliet, v. 1 (1597). The multiplicity and variety of articles kept in an apothecary shop seem to have made a permanent impression upon the minds of both authors. From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust. been troublesome; I therefore held it best to publish them myself, as But thou, to whom my jewels they passed long ago from my pen." Dedication of First Edition of trifles are, My worthy comfort, now my great- Essays (1598). est grief, Thou, best of dearest, and mine only care, Art left the prey of every vulgar thief." Sonnet (1609). Mr. James of Birmingham, England, to whom we owe this parallelism, thus comments upon it: "a careful analysis of this sonnet (48) will prove to the most skeptical that the writer is lamenting his inability to prevent the loved creations of his intellect from being appropriated by others." This was precisely the reason assigned by Bacon for hurrying his essays into print. The author of the sonnet says that a man cannot praise himself with manners;" the essayist, that one cannot do it "with any face of comeliness," or " modesty." Custom was regarded by both authors as often the ape of nature, because, like nature, it is governed by laws of which it is unconscious, and consists in habitudes or automatic repetition of acts. 307 VERBOSITY "Men began to hunt more after words than matter; and more after the choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment; taking liberty to coin and frame new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may call it) lawfulness of the phrase or word. . . . The excess of this is so justly contemptible What Bacon analyzed and condemned as one of the distempers of learning, that is, an excessive pedantic regard for mere diction, Shake-speare illustrated and ridiculed in Love's Labor's Lost.' 308 QUEEN ELIZABETH From Shake-speare Cranmer. "Let me speak, sir, For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter Let none think flattery, for they 'll find 'em truth. This royal infant, heaven still move about her! Though in her cradle, yet now promises Upon this land a thousand thou sand blessings, Which time shall bring to ripe ness; she shall be, But few now living can behold that goodness, From Bacon "If Plutarch were now alive to write lives by parallels, it would trouble him, I think, to find for her [Queen Elizabeth] a parallel amongst women. I shall not exceed if I do affirm that this part of the island never had forty-five years of better times; and yet not through the calmness of the season, but through the wisdom of her regiment. For if there be considered the truth of religion established; the constant peace and security; the good administration of justice; the temperate use of the A pattern to all princes living with prerogative, not slackened, nor much strained; the flourishing state of learning, sortable to so excellent a patroness; the convenient estate of wealth and means, both of crown and subject; the habit of obedience and the moderation of discontents; . . . these things I say considered, I suppose I could not have chosen an instance more |