Bacon and Shakespeare 16

Bacon and Shakespeare 16

The unsuccessful Essex in parley with Lord Lincoln employs the

passage between Northampton and the King in _Richard II._, and in the

subsequent Star Chamber trial, the Chief Justice dismisses Essex to

execution in the words that Henry V. applied to Scroop, Cambridge, and

Grey:

 

“Get you, therefore, hence

Poor miserable wretches, to your death,” &c.

 

But the marvel of inept plagiarism, of consummate wrongheadedness,

and ignorance in the bestowal of stolen property, is seen in the last

act of this marvellous play. Herein, Essex is discovered in a dungeon

in the tower. He is a man 34 years of age, and it is somewhat of a

surprise to find him declaring, in the (revised) language of little

Prince Arthur (_King John_):

 

“So I were out of prison and kept sheep,

I should be merry as the day is long;

And so I should be here, but that I doubt

That _Cecil_ practices more harm to me:

He is afraid of me, and I of him.”

 

But it is more than a surprise to learn that this hardy man of war is

to be compelled by Bacon (Shakespeare aiding) to play young Arthur to

the bitter end. After being surfeited with Francis Bacon’s choicest

philosophy, the Lord Keeper arrives with a commission to deliver Essex

to the jailers: “I will not reason what is meant thereby!”

 

It is impossible, without quoting the whole of this culminating

passage, to convey a correct impression of the ludicrousness of the

finale to this “marvel of literature,”--this play of “most thrilling

interest and historical value.”

 

[_Exit_ Keeper.]

 

_First Jailer._ Oh, he is bold, and blushes not at death.

 

_Essex._ Avaunt thou hateful villain, get thee gone!

 

_First Jailer._ There’s the great traitor.

 

_Second Jailer._ Ingrateful fox, ’tis he.

 

_First Jailer._ Bind fast his corky arms.

 

_Essex._ Help,--help,--help,--help!

Here’s a man would murder me. Help,--help,--help!

I will not struggle, I will stand stone still.

 

_First Jailer._ Bind him, I say.

 

_Second Jailer._ Hard, hard! O filthy traitor!

 

_First Jailer._ Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here:

To this chair bind him.

 

_Essex._ Let me not be bound:

Alas, why need you be so boistrous rough?

O I am undone, O I am undone!

Do me no foul play, friend!

 

_First Jailer._ Read here, traitor.

Can you not read it? Is it not writ fair?

 

_Essex._ How now, foolish rheume;

Must you, with hot irons, burn out both mine eyes?

O Heaven, that there were but a moth in yours,

A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,

Any annoyance in that precious sense:

Then feeling what small things are boisterous there,

Your vile intents must needs seem horrible.

O spare mine eyes, though to no use but still to look on you!

Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold,

And would not harm me--O men, if you will,

Cut out my tongue, so that I may still keep

Both mine eyes to see.

 

_First Jailer._ To see some mischief!

See shall thou never: (fellow, hold the chair:)

Upon these eyes of thine I’ll set my foot!

 

_Essex._ He that will think to live till he be old,

Give me some help! O save me,--save me!--help!

(_They tear out one of his eyes._)

Oh cruel! Oh God,--O God,--O God! my eyes are out!

Oh, I am slain!

 

_First Jailer._ My Lord, you have one eye left!

One side will mock another; th’ other too.

Out, vile jelly! where is thy lustre now?

(_They tear out the other eye._)

 

_Essex._ All dark and comfortless!--

O God, enkindle all the sparks of nature

To quit this horrid act.

 

_First Jailer._ Away with him; lead him to the block.

 

[_Exeunt Omnes._

 

In the epilogue, the two jailers blackmail Mr. Secretary Cecil as he

walks in his garden with his decipherer, and the book ends with the

following cryptic lines:

 

“This is the cruel man (Cecil) that was employed

To execute that execrable tragedy,

And you can witness with me this is true.”

 

(_Omnes_) “This is the strangest tale that e’er I heard.”

 

This amazing adaptation of a perfect piece of dramatic writing to the

exigencies of biography is, it may be assumed, without parallel in the

history of literature. Comment would be superfluous: imagine Mr. Daniel

Leno sustaining the part of Essex in a performance of the drama, and

the illusion is complete.

 

 

 

 

_Bacon, the Poet._

 

 

The whole of the new matter that we find in the play under notice is so

dissimilar from that of Shakespeare in style, language, and __EXPRESSION__,

that it might be the work of any author, American or English, even--if

we accept the statement of Spedding--of Bacon himself. It is difficult

to form any correct estimate of Bacon’s talent as a poet, because,

apart from his own description of himself as a “concealed poet,”

and his versification of the Psalms, we have nothing to guide us.

Spedding doubtless had these Psalms in his mind when he pronounced

so emphatically upon the absence of similarity between the writings

of Shakespeare and Bacon. There is little extant verse of the period

which is so un-Shakespearean as this product of Bacon’s maturity, which

was dedicated to the pious and learned George Herbert, whose verses

on Bacon were printed in 1637. The publication is a proof that Bacon

thought well of his work--it is not on record that anybody else has

endorsed that opinion. Indeed, these seven Psalms give us all that we

have, or want, of Bacon’s poetry. The following is an extract from the

first psalm:

 

“He shall be like the fruitful tree,

Planted along a running spring,

Which, in due season, constantly

A goodly yield of fruit doth bring;

Whose leaves continue always green,

And are no prey to winter’s pow’r;

So shall that man not once be seen

Surprised with an evil hour.”

 

His rendering of the 90th psalm is not all as bald and discordant as

the following:

 

“Begin Thy work, O Lord, in this our age,

Shew it unto Thy servants that now live;

But to our children raise it many a stage,

That all the world to Thee may glory give.

Our handy-work likewise, as fruitful tree,

Let it, O Lord, blessed, not blasted be.”

 

The beautiful 14th and 15th verses of the 104th psalm are thus rendered

by our “concealed poet”:

 

“Causing the earth put forth the grass for beasts,

And garden herbs, served at the greatest feasts,

And bread that is all viands firmament,

And gives a firm and solid nourishment,

And wine, man’s spirits for to recreate,

And oil, his face for to exhilarate.”

 

[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE’S HOUSE.]

 

There can be no two opinions as to the merits of these metrical

efforts, which Bacon thought good enough to print and to dedicate to

his friend George Herbert. Spedding says of them, “In compositions upon

which a man would have thought it a culpable waste of time to bestow

any serious labour, it would be idle to seek either for indications

of his taste or for a measure of his powers.” And again, “of these

verses of Bacon’s, it has been usual to speak not only as a failure,

but as a ridiculous failure; a censure in which I cannot concur. An

unpractised versifier (fancy styling the author of the _Faerie Queene_

and _Adonis_, an ‘unpractised versifier!’)--who will not take time and

trouble about the work, must, of course, leave many bad verses; for

poetic feeling and imagination, though they will dislike a wrong word,

will not of themselves suggest a right one that will suit metre and

rhyme; and it would be easy to quote from the few pages, not only

many bad lines, but many poor stanzas.” Spedding concludes with the

comment: “Considering how little he cared to publish during the first

sixty years of his life, and how many things of weightier character

and more careful workmanship he had then by him in his cabinet, it

was somewhat remarkable that he should have given these Psalms to the

world.” Dr. Abbott, another friendly biographer and admirer of Bacon’s

“magnificent prose,” says:--“Some allowance must be made (no doubt) for

the fact that Bacon is translating, and not writing original verse.

Nevertheless a true poet, even of a low order, could hardly betray so

clearly the cramping influence of rhyme and metre. There is far less

beauty of diction and phrase in these verse translations than in any of

the prose works that are couched in an elevated style.... But I cannot

help coming to the conclusion that, although Bacon might have written better verse on some subject of his own choosing, the chances are that even his best would not have been very good.”