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Other examples:

These things have I in all sincerity and simplicity set down, touching the controversies which now trouble the Church of England.-Paper of 1589.1

These be some of the beams of noble and radiant magnanimity .. set forth in my simplicity of speech with much loss of lustre, but with near approach of truth, as the sun is seen in the water. Discourse in praise of the Queen, 1590-92.2

But not knowing how my travel may be accepted, being the unwarranted wishes of a private man, I leave; humbly praying her Majesty's pardon if in the zeal of my simplicity I have roved at things above my aim.-Discourse touching the Queen's safety, 1594.3 [Written when Bacon was out of favour, and the phrase therefore is used (as very frequently) in order to obviate the impression of presumption and officiousness.]

Belonging to the same class of ideas, and significant of the risks of public life at the time, are such phrases as Thus have I played the ignorant statesman,*

and

I will shoot my fool's bolt, since you will have it so,5 found in letters of advice to the Earl of Essex, which might be shown to the Queen or to members of the Council (1598).

Some further examples are as follow:

Thus having in all humbleness made oblation to your Majesty of these simple fruits of my devotion and studies.-Discourse (for King James) on the Union of the Kingdoms, 1603.6

Thus have I expressed to your Majesty those simple and weak cogitations, which I have had in myself touching this cause.-Discourse on the Plantation in Ireland, 1608.7

in my simple opinion.3-Spedding, Life, iv. 280, and cf. 340, 371, 373, 387.

I do foresee, in my simple judgment, much inconvenience to insue, if your Majesty proceed to this treaty with Spain, and

1 Spedding, Life, i. 94.

3 Ibid. i. 307.

5 Ibid. ii. 99.

7 Ibid. iv. 126.

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8 This seems to have been, more or less, a formula of the time. It is found, for instance, in Sir Henry Sidney's dispatches to the Queen, but not used as a habit.

that your Council draw not all one way.-To the King, about the Spanish match, 1617.1

But my meaning was plain and simple.-Letter to the King, in reply to a reprimand on the subject of alleged disloyalty to Buckingham, 1617.2

This claim which Bacon made to "simplicity" and integrity of motive is perhaps most fully developed in a letter to his cousin, Robert Cecil, written in 1594-95 when he was anxiously endeavouring to obtain the post of Solicitor :

Sir-I forbear not to put in paper as much as I thought to have spoken to your Honour to-day, if I could have stayed: knowing that if your Honour should make other use of it than is due to good meaning, and than I am persuaded you will, yet to persons of judgment, and that know me otherwise, it will rather appear (as it is) a precise honesty, and this same suum cuique tribuere, than any hollowness to any. It is my luck still to be akin to such things as I neither like in nature nor would willingly meet with in my course, but yet cannot avoid without show of base timorousness or else of unkind or suspicious strangeness.

[Some hiatus in the copy.]

And I am of one spirit still. I ever liked the Galenists, that deal with good compositions; and not the Paracelsians, that deal with these fine separations: and in music, I ever loved easy airs, that go full all the parts together; and not these strange points of accord and discord. This I write not, I assure your Honour, officiously; except it be according to Tully's Offices; that is, honestly and morally.3

With the above examples from Bacon's acknowledged works compare the following from Spenser :

my simple lines testimonie.-Teares of the Muses: Dedication. this simple remembrance.-Ibid.

a simple present to you of these my idle labours. Simple is the device, and the composition meane, yet carrieth some delight, even the rather because of the simplicitie and meannesse thus personated.-Mother Hubberds Tale: Dedication. [These expressions are designed to cover up the real bearing of the piece.]

1 Spedding, Life, vi. 171.

2 Ibid. vi. 246.

3 Ibid. i. 356.

I make you a present of this simple pastorall. . . . The which I humbly beseech you to accept. and with your good countenance protect against the malice of evill mouthes, which are alwaies wide open to carpe at and misconstrue my simple meaning.-Colin Clout: Dedication to Sir Walter Ralegh. in simple eie.-Colin Clout.

simple honestie.-Ibid.

That hers I die . . .

This simple trophé of her great conquest.—Ibid.

See how the stubborne damzell doth deprave
My simple meaning with disdainfull scorne.

one mans simple head.

Sonnet xxix.

Sonnet xxxiii.

in my simple wit.

Sonnet xl.

Till then, dread Lord, vouchsafe to take of me
This simple song, thus fram'd in praise of thee.

Hymne in Honour of Love.

Next him Tenantius raignd; then Kimbeline,
What time th'eternall Lord in fleshly slime
Enwombed was, from wretched Adam's line
To purge away the guilt of sinfull crime.
O joyous memorie of happy time,
That heavenly grace so plenteously displayd!
(O too high ditty for my simple rime!)

Faerie Queene, II. x. 50.

Two examples may be quoted from Shakespeare. In the first the writer, in a humorous passage, is referring (as I think) to the working of his own genius, and makes light of it, as is the habit of men living in the world, to avoid offence, envy, or a reputation for peculiarity :

Holofernes. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.— L.L.L. iv. 2.

In the second the author seems to me to be describing his own character, as he believed it to be,

and as, at its best, and in intention, it probably was. The speech has little reference to the situation as between Troilus and Cressida, and is an example, among many others, where the author, in my opinion, uses a character as a means of self-expression :

Cres. My lord, will you be true?

Tro. Who, I? alas, it is my vice, my fault:
Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion,
I with great truth catch mere simplicity;
Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,
With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.
Fear not my truth: the moral of my wit

Is 'plain and true'; there's all the reach of it.
Troilus and Cressida, iv. 4.

The following instances of the same mannerism come from the anonymous Arte of Poesie:

a feat of mine owne simple facultie.-Address purporting to be by the Printer ("R. F."-Richard Field), but obviously in the style of the author.

the ancient guise in old times used at weddings (in my simple opinion) nothing reproveable. (i. 26.)

but hereunto serveth a reason in my simple conceite. (iii. 5.)

"William Webbe," referred to in Chapter I., opens his book with the same trick of style, and other examples of it occur in the course of the book, e.g.:

Thus farre foorth haue I aduentured to sette downe parte of my simple judgement concerning those Poets.

I will now offer some remarks on the "inaccuracy" of Shakespeare. This is always brought forward in controversy as a reason why the plays could not have been written by a man who had received a classical education. It is perhaps not realised by those who make use of the argument that both Spenser and Bacon betray the same habit. I will not ask the reader to accept this on my own statement, but refer

him to two writers of authority, who report on this subject, in each case, as follows:

Spenser :

His classical learning, whether acquired there [at Cambridge] or elsewhere, was copious, but curiously inaccurate.-Dean Church, Spenser, p. 17.

Strong in the abundant but unsifted learning of his day, a style of learning which in his case was strangely inaccurate. Ibid. p. 135.

Bacon:

Mr. S. H. Reynolds, in his Introduction to Bacon's Essays, writes as follows:

For accuracy in detail Bacon had no care whatever, and this again may be set down as probably a part of his craft. Carelessness of detail is certainly one of the characteristics of Bacon's Essays. Laboured and elaborate as they are in parts, and claiming to be written for all time as long as books shall last, they are none the less crowded with errors and misquotations, or are borne out in parts by manufactured evidence distorted from its original sense.

The same writer notes that Spedding admits Bacon's inaccuracy, but thinks (quoting Rawley) it was deliberate for the sake of presenting the substance in a better form, or a form better suited to the particular occasion. He also observes that it seems certain that Bacon frequently quoted from memory.

While revising the present work I noticed a review of the late Mr. Andrew Lang's book on the Shakespeare question, in the course of which the usual argument appeared. As it is typical of others of a similar character I append an extract:

Is it likely that Bacon would have made the kind of mistakes in history, geography and mythology which occur in A Winter's Tale or Troilus and Cressida? Shakespeare accommodated prehistoric Athens with a duke. He gave Scotland cannon three hundred years too early, and made Cleopatra play at billiards. Look at his notion of the "very manners of early post-Roman Britain in Cymbeline and King Lear! A playwright with a good smattering of knowledge and a supreme genius might do these things, but surely not Bacon.-Spectator, Jan. 18, 1913.

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