Present friend an absent foe. Compare Promus, No. 1461. Fearing the worst. To fear the worst oft cures the worst. (Tr. Cr. iii. 2.) Come, come, we fear the worst. Water and fire (compared). See Promus, No. 1295. For trust or profit. See Promus, No. 151. (R. III. ii. 3, and Mer. Ven. i. 2, 94.) No Baconian allusions found in the Chorus, nor in Scenes 1 and 2 of Act ii. Well. Promus, No. 294. Death once. Act ii. Scene 3. If wishes might find place, I would die together, and not my mind often and my body once. (Second Essay Of Death.) (I find) in life but double death. (2 Hen. VI. iii. 2.) Double death. (Tit. And. iii. 1, 245; W. Tale, v. 3, 107.) A man can die but once. (2 H. IV. iii. 2.) I would that I might die at once, For now they kill me with a living death. (R. III. i. 2.) Let us die instant.1 (H. V. iv. 5.) The pangs of three several deaths. (Mer. Wiv. iii. 5, &c.) Too much (of a good thing). Promus, No. 487. Even that I hold the kingliest point of all Compare Promus, No. 379. A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey. (R. II. iii. 3.) 1 • Instant' in Steevens' edition; 'in fight,' Valpy; 'in honour,' Leopold. The end allows the act. Let the end try the man. (2 Hen. IV. ii. 4.) Compare Promus, No. 949. Overleaping your strength. Compare Promus, No. 1128. Vaulting ambition which overleaps itself. (Macb. i. 7.) In brief. Compare Promus, No. 706. Act ii. Scene 4. I inwards feel my fall, my thoughts misgive me much: down, terror! My inward soul, &c. (John, iii. 1; R. II. ii. 2, rep.) Our inward woe. (Tr. Cr. v. 11.) My heart misgives me. (Mer. Wiv. v. 5; 3 Hen. VI. iv. 6; Rom. Jul. i. 4; Oth. iii. 4.) Dive thoughts down to my soul. (R. III. i. 1.) Hysterica passio! Down, thou climbing sorrow! No traces of Bacon in the Chorus nor in the Argument. Act ii. Scene 1. Disguised vice for virtue vaunts itself. Promus, No. 23, and compare No. 452. No worse a vice than lenity in kings. Rough rigour looks out right, and still prevails. Festering sore (hollowness). Promus, Nos. 589 and 1438. Well. Promus, No. 294. Fallen into the trap. Promus, No. 798. No traces of Bacon found in Act iii. Scenes 2, 3, and 4; nor in the Chorus, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 (excepting a remark on highclimbing and deep-falling in part 3; see Promus, No. 484) none in the Argument nor in Act iv. 1. Nothing lesse. Act iv. Scene 2. Promus, Nos. 308 and 1400a. You speak in clouds. (He) keeps himself in clouds. (Ham. iv. 5.) My silence, and my cloudy melancholy. (Tit. And. ii. 3.) The cloudy messenger. (Macb. iii. 6, &c.) Unfold. Compare Promus, Nos. 1012 and 1416. No traces of Bacon in Act iv. 3; none in Chorus, parts 1, 2, and 3. As mellow fruit falls. Chorus, Part 4. Like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree, But fall unshaken when they mellow be. (Ham. iii. 2.) Shook down my mellow hangings. (Cymb. iii. 3, and Cor. iv. 6,101.) No traces in the Argument to Dumb Shows 1, 2, and 3, in Act iv. Scene 3. Argument to Dumb Show, Fifth and last. A target, depicted with a man's heart sore wounded and the blood gushing out, crowned with a crown imperiall, and a lawrell garland, thus written on toppe :-' En totum quod superest.' Promus, No. 423. Linking friendship. Promus, No. 594. Fruit of fame. Act v. Scene 1. Fruits of duty, R. II. iii. 4; fruits of love, 3 H. VI. iii. 2; Oth. ii. 3; fruits of wickedness, Tit. And. v. 1, Oth. v. 1 &c. PP The Epilogue seems to have been written by Bacon. APPENDIX I. 'CONTYNUANCES OF ALL KINDS.' SOME curious particulars have been collected by means of a comparison of the Contynuances' which were used by Bacon in his prose writings at various periods of his literary life, with the 'Contynuances' which are to be found in Shakespeare's plays of the earlier and later periods. Only a few details can be given here, but these will show that the same progressive improvements may be noted in this particular, in both groups of works, and that if Bacon's note shows him to have felt that a poverty in 'contynuances' was a weak point in his own style, and a point which he set himself to work to improve, the author of the plays, at about the same period, noted the same defect in his own diction, and in a like manner set about correcting it. At any rate, it is a fact which anyone may prove for himself, that the number and variety of the 'contynuances' (or modes of resuming or continuing a subject of discourse), are found steadily to increase in successive plays later than the Taming of the Shrew, written, according to Dr. Delius, in 1594, and about the date of the Promus entries. Thus, in Titus Andronicus (before 1591) there are about eighty 'contynuances.' We find the following words used for this pur pose:-And, as if, ay, because, but, come, first, for, nay, now, so, surely, then, therefore, thus, well, why, yet. Eleven of these eighteen words are used only once or twice; why, nine times, but, five times. In this early play, and appears no less than forty-five times at the commencement of a line, or immediately after a full stop, and in act v. scene 2 there are sixteen lines (186 to 201 inclusive), of which ten begin with and.1 Again, in 1 Hen. VI. (date 1591) there have been counted about 110 'contynuances,' amongst which and occurs sixty-five times. The other forms are the same as in Titus Andronicus, excepting that the latter play has as if and because, whilst 1 Hen. VI. has besides and since, each once only. If now we pass over the other plays of the so-called First Period, and examine in a similar manner the forms of continuation in a play written four or five years later than Titus Andronicus, the advance which has been made in regard to this point of style very remarkable. is Let us take, for instance, The Merchant of Venice (date 1595). In this play there are about 150 'contynuances' which are found not only to include the eighteen or twenty words which have been already enumerated, but also at least twenty other forms, such as-Certainly, indeed, for my part, if this be so, it would seem that, in a word, in truth, well, believe me, &c. (some of which, it may be observed, are Promus entries). There is more equality in the use of the various forms than was found in the earlier plays, and, for instance, being used only fifteen times after a stop, whilst other words, such as, now, then, therefore, what, well, why, &c., are almost equally frequent. Conversation has become less abrupt and jerky, and the improvement in style is marked. Turning next to Hen. VIII., which is reckoned as being the latest of the plays-(or, perhaps it should be said, an early play rewritten or touched up much later than the rest)-we may count upwards of a hundred continuances. The elegance of these is much superior to those in The Merchant of Venice. And has almost disappeared as a commencement of sentences-(it has only been noticed in Act ii. Scene 2, 1. 43)—whilst the new forms are abundant, and for the most part now in such general use that it seems difficult to realise the fact that they were only introduced into ordinary conversation towards the end of Elizabeth's reign. Such 1 See also Sonnet lxvi., where, out of fourteen lines, ten begin with and. Comp. remarks in Philology (p. 119), J. Peile, M.A. |