Like those, he treats princes as " Heavenly Bodies "
that bring about good and evil times. The new inter-
polations contain no fewer than three allusions to the
titles of dramas. Henry the Eighth is set to rhyme ;
Edward the Second occurs in a set of verses with a
four-fold jingle rhyme written in the old ballad style of
the time of Edward the Second ; finally " the three
Sonnes of Henry the Second" (King John and his
brothers) are mentioned. The first rhyme runs thus :

During that Triumviro^

of Kings, King Henry the Eight . ..
That on Edward (a tragedy published under
Marlowe's name) :

Edward the Second of Englaftd',
his Queen, had the principall kand^
in the Deposing and
Murther of her husband.
This manner of emphasising the words " England' "
and "Husband'" is, as we before said, intended, as
being in the old-fashioned style, such as we hear over
and over again in the old ballads :

Ne for the gold of all England'
The Douglas wold not break his word.
Or:

Throughout merry England^

Where we might find a messenger
Betweenc us two to unde.
Digitized by VjOOQIC



176 FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES

And who can blame us if, when reading these
rhymes, we recall the tragic scenes and atrocities of
the dramas ? Even Bacon himself in the same Essay,
" Of Empire," and with the same stroke of the pen,
writes down the word " Tragedies," albeit as a man of
discretion he does not say : I mean the Shakespeare
Tragedies and Histories.
