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"Do not for one repulse, forego the purpose

That you resolved to effect."

Tempest, Act iii. Sc. 3.

"Make not impossible that which seems unlike." Measure for Measure, Act v. Sc. I.

"I gave him fifteen wounds,

Which now be fifteen mouths that do accuse me;
In every mouth there is a bloody tongue
Which will speak although he holds his peace."
A Warning for Fair Women (1599).

Compare this with "Antony and Cleopatra :

"Show you sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor dumb

mouths, etc."

"And put a tongue

Act iii. Sc. 2.

In every wound of Cæsar's, etc." (1607).

In the same play alluded to above, there is this passage:

"Now is the hour come

To put your love unto the touch; to try

If it be current, or base counterfeit."

Compare it with the following in Richard III. :

"Now do I play the touch

To try if thou be current gold indeed." *

*Collier, speaking of “ A Warning for Fair Women," which was printed 1599, says: "Its resemblance to Shakespeare's plays is not merely verbal; the speeches of Anne Sandus, the repentant wife, are Shakespearian in a much better sense. But for the extreme rarity of this tragedy, it might ere now have been attributed to Shakespeare."

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COINCIDENCES OR EXPRESSIONS TO BE FOUND IN BACON AND SHAKESPEARE.

OETRY is nothing else but feigned history."

POETRY

Bacon.

""Tis poetical. It is the more likely to be feigned."
"The truest poetry is the most feigning."

Shakespeare.

"He that builds a fair house upon an ill seat committeth himself to prison; nor do I reckon that an ill seat only where the air is unwholesome, but likewise where it is unequal."

"This castle hath a pleasant seat - the air,

Nimbly and sweet, recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses."

Bacon.

Shakespeare.

"Behaviour seemeth to me a garment of the mind, and to have the condition of a garment, for it ought to be made in fashion, and ought not to be curious."

"Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

Bacon, 1605.

But not express'd in fancy; rich not gaudy."

Shakespeare, 1603.

"Is not the opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded, where he saith, that young men are not fit auditors of moral philosophy?" Bacon, 1605.

"Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought

Unfit to hear moral philosophy."

Shakespeare, 1609.

"In the third place, I set down reputation, because of the peremptory tides and currents it hath, which, if they be not taken in due time, are seldom recovered; it being extremely hard to play an after game of reputation." Bacon, 1605.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shadows and in miseries."

Shakespeare, 1603.

Bacon relates that a fellow, named Hog, importuned Sir Nicholas to save his life on account of the kindred between Hog and Bacon.

"Aye, but," replied the judge, "you and I cannot be kindred except you be hanged; for Hog is not Bacon until it will be hanged."

In "Merry Wives of Windsor," Shakespeare alludes to the same joke:

Evans.-"Hung, hang, hog."

D. Quickly." Hang-hog is the Latin for Bacon."

"For these be wise men that have secret hearts, but transparent countenances."

Bacon.

"And the whiteness in thy cheek

Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand."

Shakespeare.

"Yet evermore it must be remembered, that the least part of knowledge passed to man by this so large a charter from God, must be subject to that use for which God hath granted it, which is the benefit and relief of the state and society of man."

Bacon, 1620.

"Nature never lends

The smallest scruple of her excellence;

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both use and knowledge."

Shakespeare, 1604.

"As his victory gave him the knee, so his purposed marriage with the Lady Elizabeth gave him the heart, so that both knee and heart did truly bow before him."

Bacon, 1622.

"Show heaven the humbled heart, and not the knee."

Richard II., 1597.

"And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee."

Hamlet, 1602.

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and

digested."

"How shall we stretch our eyes,

Bacon, 1605.

When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested,
Appear before us?"
Shakespeare, 1598.

"And therefore, in conclusion, he wished him not to shut the gate of your Majesty's mercy against himself, by being obdurate any longer."

"The gates of mercy shall shut up."

Bacon.

Shakespeare.

"It is better they should be graced with elegancy, than daubed with cost."

"Poor Tom's a cold: I cannot daub it further."

Bacon.

Shakespeare.

"All was inned at last into the king's barn."

"He that ears my land spares my team,

And gives me leave to inn my crop."

Bacon.

Shakespeare.

"It is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground." Bacon.

"Bright metals on a sullen ground

Will show more goodly, and attract more eyes,
Than that which hath no fool to set off."

Shakespeare.

"The flesh shrinketh, but the bones resisteth,
Whereby the cold becometh more eager."

Hamlet.-"The air bites shrewdly.

--

Bacon, 1612.

it is very cold. Horatio. It is a nipping and an eager air."

Shakespeare, 1597.

"For the sound will greater or lesser, as the barrel is more empty or more full."

Bacon, 1612.

"Nor are these empty-hearted, whose low sound

Reverts no hollowness."

Shakespeare, 1606.

In Act ii. Sc. I of Henry VI., we find this passage:

Glou." My lord, 't is but a base, ignoble mind,

That mounts no higher than a bird can soar."

There is a Latin sentence somewhat similar, the translation of which is, " Hope soars beyond an eagle's flight."

As Shakespeare and Bacon were the two great writers

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