request. But in regard that some friends of yours have still insisted here, I send them to you; and for my part, I value your own reading more than your publishing them to others. Thus, in extreme haste, I have scribbled to you I know not what.

6

(Letter from Bacon to Sir Tobie Matthew, 1609.)

What these works of the alphabet' may have been I cannot guess; unless they related to Bacon's cipher, &c. (Mr. Spedding's comment on the above, Phil. Works, i. 659.)

(See also Advt. of L. ii. (Spedding, iii. 399), where Bacon quotes Aristotle, who says that words are the images of cogitations, and letters are the images of words.)

517. Good wine needes no bush.

Good wine needs no bush. (As Y. L. Epilogue.)

518. Heroum filij noxæ.-Erasmus, Ad. 204. (Heroes' sons are banes or plagues, being usually degenerate.) Who . . saw his heroical seed mangle the work of nature. (Hen. V. ii.)

519. The hasty bytche whelpes a blind litter.

The rogues lighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen i' the litter. (Mer. Wiv. iii. 4.)

520. Alia res sceptrum, alia plectrum.-Eras. Adagia, 872. (A sceptre and a lyre are quite different things.)

Desired at a feast to touch a lute, he (Themistocles) said: 'He could not fiddle, but yet he could make a small town a great city.' These words-holpen a little with a metaphor-may express two different abilities in those that deal in business of state. (See Essay Of True Greatness of Kingdoms, Advt. L. i.; and De Aug. viii. 3.)

Princes many times make themselves desires and set their hearts upon a toy. . . as Nero for playing on the harp.

Plantagenet, I will; and like thee, Nero,

(Ess. Of Empire.)

Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn. (1 Hen. VI. i. 4.)

521. Fere Danaides. (Almost [like] the daughters of Danus, whose punishment in hell was to pour water into an empty sieve.)

Thy counsel

. . falls as profitless into my ears as water

into a sieve. (M. Ad. v. 1.)

I know I love in vain, strive against hope;

Yet in this captious and intenible sieve

I still pour in the waters of my love. (All's Well, i. 3.)

522. Arbore dejectâ quivis ligna collegit.-Er. Ad. 655. (Any man can gather wood when the tree is down.)

We take from every tree top, bark, and part o' the timber;
And though we leave it with a root thus hacked,

The air will drink the sap. (Hen. VIII. i. 2.)

523. The strives of demy goddes demi men.

Thus can the demi-god authority make us pay down for our offence. (M. M. i. 2.)

(Demi-god three times in the plays.)

Demi-atlas. (Ant. Cl. i. 3, 23.)
Demi-cannon. (Tam. Sh. iv. 3, 88.)
Demi-devil. (Oth. v. 2, 303.)

Demi-natured. (Ham. iv. 7, 86.)

Demi-paradise. (R. II. ii. 1, 42.)

524. Priscis credendum.-Eras. Ad. 1036. (We must believe the ancients (them of old time).

Old fashions please me best. (Tam. Sh. iii. 1.)

Let me not live. to be the snuff of younger spirits, whose apprehensive spirits all but new things disdain.

(All's W.i. 3.)

Custom calls me to 't;

(Connect with No. 530.)

What custom wills, in all things should we do 't;
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heaped
For truth to o'erpeer. (Cor. ii. 3.)

525. We must believe the witnesses are dead.

526. There is no trusting a woman nor a tapp.

Constant you are,

But yet a woman, and for secrecy

No lady closer, for I well believe

Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know.

I grant I am a woman, but withal . . . .

A woman well reputed . . .

(1 Hen. IV. ii. 3.)

Tell me your counsels, I'll not disclose them.
I have made strong proof of my constancy,
Giving myself a voluntary wound

Here in the thigh. Can I bear that with patience
And not my husband's secrets? (Jul. Cæs. ii. 1.)

Folio 936.

527. Not only ye Spring but ye Michelmas Spring.

Is fallen into the sear and yellow leaf. (Macbeth, v. 3.)

My wife to France: from whence, set forth in pomp,

She came adorned hither like sweet May,

Sent back like Hallowmas or shortest of day. (R. II. v. 1.) The middle summer's spring. (M. N. D. ii. 2.)

Farewell, thou latter spring! farewell,

All-Hallow'n summer! (1 H. IV. i. 2.)

Posthumus.

In his spring became a harvest. (Cymb. i. 1.)

528. Virj juregurando (sic), pueri talis fallendij.—Er. Ad. 699. (Men are to be deceived with oaths, boys with dice.) Children are deceived with comfits, men with oaths.

As false as dicers' oaths. (Ham. iii. 4.)

(De Aug. viii. 2.)

529. Ipsa dies quandoque parens quandoque noverca est.-Er. Ad. 282. (Time is now a parent, now a stepmother.)

(Quoted from a verse of Hesiod on observations concerning auspicious and inauspicious days.)

1 Dr. Johnson thus reads it. Other editions have 'way.'

You will not find me, after the slander of most stepmothers, evil-eyed to you. (Cymb. i. 2.)

530. Ubi non sis qui fueris non est cur velis vivere.Er. Ad. 275. (When you are no longer what you have been, there is no cause why yoa should wish to live.)

Shy. May take my life and all: pardon not that :
You take my house when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house; you take my life
When you do take the means whereby I live.

531. Compendiaria res improbitas.-Er. Ad. 681. Villainy is a thing quickly learnt-or arrived at.)

The villainy you teach me I will execute. (Mer. Ven. iii. 2.) Do villainy like workmen. I'll example you with thievery. (Tim. Ath. iv. 3.)

(See Cymb. iii. 6, 107-129.)

532. It is in action as it is in wayes; commonly the nearest is the foulest.

(Quoted Antitheta, Advt. L. iii.; De Aug. viii. 2.)

God knows by how many by-paths and indirect and crooked ways I won the crown. (2 Hen. IV. iv. 4.)

[Your heart] is too full of the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way. (Macb. i. 2.)

(See No. 1256.)

533. Lachrimâ nil citius arescit.-Eras. Ad. 1014.

(Nothing dries up more quickly than tears.)

Ham. A little month; or ere those shoes were old

With which she followed my poor father's body,

Like Niobe, all tears. . . . within a month,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

She married. (Ham. i. 2.)

What manner of thing is your crocodile?

"Tis a strange serpent, and the tears of it are wet.

(Ant. Cl. ii. 7.)

Q. Marg. What, weeping-ripe, my lord Northumberland?

Think but upon the wrong he did us all,
And that will quickly dry thy melting tears.

(3 Hen. VI. i. 4, 144, 174.)

534. Woorke when God woorkes.

To see how God in all His creatures works. (2 Hen. VI. ii. 1.)
Heaven shall work in me for thine avail. (All's W. i. 3.)
With Him above to ratify the work. (Macb. iii. 6.)

535. A shrewd turn comes unbidden.

This young maid might do her a shrewd turn if she pleased. (All's W. iii. 5.)

536. Hirundines sub eodem tecto ne habeas.-Er. Ad. 20. (Allow no swallows under thy roof. Interpreted by Hieronymus of garrulous and gossiping persons.)

Sparrows must not build in his house, because they are lecherous. (M. M. iii. 2.)

This temple-haunting martlet does approve,

By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,

Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird

Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle :

Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
The air is delicate. (Macb. i. 6.)

537. A thorn is gentle when it is young.

Does so young a thorn begin to prick (3 II. VI. v. 5.)

So young and so untender? (Lear, i. 1.)

538. Aut regem aut fatuum nasci oportet—(of a free jester).-Eras. Ad. 93. (One ought to be born a king or a fool-each having carte-blanche for what they say or do.) This your all-licensed fool. (Lear, i. 4.)