The B aeon- Shakespeare Folly 391 



upon which Baconizing text-mongers are wont to 

 lay great stress as proof of common authorship. 

 Some such resemblances may be due to borrowing 

 from common sources ; others are doubtless purely 

 fanciful; others indicate either that Shakespeare 

 cribbed from Bacon or vice versa. Here are a 

 few miscellaneous instances : 



Where Bacon says, &quot;Be so true to thyself as 

 thou be not false to others &quot;(&quot; Essay of Wisdom &quot;), 

 Shakespeare says : 



&quot; To thine own self be true, 

 And it must follow, as the night the day, 

 Thou canst not then be false to any man.&quot; 



(Hamlet, I. iii.) 



This looks as if one writer might have copied from 

 the other. If so, it is Bacon who is the thief, for 

 the lines occur in the quarto &quot; Hamlet &quot; published 

 in 1603, whereas the &quot; Essay of Wisdom &quot; was 

 first published in 1612. 



Again, where Bacon, in the &quot; Essay of Gardens,&quot; 

 says, &quot; The breath of flowers comes and goes like 

 the warbling of music,&quot; it reminds one strongly 

 of the exquisite passage in &quot; Twelfth Night &quot; where 

 the Duke exclaims : 



&quot; That strain again ! it had a dying fall : 

 0, it came o er my ear like the sweet south, 

 That breathes upon a bank of violets, 

 Stealing and giving odour.&quot; 



