The Bacon- 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, " Be so true to thyself as 

 thou be not false to others "(" Essay of Wisdom "), 

 Shakespeare says : 



" To thine own self be true, 

 And it must follow, as the night the day, 

 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 



(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 " Hamlet " published 

 in 1603, whereas the " Essay of Wisdom " was 

 first published hi 1612. 



Again, where Bacon, in the " Essay of Gardens," 

 says, " The breath of flowers comes and goes like 

 the warbling of music," it reminds one strongly 

 of the exquisite passage in " Twelfth Night " where 

 the Duke exclaims : 



" That strain again ! it had a dying fall : 

 O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south, 

 That breathes upon a bank of violets, 

 Stealing and giving odour." 



