A like recurrence is found in these: “And as in the Tides of
People once up there want not commonly stirring winds to make them
rough.”--_Henry Seventh_, p. 164; “For as the aunciente in politiques
in popular Estates were woont to Compare the people to the sea, and the
Orators to the winds because as the sea would of itselfe be caulm and
quiet, if the windes did not moove and trouble it; so the people would
be peaceable and tractable if the seditious orators did not set them in
working and agitation.”--_Advt. of L._ (1605), Book 2, 2nd p. 77.
Many of the culled expressions in Bacon’s _Promus_ are employed in the
cipher, as I have already found. When the same incidents are related in
the word-cipher that are given in the biliteral, large passages must
appear in both the _Bi-literal Cypher_ and Bacon’s open works.
5. Mr. Candler makes a series of verbal distinctions, as follows:
“There are, I think, words used in the cipher story in quite a wrong
sense. I will give instances: 'Gems rare and _costive_.’ Murray gives
no example of _costive_ meaning _costly_.
“'I am _innocuous_ of any ill to Elizabeth.’ Neither Murray nor Webster
gives any example of 'innocuous of,’ _i. e._, innocent of,’ though
_innocuous_ may mean _innocent_. Shakespeare does not use the word.
“'Surcease’ is a good enough word, but 'surcease of sorrow’ is used by
Poe, an American author; and the use of the phrase by Mrs. Gallup’s
'Bacon’ makes one wonder whether he had ever read _The Raven_.
“'Cognomen,’ p. 29. No instance given in Murray earlier than 1809.
'Desiderata,’ p. 161. No instance of 'desideratum’ earlier than 1652.
“'Hand and glove,’ p. 359. Earliest instance in Murray, 1680.
“'Cognizante’ adj. Earliest example in Murray, 1820. Murray says,
'Apparently of modern introduction; not in dictionaries of the
eighteenth century;’ ... (cognisance is quite early, both as a law term
and in literary use.)”
These are refinements beyond reason. Bacon added thousands of new words
and new uses of words to the language. There is something applicable to
the case in the _Advancement of Learning_ (1605).
“I desire it may bee conceived that I use the word in a differing
sense from that that is receyved,” and “I sometimes alter the uses and
definitions.”--Book 2, pp. 24-25.
Had the word _costive_ occurred but once I should have considered it
intended for _costlye_ as we find it in Bacon. He may have used a _v_
where _y_ was intended.
It is true _innocuous_, from the Latin _innocuus_, in the dictionaries
is used only of things, but Bacon evidently employed it differently,
and wrote “innocuous of ill” as he would have written “not guilty of
crime.” In _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (1621) we find “Northerne men,
_innocuous_, free from riot” (p. 82), and “The patient _innocuous_ man.”
_Surcease_ is used in the Shakespeare plays--Cor., Act 3; Rom. & Jul.,