" It seems, therefore, evident
that he knew the secret of Bacon's authorship and intended to inform
those capable of understanding that the graver had done out the life
when he writes, "Out-doo the life." In the New English Dictionary, edited
by Sir J.A.H. Murray, there are upwards of six hundred words beginning
with "Out," and every one of them, with scarcely a single exception,
requires, in order to be fully understood, to be read reversed. Out-law
does not mean outside of the law, but lawed out by a legal process.
"Out-doo" was used only in the sense of "do out"; thus, in the "Cursor
Mundi," written centuries before the days of Elizabeth, we read that
Adam was out done [of Paradise]; and in Drayton's "Barons' Wars,"
published in 1603, we find in Book V. s. li.
"That he his foe not able to withstand,
Was ta'en in battle and his eyes out-done."
The graver has indeed done out the life so cleverly that for hundreds of
years learned pedants and others have thought that the figure
represented a real man, and altogether failed to perceive that it was a
mere stuffed dummy clothed in an impossible coat, cunningly composed of
the front of the left arm buttoned on to the back of the same left arm,
as to form a double left armed apology for a man.
Pages:
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36