“'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., Act 4; Macb., Act 1. It is in Lucrece, and also occurs in Bacon’s acknoweldged works. He had, perhaps, as good reason as Poe to desire 'surcease of sorrow.’
Certainly, Bacon had a right to use words existing in any language. We know that he anglicized many from the Latin and the French. Cognomen is of course from the Latin; desiderata, Mr. Candler admits, was used in 1652; cognizante—or as it is elsewhere spelled in the cipher, cognisant—might be allowed him on the ground that cognisances was certainly in use.—Henry Seventh, p. 211; 1 Hen. VI., Act 2; Jul. Cæsar, Act 2; Cym., Act 2.