the way, that comes much nearer the truth of the matter. than most modern inquiry. So Bacon seems to have believed that some time far back in the series of these particular deluges, one continent or island may have been peopled from another, as when "the foul witch," Sycorax, with age and envy "grown into a hoop," mother of the "dull thing," Caliban, the born devil, on whose nature "nurture can never stick," came from Africa, banished "from Argier" to that uninhabited island which lay off somewhere toward "the still-vex'd Bermoothes" :"Then was this island, (Save for the son that she did litter here, A freckled whelp, hag-born,) not honour'd with He agreed also with Aristotle, that there was a difference between the races of men, inhabiting different parts of the earth, and between man and man, not unlike that which exists between man and animals. "But for my part," says he, "I take it neither for a brag nor for a wish, but for a truth as he limiteth it. For he saith if there be found such an inequality between man and man as there is between man and beast, or between soul and body, it investeth a right of government: which seemeth rather an impossible case than an untrue sentence. But I hold both the judgment true and the case possible; and such as hath had, and hath a being, both in particular men and nations." And the play even ventures to go farther still, and to hint at a difference as wide as a difference of species in the genus (wherein, again, our modern science is also not far behind him) thus: : "1 Mur. We are men, my liege. Macb. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men, As hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, According to the gift which bounteous Nature That writes them all alike: and so of men." Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 1. These learned investigations, together with the Summary (or Higher) Philosophy, of which Bacon had some knowledge, but of which such a man as William Shakespeare could have had but little notion, might lead up the author of the "Tempest" and the "Midsummer Night's Dream," beyond the Scriptural allegories of Noah's Ark and the Garden of Eden, to those more comprehensive and more profoundly philosophical conceptions of things, which are distinctly imaged forth in these beautiful dramas. At the same time, it will be borne in mind that the "Midsummer Night's Dream was written as early as 1594, and the Tempest " in 1611, while the "New Atlantis' was not written until after 1620, and the "Wisdom of the Ancients" was first printed (in Latin) in 1610; and this effectually excludes all possibility that William Shakespeare could have borrowed from Bacon in the writing of these plays. And the like is true in many other instances. On the other hand, like instances will be given to show, that Francis Bacon could not have borrowed from Shakespeare, otherwise than from himself. 66 Furthermore, it may be observed, in this connection, that those remarkable passages, which are most frequently quoted by the great lights of modern literature in proof of the deep insight of Shakespeare and his superiority as a poet, may be taken as evidence that the writer had attained to those deeply metaphysical ideas concerning the constitution of the universe and the nature and destiny of man in it, which have been entertained in any age, as they now are, by a small number of the profoundest thinkers and most rare and learned men only. The writings of Bacon, carefully studied, will show that he was familiar with these heights and depths, and that, having lighted his torch at the glorious sun of Plato (not neglecting Aristotle), he was, with that illumination and the help of his own newer methods, exploring "the universal world," and endeavoring to instaurate, as it were in advance, not the experimental science merely, but the higher philosophy of the XIXth century. Without the help of such studies, there is no possibility, now, for any man to attain to this philosophy; much less William Shakespeare, or even Bacon himself, in that age. That Shakespeare had ever turned his attention at all to studies which lay in that direction, we have no other proof than what the plays themselves afford; but, on the contrary, we have pretty decisive evidence, in his personal history, that he could never have done so. There was no other man of that time but Bacon that we know of, who had done so to the same extent as he; for even that Platonic thinker and poet, George Herbert, is not to be excepted; or if there be any exception, he will be found to have been, like Sidney, Greville, Sackville, Raleigh, Herbert, Hooker, Selden, Donne, or Cudworth, a child of the University, that could bring to his work as an author the discipline and finish of accurate and thorough scholarship, the rich spoils of classic antiquity, and the fruits of years of learned research, in the course of which the depths of Plato must have been sounded. But no other man can be named, who is not, upon considerations of another kind, completely excluded from the question of this authorship; and hence a ground of argument of no little weight, that Bacon must have been the man. The Wisdom of the Ancients, and the Characters of Julius and Augustus Cæsar, may show the direction of his studies, and they disclose the source of that familiar acquaintance with the Grecian mythology and the Roman history,. and with the ancient manners and customs, which is so distinctly displayed in these poetical works, and particularly in the "Troilus and Cressida," the "Timon of Athens," the "Antony and Cleopatra," the "Coriolanus," and the "Julius Cæsar." The Memory and Discourse of Queen Elizabeth find a parallel in Cranmer's Speech in compliment to King James and "the maiden phoenix," his predecessor; the History of Henry VII. in the tragedy of Richard III. and the other plays founded on English history and the Wars of the Roses; the intended History of Henry VIII., in the tragedy of that name; the New Atlantis, in prose, in these types and models in verse; and the Essays, the Advancement, the Natural History, and the Novum Organum, may render the civil and moral maxims, the natural science, and the metaphysical philosophy of the plays possible for their author, if he be taken to have been Francis Bacon. § 2. BEN JONSON. Ben Jonson must have been in the secret of this arrangement. Steevens thought the Dedication and Preface of Heming and Condell's Folio must have been written by him. He certainly took a large part in bringing this marvellous volume to light, and in parading in the frontispiece the stolid effigies of this mountebank, which probably needed no disguise from the burin of Droeshout to make it a veritable mask of Momus, in imperturbable mockseriousness, shaking his lance at the eyes of ignorance, "martial in the warlike sound of his surname, Hastivibrans," says garrulous old Fuller; while, at the same time, he slyly inserts, on the opposite page, that significant advice, "1 "Reader, looke, Not on his picture, but his booke." The style, manner, and diction of this Dedication and Preface are much more nearly that of Bacon; but it may very well have been Jonson. The story of the players, that Shakespeare never blotted out a line, has already been alluded to; but when it is remembered that Ben Jonson 1 Worthies of England, III. 284. was an intimate friend and great admirer of Bacon, deeming him "by his works one of the greatest of men and most worthy of admiration that had been in many ages"; that he wrote a poem in honor of "England's High Chancellor," for the festivities at York House on the anniversary of his sixtieth birthday, in which he speaks of him as one "Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full, that he was certainly present, if he did not take an active part, in bringing out the "Henry VIII." at the Globe, in 1613; that he was one of those "good pens" whose learned service Bacon employed in the translation of his English works into Latin; that even "in his adversity," after his fall from power, he could not "condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest"; and that he was himself a scholar, a critic, and a judge of men; it can scarcely be doubted, either that this anecdote of the players would be in the possession of Bacon, and as likely to be used by him as by Jonson himself, or that Jonson would have the sagacity and the means to discover the secret of this authorship, as well as the honor and good faith to keep it. He knew the cast of Bacon's mind and character. He had read his prose compositions, had translated some of them into Latin, and must have been familiar with his mode of thinking and his style of writing. And it is scarcely credible that he should not have recognized in the plays of Shakespeare, the hand and genius of the master whom he so much admired. That he appreciated this poetry in as high a degree as the critics of later times, even down to our day, may be clearly seen in his poetical "Eulogy" on Shakespeare. It is carefully dedicated to the " Memory of Shakespeare "and what he hath left us"; and the whole tenor of it is such as to fix the attention of the reader more on the writings than on the man. It was certainly his 66 |