1st Clo. How can that be, unless she drown'd herself in her own defence? 2d Clo. Why, 't is found so. 1st Clo. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act, and an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to perform: argal, she drowned herself wittingly. 2d Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver. 1st Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good: if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes; mark you that: but if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life. 2d Clo. 1st Clo. But is this law? Ay, marry, is 't; crowner's 'quest law. 2d Clo. Will you ha' the truth on 't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out of Christian burial. 1st Clo. Why, there thou say'st, and the more pity, that great folk shall have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even Christian."- Act V. Sc. 1. A careful comparison of these passages may satisfy the critical reader that the author of the play had certainly read this report of Plowden. They are not adduced here as amounting to proof that the author was any other than William Shakespeare, but rather as a circumstance bearing upon the antecedent probabilities of the case; for there is not the slightest ground for a belief, on the facts which we know, that Shakespeare ever looked into Plowden's Reports; while it is quite certain that Francis Bacon, who commenced his legal studies at Gray's Inn in the very next year after the date of Plowden's preface, did have occasion to make himself familiar with that work, some years before the appearance of the "Hamlet." And the mode of reasoning, and the manner of the report, bordering so nearly upon the ludicrous, would be sure to impress the memory of Bacon, whose nature, as we know, was singularly capable of wit and humor. Not less curious is it to observe, that Mr. Hackett, as early as 1859, noticing the numerous metaphorical expres sions in the plays, which relate to the flowing of the blood to and from the heart or liver, and which imply, when closely examined, a critical knowledge of the physiology of this subject, as understood by professional authors down to that day, has actually maintained the proposition that William Shakespeare had anticipated the celebrated Harvey in the discovery of the circulation of the blood.1 And not much later, a distinguished English physician, following the example of Lord Campbell in the department of law, has undertaken to demonstrate that "the immortal dramatist,” though he had not discovered the circulation of the blood, had nevertheless "paid an amount of attention to subjects of medical interest scarcely if at all inferior to that which has served as the basis of the learned and ingenious argument, that this intellectual king of men had devoted seven good years of his life to the practice of law."" Moreover, this same writer, on diligent examination, was "surprised and astonished" at "the extent and exactness of the psychological knowledge displayed" in these plays, and very naturally came to the conclusion that "abnormal conditions of mind had attracted Shakespeare's diligent observation, and had been his favorite study." " "3 He finds instances which amount "not merely to evidence, but to proof, that Shakespeare had read widely in medical literature," and continues thus: "For the honor of medicine, it would be difficult to point to any great author, not himself a physician, in whose works the healing art is referred to more frequently and more respectfully than in those of Shakespeare." Dr. Bucknill even ventures to suggest that the marriage of Shakespeare's eldest daughter, in 1607, with Dr. John Hall, the physician, who afterwards lived in the same house with him at Stratford-on-Avon, may have been the means of imparting to the mind of the poet some 1 Notes on Shakes. Plays and Actors (New York, 1863), p. 268. 2 Shakes. Med. Knowl., by John Charles Bucknill, M. D., London, 1860. Psychology of Shakes., by John Charles Bucknill, M. D., London, 1859. degree of medical knowledge. But, unfortunately for this theory, nearly all the plays from which the most striking passages concerning the flow of the blood have been cited, were written prior to that date, and some of them long before. Mr. Hackett seems to think there may have been some intimacy between the poet and the doctor, "long previous to the marriage," and so, that Shakespeare "may have made himself acquainted with every important fact or theory which had transpired in relation to the subject." This is indeed possible; but it would be a more satisfactory explanation of this very special feature in the plays, if it did not require us to carry back his medical studies, at least, to the date of the "King John," and almost make them encroach upon those seven good years already demanded for the study of law, especially in the absence of any positive evidence in his personal history that he had ever looked into a book of law or medicine. But Dr. Bucknill, as well as the American physician who controverted the views of Mr. Hackett, more thoroughly versed in medical science, has successfully made it appear, not merely that the Shakespearian expressions do not imply a knowledge of the circulation of the blood, in the sense of Harvey, but that they are, in truth, in very exact accordance with the doctrines of Galen, Hippocrates, Rabelais, and others, who were, prior to Harvey, "the learned and authentic fellows" in this branch of knowledge, and with whose writings, as we certainly know, Sir Francis Bacon was quite familiar, for he cites and reviews these very authors, together with Aristotle, Celsus, Porta, Cardan, Fabricius, Servetus, Telesius, Paracelsus, and many more: "Parolles. Why, 't is the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot oit in our latter times. Bertram. And so 't is. Lafleur. To be relinquished of the artists, Parolles. So I say; both of Galen and Paracelsus. Lafleur. Of all the learned and authentic fellows, Parolles. Right, so I say." - All's Well, Act II. Sc. 3. Harvey's discovery, though supposed to have been made known at the College of Physicians as early as 1615, was first publicly announced in his published work on the subject, in 1619, three years after the death of Shakespeare. The plays from which Mr. Hackett cites his evidences were all written before 1610, and most of them several years earlier. It is quite possible that Bacon, however, may have heard something of Harvey's discovery, or even seen his book, before the publication of the Folio of 1623. So remarkable a fact should have awakened a profound interest in a mind like his; but there is no intimation in any of his writings that he was at all acquainted with this discovery. Nor is it probable that any author would have occasion to alter and adapt his poetical metaphors to the scientific niceties of the latest announcement. Prior to Harvey, and as early as 1553, Michael Servetus of Geneva had discovered the flow of the blood from the right side of the heart, through valves opening towards the lungs, and from thence, through the pulmonary vein, to the left ventricle, whence he supposed it was diffused through the whole body; and Fabricius of Padua had discovered the valves in the veins opening towards the heart. Harvey was his pupil, about the year 1600, and from him learned the fact which first suggested the idea of the general circulation. The most suggestive passage of all those cited from Shakespeare, in proof that he was in possession of the same idea, is that in which the ghost in "Hamlet" is made to say of "the blood of man," "That swift as quicksilver, it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body"; and this appears in the first printed editions of the "Hamlet" (1603 and 1604), that of 1603 reading "posteth instead of "courses"; but in the language and thought of all these passages, striking resemblances to the ideas, style, and diction of Sir Francis Bacon may be distinctly noted, as in these examples: 1 Craik's Eng. Lit., II. 149. Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 4. "The tide of blood in me Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now: 2 Henry IV., Act V. Sc. 2. "Had bak'd thy blood, and made it heavy, thick, King John, Act III. Sc. 3. The fountain from the which my current runs, Much Ado About Nothing, Act IV. Sc. 1. "The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 1. "Lord Angelo is precise; 66 Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses That his blood flows," Is a very snow-broth." 66 a man whose blood Measure for Measure, Act 1. Sc. 4, 5. Much Ado, Act V. Sc. 1. 'Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?” "I send it through the rivers of your blood, Even to the court, the heart, to th' seat o' th' brain; And through the cranks and offices of man, The strongest nerves, and small inferior veins, From me receive that natural competency Whereby they live." - Coriolanus, Act I. Sc. 1. "The second property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, but the sherris warms it, and makes it course from the inwards to the parts |