At Shrovetide, the Prince and his train went to Court, where another masque was performed before her Majesty. The actors were an Esquire, a Tartar page, Proteus, and two Tritons, Thamesis and Amphitrite; and it began with a hymn to Neptune. The Squire's speech contained these lines in compliment to Elizabeth:

"Excellent Queen! true adamant of hearts,
Out of that sacred garland ever grew
Garlands of virtues, beauties, and perfections,

That crowns your crown, and dims your fortune's beams."

The Queen was much pleased, and wished it had been longer. Next day the gentlemen were presented to her by the Lord Chamberlain: she gave them her hand to kiss, commanding Gray's Inn to study such sports for her frequent amusement. The same night, there was fighting in the barriers, the Earl of Essex and the challengers against the Earl of Cumberland and the defendants, the Prince of Purpoole winning the prize, a jewel set with seventeen diamonds and four rubies, which the Queen presented with her own hand.

Surely, we need not wonder to find the young courtier, Francis Bacon, as yet only Queen's Counsel, exerting all the powers of his genius in the invention of these elegant, refined, and intellectual entertainments, in which his great patrons and friends, the Earls of Essex and Southampton, took so large a share, and which received thus the signal countenance and favor of their sovereign mistress. In fact, his contributions to these royal amusements continued far into the next reign and until he became Attorney-General, when, ceasing to be an author in them, he began himself to be the recipient of like honors on special occasions. As a part of the festivities in honor of the nuptials of the Princess Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine, during the Christmas Revels of 1612-13, it came again "to Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple's turn to come with their Masque whereof Sir Francis Bacon was the chief contriver," and

Mr. Phineas Pette was employed, as he says, "by the Gentlemen of Gray's Inn, whereof Sir Francis Bacon was chief, to bring the Masque by water to Whitehall," and "safely landed it at the Privy Stairs." The subject of this Masque, which was written by Francis Beaumont, was "the Marriage of the River of Thames to Rhine."1 In the next year (Dec. 9th, 1613), Sir Francis Bacon of his own motion, having been made Attorney-General in October preceding, prepares a Masque for his Majesty's entertainment, which, says the account, "will stand him in £2000,” declining to accept a contribution towards it "of £500 from Gray's Inn and Mr. Yelverton," and he also "feasts the whole University of Cambridge," at his own expense, now (as Chamberlain writes) "rivaling Woolsey in magnificence"; and the year after (1613-14) on Twelfth Night, the Gentlemen of Gray's Inn, "under the patronage of Sir Francis Bacon" and upon occasion of the marriage of the Duke of Somerset, exhibit a "Masque of Flowers," which was printed, and dedicated by the authors "to the Very Honorable Sir Francis Bacon, His Majesty's Attorney-General." 2

§ 8. FRAGMENTS.

Still another Masque, or two fragments (for it breaks into two pieces), has been lately brought to light by the researches of Dixon and Spedding. It comes from the same bundle of the Lambeth MSS., in which were found the speeches for the Essex Masque; but it is a separate paper, in a handwriting of that age, without date, title, heading, or other mark of a strictly historical character, to indicate its origin or purpose. Mr. Spedding evidently believes the piece to have been written by Bacon; and that such was the fact, there is scarcely any room for doubt, for it bears the impress of Bacon's mind and manner in every line of it.

1 Nichols' Progr. James I., II. 587.

2 lbid. II. 734.

8 Pers. Hist. of Lord Bacon, 73; Letters and Life, I. 386–391.

There is nothing to show that it was originally designed as a part of the Essex Masque, and the internal evidence is very strong that it belonged to another occasion, as early as 1594. One of the speakers is "the Squire” as usual, and his master Erophilus (Essex) is supposed to be doubting in his love between the Queen and Philautia, the goddess of self-love; and the fragment begins with the Squire's speech, introducing "two wanderers," an "Indian youth," and "the attendant or conductor to the Indian prince," who is son of a mighty monarch in "the most retired part” of the "West Indias, near unto the fountain of the great river of the Amazons," whose "rare happiness in all things else is only eclipsed in the calamity of his son, this young prince, who was born blind." But there was "an ancient prophecy that it should be he that should expel the Castilians, a nation of strangers, which as a scourge hath wound itself about the body of that continent, though it hath not pierced near the heart thereof." And this "fatal glory" had caused the King his father "to visit his temples with continual sacrifices, gifts, and observances, to solicit his son's cure supernaturally." But at last an oracle was delivered "out of one of the holiest vaults," to the effect that he should resort to her Majesty's court and person, and make sacrifice to her, if he would be restored to his sight; and he comes with a "high conceit, aiming directly at❞ her Majesty's self. Here the fragment breaks off. When it begins again, her Majesty has "wrought the strangest innovation that ever was in the world": his blindness has been supernaturally cured, and he has become "SeeingLove." Philautia is several times named in the piece; there are illusions in it to the Squire's master, which could be no other than "Erophilus"; and the whole tenor of the story is strictly in keeping with the frame and character of the Essex Masque. One Latin quotation appears in both, that which the poet saith was never granted Amare et sapere"; which is quoted also in the Essay on Love thus:

Amare et Sapere vix Deo conceditur; a circumstance, from which it might be inferred, that this portion had been for some reason laid aside by the writer. And it is curious to observe, that this ancient adage is introduced into the "Troilus and Cressida" in these lines:

"Cres.

But you are wise,

Or else you love not; for to be wise and love

Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.”. Act 111. Sc. 2.

Mr. Douce thought Shakespeare must have gotten it from Taverner's Translation of Publius Syrus;1 but it is very certain that this author had no occasion to go to Translations for his Latin proverbs.

This fragment does not in any way appear to have formed a part of the Essex Masque as it was actually exhibited. But whether it were written for this Masque, or some other, the more important thing to be noted here is the fact, that, in it, the Baconian poetical prose actually runs into Shakespearean rhymed verse, under our very eyes, thus : —

“And at last, this present year, out of one of the holiest vaults was delivered to him an oracle in these words:

Seated between the Old World and the New,

A land there is no other land may touch,
Where reigns a Queen in peace and honour true;
Stories or fables do describe no such.
Never did Atlas such a burden bear,
As she, in holding up the world opprest;
Supplying with her virtue everywhere
Weakness of friends, errors of servants best.
No nation breeds a warmer blood for war,
And yet she calms them by her majesty:
No age hath ever wits refined so far,
And yet she calms them by her policy:
To her thy son must make his sacrifice,

If he will have the morning of his eyes.

This oracle hath been both our direction hitherto, and the cause of our wearisome pilgrimage; we do now humbly beseech your Majesty that we make experience whether we be at the end of our journey or not.

Masque, Spedding's Letters and Life, I. 388.

1 See White's Shakespeare, IX., Notes, 153.

Now, if there be any trace of all this in the plays, we shall expect to find it in one of those which were written at about the same date, the "Midsummer Night's Dream" (1594), or the "Romeo and Juliet" (1595), and while the same ideas were fresh in the author's memory, and similar visions of the Indies were still floating in his imagination. Let us go, first, straight to the "Midsummer Night's Dream." In the first act, we find no sign of it, but in the second, the following passages come up in their order, in which the careful listener will scarcely fail, at once, to recognize their identities, and catch the ring of the same metal :

"Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?

Fairy. Over hill, over dale,

Through bush, through brier,

Over park, over pale,

Through flood, through fire,
I do wander everywhere,

Swifter than the moony sphere;

Puck. I am that merry wanderer of the night.

The King doth keep his revels here to-night.
Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king:
She never had so sweet a changeling:
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
But she perforce withholds the loved boy,

Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.