Gray's Inn, and his "labours were now most set to have those works," which he had formerly published, "made more perfect," in a proposal which he was making to the King for a "Digest of the Laws," he says: "As for myself, the law was my profession, to which I am a debtor; some little helps I have of other arts, which may give form to matter."

Moreover, this writer was a philosopher. "He was not only a great poet, but a great philosopher," says Coleridge. These words from such a man may be presumed to mean something. And when such judges of the matter as Schiller, Goethe, and Jean Paul Richter also agree in finding that he was a philosopher, no one need be amazed at the assertion, that he was master of all the learning of the Greeks, and had sounded the depths of Plato. For the mass of readers, it can no more be expected, that they should comprehend, in any adequate manner, what this really means, than that they should understand, without more, what was meant by the Philosophia Prima of Bacon, or "Philosophy itself." But it can never mean less than one who has carried his studies into the highest realms of human thought and culture; and that was never the work of a day, nor often of a whole life. Nor was it ever the work of intuition merely. It is at least conceivable, that a man who was capable of taking a critical survey of all previous learning, and pointing out the way for the advancement of human knowledge, who wrote civil and moral essays upon all phases of life and character, which still live as fresh as ever, and who could venture to undertake the instauration, not of physical science merely, but of philosophy itself, might, by possibility, be able to write such dramas as the "Romeo and Juliet," the "Midsummer Night's Dream," the "As You Like It," the "Measure for Measure," the " Cymbeline," the "Hamlet," the "Lear," the "Macbeth," the "Timon of Athens," the "Troilus and Cressida," and the "Tempest"; but, for such a man as we

know for William Shakespeare, it would appear to be a thing next to impracticable, if not wholly impossible. It would probably be of no sort of use or effect to declare here that this consideration, duly weighed, ought to be taken as conclusive of the whole matter. In fact, it will not; and the inquiry must proceed.

A well-marked difference may be looked for between the earlier and the later works of any writer. More striking evidence of growth does not exist in the works of Schiller, or Goethe, which were produced before, and those produced after, they respectively became initiated into the mysteries of the higher philosophy, than is manifest in the earlier and later plays of Shakespeare. In either case, the collegiate erudition of the tyro is, at length, lost in the comprehensive learning of the finished scholar, and the exuberant fancy of the spontaneous poet and inexperienced youth becomes subdued into the matured strength and breadth, the depth of feeling, and the prophetic insight of the seer and the philosopher. We know that Francis Bacon had practiced those "Georgics of the Mind" on which all critical thinking and high art depend. He comprehended that "Exemplar or Platform of Good," the "Colours of Good and Evil," and that "Regiment or Culture of the Mind," 1 whereby alone the highest excellence may be reached; and he had attained to that noble philosophy, whereby only the soul of man is to be "raised above the confusion of things" to that height of Plato, where, situate as upon a cliff, he may have a prospect of the order of nature and the errours of men." 2

In Francis Bacon, we have a man three years older than William Shakespeare, and, when the latter came to London, already ten years from the University and some four years an utter barrister of Gray's Inn, and well prepared, by the best possible advantages of early education, finished classical scholarship, foreign travel, and residence at royal 2 Works (Montagu), I. 252.

1 Adv. of Learning,

courts, extraordinary natural gifts and learned acquisitiors, for commencing and prosecuting such a work; and in the situation of the briefless young barrister, in the midst of books, making slow progress in the profession, getting no advancement for a period of twenty-five years after his coming to the bar beyond the unproductive honor of a Queen's or King's Counsel and a seat in Parliament, laboring under the twofold embarrassment of an expensive mode of life and debt to the Lombards and Jews, casting about for "some lease of quick revenue" to relieve (as he says) "the meanness of my estate,” enjoying the society of the theatre-going and masque-devising young courtiers, the dazzling favor of the Court, the ample leisure of Gray's Inn, and occasionally the Arcadian quiet of Gorhambury and Twickenham Park; and in his known devotion to all manner of studies and the profoundest speculations, we may find the needful preparation, the time for writing and for study, and the means of growth and culture which the case requires. And his acknowledged prose compositions of that period, to say nothing of the sonnets which he addressed to the Queen, or the masques which he wrote for her entertainment, exhibit all the necessary qualities of the poet. He was "a poetic imaginator," says George Darley, "and dramatic poets are (or ought to be) philosophers."1 Even Macaulay admitted that "the poetical faculty was powerful in Bacon's mind; but not, like his wit, so powerful as occasionally to usurp the place of his reason.” 2

As early as 1610, Shakespeare, having some time before ceased to play his part as an actor upon the stage, had retired from the theatres in London, and resumed his permanent residence in Stratford-on-Avon. He is not known to have had any further connection with the stage. But in 1611 were produced the "Winter's Tale" and the "Tempest." The "Lear" was first performed before the King

1 Introd. to Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, by George Darley.
2 Misc., II. 408.

at Whitehall, in 1606, and the "Troilus and Cressida,” in 1609; and the first notice that we have of the "Tempest' is, that it was performed before the King's Majesty at Whitehall, in November, 1611; and the "Winter's Tale," first acted at the Globe, in May, 1611, was performed before the King at Whitehall, a few days after the "Tempest." Both were repeated at Court during the festivities attending the nuptials of the Princess Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine, toward the close of the year 1612, and in the spring of 1613. And on the thirtieth day of June following, and while these festivities were still proceeding, as it appears, the magnificent play of "Henry VIII." was for the first time produced in great splendor at the Globe, with the presence (if not the assistance) of Ben Jonson (Shakespeare having retired from London), containing a studied and special compliment to King James. On the twentyseventh of October, thereafterwards, Sir Francis Bacon, Solicitor-General, having sometime before "come with his pitcher to Jacob's well, as others did," and obtained "the royal promise to succeed to the higher place," is raised to the laborious and lucrative position of Attorney-General, and the plays cease to appear. William Shakespeare continues, a few years longer, to enjoy the social comforts of New Place, prosecuting at leisure his agricultural pursuits and miscellaneous traffic, and dies in April, 1616, leaving a handsome estate and a will.

§ 9. THE TRUE ORIGINAL COPIES.

Seven years after the death of Shakespeare, these lasting memorials of the most transcendent genius were gathered up from the play-houses in London (as it would seem) by his surviving fellows, Heming and Condell, who appear to have assumed the function of editors; and they were published in the Folio of 1623, as they say in the preface, from "the true original Copies." What and whence were these true original copies? Let us consider of this. As

early as 1589, commissioners were appointed by the Queen to revise stage-plays; and after 1594, they had to be licensed and entered at Stationers' Hall, before they could be printed, being prohibited, "except they bee allowed by such as have auctoritye." Nevertheless, some may have been printed without license. Before 1600, theatres had become so numerous and disorderly that all but two, the Globe and the Fortune, were suppressed by public order. Plays sold to a theatre were kept for its own exclusive use, and when they got abroad, as sometimes they did, through surreptitious copies, or when they found their way. into the hands of the printers, other theatres, on appeal to the authorities, were prohibited from acting them. It appears by the entries in the Register of the Stationers' Company, that the publishers of plays claimed a right of property in the copy, which was considered assignable; and when the Folio of 1623 was published by Jaggard and Blount, an entry was made at Stationers' Hall of the sixteen plays which had not been printed before, by their titles, as of "soe many of the said Copies as are not formerly entered to other men," and these sixteen were assigned by Jaggard and Blount, in 1630, to one of the publishers of the Folio of 1632. But how the publishers of the first Folio had acquired the copyright of the rest of the plays from those "other men," does not appear: it is to be presumed they did so. It is probable that this right of property in the copy was not then so protected by law as to be a thing of much value, there being no effective remedy either at law or in equity: at least, none appears to have been sought in the courts. The chief object of this license and entry seems to have been to secure a strict censorship of the press; a function that was exercised at first by commissioners, and afterwards by the Master of the Revels. When a copy had been licensed to one publisher, a second license appears sometimes to have been granted to another, perhaps after a transfer of the copyright. The printing of