Chapter XXI.BACON'S LIBRARY.

"O how I (the poet) faint when I of you (F.B.) do write,Knowing a better spirit (that of the philosopher) doth use your nameAnd in the praise thereof spends all his mightTo make me tongue tied, speaking of your fame!(Shakespeare never refers to Bacon or vice-versa)But since your (F.B.'s) worth wide as the ocean is,The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,My saucy bark (that of the poet) inferior far to his (that of the philosopher),On your broad main doth wilfully appear.Your shallowest help will hold me (the poet) up afloatWhilst he (the philosopher) upon your soundless deep doth ride."

It is impossible to do justice to this subject in the space here available. By the aid of this key every line becomes intelligible. The charm and beauty of the Sonnets are increased tenfold. Every unpleasant association of them is removed. No longer need Browning say, "If so the less Shakespeare he."

These are not "Shakespeare's sug'rd[51]Sonnets amongst his private friends" to which Meres makes reference. They are to be found elsewhere.

If there had been an intelligent study of Elizabethan literature from original sources the authorship of the Sonnets would have been revealed long ago. It was a habit of Bacon to speak of himself as some one apart from the speaker. The opening sentence ofFilum Labyrinthi, Sivo Forma Inquisitionesis an example.Ad Filios—"Francis Bacon thought in this manner." Prefixed to the preface to Gilbert Wats' interpretation of the "Advancement of Learning" is a chapter commencing, "Francis Lo Verulam consulted thus: and thus concluded with himselfe. The publication whereof he conceived did concern the present and future age."

Nothing that has been written is more perfectly Baconian in style and temperament than are the Sonnets. They breathe out his hopes, his aspirations, his ideals, his fears, in every line. He knew he was not for his time. He knew future generations only would render him the fame to which his incomparable powers entitled him. He knew how far he towered above his contemporaries, aye, and his predecessors, in intellectual power. His hopes were fixed on that day in the distant future—to-day—when for the first time the meshes which he wove, behind which his life's work is obscured, are beginning to be unravelled.

The most sanguine Baconian, in his most enthusiastic moments, must fail adequately to appreciate the achievements of Francis Bacon and the obligations under which he has placed posterity. But Bacon knew—and he alone knew—their full value. It was fitting that the greatest poet which the world had produced should in matchless verse do honour to the world's greatest intellect. It was a pretty conceit. Only a master mind would dare to make the attempt. The result has afforded another example of how his great wit, in being concealed, was revealed.

In the "Advancement of Learning" Bacon refers to the annotations of books as being deficient. There was living at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century a scholar through whose hands at least several thousand books passed. He appears to have made a practice of annotating in the margins every book he read. The chief purpose, however, of the notes, apparently, was to aid the memory, for in some books nearly every name occurring in the text is carried into the margin without comment. The notes are also accompanied by scrolls, marks, and brackets, which support the contention that they are the work of one man. The annotation of books was not a common practice then, nor has it been since. If a reader takes up a hundred books in a second-hand book shop he will probably not find more than one containing manuscript notes, and not one in five hundred in which the annotations have been systematically carried through. There does not appear to have been any other scholar living at that time, with the exception of this one, who was persistently making marginal notes on the books he read.

Spedding writes: "What became of his (Bacon's) books, which were left to Sir John Constable and must have contained traces of his reading, we do not know; but very few appear to have survived."

Mrs. Pott, in "Francis Bacon and his Secret Society," draws attention to the mystery as to the disappearance of Bacon's library. "Which is a mystery," she adds, "although the world has been content to take it veryapathetically. Where is Bacon's library? Undoubtedly the books exist and are traceable. We should expect them to be recognisable by marginal notes; yet those notes, whether in pencil or in ink, may have been effaced. If annotated, Bacon and his friends would not wish his books to attract public attention." And further on: "It is probable that the latter (i.e., the books) will seldom or never be found to bear his name or signature." And again: "Yet it may reasonably be anticipated that some at least are 'noted in the margin,' or that some will be found with traces of marks which were guides to the transcriber or amanuensis as to the portions which were to be copied for future use in Bacon's collections or book of commonplaces." Mrs. Pott's words were written in a spirit of true prophecy.

The collecting together of these books originated with that distinguished Baconian scholar, Mr. W. M. Safford. For years past he has been steadily engaged in reconstituting Bacon's Library. The writer has had the privilege of being associated with him in this work during the past three years. A collection of nearly two thousand volumes has been gathered together. The annotations on the margins of these books are unquestionably the work of one man, and that man, or rather boy and man, was undoubtedly Francis Bacon. The books bear date from 1470 to 1620. It is impossible to enumerate them all here, but they include the works of Seneca, Aristotle, Plato, Horace, Alciat, Lucanus, Dionysius, Catullus, Lactinius, Plutarch, Pliny, Aristophanes, Plautus, Cornelius Agrippa, Cicero, Vitruvius, Euclid, Virgil, Ovid, Lucretius, Apuleius, Salust, Tibullus, Isocrates, and hundreds of other classical writers; St. Augustine, St. Jerome, Calvin, Beza, Beda, Erasmus, Martin Luther, J. Cammerarius, Sir Thomas Moore, Machiavelli, and other more modern writers.

The handwriting varies,[52]but there is a particular hand which is found accompanied by a boy's sketches. There are drawings of full-length figures, heads of men and women, animals, birds, reptiles, ships, castles, cathedrals, cities, battles, storms, etc. The writing is a strong, clerkly student's hand. There is a passage in "Hamlet," Act V., scene ii., which is noteworthy. Hamlet, speaking to Horatio, says:—

"I sat me downDevised a new commission; wrote it fair;I once did hold it, as our statists do,A baseness to write fair, and labour'd muchHow to forget that learning; but, Sir, nowIt did me yeomans service."

The nature of this statement is so personal that it could only have been written as the result of experience. Hamlet had been taught, when young, to write a hand so fair that he was capable of producing a fresh commission which would pass muster as the work of a Court copyist. The annotation of these books possessed the same qualification. In the margins of these books are abundant references in handwriting to the whole range of classical authors.

A copy of the "Grammatice Compendium" of Lactus Pomponius, a very rare book printed by De Fortis in Venice in 1484, contains on the margins the boy's scribble and drawings, besides a number of manuscript notes. It bears traces of his reading probably at eight years of age. A large folio volume entitled "T. Livii Palvini Latinæ Historiæ Principis Decades Tres," published by Frobenius in 1535, is a treasure. It is most copiously annotated and embellished with sketches. The notes are usually in Latin, but interspersed with Greek and sometimes with English. Obviously thewriter thought in Latin, and the character of the drawings justifies the assumption that, at the time, his age would be from ten to fourteen years.

The most remarkable reference to these annotations is to be found in the "Rape of Lucrece." The fifteenth stanza is as follows:—

"But she that never cop't with straunger eies,Could picke no meaning from their parling lookes,Nor read the subtle shining secreciesWrit in the glassie margents of such bookes,Shee toucht no unknown baits, nor feared no hooks,Nor could shee moralize his wanton sightMore than his eies were opend to the light."

It would be difficult to conceive a more inappropriate simile for the lustful looks in Tarquin's eyes than "the subtle shining secrecies, writ in the glassie margents of such books." That this is lugged in for a purpose outside the object of the poem is manifest. How many readers of "Lucrece" would know of such a practice? Nay. If it did exist, was not its use very rare?

But the margin of the verse itself yields a subtle shining secret! The initial letters of the lines are B, C, N, W, Sh, N, M. It is only necessary to supply the vowels—BACoN, W. Sh., NaMe. Sh is on line 103, which is the numerical value of the word Shakespeare. The numerical value of Bacon is 33. In view of this the line 33 is significant:—"Why is Colatine the publisher?" The use of the wordpublisherhere is quite inappropriate. It is introduced for some reason outside the purpose of the text.

The "Rape of Lucrece" commences with Bacon's monogram and, as the late Rev. Walter Begley pointed out, ends with his signature.

The theory now advanced is that when Bacon read a book he made marginal notes in it—the object being mainly to assist his memory, but the critical notes are numerous. It does not follow that all these books constituted his library. He would read a book and ithaving served his purpose he would dispose of it. Some books no doubt he would retain and these would form his library.

The annotations are chiefly in Latin, but some are in Greek, some in Hebrew, French and Spanish. When these have been examined and translated the meaning of the phrase that he had taken all knowledge to be his province will be better understood. Rawley says: "He read much and that with great judgment and rejection of impertinences incident to many authors."

The writer having examined annotations, many and varied, of books in his library, and having enjoyed the privilege of free access to those collected by Mr. Safford, ventures to assert that much of the ripe learning of the Shakespeare plays can be traced therein to its proper origin. Amongst the former is a copy of Alciat's Emblems, 1577, in the early part profusely annotated. Ben Jonson in his "Discoveries" has incorporated the translation of a portion of one of the Emblems andhas also incorporated a portion of the annotations from this very book.

Dr. G. G. Gervinus, the eminent German Historian and Professor Extraordinary at Heidelberg, published in 1849 his work, "Shakespeare Commentaries." This was years before any suggestion had been made that Bacon was in any way connected with the authorship of the Shakespearean dramas.

In the Prospectus of "The New Shakespeare Society," written in 1873, Dr. F. J. Furnivall says:—

"The profound and generous 'Commentaries' of Gervinus—an honour to a German to have written, a pleasure to an Englishman to read—is still the only book known to me that comes near the true treatment and the dignity of its subject, or can be put into the hands of the student who wants to know the mind of Shakespeare."

The book abounds with references to Bacon. From the Preface to the last chapter Gervinus appears to have Bacon continually suggested to him by the thoughts and words of Shakespeare.

In the Preface, after speaking of the value accruing to German literature by naturalizing Shakespeare "even at the risk of casting our own poets still further in the shade," he says:—

"A similar benefit would it be to our intellectual life if his famed contemporary, Bacon, were revived in a suitable manner, in order to counterbalance the idealistic philosophy of Germany. For both these, the poet as well as the philosopher, having looked deeply into the history and politics of their people, stand upon the level ground of reality, notwithstanding the high art of the one and the speculative notions of the other. By thehealthfulness of their own mind they influence the healthfulness of others, while in their most ideal and most abstract representations they aim at a preparation for lifeas it is—forthatlife which forms the exclusive subject of all political action."

In the chapter on "His Age," written prior to 1849, the Professor pours out the results of a profound study of the writings attributed to both men in the following remarkable sentences:—

"Judge then how natural it was that England, if not the birthplace of the drama, should be that of dramatic legislature. Yet even this instance of favourable concentration is not the last. Both in philosophy and poetry everything conspired, as it were, throughout this prosperous period, in favour of two great minds, Shakespeare and Bacon; all competitors vanished from their side, and they could give forth laws for art and science which it is incumbent even upon present ages to fulfil. As the revived philosophy, which in the former century in Germany was divided among many, but in England at that time was the possession of a single man, so poetry also found one exclusive heir, compared with whom those later born could claim but little."That Shakespeare's appearance upon a soil so admirably prepared was neither marvellous nor accidental is evidenced even by the corresponding appearance of such a contemporary as Bacon. Scarcely can anything be said of Shakespeare's position generally with regard to mediæval poetry which does not also bear upon the position of the renovator Bacon with regard to mediæval philosophy. Neither knew nor mentioned the other, although Bacon was almost called upon to have done so in his remarks upon the theatre of his day. It may be presumed that Shakespeare liked Bacon but little, if he knew his writings and life; that he liked not his ostentation, which, without on the whole interfering with his modesty, recurred too often in many instances; that he liked not the fault-finding which his ill-health might have caused, nor the narrow-mindedness with which he pronounced the histrionic art to be infamous, although he allowed that the ancients regarded the drama as a school for virtue; nor the theoretic precepts of worldly wisdom which he gave forth; nor, lastly, the practical career which he lived. Before his mind, however, if he had fathomed it, he must have bent in reverence. For just as Shakespeare was an interpreter of the secrets of history and of human nature, Bacon was an interpreter of lifeless nature. Just as Shakespeare went from instance to instance in his judgment of moral actions, and never founded a law on single experience, so did Bacon in natural science avoid leaping from one experience of the senses to general principles; he spoke of this with blame as anticipating nature; and Shakespeare, in the same way, would have called the conventionalities in the poetry of the Southern races an anticipation of human nature. In the scholastic science of the middle ages, as in the chivalric poetry of the romantic period, approbation and not truth was sought for, and with one accord Shakespeare's poetry and Bacon's science were equally opposed to this. As Shakespeare balanced the one-sided errors of the imagination by reason, reality, and nature, so Bacon led philosophy away from the one-sided errors of reason to experience; both with one stroke, renovated the two branches of science and poetry by this renewed bond with nature; both, disregarding all by-ways, staked everything upon this 'victory in the race between art and nature.' Just as Bacon with his new philosophy is linked with the natural science of Greece and Rome, and then with the latter period of philosophy in western Europe, so Shakespeare's drama stands in relation to the comedies of Plautus and to the stage of his own day; between the two there lay a vast wilderness of time, as unfruitful for the drama as for philosophy. But while they thus led back to nature, Bacon was yet as little of an empiric, in the common sense, as Shakespeare was a poet of nature. Bacon prophesied that if hereafter his commendation of experience should prevail, great danger to science would arise from the other extreme, and Shakespeare even in his own day could perceive the same with respect to his poetry; Bacon, therefore, insisted on the closest union between experience and reason, just as Shakespeare effected that between reality and imagination. While they thus bid adieu to the formalities of ancient art and science, Shakespeare to conceits and taffeta-phrases, Bacon to logic and syllogisms, yet at times it occurred that the one fell back into the subtleties of the old school, and the other into the constrained wit of the Italian style. Bacon felt himself quite an original in that which was his peculiar merit, and so was Shakespeare; the one in the method of science he had laid down, and in his suggestions for its execution, the other in the poetical works he had executed, and in the suggestions of theirnew law. Bacon, looking back to the waymarks he had left for others, said with pride that his words required a century for their demonstration and several for their execution; and so too it has demanded two centuries to understand Shakespeare, but very little has ever been executed in his sense. And at the same time we have mentioned what deep modesty was interwoven in both with their self-reliance, so that the words which Bacon liked to quote hold good for the two works:—'The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.' Both reached this height from the one starting point, that Shakespeare despised the million, and Bacon feared with Phocion the applause of the multitude. Both are alike in the rare impartiality with which they avoided everything one-sided; in Bacon we find, indeed, youthful exercises in which he endeavoured in severe contrasts to contemplate a series of things from two points of view. Both, therefore, have an equal hatred of sects and parties; Bacon of sophists and dogmatic philosophers, Shakespeare of Puritans and zealots. Both, therefore, are equally free from prejudices, and from astrological superstition in dreams and omens. Bacon says of the alchemists and magicians in natural science that they stand in similar relation to true knowledge as the deeds of Amadis to those of Cæsar, and so does Shakespeare's true poetry stand in relation to the fantastic romance of Amadis. Just as Bacon banished religion from science, so did Shakespeare from Art; and when the former complained that the teachers of religion were against natural philosophy, they were equally against the stage. From Bacon's example it seems clear that Shakespeare left religious matters unnoticed on the same grounds as himself, and took the path of morality in worldly things; in both this has been equally misconstrued, and Le Maistre has proved Bacon's lack of Christianity, as Birch has done that of Shakespeare. Shakespeare would, perhaps, have looked down just as contemptuously on the ancients and their arts as Bacon did on their philosophy and natural science, and both on the same grounds; they boasted of the greater age of the world, of more enlarged knowledge of heaven, earth, and mankind. Neither stooped before authorities, and an injustice similar to that which Bacon committed against Aristotle, Shakespeareperhapshas done to Homer. In both a similar combination of different mental powers was at work; and as Shakespeare was often involuntarily philosophical in his profoundness, Bacon was not seldom surprised into the imaginationof the poet. Just as Bacon, although he declared knowledge in itself to be much more valuable than the use of invention, insisted throughout generally and dispassionately upon the practical use of philosophy, so Shakespeare's poetry, independent as was his sense of art, aimed throughout at bearing upon the moral life. Bacon himself was of the same opinion; he was not far from declaring history to be the best teacher of politics, and poetry the best instructor in morals. Both were alike deeply moved by the picture of a ruling Nemesis, whom they saw, grand and powerful, striding through history and life, dragging the mightiest and most prosperous as a sacrifice to her altar, as the victims of their own inward nature and destiny. In Bacon's works we find a multitude of moral sayings and maxims of experience, from which the most striking mottoes might be drawn for every Shakespearian play, aye, for every one of his principal characters (we have already brought forward not a few proofs of this), testifying to a remarkable harmony in their mutual comprehension of human nature. Both, in their systems of morality rendering homage to Aristotle, whose ethics Shakespeare, from a passage in Troilus, may have read, arrived at the same end as he did—that virtue lies in a just medium between two extremes. Shakespeare would also have agreed withhimin this, that Bacon declared excess to be 'the fault of youth, as defect is of age;' he accounted 'defect the worst, because excess contains some sparks of magnanimity, and, like a bird, claims kindred of the heavens, while defect, only like a base worm, crawls upon the earth.' In these maxims lie at once, as it were, the whole theory of Shakespeare's dramatic forms and of his moral philosophy."

"That Shakespeare's appearance upon a soil so admirably prepared was neither marvellous nor accidental is evidenced even by the corresponding appearance of such a contemporary as Bacon. Scarcely can anything be said of Shakespeare's position generally with regard to mediæval poetry which does not also bear upon the position of the renovator Bacon with regard to mediæval philosophy. Neither knew nor mentioned the other, although Bacon was almost called upon to have done so in his remarks upon the theatre of his day. It may be presumed that Shakespeare liked Bacon but little, if he knew his writings and life; that he liked not his ostentation, which, without on the whole interfering with his modesty, recurred too often in many instances; that he liked not the fault-finding which his ill-health might have caused, nor the narrow-mindedness with which he pronounced the histrionic art to be infamous, although he allowed that the ancients regarded the drama as a school for virtue; nor the theoretic precepts of worldly wisdom which he gave forth; nor, lastly, the practical career which he lived. Before his mind, however, if he had fathomed it, he must have bent in reverence. For just as Shakespeare was an interpreter of the secrets of history and of human nature, Bacon was an interpreter of lifeless nature. Just as Shakespeare went from instance to instance in his judgment of moral actions, and never founded a law on single experience, so did Bacon in natural science avoid leaping from one experience of the senses to general principles; he spoke of this with blame as anticipating nature; and Shakespeare, in the same way, would have called the conventionalities in the poetry of the Southern races an anticipation of human nature. In the scholastic science of the middle ages, as in the chivalric poetry of the romantic period, approbation and not truth was sought for, and with one accord Shakespeare's poetry and Bacon's science were equally opposed to this. As Shakespeare balanced the one-sided errors of the imagination by reason, reality, and nature, so Bacon led philosophy away from the one-sided errors of reason to experience; both with one stroke, renovated the two branches of science and poetry by this renewed bond with nature; both, disregarding all by-ways, staked everything upon this 'victory in the race between art and nature.' Just as Bacon with his new philosophy is linked with the natural science of Greece and Rome, and then with the latter period of philosophy in western Europe, so Shakespeare's drama stands in relation to the comedies of Plautus and to the stage of his own day; between the two there lay a vast wilderness of time, as unfruitful for the drama as for philosophy. But while they thus led back to nature, Bacon was yet as little of an empiric, in the common sense, as Shakespeare was a poet of nature. Bacon prophesied that if hereafter his commendation of experience should prevail, great danger to science would arise from the other extreme, and Shakespeare even in his own day could perceive the same with respect to his poetry; Bacon, therefore, insisted on the closest union between experience and reason, just as Shakespeare effected that between reality and imagination. While they thus bid adieu to the formalities of ancient art and science, Shakespeare to conceits and taffeta-phrases, Bacon to logic and syllogisms, yet at times it occurred that the one fell back into the subtleties of the old school, and the other into the constrained wit of the Italian style. Bacon felt himself quite an original in that which was his peculiar merit, and so was Shakespeare; the one in the method of science he had laid down, and in his suggestions for its execution, the other in the poetical works he had executed, and in the suggestions of theirnew law. Bacon, looking back to the waymarks he had left for others, said with pride that his words required a century for their demonstration and several for their execution; and so too it has demanded two centuries to understand Shakespeare, but very little has ever been executed in his sense. And at the same time we have mentioned what deep modesty was interwoven in both with their self-reliance, so that the words which Bacon liked to quote hold good for the two works:—'The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.' Both reached this height from the one starting point, that Shakespeare despised the million, and Bacon feared with Phocion the applause of the multitude. Both are alike in the rare impartiality with which they avoided everything one-sided; in Bacon we find, indeed, youthful exercises in which he endeavoured in severe contrasts to contemplate a series of things from two points of view. Both, therefore, have an equal hatred of sects and parties; Bacon of sophists and dogmatic philosophers, Shakespeare of Puritans and zealots. Both, therefore, are equally free from prejudices, and from astrological superstition in dreams and omens. Bacon says of the alchemists and magicians in natural science that they stand in similar relation to true knowledge as the deeds of Amadis to those of Cæsar, and so does Shakespeare's true poetry stand in relation to the fantastic romance of Amadis. Just as Bacon banished religion from science, so did Shakespeare from Art; and when the former complained that the teachers of religion were against natural philosophy, they were equally against the stage. From Bacon's example it seems clear that Shakespeare left religious matters unnoticed on the same grounds as himself, and took the path of morality in worldly things; in both this has been equally misconstrued, and Le Maistre has proved Bacon's lack of Christianity, as Birch has done that of Shakespeare. Shakespeare would, perhaps, have looked down just as contemptuously on the ancients and their arts as Bacon did on their philosophy and natural science, and both on the same grounds; they boasted of the greater age of the world, of more enlarged knowledge of heaven, earth, and mankind. Neither stooped before authorities, and an injustice similar to that which Bacon committed against Aristotle, Shakespeareperhapshas done to Homer. In both a similar combination of different mental powers was at work; and as Shakespeare was often involuntarily philosophical in his profoundness, Bacon was not seldom surprised into the imaginationof the poet. Just as Bacon, although he declared knowledge in itself to be much more valuable than the use of invention, insisted throughout generally and dispassionately upon the practical use of philosophy, so Shakespeare's poetry, independent as was his sense of art, aimed throughout at bearing upon the moral life. Bacon himself was of the same opinion; he was not far from declaring history to be the best teacher of politics, and poetry the best instructor in morals. Both were alike deeply moved by the picture of a ruling Nemesis, whom they saw, grand and powerful, striding through history and life, dragging the mightiest and most prosperous as a sacrifice to her altar, as the victims of their own inward nature and destiny. In Bacon's works we find a multitude of moral sayings and maxims of experience, from which the most striking mottoes might be drawn for every Shakespearian play, aye, for every one of his principal characters (we have already brought forward not a few proofs of this), testifying to a remarkable harmony in their mutual comprehension of human nature. Both, in their systems of morality rendering homage to Aristotle, whose ethics Shakespeare, from a passage in Troilus, may have read, arrived at the same end as he did—that virtue lies in a just medium between two extremes. Shakespeare would also have agreed withhimin this, that Bacon declared excess to be 'the fault of youth, as defect is of age;' he accounted 'defect the worst, because excess contains some sparks of magnanimity, and, like a bird, claims kindred of the heavens, while defect, only like a base worm, crawls upon the earth.' In these maxims lie at once, as it were, the whole theory of Shakespeare's dramatic forms and of his moral philosophy."

Dr. Kuno Fischer, the distinguished German critic and historian of philosophy, in a volume on Bacon, published in 1856, writes:—

The same affinity for the Roman mind, and the same want of sympathy with the Greek, we again find in Bacon's greatest contemporary, whose imagination took as broad and comprehensive a view as Bacon's intellect. Indeed, how could a Bacon attain that position with respect to Greek poetry that was unattainable by the mighty imagination of a Shakspeare? For in Shakspeare, at any rate, the imagination of the Greek antiquity could be met by a homogeneous powerof the same rank as itself; and, as the old adage says, "like comes to like." But the age, the spirit of the nation—in a word, all those forces of which the genius of an individual man is composed, and which, moreover, genius is least able to resist—had here placed an obstacle, impenetrable both to the poet and the philosopher. Shakspeare was no more able to exhibit Greek characters than Bacon to expound Greek poetry. Like Bacon, Shakspeare had in his turn of mind something that was Roman, and not at all akin to the Greek. He could appropriate to himself a Coriolanus and a Brutus, a Cæsar and an Antony; he could succeed with the Roman heroes of Plutarch, but not with the Greek heroes of Homer. The latter he could only parody, but his parody was as infelicitous as Bacon's explanation of the "Wisdom of the Ancients." Those must be dazzled critics indeed who can persuade themselves that the heroes of the Iliad are excelled by the caricatures in "Troilus and Cressida." The success of such a parody was poetically impossible; indeed, he that attempts to parody Homer shows thereby that he has not understood him. For the simple and the naïve do not admit of a parody, and these have found in Homer their eternal and inimitable expression. Just as well might caricatures be made of the statues of Phidias. Where the creative imagination never ceases to be simple and naïve, where it never distorts itself by the affected or the unnatural, there is the consecrated land of poetry, in which there is no place for the parodist. On the other hand, where there is a palpable want of simplicity and nature, parody is perfectly conceivable; nay, may even be felt as a poetical necessity. Thus Euripides, who, often enough, was neither simple nor naïve, could be parodied, and Aristophanes has shown us with what felicity. Even Æschylus, who was not always as simple as he was grand, does not completely escape the parodising test. But Homer is safe. To parody Homeris to mistake him, and to stand so far beyond his scope that the truth and magic of his poetry can no longer be felt; and this is the position of Shakespeare and Bacon. The imagination of Homer, and all that could be contemplated and felt by that imagination, namely, the classical antiquity of the Greeks, are to them utterly foreign. We cannot understand Aristotle without Plato; nay, I maintain that we cannot contemplate with a sympathetic mind the Platonic world of ideas, if we have not previously sympathised with the world of the Homeric gods. Be it understood, I speak of theformof the Platonic mind, not of its logical matter; in point of doctrine, the Homeric faith was no more that of Plato than of Phidias. But these doctrinal or logical differences are far less than the formal and æsthetical affinity. The conceptions of Plato are of Homeric origin.This want of ability to take an historical survey of the world is to be found alike in Bacon and Shakspeare, together with many excellencies likewise common to them both. To the parallel between them—which Gervinus, with his peculiar talent for combination, has drawn in the concluding remarks to his "Shakespeare," and has illustrated by a series of appropriate instances—belongs the similar relation of both to antiquity, their affinity to the Roman mind, and their diversity from the Greek. Both possessed to an eminent degree that faculty for a knowledge of human nature that at once pre-supposes and calls forth an interest in practical life and historical reality. To this interest corresponds the stage, on which the Roman characters moved; and here Bacon and Shakspeare met, brought together by a common interest in these objects, and the attempt to depict and copy them. This point of agreement, more than any other argument, explains their affinity. At the same time there is no evidence that one ever came into actual contact with the other. Bacon does not evenmention Shakspeare when he discourses of dramatic poetry, but passes over this department of poetry with a general and superficial remark that relates less to the subject itself than to the stage and its uses. As far as his own age is concerned, he sets down the moral value of the stage as exceedingly trifling. But the affinity of Bacon to Shakspeare is to be sought in his moral and psychological, not in his æsthetical views, which are too much regulated by material interests and utilitarian prepossessions to be applicable to art itself, considered with reference to its own independent value. However, even in these there is nothing to prevent Bacon's manner of judging mankind, and apprehending characters from agreeing perfectly with that of Shakspeare; so that human life, the subject-matter of all dramatic art, appeared to him much as it appeared to the great artist himself, who, in giving form to this matter, excelled all others. Is not the inexhaustible theme of Shakspeare's poetry the history and course of human passion? In the treatment of this especial theme is not Shakspeare the greatest of all poets—nay, is he not unique among them all? And it is this very theme that is proposed by Bacon as the chief problem of moral philosophy. He blames Aristotle for treating of the passions in his rhetoric rather than his ethics; for regarding the artificial means of exciting them rather than their natural history. It is to the natural history of the human passions that Bacon directs the attention of philosophy. He does not find any knowledge of them among the sciences of his time. "The poets and writers of histories," he says, "are the best doctors of this knowledge; where we may find painted forth with great life how passions are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and fortify; how they are inwrapped one within another; and how they do fight and encounter one with another; and other the like particularities."[53]Such a lively description is required by Bacon from moral philosophy. That is to say, he desired nothing less than a natural history of the passions—the very thing that Shakspeare has produced. Indeed, what poet could have excelled Shakspeare in this respect? Who, to use a Baconian expression, could have depicted man and all his passions moread vivum? According to Bacon, the poets and historians give us copies of characters; and the outlines of these images—the simple strokes that determine characters—are the proper objects of ethical science. Just as physical science requires a dissection of bodies, that their hidden qualities and parts may be discovered, so should ethics penetrate the various minds of men, in order to find out the eternal basis of them all. And not only this foundation, but likewise those external conditions which give a stamp to human character—all those peculiarities that "are imposed upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent and not external; and, again, those which are caused by external fortune"[54]—should come within the scope of ethical philosophy. In a word, Bacon would have man studied in his individuality as a product of nature and history, in every respect determined by natural and historical influences, by internal and external conditions. And exactly in the same spirit has Shakespeare understood man and his destiny; regarding character as the result of a certain natural temperament and a certain historical position, and destiny as a result of character.

This want of ability to take an historical survey of the world is to be found alike in Bacon and Shakspeare, together with many excellencies likewise common to them both. To the parallel between them—which Gervinus, with his peculiar talent for combination, has drawn in the concluding remarks to his "Shakespeare," and has illustrated by a series of appropriate instances—belongs the similar relation of both to antiquity, their affinity to the Roman mind, and their diversity from the Greek. Both possessed to an eminent degree that faculty for a knowledge of human nature that at once pre-supposes and calls forth an interest in practical life and historical reality. To this interest corresponds the stage, on which the Roman characters moved; and here Bacon and Shakspeare met, brought together by a common interest in these objects, and the attempt to depict and copy them. This point of agreement, more than any other argument, explains their affinity. At the same time there is no evidence that one ever came into actual contact with the other. Bacon does not evenmention Shakspeare when he discourses of dramatic poetry, but passes over this department of poetry with a general and superficial remark that relates less to the subject itself than to the stage and its uses. As far as his own age is concerned, he sets down the moral value of the stage as exceedingly trifling. But the affinity of Bacon to Shakspeare is to be sought in his moral and psychological, not in his æsthetical views, which are too much regulated by material interests and utilitarian prepossessions to be applicable to art itself, considered with reference to its own independent value. However, even in these there is nothing to prevent Bacon's manner of judging mankind, and apprehending characters from agreeing perfectly with that of Shakspeare; so that human life, the subject-matter of all dramatic art, appeared to him much as it appeared to the great artist himself, who, in giving form to this matter, excelled all others. Is not the inexhaustible theme of Shakspeare's poetry the history and course of human passion? In the treatment of this especial theme is not Shakspeare the greatest of all poets—nay, is he not unique among them all? And it is this very theme that is proposed by Bacon as the chief problem of moral philosophy. He blames Aristotle for treating of the passions in his rhetoric rather than his ethics; for regarding the artificial means of exciting them rather than their natural history. It is to the natural history of the human passions that Bacon directs the attention of philosophy. He does not find any knowledge of them among the sciences of his time. "The poets and writers of histories," he says, "are the best doctors of this knowledge; where we may find painted forth with great life how passions are kindled and incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves; how they work; how they vary; how they gather and fortify; how they are inwrapped one within another; and how they do fight and encounter one with another; and other the like particularities."[53]Such a lively description is required by Bacon from moral philosophy. That is to say, he desired nothing less than a natural history of the passions—the very thing that Shakspeare has produced. Indeed, what poet could have excelled Shakspeare in this respect? Who, to use a Baconian expression, could have depicted man and all his passions moread vivum? According to Bacon, the poets and historians give us copies of characters; and the outlines of these images—the simple strokes that determine characters—are the proper objects of ethical science. Just as physical science requires a dissection of bodies, that their hidden qualities and parts may be discovered, so should ethics penetrate the various minds of men, in order to find out the eternal basis of them all. And not only this foundation, but likewise those external conditions which give a stamp to human character—all those peculiarities that "are imposed upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent and not external; and, again, those which are caused by external fortune"[54]—should come within the scope of ethical philosophy. In a word, Bacon would have man studied in his individuality as a product of nature and history, in every respect determined by natural and historical influences, by internal and external conditions. And exactly in the same spirit has Shakespeare understood man and his destiny; regarding character as the result of a certain natural temperament and a certain historical position, and destiny as a result of character.

A distinguished member of the Bench in a recent post-prandial address referred to Bacon as "a shady lawyer." Irresponsible newspaper correspondents, when attacking the Baconian theory, indulge in epithets of this kind, but it is amazing that any man occupying a position so responsible as that of an English judge should, either through ignorance or with a desire to be considered a wit, make use of such a term.

Whatever may have been Francis Bacon's faults, one fact must stand unchallenged—that amongst those of his contemporaries who knew him there was a consensus of opinion that his virtues overshadowed any failings to which he might be subject.

The following testimonies establish this fact:—

LetBen Jonsonspeak first:

"Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech, but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke; and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end," and, after referring to Lord Ellesmere, Jonson continues:—

"But his learned and able (though unfortunate) successor, (i.e., Bacon) is he who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue, which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece, or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and about his times, were all the wits born, that could honour a language, or help study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, and eloquence grows backward: so that he may be named, and stand as the mark and άκωη of our language.

"My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place, or honours: but I have and do reverence him, for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest."

Sir Toby Matthewdescribes Francis Bacon as

"A friend unalterable to his friends;A man most sweet in his conversation and ways";

and adds:

"It is not his greatness that I admire, but his virtue."

Thomas Bushel, his servant, in a letter to Mr. John Eliot, printed in 1628, in a volume called "The First Part of Youth's Errors," says:

"Yet lest the calumnious tongues of men might extenuate the good opinion you had of his worth and merit, I must ingenuously confess that my selfe and others of his servants were the occasion of exhaling his vertues into a darke exlipse; which God knowes wouldhave long endured both for the honour of his King and the good of the Commonaltie; had not we whom his bountie nursed, laid on his guiltlesse shoulders our base and execrable deeds to be scand and censured by the whole senate of a state, where no sooner sentence was given, but most of us forsoke him, which makes us bear the badge of Jewes to this day. Yet I am confident there were some Godly Daniels amongst us.... As for myselfe, with shame I must acquit the title, and pleade guilty; which grieves my very soule, that so matchlesse a Peer should be lost by such insinuating caterpillars, who in his owne nature scorn'd the least thought of any base, unworthy, or ignoble act, though subject to infirmites as ordained to the wisest."

InFuller's"Worthies" it is written:

"He was a rich Cabinet filled with Judgment, Wit, Fancy and Memory, and had the golden Key, Elocution, to open it. He was singular in singulis, in every Science and Art, and being In-at-all came off with Credit. He was too Bountifull to his Servants, and either too confident of their Honesty, or too conniving at their Falsehood. 'Tis said he had 2 Servants, one in all Causes Patron to the Plaintiff, the other to the Defendant, but taking bribes of both, with this Condition, to restore the Mony received, if the Cause went against them. Such practices, tho' unknown to their Master, cost him the loss of his Office."

In "The Lives of Statesmen and Favourites of Elizabeth's Reign" it is said:—

"His religion was rational and sober, his spirit publick, his love to relations tender, to Friends faithful, to the hopeful liberal, to men universal, to his very Enemies civil. He left the best pattern of Government in his actions under one king and the best principles of it in the Life of the other."

The following is a translation from the discourse on the life of Mr. Francis Bacon which is prefixed to the "Histoire Naturelle," byPiere Amboise, published in Paris in 1631:

"Among so many virtues that made this great man commendable, prudence, as the first of all the moral virtues, and that most necessary to those of his profession, was that which shone in him the most brightly. His profound wisdom can be most readily seen in his books, and his matchless fidelity in the signal services that he continuously rendered to his Prince. Never was there man who so loved equity, or so enthusiastically worked for the public good as he; so that I may aver that he would have been much better suited to a Republic than to a Monarchy, where frequently the convenience of the Prince is more thought of than that of his people. And I do not doubt that had he lived in a Republic he would have acquired as much glory from the citizens as formerly did Aristides and Cato, the one in Athens, the other in Rome. Innocence oppressed found always in his protection a sure refuge, and the position of the great gave them no vantage ground before the Chancellor when suing for justice.

"Vanity, avarice, and ambition, vices that too often attach themselves to great honours, were to him quite unknown, and if he did a good action it was not from the desire of fame, but simply because he could not do otherwise. His good qualities were entirely pure, without being clouded by the admixture of any imperfections, and the passions that form usually the defects in great men in him only served to bring out his virtues; if he felt hatred and rage it was only against evil-doers, to shew his detestation of their crimes, and success or failure in the affairs of his country brought to him the greater part of his joys or his sorrows. He was as truly a good man as he was an upright judge, and by the example of his life corrected vice and bad living asmuch as by pains and penalties. And, in a word, it seemed that Nature had exempted from the ordinary frailities of men him whom she had marked out to deal with their crimes. All these good qualities made him the darling of the people and prized by the great ones of the State. But when it seemed that nothing could destroy his position, Fortune made clear that she did not yet wish to abandon her character for instability, and that Bacon had too much worth to remain so long prosperous. It thus came about that amongst the great number of officials such as a man of his position must have in his house, there was one who was accused before Parliament of exaction, and of having sold the influence that he might have with his master. And though the probity of Mr. Bacon was entirely exempt from censure, nevertheless he was declared guilty of the crime of his servant and was deprived of the power that he had so long exercised with so much honour and glory. In this I see the working of monstrous ingratitude and unparalleled cruelty—to say that a man who could mark the years of his life rather by the signal services that he had rendered to the State than by times or seasons, should have received such hard usage for the punishment of a crime which he never committed; England, indeed, teaches us by this that the sea that surrounds her shores imparts to her inhabitants somewhat of its restless inconstancy. This storm did not at all surprise him, and he received the news of his disgrace with a countenance so undisturbed that it was easy to see that he thought but little of the sweets of life since the loss of them caused him discomfort so slight." Thus ended this great man whom England could place alone as the equal of the best of all the previous centuries."

Peter Boener, who was private apothecary to Bacon for a time, wrote in 1647 a Life, of portions of which the following are translations:—

"But how runneth man's future. He who seemed to occupy the highest rank is alas! by envious tongues near King and Parliament deposed from all his offices and chancellorship, little considering what treasure was being cast in the mire, as afterwards the issue and result thereof have shown in that country. But he always comforted himself with the words of Scripture—nihil est novi; that means 'there is nothing new.' Because so is Cicero by Octavianus; Calisthenes by Alexander; Seneca (all his former teachers) by Nero; yea, Ovid, Lucanus, Statius (together with many others), for a small cause very unthankfully the one banished, the other killed, the third thrown to the lions. But even as for such men banishment is freedom—death their life, so is for this author his deposition a memory to greater honour and fame, and to such a sage no harm can come.

"Whilst his fortunes were so changed, I never saw him—either in mien, word or acts—changed or disturbed towards whomsoever;ira enim hominis non implet justitiam Dei, he was ever one and the same, both in sorrow and in joy, as becometh a philosopher; always with a benevolent allocution—manus nostræ sunt oculatæ, credunt quod vident.... A noteworthy example and pattern for everyone of all virtue, gentleness, peacefulness, and patience."

Francis Osborn, in his "Advice to a Son," writes:—

"And my memory neither doth nor (I believe possible ever) can direct me towards an example more splendid in this kind, than the Lord Bacon Earl of St. Albans, who in all companies did appear a good Proficient, if not a Master in those Arts entertained for the Subject of every ones discourse. So as I dare maintain, without the least affectation of Flattery or Hyperbole, That his most casual talk deserveth to be written, As I have beentold his first or foulest Copys required no great Labour to render them competent for the nicest judgments. A high perfection, attainable only by use, and treating with every man in his respective profession, and what he was most vers'd in. So as I have heard him entertain a Country Lord in the proper terms relating to Hawks and Dogs. And at another time out-Cant a London Chirurgeon. Thus he did not only learn himself, but gratifie such as taught him; who looked upon their Callings as honoured through his Notice; Nor did an easie falling into Arguments (not unjustly taken for a blemish in the most) appear less than an ornament in Him: The ears of the hearers receiving more gratification, than trouble; And (so) no less sorry when he came to conclude, than displeased with any did interrupt him. Now this general Knowledge he had in all things, husbanded by his wit, and dignifi'd by so Majestical a carriage he was known to own, strook such an awful reverence in those he question'd, that they durst not conceal the most intrinsick part of their Mysteries from him, for fear of appearing Ignorant, or Saucy. All which rendered him no less Necessary, than admirable at the Council Table, where in reference to Impositions, Monopolies, &c. the meanest Manufacturers were an usual Argument: And, as I have heard, did in this Baffle, the Earl of Middlesex, that was born and bred a Citizen &c. Yet without any great (if at all) interrupting his other Studies, as is not hard to be Imagined of a quick Apprehension, in which he was Admirable."

It has been urged by critics that Bacon, whilst professing to take all knowledge for his province, ignored one-half of it—that half which was a knowledge of himself; that to him the external world was everything, the internal nothing. All that Nature revealed was external; nothing that was internal was of much importance.

It must be remembered that all that we have of Bacon's was written as he was passing into the "vale of life." Of his early productions nothing has come down to the present times under his own name. The following extracts from his acknowledged works establish two facts:—(1) That the foregoing criticism is unfounded, for he placed the study of man's mind and character above all other enquiries. (2) That he had prepared examples, being "actual types and models, by which the entire process of the mind and the whole fabric and order of invention from the beginning to the end in certain subjects and those various and remarkable should be set, as it were, before the eyes." Where are these works to be found?

Bacon never tires of quoting from the Roman poet the line—

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