66 don, where, as he says, "I could have helps at hand for my writings and studies, wherein I spend my time.” In a memorandum made for an expected interview with the King, sometime in 1622, he writes thus: :- My story is proved: I may thank your Majesty; for I heard him note of Tasso, that he could know which poem he made when he was in good condition, and which when he was a beggar: I doubt he could make no such observation of me." Perhaps not, your lordship. During the autumn of 1622, his letters are dated from Bedford House, in London, and by the 8th of March, 1623, he had returned to his old lodgings in Gray's Inn. In a letter dated thence, March 22, 1622–3, he says:— 'Myself for quiet and the better to hold out, am retired to Gray's Inn; for when my chief friends were gone so far off, it was time for me to go to a cell." So Prospero, thrust from his dukedom, is again "master of a full poor cell," where, 66 'neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate To closeness," he is "wrapt in secret studies": - (Tempest, Act I. Sc. 2.) "This cell's my court: here have I few attendants, And subjects none abroad: pray you look in." - Ib. Act V. Sc. 1. And in June, 1623, he writes to Mr. Tobie Matthew: "It is true my labors are now most set to have those works I had formerly published, as that of Advancement of Learning, that of Henry VII., that of the Essays, being retractate, and made more perfect, well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens, which forsake me not.” 2 Of these "good pens" Ben Jonson was one, and George Herbert another. Again, in 1623, he writes to Prince Charles: "For Henry the VIII., to deal plainly with your highness, I did despair of my health this summer, as I was glad to choose some such work as I might compass within days; so far was I from entering into a work of 1 Letter to Cottington, Works (Mont.), XII. 439; (Philad.), III. 148. 2 Letter, Works (Philad.), III. 151. length. . . . . . It began like a fable of the poets; but it deserveth all in a piece a worthy narration.” 1 In the thick crowding exigencies of this time, and in the long list of works given to the world during the five years next preceding his death, some explanation may be found, if it be required, for a somewhat negligent correction of the press, when these trifles" were in question. 66 Steevens and others have thought they could discover in the Dedication and Preface to the Folio some traces of the hand of Ben Jonson. But surely with more reason it may be said, that in the thought, style, and diction of both, there is exhibited the very soul of the real Shakespeare himself; as it were, ex pede Herculem. True, the story of the players in commendation of Shakespeare, that he never blotted out a line ("there never was a more groundless report," says Pope), is repeated in the Preface. But it is known that Ben Jonson was an intimate friend and great admirer of Bacon, and so fine a joke as this must have been for him would not fail to impress the mind of Bacon as well; for, as Ben Jonson tells us, he could with difficulty "spare or pass by a jest." Jonson also writes of "my gentle Shakespeare," "that he Who casts to write a living line, must sweat, (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat And so, according to the Dedication and Preface, “Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies he would see published from "the true original copies (which he would know to be such), and dedicated to that "Most Noble and Incomparable Paire of Brethren," the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, patrons of learning and of the theatre, his particular friends, before he also should take his departure, and not have "the fate to be executor of his own writings," though he could not "but 1 Letter, Ibid. 152-3. 1 66 know their dignity greater than to descend to the reading of these trifles." But the " Orphanes" should have "Guardians, without ambition either of selfe-profit or fame: onely to keep the memory of so worthy a Friend and Fellow alive as was our Shakespeare." These plays had "had their triall alreadie, and stood out all Appeales," and they should 66 now come forth quitted rather by a Decree of Court than any purchased Letters of commendation" (executors, orphans, guardians, trials, appeals, and decrees of court were now ready on the tongue of the ex-chancellor), "cured and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers as he conceived them" (what no one could better certify, "quam historiam legitimam et omnibus numeris suis absolutam "1); for he was a happie imitator of Nature" (whereof the great "interpreter of Nature" might be sensible), and "a most gentle expresser of it. What he thought he uttered with that easinesse that wee have scarce received a blot in his papers" (what he could not spare to mention), and ❝his wit could no more lie hid than it could be lost" (as witness these records of it, which should not perish). He was to be read "againe and againe; for if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him." So Heming and Condell would "leave you to other of his Friends, whom, if you need, can be your guides; if you need them not, you can leade yourselves and others; and such readers" they wished him. Indeed it is altogether such a dedication and preface as might be expected from this "Jupiter in a thatch'd house," this secret inquisitor of nature, learning, and art; who in his youth had taken "all knowledge to be his province"; whose "vast contemplative ends" had embraced "the image of the universal world"; but who, in respect of these trifles, still preferred to die with his mask on. And such readers would he wish to have, who knew the danger, perhaps felt 1 De Aug. Scient., L. II. c. 5., Works (Boston), II. 202. the certainty, that his own age would not fully understand him ; but he would take care that these same trifles should be secured to the possession of those "next ages" which might be able to comprehend him aright. And he has left us also, perhaps unwittingly, the guides to the knowledge of who as well as what this "our Shakespeare" was; though "As one that had been studied in his death, To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd, As 't were a careless trifle":- Macbeth, Act 1. Sc. 4. or, as he himself says of Aristotle, "as one that had been a challenger of all the world, and raised infinite contradiction; "" 1 or as one that had been about to leave the shores of earth, and had cast a lingering look behind upon a thing known to be "immortal as himself"; as the sonnet sings: "If my dear love were but the child of state, No, it was builded far from accident, It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls Under the blow of thralled discontent, Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls: It fears not policy, that Heretic, Which works on leases of short number'd hours, But all alone stands hugely politic, That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers. Which die for goodness, who have liv'd for crime." 1 Works (Boston), XII. 264. Sonnet cxxiv.2 2 Shakes. Sonnets, (Fac-simile of the ed. of 1609, entitled "Shake-speares Sonnets: Never before Imprinted,") London, 1862. CHAPTER II. PRELIMINARIES.-BACON. "Thou shalt know the man By the Athenian garments he hath on."-Mid. N. Dr., II. 2. § 1. CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS. In the outset of the inquiry, the contemporaneousness of the two men between whom the question in hand is supposed to lie, the comparative dates of their several works, and the leading facts and events of their lives, must come under special consideration, though briefly, as fundamental and very important. The general impression that has prevailed hitherto, or until very lately, respecting the character and genius of Lord Bacon and the scope of his philosophy, has been, and is, of itself, a huge stumbling-block in the way of the proposition that he could ever have been a poet at all. A more thorough study of the subject, under the light of judicious criticism, will effectually dispel this cloud of error. For the most part, all true notion of the man has been obscured in a murky atmosphere of political obfuscation, a kind of scientific haze, misunderstanding, misconception, and stupid mistake. Concerning him, as of many other men and things in the times long past, human villanies have been written into the semblance of illustrious history, wherein vice is put on a par with virtue, and the highest virtue below the par of vice; in which soaring intellect is subordinated to common-place ability, imagination held to be a species of folly or insanity, and metaphysics treated as synonymous with moonshine; in which books are rated as fit food for worms, and to be "drowned in |