The eighth chapter of that work treats “Of Shakespeare as a Man of Science,” and here the learned Judge put forward a number of parallelisms taken from Shakespeare’s plays and Bacon’s works (mainly from the Natural History, which was published eleven years after the death of Shakspere of Stratford), in order to show that “the scientific opinions of Shakespeare so completely coincide with those of Bacon that we must regard the two philosophers as one in their philosophy, however reluctant we may be to recognize them as actually one.”
To this the late Professor Dowden replied, in The National Review of July, 1902, and brought forward an immense amount of learning to show that these coincidences really prove nothing, because “all which Dr. Webb regards as proper to Shakespeare and Bacon was, in fact, the common knowledge or common error of the time.” Whereunto the Judge, in a brief rejoinder (National Review, August, 1902), intimated that all he was concerned with was “the common knowledge and common error of Shakespeare and Bacon,” his case being that in matters of science these two, as a fact, show an extremely close agreement. The question for the reader, therefore, is whether or not that agreement is so remarkable that something more than “the common knowledge or common error of the time” is required to explain it.
Here the matter has been left, but I think it may be of interest to consider once more the points at issue between these two learned disputants. Let me premise that I do not write as a “Baconian.” The hypothesis that Bacon was the author of the plays of Shakespeare, or some of them, or some parts of them, may be mere “madhouse chatter,” as Sir Sidney Lee has styled it, or we may be content with more moderate language, and merely say that the hypothesis is “not proven.” I leave that vexata quæstio on one side. But, whatever may be our opinion with regard to it, it must, I think, be admitted that some of the “parallelisms,” or “coincidences,” between Bacon and Shakespeare are really very remarkable, and the controversy between Judge Webb and Professor Dowden, which I here pass under review, has not, as it seems to me, so conclusively explained their existence as to leave nothing further for the consideration of an impartial critic.
Let me take an example. Bacon in his Sylva Sylvarum, or Natural History[77] (Cent. I, p. 98), speaks of “the spirits or pneumaticals that are in all tangible bodies,” and which, he says, “are scarce known.” They are not, he tells us, as some suppose, virtues and qualities of the tangible parts which “men see,” but “they are things by themselves,” i.e., entities. And again (Cent. VII, 601), he says, “all bodies have spirits, and pneumatical parts within them,” and he goes on to point out the differences between the “spirits” in animate, and those in inanimate things. Further on (Cent. VII, 693), Bacon writes: “It hath been observed by the ancients that much use of Venus doth dim the sight,” and the cause of this, he says, “is the expense of spirits.” Now in Sonnet 129 Shakespeare writes:
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action.
Here we certainly seem to have a remarkable agreement between Shakespeare and Bacon. Both use the very same expression “the expense of spirit” and (which constitutes the real strength of the parallel) both use it in exactly the same application. What is Professor Dowden’s explanation? He says that “the mediæval theory of ‘spirits’ will be found in the Encyclopædia of Bartholomew Anglicus on the Properties of Things,” which he says was “a book of wide influence.” He says further: “The popular opinions of Shakespeare’s time respecting ‘spirits’ may be read in Bright’s Treatise of Melancholy, 1586, and Burton’s Anatomy, 1621, and in many another volume.... Bright, in his Melancholy, seems almost to anticipate the theory of Bacon, and possibly he was himself influenced by Paracelsus.” As to the expression “expense of spirit,” he says it may be found in this book of Bright’s (pp. 62, 237, and 244), and in Donne’s Progress of the Soul. I do not understand the Professor to suggest that the Stratford player had consulted these works (Burton, of course, is out of the question) for he writes: “The language of Shakespeare is popular, and connected probably neither with what Bright nor what Bacon wrote, but if a theory be required, it can be found as easily in a volume which Shakespeare might have read, as in a volume published after his death.” Bacon, however, we may say with confidence, knew these books, and had, in all probability, read them. The Professor, for instance, refers to Paracelsus, and subsequently, on another point, to Scaliger. Bacon, as we know, was familiar with both these writers, and makes reference to them (see, for instance, Natural History, Cent. IV, 354, and Cent. VII, 694), whereas it will, I suppose, hardly be suggested that the player had sought inspiration in the works of these scholars.
The first question, then, which suggests itself is this. Are we to conclude, because there is a theory of “spirits” (which Bacon says “are scarce known”) to be found in Bartholomew Anglicus, and Bright, and Paracelsus, that it was a matter of “popular” knowledge, a subject with which Shakspere of Stratford, as well as the philosopher of Gorhambury, would have been likely to be familiar? This question seems to me a very doubtful one, but if it is to be answered in the affirmative, then we have to ask: Is this assumed popular knowledge, or popular error, sufficient to account for the use by both Shakespeare and Bacon of exactly the same expression in exactly the same collocation? And in considering this question we must remember that the evidence is cumulative, i.e., this coincidence is not a solitary instance, but only one of many, and it is but fair, if we wish to come to a just decision, that all of them should be considered together.
But how far is it true, as Professor Dowden alleges it to be, that “Bright in his Melancholy seems almost to anticipate the theory of Bacon?” The book is a scarce one. There is no copy in the London Library. However I have taken the trouble to examine it at the British Museum. Professor Dowden refers to pages 62, 237, and 244. In the edition which I examined, that of 1586, there is no reference to the “expense of spirits” at p. 237. Neither is there at p. 62. On page 63, however, I find the following. The author, one Timothy Bright, “Doctor of Phisicke,” is speaking of strong affections of the mind, and he says: “If it holde on long and release not, the nourishment will also faile, the increase of the body diminish, and the flower of beautie fade, and finally death take his fatall hold; which commeth to passe, not onely by expence of spirit, but by leaving destitute the parts, whereby declining to decay, they become at length unmeete for the entertainment of so noble an inhabitant as the soule,” etc. On p. 244 we read: “Now as all contention of the mind is to be intermitted, so especially that whereto the melancholicke person most hath given himself before the passion is chiefly to be eschued, for the recoverie of former estate and restoring the depraved conceit and fearefull affection. For there, if the affection of liking go withal, both hart and braine do over prodigally spend their spirite and with them the subtilest parts of the naturall iuyce [juice] and humours of the bodie. If of mislike and the thing be by forcible constraint layd on, the distracting of the mind, from the promptness of affection, breedeth such an agonie in our nature that thereon riseth also great expence of spirit, and of the most rare and subtile humours of our bodies, which are as it were the seate of our naturall heate,” etc.
Now in both these passages we find, indeed, the expression the “expense of spirit,” but, except for that, it appears that they can hardly be cited as parallel passages with those of either Bacon or Shakespeare. It is not alleged that this expression is peculiar to these two writers—assuming the duality. The parallelism consists in this, that they both use the words in connection with what Bacon terms “the use of Venus.” I cannot see that the passages in Bright’s treatise, when they are carefully examined, make this parallelism at all less remarkable.
The Professor further tells us that the expression “expense of spirits” may be found in Donne’s Progress of the Soul[78] Stanza VI. I do not find it in that stanza, but in Stanza V the following occurs. The poet prays that he may be free,