The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

by Delia Salter Bacon

Those 'amusements,' with which governments that are founded and sustained, 'by cutting off and keeping low the grandees and nobility' of a nation, naturally seek to propitiate and divert the popular mind,—those amusements which the peoples who sustain tyrannies are apt to be fond of—'he loves no plays as thou dost, Antony,'—that 'pulpit,' from which the orator of Caesar stole and swayed the hearts of the people with his sugared words; and his dumb show of the stabs in Caesar's mantle became, in the hands of these new conspirators, an engine which those old experimenters lacked,—an engine which the lean and wrinkled Cassius, with his much reading and 'observation strange' and dangerous, looking through of the thoughts of men; and the grave, high-toned Brutus, with his logic and his stilted oratory, could not, on second thoughts, afford to lack. It was this which supplied the means of that 'volubility of application' which those 'Sir Oracles,' those 'grave sirs of note,' 'in observing their well-graced forms of speech,' it is intimated, 'might easily want.'

By means of that 'first use of the parable,' whereby (while for the present we drop 'the argument') it serves to illustrate, and bring first under the notice of the senses, the abstruser truths of a new learning,—truths which are as yet too far out of the road of common opinion to be conveyed in other forms,—these amusements became, in the hands of the new Teachers and Wise Men, with whom the Wisdom of the Moderns had its beginning, the means of an insidious, but most 'grave and exceedingly useful,' popular instruction.

But the immediate influence on the common mind was not the influence to which this association trusted for the fulfilment of its great plan of social renovation and advancement. That so aspiring social position, and that not less commanding position in the world of letters, built up with so much labour, with such persistent purpose, with a pertinacity which accepted of no defeat,—built up expressly to this end,—that position from which a new method of learning could be openly propounded, in the face of the schools, in the face of the Universities, in the face and eyes of all the Doctors of Learning then, was, in itself, no unimportant part of the machinery which this political association was compelled to include in the plot of its far-reaching enterprise.

That trumpet-call which rang through Europe, which summoned the scholasticism and genius of the modern ages, from the endless battles of the human dogmas and conceits, into the field of true knowledge,—that summons which recalled, and disciplined, and gave the word of command to the genius of the modern ages, that was already tumultuously rushing thither,—that call which was able to command the modern learning, and impose on it, for immediate use, the New Machine of Learning,—that Machine which, even in its employment in the humblest departments of observation, has already formed, ere we know it, the new mind, which has disciplined and trained the modern intelligence, and created insidiously new habits of judgment and belief,—created, too, a new stock of truths, which are accepted as a part of the world's creed, and from which the whole must needs be evolved in time,—this, in itself, was no small step towards securing the great ends of this enterprise. It was a step which we are hardly in a position, as yet, to estimate. We cannot see what it was till the nobler applications of this Method begin to be made. It has cost us something while we have waited for these. The letter to Sir Henry Savile, on 'the Helps to the Intellectual Powers,' which is referred to with so much more iteration and emphasis than anything which the surface of the letter exhibits would seem to bear, in its brief hints, points also this way, though the effect of mental exercises, by means of other instrumentalities, on the habits of a larger class, is also comprehended in it. But the formation of new intellectual habits in men liberally educated, appeared to promise, ultimately, those larger fruits in the advancement and culture of learning which, in 'the hour-glass' of that first movement, could be, as yet, only prophecy and anticipation. The perfection of the Human Science, then first propounded, the filling up of 'the Anticipations' of Learning, which the Philosophy of Science also included in its system,—not rash and premature, however, and not claiming the place of knowledge, but kept apart in a place by themselves,—put down as anticipations, not interpretations,—the filling up of this outline was what was expected as the ultimate result of this proceeding, in the department of speculative philosophy.

But in that great practical enterprise of a social and political renovation—that enterprise of 'constructions' according to true definitions, which this science fastens its eye on, and never ceases to contemplate—it was not the immediate effect on the popular mind, neither was it the gradual effect on the speculative habits of men of learning and men of intelligence in general, that was chiefly relied on. It was the secret tradition, the living tradition of that intention; it was the tradition whereby that association undertook to continue itself across whatever gulfs and chasms in social history 'the fortunes of our state' might make. It was that second use of the fable, which is 'to wrap up and conceal'; it was that 'enigmatic' method, which reserves the secrets of learning for those 'who by the aid of an instructor, or by their own research, are able to pierce the veil,' which was relied on for this result. It was the power of that tradition, its generative power, its power to reproduce 'in a better hour' the mind and will of that 'company'—it was its power to develop and frame that identity which was the secret of this association, and its new principle of UNION—that identity of the 'one mind, and one mind good,' which is the human principle of union—that identity which made a common name, a common personality, for those who worked together for that end, and whose WILL in it was 'one.' A name, a personality, a philosophic unity, in whose great radiance we have basked so long—a name, a personality whose secret lies heavy on all our learning—whose secret of power, whose secret of inclusiveness and inexhaustible wealth of knowledge, has paralysed all our criticism, 'made marble'—as Milton himself confesses—'made marble with too much conceiving.' 'Write me a prologue, and let the prologue seem to say [in dumb action], we will do no harm with our swords.' 'They all flourish their swords.' 'There is but one mind in all these men, and that is bent against Caesar'—Julius Caesar.

'Even so the race
Of SHAKE-SPEAR's mind and manners brightly shines,
In his well turned and true filed—lines;
In each of which he seems to SHAKE a LANCE,
As brandished at the eyes of—Ignorance,'

[We will do no harm, with our—WORDS [it seems to say.]—Prologue.]

It was the power of the Elizabethan Art of Tradition that was relied on here, that 'living Art'; it was its power to reproduce this Institution, through whatever fatal eventualities the movement which these men were seeking then to anticipate, and organize, and control, might involve; and though the Parent Union should be overborne in those disastrous, not unforeseen, results—overborne and forgotten—and though other means employed for securing that end should fail.

It is to that posthumous effect that all the hope points here. It is the Leonatus Posthumus who must fulfil this oracle.

'Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes;
Since, spite of him, I'LL live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes;
And thou in this shall find thy monument,
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.'