The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

by Delia Salter Bacon

It is to these that the Wise Man of our ages speaks (for we have him,—we do not wait for him), in the act of displaying a little, and folding up for the future, his plan of a Scientific Human Culture; it is to these that he speaks when he says, with a little of that obscurity which 'he mortally hates, and would avoid if he could': 'As Philocrates sported with Demosthenes,' you may not marvel, Athenians, that Demosthenes and I do differ, for he drinketh water, and I drink wine; and like as we read of an ancient parable of the two gates of sleep '… so if we put on sobriety and attention, we shall find it a sure maxim in knowledge, that the pleasant liquor of wine is the more vaporous, and the braver gate of ivory sendeth forth the falser dreams.' ['I,' says 'Michael,' who is also in favour of 'sobriety,' and critical upon excesses of all kinds, 'I have ever observed, that super-celestial theories and sub-terranean manners are in singular accordance.']

And in his general proposal to lay open 'those parts of learning which lie fresh and waste, and not improved and converted by the industry of man, to the end that such a plot, made and committed to memory, may both minister light to any public designation, and also serve to excite voluntary endeavours,' he says, 'I do foresee that of those things which I shall enter and register as deficiencies and omissions, many will conceive and censure that some of them are already done, and extant, others to be but curiosities and things of no great use' [such as the question of style, for instance, and those 'particular' arts of tradition to which this remark is afterwards applied]—and others to be of too great difficulty—and almost impossibility—to be compassed and effected; but for the two first, I refer myself to particulars; for the last,—touching impossibility,—I take it those things are to be held possible, which may be done by some person, though not by every one; and which may be done by many, though not by any one; and which may be done in succession of ages, though not within the hour-glass of one man's life; and which may be done by public designation, though not by private endeavour.

That was 'the plot'—that was the plan of the Elizabethan Innovation.

THE ENIGMA OF LEONATUS POSTHUMUS.

'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown, without seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall be lopped branches, which, being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate, and flourish in peace and plenty.'

THE VERULAMIAN CABINET, AND ITS WORKMANSHIP.

Here, for instance, is a specimen of the manner in which scholars who write about these times, allude to the reserved parts of this philosophy, and to those 'richer and bolder meanings,' which could not then be inserted in the acknowledged writings of so great a person. This is a specimen of the manner in which a posthumous collection and reintegration of this philosophy, and a posthumous emancipation of it, is referred to, by scholars who write from the Continent somewhere about these days. Whether the date of the writing be a little earlier or a little later,—some fifty years or so,—it does not seem to make much difference as to the general intent and purport of it.

Here is a scholar, for instance, whose main idea of life on this planet it appears to be, to collect the philosophy, and protect the posthumous fame of the Lord Bacon. For this purpose, he has established a literary intimacy, quite the most remarkable one on record—at least, between scholars of different and remote nationalities—between himself and two English gentlemen, a Mr. Smith, and the Rev. Dr. Rawley. He writes from the Hague but he appears to have acquired in some way a most extraordinary insight into this business.

'Though I thought that I had already sufficiently showed what veneration I had for the illustrious Lord Verulam, yet I shall take such care for the future, that it may not possibly be denied, that I endeavoured most zealously to make this thing known to the learned world. But neither shall this design of setting forth in one volume all the Lord Bacon's works, proceed without consulting you'—[This letter is addressed to the Rev. Dr. Rawley, and is dated a number of years after Lord Bacon's death]—'without consulting you, and without inviting you to cast in your symbol, worthy such an excellent edition: that so the appetite of the reader'—[It was a time when symbols of various kinds—large and small—were much in use in the learned world]—'that so the appetite of the reader, provoked already by his published works, may be further gratified by the pure novelty of so considerable an appendage.

'For the French interpreter, who patched together his things I know not whence, and tacked that motley piece to him; they shall not have place in this great collection. But yet I hope to obtain your leave to publish a-part, as an appendix to the Natural History,—that exotic work,—gathered together from this and the other place (of his lordship's writings), [that is the true account of it] and by me translated into—Latin.