The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

by Delia Salter Bacon

Now, this no more dishonors you at all,
Than to take in a town with gentle words,
Which else would put you to your fortune, and
The hazard of much blood.—
And you will rather show our general louts
How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon them,
For the inheritance of their loves, and safeguard
Of what that want might ruin.

But then, in the dramatic exhibition, the other side comes in too:—

I will not do't;
Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth,
And by my body's action, teach my mind
A most inherent baseness.

It is the same poet who says in another place:—

Almost my nature is subdued to that it works in.

'But to return,' as our author himself says, after his complimentary notice of the king's book, accompanied with that emphatic promise to give an account of himself upon a full occasion, and we have here, apparently, a longer digression to apologize for, and return from; but, in the book we are considering, it is, in fact, rather apparent than real, as are most of the author's digressions, and casual introductions of impertinent matter; for, in fact, the exterior order of the discourse is often a submission to the occasion, and is not so essential as the author's apparent concern about it would lead us to infer; indeed he has left dispersed directions to have this treatise broken up, and recomposed in a more lively manner, upon a full occasion, and when time shall serve; for, at present, this too is chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof.

And in marking out the grounds in human life, then lying waste, or covered with superstitious and empirical arts and inventions, in merely showing the fields into which the inventor of this new instrument of observation and inference by rule, was then proposing to introduce it, and in presenting this new report, and this so startling proposition, in those differing aspects and shifting lights, and under those various divisions which the art of delivery and tradition under such circumstances appeared to prescribe; having come, in the order of his report, to that main ground of the good which the will and appetite of man aspires to, and the direction thereto,—this so labored ground of philosophy,—when it was found that the new scientific platform of good, included—not the exclusive good of the individual form only, but that of those 'larger wholes,' of which men are constitutionally parts and members, and the special DUTY,—for that is the specific name of this principle of integrity in the human kind, that is the name of that larger law, that spiritual principle, which informs and claims the parts, and conserves the larger form which is the worthier,—when it was found that this part included the particular duty of every man in his place, vocation, and profession, as well as the common duty of men as men, surely it was natural enough to glance here, at that particular profession and vocation of authorship, and the claims of the respective places of king and subject in that regard, as well as at the duty of the king, and the superior advantages of a government of laws in general, as being more in accordance with the order of nature, than that other mode of government referred to. It was natural enough, since this subject lies always in abeyance, and is essentially involved in the work throughout, that it should be touched here, in its proper place, though never so casually, with a glance at those nice questions of conflicting claims, which are more fully debated elsewhere, distinguishing that which is forced in time, from that which is forced in truth, and the absence of the person, from the absence of the occasion.

But the approval of that man of prodigious fortune, to whom this work is openly dedicated, is always, with this author, who understands his ground here so well, that he hardly ever fails to indulge himself in passing, with a good humoured, side-long, glance at 'the situation,' this approval is the least part of the achievement. That which he, too, adores in kings, is 'the throng of their adorers'. It is the sovereignty which makes kings, and puts them in its liveries, that he bends to; it is that that he reserves his art for. And this proposal to run the track of the science of nature through this new field of human nature and its higher and highest aims, and into the very field of every man's special place, and vocation, and profession, could not well be made without a glance at those difficulties, which the clashing claims of authorship, and other professions, would in this case create; without a glance at the imperious necessities which threaten the life of the new science, which here also imperiously prescribe the form of its TRADITION; he could not go by this place, without putting into the reader's hands, with one bold stroke, the key of its DELIVERY.

For it is in the paragraph which follows the compliment to the king in his character as an author, in pursuing still further this subject of vocations and professions, that we find in the form of 'fable' and 'allusion,'—that form which the author himself lays down in his Art of Tradition, as the form of inculcation for new truth,—the precise position, which is the key to this whole method of new sciences, which makes the method and the interpretation, the vital points, in the writing and the reading of them.

'But, to return, there belongeth farther to the handling of this part, touching the Duties of Professions and Vocations, a relative, or opposite, touching the frauds, impostures and vices of every profession, which hath been likewise handled. But how? Rather in a satire and cynically, than seriously and wisely; for men have rather sought by wit to deride and traduce much of that which is good in PROFESSIONS, than with judgment to discover and sever that which is corrupt. For, as Solomon saith, he that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to scorn and censure, shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no matter for his instruction. But the managing of this argument with integrity and truth, which I note as deficient, seemeth to me to be one of the best fortifications for honesty and virtue that can be planted. For, as the fable goeth of the basilisk, that if he see you first, you die for it, but if YOU SEE HIM FIRST—HE DIETH; so it is with deceits and evil arts, which if they be first ESPIED lose their life, but if they prevent, endanger.' [If they see you first, you die for it; and not you only, but your science.