and Bacon, are the correct translation of τῆς πολιτικῆς. “Political
philosophy” would have been a wrong translation. Moreover, Erasmus,
before “Shakespeare” and Bacon, had rightly translated πολιτικῆς by
“moral philosophy.” [Ed.]
[68] Items (e), (f), (g) and (h) are lifted without material alteration
from my _Bacon-Shakespeare_ Essay.
[69] The story of the _Merchant of Venice_ is, as is well known,
founded on the _Pecorone_ of Ser Giovanni, Day IV, Novel I. See my _Is
there a Shakespeare Problem?_ p. 91. _et seq._ [ED.]
[70] See also the forty-sixth Sonnet. [Ed.]
[71] See my chapter on “The Northumberland Manuscript.” _Post_ p. 187.
[72] Not quite “always”--there were some exceptions. [ED.]
[73] This Essay was written by Mr. Smithson in the year 1912.
[74] See XXVI _Prometheus, sive status hominis_. [ED.]
[75] It is a pity that Mr. Smithson has not given us the reference to
this delightfully comic, but highly characteristic utterance. [ED.]
[76] _Bacon’s Works_, edited by Spedding, vi, 486.
[77] First published in 1627, a year after Bacon’s death.
[78] This work seems to have been first published in 1612.
[79] _Additamentum_, an addition, or accession to.
[80] At contra, illud animis hominum penitus insidere debuerats
artificialia a naturalibus, non forma aut essentia, sed efficiente
solummodo differre; homini quippe in naturam nullius rei potestatem
esse, præterquam motus, ut scilicet corpora naturalia aut admoveat, aut
amoveat.... Itaque natura omnia regit: subordinantur autem illa tria;
cursu, naturæ; exspatiatio naturæ; et ars, sive additus rebus homo.
[81] “It is the fashion to talk as if art were something different
from nature, or a sort of addition to nature, with power to finish
what nature has begun, or correct her when going aside. In truth, man
has no power over nature except that of motion--the power, I say, of
putting natural bodies together, or separating them--the rest is done
by nature within.” _Descriptio Globi Intellectualis_, circ. 1612. Man
(e.g.) as the modern writer puts it, “can bring together the radium and
the bouillon, but the radiobe, whatever it may be, is none the less a
product of nature.” “The art itself is nature.”
[82] Unfortunately, however, Bacon’s instances are far from
satisfactory. “We see,” he says, “that in living creatures, that come
of putrefaction, there is much transmutation of one into another; as
caterpillars turn into flies, etc. And it should seem probable, that
whatsoever creature, having life, is generated without seed, that
creature will change out of one species into another.” And so forth.
[83] Judge Webb does not refer to Bacon’s remarks on the coloration
of flowers which I have thought worth citing, but he quotes the
_Natural History_ to the effect that “if you can get a scion to grow
upon a stock of another kind” it “may make the fruit greater, though
it is like it will make the fruit baser.” But this is not much of a
“parallel” with the remark of Polixenes as to marrying “a gentler scion
to the wildest stock,” etc.
[84] _Country Matters in Short_, by W. F. Collier, p. 21.
[85] See also his remarks on the saying “homo est planta inversa,”
Cent. VII, 607, and compare Burton, _Anat: of Melancholy_, vol. 2, p.
193. Ed. 1800. The scientific facts with regard to sex-difference in
the vegetable world were not discovered till some seventy years after
Shakspere’s death.
[86] At the same time we must take note, that Bacon’s theory of the
flamy substance of which the stars are supposed to consist, seems to
differ not a little from the modern conception of matter in a state of
combustion or incandescence. See Abbott’s _Life of Bacon_, pp. 374-5.
[87] Sir Edward Sullivan, who appears to have been captivated by
Signor Paolo Orano’s quite untenable theory that Hamlet is meant for
Giordano-Bruno, makes a truly remarkable comment upon the second of the
lines above-quoted, viz.: “Doubt that the sun doth move.” He says this
line “is the Copernican System in little”! It is, of course, the very
opposite. _It is the Ptolemaic System in little!_ (See Sir E. Sullivan
in _The Nineteenth Century_, February, 1918).
[88] _Life_, pp. 373-4. Mill remarks (_Logic_, vol. i, p. 253) that
Newton’s discovery “is the greatest example which has yet occurred of
the transformation, at one stroke, of a science which was still to a
great degree merely experimental into a deductive science.”
[89] He appears on almost every page of Professor Dowden’s article.
[90] My italics. The manuscript has been damaged by fire (probably in
1780), the edges of the pages being much scorched and singed.
[91] See Spedding’s _Introduction_, p. xix. It is, I believe, contended
by some that the word here is not “Philipp,” but as Mr. Spedding so
read it when the manuscript was very much clearer than it is now, we
may, I think, be content to accept his evidence, more especially as
close to it, a little to the left, stands the word “Phillipp” still
plain for all to read. Mr. Burgoyne, therefore, includes this letter of
Sir Philip Sydney among the subjects mentioned in the supposed list of
contents.
[92] The items in italics are mentioned in the list on the outside
page. It will be seen that the latest date of any article of the
contents is 1596. Note that six of the nine pieces are by Francis Bacon.
[93] See Spedding’s _Introduction_, p. xvi.
[94] “The Northumberland House Manuscript,” says Spedding, “is for the
most part remarkably clear and correct; it is very seldom, that there
can be any doubt what letter is intended, and the mistakes are very
few.” See Mr. Burgoyne’s Facsimile.
[95] Mr. Dowse says that the only explanation of this entry that he has
heard is that it was suggested by Bacon’s behaviour in the Essex case.
I have, however, heard another, viz., that it is Bacon’s own reflection
on the deceits and vanities of life.
[96] “The name of Shakespeare,” writes Mr. Spedding (p. xxv.) “is spelt
in every case as it was always _printed_ in those days, _and not as he
himself in any known case ever wrote it_.”
[97] “Peeps” certainly seems better than “spies,” and it has been
suggested, therefore, that this gives the line as the poet first
conceived it, the alteration having been made to meet the exigency of
rhyme.
[98] “Bacon,” writes Mr. A. W. Pollard, “as we should expect, reckoning
his year from January.” The copy in the British Museum was bought
_Septimo die Februarii_ 39 E. R.
[99] This argument holds even if, as Mr. Dowse seeks to prove, the
transcription was never carried out in the Northumberland volume. No
penman would have noted the Essays for future copying if they were
already in print.
[100] “To Algernoun, Lord Percy,” the Earl’s son and heir, whom he
addresses as “My right noble Pupill and joy of my heart,” Davies
writes, “The Italian hand I teach you.” Would that he could have taught
it to William Shakspere of Stratford! It was in his time, says Mr.
Dowse, “fast superseding the old court-hand.” It was, certainly, fast
superseding the old German, or “Old English,” hand in which Shakspere
wrote. And the author of _Twelfth Night_ must have known the value of
that Italian hand which was at that time rapidly “winning its way in
cultured society,” as Sir Sidney Lee tells us, for does not he make
Malvolio say, “I think we do know the sweet Roman hand”? But Mr. Dowse
does not seem to have known the meaning of the term “court-hand,” which
is a technical term for the scripts employed by lawyers in drawing up
charters and other legal documents, and can very seldom be described as
“beautiful.”
[101] The word “bounty” indeed, as the other nouns, “Beauty,” “Bays,”
etc., is printed in italics in accordance with the practice of the
times. That does not, of course, imply that any extra emphasis is on
the word. Mr. Dowse omits the italics in the case of the word “beauty,”
but emphasises “bounty” and “compells!”
[102] I do not know what evidence there is that these initials were
written by Davies himself, and were not additions made by some other
hand.
[103] Mr. Dowse omits the hyphen.
[104] This parenthesis is inserted by Mr. Dowse.
[105] Spedding’s _Introduction_, p. xxv.
[106] I have dealt with this Epigram at some length in _Is there a
Shakespeare Problem?_ at pp. 295, 353, and Appendix A. p. 559. So far
as I know there is no evidence that Davies knew either Dick Burbage or
Will Shakespere personally. On March 28, 1603, Bacon wrote to Davies
asking him to use his influence with King James in the writer’s favour,
and concluding with the words, “so desiring you to be good to concealed
poets.” (Spedding. _Lord Bacon’s Letters and Life_, iii. 65.)
[107] Dowse pp. 4 and 10.
[108] If we were to adopt this theory we should have to put the date
for the “knocking about” of the MS. even later than that assigned by
Mr. Dowse, for though Overbury’s murder was discovered in 1615, Lady
Somerset, as she then was, was not committed to the Tower till April,
1616, and it is not probable if _turner_ stands for Anne Turner,
that that name would be written till after the trial had brought it
prominently before the public.
[109] _Life of Bacon_ vol. i, p. 250-1.
[110] _Ibid._ vol. i, p. 349.
[111] We know from Archbishop Tenison’s _Remains_ that Ben Jonson was
one of Bacon’s “good pens.” _Baconiana_ 1679, p. 60.
[112] See articles in the modern _Baconiana_ for July, 1904, and April,
1905, on _Bacon’s Scrivenery_.
[113] Some think the scribbler was Bacon himself, which, if true, is
certainly of no little importance.
[114] John Murray, 1903.
[115] This Labeo is alluded to as a jurist of eminence in the time of
Augustus by Justinian in his _Institutes_. See Sandars’s Translation
(Longmans, 1869), at p. 18.
[116] Mr. Begley suggests (p. 17) that the Cynic’s helmet is an
allusion to the Knights of the Helmet, of whom we read in the _Gesta
Grayorum_, and, as he writes, we know that Bacon was “responsible for
this Device performed at his own Gray’s Inn during the year 1594.” As
to “Talus” and his flail, see Spenser’s _Fairy Queen_, Bk. V, Cant. i,
st. 12.
End of Project Gutenberg's Baconian Essays, by Edward Walter Smithson