UC-NRLF 
 
 B 3 SbM 7M7 
 
 UCB 
 
SPOILS. 
 
 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 HARRY S. CALDECOTT, F.RG.S. 
 
 REVISED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 Arts and Sciences hunt after their ivorks ; human counsels after their ends ; 
 and ail natural things hunt either after their food to preserve them, or after their 
 pleasures and delights to perfect them {for all hunting is for the sake of either prey 
 or pleasv^re) : and this too by methods expert ana sagacious. 
 
 The savage lioness the wolf pursues, 
 The wolf the kid, the kid. the cytisus." 
 
 Dc Augmentis. 
 
 PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. 
 
SPOILS. 
 
 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEABE 
 
 HARRY S. CALDECOTT, F.RG.S. 
 
 BE VIS ED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 Arts and Sciences hunt after their works; human counsels after their ends ; 
 and all natural thinus hunt cither after their food to preserve them, or after their 
 pleasures and delights to perfect them (fo^ all hunting is for the sa\e of either prey 
 or pleasure) : and this too by methods expert and sagacious. 
 
 The savage lioness the wolf pursues, 
 The wolf the kid, the kid the cytisus." 
 
 De Augmelftii 
 
 PRINTED FOB FHIVATE CIRCULATION. 
 
'^32 
 
 Cif 
 
 PEELIMINAEY EEMAKKS. 
 
 There have been, admittedly, mountains of rubbish written 
 about Shakespeare. He has (according to Mr. Saintsbury, his 
 latest critic and expositor) been the subject of commentatorial 
 folly to an extent which dwarfs the expense of that folly on 
 any other single subject. One especial form of folly has been 
 to treat Shakespeare as, if not exactly an inspired idiot, at any 
 rate a mainly tentative if not purely unconscious artist, much 
 of whose work is only not bad as art, while most, if not all, of 
 it was originally produced with a minimum of artistic conscious- 
 ness and design! — and, I may add, with a minimum of literary 
 preparation, and a tag-rag equipment of knowledge, comparable 
 only to the motley of a juggler or a court fool. The business 
 of the critic, therefore, is much more to shovel away the 
 rubbish of his predecessors than to attempt any accummula- 
 tion of his own. In the meantime certain writers have boldly 
 put forward the theory that Shakespeare was not Shakespeare 
 at all. The newest form of " folly," in fact, is to deny that 
 Shakespeare wrote the plays and poems so long attributed to 
 him — and not only to deny that Shakespeare wrote them, but 
 to assert that his great co-temporary, Francis Bacon, did. 
 This hypothesis — • strange and startling as it may seem — is, if 
 not proved, at least supported by many curious and ingenious 
 arguments. Many people have been convinced of its validity, 
 and declare that for them it has thrown fresh beauty, grandeur, 
 and meaning on the plays, and cleared up many doubts and 
 difficulties of criticism, which have so far defied solution. 
 
 1 Saintsbury, "Elizabethan Literature," 1887. 
 
 70'> 
 
iv PEELIMINAEY REMARKS. 
 
 Others, on the contrary, have been stirred to an exhibition of 
 petulancy, which is always childish and often spiteful. 
 
 Shakespeare's works are amongst the most precious heritages 
 of the world. What does it matter whether they were written 
 by Francis Bacon or WilHam Shakespeare ? Shakespeare him- 
 self is almost a mythical being. The little that is actually 
 known about him and his doings is hardly creditable, much 
 less admirable. The truth is that men too often allow their 
 judgments to be obscured by the pleasing illusions of sentiment. 
 All that we really know of Shakspere^ is that he was baptized 
 on the 24th of April, 1564, at Stratford-on-Avon. His parents 
 belonged to the lower middle class, and were connected with 
 small farmers and farm-labourers on the one side, and with 
 petty tradesmen on the other. Nothing is known of his youth 
 and education ; but it was a constant tradition of the literary 
 men of his own and the immediately succeeding generation 
 that he had Uttle school-learning.^ Before he was nineteen 
 he was married, at the end of 1582, to Anne Hathaway, 
 who was seven years his senior. Their first child, Susannah, 
 was baptized six months later. In 1585, at the age of 20-1, he 
 is supposed to have gone up to London, and to have been con- 
 nected with the theatres in some humble capacity. He became 
 an actor, but acquired no fame in that capacity. He accumu- 
 lated money, however, as Alleyn and other actors and stage- 
 managers did. He appears to have been ''prudent " in the 
 ordinary way, to have bought property, sold malt, pursued 
 petty debtors ; and in 1616 he died, unwept, unhonoured, and 
 unsung. Some years after his death his plays were collected 
 in the First Folio of 1623. Many of these plays had been 
 greatly altered and augmented from the editions published in 
 Sha kspere's life-time. Many plays saw light for the first 
 time in the Folio. In the entire number of thirty-seven plays 
 which are usually regarded as Shakespeare's, there are only 
 fourteen of which, in what may be called their completed state 
 or ultimate form, we possess impressions published in his life- 
 
 ^ The Stratford man always signed himself " Shakspere." The author is 
 invariably spelt " Shakespeare." 
 2 Saintsbury. 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. V 
 
 tim e, together with four others of which, in an immature and 
 imperfect state, we have such impressions. Of one other, 
 " Othello," we have also an edition, printed, indeed, after the 
 author's death, but apparently from another manuscript 
 than that used for the First Foho. For the remaining 
 eighteen plays our oldest and only authority is that edition. i 
 In view of these facts, the question was raised many years ago 
 by Mr. W. H. Smith, in his historical letter to Lord Elles- 
 mere : Who but the author himself could have exercised this 
 power of discrimination ? And the question remains un- 
 answered to this day. It is quite clear that Shakspere 
 had no hand in the compilation of the First Folio. He had 
 died seven years before — died in obscurity in a country 
 village, leaving a will, it is true, but making no refer- 
 ence to any literary works — appointing no literary executors 
 — leaving no library of books, no collection of correspon- 
 dence, no manuscripts, not even the scrap of a letter. 
 
 On the other hand, in 1623, Francis Bacon— aided by Ben 
 Jonson and many other friends — was busy collecting, correcting, 
 and publishing his works. The ** De Augmentis " was pubhshed 
 in the same year as the famous Folio. In 1626 Bacon died, 
 acknowledged to be the greatest and most eminent man of his 
 age — described by Ben Jonson, in his review of the more 
 famous names of his own and the preceding age, from Sir 
 Thomas More to Sir Philip Sidney, Hooker, Essex, and 
 Raleigh, as without a rival at the head of the company as the 
 man who had " fulfilled all numbers " and " stood as the mark 
 and acme of our language." ** No man," he says, " ever spoke 
 more neatly, more pressly, or suffered less emptiness, less idle- 
 ness, in what he uttered. . . . His hearers could not cough or look 
 aside from him without loss. He commanded when he spoke, 
 and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion . . . the 
 fear of every man that heard him was that he should make 
 an end. . . . His speech was nobly censorious when he could 
 spare and pass by a jest." 
 
 The contention that Bacon wrote the plays is set forth at 
 
 1 Craik, "The English of Shakespeare." 
 
VI PKELIMINAEY EEMAEKS. 
 
 length by Judge Holmes in a learned and judicial work en- 
 titled ''The Authorship of Shakespeare's Plays." Other 
 writers have discussed the problem from various points of view, 
 and with various success. The literary guides, however, upon 
 whom we usually rely in matters of this kind are almost 
 unanimous in denouncing the suggestion as a piece of folly — 
 madness, drunkenness — something so crass and stupid that 
 there is no fitting word to describe it. Professor Elze, Dr. 
 Furnivall, Mr. Saintsbury, all the Shakespearian critics who 
 have condescended to notice the discussion, fling a stone at it, 
 and pass on to shovel away or add to the rubbish-heap of 
 commentary on this inscrutable subject of Wilham Shake- 
 speare and his works. " As for Shakespeare-Bacon theories, 
 and that kind of folly," says Dr. Saintsbury, "they are 
 scarcely worthy even of mention." This is the contemptuous 
 style. " The idea of Lord Bacon's having written Shake- 
 speare's plays," says Dr. Furnivall, ''can be entertained only 
 by folk who know nothing whatever of either writer, or are 
 crackt, or who enjoy the paradox or joke." This is the angry 
 style. And so they all ring the changes on all the terms of 
 contempt and abuse they can command, until the chorus 
 becomes a little monotonous, and one would like to hear a 
 little argument and not quite so much vituperation. 
 
 Dr. Nichol, Professor of Enghsh Literature in the University 
 of Glasgow, is more concihatory. He says i^ "Lord Bacon 
 did not write Shakespeare's plays ; but there is something 
 startling in the like magnificence of speech in which they find 
 voice for sentiments, often as nearly identical when they anti- 
 cipate as when they contravene the manners of thought and 
 standards of action that prevail in our country in our age. 
 They are similar in their respect for rank and dignity, in their 
 belief in royal right divine, in their contempt for the vulgus 
 mutabile, depreciation of the merely commercial, and exaltation 
 of a military spirit ; above all, in their view of the duty of 
 Englishmen to knit together the forces and extend the bounds 
 of— 
 
 ^ " Francis Bacon : His Life and Philosophy," i., p. 78. 
 
PEELIMINAliY EEMAEKS. Vll 
 
 " ' This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, 
 This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
 This fortress built by Nature for herself 
 Against infection and the hand of war. 
 This happy breed of men, this little world. 
 This precious stone set in the silver sea.' 
 
 " The above and numerous other passages show that neither 
 the statesman nor the poet had, for good or evil, more share 
 than any other Elizabethan of our recent, sometimes quixotic, 
 cosmopolitanism." 
 
 Everywhere the writings of the one author throw light on 
 those of the other. Dr. Nichol, commenting on Bacon's 
 "^Essay on Judicature," quotes the passage in which the duties 
 of a judge are defined, namely, ''jus cUcere and not jus dare — 
 to interpret law and not to make or give law," etc. And: 
 " Therefore it is a happy thing in a State when Kings and 
 States do often consult with judges ; and again, when judges 
 do often consult with the King and State," etc. And again : 
 ** Let judges also remember that Solomon's throne was sup- 
 ported by lions on both sides ; let them be lions, but under the 
 throne." The Professor comments : *' This solution of the 
 problem revolved by his contemporary in ' Measure for 
 Measure,' and ' The Merchant of Venice,' the relation of the 
 letter to the spirit of the laiu, is another aspect of the same prac- 
 tical philosophy that we have seen running through Bacon's 
 thought and pervading his practice." 
 
 Throughout, the works of the one receive illumination by 
 mutual annotation with those of the other. In their intel- 
 lectual march they walk in step; in their sympathies, anti- 
 pathies, aspirations, they are as one. In the higher reaches 
 of their spirit, alike, they were 
 
 " Before the starry threshold of Jove's court." 
 
 Of the one as of the other it is equally true to say — as Dr. 
 Nichol says of Bacon: "In mass, in variety, in scope, his 
 genius is the greatest among men who have played a part at 
 once in widening the bounds of the kingdom of thought and in 
 fencing the bulwarks of their country." 
 
Vin PRELIMINARY EEMAEKS. 
 
 And yet so irrational are men that when it is suggested — 
 and the more plausible the grounds the more offensive it seems 
 to be — that this man of " unequalled powers with unequalled 
 will," wrote or inspired the plays attributed to the shadowy 
 personality of the other, the only reply that most English men 
 of letters have is an angry taunt, an impotent gibe, or a simious 
 grin. These gentlemen, in fact, having (as was long since said 
 of them)^ erected themselves into the condition, as it were, of 
 guardians and trustees of Shakespeare, they have remained 
 impervious to the most obvious difficulties of their situation. 
 For a long time they would have it that Shakespeare was a 
 mere dunce in book-learning — that he was alike ignorant of 
 that *' popish language, Latin," as of all modern languages, 
 except English. Then it was a shock to have it demonstrated 
 that Shakespeare was not only learned in all languages, but 
 also in all sciences — botany, medicine, law, music, and the fine 
 arts generally, which could never have been picked up either 
 in the sheep-market of Stratford-on-Avon or the mews of 
 London. Driven from these positions — admitting now that 
 myriad-minded Shakespeare was learned in books as well as in 
 Nature, these guardians and trustees refuse to ask themselves 
 — or to permit others to ask — where did he get it from ? 
 Directly this fatal question is put the records are huddled 
 away, and you are told that it is impertinent to ask questions. 
 The practice is certainly inconvenient, but this is an inquisitive 
 -and cross-examining age. In the words of the " Recorder "i^ 
 " Schollers are pryed into of late, and are found to bee busye 
 fellowes, disturbers of the peace. He say no more, gesse at my 
 meaning, I smel a ratt." 
 
 There is no need here to attempt to add to the argument in 
 favour of Bacon's claims. Mr. Holmes, Mr. Donnelly, Mr. 
 Appleton Morgan, Mrs. Pott, Mr. R. M. Theobald, M.A., and 
 others, have said pretty well as much as can be said at present. 
 Whether, however, Bacon wrote the plays or not, his mind and 
 Shakespeare's appear to have run in singularly similar grooves. 
 
 ^ " The Dramatic Character of Sir J. Falstaff," by M. Morgann, 1825. 
 ^ " Returne from Parnassus," 1606. 
 
PEELIMINAEY EEMAEKS. IX 
 
 In the ensuing essays I have endeavoured to illustrate this 
 thesis. Similar treatment of other plays would reveal the same 
 phenomenon. And yet, although Lord Bacon must have been 
 well acquainted with Shakespeare, it is singular that, whilst he, 
 in his acknowledged works, refers to most of the leading 
 writers of his age, he never refers to, or quotes from, Shake- 
 speare, and, but for one circumstance, might, so far as we are 
 aware, never have heard of him. The Shakespearian quid- 
 nuncs — the Furnivalls, et hoc genus omne — were very much non- 
 phcssed a few years ago by the discovery by Mr. John Bruce of 
 certain documents in the library at Northumberland House, 
 somewhat mutilated, singed, and incomplete, but bearing in- 
 disputable evidence of some mysterious relationship between 
 Bacon and Shakespeare. The manuscripts belong to about the 
 year 1597. Indorsed on the outside leaf of " A Conference of 
 Pleasure," being a Device by Bacon, there is a list of other 
 manuscripts which formerly lay with it. This list includes, 
 among other things, " Orations at Graie's Inn Eevels, by Mr. 
 Fr. Bacon " ; '' Essays by the same " ; '* Eichard the Second"; 
 '' Eichard the Third." These latter, Mr. Spedding (Bacon's 
 editor) admits refer to the Shakespeare plays of those names. 
 The outside leaf is scrawled over eight or nine times with 
 the name '' William Shakespeare." It also has the long dog- 
 Latin word, Jionorificabilitudinitatibus, which is introduced in 
 " Love's Labour Lost " (Act V., sc. i., 1. 45), and the line, 
 
 " Revealing day through every cranny peeps" 
 
 from ** Lucrece." 
 
 It would seem that the plays of '* Eichard the Second " and 
 " Eichard the Third " had been torn out from the packet in the 
 general work of destruction of the manuscripts of the dramas ; 
 but by some oversight the tell-tale outer sheet had escaped 
 observation. Here, at least. Bacon and Shakespeare — so far as 
 external evidence goes — are brought very near together ; and 
 it is Shakespeare that we find in Bacon's house, not Bacon in 
 Shakespeare's. The incident is curious, and encourages 
 Shakespearian students to hope that further manuscripts may 
 
X PEELIMINAEY EE MARKS. 
 
 yet turn up throwing further Hght on the mystery of the 
 plays. 
 
 Indeed, in the year 1885 Mr. Macray, M.A., F.S.A., dis- 
 covered in the Bodleian Library the long-lost manuscripts of two 
 comedies, called respectively the "Pilgrimage to Parnassus" 
 and the " Eeturn from Parnassus," forming the first and second 
 parts of a trilogy of dramas, known as the " Parnassus Plays." 
 The third part, entituled "The Eeturn from Parnassus ; or. The 
 Scourge of Simony," was twice printed in the year 1606. No 
 one knows who wrote these plays. They contain direct and 
 pointed references to Bacon's works, as well as to Shakespeare's 
 plays. Shakespeare's name is introduced ironically — his poems 
 and plays are claimed by the writer (in the character of 
 Gullio) as belonging to him — and there are good reasons for 
 believing that the plays were written by the author of the 
 Shakespearian drama, and that the writer was not William 
 Shakespeare. These comedies are an enigma to Shakesperian 
 students. If, however, Dr. Abbot will apply to them his 
 philological test, he will find they are Shakespearian ; and if 
 Mr. Moulton will apply to them his laws of art criticism, and 
 especially his doctrine of " Central Ideas," he will find that 
 the central idea of the first play is Shqndo, a canting Puritan; 
 of the second William Shakesj^eare, called ironically " Sweet 
 Mr. Shakespeare ;" and of the third, Immcrito, an ignorant 
 country fellow, whose father has purchased for him the living 
 belonging to Sir Eaderick, father of the impecunious scholar, 
 Amoretto. And if anyone bring his common-sense to bear 
 upon these comedies, he will find that they are full of bitter 
 complaints of the consideration and wealth poured upon the 
 ignorant play-actors, and of the neglect with which the poets 
 and dramatists of the day were treated. A full discussion of 
 these plays, however, would lead us too far astray. It is 
 sufficient to indicate that, until the critics take up different 
 standing - ground, they will probably never understand 
 them. 
 
 Other indications are not wantirg that we may expect any 
 day to have some starthng piece of evidence thrust upon our 
 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. xi 
 
 unwilling ears. The AthencBum, for instance, of the 16th May, 
 
 1891, pubhshed a paragraph to the effect that — 
 
 " The Genealogist for April contains a few brief remarks on two important 
 and hitlierto unnoticed State Papers in the Public Record Office, which Mr. 
 James Greenstreet has recently drawn attention to, as bearhig upon the oft- 
 vexed question of the authorship of the plays printed as Shakespeare's. The 
 documents alluded to have evidently suggested very strongly to the mind of 
 their discoverer that many of these plays, though published under the name of 
 Shakespeare, were not actually written by him, but by William Stanley, Earl 
 of Derby, and that this earl, and not Lord Southampton, was Shakespeare's 
 real patron and benefactor. And here it should be observed in what close 
 relationship to the crown the nobleman in question stood, his brother and pre- 
 decessor having been regarded by some as the possible successor of Queen 
 Elizabeth in preference to the Scotch king." 
 
 The Genealogist has either pubhshed a silly canard, which 
 the ^tdJidi AtliencEum has endorsed; or it has published a fact 
 of the most extraordinary interest to the literary world. It 
 would, of course, be premature to pass any opinion on the 
 subject here. Indeed, I pass no opinion of any kind upon 
 anything, unless it be to say that, so far as I can judge, the 
 stone-throwers to whom I have referred are living in glass 
 houses of a very fragile nature ; and that a little more 
 temperateness would be more becoming the scholarship of 
 England than has so far characterized the utterances of the 
 very mixed and confused tongues of the recognised Shake- 
 sperian oracles. 
 
JULIUS C^SAR. 
 
 The delineation of the character of Cassar as given by Shake- 
 speare in the great play called after that *' famous man,"i has 
 always been a stumbling-block and an offence to the critics. 
 
 We are accustomed to regard Caesar as he is described by 
 Antony : 
 
 " Thou art the ruins of the noblest man 
 That ever lived in the tide of times."^ 
 
 But this is not the picture presented by Shakespeare. 
 
 M. Stapfer says :^ ** The character of Csesar offers a com- 
 paratively ungrateful subject with which to begin a psycho- 
 logical study of the Eoman tragedies ; not, indeed, that it is 
 wanting in interest when Shakespeare's meaning is fathomed, 
 but because it is strange and unexpected and perplexingly un- 
 like the ordinary idea we fashion to ourselves of the Roman 
 hero ; the first impression it leaves on the mind is that of a 
 vague surprise and disappointment." 
 
 M. Mezieres also complains that Shakespeare has given us 
 *' a conventional Caesar, very different to that of Plutarch . . . 
 He never tells us of the lofty thoughts with which, to the very 
 last, the mind of the master of the world was occupied, nor 
 mentions the new conquests that his genius was preparing 
 when he was struck down by the swords of the assassins.'' 
 
 Mr. Moulton, too, in his study of the character of C^sar is 
 puzzled and perplexed. He says:* " The character of Caesar 
 
 ^ " Richard III.," Act III., sc. i. - " Julius Ccesar," Act III., so. i., 1. 257. 
 ■^ " Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity," p. 321. 
 ^ ** Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist," p. 176. 
 
 J 
 
STUDIES IN SHAKE SPEAEE. 
 
 is one of the most difficult in Shakespeare. Under the in- 
 fluence of some of his speeches we find ourselves in the pre- 
 sence of one of the master spirits of mankind ; other scenes 
 in which he plays a leading part breathe nothing but the 
 feeblest vacillation and weakness." And he sums up Shake- 
 speare's conception of Caesar as follows : " He is the con- 
 summate type of the practical : emphatically the public man, 
 complete in all the greatness that belongs to action. On the 
 other hand, the knowledge of self produced by self-contempla- 
 tion is wanting, and so when he comes to consider the relation 
 of his individual self to the state, he vacillates with the vacilla- 
 tion of a strong man moving amongst men of whose greater 
 intellectual subtlety he is dimly conscious. . . ."^ 
 
 And M. Stapfer asks :- '' Why, then, did Shakespeare de- 
 liberately set to work to disparage his hero ? For, whether 
 right or wrong, it is evidently the result of choice on his part ; 
 and it is impossible to ascribe to mere negligence a contrast 
 so disproportionate as that existing between the Caesar who 
 makes his appearance in a few short and rapid scenes, and the 
 grand ideal Shakespeare himself had of him, which ideal he 
 well knew was shared in by all his audience, and would con- 
 tinue to be held by them in spite of everything." 
 
 The reply seems to be that Shakespeare never had any 
 " grand ideal " — that is to say, not any transcendental ideal — 
 of Caesar, but that he had read the life of C^sar in the same 
 practical light as Bacon had done. In this view, a short sum- 
 mary of Bacon's Essay (" Imago civilis Julii Caesaris "), and a 
 brief comparison of it, and of some other references made by 
 Bacon to Caesar, with the play will prove interesting. 
 
 (1) Shakespeare, M. Stapfer says, was ''fully aware of the 
 hero's historical importance."-'' Shakespeare realized *' clearly 
 enough that it was no insignificant man that fell."'^ This is 
 quite true. And it is also true of Bacon. 
 
 Bacon grants that Caesar had "greatness of mind in a very 
 high degree," but he immediately adds, '' yet such as aspired 
 
 ■^ "Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist," p. 181. 
 
 - "Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity," p. 325. ^ Ihid., p. 320. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 325. 
 
JULIUS C^SAE. ' 3- 
 
 more after personal aggrandizement than merit towards the 
 pubhc. For he referred everything to himself and was the 
 true and perfect centre of all his own actions." 
 
 Again : " And assuredly in his private wishes he cared more 
 for power than reputation. He sought reputation and fame 
 not for themselves, but as instruments of power. By natural 
 impulse, therefore, and not by any moral guiding, he aspired- 
 to the supreme authority, and aspired rather to possess it than 
 to be thought worthy of it — a thing which gave him favour 
 with the people, who had no dignity of their own ; but with 
 the nobles and great persons, who wished also to preserve their 
 own dignity, procured him the reputation of covetousness and 
 boldness." 
 
 (" The people, who had no dignity of their own." Is not 
 this the very essence of Shakespeare's conception of " the- 
 people " in all the plays ?) 
 
 That is to say (according to Bacon), Caesar was a popular 
 idol, but persons of keener insight recognised the bold and 
 covetous man, who referred everything to himself, and was the 
 true and perfect centre of his own actions. 
 
 " Nature ever presents two sides, one for Herachtus and 
 one for Democritus." The honourable and simple-minded 
 Brutus, in the play, reflects the enlightened view of Caesar's 
 character and aims ; whilst the dissolute and popular Antony 
 is an exponent of the opposite side. The opinions of these two 
 men must be read in the light of their respective characters and 
 careers. And notwithstanding that Shakespeare put language of 
 the greatest reverence for Caesar's character in the mouth of 
 Antony, we shall find reason to believe that he, personally, 
 sympathized with the more severe judgment of Brutus. 
 
 (2) Bacon says that Caesar referred everything to himself, 
 and was the true and perfect centre of all his own actions. In 
 his essay " Of Wisdom for a Man's Self," he expresses his 
 censure on such a character. " And certainly," he says, " men 
 that are great lovers of themselves waste the public. . . .^ It is < 
 
 ^ The sentence left out in the text reads as follows : " Divide with reason 
 between self-love and society ; and be so true to thyself as thou be not false to 
 
 1—2. 
 
4 STUDIES IN SHAKE SPE ABE. 
 
 a poor centre of a man's actions, himself. It is right earth. 
 For that only stands fast upon its own centre ; whereas, all 
 things that have affinity with the heavens move upon the 
 centre of another, which they benefit." " But," he says again, 
 " the corrupter sort of politics, that have not their minds in- 
 stituted and established in the true apprehension of duties, 
 and the contemplation of good in the universality, refer all 
 things to themselves as if they ivere the loorlcTs centre, and that 
 the concurrence of all lines should touch in them and their 
 fortunes ; never caring in all tempest what becomes of the 
 ship, so they may retire and save themselves in the cockboat 
 of their own fortune." 
 
 Bacon probably had in his mind, at the time of writing 
 this Essay, the character of Caesar, concerning whom he used 
 the same language as of a man who "referred everything to 
 himself, and was the true and perfect centre of all his own 
 actions." Now compare with this the following striking pas- 
 sage in the play (Act III., sc. i., 1. 59), in which Ccesar speaks 
 of himself: 
 
 ' ' I could be well moved if I were you ; 
 If I could pray to move, prayers would move me : 
 But I am constant as the northern star, 
 Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality 
 There is no fellow in the firmament. 
 The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks. 
 They are all fire and every one doth shine, 
 And there's but one in all doth hold his place : 
 So in the world ; 'tis furnish'd well with men, 
 And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive ; 
 Yet in the number I do know but one 
 That unassailable holds on his rank, 
 Unshaked of motion. 
 Hence ! wilt thou lift up Olympus ?" 
 
 Bacon's commentary upon this self-estimate of Caesar's was 
 simply this : *' It is a poor centre of a man's actions, himself. 
 It is right earth." And the astronomical illustration is used 
 
 others, especially to thy king and country." Compare this with the well-known 
 
 sentiment in " Hamlet " : 
 
 " Unto thine own self be true. 
 And it must follow as the night the day 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 
 
JULIUS C^SAE. 
 
 alike in both authors. Caesar hkens himself to the polar star, 
 around which all things move and circle. And the self-centred 
 man is likened by Bacon to the earth, ** which only stands 
 fast upon his own centre." 
 
 (3) M. Mezieres complained, in the passage quoted above, 
 that Shakespeare never tells us of the lofty thoughts with which 
 to the very last the mind of the master of the world was 
 occupied, nor mentions the new conquests that his genius was 
 preparing when he was struck down by the swords of the 
 assassins. But this, assuredly, is a mistake. 
 
 According to Shakespeare the *' lofty thoughts " in Caesar's 
 mind were concerned with the consolidation of his own power 
 as king, and the conquests he dreamt of were the destruc- 
 tion of the remaining liberties of the Eoman people. 
 This is Brutus's justification for joining the conspiracy. 
 The question Brutus was debating with himself was what 
 action should be taken in view of the dangerous height to 
 which Caesar had advanced. He knew that Caesar was a 
 '' great lover of himself," and he knew that such men '^luaste 
 the public." Brutus had no personal animus against Caesar; 
 but in the interest of ''the general "—the public — he con- 
 sidered that he would be acting a patriotic part in destroying 
 the tyrant before he had time to perfect his schemes. What- 
 ever one's personal predilections may be, we must see the 
 marked contrast of character presented by the dramatist in 
 the delineation of the motives actuating Caesar and Brutus 
 respectively. Caesar was as the ** northern star," fixed and 
 moving on its own centre. Brutus, on the other hand, had 
 that "affinity with the heavens" which ''move upon the 
 centre of another "—the public weal—" which they benefit." 
 In this light read the speech of Brutus (Act II., sc. i., 1. 10) : 
 
 *' It must be by his death : and, for my part, 
 I know no personal cause to spurn at him, 
 But for the general. He would be crowned : — 
 
 * -S?- -K- * * 
 
 Crown him ? That ; — 
 And then, I grant, we put a sting in him, 
 That at his will he may do danger with. 
 The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins 
 
^6 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEAEE. 
 
 Remorse from power : and, to speak truth of Csesar, 
 I know not when his affections sway'd 
 More than his reason." 
 
 Compare Bacon : 
 
 " At last," he says, " whether satiated with power or cor- 
 rupted by flattery, he aspired likewise to the external emblems 
 thereof (real power) — the name of king and the crown, which 
 turned to his destruction. The sovereignty was the mark he 
 aimed at even from his youth . . . but he made himself a way 
 to the sovereignty in a strange order. 
 
 " First, by means of a power popular and seditious, after- 
 wards by a power military and imperatorial. He broke the 
 force and authority of the senate ; he overthrew the power- of 
 Crassus and Pompey. He gave largesses to the people, cor- 
 rupted the courts of justice, put in seditious tribunes, secretly 
 favoured Catiline and his conspirators, banished Cicero, upon 
 whose cause the authority of the senate turned, and a number 
 of the like arts ; but most of all by the conjunction of Crassus 
 and Pompey, first wdth one another and then with himself. 
 He then consolidated his military authority, and so obliged 
 and bound to himself by private benefits all persons who had 
 any power, that there was no danger of any combination being 
 formed to oppose his designs before he should openly invade 
 the commonwealth." 
 
 (Schlegel says the following verse from Euripides w^as fre- 
 quently in the mouth of Caesar : 
 
 " For a kingdom, it is worthwhile to commit injustice, but in 
 other cases it is well to be just " — which he quoted with the 
 intention of making bad use of it.) 
 
 Thus we have, presented to us by Bacon, a man bold, 
 covetous, and unscrupulous, employing corruption, sedition., 
 violence, to further his ends, and meanwhile wearing a mask 
 of apparent frankness and innocency. And Shakespeare repre- 
 sents Brutus as mistrusting Csesar. He feared his ambition. He 
 knew he would scruple at nothing to accomplish his personal 
 ends. The tw^o conceptions of Caesar's character agree 
 perfectly. 
 
 (4) " He put on the appearance," says Bacon, " of modesty 
 
JULIUS CJESAK. / 
 
 but to serve a turn." This is the point of Ctesar's action in 
 pretending to refuse the crown. Brutus hicio that Caesar 
 '* would be crown'd"; and he debated with himself ** how that 
 might change his nature — there's the question." Caesar, 
 however, artfully contrived to deceive the people as to his 
 intentions and true ambition. And in this light — the light 
 that Bacon throws on Caesar's character — read the story related 
 by Casca : '* If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss 
 him, according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use 
 to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man. . . . Before 
 he fell down, when he perceived the common herd was glad he 
 refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet, and offered 
 them his throat to cut. . . . When he came to himself again, he 
 said, if he had done or said anything amiss, he desired their 
 worships to think it was his infirmity" (Act I., sc. ii.). 
 
 He put on the appearance (as Bacon says he did) of modesty 
 but to serve a turn ; he merely acted a part before the people, 
 cringing to the masters he despised and was bent upon subduing 
 to his own will. 
 
 (5) " His friends," says Bacon, " he chose among those not 
 distinguished for greatness, but for their pliability and useful- 
 ness ;" and so Shakespeare represents the pliable and useful 
 Antony as the only friend of Caesar's worth considering. 
 
 Cassius proposes that Antony should be killed together with 
 Caesar. "We shall find him a shrewd contriver," urges Cassius. 
 But Brutus objects : " For he can do no more than Caesar can 
 when Caesar's head is off." i\.nd Trebonius adds: " There is no 
 fear of him. Let him not die ; for he will live, and laugh at 
 this hereafter." 
 
 Professor Dowden describes Antony as " a man of genius, 
 without moral fibre." A nature, in fact, agreeing with Bacon's 
 description, " not distinguished for greatness, but for plia- 
 bility and usefulness." 
 
 (6) To complete the picture of Caesar's character (so different 
 from the popular one), Bacon says that "in letters and learning 
 Caesar was moderately well accomplished, but it was that kind 
 of learning which was of use in the business of hfe." 
 
8 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 The piay nowhere gives any idea of great culture or refine- 
 ment on the x^art of Caesar. Indeed, as Moulton points out, 
 he is the type of the practical, the public man, the man of 
 action; but amongst men of intellectual subtlety, in the 
 supreme act of his life, he is conscious of his inferiority, and is 
 struck with hesitancy and vacillation. 
 
 Caesar, in fact, expressly declares his dislike and distrust 
 of learned men. Of Cassius, he says : 
 
 " He thinks too much ; such men are dangerous. 
 
 j^ * ^ ^ ^ 
 
 He reads too much ; 
 He is a great observer and he looks 
 Quite through the deeds of men," etc. 
 
 The presence of the subtle and studious Cassius made Caesar 
 feel uncomfortable. He preferred men that were '' fatter." 
 
 (7) Brutus thus sums up the opinions and feelings concerning 
 Caesar which were entertained by himself and those " nobles 
 and great persons, who wished also to preserve their own 
 dignity " : "If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend 
 of Caesar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less 
 than his. If, then, that friend demand why Brutus rose 
 against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less, 
 but that I loved Eome more. Had you rather Caesar were 
 living, and all die slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all 
 free men ? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him ; as he was 
 fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was vahant, I honour him; but 
 as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love ; 
 joy for his fortune ; honour for his valour ; and death for his 
 ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman ? If 
 any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that 
 would not be a Roman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. 
 Who is here so vile that will not love his country ? If any, 
 speak, for him have I offended." 
 
 In one word : '' I have saved you and your liberties by 
 destroying the tyrant who was about to spring at the throat of 
 Eome." 
 
JULIUS C^SAE. y 
 
 Mark the following parallels : 
 
 " There is tears for his love." — Shakespeare. 
 
 " In his friendship he was constant, and singularly kind and indulgent." — 
 Bacon. 
 
 " Joy for his fortune." — Shahespeare. 
 
 " Julius Csesar had from the beginning a fortune full of exercise, which he 
 turned to his advantage ; for it took away his pride and braced his sinews." — 
 Bacon. 
 
 "Honour for his valour." — S1iakesp)eare. 
 
 "It was in the business of war that his ability was most conspicuous." — 
 Bacon. 
 
 " And death for his ambition." — Shakespeare. 
 
 " In quest of real power ... he aspired . . . to the name of king and the 
 crown : which turned to his destruction." — Bacon. 
 
 (8) In conclusion, how does Antony meet the charges brought 
 against Caesar by Brutus ? 
 
 In that artful and ironical speech made by Antony over 
 the bleeding remains of " Great Caesar," he professes that 
 he has come to bury, not to praise him, thereby dexter- 
 ously escaping the necessity of answering the charge of 
 " ambition." 
 
 " Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 
 And Brutus is an honourable man. 
 * ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, 
 But here I am to speak what I do know." 
 
 And so, without really meeting the charge, he passes on 
 to gloss over the crime of which Brutus had accused Cassar ; 
 without seeking to remove the disapprobation of Caesar's design 
 upon the liberties of Eome, he still, by the magic arts of popular 
 oratory, contrived to excite the sympathy of the people with 
 the murdered tyrant. 
 
 " You all did love him once, not without cause ; 
 What cause withholds you then to mourn for him ?" 
 
 He then appeals to the cupidity of the crowd by referring to 
 Caesar's will : 
 
 " 'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs, 
 For if you should, 0, what would come of it !" 
 
 It was a bitter and a fitting end that Antony should base 
 Caesar's claim for vengeance on the ground of the ''private 
 
10 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEAKE. 
 
 benefits " the people were to derive from him even in his 
 death : 
 
 " He hath left you all his walks?, 
 His private arbours, and new planted orchards, 
 On this side Tyber ; he hath left them you 
 And to your heirs for ever ; common pleasures, 
 To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves. 
 Here was a Caesar : when comes such another ? 
 
 1st Cit. — Never, never; come away ! 
 We'll burn his body in the holy place, 
 And with the brands fire the traitors' houses. 
 Take up the body." 
 
 Yes ! the noble, single-hearted Brutus — " the pure champion 
 of Eoman liberty," as Schlegel calls him — was " a traitor." 
 The destroyer of men and liberties ; the subverter of honour 
 and justice — ** Here was a Caesar !" a man to the popular 
 taste, " a mortal God." 
 
 (9) This is how Coleridge read the character of Shakespeare's 
 Caesar. The note is short, but how piercing ! He quotes (Act 
 IV., sc. iii., 1. 21, speech of Brutus) : 
 
 What, shall one of us, 
 
 That struck the foremost man of all this world, 
 But for supporting robbers, shall we now 
 Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?" 
 
 He comments : 
 
 " This seemingly strange assertion of Brutus' is unhappily 
 verified in the present day. What is an immense army, in 
 which the lust of plunder has quenched all the duties of the 
 citizen, other than a horde of robbers, or differenced only as 
 friends are from ordinary reprobate men ? Ccesar sui)ioorted, 
 . and toas supported by, S2ich as these ; and even so Buonaparte 
 \ in our days." 
 
 \ Shakespeare knew not Buonaparte ; but Coleridge (bearing 
 
 \ in mind Shakespeare's character of Caesar) recognised that they 
 \ were alike — full of the lust of power, trampling down all things 
 1^ human and Divine to compass their own ends. 
 
 Of Caesar, Bacon says : *' For he allowed neither country, 
 nor religion, nor services, nor kindred, nor friendship to be any 
 hindrance or bridle to his purposes." 
 
 (10) One striking feature of the play of "Julius C^sar" is 
 
JULIUS C^SAR. 11 
 
 the part that Envy plays as a motive-power in inducing the 
 catastrophe. In the characters of Caesar and Brutus, we have 
 the antithesis of two men, one whose guiding star was Himself, 
 whilst the other was stirred to action by consideration of the 
 public weal. In Cassius we find a man whose mind is 
 embittered by Envy. " Love and Envy," says Bacon, " do 
 make a man pine, which other affections do not, because they 
 are not so continual " (Act I., sc. ii., 1. 192) : 
 
 ' ' Ccesar. Let me have men about me that are fat : 
 Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights ; 
 Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. 
 He thinks too much ; such men are dangerous. 
 ■^ ■«• -5f * * 
 
 Such men as he are never at heart's ease 
 Whiles they behold a greater than themselves, 
 And therefore are they very dangerous." 
 
 ** Envy," says Bacon, " is ever joined with the comparing of 
 a man's self ; and where there is no comparison no envy." 
 The following further passages from the play indicate the 
 passion of Envy, in Cassius, prompted by comparison (Act I., 
 sc. ii., 1. 135) : 
 
 " Cassius. He doth bestride the narrow world 
 Like a Colossus, and we petty men 
 Walk under his huge legs and peep about 
 To find ourselves dishonourable graves." 
 
 Again (1. 152) : 
 
 " When went there by an age, since the great flood, 
 But it was famed with more than with one man ? 
 When could they say till now, that talk'd of Kome, 
 That her wide walls encompass'd but one man ?" 
 
 And, again. Envy is the prompting spirit that inspired 
 Cassius' bitter speech (1. 119) : 
 
 " He had a fever when he was in Spain, 
 And when the fit was on him I did mark 
 How he did shake : 'tis true this god did shake, 
 His coward lips did from their colour fly, 
 And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world. 
 Did lose his lustre : I did hear him groan : 
 Aye, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans 
 Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, 
 
12 STUDIES IN SHAKE SPEAEE. 
 
 Alas, it cried, ' Give me some drink, Titinius,' 
 As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me, 
 A man of such a feeble temper shoiild 
 So get the start of the majestic world, 
 And bear the palm alone," 
 
 In these speeches we observe that Envy is prompted by 
 comparison, the true test of this infirmity of human nature, 
 according to Bacon's analysis of that passion. 
 
 (11) As for Caesar's " audacity," Bacon says : "He was 
 naturally very audacious." And Shakespeare represents him 
 as saying (Act II., sc. ii., 1. 44) : 
 
 " Danger knows full well 
 That Caesar is more dangerous than he : 
 We are two lions litter'd in one day. 
 And I, the elder and more terrible ; 
 And Caesar shall go forth." 
 
 (12) In Bacon's essay " Of Friendship" he writes : "With 
 Julius Caesar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest as he 
 set him down in his testament, for heir in remainder after his 
 nephew. And this was the man that had power with him, to 
 draw him forth to his death. For when Caesar would have 
 discharged the Senate in regard of some ill presages, and 
 especially a dream of Calphurnia, this man lifted him gently 
 by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not 
 dismiss the Senate till his wife had dreamt a better dream." 
 
 In Act II., sc. ii.,L 58 we find Shakespeare writing as follows : 
 
 " Deci. Brutm. Caesar, all hail ; good morrow, worthy Caesar, 
 I come to fetch you to the Senate-house. 
 
 Ccesar. And you are come in very happy time, 
 To bear my greeting to the Senators, 
 And tell them that I will not come to-day. 
 
 Deci. Brutus. Most mighty Caesar, let me know some cause, 
 Lest I be laugh'd at when I tell them so. 
 
 Ccesar. The cause is in my will ; I will not come — 
 That is enough to satisfy the Senate. 
 But, for your private satisfaction. 
 Because I love you, I will let you know, 
 Calphurnia here, my wife, stays me at home. 
 She dreamt to-night she saw my statue, 
 Which like a fountain with an hundred spouts 
 Did run pure blood ; and many lusty Romans 
 Came smiling and did bathe their hands in it." 
 
JULIUS C^SAR. 13 
 
 Deciiis Brutus ridicules the interpretation placed upon this 
 dream by Caesar and Calphurnia,^ and says : 
 
 " When Caesar's wife shall meet with better dreams, 
 If Caesar hide himself, shall they not whisper, 
 Lo, ' Caesar is afraid ' ?" 
 
 By these persuasions Brutus drew Ciesar forth to his death. 
 
 (13) In Bacon's " Sylva Sylvarum," Cent, x., Ex. 940, he 
 says : 
 
 "■ There was an Egyptian Soothsayer that made Antonius 
 believe that his genius (which otherwise was brave and con- 
 fident) was in the presence of Octavianus Caesar poor and 
 cowardly ; and therefore he advised him to absent himself (as 
 much as he could), and remove far from him. This soothsayer 
 was thought to be suborned by Cleopatra, to make him live in 
 Egypt and other remote places from Rome. Howsoever, the 
 conceit of a predominant or mastering spirit, of one man over 
 another, is ancient and received still, even in vulgar opinion." 
 
 In the play of " Antony and Cleopatra," Shakespeare has 
 exactly reproduced Bacon's prose (Act II., sc. iii.) : 
 
 " Soothsayer. But yet hie you to Egypt again. 
 
 Antony. Say to me, whose fortunes shall rise higher, 
 Caesar's or mine ? 
 
 Soothsayer. Caesar's. Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side. 
 Thy Daemon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee, is 
 Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable, , 
 
 Where Caesar's is not. But near him thy angel 
 Becomes a fear, as being overpower'd ; therefore 
 Make space enough between you." 
 
 Antony exclaims : 
 
 " I will to Egypt." 
 
 (14) Concerning the character of Cicero, Shakespeare 
 represents him, in the words of Brutus, as one who " will never 
 follow anything that other men begin." This recalls the 
 circumstance that Cicero consulted the Oracle of Delphi, by 
 
 ^ The peculiarity of the form given to the name of Caesar's wife in this play 
 does not seem to have been noticed. The only form of the name known to 
 antiquity is Calpurnia. And that is also the name even in North's English 
 translation of Plutarch — Shakespeare's great authority. Mr. Senior, in his 
 late reprint of Bacon's " Essays," at p. 99, gives the name Ca^furnla. — Craik. 
 
14 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 " what means he might rise to the greatest glory," and " the 
 priestess bade him follow nature, and not take the opinion of 
 the multitude for the guide of his life." Plutarch says that at 
 first Cicero was called '* a Greek and a Scholastic " at Rome, 
 and that he rendered the Greek terms of logic and natural 
 philosophy into the Roman language. In the play, Shakespeare 
 brings out these scholastic tendencies of Cicero in the following 
 passage (Act I., sc. ii.) : 
 
 " Cassius. Did Cicero say anything ? 
 
 Casca. Aye, he spoke Greel. 
 
 Cassius. To what effect ? 
 
 Casca. Nay, and I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you in the face again. But 
 those that understood him smiled at one another, and shook their heads ; but 
 for mine own part, it was Greek to me." 
 
 " These exquisite studies of character and history," says Mr. 
 Wigston, "carried out to the minutest particulars by the 
 author of the plays, are all against Shakespeare ; who is 
 supposed to have written for the common people, and 
 purely for pot-boiling purposes ; and what should the people 
 care whether Cicero knew Greek or no, or v;hether he was a 
 man who would not follow the leadership of others ?" 
 
 One other ** touch " Shakespeare gives to the character of 
 Cicero, showing how closely he had studied his character ; 
 Cicero was said to be extremely vain, and we have this brought 
 out in the passage (Act I., sc. ii.) — 
 
 " And Cicero 
 Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes, 
 As we have seen him in the Capitol, 
 Being cross'd in conference by some senators." 
 
 In another passage the sceptical turn of Cicero's mind is 
 well brought out. Cicero was what is called in these days an 
 Agnostic, one who professed to hold nothing for certain, except 
 the proved and established facts of science. In this respect. 
 Bacon resembled his great forerunner. Cicero is constantly in 
 Bacon's mind, and it has been noted thai in the "DeAugmentis," 
 Cicero is cited thirty-one times, and in "An Advertisement 
 touching an Holy War," Bacon compares his fall to Cicero's. 
 The passage we allude to is in Act I., sc. iii., in which Casca 
 
JULIUS C^SAR. 15 
 
 describes the terrible portents and prodigies that were seen on 
 
 the night preceding the murder of Caesar. Cicero thereupon 
 
 remarks (1. 33) : 
 
 " Indeed, it is a strange dispos'd time : 
 But men may construe things, after their fashion, 
 Clean from the purpose of the things themselves " 
 
 — a sentiment which Hes at the root of a great part of Bacon's 
 own philosophy. 
 
 (15) This comparison of the play with Bacon's Essay and 
 other references to Julius Caesar, has, as I anticipated, brought 
 out some striking and interesting results, which assist in 
 removing the difficulties felt by the estabhshed Shakespearian 
 critics, regarding the motives of the dramatist in his charac- 
 terization of the great Caesar, and some of his contemporaries. 
 So far from the character of Caesar offering a comparatively ^ 
 ungrateful subject with which to begin a psychological study 
 of the Eoman tragedies, it offers in fact a most subtle and 
 interesting example. Bacon thoroughly appreciated the limi- 
 tations of Caesar's character. Granting him full credit for his 
 splendid courage, penetration, energy, for his generosity, his 
 magnanimity and his soldier-like eloquence ; he yet saw that 
 Caesar's was not one of those simple and elevated characters 
 that find the spring of their activity in purely altruistic motives , 
 but that he was largely actuated by selfish ambition, and that 
 he was absolutely unscrupulous in the means he employed in 
 the attainment of his ends. From this point of view, M. 
 Mezieres' dissatisfaction is removed. Caesar's '' lofty thoughts " 
 were centred in himself, and he was dreaming of a crown and 
 the consolidation of his authority over the Eoman Empire, 
 when he was struck down by the swords of the patriotic 
 enthusiast, Brutus, and the envious Cassius. To Stapfer's 
 question, '* Why, then, did Shakespeare deliberately set to work 
 to disparage his hero ?" the answer is that Bacon had measured 
 and summed up his moral character. 
 
 (16) We find that the play (like Bacon's Essay) is distin- 
 guished by a singularly judicial spirit. Caesar was '' a famous 
 man"; "a valiant man" ; a man ' 'constant in friendship "; '*a 
 
16 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 fortunate man" ; but, on the other hand, " an ambitious man." 
 And this was the vice in his nature, that turned his nobihty 
 into dross. As Bacon says : *' It is a poor centre of a man's 
 actions, Himself." This, is evidently the key to the play, as it 
 is the key to Bacon's estimate of Caesar's character. In the 
 same judicial spirit. Bacon says of Ceesar, that he was ** the 
 most excellent spirit, Jiis ambition reserved, of the world." In 
 the play Brutus speaks of him as " the foremost man of all 
 this world" (Act IV., sc. iii., 1. 22); and in Bacon's ''Con- 
 ference of Pleasure," one of the speakers calls Caesar ** the 
 worthiest man that ever lived." 
 
 When the matter is looked at fairly, there is really no 
 attempt, as M. Mezieres thinks, to "disparage" or belittle 
 Caesar. The object of the playwright, as of the philosopher, 
 is to read Caesar's character aright, to measure it with the 
 square and compass of the impartial critic and to set down a 
 true picture of the man, extenuating nothing, nor aught 
 setting down in malice. Bacon may have taken a mistaken 
 view of Caesar's character. The great modern historical white- 
 washer, Mr. Froude, may be more just in his estimate of 
 Caesar. This, however, is beside the point. What we want 
 to do is to discover the point of view from which Shakespeare 
 drew his picture. We find the critics floundering. They have 
 no canon to guide them. Coming to the play, each with his 
 preconceived opinion about Caesar, they are unable to under- 
 stand what Shakespeare meant by presenting so " conventional " 
 — so ** unsatisfactory " — a study of their hero. The play, 
 however, is completely illuminated by the light thrown on 
 it by a study of Bacon's w^ork. The play and the essay are 
 companion pictures, which should hang together on one wall. 
 
 (17) It is noticeable that Shakespeare's play opens with a 
 festival in honour of Cesar's coming " in triumph over 
 Pompey's blood" ; that is, his victory over Metellus Scipio, and 
 " Pompey's faction." Now, there is an old English play called 
 " Cornelia,"^ translated out of the French of E. Garnier by 
 
 ^ Quaere. Is this the play of " Asmund and Cornelia," referred to on the 
 outside sheet of the "Northumberland MS.," discovered by Mr. John Bruce, 
 
JULIUS C^SAE. 17 
 
 Thomas Kyd, published in 1595, the action of which exactly 
 en^s at the point where Shakespeare took it up. Kyd, some- 
 how, is curiously mixed up with Shakespeare's work. Malone 
 (ed. by Bosw., ii. 316) attributed to Kyd the old plays of *' King 
 Lear," " Hamlet," " The Taming of the Shrew," and the 
 " Hamlet " no longer known. The play of " Cornelia " is con- 
 structed on the old Latin plan, with the long sjyeeches, the chorus, 
 and the dumb show — exactly as Professor Arber speculates that 
 the original *' Hamlet " was constructed (Introduc. to Greene's 
 " Menaphon," xiv.). The argument of ''Cornelia" is as 
 follows : Cornelia, the daughter of Metellus Scipio, a young 
 Eoman lady, as much accomplished with the graces of the 
 body and the virtues of the mind as ever any was, was first 
 married to young Crassus, who died with his father in the dis- 
 comfiture of the Eomans against the Parthians ; afterward 
 she took to second husband Pompey the Great, who (three 
 years after), upon the first fires of the civil wars betwixt him 
 and Caesar, sent her from thence to Mitilen, there to attend 
 the uncertain success of those affairs. And when he saw that 
 he was vanquished at Pharsalia, returned to find her out, and 
 carry her with him into Egypt, where his purpose was to have 
 re-enforced a new army, and given a second assault to Caesar. 
 
 In this voyage he was murdered by Achillus and Septimius 
 the Eoman before her eyes, and in the presence of his young 
 son Sextus and some other Senators, his friends. After which 
 she retired herself to Eome. And Scipio her father, being 
 made general of those that survived after the battle, assembled 
 new forces, and occupied the greater part of Afric, allying 
 himself to Juba, King of Numidia. Against all whom Caesar 
 (after lie had ordered the affairs of Egypt and the state of 
 Eome) in the end of winter marched. And there (after many 
 light encounters) was a fierce and furious battle given amongst 
 them, near the walls of Tapsus ; where Scipio, seeing himself 
 
 in 1867, upon which the names of Francis Bacon and Williain Shakespeare 
 were scribbled by some idle hand, in or about the year 1597 ? See Spedding's 
 "Introd. Conf. of Pleasure." 
 
18 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEAEE. 
 
 subdued and his army scattered, he betook himself with some 
 small troop to certain ships, which he caused to stay for him. 
 
 Thence he sailed toward Spain, where Pompey's faction 
 commanded, and where a sudden tempest took him on the sea, 
 that drove him back to Hippon, a town in Afric, at the devo- 
 tion of Caesar, where (lying at anchor) he was assailed, beaten, 
 and assaulted by the adverse fleet ; and — for he would not fall 
 into the hands of his so mighty enemy — he stabbed himself, 
 and suddenly leapt overboard into the sea, and there died. 
 
 Caesar (having finished these wars, and quietly reduced the 
 towns and places thereabout to his obedience) returned to 
 Rome in triumph for his victories ; where this most fair and 
 miserable lady, having overmourned the death of her dear 
 husband, and understanding of these cross events and hapless 
 news of Afric, together with the piteous manner of her father's 
 end, she took (as she had cause) occasion to redouble both her 
 tears and lamentations, w^ierewith she closeth the catastrophe 
 of this their tragedy. 
 
 (18) This play is evidently the germ out of which Shake- 
 speare's play grew. As this fact has not been noticed before, 
 and as the play itself is little known to general readers, I pro- 
 pose to give a sketch of it, by means of brief extracts, which 
 the reader may compare, if he likes, with Shakespeare's work. 
 The dramatis personcE are : M. Cicero, Philip, Decimus Brutus, 
 M. Antony, CorneHa, C. Cassius, Julius Cassar, The Messenger, 
 and Choruses. 
 
 The first act consists of a long speech by Cicero, and some 
 verses by the chorus. Cicero prays the gods that, if it be 
 necessary to have a sacrifice to spare the city her liberties, 
 he may be chosen. He is impatient of the languor of the 
 people, and appeals to the memory of Brutus Manlius, hardy 
 Scaevola, and stout Camillus. He refers to Caesar's personal 
 ambition — that poison of the political atmosphere which lies at 
 the heart of Shakespeare's drama. 
 
 " Under a tyrant see our bastard hearts 
 Lie idly sighing ; while our shameful souls 
 Endure a million of base controls. 
 Poison' d ambition (rooted in high minds), 
 
JULIUS C^SAE. 19 
 
 'Tis thou that train'st us into all these errors : 
 
 Thy mortal covetise perverts our laws, 
 
 And tears our freedom from our franchis'd hearts. 
 
 * -;(- * * * 
 
 Carthage and Sicily we have subdued, 
 And almost yoked all the world beside : 
 And, solely through desire of public rule, 
 Rome and the earth are waxen all as one : 
 Yet now we live despoil'd and robb'd by one 
 Of th' ancient freedom, wherein we were born. 
 And e'en that yoke, that wont to tame all others. 
 Is heavily return'd upon ourselves." 
 
 In the second act Cornelia pours out to Cicero her tale of 
 grief and sorrow. Cicero endeavours to soothe her by saying 
 that Pompey had died honourably, fighting for his country's 
 weal. But he nevertheless suggests that the day may come 
 when Cornelia's *' grief shall turn to joy, and we have time to 
 bury our annoy." Fortune, he says, stays not in a place, but 
 (like the clouds) continually doth range, or like the sun that 
 hath the night in chase. He suggests that flattering Chance, 
 that trained Ceesar's first designs, may change her looks, and 
 give the tyrant over — 
 
 " Leaving our city, where so long ago 
 Heavens did their favours lavishly bestow." 
 
 In the third act Cicero makes a long and impassioned speech, 
 part of which I transcribe for the purpose of showing the 
 state of feeling in Eome which led up to the assassination of 
 Caesar : 
 
 " Then, O world's queen ! O town that did extend 
 Thy conquering arms beyond the ocean. 
 And throng'dst thy conquests from the Lybian shores, 
 Down to the Scythian swift-foot fearless porters, 
 Thou art embas'd ; and at this instant yield'st 
 Thy proud neck to a miserable yoke. 
 
 Home, thou art tam'd, and th' earth, dew'd with thy blood, 
 Doth laugh to see how thou art signioriz'd. 
 The force of heaven exceeds thy former strength : 
 For thou, that wont'st to tame and conquer all, 
 Art conquer'd now with an eternal fall. 
 Now shalt thou march, thy hands fast-bound behind thee, 
 Thy head hung down, thy cheeks with tears besprent, 
 Before the victor ; while thy rebel son, 
 With crowned front triumphing follows thee. 
 
 2—2 
 
20 STUDIES IN SHAKE SPEAEE. 
 
 Caesar is like a brightly burning blaze, 
 That fiercely burns a house already fir'd ; 
 And, ceaseless launching out on every side, 
 Consumes the more, the more you seek to quench it, 
 Still darting sparkles, till it find a train 
 To seize upon, and then it flames amain. 
 
 » * * * * 
 
 But if in us be any vigour resting, 
 If yet our hearts retain one drop of blood, 
 Caesar, thou shalt not vaunt thy conquest long, 
 Nor longer hold us in this servitude. 
 
 * * «• * * 
 
 Think'st thou to signiorize, or to be king 
 Of such a number nobler than thyself ? 
 Or think'st thou Romans bear such bastard hearts, 
 To let thy tyranny be unrevenged ? 
 No ; for methinks I see the shame, the grief. 
 The rage, the hatred, that they have conceived, 
 And many a Roman sword already drawn, 
 T' enlarge the liberty that thou usurp'st, 
 And thy dismembered body (stabb'd and torn), 
 Dragg'd through the streets, disdained to be borne. 
 
 [Exit.' 
 
 In the fourth act we have a dialogue between Cassius and 
 Decimus Brutus. Cassius is bewailing : 
 
 " Accursed Rome, that arm'st against thyself 
 A tyrant's rage, and mak'st a wretch thy king. 
 
 ***** 
 So Rome to Coesar yields both power and pelf, 
 And o'er Rome Caesar reigns in Rome itself. 
 
 Deci. Brutus. I swear by Heaven, the Immortal's highest 
 throne, 
 Their temples, altars, and their images. 
 To see (for one) that Brutus suffer not 
 His ancient liberty to be repress'd. 
 
 * * ■ * ^ * 
 
 If he determine but to reign in Rome, 
 Or follow Pompey but to this effect ; 
 
 * * * * * 
 Then shall he see, that Brutus this day bears 
 
 The selfsame arms to be aveng'd on him ; 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Cassius. In spite of Ccesar, Cassius will be free."^ 
 
 1 Of. Act I., sc. iii., 
 
 " Cas. Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius," 
 et passim. 
 
JULIUS C^SAE. 21 
 
 The fourth act presents to us Caesar and Mark Antony in 
 conference. Caesar apostrophizes Eome, and continues : 
 
 " Csesar is now earth's fame and Fortune's terror, 
 And Caesar's worth hath stain'd old soldiers' praises. 
 
 * -^ * * » 
 
 Now therefore let us triumph, Antony ; 
 And rend'ring thanks to Heaven as we go, 
 For bridling those that did malign our glory, 
 Let's to the Capitol. 
 
 Ant. Come on, brave Cassar, 
 And crown thy head and mount thy chariot. 
 Th' impatient people run along the streets, 
 And in a rout against thy gates they rush, 
 To see their Ca;sar after dangers past, 
 Made conqueror and emperor at last," 
 
 Caesar expresses some uneasiness about the enmity he may 
 have aroused by the blood he has been compelled to shed. 
 
 " I joy not in the death of citizens ; 
 But, through my self-will'd enemies despite 
 And Romans' wrong, was I constrain'd to fight," 
 
 Antony warns Caesar that there are conspiracies afoot for 
 his destruction, and urges him to take steps for his own pro- 
 tection. Caesar, however, true to his character, refuses to take 
 harsh measures : 
 
 " What, shall I slay then all that I suspect ? 
 Ant. Else cannot Caesar empery endure. 
 Ccesar. Rather I will my life and all neglect. 
 Nor labour I my vain life to assure ; 
 But so to die, as dying I may live. 
 And, leaving off this earthly tomb of mine. 
 Ascend to heaven upon my winged deeds, 
 
 ***** 
 
 The quiet life, that carelessly is led, 
 
 Is not alonely happy in this world ; 
 
 But death itself doth sometimes pleasure us. 
 
 That death, that comes unsent for or unseen. 
 
 And suddenly doth take us at unawares, 
 
 Methinks is sweetest ; and, if Heaven were pleas'd, 
 
 I could desire that I might die so well. 
 
 The fear of evil doth afflict us more 
 
 Than th' evil itself, though it be ne'er so sore. " 
 
 In the fifth act a messenger announces to Cornelia the 
 manner of Scipio's defeat and death, and Cornelia redoubles 
 
22 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 " her tears and lamentations, wherewith she closeth the cata- 
 strophe of this their tragedy." 
 
 Here Shakespeare's play resumes the subject. 
 
 (19) To me, it seems that these two plays should be read 
 together. They are, in fact, complementary the one of the 
 other. It gives a fuller picture of the times and of the great 
 characters of Caesar and Cicero, besides adding to the com- 
 pleteness of the characters of Decimus Brutus and Mark 
 Antony. 
 
 That the author of ''Julius Caesar" had this play in mind 
 seems natural. Kyd seems, in Malone's opinion at all events, 
 to have been associated with some of Shakespeare's greatest 
 plays, and if his drafts of " King Lear '' and " Hamlet " were 
 accepted by Shakespeare as a foundation for his own more 
 perfect work, we may well believe that he had read and 
 studied Kyd's " Cornelia " before beginning his " Julius Caesar," 
 more especially as we find the latter play running on exactly 
 from the point where Kyd's play stopped. In his day Kyd 
 was held in high estimation. In Mere's ** Palladis Tamia " he 
 is enumerated among the best of the tragic writers of his times ; 
 and Ben Jonson (''Verses to the Memory of Shakespeare") 
 ranks him with Lyly and Marlowe, calling him " Sporting 
 Kyd." It is not, however, necessary to accept Malone's 
 theory that Kyd wrote the originals of "King Lear," etc., 
 to lend interest to the suggestion here made, that the author of 
 "Julius Caesar" had read "Cornelia" before composing his 
 play, and had consciously and purposely resumed the subject 
 where Kyd left it. Personally, I should think Malone's sug- 
 gestion untenable. At the same time, the fact that Shake- 
 speare should have contrived to spin one play on to the web 
 of another written by Kyd associates the names of the play- 
 wrights together in a very curious and interesting manner; 
 and anything which throws light on the motive and origin of 
 any of the immortal plays is not only interesting, but profitable 
 — not only curious, but important. 
 
THE WINTER'S TALE. 
 
 In taking up an independent examination of any one of 
 Shakespeare's plays, it is always useful and instructive to 
 glance back, in the first instance, at some, at least, of the 
 opinions formed upon it by previous critics. By this exercise 
 the student v^ill find in what a chaotic condition the science of 
 literary criticism has hitherto remained, and the necessity for a 
 more systematic method of appraising the meaning and merits 
 of the author. Above all, he will determine to seek for some 
 canon, or fixed rule, by which to test the truth or failure of 
 his results. The mind of man ever seeks rest in certitude. 
 Mr. Moulton has formulated certain admirable rules of in- 
 ductive criticism applicable to the plays of Shakespeare, by 
 which we are enabled to take to pieces the mechanism of 
 a play, distribute its parts, and compare them relatively to 
 one another, so as to determine the central idea and the 
 converging lines of action leading to the catastrophe, and thus 
 to get a clear topographical view of the play — the mechanical 
 foundations of the exterior walls, with the internal subdivisions, 
 "staircases, entries, doors, windows, and the like" — plots, 
 counter-plots, under-plots, masques, anti-masques — all har- 
 moniously arranged and distributed in relation to the primary 
 motive of the play, and in illustration of it. 
 
 This is a beginning. 
 
 Mr. Gerald Massey, also, has recently endeavoured to find 
 some rational centre-point or ** axle-tree" around which the 
 Sonnets (so desperately inexplicable hitherto) naturally and 
 
24 ' STUDIES IN SHAKE SPEAKE. 
 
 easily revolve. This centre-point he finds — to a great extent — 
 determined in the fortunes and misfortunes of the Earl of 
 Southampton, and in the poet's relations to the earl. With 
 this key to the Sonnets he unlocks the enigmas of each one, 
 displaying the plain and simple meaning of what before was 
 dark, obscure, and perplexing. To give an unconditional 
 sanction to every one of Mr. Massey's speculations is not 
 required. It is sufficient to appreciate the fact that he has 
 applied the principles of plain common-sense to the inter- 
 pretation of the Sonnets, and that his method has proved 
 eminently fruitful and suggestive. Instead of endeavouring 
 to imagine a set of circumstances and then fitting the Sonnets 
 to those circumstances, he has sought to find in the recorded 
 history of the times the actual facts as they happened, and 
 by the light of those facts to read the meaning of the Sonnets. 
 To those of us who are peering back into the vista of the past, 
 and are trying to get at some clear and rational notion of the 
 Shakespearian drama — to pierce the mystery of the authorship, 
 as well as the mystery of the esoteric meaning of much that 
 was written in that age — and who have taken hold of the 
 hypothesis that Francis Bacon had a good deal more to do 
 with the plays of Shakespeare than Shakspere^ himself — it 
 will prove no stumbling-block to find that Mr. Massey simply 
 assumes the existence of a most romantic and chivalrous 
 attachment between the " glorious vagabond," the actor- 
 dramatist, and the haughty and impetuous earl. It is always 
 easy to effect the necessary readjustment of names and matter 
 to dispel the slight refraction of light caused by Mr. Massey 's 
 primary assumption. ^ 
 
 The chief thing is to get a clear notion of what we are about 
 — to get some fixed standard, some plain groundwork to go 
 upon. To do this we must begin by removing misconceptions. 
 
 Now, if w^e take any play — say *' The Winter's Tale," for in- 
 
 •^ The Stratford man signed himself "Shakspere." The author is always 
 *' Shakespeare." 
 
 - There is no record that Shakspere personally ever had the slightest 
 acquaintance with Southampton. On the other hand, Southampton and 
 Francis Bacon were close and ixatimate friends. 
 
THE winter's tale. 25 
 
 stance — and look back to see what the critics have had to say, 
 we find them, as usual, all at sixes and sevens. To start with, 
 they appear (singularly enough) to have entirely misunder- 
 stood the motive of the play. Pope even doubted its genuine- 
 ness. The unities had been so absolutely disregarded — the 
 anachronisms were so glaring — Leontes' jealousy and violence 
 were based upon suggestions so inadequate — the description 
 of Bohemia with a sea- shore was evidence of such ignorance 
 of ordinary geography — the play could not possibly be Shake- 
 speare's. Hazlitt, admitting these defects, apologizes for 
 Shakespeare on the ground he was as likely to fall into 
 -'slips" as anybody, "but" (he adds) *' we do not know 
 anybody but himself who could produce the beauties." The 
 rest of his study of the play consists of extracts of *' beauties," 
 which explain nothing. He points out the saint-like resigna- 
 tion and patient forbearance of Hermione (as if she were in- 
 tended by the dramatist to represent an ordinary living woman, 
 and nothing more) — the zealous and spirited remonstrances 
 of Paulina — the touching restoration of Hermione to her 
 husband and her child after the long separation of fifteen years. 
 Camillo and the old shepherd and his son are described 
 as ** subordinate and not uninteresting instruments in the 
 development of the plot " — and Autolycus is a very pleasant, 
 thriving rogue. Once only does our critic get a faint and 
 accidental glimmering of the truth when he says that we still 
 read the courtship of Florizel and Perdita, as ive welcome the 
 return of the s^Jrmg, with the same feelings as ever. To 
 Hazlitt, however, it is " one of the best acting of our author's 
 plays " — and nothing more. The glory and the mystery of 
 the play have entirely escaped him. 
 
 The great poet and critic Coleridge is almost as perplexed 
 as Hazlitt, though not so sceptical as Pope. He accepts the 
 play as Shakespeare's, and, while granting that it is exquisitely 
 respondent to its title as a " Winter's Tale," yet it seems to him 
 a mere indolence of the great bard not to have provided in 
 the oracular response (Act II., sc. ii.) some ground for Her- 
 mione's seeming death and fifteen years' voluntary concealment. 
 
26 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEAEE. 
 
 To him also Hermione is literally a woman, and nothing more. 
 Coleridge imagined that the motive or idea of this drama was 
 a ** genuine jealousy of disposition " (which it certainly is not) 
 and that it should be immediately followed by a perusal of 
 *' Othello." 
 
 This judgment is based on a misapprehension. Othello's 
 jealousy grew out of a thousand and one signs and sugges- 
 tions leading almost irresistibly to the passion of jealousy. 
 The motive of the play is jealousy. It has no other raison 
 d'etre. On the other hand, Leontes' jealousy — as Pope shows 
 — is unreasoning and unreasonable, and his fury is unnatural 
 and unreal. This will be seen more fully when we come to 
 analyze the play from our own point of view. 
 
 Schlegel treats the play as quite a subordinate one, and 
 devotes less than two pages to a review of it. To him (as to 
 Coleridge), it is a simple tale, peculiarly calculated to beguile 
 the dreary leisure of a long winter evening — hence, a *' Winter's 
 Tale." It is a tale of the imagination in which the calculation 
 of probabilities has nothing to do with such wonderful and 
 fleeting adventures. Accordingly, on this ground, he excuses 
 Shakespeare's anachronisms and geographical errors, not to 
 mention other incongruities. The play divides itself (he 
 says), in some degree, into two plays — which he then sum- 
 marizes — but he misses the symbolical meaning of this 
 division or separation of parts of the play, and he does not 
 know how near the truth he was when he closed his observa- 
 tions with the remark that Perdita seemed to render the 
 rustic feast meet for an assemblage of gods in disguise. 
 
 Ulrici, one of the profoundest of Shakespearian critics, 
 devotes several pages to a minute study of " the complicated 
 threads of the dramatic texture " without which he considers 
 the play cannot be understood, and, having unravelled the 
 threads of the texture, he finds that the play is a picture of life 
 represented in a strange, cheerful, and eerie manner, a tale 
 told to a circle of poetically disposed listeners gathered round 
 the flickering fireside of a peaceful happy home on a raw 
 winter's night. He notes (but knows not why) that the first 
 
THE winter's tale. 27 
 
 three acts are tragical and the last two comic, and he admits 
 that from one point of view the jealousy of Leontes, the con- 
 duct of Polixenes, the rescue and recovery of Perdita, etc., 
 appear to be very insufficiently motived. It is surprising that 
 this did not lead the great critic to search for a deeper mean- 
 ing in the play than appeared on the surface. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the play is a natuee ob solar myth, 
 " an allusive or parabolical narration " {" Adv. of Learning "). 
 Looked at in this light, all difficulties disappear ; and much of 
 the imagery employed by the poet acquires a fuller and larger 
 meaning, as in truth applying to the tremendous phenomena of 
 nature (objective and spiritual), and not merely to the fleeting 
 incidents of common human life. The scene of the play is laid 
 sometimes in Bohemia, sometimes in Sicilia (Sicily), and this 
 was not accidental. Sicily was an extremely fertile island in 
 the Mediterranean, so fertile, indeed, that it was represented as 
 sacred to Demeter (Ceres) and as the favourite abode of this 
 goddess. Hence it was in this island that her daughter Perse- 
 phone (Proserpine) was carried away by Pluto. Thus, also, 
 this is the scene of Leontes' kingdom ; Perdita's birth ; Her- 
 mione's trance ; of Perdita's restoration ; of Hermione's 
 revival ; of Florizel's nuptials. In an allegorical play such as f/Q 
 this there can be no unities of time or place, and its action 
 should not and could not be identified with any age or place 
 beyond what might be necessary to convey some verisimilitude 
 to human life and fortunes, and to indicate its half-concealed 
 motive. Consequently, whilst Sicily is chosen as the scene for 
 part of the play, owing to its legendary fitness for the subject- 
 matter, and giving the reader a clue to the intention of the 
 dramatist, Bohemia is used as a vague geographical expression, 
 having an impossible sea-shore (as if to impress upon one that 
 the poet did not mean the kingdom of Bohemia in a literal 
 sense), and is used in this general sense for the rest of the 
 action. 1 The anachronisms of time are likewise purposely intro- 
 
 ^ It may be observed that in the novel {" Pandosta — The Triumph of Time," 
 by Robert Greene) upon which " The Winter's Tale " is founded, the same 
 mistake is made, probably intentionally, as " Pandosta " was clearly an 
 allegorical play, as appears from its very title, which reads as follows, viz. : 
 
28 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEAEE. 
 
 duced. Leontes, the king, is somehow suggested by or asso- 
 ciated with the city of Leontini, founded in Sicily by the 
 Greeks, 730 b.c. The Delphic Oracle is consulted, thus throw- 
 ing the action back to distant and legendary times. In the 
 same breath we are told that Hermione is the daughter of the 
 Emperor of Eussia, and that JuHo Eomano (lived 1498-1546) 
 was the sculptor of the — painted — statue of Hermione. i The 
 unities are disregarded, because there are no unities in Nature 
 — ^the anachronisms of place and time are natural ; that is to 
 say, tljey cease to be anachronisms when Bohemia is under- 
 stood to be a mere geographical expression, and that one day 
 is as a thousand in the courts of Nature. 
 
 Eomano or Pippi was left executor to Eaphael, and lived 
 almost in Shakespeare's time. There can consequently be no 
 question of any " slip " here. It might be granted that Shake- 
 speare may not have known that Bohemia had no sea-board, 
 but he certainly knew that Julio Eomano did not live in the 
 days of the Delphic Oracle, consequently Hazlitt's conjecture is 
 absurd. How do you account for so strange a confusion ? The 
 answer is that Shakespeare felt that the wonderful natural 
 phenomena he was disclosing by a masque of human life were 
 not to be identified with any particular time, place or space, 
 but were to be treated as eternal verities, regardless of those 
 conditions, a^nd true in the days of the Delphic Oracle as in 
 those of the Emperor of Eussia. 
 
 The story reads thus : Polixenes, King of Bohemia, had been 
 paying a protracted visit of nine months (thereby symbolizing 
 that the Spring, Summer, and Autumn months had run out) to 
 Leontes, in Sicily. He desires to return, in order " that no 
 sneaping winds at home " may blow misfortunes owing to his 
 long absence. Leontes persuades him to stay longer. Polixenes 
 
 *' Pandosta — The Triumph of Time — Wherein is discovered by a pleasant 
 history, that although by means of sinister fortune truth may be concealed, it 
 is most manifestly revealed . . . TemiJoris Jilia Veritas . . . Omne tulit 
 punctum qui miscuit lUile dulci." 1588. 
 
 ^ Act v., sc. i., 1. 105. Prof. Elze remarks : " He who judges Julio Romano 
 as correctly as Shakespeare does must have had some knowledge of Raphael, 
 his master, and of the chief works of the religious pictorial art of Italy." 
 
l^ 
 
 THE WINTER S TALE. 29 
 
 refusing, Leontes urges Hermione, his wife — identified with 
 Harmony or Nature, the daughter of Mars (War) and Venus 
 (Love) as representing the two opposing forces of Attraction 
 and Eepulsion, from which springs harmonious Nature^ — to 
 prevail with PoHxenes. She does so, and thereupon suddenly, 
 without rhyme or reason, Leontes is filled with jealousy of his 
 wife. There is no suggestion of any adequate human motive 
 (as Ulrici admits). If the play, however, be read in a para- 
 bolical sense, it was sufficient to indicate that in the course of 
 Nature the Sun yearly turns from his spouse, the Earth. 
 Camillo, whom Florizel describes as 
 
 " Preserver of my father and of me, 
 The medicine of our house !" 
 
 is instigated by Leontes to destroy Polixenes. Camillo dis- 
 closes the jealousy of the king to Polixenes, and they flee the 
 court together to Bohemia. 
 
 Polixenes is a more or less shadowy character as a dramatis^^ 
 persona, but appears to be a counterpart, for the purposes of 
 the play, of Leontes. There is no special meaning in the 
 speech of Camillo at the opening of the play, except on this 
 hypothesis : 
 
 " Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. They 
 were trained together in their childhood; and there rooted 
 between them then such an affection which cannot choose 
 but branch now. Since their more mature dignities, and royal 
 necessities, made separation of their society, their encounters, 
 though not personal, have been royally attorneyed, with inter- 
 change of gifts, letters, loving embassies ; that they have seemed 
 to he togetlier, though absent ; shook hhnds, as over a vast ; and 
 embraced, as it were, from tlie ends of opposed winds. The 
 heavens continue their loves ! 
 
 " Archidamus : I think there is not in the world malice or 
 matter to alter it." 
 
 That is to say. as the season of Winter approaches, Nature 
 
 ^ Keightley's "Classical Mythology." Hesiod says that Harmonia (Qrder) 
 was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. This has evidently all the ap^ar- 
 ance of a physical myth, for from love and strife {i.e., Attraction and Re- 
 pulsion), it is clear, arises the order or harmony of the universe. 
 
30 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEAEE. 
 
 is, as it were, divided against itself. Nevertheless, there is not, 
 in the w^orld, either malice or matter, in the end and nature 
 of things, to alter the essential relation of the parts to the 
 whole. 
 
 "Hearts remote, yet not asunder, 
 Distance, and no space was seen. 
 * * * * 
 
 Single nature's double name 
 Neither two nor one was called." 
 
 " The PhcBnix and the Turtle." 
 
 Note also that Polixenes is the father of Florizel (Spring), 
 who becomes ultimately, by his union with Perdita, the heir of 
 Leontes. In ancient mythology the sun is represented under 
 many names as indicating his several attributes. ^ The dis- 
 traction of Nature is, as it were, indicated in the strife between 
 the sun as Leontes, and the sun as Polixenes, in the rage and 
 fury of Leontes and the flight of Polixenes. Their reconcilia- 
 tion is figured in the union of Perdita, daughter of Leontes, 
 and Florizel, son of Polixenes. Nothing can keep them apart. 
 By the mysterious and everlasting law of Nature, which man 
 defies in vain, Adonis (Florizel) finds Proserpine (Perdita) even 
 in the cold clods of the Earth. 
 
 Mr. W. F. C. Wigston^ points out a similar Dual Unity in 
 Helena and Hermia. The idea (as he points out) is entirely 
 Platonic and abstract, but it would lead us too far afield to 
 follow it up on the present occasion. 
 
 "We may regard this opening period of the play as equivalent 
 to late Autumn. The Winter is coming on apace. Leontes 
 becomes more incensed than ever with his spouse, and with- 
 draws himself from her completely — casting her into prison, 
 where (like the ripe seed slipping from the bursting pod in 
 Autumn) she is delivered of her daughter Perdita. With the 
 birth of Perdita, Hermione is taken out of the play and remains 
 hidden until the rebirth in the last act of the play. 
 
 The king's son and heir, Mamillius, dies of grief at his 
 
 fatlier's suspicions of his mother's dishonour (Act III., sc. ii.). 
 
 ^ Sir George Cox says : " Tammuz (or Adonis) became the symbol under 
 which the sun, invoked with a thousand names, has been worshipped." 
 - "Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians. " 
 
THE winter's tale. 31 
 
 Perdita is repudiated and carried away by the king's order, and 
 thrown down upon the ground somewhere in Bohemia, and is 
 found and taken care of by an old shepherd and his son. These 
 rustic characters represent the clods of Earth in which the 
 seed is deposited to await fructification in the course of Nature. 
 This is the emblem of Proserpine, who was doomed to spend 
 half the year (Winter) with Pluto (the Under- World) and 
 whose rebirth every year corresponded with Spring. On the 
 laying down of Perdita — " the lost one " (Act III., sc. iii.), the 
 ship by which she was carried from Sicily to Bohemia is 
 wrecked and everybody killed or drowned. 
 
 The name of Antigonus (who was made by Leontes '* the 
 thrower-out " of Perdita) is suggestive of those elements in 
 Nature which may be considered to be in opposition to the 
 everlasting vitality of life in the Universe. 
 
 The Winter is now complete. This is shown by the speech 
 of the Mariner, who fears, 
 
 " We have landed in ill time ; the skies look grimly, 
 And threaten present blusters. In my conscience, 
 The heavens, with that we have in hand, are angry 
 And frown upon us." 
 
 Antigonus apostrophizes the infant, relates a vision of its 
 mother which had come to him and told him to call the child 
 Perdita ; '* for the babe is counted lost for ever." 
 
 He is destroyed by a bear — also a symbol of Winter and 
 ice-bound regions, the resort of these animals. i 
 
 *fhis is the tragedy of the first three acts. Hermione, the 
 Earth, has fallen into a trance ; Leontes, the Sun, is sad and 
 melancholy, and is without warmth and gladness ; Mamillius 
 (the king's son and heir) is dead. Antigonus and all the 
 sailors and persons on the ship who were concerned in the 
 carrying off of Perdita are drowned and killed. The Winter 
 is complete. 
 
 To make his meaning clear, and to identify the action of the 
 
 ^ Mr. Fleay (an orthodox and conscientious Shakespearian of the old school) 
 conjectures that the bear was introduced into this play because it had been a 
 success in " Mucedorus !" To such shifts are the ablest of the Philistines put 
 to account for the most natural and obvious intentions of the dramatist. 
 
32 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEAEE. 
 
 drama with the solemn, mysterious, and supernatural, Shake- 
 speare weaves into this part of the play a minor representa- 
 tion which brings us into the presence of the Delphic Oracle — 
 that divine spokesman of the adamantine Destinies ' * on whom 
 heaven, earth, and hell relies " (" Hero and Leander.") Im- 
 mediately before the swoon of Hermione, and death of 
 Mamillius, etc., Leontes determined to consult the Oracle, for 
 which purpose he despatched Cleomenes and Dion to lay the 
 ';;:^ase before the Oracle, and to bring him the divine message. 
 The Oracle was as follows : " Hermione is chaste, Polixenes 
 blameless, Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant, his 
 innocent babe truly begotten, and the king shall live without 
 an heir, if that which is lost be not found." 
 
 We are permitted to catch a glimpse of the supernatural 
 in the way in which the Oracle was uttered (Act III., sc. i.). 
 Cleomenes and Dion are talking together in a street in " some 
 town " in the sacred island of Sicily where the Oracle was 
 consulted. Cleomenes praises the climate, the fertility of the 
 island, and the bea^utiful temple. Dion replies : 
 
 " I shall report 
 . . . the celestial habits 
 . . . and the reverence 
 Of the grave wearers. Oh, the sacrifice ! 
 Hov) ceremonious, solemn, and uneartMy, 
 It was in the offering ! 
 
 Cleomenes. But of all, the burst 
 
 And the ear-deafening voice o' the Oracle, 
 Kin to Jove's thunder, so surpris'd my sense, 
 That I was nothing." 
 
 This short and remarkable scene terminates abrup^Uy in the 
 words of Dion : 
 
 " When the Oracle, 
 Thus (by Apollo's great divine seal'd up,) 
 Shall the contents discover, something rare, 
 Even then, will rush to knowledge. — Go, fresh horses — 
 And gracious be the issue I" 
 
 The inscrutable laws of Nature work themselves out, and 
 when the Oracle or Divine Word opens or discovers the 
 contents of the utterance, then only does the real truth or 
 knowledge dawn upon our limited human faculties. 
 
THE winter's tale. 33 
 
 Act IV. : Enter Time, as chorus. He apologizes for passing 
 over sixteen years since the events of the last act, but he says 
 the result will justify the gap. The scene is now changed from 
 Sicily to Bohemia. We behold Perdita reigning in the nether 
 regions. It is the season of sheep-shearing, and Perdita 
 welcomes the guests to the jollification — amongst whom are 
 Polixenes and Camillo, disguised. To them she presents 
 rosemary and rue, 
 
 " These keep 
 Seeming and savour all the winter long : 
 Grace and remembrance be to you both, 
 And welcome to our shearing." 
 
 The Spring has not yet come. Perdita cries : 
 
 " I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might 
 Become your time of day ; and yours and yours, 
 That wear upon your virgin branches yet 
 Your maidenheads growing : O Proserpina, 
 For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall 
 From Dis's waggon ! daffodils, 
 That come before the swallow dares, and take 
 The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim, 
 But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
 Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses, 
 That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
 Bright Phcebus in his strength — a malady 
 Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips and 
 The crown imperial ; lilies of all kinds, 
 The flower-de-luce being one ! Oh, these I lack, 
 To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend. 
 To strew him o'er and o'er.'' 
 
 Clearly, we are still in the Winter season. Perdita is still 
 in the courts of Pluto, a spirit governing and managing every- 
 thing; ** pantler, butler, cook, both dame and servant." As 
 the shepherd says of his old wife (Act IV., sc. iv., 1. 58), she 
 
 " Would sing her song and dance her turn ; now here, 
 At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle ; 
 On his shoulder, and his ; her face o' fire 
 With labour and the thing she took to quench it, 
 She would to each one sip." 
 
 And thus he bids Perdita play " the hostess of the meeting." 
 
 It was the peculiar attribute of Proserpine, that she was 
 
 called the Mistress of Dis or Pluto, an honour (as Bacon 
 
 3 
 
34 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEAEE. 
 
 says) not conceded to the wife of any other god ; " for the 
 sph'it does, in fact, govern and manage everything in those 
 regions without the help of Pluto, who remains stupid and 
 unconscious." 
 
 As Bacon's Essay on the subject of the fable of Proserpine 
 may not be readily accessible to everyone, I quote the entire 
 passage. It seems to me to throw a new light on Shakespeare's 
 play of " The Winter's Tale." 
 
 "The fable relates, as I take it, to nature, and explains the source of that 
 rich and fruitful supply of active power subsisting in the under-world and 
 from which all the growths of our upper-world spring, and into which they 
 again return and are restored. By Proserpine the ancients signified that 
 efhe7-eal sjmif which, having been separated by violence from the upper-globe, 
 is enclosed and imprisoned beneath the Earth (which Earth is represented by 
 Pluto) as was expressed in those lines : 
 
 " ' Whether that the Earth yet fresh, and from the deeps 
 
 Of heaven new-sundered, did some seeds retain, 
 
 Some sparks and motions of its kindred sky.' 
 ' * This spirit is represented as having been ravished, that is, suddenly and 
 forcibly carried off, by the Earth ; because there is no holding it in if it 
 have time and leisure to escape, and the only way to confine and fix it is by 
 sudden pounding and breaking up, just as if you would mix air with water, 
 you can only do it b}^ sudden and rapid agitation ; for thus it is we see these 
 bodies united in foam, the air being, as it were, ravished by the water. It is 
 prettily added that Proserpine was carried o£f while in the act of gathering 
 flowers of Narcissus in the valleys ; for Narcissus takes its name from torpor 
 or stupor, and it is only when beginning to curdle, as it were, to gather 
 torpor, that spirit is in the best state to be caught up and carried off by 
 earthly matter. It is right, too, that Proserpine should have that honour, 
 which is not conceded to the wife of any other god, to be called the Mistress 
 of Dis,^ for the spirit does in fact govern and manage everything in those 
 regions without the help of Pluto, who remains stupid and unconscious." — "De 
 Sapientia Veterum." 
 
 "1 Act IV., sc. iii., 1. 135. 
 
 "Florizel What you do, 
 
 Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet, 
 I'd have you do it ever ; when you sing, 
 I'd have you buy and sell so ; so give alms ; 
 Pray so, and for the ordering your affairs. 
 To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you 
 A Avave on the sea, that you might ever do 
 . ' . Nothing but that ; move still, still so, and own 
 
 No other function ; each your doing, 
 So singular in each particular, 
 Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds, 
 That all your acts are queens.'^ ^ ' 
 
THE winter's tale. 35 
 
 This is the spiritual meaning of the fable — an imprisoned 
 spirit which reigns even in the under-world, and this is the 
 key, also, to the allegorical character of Perdita. She does, in 
 fact, govern and manage everything in those dull regions, 
 among the stupid shepherds and clowns. She is a " change- 
 ling " and a princess — the child of Leontes. She 
 
 "... smacks of something greater than herself, 
 Too noble for this place." 
 
 She is 
 
 " No shepherdess, but Flora 
 Peering in April's front." 
 
 It is she who distributes the flowers and the favours, who 
 dances like the waves of the sea in the sunlight, whose voice is 
 full of the inexpressible charm of living Nature — and around 
 whom the entire action of the play revolves. 
 
 Virgil was undoubtedly in Bacon's mind whilst composing 
 the Essay, and (I submit) also whilst composing the play. The 
 sixth book of the ^neid contains a description of the nether 
 regions and of the golden bough hidden in the forest of wood. 
 I quote a few lines from Conington's translation : 
 
 " Deep in a mass of leafy growth, 
 Its stem and foliage golden both, 
 A precious bough there lurks unseen, 
 Held sacred to the infernal queen ; 
 Around it bends the whole dark grove. 
 And hides from view the treasure-trove, 
 Yet none may reach the shades without 
 The passport of that golden sprout : 
 For so has Proserpine decreed 
 That this should be her beauty's meed." 
 
 Bacon is perplexed about the spiritual meaning of this 
 precious bough. He says, as for that golden branch, putting 
 aside the explanations of the alchemists, " Here is my opinion 
 of the meaning of that last part of the parable. From many 
 figurative allusions, I am satisfied that the ancients regarded 
 the conservation, and, to a certain extent, the restoration, of 
 natural bodies as a thing not desperate, but rather as abstruse 
 and out of the way, and this is w4iat I take them in the 
 passage before us to mean, by placing this branch in the midst 
 
 3—2 
 
36 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 of innumerable other branches of a vast and thick wood. 
 They represented it as golden because gold is the emblem of 
 duration, and grafted, because the effect in question is to be 
 looked for as the result of art, not of any medicine or method 
 which is simple or natural." 
 
 The explanation is somewhat abstruse, but there is a similar 
 passage in the play to the same effect. 
 
 Act IV., Sc. in. 
 
 * ' Pol. ' Shepherdess ' 
 
 (A fair one are you !), well you fit our ages 
 With flowers of winter. 
 
 Per. Sir, the year growing ancient — 
 Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth 
 Of trembling winter — the fairest flowers o' the season 
 Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors, 
 Which some call nature's bastards ; of that kind 
 Our rustic garden's barren, and I care not 
 To get slips of them. 
 
 Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden, 
 Do you neglect them ? 
 
 Per. For I have heard it said 
 There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares 
 With gTeat creating nature. 
 
 Pol Say, there be ; 
 Yet nature is made better by no mean, 
 But nature makes that mean ; so, o'er that art 
 Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art 
 That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry 
 A gentler scion to the mildest stock ; 
 And make conceive a bark of baser kind 
 By bud of nobler race. This is an art 
 Which does mend nature, change it rather ; but 
 The art itself is nature. 
 
 Per. So it is. 
 
 Pol. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors, 
 And do not call them bastards. 
 
 Per. I'll not put 
 
 The dibble in earth to set one slip of them ; 
 No more than were I painted I would wish 
 This youth should say, 'ticere icell, and only therefore 
 Desire to breed by me." 
 
 Perdita says, in effect, that in her rustic garden, that is in 
 the garden of Nature, she will have no carnations and streaked 
 gillyvors, which some call Nature's bastards. She explains 
 why they are called bastards ; because 
 
THE winter's tale. 37 
 
 " There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares 
 With great creating nature." 
 
 The art she refers to is the art of grafting. This artificial 
 ''improvement" of Nature Perdita contemptuously compares to 
 the tricks of faded beauties, who repair the ravages of time by 
 the aid of the paint-box. She will have none of it, only simple 
 Nature unadorned by artificial means. To this Polixenes 
 objects that by grafting one plant on to another, and so pro- 
 ducing another variety of plant, you do not rival Nature, you 
 merely " mend nature, change it rather ; the art itself is 
 nature." Thus, as Bacon explains, the golden bough in the 
 forest was represented in the fable as grafted, " because the 
 effect in question is to be looked for as the result of art," 
 something emanating from the intellect, and thus by the aid of 
 Nature " mending" or " changing " Nature. It is a result not 
 springing from accident, not arising "■ from any medicine or 
 method which is simple or natural." 
 
 Bacon, in the " Description of the Intellectual Globe," dis- 
 cusses the question raised by Perdita. He says "it is the 
 fashion to talk as if art were something different from nature 
 . . .1 whereas men ought, on the contrary, to have a settled 
 conviction that things artificial differ from things natural, not 
 in form or essence, but only in the efficient ; that man has in 
 truth no power over nature except that of motion — power, I 
 say, of putting natural bodies together or separating them— 
 and that the rest is done by nature working within. In one 
 word, the art itself is nature." 
 
 Bacon was an accomplished botanist, and v/rote a treatise 
 " Of Gardens," which begins with the noble words, '' God 
 Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest 
 of human pleasures," and so on. 
 
 In the royal ordering of gardens, he holds, there ought to 
 be gardens for all the months in the year, and he proceeds to 
 set forth in detail the flowers suitable to be cultivated for 
 every month. Spedding, the learned and accomplished editor 
 of Bacon's works, published in seven stately volumes, points 
 ^ As Perdita, in fact, does. 
 
38 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 out that the scene in this play where Perdita presents the 
 guests with flowers suited to their ages, has some expressions 
 which, if Bacon's Essay had been contained in the earher 
 edition, would have made him suspect that Shakespeare had 
 been reading it, and he quotes the passage and illustrates it I 
 by a comparison. The theory of the Dual Unity avoids the ^ 
 difficulty. It cannot be shown that the Stratford Shakspere 
 knew anything about botany, as there is no evidence that 
 he ever received even the rudiments of education. 
 
 It is a coincidence worth noting that '* The Winter's Tale " 
 was published in the year 1611, and that in that year Bacon 
 was engaged in the gardens of Gorhambury " experimenting 
 upon the natures of plants, flowers, and fruits, marshalling 
 in their proper seasons rosemary and rue, primrose, violets, 
 cowslips, hyssop, and germande : 
 
 Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram ; 
 The marigold, that goes to bed with th' sun. 
 And with him rises, weeping ;" 
 
 
 practising the art of grafting and the art of manipulation for 
 producing new varieties, ' carnations of several stripes, '^ and 
 ' streak'd gilliflowers ;'^ trying * what natures do accomplish 
 what colours, for by that you shall have light how to induce 
 colour by producing those natures ;' grafting * several scions 
 upon several boughs of a stock ; gathering the excellent dew 
 of knowledge, distilling and contriving it out of particulars 
 natural and artificial,' as the flowers of the field and garden. "^ 
 Shortly before this date (in 1609) Bacon had published his 
 " De Sapientia Veterum," in which he described the story of 
 Atalanta as "an excellent allegory, relating to the contest of 
 Art and Nature, for Art, which is meant by Atalanta, is in itself, 
 if nothing stand in the way, far swifter than Nature, and, as 
 we may say, the better runner, and comes sooner to the goal. 
 For this may be seen in almost everything : You see, that 
 fruit grows slowly from the kernel, swiftly from the graft ; 
 
 1 "Nat. His.," §§501, 507, 510. 
 
 ^ Act IV., sc. iii. 
 
 3 <t Advancement," Book II. 
 
THE winter's tale. 39 
 
 but it is no wonder if Art cannot outstrip Nature, but according 
 to the agreement and condition of the contest, put her to 
 death or destroy her ; but, on the contrary, Art remains subject 
 to Nature, as the wife is subject to the husband." 
 
 Now, if it be granted that Perdita is Proserpine in disguise, 
 and that Bacon was the author of the play as well as of the 
 essays which we have quoted, it would be natural for him to 
 introduce this discussion of the effect of grafting — the mend- 
 ing or changing of Nature by means of art or intellect — into 
 the play, as it was one of the mystical incidents which Bacon 
 found underlying the myth, and which he explains in both 
 cases in the same way. On any other hypothesis, the intro- 
 duction of this incident into the play is unexplainable and 
 without meaning. 
 
 But the most interesting feature of this study of the play 
 and comparison with Bacon is (as hinted above) that we find 
 this conception underlying the play, y'iz., that Perdita repre- 
 sents Proserpine queening it in the netJier regions, in the time y 
 of our winter — a living and active spirit at a time when all X 
 seems dead and sapless. This reading brings out the true ^ 
 mythological meaning of the play — the suggestion of an all- 
 pervading spirit — a Pantheistic theoi^y of the universe, 
 such as was held by Bacon. Professor Nichol (ii. 214) says 
 that Telesio's view of the nature of the soul is nearly identical 
 with Bacon's, especially in his holding the S]jiritus that 
 pervades the animal and vegetable world to be a material 
 essence, which in its turn is inspired by a spark of the Divine 
 soul. It is this theory of a universal soul which gives the 
 spiritual colouring to the play, and conveys its true ethical 
 meaning. 
 
 As a mere tale it has — as many critics have pointed out — / 
 many defects. As a study of human jealousy it cannot be com- -^ 
 pared to ** Othello." Its anachronisms and incongruities, if not 
 intentional, imply an ignorance and stupidity which are in- 
 comprehensible. If, however, the play be read as a dramatic 
 representation of the fable of Ceres and Proserpine, all these 
 minor points sink into insignificance. Julio Eomano may 
 
40 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 have painted a picture of Hermione or of Ceres. If so, he 
 would have been bound by no hard and fast rules about period 
 or place, but would have endeavoured to give a representation 
 — or rather suggestion — of Nature at large, rather than of 
 any section or part of Nature, and to convey, if possible, an 
 ethical meaning as well as a merely material one. So far 
 from Shakespeare being ignorant of what he was doing in 
 introducing Julio Eomano into the play, it has been suggested 
 by Professor Elze that in order to have formed his excellent 
 judgment of this very painter, Shakespeare must have visited 
 Italy. '' And whether this hypothesis be accepted or not," he 
 says, " this cannot be denied by anyone acquainted with 
 Shakespeare's works, that his appreciation and judgment of 
 paintings must have been encouraged and developed by re- 
 peated and attentive contemplation of good pictures. . . . The 
 description of the great painting representing the destruction 
 of Troy in * Lucrece ' (lines 1366-1443) is masterly, in spite 
 of some strange bits, as in line 1383 f." 
 ^ The play, however, is not a geographical or historical lesson ; 
 / it is not a tale of human passion ; it has no elements of love 
 ( as " Eomeo and J ulief'^^'hias— of ambition, as "Julius Caesar" 
 ) has — of magic, as " The Tempest " has — of debauchery, as 
 <s^ "Antony and Cleopatra" has — of vengeance, as "The Mer- 
 ) chant of Venice " has. Eather, in the spirit of " As You Like 
 / It," it is a study of the phenomena of Nature in broad outline 
 " — a representation of still life as on the canvas of Julio 
 Eomano himself. 
 
 Passing from this episode of Perdita playing the queen in the 
 courts of Pluto, we may call attention to another, likewise 
 curious and significant. 
 
 In the revels an anti-masque or burlesque^ is briefly intro- 
 duced. 
 
 Three carters, three shepherds, three neatherds, and three 
 swineherds, dressed up in goat-skins, as satyrs, are brought 
 
 ^ Anti-masque : A grotesque interlude between the acts of a masque, to 
 which it serves as a foil, and of which it was at first often a burlesque. — 
 Murray's Dictionary. 
 
THE winter's tale. 41 
 
 on the stage, and go through certain antics and then retire. 
 These twelve satyrs symbohze the twelve months of the year, 
 and the four seasons. *' Anti-masques," says Bacon, ** should 
 not be long, and they * are usually composed of satyrs, baboons, 
 antiques, beasts, etc' " 
 
 It is curious how pat the practice of th,e poet is to the 
 precepts of the philosopher ! 
 
 But why should satyrs have been selected for the anti- 
 masque in this particular Nature-play in preference to any of 
 the other creatures used for this purpose ? The answer appears 
 to be that satyrs were associated with Dionysius (the Sun- 
 god), and they formed the chorus of the species of drama 
 named from them. Keightley conjectures that it is not un- 
 likely that they are indebted for their deification to the festivals 
 of that god (in which case their introduction in this play 
 would be peculiarly appropriate), and that they were originally 
 nothing more than rustics, who formed the chorus, and danced 
 at them in their goatskin dresses. 
 
 On the point of legal knowledge, it may be interesting (by 
 way of addendum) to quote a few instances of familiarity 
 with legal technicalities occurring in *' The Winter's Tale" 
 (which play, by the way, is by no means so suggestive in this 
 respect as " Hamlet," and some of the other plays). 
 
 To a layman the speech of Hermione (Act I., sc. ii., 1. 52) — 
 
 " Force me to keep you as a prisoner, 
 Not like a guest ; so you shall pay your fees, 
 When you depart, and save your thanks — ' 
 
 conveys no special meaning. 
 
 To the lawyer it recalls an ancient abuse in English law 
 procedure — the dragging back of acquitted prisoners to their 
 cells, in order to satisfy the fees of gaolers. ^ ** I remember," 
 writes Lord Campbell, " when the Clerk of Assize and the 
 Clerk of the Peace were entitled to exact their fee from all 
 acquitted prisoners, and were supposed in strictness to have a 
 lien on their persons for it. I beheve there is now no tribuna 
 England where the practice remains, excepting the two 
 ^ " Shakespeare as a Lawyer," by F. T. Heard. 
 
42 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEAKE. 
 
 Houses of Parliament ; but the Lord Chancellor and the 
 Speaker of the House of Commons still say to prisoners about 
 to be liberated from the custody of the Black Rod or the 
 Sergeant-at-Arms, ' You are discharged, xxiyincj your fees ' " 
 (compare " The Third Part of Henry VI.," Act IV., sc. vi., 
 the scene in the Tower, where Henry inquires of the Lieu- 
 tenant of the Tower : 
 
 " Master lieutenant, now that God and friends 
 Have shaken Edward from the regal seat, 
 And turned my captive state to liberty, 
 My fear to hope, my sorrows into joys, 
 At our enlargement what are now thy fees ?") 
 
 Again : it was a custom in olden times, which a lawyer 
 would be familiar with, that at entering into any contract, or 
 plighting of troth, the parties clapped (or clasped) hands together 
 as setting a seal on the transaction. 
 
 It is to this custom that Leontes alludes (Act I., sc. ii., 
 1. 101) : 
 
 " That was when 
 Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death. 
 Ere I could make thee open thy white hand, 
 And clajj thyself my love." 
 
 This was the legal betrothal of Leontes and Hermione, and 
 symbolizes^ the breaking up of the three months of the winter 
 season, and the reconciliation of opposing elements. 
 
 Anyone who has read Bacon's " Life and Letters " — and 
 especially his letters to Queen Elizabeth and James VI. — will 
 find the exact ring of Bacon's protestations of honest and 
 faithful service, subject to the infirmities of human nature, in 
 the words addressed by Camillo to King Leontes (Act I., 
 sc. ii., 1. 249): 
 
 " My gracious lord, 
 I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful ; 
 In every one of these no man is free, 
 But that his negligence, his folly, fear, 
 Among the infinite doings of the world, 
 Sometimes puts forth : In your affairs, my lord. 
 
 •^ " I have heard lawyers say a contract in a chamber, ^^er verba presenti, 
 absolute marriage." — Duchess of Mafti. 
 
THE winter's tale. 43 
 
 If ever I were wilful-negligent, 
 It was my folly ; if industriously 
 I played the fool, it was my negligence, 
 Not weighing well the end ; if ever fearful 
 To do a thing, where I the issue doubted, 
 Whereof the execution did cry out 
 Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear 
 Which oft infects the wisest." 
 
 It would take us too far out of the way, and extend this 
 shght essay to too great a length, if I were to seek out parallel 
 passages, or passages containing the exact echo of the above 
 sentiments from Bacon's prose works. By chance- I have 
 lighted on a letter addressed by Bacon to the king (1620), in 
 which occurs the following passage, not unlike, in tone and 
 language, to that of Camillo. He thanks the king for certain 
 favours, and adds : ' 
 
 " Then I must say, quid retrlhuam ? I have nothing of mine own. That 
 that God hath given me I shall offer and present unto your Majesty, which is 
 care and diligence, and assiduous endeavour, and that which is the chief, 
 cor imimi et viam unum, hoping that your Majesty will do, as your Superior 
 doth ; that is, that finding my heart upright, you will bear with my other 
 imperfections." 
 
 The comparison is apt enough, but search Vv^ould find many 
 other passages equally, if not more, to the point. 
 
 The following passage is instinct with the technicalities of 
 the law (Act II., sc. ii., 1. 59) : 
 
 " This child is prisoner to the womb ; and is 
 By law and j^rocess of great nature, thence 
 Freed and enfranchised : not a party to 
 The anger of the king ; nor guilty of, 
 If any be, the trespass of the queen." 
 
 '' Process " is so called because it proceeds or goes out upon 
 former matter, either original or judicial, and hath two significa- 
 tions : First, it is largely taken for all proceedings in any action 
 or prosecution, real or personal, civil or criminal, from the 
 beginning to the end. Second, that is termed the process by 
 which a man is called into any temporal court, because it is the 
 beginning or principal part thereof, by which the rest is directed; 
 or, taken strictly, it is the original part of the proceedings 
 (8 Eep. 157). 
 
44 STUDIES IN SHAKE SPEAEE. 
 
 The indictment of Hermione, in Act III., could only have 
 been drawn by a legal hand. 
 
 '* Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes, Kiwj Sicilia, thou art accused and 
 arraigned of high treason, in committing adidtery loith Polixenes, King of 
 Bohemia ; and conspiring loith Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign 
 lord the king, thy royalhushand ; the pretence whereof by circumstances partly 
 laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of a true 
 subject, didst counsel and aid them., for their better safety, to Hy away by 
 nighty 
 
 The whole scene is cast in a perfectly legal form, and the 
 phraseology throughout is thoroughly legal and technical.^ 
 
 Autolycus, the cunning rogue, has " ribbons of all colours 
 i' the rainbow ; fioints, more than all the laivyers in Bohemia 
 can learnedly handle, though they come to him by the gross." 
 
 The word " point " is used sportively in a double sense. 
 In the technical legal sense it is a distinct position, thesis, or 
 passage in argument, the pith or gist of a legal discussion. In 
 this sense Autolycus could baffle all the lawyers of Bohemia. 
 But the word also means, in referring to ancient costumes, a 
 tagged lace, used to tie together certain parts of the dress. 
 And it is in this sense that Autolycus, the itinerant trader, has 
 such a superfluity. Shakespeare constantly plays and puns 
 ^ with legal expressions in this way. 
 
 1 See " The Law in Shakespeare," by C. K. Davis, pp. 127-132. 
 
 London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, E.C.