Title: The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded
Author: Delia Salter Bacon
Author of introduction, etc.: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Release date: June 1, 2005 [eBook #8207]
Most recently updated: October 13, 2012
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Eric Eldred, David King and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Produced by Eric Eldred, David King and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
  Aphorisms representing A KNOWLEDGE broken do invite men to
     inquire further LORD BACON
You find not the apostophes, and so miss the accent.
                                              LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST
Untie the spell.—PROSPERO
LONDON:
GROOMBRIDGE AND SONS
PATERNOSTER ROW.
1857
Reprinted from a copy in the collection
of the Harvard College Library
Reprinted from the edition of 1857, London
First AMS EDITION published 1970
Manufactured in the United States of America
International Standard Book Number: 0-404-00443-1
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 73-113547
I. The Proposition
II. The Age of Elizabeth, and the Elizabethan Men of Letters
III. Extracts from the Life of Raleigh.—Raleigh's School
IV. Raleigh's School, continued.—The New Academy
* * * * *
[The HISTORICAL KEY to the ELIZABETHAN ART of TRADITION, which formed the FIRST BOOK of this Work as it was originally prepared for the Press, is reserved for separate publication.]
I. Ascent from Particulars to the 'Highest Parts of Sciences,' by the
Enigmatic Method illustrated
II. Further Illustration of 'Particular Methods of
Tradition.'—Embarrassments of Literary Statesmen
III. The Possibility of great anonymous Works,—or Works published under an assumed name,—conveying under rhetorical Disguises the Principal Sciences,—re-suggested and illustrated
I. THE 'BEGINNERS.'—['Particular Methods of Tradition.'—
   The Double Method of 'Illustration' and 'Concealment']
II. INDEX to the 'Illustrated' and 'Concealed Tradition' of
    the Principal and Supreme Sciences.—THE SCIENCE OF
    POLICY
III. THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. Section I. The Exemplar of Good
IV. THE SCIENCE OF MORALITY. Section II. The Husbandry thereunto,
                                       or the Cure and Culture of
                                          the Mind.—APPLICATION
VI. Method of Convoying the Wisdom of the Moderns
* * * * *
I. The Design II. The Missing Books of the Great Instauration or 'Philosophy itself'
I. Philosophy in the Palace
II. Unaccommodated Man
III. The King and the Beggar
IV. The Use of Eyes
V. The Statesman's Note-Book—and the Play
I. The Death of Tyranny; or, the Question of the Prerogative
II. Caesar's Spirit
I. The Elizabethan Heroism
II. Criticism of the Martial Government
III. 'Insurrections Arguing'
IV. Political Retrospect
V. The Popular Election
VI. The Scientific Method in Politics
VII. Volumnia and her Boy
VIII. Metaphysical Aid
IX. The Cure.—Plan of Innovation.—New Definitions.
X. The Cure.—Plan of Innovation.—New Constructions.
XI. The Cure.—Plan of Innovation.—'The Initiative'
XII. The Ignorant Election revoked.—A 'Wrestling Instance'.
XIII. Conclusion
This Volume contains the argument, drawn from the Plays usually attributed to Shakspere, in support of a theory which the author of it has demonstrated by historical evidences in another work. Having never read this historical demonstration (which remains still in manuscript, with the exception of a preliminary chapter, published long ago in an American periodical), I deem it necessary to cite the author's own account of it:—
'The Historical Part of this work (which was originally the principal part, and designed to furnish the historical key to the great Elizabethan writings), though now for a long time completed and ready for the press, and though repeated reference is made to it in this volume, is, for the most part, omitted here. It contains a true and before unwritten history, and it will yet, perhaps, be published as it stands; but the vivid and accumulating historic detail, with which more recent research tends to enrich the earlier statement, and disclosures which no invention could anticipate, are waiting now to be subjoined to it.
'The INTERNAL EVIDENCE of the assumptions made at the outset is that which is chiefly relied on in the work now first presented on this subject to the public. The demonstration will be found complete on that ground; and on that ground alone the author is willing, and deliberately prefers, for the present, to rest it.
'External evidence, of course, will not be wanting; there will be enough and to spare, if the demonstration here be correct. But the author of the discovery was not willing to rob the world of this great question; but wished rather to share with it the benefit which the true solution of the Problem offers—the solution prescribed by those who propounded it to the future. It seemed better to save to the world the power and beauty of this demonstration, its intellectual stimulus, its demand on the judgment. It seemed better, that the world should acquire it also in the form of criticism, instead of being stupified and overpowered with the mere force of an irresistible, external, historical proof. Persons incapable of appreciating any other kind of proof,—those who are capable of nothing that does not 'directly fall under and strike the senses' as Lord Bacon expresses it,—will have their time also; but it was proposed to present the subject first to minds of another order.'
In the present volume, accordingly, the author applies herself to the demonstration and development of a system of philosophy, which has presented itself to her as underlying the superficial and ostensible text of Shakspere's plays. Traces of the same philosophy, too, she conceives herself to have found in the acknowledged works of Lord Bacon, and in those of other writers contemporary with him. All agree in one system; all these traces indicate a common understanding and unity of purpose in men among whom no brotherhood has hitherto been suspected, except as representatives of a grand and brilliant age, when the human intellect made a marked step in advance.
The author did not (as her own consciousness assures her) either construct or originally seek this new philosophy. In many respects, if I have rightly understood her, it was at variance with her pre-conceived opinions, whether ethical, religious, or political. She had been for years a student of Shakspere, looking for nothing in his plays beyond what the world has agreed to find in them, when she began to see, under the surface, the gleam of this hidden treasure. It was carefully hidden, indeed, yet not less carefully indicated, as with a pointed finger, by such marks and references as could not ultimately escape the notice of a subsequent age, which should be capable of profiting by the rich inheritance. So, too, in regard to Lord Bacon. The author of this volume had not sought to put any but the ordinary and obvious interpretation upon his works, nor to take any other view of his character than what accorded with the unanimous judgment upon it of all the generations since his epoch. But, as she penetrated more and more deeply into the plays, and became aware of those inner readings, she found herself compelled to turn back to the 'Advancement of Learning' for information as to their plan and purport; and Lord Bacon's Treatise failed not to give her what she sought; thus adding to the immortal dramas, in her idea, a far higher value than their warmest admirers had heretofore claimed for them. They filled out the scientific scheme which Bacon had planned, and which needed only these profound and vivid illustrations of human life and character to make it perfect. Finally, the author's researches led her to a point where she found the plays claimed for Lord Bacon and his associates,—not in a way that was meant to be intelligible in their own perilous times,—but in characters that only became legible, and illuminated, as it were, in the light of a subsequent period.
The reader will soon perceive that the new philosophy, as here demonstrated, was of a kind that no professor could have ventured openly to teach in the days of Elizabeth and James. The concluding chapter of the present work makes a powerful statement of the position which a man, conscious of great and noble aims, would then have occupied; and shows, too, how familiar the age was with all methods of secret communication, and of hiding thought beneath a masque of conceit or folly. Applicably to this subject, I quote a paragraph from a manuscript of the author's, not intended for present publication:—
'It was a time when authors, who treated of a scientific politics and of a scientific ethics internally connected with it, naturally preferred this more philosophic, symbolic method of indicating their connection with their writings, which would limit the indication to those who could pierce within the veil of a philosophic symbolism. It was the time when the cipher, in which one could write 'omnia per omnia,' was in such request, and when 'wheel ciphers' and 'doubles' were thought not unworthy of philosophic notice. It was a time, too, when the phonographic art was cultivated, and put to other uses than at present, and when a 'nom de plume' was required for other purposes than to serve as the refuge of an author's modesty, or vanity, or caprice. It was a time when puns, and charades, and enigmas, and anagrams, and monograms, and ciphers, and puzzles, were not good for sport and child's play merely; when they had need to be close; when they had need to be solvable, at least, only to those who should solve them. It was a time when all the latent capacities of the English language were put in requisition, and it was flashing and crackling, through all its lengths and breadths, with puns and quips, and conceits, and jokes, and satires, and inlined with philosophic secrets that opened down "into the bottom of a tomb"—that opened into the Tower—that opened on the scaffold and the block.'
I quote, likewise, another passage, because I think the reader will see in it the noble earnestness of the author's character, and may partly imagine the sacrifices which this research has cost her:—
'The great secret of the Elizabethan age did not lie where any superficial research could ever have discovered it. It was not left within the range of any accidental disclosure. It did not lie on the surface of any Elizabethan document. The most diligent explorers of these documents, in two centuries and a quarter, had not found it. No faintest suspicion of it had ever crossed the mind of the most recent, and clear-sighted, and able investigator of the Baconian remains. It was buried in the lowest depths of the lowest deeps of the deep Elizabethan Art; that Art which no plummet, till now, has ever sounded. It was locked with its utmost reach of traditionary cunning. It was buried in the inmost recesses of the esoteric Elizabethan learning. It was tied with a knot that had passed the scrutiny and baffled the sword of an old, suspicious, dying, military government—a knot that none could cut—a knot that must be untied.
'The great secret of the Elizabethan Age was inextricably reserved by the founders of a new learning, the prophetic and more nobly gifted minds of a new and nobler race of men, for a research that should test the mind of the discoverer, and frame and subordinate it to that so sleepless and indomitable purpose of the prophetic aspiration. It was "the device" by which they undertook to live again in the ages in which their achievements and triumphs were forecast, and to come forth and rule again, not in one mind, not in the few, not in the many, but in all. "For there is no throne like that throne in the thoughts of men," which the ambition of these men climbed and compassed.
'The principal works of the Elizabethan Philosophy, those in which the new method of learning was practically applied to the noblest subjects, were presented to the world in the form of AN ENIGMA. It was a form well fitted to divert inquiry, and baffle even the research of the scholar for a time; but one calculated to provoke the philosophic curiosity, and one which would inevitably command a research that could end only with the true solution. That solution was reserved for one who would recognise, at last, in the disguise of the great impersonal teacher, the disguise of a new learning. It waited for the reader who would observe, at last, those thick-strewn scientific clues, those thick-crowding enigmas, those perpetual beckonings from the "theatre" into the judicial palace of the mind. It was reserved for the student who would recognise, at last, the mind that was seeking so perseveringly to whisper its tale of outrage, and "the secrets it was forbid." It waited for one who would answer, at last, that philosophic challenge, and say, "Go on, I'll follow thee!" It was reserved for one who would count years as days, for the love of the truth it hid; who would never turn back on the long road of initiation, though all "THE IDOLS" must be left behind in its stages; who would never stop until it stopped in that new cave of Apollo, where the handwriting on the wall spells anew the old Delphic motto, and publishes the word that "unties the spell."
On this object, which she conceives so loftily, the author has bestowed the solitary and self-sustained toil of many years. The volume now before the reader, together with the historical demonstration which it pre-supposes, is the product of a most faithful and conscientious labour, and a truly heroic devotion of intellect and heart. No man or woman has ever thought or written more sincerely than the author of this book. She has given nothing less than her life to the work. And, as if for the greater trial of her constancy, her theory was divulged, some time ago, in so partial and unsatisfactory a manner—with so exceedingly imperfect a statement of its claims—as to put her at great disadvantage before the world. A single article from her pen, purporting to be the first of a series, appeared in an American Magazine; but unexpected obstacles prevented the further publication in that form, after enough had been done to assail the prejudices of the public, but far too little to gain its sympathy. Another evil followed. An English writer (in a 'Letter to the Earl of Ellesmere,' published within a few months past) has thought it not inconsistent with the fair-play, on which his country prides itself, to take to himself this lady's theory, and favour the public with it as his own original conception, without allusion to the author's prior claim. In reference to this pamphlet, she generously says:—
'This has not been a selfish enterprise. It is not a personal concern. It is a discovery which belongs not to an individual, and not to a people. Its fields are wide enough and rich enough for us all; and he that has no work, and whoso will, let him come and labour in them. The field is the world's; and the world's work henceforth is in it. So that it be known in its real comprehension, in its true relations to the weal of the world, what matters it? So that the truth, which is dearer than all the rest—which abides with us when all others leave us, dearest then—so that the truth, which is neither yours nor mine, but yours and mine, be known, loved, honoured, emancipated, mitred, crowned, adored—who loses anything, that does not find it.' 'And what matters it,' says the philosophic wisdom, speaking in the abstract, 'what name it is proclaimed in, and what letters of the alphabet we know it by?—what matter is it, so that they spell the name that is good for ALL, and good for each,'—for that is the REAL name here?
Speaking on the author's behalf, however, I am not entitled to imitate her magnanimity; and, therefore, hope that the writer of the pamphlet will disclaim any purpose of assuming to himself, on the ground of a slight and superficial performance, the result which she has attained at the cost of many toils and sacrifices.
And now, at length, after many delays and discouragements, the work comes forth. It had been the author's original purpose to publish it in America; for she wished her own country to have the glory of solving the enigma of those mighty dramas, and thus adding a new and higher value to the loftiest productions of the English mind. It seemed to her most fit and desirable, that America—having received so much from England, and returned so little—should do what remained to be done towards rendering this great legacy available, as its authors meant it to be, to all future time. This purpose was frustrated; and it will be seen in what spirit she acquiesces.
'The author was forced to bring it back, and contribute it to the literature of the country from which it was derived, and to which it essentially and inseparably belongs. It was written, every word of it, on English ground, in the midst of the old familiar scenes and household names, that even in our nursery songs revive the dear ancestral memories; those "royal pursuivants" with which our mother-land still follows and retakes her own. It was written in the land of our old kings and queens, and in the land of our own PHILOSOPHERS and POETS also. It was written on the spot where the works it unlocks were written, and in the perpetual presence of the English mind; the mind that spoke before in the cultured few, and that speaks to-day in the cultured many. And it is now at last, after so long a time—after all, as it should be—the English press that prints it. It is the scientific English press, with those old gags (wherewith our kings and queens sought to stop it, ere they knew what it was) champed asunder, ground to powder, and with its last Elizabethan shackle shaken off, that restores, "in a better hour," the torn and garbled science committed to it, and gives back "the bread cast on its sure waters."'
There remains little more for me to say. I am not the editor of this work; nor can I consider myself fairly entitled to the honor (which, if I deserved it, I should feel to be a very high as well as a perilous one) of seeing my name associated with the author's on the title-page. My object has been merely to speak a few words, which might, perhaps, serve the purpose of placing my countrywoman upon a ground of amicable understanding with the public. She has a vast preliminary difficulty to encounter. The first feeling of every reader must be one of absolute repugnance towards a person who seeks to tear out of the Anglo-Saxon heart the name which for ages it has held dearest, and to substitute another name, or names, to which the settled belief of the world has long assigned a very different position. What I claim for this work is, that the ability employed in its composition has been worthy of its great subject, and well employed for our intellectual interests, whatever judgment the public may pass upon the questions discussed. And, after listening to the author's interpretation of the Plays, and seeing how wide a scope she assigns to them, how high a purpose, and what richness of inner meaning, the thoughtful reader will hardly return again—not wholly, at all events—to the common view of them and of their author. It is for the public to say whether my countrywoman has proved her theory. In the worst event, if she has failed, her failure will be more honorable than most people's triumphs; since it must fling upon the old tombstone, at Stratford-on-Avon, the noblest tributary wreath that has ever lain there.
* * * * *
'One time will owe another.'—Coriolanus.
This work is designed to propose to the consideration, not of the learned world only, but of all ingenuous and practical minds, a new development of that system of practical philosophy from which THE SCIENTIFIC ARTS of the Modern Ages proceed, and which has already become, just to the extent to which it has been hitherto opened, the wisdom,—the universally approved, and practically adopted, Wisdom of the Moderns.
It is a development of this philosophy, which was deliberately postponed by the great Scientific Discoverers and Reformers, in whose Scientific Discoveries and Reformations our organised advancements in speculation and practice have their origin;—Reformers, whose scientific acquaintance with historic laws forbade the idea of any immediate and sudden cures of the political and social evils which their science searches to the root, and which it was designed to eradicate.
The proposition to be demonstrated in the ensuing pages is this: That the new philosophy which strikes out from the Court—from the Court of that despotism that names and gives form to the Modern Learning,—which comes to us from the Court of the last of the Tudors and the first of the Stuarts,—that new philosophy which we have received, and accepted, and adopted as a practical philosophy, not merely in that grave department of learning in which it comes to us professionally as philosophy, but in that not less important department of learning in which it comes to us in the disguise of amusement,—in the form of fable and allegory and parable,—the proposition is, that this Elizabethan philosophy is, in these two forms of it,—not two philosophies,—not two Elizabethan philosophies, not two new and wondrous philosophies of nature and practice, not two new Inductive philosophies, but one,—one and the same: that it is philosophy in both these forms, with its veil of allegory and parable, and without it; that it is philosophy applied to much more important subjects in the disguise of the parable, than it is in the open statement; that it is philosophy in both these cases, and not philosophy in one of them, and a brutish, low-lived, illiterate, unconscious spontaneity in the other.
The proposition is that it proceeds, in both cases, from a reflective deliberative, eminently deliberative, eminently conscious, designing mind; and that the coincidence which is manifest not in the design only, and in the structure, but in the detail to the minutest points of execution, is not accidental.
It is a proposition which is demonstrated in this volume by means of evidence derived principally from the books of this philosophy—books in which the safe delivery and tradition of it to the future was artistically contrived and triumphantly achieved:—the books of a new 'school' in philosophy; books in which the connection with the school is not always openly asserted; books in which the true names of the authors are not always found on the title-page;—the books of a school, too, which was compelled to have recourse to translations in some cases, for the safe delivery and tradition of its new learning.
The facts which lie on the surface of this question, which are involved in the bare statement of it, are sufficient of themselves to justify and command this inquiry.
The fact that these two great branches of the philosophy of observation and practice, both already virtually recognised as that,—the one openly, subordinating the physical forces of nature to the wants of man, changing the face of the earth under our eyes, leaving behind it, with its new magic, the miracles of Oriental dreams and fables;—the other, under its veil of wildness and spontaneity, under its thick-woven veil of mirth and beauty, with its inducted precepts and dispersed directions, insinuating itself into all our practice, winding itself into every department of human affairs; speaking from the legislator's lips, at the bar, from the pulpit,—putting in its word every where, always at hand, always sufficient, constituting itself, in virtue of its own irresistible claims and in the face of what we are told of it, the oracle, the great practical, mysterious, but universally acknowledged, oracle of our modern life; the fact that these two great branches of the modern philosophy make their appearance in history at the same moment, that they make their appearance in the same company of men—in that same little courtly company of Elizabethan Wits and Men of Letters that the revival of the ancient learning brought out here—this is the fact that strikes the eye at the first glance at this inquiry.
But that this is none other than that same little clique of disappointed and defeated politicians who undertook to head and organize a popular opposition against the government, and were compelled to retreat from that enterprise, the best of of them effecting their retreat with some difficulty, others failing entirely to accomplish it, is the next notable fact which the surface of the inquiry exhibits. That these two so illustrious branches of the modern learning were produced for the ostensible purpose of illustrating and adorning the tyrannies which the men, under whose countenance and protection they are produced, were vainly attempting, or had vainly attempted to set bounds to or overthrow, is a fact which might seem of itself to suggest inquiry. When insurrections are suppressed, when 'the monstrous enterprises of rebellious subjects are overthrown, then FAME, who is the posthumous sister of the giants,—the sister of defeated giants springs up'; so a man who had made some political experiments himself that were not very successful, tells us.
The fact that the men under whose patronage and in whose service 'Will the Jester' first showed himself, were men who were secretly endeavouring to make political capital of that new and immense motive power, that not yet available, and not very easily organised political power which was already beginning to move the masses here then, and already threatening, to the observant eye, with its portentous movement, the foundations of tyranny, the fact, too, that these men were understood to have made use of the stage unsuccessfully as a means of immediate political effect, are facts which lie on the surface of the history of these works, and unimportant as it may seem to the superficial enquirer, it will be found to be anything but irrelevant as this inquiry proceeds. The man who is said to have contributed a thousand pounds towards the purchase of the theatre and wardrobe and machinery, in which these philosophical plays were first exhibited, was obliged to stay away from the first appearance of Hamlet, in the perfected excellence of the poetic philosophic design, in consequence of being immured in the Tower at that time for an attempt to overthrow the government. This was the ostensible patron and friend of the Poet; the partner of his treason was the ostensible friend and patron of the Philosopher. So nearly did these philosophic minds, that were 'not for an age but for all time,' approach each other in this point. But the protégé and friend and well-nigh adoring admirer of the Poet, was also the protégé and friend and well-nigh adoring admirer of the Philosopher. The fact that these two philosophies, in this so close juxta-position, always in contact, playing always into each other's hands, never once heard of each other, know nothing of each other, is a fact which would seem at the first blush to point to the secret of these 'Know-Nothings,' who are men of science in an age of popular ignorance, and therefore have a 'secret'; who are men of science in an age in which the questions of science are 'forbidden questions,' and are therefore of necessity 'Know-Nothings.'
As to Ben Jonson, and the evidence of his avowed admiration for the author of these plays, from the point of view here taken, it is sufficient to say in passing, that this man, whose natural abilities sufficed to raise him from a position hardly less mean and obscure than that of his great rival, was so fortunate as to attract the attention of some of the most illustrious personages of that time; men whose observation of natures was quickened by their necessities; men who were compelled to employ 'living instruments' in the accomplishment of their designs; who were skilful in detecting the qualities they had need of, and skilful in adapting means to ends. This dramatist's connection with the stage of course belongs to this history. His connection with the author of these Plays, and with the player himself, are points not to be overlooked. But the literary history of this age is not yet fully developed. It is enough to say here, that he chanced to be honored with the patronage of three of the most illustrious personages of the age in which he lived. He had three patrons. One was Sir Walter Raleigh, in whose service he was; one was the Lord Bacon, whose well nigh idolatrous admirer he appears also to have been; the other was Shakspere, to whose favor he appears to have owed so much. With his passionate admiration of these last two, stopping only 'this side of idolatry' in his admiration for them both, and being under such deep personal obligations to them both, why could he not have mentioned some day to the author of the Advancement of Learning, the author of Hamlet—Hamlet who also 'lacked advancement?' What more natural than to suppose that these two philosophers, these men of a learning so exactly equal, might have some sympathy with each other, might like to meet each other. Till he has answered that question, any evidence which he may have to produce in apparent opposition to the conclusions here stated will not be of the least value.
These are questions which any one might properly ask, who had only glanced at the most superficial or easily accessible facts in this case, and without any evidence from any other source to stimulate the inquiry. These are facts which lie on the surface of this history, which obtrude themselves on our notice, and demand inquiry.
That which lies immediately below this surface, accessible to any research worthy of the name is, that these two so new extraordinary developments of the modern philosophy which come to us without any superficially avowed connexion, which come to us as branches of learning merely, do in fact meet and unite in one stem, 'which has a quality of entireness and continuance throughout,' even to the most delicate fibre of them both, even to the 'roots' of their trunk, 'and the strings of those roots,' which trunk lies below the surface of that age, buried, carefully buried, for reasons assigned; and that it is the sap of this concealed trunk, this new trunk of sciences, which makes both these branches so vigorous, which makes the flowers and the fruit both so fine, and so unlike anything that we have had from any other source in the way of literature or art.
The question of the authorship of the great philosophic poems which are the legacy of the Elizabethan Age to us, is an incidental question in this inquiry, and is incidentally treated here. The discovery of the authorship of these works was the necessary incident to that more thorough inquiry into their nature and design, of which the views contained in this volume are the result. At a certain stage of this inquiry,—in the later stages of it,—that discovery became inevitable. The primary question here is one of universal immediate practical concern and interest. The solution of this literary problem, happens to be involved in it. It was the necessary prescribed, pre-ordered incident of the reproduction and reintegration of the Inductive Philosophy in its application to its 'principal' and 'noblest subjects,' its 'more chosen subjects.'
The HISTORICAL KEY to the Elizabethan Art of Tradition, which formed the first book of this work as it was originally prepared for the press, is not included in the present publication. It was the part of the work first written, and the results of more recent research require to be incorporated in it, in order that it should represent adequately, in that particular aspect of it, the historical discovery which it is the object of this work to produce. Moreover, the demonstration which is contained in this volume appeared to constitute properly a volume of itself.
Those who examine the subject from this ground, will find the external collateral evidence, the ample historical confirmation which is at hand, not necessary for the support of the propositions advanced here, though it will, of course, be inquired for, when once this ground is made.
The embarrassing circumstances under which this great system of scientific practice makes its appearance in history, have not yet been taken into the account in our interpretation of it. We have already the documents which contain the theory and rule of the modern civilisation, which is the civilisation of science in our hands. We have in our hands also, newly lit, newly trimmed, lustrous with the genius of our own time, that very lamp with which we are instructed to make this inquiry, that very light which we are told we must bring to bear upon the obscurities of these documents, that very light in which we are told, we must unroll them; for they come to us, as the interpreter takes pains to tell us, with an 'infolded' science in them. That light of 'times,' that knowledge of the conditions under which these works were published, which is essential to the true interpretation of them, thanks to our contemporary historians, is already in our hands. What we need now is to explore the secrets of this philosophy with it,—necessarily secrets at the time it was issued—what we need now is to open these books of a new learning in it, and read them by it.
In that part of the work above referred to, from which some extracts are subjoined for the purpose of introducing intelligibly the demonstration contained in this volume, it was the position of the Elizabethan Men of Letters that was exhibited, and the conditions which prescribed to the founders of a new school in philosophy, which was none other than the philosophy of practice, the form of their works and the concealment of their connection with them—conditions which made the secret of an Association of 'Naturalists' applying science in that age to the noblest subjects of speculative inquiry, and to the highest departments of practice, a life and death secret. The physical impossibility of publishing at that time, anything openly relating to the questions in which the weal of men is most concerned, and which are the primary questions of the science of man's relief, the opposition which stood at that time prepared to crush any enterprise proposing openly for its end, the common interests of man as man, is the point which it was the object of that part of the work to exhibit. It was presented, not in the form of general statement merely, but in those memorable particulars which the falsified, suppressed, garbled history of the great founder of this school betrays to us; not as it is exhibited in contemporary documents merely, but as it is carefully collected from these, and from the traditions of 'the next ages.'
That the suppressed Elizabethan Reformers and Innovators were men so far in advance of their time, that they were compelled to have recourse to literature for the purpose of instituting a gradual encroachment on popular opinions, a gradual encroachment on the prejudices, the ignorance, the stupidity of the oppressed and suffering masses of the human kind, and for the purpose of making over the practical development of the higher parts of their science, to ages in which the advancements they instituted had brought the common mind within hearing of these higher truths; that these were men whose aims were so opposed to the power that was still predominant then,—though the 'wrestling' that would shake that predominance, was already on foot,—that it became necessary for them to conceal their lives as well as their works,—to veil the true worth and nobility of them, to suffer those ends which they sought as means, means which they subordinated to the noblest uses, to be regarded in their own age as their ends; that they were compelled to play this great game in secret, in their own time, referring themselves to posthumous effects for the explanation of their designs; postponing their honour to ages able to discover their worth; this is the proposition which is derived here from the works in which the tradition of this learning is conveyed to us.
But in the part of this work referred to, from which the ensuing extracts are made, it was the life, and not merely the writings of the founders of this school which was produced in evidence of this claim. It was the life in which these disguised ulterior aims show themselves from the first on the historic surface, in the form of great contemporaneous events, events which have determined and shaped the course of the world's history since then; it was the life in which these intents show themselves too boldly on the surface, in which they penetrate the artistic disguise, and betray themselves to the antagonisms which were waiting to crush them; it was the life which combined these antagonisms for its suppression; it was the life and death of the projector and founder of the liberties of the New World, and the obnoxious historian and critic of the tyrannies of the Old, it was the life and death of Sir Walter Raleigh that was produced as the Historical Key to the Elizabethan Art of Tradition. It was the Man of the Globe Theatre, it was the Man in the Tower with his two Hemispheres, it was the modern 'Hercules and his load too,' that made in the original design of it, the Frontispiece of this volume.
  'But stay I see thee in the hemisphere
  Advanced and made a constellation there.
  Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage
  Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage,
  Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned like night,
  And despairs day, but for thy Volume's light.
  ['To draw no envy Shake-spear on thy name,
  Am I thus ample to thy book and fame.'—BEN JONSON.]
The machinery that was necessarily put in operation for the purpose of conducting successfully, under those conditions, any honourable or decent enterprise, presupposes a forethought and skill, a faculty for dramatic arrangement and successful plotting in historic materials, happily so remote from anything which the exigencies of our time have ever suggested to us, that we are not in a position to read at a glance the history of such an age; the history which lies on the surface of such an age when such men—men who are men—are at work in it. These are the Elizabethan men that we have to interpret here, because, though they rest from their labours, their works do follow them—the Elizabethan Men of Letters; and we must know what that title means before we can read them or their works, before we can 'untie their spell.'
'The times, in many cases, give great light to true interpretations.' Advancement of Learning.
  'On fair ground
  I could beat forty of them.'
  'I could myself
  Take up a brace of the best of them, yea the two tribunes.'
  'But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic,
  And manhood is called foolery when it stands
  Against a falling fabric.'—Coriolanus.
The fact that the immemorial liberties of the English PEOPLE, and that idea of human government and society which they brought with them to this island, had been a second time violently overborne and suppressed by a military chieftainship,—one for which the unorganised popular resistance was no match,—that the English People had been a second time 'conquered'—for that is the word which the Elizabethan historian suggests—less than a hundred years before the beginning of the Elizabethan Age, is a fact in history which the great Elizabethan philosopher has contrived to send down to us, along with his philosophical works, as the key to the reading of them. It is a fact with which we are all now more or less familiar, but it is one which the Elizabethan Poet and Philosopher became acquainted with under circumstances calculated to make a much more vivid impression on the sensibilities than the most accurate and vivacious narratives and expositions of it which our time can furnish us.
That this second conquest was unspeakably more degrading than the first had been, inasmuch as it was the conquest of a chartered, constitutional liberty, recovered and established in acts that had made the English history, recovered on battle-fields that were fresh, not in oral tradition only; inasmuch as it was effected in violation of that which made the name of Englishmen, that which made the universally recognised principle of the national life; inasmuch, too, as it was an undivided conquest, the conquest of the single will—the will of the 'one only man'—not unchecked of commons only, unchecked by barons, unchecked by the church, unchecked by council of any kind, the pure arbitrary absolute will, the pure idiosyncrasy, the crowned demon of the lawless, irrational will, unchained and armed with the sword of the common might, and clothed with the divinity of the common right; that this was a conquest unspeakably more debasing than the conquest 'commonly so called,'—this, which left no nobility,—which clasped its collar in open day on the proudest Norman neck, and not on the Saxon only, which left only one nation of slaves and bondmen—that this was a subjugation—that this was a government which the English nation had not before been familiar with, the men whose great life-acts were performed under it did not lack the sensibility and the judgment to perceive.
A more hopeless conquest than the Norman conquest had been, it might also have seemed, regarded in some of the aspects which it presented to the eye of the statesman then; for it was in the division of the former that the element of freedom stole in, it was in the parliaments of that division that the limitation of the feudal monarchy had begun.
But still more fatal was the aspect of it which its effects on the national character were continually obtruding then on the observant eye,—that debasing, deteriorating, demoralising effect which such a government must needs exert on such a nation, a nation of Englishmen, a nation with such memories. The Poet who writes under this government, with an appreciation of the subject quite as lively as that of any more recent historian, speaks of 'the face of men' as a 'motive'—a motive power, a revolutionary force, which ought to be sufficient of itself to raise, if need be, an armed opposition to such a government, and sustain it, too, without the compulsion of an oath to reinforce it; at least, this is one of the three motives which he produces in his conspiracy as motives that ought to suffice to supply the power wanting to effect a change in such a government.
'If not the face of men, The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse,— If these be motives weak, break of betimes.'
There is no use in attempting a change where such motives are weak.
  'Break off betimes,
  And every man hence to his idle bed.'
That this political degradation, and its deteriorating and corrupting influence on the national character, was that which presented itself to the politician's eye at that time as the most fatal aspect of the question, or as the thing most to be deprecated in the continuance of such a state of things, no one who studies carefully the best writings of that time can doubt.
And it must be confessed, that this is an influence which shows itself very palpably, not in the degrading hourly detail only of which the noble mind is, in such circumstances, the suffering witness, and the secretly protesting suffering participator, but in those large events which make the historic record. The England of the Plantagenets, that sturdy England which Henry the Seventh had to conquer, and not its pertinacious choice of colours only, not its fixed determination to have the choosing of the colour of its own 'Roses' merely, but its inveterate idea of the sanctity of 'law' permeating all the masses—that was a very different England from the England which Henry the Seventh willed to his children; it was a very different England, at least, from the England which Henry the Eighth willed to his.
That some sparks of the old fire were not wanting, however,—that the nation which had kept alive in the common mind through so many generations, without the aid of books, the memory of that 'ancestor' that 'made its laws,' was not after all, perhaps, without a future—began to be evident about the time that the history of 'that last king of England who was the ancestor' of the English Stuart, was dedicated by the author of the Novum Organum to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles I., not without a glance at these portents.
Circumstances tending to throw doubt upon the durability of this institution—circumstances which seemed to portend that this monstrous innovation was destined on the whole to be a much shorter-lived one than the usurpation it had displaced—had not been wanting, indeed, from the first, in spite of those discouraging aspects of the question which were more immediately urged upon the contemporary observer.
It was in the eleventh century; it was in the middle of the Dark Ages, that the Norman and his followers effected their successful landing and lodgement here; it was in the later years of the fifteenth century,—it was when the bell that tolled through Europe for a century and a half the closing hour of the Middle Ages, had already begun its peals, that the Tudor 'came in by battle.'
That magnificent chain of events which begins in the middle of the fifteenth century to rear the dividing line between the Middle Ages and the Modern, had been slow in reaching England with its convulsions: it had originated on the continent. The great work of the restoration of the learning of antiquity had been accomplished there: Italy, Germany, and France had taken the lead in it by turns; Spain had contributed to it. The scientific discoveries which the genius of Modern Europe had already effected under that stimulus, without waiting for the New Organum, had all originated on the continent. The criticism on the institutions which the decaying Roman Empire had given to its Northern conquerors,—that criticism which necessarily accompanied the revival of learning began there. Not yet recovered from the disastrous wars of the fifteenth century, suffering from the diabolical tyranny that had overtaken her at that fatal crisis, England could make but a feeble response as yet to these movements. They had been going on for a century before the influence of them began to be visible here. But they were at work here, notwithstanding: they were germinating and taking root here, in that frozen winter of a nation's discontent; and when they did begin to show themselves on the historic surface,—here in this ancient soil of freedom,—in this natural retreat of it, from the extending, absorbing, consolidating feudal tyrannies,—here in this 'little world by itself'—this nursery of the genius of the North—with its chief races, with its union of races, its 'happy breed of men,' as our Poet has it, who notes all these points, and defines its position, regarding it, not with a narrow English partiality, but looking at it on his Map of the World, which he always carries with him,—looking at it from his 'Globe,' which has the Old World and the New on it, and the Past and the Future,—'a precious stone set in the silver sea,' he calls it, 'in a great pool, a swan's nest':—when that seed of all ages did at last show itself above the ground here, here in this nursery of hope for man, it would be with quite another kind of fruit on its boughs, from any that the continent had been able to mature from it.
It was in the later years of the sixteenth century, in the latter half of the reign of Elizabeth, that the Printing press, and the revived Learning of Antiquity, and the Reformation, and the discovery of America, the new revival of the genius of the North in art and literature, and the Scientific Discoveries which accompanied this movement on the continent, began to combine their effects here; and it was about that time that the political horizon began to exhibit to the statesman's eye, those portents which both the poet and the philosopher of that time, have described with so much iteration and amplitude. These new social elements did not appear to promise in their combination here, stability to the institutions which Henry the Seventh, and Henry the Eighth had established in this island.
The genius of Elizabeth conspired with the anomaly of her position to make her the steadfast patron and promoter of these movements,—worthy grand-daughter of Henry the seventh as she was, and opposed on principle, as she was, to the ultimatum to which they were visibly and stedfastly tending; but, at the same time, her sagacity and prudence enabled her to ward off the immediate result. She secured her throne,—she was able to maintain, in the rocking of those movements, her own political and spiritual supremacy,—she made gain and capital for absolutism out of them,—the inevitable reformation she herself assumed, and set bounds to: whatever new freedom there was, was still the freedom of her will; she could even secure the throne of her successor: it was mischief for Charles I. that she was nursing. The consequence of all this was—the Age of Elisabeth.
That was what this Queen meant it should be literally, and that was what it was apparently. But it so happened, that her will and humours on some great questions jumped with the time, and her dire necessities compelled her to lead the nation on its own track; or else it would have been too late, perhaps, for that exhibition of the monarchical institution,—that revival of the heroic, and ante-heroic ages, which her reign exhibits, to come off here as it did at that time.
It is this that makes the point in this literary history. This is the key that unlocks the secret of the Elizabethan Art of Delivery and Tradition. Without any material resources to sustain it—strong in the national sentiments,—strong in the moral forces with which the past controls the present,—strong in that natural abhorrence of change with which nature protects her larger growths,—that principle which tyranny can test so long with impunity—which it can test with impunity, till it forgets that this also has in nature its limits,—strong in the absence of any combination of opposition, to the young awakening England of that age, that now hollow image of the past, that phantom of the military force that had been, which seemed to be waiting only the first breath of the popular will to dissolve it, was as yet an armed and terrific reality; its iron was on every neck, its fetter was on every step, and all the new forces, and world-grasping aims and aspirations which that age was generating were held down and cramped, and tortured in its chains, dashing their eagle wings in vain against its iron limits.
As yet all England cowered and crouched, in blind servility, at the foot of that terrible, but unrecognised embodiment of its own power, armed out of its own armoury, with the weapons that were turned against it. So long as any yet extant national sentiment, or prejudice, was not yet directly assailed—so long as that arbitrary power was yet wise, or fortunate enough to withhold the blow which should make the individual sense of outrage, or the feeling of a class the common one—so long as those peaceful, social elements, yet waited the spark that was wanting to unite them—so long 'the laws of England' might be, indeed, at a Falstaff's or a Nym's or a Bardolph's 'commandment,' for the Poet has but put into 'honest Jack's' mouth, a boast that worse men than he, made good in his time—so long, the faith, the lives, the liberties, the dearest earthly hopes, of England's proudest subjects, her noblest, her bravest, her best, her most learned, her most accomplished, her most inspired, might be at the mercy of a woman's caprices, or the sport of a fool's sheer will and obstinacy, or conditioned on some low-lived 'favorites' whims. So long: And how long was that?—who does not know how long it was?—that was long enough for the whole Elizabethan Age to happen in. In the reign of Elizabeth, and in the reign of her successor, and longer still, that was the condition of it—till its last act was finished—till its last word was spoken and penned—till its last mute sign was made—till all its celestial inspiration had returned to the God who gave it—till all its Promethean clay was cold again.
This was the combination of conditions of which the Elizabethan Literature was the result. The Elizabethan Men of Letters, the organisers and chiefs of the modern civilization were the result of it.
These were men in whom the genius of the North in its happiest union of developments, under its choicest and most favourable conditions of culture, in its yet fresh, untamed, unbroken, northern vigour, was at last subjected to the stimulus and provocation which the ancient learning brings with it to the northern mind—to the now unimaginable stimulus which, the revival of the ancient art and learning brought with it to the mind of Europe in that age,—already secure, in its own indigenous development, already advancing to its own great maturity under the scholastic culture—the meagre Scholastic, and the rich Romantic culture—of the Mediaeval Era. The Elizabethan Men of Letters are men who found in those new and dazzling stores of art and literature which the movements of their age brought in all their freshly restored perfection to them, only the summons to their own slumbering intellectual activities,—fed with fires that old Eastern and Southern civilizations never knew, nurtured in the depths of a nature whose depths the northern antiquity had made; they were men who found in the learning of the South and the East—in the art and speculation that had satisfied the classic antiquity—only the definition of their own nobler want.
The first result of the revival of the ancient learning in this island was, a report of its 'defects.' The first result of that revival here was a map—a universal map of the learning and the arts which the conditions of man's life require—a new map or globe of learning on which lands and worlds, undreamed of by the ancients, are traced. 'A map or globe' on which 'the principal and supreme sciences,' the sciences that are essential to the human kind, are put down among 'the parts that lie fresh and waste, and not converted by the industry of man.' The first result of the revival of learning here was 'a plot' for the supply of these deficiencies.
The Elizabethan Men of Letters were men, in whom the revival of 'the Wisdom of the Ancients,' which in its last results, in its most select and boasted conservations had combined in vain to save antiquity, found the genius of a happier race, able to point out at a glance the defect in it; men who saw with a glance at those old books what was the matter with them; men prepared already to overlook from the new height of criticism which this sturdy insular development of the practical genius of the North created, the remains of that lost civilization—the splendours rescued from the wreck of empires,—the wisdom which had failed so fatally in practice that it must needs cross from a lost world of learning to the barbarian's new one, to find pupils—that it must needs cross the gulf of a thousand years in learning—such work had it made of it—ere it could revive,—the wisdom rescued from the wreck it had piloted to ruin, not to enslave, and ensnare, and doom new ages, and better races, with its futilities, but to be hung up with its immortal beacon-light, to shew the track of a new learning, to shew to the contrivers of the chart of new ages, the breakers of that old ignorance, that old arrogant wordy barren speculation. For these men were men who would not fish up the chart of a drowned world for the purpose of seeing how nearly they could conduct another under different conditions of time and races to the same conclusion. And they were men of a different turn of mind entirely from those who lay themselves out on enterprises having that tendency. The result of this English survey of learning was the sanctioned and organised determination of the modern speculation to those new fields which it has already occupied, and its organised, but secret determination, to that end of a true learning which the need of man, in its whole comprehension in this theory of it, constitutes.
But the men with whom this proceeding originates, the Elizabethan Men of Letters, were, in their own time, 'the Few.' They were the chosen men, not of an age only, but of a race, 'the noblest that ever lived in the tide of times;' men enriched with the choicest culture of their age, when that culture involved not the acquisition of the learning of the ancients only, but the most intimate acquaintance with all those recent and contemporaneous developments with which its restoration on the Continent had been attended. Was it strange that these men should find themselves without sympathy in an age like that?—an age in which the masses were still unlettered, callous with wrongs, manacled with blind traditions, or swaying hither and thither, with the breath of a common prejudice or passion, or swayed hither and thither by the changeful humours and passions, or the conflicting dogmas and conceits of their rulers. That is the reason why the development of that age comes to us as a Literature. That is why it is on the surface of it Elizabethan. That is the reason why the leadership of the modern ages, when it was already here in the persons of its chief interpreters and prophets, could get as yet no recognition of its right to teach and rule—could get as yet nothing but paper to print itself on, nothing but a pen to hew its way with, nor that, without death and danger dogging it at the heels, and threatening it, at every turn, so that it could only wave, in mute gesticulation, its signals to the future. It had to affect, in that time, bookishness and wiry scholasticism. It had to put on sedulously the harmless old monkish gown, or the jester's cap and bells, or any kind of a tatterdemalion robe that would hide, from head to heel, the waving of its purple. 'Motley's the only wear,' whispers the philosopher, peering through his privileged garb for a moment. King Charles II. had not more to do in reserving himself in an evil time, and getting safely over to the year of his dominion.
Letters were the only ships that could pass those seas. But it makes a new style in literature, when such men as these, excluded from their natural sphere of activity, get driven into books, cornered into paragraphs, and compelled to unpack their hearts in letters. There is a new tone to the words spoken under such compression. It is a tone that the school and the cloister never rang with,—it is one that the fancy dealers in letters are not able to deal in. They are such words as Caesar speaks, when he puts his legions in battle array,—they are such words as were heard at Salamis one morning, when the breeze began to stiffen in the bay; and though they be many, never so many, and though they be musical, as is Apollo's lute, that Lacedemonian ring is in each one of them. There is great business to be done in them, and their haste looks through their eyes. In the sighing of the lover, in the jest of the fool, in the raving of the madman, and not in Horatio's philosophy only, you hear it.
The founders of the new science of nature and practice were men unspeakably too far above and beyond their time, to take its bone and muscle with them. There was no language in which their doctrines could have been openly conveyed to an English public at that time without fatal misconception. The truth, which was to them arrayed with the force of a universal obligation,—the truth, which was to them religion, would have been, of course, in an age in which a single, narrow-minded, prejudiced Englishwoman's opinions were accepted as the ultimate rule of faith and practice, 'flat atheism.' What was with them loyalty to the supremacy of reason and conscience, would have been in their time madness and rebellion, and the majority would have started at it in amazement; and all men would have joined hands, in the name of truth and justice, to suppress it. The only thing that could be done in such circumstances was, to translate their doctrine into the language of their time. They must take the current terms—the vague popular terms—as they found them, and restrict and enlarge them, and inform them with their new meanings, with a hint to 'men of understanding' as to the sense in which they use them. That is the key to the language in which their books for the future were written.
But who supposes that these men were so wholly super-human, so devoid of mortal affections and passions, so made up of 'dry light,' that they could retreat, with all those regal faculties, from the natural sphere of their activity to the scholar's cell, to make themselves over in books to a future in which their mortal natures could have no share,—a future which could not begin till all the breathers of their world were dead? Who supposes that the 'staff' of Prospero was the first choice of these chiefs?—these 'heads of the State,' appointed of nature to the Cure of the Common-Weal.
The leading minds of that age are not minds which owed their intellectual superiority to a disproportionate development of certain intellectual tendencies, or to a dwarfed or inferior endowment of those natural affections and personal qualifications which tend to limit men to the sphere of their particular sensuous existence. The mind of this school is the representative mind, and all men recognise it as that, because, in its products, that nature which is in all men, which philosophy had, till then, scorned to recognise, which the abstractionists had missed in their abstractions,—that nature of will, and sense, and passion, and inanity, is brought out in its true historical proportions, not as it exists in books, not as it exists in speech, but as it exists in the actual human life. It is the mind in which this historical principle, this motivity which is not reason, is brought in contact with the opposing and controlling element as it had not been before. In all its earth-born Titanic strength and fulness, it is dragged up from its secret lurking-places, and confronted with its celestial antagonist. In all its self-contradiction and cowering unreason, it is set face to face with its celestial umpire, and subjected to her unrelenting criticism. There are depths in this microcosm which this torch only has entered, silences which this speaker only has broken, cries which he only knows how to articulate.
'The soundest disclosing and expounding of men is by their natures and ends,' so the one who is best qualified to give us information on this question tells us,—by their natures and ends; 'the weaker sort by their natures, and the wisest by their ends'; and 'the distance' of this wisest sort 'from the ends to which they aspire,' is that 'from which one may take measure and scale of the rest of their actions and desires.'
The first end which these Elizabethan Men of Letters grasped at, the thing which they pursued with all the intensity and concentration of a master passion, was—power, political power. They wanted to rule their own time, and not the future only. 'You are hurt, because you do not reign,' is the inuendo which they permit us to apply to them as the key to their proceedings. 'Such men as this are never at heart's ease,' Caesar remarks in confidence to a friend, 'whiles they behold a greater than themselves.' 'Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,' he adds, 'and tell me truly what thou think'st of him.' These are the kind of men that seek instinctively 'predominance,' not in a clique or neighbourhood only,—they are not content with a domestic reflection of their image, they seek to stamp it on the state and on the world. These Elizabethan Men of Letters were men who sought from the first, with inveterate determination, to rule their own time, and they never gave up that point entirely. In one way or another, directly or indirectly, they were determined to make their influence felt in that age, in spite of the want of encouragement which the conditions of that time offered to such an enterprise. But they sought that end not instinctively only, but with the stedfastness of a rational, scientifically enlightened purpose. It was an enterprise in which the intense motivity of that new and so 'conspicuous' development of the particular and private nature, which lies at the root of such a genius, was sustained by the determination of that not less superior development of the nobler nature in man, by the motivity of the intellect, by the sentiment which waits on that, by the motive of 'the larger whole,' which is, in this science of it, 'the worthier.'
We do not need to apply the key of times to those indirectly historical remains in which the real history, the life and soul of a time, is always best found, and in which the history of such a time, if written at all, must necessarily be inclosed; we do not need to unlock these works to perceive the indications of suppressed movements in that age, in which the most illustrious men of the age were primarily concerned, the history of which has not yet fully transpired. We do not need to find the key to the cipher in which the history of that time is written, to perceive that there was to have been a change in the government here at one time, very different from the one which afterwards occurred, if the original plans of these men had succeeded. It is not the Plays only that are full of that frustrated enterprise.
These were the kind of men who are not easily baffled. They changed their tactics, but not their ends; and the enterprises which were conducted with so much secresy under the surveillance of the Tudor, began already to crown themselves as certainties, and compare their 'olives of endless age' with the spent tombs of brass' and 'tyrant's crests,' at that sure prospect which, a change of dynasties at that moment seemed to open,—at least, to men who were in a position then to estimate its consequences.
That this, at all events, was a state of things that was not going to endure, became palpable about that time to the philosophic mind. The transition from the rule of a sovereign who was mistress of 'the situation,' who understood that it was a popular power which she was wielding—the transition from the rule of a Queen instructed in the policy of a tyranny, inducted by nature into its arts, to the policy of that monarch who had succeeded to her throne, and whose 'CREST' began to be reared here then in the face of the insulted reviving English nationality,—this transition appeared upon the whole, upon calmer reflection, at least to the more patient minds of that age, all that could reasonably at that time be asked for. No better instrument for stimulating and strengthening the growing popular sentiment, and rousing the latent spirit of the nation, could have been desired by the Elizabethan politicians at that crisis, 'for the great labour was with the people'—that uninstructed power, which makes the sure basis of tyrannies—that power which Mark Antony takes with him so easily—the ignorant, tyrannical, humour-led masses—the masses that still roar their Elizabethan stupidities from the immortal groups of Coriolanus and Julius Caesar. We ourselves have not yet overtaken the chief minds of this age; and the gulf that separated them from those overpowering numbers in their own time, to whose edicts they were compelled to pay an external submission, was broad indeed. The difficulty of establishing an understanding with this power was the difficulty. They wanted that 'pulpit' from which Brutus and Mark Antony swayed it by turns so easily—that pulpit from which Mark Antony showed it Caesar's mantle. They wanted some organ of communication with these so potent and resistless rulers—some 'chair' from which they could repeat to them in their own tongue the story of their lost institutions, and revive in them the memory of 'the kings their ancestors'—some school in which they could collect them and instruct them in the scientific doctrine of the commons, the doctrine of the common-weal and its divine supremacy. They wanted a school in which they could tell them stories—stories of various kinds—such stories as they loved best to hear—Midsummer stories, or Winter's tales, and stories of their own battle-fields—they wanted a school in which they could teach the common people History (and not English history only), with illustrations, large as life, and a magic lantern to aid them,—'visible history.'
But to wait till these slow methods had taken effect, would be, perhaps, to wait, not merely till their estate in the earth was done, but till the mischief they wished to avert was accomplished. And thus it was, that the proposal 'to go the beaten track of getting arms into their hands under colour of Caesar's designs, and because the people understood them not,' came to be considered. To permit the new dynasty to come in without making any terms with it, without insisting upon a definition of that indefinite power which the Tudors had wielded with impunity, and without challenge, would be to make needless work for the future, and to ignore criminally the responsibilities of their own position, so at least some English statesmen of that time, fatally for their favour with the new monarch, were known to have thought. 'To proceed by process,' to check by gradual constitutional measures that overgrown and monstrous power in the state, was the project which these statesmen had most at heart. But that was a movement which required a firm and enlightened popular support. Charters and statutes were dead letters till that could be had. It was fatal to attempt it till that was secured. Failing in that popular support, if the statesman who had attempted that movement, if the illustrious chief, and chief man of his time, who headed it, did secretly meditate other means for accomplishing the same end—which was to limit the prerogative—such means as the time offered, and if the evidence which was wanting on his trial had been produced in proof of it, who that knows what that crisis was would undertake to convict him on it now? He was arrested on suspicion. He was a man who had undertaken to set bounds to the absolute will of the monarch, and therefore he was a dangerous man. [He (Sir Walter Raleigh), together with the Lord Chobham, Sir J. Fortescue, and others, would have obliged the king to articles before he was admitted to the throne, and thought the number of his countrymen should be limited.—Osborne's Memorials of King James.] The charges that were made against him on that shameless trial were indignantly repelled. 'Do you mix, me up with these spiders?' (alluding, perhaps, more particularly to the Jesuit associated with him in this charge). 'Do you think I am a Jack Cade or a Robin Hood?' he said. But though the evidence on this trial is not only in itself illegal, and by confession perjured, but the report of it comes to us with a falsehood on the face of it, and is therefore not to be taken without criticism; that there was a movement of some kind meditated about that time, by persons occupying chief places of trust and responsibility in the nation—a movement not favourable to the continuance of 'the standing departments' in the precise form in which they then stood—that the project of an administrative reform had not, at least, been wholly laid aside—that there was something which did not fully come out on that trial, any one who looks at this report of it will be apt to infer.
It was a project which had not yet proceeded to any overt act; there was no legal evidence of its existence produced on the trial; but suppose there were here, then, already, men 'who loved the fundamental part of state,' more than in such a crisis 'they doubted the change of it'—men 'who preferred a noble life before a long'—men, too, 'who were more discreet' than they were 'fearful,' who thought it good practice to 'jump a body with a dangerous medicine that was sure of death without it;' suppose there was a movement of that kind arrested here then, and the evidence of it were produced, what Englishman, or who that boasts the English lineage to-day, can have a word to say about it? Who had a better right than those men themselves, those statesmen, those heroes, who had waked and watched for their country's weal so long, who had fought her battles on land and sea, and planned them too, not in the tented field and on the rocking deck only, but in the more 'deadly breach' of civil office, whose scaling-ladders had entered even the tyrant's council chamber,—who had a better right than those men themselves to say whether they would be governed by a government of laws, or by the will of the most despicable 'one-only-man power,' armed with sword and lash, that ever a nation of Oriental slaves in their political imbecility cowered under? Who were better qualified than those men themselves, instructed in detail in all the peril of that crisis,—men who had comprehended and weighed with a judgment which has left no successor to its seat, all the conflicting considerations and claims which that crisis brought with it,—who better qualified than these to decide on the measures by which the hideous nuisances of that time should be abated; by which that axe, that sword, that rack, that stake, and all those burglar's tools, and highwayman's weapons, should be taken out of the hands of the mad licentious crew with which an evil time had armed them against the common-weal—those weapons of lawless power, which the people had vainly, for want of leaders, refused before-hand to put into their hands. Who better qualified than these natural chiefs and elected leaders of the nation, to decide on the dangerous measures for suppressing the innovation, which the Tudor and his descendants had accomplished in that ancient sovereignty of laws, which was the sovereignty of this people, which even the Norman and the Plantagenet had been taught to acknowledge? Who better qualified than they to call to an account—'the thief,' the 'cut-purse of the empire and the rule,' who 'found the precious diadem on a shelf, and stole and put it in his pocket'?
['Shall the blessed Sun of Heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries'? A question not to be asked! Shall the blessed 'Son of England' prove a thief, and take purses? A question to be asked. 'The poor abuses of the time want countenance.'
Lear. Take that from me, my friend, who have the power to seal the accuser's lips.]
Who better qualified could be found to head the dangerous enterprise for the deliverance of England from that shame, than the chief in whom her Alfred arose again to break from her neck a baser than the Danish yoke, to restore her kingdom and found her new empire, to give her domains, that the sun never sets on,—her Poet, her Philosopher, her Soldier, her Legislator, the builder of her Empire of the Sea, her founder of new 'States.'
But then, of course, it is only by the rarest conjunction of circumstances, that the movements and plans which such a state of things gives rise to, can get any other than the most opprobrious name and place in history. Success is their only certificate of legitimacy. To attempt to overthrow a government still so strongly planted in the endurance and passivity of the people, might seem, perhaps, to some minds in these circumstances, a hopeless, and, therefore, a criminal undertaking.
'That opportunity which then they had to take from us, to resume, we have again,' might well have seemed a sufficient plea, so it could have been made good. But it is not strange that some few, even then, should find it difficult to believe that the national ruin was yet so entire, that the ashes of the ancient nobility and commons of England were yet so cold, as that a system of despotism like that which was exercised here then, could be permanently and securely fastened over them. It is not strange that it should seem to these impossible that there should not be enough of that old English spirit which, only a hundred years before, had ranged the people in armed thousands, in defence of LAW, against absolutism, enough of it, at least, to welcome and sustain the overthrow of tyranny, when once it should present itself as a fact accomplished, instead of appealing beforehand to a courage, which so many instances of vain and disastrous resistance had at last subdued, and to a spirit which seemed reduced at last, to the mere quality of the master's will.
That was a narrow dominion apparently to which King James consigned his great rival in the arts of government, but that rival of his contrived to rear a 'crest' there which will outlast 'the tyrants,' and 'look fresh still' when tombs that artists were at work on then 'are spent.' 'And when a soldier was his theme, my name—my name [namme de plume] was nor far off.' King James forgot how many weapons this man carried. He took one sword from him, he did not know that that pen, that harmless goose-quill, carried in its sheath another. He did not know what strategical operations the scholar, who was 'an old soldier' and a politician also, was capable of conducting under such conditions. Those were narrow quarters for 'the Shepherd of the Ocean,' for the hero of the two hemispheres, to occupy so long; but it proved no bad retreat for the chief of this movement, as he managed it. It was in that school of Elizabethan statesmanship which had its centre in the Tower, that many a scholarly English gentleman came forth prepared to play his part in the political movements that succeeded. It was out of that school of statesmanship that John Hampden came, accomplished for his part in them.
The papers that the chief of the Protestant cause prepared in that literary retreat to which the Monarch had consigned him, by means of those secret channels of communication among the better minds which he had established in the reign of Elizabeth, became the secret manual of the revolutionary chiefs; they made the first blast of the trumpet that summoned at last the nation to its feet. 'The famous Mr. Hamden' (says an author, who writes in those 'next ages' in which so many traditions of this time are still rife) 'a little before the civil wars was at the charge of transcribing three thousand four hundred and fifty-two sheets of Sir Walter Raleigh's MSS., as the amanuensis himself told me, who had his close chamber, his fire and candle, with an attendant to deliver him the originals and take his copies as fast as he could write them.' That of itself is a pretty little glimpse of the kind of machinery which the Elizabethan literature required for its 'delivery and tradition' at the time, or near the times, in which it was produced. That is a view of 'an Interior' 'before the civil wars.' It was John Milton who concluded, on looking over, a long time afterwards, one of the unpublished papers of this statesman, that it was his duty to give it to the public. 'Having had,' he says, 'the MS. of this treatise ["The Cabinet Council"] written by Sir Walter Raleigh, many years in my hands, and finding it lately by chance among other books and papers, upon reading thereof, I thought it a kind of injury to withhold longer the work of so eminent an author from the public; it being both answerable in style to other works of his already extant, as far as the subject would permit, and given me for a true copy by a learned man at his death, who had collected several such pieces.'
'A kind of injury.'—That is the thought which would naturally take possession of any mind, charged with the responsibility of keeping back for years this man's writings, especially his choicest ones—papers that could not be published then on account of the subject, or that came out with the leaves uncut, labouring with the restrictions which the press opposed then to the issues of such a mind.
That great result which the chief minds of the Modern Ages, under the influence of the new culture, in that secret association of them were able to achieve, that new and all comprehending science of life and practice which they made it their business to perfect and transmit, could not, indeed, as yet be communicated directly to the many. The scientific doctrines of the new time were necessarily limited in that age to the few. But another movement corresponding to that, simultaneous in its origin, related to it in its source, was also in progress here then, proceeding hand in hand with this, playing its game for it, opening the way to its future triumph. This was that movement of the new time,—this was that consequence, not of the revival of learning only, but of the growth of the northern mind which touched everywhere and directly the springs of government, and made 'bold power look pale,' for this was the movement in 'the many.'
This was the movement which had already convulsed the continent; this was the movement of which Raleigh was from the first the soldier; this was 'the cause' of which he became the chief. It was as a youth of seventeen, bursting from those old fastnesses of the Middle Ages that could not hold him any longer, shaking off the films of Aristotle and his commentators, that he girded on his sword for the great world-battle that was raging already in Europe then. It was into the thickest of it, that his first step plunged him. For he was one of that company of a hundred English gentlemen who were waiting but for the first word of permission from Elizabeth to go as volunteers to the aid of the Huguenots. This was the movement which had at last reached England. And like these other continental events which were so slow in taking effect in England when it did begin to unfold here at last; there was a taste of 'the island' in it, in this also.
It was not on the continent only, that Raleigh and other English statesmen were disposed to sustain this movement. It was not possible as yet to bring the common mind openly to the heights of those great doctrines of life and practice which the Wisdom of the Moderns also embodies, but the new teachers of that age knew how to appreciate, as the man of science only can fully appreciate, the worth of those motives that were then beginning to agitate so portentously so large a portion of the English people. The Elizabethan politicians nourished and patronised in secret that growing faction. The scientific politician hailed with secret delight, hailed as the partner of his own enterprise, that new element of political power which the changing time began to reveal here then, that power which was already beginning to unclasp on the necks of the masses, the collar of the absolute will—that was already proclaiming, in the stifled undertones of 'that greater part which carries it,' another supremacy. They gave in secret the right hand of a joyful fellowship to it. At home and abroad the great soldier and statesman, who was the first founder of the Modern Science, headed that faction. He fought its battles by land and sea; he opened the New World to it, and sent it there to work out its problem.
It was the first stage of an advancement that would not rest till it found its true consummation. That infinity which was speaking in its confused tones, as with the voice of many waters, was resolved into music and triumphal marches in the ear of the Interpreter. It gave token that the nobler nature had not died out under the rod of tyranny; it gave token of the earnestness that would not be appeased until the ends that were declared in it were found.
But at the same time, this was a power which the wise men of that age were far from being willing to let loose upon society then in that stage of its development; very far were they from being willing to put the reins into its hands. To balance the dangers that were threatening the world at that crisis was always the problem. It was a very narrow line that the policy which was to save the state had to keep to then. There were evils on both sides. But to the scientific mind there appeared to be a choice in them. The measure on one side had been taken, and it was in all men's hearts, but the abysses on the other no man had sounded. 'The danger of stirring things,'—the dangers, too, of that unscanned swiftness that too late ties leaden pounds to his heels were the dangers that were always threatening the Elizabethan movement, and defining and curbing it. The wisest men of that time leaned towards the monarchy, the monarchy that was, rather than the anarchy that was threatening them. The will of the one rather than the wills of the many, the head of the one rather than 'the many-headed.' To effect the change which the time required without 'wrenching all'—without undoing the work of ages—without setting at large from the restraints of reverence and custom the chained tiger of an unenlightened popular will, this was the problem. The wisest statesmen, the most judicious that the world has ever known were here, with their new science, weighing in exactest scales those issues. We must not quarrel with their concessions to tyranny on the one hand, nor with their determination to effect changes on the other, until we are able to command entirely the position they occupied, and the opposing dangers they had always to consider. We must not judge them till they have had their hearing. What freedom and what hope there is of it upon the earth to-day, is the legacy of their perseverance and endurance.
They experienced many defeats. The hopes of youth, the hopes of manhood in turn grew cold. That the 'glorious day' which 'flattered the mountain tops' of their immortal morning with its sovereign eye would never shine on them; that their own, with all its unimagined splendours obscured so long, would go down hid in those same 'base clouds,' that for them the consummation was to 'peep about to find themselves dishonourable graves' was the conviction under which their later tasks were achieved. It did not abate their ardour. They did not strain one nerve the less for that.
Driven from one field, they showed themselves in another. Driven from the open field, they fought in secret. 'I will bandy with thee in faction, I will o'errun thee with policy, I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways,' the Jester who brought their challenge said. The Elizabethan England rejected the Elizabethan Man. She would have none of his meddling with her affairs. She sent him to the Tower, and to the block, if ever she caught him meddling with them. She buried him alive in the heart of his time. She took the seals of office, she took the sword, from his hands and put a pen in it. She would have of him a Man of Letters. And a Man of Letters he became. A Man of Runes. He invented new letters in his need, letters that would go farther than the sword, that carried more execution in them than the great seal. Banished from the state in that isle to which he was banished, he found not the base-born Caliban only, to instruct, and train, and subdue to his ends, but an Ariel, an imprisoned Ariel, waiting to be released, able to conduct his masques, able to put his girdles round the earth, and to 'perform and point' to his Tempest.
'Go bring the RABBLE, o'er whom I give thee power, here to this place,' was the New Magician's word.
[Here is another version of it.
'When Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord Keeper, lived, every room in Gorhambury was served with a pipe of water from the pond distant about a mile off. In the lifetime of Mr. Anthony Bacon the water ceased, and his lordship coming to the inheritance could not recover the water without infinite charge. When he was Lord Chancellor, he built Verulam House close by the pond yard, for a place of privacy when he was called upon to dispatch any urgent business. And being asked why he built there, his lordship answered that, seeing he could not carry the water to his House, he would carry his House to the water.]
This is not the place for the particulars of this history or for the barest outline of them. They make a volume of themselves. But this glimpse of the circumstances under which the works were composed which it is the object of this volume to open, appeared at the last moment to be required, in the absence of the Historical Key which the proper development of them makes, to that Art of Delivery and Tradition by means of which the secrets of the Elizabethan Age have been conveyed to us.
  'Our court shall be a little Academe,
  Still and contemplative in living Art.'
  'What is the end of study? let me know.'
Love's Labour's Lost.
But it was not on the New World wholly, that this man of many toils could afford to lavish the revenues which the Queen's favour brought him. It was not to that enterprise alone that he was willing to dedicate the eclat and influence of his rising name. There was work at home which concerned him more nearly, not less deeply, to which that new influence was made at once subservient; and in that there were enemies to be encountered more formidable than the Spaniard on his own deck, or on his own coast, with all his war-weapons and defences. It was an enemy which required a strategy more subtle than any which the exigencies of camp and field had called for.
The fact that this hero throughout all his great public career—so full of all kinds of excitement and action—enough, one would say, to absorb the energies of a mind of any ordinary human capacity—that this soldier whose name had become, on the Spanish coasts, what the name of 'Coeur de Lion' was in the Saracen nursery, that this foreign adventurer who had a fleet of twenty-three ships sailing at one time on his errands—this legislator, for he sat in Parliament as representative of his native shire—this magnificent courtier, who had raised himself, without any vantage-ground at all, from a position wholly obscure, by his personal achievements and merits, to a place in the social ranks so exalted; to a place in the state so near that—which was chief and absolute—the fact that this many-sided man of deeds, was all the time a literary man, not a scholar merely, but himself an Originator, a Teacher, the Founder of a School—this is the explanatory point in this history—this is the point in it which throws light on all the rest of it, and imparts to it its true dignity.
For he was not a mere blind historical agent, driven by fierce instincts, intending only their own narrow ends, without any faculty of comprehensive survey and choice of intentions; impelled by thirst of adventure, or thirst of power, or thirst of gold, to the execution of his part in the great human struggle for conservation and advancement; working like other useful agencies in the Providential Scheme—like 'the stormy wind fulfilling his pleasure.'
There is, indeed, no lack of the instinctive element in this heroic 'composition;' there is no stronger and more various and complete development of it. That 'lumen siccum' which his great contemporary is so fond of referring to in his philosophy, that dry light which is so apt, he tells us, in most men's minds, to get 'drenched' a little sometimes, in 'the humours and affections,' and distorted and refracted in their mediums, did not always, perhaps, in its practical determinations, escape from that accident even in the philosopher's own; but in this stormy, world-hero, there was a latent volcano of will and passion; there was, in his constitution, 'a complexion' which might even seem to the bystanders to threaten at times, by its 'o'ergrowth,' the 'very pales and forts of reason'; but the intellect was, notwithstanding, in its due proportion in him; and it was the majestic intellect that triumphed in the end. It was the large and manly comprehension, 'the large discourse looking before and after,' it was the overseeing and active principle of 'the larger whole,' that predominated and had the steering of his course. It is the common human form which shines out in him and makes that manly demonstration, which commands our common respect, in spite of those particular defects and o'ergrowths which are apt to mar its outline in the best historical types and patterns of it, we have been able to get as yet. It was the intellect, and the sense which belongs to that in its integrity—it was the truth and the feeling of its obligation, which was sovereign with him. For this is a man who appears to have been occupied with the care of the common-weal more than with anything else; and that, too, under great disadvantages and impediments, and when there was no honour in caring for it truly, but that kind of honour which he had so much of; for this was the time precisely which the poet speaks of in that play in which he tells us that the end of playing is 'to give to the very age and body of the time its form and pressure.' This was the time when 'virtue of vice must pardon beg, and curb and beck for leave to do it good.' It was the relief of man's estate, or the Creator's glory, that he busied himself about; that was the end of his ends; or if not, then was he, indeed, no hero at all. For it was the doctrine of his own school, and 'the first human principle' taught in it, that men who act without reference to that distinctly human aim, without that manly consideration and kind-liness of purpose, can lay no claim either to divine or human honours; that they are not, in fact, men, but failures; specimens of an unsuccessful attempt in nature, at an advancement; or, as his great contemporary states it more clearly, 'only a nobler kind of vermin.'
During all the vicissitudes of his long and eventful public life, Raleigh was still persistently a scholar. He carried his books—his 'trunk of books' with him in all his adventurous voyages; and they were his 'companions' in the toil and excitement of his campaigns on land. He studied them in the ocean-storm; he studied them in his tent, as Brutus studied in his. He studied them year after year, in the dim light which pierced the deep embrasure of those walls with which tyranny had thought to shut in at last his world-grasping energies.
He had had some chance to study 'men and manners' in that strange and various life of his, and he did not lack the skill to make the most of it; but he was not content with that narrow, one-sided aspect of life and human nature, to which his own individual personal experience, however varied, must necessarily limit him. He would see it under greater varieties, under all varieties of conditions. He would know the history of it; he would 'delve it to the root.' He would know how that particular form of it, which he found on the surface in his time, had come to be the thing he found it. He would know what it had been in other times, in the beginning, or in that stage of its development in which the historic light first finds it. He was a man who wished even to know what it had been in the Assyrian, in the Phenician, in the Hebrew, in the Egyptian; he would see what it had been in the Greek, and in the Roman. He was, indeed, one of that clique of Elizabethan Naturalists, who thought that there was no more curious thing in nature; and instead of taking a Jack Cade view of the subject, and inferring that an adequate knowledge of it comes by nature, as reading and writing do in that worthy's theory of education, it was the private opinion of this school, that there was no department of learning which a scholar could turn his attention to, that required a more severe and thorough study and experiment, and none that a man of a truly scientific turn of mind would find better worth his leisure. And the study of antiquity had not yet come to be then what it is now; at least, with men of this stamp. Such men did not study it to discipline their minds, or to get a classic finish to their style. The books that such a man as this could take the trouble to carry about with him on such errands as those that he travelled on, were books that had in them, for the eager eyes that then o'er-ran them, the world's 'news'—the world's story. They were full of the fresh living data of his conclusions. They were notes that the master minds of all the ages had made for him; invaluable aid and sympathy they had contrived to send to him. The man who had been arrested in his career, more ignominiously than the magnificent Tully had been in his,—in a career, too, a thousand times more noble,—by a Caesar, indeed, but such a Caesar;—the man who had sat for years with the executioner's block in his yard, waiting only for a scratch of the royal pen, to bring down upon him that same edge which the poor Cicero, with all his truckling, must feel at last,—such a one would look over the old philosopher's papers with an apprehension of their meaning, somewhat more lively than that of the boy who reads them for a prize, or to get, perhaps, some classic elegancies transfused into his mind.
During the ten years which intervene between the date of Raleigh's first departure for the Continent and that of his beginning favour at home, already he had found means for ekeing out and perfecting that liberal education which Oxford had only begun for him, so that it was as a man of rarest literary accomplishments that he made his brilliant debût at the English Court, where the new Elizabethan Age of Letters was just then beginning.
He became at once the centre of that little circle of highborn wits and poets, the elder wits and poets of the Elizabethan age, that were then in their meridian there. Sir Philip Sidney, Thomas Lord Buckhurst, Henry Lord Paget, Edward Earl of Oxford, and some others, are included in the contemporary list of this courtly company, whose doings are somewhat mysteriously adverted to by a critic, who refers to the condition of 'the Art of Poesy' at that time. 'The gentleman who wrote the late Shepherds' Calendar' was beginning then to attract considerable attention in this literary aristocracy.
The brave, bold genius of Raleigh flashed new life into that little nucleus of the Elizabethan development. The new 'Round Table,' which that newly-beginning age of chivalry, with its new weapons and devices, and its new and more heroic adventure had created, was not yet 'full' till he came in. The Round Table grew rounder with this knight's presence. Over those dainty stores of the classic ages, over those quaint memorials of the elder chivalry, that were spread out on it, over the dead letter of the past, the brave Atlantic breeze came in, the breath of the great future blew, when the turn came for this knight's adventure; whether opened in the prose of its statistics, or set to its native music in the mystic melodies of the bard who was there to sing it. The Round Table grew spheral, as he sat talking by it; the Round Table dissolved, as he brought forth his lore, and unrolled his maps upon it; and instead of it,—with all its fresh yet living interests, tracked out by land and sea, with the great battle-ground of the future outlined on it,—revolved the round world. 'Universality' was still the motto of these Paladins; but 'THE GLOBE'—the Globe, with its TWO hemispheres, became henceforth their device.
The promotion of Raleigh at Court was all that was needed to make him the centre and organiser of that new intellectual movement which was then just beginning there. He addressed himself to the task as if he had been a man of literary tastes and occupations merely, or as if that particular crisis had been a time of literary leisure with him, and there were nothing else to be thought of just then. The relation of those illustrious literary partners of his, whom he found already in the field when he first came to it, to that grand development of the English genius in art and philosophy which follows, ought not indeed to be overlooked or slightly treated in any thorough history of it. For it has its first beginning here in this brilliant assemblage of courtiers, and soldiers, and scholars,—this company of Poets, and Patrons and Encouragers of Art and Learning. Least of all should the relation which the illustrious founder of this order sustains to the later development be omitted in any such history,—'the prince and mirror of all chivalry,' the patron of the young English Muse, whose untimely fate keeps its date for ever green, and fills the air of this new 'Helicon' with immortal lamentations. The shining foundations of that so splendid monument of the later Elizabethan genius, which has paralyzed and confounded all our criticism, were laid here. The extraordinary facilities which certain departments of literature appeared to offer, for evading the restrictions which this new poetic and philosophic development had to encounter from the first, already began to attract the attention of men acquainted with the uses to which it had been put in antiquity, and who knew what gravity of aim, what height of execution, that then rude and childish English Play had been made to exhibit under other conditions;—men fresh from the study of those living and perpetual monuments of learning, which the genius of antiquity has left in this department. But the first essays of the new English scholarship in this untried field,—the first attempts at original composition here, derive, it must be confessed, their chief interest and value from that memorable association in which we find them. It was the first essay, which had to be made before those finished monuments of art, which command our admiration on their own account wholly, could begin to appear. It was 'the tuning of the instruments, that those who came afterwards might play the better.' We see, of course, the stiff, cramped hand of the beginner here, instead of the grand touch of the master, who never comes till his art has been prepared to his hands,—till the details of its execution have been mastered for him by others. In some arts there must be generations of essays before he can get his tools in a condition for use. Ages of prophetic genius, generations of artists, who dimly saw afar off, and struggled after his perfections, must patiently chip and daub their lives away, before ever the star of his nativity can begin to shine.
Considering what a barbaric age it was that the English mind was emerging from then; and the difficulties attending the first attempt to create in the English literature, anything which should bear any proportion to those finished models of skill which were then dazzling the imagination of the English scholar in the unworn gloss of their fresh revival here, and discouraging, rather than stimulating, the rude poetic experiment;—considering what weary lengths of essay there are always to be encountered, where the standard of excellence is so far beyond the power of execution; we have no occasion to despise the first bold attempts to overcome these difficulties which the good taste of this company has preserved to us. They are just such works as we might expect under those circumstances;—yet full of the pedantries of the new acquisition, overflowing on the surface with the learning of the school, sparkling with classic allusions, seizing boldly on the classic original sometimes, and working their new fancies into it; but, full already of the riant vigour and originality of the Elizabethan inspiration; and never servilely copying a foreign original. The English genius is already triumphant in them. Their very crudeness is not without its historic charm, when once their true place in the structure we find them in, is recognised. In the later works, this crust of scholarship has disappeared, and gone below the surface. It is all dissolved, and gone into the clear intelligence;— it has all gone to feed the majestic current of that new, all-subduing, all-grasping originality. It is in these earlier performances that the stumbling-blocks of our present criticism are strewn so thickly. Nobody can write any kind of criticism of the 'Comedy of Errors,' for instance, without recognizing the Poet's acquaintance with the classic model, [See a recent criticism in 'The Times.']—without recognizing the classic treatment. 'Love's Labour's Lost,' 'The Taming of the Shrew,' the condemned parts of 'Henry the VI.,' and generally the Poems which are put down in our criticism as doubtful, or as the earlier Poems, are just those Poems in which the Poet's studies are so flatly betrayed on the surface. Among these are plays which were anonymously produced by the company performing at the Rose Theatre, and other companies which English noblemen found occasion to employ in their service then. These were not so much as produced at the theatre which has had the honor of giving its name to other productions, bound up with them. We shall find nothing to object to in that somewhat heterogeneous collection of styles, which even a single Play sometimes exhibits, when once the history of this phenomenon accompanies it. The Cathedrals that were built, or re-built throughout, just at the moment in which the Cathedral Architecture had attained its ultimate perfection, are more beautiful to the eye, perhaps, than those in which the story of its growth is told from the rude, massive Anglo-Saxon of the crypt or the chancel, to the last refinement of the mullion, and groin, and tracery. But the antiquary, at least, does not regret the preservation. And these crude beginnings here have only to be put in their place, to command from the critic, at least, a similar respect. For here, too, the history reports itself to the eye, and not less palpably.
It may seem surprising, and even incredible, to the modern critic, that men in this position should find any occasion to conceal their relation to those quite respectable contributions to the literature of the time, which they found themselves impelled to make. The fact that they did so, is one that we must accept, however, on uncontradicted cotemporary testimony, and account for it as we can. The critic who published his criticisms when 'the gentleman who wrote the late Shepherd's Calendar' was just coming into notice, however inferior to our modern critics in other respects, had certainly a better opportunity of informing himself on this point, than they can have at present. 'They have writ excellently well,' he says of this company of Poets,—this 'courtly company,' as he calls them,—' they have writ excellently well, if their doings could be found out and made public with the rest.' Sir Philip Sidney, Raleigh, and the gentleman who wrote the late Shepherd's Calendar, are included in the list of Poets to whom this remark is applied. It is Raleigh's verse which is distinguished, however, in this commendation as the most 'lofty, insolent, and passionate;' a description which applies to the anonymous poems alluded to, but is not particularly applicable to those artificial and tame performances which he was willing to acknowledge. And this so commanding Poet, who was at the same time an aspiring courtier and meddler in affairs of state, and who chose, for some mysterious reason or other, to forego the honours which those who were in the secret of his literary abilities and successes,—the very best judges of poetry in that time, too, were disposed to accord him,—and we are not without references to cases in antiquity corresponding very nearly to this; and which seemed to furnish, at least, a sufficient precedent for this proceeding;—this so successful poet, and courtier, and great man of his time, was already in a position to succeed at once to that chair of literary patronage which the death of Sir Philip Sidney had left vacant. Instinctively generous, he was ready to serve the literary friends whom he attracted to him, not less lavishly than he had served the proud Queen herself, when he threw his gay cloak in her obstructed path,—at least, he was not afraid of risking those sudden splendours which her favour was then showering upon him, by wearying her with petitions on their behalf. He would have risked his new favour, at least with his 'Cynthia,'—that twin sister of Phoebus Apollo,—to make her the patron, if not the inspirer of the Elizabethan genius. 'When will you cease to be a beggar, Raleigh?' she said to him one day, on one of these not infrequent occasions. 'When your Majesty ceases to be a most gracious mistress,' was this courtier's reply. It is recorded of her, that 'she loved to hear his reasons to her demands.'
But though, with all his wit and eloquence, he could not contrive to make of the grand-daughter of Henry the Seventh, a Pericles, or an Alexander, or a Ptolemy, or an Augustus, or an encourager of anything that did not appear to be directly connected with her own particular ends, he did succeed in making her indirectly a patron of the literary and scientific development which was then beginning to add to her reign its new lustre,—which was then suing for leave to lay at her feet its new crowns and garlands. Indirectly, he did convert her into a patron,—a second-hand patron of those deeper and more subtle movements of the new spirit of the time, whose bolder demonstrations she herself had been forced openly to head. Seated on the throne of Henry the Seventh, she was already the armed advocate of European freedom;—Raleigh had contrived to make her the legal sponsor for the New World's liberties; it only needed that her patronage should be systematically extended to that new enterprise for the emancipation of the human life from the bondage of ignorance, from the tyranny of unlearning,—that enterprise which the gay, insidious Elizabethan literature was already beginning to flower over and cover with its devices,—it only needed that, to complete the anomaly of her position. And that through Raleigh's means was accomplished.
He became himself the head of a little Alexandrian establishment. His house was a home for men of learning. He employed men in literary and scientific researches on his account, whose business it was to report to him their results. He had salaried scholars at his table, to impart to him their acquisitions, Antiquities, History, Poetry, Chemistry, Mathematics, scientific research of all kinds, came under his active and persevering patronage. Returning from one of his visits to Ireland, whither he had gone on this occasion to inspect a seignorie which his 'sovereign goddess' had then lately conferred upon him, he makes his re-appearance at court with that so obscure personage, the poet of the 'Faery Queene,' under his wing;—that same gentleman, as the court is informed, whose bucolics had already attracted so much attention in that brilliant circle. By a happy coincidence, Raleigh, it seems, had discovered this Author in the obscurity of his clerkship in Ireland, and had determined to make use of his own influence at court to push his brother poet's fortunes there; but his efforts to benefit this poor bard personally, do not appear to have been attended at any time with much success. The mysterious literary partnership between these two, however, which dates apparently from an earlier period, continues to bring forth fruit of the most successful kind; and the 'Faery Queene' is not the only product of it.
All kinds of books began now to be dedicated to this new and so munificent patron of arts and letters. His biographers collect his public history, not from political records only, but from the eulogies of these manifold dedications. Ladonnier, the artist, publishes his Sketches of the New World through his aid. Hooker dedicates his History of Ireland to him; Hakluyt, his Voyages to Florida. A work 'On Friendship' is dedicated to him; another 'On Music,' in which art he had found leisure, it seems, to make himself a proficient; and as to the poetic tributes to him,—some of them at least are familiar to us already. In that gay court, where Raleigh and his haughty rivals were then playing their deep games,—where there was no room for Spenser's muse, and the worth of his 'Old Song' was grudgingly reckoned,—the 'rustling in silks' is long since over, but the courtier's place in the pageant of the 'Faery Queene' remains, and grows clearer with the lapse of ages. That time, against which he built so perseveringly, and fortified himself on so many sides, will not be able to diminish there 'one dowle that's in his plume.' [He was also a patron of Plays and Players in this stage of his career, and entertained private parties at his house with very recherché performances of that kind sometimes.]
In the Lord Timon of the Shakspere piece, which was rewritten from an Academic original after Raleigh's consignment to the Tower,—in that fierce satire into which so much Elizabethan bitterness is condensed, under the difference of the reckless prodigality which is stereotyped in the fable, we get, in the earlier scenes, some glimpses of this 'Athenian' also, in this stage of his career.
But it was not as a Patron only, or chiefly, that he aided the new literary development. A scholar, a scholar so earnest, so indefatigable, it followed of course that he must be, in one form or another, an Instructor also; for that is still, under all conditions, the scholar's destiny—it is still, in one form or another, his business on the earth. But with that temperament which was included among the particular conditions of his genius, and with those special and particular endowments of his for another kind of intellectual mastery, he could not be content with the pen—with the Poet's, or the Historian's, or the Philosopher's pen—as the instrument of his mental dictation. A Teacher thus furnished and ordained, seeks, indeed, naturally and instinctively, a more direct and living and effective medium of communication with the audience which his time is able to furnish him, whether 'few' or many, whether 'fit' or unfit, than the book can give him. He must have another means of 'delivery and tradition,' when the delivery or tradition is addressed to those whom he would associate with him in his age, to work with him as one man, or those to whom he would transmit it in other ages, to carry it on to its perfection—those to whom he would communicate his own highest view, those whom he would inform with his patiently-gathered lore, those whom he would instruct and move with his new inspirations. For the truth has become a personality with him—it is his nobler self. He will live on with it. He will live or die with it.
For such a one there is, perhaps, no institution ready in his time to accept his ministry. No chair at Oxford or Cambridge is waiting for him. For they are, of course, and must needs be, the strong-holds of the past—those ancient and venerable seats of learning, 'the fountains and nurseries of all the humanities,' as a Cambridge Professor calls them, in a letter addressed to Raleigh. The principle of these larger wholes is, of course, instinctively conservative. Their business is to know nothing of the new. The new intellectual movement must fight its battles through without, and come off conqueror there, or ever those old Gothic doors will creak on their reluctant hinges to give it ever so pinched an entrance. When it has once fought its way, and forced itself within—when it has got at last some marks of age and custom on its brow—then, indeed, it will stand as the last outwork of that fortuitous conglomeration, to be defended in its turn against all comers. Already the revived classics had been able to push from their chairs, and drive into corners, and shut up finally and put to silence, the old Aristotelian Doctors—the Seraphic and Cherubic Doctors of their day—in their own ancient halls. It would be sometime yet, perhaps, however, before that study of the dead languages, which was of course one prominent incident of the first revival of a dead learning, would come to take precisely the same place in those institutions, with their one instinct of conservation and 'abhorrence of change,' which the old monastic philosophy had taken in its day; but that change once accomplished, the old monastic philosophy itself, religious as it was, was never held more sacred than this profane innovation would come to be. It would be some time before those new observations and experiments, which Raleigh and his school were then beginning to institute, experiments and inquiries which the universities would have laughed to scorn in their day, would come to be promoted to the Professor's chair; but when they did, it would perhaps be difficult to convince a young gentleman liberally educated, at least, under the wings of one of those 'ancient and venerable' seats of learning, now gray in Raleigh's youthful West—ambitious, perhaps, to lead off in this popular innovation, where Saurians, and Icthyosaurians, and Entomologists, and Chonchologists are already hustling the poor Greek and Latin Teachers into corners, and putting them to silence with their growing terminologies—it would perhaps be difficult to convince one who had gone through the prescribed course of treatment in one of these 'nurseries of humanity,' that the knowledge of the domestic habits and social and political organisations of insects and shell-fish, or even the experiments of the laboratory, though never so useful and proper in their place, are not, after all, the beginning and end of a human learning. It was no such place as that that this department of the science of nature took in the systems or notions of its Elizabethan Founders. They were 'Naturalists,' indeed; but that did not imply, with their use of the term, the absence of the natural common human sense in the selection of the objects of their pursuits. 'It is a part of science to make judicious inquiries and wishes,' says the speaker in chief for this new doctrine of nature; speaking of the particular and special applications of it which he is forbidden to make openly, but which he instructs, and prepares, and charges his followers to make for themselves.
One of those innovations, one of those movements in which the new ground of ages of future culture is first chalked out—a movement whose end is not yet, whose beginning we have scarce yet seen—was made in England, not very far from the time in which Sir Walter Raleigh, began first to convert the eclat of his rising fortunes at home, and the splendour of his heroic achievements abroad, and all those new means of influence which his great position gave him, to the advancement of those deeper, dearer ambitions, which the predominance of the nobler elements in his constitution made inevitable with him. Even then he was ready to endanger those golden opinions, waiting to be worn in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon, and new-won rank, and liberty and life itself, for the sake of putting himself into his true intellectual relations with his time, as a philosopher and a beginner of a new age in the human advancement. For 'spirits are not finely touched but to fine issues.'
If there was no Professor's Chair, if there was no Pulpit or Bishop's Stall waiting for him, and begging his acceptance of its perquisites, he must needs institute a chair of his own, and pay for leave to occupy it. If there was no university with its appliances within his reach, he must make a university of his own. The germ of a new 'universality' would not be wanting in it. His library, or his drawing-room, or his 'banquet,' will be Oxford enough for him. He will begin it as the old monks began theirs, with their readings. Where the teacher is, there must the school be gathered together. And a school in the end there will be: a school in the end the true teacher will have, though he begin it, as the barefoot Athenian began his, in the stall of the artisan, or in the chat of the Gymnasium, amid the compliments of the morning levee, or in the woodland stroll, or in the midnight revel of the banquet.
When the hour and the man are indeed met, when the time is ripe, and one truly sent, ordained of that Power which chooses, not one only—what uncloaked atheism is that, to promulgate in an age like this!—not the Teachers and Rabbis of one race only, but all the successful agents of human advancement, the initiators of new eras of man's progress, the inaugurators of new ages of the relief of the human estate and the Creator's glory—when such an one indeed appears, there will be no lack of instrumentalities. With some verdant hill-side, it may be, some blossoming knoll or 'mount' for his 'chair,' with a daisy or a lily in his hand, or in a fisherman's boat, it may be, pushed a little way from the strand, he will begin new ages.
The influence of Raleigh upon his time cannot yet be fully estimated; because, in the first place, it was primarily of that kind which escapes, from its subtlety, the ordinary historical record; and, in the second place, it was an influence at the time necessarily covert, studiously disguised. His relation to the new intellectual development of his age might, perhaps, be characterised as Socratic; though certainly not because he lacked the use, and the most masterly use, of that same weapon with which his younger contemporary brought out at last, in the face of his time, the plan of the Great Instauration. In the heart of the new establishment which the magnificent courtier, who was a 'Queen's delight,' must now maintain, there soon came to be a little 'Academe.' The choicest youth of the time, 'the Spirits of the Morning Sort,' gathered about him. It was the new philosophic and poetic genius of the age that he attracted to him; it was on that philosophic and poetic genius that he left his mark for ever.
He taught them, as the masters taught of old, in dialogues—in words that could not then be written, in words that needed the master's modulation to give them their significance. For the new doctrine had need to be clothed in a language of its own, whose inner meaning only those who had found their way to its inmost shrine were able to interpret.
We find some contemporary and traditional references to this school, which are not without their interest and historical value, as tending to show the amount of influence which it was supposed to have exerted on the time, as well as the acknowledged necessity for concealment in the studies pursued in it. The fact that such an Association existed, that it began with Raleigh, that young men of distinction were attracted to it, and that in such numbers, and under such conditions, that it came to be considered ultimately as a 'School,' of which he was the head-master—the fact that the new experimental science was supposed to have had its origin in this association,—that opinions, differing from the received ones, were also secretly discussed in it,—that anagrams and other devices were made use of for the purpose of infolding the esoteric doctrines of the school in popular language, so that it was possible to write in this language acceptably to the vulgar, and without violating preconceived opinions, and at the same time instructively to the initiated,—all this remains, even on the surface of statements already accessible to any scholar,—all this remains, either in the form of contemporary documents, or in the recollections of persons who have apparently had it from the most authentic sources, from persons who profess to know, and who were at least in a position to know, that such was the impression at the time.
But when the instinctive dread of innovation was already so keenly on the alert, when Elizabeth was surrounded with courtiers still in their first wrath at the promotion of the new 'favourite,' indignant at finding themselves so suddenly overshadowed with the growing honours of one who had risen from a rank beneath their own, and eagerly watching for an occasion against him, it was not likely that such an affair as this was going to escape notice altogether. And though the secrecy with which it was conducted, might have sufficed to elude a scrutiny such as theirs, there was another, and more eager and subtle enemy,—an enemy which the founder of this school had always to contend with, that had already, day and night, at home and abroad, its Argus watch upon him. That vast and secret foe, which he had arrayed against him on foreign battle fields, knew already what kind of embodiment of power this was that was rising into such sudden favour here at home, and would have crushed him in the germ—that foe which would never rest till it had pursued him to the block, which was ready to join hands with his personal enemies in its machinations, in the court of Elizabeth, as well as in the court of her successor, that vast, malignant, indefatigable foe, in which the spirit of the old ages lurked, was already at his threshold, and penetrating to the most secret chamber of his councils. It was on the showing of a Jesuit that these friendly gatherings of young men at Raleigh's table came to be branded as 'a school of Atheism.' And it was through such agencies, that his enemies at court were able to sow suspicions in Elizabeth's mind in regard to the entire orthodoxy of his mode of explaining certain radical points in human belief, and in regard to the absolute 'conformity' of his views on these points with those which she had herself divinely authorised, suspicions which he himself confesses he was never afterwards able to eradicate. The matter was represented to her, we are told, 'as if he had set up for a doctor in the faculty and invited young gentlemen into his school, where the Bible was jeered at,' and the use of profane anagrams was inculcated. The fact that he associated with him in his chemical and mathematical studies, and entertained in his house, a scholar labouring at that time under the heavy charge of getting up 'a philosophical theology,' was also made use of greatly to his discredit.
And from another uncontradicted statement, which dates from a later period, but which comes to us worded in terms as cautious as if it had issued directly from the school itself, we obtain another glimpse of these new social agencies, with which the bold, creative, social genius that was then seeking to penetrate on all sides the custom-bound time, would have roused and organised a new social life in it. It is still the second-hand hearsay testimony which is quoted here. 'He is said to have set up an Office of Address, and it is supposed that the office might respect a more liberal intercourse—a nobler mutuality of advertisement, than would perhaps admit of all sorts of persons.' 'Raleigh set up a kind of Office of Address,' says another, 'in the capacity of an agency for all sorts of persons.' John Evelyn, refers also to that long dried fountain of communication which Montaigne first proposed, Sir Walter Raleigh put in practice, and Mr. Hartlib endeavoured to renew.
'This is the scheme described by Sir W. Pellis, which is referred traditionally to Raleigh and Montaigne (see Book I. chap. xxxiv.) An Office of Address whereby the wants of all may be made known to ALL (that painful and great instrument of this design), where men may know what is already done in the business of learning, what is at present in doing, and what is intended to be done, to the end that, by such a general communication of design and mutual assistance, the wits and endeavours of the world may no longer be as so many scattered coals, which, for want of union, are soon quenched, whereas being laid together they would have yielded a comfortable light and heat. [This is evidently traditional language] … such as advanced rather to the improvement of men themselves than their means.'—OLDYS.
This then is the association of which Raleigh was the chief; this was the state, within the state which he was founding. ('See the reach of this man,' says Lord Coke on his Trial.) It is true that the honour is also ascribed to Montaigne; but we shall find, as we proceed with this inquiry, that all the works and inventions of this new English school, of which Raleigh was chief, all its new and vast designs for man's relief, are also claimed by that same aspiring gentleman, as they were, too, by another of these Egotists, who came out in his own name with this identical project.
It was only within the walls of a school that the great principle of the new philosophy of fact and practice, which had to pretend to be profoundly absorbed in chemical experiments, or in physical observations, and inductions of some kind—though not without an occasional hint of a broader intention,—it was only in esoteric language that the great principles of this philosophy could begin to be set forth in their true comprehension. The very trunk of it, the primal science itself, must needs be mystified and hidden in a shower of metaphysical dust, and piled and heaped about with the old dead branches of scholasticism, lest men should see for themselves how broad and comprehensive must be the ultimate sweep of its determinations; lest men should see for themselves, how a science which begins in fact, and returns to it again, which begins in observation and experiment, and returns in scientific practice, in scientific arts, in scientific re-formation, might have to do, ere all was done, with facts not then inviting scientific investigation—with arts not then inviting scientific reform.
In consequence of a sudden and common advancement of intelligence among the leading men of that age, which left the standard of intelligence represented in more than one of its existing institutions, very considerably in the rear of its advancement, there followed, as the inevitable result, a tendency to the formation of some medium of expression,—whether that tendency was artistically developed or not, in which the new and nobler thoughts of men, in which their dearest beliefs, could find some vent and limited interchange and circulation, without startling the ear. Eventually there came to be a number of men in England at this time,—and who shall say that there were none on the continent of this school,—occupying prominent positions in the state, heading, it might be, or ranged in opposite factions at Court, who could speak and write in such a manner, upon topics of common interest, as to make themselves entirely intelligible to each other, without exposing themselves to any of the risks, which confidential communications under such circumstances involved.
For there existed a certain mode of expression, originating in some of its more special forms with this particular school, yet not altogether conventional, which enabled those who made use of it to steer clear of the Star Chamber and its sister institution; inasmuch as the terms employed in this mode of communication were not in the more obvious interpretation of them actionable, and to a vulgar, unlearned, or stupid conceit, could hardly be made to appear so. There must be a High Court of Wit, and a Bench of Peers in that estate of the realm, or ever these treasons could be brought to trial. For it was a mode of communication which involved in its more obvious construction the necessary submission to power. It was the instructed ear,—the ear of a school,—which was required to lend to it its more recondite meanings;—it was the ear of that new school in philosophy which had made History the basis of its learning,—which, dealing with principles instead of words, had glanced, not without some nice observation in passing, at their more 'conspicuous' historical 'INSTANCES';—it was the ear of a school which had everywhere the great historical representations and diagrams at its control, and could substitute, without much hindrance, particulars for generals, or generals for particulars, as the case might be; it was the ear of a school intrusted with discretionary power, but trained and practised in the art of using it.
Originally an art of necessity, with practice, in the skilful hands of those who employed it, it came at length to have a charm of its own. In such hands, it became an instrument of literary power, which had not before been conceived of; a medium too of densest ornament, of thick crowding conceits, and nestling beauties, which no style before had ever had depth enough to harbour. It established a new, and more intimate and living relation between the author and his reader,—between the speaker and his audience. There was ever the charm of that secret understanding lending itself to all the effects. It made the reader, or the hearer, participator in the artist's skill, and joint proprietor in the result. The author's own glow must be on his cheek, the author's own flash in his eye, ere that result was possible. The nice point of the skilful pen, the depth of the lurking tone was lost, unless an eye as skilful, or an ear as fine, tracked or waited on it. It gave to the work of the artist, nature's own style;—it gave to works which had the earnest of life and death in them the sport of the 'enigma.'
It is not too much to say, that the works of Raleigh and Bacon, and others whose connection with it is not necessary to specify just here, are written throughout in the language of this school. 'Our glorious Willy'—(it is the gentleman who wrote the 'Faery Queene' who claims him, and his glories, as 'ours'),—'our glorious Willy' was born in it, and knew no other speech. It was that 'Round Table' at which Sir Philip Sydney presided then, that his lurking meanings, his unspeakable audacities first 'set in a roar.' It was there, in the keen encounters of those flashing 'wit combats,' that the weapons of great genius grew so fine. It was there, where the young wits and scholars, fresh from their continental tours, full of the gallant young England of their day,—the Mercutios, the Benedicts, the Birons, the Longuevilles, came together fresh from the Court of Navarre, and smelling of the lore of their foreign 'Academe,' or hot from the battles of continental freedom,—it was there, in those réunions, that our Poet caught those gracious airs of his—those delicate, thick-flowering refinements—those fine impalpable points of courtly breeding—those aristocratic notions that haunt him everywhere. It was there that he picked up his various knowledge of men and manners, his acquaintance with foreign life, his bits of travelled wit, that flash through all. It was there that he heard the clash of arms, and the ocean-storm. And it was there that he learned 'his old ward.' It was there, in the social collisions of that gay young time, with its bold over-flowing humours, that would not be shut in, that he first armed himself with those quips and puns, and lurking conceits, that crowd his earlier style so thickly,—those double, and triple, and quadruple meanings, that stud so closely the lines of his dialogue in the plays which are clearly dated from that era,—the natural artifices of a time like that, when all those new volumes of utterance which the lips were ready to issue, were forbidden on pain of death to be 'extended,' must needs 'be crushed together, infolded within themselves.'
Of course it would be absurd, or it would involve the most profound ignorance of the history of literature in general, to claim that the principle of this invention had its origin here. It had already been in use, in recent and systematic use, in the intercourse of the scholars of the Middle Ages; and its origin is coeval with the origin of letters. The free-masonry of learning is old indeed. It runs its mountain chain of signals through all the ages, and men whom times and kindreds have separated ascend from their week-day toil, and hold their Sabbaths and synods on those heights. They whisper, and listen, and smile, and shake the head at one another; they laugh, and weep, and complain together; they sing their songs of victory in one key. That machinery is so fine, that the scholar can catch across the ages, the smile, or the whisper, which the contemporary tyranny had no instrument firm enough to suppress, or fine enough to detect.
  'But for her father sitting still on hie,
  Did warily still watch the way she went,
  And eke from far observed with jealous eye,
  Which way his course the wanton Bregog bent.
  Him to deceive, for all his watchful ward,
  The wily lover did devise this slight.
  First, into many parts, his stream he shared,
  That whilst the one was watch'd, the other might
  Pass unespide, to meet her by the way.
  And then besides, those little streams, so broken,
  He under ground so closely did convey,
  That of their passage doth appear no token.'
It was the author of the 'Faery Queene,' indeed, his fine, elaborate, fertile genius burthened with its rich treasure, and stimulated to new activity by his poetical alliance with Raleigh, whose splendid invention first made apparent the latent facilities which certain departments of popular literature then offered, for a new and hitherto unparalleled application of this principle. In that prose description of his great Poem which he addresses to Raleigh, the distinct avowal of a double intention in it, the distinction between a particular and general one, the emphasis with which the elements of the ideal name, are discriminated and blended, furnish to the careful reader already some superficial hints, as to the capabilities of such a plan to one at all predisposed to avail himself of them. And, indeed, this Poet's manifest philosophical and historical tendencies, and his avowed view of the comprehension of the Poet's business would have seemed beforehand to require some elbow-room,—some chance for poetic curves and sweeps,—some space for the line of beauty to take its course in, which the sharp angularities, the crooked lines, the blunt bringing up everywhere, of the new philosophic tendency to history would scarcely admit of. There was no breathing space for him, unless he could contrive to fix his poetic platform so high, as to be able to override these restrictions without hindrance.
'For the Poet thrusteth into the midst, even where it most concerneth him, and then recoursing to the things fore-past, and divining of things to come, he maketh a pleasing analysis of ALL.'
And it so happened that his Prince Arthur had dreamed the poet's dream, the hero's dream, the philosopher's dream, the dream that was dreamed of old under the Olive shades, the dream that all our Poets and inspired anticipators of man's perfection and felicity have always been dreaming; but this one 'awakening,' determined that it should be a dream no longer. It was the hour in which the genius of antiquity was reviving; it was the hour in which the poetic inspiration of all the ages was reviving, and arming itself with the knowledge of 'things not dreamt of' by old reformers—that knowledge of nature which is power, which is the true magic. For this new Poet had seen in a vision that same 'excellent beauty' which 'the divine' ones saw of old, and 'the New Atlantis,' the celestial vision of her kingdom; and being also 'ravished with that excellence, and awakening, he determined to seek her out. And so being by Merlin armed, and by Timon thoroughly instructed, he went forth to seek her in Fairy Land.' There was a little band of heroes in that age, a little band of philosophers and poets, secretly bent on that same adventure, sworn to the service of that same Gloriana, though they were fain to wear then the scarf and the device of another Queen on their armour. It is to the prince of this little band—'the prince and mirror of all chivalry'—that this Poet dedicates his poem. But it is Raleigh's device which he adopts in the names he uses, and it is Raleigh who thus shares with Sydney the honour of his dedication.
'In that Faery Queene, I mean,' he says, in his prose description of the Poem addressed to Raleigh, 'in that Faery Queene, I mean Glory in my general intention; but, in my particular, I conceive the most glorious person of our sovereign the Queen, and her kingdom—in Fairy Land.
'And yet, in some places, I do otherwise shadow her. For considering she beareth two persons, one of a most Royal Queen or Empress, the other of a most VIRTUOUS and BEAUTIFUL lady—the latter part I do express in BEL-PHEBE, fashioning her name according to your own most excellent conceit of "Cynthia," Phebe and Cynthia being both names of Diana.' And thus he sings his poetic dedication:—
  'To thee, that art the Summer's Nightingale,
  Thy sovereign goddess's most dear delight,
  Why do I send this rustic madrigal,
  That may thy tuneful ear unseason quite?
  Thou, only fit this argument to write,
  In whose high thoughts pleasure hath built her bower,
  And dainty love learn'd sweetly to indite.
  My rhymes, I know, unsavoury are and soure
  To taste the streams, which like a golden showre,
  Flow from thy fruitful head of thy love's praise.
  Fitter, perhaps, to thunder martial stowre,[Footnote]
  When thee so list thy tuneful thoughts to raise,
  Yet till that thou thy poem wilt make known,
  Let thy fair Cynthia's praises be thus rudely shown.'
[Footnote: 'Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage Or influence chide, or cheer the drooping stage.'
'Of me,' says Raleigh, in a response to this obscure partner of his works and arts,—a response not less mysterious, till we have found the solution of it, for it is an enigma.
  'Of me no lines are loved, no letters are of price,
  Of all that speak the English tongue, but those of thy device.'
[It was a 'device' that symbolised all. It was a circle containing the alphabet, or the A B C, and the esoteric meaning of it was 'all in each,' or all in all, the new doctrine of the unity of science (the 'Ideas' of the New 'Academe'). That was the token-name under which a great Book of this Academy was issued.]
It is to Sidney, Raleigh, and the Poet of the 'Faery-Queene,' and the rest of that courtly company of Poets, that the contemporary author in the Art of Poetry alludes, with a special commendation of Raleigh's vein, as the 'most lofty, insolent, and passionate,' when he says,' they have writ excellently well, if their doings could be found out and made public with the rest.'
Oliver. Where will the old Duke live?
Charles. They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world.
As You Like It.
Stephano [sings]. Flout 'em and skout'em; and skout'em and flout 'em, Thought is free.
Cal. That's not the tune.
[Ariel plays the tune on a tabor and pipe.]
Ste. What is this same?
Trin. This is the tune of our catch, played by—the picture of—Nobody.
But all was not over with him in the old England yet—the present had still its chief tasks for him.
The man who had 'achieved' his greatness, the chief who had made his way through such angry hosts of rivals, and through such formidable social barriers, from his little seat in the Devonshire corner to a place in the state, so commanding, that even the jester, who was the 'Mr. Punch' of that day, conceived it to be within the limits of his prerogative to call attention to it, and that too in 'the presence' itself [See 'the knave' commands 'the queen.'—Tarleton]—a place of command so acknowledged, that even the poet could call him in the ear of England 'her most dear delight'—such a one was not going to give up so easily the game he had been playing here so long. He was not to be foiled with this great flaw in his fortunes even here; and though all his work appeared for the time to be undone, and though the eye that he had fastened on him was 'the eye' that had in it 'twenty thousand deaths.'
It is this patient piecing and renewing of his broken webs, it is this second building up of his position rather than the first, that shows us what he is. One must see what he contrived to make of those 'apartments' in the Tower while he occupied them; what before unimagined conveniencies, and elegancies, and facilities of communication, and means of operation, they began to develop under the searching of his genius: what means of reaching and moving the public mind; what wires that reached to the most secret councils of state appeared to be inlaid in those old walls while he was within them; what springs that commanded even there movements not less striking and anomalous than those which had arrested the critical and admiring attention of Tarleton under the Tudor administration,—movements on that same royal board which Ferdinand and Miranda were seen to be playing on in Prospero's cell when all was done,—one must see what this logician, who was the magician also, contrived to make of the lodging which was at first only 'the cell' of a condemned criminal; what power there was there to foil his antagonists, and crush them too,—if nothing but throwing themselves under the wheels of his advancement would serve their purpose; one must look at all this to see 'what manner of man' this was, what stuff this genius was made of, in whose hearts ideas that had been parted from all antiquities were getting welded here then—welded so firmly that all futurities would not disjoin them, so firmly that thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world might combine in vain to disjoin them—the ideas whose union was the new 'birth of time.' It is this life in 'the cell'—this game, these masques, this tempest, that the magician will command there—which show us, when all is done, what new stuff of Nature's own this was, in which the new idea of combining 'the part operative' and the part speculative of human life—this new thought of making 'the art and practic part of life the mistress to its theoric' was understood in this scholar's own time (as we learn from the secret traditions of the school) to have had its first germination: this idea which is the idea of the modern learning—the idea of connecting knowledge generally and in a systematic manner with the human conduct—knowledge as distinguished from pre-supposition—the idea which came out afterwards so systematically and comprehensively developed in the works of his great contemporary and partner in arts and learning.
We must look at this, as well as at some other demonstrations of which this time was the witness, to see what new mastership this is that was coming out here so signally in this age in various forms, and in more minds than one; what soul of a new era it was that had laughed, even in the boyhood of its heroes, at old Aristotle on his throne; that had made its youthful games with dramatic impersonations, and caricatures, and travesties of that old book-learning; that in the glory of those youthful spirits—'the spirits of youths, that meant to be of note and began betimes'—it thought itself already competent to laugh down and dethrone with its 'jests'; that had laughed all its days in secret; that had never once lost a chance for a jibe at the philosophy it found in possession of the philosophic chairs—a philosophy which had left so many things in heaven and earth uncompassed in its old futile dreamy abstractions.
  Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
  Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,
  Hang up philosophy,
was the word of the poet of this new school in one of his 'lofty and passionate' moods, at a much earlier stage of this philosophic development. 'See what learning is!' exclaims the Nurse, speaking at that same date from the same dictation, for there is a Friar 'abroad' there already in the action of that play, who is undertaking to bring his learning to bear upon practice, and opening his cell for scientific consultation and ghostly advice on the questions of the play as they happen to arise; and it is his apparent capacity for smoothing, and reconciling, and versifying, not words only, but facts, which commands the Nurse's admiration.
This doctrine of a practical learning, this part operative of the new learning for which the founders of it beg leave to reintegrate the abused term of Natural Magic, referring to the Persians in particular, to indicate the extent of the field which their magical operations are intended ultimately to occupy; this idea, which the master of this school was illustrating now in the Tower so happily, did not originate in the Tower, as we shall see.
The first heirs of this new invention, were full of it. The babbling infancy of this great union of art and learning, whose speech flows in its later works so clear, babbled of nothing else: its Elizabethan savageness, with its first taste of learning on its lips, with its new classic lore yet stumbling in its speech, already, knew nothing else. The very rudest play in all this collection of the school,—left to show us the march of that 'time-bettering age,' the play which offends us most—belongs properly to this collection; contains this secret, which is the Elizabethan secret, and the secret of that art of delivery and tradition which this from the first inevitably created,—yet rude and undeveloped, but there.
We need not go so far, however, as that, in this not pleasant retrospect; for these early plays are not the ones to which the interpreter of this school would choose to refer the reader, for the proof of its claims at present;—these which the faults of youth and the faults of the time conspire to mar: in which the overdoing of the first attempt to hide under a cover suited to the tastes of the Court, or to the yet more faulty tastes of the rabble of an Elizabethan play-house,—the boldest scientific treatment of 'the forbidden questions,' still leaves so much upon the surface of the play that repels the ordinary criticism;—these that were first sent out to bring in the rabble of that age to the scholar's cell, these in which the new science was first brought in, in its slave's costume, with all its native glories shorn, and its eyes put out 'to make sport' for the Tudor—perilous sport!—these first rude essays of a learning not yet master of its unwonted tools, not yet taught how to wear its fetters gracefully, and wreathe them over and make immortal glories of them—still clanking its irons. There is nothing here to detain any criticism not yet instructed in the secret of this Art Union. But the faults are faults of execution merely; the design of the Novura Organum is not more noble, not more clear.
For these works are the works of that same 'school' which the Jesuit thought so dangerous, and calculated to affect unfavourably the morality of the English nation—the school which the Jesuit contrived to bring under suspicion as a school in which doctrines that differed from opinions received on essential points were secretly taught,—contriving to infect with his views on that point the lady who was understood, at that time, to be the only person qualified to reflect on questions of this nature; the school in which Raleigh was asserted to be perverting the minds of young men by teaching them the use of profane anagrams; and it cannot be denied, that anagrams, as well as other 'devices in letters,' were made use of, in involving 'the bolder meanings' contained in writings issued from this school, especially when the scorn with which science regarded the things it found set up for its worship had to be conveyed sometimes in a point or a word. It is a school, whose language might often seem obnoxious to the charge of profanity and other charges of that nature to those who do not understand its aims, to those who do not know that it is from the first a school of Natural Science, whose chief department was that history which makes the basis of the 'living art,' the art of man's living, the essential art of it,—a school in which the use of words was, in fact, more rigorous and scrupulous than it had ever been in any other, in which the use of words is for the first time scientific, and yet, in some respects, more bold and free than in those in which mere words, as words, are supposed to have some inherent virtue and efficacy, some mystic worth and sanctity in them.
This was the learning in which the art of a new age and race first spoke, and many an old foolish, childish, borrowed notion went off like vapour in it at its first word, without any one's ever so much as stopping to observe it, any one whose place was within. It is the school of a criticism much more severe than the criticism which calls its freedom in question. It is a school in which the taking of names in vain in general is strictly forbidden. That is the first commandment of it, and it is a commandment with promise.
The man who sits there in the Tower, now, driving that same 'goose-pen' which he speaks of as such a safe instrument for unfolding practical doctrines, with such patient energy, is not now occupied with the statistics of Noah's Ark, grave as he looks; though that, too, is a subject which his nautical experience and the indomitable bias of his genius as a western man towards calculation in general, together with his notion that the affairs of the world generally, past as well as future, belong properly to his sphere as a man, will require him to take up and examine and report upon, before he will think that his work is done. It is not a chapter in the History of the World which he is composing at present, though that work is there at this moment on the table, and forms the ostensible state-prison work of this convict.
This is the man who made one so long ago in those brilliant 'Round Table' reunions, in which the idea of converting the new belles lettres of that new time, to such grave and politic uses was first suggested; he is the genius of that company, that even in such frolic mad-cap games as Love's Labour's Lost, and the Taming of the Shrew, and Midsummer Night's Dream, could contrive to insert, not the broad farce and burlesque on the old pretentious wordy philosophy and pompous rhetoric it was meant to dethrone only, and not the most perilous secret of the new philosophy, only, but the secret of its organ of delivery and tradition, the secret of its use of letters, the secret of its 'cipher in letters,' and not its 'cipher in words' only, the cipher in which the secret of the authorship of these works was infolded, and in which it was found, but not found in these earlier plays,—plays in which these so perilous secrets are still conveyed in so many involutions, in passages so intricate with quips and puns and worthless trivialities, so uninviting or so marred with their superficial meanings, that no one would think of looking in them for anything of any value. For it is always when some necessary, but not superficial, question of the play is to be considered, that the Clown and the Fool are most in request, for 'there be of them that will themselves laugh to set on some barren spectators to laugh too'; and under cover of that mirth it is, that the grave or witty undertone reaches the ear of the judicious.
It is in the later and more finished works of this school that the key to the secret doctrines of it, which it is the object of this work to furnish, is best found. But the fact, that in the very rudest and most faulty plays in this collection of plays, which form so important a department of the works of this school, which make indeed the noblest tradition, the only adequate tradition, the 'illustrated tradition' of its noblest doctrine—the fact that in the very earliest germ of this new union of 'practic and theoric,' of art and learning, from which we pluck at last Advancements of Learning, and Hamlets, and Lears, and Tempests, and the Novum Organum, already the perilous secret of this union is infolded, already the entire organism that these great fruits and flowers will unfold in such perfection is contained, and clearly traceable,—this is a fact which appeared to require insertion in this history, and not, perhaps, without some illustration.
'It is not amiss to observe,' says the Author of the Advancement of Learning, when at last his great exordium to the science of nature in man, and the art of culture and cure that is based on that science is finished—pausing to observe it, pausing ere he will produce his index to that science, to observe it: 'It is not amiss to observe', he says—(speaking of the operation of culture in general on young minds, so forcible, though unseen, as hardly any length of time, or contention of labour, can countervail it afterwards)—'how small and mean faculties gotten by education, yet when they fall into great men, or great matters, do work great and important effects; whereof we see a notable example in Tacitus, of two stage-players, Percennius and Vibulenus, who, by their faculty of playing, put the Pannonian armies into an extreme tumult and combustion; for, there arising a mutiny among them, upon the death of Augustus Caesar, Blaesus the lieutenant had committed some of the mutineers, which were suddenly rescued; whereupon Vibulenus got to be heard speak [being a stage-player], which he did in this manner.
'"These poor innocent wretches appointed to cruel death, you have restored to behold the light: but who shall restore my brother to me, or life to my brother, that was sent hither in message from the legions of Germany to treat of—THE COMMON CAUSE? And he hath murdered him this last night by some of his fencers and ruffians, that he hath about him for his executioners upon soldiers. The mortalest enemies do not deny burial; when I have performed my last duties to the corpse with kisses, with tears, command me to be slain besides him, so that these, my fellows, for our good meaning and our true hearts to THE LEGION, may have leave to bury us."
'With which speech he put the army into an infinite fury and uproar; whereas, truth was, he had no brother, neither was there any such matter [in that case], but he played it merely as if he had been upon the stage.'
This is the philosopher and stage critic who expresses a decided opinion elsewhere, that 'the play's the thing,' though he finds this kind of writing, too, useful in its way, and for certain purposes; but he is the one who, in speaking of the original differences in the natures and gifts of men, suggests that 'there are a kind of men who can, as it were, divide themselves;' and he does not hesitate to propound it as his deliberate opinion, that a man of wit should have at command a number of styles adapted to different auditors and exigencies; that is, if he expects to accomplish anything with his rhetoric. That is what he makes himself responsible for from his professional chair of learning; but it is the Prince of Denmark, with his remarkable natural faculty of speaking to the point, who says, 'Seneca can not be too heavy, nor Plautus too light, for—[what?]—the law of writ—and—the liberty.' 'These are the only men,' he adds, referring apparently to that tinselled gauded group of servants that stand there awaiting his orders.
'My lord—you played once in the university, you say,' he observes afterwards, addressing himself to that so politic statesmen whose overreaching court plots and performances end for himself so disastrously. 'That did I, my lord,' replies Polonius, 'and was accounted a good actor.' 'And what did you enact?' 'I did enact Julius Caesar. I—was killed i' the Capitol [I]. Brutus killed me.' 'It was a brute part of him [collateral sounds—Elizabethan phonography] to kill so capitol a calf there.—Be the players ready?'(?). [That is the question.]
'While watching the progress of the action at Sadlers' Wells,' says the dramatic critic of the 'Times,' in the criticism of the Comedy of Errors before referred to, directing attention to the juvenile air of the piece, to 'the classic severity in the form of the play,' and 'that baldness of treatment which is a peculiarity of antique comedy'—'while watching the progress of the action at Sadlers' Wells, we may almost fancy we are at St. Peter's College, witnessing the annual performance of the Queen's scholars.' That is not surprising to one acquainted with the history of these plays, though the criticism which involves this kind of observation is not exactly the criticism to which we have been accustomed here. But any one who wishes to see, as a matter of antiquarian curiosity, or for any other purpose, how far from being hampered in the first efforts of his genius with this class of educational associations, that particular individual would naturally have been, in whose unconscious brains this department of the modern learning is supposed to have had its accidental origin,—any one who wishes to see in what direction the antecedents of a person in that station in life would naturally have biased, at that time, his first literary efforts, if, indeed, he had ever so far escaped from the control of circumstances as to master the art of the collocation of letters—any person who has any curiosity whatever on this point is recommended to read in this connection a letter from a professional contemporary of this individual—one who comes to us with unquestionable claims to our respect, inasmuch as he appears to have had some care for the future, and some object in living beyond that of promoting his own immediate private interests and sensuous gratification.
It is a letter of Mr. Edward Alleyn (the founder of Dulwich College), published by the Shakspere Society, to which we are compelled to have recourse for information on this interesting question; inasmuch as that distinguished contemporary and professional rival of his referred to, who occupies at present so large a space in the public eye, as it is believed for the best of reasons, has failed to leave us any specimens of his method of reducing his own personal history to writing, or indeed any demonstration of his appreciation of the art of chirography, in general. He is a person who appears to have given a decided preference to the method of oral communication as a means of effecting his objects. But in reading this truly interesting document from the pen of an Elizabethan player, who has left us a specimen of his use of that instrument usually so much in esteem with men of letters, we must take into account the fact, that this is an exceptional case of culture. It is the case of a player who aspired to distinction, and who had raised himself by the force of his genius above his original social level; it is the case of a player who has been referred to recently as a proof of the position which it was possible for 'a stage player' to attain to under those particular social conditions.
But as this letter is of a specially private and confidential nature, and as this poor player who did care for the future, and who founded with his talents, such as they were, a noble charity, instead of living and dying to himself, is not to blame for his defects of education,—since his acts command our respect, however faulty his attempts at literary expression,—this letter will not be produced here. But whoever has read it, or whoever may chance to read it, in the course of an antiquarian research, will be apt to infer, that whatever educational bias the first efforts of genius subjected to influences of the same kind would naturally betray, the faults charged upon the Comedy of Errors, the leaning to the classics, the taint of St. Peter's College, the tone of the Queen's scholars, are hardly the faults that the instructed critic would look for.
But to ascertain the fact, that the controlling idea of that new learning which the Man in the Tower is illustrating now in so grand and mature a manner, not with his pen only, but with his 'living art,' and with such an entire independence of classic models, is already organically contained in those earlier works on which the classic shell is still visible, it is not necessary to go back to the Westminster play of these new classics, or to the performances of the Queen's Scholars. Plays having a considerable air of maturity, in which the internal freedom of judgment and taste is already absolute, still exhibit on the surface of them this remarkable submission to the ancient forms which are afterwards rejected on principle, and by a rule in the new rhetoric—a rule which the author of the Advancement of Learning is at pains to state very clearly. The wildness of which we hear so much, works itself out upon the surface, and determines the form at length, as these players proceed and grow bolder with their work. A play, second to none in historical interest, invaluable when regarded simply in its relation to the history of this school, one which may be considered, in fact, the Introductory Play of the New School of Learning, is one which exhibits very vividly these striking characteristics of the earlier period. It is one in which the vulgarities of the Play-house are still the cloak of the philosophic subtleties, and incorporated, too, into the philosophic design; and it is one in which the unity of design, that one design which makes the works of this school, from first to last, as the work of one man, is still cramped with those other unities which the doctrines of Dionysus and the mysteries of Eleusis prescribed of old to their interpreters. 'What is the end of study? What is the end of it?' was the word of the New School of Learning. That was its first speech. It was a speech produced with dramatic illustrations, for the purpose of bringing out its significance more fully, for the purpose of pointing the inquiry unmistakeably to those ends of learning which the study of the learned then had not yet comprehended. It is a speech on behalf of a new learning, in which the extant learning is produced on the stage, in its actual historical relation to those 'ends' which the new school conceived to be the true ends of it, which are brought on to the stage in palpable, visible representation, not in allegorical forms, but in instances, 'conspicuous instances,' living specimens, after the manner of this school.
'What is the end of study?' cried the setter forth of this new doctrine, as long before as when lore and love were debating it together in that 'little Academe' that was yet, indeed, to be 'the wonder of the world, still and contemplative in living art.' 'What is the end of study?' cries already the voice of one pacing under these new olives. That was the word of the new school; that was the word of new ages, and these new minds taught of nature—her priests and prophets knew it then, already, 'Let fame that all hunt after in their lives,' they cry—
Live registered upon our brazen tombs, And then grace us in the disgrace of death; When spite of cormorant devouring time, The endeavour of this present breath may buy That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge, And make us HEIRS of all eternity—[of ALL]. * * * * * Navarre shall be the wonder of the world, Our Court shall be a little Academe, Still and contemplative in—LIVING art.
This is the Poet of the Woods who is beginning his 'recreations' for us here—the poet who loves so well to take his court gallants in their silks and velvets, and perfumes, and fine court ladies with all their courtly airs and graces, and all the stale conventionalitites that he is sick of, out from under the low roofs of princes into that great palace in which the Queen, whose service he is sworn to, keeps the State. This is the school-master who takes his school all out on holiday excursions into green fields, and woods, and treats them to country merry-makings, and not in sport merely. This is the one that breaks open the cloister, and the close walls that learning had dwelt in till then, and shuts up the musty books, and bids that old droning cease. This is the one that stretches the long drawn aisle and lifts the fretted vault into a grander temple. The Court with all its pomp and retinue, the school with all its pedantries and brazen ignorance, 'High Art' with its new graces, divinity, Mar-texts and all, must 'come hither, come hither,' and 'under the green-wood tree lie with me,' the ding-dong of this philosopher's new learning says, calling his new school together. This is the linguist that will find 'tongues in trees,' and crowd out from the halls of learning the lore of ancient parchments with their verdant classics, their 'truth in beauty dyed.' This is the teacher with whose new alphabet you can find 'sermons in stones, books in the running brooks,' and good,—good—his 'good' the good of the New School, that broader 'good' in every thing. 'The roof of this court is too high to be yours,' says the princess of this out-door scene to the sovereignty that claimed it then.
This is 'great Nature's' Poet and Interpreter, and he takes us always into 'the continent of nature'; but man is his chief end, and that island which his life makes in the universal being is the point to which that Naturalist brings home all his new collections. This is the Poet of the Woods, but man,—man at the summit of his arts, in the perfection of his refinements, is always the creature that he is 'collecting' in them. In his wildest glades, this is still the species that he is busied with. He has brought him there to experiment on him, and that we may see the better what he is. He has brought him there to improve his arts, to reduce his conventional savageness, to re-refine his coarse refinements, not to make a wild-man of him. This is the Poet of the Woods; but he is a woodman, he carries an axe on his shoulder. He will wake a continental forest with it and subdue it, and fill it with his music.
For this is the Poet who cries 'Westward Ho!' But he has not got into the woods yet in this play. He is only on the edge of them as yet. It is under the blue roof of that same dome which is 'too high,' the princess here says, to belong to the pygmy that this Philosopher likes so well to bring out and to measure under that canopy—it is 'out of doors' that this new speech on behalf of a new learning is spoken. But there is a close rim of conventionalities about us still. It is a Park that this audacious proposal is uttered in. But nothing can be more orderly, for it is 'a Park with a Palace in it.' There it is, in the background. If it were the Attic proscenium itself hollowed into the south-east corner of the Acropolis, what more could one ask. But it is the palace of the King of—Navarre, who is the prince of good fellows and the prince of good learning at one and the same time, which makes, in this case, the novelty. 'A Park with a Palace in it' makes the first scene. 'Another part of the same' with the pavilion of a princess and the tents of her Court seen in the distance, makes the second; and the change from one part of this park to another, though we get into the heart of it sometimes, is the utmost license that the rigours of the Greek Drama permit the Poet to think of at present. This criticism on the old learning, this audacious proposal for the new, with all the bold dramatic illustration with which it is enforced, must be managed here under these restrictions. Whatever 'persons' the plot of this drama may require for its evolutions, whatever witnesses and reporters the trial and conviction of the old learning, and the definition of the ground of the new, may require, will have to be induced to cross this park at this particular time, because the form of the new art is not yet emancipated, and the Muse of the Inductive Science cannot stir from the spot to search them out.
However, that does not impair the representation as it is managed. There is a very bold artist here already, with all his deference for the antique. We shall be sure to have all when he is the plotter. The action of this drama is not complicated. The persons of it are few; the characterization is feeble, compared with that of some of the later plays; but that does not hinder or limit the design, and it is all the more apparent for this artistic poverty, anatomically clear; while as yet that perfection of art in which all trace of the structure came so soon to be lost in the beauty of the illustration, is yet wanting; while as yet that art which made of its living instance an intenser life, or which made with its living art a life more living than life itself, was only germinating.
The illustration here, indeed, approaches the allegorical form, in the obtrusive, untempered predominance of the qualities represented, so overdone as to wear the air of a caricature, though the historical combination is still here. These diagrams are alive evidently; they are men, and not allegorical spectres, or toys, though they are 'painted in character.'
The entire representation of the extant learning is dramatically produced on this stage; the germ of the 'new' is here also; and the unoccupied ground of it is marked out here as, in the Advancement of Learning, by the criticism on the deficiences of that which has the field. Here, too, the line of the extant culture,—the narrow indented boundary of the culture that professed to take all is always defining the new,—cutting out the wild not yet visited by the art of man;—only here the criticism is much more lively, because here 'we come to particulars,' a thing which the new philosophy—much insists on; and though this want in learning, and the wildness it leaves, is that which makes tragedies in this method of exhibition; it has its comical aspect also; and this is the laughing and weeping philosopher in one who manages these representations; and in this case it is the comical aspect of the subject that is seized on.
Our diagrams are still coarse here, but they have already the good scientific quality of exhausting the subject. It is the New School that occupies the centre of the piece. Their quarters are in that palace, but the king of it is the Royalty (Raleigh) that founded and endowed this School—that was one of his secret titles,—and under that name he may sometimes be recognized in descriptions and dedications that persons who were not in the secret of the School naturally applied in another quarter, or appropriated to themselves. 'Rex was a surname among the Romans,' says the Interpreter of this School, in a very explanatory passage, 'as well as King is with us.' It is the New School that is under these boughs here, but hardly that as yet.
It is rather the representation of the new classical learning,—the old learning newly revived,—in which the new is germinating. It is that learning in its first effect on the young, enthusiastic, but earnest practical English mind. It is that revival of the old learning, arrested, daguerréotyped at the moment in which the new begins to stir in it, in minds which are going to be the master-minds of ages.
'Common sense' is the word here already. 'Common sense' is the word that this new Academe is convulsed with when the curtain rises. And though it is laughter that you hear there now, sending its merry English peals through those musty, antique walls, as the first ray of that new beam enters them; the muse of the new mysteries has also another mask, and if you will wait a little, you shall hear that tone too. Cries that the old mysteries never caught, lamentations for Adonis not heard before, griefs that Dionysus never knew, shall yet ring out from those walls.
Under that classic dome which still calls itself Platonic, the questions and experiments of the new learning are beginning. These youths are here to represent the new philosophy, which is science, in the act of taking its first step. The subject is presented here in large masses. But this central group, at least, is composed of living men, and not dramatic shadows merely. There are good historical features peering through those masks a little. These youths are full of youthful enthusiasm, and aspiring to the ideal heights of learning in their enthusiasm. But already the practical bias of their genius betrays itself. They are making a practical experiment with the classics, and to their surprise do not find them 'good for life.'
Here is the School, then,—with the classics on trial in the persons of these new school-men. That is the central group. What more do we want? Here is the new and the old already. But this is the old revived—newly revived;—this is the revival of learning in whose stimulus the new is beginning. There is something in the field besides that. There is a 'school-master abroad' yet, that has not been examined. These young men who have resolved themselves in their secret sittings into a committee of the whole, are going to have him up. He will be obliged to come into this park here, and speak his speech in the ear of that English 'common sense,' which is meddling here, for the first time, in a comprehensive manner with things in general; he will have to 'speak out loud and plain,' that these English parents who are sitting here in the theatre, some of 'the wiser sort' of them, at least, may get some hint of what it is that this pedagogue is beating into their children's brains, taking so much of their glorious youth from them—that priceless wealth of nature which none can restore to them,—as the purchase. But this is not all. There is a man who teaches the grown-up children of the parish in which this Park is situated, who happens to live hard by,—a man who professes the care and cure of minds. He, too, has had a summons sent him; there will be no excuse taken; and his examination will proceed at the same time. These two will come into the Park together; and perhaps we shall not be able to detect any very marked difference in their modes of expressing themselves. They are two ordinary, quiet-looking personages enough. There is nothing remarkable in their appearance; their coming here is not forced. There are deer in this Park; and 'book-men' as they are, they have a taste for sport also it seems. Unless you should get a glimpse of the type,—of the unit in their faces—and that shadowy train that the cipher points to,—unless you should observe that their speech is somewhat strongly pronounced for an individual representation—merely glancing at them in passing—you would not, perhaps, suspect who they are. And yet the hints are not wanting; they are very thickly strewn,—the hints which tell you that in these two men all the extant learning, which is in places of trust and authority, is represented; all that is not included in that elegant learning which those students are making sport of in those 'golden books' of theirs, under the trees here now.
But there is another department of art and literature which is put down as a department of 'learning,' and a most grave and momentous department of it too, in that new scheme of learning which this play is illustrating,—one which will also have to be impersonated in this representation,—one which plays a most important part in the history of this School. It is that which gives it the power it lacks and wants, and in one way or another will have. It is that which makes an arm for it, and a long one. It is that which supplies its hidden arms and armour. But neither is this department of learning as it is extant,—as this School finds it prepared to its hands, going to be permitted to escape the searching of this comprehensive satire. There is a 'refined traveller of Spain' haunting the purlieus of this Court, who is just the bombastic kind of person that is wanted to act this part. For this impersonation, too, is historical. There are just such creatures in nature as this. We see them now and then; or, at least, he is not much overdone,—'this child of Fancy,—Don Armado hight.' It is the Old Romance, with his ballads and allegories,—with his old 'lies' and his new arts,—that this company are going to use for their new minstrelsy; but first they will laugh him out of his bombast and nonsense, and instruct him in the knowledge of 'common things,' and teach him how to make poetry out of them. They have him here now, to make sport of him with the rest. It is the fashionable literature,— the literature that entertains a court,—the literature of a tyranny, with his gross servility, with his courtly affectations, with his arts of amusement, his 'vain delights,' with his euphuisms, his 'fire-new words,' it is the polite learning, the Elizabethan Belles Lettres, that is brought in here, along with that old Dryasdust Scholasticism, which the other two represent, to make up this company. These critics, who turn the laugh upon themselves, who caricature their own follies for the benefit of learning, who make themselves and their own failures the centre of the comedy of Love's Labour's Lost, are not going to let this thing escape; with the heights of its ideal, and the grossness of its real, it is the very fuel for the mirth that is blazing and crackling here. For these are the woodmen that are at work here, making sport as they work; hewing down the old decaying trunks, gathering all the nonsense into heaps, and burning it up and and clearing the ground for the new.
'What is the end of study,' is the word of this Play. To get the old books shut, but not till they have been examined, not till all the good in them has been taken out, not till we have made a stand on them; to get the old books in their places, under our feet, and 'then to make progression' after we see where we are, is the proposal here—here also. It is the shutting up of the old books, and the opening of the new ones, which is the business here. But that—that is not the proposal of an ignorant man (as this Poet himself takes pains to observe); it is not the proposition of a man who does not know what there is in books—who does not know but there is every thing in them that they claim to have in them, every thing that is good for life, magic and all. An ignorant man is in awe of books, on account of his ignorance. He thinks there are all sorts of things in them. He is very diffident when it comes to any question in regard to them. He tells you that he is not 'high learned,' and defers to his betters. Neither is this the proposition of a man who has read a little, who has only a smattering in books, as the Poet himself observes. It is the proposition of a scholar, who has read them all, or had them read for him and examined, who knows what is in them all, and what they are good for, and what they are not good for. This is the man who laughs at learning, and borrows her own speech to laugh her down with. This, and not the ignorant man, it is who opens at last 'great nature's' gate to us, and tells us to come out and learn of her, because that which old books did not 'clasp in,' that which old philosophies have 'not dreamt of,'—the lore of laws not written yet in books of man's devising, the lore of that of which man's ordinary life consisteth is here, uncollected, waiting to be spelt out.
King. How well he's read to reason against reading.
is the inference here.
Dumain. Proceeded well to stop all good proceeding.
It is progress that is proposed here also. After the survey of learning 'has been well taken, then to make progession' is the word. It is not the doctrine of unlearning that is taught here in this satire. It is a learning that includes all the extant wisdom, and finds it insufficient. It is one that requires a new and nobler study for its god-like ends. But, at the same time, the hindrances that a practical learning has to encounter are pointed at from the first. The fact, that the true ends of learning take us at once into the ground of the forbidden questions, is as plainly stated in the opening speech of the New Academy as the nature of the statement will permit. The fact, that the intellect is trained to vain delights under such conditions, because there is no earnest legitimate occupation of it permitted, is a fact that is glanced at here, as it is in other places, though not in such a manner, of course, as to lead to a 'question' from the government in regard to the meaning of the passages in which these grievances are referred to. Under these embarrassments it is, we are given to understand, however, that the criticism on the old learning and the plot for the new is about to proceed.
Here it takes the form of comedy and broad farce. There is a touch of 'tart Aristophanes' in the representation here. This is the introductory performance of the school in which the student hopes for high words howsoever low the matter, emphasizing that hope with an allusion to the heights of learning, as he finds it, and the highest word of it, which seems irreverent, until we find from the whole purport of the play how far he at least is from taking it in vain, whatever implication of that sort his criticism may be intended to leave on others, who use good words with so much iteration and to so little purpose. 'That is a high hope for a low having' is the rejoinder of that associate of his, whose views on this point agree with his own so entirely. It is the height of the hope and the lowness of the having—it is the height of the words and the lowness of the matter, that makes the incongruity here. That is the soul of all the mirth that is stirring here. It is the height of 'the style' that 'gives us cause to climb in the merriment' that makes the subject of this essay. It is literature in general that is laughed at here, and the branches of it in particular. It is the old books that are walking about under these trees, with their follies all ravelled out, making sport for us.
But this is not all. It is the defect in learning which is represented here—that same 'defect' which a graver work of this Academy reports, in connection with a proposition for the Advancement of Learning—for its advancement into the fields not yet taken up, and which turn out, upon inquiry, to be the fields of human life and practice;—it is that main defect which is represented here. 'I find a kind of science of "words" but none of "things,"' says the reporter. 'What do you read, my lord?' 'Words, words, words,' echoes the Prince of Denmark. 'I find in these antique books, in these Philosophies and Poems, a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of matter chosen to give glory either to the subtilty of disputations, or to the eloquence of discourses,' says the other and graver reporter; 'but as to the ordinary and common matter of which life consisteth, I do not find it erected into an art or science, or reduced to written inquiry.' 'How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words,' says a speaker, who comes out of that same palace of learning on to this stage with the secret badge of the new lore on him, which is the lore of practice—a speaker not less grave, though he comes in now in the garb of this pantomime, to make sport for us with his news of learning. For 'Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light for the law of writ and the liberty.'
It is the high words and the low having that make the incongruity. But we cannot see the vanity of those heights of words, till the lowness of the matter which they profess to abstract has been brought into contrast with them, till the particulars which they do not grasp, which they can not compel, have been brought into studious contrast with them. The delicate graces of those flowery summits of speech which the ideal nature, when it energises in speech, creates, must overhang in this design the rude actuality which the untrained nature in man, forgotten of art, is always producing. And it is the might of nature in this opposition, it is the force of 'matter,' it is the unconquerable cause contrasted with the vanity of the words that have not comprehended the cause, it is the futility of these heights of words that are not 'forms' that do not correspond to things which must be exhibited here also. It is the force of the law in nature, that must be brought into opposition here with the height of the word, the ideal word, the higher, but not yet scientifically abstracted word, that seeks in vain because it has no 'grappling-hook' on the actuality, to bind it. There already are the heights of learning as it is, as this school finds it, dramatically exhibited on the one hand; but this, too,—life as it is,—as this school finds it, man's life as it is, unreduced to order by his philosophy, unreduced to melody by his verse, must also be dramatically exhibited on the other hand, must also be impersonated. It is life that we have here, the 'theoric' on the one side, the 'practic' on the other. The height of the books on the one side, the lowness, the unvisited, 'unlettered' lowness of the life on the other. That which exhibits the defect in learning that the new learning is to remedy, the new uncultured, unbroken ground of science must be exhibited here also. But that is man's life. That is the world. And what if it be? There are diagrams in this theatre large enough for that. It is the theatre of the New Academy which deals also in IDEAS, but prefers the solidarities. The wardrobe and other properties of this theatre are specially adapted to exigencies of this kind. The art that put the extant learning with those few strokes into the grotesque forms you see there, will not be stopped on this side either, for any law of writ or want of space and artistic comprehension. This is the learning that can be bounded in the nut-shell of an aphorism and include all in its bounds.
There are not many persons here, and they are ordinary looking persons enough. But if you lift those dominos a little, which that 'refined traveller of Spain' has brought in fashion, you will find that this rustic garb and these homely country features hide more than they promised; and the princess, with her train, who is keeping state in the tents yonder, though there is an historical portrait there too, is greater than she seems. This Antony Dull is a poor rude fellow; but he is a great man in this play. This is the play in which one asks 'Which is the princess?' and the answer is, 'The tallest and the thickest.' Antony is the thickest, he is the acknowledged sovereign here in this school; for he is of that greater part that carries it, and though he hath never fed of the dainties bred in a book, these spectacles which the new 'book men' are getting up here are intended chiefly for him. And that unlettered small knowing soul 'Me'—'still me'—insignificant as you think him when you see him in the form of a country swain, is a person of most extensive domains and occupations, and of the very highest dignity, as this philosophy will demonstrate in various ways, under various symbols. You will have that same me in the form of a Mountain, before you have read all the books of this school, and mastered all its 'tokens' and 'symbols.'
The dramatic representation here is meagre; but we shall find upon inquiry it is already the Globe Theatre, with all its new solidarities, new in philosophy, new in poetry, that the leaves of this park hide—this park that the doors and windows of the New Academe open into—these new grounds that it lets out its students to play and study in, and collect their specimens from—'still and contemplative in living art.' It was all the world that was going through that park that day haply, we shall find. It is all the world that we get in this narrow representation here, as we get it in a more limited representation still, in another place. 'All the world knows me in my book and my book in me,' cries the Egotist of the Mountain. It is the first Canto of that great Epic, whose argument runs through so many books, that is chanted here. It is the war, the unsuccessful war of lore and nature, whose lost fields have made man's life, that is getting reviewed at last and reduced to speech and writing. It is the school itself that makes the centre of the plot in this case; these gay young philosophers with 'the ribands' yet floating in their 'cap of youth,' who oppose lore to love, who 'war against their own affections and THE HUGE ARMY OF THE WORLD'S DESIRES,' ere they know what they are; who think to conquer nature's potencies, her universal powers and causes, with wordy ignorance, with resolutions that ignore them simply, and make a virtue of ignoring them, these are the chief actors here, who come out of that classic tiring house where they have been shut up with the ancients so long, to celebrate on this green plot, which is life, their own defeat, and propose a better wisdom, the wisdom of the moderns. And Holofernes, the schoolmaster, who cultivates minds, and Sir Nathaniel, the curate, who cures them, and Don Armado or Don A_drama_dio, from the flowery heights of the new Belles Lettres, with the last refinement of Euphuism on his lips, and Antony Dull, and the country damsel and her swain, and the princess and her attendants, are all there to eke out and complete the philosophic design,—to exhibit the extant learning in its airy flights and gross descents, in its ludicrous attempt to escape from those particulars or to grapple, without loss of grandeur, those particulars of which man's life consisteth. It is the vain pretension and assumption of those faulty wordy abstractions, whose falseness and failure in practice this school is going to expose elsewhere; it is the defect of those abstractions and idealisms that the Novum Organum was invented to remedy, which is exhibited so grossly and palpably here. It is the height of those great swelling words of rhetoric and logic, in rude contrast with those actualities which the history of man is always exhibiting, which the universal nature in man is always imposing on the learned and unlearned, the profane and the reverend, the courtier and the clown, the 'king and the beggar,' the actualities which the natural history of man continues perseveringly to exhibit, in the face of those logical abstractions and those ideal schemes of man as he should be, which had been till this time the fruit of learning;—those actualities, those particulars, whose lowness the new philosophy would begin with, which the new philosophy would erect into an art or science.
The foundation of this ascent is natural history. There must be nothing omitted here, or the stairs would be unsafe. The rule in this School, as stated by the Interpreter in Chief, is, 'that there be nothing in the globe of matter, which should not be likewise in the globe of crystal or form;' that is, he explains, 'that there should not be anything in being and action, which should not be drawn and collected into contemplation and doctrine.' The lowness of matter, all the capabilities and actualities of speech and action, not of the refined only, but of the vulgar and profane, are included in the science which contemplates an historical result, and which proposes the reform of these actualities, the cure of these maladies,—which comprehends man as man in its intention,—which makes the Common Weal its end.
Science is the word that unlocks the books of this School, its gravest and its lightest, its books of loquacious prose and stately allegory, and its Book of Sports and Riddles. Science is the clue that still threads them, that never breaks, in all their departures from the decorums of literature, in their lowest descents from the refinements of society. The vulgarity is not the vulgarity of the vulgar—the inelegancy is not the spontaneous rudeness of the ill-bred—any more than its doctrine of nature is the doctrine of the unlearned. The loftiest refinements of letters, the courtliest breeding, the most exquisite conventionalities, the most regal dignities of nature, are always present in these works, to measure these abysses, flowering to their brink. Man as he is, booked, surveyed,—surveyed from the continent of nature, put down as he is in her book of kinds, not as he is from his own interior isolated conceptions only,—the universal powers and causes as they are developed in him, in his untaught affections, in his utmost sensuous darkness,—the universal principle instanced whereit is most buried, the cause in nature found;—man as he is, in his heights and in his depths, 'from his lowest note to the top of his key,'—man in his possibilities, in his actualities, in his thought, in his speech, in his book language, and in his every-day words, in his loftiest lyric tongue, in his lowest pit of play-house degradation, searched out, explained, interpreted. That is the key to the books of this Academe, who carry always on their armour, visible to those who have learned their secret, but hid under the symbol of their double worship, the device of the Hunters,—the symbol of the twin-gods,—the silver bow, or the bow that finds all. 'Seeing that she beareth two persons … I do also otherwise shadow her.'
It is man's life, and the culture of it, erected into an art or science, that these books contain. In the lowness of the lowest, and in the aspiration of the noblest, the powers whose entire history must make the basis of a successful morality and policy are found. It is all abstracted or drawn into contemplation, 'that the precepts of cure and culture may be more rightly concluded.' 'For that which in speculative philosophy corresponds to the cause, in practical philosophy becomes the rule.'
It is not necessary to illustrate this criticism in this case, because in this case the design looks through the execution everywhere. The criticism of the Novum Organum, the criticism of the Advancement of Learning, and the criticism of Raleigh's History of the World, than which there is none finer, when once you penetrate its crust of profound erudition, is here on the surface. And the scholasticism is not more obtrusive here, the learned sock is not more ostentatiously paraded, than in some critical places in those performances; while the humour that underlies the erudition issues from a depth of learning not less profound.
As, for instance, in this burlesque of the descent of Euphuism to the prosaic detail of the human conditions, not then accommodated with a style in literature, a defect in learning which this Academy proposed to remedy. A new department in literature which began with a series of papers issued from this establishment, has since undertaken to cover the ground here indicated, the every-day human life, and reduce it to written inquiry, notwithstanding 'the lowness of the matter.'
King [reads], 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent, and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god, and body's fostering patron…. So it is,—besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black, oppressing humour to the most wholesome physick of thy health-giving air, and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when? About the sixth hour: when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper.'
[No one who is much acquainted with the style of the author of this letter ought to have any difficulty in identifying him here. There was a method of dramatic composition in use then, and not in this dramatic company only, which produced an amalgamation of styles. 'On a forgotten matter,' these associated authors themselves, perhaps, could not always 'make distinction of their hands.' But there are places where Raleigh's share in this 'cry of players' shows through very palpably.]
'So much for the time when. Now for the ground which; which I mean I walked upon: it is ycleped thy park. Then for the place where; where I mean I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou beholdest, surveyest, or seest, etc….
'Thine in all compliments of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty.
And in another letter from the same source, the dramatic criticism on that style of literature which it was the intention of this School 'to reform altogether' is thus continued.
… 'The magnanimous and most illustrate King Cophetua, set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon. And it was he that might rightly say, Veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomise in the vulgar, (O base and obscure vulgar!) Videlicet, he came, saw, and overcame… Who came? the king. Why did he come? to see. Why did he see? to overcome. To whom came he? to the beggar. What saw he? the beggar. Who overcame he? the beggar. The conclusion is victory. On whose side? etc.
'Thine in the dearest design of industry.'
[Dramatic comment.]
_Boyet. I am much deceived but I remember the style.
Princess. Else your memory is bad going o'er it erewhile._
Jaquenetta. Good Master Parson, be so good as to read me this letter—it was sent me from Don Armatho: I beseech you to read it.
Holofernes. [Speaking here, however, not in character but for 'the Academe.'] Fauste precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice
  —Vinegia, Vinegia,
  Chi non te vede, ei non te pregia.
Old Mantuan! Old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.—Ut re sol la mi fa.—Under pardon, Sir, what are THE CONTENTS? or, rather, as Horace says in his—What, my soul, verses?
Nath. Ay, Sir, and very learned [one would say so upon examination].
Hol. Let me have a staff, a stanza, a verse; Lege Domine.
Nath. [Reads the 'verses.']—'If love make me forsworn,' etc.
Hol. You find not the apostrophe, and so—miss the accent—[criticising the reading. It is necessary to find the apostrophe in the verses of this Academy, before you can give the accent correctly; there are other points which require to be noted also, in this refined courtier's writings, as this criticism will inform us]. Let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified, but for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadency of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man. And why, indeed, Naso; but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention. Imitari is nothing; so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. [It was no such reading and writing as that which this Academy was going to countenance, or teach.] But, Damosella, was this directed to you?
Jaq. Ay, Sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords.
Hol. I will over-glance the super-script. 'To the snow white hand of the most beauteous lady Rosaline.' I will look again on the intellect of the letter for the nomination of the party writing, to the person written unto (Rosaline).—[Look again.—That is the rule for the reading of letters issued from this Academy, whether they come in Don Armado's name or another's, when the point is not to 'miss the accent.'] 'Your ladyship's, in all desired employment, BIRON.' Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king, and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which, accidentally or by way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king. It may concern much. Stay not thy compliment, I forgive thy duty. Adieu.
Nath. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and as a certain father saith—
Hol. Sir, tell me not of the father, I do fear colorable colors. But to return to the verses. Did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?
Nath. Marvellous well for the pen.
Hol. I dine to-day at the _father's _of a certain pupil of mine, where, if before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parent of the foresaid child, or pupil, undertake your ben venuto, where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your society.
Nath. And thank you, too; for society (saith the text) is the happiness of LIFE.
Hol. And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.—Sir, [to Dull] I do invite you too, [to hear the verses ex-criticised] you shall not say me nay: pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their games, and we will to our recreation.
Another part of the same. After dinner.
Re-enter Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, and Dull.
Hol. Satis quod sufficit.
Nath. I praise God for you, Sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nominated, or called Don Adriano de Armado.
Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te. His manner is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, and his general behaviour, vain, ridiculous and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, and, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.
Nath. A most singular and choice epithet! [Takes out his table-book.]
Hol. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument, ['More matter with less art,' says the queen in Hamlet], I abhor such fantastical phantasms, such insociable and point device companions, such rackers of orthography, as to speak doubt fine when he should say doubt, etc. This is abhominable which he would call abominable; it insinuateth me of insanie; Ne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.
Nath. Lans deo bone intelligo.
Hol. Bone—bone for bene: Priscian, a little scratched 'twill serve. [This was never meant to be printed of course; all this is understood to have been prepared only for a performance in 'a booth.']
Enter Armado, etc.
Nath. Videsne quis venit?
Ho. Video et gaudeo.
Arm. Chirra!
Hol. Quare Chirra not Sirrah!
But the first appearance of these two book-men, as Dull takes leave them to call them in this scene, is not less to the purpose. They come in with Antony Dull, who serves as a foil to their learning; from the moment that they open their lips they speak 'in character,' and they do not proceed far before they give us some hints of the author's purpose.
Nath. Very reverent sport truly, and done in the testimony of a good conscience.
Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis, ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of Coelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven, and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra—the soil, the land, the earth. [A-side glance at the heights and depths of the incongruities which are the subject here.]
Nath. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least, but, etc…..
Hol. Most barbarous intimation! [referring to Antony Dull, who has been trying to understand this learned language, and apply it to the subject of conversation, but who fails in the attempt, very much to the amusement and self-congratulation of these scholars]. Yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way of explication [a style much in use in this school], facere, as it were, replication, or rather ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest unconfirmed fashion,—to insert again my haud credo for a deer…. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus! Oh thou monster ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!
Nath. [explaining] Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal—only sensible in the duller parts;
And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful should be, (Which we of taste and feeling are) for those parts that do fructify in us more than he.
For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool, So were there a patch set on learning to see HIM in a school. [That would be a new 'school,' a new 'learning,' patching the 'defect' (as it would be called elsewhere) in the old.]
Dull. You two are book-men. Can you tell me by your wit, etc.
Nath. A rare talent.
Dull. If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent.
Hol. This is a gift that I have; simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.
Nath. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you; you are a good member of the COMMON-WEALTH.
  He is in earnest of course. Is the Poet so too?
  'What is the end of study?'—let me know.
'O they have lived long in the alms-basket of WORDS,' is the criticism on this learning with which this showman, whoever he may he, explains his exhibition of it. And surely he must be, indeed, of the school of Antony Dull, and never fed with the dainties bred in a book, who does not see what it is that is criticised here;—that it is the learning of an unlearned time, of a barbarous time, of a vain, frivolous debased, wretched time, that has been fed long—always from "the alms-basket of words." And one who is acquainted already with the style of this school, who knows already its secret signs and stamp, would not need to be told to look again on the intellect of the letter for the nomination of the party writing, to the person written to, in order to see what source this pastime comes from,—what player it is that is behind the scene here. 'Whoe'er he be, he bears a mounting mind,' and beginning in the lowness of the actual, and collecting the principles that are in all actualities, the true forms that are forms in nature, and not in man's speech only, the new IDEAS of the New Academy, the ideas that are powers, with these 'simples' that are causes, he will reconstruct fortuitous conjunctions, he will make his poems in facts; he will find his Fairy Land in her kingdom whose iron chain he wears.
'The gentles were at their games,' and the soul of new ages was beginning its re-creations.
For this is but the beginning of that 'Armada' that this Don Armado—who fights with sword and pen, in ambush and in the open field—will sweep his old enemy from the seas with yet.
  O like a book of sports thou'lt read me o'er,
  But there's more in me than thou'lt understand.
  Look how the father's face
  Lives in his issue; even so the race
  Of Shake-spear's mind and manners brightly shines
  In his well turn'd and true filed lines,
  In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
  As brandished in the eyes of—[what?—]Ignorance!
Ignorance!—yes, that was the word.
It is the Prince of that little Academe that sits in the Tower here now. It is in the Tower that that little Academe holds its 'conferences' now. There is a little knot of men of science who contrive to meet there. The associate of Raleigh's studies, the partner of his plans and toils for so many years, Hariot, too scientific for his age, is one of these. It is in the Tower that Raleigh's school is kept now. The English youth, the hope of England, follow this teacher still. 'Many young gentlemen still resort to him.' Gilbert Harvey is one of this school. 'None but my father would keep such a bird in such a cage,' cries one of them—that Prince of Wales through whom the bloodless revolution was to have been accomplished; and a Queen seeks his aid and counsel there still.
It is in the Tower now that we must look for the sequel of that holiday performance of the school. It is the genius that had made its game of that old love's labour's lost that is at work here still, still bent on making a lore of life and love, still ready to spend its rhetoric on things, and composing its metres with them.
  Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
  When in eternal lines to time thou growest.
He is building and manning new ships in his triumphant fleet. But they are more warlike than they were. The papers that this Academe issues now have the stamp of the Tower on them. 'The golden shower,' that 'flowed from his fruitful head of his love's praise' flows no more. Fierce bitter things are flung forth from that retreat of learning, while the kingly nature has not yet fully mastered its great wrongs. The 'martial hand' is much used in the compositions of this school indeed for a long time afterwards.
  Fitter perhaps to thunder martial stower
  When thee so list thy tuneful thoughts to raise,
said the partner of his verse long before.
  With rage
  Or influence chide or cheer the drooping stage,
says his protegé.
It was while this arrested soldier of the human emancipation sat amid his books and papers, in old Julius Caesar's Tower, or in the Tower of that Conqueror, 'commonly so called,' that the 'readers of the wiser sort' found, 'thrown in at their study windows,' writings, as if they came 'from several citizens, wherein Caesar's ambition was obscurely glanced at' and thus the whisper of the Roman Brutus 'pieced them out.'
  Brutus thou sleep'st; awake, and see thyself.
  Shall Rome [soft—'thus must I piece it out.']
  Shall Rome stand under one man's awe? What Rome?
       * * * * *
  The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
  But in ourselves that we are underlings.
       * * * * *
  Age, thou art shamed.
It was while he sat there, that the audiences of that player who was bringing forth, on 'the banks of Thames,' such wondrous things out of his treasury then, first heard the Roman foot upon their stage, and the long-stifled, and pent-up speech of English freedom, bursting from the old Roman patriot's lips.
Cassius. And let us swear our resolution.
Brutus. No, not an oath: If not the face of men, The sufferance of our soul's, the time's abuse, If these be motives weak, break off betimes, And every man hence to his idle bed; So let high-sighted tyranny range on, Till each man drop by lottery.
It was while he sat there, that the player who did not write his speeches, said—
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit; If I know this, know all the world beside, That part of tyranny that I do bear, I can shake off at pleasure.
And why should Caesar be a tyrant then? Poor Man! I know he would not be a wolf, But that he sees the Romans are but sheep: He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
  But I, perhaps, speak this
  Before a willing bondman.
Hamlet. My lord,—you played once in the university, you say?
Polonius. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.
Hamlet. And what did you enact?
  Polonius. I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i'the Capitol;
  Brutus killed me.
  Hamlet. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf
  there.—Be the players ready?
Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ, and the liberty. These are the only men.
  Hamlet. Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you
  would drive me into a toil?
  Guild. O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too
  unmannerly.
Hamlet. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?
Guild. My lord, I cannot.
Hamlet. I pray you.
Guild. Believe me, I cannot.
Hamlet. I do beseech you.
Guild. I know no touch of it, my lord.
Hamlet. 'Tis as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.
Guild. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony: I have not the SKILL.
Hamlet. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of ME? You would play upon ME; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of MY MYSTERY; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my key; and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood! do you think I AM EASIER TO BE PLAYED ON THAN A PIPE? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot PLAY upon me.
Hamlet. Why did you laugh when I said, Man delights not me?
Guild. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment THE PLAYERS shall receive from you. We coted them on the way, and thither are they coming to offer you—SERVICE.
  And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
  With windlaces and with assays of bias,
  By indirections, find directions out;
  So by my former lecture and advice,
  Shall you, my son.—Hamlet.
Single, I'll resolve you.—Tempest.
Observe his inclination in yourself.—Hamlet.
For ciphers, they are commonly in letters, but may be in words. Advancement of Learning.
The fact that a Science of Practice, not limited to Physics and the Arts based on the knowledge of physical laws, but covering the whole ground of the human activity, and limited only by the want and faculty of man, required, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First, some special and profoundly artistic methods of 'delivery and tradition,' would not appear to need much demonstration to one acquainted with the peculiar features of that particular crisis in the history of the English nation.
And certainly any one at all informed in regard to the condition of the world at the time in which this science,—which is the new practical science of the modern ages,—makes its first appearance in history,—any one who knows what kind of a public opinion, what amount of intelligence in the common mind the very fact of the first appearance of such a science on the stage of the human affairs presupposes,—any one who will stop to consider what kind of a public it was to which such a science had need as yet to address itself, when that engine for the diffusion of knowledge, which has been battering the ignorance and stupidity of the masses of men ever since, was as yet a novel invention, when all the learning of the world was still the learning of the cell and the cloister, when the practice of the world was still in all departments, unscientific,—any one at least who will stop to consider the nature of the 'preconceptions' which a science that is none other than the universal science of practice, must needs encounter in its principal and nobler fields, will hardly need to be told that if produced at all under such conditions, it must needs be produced covertly. Who does not know, beforehand, that such a science would have to concede virtually, for a time, the whole ground of its nobler fields to the preoccupations it found on them, as the inevitable condition of its entrance upon the stage of the human affairs in any capacity, as the basis of any toleration of its claim to dictate to the men of practice in any department of their proceedings.
That that little 'courtly company' of Elizabethan scholars, in which this great enterprise for the relief of man's estate was supposed in their own time to have had its origin, was composed of wits and men of learning who were known, in their own time, to have concealed their connection with the works on which their literary fame chiefly depended—that that 'glorious Willy,' who finds these forbidden fields of science all open to his pastime, was secretly claimed by this company—that a style of 'delivery' elaborately enigmatical, borrowed in part from the invention of the ancients, and the more recent use of the middle ages, but largely modified and expressly adapted to this exigency, was employed in the compositions of this school, both in prose and verse, a style capable of conveying not merely a double, but a triple significance; a style so capacious in its concealments, so large in its 'cryptic,' as to admit without limitation the whole scope of this argument, and so involved as to conceal in its involutions, all that was then forbidden to appear,—this has been proved in that part of the work which contains the historical key to this delivery.
We have also incontestable historical evidence of the fact, that the man who was at the head of this new conjunction in speculation and practice in its more immediate historical developments,—the scholar who was most openly concerned in his own time in the introduction of those great changes in the condition of the world, which date their beginning from this time, was himself primarily concerned in the invention of this art. That this great political chief, this founder of new polities and inventor of new social arts, who was at the same time the founder of a new school in philosophy, was understood in his own time to have found occasion for the use of such an art, in his oral as well as in his written communications with his school;—that he was connected with a scientific association, which was known to have concealed under the profession of a curious antiquarian research, an inquiry into the higher parts of sciences which the government of that time was not disposed to countenance;—that in the opinion of persons who had the best opportunity of becoming acquainted with the facts at the time, this inventor of the art was himself beheaded, chiefly on account of the discovery of his use of it in one of his gravest literary works;—all this has been produced already, as matter of historic record merely. All this remains in the form of detailed contemporary statement, which suffices to convey, if not the fact that the forbidden parts of sciences were freely handled in the discussions of this school, and not in their secret oral discussions only, but in their great published works,—if not that, at least the fact that such was the impression and belief of persons living at the time, whether any ground existed for it or not.
But the arts by which these new men of science contrived to evade the ignorance and the despotic limitations of their time, the inventions with which they worked to such good purpose upon their own time, in spite of its restrictions and oppositions, and which enable them to 'outstretch their span,' and prolong and perpetuate their plan for the advancement of their kind, and compel the future ages to work with them to the fulfilment of its ends;—the arts by which these great original naturalists undertook to transfer in all their unimpaired splendour and worth, the collections they had made in the nobler fields of their science to the ages that would be able to make use of them;—these are the arts that we shall have need to master, if we would unlock the legacy they have left to us.
The proof of the existence of this special art of delivery and tradition, and the definition of the objects for which it was employed, has been derived thus far chiefly from sources of evidence exterior to the works themselves; but the inventors of it and those who made use of it in their own speech and writings, are undoubtedly the persons best qualified to give us authentic and lively information on this subject; and we are now happily in a position to appreciate the statements which they have been at such pains to leave us, for the sake of clearing up those parts of their discourse which were necessarily obscured at the time. Now that we have in our hands that key of Times which they have recommended to our use, that knowledge of times which 'gives great light in many cases to true interpretations,' it is not possible any longer to overlook these passages, or to mistake their purport.
But before we enter upon the doctrine of Art which was published in the first great recognized work of this philosophy, it will be necessary to produce here some extracts from a book which was not originally published in England, or in the English language, but one which was brought out here as an exotic, though it is in fact one of the great original works of this school, and one of its boldest and most successful issues; a work in which the new grounds of the actual experience and life of men, are not merely inclosed and propounded for written inquiry, but openly occupied. This is not the place to explain this fact, though the continental relations of this school, and other circumstances already referred to in the life of its founder, will serve to throw some light upon it; but on account of the bolder assertions which the particular form of writing and publication rendered possible in this case, and for the sake also of the more lively exhibition of the art itself which accompanies and illustrates these assertions in this instance, it appears on the whole excusable to commence our study of the special Art for the delivery and tradition of knowledge in those departments which science was then forbidden on pain of death to enter, with that exhibition of it which is contained in this particular work, trusting to the progress of the extracts themselves to apologize to the intelligent reader for any thing which may seem to require explanation in this selection.
It is only necessary to premise, that this work is one of the many works of this school, in which a grave, profoundly scientific design is concealed under the disguise of a gay, popular, attractive form of writing, though in this case the audience is from the first to a certain extent select. It has no platform that takes in—as the plays do, with their more glaring attractions and their lower and broader range of inculcation,—the populace. There is no pit in this theatre. It is throughout a book for men of liberal culture; but it is a book for the world, and for men of the world, and not for the cloister merely, and the scholar. But this, too, has its differing grades of readers, from its outer court of lively pastime and brilliant aimless chat to that esoteric chamber, where the abstrusest parts of sciences are waiting for those who will accept the clues, and patiently ascend to them.
The work is popular in its form, but it is inwoven throughout with a thread of lurking meanings so near the surface, and at times so boldly obtruded, that it is difficult to understand how it could ever have been read at all without occasioning the inquiry which it was intended to occasion under certain conditions, but which it was necessary for this society to ward off from their works, except under these limitations, at the time when they were issued. For these inner meanings are everywhere pointed and emphasized with the most bold and vivid illustration, which lies on the surface of the work, in the form of stories, often without any apparent relevance in that exterior connection—brought in, as it would seem, in mere caprice or by the loosest threads of association. They lie, with the 'allegations' which accompany them, strewn all over the surface of the work, like 'trap' on 'sand-stone,' telling their story to the scientific eye, and beckoning the philosophic explorer to that primeval granite of sciences that their vein will surely lead to. But the careless observer, bent on recreation, observes only a pleasing feature in the landscape, one that breaks happily its threatened dulness; the reader, reading this book as books are wont to be read, finds nothing in this phenomenon to excite his curiosity. And the author knows him and his ways so well, that he is able to foresee that result, and is not afraid to trust to it in the case of those whose scrutiny he is careful to avoid. For he is one who counts largely on the carelessness, or the indifference, or the stupidity of those whom he addresses. There is no end to his confidence in that. He is perpetually staking his life on it. Neither is he willing to trust to the clues which these unexplained stories might seem of themselves to offer to the studious eye, to engage the attention of the reader—the reader whose attention he is bent on securing. Availing himself of one of those nooks of discourse, which he is at no loss for the means of creating when the purpose of his essaie requires it, he beckons the confidential reader aside, and thus explains his method to him, outright, in terms which admit of but one construction. 'Neither these stories,' he says, 'nor my allegations do always serve simply for example, authority, or ornament; I do not only regard them for the use I make of them; they carry sometimes, besides what I apply them to, the seeds of a richer and bolder matter, and sometimes, collaterally, a more delicate sound, both to me myself,—who will say no more about it in this place' [we shall hear more of it in another place, however, and where the delicate collateral sounds will not be wanting]—'both to me myself, and to others who happen to be of my ear.'
To the reader, who does indeed happen to be of his ear, to one who has read the 'allegations' and stories that he speaks of, and the whole work, and the works connected with it, by means of that knowledge of the inner intention, and of the method to which he alludes, this passage would of course convey no new intelligence. But will the reader, to whom the views here presented are yet too new to seem credible, endeavour to imagine or invent for himself any form of words, in which the claim already made in regard to the style in which the great original writers of this age and the founders of the new science of the human life were compelled to infold their doctrine, could have been, in the case of this one at least, more distinctly asserted. Here is proof that one of them, one who counted on an audience too, did find himself compelled to infold his richer and bolder meanings in the manner described. All that need be claimed at present in regard to the authorship of this sentence is, that it is written by one whose writings, in their higher intention, have ceased to be understood, for lack of the 'ear' to which his bolder and richer meanings are addressed, for lack of the ear, to which the collateral and more delicate sounds which his words sometimes carry with them are perceptible; and that it is written by a philosopher whose learning and aims and opinions, down to the slightest points of detail, are absolutely identical with those of the principal writers of this school.
But let us look at a few of the stories which he ventures to introduce so emphatically, selecting only such as can be told in a sentence or two. Let us take the next one that follows this explanation—the story in the very next paragraph to it. The question is apparently of Cicero, of his style, of his vanity, of his supposed care for his fame in future ages, of his real disposition and objects.
'Away with that eloquence that so enchants us with its harmony, that we should more study it than things' [what new soul of philosophy is this, then, already?]—'unless you will affirm that of Cicero to be of so supreme perfection as to form a body of itself. And of him, I shall further add one story we read of to this purpose, wherein his nature will much more manifestly be laid open to us' [than in that seeming care for his fame in future ages, or in that lower object of style, just dismissed so scornfully].
'He was to make an oration in public, and found himself a little straitened in time, to fit his words to his mouth as he had a mind to do, when Eros, one of his slaves, brought him word that the audience was deferred till the next day, at which he was so ravished with joy that he enfranchised him.'
The word 'time'—here admits of a double rendering whereby the author's aims are more manifestly laid open; and there is also another word in this sentence which carries a 'delicate sound' with it, to those who have met this author in other fields, and who happen to be of his counsel. But lest the stories of themselves should still seem flat and pointless, or trivial and insignificant to the uninstructed ear, it may be necessary to interweave them with some further 'allegations on this subject,' which the author assumes, or appears to assume, in his own person.
'I write my book for few men, and for few years. Had it been matter of duration, I should have put it into a better language. According to the continual variation that ours has been subject to hitherto [and we know who had a similar view on this point], who can expect that the present form of language should be in use fifty years hence. It slips every day through our fingers; and since I was born, is altered above one half. We say that it is now perfect: every age says the same of the language it speaks. I shall hardly trust to that so long as it runs away and changes as it does.
''Tis for good and useful writings to nail and rivet it to them, and its reputation will go according to the fortune of our state. For which reason, I am not afraid to insert herein several private articles, which will spend their use amongst the men now living, AND THAT CONCERN THE PARTICULAR KNOWLEDGE OF SOME WHO WILL SEE FURTHER INTO THEM THAN THE COMMON READER.' But that the inner reading of these private articles—that reading which lay farther in—to which he invites the attention of those whom it concerns—was not expected to spend its use among the men then living, that which follows might seem to imply. It was that wrapping of them, it was that gross superscription which 'the fortune of our state was likely to make obsolete ere long,' this author thought, as we shall see if we look into his prophecies a little. 'I will not, after all, as I often hear dead men spoken of, that men should say of me: "He judged, and LIVED SO and SO. Could he have spoken when he was dying, he would have said so or so. I knew him better than any."
  'So our virtues
  Lie in the interpretation of the times,'
'says the unfortunate Tullus Aufidius, in the act of conducting a Volscian army against the infant Roman state, bemoaning himself upon the conditions of his historic whereabouts, and beseeching the sympathy and favourable constructions of posterity—
  So our virtues
  Lie in the interpretation of the times;
  And power unto itself most commendable
  Hath not a tomb so evident as a hair
  To extol what it hath done.
'The times,' says Lord Bacon, speaking in reference to books particularly, though he also recommends the same key for the reading of lives, 'the times in many cases give great light to true interpretations.'
'Now as much as decency permits,' continues the other, anticipating here that speech which he might be supposed to have been anxious to make in defence of his posthumous reputation, could he have spoken when he was dying, and forestalling that criticism which he foresaw—that odious criticism of posterity on the discrepancy between his life and his judgment—'Now as much as decency permits, I here discover my inclinations and affections. If any observe, he will find that I have either told or designed to tell ALL. What I cannot express I point out with my finger.
'There was never greater circumspection and military prudence than sometimes is seen among US; can it be that men are afraid to lose themselves by the way, that they reserve themselves to the end of the game?'
'There needs no more but to see a man promoted to dignity, though we knew him but three days before a man of no mark, yet an image of grandeur and ability insensibly steals into our opinion, and we persuade ourselves that growing in reputation and attendants, he is also increased in merit':—
Hamlet. Do the boys carry it away?
Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord. Hercules and his load too.
Hamlet. It is not very strange; for my uncle is king of Denmark, and those that would make mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little. 'Sblood, there is something in this, more than natural [talking of the _super_natural], if philosophy could find it out.
'But,' our prose philosopher, whose mind is running much on the same subjects, continues 'if it happens so that he [this favourite of fortune] falls again, and is mixed with the common crowd, every one inquires with wonder into the cause of his having been hoisted so high. Is it he? say they: did he know no more than this when he was in PLACE?' ['change places … robes and furred gowns hide all.'] Do princes satisfy themselves with so little? Truly we were in good hands! That which I myself adore in kings, is [note it] the crowd of the adorers. All reverence and submission is due to them, except that of the understanding; my reason is not to bow and bend, 'tis my knees' 'I will not do't' says another, who is in this one's counsels,
  I will not do't
  Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth,
  And by my body's action, teach my mind
  A most inherent baseness. Coriolanus.
'Antisthenes one day entreated the Athenians to give orders that their asses might be employed in tilling the ground,—to which it was answered, "that those animals were not destined to such a service." "That's all one," replied he; "it only sticks at your command; for the most ignorant and incapable men you employ in your commands of war, immediately become worthy enough because—YOU EMPLOY THEM."'
There mightst thou behold the great image of authority. A dog's obeyed in office.—Lear.
  For thou dost know, oh Damon dear,
  This realm dismantled was
  Of Jove himself; and now reigns here,
  A very—very—Peacock.
  Horatio. You might have rhymed. Hamlet.
'to which,' continues this political philosopher,—that is, to which preceding anecdote—containing such unflattering intimations with regard to the obstinacy of nature, in the limits she has set to the practical abilities of those animals, not enlarging their natural gifts out of respect to the Athenian selection (an anecdote which supplies a rhyme to Hamlet's verse, and to many others from the same source)—'to which the custom of so many people, who canonize the KINGS they have chosen out of their own body, and are not content only to honour, but adore them, comes very near. Those of Mexico [for instance, it would not of course do to take any nearer home], after the ceremonies of their king's coronation are finished, dare no more look him in the face; but, as if they deified him by his royalty, among the oaths they make him take to maintain their religion and laws, to be valiant, just and mild; he moreover swears,—to make the sun run his course in his wonted light,—to drain the clouds at a fit season,—to confine rivers within their channels,—and to cause all things necessary for his people to be borne by the earth.' '(They told me I was everything. But when the rain came to wet me once, when the wind would not peace at my bidding,' says Lear, 'there I found them, there I smelt them out.)' This, in connection with the preceding anecdote, to which, in the opinion of this author, it comes properly so very near, may be classed of itself among the suggestive stories above referred to; but the bearing of these quotations upon the particular question of style, which must determine the selection here, is set forth in that which follows.
It should be stated, however, that in a preceding paragraph, the author has just very pointedly expressed it as his opinion, that men who are supposed, by common consent, to be so far above the rest of mankind in their single virtue and judgment, that they are permitted to govern them at their discretion, should by no means undertake to maintain that view, by exhibiting that supposed kingly and divine faculty in the way of speech or argument; thus putting themselves on a level with their subjects, and by meeting them on their own ground, with their own weapons, giving occasion for comparisons, perhaps not altogether favourable to that theory of a superlative and divine difference which the doctrine of a divine right to rule naturally presupposes. 'For,' he says, 'neither is it enough for those who govern and command us, and have all the world in their hand, to have a common understanding, and to be able to do what the rest can' [their faculty of judgment must match their position, for if it be only a common one, the difference will make it despised]: 'they are very much below us, if they be not infinitely above us. And, therefore, silence is to them not only a countenance of respect and gravity, but very often of good profit and policy too; for, Megabysus going to see Apelles in his painting room, stood a great while without speaking a word, and at last began to talk of his paintings, for which he received this rude reproof. 'Whilst thou wast silent, thou seemedst to be something great, by reason of thy chains and pomp; but now that we have heard thee speak, there is not the meanest boy in my shop that does not despise thee.' But after the author's subsequent reference to 'those animals' that were to be made competent by a vote of the Athenian people for the work of their superiors, to which he adds the custom of people who canonize the kings they have chosen out of their own body, which comes so near, he goes on thus:—I differ from this common fashion, and am more apt to suspect capacity when I see it accompanied with grandeur of fortune and public applause. We are to consider of what advantage it is, to speak when one pleases, to choose the subject one will speak of—[an advantage not common with authors then]—TO INTERRUPT OR CHANGE OTHER MEN'S ARGUMENTS, WITH A MAGISTERIAL AUTHORITY, to protect oneself from the opposition of others, by a nod, a smile, or silence, in the presence of an assembly that trembles with reverence and respect. A man of a prodigious fortune, coming to give his judgment upon some slight dispute that was foolishly set on foot at his table, began in these words:—'It can only be a liar or a fool that will say otherwise than so and so.' 'Pursue this philosophical point with a dagger in your hand.'
Here is an author who does contrive to pursue his philosophical points, however, dagger or no dagger, wherever they take him. By putting himself into the trick of singularity, and affecting to be a mere compound of eccentricities and oddities, neither knowing nor caring what it is that he is writing about, and dashing at haphazard into anything as the fit takes him,—'Let us e'en fly at anything,' says Hamlet,—by assuming, in short, the disguise of the elder Brutus; and, on account of a similar necessity, there is no saying what he cannot be allowed to utter with impunity. Under such a cover it is, that he inserts the passages already quoted, which have lain to this hour without attracting the attention of critics, unpractised happily, and unlearned also, in the subtleties which tyrannies—such tyrannies—at least generate; and under this cover it is, that he can venture now on those astounding political disquisitions, which he connects with the complaint of the restrictions and embarrassments which the presence of a man of prodigious fortune at the table occasions, when an argument, trivial or otherwise, happens to be going on there. Under this cover, he can venture to bring in here, in this very connection, and to the very table, even of this man of prodigious fortune, pages of the freest political discussion, containing already the finest analysis of the existing political 'situation,' so full of dark and lurid portent, to the eye of the scientific statesman, to whom, even then, already under the most intolerable restrictions of despotism, of the two extremes of social evil, that which appeared to be the most terrible, and the most to be guarded against, in the inevitable political changes then at hand, was—not the consolidation but the dissolution of the state.
For already the horizon of that political oversight included, not the eventualities of the English Revolutions only, but the darker contingencies of those later political and social convulsions, from whose soundless whirlpools, men spring with joy to the hardest sharpest ledge of tyranny; or hail with joy and national thanksgiving the straw that offers to land them on it. Already the scientific statesman of the Elizabethan age could say, casting an eye over Christendom as it stood then, 'That which most threatens us is, not an alteration in the entire and solid mass, but its dissipation and divulsion.'
It is after pages of the freest philosophical discussion, that he arrives at this conclusion—discussion, in which the historical elements and powers are for the first time scientifically recognized and treated throughout with the hand of the new master. For this is a philosopher, who is able to receive into his philosophy the fact, that out of the most depraved and vicious social materials, by the inevitable operation of the universal natural laws, there will, perhaps, result a social adhesion and predominance of powers—a social 'whole,' more capable of maintaining itself than any that Plato or Aristotle, from the heights of their abstractions, could have invented for them. He ridicules, indeed, those ideal politics of antiquity as totally unfit for practical realisation, and admits that though the question as to that which is absolutely the best form of government might be of some value in a new world, the basis of all alterations in existing governments should be the fact, that we take a world already formed to certain customs, and do not beget it, as Pyrrha or Cadmus did theirs, and by what means soever we may have the privilege to rebuild and reform it anew, we can hardly writhe it from its wonted bent, but we shall break all. For the subtlest principles of the philosophy of things are introduced into this discussion, and the boldest applications of the Shakspere muse are repeated in it.
'That is the way to lay all flat,' cries the philosophic poet in the Roman play, opposing on the part of the Conservatist, the violence of an oppressed people, struggling for new forms of government, and bringing out fully, along with their claims, the anti-revolutionary side of the question. 'That which tempts me out on these journeys,' continues this foreign philosopher, speaking in his usual ambiguous terms of his rambling excursive habits and eccentricities of proceedings, glancing also, perhaps, at his outlandish tastes—'that which tempts me out on these journeys, is unsuitableness to the present manners of OUR STATE. I could easily console myself with this corruption in reference to the public interest, but not to my own: I am in particular too much oppressed:—for, in my neighbourhood we are of late by the long libertinage of our civil wars grown old in so riotous a form of state, that in earnest 'tis a wonder how it can subsist. In fine, I see by our example, that the society of men is maintained and held together at what price soever; in what condition soever they are placed they will close and stick together [see the doctrine of things and their original powers in the "Novum Organum"]—moving and heaping up themselves, as uneven bodies, that shuffled together without order, find of themselves means to unite and settle. King Philip mustered up a rabble of the most wicked and incorrigible rascals he could pick out, and put them altogether in a city which he had built for that purpose, which bore their name; I believe that they, even from vices, erected a government among them, and a commodious and just society.'
'Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation'; and let the reader note here, how the principle which has predominated historically in the English Revolution, the principle which the fine Frankish, half Gallic genius, with all its fire and artistic faculty, could not strike instinctively or empirically, in its political experiments—it is well to note, how this distinctive element of the English Revolution—that revolution which is still in progress, with its remedial vitalities—already speaks beforehand, from the lips of this foreign Elizabethan Revolutionist. 'Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation; change only gives form to injustice and tyranny. WHEN ANY PIECE IS OUT OF ORDER IT MAY BE PROPPED, one may prevent and take care that the decay and corruption NATURAL TO ALL THINGS, do not carry us too far from our beginnings and principles; but to undertake to found so great a mass anew, and to change the foundations of so vast a building, is for them to do who to make clean, efface, who would reform particular defects by a universal confusion, and cure diseases by death.' Surely, one may read in good Elizabethan English passages which savor somewhat of this policy. One would say that the principle was in fact identical, as, for instance, in this case. 'Sir Francis Bacon (who was always for moderate counsels), when one was speaking of such a reformation of the Church of England, as would in effect make it no church, said thus to him:—'Sir, the subject we talk of is the eye of England, and if there be a speck or two in the eye, we endeavour to take them off; but he were a strange oculist who would pull out the eye.' [And here is another writer who seems to be taking, on this point and others, very much the same view of the constitution and vitality of states, about these times:—
  He's a disease that must be cut away.
  Oh, he's a limb that has but a disease;
  Mortal to cut it off; to cure it, easy.]
But our Gascon philosopher goes on thus, with his Gascon inspirations: and these sportive notions, struck off at a heat, these careless intuitions, these fine new practical axioms of scientific politics, appear to be every whit as good as if they had been sifted through the scientific tables of the Novum Organum. They are, in fact, the identical truth which the last vintage of the Novum Organum yields on this point. 'The world is unapt for curing itself; it is so impatient of any thing that presses it, that it thinks of nothing but disengaging itself, at what price soever. We see, by a thousand examples, that it generally cures itself to its cost. The discharge of a present evil is no cure, if a general amendment of condition does not follow; the surgeon's end is not only to cut away the dead flesh,—that is but the progress of his cure;—he has a care over and above, to fill up the wound with better and more natural flesh, and to restore the member to its due state. Whoever only proposes to himself to remove that which offends him, falls short; for good does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed, and a worse, as it happened in Caesar's killers, who brought the republic to such a pass, that they had reason to repent their meddling with it.' 'I fear there will a worse one come in his place,' says a fellow in Shakespear's crowd, at the first Caesar's funeral; and that his speech made the moral of the piece, we shall see in the course of this study.
But though the frantic absolutisms and irregularities of that 'old riotous form of military government,' which the long civil wars had generated, seemed of themselves to threaten speedy dissolution, this old Gascon prophet, with his inexhaustible fund of English shrewdness, and sound English sense, underlying all his Gasconading, by no means considers the state as past the statesman's care: 'after all, we are not, perhaps, at the last gasp,' he says. 'The conservation of states is a thing that in all likelihood surpasses our understanding: a civil government is, as Plato says, "a mighty and powerful thing, and hard to be dissolved." "States, as great engines, move slowly," says Lord Bacon; "and are not so soon put out of frame";—that is, so soon as "the resolution of particular persons," which is his reason for producing his moral philosophy, or rather his moral science, as his engine for attack upon the state, a science which concerns the government of every man over himself; "for, as in Egypt, the seven good years sustained the seven bad; so governments, for a time well-grounded, do bear out errors following."' But this is the way that this Gascon philosopher records his conclusions on the same subject. 'Every thing that totters does not fall. The contexture of so great a body holds by more nails than one. It holds even by its antiquity, like old buildings from which the foundations are worn away by time, without rough cast or cement, which yet live or support themselves by their own weight. Moreover, it is not rightly to go to work to reconnoitre only the flank and the fosse, to judge of the security of a place; it must be examined which way approaches can be made to it, AND IN WHAT CONDITION THE ASSAILANT IS—that is the question. 'Few vessels sink with their own weight, and without some exterior violence. Let us every way cast our eyes. Every thing about us totters. In all the great states, both of Christendom and elsewhere, that are known to us, if you will but look, you will there see evident threats of alteration and ruin. Astrologers need not go to heaven to foretell, as they do, GREAT REVOLUTIONS' [this is the speech of the Elizabethan age—'great revolutions'] 'and imminent mutations.' [This is the new kind of learning and prophecy; there was but one source of it open then, that could yield axioms of this kind; for this is the kind that Lord Bacon tells us the head-spring of sciences must be visited for.] 'But conformity is a quality antagonist to DISSOLUTION. For my part, I despair not, and fancy I perceive ways to save us.'
And surely this is one of the inserted private articles, before mentioned, which may, or may not be, 'designed to spend their use among the men now living'; but 'which concern the particular knowledge of some who will see further into them than the common reader.' If there had been a 'London Times' going then, and this old outlandish Gascon Antic had been an English statesman preparing this article as a leader for it, the question of the Times could hardly have been more roundly dealt with, or with a clearer northern accent.
But it is high time for him to bethink himself, and 'draw his old cloak about him'; for, after all, this so just and profound a view of so grave a subject, proceeds from one who has no aims, no plan, no learning, no memory;—a vain, fantastic egotist, who writes only because he will be talking, and talking of himself above all; who is not ashamed to attribute to himself all sorts of mad inconsistent humours, and to contradict himself on every page, if thereby he can only win your eye, or startle your curiosity, and induce you to follow him. After so long and grave a discussion, suddenly it occurs to him that it is time for a little miscellaneous confidential chat about himself, and those certain oddities of his which he does not wish you to lose sight of altogether; and it is time, too, for another of those stories, which serve to divert the attention when it threatens to become too fixed, and break up and enliven the dull passages, besides having that other purpose which he speaks of so frankly. And although this whole discussion is not without a direct bearing upon that particular topic, with which it is here connected, inasmuch as the political situation, which is so clearly exhibited, is precisely that of the Elizabethan scholar, it is chiefly this little piece of confidential chat with which it closes, and its significance in that connection, which gives the rest its insertion here.
For suddenly he recollects himself, and stops short to express the fear that he may have written something similar to this elsewhere; and he gives you to understand—not all at once—but by a series of strokes, that too bold a repetition here, of what he has said elsewhere might be attended, to him, with serious consequences; and he begs you to note, as he does in twenty other passages and stories here and elsewhere, that his style is all hampered with considerations such as these—that instead of merely thinking of making a good book, and presenting his subjects in their clearest and most effective form for the reader;—a thing in itself sufficiently laborious, as other authors find to their cost, he is all the time compelled to weigh his words with reference to such points as this. He must be perpetually on his guard that the identity of that which he presents here, and that which he presents elsewhere, under other and very different forms (in much graver forms perhaps, and perhaps in others not so grave), shall no where become so glaring as to attract popular attention, while he is willing and anxious to keep that identity or connection constantly present to the apprehension of the few, for whom he tells us his book—that is, this book within the book—is written.
'I fear in these reveries of mine,' he continues, suspending at last suddenly this bold and continuous application to the immediate political emergency of those philosophical principles which he has exhibited in the abstract, in their common and universal form, elsewhere; 'I fear, in these reveries of the treachery of my memory, lest by inadvertence it should make me write the same thing twice. Now I here set down nothing new, these are common thoughts, and having per-adventure conceived them a hundred times, I am afraid I have set them down somewhere else already. Repetition is everywhere troublesome, though it were in Homer, but 'tis ruinous in things that have only a superficial and transitory SHOW. I do not love inculcation, even in the most profitable things, as in Seneca, and the practice of his Stoical school displeases me of repeating upon every subject and at length, THE PRINCIPLES and PRESUPPOSITIONS THAT SERVE IN GENERAL, and always to re-allege anew;' that is, under the particular divisions of the subject, common and universal reasons. 'What I cannot express I point out with my finger,' he tells you elsewhere, but it is thus that he continues here.
'My memory grows worse and worse every day. I must fain for the time to come (collateral sounds), for hitherto, thank God, nothing has happened much amiss, to avoid all preparation, for fear of tying myself to some obligation upon which I must be forced to insist. To be tied and bound to a thing puts me quite out, and especially where I have to depend upon so weak an instrument as my memory. I never could read this story without being offended at it, with as it were a personal and natural resentment.' The reader will note that the question here is of style, or method, and of this author's style in particular, and of his special embarrassments.
'Lyncestes accused of conspiracy against Alexander, the day that he was brought out before the army, according to the custom, to be heard in his defence, had prepared a studied speech, of which, haggling and stammering, he pronounced some words. As he was becoming more perplexed and struggling with his memory, and trying to recollect himself, the soldiers that stood nearest killed him with their spears, looking upon his confusion and silence as a confession of his guilt: very fine, indeed! The place, the spectators, the expectation, would astound a man even though were there no object in his mind but to speak well; but WHAT when 'tis an harangue upon which his life depends?' You that happen to be of my ear, it is my style that we are speaking of, and there is my story.
'For my part the very being tied to what I am to say, is enough to loose me from it'—that is the cause of his wandering—'The more I trust to my memory, the more do I put myself out of my own power, so much as to find it in my own countenance, and have sometimes been very much put to it to conceal the slavery wherein I was bound, whereas my design is to manifest in speaking a perfect nonchalance, both of face and accent, and casual and unpremeditated motions, as rising from present occasions, choosing rather to say nothing to purpose, than to show that I came prepared to speak well; a thing especially unbecoming a man of my profession. The preparation begets a great deal more expectation than it will satisfy; a man very often absurdly strips himself to his doublet to leap no further than he would have done in his gown.' [Perhaps the reflecting scholar will recollect to have seen an instance of this magnificent preparation for saying something to the purpose, attended with similarly lame conclusions; but, if he does not, the story which follows may tend to refresh his memory on this point.] 'It is recorded of the orator Curio, that when he proposed the division of his oration into three or four parts, it often happened either that he forgot some one, or added one or two more.' A much more illustrious speaker, who spoke under circumstances not very unlike those in which the poor conspirator above noted made his haggling and fatal attempts at oratory, is known to have been guilty of a similar oversight; for, having invented a plan of universal science, designed for the relief of the human estate, he forgot the principal application of it. But this author says, I have always avoided falling into this inconvenience, having always hated these promises and announcements, not only out of distrust of my memory, but also because this method relishes too much of the artificial. You will find no scientific plan here ostentatiously exhibited; you will find such a plan elsewhere with all the works set down in it, but the works themselves will be missing; and you will find the works elsewhere, but it will be under the cover of a superficial and transitory show, where it would be ruinous to produce the plan, 'I have always avoided falling into this inconvenience. Simpliciora militares decent.' But as he appears, after all, to have had no military weapon with which to sustain that straight-forwardness of speech which is becoming in a military power, and no dagger to pursue his points with, some artifice, though he professes not to like it, may be necessary, and the rule which he here specifies is, on the whole, perhaps, not altogether amiss. ''Tis enough that I have promised to myself never to take upon me to speak in a place where I owe respect; for as to that sort of speaking where a man reads his speech, besides that it is very absurd, it is a mighty disadvantage to those who naturally could give it a grace by action, and to rely upon the mercy of the readiness of my invention, I will much less do it; 'tis heavy and perplexed, and such as would never furnish me in sudden and important necessities.'
'Speaking,' he says in another place, 'hurts and discomposes me,—my voice is loud and high, so that when I have gone to whisper some great person about an affair of consequence, they have often had to moderate my voice. This story deserves a place here.
'Some one in a certain Greek school was speaking loud as I do. The master of the ceremonies sent to him to speak lower. "Tell him then, he must send me," replied the other, "the tone he would have me speak in." To which the other replied, "that he should take the tone from the ear of him to whom he spake." It was well said, if it be understood. Speak according to the affair you are speaking about to the auditor,—(speak according to the business you have in hand, to the purpose you have to accomplish)—for if it mean, it is sufficient that he hears you, I do not find it reason.' It is a more artistic use of speech that he is proposing in his new science of it, for as Lord Bacon has it, who writes as we shall see on this same subject, 'the proofs and persuasions of rhetoric ought to differ according to the auditors,' and the Arts of Rhetoric have for their legitimate end, 'not merely PROOF, but much more, IMPRESSION.' 'For many forms are equal in signification which are differing in impression, as the difference is great in the piercing of that which is sharp, and that which is flat, though the strength of the percussion be the same; for instance, there is no man but will be a little more raised, by hearing it said, "Your enemies will be glad of this," than by hearing it said only, "This is evil for you."' But it is thus that our Gascon proceeds, whose comment on his Greek story we have interrupted. 'There is a voice to flatter, there is a voice to instruct, and a voice to reprehend. I would not only have my voice to reach my hearer, but peradventure that it strike and pierce him. When I rate my footman in a sharp and bitter tone, it would be very fine for him to say, "Pray master, speak lower, for I hear you very well." Speaking is half his that speaks, and half his that hears; the last ought to prepare himself to receive it, according to its motion, as with tennis players; he that receives the ball, shifts, draws back, and prepares himself to receive it, according as he sees him move, who strikes the stroke, and according to the stroke itself.' It is not, therefore, because this author has failed to furnish the rules of interpretation necessary for penetrating to the ultimate intention of this new kind of speaking, if all this affectation of simplicity, and all these absurd contradictory statements of his, have been suffered hitherto to pass unchallenged. It is the public mind he has to deal with. 'That which he adores in kings is the throng of their adorers.' If he should take the public at once into his confidence, and tell them beforehand precisely what his own opinions were of things in general, if he should set before them in the outset the conclusions to which he proposed to drive them, he might indeed stand some chance to have his arguments interrupted, or changed with a magisterial authority; he would indeed find it necessary to pursue his philosophical points with a dagger in his hand.
And besides, this dogmatical mode of teaching does not appear to him to secure the ends of teaching. He wishes to rouse the human mind to activity, to compel it to think for itself, and put it on the inevitable road to his conclusions. He wishes the reader to strike out those conclusions for himself, and fancy himself the discoverer if he will. So far from being simple and straightforward, his style is in the profoundest degree artistic, for the soul of all our modern art inspired it. He thinks it does no good for scholars to call out to the active world from the platform of their last conclusions. The truths which men receive from those didactic heights remain foreign to them. 'We want medicines to arouse the sense,' says Lord Bacon, who proposed exactly the method of teaching which this philosopher had, as it would seem, already adopted. 'I bring a trumpet to awake his ear, to set his sense on the attentive bent, and then to speak,' says that poet who best put this art in practice.
But here it is the prose philosopher who would meet this dull, stupid, custom-bound public on its own ground. He would assume all its absurdities and contradictions in his own person, and permit men to despise, and marvel, and laugh at them in him without displeasure. For whoever will notice carefully, will perceive that the use of the personal pronoun here, is not the limited one of our ordinary speech. Such an one will find that this philosophical I is very broad; that it covers too much to be taken in its literal acceptation. Under this term, the term by which each man names himself, the common term of the individual humanity, he finds it convenient to say many things. 'They that will fight custom with grammar,' he says, 'are fools. When another tells me, or when I say to myself, This is a word of Gascon growth; this a dangerous phrase; this is an ignorant discourse; thou art too full of figures; this is a paradoxical saying; this is a foolish expression: thou makest thyself merry sometimes, and men will think thou sayest a thing in good earnest, which thou only speakest in jest. Yes, say I; but I correct the faults of inadvertence, not those of custom. I have done what I designed,' he says, in triumph, 'All the world knows ME in my book, and my book in ME.'
And thus, by describing human nature under that term, or by repeating and stating the common opinions as his own, he is enabled to create an opposition which could not exist, so long as they remain unconsciously operative, or infolded in the separate individuality, as a part of its own particular form.
'My errors are sometimes natural and incorrigible,' he says; 'but the good which virtuous men do to the public in making themselves imitated, I, perhaps, may do in making my manners avoided. While I publish and accuse my own imperfections, somebody will learn to be afraid of them. The parts that I most esteem in myself, are more honoured in decrying than in commending my own manners. Pausanias tells us of an ancient player upon the lyre, who used to make his scholars go to hear one that lived over against him, and played very ill, that they might learn to hate his discords and false measures. The present time is fitting to reform us backward, more by dissenting than agreeing; by differing than consenting.' That is his application of his previous confession. And it is this present time that he impersonates, holding the mirror up to nature, and provoking opposition and criticism for that which was before buried in the unconsciousness of a common absurdity, or a common wrong. 'Profiting little by good examples, I endeavour to render myself as agreeable as I see others offensive; as constant as I see others fickle; as good as I see others evil.'
'There is no fancy so frivolous and extravagant that does not seem to me a suitable product of the human mind. All such whimsies as are in use amongst us, deserve at least to be hearkened to; for my part, they only with me import inanity, but they import that. Moreover, vulgar and casual opinions are something more than nothing in nature.
'If I converse with a man of mind, and no flincher, who presses hard upon me, right and left, his imagination raises up mine. The contradictions of judgments do neither offend nor alter, they only rouse and exercise me. I could suffer myself to be rudely handled by my friends. "Thou art a fool; thou knowest not what thou art talking about." When any one contradicts me, he raises my attention, not my anger. I advance towards him that contradicts, as to one that instructs me. I embrace and caress truth, in what hand soever I find it, and cheerfully surrender myself, and extend to it my conquered arms; and take a pleasure in being reproved, and accommodate myself to my accusers [aside] (very often more by reason of civility than amendment); loving to gratify the liberty of admonition, by my facility of submitting to it, at my own expense. Nevertheless, it is hard to bring the men of my time to it. They have not the courage to correct, because they have not the courage to be corrected, and speak always with dissimulation in the presence of one another. I take so great pleasure in being judged and known, that it is almost indifferent to me in which of THE TWO FORMS I am so. My imagination does so often contradict and condemn itself, that it is all one to me if another do it. The study of books is a languishing, feeble motion, that heats not, whereas conversation teaches and exercises at once.' But what if a book could be constructed on a new principle, so as to produce the effect of conference—of the noblest kind of conference—so as to rouse the stupid, lethargic mind to a truly human activity—so as to bring out the common, human form, in all its latent actuality, from the eccentricities of the individual varieties? Something of that kind appears to be attempted here.
He cannot too often charge the attentive reader, however, that his arguments require examination. 'In conferences,' he says, 'it is a rule that every word that seems to be good, is not immediately to be accepted. One must try it on all points, to see how it is lodged in the author: [perhaps he is not in earnest] for one must not always presently yield what truth or beauty soever seem to be in the argument.' A little delay, and opposition, the necessity of hunting, or fighting, for it, will only make it the more esteemed in the end. In such a style, 'either the author must stoutly oppose it [that is, whatsoever beauty or truth is to be the end of the argument in order to challenge the reader] or draw back, under colour of not understanding it, [and so piquing the reader into a pursuit of it] or, sometimes, perhaps, he may aid the point, and carry it beyond its proper reach [and so forcing the reader to correct him. This whole work is constructed on this principle]. As when I contend with a vigorous man, I please myself with anticipating his conclusions; I ease him of the trouble of explaining himself; I strive to prevent his imagination, whilst it is yet springing and imperfect; the order and pertinency of his understanding warns and threatens me afar off. But as to these,—and the sequel explains this relative, for it has no antecedent in the text—as to these, I deal quite contrary with them. I must understand and presuppose nothing but by them…. Now, if you come to explain anything to them and confirm them (these readers), they presently catch at it, and rob you of the advantage of your interpretation. "It was what I was about to say; it was just my thought, and if I did not express it so, it was only for want of language." Very pretty! Malice itself must be employed to correct this proud ignorance—'tis injustice and inhumanity to relieve and set him right who stands in no need of it, and is the worse for it. I love to let him step deeper into the mire,'—[luring him on with his own confessions, and with my assumptions of his case] 'and so deep that if it be possible, they may at least discern their error. FOLLY AND ABSURDITY ARE NOT TO BE CURED BY BARE ADMONITION. What Cyrus answered him who importuned him to harangue his army upon the point of battle, "that men do not become valiant and warlike on a sudden, by a fine oration, no more than a man becomes a good musician by hearing a fine song," may properly be said of such an admonition as this;' or, as Lord Bacon has it, 'It were a strange speech, which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from a vice to which he is by nature subject; it is order, pursuit, sequence, and interchange of application, which is mighty in nature.' But the other continues:—'These are apprenticeships that are to be served beforehand by a long continued education. We owe this care and this assiduity of correction and instruction to our own, [that is the school,] but to go to preach to the first passer-by, and to lord it over the ignorance and folly of the first we meet, is a thing that I abhor. I rarely do it, even in my own particular conferences, and rather surrender my cause, than proceed to these supercilious and magisterial instructions.' The clue to the reading of his inner book. This is what Lord Bacon also condemns, as the magisterial method,—'My humour is unfit, either to speak or write for beginners;' he will not shock or bewilder them by forcing on them prematurely the last conclusions of science; 'but as to things that are said in common discourse or amongst other things, I never oppose them either by word or sign, how false or absurd soever.'
'Let none even doubt,' says the author of the Novum Organum, who thought it wisest to steer clear even of doubt on such a point, 'whether we are anxious to destroy and demolish the philosophical arts and sciences which are now in use. On the contrary, we readily cherish their practice, cultivation, and honour; for we by no means interfere to prevent the prevalent system from encouraging discussion, adorning discourses, or being employed serviceably in the chair of the Professor, or the practice of common life, and being taken in short, by general consent, as current coin. Nay, we plainly declare that the system we offer will not be very suitable for such purposes, not being easily adapted to vulgar apprehension, except by EFFECTS AND WORKS. To show our sincerity [hear] in professing our regard and friendly disposition towards the received sciences, we can refer to the evidence of our published writings, especially our books on—the Advancement—[the Advancement] of Learning.' And the reader who can afford time for 'a second cogitation,' the second cogitation which a superficial and interior meaning, of course, requires, with the aid of the key of times, will find much light on that point, here and there, in the works referred to, and especially in those parts of them in which the scientific use of popular terms is treated. 'We will not, therefore,' he continues, 'endeavour to evince it (our sincerity) any further by words, but content ourselves with steadily, etc., … professedly premising that no great progress can be made by the present methods in the theory and contemplation of science, and that they can not be made to produce any very abundant effects.' This is the proof of his sincerity in professing his regard and friendly disposition towards them, to be taken in connection with his works on the Advancement of Learning, and no doubt it was sincere, and just to that extent to which these statements, and the practice which was connected with them, would seem to indicate; but the careful reader will perceive that it was a regard, and friendliness of disposition, which was naturally qualified by that doubly significant fact last quoted.
But the question of style is still under discussion here, and no wonder that with such views of the value of the 'current coin,' and with a regard and reverence for the received sciences so deeply qualified; or, as the other has it, with a humour so unfit either to speak or write for beginners, a style which admitted of other efficacies than bare proofs, should appear to be demanded for popular purposes, or for beginners. And no wonder that with views so similar on this first and so radical point, these two men should have hit upon the same method in Rhetoric exactly, though it was then wholly new. But our Gascon, goes on to describe its freedoms and novelties, its imitations of the living conference, its new vitalities.
'May we not,' says the successful experimenter in this very style, 'mix with the subject of conversation and communication, the quick and sharp repartees which mirth and familiarity introduce amongst friends pleasantly and wittingly jesting with one another; an exercise for which my natural gaiety renders me fit enough, if it be not so extended and serious as the other I just spoke of, 'tis no less smart and ingenious, nor of less utility as Lycurgus thought.'
Here's neither bush nor shrub to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing. I hear it sing in the wind. My, best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. I will here shroud, till the dregs of the storm be past.—Tempest.
Here then, in the passages already quoted, we find the plan and theory—the premeditated form of a new kind of Socratic performance; and this whole work, as well as some others composed in this age, make the realization of it; an invention which proposes to substitute for the languishing feeble motion which is involved in the study of books—the kind of books which this author found invented when he came—for the passive, sluggish receptivity of another's thought, the living glow of pursuit and discovery, the flash of self-conviction.
It is a Socratic dialogue, indeed; but it waits for the reader's eye to open it; he is himself the principal interlocutor in it; there can be nothing done till he comes in. Whatsoever beauty or truth maybe in the argument; whatsoever jokes and repartees; whatsoever infinite audacities of mirth may be hidden under that grave cover, are not going to shine out for any lazy book-worm's pleasure. He that will not work, neither shall he eat of this food. 'Up to the mountains,' for this is hunter's language, 'and he that strikes the venison first shall be lord of this feast.' It is an invention whereby the author will remedy for himself the complaint, that life is short, and art is long; whereby he will 'outstretch his span,' and make over, not his learning only but his living to the future;—it is an instrumentality by which he will still maintain living relations with the minds of men, by which he will put himself into the most intimate relations of sympathy, and confidence, and friendship, with the mind of the few; by which he will reproduce his purposes and his faculties in them, and train them to take up in their turn that thread of knowledges which is to be spun on.
But if this design be buried so deeply, is it not lost then? If all the absurd and contradictory developments—if all the mad inconsistencies—all the many-sided contradictory views, which are possible to human nature on all the questions of human life, which this single personal pronoun was made to represent, in the profoundly philosophic design of the author, are still culled out by learned critics, and made to serve as the material of a grave, though it is lamented, somewhat egotistical biography, is not all this ingenuity, which has successfully evaded thus far not the careless reader only, but the scrutiny of the scholar, and the sharp eye of the reviewer himself, is it not an ingenuity which serves after all to little purpose, which indeed defeats its own design? No, by no means. That disguise which was at first a necessity, has become the instrument of his power. It is that broad I of his, that I myself, with which he still takes all the world; it is that single, many-sided, vivacious, historical impersonation, that ideal impersonation of the individual human nature as it is—not as it should be—with all its 'weaved-up follies ravelled out,' with all its before unconfessed actualities, its infinite absurdities and contradictions, so boldly pronounced and assumed by one laying claim to an historical existence, it is this historical assumption and pronunciation of all the before unspoken, unspeakable facts of this unexplored department of natural history, it is this apparent confession with which this magician entangles his victims, as he tells us in a passage already quoted, and leads them on through that objective representation of their follies in which they may learn to hate them, to that globe mirror—that mirror of the age which he boasts to have hung up here, when he says, 'I have done what I designed: all the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.'
Who shall say that it is yet time to strip him of the disguise which he wears so effectively? With all his faults, and all his egotisms, who would not be sorry to see him taken to pieces, after all? And who shall quite assure us, that it would not still be treachery, even now, for those who have unwound his clues, and traversed his labyrinths to the heart of his mystery,—for those who have penetrated to the chamber of his inner school, to come out and blab a secret with which he still works so potently; insensibly to those on whom he works, perhaps, yet so potently? But there is no harm done. It will still take the right reader to find his way through these new devices in letters; these new and vivacious proofs of learning; for him, and for none other, they lurk there still.
To evade political restrictions, and to meet the popular mind on its own ground, was the double purpose of the disguise; but it is a disguise which will only detect, and not baffle, the mind that is able to identify itself with his, and able to grasp his purposes; it is a disguise which will only detect the mind that knows him, and his purposes already. The enigmatical form of the inculcation is the device whereby that mind will be compelled to follow his track, to think for itself his thoughts again, to possess itself of the inmost secret of his intention; for it is a school in whose enigmatical devices the mind of the future was to be caught, in whose subtle exercises the child of the future was to be trained to an identity that should restore the master to his work again, and bring forth anew, in a better hour, his clogged and buried genius.
But, if the fact that a new and more vivid kind of writing, issuing from the heart of the new philosophy of things, designed to work new and extraordinary effects by means of literary instrumentalities,— effects hitherto reserved for other modes of impression,—if the fact, that a new and infinitely artistic mode of writing, burying the secrets of philosophy in the most careless forms of the vulgar and popular discourse, did, in this instance at least, exist; if this be proved, it will suffice for our present purpose. What else remains to be established concerning points incidentally started here, will be found more pertinent to another stage of this enquiry.
From beginning to end, the whole work might be quoted, page by page, in proof of this; but after the passages already produced here, there would seem to be no necessity for accumulating any further evidence on this point. A passage or two more, at least, will suffice to put that beyond question. The extracts which follow, in connection with those already given, will serve, at least, to remove any rational doubt on that point, and on some others, too, perhaps.
'But whatever I deliver myself to be, provided it be such as I really am, I have my end; neither will I make any excuse for committing to paper such mean and frivolous things as these; the meanness of the subject compels me to it.'—'Human reason is a two-edged and a dangerous sword. Observe, in the hand of Socrates, her most intimate and familiar friend, how many points it has. Thus, I am good for nothing but to follow, and suffer myself to be easily carried away with the crowd.'—'I have this opinion of these political controversies: Be on what side you will, you have as fair a game to play as your adversary, provided you do not proceed so far as to jostle principles that are too manifest to be disputed; and yet, 'tis my notion, in public affairs [hear], there is no government so ill, provided it be ancient, and has been constant, that is not better than change and alteration. Our manners are infinitely corrupted, and wonderfully incline to grow worse: of our laws and customs, there are many that are barbarous and monstrous: nevertheless, by reason of the difficulty of reformation, and the danger of stirring things, if I could put something under to stay the wheel, and keep it where it is, I would do so with all my heart. It is very easy to beget in a people a contempt of its ancient observances; never any man undertook, but he succeeded; but to establish a better regimen in the stead of that a man has overthrown, many who have attempted this have foundered in the attempt. I very little consult my prudence [philosophic 'prudence'] in my conduct. I am willing to let it be guided by public rule.
'In fine, to return to myself, the only things by which I esteem myself to be something, is that wherein never any man thought himself to be defective. My recommendation is vulgar and common; for whoever thought he wanted sense. It would be a proposition that would imply a contradiction in itself; [in such subtleties thickly studding this popular work, the clues which link it with other works of this kind are found—the clues to a new practical human philosophy.] 'Tis a disease that never is where it is discerned; 'tis tenacious and strong; but the first ray of the patient's sight does nevertheless pierce it through and disperse it, as the beams of the sun do a thick mist: to accuse one's self, would be to excuse one's self in this case; and to condemn, to absolve. There never was porter, or silly girl, that did not think they had sense enough for their need. The reasons that proceed from the natural arguing of others, we think that if we had turned our thoughts that way, we should ourselves have found it out as well as they. Knowledge, style, and such parts as we see in other works, we are readily aware if they excel our own; but for the simple products of the understanding, every one thinks he could have found out the like, and is hardly sensible of the weight and difficulty, unless—and then with much ado—in an extreme and incomparable distance; and whoever should be able clearly to discern the height of another's judgment, would be also able to raise his own to the same pitch; so that this is a sort of exercise, from which a man is to expect very little praise, a kind of composition of small repute. And, besides, for whom do you write?'—for he is merely meeting this common sense. His object is merely to make his reader confess, 'That was just what I was about to say, it was just my thought; and if I did not express it so, it was only for want of language;'—'for whom do you write? The learned, to whom the authority appertains of judging books, know no other value but that of learning, and allow of no other process of wit but that of erudition and art. If you have mistaken one of the Scipios for another, what is all the rest you have to say worth? Whoever is ignorant of Aristotle, according to their rule, is in some sort ignorant of himself. Heavy and vulgar souls cannot discern the grace of a high and unfettered style. Now these two sorts of men make the world. The third sort, into whose hands you fall, of souls that are regular, and strong of themselves, is so rare, that it justly has neither name nor place amongst us, and it is pretty well time lost to aspire to it, or to endeavour to please it.' He will not content himself with pleasing the few. He wishes to move the world, and its approbation is a secondary question with him.
'He that should record my idle talk, to the prejudice of the most paltry law, opinion, or custom of his parish, would do himself a great deal of wrong, and me too; for, in what I say, I warrant no other certainty, but 'tis what I had then in my thought, a thought tumultuous and wavering. ["I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet," says the offended king. "These words are not mine." Hamlet: "Nor mine now."] All I say is by way of discourse. I should not speak so boldly, if it were my due to be believed, and so I told a great man, who complained to me of the tartness and contention of my advice.' And, indeed, he would not, in this instance, that is very certain;—for he has been speaking on the subject of RELIGIOUS TOLERATION, and among other remarks, somewhat too far in advance of his time, he has let fall, by chance, such passages as these, which, of course, he stands ready to recall again in case any one is offended. ('These words are not mine, Hamlet.' 'Nor mine now.') 'To kill men, a clear and shining light is required, and our life is too real and essential, to warrant these supernatural and fantastic accidents.' 'After all 'tis setting a man's conjectures at a very high price to cause a man to be roasted alive upon them.' He does not look up at all, after making this accidental remark; for he is too much occupied with a very curious story, which happens to come into his head at that moment, of certain men, who being more profoundly asleep than men usually are, became, according to certain grave authorities, what in their dreams they fancied they were; and having mentioned one case sufficiently ludicrous to remove any unpleasant sensation or inquiry which his preceding allusion might have occasioned, he resumes, 'If dreams can sometimes so incorporate themselves with effects of life, I cannot believe that therefore our will should be accountable to justice. Which I say, as a man, who am neither judge nor privy counsellor, nor think myself, by many degrees, worthy so to be, but a man of the common sort, born and vowed to the obedience of the public realm, both in words and acts.
'Thought is free;—thought is free.' Ariel.
'Perceiving you to be ready and prepared on one part, I propose to you on the other, with all the care I can, to clear your judgment, not to enforce it. Truly, I have not only a great many humours, but also a great many opinions [which I bring forward here, and assume as mine] that I would endeavour to make my son dislike, if I had one. The truest, are not always the most commodious to man; he is of too wild a composition. "We speak of all things by precept and resolution," he continues, returning again to this covert question of toleration, and Lord Bacon complains also that that is the method in his meridian. They make me hate things that are likely, when they impose them on me for infallible. "Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy"—(or, as Lord Bacon expresses it, "wonder is the seed of knowledge")—enquiry the progress—ignorance the end. Ay, but there is a sort of ignorance, strong and generous, that yields nothing in honour and courage to knowledge, a knowledge, which to conceive, requires no less knowledge than knowledge itself.'
'I saw, in my younger days, a report of a process that Corras, a counsellor of Thoulouse, put in print.'—[The vain, egotistical, incoherent, rambling old Frenchman, the old Roman Catholic French gentleman, who is understood to be the author of this new experiment in letters, was not far from being a middle-aged man, when the pamphlet which he here alludes to was first published; but his chronology, generally, does not bear a very close examination. Some very extraordinary anachronisms, which the critics are totally at a loss to account for, have somehow slipped into his story. There was a young philosopher in France in those days, of a most precocious, and subtle, and inventive genius—of a most singularly artistic genius, combining speculation and practice, as they had never been combined before, and already busying himself with all sorts of things, and among other things, with curious researches in regard to ciphers, and other questions not less interesting at that time;—there was a youth in France, whose family name was also English, living there with his eyes wide open, a youth who had found occasion to invent a cipher of his own even then, into whose hands that publication might well have fallen on its first appearance, and one on whose mind it might very naturally have made the impression here recorded. But let us return to the story.]—'I saw in my younger days, a report of a process, that Corras, a counsellor of Thoulouse, put in print, of a strange accident of two men, who presented themselves the one for the other. I remember, and I hardly remember anything else, that he seemed to have rendered the imposture of him whom he judged to be guilty, so wonderful, and so far exceeding both our knowledge and his who was the judge, that I thought it a very bold sentence that condemned him to be hanged. [That is the point.] Let us take up SOME FORM of ARREST, that shall say, THE COURT understands nothing of the matter, more freely and ingenuously than the Areopagites did, who ordered the parties to appear again in a hundred years.' We must not forget that these stories 'are not regarded by the author merely for the use he makes of them,—that they carry, besides what he applies them to, the seeds of a richer and bolder matter, and sometimes collaterally a more delicate sound, both to the author himself who declines saying anything more about it in that place, and to others who shall happen to be of his ear!' One already prepared by previous discovery of the method of communication here indicated, and by voluminous readings in it, to understand that appeal, begs leave to direct the attention of the critical reader to the delicate collateral sounds in the story last quoted.
It is not irrelevant to notice that this story is introduced to the attention of the reader, 'who will, perhaps, see farther into it than others,' in that chapter on toleration in which it is suggested that considering the fantastic, and unscientific, and unsettled character of the human beliefs and opinions, and that even 'the Fathers' have suggested in their speculations on the nature of human life, that what men believed themselves to be, in their dreams, they really became, it is after all setting a man's conjectures at a very high price to cause a man to be roasted alive on them; the chapter in which it is intimated that considering the natural human liability to error, a little more room for correction of blunders, a little larger chance of arriving at the common truth, a little more chance for growth and advancement in learning, would, perhaps, on the whole, be likely to conduce to the human welfare, instead of sealing up the human advancement for ever, with axe and cord and stake and rack, within the limits of doctrines which may have been, perhaps, the very wisest, the most learned, of which the world was capable, at the time when their form was determined. It is the chapter which he calls fancifully, a chapter 'on cripples,' into which this odd story about the two men who presented themselves, the one for the other, in a manner so remarkable, is introduced, for lameness is always this author's grievance, wherever we find him, and he is driven to all sorts of devices to overcome it; for he is the person who came prepared to speak well, and who hates that sort of speaking, where a man reads his speech, because he is one who could naturally give it a grace by action, or as another has it, he is one who would suit the action to the word.
But it was not the question of 'hanging' only, or 'roasting alive,' that authors had to consider with themselves in these times. For those forms of literary production which an author's literary taste, or his desire to reach and move and mould the people, might incline him to select—the most approved forms of popular literature, were in effect forbidden to men, bent, as these men were, on taking an active part in the affairs of their time. Any extraordinary reputation for excellence in these departments, would hardly have tended to promote the ambitious views of the young aspirant for honors in that school of statesmanship, in which the 'Fairy Queen' had been scornfully dismissed, as 'an old song.' Even that disposition to the gravest and profoundest forms of philosophical speculation, which one foolish young candidate for advancement was indiscreet enough to exhibit prematurely there, was made use of so successfully to his disadvantage, that for years his practical abilities were held in suspicion on that very account, as he complains. The reputation of a Philosopher in those days was quite as much as this legal practitioner was willing to undertake for his part. That of a Poet might have proved still more uncomfortable, and more difficult to sustain. His claim to a place in the management of affairs would not have been advanced by it, in the eyes of those old statesmen, whose favour he had to propitiate. However, he was happily relieved from any suspicion of that sort. If those paraphrases of the Psalms for which he chose to make himself responsible,—if those Hebrew melodies of his did not do the business for him, and clear him effectually of any such suspicion in the eyes of that generation, it is difficult to say what would. But whether his devotional feelings were really of a kind to require any such painful expression as that on their own account, may reasonably be doubted by any one acquainted at all with his general habits of thought and sentiment. These lyrics of the philosopher appear on the whole to prove too much; looked at from a literary point of view merely, they remind one forcibly of the attempts of Mr. Silence at a Bacchanalian song. 'I have a reasonable good ear in music,' says the unfortunate Pyramus, struggling a little with that cerebral development and uncompromising facial angle which he finds imposed on him. 'I have a reasonable good ear in music: let us have the tongs and the bones.'
'A man must frame some probable cause, why he should not do his best, and why he should dissemble his abilities,' says this author, speaking of colour, or the covering of defects; and that the prejudice just referred to was not peculiar to the English court, the remarkable piece of dramatic criticism which we are about to produce from this old Gascon philosopher's pages, may or may not indicate, according as it is interpreted. It serves as an introduction to the passage in which the author's double meaning, and the occasionally double sound of his stories is noted. In the preceding chapter, it should be remarked, however, the author has been discoursing in high strains, upon the vanity of popular applause, or of any applause but that of reason and conscience; sustaining himself with quotations from the Stoics, whose doctrines on this point he assumes as the precepts of a true and natural philosophy; and among others the following passage was quoted:—[Taken from an epistle of Seneca, but including a quotation from a letter of Epicurus, on the same subject.]—'Remember him who being asked why he took so much pains in an art that could come to the knowledge of but few persons, replied, "A few are enough for me. I have enough with one, I have enough with never a one." He said true; yourself and a companion are theatre enough to one another, or you to yourself. Let us be to you the whole people, and the whole people to you but one. You should do like the beasts of chase who efface the track at the entrance into their den.' But this author's comprehensive design embraces all the oppositions in human nature; he thinks it of very little use to preach to men from the height of these lofty philosophic flights, unless you first dive down to the platform of their actualities, and by beginning with the secret of what they are, make sure that you take them with you. So then the latent human vanity, must needs be confessed, and instead of taking it all to himself this time, poor Cicero and Pliny are dragged up, the latter very unjustly, as the commentator complains, to stand the brunt of this philosophic shooting.
'But this exceeds all meanness of spirit in persons of such quality as they were, to think to derive any glory from babbling and prating, even to the making use of their private letters to their friends, and so withal that though some of them were never sent, the opportunity being lost, they nevertheless published them; with this worthy excuse, that they were unwilling to lose their labour, and have their lucubrations thrown away.'—Was it not well becoming two consuls of Rome, sovereign magistrates of the republic, that commanded the world, to spend their time in patching up elegant missives, in order to gain the reputation of being well versed in their own mother tongue? What could a pitiful schoolmaster have done worse, who got his living by it? If the acts of Xenophon and Caesar had not far transcended their eloquence, I don't believe they would ever have taken the pains to write them. They made it their business to recommend not their saying, but their doing. The companions of Demosthenes in the embassy to Philip, extolling that prince as handsome, eloquent, and a stout drinker, Demosthenes said that those were commendations more proper for a woman, an advocate, or a sponge. 'Tis not his profession to know either how to hunt, or to dance well.
  Orabunt causas alii, coelique meatus
  Describent radio, et fulgentia sidera dicent,
  Hic regere imperio populos sciat.
Plutarch says, moreover, that to appear so excellent in these less necessary qualities, is to produce witness against a man's self, that he has spent his time and study ill, which ought to have been employed in the acquisition of more necessary and more useful things. Thus Philip, King of Macedon, having heard the great Alexander, his son, sing at a feast to the wonder and envy of the best musicians there. 'Art thou not ashamed,' he said to him, 'to sing so well?' And to the same Philip, a musician with whom he was disputing about something concerning his art, said, 'Heaven forbid, sir, that so great a misfortune should ever befall you as to understand these things better than I.' Perhaps this author might have made a similar reply, had his been subjected to a similar criticism. And Lord Bacon quotes this story too, as he does many others, which this author has first selected, and for the same purpose; for, not content with appropriating his philosophy, and pretending to invent his design and his method, he borrows all his most significant stories from him, and brings them in to illustrate the same points, and the points are borrowed also: he makes use, indeed, of his common-place book throughout in the most shameless and unconscionable manner. 'Rack his style, Madam, rack his style?' he said to Queen Elizabeth, as he tells us, when she consulted him—he being then of her counsel learned, in the case of Dr. Hayward, charged with having written 'the book of the deposing of Richard the Second, and the coming in of Henry the Fourth,' and sent to the Tower for that offence. The queen was eager for a different kind of advice. Racking an author's book did not appear to her coarse sensibilities, perfectly unconscious of the delicacy of an author's susceptibilities, a process in itself sufficiently murderous to satisfy her revenge. There must be some flesh and blood in the business before ever she could understand it. She wanted to have 'the question' put to that gentleman as to his meaning in the obscure passages in that work under the most impressive circumstances; and Mr. Bacon, himself an author, being of her counsel learned, was requested to make out a case of treason for her; and wishes from such a source were understood to be commands in those days. Now it happened that one of the managers and actors at the Globe Theatre, who was at that time sustaining, as it would seem, the most extraordinary relations of intimacy and friendship with the friends and patrons of this same person, then figuring as the queen's adviser, had recently composed a tragedy on this very subject; though that gentleman, more cautious than Dr. Hayward, and having, perhaps, some learned counsel also, had taken the precaution to keep back the scene of the deposing of royalty during the life-time of this sharp-witted queen, reserving its publication for the reign of her erudite successor; and the learned counsel in this case being aware of the fact, may have felt some sympathy with this misguided author. 'No, madam,' he replied to her inquiry, thinking to take off her bitterness with a merry conceit, as he says, 'for treason I can not deliver opinion that there is any, but very much felony.' The queen apprehending it gladly, asked, 'How?' and 'wherein?' Mr. Bacon answered, 'Because he had stolen many of his sentences and conceits out of Cornelius Tacitus.' It would do one good to see, perhaps, how many felonious appropriations of sentences, and quotations, and ideas, the application he recommends would bring to light in this case.
But the instances already quoted are not the only ones which this free spoken foreign writer, this Elizabethan genius abroad, ventures to adduce in support of this position of his, that statesmen—men who aspire to the administration of republics or other forms of government—if they cannot consent on that account to relinquish altogether the company of the Muses, must at least so far respect the prevailing opinion on that point, as to be able to sacrifice to it the proudest literary honours. Will the reader be pleased to notice, not merely the extraordinary character of the example in this instance, but the grounds of the assumption which the critic makes with so much coolness.
'And could the perfection of eloquence have added any lustre proportionable to the merit of a great person, certainly Scipio and Laelius had never resigned the honour of their comedies, with all the luxuriancies and delicacies of the Latin tongue, to an African slave, for that the work was THEIRS its beauty and excellency SUFFICIENTLY PROVE.' [This is from a book in which the supposed autograph of Shakspere is found; a work from which he quotes incessantly, and from which he appears, indeed, to have taken the whole hint of his learning.] 'Besides Terence himself confesses as much, and I should take it ill in any one that would dispossess me of that belief.' For, as he says in another place, in a certain deeply disguised dedication which he makes of the work of a friend, a poet, whose early death he greatly lamented, and whom he is 'determined,' as he says, 'to revive and raise again to life if he can:' 'As we often judge of the greater by the less, and as the very pastimes of great men give an honourable idea to the clear-sighted of the source from which they spring, I hope you will, by this work of his, rise to the knowledge of himself, and by consequence love and embrace his memory. In so doing, you will accomplish what he exceedingly longed for whilst he lived.' But here he continues thus, 'I have, indeed, in my time known some, who, by a knack of writing, have got both title and fortune, yet disown their apprenticeship, purposely corrupt their style, and affect ignorance of so vulgar a quality (which also our nation observes, rarely to be seen in very learned hands), carefully seeking a reputation by better qualities.'
I once did hold it, as our statists do, a baseness to write fair: but now it did me yeoman's service.—Hamlet.
And it is in the next paragraph to this, that he takes occasion to mention that his stories and allegations do not always serve simply for example, authority, or ornament; that they are not limited in their application to the use he ostensibly makes of them, but that they carry, for those who are in his secret, other meanings, bolder and richer meanings, and sometimes collaterally a more delicate sound. And having interrupted the consideration upon Cicero and Pliny, and their vanity and pitiful desire for honour in future ages, with this criticism on the limited sphere of statesmen in general, and the devices to which Lælius and Scipio were compelled to resort, in order to get their plays published without diminishing the lustre of their personal renown, and having stopped to insert that most extraordinary avowal in regard to his two-fold meanings in his allegations and stories, he returns to the subject of this correspondence again, for there is more in this also than meets the ear; and it is not Pliny, and Cicero only, whose supposed vanity, and regard for posthumous fame, as men of letters, is under consideration. 'But returning to the speaking virtue;' he says, 'I find no great choice between not knowing to speak anything but ill, and not knowing anything but speaking well. The sages tell us, that as to what concerns knowledge there is nothing but philosophy, and as to what concerns effects nothing but virtue, that is generally proper to all degrees and orders. There is something like this in these two other philosophers, for they also promise ETERNITY to the letters they write to their friends, but 'tis after another manner, and by accommodating themselves for a good end to the vanity of another; for they write to them that if the concern of making themselves known to future ages, and the thirst of glory, do yet detain them in the management of public affairs, and make them fear the solitude and retirement to which they would persuade them; let them never trouble themselves more about it, forasmuch as they shall have credit enough with posterity to assure them that, were there nothing else but the letters thus writ to them, those letters will render their names as known and famous as their own public actions themselves could do. [And that—that is the key to the correspondence between two other philosophers enigmatically alluded to here.] And besides this difference,' for it is 'these two other philosophers,' and not Pliny and Cicero, and not Seneca and Epicurus alone, that we talk of here, 'and besides this difference, these are not idle and empty letters, that contain nothing but a fine jingle of well chosen words, and fine couched phrases; but replete and abounding with grave and learned discourses, by which a man may render himself—not more eloquent but more wise, and that instruct us not to speak but to do well'; for that is the rhetorical theory that was adopted by the scholars and statesmen then alive, whose methods of making themselves known to future ages he is indicating, even in these references to the ancients. 'Away with that eloquence which so enchants us with its harmony that we should more study it than things'; for this is the place where the quotation with which our investigation of this theory commenced is inserted in the text, and here it is, in the light of these preceding collections of hints that he puts in the story first quoted, wherein he says, the nature of the orator will be much more manifestly laid open to us, than in that seeming care for his fame, or in that care of his style, for its own sake. It is the story of Eros, the slave, who brought the speaker word that the audience was deferred, when in composing a speech that he was to make in public, 'he found himself straitened in time, to fit his words to his mouth as he had a mind to do.'
Is the storm overblown? I hid me under the dead moon-calf's gaberdine for fear of the storm.—Tempest.
BUT as to this love of glory which the stoics, whom this philosopher quotes so approvingly, have measured at its true worth; as to this love of literary fame, this hankering after an earthly immortality, which he treats so scornfully in the Roman statesman, let us hear him again in another chapter, and see if we can find any thing whereby his nature and designs will more manifestly be laid open to us. 'Of all the foolish dreams in the world,' he says, that which is most universally received, is the solicitude of reputation and glory, which we are fond of to that degree as to abandon riches, peace, life, and health, which are effectual and substantial good, to pursue this vain phantom. And of all the irrational humours of men, it should seem that the philosophers themselves have the most ado, and do the least disengage themselves from this the most restive and obstinate of all the follies. There is not any one view of which reason does so clearly accuse the vanity, as that; but it is so deeply rooted in us, that I doubt whether any one ever clearly freed himself from it, or no. After you have said all, and believed all that has been said to its prejudice, it creates so intestine an inclination in opposition to your best arguments, that you have little power and firmness to resist it; for (as Cicero says) even those who controvert it, would yet that the books they write should appear before the world with their names in the title page, and seek to derive glory from seeming to despise it. All other things are communicable and fall into commerce; we lend our goods—
[It irks me not that men my garments wear.]
and stake our lives for the necessities and service of our friends; but to communicate one's honour, and to robe another with one's own glory, is very rarely seen. And yet we have some examples of that kind. Catulus Luctatius, in the Cymbrian war, having done all that in him lay to make his flying soldiers face about upon the enemy, ran himself at last away with the rest, and counterfeited the coward, to the end that his men might rather seem to follow their captain, than to fly from the enemy; and after several anecdotes full of that inner significance of which he speaks elsewhere, in which he appears, but only appears, to lose sight of this question of literary honour, for they relate to military conflicts, he ventures to approach, somewhat cautiously and delicately, the latent point of his essay again, by adducing the example of persons, not connected with the military profession, who have found themselves called upon in various ways, and by means of various weapons, to take part in these wars; who have yet, in consequence of certain 'subtleties of conscience,' relinquished the honour of their successes; and though there is no instance adduced of that particular kind of disinterestedness, in which an author relinquishes to another the honour of his title page, as the beginning might have led one to anticipate; on the whole, the not indiligent reader of this author's performances here and elsewhere, will feel that the subject which is announced as the subject of this chapter, 'Not to communicate a man's honour or glory,' has been, considering the circumstance, sufficiently illustrated.
'As women succeeding to peerages had, notwithstanding their sex, the right to assist and give their votes in the causes that appertain to the jurisdiction of peers; so the ecclesiastical peers, notwithstanding their profession, were obliged to assist our kings in their wars, not only with their friends and servants, but in their own persons. And he instances the Bishop of Beauvais, who took a gallant share in the battle of Bouvines, but did not think it fit for him to participate in the fruit and glory of that violent and bloody trade. He, with his own hand, reduced several of the enemy that day to his mercy, whom he delivered to the first gentleman he met, either to kill or to receive them to quarter, referring that part to another hand. As also did William, Earl of Salisbury, to Messire John de Neale, with a like subtlety of conscience to the other, he would KILL, but NOT WOUND him, and for that reason, fought only with a mace. And a certain person in my time, being reproached by the king that he had laid hands on a priest, stiffly and positively denied it. The case was, he had cudgelled and kicked him.' And there the author abruptly, for that time, leaves the matter without any allusion to the case of still another kind of combatants, who, fighting with another kind of weapon, might also, from similar subtleties of conscience, perhaps think fit to devolve on others the glory of their successes.
But in a chapter on names, in which, if he has not told, he has designed to tell all; and what he could not express, he has at least pointed out with his finger, this subject is more fully developed. In this chapter, he regrets that such as write chronicles in Latin do not leave our names as they find them, for in making of Vaudemont VALLE-MONTANUS, and metamorphosing names to dress them out in Greek or Latin, we know not where we are, and with the persons of the men, lose the benefit of the story: but one who tracks the inner thread of this apparently miscellaneous collection of items, need be at no such loss in this case. But at the conclusion of this apparently very trivial talk about names, he resumes his philosophic humour again, and the subsequent discourse on this subject, recalls once more, the considerations with which philosophy sets at nought the loss of fame, and forgets in the warmth that prompts to worthy deeds, the glory that should follow them.
'But this consideration—that is the consideration "that it is the custom in France, to call every man, even a stranger, by the name of any manor or seigneury, he may chance to come in possession of, tends to the total confusion of descents, so that surnames are no security,"—"for," he says, "a younger brother of a good family, having a manor left him by his father, by the name of which he has been known and honoured, cannot handsomely leave it; ten years after his decease, it falls into the hand of a stranger, who does the same." Do but judge whereabouts we shall be concerning the knowledge of these men. This consideration leads me therefore into another subject. Let us look a little more narrowly into, and examine upon what foundation we erect this glory and reputation, for which the world is turned topsy-turvy. Wherein do we place this renown, that we hunt after with such infinite anxiety and trouble. It is in the end PIERRE or WILLIAM that bears it, takes it into his possession, and whom only it concerns. Oh what a valiant faculty is HOPE, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, eternity, and of supplying her master's indigence, at her pleasure, with all things that he can imagine or desire. And this Pierre or William, what is it but a sound, when all is done, ("What's in a name?") or three or four dashes with a pen?'
And he has already written two paragraphs to show, that the name of William, at least, is not excepted from the general remarks he is making here on the vanity of names; while that of Pierre is five times repeated, apparently with the same general intention, and another combination of sounds is not wanting which serves with that free translation the author himself takes pains to suggest and defend, to complete what was lacking to that combination, in order to give these remarks their true point and significance, in order to redeem them from that appearance of flatness which is not a characteristic of this author's intentions, and in his style merely serves as an intimation to the reader that there is something worth looking for beneath it.
As to the name of William, and the amount of personal distinction which that confers upon its owners, he begins by telling us, that the name of Guienne is said to be derived from the Williams of our ancient Aquitaine, 'which would seem,' he says, rather far fetched, were there not as crude derivations in Plato himself, to whom he refers in other places for similar precedents; and when he wishes to excuse his enigmatical style—the titles of his chapters for instance. And by way of emphasizing this particular still further, he mentions, that on the occasion when Henry, the Duke of Normandy, the son of Henry the Second, of England, made a feast in France, the concourse of nobility and gentry was so great, that for sport's sake he divided them into troops, according to their names, and in the first troop, which consisted of Williams, there were found a hundred and ten knights sitting at the table of that name, without reckoning the simple gentlemen and servants.
And here he apparently digresses from his subject for the sake of mentioning the Emperor Geta, 'who distributed the several courses of his meats by the first letters of the meats themselves, where those that began with B were served up together; as brawn, beef, beccaficos, and so of the others.' This appears to be a little out of the way; but it is not impossible that there may be an allusion in it to the author's own family name of Eyquem, though that would be rather farfetched, as he says; but then there is Plato at hand, still to keep us in countenance.
But to return to the point of digression. 'And this Pierre, or William, what is it but a sound when all is done? Or three or four dashes with a pen, so easy to be varied, that I would fain know to whom is to be attributed the glory of so many victories, to Guesquin, to Glesquin, or to Gueaguin. And yet there would be something more in the case than in Lucian that Sigma should serve Tau with a process, for "He seeks no mean rewards." The quere is here in good earnest. The point is, which of these letters is to be rewarded for so many sieges, battles, wounds, imprisonment, and services done to the crown of France by this famous constable. Nicholas Denisot never concerned himself further than the letters of his name, of which he has altered the whole contexture, to build up by anagram the Count d'Alsinois whom he has endowed with the glory of his poetry and painting. [A good precedent—but here is a better one.] And the historian Suetonius looked only to the meaning of his; and so, cashiering his fathers surname, Lenis left Tranquillus successor to the reputation of his writings. Who would believe that the Captain Bayard should have no honour but what he derives from the great deeds of Peter (Pierre) Terrail, [the name of Bayard—"the meaning"] and that Antonio Escalin should suffer himself, to his face, to be robbed of the honour of so many navigations, and commands at sea and land, by Captain Poulin and the Baron de la Garde. [The name of Poulin was taken from the place where he was born, De la Garde from a person who took him in his boyhood into his service.] Who hinders my groom from calling himself Pompey the Great? But, after all, what virtue, what springs are there that convey to my deceased groom, or the other Pompey (who had his head cut off in Egypt), this glorious renown, and these so much honoured flourishes of the pen?' Instructive suggestions, especially when taken in connection with the preceding items contained in this chapter, apparently so casually introduced, yet all with a stedfast bearing on this question of names, and all pointing by means of a thread of delicate sounds, and not less delicate suggestions, to another instance, in which the possibility of circumstances tending to countervail the so natural desire to appropriate to the name derived from one's ancestors, the lustre of one's deeds, is clearly demonstrated.
''Tis with good reason that men decry the hypocrisy that is in war; for what is more easy to an old soldier than to shift in time of danger, and to counterfeit bravely, when he has no more heart than a chicken. There are so many ways to avoid hazarding a man's own person'—'and had we the use of the Platonic ring, which renders those invisible that wear it, if turned inwards towards the palm of the hand, it is to be feared that a great many would often hide themselves, when they ought to appear.' 'It seems that to be known, is in some sort to a man's life and its duration in another's keeping. I for my part, hold that I am wholly in myself, and that other life of mine which lies in the knowledge of my friends, considering it nakedly and simply in itself, I know very well that I am sensible of no fruit or enjoyment of it but by the vanity of a fantastic opinion; and, when I shall be dead, I shall be much less sensible of it, and shall withal absolutely lose the use of those real advantages that sometimes accidentally follow it. [That was Lord Bacon's view, too, exactly.] I shall have no more handle whereby to take hold of reputation, or whereby it may take hold of me: for to expect that my name should receive it, in the first place, I have no name that is enough my own. Of two that I have, one is common to all my race, and even to others also: there is one family at Paris, and another at Montpelier, whose surname is Montaigne; another in Brittany, and Xaintonge called De la Montaigne. The transposition of one syllable only is enough to ravel our affairs, so that I shall peradventure share in their glory, and they shall partake of my shame; and, moreover, my ancestors were formerly surnamed Eyquem, a name wherein a family well known in England at this day is concerned. As to my other name, any one can take it that will, and so, perhaps, I may honour a porter in my own stead. And, besides, though I had a particular distinction myself, what can it distinguish when I am no more. Can it point out and favour inanity?
  But will thy manes such a gift bestow
  As to make violets from thy ashes grow?
'But of this I have spoken elsewhere.' He has—and to purpose.
But as to the authority for these readings, Lord Bacon himself will give us that; for this is the style which he discriminates so sharply as 'the enigmatical,' a style which he, too, finds to have been in use among the ancients, and which he tells us has some affinity with that new method of making over knowledge from the mind of the teacher to that of the pupil, which he terms the method of progression— (which is the method of essaie)—in opposition to the received method, the only method he finds in use, which he, too, calls the magisterial. And this method of progression, with which the enigmatical has some affinity, is to be used, he tells us, in cases where knowledge is delivered as a thread to be spun on, where science is to be removed from one mind to another to grow from the root, and not delivered as trees for the use of the carpenter, where the root is of no consequence. In this case, he tells us it is necessary for the teacher to descend to the foundations of knowledge and consent, and so to transplant it into another as it grew in his own mind, 'whereas as knowledge is now delivered, there is a kind of contract of error between the deliverer and the receiver, for he that delivereth knowledge desireth to deliver it in such a form as may best be believed, and not as may best be examined: and he that receiveth knowledge desireth rather present satisfaction than expectant inquiry, and so rather not to doubt than not to err, glory making the author not to lay open his weakness, and sloth making the disciple not to know his strength.' Now, so very grave a defect as this, in the method of the delivery and tradition of Learning, would of course be one of the first things that would require to be remedied in any plan in which 'the Advancement' of it was seriously contemplated. And this method of the delivery and tradition of knowledge which transfers the root with them, that they may grow in the mind of the learner, is the method which this philosopher professes to find wanting, and the one which he seems disposed to invent. He has made a very thorough survey of the stores of the ancients, and is not unacquainted with the more recent history of learning; he knows exactly what kinds of methods have been made use of by the learned in all ages, for the purpose of putting themselves into some tolerable and possible relations with the physical majority; he knows what devices they have always been compelled to resort to, for the purpose of establishing some more or less effective communication between themselves and that world to which they instinctively seek to transfer their doctrine. But this method, which he suggests here as the essential condition of the growth and advancement of learning, he does not find invented. He refers to a method which he calls the enigmatical, which has an affinity with it, 'used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients,' but disgraced since, 'by the impostures of persons, who have made it as a false light for their counterfeit merchandises.' The purpose of this latter style is, as he defines it, 'to remove the secrets of knowledge from the penetration of the more vulgar capacities, and to reserve them to selected auditors, or to wits of such sharpness as can pierce the veil.' And that is a method, he tells us, which philosophy can by no means dispense with in his time, and 'whoever would let in new light upon the human understanding must still have recourse to it.' But the method of delivery and tradition in those ancient schools, appears to have been too much of the dictatorial kind to suit this proposer of advancement; its tendency was to arrest knowledge instead of promoting its growth. He is not pleased with the ambition of those old masters, and thinks they aimed too much at a personal impression, and that they sometimes undertook to impose their own particular and often very partial grasp of those universal doctrines and principles, which are and must be true for all men, in too dogmatical and magisterial a manner, without making sufficient allowance for the growth of the mind of the world, the difference of races, etc.
But if any doubt in regard to the use of the method described, in the composition of the work now first produced as AN EXAMPLE of the use of it, should still remain in any mind; or if this method of unravelling it should seem too studious, perhaps the author's own word for it in one more quotation may be thought worth taking.
'I can give no account of my life by MY ACTIONS, fortune has placed them too low; I must do it BY MY FANCIES. And when shall I have done representing the continual agitation and change of my thoughts as they come into my head, seeing that Diomedes filled six thousand books upon the subject of grammar.' [The commentators undertake to set him right here, but the philosopher only glances in his intention at the voluminousness of the science of words, in opposition to the science of things, which he came to establish.] 'What must prating produce, since prating itself, and the first beginning to speak, stuffed the world with such a horrible load of volumes. So many words about words only. They accused one Galba, of old, of living idly; he made answer that every one ought to give account of his actions, but not of his leisure. He was mistaken, for justice—[the civil authority]—has cognizance and jurisdiction over those that do nothing, or only PLAY at WORKING…. Scribbling appears to be the sign of a disordered age. Every man applies himself negligently to the duty of his vocation at such a time and debauches in it.' From that central wrong of an evil government, an infectious depravity spreads and corrupts all particulars. Everything turns from its true and natural course. Thus scribbling is the sign of a disordered age. Men write in such times instead of acting; and scribble, or seem to perhaps, instead of writing openly to purpose.
And yet, again, that central, and so divergent, wrong is the result of each man's particular contribution, as he goes on to assert. 'The corruption of this age is made up by the particular contributions of every individual man,'—
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.—Cassius.
'Some contribute treachery, others injustice, irreligion, tyranny, avarice and cruelty, according as they have power; the WEAKER SORT CONTRIBUTE FOLLY, VANITY, and IDLENESS, and of these I am one.'
Caesar loves no plays as thou dost, Antony. Such men are dangerous.
Or, as the same poet expresses it in another Roman play:—
  This double worship,
  Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
  Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom
  Cannot conclude but by the yea and no
  Of general ignorance,—it must omit
  Real necessities—and give way the while
  To unstable slightness; purpose so barred,
  It follows, nothing is done to purpose.
And that is made the plea for an attempt to overthrow the popular power, and to replace it with a government containing the true head of the state, its nobility, its learning, its gentleness, its wisdom.
But the essayist continues:—'It seems as if it were the season for vain things when the hurtful oppress us; in a time when doing ill is common, to do nothing but what signifies nothing is a kind of commendation. 'Tis my comfort that I shall be one of the last that shall be called in question,—for it would be against reason to punish the less troublesome while we are infested with the greater. As the physician said to one who presented him his finger to dress, and who, as he perceived, had an ulcer in his lungs, "Friend, it is not now time to concern yourself about your finger's ends." And yet I saw some years ago, a person, whose name and memory I have in very great esteem, in the very height of our great disorders, when there was neither law nor justice put in execution, nor magistrate that performed his office,—no more than there is now,—publish I know not what pitiful reformations about clothes, cookery and law chicanery. These are amusements wherewith to feed a people that are ill used, to show that they are not totally forgotten. These others do the same, who insist upon stoutly defending the forms of speaking, dances and games to a people totally abandoned to all sorts of execrable vices—it is for the Spartans only to fall to combing and curling themselves, when they are just upon the point of running headlong into some extreme danger of their lives.
'For my part, I have yet a worse custom. I scorn to mend myself by halves. If my shoe go awry, I let my shirt and my cloak do so too: when I am out of order I feed on mischief. I abandon myself through despair, and let myself go towards the precipice, and as the saying is, throw the helve after the hatchet.' We should not need, perhaps, the aid of the explanations already quoted, to show us that the author does not confess this custom of his for the sake of commending it to the sense or judgment of the reader,—who sees it here for the first time it may be put into words or put on paper, who looks at it here, perhaps, for the first time objectively, from the critical stand-point which the review of another's confession creates; and though it may have been latent in the dim consciousness of his own experience, or practically developed, finds it now for the first time, collected from the phenomena of the blind, instinctive, human motivity, and put down on the page of science, as a principle in nature, in human nature also.
But this is indeed a Spartan combing and curling, that the author is falling to, in the introductory flourishes ('diversions' as he calls them) of this great adventure, that his pen is out for now: he is indeed upon the point of running headlong into the fiercest dangers;—it is the state, the wretched, discased, vicious state, dying apparently, yet full of teeth and mischief, that he is about to handle in his argument with these fine, lightsome, frolicsome preparations of his, without any perceptible 'mittens'; it is the heart of that political evil that his time groans with, and begins to find insufferable, that he is going to probe to the quick with that so delicate weapon. It is a tilt against the block and the rack, and all the instruments of torture, that he is going to manage, as handsomely, and with as many sacrifices to the graces, as the circumstances will admit of. But the political situation which he describes so boldly (and we have already seen what it is) affects us here in its relation to the question of style only, and as the author himself connects it with the point of our inquiry.
'A man may regret,' he says, 'the better times, but cannot fly from the present, we may wish for other magistrates, but we must, notwithstanding, obey those we have; and, peradventure, it is more laudable to obey the bad than the good, so long as the image of the ancient and received laws of this monarchy shall shine in any corner of the kingdom. If they happen, unfortunately, to thwart and contradict one another, so as to produce two factions of doubtful choice,'—
  And my soul aches
  To know, [says Coriolanus] when two authorities are up,
  Neither supreme, how soon confusion
  May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take
  The one by the other.
—'in this contingency will willingly choose,' continues the other, 'to withdraw from the tempest, and in the meantime, nature or the hazards of war may lend me a helping hand. Betwixt Cæsar and Pompey, I should soon and frankly have declared myself, but amongst the three robbers that came after, a man must needs have either hid himself, or have gone along with the current of the time, which I think a man may lawfully do, when reason no longer rules.' 'Whither dost thou wandering go?'
'This medley is a little from my subject, I go out of my way but 'tis rather by licence than oversight. My fancies follow one another, but sometimes at a great distance, and look towards one another, but 'tis with an oblique glance. I have read a DIALOGUE of PLATO of such a motley and fantastic composition. The beginning was about love, and all the rest ABOUT RHETORIC. They stick not (that is, the ancients) at these variations, and have a marvellous grace in letting themselves to be carried away at the pleasure of the winds; or at least to seem as if they were. The titles of my chapters do not always comprehend the whole matter, they often denote it by some mark only, as those other titles Andria Eunuchus, or these, Sylla, Cicero, Torquatus. I love a poetic march, by leaps and skips, 'tis an art, as Plato says, light, nimble; and a little demoniacal. There are places in Plutarch where he forgets his theme, where the proposition of his argument is only found incidentally, and stuffed throughout with foreign matter. Do but observe his meanders in the Demon of Socrates. How beautiful are his variations and digressions; and then most of all, when they seem to be fortuitous, [hear] and introduced for want of heed. 'Tis the indiligent reader that loses my subject—not I. There will always be found some words or other in a corner that are to the purpose, though it lie very close [that is the unfailing rule]. I ramble about indiscreetly and tumultously: my style and my wit wander at the same rate, [he wanders wittingly]. A little folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity, say the precepts, and much more the examples of our masters. A thousand poets flag and languish after a prosaic manner; but the best old prose, and I strew it here up and down indifferently for verse, shines throughout with the vigor and boldness of poetry, and represents some air of its fury. Certainly, prose must yield the pre-eminence in speaking. "The poet," says Plato, "when set upon the muse's tripod, pours out with fury, whatever comes into his mouth, like the pipe of a fountain, without considering and pausing upon what he says, and things come from him of various colors, of contrary substance, and with an irregular torrent": he himself (Plato) is all over poetical, and all the old theology (as the learned inform us) is poetry, and the first philosophy, is the origiual language of the gods.
'I would have the matter distinguish itself; it sufficiently shows where it changes, where it concludes, where it begins, and where it resumes, without interlacing it with words of connection, introduced for the relief of weak or negligent ears, and without commenting myself. Who is he that had not rather not be read at all, than after a drowsy or cursory manner? Seeing I cannot fix the reader's attention by the weight of what I write, maneo male, if I should chance to do it by my intricacies. [Hear]. I mortally hate obscurity and would avoid it if I could. In such an employment, to whom you will not give an hour you will give nothing; and you do nothing for him for whom you only do, whilst you are doing something else. To which may be added, that I have, perhaps, some particular obligation to speak only by halves, to speak confusedly and discordantly.'
But this is, perhaps, enough to show, in the way of direct assertion, that we have here, at least, a philosophical work composed in that style which Lord Bacon calls 'the enigmatical,' in which he tells us the secrets of knowledge are reserved for selected auditors, or wits of such sharpness as can pierce the veil; a style which he, too, tells us was sometimes used by the discretion of the ancients, though he does not specify either Plutarch or Plato; in that place, and one which he introduces in connection with his new method of progression, in consequence of its having, as he tells us, some affinity with it, and that we have here also a specimen of that new method itself, by means of which knowledge is to be delivered as a thread to be spun on.
But let us leave, for the present, this wondrous Gascon, though it is not very easy to do so, so long as we have our present subject in hand,—this philosopher, whose fancies look towards one another at such long, such very long distances, sometimes, though not always, with an oblique glance, who dares to depend so much upon the eye of his reader, and especially upon the reader of that 'far-off' age he writes to. It would have been indeed irrelevant to introduce the subject of this foreign work and its style in this connection without further explanation, but for the identity of political situation already referred to, and but for those subtle, interior, incessant connections with the higher writings of the great Elizabethan school, which form the main characteristic of this production. The fact, that this work was composed in the country in which the chief Elizabethan men attained their maturity, that it dates from the time in which Bacon was completing his education there, that it covers ostensibly not the period only, but the scenes and events of Raleigh's six years campaigning there, as well as the fact alluded to by this author himself, in a passage already quoted,—the fact that there was a family then in England, very well known, who bore the surname of his ancestors, a family of the name of Eyquem, he tells us with whom, perhaps, he still kept up some secret correspondence and relations, the fact, too, which he mentions in his chapter on Names, that a surname in France is very easily acquired, and is not necessarily derived from one's ancestors,—that same chapter in which he adduces so many instances of men who, notwithstanding that inveterate innate love of the honour of one's own proper name, which is in men of genius still more inveterate,—have for one reason or another been willing to put upon anagrams, or synonyms, or borrowed names, all their honours, so that in the end it is William or Pierre who takes them into his possession, and bears them, or it's the name of 'an African slave' perhaps, or the name of a 'groom' (promoted, it may be, to the rank of a jester, or even to that of a player,) that gets all the glory. All these facts, taken in connection with the conclusions already established, though insignificant in themselves, will be found anything but that for the philosophical student who has leisure to pursue the inquiry.
And though the latent meanings, in which the interior connections and identities referred to above are found, are not yet critically recognised, a latent national affinity and liking strong enough to pierce this thin, artificial, foreign exterior, appears to have been at work here from the first. For though the seed of the richer and bolder meanings from which the author anticipated his later harvest, could not yet be reached, that new form of popular writing, that effective, and vivacious mode of communication with the popular mind on topics of common concern and interest, not heretofore recognised as fit subjects for literature, which this work offered to the world on its surface, was not long in becoming fruitful. But it was on the English mind that it began to operate first. It was in England, that it began so soon to develop the latent efficacies it held in germ, in the creation of that new and widening department in letters—that so new, so vast, and living department of them, which it takes today all our reviews, and magazines, and journals, to cover. And the work itself has been from the first adopted, and appropriated here, as heartily as if it had been an indigenous production, some singularly distinctive product too, of the so deeply characterised English nationality.
But it is time to leave this wondrous Gascon, this new 'Michael of the Mount,' this man who is 'consubstantial with his book,'—this 'Man of the Mountain,' as he figuratively describes it. Let us yield him this new ascent, this new triumphant peak and pyramid in science, which he claims to have been the first to master,—the unity of the universal man,—the historical unity,—the universal human form, collected from particulars, not contemplatively abstracted,—the inducted Man of the new philosophy. 'Authors,' he says, 'have hitherto communicated themselves to the people by some particular and foreign mark; I, the first of any by my universal being, as Michael de Montaigne, I propose a life mean and without lustre: all moral philosophy is applied as well to a private life as to one of the greatest employment. Every man carries the entire form of the human condition…I, the first of any by my universal being, as Michael,'—see the chapter on names,—'as Michael de Montaigne.' Let us leave him for the present, or attempt to, for it is not very easy to do so, so long as we have our present subject in hand.
For, as we all know, it is from this idle, tattling, rambling old Gascon—it is from this outlandish looker-on of human affairs, that our Spectators and Ramblers and Idlers and Tattlers, trace their descent; and the Times, and the Examiners, and the Observers, and the Spectators, and the Tribunes, and Independents, and all the Monthlies, and all the Quarterlies, that exercise so large a sway in human affairs to-day, are only following his lead; and the best of them have not been able as yet to leave him in the rear. But how it came to pass, that a man of this particular turn of mind, who belonged to the old party, and the times that were then passing away, should have felt himself called upon to make this great signal for the human advancement, and how it happens that these radical connections with other works of that time, having the same general intention, are found in the work itself,—these are points which the future biographers of this old gentleman will perhaps find it for their interest to look to. And a little of that more studious kind of reading which he himself so significantly solicited, and in so many passages, will inevitably tend to the elucidation of them.
'The secrets of nature have not more gift in taciturnity.'
Troilus and Cressida.
'I did not think that Mr. Silence had been a man of this mettle.'
Falstaff.
'PROSPERO.—Go bring THE RABBLE,
O'er whom I give thee power, here, to this place.'
Tempest.
But though a foreign philosopher may venture to give us the clue to it, perhaps, in the first instance, a little more roundly, it is not necessary that we should go the Mayor of Bordeaux, in order to ascertain on the highest possible authority, what kind of an art of communication, what kind of an art of delivery and tradition, men, in such circumstances, find themselves compelled to invent;—that is, if they would not be utterly foiled for the want of it, in their noblest purposes;—we need not go across the channel to find the men themselves, to whom this art is a necessity,—men so convinced that they have a mission of instruction to their kind, that they will permit no temporary disabilities to divert them from their end,—men who must needs open their school, no matter what oppositions there may be, to be encountered, no matter what imposing exhibitions of military weapons may be going on just then, in their vicinity; and though they should find themselves straitened in time, and not able to fit their words to their mouths as they have a mind to, though they should be obliged to accept the hint from the master in the Greek school, and take their tone from the ear of those to whom they speak, though many speeches which would spend their use among the men then living would have to be inserted in their most enduring works with a private hint concerning that necessity, and a private reading of them for those whom it concerned; though the audience they are prepared to address should be deferred, though the benches of the inner school should stand empty for ages. We need not go abroad at all to discover men of this stamp, and their works and pastimes, and their arts of tradition;—men so filled with that which impels men to speak, that speak they must, and speak they will, in one form or another, by word or gesture, by word or deed, though they speak to the void waste, though they must speak till they reach old ocean in his unsunned caves, and bring him up with the music of their complainings, though the marble Themis fling back their last appeal, though they speak to the tempest in his wrath, to the wind and the rain, and the fire and the thunder,—men so impregnated with that which makes the human speech, that speak they will, though they have but a rusty nail, wherewith to etch their story, on their dungeon wall; though they dig in the earth and bury their secret, as one buried his of old—that same secret still; for it is still those EARS—those 'ears' that 'Midas hath' which makes the mystery.
They know that the days are coming when the light will enter their prison house, and flash in its dimmest recess; when the light they sought in vain, will be there to search out the secrets they are forbid. They know that the day is coming, when the disciple himself, all tutored in the art of their tradition, bringing with him the key of its delivery, shall be there to unlock those locked-up meanings, to spell out those anagrams, to read those hieroglyphics, to unwind with patient loving research to its minutest point, that text, that with such tools as the most watchful tyranny would give them, they will yet contrive to leave there. They know that their buried words are seeds, and though they lie long in the earth, they will yet spring up with their 'richer and bolder meanings,' and publish on every breeze, their boldest mystery.
For let not men of narrower natures fancy that such action is not proper to the larger one, and cannot be historical. For there are different kinds of men, our science of men tells us, and that is an unscientific judgment which omits 'the particular addition, that bounteous nature hath closed in each,'—her 'addition to the bill that writes them all alike.' For there is a kind of men 'whose minds are proportioned to that which may be dispatched at once, or within a short return of time, and there is another kind, whose minds are proportioned to that which begins afar off, and is to be won with length of pursuit,'—so the Coryphæus of those choir that the latter kind compose, informs us, 'so that there may be fitly said to be a longanimity, which is commonly also ascribed to God as a magnanimity.'
And our English philosophers had to light what this one calls a new 'Lamp of Tradition,' before they could make sure of transmitting their new science, through such mediums as those that their time gave them; and a very gorgeous many-branched lamp it is, that the great English philosopher brings out from that 'secret school of living Learning and living Art' to which he secretly belongs, for the admiration of the professionally learned of his time, and a very lustrous one too, as it will yet prove to be, when once it enters the scholar's apprehension that it was ever meant be lighted, when once the little movement that turns on the dazzling jet is ordered.
For we have all been so taken up with the Baconian Logic hitherto and its wonderful effects in the relief of the human estate, that the Baconian RHETORIC has all this time escaped our notice; and nobody appears to have suspected that there was anything in that worth looking at; any more than they suspect that there is anything in some of those other divisions which the philosopher himself lays so much stress on his proposal for the Advancement of Learning,—in his proposal for the advancement of it into all the fields of human activity. But we read this proposition still, as James the First was expected to read it, and all these departments which are brought into that general view in such a dry and formal and studiously scholastic manner, appear to be put there merely to fill up a space; and because the general plan of this so erudite performance happened to include them.
For inasmuch as the real scope and main bearing of this proposition, though it is in fact there, is of course not there, in any such form as to attract the particular attention of the monarch to whose eye the work is commended; and inasmuch as the new art of a scientific Rhetoric is already put to its most masterly use in reserving that main design, for such as may find themselves able to receive it, of course, the need of any such invention is not apparent on the surface of the work, and the real significance of this new doctrine of Art and its radical relation to the new science, is also reserved for that class of readers who are able to adopt the rules of interpretation which the work itself lays down. Because the real applications of the New Logic could not yet be openly discussed, no one sees as yet, that there was, and had to be, a Rhetoric to match it.
For this author, who was not any less shrewd than the one whose methods we have just been observing a little, had also early discovered in the great personages of his time, a disposition to moderate his voice whenever he went to speak to them on matters of importance, in his natural key, for his voice too, was naturally loud, and high as he gives us to understand, though he 'could speak small like a woman'; he too had learned to take the tone from the ear of him to whom he spake, and he too had learned, that it was not enough merely to speak so as to make himself heard by those whom he wished to affect. He also had learned to speak according to the affair he had in hand, according to the purpose which he wished to accomplish. He also is of the opinion that different kinds of audiences and different times, require different modes of speech, and though he found it necessary to compose his works in the style and language of his own time, he was confident that it was a language which would not remain in use for many ages; and he has therefore provided himself with another, more to his mind which he has taken pains to fold carefully within the other, and one which lie thinks will bear the wear and tear of those revolutions that he perceives to be imminent.
But in consequence of our persistent oversight of this Art of Tradition, on which he relies so much, (which is as fine an invention of his, as any other of his inventions which we find ourselves so much the better for), that appeal to 'the times that are farther off,' has not yet taken effect, and the audience for whom he chiefly laboured is still 'deferred.'
This so noble and benign art which he calls, with his own natural modesty and simplicity, the Art of Tradition, this art which grows so truly noble and worthy, so distinctively human, in his clear, scientific treatment of it,—in his scientific clearance of it from the wildnesses and spontaneities of accident, or the superfluities and trickery of an art without science,—that stops short of the ultimate, the human principle,—this so noble art of speech or tradition is, indeed, an art which this great teacher and leader of men will think it no scorn to labour: it is one on which, even such a teacher can find time to stop; it is one which even such a teacher can stop to build from the foundation upwards, he will not care how splendidly; it is one on which he will spend without stint, and think it gain to spend, the wealth of his invention.
But, at the same time, it is with him a subordinate art. It has no worth or substance in itself; it borrows all its worth from that which masters and rigorously subdues it to its end. Here, too, we find ourselves coming down on all its old ceremonial and observance, from that new height which we found our foreign philosopher in such quiet possession of,—taking his way at a puff through poor Cicero's periods,—those periods which the old orator had taken so much pains with, and laughing at his pains:—but this English philosopher is more daring still, for it is he who disposes, at a word, without any comment, just in passing merely,—from his practical stand-point,—of 'the flutes and trumpets of the Greeks,' like the other making nothing at all in his theory of criticism of mere elegance, though it is the Gascon, it is true, who undertakes the more lively and extreme practical demonstrations of this theoretical contempt of it,—setting it at nought, and flying in the face of it,—writing in as loquacious and homely a style as he possibly can, just for the purpose for setting it at nought, though not without giving us a glimpse occasionally, of a faculty that would enable him to mince the matter as fine as another if he should see occasion—as, perhaps, he may. For he talks very emphatically about his poetry here and there, and seems to intimate that he has a gift that way; and that he has, moreover, some works of value in that department of letters, which he is anxious to 'save up' for posterity, if he can. But here, it is the scholar, and not the loquacious old gentleman at all, who is giving us in his choicest, selectest, courtliest phrase, in his most stately and condensed style, his views of this subject; but that which is noticeable is, that the art in its fresh, new upspringing from the secret of life and nature, from the soul of things, the art and that which it springs from, is in these two so different forms identical. Here, too, the point of its criticism and review is the same. 'Away with that eloquence that so enchants us with its harmony that we should more study it than things'; but here the old Roman masters the philosopher, for a moment, and he puts in a scholarly parenthesis, 'unless you will affirm that of Cicero to be of so supreme perfection as to form a body of itself.'
But Hamlet, in his discourse with that wise reasoner, and unfortunate practitioner, who thought that brevity was the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, puts it more briefly still.
Polonius. What do you read, my lord? Hamlet. Words, words, words!
'More matter, and less art,' another says in that same treatise on art and speculation. Now inasmuch as this art and science derives all its distinction and lustre from that new light on the human estate of which it was to be the vehicle, somebody must find the trick of it, so as to be able to bring out that doctrine by its help, before we can be prepared to understand the real worth of this invention. It would be premature to undertake to set it forth fully, till that is accomplished. There must be a more elaborate exhibition of that science, before the art of its transmission can be fully treated; we cannot estimate it, till we see how it strikes to the root of the new doctrine, how it begins with its beginning, and reaches to its end: we cannot estimate it till we see its relation, its essential relation, to that new doctrine of the human nature, and that new doctrine of state, which spring from the doctrine of nature in general, which is the doctrine, which is the beginning and the end of the new science.
We find here on the surface, as we find everywhere in this comprehensive treatise, much apparent parade of division and subdivision, and the author appears to lay much stress upon this, and seems disposed to pride himself upon his dexterity in chopping up the subject as finely as possible, and keeping the parts quite clear of one another; and sometimes, in his distributions, putting those points the farthest apart which are the most nearly related, though not so far, that they cannot 'look towards each other,' though it may be, as the other says, 'obliquely.' He evidently depends very much on his arrangement, and seems, indeed, to be chiefly concerned about that, when he comes to the more critical parts of his subject. But it is to the continuities which underlie these separations, to which he directs the attention of those to whom he speaks in earnest, and not in particular cases only. 'Generally,' he says, 'let this be a rule, that all partitions of knowledge be accepted rather for LINES and VEINS, than for sections and separations, and that the continuance and entireness of knowledge be preserved. For the contrary hereof,' he says, 'is that which has made PARTICULAR SCIENCES BARREN, SHALLOW, and ERRONEOUS, while they have not been nourished and maintained from the common fountain.' For this is the ONE SCIENCE, the deep, the true, the fruitful one, the fruitful because the ONE.
These lines, then, which he cautions us against regarding as divisions, which are brought in with such parade of scholasticism, with such a profound appearance of artifice, will always be found by those who have leisure to go below the surface, to be but the indications of those natural articulations and branches into which the subject divides and breaks itself, and the conducting lines to that trunk and heart of sciences, that common fountain from which all this new vitality, this sudden up-springing and new blossoming of learning proceeds, that fountain in which its flowers, as well as its fruits, and its thick leaves are nourished.
Here in this Art of Tradition, which comprehends the whole subject of the human speech from the new ground of the common nature in man—that double nature which tends to isolation on the one hand, and which makes him a part and a member of society on the other; we find it treated, first, as a means by which men come simply to a common understanding with each other, by which that common ground, that ground of community, and communication, and identity, which a common understanding in this kind makes, can be best reached; and next we find it treated as a means by which more than the understanding shall be reached, by which the sentiment, the common sentiment, which also belongs to the larger nature, shall be strengthened and developed,—by which the counteracting and partial sentiments shall be put in their place, and the will compelled; whereby that common human form, which in its perfection is the object of the human love and reverence shall be scientifically developed; by which the particular form with its diseases shall be artistically disciplined and treated. This Art of Tradition concerns, first, the understanding; and secondly, the affections and the will. As man is constituted, it is not enough to convince his understanding.
First, then, it is 'the organ' and 'method' of tradition; and next, it is what he calls the illustration of it. First, the object is, to bring truth to the understanding in as clear and unobstructed a manner as the previous condition—as the diseases and pre-occupations of the mind addressed will admit of, and next to bring all the other helps and arts by which the sentiments are touched and the will mastered. First, he will speak true, or as true as they will let him; but it is not enough to speak true. He must be able to speak sharply too, perhaps—or humorously, or touchingly, or melodiously, or overwhelmingly, with words that burn. It is not enough, perhaps, to reach the ear of his auditor: 'peradventure' he too 'will also pierce it.' It is not enough to draw diagrams in chalk on a black board in this kind of mathematics, where the will and the affections are the pupils, and standing ready to defy axioms, prepared at any moment to demonstrate practically, that the part is greater than the whole, and face down the universe with it, 'murdering impossibility to make what cannot be, slight work.' It is not enough to have a tradition that is clear, or as clear a one as will pass muster with the government and with the preconceptions of the people themselves. He must have a pictured one—a pictorial, an illuminated one—a beautiful one,—he must have what he calls an ILLUSTRATED TRADITION.
'Why not,' he says. He runs his eye over the human instrumentalities, and this art which we call art—par excellence, which he sees setting up for itself, or ministering to ignorance and error, and feeding the diseased affections with 'the sweet that is their poison,' he seizes on at once, in behalf of his science, and declares that it is her lawful property, 'her slave, born in her house,' and fit for nothing in the world but to minister to her; and what is more, he suits the action to the word—he brings the truant home, and reforms her, and sets her about her proper business. That is what he proposes to have done in his theory of art, and it is what he tells us he has done himself; and he has: there is no mistake about it. That is what he means when he talks about his illustrated tradition of science—his illustrated tradition of the science of HUMAN NATURE and its differences, original and acquired, and the diseases to which it is liable, and the artificial growths which appertain to it. It is very curious, that no one has seen this tradition—this illustrated tradition, or anything else, indeed, that was at all worthy of this new interpreter of mysteries, who goes about to this day as the inventor of a method which he was not able himself to put to any practical use; an inventor who was obliged to leave his machine for men of a more quick and subtle genius, or to men of a more practical turn of mind to manage, men who had a closer acquaintance with nature.
That which is first to be noted in looking carefully at this draught of a new Art of Tradition which the plan of the Advancement of Learning includes,—that which the careful reader cannot fail to note, is the fact, that throughout all this most complete and radical exhibition of the subject (for brief and casual as that exhibition seems on the surface, the science and art from its root to its outermost branches, is there)—throughout all this exhibition, under all the superficial divisions and subdivisions of the subject, it is still the method of PROGRESSION which is set forth here: under all these divisions, there is still one point made; it is still the Art of a Tradition which is designed to reserve the secrets of science, and the nobler arts of it, for the minds and ages that are able to receive them. This new art of tradition, with its new organs and methods, and its living and beautiful illustration, when once we look through the network of it to the unity within, this new rhetoric of science, is in fact the instrument which the philosopher would substitute, if he could, for those more cruel weapons which the men of his time were ready to take in hand; and it is the instrument with which he would forestall those yet more fearful political convulsions that already seemed to his eye to threaten from afar the social structures of Christendom; it is the beautiful and bloodless instrumentality whereby the mind of the world is to be wrenched insensibly from its old place without 'breaking all.'
For neither does this author, any more than that other, who has been quoted here on this point, think it wise for the philosopher to rush madly out of his study with his EUREKA, and bawl to the first passer by in scientific terms the last result of his science, 'lording it over his ignorance' with what can be to him only a magisterial announcement. For what else but that can it be, for instance, to tell the poor peasant, on his way to market, with his butter and eggs in his basket, planting his feet on the firm earth without any qualms or misgivings, and measuring his day by the sun's great toil and rejoicing race in heaven, what but this same magisterial teaching is it, to stop him, and tell him to his bewildered face that the sun never rises or sets, and that the earth is but a revolving ball? Instead of giving him a truth you have given him a falsehood. You have brought him a truth out of a sphere with which he is not conversant, which he cannot ascend to—whose truths he cannot translate into his own, without jarring all. Either you have told him what must be to him a lie, or you have upset all his little world of beliefs with your magisterial doctrine, and confounded and troubled him to no purpose.
But the Method of Progression, as set forth by Lord Bacon, requires that the new scientific truth shall be, not nakedly and flatly, but artistically exhibited; because, as he tells us, 'the great labour is with the people, and this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.' He will not have it exhibited in bare propositions, but translated into the people's dialect. He would not begin if he could—if there were no political or social restriction to forbid it—by overthrowing on all points the popular belief, or wherever it differs from the scientific conclusion. It is a very different kind of philosophy that proceeds in that manner. This is one which comprehends and respects all actualities. The popular belief, even to its least absurdity 'is something more than nothing in nature'; and the popular belief with all its admixture of error, is better than the half-truths of a misunderstood, untranslated science; better than these would be in its place. That truth of nature which it contains for those who are able to receive it, and live by it, you would destroy for them, if you should attempt to make them read it prematurely, in your language. Any kind of organism which by means of those adjustments and compensations, with which nature is always ready to help out anything really hers,—any organism that is capable of serving as the means of an historical social continuance, is already some gain on chaos and social dissolution; and is, perhaps, better than a series of philosophical experiments. The difficulty is not to overthrow the popular errors, but to get something better in their place, he tells us; and that there are men who have succeeded in the first attempt, and very signally failed in the second. Beautiful and vigorous unions grew up under the classic mythologies, that dissolved and went down for ever, in the sunshine of the classic philosophies. For there were more things in heaven and earth than were included in those last, or dreamt of in them.
In your expurgation, of the popular errors, you must be sure that the truth they contain, is in some form as strongly, as effectively composed in your text, or the popular error is truer and better than the truth with which you would replace it. This is a master who will have no other kind of teaching in his school. His scholars must go so far in their learning as to be able to come back to this popular belief, and account for it and understand it; they must be as wise as the peasant again, and be able to start with him, from his starting point, before they can get any diploma in this School of Advancement, or leave to practise in it. But when the old is already ruinous and decaying, and oppressing and keeping back the new,—when the vitality is gone out of it, and it has become deadly instead, when the new is struggling for new forms, the man of science though never so conservative from inclination and principle, will not be wanting to himself and to the state in this emergency. He 'loves the fundamental part of state more' than in such a crisis he will 'doubt the change of it,' and will not 'fear to jump a body with a dangerous physic, that's sure of death without it.'
First of all then, the condition of this lamp of tradition, that is to burn on for ages, is, that it shall be able to adapt itself to the successive stages of the advancement it lights. It is the inevitable condition of this school which begins with the present, which begins with the people, which descends to the lowest stage of the contemporary popular belief, and takes in the many-headed monster himself, without any trimming at all, for its audience,—it is the first condition of such a school, conducted by a man of science, that it shall have its proper grades of courts and platforms, its selecter and selectest audiences. There must be landing places in the ascent, points of rendezvous agreed on, where 'the delicate collateral sounds' are heard, which only those who ascend can hear. There is no jar,—there is no forced advancement in this school; there is no upward step for any, who have not first been taught to see it, who have not, indeed, already taken it. For it is an artist's school, and not a pedant's, or a vague speculator's, who knows not how to converge his speculation, even upon his mode of tradition.
The founders of this school trust much in their general plan of instruction and relief, to the gradual advancement of a common intelligence, by means of a scientific, but concealed historical teaching. They will teach their lower classes, their 'beginners,' as great nature teaches—insensibly;—as great nature teaches—in the concrete, 'in easy instances.' For the secret of her method is that which they have studied; that is the learning which they have mastered; the spirit of it, which is the poet's gift, the quickest, subtlest, most searching, most analytic, most synthetic spirit of it, is that with which great nature has endowed them. They will speak, as they tell us, as the masters always have spoken from of old to them who are without; they will 'open their mouths in parables,' they will 'utter their dark sayings on the harp.' They know that men are already prepared by nature's own instruction, to feel in a fact,—to receive in historical representations—truths which would startle them in the abstract, truths which they are not yet prepared to disengage from the historical combinations in which they receive them; though with every repetition, and especially with the pointed, selected, prolonged repetition of the teacher, where the 'ILLUSTRIOUS INSTANCE' is selected and cleared of its extraneous incident, and made to enter the mind alone, and pierce it with its principle,—with every such repetition, the step to that generalization and axiom becomes insensibly shorter and more easy. They know that men are already wiser than their teachers, in some—in many things; that they have all of them a great stock of incommunicative wisdom which all their teachers have not been able to make them give up, which they never will give up, till the strong man, who is stronger, enters with his larger learning out of the same book, with his mightier weapons out of the same armory, and spoils their goods, or makes them old and worthless, by the side of the new, resplendent, magic wealth he brings with him.
The new philosophy of nature has truths to teach which nature herself has already been teaching all men, with more or less effect, miscellaneously, and at odd hours, ever since they were born; and this philosopher gives a large place in his history, to that vulgar, practical human wisdom, which all the books till his time had been of too high a strain to glance at. But 'art is a second nature, and imitateth that dextrously and compendiously, which nature performs by ambages and length of time.' The scientific interpreter of nature will select, and unite, and teach continuously, and pointedly, in grand, ideal, representative fact, in 'prerogative instances,' that which nature has but faintly and unconsciously impressed with her method; for he has a scientific organum, and what is more,—a great deal more, a thousand times more,—he has the scientific genius that invented it. His soul is a Novum Organum—his mind is a table of rejections that sifts the historic masses, and brings out the instances that are to his purpose, the bright, bold instances that flame forth the doubtful truth, that tell their own story and need no interpreter, the high ideal instances that talk in verse because it is their native tongue and they can no other. He has found,—or rather nature lent it to him, the universal historic solvent, and the dull, formless, miscellaneous facts of the common human experience, spring up in magic orders, in beautiful, transparent, scientific continuities, as they arrange themselves by the laws of his thinking.
For the truth is, and it must be said here, and not here only, but everywhere, wherever there is a chance to say it,—that Novum Organum was not made to examine the legs of spiders with, or the toes of 'the grandfather-long-legs,' or any of their kindred; though of course it is susceptible of such an application, when it falls into the hands of persons whose genius inclines them in those directions; and it is a use, that the inventor would not have disdained to put it to himself, if he had had time, and if his attention had not been so much distracted by the habits and history of that 'nobler kind of vermin,' which he found feeding on the human weal in his time, and eating out the heart of it. This man was not a fool, but a man. He was a naturalist indeed, of the newest and highest style, but that did not hinder his being a man at the same time. He and his company were the first that set the example of going, deliberately, and on principle, out of the human nature for knowledge; but it was that they might re-return with better axioms for the culture, and nobility, and sway of that form, which, 'though it be but a part in the continent of nature,' is as this one openly declares, 'the end and term of NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, in the intention of MAN.' His science included the humblest and least agreeable of nature's performances; his Novum Organum was able to take up the smallest conceivable atom of existence, whether animate or not, and make a study of it. He has no disrespect for caterpillars or any kind of worm or insect; but he is not a caterpillar himself, or an insect of any kind, or a Saurian, or an Icthyosaurian, but a man; and it was for the sake of building up from a new basis a practical doctrine of human life, that he invented that instrument, and put so much fine work upon it.
With his 'PREROGATIVE INSTANCES,' he will build height after height, the solid, but imperceptible stair-way to his summit of knowledges, so that men shall tread its utmost floors without knowing what heights they are—even as they tread great nature's own solidities, without inquiring her secret.
The shrewd unlearned man of practice shall take that great book of nature, that illustrated digest of it, on his knees, to while away his idle hours with, in rich pastime, and smile to see there, all written out, that which he faintly knew, and never knew that he knew before; he will find there in sharp points, in accumulations, and percussions, that which his own experience has at length wearily, dimly, worked and worn into him. It is his own experience, exalted indeed, and glorified, but it is that which beckons him on to that which is yet beyond it; he shall read on, and smile, and laugh, and weep, and wonder at the power; but never dream that it is science, the new science—the science of nature—the product of the new organum of it applied to human nature, and human life. The abstract statement of that which the concrete exhibition veils, is indeed always there, though it lie never so close, in never so snug a corner; but it is there so artistically environed, that the reader who is not ready for it, who has not learned to disengage the principle from the instance, who has had no hint of an illustrated tradition in it, will never see it; or if he sees it, he will think it is there by accident, or inspiration, and pass on.
Here, in this open treatise upon the art of delivering and teaching of knowledge, the author lays down, in the most impressive terms, the necessity of a style which shall serve as a veil of tradition, imperceptible or impenetrable to the uninitiated, and admitting 'only such as have by the help of a master, attained to the interpretation of dark sayings, or are able by their own genius to enter within the veil'; and after having distributed under many heads, the secret of this method of scientific communication, he asserts distinctly that there is no other mode of dealing with the popular belief and preconception, but the one just described—that same method which the teachers of the people have always instinctively adopted, whenever that which was new and contrary to the received doctrines, was to be communicated. 'For a man of judgment,' he says, 'must, of course, perceive, that there should be a difference in the teaching and delivery of knowledge, according to the presuppositions, which he finds infused and impressed upon the mind of the learner. For that which is new and foreign from opinions received, is to be delivered in ANOTHER FORM, from that which is agreeable and familiar. And, therefore, Aristotle, when he says to Democritus, "if we shall indeed dispute and not follow after similitudes," as if he would tax Democritus with being too full of comparisons, where he thought to reprove, really commended him.' There is no use in disputing in such a case, he thinks. 'For those whose doctrines are already seated in popular opinion, have only to dispute or prove; but those whose doctrines are beyond the popular opinions, have a double labour; the one to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and demonstrate; so that it is of necessity with them to have recourse to similitudes AND TRANSLATIONS to express themselves. And, therefore, in the infancy of learning, and in rude times, when those conceptions which are now trivial, were then new, the world was full of parables and similitudes, for else would men either have passed over without mark, or else REJECTED FOR PARADOXES, that which was offered before they had understood or judged. So in divine learning, we see how frequent parables and tropes are, for it is a rule in the doctrine of delivery, that every science which is not consonant with presuppositions and prejudices, must pray in aid of similes and allusions.'
The true master of the art of teaching will vary his method too, he tells us according to the subject which he handles,—and the reader should note particularly the illustration of this position, the instance of this general necessity, which the author selects for the sake of pointing his meaning here, for it is here—precisely here—that we begin to touch the heart of that new method which the new science itself prescribed,—'the true teacher will vary his method according to the subject which he handles,' for there is a great difference in the delivery of mathematics, which are the most abstracted of sciences, and POLICY, which is the most immersed, and the opinion that 'uniformity of method, in multiformity of matter, is necessary,' has proved very hurtful to learning, for it tends to reduce learning to certain empty and barren—note it,—barren— 'generalities;'—(so important is the method as that; that it makes the difference between the fruitful and the barren, between the old and the new) 'being but the very husks and shells of sciences, all the kernel being forced out and expressed with the torture and press of the method; and, therefore, as I did allow well of particular topics for invention'—therefore—his science requires him to go into particulars, and as the necessary consequence of that, it requires freedom—'therefore'—as I did allow well of particular topics of invention, 'so do I allow likewise of particular methods of tradition.' Elsewhere,—in his Novum Organum—he quotes the scientific outlines and divisions of this very book, he quotes the very draught and outline of the new human science, which is the principal thing in it, and tells us plainly that he is perfectly aware that those new divisions, those essential differences, those true and radical forms in nature, which he has introduced here, in his doctrine of human nature, will have no practical effect at all, as they are exhibited here; because they are exhibited in this method which he is here criticising, that is, in empty and barren abstractions,— because it was impossible for him to produce here anything but the husks and shells of that principal science, all the kernel being forced out and expulsed with the torture and press of the method. But, at the same time, he gives us to understand, that these same shells and husks may be found in another place, with the kernels and nuts in them, and that he has not taken so much pains to let us see in so many places, what new forms of delivery the new philosophy will require, merely for the sake of letting us see, at the same time, that when it came to practice, he himself stood by the old ones, and contented himself with barren abstractions, and generalities, the husks and shells of sciences, instead of aiming at particulars, and availing himself of these 'particular methods of tradition.'
He takes also this occasion to recommend a method which was found extremely serviceable at that time; namely, the method of teaching by aphorism, 'without any show of an art or method; not merely because it tries the author, since aphorisms being made out of the pith and heart of sciences, no man can write them who is not sound and grounded,' who has not a system with its trunk and root, though he makes no show of it, but buries it and shows you here and there the points on the surface that are apt to look as if they had some underlying connection—not only because it tries the author, but because they point to action; for particulars being dispersed, do best agree with dispersed directions; and, moreover, aphorisms representing a BROKEN KNOWLEDGE, invite men to inquire farther, whereas methods, carrying the show of a total, do secure men as if they were at farthest, and it is the advancement of learning that he is proposing.
He suggests again, distinctly here, the rule he so often claims he has himself put in practice, elsewhere, that the use of CONFUTATION in the delivery of science, ought to be very sparing; and to serve to remove strong preoccupations and prejudgments, and not to minister and excite disputations and doubts. For he says in another place, 'As Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands, to mark up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight, so I like better that entry of truth which cometh peaceably, with chalk to mark up those minds, which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which cometh with pugnacity and contention.'
He alludes here too, in passing, to some other distinctions of method, which are already received, that of ANALYSIS and synthesis, or CONSTITUTION, that of concealment, or CRYPTIC, which he says 'he allows well of, though he has himself stood upon those which are least handled and observed.' He brings out his doctrine of the necessity of a method which shall include particulars for practical purposes also, under another head: here it is the limit of rules,—the propositions or precepts of arts that he speaks of, and the degree of particularity which these precepts ought to descend to. 'For every knowledge,' he says, 'may be fitly said to have a latitude and longitude, accounting the latitude towards other sciences' (for there are rules and propositions of such latitude as to include all arts, all sciences)—'and the longitude towards action, that is, from the greatest generality, to the most particular precept: and as to the degree of particularity to which a knowledge should descend,' though something must, of course, be left in all departments to the discretion of the practitioner, he thinks it is a question which will bear looking into in a general way; and that it might be possible to have rules in all departments, which would limit very much the necessity of individual experiment, and not leave us so much at the mercy of individual discretion in the most serious matters. Philosophy, as he finds it, does not appear to be very helpful to practice, on account of its keeping to those general propositions, so much, as well as on some other accounts, and has fallen into bad repute, it seems, among men who find it necessary to make, without science, as they best can, rules of some sort;—rules that are capable of dealing with that quality in particulars which is apt to be called obstinacy in this aspect of it. 'For we see remote and superficial generalities do but offer knowledge to scorn of practical men, and are no more aiding to practice, than an Ortelius's universal map is to direct the way between London and York.' And what is this itself but a universal map, this map of the advancement of learning?
All this doctrine of the tradition of sciences, he produces under the head of the method of their tradition, but in speaking of the organ of it, he treats it exclusively as the medium of tradition for those sciences which require CONCEALMENT, or admit only of a suggestive exhibition. And as he makes, too, the claim that he has himself given practical proof, in passing, of his proficiency in this art, and appeals to the skilful for the truth of this statement, the passage, at least, in which this assertion is made, will be likely to repay the inquiry which it invites.
He begins by drawing our attention to the fact, that words are not the only representatives of things, and he says 'this is not an inconsiderable thing, for while we are treating of the coin of intellectual matters, it is pertinent to observe, that as money may be made of other materials besides gold and silver, so other marks of things may be invented besides words and letters.' And by way of illustrating the advantages of such a means of tradition, under certain disadvantages of position, he adduces as much in point, the case of Periander, who being consulted how to preserve a tyranny newly usurped, bid the messenger attend and report what he saw him do, and went into his garden and topped all the highest flowers; signifying that it consisted in the cutting off and keeping low of the nobility and grandees. And thus other apparently trivial, purely purposeless and sportive actions, might have a traditionary character of no small consequence, if the messenger were only given to understand beforehand, that the acts thus performed were axiomatical, pointing to rules of practice, that the forms were representative forms, whose 'real' exhibition of the particular natures in question, was much more vivid and effective, much more memorable as well as safe, than any abstract statement of that philosophic truth, which is the truth of direction, could be.
As to the 'accidents of words, which are measure, sound, and elevation of accent, and the sweetness and harshness of them,' even here the new science suggests a new rule, which is not without a remarkable relation to that 'particular method of tradition,' which the author tells us in another place, some parts of his new science required. 'This subject,' he says, 'involves some curious observations in rhetoric, but chiefly POESY, as we consider it in respect of the verse, and not of the argument; wherein, though men in learned tongues do tie themselves to the ancient measures, yet in modern languages it seemeth to me as free to make new measures of verses as of dances.' The spirit of the new philosophy had a chance to speak out there for once, without intending, of course, to transcend that particular limit just laid down, namely, the measure of verses, and with that literal limitation, to the form of the verse, the remark is sufficiently suggestive; for he brings out from it at the next step, in the way of formula, the new principle, the new Shaksperian principle of rhetoric: In these things the sense is better judge than the art. And of the servile expressing antiquity in an unlike and an unfit subject, it is well said:—'Quod tempore antiquum videtur, id incongruitate est maxime novum.''
But when he comes to speak specifically of writing as a means of tradition, he confines his remarks to that particular kind of writing, which is agreed on betwixt particular persons, and called by the name of cipher, giving excellent reasons for this proceeding, impertinent as it may seem, to those who think that his only object is to make out a list and 'muster-roll of the arts and sciences';—stopping to tell us plainly that he knows what he is about, and that he has not brought in 'these private and retired arts,' with so much stress, and under so many heads, in connection with 'the principal and supreme sciences,' and the mode of their tradition, without having some occasion for it.
'Ciphers are commonly in letters, or alphabets, but may be in words,' he says, proceeding to enumerate the different kinds, and furnishing on the spot, some pretty specimens of what may be done in the way of that kind which he calls 'doubles,' a kind which he is particularly fond of; one hears again the echo of those delicate, collateral sounds, which our friend, over the mountains, warned us of, declining to say any more about them in that place. In the later edition, he takes occasion to say, in this connection, 'that as writing in the received manner no way obstructs the manner of pronunciation, but leaves that free, an innovation in it is of no purpose.' And if a cipher be the proper name for a private method of writing, agreed on betwixt particular persons, it is certainly the name for the method which he proposes to adopt in his tradition of the principal sciences; as he takes occasion to inform those whom it may concern, in an early portion of the work, and when he is occupied in the critical task of putting down some of the primary terms. 'I doubt not,' he says, by way of explanation, 'but it will easily appear to men of judgment, that in this and other particulars, wheresoever my conception and notion may differ from the ancient, I am studious to keep the ancient terms.' Surely there is no want of frankness here, so far as the men of judgment are concerned at least. And after condemning those innovators who have taken a different course, he says again, 'But to me on the other side that do desire as much as lieth in my pen, to ground a sociable intercourse between antiquity and proficience, it seemeth best to keep way with antiquity usque ad aras; and therefore to retain the ancient TERMS, though I sometimes alter the uses and definitions, according to the moderate proceeding in civil government, where, although there be some alteration, yet that holdeth which Tacitus wisely noteth 'eadem magistratuum vocabula.' Surely that is plain enough, especially if one has time to take into account the force and historic reach of that last illustration, 'eadem magistratuum vocabula.'
In the later and enlarged edition of his work, he lays much stress upon the point that the cipher 'should be free from suspicion,' for he says, 'if a letter should come into the hands of such as have a power over the writer or receiver, though the cipher itself be trusty and impossible to decipher, it is still subject to examination and question, and (as he says himself), 'to avoid all suspicion,' he introduces there a cipher in letters, which he invented in his youth in Paris, 'having the highest perfection of a cipher, that of signifying omnia per omnia;' and for the same reason perhaps, that of 'avoiding all suspicion,' he quite omits there that very remarkable passage in the earlier work, in which he treats it as a medium of tradition, and takes pains to intimate his reasons for producing it in that connection, with the principal and supreme sciences. If it was, indeed, any object with him to avoid suspicion, and recent disclosures had then, perhaps, tended to sharpen somewhat the contemporary criticism; he did well, unquestionably, to omit that passage. But at the time when that was written, he appears to be chiefly inclined to notice the remarkable facilities, which this style offers to an inventive genius. For he says, 'in regard of the rawness and unskilfulness of the hands through which they pass, the greatest matters, are sometimes carried in the weakest ciphers.' And that there may be no difficulty or mistake as to the reading of that passage, he immediately adds, 'In the enumeration of these private and retired arts, it may be thought I seek to make a great muster-roll of sciences, naming them for show and ostentation, and to little other purpose. But'—note it—'But, let those which are skilful in them judge, whether I bring them in only for appearance, or whether, in that which I speak of them, though in few words, there be not some seed of proficience. And this must be remembered, that as there be many of great account in their countries and provinces, which, when they come up to the seat of the estate, are but of mean rank, and scarcely regarded; so these arts, ("these private and retired arts,") being here placed with the principal and supreme sciences, seem petty things, YET TO SUCH AS HAVE CHOSEN THEM TO SPEND THEIR LABOURS AND STUDIES IN THEM, THEY SEEM GREAT MATTERS. ("Let those which are skilful in them, judge (after that) whether I bring them in only for appearance" or to little other purpose).'
That apology would seem sufficient, but we must know what these labours and studies are, before we can perceive the depth of it. And if we have the patience to follow him but a step or two further, we shall find ourselves in the way of some very direct and accurate information, as to that. For we are coming now, in the order of the work we quote from, to that very part, which contains the point of all these labours and studies, the end of them,—that part to which the science of nature in general, and the secret of this art of tradition, was a necessary introduction. [For this Art of Tradition makes the link between the new Logic and the application of it to Human Nature and Human Life.]
Thus far, this art has been treated as a means of simply transferring knowledge, in such forms as the conditions of the Advancement of Learning prescribe,—forms adapted to the different stages of mental advancement, commencing with the lowest range of the common opinion in his time,—starting with the contemporary opinions of the majority, and reserving 'the secrets of knowledge,' for such as are able to receive them. Thus far, it is the Method, and the Organ of the tradition of which he has spoken. But it is when he comes to speak of what he calls the Illustration of it, that the convergency of his design begins to be laid open to us, for this work is not what it may seem on the surface, as he takes pains to intimate to us—a 'mere muster-roll of sciences.'
It is when he comes to tell us that he will have his 'truth in beauty dyed,' that he does not propose to have the new learning left in the form of argument and logic, or in the form of bare scientific fact, that he does not mean to appeal with it to the reason only; that he will have it in a form in which it will be able to attract and allure men, and make them in love with it, a form in which it will be able to force its way into the will and the affections, and make a lodgement in the hearts of men, long ere it is able to reach the judgment;—it is not till he begins to bring out here, his new doctrine of the true end of rhetoric, and the use to which it ought to be put in subordination to science, that we begin to perceive the significance of the arrangement which brings this theory of an Illustrated Art of Tradition into immediate connection with the new science of human nature and human life which the Author is about to constitute,—so as to serve as an introduction to it—the arrangement which interposes this art of Tradition, between the New Logic and its application to Human Nature and Human Life—to POLICY and MORALITY.
He will not consent to have this so powerful engine of popular influence, which the æsthetic art seems, to his eye, to offer, left out, in his scheme of scientific instrumentalities: he will not pass it by scornfully, as some other philosophers have done, treating it merely as a voluptuary art. He will have of it, something which shall differ, not in degree only, but in kind, from the art of the confectioner.
He begins by stating frankly his reasons for making so much of it in this grave treatise, which is what it professes to be, a treatise on Learning and its Advancement. 'For although,' he says, 'in true value, it is inferior to wisdom, as it is said by God to Moses, when he disabled himself for want of this faculty, "Aaron shall be thy speaker, and thou shalt be to him as God;" yet with people it is the more mighty, and it is just that which is mighty with the people—which he tells us in another place—is wanting. "For this people who knoweth not the law are cursed."' But here he continues, 'for so Solomon saith, "Sapiens corde appellabitur prudens, sed dulcis eloquio majora reperiet;" signifying that profoundness of wisdom will help a man to a name or admiration,'—(it is something more than that which he is proposing as his end)—'but that it is eloquence—which prevails in active life;' so that the very movement which brought philosophy down to earth, and put her upon reforming the practical life of men, was the movement which led her to assume, not instinctively, only, but by theory, and on principle, this new and beautiful apparel, this deep disguise of pleasure. She comes into the court with her case, and claims that this Art, which has been treated hitherto as if it had some independent rights and laws of its own, is properly a subordinate of hers; a chattel gone astray, and setting up for itself as an art voluptuary.
Works on rhetorics are not wanting, the author reports. Antiquity has laboured much in this field. Notwithstanding, he says, there is something to be done here too, and the Elizabethan æsthetics must be begun also in the prima philosophia. 'Notwithstanding,' he continues, 'to stir the earth a little about the roots of this science, as we have done of the rest; the duty and office of Rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of THE WILL; for we see reason is disturbed in the administration of the will by three means; by sophism, which pertains to logic; by imagination or impression, which pertains to rhetoric; and by passion or affection, which pertains to morality.' So in this negotiation within ourselves, men are undermined by inconsequences, solicited and importuned by impressions and observations, and transported by passions. Neither is the nature of man so unfortunately built, as that these powers and arts should have force to disturb reason and not to establish and advance it. For the end of logic is to teach a form of logic to secure reason, not to entrap it. The end of morality is to procure the affections to obey reason, and not to invade it. The end of rhetoric is to fill the imagination to second reason, and not to oppress it. For these abuses of arts come in but ex obliquo for caution.
That is the real original English doctrine of Art:—that is the doctrine of the age of Elizabeth, at least, as it stands in that queen's English, and though it may be very far from being orthodox at present, it is the doctrine which must determine the rule of any successful interpretation of works of art composed on that theory. 'And, therefore,' he proceeds to say, 'it was great injustice in Plato, though springing out of a just hatred of the rhetoricians of his time, to esteem of rhetoric but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to cookery that did mar wholesome meats, and help unwholesome, by variety of sauces to the pleasure of the taste.' 'And therefore, as Plato said eloquently, "That virtue, if she could be seen, would move great love and affection, so, seeing that she cannot be showed to the sense by corporal shape, the next degree is to show her to the imagination in lively representation": for to show her to reason only, in subtilty of argument was a thing ever derided in—Chrysippus and many of the Stoics—who thought to thrust virtue upon men by sharp disputations and conclusions, which have no sympathy with the will of man.'
'Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient to reason, it were true there should be no great use of persuasions and injunctions to the will, more than of naked propositions and proofs; but in regard of the continual mutinies and seditions of the affections,
  Video meliora proboque
  Deteriora sequor;
'Reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of persuasions did not practise and win the imagination from the affections part, and contract a confederacy between the reason and the imagination, against the affections; for the affections themselves carry ever an appetite to good, as reason doth. The difference is'—mark it—'the difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely the present; reason beholdeth the future and sum of time. And therefore the present filling the imagination most, reason is commonly vanquished; but after that force of eloquence and persuasion hath made things future and remote, appear as present, then, upon the revolt of the imagination reason prevaileth.' Not less important than that is this art in his scheme of learning. No wonder that the department of learning which he refers to the imagination should take that prime place in his grand division of it, and be preferred deliberately and on principle to the two others.
'Logic differeth from Rhetoric chiefly in this, that logic handleth reason exact and in truth, and rhetoric handleth it as it is planted in popular opinions and manners. And therefore Aristotle doth wisely place rhetoric as between logic on the one side, and moral or civil knowledge on the other, (and when we come to put together the works of this author, we shall find that that and none other is the place it takes in his system, that that is just the bridge it makes in his plan of operations.)' The proofs and demonstrations of logic are towards all men indifferent and the same: but the proofs and persuasions of rhetoric ought to differ according to the auditors.
Orpheus in sylvis inter delphinas Arion.
Which application, in perfection of idea, ought to extend so far, that if a man should speak of the same thing to several persons, he should speak to them all respectively, and several ways; and there was a great folio written on this plan which came out in those days dedicated 'to the Great Variety of Readers. From the most able to him that can but spell'; (this is just the doctrine, too, which the Continental philosopher sets forth we see);—though this 'politic part of eloquence in private speech,' he goes on to say here, 'it is easy for the greatest orators to want; whilst by observing their well graced forms of speech, they lose the volubility of APPLICATION; and therefore it shall not be amiss to recommend this to better inquiry, not being curious whether we place it here, or in that part which concerneth policy.'
Certainly one would not be apt to infer from that decided preference which the author himself manifests here for those stately and well-graced forms of speech, judging merely from the style of this performance at least, one would not be inclined to suspect that he himself had ever been concerned in any literary enterprises, or was like to be, in which that volubility of application which he appears to think desirable, was successfully put in practice. But we must remember, that he was just the man who was capable of conceiving of a variety of styles adapted to different exigencies, if we would have the key to this style in particular.
But we must look a little at these labours and studies themselves, which required such elaborate and splendid arts of delivery, if we would fully satisfy ourselves, as to whether this author really had any purpose after all in bringing them in here beyond that of mere ostentation, and for the sake of completing his muster-roll of the sciences. Above, we see an intimation, that the divisions of the subject are, after all, not so 'curious' but that the inquiry might possibly be resumed again in other connections, and in the particular connection specified, namely, in that part which concerneth Policy.
In that which follows, the new science of human nature and human life—which is the end and term of this treatise, we are told—is brought out under the two heads of Morality and Policy; and it is necessary to look into both these departments in order to find what application he was proposing to make of this art and science of Tradition and Delivery, and in order to see what place—what vital place it occupied in his system.
'Policy is the most immersed.'—Advancement of Learning.
Reversing the philosophic order, we glance first into that new department of science which the author is here boldly undertaking to constitute under the above name, because in this his own practical designs, and rules of proceeding, are more clearly laid open, and the place which is assigned in his system to that radical science, for which these arts of Delivery and Tradition are chiefly wanting, is distinctly pointed out.
And, moreover, in this department of Policy itself, in marking out one of the grand divisions of it, we find him particularly noticing, and openly insisting on, the form of delivery and inculcation which the new science must take here, that is, if it is going to be at all available as a science of practice.
In this so-called plan for the advancement of learning, the author proceeds, as we all know, by noticing the deficiencies in human learning as he finds it; and everywhere it is that radical deficiency, which leaves human life and human conduct in the dark, while the philosophers are busied with their controversies and wordy speculations. And in that part of his inventory where he puts down as wanting a science of practice in those every-day affairs and incidents, in which the life of man is most conversant, embodying axioms of practice that shall save men the wretched mistakes and blunders of which the individual life is so largely made up; blunders which are inevitable, so long as men are left here, to natural human ignorance, to uncollected individual experience, or to the shrewdest empiricism;—in this so original and interesting part of the work, he takes pains to tell us at length, that that which he has before put down under the head of 'delivery' as a point of form and method, becomes here essential as a point of substance also. It is not merely that he will have his axioms and precepts of direction digested from the facts, instead of being made out of the teacher's own brains, but he will have THE FACTS themselves, in all their stubbornness and opposition to the teacher's preconceptions, for the body of the discourse, and the precepts accommodated thereto, instead of having the precepts for the body of the discourse, and the facts brought in to wait upon them. That is the form of the practical doctrine.
He regrets that this part of a true learning has not been collected hitherto into writing, to the great derogation of learning, and the professors of learning; for from this proceeds the popular opinion which has passed into an adage, that there is no great concurrence between wisdom and learning. The deficiency here is well nigh total he says: 'but for the wisdom of business, wherein man's life is most conversant, there be no books of it, except some few scattered advertisements, that have no proportion to the magnitude of the subject. For if books were written of this, as of the other, I doubt not but learned men with mean experience would far excel men of long experience without learning, and outshoot them with their own bow. Neither need it be thought that this knowledge is too variable to fall under precept,' he says; and he mentions the fact, that in old Rome, so renowned for practical ability, in its wisest and saddest times, there were professors of this learning, that were known for GENERAL WISE MEN, who used to walk at certain hours in the place, and give advice to private citizens, who came to consult with them of the marriage of a daughter, for instance, or the employing of a son, or of an accusation, or of a purchase or bargain, and every other occasion incident to man's life. There is a pretty scheme laid out truly. Have we any general wise man, or ghost of one, who walks up and down at certain hours and gives advice on such topics? However that may be, this philosopher does not despair of such a science. 'So,' he says, commenting on that Roman custom, 'there is a wisdom of council and advice, even in private cases, arising out of a universal insight into the affairs of the world, which is used indeed upon particular cases propounded, but is gathered by general observation of cases of like nature.' And fortifying himself with the example of Solomon, after collecting a string of texts from the Sacred Proverbs, he adds, 'though they are capable, of course, of a more divine interpretation, taking them as instructions for life, they might have received large discourse, if he would have broken them and illustrated them, by deducements and examples. Nor was this in use with the Hebrews only, but it is generally to be found in the wisdom of the more ancient times, that as men found out any observation that they thought was good for life, they would gather it, and express it in parable, or aphorism, or fable.'
But for fables, they were vicegerents and supplies, where examples failed. Now that the times abound with history, THE AIM IS BETTER WHEN THE MARK IS ALIVE. And, therefore, he recommends as the form of writing, 'which is of all others fittest for this variable argument, discourses upon histories and examples: for knowledge drawn freshly, and in our view, out of particulars, knoweth the way best to particulars again; and it hath much greater life for practice, when the discourse attendeth upon the example, than when the example attendeth upon the discourse. For this is no point of order as it seemeth at first' (indeed it is not, it is a point as substantial as the difference between the old learning of the world and the new)—'this is no point of order, but of substance. For when the example is the ground being set down in a history at large, it is set down with all circumstances, which may sometimes control the discourse thereupon made, and sometimes supply it as a very pattern for action; whereas the examples which are alleged for the discourse's sake, are cited succinctly and without particularity, and carry a servile aspect towards the discourse which they are brought in to make good.'
The question of method is here, as we see, incidentally introduced; but it is to be noted, and it makes one of the rules for the interpretation of that particular kind of style which is under consideration, that in this casual and secondary introduction of a subject, we often get shrewder hints of the author's real intention than we do in those parts of the work where it is openly and distinctly treated; at least, these scattered and apparently accidental hints,—these dispersed directions, often contain the key for the 'second' reading, which he openly bespeaks for the more open and elaborate discussion.
And thus we are able to collect, from every part of this proposal for a practical and progressive human learning, based on the defects of the unpractical and stationary learning which the world has hitherto been contented with, the author's opinion as to the form of delivery and inculcation best adapted to effect the proposed object under the given conditions. This question of form runs naturally through the whole work, and comes out in specifications of a very particular and significant kind under some of its divisions, as we shall see. But everywhere we find the point insisted on, which we have just seen so clearly brought out, in the department which was to contain the axioms of success in private life. Whatever the particular form may be, everywhere we come upon this general rule. Whatever the particular form may be, everywhere it is to be one in which the facts shall have the precedence, and the conclusions shall follow; and not one in which the conclusions stand first, and the facts are brought in to make them good. And this very circumstance is enough of itself to show that the form of this new doctrine will be thus far new, as new as the doctrine itself; that the new learning will be found in some form very different, at least, from that which the philosophers and professed teachers were then making use of in their didactic discourses, in some form so much more lively than that, and so much less oracular, that it would, perhaps, appear at first, to those accustomed only to the other, not to be any kind of learning at all, but something very different from that.
But this is not the only point in the general doctrine of delivery which we find produced again in its specific applications. Through all the divisions of this discourse on Learning, and not in that part of it only in which the Art of its Tradition is openly treated, we find that the prescribed form of it is one which will adapt it to the popular preconceptions; and that it must be a form which will make it not only universally acceptable, but universally attractive; that it is not only a form which will throw open the gates of the new school to all comers, but one that will bring in mankind to its benches. Not under the head of Method only, or under the head of Delivery and Tradition, but in those parts of the work in which the substance of the new learning is treated, we find dispersed intimations and positive assertions, that the form of it is, at the same time, popular and enigmatical,—not openly philosophical, and not 'magisterial,'— but insensibly didactic; and that it is, in its principal and higher departments—in those departments on which this plan for the human relief concentrates its forces—essentially POETICAL. That is what we find in the body of the work; and the author repeats in detail what he has before made a point of telling us, in general, under this head of Delivery and Tradition of knowledge, that he sees no reason why that same instrument, which is so powerful for delusion and error, should not be restored to its true uses as an instrument of the human advancement, and a vehicle, though a veiled one—a beautiful and universally-welcome vehicle—for bringing in on this Globe Theatre the knowledges that men are most in need of.
The doctrine which is to be conveyed in this so subtle and artistic manner is none other than the Doctrine of Human Nature and Human Life, or, as this author describes it here, the Scientific Doctrine of MORALITY and POLICY. It is that new doctrine of human nature and human life which the science of nature in general creates. It is the light which universal science, collected from the continent of nature, gives to that insular portion of it 'which is the end and term of natural philosophy in the intention of man.' Under these heads of Morality and Policy, the whole subject is treated here. But to return to the latter.
The question of Civil Government is, in the light of this science, a very difficult one; and this philosopher, like the one we have already quoted on this subject, is disposed to look with much suspicion on propositions for violent and sudden renovations in the state, and immediate abolitions and cures of social evil. He too takes a naturalist's estimate of those larger wholes, and their virtues, and faculties of resistance.
'Civil knowledge is conversant about a subject,' he says, 'which is, of all others, most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced to axiom. Nevertheless, as Cato, the censor, said, "that the Romans were like sheep, for that a man might better drive a flock of them than one of them, for, in a flock, if you could get SOME FEW to go right, the rest would follow;" so in that respect, MORAL PHILOSOPHY is more difficult than policy. Again, moral philosophy propoundeth to itself the framing of internal goodness, but civil knowledge requireth only an external goodness, for that, as to society, sufficeth. Again, States, as great engines, move slowly, and are not so soon put out of frame;' (that is what our foreign statist thought also) 'for, as in Egypt the seven good years sustained the seven bad, so governments for a time, well grounded, do bear out errors following. But the resolution of particular persons is more suddenly subverted. These respects do somewhat qualify the extreme difficulty of civil knowledge.'
This is the point of attack, then,—this is the point of scientific attack,—the resolution of particular persons. He has showed us where the extreme difficulty of this subject appears to lie in his mind, and he has quietly pointed, at the same time, to that place of resistance in the structure of the state, which is the key to the whole position. He has marked the spot exactly where he intends to commence his political operations. For he has discovered a point there, which admits of being operated on, by such engines as a feeble man like him, or a few such together, perhaps, may command. It is the new science that they are going to converge on that point precisely, namely the resolution of particular persons. It is the novum organum that this one is bringing up, in all its finish, for the assault of that particular quarter. Hard as that old wall is, great as the faculty of conservation is in these old structures that hold by time, there is one element running all through it, these chemists find, which is within their power, namely, the resolution of particular persons. It is the science of the conformation of the parts, it is the constitutional structure of the human nature, which, in its scientific development, makes men, naturally, members of communities, beautiful and felicitous parts of states,—it is that which the man of science will begin with. If you will let him have that part of the field to work in undisturbed, he will agree not to meddle with the state. And beside those general reasons, already quoted, which tend to prevent him from urging the immediate application of his science to this 'larger whole,' for its wholesale relief and cure, he ventures upon some specifications and particulars, when he comes to treat distinctly of government itself, and assign to it its place in his new science of affairs. If one were to judge by the space he has openly given it on his paper in this plan for the human advancement and relief, one would infer that it must be a very small matter in his estimate of agencies; but looking a little more closely, we find that it is not that at all in his esteem, that it is anything but a matter of little consequence. It was enough for him, at such a time, to be allowed to put down the fact that the art of it was properly scientific, and included in his plan, and to indicate the kind of science that is wanting to it; for the rest, he gives us to understand that he has himself fallen on such felicitous times, and finds that affair in the hands of a person so extremely learned in it, that there is really nothing to be said. And being thrown into this state of speechless reverence and admiration, he considers that the most meritorious thing he can do, is to pass to the other parts of his discourse with as little delay as possible.
It is a very short paragraph indeed for so long a subject; but, short as it is, it is not less pithy, and it contains reasons why it should not be longer, and why that new torch of science which he is bringing in upon the human affairs generally, cannot be permitted to enter that department of them in his time. 'The first is, that it is a part of knowledge secret and retired in both those respects in which things are deemed secret; for some things are secret because they are hard to know, and some because they are not fit to utter. Again, the wisdom of antiquity, the shadows whereof are in the Poets, in the description of torments and pains, next unto the crime of rebellion, which was the giants offence, doth detest the crime of futility, as in Sisyphus and Tantalus. But this was meant of particulars. Nevertheless, even unto the general rules and discourses of policy and government, [it extends; for even here] there is due a reverent handling.' And after having briefly indicated the comprehension 'of this science,' and shown that it is the thing he is treating under other heads, he concludes, 'but considering that I write to a king who is a master of it, and is so well assisted, I think it decent to pass over this part in silence, as willing to obtain the certificate which one of the ancient philosophers aspired unto; who being silent when others contended to make demonstration of their abilities by speech, desired it might be certified for his part that there was one that knew how to hold his peace.'
And having thus distinctly cleared himself of any suspicion of a disposition to introduce scientific inquiry and innovation into departments not then open to a procedure of that sort, his proposal for an advancement of learning in other quarters was, of course, less liable to criticism. But even that part of the subject to which he limits himself involves, as we shall see, an incidental reference to this, from which he here so modestly retires, and affords no inconsiderable scope for that genius which was by nature so irresistibly impelled, in one way or another, to the criticism and reformation of the larger wholes. He retires from the open assault, but it is only to go deeper into his subject. He is constituting the science of that from which the state proceeds. He is analyzing the state, and searching out in the integral parts of it, that which makes true states impossible. He has found the revolutionary forces in their simple forms, and is content to treat them in these. He is bestowing all his pains upon an art that will develop—on scientific principles, by simply attending to the natural laws, as they obtain in the human kind, royalties, and nobilities, and liege-men of all degrees—an art that will make all kinds of pieces that the structure of the state requires.
  'Nature craves
  All dues to be rendered to their owners.'
But this great innovator is busying himself here with drawing up a report of THE DEFICIENCIES IN LEARNING; and though he is the first to propose a plan and method by which men shall build up, systematically and scientifically, a knowledge of Nature in general, instead of throwing themselves altogether upon their own preconceptions and abstract controversial theories, after all, the principal deficiency which he has to mark—that to which, even in this dry report, he finds himself constrained to affix some notes of admiration—this principal deficiency is THE SCIENCE OF MAN—THE SCIENCE of human nature itself. And the reason of this deficiency is, that very deficiency before named; it is that very act of shutting himself up to his own theories which leaves the thinker without a science of himself. 'For it is the greatest proof of want of skill, to investigate the nature of any object in itself alone; and, in general, those very things which are considered as secret, are manifested and common in other objects, but will never be clearly seen if the contemplations and experiments of men be directed to themselves alone.' It is this science of NATURE IN GENERAL which makes the SCIENCE of Human Nature for the first time possible; and that is the end and term of the new philosophy,—so the inventor of it tells us. And the moment that he comes in with that new torch, which he has been out into 'the continent of nature' to light,—the moment that he comes back with it, into this old debateable ground of the schools, and begins to apply it to that element in the human life in which the scientific innovation appears to be chiefly demanded, 'most of the controversies,' as he tells us very simply—'most of the controversies, wherein moral philosophy is conversant, are judged and determined by it.'
But here is the bold and startling criticism with which he commences his approach to this subject; here is the ground which he makes at the first step; this is the ground of his scientific innovation; not less important than this, is the field which he finds unoccupied. In the handling of this science he says, (the science of 'the Appetite and Will of Man'), 'those which have written seem to me to have done as if a man that professed to teach to write did only exhibit fair copies of alphabets and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions for the carriage of the hand, or the framing of the letters; so have they made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts and portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them, well described, as the true objects and scopes of man's will and designs; but how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the will of man to become true and conformable to these pursuits, they pass it over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably; for it is not,' he says, 'certain scattered glances and touches that can excuse the absence of this part of—SCIENCE.
'The reason of this omission,' he supposes, 'to be that hidden rock, whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast away, which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and common matters, the judicious direction whereof, nevertheless, is the wisest doctrine; for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtleties, but, contrariwise, they have compounded sciences chiefly of a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to the subtlety of disputations, or to the eloquence of discourses.' But his theory of teaching is, that 'Doctrine should be such as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher; being directed to the auditor's benefit, and not to the author's commendation.' Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a fortune which the poet Virgil promised himself, and, indeed, obtained, who got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning, in the expressing of the observations of husbandry as of the heroical acts of Æneas.
'Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum Quam sit, et angustis hunc addere rebus honorum.' Georg. iii. 289.
So, then, there is room for a new Virgil, but his theme is here;—one who need not despair, if he be able to bring to his subject those excellent parts this author speaks of, of getting as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning, in the expressing of the observations of this husbandry, as those have had who have sketched the ideal forms of the human life, the dream of what should be. The copies and exemplars of good,—that vision of heaven,—that idea of felicity, and beauty, and goodness that the human soul brings with it, like a memory,—those celestial shapes that the thought and heart of man, by a law in nature, project,—that garden of delights that all men remember, and yearn for, and aspire to, and will have, in one form or another, in delicate air patterns, or gross deceiving images,—that large, intense, ideal good which men desire—that perfection and felicity, so far above the rude mocking realities which experience brings them,—that, that has had its poets. No lack of these exemplars the historian finds, when he comes to make out his report of the condition of his kind—where he comes to bring in his inventory of the human estate: when so much is wanting, that good he reports 'not deficient.' Edens in plenty,—gods, and demi-gods, and heroes, not wanting; the purest abstract notions of virtue and felicity, the most poetic embodiments of them, are put down among the goods which the human estate, as it is, comprehends. This part of the subject appears, to the critical reviewer, to have been exhausted by the poets and artists that mankind has always employed to supply its wants in this field. No room for a poet here! The draught of the ideal Eden is finished;—the divine exemplar is finished; that which is wanting is,—the husbandry thereunto.
Till now, the philosophers and poetic teachers had always taken their stand at once, on the topmost peak of Olympus, pouring down volleys of scorn, and amazement, and reprehension, upon the vulgar nature they saw beneath, made out of the dust of the ground, and qualified with the essential attributes of that material,—kindled, indeed, with a breath of heaven, but made out of clay,—different kinds of clay,—with more or less of the Promethean spark in it; but always clay, of one kind or another, and always compelled to listen to the laws that are common to the kinds of that substance. And it was to this creature, thus bound by nature, thus doubly bound,—'crawling between earth and heaven,' as the poet has it,—that these winged philosophers on the ideal cliffs, thought it enough to issue their mandates, commanding it to renounce its conditions, to ignore its laws, and come up thither at a word,—at a leap,—making no ado about it.
  'I can call spirits from the vasty deep.'
  'And so can I, and so can any man;'
Says the new philosopher—
'But will they come? Will they come—when you do call for them?'
It was simply a command, that this dirty earth should convert itself straight into Elysian lilies, and bloom out, at a word, with roses of Paradise. Excellent patterns, celestial exemplars, of the things required were held up to it; and endless declamation and argument why it should be that, and not the other, were not wanting:—but as to any scientific inquiry into the nature of the thing on which this form was to be superinduced, as to any scientific exhibition of the form itself which was to be superinduced, these so essential conditions of the proposed result, were in this case alike wanting. The position which these reformers occupy, is one so high, that the question of different kinds of soils, and chemical analyses and experiments, would not come within their range at all; and 'the resplendent or lustrous mass of matter,' of which their sciences are compounded, chosen to give glory either to the subtilty of disputations or to the eloquence of discourses, would not bear any such vulgar admixture. It would make a terrible jar in the rhythm, which those large generalizations naturally flow in, to undertake to introduce into them any such points of detail.
And the new teacher will have a mountain too; but it will be one that 'overlooks the vale,' and he will have a rock-cut-stair to its utmost summit. He is one who will undertake this despised unlustrous matter of which our ordinary human life consists, and make a science of it, building up its generalizations from its particulars, and observing the actual reality,—the thing as it is, freshly, for that purpose; and not omitting any detail,—the poorest. The poets who had undertaken this theme before had been so absorbed with the idea of what man should be, that they could only glance at him as he is: the idea of a science of him, was not of course, to be thought of. There was but one name for the creature, indeed, in their vocabulary and doctrine, and that was one which simply seized and embodied the general fact, the unquestionable historic fact, that he has not been able hitherto to attain to his ideal type in nature, or indeed to make any satisfactory approximation to it.
But when the Committee of Inquiry sits at last, and the business begins to assume a systematic form, even the science of that ideal good, that exemplar and pattern of good, which men have been busy on so long,—the science of it,—is put down as 'wanting,' and the science of the husbandry thereunto, 'wholly deficient.'
And the report is, that this new argument, notwithstanding its every-day theme, is one that admits of being sung also; and that the Virgil who is able to compose 'these Georgies of the Mind,' may promise himself fame, though his end is one that will enable him to forego it. Let us see if we can find any further track of him and his great argument, whether in prose or verse;—this poet who cares not whether he has his 'singing robes' about him or not, so he can express and put upon record his new 'observations of this husbandry.'
THE EXEMPLAR OF GOOD.—'And surely,' he continues, 'if the purpose be in good earnest, not to write at leisure that which men may read at leisure'—note it—that which men may read at leisure—'but really to instruct and suborn action and active life, these GEORGICS of the MIND, concerning the husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity; therefore the main and primitive division of MORAL KNOWLEDGE, seemeth to be into the EXEMPLAR or PLATFORM of GOOD, and THE REGIMEN or CULTURE OF THE MIND, the one describing the NATURE of GOOD, the other prescribing RULES how to SUBDUE, APPLY, and ACCOMMODATE THE WILL OF MAN THEREUNTO.'
As to 'the nature of good, positive or simple,' the writers on this subject have, he says, 'set it down excellently, in describing the forms of virtue and duty, with their situations, and postures, in distributing them into their kinds, parts, provinces, actions, and administrations, and the like: nay, farther, they have commended them to man's nature and spirit, with great quickness of argument, and beauty of persuasions; yea, and fortified and entrenched them, as much as discourse can do, against corrupt and popular opinions. And for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they have excellently handled it also.'—That part deserveth to be reported for 'excellently laboured.'
What is it that is wanting then? What radical, fatal defect is it that he finds even in the doctrine of the NATURE OF GOOD? What is the difficulty with this platform and exemplar of good as he finds it, notwithstanding the praise he has bestowed on it? The difficulty is, that it is not scientific. It is not broad enough. It is special, it is limited to the species, but it is not properly, it is not effectively, specific, because it is not connected with the doctrine of nature in general. It does not strike to those universal original principles, those simple powers which determine the actual historic laws and make the nature of things itself. This is the criticism, therefore, with which this critic of the learning of the world as he finds it, is constrained to qualify that commendation.
Notwithstanding, if before they had come to the popular and received notions of 'vice' and 'virtue,' 'pleasure' and 'pain,' and the rest, they had stayed a little longer upon the inquiry concerning THE ROOTS of GOOD and EVIL, and the strings to those roots, they had given, in my opinion, a great light to that which followed, and especially if they had consulted with nature, they had made their doctrines less prolix and more profound, which being by them in part omitted, and in part handled with much confusion, we will endeavour to resume and open in a more clear manner. Here then, is the preparation of the Platform or Exemplar of Good, the scientific platform of virtue and felicity; going behind the popular notion of vice and virtue, pain and pleasure, and the like, he strikes at once to the nature of good, as it is 'formed in everything,' for the foundation of this specific science. He lays the beams of it, in the axioms and definitions of his 'prima philosophia' 'which do not fall within the compass of the special parts of science, but are more common and of a higher stage, for the distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point, but are like branches of a tree that meet in a stem which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance before it comes to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs,' and it is not the narrow and specific observation on which the popular notions are framed, but the scientific, which is needed for the New Ethics,—the new knowledge, which here too, is POWER. He must detect and recognise here also, he must track even into the nature of man, those universal 'footsteps' which are but 'the same footsteps of nature treading or printing in different substances.' 'There is formed in everything a double nature of good, the one as everything is a total or substantive in itself, and the other, as it is a part or member of a greater body whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a more general form…. This double nature of good, and the comparison thereof, is much more engraven upon MAN, if he degenerate not, unto whom the conservation of duty to the public ought to be much more precious than the conservation of life and being;' and, by way of illustration, he mentions first the case of Pompey the Great, 'who being in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded with great vehemency by his friends, that he should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only to them, "Necesse est ut eam, non ut vivam."' But, he adds, 'it may be truly affirmed, that there was never any philosophy, religion, or other discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt the good which is communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular, as the holy faith, well declaring that it was the same God that gave the Christian law to men, who gave those laws of nature to inanimate creatures that we spake of before; for we read that the elected saints of God have wished themselves anathematised, and razed out of the book of life, in an ecstasy of charity, and infinite feeling of communion.'
And having first made good his assertion, that this being set down, and strongly planted, determines most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is conversant, he proceeds to develop still further these scientific notions of good and evil, which he has gone below the popular notions and into the nature of things to find, these scientific notions, which, because they are scientific, he has still to go out of the specific nature to define; and when he comes to nail down his scientific platform of the human good with them, when he comes to strike their clear and simple lines, deep as the universal constitution of things, through the popular terms, and clear up the old confused theories with them, we find that what he said of them beforehand was true; they do indeed throw great light upon that which follows.
To that exclusive, incommunicative good which inheres in the private and particular nature,—and he does not call it any hard names at all from his scientific platform; indeed in the vocabulary of the Naturalist we are told, that these names are omitted, 'for we call a nettle but a nettle, and the faults of fools their folly,'—that exclusive good he finds both passive and active, and this also is one of those primary distinctions which 'is formed in all things,' and so too is the subdivision of passive good which follows. 'For there is impressed upon all things a triple desire, or appetite, proceeding from love to themselves; one, of preserving and continuing their form; another, of advancing and perfecting their form; and a third, of multiplying and extending their form upon other things; whereof the multiplying or signature of it upon other things, is that which we handled by the name of active good.' But passive good includes both conservation and perfection, or advancement, which latter is the highest degree of passive good. For to preserve in state is the less; to preserve with advancement is the greater. As to man, his approach or assumption to DIVINE or ANGELICAL NATURE is the perfection of his form, the error or false imitation of which good is that which is the tempest of human life. So we have heard before; but in the doctrine which we had before, it was the dogma,—the dogma whose inspiration and divinity each soul recognized; to whose utterance each soul responded, as deep calleth unto deep,—it was the Law, the Divine Law, and not the science of it, that was given.
And having deduced 'that good of man which is private and particular, as far as seemeth fit,' he returns 'to that good of man which respects and beholds society,' which he terms DUTY, because the term of duty is more proper to a mind well framed and disposed towards others, as the term of VIRTUE is applied to a mind well formed and composed in itself; though neither can a man understand virtue, without some relation to society, nor duty, without an inward disposition.
But he wishes us to understand and remember, now that he comes out of the particular nature, and begins to look towards society with this term of Duty, that he is still dealing with 'the will of particular persons,' that it is still the science of morals, and not politics, that he is meddling with. 'This part may seem at first,' he says, 'to pertain to science civil and politic, but not if it be well observed; for it concerneth the regiment and government of every man over himself, and not over others.' And this is the plan which he has marked out in his doctrine of government as the most hopeful point in which to commence political reformations; and one cannot but observe, that if this art and science should be successfully cultivated, the one which he dismisses so briefly would be cleared at once of some of those difficulties, which rendered any more direct treatment of it at that time unadvisable. This part of learning concerneth then 'the regiment and government of every man over himself, and not over others.' 'As in architecture the direction of the framing the posts, beams, and other parts of building, is not the same with the manner of joining them and erecting the building; and in mechanicals, the direction how to frame AN INSTRUMENT OR ENGINE is not the same with the manner of setting it on work, and employing it; and yet, nevertheless, in expressing of the one, you incidentally express the aptness towards the other [hear] so the doctrine of the conjugation of men in society differeth from that of their conformity thereunto.' The received doctrine of that conjugation certainly appeared to; and the more this scientific doctrine of the parts, and the conformity thereunto, is incidentally expressed,—the more the scientific direction how to frame the instrument or engine, is opened, the more this difference becomes apparent.
But even in limiting himself to the individual human nature as it is developed in particular persons, regarding society only as it is incidental to that, even in putting down his new scientific platform of the good that the appetite and will of man naturally seeks, and in marking out scientifically its degrees and kinds, he gives us an opportunity to perceive in passing, that he is not altogether without occasion for the use of that particular art, with its peculiar 'organs' and 'methods' and 'illustration,' which he recommends under so many heads in his treatise on that subject, for the delivery or tradition of knowledges, which tend to innovation and advancement—knowledge which is 'progressive' and 'foreign from opinions received.'
This doctrine of duty is sub-divided into two parts; the common duty of every man as a MAN, or A MEMBER of A STATE, which is that part of the platform and exemplar of good, he has before reported as 'extant, and well laboured.' The other is the respective or special duty of every man in his PROFESSION, VOCATION and PLACE; and it is under this head of the special and respective duties of places, vocations and professions, where the subject begins to grow narrow and pointed, where it assumes immediately, the most critical aspects,—it is here that his new arts of delivery and tradition come in to such good purpose, and stand him instead of other weapons. For this is one of those cases precisely, which the philosopher on the Mountain alluded to, where an argument is set on foot at the table of a man of prodigious fortune, when the man himself is present. Nowhere, perhaps,—in his freest forms of writing, does he give a better reason, for that so deliberate and settled determination, which he so openly declares, and everywhere so stedfastly manifests, not to put himself in an antagonistic attitude towards opinions, and vocations, and professions, as they stood authorized in his time. Nowhere does he venture on a more striking comparison or simile, for the purpose of setting forth that point vividly, and impressing it on the imagination of the reader.
'The first of these [sub-divisions of duty] is extant, and well laboured, as hath been said. The second, likewise, I may report rather dispersed than deficient; which manner of dispersed argument I acknowledge to be best; [it is one he is much given to;] for who can take upon him to write of the proper duty, virtue, challenge and right of EVERY several vocation, profession and place? [—truly?—] For although sometimes a looker on, may see more than a gamester, and there be a proverb more arrogant than sound, 'that the vale best discovereth the hill,' yet there is small doubt, that men can write best, and most really and materially of their own professions,' and it is to be wished, he says, 'as that which would make learning, indeed, solid and fruitful, that active men would, or could, become writers.' And he proceeds to mention opportunely in that connection, a case very much in point, as far as he is concerned, but not on the face of it, so immediately to the purpose, as that which follows. It will, however, perhaps, repay that very careful reading of it, which will be necessary, in order to bring out its pertinence in this connection. And we shall, perhaps, not lose time ourselves, by taking, as we pass, the glimpse which this author sees fit to give us, of the facilities and encouragements which existed then, for the scientific treatment of this so important question of the duties and vices of vocations and professions.
'In which I cannot but mention, honoris causa, your majesty's excellent book, touching the duty of A KING' [and he goes on to give a description which applies, without much 'forcing,' to the work of another king, which he takes occasion to introduce, with a direct commendation, a few pages further on]—'a work richly compounded of divinity, morality, and policy, with great aspersion of all other arts; and being, in mine opinion, one of the most sound and healthful writings that I have read. Not sick of business, as those are who lose themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which cramp in matters impertinent; not savoring of perfumes and paintings as those do, who seek to please the reader more than nature beareth, and chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof, being agreeable to truth, and apt for action;'—[this passage contains some hints as to this author's notion of what a book should be, in form, as well as substance, and, therefore, it would not be strange, if it should apply to some other books, as well]—'and far removed from that natural infirmity, whereunto I noted those that write in their own professions, to be subject, which is that they exalt it above measure; for your majesty hath truly described, not a king of Assyria or Persia, in their external glory, [and not that kind of king, or kingly author is he talking of] but a Moses, or a David, pastors of their people.
'Neither can I ever lose out of my remembrance, what I heard your majesty, in the same sacred spirit of government, deliver in a great cause of judicature, which was, that kings ruled by their laws, as God did by the laws of nature, and ought rarely to put in use their supreme prerogative, as God doth his power of working miracles. And yet, notwithstanding, in your book of a free monarchy, you do well give men to understand, that you know the plenitude of the power and right of a king, as well as _the circle of his office and duty. Thus have I presumed to allege this excellent writing of your majesty, as a prime or eminent example of Tractates, concerning special and respective duties.' [It is, indeed, an exemplar that he talks of here.] 'Wherein I should have said as much, if it had been written a thousand years since: neither am I moved with certain courtly decencies, which I esteem it flattery to praise in presence; no, it is flattery to praise in absence: that is, when either the virtue is absent, or—the occasion is absent, and so the praise is not natural, but forced, either in truth, or—in time. But let Cicero be read in his oration pro Marcello, which is nothing but an excellent TABLE of Caesar's VIRTUE, and made to his face; besides the example of many other excellent persons, wiser a great deal than such observers, and we will never doubt upon a full occasion, to give just praises to present or absent.'
The reader who does not think that is, on the whole, a successful paragraph, considering the general slipperiness of the subject, and the state of the ice in those parts of it, in particular where the movements appear to be the most free and graceful; such a one has, probably, failed in applying to it, that key of 'times,' which a full occasion is expected to produce for this kind of delivery. But if any doubt exists in any mind, in regard to this author's opinion of the rights of his own profession and vocation, and the circle of its office and duties,—if any one really doubts what only allegiance this author professionally acknowledges, and what kingship it is to which this great argument is internally dedicated, it may be well to recall the statement on that subject, which he has taken occasion to insert in another part of the work, so that that point, at least, may be satisfactorily determined.
He is speaking of 'certain base conditions and courses,' in his criticism on the manners of learned men, which he says 'he has no purpose to give allowance to, wherein divers professors of learning have wronged themselves and gone too far,'—glancing in particular at the trencher philosophers of the later age of the Roman state, 'who were little better than parasites in the houses of the great. But above all the rest,' he continues, 'the gross and palpable flattery, whereunto, many, not unlearned, have abased and abused their wits and pens, turning, as Du Bartas saith, Hecuba into Helena, and Faustina into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and estimation of learning. Neither is the modern dedication, of books and writings as to patrons, to be commended: for that books—such as are worthy the name of books, ought to have no patrons, but—(hear) but—Truth and Reason. And the ancient custom was to dedicate them only to private and equal friends, or to entitle the books with their names, or if to kings and great persons, it was some such as the argument of the book was fit and proper for: but these and the like courses may deserve rather reprehension than defence.
'Not that I can tax,' he continues, however, 'or condemn the application of learned men to men in fortune.' And he proceeds to quote here, approvingly, a series of speeches on this very point, which appear to be full of pertinence; the first of the philosopher who, when he was asked in mockery, 'How it came to pass that philosophers were followers of rich men, and not rich men of philosophers,' answered soberly, and yet sharply, 'Because the one sort knew what they had need of, and the other did not'. And then the speech of Aristippus, who, when some one, tender on behalf of philosophy, reproved him that he would offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity, as for a private suit to fall at a tyrant's feet, replied, 'It was not his fault, but it was the fault of Dionysius, that he had his ears in his feet'; and, lastly, the reply of another, who, yielding his point in disputing with Caesar, claimed, 'That it was reason to yield to him who commanded thirty legions,' and 'these,' he says, 'these, and the like applications, and stooping to points of necessity and convenience, cannot be disallowed; for, though they may have some outward baseness, yet, in a judgment truly made, they are to be accounted submissions to the occasion, and not to the person.'
And that is just Volumnia's view of the subject, as will be seen in another place.
  Now, this no more dishonors you at all,
  Than to take in a town with gentle words,
  Which else would put you to your fortune, and
  The hazard of much blood.—
  And you will rather show our general louts
  How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon them,
  For the inheritance of their loves, and safeguard
  Of what that want might ruin.
But then, in the dramatic exhibition, the other side comes in too:—
                        I will not do't;
  Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth,
  And by my body's action, teach my mind
  A most inherent baseness.
It is the same poet who says in another place:—
Almost my nature is subdued to that it works in.
'But to return,' as our author himself says, after his complimentary notice of the king's book, accompanied with that emphatic promise to give an account of himself upon a full occasion, and we have here, apparently, a longer digression to apologize for, and return from; but, in the book we are considering, it is, in fact, rather apparent than real, as are most of the author's digressions, and casual introductions of impertinent matter; for, in fact, the exterior order of the discourse is often a submission to the occasion, and is not so essential as the author's apparent concern about it would lead us to infer; indeed he has left dispersed directions to have this treatise broken up, and recomposed in a more lively manner, upon a full occasion, and when time shall serve; for, at present, this too is chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof.
And in marking out the grounds in human life, then lying waste, or covered with superstitious and empirical arts and inventions, in merely showing the fields into which the inventor of this new instrument of observation and inference by rule, was then proposing to introduce it, and in presenting this new report, and this so startling proposition, in those differing aspects and shifting lights, and under those various divisions which the art of delivery and tradition under such circumstances appeared to prescribe; having come, in the order of his report, to that main ground of the good which the will and appetite of man aspires to, and the direction thereto,—this so labored ground of philosophy,—when it was found that the new scientific platform of good, included—not the exclusive good of the individual form only, but that of those 'larger wholes,' of which men are constitutionally parts and members, and the special DUTY,—for that is the specific name of this principle of integrity in the human kind, that is the name of that larger law, that spiritual principle, which informs and claims the parts, and conserves the larger form which is the worthier,—when it was found that this part included the particular duty of every man in his place, vocation, and profession, as well as the common duty of men as men, surely it was natural enough to glance here, at that particular profession and vocation of authorship, and the claims of the respective places of king and subject in that regard, as well as at the duty of the king, and the superior advantages of a government of laws in general, as being more in accordance with the order of nature, than that other mode of government referred to. It was natural enough, since this subject lies always in abeyance, and is essentially involved in the work throughout, that it should be touched here, in its proper place, though never so casually, with a glance at those nice questions of conflicting claims, which are more fully debated elsewhere, distinguishing that which is forced in time, from that which is forced in truth, and the absence of the person, from the absence of the occasion.
But the approval of that man of prodigious fortune, to whom this work is openly dedicated, is always, with this author, who understands his ground here so well, that he hardly ever fails to indulge himself in passing, with a good humoured, side-long, glance at 'the situation,' this approval is the least part of the achievement. That which he, too, adores in kings, is 'the throng of their adorers'. It is the sovereignty which makes kings, and puts them in its liveries, that he bends to; it is that that he reserves his art for. And this proposal to run the track of the science of nature through this new field of human nature and its higher and highest aims, and into the very field of every man's special place, and vocation, and profession, could not well be made without a glance at those difficulties, which the clashing claims of authorship, and other professions, would in this case create; without a glance at the imperious necessities which threaten the life of the new science, which here also imperiously prescribe the form of its TRADITION; he could not go by this place, without putting into the reader's hands, with one bold stroke, the key of its DELIVERY.
For it is in the paragraph which follows the compliment to the king in his character as an author, in pursuing still further this subject of vocations and professions, that we find in the form of 'fable' and 'allusion,'—that form which the author himself lays down in his Art of Tradition, as the form of inculcation for new truth,—the precise position, which is the key to this whole method of new sciences, which makes the method and the interpretation, the vital points, in the writing and the reading of them.
'But, to return, there belongeth farther to the handling of this part, touching the Duties of Professions and Vocations, a relative, or opposite, touching the frauds, impostures and vices of every profession, which hath been likewise handled. But how? Rather in a satire and cynically, than seriously and wisely; for men have rather sought by wit to deride and traduce much of that which is good in PROFESSIONS, than with judgment to discover and sever that which is corrupt. For, as Solomon saith, he that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to scorn and censure, shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no matter for his instruction. But the managing of this argument with integrity and truth, which I note as deficient, seemeth to me to be one of the best fortifications for honesty and virtue that can be planted. For, as the fable goeth of the basilisk, that if he see you first, you die for it, but if YOU SEE HIM FIRST—HE DIETH; so it is with deceits and evil arts, which if they be first ESPIED lose their life, but if they prevent, endanger.' [If they see you first, you die for it; and not you only, but your science.
  Yet were there but this single plot to lose,
  This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it,
  And throw it against the wind.]
'So that we are much beholden' he continues, 'to Machiavel and others that write what men do, and not what they ought to do, [perhaps he refers here to that writer before quoted, who writes, "others form men,—I report him"]; for it is not possible,' continues the proposer of the science of special duties of place, and vocation, and profession, 'the critic of this department, too,—it is not possible to join the serpentine wisdom with the columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent,—that is, all forms and natures of evil, for without this, virtue lieth open and un-fenced. Nay, an honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them, without the help of the knowledge of evil: for men of corrupted minds pre-suppose that honesty groweth out of simplicity of manners, and believing of preachers, schoolmasters, and men's exterior language; so as, except you can make them perceive that you know the utmost reaches of their own corrupt opinions, they despise all morality.' A book composed for the express purpose of meeting the difficulty here alluded to, has been already noticed in the preceding pages, on account of its being one of the most striking samples of that peculiar style of tradition, which the advancement of Learning prescribes, and here is another, in which the same invention and discovery appears to be indicated:—'Why I can teach you'—says a somewhat doubtful claimant to supernatural gifts:
  'Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command
  The devil.'
  'And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil;
  By telling truth;
  If thou hast power to raise him, bring him hither,
  And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him hence:
  Oh, while you live, TELL TRUTH.'
But this is the style, in which the one before referred to, falls in with the humour of this Advancer of Learning. 'As to the rest, I have enjoined myself to dare to say, all that I dare to do, and even thoughts that are not to be published, displease me. The worst of my actions and qualities do not appear to me so foul, as I find it foul and base not to dare to own them. Every one is wary and discreet in confession, but men ought to be so in action. I wish that this excessive license of mine, may draw men to freedom above these timorous and mincing pretended virtues, sprung from our imperfections, and that at the expense of my immoderation, I may reduce them to reason. A man must see and study his vice to correct it, they who conceal it from others, commonly conceal it from themselves and do not think it covered enough, if they themselves see it…. the diseases of the soul, the greater they are, keep themselves the more obscure; the most sick are the least sensible of them: for these reasons they must often be dragged into light, by an unrelenting and pitiless hand; they must be opened and torn from the caverns and secret recesses of the heart.' 'To meet the Huguenots, who condemn our auricular and private confession, I confess myself in public, religiously and purely,—others have published the errors of their opinions, I of my manners. I am greedy of making myself known, and I care not to how many, provided it be truly; or rather, I hunger for nothing, but I mortally hate to be mistaken by those who happen to come across my name. He that does all things for honor and glory [as some great men in that time were supposed to], what can he think to gain by showing himself to the world in a mask, and by concealing his true being from the people? Commend a hunchback for his fine shape, he has a right to take it for an affront: if you are a coward, and men commend you for your valor, is it of you that they speak? They take you for another. Archelaus, king of Macedon, walking along the street, somebody threw water on his head; which they who were with him said he ought to punish, "Ay, but," said the other, "he did not throw the water upon me, but upon him whom he took me to be." Socrates being told that people spoke ill of him, "Not at all," said he, "there is nothing in me of what they say!" I am content to be less commended provided I am better known. I may be reputed a wise man, in such a sort of wisdom as I take to be folly.' Truly the Advancement of Learning would seem to be not all in the hands of one person in this time. It appears, indeed, to have been in the hands of some persons who were not content with simply propounding it, and noting deficiencies, but who busied themselves with actively carrying out, the precise plan propounded. Here is one who does not content himself with merely criticising 'professions and vocations' and suggesting improvements, but one who appears to have an inward call himself to the cure of diseases. Whoever he may be, and since he seems to care so very little for his name himself, and looks at it from such a philosophical point of view, we ought not, perhaps, to be too particular about it; whoever he may be, he is unquestionably a Doctor of the New School, the scientific school, and will be able to produce his diploma when properly challenged; whoever he may be, he belongs to 'the Globe' for the manager of that theatre is incessantly quoting him, and dramatizing his philosophy, and he says himself, 'I look on all men as my compatriots, and prefer the universal and common tie to the national.'
But in marking out and indicating the plan and method of the new operation, which has for its end to substitute a scientific, in the place of an empirical procedure, in the main pursuits of human life, the philosopher does not limit himself in this survey of the special social duties to the special duties of professions and vocations. 'Unto this part,' he says, 'touching respective duty, doth also appertain the duties between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant: so likewise the laws of friendship and gratitude, the civil bond of companies, colleges, and politic bodies, of neighbourhood, and all other proportionate duties; not as they are parts of a government and society, but as to the framing of the mind of particular persons.'
The reader will observe, that that portion of moral philosophy which is here indicated, contains, according to this index, some extremely important points, points which require learned treatment; and in our further pursuit of this inquiry, we shall find, that the new light which the science of nature in general throws upon the doctrine of the special duties and upon these points here emphasized, has been most ably and elaborately exhibited by a contemporary of this philosopher, and in the form which he has so specially recommended,—with all that rhetorical power which he conceives to be the natural and fitting accompaniment of this part of learning. And the same is true also throughout of that which follows.
'The knowledge concerning good respecting society, doth handle it also not simply alone, but comparatively, whereunto belongeth the weighing of duties between person and person, case and case, particular and public: as we see in the proceeding of Lucius Brutus against his own sons, which was so much extolled, yet what was said?
Infelix utcunque ferent ea fata minores.
'So the case was doubtful, and had opinion on both sides. [So the philosopher on the mountain tells us, too, for his common-place book and this author's happen to be the same.] Again we see when M. Brutus and Cassius invited to a supper certain whose opinions they meant to feel, whether they were fit to be made their associates, and cast forth the question touching the killing of a tyrant,—being an usurper,—they were divided in opinion;' [this of itself is a very good specimen of the style in which points are sometimes introduced casually in passing, and by way of illustration merely] some holding that servitude was the extreme of evils, and others that tyranny was better than a civil war; and this question also our philosopher of the mountain has considered very carefully from his retreat, weighing all the pros and cons of it. And it is a question which was treated also, as we all happen to know, in that other form of writing for which this author expresses so decided a preference, in which the art of the poet is brought in to enforce and impress the conclusion of the philosopher. Indeed, as we proceed further with the plan of this so radical part of the subject, we shall find, that the ground indicated has everywhere been taken up on the spot by somebody, and to purpose.
  'Tis an unweeded garden
  That grows to seed—'
Hamlet.
But we have finished now with what he has to say here of the EXEMPLAR or science of GOOD, and its kinds, and degrees, and the comparison of them, the good that is proper to the individual, and the good that includes society. He has found much fine work on that platform of virtue, and felicity,—excellent exemplars, the purest doctrine, the loftiest virtue, tried by the scientific standard. And though he has gone behind those popular names of vice and virtue, pain and pleasure, and the like, in which these doctrines begin, to the more simple and original forms, which the doctrine of nature in general and its laws supplies, for a platform of moral science, his doctrine is large enough to include all these works, in all their excellence, and give them their true place. A reviewer so discriminating, then, so far from that disposition to scorn and censure, which he reprehends, so careful to conserve that which is good in his scientific constructions and reformations, so pure in judgment in discovering and severing that which is corrupt, a reporter so clearly scientific, who is able to maintain through all this astounding report of the deficiences in human learning, a tone so quiet, so undemonstrative, such a one deserves the more attention when he comes now to 'the art and practic part' of this great science, to which all other sciences are subordinate, and declares to us that he finds it, as a part of science, 'WANTING!' not defective, but wanting.
'Now, therefore, that we have spoken of this FRUIT of LIFE, it remaineth to speak of the HUSBANDRY that belongeth thereunto, without which part the former seemeth to be no better than a fair image or statue, which is beautiful to contemplate, but is without life and motion.'
But as this author is very far, as he confesses, from wishing to clothe himself with the honors of an Innovator,—such honors as awaited the Innovator in that time,—but prefers always to sustain himself with authority from the past, though at the expense of that lustre of novelty and originality, which goes far, as he acknowledges, in establishing new opinions,—adopting in this precisely the practices, and, generally, to save trouble, the quotations of that other philosopher, so largely quoted here, who frankly gives his reasons for his procedure, confessing that he pinches his authors a little, now and then, to make them speak to the purpose; and that he reads them with his pencil in his hand, for the sake of being able to produce respectable authority, grown gray in trust, with the moss of centuries on it, for the views which he has to set forth; culling bits as he wants them, and putting them together in his mosaics as he finds occasion; so now, when we come to this so important part of the subject, where the want is so clearly reported—where the scientific innovation is so unmistakeably propounded—we find ourselves suddenly involved in a storm of Latin quotations, all tending to prove that the thing was perfectly understood among the ancients, and that it is as much as a man's scholarship is worth to call it in question. The author marches up to the point under cover of a perfect cannonade of classics, no less than five of the most imposing of the Greek and Latin authors being brought out, for the benefit of the stunned and bewildered reader, in the course of one brief paragraph, the whole concluding with a reference to the Psalms, which nobody, of course, will undertake to call in question; whereas, in cases of ordinary difficulty, a proverb or two from Solomon is thought sufficient.
For this last writer, with his practical inspiration—with his aphorisms, or 'dispersed directions,' which the author prefers to a methodical discourse, as they best point to action—with his perpetual application of divinity to matters of common life, and to the special and respective duties, this, of all the sacred writers, is the one which he has most frequent occasion to refer to; and when, in his chapter on Policy, he brings out openly his proposal to invade the every-day practical life of men, in its apparently most unaxiomatical department, with his scientific rule of procedure—a proposal which he might not have been 'so prosperously delivered of,' if it had been made in any less considerate manner—he stops to produce whole pages of solid text from this so unquestionably conservative authority, by way of clearing himself from any suspicion of innovation.
First, then, in setting forth this so novel opinion of his, that the doctrine of the FRUIT of LIFE should include not the scientific platform of good, and its degrees and kinds only,—not the doctrine of the ideal excellence and felicity only, but the doctrine—the scientific doctrine—the scientific art of the Husbandry thereunto;—in setting forth the opinion, that that first part of moral science is but a part of it, and that as human nature is constituted, it is not enough to have a doctrine of good in its perfection, and the divinest exemplars of it; first of all he produces the subscription of no less a person than Aristotle, whose conservative faculties had proved so effectual in the dark ages, that the opinion of Solomon himself could hardly have been considered more to the purpose. 'In such full words,' he says; and seeing that the advancement of Learning has already taken us on to a place where the opinions of Aristotle, at least, are not so binding, we need not trouble ourselves with that long quotation now—'in such full words, and with such iteration, doth he inculcate this part, so saith Cicero in great commendation of Cato the second, that he had applied himself to philosophy—"Non ita disputandi causa, sed ita vivendi." And although the neglect of our times, wherein few men do hold any consultations touching the reformation of their LIFE, as Seneca excellently saith, "De partibus vitae, quisque deliberat, de summa nemo," may make this part seem superfluous, yet I must conclude with that aphorism of Hippocrates, "Qui gravi morbo correpti dolores non sentiunt, iis mens aegrotat"; they need medicines not only to assuage the disease, but to awake the sense.
'And if it be said that the cure of men's minds belongeth to sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet Moral Philosophy'—that is, in his meaning of the term, Moral Science, the new science of nature—'may be preferred unto her, as a wise servant and humble handmaid. For, as the Psalm saith, that "the eye of the handmaid looketh perpetually towards the mistress," and yet, no doubt, many things are left to the discretion of the handmaid, to discern of the mistress's will; so ought moral philosophy to give a constant attention to the doctrines of divinity, and yet so as it may yield of herself, within due limits, many sound and profitable directions.' That is the doctrine. That is the position of the New Science in relation to divinity, as defined by the one who was best qualified to place it—that is the mission of the New Science, as announced by the new Interpreter of Nature,—the priest of her ignored and violated laws,—on whose work the seal of that testimony which he challenged to it has already been set—on whose work it has already been written, in the large handwriting of that Providence Divine, whose benediction he invoked, 'accepted'—accepted in the councils from which the effects of life proceed.
'This part, therefore,' having thus defined his position, he continues, 'because of the excellency thereof, I cannot but find it EXCEEDING STRANGE that it is not reduced to written inquiry; the rather because it consisteth of much matter, wherein both speech and action is often conversant, and such wherein the common talk of men, which is rare, but yet cometh sometimes to pass, is wiser than their books. It is reasonable, therefore, that we propound it with the more particularity, both for the worthiness, and because we may acquit ourselves for reporting it deficient' [with such 'iteration and fulness,' with all his discrimination, does he contrive to make this point]; 'which seemeth almost incredible, and is otherwise conceived—[note it]—and is otherwise conceived and presupposed by those themselves that have written.' [They do not see that they have missed it.] 'We will, therefore, enumerate some HEADS or POINTS thereof, that it may appear the better what it is, and __whether it be extant_.'
A momentous question, truly, for the human race. That was a point, indeed, for this reporter to dare to make, and insist on and demonstrate. Doctrines of THE FRUIT of LIFE—doctrines of its perfection, exemplars of it; but no science—no science of the Culture or the Husbandry thereunto—though it is otherwise conceived and presupposed by those who have written! Yes, that is the position; and not taken in the general only, for he will proceed to propound it with more particularity—he will give us the HEADS of it—he will proceed to the articulation of that which is wanting—he will put down, before our eyes, the points and outlines of the new human science, the science of the husbandry thereto, both for the worthiness thereof, and that it may appear the better WHAT IT IS, and whether—WHETHER IT BE EXTANT. For who knows but it may be? Who knows, after all, but the points and outlines here, may prove but the track of that argument which the new Georgics will be able to hide in the play of their illustration, as Periander hid his? Who knows but the Naturalist in this field was then already on the ground, making his collections? Who knows but this new Virgil, who thought little of that resplendent and lustrous mass of matter, that old poets had taken for their glory, who seized the common life of men, and not the ideal life only, for his theme—who made the relief of the human estate, and not glory, his end, but knew that he might promise himself a fame which would make the old heroic poets' crowns grow dim,—who knows but that he—he himself—is extant, contemplating his theme, and composing its Index—claiming as yet its INDEX only? Truly, if the propounder of this argument can in any measure supply the defects which he outlines, and opens here,—if he can point out to us any new and worthy collections in that science for which he claims to break the ground—if he can, in any measure, constitute it, he will deserve that name which he aspired to, and for which he was willing to renounce his own, 'Benefactor of men,' and not of an age or nation.
But let us see where this new science, and scientific art of human culture begins,—this science and art which is to differ from those which have preceded it, as the other Baconian arts and sciences which began in the new doctrine of nature, differed from those which preceded them.
'FIRST, therefore, in this, as in all things which are practical, we ought to cast up our account, WHAT is IN OUR POWER, AND WHAT NOT? FOR the one may be dealt with by way of ALTERATION, but the other by way of APPLICATION only. The husbandman cannot command either the nature of the earth or the seasons of the weather, no more can the physician the constitution of the patient, and the variety of accidents. So in the CULTURE and CURE of THE MIND of MAN two things are without our command, POINTS OF NATURE, and POINTS of FORTUNE: for to the basis of the one, and the conditions of the other, our work is limited and tied.' That is the first step: that is where the NEW begins. There is no science or art till that step is taken.
'In these things, therefore, it is left unto us to proceed by APPLICATION. Vincenda est omnis fortuna ferendo: and so likewise—Vincenda est omnis natura ferendo. But when we speak of suffering, we do not speak of a dull neglected suffering, but of a wise and industrious suffering, which draweth and contriveth use and advantage out of that which seemeth adverse and contrary, which is that properly which we call accommodating or applying. ["Sweet are the uses of it," and "blest" indeed are they who can translate the stubbornness of fortune into so quiet and so sweet a style.]
'Now the wisdom of APPLICATION resteth principally in the exact and distinct knowledge of the precedent state or disposition, unto which we do apply.'—[This is the process which the Novum Organum sets forth with so much care], 'for we cannot fit a garment, except we first take the measure of the body.'
So then THE FIRST ARTICLE OF THIS KNOWLEDGE is—what?—'to set down sound and true distributions and descriptions of THE SEVERAL CHARACTERS AND TEMPERS of MEN'S NATURES and DISPOSITIONS, specially having regard to those differences which are most radical, in being the fountains and causes of the rest, or most frequent in concurrence or commixture (not simple differences merely, but the most frequent conjunctions), wherein it is not the handling of a few of them, in passage, the better to describe the mediocrities of virtues, that can satisfy this intention'; and he proceeds to introduce a few points, casually, as it were, and by way of illustration, but the rule of interpretation for this digest of learning, in this press of method is, that such points are never casual, and usually of primal, and not secondary import; 'for if it deserve to be considered that there are minds which are proportioned to great matters, and others to small, which Aristotle handleth, or ought to have handled, by the name of magnanimity, doth it not deserve as well to be considered, that there are minds proportioned to intend many matters, and others to few?' So that some can divide themselves, others can perchance do exactly well, but it must be in few things at once; and so there cometh to be a narrowness of mind, as well as a PUSILLANIMITY. And again, 'that some minds are proportioned to that which may be despatched at once, or within a short return of time; others to that which begins afar off, and is to be won with length of pursuit.
Jam tum tenditque fovetque.
'So that there may be fitly said to be a longanimity, which is commonly also ascribed to God as a magnanimity.' Undoubtedly, he considers this one of those differences in the natures and dispositions of men, that it is most important to note, otherwise it would not be inserted here. 'So farther deserved it to be considered by Aristotle that there is a disposition in conversation, supposing it in things which do in no sort touch or concern a man's self, to soothe and please; and a disposition contrary to contradict and cross; and deserveth it not much better to be considered that there is a disposition, not in conversation, or talk, but in matter of more serious nature, and supposing it still in things merely indifferent, to take pleasure in the good of another, and a disposition contrariwise to take distaste at the good of another, which is that properly which we call good-nature, or ill-nature, benignity or malignity.' Is not this a field for science, then, with such differences as these lying on the surface of it,—does not it begin to open up with a somewhat inviting aspect? This so remarkable product of nature, with such extraordinary 'differences' in him as these, is he the only thing that is to go without a scientific history, all wild and unbooked, while our philosophers are weeping because 'there are no more worlds to conquer,' because every stone and shell and flower and bird and insect and animal has been dragged into the day and had its portrait taken, and all its history to its secretest points scientifically detected?
'And therefore,' says this organizer of the science of nature, who keeps an eye on practice, in his speculations, and recommends to his followers to observe his lead in that respect, at least, until the affairs of the world get a little straighter than they were in his time, and there is leisure for mere speculation,—'And, therefore,' he resumes, having noted these remarkable differences in the natural and original dispositions of men,—and certainly there is no more curious thing in science than the points noted, though the careful reader will observe that they are not curious merely, but that they slant in one direction very much, and towards a certain kind of practice. 'And, therefore,' he resumes, noticing that fact, 'I cannot sufficiently marvel, that this part of knowledge, touching the several characters of natures and dispositions should be omitted both in MORALITY and POLICY, considering that it is of so great ministry and suppeditation to them BOTH.' ['The several characters.' The range of difference is limited. They are comprehensible within a science, as the differences in other species are. No wonder, then, 'that he cannot sufficiently marvel that this part of knowledge should be omitted.'] But in neither of these two departments, which he here marks out, as the ultimate field of the naturalist, and his arts, in neither of them unfortunately, lies the practice of mankind, as yet so wholly recovered from that 'lameness,' which this critical observer remarked in it in his own time, that these observations have ceased to have a practical interest.
And having thus ventured to express his surprise at this deficiency, he proceeds to note what only indications he observes of any work at all in this field, and the very quarters he goes to for these little accidental hints and beginnings of such a science, show how utterly it was wanting in those grandiloquent schools of philosophic theory, and those magisterial chairs of direction, which the author found in possession of this department in his time.
'A man shall find in the traditions of ASTROLOGY, some pretty and apt divisions of men's natures,'—so in the discussions which occur on this same point in Lear, where this part of philosophy comes under a more particular consideration, and the great ministry which it would yield to morality and policy is suggested in a different form, this same reference to the astrological observations repeatedly occurs. The Poet, indeed, discards the astrological _theory _of these natural differences in the dispositions of men, but is evidently in favour of an observation, and inquiry of some sort, into the second causes of these 'sequent effects,' and an anatomy of the living subject is in one case suggested, by a person who is suffering much from the deficiencies of science in this field, as a means of throwing light on it. 'Then let Regan be anatomised.' For in the Play,—in the poetic impersonation, which has a scientific purpose for its object, the historical extremes of these natural differences are touched, and brought into the most vivid dramatic oppositions; so as to force from the lips of the by-standers the very inquiries and suggestions which are put down here; so as to wring from the broken hearts of men—tortured and broken on the wheel, which 'blind men' call fortune,—tortured and broken on the rack of an unlearned and barbaric human society,—or, from hearts that do not break with anything that such a world can do, the imperious direction of the new science.
'Then let Regan be anatomised, and see what it is that breeds about her heart.' He has asked already, 'What is the cause of thunder?' But 'his philosopher' must not stop there. 'Is there any cause—is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?'—
                       It is the stars!
  The stars above us govern our conditions,
  Else one self mate and mate could not beget
  Such different issues.
'A man shall find in the traditions of astrology some pretty and apt divisions of men's natures,' ('let them be anatomised,' he, too, says,) 'according to the predominance of the planets;' (this is the 'spherical predominance,' which Edmund does not believe in)—'lovers of quiet, lovers of action, lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers of arts, lovers of change, and so forth.' And here, also, is another very singular quarter to go to for a science which is so radical in morality; here is a place, where men have empirically hit upon the fact that it has some relation to policy. 'A man shall find in the wisest sorts of these relations which the Italians make touching conclaves, the natures of the several Cardinals, handsomely and livelily painted forth';—and what he has already said in the general, of this department, he repeats here under this division of it, that the conversation of men in respect to it, is in advance of their books;—'a man shall meet with, in every day's conference, the denominations of sensitive, dry, formal, real, humorous, "huomo di prima impressione, huomo di ultima impressione, and the like": but this is no substitute for science in a matter so radical,'—'and yet, nevertheless, this observation, wandereth in words, but is not fixed in inquiry. For the distinctions are found, many of them, but we conclude no precepts upon them'; it is induction then that we want here, after all—here also—here as elsewhere: 'the distinctions are found, many of them, but we conclude no precepts upon them: wherein our fault is the greater, because both HISTORY, POESY, and DAILY EXPERIENCE, are as goodly fields where these observations grow; whereof we make a few poesies to hold in our hands, but no man bringeth them to the confectionery that receipts might be made of them for the use of life.'
How could he say that, when there was a man then alive, who was doing in all respects, the very thing which he puts down here, as the thing which is to be done, the thing which is of such radical consequence, which is the beginning of the new philosophy, which is the beginning of the new reformation; who is making this very point in that science to which the others are subordinate?—how could he say it, when there was a man then alive, who was ransacking the daily lives of men, and putting all history and poesy under contribution for these very observations, one, too, who was concluding precepts upon them, bringing them to the confectionery, and composing receipts of them for the use of life; a scholar who did not content himself with merely reporting a deficiency so radical as this, in the human life; a man who did not think, apparently, that he had fulfilled his duty to his kind, by composing a paragraph on this subject.
And how comes it—how comes it that he who is the first to discover this so fatal and radical defect in the human science, has himself failed to put upon record any of these so vital observations? How comes it that the one who is at last able to put his finger on the spot where the mischief, where all the boundless mischief, is at work here,—where the cure must begin, should content himself with observations and collections in physical history only? How comes it that the man who finds that all the old philosophy has failed to become operative for the lack of this historical basis, who finds it so 'exceeding strange, so incredible,' who 'cannot sufficiently marvel,' that these observations should have been omitted in this science, heretofore,—the man who is so sharp upon Aristotle and others, on account of this incomprehensible oversight in their ethics,—is himself guilty of this very thing? And how will this defect in his work, compare with that same defect which he is at so much pains to note and describe in the works of others—others who did not know the value of this history? And how can he answer it to his kind, that with the views he has dared to put on record here, of the relation, the essential relation, of this knowledge to human advancement and relief, he himself has done nothing at all to constitute it, except to write this paragraph.
And yet, by his own showing, the discoverer of this field was himself the man to make collections in it; for he tells us that accidental observations are not the kind that are wanted here, and that the truth of direction must precede the severity of observation. Is this so? Whose note book is it then, that has come into our hands, with the rules and plummet of the new science running through it, where all the observation takes, spontaneously, the direction of this new doctrine of nature, and brings home all its collections, in all the lustre of their originality, in all their multiplicity, and variety, and comprehension, in all the novelty and scientific rigour of their exactness, into the channels of these defects of learning? And who was he, who thought there were more things in heaven and earth, than were dreamt of in old philosophies, who kept his tables always by him for open questions? and whose tablets—whose many-leaved tablets, are they then, that are tumbled out upon us here, glowing with 'all saws, all forms, all pressures past, that youth and observation copied there.' And if aphorisms are made out of the pith and heart of sciences, if 'no man can write good aphorisms who is not sound and grounded,' what Wittenberg, what University was he bred in?
Till now there has been no man to claim this new and magnificent collection in natural science: it is a legacy that came to us without a donor;—this new and vast collection in natural history, which is put down here, all along, as that which is wanting—as that which is wanting to the science of man, to the science of his advancement to his place in nature, and to the perfection of his form,—as that which is wanting to the science of the larger wholes, and the art of their conservation. There was no man to claim it, for the boast, the very boast made on behalf of the thing for whom it was claimed—was— he did not know it was worth preserving!—he did not know that this mass of new and profoundly scientific observation—this so new and subtle observation, so artistically digested, with all the precepts concluded on it, strewn, crowded everywhere with those aphorisms, those axioms of practice, that are made out of the pith and heart of sciences—he did not know it was of any value! That is his history. That is the sum of it, and surely it is enough. Who, that is himself at all above the condition of an oyster, will undertake to say, deliberately and upon reflection, that it is not? So long as we have that one fact in our possession, it is absurd, it is simply disgraceful, to complain of any deficiency in this person's biography. There is enough of it and to spare. With that fact in our possession, we ought to have been able to dispense long ago with some, at least, of those details that we have of it. The only fault to be found with the biography of this individual as it stands at present is, that there is too much of it, and the public mind is labouring under a plethora of information.
If that fact be not enough, it is our own fault and not the author's. He was perfectly willing to lie by, till it was. He would not take the trouble to come out for a time that had not studied his philosophy enough to find it, and to put the books of it together.
Many years afterwards, the author of this work on the Advancement of Learning, saw occasion to recast it, and put it in another language. But though he has had so long a time to think about it, and though he does not appear to have taken a single step in the interval, towards the supplying of this radical deficiency in human science; we do not find that his views of its importance are at all altered. It is still the first point with him in the scientific culture of human nature,—the first point in that Art of Human Life, which is the end and term of Natural Philosophy, as he understands the limits of it. We still find the first Article of the Culture of the Mind put down, 'THE DIFFERENT NATURES OR DISPOSITIONS OF MEN,' not the vulgar propensities to VIRTUES and VICES—note it—'or perturbations and passions, but of such as are more internal and radical, which are generally neglected.' 'This is a study,' he says, which 'might afford GREAT LIGHT TO THE SCIENCES.' And again he refers us to the existing supply, such as it is, and repeats with some amplification, his previous suggestions. 'In astrological traditions, the natures and dispositions of men, are tolerably distinguished according to the influence of the planets, where some are said to be by nature formed for contemplation, others for war, others for politics.' Apparently it would be 'great ministry to policy,' if one could get the occult sources of such differences as these, so as to be able to command them at all, in the culture of men, or in the fitting of men to their places. 'But' he proceeds, 'so likewise among the poets of all kinds, we everywhere find characters of nature, though commonly drawn with excess and exceeding the limits of nature.'
Here, too, the philosopher refers us again to the common discourse of men, as containing wiser observations on this subject, than their books. 'But much the best matter of all,' he says, 'for such a treatise, may be derived from the more prudent historians, and not so well from eulogies or panegyrics, which are usually written soon after the death of an illustrious person, but much rather from a whole body of history, as often as such a person appears, for such an inwoven account gives a better description than panegyrics…. But we do not mean that such characters should be received in ethics, as perfect civil images.' They are to be subjected to an artistic process, which will bring out the radical principles in the dispositions and tempers of men in general, as the material of inexhaustible varieties of combination. He will have these historic portraits merely 'for outlines and first draughts of the images themselves, which, being variously compounded and mixed, afford all kinds of portraits, so that an artificial and accurate dissection may be made of MEN'S MINDS AND NATURES, and the secret disposition of each particular man laid open, that from the knowledge of the whole, the PRECEPTS concerning the ERRORS of THE MIND may be MORE RIGHTLY FORMED.' Who did that very thing? Who was it that stood on the spot and put that design into execution?
But this is not all; this is only the beginning of the observation and study of differences. For he would have also included in it, 'those impressions of nature which are otherwise imposed upon by the mind, by the SEX, AGE, COUNTRY, STATE OF HEALTH, MAKE OF BODY, as of beauty and deformity, and THE LIKE, which are inherent and not external:' and more, he will have included in it—in these practical Ethics he will have included—'POINTS OF FORTUNE,' and the differences that they make; he will have all the differences that this creature exhibits, under any conditions, put down; he will have his whole nature, so far as his history is able to show it, on his table; and not as it is exhibited accidentally, or spontaneously merely, but under the test of a studious inquiry, and essay; he will apply to it the trials and vexations of Art, and wring out its last confession. This is the practical doctrine of this species; this is what the author we have here in hand, calls the science of it, or the beginning of its science. This is one of the parts of science which he says is wanting. Let us follow his running glimpse of the points here, then, and see whether it is extant here, too, and whether there is anything to justify all this preparation in bringing it in, and all this exceeding marvelling at the want of it.
'And again those differences which proceed from FORTUNE, as SOVEREIGNTY, NOBILITY, OBSCURE BIRTH, RICHES, WANT, MAGISTRACY, PRIVATENESS, PROSPERITY, ADVERSITY, constant fortune, variable fortune, rising per saltum, per gradus, and the like.' These are articles that he puts down for points in his table of natural history, points for the collection of instances; this is the tabular preparation for induction here; for he does not conclude his precepts on the popular, miscellaneous, accidental history. That will do well enough for books. It won't do to get out axioms of practice from such loose material. They have to ring with the proof of another kind of condensation. All his history is artificial, prepared history more select and subtle and fit than the other kind, he says,—prepared on purpose; perhaps we shall come across his tables, some day, with these very points on them, filled in with the observations of one, so qualified by the truth of direction to make them 'severe'. It would not be strange, for he gives us to understand that he is not altogether idle in this part of his Instauration, and that he does not think it enough to lay out work for others, without giving an occasional specimen of his own, of the thing which he notes as deficient, and proposes to have done, so that there may be no mistake about it as to what it really is; for he appears to think there is some danger of that. Even here, he produces a few illustrations of his meaning, that it may appear the better what is, and whether it be extant.
'And therefore we see, that Plautus maketh it a wonder to see an OLD man beneficent. St. Paul concludeth that severity of discipline was to be used to the Cretans, ("increpa eos dure"), upon the disposition of THEIR COUNTRY. "Cretenses semper mendaces, malæ bestize, ventres pigri." Sallust noteth that it is usual with KINGS to desire contradictories; "Sed plerumque, regiæ voluntates, ut vehementes sunt sic mobiles saepeque ipsæ sibi adversæ." Tacitus observeth how rarely THE RAISING OF THE FORTUNE mendeth the disposition. "Solus Vespasianus mutatus in melius." Pindar maketh an observation that great and sudden fortune for the most part defeateth men. So the Psalm showeth it more easy to keep a measure in the enjoying of fortune, than in the increase of fortune; "Divitiæ si affluant nolite cor apponere."' 'These observations, and the like,'—what book is it that has so many of 'the like'?—'I deny not but are touched a little by Aristotle as in passage in his Rhetorics, and are handled in some scattered discourses.' One would think it was another philosopher, with pretensions not at all inferior, but professedly very much, and altogether superior to those of Aristotle, whose short-comings were under criticism here; 'but they (these observations) were never INCORPORATED into moral philosophy, to which they do ESSENTIALLY appertain, as THE KNOWLEDGE of THE DIVERSITY of GROUND and MOULDS doth to agriculture, and the knowledge of the DIVERSITY of COMPLEXIONS and CONSTITUTIONS doth to the physician; except'—note it—'except we mean to follow the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medicines to all patients.'
Truly this does appear to give us some vistas of a science, and a 'pretty one,' for these particulars and illustrations are here, that we may see the better what it is, and whether it be extant. That is the question. And it happens singularly enough, to be a question just as pertinent now, as it was when the philosopher put it on his paper, two hundred and fifty years ago.
There is the first point, then, in the table of this scientific history, with its subdivisions and articulations; and here is the second, not less essential. 'Another article of this knowledge is the inquiry touching THE AFFECTIONS; for, as in medicining the body,'—and it is a practical science we are on here; it is the cure of the mind, and not a word for show,—'as in medicining the body, it is in order, first, to know the divers complexions and constitutions; secondly, the diseases; and, lastly, the cures; so in medicining of the mind,—after knowledge of the divers characters of men's natures, it followeth, in order, to know the diseases and infirmities of the mind, which are no other than the perturbations and distempers of the affections.' And we shall find, under the head of the medicining of the body, some things on the subject of medicine in general, which could be better said there than here, because the wrath of professional dignitaries,—the eye of the 'basilisk,' was not perhaps quite so terrible in that quarter then, as it was in some others. For though 'the Doctors' in that department, did manage, in the dark ages, to possess themselves of certain weapons of their own, which are said to have proved, on the whole, sufficiently formidable, they were not, as it happened, armed by the State as the others then were; and it was usually discretionary with the patient to avail himself, or not, of their drugs, and receipts, and surgeries; whereas, in the diseased and suffering soul, no such discretion was tolerated. The drugs were indeed compounded by the State in person, and the executive stood by, axe in hand, to see that they were taken, accompanying them with such other remedies as the case might seem to require; the most serious operations being constantly performed without ever taking 'the sense' of the patient.
So we must not be surprised to find that this author who writes under such liabilities ventures to bring out the pith of his trunk of sciences,—that which sciences have in common,—the doctrine of the nature of things,—what he calls 'prima philosophia,' when his learned sock is on—a little more strongly and fully in that branch of it, with a glance this way, with a distinct intimation that it is common to the two, and applies here as well. There, too, he complains of the ignorance of anatomy, which is just the complaint he has been making here, and that, for want of it, 'they quarrel many times with the humours which are not in fault, the fault being in the very frame and mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed by medicine alterative, but must be accommodated and palliated by diet and medicines familiar.' There, too, he reports the lack of medicinal history, and gives directions for supplying it, just such directions as he gives here, but that which makes the astounding difference in the reading of these reports to-day, is, that the one has been accepted, and the other has not; nay, that the one has been read, and the other has not: for how else can we account for the fact, that men of learning, in our time, come out and tell us deliberately, not merely that this man's place in history, is the place of one who devoted his genius to the promotion of the personal convenience and bodily welfare of men, but, that it is the place of one who gave up the nobler nature, deliberately, on principle, and after examination and reflection, as a thing past help from science, as a thing lying out of the range of philosophy? How else comes it, that the critic to-day tells us, dares to tell us, that this leader's word to the new ages of advancement is, that there is no scientific advancement to be looked for here?—how else could he tell us, with such vivid detail of illustration, that this innovator and proposer of advancement, never intended his Novum Organum to be applied to the cure of the moral diseases, to the subduing of the WILL and the AFFECTIONS,—but thought, because the old philosophy had failed, there was no use in trying the new;—because the philosophy of words, and preconceptions, had failed, the philosophy of observation and application, the philosophy of ideas as they are in nature, and not as they are in the mind of man merely, the philosophy of laws, must fail also;—because ARGUMENT had failed, ART was hopeless;—because syllogisms, based on popular, unscientific notions were of no effect, practical axioms based on the scientific knowledge of natural causes, and on their specific developments, were going to be of none effect also? If the passages which are now under consideration, had been so much as read, how could a learned man, in our time, tell us that the author of the 'Advancement of Learning' had come with any such despairful word as that to us,—to tell us that the new science he was introducing upon this Globe theatre, the science of laws in nature, offered to Divinity and Morality no aid,—no ministry, no service in the cure of the mind? And the reason why they have not been read, the reason why this part of the 'Advancement of Learning,' which is the principal part of it in the intention of its author, has been overlooked hitherto is, that the Art of Tradition, which is described, here—the art of the Tradition, and delivery of knowledges which are foreign from opinions received, was in the hand of its inventor, and able to fulfil his pleasure.
After the knowledge of the divers characters of men's natures then, the next article of this inquiry is the DISEASES and INFIRMITIES of the MIND, which are no other than the perturbations and distempers of THE AFFECTIONS. For as the ancient politicians in popular estates were wont to compare the people to the sea, and the orators to the winds, because the sea would of itself be calm and quiet, if the winds did not move and trouble it; so the people would be peaceable and tractable, if the seditious orators did not set them in working and agitation; so it may be fitly said, that the mind, in the nature thereof, would be temperate and stayed, if the affections, as winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation. And here, again, I find, strange as before, that Aristotle should have written divers volumes of Ethics, and never handled THE AFFECTIONS, which is the principal subject thereof; and yet, in his Rhetorics, where they are considered but collaterally, and in a second degree, as they may be moved by speech, he findeth place for them, and handleth them well for the quantity, but where their true place is, he permitteth them. (Very much the method of procedure adopted by the philosopher who composes that criticism; who also finds a place for the affections in passing, where they are considered collaterally, and in a second degree, and for the quantity, he handleth them well, and who knows how to bring his Rhetorics to bear on them, as well as the politicians in popular estates did of old, though for a different end; but where their true place is, he, too, permitteth them; and, in his Novum Organum, he keeps so clear of them, and permits them so fully, that the critics tell us he never meant it should touch them.) 'For it is not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy this inquiry, no more than he that should generally handle the nature of light can be said to handle the nature of colours; for pleasure and pain are to the particular affections as light is to the particular colours.' Is not this a man for particulars, then? And when he comes to the practical doctrine,—to the art—to the knowledge, which is power,—will he not have particulars here, as well as in those other arts which are based on them? Will he not have particulars here, as well as in chemistry and natural philosophy, and botany and mineralogy; or, when it comes to practice here, will he be content, after all, with the old line of argument, and elegant disquisition, with the old generalities and subtleties of definition, which required no collection of particulars, which were independent of observation, or for which the popular accidental observation sufficed? 'Better travels, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as far as I can gather by that which we have at secondhand. But yet it is like it was after their manner, rather in subtlety of definitions, which, in a subject of this nature, are but curiosities, than in ACTIVE and AMPLE DESCRIPTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS. So, likewise, I find some particular writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections; as of anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of tenderness of countenance, and others.' And such writings were not confined to the ancients. Some of us have seen elegant writings of this nature, published under the name of the philosopher who composes this criticism, and suggests the possibility of essays of a more lively and experimental kind, and who seems to think that the treatment should be ample, as well as active.
'But the POETS and WRITERS of HISTORY are the best Doctors of this knowledge, where we may find, painted forth with great life, how affections are kindled and incited, and how pacified and refrained;'—certainly, that is the kind of learning we want here:—'and how, again, contained from act and further degree'—very useful knowledge, one would say, and it is a pity it should not be 'diffused,' but it is not every poet who can be said to have it;—'how they disclose themselves—how they work—how they vary;'—this is the science of them clearly, whoever has it;—'how they gather and fortify—how they are enwrapped one within another;'—yes, there is one Poet, one Doctor of this science, in whom we can find that also;—'and how they do fight and encounter one with another, and other like particularities.' We all know what Poet it is, to whose lively and ample descriptions of the affections and passions—to whose particularities—that description best applies, and in what age of the world he lived; but no one, who has not first studied them as scientific exhibitions, can begin to perceive the force—the exclusive force—of the reference. 'Amongst the which, this last is of special use in MORAL and CIVIL matters: how, I say, to set affection against affection, and to master one by another, even as we used to hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird, which otherwise, percase, we could not so easily recover.' The Poet has not only exhibited this with very voluminous and lively details, but he, too, has concluded his precept;—
  'One fire burns out another's burning'—
  'One desperate grief cures with another's languish'—
  'Take thou some new infection to thine eye,
  And the rank poison of the old will die.'
                     Romeo and Juliet.
  'As fire drives out fire, so pity, pity;
  And pity to the general wrong of Rome
  Hath, done this deed _on Cæsar.'
                                Julius Cæsar.
for it is the larger form, which is the worthier, in that new department of mixed mathematics which this philosopher was cultivating.
  'One fire drives out one fire, one nail one nail:
  Rights by rights fouler, strength by strengths do fail.'
                                        Coriolanus.
And for history of cases, see the same author in Hamlet and other plays. [This philosopher's prose not unfrequently contains the key of the poetic paraphrase; and the true reading of the line, which has occasioned so much perplexity to the critics, may, perhaps, be suggested by this connection—'to set affection against affection, and to master one by another, even as we hunt beast with beast, and fly bird with bird.']
          Hast thou not learn'd me how
  To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so,
  That our great king himself doth woo me oft
  For my confections? Having thus far proceeded,
  (Unless thou think'st me devilish,) is't not meet
  That I did amplify my judgment in
  Other conclusions? Cymbeline.
Thus far, it is the science of Man, as he is, that is propounded. It is a scientific history of the Mind and its diseases, built up from particulars, as other scientific histories are; and having disposed, in this general manner, of that which must be dealt with by way of application, those points of nature and fortune, which he puts down as the basis and conditions to which all our WORK is limited and tied, we come now to that which IS within our power—to those points which we can deal with by way of ALTERATION, and not of application merely; and yet points which are operating perpetually on the human character, changing the will and appetite, and altering the conduct, by laws not less sure than those which operate in the occult processes of nature, and determine differences behind the scene, or out of the range of our volition.
And if after having duly weighed the hints we have already received of the importance of the subject, we do not any longer suffer ourselves to be put off the track, or bewildered by the first rhetorical effect of the sentence in which these agencies are introduced to our attention,—if we look at that rapid series of words, as something else than the points of a period, if we stop long enough to recover from the confusion which a mere string of names, a catalogue or table of contents, crowded into single sentence, will, of necessity, create,—if we stop long enough to see that each one of these words is a point in the table of a new science, we shall perceive at once, that after having made all this large allowance, this new allowance for that which is without our power, there is still a very, very large margin of operation, and discovery, and experiment left; that there is still a large scope of alteration left—alteration in man as he is. For we shall find that these forces which are within our power, are the very ones which are making, and always have been making, man what he is. Running our eye along this table of forces and supplies, with that understanding of its uses, we shall perceive at once, that we have the most ample material here, if it were but scientifically handled; untried, inexhaustible means and appliances for raising man to the height of his pattern and original, to the stature of a perfect man.
It is not the material of this regimen of growth and advancement, it is not the Materia Medica that is wanting,—it is the science of it. It is the natural history of these forces, with the precepts scientifically concluded on them, that is wanting. The appliances are here; the scientific application of them remains to be made, and until these have been tried, it is too early to pronounce on the case; until these have been tried, just as other precepts of the new science have been, it is too soon to say that that science of nature,—that knowledge of laws—that foreknowledge of effects, which operates so remedially in all other departments of the human life, is without application, is of no efficiency here; until these have been tried it is too soon to say that the science of nature is not what the man who brought it in on this Globe theatre declared it to be, the handmaid of Divinity, the intelligent handmaid and minister of religion, to whose discretion in the economy of Providence, much, much has evidently been left.
And it was no assumption in this man to claim, as he did claim, a divine and providential authority for this procedure. And those who intelligently fulfil their parts in this great enterprise for man's relief, and the Creator's glory, have just as clear a right to say, as those of old who fulfilled with such means and lights, and inspirations as their time gave them, their part in the plan of the human advancement, 'it is God who worketh in us.'
'Now come we to those points which are within our command, and have force and operation upon the mind, to affect the will and appetite, and to alter manners: wherein they ought to have handled CUSTOM, EXERCISE, HABIT, EDUCATION, EXAMPLE, IMITATION, EMULATION, COMPANY, FRIENDS, PRAISE, REPROOF, EXHORTATION, FAME, LAWS, BOOKS, STUDIES: these, as they have determinate use in moralities, from these the mind SUFFERETH; and of these are such receipts and regiments compounded and described, as may serve to recover or preserve the health and good estate of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine; of which number we will insist upon some one or two, as an example of the rest, because it were too long to prosecute all.' But the careful reader perceives in that which follows, that the treatment of this so vital subject, though all that the author has to say upon it here, is condensed into these brief paragraphs, is not by any means so miscellaneous, as this introduction and 'the first cogitation' on it, might, perhaps, have prepared him to find it.
To be permitted to handle these forces openly, in the form of literary report, and recommendation, would, no doubt, have seemed to this inventor of sciences, in his day no small privilege. But there was another kind of experiment in them which he aspired to. He wished to take these forces in hand more directly, and compound recipes, with them, and other 'regiments' and cures. For by nature and carefullest study he was a Doctor in this degree and kind—and a man thus fitted, inevitably seeks his sphere. Very unlearned in this science of human nature which he has left us,—much wanting in analysis must he be, who can find in the persistent determination of such a man to possess himself of places of trust and authority, only the vulgar desire for courtly distinction, and eagerness for the paraphernalia of office. This man was not wanting in any of the common natural sentiments; the private and particular nature was large in him, and that good to which he gives the preference in his comparison of those exclusive aims and enjoyments, is 'the good which is active, and not that which is passive'; both as it tends to secure that individual perpetuity which is the especial craving of men thus specially endowed, and on account of 'that affection for variety and proceeding' which is also common to men, and specially developed in such men,—an affection which the goods of the passive nature are not able to satisfy. 'But in enterprises, pursuits and purposes of life, there is much variety whereof men are sensible with pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, recoils, re-integration, approaches and attainings to their ends.' And he gives us a long insight into his own particular nature and history in that sentence. He is careful to distinguish this kind of good from the good of society, 'though in some cases it hath an incident to it. For that gigantine state of mind which possesseth the troublers of the world, such as was Lucius Sylla, and infinite other in smaller model, who would have all men happy or unhappy, as they were their friends or enemies, and would give form to the world according to their own humours, which is the true theomachy, pretendeth and aspireth to active good though it recedeth farthest from that good of society, which we have determined to be the greater.'
In no troubler or benefactor of the world, on the largest scale, in no theomachist of any age, whether intelligent and benevolent, or demoniacal and evil, had this nature which he here defines so clearly, ever been more largely incorporated, or more effectively armed. But in him this tendency to personal aggrandisement was overlooked, and subordinated by the larger nature,—by the intelligence which includes the whole, and is able to weigh the part with it, and by the sentiments which enforce or anticipate intelligent decision.
Both these facts must be taken into the account, if we would read his history fairly. For he composed for himself a plan of living, in which this naturally intense desire for an individual perpetuity and renown, and this love of action and enterprise for its own sake, was sternly subordinated to the noblest ends of living, to the largest good of his kind, to the divine and eternal law of duty, to the relief of man's estate and the Creator's glory. And without making any claim on his behalf, which it would be unworthy to make for one to whom the truth was dearer than the opinions of men; it may be asserted, that whatever errors of judgment or passion, we may find, or think we find in him, these ends were with him predominant, and shaped his course.
He was not naturally a man of letters, but a man of action, intensely impelled to action, and it was because he was forbidden to fulfil his enterprise in person, because he had to write letters of direction to those to whom he was compelled to entrust it, because he had to write letters to the future, and leave himself and his will in letters, that letters became, in his hands, practical. He, too, knew what it was to be compelled 'to unpack his heart in words' when deeds should have expressed it.
But even words are forbidden him here. After all the pains he has taken to show us what the deficiency is which he is reporting here, and what the art and science which he is proposing, he can only put down a few paragraphs on the subject, casually, as it were, in passing. Of all these forces which have operation on the mind, and with which scientific appliances for the human mind should be compounded, he can only 'insist upon some one or two as an example of the rest.'
That was all that a writer, who was at the same time a public man, could venture on,—a writer who had once been under violent political suspicion, and was still eagerly watched, and especially by one class of public functionaries, who seemed to feel, that with all his deference to their claims, there was something there not quite friendly to them, this was all that he could undertake to insist upon 'in that place.' But a writer who had the advantage of being already defunct—a writer whose estate on the earth was then already done, and who was in no kind of danger of losing either his head or his place, could of course manage this part of the subject differently. He would not find it too long to prosecute all, perhaps. And if he had at the same time the advantage of a foreign name and seignorie, he could come out in England at this very crisis with the freest exhibitions of the points which are here only indicated. He could even put them down openly in his table of contents, every one of them, and make them the titles of his chapters.
There was a work published in England, in that age, in which these forces, of which only the catalogue is inserted here, these forces which are in our power, which we can alter, forces from which the mind suffereth, which have operation upon the mind to affect the will and appetite, are directly dealt with in the most subtle and artistic manner, in the form of literary essay; and in the bolder chapters, the author's observations and criticisms are clearly put down; his scientific suggestions of alterations and new compounds, his scientific doctrine of careful alterations, his scientific doctrine of surgery, and adaptation of regimen, and cure to different ages, and differing social conditions, are all promiscuously filed in, and the English public swallows it without any difficulty at all, and perceives nothing disagreeable or dangerous in it.
This work contains, also, some of those other parts of the new science which have just been reported as wanting, parts which are said by the inventor of this science, to have a great ministry to policy, as well as morality, and the natural history of the creature, which it is here proposed to reform, is brought out without any regard whatever to considerations which would inevitably affect a moralist, looking at the subject from any less earnest and practical—from any less elevated point of view.
Of course, it was perfectly competent for a Gascon whose gasconading was understood to be without any motive beyond that of vanity and egotism, and without any incidence to effects, to say, in the way of mere foolery, many things which an English statesman could not then so well endorse. And in case his personality were called in question, there was the mountain to retreat to, and the saint of the mount, in whose behalf the goose is annually sacrificed by the English people, the saint under whose shield and name the great English philosopher sleeps. In fact, this personage is not so limited in his quarters as the proper name might seem to imply. One does not have to go to the south of France to find him. But it is certainly remarkable, that a work in Natural History, composed by the inventors of the science of observation, and the first in the field, containing their observations in that part of the field too, in which the deficiency appeared to them most important, should have been able to pass so long under so thin a disguise, under this merest gauze of egotism, unchallenged.
These essaies, however, have not been without result. They have been operating incessantly, ever since, directly upon the leading minds, and indirectly upon the minds of men in general, (for many who had never read the book, have all their lives felt its influence), and tending gradually to the clearing up of the human intelligence in 'the practice part of life' in general, and to the development of a common sense on the topics here handled, much more creditable to the species than anything that the author could find stirring in his age. When the works which the propounders of the Great Instauration took pains to get composed by way of filling up their plan of it, a little, corn to be collected and bound, this one will have to find its place among them.
But here, at home, in his own historical name and figure, in his own person, instead of conducting his magnificent scientific experiments on that scale which the genius of his activity, and the largeness of his good will, would have prescribed to him, instead of founding his House of Solomon as he would have founded it, (as that proximity to the throne, when it was the throne of an absolute monarch might have enabled him to found it, if the monarch he found there had been, indeed, what he claimed to be, a lover of learning), instead of such large help and countenance as that of the king, to whom this great proposition was addressed, the philosopher of that time could not even venture on a literary essay in this field under that protection; it was as much as he could do, it was as much as his favor with the king was worth, to slip in here, in this conspicuous place, where it would be sure to be found, sooner or later, the index of his essaies.
'It would be too long,' he says, 'to inquire here into the operation of all these social forces that are making men, that are doing more to make them what they are, than nature herself is doing,' for, 'know thou,' the Poet of this Philosophy says, 'know thou MEN ARE as the TIME IS.' He has included here, in these points which he would have scientifically handled, that which makes times, that which can be altered, that which Advancements of Learning, however, set on foot at first, are sure in the end to alter. 'We will insist upon some one or two as an example of the rest.' And we find that the points he resumes to speak of here, are, indeed, points of primary consequence; social forces that do indeed need a scientific control, effects reported, and precepts concluded. Custom and Habit, Books and Studies, and then a kind of culture, which he says, 'seemeth to be more accurate and elaborate than the rest,' which we find, upon examination, to be a strictly religious culture, and lastly the method to which he gives the preference, as the most compendious and summary in its formative or reforming influence, 'the electing and propounding unto a man's self good and virtuous ends of his life, such as may be in a reasonable sort within his compass to attain.' He says enough under these heads to show the difficulty of writing on a subject where the science has been reported wanting, while the 'Art and Practice' is prescribed.
He lays much stress on CUSTOM and HABIT, and gives some few precepts for its management, 'made out of the pith and heart of sciences,' but he speaks briefly, and chiefly for the purpose of indicating the value he attaches to this point, for he concludes his precepts and observations on it, thus: 'Many other axioms there are, touching the managing of exercise and custom, which being so conducted,— scientifically conducted—do prove, indeed ANOTHER NATURE' ['almost, can change the stamp of nature,'—is Hamlet's word on this point]; 'but being governed by chance, doth commonly prove but AN APE of nature, and bringeth forth that which is lame and counterfeit.' For not less than that is the difference between the scientific administration of these things, from which the mind suffereth, and the blind, hap-hazard one.
But in proceeding to the next point on which he ventures to offer some suggestions, that of BOOKS and STUDIES, we shall do well to take with us that general doctrine of cure, founded upon the nature of things, which he produces under the head of the cure of the body, with a distinct allusion to its proper application here. And it is well to observe how exactly the tone of the criticism in this department, chimes in with that of the criticism already reported here. 'In the consideration of the cures of diseases, I find a deficiency in the receipts of propriety respecting the particular cures of diseases; for the physicians have frustrated the fruit of tradition, and experience, by their magistralities in adding and taking out, and changing quid pro quo in their receipts at their pleasure, COMMANDING SO OVER THE MEDICINE, as the medicine cannot command over the disease:' that is a piece of criticism which appears to belong to the general subject of cure; and here is one which he himself stops to apply to a different branch of it.
'But, lest I grow more particular than is agreeable, either to my intention or proportion, I will conclude this part with the note of one deficiency more, which seemeth to me of GREATEST consequence, which is, that the prescripts in use are too COMPENDIOUS TO ATTAIN THEIR END; for, to my understanding, it is a vain and flattering opinion to think any medicine can be so sovereign, or so happy, as that the receipt or use of it can work any great effect upon the body of man: it were a strange speech, which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man from a vice to which he were by nature subject; it is order, pursuit, sequence, and interchange of application WHICH IS MIGHTY IN NATURE,' (and it is power we are inquiring for here) 'which, although it requires more exact knowledge in prescribing, and more precise obedience in observing, yet it is recompensed with the magnitude of effects.'
Possessed now of his general theory of cure, we shall better understand his particular suggestions in regard to these medicines and alteratives of the mind and manners, which are here under consideration.
'So if we should handle BOOKS and STUDIES,' he continues, having handled custom and habit a little and their powers, in that profoundly suggestive manner, 'so if we should handle books and studies, and what influence and operation they have upon manners, are there not divers precepts of great caution and direction?' A question to be asked. And he goes on to make some further enquiries and suggestions which have considerably more in them than meets the ear. They appear to involve the intimation that many of our books on moral philosophy, come to us from the youthful and poetic ages of the world, ages in which sentiment and spontaneous conviction supplied the place of learning; for the accumulations of ages of experiment and conclusion, tend to maturity and sobriety of judgment in the race, as do the corresponding accumulations in the individual experience and memory. 'And the reason why books' (which are adapted to the popular belief in these early and unlearned ages) 'are of so little effect towards honesty of life, is that they are not read and revolved—revolved—as they should be, by men in mature years.' But unlearned people are always beginners. And it is dangerous to put them upon the task, or to leave them to the task of remodelling their beliefs and adapting them to the advancing stages of human development. He, too, thinks it is easier to overthrow the old opinions, than it is to discriminate that which is to be conserved in them. The hints here are of the most profoundly cautious kind—as they have need to be—but they point to the danger which attends the advancement of learning when rashly and unwisely conducted, and the danger of introducing opinions which are in advance of the popular culture; dangers of which the history of former times furnished eminent examples and warnings then; warnings which have since been repeated in modern instances. He proposes that books shall be tried by their effects on manners. If they fail to produce HONESTY OF LIFE, and if certain particular forms of truth which were once effective to that end, in the course of a popular advancement, or change of any kind, have lost that virtue, let them be examined; let the translation of them be scientifically accomplished, so that the main truth be not lost in the process, so that men be not compelled by fearful experience to retrace their steps in search of it, even, perhaps, to the resuming of the old, dead form again, with all its cumbrous inefficacies; for the lack of a leadership which should have been able to discriminate for them, and forestall this empirical procedure.
Speaking of books of Moral science in general, and their adaptation to different ages, he says—'Did not one of the fathers, in great indignation, call POESY "vinum demonum," because it increaseth temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions? Is not the opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he saith, "That young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy," because they are not settled from the boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered with time and experience?' [And our Poet, we may remark in passing, seems to have been struck with that same observation; for by a happy coincidence, he appears to have it in his commonplace book too, and he has not only made a note of it, as this one has, but has taken the trouble to translate it into verse. He does, indeed, go a little out of his way in time, to introduce it; but he is a poet who is fond of an anachronism, when it happens to serve his purpose—
  'Paris and Troilus, you have both said well;
  And on the cause and question now in hand
  Have glozed; but, superficially, not much
  Unlike young men whom Aristotle thought
  Unfit to hear moral philosophy.']
The question is, then, as to the adaptations of forms, of moral instruction to different ages of the human development. For when a decided want of 'honesty of life' shows itself, in any very general manner, under the fullest operation of any given doctrine which is the received one, it is time for men of learning to begin to look about them a little; and it is a time when directions so cautious as these should not by any means be despised by those on whom the responsibility of direction, here, is in any way devolved.
'And doth it not hereof come, that those excellent books and discourses of the ancient writers, whereby they have persuaded unto virtue most effectually, by representing her in state and majesty, and popular opinions against virtue in their parasites' coats, fit to be scorned and derided, are of so little effect towards honesty of life—
[Polonius.—Honest, my lord? Hamlet.—Ay, honest.]
'—because they are not read and revolved by men, in their mature and settled years, but confined almost to boys and beginners? But is it not true, also, that much less young men are fit auditors of matters of policy till they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion and morality, lest their judgments be corrupted, and made apt to think that there are no true differences of things, but according to utility and fortune.'
By putting in here two or three of those 'elegant sentences' which the author has taken out from their connections in his discourses, and strung together, by way of making more perceptible points and stronger impressions with them, according to that theory of his in regard to aphorisms already quoted, we shall better understand this passage, for the connection in which it is introduced here tends somewhat to involve and obscure the meaning. 'In removing superstitions,' he tells us, then, in this so pointed manner, 'care should be had the good be not taken away with the bad, which commonly is done when the people is the physician.' 'Things will have their first or second agitation.' [Prima Philosophia—pith and heart of sciences: the author of this aphorism is sound and grounded.] 'If they be not tossed on the waves of counsel, they will be tossed on the waves of fortune.' That last 'tossing' requires a second cogitation. There might have been a more direct way of expressing it; but this author prefers similes in such cases, he tells us. But here is more on the same subject. 'It were good that men in their RENOVATIONS follow the example of time itself, which, indeed, innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived;' and 'Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.' These are the sentiments and opinions of that man of science, whose works we are now opening, not caring under what particular name or form we may find them. One or two of these observations do not sound at all like prescience now; but at the time when they were given out as precepts of direction, it required that acquaintance with the nature of things in general which is derived from a large and studious observation of particulars, to put them into a form so oracular.
But this general suggestion with regard to our books of moral philosophy, and their adaptation to the largest effect on the will and appetite under the given conditions of time—conditions which involve the instruction of masses of men, in whom affection predominates— men in whom judgment is not yet matured—men not attempered with the time and experience of ages, by means of those preservations of it which the traditions of learning make; beside this general suggestion in regard to these so potent instrumentalities in manners, he has another to make, one in which this general proposition to substitute learning for preconception in practical matters,—at least, as far as may be, comes out again in the form of criticism, and of a most specially significant kind. It is a point which he touches lightly here; but one which he touches again and again in other parts of this work, and one which he resumes at large in his practical ethics.
'Again, is there not a caution likewise to be given of the doctrines of moralities themselves, some kinds of them, lest they make men too precise, arrogant, incompatible, as Cicero saith of Cato, in Marco Catone: "Haec bona quae videmus divina et egregia ipsius scitote esse propria: quae nonnunquam requirimus, ea sunt omnia non a natura, sed a magistro?"'
And after glancing at the specific subject of remedial agencies which are within the scope of our revision and renovation, under some other heads, concluding with that which is of all others the most compendious and summary, and again the most noble and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto virtue and good estate, he concludes this whole part, this part in which the points and outlines of the new science—that radical human science which he has dared to report deficient, come out with such masterly grasp and precision,—he concludes this whole part in the words which follow,—words which it will take the author's own doctrine of interpretation to open. For this is one of those passages which he commends to the second cogitation of the reader, and he knew if 'the times that were nearer' were not able to read it, 'the times that were farther off' would find it clear enough.
'Therefore I do conclude this part of Moral Knowledge concerning the culture and regiment of the Mind; wherein if any man, considering the facts thereof which I have enumerated, do judge that my labour is to COLLECT INTO AN ART OR SCIENCE, that which hath been pretermitted by others, as matters of common sense and experience, he judgeth well.' The practised eye will detect on the surface here, some marks of that style which this author recommends in such cases: especially where such strong pre-occupations exist; already we perceive that this is one of those sentences which is addressed to the skill of the interpreter; in which, by means of a careful selection and collocation of words, two or more meanings are conveyed under one form of expression. And it may not be amiss to remember here, that this is a style, according to the author's own description of it elsewhere, in which the more involved and enigmatical passages sometimes admit of several readings, each having its own pertinence and value, according to the mental condition of the reader; and that it is a style in which even the delicate, collateral sounds, that are distinctly included in this art of tradition, must come in sometimes in the more critical places, in aid of the interpretation. 'But what if it be an harangue whereon his life depends?'
l.—If any man considering the parts thereof, which I have enumerated, do judge that MY LABOUR IS to collect into an ART or SCIENCE that which hath been PRETER-MITTED by others, he judgeth well.
2.—If any man do judge that my labour is to collect into an ART or SCIENCE that which hath been pretermitted by others AS MATTERS OF COMMON SENSE and EXPERIENCE, he judgeth well.
3.—If any man considering the PARTS THEREOF WHICH I HAVE ENUMERATED, do judge that my labor is to collect into an ART or SCIENCE, that which hath been pretermitted by OTHERS, as matters of common sense and experience, he judgeth well.
But if there be any doubt, about the more critical of these meanings, let us read on, and we shall find the criticism of this great and greatest proposition, the proposition to substitute learning for preconception, in the main department of human practice, brought out with all the emphasis and significance which becomes the close of so great a period in sciences, and not without a little flowering of that rhetoric, in which beauty is the incident, and discretion is more than eloquence.
'But as Philocrates sported with Demosthenes you may not marvel, Athenians, that Demosthenes and I do differ, for he drinketh water, and I drink wine. And like as we read of an ancient parable of the two gates of sleep—
  Sunt geminae somni portae, quarum altera fertur
  Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris:
  Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
  Sed falsa ad coelum mittunt insomnia manes.
'So if we put on sobriety and attention we shall find it a sure maxim in knowledge, that the more pleasant liquor of wine is the more vaporous, and the braver gate of ivory sendeth forth the falser dreams.'
  It is a basilisk unto mine eyes,—
  Kills me to look on't,
  This fierce abridgment
  Hath to it circumstantial branches, which
  Distinction should be rich in.
Cymbeline.
This whole subject is introduced here in its natural and inevitable connection with that special form of Delivery and Tradition which it required. For we find that connection indicated here, where the matter of the tradition, and that part of it which specially requires this form is treated, and we find the form itself specified here incidentally, but not less unmistakeably, that it is in that part of the work where the Art of Tradition is the primary subject. In bestowing on 'the parts' of this science, which the propounder of it is here enumerating—that consideration which the concluding paragraph invites to them, we find, not only the fields clearly marked out, in which he is labouring to collect into an art and science, that which has hitherto been conducted without art or science, and left to common sense and experience, the fields in which these goodly observations grow, of which men have hitherto been content to gather a poesy to carry in their hands,—(observations which he will bring home to his confectionery, in such new and amazing prodigality and selection), but we find also the very form which these new collections, with the new precepts concluded on them, would naturally take, and that it is one in which these new parts of the new science and its art, which he is labouring to constitute, might very well come out, at such a time, without being recognised as philosophy at all,—might even be brought out by other men without science, as matters of common sense and experience; though the world would have to concede, and the longer the study went on, the more it would be inclined to concede, that the common sense and experience was upon the whole somewhat uncommon, and some who perceived its reaches, without finding that it was art or science, would even be inclined to call it preternatural.
And when he tells us, that the first step in the New Science is the dissection of character, and the production and exhibition of certain scientifically constructed portraits, by means of which this may be effected, portraits which shall represent in their type-form by means of 'illustrious instances,' the several characters and tempers of men's natures and dispositions 'that the secret disposition of each particular man may be laid open, and from a knowledge of the whole, the precepts concerning the cures of the mind may be more rightly concluded,'—surely here, to a man of learning, the form,—the form in which these artistically composed diagrams will be found, is not doubtfully indicated.
And when, at the next step, we come to the history of 'the affections,' and are told distinctly that here philosophy, the philosophy of practice, must needs descend from the abstraction, and generalities of the ancient morality, for those observations and experiments which it is the legitimate business of the poet to conduct, though the poet, in conducting these observations and experiments, has hitherto been wanting in the rigor which science requires, when we are told that philosophy must inevitably enter here, that department of learning, of which the true poet is 'the doctor,'—surely here at least, we know where we are. Certainly it is not the fault of the author of the Great Instauration if we do not know what department of learning the collections of the new learning which he claims to have made will be found in—if found at all, must be found in. It is not his fault if we do not know in what department to look for the applications of the Novum Organum to those 'noblest subjects' on which he preferred to try its powers, he tells us. Here at least—the Index to these missing books—is clear enough.
But in his treatment of Poetry, as one of the three grand departments of Human Learning, for not less noble than that is the place he openly assigns to it, though that open and primary treatment of it, is superficially brief, he contrives to insert in it, his deliberate, scientific preference of it, as a means of effective scientific exhibition, to either of the two graver parts, which he has associated with it—to history on the one hand, as corresponding to the faculty of memory, and to philosophy or mere abstract statement on the other, as corresponding to the faculty of Reason; for it is that great radical department of learning, which is referred to the Imagination, that constitutes in this distribution of learning the third grand division of it. He shows us here, in a few words, under different points and heads, what masterly facilities, what indispensable, incomparable powers it has for that purpose. There is a form of it, 'which is as A VISIBLE HISTORY, and is an image of actions as if they were present, as history is, of actions that are past.' There is a form of it which is applied only to express some special purpose or conceit, which was used of old by philosophers to express any point of reason more sharp and subtle than the vulgar, and, nevertheless, now and at all times these allusive parabolical poems do retain much life and vigour because—note it,—note that because,—that two-fold because, because REASON CANNOT be so SENSIBLE, nor EXAMPLES SO FIT. And he adds, also, 'there remains another use of this poesy, opposite to the one just mentioned, for that use tendeth to demonstrate and illustrate that which is taught or delivered; and this other to retire and obscure it: that is, when the secrets and mysteries of religion, policy or philosophy are involved in fables and parables.'
But under the cover of introducing the 'Wisdom of the Ancients,' and the form in which that was conveyed, he explains more at large the conditions which this kind of exhibition best meets; he claims it as a proper form of learning, and tells us outright, that the New Science must be conveyed in it. He has left us here, all prepared to our hands, precisely the argument which the subject now under consideration requires.
'Upon deliberate consideration, my judgment is, that a concealed instruction and allegory, was originally intended in many of the ancient fables; observing that some fables discover a great and evident similitude, relation, and connection with the things they signify, as well in the structure of the fable, as in the propriety of the names whereby the persons or actors are characterised, insomuch that no one could positively deny a sense and meaning to be from the first intended and purposely shadowed out in them'; and he mentions some instances of this kind; and the first is a very explanatory one, tending to throw light upon the proceedings of men whose rebellions, so far as political action is concerned, have been successfully repressed. And he takes occasion to introduce this particular fable repeatedly in similar connections. 'For who can hear that Fame, after the giants were destroyed, sprung up as their posthumous sister, and not apply it to the clamour of parties, and the seditious rumours which commonly fly about upon the quelling of insurrections. Or who, upon hearing that memorable expedition of the gods against the giants, when the braying of Silenus' ass greatly contributed in putting the giants to flight, does not clearly conceive that this directly points to the monstrous enterprises of rebellious subjects, which are frequently disappointed and frustrated by vain fears and empty rumours. Nor is it wonder if sometimes a piece of history or other things are introduced by way of ornament, or if the times of the action are confounded,' [the very likeliest thing in the world to happen; things are often 'forced in time' as he has given us to understand in complimenting a king's book where the person was absent but not the occasion], 'or if part of one fable be tacked to another, for all this must necessarily happen, as the fables were the invention of men who lived in different ages, and had different views, some of them being ancient, others more modern, some having an eye to natural philosophy, others to morality and civil policy.'
This appears to be just the kind of criticism we happen to be in need of in conducting our present inquiry, and the passage which follows is not less to the purpose.
For, having given some other reasons for this opinion he has expressed in regard to the concealed doctrine of the ancients, he concludes in this manner: 'But if any one shall, notwithstanding this, contend that allegories are always adventitious, and no way native or genuinely contained in them, we might here leave him undisturbed in the gravity of that judgment, though we cannot but think it somewhat dull and phlegmatic, and, if it were worth the trouble, proceed to another kind of argument.' And, apparently, the argument he proceeds to, is worth some trouble, since he takes pains to bring it out so cautiously, under so many different heads, with such iteration and fulness, taking care to insert it so many times in his work on the Advancement of Learning, and here producing it again in his Introduction to the Wisdom of the Ancients, accompanied with a distinct assurance that it is not the wisdom of the ancients he is concerning himself about, and their necessities and helps and instruments; though if any one persists in thinking that it is, he is not disposed to disturb him in the gravity of that judgment. He honestly thinks that they had indeed such intentions as those that he describes; but that is a question for the curious, and he has other work on hand; he happens to be one, whose views of learning and its uses, do not keep him long on questions of mere curiosity. It is with the Moderns, and not with the Ancients that he has to deal; it is the present and the future, and not the past that he 'breaks his sleeps' for. Whether the Ancients used those fables for purposes of innovation, and gradual encroachment on error or not, here is a Modern, he tells us, who for one, cannot dispense with them in his teaching.
For having disposed of his graver readers—those of the dull and phlegmatic kind—in the preceding paragraph, and not thinking it worth exactly that kind of trouble it would have cost then to make himself more explicit for the sake of reaching their apprehension, he proceeds to the following argument, which is not wanting in clearness for 'those who happen to be of his ear.'
'Men have proposed to answer two different and contrary ends by the use of Parables, for parables serve as well to instruct and illustrate, as to wrap up and envelope:' [and what is more, they serve at once that double purpose] 'so that for the present we drop the concealed use, and suppose the ancient fables to be vague undeterminate things formed for amusement, still the other use must remain, and can never be given up. And every man of any learning must readily allow that THIS METHOD of INSTRUCTION is grave, sober, exceedingly useful, and sometimes necessary in the sciences, as it opens an easy and familiar passage to the human understanding, IN ALL NEW DISCOVERIES that are abstruse and out of the road of vulgar opinion. Hence, in the first ages, when such inventions and conclusions of the human reason as are now trite and common, were rare and little known, all things abounded with fables, parables, similes, comparisons, allusions, which were not intended to conceal, but to inform and teach, whilst the minds of men continued rude and unpractised in matters of subtlety and speculation, and even impatient, and in a manner incapable of receiving such things as did not directly fall under and strike the senses.' [And those ages were not gone by, it seems, for these are the very men of whom Hamlet speaks, 'who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise.'] 'For as hieroglyphics were in use before writings, so were parables in use before argument. And even to this day, if any man would let NEW LIGHT IN upon the human understanding, [who was it that proposed to do that?] and conquer prejudices without raising animosities, OPPOSITION, or DISTURBANCE—[who was it that proposed to do that precisely]—he must still—[note it]—he must still go in the same path, and have recourse to the like method.' Where are they then? Search and see. Where are they?—The lost Fables of the New Philosophy? 'To conclude, the knowledge of the earlier ages was either great or happy; great, if by design they made use of tropes and figures; happy, if whilst they had other views they afforded matter and occasion to such noble contemplations. Let either be the case, our pains perhaps will not be misemployed, whether we illustrate ANTIQUITY or [hear] THINGS THEMSELVES.
But he complains of those who have attempted such interpretations hitherto, that 'being unskilled in nature, and their learning no more than that of common-place, they have applied the sense of the parables to certain general and vulgar matters, without reaching to their real purport, genuine interpretation and full depth;' certainly it would not be that kind of criticism, then, which would be able to bring out the subtleties of the new learning from those popular embodiments, which he tells us it will have to take, in order to make some impression, at least, on the common understanding. 'Settle that question, then, in regard to the old Fables as you will, our pains will not perhaps be misemployed, whether we illustrate antiquity or things themselves,' and to that he adds, 'for myself, therefore, I expect to appear NEW in THESE COMMON THINGS, because, leaving untouched such as are sufficiently plain and open, I shall drive only those that are either deep or rich.' 'For myself?'—I?—'I expect to appear new in these common things.' But elsewhere, where he lays out the argument of them, by the side of that 'resplendent and lustrous mass of matter,' those heroical descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity, that others have got glory from, it is some Poet we are given to understand that is going to be found new in them. There, the argument is all—all—poetic, and it is a theme for one who, if he know how to handle it, need not be afraid to put in his modest claim, with those who sung of old, the wrath of heroes, and their arms.
Any one who does not perceive that the passages here quoted were designed to introduce more than 'the wisdom of the ancients', the reader who is disposed to conclude after a careful perusal of these reiterated statements, in regard to the form in which doctrines differing from received opinions must be delivered, taken in connexion, too, with that draught of the new science of the human culture and its parts and points, which has just been produced here,—the reader who concludes that this is, after all, a science that was able to dispense with this method of appeal to the senses and the imagination; that it was not obliged to have recourse to that path;—that the NEW LEARNING, 'the NEW DISCOVERY,' had here no fables, no particular topics, and methods of tradition; that it contented itself with abstractions and generalities, with 'the husks and shells of sciences,'—such an one ought, undoubtedly, to be left undisturbed in that opinion. He belongs precisely to that class of persons which this author himself deliberately proposed to leave to such conclusions. He is one whom this philosopher himself would not take any trouble at all to enlighten on such points. The other reading, with all its gravity, was designed for him. The time for such an one to adopt the reading here produced, will be, when 'those who are incapable of receiving such things as do not directly fall under and strike the senses,' have, at last, got hold of it; when 'the groundlings, who, for the most part are capable of nothing but dumb show and noise,' have had their ears split with it, it will be time enough for him.
This Wisdom of the Moderns, then, to resume with those to whom the appeal is made, this new learning which the Wise Man and Innovator of the Modern Ages tells us must be clothed in fable, and adorned with verse, this learning that must be made to fall under and strike the senses; this dumb show of science, that is but show to him who cannot yet take the player's own version of what it means; this illustrated tradition, this beautiful tradition of the New Science of Human Nature,—where is it? This historical collection, this gallery that was to contain scientific draughts and portraitures of the human character, that should exhaust its varieties,—where is it? These new Georgics of the mind whose argument is here,—where are they? This new Virgil who might promise himself such glory,—such new glory in the singing of them,—where is he? Did he make so deep a summer in his verse, that the track of the precept was lost in it? Were the flowers, and the fruit, so thick, there; was the reed so sweet that the argument of that great husbandry could no point,—could leave no furrow in it?
  'Where souls do couch, on flowers, we'll hand in hand,
  And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze:
  Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops,
  And all the haunt be ours.'
'The neglect of our times,' says this author, in proposing this great argument, this new argument, of the application of SCIENCE to the Culture and Cure of the Mind, 'the neglect of our times, wherein few men do hold any consultations touching the reformation of their lives, may make this part seem superfluous. As Seneca excellently saith, "De partibus vitae quisquae deliberat, de summa nemo."' And is that, after all,—is that the trouble still? Is it, that that characteristic of Elizabeth's time—that same thing which Seneca complained of in Nero's,—is it that that is not yet obsolete? Is that the reason, this so magnificent part, this radical part of the new discovery of the Modern Ages, is still held 'superfluous?' 'De partibus vitae quisquae deliberat, de summa nemo.' 'Now that we have spoken, and spoken for so many ages, of this fruit of life, it remaineth to speak of the husbandry thereunto.' That is the scientific proposition which has waited now two hundred and fifty years, for a scientific audience. The health of the soul, the scientific promotion of it, the FRUIT OF LIFE, and the observations of its husbandry. 'And if it be said,' he continues, anticipating the first inconsiderate objection, 'if it be said that the cure of mens' minds belongeth to sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet, moral philosophy may be preferred unto her, as a wise servant and humble handmaid. For as the Psalm saith, that the eyes of the handmaid look perpetually towards the mistress, and yet, no doubt, many things are left to the discretion of the handmaid, to discern of the mistress' will; so ought moral philosophy to give a constant attention to the doctrines of divinity, and yet so as it may yield of herself, within due limits, many sound and profitable directions.'
For the times that were 'far off' when that proposition was made, it is brought out anew and reopened. Oh, people of the ages of arts and sciences that are called by this man's name, shall we have the fruits of his new doctrine of KNOWLEDGE, brought to our relief in all other fields, and reject it in this, which he himself laid out, and claimed as its only worthy field? Instructed now in the validity of its claims, by its 'magnitude of effects' in every department of the human practice to which it has yet been applied, shall we permit the department of it, on which his labour was expended, to escape that application? Shall we suffer that wild barbaric tract of the human life which the will and affections of man create,—that tract which he seized,—which it was his labour to collect into an art or science, to lie unreclaimed still?
Oh, Man of the new ages of science, will you have the new fore-knowledge, the magical command of effects, which the scientific inquiry into causes as they are actual in nature, puts into our hands, in every other practice, in every other culture and cure,—will you have the rule of this knowledge imposed upon your fields, and orchards, and gardens, to assist weak nature in her 'conservations' and 'advancements' in these,—to teach her to bring forth here the latent ideals, towards which she struggles and vainly yearns, and can only point to, and wait for, till science accepts her hints;—will you have the Georgics of this new Virgil to load your table with its magic clusters;—will you take the Novum Organum to pile your plate with its ideal advancements on spontaneous nature and her perfections;—will you have the rule of that Organum applied in its exactest rigors, to all the physical oppositions of your life, to minister to your physical safety, and comfort, and luxury, and never relax your exactions from it, till the last conceivable degree of these has been secured; and in this department of art and science,—this, in which the sum of our good and evil is contained,—in a mere oversight of it, in a disgraceful indifference and carelessness about it, be content to accept, without criticism, the machinery of the past—instrumentalities that the unlearned ages of the world have left to us,—arts whose precepts were concluded ages ere we knew that knowledge is power.
Shall we be content to accept as a science any longer, a science that leaves human life and its actualities and particulars, unsearched, uncollected, unreduced to scientific nomenclature and axiom? Shall we be content any longer with a knowledge that is power,—shall we boast ourselves any longer of a scientific art that leaves human nature,—that makes over human nature to the tampering of an unwatched, unchecked empiricism, that leaves our own souls it may be, and the souls in which ours are garnered up, all wild and hidden, and gnarled within with nature's crudities and spontaneities, or choked and bitter with artificial, but unscientific, unartistic repression?
Will you have of that divinely appointed and beautiful 'handmaid,' that was brought in on to this Globe Theatre, with that upward look,—with eyes turned to that celestial sovereignty for her direction, with the sum of good in her intention, with the universal doctrine of practice in her programme, with the relief 'of man's estate and the Creator's glory' put down in her role,—with her new song—with her song of man's nature and life as it is, on her lips—will you have of her, only the minister to your physical luxuries and baser wants? Be it so: but in the name of that truth which is able to survive ages of misunderstanding and detraction, in the name of that honor which is armed with arts of self-delivery and tradition, that will enable it to live again, 'though all the earth o'erwhelm it to men's eyes,' while this Book of the Advancemement of Learning stands, do not charge on this man henceforth, that election.
The times of that ignorance in which it could be thus accredited, are past; for the leader of this Advancement is already unfolding his tradition, and opening his books; and he bids us debase his name no longer, into a name for these sordid fatuities. The Leader of ages that are yet to be,—ages whose nobler advancements, whose rational and scientific advancements to the dignity and perfection of the human form, it was given to him and to his company to plan and initiate,—he declines to be held any longer responsible for the blind, demoniacal, irrational spirit, that would seize on his great instrument of science, and wrest it from its nobler object and intent, and debase it into the mere tool of the senses; the tool of a materialism more base and sordid than any that the world has ever known; more sordid, a thousand-fold, than the materialism of ages, when there was yet a god in the wood and the stone, when there was yet a god in the brick and the mortar. This 'broken science' that has no end of ends, this godless science, this railway learning that travels with restless, ever quickening speed, no whither,—these dead, rattling 'branches' and slivers of arts and sciences, these modern arts and sciences, hacked and cut away from that tree of sciences, from which they sprang, whereon they grew, are his no longer. He declines to be held any longer responsible for a materialism that shelters itself under the name of philosophy, and identifies his own name with it. Call it science, if you will, though science be the name for unity and comprehension, and the spirit of life, the spirit of the largest whole; call it philosophy if you will, if you think philosophy is capable of being severed from that common trunk, in which this philosopher found its pith and heart,—call it science,—call it philosophy,—but call it not, he says,—call it not henceforth 'Baconian.'
For his labor is to collect into an art or science the doctrine of human life. He, too, has propounded that problem,—he has translated into the modern speech, that problem, which the inspired Leader of men, of old propounded. 'What is a man profited if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul; or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?' He, too, has recognized that ideal type of human excellence, which the Great Teacher of old revealed and exemplified; he has found scientifically,—he has found in the universal law,—that divine dogma, which was taught of old by One who spake as having authority—One who also had looked on nature with a loving and observant eye, and found in its source, the Inspirer of his doctrine. In his study of that old book of divinity which he calls the book of God's Power this Modern Innovator has found the scientific version of that inspired command 'Be ye therefore perfect.' This new science of morality, which is 'moral knowledge,' is able to recognise the inspiration and divinity of that received platform and exemplar of good, and pours in on it the light of a universal illustration. And in his new scientific policy, in his scientific doctrine of success, in his doctrine of the particular and private good, when he brings out at last the rule which shall secure it from all the blows of fortune, what is it but that same old 'Primum quærite' which he produces,—clothing it with the authority and severe exaction of a scientific rule in art,—that same 'Primum quærite' which was published of old as a doctrine of faith only. 'But let men rather build,' he says, 'upon that foundation, which is as a corner-stone of divinity and philosophy, wherein they join close; namely, that same 'Primum quærite.' For divinity saith, 'Seek first the kingdom of God, and all other things shall be added to you'; and philosophy saith, 'Primum quærite bona animi cætera aut aderunt, aut non oberunt.'
And who will now undertake to say that it is, indeed, written in the Book of God,—in the Book of the Providential Design, and Creative Law, or that it is written in the Revelation of a divine good will to men; that those who cultivate and cure the soul—who have a divine appointment to the office of its cure—shall thereby be qualified to ignore its actual laws, or that they shall find in the scientific investigation of its actual history, or in this new—so new, this so wondrous and beautiful science, which is here laid out in all its parts and points on the basis of a universal science of practice,—no 'ministry' to their end? Who shall say that the Regimen of the mind, that its Education and healthful culture, as well as its cure, shall be able to accept of no instrumentalities from the advancement of learning? Who shall say that this department of the human life—this alone, is going to be held back to the past, with bonds and cramps of iron, while all else is advancing; that this is going to be held forever as a place where the old Aristotelian logic, which we have driven out of every other field, can keep its hold unchallenged still,—as a place for the metaphysics of the school-men, the empty conceits, the old exploded inanities of the Dark Ages, to breed and nestle in undisturbed?
Who shall claim that this department is the only one, which that gift, that is the last gift of Creation and Providence to man is forbidden to enter?
Surely it is the authorised doctrine of a supernatural aid, that it is never brought in to sanction indolence and the neglect of means and instruments already in our power; and in that book of these new ages in which the doctrine of a successful human practice was promulgated, is it not written that in no department of the human want, 'can those noble effects, which God hath set forth to be bought as the price of labour, be obtained as the price of a few easy and slothful observances?'
And who that looks on the world as it is at this hour, with all our boasted aids and instrumentalities,—who that hears that cry of sorrow which goes up from it day and night,—who that looks at these masses of men as they are,—who that dares to look at all this vice and ignorance and suffering which no instrumentality, mighty to relieve, has yet reached, shall think to put back,—as if we had no need of it,—this great gift of light and healing,—this gift of power, which the scientific ages are bringing in; this gift which the ages of 'anticipation,' the ages of inspiration and spontaneous affirmation, could only divinely—diviningly—foresee and promise;—this gift which the knowledge of the creative laws, the historic laws, the laws of kind, as they are actual in the human nature and the human life, puts into our hands? Who shall think himself competent to oppose this benefaction? Alas for such an one! let us take up a lamentation for him. He has stayed too long. The constitution of things, the universal laws of being, and the Providence of this world are against him. The track of the advancing ages goes over him. He is at variance with that which was and shall be. The world's wheel goes over him. And whosoever falls on that stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it falls it shall grind him to powder.
It is by means of the scientific Art of Delivery and Tradition, that this doctrine of the scientific Culture and Cure of the Mind, which is the doctrine of the scientific ages, has been made over to us in the abstract; and it is by means of the rule of interpretation, which this Art of Delivery prescribes, it is by means of the secret of an Illustrated Tradition, or Poetic Tradition of this science, that we are now enabled to unlock at last those magnificent collections in it—those inexhaustible treasures and mines of it—which the Discoverer, in spite of the time, has contrived to leave us, in that form of Fable and Parable in which the advancing truth has always been left,—in that form of Poesy in which the highest truth has, from of old, been uttered. For over all this ground lay extended, then, in watchful strength all safe and unespied, the basilisk of whom the Fable goes, if he sees you first, you die for it,—but if YOU SEE HIM FIRST, HE DIES. And this is the Bishop who fought with a mace, because he would kill his enemy and not wound him.
Reason cannot be so sensible, nor examples so fit. Advancement of Learning.
The object of this Volume is merely to open as a study, and a study of primary consequence, those great Works of the Modern Learning which have passed among us hitherto, for lack of the historical and scientific key to them, as Works of Amusement, merely.
But even in that superficial acquaintance which we have had with them in that relation, they have, all the time, been subtly operating upon the minds in contact with them, and perpetually fulfilling the first intention of their Inventor.
'For,' says the great Innovator of the Modern Ages,—the author of the Novum Organum, and of the Advancement of Learning,—in claiming this department of Letters as the necessary and proper instrumentality of a new science,—of a science at least, 'foreign to opinions received,'—as he claims elsewhere that it is, under all conditions, the inevitable essential form of this science in particular. 'Men have proposed to answer two different and contrary ends by the use of parables, for they serve as well to instruct and illustrate as to wrap up and envelope, so that, though for the present, we drop the concealed use, and suppose them to be vague undeterminate things, formed for AMUSEMENT merely, still the other use remains. 'And every man of any learning must readily concede,' he says, 'the value of that use of them as a method of popular instruction, grave, sober, exceedingly useful, and sometimes necessary in the sciences, as it opens an easy and familiar passage to the human understandings in all new discoveries, that are abstruse and out of the road of vulgar opinion. They were used of old by philosophers to express any point of reason more sharp and subtle than the vulgar, and nevertheless now, and at all times, these allusive parabolical forms retain much life and vigor, because reason cannot be so sensible nor examples so fit.' That philosophic use of them was to inform and teach, whilst the minds of men continued rude and unpractised in matters of subtilty and speculation, and even impatient and in a manner incapable of receiving anything that did not directly fall under and strike the senses. 'And, even to this day, if any man would let new light in upon the human understanding, and conquer prejudices without raising animosities, opposition, or disturbance, he must still go in the same path and have recourse to the like method.'
That is the use which the History and Fables of the New Philosophy have already had with us. We have been feeding without knowing it, on the 'principal and supreme sciences'—the 'Prima Philosophia' and its noblest branches. We have been taking the application of the Inductive Philosophy to the principal concerns of our human life, and to the phenomena of of the human nature itself, as mere sport and pastime; though the precepts concluded, the practical axioms inclosed with it have already forced their way into our learning, for all our learning is, even now, inlaid and glittering with those 'dispersed directions.'
We have profited by this use of them. It has not been pastime merely with us. We have not spent our time in vain on this first stage of an Advancing Learning, a learning that will not cease to advance until it has invaded all our empiricisms, and conquered all our practice; a learning that will recompence the diligence, the exactitude, the severity of observance which it will require here also (when it comes to put in its claim here, as Learning and not Amusement merely), with that same magnitude of effects that, in other departments, has already justified the name which its Inventor gave it—a Learning which will give us here, also, in return for the severity of observance it will require, what no ceremonial, however exacting can give us, that control of effects, with which, even in its humblest departments, it has already fulfilled, in the eyes of all the world, the prophecy which its Inventors uttered when they called it the NEW MAGIC.
That first use of the Histories and Fables of the Modern Learning, we have had already; and it is not yet exhausted. But in that rapid development of a common intelligence, to which the new science of practice has itself so largely contributed, even in its lower and limited developments, we come now to that other and so important use of these Fables, which the philosophic Innovator proposed to drop for the time, in his argument—that use of them, in which they serve 'to wrap up and conceal' for the time, or to limit to the few, who are able to receive them, those new discoveries which are as yet too far in advance of the common beliefs and opinions of men, and too far above the mental habits and capacities of the masses of men, to be safely or profitably communicated to the many in the abstract.
But in order to arrive at this second and nobler use of them, it will be necessary to bestow on them a very different kind of study from any that we have naturally thought it worth while to spend on them, so long as we regarded them as works of pastime merely; and especially while that insuperable obstacle to any adequate examination of them, which the received history of the works themselves created, was still operating on the criticism. The truths which these Parabolic and Allusive Poems wrap up and conceal, have been safely concealed hitherto, because they are not those common-place truths which we usually look for as the point and moral of a tale which is supposed to have a moral or politic intention,—truths which we are understood to be in possession of beforehand, while the parable or instance is only designed to impress the sensibility with them anew, and to reach the will that would not take them from the reason, by means of the senses or the imagination. It is not that spontaneous, intuitive knowledge, or those conventional opinions, those unanalysed popular beliefs, which we usually expect to find without any trouble at all, on the very surface of any work that has morality for its object, it is not any such coarse, lazy performance as that, that we need trouble ourselves to look for here. This higher intention in these works 'their real import, genuine interpretation, and full depth,' has not yet been found, because the science which is wrapped in them, though it is the principal science in the plan of the Advancement of Learning, has hitherto escaped our notice, and because of the exceeding subtlety of it,—because the truths thus conveyed or concealed are new, and recondite, and out of the way of any casual observation,—because in this scientific collection of the phenomena of the human life, designed to serve as the basis of new social arts and rules of practice, the author has had occasion to go behind the vague, popular, unscientific terms which serve well enough for purposes of discourse, and mere oratory, to those principles which are actual and historical, those simple radical forms and differences on which the doctrine of power and practice must be based.
It is pastime no longer. It is a study, the most patient, the most profoundly earnest to which these works now invite us. Let those who will, stay in the playground still, and make such sport and pastime of it there, as they may; and let those who feel the need of inductive rules here also,—here on the ground which this pastime covers—let those who perceive that we have as yet, set our feet only on the threshold of the Great Instauration, find here with diligent research, the ascent to the axioms of practice,—that ascent which the author of the science of practice in general, made it his labour to hew out here, for he undertook 'to collect here into an art or science, that which had been pretermitted by others as matters of common sense and experience.'
It does not consist with the design of the present work to track that draught of a new science of morality and policy, that 'table' of an inductive science of human nature, and human life, which the plan of the Advancement of Learning contains, with all the lettering of its compartments put down, into these systematic scientific collections, which the Fables of the Modern Learning,—which these magnificent Parabolical Poems have been able hitherto to wrap up and conceal.
This work is merely introductory, and the design of it is to remove that primary obstacle to the diligent study of these works, which the present theory of them contains; since that concealment of their true intention and history, which was inevitable at the time, no longer serves the author's purpose, and now that the times are ripe for the learning which they contain, only serves indeed to hinder it. And the illustrations which are here produced, are produced with reference to that object, and are limited strictly to the unfolding of those 'secrets of policy,' which are the necessary introduction to that which follows.
Did it never occur to the student of the Novum Organum that the constant application of that 'New Machine' by the inventor of it himself, to one particular class of subjects, so constant as to produce on the mind of the careless reader the common impression, that it was intended to be applied to that class only, and that the relief of the human estate, in that one department of the human want, constituted its whole design: did it never occur to the curious inquirer, or to the active experimenter in this new rule of learning, that this apparently so rigorous limitation of its applications in the hands of its author is—under all the circumstances—a thing worthy of being inquired into? Considering who the author of it is, and that it is on the face of it, a new method of dealing with facts in general, a new method of obtaining axioms of practice from history in general, and not a specific method of obtaining them from that particular department of history from which his instances are taken; and, considering, too, that the author was himself aware of the whole sweep of its applications, and that he has taken pains to include in his description of its powers, the assertion,—the distinct, deliberate assertion—that it is capable of being applied as efficiently, to those nobler departments of the human need, which are marked out for it in the Great Instauration—those very departments in which he was known himself to be so deeply interested, and in which he had been all his life such a diligent explorer and experimenter. Did it never occur to the scholar, to inquire why he did not apply it, then, himself to those very subjects, instead of keeping so stedfastly to the physical forces in his illustration of its powers? And has any one ever read the plan of this man's works? Has any one seen the scheme of that great enterprise, for which he was the responsible person in his own time—that scheme which he wrote out, and put in among these published acknowledged works of his, which he dared to produce in his own name, to show what parts of his 'labor,'—what part of chief consequence was not thus produced? Has any one seen that plan of a new system of Universal Science, which was published in the reign of James the First, under the patronage of that monarch? And if it has been seen, what is the reason there has been no enquiry made for those works, in which the author openly proposes to apply his new organum in person to these very subjects; and that, too, when he takes pains to tell us, in reference to that undertaking, that he is not a vain promiser.
There is a pretence of supplying that new kind of history, which the new method of discovery and invention requires as the first step towards its conclusions, which is put down as the THIRD PART of the Instauration, though the natural history which is produced for that purpose is very far from fulfilling the description and promise of that division. But where is the FOURTH part of the Great Instauration? Has anybody seen the FOURTH part? Where is that so important part for which all that precedes it is a preparation, or to which it is subsidiary? Where is that part which consists of EXAMPLES, that are nothing but a particular application of the SECOND; that is, the Novum Organum,—'and to subjects of the noblest kind?' Where is 'that part of our work which enters upon PHILOSOPHY ITSELF,' instead of dealing any longer, or professing to deal, with THE METHOD merely of finding that which man's relief requires, or instead of exhibiting that method any longer in the abstract? Where are the works in which he undertakes to show it in operation, with its new 'grappling hooks' on the matter of the human life—applied by the inventor himself to 'the noblest subjects?' Surely that would be a sight to see. What is the reason that our editors do not produce these so important works in their editions? What is the reason that our critics do not include them in their criticism? What is the reason that our scholars do not quote them? Instead of stopping with that mere report of the condition of learning and its deficiences, and that outline of what is to be done, which makes the FIRST PART or Introduction to this work; or stopping with the description of the new method, or the Novum Organum, which makes the SECOND; why don't they go on to the 'new philosophy itself,' and show us that as well,—the very object of all this preparation? When he describes in the SECOND part his method of finding true terms, or rather the method of his school, when he describes this new method of finding 'ideas,' ideas as they are in nature, powers, causes, the elements of history, or forms, as he more commonly calls them, when he describes this new method of deducing axioms, axioms that are ready for practice, he does, indeed, give us instances; but it so happens, that the instances are all of one kind there. They are the physical powers that supply his examples in that part.
In describing this method merely, he produces what he calls his Tables of Invention, or Tables of REVIEW OF INSTANCES; but where is that part in which he tells us we shall find these same tables again, with 'the nobler subjects' on them? He produces them for careful scrutiny in his second part; and he makes no small parade in bringing them in. He shews them up very industriously, and is very particular to direct the admiring attention of the reader to their adaptation as means to an end. But certainly there is nothing in that specimen of what can be done with them which he contents himself with there, that would lead any one to infer that the power of this invention, which is the novelty of it, was going to be a dangerous thing to society, or, indeed, that they were not the most harmless things in the world. It is the true cause of HEAT, and the infallible means of producing that under the greatest variety of conditions, which he appears to be trying to arrive at there. But what harm can there be in that, or in any other discovery of that kind. And there is no real impression made on any one's mind by that book, that there is any other kind of invention or discovery intended in the practical applications of this method? The very free, but of course not pedantic, use of the new terminology of a new school in philosophy, in which this author indulges—a terminology of a somewhat figurative and poetic kind, one cannot but observe, for a philosopher of so strictly a logical turn of mind, one whose thoughts were running on abstractions so entirely, to construct; his continued preference for these new scholastic terms, and his inflexible adherence to a most profoundly erudite mode of expression whenever he approaches 'the part operative' of his work, is indeed calculated to awe and keep at a distance minds not yet prepared to grapple formally with those 'nobler subjects' to which allusion is made in another place. King James was a man of some erudition himself; but he declared frankly that for his part he could not understand this book; and it was not strange that he could not, for the author did not intend that he should. The philosopher drops a hint in passing, however, that all which is essential in this method, might perhaps be retained without quite so much formality and fuss in the use of it, and that the proposed result might be arrived at by means of these same tables, without any use of technical language at all, under other circumstances.
The results which have since been obtained by the use of this method in that department of philosophy to which it is specially applied in the Novum Organum, give to the inquirer into the causes of the physical phenomena now, some advantages which no invention could supply them. That was what the founders of this philosophy expected and predicted. They left this department to their school. The author of the Novum Organum orders and initiates this inquiry; but the basis of the induction in this department is as yet wanting; and the collections and experiments here require combinations of skill and labour which they cannot at once command. They will do what they can here too, in their small way, just to make a beginning; but they do not lay much stress upon any thing they can accomplish with the use of their own method in this field. It serves, however, a very convenient purpose with them; neither do they at all underrate its intrinsic importance.
But the man who has studiously created for himself a social position which enables him to assume openly, and even ostentatiously, the position of an innovator—an innovator in the world of letters, an advancer of—learning—is compelled to introduce his innovation with the complaint that he finds the mind of the world so stupified, so bewildered with evil, and so under the influence of dogmas, that the first thing to be done is to get so much as a thought admitted of the possibility of a better state of things. 'The present system of philosophy,' he says, 'cherishes in its bosom certain positions or dogmas which it will be found, are calculated to produce a full conviction that no difficult, commanding, and powerful operation on nature ought to be anticipated, through the means of art.' And, therefore, after criticising the theory and practice of the world as he finds it, reporting as well as he can,—though he can find no words, he says, in which to do justice to his feeling in regard to it—the deficiencies in its learning, he devotes a considerable portion of the description of his new method to the grounds of 'hope' which he derives from this philosophic survey, and that that hope is not a hope of a better state of things in respect to the physical wants of man merely, that it is not a hope of a renovation in the arts which minister to those wants exclusively, any very careful reader of the first book of the Novum Organum will be apt on the whole to infer. But the statements here are very general, and he refers us to another place for particulars.
'Let us then speak of hope' he says, 'especially as we are not vain promisers, nor are willing to enforce or ensnare men's judgments; but would rather lead them willingly forward. And although we shall employ the most cogent means of enforcing hope when we bring them TO PARTICULARS, and especially those which are digested and arranged in our Tables of Invention, the subject partly of the SECOND, but—principally—mark it, principally of the FOURTH part of the Instauration, which are, indeed, rather the very objects of our hopes than hope itself.' Does he dare to tell us, in this very connection, that he is not a vain promiser, when no such PART as that to which he refers us here is to be found anywhere among his writings—when this principal part of his promise remains unfulfilled. 'The FOURTH part of the Instauration,' he says again in his formal description of it, 'enters upon philosophy itself, furnishing examples of inquiry and investigation, according to our own method, in certain subjects of the noblest kind, but greatly differing from each other, that a specimen may be had of every sort. By these examples, we mean not illustrations of rules and precepts,' [He will show the facts in such order, in such scientific, select, methodical arrangements, that rules and precepts will be forced from them; for he will show them, on the tables of invention, and rules and precepts are the vintage that flows from the illustrious instances—the prerogative instances—the ripe, large, cleared, selected clusters of facts, the subtle prepared history which the tables of invention collect. The definition of the simple original elements of history, the pure definition is the first vintage from these; but 'that which in speculative philosophy corresponds to the cause, in practical philosophy becomes the rule' and the axiom of practice, ready for use, is the final result.] 'but perfect models, which will exemplify the SECOND PART of this work, and represent, as it were, to the eye the whole progress of the mind, and the continued structure and order of invention in THE MORE CHOSEN SUBJECTS'—note it, in the more chosen subjects; but this is not at all—'after the same manner as globes and machines facilitate the more abstruse and subtle demonstrations in mathematics.' But in another place he tells us, that the poetic form of demonstration is the form to which it is necessary to have recourse on these subjects, especially when we come to these more abstruse and subtle demonstrations, as it opens an easy and familiar passage to the human understanding in all new discoveries, that are abstruse and out of the road of vulgar opinion; and that at the time he was writing out this plan of his works, any one, who would let in new light on the human understanding, and conquer prejudices, without raising animosity, opposition, or disturbance, had no choice—must go in that same path, or none. Where are those diagrams? And what does he mean, when he tells us in this connection that he is not a vain promiser? Where are those particular cases, in which this method of investigation is applied to the noblest subjects? Where are the diagrams, in which the order of the investigation is represented, as it were, to the eye, which serve the same purpose, 'that globes and machines serve in the more abstruse and subtle demonstrations in mathematics?' We are all acquainted with one poem, at least, published about that time, in which some very abstruse and subtle investigations appear to be in progress, not without the use of diagrams, and very lively ones too; but one in which the intention of the poet appears to be to the last degree 'enigmatical,' inasmuch as it has engaged the attention of the most philosophical minds ever since, and inasmuch as the most able critics have never been able to comprehend that intention fully in their criticism. And it is bound up with many others, in which the subjects are not less carefully chosen, and in which the method of inquiry is the same; in which that same method that is exhibited in the 'Novum Organum' in the abstract, or in its application to the investigation of the physical phenomena, is everywhere illustrated in the most chosen subjects—in subjects of the noblest kind. This volume, and another which has been mentioned here, contain the THIRD and FOURTH PARTS of the Great Instauration, whether this man who describes them here, and who forgot, it would seem, to fulfil his promise in reference to them, be aware of it or not.
That is the part of the Great Instauration that we want now, and we are fairly entitled to it, because these are not 'the next ages,' or 'the times which were nearer,' and which this author seldom speaks of without betraying his clear foresight of the political and social convulsions that were then at hand. These are the times, which were farther off, to which he appeals from those nearer ages, and to which he expressly dedicates the opening of his designs.
Now, what is it that we have to find? What is it that is missing out of this philosophy? Nothing less than the 'principal' part of it. All that is good for anything in it, according to the author's own estimate. The rest serves merely 'to pass the time,' or it is good as it serves to prepare the way for this. What is it that we have to look for? The 'Novum Organum,' that severe, rigorous method of scientific inquiry, applied to the more chosen subjects in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I. Tables of Review of Instances, and all that Logic which is brought out in the doctrine of the PREROGATIVE INSTANCES, whereby the mind of man is prepared for its encounter with fact in general, brought down to particulars, and applied to the noblest subjects, and to every sort of subject which the philosophic mind of that age chose to apply it to. That is what we want to find.
'The prerogative instances' in 'the more chosen subjects.' The whole field which that philosophy chose for its field, and called the noblest, the principal, the chosen, the more chosen one. Every part of it reduced to scientific inquiry, put under the rule of the 'Novum Organum'; that is what we want to find. We know that no such thing could possibly be found in the acknowledged writings of this author. Nothing answering to that description, composed by a statesman and a philosopher, with an avowed intention in his writing—an intention to effect changes, too, in the actual condition of men, and 'to suborn practice and actual life,' no such work by such an author could by any means have been got through the press then. No one who studies the subject will think of looking for that FOURTH PART of the Instauration among the author's acknowledged writings. Does he give us any hint as to where we are to look for it? Is there any intimation as to the particular form of writing in which we are to find it? for find it we must and shall, because he is not a vain promiser. The subject itself determines the form, he says; and the fact that the whole ground of the discovery is ground already necessarily comprehended in the preconceptions of the many—that it is ground covered all over with the traditions and rude theories of unlearned ages, this fact, also, imperiously determines the method of the inculcation. Who that knows what the so-called Baconian method of learning really is, will need to be told that the principal books of it will be—books of INSTANCES and PARTICULARS, SPECIMENS—living ones, and that these will occupy the prominent place in the book; and that the conclusions and precepts will come in as abstractions from these, drawn freshly and on the spot from particulars, and, therefore, ready for use, 'knowing the way to particulars again?' Who would ever expect to find the principal books of this learning—the books in which it enters upon philosophy itself, and undertakes to leave a specimen of its own method in the noblest subjects in its own chosen field—who would ever expect to find these books, books of abstractions, books of precepts, with instances or examples brought in, to illustrate or make them good? For this is not a point of method merely, but a point of substance, as he takes pains to tell us. And who that has ever once read his own account of the method in which he proposes to win the human mind from its preconceptions, instead of undertaking to overcome it with Logic and sharp disputations,—who that knows what place he gives to Rhetoric, what place he gives to the Imagination in his scheme of innovation, will expect to find these books, books of a dry didactic learning? Does the student know how many times, in how many forms, under how many different heads, he perseveringly inserts the bold assurance, that the form of poesy and enigmatic allusive writing is the only form in which the higher applications of his discovery can be made to any purpose in that age? Who would expect to find this part in any professedly scientific work, when he tells us expressly, 'Reason cannot be so sensible, nor examples so fit,' as the examples which his scientific terminology includes in the department of Poesy?
All the old historical wisdom was in that form, he says; all the first philosophy was poetical; all the old divinity came in history and parable; and even to this day, he who would let in new light upon the human understanding, without raising opposition or disturbance, must still go in the same path, and have recourse to the like method.
He was an innovator; he was not an agitator. And he claims that mark of a divine presence in his work, that its benefactions come, without noise or perturbation, in aura leni. Of innovations, there has been none in history like that which he propounded, but neither would he strive nor cry. There was no voice in the streets, there was no red ensign lifted, there was no clarion-swell, or roll of the conqueror's drum to signal to the world that entrance. He, too, claims a divine authority for his innovation, and he declares it to be of God. It is the providential order of the world's history which is revealed in it; it is the fulfilment of ancient prophecy which this new chief, laden with new gifts for men, openly announces.
'Let us begin from God,' he says, when he begins to open his ground of hope, after he has exposed the wretched condition of men as he finds them, without any scientific knowledge of the laws and institutes of the universe they inhabit, engaged in a perpetual and mad collision with them; 'Let us begin from God, and show that our pursuit, from its exceeding goodness, clearly proceeds from Him, the Author of GOOD and Father of LIGHT. Now, in all divine works, the smallest beginnings lead assuredly to some results; and the rule in spiritual matters, that the Kingdom of God cometh without observation, is also found to be true in every great work of PROVIDENCE, so that everything glides in quietly, without confusion or noise; and the matter is achieved before men even think of perceiving that it is commenced.' 'Men,' he tells us, 'men should imitate Nature, who innovateth greatly but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived,' who will not dispense with the old form till the new one is finished and in its place.
What is that we want to find? We want to find the new method of scientific inquiry applied to the questions in which men are most deeply interested—questions which were then imperiously and instantly urged on the thoughtful mind. We want to see it applied to POLITICS in the reign of James the First. We want to see it applied to the open questions of another department of inquiry,—certainly not any less important,—in that reign, and in the reign which preceded it. We want to see the facts sifted through those scientific tables of review, from which the true form of SOVEREIGNTY, the legitimate sovereignty, is to be inducted, and the scientific axioms of government with it. We want to see the science of observation and experiment, the science of nature in general, applied to the cure of the common-weal in the reign of James the First, and to that particular crisis in its disease, in which it appeared to the observers to be at its last gasp; and that, too, by the principal doctors in that profession,—men of the very largest experience in it, who felt obliged to pursue their work conscientiously, whether the patient objected or not. But are there any such books as these? Certainly. You have the author's own word for it. 'Some may raise this question,' he says, 'this question rather than objection'—[it is better that it should come in the form of a question, than in the form of an objection, as it would have come, if there had been no room to 'raise the question']—'whether we talk of perfecting natural philosophy' [using the term here in its usual limited sense], 'whether we talk of perfecting natural philosophy alone, according to our method, or, the other sciences—such as, ETHICS, LOGIC, POLITICS.' That is the question 'raised.' 'We certainly intend to comprehend them ALL.' That is the author's answer to it. 'And as common logic which regulates matters by syllogism, is applied, not only to natural, but to every other science, so our inductive method likewise comprehends them ALL.' With such iteration will he think fit to give us this point. It is put in here for those 'who raise the question'—the question 'rather than objection.' The other sort are taken care of in other places. 'For,' he continues, 'we form a history and tables of invention, for anger, fear, shame, and the like; and also for examples in civil life' [that was to be the principal part of the science when he laid out the plan of it in the advancement of learning] 'and the mental operations of memory, composition, division, judgment, and the rest; as well as for heat and cold, light and vegetation, and the like.' That is the plan of the new science, as the author sketches it for the benefit of those who raise questions rather than objections. That is its comprehension precisely, whenever he undertakes to mark out its limits for the satisfaction of this class of readers. But this is that same FOURTH PART to which he refers us in the other places for the application of his method to those nobler subjects, those more chosen subjects; and that is just the part of his science which appears to be wanting. How happens it? Did he get so occupied with the question of heat and cold, light and vegetation, and the like, that after all he forgot this part with its nobler applications? How could that be, when he tells us expressly, that they are the more chosen subjects of his inquiry. This part which he speaks of here, is the missing part of his philosophy, unquestionably. These are the books of it which have been missing hitherto; but in that Providential order of events to which he refers himself, the time has come for them to be inquired for; and this inquiry is itself a part of that movement, in which the smallest beginnings lead assuredly to some result. For, 'let us begin from God,' he says, 'and show that our pursuit, from its exceeding goodness, clearly proceeds from Him, the Author of GOOD, and not of misery; the Father of LIGHT, and not of darkness.'
Of course, it was impossible to get out any scientific doctrine of the human society, without coming at once in collision with that doctrine of the divinity of arbitrary power which the monarchs of England were then openly sustaining. Who needs to be told, that he who would handle that argument scientifically, then, without military weapons, as this inquirer would, must indeed 'pray in aid of similes.' And yet a very searching and critical inquiry into the claims of that institution, which the new philosophy found in possession of the human welfare, and asserting a divine right to it as a thing of private property and legitimate family inheritance,—such a criticism was, in fact, inevitably involved in that inquiry into the principles of a human subjection which appeared to this philosopher to belong properly to the more chosen subjects of a scientific investigation.
And notwithstanding the delicacy of the subjects, and the extremely critical nature of the investigation, when it came to touch those particulars, with which the personal observations and experiments of the founders of this new school in philosophy had tended to enrich their collections in this department,—'and the aim is better,' says the principal spokesman of this school, who quietly proposes to introduce this method into politics, 'the aim is better when the mark is alive;' notwithstanding the difficulties which appeared to lie then in the way of such an investigation, the means of conducting it to the entire satisfaction, and, indeed, to the large entertainment of the persons chiefly concerned, were not wanting. For this was one of those 'secrets of policy,' which have always required the aid of fable, and the idea of dramatising the fable for the sake of reaching in some sort those who are incapable of receiving any thing 'which does not directly fall under, and strike the senses,' as the philosopher has it; those who are capable of nothing but 'dumb shows and noise,' as Hamlet has it; this idea, though certainly a very happy, was not with these men an original one. Men, whose relations to the state were not so different as the difference in the forms of government would perhaps lead us to suppose,—men of the gravest learning and enriched with the choicest accomplishments of their time, had adopted that same method of influencing public opinion, some two thousand years earlier, and even as long before as that, there were 'secrets of morality and policy,' to which this form of writing appeared to offer the most fitting veil.
Whether 'the new' philosopher,—whether 'the new magician' of this time, was, in fact, in possession of any art which enabled him to handle without diffidence or scruple the great political question which was then already the question of the time; whether 'THE CROWN'—that double crown of military conquest and priestly usurpation, which was the one estate of the realm at that crisis in English history, did, among other things in some way, come under the edges of that new analysis which was severing all here then, and get divided clearly with 'the mind, that divine fire,'—whether any such thing as that occurred here then, the reader of the following pages will be able to judge. The careful reader of the extracts they contain, taken from a work of practical philosophy which made its appearance about those days, will certainly have no difficulty at all in deciding that question. For, first of all, it is necessary to find that political key to the Elizabethan art of delivery, which unlocks the great works of the Elizabethan philosophy, and that is the necessity which determines the selection of the Plays that are produced in this volume. They are brought in to illustrate the fact already stated, and already demonstrated, the fact which is the subject of this volume, the fact that the new practical philosophy of the modern ages, which has its beginning here, was not limited, in the plan of its founders, to 'natural philosophy' and 'the part operative' of that,—the fact that it comprehended, as its principal department, the department in which its 'noblest subjects' lay, and in which its most vital innovations were included, a field of enquiry which could not then be entered without the aid of fable and parable, and one which required not then only, 'but now, and at all times,' the aid of a vivid poetic illustration; they are brought in to illustrate the fact already demonstrated from other sources, the fact that the new philosophy was the work of men able to fulfil their work under such conditions, able to work, if not for the times that were nearer, for the times that were further off; men who thought it little so they could fulfil and perfect their work and make their account of it to the Work-master, to robe another with their glory; men who could relinquish the noblest works of the human genius, that they might save them from the mortal stabs of an age of darkness, that they might make them over unharmed in their boundless freedom, in their unstained perfection, to the farthest ages of the advancement of learning,—that they might 'teach them how to live and look fresh' still,
'When tyrants' crests, and tombs of brass are spent.'
That is the one fact, the indestructible fact, which this book is to demonstrate.
                           'Thou'dst shun a bear;
  But if thy way lay towards the raging sea,
  Thou'dst meet the bear i' the mouth.'
  'I think the king is but a man, as I am.'—King Henry.
  'They told me I was everything.'—Lear.
OF course, it was not possible that the prerogative should be openly dealt with at such a time, questioned, discussed, scientifically examined, in the very presence of royalty itself, except by persons endowed with extraordinary privileges and immunities, persons, indeed, of quite irresponsible authority, whose right to do and say what they pleased, Elizabeth herself, though they should enter upon a critical analysis of the divine rights of kings to her face, and deliberately lay bare the defects in that title which she was then attempting to maintain, must needs notwithstanding, concede and respect.
And such persons, as it happened, were not wanting in the retinue of that sovereignty which was working in disguise here then, and laying the foundations of that throne in the thoughts of men, which would replace old principalities and powers, and not political dominions merely. To the creative genius which waited on the philosophic mind of that age, making up in the splendour of its gifts for the poverty of its exterior conditions, such persons,—persons of any amount or variety of capacity which the necessary question of its play might require, were not wanting:—'came with a thought.'
Of course, poor Bolingbroke, fevered with the weight of his ill-got crown, and passing a sleepless night in spite of its supposed exemptions, unable to command on his state-bed, with all his royal means and appliances, the luxury that the wet sea boy in the storm enjoys,—and the poet appears, to have had some experience of this mortal ill, which inclines him to put it down among those which ought to be excluded from a state of supreme earthly felicity,—the poor guilty disgusted usurper, discovering that this so blessed 'invention' was not included in the prerogative he had seized, under the exasperation of the circumstances, might surely be allowed to mutter to himself, in the solitude of his own bed-chamber, a few general reflections on the subject, and, indeed, disable his own position to any extent, without expecting to be called to an account for it, by any future son or daughter of his usurping lineage. That extraordinary, but when one came to look at it, quite incontestable fact, that nature in her sovereignty, imperial still, refused to recognize this artificial difference in men, but still went on her way in all things, as if 'the golden standard' were not there, classing the monarch with his 'poorest subject;'—the fact that this charmed 'round of sovereignty,' did not after all secure the least exemption from the common individual human frailty, and helplessness,—this would, of course, strike the usurper who had purchased the crown at such an expense, as a fact in natural history worth communicating, if it were only for the benefit of future princes, who might be disposed to embark in a similar undertaking. Here, of course, the moral was proper, and obvious enough; or close at hand, and ready to be produced, in case any serious inquiry should be made for it; though the poet might seem, perhaps, to a severely critical mind, disposed to pursue his philosophical inquiry a little too curiously into the awful secrets of majesty, retired within itself, and pondering its own position;—openly searching what Lord Bacon reverently tells us, the Scriptures pronounce to be inscrutable, namely, the hearts of kings, and audaciously laying bare those private passages, those confessions, and misgivings, and frailties, for which policy and reverence prescribe concealment, and which are supposed in the play, indeed, to be shrouded from the profane and vulgar eye, a circumstance which, of course, was expected to modify the impression.
So, too, that profoundly philosophical suspicion, that a rose, or a violet, did actually smell, to a person occupying this sublime position, very much as it did to another; a suspicion which, in the mouth of a common man, would have been literally sufficient to 'make a star-chamber matter of'; and all that thorough-going analysis of the trick and pageant of majesty which follows it, would, of course, come only as a graceful concession, from the mouth of that genuine piece of royalty, who contrives to hide so much of the poet's own 'sovereignty of nature,' under the mantle of his free and princely humours, the brave and gentle hero of Agincourt.
'Though I speak it to you,' he says, talking in the disguise of a 'private,' 'I think the King is but a man as I am, the violet smells to him as it doth to me; all his senses, have but human conditions. His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness, he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. When he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are'; and in the same scene, thus the royal philosopher versifies, and soliloquises on the same delicate question.
'And what have kings that "privates" have not, too, save ceremony,—save general ceremony? And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?—What is thy soul of adoration?'
A grave question, for a man of an inquiring habit of mind, in those times: let us see how a Poet can answer it.
  'Art thou aught else but place, degree and form,
  Creating awe and fear in other men?
  Wherein, thou art less happy, being feared,
  Than they in fearing?
[Again and again this man has told us, and on his oath, that he cherished no evil intentions, no thought of harm to the king; and those who know what criticisms on the state, as it was then, he had authorised, and what changes in it he was certainly meditating and preparing the way for, have charged him with falsehood and perjury on that account; but this is what he means. He thinks that wretched victim of that most irrational and monstrous state of things, on whose head the crown of an arbitrary rule is placed, with all its responsibilities, in his infinite unfitness for them, is, in fact, the one whose case most of all requires relief. He is the one, in this theory, who suffers from this unnatural state of things, not less, but more, than his meanest subject. 'Thou art less happy being feared, than they in fearing.']
  What drink'st thou oft instead of homage sweet
  But poison'd flattery? O! be sick, great greatness,
  And bid thy ceremony give thee cure.
  Thinkest thou the fiery fever will go out
  With titles blown from adulation?
  Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Interesting physiological questions! And though the author, for reasons of his own, has seen fit to put them in blank verse here, it is not because he does not understand, as we shall see elsewhere, that they are questions of a truly scientific character, which require to be put in prose in his time—questions of vital consequence to all men. The effect of 'poisoned flattery,' and 'titles blown from adulation' on the minds, of those to whose single will and caprice the whole welfare of the state, and all the gravest questions for this life and the next, were then entrusted, naturally appeared to the philosophical mind, perseveringly addicted to inquiries, in which the practical interests of men were involved, a question of gravest moment.
But here it is the physical difference which accompanies this so immense human distinction, which he appears to be in quest of; it is the control over nature with which these 'farcical titles' invest their possessor, that he appears to be now pertinaciously bent upon ascertaining. For we shall find, as we pursue the subject, that this is not an accidental point here, a casual incident of the character, or of the plot, a thing which belongs to the play, and not to the author; but that this is a poet who is somehow perpetually haunted with the impression that those who assume a divine right to control, and dispose of their fellow-men, ought to exhibit some sign of their authority; some superior abilities; some magical control; some light and power that other men have not. How he came by any such notions, the critic of his works is, of course, not bound to show; but that which meets him at the first reading is the fact, the incontestable fact, that the Poet of Shakspere's stage, be he who he may, is a poet whose mind is in some way deeply occupied with this question; that it is a poet who is infected, and, indeed, perfectly possessed, with the idea, that the true human leadership ought to consist in the ability to extend the empire of man over nature,—in the ability to unite and control men, and lead them in battalions against those common evils which infest the human conditions,—not fevers only but 'worser' evils, and harder to be cured, and to the conquest of those supernal blessings which the human race have always been vainly crying for. 'I am a king that find thee,' he says.
And having this inveterate notion of a true human regality to begin with, he is naturally the more curious and prying in regard to the claims of the one which he finds in possession; and when by the mystery of his profession and art, he contrives to get the cloak of that factitious royalty about him, he asks questions under its cover which another man would not think of putting.
'Canst thou,' he continues, walking up and down the stage in King Hal's mantle, inquiring narrowly into its virtues and taking advantage of that occasion to ascertain the limits of the prerogative—that very dubious question then,—
'Canst thou when thou command'st the beggar's knee, Command the health of it?'—
No? what mockery of power is it then? But, this in connection with the preceding inquiry in regard to the effect of titles on the progress of a fever, or the amenability of its paroxysm, to flexure and low bending, might have seemed perhaps in the mouth of a subject to savour somewhat of irony; it might have sounded too much like a taunt upon the royal helplessness under cover of a serious philosophical inquiry, or it might have betrayed in such an one a disposition to pursue scientific inquiries farther than was perhaps expedient. But thus it is, that THE KING can dare to pursue the subject, answering his own questions.
'No, thou proud dream That playst so subtly with a king's repose; I am a king that find thee; and I know 'Tis not the THE BALM, THE SCEPTRE, and THE BALL, THE SWORD, THE MACE, THE CROWN IMPERIAL, The inter-tissued ROBE of gold and pearl, The FARCED TITLE—
What is that?—Mark it:—the farced TITLE!—A bold word, one would say, even with a king to authorise it.
  'The farced TITLE running 'fore the king,
  THE THRONE he sits on, nor the tide of POMP
  That beats upon the high shore of this world,
  No, not all these, thrice gorgeous CEREMONY,
  Not all these laid in BED MAJESTICAL,
  Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave
  Who, with a body filled, and vacant mind,
  Gets him to rest crammed with distressful bread,
  Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
  But like a lackey from the rise to set
  Sweats in the eye of Phoebus; and all night
  Sleeps in Elysium.
Yes, there we have him, at last. There he is exactly. That is the scientific picture of him, 'poor man,' as this poet calls him elsewhere. What malice could a philosophic poet bear him? That is the monarchy that men were 'sanctifying themselves with,' and 'turning up the white of the eye to,' then. That is the figure that it makes when it comes to be laid in its state-bed, upon the scientific table of review, not in the formal manner of 'the second part' of this philosophy, but in that other manner which the author of the Novum Organum, speaks of so frequently, as the one to be used in applying it to subjects of this nature. That is the anatomy of him, which 'our method of inquiry and investigation,' brings out without much trouble 'when we come to particulars.' 'Truly we were in good hands,' as the other one says, who finds it more convenient, for his part, to discourse on these points, from a distance.
That is the figure the usurping monarch's pretensions make at the first blush, in the collections from which 'the vintage' of the true sovereignty, and the scientific principles of governments are to be expressed, when the true monarchy, the legitimate, 'one only man power,' is the thing inquired for. This one goes to 'the negative' side apparently. A wretched fellow that cannot so much as 'sleep o' nights,' that lies there on the stage in the play of Henry the Fourth, in the sight of all the people, with THE CROWN on his very pillow, by way 'facilitating the demonstration,' pining for the 'Elysium' at his meanest subject,—that the poor slave, 'crammed with distressful bread,' commands; crying for the luxury that the wet seaboy, on his high and giddy couch enjoys;—and from whose note-book came that image, dashed with the ocean spray,—who saw that seaboy sleeping in that storm?
But, as for this KING, it is the king which the scientific history brings out; whereas, in the other sort of history that was in use then, lie is hardly distinguishable at all from those Mexican kings who undertook to keep the heavenly bodies in their places, and, at the same time, to cause all things to be borne by the earth which were requisite for the comfort and convenience of man; a peculiarity of those sovereigns, of which the Man on the Mountains, whose study is so well situated for observations of that sort, makes such a pleasant note.
But whatever other view we may take of it, this, it must be conceded, is a tolerably comprehensive exhibition, in the general, of the mere pageant of royalty, and a pretty free mode of handling it; but it is at the same time a privileged and entirely safe one. For the liberty of this great Prince to repeat to himself, in the course of a solitary stroll through his own camp at midnight, when nobody is supposed to be within hearing, certain philosophical conclusions which he was understood to have arrived at in the course of his own regal experience, could hardly be called in question. And as to that most extraordinary conversation in which, by means of his disguise on this occasion, he becomes a participator, if the Prince himself were too generous to avail himself of it to the harm of the speakers, it would ill become any one else to take exceptions at it.
And yet it is a conversation in which a party of common soldiers are permitted to 'speak their minds freely' for once, though 'the blank verse has to halt for it,' on questions which would be considered at present questions of 'gravity.' It is a dialogue in which these men are allowed to discuss one of the most important institutions of their time from an ethical point of view, in a tone as free as the president of a Peace Society could use to-day in discussing the same topic, intermingling their remarks with criticisms on the government, and personal allusions to the king himself, which would seem to be more in accordance with the manners of the nineteenth century, than with those of the Poet's time.
But then these wicked and treasonous grumblings being fortunately encountered on the spot, and corrected by the king himself in his own august person, would only serve for edification in the end; if, indeed, that appeal to the national pride which would conclude the matter, and the glory of that great day which was even then breaking in the East, should leave room for any reflections upon it. For it was none other than the field of Agincourt that was subjected to this philosophic inquiry. It was the lustre of that immortal victory which was to England then, what Waterloo and the victories of Nelson are now, that was thus chemically treated beforehand. Under the cover of that renowned triumph, it was, that these soldiers could venture to search so deeply the question of war in general; it was in the person of its imperial hero, that the statesman could venture to touch so boldly, an institution which gave to one man, by his own confession no better or wiser than his neighbours, the power to involve nations in such horrors.
But let us join the king in his stroll, and hear for ourselves, what it is that these soldiers are discussing, by the camp-fires of Agincourt;—what it is that this first voice from the ranks has to say for itself. The king has just encountered by the way a poetical sentinel, who, not satisfied with the watchword—'a friend,'— requests the disguised prince 'to discuss to him, and answer, whether he is an officer, or base, common, and popular,' when the king lights on this little group, and the discussion which Pistol had solicited, apparently on his own behalf, actually takes place, for the benefit of the Poet's audience, and the answer to these inquiries comes out in due order.
Court. Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks yonder?
  Bates. I think it be, but we have no great cause to desire the
  approach of day.
Will. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?
King Henry. A friend.
Will. Under what captain serve you?
King. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.
Will. A good old commander, and a most kind gentleman: I pray you, what thinks he of our estate?
King. Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be washed off the next tide.
Bates. He hath not told his thought to the king?
King. No; nor it is not meet that he should; for though I speak it to you, I think the king is but a man as I am.
And it is here that he proceeds to make that important disclosure above quoted, that all his senses have but human conditions, and that all his affections, though higher mounted, stoop with the like wing; and therefore no man should in reason possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, 'should dishearten his army.'
Bates. He may show what outward courage he will; but, I believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish himself in the Thames, up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.
King. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king. I think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is.
Bates. Then would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.
King. I dare say you love him not so ill as to wish him here alone; howsoever you speak this to feel other men's minds; Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the king's company; his cause being just, and his quarrel honorable.
Will. That's more than we know.
Bates. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know we are the king's subjects; if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.
Will. But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make; when all those legs and arms and heads chopped off in a battle shall join together at the latter day, and cry all—We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them; some upon the debts they owe; some upon their children rawly left. I am afeared that few die well, that die in battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument? Now if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.
King. So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise, do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him: or if a servant, under his master's command, transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers, and die in many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant's damnation.—But this is not so…. There is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrament of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers.
But the king pursues this question of the royal responsibility until he arrives at the conclusion that every subject's DUTY is THE KING'S, BUT EVERY SUBJECT'S SOUL IS HIS OWN, until he shows, indeed, that there is but one ultimate sovereignty; one to which the king and his subjects are alike amenable, which pursues them everywhere, with its demands and reckonings,—from whose violated laws there is no escape.
Will. 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill is upon his own head—[no unimportant point in the theology or ethics of that time]—THE KING is not to answer for it.
Bates. I do not desire the king should answer for me, and yet I determine to fight lustily for him.
King. I, myself, heard the king say, he would not be ransomed.
Will. Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed and we ne'er the wiser.
King. If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.
Will. Mass, you'll pay him then! That's a perilous shot out of an elder gun, that a poor and private displeasure can do against a monarch. You may as well go about to turn the sun to ice, with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather.
And, indeed, thus and not any less absurd and monstrous, appeared the idea of subjecting the king to any effect from the subject's displeasure, or the idea of calling him to account—this one, helpless, frail, private man, as he has just been conceded by the king himself to be, for any amount of fraud or dishonesty to the nation, for any breach of trust or honour. For his relation to the mass and the source of this fearful irresponsible power was not understood then. The soldier states it well. One might, indeed, as well go about to turn the sun to ice, with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather.
  'You'll never trust his word after,' the soldier continues.
  'Come, 'tis a foolish saying.'
'Your reproof is something too round,' is the king's reply. It is indeed round. It is one of those round replies that this poet is so fond of, and the king himself becomes 'the private' of it, when once the centre of this play is found, and the sweep of its circumference is taken. For the sovereignty of law, the kingship of the universal law in whomsoever it speaks, awful with God's power, armed with his pains and penalties is the scientific sovereignty; and in the scientific diagrams the passions, 'the poor and private passions,' and the arbitrary will, in whomsoever they speak, no matter what symbols of sovereignty they have contrived to usurp, make no better figure in their struggles with that law, than that same which the poet's vivid imagination and intense perception of incompatibilities, has seized on here. The king struggles vainly against the might of the universal nature. It is but the shot out of an 'elder gun;' he might as well 'go about to turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather.' 'I should be angry with you,' continues the king, after noticing the roundness of that reply, 'I should be angry with you, if the time were convenient.'
But as to the poet who composes these dialogues, of course he does not know whether the time is convenient or not;—he has never reflected upon any of those grave questions which are here so seriously discussed. They are not questions in which he can be supposed to have taken any interest. Of course he does not know or care what it is that these men are talking about. It is only for the sake of an artistic effect, to pass away the night, and to deepen for his hero the gloom which was to serve as the foil and sullen ground of his great victory, that his interlocutors are permitted to go on in this manner.
It is easy to see, however, what extraordinary capabilities this particular form of writing offered to one who had any purpose, or to an author, who wished on any account, to 'infold' somewhat his meaning;—that was the term used then in reference to this style of writing. For certainly, many things dangerous in themselves could be shuffled in under cover of an artistic effect, which would not strike at the time, amid the agitations, and the skilful checks, and counteractions, of the scene, even the quick ear of despotism itself.
And thus King Lear—that impersonation of absolutism—the very embodiment of pure will and tyranny in their most frantic form, taken out all at once from that hot bath of flatteries to which he had been so long accustomed, that his whole self-consciousness had become saturated, tinctured in the grain with them, and he believed himself to be, within and without, indestructibly, essentially,—'ay, every inch A KING;' with speeches on his supremacy copied, well nigh verbatim, from those which Elizabeth's courtiers habitually addressed to her, still ringing in his ears, hurled out into a single-handed contest with the elements, stripped of all his 'social and artificial lendings,' the poor, bare, unaccommodated, individual man, this living subject of the poet's artistic treatment,—this 'ruined Majesty' anatomized alive, taken to pieces literally before our eyes, pursued, hunted down scientifically, and robbed in detail of all 'the additions of a king'—must, of course, be expected to evince in some way his sense of it; 'for soul and body,' this poet tells us, 'rive not more in parting than greatness going off.'
Once conceive the possibility of presenting the action, the dumb show, of this piece upon the stage at that time, (there have been times since when it could not be done), and the dialogue, with its illimitable freedoms, follows without any difficulty. For the surprise of the monarch at the discoveries which this new state of things forces upon him,—the speeches he makes, with all the levelling of their philosophy, with all the unsurpassable boldness of their political criticism, are too natural and proper to the circumstances, to excite any surprise or question.
Indeed, a king, who, nurtured in the flatteries of the palace, was unlearned enough in the nature of things, to suppose that the name of a king was anything but a shadow when the power which had sustained its prerogative was withdrawn,—a king who thought that he could still be a king, and maintain 'his state' and 'his hundred knights,' and their prerogatives, and all his old arbitrary, despotic humours, with their inevitable encroachment on the will and humours, and on the welfare of others, merely on grounds of respect and affection, or on grounds of duty, when not merely the care of 'the state,' but the revenues and power of it had been devolved on others—such a one appeared, indeed, to the poet, to be engaging in an experiment very similar to the one which he found in progress in his time, in that old, decayed, riotous form of military government, which had chosen the moment of its utter dependence on the popular will and respect, as the fitting one for its final suppression of the national liberties. It was an experiment which was, of course, modified in the play by some diverting and strongly pronounced differences, or it would not have been possible to produce it then; but it was still the experiment of the unarmed prerogative, that the old popular tale of the ancient king of Britain offered to the poet's hands, and that was an experiment which he was willing to see traced to its natural conclusion on paper at least; while in the subsequent development of the plot, the presence of an insulted trampled outcast majesty on the stage, furnishes a cover of which the poet is continually availing himself, for putting the case of that other outraged sovereignty, whose cause under one form or another, under all disguises, he is always pleading. And in the poet's hands, the debased and outcast king, becomes the impersonation of a debased and violated state, that had given all to its daughters,—the victim of a tyranny not less absolute, the victim, too, of a blindness and fatuity on its own part, not less monstrous, but not, not—that is the poet's word—not yet irretrievable.
  'Thou shalt find
  I will resume that shape, which thou dost think
  I have cast off for ever; thou shalt, I warrant thee.'
  'Do you mark that, my lord?'
But the question of that prerogative, which has consumed, in the poet's time, all the faculties of government constitutes only a subordinate part of the action of that great play, into which it is here incorporated; a play which comprehends in its new philosophical reaches, in its new and before-unimagined subtilties of analysis, the most radical questions of a practical human science; questions which the practical reason of these modern ages at the moment of its awakening, found itself already compelled to grapple with, and master.
'Consider him well.—Three of us are sophisticated.'
For this is the grand SOCIAL tragedy. It is the tragedy of an unlearned human society; it is the tragedy of a civilization in which grammar, and the relations of sounds and abstract notions to each other have sufficed to absorb the attention of the learned,—a civilization in which the parts of speech, and their relations, have been deeply considered, but one in which the social elements, the parts of life, and their unions, and their prosody, have been left to spontaneity, and empiricism, and all kinds of rude, arbitrary, idiomatical conjunctions, and fortuitous rules; a civilization in which the learning of 'WORDS' is put down by the reporter—invented— and the learning of 'THINGS'—omitted.
And in a movement which was designed to bring the human reason to bear scientifically and artistically upon those questions in which the deepest human interests are involved, the wrong and misery of that social state to which the New Machine, with its new combination of sense and reason, must be applied, had to be fully and elaborately brought out and exhibited. And there was but one language in which the impersonated human misery and wrong,—the speaker for countless hearts, tortured and broken on the rude machinery of unlearned social customs, and lawless social forces, could speak; there was but one tongue in which it could tell its story. For this is the place where science becomes inevitably poetical. That same science which fills our cabinets and herbariums, and chambers of natural history, with mute stones and shells and plants and dead birds and insects—that same science that fills our scientific volumes with coloured pictures true as life itself, and letter-press of prose description—that same science that anatomises the physical frame with microscopic nicety,—in the hand of its master, found in the soul, that which had most need of science; and his 'illustrated book' of it, the book of his experiments in it, comes to us filled with his yet living, 'ever living' subjects, and resounding with the tragedy of their complainings.
It requires but a little reading of that book to find, that the author of it is a philosopher who is strongly disposed to ascertain the limits of that thing in nature, which men call fortune,—that is, in their week-day speech,—they have another name for it 'o' Sundays.' He is greatly of the opinion, that the combined and legitimate use of those faculties with which man is beneficently 'armed against diseases of the world,' would tend very much to limit those fortuities and accidents, those wild blows,—those vicissitudes, that men, in their ignorance and indolent despair, charge on Fate or ascribe to Providence, while at the same time it would furnish the art of accommodating the human mind to that which is inevitable. It is not fortune who is blind, but man, he says,—a creature endowed of nature for his place in nature, endowed of God with a godlike faculty, looking before and after—a creature who has eyes, eyes adapted to his special necessities, but one that will not use them.
Acquaintance with law, as it is actual in nature, and inventions of arts based on that acquaintance, appear to him to open a large field of relief to the human estate, a large field of encroachment on that human misery, which men have blindly and stupidly acquiesced in hitherto, as necessity. For this is the philosopher who borrows, on another page, an ancient fable to teach us that that is not the kind of submission which is pleasing to God—that that is not the kind of 'suffering' that will ever secure his favour. He, for one, is going to search this social misery to the root, with that same light which the ancient wise man tells us, 'is as the lamp of God, wherewith He searcheth the inwardness of all secrets.'
The weakness and ignorance and misery of the natural man,—the misery too of the artificial man as he is,—the misery of man in society, when that society is cemented with arbitrary customs, and unscientific social arts, and when the instinctive spontaneous demoniacal forces of nature, are at large in it; the dependence of the social Monad, the constitutional specific human dependence, on the specific human law,—the exquisite human liability to injury and wrong, which are but the natural indications of those higher arts and excellencies, those unborn pre-destined human arts and excellencies, which man must struggle through his misery to reach;—that is the scientific notion which lies at the bottom of this grand ideal representation. It is, in a word, the human social NEED, in all its circumference, clearly sketched, laid out, scientifically, as the basis of the human social ART. It is the negation of that which man's conditions, which the human conditions require;—it is the collection on the Table of Exclusion and Rejection, which must precede the practical affirmation.
King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in it?
Hamlet. None in the world. It's the image of a murder done in Vienna.
In the poetic representation of that state of things which was to be redressed, the central social figure must, of course, have its place. For it is the Poet, the Experimental Poet, unseen indeed, deep buried in his fable, his new movements all hidden under its old garb, and deeper hidden still, in the new splendours he puts on it—it is the Poet—invisible but not the less truly, he,—it is the Scientific Poet, who comes upon the monarch in his palace at noonday, and says, 'My business is with thee, O king.' It is he who comes upon the selfish arrogant old despot, drunk with Elizabethan flatteries, stuffed with 'titles blown from adulation,' unmindful of the true ends of government, reckless of the duties which that regal assumption of the common weal brings with it—it is the Poet who comes upon this Doctor of Laws in the palace and prescribes to him a course of treatment which the royal patient himself, when once it has taken effect, is ready to issure from the hovel's mouth, in the form of a general prescription and state ordinance.
  'Take physic, POMP;
  Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
  That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,
  And show the heavens more just.
  Oh, I have taken too little care of This!'
It is that same Poet who has already told us, confidentially, under cover of King Hal's mantle, that 'the king himself is but a man' and that 'all his senses have but human conditions and that his affections, too, though higher mounted when they stoop, stoop with the like wing; that his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man';—it is that same Poet, and, in carrying out the purpose of this play, it has come in his way now to make good that statement. For it was necessary to his purpose here, to show that the State is composed throughout, down to its most loathsome unimaginable depths of neglect and misery, of individual men, social units, clothed of nature with the same faculties and essential human dignities and susceptibilities to good and evil, and crowned of nature with the common sovereignty of reason,—down-trodden, perhaps, and wrung and trampled out of them, but elected of nature to that dignity; it was necessary to show this, in order that the wisdom of the State which sacrifices to the senses of one individual man, and the judgment that is narrowed by the one man's senses, the weal of the whole,—in order that the wisdom of the State, which puts at the mercy of the arbitrary will and passions of the one, the weal of the many, might be mathematically exhibited,—might be set down in figures and diagrams. For this is that Poet who represents this method of inquiry and investigation, as it were, to the eye. This is that same Poet, too, who surprises elsewhere a queen in her swooning passion of grief, and bids her murmur to us her recovering confession.
  'No more, but e'en a woman; and commanded
  By such poor passion, as the maid that milks,
  And does the meanest chares.'
So busy is he, indeed, in laying by this king's 'ceremonies' for him, beginning with the first doubtful perception of a most faint neglect,—a falling off in the ceremonious affection due to majesty 'as well in the general dependents as in the duke himself and his daughter,'—so faint that the king dismisses it from his thought, and charges it on his own jealousy till he is reminded of it by another,—beginning with that faint beginning, and continuing the process not less delicately, through all its swift dramatic gradations,—the direct abatement of the regal dignities,—the knightly train diminishing,—nay, 'fifty of his followers at a clap' torn from him, his messenger put in the stocks,—and 'it is worse than murder,' the poor king cries in the anguish of his slaughtered dignity and affection, 'to do upon respect such violent outrage,'—so bent is the Poet upon this analytic process; so determined that this shaking out of a 'preconception,' shall be for once a thorough one, so absorbed with the dignity of the scientific experiment, that he seems bent at one moment on giving a literal finish to this process; but the fool's scruples interfere with the philosophical humour of the king, and the presence of Mad Tom in his blanket, with the king's exposition, suffices to complete the demonstration. For not less lively than this, is the preaching and illustration, from that new rostrum which this 'Doctor' has contrived to make himself master of. 'His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man,' says King Hal. 'Couldst thou save nothing?' says King Lear to the Bedlamite. 'Why thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies.' 'Is man,'—it is the king who generalises, it is the king who introduces this levelling suggestion here in the abstract, while the Poet is content with the responsibility of the concrete exhibition—'Is man no wore than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the cat no perfume:—Ha! here's three of us are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself. UNACCOMMODATED MAN is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal, as thou art. Off, off, you lendings.' But 'the fool' is of the opinion that this scientific process of unwrapping the artificial majesty, this philosophical undressing, has already gone far enough.
'Pry'thee, Nuncle, be contented,' he says, 'it is a naughty night to swim in.'
For it is the great heath wrapped in one of those storms of wind and rain and thunder and lightning, which this wizard only of all the children of men knows how to raise, that he chooses for his physiological exhibition of majesty, when the palace-door has been shut upon it, and the last 'additions of a king' have been subtracted. It is a night—
  'Wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
  The lion, and the belly-pinched wolf
  Keep their fur dry'—
into which he turns his royal patient 'unbonneted.'
For the tyranny of wild nature in her elemental uproar must be added to the tyranny of the human wildness, the cruelty of the elements must conspire, like pernicious ministers, with the cruelty of arbitrary HUMAN will and passions, the irrational, INHUMAN social forces must be joined by those other forces that make war upon us, before the real purpose of this exhibition and the full depth and scientific comprehension of it can begin to appear. It is in the tempest that Lear finds occasion to give out the Poet's text. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Unaccommodated man in his struggle with nature. Man without social combinations, man without arts to aid him in his battle with the elements, or with arts that fence in his body, and robe it, it may be, in delicate and gorgeous apparelling, arts that roof his head with a princely dome it may be, and add to his native dignity and forces, the means and appliances of a material civilization, but leave his nobler nature with its more living susceptibility to injury, unsheathed, at the mercy of the brute forces that unscientific civilizations, with their coarse laws, with their cobwebs of WORDY learning, with their science of abstractions, unmatched with the subtilty of THINGS, are compelled to leave at large, uncaught, unentangled.
Yes, it is man in his relation to nature, man in his dependence on artificial aid, man in his two-fold dependence on art, that this tempest, this double tempest wakes and brings out, for us to 'consider,'—to 'consider well';—'the naked creature,' that were better in his grave than to answer with his uncovered body that extremity of the skies, and by his side, with his soul uncovered to a fiercer blast, his royal brother with 'the tempest in his mind, that doth from his senses take all feeling else, save what beats there.'
It is the personal weakness, the moral and intellectual as well as the bodily frailty and limitation of faculty, and liability to suffering and outrage, the liability to wrong from treachery, as well as violence, which are 'the common' specific human conditions, common to the King in his palace, and Tom o'Bedlam in his hovel; it is this exquisite human frailty and susceptibility, still unprovided for, that fills the play throughout, and stands forth in these two, impersonated; it is that which fills all the play with the outcry of its anguish.
And thus it is, that this poor king must needs be brought out into this wild uproar of nature, and stripped of his last adventitious aid, reduced to the authority and forces that nature gave him, invaded to the skin, and ready in his frenzy to second the poet's intent, by yielding up the last thread of his adventitious and artistic defences. All his artificial, social personality already dissolved, or yet in the agony of its dissolution, all his natural social ties torn and bleeding within him, there is yet another kind of trial for him, as the elected and royal representative of the human conditions. For the perpetual, the universal interest of this experiment arises from the fact, that it is not as the king merely, dissolving like 'a mockery king of snow' that this illustrious form stands here, to undergo this fierce analysis, but as the representative, 'the conspicuous instance,' of that social name and figure, which all men carry about with them, and take to be a part of themselves, that outward life, in which men go beyond themselves, by means of their affections, and extend their identity, incorporating into their very personality, that floating, contingent material which the wills and humours and opinions, the prejudices and passions of others, and the variable tide of this world's fortunes make—that social Name and Figure in which men may die many times, ere the physical life is required of them, in which all men must needs live if they will live in it at all, at the mercy of these uncontrolled social eventualities.
The tragedy is complicated, but it is only that same complication which the tragedy it stands for, is always exhibiting. The fact that this blow to his state is dealt to him by those to whom nature herself had so dearly and tenderly bound him, nay, with whom she had so hopelessly identified him, is that which overwhelms the sufferer. It is that which he seeks to understand in vain. He wishes to reason upon it, but his mind cannot master it; under that it is that his brain gives way,—the first mental confusion begins there. The blow to his state is a subordinate thing with him. It only serves to measure the wrong that deals it. The poet takes pains to clear this complication in the experiment. It is the wound in the affections which untunes the jarring senses of 'this child-changed father.' It is that which invades his identity.
'Are you our daughter? Does anyone here know me?' That is the word with which he breaks the silence of that dumb amazement, that paralysis of frozen wonder which Goneril's first rude assault brings on him. 'Why, this is not Lear; Ha! sure it is not so. Does any one here know me? Who is it that can tell me who I am?'
But with all her cruelty, he cannot shake her off. He curses her; but his curses do not sever the tie.
  'But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter.
  Or rather, a disease that's in my flesh
  Which I must needs call mine.
  Filial ingratitude!
  Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand
  For lifting food to it?'
For that is the poet's conception of the extent of this social life and outgoing—that is the interior of that social whole, in which the dissolution he represents here is proceeding,—and that is the kind of new phenomenon which the science of man, when it takes him as he is, not the abstract man of the schools, not the logical man that the Realists and the Nominalists went to blows for, but 'the thing itself,' exhibits. As to that other 'man,'—the man of the old philosophy,—he was not 'worth the whistle,' this one thinks. 'His bones were marrowless, his blood was cold, he had no speculation in those eyes that he did glare with.' The New Philosopher will have no such skeletons in his system. He is getting his general man out of particular cases, building him up solid, from a basis of natural history, and, as far as he goes, there will be no question, no two words about it, as to whether he is or is not. 'For I do take,' says the Advancer of Learning, 'the consideration in general, and at large, of Human Nature, to be fit to be emancipated and made a knowledge by itself.' No wonder if some new aspects of these ordinary phenomena, these 'common things,' as he calls them, should come out, when they too come to be subjected to a scientific inquiry, and when the Poet of this Advancement, this so subtle Poet of it, begins to explore them.
And as to this particular point which he puts down with so much care, this point which poor Lear is illustrating here, viz. 'that our affections carry themselves beyond us,' as the sage of the 'Mountain' expresses it, this is the view the same Poet gives of it, in accounting for Ophelia's madness.
  'Nature is fine in love; and where 'tis fine,
  It sends some precious instance of itself,
  After the thing it loves.'
'Your old kind father,' continues Lear, searching to the quick the secrets of this 'broken-heartedness,' as people are content to call it, this ill to which the human species is notoriously liable, though philosophy had not thought it worth while before 'to find it out;'
  'Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,—
  O that way madness lies; let me shun that,
  No more of that.'
And it is while he is still undergoing the last extreme of the suffering which the human wrong is capable of inflicting on the affections, that he comes in the Poet's hands to exhibit also the unexplored depth of that wrong,—that monstrous, inhuman social error, that perpetual outrage on nature in her human law, which leaves the helpless human outcast to the rough discipline of nature, which casts him out from the family of man, from its common love and shelter, and leaves him in his vices, and helplessness, and ignorance, to contend alone with great nature and her unrelenting consequences.
                         'To wilful men
  The injuries that they themselves procure,
  Must be their school-masters,'—
is the point which the philosophic Regan makes, as she bids them shut the door in her father's face; but it is the common human relationship that the Poet is intent on clearing, while he notes the special relationship also; he does not limit his humanities to the ties of blood, or household sympathies, or social gradations.
But Regan's views on this point are seconded and sustained, and there seems to be but one opinion on the subject among those who happen to have that castle in possession; at least the timid owner of it does not feel himself in a position to make any forcible resistance to the orders which his illustrious guests, who have 'taken from him the use of his own house,' have seen fit to issue in it. 'Shut up your doors, (says Cornwall),
'Shut up your doors, my lord: 'tis a wild night. My REGAN COUNSELS well; COME OUT O' THE STORM.'
And it is because this representation is artistic and dramatic, and not simply historical, and the Poet must seek to condense, and sum and exhibit in dramatic appreciable figures, the unreckonable, undefinable historical suffering of years, aad lifetimes of this vain human struggle,—because, too, the wildest threats which nature in her terrors makes to man, had to be incorporated in this great philosophic piece; and because, lastly, the Poet would have the madness of the human will and passion, presented in its true scientific relations, that this storm collects into itself such ideal sublimities, and borrows from the human passion so many images of cruelty.
In all the mad anguish of that ruined greatness, and wronged natural affection, the Poet, relentless as fortune herself in her sternest moods, intent on his experiment only, will bring out his great victim, and consign him to the wind and the rain, and the lightning, and the thunder, and bid his senses undergo their 'horrible pleasure.'
For the senses, scorned as they had been in philosophy hitherto, the senses in this philosophy, have their report also,—their full, honest report, to make to us. And the design of this piece, as already stated in the general, required in its execution, not only that these two kinds of suffering, these two grand departments of human need, should be included and distinguished in it, but that they should be brought together in this one man's experience, so that a deliberate comparison can be instituted between them; and the Poet will bid the philosophic king, the living 'subject' himself, report the experiment, and tell us plainly, once for all, whether the science of the physical Arts only, is the science which is wanting to man; or whether arts—scientific arts—that take hold of the moral nature, also, and deal with that not less effectively, can be dispensed with; whether, indeed, man is in any condition to dispense with the Science and the Art which puts him into intelligent and harmonious relations with nature in general.
It was necessary to the purpose of the play to exhibit man's dependence on art, by means of his senses and his sensibilities, and his intellectual conditions, and all his frailties and liabilities,— his dependence on art, based on the knowledge of natural laws, universal laws,—constitutions, which include the human. It was necessary to exhibit the whole misery, the last extreme of that social evil, to which a creature so naturally frail and ignorant is liable, under those coarse, fortuitous, inartistic, unscientific social conglomerations, which ignorant and barbarous ages build, and under the tyranny of those wild, barbaric social evils, which our fine social institutions, notwithstanding the universality of their terms, and the transcendant nature of the forces which they are understood to have at their disposal, for some fatal reason or other, do not yet succeed in reducing.
It is, indeed, the whole ground of the Scientific Human Art, which is revealed here by the light of this great passion, and that, in this Poet's opinion, is none other than the ground of the human want, and is as large and various as that. And the careful reader of this play,—the patient searcher of its subtle lore,—the diligent collector of its thick-crowding philosophic points and flashing condensations of discovery, will find that the need of arts, is that which is set forth in it, with all the power of its magnificent poetic embodiment, and in the abstract as well,—the need of arts infinitely more noble and effective, more nearly matched with the subtlety of nature, and better able to entangle and subdue its oppositions, than any of which mankind have yet been able to possess themselves, or ever the true intention of nature in the human form can be realized, or anything like a truly Human Constitution, or Common-Weal, is possible.
But let us return to the comparison, and collect the results of this experiment.—For a time, indeed, raised by that storm of grief and indignation into a companionship with the wind and the rain, and the lightning, and the thunder, the king 'strives in his little world of man,'—for that is the phrasing of the poetic report, to out-scorn these elements. Nay, we ourselves hear, as the curtain rises on that ideal representative form of human suffering, the wild intonation of that human defiance—mounting and singing above the thunder, and drowning all the elemental crash with its articulation; for this is an experiment which the philosopher will try in the presence of his audience, and not report it merely. With that anguish in his heart, the crushed majesty, the stricken old man, the child-wounded father, laughs at the pains of the senses; the physical distress is welcome to him, he is glad of it. He does not care for anything that the unconscious, soulless elements can do to him, he calls to them from their heights, and bids them do their worst. Or it is only as they conspire with that wilful human wrong, and serve to bring home to him anew the depth of it, by these tangible, sensuous effects,—it is only by that means that they are able to wound him.
'Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters,'
that is the argument.
'I tax you not, you elements, with unkindness.'
Surely that is logical; that is a distinction not without a difference, and appreciable to the human mind, as it is constituted,—surely that is a point worth putting in the arts and sciences.
  'I never gave you kingdoms, called you children;
  You owe me no subscription; why, then, let fall
  Your horrible pleasure? Here I stand your slave,
  A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man;
  But yet, I call you servile ministers,
  That have with two pernicious daughters joined
  Your high, engendered battles 'gainst a head
  So old and white as this. O, O, 'tis foul.'
And in his calmer mood, when the storm has done its work upon him, and all the strength of his great passion is exhausted,—when his bodily powers are fast sinking under it, and like the subtle Hamlet's 'potent poison,' it begins at last to 'o'er-crow his spirit'—when he is faint with struggling with its fury, wet to the skin with it, and comfortless and shivering, he still maintains through his chattering teeth the argument; he will still defend his first position—
  'Thou thinkst 'tis much that this contentious storm
  Invades us to the skin; so 'tis to thee,
  But where the greater malady is fixed,
  The lesser is scarce felt.'
  'The tempest in my mind
  Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
  Save what beats there.'
  'In such a night
  To shut me out! Pour on, I will endure.
  In such a night as this.'
And when the shelter he is at last forced to seek is found, at the door his courage fails him; and he shrinks back into the storm again, because 'it will not give him leave to think on that which hurts him more.'
So nicely does the Poet balance these ills, and report the swaying movement. But it is a poet who does not take common-place opinions on this, or on any other such subject. He is one whose poetic work does not consist in illustrating these received opinions, or in finding some novel and fine expression for them. He is observing nature, and undertaking to report it, as it is, not as it should be according to these preconceptions, or according to the established poetic notions of the heroic requisitions.
But there is no stage that can exhibit his experiment here in its real significance, excepting that one which he himself builds for us; for it is the vast lonely heath, and the Man, the pigmy man, on it—and the KING, the pigmy king, on it;—it is all the wild roar of elemental nature, and the tempest in that 'little world of man,' that have to measure their forces, that have to be brought into continuous and persevering contest. It is not Gloster only, who sees in that storm what 'makes him think that a man is but a worm.'
Doubtless, it would have been more in accordance with the old poetic notions, if this poor king had maintained his ground without any misgiving at all; but it is a poet of a new order, and not the old heroic one, who has the conducting of this experiment; and though his verse is not without certain sublimities of its own, they have to consist with the report of the fact as it is, to its most honest and unpoetic, unheroic detail.
And notwithstanding all the poetry of that passionate defiance, it is the physical storm that triumphs in the end. The contest between that little world of man and the great outdoor world of nature was too unequal. Compelled at last to succumb, yielding to 'the tyranny of the open night, that is too rough for nature to endure—the night that frightens the very wanderers of the dark, and makes them keep their caves, while it reaches, with its poetic combination of horrors, that border line of the human conception which great Nature's pencil, in this Poet's hand, is always reaching and completing,—
'Man's nature cannot carry The affliction nor the fear.'
—Unable to contend any longer with 'the fretful element'—unable to 'outscorn' any longer 'the to and fro conflicting wind and rain'—weary of struggling with 'the impetuous blasts,' that in their 'eyeless rage' and 'fury' care no more for age and reverence than his daughters do—that seize his white hairs, and make nothing of them—'exposed to feel what wretches feel'—he finds at last, with surprise, that art—the wretch's art—that can make vile things precious. No longer clamoring for 'the additions of a king,' but thankful for the basest means of shelter from the elements, glad to avail himself of the rudest structure with which art 'accommodates' man to nature, (for that is the word of this philosophy, where it is first proposed)—glad to divide with his meanest subject that shelter which the outcast seeks on such a night—ready to creep with him, under it, side by side—'fain to hovel with swine and rogues forlorn, in short and musty straw'—surely we have reached a point at last where the action of the piece itself—the mere 'dumb show' of it—becomes luminous, and hardly needs the player's eloquence to tell us what it means.
Surely this is a little like 'the language' of Periander's message, when he bid the messenger observe and report what he saw him do. It is very important to note that ideas may be conveyed in this way as well as by words, the author of the Advancement of Learning remarks, in speaking of the tradition of the principal and supreme sciences. He takes pains to notice, also, that a representation, by means of these 'transient hieroglyphics,' is much more moving to the sensibilities, and leaves a more vivid and durable impression on the memory, than the most eloquent statement in mere words. 'What is sensible always strikes the memory more strongly, and sooner impresses itself, than what is intellectual. Thus the memory of brutes is excited by sensible, but not by intellectual things;' and thus, also, he proposes to impress that class which Coriolanus speaks of, 'whose eyes are more learned than their ears,' to whom 'action is eloquence.' Here we have the advantage of the combination, for there is no part of the dumb show, but has its word of scientific comment and interpretation.
  'Art cold [to the Fool]?
  I am cold myself. Where is this STRAW, my fellow?
  The art of our necessities is strange,
  That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.
  Come, bring us to this hovel.'
For this is what that wild tragic poetic resistance and defiance comes to—this is what the 'unaccommodated man' comes to, though it is the highest person in the state, stripped of his ceremonies and artificial appliances, on whom the experiment is tried.
  'Where is this straw, my fellow? Art cold? I am cold myself.
  Come, your hovel. Come, bring us to this hovel.'
When that royal edict is obeyed,—when the wonders of the magician's art are put in requisition to fulfil it,—when the road from the palace to the hovel is laid open,—when the hovel, where Tom o' Bedlam is nestling in the straw, is produced on the stage, and THE KING—THE KING—stoops, before all men's eyes, to creep into its mouth,—surely we do not need 'a chorus to interpret for us'—we do not need to wait for the Poet's own deferred exposition to seize the more obvious meanings. Surely, one catches enough in passing, in the dialogues and tableaux here, to perceive that there is something going on in this play which is not all play,—something that will be earnest, perhaps, ere all is done,—something which 'the groundlings' were not expected to get, perhaps, in 'their sixe-penn'orth' of it at the first performance,—something which that witty and splendid company, who made up the Christmas party at Whitehall, on the occasion of its first exhibition there, who sat there 'rustling in silk,' breathing perfumes, glittering in wealth that the alchemy of the storm had not tried, were not, perhaps, all informed of; though there might have been one among them, 'a gentleman of blood and breeding,' who could have told them what it meant.
'We construct,' says the person who describes this method of philosophic instruction, speaking of the subtle prepared history which forces the inductions—'we construct tables and combinations of instances, upon such a plan, and in such order, that the understanding may be enabled to act upon them.'
'They told me I was everything.'
They told me I was everything,' says the poor king himself, long afterwards, when the storm has had its ultimate effect upon him.
'To say ay and no to everything that I said!—[To say] ay and no too WAS NO GOOD DIVINITY. They told me, I had white hairs in my beard, ere the black ones were there. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found them, there I smelt them out. Go to, they are not men of their words: they told me I was everything; 'tis a lie; I am not ague-proof.'
'I think the king is but a man, as I am' [says King Hal], 'All his senses have the like conditions; and his affections, though higher mounted, when they stoop, stoop with the like wing.'
But at the door of that rude hut the ruined majesty pauses. In vain his loving attendants, whom, for love's sake, this Poet will still have with him, entreat him to enter. Storm-battered, and wet, and shivering as he is, he shrinks back from the shelter he has bid them bring him to. He will not 'in.' Why? Is it because 'the tempest will not give him leave to ponder on things would hurt him more.' That is his excuse at first; but another blast strikes him, and he yields to 'the to and fro conflicting wind and rain,' and says—
'But I'll go in.'
Yet still he pauses. Why? Because he has not told us why he is there;—because he is in the hands of the Poet of the Human Kind, the poet of 'those common things that our ordinary life consisteth of,' who will have of them an argument that shall shame that 'resplendent and lustrous mass of matter' that old philosophers and poets have chosen for theirs;—because the rare accident—the wild, poetic, unheard-of accident—which has brought a man, old in luxuries, clothed in soft raiment, nurtured in king's houses, into this rude, unaided collision with nature;—the poetic impossibility, which has brought the one man from the apex of the social structure down this giddy depth, to this lowest social level;—the accident which has given the 'one man,' who has the divine disposal of the common weal, this little casual experimental taste of the weal which his wisdom has been able to provide for the many—of the weal which a government so divinely ordered, from its pinnacle of personal ease and luxury, thinks sufficient and divine enough for the many,—this accident—this grand poetic accident—with all its exquisite poetic effects, is, in this poet's hands, the means, not the end. This poor king's great tragedy, the loss of his social position, his broken-heartedness, his outcast suffering, with all the aggravations of this poetic descent, and the force of its vivid contrasts—with all the luxurious impressions on the sensibilities which the ideal wonders of the rude old fable yield so easily in this Poet's hands,—this rare accident, and moving marvel of poetic calamity,—this 'one man's' tragedy is not the tragedy that this Poet's soul is big with. It is the tragedy of the Many, and not the One,—it is the tragedy that is the rule, and not the exception,—it is the tragedy that is common, and not that which is singular, whose argument this Poet has undertaken to manage.
'Come, bring us to your hovel.'
The royal command is obeyed; and the house of that estate, which has no need to borrow its title of plurality to establish the grandeur of its claim, springs up at the New Magician's word, and stands before us on the scientific stage in its colossal, portentous, scientific grandeur; and the king—the king—is at the door of it: the Monarch is at the door of the Many. For the scientific Poet has had his eye on that structure, and he will make of it a thing of wonder, that shall rival old poets' fancy pieces, and drive our entomologists and conchologists to despair, and drive them off the stage with their curiosities and marvels. There is no need of a Poet's going to the supernatural for 'machinery,' this Poet thinks, while there's such machinery as this ready to his hands unemployed. 'There's something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.' There's no need of going to the antique for his models; for he is inventing the arts that will make of this an antiquity.
The Monarch has found his meanest subject's shelter, but at the door of it he is arrested—nailed with a nail fastened by the Master of Assemblies. He has come down from that dizzy height, on the Poet's errand. He is there to speak the Poet's word,—to illustrate that grave abstract learning which the Poet has put on another page, with a note that, as it stands there, notwithstanding the learned airs it has, it is not learning, but 'the husk and shell' of it. For this is the philosopher who puts it down as a primary Article of Science, that governments should be based on a scientific acquaintance with 'the natures, dispositions, necessities and discontents of the people'; and though in his book of the Advancement of Learning, he suggests that these points 'ought to be,' considering the means of ascertaining them at the disposal of the government, 'considering the variety of its intelligences, the wisdom of its observations, and the height of the station where it keeps sentinel, transparent as crystal,'—here he puts the case of a government that had not availed itself of those extraordinary means of ascertaining the truth at a distance, and was therefore in the way of discovering much that was new, in the course of an accidental personal descent into the lower and more inaccessible regions of the Common Weal it had ordered. This is the crystal which proves after all the most transparent for him. This is the help for weak eyes which becomes necessary sometimes, in the absence of the scientific crystal, which is its equivalent.
The Monarch is at the hovel's door, but he cannot enter. Why? Because he is in that school into which his own wise REGAN, that 'counsels' so 'well'—that Regan who sat at his own council-table so long, has turned him; and it is a school in which the lessons must be learned 'by heart,' and there is no shelter for him from its pitiless beating in this Poet's economy, till that lesson he was sent there to learn has been learned; and it was a Monarch's lesson, and at the Hovel's door he must recite it. He will not enter. Why? Because the great lesson of state has entered his soul: with the sharpness of its illustration it has pierced him: his spirit is dilated, and moved and kindling with its grandeur: he is thinking of 'the Many,' he has forgotten 'the One,'—the many, all whose senses have like conditions, whose affections stoop with the like wing. He will not enter, because he thinks it unregal, inhuman, mean, selfish to engross the luxury of the hovel's shelter, and the warmth of the 'precious' straw, while he knows that he has subjects still abroad with senses like his own, capable of the like misery, still exposed to its merciless cruelties. It was the tenant of the castle, it was the man in the house who said, 'Come, let's be snug and cheery here. Shut up the door. Let's have a fire, and a feast, and a song,—or a psalm, or a prayer, as the case may be; only let it be within—no matter which it is':
'Shut up your doors, my lord; 'tis a wild night,— My Regan counsels well; come out o' the storm.'
But here it is the houseless man, who is thinking of his kindred,—his royal family, for whom God has made him responsible, out in this same storm unbonneted; and in the tenderness of that sympathy, in the searching delicacy of that feeling with which he scrutinizes now their case, they seem to him less able than himself to resist its elemental 'tyranny.' For in that ideal revolution—in that exact turn of the wheel of fortune—in that experimental 'change of places,' which the Poet recommends to those who occupy the upper ones in, the social structure, as a means of a more particular and practical acquaintance with the conditions of those for whom they legislate, new views of the common natural human relations; new views of the ends of social combinations are perpetually flashing on him; for it is the fallen monarch himself, the late owner and disposer of the Common Weal, it is this strangely philosophic, mysteriously philosophic, king—philosophic as that Alfred who was going to succeed him—it is the king who is chosen by the Poet as the chief commentator and expounder of that new political and social doctrine which the action of this play is itself suggesting.
In that school of the tempest; in that one night's personal experience of the misery that underlies the pompous social structure, with all its stately splendours and divine pretensions; in that New School of the Experimental Science, the king has been taking lessons in the art of majesty. The alchemy of it has robbed him of the external adjuncts and 'additions of a king,' but the sovereignty of MERCY, the divine right of PITY, the majesty of the HUMAN KINDNESS, the grandeur of the COMMON WEAL, 'breathes through his lips' from the Poet's heart 'like man new made.'
Kent. Good, my lord, enter here.
  Lear. Prythee, go in thyself. Seek thine own ease.
   . . . . But, I'll go in.
  In, boy,—go first—[To the Fool.]
  You, houseless poverty'—
He knows the meaning of that phrase now.
'Nay get thee in. I'll PRAY, and then I'll sleep.'
[Fool goes in.]
  'Poor, naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are
  That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,'—
There are no empty phrases in this prayer, the critic of it may perceive: it is a learned prayer; the petitioner knows the meaning of each word in it: the tempest is the book in which he studied it.
'How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your looped and windowed raggedness defend you From seasons such as these? O, I have taken Too little care of THIS. [Hear, hear]. Take physic, POMP; [Hear.] Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayest shake the superflux to them, And show the HEAVENS more just.'
That is his prayer. To minds accustomed to the ceremonial a religious worship, 'with court holy water in a dry house' only, or to those who have never undertaken to compose a prayer for the king and all the royal family at the hovel's mouth, and in such immediate proximity to animals of a different species, it will not perhaps seem a very pious one. But considering that it was understood to have been composed during the heathen ages of this realm, and before Christianity had got itself so comfortably established as a principle of government and social regulations, perhaps it was as good a prayer for a penitent king to go to sleep on, as could well be invented. Certainly the spirit of Christianity, as it appeared in the life of its Founder, at least, seems to be, by a poetic anachronism incorporated in it.
But it is never the custom of this author to leave the diligent student of his performances in any doubt whatever as to his meaning. It is a rule, that everything in the play shall speak and reverberate his purpose. He prolongs and repeats his burthens, till the whole action echoes with them, till 'the groves, the fountains, every region near, seem all one mutual cry.' He has indeed the Teacher's trick of repetition, but then he is 'so rare a wondered teacher,' so rich in magical resources, that he does not often find it necessary to weary the sense with sameness. He is prodigal in variety. It is a Proteus repetition. But his charge to his Ariel in getting up his Masques, always is,—
                  'Bring a corollary,
  Rather than want a spirit.'
Nay, it would be dangerous, not wearisome merely, to make the text of this living commentary continuous, or to bring too near together 'those short and pithy sentences' wherein the action unwinds and fashions into its immortal groups. And the curtain must fall and rise again, ere the outcast duke,—his eyes gouged out by tyranny, turned forth to smell his way to Dover,—can dare to echo, word by word, the thoughts of the outcast king.
Led by one whose qualification for leadership is, that he is 'Madman and Beggar, too,'—for as Gloster explains it to us, explaining also at the same time much else that the scenic language of the play, the dumb show, the transitory hieroglyphic of it presents, and all the criticism of it,
groping with such leadership his way to Dover—'smelling it out'—thus it is that his secret understanding with the king, in that mad and wondrous philosophical humour of his, betrays itself.
  Gloster. Here, take this purse [to Tom o'Bedlam], thou whom the
  heaven's plagues
  Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched
  Makes thee the happier:—Heavens, deal so still!
  Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man
  That slaves your ordinance, that will not SEE
  Because he doth not FEEL, feel your power quickly;
  So distribution should undo excess,
  And each man have enough.
Lear. O I have taken Too little care of this. Take physic, Pomp; Expose thyself to FEEL what wretches FEEL, That thou may'st shake the superflux to them, And show the Heavens more just.
Truly, these men would seem to have been taking lessons in the same school. But it is very seldom that two men in real life, of equal learning on any topic, coincide so exactly in their trains of thought, and in the niceties of their expression in discussing it. The emphasis is deep, indeed, when this author graves his meaning with such a repetition. But Regan's stern school-master is abroad in this play, enforcing the philosophic subtleties, bringing home to the senses the neglected lessons of nature; full of errands to 'wilful men,' charged with coarse lessons to those who will learn through the senses only great Nature's lore—that 'slave Heaven's ordinance—that will not SEE, because they do not FEEL.'
Armado. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?
Moth. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since: but, I think, now 'tis not to be found; or, if it were, it would neither serve for the writing, nor for the tune.
  Armado. I will have the subject newly writ over, that I
  may example my digression
  by some mighty precedent.
             Love's Labour's Lost.
But the king's philosophical studies are not yet completed; for he is in the hands of one who does not rely on general statements for his effects; one who is pertinaciously bent on exploring those subterranean social depths, that the king's prayer has just glanced at—who is determined to lay bare to the utmost, to carry the torch of his new science into the lowest recess of that wild, nameless mass of human neglect and misery, which the regal sympathy has embraced for him in the general; though not, indeed, without some niceties of detail, which shew that the eye of a true human pity has collected the terms in which he expresses it.
That vast, immeasurable mass of social misery, which has no learned speech, no tragic dialect—no, or 'it would bear such an emphasis,' that 'its phrase of sorrow might conjure the wandering stars, and bid them stand like wonder-wounded hearers'—that misery which must get a king's robe about it, ere, in the Poet's time, it could have an audience, must needs be produced here, ere all this play was played, in its own native and proper shape and costume, daring as the attempt might seem.
The author is not satisfied with the picturesque details of that misery which he has already given us, with its 'looped and windowed raggedness,' its 'houseless head,' its 'unfed sides'; it must be yet more palpably presented. It must be embodied and dramatically developed; it must be exhibited with its proper moral and intellectual accompaniments, too, before the philosophic requisitions of this design can be fulfilled.
To the lowest deeps of the lowest depths of the unfathomed social misery of that time, the new philosopher, the Poet of the Advancement of Learning, will himself descend; and drag up to the eye of day,—undeterred by any scruple of poetic sensibility,—in his own unborrowed habiliments, with all the badges of his position in the state upon him, the creature he has selected as one of the representatives of the social state as he finds it;—the creature he has selected as the representative of those loathsome, unpenetrated masses of human life, which the unscientific social state must needs generate.
For the design of this play, in its exhibition of the true human need, in its new and large exhibition of the ground which the Arts of a true and rational human civilization must cover, could not but include the defects of that, which passed for civilization then. It involved necessarily, indeed, the most searching and relentless criticisms of the existing institutions of that time. That cry of social misery which pervades it, in which the natural, and social, and artificial evils are still discriminated through all the most tragic bursts of passion—in which the true social need, in all its comprehension, is uttered—that wild cry of human anguish, prolonged, and repeated, and reverberated as it is—is all one outcry upon the social wisdom of the Poet's time. It constitutes one continuous dramatic expression and embodiment of that so deeply-rooted opinion which the New Philosopher is known to have entertained, in regard to the practical knowledge of mankind as he found it; his opinion of the real advances towards the true human ends which had been made in his time; an opinion which he has, indeed, taken occasion to express elsewhere with some distinctness, considering the conditions which hampered the expression of his philosophical conclusions; but it is one which could hardly have been produced from the philosophic chair in his time, or from the bench, or at the council-table, in such terms as we find him launching out into here, without any fear or scruple.
For those who persuade themselves that it was any part of this player's intention to bring out, for the amusement of his audiences, an historical exhibition of the Life and Times of that ancient Celtic king of Britain, whose legendary name and chronicle he has appropriated so effectively, will be prevented by that view of the subject from ever attaining the least inkling of the matter here. For this Magician has quite other work in hand. He does not put his girdles round the earth, and enforce and harass with toil his delicate spirits,—he does not get out his book and staff, and put on his Enchanter's robe, for any such kind of effect as that. For this is not any antiquary at all, but the true Prospero; and when a little more light has been brought into his cell, his garments will be found to be, like the disguised Edgar's—'Persian.'
It is not enough, then, in the wild revolutionary sweep of this play, to bring out the monarch from his palace, and set him down at the hovel's door. It is not enough to open it, and shew us, by the light of Cordelia's pity—that sunshine and rain at once—the 'swine' in that human dwelling, and 'the short and musty-straw' there. For the poet himself will enter it, and drag out its living human tenant into the day of his immortal verse. He will set him up for all ages, on his great stage, side by side with his great brother. He will put the feet of these two men on one platform, and measure their stature—for all their senses have the like conditions, as we have heard already; and he will make the king himself own the KINDRED, and interpret for him. For this group must needs be completed 'to the eye'; these two extremes in the social scale must meet and literally embrace each other, before this Teacher's doctrine of 'MAN'—'man as distinguished from other species'—can be artistically exhibited. For it is this picture of the unaccommodated man—'unaccommodated' still, with all his empiric arts, with all his wordy philosophy—it is this picture of man 'as he is,' in the misery of his IGNORANCE, in his blind struggle with his law of KIND, which is his law of 'BEING,'— unreconciled to his place in the universal order, where he must live or have no life—for the beast, obedient to his law, rejects from his kinds the degenerate man—it is this vivid, condensed, scientific exhibition, this scientific collection of the fact of man as he is, in his empiric struggle with the law which universal nature enforces, and will enforce on him with all her pains and penalties till he learns it—it is this 'negation' which brings out the true doctrine of man and human society in this method of inquiry. For the scientific method begins with negations and exclusions, and concludes only after every species of rejection; the other, the common method, which begins with 'AFFIRMATION,' is the one that has failed in practice, the one which has brought about just this state of things which science is undertaking to reform.
But this levelling, which the man of the new science, with his new apparatus, with his 'globe and his machines,' contrives to exhibit here with so much 'facility,' is a scientific one, designed to answer a scientific purpose merely. The experimenter, in this case, is one who looks with scientific forebodings, and not with hope only, on those storms of violent political revolution that were hanging then on the world's horizon, and threatening to repeat this process, threatening to overwhelm in their wild crash, all the ancient social structures—threatening 'to lay all flat'! That is not the kind of change he meditates. His is the subtle, all-penetrating Radicalism of the New Science, which imitates the noiseless processes of Nature in its change and Re-formation.
There is a wild gibberish heard in the straw. The fool shrieks, 'Nuncle, come not in here,' and out rushes 'Tom o Bedlam'—the naked creature, as Gloster calls him—with his 'elf locks,' his 'blanketed loins,' his 'begrimed face,' with his shattered wits, his madness, real or assumed—there he stands.
We know, indeed, in this instance, that there is gentle, nay, noble blood, there, under that horrid guise. It is the heir of a dukedom, we are told, but an out-cast one, who has found himself compelled, for the sake of prolonging life, to assume that shape, as other wretches were in the Poet's time for that same purpose,—men who had lost their dukedoms, too, as it would seem, such as they were, in some way, and their human relationships, too. But notwithstanding this alleviating circumstance which enables the audience to endure the exhibition in this instance, it serves not the less effectually in the Poet's hand, as 'THE CONSPICUOUS INSTANCE' of that lowest human condition which this grand Social Tragedy must needs include in its delineations.
Here are some of the prose English descriptions of this creature, which we find already included in the commentaries on this tragedy; and which shew that the Poet has not exaggerated his portrait, and that it is not by way of celebrating any Anglo-Saxon or Norman triumph over the barbarisms of the joint reigns of REGAN and GONERIL, that he is produced here.
'I remember, before the civil wars, Tom o' Bedlams went about begging,' Aubrey says. Randle Holme, in his 'Academy of Arms and Blazon,' includes them in his descriptions, as a class of vagabonds 'feigning themselves mad.' 'The Bedlam is in the same garb, with a long staff,' etc., 'but his cloathing is more fantastic and ridiculous; for being a madman, he is madly decked and dressed all over with rubans, feathers, cuttings of cloth, and what not, to make him seem a madman, when he is no other than a dissembling knave.'
In the Bellman of London, 1640, there is another description of him—'He sweares he hath been in Bedlam, and will talk frantickely of purpose; you see pinnes stuck in sundry places of his naked flesh, especially in his armes, which paine he gladly puts himselfe to; calls himself by the name of Poore Tom; and coming near anybody, cries out, 'Poor Tom's a cold.' Of these Abraham men, some be exceeding merry, and doe nothing but sing songs, fashioned out of their own braines; some will dance; others will doe nothing but either laugh or weepe; others are dogged, and so sullen, both in looke and speech, that spying but a small company in a house, they bluntly and boldly enter, compelling the servants, through fear, to them what they demand.'
This seems very wicked, very depraved, on the part of these persons, especially the sticking of pins in their bare arms; but even our young dukeling Edgar says—
                           'While I may scape,
  I will preserve myself: and am bethought
  To take the basest and most poorest shape,
  That ever penury, in contempt of MAN,
  Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with filth;
  Blanket my loins; elf all my hair in knots;
  And with presented nakedness outface
  The winds, and persecutions of the sky.
  The country gives me PROOF and PRECEDENT
  Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
  Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms,
  Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
  And with this horrible object, from low farms,
  Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes and mills,
  Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
  Enforce their charity.—'Poor Turlygood!' 'poor Tom!'
  Thats something yet, Edgar I nothing am.
But the poet is not contented with the minuteness of this description. This character appears to have taken his eye as completely as it takes King Lear's, the moment that he gets a glimpse of him; and the poet betrays throughout that same philosophical interest in the study, which the monarch expresses so boldly; for beside the dramatic exhibition, and the philosophical review of him, which King Lear institutes, here is an autographical sketch of him, and of his mode of living—
'What are you there? Your names?'
cries Gloster, when he comes to the heath, with his torch, to seek out the king and his party; whereupon Tom, thinking that an occasion has now arrived for defining his social outline, takes it upon him to answer, for his part—
'Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt, and the water-[newt]; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, swallows the old rat, and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped from tything to tything' [this is an Anglo-Saxon institution one sees]; 'and stocked, punished, and imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back' [fallen fortunes here, too] 'six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapon to wear.'
The Jesuits had been, then, recently and notoriously at work in England, endeavouring professedly to cast out 'the fiend' from many possessed persons; and it appeared, to this great practical philosopher, that this creature he has fetched up here from the subterranean social abysses of his time, presented a very fitting subject for the operations of practitioners professing any miraculous or superior influence over the demons that infest human nature, or those that have power over human fortunes. He has brought him out here thus distinctly, for the purpose of inquiring whether there is any exorcism which can meet his case, or that of the great human multitude, that no man can number, of whose penury and vice he stands here as the elected, pre-eminent, royal representative. In that survey and report of human affairs, which this author felt himself called upon to make, the case of this poor creature had attracted his attention, and appeared to him to require looking to; and, accordingly, he has made a note of it.
He is admirably seconded in his views on this subject, by the king himself, who, in that fine philosophic humour which his madness and his misery have served to develop in him, stands ready to lend himself to the boldest and most delicate philosophical inquiries. For the point to be noted here,—and it is one of no ordinary importance,—is, that this mad humour for philosophical investigation, which has seized so strangely the royal mind, does not appear to be at all in the vein of that old-fashioned philosophy, which had been rattling its abstractions in the face of the collective human misery for so many ages. For the helplessness of the human creature in his struggle with the elements, and those conditions of his nature which put him so hopelessly at the mercy of his own kind and kindred, seem to suggest to the royal sufferer, who has the advantage of a fresh experience to stimulate his apprehension, that there ought to be some relief for the human condition from this source, that is, from PHILOSOPHY; and his inquiries and discoveries are all stamped with the unmistakeable impress of that fire new philosophy, which was not yet out of the mint elsewhere—which was yet undergoing the formative process in the mind of its great inventor;—that philosophy, which we are told elsewhere 'has for its principal object, to make nature subservient to the wants and state of Man';—and which concerns itself for that purpose with ideas as they exist in nature, as causes, and not as they exist in the mind of man as words merely.
If there had been, indeed, any intention of paying a marked compliment to the philosophy which still held all the mind of the world in its grasp, at that great moment in history, in which Tom o' Bedlam makes his first appearance on any stage, it is not likely that that sage would have been just the person appointed to hold the office of Philosopher in Chief, and Councillor extraordinary to his Majesty.
The selection is indeed made on the part of the king, in perfect good faith, whatever the Poet's intent may be; for from the moment that this creature makes his appearance, he has no eyes or ears for anything else. And he will not be parted from him. For this startling juxtaposition was not intended by the Poet to fulfil its effect as a mere passing tableau vivant. The relation must be dramatically developed; that astounding juxtaposition must be prolonged, in spite of the horror of the spectators, and the disgust and rude displeasure of the king's attendants. They seek in vain to part these two men. The king refuses to stir without him. 'He will still keep with his philosopher.' He has a vague idea that his regal administration stands in need of some assistance, and that philosophy ought to be able to give it, and that the Bedlamite is in some way connected with the subject, but confused as the association is, it is a pertinacious one; and, in spite of their disgust the king's friends are obliged to take this wretch with them. For Gloster does not know, after all, it is 'his own flesh and blood' he sees there. He cannot even recognize the common kindred in that guise, as the king does, when he philosophises on his condition. And the rough aristocratic contempt and indifference which is manifested by the king's party, as a matter of course, for this poor human victim of wrong and misfortune, is made to contrast with their boundless sympathy and tenderness for the king, while the poet aiming at broader relationships, finds the mantle of his humanity wide enough for them, both.
As for the king,—startled in the midst of those new views of human wretchedness which his own sufferings have occasioned, and while those desires to remedy it, with which his penitence is accompanied, are still on his lip, by this wild apparition and embodiment of his thought, in that new accession of his mental disorder, which the presence of this object seems to occasion, that confounding of proximate conceptions, which leads him to regard this man as a source of new light on human affairs, is one of those exquisite physiological exhibitions of which only this scientific artist is capable.
And, in fact, it must be confessed, that this 'learned Theban' himself, notwithstanding the unexpected dignity of his promotion, does not appear to be altogether wanting in a taste, at least, for that new kind of philosophical investigation, which seems to be looked for at his hands. The king's inquiries appear to fall in remarkably with the previous train of his pursuits. In the course of his experiments, he seems himself to have struck upon that new philosophic proceeding, which has been called 'putting philosophy upon the right road again.'
Only the philosophic domain which that new road in philosophy leads to, appears to be very considerably broader, as 'Tom' takes it, than that very vivid, but narrow limitation of its fields, which Mr. Macaulay has set down in our time, would make it. Indeed, this 'philosopher,' that Lear so much inclines to, appears to have included in his investigations the two extremes of the new science of practice. He has sounded it apparently 'from its lowest note to the top of its key.'
'What is your study?' says the king to him, eyeing him curiously, and apparently struck with the practical result—anxious to have a word with him in private, but obliged to conduct the examination on the stage.
'How to prevent THE FIEND,' is Tom's reply. 'How to prevent the fiend and to kill vermin.'
This is the Poet who says elsewhere, 'that without good nature, men are themselves but a nobler kind of vermin.'
One cannot but observe, however, that Poor Tom's researches in this quite new field of a practical philosophy, do not appear to have been followed up since his time with any very marked success. One of these departments of 'his study' has indeed been seized, and is now occupied by whole troops of modern philosophers; but their inquiries, though very interesting and doubtlessly useful, do not appear to exhibit that direct and palpable bearing on practice, to which Tom's programme so severely inclines. For he is one who would make 'the art and practic part of life, the mistress to his theoric.' And as to that other mysterious object of his inquiries, Mr. Macaulay is not the only person who appears to think, that that does not come within the range of anything human. Many of our scholars are still of the opinion that, 'court holy water' is the best application in the world for him; and the fact that he does not appear to get 'prevented' with it; it is a fact which of course has nothing to do with the logical result. For our philosophers are still determined to reason it 'thus and thus,' without taking into account the circumstance, that 'the sequent effect' with which 'nature finds itself scourged,' is not touched by their reasons.
King Lear's own inquiries seem also to include with great distinctness, the two great branches of the new philosophical inquiry. His mind is indeed very eagerly bent on the pursuit of causes. And though in the paroxysms of his mental disorder, he is apt to confound them occasionally, this very confusion, as it is managed, only serves to develop the breadth of the philosophic conception beneath it.
'He hath no daughters, Sir.' 'Death, traitor! Nothing could have subdued nature to such a lowness, but—his UNKIND daughters.' It is, of course, his own new and terrible experience which points the inquiry, and though the physical causes are not omitted in it, it is not strange that the moral should predominate, and that his mind should seem to be very curiously occupied in tracking the ethical phenomena to their sources 'in nature.'
In the midst of the uproar of the Tempest, he does indeed begin with the physical investigation. He puts to his 'learned Theban' the question, which no learned Theban had then ever suspected of lying within the range of the scholar's investigations—that question which has been put to some purpose since—'What is the cause of thunder?' But his philosophic inquiry does not stop there,—where all the new philosophy has stopped ever since, and where some of our scholars declare it was meant to stop, notwithstanding the plainest declarations of its inventor to the contrary—with the investigation of physical causes.
For, after all, it is 'the tempest in his mind' that most concerns him. His philosopher, his practical philosopher, must be able to explore the conditions of that, and find the conductors for its lightnings. 'For where the greater malady is fixed, the lesser is scarce felt.' 'Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are his daughters.' After all, it is Regan's heart that appears to him to be the trouble—it is that which must first be laid on the table; and as soon as he decides to have a philosopher among 'his hundred,' he gives orders to that effect.
'Then let them anatomise Regan; see what breeds about her heart: Is there any CAUSE IN NATURE that makes these hard hearts?'
A very fair subject for philosophical inquiry, one would say; and, on the whole, as profitable and interesting a one, perhaps, as some of those that engage the attention of our men of learning so profoundly at present. In these days of enlightened scientific procedure, one would hardly undertake the smallest practical affair with the aid of any such vague general notions or traditional accounts of the properties to be dealt with, as those which our learned Thebans appear to find all-sufficient for their practices, in that particular department which Lear seems inclined to open here as a field for scientific exploration.
And it is perfectly clear that the author, whoever he may be, is very much of Lear's mind on this point, for he does not depend upon Lear alone to suggest his views upon it. There is never a person of this drama that does not do it.
'All that follow their noses are led by their eyes, but—blind men.'
The Play is all strewn throughout, and tinctured in the grain, with the finest natural philosophy, of that new and very subtle and peculiar kind, which belongs to the earlier stages of the physical inquiry, and while it was still in the hands of its original inventors. Even in physics, there are views here which have not been developed any further since this author's time. It is not merely in the direct discourse on questions of physical science, as in the physician's report of the resources of his art, or in Cordelia's invocation to 'all the blessed secrets—the unpublished virtues of the earth,' that the track of the new physiological science, which this work embodies, may be seen. It runs through it all; it betrays itself at every turn. But the subtle and occult relations of the moral and physical are noted here, as we do not find them noted elsewhere, in less practical theories of nature.
That there is something in the design of this play which requires an elaborate and systematic exhibition of the 'special' human relationships, natural and artificial, political, social, and domestic, almost any reading of it would show. And that this design involves, also, a systematic exhibition of the social consequences arising from the violation of the natural laws or duties of these relationships, and that this violation is everywhere systematically aggravated,—carried to its last conceivable extreme, so that all the play is filled with the uproar of one continued outrage on humanity; this is not less evident for the Poet is not content with the material which his chronicle offered him, already invented to his hands for this purpose, but he has deliberately tacked to it, and intricately connected with it throughout, another plot, bearing on the surface of it, and in the most prominent statements, the author's intention in this respect; which tends not only in the most unequivocal manner to repeat and corroborate the impressions which the story of Lear produces, but to widen the dramatic exhibition, so as to make it capable of conveying the whole breadth of the philosophic conception. For it is the scientific doctrine of MAN that is taught here; and that is, that man must be human in all his relations, or 'cease to be.' It is the violation of the ESSENTIAL humanity. It is a DEGENERACY which is exhibited here, and the 'SEQUENT EFFECTS' which belong naturally to the violation of a law that has the force of the universe to sustain it. And it is not by accident that the story of the illegitimate Edmund begins the piece; it is not for nothing that we are compelled to stop to hear that, before even Lear and his daughters can make their entrance. The whole story of the base and base-born one, who makes what he calls nature—the rude, brutal, spontaneous nature—his goddess and his law, and ignores the human distinction; this part was needed in order to supply the deficiences in the social diagrams which the original plot presented; and, indeed, the whole story of the Duke of Gloster, which is from first to last a clear Elizabethan invention, and of which this of Edmund is but a part, was not less essential for the same purpose.
Neither does one need to go very far beneath the surface, to perceive a new and extraordinary treatment of the ethical principle in this play throughout; one which the new, artistic, practical 'stand-point' here taken naturally suggested, but one which could have proceeded only from the inmost heart of the new philosophy. It is just the kind of treatment which the proposal to introduce the Inductive method of inquiry into this department of the human practice inevitably involved. A disposition to go behind the ethical phenomena, to pursue the investigation to its scientific conclusion, a refusal to accept the facts which, to the unscientific observation, appear to be the ultimate ones—a refusal to accept the coarse, vague, spontaneous notions of the dark ages, as the solution of these so essential phenomena, is everywhere betraying and declaring itself. Cordelia's agonised invocation and summons to the unpublished forces of nature, to be aidant and remediate to the good man's distress, is continually echoed by the poet, but with a broader application. It is not the bodily malady and infirmity only—it is not that kind of madness, only with which the poor king is afflicted in the later stages of the play, which appears to him to need scientific treatment—it is not for the cure of these alone that he would open his Prospero book, 'nature's infinite book of secresy,' as he calls it in Mark Antony—'the true magic,' as he calls it elsewhere—the book of the unpublished laws—the scientific book of 'KINDS'—the book of 'the historic laws'—'the book of God's power.'
All the interior phenomena which attend the violation of duty are strictly omitted here. That psychological exhibition of it belongs to other plays; and the Poet has left us, as we all know, no room to suspect the tenderness of his moral sensibility, or the depth of his acquaintance with these subjective phenomena. The social consequences of the violation of duty in all the human relationships, the consequence to others, and the social reaction, limits the exhibition here. The object on which our sympathies are chiefly concentrated is, as he himself is made to inform us—
  'One more sinned against, than sinning.'
  'Oh, these eclipses do portend these divisions,'
says the base-born Edmund, sneeringly. 'Fa sol la mi,' he continues, producing that particular conjunction of sounds which was forbidden by the ancient musicians, on account of its unnatural discord. The monkish writers on music call it diabolical. It is at the conclusion of a very long and elaborate discussion on this question, that he treats us to this prohibited piece of harmony; and a discussion in which Gloster refers to the influence of the planets, this unnaturalness in all the human relations—this universal jangle—'this ruinous disorder, that hunts men disquietly to their graves.' But the 'base' Edmund is disposed to acquit the celestial influences of the evil charged on them. He does not believe in men being—
'Fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves and thieves, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that they are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.'
He has another method of accounting for what he himself is. He does not think it necessary to go quite so far, to find the origin of his own base, lawless, inhuman, unconscionable dispositions. But the inquiries, which are handled so boldly in the soliloquies of Edmund, are started again and again elsewhere; and the recurrence is too emphatic, to leave any room to doubt that the author's intention in the play is concerned in it; and that this question of 'the several dispositions and characters of men,' and the inquiry as to whether there be 'any causes in nature' of these degenerate tendencies, which he is at such pains to exhibit, is, for some reason or other, a very important point with him. That which in contemplative philosophy corresponds to the cause, in practical philosophy becomes the rule, the founder of it tells us. But the play cannot be studied effectually without taking into account the fact, that the author avails himself of the date of his chronicle to represent that stage of human development in which the mysterious forces of nature were still blindly deified; and, therefore, the religious invocations with which the play abounds, are not, in the modern sense of the term, prayers, but only vague, poetic appeals to the unknown, unexplored powers in nature, which we call second causes. And when, as yet, there was no room for science in the narrow premature theories which men found imposed on them—when the new movement of human thought was still hampered by the narrowness of 'preconceived opinions,' the poet was glad to take shelter under the date of his legend now and then, here, as in Macbeth and other poems, for the sake of a little more freedom in this respect. He is very far from condemning 'presuppositions' and 'anticipations' but only wishes them kept in their proper places, because to bring them into the region of fact and induction, and so to falsify the actual condition of things—to undertake to face down the powers of nature with them, is a merely mistaken mode of proceeding; because these powers are powers which do not yield to the human beliefs, and the practical doctrine must have respect to them. The great battle of that age—the battle of the second causes, which the new philosophers were compelled to fight in behalf of humanity at the peril of their lives—the battle which they fought in the open field with Aristotle and Plato—fills all this magnificent poetry with its reverberations.
It must be confessed, that those terrible appeals to the heavens, into which King Lear launches out in his anguish now and then, are anything but pious; but the boldness which shocks our modern sensibilities becomes less offensive, if we take into account the fact that they are not made to the object of our present religious worship, but are mere vague appeals, and questioning addresses to the unknown, unexplored causes in nature—the powers which lie behind the historical phenomena.
For that divine Ideal of Human Nature to which 'our large temples, crowded with the shows of peace,' are built now, had not yet appeared at the date of this history, in that form in which we now worship it, with its triumphant assurance that it came forth from the heart of God, and declared Him. Paul had not yet preached his sermon at Athens, in the age of this supposed King of Britain; and though the author was indeed painting his own age, and not that, it so happened that there was such a heathenish and inhuman, and, as he intimates, indeed, quite 'fiendish' and diabolical state of things to represent here then, that this discrepancy was not so shocking as it might have been if he had found a divine religion in full operation here.
'If it be you,' says Lear, falling back upon the theory, which Edmund has already discarded, of a divine thrusting on—
  'If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts
  Against their father, fool me not so much
  To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger.'
And here is an echo of the 'spherical predominance' which Gloster goes into so elaborately in the outset, confessing, much to the amusement of his graceless offspring, that he is disposed to think, after all, there may be something in it. 'For,' he says, 'though the wisdom of nature [the spontaneous wisdom] can REASON IT thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by THE SEQUENT EFFECT;' and he is talking under the dictation of a philosopher who, though he ridicules the pretensions of astrology in the next breath, lays it down as a principle in the scientific Art, as a chief point in the science of Practice and Relief, that the sequent effects, with which nature finds itself scourged, are a better guide to the causes which the practical remedy must comprehend, than anything which the wisdom of nature can undertake to reason out beforehand, without any respect to the sequent effect—'thus, and—thus.' But here is the confirmation of Gloster's view of the subject, which the sound-minded Kent, who is not at all metaphysical, finds himself provoked to utter; and though this is in the Fourth Act, and Gloster's opinions are advanced in the First, the passages do, notwithstanding, 'look towards each other.'
                'It is the stars.
  The stars above us govern our conditions,
  Else one self mate and mate could not beget
  Such different issues.'
Of course, it is not the astrological theory of the constitutional original differences in the human dispositions which the honest Kent is made to advocate here, literally and in earnest. It is rather the absence of any known cause, and the necessity of supposing one in a case where this difference is so obtrusive and violent, which he expresses; the stars being the natural resort of men in such circumstances, and when other solutions fail; though Poor Tom appears to be in possession of a much more orthodox theory for the peculiar disorders in his moral constitution: but, at the same time, it must be conceded that it is one which does not appear to have led, in his case, to any such felicitous practical results as the supposed origin of it might have seemed to promise.
For, indeed, this point of natural differences in the human dispositions, though, of course, quite overlooked in the moral regimen which is based on a priori knowledge, and is able to dispense with science, and ride over the actual laws; this point of difference— not in the dispositions of individuals only, but the differences which manifest themselves under the varying conditions of age and bodily health, of climate, or other physical differences in the same individual, as well as under the varying moral conditions of differing social and political positions and relations; this so essential point, overlooked as it is in the ordinary practice, has seized the clear eye of this great scientific practitioner, this Master of Arts, and he is making a radical point of it in his new speculation; he is making collections on it, and he will make a main point of it in 'the part operative' of his New Science, when he comes to make out the outline of it elsewhere, referring us distinctly to this place for his collections in it, for his collections on this point, as well as on others not less radical.
Lear himself, in his madness, appears, as we have seen already, much disposed to speculate upon this same particular question, which Gloster and Edmund and Kent have already indicated as 'a necessary question of the play'; namely, the question as to 'the causes in nature' of the phenomena which the social condition of man exhibits; that is, the causes of that degeneracy, that violation of the essential human law to which all the evil is tracked here; and it is the scientific doctrine, that the nature of a thing cannot be successfully studied in itself alone. It is not in water or in air only, or in any other single substance, that we find the nature of oxygen, or hydrogen, or any other of those principles in nature, which the application of this method to another department evolves from things which present themselves to the unscientific experience as most dissimilar. 'It is the greatest proof of want of skill to investigate the nature of any object in itself alone; for the same nature which seems concealed and hidden in some instances, is manifest and almost palpable in others; and, in general, those very things which are considered as secret, are manifest and common in other objects, but will never be clearly seen if the experiments and conclusions of men be directed to themselves alone': for it is a part of this doctrine, that man is not omitted in the order of nature—that the term HUMAN NATURE is not a misnomer. The doctrine of this Play is, that those same powers which are at work in man's life, are at work without it also; that they are powers which belong, in their highest form, to the nature of things in general; and that man himself, with all his special distinctions, is under the law of that universal constitution. The scientific remedy for the state of things which this play exhibits is the knowledge of 'causes in nature,' which must be found here, as in the other case, by scientific investigation—the spontaneous method leading to no better result here than in the other case. Under cover of the excitements of this play, this inquiry is boldly opened, and the track of the new science is clearly marked in it.
Poor Lear is, indeed, compelled to leave the practical improvement of his hints for another; and when it comes to the open question of the remedy for this state of things, which is the term of the inquiry, when he undertakes to put his absolute power in motion for the avowed purpose of effecting an improvement here, he appears indeed disposed to treat the subject in the most savage and despairing manner—that is, on his own account; but the vein of the scientific inquiry still runs unbroken through all this burst of passion. For in his scorn for that failure in human nature and human life of which society, as he finds it, stands convicted—that failure to establish the distinctive law of the human kind—that failure from which he is suffering so deeply—and in his struggle to express that disgust, he proposes, as an improvement on the state of things he finds, a law which shall obliterate that human distinction; though certainly that is anything but the Poet's remedy; and the poor king himself does not appear to be in earnest, for the moral disgust in which the distinctive sentiment of the nobler nature, and the knowledge of human good and evil betrays itself, breaks forth in floods of passion that overflow all the bounds of articulation before he can make an end of it.
But the radical nature of this question of natural causes, which the practical theory of the social arts must comprehend, is already indicated in this play, in the very beginning of the action.
This author is everywhere bent on graving the scientific distinction between those instinctive affections in which men degenerate, and tend to the rank of lower natures, and the noble natural, distinctively human affections; and when, in the first scene, the king betrays the selfishness of that fond preference for his younger daughter,—tender, and paternal, and deep as it was,—and the depth of those hopes he was resting on her kind care and nursery, by the very height of that frenzied paroxysm of rage and disappointment, which her unflattering and, as it seems to him, her unloving reply, creates;—when that 'small fault, which showed,' he tells us, 'so ugly' in her whom 'he loved most'—which turned, in a moment, all the sweetness of his love for her 'to gall, and like an engine, wrenched his nature from its firm place';—these are the terms in which he undertakes to annul the natural tie, and disown her—
Lear. So young, and so untender?
Cordelia. So young, my lord, and true.
  Lear. Let it be so.—Thy truth then be thy dower:
  For, by the sacred radiance of the sun;
  The mysteries of Hecate, and the night;
  By all the operations of the orbs,
  From whom we do exist, and cease to be,
  Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
  Propinquity and property of blood,
  And as a stranger to my heart and me
  Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
  Or he that makes his generation messes
  To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
  Be as well neighboured, pitied, and relieved,
  As thou, my sometime daughter.
And when
  'This even-handed justice
  Commends the ingredients of his poisoned chalice
  To his own lips'—
when his 'dog-hearted daughters' have returned to his own bosom the cruel edge of that unnatural wrong which he has impiously dared to summon nature herself—violated nature—to witness, this is the greeting which the unnatural Goneril receives, on her return to her husband, when she complains to him of her welcome—
Goneril. I have been worth the whistle.
  Albany. O Goneril!
  You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
  Blows in your face.—I fear your disposition:
  That nature, which contemns ITS ORIGIN,
  CANNOT BE BORDERED CERTAIN IN ITSELF;
  She that herself will sliver and disbranch
  From her MATERIAL SAP, PERFORCE MUST WITHER,
  And come to deadly use.
[Prima Philosophia. Axioms which are not limited to the particular parts of sciences, but 'such as are more common, and of a higher stage.']
Goneril. No more; the text is foolish. Albany. Tigers, not daughters,—
[You have practised on yourself—you have destroyed in yourself the nobler, fairer nature which the law of human kind—the law of human duty and affection—would have given you. Not DAUGHTERS,—Tigers.]
  'A father, and a gracious aged man,
  Whose reverence the head-lugged bear would lick,
  Most barbarous, most DEGENERATE!'—
[degenerate—that is the point—most degenerate]—
      'have you madded.
  If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
  Send quickly down, to tame these vile offences
  'Twill come,
  HUMANITY must perforce prey on itself,
 Like monsters of the deep.'
[the land refuses a parallel.]
And it is the scientific distinction between man and the brute creation—it is the law of nature in the human kind, which the Poet is getting out scientifically here, in the face of that terrific failure and degeneration in the kind—which he paints so vividly, for the purpose of inquiring whether there is not, perhaps, after all, some more potent provisioning and arming of man for his place in nature, than this state of things would lead one to suppose—whether there are not, perhaps, some more efficacious 'humanities' than those mild ones which appear to operate so lamely on this barbaric, degenerate thing. 'Milk-liver'd man!' replies Goneril, speaking not on her own behalf only, for the words have a double significance; and the Poet glances through them at that sufferance with which the state of things he has just noted was endured—
  'Milk-livered man,
  That bear'st a cheek for blows, a HEAD for WRONGS;
  Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
  Thine honour from thy sufferance; that not know'st,
  FOOLS do those villains pity, who are punished
  Before they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?
  France spreads his banners in our noiseless land;
  With plumed helm thy slayer begins threats;
  Whilst thou, a Moral Fool, sit'st still, and cry'st,
  Alack! why does he so?'
This is found to be an appeal of the Poet's own when all is done, and one that goes far into the necessary questions of the play.
But Albany, in his rejoinder, returns to the idea of the lost, degenerate, dissolute Humanity again. He has talked of tigers, and head-lugged bears (and it was necessary to combine the proverbial sensitiveness of that animal to that particular mode of treatment, with the natural amiability of his disposition in general, in order to do justice to the Poet's conception here);—he has called upon 'the monsters of the deep,' and quoted the laws of their societies, in illustration of the state of things to which the unscientific human combination appears to him to be visibly tending. But this human degeneracy and deformity, which the action of the play exhibits in diagrams—the descent to the lower nature from the higher; the voluntary descent; the voluntary blindness and narrowness; the rejection of the distinctive human law—of VIRTUE and DUTY, as reason and conscience interpret it—appears to the scientific mind to require yet other terms and comparisons. These conceits and comparisons, drawn from the habits of innocent, though not to man agreeable, animals, who have no law but blind instinct, do not suffice to convey the Poet's idea of this human failing; and, accordingly, he instructs this gentle and noble man, whom this criticism best becomes, to complete this view of the subject, in his attempt to express the disgust with which this inhuman, this more than brutal conduct, in his high-born, and gorgeously-robed, and delicately-featured spouse, inspires him—
'See thyself, devil!'—
nay, he corrects himself—
Proper deformity [DE-FORMITY] seems not in the fiend So horrid, as in woman.
Goneril. O vain fool!
  Albany. Thou changed and self-covered thing. For shame,
  Be-monster not thy feature. Were it my FITNESS'—
for here it is the human, and not the instinctive element—not 'the blood' element that rules—
  'Were it my FITNESS
  To let these hands obey my blood,
  They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
  Thy flesh and bones,'
Rather tiger-like impulses for so mild a gentleman to own to; but the process which he confesses his hands are already inclined to undertake, is not half so cruel as the one which this woman has practised on herself while she was meditating only wrong to another, and pursuing her 'horrible pleasure' at the expense of madness and death to another; not half so cruel and injurious, for in that act she has trampled down, and torn, and dislocated, she has slaughtered in cold blood, the divine, angelic form of womanhood—that form of worth and celestial aspiration which great nature stamped upon her, and gave to her for her law in nature, her type, her essence, her ORIGINAL. She has desecrated, not that common form of humanity only which the common human sentiment of reason, which the human sentiment of duty is everywhere struggling to fulfil, but that lovelier soul of humanity—that softer, subtler, more gracious, more celestial, more commanding spirit of it, which the form of womanhood in its integrity must carry with it—which the form of womanhood will carry with it, if it be not counterfeit or degenerate, gone down into a lower range, 'be-monstered'—'a changed and self-covered thing.' That is the Poet's reading.
'Howe'er,' the Duke of Albany concludes, after that struggle with his hands he speaks of—chivalrously refusing to let them obey that impulse of 'blood,' as a gentleman in such circumstances, under any amount of provocation, should—true to himself, true to his manliness and to his gentle breeding, though his wife is false to hers, and 'false to her nature'—
  'Howe'er thou art a, _fiend,
  A woman's shape doth shield thee.
Goneril_. Marry! YOUR MANHOOD NOW.'
This is indeed a discourse in which the reader must have 'the text,' or ever he can begin to catch the meaning of those philosophic points with which this orator, who talks so 'pressly,' studs his lines.
For the passage which Goneril dismisses with such scorn is indeed the text, or it will be, when the word which her commentary on it contains has been added to it: for it is 'the foolishness' of struggling with great Nature, and her LAW of KINDS—it is the folly of ignorance, the stupidity of living without respect to nature and its sequent effects, as well as its preformed decree—
('Perforce must wither, And come to deadly use'—)
which this discourse is intended to illustrate. And one who has once tracked the dramatic development of this text, through all this moving exhibition of human society, and its violated rule in nature, will be at no loss to conjecture out of what 'New' book it comes, if indeed that book has ever been opened to him.
The whole subject is treated here scientifically—that is, from without. The generalizations of the higher stages of philosophy—the axioms of a universal philosophy—with all the force of their universality, must be brought to bear upon it, through all its developments. The universal historical laws, in that modification of them which the speciality of the human kind creates, must be impartially set forth here. The law of DUTY, as the NATURAL LAW of human society; the law of humanity, as the law, nay, THE FORM, of the HUMAN kind, stamped on it with the Creator's stamp, that order from the universal law of kinds that gives to all life its SPECIAL bounds, its 'border in itself'—that form so essential, that there is no humanity or kind-ness where that is not—that law which we hear so much of, in its narrower aspects, under various names, in all men's speech, is produced here, in its broader relations, as the necessary basis of a scientific social art. And it is this author's deliberate opinion as a Naturalist, it is the opinion of this School in Natural Science, from which this work proceeds, that those who undertake to compose human societies, large or small, whether in families, or states, or empires, without recognising this principle—those who undertake to compose UNIONS, human unions and societies, on any other principle—will have a diabolical jangle of it when all is done. For this law of unity, which is written on the soul of man, this law of CONSCIENCE within, is written without also; and to erase it within is to get the lesson from without in that universal and downright speech and language which the axioms of nature are taught in—it is to get it in that fearful school in which nature repeats the doctrine of her violated law, for those who are not able to solve and comprehend the science of it as it is written—written beforehand—in the natural law and constitutions of the human soul.
  'That nature which, contemns its ORIGIN
  Cannot be bordered certain in itself.'
[These are the mysteries of day and night, that Lear, in his ignorance, vainly invokes, the operations of the orbs from whom we do exist and cease to be.]
  'She that herself will sliver and disbranch
  From her material sap, perforce must wither,
  And come to deadly use.'
                         'The text is—FOOLISH.'
The teacher who takes it upon himself to get out this text from the text-book of Universal Laws, for the purpose of conducting it to its practical application in human affairs, for the purpose of suggesting the true remedy for those great human wants which he exhibits here, is not one of those 'Milk-livered men,' those Moral Fools, that Goneril delicately alludes to, who bear a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs; who have not in their brows an eye discerning their honour from their sufferance; who think it enough to sit still under the murderous blows of what they call misfortune, fate, Providence, when it is their own im-providence; who think it is enough to sit still, and cry, Alack! without inquiring what it is that makes that lack; without ever putting the question in earnest, 'Why does he so?' His Play is all full of the practical application of the text, the application of it which Gloster sums up in a word—
''T is the Time's plague when MADMEN lead THE BLIND.'
  'I will preach to thee. Mark me: [says Lear]
  When we are born, we cry that we are come
  To this great stage of FOOLS. [Mark me!']
The whole Play is one magnificent intimation, on the part of the Poet, that eyes are made to see with; and that there is no so natural and legitimate use of them as that which human affairs were crying for, through all their lengths and breadths, in his time. It is that eye which is one of the distinctive features of the human kind; that eye which looks before and after, which extends human vision so far beyond individual sensuous experience, which is able to converge the light of universal truth upon particular experience, which is able to bring the infallible guidance of universal axioms into all the particulars of human conduct—that is the eye which he finds wanting in human affairs. The play is pointing everywhere with the Poet's scorn of 'Blind Men,' 'who will not see because they do not feel,'—who wait for the blows of 'fortune,' to teach them the lesson of Nature's laws—who wait to be scourged, or dashed to pieces with 'the sequent effect,' instead of making use of their faculty of reason to ascend to causes, and so 'to trammel up the consequence.'
It is that same combination of human faculties, that same combination of sense and reason, which the Novum Organum provides for; it is that same scorn of abstract wordy speculation, on the one hand, and blind experimental groping, on the other, that is everywhere suggested here. But with the aid of the persons of the Drama, and their suggestions, the new philosophy is carried into departments which it would have cost the Author of the Novum Organum and the Advancement of Learning his head to look into. He might as well have proposed to impeach the Government in Parliament outright, as to offer to advance his Novum Organum into these fields; fields which it enters safely enough under the cover of a spontaneous, inspired, dramatic philosophy, though it is a philosophy which overflows continually with those practical axioms, those aphorisms, which the Author of the Advancement of Learning assures us 'are made of the pith and heart of sciences'; and that 'no man can write who is not sound and grounded.' But then, if they are only written in 'with a goose-pen,' they pass well enough for unconscious, unmeaning, spontaneous felicities.
'Canst thou tell why one's nose stands in the middle of his face?' says the Fool, in the First Act, by way of entertaining his master, when the poor king's want of foresight and 'prudence' begins to tell on his affairs a little. 'Canst thou tell why one's nose stands in the middle of his face?' 'No.' 'Why, to keep his eyes on either side of it, that what a man cannot smell out he may spy into.'
Fool. Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?'
Lear. No.
Fool. Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.
Lear. Why?
Fool. Why, to put his head in; not to give it away to his daughters, and leave his horns without a case.
Lear. … Be my horses ready?
Fool. Thy asses are gone about 'em. The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven, is a pretty reason.
Lear. Because they are not eight?
Fool. Yes, indeed: Thou wouldest make a good—fool.
He cannot tell how an oyster makes his shell, but the nose has not stood in the middle of his face for nothing. There has been some prying on either side of it, apparently; and he has pried to such good purpose, that some of the prime secrets of the new philosophy appear to have turned up in his researches. 'To take it again perforce,' mutters the king. 'If thou wert my fool, Nuncle, I'd have thee beaten for being OLD before thy time.' [This is a wit 'of the self-same colour' with that one who discovered that the times from which the world's practical wisdom was inherited, were the times when the world was young. 'They told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there!'] 'I'd have thee beaten for being old before thy time.'—'How's that?'—'Thou shouldst not have been OLD before thou hadst been WISE.'
And it is in the Second Act that poor Kent, in his misfortunes, furnishes occasion for another avowal on the part of this same learned critic, of a preference for a practical philosophy, though borrowed from the lower species. He comes upon the object of his criticism as he sits in the stocks, because he could not adopt the style of his time with sufficient earnestness, though he does make an attempt 'to go out of his dialect,' but was not more happy in it than some other men of his politics were, in the Poet's time.
  'Sir, in good sooth, in sincere verity,
  Under the allowance of your grand aspect,
  Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire
  On flickering Phebus' front—
Cornwall. 'What mean'st by this?'
Kent. 'To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much.
[Halting in his blank verse for the explanation]:—It is from that seat, to which the plainness of this man, with the official dignities of his time, has conducted him, that he puts the inquiry to that keen observer, whose observations in natural history have just been quoted,—
Kent. How chances that the king comes with so small a train?
Fool. An thou had'st been set in the stocks for that question, thou, had'st well deserved it.
Kent. Why, fool?
Fool. We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there is no labouring in the winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes, but—BLIND MEN.
Kent. Where learned'st thou that, fool?
Fool. Not in the stocks, fool.
[Not from being punished with the sequent effect; not in consequence of an improvidence, that an ant might have taught me to avoid.]
'I have no way, and therefore want no eyes,' says another duke, who is also the victim of that 'absolute' authority which is abroad in this play. 'I stumbled when I saw,' and this is his prayer.
  Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man
  That slaves your ordinance; that will not SEE
  Because he doth not FEEL, feel your power quickly.
'Thou seest how this world goes,' says the outcast king, meeting this poor outcast duke, just after his eyes had been taken out of his head, by the persons then occupying the chief offices in the state. 'Thou seest how this world goes.' 'I SEE it FEELINGLY,' is the duke's reply.
Lear. What! art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears.
And his account of how it goes is—as we shall see—one that requires to be looked at with ears, for it contains, what one calls elsewhere in this play,—ear-kissing arguments.—'Get thee glass eyes,' he says, in conclusion, 'and like a scurvy politician pretend to SEE, the things thou dost not.' And that was not the kind of politician, and that was not the kind of political eye-sight, to which this statesman, and seer, proposed to leave the times, that his legacy should fall on, whatever he might be compelled to tolerate in his own.
  'Upon the crown o' the cliff. What thing was that
  Which parted from you?'
'A poor unfortunate beggar.' [Softly.] 'As I stood here BELOW, methought his eyes Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses. Horns welked and waved, like the enridged sea.'
'Now, Sir, what are you?' says the poor outcast duke to his true son, when in disguise he offers to attend him. 'A most poor man,' is the reply, 'made lame by fortune's blows; who, by the ART of KNOWN AND FEELING SORROWS, am pregnant to good PITY. Give me your hand, I'll lead you to some BIDING. Bear free and patient thoughts,' is his whisper to him.
Surely this is a poet that has got an inkling, in some way, of the new idea of an experimental philosophy,—of a combination of the human faculties of sense and reason in some organum; one, too, whose eye passes lightly over the architectonic gifts of univalves and bivalves, and entomological developments of skill and forethought, intent on that great chrysalis, which has never been able to publish yet its Creator's glory. Here is a naturalist who would not think it enough to combine reason with experiment, in wind, and rain, and fire, and thunder, who would not think it enough to bring all the unpublished virtues of the earth, to the relief of the bodily human maladies. It is the Poet, who says elsewhere, 'Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased? No? Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.' It is the poet who says, 'Nor wind, rain, fire, thunder, are my daughters.' 'Nothing could have brought him to such a lowness in nature, but his un-kind daughters.' It is the naturalist who says, 'Then let Regan's heart be anatomized, and see what it is that breeds about it. Is there any cause in NATURE that makes these hard hearts?'
In short, this play is from the hand of one who thinks that the human affairs are of a kind to require scientific investigation, scientific foresight and conduct. He is much of Lear's opinion on many points, and evidently judges that there would be no harm in getting a philosopher enrolled among the king's hundred. Not a logician, not a metaphysician, according to the common acceptance of these terms; not merely a natural philosopher, in the low and limited sense of that term, in which we use it; but a man of science—one who is able, by some method or other, to ascend to the actual principles of things, and so to base his remedies for the social evils, on the forms which are forms, which have efficacy in nature as such, instead of basing them on certain chimeras, or so-called logical conclusions of the human mind—conclusions which the logic of nature contradicts— conclusions to which the universal consent of things is wanting.
Nature, in the sense in which Edmund uses that term, is not this poet's goddess, or his LAW; though he regards 'the plague of CUSTOM' and 'the curiosity of nations,' and all their fantastic and arbitrary sway in human affairs, with an eye quite as critical—though he looks at 'that old Antic, the law,' as he expresses it elsewhere, with an eye quite as severe, on the world's behalf, as that which Edmund turns on it, on his own; he is very far from contending for the freedom of that savage, selfish, unreclaimed, spontaneous nature,—that lawless nature, to which the natural son of Gloster claims 'his services are due.' The poet teaches that the true and successful Social Art is, and must be scientific. That it must be based on the science of nature in general, and on the science of human nature in particular, on a science that recognizes the double nature in man, that takes in, its heights as well as its depths, and its depths as well as its heights, that sounds it 'from its lowest note to the top of its key;' but it is one thing to quarrel with the unscientific, imperfect social arts, and it is another to prefer nature in man without arts. The picture of 'the Unaccommodated Man,' which forms so prominent a part of the representation here,—'the thing itself,' stripped of its social lendings, or setting at nought the social restraints, is not by any means an attractive one, as this philosopher does it for us. The scientific artist is no better pleased, than the king is with this kind of 'nature.' It is the imperfection of the civilization which still generates, or leaves unchecked these savage evils, that he exposes.
But it is impossible, that the true social arts should be smelt out, or stumbled on, by accident, or arrived at by any kind of empirical groping; just as impossible as it is, on the other hand, that 'the wisdom of nature,' by throwing itself on its own internal resources, and reasoning it 'thus and thus,' without taking into account the actual forces, should be able to invent them. Those forces which enter into all the plot of our human life, unworthy of philosophic note as they had seemed hitherto, those terrific, unmeasured strengths, against which the human kind are continually dashing themselves in their blind experiments,—those engines on which the human heart is racked, 'and stretched out so long,'—those rocky structures on which its choicest treasures are so wildly wrecked, these natural forces,—no matter what artificial combinations of them may have been accomplished,—'the causes in nature,' of the phenomena of human life, appeared to this philosopher a very fitting subject for philosophy, and one quite too important in its relation to human well-being and the Arts that promote it, to be left to mere blundering experiment; quite too subtle to be reached by any kind of empirical groping, quite too subtle to be entangled with the conclusions of the philosophy which he found in vogue in his time, whose social efficacies and gifts in exorcisms, he has taken leave to connect in some way, with the appearance of Tom o' Bedlam in his history; a philosophy which had built up its system in defiant scorn of the nature of things; as if 'by reasoning it thus and thus,' without any respect to the actual conditions, it could undertake to bridle the might of nature, and put a hook in the nose of her oppositions.
It did not seem to this philosopher well, that men who have eyes—eyes that are great nature's gift to them,—her gift to them in chief,—eyes that were meant to see with, should go on in this groping, star-gazing, fatally-stumbling fashion any longer.
Lear. [To the Bedlamite.] I do not like the fashion of your garments. You will say that they are—Persian:—but let them be ALTERED.
Brutus. How I have thought of this, and of these times, I shall recount hereafter.
Hamlet. The Play's the thing.
Brutus. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca. Casca. I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it.
Posthumus. 'Shall's have a Play of this.—
The fact that the design of this play, whatever it may be, is one deep enough to go down to that place in the social system which Tom o' Bedlam was then peacefully occupying,—thinking of anything else in the world but a social revolution on his behalf—to bring him up for observation; and that it is high enough to go up to that apex of the social structure on which the crown was then fastened, to fetch down the impersonated state itself, for an examination not less curious and critical; the fact, too, that it was subtle enough to penetrate the retirement of the domestic life, and bring out its innermost passages for scientific criticism;—the fact that the relation of the Parent to the Child, and that of the Child to the Parent, the relation of Husband and Wife, and Sister and Brother, and Master and Servant, of Peasant and Lord, nay, the transient relation of Guest and Host, have each their place and part here, and the question of their duty marked not less clearly, than that prominent relation of the King and his Subjects;—the fact that these relations come in from the first, along with the political, and demand a hearing, and divide throughout the stage with them; the fact of the mere range of this social criticism, as it appears on the surface of the play, in these so prominent points,—is enough to show already, that it is a Radical of no ordinary kind, who is at work behind this drop-scene.
It was evident, at a glance, that this so extensive bill of grievances was not one which any immediate or violent political revolution, or any social reformation which was then in contemplation, would be able to meet; and that very circumstance gave to the whole essay its profoundly quiet, conservative air. It passed only for one of those common outcries on the ills of human life, which men in general are expected, or permitted to make, according to their several abilities; one of those 'Alacks!'—'why does he so'? which, by relieving the mind of the complainant, tend to keep things quiet on the whole. This Poet, whoever he was, was making rather more ado about it than usual, apparently: but Poets are useful for that very purpose; they express other men's emotions for them, in a higher key than they could manage it themselves.
It was the breadth then,—the philosophic comprehension of this great philosophic design, which made it possible for the Poet to introduce into it, and exhibit in it, so glaringly, those evils of his time that were crying out to Heaven then, for redress, and could not wait for philosophic revolutions and reformations.
Tom o' Bedlam, strictly speaking, does appear, indeed, to have been one of those Elizabethan institutions which were modified or annulled, in the course of the political changes that so soon followed this exhibition of his case. 'Tom' himself, in his own proper person, appears to have been left—by accident or otherwise—on the other side of the Revolutionary gulf. 'I remember,' says Aubrey, 'before the civil wars, Tom o' Bedlams went about begging,' etc.—but one cannot help remarking that a very numerous family connection of the collateral branches of his house—bearing, on the whole, a sufficiently striking family resemblance to this illustrious subject of the Poet's pencil,—appear to have got safely over all the political and social gulfs that intervene between our time and that. And, as to some of those other social evils which are exhibited here in their ideal proportions, they are not, perhaps, so entirely among the former things which have passed away with our reformations, that we should have to go to Aubrey's note book to find out what the Poet means. As to some of these, at least, it will not be necessary to hunt up an antiquary, who can remember whether any such thing ever was really in existence here, 'before the civil wars.' And, notwithstanding all our advancements in Natural Science, and in the Arts which attend these advancements; notwithstanding the strong recommendations of the inventors of this Science,—Regan's heart, and that which breeds about it, appear, by a singular oversight, to have escaped, hitherto, any truly scientific inquiry; and the arts for improving it do not appear, after all, to have been very materially advanced since the time when this order was issued.
But notwithstanding that the subject of this piece appears to be so general,—notwithstanding the fact, that the social evils which are here represented include, apparently, the universal human conditions, and include evils which are still understood to be inherent in the nature of man, and, irreclaimable, or not, at least a subject for Art,—and notwithstanding the fact that this exhibition professes to borrow all its local hues and exaggerations from the barbaric times of the Ancient Britons—it is not very difficult to perceive that it does, in fact, involve a local exhibition of a different kind; and that, under the cover of that great revolution in the human estate, which the philosophic mind was then meditating,—so broad, that none could perceive its project,—another revolution,—that revolution which was then so near at hand, was clearly outlined; and that this revolution, too, is, after all, one towards which this Poet appears to 'incline,' in a manner which would not have seemed, perhaps, altogether consistent with his position and assumptions elsewhere, if these could have been produced here against him; and in a manner, perhaps, somewhat more decided than the general philosophic tone, and the spirit of those large and peaceful designs to which he was chiefly devoted, might have led us to anticipate. This Play was evidently written at a time when the conviction that the state of things which it represents could not endure much longer, had taken deep hold of the Poet's mind; at a time when those evils had attained a height so unendurable—when that evil which lay at the heart of the commonweal, poisoning all the social relations with its infection, had grown so fearful, that it might well seem, even to the scientific mind, to require the fierce 'drug' of the political revolution,—so fearful as to make, even to such a mind, the rude surgery of the civil wars at last welcome.
For, indeed, it cannot be denied that the state of things which this Play represents, is that with which the author's own experience was conversant; and that all the terrible tragic satire of it, points—not to that age in the history of Britain in which the Druids were still responsible for the national culture,—not to that time when the Celtic Triads, clothed with the sanctities of an unknown past, still made the standard works and authorities in learning, beyond which there was no going,—not to the time when the national morality was still mystically produced at Stonehenge, in those national colleges, from whose mysterious rites the awful sanctities of the oak and the mistletoe drove back in confusion the sacrilegious inquirer,—not to that time, but to the Elizabethan.
That instinctive groping and stumbling in all human affairs, that pursuit of human ends without any science of the natures to be superinduced, and without any science of the natures that were to be subjected,—those eyes of moonshine speculation, those glass eyes with which the scurvy politician affects to see the things he does not—those thousand noses that serve for eyes, and horns welked and waved like the enridged sea, and all the wild misery of that unlearned fortuitous human living, that waits to be scourged with the sequent effect, and knows not how to ascend to the cause—colossally exaggerated as it seems here—heightened everywhere, as if the Poet had put forth his whole power, and strained his imagination, and availed himself of his utmost poetic license, to give it, through all its details, its last conceivable hue of violence, its pure ideal shape, is, after all, but a copy an historical sketch. The ignorance, the stupidity, 'the blindness,' that this author paints, was his own 'Time's plague'; 'the madness' that 'led it,' was the madness of which he was himself a mute and manacled spectator.
By some singular oversight or caprice of tyranny, or on account of some fastidious scruple of the imagination perhaps, it does not appear, indeed, to have been the fashion, either in the reigns of the Tudors or the Stuarts, to pluck out the living human eye as Gloster's eyes were plucked out; and that of itself would have furnished a reason why this poor duke should have been compelled to submit to that particular operation, instead of presenting himself to have his ears cut off in a sober, decent, civilized, Christian manner; or to have them grubbed out, if it happened that the operation had been once performed already; or to have his hand cut off, or his head, with his eyes in it; or to be roasted alive some noon-day in the public square, eyes and all, as many an honest gentleman was expected to present himself in those times, without making any particular demur or fuss about it. These were operations that Englishmen of every rank and profession, soldiers, scholars, poets, philosophers, lawyers, physicians, and grave and reverend divines, were called on to undergo in those times, and for that identical offence of which the Duke of Gloster stood convicted, opposition to the will of a lawless usurping tyranny,—to its merest caprice of vanity or humour, perhaps,—or on grounds slighter still, on bare suspicion of a disposition to oppose it.
But then that, of course, was a thing of custom; so much so, that the victims themselves often took it in good part, and submitted to it as a divine institution, part of a sacred legacy, handed down to them, as it was understood, from their more enlightened ancestors.
Now, if the Poet, in pursuance of his more general philosophic intention, which involved a moving representation of the helplessness of the Social Monad—that bodily as well as moral susceptibility and fragility, which leaves him open to all kinds of personal injury, not from the elements and from animals of other species merely or chiefly, but chiefly from his own kind,—if the Poet, in the course of this exhibition, had caused poor Gloster to be held down in his chair on the stage, for the purpose of having his ears pared off, what kind of sensation could he hope to produce with that on the sensibility of an audience, who might have understood without a commentator an allusion to 'the tribulation of Tower Hill'—spectators accustomed to witness performances so much more thrilling, and on a stage where the Play was in earnest. And as to that second operation before referred to, which might have answered the poetic purpose, perhaps; who knows whether that may not have been a refinement in civilization peculiar to the reign of that amiable and handsome Christian Prince, who was still a minor when this Play was first brought out at Whitehall? for it was in his reign that that memorable instance of it occurred, which the subsequent events connected with it chanced to make so notorious. It was a learned and very conscientious lawyer, in the reign of Charles the First, whose criticism upon some of the fashionable amusements of the day, which certain members of the royal family were known to be fond of, occasioned the suggestion of this mode of satisfying the outraged Majesty of the State, when the prying eye of Government discovered, or thought it did, remains enough of those previously-condemned appendages on this author's person, to furnish material for a second operation. 'Methinks Mr. Prynne hath ears!' does not, after all, sound so very different from—'going to pluck out Gloster's other eye,' as that the governments under which these two speeches are reported, need to be distinguished, on that account only, by any such essential difference as that which is supposed to exist between the human and divine. Both these operations appear, indeed to the unprejudiced human mind, to savour somewhat of the diabolical—or of the Dark Ages, rather, and of the Prince of Darkness. And, indeed, that 'fiend' which haunts the Play—which the monster, with his moonshine eyes, appeared to have a vague idea of—seems to have been as busy here, in this department, as he was in bringing about poor Tom's distresses.
But in that steady persevering exhibition of the liabilities of individual human nature, the COMMON liabilities which throw it upon the COMMON, the distinctive law of humanity for its WEAL—in that continuous picture of the suffering and ignominy, and mutilation to which it is liable, moral and intellectual, as well as physical, where that law of humanity is not yet scientifically developed and scientifically sustained—the Poet does not always go quite so far to find his details. It is not from the Celtic Regan's time that he brings out those ancient implements of state authority into which the feet of the poor Duke of Kent, travelling on the king's errands, are ignominiously thrust; while the Poet, under cover of the Fool's jests, shows prettily their relation to the human dignity.
But then it is a Duke on whom this indignity is practised; for it is to be remarked, in passing, that though this Poet is evidently bent on making his exhibition a thorough one, though he is determined not to leave out anything of importance in his diagrams, he does not appear inclined to soil his fingers by meddling with the lower orders, or to countenance any innovation in his art in that respect. Whenever he has occasion to introduce persons of this class into his pieces, they come in and go out, and perform their part in his scene, very much as they do elsewhere in his time. Even when his Players come in, they do not speak many words on their own behalf. They stand civilly, and answer questions, and take their orders, and fulfil them. That is all that is looked for at their hands. For this is not a Poet who has ever given any one occasion in his own time, to distinguish him as the Poet of the People. It is always from the highest social point of observation that he takes those views of the lower ranks, which he has occasion to introduce into his Plays, from the mobs of 'greasy citizens' to the details of the sheep-shearing feast; and even in Eastcheap he keeps it still.
There never was a more aristocratic poet apparently, and though the very basest form of outcast misery 'that ever penury in contempt of man brought near to beast,' though the basest and most ignoble and pitiful human liabilities, are every where included in his plan; he will have nothing but the rich blood of dukes and kings to take him through with it—he will have nothing lower and less illustrious than these to play his parts for him.
It is a king to whom 'the Farm House,' where both fire and food are waiting, becomes a royal luxury on his return from the Hovel's door, brought in chattering out of the tempest, in that pitiful stage of human want, which had made him ready to share with Tom o' Bedlam, nay, with the swine, their rude comforts. 'Art cold? I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow. Your hovel:—come bring us to your hovel.'
It is a king who gets an ague in the storm, who finds the tyranny of the night too rough for nature to endure; it is a king on whose desolate outcast head, destitution and social wrongs accumulate their results, till his wits begin to turn, till his mind is shattered, and he comes on to the stage at last, a poor bedlamite.
Nay, 'Tom' himself, is a duke's son, we are told; though that circumstance does not hinder him from giving, with much frankness and scientific accuracy, the particulars of those personal pursuits, and tastes, and habits, incidental to that particular station in life to which it has pleased Providence to call him.
And so by means of that poetic order, which is the Providence of this piece, and that design which 'tunes the harmony of it,' it is a duke on whom that low correction, 'such as basest and most contemned wretches are punished with,' is exhibited, in spite of his indignant protest.
  Kent. Call not your stocks for me. I serve the king,
  On whose employment I was sent to you.
  You shall do small respect, show too bold malice
  Against the grace and person of my master,
  Stocking his messenger.
  Cornwall. Fetch forth the stocks.
  As I have life and honour, there shall he sit till noon.'
Regan. Till noon,—till night my lord, and all night too.
[In vain the prudent and loyal Gloster remonstrates]
      —The king must take it ill
  That he, so slightly valued in his messenger,
  Should have him thus restrained.
Cornwall. I'll answer that.
Regan. Put in his legs.
But then it must be confessed that the poet was not without some kind of precedent for this bold dramatic proceeding. He had, indeed, by means of the culture and diligent use of that gift of forethought, with which nature had so largely endowed him, been enabled thus far to keep his own person free from any such tangible encumbrance, though the 'lameness' with which fortune had afflicted him personally, is always his personal grievance; but he had seen in his own time, ancient men and reverend,—men who claimed to be the ministers of heaven, and travelling on its errands, arrested, and subjected to this ludicrous indignity: he had seen this open stop, this palpable, corporeal, unfigurative arrest put upon the activity of scholars and thinkers in his time, conscientious men, between whose master and the state, there was a growing quarrel then, a quarrel that these proceedings were not likely to pacify. From noon till night, they, too, had sat thus, and all night too, they had endured that shameful lodging.
'When a man is over lusty at legs,' says the Fool, who arrives in time to put in an observation or two on this topic, and who seems disposed to look at it from a critical point of view, concluding with the practical improvement of the subject, already quoted—'When a man is over lusty at legs'—(when his will, or his higher intelligence, perhaps, is allowed to govern them too freely,) 'he wears wooden nether stocks,' or 'cruel garters,' as he calls them again, by way of bestowing on this institution of his ancestors as much variety of poetic imagery as the subject will admit of. 'Horses are tied by the head, dogs and bears by the neck, monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs'; and having ransacked his memory to such good purpose, and produced such a pile of learned precedents, he appears disposed to rest the case with these; for it is a part of the play to get man into his place in the scale of nature, and to draw the line between him and the brutes, if there be any such thing possible; and the Fool seems to be particularly inclined to assist the author in this process, though when we last heard of him he was, indeed, proposing to send the principal man of his time 'to school to an ant,' to improve his sagacity; intimating, also, that another department of natural science, even conchology itself, might furnish him with some rather more prudent and fortunate suggestions than those which his own brain had appeared to generate; and it is to be remarked, that in his views on this point, as on some others of importance, he has the happiness to agree remarkably with that illustrious yoke-fellow of his in philosophy, who was just then turning his attention to the 'practic part of life' and its 'theoric,' and who indulges himself in some satires on this point not any less severe, though his pleasantries are somewhat more covert. But the philosopher on this occasion, having produced such a variety of precedents from natural history, appears to be satisfied with the propriety and justice of the proceeding, inasmuch as beasts and men seem to be treated with impartial consideration in it; and though a certain distinction of form appears to obtain according to the species, the main fact is throughout identical.
'Then comes the time,' he says, in winding up that knotted skein of prophecy, which he leaves for Merlin to disentangle, for 'he lives before his time,' as he takes that opportunity to tell us—
  'Then comes the time, who lives to see't,
  That going shall be used with feet.'
Yes, it is a duke who is put in the stocks; it is a duke's son plays the bedlamite; it is a king who finds the hovel's shelter 'precious'; and it is a queen—it is a king's wife, and a daughter of kings—who is hanged; nay more, it is Cordelia—it is Cordelia, and none other, whom this inexorable Poet, primed with mischief, bent on outrage, determined to turn out the heart of his time, and show, in the selectest form, the inmost lining of its lurking humanities—it is Cordelia whom he will hang—And we forgive him still, and bear with him in all these assaults on our taste—in all these thick-coming blows on our outraged sensibilities; we forgive him when at last the poetic design flashes on us,—when we come to understand the providence of this piece, at least,—when we come to see at last that there is a meaning in it all, a meaning deep to justify even this procedure.
'We are not the first who, with the best meaning, have incurred the worst,' says the captive queen herself; nor was she the last of that good company, as the Poet himself might have testified;—
Upon such sacrifices the gods themselves throw incense.
We forgive the Poet here, as we forgive him in all these other pitiful and revolting exhibitions, because we know that he who would undertake the time's cure—he who would undertake the relief of the human estate in any age, must probe its evil—must reach, no matter what it costs, its deadliest hollow.
And in that age, there was no voice which could afford to lack 'the courtier's glib and oily art.' 'Hanging was the word' then, for the qualities of which this princess was the impersonation, or almost the impersonation, so predominant were they in her poetic constitution. There was no voice, gentle and low enough, to speak outright such truth as hers; and 'banishment' and 'the stocks' would have been only too mild a remedy for 'the plainness' to which Kent declares, even to the teeth of majesty, 'honour's bound, when majesty stoops to folly.'
The kind, considerate Gloster, with all his loyalty to the powers which are able to show the divine right of possession, and with all his disposition to conform to the times, is greatly distressed and perplexed with the outrages which are perpetrated, as it were, under his own immediate sanction and authority. He has a hard struggle to reconcile his duty as the subject of a state which he is not prepared to overthrow, with his humane impulses and designs. He goes pattering about for a time, remonstrating, and apologizing, and trying 'to smooth down,' and 'hush up,' and mollify, and keep peace between the offending parties. He stands between the blunt, straightforward manliness of the honest Kent on the one hand, and the sycophantic servility and self-abnegation, which knows no will but the master's, as represented by the Steward, on the other.
'I am sorry for thee,' he says to Kent, after having sought in vain to prevent this outrage from being perpetrated in his own court—
  'I am sorry for thee, friend: tis the duke's pleasure,
  Whose disposition all the world well knows,
  Will not be rubbed or stopped'—
as he found to his cost, poor man, when he came to have his own eyes gouged out by it. He 'saw it feelingly' then, as he remarked himself.
'I'll entreat for thee,' he continues, in his conversation with the disguised duke in the stocks. 'The duke's to blame in this. 'Twill be ill taken.'
And when the king, on his arrival, kept waiting in the court, in his agony of indignation and grief, is told that Regan and Cornwall are 'sick,' 'they are weary,' 'they have travelled hard to-night,' denounces these subterfuges, and bids Gloster fetch him a better answer, this is the worthy man's reply to him—
                        'My dear lord,
  You know the fiery quality of the duke,
  How unremovable and fixed he is
  In his own course.'
But Lear, who has never had any but a subjective acquaintance hitherto with reasons of that kind, does not appear able to understand them from this point of view—
Lear. Vengeance! plague! death! confusion! Fiery?—what quality? Why Gloster, Gloster, I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.
Gloster. Well, my good lord, I have informed them so.
Lear. Informed them? Dost thou understand me?
Gloster. Ay, my good lord.
But though Gloster is not yet ready to break with tyranny, it is not difficult to see which way he secretly inclines; and though he still manages his impulses cautiously, and contrives to succour the oppressed king by stealth, his courage rises with the emergency, and grows bold with provocation. For he is himself one of the finer and finest proofs of the times which the Poet represents; one, however, which he keeps back a little, for the study of those who look at his work most carefully. This man stands here in the general, indeed, as the representative of a class of men who do not belong exclusively to this particular time—men who do not stand ready, as Kent and his class do, to fly in the face of tyranny at the first provocation; they are not the kind of men who 'make mouths,' as Hamlet says, 'at the invisible event;'—they are the kind who know beforehand that to break with the powers that are, single-handed, is to sit on the stage and have your eyes gouged out, or to undergo some process of mutilation and disfigurement, not the less painful and oppressive, by this Poet's own showing, because it does not happen, perhaps, to be a physical one, and not the less calculated, on that account, to impair one's usefulness to one's species, it may be.
But besides that more general bearing of the representation, the part and disposition of Gloster afford us from time to time, glimpses of persons and things which connect the representation more directly with the particular point here noted. Men who found themselves compelled to occupy a not less equivocal position in the state, look through it a little now and then; and here, as in other parts of the play, it only wants the right key to bring out suppressed historical passages, and a finer history generally, than the chronicles of the times were able to take up.
'Alack, alack, Edmund,' says Gloster to his natural son, making him the confidant of his nobler nature, putting what was then the perilous secret of his humanity, into the dangerous keeping of the base-born one—for this is the Poet's own interpretation of his plot; though Lear is allowed to intimate on his behalf, that the loves and relations which are recognised and good in courts of justice, are not always secured by that sanction from similar misfortune; that they are not secured by that from those penalties which great Nature herself awards in those courts in which her institutes are vindicated.
'Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not THIS UNNATURAL DEALING! When I desired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house, and charged me on pain of their perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor in any way to sustain him.'
Edmund. Most savage and unnatural.
Gloster. Go to, say you nothing.
[And say you nothing, my contemporary reader, if you perceive that this is one of those passages I have spoken of elsewhere, which carries with it another application besides that which I put it to].
'There is division between the dukes—and a worse matter than that: I have received a letter this night,—'tis dangerous to be spoken;—I have locked the letter in my closet: these injuries the king now bears, will be revenged at home' [softly—say you nothing]. 'There is part of a power already footed: we must incline to the king. I will seek him and privily relieve him. Go you and maintain talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him perceived. If he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed. If I die for it,—as no less is threatened me,—the king, my old master—MUST BE RELIEVED. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund. Pray you be careful.'
Even Edmund himself professes to be not altogether without some experience of the perplexity which the claims of apparently clashing duties, and relations in such a time creates, though he seems to have found an easy method of disposing of these questions. Nature is his goddess and his law (that is, as he uses the term, the baser nature, the degenerate, which is not nature for man, which is unnatural for the human kind), and in his own 'rat'-like fashion, 'he bites the holy cords atwain.'
'How, my lord,' he says, in the act of betraying his father's secret to the Duke of Cornwall, in the hope of 'drawing to himself what his father loses'—'how I may be censured that NATURE, thus gives way to LOYALTY, something fears me to think of.' And again, 'I will persevere in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood.'
'Know thou this,' he says afterwards, to the officer whom he employs to hang Cordelia, 'THAT MEN ARE AS THE TIME IS. Thy great employment will not bear question. About it, I say, instantly, and carry it so as I have set it down.' 'I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats,' is the officer's reply, who appears to be also in the poet's secret, and ready to aid his intention of carrying out the distinction between the human kind and the brute, 'I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats;—if it be MAN'S WORK I will do it.'
But it is the steward's part, as deliberately explained by Kent himself, which furnishes in detail the ideal antagonism of that which Kent sustains in the piece; for beside those active demonstrations of his disgust, which the poetic order tolerates in him, though some of the powers within appear to take such violent offence at it, besides these tangible demonstrations, and that elaborate criticism, which the poet puts into his mouth, in which the steward is openly treated as the representative of a class, who seem to the poet apparently, to require some treatment in his time, Kent himself is made to notice distinctly this literally striking opposition.
'No contraries hold more antipathy than I, and such a knave,' he says to Cornwall, by way of explaining his apparently gratuitous attack upon the steward.
No one, indeed, who reads the play with any care, can doubt the poet's intention to incorporate into it, for some reason or other, and to bring out by the strongest conceivable contrasts, his study of loyalty and service, and especially of regal counsel, and his criticism of it, as it stood in his time in its most approved patterns. 'Such smiling rouges as these' ('that bite the holy cords atwain').
    'Smooth every passion
  That in the nature of their lord rebels;
  Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;
  Revenge, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
  With every gale and vary of their masters,
  As knowing nought like dogs but—following.'
Such ruses as this would not, of course, be wanting in such a time as that in which this piece was planned, if Edmund's word was, indeed, the true one. 'Know thou this, men are as the time is.'
And even amidst the excitement and rough outrage of that scene—in which Gloster's trial is so summarily conducted, even in that so rude scene—the relation between the guest and his host, and the relation of the slave to his owner, is delicately and studiously touched, and the human claim in both is boldly advanced, in the face of an absolute authority, and age and personal dignity put in their claims also, and demand, even at such a moment, their full rights of reverence.
[Re-enter servants with GLOSTER.]
Regan. Ingrateful fox! 'tis he.
Cornwall. Bind fast his corky arms.
Gloster. What mean your graces?—Good my friends, consider. You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends.
Cornwall. Bind him, I say.
Regan. Hard, hard:—O filthy traitor!
Gloster. Unmerciful lady as you are, I am none.
Cornwall. To this chair bind him:—Villain, thou shalt find—[REGAN plucks his beard].
Gloster. By the KIND gods [for these are the gods, whose 'Commission' is sitting here]'tis most ignobly done, To pluck me by the beard.
Regan. So white, and such a traitor!
Gloster. Naughty lady, These hairs, which thou dost ravish from my chin, Will quicken and accuse thee. I am your host: With robber hands, my hospitable favours You should not ruffle thus.
Tied to the stake, questioned and cross-questioned, and insulted, finally, beyond even his faculty of endurance, he breaks forth, at last, in strains of indignation that overleap all arbitrary and conventional bounds, that are only the more terrible for having been so long suppressed. Kent himself, when he 'came between the dragon and his wrath,' was not so fierce.
Cornwall. Where hast thou sent the king?
Gloster. To Dover.
Regan. Wherefore To Dover, was't thou not charged at peril?—
Cornwall. Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that.
Regan. Wherefore to Dover?
Gloster. Because I would not see thy cruel nails Pluck out his poor old eyes, nor thy fierce sister In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.
…
Regan. One side will mock another; the other too.
Cornwall. If you 'see vengeance.'
Servant. Hold your hand, my lord: I have served you ever since I was a child; But better service have I never done you, Than now to bid you hold.
Regan. How now, you dog?
  Servant. If you did wear a beard upon your chin,
  I'd shake it on this quarrel: What do you mean?
[Arbitrary power called to an account, requested to explain itself.]
Cornwall. My villain!
Regan. A PEASANT stand up thus?
Thus too, indeed, in that rude scene above referred to, in which the king finds his messenger in the stocks, and Regan's door, too, shut against him, the same ground of criticism had already been revealed, the same delicacy and rigour in the exactions had already betrayed the depth of the poetic design, and the real comprehension of that law, whose violations are depicted here, the scientific law, the scientific sovereignty, the law of universal nature; commanding, in the human, that specific human excellence, for the degenerate movement is in violation of nature, that is not nature but her profanation and undoing.
This is one of those passages, however, which admit, as the modern reader will more easily observe than the contemporary of the Poet was likely to of a second reading.
Goneril. Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance From those that she calls servants, or from mine?
* * * * *
What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five, To follow in a house, where twice so many Have a command to tend you?
Regan. What need one?
Lear. O reason not the need: our basest beggars Are in the poorest things superfluous.
[Poor Tom must have his 'rubans.']
  Allow not NATURE more than NATURE needs,
  MAN'S LIFE were cheap as BEASTS [and that's not nature]
  Thou art a lady;
  If only to go warm were gorgeous,
  Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st,
  Which scarcely keeps thee warm.—But, for TRUE NEED,
  You heavens, give me THAT patience.—Patience I need.
It is, indeed, the doctrine of the 'true need' that is lurking here, and all that puts man into his true place and relations in the creative order, whether of submission or control is included in it. It is the doctrine of the natural human need, and the natural ground and limits of the arts, for which nature has endowed man beforehand, with a faculty and a sentiment corresponding in grandeur to his need,—large as he is little, noble as he is mean, powerful as he is helpless, felicitous as he is wretched; the faculty and the sentiment whereby the want of man becomes the measure of his wealth and grandeur,—whereby his conscious lowness becomes the means of his ascent to his ideal type in nature, and to the scientific perfection of his form.
And this whole social picture,—rude, savage as it is,—savage as it shews when its sharp outline falls on that fair ideal ground of criticism which the doctrine of a scientific civilization creates,—is but the Poet's report of the progress of human development as it stood in his time, and of the gain that it had made on savage instinct then. It is his report of the social institutions of his time, as he found them on his map of human advancement. It is his report of the wild social misery that was crying underneath them, with its burthen of new advancements. It is the Poet's Apology for his new doctrine of human living, which he is going to publish, and leave on the earth, for 'the times that are far off.' It is the negative, which is the first step towards that affirmation, which he is going to establish on the earth for ever, or so long as the species, whose law he has found, endures on it. Down to its most revolting, most atrocious detail, it is still the Elizabethan civility that is painted here. Even Goneril's unscrupulous mode of disposing of her rival sister, though that was the kind of murder which was then regarded with the profoundest disgust and horror—(the queen in Cymbeline expresses that vivid sentiment, when she says: 'If Pisanio have given his mistress that confection which I gave him for a cordial, she is served as I would serve a rat')—even as to that we all know what a king's favourite felt himself competent to undertake then; and, if the clearest intimations of such men as Bacon, and Coke, and Raleigh, on such a question, are of any worth, the household of James the First was not without a parallel even for that performance, if not when this play was written, when it was published.
It is all one picture of social ignorance, and misery, and frantic misrule. It is a faithful exhibition of the degree of personal security which a man of honourable sentiments, and humane and noble intentions, could promise himself in such a time. It shows what chance there was of any man being permitted to sustain an honourable and intelligent part in the world, in an age in which all the radical social arts were yet wanting, in which the rude institutions of an ignorant past spontaneously built up, without any science of the natural laws, were vainly seeking to curb and quench the Incarnate soul of new ages,—the spirit of a scientific human advancement; and, when all the common welfare was still openly intrusted to the unchecked caprice and passion of one selfish, pitiful, narrow, low-minded man.
To appreciate fully the incidental and immediate political application of the piece, however, it is necessary to observe that notwithstanding that studious exhibition of lawless and outrageous power, which it involves, it is, after all, we are given to understand, by a quiet intimation here and there, a limited monarchy which is put upon the stage here. It is a constitutional government, very much in the Elizabethan stage of development, as it would seem, which these arbitrary rulers affect to be administering. It is a government which professes to be one of law, under which the atrocities of this piece are sheltered.
And one may even note, in passing, that that high Judicial Court, in which poor Lear undertakes to get his cause tried, appears to have, somehow, an extremely modern air, considering what age of the British history it was, in which it was supposed to be constituted, and considering that one of the wigs appointed to that Bench had to leave his speech behind him for Merlin to make, in consequence of living before his time: at all events it is already tinctured with some of the more notorious Elizabethan vices—vices which our Poet, not content with this exposition, contrived to get exposed in another manner, and to some purpose, ere all was done.
Lear. It shall be done, I will arraign them straight! Come, sit thou here, most learned Justice.
[To the BEDLAMITE_.]
Thou, sapient Sir, sit here. [To the FOOL.]
And again,—
  I'll see their trial first. Bring in the evidence.
  Thou robed MAN of JUSTICE take thy place.
[To TOM O'BEDLAM.]
And thou, his yoke fellow of EQUITY bench by his side.
[To the FOOL.]
You are of 'the Commission'—sit you too.
[To KENT.]
Truly it was a bold wit that could undertake to constitute that bench on the stage, and fill it with those speaking forms,—speaking to the eye the unmistakeable significance, for these judges, two of them, happened to be on the spot in full costume,—and as to the third, he was of 'the commission.' 'Sit you, too.' Truly it was a bold instructor that could undertake 'to facilitate' the demonstration of 'the more chosen subjects,' with the aid of diagrams of this kind.
Arms! Arms! Sword, fire! CORRUPTION IN THE PLACE! False justicer, why hast thou let her scape?
The tongues of these ancient sovereigns of Britain, 'tang' throughout with Elizabethan 'arguments of state,' and even Goneril, in her somewhat severe proceedings against her father, justifies her course in a very grave and excellent speech, enriched with the choicest phrases of that particular order of state eloquence, in which majesty stoops graciously to a recognition of the subject nation;—a speech from which we gather that the 'tender of a wholesome weal' is, on the whole, the thing which she has at heart most deeply, and though the proceeding in question is a painful one to her feelings, a state necessity appears to prescribe it, or at least, render it 'discreet.'
Even in Gloster's case, though the process to which he is subjected, is, confessedly, an extemporaneous one, it appears from the Duke of Cornwall's statement, that it was only the form which was wanting to make it legal. Thus he apologizes for it.—
  Though well we may not pass upon his life
  Without the form of justice, yet our power
  Shall do a courtesy to our wrath, which men
  May blame, but not control.
Goneril, however, grows bolder at the last, and says outright, 'Say if I do, the laws are mine NOT THINE.' But it is the law which is thine and mine, it is the law which is for Tom o' Bedlam and for thee, that great nature speaking at last through her interpreter, and explaining all this wild scene, will have vindicated.
Most MONSTROUS, exclaims her illustrious consort; but at the close of the play, where so much of the meaning sometimes comes out in a word, he himself concedes that the government which has just devolved upon him is an absolute monarchy.
'For us,' he says, 'WE WILL RESIGN, during the life of this old
Majesty, OUR ABSOLUTE POWER.'
So that there seems to have been, in fact,—in the minds, too, of persons who ought, one would say, to have been best informed on this subject,—just that vague, uncertain, contradictory view of this important question, which appears to have obtained in the English state, during the period in which the material of this poetic criticism was getting slowly accumulated. But of course this play, so full of the consequences of arbitrary power, so full of Elizabethan politics, with its 'ear-kissing arguments,' could not well end, till that word, too, had been spoken outright; and, in the Duke of Albany's resignation, it slips in at last so quietly, so properly, that no one perceives that it is not there by accident.
This, then, is what the play contains; but those that follow the story and the superficial plot only, must, of course, lose track of the interior identities. It does not occur to these that the Poet is occupied with principles, and that the change of persons does not, in the least, confound his pursuit of them.
The fact that tyranny is in one act, or in one scene, represented by Lear, and in the next by his daughters;—the fact that the king and the father is in one act the tyrant, and in another, the victim of tyranny, is quite enough to confound the criticism to which a work of mere amusement is subjected; for it serves to disguise the philosophic purport, by dividing it on the surface: and the dangerous passages are all opposed and neutralised, for those who look at it only as a piece of dramatized, poetic history.
For this is a philosopher who prefers to handle his principles in their natural, historical combinations, in those modified unions of opposites, those complex wholes, which nature so stedfastly inclines to, instead of exhibiting them scientifically bottled up and labelled, in a state of fierce chemical abstraction.
His characters are not like the characters in the old 'Moralities,' which he found on the stage when he first began to turn his attention to it, mere impersonations of certain vague, loose, popular notions. Those sickly, meagre forms would not answer his purpose. It was necessary that the actors in the New Moralities he was getting up so quietly, should have some speculation in their eyes, some blood in their veins, a kind of blood that had never got manufactured in the Poet's laboratory till then. His characters, no matter how strong the predominating trait, though 'the conspicuous instance' of it be selected, have all the rich quality, the tempered and subtle power of nature's own compositions. The expectation, the interest, the surprise of life and history, waits, with its charm on all their speech and doing.
The whole play tells, indeed, its own story, and scarcely needs interpreting, when once the spectator has gained the true dramatic stand-point; when once he understands that there is a teacher here,—a new one,—one who will not undertake to work with the instrumentalities that his time offered to him, who begins by rejecting the abstractions which lie at the foundation of all the learning of his time, which are not scientific, but vague, loose, popular notions, that have been collected without art, or scientific rule of rejection, and are, therefore, inefficacious in nature, and unavailable for 'the art and practic part of life;' a teacher who will build up his philosophy anew, from the beginning, a teacher who will begin with history and particulars, who will abstract his definitions from nature, and have powers of them, and not words only, and make them the basis of his science and the material and instrument of his reform. 'I will teach you differences,' says Kent to the steward, alluding on the part of his author, for he does not profess to be metaphysical himself to another kind of distinction, than that which obtained in the schools; and accompanying the remark, on his own part, with some practical demonstrations, which did not appear to be taken in good part at all by the person he was at such pains to instruct in his doctrine of distinctions.
The reader who has once gained this clue, the clue which the question of design and authorship involves, will find this play, as he will find, indeed, all this author's plays, overflowing every where with the scientific statement,—the finest abstract statement of that which the action, with its moving, storming, laughing, weeping, praying diagrams, sets forth in the concrete.
But he who has not yet gained this point,—the critic who looks at it from the point of observation which the traditionary theory of its origin and intent creates, is not in a position to notice the philosophic expositions of its purport, with which the action is all inwoven. No,—though the whole structure of the piece should manifestly hang on them, though the whole flow of the dialogue should make one tissue of them, though every interstice of the play should be filled with them, though the fool's jest, and the Bedlamite's gibberish, should point and flash with them at every turn;—though the wildest incoherence of madness, real or assumed, to its most dubious hummings,—its snatches of old ballads, and inarticulate mockings of the blast, should be strung and woven with them; though the storm itself, with its wild accompaniment, and demoniacal frenzies, should articulate its response to them;—keeping open tune without, to that human uproar; and howling symphonies, to the unconquered demoniacal forces of human life,—for it is the Poet who writes in 'the storm continues,'—'the storm continues,'—'the storm continues;'—though even Edmund's diabolical 'fa, sol, lah, mi,' should dissolve into harmony with them, while Tom's five fiends echo it from afar, and 'mop and mow' their responses, down to the one that 'since possesses chambermaids;' nobody that takes the play theory, and makes a matter of faith of it merely; nobody that is willing to shut his eyes and open his mouth, and swallow the whole upon trust, as a miracle simply, is going to see anything in all this, or take any exceptions at it.
Certainly, at the time when it was written, it was not the kind of learning and the kind of philosophy that the world was used to. Nobody had ever heard of such a thing. The memory of man could not go far enough to produce any parallel to it in letters. It was manifest that this was nature, the living nature, the thing itself. None could perceive the tint of the school on its robust creations; no eye could detect in its sturdy compositions the stuff that books were made of; and it required no effort of faith, therefore, to believe that it was not that. It was easy enough to believe, and men were glad, on the whole, to believe that it was not that—that it was not learning or philosophy—but something just as far from that, as completely its opposite, as could well be conceived of.
How could men suspect, as yet, that this was the new scholasticism, the New Philosophy? Was it strange that they should mistake it for rude nature herself, in her unschooled, spontaneous strength, when it had not yet publicly transpired that something had come at last upon the stage of human development, which was stooping to nature and learning of her, and stealing her secret, and unwinding the clue to the heart of her mystery? How could men know that this was the subtlest philosophy, the ripest scholasticism, the last proof of all human learning, when it was still a secret that the school of nature and her laws, that the school of natural history and natural philosophy, too, through all its lengths and breadths and depths, was open; and that 'the schools'—the schools of old chimeras and notions—the schools where the jangle of the monkish abstractions and the 'fifes and the trumpets of the Greeks' were sounding—were going to get shut up with it.
How should they know that the teacher of the New Philosophy was Poet also—must be, by that same anointing, a singer, mighty as the sons of song who brought their harmonies of old into the savage earth—a singer able to sing down antiquities with his new gift, able to sing in new eras?
But these have no clue as yet to track him with: they cannot collect or thread his thick-showered meanings. He does not care through how many mouths he draws the lines of his philosophic purpose. He does not care from what long distances his meanings look towards each other. But these interpreters are not aware of that. They have not been informed of that particular. On the contrary, they have been put wholly off their guard. Their heads have been turned, deliberately, in just the opposite direction. They have no faintest hint beforehand of the depths in which the philosophic unities of the piece are hidden: it is not strange, therefore, that these unities should escape their notice, and that they should take it for granted that there are none in it. It is not the mere play-reader who is ever going to see them. It will take the philosophic student, with all his clues, to master them. It will take the student of the New School and the New Ages, with the torch of Natural Science in his hand, to track them to their centre.
Here, too, as elsewhere, it is the king himself on whom the bolder political expositions are thrust. But it is not his royalty only that has need to be put in requisition here, to bring out successfully all that was working then in this Poet's mind and heart, and which had to come out in some way. It was something more than royalty that was required to protect this philosopher in those astounding freedoms of speech in which he indulges himself here, without any apparent scruple or misgiving. The combination of distresses, indeed, which the old ballad accumulates on the poor king's head, offers from the first a large poetic license, of which the man of art—or 'prudence,' as he calls it—avails himself somewhat liberally.
With those daughters in the foreground always, and the parental grief so wild and loud—with that deeper, deadlier, infinitely more cruel private social wrong interwoven with all the political representation, and overpowering it everywhere, as if that inner social evil were, after all, foremost in the Poet's thought—as if that were the thing which seemed crying to him for redress more than all the rest—if, indeed, any thought of 'giving losses their remedies' could cross a Player's dream, when, in the way of his profession, 'the enormous state' came in to fill his scene, and open its subterranean depths, and let out its secrets, and drown the stage with its elemental horror;—with his daughters in the foreground, and all that magnificent accompaniment of the elemental war without—with all nature in that terrific uproar, and the Fool and the Madman to create a diversion, and his friends all about him to hush up and make the best of everything—with that great storm of pathos that the Magician is bringing down for him—with the stage all in tears, by their own confession, and the audience sobbing their responses—what the poor king might say between his chattering teeth was not going to be very critically treated; and the Poet knew it. It was the king, in such circumstances, who could undertake the philosophical expositions of the action; and in his wildest bursts of grief he has to manage them, in his wildest bursts of grief he has to keep to them.
But it is not until long afterwards, when the storm, and all the misery of that night, has had its ultimate effect—its chronic effect—upon him, that the Poet ventures to produce, under cover of the sensation which the presence of a mad king on the stage creates, precisely that exposition of the scene which has been, here, insisted on.
'They flattered me like a dog; they told me I had white hairs in my beard, ere the black ones were there. To say Ay and No to everything I said!—Ay and No too was no good DIVINITY. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind made me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding,—there I found them, there I smelt them out. Go to, they are not men of their words. They told me I was everything: 'tis a lie. I am not ague-proof.'
Gloster. The trick of that voice I do well remember:
Is't not THE KING?
Lear. Ay, every inch a King:
When I do stare, see, how the subject quakes.
But it is a subject he has conjured up from his brain that is quaking under his regal stare. And it is the impersonation of God's authority, it is the divine right to rule men at its pleasure, with or without laws, as it sees fit, that stands there, tricked out like Tom o'Bedlam, with A CROWN of noisome weeds on its head, arguing the question of the day, taking up for the divine right, defining its own position:—
Is't not the king?
Ay every inch a king:
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.
See; yes, see. For that is what he stands there for, or that you may see what it is at whose stare the subject quakes. He is there to 'represent to the eye,' because impressions on the senses are more effective than abstract statements, the divine right and sovereignty, the majesty of the COMMON-weal, the rule that protects each helpless individual member of it with the strength of all, the rule awful with great nature's sanction, enforced with her dire pains and penalties. He is there that you may see whether that is it, or not; that one poor wretch, that thing of pity, which has no power to protect itself, in whom the law itself, the sovereignty of reason, is dethroned. That was, what all men thought it was, when this play was written; for the madness of arbitrary power, the impersonated will and passion, was the state then. That is the spontaneous affirmation of rude ages, on this noblest subject,—this chosen subject of the new philosophy,—which stands there now to facilitate the demonstration, 'as globes and machines do the more subtle demonstrations in mathematics.' It is the 'affirmation' which the Poet finds pre-occupying this question; but this is the table of review that he stands on, and this 'Instance' has been subjected to the philosophical tests, and that is the reason that all those dazzling externals of majesty, which make that 'IDOL CEREMONY' are wanting here; that is the reason that his crown has turned to weeds. This is the popular affirmative the Poet is dealing with; but it stands on the scientific 'Table of Review,' and the result of this inquiry is, that it goes to 'the table of NEGATIONS.' And the negative table of science in these questions is Tragedy, the World's Tragedy. 'Is't not the king?' 'Ay, every inch—a King. When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.' But the voice within overpowers him, and the axioms that are the vintage of science, the inductions which are the result of that experiment, are forced from his lips. 'To say ay and no to everything that I—that I—said! To say ay and no too, was no GOOD DIVINITY. They told me that I was everything. 'T IS A LIE. I am not ague proof.' 'T is A LIE'—that is, what is called in other places a 'negative.'
In this systematic exposure of 'the particular and private nature' in the human kind, and those SPECIAL susceptibilities and liabilities which qualify its relationships; in this scientific exhibition of its special liability to suffering from the violation of the higher law of those relationships—its special liability to injury, moral, mental, and physical—a liability from which the very one who usurps the place of that law has himself no exemption in this exhibition,— which requires that the king himself should represent that liability in chief—it was not to be expected that this particular ill, this ill in which the human wrong in its extreme capes is so wont to exhibit its consummations, should be omitted. In this exhibition, which was designed to be scientifically inclusive, it would have been a fault to omit it. But that the Poet should have dared to think of exhibiting it dramatically in this instance, and that, too, in its most hopeless form—that he should have dared to think of exhibiting the personality which was then 'the state' to the eye of 'the subject' labouring under that personal disability, in the very act, too, of boasting of its kingly terrors—this only goes to show what large prerogatives, what boundless freedoms and immunities, the resources of this particular department of art could be made to yield, when it fell into the hands of the new Masters of Arts, when it came to be selected by the Art-king himself as his instrument.
But we are prepared for this spectacle, and with the Poet's wonted skill; for it is Cordelia, her heart bursting with its stormy passion of filial love and grief, that, REBEL-LIKE, seeks to be QUEEN o'er her, though she queens it still, and 'the smiles on her ripe lips seem not to know what tears are in her eyes,' for she has had her hour with her subject grief, and 'dealt with it alone,'—it is this child of truth and duty, this true Queen, this impersonated sovereignty, whom her Poet crowns with his choicest graces, on whom he devolves the task of prefacing this so critical, and, one might think, perhaps, perilous exhibition. But her description does not disguise the matter, or palliate its extremity.
  'Why, he was met even now,
  Mad as the vexed sea, singing aloud;'
Crowned—.
  'Crowned with rank fumiter, and furrow weeds,
  With hardocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckow flowers,
  Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
  In our sustaining corn.'
That is the crown; and a very extraordinary symbol of sovereignty it is, one cannot help thinking, for the divine right to get on its head by any accident just then. Surely that symbol of power is getting somewhat rudely handled here, in the course of the movements which the 'necessary questions of this Play' involve, as the critical mind might begin to think. In the botanical analysis of that then so dazzling, and potent, and compelling instrument in human affairs, a very careful observer might perhaps take notice that the decidedly hurtful and noxious influences in nature appear to have a prominent place; and, for the rest, that the qualities of wildness and idleness, and encroaching good-for-nothingness, appear to be the common and predominating elements. It is when the Tragedy reaches its height that this crown comes out.
A hundred men are sent out to pursue this majesty; not now to wait on him in idle ceremony, and to give him the 'addition of a king'; but—to catch him—to search every acre in the high-grown field, and bring him in. He has evaded his pursuers: he comes on to the stage full of self-congratulation and royal glee, chuckling over his prerogative:—
'No; they cannot touch me for COINING. I am the king himself.'
'O thou side-piercing sight!' [Collateral meaning.]
'Nature's above Art in that respect.' ['So o'er that art which you say adds to nature, is an art that Nature makes.'] 'There's your press money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw me a clothier's yard.—Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace; this piece of toasted cheese will do't.—There's my gauntlet; I'll prove it on a giant_.'
But the messengers, who were sent out for him, are on his track.
Enter a Gentleman, with Attendants.
Gent. O here he is, lay hand upon him. Sir, Your most dear daughter—
Lear. No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even The natural fool of fortune! Use me well; You shall have ransom. Let me have a surgeon, I am cut to the brains.
Gent. You shall have anything.
Lear. No seconds? All myself?
Gent. Good Sir,—
Lear. I will die bravely, like a bridegroom: What? I will be jovial. Come, come; I am a king, My masters; know you that?
Gent. You are, a royal one, and we obey you.
Lear. Then there's life in it. Nay, an you get it, you shall get it by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa. [Exit, running; Attendants FOLLOW.] ['Transient hieroglyphic.']
Gent. A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch; Past speaking of, in A KING!
[not past exhibiting, it seems, however.]
But, of course, there was nothing that a king, whose mind was in such a state, could not be permitted to say with impunity; and it is in this very scene that the Poet puts into his mouth the boldest of those philosophical suggestions which the first attempt to find a theory for the art and practical part of life, gave birth to: he skilfully reserves for this scene some of the most startling of those social criticisms which the action this play is everywhere throwing out.
For it is in this scene, that the outcast king encounters the victim of tyranny, whose eyes have been plucked out, and who has been turned out to beggary, as the penalty of having come athwart that disposition in 'the duke,' that 'all the world well knows will not be rubbed or stopped';—it is in this scene that Lear finds him smelling his way to Dover, for that is the name in the play—the play name—for the place towards which men's hopes appear to be turning; and that conversation as to how the world goes, to which allusion has been already made, comes off, without appearing to suggest to any mind, that it is other than accidental on the part of the Poet, or that the action of the play might possibly be connected with it! For notwithstanding this great stress, which he lays everywhere on forethought and a deliberative rational intelligent procedure, as the distinctive human mark,—the characteristic feature of a man,—the poor poet himself, does not appear to have gained much credit hitherto for the possession of this human quality.—
Lear. Thou seest how this world goes?
Gloster. I see it feelingly.
Lear. What, art mad?—
[have you not the use of your reason, then? Can you not see with that? That is the kind of sight we talk of here. It's the want of that which makes these falls. We have eyes with which to foresee effects,—eyes which outgo all the senses with their range of observation, with their range of certainty and foresight.]
'What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine—ears: see how yon justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: Change places, and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, and which is THE THIEF?' [Searching social questions, as before. 'Thou robed man of justice (to the Bedlamite), take thy place; and thou, his yoke-fellow of equity (to the Fool), bench by his side. Thou, sapient sir, sit here.']
So that it would seem, perhaps, as if wisdom, as well as honesty, might be wanting there—the searching subtle wisdom, that is matched in subtlety, with nature's forces, that sees true differences, and effects true reformations. 'Change places. Hark, in thine ear.' Truly this is a player who knows how to suit the word to the action, and the action to the word; for there has been a revolution going on in this play which has made as complete a social overturning—which has shaken kings, and dukes, and lordlings out of their 'places,' as completely as some later revolutions have done. 'Change places!' With one duke in the stocks, and another wandering blind in the streets—with a dukeling, in the form of mad Tom, to lead him, with a king in a hovel, calling for the straw, and a queen hung by the neck till she is dead—with mad Tom on the bench, and the Fool, with his cap and bells, at his side—with Tom at the council-table, and occupying the position of chief favourite and adviser to the king, and a distinct proposal now that the thief and the justice shall change places on the spot—with the inquiry as to which is the justice, and which is the thief, openly started—one would almost fancy that the subject had been exhausted here, or would be, if these indications should be followed up. What is it in the way of social alterations which the player's imagination could conceive of, which his scruples have prevented him from suggesting here?
But the mad king goes on with those new and unheard-of political and social suggestions, which his madness appears to have had the effect of inspiring in him—
Lear. Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar?
Gloster. Ay, sir.
  Lear. And the creature run from the cur? There might'st thou
  behold the great image of AUTHORITY: a dog's obeyed in office.
  Through tattered robes small vices do appear;
  Robes, and furred gowns, hide all.
    [Robes,—robes, and furred gowns!]
                               Plate sin with gold,
  And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
  Arm it with rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.
But that was before Tom got his seat on the bench—that was before Tom got his place at the council-table.
'None does offend,—none—'
[unless you will begin your reform at the beginning, and hunt down the great rogues as well as the little ones; or, rather, unless you will go to the source of the evil, and take away the evils, of which these crimes, that you are awarding penalties to, are the result, let it all alone, I say. Let's have no more legislation, and no more of this JUSTICE, this EQUITY, that takes the vices which come through the tattered robes, and leaves the great thief in his purple untouched. Let us have no more of this mockery. Let us be impartial in our justice, at least.] 'None does offend. I say none. I'll able 'em.' [I'll show you the way. Soft. Hark, in thine ear.] 'Take that of me, my friend, who have the power TO SEAL THE ACCUSER'S LIPS.' [Soft, in thine ear.]—
                  'Get thee glass eyes,
  And like a scurvy politician, seem
  To see the things thou dost not.—Now, now, now, NOW.
       * * * * *
  I know thee well enough. Thy name is—Gloster.
  Thou must be patient; we came crying hither.
  Thou know'st the first time that we smell the air
  We wawl and cry. I will preach to thee; mark me.
Gloster. Alack, alack, the day!
  Lear. When we are born, we cry that we are come
  To this great stage of—Fools.
  [Mark me, for I preach to thee—of Fools.
  I am even the natural fool of fortune.]
  —'O matter and impertinency, mixed
  Reason in madness.'—
—is the Poet's concluding comment on this regal boldness, a safe and saving explanation; 'for to define true madness,' as Polonius says, 'what is it but to be nothing else but mad.' If the 'all licensed fool,' as Goneril peevishly calls him, under cover of his assumed imbecility, could carry his traditional privilege to such dangerous extremes, and carp and philosophize, and fling his bitter jests about at his pleasure, surely downright madness might claim to be invested with a privilege as large. But madness, when conjoined with royalty, makes a double privilege, one which this Poet finds, however, at times, none too large for his purposes.
Thus, Hamlet, when his mind is once in a questionable state, can be permitted to make, with impunity, profane suggestions as to certain possible royal progresses, and the changes to which the dust of a Cæsar might be liable, without being reminded out of the play, that to follow out these suggestions 'would be' indeed, 'to consider too curiously,' and that most extraordinary humour of his enables him also to relieve his mind of many other suggestions, 'which reason and sanity,' in his time, could not have been 'so prosperously delivered of.'
For what is it that men can set up as a test of sanity in any age, but their own common beliefs and sentiments. And what surer proof of the king's madness,—what more pathetic indication of its midsummer height could be given, than those startling propositions which the poet here puts into his mouth, so opposed to the opinions and sentiments, not of kings only, but of the world at large; what madder thing could a poet think of than those political axioms which he introduces under cover of these suggestions,—which would lay the axe at the root of the common beliefs and sentiments on which the social structure then rested. How could he better show that this poor king's wits had, indeed, 'turned;' how could he better prove that he was, indeed, past praying for, than by putting into his mouth those bitter satires on the state, those satires on the 'one only man' power itself,—those wild revolutionary proposals, 'hark! in thine ear,—change places. Softly, in thine ear,— which is the JUSTICE, and which is THE THIEF?' 'Take that of me who have the power to seal the accuser's lips. None does offend. I say none. I'll able 'em. Look when I stare, see how the subject quakes.' These laws have failed, you see. They shelter the most frightful depths of wrong. That Bench has failed, you see; and that Chair, with all its adjunct divinity. Come here and look down with me from this pinnacle, into these abysses. Look at that wretch there, in the form of man. Fetch him up in his blanket, and set him at the Council Table with his elf locks and begrimed visage and inhuman gibberish. Perhaps, he will be able to make some suggestion there; and those five fiends that are talking in him at once, would like, perhaps, to have a hearing there. Make him 'one of your hundred.' You are of 'the commission,' let him bench with you. Nay, change places, let him try your cause, and tell us which is the justice, which is the thief, which is the sapient Sir, and which is the Bedlamite. Surely, the man who authorizes these suggestions must be, indeed, 'far gone,' whether he be 'a king or a yeoman.' And mad indeed he is. Writhing under the insufficiency and incompetency of these pretentious, but, in fact, ignorant and usurping institutions, his heart of hearts racked and crushed with their failure, the victim of this social empiricism, cries out in his anguish, under that safe disguise of the Robes that hide all: 'Take these away at least,—that will be something gained. Let us have no more of this mockery. None does offend—none—I say none.' Let us go back to the innocent instinctive brutish state, and have done with this vain disastrous struggle of nature after the human form, and its dignity, and perfection. Let us talk no more of law and justice and humanity and DIVINITY forsooth, divinity and the celestial graces, that divinity which is the end and perfection of the human form.—Is not womanhood itself, and the Angel of it fallen—degenerate?—That is the humour of it.—That is the meaning of the savage edicts, in which this human victim of the inhuman state, the subject of a social state which has failed in some way of the human end, undertakes to utter through the king's lips, his sense of the failure. For the Poet at whose command he speaks, is the true scientific historian of nature and art, and the rude and struggling advances of the human nature towards its ideal type, though they fall never so short, are none of them omitted in his note-book. He knows better than any other, what gain the imperfect civilization he searches and satirizes and lays bare here, has made, with all its imperfections, on the spontaneities and aids of the individual, unaccommodated man: he knows all the value of the accumulations of ages; he is the very philosopher who has put forth all his wisdom to guard the state from the shock of those convulsions, that to his prescient eye, were threatening then to lay all flat.
'O let him pass!' is the Poet's word, when the loving friends seek to detain a little longer, the soul on whom this cruel time has done its work,—its elected sufferer.
  'O let him pass! he hates him
  That would upon the rack of this tough world,
  Stretch him out longer.'
  [Tired with all these, he cries in his own behalf.]
  'Tired with all these, for restful death I cry.
  Thou seest how this world goes. I see it feelingly.'
Albany. The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak WHAT WE FEEL, not what we ought to say, The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
It needs but a point, a point which the Poet could not well put in,—one of those points which he speaks of elsewhere so significantly, to make the unmeaning line with which this great social Tragedy concludes, a sufficiently fitting conclusion to it; considering, at least, the pressure under which it was written; and the author has himself called our attention to that, as we see, even in this little jingle of rhymes, put in apparently, only for professional purposes, and merely to get the curtain down decently. It is a point, which it takes the key of the play—Lord Bacon's key, of 'Times,' to put in. It wants but a comma, but then it must be a comma in the right place, to make English of it. Plain English, unvarnished English, but poetic in its fact, as any prophecy that Merlin was to make.
  'The oldest hath borne most, we that are young
  Shall never see so much, nor live so long.'
There were boys 'in England then a-bed;' nay, some of them might have been present that day, for aught we know, on which one of the Managers of the Surrey Theatre, the owner of the wardrobe and stage-properties, and himself an actor, brought out with appropriate decorations and dresses, for the benefit of his audience on the Bankside, this little ebullition of his genius;—there were boys present then, perhaps, whose names would become immortal with the fulfilment of that prophecy;—there was one at Whitehall, when it was brought out there, whose name would be for ever linked with it. 'We that are young,—the oldest hath borne most. We that are young shall never see so much' [I see it feelingly],
'Shall never see so much, nor live so long.'
So.
But there were evils included in that tragic picture, which those who were young then, would not outlive; evils which the times that were near with their coarse, fierce remedies, would not heal; evils which the Seer and Leader of the Times that were far off, would himself make over to their cure;—evils in whose cure the Discoverer of the science of Nature, and the inventor of the New Magic which is the part operative of it, expected to be called upon for an opinion, when the time for that extension of his science, 'crushed together and infolded within itself in these books of Nature's learning,' should fully come.
Nothing almost sees MIRACLES but MISERY, says poor Kent, in the stocks, waiting for the 'beacon' of the morning, by whose comfortable beams, he might peruse his letter. 'I know,' he says,
  ''Tis from Cordelia,
  Who hath most fortunately been informed
  Of my obscured course, and shall find time
  From this enormous state—seeking—TO GIVE
  LOSSES THEIR REMEDIES.'
There is no attempt to demonstrate that the work here proposed as a study, worthy the attention of the philosophical student, is not, notwithstanding a Poem, and a Poet's gift, not to his contemporaries only, but to his kind. What is claimed is, indeed, that it is a Poem which, with all its overpowering theatrical effects, does, in fact, reserve its true poetic wealth, for those who will find the springs of its inmost philosophic purport. There is no attempt to show that this play belongs to the category of scientific works, according to our present limitation of the term, or that there could be found any niche for it, on those lower platforms and compartments of the new science of nature, which our modern works of natural science occupy.
It was inevitably a Poem. There was the essence of all Tragedy in the purely scientific exhibition, which the purpose of it required. The intention of the Poet to exhibit the radical idea of his plot impressively, so as to reach the popular mind through its appeal to the sensibilities, involved, of course, the finest series of conjunctions of artistic effects, the most exquisite characterization, the boldest grouping, the most startling and determined contrasts, which the whole range of his art could furnish.
But that which is only the incident of a genuine poetic inspiration, the effect upon the senses, which its higher appeals are sure to involve, becomes with those delighting in, and capable of appreciating, that sensuous effect merely, its sufficient and only end, and even a doctrine of criticism based on this inversion will not be wanting. But the difficulty of unlocking the great Elizabethan poems with any such theory of Art, arises from the fact that it is not the theory of Art, which the great Elizabethan Poets adopted, and whether we approve of theirs or not, we must take it, such as it was, for our torch in this exploration. As to that spontaneity, that seizure, that Platonic divination, that poetic 'fury,' which our prose philosopher scans in so many places so curiously, which he defines so carefully and strictly, so broadly too, as the poetic condition that thing which he appears to admire so much, as having something a little demoniacal in it withal, that same 'fine' thing which the Poet himself speaks of by a term not any less questionable,—as to this poetic inspiration, it is not necessary to claim that it is a thing with which this Poet, the Poet of a new era, the Poet, the deliverer of an Inductive Learning, has had himself, personally, no acquaintance. He knows what it is. But it is a Poet who is, first of all, a man, and he takes his humanity with him into all things. The essential human principle is that which he takes to be the law and limit of the human constitution. He is perfectly satisfied with 'the measure of a man,' and he gives the preference deliberately, and on principle to the sober and rational state in the human mind. All the elements which enter into the human composition, all the states, normal or otherwise, to which it is liable, have passed under his review, and this is his conclusion; and none born of woman, ever had a better chance to look at them, for all is alike heightened in him,—heightened to the ideal boundary of nature, in the human form; but that which seems to be heightened, most of all, that in which he stands preeminent and singular in the natural history of man, would seem to be the proportion of this heightening. It is what we have all recognized it to be, Nature's largest, most prodigal demonstration of her capacities in the human form, but it is, at the same time, her most excellent and exquisite balance of composition—her most subdued and tempered work. And the reason is, that he is not a particular and private man, and the deficiencies and personalities of those from whom he is abstracted, are studiously, and by method, kept out of him. For this is the 'Will' not of one man only; it is the scientific abstract of a philosophic union. It is a will that has a rule in art as well as nature.
Certainly he is the very coolest Poet; and the fullest of this common earth and its affairs, of any sage that has ever showed his head upon it, in prose or metre. The sturdiness with which he makes good his position, as an inhabitant, for the time being, of this terrestrial ball, and, by the ordinance of God, subject to its laws, and liable to its pains and penalties, is a thing which appears, to the careful reviewer of it, on the whole, the most novel and striking feature of this demonstration. He objects, on principle, to seizures and possessions of all kinds. He refuses to be taken off his feet by any kind of solicitation. He is a man who is never ashamed to have a reason,—one that he can produce, and make intelligible to common people, for his most exquisite proceedings; that is, if he chooses: but, 'if reasons were plentiful as blackberries,' he is not the man to give them on 'compulsion.' His ideas of the common mind, his notion of the common human intelligence, or capacity for intelligence, appears to be somewhat different from that of the other philosophers. The common sense—the common form—is that which he is always seeking and identifying under all the differences. It is that which he is bringing out and clothing with the 'inter-tissued robe' and all the glories which he has stripped from the extant majesty. 'Robes and furred gowns hide all' no longer.
He is not a bard who is careful at all about keeping his singing robes about him. He can doff them and work like a 'navvy' when he sees reason. He is very fond of coming out with good, sober, solid prose, in the heart of his poetry. He can rave upon occasion as well as another. Spontaneities of all kinds have scope and verge enough in his plot; but he always keeps an eye out, and they speak no more than is set down for them. His Pythoness foams at the mouth too, sometimes, and appears to have it all her own way, perhaps; but he knows what she is about, and there is never a word in the oracle that has not undergone his revision. He knows that Plato tells us 'it is in vain for a sober man to knock at the floor of the Muses'; but he is one who has discovered, scientifically, the human law; and he is ready to make it good, on all sides, against all comers. And, though the Muses knocked at his door, as they never had at any other, they could never carry him away with them. They found, for once, a sober man within, one who is not afraid to tell them, to their teeth, 'Judgment holds in me, always, a magisterial seat;'—and, with all their celestial graces and pretensions, he fetters them, and drags them up to that tribunal. He superintends all his inspirations.
There never was a Poet in whom the poetic spontaneities were so absolutely under control and mastery; and there never was one in whose nature all the spontaneous force and faculty of genius showed itself in such tumultuous fulness, ready to issue, at a word, in such inexhaustible varieties of creative energy.
Of all the spirits that tend on mortal thoughts there is none to match this so delicate and gorgeous Ariel of his,—this creature that he keeps to put his girdles round the earth for him, that comes at a thought, and brings in such dainty banquets, such brave pageants in the earth or in the air; there is none other that knows so well the spells 'to make this place Paradise.' But, for all that, he is the merest tool,—the veriest drudge and slave. The magician's collar is always on his neck; in his airiest sweeps he takes his chain with him. Caliban himself is not more sternly watched and tutored; and all the gorgeous masque has its predetermined order, its severe economy of grace; through all the slightest minutiæ of its detail, runs the inflexible purpose, the rational human purpose, the common human sense, the common human aim.
Yes, it is a Play; but it is the play of a mind sobered with all human learning. Yes, it is spontaneous; but it is the spontaneity of a heart laden with human sorrow, oppressed with the burthen of the common weal. Yes, indeed, it is a Poet's work; but it is the work of one who consciously and deliberately recognizes, in all the variety of his gifts, in all his natural and acquired power, under all the disabilities of his position, the one, paramount, human law, and essential obligation. Of 'Art,' as anything whatever, but an instrumentality, thoroughly subdued, and subordinated to that end, of Art as anything in itself, with an independent tribunal, and law with an ethic and ritual of its own, this inventor of the one Art, that has for its end the relief of the human estate and the Creator's glory, knows nothing. Of any such idolatry and magnifying of the creature, of any such worship of the gold of the temple to the desecration of that which sanctifieth the gold, this Art-King in all his purple, this priest and High Pontiff of its inner mysteries knows—will know—nothing.
Yes, it is play; but it is not child's play, nor an idiot's play, nor the play of a 'jigging' Bacchanal, who comes out on this grave, human scene, to insult our sober, human sense, with his mad humour, making a Belshazzar's feast or an Antonian revel of it; a creature who shows himself to our common human sense without any human aim or purpose, ransacking all the life of man, exploring all worlds, pursuing the human thought to its last verge, and questioning, as with the cry of all the race, the infinities beyond, diving to the lowest depths of human life and human nature, and bringing up and publishing, the before unspoken depths of human wrong and sorrow, wringing from the hearts of those that died and made no sign, their death-buried secrets, articulating everywhere that which before had no word—and all for an artistic effect, for an hour's entertainment, for the luxury of a harmonized impression, or for the mere ostentation of his frolic, to feed his gamesome humour, to make us stare at his unconsciousness, to show what gems he can crush in his idle cup for a draught of pleasure, or in pure caprice and wantonness, confounding all our notions of sense, and manliness, and human duty and respect, with the boundless wealth and waste of his gigantic fooleries.
It is play, but let us thank God it is no such play as that; let our common human nature rejoice that it has not been thus outraged in its chief and chosen one, that it has not been thus disgraced with the boundless human worthlessness of the creature on whom its choicest gifts were lavished. It is play, indeed; but it is no such Monster, with his idiotic stare of unconsciousness, that the opening of it will reveal to us. Let us all thank God, and take heart again, and try to revive those notions of human dignity and common human sense which this story sets at nought, and see if we cannot heal that great jar in our abused natures which this chimera of the nineteenth century makes in it—this night-mare of modern criticism which lies with its dead weight on all our higher art and learning—this creature that came in on us unawares, when the interpretation of the Plays had outgrown the Play-tradition, when 'the Play' had outgrown 'the Player.'
It is a play in which the manliest of human voices is heard sounding throughout the order of it; it is a play stuffed to its fool's gibe, with the soberest, deepest, maturest human sense; and 'the tears of it,' as we who have tested it know, 'the tears of it are wet.' It is a play where the choicest seats, the seats in which those who see it all must sit, are 'reserved;' and there is a price to be paid for these: 'children and fools' will continue to have theirs for nothing. For after so many generations of players had come and gone, there had come at last on this human stage—on 'this great stage of fools,' as the Poet calls it—this stage filled with 'the natural fools of fortune,' having eyes, but seeing not—there had come to it at last a MAN, one who was—take him for all in all—that; one who thought it—for a man, enough to be truly that—one who thought he was fulfilling his part in the universal order, in seeking to be modestly and truly that; one, too, who thought it was time that the human part on the stage of this Globe Theatre should begin to be reverently studied by man himself, and scientifically and religiously ordered and determined through all its detail.
For it is the movement of the new time that makes this Play, and all these Plays: it is the spirit of the newly-beginning ages of human advancement which makes the inspiration of them; the beginning ages of a rational, instructed—and not blind, or instinctive, or demoniacal—human conduct.
It is such play and pastime as the prophetic spirit and leadership of those new ages could find time and heart to make and leave to them, on that height of vision which it was given to it to occupy. For an age in human advancement was at last reached, on whose utmost summits men could begin to perceive that tradition, and eyes of moonshine speculation, and a thousand noses, and horns welked and waved like the enridged sea, when they came to be jumbled together in one 'monster,' did not appear to answer the purpose of human combination, or the purpose of human life on earth; appeared, indeed to be still far, 'far wide' of the end which human society is everywhere blindly pushing and groping for, en masse.
There was a point of observation from which this fortuitous social conjunction did not appear to the critical eye or ear to be making just that kind of play and music which human nature—singularly enough, considering what kind of conditions it lights on—is constitutionally inclined to expect and demand; not that, or indeed any perceptible approximation to a paradisaical state of things. There was, indeed, a point of view—one which commanded not the political mysteries of the time only, but the household secrets of it, and the deeper secrets of the solitary heart of man, one which commanded alike the palace and the hovel, to their blackest recesses—there was a point of view from which these social agencies appeared to be making then, in fact, whether one looked with eyes or ears, a mere diabolical jangle, and 'fa, sol, la, mi', of it, a demoniacal storm music; and from that height of observation all ruinous disorders could be seen coming out, and driving men to vice and despair, urging them to self-destruction even, and hunting them disquietly to their graves. 'Nothing almost sees miracles but misery;' and this was the Age in which the New Magic was invented.
It was the age in which that grand discovery was made, which the Fool undertakes to palm off here as the fruit of his own single invention; and, indeed, it was found that the application of it to certain departments of human affairs was more successfully managed by this gentleman in his motley, than by some of his brother philosophers who attempted it. It was the age in which the questions which are inserted here so safely in the Fool's catechism, began to be started secretly in the philosophic chamber. It was the age in which the identical answers which the cap and bells are made responsible for here, were written down, but with other applications, in graver authorities. It is the philosophical discovery of the time, which the Fool is undertaking to translate into the vernacular, when he puts the question, 'Canst thou tell why one's nose stands in the middle of his face?' And we have all the Novum Organum in what he calls, in another place, 'the boorish,' when he answers it; and all the choicest gems of 'the part operative' of the new learning have been rattling from his rattle in everybody's path, ever since he published his digests of that doctrine: 'Canst thou tell why one's nose stands in the middle of his face?' 'No.' 'Why, to keep his eyes on either side of it, that what he cannot smell out he may spy into.' And 'all that follow their noses are led by their eyes, but—blind men.' And 'the reason why the seven stars are seven, is because they are not eight;' and the king who makes that answer 'would have made a good—fool,' for it's 'a very pretty reason.' And neither times nor men should be 'old before their time'; neither times nor men should be revered, or clothed with authority or command in human affairs, 'till they are wise.' ['Thou sapient sir, sit here.'] And it is a mistake for a leader of men to think that he 'has white hairs in his beard, before the black ones are there.' And 'ants,' and 'snails,' and 'oysters,' are wiser than men in their arts, and practices, and pursuits of ends. It was the age in which it was perceived that 'to say ay and no to everything' that a madman says, 'is no good divinity,' and that it is 'the time's plague when Madmen lead the Blind;' and that, instead of good men sitting still, like 'moral fools,' and crying out on wrong and mischief, 'Alack, why does it so?' it would be wiser, and more pious, too, to make use of the faculty of learning, with which the Creator has armed Man, 'against diseases of the world,' to ascend to the cause, and punish that—punish that, 'ere it has done its mischief.' It was the age in which it was discovered that 'the sequent effect, with which nature finds itself scourged,' is not in the least touched by any kind of reasoning 'thus and thus,' except that kind which proceeds first by negatives, that kind which proceeds by a method so severe that it contrives to exclude everything but the 'the cause in nature' from its affirmation, which 'in practical philosophy becomes the rule'—that is, the critical method,—which is for men, as distinguished from the spontaneous affirmation, which is for gods.
It is the beginning of these yet beginning Modern Ages, the ages of a practical learning, and scientific relief to the human estate, which this Pastime marks with its blazoned, illuminated initial. It is the opening of the era in which a common human sense is developed, and directed to the common-weal, which this Pastime celebrates; the opening of the ages in which, ere all is done, the politicians who expect mankind to entrust to them their destinies, will have to find something better than 'glass eyes' to guide them with; in which it will be no longer competent for those to whom mankind entrusts its dearest interests to go on in their old stupid, conceited, heady courses, their old, blind, ignorant courses,—stumbling, and staggering, and groping about, and smelling their way with their own narrow and selfish instincts, when it is the common-weal they have taken on their shoulders;—running foul of the nature of things—quarrelling with eternal necessities, and crying out, when the wreck is made, 'Alack! why does it so?'
This Play, and all these plays, were meant to be pastime for ages in which state reasons must needs be something else than 'the pleasure' of certain individuals, 'whose disposition, all the world well knows, will not be rubbed or stopped;' or 'the quality,' 'fiery' or otherwise, of this or that person, no matter 'how unremoveable and fixed' he may be 'in his own course.'
It was to the 'far off times;' and not to the 'near,' it was to the advanced ages of the Advancement of Learning, that this Play was dedicated by its Author. For it was the spirit of the modern ages that inspired it. It was the new Prometheus who planned it; the more aspiring Titan, who would bring down in his New Organum a new and more radiant gift; it was the Benefactor and Foreseer, who would advance the rude kind to new and more enviable approximations to the celestial summits. He knew there would come a time, in the inevitable advancements of that new era of scientific 'prudence' and forethought which it was given to him to initiate, when all this sober historic exhibition, with its fearful historic earnest, would read, indeed, like some old fable of the rude barbaric past—some Player's play, bent on a feast of horrors—some Poet's impossibility. And that—was the Play,—that was the Plot. He knew that there would come a time when all this tragic mirth—sporting with the edged tools of tyranny—playing around the edge of the great axe itself—would be indeed safe play; when his Fool could open his budget, and unroll his bitter jests—crushed together and infolded within themselves so long—and have a world to smile with him, and not the few who could unfold them only. And that—that was 'the humour of it.'
Yes, with all their philosophy, these plays are Plays and Poems still. There's no spoiling the 'tragical mirth' in them. But we are told, on the most excellent contemporaneous authority—on the authority of one who was in the inmost heart of all this Poet's secrets—that 'as we often judge of the greater by the less, so the very pastimes of great men give an honourable idea to the clear-sighted of THE SOURCE FROM WHICH THEY SPRING.'
Good does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed, and a worse, as it happened with Caesar's killers, who brought the republic to such a pass that they had reason to repent their meddling with it…. It must be examined in what condition THE ASSAILANT is.—Michael de Montaigne.
Citizen. I fear there will a worse one come in his place. Cassius. He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
  Casca. 'Tis Caesar that you mean: Is it not, Cassius?
  Cassius. Let it be WHO IT is, for Romans now
     Have thewes and limbs like to their ancestors.
     We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar.
                                       Julius Caesar.
Yes, when that Royal Injunction, which rested alike upon the Play-house, the Press, the Pulpit, and Parliament itself, was still throttling everywhere the free voice of the nation—when a single individual could still assume to himself, or to herself, the exclusive privilege of deliberating on all those questions which men are most concerned in—questions which involve all their welfare, for this life and the life to come, certainly 'the Play, the Play was the thing.' It was a vehicle of expression which offered incalculable facilities for evading these restrictions. It was the only one then invented which offered then any facilities whatever for the discussion of that question in particular—which was already for that age the question. And to the genius of that age, with its new historical, experimental, practical, determination—with its transcendant poetic power, nothing could be easier than to get possession of this instrument, and to exhaust its capabilities.
For instance, if a Roman Play were to be brought out at all,—and with that mania for classical subjects which then prevailed, what could be more natural?—how could one object to that which, by the supposition, was involved in it? And what but the most boundless freedoms and audacities, on this very question, could one look for here? What, by the supposition, could it be but one mine of poetic treason? If Brutus and Cassius were to be allowed to come upon the stage, and discuss their views of government, deliberately and confidentially, in the presence of an English audience, certainly no one could ask to hear from their lips the political doctrine then predominant in England. It would have been a flat anachronism, to request them to keep an eye upon the Tower in their remarks, inasmuch as all the world knew that the corner-stone of that ancient and venerable institution had only then just been laid by the same distinguished individual whom these patriots were about to call to an account for his military usurpation of a constitutional government at home.
And yet, one less versed than the author in the mystery of theatrical effects, and their combinations—one who did not know fully what kind of criticism a mere Play, composed by a professional play-wright, in the way of his profession, for the entertainment of the spectators, and for the sake of the pecuniary result, was likely to meet with;—or one who did not know what kind of criticism a work, addressed so strongly to the imagination and the feelings in any form, is likely to meet with, might have fancied beforehand that the author was venturing upon a somewhat delicate experiment, in producing a play like this upon the English stage at such a crisis. One would have said beforehand, that 'there were things in this comedy of Julius Caesar that would never please.' It is difficult, indeed, to understand how such a Play as this could ever have been produced in the presence of either of those two monarchs who occupied the English throne at that crisis in its history, already secretly conscious that its foundations were moving, and ferociously on guard over their prerogative.
And, indeed, unless a little of that same sagacity, which was employed so successfully in reducing the play of Pyramus and Thisbe to the tragical capacities of Duke Theseus' court, had been put in requisition here, instead of that dead historical silence, which the world complains of so much, we might have been treated to some very lively historical details in this case, corresponding to other details which the literary history of the time exhibits, in the case of authors who came out in an evil hour in their own names, with precisely the same doctrines, which are taught here word for word, with impunity; and the question as to whether this Literary Shadow, this Name, this Veiled Prophet in the World of Letters, ever had any flesh and blood belonging to him anywhere, (and from the tenor of his works, one might almost fancy sometimes that that might have been the case), this question would have come down to us experimentally and historically settled. For most unmistakeably, the claws of the young British lion are here, under these old Roman togas; and it became the 'masters' to consider with themselves, for there is, indeed, 'no more fearful wild fowl living' than your lion in such circumstances; and if he should happen to forget his part in any case, and 'roar too loud,' it would to a dead certainty 'hang them all.'
But it was only the faint-hearted tailor who proposed to 'leave out the killing part.' Pyramus sets aside this cowardly proposition. He has named the obstacles to be encountered only for the sake of magnifying the fertility of his invention in overcoming them. He has a device to make all even. 'Write me a prologue,' he says, 'and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords; and for the more assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom, the Weaver; that will put them out of fear.' And as to the lion, there must not only be 'another prologue, to tell that he is not a lion,' but 'you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion's neck, and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect, Ladies, or fair ladies, my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life.'
To such devices, in good earnest, were those compelled to resort who ventured upon the ticklish experiment of presenting heroic entertainments for king's palaces, where 'hanging was the word' in case of a fright; but, with a genius like this behind the scenes, so fertile in invention, so various in gifts, who could aggravate his voice so effectually, giving you one moment the pitch of 'the sucking dove,' or 'roaring you like any nightingale,' and the next, 'the Hercle's vein,'—with a genius who knew how to play, not 'the tyrant's part only,' but 'the lover's, which is more condoling,' and whose suggestion that the audience should look to their eyes in that case, was by no means a superfluous one; with a genius who had all passions at his command, who could drown, at his pleasure, the sharp critic's eye, or blind it with showers of pity, or 'make it water with the merriest tears, that the passion of loud laughter ever shed,' with such resources, prince's edicts could be laughed to scorn. It was vain to forbid such an one, to meddle with anything that was, or had been, or could be.
But does any one say—'To what purpose,' if the end were concealed so effectually? And does any one suppose, because no faintest suspicion of the true purpose of this play, and of all these plays, has from that hour to this, apparently ever crossed the English mind, at home or abroad, though no suspicion of the existence of any purpose in them beyond that of putting the author in easy circumstances, appears as yet to have occurred to any one,—does any one suppose that this play, and all these plays, have on that account, failed of their purpose; and that they have not been all this time, steadily accomplishing it? Who will undertake to estimate, for instance, the philosophical, educational influence of this single Play, on every boy who has spouted extracts from it, from the author's time to ours, from the palaces of England, to the log school-house in the back-woods of America?
But suppose now, instead of being the aimless, spontaneous, miraculous product of a stupid, 'rude mechanical' bent on producing something which should please the eye, and flatter the prejudices of royalty, and perfectly ignorant of the nature of that which he had produced;—suppose that instead of appearing as the work of Starveling, and Snout, and Nick Bottom, the Weaver, or any person of that grade and calibre, that this play had appeared at the time, as the work of an English scholar, as most assuredly it was, profoundly versed in the history of states in general, as well as in the history of the English state in particular, profoundly versed in the history of nature in general, as well as in the history of human nature in particular. Suppose, for instance, it had appeared as the work of an English statesman, already suspected of liberal opinions, but stedfastly bent for some reason or other, on advancement at court, with his eye still intently fixed, however secretly, on those insidious changes that were then in progress in the state, who knew perfectly well what crisis that ship of state was steering for; query, whether some of the passages here quoted would have tended to that 'advancement' he 'lacked.' Suppose that instead of Julius Caesar, 'looking through the lion's neck,' and gracefully rejecting the offered prostrations, it had been the English courtier, condemned to these degrading personal submissions, who 'roared you out,' on his own account, after this fashion. Imagine a good sturdy English audience returning the sentiment, thundering their applause at this and other passages here quoted, in the presence of a Tudor or a Stuart.
One might safely conclude, even if the date had not been otherwise settled, that anything so offensive as this never was produced in the presence of Queen Elizabeth. King James might be flattered into swallowing even such treasonable stuff as this; but in her time, the poor lion was compelled to aggravate his voice after another fashion. Nothing much above the sucking-dove pitch, could be ventured on when her quick ears were present. He 'roared you' indeed, all through her part of the Elizabethan time; but it was like any nightingale. The clash and clang of these Roman Plays were for the less sensitive and more learned Stuart.
  Metellus Cimber. Most high, most mighty,
  And most puissant Caesar;
  Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat
  An humble heart:—[Kneeling.]
  Caesar. I must prevent thee, Cimber.
  These couchings and these lowly courtesies:
  Might fire the blood of ordinary men;
  AND TURN PRE-ORDINANCE, and FIRST DECREE,
  INTO THE LAW OF CHILDREN.
  Be not fond
  To think that CAESAR bears such REBEL blood,
  That will be thawed from the true quality,
  With that which melteth FOOLS. (?) I mean, sweet words,
  Low, crooked curtsies, and base spaniel fawning.
  Thy brother by decree is banished;
  If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him,
  I spurn thee like a cur, out of my way.
  Know CAESAR DOTH NOT WRONG.
To appreciate this, one must recall not merely the humiliating personal prostrations which the ceremonial of the English Court required then, but that base prostration of truth and duty and honour, under the feet of vanity and will and passion, which they symbolized.
Thus far Caesar, but the subject's views on this point, as here set forth, are scarcely less explicit, but then it is a Roman subject who speaks, and the Roman costume and features, look savingly through the lion's neck.
One of the radical technicalities of that new philosophy of the human nature which permeates all this historical exhibition, comes in here, however; and it is one which must be mastered before any of these plays can be really read. The radical point in the new philosophy, as it applies to the human nature in particular, is the pivot on which all turns here,—here as elsewhere in the writings of this school,—the distinction of 'the double self,' the distinction between the particular and private nature, with its unenlightened instincts of passion, humour, will, caprice,—that self which is changeful, at war with itself, self-inconsistent, and, therefore, truly, no SELF,—since the true self is the principle of identity and immutability,—the distinction between that 'private' nature when it is developed instinctively as 'selfishness,' and that rational immutable self which is constitutionally present though latent, in all men, and one in them all; that noble special human form which embraces and reconciles in its intention, the private good with the good of that worthier whole whereof we are individually parts and members; 'this is the distinction on which all turns here.' For this philosophy refuses, on philosophical grounds, to accept this low, instinctive private nature, in any dressing up of accidental power as the god of its idolatry, in place of that 'divine or angelical nature, which is the perfection of the human form,' and the true sovereignty. Obedience to that nature,—'the approach to, or assumption of,' that makes, in this philosophy, the end of the human endeavour, 'and the error and false imitation of that good, is that which is the tempest of the human life.'
But let us hear the passionate Cassius, who is full of individualities himself, and ready to tyrannize with them, but somehow, as it would seem, not fond of submitting to the 'single self' in others.
  'Well, honour is the subject of my story.—
  I can not tell what you, and other men,
  Think of this life; but for my single self,
  I had as lief not BE, as live to be
  In awe of such a thing as I myself.
  I was born free as Caesar; so were you.
  We both have fed as well: and we can both
  Endure the winter's cold as well as he.'—
And the proof of this personal equality is then given; and it is precisely the one which Lear produces, 'When the wind made me chatter, there I found them,—there I smelt them out.'—
  'For once upon a raw and gusty day,
  The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, etc.
       * * * * *
  —Caesar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink.
  —And this man
  Is now become a god, and Cassius is
  A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
  If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
  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.'
[This was a pretty fellow to have about a king's privacy taking notes of this sort on his tablets. Among 'those saw and forms and pressures past, which youth and observatior copied there,' all that part reserved for Caesar and his history, appears to have escaped the sponge in some way.
  'They told me I was every thing, 'tis a lie! I am not ague
  proof.'—Lear.
  His coward lips did from their colour fly.
  'And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world,
  Did lose his lustre!—Julius Caesar.
'—When I do stare see how the subject quakes.—'Lear.]
                        I did hear him groan:
  Aye, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans
  Mark him, and write his speeches in their books.
  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 should
  So get the start of the majestic world,
  And bear the palm alone.
  Brutus. Another general shout!
  I do believe that these applauses are
  For some new honours that are heap'd on Caesar.
  Cassius. Why man, 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.
  Men, at some time, are masters of their fates,
  The fault, dear Brutus, IS NOT in our STARS,
  But in ourselves that we are underlings.
  Brutus and Caesar: What should be in that Caesar?
       * * * * *
  Now in the names of all the gods at once,
  Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed
  That he is grown so great? AGE, thou art shamed:
  Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
  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 talked of Rome,
  That her wide walls encompass'd but One man?
  Now is it Home indeed, and room enough,
  When there is in it but one only man.
  [When there is in it (truly) but One only,—MAN].
  O! you and I have heard our fathers say,
  There was a Brutus once, that would have brook'd
  The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome,
  As easily as a king.
  Brutus. What you have said,
  I will consider;—what you have to say
  I will with patience hear: and find a time
  Both meet to hear, and answer such high things.
  Till then, my noble friend, CHEW UPON THIS;—
  Brutus had rather be a villager,
  Than to repute himself a SON of ROME.
  Under these hard conditions, as this time
  Is like to lay upon us. [Chew upon this].
  Cassius. I am glad that my weak words
  Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.
      [Re-enter Caesar and his train.]
Brutus. The games are done, and Caesar is returning.
Cassius. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve; And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you What hath proceeded worthy note to-day.
Brutus. I will do so:—But look you, Cassius, The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow. And all the rest look like a chidden train: Calphurnia's cheek is pale; and Cicero Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes, As we have seen him in the Capitol, Being crossed in conference by some senators.
Cassius. Casca will tell us what the matter is.
Caesar. Antonius.
Antony. Caesar.
Caesar. 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.
  Antony. Fear him not, Caesar; he's not dangerous:
  He is a noble Roman, and well given.
  Caesar. Would he were fatter:—But I fear him not;
  Yet if my name were liable to fear,
  I do not know the man I should avoid
  So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much:
  He is a great observer, and he looks
  Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays,
  As thou dost Antony; he hears no music:
  Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort,
  As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit
  That could be moved to smile at any thing.
  Such men as he are never at heart's ease,
  Whiles they behold a greater than themselves;
  And therefore are they very dangerous,
  I rather tell thee what is to be feared,
  Than what I fear, FOR ALWAYS I AM CAESAR.
  Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,
  And tell me truly what thou think'st of him.
[Exeunt Caesar and his train. Casca stays behind.]
Casca. You pulled me by the cloak: would you speak with me?
Brutus. Ay, Casca, tell us what hath chanced to-day, That Caesar looks so sad.
Casca. Why you were with him. Were you not?
Brutus. I should not then ask Casca what hath chanced.
Casca. Why there was a crown offered him: and, being offered, he put it by with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell a shouting.
Brutus. What was the second noise for?
Casca. Why for that too.
Brutus. They shouted thrice. What was the last cry for?
Casca. Why for that too.
Brutus. Was the crown offered him thrice?
Casca. Ay marry was't. And he put it by thrice, every time gentler than the other; and at every putting by, mine honest neighbours shouted.
Cassius. Who offered him the crown?
Casca. Why, Antony.
Brutus. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.
Casca. I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it. It was mere foolery. I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown; yet 't was not a crown;—neither 't was one of these coronets;—and, as I told you, he put it by once; but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very both to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by; and still, as he refused it, the rabblement hooted, and clapped their chapped hands, and threw up their sweaty night caps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath, because Caesar refused the crown, that it had almost choked Caesar; for he swooned and fell down at it: and, for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air.
Cassius. But soft, I pray you: WHAT? DID CAESAR SWOON?
Casca. He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and was speechless.
Brutus. 'Tis very like; he hath the falling sickness.
Cassius. No, Caesar hath it not; but you, and I, And honest Casca, we have the falling sickness.
Casca. I know not what you mean by that: but I am sure, Caesar fell down. 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.
Brutus. What said he, when he came unto himself.
Casca. Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common herd was glad when he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet, and offered them his throat to cut.—An I had been a man of any occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word; I would I might go to hell among the rogues: and so he fell. 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. Three or four wenches, where I stood, cried, 'Alas, good soul!'—and forgave him with all their hearts: But there's no heed to be taken of them; if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less.
Brutus. And after that, he came thus sad away?
Casca. Ay.
Cassius. Did Cicero say anything?
Casca. Ay, he spoke Greek.
Cassius. To what effect?
Casca. Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' 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. I could tell you more news, too: Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar's images, are put to silence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it.
Brutus says of Casca, when he is gone, 'He was quick mettle when he went to school'; and Cassius replies, 'So he is now—however he puts on this tardy form. This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, which gives men stomach to digest his words with better appetite.' 'And so it is,' Brutus returns;—and so it is, indeed, as any one may perceive, who will take the pains to bestow upon these passages the attention which the author's own criticism bespeaks for them.
To the ear of such an one, the roar of the blank verse of Cassius is still here, subdued, indeed, but continued, through all the humour of this comic prose.
But it is Brutus who must lend to the Poet the sanction of his name and popularity, when he would strike home at last to the heart of his subject. Brutus, however, is not yet fully won: and, in order to secure him, Cassius will this night throw in at his window, 'in several hands—as if they came from several citizens—writings, in which, OBSCURELY, CAESAR'S AMBITION SHALL BE GLANCED AT.' And, 'After this,' he says,—
                     'Let Caesar seat him sure,
   For we will shake him, or worse days endure.'
But in the interval, that night of wild tragic splendour must come, with its thunder-bolts and showers of fire, and unnatural horror. For these elements have a true part to perform here, as in Lear and other plays; they come in, not merely as subsidiary to the 'artistic effect'—not merely because their wild Titanic play forms an imposing harmonious accompaniment to the play of the human passions and their 'wildness'—but as a grand scientific exhibition of the element which the Poet is pursuing under all its Protean forms—as a most palpable and effective exhibition to the sense of that identical thing against which he has raised his eternal standard of revolt, refusing to own, under any name, its mastery.
But one can hear, in that wild lurid night, in the streets of Rome, amid the cross blue lightnings, what could not have been whispered in the streets of England then, or spoken in the ear in closets.
  Cicero. [Encountering Casca in the street, with his sword drawn.]
  Good-even, Casca; brought you Caesar home?
  Why are you breathless? and why stare you so?
  Casca. Are you not moved, when all the sway of earth
  Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
  I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
  Have rived the knotty oaks; and I have seen
  The ambitious ocean swell, and rage and foam,
  To be exalted with the threatening clouds;
  But never till to-night, never till now,
  Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
  Either there is a civil strife in heaven;
  Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
  Incenses them to send destruction.
But the night has had other spectacles, it seems, which, to his eye, appeared to have some relation to the coming struggle; in answer to Cicero's 'Why, saw you anything more wonderful?' Thus he describes them.
'A common slave,—you know him, well by sight, Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn Like twenty torches join'd. Against the Capitol I met a lion, Who glared upon me, and went surly by.'
[And he had seen, 'drawn on a head,']
  'A hundred ghastly women,
  Transformed with their fears; who swore they saw
  Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets.
  And, yesterday, the bird of night did sit,
  Even at noon-day, upon the market-place,
  Hooting, and shrieking.'
An ominous circumstance,—that last. A portent sure as fate. When such things begin to appear, 'men need not go to heaven to predict imminent changes.'
Cicero concedes that 'it is indeed a strange disposed time?' and inserts the statement that 'men may construe things after their fashion, clean from the purpose of the things themselves.' But this is too disturbed a sky for him to walk in, so exit Cicero, and enter one of another kind of mettle, who thinks 'the night a very pleasant one to honest men;' who boasts that he has been walking about the streets 'unbraced, baring his bosom to the thunder stone,' and playing with 'the cross blue lightning;' and when Casca reproves him for this temerity, he replies,
  'You are dull, Casca, and those sparks of life
  That should be in a Roman, you do want,
  Or else you use not.'
For as to these extraordinary phenomena in nature, he says, 'If you would consider the true cause
  Why all these things change, from their ordinance,
  Their natures and fore-formed faculties,
  To monstrous quality; why, you shall find,
  That heaven hath infused them with these spirits,
  To make them instruments of fear, and warning,
  Unto some MONSTROUS STATE.
  Now could I, Casca,
  Name to thee a man most like this dreadful night;
  That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars
  As doth the lion in the Capitol:
  A man no mightier than thyself, or me,
  In personal action; yet prodigious grown,
  And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.
Casca. 'Tis Caesar that you mean: Is it not, Cassius?
  Cassius. LET IT BE WHO IT is: for Romans now
  Have thewes and limbs like to their ancestors;
  But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead,
  And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits;
  Our yoke and sufferance shows us womanish.
  Casca. Indeed, they say, the senators to-morrow
  Mean to establish Caesar as a king.
  And he shall wear his crown by sea, and land,
  In every place, save here in Italy.
  Cassius. I know where I will wear this dagger then;
  Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius:
  Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
  Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat:
  Nor STONY TOWER, nor walls of beaten brass,
  Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
  Can be retentive to the strength of spirit.
  If I know this, know all the world besides,
  That part of tyranny, that I do bear,
  I can shake off at pleasure.
  Casca. So can I;
  So every bondman in his own hand bears
  The power to cancel his captivity.
  Cassius. And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?
  Poor man! I know, he would not be a wolf,
  But that he sees the Romans are but sheep
  He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
  Those that with haste will make a mighty fire,
  Begin it with weak straws: What trash is Rome,
  What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves
  for the base matter to illuminate
  So vile a thing as Caesar? But, O grief!
  Where hast thou led me? I perhaps, speak this
  BEFORE A WILLING BONDMAN: But I am arm'd
  And dangers are to me indifferent.
Casca. You speak to Casca; and to such a man, That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold my hand: Be factious for redress of all these griefs: And I will set this foot of mine as far, As who goes farthest.
Cassius. There's a bargain made.
This is sufficiently explicit, an unprejudiced listener would be inclined to say—indeed, it is difficult to conceive how any more positively instructive exhibition of the subject, could well have been made. Certainly no one can deny that this fact of the personal helplessness, the physical weakness of those in whom this arbitrary power over the liberties and lives of others is vested, seems for some reason or other to have taken strong possession of the Poet's imagination. For how else, otherwise should he reproduce it so often, so elaborately under such a variety of forms?—with such a stedfastness and pertinacity of purpose?
The fact that the power which makes these personalities so 'prodigious,' so 'monstrous,' overshadowing the world, 'shaming the Age' with their 'colossal' individualities, no matter what new light, what new gifts of healing for its ills, that age has been endowed with, levelling all to their will, contracting all to the limit of their stinted nature, making of all its glories but 'rubbish, offal to illuminate their vileness,'—the fact that the power which enables creatures like these, to convulse nations with their whims, and deluge them with blood, at their pleasure,—which puts the lives and liberties of the noblest, always most obnoxious to them, under their heel—the fact that this power resides after all, not in these persons themselves,—that they are utterly helpless, pitiful, contemptible, in themselves; but that it exists in the 'thewes and limbs' of those who are content to be absorbed in their personality, who are content to make muscles for them, in those who are content to he mere machines for the 'only one man's' will and passion to operate with,—the fact that this so fearful power lies all in the consent of those who suffer from it, is the fact which this Poet wishes to be permitted to communicate, and which he will communicate in one form or another, to those whom it concerns to know it.
It is a fact, which he is not content merely to state, however, in so many words, and so have done with it. He will impress it on the imagination with all kinds of vivid representation. He will exhaust the splendours of his Art in uttering it. He will leave a statement on this subject, profoundly philosophical, but one that all the world will be able to comprehend eventually, one that the world will never be able to unlearn.
The single individual helplessness of the man whom the multitude, in this case, were ready to arm with unlimited power over their own welfare—that physical weakness, already so strenuously insisted on by Cassius, at last attains its climax in the representation, when, in the midst of his haughtiest display of will and personal authority, stricken by the hands of the men he scorned, by the hand of one 'he had just spurned like a cur out of his path,' he falls at the foot of Pompey's statue—or, rather, 'when at the base of Pompey's statue he lies along'—amid all the noise, and tumult, and rushing action of the scene that follows—through all its protracted arrangements, its speeches, and ceremonials—not unmarked, indeed,—the centre of all eyes,—but, mute, motionless, a thing of pity, 'A PIECE OF BLEEDING EARTH.'
That helpless cry in the Tiber, 'Save me, Cassius, or I sink!'—that feeble cry from the sick man's bed in Spain, 'Give me some drink, Titinius!'—and all that pitiful display of weakness, moral and physical, at the would-be coronation, which Casca's report conveys so unsparingly—the falling down in the street speechless, which Cassius emphasises with his scornful 'What? did CAESAR SWOON?'—all this makes but a part of the exhibition, which the lamentations of Mark Antony complete:—
  'O mighty Caesar, dost thou lie so low?
  Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
  Shrunk to this little measure?'
This? and 'the eye' of the spectator, more learned than 'his ear,' follows the speaker's eye, and measures it.
                            'Fare thee well.
  But yesterday the word of Caesar might
  Have stood against the world: now lies he there.
  And none so poor, to do him reverence.'
The Poet's tone breaks through Mark Antony's; the Poet's finger points, 'now lies he there'—there!
That form which 'lies there,' with its mute eloquence speaking this Poet's word, is what he calls 'a Transient Hieroglyphic,' which makes, he says, 'a deeper impression on minds of a certain order, than the language of arbitrary signs;' and his 'delivery' on the most important questions will be found, upon examination, to derive its principal emphasis from a running text in this hand. 'For, in such business,' he says, 'action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant more learned than the ears.'
Or, as he puts it in another place: 'What is sensible always strikes the memory more strongly, and sooner impresses itself, than what is intellectual. Thus the memory of brutes is excited by sensible, but not by intellectual things. And therefore it is easier to retain the image of a sportsman hunting, than of the corresponding notion of invention—of an apothecary ranging his boxes, than of the corresponding notion of disposition—of an orator making a speech, than of the term Eloquence—or a boy repeating verses, than the term Memory—or of A PLAYER acting his part, than the corresponding notion of—ACTION.'
So, also, 'Tom o' Bedlam' was a better word for 'houseless misery,' than all the king's prayer, good as it was, about 'houseless heads, and unfed sides,' in general, and 'looped, and windowed raggedness.'
'We construct,' says this author, in another place—rejecting the ordinary history as not suitable for scientific purposes, because it is 'varied, and diffusive, and confounds and disturbs the understanding, unless it be fixed and exhibited in due order'—we construct 'tables and combinations of instances, upon such a plan and in such order, that the understanding be enabled to act upon them.'
I'll meet thee at Phillippi.
In Julius Caesar, the most splendid and magnanimous representative of arbitrary power is selected—'the foremost man of all the world,'—even by the concession of those who condemn him to death; so that here it is the mere abstract question as to the expediency and propriety of permitting any one man to impose his individual will on the nation. Whatever personalities are involved in the question here—with Brutus, at least—tend to bias the decision in his favour. For so he tells us, as with agitated step he walks his orchard on that wild night which succeeds his conference with Cassius, revolving his part, and reading, by the light of the exhalations whizzing in the air, the papers that have been found thrown in at his study window.
  '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 crown'd:—
  How that might change his nature, there's the question.
  It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;
  And that craves wary walking. 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
  Remorse from power: And, to speak truth of Caesar,
  I have not known when his affections sway'd
  More than his reason. But 't is a common proof,
  That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
  Whereto the climber upward turns his face:
  But when he once attains the utmost round,
  He then unto the ladder turns his back,
  Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
  By which he did ascend: So Caesar may;
  Then, lest he may, PREVENT. And, since the quarrel,
  Will bear no colour for the thing he is,
  Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,
  Would run to these, and these extremities:
  And therefore think him as a serpent's egg,
  Which, hatch'd, would, AS HIS KIND, grow mischievous;
  AND KILL HIM IN THE SHELL.'
Pretty sentiments these, to set before a king already engaged in so critical a contest with his subjects; pleasant entertainment, one would say, for the representative of a monarchy that had contrived to wake the sleeping Brutus in its dominions,—that was preparing, even then, for its own death-struggle on this very question, which this Brutus searches to its core so untenderly.
'Have you heard the argument?' says the 'bloat king' in Hamlet. 'Is there no offence in it?'
Now, let the reader suppose, for one instant, that this work had been produced from the outset openly, for what any reader of common sense will perceive it to be, with all its fire, an elaborate, scholarly composition, the product of the profoundest philosophic invention, the fruit of the ripest scholarship of the age;—let him suppose, for argument's sake, that it had been produced for what it is, the work of a scholar, and a statesman, and a courtier,—a statesman already jealously watched, or already, perhaps, in deadly collision with this very power he is defining here so largely, and tracking to its ultimate scientific comprehensions;—and then let the reader imagine, if he can, Elizabeth or James, but especially Elizabeth, listening entranced to such passages as the one last quoted, with an audience disposed to make points of some of the 'choice Italian' lines in it.
Does not all the world know that scholars, men of reverence, men of world-wide renown, men of every accomplishment, were tortured, and mutilated, and hung, and beheaded, in both these two reigns, for writings wherein Caesar's ambition was infinitely more obscurely hinted at—writings unspeakably less offensive to majesty than this?
But, then, a Play was a Play, and old Romans would be Romans; there was, notoriously, no royal way of managing them; and if kings would have tragical mirth out of them, they must take their treason in good part, and make themselves as merry with it as they could. The poor Poet was, of course, no more responsible for these men than Chaucer was for his pilgrims. He but reported them.
And besides, in that broad, many-sided view of the subject which the author's evolution of it from the root involves,—in that pursuit of tyranny in essence through all its disguises,—other exhibitions of it were involved, which might seem, to the careless eye, purposely designed to counteract the effect of the views above quoted.
The fact that mere arbitrary will, that the individual humour and bias, is incapable of furnishing a rule of action anywhere,—the fact that mere will, or blind passion, whether in the One, or the Few, or the Many, should have no part, above all, in the business of the STATE,—should lend no colour or bias to its administration,—the fact that 'the general good,' 'the common weal,' which is justice, and reason, and humanity,—the 'ONE ONLY MAN,'—should, in some way, under some form or other, get to the head of that and rule, this is all which the Poet will contend for.
But, alas, HOW? The unspeakable difficulties in the way of the solution of this problem,—the difficulties which the radical bias in the individual human nature, even under its noblest forms, creates,—the difficulties which the ignorance, and stupidity, and passion of the multitude created then, and still create, appear here without any mitigation. They are studiously brought out in their boldest colours. There's no attempt to shade them down. They make, indeed, the TRAGEDY.
And it is this general impartial treatment of his subjects which makes this author's writings, with all their boldness, generally, so safe; for it seems to leave him without any bias for any person or any party—without any opinion on any topic; for his truth embraces and resolves all partial views, and is as broad as nature's own.
And how could he better neutralise the effect of these patriotic speeches, and prove his loyalty in the face of them, than to show as he does, most vigorously and effectively, that these patriots themselves, so rebellious to tyranny, so opposed to the one-man power in others, so determined to die, rather than submit to the imposition of the humours of any man, instead of law and justice,—were themselves but men, and were as full of will and humours, and as ready to tyrannise with them, too, upon occasion, as Caesar himself; and were no more fit to be trusted with absolute power than he was, nor, in fact, half so fit.
Caesar does, indeed, send word to the senate—'The cause is in MY WILL, I will not come; (That is enough,' he says, 'to satisfy the senate.') And while the conspirators are exchanging glances, and the daggers are stealing from their sheaths, he offers the strength of his decree, the immutability 'of his absolute shall,' to the suppliant for his brother's pardon.
But then Portia gives us to understand, that she, too, has her private troubles;—that even that excellent man, Brutus, is not without his moods in his domestic administrations,—for on one occasion, when he treats her to 'ungentle looks,' and 'stamps his foot,' and angrily gesticulates her out of his presence, she makes good her retreat, thinking 'it was but the effect of humour, which,' she says, 'sometime hath his hour with every man'; and, good and patriotic as Brutus truly is, Cassius perceives, upon experiment, that after all he too is but a man, and, with a particular and private nature, as well as a larger one 'which is the worthier,' and not unassailable through that 'single I myself': he, too, may be 'thawed from the true quality with that which melteth fools,'—with words that flatter 'his particular.' In his conference with him, Cassius addresses himself skilfully to this weakness;—he poises the name of Caesar with that of Brutus, and, at the last, he clinches his patriotic appeal, with an appeal to his personal sentiment, of baffled, mortified emulation; for those writings, thrown in at his window, purporting to come from several citizens, 'all tended to the great opinion that Rome held of his name;' and, alas! the Poet will not tell us that this did not unconsciously wake, in that pure mind, the feather's-weight that was perhaps needed to turn the scale.
And the very children know, by heart, what a time there was between these two men afterwards, these men that had 'struck the foremost man of all the world,' and had congratulated themselves that it was not murder, and that they were not villains, because it was for justice. Precious disclosures we have in this scene. It is this very Cassius, this patriot, who had as lief not BE as submit to injustice; who brings his avaricious humour, 'his itching palm,' into the state, and 'sells and marts his offices for gold, to undeservers.' Brutus does indeed come down upon him with a most unlimited burst of patriotic indignation, which looks, at first, like a mere frenzy of honest disgust at wrong in the abstract, in spite of the partiality of friendship; but, when Cassius charges him, afterwards, with exaggerating his friend's infirmities, he says, frankly, 'I did not, till you practised them on ME.' And we find, as the dialogue proceeds, that it is indeed a personal matter with him: Cassius has refused him gold to pay his legions with.
And see, now, what kind of taunt it is, that Brutus throws in this same patriot's face after it had been proclaimed, by his order, through the streets of Rome, that Tyranny 'is dead': after Cassius had shouted through his own lungs.
'Some to the common pulpits, and cry out LIBERTY, FREEDOM,
ENFRANCHISEMENT.' (Enfranchisement?)
It would have been strange, indeed, if in so general and philosophical a view of the question, that sacred, domestic institution, which, through all this sublime frenzy for equal rights, maintained itself so peacefully under the patriot's roof, had escaped without a touch.
Brutus says:—
  'Hear me, for I will speak.
  Must I give way and room to your rash choler?
  Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?'
'Look when I stare, see how the subject quakes.'
This sounds, already, as if Tyranny were not quite dead.
'Cassius. O ye gods, ye gods, must I endure all this!
Brutus. All this? ay more: Fret till your proud heart break; Go, show YOUR SLAVES how choleric you are, And bid YOUR BONDMEN tremble. Must I budge? Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch Under your testy humour? By the gods, You shall digest the venom of your spleen Though it do split you.'
So it was a mistake, then, it seems; and, notwithstanding that shout of triumph, and that bloody flourishing of knives, Tyranny was not dead.
But one cannot help thinking that that shout must have sounded rather strangely in an English theatre just then, and that it was a somewhat delicate experiment to give Brutus his pulpit on the stage, to harangue the people from. But the author knew what he was doing. That cold, stilted harangue, that logical chopping on the side of freedom, was not going to set fire to any one's blood; and was not there Mark Antony that plain, blunt man, coming directly after Brutus,—'with his eyes as red as fire with weeping,' with 'the mantle,' of the military hero, the popular favourite, in his hand, with his glowing oratory, with his sweet words, and his skilful appeal to the passions of the people, under his plain, blunt professions,—to wipe out every trace of Brutus's reasons, and lead them whither he would; and would not the moral of it all be, that with such A PEOPLE,—with such a power as that, behind the state, there was no use in killing Caesars—that Tyranny could not die.
'I fear there will a worse one come in his place.'
But this is Rome in her decline, that the artist touches here so boldly. But what now, if old Rome herself,—plebeian Rome, in the deadliest onset of her struggle against tyranny, Rome lashed into fury and conscious strength, rising from under the hard heel of her oppressors; what if Rome, in the act of creating her Tribunes; or, if Rome, with her Tribunes at her head, wresting from her oppressors a constitutional establishment of popular rights,—what if this could be exhibited, by permission; what bounds as to the freedom of the discussion would it be possible to establish afterwards? There had been no National Latin Tragedy, Frederic Schlegel suggests,—because no Latin Dramatist could venture to do this very thing; but of course Caesar or Coriolanus on the Tiber was one thing, and Caesar or Coriolanus on the Thames was another; and an English author might be allowed, then, to say of the one, with impunity, what it would certainly have cost him his good right hand, or his ears, or his head, to say of the other,—what it did cost the Founder of this school in philosophy his head, to be suspected of saying of the other.
Nevertheless, the great question between an arbitrary and a constitutional government, the principle of a government which vests the whole power of the state in the uncontrolled will of a single individual member of it; the whole history and philosophy of a military government, from its origin in the heroic ages,—from the crowning of the military hero on the battle field in the moment of victory, to the final consummation of its conquest of the liberty of the subject, could be as clearly set forth under the one form as the other; not without some startling specialities in the filling up, too, with a tone in the details now and then, to say the least, not exclusively antique, for this was a mode of treating classical subjects in that age, too common to attract attention.
And thus, whole plays could be written out and out, on this very subject. Take, for instance, but these two, Coriolanus and Julius Caesar,—plays in which, by a skilful distribution of the argument and the action, with a skilful interchange of parts now and then,—the boldest passages being put alternately into the mouths of the Tribunes and Patricians,—that great question, which was so soon to become the outspoken question of the nation and the age, could already be discussed in all its vexed and complicated relations, in all its aspects and bearings, as deliberately as it could be to-day; exactly as it was, in fact, discussed not long afterwards in swarms of English pamphlets, in harangues from English pulpits, in English parliaments and on English battle-fields,—exactly as it was discussed when that 'lofty Roman scene' came 'to be acted over' here, with the cold-blooded prosaic formalities of an English judicature.
              'Well, march we on
  To give obedience where 'tis truly owed:
  Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,
  And with him, pour we in our country's purge
  Each drop of us.
                     Or so much as it needs
  To dew the sovereign Flower, and drown the weeds'—Macbeth.
'Have you heard the argument?'
  'Mildly is the word.'
                  'In a better hour,
  Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
  And throw their power in the dust.'
It is the Military Chieftain of ancient Rome who pronounces here the words in which the argument of the Elizabethan revolutionist is so tersely comprehended.
It is the representative of an heroic aristocracy, not one of ancient privilege merely, not one armed with parchments only, claiming descent from heroes; but the yet living leaders of the rabble people to military conquest, and the only leaders who are understood to be able to marshal from their ranks an effective force for military defence.
But this is not all. The scope of the poetic design requires here, under the sheath which this dramatic exhibition of an ancient aristocracy offers it, the impersonation of another and more sovereign difference in men; and this poet has ends to serve, to which a mere historical accuracy in the reproduction of this ancient struggle of state-factions, in an extinct European common-wealth, is of little consequence; though he is not wanting in that either, or indifferent to it, when occasion serves.
From the speeches inserted here and there, we find that this is at the same time an aristocracy of learning which is put upon the stage here, that it is an aristocracy of statesmanship and civil ability, that it is composed of the select men of the state, and not its elect only; that it is the true and natural head of the healthful body politic, and not 'the horn of the monster' only. This is the aristocracy which appears to be in session in the background of this piece at least, and we are not without some occasional glimpses of their proceedings, and this is the element of the poetic combination which comes out in the dialogue, whenever the necessary question of the play requires it.
For it is the collision between the civil interests and the interests which the unlearned heroic ages enthrone, that is coming off here. It is the collision between the government which uneducated masses of men create and confirm, and recreate in any age, and the government which the enlightened man 'in a better hour' demands, which the common sense and sentiment of man, as distinguished from the brute, demands, whether in the one, or the few, or the many.—This is the struggle which is getting into form and order here,—here first. These are the parties to it, and in the reign of the last of the Tudors and the first of the Stuarts, they must be content to fight it out on any stage which their time can afford to lease to them for that performance, without being over scrupulous as to the names of the actors, or the historical correctness of the costumes, and other particulars; not minding a little shuffling in the parts, now and then, if it suits their poet's convenience, who has no conscience at all on such points, and who is of the opinion that this is the very stage which an action of such gravity ought to be exhibited on, in the first place; and that a very careful and critical rehearsal of it here, ought to precede the performance elsewhere; though a contrary opinion was not then without its advocates.
It is as the mouth-piece of this intellectual faction in the state, while it is as yet an aristocracy, contending with the physical force of it, struggling for the mastery of it with its numerical majority; it is the Man in the state, the new MAN struggling with the chief which a popular ignorance has endowed with dominion over him; it is the HERO who contends for the majesty of reason and the kingdom of the mind, it is the new speaker, the new, and now at last, commanding speaker for that law, which was old when this myth was named, which was not of yesterday when Antigone quoted it, who speaks now from this Roman's lips, these words of doom,—the reflection on the 'times deceased,' the prophecy of 'things not yet come to life,' the word of new ages.
                     'In A REBELLION,
  When what's not MEET, but what must be, was law,
  THEN WERE THEY CHOSEN: in a better hour
  Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
  And throw their power in the dust.'
Not in the old, sombre, Etruscan streets of ancient Rome, not where the Roman market-place, joined the Capitoline hill and began to ascend it, crossed the road from Palatinus thither, and began to obstruct it, not in the courts and colonnades of the primeval hill of palaces, were the terms of this proposal found. And not from the old logician's chair, was the sweep of their comprehension made; not in any ancient school of rhetoric or logic were they cast and locked in that conjunction. It was another kind of weapon that the old Roman Jove had to take in hand, when amid the din of the Roman forum, he awoke at last from his bronze and marble, to his empirical struggle, his unlearned, experimental struggle with the wolf and her nursling, with his own baptized, red-robed, usurping Mars. It was not with any such subtlety as this, that the struggle of state forces which, under one name or another, sooner or later, in the European states is sure to come, had hitherto been conducted.
And not from the lips of the haughty patrician chief, rising from the dust of ages at the spell of genius, to encounter his old plebeian vanquishers, and fight his long-lost battles o'er again, at a showman's bidding, for a showman's greed—to be stung anew into patrician scorn—to repeat those rattling volleys of the old martial Latin wrath, 'in states unborn' and 'accents then unknown,' for an hour's idle entertainment, for 'a six-pen'orth or shilling's worth' of gaping amusement to a playhouse throng, not—NOT from any such source came that utterance.
It came from the council-table of a sovereignty that was plotting here in secret then the empire that the sun shall not set on; whose beginning only, we have seen. It came from the secret chamber of a new union and society of men,—a union based on a new and, for the first time, scientific acquaintance with the nature that is in men, with the sovereignty that is in all men. It was the Poet of this society who put those words together—the Poet who has heard all its pros and cons, who reports them all, and gives to them all their exact weight in the new balance of his decisions.
Among other things, it was understood in this association, that the power, which was at that time supreme in England, was in fact, though not in name, a popular power,—a power, at least, sustained only by the popular will, though men had not, indeed, as yet, begun to perceive that momentous circumstance,—a power which, being 'but the horn and noise o' the monster,' was able to oppose its 'absolute shall' to the embodied wisdom of the state,—not to its ancient immemorial government only, but to 'its chartered liberties in the body of the weal,' and 'to a graver bench than ever frowned in Greece'; and the Poet has put on his record of debates on those 'questions of gravity,' that were agitating then this secret Chamber of Peers, a distinct demand on the part of this ancient leadership,—the leadership of 'the honoured number,' the honourable and right honourable few, that this mass of ignorance, and stupidity, and blind custom, and incapacity for rule,—this combination of mere instinctive force, which the physical majority in unlearned times constitutes, which supplies, in its want, and ignorance, and passivity, and in its passionate admiration of heroism and love of leadership, the ready material of tyranny, shall be annihilated, and cease to have any leadership or voice in the state; and this demand is put by the Poet into the mouth of one who cannot see from his point of observation—with his ineffable contempt for the people—what the Poet sees from his, that the demand, as he puts it, is simply 'the impossible.' For this is a question in the mixed mathematics, and 'the greater part carries it.'
That instinctive, unintelligent force in the state—that blind volcanic force—which foolish states dare to keep pent up within them, is that which the philosopher's eye is intent on also; he, too, has marked this as the primary source of mischief,—he, too, is at war with it,—he, too, would annihilate it; but he has his own mode of warfare for it; he thinks it must be done with Apollo's own darts, if it be done when 'tis done, and not with the military chieftain's weapon.
This work is one in which the question of heroism and nobility is scientifically treated, and in the most rigid manner, 'by line and level,' and through that representative form in which the historical pretence of it is tried,—through that scientific negation, with its merely instinctive, vulgar, unlearned ambition—with its monstrous 'outstretching' on the one hand, and its dwarfish limitations on the other,—through all that finely drawn, historic picture of that which claims the human subjection, the clear scientific lines of the true ideal type are visible,—the outline of the true nobility and government is visible,—towering above that detected insufficiency, into the perfection of the human form,—into the heaven of the true divineness,—into the chair of the perpetual dictatorship,—into the consulship whose year revolves not, whose year is the state.
Neither is this true affirmation here in the form of a scientific abstraction merely. It is not here in the general merely. 'The Instance,' the particular impersonation of nobility and heroism, which this play exhibits, is, indeed, the false heroism and nobility. It is the hitherto uncriticised, and, therefore, uncorrected, popular affirmation on this subject which is embodied here, and this turns out to be, as usual, the clearest scientific negative that could be invented. But in the design, and in all the labour of this piece,—in the steadfast purpose that is always working out that definition, with its so exquisite, but thankless, unowned, unrecognised toil, graving it and pointing it with its pen of diamond in the rock for ever, approving itself 'to the Workmaster' only,—in this incessant design,—in this veiled, mysterious authorship,—an historical approximation to the true type of magnanimity and heroism is always present. But there is more in it than this.
It is the old popular notion of heroism which fills the foreground; but the Elizabethan heroism is always lurking behind it, watching its moment, ready to seize it; and under that cover, it contrives to advance and pronounce many words, which, in its own name and form, it could not then have been so prosperously delivered of. Under the disguise of that historical impersonation—under the mask of that old Roman hero, other, quite other, heroic forms—historic forms—not less illustrious, not less memorable, from time to time steal in; and ere we know it, the suppressed Elizabethan men are on the stage, and the Theatre is, indeed, the Globe; and it is shaking and flashing with the iron heel and the thunder of their leadership; and the thrones of oppression are downfalling; and the ages that seemed 'far off,' the ages that were nigh, are there—are there as they are here.
The historical position of the men who could entertain the views which this Play embodies, in the age in which it was written—the whole position of the men in whom this idea of nobility and government was already struggling to become historical—flashes out from that obscure back-ground into the most vivid historical representation, when once the light—'the great light' which 'the times give to true interpretations'—has been brought to bear upon it. And it does so happen, that that is the light which we are particularly directed to hold up to this particular play, and, what is more, to this particular point in it. 'So our virtues,' says the old Volscian captain, Tullus Aufidius, lamenting the limitations of his historical position, and apologizing for the figure he makes in history—
  'So our virtues
  Lie in the interpretation of THE TIMES.'
['THE TIMES, in many cases, give great light to true interpretations,' says the other, speaking of books, and the method of reading them; but this one applies that suggestion particularly to lives.]
  'And power, unto itself most commendable,
  Hath not a tomb so evident as a hair
  To extol what it hath done.'
The spirit of the Elizabethan heroism is indeed here, and under the cover of this old Roman story; and under cover of those so marked differences in the positions which suffice to detain the unstudious eye, through the medium of that which is common under those differences, the history of the Elizabethan heroism is here also. The spirit of it is here, not in that subtler nature only—that yet, perhaps, subtler, calmer, stronger nature, in which 'blood and judgment were so well co-mingled'—so well, in such new degree and proportion, that their balance made a new force, a new generative force, in history—not in that one only, the one in whom this new historic form is visible and palpable already, but in the haughtier and more unbending historic attitude, at least, of his great 'co-mate and brother in exile.' It is here in the form of the great military chieftain of that new heroic line, who found himself, with all his strategy, involved in a single-handed contest with the state and its whole physical strength, in his contest with that personal power in whose single arm, in whose miserable finger-joints, the state and all its force then lay. Under that old, threadbare, martial cloak,—under the safe disguise of martial tyranny in 'the few,'—whenever the business of the play requires it, whenever 'his cue comes,' he is there. Under that old, rusty Roman helmet, his smothered speech, his 'speech of fire,' his passionate speech, 'forbid so long,' drops thick and fast, drops unquenched at last, and glows for ever. It is the headless Banquo—'the blood-boltered Banquo'—that stalks through that shadowy background all unharmed; his Fleance lives, and in him 'Nature's copy is eterne.'
His house of kings, with gold-bound brows, and sceptres in their hands, with two-fold balls and sceptres in their hands—are here filling the stage, and claiming it to the crack of doom; and now he 'smiles,' he smiles upon his baffled foe, 'and points at them for HIS.'
The whole difficulty of this great Elizabethan position, and the moral of it, is most carefully and elaborately exhibited here. No plea at the bar was ever more finely and eloquently laboured. It was for the bar of 'foreign nations and future ages' that this defence was prepared: the speaker who speaks so 'pressly,' is the lawyer; and there is nothing left unsaid at last. But it is not exhibited in words merely. It is acted. It is brought out dramatically. It is presented to the eye as well as to the ear. The impossibility of any other mode of proceeding under those conditions is not demonstrated in this instance by a diagram, drawn on a piece of paper, and handed about among the jury; it is not an exact drawing of the street, and the house, and the corner where the difficulty occurred, with the number of yards and feet put down in ink or pencil marks; it is something much more lively and tangible than that which we have here, under pardon of this old Roman myth.
For the story, as to this element of it, is indeed not new. The story of the struggle of the few with the many, of the one with the many, of the one with 'the many-headed,' is indeed an old one. Back into the days of demi-gods and gods it takes us. It is the story of the celestial Titan, with his benefactions for men, and force and strength, with art to aid them—reluctant art—compelled to serve their ends, enringing his limbs, and driving hard the stakes. Here, indeed, in the Fable, in the proper hero of it, it is the struggle of the 'partliness' of pride and selfish ambition, lifting itself up in the place of God, and arraying itself against the common-weal, as well as the common-will; but the physical relation of the one to the many, the position of the individual who differs from his time on radical questions, the relative strength of the parties to this war, and the weapons and the mode of warfare inevitably prescribed to the minority under such conditions—all this is carefully brought out from the speciality of this instance, and presented in its most general form; and the application of the result to the position of the man who contends for the common-weal, against the selfish will, and passion, and narrowness, and short-sightedness of the multitude, is distinctly made.
Yes, the Elizabethan part is here; that all-unappreciated and odious part, which the great men of the Elizabethan time found forced upon them; that most odious part of all, which, the greatest of his time found forced upon him as the condition of his greatness. It is here already, negatively defined, in this passionate defiance, which rings out at last in the Roman street, when the hero's pride bursts through his resolve, when he breaks down at last in his studied part, and all considerations of policy, all regard to that which was dearer to him than 'his single mould,' is given to the winds in the tempest of his wrath, and he stands at bay, and confronts alone 'the beast with many heads.'
It is thus that he measures the man he contends with, the antagonist who is but 'the horn and noise of the monster':—
                    'Thou injurious TRIBUNE!
  Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,
  In thy hands clenched as many millions, in
  Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say,
  Thou liest, unto thee, with voice as free
  As I do pray the gods.'
But there was a heroism of a finer strain than that at work in England then, imitating the graces of the gods to better purpose; a heroism which must fight a harder field than that, which must fight its own great battles through alone, without acclamations, without spectators; which must come off victorious, and never count its 'cicatrices,' or claim 'the war's garland.'
If we would know the secret of those struggles, those hard conflicts that were going on here then, in whose results all the future ages of mankind were concerned, we must penetrate with this Poet the secret of the Roman patrician's house; we must listen, through that thin poetic barrier, to the great chief himself, the chief of the unborn age of a new civilization—the leader, and hero, and conqueror of the ages of Peace—as he enters and paces his own hall, with the angry fire in his eyes, and utters there the words for which there is no utterance without—as he listens there anew to the argument of that for which he lives, and seeks to reconcile himself anew to that baseness which his time demands of him.
We must seek, here, not the part of him only who endured long and much, but was, at last, provoked into a premature boldness, and involved in a fatal collision with the state, but that of him who endured to the end, who played his life-long part without self-betrayal. We must seek, here, not the part of the great martial chieftain only, but the part of that heroic chief and leader of men and ages, who discovered, in the sixteenth century, when the chivalry of the sword was still exalting its standard of honour as supreme, when the law of the sword was still the world's law, that brute instinct was not the true valour, that there was a better part of it than instinct, though he knows and confesses,—though he is the first to discover, that instinct is a great matter. We must seek, here, the words, the very words of that part which we shall find acted elsewhere,—the part of the chief who was determined, for his part, 'to live and fight another day,' who was not willing to spend _him_self in such conflicts as those in which he saw his most illustrious contemporaries perish at his side, on his right hand and on his left, in the reign of the Tudor, and in the reign of the Stuart. And he has not been at all sparing of his hints on this subject over his own name, for those who have leisure to take them.
'The moral of this fable is,' he says, commenting in a certain place, on the wisdom of the Ancients, 'that men should not be confident of themselves, and imagine that a discovery of their excellences will always render them acceptable. For this can only succeed according to the nature and manners of the person they court or solicit, who, if he be a man not of the same gifts and endowments, but altogether of a haughty and insolent behaviour—(here represented by the person of Juno)—they must entirely drop the character that carries the least show of worth or gracefulness; if they proceed upon any other footing it is downright folly. Nor is it sufficient to act the deformity of obsequiousness, unless they really change themselves, and become abject and contemptible in their persons.' This was a time when abject and contemptible persons could do what others could not do. Large enterprises, new developments of art and science, the most radical social innovations, were undertaken and managed, and very successfully, too, in that age, by persons of that description, though not without frequent glances on their part, at that little, apparently somewhat contradictory circumstance, in their history.
But the fables in which the wisdom of the Moderns, and the secrets of their sages are lodged, are the fables we are unlocking here. Let us listen to these 'secrets of policy' for ourselves, and not take them on trust any longer.
A room in Coriolanus's house.
[Enter Coriolanus and Patricians.]
Cor. Let them pull all about mine ears, present me Death on the wheel, or at wild horses' heels, Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock That the precipitation might down stretch Below the beam of sight, yet will I still Be thus to them.
[Under certain conditions that is heroism, no doubt.]
First Patrician. You do the nobler.
[For the question is of NOBILITY.]
Cor. I muse my mother Does not approve me further. I talk of you. [To Volumnia.] Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me False to my nature? Rather say I play The man I am.
  Vol. O sir, sir, sir,
  I would have had you put your power well on
  Before you had worn it out.
                               Lesser had been
  The thwarting of your dispositions, if
  You had not show'd them how you were disposed,
  Ere they lacked power to cross you.
* * * * *
[Enter Menenius and Senators.]
  Men. Come, come, you have been too rough
  Something too rough;
  You must return, and mend it.
  1 Sen. There's no remedy,
  Unless, by not so doing, our good city
  Cleave in the midst and perish.
Vol. Pray be counselled: I have a heart as little apt as yours But yet a brain [hear] that leads my use of anger To better vantage.
Men. Well said, noble woman; Before he should thus stoop to the herd, but that The VIOLENT PIT O' THE TIME, craves it as PHYSIC For the WHOLE STATE, I would put mine armour on, Which I can scarcely bear.
[It is the diseased common-weal whose case this Doctor is undertaking. That is our subject.]
Cor. What must I do?
Men. Return to the Tribunes.
Cor. Well, What then? what then?
Men. Repent what you have spoke.
Cor. For them? I can not do it to the gods: Must I then do't to them?
Vol. You are too absolute; Though therein you can never be too noble But when extremities speak. I have heard you say, HONOR and POLICY [hear] like unsevered friends I' the war do grow together: Grant that, and tell me. In peace, what each of them by the other loses That they combine not there?
Cor. Tush; tush!
Men. A good demand.
Vol. If it be honor, in your wars, to seem The same you are not, (which FOR YOUR BEST ENDS You adopt your policy), how is it less, or worse That it shall hold companionship in peace With honor, as in war; since that to both It stands in like request?
Cor. Why force you this? [Truly.]
Vol. Because that now, IT LIES ON YOU to speak To the people, not by your own instruction, Nor by the matter which your heart prompts you to, But with such words that are but rated in Your tongue though but bastards and syllables Of no allowance, to your bosom's truth. Now this no more dishonors you at all, Than to take in a town with gentle words, Which else would put you to your fortune, and THE HAZARD of MUCH BLOOD.—[Hear.] I would dissemble with my nature, where My fortune and my friends at stake required I should do so in honor. I am in this; Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles, And you will rather show our general lowts How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon them. For the inheritance of their loves, and safe-guard Of what that want might ruin [hear] NOBLE lady!
Come go with us. Speak fair: you may salve so,
[It is the diseased common-weal we talk of still.]
You may salve so,
  Not what is dangerous present, but the loss
  Of what is past.
  [That was this Doctor's method, who was a Doctor of Laws
  as well as Medicine, and very skilful in medicines 'palliative'
  as well as 'alterative.']
  Vol. I pry'thee now, my son,
  Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand,
  And thus far having stretched it (here be with them),
  Thy knee bussing the stones, for in such business
  Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
  More learned than the ears—waving thy head,
  Which often thus, correcting thy stout heart,
  Now humble as the ripest mulberry
  That will not hold the handling: or say to them:
  Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils,
  Hast not the soft way, which thou dost confess
  Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,
  In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame
  Thyself forsooth hereafter theirs, so far
  As thou hast power and person.
  Pry'thee now
  Go and be ruled: although I know thou hadst rather
  Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf
  Than flatter him in a bower. Here is Cominius.
[Enter Cominius.]
  Com. I have been i' the market-place, and, sir, 'tis fit
  You make STRONG PARTY, or defend yourself
  By CALMNESS, or by ABSENCE. ALL's in anger.
  Men. Only fair speech.
  I think 'twill serve, if he
  Can thereto frame his spirit.
  Vol. He must, and will.
  Pry'thee now say you will and go about it.
  Cor. Must I go show them my unbarbed sconce? Must I
  With my base tongue, give to my noble heart
  A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do't:
  Yet were there but this single plot to lose,
  This mould of Marcius, they, to dust should grind it,
  And throw it against the wind;—to the market-place;
  You have put me now to such a part, which never
  I shall discharge to the life.
Com. Come, come, we'll prompt you.
Vol. I pry'thee now, sweet son, as thou hast said, My praises made thee first a soldier [—Volumnia—], so To have my praise for this, perform a part Than hast not done before.
  Cor. Well, I must do't.
  Away my disposition, and possess me
  Some harlot's spirit! My throat of war be turned,
  Which quired with my drum into a pipe!
  Small as an eunuch's or the virgin voice
 Â