Part 11

But how far is it true, as Professor Dowden alleges it to be, that “Bright in his _Melancholy_ seems almost to anticipate the theory of Bacon?” The book is a scarce one. There is no copy in the London Library. However I have taken the trouble to examine it at the British Museum. Professor Dowden refers to pages 62, 237, and 244. In the edition which I examined, that of 1586, there is no reference to the “expense of spirits” at p. 237. Neither is there at p. 62. On page 63, however, I find the following. The author, one Timothy Bright, “Doctor of Phisicke,” is speaking of strong affections of the mind, and he says: “If it holde on long and release not, the nourishment will also faile, the increase of the body diminish, and the flower of beautie fade, and finally death take his fatall hold; which commeth to passe, not onely by _expence of spirit_, but by leaving destitute the parts, whereby declining to decay, they become at length unmeete for the entertainment of so noble an inhabitant as the soule,” etc. On p. 244 we read: “Now as all contention of the mind is to be intermitted, so especially that whereto the melancholicke person most hath given himself before the passion is chiefly to be eschued, for the recoverie of former estate and restoring the depraved conceit and fearefull affection. For there, if the affection of liking go withal, both hart and braine do over prodigally _spend their spirite_ and with them the subtilest parts of the naturall iuyce [juice] and humours of the bodie. If of mislike and the thing be by forcible constraint layd on, the distracting of the mind, from the promptness of affection, breedeth such an agonie in our nature that thereon riseth also great _expence of spirit_, and of the most rare and subtile humours of our bodies, which are as it were the seate of our naturall heate,” etc.

Now in both these passages we find, indeed, the expression the “expense of spirit,” but, except for that, it appears that they can hardly be cited as parallel passages with those of either Bacon or Shakespeare. It is not alleged that this expression is peculiar to these two writers--assuming the duality. The parallelism consists in this, that they both use the words in connection with what Bacon terms “the use of Venus.” I cannot see that the passages in Bright’s treatise, when they are carefully examined, make this parallelism at all less remarkable.

The Professor further tells us that the expression “expense of spirits” may be found in Donne’s _Progress of the Soul_[78] Stanza VI. I do not find it in that stanza, but in Stanza V the following occurs. The poet prays that he may be free,

From the lets Of steep ambition, sleepy poverty, Spirit-quenching sickness, dull captivity, Distracting business, and from beauty’s nets, And all that calls from this, and t’ others whets, O let me not launch out, but let me save Th’ expence of brain, and spirit, that my grave His right and due, a whole unwasted man, may have.

And in Stanza XXI are the words quoted by Professor Dowden, concerning the sparrow:

Freely on his she friends He blood, and spirit, pith and marrow spends.

This indeed proves, what nobody has ever denied, viz., that the expression “to spend the spirit” is not confined among writers of the Elizabethan age to Bacon and Shakespeare. To what extent it detracts from the force of the coincidence on which Judge Webb has laid stress, I must leave it to the reader to determine. The learned Judge laughs at the idea that citations from Bright’s _Treatise of Melancholy_ and Donne’s _Progress of the Soul_, are proof that the expression was one in common use.

There is another example of agreement between Bacon and Shakespeare in connection with this theory of “spirits.” Jessica says (_Merchant of Venice_, V. 1):

I am never merry when I heare sweet music.

To which Lorenzo replies:

The reason is your spirits are attentive.

Bacon writes (_Natural Hist._ Cent. VIII, 745): “Some noises help sleep; as the blowing of the wind, the trickling of water, humming of bees, _soft singing_, reading, etc. The cause is for that _they move in the spirits a gentle attention_.”

Upon this Professor Dowden tells us that Bright talks of music “alluring the spirites,” while “Burton quotes from Lemnius, who declares that music not only affects the ears, ‘but the very arteries, the vital and animal spirits,’ and, again from Scaliger, who explains its power as due to the fact that it plays upon ‘the spirits about the heart,’ whereupon Burton, like Shakespeare’s Lorenzo, proceeds to speak of the influence of music upon beasts, and like Lorenzo, cites the tale of Orpheus.” But Burton’s _Anatomy_ was not published till 1621, about five years after Shakspere’s death, and we can hardly suppose that the player delved into “Lemnius” or “Scaliger!” But we shall doubtless be told that, whether Shakspere had read these books or not, the fact that Bright speaks of music alluring the spirits shows that this was a common expression, and that Lorenzo’s words are to be referred to “the common knowledge or the common error of the time.” But Lorenzo says, “your spirits are _attentive_,” and Bacon speaks of “a gentle _attention_” of the spirits. I do not see this expression in Bright, or Lemnius, or Scaliger, as quoted by Professor Dowden. Here, then, we have two expressions, “the expense of spirits” in connection with Venus, and “the attention of spirits” in connection with music, both in Shakespeare and Bacon. It will be for every reader who is interested in the question, taking these coincidences with many others of a similar character, to decide whether “the common knowledge of the time” affords a sufficient explanation. And let him remember two things--first, that it is, of course, impossible to find an agreement between Shakespeare and Bacon on a subject of which they two alone (if two they were) had exclusive knowledge, and secondly that though one, or two, or three threads may not suffice to bear a weight, a great many threads combined into a cord may do so. At any rate, it may be said of these two:

Utrumque vestrum incredibili modo Consentit astrum.

Judge Webb, of course, refers to the well-known fact that both Shakespeare and Bacon held similar views on the relationship of Art to nature, both holding that art was not something different from nature, but a part of nature. All will remember the dialogue between Perdita and Polixenes in the _Winter’s Tale_:

_Per._: ... The fairest flowers o’ the season Are our carnations and streak’d gillyvors, Which some call nature’s bastards; of that kind Our rustic garden’s barren: and I care not To get slips of them.

_Pol._: ... Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them?

_Per._: ... For I have heard it said There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature.

_Pol._: ... Say there be; Yet nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean: so, over that art Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race: this is an art Which does mend nature, change it rather, but The art itself is nature.

It certainly seems remarkable that the King of Bohemia should lecture the country girl on the essential identity of nature and art. It is not exactly what we should have expected. It is somewhat strange, too, to find Bacon waxing eloquent on the same subject, and to the same effect. Take the following from the _De Augmentis_ (Lib. II, Cap. ii.): “Libenter autem historiam artium, ut historiæ naturalis speciem, constituimus: quia inveteravit prorsus opinio, _ac si aliud quippiam esset ars a natura, artificialia a naturalibus_.... Sed et illabitur etiam animis hominum aliud subtilius malum; nempe, _ut ars censeatur solummodo tanquam additamentum quoddam, naturæ_, cujus scilicet ea sit vis, ut naturam, sane, vel inchoatam perficere, vel in deterius vergentem emendare, vel impeditam liberare; minime vero penitus vertere, transmutare, aut in imis concutere possit: quod ipsum rebus humanis præproperam desperationem intulit.”

That is to say, “we very willingly treat the history of art as a form of natural history; for an opinion has long been prevalent _that art is something different from nature_--things artificial from things natural.... There is likewise another and more subtle error which has crept into the human mind, namely, that of considering art as merely an assistant[79] to nature, having the power indeed to finish what nature has begun, to correct her when lapsing into error, or to set her free when in bondage, but by no means to change, transmute, or fundamentally alter nature. And this has bred a premature despair in human enterprises.” He goes on to point out that, on the contrary, there is no essential difference between art and nature, things artificial being simply things natural as affected by human agency, which is a part of nature, so that in the words of Shakespeare, “the art itself is nature.”[80]

Here it may be worth while to point out that these words are not to be found in the English _Advancement of Learning_, first printed in 1605, but are found in the enlarged Latin version made under Bacon’s supervision, and published in 1623, the very year in which the _Winter’s Tale_ also first saw the light in print, to wit in the _First Folio_. The play may, no doubt, have been written some ten years before that, but whether in its earlier form it contained all this not very appropriate philosophy concerning art and nature, it is of course impossible to say. It is said to have been written about 1611, and we find Bacon writing about the same time very much to the same effect as above quoted.[81]

Artificial selection is, therefore, after all only a form and part of natural selection, the _differentia_ being that it is human agency which brings it into play. And that Bacon had, by one of his luminous intuitions, which are really quite as remarkable as his inductive philosophy, a foreshadowing of the theory of evolution is undeniable, for we have it plainly stated in his _Natural History_ (Cent. VI, 525): “This work of the transmutation of plants one into another is _inter magnalia naturæ_; for the _transmutation of species_ is, in vulgar philosophy, pronounced impossible, and certainly it is a thing of difficulty, and requireth deep search into nature; but seeing there appear some manifest instances of it, the opinion of impossibility is to be rejected, and the means thereof to be found out.”[82]

As to the “streaked gillivors, which some call nature’s bastards,” we find that Bacon has much to say concerning experiments in the colouration and variation of these gillyflowers. In the _Natural History_ (Cent. VI, 506), he writes: “Amongst curiosities I shall place coloration, though it be somewhat better: for beauty in flowers is their pre-eminence. It is observed by some that gillyflowers ... that are coloured, if they be neglected, and neither watered, nor new molded, nor transplanted, will turn white.” Subsequently (510) we read: “Take gillyflower seed, of one kind of gillyflower, as of the clove gillyflower, which is the most common, and sow it, and there will come up gillyflowers some of one colour and some of another,” etc. Then, in 513, we come to the application of “art” to these flowers: “It is a curiosity also to make flowers double, which is effected by often removing them into new earth.... Inquire also whether _inoculating_ of flowers, as stock-gillyflowers ... doth not make them double.”

At any rate it must, I think, be admitted that we have here some very remarkable resemblances between Bacon and Shakespeare. First we have, as mentioned in the opening of this chapter, an almost complete verbal agreement, “lillies of all kinds, the flower-de-luce being one,” and “flower-de-luces and lillies of all natures”; then we have two very similar lists of flowers according to the seasons, whether of the year, or of human life; then we have a complete and, I think extraordinary agreement, as to the philosophy of “nature” and “art”--to wit, that the two are essentially one, since art is but part of nature. Moreover it seems that both writers, if two there were, were writing these things just about the same time. And finally we find that both writers are much concerned with the colours and varieties of “streaked gillyvors” or “stock-gillyvors.”[83]

What does Professor Dowden say to this? He quotes William Harrison’s _Description of England_: “How art also helpeth nature in the dailie colouring, dubling, and enlarging the proportion of our floures, it is incredible, to report,” etc. But Harrison does not say, as Shakespeare and Bacon say, that the art is part of nature (“The art itself is nature”). He merely speaks of art as an _additamentum quoddam naturæ_, which is just the proposition that Bacon (and Shakespeare, by implication) condemns as fallacious. Professor Dowden then tells us that this thought as to art and nature was prominent in the teaching of Paracelsus whom Bacon refuses to honour. But whether or not Bacon refuses to honour Paracelsus he was, at any rate, familiar with him, and makes frequent mention of him. So again as to Pliny, whom the Professor appeals to in this matter. Bacon cites him in the very passage of the _De Augmentis_ (Lib. II, Cap. ii), part of which I have quoted. It seems rather remarkable that the authors to whom the Professor makes his appeal should be, so frequently, writers such as Pliny, and Paracelsus, and Scaliger who certainly were well known to Bacon. I doubt if the Stratford player had included these in his (assumed) omnivorous reading; nor do I think “the common knowledge and common error of the time” explain these coincidences of thought and expression in an altogether satisfactory way. The lines,

... this is an art Which does mend nature, change it rather, but The art itself is nature,

really do seem to bear the Baconian stamp on the face of them. However those who think it sufficient to find that something similar (though certainly not the same) was said by somebody else somewhere about the same time will doubtless be satisfied with Professor Dowden’s hypothesis of a common origin in common knowledge, or error; and those who are “convinced against their will,” will, as usual, be “of the same opinion still.” They should note, however, that Mr. Spedding candidly admits that if the _Essay on Gardens_ had been published before 1616, he would have suspected that it had been read by Shakespeare!

It is interesting to note that Shakespeare speaks of plants as distinguished by sex difference. An old friend of mine, now, alas, gone to that bourne whence no traveller returns, who, like many others, used to maintain that “everything can be found in Shakespeare” (a proposition which if confined within reasonable limits I should be the last to dispute) was so struck by this fact that, in an article contributed by him to the _Saturday Review_, he expressed the opinion that “it can only be explained as a flash of genius hitting on an obscure truth by a great observer, as Shakespeare undoubtedly was.” And in a note to this article, when published with others in book form, he says: “I claim the discovery in the case of flowers for Shakespeare.”[84] But the conception of sex-difference in plants originated long before the days of Shakespeare. It is, if I remember rightly, to be found in Herodotus. But however that may be, it was certainly well known to Bacon who writes (_Nat. Hist._ Cent. VII, 608): “For the difference of sexes in plants they are oftentimes by name distinguished, as male-piony, female-piony, male-rosemary, female-rosemary, he-holly, she-holly,” etc. He goes on to notice the case of the he-palm and the she-palm, which were said to fall violently in love with one another, as to which further details may be found in Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_. Bacon adds: “I am apt enough to think that this same _binarium_ of a stronger and a weaker, like unto masculine and feminine, doth hold in all living bodies.”[85]

To return for a moment to Professor Dowden. I should be the last to deny that he states the case against Judge Webb, so far as regards these Shakespeare-Bacon parallelisms, with great force and learning, and what in an “orthodox” critic is, perhaps, best of all, with admirable temper. And in some cases, I am free to admit that he seems to me to have the best of the argument.

But let us take another example. Hamlet, in his letter to Ophelia, writes:

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.

Upon this Judge Webb comments that Bacon, notwithstanding the teaching of Bruno, and of Galileo, maintained that “the celestial bodies, most of them, are fires or flames as the Stoics held,” and that, notwithstanding the teaching of Copernicus, he held the mediæval doctrine of “the heavens turning about in a most rapid motion.” And he adds, with a touch of sarcasm: “The marvel is that the omniscient Shakespeare with his superhuman genius maintained these exploded errors as confidently as Bacon.” Whereunto Professor Dowden replies that “it presses rather hardly upon Hamlet’s distracted letter to deduce from his rhyme ‘a theory of the celestial bodies,’” and he goes on to say that, “in fact Shakespeare repeats the reference to the stars as fires many times,” and that “references to the stars as fire and to the motion of the heavens are scattered over the pages of Shakespeare’s contemporaries as thickly as the stars themselves.”

Now all this about the stars might, as it seems to me, have been omitted altogether. To assert that the fixed stars are “fire” is surely not to be taken as a proof of scientific ignorance! The sun itself is but a star, and all of us have read of the “mighty flames,” as Sir Robert Ball calls them, that leap from the surface of the sun.[86] But to affirm “that the sun doth move” as one of the certainties of human knowledge was in Shakespeare’s time tantamount to a rejection of the heliocentric teaching of Copernicus and Bruno in favour of the old Ptolemaic system, or, at any rate, of a system in which the earth is supposed to be at rest.[87] Now, that Bacon had failed to profit by the teaching of Copernicus is certain, for in his _Descriptio Globi Intellectualis_ and _Thema Cœli_ (1612) he condemns all the then existing systems of Astronomy as unsatisfactory. His biographer, Dr. Abbott, who is very far from being an indulgent critic, finds much excuse for him here in the fact that Copernicus “himself advocated his own system merely as an hypothesis,” and that it was inconsistent and incomplete until Newton had discovered the Law of Gravitation. He adds: “It is creditable to Bacon’s faith in the uniformity of nature, that he predicted that future discoveries would rest ‘upon observation of the common passions and desires of matter’--an anticipation of Newton’s law of attraction.”[88]

But granting that Bacon and Shakespeare were at one in their rejection of the teaching of Copernicus, Bruno, and Galileo, it seems to me that no argument on behalf of the Baconian theory can be safely founded upon that fact. For the “Stratfordian” answer is very simple, viz., that William Shakspere, the Stratford player and supposed author, very naturally was not abreast of the most advanced scientific teaching of his day. He, of course, conceived that the sun moved round the earth as Ptolemy taught, and not _vice versâ_. The argument therefore can only be effective (if at all) as against those Shakespeariolaters who conceive that player Shakspere was omniscient, or, at least, wrote, as it were, by plenary inspiration.

Mr. Edwin Reed, however, makes another use of these lines. He points out that in the Quarto of 1603 they do not run as above quoted, but as follows:

Doubt that in earth is fire, Doubt that the stars do move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But do not doubt I love,

and he refers to Bacon’s _Cogitationes de Natura Rerum_, assigned to the latter part of 1603, or the early part of 1604, and quotes a passage from his _De Principiis atque Originibus_, in order to show that at that date Bacon had changed his mind in regard to the commonly accepted belief in the existence of a mass of molten matter at the centre of the earth, and maintained that, on the contrary, the terrestrial globe is cold to the core. He goes on to suggest that the substitution of “the sun” for “the stars,” giving us the line,

Doubt that the sun doth move,

in the 1604 edition, is indicative of a deliberate intention on the part of the writer to retain “the doctrine that the earth is the centre of the universe around which the sun and stars daily revolve.” So that, in spite of Copernicus, and Bruno, and Kepler and Galileo, Bacon and the author of the Plays “were agreed in holding to the cycles and epicycles of Ptolemy, after all the rest of the scientific world had rejected them, and they were also agreed in rejecting the Copernican theory after all the rest of the scientific world had accepted it.” And the same doctrine is, of course, retained in the Folio edition of _Hamlet_, published in 1623, in which same year Bacon wrote, in the third book of the _De Augmentis_, that the theory of the earth’s motion is absolutely false!

All this is ingenious, but how far it is convincing must be left for the reader’s consideration.

Let us take yet another example. Bacon in his _Natural History_ (s. 464) tells us that “as terebration doth meliorate fruit, so upon the like reason doth letting of plants blood,” the difference being that the blood-letting is only to be effected “at some seasons” of the year. And so also the gardener in Richard II says:

We at time of year Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees, Lest, being over-proud with sap and blood, With too much riches it confound itself.

Here, as Professor Dowden admits, “the parallel is remarkably close,” but in order to show the “common knowledge of the time,” which is to account for it, he cites Holland’s _Pliny_ to the effect that trees “have a certain moisture in their barkes which we must understand to be their very blood,” and he further refers to Pliny (XVII. 24), to the effect that a fir or pine tree must not have its bark “pulled” during certain months, and adds that, “like Shakespeare, Pliny terms the bark the ‘skin’ of the tree.” Once more, it is remarkable that the reference should be to Pliny, an author with whom, as we know, Bacon was on very familiar terms.[89] However, there is a further illustration from Dekker, and a quotation as to “proudly-stirring” sap from Gervase Markham.

Here again, the only question, as it seems to me, is whether this “remarkably close parallelism,” considered as one among many, is satisfactorily explained by the fact that other contemporary writers spoke of wounding the bark of trees, and drawing blood. It would, certainly, be more satisfactory, from a Baconian point of view, if we could find in both Bacon and Shakespeare something which could only have been known to those two writers, or to that one writer. But as that is hardly possible we have to consider all the parallel passages together, and ask ourselves whether or not, taken as a whole, they raise the presumption of identity of authorship.