The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

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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

tself, 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 princ

hese 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 c

ilosophy, 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

le 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

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 we

f 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

s 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

ory 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, t

ady 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,

ence or two. Let us take the next one that follows this explanation-the story in the very next paragraph to it. The question is appa

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 n

ds to his mouth as he had a mind to do, when Eros, one of his slaves, brought him word that the aud

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 ins

therto [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

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 fortu

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arly, though he also recommends the same key for the reading of lives

e 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 dec

metimes is seen among US; can it be that men are afraid to lose thems

re a man of no mark, yet an image of grandeur and ability insensibly steals into our opinion, and

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do, my lord. Hercul

e my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little. 'Sblood, th

ving 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 myse

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answered, "that those animals were not destined to such a service." "That's all one," replied he; "it only sticks at your command; f

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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 peop

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

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

se 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 statesma

s, 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 alterati

s 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 pla

te 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 t

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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 on

ther 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 CONDI

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

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 pa

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 w

wice. 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 Sen

ligation 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 b

oming 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 spectato

hich 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 fin

d high, so that when I have gone to whisper some great person about an affair of con

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

er 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 r

nd 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; th

as his own, he is enabled to create an opposition which could not exist, so long as they remain unco

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

l such whimsies as are in use amongst us, deserve at least to be hearkened to; for my part, they only with me imp

red 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 ima

ncy 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

ept 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 c

our 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 s

which mirth and familiarity introduce amongst friends pleasantly and wittingly jesting with one another; an exercise for which my natural gaiety renders m