I.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ingersoll, Robert Green and Widger, David
Lord Bacon also turned his attention to medicine, and he states that "bracelets made of snakes are good for curing cramps" that "the skin of a wolf might cure the colic, because a wolf has great digestion" that "eating the roasted brains of hens and hares strengthens the memory" that "if a woman about to become a mother eats a good many quinces and considerable coriander seed, the child will be ingenious," and that "the moss which groweth on the skull of an unburied dead man is good for staunching blood."
He expresses doubt, however, "as to whether you can cure a wound by putting ointment on the weapon that caused the wound, instead of on the wound itself."
It is claimed by the advocates of the Baconian theory that their hero stood at the top of science; and yet "it is absolutely certain that he was ignorant of the law of the acceleration of falling bodies, although the law had been made known and printed by Galileo thirty years before Bacon wrote upon the subject. Neither did this great man understand the principle of the lever. He was not acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes, and as a matter of fact was ill-read in those branches of learning in which, in his time, the most rapid progress had been made."
After Kepler discovered his third law, which was on the 15th of May, 1618, Bacon was more than ever opposed to the Copernican system. This great man was far behind his own time, not only in astronomy, but in mathematics. In the preface to the "De-scriptio Globi Intellectualis," it is admitted either that Bacon had never heard of the correction of the parallax, or was unable to understand it. He complained on account of the want of some method for shortening mathematical calculations; and yet "Napier's Logarithms" had been printed nine years before the date of his complaint.
He attempted to form a table of specific gravities by a rude process of his own, a process that no one has ever followed; and he did this in spite of the fact that a far better method existed.
We have the right to compare what Bacon wrote with what it is claimed Shakespeare produced. I call attention to one thing—to Bacon's opinion of human love. It is this:
"The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man. As to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies and now and then of tragedies, but in life it doth much mischief—sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. Amongst all the great and worthy persons there is not one that hath been transported to the mad degree of love, which shows that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion."
The author of "Romeo and Juliet" never wrote that.
It seems certain that the author of the wondrous Plays was one of the noblest of men.
Let us see what sense of honor Bacon had.
In writing commentaries on certain passages of Scripture, Lord Bacon tells a courtier, who has committed some offence, how to get back into the graces of his prince or king. Among other things he tells him not to appear too cheerful, but to assume a very grave and modest face; not to bring the matter up himself; to be extremely industrious, so that the prince will see that it is hard to get along without him; also to get his friends to tell the prince or king how badly he, the courtier, feels; and then he says, all these failing, "let him contrive to transfer the fault to others."
It is true that we know but little of Shakespeare, and consequently do not positively know that he did not have the ability to write the Plays—but we do know Bacon, and we know that he could not have written these Plays—consequently, they must have been written by a comparatively unknown man—that is to say, by a man who was known by no other writings. The fact that we do not know Shakespeare, except through the Plays and Sonnets, makes it possible for us to believe that he was the author.
Some people have imagined that the Plays were written by several—but this only increases the wonder, and adds a useless burden to credulity.
Bacon published in his time all the writings that he claimed. Naturally, he would have claimed his best. Is it possible that Bacon left the wondrous children of his brain on the door-step of Shakespeare, and kept the deformed ones at home? Is it possible that he fathered the failures and deserted the perfect?
Of course, it is wonderful that so little has been found touching Shakespeare—but is it not equally wonderful, if Bacon was the author, that not a line has been found in all his papers, containing a suggestion, or a hint, that he was the writer of these Plays? Is it not wonderful that no fragment of any scene—no line—no word—has been found?
Some have insisted that Bacon kept the authorship secret because it was disgraceful to write Plays. This argument does not cover the Sonnets—and besides, one who had been stripped of the robes of office for receiving bribes as a judge, could have borne the additional disgrace of having written "Hamlet." The fact that Bacon did not claim to be the author, demonstrates that he was not. Shakespeare claimed to be the author, and no one in his time or day denied the claim. This demonstrates that he was.
Bacon published his works, and said to the world: This is what I have done.
Suppose you found in a cemetery a monument erected to John Smith, inventor of the Smith-churn, and suppose you were told that Mr. Smith provided for the monument in his will, and dictated the inscription—would it be possible to convince you that Mr. Smith was also the inventor of the locomotive and telegraph?
Bacon's best can be compared with Shakespeare's common, but Shakespeare's best rises above Bacon's best, like a domed temple above a beggar's hut.
VI.
OF course it is admitted that there were many dramatists before and during the time of Shakespeare—but they were only the foot hills of that mighty peak the top of which the clouds and mists still hide. Chapman and Marlowe, Heywood and Jonson, Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher wrote some great lines, and in the monotony of declamation now and then is found a strain of genuine music—but all of them together constituted only a herald of Shakespeare. In all these Plays there is but a hint, a prophecy, of the great drama destined to revolutionize the poetic thought of the world.
Shakespeare was the greatest of poets. What Greece and Rome produced was great until his time. "Lions make leopards tame."
The great poet is a great artist. He is painter and sculptor. The greatest pictures and statues have been painted and chiseled with words. They outlast all others. All the galleries of the world are poor and cheap compared with the statues and pictures in Shakespeare's book.
Language is made of pictures represented by sounds. The outer world is a dictionary of the mind, and the artist called the soul uses this dictionary of things to express what happens in the noiseless and invisible world of thought. First a sound represents something in the outer world, and afterwards something in the inner, and this sound at last is represented by a mark, and this mark stands for a picture, and every brain is a gallery, and the artists—that is to say, the souls—exchange pictures and statues.
All art is of the same parentage. The poet uses words—makes pictures and statues of sounds. The sculptor expresses harmony, proportion, passion, in marble; the composer, in music; the painter in form and color. The dramatist expresses himself not only in words, not only paints these pictures, but he expresses his thought in action.
Shakespeare was not only a poet, but a dramatist, and expressed the ideal, the poetic, not only in words, but in action. There are the wit, the humor, the pathos, the tragedy of situation, of relation. The dramatist speaks and acts through others—his personality is lost. The poet lives in the world of thought and feeling, and to this the dramatist adds the world of action. He creates characters that seem to act in accordance with their own natures and independently of him. He compresses lives into hours, tells us the secrets of the heart, shows us the springs of action—how desire bribes the judgment and corrupts the will—how weak the reason is when passion pleads, and how grand it is to stand for right against the world.
It is not enough to say fine things,—great things, dramatic things, must be done.
Let me give you an illustration of dramatic incident accompanying the highest form of poetic expression:
Macbeth having returned from the murder of Duncan says to his wife:
"Methought I heard a voice cry: Sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep; the innocent sleep; Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast."... "Still it cried: Sleep no more, to all the house, Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more—Macbeth shall sleep no more."
She exclaims:
"Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy Thane, you do unbend your noble strength To think so brain-sickly of things; get some water, And wash this filthy witness from your hand. Why did you bring the daggers from the place?"
Macbeth was so overcome with horror at his own deed, that he not only mistook his thoughts for the words of others, but was so carried away and beyond himself that he brought with him the daggers—the evidence of his guilt—the daggers that he should have left with the dead. This is dramatic.
In the same play, the difference of feeling before and after the commission of a crime is illustrated to perfection. When Macbeth is on his way to assassinate the king, the bell strikes, and he says, or whispers:
"Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell."
Afterward, when the deed has been committed, and a knocking is heard at the gate, he cries:
"Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst."
Let me give one more instance of dramatic action. When Antony speaks above the body of Cæsar he says:
"You all do know this mantle: I remember The first time ever Cæsar put it on— 'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, That day he overcame the Nervii: Look! In this place ran Cassius' dagger through: See what a rent the envious Casca made! Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed, And as he plucked his cursed steel away, Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it."
VII.