Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
(Ib. I. vii. 81).

The Clarendon Editor very aptly illustrates the above use of the word apply by the following quotation from Bacon's Essay of "Ceremonies," where the sentiment expressed in the text is most exactly presented :

"To apply one's self to others is good, so it be done with demonstration that a man doeth it with regard, and not upon facility," which is the same as "Present him eminence both with eye and tongue."

Very much the same counsel is given by the King to Laertes when the two are plotting together for Hamlet's assassination :

Weigh what convenience both of time and means
May fit us to our shape: if this should fail,

And that our drift look through our bad performance,
'Twere better not assay'd: therefore this project
Should have a back or second, that might hold
If this should blast in proof.

(Ham. IV. vii. 150).

This is strangely Baconian, as Colonel Moore has pointed out (see "Bacon Journal" I. 192). The same astute calculation is thus described by Bacon:-" For in every particular action a man ought so to direct and prepare his mind, and should have one intention so underlying and subordinate to another, that if he cannot obtain his wishes in the best degree, he may yet be satisfied if he succeeds in a second or even a third." (De Augmentis VIII. ii.).

In all these cases, and in countless others we find a philosophic, scientific, prosaic statement of the principles, which live and act in the Shakespearian drama. Comparing Shakespeare's art with Bacon's philosophy, we find that

The art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to this theoric.

(Hen. V. I. i. 51)

SCIENCE BODIED IN POETRY.

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In the language of mystic philosophy Shakespeare's art is the continent and ultimate of Bacon's philosophy: there is a perfect correspondence and continuity between them. As the natural world is created by influx from the spiritual world, and is its counterpart and representative, so is the poetry of Shakespeare poured forth as influx from the creative thought of Bacon's science, giving to it a concrete presentation, a living, organised counterpart.

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CHAPTER IX.

LOVE AND BUSINESS.

BACON'S ESSAY OF "LOVE" COMPARED WITH THE
TREATMENT OF LOVE IN SHAKESPEare.

IN Tennyson's "Life" (II. 424) the following occurs in a letter to a friend :-"I have just had a letter from a man who wants my opinion as to whether Shakespeare's Plays were written by Bacon. I feel inclined to write back, 'Don't be a fool, sir!' The way in which Bacon speaks of love would be enough to prove that he was not Shakespeare. 'I know not how, but martial men are given to love. I think it is but as they are given to wine, for perils commonly asked to be paid in pleasures.' How could a man with such an idea of love write Romeo and Juliet?"

And yet even Tennyson might have paused before shutting off the claims for Bacon with such resolute incredulity, not to say unexpressed incivility. For he himself had found in Bacon qualities which are at first sight quite as incompatible with an unromantic view of love, as he supposed Shakespeare to be. Tennyson had been on one occasion speaking of Lord Bacon, and said, "That certain passages of his writings, their frequent eloquence and vivid completeness lifted him more than those of almost any other writer." And of the Essays he said, "There is more wisdom compressed into that small volume than in any other book of the same size that I know." ("Life" II. 76, 415). Clearly, then, any unfavourable impression derived from one or two passages in a small Essay may be corrected and perhaps even vindicated

THE STUMBLING-BLOCK.

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when a larger view is taken. What more could he say of Shakespeare's wisdom than this?

The objection which Tennyson expressed so energetically is one that is often raised when the Baconian theory is under discussion.

THE PROBLEM.

I. It has often been objected to the Baconian theory, that the author of the Essay of "Love" and of "Marriage and Single Life" could not also have written the exquisite love scenes of the Shakespeare plays. Bacon's view of love, it is said, is so cold, so passionless, so unromantic, that he was evidently incapable of understanding or sympathising with the sweeter aspects of the tender passion. This objection is presented in a very triumphant way, as at once settling the whole question, and indeed many Baconians at first find it staggering and embarrassing in the highest degree, an argument which it is extremely difficult to meet. It is worth while then to examine it somewhat carefully; and in doing so the polemics of the case need not blind us to the exceedingly interesting and suggestive comparisons, which it necessitates between the poet and the essayist.

Those who urge this objection, do so, it seems to me, in a very loose way, not attempting to estimate the real purpose or import of the Essays: not taking any very comprehensive view of the attitude of the Shakepearean poet to the sentiment of love. If the two are to be compared, it is only fair to make a quantitative and qualitative analysis of both.

MISTAKEN VIEW OF THE ESSAY.

2. Bacon speaks in his Preface of a double purpose in his Essays: "They come home to men's business and bosoms.' One might suppose that if he wrote on love and marriage, the "bosom" side of his readers would be

especially addressed. But it is not so: the bosom side is neglected the topic of the Essay is the business side of this question. The Essays are very brief, very aphoristic, very concentrated, never discursive or rhetorical, but severely reflective and practical. It is true that poetic touches of the most exquisite character constantly present themselves. The Essay of " Adversity," for instance, is a most perfect poem. But on the whole, in the Essays emotion is suppressed, business is supreme. Anyone who goes to the Essay of "Love" for a complete account of Love in all its points of contact with life and experience, is on a wrong quest. Love from the Statesman's and Philosopher's point of view,-love as related to what we might now call politics or economics,―love in its bearing on public life and "business," is the real topic and no other. The mere title "Of Love,"-" Of Marriage and Single Life," does not justify anyone in assuming that the text shall contain exactly what he expects-exactly what he would have written on these topics. These Essays are not accommodated to the preconceptions of a Ninteenth Century reader, whose mind is saturated with the fiction, romance or poetry of its literature. And Bacon does not trouble himself to define his limits; any capable reader, who is entitled to criticise, can do that for himself. Such a reader will not be slow to perceive that here is nothing like a rhapsody,—not even an exhaustive psychologic or physiologic account of the passion or sentiment of love, but something entirely different. Many critics, strange to say, have started with the most unreasonable claim that Bacon's discourse on love shall contain not only what they think he ought to say, but all that he himself had to say— the whole continent of his thoughts and feelings about love. And if he does not satisfy these most unreasonable preconceptions, they, measuring the great man by their own small foot-rule, think themselves justified in writing about him in this style:-"Bacon knows nothing of the valuable influence of unselfish and holy love for a fair