CHAPTER VII. 
   
" ANTITHETA" IN BACON, ETC.

From the Book :

 Francis Bacon
Poet,Prophet,Philosopher
Versus
Phantom Captain Shakespeare
The Rosicrucian Mask

BY
W. F. C. WIGSTON
 _______     

    "For who knows not that the doctrine of contraries are the same, 
     although they be opposite in use" (Book VI., p. 209, "Advancement of 
     Learning"). 
   
    "They that endeavour to abolish vice destroy also virtue, for contraries, 
     though they destroy one another, are yet in life of one another" ("Religio 
     Medici," Browne, p. 113). 

   Hegel,in his logic, affirms "everything is at once that which it is, 
and the contrary of that which it is." Bacon has in his Rhetoric 
drawn up a collection of "Antitheta," or pros and cons, that give, 
as it were, the Sophisms of each side of a question or proposition. 
Most of these subjects are identical with, or touch very nearly the 
arguments of the Essays. Nothing is so remarkable in the plays 
as the antithetical style, which gives the supposed Shakespeare 
at once his depth and peculiar hall mark of distinction from 
every other writer ancient or modern. Whether philosophising or 
illustrating, nothing the author delights in more than antithesis or 
paradox. It enters so largely into the text of his Theatre, 
we must conclude the author's mind was so constituted, so 
impersonal and universal, that he could contemplate no subject without 
at once embracing its negative. Here are a few examples. 

In poison there is physic. 
   
          (" 2 King Henry IV.," act i. sc. 1.) 
   
These sentences to sugar, or to gall. 
Being strong on both sides are equivocal. 
   
          ("Othello," acti. sc. 3.) 
   
And do but see his vice, 
'Tis to his vertue a just equinox. 
The one's as long as t'other?: 
   
          ("Othello," act ii. sc. 2.) 
   
Merry and tragical ! Tedious and brief ! 
That is hot ice, and wondrous strange snow, 
How shall we lind the concord of this discord ? 
   
          ("Midsummer Niglit's Dream," act v. sc. 1.) 
   
The better act of purposes mistook, 
Is to mistake again, though indirect, 
   Yet indirection thereby grows direct. 
   
          ("King John," act i. sc. 1.) 
   
His humble ambition, proud humility : 
His jarring concord : and his discord dulcet, 
His faith, his sweet disaster. 
   
              ("All's Well that Ends Well, act i. sc. 1.) 

 O brawling love ! loving hate ! 
 O anything of nothing first create ! 
 O heavy lightness. Serious vanity? 
 Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms ! 
 Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health. 
 Still waking sleep, that is not what it is : 
 This love feel I, that feel no love in this. 
   
          ("Romeo and Juliet," act. i. sc. 1.) 

To quote them all would be to quote a greater part of the 
1623 Folio, for we venture to maintain the style of the works 
known as Shakespeare's, is characterised by profundity of ex- 
pression, the result of a perfectly-trained mind, holding a peculiar 
philosophy, and applying it to everything as explanation. What 
we mean is, that in this iterated Antithesis we hold a powerful 
key for the locked wards of the mind of whoever wrote these 
plays. This delight in Antithesis is at once a proof of an 
intellect matured in the schools, familiar with Aristotle (as Bacon 
confesses in his letter to Mountjoye), and of a mind always 
clear, estimating philosophy as master of poetry, not servant. 
Buffon has declared that "the style is the man" in writing. 
Style is the outcome of thought. If the thoughts are profound, 
clear, and philosophic, the style will reveal it. Nothing is 
more certain, we venture to suggest, than that the mind of 
the author of this style known as Shakespeare's, delighted in 
embracing the idea of the contrary or negative of a thing, 
at the same time as its positive. Excess always brings (in 
the philosophy of the plays), its direct opposite. Loss brings 
want, plenty satiety and disgust; excessive generosity and faith in 
humanity, produces excessive misanthropy and cynicism, as in the 
cases of "Timon of Athens," and "King Lear." There is in 
the plays evidence (both in style and in construction of plot and 
character), of a mind bent upon illustrating the dangers of excess 
in anything, and we find it revealed in such passages as the 
following :--- 

   The violence of either grief or joy 
Their own enactures with themselves destroy. 
                    ("Hamlet," act iii. so. 2.) 
      
"For aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit v:ith too much as they that 
starve with nothing; it is no small happiness, therefore, to be seated in the 
mean. Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competence lives 
longer."           ("Merchant of Venice," act i.) 

   
Under such passages we may perceive the doctrine pointed, 
that proportion or balance is as much an ingredient in happiness 
as in Art or Nature.In the Sonnets we find evidence once more 
of this philosophy of contraries at war, and yet in union or love. 
Evil with Bacon is not an affirmative, but only a negative, and 
we find the plays reiterating the words of Goethe in Faust, that 
the Devil is he, "who constantly denies," and yet "brings forth the 
good." 

   God Almighty ! 
There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
"Would men observingly distil it out ; 
Thus may we gather honey from the weed, 
And make a moral of the devil himself. 
   
                  ("King Henry V.," act iv. sc. 1.) 

Amongst Bacon's "Colours of Good and Evil," we find him 
almost enunciating the same doctrine :--- " That which draws near 
to Good or Evil, the same is likewise Good or Evil ; hut that which is 
removed from Good is Evil, from. Evil is Good." In the Reprehen- 
sion of this Colour Bacon writes:---

"But the colour deceives three ways; first, in respect of Destitution; secondly,
in respect of Obscuration : thirdly, in respect of Protection.In regard of 
   Protection, for things approach and congregate not only for 
consort and similitude of nature, but even that which is evil 
   (especially in Civil matters) approacheth to Good for concealnent and 
Protection ; so wicked persons betake themselves to the sanctuary 
of the Gods, and vice itself assumes the shape and shadow of virtue. 
   
   Saepe latet vitium proximitate boni" 

                            (P. 214, Lib. VI., "Advancement of Learning," 1640.) 

There is no vice so simple but assumes 
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts : 
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false 
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins 
The beards of Hercules, and frowning Mars, 
Who inward search'd have livers white as milk, 
And these assume but valours excrement 
To render them redoubted. 
   
                       ("Merchant of Venice," act iii. sc. 2.) 

Now these repeated "Antitheta" cannot be explained upon any 
ordinary grounds as casual indulgences of thought, and if they 
were even so, they would remain unexplained. They are so 
frequent, and play such a profound part in the style of the text, 
we must conclude not only are they introduced with reference to 
some philosophical principles underlying the construction and 
rationalism of these plays, as yet unrevealed to us, but that the 
author had arrived at some definite and accepted explanation of 
life as the result of Opposites or Contraries, in some such sense as 
expounded in the philosophy of Heraclitus. The remarkable 
point is, we find Bacon re-echoing all this in his Essays, and 
" Antitheta,," and " Colours of Good and Evil." In a letter to 
Lord Mountjoye prefixed to these colours, or pros and cons, he 
confesses he has borrowed them from Aristotle's "Rhetoric." So 
that we see his mind was perfectly trained and versed in these 
sophisms, for and against, which he examples as places of per- 
suasion and dissuasion. These "Antitheta" are applicable to the 
Essays. If we read the Essay on Truth (for example) we find 
two contradictory or antithetical propositions, --- one setting forth 
and inclining to a life of study, and the other a life of active 
politics. It is this that gives the Essays an impersonality and an 
impossibility of arriving at any particular teaching, except for 
good in the main. Dissimulation is praised as politic, yet Bacon 
elsewhere declares himself "vanquished with an immortal love of 
truth." Presently he declares "Nakedness of the mind to be as 
uncomely as nakedness of the body." We desire to point out the 
parallel that Bacon is universal, impersonal, all-sided, impartial, 
and we refind exactly the same myriad-minded impassiveness and 
philosophical treatment in the plays.
 
From Bacon's Essay upon "Cupid, or the Origins and Principles of Things,"
we are inclined to believe he had adopted some sort of philosophy, founded on 
what may be permitted us to briefly term. Affirmatives and Nega- 
tives, otherwise rendered in such synonyms as Light and Dark- 
ness, Love and Hate, Heat and Cold, Attraction and Repulsion, 
in connection with the philosophy of Participation of Parmenides, 
and the Atomic theory of Democritus. We find in the Sonnets 
this philosophy of Opposites very strongly hinted and delivered 
in the form of paradox. The philosophy of the plays frequently 
tui'ns upon profound paradox. Everything runs to its oppo- 
site,* like an over-loaded ship. Directly we lose a thing we feel 
its loss, though not before. Excess produces its direct opposite 
in want. Discord prepares for Concord. Too much sweetness 
produces bitterness, and so applied to everything in morality and 
life. I think the reader will grant this is a great characteristic 
of what is known as Shakespeare's writings. And being so, 
we are certain it amounted in the writer's mind to something 
more than chance reflection. It infects the language and com- 
pacts it into that condensed form of pithy philosophy and para- 
dox so often hard to follow. Virtue and Vice are treated from 
this point of view as laws of attraction and repulsion, as effects 
of light and shadow. If we were asked to characterise the 
peculiar style of the writing of the plays (apart from plot or 
   

* The present pleasure, 
  By revolution lowering does become 
  The opposite of itself. 
                ("Antony and Cleopatra," act i. so. 2.) 

character), we should say that it abounded and revelled in anti- 
thetical expression and paradox. The writer has always the 
affirmative and the negative of a proposition in his mind at 
the same time, and frequently involves one with the other. 
Even in portrayal of character the same great law is observed. 
The fools in the plays are really the wise men, and are intro- 
duced, as in Lear, always to lighten some dark background. 
Timon becomes cynic like Apemantus, whom he had never 
listened to in prosperity. Lear's real madness is set side 
by side with Edgar's feigned madness. The real and the false 
are introduced as light and shadow to illustrate each other. 
We see this again in Hamlet's feigned and Ophelia's real madness. 
It is particularly prominent in the contrast afforded by Ape- 
mantus the cynic, and Timon the misanthrope, the latter becoming 
a hundredfold more cynical than the former when too late. 
   
Archbishop Tenison in "Baconiana" {pub. 1679) thus alludes 
to the Essays : ---

" 'His Lordship wrote them in the English 
tongue, and enlarged them as occasion served, and at last added 
to them the 'Colours of Good and Evil,' which are likewise found 
in his book'De Augmentis.'"

This is a very important point for us to consider, because it at once
 shows Bacon wrote  these Essays with an eye upon Aristotle's Rhetoric, and that 
he intended to write in an impersonal and philosophic spirit,--- 
for the "Colours of Good and Evil" are pros and cons of both sides 
of every proposition. But what is far more important, and 
I think a discovery of some weight, is that in the "De Aug- 
mentis," 1623 (and 1640 translation by Wats), we find these 
"Colours" introduced as part of "The Wisdom of Private Speech." 
   

"Surely it will not be amiss to recommend this whereof we now 
speak to a new Inquiry, and to call it by name 'The Wisdom 
Of Private Speech,' and to refer it to Deficients; a thing 
certainly which the more seriously a man shall think on, the 
more highly he shall value ; and whether this kind of Prudence 
should be placed between Rhetoric and the Politics is a matter of 
no great consequence. Now let us descend to the Deficients 
   in this Art, which (as we have said before) are of such nature as may 
be esteemed rather Appendices, than portions of the art itself, and 
pertain all to the PROMPTUARY PART OF RHETERIC.
   
"First, we do not find that any man hath well pursued or 
supplied the wisdom and the diligence also of Aristotle; for 
he began to make a collection of the Popular signs and colours of 
Good and Evil in appearance, both simple and comparative, which 
are indeed the Sophisms of Rhetoric : they are of excellent use, 
specially referred to business and the tdsdom of private speech" 
(Book VI., p. 210, "Advancement of Learning," 1640). 

Upon this follow twelve examples of the "Colours of Good 
and Evil." Then follow immediately "Antitheta Berum" (or the 
counterpoint of things, see platform) which Bacon has imitated 
from Seneca, and which he calls "a second Provision or Preparatory 
Store," which are places of Persuasion and Dissuasion. These are 
forty-seven in number. The first point to note is the place 
these subjects hold in the "De Augmentis," viz.:--- Illustrations of 
Speech or Bhetoric, "which last (mark) is but one of the three great 
Divisions of Elocution or of Tradition (see table).
 But the final words of the Fifth Book (introducing us to the Sixth Book) 
conclude, 

"Now we descend in order to the fourth member of 
Logic, which handles Tradition and Elocution."

In the platform of the design may be seen the heading and the divisions and sub- 
divisions of the Sixth Book, falling or embraced under the chief 
heading :----
   
        The Partition or the Art of Elocution or of Tradition 
   
                     INTO :--- 
   
(And under this falls) " Illustration of Speech or Bhetoric." So 
that these "Colours of Good and Evil" belong to the Art of 
Delivery (Tradition) of things (?) invented, and (as we have heard 
already) Promptuary and Appendices of "The Wisdom of 
Private Speech," but why it should be private speech or what it 
should prompt to, we have no instructions except our wits or 
guesses to assist us! It is plain all this refers to something else, 
which Bacon has to veil in obscure and private language. Our 
theory is that he here suggests the Essays in context with the Plays. 
   
And we have already discovered some of the examples Bacon 
gives, evidently in contact with the Plays. In a letter to Prince 
Henry, dedicating his fourth edition of the Essays 1612 to him, 
Bacon writes : ---

 "Which I have called Essays. The word is late, 
but the thing is ancient ; for Senecah Epistle to Lucilius, if you 
mark them well, are but Essays, that is dispersed meditations, 
though conveyed in the form of epistles."

 This is important, because we find Bacon introducing his "Forty-seven Examples of 
Antitheta Rerum"with the words : ---

 "A collection of this nature  we find in Seneca, but in suppositions only or cases.
 Of this sort (in regard we have many ready prepared) we thought good to 
set down some of them for example; these we call Antitheta Rerum" 
(p. 300, Book VI., "Advancement of Learning," 1640). 

Now Gervinus asserts Seneca to have been Shakespeare's (save the 
mark!) ideal, and that the author of the Plays studied this 
ancient tragedian more than any other Avriter. So that to find 
Bacon alluding to Seneca's Epistles in context with, his own 
Essays is highly suspicious, pointing to the Plays, seeing 
the subjects of these Essays are for a large part devoted to 
analysis of human character, passions, or affections of the mind which 
constitute the motives of Comedy and Tragedy, viz.:--- Love, Anger, 
Envy, Suspicion, Beauty, Deformity, Ambition, Friendship, 
Vain-Glory, Cunning, Revenge, Simulation and Dissimulation, 
Boldness, Seditions, Faction, Empire, Fortune, Usury, all of 
which enter, in an extraordinary degree, into the composition 
of the Dramatis Personae and text of the 1623 Theatre attributed 
to Shakespeare. Each of these titles is the subject of an Essay 
by Bacon, and we cannot imagine an analysis of the plays re- 
solving itself into anything less than a study of these affections, 
attributes, and their relationships. The colours of the 'Theatre are 
given us in these Essays, as on the palette of a dramatic artist 
waiting to use them. 
   
By examining the (1605) "Two Books of the Advancement of 
Learning," and collating the Second Book with the 1623 "De 
Augmentis," which grew out of it, we can trace the germs or 
early sketch of what Bacon afterwards developed into eight 
separate books. In seeking this particular point in the Sixth 
Book, Ave find in the 1605 "Advancement" this:---

 "Now we descend to that part which concerneth the Illustration of 
Tradition compreliended in tluit science, which we call Rhetoric or 
art of Eloquence." This is confirmation of what we already have 
suggested. "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 thereof by three means ; by 
illaqueation, or sophism, which pertains to Logic ; by imagination or 
impression, which pertains to Rhetoric; and by Passion or Affection, 
which pertains to Morality" (p. 66, Book IL, 1605).

 Now Bacon has laid it down in this work that by imagination he means poetry.*

* "That is the truest partition of humane learning, which hath reference 
to the three faculties of Man's soul, wliich is the seat of learning. History is 
referred to Memory, Poesy to the Imagination, Philosophy to Reason
   (Lib. II.,"Advancement of Learning").  

   One of the most remarkable features of the "De Augmentis " 
of 1623 are the praetermitted parts, or "Deficients," which are 
fifty in number. Now it is very curious to find some of these 
"Deficients," are works already completed hy Bacon. For example, 
the Sixth Deficient is "Sapientia Vetermn," or Bacon's " Wisdom 
of the Ancients." Although it does not openly say so, the title 
is sufficient. And here is a still more pertinent hint for the 
1623 Folio, that it is in context with "Parabolical Poesy," for he 
introduces this Deficient upon page 108, following the discussion 
of the drama and stage plays. The thirty-first Deficient is the 
"Organum Novum," or true directions for the Interpretation of 
Nature. And the reader is begged to mark a strange thing, 
worthy profound reflection, --- that in the 1640 translation of the 
" De Augmentis," by Gilbert Wats, we find most of these De- 
ficients marked by an asterisk in the margin. But these par- 
ticular subjects are not so marked, but passed over. The twenty- 
fifth Deficient is entitled "Prolongando Curnculo Vitce," and is 
evidently a finger-post for Bacon's "History of Life and Death." 
   
   
In the Catalogue of these "Deficients" (at the end of both the 
1623 "De Augmentis" and 1640 translation), we find one 
entitled "Satyra, Seria," which we re-find in the Seventh Book 
(p. 351), and called "De Interiorihus Rerum." This Deficient is also 
omitted from the margin of the paging. Now there is a very strong 
parallel (we are about to endeavour to maintain), this Deficient 
alludes to the Essays, because Bacon calls them "The Interim- 
of Things," and to the final edition (published in "Operum 
Moralium et Cidliuum," by Rawley, 1638) we find this actual title 
heading them, "interionim Berum." The Essays are undoubtedly 
ethical, and this Seventh Book deals also with the "Will of 
Man, which Bacon calls Moral Knowledge. The Essays are, 
moreover, satirical, inasmuch as they censure and lay bare the 
vices, follies, impostures, and subtle reaches of human character, 
passions, and appetites. Such of the Essays as "Revenge," 
"Simulation and Dissimulation," "Envy," "Boldness," "Super- 
stition," "Atheism," "Cunning," "Of Seeming Wise," "Sus- 
picion," "Ambition," "Usury," "Deformity," "Vain Glory," 
"Anger," "Riches," "Fortune," "Of Nature in Men," "Of 
AVisdom for a man's self," &c., are really a keen analysis of the 
impostures, frauds, vices, and passions in human nature. And 
we must be careful not to rely too much on the bare titles 
of these Essays, which are mingled and obscured with 
others (Prophecies, Plantations, Expense, Judicature, Faction, 
&c.), purposely to veil by art their close approximation to the 
characters of the Drama, inasmuch as Ave find their " Antifheta" 
(which are connected with them) in the Sixth Book of the " De 
Augmentis," as Appendices (see Platform) to Rhetoric (or illustra- 
tion of Speech), giving us further the titles "Pride," "Ingratitude," 
"Cruelty," "Loquacity," "Flattery," "Silence," "Violent Coun- 
sels," "Incontinence," Avith other subjects already existing as 
Essays ("Beauty," "Youth," "Health," "Riches," "Fortune," 
"Empire," "Nature," "Superstition," &c.). We find these 
"Antitheta" have each a particular Essay to which they belong. 
This has been already pointed out by Whately (Essays) and 
by Dr- Abbott (Essays). What we ideally are striving to draw 
attention to, is first, that the "De Augmentis," is a "prepara- 
tive or key for the better opening of the Instauration" and that 
these introductions or sketches and titles in connection with 
other works of Bacon's, are so placed as to show us the use they 
are intended to serve. Thus all these " Antitheta" (following the 
"Colours of Good and Evil") are part of Bacon's system of 
Delivery, and come under the great heading of Tradition or 
Elocution, which latter Bacon terms Poetry (See Platform of Book 
VI., "Advancement of Learning," 1640). 
   
Archbishop Whately, in the Preface to the Essays (1860), 
remarks : ---"

 He is throughout, and especially in his Essays, one 
of the most suggestive authors that ever wrote. And it is re- 
markable that, compressed and pithy as the Essays are, and 
consisting chiefly of brief hints, he has elsewhere condensed into 
a still smaller compass the matter of most of them. In his 
   Rhetoric (Sixth Book ' De Augmentis') he has drawn up what 
he calls ' Antitheta,' or common-places, 'locos,' i.e., pros and cons, 
opposite sentiments and reasons on various points, most of them 
the same that are discussed in the Essays. It is a compendious and 
clear mode of bringing before the mind the most important 
points in any question, to place in parallel columns, as Bacon 
has done, whatever can be plausibly urged, fairly or unfairly, 
on opposite sides; and then you are in the condition of a judge who 
has to decide some muse after having heard all the pleadings. I have 
accordingly appended to most of the Essays some of Bacon's 
'Antitheta' on the same subjects" (page v.). 

The important point is, Bacon introduces these "Antitheta" 
as "Promptuary part of Rhetoric" (following the "Colours of 
Good and Evil"), or as "a second collection or preparatory 
store"; and in "The Two Books of the Advancement" (1605) 
we find the early sketch of this now more developed germ 
entitled, "Preparation and Suggestion," coming under "Literate 
Experience and Interpretation of Nature" (pages 51, 52). And 
we see the ancient writers of Rhetoric do give it in precept: 

That Pleaders should have the places whereof they have most contiunal 
use, ready handled in all the varieties that may be, as that to speak for 
the literal interpretation of the law against equitiy and contrary ; and to 
speak for presumptions and inferences against testimony and contrary." 

Archbishop Whately remarks : ---

"Several of these ' Antitheta 'were either adopted by Bacon from proverbial use,
 or have (through him) become proverbs."

 This is perfectly true, for a vast number of them do come from the proverbs of Solomon, 
a collection of which is one of the curious features of the "Advancement of Learning." 
Whately continues : 

"Proverbs accord- ingly are somewhat analogous to those medical formulas which 
being in frequent use, are kept ready made up in the chemists' 
shops, and which often save the framing of a distinct proposi- 
tion " (page vi., Preface, "Essays").

 Now this is exactly what Bacon says of his "Antitheta," though in other words.
 He calls  them "seeds," "store," "skeins, or bottoms of thread to be drawn out 
and umwinded into larger discourse as occasion should be pre- 
sented." And he concludes : "Seeing they are seeds and not 
flowers." 
Our conviction is they are the seeds of the Shake- 
speare {so called) Theatre ; being the pithy abstract of certain 
virtues and vices, passions and affections, or attributes of human 
characters portrayed in action in the plays. And we are to unwind 
these "skeins of thread," develop these seeds by analysing the 
plots and the motives of each particular play. They seem to us 
   texts for and against. The headings alone of these " Antitheta " 
do a tale unfold, inasmuch as they constitute not only a supple- 
ment to the subjects of the Essays, but speak loudly enough 
for themselves, as the colours of the dramatic artist, viz. : "Pride," 
"Envy," " Berenge," "Boldness," "Ingratitude," "Incontinence," 
"Vain-Glory," "Cruelty," which we may term vices. Then we 
also find these headings : "Braise," " Fortitude," " Temperance," 
" Constancy," " Blagnanimity," " Learning," " Love," " Fiiendship," 
"Beauty," "Youth," "Nobility;' " Biches," "Honours," "Fortune," 
" Empire." These are connected with the Essays ‚--- at least most 
of them. And there seems to be a probability Bacon disguised 
the titles of some of the Essays, and mixed them up with subjects 
not connected with the Theatre at first sight. For exammple, 
Bacon writes in a letter to Bishop Andrews: 

"And again for that my Book of Advancement of Learning, may be some 
2) preparative or key for the better opening of the Instauration ; 
because it exhibits a mixture of new conceits and old"(Pre- 
fixed to the Advertisement of the "Holy War").

 Again, evidently alluding to this particular work, which he considered 
his favourite writing:

 "Therefore, having not long since set 
forth a part of my Instauration, which is the work that in mine 
own judgment (Si niunquam fallit imago) I do most esteem...... 
   
Yet, nevertheless, I have just cause to doubt that it flies too high 
over men's heads" (Ibid.).

 In a letter to Dr Playfer on this same 
work : 

" And therefore the privateness of the language considered, 
wherein it is written, excluding so many readers ; as on the other 
side the obscurity of the argument, in many parts of it, excludeth 
many others, &c." (Part I., "Resus.," p. 28).

It appears as if Bacon associated himself personally with this particular work. 
For in a letter to Sir Thomas Bodley, upon sending his book 
of "Advancement of Learning," we read :

 "And the second copy I have sent unto you, not only in good affection,
but in a kind of congruity, in regard of your great and rare desert of learning. 
For Books are the shrines where the Saint is or believed to be. 
And you having built an Ark to save learning from deluge, deserve 
propriety in any new instrument or engine whereby learning 
should be improved or advanced." 

It is very difficult to comprehend in what sense Bacon signifies the "Advancement" to 
be a "preparative or key for the better opening of the Instauration"
   
   Dr Abbott, in his scholarly introduction to Bacon's "Essays," 
writes that the latter "embody the Antitheta" (page xvii.). Now 
this is well worthy attention, because it shows these Essays 
were written without any particular bias, but embrace both sides 
of their subjects in pro and contra. And therefore the attempt 
to extract any opinion as to Bacon's particular subjectivity out of 
them is as absurd as the laying of weight upon selections out of 
the plays, to illustrate their author. Why were these " Antitheta" 
not published with the Essays? Why are they to be found in 
the "De Augmentis," and particularly in the Sixth Book handling 
   Traditive Art, that is the "Delivery of Secret Knowledge" to Pos- 
terity and The "Colours of Good and Evil " were published with 
the Essays in 1597 (first edition). And we refind them in this 
Sixth Book of the "De Augmentis "entitled" Promptuary part of 
Rhetoric," and appendices of the "Wisdom of Private Speech,'so 
that they are evidently introduced here as helps, aids, or cues to 
something else that is "private"(or obscure) and traditive! I take the 
entire Sixth Book of the "De Augmentis," to consist of nothing but 
the different methods and ways, by which Bacon has determined 
to hand on to us, the problem of the authorship of the plays. 
   
Upon page 209, Book IV., of the "Advancement of Learning," 
1640, we find Bacon writing of "Divination " and of the "Facul- 
ties of the Soul." Very strangely the paging proceeds correctly 
to page 280, when it suddenly becomes 209, falsely mispaged, 
and continues for eight pages, Avhen once more it takes up the 
correct paging, 289, as if there had been no lapses. Now it is 
very remarkable this false page, 209 (Ins), Book VI., introduces 
us to the relationship of Logic to Ethic, and upon page 210* 
   to the "Wisdom of Private Speech," embracing the " Colours of 
Good and Evil." 

* This page 210 is exactly the double of page 105, upon which latter Poetry 
is first discussed. It is striking to find that 105 is the sum of the two 
first false pagings 52 and 53, Shakespeare's age 1616, full years and
 year he had just entered.

There can be, no doubt, the last point to the 
Essays, for they were published together in 1597. And this is 
corroborated by the "Antitheta" (which follow upon the 
"Colours of Good and Evil"), being the kernels or pith of the 
Essays placed pro and con. This needs no apology as a state- 
ment, for it has not only been recognised by Whately and Dr 
Abbott, but the "Antitheta" speak loudly enough for themselves 
as to their origins. The "Colours of Good and Evil" are examples 
of the working of these "Antitheta," that is, with the sophisms, 
re-argued by Bacon. 
   
   
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