In a lecture on Francis Bacon's essays, recently delivered in our American Cambridge by an instructor of Harvard university, the audience, when the essay of Love had been read, was convulsed with laughter by the quizzical injunction addressed to it. "Fancy Bacon writing 'Romeo and Juliet!'" Lord Tennyson, had he been present, would undoubtedly have been in full sympathy with the spirit of the occasion, for he also, referring to the same essay, once asked, " Could Bacon, holding such sentiments, have written 'Romeo and Juliet?' " Tennyson's own answer to the question was this : "any man who believes that he could have done so is a fool." Indeed, the opinion among cultivated people on both sides of the Atlantic, that the greatest with one possible exception the world has produced, and according to Macaulay, the "possessor of the most exquisitely constructed intellect ever bestowed on any children of men" was incapacitated by a constitutional defect in his character to write the garden scene in the famous play is so general that we are brought face to face with a new problem, not in authorship alone, but in psychology itself. The question is not one of intellectual power, of style of writing, of differences in poetry and prose as expressions of thought, but of the heart, of pure feeling. It was the seeming incongruity on this point and on this only for the moment that drew the remark in question from the learned professor and the merriment with which it was received by his auditors.
If there be one judgment concerning Francis Bacon in which all agreed, it is that he was the most gifted interpreter of human nature the world has ever known. His name is in this respect always on the tongue with Shakespeare's. Henry Hallam, perhaps the foremost critic of the English-speaking race compares him "with Aristotle, Thucydides, Tacitus, Philippe de Comines, Machiavel, Davila, Hume, with the historians most celebrated for their deep insight into civil society and human character," and then declares Bacon may almost be said to equal "all of them together;" even Alexander Pope, in the same breath with his famous sneer, called him the "wisest of mankind." Sir William Rawley, who was Bacon's chaplain and who knew him best, says, "that on the subject of character Bacon seems to have had a beam of knowledge directly derived from God."
Now, how can this be, if Bacon did not possess the key that unlocks more than one half of the enigmas of the world; that explains more than on half of the difficult and perplexing situations in which men and women find themselves in the conduct of life? If the tenderest and sweetest of passions were a stranger to Bacon's heart, how could Hepworth Dixon have painted this picture of him :

"A soft voice, a laughing lip, a melting heart, made him hosts of friends. No child could resist the spell of his sweet speech, of his tender smile, of his grace without study, his frankness without guile."

"All his pores lie open to external nature; birds and flowers delight his eye; his pulse beats quick at the sight of a fine horse, a ship in full sail, a soft sweep of country; everything holy, innocent and gay acts on his spirits like wine on a strong man's blood. Joyous, helpful, swift to do good, slow to think evil, he leaves on every one who meets him a sense of friendliness, of peace and power.
He hungered, as for food, to rule and bless mankind."

We now ask our readers, who of them can hang, in the chambers of his memory, the portrait of a man more gentle, more charming, more loving than this?
The incidents of Bacon's private life, so far as we have any knowledge of them, do no justify an inference on this subject against him. His treatment of Essex, which Mr. Gladstone, could not condemn and which we ourselves deem to have been entirely honorable, is not pertinent to our inquiry. His unsuccessful wooing of Lady Hatton cannot be cited to his prejudice, even though the unfortunate lady did prefer Sir Edward Coke, and against the eight objections of her friends, (the crabbed lawyer's seven children and himself,) actually married him. Nor can we draw any conclusion from the fact that a short time before his death he canceled a provision he had made in his will in behalf of his wife, for we know absolutely nothing of the circumstances of the case, except that the widow, also immediately afterward, reentered the bonds of matrimony, this time with her usher.

Unfortunately, we must now seek the truth for a man's private character in the least satisfactory of all sources; that is, in his utterances designed for the public. Bacon's letters, written on every sort of occasion, have been preserved to us by the hundred, we had almost said by the thousand, but they give us not a hint of any abnormality in the state of his affections or in his regard for the finer sex. We must judge Bacon, as we judge every other person, by the whole tenor of his thought, wherever we find it. The standard of judgment here is not of our choosing, for the question is, have we any reason to believe, with Prof. Copeland of Harvard and the most intelligent audience America can assemble, that Bacon was constitutionally unable to write "Rome and Juliet?" If therefore Bacon's sentiments on love can be shown to have been in harmony with Shakespeare's, that question is beyond all controversy settled, and settled favorably to Bacon.

To this comparison we now invite the attention of our readers :

Bacon "Speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but love." Essay of Love

The original of this saying appears to have been in Publicus Syrus, a mimographer of the time of Julius Caesar, who expressed it thus :
"It is scarcely possible for a god to love and be wise."
Bacon in his Advancement of Learning (1605) transferred the application to man as follows :
"It is not granted to love and be wise."
It will be seen that the author of Troilus and Cressida (1609) followed Bacon, rather than the Latin author. That is, both authors made the same deviation from the Latin text. 

At the Christmas revels of Gray's Inn, in 1594, a mock court was held by the students there under the management of Francis Bacon. One of the chief orders of the court was to forbid members of the society of women. Music, dancing, feasting and other similar diversions were also forbidden. At about the same time was produced the play Love's Labor's Lost. in which another mock court is held, and practically subject to the same orders relating to women. The members of each court were even obliged to take oath not to speak to a woman for the space of three years. The two courts seem to have been modeled alike, not only in many respects under the same rules and regulations, but also under the same pretenses, viz : pursuit of study.
The play was acted before the Queen at Christmas, 1597, but marked on the title page of the printed copy in the following year as "newly corrected and augmented." This would bring the date of its composition to about the time of the Revels at Gray's Inn.

from Shake-speare : Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind is; why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet, or an aglet baby, or an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as two an fifty horses; why, nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.

from Bacon : Deformed persons are commonly even with nature, for as nature hath done ill by them, so do they by nature, being for the most part (as the scriptures saith) void of natural affection.
Essay of Deformity

King Richard III, according to Shake-speare, was so deformed that dogs in the street barked at him as he passed; and he was so devoid of natural affection that he murdered his wife, his brother Clarence and his two nephews in the Tower; and he died with his mother's curse resting upon him. Both authors attributed these evil deeds to his deformity.

---

Love in the Liver

from Shake-speare : If ever love had interest in his liver.
Much Ado About Nothing, IV, 1,232.

This is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity.
Love's Labor's Lost, IV, 3,74

Ford. Love my wife?
Pistol. With liver burning hot.
Merry Wives of Windsor II, 2,116

Soothsayer. You shall be more beloving than belov'd.
Charmian. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.
Anthony and Cleopatra, I, 1, 22

The white cold virgin snow upon my heart
Abates the ardor of my liver.
The Tempest, IV,1, 55,56

from Bacon : Plato's opinion who located sensuality in the liver is not to be despised.
Advancement of Learning

---

Love Verses on Trees

from Shake-speare : O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books.
And in their barks my thoughts I'll character,
That every eye, which in this forest looks,
Shall see thy virtue witness'd everywhere,
Run, run, Orlando, carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste, the unexpressive she.
As You Like It, III, 2, 5

There is a man haunts the forest, that abuses our young plants with carving Rosalind on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles; all forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind. If I could meet that fancy monger, I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.
As You Like It, 355

From Bacon : It is a curiosity to have inscriptions or engravings in fruit or trees. This is easily performed by writing with a needle or bodkin or knife or the like, when the fruit or trees are young, for, as they grow, so the letters will grow, so the letters will grow more large and graphical. Tenerique meos incidure amores Arboribus; crescent illae, crescetis, amores.
Natural History

The Latin passage in Bacon is quoted from Virgil's Bucolica (Ecl. X, 54), the full text of which may be translated as follows :
"I prefer to endure hardships in a forest, in the haunts of wild beasts, and carve my loves on young trees, then, as the trees, grow, ye, my loves, will grow."
We now know whence the dramatist derived the hint for placing wild beasts in the French forest of Arden, and love verses carved on growing trees there. The play was first printed in the folio of 1623; but Bacon quotes the passage from Virgil in his Promus (1594-6), several years before the play was written. The latter was entered in the stationer's registers August 4th, 1600, or almost immediately after Bacon had made use of the same kind of growing and enchanting love verses on trees, and taken them,too, from the same classical source as Shake-speare himself who must be credited with them.

---

Mark Anthony's Love

from Shake-speare : Look! where they come.
Enter Anthony and Cleopatra.
Take but good note, and you shall see him.
The triple pillar of the world, transformed
Into a strumpet's fool.
Anthony and Cleopatra, I. i, 10

From Bacon : You may observe that amongst all the great and worthy persons, (whereof the memory remaineth, ancient or modern) there is not one that hath been transported to the mad degree of love. You must except, nevertheless, Mark Anthony, the half partner of the Empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius.
Essay of Love

The following will also justify Bacon's exceptions :

Cleopatra. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
Anthony. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.
Cleopatra. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd.
Anthony. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.
Anthony and Cleopatra

The very man alone, out of all the world (with one exception) whose life Francis Bacon selected to illustrate the "mad degree of love" Shake-speare also selected, out of all with no exception, to illustrate the same thing.

---

Follies of Lovers

from Shake-speare : Lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit.
Merchant of Venice, II, 6, 36

From Bacon : A lover always commits some folly.
Bacon's Promus

---

Love Itself, A Folly

from Shake-speare : By love the young and tender wit
Is turned to folly.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, I, 1. 47.
Hamlet (to Ophelia) Get thee to a nunnery.
Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what matters you make of them.
Hamlet, III, 1, 143
I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love. But I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool.
Much Ado About Nothing, II,3, 7-26.

So true a fool is love.
Sonnet 57

From Bacon : Love is a child of folly.
Essay of Love
There is never any vehement love without some absurdity.
Letter to Cecil

---

Absent Lovers Communing Together

from Shake-speare : Imogen. I did not take my leave him, but had
Most pretty things to say, ere I could tell him
How I would think on him, at certain hours,
Such thoughts and such.....;
Or have charg'd him
At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,
To encounter me with orisons, for then
I am in heaven with him.
Cymbeline I, 4, 25

From Bacon : Some trial should be made whether pact or agreement do anything; as if two friends should agree that on such a day in every week, being in far different places, they should pray one for another, or should put on a ring or tablet, one for another's sake.

---

Love and Fortune

from Shake-speare : Thou Julia, thou hast metamorphos'd me;
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
War with good counsel, set the world at naught.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, I, 1, 67.

The world is lost; we have kiss'd away kingdoms and provinces.
Anthony and Cleopatra, III, 8, 14

From Bacon : Whosoever esteemeth too much of amorous affection quitteth both riches and wisdom.
Essay of Love

All who, like Paris, prefer beauty, quit, like Paris, wisdom and power.
De Augmentis

---

Figure in Ice

from Shake-speare : This weak impress of love is as figure
Trench'd in ice, which with an hour's heat
Dissolves to water and doth lose his form
Two Gentlemen of Verona III 2, 6

From Bacon : It is not written in ice, that when the body relenteth, the impression goeth away?
Charge against Owen

Bacon applies the similitude primarily to high treason.

---

One Nail Driving Out Another

from Shake-speare : As one nail by strength drives out another,
So the remembrance of my former love
Is by a new object quite forgotten.
Two Gentlemen of Verona II, 4, 191

One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail.
Coriolanus 4, 7, 54

From Bacon: Clavum clavo pellere (to drive out one nail with another)
Promus

---

Another's Self

from Shake-speare : Make thee another self, for love of me.
Sonnet 10

From Bacon: A friend [lover] is another himself.
Essay of Friendship

---

Love, A Madness

from Shake-speare :

Love is merely [wholly] a madness; and I tell you deserves as well a dark house and a whip* as mad men do; and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too.
As You Like It, III, 2, 394

From Bacon:

The mad degree of love.
Essay of Love

* Whipping was the common penalty, inflicted upon insane people, in Shake-speare's time. Even so good a man as Sir Thomas More sent women who were acknowledged to be insane to the whipping post before he was himself put to death. The author of the Shake-speare dramas also approved of this punishment. And so did Bacon. One of Bacon's most intimate friends on the continent, one whom he delighted to visit his home in Geneva, was Theodore Beza. Beza was especially severe against those who believed insanity to be a natural malady , and declared : "Such persons are refuted both by sacred and profane history."

---

Suicide For Love

from Shake-speare:

Roderigo : I will incontinently drown myself. It is silliness to live when when to live is a torment; and then have we a prescription to die, when death is our physician.
Iago. I never found a man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon
What you call love is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will.
Come, be a man! drown thy self? Drown cats and blind puppies.
Othello, 1, 3, 318.

From Bacon:

Men ought the nore to beware of this passion, for it hath its floods in the very time of weakness, which are great prosperity and great adversity.
Essay of Love

In Iago's speech, quoted above, we have Shake-speare's definition of love : "A lust of the blood and a permission of the will." Permission is derived from the latin per (intensive) and mittere, to send away, to banish utterly. This is one of many proofs that a thorough classical scholar, as Bacon was, wrote the play. This is precisely what Bacon calls (as above) "the mad degree of love," that is, giving the rein to one's passion.

---

Love's Keepsakes

from Shake-speare:

Give me your gloves; I'll wear them for your sake;
And for your love, I'll take this ring from you.
Merchant of Venice, IV, 1, 426

From Bacon:

It helpeth to continue love, if one wear a ring, or a bracelet of the hair of the party beloved; perhaps a glove, or other like favor, may as well do it.
Natural History

---

Love Platters

from Shake-speare:

O, flatter me, for love delights in praises.
Two Gentlemen of Verona, 4, 5, 148

From Bacon:

There is no flatterer like a lover.
Conference of Pleasure

---

Love and Chaos

from Shake-speare:

When I love thee not, Chaos is come again.
Othello, III, 3 92

From Bacon:

Chaos is restrained and kept in order by the concord of things, which is love.
De Augmentis

Othello identifies his individual love for Desdemona with Cupid, the first of the god, who, united with Chaos, created all things, and reduced the world to order. That is to say, in Bacon's system of philosophy Love is the force that binds the universe together; and therefore Othello asserts, with the usual hyperbolism of lovers, that should his own love for Desdemona cease, Chaos would come again.

---

Queen Elizabeth and Love

from Shake-speare: Cupid all arm'd a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal thron'd by the west;
And loos'd his love shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should piece a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon,
And the imperial vot'ress passed on,
In maiden meditation fancy free.
A Midsummer Night's Dream., ii. 1 (1600)

From Bacon:
Your majesty shall first see your own invaluable value, and thereby discern that the favors you vouchsafe are pure gifts and no exchanges. And if any be so happy as to have his affection accepted, yet your prerogative is such as they stand bound, and your Majesty is free.
Device of the Indian Prince (1595)

Both authors, it will be seen, assert that Queen Elizabeth was capable of inspiring the passion of love in others while she herself was always free from it.

In maiden meditation fancy* free. Shake-speare
In affection others stand bound, but your majesty is free. Bacon

* This word fancy was formerly used for love

The foregoing citations will, we think, suffice for our present purpose. Bacon's Essay of Love embraces from first to last, according to our enumerations, fifteen points, modifying, conditioning and displaying that trait of character within certain limits of dramatization, every one of which is beyond all question in the Shakespeare plays, and nearly or quite every one duplicated, in prose and verse, in the above list. We ask our readers, friends and foes alike, to test the truth of this statement.

We may now claim, and we think with perfect justice, that our two authors were in total agreement on the subject of love. Indeed, the fact is not without recognition among intelligent commentators, as per example :

In Venus and Adonis the goddess after the death of her favorite utters a curse upon love which contains in the germ, as it were, the whole development of the subject as Shake-speare has unfolded it in the series of his dramas. GG. Gervinus Professor of Heidelberg

Fortunately we have another Essay of Love with which to compare Bacon's; it was written, as everybody agrees, by the author of Romeo and Juliet himself! It differs from Bacon's, that is, from what is known as Bacon's, in two respects : It is in verse while Bacon's is in prose; but this circumstance does not of course affect the quality of the sentiments. From a certain point of view it is worse than Bacon's, a veritable curse on Love. We give it entire :

"Here I prophesy :
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend;
It shall be waited on with jealousy,
Find sweet beginning, but unsavory end;

Ne'er settled equally, but high or low;
That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe.

It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud;
Bud and be blasted in a breathing while;
The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd
With sweets, that shall the truest sight beguile.

The strongest body shall it make most weak,
Strike the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak.

It shall be sparing, and too full of riot,
Teaching decrepit age to tread and measures;
The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,
Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures.
It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,
Make the young old, the old becomes a child.

It shall suspect, where is no cause of fear;
It shall not fear, where it should most mistrust;
It shall be merciful, and too severe,
And most deceiving, when it seems most just;

Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward;
Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.

It shall be cause of war and dire events,
And set dissention 'twixt the son and sire;
Subject and servile to all discontents,
As dry combustious matter is to fire;

Sith in his prime death doth my love destroy,
They that love best their loves shall not enjoy."

Venus and Adonis

We wonder whether Lord Tennyson, Professor Goldwin Smith or Instructor Copeland ever heard of this curse? If so, how could they, solely on account of certain unsympathetic sentiments uttered by Bacon on Love, have denied his capacity to write Romeo and Juliet? Is there anything on the subject, either in Bacon or in the whole world's literature more unsympathetic than this from one of Shake-speare's own poems? Surely, if Bacon could not have written the play on the ground alleged, then, a fortiori, the author of Venus and Adonis himself could not have done so.
We now come to that other love which, as Bacon claims in the same essay and which Shakespeare proves in his Cymbeline, "perfecteth mankind." We have found our two authors thus far in full agreement but, we ask, are they so throughout the whole sphere of the passion? Does Bacon anywhere recognize love, as Shakespeare certainly does in The Tempest and elsewhere, to be a divine faculty of the soul?

On the Queen's birthday, in 1592, at a "Conference of Pleasure" (so called) in Gray's Inn, Bacon delivered a speech on Love. He was then nearly thirty-two years of age. We have a right to assume, and we do assume, that he then expressed the true sentiments of his heart. This speech, somewhat condensed from an imperfect copy of it has come down to us, *

* (It was first discovered in the Northumberland House Library, London, in 1867, but found to have been injured by fire at some unknown time in the past. Much of it is now illegible)

we now submit to our readers :

"My praise shall be dedicated to the happiest state of the mind, to the noblest affection. I shall teach lovers to love, that have all this while loved by rote. I shall give them the Alphabet of Love.
Let no man fear the yoke of fortune that's in the yoke of love. What fortune can be such a Hercules as shall be able to overcome two?
Assuredly no person ever saw at any time the mind of another in love. Love is the only passion that opens the heart. If not the highest, it is the sweetest affection of all others.
When one forseeth withal that to his many griefs cannot be added solitude, but that he shall have a partner to bear them, this quieteth the mind.
Consider again the delight of concurrence in desire without emulation. If two be but set at a game they love, or labor together in some one work or invention, mark how well pleased, how well disposed, how contented they be. So then, if minds are sharpened against minds, as iron is against iron, in every action, what shall we think of that union and conjunction of minds which love worketh? What vigor what alacrity must it give!
It is noted that absolute idleness and leisure, when the mind is altogether without object, is but languishing and weariness. How precious then is love, which is the sweetest repose from travails and affairs, and the sweetest employment in leisure and idleness!
The virtues are moderators, they are the laws of the mind; they retain the mind, they limit it; they are as the mill when it is set upon a rich stone; here it grindeth out a race and there a grain, to make it wear more fair; but in the meantime the stone loseth carats. So with the virtues; they polish the mind; they make it without blemish; they give it excellent form, but commonly they diminish its natural vigor.
Love contrariwise is a pure gain and advancement in nature ; not a good by comparison, but a true good; not an ease of pain, but a true good; not an ease of pain, but a true purchase of pleasures; and therefore, when our minds are soundest, when they are not, as it were, in sickness and out of taste, but when we be in prosperity, when we want nothing, then is the season, and the opportunity, and the spring of love.
Therefore, if all delight of sense affect love; if the understanding be tributary to love; if love offereth the sweetest contentment to him that desireth to rule, the comfortablest promise to him that looketh into his fortune, the surest hope to him that seekest to survive himself, the most flattering glass to him that loveth to view himself with advantage, the greatest union of mind to him that desireth the most refreshing repose from action, the most acceptable entertainment to him that would offer the most pleasing object to the most imprinting sense, let us make our suit to love, that gathereth the beams of so many pleasures into a flame in the soul of man."

The following is from the Advancement of Learning :

"Love is called the bond of Perfection, because it comprehendeth and fasteneth all virtues together. If a man's mind be truly enkindled with love, his character will be improved by this passion more than it can be by all the principles of morality combined. The angels, aspiring to be like God in power, transgressed and fell; man, aspiring to be like God in knowledge, transgressed and fell; but, by aspiring to be like God in goodness or love, neither man nor angel ever transgressed or shall transgress.
Love is a better teacher for human life than a left handed sophist; for with all the latter's laborious rules and precepts he cannot form a man so dexterously, nor with that facility to prize and govern himself in all things, so love can do. "

Appendix

We know give Francis Bacon's famous Essay of Love in full with our much needed exposition of it.

"The stage is more beholding to love, that the life of man. For 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.

You may observe, that amongst all the great and worthy persons (whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent) 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. You must except, nevertheless, Marcus Antonius, the half partner of the empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius, the decemvir and lawgiver; whereof the former was indeed a voluptuous man, and inordinate; but the latter was an austere and wise man: and therefore it seems (though rarely) that love can find entrance, not only into an open heart, but also into a heart well fortified, if watch be not well kept. It is a poor saying of Epicurus, Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus; as if man, made for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol and make himself a subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts are), yet of the eye; which was given him for higher purposes.
It is a strange thing, to note the excess of this passion, and how it braves the nature, and value of things, by this; that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole, is comely in nothing but in love. Neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas it hath been well said, that the arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self; certainly the lover is more. For there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, That it is impossible to love, and to be wise. Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party loved; but to the loved most of all, except the love be reciproque.
For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque, or with an inward and secret contempt. By how much the more, men ought to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other things, but itself! As for the other losses, the poet's relation doth well figure them: that he that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas. For whosoever esteemeth too much of amorous affection, quitteth both riches and wisdom.

This passion hath his floods, in very times of weakness; which are great prosperity, and great adversity; though this latter hath been less observed: both which times kindle love, and make it more fervent, and therefore show it to be the child of folly. They do best, who if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarters; and sever it wholly from their serious affairs, and actions, of life; for if it check once with business, it troubleth men's fortunes, and maketh men, that they can no ways be true to their own ends.

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 ask to be paid in pleasures. There is in man's nature, a secret inclination and motion, towards love of others, which if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable; as it is seen sometime in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth, and embaseth it."

The key to this essay is found in the first sentence of it, where, naturally, the author's special point of view in writing it is distinctly implied. The subject is Love as seen on the stage; that is, not in the seclusion and privacy of home where it properly belongs, but before the eyes of the public. This accounts not only for the absolute unity of the conception in Bacon and Shake-speare, but also for the perfect truthfulness with which the passion is everywhere analyzed and portrayed. We must express our regret that the three distinguished literati whom we have quoted herein did not on this occasion exhibit their usual acumen and good sense. In the case of the poet laureate, however, ignorance was no justification for intemperate language.

***

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

webhosting

hit counter

SirBacon.org - Sir Francis Bacon's New Advancement of Learning