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This is a class of thought by which I think we are somewhat oppressed at the present day. Does any one seriously suppose that at the time when Shakespeare wrote, and for long after, people had any regard for "early post-Roman" manners, or any other manners belonging to the past? In point of fact the writer has made an error (no doubt inadvertently) in the instance of Lear, who was one of the mythical sovereigns of "Brutus' sacred progeny," who is said to have reigned in Britain before "Ferrex and Porrex," and within 700 years of the sack of Troy, whenever that may have been (F. Q., II. x., and Geoffrey of Monmouth). In selecting this character for the story of the play the author was following the example of the Greeks in using native legend as a vehicle for presenting great examples. He also follows them in mixing up the past with contemporary life and making the characters speak in contemporary language, though it is true that he was more indifferent in the way he did this; but he was not writing under the strict and semi-religious conventions of the Attic theatre. If Shakespeare accommodates prehistoric Athens with a "duke," Spenser furnishes the more ancient infernal regions with a "prince" of mediaeval chivalry"the Stygian Princes boure" (Faerie Queene, IV. x. 58); and as to Cleopatra and her "billiards," Shakespeare was representing her as a light, cruel and worthless woman, and Spenser, in his youth at any rate, disapproved of billiards and other time-wasting games for people in such a position—“ balliards farre unfit" (Mother Hubberds Tale). But if we are to exercise our minds about anachronisms in Shakespeare's plays let us at least do so about the real ones-I mean the anachronisms in the thought—and find an explanation, if we can, for such a speech as the following in the mouth of a semibarbarous chieftain :

Lear. No, no, no, no!

Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,

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This is a class of thought by which I think we are somewhat oppressed at the present day. Does any one seriously suppose that at the time when Shakespeare wrote, and for long after, people had any regard for "early post-Roman manners, or any other manners belonging to the past? In point of fact the writer has made an error (no doubt inadvertently) in the instance of Lear, who was one of the mythical sovereigns of "Brutus' sacred progeny," who is said to have reigned in Britain before "Ferrex and Porrex," and within 700 years of the sack of Troy, whenever that may have been (F. Q., II. x., and Geoffrey of Monmouth). In selecting this character for the story of the play the author was following the example of the Greeks in using native legend as a vehicle for presenting great examples. He also follows them in mixing up the past with contemporary life and making the characters speak in contemporary language, though it is true that he was more indifferent in the way he did this; but he was not writing under the strict and semi-religious conventions of the Attic theatre. If Shakespeare accommodates prehistoric Athens with a "duke," Spenser furnishes the more ancient infernal regions with a "prince" of mediaeval chivalry"the Stygian Princes boure" (Faerie Queene, IV. x. 58); and as to Cleopatra and her "billiards," Shakespeare was representing her as a light, cruel and worthless woman, and Spenser, in his youth at any rate, disapproved of billiards and other time-wasting games for people in such a position—“ balliards farre unfit" (Mother Hubberds Tale). But if we are to exercise our minds about anachronisms in Shakespeare's plays let us at least do so about the real ones-I mean the anachronisms in the thought—and find an explanation, if we can, for such a speech as the following in the mouth of a semibarbarous chieftain :

Lear. No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison :
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage :
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,

And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon 's the mystery of things,

As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon. (v. 3.)

I will suggest an explanation: that the expression "God's spies" comes from Epictetus, who says that philosophers are the spies and messengers of God, and the "mystery of things" is rerum causas, the quest of philosophy. The same thought occurs in the draft for a pardon after Bacon's fall, written, no doubt, as Spedding says, by himself:

Cum praedilecto consanguineo nostro Francisco Vicecomite St. Alban propositum sit deinceps vitam degere quietam et tranquillam in studiis et contemplatione rerum, atque hoc modo etiam posteritati inservire, cujus rei per scripta sua jampridem edita specimen de se praebuit non vulgare. . . .—Life, vii. 307.

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra, what relevancy to Cleopatra's character or the situation is there in the words, My desolation does begin to make A better life. (v. 2.)

and similarly of the lines in the same scene :

Be it known, that we, the greatest, are misthought
For things that others do; and, when we fall,
We answer others' merits in our name,

Are therefore to be pitied.

Similarly, also, the lines at the close of Scene 2 of the fourth Act of Cymbeline:

Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes:

Some falls are means the happier to arise.

With these expressions may be compared Bacon's correspondence immediately after his fall and release from the Tower (Spedding, Life, vii. 280-97, etc.).

Let us now consider the problem of Bacon's "inaccuracy," as described (quite justly) in the quotation

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from Mr. Reynolds's introductory essay given above. is to be attributed in part to a system deliberately adopted, and in part to the peculiarities of his temperament. It was Bacon's ambition to supersede the writings of antiquity, and to supply a body of literature and philosophy, freed from "terms of art," which would find access to the minds of people of average intelligence who could not, or would not, acquire learning in the difficult paths of scholarship. The students in his school, men, that is, and women in the active world, were not asked to know anything about the past or expected to pore over its documents. He had done that for them, and he claimed the right to use the material as he thought best for their instruction. It must be remembered also that ideas about "literature" as a body of thought, and as a calling entailing mutual obligations, hardly existed, that there was little or no means of obtaining exact information about the past, and that there was no historical sense, and no publicity. If, therefore, Bacon deliberately misquoted or handled material in ways which would now be considered dishonest, we must not, in judging such practices, lose sight of the standards and conditions of the age. Lastly (as I have said in other places), Bacon's quest of "universality" and habit of generalisation tended to make him indifferent to the particular, and the slenderness of his emotions, owing to their dispersal in a general sensibility, was such that the sense of the individual tie and human obligation was not sufficiently active to prevent this indifference extending to persons as well as things and incidents. In short, to come to "plain English," he was unscrupulous, and to an extent which is not, in his case, to be wholly accounted for by the very unscrupulous character of the age. In saying this I am not passing judgment on him; I am merely applying the standards of common humanity, which it is idle to pretend that his conduct on many occasions satisfies. At the same time we must not forget to make full allowance for the effect on character of the constant habit of "imitation " which dramatic work on a large scale involves. This

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