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Giving an account of himself, in the latter part of his life, more particularly in reference to his philosophical labors, perhaps, but not wholly out of place in this connection, he says:

"When I came to conceive of myself as born for the service of humanity, and to look upon state employment as amongst those things which are of public right and patent to all, like the wave or the breeze, I proceeded both to inquire what might most conduce to the benefit of men, and to deliberate for what special work I myself had been best fitted by nature. Thereupon I found that no other thing was of so great merit in reference to the human race as the discovery and authorship of new truths and arts, by which human life may be improved. . . . . . I judged, therefore, that my nature had a certain inherent intimacy and relationship with truth. Yet, seeing that both by descent and education I had been imbued in civil affairs, and, inasmuch as I was still a young man, was sometimes shaken in my opinions, and thinking that I owed something peculiar to my country which was not equally due in all other cases, and hoping that, if I might obtain some honorable rank in the state, I should accomplish what I had designed with greater advantages in the exercise of my genius and my industry, I both applied myself to the acquirement of political knowledge, and, with such modesty as beseemed and in as far as it could be done without any disingenuousness, endeavoured to commend myself to such friends as had it in their power to assist my advancement.” 1

His compact learning, exact knowledge, and brilliant oratorical powers soon begin to acquire for him an ascendency in Parliament and public affairs. He connects himself with the fortunes and party of the rising favorite, Essex, and, at the same time, makes the acquaintance of the young lords and courtiers, his adherents and followers, Southampton among them, constant attendants and patrons of the

1 Proëmium de Int. Nat., (Craik's Bacon, 611).

theatre; who, as the friends and associates of Essex and himself, were no doubt frequent visitors at his chambers in Gray's Inn, or at his lodge at Twickenham. His brother Anthony and himself, the more effectually to push their fortunes in this direction, and to maintain this high estate and prospect of advancement, incur expense beyond their immediate means of living, and even keep a coach, which the good Lady Ann thinks a piece of extravagance; and they give entertainments of stage-plays at Anthony's house to "cits and gentlemen, very much to the delight of Essex and his jovial crew," but, as Lady Ann thinks, also very much "to the peril of her sons' souls." In the summer of 1593, Anthony has become secretary, and Francis, the legal and political adviser of the Earl of Essex; and it is at this very time that the "Venus and Adonis" is dedicated to Southampton, and, in the next year, the "Rape of Lucrece," also, under the name of William Shakespeare. The plays have been performed at his theatre, and he has already acquired the reputation of being the author of them; though as yet none of them have been printed under his name. Certainly it will require no great stretch of imagination to conceive that during these familiar visits of Essex and Southampton to his chambers in Gray's Inn, he may have taken the liberty to show them, or to read to

them, the manuscripts of these poems. We may very well suppose they would urge him to publish them. But he does not desire to appear before the public in this character, and means to "profess not to be a poet." 2 This cover is easily suggested. Southampton will not object to the use of his name in a dedication; and William Shakespeare will be as ready to appear as the author of these poems as he has been, or will be, to figure as author on the titlepages of divers and sundry quarto plays which he certainly never wrote. A mere possibility, it is true, or even a strong

1 Dixon's Pers. Hist., 68.

2 Apology concerning Essex.

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probability, cannot be taken as any proof of the fact; but if it be once established by other evidence that the plays and poems were actually written by Francis Bacon, then, of course, some such supposition as this must be admitted as absolutely necessary; and of this fact there will be an ample sufficiency of other evidence. So extraordinary an arrangement, with so eminent a personage as the Earl of Southampton, is indeed a bold hypothesis; especially in the face of that munificent largess of £1000, which he is said to have bestowed on Shakespeare, in recognition of the compliment and of his merit as a poet. But this story is itself a mere tradition, related with distrust by Rowe as handed down by Sir William Davenant; and, as Mr. Halliwell observes, "considering the value of money in those days, such a gift is altogether incredible," however probable it may be, otherwise, that some notice of the kind may have been taken of him. The Globe Theatre was erected somewhere in these years (1594-5), and it is by no means improbable that the Earl of Southampton should contribute a handsome sum towards this enterprise. And there may have been other reasons, more or less remotely connected with the history of these plays and their author, that 'were operative with these gay young courtiers in their patronage of the theatre, without the necessity of resorting (with Delia Bacon 2) to the hypothesis that they had, as a whole, or in any particular, a special bearing upon any schemes then impending for effecting changes in the state and government, or any connection with any club of reformers s; especially if we consider that the Queen herself was willing to be wooed and to have sonnets addressed to her; that she took great delight in the masques and plays, triumphs and dumb shows, which they got up for her amusement; and that many of these very plays were performed before her at Court as they came out, and were "well liked of her Majesty."

1 Life of Shakes., 161.

2 Phil. of Shaks. Plays Unfolded, 1857.

§ 3. THE HISTORICAL PLAYS.

As the work proceeded, the plan would very soon be conceived of a connected and continuous series of historical dramas, which should embrace the entire period of the civil wars of the Roses, rich enough in tragic story and event, and affording ample materials for illustrative examples in the more dignified subjects of a civil and moral nature, beginning with the "King John," as it were by way of prelude, in which the legitimate heir to the throne is set aside, and the nation is plunged into civil war; and continuing in subject and design, though not composed, or produced, in strict chronological order, with the weak and despotic reign of Richard II., whose imbecility leads to another usurpation of the crown, with all the terrible consequences of disastrous civil war; and extending through the two parts of the "Henry IV.," the "Henry V.," and the three parts of the "Henry VI.," to the coming in of Henry the Seventh in the "Richard III.," when the two Roses are finally united in one line, and a tragical history is brought to an end in the more peaceful times which followed: a scheme which may even have been suggested by Sackville's tragedy of "Ferrex and Porrex" and the "Complaint of Buckingham." Speaking of Elizabeth Woodville, Dowager of Edward IV., Bacon says her history "was matter of tragedy,” 1 as it is very effectually made to appear in the “Richard III." The same historical subject was continued, in due time, in a plain prose history of the reign of Henry VII., which contains a graphic and "speaking picture of the false pretender, Perkin Warbeck, "a counterfeit of that Richard, Duke of York (second son to Edward the Fourth)," of whom there was divulged "a flying opinion" that "he was not murdered in the Tower": wherefore, "this being one of the strangest examples of a personation that ever was in elder or later times," it is also 1 Hist. of Henry VII.

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given; and it is written in the true Shakespearean vein, and, as any one may see that looks sharply enough, lacks nothing of the compactness, brevity, clearness, and beauty of his former style, dropping only the high tragic buskin and the blank verse. And here and there, ideas and expressions inevitably crop out in it, all unconsciously to himself, which strike upon the ear of the careful listener like the sound of an echo, as thus:

"Neither was Perkin for his part wanting to himself either in gracious and princely behaviour, or in ready and apposite answers, or in contenting and caressing those that did apply themselves unto him, or in pretty scorns or disdains to those that seemed to doubt of him; but in all things did notably acquit himself: insomuch as it was generally believed (as well amongst great persons as amongst the vulgar) that he was indeed Duke Richard. Nay, himself with long and continual counterfeiting and with often telling a lie, was turned (by habit) almost unto the thing he seemed to be, and from a liar to a believer." 1

And we have the same ideas and similar expressions, in a like connection, in the "Tempest," as follows:

"Pros. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate

To closeness, and the bettering of my mind
With that, which but by being so retir'd
O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother
Awak'd an evil nature; and my trust,
Like a good parent, did beget of him

A falsehood, in its contrary as great

As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit,

A confidence sans bound. He, being thus lorded,

Not only with what my revenue yielded,

But what my power might else exact, like one,
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,2

Made such a sinner of his memory,

1 Hist. of Hen. VII.; Works (Boston), XI. 210.

2 So in the Folio, and in all editions I have seen; but I believe these words are an error of the press. It should read oft: the metre requires it; the sense requires it; and this authority from Bacon may be said to demand

it.

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