Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians

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I24C'^.:17 t HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THB BBQUBSr OP JOHN AMORY LOWELL OASS OF i8i J

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BACON, SHAKESPEARE, AND THB ROSICRUCIANS.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR. A NEW STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE. i^^A REMARKABLE BOOKr\ ** Thla * New Stody of Slukespeare * ia certainly tbe most noteworthy and Talnable of all the works elucidating the inner meaning of the greatest poet of modem times which hare appeared. We tmat that a new edition will be called for, and also that the Author will receire sufficient encouragement to giro to the public another volume on the same subject."— (TV Platonitt, June 1888.) LONDON : TR0BNEB & CO., Ludoatb Hill. 1884. ^^ ti \

0 BACON SHAKESPEARE AND THE ROSICRUCIANS BY W. F. C. WIGSTON AUTHOR OF "a NEW 8TUDT OF SHAKESPEARE " ** Oar «ge doth prodaoe many sach, one of the greatest (Imposton) being a Staqb PiAnat, a man with snJBclent Ingennity for Impoaitlon." RoexoBUciAv CoxFBasiov, 161A. ,/ WITH TWO PLATES LONDON GEOBGE BEDWAY TOBE STBEET GOVENT OABDEN iiDcccuzrvm

/g^/^. > 7 \ jUN 17 188:) /sRAr^^'j. c t

(To THE STUDENTS OF HERMETIC SCIENCE IN AMERICA XTbls TISlorft is Bebtcated, IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF APPRECIATION, BY TH£ AUTHOR.

PREFACE. As this work follows rather closely upon the pablication of Mr Donnelly's " Great Cryptogram/' it may be as well, in order to avoid misconception, and any unjust charge of plagiarism (or unlawful desire to make capital out of the interest excited by the cipher problem) — to point out that as long ago as 1884, we published (under the auspices of Messrs Triibner & Co.), a work entitled '' A New Study of Shakespeare." In it almost all the problems suggested in the present work are implied, and discussed at greater or less length. To belief in the Bacon authorship of the plays we have long been a convert, and a chapter on that subject may be refound in our first work. The theory that the plays and poems contain a planned spiritual Bebirth or promise of Bevelation for posterity is the key-centre of " A New Study of Shakespeare." In it we attempted to suggest how that has been done, and representatively reflected in some of the plays. We therefore think we owe it to ourselves to lay claim to whatever originality there may be in that work, seeing that the time is rapidly approaching when the world must take a greater and more absorbing interest in these problems. We have no cipher (alas !) to present the reader, but pending the solution, or further

viii PREFACE, elaboration of Mr Donnelly's Cryptogram, there are many ways still left open to the student desirous of a closer and deeper acquaintanceship with the art called Shakespeare's. Any letters or communications upon this subject may be addressed to the Author, through his publishers.

INTRODUCTION. " But the Idol8 of the Market'pUtce are the most troableeome of all : idoU which have crept into the undentanding through the alliaDces of words and names." — Bacon. Evidence differs as to weight, very much less in accordance with the evidence itself than with the capacities of the people receiving it An apple falling is to Newton anticipation, supplying sufficient faith to discover and toil at the laws of gravitation. We may depend upon it, Newton not only saw, but believed because he saw. And how can this sort of evidence, with which the history of every discovery is replete, be made the vulgar sort of evidence which the average intellect requires before it is convinced 9 Take Mr Donnelly's recent work upon the authorship of the plays. Examine the first volume carefully, where the evidence is simply overwhelming. Do we think fifty such volumes would convince some people 1 A thousand times no ! There is a large predominant class of people, who, to begin with, cannot grasp or seize the issues of comparative evidence at all. There is another large class whose minds are so infected with the idols of the Tribe, Theatre, and Den, as to be totally prepossessed and prejudiced against any rational weighing of the evidence when given. The human mind cannot hold two beliefs at the same time, or fairly examine evidence destructive of established faith, until the work is already partially accomplished by preparatory criticism. We see in the history of all great changes in matters of Religion or Philosophy, that the ground must be first cleared, the mind disabused or shaken in its idols, by a process of criticism, which is, as it were, a purge to drive out prepossessions. What is the sort of evidence that inspires men like Columbus, Galileo, or Newton

X INTRODUCTION, with faith by its anticipation and prevision, to toil and labour in darkness, to risk danger and bear solitude unrecognised by their fellow-men % It cannot be the sort of evidence the noisy world requires, because it would be no evidence at all. Imagine Newton assuring the world that the laws of gravitation were prefigured by the fall of an apple I Or Columbus persuading us now-ardays of hemispheres unseen, from the simple analogy that fired his mind, that as the Mediterranean had a southern land limit in Africa, so ought the Atlantic to have some western boundary or terra firmoL I Yet these men were right, and their prevision and faith from what to them was conclusive evidence, worth all the knowing scepticism of the world put together. This, in short, is the history of discovery and invention, that certain minds like certain eyes on board a ship at sea, see land before others. A great fallacy is that general consensus of opinion and length of time constitute a prerogative or standard of evidence. As if any millions or billions of uneducated, unreflecting persons, who take their opinions from hearsay, and just this fallacy of tradition, can weigh against one genuine expert, or one person who reflects, studies, and thinks beyond the general mind. Every day we hear something to the eflect that three centuries have passed, and no one has (with a few rare exceptions) questioned the authorship of the plays.^ Very true, but nobody even examined, or thought of examining, the evidence for or against this question, seriously, until lately. Ages have evolved, myriads of the human race gone below, who never questioned the Mosaic cosmogony, or the origin of man, as therein set down, until Darwin came with his theory. There have been thousands of surface critics of the plays, but no one has plumbed the question of why this mystery about Shakespeare's life — ^wherefore this silence — whence came his education — and thousands of other ^ How many more centuries passed between Virgirs age and Warbnrton's *' Divine Legation" in which, for the first time, the real meaning of the Vlth book of the i£neid was expounded !

INTRODUCTION, xi such questions % Because it is of comparatively recent date, that the profound classical learning, the enormous scholarship,- the varied attainments, and the vast experience of Law, State, and Court life have been fully recognised or universally appreciated in the plays. The world is just commencing to realize that, joined to this enigma of mystery (which is too deliberate and too carefully planned to be the result of chance), there is, as it were, another side to the plays and poems — ^a profound, unrevealed side, that suggests a possible solution of the riddle. For there is a striking analogy between these plays and Nature, inasmuch as both hold the same reserve, the same secrecy, and the same silence, as if to say that no other revelation, save what they afford of themselves, shall be given. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in one of his works, illustrates the disturbance produced by more light and new theories, by the picture of an old stone long imbedded in the grass, which in a moment of mischief we reverse with foot or stick. What a surprise for all the crawling and vermiculate things who have long dwelt in the land of darkness, so tranquilly and so comfortably ! How they scurry and hurry away, anything but grateful for this influx of sunshine ! Yet in a few months the spot is as green as the rest. And so it is with truth — somebody draws back the curtains of some old-established fallacy, some association of names with ideas, and nothing more, and lo, what an outcry is there at this pulling up the blinds from those who would like to sleep on for another century or so ! This applies particularly to the problem of the authorship of the Shakespeare plays, as well as to the art itself. A large class of people, particularly Englishmen, have taken the poet's works to themselves, and out of the mere association of the name of Shakespeare with the plays, not only imagine they are familiar with the author, but have built up an imaginary idol — a fictitious Shakespeare of their own who never existed — whom they fall down, worship, and defend as a person commensurate with the plays he is supposed to have written. The truth is, that whilst

xii INTRODUCTION. efndmvcuring to realize the personality of Shakespeare, we are always thifMng of the uorkSf and thus, out of the association of name and plajs arises a Godlike being, who certainly does not answer to the little we know of him. Nothing is more powerful than the association of ideas. They usurp the place of reason, and become the ''monster custom that all sense doth eat," for, let us ask the question, what proof have we (beyond the association of Shakespeare's name with the plays) that he wrote them 1 Suppose there was a reason for hiding — an object in mystifying posterity with regard to the real author. Why not? And granting this, where are your proofs that Shakespeare wrote these plays and poems 1 If it was not for the association of his name by tradition with the plays, and we were obliged to use our judgment or reason to select the real author, he is about the last person in the world we should light upon, and Bacon the first, who would stand out as the protagonist of his age, the rightful heir. The great difficulty is to persuade people that they know nothing of the personal Shakespeare at all, though they know certain works that have borne his name. If it seems extraordinary that Bacon should lay no claim to his own works, it is far more extraordinary that Shakespeare should have been perfectly indifferent to the fate of his plays, or their publication in a collected form before his death ! The fact that he leaves no personal record of himself, no scrip or scrap of writing, no manuscripts of the plays, no library, no correspondence, is so out of all power of expression wonderful, that to the profound thinker it constitutes a species of evidence in itself that it cannot be the result of indifference or accident, but is the outcome of deliberately planned intention to leave no trace outside the works themselves. The entire mystery surrounding the authorship of the plays and poems bears evidence of the most careful forethought and calculation. Common-sense will convince anybody that such complete removal of every trace of literary record and penmanship concerning an author, who is quite aware of his transcendent genius and coming fame in the eyes of pos 

INTRODUCTION, xiii terity, cannot have been accidental ! Bnt suppose Shakespeare did not write the plays \ Ah, then indeed, the less trace he left of himself the better ! And perhaps this is just the reason we know so little abont Shakespeare, inasmuch as there was very little about him worth knowing, except that, like the Ass in the comic poet's frogs, " he carries the mysteries" : — ^' Asinus portat mysteria.'' Our theory — a theory we first put forth to the public, in the "New Study of Shakespeare" — ^is, that the plays and poems hitherto attributed to Shakespeare, contain decided proofs of a planned spiritual Rebirth or Revelation through time. An author planning a Revelation (and by this word we mean, the philosophy underljing the plays, together with the question of authorship) in a work of art, would first bethink himself of how to make this openly secret to another generation. There are certain symbolical signs which stand for types of Rebirth. Such is the fabulous bird the Phcenix. Another is the myth of Geres and Proserpine— that is, the death of the earth life in Winter, and rebirth in Spring and Summer. In short, the only effective way, if possible, would be to give depth of meaning, which iwuld be sdf-refleding of the rebirth aimed at, so as to be as deep as Nature itself — that is, openly secret This is the reason, we maintain, we find in plays like The Wintefs Tale, the incorporated myth of Demdter and Persephone, very slightly disguised, though carefully veiled under the forms of Hermione and Perdita, applied to the art of the plays as art and rebirth of that art. We cannot enter here into the subject of the poet's works, as now understood. But it has been plain to all profound thinkers, that we know nothing of this art, but the mere outside — that, as Emerson put it, we are "still out of doors," and this is abundantly proved by the endless works which appear upon the plays and poems, of which not one, as yet, has advanced us one inch, upon any satisfactory path of discovery. Upon what spiritual and creative principles were they constructed 9 That they are mere plays.

xiv INTRODUCTION. after the fashion of the plays of the Elizabethan age, cannot be for a moment accepted. There are no works upon Ben Jonson's art, or Beaumont and Fletcher's, after the fashion that we find upon the so-called Shakespeare plays. Their depth is so extraordinary, that we must not be surprised to find they embrace creative principles, which are hugely philosophic, as profound as Nature itself. The time will come, when all the world will marvel at the '^ composed wonder" of their frame — when libraries will be filled with lexicons to illustrate lines even in these plays — when the great interpreter of Nature's secrets, her great commentator, will be the " philosophic play systems " of Lord Bacon ; and when the New World will look back upon the hitherto critics and commentators, with the pitying good-natured smile, that we bestow upon Bottom in the Dream, when he holds up his tiny lantern to illustrate Moonshine, or his bush of thoros to present the woods or sylva of Nature. To present the world with the sort of proof that a sceptical generation requires is impossible. The only conclusive proof upon a subject of this sort, is a cipher, beyond dispute^ with a revelation following it of papers and evidence admitting neither question nor hesitation, and at once flooding the entire cycle of the plays and authorship with the splendour of Midsummer light. That this has been done and will follow at some time, we have no shadow of doubt. Whether Mr Donnelly will arrive at it, we cannot say, we only sincerely hope so, having the pleasure of his acquaintance, and knowing him to be a man as simple as he is true, as earnest and as laborious as he is conscientious, and above all suspicion of any sort of trifling or imposture in this matter. Seeing that there is a poem entitled the Flwenix aivd the Turtle^ (placed at the end of the works), plainly presenting an enigma and promise of rebirth, both in title and subject matter ; seeing, again, that the Sonnets are so evidently creative principles or new life (Nuova Fiia), and iterate a revelation through time so plainly ; seeing that we have in Prospero a god in art, and in the Duke iu Measure for Measure^ an ubiquitous Providence presiding and

INTRODUCTION. xv directing, unseen aiid irmsilde, the ends of this art ; seeing that we have constantly presented to us separations and reconciliations with losi children like Marina and Perdita, (who bring about the reconciliations) — ^how is it, we ask, no one can see what has been done) The mystery and obscurity that accompany the plays and their authorship were planned. It is too remarkable to be the result of chance. And the real author reveals himself in his favourite quotation, which he repeats at intervals throughout his works : — " ' The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out ; ' as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God's playfellows in that game, considering the great commandment of wits and means whereby nothing needeth to be hidden from them." This is the key-note of Lord Bacon's mind. This is the secret of the mystery and depth of plays which the God Bacon wrote, but concealed himself behind, under another name, in order to be found out through time and through depth of art — A Second Nature ! See how in these lines Bacon delights in concealment ! It is this reserve of God and Nature which extracts his unbounded admiration. To be openly secret, to reserve nothing, yet to hide everything (like Nature), that indeed is Divine art / Examine the history of Shakespearian criticism 1 Does it not reveal just this mystery of concealment, this reserve, yet with the sense, (which everybody feels), that it is our incapacity alone, that (like Antony Dull) '' understands nothing " 1 We feel that this art is as profound as nature, and as philosophical. If it has a god in Prospero, and in the Duke in Measure for Measure, depend upon it it is also Godlike in creative principles and aims subserving its creation. All in it, we are told, is ** hugely politic" framed on " great bases for eternity," and inspired by a transcendent self-sacrifice only equalled by Christ's. For the sake of this end, for the sake of the mystery. Bacon has died in name.

xvi INTRODUCTION, his glory being, (as he says, in the Sonnets) mostly that he is silent or dumb. We see this sacrifice hinted at in that strange work, Chester's "Love's Martyr," in the title, and in the after title, where the work is metaphorically applied to l^^ature, as imitation of nature, as " a rare piece of art " challenging Homer's. It is in this work we find the poem of the Ffuenix and Turtle, It is not difficult to see that this work is the product of a secret society of men, contributing and assisting to one common end — the plays of Lord Bacon. This is our sincere belie£ Everything in that work hints at secrecy, for fear of envy. We find in it the following pregnant words : — " Guide, thou great guider of the Sun aud Mood, Thou elemental savourer of the night, My undeserved wit, wit sprung too soon} To give thy greatness every gracious light." " Wit sprung too soon " — to be published or made manifest, evidently genius in advance of his age — which takes the only alternative left of imbcddiug and perpetuating itself by means of art We find in the Sonnets evidence that there were associates or compeers, giving him aid by night in some task. Is it too much to suggest that we refind them in Chester's "Love's Martyr" 1 — « " No, neither he, nor his compeers by night Oimng him aid, my verse astonished. He, nor that of able familiar ghost "Which nightly g^Uls him with intelligence." We know Shakespeare played the part of the Ghost in Hamlet, and that, as Ben Jonson states, he was of an " affable, open, and free disposition." Here, then, are two terms to identify him as the Ghost in Hamlet and as the Ghost behind the plays, who gulled himself with intelligence that belonged to another. * Compare — ** As a decrepit father takes delight To see bis active child do deeds of yonth, So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite." — Sonnets.

INTRODUCTION. xvii We have in this work approached the Bacon - Shakespeare problem from a totally new point of view. We maintain that the question of the authorship of the plays is closely allied with the character and genius of Lord Bacon's life and writings. And we suggest that in the fact that he belonged to a secret society prefigured in his ^'l^ew Atlantis," we have a key to the reserve and profound nature of his mind. Instead of vaguely speculating as to his motives for concealment, let us ask ourselves whai was the nature of the secret society he belonged to? This may provide an answer to the entire problem. For the Rosicrucians called themselves Invisibles, their teaching was an abnegation or putting aside of all egotism, vanity, or self-seeking. They covered themselves with a cloud, and they professed doctrines which were dangerous to publish in an open form. Therefore it behoves us to seriously consider whether Bacon was one of them, or if not, to ask ourselves what was the society he really did belong tof We ought also to seriously consider the spiritual side of the plays and sonnets, and as we are dealing with an extraordinary Art, and an extraordinary genius, to ask ourselves what is the extraordinary rebirth, promised and set forth in no ambiguous terms in the Phoenix and Turtle, Chester's " Love's Martyr" and tfu: Sonnets — everywhere 1 The greatest difficulty perhaps associated with this problem, is to persuade others that the plays have another, as yet, unrevealed side, — and that this side was written for posterity to discover. The silence, secrecy, mystery, and reserve are proofs of a planned system, which, as a whole, was that of a God in Art, sacrificing himself in order to conceal himself behind and in his works, whereby after-ages might have their curiosity and minds whetted to find him out, and give him the rebirth and glory for which he toiled 9 Our theory, incredulous as it may seem, is that the works called Shakespeare's, are the product of a learned college of men, incorporated by one Divine Genius into a system of dramatised philosophy — an effort to realize Nature in dramatic art, and to carry down to another age the hermetic science of their society

xviii INTRODUCTION. and of antiquity in a deliberately planned revelation. The actual sacrifice of authorship is part of this second story of Christ in art, for it is just the mystery and silence or reserve which has stimulated our curiosities, and which is so Godlike. It is written in the Sonnets over and over again — the sacrifice .which is to be repaid in other ages ; the glory which is to spring mostly from the silence. When will the World begin to see it as we do 1 That is our thought, for that the world will all at once see it, and wonder they never saw it before, is only a question of time. But how long f The following propositions are more or less implied in this work, and may be earnestly commended to the thoughtful student of this problem. 1. That Bacon was the founder or head of some secret society is prefigured by his " New Atlantis," and by a further array of minor evidence, contained in his works, life, and contemporary literature. 2. That John Heydon, a genuine Eosicrucian Apologist, identifies Bacon's " New Atlantis " with the '' land of the Eosicrucians." 3. That the Sosicrucian manifestoes, fame, and rise correspond with Bacon's life and death. That four years after his death, 1630, the Rosicrucian literature is already upon the decline. 4. That the learned Nicolai, a great authority, and inquirer upon the origins of modem Freemasonry, claims Bacon to be its founder. That at the first authentic Lodge meeting at Warrington in 1646, Lord Bacon's Atlantis is discussed, his two columns or pillars (shown upon the Engravings of his Works, folio, Sylva Sylvarum) are adopted. Nicolai states the members of this meeting were all Rosicrucians, Elias Ashmole being one. 5. That the scheme put forward in some of the Rosicrucian manifestoes, bears the imprint of Bacon's mind and philosophy, or object of extending man's knowledge in nature by experiment. The overthrow of Aristotle being one feature. 6. That Modem Masonry is modified Rosicrucianism was the opinion of the learned De Quincey.

INTRODUCTION, xix 7. That Sosicracianism, though apparently emanating from abroad, never took root there (t^« De Qaincej), but did iu England, — a proof of its origin. 8. That it is clearly shown that the antedating of the inception of the fraternity with Christian Eosenkreutz was a splendid fiction, and that the real date of the society was coeval with the end of the sixteenth and commencement of the seventeenth centuries. 9. That the real authors of the " Universal Reformation " are stUl unknovm, inasmuch as the supposed author, Johann Valentine Andreas, denied having anything to do with the brotherhood. 10. That Germany was no more the real centre of the Bosicrucians than Italy, seeing that we find a part of the " Universal Beformation " borrowed from Boccalini 11. That Bacon's writings give hints of profound intimacy with the Hermetic science, and mysteries of antiquity. That Bacon studied Egyptian, Persian, and Chaldean lore, which does net appear in his prose writings. 12. That he speaks of two methods of publishings, or of writing : one reserved, the other open ; one to select his reader, the other, oral, which falls in with the oral method of Freemasonry. 13. That he professes he is going the same road as the ancients, and compares himself to them in point of wU, which cannot apply to his prose works. 14. That Bacon's works contain many implied enigmas and mysteries. That part of his works are wanting, 15. That the plays known as Shakespeare's, contain evidence of Hermetic and Ancient Mystery sources — Bosicrucian or Masonic origins. 16. That the Sonnets are full of the promise of rebirth and revelation in almost extravagant terms.

CONTENTS. >:o:PAOB CHAPTER I. John Heydon — ^The Roeicrucian Apologfist — His Family — ^And CharacterIdentity of Bacon's "New Atlantis" with Heydon's "Land of the Rodcracians " — Bacon's Hand to be traced in the famous Rosicruoian Bfanifestoes — Discovery of his Initials among the Members of the Fraternity— Proof s that the antedating of the Origins of the Rodcnioian Brotherhood was a Splendid Fraud ..... 1 ^^ CHAPTER n. The Prophecy of Paracelsus — A Stage Player one of the greatest impostors of his age, probably Shakespeare — Description of the Rosicrucian Manifestoes — Lord Bacon as Chancellor of Parnassus — Meeting of the Rosicrucians in 1646, at Warrington at a Lodge, in order to carry out Lord Bacon's Ideas — Adoption of his Two PDlars — Origins of Modem Masonry in England, as modified Rosicrucianism — Bacon's oral method of Transmission — His familiarity with the Mysteries .30 CHAPTER in. The Tempea—MasidB of Souls or Spirits — Avalon — "The green grass Island of Apples " — Identified with Prospero's Island — Avalon identified with Atlantis— Virgil's Mysteries refound in The Tempest — Sirens and the Sea — Meaning of the word Tempest, as allied to Creation 48 CHAPTER IV. VeHV4 arid AdonU — Key or Myth Centre of the Rosicrucian Emblem the Crucified Rose — Meaning of the Adonis Myth — Its Solar Origin — The Rose Emblem for Adonis — The Hermetic (>ystal and Rosewater — ^The Crucified Truth — Light, Life, and Logos — ^As the Crucified Rose — ^The Secret of Immortality derived from the Conservation of Energy — The Phoenix and the Palm tree— The Rose Cross the last degree in Masonry— The Paradise of Dante— The Rose Dante's Divine Word or Logos .........

xxii CONTENTS, CHAPTER V. PAQK Freemasonry— St Albans, the home of Lord Baoon, and the Origins of Freemasonry in England — Allusions to St Albans in the Plays — Arms of St Albans, a St Andrew's Cross — Jobann Valentin Andreas — His Arms also, a St Andrew's Cross — Curious Facts connected with the Publication of the Rosiorudan Manifestoes — Andreas, the supposed Author of the "Fama," denies all connection with the Fraternity — Antiquity of Masonic Records in Architecture .... 109 CHAPTER VI. Hermetic and Masonic Origins in the Plays — ^The Phoenicians, the Transmitters of the Hermetic and Masonic Gnosis — Reference to Carthage, Dido, and iEneas in The Tempest — The Phcsnicians and Tyrians alluded to by Bacon in the " New Atlantis " — Pericles laid at Tyre and Ephesus — Rosalind, the Great Diana, or Nature Goddess of the Ephesians— The Eagle Type of St John— The Knights Templar and the Rosicrucians ........ 120 CHAPTER Vn. The Winter's Tale — Incorporation of the Central Myth of Eleusis in this Play — The meaning of the DemSter and Persephone Allegory — Bacon's interpretation of the Fable - - Choice of the Poet of Names for his Characters — Hermione identical with Harmonia — Daughter of Venus and Mars—Bacon's Strife and Friendship — Perditathe Flower Girl, or Cinderella — ^The Sleeping Persephone ..... 139 CHAPTER VIIL Bacon and Antiquity — ^The Anticipations of Modem Science in the New Atlantis — Bacon credited the Past with Wonders — His profound Studies of Antiquity — His Declaration of "going the same road as the Ancients " — Ben Jonson's Lines on Bacon and Shakespeare — Mysterious Method of Publishing by Bacon — Public and Reserved — ^Two Favourite Sayings of Bacon's — Idols of the Theatre . . . 166 CHAPTER IX. "The History of the Sympathy and Antipathy of Things "—Strife and Friendship mysteriously entitled by Bacon " the Key of Works " — These Principles to be rofound in the Sonnets under the disguise of Love and Hate — ^Taught at Eleusis as Separation and Reconciliation — Their cosmogonical meaning Gravitation and Repulsion — ^The duality of the Art called Shakespeare's revealed in the Poems and Dream . 187

CONTENTS, xxiii CHAPTER X. FAQB Midtummer-NigkCt Dream^The Doctrine of Idealism— The Poet's particular Philosophy — Its application to the Drama — Vizgil and Plato join Hands in the Mysteries — The Dream a Philosophical Play System — Reflection of our Relationship to Nature and Art — Platonic Language used.in the Text— The Dual Unity of Hermia and Helena— The double Nature of the Plays thus profigurod— The Mysteries and the Gates of Horn and Ivoiy ...... 200 CHAPTER XI. ffamUt—The Philosophy of History— Continued Action of Hamlet— The King the Personified Abstraction of Reigning Eril- Polonius as Tradition, Infallibility, and Words— The Church and Criticism of Ophelia by Hamlet — ^The Reformation or Interlude— Rosencranz and Guildenstem the great Vested Interests of EyU and Abuses— The Play Anticipation of the Mind and History . .214 CHAPTER XIL SaniuU—Boih Bacon and Shakespeare beyond their times— Both in league to cheat Time — Both address an imaginary son — ^The logos or Mind as heir— Creative prindplee of the Sonnets . . .228 CHAPTER XHL Baconiana— Parallels between Shakespeare and Bacon- The Rodcrucian Character of the Stratford Monument— The supposed Violation of Lord Bacon's Oraye, relatedby Fuller— Further Parallels— The Induction (Taming of the Mretr)— Sly, a Portrait of Shakespeare — Lord Bacon's coat-of-arms — Strange after-title of ''Valerius Terminus" — Antinomies in Bacon's Philosophy — ^Valerius Terminus — Summary of Shakespeare's Life — Bacon's Deatii — His Character — Further Parallels — His Monumental Inscription ...... 240 CHAPTER XIV. Gorhambury— Description of the House, built 1671— The Statue to Orpheus, with Inscription— Quotation from the folio 1640 (Advancement of Learning) — Expenses of Queen Elizabeth's Entertainment at Gorhambury— The Kiss Oak — Gray's Inn — Aubrey's Gossip . . 275

CHAPTER I. bacon's "new ATLANTIS;" OR, "LAND OF THE ROSICRUCIANS." " To come down hidden amongst crowds is sublime, To come down hidden amongst crowds from distant generations is doubly sublime." — De QUINCEY. If direct proof were necessary, that Bacon belonged, or was at the head of some secret society, it would seem as if the sort of proofs the sceptical world require were wanting. Yet just the sort of proof that the world cannot overlook, or blanch, is fortunately forthcoming in this case, — that is conclusive proof, given by almost a contemporary, not in a few words, but in an entire narrative, word for word, and line for line, with a few exceptions and changes, in names of places and people only. The " New Atlantis " of Bacon has always figured as a remarkable work, — but only to a very few minds, has it represented much beyond an ideal vision of an impossible Utopia or Eepublic. No doubt Masons have recognized signs of their craft in the College of the six days, in Solomon's House, and indeed Nicolai (an authority upon the subject) claims Bacon, not only to be the founder of modern Freemasonry, but a Rosicrucian. This we point out elsewhere. Nobody has ventured to deliberately affirm, that in the " New Atlantis," the society he hints at, is no other than the Bosicrucians themselves. The " New Atlantis " has been hitherto read as a visionary dream, but we now propose to place it before the public in a totally new light, as the secret society of men known by the name of the Bosicrucians, and of whom Bacon was probably the head. The discovery, we imagine, is so important, as to be impossible to over-estimate. For it throws a new light upon Bacon's life, his aims and his works, to say nothing that the so-called Shakespeare plays are included in the enigma. In our

2 BACONS " NE W ATLANTIS^ work, " A New Study of Shakespeare," we professed years ago, to have diseovered the Eosicrucian character of the plajrs and poems. So keenly did we feel this that it is the real undercurrent of the whole book, particularly hinted at in certain chapters. We propose, therefore, to now present the public with the proofs. And first as to their source and head. In a recent work, entitled the " Real History of the Rosicrucians," Mr A. E. Waite (the author), presents us with an examination, of the historical grounds, upon which the society first came into notice. Amongst the apologists, or defenders of the Kosicrucians, appears one John Heydon, whose works are well known to students of this class of subject. He appears to have been bom a gentleman, " descended from a noble family of London," and very far from being a likely person to indulge in imposture or romance, for the sake of notoriety or unworthy fame. We refer (for want of space) the reader to Mr Waiters interesting work, where he will find many curious things about Heydon. We now propose to give Heydon's " Voyage to the Land of the Rosicru- , cians/' side by side with Lord Bacon's "New Atlantis," whereby the extraordinary discovery will be made, that without an effort at disguise, these narratives go word for word, line by line, with each other, as perfect duplicates. The only difference existing, is that Heydon's Land is the Land of the Rosicru cians, and that a few names of places are altered. Our first intention was to have given, the whole of Bacon's " New Atlantis," side by side with John Heydon's " Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians," and perhaps it had been better, if we could have effected this. But it would have added formidable dimensions to the plan of our work, and wearied the reader. There is no difference of any real importance as to text between the two narratives. The names are sometimes different — and the reader, has only to purchase Mr Waites " Real History of the Rosicrucians " and collate Heydon's narrative with Bacon's '' New Atlantis," to arrive at the conclusion they are identical narratives. It may be suggested, and of course will be suggested, that Heydon

BA CON'S ''NEW A TLANTIS. " 3 was an impostor, desiring to give importance, colouring, and romance, to the society to which he belonged, or pretended to belong, and seeking notoriety. Everything goes to contradict such a theory. In the "Life of John Heydon," written by Frederick Talbot, Esq., and prefixed to the "Wise Man's Crown," ^ we read : — " John Heydon, the son of Francis and Mary Heydon, now of Sidmouth in Devonshire, is not basely but nobly descende^^. Antiquaries derive them from Julius Heydon, King of Hungaiy iuid Westphalia, that were descended from the noble family of Caesar Heydon in Eome, and since this royal race the line runs down to the Hon. Sir Christopher Heydon of Heydon, near North wick ; Sir John Heydon, late lord-lieutenant of the king's Tower of London, and the noble Chandlers in Worcestershire of the mother's side, which line spread by marriage into Devonshire, among the Collins, Ducks, Drues, and Bears. He had one sister, named Anne Heydon, who dyed two years since, his father and mother being yet living. He was born at his father's house in Green- Arbour, London, and baptized at S. Sepulchre's, and so was his sister, both in the fifth and seventh years of the reign of King Charles I, He was educated in Warwickshire, among his mother's friends, and so careful were they to keep him and his sister from danger, and to their books, that they had one continually to wait upon them, both to the school and at home. " He was commended by Mr John Dennis, his tutor in Tardebick, to Mr George Linacre, priest of Cougheton, where he learned the Latine and Greek tongues. The war at this time began to molest the universities of this nation. He was then articled to Mr Michael Petty, au attorney at Clifford's Inn, with eighty pound, that at live years' end he should be sworn before Chief Justice EolL Being very young, he applyed his minde to learning, and by his happy wit, obtained great knowledge in all arts and sciences. Afterwards he followed the armies of the King, and for his valour commanded in the troops. When he was by these means famous for learning and arms, he travelled into Spain,

4 BA CON'S ''NEW A TLANTIS. " Italy, Arabia, -^gypt, and Persia, gave his minde to writing, and composed, about twenty years since, 'The Harmony of the World.' " His character appears to have been a high one, if we can believe this writer : — " He writes now from Hermeapolis, a place I was never at. It seems, by the word, to be the City of Mercury, and truly he hath been in many strange places, among the Eosie Crucians, and at their castles, holy houses, temples, sepulchres, sacrifices ; all the world knows this gentleman studies honourable things, and faithfully communicates them to others ; yet, if any traduce him hereafter, they must not expect his vindication. He hath referred his quarrel to the God of Nature ; it is involved in the concernments of his truths, and he is satisfied with the peace of a good conscience. He hath been misinterpreted in his writing ; with studied calumnies, they disparage his person whom they nevir saw, nor perhaps will see. He is resolved for the future to suffer, for he says, *God condemns no man for his patience.' His enemies are forced to praise his vertue, and his friends are sorry he hath not ten thousand pounds a year. He doth not resent the common spleen ; and when the world shall submit to the general tribunal, he will find his advocate where they shall find their judge. Wh^ I writ this gentleman's life, God can bear me witness, it was unknown to him, and for no private ends. I was forced to it by a strong admiration of the mistery and majesty of Nature written by this servant of God and secretary of Nature. I began his life some years since, and do set it down as I do finde it. If any man oppose this I shall answer ; if you are for peace, peace be with you ; if you are for war, I have been so too (Mr Heydon doth resolve never to draw sword again in England, except the King command him). Now, let not him that puts on the armour boast like him that puts it off. Gaudd 2)atieniia duris is his motto, and thus I present myself a friend to all artists, and enemy to no man." We have made no particular selections from the "New Atlantis"

BA CON'S ''NEW A TLANTISr 5 of BacoD, or of Hejdon's narrative. Both the accounts might, and ought, to stand side by side, from first to last, and our choice is a random one, falling upon those paragraphs, which bring in the name of the Eosicrucians or Eosy Cross. It is to be hoped that the critic,- will at once test the truth of our statement at its fountain head, and convince himself without deky. It appears Hey don lived after Bacon. A study of his narrative in the original, will convince the critic Heydon was a fellow of the society, and knew what he was writing about. At least that is our belief HeYDON's " VOTAOE TO THE Land of the Eosicrucians." "The morrow after our three dayes, tlfere came to us a new man, cloathed in azure, save that his turban was white with a small red crosse at the top. He had al80 a tippet of fine linnen. He did bend to us a little, and put his arms broad ; we saluting him in a very lowly manner. He desired to speak with some few of us, whereupon six onely stayed, and the rest avoided the room. He said : — * I am by office governour of this house of Btrangers, and by vocation a Christian priest of the Order of tlie Eosie Crosse, and am come to offer you my service, as strangers and chiefly as Christians. The State, hath given you licence to stay on land for the space of six weeks, and let it not trouble you if your occasions ask further time, for the law in this point is not precise. Ye shall also understand that the strangers' house is at this time rich and much aforehand, for it hath laid up revenue these 36000 years — so long it is since Bacon's *' New Atlantis." "The morrow after our three days were past, there came to us a new man that we had not seen before, clothed in blue as the former was, save that his turban was white, with a small red cross on the top ; he had also a tippet of fine linen. At his coming in he did bend to us a little, and put his arms abroad. We of our parts saluted him in a very lowly and submissive manner, as looking that from him we should receive sentence of life or death. He desired to speak with some few of us ; whereupon six of us only stayed, and the rest avoided the room. He said : * I am by office governor of this House of Strangers, and by vocation I am a Christian priest ; and therefore am come to you to offer you my service both as strangers, and chiefly as Christians. Some things I may tell you, which I think you will not be unwilling to hear. The state hath given you licence to stay on land for the space of six weeks. And let it not trouble

BACON'S ''NEW ATLANTIS:' Hetdon's " Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians." any straDger arrived in this part. Therefore take ye no care ; the State will defray you all the time you stay. As for any merchandize ye have brought, ye shall be well used, and have your return either in merchandize or gold and silver, for to us it is all one. If you have any other request to make, hide it not, onely this I must tell you that none of you must go above a juld, or karan (that is with them a mile and an half), from the walls of the city without especial I leave.' " " * ** Lord Grod of Heaven and earth. Thou hast vouchsafed of Thy grace to those of our order to know Thy works of creation and the secrets of them, and tx) discern (as far as appertaineth to the generation of men) between divine miracles, works of Nature, works of art, and impostures and illusions of all sorts. I do here acknowledge and testifie before this people, that the thing which Bacon's " New Atlantis." you if your occasions ask further time, for the law in this point is not precise ; and I do not doubt but myself shall be able to obtain for you such further time as shall be convenient. Ye shall also understand that the Strangers'House is at this time rich and much aforehand, for it hath laid up revenue these thirty-seven years ; for so long it is since any stranger arrived in this part. And, therefore, take ye no care, the state will defray you all the time you stay, neither shall you stay one day less for that. As for any merchandise you have brought, ye shall be well used, and have your return either in merchandise, or in gold and silver ; for to us it is all one. And if you have any other request to make, hide it not, for ye shall find we will not make your countenance to fall by the answer ye shall receive. Only this I must tell you, that none of you must go above a karan [that is with them a mile and a half J from the walls of the city without special leave.'*' " * " Lord God of heaven and earth, thou hast vouchsafed of thy grace to those of our order to know thy works of creation, and true secrets of them, and to discern (as far as appertaineth to the generations of men) between divine miracles, works of Nature, works of

BACON'S ''NEW ATLANTISP HeTDON'S " VOTAOB TO THE Land of the Rosicrucians.'' ' we DOW see is Thy finger and a true miracle. And for as much as we learn in our books that Thou never workest miracles but to a divine and excellent end (for the laws of Nature are Thine own laws, and Thou exoeedest them not but upon great cause), we most humbly beseech Thee to prosper this great signe, and to give us the interpretation and use of it in mercy, which Thou doest in some part promise by sending it unto u&" " * When he had made his prayer, he presently found the boat he was in unbound, whereas the rest remained still fast Taking that for leave to approach, he caused the boat to be softly rowed towards the pillar, but ere he came near the pillar and crosse of light brake up, and cast itself abroad into a firmament of many stars, which also soon vanished, and there was nothing left but a small ark of cedar, not wet at all with water, though it swam. In the fore-end of it grew a small green branch of palme, and when the Eosie Crucian had taken it with all reverence into his boat, it opened of itself, and there were found a book and letter, both written in fine parchment, and wrapped in suidons of linnen, the book containing all the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, according as you have them, while the Apocalypse itself and some other books of the New Bacon's " New Atlantis." see before our eyes is thy finger and a true miracle. And forasmuch as we learn in our books that thou never workest miracles but to a divine and excellent end (for the laws of nature are thine own laws, and thou exceedest them not but upon good cause), we most humbly beaeech thee to prosper this great sign, and to give us the interpretation and use of it in mercy, which thou dost in some part secretly promise by sending it unto us." " * When he had made his prayer, he presently found the boat he was in moveable and unbound, whereas all the rest remained still fast ; and taking that for an assurance of leave to approach, he caused the boat to be softly and with silence rowed towards the pillar : but ere he came near it, the pillar and cross of light brake up, and cast itself abroad, as it were, into a firmament of many stars ; which also vanished soon after, and there was nothing left to be seen but a small ark or chest of cedar, dry, and not wet at all with water, though it swam ; and in the fore-end of it, which was towards him, grew a small green branch of palm. And when the wise man had taken it with all reverence into his boat, it opened of itself, and there was found in it a book and a letter, both written in fine parchment, and wrapped in sindons of linen. The book contained all the canonical books of

8 BACON'S '' NEW ATLANTISy Heydon's Voyaob to the Land of the Bosicrucians. Testament) not at that time written, were, nevertheless, therein.* " ^* * At the same time, the inhabitants of the Holy Land did flourish. For though the narration and discription made by a great man with you, that the descendants of Neptune planted there, and of the magnificent temple, palace, city, and hill (see my Rosie Crucian Infallible Axi'omata), and the manifold navigable rivers (which as so many chains environed the site and temple), and the severall degrees of ascent whereby men did climb up to the same as if it had been a Scala Cceli^ be all poeticall and fabulous, yet so much is true that the said country of Judea, as well as Peru, then called Coy a — Mexico, then named Tyrambel — were mighty, proud kingdomes in arms, shipping, and riches. At one time both made two great expeditions, they of Tyrambel through Judea to the Mediterrane sea, and they of Coya through the South Sea upon this our island.' " Bacon's " New Atlantic" the Old and New Testament, according as you have them (for we know well what the churches with you receive), and the Apocalypse itself ; and some other books of the New Testament which were not at that time written, were nevertheless in the book."* " ' At the same time, and an age after or more, the inhabitants of the great Atlantis did flourish. For though the narration and description which is made by a great man, with you, of the descendants of Neptune planted there, and of the magnificent temple, palace, city, and hill, and the manifold streams of goodly navigable rivers, which, as so many chains, environed the same site and temple, and the several degrees of ascent, whereby men did climb up to the same, as if it had been a acala cceli^ be all poetical and fabulous ; yet so much is true, that the said country of Atlantis, as well as that of Peru, then called Coya, as that of Mexico, then named Tyrambel, were mighty and proud kingdoms in arms, shipping, and riches ; so mighty, as at one time, or at least within the space of ten years, they both made two great expeditions : they of Tyrambel through the Atlantic to the Mediterranean Sea, and they of Coya, through the South Sea, upon this our island.*" '* Ye shall understand that among ** You shall understand, my dear

BA coirs ''NEW A TLANTISr HeYD0N*8 " VoTAaK TO THE Land of the Rosicrucians." the excellent acts of that King one hath the pre-eminence — ^the erection and institution of an Order, or Society, which we call the Temple of the Rosie Crosse, the noblest foundation that ever was upon eatth, and the lanthome of this Kingdome. It is dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of Grod. Some think it beareth the founder's name a little corrupted, as if it should be F. H. R. C. his house, but the records write it as it is sp'»ken. I take it to be denominate of the King of the Hebrews, which is famous with you, and no stranger to us, for we have some parts of his works which you have lost, namely, that Rosie Crucian M which he wrote of all things past, present, or to come, and of all things that have life and motion. This maketh me think that our King finding himself to symbolize with that King of the Hebrews, honoured him with The Title of this Foundation, and I finde in ancient records this Order or Society of the Rosie Crosse is sometimes called the Holy House, and sometimes the Colledge of the Six Days' Works, whereby I am satisfied that our excellent King had learned from the Hebrews that God had created the world and all therein within six days, and therefore he instituting that House for the finding out of the one nature of things did give it also that second name. When the Kiug had forbidden to all his Bacon's " New Atlantis." friends, that amongst the excellent acts of that king, one above all hath the pre-eminence. It was the erection and institution of an order or society, which we call Solomon's House, the noblest foundation, as we think, that ever was upon the earth, and the lantern of this kingdom. It is dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God. Some think it beareth the founder's name a little corrupted, as if it should be Solomona's House ; but the records write it as it is spoken. So as I take it to be denominate of the king of the Hebrews, which is famous with you, and no stranger to us, for we have some parts of his works which with you are lost ; namely, that natural history which he wrote of all plants, *• from the cedar of Lebanon to the moss that groWeth out of the wall,' and of all things that have life and motion. This maketh me think that our king, finding himself to symbolize in many things with that king of the Hebrews which lived many years before him, honoured him with the title of this foundation. And I am the rather induced to be of this opinion, for that I find in ancient records this order or society is sometimes called Solomon's House, and sometimes the College of the Six Days' Works ; whereby I am satisfied that our excellent king had learned from the Hebrews that God had created the world, and all that therein is, within six

lO BACOJsrs ''NEW Atlantis:' Hbydox's " Voyage to thb Land of the Rosicrucians.'' people navigation into any part not under his crown, he had, nevertheless, this ordinance, that every twelve years there should be set forth two ships appointed to several! voyages ; that in either of these ships there should be a mission of three of the Fellows or Brethren of the Holy House, whose errand was to give us knowledge of the affaires and state of those countries to which they were designed, and especially of the sciences, arts, manufactures." " The Father of the fraternity, whom they call the R C, two days before the feiist taketh to him three of such friends as he liketh to chuse, and is assisted also by the govemour of the city where the feast is celebrated, and all the persons of the family, of both sexes, are summoned to attend upon him. Then, if there be any discords or suits, they are compounded and appeased. Then, if any of the family be distressed or decayed, order is taken for their relief and competent means to live. Then, if any be subject to Bacon's " New Atlantis." days, and therefore he instituting that house for the finding out of the true nature of all things, whereby God might have the more glory in the workmanship of them, and men the more fruit in their use of them, did give it also that second name. But now, to come to our present purpose. When the king had forbidden to all his people navigation in any part that was not under his crown, he made nevertheless this ordinance, that every twelve years there should be set forth out of this kingdom two ships appointed to several voyages; that in either of these ships there should be a mission of three of the fellows or brethren of Solomon's House, whose errand was only to give us knowledge of the affairs and state of tiiose countries to which they were designed, and especially of the sciences, arts, manufactures." '* The father of the family, whom they call the tirsan, two days before the feast, taketh to him three of such friends as he liketh to choose, and is assisted also by the governor of the city or place where the feast is celebrated ; and all the persons of the family of both sexes are summoned to attend hinL These two days the tirsan sitteth in consultation concerning the good estate of the family. There, if there be any discord or suits between any of the family, they are compounded and appeased ; there, if any of the famOy

BACOJSrS ''NEW ATLANTIS:' ir HeyDON'8 " VOTAOB TO THE IiAND OF THE ROS I CRUCIANS." vice, they are reproved and censured. So, likewise, direction is given touching marriage and the courses of life. The govemour aasisteth to put in execution the decrees of the Tirsan if they should be disobeyed, though that seldonie needeth, such reverence they give to the order of Nature. The Tirsan doth also then chuse one man from amongst his sons to live in house with him, who is called ever after the Sonne of the Vine. On the feast day the father, or Tirsan, commeth forth after Divine Service in to a large room, where the feast is celebrated, which room hath an half -pace at the upper end." " As we were thus in conference, there came one that seemed to be a messenger ,#& a rich huke, that spake with the Jew, whereupon he turned to me and said, 'You will pardon me, for I am commanded away in haste.' The next morning he came to me joyfully, and said — 'There is word come to the Grovemour of the city that one of the Fathers of the Temple of the Bosie Crosse, or Holy House, will be here this Bacon's " New Atlantis." be distressed or decayed, order is taken for their relief, and competent means to live ; there, if any be subject to vice or take ill courses, they are reproved and censured. So likewise, direction is given touching marriages, and the courses of life which any of them should take, with divers other the like orders and advices. The governor assisteth to the end, to put in execution by his public authority the decrees and orders of the tirsan, if they should be disobeyed, though that seldom needeth, such reverence and obedience they give to the order of nature. The tirsan doth also then ever choose one man from amongst his sons to live in house with him, who is called ever after the sou of the vine : the reason will hereafter appear. On the feast-day, the father or tirsan cometh forth, after divine service, into a large room where the feast is celebrated, which room hath an half-pace at the upper end." " And as we were thus in conference, there came one that seemed to be a messenger, in a rich huke, that spake with the Jew ; whereupon, he turned to me, and said, 'You will pardon me, for I am commanded away in haste.' " The next morning he came to me again, joyful, as it seemed, and said, ' There is word come to the governor of the city, that one of the fathers of Solomon's House

12 BACON'S ''NEW ATLANTISr Heydon's " Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians." day seven-night. We have seen none of them this dozen years. His oomming is in state, but the cause is secret. I will provide you and your fellows of a good standing to see his entry.' I thanked him and said I was most glad of the news. The day being come, he made his entry. He was a man of middle stature and age, comely of person, and had an aspect as if he pittied men. He was cloathed in a robe of fine black cloth, with wide sleeves and a cape. His under garment was of excellent white liunen, down to the foot, with a girdle of the same, and a sindon or tippet of the same about his neck. He had gloves that were curious and set with stones, and shoes of peach-coloured velvet. His neck was bare to the shoulders ; his hat was like a helmet, or Spanish montera,^ and his locks, of brown colour, curled below it decently. His beard was cut round and of the same colour with his haire, somewhat lighter. He was carried in a rich chariot, without ^ Can we not recognize Bacoa in this portrait, so familiar to us in the folios of his works (particularly the " Sylva Syl varum "), where he la represented with a Spanish Monttra? He is described (in Rennet, ii. p. 736) as follows: — *'He was of a ^ middiimj stature;' his countenance had indented with age before he was old ; his presence grave and * comely,* says Arthur Wilson." Here are the same words used as in the " New Atlantis," *' middle stature " and *' comely." But the portrait is unmistakably meant for Bacon, inasmuch as he addresses his audience as *' my son," or " sons," which is repeated in Bacon's works, wbere one of his titles is adfilios suoa, Lloyd (in his '* State Worthies," li. p. 121)) says, " His make and port was stately." "Ho had a delicate lively hazel eye" (Dr Harvey). He was childless. Bicon i^ evidently presented here as the father or head of the fraternity. Bacon's " New Atlantis." will be here this day seven-night ; we have seen none of them this dozen years. His coming is in state, but the cause of his coming is secret I will provide you and your fellows of a good standing to see his entry.' I thanked him, and told him, ' I was most glad of the news.' " The day being come, he made his entry. He was a man of middle stature and age, comely of person, and had an aspect as if he pitied men. He was clothed in a robe of fine black cloth, with wide sleeves and a cape: his under-garraent was of excellent white linen down to the foot, girt with a girdle of the same, and a sindon or tippet of the same about his neck: he had gloves that were curious, and set with stone, and shoes of peachcolouVed velvet; his neck was bare to the shoulders : his hat was like a helmet or Spanish montera, and his locks curled below it decently, — they were of colour brown : his beard was cut round, and of the same ^colour

BACON'S ''NEW ATLANTIS^ 13 HetDON's " VOTAGB TO THE Land of thb Rosicrucians." wheels, litter- wise, with two horses at either end, richly trapped in blew velvet embroydered, and two footmen on each side in the like attire. The chariot was of cedar, gilt and adorned with chry stall, save that the fore-end had pannells of sapphire, set in borders of gold, and the hinderend the like of emerauds of the Peru colour." " * God bless thee, my son ; I will give thee the greatest jewel I have ; I will impart unto thee, for the love of God and men, a rehition of the true state of the Rosie Crosse. First, I will set forth the end of our foundation ; secondly, the preparations and instruments we have for our workes; thirdly, the several functions whereto our fellows are assigned; and fourthly, the ordinances and rights which we observe. The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes and secret motions of things, and the enlarging of the bounds of Kingdomes to the effecting of all things possible. The preparations and instruments are these. We have large caves of several depths, the deepest sunke 36,000 feet. Some are digged under great hills and muuntaines, so that, if you reckon together the depths of the hill and of the cave, some are above seven miles deep. Tliese caves we call the lower region, and we use them for all coaguBacon's " New Atlantis." with his hair, somewhat lighter. He was carried in a rich chariot, without wheels, litter- wise, with two horses at either end, richly trapped in blue velvet, embroidered, and two footmen on either side in the like attire. The chariot was all of cedar, gilt, and adorned with crystal, save that the fore-end had panels of sapphires set in borders of gold, and the hinder-end the like of emeralds of the Peru colour." " * God bless thee, my son, I will give thee the greatest jewel I have ; for I will impart uuto thee, for the love of God and men, a relation of the true state of Solomon's House. Son, to make you know the true state of Solomon's House, I will keep this order :— first, I will set forth unto you the end of our foundation ; secondly, the preparations and instruments we have for our works ; thirdly, the several employments and functions whereto our fellows are assigned ; and fourthly, the ordinances and rites which we observe. "*The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes and secret motions of things, and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible. " * The preparations and instruments are these. We have large and deep caves of several depths : the deepest are sunk six hundred fathoms, and some of them are digged and made under great hilla

14 BACON'S ''NEW ATLANTIS.'' Heydon's ** Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians." latioDs, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies. We use them likewise for the imitation of natural mines, and the production of new artificial mettalls by compositions and materials which we lay there for many years. We use them also sometimes for cureing some diseases, and for prolongation of life in hermits that choose to live there, well accommodated of all things necessary, by whom also we learn many things (read our " Temple of Wisdome "). We have burialls in several earths, where we put diverse cements, as the Chineses do their borcellane ; but we have them in greater variety, and some of them more fine. We have also great variety of composts and soyles for the making of the earch fruitful!. We have towers, the highest about half a mile in height, and some of them set upon high mountaines, so that the vantage of the hill with the tower is, in the highest of them, three miles at least/ " Bacon's **New Atlantis." and mountains; so that if you reckon together the depth of the hill and the depth of the cave, they are (some of them) above three miles deep : for we find that the depth of a hill and the depth of a cave from the flat is the same thing, both remote alike from the sun and heaven's beams and from the open air. These caves we call " the lower region," and we use them for all coagulations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies. We use them likewise for the imitation of natural mines, and the producing also of new artificial metals, by compositions and materials which we use and lay there for many years. We use them also sometimes (which may seem strange) for curing of some diseases, and for prolongation of life in some hermits that choose to live there, well accommodated of all things necessary, and, indeed, live very long ; by whom also we learn many things. " * We have burials in several earths, where we put divers cements, as the Chinese do their porcelain ; but we have them in greater variety, and some of them finer. We also have great variety of composts and soils for making of the earth fruitful. " * We have high towers, the highest about half a mile in height, and some of them likewise set upon high mountains ; so that the advantage of the hill with the tower is, in the highest of them, three miles at least.' "

BACON'S ''NEW ATLANTIS:' 15 HeTDON's " VOYAOK TO THE Land of the Bosicrucians." *' 'We have sound -hoases, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds and their generation. We have harmonies (read the " Harmony of the World") which you have not, of quarter and lesser kindes of sounds— divers instruments of musick to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have, together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet (See my book of *'Geomancy and Telesmes/O We represent small sounds as great and deep, great sounds as extenuate and sharpe ; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds which in their originall are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters (read my " Cabbala, or Art, by which Moses shewed so many signs in i£gypt''), and the voices and notes of many beasts and birds. We have certain helps which, set to the ear, do further the hearing greatly. We have strange and artiticiall eochos, reflecting the voice many times, and, as it were, to sing it, some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller, some deeper, some rendring the voice differing in the letters, or articular sound, from that they receive. We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances.' ^ ^ It < Lastly, we have circuits or Bacon's " New Atlantis." *< ' We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds and their generation. We have harmonies, which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds ; divers instruments likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have ; with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep, likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp. We make divers tremblings and warbling of sounds, which in their original are entire ; we represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps, which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly. We have also divers strange and artificial echos reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it ; and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller, and some deeper ; yea, some rendering the voice differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes in strange lines and distances.' " * « ( Lastly, we have circuits or ' This passage is a remarkable anticipation of the telephone, speaking tube, and phonograph. .

i6 BACOJSrS '' NEW ATLANTIS:' Heydon's *' Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians.*' visits of divers principal cities of the kingdome, where we doe publish such news, profitable inventions, as we think good, and we doe also declare natural divina* tions of diseases, plagues, swarms of hurtful! creatures, scarcity, tempests, earthquakes, gi-eat inundations, comets, temperature of the year, and divers other things, and we give counsel thereupon for the prevention and remedy of them.* " Whfu he had said this, he desired me to give him an account of my life, that he might report it to the Brethren of the Bosie Crosse, after which he stood up ; I kneeled down, and he laid his right hand upon my head, saying, * God blesse thee, my son, and God blesse these relations which we have made ! I give thee leave to publish them for the good of other nations, for we are here in God's bosome, a land unknown.' *' And so he left me, having assigned a value of about two thousand pounds in gold for a bounty to me and my fellows, for they give great largesses where they come upon all occasions." Bacon's " New Atlantis." visits of divers principal cities of the kingdom, where, as it cometh to pass, we do publish such new profitable inventions as we think good. And we do also declare natural divinations of diseases, plagues, swarms of hurtful creatures, scarcity, tempests, earthquakes, great inundations, comets, temperature of the year, and divers other things ; and we give counsel thereupon what the people shall do for the prevention and remedy of them.' " And when he had said this, he stood up ; and I, as I had been taught, kneeled down, and he laid his right hand upon my head, and said, ' God bless thee, my son, and God bless this relation which I have made ; I give thee leave to publish it for the good of other nations, for we here are in God's bosom, a laud unknown.' And so he left u)e, having assigned a value of about two thousand ducats for a bounty to me and my fellows ; for they give great largesses where they come upon all occasions." Now, either Heydon was an impostor, who borrowed Bacon's "Atlantis" to give colour to his pretences, or a real Rosicrucian, in which case he knew the truth. He has always been considered and classed as a genuine Rosicrucian apologist His other works and his reputation all go in favour of his being above any trickery. It seems to us we can find traces of Bacon's mind in the " Fama Fraternitatis," or "Universal Reformation," which appears to have been first published in 1614. This is the famous declara 

BA CON'S '*NEIV A TLANTIS:' 1 7 tion, which first revealed to the public, the existence of the Bosicrucians. The original edition contained a manifesto, with the title, ''The Fama Fratemitatis, or the meritorious order of the Rosy Cross, addressed to the learned in general, and the govemours of Europe." — " It was reprinted," says Mr Waite (in his interesting history of the Bosicrucians), " with the * Confessio Fratemitatis ' and the ' Allgemeine Reformation der Ganzen Welt,' at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1615." We find the following passage throwing contempt upon Aristotle and Galen : — The " Fama Fraiemitatis; or, a Discovery of the FrcUemUy of the most LaudahU Order of the Rosy Cross" " Seeing the only wise and merciful God in these latter days hath poured out so richly His mercy and goodness to mankind, whereby we do attain more and more to the perfect knowledge of His Son Jesus Christ, and of Nature, that justly we mSy boast of the happy time wherein there is not only discovered unto us the half part of the world,^ which was heretofore unknown and hidden, but He hath also made manifest unto us many wonderful and never-heretofore seen works and creatures of Nature, and, moreover, hath raised men, indued with great wisdom, which might partly renew and reduce all arts (in this our spotted and imperfect age) to perfection, so that finally man might thereby understand his own nobleness and worth, and why he is called MicroeasmuSf and how far his knowledge exlendeth in Nature, '' Although the rude world herewith will be but little pleased, but rather smile and scoff thereat ; also the pride and covetousness of the learned is so great, it will not suffer them to agree together; but were they united, they might, out of all those things which in this our age God doth so richly bestow on us, collect Librum Natures, or, a Perfect Method of all Arts. But such is their opposition that they still keep, and are loth to leave, the old course, esteeming Porphyry, Aristotle, and Galen, ^ The italics are ours. B

sN 1 8 BA CON'S ''NEW A TLANTIS."" yesL, and that which hath but a meer show of leamingy more thau the clear and manifested Light and Tnith." NoWy there is Bacon's mind very strongly emphasized in three separate points in this passage. The first is Bacon's master thought, . that the mind should make discoveries of new worlds, to parallel the discovery of America. From this idea, which he gives vent to in words to James I.,^ sprang his ship device and its motto, plus uttra^ sailing as it is (a precious argosy), between and beyond the pillars of Hercules. Then, again, the entire Baconian philosophy, or system, as works applied to Nature, is comprised in the words, ''how far Ms knowledge exiendeth in Nature.^* In Bacon's age, there were not many, who like him, distinctly realized the difference of vain words, from '* knowledge in Nature." It is the pith of his philosophy, — the progenitor of the Inductive method, — and its master key is application to Nature, to realize our knowledge in Nature. We also find in the above passage, disparagement of Aristotle. To mention this name is to recall Bacon's early and constant dislike of him and lus school The first striking record we have of Bacon, is his falling out, at a ridiculously early age with the stagirite. Thus we have the three main points of Bacon's mind, coming all together, for the overthrow of Aristotle, was with him, preparation only, for new discoveries in a new hemisphere of thought, that should extend, to experiments in Nature herself. Joined to all this, which indeed, was part of it, he had an unbounded love of humanity — a philanthropy so universal that it is almost unnatural, and incredible, except in a God or Christ. He lives for after ages — for posterity, " after a little time be passed," in order to procure the "good of all men." Now this falls in exactly with the spirit, betrayed in these early manifestoes, which accompany the first tidings we have of the famous Brotherhood, ' "For how long shall we let a few received authors stand up like Hercules* columns, beyond which there shall be no sailing or discovery in science, when we have so bright and benign a star as your Majesty, to conduct and prosper us ? " — Bacon's Works.

BA coirs " NE W ATLANTIS:' 19 and their scheme of '' Umyersal Reformation." This is entirely Baconian. And I am sure, that everybody who has read and studied him lovingly, ivill agree with us, that the whole aim of his life, and mind, was the good of others, and that in this, he resembled God, for he saw that it was good. He was prepared for any sacrifice, for any trouble, for this end. It is writ large, from the earliest childhood of this marvellous man, who hardly seemed bom, before he was compassing ways and means, to lift mankind out of the slough, and the vicious circles, of the schoolmen and middle ages. Such a scheme as the '' Universal Beformation " required a more than remarkable man to imagine it, far more to carry it out It wanted place, power, a man of many tongues, and the refinement of high culture to start the idea, of a secret society all over Europe, for the bettering of the times. But it could not be done openly — ^the envy, danger, evil of the world at that time can hardly be realized to us now. Mr Waite truly remarks — '^ Beneath the broad tide of human history there flow the stealthy undercurrents of the secret societies, which frequently determine in the depths the changes that take place upon the surface." The "undercurrents of secret societies" are most powerful for good, because they lie in the hearts of men — and make up for want of open force, by a brotherhood of craft, which tho common danger binds them to maintain and propagate to others. We find this constantly hinted at by Bacon. He deplores the universal insanity, and declares to his son, that it is only increased by resistance, and that Truth ought to be, but cannot be openly inculcated. Therefore he says " we must conform to the Universal Insanity." But how 1 We believe the reply is to be found in what we suggest and in what we have hinted to us in the " New Atlantis."

20 BA CON'S " NE W ATLANTISr The Founders of Rosicnuianism, With regard to the mythical story connected with the foundation of the secret Brotherhood or order of the Bosy Cross — the story of the death, burial, and opening of Christian Bosencreutz's tomb — Mr Waite disposes of it summarily in his recent " Eeal History of the Kosicrucians." "Taking 1614 as the year when the 'Fama' was published, and supposing the discovery of the burial-place to have antedated the manifesto by the shortest possible period, we are brought back to the year 1494, one year after the birth of Paracelsus, whose books it is supposed so contain. This point is, of course, conclusive, and it is unnecessary to comment on the mystery which surrounds the ultimate fate of the corpse of that 'godly and high-illuminated Father, Brother C. B. C " Thus it is obvious that the history of Christian Eosencreutz is not historically true, and that the Society did not originate in the manner which is described by the * Fama.' " Now here we have at once positive proof of the fraudulent history and antedating of the origin of the society. This fact goes a long way to harbour the suspicion, that the real origin of the society was coeval with the end of the sixteenth, and early part of the seventeenth century — Bacon's manhood. Mr Waite says : — *' The Rosicrucian theorists may be broadly divided into three bands — I. Those who believe that the history of Christian Rosencreutz is true in fact, and that the society originated in the manner recounted in the 'Fama Fraternitatis.' 11. Those who regard both the society and its founder as purely mythical, and consider with Liebnitz, ^qite totU ce que Von a dit des Frhes de la Croix de la Rose, est une pure inverUion de guelgue personne ingenieuseJ 111. Those who, without accepting the historical truth of the story of liosencreutz, believe in the existence of the Bosicrucians as a secret society, which drew attention to the fact of its existence by a singular and attractive fiction." So, taking Mr Waite as our authority, we propose to briefly

JBA CON'S ''NEW A TLANTISr 2 1 ezanune the evidence with him, as to the historical truth of the myth, around which the founding of the society is associated. In this history of the '' Fama " we arrive at the first inception of the society : — " After this manner began the Fraternity of the Kosie Gross — first, by four persons onely, and by them was made the magical language and writing, with a large dictionaxy, which we yet dayly use to God's praise and glory, and do finde great wisdom therein. They made also the first part of the Book M, but in respect that that labour was too heavy, and the unspeakable concourse of the sick hindred them, and also whilst his new building (called Sandi ^ritus) was now finished, they concluded to draw and receive yet others more into their Fraternity. To this end was chosen Brother R. C, his deceased father's brother's son; Brother B., a skilful painter; G. G., and P. D., their secretary, all Germains except I. A., so in all they were eight in number, all batchelors and of vowed virginity, by whom was collected a book or volumn of all that which man can desire, wish, or hope for." — (Waite's "Beal History of the Rosicrucians.") Who is this Brother B., a skilful painter or Artist ) B. stands suspiciously for Bacon. It is perfectly true this history is antedated two centuries prior to Bacon's times. But we shall show that before 1614, when this "Fama" was published, nothing had been heard of this brotherhood, or of this mythical history of Father Rosycross. And Mr Waite seems to incline to the suspicion, that the entire story was a fabrication manufactured to give an air of romance, reality, and attraction to the world, in an age when these things acted powerfully upon the minds of men in Europe, — and to thus gain credit, authority, and power. Among the members inscribed in the vault where the body of Christian Rosenkreutz lay under the altar, are these names : — 1. Fra, I. A. Fra, C. H. dectione Fraiemitatis caput. 2. Fra, G. V. M. P. C.

22 BACON'S " NE W ATLANTIS."* 3. Fra. F. R. C, Junior hoeru S. Spiriius. 4. Fro, F. B. M. R A., Fidor d Archikcius. 5. Fro. G. G. M. P. I., CaMista, No. 4. F. B. M. P. A. stands suspiciously for Francis Baeon^ Magister, Fidor d Archiiedus. Note this is Brother B., a " fkilful painter^ evidently identical with the ^^ Fidor d Archiiedus,*' not F. B. M. but F. B. only, the M. being either MagisUr, or for some other title. To those who believe that Bacon wrote the plays ascribed to Shakespeare, and who also believe^ like ourselves, that he was the Master Spirit, who was the founder and the originator of the Rosicrucians, the words PiCTOR et Architectus are sufficiently startling. We find plenty of authority in the sonnets to couple the playwright's art with the painter's. And here it is. (Sonnet 24.) " Perspective it is best painter's art. For through the painter must yon see his skill." *' Like perspectives which show things inward when they are, but paintings."— (Bacon's "Nat Hist. Cent," i. 98.) (Sonnet 24.) " Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelPd Thy beauty's form in table of my heart" We have supposed that the reader is well acquainted with the celebrated " Fama FraternitcUis" either through De Quincey, or through some other source, like Mr Waite's '' Real History of the Rosicrucians," to which we are deeply indebted. It would be impossible to reproduce here the whole account, so must beg the reader to go to the originals, or the works mentioned, and then return to us. We now proceed to maintain that the antedating of this fabulous tale of Christian Rosenkreutz was a splendid fiction, first for safety's sake; secondly, as we have said, to give romance, interest, and colour to the origins of the society. Our own con 

BA COJSrS ''NEW A TLANTIS:' 23 viction is that the society in the fonn presented to ns in the '' Fama Fraiemitaiis" never existed at all, or at least only a few years hefore its publication. Here are the grounds. First, that we find John Heydon's narrative of " a voyage to the land of the Bosicrucians " is a facsimile repetition of Bacon's " New Atlantis." Secondly, that Johann FcUeniin Andreas^ to whom the composition of the Bosicrucian manifestoes are attributed, never viewed them seriously himself, but called the '* Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz " (round which the question of authorship and founding of the order to a great extent revolves) a ludibrium or farce, and this is entirely contrary to the spirit of the publications and earnest character of the '' Universal Reformation." Thirdly, it is stated that Andreas wrote the " Chymical Marriage " at the early age of sixteen, which Mr Waite considers quite unacceptable. Indeed, Mr Waite, in the spirit of an impartial historical judge, seems to think that the "Fama Fratemitatis " issued from some other source. This is what he writes : — "I. The 'Chymical Marriage' is called a ludibrium by its author, and Professor Buhle describes it as a comic romance, but those of my readers who are acquainted with alchemical allegories will discern in this singular narrative by a prepared student or artist who was supematurally and magically elected to participate in the accomplishment of the magnum opus, many matters of grave and occult significance. They will recognise that the comic episodes are part of a serious design, and that the work as a whole is in strict accordance with the general traditions of alchemy. They will question the good faith of the author in the application of a manifestly incongruous epithet. Perhaps they will appear to be wise above what is written, but the position is not really unreasonable, for the passage in which reference is made by Andreas to the ' Nupiice ChymioB' ia calculated to raise suspicion. He was a shrewd and keen observer ; he had gauged the passions and the crazes of his period ; he was fully aware that the rage for alchemy blinded

24 BA COJSrS ''NEW A TLANTIS, " the eyes and drained the purses of thousands of credulous individuals, who were at the mercy of the most wretched impostors, and that no pretence was too shallow, and no recipe too worthless, to find believers. He could not be ignorant that a work like the 'Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz' was eminently liable to impose upon e^Grj class of theosophists. When, therefore, he supposes, and, by implication, expresses, astonishment that his so-called ludibrium became the object of earnest investigation and of high esteem, I freely confess that I, for one, cannot interpret him seriously ; in other words, that I reject the statement. This, however, is only the initial difficulty. The same passage of the ' Vita ab ipso Conscripta ' contains another piece of incredible information, namely, that Andreas wrote the ' Ntiptioe ChymiccB * before he woe sixteen. This story gives evidence of an acquaintance with the practice and purposes of alchemy which was absolutely impossible to the most precocious lad. Moreover, the boldness of its conception, and the power which is displayed in its execution, setting aside the debateable question of its occult philosophical character, are things utterly transcending the cacoeihes scribendi of a youngster barely attained to the age of puberty. I appeal to the discrimination of my readers whether the curious and ingenious perplexities propounded at the supper on the third day are in any way suggestive of * the light fire in the veins of a boy.' The romance supposed to have been written in 1602-8 did not see the light till 1616,^ when it appeared in the full tide of the Eosicrucian controversy. Why did it remain in manuscript for the space of thirteen years at a period when everything treating of alchemy was devoured with unexampled avidity) The ' Ghymical Marriage,' in its original draft, may have been penned at the age of fifteen, but it must have been subjected to a searching revision, though I confess that it betrays no trace of subsequent manipulation. These grave difficulties are enhanced by a fact which is wholly unknown to most Rosicrucian critics, 1 ShakespeftTO died 1616.

BACON'S " NE W ATLANTIS^ 25 and which was certainly not to be expected in the jest of a schoolboy, namely, that the barbarous enigmatical writings which are to be found in several places of ' The Hermetick Wedding/ are not an unmeaning hoax, but contain a decipherable and deciphered sense. The secretary of an English Rosicrucian Society says that the Supreme Magus of the Metropolitan College can read all three of the enigmas, and that he himself has deciphered two. Their secret is not a tradition, but the meaning dawns upon the student after certain researches. The last point is curious, and, outside the faculty of clairvoyance, the suggested method does not seem probable, but I give it to be taken at its worth, and have no reason to doubt the statement. " From these facts and considerations the conclusion does not seem unreasonable, and may certainly be tolerated by an impartial mind, that, in spite of the statement of Andreas, the ' Chjrmical Marriage ' is not a ludibrium, that it betrays a serious purpose, and conceals a recondite meaning. ** II. With this criticism the whole theory practically breaks down. We know that the 'Fama Fratemitatis ' was published in 1615, as a manifesto of the ^ Biiukrschafft des loblichen Ordens des Rosen Creutses.* We have good reason to suppose that the original draft of the 'Chymical Marriage' was tampered with; we do not know that previous to the year 1615 such a work was in existence as the ' Chymical Marriage of Christian Bosencreutz.' What we know to have existed was simply the 'NuptisB Chymicse.'' Now, supposing the 'Fama Fratemitatis ' to have emanated from a source independent of Andreas , he would be naturally struck by the resemblance of the mysterious Eosicrucian device to his own armorial bearings, and when in the year 1616 he published his so-called comic romance, this analogy may, not inconceivably, have led him to re-christen his hero, and to introduce those passages which refer to the Rose Cross. This, of course, is conjectural, but it is to be remarked that so far as can be possibly ascertained, the acknowledged symbol of the Fraternity never was a St Andrew's Cross with four Boses, but was

26 BACON'S " NE W ATLANTIS:' a Cross of the ordinary shape, with a Sed Sose in the centre, or a Cross rising out of a Eose. There is therefore little real warrant for the identification of the mystical and the heraldic badge. It is on this identification, however, that the Andrean claim is greatly based. "III. We find the 'Chymical Marriage,' like the 'Fama' and 'Confessio Fratemitatis,' crusading against the 'vagabond cheaters,' 'runagates and roguish people,' who debased alchemical experiments in the interest of dishonest speculation ; yet the one, under a thin veil of fiction, describes the proceedings in the accomplishment of the magnum opuSy while the other terms transmutation a great gift of God. These points of resemblance, however, do not necessarily indicate a common authorship, for a general belief in the facts of alchemy was held at that period by many intelligent men, who were well aware, and loud in their condemnation, of the innumerable frauds which disgraced the science. On the other hand, it is plain that the history of C. R C, as it is contained in the ' Fama,' is not the history, equally fabulous, of that Knight of the Golden Stone, who is the hero of the ' Chymical Marriage.' " IV. It is obviously easy to exaggerate the philological argument, or rather the argument from the identity of literary style, in the documents under consideration. This point indeed can only be adequately treated by a Grerman. At present it rests on a single assertion of Arnold, which is uncorroborated by any illustrative facts. I think it will also be plain, even to the casual reader, that the ' Chymical Marriage ' is a work of ' extraordinary talent,' as Buhle justly observes, but that the ' Fama Fratemitatis ' is a work of no particular talent, either inventive or otherwise, while the subsequent ' Confession,' both in matter and manner, is simply beneath contempt Yet we are required to believe that the first was produced at the age of fifteen, while the worthless pamphlets are the work of the same writer from seven to thirteen years subsequently. "Y. The connection of the 'Universal Reformation' with the

BACON'S " NE W ATLANTIS:' 27 oiher Sosicracian manifestoes is so unceilaiii, that if Andreas could be proved its translator, his connection with the society would still be doabtfoL The appearance of the ' Fama Fratemitatis ' and the ^ Universal Reformation ' in one pamphlet no more proves them to have emanated from a single source, than the publication of the ' Confessio ' in the same volume as the 'Secretions Philosophias Consideratio ' proves Philippus ^ Grabella to have been the author of that document. The practice of issuing unconnected works within the covers of a single book was common at that period. But the argument which ascribes the 'Universal Reformation' to Andreas is entirely conjectural. " To dispose of the Andrean claim, a third hypothesis must be briefly considered. If Andreas was a follower of Paracelsus, a believer in alchemy, an aspirant towards the spiritual side of the magnus opus, or an adept therein, he would naturally behold with sorrow and disgust the trickery and imposture with which alchemy was then surrounded, and by which it has been indelibly disgraced, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that he may have attempted to reform the science by means of a secret society, whose manifestoes are directed against those very abuses. But in spite of the statement of Louis Figuier, I can find no warrant in the life or writings of Andreas for supposing that he was a profound student^ much less a fanatical partisan of Paracelsus, and it is clear from his ' Turris Babel,' ' Mythologia Christiana,' and other works, that he considered the Rosicrucian manifestoes a reprehensible hoax. In the twenty-fifbh chapter of the first of these books, the author proposes to supply the place of the fabulous Rosicrucian Society by his own Christian Fraternity. Indeed, wherever he speaks of it in his known writings, it is either with contempt or condemnation. NihU cum hoe Fraier niiaie commune habeOy says Truth in the ' Mythologia Christiana.' 'Listen, ye Mortals,' cries Fama in the 'Turns Babel,' 'you need not wait any longer for any brotherhood; the comedy is played out; Fama has put it up, and now destroys it. Fama has said Yes, and now utters No.'

28 BA CON'S ''NEW A TLANTISr " My readers are now in possession of the facts of the case, and must draw their own conclusions. If in spite of the difficulties which I have impartially stated, Andreas has any claim upon the authorship of the Bosicrucian manifestoes, it must be viewed in a different light. According to Herder, his purpose was to make the secret societies of his time reconsider their position, and to show them how much of their aims and movements was ridiculous, but not to found any society himself. According to Figuier, he really founded the Bosicrucian Society, but ended by entire disapproval of its methods, and therefore started his Christian Fraternity. But the facts of the case are against this hypothesis, for the 'Invitatio Fratemitatis Christi ad Sacri amoris Candidatos' was published as early as 1617, long before the Bosicrucian Order could have degenerated from the principles of its master. It is impossible that Andreas should have projected two associations at the same time." Our space does not permit us, nor would it be fair, to borrow more from Mr Waiters masterly criticism upon the claims of Andreas. They should be studied in the " Beal History of the Bosicrucians." It is plain Johann Valentin Andreas had no faith in the works supposed to be by him, and this is very strong proof against his authorship. In Chapter II. of the *' Confession " we find Bacon's great idea of the " amendment of philosophy," hinted at. ''Concerning the amendment of philosophy, we have (as much as at this present is needful) declared that the same is altogether weak and faulty ; nay, whilst many (I know not how) alledge that she is sound and strong, to us it is certain that she fetches her last breath." And in Chapter IV., this : — " Now concerning the first part, we hold that the meditations of our Christian father on all subjects which from the creation of the world have been invented, brought forth, and propagated by human ingenuity, through God's revelation, or through the service of Angels or spirits, or through the sagacity of under 

BACON'S ''NEW ATLANTIS:' 29 standing, or through the experience of long observation, are so great, that if all books should perish, and bj God's almighty snfirance all writings and all learning should be lost, yd posteriiy fffill be able Iherehy to lay a new foundation of sciences^ and to erect a new citadel of truth ; the which perhaps would not be so hard to do as if one should begin to pull down and destroy the old, ruinous building, then enlarge the foi-e-court, afterwards bring light into the private chambers, and then change the doors, staples, and other things according to our intention." We see at once that posterity and the sciences are here brought in in a thoroughly Baconian manner. The striking part of these manifestoes, is their identity of aim with Bacon's philosophy and work which meets us everywhere, that is " a new foundation of the sciences/' together with a '' handing on of the lamps to posterity." We shall presently quote from the '' Confession of the Rosicrucian Fraternity " a passage where they speak of one of the greatest impostors of their age — a stage-player, a man with sufficient ingenuity for imposition, whom we believe is meant for Shakespeare.

CHAPTER II. THE PROFHECT OF PARACELSUS, AND THE UNIVERSAL REFORliATION OF THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. " So give Anthora their due as yon give time hie due, which is to discover trath."— Baoon's 'Promus,' 341. " Paracelsus, in the eighth chapter of his * Treatise on Metak/ gave utterance to the following prognostication: — Quod uiilius Deu8 pcdefieri sinet, quod aulem majoris momenii est^ vulgo adhuc laid usque ad Elice Artistas advenium, quando ia venerU, 'God will permit a discovery of the highest importance to be made, it must be hidden till the advent of the artist Elias.' In the first chapter of the same work, he says : — Hoc item verum est mhil est abacondifum quod non sit retegendum; ideOy post me veniet cujus magnale nundum vivit qui mv2ta revelahiL ' And it is true, there is nothing concealed that shall not be discovered ; for which cause a marvellous being shall come after me, who as yet lives not, and who shall reveal many things.' These passages have been claimed as referring to the founder of the Eosicrucian order, and as prophecies of this character are usually the outcome of a general desire rather than of an individual inspiration, they are interesting evidence that then as now many thoughtful people were looking for another saviour of society. At the beginning of the seventeenth centuiy ' a great and general reformation,' says Buhle — a reformation far more radical and more directed to the moral improvement of mankind than that accomplished by Luther, — ' was believed to be impending over the human race.' "^ Louis Figuier, in his " Alchemy and Alchemists," thinks that Andreas was filled with a desire to fulfil this prophecy of Paracelsus. And that out of this arose the idea to found the famous Eosicru1 From Waiters '< Real History of the Bosicractaiis."

THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS. 31 cian Brotherhood. But this in no way answers the problem of the prophecy put forward of the advent of an artist. What sort of artist could this be 1 How answer to it 1 It is indeed striking that at a time, when thousands are beginning to believe that Lord Bacon was the author of the plays attributed hitherto to Shakespeare, and to see that these plays are as profound as Nature, and are promising an astounding revelation or rebirth of miraculous character, we should find those strange initials among the chosen brethren of the Bosy Cross set down in the narrative of the discovery of the body of Christian Bosencreutz — 4. F. B. M. P. A., PkU/r d Archiiedus. At any rate, here is an Artist, whose initials answer to those of Francis Bacon. The letters P. A. seem to be only initials for Pidar et ArchUedus, and we like to indulge in the theory that M. stands for Magider or Founder — ^the head of the association. Now in Bacon's " New Athmtis " we find him presenting us with a venerable man who is called the *^T%rsar^^* or father. ''The Father of the Family whom they call the Tirsan" (vide paasim^ ''New Atlantis"). This man always addresses the others with the title of sons. " ' Gk)d bless thee, my son ; I will give thee the greatest jewel I have. For I will impart unto thee, for the love of God and men, a relation of the true state of Solomon's House. " ' The End of our Foundation is the knowledge of Causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible.' " With the last paragraph we see Bacon's philosophy speaking in disguise, as if Bacon was himself the orator. " And when he had said this, he stood up ; and I, as I had been taught, kneeled down ; and he laid his right hand upon my head, and said; 'God bless thee, my son, and God bless this relation which I have made.' " Now, elsewhere in his works,^ Bacon addresses himself to his 1 The heading of the Fxlnm Labyrinthi is enUtled ** Ad FUios ''—to (my) sons. This is written at the top of the page in Bacon's hand. — Spkddino.

32 THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS. son, though he had no issue at alL Can we not see in this protagonist of the "New Adantis'* — who is Cicerone, and who describes all the discoveries and sciences of the nineteenth century, anticipating them as the result of his inductive and experimental method — Bacon himself) All the descriptions of the marvels of scientific discoveries, Sound Houses, which anticipate the Telephone, Observatories, Zoological and Botanical Gardens, &c., &c., are sheer projections of the genius of Bacon's mind, seeing like Moses from Mount Pisgah, the promised land, which his instrument or ofganum is to realize. It is an ideal Island placed with true prophetic insight in the west, where new worlds were just discovered, — ^it is America which is to realize, and has realized some of these prophecies. But we see more. The Ship device, is Bacon's precious Argosy bound through the pillars of Hercules to this ideal Utopia in the west of his imagination. This is what he calls " Anticipation of the Mind." The *' New Atlantis " ^ is an ideal vision of the New World of intellectual discovery, to which Bacon's emblematic ship is sailing through the pillars of Hercules,^ and which he foresaw would be America. If Columbus discovered the New World, Bacon discovers an intellectual New World of wonders — ^the result of his inductive method, and every description in the " Atlantis " of the scientific wonders therein described are efforts (and in most cases marvellous successes) to realize the future. For he repeatedly tells us that there will be much going to and fro,^ that light will come to 1 "The ' New Atlantis ' aeems to have been written in 1624, and, though not finished, to have been intended for publication as it stande. It was published aooordingly by Dr Rawley in 1627, at the end of the volume containing the Sylva Sylvarum; for which place Bacon had himself designed it, the subjects of the two being so near akin ; the one representing his idea of what bhould be the end of the work whidi in the other he supposed himself to be beginning. For the story of Solomon's House is nothing more than a vision of the practical results which he anticipated from the study of natural history diligently and systematically carried on through successive generations." — Spedding. * The sciences seem to have their Hercules* pillars, which bound the desires and hopes of mankind. {Ot. Instaurationf Prrf.) ' *' Nur should the prophecy of Daniel be forgotten, touching the last

THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS, 33 men, that mankind would master and conquer Nature — ^making her his slave. We take the following from the '' Confession of the Rosicrucian Fraternity," published 1615 : — "For conclusion of our Confession we must earnestly admonish you, that yon cast away, if not all, yet most of the worthless books of pseudo chjrmists, to whom it is a jest to apply the Most Holy Trinity to vain thiqgs, or to deceive men with monstrous symbols and enigmas, or to profit by the curiosity of the credulous ; our age doth produce many such, (mt of ffie greatest being a STAGE PLATER, a man with sufficient ingenuity for imposition." (Chapter XII., " Hist. Eosicrucians.") We know that Shakespeare, who died 1616, was a stage-player as well as a manager and supposed author of the plays. If Bacon was a Bosicrucian, we may depend upon it that the real secret of the authorship was well known to many members of the brotherhood, as we have sufficient reason to see in the case of Ben Jonson. Mr Waite writes (page 35, "Real History of the Rosicrucians ") : — "Somewhere about the year 1614 a pamphlet was published anonymously in German, called 'Die Reformation der Ganzen Weiten Welty which, according to De Quincey, contained a distinct proposition to inaugurate a secret society, having for its object the general welfare of mankind. This description is simply untrue ; the ' Universal Reformation ' is an amusing and satirical account of an abortive attempt made by the god Apollo to derive assistance towards the improvement of the age from the wise men of antiquity and modem times. It is a fairly literal translation of Advertisement 77 of Boccalini's ' Eagguagli di PaniassOf Centuria Prima ; ' its internal connection with Rosiages of the world : — "Many shall go to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased ;*' clearly intimating that the thorough passage of the world (which now by so many distant voyages seems to be accomplished, or in coarse of accomplishment), and the advancement of the sciences, are destined by fate, that is, by Divine Providence, to meet in the same age. C

34 THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS. cracianism is not clear, but it has been generally reprinted with the society's manifestos, alchemical interpretations have been placed on it, and it is cited by various authors as the first publication of the Fraternity." The reader is begged to mark that it is the god Apollo who makes this movement for the improvement and reformation of the entire world. Now we find Lord Bacon figuring in Oeorge Withers' '' Qrtai Assizes^ held ai Parnassus" as President representing the god Apollo, and presiding over all the learning of his age. Note, these assizes are held at Parnassus, with which compare Boccalini's title, " Ragguagli di Pamasso.*' Throughout Boccalini's work, Apollo is presented as protagonist. The connection of the 77th Advertisement of Boccalini's ''Bagguagli di Pamasso" with the Society may be not yet clear, but the very fact that it is found in the Brotherhood's manifestoes, and that it is cited as the first publication of the Bosicrucians, is in itself the strongest possible evidence in favour of relationship. The subject-matter speaks for itself, being thoroughly in harmony with the Beformation. Apollo summons the seven wise men of Greece to make an inquiry as to the state of society. They severally deliver separate remedies for the diBeases of the age. But the age is found too rotten and corrupt for cure. Here is the graphic description of the state of the age : — " At these words the philosophers stript him in a trice, and found that this miserable wretch was covered all over four inches thick with a scurf of appearances. They caused ten razors to be forthwith brought unto them, and fell to shaving it off with great diligence, but they found it so far eaten into his very bones that in all the huge colossus there was not one inch of good live flesh, at which, being struck with horror and despair, they put on the patient's cloaths again, and dismist him. Then, convinced that the disease was incurable, they shut themselves up together, and abandoning the case of publike affairs, they resolved to provide far the safety of their own rqmtatians.'* (" Universal Reformation.") In this passage we see as it were, an explanation of the rise

THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS. 35 and origin of the society. The age is beyond any sort of radical core ; and the LUeraH of Apollo must provide for the safety of their own reputations. Here we have a hint of the danger accompanying any attempt at an open Reformation. In such an agOy only one possible way lay clear, and that was just what we find was aimed at by this society of Kosicrucians. That was, to form a secret Literary Brotherhood, embracing the highest intellects and the purest hearts in all Europe. We see that it was simultaneously put forward, as a general movement throughout Europe from several different centres or countries. Boccalini was a Venetian, Andreas was a native of Wirtembirg ; and we read of Lord Bacon presiding at the '' Oreai Assizes held by Apollo and his Assessours at Parnassus" How is it we find a follower of the law, like Lord Bacon, representing Apollo, and presiding over, not only the learning of the age, but the poetiy of the age also 1 How is it Shakespeare, whose name figures amongst the Assessours, is not in his proper place as Apollo 1 Did he not prefix to the ''first heir of his invention," Venus and Adonis, these lines, which seem so appropriate for an Apollo of arti— " Yilia miretar valgus ; mihi flavus Apollo Pocola Castalia plena ministret aqua." Castalia, as everybody knows (and as Shakespeare learnt at the Stratford Grammar School), takes us to the foot of Mount Parnassus, to the Temple of ApoUo—to the famous Spring, to the home of the Muses. We find in the Winters Tale, the Temple and Oracle of Apollo at Delphi introduced. Delphi was supposed to be exactly in the middle of the earth, and therefore called umbilicus orbis terrarum. But how is it we say that Shakespeare, who commences his poetic career with a Latin quotation, which plainly indicates his intention to drink at the Castalian Spring, at the pure fount of the Qolden Apollo itself, does not preside over the Great Assizes held by Apollo and his Assessours at Parnassus? Why permit himself to derogate to an insignificant position, low down on the list, with Ben Jonson,

36 THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS. Davenant^ Drayton, and others I One thing must, so far, be plain to the impartial critic, — that is, there is a remarkable double connection to be traced between Boccalini's Advertisement 77 (out of ihe ''Eagguagli di Pamasso'') and the "Universal Reformation," which reproduces it literally as a Eosicrucian manifesto. On the other hand, there is a likeness in the *^6reai Assizes KM by Apollo and his Assessours cU Parnassus'* to Boccalini's title, which is remarkable. Boccalini's work furnishes word for word the " Universal Eeformation,*' with its story of Apollo and the seven Sages of Greece, as applied to the age. The title of the " Fama " ran-^" A Universal Reformation of the Whole Wide World, by order of the God Apollo, is published by the Seven Sages of Greece." Thales gives his opinion: — "The true and immediate cure, then, for these present evils consists in necessitating men to live with candour of mind and purity of heart, which cannot be better effected then by making that little window in men's breasts which his Majesty hath often promised to his most faithful vertuosi ; for when those who use such art in their proceedings shall be forced to speak and act, having a window whereby one may see into their hearts^ they will learn the excellent virtue of being, and not appearing to be ; they will conform deeds to words, and their tongues to sincerity of heart ; all men will banish lies and falsehood, and the diabolical spirit of hypocrisy will abandon many who are now possest with so foul a fiend." This idea is repeated in the following sonnet: — XXIV. " Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd Thy beauty's form in table of my heart ; My body is the frame wherein 'tis held. And perspective it is best painter's art For through the painter must you see his skill. To find where your true image pictured lies ; Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still, That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.

THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS, 37 Now aee what good tums eyes for eyes have done : Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me Are windows to my breast^ where-through the sun Deh'ghts to peep, to gaze therein on thee ; Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art ; They draw but what they see, know not the heart.'' Then Solon thus began : — " In my opinion, gentlemen, that which hath put the present age into so great confusion is the cruel hatred and spiteful envy which is seen to reign generally amongst men. All hope then for these present evils is from the infusion of charity, reciprocal affection, and that sanctified love of our neighbour which is God's chiefest commandment to mankind.'' We thus see that the work of Boccalini, of which this is only the seventy-seventh Advertisement, is a book dealing with the diseases of the society of its time. Boccalini was a Venetian. It appears that these works, like the " Fama " in Germany and Boccalini's in Italy, appeared somewhat contemporaneously, as if the result of an organised movement. Anthony Bacon, the devoted brother of Francis Bacon, lived a great number of years abroad, and some time at Venice. The two brothers seem always to have been in active correspondence. Anthony Bacon was lame, and it is possible that he is alluded to in the Sonnets, where we have the line — " Speak of my lameness and I straight will halt." '— Sonnets, 37, 39. We find also in the Sonnets the poet saying, ''both your poets," as if there were two. Here is the Ust of " the Great Assizes holden by Apollo and his Assessours at Parnassus." Apollo. Thx Lord Vebulam, Chancellor of Pamasaus. Sib Philip Sidnev, High Constable of Pamaasns. William Budmvs, High TreaBorer. John Pious, Eabl of Mirandula, High Chamborlaine.

38 THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS. Julius GiESAB Sgauoer. Isaac Casaubok. Erasmus Rotssodam. John Seldbn. Justus Lifsitts. Hugo Gbotius. John Babcklay. Daniel Heinsius. John Bodine. Conbadus Vorstius. Adiuan Turnebus. Augustine Mamgardus. Tht Jurors. George Withers. Michael Drayton. Thomas Cart. Francis Beaumont. Thomas May. John Fletcher. William Daysnant. Thomas Haywood. Joshua Sylvester. William Shakespeare. George Sanders. Philip Massinqer. Joseph Scaliger, the Censonr of Manners in Parnassus. Ben Jonson, Keeper of the Trophonian Denne. John Taylour, Cryer of the Court. Edmund Spenser, Clerk of the Assizes. This was written by George Withers, and whether an account of what he remembered, or heard, or invented, it is impossible to say. Withers was a poet, and the position he assigns Shakespeare and Bacon respectively is evidence of his valae of Shakespeare. Nicolai, the friend of Lessing, and the editor of "Moses Mendelssohn," claimed Lord Bacon as the founder of Free Masonry. Nicolai had a theory of his own, and sought to derive everything from the Bosicrucians. In the year 164G the celebrated philosopher, Elias Ashmole, who founded the museum at Oxford, was initiated in a Lodge at Warrington, as he has himself recorded in his diaiy. Now we are going to quote from Oliver's " Discrepancies of Freemasonry,'' about this meeting at Warrington, wherein we shall see Nicolai giving his opinion — a most valuable one — that the persons who met were Bosicrucians. " ' Do any of you know that the Ashmolean Masonry is altogether ignored on the continent of Europe 1' the Surgeon inquired. "'Bro. Frederick Nicoki has given it a decided contradiction,' the Skipper replied. 'He says that the object of the

THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS. 39 meeting at Warrington, so far from being Masonic, was simplj for the purpose of carrying out a philosophical idea which had been promulgated by Lord Bacon in his ' New Atlantis ' of the model of a perfect society, instituted for the secret purpose of interpreting nature, and of producing new arts and marvellous inventions for the benefit of mankind, under the name of Solomon's House, or the College of the Six Days' Work, which, in plain language, was intended to be an ideal society for the study of natural philosophy. Tht persons present at these meetings are said by Nicdai to have been BosicrucianSy^ and we know this to be true of Ashmole himself. He asserts, further, that these men erected, in their Lodge, two Great Pillars, which they called the Pillars of Hermes, in front of Solomon's House, and they used a chequered pavement, a ladder of seven staves or rounds, and many other secret symbols. And as they held their subsequent meetings in Mason's Hall, London, they adopted the tools of working masons ; and this, he says conclusively, was the origin of Sytabolical Masonry. And as it was invented about the time of the Eestoration, the judicial murder of Charles the First was introduced as an incidental legend.' " (Page 78). Everybody acquainted with Bacon's works must call to mind the two pillars, between which his device of a ship is passing, or the other of the globe of the intellectual world, flanked by the two columns. But the '*New Atlantis" of Bacon proves that he belonged to some secret or Masonic Society, inasmuch as the College of the Six Days (or creation) and Solomon's Temple, speak loudly enough for themselves: How is it we find in 1646, a few years after Bacon's death, a party of persons meeting in a Lodge to carry out the ideas promulgated in the ''New Atlantis") ^ Profeisor Bnhle affirms as the " maia thesis " of his oonolnding chapter, that " Freemasonry is neither more nor less than Rosicrncianism as modified by those who transplanted it into England." This is De Quincey's opinion also : " For I affirm, as the main thesis of my concluding labours, THAT FREK-HASONBT IS NEITHSB MORE NOB LESS THAN B0SICBUCIANI8M AS MODIFIED BT THOSE WHO TRANSPLANTED IT UNTO ENGLAND. "—" Hist Critioo-Inquiry," chap. y.

40 THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS. This shows the enormous secret influence Bacon exercised over the minds of men. And we cannot lightly wave aside the opinion of such a man as Nicolai, that these persons were Hosicrucians. It is easy for people to make the assertion that Masonry and Bosicrucianism were separate and distinct, as has been said. They may have become so afterwards, but there is strong evidence to show that about Bacon's time, that is, the early part of the 17th and end of the 16th century, Bosicrucianism made a great sensation and noise in Europe, promising and setting forth an universal scheme for the reformation of society, in just such fashion as Bacon puts forth in his '' New Atlantis." The Rosicrucians called themselves Invisibles. They said that God covered them with a cloud in order to shelter them from their enemies. This idea of the cloud we find Bacon repeating : — '< As to the heathen antiquities of the world, it is in vain to note them for deficient : deficient they are no doubt, consisting mostly of fables and fragments, but the deficience cannot be holpen ; for antiquity is like fame, capti inter nubUa eondit, her head is muffled from our sight." ^Now this is a remarkable passage— for first Bacon denies the deficiency of the heathen antiquities, then cautiously compromises, for fear of saying too much, and finally takes refuge in a simile, which shows the estimation that he held, and how he fully appreciated, the heights of the peaks of antiquity, which he identifies with fame, — too lofty for common sight or comprehension. There is something in these words and the comparison of the heathen antiquities with Fame (hidden in a cloud), that recalls the '^Fama Fratemitatis " of the meritorious order of the Rosy Cross. It is just these heathen antiquities and Pagan rites, which it was the aim of the Eosicrucians and Free Masons to shelter, preserve, and hand on as lamps for posterity. Take up any of the thousand books on Freemasonry, and they take one back at once in their histories to the Mysteries — and particularly Yirgils. Here is what a masonic writer writes upon the 'purpose and object of Freemasonry : —

THE PROPHEC Y OF PARA CELSUS. 4 1 '' In concluding my work, I repeat that the freemasons' society was founded for the purpose of concealing the rites of the ancient pagan religion, under the cover of operative masonry ; and that, although the religion is extinct^ its ceremonials remain, and clearly develop the origin of the institution." Between 1613 and 1630 there was an enormous amount of literature published in Europe about the Eosicrucians. This period coincides with the best and ripest years of Bacon's life — including the last thirteen years, during the latter part of which (the final five years) he lived in continual retirement, study, and correspondence, which, in itself, is curious enough.^ It is striking that the period of the rise and decline of Rosicrucianism in £urope, exactly coincides with Bacon's life ! Four years after his death in 1630, the Rosicrucian literature is already upon the decline. In Bawley's ^'life of Bacon" we find he had correspondence with foreigners, and that he possessed an extraordinary power of raising admiration in others. That this was due only to his Inductive Philosophy, or prose works, is quite inconceivable. Even the learned King James declared of Bacon's work, the " Novum Organum," that " It was like the peace of God — it passed all understanding." We know that Coke ridiculed his ship device, as a " Ship of Fools," — that Hervey declared he wrote *' philosophy like a Lord Chancellor," so that the idea that his system was understood or appreciated at its full value by his own age is quite erroneous. What, then, was the secret of his intimacy and attraction for foreign worthies) Bawley relates that many came from a great distance merely from curiosity to see him. ^'Amongst the rest, Marquis Fiat, a French nobleman, who came ambassador into England, in the beginning of Queen Mary, wife to King Charles, was taken with an extraordinary desire of ^ *' The last five yean of Yob life, being withdrawn from civil affiiirs, and from an active life, he en^loyed wholly in contemplation and atndies." — ^Bawley, " Life," p. 6. " His fame Ui greater and aoonda loader in foreign parts abroad, than at home in his own nation." — Und., p. 11.

42 THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS. aeeing him ; for which he made way by a friend ; and when he came to him, being then through weakness confined to his bed, the marquis saluted him with this high expression, ' Thai his lordship had been ever to him like the angeb, of whom he had often heard, and readmuch of them in hooks, but he never saw them,* After which they contracted an intimate acquaintance, and the marquis did so much revere him, that besides his frequent visits, they wrote letters one to the other, under the titles and appellations of faiher and son,^ As for his many salutations by letters from foreign worthies devoted to learning, I forbear to mention them, because that is a thing common to other men of learning or note, together with him." {" Life," p. 12.) If Bacon were the promoter or head of some great secret society like the Kosicrudans, anxious to promote the welfare of mankind and reform society, we can quite understand this influence, and it is only this sort of influence which could work upon men in those ages from afar, and be likely to provoke such words as are quoted in italics above. But what greater proof can we have than the "New Atlantis," with its Solomon, and Temple, its College of Creation or the Six Days, and its entire aim and object ! We find the Eosicrudans putting in a decided appearance as an association about 1600. A writer ("Mysteries of Antiquity ") says :— " We see from the account of the Society of Christian Rosy Cross, that it claims to date from about the year 1490, but we do not read of the associaiian under that name prior to 1600, and the impossibility of the narrative, points out to us that the name of the founder is mythical, and that its allegory is derived from the symbols of the order itself, which is no doubt of antiquity." The date of that extraordinary work, Chester's "Love's Martyr," is 1601. "At the supposed revival of Bosi1 Thk is exactly the fonn of addran used in the " New AtiantiB" by the man of " middle Btatnre'' and "comely" appearance — (.e., " God bless thee, my son " (p. 13). The nse of these familiar terms bespeak a secret brotherhood, the language of a craft.

THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS, 43 cracianism at Pans, in March 1623, the Order was said to number thirty-six members." The date that the collected form of the socalled Shakespearian plays, appear for the first time (as the first folio edition, 1623), is the same date as this revival of Kosicrucianism at Paris. Yarker writes (" Mysteries of Antiquity '') : — "Most of their symbols resemble those used in our Masonic degrees, especially the Arch, and Bossb Crucis, and they trace their doctrines through the same channel as modem Freemasons, and assert the derivation of their mysteries through Enoch, the Patriarchs, and Moses to Solomon." With Solomon we find ourselves in mysterious touch again with Bacon, who is never weary of quoting him, and who introduces him ever thus : — "The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the King is to find it out, as if according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his works, to the end to have them found out." (Posrim, " Works.") To those who maintain there is no mystery, no reserve, and no implied privacy of publication hinted at, or suggested by Bacon in his works, we present the following passage for study and reflection. It is not this single passage, but many others to the same effect that might be quoted. " Now for my plan of publication, it is this. Those parts of the work which have it for their object to find out, and bring into correspondence, such minds as are prepared and disposed for the argument, and to purge the floors of men's understandings, — I wish to be published to the world and circulate from mouth to mouth ; the rest I would have passed from hand to hand with selection and judgment Not but that I know it is an old trick of impostors to keep a few of their follies back from the public which are indeed no better than those which they put forward ; bat in this case it is no imposture at all, but a sound foresight, which tells me that the formula itself of Interpretation, and the discoveries made by the same, will thrive better if committed to the charge of some fit and selected minds, and kept private." Elsewhere he talks of an mcd method of transmission^ which

44 THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS. reminds us at once of Masonry. But whatever may be objected to our arguments, one thing is pkin — (that is), Bacon speaks of two methods belonging to his philosophic system. One is his Inductive Philosophy — the other Anticipation of the Mind, of which we have a hint in the prophetic scientific discoveries of his "New Atlantis.*' In the " Advancement of Learning," Bacon writes : — "Another diversity of method there is," [he is speaking of the different methods of communicating and transmitting knowledge] which hath some affinity with the former, used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients, but disgraced since by the impostures of many vain persons, who have made it as a false light for their counterfeit merchandises; and that is, enigmatical and disclosed. The pretence whereof [that is, of the enigmatical method] is to remove the vulgar capacities from being admitted to the secrets of knowledges, and to reserve them to selected auditors, or wits of such sharpness as can pierce the veil." We here find Bacon alluding to the ancients and their " enigmatical and disclosed" — (that is, open and secret) — methods of writing — methods which have been disgraced by bastard or false art, which shows us, not only that he understood what " counterfeit merchandise " meant, but that he understood the ancients and their secret doctrines sufficiently well to make these comparisons and observations. Of course, Bacon is alluding to such art as, for example, Virgil's Vlth Book, which Warbarton (in his " Divine Legation ") was the first to show was " enigmatical and disclosed" — 1.«., " The Mysteries," and nothing else. Mark how Bacon is down upon false art, which we find paralleled in Sonnet 68 :— ^* And him as for a map doth Nature store To show false art what beauty was of yore." ** In him those holy antique hours are seen, Without all ornament itself and true." " Making Antiquity for aye his page."

THE PROPHEC Y OF PARA CELSUS, 45 This thoroughly falls in with Bacon's declaration that he is going ^^ usque ad aras" with the ancients, or "I going the same road as the ancients," all of which antiquity can be refoond in the WirUer^s Tale, Tempest, and Midsummer NigJWs Dream. But since Bacon declares that if all sciences were lost " they might be found in Virgil," it may be as well to make farther inquiry into this matter : — ** But the universe to the eye of the human understanding is framed like a labyrinth ; presenting as it does on every side so many ambiguities of way, such deceitful resemblances of objects and signs, natures so irregular in their lines, and so knotted and entangled. And then the way is still to be made by the uncertain light of the sense, sometimes shining out, sometimes clouded over, through the woods of experience and particulars; while those who offer themselves for guides are (as was said) themselves also puzzled, and increase the number of errors and wanderers." (Preface, " Magna Instauratio.") Compare : — " Quale per incertam lunam, sub luce maligna, Est iter in sylvi* ; ubi coelum Jupiter umbrd Condidit et rebus nox abstulit atra oolorem." — VirgU's " uEneid,'' Vlth Book. Bacon goes on :— " For my own part at least, in obedience to the everlasting love of truth, I have committed myself to the uncertainties and difficulties and solitudes of the ways, and relying on the divine assistance have upheld my mind both against the shocks and embattled ranks of opinion, and against my own private and inward hesitations and scruples, and against the fogs and clouds of nature, and the phantoms flitting about on every side." And then follows, fortunately for us, else the critic would say we imagine these things : — "This likewise I humbly pray, that things human may not interfere with things divine, and that from the opening of the ways of sense and the increase of natural light there may arise

46 THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS, in our minds no incredulity or darkness with regard io the divine mystifies; but rather that the understanding being thereby purified and purged of fancies and vanity, and yet not the less subject and entirely submissive to the divine erodes^ may give to faith that which is faith's." All these passages are extracts, in sequence, following each other closely, and so connected in imagery and style, as to leave the subject-matter and source unmistakable. To those who recognise in The Tempest and Dream, the art of Vila's Vlth Book of the '* ^neid," or the "Mysteries,*' this will speak volumes. Bacon writes : — " For the end which this science of mine proposes is the invention not of arguments but of arts ; not of things in accordance with principles, but of principles themselves; not of probable reasons, but of designations and directions for works. And as the intention is different, so accordingly is the effect ; the effect of the one being to overcome an opponent in argument^ of the other to command nature in action." Nature in action is a suspicious term, which suggests plays. Why does Bacon speak of artsi In another place, he says, " Life is short and art long." ^ But what indeed is important in this declaration : — ''For if I should profess that /, gaing the same road as the ancients, have something better to produce, there must needs have been some comparison or rivalry between us {not to he avoided by any art of words), in respect of excellency or ability of wU; and though in this there would be nothing unlawful or new, yet the contest, however just and allowable, would have been an unequal one perhaps, in respect of the measure of my own powers." This is so startling as almost' to take our breath away, and we must remain lost in bewilderment. Here is the secret of the Great Restoration. For is this the way Bacon is going, ^ '* It u an ancient saying and complaint, that Lift is ahort and Art long ; wherefore it behoveth us, who make it our chiefeat aim to perfect ArU,"" etc.— PfVoce, " Hist of Life and Death."

THE PROPHECY OF PARACELSUS, 47 viz., to return the road of antiquity, and beat .^chylus, Euripides, Sophocles, at their own art, around their own altars, usqut ad aras ? ''And to make my meaning clearer and to familiarise the thing by giving it a name, I have chosen to call one of these methods or ways, Antidpatian of ihe Mind, the other, Interpretaiion of Nature," Now, we ask the world to tell us, where is the other method which Bacon entitles so beautifully. Anticipation of the Mind f

CHAPTER III. THE TEMPEST; OR, ONE OF bacon's ANTICIPATIONS. '* What impoflsible matter will he make easy next ? " — Tempul. It will be generally granted that in the phiy of The Tempest we have a magical, superhuman presentation of the Poet, as Creator, who, as it were, opens the heavens of his art^ and discloses himself upon his enchanted island, whence his soul and spirit, from the calm and security of his retreat, watches the tempest which he has himself raised. It is a sort of invisible place or Hades, as well as a Heaven, for though we see it plainly enough with the letter of the text, we are not sufficiently initiated as yet into this art to behold it with the mind's eye as epopts or seers. We are puzzled — dreadfully perplexed as to the bearing of this island, and rightly, for if we could only locate it, we might find Prospero also. Before, therefore, we can thoroughly enjoy the full signification of the masque or vision, and enter into the spirit of the show, we must be initiated. Prospero has always been associated with the Poet-Creator himself, and seeing that the play stands first in the Folio Edition of 1623, it is not unreasonable to suppose that it is a presentation of the Artist in relation to his own art. As such we propose to study it. Whatever matured views the author had when he laid down his pen and broke his rod, should be found here, for it is the last of the plays — ^the last which stand first in the folio, which is a significant fact After completing our work, we write our preface or introduction, and place it in front, or at the commencement of our book. Even so it may be fairly supposed that there is a like relationship obtaining

THE TEMPEST. 49 between Tht Temped, as introdactory or summary, in relationship to the entire cycle of this marvellous art. The picture presented by Prospero bears out this theory. It is that of a god in art. We, therefore, propose to give reasons for believing that this play deals with a purely spiritual side of the plays, as a representative symbolical portrait of itself. First, we will examine the background, or setting, of the play, first taking the enchanted island as a starting-point, and so on to other matters. Islands of Souls or Spirits, Islands are constantly found connected with enchantment, magic, or the ideal, as Utopias, islands of the Blessed, Elysian Fields, or Heavens. We find this to be the case directly we recall Homer's Ogygia, the island of Calypso, St Brandons, the (New) Atlantis of Plato, and Bacon. We have the Elysium of Homer, the Fortunate Isles of Pindar, and the garden of the Hesperides. Among islands of Heaven, or Paradise, is the island of Venus in the ninth book of the "Lusiad." Then there are several parallel Edens, as the garden of Alcinous in the " Odyssey " (bk. vii.); the island of Circe, "Odyssey" (x.); the Elysium of Virgil ("uiEneid," vi.); the island or palace of vice in " Orlando Furioso" (vi vii) ; the island of Armida in Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered ; " and so on. Lambertus Floridus describes Paradise as **ParadigU3 insula in oceano in oriente" Then we have Avalon, or the ** Isle of Apples," a name which Mr Baring Gould (" Curious Myths of the Middle Ages") remarks, "reminds one of the gardens of the Hesperides." This fair Avalon is the " Island of the Blessed of the Kelts." This is the land to which King Arthur's body was borne, " Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow. Nor ever winds blow loudly ; but lies Deep-meadow'd happy fair with orchard lawns, A nd bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea." " In the Portuguese legend, the island of the Seven Cities is nnquestionably the land of departed Spirits of the ancient D

50 THE TEMPEST. Reltiberians," writes Mr Gould (" Curious Myths of the Middle Ages"). We find almost always these islands connected with the other world — sometimes as places of punishment, sometimes, and more often, as Elysiums or Heavens. Sometimes these islands are to be found called the Land of Souls, or the Departed \ but whatever may be the name given to them, they are always found to be connected with Death. Therefore, no fitter emblem of the next world, or of the Spiritual World, can be found than a lone, unknown island like Prospero's, placed, we know not where, amid the untracked ocean of his art. It is also curious that we find the idea of these islands connected with Eevelation — that is, with the hereafter, as abodes of Truth and Light. But we must quote, in order to support our assertions ; which we will only do to an extent not prejudicial to our space. The reader is earnestly referred to the interesting chapters upon this subject in the work already quoted, where he will find abundance of evidence. In classical mythology and poetry we find, again, a frequent mention of the Islands of the Blessed, as the abode of souls. Thus Pindar : " The lawless souls of those who die here forthwith suffer punishment : and some one beneath the earth, pronouncing sentence by stern necessity, judges the sinful deeds, done in this realm of Zeus ; but the good enjoy the sun's light both by day and by night — while those who, through a threefold existence in the upper and lower worlds, have kept their souls pure from all sin, ascend the path of Zeus to the castle of Chronus, where ocean breezes bloiv round the Islands of the Blessed, and golden flowers glitter." We thus see that these islands were spintual islands, or heavens. Olympiodorus (MSS. Commentary on the " Gorgias " of Plato) speaks of the Fortunate Islands raised above the sea, — ^the Islands of the Blessed, — of the emancipated Soul — that is, of Truth and Light, Now, what we have to propose is this. Is it not possible — nay, probable, that the island of Prospero is such an island in relation to the rest of his art — an island of his emancipated soul,— emancipated from his work — the Heaven of his

THE TEMPEST. 51 creative power, a picture of the Spiritual and its origin, in relation to the TrvJth and Light ? With the completion of The Tempest the plays cease to appear. His rough magic is abjured. And in the play we have the significant and striking symbol of the breaking of his wand, — as a sign that his magic is at an end. If Prospero by common consent has always been considered an emblem, or portrait of the poet-author himself, have we not right on our side when we postulate a symbolical interpretation to the entire play ? It is no reason because we see just this resemblance of Prospero (as magician, and God) to the poet-creator or maker (and no more), that the resemblance really terminates here ! Mr Baring Gould relates the following beautiful legend in his " Curious Myths of the Middle Ages": — "In former days there lived in Skerr a Druid of renown. He sat with his face to the west on the shore, his eye following the declining sun. As he sat musing on a rock, a storm arose on the sea ; a cloud, under whose squally skirts the foaming waters tossed, rushed suddenly into the bay, and from its dark womb emerged a ship or boat with white sails bent to the wind, and banks of gleaming oars on either side. But it was destitute of Mariners, itself seeming to live and move. An unusual terror seized on the aged Druid ; he heard a voice call ' Arise, and see the Green Isle of those who have passed away ! ' Then he entered the vessel. Immediately the wind shifted, the cloud enveloped him, and in the bosom of the vapour he sailed away. Seven days gleamed on him through the mist; on the eighth the waves rolled violently, the vessel pitched, and darkness thickened around him, when suddenly he heard a cry, ' The Isle ! The Isle.' Before his eyes lay the Isle of the Departed." (" Fortunate Isles" Curious Myths, 553). Here we have a picture of an Island of Souls — of the Departed, and it is interesting to see that in this legend we have a Ship, and evidences of a tempest or storm raging around the Island, on its approach, "It is curious to note how retentive of ancient mythologic doctrines relative to death are the memories of the peoples. This Keltic fable of the ^Land beyond the Sea ' to which

52 THE TEMPEST. souls are borne after death, has engrafted itself on popular religion in England." '* Shall we meet in that blest harbour When our stormy voyage is o'er ? Shall we meet and cast the anchor By the fair celestial shore ? " — Curious Myths, Thomas Taylor writes in his "Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries":— "Let us proceed to consider the description which Virgil gives us of these fortunate abodes, and the latent signification which it contains, ^neas and his guide, then, having passed through Hades, and seen at a distance Tartarus, or the utmost profundity of a material nature, they next advance to the Elysian fields : — '^ ' Devenere locus Isetoe, et amsena vireta Fortunatorum nemorum, sedeaque beatas. Largior hie campos aether et lumine vestit Purpureo ; solemque suum, sua sidera norunt.' " ' They came to the blissful regions, and delightful green retreats, and happy abodes in the fortunate groves. A freer and purer sky here clothes the fields with a purple light ; they recognise their own sun, their own stars.' ''Now the secret meaning of these joyful places is thus beautifully unfolded by Olympiodorus in his manuscript Commentary on the ' Gorgias ' of Plato. It is necessary to know," says he, " that the Fortunate Islands are said to be raised above the sea ; and hence a condition of being, which transcends this corporeal life and generated existence, is denominated the islands of the blessed; but these are the same with the elysian fields." What we are suggesting, is that the enchanted island of Prospero is consciously intended to represent such a Fortunate Island raised above the sea, and that the entire play bears evidence of being in touch with YirgiPs description of Heaven and Hell in theVIth Book of the "^neid." Nay, more than this. Have we not in the introduction of the masque a proof that this play, in presenting us with Ceres, and the Idealism connected with her worship (sunmied up in the magnificent words of Prospero), is really presenting us

THE TEMPEST, 53 with an altered parable of the Mysteries — ^altered to apply to the entire cycle of this art, where the poet-author is the Hierophant, and we the initiates, through Time, of his Divine shows ? We are now going to present the reader with a very curious hint which we profess to have discovered in the play of Tht Tempesif identifying it with the Avalon of King Arthur. But, very strangely, Mr Baring Gould identifies Avalon with the Atlantis of Plato, which at once brings us into touch with Lord Bacon's New Atlantis. Seeing that the question of the day is who wrote the plays, and that Bacon is the supposed author, to which we have long been a convert, this is sufficiently interesting in itself. But first let us examine the name of Avalon. Avalon, This is what we can gather of the name. " Avalon— an ocean island where Ring Arthur was buried. The word means * Apple Green Island,* from av. Yet,— Adr. Yet,— Ant. He could not miss 't. Adr, It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance. Ant. Temperance was a delicate wench. iS(s6. Ay, and a subtle ; as he most learnedly delivered. Adr. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. Seb, As if it had lungs and rotten ones. Ant. Or as 'twere perfumed by a fen.

54 THE TEMPEST. Gon. Here is every thing advantageous to life. ArU. True ; save means to live. Seh. Of that there's none, or little. OoTL How lush and lusty the grass looks I how green ! Ant, The ground indeed is tawny. Seb, With an eye of green i7i*t. Ant, He misses not much. Seh. No ; he doth but mistake the truth totally." We have placed the lines in italics that we wish to be noticed. Mark, it is Gonzalo who declares there is life on the island, while the others disbelieve, and see no signs of life. Whilst he sees signs of life everywhere on this island of art, the others see none. How they mock him — even as the critics will scoflF at us ! " Ant. His word is more than the miraculous harp. Seb. He hath rais'd the wall and houses too. Ant. What impossible matter will he make easy next? Seb. I think he will carry this island home in his pockety akd give IT HIS SON FOR AN APPLE. Ant. And sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring forth more islands. Oon. Ay.** Now, here are two coincidences — viz., that this island is compared to an apple, and that Gonzalo sees '* green grass,'* or signs of life upon it, the others see none ! They only see death, but he (Gonzalo) sees life. We have already shown that Avalon derives its name from Apple (aval), or from Glastri^ which means " green like grass." Moreover, mark that Gonzalo, who is the sport and target of the sceptics (or his disbelieving critics), not only says " Ay " to the seeming impossibility, but is otherwise right, when he declares Tunis to be Carthage ! The others do not believe that even ! Their scepticism is of the nature of the nineteenth century scepticism — they are agnostics — they believe nothing. We said just now that Gonzalo's critics only saw death upon the island. Bead the passage quoted, and it will be seen that they find the island a hopeless sort of place, and the air as if it came from rotten lungs. Adrian and Gonzalo are full of faith, hope, enthusiasm, but the others ridicule them. At first we feel inclined to laugh at the apparent extravagances of

THE TEMPEST. 55 Oonzalo. But we received a mde check when we find that he knows more than his critics, in identifying Tunis with Carthage. ^ Ad, Widow Dido said you? You make me study of that; she was of Carthage, not of Tunis. Oon. This Tunis, Sir, was Carthage. Ad, Carthage ? 0

S6 THE TEMPEST. watched by Briareus till the time come for his awakening, we have a Grsecized form of the myth of Arthur in Avalon being cured of his grievous wound. The Ogygia, says Plutarch, lies dut west beneath the setting sun. It need hardly be said that the Arthur of Romance is actually a demi-god — ^believed in long before the birth of the historic Arthur. According to an ancient poem published by Mons. Yillemarque, it is a place of enchanting beauty. There youths and maidens dance hand in hand on the dewy grass, green trees are laden with Apples, There all is plenty, and the golden age ^ ever lasts ; cows give their milk that they fill large ponds at milking. There too is a palace all of glass, floating in air, and receiving within its transparent walls the souls of the blessed : it is to this house of glass that Merdin Emrys sings and his nine bards voyaga" (Davies' " Mythology of the Druids," p. 522.) We thus see that Mr Baring Gould identifies Avalon with the Ogygia mentioned by Plutarch, and he proceeds to identify this with the Atlantis also. "Ogygia, according to Plutarch, is five days' sail to the west of Brittia (Great Britain), and, he adds, the great continent or terra ftrma is five thousand stadia from Ogygia. This is an observation made also by Theopompus in his 'Geographical Myth of Mesopis.*" (-

THE TEMPEST. 57 is to connect this " Island of Apples" with the New Atlantis of Bacon, which is also a visionary Utopia, where impossible ideals are realised. What we do see by the accounts of Plutarch and Theopompus is, that this Ogygia or Avalon, was placed in the Atlantic Ocean, midway between Brittia and the mainland, America situated beyond. And this is exactly the position the Atlantis of Plato occupied. The Atlantic Island, as described by Marcellus, is as follows. We see here that these islands were sacred to Persephone and to Ammon or Jupiter. We wish this to be marked, because Miranda asleep under the power of her father's spell, suggests Persephone sleeping with Time (Kronos) until the hour comes for her awakening. " That such and so great an island formerly existed is recorded by some of the historians who have treated of the concerns of the outward sea. For they say that in their times there were seven islands situated in that sea which were sacred to Persephone, and three others of an immense magnitude one of which was consecrated to Pluto, another to Ammon, and that which was situated between them to Poseidon ; the size of this last was no less than a thousand stadia. The inhabitants of this island preserved a tradition handed down from their ancestors concerning the existence of the Atlantic island of a prodigious magnitude, which had really existed in those seas ; and which, during a long period of time, governed all the islands in the Atlantic ocean. Such is the relation of Marcellus in his Ethiopian history." Fr(K. in Tim. (" Cory's Fragments "). Now we have found a certain hint, faint perhaps, but nevertheless a direction, connecting possibly Prosperous island with Avalon, Ogygia, or the New Atlantis of Bacon, as to locality. We have no space to go into further arguments of this kind. But will produce another from a fresh point of view, and save being wearisome. It will be acknowledged that the New Atlantis of Bacon is an Utopia or an ideal Bepublic. We see very clearly that Bacon's Republic or Utopia^ is only a reproduction, or at least copied from

S8 THE TEMPEST. Plato's. It is for that reason that he places his Eepublic or Utopia, on the Kew Atlantis or the Old Atlantis of the Greek philosopher. When we examine Bacon's romance, we find it savours very much of a golden age, of a Heaven rather than of possible reality. At any rate, it is very curious that the Eepublic of America has sprung up in the direction (that is, the west) of his visionary island. This by the way only. Now, how is it we find Gonzalo in Tht Tempest picturing just such an impossible {except in heaven) Utopia as we now give, and which we refind in the " New Atlantis " of Bacon 1 — " Oon, Had I plantation of this isle, my lord, — Ant. He'ld sow't with nettle-seed. JSeb, Or docks, or mallows. Oon, And were the king on't, what would I do ? Seb. 'Scape being drunk for want of wine. Oon. V the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things ; for no kind of traffic Would I admit ; uo name of magistrate ; Letters should not be known ; riches, poverty. And use of service, none ; coDtract, succession. Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none ; No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil ; No occupation ; all men idle, all ; And women too, but innocent and pure ; No sovereignty ; — jSg5. Yet he would be king on't. Ant. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning. Ooru All things in common nature should produce Without sweat or endeavour : treason, felony. Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine. Would I not have ; but nature should bring forth. Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance, To feed my innocent people." It is indeed curious to find in these words exactly such a scheme of reformation, of impossibilities as is to be refound in Bacon's *' New Atlantis." Such things as these are only possible in Heaven or Paradise, and let us not be sure the words do not so apply to this island, as Elysium 1 ^ It seems to us the ^ The opening of the heavens, or masque, is really, in our opinion, a momentary apocalypse of the other nde, or revealed side of the poet's art, the celestial vision or final vision of the Mysteries.

THE TEMPEST. 59 poet is again laughing in his sleeve at as. Bacon terms his New Atlantis sometimes, the College of the Six Days' Work, or Solomon's Temple. These titles refer us to Creation, as the work of the six days, and to the *' mansion eternal in the heavens" of Art or Natora We are introduced to a venerable elder, who is a sort of Father in the Atlantis, who is called Tvrsa/n^ a name which is a suspicious approach to an anagram upon the word Artis(t). We find Prospero in The Tempest^ reverencing Gonzalo before all the rest. So we must not make light of anything he says — seeing that he is an emblem of faith, belief in impossibilities — and miracles — a spirit of hopeful persuasion, as against the incredulity of the others. " Prospero. Holy Gonzalo, honourable man. Mine eyes even sociable to the show of thine. Fall fellowy drops." Again — *' O good Gonzalo, My true preserver and a loyal sir To him thou follow'st." Aristotle accepted the notion of there being a new continent in the west^ and described it from the accounts of the Carthaginians, as a land opposite the Pillars of Hercules (Sts. of Gibraltar), fertile, well watered, and covered with forests (Arist. " De Mirab. Ancult/' c. 84). Diodorus gives the Phoenicians the credit of having discovered it, and says that the temperature is not subject to violent changes (Diod. '' Hist. Ed. Wessel," tom. i. p. 244). We find Bacon's frontispiece presenting us with a ship sailing past the pillars of Hercules with the proud motto. Plus ultra. This idea is strong with him. And we find in the play of The Temped the following allusions to pillars or columns : — " Oon. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that hia issue Should become kings of Naples ? O, rejoice Beyond a common joy, and set it down With gold on lasting pillars : In one voyage Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife

6o THE TEMPEST. Where he himself was loRt, Prospero his dukedom In a poor isle and all of us ourselves When no man was his own." Two pillars form the well-known masonic columns, and are pictured on the engraving prefacing the '' New Atlantis." VirffiTs Mysteries. We now proceed to deal with the play from the point of view already hinted at. That is, as a Spiritual play, being placed on an island, which is Heaven from one side (Prosperous), but until revealed is invisible to us as Hades. In the opening of the Heavens by Prospero we have undoubtedly, and we write this advisedly, a hint borrowed from the Mysteries, and particularly those Mysteries which revolved around the myth of Ceres and her wanderings in search of her lost child Proserpine. In Greek (their proper home) the respective names were Demeter and Persephone. We know that in all the initiations into the Mysteries — ^a symbolical death and a symbolical rebirth, were simulated. Indeed, they have survived the shipwrecks of Time. Upon the monument at Stratford we find it stated that the poet had the genius of Socrates and the art of Virgil. But the art of Virgil, perhaps, is more emphasised in his Vlth Book of the "^neid " than elsewhere. Ever since Warburton explained to the world the meaning of that book as Initiation, as the doctrines of the Mysteries, it has been accepted, and no one who knows anything of the subject can doubt that Virgil and Claudian have given us the best descriptions of what took place on those occasions, extant Now it is very striking that we find in the play we are discussing a direct and curious dragging in of the names of ^neas and Dido, with whose histories every reader of Virgil must be well acquainted. Besides this, there are other parallels we shall point out. We now proceed to our task, asking the indulgence of our readers upon a very difficult subject. We find the following resemblances between Virgil's description

THE TEMPEST, 61 of Helly or AcheroD, and the circumstances attending the shipwrecked king, duke, and followers whilst upon the island. When Charon calls out to ^neas to desist from entering farther, he says — '* Umbrarum hie locus est^ Somni Noctisque Soporse." '* Here to reside delusive shades delight ; For nought dwells here hut sleep and drowsy nights Compare the strange drowsiness which falls upon Alonso and Gronzalo — " Seb. What a strange drowsiness possesses them. Ant. It is the qiudity of the climate/* The introduction of Ariel as Harpy has a direct parallel in Virgil's description of Hell — *' Centauri in foribns stabulant, Scyllseque bifonnes, £t centumgeminus Briareus, ac bellua Lernse, Horrendum stridens, flammisque armata Cbimiera, Gorgones ffarpyiceque, et forma tricorpori umbrae.'' ''The centaurs harbour at the Gates, and double-formed Scyllas, the hnndred-fold Briareus, the Snake of Lema, hissing dreadfully, and Chimsera armed with flames, the Gorgons and the Harpies^ and the shades of three-bodied form." We know that it was in the Vestibule in the Temple of Ceres (Demeter) that the Mystce took the greater oath of secrecy, before the introduction to the principal ceremonial of the Greater Mysteries, which took place at midnight of the sixth day of this magnificent festival. Plutarch writes : — "To die is to be initiated into the great mysteries. . . . Our whole life is but a succession of errors, of painful wanderings, and of long journeys by toiiuous ways, without outlet. At the moment of quitting it, fears, terrors, quiverings, mortal sweats, and a lethargic stupor come and overwhelm us ; but as soon as we are out of it we pass into delightful meadows, where the purest air is breathed, where sacred concerts and discourses are heard ; where, in short, one is impressed with celestial visions.

62 THE TEMPEST. It is there that man, having become perfect through his new initiation, restored to liberty, really master of himself, celebrates, crowned with myrtle, the most augast mysteries, holds converse with just and pure souls, and sees with contempt the impure multitude of the profane or uninitiated, ever plunged and sinking of itself into the mire and in profound darkness." The masque introduced in Tht Tempest is indeed a celestial vision / And we find again, in the words and description of life by Plutarch, as " a succession of errors, of painful wanderings, and of long journeys by tortuous ways without outlet," a wonderful parallel to the wanderings of Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, and Adrian about the enchanted island. Gonzalo exclaims — " I can go no further, Sir, My old bones ache : here's a maze, trod indeed, Through forth-rights and meanders / " ^ But it is not only in this one point that the parallel holds. We find, from the date of the Shipwreck, a certain resemblance to the Mysteries, which cannot be fanciful, and which is strengthened upon further examination. For example, when Ariel boards the King's Ship, and '^ flames amazement," the King's son, Ferdinand, leaps into the sea, exclaiming — " Hell is empty. And all the devils are here.*' We know that in the Mysteries the initiate was led through darkness and storm (or tempest), with lightning flashing through the vestibule of the Temple of Dem^ter or Ceres, which was a figurative descent into Hades. Stobaeus writes — ''The first stage is nothing but errors and uncertainties, laborious wanderings, a rude and fearful march through night and darkness. And now arrived on the verge of death and initiation, everything wears a dreadful aspect, it is all horror, ^ The only Bolemn oath, by which the gods irrevocably obliged themselves, is a well-known thing and makes a part of many ancient fables. To this oath they did not invoke any celestial diviaity, or divine attribute, but only called to witness the river Styx ; which, with many meandtrst surrounds the infernal court of Dis. — Bacon's " Wisdom of the Ancients."

THE TEMPEST. 63 trembling, sweating, and affrightment. But this scene once over, a miracolous and divine light displays itself, and shining plains and flowery meads open on all hands before them/' The reader must be struck with the parallel afforded by the play. Because the Shipwrecked King and his Courtiers go through exactly these preliminary horrors, of an imaginary death by drowning, with storm, lightning, and thunder, and are led, through (their protagonist) Ferdinand, to the sublime spectacle of the opening Heavens, with the doctrine of Idealism to sum it all up. This finale proves that we have here not only Idealism, but the Idealism of the Mysteries, and with the Mysteries themselves pourtrayed to us. Yarker writes " Ancient Mysteries " — '' The principal ceremonial of the Greater Mysteries took place at midnight of the sixth day of this magnificent festival. The Herald made the usual proclamation, ' Far hence the profane.' Then the MystcB took the greater oath of secrecy in the vestibule of the Temple of Demdter, was clothed in a fawn skin and saluted with the words, 'May you be happy, may the good Demon attend you.' At this point the assembly was enveloped in darkness, lighining flashed, thunder rolled, and monstrous forms appeared." Compare this : — *' Ariel, 1 boarded the King's ship ; now on the beak, Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement : sometimes I'd divide, And bnrn in many places ; on the topmast, The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, Then meet and join : Jove's lightnings, the precursors O' the dreadful thunder claps, more momentary. And sight out-running were not.: the fire, the cracks Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune Seem'd to beedege, and make his bold waves tremble." But it does not end here. The entire description of the wanderings of the Shipwrecked King and Courtiers about the island, is replete with amazements, terrors, and enchantments. In the first scene of the second act, they are affrighted with

64 THE TEMPEST, strange noises, which they take for the bellowings of bulls, or the roaring of lions : — ^ Leb, Even now we heard a hollow burst of bellowing Like bulls, or rather lions ; did it not wake you 7 It struck mine ear most terribly." It was after this ceremony of the oath-taking in the vestibule, that at this point the assembly was enveloped in darkness, lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and monstrous forms appeared. This, of course, was a dramatic effect, contrived to imitate the horrors of the infernal regions. Virgil thus describes hell or Tartarus : — '* Yestibulum ante ipsum, primisque in faucibus Orci Luctus, et ultrioes posuere cubilia Curae ; — Pallentesque habitant morbi, tristisque senectus, Et metus, et mala suada Fames, acturpis egestas ; Terribiles visu formse ; Lethumque Laborque : Turn consanguineus Lethi Sopor et mala mentis Gudia, mortiferumque adverse in limine bellum Ferreique Eumenidum thalami, et Discordia demens, Yipereum crinem vittis inneza cruentia In medio ramos annosaque brachia pandit Ulmus opaca igena : quam sedem somnia yv\^ Yana tenere ferunt, foliisque sub omnibus hserent. " Before the entrance itself, and in the first jaws of Hell, Grief and vengeful Cares have placed their couches ; pale Diseases inhabit there^ and sad Old Age, and Fear, and Want, evil goddess of persuasion, and unsightly Poverty — ^forms terrible to contemplate ! and there, too, are Death and Toil \ then Sleep, akin to Death, and evil Delights of mind; and upon the opposite threshold are seen death-bringing War, and the iron marriagecouches of the Furies, and raving Discord, with her viper-hair bound with gory wreaths. In the midst, an Elm dark and huge expands its boughs and aged limbs; making an abode which vain Dreams are said to haunt, and under whose every leaf they dwell." We find in the play discord and fear, with the vain dreams of Sebastian and Antonio, as to the succession of Naples, even the toil of Ferdinand in removing logs, together with a plentiful

THE TEMPEST. 65 supply of wanderings, doubts, and disappointments, all highly typical of life, and particularly of initiation. In the snatching away of the banquet placed befoie the Ring and his followers, we have a metaphorical application of the fable of Tantalus, one of the punishments pourtrayed in the lower world or hell. But the most cogent proof that in this play we have the heavenly side of the poet's art, is the introduction of the masque, when we see the heavens really opened to us, with a vision of Juno and Ceres. This is the culminating point of the play. It is the marriage of Miranda to Ferdinand — the marriage of Heaven and Earth-— of Spirit to Matter — the reconciliation of things divine, with things material And as this was the end and centre round which the Eleusinian Mysteries circled, we can well understand the introduction of Demdter (Ceres) — the earth mother (Nature)— to preside over the marriage of her daughter, Proserpine (who, as Bacon tells us, is Spirit), to Ferdinand. There can be little doubt (at least to ourselves), that Miranda is the prototype if not Persephone herself. Like Kronos, she sleeps until the time of her awakening is at hand. ^ Prop. Here cease more questions. Thou art inclined to sleep ; 'tis a good dulness, And give it way : / know thou canst not choose. [Miranda sleeps." Here we have Persephone asleep in Hades. Perdita again — the Briar Bose, who sleeps for hundreds of years (like Cinderella) as princess : — " Pros. Now I arise : [Resumes his mantle. Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow. Here in this island we arrived ; and here Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit Than other princesses can that have more time For vainer hours and tutors not so careful. Truth (and we mean by this Spiritual Truth) has always been typified by a Princess brought up in disguise, like Perdita in the Winiefa Tale, as a lost child. £

66 THE TEMPEST. That this introdaction of Ceres as the earth, with Juno in the heavens (Iris being the rainbow or messenger of light that reconciles Heaven with Earth), is connected with a spiritual apotheosis and apocalypse, cannot be doubted. It is a Midsummer revelation.^ It is Paradise opened with a divine reconciliation of things heavenly and things earthly: Juno with Ceres — ^the Spiritual with the Material. How can we for a moment be in doubt as to the protagonists in this marriage of Spirit and Matter f They are Miranda and Ferdinand ; and it is for them, and in relation to them, that the masque is introduced and the blessing song of Juno and Ceres given ! That we have heaven presented to us cannot be doubted in this scene :— "Fer, Let me live here ever ; So rare a wondered father and a wife, Make this place Paradise" That this is no metaphorical chance language may be seen when we compare again certain resemblances obtaining between the text and the Vlth book of Virgil, which is universally acknowledged to be a description of initiation, and of the idealism taught in the Mysteries. For example, in Virgil's description of the Elysian fields, we have : — ^ Pars in gramineis exercent membra palaestris : Contendunt ludo, etfulva luctantur arena : " —Vlth Book *' ^neid." Compare (Song) : — '* Come unto these ffeUow sands And then join hands/' etc., etc. The exact words employed by Virgil. Then compare the extraordinary parallel running between the speech of Anchises and the speech of Prospero. Before we present this striking parallel, the student is entreated to bear in mind that the speech Virgil puts into the mouth of Anchises closes and sums up the ^ We recognise in the introdnction of the Reapers in the presentation of the Masque, the entire Eleasinian myth, of the seed, maiden, or Bununer child, crowned with the ears of wheaX in heaven-Ceres.

THE TEMPEST. 67 teachings of the Mysteries, just as Prosperous closes the Vision or Masque. " Principio coelum ac terras, campoeque liquentes, Lucentemque globnm lunse, Titaniaque astra, Spiritus intus alit, totumque infusa per artos, Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet." What does this declare) That Spirit is the predominant and ruling element, which is mingled with the entire universe. Now compare this : — " These our actors. As I foretold you, were aU spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air : And, like the baseless fabric of this vision. The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces. The solemn temples, the great globe itself. Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; And, like this insubstantial pageant faded. Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams ^ are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep." We have abundance of evidence that idealism was taught in the Mysteries. . We know that it was round the myth of the Wanderings of Ceres that these doctrines were taught, and in her Temple that the initiations and revelations took place. How is it Prospero is found summing up philosophic idealism in direct connection with the same Ceres 1 Is this chance 1 But let us first present the reader with the doctrines that were taught in the Mysteries. Ficinus says : — *' Lastly, that I may comprehend the opinion of the ancient theologists, they considered things divine as the only realities, and that all others were only the images and ^ladows of truth "^ (Taylor's "Eleusinian Mysteries," 13.) Life, in short (as Prospero says), is a dream — all we see — " the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples," are only images — actors, with no reality save reflected reality — reflection of the spiritual — symbolic — and representative. We are like the prisoners in Plato's beautiful allegory of the subter* The entire teftching of the MyBteries held at EleiuiB, round Geres, was that life is a dream.

68 THE TEMPES2\ ranean cave, only contemplating shadows. " The earth-life is a dream rather than a reality. In this state and previous to the discipline of education and the mystical initiation, the rational or intellectual element, which Paul denominates the spiritual, is asleep" (Introduction to Taylor's " Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries," xvii.) Prospero, in disclosing the heavens and in giving us this sublime speech, is giving us the last sublime spectacle of the Mysteries and of the Idealism, which was summed up round that apocalyptic vision, and which we refind unquestionably again in the Platonic Philosophy. The end was to teach the spiritual nature of existence. In these few lines, '' We are such stuff as dreams are made on,'' is summed up Plato. For his whole teaching is that life is a dream. If the author of these lines was not Platonist^ and idealist, in the most uncompromising sense, then evidence goes for nothing : — 6pw ykp iifias o6Mv 6yTas AXXo, irXf^v €t5(a\\ 6ff

THE TEMPEST. 69 Protagonist of the Eleusinian Mysteries is presented to us. It was the Earth-Mother Dem^ter or (her Latin name) Ceres, round whom the Mysteries revolved. And it was over the loss and reawakening of her daughter Persephone, or Proserpine, that the Drama found its origin, and the doctrine of immortality its focus and symhol. The poet does not hring in Ceres without making her speak of her daughter's abduction by " dusky Dis " or Pluto : — " Ceres, Since they did plot The means that dusky Dis my daughter got." This shows at once that it is the myth of Ceres and Proserpine that is the undercurrent motive of this masque introduction. Very strangely, the word Tempest is allied to the word SouL ^ZiUi — the soul, is derived by Plato (Crat. 419) from tfuoi, which means to rusk on or along, as of a rushing mighty wind, and generally signifies to storm, to rage. It is employed in the Greek in the same Qense as the Latin, animiLs (the soul) — as the seat of anger and wrath, and of the feelings. Again the Greek afi/jkt means to " breathe hard or blow," and is commonly used as to toss or wave abont The Latin word, Spiritus, is in the same way connected with air, or breath, as life. Water has always been considered the emblem of the soul. And we find in The Tempest the poet' gives us a curious expression in the words ^^ sea-change*^ In the song that Ariel sings, we find these lines : — " Full fathoms five thy father lies ; Of his bones are coral made ; Those are pearls that were his eyes : Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change, Into something rich and strange." This " sea-change into something rich and strange " is doubtless used here in the sense of rebirth or metempsychosis. These lines, we think, are on Shelley's monument. And there is about the expression '' sea-change," a soul character connected with the sea and with deaJth — a Protsean power of changing shapes, which

70 THE TEMPEST. is borne out when we remember that the fabled Proteus was Neptune's herdsman. Thus we have in the title of the play Tht Tempest, and in the sea, a double connection with the idea of spirit and soul, change or death. Max Miiller deduces the Latin mare (the sea) from a root signifying death. He says, ** If in English we can speak of dead water, meaning stagnant water, or if the French use eau morte in the same .sense, why should not the northern Aryans have divined one of their names for the sea from the root mar to die % " Littr6 — '' Corssen et Curtius rapprochent mare du Sancrit marUy le desert, c'est-k-dire, T^l^ment ww?r^, sterile, arpvytrog rovrog.** But as deserts are not only in appearance, but in origin, beds of dried-up oceans, or seas, this only shows still more the origin of the word We find, iu all myths of the dead, a connecting link with the sea or water. King Arthur, after receiving his wound, departs in a barge for Avalon. The souls of the departed are often found taking ship for some distant isle. Thus the sea becomes an emblem for death, — *' a sea-change into- something rich and strange," and thus we are led to see that the ocean of this art may well be a term embracing time and death — ^a separating medium of re-birth, through which and on which we seek the enchanted island of discovery, which is that of pure Spirit or Heaven, — the blessed or fortunate islands of the soul, — where the dead poet, as a still living spirit, presides as creator, over his Divine Nature. It is very curious how unconscpusly writers on the plays have made this comparison. Here is one : — ** The greatest poet of our age has drawn a parallel of elaborate eloquence between Shakespeare and the sea; and the likeness holds good in many points of less significance than those which have been set down by the master-hand. For two hundred years at least have students of every kind put forth in every sort of boat on a longer or a shorter voyage of research across the waters of that unsounded sea." The sea has always been connected with the idea of generation or re-birth. It may seem extraordinary, that the great '* Deep "

THE TEMPEST, 71 was held to be the feminine side of things, out of whose womb all things sprang, even the land At the Eleusinian Mysteries, one of the days was dedicated to a visit to the sea. Purification by water has always been the symbol of re-birth. It is through the watery principle that everything was created. God breathed on the face of the waters, so that as a separating medium the sea is a perfect emblem of death. We find the poet telling us that the sea is to be this separating medium : — " Let this sad interim like the ocean be Which parts the shore, where two contracted new Come daily to the banks, that, when they see Betum of love, more blest may be the view ; Else call it winter, which being full of care Makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare." Here the time of ''this sad interim " is compared to the Ocean, or to Winter and Summer, which immediately takes u^ to the Winter's Tale, In Pericles we find an early attempt at the same subject, the sea playing there the part of a separating medium as Time — the body of Thaisa being cast adrift on it, to come miraculously to life again. Indeed, between Marina, the seabom, and Perdita in the Winter's Tale, there is more than a striking resemblance. Marina is bom of the sea — Time. Perdita, likewise, is thrown out to be the argument of Time. " To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace Equal with wondering : what of her ensues I list not prophesy ; but let Time's news Be known when 'tis brought forth. A shepherd's daughter, And what to her adheres, which follows after, Is the argument of Time. Of this allow, If ever you have spent time worse ere now ; If never, yet that Time himself doth say He wishes earnestly you never may. What and who is Perdita f Answer — the Spirit or Spiritual in the poet's art, to be re-bom through Time, as yet asleep in the Hades (invisible place) of this art — Miranda under another name. Morgan Kavanagh writes (" Origin of Language and Myths," pages 46, 47) : —

72 THE TEMPEST. " That in M and W we have the same sign in different positions is shown by such a word as Mind, which has under this form no meaning ; but when we make M take its form W, we discover the primary sense of Mind an perceiving that it is Wind. And this etymology cannot be called in question since the Hebrew mi ruh, the Greek vvtufia, and the Latin Spiritus, each of which means Mind, are but other words for wind or breath, and of which the learned have been well aware, though never suspecting that Mind is the word Wind itself. This etymology is also confirmed by the word Wit, and the word Mensch in German giving our word Wench. When years ago I pointed out the identity of M and W, I was ridiculed for my pains, and little thought that the truth of my discovery could be made evident by the Sanskrit language, of which the W is often represented in Latin by >L Thus in a recent work we find, 'La naso-labiale M remplace souvent en latin la labiale douce prolong^e aryaque W ; ainsi nous trouvous Mare^ mer, au lieu du, Sanscrit Wari;" Etc. (''La Langue Latine 6tadi6e dans Tunit^ IndoEurop6ene. Par Am^de6 de Caix de Saint Aymour," p. 77.) We thus see that it is in perfect accord with the presentation of Prospero as a God (in relation to his art), that the play bears the name of Tfie Tempest. It is Prosperous Mind, that is moved to stir up this storm, which is but a picture of his Divine Art at war with Time, and separated from us by just those creative principles spiritually hidden, which are spirit on one side, and on the other the separating medium of the sea, the symbol of the external and phenomenal.^ Sirens and the Sea. Sirens were said by the Greek and Latin poets to entice seamen by the magic sweetness of their song to such a degree, that the listeners forgot everything and died of hunger. The Greek means (oupfiv) the charm of eloquence of persuasion, and is derived ^ In the beginning was first Light, then Water. The latter was the material.

THE TEMPEST, 73 from seira (osipd)^ the entangling binding.^ Plato says there are three kinds of Sirens — the cdesticUy the generative, the cathartic. The first are under the government of Jupiter ; the second under the government of Neptune; and the third under the government of Pluto. When the soul is in heaven the Sirens seek by harmonic motion to unite it to the divine life of the celestial host; and when in Hades, to conform them to the infernal regimen ; but on earth they produce generation of which the sea is emblematic. (Proclus " On the Theology of Plato," bk. vi) We have placed the last line in italics. We see that the sea is emblematic of generation, that is, of re-birth, or what the poet in the play exquisitely veils under the garb of an immortal " sea-change." Ariel sings of Ferdinand's father : — " Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth sufifer a sea-change Into something rich and strange." Ariel is disguised as a Sea-nymph. Why does the poet present us Ariel as a Sea-nymph and not as a mountain-nymph, or a treenymph, or as a Naiad or Spring-nymph ? Is there no profound connection between this song, in which we have reference to the sea as generator or transformer and Ariel's disguise) Nymphs were generally Goddesses of fertilising moisture and powers of nature. In later poets water is called vvfipn (Latin Lympha, probably from the water nymphs of Liban, i., 283 ; Wyttenb. Plut. iL 147; F. Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon, 1060). The chrysalis or pupa of moths, and of young bees with imperfect wings, carry this name of nymph in Greek, — showing that the word is clearly connected with the doctrine of metamorphosis. The sea is the generator, the Protean — the changer — the source ^ These Sirens resided in oertain pleasant islands, and when, from their watch-tower, they saw any ship approaching, they first detained the sailors by their mnsic, then, enticing them to shore, destroyed them. Their singing was not of one and the same kind, bat they adapted their tones exactly to the nature of each person, in order to captivate and secure him. And so destructive had they been, that these islands of the Sirens appeared, to a very great distance, white with the bones of their unburied capcives. — Bacon's *' Wisdom of the Ancients."

74 THE TEMPEST. of soals — ^and her nymphs are the magic powers which preside over generatioiL But there is another way in which we find this word Kymphs employed, yiz., as Muses — ^hence all persons in a state of rapture, as seers, poeis, madmen, &c., were said to be caught by the nymphs {fUfAfoXri^oi, Lat Lymphati — Lymphatic! 1060, Scott and Lidd. Gr. Lex.). It is just in this last sense that we see Ariel, drawing Ferdinand after him, with his songs and music — ** Fer, Where should this music be I i' the air or the earth f It sounds no more : and sure it waits upon Some god of the island. Sitting on a bank Weeping again the king my father's wreck, This music crept by upon the waters, Allaying both their fury, and my passion, With its sweet air : thence I have followed it, Or it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone. No, it begins again." It is a significant hint that Ariel is set free by Prospero at the termination of the play, and thai this play is the last the poei tcriies. The breaking of his wand, seems to us profoundly connected with the emancipation of Ariel. This tricky Spirit is so evidently the poet's airy genius, that draws all the world after its divine music, that it seems superogatory to endeavour to adduce even proofs of it. Ariel is the genius or instrumentality of the poet's entire art scheme; — the rough magic of art which is nothing short of a miracle, as yet no miracle, because only half realised. For our own part, we have very little doubt that the island of Prospero is just that island of discovery which we are all seeking upon the ocean of his art. We mean that it is the art itself in relation to itself, which, to the shipwrecked mariners, appears without anybody upon it, without hope, full of meanders and strange miracles, and divine music leading us on, but apparently without a God, full of mystery and magic, but without an author who will reveal himself and lay aside his magic mantle. There is much resemblance between the nineteenth centuiy and the

THE TEMPEST. 75 play of Tht Tempest. We are the shipwrecked mariners of Faith, who, like Sebastian and Antonio, have lost all hope and all belief in everything — and particularly in God. Prospero, be it remarked, is a complete parallel as Poetic Creator to a Divine Creator. We see that the relationship of Prospero to his art, with his magic mantle and rod, is plainly and intentionally that of a God in art. Is it not, then, striking that the Wanderers upon the island are divided into two divisions of opinion — ^the one in Gonzalo and Adrian, being characterised by the Strongest Faith and hope, and the others by mocking scepticism and ridicule? The second act with which the Shipwrecked party is introduced, opens in Gonzalo's faith, hope, and consolation, which is remorselessly scoffed at and turned into utter ridicule by the others. So lofty is Gonzalo's faith, and belief in impossible things and miracles, that he seems to us a species of personified religion. The others are his direct antitheses — they believe in nothing — not even in the Truth when it is Truth, as in the case where Gonzalo tells them Tunis is Carthage. As a modern novelist truly writes : — " Doubt is the destroyer of beauty — the poison in the sweet cup of existence — ^the curse which mankind have brought on themselves. Avoid it as you would the plague. Believe in anything or everything miraculous and glorious — the utmost reach of your faith can with difficulty grasp, the Majestic reality and perfection of everything you can see, desire, or imagine.'' ("A Bomance of Two Worlds." ) What does the nineteenth century require — a miracle ? No — because we have abundant of miracles every day, such as the Phonograph of Edison (which beats everything that poet or " Arabian Nights ** could conceive) — ^but this is no miracle. This is science ! A miracle must be unexplainable. But then the nineteenth century (which is almost as profound in its sceptical knowledge as in its real ignorance), would exclaim — ^prove this a miracle, and so on. So that our eyes refuse to see that all is supernatural and nothing is supernatural, but all Wonder.

76 THE TEMPEST. There can be no didactic force in this art of the plays, unless its teaching applies doubly to itself and Nature. We mean that what we are seeking to have solved for us in life, shall be solved for us by this art. This may seem difficult to grasp. Let us endeavour to be clear. This art, according to us, is self-reflecting — that is, that what we are seeking outside it is already within it. Suppose a complete revelation is planned, suppose our own mocking portraits are presented to us everywhere in these plays, and presented, too, in exactly the relationship that we are to it. Impossible ! Nay, it has been done, but it is very difficult to make clear how it has been done, though we can see it very plainly for ourselves. For example : suppose (or grant) Prospero to be an ideal portrait of God in relationship to the Divine Art, Nature, and, at the same time, to be the Author of the Plays in relationship to the plays (also his Divine Art or Nature) and us. Cannot the reader at once perceive that the most Divine lessons could be thus inculcated — that we should be beside ourselves with utter amazement and admiration ! If the Poet-Creator, Prospero, can hide and reveal himself by means of art such as the plays contain (as a God), what a lesson for us towards faith and hope, and understanding of the higher works of the Diviner Poet, and his works, the Almighty ! That the author has done this is clearly shown in the Sonnets to those who, having eyes, will use them, by shutting them to the external in this Divine Art, and opening them to the Spiritual For example: when the poet says he has "laid great bases for eternity," we are sure that he means he has illustrated, by means of his art, divine truths and imitated Creation, so as to reconstruct faith and belief in Miracle. He tells us, in these despised Sonnets (which constitute the Spiritual Light and New Life of the Creative Principles, underlying the construction of the plays) that he bears with his " extern " " the canopy " of Heaven ! CXXV. " Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy. With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity."

THE TEMPEST, 77 He tells us again^ in Sonnet 124, that this art was built far from accident, i.e., that plan, intention, govern its inner spiritual meaning, and that it " stands hugely politic " — '' No, it was builded far from accident ; It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls Under the blow of thralled discontent. Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls : It fears not policy, that heretic, Which works on leases of short-number'd hours, But all alone stands hugely politic." For ourselves, we understand these lines to mean that this art is as profound, as deep as Creation itself, for it is Creation in a sense that the world has never dreamt of as within the bounds of man or art to conceive or execute. He tells us he bears the " canopy " of the heavens, by means of great bases of creative truths, which, when revealed, shall stand for eternity. But until his own judgment arises, which is as surely in the plays as God is in Nature, he dwells in lovers* eyes — '* 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth ; your praise shall still find room. Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes." There are ihrtt themes contained in many of the plays, if not all, which are not historical. These three themes are first, the simple theme of beauty, as the plays simply read without further examination. The other two themes arise from the relation of this art, to its planned spiritual revelation through time (as to itself), and to the relationship arising from this plan to Nature, and ourselves. We see this in the Winter's Tale, where the separation of this art into Winter (unrevealed), and Summer (revealedj side, is plainly imaged in the separation of Perdita from Hermione — Spirit separated from dead life (form) — a statue Hermione. The restoration of the life of the Spirit — Perdita (Persephone) restores life to this art, which is so beauti 

78 THE TEMPEST. fully pictured as a statue (really living), seemiugly dead until revealed. But the poet himself tells us this — that in each play, there are three themes : — " Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument, — Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words ; And in this change is my invention spent, Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords. Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone. Which three, till now, never kept seat in one." To prove that this art is something to which the term extraordinary, as usually employed, cannot be applied, we quote the following Sonnet. We see at once, that the author ignores Dante, as his inferior, for he goes back five hundred years for a comparison to vie with the wonder of '^ your frame.'' LIX. " If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains beguird. Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss The second burden of a former child 1 O, that record could with a backward look. Even of five hundred courses of the sun. Show me your image in some antique book, Since mind at first in character was done ! That I might see what the old world could say To this composed wonder of your frame ; Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they, Or whether revolution be the same. O, sure I am, the wits of former days To subjects worse have given admiring praise." ** Since mind at first in character was done/" This is indeed startling language. This is something "hors de ligne" when it puts its term of comparison back to five hundred years, and thus challenges Dante's great work ! In Tk^ Tempest, we find Prospero saying : — " My dukedom since you have given me again, I will requite you with as good a thing ; At least bring forth a wonder to content ye." And to further prove that the poet deals iu his plays with a

THE TEMPEST. 79 religions theme, which (mark it) is as yet hidden or unrevealed, he says, in Sonnet 31 : — ^ How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religions love stol'n from mine eye, As interest of the dead, which now appear But things remov'd, that hidden in thee lie ! " Note that these things which move his '' religious love '' are "hidden/' "remoifd,** in this art. Proof enough, if any were indeed wanting, to show that we know very little about the plays at present, and that the great "bases for eternity" are yet to be explored. Perhaps the ''great bases for eternity" are these religious truths, hidden in philosophical play systems, as creative principles ! The despised Sonnets are the true creative principles of the entire Solar System of this sublime art. We use no extravagant metaphor, we say seriously, and fully alive to a charge of writing rubbish, — ^a real Solar System, — a copy of Nature, not only externally, but on the profoundest philosophical creative principles of Light and Darkness, Summer and Winter, Life and Death, Heaven and Hell, separation and reconciliation. Here, for example, is the Sun — unmistakably not only here but elsewhere Light, Life, Truth, — a physical fact and a spiritual emblem at once. LIII. '' What is your substance, whereof are yon made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend ? Since every one hath, every one, one shade, And you, but one, can every shadow lend. Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you ; On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set, And you in Grecian tires are painted new : Speak of the spring, and foison of the year ; The one doth shadow of your beauty show. The other as your bounty doth appear ; And you in every blessed shape we know. In all external grace you have some paH;, But you like none, none you, for constant heart"

8o THE TEMPEST.. This is the Sun. Eead Sir George Cox's " Mythology of the Aryans/' and you will find him identifying Adonis and Helen with the Sun. This may seem curious to some people, but every book on mythology and symbol worship gives the same explanation.^ Let us turn to the poem of Venus and Adonis, the first heir of the poet's invention, and we find the first opening lines identifying Adonis with the Sun : — '* Even 08 the sun with purple-colour'd face Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping mom, Bose-cheek'd Adonis hied him to the chase ; Hunting he lov'd, but love he laugh'd to scorn ; Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him. And like a bold-fac'd suitor 'gins to woo him." '* Even as the sun/ " and to further prove this, take the following— a few lines following the passage just quoted : — ** Nature that made thee, with herself at strife, Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.'' Nature would indeed end with the life of the Sun ! And then the poem proceeds to use the same argument of marriage for creation's sake, as we find in the opening theme of the Sonnets. But this is the simile — marriage for the sake of offspring — (immortality), with which Socrates (using the words of Diotima) illustrates Creation Divine and poetic. With^ Plato the poet's art is a copy of the Divine act, whence the name of Maker, Creator, Poet. " Torches are made to light, jewels to wear, Dainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use, ^ ** Here is what Sir William Jones — a man profoundly acquainted with as many as twenty languages, and beyond all doubt the most learned Oriental scholar England has to boast of — says on this subject : ' We must not be surprised at finding, on a close examination, that the characters of all the pagan deities, male and female, melt into each other, and at last into one or two ; for it seems a well-founded opinion that the whole crowd of gods and goddesses in ancient Rome mean only the powers of nature, and principally those of the sun, expressed in a variety of ways and by a multitude of fanciful names." — (** Origin of Lang, and Myth.," Kavauagh.)

THE TEMPEST. 8i Herbs for their smell, and sappy plants to bear ; Things growing to themselves are growth's abuse : Seeds spring from seeds, and beauty breedeth beauty, Thou wast begot, — to get it is thy duty.*' But to farther prove this apparently strange theory (and of the difficulty of obtaining a hearing for it we are well aware), take the following Sonnet : — xxxvin. ** How can my Muse want subject to invent, While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse Thine own sweet argument, too excellent For every vulgar paper to rehearse ? O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me Worthy perusal stand against thy sight ; For who 's so dumb that cannot write to thee, When thou thyself dost give invention light ? Be thou the tenth MvMy ten times more in worth Than those old nine which rhymers invocate ; And he that calls on thee, let him bring forUi Eternal numbers to outlive long date. If my slight Muse do please these curious days, The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise." Here we have the source of the inspiration of the poet's Muse, which it is most important, the greatest thing of all to remark, is not one of the nine Muses, nor the Nine Muses. What is it, then, that overleaps all the Muses and beggars all our conceptions of art thus? What miracle have we herel What is this Tenth Muse ? Plato tells us the world was formed in the shape of X. This number is a perfect number, and various theories have explained it, which we have no space to enter upon here. But it is the sign of the World, or of entire Natwre — it signifies life and light — ihe two triangles of above and below — the universe. " Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth Than those old nine which rhymers invocate." How can we be in error after such words as these : — " For who 's so dumb that cannot write to thee When thou thyself dost give invention light f" F

82 THE TEMPEST, This is the San. It is not only here, but everywhere, that we find this Sun in these Sonnets. XLIIL " When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things iinre8p>ected ; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And, darkly bright, are bright in dark directed. Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow's form form happy show To the clear day with thy much clearer light. When to unseeing eyes Uiy shade shines so ! How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made By looking on thee in the living day. When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay ! All days are nights to see, till I see thee. And nights bright days, when dreams do show thee me." It will be difiicult to convince a sceptical world in a sceptical century, that the above Sonnet is addressed to San and Moon, and that both are applied to art. But it is so. It only requires Gonzalo's faith to see what the poet has done — to believe in artistic miracles — for here is one, and find Prospero. The reader may laugh, if we suggest that the Sonnet quoted has particular reference to the shadows of art. Does he know Plato's allegory of the subterranean cavern, and the invisible sun producing images or shadows 9 I suppose he knows that this image is Plato's method for explaining the relationship of ideas to phenomena — reflection. And this is the exact relationship existing between the ideas of the plays, and their phenomena, shadows, or actors taken externally.^ The poet is saying — " If the rtfitcr tion of my spiritual meaning or light (the Sun), can produce such beauty (which is night — Moonlight to me), what would the daylight of its revelation be 1 " It will be granted, for the sake of 0 % ^ The visible world {Kdfffios iparbs, r& ahOrjTa) bears the impress of the ideal world {fitfn^fiaTa, €Ik6¥€s, ctduXa OfMUttfiara), — (Plato.)

THE TEMPEST. 83 illustration, that if the poet has planned such a revelation, or rebirth, as we postulate, we only know the night-side or reflected side of his real spiritual light or meaning. It may seem daylight to us, but to him (until revealed) it is only Night and Moonlight. For Moonlight is the reflected light of an invisible Sun. We maintain the plays, simply taken as plays, are only half known, and that we gaze upon the moonlight of their real light. With such a theory we are prepared to apply this Sonnet to the Midsummer Nighfs Dream particularly. For that deals with Moonlight, with night, and dreams, and very plainly, as we have shown elsewhere, with the relationship of this art to Nature and to itsel£^ " Prospero. A solemn air, and the best comforter To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains, Now oseleas botVd within thy skull" " The charm dissolves apace ; And as the morning steals upon the night, Melting the darkness, so their rising senses Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle Their clearer reason." Such lines as these prove the character and quality of the relations of Prospero to the shipwrecked wanderers upon his island. It is their ** clearer reason " which has been befogged and closed up. There is ''no darkness but ignorance," says the poet elsewhere. And as the play has gradually led up from the vicissitude of imaginary death — tempest, lightning, confusion, wanderings, discord, and error — to the sublime apocalyptic vision of the Masque or heaven, so do we see in this process the end and aim of the initiations of the Mysteries of Eleusis pourtrayed to U8. The end and aim of those Mysteries was to reveal heavenly things, to enlighten the unenlightened, and to present the gods in the final scene, as creators and masters of the revels. ^ See chapter xii., on Midsummer Night* 8 Dream, "A new study of Shakespeare."

84 THE TEMPEST, So Prospero as creator, as the magician of this enchanted art — as the great Master-Spirit of his creative cycle — is pourtrayed as sarrounded by the ocean, on an island, which as an island of souls, as a mythical Heaven, is invisible except to the Spirit, and to those Spirits who set out on a voyage of discovery, on the ocean of his illimitable Wisdom.

CHAPTER IV. VENUS AND ADONIS. ''Forte est vinum, fortior est rex, fortiores sunt mnliera; super omnia vincit Veritas."— 1st Bad., ch. ilL, yer. 10, 12. How is it that the first heir of Shakespeare's inyention (if it was Shakespeare's 1) is found to be upon the subject of Venus and Adonis, the latter being the key figure, or myth centre round which the society of the Eosy Cross and their emblem revolve 1 How is it that these plays and poems still present a like mystery and question of authorship, that is thoroughly Eosicrucian in its silence, profundity, and inscrutability f " To come down hidden through the ages is sublime," writes De Quincey of them ; but does not the problem of the plays and sonnets, as to meaning and authorship, thoroughly suggest something of the same sorti There are parallels of date between the publication of the plays, the death of Shakespeare, and the society, which seem to stand out significantly when placed side-by-side with each other. To this we have ali'eady alluded, but we must allude to it again. In 1623, when the first folio edition is put forth, there is a great Bosicrucian meeting held in Paris, which made a great stir for two years in that capital. The year 1616 (Shakespeare's death), several of the manifestoes of importance are published. In fact, the entire rise of Bosicrucianism and the noise it made, commences early in the seventeenth century and expires about 1630, four years after Bacon's death ; and we hear no more about it, except through apologists like John Heydon, who borrow Bacon's •* Atlantis " to illustrate or identify the Society with his College of the Six Days. Then we have, in 1646, a Masonic meeting at

S6 VENUS AND ADONIS, WarringtOD, where Bacon is again brought in, according to Nicolaiy as one of the Kosicrucians, if not the head ! Nicolai, be it observed, lived a century ago, and was nearer the sources of oral tradition than we are now. De Quincey (like Mr Waite, in his " Real History of the Kosicrucians ") in his '' Historico-Critical Inquiry into the Origin of the Kosicrucians and the Freemasons," questions their existence before the seventeenth century. At any rate they made no stir, no noise, prior to the publication of the " Fama Fratemitatis." They may have been a reorganization, a resurrection of older societies, such as the Templars, or of older sects, but in the form they startled Europe, they present to us the idea of a total reconstruction and new inception. They seem to have been LUeraii as well as UluminaH, and in this we see their connection with literature. It may be as well to remember that Dante, who was a member of the order of Templars, makes his art a vehicle of reformation, using the secret language or jargon of his brotherhood, called the gay-science. We find, in the Sonnets, this secret language hinted at, in most unmistakable terms. Dante's work cannot be understood by those who have not seized the Antipapal spirit of his times. No better work exists upon the subject than Kossetti's (father of the late poet) '' Anti-papal Spirit which preceded the Reformation." Literature indeed, especially allegorical literature like Dante's or Rabelais', was especially fitted to ridicule, and attack the abuses of an age, in which no other weapons were possible. We find that Dante's City of Dis, is nothing but Rome, even to the extent of its walls. Now we must not imagine that Bacon's and Shakespeare's age was much beyond Dante's in this matter. We have only to recall a few facts, to immediately realise the barbarity of the age, which was a species of world prison. To step out into the air, was to step into one's *'grave," as Hamlet says to Polonius. The windlace, the gyves, were ready to torture, the prison or stake to consummate the martyrdom of Truth. Just take a few examples that come to memory at once. Bruno burnt, 1600; Ramus massacred, and

VENUS AND ADONIS, 87 Campanella, author of the '< City of the Sun " (a pupil of Telesius, so much commended by Bacon with whose Atlantis there are striking parallels), tortured ; John Selden — one of Bacon's translators, and literary executors — had to apologize ; Des Cartes, to conceal his book; Spinoza^ excommunicated; Galileo, to recant upon his knees. — These are only a few. Do we not see how urgently an universal reformation of society was needed, and how opportune and profound the scheme of the Rosicruciansi What was its object! What could it perform? Very little, apparently, but probably a very great deal more than we can as yet realise or imagine. And, first of all, we believe its aim was to make literature the vehicle of its reformation. We have this hinted in the frequent allusions to Apollo and Parnassus, to the Muses and the Castalian Spring. We find the Sonneteers embracing an universal style after the fashion of the love sonneteers of the Renaissance early period, of Petrarch, Boccaccio and Dante, addressing a lady of their loves, as Dante does Beatrice, and writing in a language which is profoundly philosophical, and difficult to clearly understand. We imagine we comprehend it, but we are mistaken. And this is shown in the incapability of the modem world to separate the Stella of Sidney from Lady Rich, or the Black-mistress of the Sonnets, of the supposed author Shakespeare, from a real person. But these, like Dante's Beatrice, are metaphysical concepts, personified for art and safety's sake, — ^they are philosophical abstractions. " Adonis or Adonai was an Oriental title of the Sun, signifying Lord ; and the boar supposed to have killed him, was the emblem of Winter ; during which the productive powers of nature being suspended, Venus was said to lament the loss of Adonis until he was again restored to life : whence both the Syrian and Argive women annually mourned his death and celebrated his resurrection. Adonis was said to pass six months with Proserpine, and six with Venus." (Section 120, R. P. Knight's " Inquiry into Symb. Lang, of Ancient Art and Mythology.") Compare (Hesych. in V. Macrob. Sat. i. c. xx.) Adonis with Dionysis or Bacchus. Tov hi

88 VENUS AND ADONIS. Aduttv ovj^ irspcv dkka AiO¥uoo¥ uvai tofu^outfiv. (Platarch Symp. ^ lib. iv. qu. y. ; also Lucian de Dea Syria. Paasan. Corintli c. zz., S. 5.) *' The story of the Phoenix appears to have been an allegory of the same kind." (Ibid,) '' The Phrygian Attis, like the Syrian Adonis, was fabled to have been killed by a boar ; or, according to another tradition, by Mars in the shape of that animal ; and his death and resurrection were annually celebrated in the same manner." (Section 121, ibid.) ''In the poetical tales of the ancient Scandinavians, Frey, the deity of the Sun, was fabled to have been killed by a boar ; which was therefore annually offered to him at the great feast of luul during the Winter solstice. Boars of paste were also served on their tables during that feast ; which being kept till the following spring, were beaten to pieces and mixed with the seeds to be sown in the ground." This Boar is Mars or Winter, who is at war with Venus. We find in the Sonnets that the poet identifies Adonis with the Sun, — and with the Rose, as we shall show very clearly. The story of Venus and Mars circles round the universe, as the two antagonistic powers of Love and Warfare, or "Strife and Friendship," as Bacon terms it Harmonia or Hermione, was their offspring, being the orderly world, or product of the great dualism everywhere perceptible in Nature, under the physical names of Heat and Cold, — Eepul^ion and Attraction. These laws govern the universe, and keep the solar system under law. For what is Attraction (or what we term Gravitation) but Love, whilst Heat or Fire produces separation, repulsion, — in other words, warfare or hate. It is the orderly conflict or antagonism of these two, alternating with Winter or Summer (which is the alternate triumph of one over the other), that constitutes the year. We see, then, that the death of Adonis, " the pleasure of the fleeting year," or Summer, at the tusks of a boar, is merely allegorical for the death of Summer at the hands of Winter. We can see that the poet consciously embodies this idea. Because we find him in his first

VENUS AND ADONIS. 89 poem identifying the Sun with Adonis, and again the latter with Sommer and the rose : — ** How like a Winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year ? What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen ? What old Decembers bareness every where 1 And yet this time remoVd was summer's time, The teeming Autumn big with rich increase. Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime, Like vndowed wombea ^ after their Lord's decease : Yet this aboundant issue seem'd to me, But hope of Orphans, and un- fathered fruit. For Summer and his pleasures wait on thee, And thou away, the very birds are mute. Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer. That leaves look pale, dreading the Winter's near." " From you have I been absent in the spring. When proud pied April (drest in all his trim) Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing : That heavy Saturn laugh t and leapt with him, Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue. Could make me any summer's story tell : Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew. Nor did I wonder at the Lilies white. Nor praise the deep Vermilion in the Bose, They were but sweet, but fig^ures of delight : Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away." The Lily and the Rose are two purely Bosicrucian flowers particularly associated with the order. The Fleur-de-lis is connected with the symbol of Light, as Lux, and the Bose is Adonis. Study the Sonnets quoted, and you will at once see it is addressed to the Sun, as the pattern and exemplar of Nature, which is revealed as the cause of Summer. * En revenant aux ^poux de V^nus, noos tronvons encore le gnerrier Mars, dont le mois onvrit long temps Tann^e, k I'^uinoxe du printemps ; Yalcain on le feu (prinoipalemeDt le fen inf^rieur, le soleil d'en bas, Osiris enterr^) ; et surtout ^JHK) Adonai' oa Adonis (le seigneur, Tdlev^), dont VSntu-veuve ordonne k ses enfants la recherche et la vengeance. Compare ** Widow Dido " La Ma^onnerie.

90 VENUS AND ADONIS, '* For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, And thou away, the very birds are mute." Here is winter during the sun's absence : — " How like a Winter hath my absence been From thee the pleasure of the fleeting year." Compare — "" And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth." — hUK Sonnet. Dr Alger writes (" Doctrine of a Future Life ") : — " It is a wellknown fact, intimately connected with the different religions of Greece and Asia-Minor, that during the times of harvest in the autumn, and again at the season of sowing in the spring, the shepherds, the vintagers, and the people in general, were accustomed to observe certain sacred festivals, — the autumnal sad, — the vernal joyous. These undoubtedly grew out of the deep sympathy between man and nature, over the decay and disappearance, the revival and return of vegetation. When the hot season had withered the verdure of the fields, plaintive songs were sung, their wild melancholy notes and snatches borne abroad by the breeze, and their echoes dying at last in the distance. In every instance, these mournful strains were the annual lamentation of the people over the death of some mythical boy of extraordinary beauty luid promise^ who in the flower of youth, was suddenly drowned, or torn in pieces by wild beasts. " * Some Hyacinthine boy, for whom Mom well might break, and April bloom.' "Among the Argives it was Linus. With the Arcadians it was Scephrus. In Phrygia it was Lityerses. On the shore of the Black Sea it was Bormus. In the country of the Bithynians it was Hylas. At Pelusium it was Maneros. And in Syria it was Adonis. The untimely death of these beautiful boys, carried off in their morning of life, was yearly bewailed ; their names re-echoing over the plains, the fountains, and among the hills. It

VENUS AND ADONIS. 91 is obvious that these cannot have been real persons, whose death excited a sympathy so general, so recurrent." Now compare (Sonnet 104) :— " For fear of which, hear this thou age unhred^ Ere you were born, was beauty's ifiimmer dead/* This is addressed to us — Posterity. Again compare (Sonnet 97);— " How like a vrinter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasitre of the fleeting year J" Compare Sonnets 73, 63, 67 ; equally addressed to Dionysus, or Adonis.^ With regard to Adonis, we must now draw attention to Shakespeare's extraordinary forestalment of modern mythographers and writers upon ancient symbolism in religion. Sir George Cox says, " Tammuz (or Adonis) became the symbol undei' which the sun, invoked with a thousand names, has been worshipped." Now compare Shakespeare, 53 : — " "What is your substance, whereof are ye made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend 1 Since everyone, hath, everyone, one shade, And you btU one, can every shadow lend. Describe Adonis and the counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you." This is the sun which Adonis and myriads of other solar heroes represented. Directly we begin the first poem or heir of his invention, the poet's Venus and Adonis, we find he is identifying Adonis with the sun. His opening comparison is solar : — " Even as the sun with purple-colour'd face Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn, Rose-cheek'd Adonis hied him to the chase." ^ The myth of Adonis links the legends of Aphrodite with those of Dionysos. Like the Theban wine-god, Adonis is bom only on the death of his mother : and the two myths are in one verson so far the same that Dionysos like Adonis is placed in a chest which being cast into the sea is carried to Brasiai, where the body of his mother is buried.

92 VENUS AND ADONIS. It is absord to take the poem literally, as if merely a peg to hang his poetic proclivities upon, and draw attention to himself. The writer is perfectly acquainted with the entire bearing of the Adonis myth. To prove this is easy enough. The metaphysical or purely fabulous parabolical nature of his treatment of the poem reveals itself in these lines : — ^ By this, the boy that by her side lay kill'd Was melted like a vapour from her sight. And in his blood that on the ground lay spill'd, A purple flower sprung up, cbequer'd with white. Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.'' ^ Thus the great Eosicrucian protagonist, Adonis, is changed into a flower, which we know is the Eose — ^Yenus' own flower, sacred to her, and which she places in her breast : — " She bows her head, the new-sprung flower to smell, Comparing it to her Adonis' breath ; And says, within her bosom it shall dwell. Since he himself is reft from her by death : She crops the stalk, and in the breach appears Green dropping sap, which she compares to tears. " * Poor flower,' quoth she, * this was thy father's guise, (Sweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire). For every little grief to wet his eyes : To grow unto himself was his desire. And so 't is thine ; but know, it is as good To wither in my breast as in his blood. " * Here was thy father's bed, here in my breast ; Thou art the next of blood, and 't is thy right : Lo ! in this hollow cradle take thy rest. My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night : There shall not be one minute in an hour Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love's flower.' " ^ For the story of the Rose springing out of Adonis' blood, see Bion, _ Idyll i. 66. Pausanias also identifies Adonis with the Rose (v. Eliac ii., vi., cap. 24, sectioD 5» ed. Schubart).

VENUS AND ADONIS. 93 But that there shall be no loophole left for the critics to doubt this, consider this Sonnet : — LIV. ** O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, By that sweet orDament that traih doth give ! The raw looks fair, but fairer we it deem, . For that sweet odour, which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye, As the perfumed tincture of the roses. Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly, When summer's breath their mask'd bud discloses : But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade ; Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so ; Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made : And so of you, beauteous and lovdy youth. When that shall fade my verse distils your truth" We see here that this Eose is a '' beauteous and lovely youth,'' Adonis, who is Truth at the same time. For he is the Logos of the Sun "crucified in the Heavens at the vernal equinox." (Godfrey Higgins.) Now mark the last line, and, particularly, the words : — "My verse distils your truth." Compare Sonnet 5 : — " Then were not Summer's distillation left A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass." So that we have in these last lines a hint to Adonis as Summer's distillation, or Sose-Water pent in Crystal, which we find a common expression among the Eosicrucians. For example, Thomas Yaughan, a famous member of the mystic Brotherhood, writes: — "In regard of the ashes of the vegetables, although their weaker exterior elements expire by violence of the fire, yet their earth cannot be destroyed, but is vitrified. The fusion and transparency of this substance is occasioned by the Eadicall

94 VENUS AND ADONIS, moysture, or seminal water of the compound. This water resists the fury of the fire, and cannot possibly be vanquished. ' In hoc Agud (Crystal) Rosa latet in hiime' These two principals are never separated ; for Nature proceeds not so far in her dissolutions. When Death hath done her worst, there is an. union between these two, and out of them shall God raise us at the last day, and restore us to a spiritual constitution." Not only is Yaughan's idea the entire substance of our ailment, but it is evident Shakespeare borrows this simile from the rose pent up in the crystal, "Walls of glass" can have but this reference, and the entire Sonnet deals with this spiritual rebirth of the flower, out of the seed of its essence, in Spring and Summer. Sidney employs this simile of Bose- Water in his " Arcadia." The philosophic expression of Vaughan's theory, is what in scientific parlance is termed, the conservation of eneigy, or the indestructibility of matter. We find Sir Philip Sidney, in his " Arcadia," using the same language to the same efifect. It is evident this is a symbol of immortality, of resurrection, of conservation for the- sake of rebirth. " Have you ever seen a pure Bosewater kept in a crystal glass? How fine it looks t How sweet it smells while that beautiful glass imprisons it ) Break the prison and let the water take his own course, doth it not embrace dust and lose all its former sweetness and fairness ? Truly so are we if we have not the stay rather than the restraint of crystalline marriage." '' Crystal," writes Hargreave Jennings, " is a hard transparent stone composed of simple plates, giving fire with steel, not fermenting with acid meyistrua, calcining in a strong fire, of a regular angular figure, supposed by some to be formed of dew coagulated with nitre." (" Bosicrucians," vol. L, p. 180) "But the Jewel of the Bosicrucians was formed of a transparent redstone, with a red cross on one side and a red rose on the other — thus it is a crucified rose." (Ibid,, vol. ii., p. 65) We thus see that this is typical of Adonis crucified in the Heavens at the vernal

VENUS AND ADONIS, 95 equinox. Nay, more, it is plain that this connection of Dew with the Eose, and therefore with Adonis, is purely historical. For in the Vishnu Purana Wilson (614) relates the story of Procris in another form : — " The dew becomes visible only when the blackness of the night is dispelled, and the same sun is reflected in the thousands of sparkling drops; but the language of the Purana is in singular accordance with the phraseology in which Roman Catholic writers delight to speak of nuns as the brides of Christ." (Cox's "Myth, of Aryans," ii., 139). Do we not here receive a hint as to the "crystalline marriage" of Sir Philip Sidney and Vaughan's resurrection (quoted), with this " dewy question") Can we not further see that the crucified Bose, mounted on a Calvary, has at bottom the same meaning as the crucifixion of Christ, who was the Logos, the " corner stone," the ** philosopher's stone " of the Temple 1 In the sonnets quoted we find the poet connecting the Eose with Truth as sacrificed — as Winter — as promise of rebirth — as fresh Summer. All this faUs in with the idea presented us by the Jewel emblem of the Bosicrucians. Christ was the Light of the world — ^the Divine Lux, after more of which every true Mason is searching. But the Sun is the Light of the world — it dies in winter apparently, to be reborn in the summer. Directly we go deeper into this question we find corroborating facts. This is what Hargreave Jennings writes : — *' In regard to the singular name of the Bosicrucians, it may be here stated that the Chemists, according to their arcana, derive the Dew from the Latin Eos, and in the figure of a cross ( + ) they trace the three letters which compose the word Lux, Light. Mosheim is positive as to the accuracy of his information." (" The Bosicrucians, their Bites and Mysteries " p. 101, vol. i, 3rd edition). The reader will remember, in Bacon's ** New Atlantis," " the pillar and Cross of Light, which brake up and cast itself abroad, as it were, into a firmament of many stars; and which also vanished soon after, and there was nothing left to be seen but a small ark or chest of cedar, dry, and not wet at all with water,

96 VENUS AND ADONIS. though it swam ; and in the fore-end of it, which was towards him, grew a small ^een branch of pcHmJ* Now there is in this " pillar and cross of light " an unmistakable resemblance to the emblem of the Bosicrucians, the crucified glory or light, which, as the Rose is disguise for Adonis, the Su)i or Logos, on the cross. Is there not also, in the breaking " up of this cross and casting itself abroad into a firmament of many stars," a hint of the spread of the society and the growth of individual talent in its service (as stars), which ako vanished soon after. Eosicrucianism produced a firmament of literary stars all over Europe, of whom Fludd and Boehmen stand preeminent, but the striking parallel is that the society did vanish soon after Bacon's death in 1630, in exactly the way he describes it. But the fame of the fraternity still outlives the shipwrecks of time, and floats, like the ''cedar chest," upon the waters of oblivion, immortal 1 Now there can be no doubt, to those who understand these subjects, that the green branch of palm in the fore-end of the chest is introduced by Bacon to typify immortality and rebirth. The palm tree is the Phoenix dadylifera, with which the fable of the fabulous bird, the Phoenix, is most closely associated, being supposed to build its nest upon a palm tree. But the curious growth of the Phoenix dadylifera explains, we think, the origin of the fable. It throws out branches every year from the centre, and the old ones dying go to form the bark of the tree in a remarkable way, suggesting continual death and rebirth. Upon three steles in the Berlin Museum, the sacred Tree or Tree of Life is represented by the date palm — Phosnix dadylifera. Among the Jews, the date palm would seem to have had a certain typical signification; it was largely introduced in the decorations of Solomon's temple, being represented on the walls along with the cherubim, and also on the furniture and vessels of the temple (1 Kings vi 29, 32, 35 ; vii. 36). In the Song of Solomon, which theologians regard as significant of the love of the Church for Christ, the Spouse of the

VENUS AND ADONIS, 97 Church is spoken of as the palm tree. " I said, I will go up to the palm tree, 1 will take hold of the boughs thereof" (Solomon, Song viL 8). The palm tree is also in Scripture a favourite simile for the righteous, who are said to flourish like the palm tree (Psalm xcii. 12). The Tree of Life mentioned in the second chapter of Genesis y. 9, has always been understood as the palm tree— -the date palm — Phoenix daciylifera. In the last chapter of the Apocalypse there is a reference to the palm tree, as the Tree of Life in the heavenly Jerusalem. St John thus describes the water of life and the Tree of Life : " And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month : and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations " (Hev. xxii. 1, 2). The palm tree was popularly believed to put forth a shoot every mouth, and hence became, at the close of the year, a symbol of it; and was the origin of the Christmas tree, so popular with the Germans, but derived originally from Egypt. It is well known the leaves of the palm were at one time used for writing on (Pliny). In Christian symbolism, the Tree of Life is the date palm, and souls are represented, commonly, as doves. On one of these palm trees is very commonly perched a phcenix with a glory of seven rays. There is a good example of this in the Church of the SS. Cosma and Damiano; the phoenix with the glory symbolises the resurrection to eternal life, and is placed on the palm tree as the symbolical support of that life. The phoenix was, in this sense, a very ancient mythical symbol. Dante alludes to it, ** Inferno," xxiv., 106-8 — '* Coal per li gran savi si confeesa, Che la Fenice muore e poi rinasce, Quando al cinquecentesimo anno appressa." Ovid (" Metamorphoses," lib. xv. v. 392 et eeq,) associates this o

98 VENUS AND ADONIS. fabulous bird with the pahn tree, as preparing its funeral nest among the branches, ''tremulsque cacumine palmsB/'from whence, on its death, another little phoonix rises up. It is a doubtful point whether the tree. Phoenix dadylifera, gave name to the bird, or the mythical bird to the tree ; possibly the well known fact that, when an aged female palm tree was burnt down to the roots, a new tree sprang up amid the ashes of the old one, may have been the origin of the fable. (See C. Plinii, ** Secundi Naturalis Historise," lib. xiii., c. 9.) In Chester's "Love's Martyr" (published 1601), in which Shakespeare's supposed poem, the Phumix and Turtle is to be found, we find Ben Jonson contributing a poem, in which we find the idea of crystal repeated : — " Judgement (adorned with Learning) Doih shine in her discerning, Cleare as a naked vestall Closde in an orbe of Christall.*' — Ben Jonson. In Bacon's " Natural History," we find him giving us an experiment how to make crystal (Century IV. Experiment 364), and in the next experiment, 365 (the number of days in the year), telling us how to preserve, or conserve Eoses 1 It is plain that the thought of the crystal, calls up the thought of the Hose, and shows intimacy with the crystal and Eose-water idea. This comparison of the Bose, begins with the first sonnet, in a sense thoroughly in keeping, with a depth of creation, that is to conserve for immortality. The rose is ever before the poet's mind's eye : — " From fairest creatures we desire increase That thereby beauties Rose might never die." This Eose is to be as. immortal as the crucified Rose, and herein we can see, that the only way such immortality can be attained, is by just this sacrifice of crucifixion. To preserve the Jiosey or the rose-water, during the Winter, it must be first imprisoned in the crystal.

VENUS AND ADONIS, 99 Compare — " Why should poore beautie indirectly seeke B0668 of Shadow, since his Hose is true ? " ^* Then were not summer's distillation left A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, Beauties effect with beautie were bereft, Nor it nor no remembrance what it was. But flowers dlstiird, though they with winter meef, Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet." This is a most unmistakable application of Sir Philip Sidney's Rosewater, kept in a crystal glass, or Vaughan's " In hoc Aqud, (Crystal) Rosa laiet in hieme" " Then let not winter's ragged hand deface In thee thy summer ere thou be distiird : Make sweet some vial ; treasure thou some place With beauties treasure ere it be self kill'd." How is it Masonry terminates with the grade of Eose Cross (Rose-Croix), the Paradise of Dante, and, indeed, the entire Divine Comedy terminates with the Great Rose ? Dante employs thi? emblem of the Rose to depict the Virgin : — '* Perchd la faccia mia si t'innamora, Chd tu non ti rivolgi al bel giardino, Che sotto i raggi di Cristo s'infiora, Quivi h la rosa in che'l verbo divine, Came si f ece.** « The Divine Word is the Logos, through which everything was created. What does the Rose mean] It means secrecy — it means Love through which everything is created. And as Crucified Rose, it means Crucified Love or Logos, Light and truth — immortality — the secret of immortality ! " There is a Silver Rose, called Tamara Pua, in the Paradise of the Brahmans. 'This Paradise is a garden in heaven, to which celestial spirits are first admitted on their ascent from the terrestrial sphere. The Rose contains the images of two women, as bright and fair as a pearl ; but these two are only one, though

loo VENUS AND ADONIS. appearing as if distinct according to the medium, celestial or terrestrial, through which they are viewed. In the first aspect she is called the Lady of the Mouth, in the other, the Lady of the Tongue, or the Spirit of Tongues. In the centre of this Silver Hose, God has his permanent residence." " A correspondence will be readily recognised between this divine woman or virgin — two and yet one, who seems to typify the Logos, the Spirit of Wisdom, and the Spirit of Tnith — and the two-edged sword of the Spirit in the Apocalypse, the Sapientia quce ex ore Alti^mii prodtit, as it is called in the sublime Advent antiphon of the Latin Church. The mystical Hose in the centre of the allegorical garden is continually met with in legend. Buddha is said to have been crucified for robbing a garden of a flower, and after a common fashion of mythology, the divine Avatar of the Indians is henceforth identified with the object for which he suffered, and he becomes himself * a flower, a Rose, a Padma, Lotus, or Lily.' Thus he is the Rose crucified, and we must look to the far East for the origin of the Rosicrucian emblem. According to Godfrey Higgins, this is 'the Rose of Isnren, of Tamul, and of Sharon, crucified for the salvation of men — crucified,' he continues, *in the heavens at the vernal equinox.'" (Waite's "Real Hist, of Rosicrucians," /?i/ro(^i/c//o«, page 11.) The Rose is also the emblem of Bacchus or Dionysus, whom the best authorities identify with Adonis : — ** Adonis, be it observed, is with the Hymn- writer only another name for Dionysos, and so he is Polyonymos, the many-named, ' the best of heavenly beings,' as Zagreus and lao are * the highest of gods.' So Adonis is Eubouleus, the Wise-counselling, and Dikeros, the Two-homed, ' nourisher of all,' t.e., vital power of the world, ' male and female ; ' or, as Shelley says, * a sexless thing it seemed,' in fact the Hwo-natured lakchos.' Ever fresh and vigorous, he is, like Dionysos, both solar and kosmogonic. " * Adonis, ever flourishing and bright ; At stated periods doom'd to set and rise

VENUS AND ADONIS. loi With splendid lamp, the glory of the skies. Tis thine to sink in Tartarus profound, And shine again thro' heaven's illustrious round.' '' — Taylor. (Brown's "Great Dionysiak Myth./* vol. i. p. 66.) Note that he is androgynous, or, as Shelly writes, " a sexless thing it seemed," which finds its complete reproduction in the Sonnets, under the title of Master-MistresSy separate yet identical, — ^Light and Darkness, Heaven and Hell, Summer and Winter, Idea and Form, Logos and Concealment. It is the marriage of these two, which constitutes Creation, and whose offspring is the reappearance of the Light or Logos — Revelation — the child or son, in which we at once see the mystery of the Trinity prefigured. The father contemplates his alter Ego, which is his Mind, crucified in the act of creation, that is concealed (as meaning or archetypal ideas or principles) in the material or form, which is feminine. But this is Plato's simile to exemplify Creation Divine or poetic, i.e., Marriage for the sake of Divine offspring :— " A woman's face with nature's own hand painted, Hast thou, the MajBter-Mistress of my passion, A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women's fashion ; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling : Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth ; A man in you, all hues in his controlling. Which steals men's eyes, and women's souls amazeth. And for a woman wert thou first created ; Till nature as she wrought thee, fell a doting, And by addition me of thee defeated. By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But since she prick't thee out for women's pleasure, Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure." '*A man in yov^" concealed "in you," identified with " you** in this ** union in partition" ^ of the plays — light concealed in darkness ! ^ " So they lov'd, aa love in twam Had the essence but in one ; Two distincts, division none : Number there in love was slain." — Phoenix and Turtle.

102 VENUS AND ADONIS. Read the openiDg of the Sonnets. The argument is marriage for the sake of immortality, — true immortality,— copy (in the second degree), of divine truths concealed for a planned revelation through time, that is the secret of the poems. They contain the creative principles of the plays — are the new life of the poet's art. This is written so " within and without," so plainly, that we hardly know how to deal with it, for it is everywhere. The poet is a god. He divides his art into an external and an internal for posterity to discover and reveal The unrevealed side (to him) id darkness, winter — the icy image of death and sleep. We know that the Winter's Tale embraces this creative separation under the summer and winter myth of Persephone and Dem^ter (or Proserpine and Ceres) taking the ''Mysteries of Eleusis" as key centre. Until Perdita is found this Art is but winter; its summer (Adonis), " the pleasure of the fleeting year " crucified as the Rose (his emblem), and therefore the ''age unbred" is told that "beauty's summer" was dead or sacrificed as Love's Martyr: — " For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred, — Ere you were bom, was beauty's summer dead." " But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest j Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade. When in eternal lines to time thou growest : So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." ^ " For as the sun is daily new and old. So is my love still telling what is told." The Rose crucified is, we believe, nothing short of crucified Light or glory. For as Hargreave Jennings shows us. Lux is the Logos by whom all things were made, and the Logos is BasU. We know that the Red Rose sprang from the blood of Adonis. Thus from his sacrifice, who, as the sun, is light, we have the idea, in the crucified Rose, of the Saviour's martyrdom. Pegasus, the winged steed of the muses, springs from the blood of Medusa, and from the stroke of the hoof of Pegasus arose the fountain of

VENUS AND ADONIS, 103 Hippocrene. This idea, which is connected with the winged chariot of Phsedrns, finds its reproduction in the Sonnets. But we have direct proof of this association of Light or Logos with the crucified Eose. Khunrath, an adept of the order, in his ** Amphiiheairum SapienicR AStemcB^ gives us in his fifth pantacle a Eose of Light, in whose centre there is a human form extending its arms in the form of a cross, which puts the matter out of further doubt. In short, the crucified Eose is the Christian legend, extracted from Nature {and as universal as Nature)^ applied symbolically to indicate immortality, or the secret of the creation of the universe, — that is the Logos, or Light, concealed in darkness, — ^Truth as the Thought of God, hidden yet made manifest, in the works of the creation. This Truth is the archetypal Mind, or meaning of the world. It is the creative idea, or ideas, which are clothed in Nature's art, as a truth may be concealed in a fable, myth, or allegory. As the fly in the amber or crystal, so is Truth open yet secret, concealed and hidden^ according to our capacities. It is sacrificed in the making, to be revealed in the unmaking or rebirtL This is the secret of the poems commonly called Shakespeare's. We have abundant proof that the Eose is intended to represent the sun or light. " In the Paradise of Dant^ we find, however, the emblem whose history we are tracing, placed, and assuredly not without reason, in the supreme, central heaven amidst the intolerable manifestation of the Uncreated Light, the Shecinah of Eabbinical theosophy, the chosen habitation of God — 'a sacred Eose and Flower of Light, brighter than a million suns, immaculate, inaccessible, vast, fiery with magnificence, and surrounding God as if with a miUion veils. This symbolic Eose is as common a hierogram throughout the vast temples and palaces of the Ancient East as it is in the immense ruins of Central America.' " (Waite's "Eeal Hist. Eosicrucians," Introduction, 17). The Eose plays a double symbolic part^ according as we take it physically or metaphysically. In the former sense it is the secret flower of Venus, the emblem of the mysteries of love, — the

J 04 VENUS AND ADONIS, sign of creation in a human sense. In the latter sense, it is creation in the Divine (crucified) meaning. In the solar meaning it is the crucifixion of the sun at the vernal equinox. Thus we see what a vast meaning it embraces. If the poet's art has two complete sides (which is plain to those who can read the Sonnets), /Aey mud be in opposition. Darkness is the reversed side of Light Winter is the opposite to Summer, Day to Night, Heaven to Hell, Male to Female, Love to Hate, Life to Death. With this key, which is a paradox of identity and separation, a " union in partition/' we can at once unlock many mysteries of the poems, and particularly of that strange one, the Phcsnix and Turtle, — which promises a rebirth in the plainest language. The art of the plays and poems entitled Shakespeare's is as profound, as full a circle, as all living and complete, as Nature itself. It is a little Nature, and its creative God was Francis Bacon. We find Bacon writing : — " It is reported by some, that the herb called Earn Soils (whereof they make strong waters) will at the Noonday, when the sun shineth hot and bright, have a great dew upon it. And therefore that the right name is Ros Solis ^ (or dew of the sun), which they impute to a delight and sympathy that it hath with the sun." (" Nat. Hist. Cent.," v. 103.) "Some of the ancients, and likewise divers of the modern writers, that have laboured in Natural Magick, have noted a sympathy between the Sun, Moon, and some principal stars, and certain herbs and plants. And so they have denominated some herbs. Solar and some Lunar. It is manifest, that there are some flowers that have respect to the sun in two kinds, the one by opening and shutting, and the other by bowing and inclining the head. For Marygolds, Tulippas, Pimpernels, and indeed most flowers do open or spread their leaves abroad when the sun ^ There has indeed been spread abroad, as well in books as in common rnmour, the story of a tree in one of the Tercera or Canary Isles (I do not well remember which) which is constantly dripping ; so as to some extent to supply the inhabitants with water, ^d Paracelsus says that the herb called JR08 Solis is at noon and under a burning sun filled with dew, while all the other herbs round it are dry. — (Natural History.)

VENUS AND ADONIS. 105 shineth serene and fair : and again (in some part) close them, or gather them inward, either toward night, or when the Sky is overcast. " For the bowing and inclining of the head, it is foond in the great flower of the Son, in Marygolds," &c., &c. ''The Sossi — or Bosy — crucians' ideas, concerning the emblematical red cross and red rose, probably came from the fable of Adonis, who was the sun^ whom we have seen so often crucified — being changed into a red rose by Venus." (See Drummond, " Origines," vol. iii. p. 121.) " Bus (which is Ras in Chaldee) in Irish signifies * tree,' ' knowledge,' ' science,' * magic,' * power.' This is the Hebrew Ras.^ (Hargreave Jennings' " Rosicrucians," vol. ii. p. 66.) A French writer (anonymous) thus expresses himself: — "Enfin la Mafonnerie, dont le centre 6tait I'Angleterre, apr^s avoir triomph6 des terreurs frivoles d'£lizabeth et du parlement, apr^s avoir obtenu la protection signal6e d'£douard III. et de Henry VI., qui avaient voulu la connattre, vit le nombre de ses membres s'accroltre avec les lumidres, quand I'Europe eut re9u Timpulsion vigoureuse du 16* si^cle. Elle meme propagea toutes les sciences et les enseigna sous la forme symbolique, jusqu'^ ce que par do plus grands progr^ cette forme fQt devenue inutile. Comment se refuser k admettre ce que j'avance, si I'on jette les yeux sur toutes les allusions au manieau blanc, k la croix rouge, au temple dc Salomon, que renferment la Nouvelle Atlantis de BUcon, la Noce chymique, et autres ouvrages du meme temps, si justement attribuis h la compagnie des Bose-croix" (La Ma9onnerie, ''Po6me en trois Chants," 1820.) The Rose is the secret of this Art called Shakespeare's, for until the World awakes to realize the idea that this art is Christianity dramatized, and that it contains a planned revelation through time, it will comprehend nothing but folly in all this. When we use the expression " Christianity," we mean the real naiure meaning of the divine myth. We mean the Divine Mind or Logos hidden in this art, as orderly philosophical

io6 VENUS AND ADONIS. construction underlying its appearance. The Logos from the earliest times, comprehends the foundation of the world — it is simply the Wisdom, or Divine Mind underlying creation — as Truth. The act of creation is its crucifixion. For it is buried in the Art of Nature,^ in order to rise again through us as we identify ourselves ivUh U. The Spirit of God is the spirit of truth, and it is in Nature, half-hidden, half-concealed, as it is in its divine copy. Bacon's plays* — ** For words like Nature half conceal. And half reveal the soul within." We find in the plays and poems a mysterious allusion to fire, which it is impossible to reconcile with the simple external meaning of the text. For example (Sonnet 144) : — *^ The truth shall I ne*er know, but live in doubt Till my bad angel fire my good one out,** In the Winter*s Tale we find Leontes saying : — " Leontes. Say, that she were gone, Qiven to thefirt^ a moiety of my rest Might come to me again.** This is very striking and curious. What is the "moiety** or lialf, that might come to Leontes again 1 A writer, last century, remarks of the Eosicrucians : — " They all maintain that the dissolution of bodies by the power of fire, is the only way by which men can arrive at true wisdom, and come to discern the first principles of things. They all acknowledge a certain analogy and harmony between the powers of nature and the doctrines of religion, and believe that the Deity governs the kingdom of grace by the same laws with which ho rules the kingdom of nature: and hence they are led to use chemical denominations to express the truths of religion,** ^ " Thy unas'd beauty muat be tomb'd with thee, Which, a8*d, lives thy executor to be." {Sontiel iv,)

VENUS AND ADONIS. 107 Bacon writes : — "Therefore this kindling or catching Fire, Heraclitus called peace ; because it composed nature and made her one ; but generation he called war, because it multiplied and made her many." (Bacon's " Works," vol v., p. 473, Spedding.) In AlVa JVM tluU Ends Wdl, we have a curious plot founded upon Love and Hate. Helena is married to Bertram against his desire. Then they are separated, and the play turns upon their reconciliation. We find Bertram is attended by one called Parolles, a name which means Words. He is an evil instrument of separation, persuading Bertram to go to the wars — ^and is a i>< liar. We cannot be mistaken in suspecting that he is an emblem of Words and their false connotations.^ The first character who detects and exposes him is Le Feu, a name which translated is >^ simply fire / We see that Bertram is separate yet identical with Helena (that is, an '* union in partition "), and that ParoUes (or words — false words) is the separating medium. There is, in the fact of Bertram's Hate, and Helena's Love, a principle of Strife and Friendship, or Mars and Venus, which we refind in the Sonnets. Bertram is associated with Mars as soldier. Helena exchanges rdle with Diana, whose name recalls her classical prototype, who was the great reconciler of separated things — Nature. Very few will believe this, but we are certain of it. The union of Contraries is a favourite system of plot construction in the plays. The poem of Venus and Adonis is one of Love on one side— Hate on the other. Borneo and Juliet is a play in which Love is.crossed by family Hate. The poems are philosophically, the expression of a youth, who is Love and Light, at cross-purposes with a woman who is Hate— and Darkness. Take Sonnet 45 : — '* The other two, slight air and purging fire, The first my thought, the other my desire." 1 *< It seems to me that Pygmalion's frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity ; for words art hut the. images o/maUer, and except they have life of reason and invention to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love with a ;>ic^ttre.*'—(*< Advancement of Learning.")

io8 VENUS AND ADONIS. Or consider this with regard to study : — " Biron, So etady evermore is overshot, While it doth study to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should : And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, T is won as towns with fire ; so won, so lost." Compare Sonnet 144 : — " The truth shall I ne'er know but live in doubt, Till my bad angel ^rc my good one out." Thomas Taylor tells us in his notes upon Plato's Cratylus, that air is a symbol of soul or spirit, and fire is an image of intellect, " Separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross very carefully and with ingenuity. It ascends &om the earth into heaven, then again descends into the earth, and receives the force of above and below." (" Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes.")

CHAPTER V. FREEMASONRY. "Non canimua surdia respondent omnia dyvae." — Virg., Ed. x. 3. ( We aing not to dull ears ; the woods re-ecluo to each sound. ) It is very curious to find St Albans associated with the origin or first importation into England, in the third century, of Freemasonry, because, whether Bacon was a Eosicrucian or not, no Mason can read the ** New Atlantis," with its Solomon's Temple,^ College of the Six Day, and entire spirit of brotherly love, without being convinced he was a member (if no more) of the brotherhood. We cannot get over the fact, that a profound student of the origins of Freemasonry, like Nicolai, thought he was connected with the resuscitation of the Society in its modern form, which appears to have taken place about the beginning or middle of the seventeenth century. Therefore, it is a striking and extraordinary coincidence, or rather a hint for us to ponder over, that St Alban's Abbey presents, with its Protomartyrs' history, the cradle, if not the birthplace, of Masonry in England. Nay, more, the actual stones of Gorhambury House (called very curiously the Temple) were taken, together with the lime, from the ruins of the Abbey itself ! So that this house (built 1571), in which Bacon's youthful genius was nourished, to which he always returned, and which until 1603 he retained, was constructed out of the stones which the " Hond Masons '' of King Offa erected to the memory of the good St Alban. Can ic be possible that the history of this newly built house could have been unknown to Bacon ; nay, did he not see the house growing 1 (* The origin of the Society called Freemasons is said by some to have been a certain number of persons who formed a resolation to rebuild the Temple of Solomon.'* — Oliver's *' Discrepancies."

1 10 FREEMASONR K up under his own eyesi Bacon was bom in 1560-1561; — the new House completed in 1571. Though bom at York Place, in the Strand, yet he was often enough at Gorhambury to realise the fact that a species of sacrilege was being perpetrated — ^the venerable Abbey robbed (although, it is true, it was quite a min) to erect his father's mansion. The stones themselves were crying out in witness thereof — those stones (with their mysterious Mason's-marks) were round him, and it is hardly possible he could have been indifferent to their dumb history. We find the town arms of St Albans to be the cross of St Andrew, and we think it is highly probable that the English Masonry was imported first from Scotland. At any rate it will be interesting to Masons, for me to give them a few extracts, as to the early importance of St Albans, and its Abbey, from a Masonic point of view. It is our belief that Bacon was associated early in a movement to revivify or resuscitate Freemasonry throughout Europe. Whether a Rosicrucian or no matters littl& The Templars were the successors of the Knights of the Round Table, and the Bosicrucians appear to have been again affiliated with the Templars. The names change, the rites alter, the philosophy may be different, but the principles remain affiliating all these societies to Masonry, which is, in our judgment, the oral method of transmission of which Bacon hints in his works. We now proceed to give a few quotations, to establish the early associations of the Abbey with the craft, and which must have been familiar enough to the ubiquitous and profound mind of Bacon. ^* The original church built by King Offa in the eighth century was erected by him and the ' Hond Masons ' to the memory of St Alban, and that according to the Guild legends St Alban himself was intimately associated with the Masons. In these he is claimed as the patron of Freemasons. The earliest mention of St Alban in connection with masonry is to be found in the Prose Constitutions, among MSS. of the British Museum, of date 1425. There we read —

FREEMASONR K 1 1 1 * '' ^ And St Alban loved well Masons, and he gave them first their charges and manners first in England, and he ordained convenient times to pay for the travail.' "This tradition is repeated and amplified in numerous other Guild legends. In the Lansdowne MS., A.D. 1560, we find « these words : — '* ' St Alban was a worthy Knight and Steward of the King, his household, and had government of his realm, and also of the making of the walls of the said town, and he loved well masons, and cherished them much, and made their pay right good, for he gave them 8 and vid. a week and iiid. ; before that time all the land a mason took but one penny a day and his meat, till St Alban mended it^ and he gave them a charter of the King and his '' Councell," for to hold a general assembly, and gave it to name assembly.' "In the Antiquity MS., of date 1686, is this further state-^^ ment — " 'And he gott them a charter from the King and his " Counsell," to hold a general " Counsel!," and gave itt to name " Assemblie,'' thereat he was himself, and did help to make Masons and gave them charges as you shall heare afterwards.' "The Prince of Wales, the Grand Master of the Order, and the Duke of Albany were among the subscribers to the pulpit, which was presented and unveiled with due ceremony on the 16th of July 1883, by the Provincial Grand Master of Hertfordshire, Brother T. F. Hakey, M.P. The sermon upon the occasion was preached by the Grand Chaplain of England, the Eev. W. Oswell Thompson, M.A., Vicar of Hemel Hempstead." (" Guide, Mason.") The Abbey is particularly interesting to those who believe that Bacon wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare, for it is here we find the tomb of the ''Good Duke Humphrey," or Duke of Gloucester, and it was here that the story repeated in the second part of Hmry the Sixth was inscribed. " There was a Latin inscription to the memory of the ' Good

1 1 z FREEMASONR K Duke Humphrey/ on the east wall (now removed) of the aisle written by a master of the Grammar School in the seventeenth century. It contained an allusion to a religious fraud, practised by a man who pretended he had been miraculously restored to sight at the shrine of St Alban, and said to have been exposed by Duke Humphrey. Shakespeare describes the legend in the second part of Henry the Sixth, act the second, the scene being laid at St Albans — 'Enter a townsman of St Albans, crying, "A miraclel" * " (" Guide, Mason.") It seems only natural that Bacon should have introduced this story in connection with the Duke in his play, but very unnatui^al for Shakespeare, a stranger, to bring in a curious episode of this sort. But there is plenty of subtle evidence of this kind. " Enter a Townsman of St Alba7i\ crying * A miracle ! ' Glou. What means this noise ? Fellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim ? Towns, A miracle ! a miracle I Suf. Come to the king and tell him what miracle. Towns. Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Alban's shrine, Within this half -hour hath received his sight ; A man that ne'er saw in his life before. King. Now, God be praised, that to believing souls Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair 1 " How well acquainted the author is with the history of the Abbey — of its foundation, around the shrioe of St Alban, which was supposed to work miracles. How lovingly he lingers around it I " Queen. Tell me, good fellow, earnest thou here by chance, Or of devotion, to this holy shrine ? Simp. God knows, of pure devotion : being call'd A hundred times and oftener, in my sleep By good St Alban ; who said, ' Simpcox, come. Come, offer at my shrine, and I will help thee.* " If Shakespeare wrote the plays, he must have been very well acquainted with the Abbey and its history, and purposely have studied them from the guide books of the period. Probably he ran down from Saturday to Monday on the " Wonder " coach,

FREEMASONRY, 113 and took notes. How familiar the author is with this Hertfordshire ! He makes Salisbury say (Henry VL, 2d part, sc. ii., act ii)" Bat William of Hatfield died without an heir." Hatfield is about five miles from St Albans. The name comes readily enough to Bacon's pen. Alexander Lawrie (Sir George Brewer), in his "History of ^ Freemasonry" (published 1804, Edinburgh), writes : — "It was probably about this time, also, that Freemasonry was introduced into England; but whether the English received it from the Scotch masons at Kilwinning, or from other brethren who had arrived from the Continent, there is no method of determining. The fraternity in England, however, maintain that St Allan, the Proto-Martyr, was the first who brought masonry to Britain ; ^ that the brethren received a charter from King Athelstane, and that his brother Edwin summoned all the lodges to meet at York, which formed the first Grand Lodge of England." > With regard to Scotland, all the continental societies seem inclined to associate it with the origins of the craft. It is a trifle worthy of note that the arms of St Albans are a St Andrew's Gross. Edward the Sixth by a charter dated the 12th of May 1553, ordained that — " ' The late monastery of St Albans shall be called the parish church of the borough, for all the inhabitants within the late parish or chapelry of St Andrew,* and George Wetherall, clerk, was appointed first rector of the Church of St Alban, for the term of his natural life. Upon this charter being granted, a coat of arms was given to the borough — Azure, a saltire Or. " A new charter, confirming the charter of Edward the Sixth, was granted by Queen Mary, dated the 10th of December 1553; and Queen Elizabeth, in a charter dated the 7th of February ^ About the end of the third centnry. « A.D. 926. *• Preston's Illustration of Masonry," p. 148. Smith's "Use and Abuse of Free Masonry," p. 51. " Free Mason's Callendar," 1778. H

1 1 4 FREEMASONR K 1559-60, confirmed both the former charters. On the 24th March 1569-70, the qaeen granted another charter at Gorhambury, upon the petition of Sir Nicholas Bacon, knight, lord keeper." (" Guide, Mason.") Curious coincidence, we find a St Andrew's Cross to be the arms of Johann Valentin, St Andreas (or St Andrew), who is supposed to be the founder of the Bosicrucians, but who, at any rate, was the putter out of the famous " Fama Fratemitatis, or Universal Eeformation addressed to the learned in Europe," 1614 ! This is what Mr Waite writes (" Real History of the Rosicrucians ") : — " The * Chymical Marriage ' contains the following passage : — ' Hereupon I prepared myself for the way, put on my white linnen coat, girded my loyns, with a blood -red ribbon bound cross-ways over my shoulder : In my hat I stuck /our roses.* Elsewhere, he describes himself as a ' brother of the Bed-Eosie Cross,' and a * Knight of the Golden Stone ' — eques aurei lapidas. '' Now, the armorial bearings of the family of Andreas contain a St Andrew's Cross with four roses, one in each of its angles, which interesting piece of internal evidence indicates the authorship of this romance independently of the autobiographical statement, and points irresistibly, it is said, to the conclusion that the founder of the Rose-Cross Society was the man whose heraldic device was also the Rose and Cross." From this fact De Quincey concludes that Andrea was the real author. Now, although we know the emblem of the Rosicrucians was not a St Andrew's Cross, yet it seems possible he adopted his arms from the passage quoted above in ''The Chymical Marriage." Were the arms of Andrea and of his family always a St Andrew's Cross ? ^ Can anyone throw light upon these matters 1 It seems rather suspicious to find a native of Wirtemberg, in the early part of the seventeenth century, bearing the name Andreas or Andrew, and at the same ^ It seems to iia that these arms of St Andrew, — the cross and foar roses, — give us a profound hint as to the £nglish and Scotch origins of the Rosicrucian manifestoes.

FREEMASONR K 115 time St Andrew's arms — taking us to Scotland, where particularly the Templars, who were the true predecessors of Eosicrucianism and Freemasonry, are to be found so abundantly.^ But here is another suspicious fact De Quincey maintains Andreas to have been the author of the ^^ Fama^ How is it, then, that the " Universal Eef ormation " (the iSrst of the three works) " was borrowed from the *Generale Riforma delP Universo dai sette Savii della Grecia e da altri Letterati, publicata di ordine di Apollo,' which occurs in the " Raggtuigli di Famasso " of Boccalini, which was published 1612 at Venice, and in 1615 at Milan") This is the curious part: that this "Universal Reformation" is found to be published in several different countries at the same time. '^ The earliest edition of these works which I have seen is that of 1614, printed at Cassel, in octavo, which is in the Wolfenbiittel library ; but in this the ' Confessio ' is wanting. From a passage in this edition, it appears that the ' Farna Fraternitatis ' had been received in the Tyrol as early as 1610, in manuscript, as the passage alleges ; but the words seem to imply that printed copies were in existence even before 1610. In the year 1615 appeared 'Secretions Philosophise Consideratio k Philippe k Gabella, Philosophise studioso, conscripta ; et nunc primum wak cum Confessione Fraternitatis Eos. Grucis in lucem edita. Gassellis: excud G. Wesselius, A. 1615.' In the very same year, at Frankfurt-on-the-Mayne, was printed by John Bemer, an edition of all the three works — the * Confessio^ iu a German translation. In this year also appeared a Dutch translation of all three, a copy of which is in the Gbttingen library." Italy is the country where, it appears to us, the inception of the borrowed idea commences, at Venice, with Boccalini's work. We here again call notice to the suspicious wanderings of Anthony Bacon upon the Continent /or deven years, not for amusement only, 1 "We are informed by the Supreme Council of Charleston, Amerioa — where high-grade Masonry was introduced in 1767 — that, '* Knight of St Andrew '* is one of the old names of the Rose Croix." — Yarker's " Mysteries of Antiquity."

1 1 6 FREEMASONR K we may be sure. We find him a long time at Venice. He is later on in France, at Bourdeaux, intimate with Montaigne. Was he his brother's propagandist 1 That a movement of the extent produced by the " Universal Reformation " should have been the freak of a youthful genius, which is De Quincey's argument, is absurd ! De Quincey concludes from the passage in the " Chymical Marriage of Father Bosycross " that Andrew was the real author, because his arms are a St Andrew's Cross ! There is something curious in this coincidence, but the suspicion left is that he was not the author of the " Fama" For he denied it utterly, and terms himself a sort of spectator in a theatre. It is Truth (dk Alethia) who is speaking: '^Planissime nihil cum hac Fraternitate (sc. Eos. Crucis) commune habeo. Nam, c&m pauUo ante lusum quendam ingeniosiorem personatus aliquis in literario foro agere vellet, — nihil mota sum libelis inter se conflictantibus ; sed velut in scena prodeuntes histriones non sine voluptate spectavi." The fact that he published two or three pamphlets to allay the excitement, and deny the society, of which he is the supposed vehicle, is proof enough against him. The extract bears the evidence of truth. What are we to think of an author who denies his own works 1 But the vitality, width, profundity, and real nature of the Eosicrucian body is revealed in many ways. And here is a remarkable fact, which it is very good for us to ponder over again and again. It is this : Rosycrucianism begins its campaign ostensibly on the Continent, — in Italy first, then Germany, then Holland, lastly France, 1623, — but in none of these countries does it take root. The only place where it takes root is in England ; and this is, we believe, a strong proof of its origin. This De Quincey himself points out : '' And hence it has happened that, whatever numbers there may have been of individual mystics calling themselves Eosicrucians, no collective body of Eosicrucians acting in conjunction, was ever matured and actually established in Germany. In England, the case was difierent : for there, as I shall show, the order still subsists under

FREEMASONRY. 117 another name " (" Works," vol. xvL p. 404.) So that the country >t supposed to have produced the author and founder of the society, produces no fruit. But the root and the fruit, are intimately connected — and they are both to be found in England. That Andrea was nothing but a " merry Andrew," or puppet of some others, is writ large. That the noise, stir, and final taking root of the Society, should have emanated from a man who denies and repudiates his own writings is absurd. Or that for fifteen years, a mere pamphlet, or a few manifestoes, should have at periods agitated the learned in Europe, requires no apology. The fact that it produced men like Fludd, Boehmen, and their works, answers the question as to its originality, thoroughness, depth, and reality. The present revival of interest in the subject (which we see manifested in the literature of the age), is, if we follow De Quincey's arguments, the result of a young man of genius' freaks ! As if the rooted interest in the Society, which men like Lord Lytton have shown, should be grounded on a myth! Now, we quite agree with De Quincey, when he says, " that Free-masonry is neither more nor less than Eosicrucianism as modified by those who transplanted it into England." This we think highly probable. It is as well we should reserve the term " modified," because of the existence of Masonry, under other names, or secret societies, and going back centuries, there can be no manner of question or doubt. What are better than written records, are the Masons' own records, the language of their secret marks, of their architecture, of their allegories in leaf and flower, of their own temples. Let anybody in doubt of this, visit (for example), Rosslyn Chapel, Mid-Lothian, within easy distance from Edinburgh. He will there light upon a Masonic Temple, dating from the year 1446 for its inception. Here is the cradle of Scotch Masonry, if not of something deeper still. He will behold pinnacles in pyramid form, buttresses carved with the sunflower, he will see the rose on the keystone of the east window, the stars of Heaven on the roof of the west compartment, with the

1 1 8 FREEMASONR K sun and Creator in the act of blessing. He will behold the Apprentice's pillar, with a history which repeats itself in the lodge. He will see allegories in stone of the Dance of Death, and of many medisBval legenda There are as many as twentythree masons' signs engraved on the stones. The predominant ornaments are the Fleur-de-Lis, the Bose, and the Sanflower. Upon the roof of the aisles is the engrailed cross of the founders, the St Clairs, once hereditary Grand Masters of Scotch Masonry. It is one of the most beautiful, and exquisite temples, of Masonic, Templar, and Eosicrucian symbolism in the world, associated with wonderful legend and real romance. Beneath the flagstones, lie buried twelve barons of the Rosslyn family, laid all in their armour, as Sir Walter Scott tells us. One of the family was Sir William St Clair, who was the warrior friend of King Robert Bruce, and Sir James Douglas, and joined the latter on his celebrated expedition to convey the King's heart to the Holy Land. So that they were Templars in the right good old fashioned way of going to their own Jerusalem. John Eobison, in his " Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Beligions and Government of Europe, carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati," &c. (1797), writes as follows : — "When the Order of Knights Templars was abolished by Philip the Fair, and cruelly persecuted, some worthy persons escaped, and took refuge in the Highlands of Scotland, where they concealed themselves in caves. These persons possessed the true secrets of Masonry, which had always been in that Order, having been acquired by the Knights, during their services in the East, from the pilgrims whom they occasionally protected or delivered. The Chevaliers de la Rose-Croix continued to have the same duties as formerly, though robbed of their emoluments. In fine, every true Mason is a Knight Templar." Now, what really is interesting in Bosslyn Chapel and its neighbourhood, is, that we know Ben Jonson, the friend of Bacon and Shakespeare, made a journey on foot down to Hawthomden,

FREEMASONR Y. 119 to visit the poet William Drummond, and that he stayed with him three weeks. Hawthomden is but a mile from Kosslyn Chapel. And Kilwinning, though considered the fount of Scotch Masonry, is so connected with the St Glairs of Itosslyn, as to cause us rather to look for the real origins of Masonry in Scotland to the annals of this famous family of Eosslyn. There is no question in our own minds, that the history of Scottish Masonry circles around this centre. And as they were Templars, everything connected with them is interesting. Billings, in his *' Baronial Antiquities,'' remarks — " An authentic history of this remarkable family might throw some light upon the history of Masonry."

CHAPTER VI. Iffts eyv €lfu rai^a yeywos kol 0¥ kcu €

HERMETIC AND MASONIC ORIGINS. 121 assist us, because the frontispieces of Bacon's own works tell us exactly what he wants to tell us, and what we want to know. Perhaps this fact, that the Phoenicians ^ were the first bold navigators who dared to go beyond the pillars of Hercules, to the isles of Britain, and who were at the same time countrymen of King Solomon and Hiram ; had a peculiar fascination for Bacon. Perhaps this is why his ship device, and frontispiece with the two piUars of the temple, or of Hercules, arose in his mind. But do not let^ us be in a hurry, or speculate too rashly. We cannot overestimate the importance of Tht Tempest as a play throwing light upon the entire cycle of this enchanted art. Because it is first and last, and very clearly relates to a God, in relationship to his own art. The strangest feature in that play, is the bringing in, of the names of Dido and ^neas, of Carthage or Tunis, in connection with the shipwrecked King and his Courtiers. They speak of being at Carthage, at the marriage of Claribel to the King of Tunis. As this is quite outside the play, and without any apparent bearing upon the plays in general, it is either sheer nonsense, or a hint of the profoundest import. Nothing, however, is in this art with a purposeless motive. It is just these strange things which arrest our attention, and which make us wonder what they mean. And therefore we are bound to inquire further into their possible signification. Certainly the most striking and suggestive Masonic hint offered to us in The Tempest, of its subtle and intimate relationship with YirgiVs Ylth Book,^ and therefore with ^neas, and the Mysteries, is given us in the references to Carthage or Tunis, and the bringing in, in quite an apparently purposeless fashion, of Dido as Widow Dido. ^ Diodorua gives the Phceniciana credit of having first discovered the Atlantis. Aristotle describes it as a land opposite the Pillars of Hercules. ^ Mark those pregnant words of Bacon : " That if all arts were lost, they might be recovered from Virgil." Dante has imitated Virgil's Vlth Book, his work being ** Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven," according to Templar Mysteries and rites.

122 HERMETIC AND MASONIC ORIGINS ^^Oon. Methinks, our garments are now as fresh as when we pat them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the King's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis. Seb, 'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return. Adr. Tunis was never graced before with such a paragon to their queen. Ooru Not since Widow Dido's time. Afi, Widow 1 a pox o* that. How came that widow in ? Widow Dido ] " To those who ponder deeply, and who have the faculty of perceiving, by the flawing of a straw or feather, the direction the wind blows, this passage is pregnant with the profoundest significance. First, we have Tunis or Carthage, Dido and ^neas, brought in here in connection with the shipwrecked King and suite, in a play which is the last written, yet which stands first, so that, trifle as this reference is, it is full of direction, and opens a masked door in the otherwise impregnable ramparts of this art. Directly we hear or read of ^neas we are carried back to Virgil's "^neid." Directly we read of Dido, our minds go back to the foundation of Carthage or Tunis, and in doing so we remember that this is the land of Phoenicia — of the Phoenix — of Cadmus and Harmonia, or Hermione — Libya, Now, if the student will recall Perdita, he will find that she is strangely brought in as coming from Libya, which critics have blanched, or, at any rate, have never attempted to comprehend or explain — seeing that the play is laid in Sicily. " She came from Libya,"— fFiWer'a Tale (Act V. sc. 1). Here we are at once in touch with Solomon and Hiram, and therefore with Masonry at once. Hiram was King of Tyre.^ In Pericles we have Tyre again, for Pericles is Prince of Tyre. Nothing could identify Hermione better than this hint. Because 1 *' The Carthaginians were indebted to the Tyrians, not only for their origin, bat for their manners, language, cnstoms, laws, religion, and their great application to commerce. They spoke the same language with the Tyrians, and these the same with the Canaanites and Israelites, that is, the Hebrew tongue, or at least a language, which was entirely derived from it."— Rollin, *' History of the Carthaginians," vol. L 89.

IN THE PLAYS. 123 Harmonia, or Hermione (mother to Perdita), was the daughter of Venus and Mars, and married the Phoenician Cadmus. But on this point elsewhere. At present it is indeed striking to find the plays attributed to Shakespeare profoundly in touch with the land of Masonry, of Solomon, of Hiram, of Dido ; and we expect the ship of Lord Bacon, bound through the pillars of Hercules, comes from Carthage or Tunis — ^from the marriage of Claribel, and is bound west for the New Atlantis of Prospero's magic island, and this is very much the history of the rise and journey or progress west of Masonry — through the Phoenician navigators who traded beyond the pillars of Hercules to the tin Islands, to Ireland,^ and Britain, carrying their Masonic lore with them. Wilkinson, in his " Egypt," writes : — " Strabo, Diodorus, Pliny, and other writers mention certain Islands, discovered by the Phofmicians, which, from the quantity of tin they produced, obtained the name Cassiterides, and are supposed to have been the cluster now known as the SciUy Isles, and to have included part of the coast of Cornwall itself. The secret of their discovery was carefully concealed, says Strabo, from all other persons, and the Phoenician vessels continued to sail from Gade (Cadiz) in quest of this commodity, without it being known whence they obtained it, though many endeavours were made by the Bomans at a subsequent period to ascertain the secret, and to have the benefit of this lucrative trade." '' Spain in early times was to the Phoenicians what America at a later period was to the Spaniards ; and no one can read the accounts of the immense wealth derived from the mines of that country in the writings of Diodorus and others, without being struck by the relative situation of the Phoenicians and ancient Spaniards, and the followers of Cortez or Pizarro and the inhabitants of Mexico or Peru." ^ (Wilkinson's " Egypt") ^ See the derivation of many Irish names from Baal, the deity afterwards worshipped by the Phoenicians, snoh as Baly-shannon, Baltinglass, Balcarras, Belfast, and many more. ' Do we not see in this, the origin of Bacon's bringing in in his '* New Atlantis," Goya, Tyrambel, Mexico, and Peru?

124 HERMETIC AND MASONIC ORIGINS " The word Kassiteros used by Homer for tin is the same as the Arabic Kasdear, by which the metal is still known in the East, being probably derived from the ancient Phoenicians." "The intercourse between the Phoenicians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians necessarily led to an admixture of religious ceremonies, and the roving colonies of Phoenicia (2 Ghron. viii. 18) to Carthage in Africa, to new Carthage in Spain, and to the Cassiterides, or Scilly Isles, close to Cornwall (in search of xaffffiTipo¥ or tin), will account for the introduction of pure Masonry in very early days in England, and its corruption afterwards by the Druids. For its introduction into Greece, we must bear in mind that the founder of Athens, Cecrops, was an Egyptian^ and Pythagirras a Tyrian^ and that the intercourse with Egypt and Greece was constant." We should like some Mason to tell us if it is true what Nicolai asserts, viz., that the two pillars were first adopted in 1646, at a lodge meeting held at Warrington, where Lord Bacon's " Atlantis '' was evidently discussed. In the first book of Kings (vii H-22) it is said, " And there stood upon the pillars as it were Roses " (compare second book of Chron. iiL 1 7). Certain it is Bacon takes these pillars as emblems for his symbolical engraving prefacing the folio edition of the " Sylva Sylvarum" where we find them in company with the "New Atlantis," and, of course, connected with the College of the Six Days, or of Creation, as we may see by examining the picture. We have a globe styled Mundus Intdledualis, placed as resting u[>on the Waters, or ocean, flanked on both sides by the pillars. Above Light as Creative is issuing forth from amid clouds, whilst one prolongated ray of Light descends perpendicidarly towards the globe of the Intellectual earth, floating upon the waters. In the space between Heaven and Earth is written — '* Et vidit Deus luceum quod esset bona.'' This is a reference, of course, to Genesis, to Creation, and to the first created Light Now we know that Bacon carefully planned and arranged all the details of the pubUshing of his works with

IN THE PLAYS. 125 the greatest forethought. It was his desire that the Katural History in ten centuries should follow the "Atlantis." We therefore know that these engravings with the two pillars are due to him. Bacon gives us, in the " New Atlantis/' a hint in the following it may be as well to mark : — " You shall understand (that which perhaps you will scarce think credible) that about Three thousand years ago, or somewhat more, the Navigation of the World (specially for remote voyages) was greater than at this day. Do not think with yourselves, that I know not how much it is increased with you within these threescore years, I know it well ; and yet I say, greater than even now. Whether it was, that the example of the Ark, that saved the remnants of Men from the universal deluge, gave men confidence to adventure upon the waters, or what it was, but such is the truth. The Fhosnicians and specially the Tyrians had great fleets ; so had the Carthaginians their colony which is yet further west : toward the East, the Shipping of Egypt and of Palestina was likewise great ; China also, and the Great Atlantis (that you call America) which have now but junks and canoes, abounded then in tall ships. " At that time this Land was known, and frequented by the Ships and Vessels of all the Nations beforenamed, and (as it cometh to pass) they had many times Men of other Countrys that were no sailors, that came with them, as Persians, Chaldeans, Arabians,^ &c. This is a very important passage. In the first place, it appears Bacon wrote the "Atlantis" (Spedding) in 1624. That is, two years before his death, 1626. And we may therefore consider it as his last work — a strange work every way, to issue from his pen in his old age. Now, here is a strange parallel. Shakespeare's last play is The Tempest. It presents us with a mythical island, which we cannot locate, and Bacon's last work is to present us also with a visionary island. Further, mark that in The Tenvpest, we have introduced the names of Dido and ^neas, and that the King, Antonio, Sebastian, Gonzalo, speak of having been at Carthage, at the marriage of Claribel to the King of Tunis {Car 

126 HERMETIC AND MASONIC ORIGINS thage). Now, in the passage we extract, and give from Bacon's "New Atlantis/' note what he tells us about the Phcsnicians, Tyriansy and Carthaginians, inasmuch as he is plainly hinting, that the extensive navigating, and voyaging spirit, of these people carried with them, the Persian, Chaldean, and Arabian men, " who were not sailors," — another way of telling us, that the profound ancieot religions, occult and hermetic science, of Persia, Chaldsea, and Arabia, found its way west through the Phoenician and Carthaginian ships, which we know to be the truth. But to what land did they sail ? To this New Atlantis, or Land of the Rosicruciansj for in the countries mentioned — Persia, Chaldea, and Arabia — we have the sources of the three cults which are mostly associated with what we know of the Rosicrucian doctrines. Without John Heydon's narrative there is strong internal evidence in the '* New Atlantis " to associate it with the Bosicrucians. Miller writes : — "Phoenicia, which in the time of Solomon, had risen into great power and opulence by her commerce, comprehended but a very narrow tract of land between Mount Libanus and the sea, about one hundred and twenty mUes in length, and not more than eighteen or twenty in breadth. The Phoenicians did not aim at foreign conquest, for an acquisition of inland territory would only have encumbered them ; and we have already seen that Hiram refused the gift of several towns in the land of Galilee offered him by Solomon. They extended their power and dominion, by sending out colonies, who continued their connexion with the parent state; and this tie was always held inviolably sacred. Their short line of coast was rich in bays and harbours, and adorned with lofty mountains, whose forests not only supplied timber for building their ships, but provided an important article of commerce ; the cedars of Lebanon being in great request for adorning and beautifying magnificent edifices." (" The Architecture of the Middle Ages.") So that the Phoenicians, and Tyre as their protagonist, or Mother colonising capital, form the centre, source, and vehicle from

IN THE PLAYS. 127 which, and by which, the most ancient Masonic lore, and Hermetic gnosis found its way to Spain, Ireland, Britain, and it is thus that the Druids and Celts came by their secret and mystic cults, that have so struck observers in their obscure resemblances to Eastern and earlier sources. Now we hold the theory that Bacon's mind, not only projected forwards into the coming centuries, but cast back also. Of which we have sufficient proof elsewhere; and that a restoration or '^ handing on of the lamps for posterity," went hand in hand with his inductive method, and is part of it. We must therefore doubly examine the plays, in order to find any references to these Phoenician sites, in touch with Hiram, and Solomon, and examine them as to indications of deeper Masonic origins, in touch with the Mysteries and Gnostic centres of the Ancient World. From a general review of the poet's art, very much may be gathered by the profound student in a very short time, and we propose to say a few words upon this subject First, let us begin with the commencement of the poetic and creative career, and we shall see that from the first, he takes myths, or locates his protagonists of his early plays, at places, which are great centres of Gnostic^ Hermetic^ or Masonic lore. For example, the myth of Venus and Adonis is not only Phoenician in its origin (and therefore an early Masonic centre), but is Rosicrucian to its backbone, being the subject of their emblem, a cross and Hose crucified. Pericles, undoubtedly one of the earliest plays, is laid at Tyre, Antioch, and chiefly Ephesus. Tyre is the most Masonic city we can think of, since Hiram Abifif, Solomon's great architect, was King of it, who plays such an important rdle in the degrees of Master, and Mark Mason. As for Ephesus, the city of the Great Diana, it was the centre and origin of all the Gnosis, and all the Hermetic science, which has been preserved to us, being the great highway between Europe and the East. It is this

128 HERMETIC AND MASONIC ORIGINS way that the Persian fire worship of two opposing principles came, and were embraced by Heraclitus, who dedicated his works to the Ephesian Diana. We see these principles accepted by Lord Bacon, as "Strife and Friendship/' reappearing in the Sonnets, as Light and Darkness — the Rosicrucian philosophy of two opposing principles. Ephesus is the most important place introduced in the play of Ferides. Thaim is finally introduced as high priestess to the Goddess Diana, in her Temple, And we think that this alone, is a pretty fair proof of the philosophic proclivities, at the commencement (mark) of the poet author's career : — *' Scene III. — The Temple of Dias a at Ephesus ; Thaisa standing near the altar, as high priestess; a number of Virgins on each side; Cerimon and other Inhabitants of Ephesus attending, " Enter Pericles with his Train ; Ltsimachus, Helicantts, Marina, and a Ladt. *' Per, Hail, Dian ! to perform thy just command, I here confess myself the king of Tyre ; Who, frighted from my country, did wed At Pentapolis the fair Thaisa." Just think over it. Here we have Pericles as Prince of- Tyre ! Tyre, we repeat ? Why, Tyre was the city of Pythagoras, from whom the Masonic Historians extract the earliest origins of their symbols. And Hiram, also, the builder of the Temple— Ring of Tyre ! And Ephesus, with its Temple, and the wife — the lost wife (like Hermione), refound with the lost child (or Word 1), like Perdita again, in the Temple of Ephesus. But this is not all. We have, in this play, Cerimon introduced, who was the author of a History of Egypt, and gives us some information upon the Exodus, Moses, and Joseph. In the Two Noble Kinsmen, Ephesus is again introduced with altar and priestess in exactly a similar manner to the above. Here it is : — ''Still music of records. Enter Emilia in white, her hair about her shoulders, and wearing a wheaten wreath; one in white holding up her train, her hair stuck with flowers ; one

IN THE PLAYS. 129 before her carrying a silver hind, in which is conveyed incense and sweet odoars, which, being set down uj^ the altar of Diana, her maids stand aloof — she sets fire to it ; then they curtsey and kneel." Ephesus, by its position, was the great centre or transmitting medium of Oriental ideas, which came that way into Europe from the East with caravans, that not only carried merchandise, but brought Buddhism from India, and the doctrines of the Zend Avesta with them also. The play of Pericles is as purely a philosophic, dramatized, personified, occult problem, dealing with centres of secret, or forbidden doctrine, as it is possible to imagine. At the very commencement of the play, we meet with the paradox of the trinity. We may here again observe, that the Bosicrucians, derived their doctrines chiefly from Persia, Chaldsea, and Egypt; and that in finding an early play like Pericles, revolving so largely round Ephesus and Diana, we have a hint to take us to Persia. In writing of the Great Goddess Mother or Nature (equally Diana of the Ephesians or Isis), Cory remarks ; — '* She is not only his consort, but his daughter, as the work of his own hands and his mother, from whose womb he again emerged as an infant to a second life." (Page xxxiv., Introductory Dissertation to his Fragments.) We can see in the riddle with which the play of Pericles opens, that the poet is trying his early hand on this paradox, and that the paradox above enunciated is contained in the following, which is a trinity riddle : — THE KIDDLE. " I am no viper, yet I feed On mother's flesh which did me breed : I sought a husband, in which labour, I foand that kindness in a father. He 's father, son, and husband mild, I mother, wife, and yet Lis child. How they may be, and yet in two, As you will live, resolve it you." I

130 HERMETIC AND MASONIC ORIGINS In Pericles' solution of the riddle, we see the solution of Theological Mysteries, and Divine Paradoxes, set forth by the profound learning of the secret societies, and of the danger of finding a rationalistic answer to the Church's Mysteries. Pericles has to fly, and marries Thaisa, who is priestess of Diana —a pretty plain way of hinting Pericles embraces doctrines belonging to the shrine of the Great Goddess at Ephesu& But before that point is reached, we have the scene of the Lists, in which there is one truly Masonic emblem : — *' Sim, "Who is the first that doth prefer himself 7 Thai, A knight of Sparta, my renowned father : And the device he bears upon his shield Is a black ^thiop reaching at the sun ; The word, Lux tua vita miAt." Masonry may be termed the science of Lux, or Light. Rosalind as Diana. Another early play of undoubted character, which cannot be said in the same sense of Pericles (Dr Farmer thought the last act, Shakespeare's), is Lovers Ldbout's Lost, This is one of the profoundest and most difficult of all the plays to understand. In it we have Eosalind, who is sometimes described by writers on this play as "a negress of sparkling wit and beauty,'' but who is in reality the Black Mistress of the Sonnets, and the Rosalind of Chester's " Love's Martyr." In the latter work she is brought in on the title page as " Eosalin's complaint metaphorically applied to Nature " ; ^ that is a type and feature of Nature herselC But the Great Goddess Mothers, who represented Nature, were, like Diana of Ephesus, The Indian Bhavani, and the Isis or Virgin of the World of Hermes Trismegistus — Black or Ethiopians. Why 1 Because they typified the primeval darkness, or matrix, out of ^ The one strikuig feature of this Chester's Love's Martyr, or Kosalin's Complaint, is that Rosalin metaphorically represents entire Nature, as ** picture J** '* counterfeit,** and "rare peece of art,** Dr Groeart himself acknowledges the identity of Rosalin with Nature. The importance of this discovery can hardly be overrated.

IN THE FLA YS. 131 which everything was born. " For Darkness was upon the face of the Deep/' says (Genesis. And out of this Darkness sprang forth the Light. All the old Aryan Mythology revolves roand this conflict of Light and Darkness, as Sir George Cox points out so fidly in his ''Mythology of the Aryan Nations." But the black colour of the Great Nature Goddesses is well known, and to this day has its reproduction in some Black statues of Madonnas. The Earth, is the Great Mother, with her underground darkness — for it is out of this darkness, that the seed, the spring, summer, and harvest come forth. So that this colour is in perfect harmony with the subject, Nature from its female, passive, and productive side only. Now Rosalind in Love's Labour's Lost, is introduced with hints that bespeak her as Diana of Ephesus. We know that the statue of Diana was made of Ebony Wood from Yitruvius (sometimes of Cedar), and that she personified the earth as we have stated, and that her opposite or male side (for all these great goddesses were androgynous), represented Light or the Sun. The priests of Diana were eunuchs, signifying the sexless character of their goddess as ''Master-Mistress;" and if the student will turn to Love's Labour's Lost, he will find the portrait there given unmistakable. First. — She is the Sun. " Biron, O, but for my love, day would turn to night" ^ Secondly. — She is as black as ebony. " £i7ig. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony," * ** Biron, Is ebony like her? 0 wood divine ! A wife of such wood were felicity. O, who can give an oath ? where ia a book ? That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack. If that she learn not of her eye to look : No face is fair, that is not full so black. King, O paradox I Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons, and the scrowl of night : And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well. Biron, Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.*'

132 HERMETIC AND MASONIC ORIGINS Thirdly. — She is the earth. '* Ihimain, I never knew man hold vHe atuf so dear. Long, Looky here's thy love, my foot and her face see.^ Fourthly. — She is related to the underworld through some hideous and awful attribute. " Biron, 111 prove her fair, or talk till doomsfiay here. King, No devil mil fright thee then »o much as she.** Now, how are we going to reconcile all these contradictions ? We reply, that (Rosalind) Diana of Ephesus, as — ^light, — and darkness — (inscribed upon her statue) — made of ebony wood, the symbol of the black earth, was Mother of all things. The hint that Shakespeare gives us in the ebony wood, and her black colour, is quite sufficient to identify her. Now what does Montaucon tell us of the statues of Artemis or Diana of Ephesus 1 " That they were black, or made of ebony wood" (V., p. 578, \' vol. ii., Edit. IV., Creuzer's " Symbolik.") ''Tectum templi extabulis erat cedrinis, ejusdemque materise Dianse statua ; alii vero teste Plinio dicebant statuam ex ebeno esse." (UAntiquit^ Expliqu^, vol. li., p. 86. Bernard de Montfaucon.) Yitruvius maintains the statue of Diana was made of Cedar, Now this doubtful testimony as to whether cedar or ebony were the materials employed, seems to have found its reflection in J Shakespeare. ** Enter Dumaim with a paper, DuMAiN transfomi'd ! four woodcocks in a dish ! Dum, O most divine Kate ! Biron, O most profane coxcomb ! Dum, By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye ! Biron, By earth, she is not, corporal, there yon lie. Dum, Her amber hair for foul hath amber quoted. Biron, An amber-coloured raven was well noted. Dum, As upright as the cedar, Biron, Stoop, I say : Her shoulder is with child. Dum, As fair as day. Biron, Ay, as some days, but then no sun must shine.'' X I

Hermes Mercurius Trismecistus. NATURE Virgin of the World.

IN THE FLA KS. 133 It is no use the critics blanching,^ or pretending to overlook these things, which are everywhere in the plays for those who can recognise them. Again of Sosalind as the sun or Lux : — " A withered hermit, five-score winters worn Might shake off fifty looking in her eye : Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-borriy And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy, 0 ! His the sun, that maketh all things shine ! " Creuzer seems to think that everything about the Ephesian Diana's statue and decoration, bespeak an Egyptian or Ethiopian origin. And this we think ourselves. We find in the preface of Chester's "Love Martyr or Rosalind's Complaint," a curious comparison to an Ethiopian : — " Honourable Sir, having, according to the directions of some of my best minded friends, finished my long expected labour ; knowing this ripe judging world to be full of envy, every one (as sound reason requireth) thinking his own child to he fairest^ although an ^thiojnan, 1 am enholdened to put my infant wit to the eye of the world under your protection, knowing that if absurditie like these have crept into any part of these poems, your well graced name will overshadow these defaults, and the knowne character of your virtues, cause the common back-biting enemies of good spirits to be silent To the World I put my Child to nurse, at the expense of your favour, whose glorie will stop the mouthes of the vulgar, and I hope cause the learned to rocke it asleep (for your sake) in the bosom of good Will} Thus wishing you all the blessings of heaven and earth ; I end. *' Yours in all service, " Ro. Chester." * See what Bacon says about ** blanching the obscure pktcts** and " dis^ coursing upon the plain ; " with regard to commentators and emendators of authors, bo that the most corrected editions are the worst. Chapter viiL ' This good WiU seems a sly hint for Will Shakespeare.

134 HERMETIC AND MASONIC ORIGINS We find this same comparison of jSthiope again in context with the Rosalind of Lafo£% Labour'a Lost ^ — '* Dumain, To look like her are chimney-sweepers black. Long, And since her time are colliers counted bright. King, And Etkiopes of their sweet complexion crack. Dumain, Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light" In tlus Ethiopian Rosalind we have Mr Rider Haggard's ''She," although his prototype comes from another source in Moore's Epicurean. Diana is also Ilythia, Latona (primsBval night) — ^Nature, — ^for they all represent similar concepts. CXXVII. " In the old age black was not counted fair, Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name ; But now is black beauty's successive heir. And beauty slauder'd with a bastard shame : For since each hand hath put on nature's power, Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face, Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy hour. But IB profan'd, if not lives in disgrace. Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black, Her eyes so suited ; and they mourners seem For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night." The Comedy of Ephesvs, again, is partly laid at Ephesus. As for the name of Diana, it is the Deus ex machind with which the poet conjures. Take AlVs Well that Ends Welly where we have the character of Diana, not because, as some shallow critic would observe, the part played fits the name, but because Helena and Diana are two names for the same thing, and the exchange of rdle is the profound symbolism of the paradox of identity and difference belonging to the principles of this art exemplified in this play, as opposites and unity. Diana is the reconciler and the enlightener. Widow Dido, In a passage quoted from The Tempest, we have the strange bringing in of Dido as " Widow Dido." " Hiram, the widov^s son, Sent to King Solomon, The Great Keystone ;

IN THE PLAYS. 13S On it appears the name, Which raises high the fame Of all, to whom the same Is truly known." Now, in certaia ceremonies pertaining to certain Masonic degrees, there is a substitution of the Candidate for Hiram, and from this, no doubt, is the origin of the expression used sometimes for Masons, " iht Widow's Sons. " Is there no key hidden in this, or hint that may throw light upon " Widow Dido " in the passage quoted from The Tempest f Are there not extraordinary ceremonies in Masonry — such as ihe " lost word," '^ Hiram's murder" — ^that seems to have been invented with a purpose and end 9 De Quincey maintains that Masons called themselves Sons of the Widow because the Masonic expression, Sons of the Widow, has the closest possible connection with the building of Solomon's Temple. In the 1st Book of Kings, vii 13, are these words : ''And King Solomon sent and fetched Hiram of Tyre, a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali." Hiram, therefore, the eldest Mason of whom anything is known, was a widow's son. Hence, therefore, the Masons of the seventeenth century, who were familiar with the Bible, styled themselves in memory of the founder. Sans of the Widow ; and the Freemasons borrowed this designation from them as they did the rest of their external constitution. Moreover, the Masonic expression — Sons of the Widow, has the closest connection with the building of Solomon's Temple." (De Quincey's " Eosicrucians and Freemasons," 423, voL xvi. Works.) Line and Level. In The Tempest we find Prospero directing Ariel to spread some of his trumpery upon lines ouieide his cell : — " Ste. Be you quiet^ monster. Mistress line, is not this my jerkin ? Now is the jerkin under the line : now, jerkin, you are like to lose your hair and prove a bald jerkin. Trin. Do, do : we steal by line and level, an't like your grace. Ste, 1 thauk thee for that jest ; here's a garment fbr*t : wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of this country. ' Steal by line and level ' is an excellent pass of pate ; there's another garment for't."

136 HERMETIC AND MASONIC ORIGINS The '' level " is the symbol of equality in Masonry. It seems to us that the "stale and trumpery" Prospero hangs upon the lines outside his cell to catch Trinculo and Stephano, are profoundly suggestive of the pursuit of mere ornament or externak in Nature or Art, by a certain class of people. " The world is still deceived hy ornament.** — Merchant of Venice. Hiese words come from a play, and are in exquisite harmony with a plot, whose teaching is, that the right life (or the next life) can only be won, by utter disregard for mere ornament or external Upon the selection of Portia's picture, or the choice of the caskets, hinges and depends Bassanio's happiness. It is not gold, nor silver, but dull lead, which contains the reward. Heavens, what a moral 1 What depth, thus to place the reward of all that is above, by all that is below, under our feet — Death I For there can be no mistaking the poet's intention in the " meagre lead," which rather threatens than dost promise aught to present us with death ;^ so true it is in life (as in Masonry), that to gain heaven, man must risk death — " give and hazard all he hath," — so shall we win or perish. The poet who wrote this was as profound as the universe, and those who are caught like Stephano and Trinculo, by the ornament of his art, superficially hung outside the lines of the plays, may think themselves lords of the island, but are very far from it indeed. The Shakespeare commentators and text emendators have stolen by line and level — that is, brought down a Grod to their own level Nothing could be more Masonic than the play of The Merchant of Venice^ with its tale of the three caskets, with Portia's light or candle burning in her hall, with its faith and brotherly love of Antonio for Bassanio, whom he helps in difficulty with his purse, and with that profound hint of the leaden casket, which is as it were at the very bottom of the poet's art itself. For in this one ^ *' Bat thoa, thou meagre lead. Which rather threat'nest than dost promise aught, Thy paleness moves mo more than eloqaenoe, And here choose I, joy be the consequence ! "

IN THE PLAYS, 137 point we have the symbol of all the Mysteries, comprised in an allegorical death, in order that the candidate may be reborn to a better life, with its greater light and judgment. The Eagle as Type of St John, Bacon writes of the eagle and St John : — "St John, an Apostle of our Saviour, and the Beloved Disciple, lived ninety-three years. He was rightly denoted under the emblem of the eagle, for his piercing sight into the Divinity; and was a Seraph among the Apostles in respect of his burning Love." (** History of Life and Death," 17, 18.) Compare : — *' From this session interdict, Every fowl of tyrant wing Save the eagle feather'd king, ^ Keepe the obsequy so strict. " Let the Priest in Surplice whitCy That defnnctive music can, Be the death divining Swan, Lest the requiem lack his right." — Phoenix and Turtle. Those who know that the Templars (who are so closely connected with Rosicrucianism, and Freemasonry), were followers or Knights of St John 2 (as also in the case of the Knights of Malta, and of St Cross, near Winchester), and remember the ^* surplice white^* of Masoiiry, will appreciate the significance of the two parallels, and what it signifies. Here is a hint from the poems : — ^ " A thousand times the unworthy may clamour, a thousand times may present themselves, yet God hath commanded our ears that they should hear none of them, and hath so compassed us about with His clouds that unto us, His servants, no violence can be done ; wherefore now no longer are we beheld by human eyes, unless they have received strength borrowed from the eagle." — " Hosicrucian Confession." ^ The Order of St John is recognised as the most ancient system of Freemasonry ever known, and for that reason ought to be esteemed as the only true and primitive rite.

138 HERMETIC AND MASONIC ORIGINS. CVI. " When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme, In praise of ladies dead^ and lovely knights^ Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express'd Even such a beauty as you master now.'' What is this if it is not a hint to take us to King Arthur's Knights of the Bound Table, or to the Templars who succeeded them) In Chester's "Love's Martyr" we have a curious history of King Arthnr, and Bosicrucianism revolves round all these. Oliver writes : " * It is believed in Germany,' the Skipper interposed, 'that Freemasonry originated from this sect (the Rosicrucians). The Baron de Gleichen says, that the Masons were united with the Bose Croix in England under King Arthur. I suppose he considers the Knights of the Bound Table to have been Masons.' " (265, '* Discrepancies of Masons.") " The Templars are the successors of the Knights of the Bound Table." (Hargrave Jenning's " Bosicrucians," vol. ii. p. 227). — " La Table ronde du roi Arthus, d^gag^e de la c6l6brit6 fabuleuse qui I'entoure, 6tait un chapitre de chevaliers Bose-Croiz." (La Ma9onnerie, 317, 1820.)

CHAPTER VII. THE WINTER'S TALE. *' The fixture of her eye has luotion in% Aa wt art moek'd wUh art." -—Winter's Tale. ** Let this interim Uke the oceaii be Which parts the shore, where two contracted new Come daily to the hanks, that, when they see Return of love, more blest may be the view ; Or ecUl U winter, which being full of care. Makes summer welcome thrice more wished, more rare. — Sonnets. What is the connection between the title of this play and its subject-matter ) How is it we find in this play of The Winter's Tale the story of DemSter and her lost child Persephone, not only in this particular point of loss and recovery, but embracing the separation and reconciliation that belonged to her worship at the Eleusinian festival 1 If the myth of Dem^ter or Ceres is incorporated, under a slightly disguised form, as the central plot of The Winter^s Tale, then we have conclusive proof that the poet's art has a spiritual side, and promise of rebirth, because this myth was the ancient emblem for revelation and immortality. Kay, more, we shall have proof that this art is a vehicle for the mysteries, and that here it touches hands mysteriously with the oral transmission of Freemasonry. In every book upon the history of the craft, we find ourselves taken back to these Eleusinian Mysteries, and it will indeed be a significant hint for Masons to ponder over, that the same great mind that wrote the " New Atlantis," and founded modem Freemasonry, should be found embodying in his art the antiquities to which they trace

J40 THE WINTER'S TALE. their symbols and their history. Bacon writes of his two methods : one is what he terms his orci transmission ; the other, anticipation of the mind. It would be curioas if we some day find these two methods answering and explaining each oiher. Bat, meanwhile, let us examine this play by the light of oar theory. In Tht Wifdei^s Tale we find the prominent feature of the play to turn upon the separation of Leontes and Hermione, which is accompanied with the throwing out or loss of Perdita. The play leads or opens up to this point. Then, as upon the turningpoint of a centre, it descends again to bring about the reconciliation and harmony of husband and wife, which go hand in hand with the finding or restoration of Perdita. It is the tatter's loss and rediscovery, which is really so strikingly made to fit in with the separation and reconciliation. The finding of Perdita is one of the conditions of the oracle ; and if the student reflects upon the play, he will come to the conclusion that the coming to life of Hermione, of her descent from her pedestal, depends upon the restoration of Perdita. In the presentation of Hermione, as a statue awaiting the return of her own child, we have undoubtedly— most unquestionably (in spite of all the world's contrary criticism even) — a portrait not only of the poet's own art, but of ^Nature in Winter, and of the Demeter and Persephone myth, commonly known as the wanderings of Ceres in search of her lost daughter. It may be disguised, altered, and beautified in the play, but it is there, "those holy arUigye^ hours" of true ^ *' But makes antiquity for aye his jHige ; Finding the first conceit of love there bred, Where time and outward form would show it dead.*' — Sonnet cvilL Again — '* In him those ?ioly antique Jtoura are seen. Without all ornament, itself, and true, Making no summer of another's green, Robbing no old to dress his beauty new ; And him as for a map doth Nature store, To show false Art what beauty was of yore." — Sonnei Ixviii

THE WINTER'S TALE, 141 art— Nature's art, where " antiquity has been made for aye his page/' and with which he has gone, as he declares "usque ad aras.** Therefore it is most important for us to examine the evidence upon which we base our theory. And first, as to the myth. The story of Ceres and Proserpine (their Latin names) is universally admitted to represent a beautiful allegory of the changing year. It is a personified tale of the earth life, and thus is a Winter and Summer story. For the loss of Proserpine and her restoration is but the history of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, through which the earth life waxes and wanes as prototypes of life and death. Summer being ushered in by the Spring, and being lost in Autumn, was personified by a beautiful maiden associated always with flowers. She remains six months with her mother the earth, and then she is carried away by Dis or Pluto to the underworld where she remains during Winter. She is in reality the earth life or Spirit, that brings new life to sleeping Nature — her mother. With her advent everything puts on the glory and vitality of awakened Spring. With her loss the earth (her mother), falls into the icy image of death, or sleep — as Winter. The thoughtful reader will at once see, what a splendid allegoiy this is for an art affecting to imitate Nature, and present posterity with a rebirth or revelation. Because there is in this personified allegory of mother and lost child, just that falling asleep of Nature, which is as death to life, when compared with the reawakened glory of the restored life and spirit, which would be the spirit of interpretation as rebirth. Such an allegory not only holds out a picture of Nature, but as self-reflecting ^ suggests that the art borrowing the story is presenting us a hint of its own profound character. We now have to show that whenever the poet introduces Ceres, * Compare Sonnet 24 upon this self -reflecting revelation or rebirth. Also — *' To give away yourself, keeps yourself still ; And you must live, draum by your oum aweei skUL" — Sonnet xvi.

142 THE WINTERS TALE. he thinks of Proserpiney and introdaces her also, as is shown in the following passage from The Temped : — ^ Ceres, Tell me, heavenly bow. If Venus or her son, as thou dost know, Do now attend the queen 1 Since they did plot The means that dusky Dis my daughter got. Her and her blind boy's scandl'd company I have forsworn." This is evident proof (if it were needed) to show that the rape of Proserpine (daughter of Ceres) by Dis, or Pluto, was not only known to the poet, but is introduced here curiously in company with Ceres. Now, directly we turn to Perdiia in The JFintei^s Tale, where she plays the part of (mark it) a lost child (like Proserpine), we find her not only identified with the spring and flowers, but invoking her prototype Proserpine whom she so significantly resembles ! Not only is Perdita introduced in the 4th scene of Act IV., as a kind of Flora, but extraordinary emphasis is given to her speeches, in which she treats of the seasons of Winter and Summer. If the poet were presenting us Proserpine herself (whom we know represented allegorically the Spring), with her new spirit and life, how could he make it more evident 1 Florizel says of Perdita : — " These your unusual weeds to each part of you Do give a life : no shepherdess, but Flora Peering in April's front." Note the expression, ''unusual weeds" — for flowers are the " unusual weeds " that " do give life " to Winter in the Spring 1 She is identified with '' Flora peering in April's front" 1 What^ indeed, is this if it is not Spring itself? and mark the expression, * do give a life I ' What gives lifel We reply, ^Spirit * only. And it is as Spirit that Lord Bacon interprets the story of Proserpine in his "Wisdom of the Ancients," published 1609 — the same year as this play we are treating of appeared, viz., The WinUffs Tale, 1609 ! Bacon says :— " By Proserpina is meant that ethereal Spirit which, being

THE WINTERS TALE. 143 separated from the upper globe, is shut up and detained under the earth represented by Pluto." Again — " Concerning the six months' custom (the refinding of Ceres and her rape), it is no other than an elegant description of the division of the year, 0^ difirii mixed tcith the earth appears above ground in vegetaile bodies during the summer months, and in the winter sinks down again." (" Wisdom of the Ancients," Works, Montagua) The italics belong to us. We are quite satisfied in holding to Bacon's interpretation, which in the abstract is life returning to the apparently dead earth — rebirth — the revelation— of Nature's immortality — by a return of the Spirit. The separation of the Spirit from the body is therefore Death, or apparent death. For such is the condition of Nature during Winter apparent Death. Now let us note that the poet, in repeatedly making Perdita allude to Winter and Summer, gives us evidence that he is presenting us with a representative Proserpine of his own, under the alias of Perdita. First she is compared to a goddess — ** Flarizel. This your Sbeep-shearing Is as a meeting of the petty gods, And you the queen on **." We know that Proserpine was Queen of the Underworld — " Perdita. And me, poor lowly maid, Most goddess-like, prank'd up." That the poet is thinking of the gods is most evident from the following passage : — " Flo. Apprehend Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves, Humbling their deities to love, have taken The shapes of beasts upon them : Jupiter, Became a bull, and beliow'd ; the green Neptune A ram, and bleated ; and the fire-robed god^ Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain. As I seem novoP It indeed seems as if Florizel were but a disguise for Apollo himself, the sun which awakes the spring. Now let us give the

144 THE WINTERS TALE. flower scenes^ so well known and so beautiful, where Perdita presents flowers to suit all her guests : — " Perdita. Give me those flowers there, Dorcas. Reverend sirs, For you there 's rosemary and rue ; these keep Seeming and savour all the winter long. PoL Shepherdess, — A fair one are you — well you fit our ages With flowers of winter. Perdita, Sir, the year growing ancient, Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers of the season Are our carnations and streakVl gillyvors, Which some call nature's bastards : of that kind Our rustic garden's barren ; and I care not To get slips of them. Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them ? Perdita. For I have heard it said There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature.'' We pause here to point out that if the earth itself were pictured presenting flowers of all seasons, it would be this lovely picture of Perdita that would suggest itself. We see that the poet especially dwells upon Winter and Summer, and their respective flowers in this scene. And once more we call attention to tlie parallel — for the myth of Ceres and Proserpine is a Winter and Summer story. We go so far as to say that it can hardly be considered an impropriety to call the wanderings of Ceres iu search of her lost daughter by the same title as this play, viz. : A Wintei^s Tale. For what is this myth but the apparently dead personified earth in winter seeking for its immortal spirit or life, the lost child — rebirth in the Spring ! Let it be remarked that Perdita is allied with the Spring and Summer, not only as type of her own vernal beauty, but in a marked way which emphasizes the glory of full Midsummer. And be it here noted that Proserpine is often termed the Summer child of Ceres. For the present we leave the pregnant passage whereby Polixenes identifies Nature with Art, and Art with Nature, aside.

THE WINTEI^S TALE, 143 Because though full of signification for our purpose, at present it only detracts from our main issue. And now we quote Perdita's speech upon her prototjrpe Proserpine : — " Perdita, O ProserpiDa ! For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall From Dis's waggon ! daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes. Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses. That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength — a malady Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips and The crown imperial ; lilies of all kinds. The flower-de-luce being one ! " The flower-de-luce is the fleur-de-lis, a Hosicrucian emblem. Let us not overlook this pregnant passage. It shows us unmistakably by its length and invocation to Proserpine that the poet is full of thought upon this myth. Every flower he mentions is a Spring Flower, and therefore in the most perfect harmony with the address to the goddess who was the personification of Spring — Proserpine. We thus see that there is much in this scene to show that the poet always has the picture of Proserpine in his mind's eye ! At the point where she returns to her father, and brings life to her mother, the king exclaims — ** Welcome hither As is the spring to the earth,** But the really striking parallel to the myth is that in the final presentation of Hermione as a statue. We have the following from Themistius, who tells us, writing in the fourth century of the Christian era (illustrating his father's exposition of Philosophy), **the priest throwing open the propylsa of the Temple at Eleusis, whereupon the statue of the goddess under a burst of light appeared in full splendour, and the gloom and darkness in which the spectators have been were dispelled." (Christie's Disquisitions, 59.) K

146 THE WINTERS TALE. For the unclassical reader to understand fully this passage, and the extraordinary parallel of circumstance, we must explain that Ceres was the goddess whose statue was thus shown (in Greek, DemSter). She it was who not only represented the earth, but, like Hermione, had a daughter who (like Perdita) was lost. The entire myth, which was the central doctrine of the Eleusinian Mysteries, was this myth of the sleeping earth — awaiting the return of its lost Spring child to restore it to life again. It was the history of the year, dramatised and personified to illustrate the immortality of Nature, and the immortality of the soul. Indeed it is round the altars of this Dem^ter and of Dionysos (Ceres and Bacchus) that the drama took its origin. And the protagonists of this drama were a mother and a lost child, in the same sense of separation and final reconciliation, that we see reproduced in The fFitUet's Tale. It is for us now to examine any further facts in the play, that can reinforce the resemblance. And, first of all, here is one. Hermione is a name the poet invents and did not borrow, inasmuch as in the original from which The fFinter's Tale is taken, the original of Hermione is called Bellaria. Bellaria dies in the middle of Greene's story (" Pandosto, or the triumph of Time,'' 1588). Nothing of the original is preserved. The introduction of the statue is also original, and, most of all, this name Hermione. Now Hermione was a city on the coast of Argolis, where Ceres had a famous temple. Aelianus calls the feasts or banquets at Hermione %^ov/c« ioprfj. And we also know that at Syracuse a Dem^ter and Kore were honoured under the name of Hermione. (Heysch., p. 1439.) But we have another striking parallel to point out. The story of the rape of Proserpine belongs to Sicily, for it was whilst Proserpine was gathering flowers upon the plains of Enna, in Sicily, that Pluto surprised her and carried her off below. We thus see that there is an important local connection obtaining between the play and the classical fable we are illustrating. We must now ask ourselves the question, whether in the selec 

THE WINTERS TALE. i47 tion and inveution of names for his drarnatis persona, the poet has been guided by rationalism or pure fancy ? It has always seemed to us one of the characteristics of the profundity of the plays, that the names are so often found to be in exquisite harmony, with the parts which they respectively take in the plays. For example, this name of Perdita is connected uith her loss. Similarly, Marina, in the play of Fericles, is named after her birth at sea. ** Pericles, My gentle babe, Marina, whom. For she was bom at sea, I have named so," " Ant, And, for the babe Is counted lost for ever, Perdita, I prithee call *t," Take the name Autolycus ; we find the poet consciously selecting it, with the full knowledge, that the Autolycus of mythology was a son of Mercury, and a cunning thief : — " Autolycus, My father named me Autolycus, who being, as I am littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles,^ Or examine the name of Posthumous in Cymbeline, and we see that it is in harmony with the facts of his birth. We find therefore that there is no haphazard choice of names, but that the poet likes to connect the names of his characters with something relating to the part they play. Therefore we are justified in the conclusion, that a careful examination of the source, connection, and history of the names which he has himself invented, may lead to very valuable discoveries. This connection obtaining between name and rdle, is proof of a spiritual and rationalistic side to the poet's art. In The Tempest,^ again, we find the name of Miranda consciously chosen, and adapted for some spiritual revelation. Ferdinand, on beholding Miranda, exclaims — " O you wonder / If you be maid or no ? Mir. No wonder, sir ; But certainly a maid."

148 THE WINTER'S TALE. We see at once that Miranda (which is Latin for " wonderful things '') is no chance name, but carefully and consciously selected by the poet. Or take the name of Borachio in Much Ado About Nothing, It means a drunkard, (" From the Spanish " harachoe " or " borracho" a bottle made of pig's skin, with the hair inside, dressed with resin and pitch to keep the wine sweet." — Minshew.) The proof that the author of the play knew the meaning of the word, and introduced it on that account, is shown in the way Borachio plays upon his own name — " I will like a true drunkard (Borachio) utter all to thee." — (iii. 5). Here is evidence that the writer was acquainted with Spanish. Upon a further examination of the name Hermione, we find that it is strangely connected with Harmonia, and with Dem^ter. And it is indeed a curious fact that one of the great doctrines taught at Eleusis round the statue of Demeter (Ceres) was the SEPARATION OF MATTER AND SPIRIT, AND THEIR RECONCIUATION. The entire play of The Winter's Tale turns upon separation and final reconciliation. This is the subject-matter of the play, discord and separation, to be followed by reconciliation and heavenly harmony. Let it be noted that Perdita's exposure, loss, and rediscovery go hand in hand, with the separation of Leontes from his wife, and their final reunion. The rediscovery of Perdita, in which she is likened to the Spring, is closely followed by the discovery of the statue of Hermione, and her return to life. It is as if the lost Perdita were the instrument bringing new life to her mother ! In the classical myth it is Proserpine who brings new life to the apparently sleeping or dead earth. Mark that Hermione is not really dead, but is pictured as a statue, devoid of life, awaiting interpretation, revelation, rebirth, or rediscovery, to be dead Art no longer, nor winter, but the year come full circle. We apply the epithet Art to Hermione as a statue. And we do so advisedly, inasmuch as in this play the poet has identified Art with Nature and Nature with Art. That is to say that this play

THE WINTER'S TALE. 149 may (from our point of view, or by the light of our theory) apply indifferently to the poet's particular Art, as an exquisite portrait of the Eevelation and Rebirth which he has planned, pictured, and reflected in " philosophical play systems j " or it may apply to Nature generally. It was indeed a wise precaution of the poet to identify Nature with Art and Art with Nature, in a play which itself was reflecting, in its spiritual life, both at once ! The whole of the Platonic philosophy is the identification of Nature with Art —God being the Divine Artist, the Divine Poet, — or Maker, — Creator. Nicetas (or Psellus), in his commentaries (in Gregor. Or xliL 1731, D.), says, "Si Orpheo credimus et Flatonicis et Lycio philosopho — Naiura dei ars qucedam est " (960 Aglaophamus. Lobeck). Indeed, the poet is perfectly conscious that Hermione, as a statue seemingly dead, yet alive, awaiting rebirth, is a splendid and astounding image of his unrevealed Art. " The fixture of her eye hath motion in% As we are mock'd with art^ And then follows that solemn music, which is so mysteriously and strikingly brought in at moments like these, and which suggests a real lost chord which we must find. Uermvme. Harmonia, or Harmony, Hermione, was the daughter of Mars and Venus, Mars and Venus is another expression for War and Love, or Strife and Friendship. Creuzer writes that Mars and Venus were always to be found placed together in the Temples of Antiquity : ^ — " Mars and Venus begot or brought forth Harmonia (or Hermione), which is, that strife with friendship brought forth the Jiarmony or order of the universe. These are the well-known principles of Empedocles and Heraclitus out of the Orphic The^ " Die alte Bildnerei stellte Mars und Venos in Tempeln immer zusammen. Mars und Venas erzeugen die Harmonia, d. L der strtit mit der Einigung gegattet bringt die Weltordnung hervor. Das sind die bekannten satze des Empedocles and Heraclitus aus der Orpbischen Theologie, Ton denen aus sie in die spiitesten philosophenschulen sich fortpBanzten." (Vol. iii. 41, 3rd edit. Symbolik.)

ISO THE WINTER'S TALE. ology, from which they developed and transferred themselves to the latest philosophical schools'' (vol. iii. p. 21, " Symbolik "). {yide "Die Briefe uber Horn. u. Hes." p. 169); (ride " Plut^eIsid.," p. 370) j (" Heraclides Alleg. Horn.," p. 206, Schow) ; ("Proclus in Plat. Tim.," p. 147); (" Eustath ad Odyess," viii. 266 sqq,^ p. 310) ; (compare " Empedocles Fragmn.," v. 203, «^j. p. 522, ed. Sturz, note, page 598); (Juliani, Orat. iv., 150 B., Spanh.). Now it is very important, that in bringing forward our argument, we should show that in Chester's '* Love's Martyr " we find a direct allusion to this phUosophy, and its protagonists, Mars and Venus : — *' Upon a day I thought to scale a Fort, United with a tower of sure defence ; Uncomfortable thres (tic) did marre my sport, Unlucky Fortune with my woes expense, Venus with Man would not sweet war commence ; Upon an altar would I offer Love, And sacrifice my soule's poore Turtle-Dove." — Chester's " Love*s Martyr." Now here is some curious evidence afforded us, which we may review in the following order : — Bacon declares, " Strife and Friendship in Nature are the spurs of motions and the KEYS OF WORKS.** In another place he connotes these doctrines with the names of Empedocles and Heraclitus. So that, as we have seen in our quotation from Creuzer, these are the philosophical principles which, as " Love and Warfare " — (Venus and Mars) — ^gave birth to Hermione or Harmonia ; in short, the law and harmony of the orderly universe. Again, it is very clear that the subject-matter of Chester's "Love's Martyr," round which the poems mysteriously circle, is connected, not only with " a rare piece of art" challenging comparison with Homer, but is connected with these classical principles of ** Strife and Friendship," which sprang from Ephesus, and are the origins of the Platonic philosophy. Not only this, but we find in a play attributed to Shakespeare (or to the author of the plays that bear his

THE WINTERS TALE, 151 name), a most direct reference and introduction of the protagonists of these philosophical principles. In the Trco Ndbh Kinsmen^ we find a scene laid before the altars of Mars and Venus. Mr Brown tells us -that '' the marriage of Cadmus with Harmonia (or Hermione), is the union of Thought with the orderly Material World/' Hermione, we find, was a daughter of Venus and Mars, or of Love and War, which Bacon terms Friendship and Strife ! It is these two principles which we recognize running throughout entire Kature as Gravitation and Bepulsion, centripetal and centrifugal— heavy and light, dense and rare, &c It was these principles which were taught at Eleusis in connection with Ceres or Dem^ter, as Creuzer has already told us. So that in these principles of antitheta or opposites, we have the philosophical system of the Mysteries presented to us, as the conflict .of the du.alism in Nature. The parentage of Hermione carries with it the conviction that she is only a name to represent the harmony which is the result of these two principles of Love and Hate, or Warfara That Shakespeare has Harmonia in his mind is plain, not only by the music or harmony associated with her discovery, and restoration to her lost child and husband, but by the profound hint he gives in the following line : — " The mantle of Qaeen Hermione, her jewel about the neck of it.** At the marriage of Hermione to Cadmus, she received as present a splendid necklace which had been made by Vulcan. Now, we know that at a town called Hermione, there was a temple celebrated to Ceres or Demeler. So that there is a completely established connection in classical history to very closely identify Hermione with Ceres herself. And this is particularly apparent in the fact, that the " eternal war of Eleusis " was the doctrine of the conflict of spirit and matter, or of two opposed principles, which we see gave birth to Hermione. Mr Brown writes of Cadmus, " Harmonia, his bride, is a Phoenician personage with an Hellenik name. The meaning of the translation must, then, be first obtained. From harma * together ' is derived haiTnos * any means of joining things,' as a joint or clasp. Hence it is

// IS 2 THE WINTERS TALE, used of immaterial clasps as covenants, leagues, laws ; and these strongly conveying the idea of orderly arrangement, it becomes connected with proportion, e.^., due proportion in architedure, sound, or character. Hence it is more specially applied to cadence and modulation, and so the full meaning of the word is, That-which-is-fitted-together-in-due-proportion, But in a Phoenician and Kosmogonical connection that which is fitted together in due proportion is the Kosmos itself. Harmonia, then, represents the orderly material Kosmos, and so we find her in the myth as wearing a starry robe. Bunsen observes, ' The wife of Cadmus, Harmonia dressed in a robe studded with stars, and wearing a necklace representing the universe — has a palpably cosmogonical meaning.*" ("Egypt's Place," iv. 231; Brown's "Great Dionysiak Myth.," ii. 237.) Perdita, the sleeping beauty in the wood, — briar-rose, sleeps for hundreds of years until Prince Florizel comes with his gladdening rays to wake her from her trance-like sleep. In this case Perdita is but the awakening of her mother, the earth, from the deep sleep of winter to the glory of, and life of the spring and summer. Wilder remarks (in his Introduction to the " Bacchic and Eleusinian Mysteries of Taylor ") : — " The veriest dreams of life, pertaining as they do to the minor mystery of death, have in them more than external fact can explain or reach j and Myth, however much she is proved to be a child of earth, is also received among men as the child of heaven. The Cinder- Wench of the Ashes will become the Cinderella of the Palace, and be wedded to the King's son." The reader remembers, perhaps, having read before of Prince Florizel in some German fairy stories. The union of the wildest dreams of the imagination with reality, is true miracle. It is the transformation of the ideal into the real, and if this play deals with reality, we may understand, perhaps, why Shakespeare has introduced this King's son, and made Perdita a princess brought up in a sheep cot. Every incident of this play is, perhaps, the union of reality under the guise of poetry with the ideal, to teach a lesson that poetry is divine, and is indeed the only real.

THE WINTERS TALE. 153 If we hark back, and contemplate the title of the original from which the author borrowed, the title will be found allied with Time. PANDOSTO, OR THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. We would here insert Sir George Cox's remark about the story of the " House in the Wood " : — " The return of Persephone is strangely set forth in the story of the ' House in the Wood,' which in other stories is the house, or case of ice, in which the seemingly dead princess is laid ; the ice at the return of spring. The sides crack, ' the doors were slammed back against the walls ; the beams groaned as if they were being riven away from their fastenings \ the stairs fell down, and at last it seemed as if the whole roof fell in.' On waking from her sleep the maiden finds herself in a splendid palace, surrounded by regal luxuries. The maiden has returned from the dreary abode of Hades to the green couch of the lifegiving mother." In the tale of '* Cinderella," we have another embodied myth of death and rebirth, of Summer and Winter. The very name, Cinderella, — "the cinder-wench of the ashes," — (as A. Wilder observes), points to close connection u^/& earth and with deaths and thus with resurrection. We cannot refrain from quoting the poet's final words, attached to the threne, or death-lamentation, of the poem of the Fhcmix and Turtle : — " Beauty, truth, and rarity, Grace in all simplicity. Here enclosed in Cinders lie." Let the parallel be marked. Florizel is a King's Son^ and he marries the Cinderella of the sheepcote, Perdita, who (like Cinderella) turns out to be a Princess in disguise, and with whose rediscovery, reconciliation and new life are given to her mother — (the earth), — and probably (if all were discovered) a spiritual new life or rebirth to the poet's entire art also, — of which

154 THE WINTERS TALE, Hermione (as a statue), aXiv^ but seemingly dead^ is a singular and exquisite portrait. Writing of Guzra Bai, the heroine of the story of " Truth's Triumph," Sir George Cox says (" Mythology of the Axyans ") — "This beautiful maiden is the Flower Girl, or the Gardener's daughter, in other words, the child of D^m^t^r playing on the flowery plain of Nysa or Enna, — the teeming source of life as distinguished from the dead or inert matter on which it works." But this is exactly what Perdita is in The Winter's Tale — a Flower girl — and not only a Flower girl, but the Cinderella of our childhood, who is always a Princess in disguise, awaiting discovery. " All writers, both ancient and modem, have united in setting Truth before us under the image of a virgin, described as a Ring's daughter, and thus called a Princess, always described as a surpassing beauty " (" Remarks on Shakespeare's Sonnets," E. A. Hitchcock). Prince Florizel is the Prince of Fairy Tales, who comes to wake the sleeping beauty in the wood, Briar-Eose, after her sleep of hundreds of years. I suppose so great an authority as Sir George Cox will be entitled to some weight in this matter. Let the student take up his '' Mythology of the Aryans," and he will find the author distinctly tracing and identifying the Cinderella story with the Persephone legend, as both derived from the resurrectionary powers of Nature, typified in the return of Spring and Summer after Winter. It is this Phoenix-like power which is the real secret of the plays hitherto considered Shakespeare's. Although the evidence of a monumental inscription is not of much weight, we read at Stratford that with Shakespeare "Quick Nature died," ^ which, to our minds, is a very profound reference * Compare :— " Why should he live now nature hatihrupt is, Beggar'd of blood to blnsh through lively veinB ? For she hath no exchequer now but his, And proud of many, lives upon his gains. O, him she stores, to show what wealth she had, In days long since, before these last so bad." —Sonnet Ixvii.

THE WINTERS TALE. 155 to the entire art of the poet, as perfect copy of Natare wUhin and toiihoui — that is, a complete system of life and death, summer and winter, awaiting rehirth — the spring of its spiritual signification, to give it new life with the light of profoundest inquiry. Do we seriously mean to imply that this magnificent Art is relatively unrevealed 1 Our reply is in the words of Leonard Digges' prophecy — " Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellowes give The world thy Workes : thy Workes, by which, out-hve Thy Tombe, thy name must : when that stone is rent. And Time dissolves thy Stratford Monument, Here we alive shall view thee still. This Book, When Brass and Marble fade, shall make thee look Fresh to all Ages : when Posteritie Shall loath what's new, thinke all is prodegie That is not Shakespeares ; ev'ry Line, each Verse Here shall revive, redeem thee from thy Hearse."

CHAPTER VIII. BACON AND ANTIQUITY. ** Crescit occulto yelat Arbor sevo Fams Baconi." — Manes VenUaminianL Bacon writes : — ''Now if any one of ripe age, unimpaired senses, and wellpurged mind, apply himself anew to experience and particulars, better hopes may be entertained of that man. In which point I promise to myself a like fortune to that of Alexander the Great; and let no man tax me with vanity till he have heard the end ; for the thing which I mean tends to the putting off of all vanity. For of Alexander and his deeds ^schinus spake thus: 'Assuredly we do not live the life of mortal men ; but to this end were we bom, that in after ages wonders might be told of us;' as if what Alexander had done seemed to him miraculous. But in the next age Titus Livius took a better and a deeper view of the matter, saying in effect, that Alexander ' had done no more than take courage to despise vain apprehensions.' And a like judgment I suppose may be passed on myself in future ages : that I did no great things, but simply made less account of things that were accounted great." What is this " putting oflf of all vanity " of Bacon's ? Is he thinking of his renunciation and self-sacrifice as to the authorship of the plays ? And what wonders are these that are to be told of him in after ages ? Surely nobody who knows anything of Bacon's solid judgment and sober mind, can for an instant believe that Bacon is only thinking of his inductive method ) The language is extraordinary, because nobody knew better than Bacon that his system, or instrument of scientific discovery, might be

BA CON AND A NTIQ UITY. 157 termed great, but that it would speedily be forgotten by the generations who would make use of it, just as we cease to think of the inventor of a tool that we constantly use. No wonders to after ages can by any stretch of imagination be associated with it. Every day brings forth, it is true, the wonders of modem discovery. But though, like Hesperus, Bacon led the starry van, he was only at the head of a new method of natural research, which had already signalised itself in Torricelli, Galileo, Harvey, and Newton, who followed later. Does anybody pretend to assert that Newton's discovery of gravitation and its laws, was owing to his having studied Bacon 1 No, a thousand times no ! And nobody knew this better than Bacon. What is '' the thing" then, that he does not account great ? That is what we want to know. " Far the thing I mean tends to the putting off of all vanity *\f What is this "thing"? It is evidently a mystery, something upon which we are to reserve our judgment till we hear the " end " / What end 1 Is this " end " that mysterious far-off astronomical finality, that seems connoted and suggested with the strange title, " Valerius Terminus," and the annotations of Hermes, Stella ? Bacon's mind was the profoundest, subtlest intellect the world has ever seen. We see his imagination anticipating, (in the " New Atlantis ") the telephone and phonograph, botanical and zoological gardens, pisciculture, and other inventions of modern days, in a miraculous manner. They are no shrewd guesses, but really downright exact prophecies, or anticipations, which the more we study the more marvellous they seem. And not all of them are even yet realized, though his prophecy of explosives more powerful than gunpowder, his sound-houses and observatories, are to a certain degree realized. Let no one smile at all this lest they betray their ignorance. Mr Edison, who dwells upon the Great Atlantis, has no doubt long recognised his peculiar discoveries as hinted at^ when Bacon describes his sound-houses. But as people very often read without thinking, and think without attributing a serious purpose to the " New Atlantis," it may be not amiss to

I S 8 BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY. enforce a few of these prognostications home by quotation. This marvellous god-like intellect that refuses to lag one jot behind our times, can cast hack as deeply into the past as into the future. Take care we do not find his ship laden with all the knowledge of the remotest antiquity ! King Solomon's House, described in the "New Atlantis," is nothing else but the New World, which in Bacon's mind is to be discovered by his new method. We can see that the discovery of the New World, had acted so keenly upon his prophetic and godlike intellect, that he foresaw a new Intellectual World, which he places likewise in the west, and anticipates in the realms of imagination. We see in the favourite device and frontispiece, his typical ship passing beyond, — -plus tUtra, through the pillars of Hercules to this new Intellectual Kingdom, or House of Science and discoveries, wherein he almost anticipates, and hints at some of the modern miracles of science, which have really become realized. — It would almost seem as if Bacon had seen or heard Edison's phonograph ! '* We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have ; together with beUs and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep ; likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp ; we make diverse tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. /Fe represent and imitale all articukUe sounds and Utters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly. We have also diverse strange and artificial echos, reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it : and some that give back the voice louder than it came ; some shriller, and some deeper; yea, some rendering the voice.** Or take this, does it not seem as if the writer were striving to describe the construction of guns and cannon by machinery, of

BACON AND ANTIQUITY. 159 the new explosives, (" new mixtures and compositions/') of gunpowder,—dynamite, which is indeed " unquenchable " in water, — ^and the submarine torpedoes : — " We have also engine-houses, where are prepared engines and instruments for all sorts of motions. There we imitate and practise to make swifter motions than any you have, either out of your musket or any engine that you have; and to make them and multiply them more easily, and with small force, by wheels and other means : and to make them stronger, and more violent than yours are; exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks. We represent also ordnance and instruments of war, and engines of all kinds : and, likewise new mixtures and com^positions of gun-powder, wildfires, burning in water, and unquenchable. Also fire-works of all variety both for pleasure and use. We imitate also flights of birds ; we have some degrees of flying in the air ; 1^6 have ships and boats for going under water, and brooking of seas ; also swimming-girdles." Here are zoological gardens and anatomical museums : — ** We have also parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds, which we use not only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials ; that thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon the body of man.'' Here are telescopes, microscopes, prisms, &c. : — " We procure means of seeing objects afar off; as in the heaven and remote places ; and represent things near as afar off, and things afar off as near ; making feigned distance& We have also helps for the sight, far above spectacles and glasses in use. We have also glasses and means to see small and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly ; as the shapes and colours of small flies and worms, grains and flaws in gems, which cannot otherwise be seen ; observations in urine and blood, not otherwise to be seen. We make artificial rain-bows, halos, and circles about light. We represent also all manner of reflections, refractions, and multiplications of visual beams of objects." Here are guanos and chemical manures : —

i6o BACON AND ANTIQUITY. *' We have also great variety of composts, and soils, for the making of the earth fruitful." Windmills and Watermills, Generation of Motor Force (not yet fully realized) : — " We have likewise violent streams and cataracts, which serve us for many motions : and likewise engines for multiplying and enforcing of winds, to set also on going divers motiona" Observatories, Fish . Culture, Condensing Water, EiffePs Tower : — " We have high towers ; the highest about half a mile in height ; and some of them likewise set upon high mountains ; so that the vantage of the hill with the tower is in the highest of them three miles at least. And these places we call the Upper Region : accounting the air between the high places and the low, as a Middle Region. We use these towers, according to their several heights and situations, for insolation, refrigeration, conservation; and for the view of divers meteors; as winds, rain, snow, hail ; and some of the fiery meteors also. And upon them, in some places, are dwellings of hermits, whom we visit sometimes, and instruct what to observe. " We have also particular pools, where we make trials upon fishes, as we have said before of beasts and birds. We have also pools, of which some do strain fresh water out of salt; and others by art do turn fresh water into salt." Antiquity and its Restoration, So much for the future and present times as anticipated and placed in the west by Bacon, on his New Atlantis, in the direction of the New World of America. Now let us examine whether this glorious intellect, in which poetical imagination is as godlike, as his sober judgment is solid and profound, does not freight his emblematic ship, with all that is most worthy to be preserved, and gathered, from the wrecks of knowledge in the Old World, to be married to the New 1

BA CON A ND ANTIQ UITY, 1 6 1 The first thing that strikes us in a study of Bacon's works, is his contempt for much of antiquity, that we have considered worthy of respect So much is this the case, that Goethe quarrels with him on this account : — '' But, on the other hand, most revolting to us is Bacon's insensibility to the merits of his predecessors, his want of reverence for antiquity. For how can one listen with patience when he compares the works of Aristotle and Plato to light planks, which, because they consist of no solid material, may have floated down to us on the flood of agesl" (Goethe's Works, vol. xxix. p. 88.) But although Bacon casts Aristotle overboard, and makes light of many of the Grsecian philosophers, we find him inclining to accept, (with implied reservations of his own,) the atomic theory of Demociitus, the Strife and Friendship of Empedocles, and the fire philosophy of Heraclitus, (which greatly resembles that of Empedocles,) and which is connected with the Persian doctrines of two opposing principles. It is indeed curious to find Bacon drawing close to the cults representative of dual antagonistical principles, which philosophy is so conspicuous in the Sonnets attributed to Shakespeare. '* But the elder of the Greek philosophers, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Democritus, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Xenophanes, Philolaus, and the rest (I omit Pythagoras as a mystic), did not, so far as we know, open schools ; but more silently and severely and simply ; that is, with less affectation and parade, betook themselves to the inquisition of truth. And, therefore, they were, in my judgment, more successful; only that their works were, in the course of time, obscured by those slighter persons who had more which suits and pleases the capacity and tastes of the vulgar: time, like a river, bringing down to us things which are light and puffed up, but letting weighty matters sink" (Ixxi., Works). Again — ^'For the Homoeomera of Anaxagoras; the Atoms of LeuL

1 62 BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY. cippus and Democritus; the Heaven and Earth of Parmenides; the Strife and Friendship of Empedodes; Heraclitus*s doctrine how bodies are resolved into the indifferent nature of fire, and remoulded into solids; have all of them some taste of the natural philosopher — some savour of the nature of things and experience." We see that Bacon is inclined to look favourably upon these philosophies. We find Bacon elsewhere commending Telesius of Cozensa as " the last of the novelists." He was one of the Italian reformers of philosophy, and he attempts to explain all things, on the hypothesis of the continuous conflict and reciprocal action of two formal principles, heat and cold. His other doctrines are either subordinated to this dualism, or merely complimentary to such a system. The disciple of Telesius was Gampanella, who wrote the " City of the Sun," which, like Bacon's *• Atlantis " and Sir Thomas More's " Utopia," is a visionary ideal of a better state of society. It is to be noted that Telesius joins hands with Empedocles and Heraclitus in a system of philosophic dualism. We have drawn attention to this because, iu his works. Bacon devotes much space to this philosophy of ** Strife and Friendship," or Mars and Venus. He works it out under the forms of heat and cold, dense and rare, heavy and light, and mysteriously calls it the Keys of Works. It is a remarkable coincidence that the Rosicrucians held similar principles for their philosophic system. They were the recondite searchers after the Wisdom of Persia and Eg3rpt, searchers after the hidden mysteries of Art and Nature, and they were anti-papal. Here let us repeat that the philosophy of Heraclitus is derived from Persia, and found its exposition at Ephesus, around the worship of the great Diana, whose temple we find presented to us in the play of Ferides. Yarker (in his " Ancient Mysteries ") says, " The English Kosicrucians taught that two original principles proceeded in the beginning from the Divine Father — light and darkness, or form and idea." These, of course, we see are nothing but the good and bad principles of the Zend-Avesta,

BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY. 1 63 Ormuzd, and Ahriman. But we will quote from Jacob Boehmen, who is generally accepted as a genuine member of the mystic brotherhood, and who happens to be in vogue at the present moment with occultists — " The First Principle. " What God is, considered as without and beyond Nature and Creature. And what the Great Mystery — Mysterium Magnum — should be. Showing how God hath, by his ' Breathing forth,' or 'Speaking,' introduced himself into Nature and Creature. ** The Second Principle, "Here beginneth the Great Mystery — Mysterium Magnum, Namely, the Distinction in the speaking of the ' Word.' Wherein the ' Word ' through the Wisdom becometh distinct. Also the evocation of Natural^ Sensible, Perceptible, and Palpable (or Inventible) Means. Whereby the Two Eternal Principles of God's Love and Anger— m Light and Darkness, in Good and Evil, in Reason and Faith, in Heaven and in Hell." In the dedicatory epistle to James the First, prefacing the Great Instauration, which we prefer to term the Great Restoration, these words: — "Most Gracious and Mighty King, — Your Majesty may perhaps accuse me of larceny, having stolen from your affairs so much time as was required for this work. I know not what to say for myself. For of time there can be no restitution, unless it be that what has been abstracted from your business may perhaps go to the memory of your name and the honour of your age ; if these things are indeed worth anything. Certainly they are quite new ; totally new in their very kind : and yet they are copied from a very ancient model" The italics are ours. We have here Bacon's words to describe his work as " copied from a very ancient model," and directly

1 64 BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY, we open and commence his preface, we find him writing thus, " That Time is like a river, which has brought down to us things light and puffed up, while those that are weighty and solid have sunk" Spedding acknowledges that Bacon looks back as well as forward, and his own expression, that of " handing on the lamps to posterity," is a sufficiently ambiguous one, must be confessed. '* Certain it is that the tendency was strong in Bacon to credit the past with wonders j to suppose that the world had brought forth greater things than it remembered, had seen periods of high civilisation buried in oblivion, gre^it powers and peoples swept away and extinguished. In the year 1607, he avowed before the House of Commons a belief that in some forgotten period of her history (possibly during the Heptarchy) England had been far better peopled than she was then. In 1609, when he published the * De Sapientid Veteriim* he inclined to believe that an age of higher intellectual development than any the world then knew of had flourished and passed out of memory long before Homer and Hesiod wrote." (Preface to " New Atlantis.'') TVe find him in another instance quoting the Egyptians, Persians, and Culdees as more worthy sources of reliable authority. Thus we see his mind is equally inclined to go profoundly backwards, as to forecast the future. Spedding draws attention to Bacon's " Commeniarius Solutus" or sort of note-book, in which this passage is to be found : — " DiscouTMng scornfully of the philosophy of the Grecians, with some better respect to the -Egyptians, Persians, Caldees, and the utmost antiquity, and the mysteries of the poets;" and again, a little farther on, " Talcing a greater confidence and authority in discourses of this nature, tanqmim sui certus et de alto despiciens." Now we cannot overestimate this passage. How is it Bacon is turning to the Egyptians, Persians, and Chaldees, from whom the Rosicrucians derived their sources of learning? Samuel Butler writes in his " Hudibras," 1663 : — " As for the Rosy Cross Philoaophei-s, Whom you will have to be but sorcerers,

BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY. 1 65 What they pretend to is no more, Than Trisraegiatus did before. Pythagoras, old Zoroaster And Appolonius, their master, To wliom they do confess they owe, All that they do and all they know." Hermes Trismegistus belongs to Egypt, Zoroaster to Persia, and Chaldaea especially has always been associated with the mystic brotherhood, {Vide *' Zanoni," by Bulwer.) Butler further writes : — " The fraternity of the Rosicnicians is very like the sect of the Ancient Gnostics, who called themselves so from the excellent learning they pretended to." As Butler lived within a reasonable distance of Bacon's times, and of the age when Kosicruciauism made itself felt, this is all worthy of our notice. At any rate. Bacon's own writing is evidence of his profundity, of the extraordinary far-reaching (back as well as forwards) propensities of his mind ; and every student of this remarkable fact will do well to reckon with it, seeing that what we probably know of Bacon's mind, or of its learning, is but a fraction of the real truth. We now come to the mysterious confession of his adherence to antiquity, with regard to works. In the ** Novum Organum^' (p. 41) we find Bacon stating that, he is going the same road as the ancients. "For if I should profess that I, going the same road as the ancients, have something better to produce, there must needs have been some comparison or rivalry between us (not to be avoided by any art of words) in respect of excellency or ability of wit." This comparison of himself with the ancients is most curious, because there is nothing in his prose works to warrant the comparison. Nor can we by any extravagant stretch of fancy, imagine he is alluding to his ** Wisdom of the Ancients," or his '* Advancement of Learning." Bacon at the age of sixteen disapproved of the Aristotelian philosophy. " Not (as his Chaplain Rawley writes) for the worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way, being a philosophy (as his lordship used to say), only

1 66 BACON AND ANTIQUITY. strong for disputations and contentions; but barren for the production of works, for the benefit of the life of inan« In which mind he continued to his dying day" (Life of Bacon, Kawley, ninth edition, " Sylva Sylvarum," 2.) If then, as we see, he repudiated the philosophy of the ancients in Aristotle, in what other direction can we discover that he accompanies them on the same road ? In the " Advancement of Learning " he says — " To me it seemeth best to keep way, With Antiquity usque ad arcu.^ The Latin quotation is a curious and striking expression^ meaning, " even to the altars " ^ {of Antiquity). But is there no sly hint here to the drama and its origin 1 For it was round the altars of the Greek diviaities that the mysterious choruses arose, and the divine drama of the rape of Proserpine first took shape. Nor is our belief that he is thus alluding to the Greek drama lessened by the fact, that in the preceding section he uses the following quite unnecessary similes connected with the Theatre — "The play books of philosophical systems ;" again, "The plays of this philosophical theatre " (Ixi., Ixii.). It is evident his mind is running upon plays and the theatre. And it is indeed curious here to call to mind the curious fact that Ben Jonson, in his "Discoveries" (printed 1640) makes use of the same comparison for Bacon as he does for Shakespeare. Ben Jonson, after describing many celebrities of his own and of the preceding age, arrives at Sir Francis Bacon : — " Lord Egerton, a grave and great orator, and best when he was provoked, but his learned and able, but unfortunate, successor (Sir Francis Bacon) is he that hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Ch'eece or haughty Borne," Ben Jonson translated for Bacon his philosophical works. And, moreover, Ben Jonson was a profound classical scholar himself, not likely ' *' Usque ad aras" is Bometimes translated, "as far as conscience permits," meaning **a8 far as the altars" — to the Gods themselves, — that is, with the sanction of religion.

BA CON AND ANTJQ UITY. 1 6 7 to bestow such praise unless it were deserved. Bat now comes the strange but significant fact that Ben Jonson employs the same words — the same comparison, " insolent Greece or haughty Rome/' to Shakespeare in the well-known verses addressed to him: — '' Or when thy socks were on, Leave thee alone for the comparison Of all that itisolerU Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come." Now these sort of parallels produce different effects on different minds. With some they are cogent proofs, with others they weigh nothing. To ourselves this is a tremendous piece of presumptive evidence that Bacon was the author of the plays, because Ben Jonson would never have applied the same comparison to Bacon that he does to Shakespeare — the exact words — unless he knew the trutL There is nothing in Bacon's prose works whatever to warrant any comparison of the sort. That Ben Jonson is alluding to poetry is plain ; *' filled up all numbers," is to have written every style of verse, exhausted poetry. And even if we allow that some of Bacon's prose works could find favourable comparison with Latin compositions of like character, how are we to account for the Greek parallel % No ! The truth is plain. Ben Jonson is alluding to the plays, and he is perfectly conscious who the real author is. He therefore applies to the real author (Sir Francis Bacon) the same comparison and words he employs for the false author. In each case we see he is thinking of plays that have surpassed the Greek and Latin dramatic masterpieces. It is a remarkable thing to again find Ben Jonson, in his dedicatory lines prefacing the engraving of Shakespeare (which stands as frontispiece to the Folio Edition of the Comedies and Tragedies, 1623), using the same figure, or turn of speech, and idea, as is to be found in words inscribed round the miniature of Bacon, painted by Hilliard in 1578.^ Mr Spedding writes : — ** There is ^ ThiB was written before we dUcovered that both these parallels were broaght forward in Mr Donnelly's "Great Cryptogram." But as they are

i68 BACON AND ANTIQUITY, an inscription on a miniature painted by Hilliard in 1578, which indicates the impression made by his conversation upon those who heard it. There may be seen his face as it was in his eighteenth year, and round it may be read the significant words — the natural ejaculation, we may presume, of the artist's own emotion — Si tabula daretur digna, animum mallem: If one could but paint his mind ! " (Life, vol. L) Now in reading the well-known lines of Ben Jonson, this idea is exactly repeated : — '^ This figure that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut ; Wherein the graver had a strife With Nature to out do the life : 0, could he hut have drawn his vnt, As well in brass as he hath hit His face ; the Print would theu surpasse All that was ever writ in brass." The line in italics is nothing but Hilliard's words :— " If one could but paint (draw) his mind " (wit) ; and there is no question that Ben Jonson, who was Bacon's translator, and intimate, is thinking of Bacon. We quite agree with Mr Donnelly about the sense in which the brass is brought in by Jonson. We can fairly apply Shakespeare's lines to his own portrait, "Can any face of brass hold longer out !" (Lovers Labour's Lost, v. 2.) As Mr Donnelly truly points out, Ben Jonson is fully in the secret, for he applies the same language to both. We are accustomed to translate " Magna Insiauraiio " as the ''Great Instauration," but it is forgotten that Instauration does mean Restoration, or Benewal, also. How is it that Bacon, who quotes, every other few lines, a Latin or Greek author, has said that he intends keeping way with the ancients, " usque ad aras " f What are we to make of this declaration, uttered by a man who quite understands the expression he is using, which is ''as far as conscience permits ! " We find Bacon saying in his most important, we again advance them, acknowledging Mr Donnelly's complete prior claim to their discovery.

BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY. 1 69 '* Prosemium" — (which he "judged it to be for the interest of the present and future generations that they should be made acquainted with his thoughts ") : — " whether that (the) commerce between the mind of man and the nature of things, which is more precious than anything on earth, might at any time be restored to its perfect and original condiiion" We see from this Bacon is bent upon a restoration, and his mind is not entirely occupied with only a new philosophy. What is this Restoration 9 Certainly not Aristotle's philosophy, with which he disagreed at an early age. Coupled with this we have to consider the reasons why he distinctly veils his method, not only in ambiguous language, which has perplexed his commentators and editors like Ellis and Spedding, but directly states his intention is to write so as to *' choose his reader/^' For what reason on earth should Bacon, who is apparently orthodox and profoundly religious, veil and obscure a philosophical new method, that depends upon clearness for comprehension 1 His philosophical method (ostensibly) pretends to unlock, by means of induction and experiment, a new system, by means of which man shall be able to arrive at the secrets of Nature. There is nothing in such an instrument to suggest the slightest necessity for obscurity or for mysticism. As we have remarked, such a system to be understood, must above all things be lucid, plain, and as far from obscurity as possible. But let us quote to the purpose. Spedding not only recognizes the fact that he desired to keep his " system secret" but gives us (in his Notes to the Preface of the " Novum Organum") extracts from Bacon's own writings upon this point. Space does not permit us to insert all, but there are altogether ten selections from his works in which he insists or hints at the necessity of secrecy. 1. Valerius Terminus. Ch. 18. "That the discretion anciently observed, though by the precedent of many vain persons and deceivers abused, of publishing part and reserving part to a private succession, and of publishing in

1 70 BA CON AND ANTIQ UITlt. 8uch a manner whereby it may not be to the taste or capacity of all, hui shall as it were single and adopt his reader, is not to be laid aside ; both for the avoiding of abuse in the excladed, and the strengthening of affection in the admitted." And again (Ch. 11), "To ascend farther by scale I do forbear, partly because it would draw on the example to an over-great length, but chiefly because it would open that which in this work I determine to reserve" Here is something that cannot be too sufficiently studied, ie., that Bacon declares that he has " reserved part of his publications for a * private stLCcession,* " " This system is not to he laid aside" He determines ''to reserve something — to pyblish part and to reserve part for a ^private s^iccession,' " This is indeed more than extraordinary ! Because^ it falls in with all that Mr Sped* ding remarks upon the plan or " distributio cperis " of his work, which he divides into a number of parts, of which we have a large part wanting.^ But we have additional proof that there was some reserved secret or mystery, some pvhlications not comprised with the acknowledged works in the following — '' ' Publicandi autem ista ratio ea est, ut quae ad ingeniorum correspondentias captandas et mentium areas purgandas pertinent, edantur in vulgus et per ora volitent : reiiqua per manus tradantur cum eledione et judicio: * the ' reiiqua ' being, as appears a little further on, ' ipsa Interpretationis formtda et inventa per eandem : ' from which it seems to be inferred that the exposition of the new method was not only not to be published along with the rest of the work, but to be excluded from it altogether ; to be kept as a secret^ and transmitted orally" What are these ** reiiqua f" Where are theyl Why should they be necessary 1 What do they treat off And a thousand ^ We have this strange title given us : — THB TIBST FABT OF THE mSTAUKATIOK, which comprises the Divisions of the Sciences, IS WA19TINO.

BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY. 1 7 1 such questions suggest themselves. Mr Spedding labours, with praiseworthy simple-mindedness, to dispose of the mystery (being, to him, utterly unnecessary and unintelligible on any grounds whatever) in a thoroughly unsatisfactory manner. Why does Bacon give us this piece about publishing? Spedding ingeniously suggests that the " reliqua " is " to be kept as a secret and transmitted orally,** Here are facts of declaration on the part of Bacon that there are two ways of pMishing. One is to acknowledge your works, the other is not to acknowledge them^ and he pretty plainly hints that he has adopted both methods. What are the doctrines that are to fit themselves to the capacities and choose their readers 1 Surely not the Inductive Method with which Bacon's name stands connected ! Spedding, after giving us everywhere abundant evidence of this kind, goes on to try and explain it, his lamentable failure doing more to strengthen the case than the quotations themselves. But he betrays all the time an uncomfortable feeling that it is above his ability. What is the oral transmission 1 Freemasonry is the only solution we can arrive at of this mystery. Spedding writes : — "The part which he proposed to reserve is distinctly defined in the fourth extract as ' ipsa interpretationis formula et inventa per eandem;' the part to be published is 'ea qua ad ingeniorum correspondentias captandas et mentium areas purgandas pertinent.' " We have given the Latin to avoid errors of translation. Here is something very curious. To our minds, nothing could more clearly indicate a double system of publication and of subjects related, as key to works. What is it Bacon has reserved ) Are these the missing parts of the Great Restoration, or the plays known as Shakespeare's % Even Mr S|)edding acknowledges the reservation. He writes — " It is true that in both of these Bacon intimates an intention to reserve the communication of one part of his philosophy — the

172 BA CON AND ANTJQ UITY. ' formula ipsa interpretationis et inventa per eandem ' — to certain fit and chosen persons. May we infer from the expressions which he there uses, that his object was to prevent it from becoming generally known, as being a treasure which would lose its value by being divulged ? Such a supposition seems to me inconsistent, not only with all we know of his proceedings, purposes, and aspirations, but with the very explanation with which he himself accompanies the suggestion." (Notes to Preface of the "Nov. Org.," 112). Bacon writes :— " Nay, further, as it was aptly said by one of Plato's school, the sense of man resembles the sun, which openeth and revealeth the tenestrial ghhey hut obscureth and concealeth the celestial; so doth the sense discover natural things, but darken and shut up divine. And this appeareth sufficiently in that there is no proceeding in invention of knowledge but by similitude ; and God is only self-like, having nothing in common with any creature, otherwise than as in shadow and trope,^^ This passage is remarkable. Because it gives us a sort of key to Bacon's profoundest innermost thoughts and depths. It shows us that he regarded Nature as the " shadow and trope " of the Divine Art — that is, as concealing and hiding the celestial image. Now we find in Hamlet a play introduced (as interlude) within the play, representatively, or tropically (that is), as image or reflection of the King's conscience : — " King, What do you call the play 1 Ham. The Mouse-trap. Marry, how \ TropicaUy, This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna." So we find the expression " trope,'' " tropically " employed in the plays, and by Bacon in the same sense as image, that is, shadow or reflection. Bacon seems to us (in the passage quoted from him), to tell us that Nature is a reflection, shadow, image, of God —done tropically, which immediately recalls the playwriters'

BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY, 1 7 3 art. Indeed, we find him in the Dream terming his actors " shadows " : — " Theseus, The best in this kind are but sJiadowsJ^ Again — " Puck. If we shadows have offended. Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream." Have we not (in the passage quoted above from Bacon) a key to his philosophical view of Nature, as the shadow, and trope or reflection of God 1 It is just such a view as we should expect of the author of the plays, which are all shadow and trope, being figurative and privative, of concealed light from first to last. Tlie Two Favourite Sayings of Bacon, '' And it appears worthy of remark in Solomon, that though mighty in empire and in gold j in the magnificence of his works, his court, his household, and his fleet ; in the lustre of his name and the worship of mankind ; yet he took none of these to glory in, but pronounced that * The glory of God is to conceal a thing ; the glory of tlie king to search it out,' " This is Bacon's favourite saying. He repeats it at intervals over and over again throughout his works. And it is to be remarked that this is the only thing he does repeat, and that, therefore, it must have been very much in his mind indeed ! We see at once that the secrecy or reserve of Nature, is to him the greatest glory of God. His admiration and reverence for the Almighty and His works, finds its top note of praise in what he rightly terms the "glory of God" — i.e., in the immeasurable silence and concealment which characterises Nature. To be hidden and revealed — concealed and open — is to Bacon the greatest of all proofs of the Divine Artist's excellence and Wisdom. In Bacon's view (as we see by his works). Nature

1 74 BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY. withholds nothing except to the incapable. Nature is " openly secret/' and, as he says, ^Unfinitely more subtle than the senses of man" We find Bacon, evidently, and thoroughly, entertaining, and holding fast the belief, that God is in his works as the Divine Word. And that this is so, is shown in another variation upon this remark of Solomon's, which Bacon never tires of, but which is the keynote of his mind and character, so endlessly reiterated is it : — " Whereas of the sciences which regard Nature, the divine philosopher declares that * it is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but it is the glory of the Ring to find a thing out.' Even as though the divine nature took pleasure in the innocent and kindly sport of children playing at hide and seek, and vouchsafed of his kindness and goodness to admit the human spirit for his playfellow at that game." We see that the idea of the Divine Nature, as playing " hide and seek/* is only to be reconciled with the philosophy which teaches that the universe is the thought of God.^ The Divine Artist is in His works, which reveal and conceal Him. Both Goethe and Jacobi had ideas of this sort. But it is Plato really who presents us with a world which is as a work of a Divine Poet, who has through the Word — (his archetypal Idea) — hidden himself in his works. Is it asking too much to suggest that the mystery as to the authorship of the plays finds solution in this admiration of Bacon's for " concealment " or " hide and seek " ? Much argument and discussion has been carried on as to the motives which prompted concealment of the authorship of the plays. As yet the only arguments adduced are to the point that playwriting was a sort of " despised weed," and harmful to acknowledge during Bacon's life. This mode of reasoning is not worth much. But to come down hidden through the ages is sublime. And we have every reason to believe that the keynote ^ The idea that the univerBe ia the thought of God clothed in the art of Natare, ia a right one. Both Bruno aod Spinoza were led to the colclusion that God ia to be sought for tcithm nature and not without.

BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY, 1 7 5 of admiration sounded in the passages so often quoted by Bacon, was and is the keynote on which the entire cycle of the plays was founded — i.e., to come down to man after the fashion of Nature in plays which present an answer to what we are seeking, that, like Nature, are openly secret, and whose interest is heightened by the whetstone ^ of mystery, enigma, and profundity. One of the maxims of the Rosicrucians was concealment and sacrifice — to be everywhere, and know everything, yet be recognised by nobody, and to hand on their secrets from generation to generation in unbroken succession of inefiable silence. Turn to the play of Measure for Measure^ and we immediately recognise in the disguised duke, who, whilst supposed to be absent from his kingdom, is in reality ubiquitous, and watching and supervising everything, this idea repeated. It completely realizes the conception of an ubiquitous Providence perfectly concealed, yet directing and supervising His works, so that evil — even the wickedness of Angelo — is directed into an instrument of restitution. God affords no revelation of Himself outside or BEYOND His Works. Nature is the Divine Art, and the Divine Art, were it interpreted, would reveal the Artist's Miod. The discipUne of life, of education and science, revolves upon this mystery of existence, where we are face to face with a mighty problem, that reserves nothing except the right of illusion through our limited senses. We have to mine, to work, and dig for truth, and we are bettered by the process. It seems to us there is much pregnant argument in all this to suggest (if not prove) that Bacon has put into practice, that which he so admires in the Divine Mind and Works — viz., concealment. We find Bacon eager for new intellectual wonders which shall rival the wonders of discovery of his own age in the New World. We find him inventing a New Atlantis, with Solomon's House, and presenting us with a frontispiece of a ship sailing beyond the pillars of Hercules in search of New Worlds, with the proud device, plus ultra, " For ^ **But if a Man be thought Secret, it inviteth discovery." — EUaays, 1625.

176 BA CON AND ANTIQ UIT K how long shall we let a few received authors stand up like Hercules' columns, beyond which there shall be no sailing or discovery in science, when we have so bright and benign a star as your Majesty to conduct and prosper us % " Here is an eager mind, on the very tip-toe of expectation, looking for dawn across the ocean — to new worlds — in the direction of America — his little ship pointing west to that land from whence (as if his great mind knew and foresaw it) has first come X the voice of souls to give him due. " Nor must it go for nothing that by the distant voyages and travels which have become frequent in our times, many things in nature have been laid open and discovered which may let in new light upon philosophy. And surely it would be disgraceful if, while the regions of the material globe, — that is, of the earth, of the sea, and of the stars, — have been in our times laid widely open and revealed, the intellectual globe should remain shut . up within the narrow limits of old discoveries." So that the " ship device" is no mere fancy, but a voyage of genuine adventure ^ of the intellectual sort, something sent forth upon the ocean of Time, which Bacon evidently thinks is as great from an intellectual point of view, as the discovery of the New World. How is it we find in the Sonnets this idea of a ship or bark repeated with unmistakable allusion to the ocean, and as unquestionably relating to the plays and poems ? LXXX " O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might, To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame ! But since your worth, wide as the ocean is, The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, My sauci/ bark, inferior far to his, On your broad main doth wilfully appear." ^ Compare Dedication of the Sonnets — " To the only begetter of these ensuing Sonnets, Mr VV. H., all happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet, wisheth the well-wishing cuiveiUurer in setting forth, T. T."

BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY. 1 7 7 The allusion to '*fame" makes the reference or subject-matter unmistakable. Here is a metaphorical poetical picture of an intellectual venture, or ship sent forth on the ocean of Time, to Posterity : — " Seeing now, most excellent king, thai my little hark, such as it is, has sailed round the whole circumference of the eld and new world of sciences (with what success and fortune it is for posterity to decide), what remains but that having at length finished my course I should pay my vows 1 But there still remains Sacred or Inspired Divinity; whereof however if I proceed to treat I shall step out of the hark of human reason, and enter into the ship of the church** (Book ix., chap. 1, " De Augmentis/') We thus see that Bacon employs the same image and even word " bark," we find in the Sonnets. Moreover, we find him addressing posterity in connection with this bark, which carries in it the precious argosy of the Old World and the New. So that we at once perceive that his work contains two parts — that belonging to antiquity (which he calls ** going the same road as the ancients '') ; the other, this inductive method, which belongs to the New World. Miranda, in The Tempest exclaims — " O, brave New World." And the imagination cannot be bridled from perhaps as yet, premature speculation as to the whereabouts of Prosperous island of souls, to which this ship is bound, plus ultra, across the Atlantic. Is the island of Prospero the New Atlantis — (Plato's New Republic), the Ogygia of Homer, or the Avalon of Arthur, for Mr Baring-Gould, in his " Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," has declared them all to be the same ? But of this we have discussed at length in the chapter on the play of The Tempest, One thing is plain : in Bacon's system and works there is something incomplete, something that even his editors, like Ellis and Spedding, are at a loss to explain ; an air of mystery and enigma (otherwise unnecessary) ; obscure references to art, to philosophical play systems, idols of the theatre, joined with a most extravagant M

178 BA CON AND ANTIQ UIT^ \ faith iu relationship to posterity. He writes as if he were going to reveal a world to us, and to put his system to a test, upon some model or exemplar, some copy of the universe. Once more, and lastly, Bacon declares he is going '* the same road as the ancients." This is a piece of evidence that it is impossible to explain or get over. For it cannot be his method of Philosophy. His method is inductive, and he disclaimed Aristotle. What is it, then? Does he join hands with the ancients upon their Mysteries, around their altars, with Heraclitus, Empedocles, the creative doctrines of Orpheus, and with the Platonic Philosophy 1 This, we believe, is the true solution to the question. It is in the plays that we find these subjects over and over again more than exhaustively treated. It is the origin of the Drama, which is his prototype, and which he even goes beyond, as Ben Jonson well knew when he declared that he had done and gone beyond "all that Insolent Greece or Haughty Bome had performed I " We find Bacon too instituting a comparison between himself, as a rival to the ancients in what they had done. '* Upon these premises two things occur to me, of which, that they may not be overlooked, I would have men reminded. First, it falls out fortunately, as I think, for the allaying of contradictions and heart-burnings, that the honour and reverence due to the ancients remains untouched and undiminished ; while I may carry out my designs, and at the same time reap the fruit of my modesty} For if I should profess that I, going the same road as the ancients, have something better to produce, there must needs have been some comparison or rivalry between us (not to be avoided by any art of words) in respect of excellency or ability of wit; and though in this there would be nothing unlawful or new (for if there be anything misapprehended by them, or &kely laid down, why may not I, using a liberty common to all, take exception to it 1)" I Will some of the clever sceptics explain to as wherein this moduty of Baoon*8 consisted, unless in his silence as to the plays ?

BA CON AND ANTIQ UlTY, 1 7 9 Now, nobody can for a moment assert that the method commonly known as the Inductive, or the Baconian, has any rivalry, or is on any parallel lines with anything done by Antiquity. Bacon's is only a method after all, an instrument, and a system, which, though having foreshadowed all our modern discoveries and science, has nothing to place it in any category of comparison with Antiquity. Where, then, is this rivalry or road that he is going ? Let us ask ourselves wherein rivalry could exist, so as to make these words real and comprehensible 7 We reply that Antiquity has one pre-eminent literary landmark or monument, wherein it stands discoverer, inventor, and beyond which nobody (except one) seems hitherto to have gone. We allude to the Drama, its origin and its source ; the Mysteries, Greece, iBschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, whose motto might have been ne plus ultra / The only plays that can be placed in the same line are those known as Shakespeare's. But the comparison is, in some respects, disadvantageous to the poet; that is, apparently from certain points of view, and those points of view must be in every student's eyes — depth, seriousness as to didactic import ; in short, a want of purport, to the apparent disadvantage of the Englishman. We say apparently only. It is certain that the Ancient Drama arose in the service, and around the altars of the Gods. It was thus religious in its origin, first commencing with creative hymns, which, as choruses, gradually developed into representative action and poetry combined. All that was serious, solemn, awful, pertaining to the creation of the World, its Mysteries, and the immortality of the soul, was included in it It is philosophical and theological at once. Its serious purport and severe sense of retribution or justice are quite apart from anything modem. If Shakespeare instead had used these words to suggest rivalry with the ancients, on the same road with them, it would be partly explicable. Yet we should consider the comparison (which is undoubtedly one made by Bacon to his own superiority and advantage) as requiring explanation and development. Because {at first sight) the plays seem to have no points of

i8o BACON AND ANTIQUITY. contact or touch to institute a parallel between themselves and antiquity. In this work, we pretend to have discovered, the myth of Dem^ter (Ceres) and Persephone, not only incorporated in The IFirUer's Tale, but given in its title. Further, we refind in The Tempest, and in the Midsummer-Nights Dream, unmistakable traces of the Mysteries. We mean by the Mysteries — the Eleusinian Mysteries — ^particularly the Dem^ter and Persephone myth — (which formed its central doctrine), and around which (together with the worship of Apollo and Bacchus) the drama takes its origin. If the poet has really done what we assert, then, indeed, the comparison which Bacon institutes needs no apology, needs no further explanation. If he has done this, then indeed he may say with his proud motto, that he has gone beyond Antiquity and the Old World in point of Art, plus ultra. Unfortunately our space is limited, else the argument might be pursued further with even greater interest. We find Ben Jonson a contributor to.that mysterious work, Chester's " Love's Martyr " (published 1601), in which Shakespeare's poem. The Phcenix and Turtle, appears. There again we find the Greek literature challenged and defied, with some humorous lines suggesting that " Old Homer " has met his equal : — '' Arise old Homer, and make no excuses, Of a rare piece of art must be my song." What description of Art is this that is going to surpass all that insolent Greece or haughty Home have performed) It is Nature's Art, as Plato presents it to us in his Divine Philosophy — true Art in the second degree of initiation — ^not a copy of a copy, but of Divine ideas imprinted on matter, — as a stamp, die, or seal is imprinted on wax.^ LXVIII. " Thus is his cheek the map of days outwom, When beauty liv'd and died as flowers do now, Before these bastard signs of fair were borne, Or durst inhabit on a living brow ; ^ *' Art," writes Plato, *' is to be regarded as the capacity of creating a v'holt that is inspired hy an invmble. order; and its aim is to guide the human soul." — Ph%lehu», pp. 64-67. Phadrus, p. 264.

BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY. 1 8 1 Before the golden tresses of the dead, The right of sepulchres, were shorn away, To live a second life on second head, £re beauty's dead fleece made another gay : In hiin those holy antique hours are seen. Without all ornament, itself, and true, Making no summer of another's green. Bobbing no old to dress his beauty new ; And him as for a map doth nature store. To show false art what beauty was of yore." Compare this — ** So that eternal love in love's fresh case Weighs not the dust and injury .of age, Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, But makes antiquity for aye his page ; Finding the first conceit of love there bred. Where time and outward form would show it dead." Idols of the Theatre, "But the Idols of the Theatre are not innate, nor do they steal into the understanding secretly, but are plainly impressed and received into the mind from the play-books of philosophical systems and the perverted rules of demonstration. To attempt refutations in this case would be merely inconsistent with what I have already said : for since we agree neither upon principles nor upon demonstrations there is no place for argument. And this is so far well, inasmuch as it leaves the honour of the ancients untouched. For they are no wise disparaged — ^the question between them and me being only as to the way. For as the saying is, the lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one. Nay it is obvious that when a man runs the wrong way, the more active and swift he is the further he will go astray." (" Advancement of Learning.") In all Bacon's works, there is no passage so pregnant with reference to the plays, and to the ancients, as this. Can we not at once see that the " Idols of the Theatre " are the Idols of *' the play-books of the philosophical systems," hitherto known as Shake 

1 82 BACON AND ANTIQUITY, speare's, but in reality Bacon's 9 Bat first, let us examine what Bacon means by an IM f An Idol is an imaga But it is the image of something. It is that something^ which is the 'direct beam," whilst the image is " the reflected beam." " For the third vice or disease of learning, which concerneth deceit or untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest ; as that which doth destroy the essential form of knowledge ; which is nothing but a representation of truth ; for the truth of being, and the truth of knowing are one, differing no more than ilie direct beam, and the beam reflected^ (" Advancement of Learning.") Again : — " It seems to me that Pygmalion's frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity; for u^ords are but the images of matter, and except they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture." ("Advancement of Learning.") "It is to be remarked that he uses the word idolon in antithesis to idea, the first place where it occurs being the twentythird aphorism. ' Kon leve quiddam interest,' it is there said, 'inter humanse mentis idola et divinsd mentis ideas.' He nowhere refers to the common meaning of the word, namely the image of a false god. Idols are with him 'placita qu»dam inania,' or more generally, the false notions which have taken possession of men's minds." (Spedding.) We find Bacon's entire theory of Idols, founded upon the worshipping of the False for the True, particularly these Idoh of the Theatre, which we do not for a moment doubt, refers to the plays, and our worship of the mere image or Idol (reflected beam), which we confound with the " direct beam," taking the shadow for the reality. Let the reader study the passage in the original Latin, not in the translation, where, of course, the bias of the translator, has naturally endeavoured to bring the English into hannony with the subject^ without any suspicion of ulterior meaning. That there is ulterior meaning — in short, that Bacon is really covertly alluding to his " philosophical play systems," which are

BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY. 1 83 rivals to the ancients, is most plain.^ In the plays themselves, we find exactly the same contempt of words, as idols, liars, personified in the character of Parolles, whose name expresses his character — Empty Words : — " I know him a notorious liar, Think him a great way fool, solely a coward." —AWb Well That Bnds Well, Act L sc. 1 . Bacon has presented us with it system of philosophical plays, which shall exemplify his inductive philosophy. For example, we are face to face with the Idols of the Theatre, which we take simply, worshipping dead images, which are only reflections of inner spiritual truth, philosophically created like Nature to illustrate Nature.' . The Idols of the Theatre are nothing unless in Bacon's own words, *' they have life of reason and invention, else we fall in love with a picture" All this is repeated so often in the sonnets and in the plays, that it is marvellous, and will seem more marvellous to later ages, how determinedly blind the human mind is where a prejudged opinion shuts up all the alleys and entrances to the mind against the Truth. Nothing illustrates better Bacon's Idols of the four kinds than the question of the authorship of the plays. Take the following double parallel and continue to doubt the authorship : — ** Thus, in the ' Advancement of Learning :' — ' Poetry ia nothing else but feigned history.' Twelfth Night, Act i sc. 2 :— ' Vicla, Tis poetical. Olivia, It is the more likely to be feigned/ Aa You Like It, Act iii. sc. 7 : — * The truest poetry h the most feigning.' J We are quite aware that Baoon first wrote in Engliih, and had his works translated for him. ' "Pygmalion's fnnzy" we see exemplified in Hermione upon her pedestal — "a picturt** till she descends^ when she will discover a life *' of reason and invention " — which will show that the idols of this theatre are living, and not dead, idols.

1 84 BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY. * Natural.Hist/ cent. L 98 : — ' Like perspectives, which show things intcards when they are but paintings.' Richard IL, Act iL so. 2 : — ' Like perspectives, which rightly gazed upon Show nothing but confusion— ey'd awry, Distinguish form." — " Bacon and Shakespeare,'' Smith. Compare Sonnet XXIV. : — " Perspective it is best painters* art, For through the painter must you see his skill." " A natural perspective that is and is not.' " —Twelfth Night. It is not the use of the same words which gives point to the parallels, but the identity of thought presented in the same language ; which is striking. Both Bacon and Shakespeare reveal themselves as artists of the highest order, comprehending the proper use of perspective in the literary art — that is, in being openly secret. But to return to the passage quoted from Bacon, about The Idols of the Theatre; how is it he brings in so curiously the following : — " And this is so far well, inasmuch as it leaves the honour of the ancients untouched. For they are nowise disparaged, the question between them and me being only as to the way." With this compare elsewhere where Bacon declares he is going Usque ad Aras with the ancients, as ''far as with conscience," but also literally '' to the altars themselves ! " " Surely, the advice of the prophet is the true direction in this matter, ' State super vias antiquas, et videte gucenam sit via recta et bona, et ambulate in ea* Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should make a stand thereupon, and discover what is the best way: but when the discovery is well taken, then to make progression. And to speak truly, ' ArUiquitas seeuli javenfus mundiJ These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient ordine retrograde, by a computation backward from ourselves." But nobody knows or can explain what it is that Bacon means

BACON AND ANTIQUITY, 185 when he declares he is going " the same road as the ancients," unless it be the plays and their philosophical systems, which we maintain are copied from the ancients^ as anyone can see in The IFinier's Tale, Dream, and Tempest, But we do not expect to convert a sceptical age. Nevertheless, as the truth must ultimately come out, let us here lay just claim to having forestalled it. We therefore present the reader mth the following passage, which in a moment reveals the writer's predilections — " As to the heathen antiquities of the world, it is in vain to note them for deficient ; deficient they are, no doubt, consisting most of fables and fragments, but the deficience cannot be holpen ; for antiquity is like fame, caput inter nubila condit, her head is muffled from our sight." Yes, " Antiquity is like fame " — like Bacon's fame, with which it is partly identified, but as yet ** muffled from our sight," hidden in the " region cloud." " Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day. And make me travel forth without my cloak, To let base clouds overtake me in my way, Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke 1 ** — Sonnet xxxiv. Here is a subtle hint which Bacon gives us — " To conclude, therefore : as certain critics used to say hyperbolically : that if all sciences were lost they might be found in Virgil." But where particularly 1 We reply, in the sixth book of the " -^Eneid," tJie science of the Mysteries, which is the keystone of the chief plays. But now take the following passage, addressed to the entire tribe of Shakespearian Editors, Commentators, Emendators, and Correctors, written (as Bacon so openly and unreservedly puts it), to " prevent the inconveniences future," clearly seeing that the great army of Mar-texts would so corrupt, vilify, and destroy the text, by bringing it to a level with their intelligences, as to cause great ''inconveniences fixture." ^ 2 \

1 86 BA CON AND ANTIQ UITY. " A CONCLUSION IN A DEUBBRATIVB. " Bo may toe redeem the faults passed, and prevent the inconveniences future, - " There remain two appendices touching the tradition of knowledge, the one critical, the other pedantical ; for all knowledge is either delivered by teachers, or attained by men's proper endeavours : and therefore, as the principal part of tradition of knowledge concemeth chiefly writing of books, so the relative part thereof concerneth reading of books : whereunto appertain incidentally these considerations. The first is concerning the true correction and edition of authors, wherein nevertheless rash diligence hath done great prejudice. For these critics have often presumed that that which they understand not^ is false set down. As the priest, that where he found it written of St Paul, ' Demissus esi per sportam,' mended his book, and made it ' Demissus est per ^offam,' because sporta was an hard word, and out of his reading : and surely their errors, though they be not so palpable and ridiculous, yet are of the same kind. And, therefore, as it hath been wisely noted, the most corrected copies are commonly the least correct. *' The second is concerning the exposition and explication of authors, which resteth in annotations and commentaries, wherein it is over usual to blanch the obscure places, and discourse upon the plain." Do we really think and believe that this was deliberately written with an eye to the future, with its corrections of what has been supposed to be a corrupt text, because " obscure " and brought down by vermiculate intellects to their own plain level 1 We do most unquestionably. Has not Mr Donnelly already proved this 1 Was he not obliged to obtain a photographed copy of the Great Folio Edition of 1623, wherein he at once noticed the irregular paging, bracketing, hyphens, &c., which led to his discovery of the cipher 1 Fortunately those Folios exist ; fortunately they cannot be corrected, emendated, and otherwise vilified — or corrupted.

CHAPTER IX. LORD bacon's "history OF THE SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY OF THINGS." " Merry and tragical ! Tedious and brief ! That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow. How shall we find the concord of this discord ? " — Mid9ummer-Night*8 Dream, " Strife and Friendship in Nature are the spurs of motions, and the Keys of Works " (page 203, vol. v., Lord Bacon's Works). " In the 63rd section of the Novum Organum he (Bacon) mentions very approvingly the philosophers of antiquity who taught this philosophy, of opposites or contraries, 'The strife and friendship of Empedocles, Heraclitus's doctrine how bodies are resolved into the indifferent nature of fire.' " (Spedding.) These quotations point out that Bacon had accepted and adopted these philosophic principles, which we shall do well therefore to study closer. The moet prominent and striking feature of the Sonnets, is the reiterated appearance of Love (as a male) in conflict and opposition to Hate (as a female). Sometimes they appear as Light and Darkness, as Truth and Falsehood, Summer and Winter, Spirit and Matter, but always in opposition or strife. The Friendship is as prominent as the Strife. For this Friendship is for the friend of the Sonnets to whom they are addressed, and who is Love, Light, Logos, and Truth — the poet's alter ego— who is himself and not himself. The first thing that strikes us is the division of the Sonnets into two parts, not only by a line, but by the second part opening with the subject of a Woman, who, whilst being black, is connoted with the direct opposite characteristics of the male friend of the

1 88 5 VMPA TH Y AND ANTIPA THY OF THINGS. first division of these poems. And not only are these two antagonistical principles at War or strife with each other, but they form a paradox, inasmuch as one is embraced by the other under the androgynous term, ^^Master-Mistress." The Woman not only is termed heU,iiate, and termed as ''black as night," but she is everything the male friend is not. In short, we may say, whatever the male or friend is by nature of Affirmatives the Woman is the contrary by Negatives or exclusions. Nevertheless it is this female that the poet persuades his friend to many for the sake of begetting offspring. In short, the entire subjectmatter of the Sonnets is from the opening, persuasion that his friend may marry this seemingly detestable woman (whom many regard as a real personage), for the sake of immortality. In the Sonnets we find this idea of Strife and Friendship not only prominently brought forward by the contrasted attributes of the male friend and the black mistress, but openly termed a War .— " And all in war with time for love of you, As he takes from you, I eugraft you new." Sonnet 16— ." But wherefore do not you, a mightier way, Make voar upon this bloody tyrant time % " Sonnet 35 — " Such civil War is in my Love and Hate^ That I, an accessory, needs must be To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me." We see here not only the epithet war applied to this strife, but its nature is revealed in the words Love and ffaie, or Friendship and Strife. These were the principles which were taught as the origin of things in the Mysteries of Eleusis, the eternal War of Eleusis (vide "Banquet of Plato," cap. 14, p. 30). "For unity whilst it separates from itself identifies itself" (vide Creuzer's " Symbolik," vol. i. p. 199). Majian system :— " All things consist in the mixture of opposites ; disunion, difference gives existence to things. When this ceases, t.e., when the differences resolve into their source, so do they cease to exist"

SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY OF THINGS. 189 This is the equivalent of separation^ and of reconcUiaiion, And it seems to us clearly to be the very basis of an art which is created for eternity and revelation. For the synthesis or marriage of philosophy (or ideas) to art is at once a separation and a reconciliation. It is the union of mind to matter, of the spiritual to the material, of the signification to the vehicle. Thus Creuzer tells us that " a grand doctrine of the Eleusinian (Mysteries) was the principle of War and Peace, of the strife of matter with the spirit, and of the purification of the latter through it. Thus the doctrine of separation and reconciliation, which in the Pythagorean resembles dualism" (vol. iv. p. 387, ed. iv.). The war of such an art consists in the mixture of contraries. For the material outer form of such art is clearly at enmity, as an obscuring and veiling garb of the inner spiritual signification. But it is not only in this sense that we would apply it. We find that a great number of the plays turn upon separation and final reconciliation in a most phenomenal and striking manner. For example. The IFinter^s Tale presents us with a structure that turns upon the separation of Hermione and Leontes as a pivot, and closes with their reconciliation or unity. Pericles discloses an identical substructure with other prominent parallels that are too persistent to be accidental. In Pericles we have, as in The }Finter*s Tale, a lost child, who is the means of bringing about the reunion of father and mother. Marina is the counterpart of Perdita. Hermione and Thaisa, separated from their respective husbands, are both presented as supposed to be dead, and both miraculou8ly return to life, and are rejoined to their husbands through the indirect instrumentality of their lost children. Again, in Alt's Well that Ends Well we have the separation of Helena and Bertram as the main plot of Love on one side. Hate on the other, to be followed by their reconciliation. In this play the poet actually brings in these contraries or oppositcs into the text, and evidently intentionally. ^ '* Let me confess that we two must be twain, Although our undivided loves are one : 80 shall those faults that do with me remain, Without thy help, by me be borne alone."

I90 SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY OF THINGS. Helena says of Bertram : — '* His humble ambitioD, proud humility, His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet, His faith his sweet disaster." The entire plot of Romeo and Juliet is Love at civil war, at cross purposes, with Hate. The lovers are separated to such a degree in life by the family feud that they can only be united in death. It is impossible that these reiterated and prominent principles can be thus brought in by chance. In the Two Noble Kinsmen, a play attributed to Shakespeare, we find these principles not only brought forward in the protagonist characters of Palamon and Arcite, but we have the introduction of the altars of Mars and Venus, who were the representative deities of these principles. Again, in Hermione, which is only another name for Harmonia, we have a direct reference to Mars and Venus (or this Strife and Friendship), for she was the daughter of Mars and Venus. To the general reader it may appear absurd or trifling to assert, that out of ''Love and Hate" we can trace deliberate philosophic creative principles. But it must not be forgotten that these terms embrace the universe. In Love we have the great attractive force — Gravitation. In Hate we have its direct opposite — Repulsion, which it is not improper to connote with heat. These two are centripetal and centrifugal — a unifying and a separating power. The act of creation, whether physical or poetical, is a love force, synthetic or attractive, marrying for the sake of offspring. The poet marries his ideas to his vehicle. TiOve, according to the Orphic poets, was the gravitating or attractive principle, which brought the universe into shape and gave birth to the starry spheres. But the other power, the opposite of Love, was necessary to prevent everything unifying or marrying. The entire solar system keeps its allotted round through attraction and repulsion — Love and Hate. We are not making imaginary parallels, or stretching a fanciful analogy to breaking point. Call attraction, gravity (or by any

S YMPA THY AND ANTIPA TIIY OF THINGS, 1 9 1 term of Newton's you like), it is simply Love, Desire, the force that compels one thing to another, whether it be particle to particle, or man to woman. And it is this power (which is a marrying or sjmthetic act), that Plato terms '^ marriage for the sake of immortality." It is the opening theme of the Sonnets. But it must not be taken alone, it must be coupled at the same time with its opposite, "strife," or war, or hate. For in art this latter is the obscuring matrix or form, which, whilst receiving the imprint of the archetypal ideas, transforms them into sensuous objects or pictures, and is at cross purposes with them as external to internal, or object to subject. These two in action with each other exemplify Nature as Strife and Friendship, for, as Heraclitus declares, "War is the father of all things." These principles run through all nature, and we call their balance moderation or temperance. In politics we see them displayed in the reciprocal play of party against party. No one thing exists in nature alone, but it has its direct opposite to balance it, and it is easy to maintain without fear of denial that out of the conflict of a great dualism, things exist Can this be applied to art? We think so. And the plays, with ^ their planned rebirth, will illustrate it. It is worthy of a second notice to remark that we have this war described as "a (xM war" (Sonnet 35) — ** Such dvH vxir is in my love and hate That I am aooessary needs must be To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me." Now we have here a confession, that the poet takes pari against himself in this private warfare. He tells us again in Sonnet 46 —

192 SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY OF THINGS. To 'cide this title is impanneled A quest of thoughts all tenants to the heart ; And by their verdict is determined The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part : As thus : mine eye's due is thy outward party And my heart's right thy inward love of heart}* We see here very unmistakably that this "mortal war," or "civil war," is connected with an " outtmrd" and an '* inward** part, that belong respectively to the eye, and to something that is secret, interior, and obscured by the outward eye. This is a species of perspective or illusion produced by exquisite art. Let us hear the poet upon this wonderful art : — " Perspective it is best painter's art, For through the painter must you see his skill," which (being paraphrased) declares "perspective" to be only (" best ") a trick of art, and if we desire to judge of the painter's skill or excellence, we must see through the " perspective." ^ That the poet employs the term " perspective " in the sense of illusion is clear in Twelfth Night, where we have Viola and Sebastian so alike that they are " A natural perspective, that is and is not." But suppose we summon the real author to our assistance Francis Bacon, who appears as if he had written his prose works as commentaries, explanations, and keys to his other poetical creations. In the "Natural History" (Century i 98) we find: " Like perspectives which show things intoards when they are hid paintings*^ In the " Advancement of Learning," we have — " Poetry is nothing else but feigned history." In Twelfth Night, Act i. sc. 2, we have— " Viola, 'TIS poetical. Olivia. It is the more likely to be feigned." 1 Perspective, Perspective meant a onnning picture, which seen directly seemed in confusion, and seen obliquely became an intelligible composition ; also a glass so cut as to produce optical illusion. See King Richard //., Act ii. sc. 2, I. 18. But here does it not simply mean that a painter's highest art is to produce the illusion of distance, one thing seeming to Hj behind another ; yon must look through the painter (my eye or myself), to see your picture, the product of his skill, which lies within him (in my heart) ? — Dowden,

SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY OF THINGS. 193 In As You Like It, Act iii. sc. 7 — " The truest poetry is the most feigning." Or Richard IL^ Act ii. sc. 2 — " Like perspectives, which, rightly gazed upon, Show nothing but confusion— ey'd awry, Distinguish form." What does the poet mean by '' rightly gazed upon," unless he means in the " right or usual way " ? Yet this shows nothing but confusion ! There are certain pictures with figures in them that do not appear when we gaze rightly or simply, or in the usual way at them. To find a face in a tree, or a figure in a landscape, must be a familiar form of amusement, in pictorial invention, to everybody. In order to get at the secret, we have to twist and screw the picture about, and in the words of the poet, " ey'd awry ; " we " distinguish form," that is, we arrive at the solution or discovery. It is so with allegory, and with all high art requiring intense study to reveal its spiritual archetypal idea or form. Thus we have the poet telling us in Richard IL, that ''perspective" produces confusion when rightly gazed upon. Dante writes, in his Convito — " By heart I mean the inward secret," so that the author of the plays is only using, after all, an established form of secret language, and we cannot be charged with foisting fanciful theories of our own upon the text. Bossetti, in his " History of the Antipapal Spirit which preceded the Reformation," gives us an elaborate account of the mystic language which he terms the "Gay Science," which we quote : — ''The mystic language of this society was taught by means of a vocabulary, called the Grammar of the Gay Science ; founded chiefly on ideas and words put in opposition to each other. The antithesis of gay science was sad ignorance ; and, hence, to he gay and to be sad^ to langh, and to weep, with all their respective synonimes and derivatives, signified to be a sectarian, or to be, on the N

194 SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY OF THINGS. contraryy a papalist. Heart meant the hidden secret ; /ace the outward meaning; and si^A^ the verses in this jargon, &c " Before Dante livedo this gay science had fixed the foundation of its language on the two words, love and hatred ; and all their attendant qualities followed on each side— pleasure and grief, truth and falsehood, light and darkness, sun and moon, life and death, good and evil, virtue and vice, courage and cowardice, mountain and valley, fire and frost, garden and desert, &c." Nor should we be surprised to find the author of the plays employing the same secret language as Dante, inasmuch as we have a very strong hint thrown out to us in Sonnet 86 that Dante inspired the poet first. " Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of all too-precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew ? ** The expression of "proud full sail" can only be applied to Dante (or Virgil), inasmuch as we find him comparing his great work to a ship. "The 'Purgatorio' opens with the metaphor of Dante's poetic bark, or sail— a simile continued in the 'Paradiso' (canto ii, 1)— " PURGATORIO— CANTO i. " 0*er the smooth waters of a milder sea The light bark of my genius hoists her sail, Leaving behind the flood of misery : For now that second kingdom claims my song, Wherein is purified the spirit frail. And fitted to rejoin the heavenly throng." — Wrighfs Translation, In Sonnet 80 we find the author of the plays comparing his " saucy bark " to another poet's— " My saucy bark inferior far to his, On your broad main doth wilfully appear."

5 VMPA THY AND ANTIPA TH Y OF THINGS. 1 95 We find Dante making Beatrice the Admiral who commands his figurative bark— *' As to the prow or stern, some admiral Paces the deck, inspiriting his crew, When 'mid the sail-yards all hands plj aloof ; Thus on the left side of the car, I saw The virgin stationed, who before appear'd.^' — (" Purg.» 30.) We cannot too sufficiently study the creative principles consisting of a Loved One or Beloved, as we find so repeatedly in the Sonnets. Analysing Brahma, we find Creuzer thus describes him— (a.) The first Being before and over all things. (&.) The Love that the first Being has for himself, and which he gives away. (c.) Consequently God divided into a Lover and a Beloved, (d.) This Separation is the primai origin of Things. Kot only do the Sonnets deal almost exclusively with a Lover and a Beloved as alter ego (whom the poet repeatedly tells us is himself), but the separation, which is the primal orgin of things, is distinctly enunciated. The poet must beget an heir, a son — who is his Beloved, his spiritual archetype or wisdom — which shall be wedded to his art, and be reborn by revelation of that art. So we find the opening theme deals with marriage for the sake of immortality. And by this we believe he means the marriage of pure rationalistic thought to a vehicle which shall at the same time veil and carry it, as dual unity. We find this "union in partition" plainly enunciated in the poem of the Phoenix and Turtle : — '' So they lov'd, as love in twain Had the essence but in one : Two distincts, division none : Number there in love was slain. Pi*operty was thus appall'd. That the self was not the same ; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was call'd.

196 SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY OF THINGS. fteasoD, in itself confounded, Saw division grow together, To themselves yet either-neither, Simple were so well compounded. That it cried, How tme a twain Seemeth this concordant one ! TiOve hath reason, reason none, If what parts can so remain.'' We find it again brought forward in the relationship of Hermia to Helena : — '* We, Hermia, like two artificial gods. Have with our ueelds created both one flower, Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, Both warbling of one song, both in one key ; As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, Had been incorporate. So we grew together. Like to a double cherry, iteming parted ; But yet a union in partition^ Two lovely berries moulded on one stem ; So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart ; Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, Due but to one, and crownM with one crest" Hermia is plainly the Hermetic ideas imprinted upon Helena, as a stamp imprints itself upon wax. This is Plato's simile for the participation of ideas with Matter (Parmenides). Fouillde writes {La Philosophie de Platan) : — ''Les Pythagoriciens repr^entaient le sensible comme one imitation, fJi^t/i^tng, de Tintelligible. Gette image se retrouve souyent dans Platen. Le Timie^ dont le h^ros est un pythagoricien, appelle Tensemble des Id^es ou monde intelligible le module da monde sensible. Litemel artiste^ les yeuxfixis sur cet exemplaire^ le reproduit en fa^mint la maiihe d Vimage des Iddes, Dans un autre passage du TinUe^ la maiihe est reprdsentie comme recevant Vempreinie des Id^s, de mhne que la cire refoit une forme sous la main qui la pitrit. La Rdpublique appelle les objets sensibles les reflets, les ombres^ les images du monde intelligible."

5 YMPA TH V AND ANTIPA TH V OF THINGS. 1 97 Bat here is the conclusive proof. The poet uses the same simile in the Dream : — " The. What say you, Hermia ? be advis'd, fair maid : To you, your father should be as a god ; One that compo^d your beauties ; yea, and one To whom you are but as a form in was. By him imprinted, and within his power To leave the figure, or disfigure if Here we have the same metaphor. And the comparison of Hermia's father with a god who *^ composed her beauties" is a proof of the nature of the relationship of Hermia to Helena, that is, of the spiritual to the phenomenal, of the idea to the form, of mind to matter. But the entire play is a proof of it, the mistakes in the wood arising from the likeness of Hermia to Helena, for we cannot recognise Hermia until we can exclaim — " Transparent ^ Helena ! Mature here shows Art That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.'' This heart is the secret Hermia. For the poet has told us, — that his inward side is his heart side : — " As thus ; mine eye's due is thine outward part. And my heart's right thine inward love of heart." This is the Templar language or jargon of the gay science which we have already quoted from Dante — where Heart means the hidden secret, Hermia and Helena have '^ but one heart ; " as the poet tells us, " they grew in the act of creation together," like to a double cherry, seeming parted, but yet "a union in partition." This is nothing else but — " So they lov'd, as love in twain Had the essence but in one j Two distincts, division none ; Number there in love was dain" Love is the synthetic or marrying power of creation, whereby two are identified into one. And this is the key of the ^ This simile is borrowed from the Mysteries or the Gate of Horn, through which transparent substance the reoZ, spiritual ideas or visions were apprehended. See page 211.

198 SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY OF THINGS. Sonnets, marriage for the sake of the immortality, which such perfect art is sure to bring in the rebirth or discovery of the ideas married (and buried) in such art. This is why Love plays such an important part in the Sonnets. For Love, in the Platonic sense, is the creative power by which two things are married and made one. Thus the entire proposition of marriage, set forth in the opening of the Sonnets, is this idea of creation, for the sake of rebirth or revelation. If the poet copies a copy (like almost all other art in existence), his art will not be inmiortal in the sense he aims at. For phenomena are already images, or idols of spiritual ideas. He must therefore copy not things, but ideas, and imprint them upon his creations in the widest philosophic sense possible, so will his plays become philosophic play systems, which indeed they are with a vengeance. We see at once that such a sublime scheme as this, seemingly impossible, is not only Godlike, but is something almost superhuman. We see also that it makes the characters of the plays, idols representative of ideas, whereby the entire Baconian theory of words, as " Pygmalion's images," as idols of the theatre, may be brought in to illustrate his inductive method, and his idols with their four classes particularly. This art will never be understood until Plato's similes to represent the relationship of ideas to phenomena or matter are thoroughly grasped. That is, that phenomena are images, idols, shadows, reflections of the ideas stamped upon them, as a die or seal imprints its picture upon wax. The terms he uses express this in the simplest and plainest way possible. We are told upon the monument at Stratford that the poet has the genius of Socrates and the art of Virgil ! What more do we want, considering it is written everywhere in the Sonnets, over and over again 1. As a Dream is the reflection of something real, as a Shadow is to the light, so does the play of the Midsummer-Nighfs Dream deal with this very subject of the poet's art and its creative principles, being self-reflective, in irony picturing the cross-purposes, mistakes, and illusions which arise from our mistaking Helena for Hermia — ^the

SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY OF THINGS. 199 spiritual for the phenomenal. Bat whilst applying to itself, it applies to Nature also. And this is the miracle of this art, which the World must awake to realize, that it has risen to an equal point of height with Nature, and what it reflects of itself, it reflects always doubly — to Nature at the same time also.

CHAPTER X. THE midsummer-night's DREAM.* "Three problems are pat by nature to the mind: What ia matter? Whence is it ? and whereto ? The first of these questions only, the ideal theory answers. Idealism saith : matter is a phenomenon, not a substance. Idealism acquaints us with the total disparity between the evidence of our own being, and the evidence of the world's being. The one is perfect ; the other incapable of any assurance ; the mind is a part of the nature of things ; the world is a divine dream, from which we may presently awake to the glories and certainties of day." — (Essays, "Spirit^" p. 166, voL ii., Emerson.) In the play of The Tempest, we have (in the speech of Prospero, which he introduces in connection with the Masque) an epitome of the poet's philosophical creed or way of looking at life, which it is impossible to misconstrue. In the words^ " We are such stuff as dreams are made on," and again, ''Our little life is rounded with a sleep," we are face to face with the doctrines taught in the Mysteries, and repeated in the Platonic philosophy. With Plato, life is a dream, objects are phenomena, shadows, or images, and we are nearest awakening from the sleep of life when we dream that we are dreaming ! The Greeks called Sleep the lesser Mystery, and Death the greater Mystery, the parallel between Death and his twin brother Sleep, holding out as it were the promise of immortality — another wakening in another world! The entire doctrine of IdeaUsm is founded upon the priority, and real character, of the Rational and Spiritual over the Irrational and Phenomenal We must reverse common sense if we would understand this philosophy. For it asserts sense to be the Apparent and illusive — not a lie, but a half or false truth, in fact symbolical, and as Emerson would say, representative. 1 This chapter is only a brief summary of what has been already discussed at greater length in " A New Study of Shakespeare."

MJDSUMMER-NIGHrS DREAM. 201 Let it be here noted, that this is a philosophy of Art It is ^r excellence the poet's philosophy. Because it asserts the entire world is a Divine poem — composed by a Divine Poet or Creator, who like an Artist conceives a beautiful archetypal Idea, and clothes it in the vehicle of Nature, and of Man. Tlie Drama of Existence is to God, what the plays are to the author. And we see at once that it is perfectly possible for Dramatic Art to embrace this philosophy and be god-like from this point of view. For the entire Drama may become a means of phenomenal representation, giving and withholding its meaning, concealing and revealing it, after the fashion of Nature itself. And this is what, we are very certain, the author of the plays has done, viz., embraced the entire Platonic philosophy, or rather, we should say, its fountain head, in the Mysteries of Eleusis, with the origins of the Drama. Life is a dream, — the masque vanishes, — these our actors are melted into thin air. But is there not, perhaps, a lesson still waiting for us to learn 1 Is it not possible, nay, probable, that the other actors in these plays are shadows, images, reflections also 1 But let us examine more closely this creed of Idealism as taught by the Ancients. Now it is significant for a study of the Midsummer- Nighf 8 Dreamy that we have been finding the poet pronouncing in The Tempest, that life is a dream, and our life a sleep. This is word for word the teaching of the Eleusinian Mysteries and of Socrates. On the poet's monument we find that he had the art of Virgil and the genius of Socrates. Considering that up to date, neither Virgil's art nor Socrates' have been found in the plays, it is sufficiently noteworthy to remark that Virgil and Socrates join hands upon the subject of the Mysteries. The VI th Book of Virgil, ever since Warburton pointed it out, has been accepted as a description of the Mysteries, and we know from Porphyry that the Platonic philosophy was taught in the Mysteries. With regard to this, we have no need of authorities. Any student reading the Banquet, and Diotima's instructions to Socrates related by the latter, will at once perceive that the subject is \ w

202 MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. sacred, solemn, guardedly veiled, and that these are Divine Creative Doctrines pertaining to the Mysteries. What resemblance can there be otherwise between Epic poetry like Virgil's, and Dramatic plays like these? And where, indeed, do we find the Socratic philosophy ? We reply, it is behind, imbedded, the framework — the archetypal conception of this entire art. It crops up in this speech, united with the apocalyptic vision or masque of Juno and Ceres, wherein for a moment we behold the other or Heavenly side of this art, revealed symbolically in a play, where we already are represented in relation to this art, as its initiates through time ! We elsewhere see that this philosophy, that life is a dream, produced by the sleep of sense, is not only the Socratic philosophy, but Bacon's also, who describes Socrates as '* having drawn down philosophy from heaven." And we now propose to accept this statement seriously, and apply it to this play of the Midsummer-Nighfs Dream. Dreams are the result of sleep — sleep of night. Moonlight is a dream of sunshine or daylight, as if the day were sick, and our earth-life a mere vision, by which we apprehend something more real, more lasting, and more sublime than the errors and cross purposes with which our mortal eyes are blinded. In The Tempest we have the Heaven of this art displayed or opened to us. Is there no antithesis to this in the Midsummer-Night's Dream f Can it be possible that we have in this play the night-side^ or reflected side, of the poet's art in relation to himself and to us, presented to us ) In The Tempest we have an apocalyptic vision — a reconciliation— a gradual revelation — the god in art, breaking his wand and disclaiming his magic ; deigning to be human and one of us. But in the Dream all is confined to Night and to Moonlight; all is reflected, all is shadow, image, illusive, phenomenal, and dream-like. How the parallel insists itself upon us that we are still gropers in the Moonlight of his Divine Theatre, at cross purposes with his secret meaning, confused by his phenomenal beauty, and taking this actual moonlight for daylight — the re 

MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM, 203 fleeted and phenomenal for the real and spiritual I Whilst many are questioning themselves, whether some of the plays have not an inner or deeper philosophic structure than is generally surmised, the plays are mockingly reflecting our relationship to them. If, as we believe, the entire system of this art revolves around a spiritual sun, and is a complete solar system, we can quite understand the philosophical relationship obtaining between the plays and their creator, contemplating the moonlight of his art (or its night-side), whilst the great solar Truths, which are its logos, soul, archetypal source and centre, are unrevealed to us except by reflection, that is, by idols of the Theatre, by phenomena. Let us study the Dream with such a theory before us. It will be granted that things in this universe exist and live through opposition and conflict. We see this in the two great laws of Attraction and Repulsion, which might be termed cold and heat We call them Centripetal and Centrifugal — sometimes but rarely. Love and Hate, though this is no strained or fanciful parallel. We may boldly declare (for our own belief) that these two laws govern the universe, the planets being kept in their spheres by them. It is the balance, or rather the play of these mutually self-controlling forces which governs the entire solar system. When we study the ancient Orphic Hymns and find Love playing a great creative part, we need not be surprised, for it is only a name for Gravity or Attraction. In the senses, we find Love or desire to be another term again for attraction, — ^an attraction that is quite at war or conflict with our rational faculties. And to such an extent is this accepted, that Love han, in consideration of his irrationality^ been considered blind. We shall find that the cross purposes and errors produced by Puck in the Dream are caused by a double conflict of two principles, which are Love and Hate. We are going to propose that these are creative art principles, at once rational and irrational — ^rational in the undoing, irrational in the making or synthesis. We desire to propose to the philosophical student of this play the following theory : — ^First, that the play is a reflection of the

204 MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM. Night side of Nature (or of the poet's art), dealing with its phenomenal side as at cross purposes with its Hermetic and Spiritual side. Directly we open the play we find Hermia at cross purposes with her father, in love with Lysander, but forced to marry with Demetrius. We find her name strangely supporting the theory we are about to propound. For the name of Hermia immediately suggests the Hermetic, the interpretation of things or ideas requiring interpretation. Plato compares the imprinting of ideas upon matter as the stamp of a die upon wax. We find the text actually employing this comparison. Nor does the parallel stop here. Her father is compared to a god — a significant fact, when we are proposing to deal with Creation Divine and poetic It is in the choice of names, in the etymology of the plays, that we shall find their solution : — " Theseus. What say you, Hermia ? be advised, fair maid : To you your father should he as a god; One that composed your beauties ; yea and one To whom you are as a form in wax By him imprinted** The student of Plato will immediately recognize the source of the imagery. Everywhere Plato conceives the creative power as imprintiog his archetypal ideas on matter, as a form on wax. Let us then assume that Hermia is a personified embodiment of the archetypal ideas, concealed hermetically in Nature or this art. Grant this for the sake of what is to follow. Now all ideas, whether (philosophical) as unity or separate, require interpretation, a setting free. Marriage is synthesis, that is, identification, harmony. Love is attraction. As Dante says, Lovers are those who in the rational world identify by harmony or marriage what they find in themselves, and in objects. It will be granted that all things in these plays, if resembling at all Nature, are symbolical. That is, there is an objective and a subjective side to everything, either separately or universally. The entire universe is both irrational (and sensual), and rational (or spiritual) at the same time— both are at conflict, as concealing

MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. 205 and revealing powers. The mind is always at work interpreting, discovering philosophically, or scientifically, the rational side of things— (the Hermetic secrets of Nature), — ^which may be rightly called the symbolical or subjective side of existence, as ideas. Now the Subject is never separate, but always existing in dual unity with the Object World. This Object World, whether phenomena (or the plays as they stand unrevealed), we beg leave to term- Helena — a name which suggests beauty, and Matter, as we abundantly find. If Hermia and Helena are the two sides of this medal of Jove, they ought to be one, though really two, according as we take them subjectively or objectively. To make a somewhat abstruse subject clear, let us take any myth, fable, or story which contains a meaning to it, or an allegorical picture. Every fellow of Freemasonry knows that the signs he is shown have a meaning. The square, the compasses are to him emblematic of more than they are to a carpenter. So with things and so with Nature. For everything speaks a double language of art and revelation, of ideas and sense at once. Yet these separate two (sign and meaning) are one, until separated by thought — the sign only carries the idea, the idea gives birth to the sign, according to Plato. For that is the Divine Art. Now to apply this to the play and to Nature. In ourselves we find also this double power, — ability to interpret, to analyze or set free, or reveal what we understand, and in default of this — perception of the object) as existing to the senses. Thus in Objective Nature (and Art) there are two identical (seemingly) yet separate sides, one appealing to s^thetic, the other to the rational faculties. On the other hand, the perceiver, Man, is irrationally drawn towards objects through attraction or Love, sometimes sensuously, sometimes rationally. We have thus four protagonists of the purely irrational and rational faculties. Two art tmt o/usin the outside world. Ttco are tcithin us. The whole of our relationship to Nature is a conflict and confusion arising from this antinomy. For existence is of this nature, that they are at cross purposes with each other. Philosophy has been termed the undoing or

2o6 MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. reversal of common sense. To think deeply or profoundly we must veil the outward sight — ignore it, and undo what our outward senses assert as true. The sun rises apparently in the east (so say our eyes) and sets in the west, moves across the heavens, yet it is an illusion of the senses produced by the diurnal movement of the earth. And so on. We would all marry Hermia, if we were not crossed by Demetrius. For the earth-life (called Demetrians) is at war with our rational interpreting faculties — ^Lysander. The senses are the rivals of the soul. But let us summon the text. We assert that Hermia is a form imprinted on wax — Helena, as archetypal ideas (and therefore concealed or Hermetic) are stamped on a vehicle, as art or beauty of Nature — ^plays otherwise. Now this relationship of Helena to Hermia is insisted upon in the text in unmistakable fashion. This identity yet separation is a union in partition.^ ** We, Hermia, like two artificial gods. Have with our needles created both one flower. Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, Both warbliog of one song, both in one key, As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds Had been incorporate ; so we grew together Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition." This is creation divine or poetic, which we find again in the Phamix and the Turtle. It is the keynote of the entire art of these plays, which are as profound as Nature itsell These two, Helena and Hermia, are incorporate, ''a union in partition," the plays exierius or interius, accordingly as we take them. Now comes our explanation to those who may deem it worth particular study. It is this. The confusion, errors, and cross purposes in the play are due to the identity yet separation of Hermia from Helena; both are confounded. First we love Helena, then Hermia, for they can only be separated in thought. Let us be clear. This art, according to our theory, is equally 1 We repeat this qnotatioii, because, in our opinion, it is one of the keys to the entire nature of this art, and cannot be too mnch stadied.

MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. 207 applicable to Nature or to itself. For this is its exhaustive miracle, that whatever applies to itself applies to Nature also, for it is a complete parallel, with an external side as embodiment of its spiritual side. Laugh as the world may, it will be found so ; not because we say so, but because it is so. And could we by our pen get others to see what we know and see, the world would and must see it is so. For three hundred years we have been Demetrians seeking Hermia in Hdena (m^y— though unknowingly to us the features of Hermia are imprinted on the features of Helena. What we mean is this in plain language : The real power, fascination, depth and charm of the plays, hitherto known under the false name of Shakespeare, is derived from the spiritual side, which we are as yet unable to recognise, except as a nameless attraction to the external side Helena. Whilst we are wooing Helena, we are in reality in love with Hermia. We feel the Hermetic in this art ; for it is the real force which lifts it above all other art, and places it on a pedestal inscribed to Nature, who, as the monumental inscription states, died when it was bom, but which means in this case, that until the summer of its rebirth returns, it is in the Winter signs, and like its protagonist Ceres, awaiting (like Hermione) its lost child — the Spring of its revelation or new birth I The errors and cross purposes of our study of this art are as much the result of our own natures as of the perplexing dual character of the plays or Nature. Our intellectual faculties and our earth life (which we owe to Dem6ter, and which makes us Demetrians), are always at cross purposes, for the creative love in these plays has made us blind to the rational and spiritual in it. It is Puck (who like Ariel, is a creative instrument), who as Love, blindness, has with his creative tricks of the poet's imagination, squeezed the love juice of his art on our eyes, so that we are for the night of the misinterpretation of these plays blind to the Hermetic in this art Directly we hear the name of Theseus we recall the picture of Virgil, where we see him seated in the infernal regions : —

2o8 MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. " Sedet, seternumque sedebit, iQfelix Theseus.*' Now, there is a curious passage in the Dream which pictures Theseus as suffering torture. Theseus says : — " Is there no play To ease the anguish of a torturing hour ) " Theseus and Pirithous we know were placed by Pluto upon an enchanted rock at the gate of Hell or Tartarus. Theseus is connected with the labyrinth and the Minotaur, both of which are well known to have represented the labyrinth of existence, and of the soul immersed in matter. By the labyrinth we have suggestion of the tortuous and crooked ways, cross purposes and errors, of the soul ; and, indeed, we know that some of these underground labyrinths were places of initiation, of symbolical death, and thus of the other side, or night side of the soul, as related to the other world. The descent of Theseus into Hell is on a level with that of ^neas, or of Orpheus, who is said to have instituted the Mysteries. When we study the play of the Dream closely, we find not only distinct resemblances to YirgiPs sixth book, but something more than a startling resemblance of the transformation of Bottom into an Ass, to the like transformation of Apuleuis, from which it is undoubtedly taken, in the " Golden Ass." Moordight, We find the ancients contemplating and holding the Moon (and Moonlight, of course) as the self-reflecting image of Nature. At first sight this may seem a little strange and extravagant, but a very little study reveals the sublimity of the idea. In the first ^lace, Moonlight is boirowed or false light The light of the moon is the reflected light of the sun, while the sun is quiie invisible to us. And to the philosophical mind there is a like parallel obtaining between phenomena and their real signification or ideas, inasmuch as the former are but reflections of the latter,^ whilst 1 We find Bacon terming this relationship as " the direct beam " and ** the reflected beam."

MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. 209 invisible to us. This, of course, is the Platonic philosophy, which is best presented to us in the allegory of the subterranean cavern in the seventh book of the " Eepublic." In this world we dwell on the night side of existence. All that we see are but symbols (produced by the senses) of things spiritual and invisible to us except by inference or conjecture. As different as daylight is to moonlight, as different is the night side of the senses to the sunlight of internal vision and truth. Everything in this world exists by contrast, by opposition, by dual unity, for everything has a meaning, and everything has an appearance, which is at war with it to obscure and hide it at once. This is Nature's great art, — illusion of the senses; and the ancients were profoundly right when they made the veiling of the sight or outward eye the preliminary process towards inward vision. The mind's eye is not the outward eye, but the soul's eye — the eye of the invisible and spiritual To those who deny a subjective, philosophical side (or any justification for the construction of the plays at all), we would ask why the poet has introduced a mythical classical element into the Dream, side by side with the rude mechanicals and their modem names ) Such plays as these plays are half divine, and are not made in sport, as worlds without meaning, but are as philosophical as the universe itself, as profound as existence, full of the minutest symbolic meaning, planned and constructed to teach divine truths of the highest order, and not mere playthings for the theatre. But the World will not take the trouble to think, and must have opinions. Nor will the World consent to any instruction upon the matter, inasmuch as they know all about it. And are as positive and conceited as Bottom to hold up their lantern and bush of thorns in self-sufficient reflection of all that this art contains. Now, will any one propose seriously that it was "heads or tails" whether the poet introduced Theseus or any other mythical hero ) This being the case, we beg to call attention to the fact that Theseus is presented to us by Virgil as seated in the infernal regions. o

2 1 o MTDSUMMER'NIGHTS DREAM. The introduction of the interlude in this play immediately finds its parallel in Eandet. And it is well worthy attention that in the last-named play, the intention of the poet is to hold up the mirror of reflection to the King's conscience — ^in short, that the introduction of the play within the play is to reflect the crime upon which the lai^r play revolves, and thus to play the part of conscience on one side and reflection on the other. It is, therefore, probable that the interlude in the Midsummer-Nighfs Dream has a similar relationship to the entire play, as a miniature copy has to its original in the sense of caricature of incapacity. And this (perhaps to some strange theory) is borne out by certain parodied resemblances obtaining between the play itself and the interlude, which we shall point out. In the first place, the most significant fact in the Dream is that it is laid entirely by night. There is even in the title something to enforce our particular attention to this point, inasmuch as the play deals with confusion, error, cross-purposes, and blindness, which are companions of darkness and dreams. All this confusion could not have found a fitting framework or background by daylight ; so that we perceive a sort of harmony obtains between the title as a Dream, and the action as one of errors and confusion. Night is the producer and causer of these cross-purposes. The most prominent feature in the setting of the play is the background of Moonlight and Woods (or Nature), which seem to serve as framework and main philosophical idea in the construction of it. And it is still more significant that, in the ridiculous interlude, we have the introduction of a lantern and a bush of thorns to present Moonshine and Woods, showing that this play within the play is, as in the case of Hamlet, a reflection of the larger play or action ; though, of course, in this case, only as a parody or caricature of infinite, immeasurable incapacity and distance. The transformation of Bottom into an Ass presents us with the ne plus ultra point of this caricature. So that we seem to have here a portrait, perhaps, of Man in relation to Nature, if not also to the plays themselves.

MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM, 2 1 1 Bacon writes : — " But in the mean while let him remember that I am in pursuit, as I said at first, not of beauty but of utility and truth : and let him withal call to mind the ancient parable of the two gates of sleep : — * Sunt geminse Somni portse, qoarum altera fertur Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris ; Altera candenti perfecta nitena elephanto, Sed falsa ad coelum mittunt insomnia Manes.' ^ ** Great no doubt is the magnificence of the ivory gate, but the true dreams pass through the gate of horn." Now, it is very interesting to study Bacon's profound knowledge and thorough apprehension of Virgil's recondite meaning connected with the Mysteries. We see that horn is a transparent suhsiance, and it is not through this gate that ^neas is ushered out of the lower regions into the real world again, but through the gate of ivory. iEneas has been initiated, and he returns to the world again. " His ubi tum natum Anckises unaque, Sibyllam Prosequitur-dictis, portaque emittit ebuma.*' This shows very clearly that the false dreams were connected in the Mysteries with life — that is, with phenomenal and material nature or the senses. The real dreams have been seen in the initiation below, because the whole end and aim of the Mysteries was to teach man the reality of the(future life, and of Idealism. The spiritual was taught to be the only true, and this could only be apprehended by those who could penetrate the opaque masque of delusion called matter, and see beyond to the other side, as through hom.^ But this is proved by Sleep being called the lesser mysteries of Death. Euripides expresses it : — 1 Virg. iEn. vi. 894 :— '* Two gates the entrance of Sleep's house adorn : Of ivory one, the other simple horn ; Through horn a crowd of real visions streams, Through ivory portals pass delusive dreams.'' '"^ In the words of Lysander to Helena (.n the Dream), when he exclaims, '* Transpartnt Helena," we find this horn alluded to as affording real vision.

2 1 2 MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM, "rnXOS rii MIKPA rov eoparov MTSTHPIA " Sleep * is the lesser mystery of Death." Whereby we see that what was meant was — that as Dreams seem to be real whilst they last^ and inasmuch as we only discover their false nature with awakening (being thoroughly under their delusive influence), so life compared to the awakening after death, would prove but a dream also. This is proved by the greater Mysteries always embracing a symbolical death for the initiated. With the rebirth were taught heavenly things. The candidate had died figuratively, and had awakened from the sleep of life to realize that all he saw in life was but a dream. What sleep is to the morning's awakening (with which we realize the emptiness and unreality of all we have dreamt), Death is to the spiritual reawakening, whereby we see the unreality of existence and its shadowy nature. Sleep was thus the lesser or small analogy (Mystery) which illustrated the (greater) sleep of death. The ancients took their analogies from nature. They saw that things repeat themselves on a lesser and larger scale. The analogy between sleep and death is striking — (these twin brothers) — and from the one they concluded another awakening of the souL Thus idealism was taught in these initiations. They taught that life was a dream and the earth life a species of sleep, which we find repeated in the speech of Prospero in The Tempest, for what he delivers there is only the teaching of the Mysteries : — " We are such stuff as dreams are made of, And our little life is rounded with a sleep.'' These doctrines were taught in the Temple of Geres. And Prospero sums up his speech in connection with the masque where Ceres is introduced. Prospero is no doubt a representative Jupiter, and his speech we have quoted is but the summing up of Idealism. What do we mean by Idealism 1 We mean the philosophy that taught that life is a sleep, and phenomena i Warbnrton translates 'TIIXOZ as a dream — provmg that he only half apprehended the allusion.

MIDSUMMER'NIGHTS DREAM. 213 dreams or shadows of the spiritual, which is the only real and true, and which pervades all things. " Musaeus, therefore, who had been hierophani at Athens, takes the place of the sibyl (as it was the custom to have different guides in different parts of the celebration) and is made to conduct him to the recess, where his father's shade opens to him the doctrine of truth, in these sublime words : — * Principio coelum, ac terras, campoBque liquentes, Lucentemque globum lunse, Titaniaque astra Spiritus iNTUS ALiT, totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpora miscet. Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vitseque volantum, Et quse marmoreo fert monstra sub sequore pontus.' This was no other than the doctrine of the old Eg3rptians, as we are assured by Plato; who says they taught that Jupiter was the spirit which pervadeth all things." ("Divine Legation," Warburton.) It is needless to fill these pages with quotations, which we could ad nauseam. The thing is so simple. Sleep the lesser Mystery, Death the greater ! The one standing as the prototype to the other. Whatever therefore we see as awake is a dream, for we are (relatively to the spiritual) in a land of dreams, and thoroughly immersed in those dreams which seem true. But when we wake after the sleep of death, their true nature and unreality will appear, and does appear to the philosopher who is nearest awakening when he dreams that he dreams, as Novalis puts it. Warburton apprehends the matter in a very lame and indistinct fashion ; and by a great many writers it is not apprehended at all. It is a thing which explains itself, and all the scholarship in the world will not shake the truth of what we have briefly summed up.

CHAPTEE XL HAMLET. Let it be noted that the purpose of the poet seems to have been to present us, in the characters of Polonius, Guildensteni, Rosencrantz, and Laertes (if not Osric also), a succession of defences of the usurping King, who mvst he, and are all killed, or made away with, before the King himself can be arrived at with the end of the play. This, it seems to us, is a most significant hint. Because in each of these we see represented certain historical and, indeed, worldly characteristics, which are worth particular study in each case. Hamlet has often been criticised severely by writers upon his want of action. He broods, he reflects, but he is apparently lacking in character. But does he not act throughout the play ? Does he not first hold up the image of truth to the conscience of usurping falsehood by means of the play introduced within the play) Does he not kill Polonius, outwit Guildenstem and Bosencrantz, and see through Osric 1 Let us, then, ponder over the philosophical genius of Hamlet's character. For this character is one we see reflected in every man whose mental faculties outweigh his physical ones or his will. Nay, more, we see that it is an universal truth that can be applied collectively. For History, past and present, is full of parallels where thought, discovery, and, therefore, Bight and Truth, are at war, but always in a minority, against established error, custom, and infallibility. The entire history of the human race might be writ large. King Falsewood, who has usurped the rightful heir, the Prince of Truth. This is the nature, indeed, of human existence. If we now take Polonius, Guildenstem, Bosencrantz, and

HAMLET. 215 Xaertes, we shall find that they, each of them, represent respectively much that we can everywhere find in History and mankind, as bulwarks, supports, or buttresses of Infallibility, £rrors, — in short, the vested interests and ignorance that shut out Truth and light, and keep the Prince of Truth in a prison, though he is rightful heir and apparently free. We must remember that when Hamlet was written, Europe was a species of world prison. Struggles of religion, strangling of free thought, speech, or writing, were things of common evil then, we cannot imagine now. But in dealing with a subject of this kind, it is impossible to enter into particulars or details. The student who requires proof on such a subject would comprehend nothing of our argument. It is the nature of existence that Ignorance shall usurp Truth first, and Darkness precede Light. That being acknowledged, we have rather to study the particular touches of art, with which the poet has invested such characters as Polonius, Eosencrantz, and Guildenstem, all of whom are directly opposed and in conflict with Hamlet. Their part is to hedge the King, from Hamlet's revenge or (so-called) madness. Let us therefore take old Polonius first, as he stands next the Ring in authority, with his infallibility, empty words, and assurance that he knows everything, and I think it will be easy to show what he repre* sents. Polonius^ It requires very little adduced from the text to sum up Polonius. He is old, he is doting — he is not true, but although sure of finding Truth, " though it were hid indeed within the centre" — he is worldly wise, cunning, and full of bias. His speech to Reynaldo savours of Popish instructions to ensnare truth, rather than to unveil it (C Pol. See you now ; Your bait of falsehood, takes this carp of truth ; And thus do we of wisdom and of reacli, With wind laces and with assay of bias. By indirections find directioDS ouf

2i6 HAMLET. How cautious, how cunniug, how worldly wise this is ! Tlie '' bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth." Poor truth being a sort of siUy fish, that is to be angled for, and asphyxiated by falsehood ! Then what a vast sum of meaning is contained in the word hias^ which means, force, violence, and against the will, and, in our reduced rendering of the term, prejudice ! But that the Author means, force or violence, is plain by the association of the word with '' windlaces," which seems a sly hint for the rack, which really was a frame with \^dndlaces attached to draw the truth, or tortured truth, out of the unhappy victim ! It is by *' indirection," that is, by false ways and indirect ways, that the carp of truth is caught or stifled. And lo, five or six lines after this speech we have a fresh scene presented to us with Ophelia, who gives us the following portrait of Hamlet : — '* Oph, My Lord, as I was sewing in my cloBet Lord Hamlet — with his doublet all unbraced ; No hat upon his head ; his stockings fouPd, Ungarter'd and down-gyved to his ancle ; Pale as his shirt ; hia knees knocking each other ; And with a look so piteous in purport, A» if he had been loosed otU of heU, To speak of horrors — he comes before me." This is indeed a striking picture, of a man who has been put to the torture or question. We may depend upon it that the " windlaces " and " assays of bias " or violence, of which Polonius has been giving instructions a few lines before, have been applied to Hamlet. Do we not see in this portrait, 'a man with " gyvts " on (even on his ancles), — " pale as his shirt," with knees trembling from the agonies of Hell of the windlaces— the Rack) But who is Ophelia ? Is she not the daughter of Polonius — the child of Tradition— of repetition of infallible dogmas — of certainty — of a dotard past? We must not confound her with Polonius. It is for the love of the beautiful and true, for the truth's sake that man has been tortured, has suffered, and has died. But as the daughter of Polonius, as the Boman Catholic Church was three

HAMLET, 217 and four centaries ago, it was the rack and torture to inspect her too closely — it was madness to do so — Hamlet's madness ! " Ofih, He took me by the wrist and held me hard ; Then goes he to the length of all his arm ; And with his other hand, thus o'er his brow, He falls to such perusal of my face, As he would draw it." This picture is a portrait of inspection, scrutiny, criticism. It was such a searching examination that Luther gave the Church, and that led to the Keformation. Hamlet is thinking, reflecting, doubtingy examining Ophelia critically. He is supposed to be mad. But madness is the term of reproach which is ever hurled at those who dare to examine old and established truths, and we need not dwell upon it. History is full of it ; " his madness is poor Hamlet's^ enemy." But what has led Hamlet to this scrutiny (allied to the rashness of madness) of Ophelia 1 It is his father's ghost (the spiritual in him), which tells him that Truth has been supplanted by Falsehood, that a corrupt Church has become the usurper of a true religion, by pouring falsehood into the ears' of a sleeping and unawakened world, until that poison of falsehood triumphs and reigns in the stead of the murdered man. We find Hamlet writing to Ophelia : *' To the celestial and my sovTs tdoly the most beautified Ophelia." Let us study the expressions here used. Why " celestial^'* why " beautified " ? Have we not in these terms a hint of heaven, of the soul (" my soul's idol"); and mark, in a beautified Ophelia, not a beautiful one, but one who is got up, or made so by art alone ? Polonius objects to the phrase — " P

2i8 HAMLET, Why does he object to this phrase ) It seems to us he is objecting to the term as implying " iMt true" in the sense of false, for a '' heauiified" object implies art and not naiure. And it is indeed curious that the context preceding this speech is as follows : — *' Pol, My liege, aud madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is. Why day is day, night, night, and time is time, Were nothing bat to waste night, day, and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit. And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief : Your noble son is mad : Mad call I it : for, to define true madness, What is 't, but to be nothing else but mad. But let that go. Queen, More matter, with less art PoL Madam, I swear, I use no art at all. That he is mad, 't is true : 't is true, 't is pity ; Aud pity 't is, 't is true : a foolish figure ; But farewell it, for I will use no art. Mad let us grant him then : and now remains. That we find out the cause of this effect ; Or, rather say, the cause of this defect ; For this effect, defective, comes by cause : Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend. I have a daughter ; have, whilst she is mine ; Who, in her duty and obedience, mark. Hath given me this : Now gather, and surmise. — ' To the celestial, and my souPs idol, the most beautified Ophelia,' — That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase ; beautified is a vile phrase ; but you shall hear. * These. In her excellent white bosom, these.' Qveen. Came this from Hamlet to her ? Pol. Good madam, stay awhile ; I will be faithful. ' Doubt thou, the stars are fire ;^ Doubt, that the sun doth move ; ^ Bacon held that the sun and stars are true fires (Works, v. 533-8), which we find repeated elsewhere {Cor, i. 4, 39 ; v. 4, 46 ; Jul, Com, iii. 7, 64, kc). It is exactly a doubt upon this matter which Hamlet attributes to Ophelia, and for which Bmno and others were pat to the stake, or tortured.

HAMLET, 219 Doubt truth to be a liar ; But never doubt, I love. O dear Ophelia^ I am ill at these numbers ; I have not art to reckon my groans : but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu. Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine \& to him, Hamlet.' " In this speech, where the Queen says to Polonius, '' more matter Mo\ih, less art" we have a pretty epitome of the CathoUc Church in those days j that is, very '' little matter" as regards Truth, and a very great deal of art ! Polonius sums himself up as a Windbag, one who gives reasons for nothing, but repeats his words, his dogmas, his creeds or beliefs, without giving explanation or satisfaction. Whilst denying that he uses art, he employs it to evade and burk the question of Hamlet's madness. And mark, he has a daughter, but she is only his whilst she is his, — that is, obedient and docile. If we study Hamlet's letter to Ophelia, we find that his love for her is conditional on the " machine " or rack, and that whilst upon it he has no art to " reckon his groans." And we find that Ophelia has betrayed Hamlet, given his letter to her father — that is, to the Inquisition. Take the following passage, and we find how Ophelia is beauliJUd by the art of Polonius — ^that is, by his infallibility : — ^ Ham, 1 have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face, and yon make yourselves another ; you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness yoiu* ignorance : Go to, I'll no more on't ; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages : those that are married already, all but one, shall live ; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Exit Hamlet." And what can be more significant than the lines Hamlet addresses Ophelia : — " Doubt thou the stars are fire. Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar. But never doubt, I love."

220 HAMLET, It was Oalileo and Bruno who were teaching these very doctrines which Hamlet tells Ophelia to doubt. " D(aM that the sun doth move "/ Why, recall the well-known story of Galileo's pitiful recantation, or the persecution of Bruno and his burning in 1600 for asserting that the stars were worlds! But Hamlet's signature as Ophelia's is conditional only whilst the rack enforces his obedience and love : — " Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this ffiachine is to Aim, Hamlet." Whilst the machine (or windlace) " is to him," or applied to him with violence, no doubt he will, like Galileo, recant or pretend love. But we by no means say that Ophelia represents the Roman Catholic Church. She is religion in its highest sense, the spiritual aspirations of Man as the Soul, Love, (or affection) — all that is most beautiful in the mind, all that we aspire to through immortality. It is her relation to her father that makes her the helpless abject cypher she really is. We can see in the way the poet has pourtrayed her, the entire Passive Obedience of the Church. Study her character of submissiveness and entire obedience, her surrender of Hamlet's letter to her father, her real madness compared with Hamlet's feigned or apparent madness, and one can kee that in her we have a character entirely dependent upon her Father's Authority and Infallibility. With his death she becomes incoherent, meaningless, foolish, and that this is the history of the Church there is much about its modem history to confirm. Nothing is more striking than the aberration of Ophelia's reason, her annihilation we may say, with her Father's Death. Without Polonius, without that "certainty" which would find truth within the centre, — without, in short, doctrinal infallibility or authority, what is the Church 1 Madness is simply incohcrency ; it is a state which the Church has for a long time presented to many j and we fear not only the Church, but something more precious than a Church, the faiUi which constitutes

HAMLET. 221 all religion has become, like Ophelia, in many cases incoherent — a quiet, beautiful, dying Church, beautifying the stream of time and change with the withered flowers of memory. '' Enter Bosencrantz arkd Gttildensterk. Pol. Yon go to seek my lord Hamlet ; there he is. Ro9. God save you, sir ! \To Polonius. \Exit Polonius. Quil. Mine honoured lord ! — Rjos, My most dear lord ! Earn, My excellent good friends! How dost thou. Guild enstem] Ah, Rosencrantz ! Good lads, how do ye both ? Ros, As the indifferent children of the earth. Guil, Happy, in .that we are not overhappy ; On fortune's cap we are not the very button. Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe ? Rob. Neither, my lord. Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favour ? OuU. 'Faith her privates we. Ham, In the secret parts of fortune ? O, most true ; she is a strumpet. What's the news ? Ro9. None, my lord ; but that the world's grown honest. Ham. Then is dooms-day near : But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither ? Guil. Prison, my lord \ Ham. Denmark's a prison. Rob. Then is the world one. Ham^ A goodly one ; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons ; Denmark being one of the worst Ro9. We think not so, my lord. Ham. Why, then 't is none to you : for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so : to me it is a prison." What a complete revelation we have of the characters of Eosencrantz and Guildenstern in this passage ! They live in the secret parts of Fortune, who Hamlet declares is a Strumpet, that is, who prostitutes and sells all that is sacred or true, even honour, for gain — advancement. Elsewhere we have a notable character of one of the plays, Doll Tearsheet, termed some " common road." Rosencrantz and Guildenstern live in the very centre of Fortune's Favours, which are bought and sold to the highest bidder. And

222 HAMLET. therefore they are indiffererU to Hamlet's ways of thinking, for he lacks advancement. We see this brought out in the most striking way in the above passage. He finds the world a prison which he identifies with Denmark. But they find the world honest ! And to his assertion that Denmark is one of the worst of prisons, they reply : — " We think not so, my lord." Their way of thinking is not Hamlet's. But there can be no mistake as to the characters of Guildenstern and Rosencrantz; their names betray the favoured, unscrupulous throng, who prostitute themselves for power, pleasure, gain, and who are the " mighty opposites " and " adders fanged,** whose business is to entrap, entangle, and sophisticate with Truth, professing it with lip-service, its spies and traitors withal, — the great vested interests of the world, the courtiers of profit and power, who find the world no prison, but a very good place indeed for their traffic. In Bosencrantz we find a name suggestive of the garlands or wreaths (roses?) of folly and pleasure. In Ouildenstem, (a name of Teutonic origin,) the idea of guilders, money, gold, (star of wealth,) is suggested. Whether these are fanciful derivations or no, their characters speak loudly enough for them. They go about to recover the wind of Hamlet, to steal his mystery, his truth from him, in order to play upon him, in order finally to betray him to the King, and pluck out the heart of his mystery. They are those who sell what is most dear — ^honour — ^for gain. They are the privates of that Strumpet Fortune, who sells Virtue for gold. Therefore their " thinking " is not Hamlet's " thinking." They are sponges. They soak up the King's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. And their defeat does by their own insinuation grow. They are the baser natures which come between Hamlet and his work of revenge. " IJor, So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to 't. I/am. Why, man, th^y did make love to this employment ;

HAMLET. 223 They are not near my conscience ; their defeat Does bj their own insinuation grow : T is dangerous, when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposites." There can be no possibility of escaping or mistaking the poet's intention in these characters. For we recognise them everywhere in life. " llam. Do not believe it. Ros, Believe what ? Ham. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge ! — what replication should be made by the son of a king ? Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord ? Ham. Ay, sir ; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end : He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw ; first mouthed, to be last swallowed : When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again." We find in Bacon's time a great deal of the squeezing operation going on. Favourites elevated to be disgraced, — an everlasting process of advancement, promotion, and very much squeezing. Hamlet is most dreadfully attended with such utterly indifferent and really antagonistic courtiers whom, it may be seen, whilst having no way of thinking like him, pretend to flatter him, in order to stifle or betray him. For this is the character of a great part of human nature, that where gain, power, or pleasure is concerned, the love of Truth for Truth's sake is a pretended courtship, that is in reality veiled hostility. For to such people the continuance of abuses and evil is a source of revenue and advancement. The history of the play is a history of society. The ridding of them by Hamlet is a gradual reforming process. A process which Dickens immortalised in many of his works. Upon a subject like this, which is so universal, so written large in human nature and in all history, it is easy to be impertinent or foolish.

224 HAMLET, '' P6L Hath there been such a time (I'd fain know that,) That I have positively said ^Tiz «o, When it prov'd otherwise ? King, Not that I know. Pol, Take this from this, if this be otherwise : \Poxnt\ng to his head and shoulder. If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed Within the centre." There seems to us in these words of Polonias, the very essence of his character, which is belief in his own infallibility upon all things. He will find truth out " though it were hid indeed within the centre ! " Kay, his very life and breath depends upon this infallibility of dogma and authority. But here let it be noted that he is not honest, as we have had already sufficient proofs. We see that Hamlet throws doubts upon his honesty in the scene where he tells Polonius he ''would he were as honest a man as a fishmonger." Every reply of Hamlet's is a hit at Polonius. When Hamlet is asked what he is reading, he replies, ''words, words, words;" and when further cross-examined as to the subject-matter of the words, he immediately identifies the " words, words, words," by presenting Polonius with his own satirical portrait, as an indirect way of telling us he is studying Polonius, and finds him only " words " I Then note that Polonius asks Hamlet to "walk out of the air," and Hamlet replies, " into my grave 1 " whidi is, we think, one of the most unmistakable hints of the play. Mark the clever and cunning of Hamlet's hits at Polonius, which are all side, or indirect hits, for "he cannot walk out of the air." There is, indeed, a species of challenge in the words of Polonius asking Hamlet to leave dreaming, to give o'er his iheories^ to step out of his philosophic cell and retreat ! " Ham, Well, god-*a-mercy. Pol, Do you know me, my lord ? Ham, Excellent well ; you are a fishmonger. Pol, Not I, my lord.

HAMLET. 225 //am. Then I would you were so honest a man. P6L, Honest, my lord ? Ham. Ay, sir ; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. P6L, That 's very true, my lord. Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion, — Have you a daughter ? Pol. I have, my lord. Ham^ Let her not walk i' the sun : conception is a blessing ; but not as your daughter may conceive, — friend, look to 't. P6L. How say you by that ? [Aside. Still harping on my daughter : — yet he knew me not at first ; he said I was a fishmonger : He is far gone, far gone : and truly in my youth I sufiTered much extremity for love ; very near this. I'll speak to him again.] What do you read, my lord 1 Ham. "Words, words, words ! Pol. What is the matter, my lord 1 Ham. Between who 7 Pol. I mean the matter that you read, my lord. Ham. Slanders, sir : for the satirical slave says here, that old men have grey beards ; that their faces are wrinkled ; their eyes purging thick amber, or plum-tree gum ; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with weak hams : All of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down ; for you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if^ like a crab, you could go backward. Pol. Though this be madness, yet there is method in it. [Aside."] Will you walk out of the air, my lord ? Ham. Into my grave ? Pol. Indeed, that is out o' the air. — How pregnant sometimes his replies are ! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of." " And it may be you shall do posterity good, if, out of the carcase of dead and rotten greatness (as out of Samson's lion), there may be honey gathered for the use of future times. ** (Bacon.) What is carrion ) It is corruption — a corrupted and decayed Church needs light let in upon it to give it new life, and this is what Luther effected at the Reformation, but not to the liking of Authority, Dogma, and Infallibility like old Polonius. Hamlet tells Polonius that he dare not let his daughter " walk i' the sun." But this is exactly what the entire Reformation effected, viz., p

226 HAMLET, threw the pure light of reason and truth upon the decayed carcase of a rotten and thoroughly currupt Church. Luther, whom we take as the protagonist of the Reformation (for the sake of example only), scrutinised the Church with that searching inward criticism, which we have already found Hamlet bestowing upon Ophelia. The result of that look was to doubt the honesty of the Papal Infallibility, Authority, and Dogma, already in its dotage. And we find Hamlet doubting the honesty of FolonioB. He compares him to a fishmonger — one who barters souls (soles I) for money, which immediately recalls to us the shameful sale of indulgences. Nor is Polonius even as honest as a fishmonger. But what is it Hamlet tells Polonius % He dares and challenges him to let his daughter walk in the sun. How are we to interpret this 1 The Beformation may truly be compared to a birth of new light. It was the offspring of the Eenaissance, a word which sufficiently explains itself. Nothing is more true than the fact that this movement was one of light — flight producing out of the Womb of the Dark Ages a new birth or rebirth, to which we owe modem progress. And so with the Church, which truly conceived in the sense Hamlet hints at, and brought forth the child of criticism, inquiry, learning — ^in short, all we term Light But this very Light was the enemy of the old Infallible Church. No wonder Hamlet exclaims : — ^ Let her not walk i' the sun : conception is a blessing ; but not as your daughter may conceive, — friend, look to 't" To sum up the play of Eamkt, we should describe it as a gigantic philosophical tragedy of man's relationship to man, historically prefigured with an undercurrent of action bespeaking progress. The Eling seems an abstraction of enthroned Wrong or Evil, who can only be gradually killed through his representatives. We find the King saying : — " O my dear Gertrude, this, Like to a murdering-piece, in many places Gives me superfluous death."

HAMLET. 227 It seems to us that the keynote of the play is given in Hamlet's words : — ^ The time is ont of joint: O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right ! " We have here an exclamation that applies universally and not particularly. Hamlet is a personified abstract of the very opposites of the King. As the philosophic genius of mankind warring against all the powers that be in possession, Hamlet is no individual, but a philosophic personification of the spiritual in man, fighting for the right, for truth's sake, dying at the stake, tortured on the rack, epitomised in the lives of such men as Luther, Bruno, Galileo, Campanella, Telesius, and all those who, like Hamlet, have assisted to free man from the trammels of State, Church, and Ring. That the play scene is an epitome of the Reformation we believe by the reference to Wittemberg. It is plain this place is dragged in as a hint. For from the moment Luther burnt the papal bull at that town, the Reformation had begun, and we see in like manner in the play that the death of Polonius soon follows the interlude. The Reformation was a complete and final blow at the infallibility of a dotard Church, and from that blow it never recovered.

CHAPTER XII. SONNETS. " In the midst Thon 8tand*Bt m though a mystery thoa didst*' — (Addressed to Bacon. ' ' Underwood's " Ben Jonson.) That the genius and mind of the author of the plays was completely beyond the comprehension of his age or times is proved by his own words : — " So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite." Again repeated in Chester's " Love's Martyr " : — " My undeserved wit, mt sprung too soon. To give thy greatnesse every gracious right" Bacon writes the same thing to his son (the Masculine Birth of Time) in these words : — " ' And what/ you will say, * is this legitimate method I Have done with artifice and circumlocution ; show me the naked truth of your design, that I may be able to form a judgment for myself.' I would, my dearest son, that matters were in such a state with you as to render this possible. Do you suppose that, when all the entrances and passages to the mind of all men are infested and obstructed with the darkest idols, and the^e seated and burned in, as it were, into their substance, that clear and smooth places can be found for receiving the true and natural rays of objects 1 A new process must be instituted by which to insinuate ourselves into minds so entirely obstructed. For, as the delusions of the insane are removed by ART and ingenuity, but aggravated by opposition, so must we adapt ourselves to the universal insanity"

SONNETS. 229 This is a confession that Bacon considered "naked truth** an impossibility in his age. And, therefore, he says, "a new process** or "artifice" must be adopted to ''adapt ourselves tothenniversal insanity." Now, here (by the way only) is proof that Bacon concealed his opinions by some process connected with art I And we should like to know what that "process " was 1 But the greatest proof of all is that Bacon appeals to posterity, to after ages, to appreciate and comprehend him, so that we find his entire genius is in league with time ; and this same point we find endlessly repeated in the Sonnets : — " And, all in war with Time, for love of you, As he takes from you, I eograft you new/' " Bat wherefore do not you a mightier way, Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time ? " ^ And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence, Save breedy to brave him when he takes thee hence." " O fearful meditation ! where, alack. Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid ? Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back ? " " Yet, do thy worst, old Time ; despite thy wrong. My love shall in my verse ever live young." How is it we find the two foremost minds of the same age both bent upon cheating time, both addressing far-off ages 9 Here is one of Bacon's titles: — "To the present age and posterity, greeting." ("Topics of Life and Death.") How is it we find Bacon (who had no child) addressing himself to a son (in the Masculine Birth of Time), and Shakespeare in his Sonnets proposing the begetting of a son also, who is connected with some extraordinary rebirth associated with time 1 — " So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon, Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son" " But were some child of yours alive that time. You should live twice; — ^in it, and in my rhyme." " O I none but untbrif ts : — Dear my love, you know You had a father ; let your son say so." — Sonnets,

23© SONNETS. And mark it, Time ia to surrender this son — ^this Mascoline Birth of Time : — "O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour ; Who has by waning grown, and therein show'st Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st ; If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back, She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill. Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure 1 She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure : Her audit, though delayed, answer' d must be. And her quietus is to render thee." " 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth ; your praise shall still find room, Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So till the judgment that yoursdf arue^ You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes." — SonngU. The entire theme of the Sonnets is marriage for the sake of getting this son, who is to be reborn through time. Cannot the reader see that this is the Logos doctrine ? — ^ Make thee another %eLf^ for love of me, That beauty still may live in thine or thee." ''Bat the Father of all things. The Mind, being Life and Light, begat (engendered) a Man like to Himself, whom He loved as His own child, for He was very beautiful, having the image of His Father. For, in fact, moreover The God loved His own form, and to this delivered over all His own creations." (Posmandres L, " Hermes Trismegistus.") As we cannot quote the entire work, we refer the reader to Chambers's translation of '' Hermes Trismegistus,'' where he will find abundance of evidence. Also to Philo, Plato, and St John for this Logon doctrine.

SONNETS. 231 If, then, Bacon's knowledge was too dangerous to publish during his age, what other '' artifice " or resource had he 1 We reply Art. That art, however, if addressed to posterity, must be provided with a key for its unlocking. Here, in our opinion, his superhuman genius steps in to assist him. He will imitate Nature, and provide a key in his own works. And he will heighten the effect of his art by adding the same mystery, the same secrecy and reserve as Nature. He will be secretly open. He will hide himself behind his works, as the Divine Mind (son or Logos) in those works. He will provide a series of Sonnets profoundly veiled, as creative principles, in which this scheme is set forth at length. And he will allow another man to carry the title of author until he is revealed. Now a second reason for concealment is, that having allowed his early works to go to the theatre anonymously, and thus to get associated with Shakespeare's name, he was forced to continue to do so, or else confess to the entire fraud. This, in his position of statesman and grave lawyer, would have added little to his reputation with Queen Elizabeth or King James, in an age when the playwright's art was looked down upon as a despised thing. Had .he confessed to his authorship, his plays would have been ransacked by his enemies into charges against him of treason (as in the case of Eichard II.) or of frivolous writing. In Bacon's age no statesman, or law officer of the crown, could have sustained his dignity, or his career of ambition, with an acknowledged reputation as poet or play writer. We see that what he really valued in his plays and poems was just what he could not divulge to his age, and that therefore he was forced to address himself to another age for appreciation. This is proved by the following Sonnet, — in which he says his '' tongue-tied muse" is silent, whilst he receives all sorts of letters of praise for his "dumb thoughts speaking in effect"— ia action : — " My tongue-tied muse in maimers holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compil'd.

232 SONNETS. Eeserve their character with golden quill, And precious phrase by all the muses fill'd. I think good thoughts, while others write good words, And, like unlettered clerk, still cry Attien To every hymn that able spirit affords, In polish'd form of well-refined pen. Hearing you prais'd, I say H is w, His true, And to the most of praise add something more ; But that is in my thought, whose love to you. Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before. Then others for the breath of words respect^ Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effects" Nothing can be plainer than the above Sonnet. He is praised extravagantly for his plays by his friends, but only for the ouitvard or external— for the " Ireath of words,'* not for the " spirit of the letter" (for it is the letter that killeth). Therefore he must address himself to posterity, in this fashion : — " To give away yourself, keeps yourself still ; And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill." If he was to " give away himself," nobody would believe him or understand him, and it would be a barren task — only resulting in keeping himself. " Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were filled with your most high deserts ? Though yet heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes, And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say, this poet lies, Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces." Therefore, this scheme of rejuvenescence by which he will appear to after ages as to himself — /" But here's the joy — my friend and I are one ; Self (or Sweet flattery ! then she loves but me alone." Alter Ego), w »Tis thee (myself) that for myself I praise, as I Painting my age with beauty of thy days.'' Creative ,' Mind \ '* ^^^^ ^^^^ ^y ^^^ praise to mine own self bring? Loeos or "^^ what is^t but mine own, when I praise thee 1 " Son. « Then do thy office, Muse ; I teach thee how \ To make him seem long hence as he shows now."

SONNETS. 233 Therefore, as he cannot realize his fall glory except in dreams (and this touches the point of authorship), he writes : — '' Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, In sleep a king, but waking, no such matter." ''^ Farewell ! thou art too dear for my poasessiDg, * • • • • Wander a word for shadows like myself, That take the pain^ btU cannot pluck the pelf J* What more does the world want than these words of his own ! Does he not tell us that he is tired of life in an age where he cannot be understood ) — '' And art made tongue-tied by authority. • » « • And simple truth miscall'd simplicity." Are we not told that we are to take a new acquaintance with his mind " The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show, Of mouthed graves will give thee memory ; Thou by thy dial's shady stealth may'st know Time's thievish progress to eternity. Look, what thy memory cannot contain, Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find Those children nurs'd, deliver'd from thy brain. To take a new acquaintance of thy miiid. These offices, so oft as thou wilt look. Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book." We utterly despair of rousing the world to the fact that all this is addressed to us and not to any contemporary. How curious it is that these poems are read and reread by thousands, and all are blind as moles to the fact that the whole of the poet's art is unlocked in them. So true is it that — *' The jewel that we find, we stop and take it. Because we see it ; but what we do not see, We tread upon, and never think of it." Or as the same author writes in prose : — " It is evident, that the dullness of men is such and so in* felicitous, that when things are put before their feet, they do not

234 SONNETS. see them, unless admonished, bat pass right on.'' No doubt '' everything is subtle till it be conceiyed," writes the same author. " What is strange, is the result of ignorance in the case of all/' says Plato. After accepting the plays and poems and all that has been written upon them as final and exhaustive, the world will all at once catch the true right light for the perspective of this art picture, and see what is written behind it, and then we shall have everybody rushing off to explain it. We would give a great deal to be able to be as clear to the reader, as what we are endeavouring to explain is clear to ourselves. Unhappily it is a difficult subject, though only apparently so. First it requires faith to open the understanding and keep it sustained to the point of interest (which only faith can give), faith being bom of clear sight. Secondly, such a miracle and seeming impossibility is suggested in this theory of rebirth that it is difficult to obtain a moment's serious thought concerning it Thirdly, that directly one brings in the word Logos, or talks of creative principles, the reader has a headache, or has to attend to the papering of the back attic. And we understand all this perfectly, having found out that words bark oftener than they bite, and«that behind the everlasting jugglery and legerdemain of philology lays all the metaphysical impostures of thought oyer which centuries of- sects and writers have fought and quarrelled often to the death. Nobody knew this better than Bacon, and our belief is that not only his entire Inductive Philosophy, but this art of his called Shakespeare's, was constructed once and for ever to show up by a pattern or exemplar, the fantastic tricks of theological, metaphysical, and philological mysteries, which have from words produced idols of Superstition which have enslaved and governed us as the Frankensteins of our own creation. We are determined not to fill this work with endless quotations from Plato, Philo, St John, or any other exponent of the Logos doctrine, to exemplify oar meaning. And we are sure the critic will thank us. If he does not understand what we mean, let him lay down tibis book.

SONNETS, 235 because a few quotations would not assist him, and would very much enlarge our volume to no effect. But we mean to illustrate the Logos doctrine in a very 'few words by the tfitest possible imaga It means Thought (Ideas) or Mind. It \b employed to signify the Creative intellect hidden behind the works of Nature. And at bottom it is just what the meaning of a myth, fable, or allegory is in relation to its vehicle— or external art side. This is certainly an easy way of dismissing it, but what is it we always find constant at the bottom of this Logos doctrine % We find that the Son is always the Heir, and at the same time the Truth, and Mind (Thought, or Wisdom), Life, Light through which everything was created. This is perfectly logical Because a man's thought is well pictured by the relationship of Son, inasmuch as it comes forth of him, and is and is not him, at the same time. Then to become visible it must be united to words (art), or some material (vehicle) which resembles marriage. Whence from this marriage arises again the idea of the Svn begetting, because the Logos (meaning) is hidden and concealed or begot in the vehicle. Its reappearance is highly suggestive of a rebirth — since it comes to light again as the Father's Creative Thought. Thus in the marrying of an idea to art, there are always three factors, the Thinker (or Father creator) — the Thought (or Son) — the vehicle (or Woman). The Thought becomes sacrificed (incarnation), concealed, — and when it is reborn it reveals the father's thought. It is around these relationships or metaphysical conceits that the entire Trinity Doctrine revolves ! The student is bound to bear in mind, that the union of Idea (or Thought) to Matter, is of the nature of marriage^ since two things become identified as " a union in partition." Also that all the ancient writers describe this as male on one side, female on the other, and that the two constitute when united an androgynous being which we refind in the Sonnets under the title of Master-Mistress. Cory writes : — '' By comparing all the varied legends of the west and east in conjunction, we may obtain the following outline of the theology of the ancients. It recognises, as the

236 SONNETS. primary elements of all things, two independent principles, of the nature of male and female. And these in mystic unum, as soui and body, constitute the great Hfsrmaphroditic deity, the One, the universe itself, consisting of two elements of its composition, modified though combined in one individual, of which all things were considered but as parts." (Introductory Dissertation to Cory's " Ancient Fragments," p. xxxiv.) It will be seen in this ** Hermaphroditic deity " we have the Master-Mistress of the poet's Sonnets — viz., the union of the male and the female, of the friend and the mistress. ^'Timseus Locrus says of the causes of all things: — ^Idea or Form is of the nature of Male and Father; but Matter of the nature of Female and Mother.' " (Cory's •* Fragments," 302.) Again: — ^'Matter is the receptacle of Form, the mother and female principle of the generation of the third essence; for, by receiving the likeness upon itself, and being stamped with Form, it perfects all things, jmrtaking of the nature of generation.'* (Ibid.) ''The world appears to them (the Egyptians) to consist of a masculine and feminine nature. And they engrave a scarabseus for Athena, and a vulture for Hephsestus. For these alone of all the Gods they consider as both male and female in their nature." (HorapoUo.) "Plutarch, describing the mysteries, says : — * God is a male and female intelligence, being both life and light he brought forth another intelligence, the creator of the world'; Orpheus (who is supposed to have introduced the mysteries into Greece) sings: — ' Jove is a male, Jove is an unspotted virgin.* The Brahminical doctrine in the Sama Veda says: — ^the will to create exited wUh the Deity as his bride.' The Yerihad, Aranyaka, and Upanishad teaches the same : — ' he caused himself to fall in two and thus became husband and wife.* (' Yarker's Mysteries of Anti-quities.') A study of the ancient doctrines of creation, will always discover this symbolism of marriage as expressive of the creative art For example, in every triad there is a male, a female,

SONNETS. 237 and an androgyne. An acute student of the Sonnets will find these treated separately, yet commixedly, as a paradox of contradictions. 'Eminent scholars, who have devoted themselves to the investigation of the ancient cults, have shown to demonstration that the most primitive idea of God was that he consisted of a dual nature, masculine and feminine joined in one, and this androgynous deity gave birth to creation.' (* Great Dionysiak Myth.,' Brown, vol. ii., p. 302.)" Heraclitus' conception of the Logos is that it is '' the rational law apparent in this world." Why do we introduce all this ? Because the entire opening theme of the Sonnets is Marriage for the sake of rebirth or immortal offspring! But this is the actual simile by which Socrates in the Banquet illustrates Creation Divine or poetic. And there cannot be a moment's doubt that the Fnend of the Sonnets \& not Lord Southampton, or any real person at all, but the poet's alter ego, or Mind, which as creative Logos, is to be obscured by marriage with art, and be by rebirth his son and heir, as the spiritual in this art revealed, or again come to light — through time. This is no ingenious theory in the mazes of which we have lost ourselves, but the result of a dozen years' study, and we could fill volumes to prove it, not here and there, but everywhere in these marvellous Sonnets. Every paradox melts before it, but its genius is that of Hermetic mystery, because it is a metaphysical subject highly obscured to avoid premature discovery. We are told how careful he was when he took his way to hide each trifie that might reveal him too soon: — " How careful was I when I took my way, Each trifie under truest bars to thrust, That to my use it might unused stay From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust ! ' What, then^ is our theory 1 It is that this art is completely DaiMe. Kot what may be termed allegorical, but like Nature, and it embraces another side, which is as philosophic as the " Novum Organumy Many have surmised this before us. Carlyle

238 SONNETS. wrote (from Donnelly's " Great Cryptogram ") : — " There is an understanding manifested in the construction of Shakespeare's plays equal to that in Bacon's * Novum Organum.*" Hazlit makes the same remark : — " The wisdom displayed in Shakespeare was equal in profoundness to the great Lord Bacon's * Novum Organum.* " '*Novalis, one of the subtlest of German thinkers, remarks with regard to our poet's Art : — " ' The latest sharp-minded observer will find new coincidences, with endless system of the universe, collisions with later ideas, relationships with the higher powers and senses of humanity. They are sijmbolical^ full of interpretation, simple and inexhaustible, like the creations of nature, and nothing more unfit can be said of them, than that they are a work of art in the narrow mechanical meaning of the word.' — (JFerke.) Novalis only enunciates what Coleridge endeavoured to enforce, viz., the organic character of the poet's art. This is only a metajshor, for dual unity. An organism is the product of an internal, spiritual force, giving itself outward expression through nature or art. There must be soul or symbolism where there is organism." But the world accepts the plays in the light of an unconscious genius embodying more rationalism than it can itself explain, as in the case of Faust and Goethe. But this is quite an error. This art, as he tells us, was planned far from accident^ and is hugely politic, laying great bases for eternity I It was deliberately planned and constructed for a complete and perfect setfrevelaii/m through time. When did this idea first take its inception 1 Not from the beginning, because he tells us in the 20th Sonnet, that it was first intended to be sin^gle, but that, like Pygmalion, he fell in love with his own creation, and determined to give it life. And this idea we can see repeated in the statue of Hermione upon her pedestal, who represents his entire sleeping art, waiting the return of its life or spirit (Perdita) to reveal itself to us, not as now a speechless statue, but as a thing of rebirth and revelation — of £Oul and intellect, not as a mere picture, but

SONNETS. 239 as man-woman — that is, dual unity, separated and united as Hermione is from Leontes through time. Marcus Antoninus says : — '' The nature of the universe delights not in anything so much as to alter all things and present them under another form. This is her conceit, to play one game and commence another. Nature is placed before her like a piece of wax, and she shapes it to all forms and figures. Now she makes a bird, then out of the bird a beast ; now a flower, then a frog." Compare — '* Since I left you, mine eye ia in my minde. And that which govemes me to goe about, Doth part his function, and is partly blind, Seemes seeing, but effectually is out : For it no forme delivers to the heart Of birds, or flower, or shape which it doth lack, Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, Nor his owne vision holds what it doth catch : For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight, The most sweet favour or deformedst creature, The mountaioe, or the sea, the day, or night : The Crow, or Dove, it shapes them to your feature. Incapable of more repleat, with you. My most true minde thus maketh mine untrue.''

CHAPTER XIII. BAGONIANA. "His Lordship was a good Poet,^ but conoeal'd, as appears by •Letters.*"— -4iiAr«y. The parallels between Bacon's writings and Shakespeare's are not only endless, but have been so fully treated by Mrs Henry Pott» and Mr Donnelly in his recent great work, that it seems superfluous to add anything further. It would be easy to fill another volume of fresh ones, and they will continue to be discovered the deeper both writers are studied. We therefore have endeavoured to avoid repetition, and have only added those which we think are striking as parallels, which we may call (like the following) double as to identical names, and threefold as to these names being found connected with the same strain or line of thought. In Hamlet (graveyard scene) we have the following : — *' Ham, To what base uses we may return, Horatio ! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole 1 Hot, *T were to consider too curiously, to consider so. Hajn, No, faith, not a jot ; but to follow him thither with tnodesty enough, and likelihood to lead it. As thus ; Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust ; the dust is earth ; of 1 With regard to the estimation of poets daring Bacon's time, hear his friend Selden : — " Selden, a scholar of profound erudition, has given as his opinion concerning poets. ' It is ridiculous for a lord to print verses ; he may make them to please himself. If a man in a private chamber twirls his band-strings, or plays with a rush to please himself, it is well enough ; but if he should go into Fleet Street, and sit apon a stall and twirl a band-string, or play with a rush, then all the boys in the street would laugh at him.' "— D'IsraeU's " Curiosities of Literature," L 433.

BACONIANA. 241 earth we make loam : And why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel ? Imperial Coesar, dead, and tum'd to clay. Might stop a hole to keep the wind away : O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw ! '' Note here that Alexandej' and Ccesar (Augustus Ccesar) are brought in both in sequence ; and now read this from (Century viiL, 771) Bacon's "Natural History," where we find Augustus Ccesar (Imperial Caesar) brought in with Alexander as they are in the passage from Hamlet. What are the odds against two different writers thus similarly connoting two Emperors (who lived at different ages), upon the same subject, in the same manner ? " But I find in Plutarch and others, that when Augustus CcBsar visited the Sepulchre of Alexander the Great in Alexandria he found the body to keep his dimension ; but withal that notwithstanding all the embalming (which no doubt was of the best), the body was so tender, as Caesar touching but the nose of it defaced it." But this is not the end of the parallel. The entire experiment, which is touching " tlie conservation of dead bodies" is just the same subject that Hamlet makes inquiry upon of the first Clown in the scene quoted. ** Ham, How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot ?" This is the entire subject-matter of inquiry that Bacon makes in this same experiment 771. "It is strange, and well to be noted, how long carcasses have continued uncorrupt, and in their former dimensions, as appeareth in the Mummies of Egypt^ having lasted, as is conceived (some of them) three thousand years." Then Bacon discusses the three causes of putrefaction. The remedies are first to exclude the air. Lastly, he says : — " There is a fourth Remedy also, which is, that if the body to be preserved be of bulk, as a Corps is, then the body that incloseth it must have a virtue to draw forth and dry the moisture of the inQ

242 B AC ONI ANA. ward body; for else the puirefadiofi wiU play within, thoagh nothing issue forth." Now these two last lines form the pith of the Clown's reply to Hamlet's question, as to " How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot 1 " '* 1 Clo. Taith, if he be not rotten before he die (as we have many pocky corses Dow-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in), he will last you some eight year, or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year. Ham. Why he more than another? 1 Clo. Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while ; and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here's a scull now : this scull has lain in the earth three-and-twenty years." The Clown gives the same reply or explanation as Bacon, i.e., that " moisture" or, in other words, water " is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body." Now do we not see from the very commencement of the scene to the end the same inquiry, the same reply f and Alexander and Caesar brought in at the close of both quotations ) It is a miracle if two different men wrote these two passages ! But this is such a curious subject that we must continue it. Bacon writes (from the same experiment, 771): — " I remember Livy doth relate, that there were found at a time, two co£Bns of lead in a tomb, whereof the one contained the body of Ring Numa^ it being some four hundred years after his death ; and the other his Books of Sacred Rites and Ceremonies, and the Discipline of the Pontiffs. And that in the Coffin that had the body, there was nothing at all to be seen but a little light Cinders about the sides ; but in the Coffin that had the Books, they were found as fresh as if they had been but newly written, being written in Parchment, and covered over with Watchcandles of Wax three or four-fold." What a close study Bacon seems to have given this subject, what a subtle, searching, profound Mind is this, and we do not know that he had not perhaps a purport in making a study of this solemn subject ! In all this there is a strange resemblance to the history of Christian Eosy 

BACONIANA. 243 cross and his grave, which we now give from the '' Fama Fraternitatis" : — *' The vault was a heptagon. Every side was five feet broad and eight feet high. It was illuminated by an artificial sun. In the centre was placed instead of a grave-stone a circular altar with a little plate of brass, whereon these words were inscribed : This grave, an abstract of the whole world, I made for myself whilst yet living (A. C. R. C. Hoc Universi compendium vivus mihi sepulchrum feci). About the margin was — To me Jesus is all in all (Jesus mihi omnia). In the centre were four figures enclosed in a circle hj this revolving legend : Nequaquam vacuum legis jugum. Libertas Evangelii. Dei gloria intacta. (The empty yoke of the law is made void. The liberty of the gospel. The unsullied glory of God.) Each of the seven sides of the vault had a door opening into a chest; which chest, besides the secret books of the order and the Focabularium of Paracelsus, contained also mirrors — little bells — burning lamps — marvellous mechanisms of music, &c., all so contrived that after the lapse of many centuries, if the whole order should have perished, it might be re-established by means of this vault. Under the altar, upon raising the brazen tablet, the brothers found the body of Itosycross, without taint or corruptioTL The right band held a book written upon vellum with golden letters : this book, which is called T., has since become the most precious jewel of the society next after the Bible." We see that the body of Christian Rosycross was preserved " without taint or corruption " — ^a subject we have found Bacon writing upon. And we find books buried with him, after the same fashion described by Bacon of Numa. It seems to us as if we could almost trace the hand of Bacon even to the curse upon Shakespeare's supposed tombstone at Stratford : — '* Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust encloeed here : Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.''

244 BACONIANA, ^' Mr F. C. Heaven, alluding to the same epitaph, writes : * I was struck with the resemhlance of two lines in the quotation from Bacon's " Eetired Courtier " to those on Shakspere's tomb at Stratford. Bacon's lines in his " Retired Courtier " to which I refer are : — ' Blest be the hearts that wiah my Sovereigne weU ! Curst be the soul that thinks her any wrung ! ' While those on Shakspere's tomb read : — ' Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.' Does not this similarity point to Bacon as the author of the quaint lines in Stratford Church generally attributed to Shakspere himself 1*" There is certainly a certain resemblance in the style, because we see that in both Bacon's lines, and Shakespeare's epitaph, the words " Bltsi " and " Cuniy^ begin and follow in the same order, opening each sentence of the two lines in a striking way. Both possess the identical '^ Blest be the" and both the same *^Cursi be" Both again repeat and bring in the word ^*that" at the same turn in the sentence, and for the same reason. At anyrate there are deep grounds for supposing Bacon to have been a Bosicrucian, and the monument of Shakspeare at Stratford is decidedly Eosicrucian. The two famous pillars flank the bust, and above are the two Cupids of life and death, which are well-known Rosicrucian emblems, as inverse factors. The two Cupids are seated upon the top of the monument One holds an inverted torch, and with closed eyes, rests his hand upon a skull. This is the genius of Death, who with inverted brand typifies the " put out" or quenched brand (or flame) of existence. But he is a Cupid nevertheless, as is also his facsimile, who sits on the other side, with eyes open staring plainly, with his right hand resting upon a spade / The spade is a Rosicrucian emblem of the phallus. It is the instrument of sowing, or placing seed in mother-earth, with the result of new-life, rebirth ! Cupid (as Love) is a seed

BACONIAN A, 245 bearer, for he causes new life to spring out of Death. It is for this reason that he reclaims from Death — gives immortality — the immortality of Nature and of the souL His spade is the emblem of the seed sower, and the seed is the source of the new lifa We find Shakespeare alluding to the spade, aa arm^^ very profoundly in Hamlet. The original of Spade is Spada,^ a sword, whence we see the source of its name lies closely connected with arms. The sword and sheath, even to the name of the latter ( Vagina) y have stood for emblems which the reader will readily guess. The spade has no sheath, except it be buried in the earth, when it becomes the means of fertilization. "Come, my spade. There is no aucieiit gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers : they hold up Adam's profession. Sec, Clo, Was he a gentleman ? First Clo. A* was the first that ever bore arm». Sec. Clo. Why, he had none. First Clo. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture. The Scripture says * Adam digged : ' could he dig withotU arms?'' Which recalls — " When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman ? *' There can be no question upon the Kosicrucian character and symbolism of these two Cupids upon the Stratford monument. Love and Death as aivtitlieta, yet holding out to each other pro^ " Hargreave Jennings writes {RotsicrudanSf their Rites and Mysteries^ p. 244) ; — *Fig. 175 ia a very curious design from Sylvanus Morgan, an old herald. Above is the spade, signifying here the/>Aa^iM; and below is the distaff, or instrument of woman's work, meaning the answering member, or Yoni ; these are united by the snake. We here perceive the meaning of the rhymed chorus sung by Wat Tyler's mob : *' When Adam delved " (with his spade), " and Eve span " (contributing her (producing) part of the work), "where was then the Gentleman?"— or what, under these ignoble conditions, makes difference or degree? It is supposed that Shakespeare plays upon this truth when he makes his clown in Hamlet observe, "They" {i.e., Adam and Eve) "were the first who ever bore arms." By a reference to the foot of the figure, we shall see what these arms were, and discover male and female resemblances in the shape of the man's " escutcheon " and the woman's diamond-shaped " lozenge." ' "

246 BACONIANA. mise of rebirth and immortality, are emblems belonging to the Rosicrucians, who give a motto to one of Lord Lytton's chapters in " Zanoni." '' From the Sarcophagus and the urn I awake the Genius of the extinguished Torch, and so closely does its shape resemble Eros, that at moments I scarcely know which of ye dictate to me, 0 Love 1 0 Deaih / " (" Zanoni.") With regard to Bacon's skull, Dr Ingleby writes ("Shakespeare's Bones," p. 27) : — *' Before addressing myself to the principal matter of this essay, namely the question whether we should not attempt to recover Shakespeare's skull, I may as well note that the remains of the great philosopher, whom so many regard as Shakespeare's very self, or else his aUer ego, were not allowed to remain unmolested in their grave in St Michael's Church, St Albans. Thomas Fuller, in his Worthies, relates as follows : ' Since I have read that his grave being occasionally opened [!] his scull (the rclique of civil veneration) was by one King, a Doctor of Physick, made the object of scorn and contempt; but he who then derided the dead has since become the laughingstock of the living.' This, being quoted by a correspondent in Notes and Queries, elicited from Mr C. Le Poer Kennedy, of St Albans, an account of a search that had been made for Bacon's remains, on the occasion of the interment of the last Lord Verulam. 'A partition wall was pulled down, and the search extended into the part of the vault immediately under the monument, hut no remains were found,* On the other hand, we have the record of his express wish to be buried there. I am afraid the doctor, who is said to have become the laughingstock of the living, has entirely faded out of men's minds and memories." We have, however, heard this contradicted by the present Earl Verulam's lodge-keeper, Simpson, who assured us he had been in the vault below the chancel of St Michael's Church, and had seen Lord Bacon's coffin, and read the inscription. He related an account of the opening of the vault at the time of the

BACONIANA. 247 restoration of St Michaers Church, when the brother of the late Charles Dickens and others descended and inspected the tomb. He declares he saw an inscription upon a coffin which identified the remains of Lord Bacon. But evidence of this sort must be taken with circumspection, nor does it for a moment prove that the coffin has not been desecrated. However, we are not inclined to attach any weight to Fuller's words. We find John Warren, in some dedicatory lines to Shakespeare, vrriting thus (after Shakespeare's death). The original is in the British Museum. (Republished by A. R Smith, 1885, 250 copies only.) *< Of Mr William Shakespsarb. " What, lofty Shake^pearef art againe revived ? And Vtrlnus^ like now show'st thyself twice liv'd, Tis love that thus to thee is showne. The labours kisy the glory still thine owne." This comparison to Virbius is curious, and the last line seems to indicate that *' the labours" were another's (his), though Shakespeare ** still" owns the glory. The third line hints at some indulgence accorded to Shakespeare through " love" : — ** 'Tis love that thus to thee is showne, The labours his, the glory still thine owne." Surely these strange lines hint that Shakespeare is deriving glory from another's labours, an indulgence that is granted through love ? Or take this epigram, written by Ben Jonson (Number 51), and please note that this "poor poet ape" is evidently Shakespeare, inasmuch as he is called " our chief: " — " Ok Poet Ape. " * Poor Poet Ape,'* that would be thought our chief. Whose works are e'en the frippery of wit, ' Virbius, an ancient king of Aricia, and a favourite of Diana, who, when he had died, called him to life again, and entrusted him to the care (if Egeria. The fact of his heing a favourite of Diana's seems to have led the Romans to identify him with Hyppolytus. — " Classical Diet." ' Compare — '* The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three.

248 BACONIAN A. From brokage has become so bold a thief, That we, the robVd, have rage and pity it. At first he made low shifts, would pick and glean, Buy the reversion of old plays." This is evidently a dramatist who buys " the reversion of old plays," and though the " frippery of wit" can hardly be applied to the so-called Shakespearian plays, we are not certain Shakespeare did not write something to keep up his false character as playwright. We all know that Shakespeare was termed the " Sweet swan of Avon." Compare the following deep reference by Bacon to swans as having imperishable immortality : — *' For Lives ; I do find strange that these times have so little esteemed the virtues of the times, as that the writing of lives should be no more frequent. For although there be not many sovereign princes or absolute commanders, and that states are most collected into monarchies, yet there are many worthy personages that deserve better than dispersed report or barren elegies. For herein the invention of one of the late poets is proper, and doth well enrich the ancient fiction : for he feigneth that at the end of the thread or web of every man's life there was a little medal containing the person's name, and that Time waited upon the shears ; and so soon as the thread was cut, caught the medals, and carried them to the river of Lethe ; and about the bank there were many birds flying up and down, that would get the medals, and carry ihem in their beak a little while, and then let them fall into the river : only there were a few swans, m 9 " Arm, Until the goose came out of door, Staying the odds by adding four." " Cost. O marry me to one Frances : — I sn.ell some V envoy ^ some goose in this. " — (Loves Labour's Lost, Act iii. sc. 2. ) Now in Lovers Labour's Lost, there is no character or person of the name of Frances at all. Bacon's Christian name was Francis, flmd we have a shrewd suspicion that the humble- liee (B) may probably be the humble Bacon, who surrendered tlie fruits of his modesty to the Poet Ape — his right of authorship.

BACONIANA. 249 which if they got a name^ would carry it to a temple, where it was consecrated." Does not Bacon seem to be thinking of the '' Sweet Swan of Avon" 1 But, according to the clever critics, Bacon had never heard of Shakespeare or his works ! Yet both are friends — intimate friends — with Lord Southampton. At any rate, it is curious Bacon avoids — so carefully avoids — alluding to Shakespeare. Why does he do so 1 Examine the above passage. We find at once that " about the bank (of Lethe) there were many birds" fiying up and down, " that would get the medals," which suggest the picking up and seizing of another s fame, for each of these medals carried the " person's name," the titie authors name, which they carried '* in their beak a lUtle while " / Then comes that curious conclusion (which immediately recalls, with its swanlike comparison, Shakespeare), " only there were a few swans, which if they got a name," would carry it to a temple, where it was consecrated " ! In these words Bacon seems to be hinting at the difficulty of a right identification of authorship, of the real swan's poetic rights, carried by other birds for a little while, but finally, ** if the name could be got at," rescued from the oblivion and consecrated in a temple. Temple House is the name to this day by which the old ruins of Bacon's house at Gorhambury are known. Shakespeare's arms contain a falcon. The Induction, {Taming of the Shrew.) We have a striking hint given to us in the portrait of Christopher Sly, of somebody outside tlie plays, bearing dignities and honours that in no wise belong to him. It is worthy of particular attention that Sly is outside the play, and in nowise contributes to the unity thereof. This Induction has puzzled and must perplex every profound student of the plays. Because it is a violation of the unity of dramatic presentation, and if left out would in no way affect the Taming of the Shrew as a perfect play

2 so BACONIAN A. in itself. Nor can we believe the author of such art as this to have been ignorant of the incongruity and apparently purposeless addition of this induction. It seems to us rather that Sly is placed outside the play as a false, Lord and master of the players who present it, and holds this false position just as long as the play and its outer action lasts. It has never been remarked how strange it seems that Sly disappears from the play altogether after the first scene. This is curious, because, as we shall presently show, in the original story from which the idea of the induction is borrowed, the joke played upon Sly's original is brought to a conclusion. There is something singularly striking in the way Sly is forgotten, yd left to ike ima^natimi always in the false j>osition of playing Lord, and presiding over plays and players belonging to another ; and mark it, a Lord. We intend to present some pregnant parallels which bring the identity of Shakespeare to Sly suspiciously together. For example, Shakespeare's wife's maiden name was Anne Hathaway, and we find Sly exclaiming, " by Saint Anne I " " Ist Serv, My lord, you nod ; you do not mind the play. Sly. Yes, by Saint Anne do L A good matter surely. Comes there any more of it ? Page, My lord, 't is but begun. Sly. 'T is a very excellent piece of work, madam lady. 'Would 't were done ! " After this droll and humorous interlude, or interruption, no more is heard of Sly, and he disappears from the play as if he had never been introduced at all. Now in the original story, from which the incident of the induction is borrowed, we are presented with the restoration of Sly to his former and real condition of common life, as forming no small part of the especial point and humour of the joke played him by the Duke Philip. I speak of The Waking Man's Dream. The dinouemmt of the trick played Sly concludes as follows : — "Then the right Duke, who had put himselfe among the throng of his Officers to have the pleasure of this mummery.

BACONIAN A. 251 commanded that this sleeping man should be stript oat of his brave cloathes, and cloathed againe in his old ragges, and so sleeping carried and lajd in the same place where he was taken up the night before. This was presently done, and there did he snort all the night long, not taking any hurt either from the hardnesse of the stones or the night ayre, so well was his stomacke filled with good preservatives. Being awakened in the morning by some passenger, or it maye bee by some that the good Duke Philip had thereto appointed, ha I said he, my friends, what have you donel you have rob'd mee of a Kingdome, and have taken mee out of the sweetest and happiest dreame that ever man could have fallen into. Then, very well remembring all the particulars of what had passed the day before, he related unto them, from point to point, all that had happened unto him, still thinking it assuredly to bee a dreama Being returned home to his house, hee entertaines his wife, neighbours, and friends, with this his dreame, as hee thought: the truth whereof being at last published by the mouthes of those Courtiers who had been present at this pleasant recreation, the good man could not beleeve it, thinking that for sport they had framed this history upon his dreame; but when Duke Philip, who would have the full contentment of this pleasant tricke, had shewed him the bed wherein he lay, the cloathes which he had wome, the persons who had served him, the Hall wherein he had eaten, the gardens and galleries wherein he had walked, hardly could hee be induced to beleeve what hee saw, imagining that all this was meere inchantment and illusion." Now why, I ask, have we this amusing termination omitted ) Why is Sly left in the play,- as it were, still in his false position of Lo7'd over the players ? Let us examine some other parallels. In the recent correspondence in the newspapers upon the authorship of the plays, much has been made of the reference made by Sly to Wincot or (Wilmecdte), a village in the neighbourhood of Stratford, to show that the author must have been Shakespeare, and

c I 252 BACONIANA. acquainted well with Warwickshire. We think this allasion to Wincot proves conclusively thai Sly is a portrait of Shakespeare^ but it suggests powerfully that he did not write the plays, bat was set up in Bacon's place by Bacon, in just such a way as Sly is set up ^ a Lord. Here is another point which seems to as worthy attention. " Sly, Ye are a baggage : the Slys are no rogues ; look in the chronicles; we came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore paucas pallabris ; let the world slide : sessa !'' Is there no hit implied in these words at Shakespeare's application for arms, and his claims to be by descent a gentleman 1 As Mr Donnelly has well pointed out in his recent work, Shakespeare put forward all sorts of claims to birth and family, to which he had about as much real right as Sly. Then, in the drunkenness of Sly, is there no ironical portrait of the man of Stratford ? We know that he died from the results of a drinking bout^ and Mr Donnelly certainly accuses him, with some show of reason, of being a free liver, if no worse. It is hardly fair to infer that because we have his end associated with revelry and this tale of a " drinking bout," that he was another Sly. But the story, which has never been contradicted, leaves a disagreeable impression on the mind that he must have been a hard drinker. There must be some truth about a tradition of this sort, which has handed itself down to us undenied by any contemporary evidence. But to return to Sly's boast of illustrious descent of birth; is it not curious that a ^^ peasant" should be made to lay claim to anything of the sort ? *' How my men will stay themselves from laughter When they do homage to this simple peasants* We find that Sly is only a "simple peasant," and it is very strange and singular to find the author of the play, thus placing in his mouth, the sort of speech which a peasant would never make, and which (nobody knew better than the writer) is quite

B A com ANA. 253 beside the mark in Sly's mouth ! Now it may be objected that Shakespeare was no peasant, yet we think anybody who has seen the house he was born in, or the cottage where he lived with his wife, Anne Hathaway, must be forced to the conclusion that they both are only peasants' cottages. It seems to us that before Shakespeare went to London he lived the life of a simple peasant, poaching and drinking 3 and whatever he became afterwards, he was no better at Stratford than a peasant in Home and surroundings. Is there no possible joke of the " Hang, Hog," Bacon style in the following ? — *^Lord. O Monstrous beast ! how like a 8wine he lies ! Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image ! Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man. What think you, if he were conveyed to bed, Wrapped in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers, A most delicious banquet by his bed. And brave attendants near him when he wakes. Would not the beggar then forget himself ? " " How like a swine lie lies I " Is there no indirect sly hint here to take us to Bacon 1 How like Bacon he lies I We admit the seeming extravagance of the remote parallel, but it is well to note every trifle in this extraordinary art In Shakespeare's age the common name for pigs and swine was '' Bacons." There is something peculiarly adapted to our argument even in the name Sly. If the dy Shakespeare was guardedly keeping his tongue silent upon a matter which must touch him so nearly as the authorship of the plays, there is something in this name that hits ofif his position as reputed author and false author very admirably indeed. We find in the induction that he takes very quickly to his false honours, and believes himself (in a very brief time) the actual Lord, he is persuaded he is. There is something unnatural in that. No one could thus be persuaded that their entire life was a lie, or a dream, unless they had an element of slyness in them, which we see Sly undoubtedly has. For ourselves, we cannot imagine a picture better painted to pourtray a

254 B AC ONI ANA, false authorship in relation to plays than this induction of Sly. He is brought in in relationship to plays and players or actors. And that was also Shakespeare's position over actors, ^eho probably were in the pay of others. Lord Bacon's coat of arms contains a double star. We should like to know the history and origin of these arms 1 Every trifle concerning him is interesting to those who believe that he is Shakespeare's double, and that to the star he already possesses, he promises to add another one of even greater lustre still. Over the house Goethe was bom in at Frankfort^ there was a lyre, a curious coincidence (if only that), to mark as it were the birthplace of one who was to take Apollo's lyre as his own. Everything in connection with Bacon's life is extraordinary. If ever there was a prophet who prophesied truly, it was him. He foretold the revolution which was to follow sixteen years after his death. Spedding writes : — *^ Another thing in the paper before us, not to be found elsewhere in Bacon's writings, is the prophecy of civU wars ; which he anticipates propter mores guosdam turn ita pridem introductos : a prediction well worthy of remark, especially as being uttered so early as the beginning of James the First's reign." What Dr Rawley relates about the influence of the moon at her change (passion) or eclipse is curious, and as Sawley was Bacon's intimate chaplain, we have every reason to believe what he says : — *' It may seem the moon had some principal place in the figure of his nativity : for the moon was never in her passion, or eclipsed, but he was surprised with a sudden fit of fainting ; and that though he observed not nor took any previous knowledge of the eclipse thereof ; and as soon as the eclipse ceased, he was restored to his former strength again." (" Life.") It appears that Bacon studied Astronomy, and had an observatory at Gorhambury, the ruins of which were, not many years ago, still visible. The British Association, when at St Albans, were very anxious to excavate, but I was told the proprietor \

BACONIAN A. 255 would not give the necessary consent. It is evident from some annotations upon the title page of the original MSS. (Harl. MSS. 6463) that Bacon studied or helieved in Astrology. This seems quite incredihle, we admit, from the style and character of his mind and works, which everywhere denounce Alchemistry, Astrology, and every non-positive science. At the bottom of the title page of "Valerius Terminus of the Interpretation by Nature," with the annotations of Hermes Stella,^ we find in Bacon's hand : — There is, no doubt, some connection between the title and second title, and these astronomical notes. Both are strange titles, and unexplainable, declares Mr Spedding, who quotes Bacon's own words as to his manner of publishing. " Whereby it shall not be to the capacity nor taste of all, but shall as it were single and adopt his reader." Stella was therefore to throw a kind of starlight on the subject, enough to prevent the student's losing his way, but not much more. Terminus seems to indicate some finality or end connected with Astrology or a star — Stella. Curiously we find, in the twentysixth Sonnet, reference to a star in reference to some discovery to be made with regard to the author. We do not adduce these ' Mercury. Called in Assyrian Nabu {Neho\ t.e., ** Proclaimer" (of the coming Sun) ; and in Akkadian Sdkvxsa^ the 2ex^f of Hesychios, a name perhaps meaning **Lord (Uead)-of-the-four-qaarter8'' (of the heaven). The Greeks called it ** the Star sacred to Hermes" (Platon, Timaios)^ because Hermes in their god-system was regarded as the analogue of the Euphrtttean Nabu.

256 B A CO NT ANA. things to excite cariosity, or to suggest we in any way can assist to solve them, but conscientiously present them to those readers who are not intimate with Bacon, to show that there is a profound mystery connected with some of his works, which his editor and lifelong student, Spedding, could not fathom If there is a mystery around Shakespeare's life, there is also a mystery around Bacon's, though of another description. It is believed that Bacon had his works translated into Latin, because he anticipated the decay of English and a possible return to the Latin as a vehicle for philosophical writings. But we are not of that belief. We think that the Latin was of course intended to serve as a common European medium or means of reading him. But we think also that the Latin was a cover for less concealed and more ambiguous language upon subjects which were, in his own words, " to adopt his reader." The translations are of course bound to agree with the seemingly simple subject in hand. It seems to us Bacon's works are often to be found employing a double language, and at random, or strained from that simplicity which he never ceases to commend in connection with words and their meaning. His entire philosophy is written to expose the idols of words and their false connotations, and to plant them deep down in Nature itself, yet he does not conform to the spirit of his teaching. We find Mr Spedding constantly at a loss, and yet unwilling to confess it, in his work of editorship. Bacon everywhere shows that his ideas and words are often very badly mated. '^ Critics have discovered a multitude of contradictions and antinomies in the Baconian philosophy, because he denies in one place what he has affirmed in another. Among these antinomies, many are certainly so composed that the thesis may be found in the encyclopsedian works, the antithesis in the 'Novum Organum.' " (" Francis Bacon," p. 224, by Kuno Fischer.) Mr Spedding writes (page 2, " Life of Bacon ") : — '' It seemed that towards the end of the sixteenth century men neither knew nor aspired to know more than was to be learned

BACONIANA. ^ 257 from Aristotle ; a strange thing at any time ; more strange than ever just then, when the heavens themselves seemed to be taking up the argument on their own behalf, and by suddenly lighting up within the very region of the Unchangeable and Incorruptible, and presently extinguishing, a new fixed star as bright as Jupiter — (the new star in Cassiopeia shone with full lustre on Bacon's freshmanship) — to be protesting by signs and wonders against the cardinal doctrine of the Aristotelian philosophy." On this star the author of " Mazzaroth " says : — '* The new star seen by lycho Brahe, in Cassiopeia, which blazed for a short time and then disappeared, sufficiently authorises us to regard this star as no meteor of our earth or sky, but as one of the heavenly bodies, pre-ordained to the glorious office of heralding, by an increase of its own brightness, the coming in splendour of Him, the true light, by whom and for whom all things were created." (Col. i. 16.) Upon consulting further " Mazzaroth," we find (on page 3) that Seth or Shoth or Hermes was the reputed inventor of Astronomy. '' The Egyptians held that (Hermes) or Shoth — ^the Twice Great — was the founder of their Astronomy " (page, 3, part iv. " Mazzaroth ''). So that we find a rational explanation in the title Hermes Stella, (as Astronomy,) or the Astronomical, or Astrological Star, an idea which is fully borne out by the notes in ink, (which we have quoted,) found at the foot of the title-page in the original, in Bacon's own hand. With regard to the strange title, " Valerius Terminus," we can suggest no explanation. Terminus needs no comment ; it clearly means what is already an anglicised word — finality, a termination, which the second title mysteriously connects with astronomy, as is proved by the additional astrological note. Valerius is a proper name, and there are a great quantity of them in the dictionaries. Amongst them we find some artists. One, of Ostia, was the architect of the covered theatre erected at Rome for the games of Libo (Pliny, H. N.| xxxvi. 16 8. 24). We find in " Valerius Terminus" a great deal upon the anticipaR \'

258 BACONIAN A. tions of the mind, which immediately recalls how Bacon has anticipated in the '' New Atlantis" the discoveries of the nineteenth centuiy. In chapter 13 : — '' Of the error in propoonding chiefly the search of causes and productions of things conareU^ which are infinite and transitory, and not of abstrad noltcres, which are few and permanent Thai these naJtures are as ike alphabet or simple letters^ whereof the variety of things consisteth \ or as the colours mingled in the painter*s sheUy tcherewiih he is able to make infinite variety of faces or shapes" This recalls his letter to Sir Tobie Matthew and his works of the alphabet. In chapter 18 he again mysteriously alludes to reserving a part in publication to a private succession, which I think is a pretty good hint to prove that this is what he has himself done : —

BACONIAN A. 259 squalid house, or cottage with heaps of dirt ('^ sterquinarum" in front of it. That he distinguished his early and classical years, no€ in drinking at the Gastalian fount of the golden Apollo, but by deer stealing, coney catching, drinking bouts, and immorality. His life begins with the story of the celebrated drinking contests, and ends with the same pitiful tale. His wife presents him with an heir six months after marriage. He is again heard of supplanting his fellow actor Burbage in an amour. He lends money, sues for small debts, oppresses the poor (as to the inclosures of the common land), and dies leaving neither library, nor manuscript, nor record, except that he brew beer, and never taught his eldest daughter to read or write. And this is the man who overreaches three centuries of critics to understand or exhaust his learning 1 The human mind is a strange thing, infested with Bacon's idols, which have been more exemplified in the history of Shakespearian criticism than in aught else. There is nothing but association, that '' monster custom that all sense doth eat," that bars the minds of prejudiced thousands from examining this question of authorship fairly, rationally, without bias, and in a spirit which Bacon everywhere inculcates. The less people have read Bacon or Shakespeare the more positive they are as to the authorship. This is a fact we find true every day. Others waver, and would believe, if it were not for the idol of superstition, the false idol or god who usurps the rightful heir. A curious attitude is momentary conversion and then falling back. The simple truth is, public opinion is stronger than reason. The overwhelming collective voice paralyses the free judgment But what judge can public opinion be upon a question of this sort, that lies deeper than the average of common education, and which few will give themselves the trouble to study as it requires to be studied 1 Surely the opinion of experts is more valuable than the opinion of a multitude of what Garlyle called '' mostly fools ! " Public opinion is sound, excellent, and invaluable in all questions of common sense. This is a literary question, embracing the profoundest possible learn 

26o BACONIAN A. ing, and a peculiar faculty of perceiying, comparing, or collating and analysing. No donbt it will or may become a subject open to the judgment of the average common sense. But that point has hardly been reached yet. What people want to know is why Bacon allowed another to enjoy his proper rights f The answer has been given under one head. We will give it under several others. The general explanation is the low position the stage and play-writing occupied in those days, and the serious ambitious career of Liw before the real author, Bacon. We think this is only half the answer. We believe it was the peculiar character of Bacon's mind which was at the bottom of it His whole life was bent upon a revolution of philosophy and the reformaof society. Here he joins hands with the Bosicrucians. He shows in his works his delight with the reserve and concealment of Nature, and perceives that the education and discipline of man's apprenticeship in life are owing to the mystery of the Creator's works. His subtle intellect conceives the idea of imitating this secrecy, which is also part and parcel of the Bosicrucian tenets. Self-sacrifice, abnegation, absence of all personal seeking or vanity, and to come down hidden through the ages. Those were their doctrines. The plays commenced early to go to the theatre anon3rmou8ly, and they had to continue to do so. But the character of Bacon's mind, as exemplified in his works, is the subtlest that the World has ever known. It is ubiquitous, it never wearies, by turns lawyer, statesman, natural scientist^ antiquarian, thoroughly classical, despising the philosophy of the Greeks and Romans, calling the former children ; overthrowing Aristotle at sixteen, and going back to the Egyptians, Persians, and Culdees for original authority. Anything is possible of such a god-like intellect, whose whole faculties are bent upon Posterity, and " after Ages," and who lives in thought with the nineteenth and twentieth century in discoveries. He is not satisfied with Europe or the old world. He must have a New Atlantis or America. He won't allow the centuries to outstrip him. For he is their master, and we are yet far behind him 1

BACONIAN A, 261 To those who object that no one man could find time to compass the plays, besides his already acknowledged works, we reply thus — How was it he found time to become Lord Keeper, Lord Chancellor, and write what we already have 9 Most men would be satisfied to fill a lifetime with one or the other. He did both. And if he did this, he could do anything. ''He died on the ninth day of April in the year 1626, in the early morning of the day, Easter Sunday, then celebrated for our Saviour's resurrection, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, at the Earl of Arundel's house in Highgate, near London, to which place he casually repaired about a week before." Those who believe like ourselves that he was more like Christ than man, both in end, aims, and sacrifice, and who further believe that he will come again to us in greater glory, as the Logos of the plays, will find the above coincidence of his death very remarkable. With regard to Montaigne, with whose works there is so much in Bacon's essays in common, both as to style, solidity, and profoundness, we quote the following from E. Arber's prologue to " A Harmony of the Essays " of Bacon : — '' Bacon knew Montaigne, not only as the great French Essayist, but also as the friend of his only full-brother, Anthony. This elder son of the Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, by his second wife, the Philosopher's mother, was wandering about the continent, chiefly in France, for eleven years, between 1579 and February 1592, during all the time England was rising to her highest efibrt in the struggle with Spain. In November 1582, within two years of the first appearance of Montaigne's ' Essais,' and the year of their second edition, both at Bordeaux ; Anthony Bacon came to that city, and there contracted a friendship with the Sieur de Montaigne. Without doubt this acquaintanceship resulted in these French 'Essais' being early brought under Bacon's notice; and notwithstanding their endless ramblings from the subject, so utterly distasteful to him, the novelty of the style of writing no doubt recommended itself to him : and thus

262 BACONIANA. he came to note down his own observations, after the method of his own genius. So that on 30 January 1597 h& coidd say thai he published them 'as they passed long ago from my pen.* '' Yet it is strange that Bacon ignores his gaide. There is no allusion by him to Montaigne in these essays before 1625, under which year he will be found quoted at p. 501. When, in 1612, he was writing his dedication to Prince Henry of his second and revised Text, it pleased him to go back to antiquity for a precedent, and to find in Seneca's 'Epistles to Lucilius' the prototype of the modern Essay, see p. 158.*' For those who believe, like ourselves, that Bacon was active in promoting a general reformation throughout Europe, either in league with the Bosicrucians, or in favour of Masonry, these eleven years of foreign travel of his devoted brother Anthony, are full of significance. Anthony Bacon (like Antonio in the Merchant of Venice) was ever ready with his purse to help his brother. We find him working and living with him at Gray's Inn, and finally leaving Bacon Gorhambury. It is curious to find Anthony Bacon at Bourdeauz, in communication with Montaigne. It is strange to find Anthony at Venice, whence Boccalini's " Bagguagli di Pamasso" appeared All this time — ^these eleven years — Anthony is in constant communication with his brother, and is himself studying deeply Foreign Politics and his age. As to Bacon's moral character, enough has already been written upon it. These are the words of Arber in his introduction to his " Harmony of the Essays " : — " It is contrary to human nature, that one in whose mind such thoughts as these coursed, year after year, only becoming more excellent as he grew older, could have been a bad man. Do men gather grapes of thorns ) Be all the facts of his legal career what they may, and it is that section of his life mostly includes any discredit to him: (he was also a Philosopher, Historian, Essayist, Politician, and what not 1) the testimony of this one work, agreeing as it does with the tenour of all his other writings

BACONIAN A, 263 is irresistible^ that in the general plan of his purposes and acts, he intended nothing less, nothing else than to be ' Partaker of God's Theater, and so likewise to be partaker of Grod's Best/ p. 183. Can we accuse one who so scathes Hypocrites and Imposters, Cunning and Self-wisdom, of having a corrupted and depraved nature 1 For strength of Moral Power, there is no greater work in the English language. ''More than this, (it is notable also as a testimony to his character,) there runs right through all an unfeigned reverence for Holy Scripture, not only as a Eevelation of Authority, but as itself the greatest written Wisdom. Not because it was so easy to quote, but because it was so fundamentably and everlastingly true, did this great Intellect search the Bible as a great storehouse of Civil and Moral, as well as Eeligious Truths, and so Bacon is another illustration, with Socrates, Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton and others, that a deep religious feeling is a necessity, to the very highest order of human mind. As he argues at p. 339, Man^ when he resteth and assureth himself e vpon diuine Protection and Fauour, gathereth a Force and Faith ; which Human Nature, in it selfCy could not obtaine, " Here most reluctantly we must leave off, ere we have hardly begun. One parting word. We rise from the study of this work with a higher reverence than ever for its Author; and with the certain conviction that the Name and Fame of Francis Bacon will ever increase and extend through successive ages." In the " New Atlantis " we find the following prayer printed in capitals : — " Lord Grod of Heaven and Earth, thou hast vouchsafed of thy grace to those of our Order (sic), to know thy works of Creation and true secrets of them, and to discern (as far as appertaineth to the generation of Men) between Divine Miracles, Works of Nature, Works of Art, and impostures and illusions of all sorts. I do here acknowledge and testify before this people, that the thing we now see before our eyes is thy Finger, and a true Miracle. And forasmuch as we learn in our books, that

264 BACONIANA, thou never workest Miracles, but to a divine and excellent End, (for the laws of Nature are thine own laws, and thou exceedest them not but upon good cause) we most humbly beseech thee to prosper this great sign, and to give us the Interpretation, and use of it in mercy, which thou dost in some part secretly promise, by sending it unto us." The word " Order " is printed in large capitals. This shows that ''those of our Order" refers to some secret brotherhood, or society, which we believe was no other than the famous fraternity of the brotherhood of the Eosy Gross — ^in shorty the Bosicrucians ! It behoves the present generation to solve this question satisfactorily. How is it we find Bacon repeatedly alluding to the " Grardens of the Muses," to the immortality of poetry, in the following remarkable language? "The Gardens of the Muses keep the privilege of the golden age ; they ever flourish aikd are in league with time. The monvments of wit survive the monuments of power: the verses of a poet endure without a syllable lost^ while states and empires pass many periods. Let him not think he shall descend, for he is now upon a hill as a ship is mounted upon the ridge of a wave j but that hill of the Muses is above tempests, always clear and calm; a hill of the goodliest discovery that man can have, being a prospect upon all the errors and wanderings of the present and former times. Yea^ in some cliff it leadeth the eye beyond the horizon of time, and giveth no obscure divinations of things to come." We think that this passage is sufficiently pregnant with implied application of all this (with regard to poetry) to Bacon himself, as to constitute a confession of faith in itself. For example, can we not see in that wide survey, which Bacon associates with the hill of the Muses (Parnassus), the anticipation of Bacon's mind (in his " New Atlantis ") and his wide survey of " former times," with his studies of the Persian, Chaldaaan, and Egyptian antiquity) Do we not see in this hill "above tempests" the God Prospero watching the wanderings and errors of the ship 

BACONIANA. 265 wrecked Eong and his Courtiers 1 If Bacon was no poet, and had nothing (o do with the Moses or Parnassus, how does he know all thisi But compare this, ''The monuments of wit surviye the monuments of power : " — " Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.'' Or take the Hermit's speech (Bacon "Device," 1594-95): — *^Ifhe wUl he in the feast and not in the throng, in the light and not in the heat; Ut him embrace the life of study and cmdemplor turn. And if he will accept of no other reason, yet because the gift of the Muses will enworthy him in his love, and where he now looks on his mistress's outside with the eyes of sense, which are dazzled and amazed, he shall 'then behold her high perfections and heavenly mind with the eyes of judgment, which grow stronger by more nearly and more directly viewing such an object." Nobody but a poet would or could write like this, and certainly no philosopher would think of harping on the Muses in this fashion ! Can we not see in this language ('' in the feast") the author of Lovers Labours Lost, which had appeared a short time before 1588 : — " The mind shall banquet, though the body pine : Fat paunches have lean pates ; and dainty bits Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits." Can we not see, even in the language used, a mind familiar and at home with the poetical conceits of the Italian sonneteers, who always identified philosophy and wisdom toiih a mistress, as in the case of Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Dante t We find one of the peculiarities of Bacon's mind was to look upon the past as the true youth of the world, which seems to us an entirely original conception, and which we find repeated by no one except Shakespeare. But first as to Bacon, who writes : — " As for antiquity, the opinion touching it which men entertain is quite a negligent one, and scarcely consonant with the

266 BACONIANA. word itself. For the old age of the world is to be accoanted the true antiquity; and this is the tribute of our own iimes^ not of that ea/rlier age of the world in which the ancients lived ; and which^ though in respect of us it was the elder, yet in respect of the world it was the younger. And truly as we look for greater knowledge of human things and a riper judgment in the old man than in the young, because of his experience and of the number and variety of the things which he has seen and heard and thought of; so in like manner from our age, if it but knew its own strength and chose to essay and exert it, much more might fairly be expected than from the ancient times, inasmuch as it is a more advanced age of the world, and stored and stocked with infinite experiments and observations." Now this is so original, and so entirely without any contemporary parallels, that to find Shakespeare repeating it is assuredly startling : — " If that the world and Love were young, And truth in every shepheaxds tODgue, These pretty pleasures might me move, To live with thee and be thy Love." Mystery about Bacon*s Life. In his poem of " Underwoods," there is this by Ben Jonson, addressed to Bacon on his birthday : — " In the midst Thou stand'st as though a mystbrt thou did'st." Considering Ben Jonson translated Bacon's works for him into Latin, such words coming from an intimate associate who had opportunities for observation, is a most remarkable thing. Then we have that remarkable letter of Bacon to Sir Tobie Matthew, saying (1607-9) :—" Those works of the Alphabet are in my opinion of less use to you where you now are than at Paria" Bawley writes in his life of Bacon :— " Several persons of quality

BACONIANA. 267 daring his Lordship's life crossed the seas on purpose to gain an opportunity of seeing him and discoursing with him ; whereof one carried his Lordship's Picture from Head to Foot over with him into France ; as a thing which he foresaw would be much desired there." (P. 12.) Many readers will say there is nothing at all extraordinary in thisy but they forget Bacon's works were little appreciated during his Ufe, and of a character little likely to arouse in foreigners this unbounded curiosity and admiration. Mrs Pott says: — " There are times noted by Mr Spedding when Bacon wrote with closed doors, and when the subject of his studies is doubtfuL" Then there is the celebrated letter to Master John Davies, who was a poet, begging him to use his influence with the new king in Bacon's favour, and concluding, '< So, desiring you to be good to all concealed poets," &c. Bacon writes, in a letter to Sir George Yilliers : — *' Fame hath swift wings, especially that which hath black feathers." As Mr Donnelly truly remarks, by " black feathers " are meant " slanders," that is, that slander is like a bird with black feathers — a crow I Now compare— ^' That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect, For slander's mark was ever yet the fair ; The ornament of beauty is suspect, A crotp that flies in heaven's sweeter air." A parallel of this sort is worth a million of the ordinary parallels of the use of the same words, because the latter are external and might be plagiarisms of style or coincidences, but the above is a discovery of the internal thought arranged in two utterly different ways, and yet plainly at bottom the sama Here is another identical parallel in which the torch is introduced as an emblem of light. " I shall perhaps, before my death, have rendered the age a ligJU unto posterity, by kindling this new torch amid the darkness of philosophy." (Letter to King James.)

a68 BACONIANA. Compare — '' Heaven doth with us as we with iardka do, Not lighJt them for themselTea." This is the inscription upon Bacon's monument : — FRANOISCUS BACON, BARO DE VERULAM, S*. ALBANI SBU NOTIOBIBUS TITDLIS 8CISKTIART7M LUMKN FACUKDLS LEX 810 SEDEBAT. QUI P08TQUAM OMNIA NATQRALIS 8APIEXTL£ BT OIYILIS ABCANA SYOLTISSET NATUILfi DECRETUIC EXPLEV1T COMPOSITA SOLVANTITB AN. DNI M.DCXXYI. .fiTAT** LXVL TANTI VIRI KBKs THOMAS MEAXmJS 8UPERSTITIS CULTOR DEFUNCTI ADMIRATOB H. P. This inscription (below the monument) was written by Sir Henry Wotton, and the following translation of it is copied from the " Biographia Britannica " : — ''Francis Bacon, Baron of Yerulam, Viscount St Albans, or by more conspicuous titles— of Science the Light; of Eloquence the Law, sat thus: Who after all natural Wisdom, and Secrets of Civil Life he had unfolded. Nature's law fulfilled — ^Ld Compounds be dissolved/* In the year of our Lord 1626 ; of his age, 66. Of such a man that the memory might remain, Thomas Meautys, living his attendant, dead his admirer, placed this monument." The italics are not ours, though we are not surprised at them, for these four words, ''Let Compounds be dissolved," must astonish any attentive or thoughtful person. The Latin is '' ComjposUa Solvantur" and is capable of other renderings besides the

BACONIAN A. 269 obvious one presented to us above. But why should it not have some other meaning than a purely physical one ) There is something very strange about this expression, " Let Compounds be dissolved," which recalls Hamlet's exclamation — *' Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew/' Let us examine a little the original Latin. Upon turning to the dictionary, we find '' CamposUa " bearing many meanings besides compounds. We do not mean to allow the bias of the fact that we are dealing with a monumental inscription to influence us. There is something sufficiently strange that we find these words following upon Naturas Decretum EoDplevU, because the latter completes the necessities of the case, and to add anything more is to lay the inscription open to the charge of tautology or pleonasm. Now, it is curious that the Latin word ComposUa has many meanings, amongst which may be included eompasiH&ns or works (and in which sense we have the name of a type-setter or compositor), from the verb to compose. It has also the meaning sometimes of false, feigned, contrived (Tac., Ann. L 7) : — " Falsi, ac f estinantes vultuque composite." Also (Livy, iii 10) : — " Composita fabola, Volsci belli" Solvantur comes from a verb which means to set free, unloose^ melt, — thaw, — resolv^^ — explain, — solve; indeed, the English word solve is directly derived from Solvere (the active verb), meaning to explain or answer. We speak and write of solving a riddle, in the sense of setting it free or unloosening it So that Composita Solvantur may be a profound way of saying other things than the rude and strange ''Let Compounds be dissolved ! ''

270 BACONIAN A, Final Remarks. Our final belief is, that the same mind that took " all knowledge for its province/' that studied the occult science of Persia^ ^%7P^ and Chaldsea, who was plainly at the head of some secret society (prefigured in the " New Atlantis"), and whose entire life was bent upon bettering the condition of man in after ages, by fireeing him of the impostures and delusions of the schools, composed these "philosophio-play-systems," in order once and for ever, by means of a pattern or exemplar of art, to prove to posterity (by means of a planned revelation) what he considered the true doctrine and spiritual meaning of the universe. This art is the brief summing up, the epitome and extract of all that is true and valuable in the philosophies of antiquity. The plays are the << process" or "artifice" by which Bacon conforms himself to '^ the universal insanity," which he deplores to his son. Their object is to exemplify the subtlety of Nature by a like subtlety of construction, seeing that he says : — " The subtlety of Nature is much deeper that the subtlety of the senses." He saw, we believe, that his inductive philosophy might be applied and exemplified by a counterpart of art, embracing Idealism, as apparently opposed to Bealism and science, his object being to reconcile the two in one grand art scheme, where both should hold out hands to each other. He saw that this dramatic poetry might be applied to purposes of philosophic instruction. Suppose (for the sake of illustration only) that the plays are profoundly symbolical, and constructed upon a plan of entire rationalism for time to reveal. Might he not exemplify in action the four descriptions of his Idols — of the Tribe, Market-place, Theatre, and Den. It is remarkable that the actual term employed by Plato to illustrate the relationship of ideas to signs, is that of images or idols. An idol is a false image, and if we worship the external in place of the signification, we are confounding the false with the real ; and fix>m this confusion of words and of things has arisen the entire errors of which Bacon's inductive

BACONIAN A. 271 philosophy is the protest. It may seem claiming too much of any human being to imagine such a superhuman scheme possible ; but we have to deal with a remarkable age, a more remarkable man, and the most superhuman evidence of Divine Genius in plays that are as profound and as spiritual as the universe 1 We find Bacon perfectly understanding the value of secrecy. He says, '' But if a man be thought semd^ it inviteth discovery." (Essay on Simulation ..and Dissimulation.) Again, ''Therefore set it down : Thai an Habit of Secrecy is both Politic and Morai" This is placed in italics and capitals as we reproduce it. This is a curious confession to come from a writer who a little before in his essay upon Truth had written : " The Eaiowledge of TnUh, which is the presence of it ; and the belief of Truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature." But perhaps he had a method for his contradictions. It is as well also to see that, after approving of secrecy, he shows that Dissimulation follows it by necessity. ''For the second, which is Dissimulation, it followeth many times upon secrecy by a necessity ; so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree." Then he goes on to say, "The three great advantages of Simulation and Dissimulation are these. First, to lay asleep opposition, and to surprise. For where a man's intentions are published it is an Alarum to call up all that are against them. The second is to reserve to a Manself a fair Betreat" These passages were written in 1625, when he was sixty-five, and a year before his death. Coming from a man whose passionate love of truth was for truth's sake, and whose philosophy aimed at exposing eveiy sort of imposture or sham (at an age when he had nothing further to hope or fear in this world), these words ought to constitute a hint of the deepest significance. Identity of Art with Nature, " And we willingly place the history of arts among the species of natural history, because there have obtained a now inveterate mode of speaking and notion, as if art were something different from

272 BACONIANA. nature, so that things artificial ought to be discrimiiiated from things natural, as if wholly and generieaUy different . . . and there has insinuated into men's minds a still subtler error — namely thiSf that art is conceived to be a sort of addUian to nature, the proper effect of which is mere words and rhetorical oinament(whiGh is better adapted to disquisition and the talk of literaiy nights than to establish philosophy)/' {" Intellectual Globe," chap iii) Now we see here Art identified hj Bacon with Nature. How is it we find Shakespeare also identifying Art with Nature in like manner " Per. Sir, the year growing ancient, — Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter,— the fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations, and streaVd gillyflowers. Which some call nature's bastards : of that kind Our rustic garden's barren ; and I care not To get slips of them. FoL Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them ? Per, For I have heard it said. There is an art which, in their piedness, shares With great creating nature. Pol. Say, there be ; Yet nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean : so, over that art Which you say cuids to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we many A gentler scion to the wildest stock, And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race : this is an art Which does mend nature, — change it rather ; but The art itself is nature. Per. So it is." Not only are both passages parallels as to bearing, but the same language and correction of Perdita's error by Polizenes is employed by Bacon : — " And there has insinuated into men's minds a still subtler error — ^namely this, that art is conceived to be ' a sort of addiOcn to nature.^"

BACONIANA. 273 Compare : — ' So over that art Which you say adds to nature is an art That nature makes." Both these passages were written by the same hand, because this is a parallel that springs from within, from so rare a philosophic creed, that it is improbable and unlikely that anybody besides Bacon even held it. See how both speak of addmg to Nature — so that we find the thought that Nature is Art and Art Nature, hehnging to both Bacon and Shakespeare, But this is Plato's philosophy, and we make bold to conceive that this is the philosophy of the "play systems," wherein Nature is identified with art, for philosophic purposes of instruction, which will some day indeed astonish the world into admiration. It seems, then. Bacon had given profound thought to this question. Does it not seem strange to find this rigid philosopher of the inductive method, evidently deeply acquainted with the Platonic philosophy as an Art system — a result which a good many students of Plato hardly arrive at ! Nicetas (Psellus), in his "Commentaries" (Gregor Or. xlii. 1732 D.), says, " Si Orpheo credimus et Platonicis et Lydo phUosopho Natura dei ars qmdam estJ* (960 Aglaophamus Lobeck.) Let us here remark that Plato's philosophy and the Indian creed connected with Brahma and Maya, are the only systems that regard Nature as Oods Art, behind which he has concealed himself, and in which phenomena play the part of illusion, perspective or idols, as images or shadows — or symboliail pictures. With regard to this our work, the critics, and the public, we have no right to expect a better reception than Bacon himself received. The gods cannot alter Human Nature. " In 1620 Bacon published his great work, * Instauratio Magna.' The geniuses laughed at it, and men of talent and acquirement, whose studies had narrowed their minds into particular channels, incapable of understanding its reasonings, and appreciating its originality, turned wits for the purpose of ridiculing the new s

274 BACONIANA. publication of the philosophic Lord Chancellor. Dr Andrews, a forgotten wit of those days, perpetrated a vile pun upon the town and title of St Albans, by saying some doggerel verses that it was on the high road to DwnM tabUf i.e., Dunstable, and therefore appropriate to the author of such a book. Mr Secretary Cuffe said it was " a book which a fool could have written, and a wise man would not." King James declared it was like the peace of God — *'it passeth all understanding." Coke wrote, under a device on the title page, of a ship passing through the pillars of Hercules — " It deserveth not to be read in schools But to be freighted in the ship of fools."

CHAPTER XIV. GORHAMBURT. "Ut Rosa flos floram, sio est domus ista domomm." (Over the door. Chapter House, Yorkminflter.) GoRHAMBURY, where Bacon passed many years of his yoath, was built in 1571, as we see by the inscription over the Roman Portico of the ruins : — " Hsec cam perfecit Nioolaus tecta BaoonuSy Elizabeth regni lustra fuere duo. Factus eques, magni custos fuit ipse sigilli Gloria sit soli, tota tributa Deo. Mediocria firma 1571.''^ It appears that upon the outside of the present approach there was formerly a piazza with a range of pillars of the Tuscan order in front The walls of the piazza were painted ai fresco, with the adventures of Ulysses, by Van Koepen. In one piazza a statue of Henry YIII. stood, the headless trunk of which may yet be observed. In the other was a figure of Lady Bacon. In the Orchard there stood an elegant Summer House (no longer existing), '' dedicated to refined conversation on the liberal arts, which were deciphered on the walls with the heads of Cicero, Aristotle, and other illustrious ancients." This room seems to have answered to the diceia, or favourite summer room, of the younger Pliny at his beloved Laurentinum (Liber ii., Epist. 17). '* This building, — ^the porticos suited for both seasons — a cr3rptoporticus, or noble galleiy, over the other — and finally, towers placed at different parts, recall to mind many things of the villa." There was a statue of Orpheus, which stood at the entrance to

276 GORHAMBURY. the orchard, and there were the following lines over it, which seem singularly appropriate for the home of the greatest poet the world has ever seen ! *' Horrida nuper eram aspectn latebrseque f eramm Buricolis tantum numinibusque locos Edomitor fausto hie dum forte supervenit Orpheus UlteriuB qui me non sinit esse rudem Convocat avulsis virgulta virentia truncis Ed sedem quae vol Diis placaisse potest. Sicque mei cultor, sic est mihi coitus et Orpheus ; Floreat O noster cultus amorque diu." In " ThA Wisdom of the Ancienis" Bacon quotes the fable of Orpheus, which seems to illustrate these Latin lines. " So great was the power and alluring force of this harmony that he drew the woods and moved the very stones to come and place themselves in an orderly and decent fashion about him." Compare Shakespeare : — " Therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods ; Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage, But music for a time doth change his nature." {Merchant of Venice^ vi.) '* But the most excellent remedy, in every temptation, is that of Orpheus, who, by loudly chanting and resounding the praises of the gods, confounded the voices, and kept himself from hearing the music of the Sirens; for divine contemplations exceed the pleasures of sense, not only in power but also in sweetness." (" The Sirens" Bacon.) Considering that Orpheus was the supposed founder of the Mysteries, and that he seems to be a fit emblem of the most inspired poetry, (and particularly the Platonic or Love philosophy,) nothing could be more appropriate than to thus hear of his statue at Gk)rhambury. Perhaps Bacon wrote these lines, or they first implanted in his mind the idea to write philosophical play systems to illustrate the Orphic theology, for he seems to have taken the last line for his motto. Certain it is that he has come nearer

GORHAMBURY. 277 Orpheus than Orpheus himself, for he has and will draw all the world after him with his divine music for ever ! Amongst some dedicatory verses to the memory of Bacon, prefixed to the '' Advancement of Learning," 1640 (Oxford), and entitled Manti Venir laminiani, we find some curious things which we think we ought to introduce here. We find in these Latin verses addressed to Bacon's memory, a frequent allusion to the Muses, Apollo, Castalia, Pegassus, Helicon, and other poetical or classical conceits, that seem strangely out of harmony with the memory of a rigid philosopher. We suppose the critics will say this was the extravagant way of writing in those days : — " Qualis per umbras Ditis Enridice vagaos Palpare gestiit orphSom, quali Orpheus, Saliente tandem (vix prius crisp^) Styge, Alite fibras lyrse titillavit mana ; Talis plicata PbiloIog<>'n senigmatis Petiit Baconam vindicem, tali manu Lactata cristas eztulit Philosopbia : Hamique soccis repitantem Comicis Non proprio Ardelionibos molimine Sarsit, sed Instauravit. Hinc politius Surgit cothamo celsiore, et Organo Stagirita virbius reviviscit NovoP Compare Warburton's "Divine Legation" (book ii. sect, iv), where he states Orpheus instituted the Mysteries. " So Orpheus is said to get to hell by the power of his harp : — Threicia fretos cithara, fidibusque canoris.'' (263.) '' Orpheus, as we have said, first brought the mysteries from Egypt into Thrace, and even religion itself: hence it was called Sprixita, as being supposed the invention of the Thracian." (" Divine Legation," bk, ii. sect. iv. 232.) " Had an old poem, under the name of Orpheus, intitled, A DESCENT INTO HELL^ been now extant, it would, probably, have shown us, that no more was meant than Orpheus's initiation; and that the idea of Virgil's sixth book was taken from thence." (P. 264, "Divine Legation.")

278 GORHAMBURY. ''The verses which go under the name of Orpheus, are, at least, more ancient than Plato and Herodotus: though since interpolated. It was the common opinion, that they were genuine ; and those who doubted of that, yet gave them to the earliest Pythagorians. The subject of them are the mysteries, under the several titles of &poyiafi,oi fifirpfoi rsXsra/, hphi \&yog, and 4 tig ddov xardOaffrg, Pausanias tells us, that Orpheus's hymns were sung in the rites of Ceres in preference to Homer's." (" Divine Legation," 233, ibid.) '* Si potoit mania arcessere conjugis Orpheus, Threlcia fretua cithara fidibuaque canoria : Si fratrem Pollux alterna morte redemit, Itque reditque viam totiea : quid Theaea magnum, Quid memorem Alciden ? et mi genus ab Jove aunmio.'' Compare : — " ' Tlie riot of the tipsy Bacchanals^ Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.* — That ia an old device ; and it waa play'd When I from Thebea came last a conqueror." — — Midsfiimmer-Nigh^s Dream. Why do we introduce all this, and what bearing can it have upon Bacon or the plays and poems) Simply this, that we recognize in the passage quoted, in memory of Bacon (prefixed to our folio (1640) of the '' Magna Instauratio"), a writer who knows more of Bacon than can be safely put in plain language, but who presents us with the most tremendous side hint or parallel in Orpheus it is possible to imagine, seeing we are at once referred to the Mysteries and the most inspired poetry. Gorhambury was the fourth house built upon the estate. It cost £1898, exclusive of timber and lime, sand and freestone, brought from the Abbey of St Albans. It was five years building. The building consisted of a quadrangle seventy feet square, inside which was the entrance we see now, called the Roman porch. Elizabeth paid her visit in 1572, and again in May 1577. The cost of the four days' entertainment amounted to

GORHAMBVRY, 279 £577, 68. 7^. The items are curious : Flour, £47, 12& 6d. ; Beer, £24, 16s. 8d. j Wine, £57, fis. 8d.; Milk, 6d.; Lights, £40, 18s. Id.; Fowl, £108, 128. lid. The guests or servants stole pewter to the value of £6, 15s. 6d. In 1601 Bacon succeeded to the estate ; he found the house, though only thirty-three years old, very dilapidated, so he set to work to build another near the Ichabod Ponds.^ In 1665, Yerulam House (of which there is a detailed accoulit by Aubrey) was pulled down and the materials sold. The old house was patched up, and in 1778 the present mansion of the Grimstons' (who took the title of Earls Yerulam with the estates) was built. The present entrance to the park is not the original one of Bacon's time, which can, however, still be traced by a few stately relicts of a once magnificent avenue. This may be followed in front of the cricket-field, leading at right angles to the present road, down the park in the direction of the wooded heights. Everything about Gorhambury is very beautiful. The '' Kiss Oak " is not far from Temple House, the old ruins of Bacon's dwelling-place. It is a magnificent old tree riven frequently by lightning, perfectly hollow within, yet green and flourishing outside, as if its immortality, like Bacon's, defied age, decay, storm, or corruption. We easily got inside it, and found it wide enough to extend our two arms at full length. Up above were six large holes showing the sky overhead. The wood was as rotten as tinder, crumbling under the touch, but the marvellous part of its energy is to be seen in its perfectly green appearance outside. We should say it must be quite twenty-four feet in ^ When Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord Keeper, lived, every room in Gorhambury was served with a pipe of water from the pond distant about a mile off. In the lifetime of Mr Anthony Bacon the water ceased, and his Lordship coming to the inheritance, could not recover the water without infinite charge. When he was Lord Chancellor, he built Yerulam House cLo9t by the pond yard, for a place of privaqf when he was called upon to despatch any urgent business. And being asked why he built there, his Lordship answered that, seeing he could not carry the water to his house, he would carry his hotise to the water.

28o GORHAMB UR V. circumference, but this is only a rade gaess. It seemed to recall those lines in The Tempest of Jupiter : — " To the dread rattling thunder Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak With his own bolt" The ruins of the old house Bacon lived in are very lovely, but in a very neglected condition. They go still by the name of the Temple ; and what better name could they bear than this^ seeing that it was for many years the hallowed home of the greatest of God's inspired representatives 1 Knight writes in his " Pictorial England ": — " In the house lately occupied by Messrs Roake & Yarty in the Strand, is preserved part of an old ceiling, the last remnant of York House, where Bacon was bom." '^ The house in which he lived " (says Knight) '^ was burned down in 1676, but No. 1 of Gray's Inn Square stands upon its site. The walls of the chambers on the north side of the staircase are covered with the wainscot rescued from the fire. In the gardens, a very few years ago, were some trees that he had planted. The author of 'London and it Environs described' (Dodsley, 1761), makes mention (iii 58) of a summer-house which once stood in the gardens, and bore a Latin inscription to the effect that Bacon erected it in 1609, in memory of Jeremy Bettenham, formerly a Reader of Gray's Inn : — " ' Till lately there was a summer-house erected by the great Sir Francis Bacon upon a small mount. The inscription in memory of Bettenham was as follows : — ' Franciscus Bacon Begis Solicitor GeueraluB Executor testamenti Jeremiffi Bettenham, nuper Lectoris hujus hospitii viri innocentis, abetinentis, et contemplativi *^ hanc sedem in memoriam ejuadem Jeremise extruxit. An. Dom. 1609.' " A trifle like this bespeaks more for Bacon's character and tenderness of heart than volumes of panegyric ! I

GORHAMBURY. 281 Aubrey's Oossip. " His Lordship was a good Poet, but conceal'd as appears by his Letters." (Aubrey.) "John Aubrey, in his MS. notes, the dedication of which to Anthony Wood is dated 15th June 1680, which are printed at the end of Letters written by eminent persons^ &c, London. 1813. gives us the following further information about Lord Bacon. " In his Lordship's prosperity Sr. Fulke Grevil, Lord Brooke, was his great friend and acquaintance, but when he was in disgrace and want, he was so unworthy as to forbid his butler to let him have any more small beer, which he had often sent for, his stomack being nice, and the small beere of Grayes Inne not liking his pallet. This has done his memorie more dishonour then Sr Ph. Sydney's friendship engraven on his monument hath donne him honour. " Bichard, Earle of Dorset, was a great admirer and friend ot the Ld. Ch. Bacon, and was wont to have Sr Tho. Ballingsley along with him to remember and putt downe in writing my Lord's sayinges at table. Mr. Ben lonson was one of his friends and acquaintance, as doeth appeare by his excellent verses on his Lordship's birth day, in his 2nd voL and in his ' Underwoods,' where he gives him a character, and concludes, That about his time, and within his view, were borne all the witts that could honour a nation or help studie. He came often to Sr John Danvers at Chelsey. Sir John told me that when his Lordship had wrote the ' Hist, of Hen. 7,' he sent the manuscript copie to him to desire his opinion of it before it 'twas printed. Qd Sir John, Your Lordship knowes that I am no scholar. Tis no matter, said my Lord, I know what a scholar can say ; I would know what you can say. Sir John read it, and gave his opinion what he misliked (which I am sorry I have forgott) which my Lord acknowledged to be true, and mended it. * Why,' said he, ' a schollar would never have told me this.' T

282 GORHAMBVRY. *' Mr Tho. Hobbes (Malmesburiensis) was beloved by his Lordship, who was wont to have him waike in his delicate groTes, when he did meditate : and when a notion darted into his mind, Mr Hobbes was presently to write it downe, and his Lordship was wont to say that he did it better than any one els aboat him ; for that many times, when he read their notes he scarce understood what they writt, because they understood it not clearly themselves. In short, all that were qrtai and good loved and honoured him. Sir Edward Coke, Ld. Chiefe Justice, alwayes envyed him, and would be undervalueing his lawe. I knew old lawyers that remembred it. *' He was Lord Protector during King James' progresse into Scotland, and gave audience in great state to Ambassadors in the banquett'ing house at Whitehall. His Lordship would many time have musique in the next roome where he meditated. The Aviary at Yorke House was built by his Lordship ; it did cost 300 lib. Every meale, according to the season of the yeare, he had his table strewed with sweet herbes and flowers, which he sayd did refresh his spirits and memorie. When his Lordship was at his country house at Gorhambery, St Alban's seemed as if the court had been there, so nobly did he live. His servants had liveries with his crest ; ^ his watermen were more employed by gentlemen then even the kings. '' King James sent a buck to him, and he gave the keeper fifty pounds. " He was wont to say to his servant, HurU, (who was a notable thrifty man, and loved this world, and the only servant he had that he could never gett to become bound for him) * The world was made for man (Hunt), and not man for the world.' Hunt left an estate of 1006 lib. per ann., in Somerset "None of his servants durst appeare before him without Spanish leather bootes : for he would smell the neates leather, which offended him. ^ A boare.

GORHAMB UR Y. 283 '' His Lordship being in Yorke House garden looking on Fishers as they were throwing their nett, asked them what they would take for their draught ; they answered so much : his Lordship, would offer them no more but so much. They drew up their nett, and it were only 2 or 3 little fishes. His Lordship, then told them, it had been better for them to have taken his offer. They replied, they hoped to haue a better draught ; but, said his Lordship, ' Hope is a good breakfast^ bui an HI supper.' ''Upon his being in disfavour, his servants suddenly went away, he compared them to the flying of the vermin when the house was falling. '' One told his Lordship it was now time to look about him. He replyed, ' I doe not looke dboui me, I looke above me.' '' His Lordship would often drinke a good draught of strong beer (March beer) to- bed-wards, to lay his working fancy asleep: which otherwise would keepe him from sleeping great part of the night ** Three of his Lordship's servants [Sir Tho. Meautys, Mr . . . Bushell, Mr . . . Idney.] kept their coaches, and some kept racehorses. "... His Favourites tooke bribes, but his Lop. alwayes gave judgement secundem xquvm et bonum. His Decrees in Chancery stand firme, there are fewer of his decrees reverst, than of any other Chancellor. ." [Aubrey in his 'Life of Hobbes,' Vol. IL Part ii p. 602 of the same work, states. ' The Lord Chancellor Bacon loved to converse with him. He assisted his Lordship in translating severall of his essayes into Latin, one I well remember is that, Of the Greatness of Cities : [1 Kingdoms] the rest I haue forgott. His Lordship was a very contemplative person, and was wont to contemplate in his delicious walks at Gorhambery, and dictate to Mr Bushell, or some other of his gentlemen, that attended him with ink and paper ready to set downe presently his thoughts.'] " Mr Hobbes told me that the cause of his Lordship's death was trying an experiment. As he was taking an aire in a coach

284 GORHAMB UR V. with Dr Witherborne (a Scotchman, Physician to the King) towards Highgate, snow lay on the ground, and it came into m j Lord's thoughts, why flesh might not be preserved in snoi^ as in salt. They were resolved they would try the experiment presently. They alighted out of the coach, and went into a poore woman's house at the bottome of Highgate hill, and bouglit a hen, and made the woman exenterate it, and then stufiTed Hie bodie with snow, and my Lord did help to doe it himselfe. The snow so chilled him, that he immediately fell so extremely ill, that he could not retume to his lodgings, (I suppose thej- at Oraye's Inne,) but went to the Earl of Arundell's house at Highgate, where they putt him into a good bed warmed with a panne, but it was a damp bed that had not been layn in about a 7eare before, which gave him such a cold that in 2 or 3 dayes, as I remember he [Mr Hobbes] told me, he dyed of suffocation." (Vol. XL Part i. p. 221-7.) THE END. TUBITBULL Aim 8PSAX8, FBIVTBBB, SDIBBCJBOB. 1-1

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