and stratagem, and that 'Our empress with her sacred wit shall fill our engines with advice, that will not suffer you to square yourselves, but to your wishes' height advance you both.' This seems to mean that the empress will not suffer her sons to make plans for themselves, for that they are not capable of the policy and stratagem which is necessary, but that they must allow themselves to be used as the empress shall advise. In Much Ado, i. 1, a man is described as a stuffed man, with hardly enough wit to keep himself warm.' Without the context it might have been supposed that a 'stuffed man' meant a conceited, proud, or 'stuck up' man; but clearly it is intended to describe a stupid and unreasoning man, and its connection in the same sentence with the word 'squarer' in its other signification as a fighter, suggests that in some way the ideas of a dull, heavy-witted man, ‘a gull,’ and a fighter, or squarer, came simultaneously into the imagination of the writer. Although, however, the comment attached to the proverb in Bacon's notes draws attention to the peculiar and unusual application which is made of the expression square,' yet in the later plays there are several instances of the word used in the sense in which Aristotle intended it. Thus in Antony and Cleopatra Antony begs his wife to excuse his defects in judgment: My Octavia, Read not my blemishes in the world's report: Before quitting Erasmus's Adagia especial attention must be drawn to one note which seems peculiarly interesting and deserving of notice in connection with the subject now in hand. At note 289 in the Promus occurs this adage, Clavum clavo pellere,' To drive out a nail with a nail. This proverb is quoted literally in the Two Gentlemen of Verona and in Coriolanus, where its setting is in both places so peculiar, and so thoroughly Baconian, as to exemplify, simultaneously, most of the points con nected with the use of these notes, which have been already indicated. In each passage may be seen an instance of Bacon's strong tendency to quote proverbial philosophy, to use antithetical forms of speech, to introduce metaphors founded upon his scientific researches and his notes, and in both cases there appears an original but erroneous scientific theory of Bacon's about heat, which is recorded in the Sylva Sylvarum, repeated in the lines. According to some of his critics, Bacon's researches into the nature of heat are considered to have been a complete failure,' and although Mr. Ellis points out that Bacon did approximate to at least one important discovery, yet there can be no doubt that his science fell short of many important truths, and that he entertained many fallacies. Some of his favourite fallacies were, that 'One flame within another quencheth not,' and that Flame doth not mingle with flame, but remaineth contiguous.' 2 6 92 He speaks of one heat being mixed with another,' of its being pushed farther,' as if heat were matter, or one of those bodies of which two could not be in the same place at the same time. There is no reason to doubt that these theories were original with Bacon; but in any case he adopted them as part of his system, and considered that they were truths demonstrable by experiment. Knowing, as we now do, that these theories were as mistaken as they appear to have been original, it seems almost past belief that any two men should at precisely the same period have independently conceived the same theories and made the same mistakes. It would take one too far afield to enter more particularly into this subject; the following passages, however, placed together, show curiously the way in which there is reason to believe Bacon was led on from one thought to another-how his learning was woven into the whole Note to Nov. Org., b. ii., Bohn's edition. 2 Sylv. Sylr. i. 32. D texture of his lighter works, so as to enhance their truth, their brilliancy, and their poetic beauty, without any ostentation of learning, or ponderous attempts to appear wise, such as oppress, if they do not disgust, us in the plays of Ben Jonson. The following are the passages referred to: 'Even as one heat another heat expels, Or as one nail by strength drives out another, So the remembrance of my former love Is by a newer object quite forgotten.' (Tw. Gen. Ver. ii. 4.) 'One fire drives out another; one nail, one nail.' (Cor. iv. 7.) There are a few Latin proverbs and texts which seem to have been especial favourites with Bacon, and which he quoted frequently in his speeches and letters. These proverbs are all introduced in some form into the plays; but they are not all noted in the Promus, and none are from Erasmus. Thus in Bacon's Charge to the Verge, and in other speeches, he uses this familiar saying: Ira furor brevis est, which is repeated in Timon of Athens much as Bacon may have delivered it in Court: They say, my lords, that ira furor brevis est. Another favourite with Bacon during the first forty years of his life was Faber quisque fortunæ suæ, a proverb which the experience of later years must, alas! have made him feel to be but a half-truth. In point of fact, he does not use it in his prose works later than 1600-1, nor does it appear in the plays after Hamlet (1602). It is interesting to observe how this proverb affords an instance of the manner in which the prose writings of Bacon and the plays seem to dovetail into each other, and its introduction here will be excused, although, like the preceding proverb, it is not entered in the Promus, perhaps because it was too familiar to Bacon to require noting. In the essay Of Fortune the proverb is thus introduced: The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands'-Faber quisque fortunæ suæ. Again, the same, a little changed, in a letter to Essex: You may be faber fortunæ propriæ;' and with further change in words, though not in meaning, in the Wisdom of the Ancients (Of Sphinx or Science'): Every artificer rules over his work.' Lastly, in the Rhetorical Sophisms' (Advt. l. vi. 3) the idea is presented in a new forın:-'You shall not be your own carver.' This is the model which is adopted in Rich. II.: Let him be his own carver, and cut out his way. The thought suggested by the connection between an artificer and his work is now turned aside from the original image of a man fabricating his own fortune to the newer idea suggested by the word carver. Brave Macbeth, like valour's minion, carved out his passage. (Mach. i. 2.) His greatness weighed, his will is not his own, He may not, as unvalued persons do, Carve for himself. (Ham. i. 2.) Twice in the Promus occurs this entry-Mors in olla, in one case with an additional note by Bacon, poysò in. Bacon quotes this proverb in his Charge against Wentworth, for the poisoning of Sir John Overbury. He lays much stress upon the horror of a man being poisoned in the food and drink which should be his staff of life; and the same reflection seems to reappear several times in varied forms in the plays. Thus in 1 Hen. IV. i. 3, Hotspur, in a rage, vowing vengeance on Prince Harry, wishes that he could have him poisoned with a pot of ale; and in the same play Falstaff, by way of a forcible oath, exclaims, May I have poison in a cup of sack,' if Prince Harry be not paid out for his tricks. 1196 Hamlet, as all will remember, is to be treacherously killed by means of the 'poisoned cup,' which plays a conspicuous part in the last scene of the tragedy; and in Cymbeline the wretch Iachimo, confessing his villany, wishes that he had been poisoned in the viands' at the feast where he first devised his plots. The thought of food containing poison seems to ramify in many directions both in the prose works and in the plays, where one meets with frequent expressions such as these: 'Homage sweet is poisoned flattery;'What a dish of poison she hath dressed for him!' This is cordial-not poison.' At No. 1207 there is a Latin proverb, Diluculo surgere saluberrimum, which Sir Toby Belch quotes to Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Latin (Twelfth Night, Act ii., scene 3)— Approach, Sir Andrew: not to be a-bed after midnight is to be up betimes; and diluculo surgere, thou knowest. This proverb occurs in the Promus on the folio which Mr. Spedding describes as being a collection of morning and evening salutations,' and of which more will be said hereafter. It is noticed in this place because it affords another illustration of the undesigned coincidences and connecting links which pervade the graver works of Bacon and the plays. Here we have Bacon noting and Shakespeare quoting the proverb. Then, together with the quotation, we have in Sir Toby's application of the proverb, one of those antithetical forms of speech or paradoxes in which Bacon so greatly delighted: To be up after midnight, and to go to bed then, is early so that to go to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. This paradox occurs at least four times in the plays, |