This parallelism runs even into a minor detail, thus:

Our strength as weak, our weak

ness past compare ;

Then vail your stomachs, for it is

no boot,

And place your hands below your husband's foot.

Hortensio. Now go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew. Lucentio. "T is a wonder; by your leave, she will be tamed so." Taming of the Shrew, v. 2 (1623).

Probably there is no more conspicuous instance in history or fiction than the one we find in the Taming of the Shrew,' where two persons, each of violent temper and determined will, meet in conflict with the result Bacon describes. this, too, as Bacon says it ought to be, the work of a poet!

199

HAPPINESS IN THE MEAN

From Shake-speare

"They are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.

"It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean.". Merchant of Venice, i. 2 (1600). "Be moderate, be moderate." Troilus and Cressida, iv. 4 (1609). "Be moderate, allay thy ecstasy." Merchant of Venice, iii. 2 (1600). "Laugh moderately."

Love's Labor's Lost, i. 1 (1598). "Love moderately."

Romeo and Juliet, ii. 7 (1598).

From Bacon

And

"Mediocria firma."-Motto of Nicholas Bacon, father of Francıs. "Media tutius itur." Letter to King James (1616).

The motto on the Bacon coat-of-arms (Nicholas Bacon) was mediocria firma, — safety is in the mean. It can be read to-day over the door of an ancient building connected with

Bacon's residence in Gorhambury Park. Nicholas Bacon died in 1579.

Merchant of Venice, i. 1 (1600). ing." - Sylva Sylvarum (1622–25).

This fine parallelism is also due to Mr. Wigston, who in this important field has no superior.

204

WHEEL OF FORTUNE

From Shake-speare

"The [death] of majesty... is a

massy wheel."

From Bacon

"This wheel (death of Queen Elizabeth) is turned round.". Hamlet, iii. 3 (1604). Letter to Kempe (1603).

Col. H. L. Moore calls attention to Bacon's definition of wheel, given in one of his letters to Villiers, as a revolution in public sentiment: "Opinion is a master wheel." Cicero uses it in the same sense.

205

MIND TRAINED LIKE A HORSE

"So is my horse, Octavius ;
It is a creature that I teach to fight,
To wind, to stop, to run directly

"Diogenes' opinion is to be accepted who commended them... which could give unto the mind (as is used in horsemanship), the His corporal motion govern'd by shortest stop or turn." — Advancemy spirit.” ment of Learning (1603–5).

on,

Julius Cæsar, iv. 1 (1623).

In the play Anthony compares Lepidus with his horse, both being creatures he can turn or stop at will. Bacon paraphrases a Greek passage (not then translated into English) from Diogenes, in which we find the same comparison of a man's mind with a horse under control of a master.

206

MUSIC, LOVE, "If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

"The falling from a discord to a concord in music is sweet."- Sylva

That strain again! it had a dying Sylvarum (1622–25).

fall;

"Is not the precept of a musi

The reader will take note that the passage from Shakespeare contains three very recondite conceptions; namely, the character of a particular trope in music, the comparison of musical sounds with fragrance of flowers, and the effect of music itself upon the heart. These are all

in Bacon.

207 DEDALUS

From Shake-speare

"I, Dædalus; my poor son, Icarus; Thy father, Minos, that denied our

course;

From Bacon

"This Dadalus was persecuted with great severity and diligence and inquisition by Minos; yet he Thy brother Edward, the sun that always found means of escape and sear'd his wings; places of refuge. Last of all, he And thou, the envious gulf that taught his son Icarus how to fly; swallow'd him." who, being a novice and ostentatious of his art, fell from the sky into the water." Wisdom of the Ancients (1609).

3 Henry VI., v. 6 (1595).

It will be noticed that of the five persons mentioned with their types in a single sentence by Shake-speare, King Henry (Dædalus), Prince Edward (Icarus), Duke of York (Minos), King Edward (the Sun) and the Duke of Gloucester (the Sea), the types of all of them are mentioned or alluded to by Bacon, also in a single sentence.