In the second edition of the Advancement,' Bacon explains more fully the principle underlying these passages. He says:

"When a good thing is taken away, it is not always succeeded by a bad thing, but sometimes by a greater good; as when the flower falls and the fruit succeeds. Neither when a bad thing is taken away, is it always succeeded by a good thing, but sometimes by a worse. For by the removal of his enemy Claudius, Milo lost the seed-bed of his glory.""

This explains, also, Shake-speare's reference to the "bear" and the "sea" in 'King Lear;' that is, a bad thing succeeded

by a worse. Mr. Wigston, to whose critical acumen we are indebted for this parallelism, very justly assumes that "these philosophical subtleties of thought are too deep, too rare, to be the product of two separate and contemporary minds."

373

NATURE FURNISHING MODELS FOR HUMAN SOCIETY

From Shake-speare

"Gardener. Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,

Which, like unruly children, make their sire

From Bacon

"Taking the fundamental laws of nature, with the branches and passages of them, as an original and first model, whence to take

Stoop with oppression of their prod- and describe a copy and imitation

igal weight;

for government.". On Union of

Give some supportance to the bend- England and Scotland (1603).

ing of the twigs.

You thus employ'd, I will go root

away

The noisome weeds, that without

profit suck

The soil's fertility from wholesome

flowers.

First Servant. Why should we in the compass of a pale

Keep law, and form, and due proportion,

Showing, as in a model, our firm

estate,

When our sea-wall'd garden, the

whole land,

Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers

chock'd up,

Her fruit-trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,

Her knots disorder'd, and her wholesome herbs

Swarming with caterpillars."

King Richard II., iii. 4 (1597).

Bacon was very fond of working out analogies between nature, animate and inanimate, and human society. He

found one in the harmony of musical chords; another, in a bee-hive; and here we have a third (first pointed out by Mr. J. E. Roe) in a garden. All three are in Shake-speare.

Coriolanus in the play was both proud and insolent; hence the three results mentioned by Bacon as inevitable under such circumstances:

1. He excited public envy.

2. He was therefore slandered without cause, accused of misappropriating the spoils of war and of seeking to overthrow the liberties of the people.

3. He was ostracized.

With enviable keenness of vision, Mr. Wigston sees the following additional points of resemblance between Shakespeare and Bacon in the treatment of pride and envy:

Shake-speare:

CONCEALMENT

“Volumnia. I would dissemble with my nature where

My fortunes and my friends at stake required.

Bacon:

You might have been enough the man you are
With striving less to be so; lesser had been
The thwartings of your dispositions, if
You had not show'd them how ye were dispos'd,
Ere they lack'd power to cross you."

Coriolanus.

"Pride wants the best condition of vice, that is, concealment." - De Augmentis.

Shake-speare:

DISEASE

"Sicinius. He's a disease that must be cut away.

Brutus.

Bacon:

Pursue him to his house, and pluck him there,
Lest his infection, being of catching nature,
Spread further."

Coriolanus.

"It is a disease in a state like to infection. For as infection spreadeth upon that which is sound and tainteth it, so when envy is gotten once into a state, it traduceth even the best actions thereof."— Essay of Envy.

Shake-speare:

JUNO AND HERCULES

"Volumnia. Leave this faint puling, and lament as I do,

In anger, Juno-like.

My boy Marcius approaches; for the love of Juno, let's go.

"Envy puts virtues to laborious tasks, as Juno did Hercules."— De Augmentis.

Shake-speare:

ONE VICE EXPELLING ANOTHER

Bacon:

"Power, unto itself most commendable,

Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair

To extol what it has done.

One fire drives out one fire, one nail one nail;

Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail."

Coriolanus.

"Pride is, even with vices, incompatible. As poison is expelled by poison, so are many vices by pride.” — De Augmentis.

Shake-speare:

WITCHCRAFT

"I do not know what witchcraft 's in him, but
Your soldiers use him as the grace 'fore meat,
Their talk at table, and their thanks at end."
Coriolanus.

"I will counterfeit the bewitchment of some popular man.” — Ibid.

Bacon:

"There be none of the affections which have been noted to fascinate or bewitch but love and envy."- Essay of Envy.

"The lowest virtues are praised by the common people; the middle are admired; but of the highest they have no sense or perception."De Augmentis.