Lucentio. Hark, Tranio! thou

mayst hear Minerva speak.

Baptista. Gentlemen, content ye;

I am resolv'd.

Go in, Bianca.

And for I know, she taketh most delight

In music, instruments, and poetry." Taming of the Shrew, i. 1 (1623).

It was an old proverb that a man can do nothing against the bent of his genius, or (as it was expressed) against Minerva, thus:

Tu nihil invita dices faciesque Minerva.

Hence in Bianca's love of literature and music Minerva is said to speak.

Martlemas or Martinmas (11 November) was the day for killing cattle and hogs. Shake-speare alludes to Falstaff's corpulence and age.

"There lives within the very flame

of love

A kind of wick."

From Bacon

"We will therefore speak of bodies inflamed; . . . and of a wick that provoketh inflamma

Hamlet, iv. 7 (1604). tion."-Sylva Sylvarum (1622–25).

"He that sweetest rose will find,

Must find love's prick."

"As terebration doth meliorate fruit, so upon like reason doth let

As You Like It, iii. 2 (1623). ting of plants' blood; as pricking

vines or other trees, after they be of some growth, and thereby letting forth gum or trees. ..

...

For exposition of this singular parallelism, see 'Francis Bacon Our Shake-speare,' p. 19.

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE AND CUSTOS ROTULORUM

"Slender. In the county of Gloster,

justice of the peace and coram. Shallow. Ay, cousin, and cust-alorum.

Slender. Ay, and rotolorum, too.” Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 1 (1602).

"Others there are of that number called justices of the peace and quorum. The chief of them is called custos rotulorum.” — Office of Constables (1608).

"As doth the honey-dew

Upon a gather'd lily."

"Flowers that have deep sockets do gather in the bottom a kind of

Titus Andronicus, iii. 1 (1600). honey, as honeysuckles, lilies, and

FLAVOR OF BEEF AND MUTTON AFFECTED BY ANIMALS' FOOD

"Though they feed On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed."

Pericles, i. 2 (1609).

"Where kine feed upon wild garlic, their milk tasteth plainly of the garlic; and the flesh of muttons is better tasted where the sheep feed upon wild thyme, and other wholesome herbs; and honey in Spain smelleth (apparently) of the rosemary or orange from whence the bee gathereth it."— Ibid.

Bacon gives several other instances of the natural effects on animals of various kinds of food, deriving therefrom a rule which Shake-speare, while citing an exception to it, had evidently studied and approved.

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TRANSMUTATION OF SPECIES

"Lepidus. What manner o' thing is your crocodile ?

Anthony. It is shaped, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it hath breadth; it is just so high as it is, and moves with it own organs; it

"We see that in living creatures that come of putrefaction, there is much transmutation of one into another, as caterpillars turn into flies. And it should seem probable that whatsoever creature,

lives by that which nourisheth it; and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates."- Anthony and Cleopatra, ii. 7 (1623).

"Your serpent of Egypt is bred now out of your mud by the operation of your sun; so is your crocodile." - Ibid.

having life, is generated without seed, that creature will change out of one species into another.”Sylva Sylvarum. (1622-25).

"All creatures, made of putrefaction, are of uncertain shape.”Ibid.

Anthony's remarks on the crocodile, made to an intoxicated person, must not be taken too seriously, and yet, that the speaker had in mind the transmutation of species as laid down by Bacon, is quite certain. Indeed, he bases the theory on the same ground as Bacon does; namely, that the animal is the product of putrefaction. He even jests over its "uncertain shape."

Bacon believed in vegetable transmutation, also, instancing the following:

"Another disease is the putting forth of wild oats, whereinto corn oftentimes (especially barley) doth degenerate. It happeneth chiefly from the weakness of the grain that is sown; for, if it be either too old or mouldy, it will bring forth wild oats."— Sylva Sylvarum.