154 ADDRESS IN COURT From Shake-speare "Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors!" From Bacon "I speak not to simple men, but to prudent, grave, and wise peers." Othello, i. 3 (1622). Speech at the Trial of Essex (1601). On this parallelism Mr. Gerald Massey comments as follows: Shakespeare himself gives us a hint, in his dramatic way, that he was present at the trial of the Earl, for he has, in a well-known speech of Othello's, adopted the manner and almost the words with which Bacon opened his address on that memorable occasion." The Secret Drama of Shakespeare's Sonnets, p. 216. "The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust 155 LUST "Lust never rests satisfied with what it has, but goes on and on, with infinite insatiable appetite, panting after new triumphs. Tigers Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full also are kept in its stalls and yoked Mr. George James, a ripe scholar and critic of Birmingham, England, calls attention to the identity of thought regarding the operations of Rumor (evidently inspired by Virgil) in Bacon's Essay of 'Seditions and Troubles' and the Induction to '2 Henry IV. The passages he refers to are as follows: Down with the topmast! yare! of the Winds (1622). Bacon tells us, that when a ship is on a lee shore, and, to avoid disaster, must put to sea again, she can lie within six points of the wind, provided she set her courses. Those were the exact orders given in the play, lest "we run ourselves aground," says the master. The injunction not to permit anger to strike to the heart and thus endanger life appeared in one of the latest of Bacon's essays, first published in 1625; and also in a Shakespeare drama not heard of till seven years after the reputed author's death, and first published in 1623. 160 SUSPICIOUS PERSONS "Cæsar. Let me have men about me that are fat; "Princes, being full of thought and prone to suspicions, do not Another parallelism suggested by Mr. James, who seems to be justified in pronouncing it "absolute and perfect." 161 TEREBRATION OF TREES From Shake-speare "O, what pity is it That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land As we this garden. We at time of year From Bacon "The terebration of trees not only makes them prosper better, but it maketh also the fruit sweeter and better. The cause is, for that, notwithstanding the terebration, Do wound the bark, the skin of they may receive aliment sufficient, our fruit-trees, Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood, With too much riches it confound itself." Richard II., iii. 4 (1597). and yet no more than they can well turn and digest."- Sylva Sylvarum, 463 (1622–25). Still another parallelism due to Mr. James. Bacon says again on the same subject: "It hath been practised in trees that show fair and bear not, to bore a hole through the heart of the tree, and thereupon it will bear. Which may be, for that the tree before hath too much repletion, and was oppressed with its own sap."- Ibid., 428. 162 A PROPHECY "King Henry of Richmond. Come hither, pretty lad; "One day when Henry the Sixth (whose innocency gave him If heavenly powers do aim aright holiness) was washing his hands To my divining thoughts, thou, Shalt prove this country's bliss. crown, Thy looks are all replete with Make much of him, my lords, 3 Henry VI., iv. 6 (1595, 1600, at a great feast, and cast his eye upon King Henry [the Seventh], then a young youth, he said, This is the lad that shall possess quietly that that we now strive for.'" History of Henry VII. (1621). The passage, cited above, from the Third Part of King Henry VI.' appeared in the first edition of the play in 1595; also, without change in the second, 1600; also again without change in the third, in 1619, or three years after the death of the reputed poet at Stratford in 1616. For the folio of 1623, however, it was revised, undoubtedly (as our readers can judge) by the author himself, and then made to read as follows: "King Henry. Come hither, England's hope; if secret powers Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts, (1623.) It is noteworthy that on the title page of the 1619 quarto the play, as then published, was said to have been “newly corrected." The inference, therefore, is almost irresistible that the author was living, not only immediately before 1619, when certain changes were elsewhere made in the play, but also during the interval between 1619 and 1623, when very great changes, involving thousands of lines, were made in it.1 1 See 'Francis Bacon Our Shake-speare,' p. 116. |