Bacon and Shakespeare Parallelisms

173

DRUGS SUSPENDING ANIMATION

From Shake-speare

From Bacon

"I now come to inquire into the second way of condensing the

[Enter Friar Lawrence, with a basket.] "Friar. Now, ere the sun advance spirits, namely, by cold; and it is his burning eye done without any malignity or un

The day to cheer and night's dank friendly quality. . . . The root of the operation I place in nitre, as a

dew to dry,

I must up-fill this osier cage of thing specially created for this

Within the infant rind of this weak pale, red, and musk roses. Opium

To paly ashes; thy eyes' windows

fall,

Like death, when he shuts up the

day of life;

Each part, deprived of supple gov

ernment,

Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death."

Ibid., iv. 1.

It will be seen that Bacon made a special study of narcotics, and of numerous plants and fruits that are narcotic in their nature. He even speaks of the efficacy of such potions in inducing what he called "voluntary or procured trances," in which, precisely as in the case of Juliet in the play, the "senses are suspended," and suspended too, as he says, more powerfully than in sleep."

Indeed, Bacon went into the subject so thoroughly, publishing the results of his researches in two different books, the fruits of a lifetime of study, that we may well refuse to find the source of any part of his knowledge of it in a play.

174

SOLDIERS, IRON

From Shake-speare "Therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that, when I come to woo ladies, I fright them."

Henry V., v. 2 (1623). "To see you here an iron man, Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum."

2 Henry IV., iv. 2 (1600).

From Bacon

"This island of Britain hath (I make no question) the best iron in the world, that is, the best soldiers in the world." Speech in the House of Commons (1606–7).

Mr. Wigston points out this curious identification of soldiers with iron in both authors.

The empire of the sea is thus described by one of the characters of the play to be equivalent to the empire of the world. Bacon, quoting Cicero, who in turn had quoted Themistocles, and applying the remark (as Shake-speare does) to Pompey, adds: "Without doubt, Pompey had tired out Cæsar, if upon vain confidence he had not left that way"— that is, if he had not relinquished the sovereignty of the sea.

The parallelism goes farther than this, as Mr. Wigston shows. The two authors were agreed in their conception of Pompey's character. Menas having advised Pompey, who for the moment had the triumvirs, Cæsar, Anthony, and Lepidus, in his power, to murder them, Pompey thus replies:

176

POMPEY'S DISSIMULATION

"Ah, this thou should'st have done,

And not have spoke on 't. In me
't is villainy;

In thee 't had been good service.
Thou must know

"Pompey made it his design by infinite secret engines to cast the state into an absolute anarchy and confusion, that the state might cast itself into his arms for necessity and protection, and so the

'T is not my profit that does lead sovereign power be put upon him,

In the second edition of the Advancement,' the phrase "never seen in it" is rendered, "apparently against his will and inclination." Both authors represent the Roman as an adept in dissimulation.