WHOLESOME AND SWEET AIR FOR HOMES "This castle hath a pleasant seat, Macbeth, i. 6 (1623). 474 "He that builds a fair house upon an ill seat committeth himself to prison. Neither do I reckon it an ill seat only where the air is unwholesome, but likewise where the air is unequal." — Essay of Building (1625). PRINCES SHOULD BE CAREFUL OF SPEECH "Exton. Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake, 'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?' "Surely, princes had need in tender matters and ticklish times to beware what they say; especially in these short speeches which fly abroad like darts and are thought to be shot out of their secret intentions." Essay of Seditions and Troubles (1625). 475 EVIL REPORTS, LIKE POISONED STEEL DARTS The noble Brutus, thrusting this report "A seditious slander, like to that the poet speaketh of, a venomous dart that hath both iron and Into his ears; I may say, thrusting poison." — Charge against St. John it, For piercing steel and darts en venomed Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus As tidings of this sight." (1615). Julius Cæsar, v. 3 (1623). Both authors describe an evil report, thrust into the ears, as a steel or iron dart, envenomed. "Wisdom is justified in all her children." — Advancement of "Every wise man's son doth That one day bloom'd and fruitful to-day and fading to-morrow; but the gardens of the Muses keep the were the next." 1 Henry VI., i. 6 (1623). privilege of the golden age; they ever flourish and are in league with time."-Device for Essex (1595). As elsewhere explained, the gardens of Adonis, known to the ancients, were of two kinds: the one, consisting of plants in earthen pots, that soon faded; these in the popular view were emblematic of things showy and without substance. Bacon describes them in the Essex Device' and in the 'Promus.' The other is a creation of the poets, in which trees and shrubs hasten, not to decay, but to bloom and fruitage. Thus, in an important sense, the two were complementary, one to the other, knowledge of one implying knowledge of both. The scene of the Tempest' was laid on one of the islands of the Bermudas, but Shake-speare gave to the name its Spanish pronunciation, according to the rule laid down by Bacon, the letter d being flattened into the median intervocal z (English th), Bermoothes. For we are peremptory to dispatch had need to be made against these This viperous traitor." Coriolanus, iii. 1 (1623). viperous natures."-Speech in Parliament (1597). On this subject Bacon took very strong ground. He introduced a bill in favor of towns into the House of Commons; and though the Peers were against him- the Earl of Essex even coming to London expressly to join the opposition - he carried it through triumphantly. The result was one of the greatest victories of his parliamentary career. other; . . . so as it is not possible but this quality of knowledge must fall under popular contempt. . . when people see such digladiation about subtilities and matter of no use or moment."- Advancement of Learning (1603–5). Bacon gives us here an exact description of Hamlet's great soliloquy on Suicide and Doubt. He is discussing the distempers of learning, which he finds to be three in number: "the first, fantastical learning; the second, contentious learning; and the last, delicate learning," - summing them up respectively as "vain imaginations, vain altercations and vain affectations." Under the second head he places “ vain matter," which he declares to be "worse than vain words;" matter, like certain substances in nature, that "putrefies and corrupts into worms;" that is, "into subtile, idle, unwholesome and, as it were, vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness and life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality." Colonel Moore, to whom we owe this interesting and instructive parallelism, says: "Hamlet's question dissolved itself in this manner: one springing up after another before he could get the first one answered. To be or not to be? is death a sleep? is the sleep of death disturbed by dreams? and so on, all unwholesome questions, 'without soundness of matter, or goodness of quality.'" The result of indulgence in such speculations is, according to the dramatist, that one loses power of action; according to Bacon, that one becomes subject to popular contempt. 485 WORKING OTHERS FOR SELFISH ENDS From Shake-speare "Hamlet. Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil? From Bacon "The honest and just bounds of observation by one person upon another extend no farther than to un |