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Here we have a perfect illustration of each one of the five kinds of divination mentioned by Bacon.

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Nor all the drowsy syrups of the henbane, (3) mandragora. . . .”

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Both authors evidently made a study of anaesthetics: Bacon, for his Natural History, which was not published until after his death and which, therefore, could not have been the source of Shake-speare's knowledge of the subject; and Shake-speare, from time to time for several of the Plays, exact dates unknown. Bacon's study was of course original, for he mentions many opiates not found in Shake-speare.

The two authors, still hand in hand as it were, pursued the inquiry farther; they investigated not only artificial

methods of inducing sleep, but also those that cause death to be painless. Under this head Bacon specifies three, two of which are given by Shake-speare. Indeed, the dramatist makes one of his characters (Cleopatra) an avowed specialist (as Bacon was) in this singular branch of science, thus:

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The passage quoted above from 'Hamlet' was doubtless suggested by what Pliny says of hebenon or henbane; namely, that it is a dangerous poison, especially when "injected into the ear." Pliny was not translated into English until fifteen years at least after the play of 'Hamlet' was first drafted.

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In the above passage from Shake-speare, it is Imogen who comes disguised after a long separation into her father's presence, producing upon him the effect noted in the play and described by Bacon.

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The opinion that, if a hole were bored through the earth, bodies falling into it from either end would stop at the centre, or as near the centre as possible, was elaborated by Erasmus, thus:

"Curio. If any god should bore through the centre of the earth, quite down to the antipodes in a perpendicular line, and a stone were let fall into it, whither would it go ?

Alphius. To the centre of the earth; there all heavy bodies rest. Cur. What if the antipodes should let fall a stone on their side? Alp. Then one stone would meet the other about at the centre and stop there.

Cur. But what if by the vehemence of its motion the stone should pass beyond the centre?

Alp. It would return to the centre again, just as, when thrown up into the air, it returns again to the earth.

Cur. But suppose any one should bore through the earth, but not through the centre itself, as, for instance, one hundred furlongs distant on one side from it, where would a stone fall then?

Alp. It would go straight to a point opposite the centre and rest there, and at the left hand of the hole if the centre were at the left."

Familiar Colloquies.

The Familiar Colloquies' was first printed in Latin (as already stated) in 1519, but not translated into English until 1671. Bacon is known to have become thoroughly acquainted with the Latin works of Erasmus as early as 1594.1

43

KING JAMES AND SCOTLAND

From Shake-speare

"The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body."- Hamlet, iv. 3 (1604).

From Bacon

"Although his body-politic of King of England and his bodypolitic of King of Scotland be several and distinct, yet his natural person, which is one, hath an operation upon both and createth a privity between them."- Speech in Court (1608).

The passage quoted above from Hamlet' seems to have grown out of the new relations then existing between Scotland and the King. James had left Scotland the year before (1603), but he claimed that, though separated in person from its body-politic, he was still united with it as closely as ever. "I am the head; it is my body," said he, in his first address to the English parliament. Bacon became at once a strenuous advocate of the political union of the two kingdoms, one of his arguments being that, although the King in his natural body was not with the body-politic of Scotland, yet the body-politic of Scotland was still with him."

1 Bacon seems to have caught a glimpse of one of the laws of gravity, — namely, that attraction is in proportion to mass, for he asserted that while six men might be required to move a certain stone at the surface of the earth, two could easily move the same stone at the bottom of a mine; the difference in weight being due, of course, to the counteraction of a part of the earth's mass, where the stone is beneath the surface. Indeed, he finally rejected the common opinion that bodies are always drawn toward the centre of the earth (a mathematical point, as he called it), because, he said, bodies can be attracted only by bodies, and not by place. Had he known the other law, discovered by Newton, that attraction is in inverse ratio to the square of the distance, he would have seen his mistake in regard to the stone.

2 See Dr. Robert M. Theobald in Journal of Bacon Society.

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A remarkable definition of poetry, given by Bacon eighteen years before it appeared in any form in Shake-speare. Timon of Athens' was written after Bacon's downfall in 1621.

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