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HARMONY OF THE SPHERES

From Shake-speare

“Launcelot. Sit, Jessica; look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st

From Bacon

"It was Plato's opinion that all knowledge is but remembrance, and that the mind of man by nature knoweth all things, and hath but her own native and original motions (which by the

But in his motion like an angel strangeness and darkness of this tabernacle of the body are se

sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed questered) again revived."- Ad

Cherubins;

Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."

vancement of Learning (1603-5).

"The pipe of seven reeds [borne by Pan] plainly denotes the harmony and consent of things, caused by the motion of the seven planets. If there be any lesser planets which are not visible, or any

...

Merchant of Venice, v. 1 (1600). greater change in the heavens (as

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It is the integument of our bodies, Shakespeare says in effect, that prevents our perceiving the harmonious motions of the stars; it is also the integument of our bodies, says Bacon, that shuts out from our memory those motions of the spirit which we had in a previous state of existence. Bacon deliberately used here the word motion to describe what it is that the body excludes; but editors of his works, even including Mr. Spedding, have ignorantly substituted for it the word notion. The parallel passage in the play justifies us in

restoring the original text. In Bacon's philosophy discord and concord are natural results of motion.

Indeed, both authors make occasional use of the word motion in a very peculiar philosophical sense, applying it, as occasion may require and to the despair of commentators, to every possible impulse or movement, mental and physical, in the whole realm of created things.

In Bacon:

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"The light of nature consisteth in the motions [that is, intuitions] of the mind and the reports of the senses.' Advancement of Learning.

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Motions changed to notions by modern editors. In Shake-speare:

"Yet in the number I do know but one

That, unassailable, holds on his rank,
Unshak'd of motion."

Julius Cæsar, iii. 1.

"Read, Unshak'd of notion." — UPTON's Critical Observations on Shakespeare, p. 229.

"The reasons of our state I cannot yield,
But like a common and an outward man,
That the great figure of a council frames
By self-unable motion."

All's Well, iii. 1.

"Read notion; that is, from his own ideas. A printer might easily mistake motion for notion."- Prebendary Upton, p. 230.

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Puck is one of the aërial spirits personified in MidsummerNight's Dream.' He represents the winds.

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As when his virtues, aiming upon of Good and Evil (1597).

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Diomedes, having wounded Venus in battle, was put to death for impiety, and his followers were changed into swans, "a bird," says Bacon, "which at the approach of

its own death utters a sweet and plaintive sound." This myth is several times referred to in the Plays:

"If he lose, he makes a swan-like end,

Fading in music."

Merchant of Venice, iii. 2.

It is in the comparison, however, between the speech of dying men and the notes of a dying swan, or "deep harmony," that this extraordinary parallelism exists.

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This, in an age of almost universal intolerance, is a marked agreement of opinion in favor of religious liberty. It was also of the same date, the play being first heard of in 1611, and the essay in 1612.

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It was political philosophy that Aristotle referred to.

“ Διὸ τῆς πολιτικῆς οὐκ ἔστιν οἰκεῖος ἀκροατὴς ὁ νέος.”

Nicomachean Ethics, i. 3.

This error doubtless originated with Erasmus, with whose works Bacon was thoroughly acquainted. It is found in

1 Quoted by Theron S. E. Dixon in his admirable work entitled 'Francis Bacon and his Shakespeare' (1895), p. 36. We should be doing our readers great injustice not to call their attention to this author's masterly analysis of the drama of Julius Cæsar.' All intelligent lovers of Shake-speare will mourn Mr. Dixon's untimely death in 1898. He was a lawyer of uncommon ability and worth.

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