Large pearls were called uniones and treated as dainties by the Romans. Bacon classified them among medicines for prolonging life. The printers of the Hamlet quartos, not knowing what a union was, substituted onyx for it. 139 GOVERNMENT BY MINORS "Woe to that land that 's govern'd by a child!" "Government of princes in minority. . . an infinite disadvan Richard III., ii. 3 (1597). tage to the state."- Advancement of Learning (1603-5). Queen. I will try the forces creatures as the great use of this observation, the inquiry needed not by him so slightly to have been relinquished - We count not worth the hanging, altogether." Advancement but none human, of "We have also parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds which we use not only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections. We also try poisons and other medicines upon them." New Atlantis (1624). The practice of vivisection, and trial of drugs on living organisms can be traced back to a very early period; but until Harvey resorted to it in order to demonstrate the circulation of the blood, knowledge of the subject was confined to a very limited circle of physiologists. It was on this account that Harvey has been called the Father of Vivisection. And yet it seems that Bacon and Shake-speare had both investigated it before Harvey's experiments became public, and were fully aware of the beneficent effects claimed in its behalf. And they use the same expression in their treatment of it: "First, perchance, she 'll prove it on cats and dogs, Shake-speare. "To speak, therefore, of medicine, and to resume that we have said, ascending a little higher." - Bacon. Harvey began his course of lectures after Shakespere's death in 1616; and twelve years after the latter's retirement from London. 143 BANISHMENT OF WOMEN FROM COURT From Shake-speare "King. Navarre shall be the wonder of the world; Our court shall be a little academe, Still and contemplative in living From Bacon "They would make you a king in a play. . What! nothing but tasks, nothing but working days? No feasting, no music, no dancing, no comedies, no love, no ladies?" -Gesta Grayorum (1594). CONDEMNED FOR VIRTUES "I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipp'd."- Winter's Tale, iv. 2 (1623). "For which of the good works do you stone me?” — Promus (159496). 145 MIRACLES From Shake-speare "Nothing almost sees miracles But misery." From Bacon "If miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in Lear, ii. 2 (1623). adversity." - Essay of Adversity (1625). Dr. R. M. Theobald calls attention to the significant fact that in both of the quarto editions of Lear,' published in 1608, the passage, quoted above, reads "Nothing almost sees my wracke The substitution in the folio of 1623 of the word miracles for my wracke not only gives sense to the passage, but also brings it into harmony with Bacon's philosophical views as expounded by him in one of his later essays. This affords additional proof to those given elsewhere that the play was specially revised for the folio, seven years after the reputed author's death, and by Francis Bacon himself. How else could such a meaning have been extracted from the quartos? |