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Guildenstern. O! my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

Hamlet. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from the lowest note to the top of my compass. 'S blood! do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe?"— Hamlet, iii. 2 (1603).

derstand him sufficiently, whereby not to give him offence, or whereby to be able to give him faithful counsel, or whereby to stand upon reasonable guard and caution in respect of a man's self; but to be speculative into another man, to the end to know how to work him, or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven." - Advancement of Learning (1603-5).

The colloquy between Hamlet and Guildenstern gives us the best conceivable illustration of the precept laid down by Bacon; namely, that while it is right and proper for us to investigate the character of those with whom we deal to the extent of knowing how to help them and how to protect our own interests, we are not justified in going any farther and acquiring secret confidences to any selfish or injurious end. Guildenstern, who was one of Hamlet's old friends, had been summoned by the king to Elsinore for this very purpose, "to work him, or wind him, or govern him," and thus to compass Hamlet's death. In doing so, he had, of course, a "double or cloven heart." For this parallelism, also, we are indebted to Colonel Moore.

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perpetual circle; one might wish to die, not only from fortitude, or misery or wisdom, but merely from disgust and weariness of life." Advancement of Learning (1603-5).

487

BOOK ON DUELLING

From Shake-speare "O sir, we quarrel in point, by the book. You may avoid that, too (lie direct) with an 'if.' I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel; but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an if,' as, 'If you said so, then I said so;' and they shook hands, and swore brothers. Your 'if' is the only peacemaker; Imuch virtue in 'if.'"

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As You Like It, v. 4 (1623).

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It is practically certain that the book to which the author of As You Like It' alludes is one written by Vincentio Saviolo and published in 1594; for a paragraph from one of its chapters is transferred almost bodily into the play, as given above. The paragraph is as follows:

"Conditional lies be such as are given conditionally, as if a man should say or write these words: if thou hast said that I have offered my lord abuse, thou liest; or if thou sayest so hereafter, thou shalt lie. Of these kinds of lies, given in this manner, often arise much contention in words."

It is also practically certain that Bacon, who was the chief contriver of the Revels at Gray's Inn in 1594, refers to the same book, and in the same spirit of ridicule, in the "orders of the court;" for he mentions it by its chief title, De Duello. And the book was published in the same year.

488

FINE AND RECOVERY

From Shake-speare

"Dromio S. There's no time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature.

Ant. S. May he not do it by fine and recovery?

Dromio S. Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and recover the lost hair of another man."

From Bacon

"A fine is a real agreement that one man shall have [land] from another to him and his heirs, or to him for his life, or to him and the heirs or heirs male of his body, or for years certain. It is a record of great credit. . . . Recovery is where, for assurance of

Comedy of Errors, ii. 2 (1623). lands, the parties do agree that one

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The legal procedure involved in a case of fine and recovery is so abstruse that Blackstone, in entering upon the subject in his Commentaries, says: "I am greatly apprehensive that its form and method will not be easily understood by the student who is not yet acquainted with the course of judicial proceedings." But we find the author of the Comedy of Errors' so familiar with the law that he actually revels in puns upon it. The explanation is simple. The play was first produced before the judges and lawyers of Gray's Inn, on a festive occasion when Francis Bacon was master of ceremonies, and so clearly the leading spirit that the entire proceedings finally centred upon him as the "conjurer."

William Shakspere, the reputed dramatist, not only took

no part in the presentation of the play, but he was not even present. He was at Greenwich, with the company of players to which he was attached.

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But I might see young Cupid's fiery they stand bound, and your Ma

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Both authors assert that Queen Elizabeth was capable of inspiring the passion of love in others while she herself was always free from it,-Shake-speare in Midsummer-Night's Dream,' written in or about 1595-6, and Bacon in his 'Device of an Indian Prince,' a masque performed before the Queen in 1595.

490

WITCHES' CAULDRON

"First Witch. Round about the

cauldron go; In the poison'd entrails throw." Macbeth iv. 1 (1623).

"There be many things that work upon the spirits of men by secret sympathy and antipathy." -Natural History (1622-25).

Macbeth' the witches throw

In the incantation scene in into the cauldron certain ingredients that were deemed to possess occult properties, and cause spirits or apparitions

to appear at call.

Bacon also in his Natural History enumerates many objects that possess the same secret properties, some of them being identical with those used for the The following are examples

same purpose by the witches.

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The two lists agree in another important particular: each consists, generally speaking, of portions only of the animals mentioned. This is explained by Bacon:

"The writers of natural magic do attribute much to the virtues that come from the parts of living creatures; so as they be taken from them, the creatures remaining still alive; as if the creature, still living, did infuse some immateriate virtue or vigor into the part severed."

Incantations, of the kind we find described in Bacon and acted in Shake-speare, abound in ancient authors, as in Æschylus, Homer, Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, and Virgil. Prebendary Upton says:

"There is such a cast of antiquity, and something so horridly solemn in this infernal ceremony of the witches [in 'Macbeth'], that I never consider it without admiring our poet's improvement of every hint he receives from the ancients or moderns."- Critical Observations, p. 36.

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