The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded Part 1

The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded.

by Delia Bacon.

PREFACE.

This Volume contains the argument, drawn from the Plays usually attributed to Shakspere, in support of a theory which the author of it has demonstrated by historical evidences in another work. Having never read this historical demonstration (which remains still in ma.n.u.script, with the exception of a preliminary chapter, published long ago in an American periodical), I deem it necessary to cite the author's own account of it:--

'The Historical Part of this work (which was originally the princ.i.p.al part, and designed to furnish the historical key to the great Elizabethan writings), though now for a long time completed and ready for the press, and though repeated reference is made to it in this volume, is, for the most part, omitted here. It contains a true and before unwritten history, and it will yet, perhaps, be published as it stands; but the vivid and acc.u.mulating historic detail, with which more recent research tends to enrich the earlier statement, and disclosures which no invention could antic.i.p.ate, are waiting now to be subjoined to it.

'The INTERNAL EVIDENCE of the a.s.sumptions made at the outset is that which is chiefly relied on in the work now first presented on this subject to the public. The demonstration will be found complete on that ground; and on that ground alone the author is willing, and deliberately prefers, for the present, to rest it.

'External evidence, of course, will not be wanting; there will be enough and to spare, if the demonstration here be correct. But the author of the discovery was not willing to rob the world of this great question; but wished rather to share with it the benefit which the true solution of the Problem offers--the solution prescribed by those who propounded it to the future. It seemed better to save to the world the power and beauty of this demonstration, its intellectual stimulus, its demand on the judgment. It seemed better, that the world should acquire it also in the form of criticism, instead of being stupified and overpowered with the mere force of an irresistible, external, historical proof. Persons incapable of appreciating any other kind of proof,--those who are capable of nothing that does not 'directly fall under and strike _the senses_' as Lord Bacon expresses it,--will have their time also; but it was proposed to present the subject first to minds of another order.'

In the present volume, accordingly, the author applies herself to the demonstration and development of a system of philosophy, which has presented itself to her as underlying the superficial and ostensible text of Shakspere's plays. Traces of the same philosophy, too, she conceives herself to have found in the acknowledged works of Lord Bacon, and in those of other writers contemporary with him. All agree in one system; all these traces indicate a common understanding and unity of purpose in men among whom no brotherhood has. .h.i.therto been suspected, except as representatives of a grand and brilliant age, when the human intellect made a marked step in advance.

The author did not (as her own consciousness a.s.sures her) either construct or originally seek this new philosophy. In many respects, if I have rightly understood her, it was at variance with her pre-conceived opinions, whether ethical, religious, or political. She had been for years a student of Shakspere, looking for nothing in his plays beyond what the world has agreed to find in them, when she began to see, under the surface, the gleam of this hidden treasure. It was carefully hidden, indeed, yet not less carefully indicated, as with a pointed finger, by such marks and references as could not ultimately escape the notice of a subsequent age, which should be capable of profiting by the rich inheritance. So, too, in regard to Lord Bacon.

The author of this volume had not sought to put any but the ordinary and obvious interpretation upon his works, nor to take any other view of his character than what accorded with the unanimous judgment upon it of all the generations since his epoch. But, as she penetrated more and more deeply into the plays, and became aware of those inner readings, she found herself compelled to turn back to the 'Advancement of Learning' for information as to their plan and purport; and Lord Bacon's Treatise failed not to give her what she sought; thus adding to the immortal dramas, in her idea, a far higher value than their warmest admirers had heretofore claimed for them. They filled out the scientific scheme which Bacon had planned, and which needed only these profound and vivid ill.u.s.trations of human life and character to make it perfect. Finally, the author's researches led her to a point where she found the plays claimed for Lord Bacon and his a.s.sociates,--not in a way that was meant to be intelligible in their own perilous times,--but in characters that only became legible, and illuminated, as it were, in the light of a subsequent period.

The reader will soon perceive that the new philosophy, as here demonstrated, was of a kind that no professor could have ventured openly to teach in the days of Elizabeth and James. The concluding chapter of the present work makes a powerful statement of the position which a man, conscious of great and n.o.ble aims, would then have occupied; and shows, too, how familiar the age was with all methods of secret communication, and of hiding thought beneath a masque of conceit or folly. Applicably to this subject, I quote a paragraph from a ma.n.u.script of the author's, not intended for present publication:--

'It was a time when authors, who treated of a scientific politics and of a scientific ethics internally connected with it, naturally preferred this more philosophic, symbolic method of indicating their connection with their writings, which would limit the indication to those who could pierce within the veil of a philosophic symbolism. It was the time when the cipher, in which one could write '_omnia per omnia_,' was in such request, and when 'wheel ciphers' and 'doubles'

were thought not unworthy of philosophic notice. It was a time, too, when the phonographic art was cultivated, and put to other uses than at present, and when a '_nom de plume_' was required for other purposes than to serve as the refuge of an author's modesty, or vanity, or caprice. It was a time when puns, and charades, and enigmas, and anagrams, and monograms, and ciphers, and puzzles, were not good for sport and child's play merely; when they had need to be close; when they had need to be solvable, at least, only to those who _should_ solve them. It was a time when all the latent capacities of the English language were put in requisition, and it was flas.h.i.+ng and crackling, through all its lengths and breadths, with puns and quips, and conceits, and jokes, and satires, and inlined with philosophic secrets that opened down "into the bottom of a tomb"--that opened into the Tower--that opened on the scaffold and the block.'

I quote, likewise, another pa.s.sage, because I think the reader will see in it the n.o.ble earnestness of the author's character, and may partly imagine the sacrifices which this research has cost her:--

'The great secret of the Elizabethan age did not lie where any superficial research could ever have discovered it. It was not left within the range of any accidental disclosure. It did not lie on the surface of any Elizabethan doc.u.ment. The most diligent explorers of these doc.u.ments, in two centuries and a quarter, had not found it. No faintest suspicion of it had ever crossed the mind of the most recent, and clear-sighted, and able investigator of the Baconian remains. It was buried in the lowest depths of the lowest deeps of the deep Elizabethan Art; that Art which no plummet, till now, has ever sounded. It was locked with its utmost reach of traditionary cunning.

It was buried in the inmost recesses of the esoteric Elizabethan learning. It was tied with a knot that had pa.s.sed the scrutiny and baffled the sword of an old, suspicious, dying, military government--a knot that none could cut--a knot that must be untied.

'The great secret of the Elizabethan Age was inextricably reserved by the founders of a new learning, the prophetic and more n.o.bly gifted minds of a new and n.o.bler race of men, for a research that should test the mind of the discoverer, and frame and subordinate it to that so sleepless and indomitable purpose of the prophetic aspiration. It was "the device" by which they undertook to live again in the ages in which their achievements and triumphs were forecast, and to come forth and rule again, not in one mind, not in the few, not in the many, but in all. "For there is no throne like that throne in the thoughts of men," which the ambition of these men climbed and compa.s.sed.

'The princ.i.p.al works of the Elizabethan Philosophy, those in which the new method of learning was practically applied to the n.o.blest subjects, were presented to the world in the form of AN ENIGMA. It was a form well fitted to divert inquiry, and baffle even the research of the scholar for a time; but one calculated to provoke the philosophic curiosity, and one which would inevitably command a research that could end only with the true solution. That solution was reserved for one who would recognise, at last, in the disguise of the great impersonal teacher, the disguise of a new learning. It waited for the reader who would observe, at last, those thick-strewn scientific clues, those thick-crowding enigmas, those perpetual beckonings from the "theatre" into the judicial palace of the mind. It was reserved for the student who would recognise, at last, the mind that was seeking so perseveringly to whisper its tale of outrage, and "the secrets it was forbid." It waited for one who would answer, at last, that philosophic challenge, and say, "Go on, I'll follow thee!" It was reserved for one who would count years as days, for the love of the truth it hid; who would never turn back on the long road of initiation, though all "THE IDOLS" must be left behind in its stages; who would never stop until it stopped in that new cave of Apollo, where the handwriting on the wall spells anew the old Delphic motto, and publishes the word that "_unties_ the spell."

On this object, which she conceives so loftily, the author has bestowed the solitary and self-sustained toil of many years. The volume now before the reader, together with the historical demonstration which it pre-supposes, is the product of a most faithful and conscientious labour, and a truly heroic devotion of intellect and heart. No man or woman has ever thought or written more sincerely than the author of this book. She has given nothing less than her life to the work. And, as if for the greater trial of her constancy, her theory was divulged, some time ago, in so partial and unsatisfactory a manner--with so exceedingly imperfect a statement of its claims--as to put her at great disadvantage before the world. A single article from her pen, purporting to be the first of a series, appeared in an American Magazine; but unexpected obstacles prevented the further publication in that form, after enough had been done to a.s.sail the prejudices of the public, but far too little to gain its sympathy.

Another evil followed. An English writer (in a 'Letter to the Earl of Ellesmere,' published within a few months past) has thought it not inconsistent with the fair-play, on which his country prides itself, to take to himself this lady's theory, and favour the public with it as his own original conception, without allusion to the author's prior claim. In reference to this pamphlet, she generously says:--

'This has not been a selfish enterprise. It is not a personal concern.

It is a discovery which belongs not to an individual, and not to a people. Its fields are wide enough and rich enough for us all; and he that has no work, and whoso will, let him come and labour in them. The field is the world's; and the world's work henceforth is in it. So that it be known in its real comprehension, in its true relations to the weal of the world, what matters it? So that the truth, which is dearer than all the rest--which abides with us when all others leave us, dearest then--so that the truth, which is neither yours nor mine, but yours _and_ mine, be known, loved, honoured, emanc.i.p.ated, mitred, crowned, adored--_who_ loses anything, that does not find it.' 'And what matters it,' says the philosophic wisdom, speaking in the abstract, 'what name it is proclaimed in, and what letters of the alphabet we know it by?--what matter is it, so that they _spell_ the name that is _good_ for ALL, and _good_ for _each_,'--for that is the REAL name here?

Speaking on the author's behalf, however, I am not ent.i.tled to imitate her magnanimity; and, therefore, hope that the writer of the pamphlet will disclaim any purpose of a.s.suming to himself, on the ground of a slight and superficial performance, the result which she has attained at the cost of many toils and sacrifices.

And now, at length, after many delays and discouragements, the work comes forth. It had been the author's original purpose to publish it in America; for she wished her own country to have the glory of solving the enigma of those mighty dramas, and thus adding a new and higher value to the loftiest productions of the English mind. It seemed to her most fit and desirable, that America--having received so much from England, and returned so little--should do what remained to be done towards rendering this great legacy available, as its authors meant it to be, to all future time. This purpose was frustrated; and it will be seen in what spirit she acquiesces.

'The author was forced to bring it back, and contribute it to the literature of the country from which it was derived, and to which it essentially and inseparably belongs. It was written, every word of it, on English ground, in the midst of the old familiar scenes and household names, that even in our nursery songs revive the dear ancestral memories; those "royal pursuivants" with which our mother-land still follows and retakes her own. It was written in the land of our old kings and queens, and in the land of _our own_ PHILOSOPHERS and POETS also. It was written on the spot where the works it unlocks were written, and in the perpetual presence of the English mind; the mind that spoke before in the cultured few, and that speaks to-day in the cultured many. And it is now at last, after so long a time--after all, as it should be--the English press that prints it. It is the scientific English press, with those old gags (wherewith our kings and queens sought to stop it, ere they knew what it was) champed asunder, ground to powder, and with its last Elizabethan shackle shaken off, that restores, "in a better hour," the torn and garbled science committed to it, and gives back "the bread cast on its sure waters."'

There remains little more for me to say. I am not the editor of this work; nor can I consider myself fairly ent.i.tled to the honor (which, if I deserved it, I should feel to be a very high as well as a perilous one) of seeing my name a.s.sociated with the author's on the t.i.tle-page. My object has been merely to speak a few words, which might, perhaps, serve the purpose of placing my countrywoman upon a ground of amicable understanding with the public. She has a vast preliminary difficulty to encounter. The first feeling of every reader must be one of absolute repugnance towards a person who seeks to tear out of the Anglo-Saxon heart the name which for ages it has held dearest, and to subst.i.tute another name, or names, to which the settled belief of the world has long a.s.signed a very different position. What I claim for this work is, that the ability employed in its composition has been worthy of its great subject, and well employed for our intellectual interests, whatever judgment the public may pa.s.s upon the questions discussed. And, after listening to the author's interpretation of the Plays, and seeing how wide a scope she a.s.signs to them, how high a purpose, and what richness of inner meaning, the thoughtful reader will hardly return again--not wholly, at all events--to the common view of them and of their author. It is for the public to say whether my countrywoman has proved her theory.

In the worst event, if she has failed, her failure will be more honorable than most people's triumphs; since it must fling upon the old tombstone, at Stratford-on-Avon, the n.o.blest tributary wreath that has ever lain there.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

THE PROPOSITION.

'One time will owe another.'--_Coriola.n.u.s_.

This work is designed to propose to the consideration, not of the learned world only, but of all ingenuous and practical minds, a new development of that system of practical philosophy from which THE SCIENTIFIC ARTS of the Modern Ages proceed, and which has already become, just to the extent to which it has been hitherto opened, the wisdom,--the universally approved, and practically adopted, Wisdom of the _Moderns_.

It is a development of this philosophy, which was deliberately postponed by the great Scientific Discoverers and Reformers, in whose Scientific Discoveries and Reformations our organised advancements in speculation and practice have their origin;--Reformers, whose scientific acquaintance with historic laws forbade the idea of any immediate and sudden cures of the political and social evils which their science searches to the root, and which it was designed to eradicate.

The proposition to be demonstrated in the ensuing pages is this: That the new philosophy which strikes out from the Court--from _the Court_ of that despotism that names and gives form to the Modern Learning,--which comes to us from the Court of the last of the Tudors and the first of the Stuarts,--that new philosophy which we have received, and accepted, and adopted as a practical philosophy, not merely in that grave department of learning in which it comes to us professionally _as_ philosophy, but in that not less important department of learning in which it comes to us in the disguise of amus.e.m.e.nt,--in the form of fable and allegory and parable,--the proposition is, that this Elizabethan philosophy is, in these two forms of it,--not two philosophies,--not two Elizabethan philosophies, not two new and wondrous philosophies of nature and practice, not two new Inductive philosophies, but one,--one and the same: that it is philosophy in both these forms, with its veil of allegory and parable, and without it; that it is philosophy applied to much more important subjects in the disguise of the parable, than it is in the open statement; that it is philosophy in both these cases, and not philosophy in one of them, and a brutish, low-lived, illiterate, unconscious spontaneity in the other.

The proposition is that it proceeds, in both cases, from a reflective deliberative, eminently deliberative, eminently conscious, _designing_ mind; and that the coincidence which is manifest not in the design only, and in the structure, but in the detail to the minutest points of execution, is _not_ accidental.

It is a proposition which is demonstrated in this volume by means of evidence derived princ.i.p.ally from the books of this philosophy--books in which the safe delivery and tradition of it to the future was artistically contrived and triumphantly achieved:--the books of a new 'school' in philosophy; books in which the connection with the school is not always openly a.s.serted; books in which the true names of the authors are not always found on the t.i.tle-page;--the books of a school, too, which was compelled to have recourse to translations in some cases, for the safe delivery and tradition of its new learning.

The facts which lie on the surface of this question, which are involved in the bare statement of it, are sufficient of themselves to justify and command this inquiry.

The fact that these two great branches of the philosophy of observation and practice, both already _virtually_ recognised as that,--the one openly, subordinating the physical forces of nature to the wants of man, changing the face of the earth under our eyes, leaving behind it, with its new magic, the miracles of Oriental dreams and fables;--the other, under its veil of wildness and spontaneity, under its thick-woven veil of mirth and beauty, with its inducted precepts and dispersed directions, insinuating itself into all our practice, winding itself into every department of human affairs; speaking from the legislator's lips, at the bar, from the pulpit,--putting in its word every where, always at hand, always sufficient, const.i.tuting itself, in virtue of its own irresistible claims and in the face of what we are told of it, the oracle, the great practical, mysterious, but universally acknowledged, oracle of our modern life; the fact that these two great branches of the modern philosophy make their appearance in history at the same moment, that they make their appearance in the same company of men--in that same little courtly company of Elizabethan Wits and Men of Letters that the revival of the ancient learning brought out here--this is the fact that strikes the eye at the first glance at this inquiry.

But that this is none other than that same little clique of disappointed and defeated politicians who undertook to head and organize a popular opposition against the government, and were compelled to retreat from that enterprise, the best of of them effecting their retreat with some difficulty, others failing entirely to accomplish it, is the next notable fact which the surface of the inquiry exhibits. That these two so ill.u.s.trious branches of the modern learning were produced for the ostensible purpose of ill.u.s.trating and adorning the tyrannies which the men, under whose countenance and protection they are produced, were vainly attempting, or had vainly attempted to set bounds to or overthrow, is a fact which might seem of itself to suggest inquiry. When insurrections are suppressed, when 'the monstrous enterprises of rebellious subjects are overthrown, then FAME, who is _the posthumous sister of the giants_,--the sister of _defeated_ giants springs up'; so a man who had made some political experiments himself that were not very successful, tells us.

The fact that the men under whose patronage and in whose service 'Will the Jester' first showed himself, were men who were secretly endeavouring to make political capital of that new and immense motive power, that not yet available, and not very easily organised political power which was already beginning to move the ma.s.ses here then, and already threatening, to the observant eye, with its portentous movement, the foundations of tyranny, the fact, too, that these men were understood to have made use of the stage unsuccessfully as a means of immediate political effect, are facts which lie on the surface of the history of these works, and unimportant as it may seem to the superficial enquirer, it will be found to be anything but irrelevant as this inquiry proceeds. The man who is said to have contributed a thousand pounds towards the purchase of the theatre and wardrobe and machinery, in which these philosophical plays were first exhibited, was obliged to stay away from the first appearance of Hamlet, in the perfected excellence of the poetic philosophic design, in consequence of being immured in the Tower at that time for an attempt to overthrow the government. This was the ostensible patron and friend of the Poet; the partner of his treason was the ostensible friend and patron of the Philosopher. So nearly did these philosophic minds, that were 'not for an age but for all time,' approach each other in _this_ point. But the _protege_ and friend and well-nigh adoring admirer of the _Poet_, was also the _protege_ and friend and well-nigh adoring admirer of the Philosopher. The fact that these two philosophies, in this so close juxta-position, always in contact, playing always into each other's hands, never once heard of each other, know nothing of each other, is a fact which would seem at the first blush to point to the secret of these 'Know-Nothings,' who are men of science in an age of popular ignorance, and therefore have a 'secret'; who are men of science in an age in which the questions of science are 'forbidden questions,' and are therefore of necessity 'Know-Nothings.'

As to Ben Jonson, and the evidence of his avowed admiration for the author of these plays, from the point of view here taken, it is sufficient to say in pa.s.sing, that this man, whose natural abilities sufficed to raise him from a position hardly less mean and obscure than that of his great rival, was so fortunate as to attract the attention of some of the most ill.u.s.trious personages of that time; men whose observation of natures was quickened by their necessities; men who were compelled to employ 'living instruments' in the accomplishment of their designs; who were skilful in detecting the qualities they had need of, and skilful in adapting means to ends.

This dramatist's connection with the stage of course belongs to this history. His connection with the author of these Plays, and with the player himself, are points not to be overlooked. But the literary history of this age is not yet fully developed. It is enough to say here, that he chanced to be honored with the patronage of _three_ of the most ill.u.s.trious personages of the age in which he lived. He had _three_ patrons. One was Sir Walter Raleigh, in whose service he was; one was the Lord Bacon, whose well nigh idolatrous admirer he appears also to have been; the other was _Shakspere_, to whose favor he appears to have owed so much. With his pa.s.sionate admiration of these last two, stopping only 'this side of idolatry' in his admiration for them both, and being under such deep personal obligations to them both, why could he not have mentioned some day to the author of the Advancement of Learning, the author of Hamlet--Hamlet who also 'lacked advancement?' What more natural than to suppose that these two philosophers, these men of a learning so exactly equal, might have some sympathy with each other, might like to meet each other. Till he has answered that question, any evidence which he may have to produce in apparent opposition to the conclusions here stated will not be of the least value.

These are questions which any one might properly ask, who had only glanced at the most superficial or easily accessible facts in this case, and without any evidence from any other source to stimulate the inquiry. These are facts which lie on the surface of this history, which obtrude themselves on our notice, and demand inquiry.

That which lies immediately below this surface, accessible to any research worthy of the name is, that these two so new extraordinary developments of the modern philosophy which come to us without any _superficially_ avowed connexion, which come to us as _branches_ of learning merely, do in fact meet and unite in one stem, 'which has a quality of entireness and continuance throughout,' even to the most delicate fibre of them both, even to the 'roots' of their trunk, 'and the strings of those roots,' which trunk lies below the surface of that age, buried, carefully buried, for reasons a.s.signed; and that it is the sap of this concealed trunk, this new trunk of sciences, which makes both these branches so vigorous, which makes the flowers and the fruit both so fine, and so unlike anything that we have had from any other source in the way of literature or art.

The question of the authors.h.i.+p of the great philosophic poems which are the legacy of the Elizabethan Age to us, is an incidental question in this inquiry, and is incidentally treated here. The discovery of the authors.h.i.+p of these works was the necessary incident to that more thorough inquiry into their nature and design, of which the views contained in this volume are the result. At a certain stage of this inquiry,--in the later stages of it,--that discovery became inevitable. The primary question here is one of universal immediate practical concern and interest. The solution of this literary problem, happens to be involved in it. It was the necessary prescribed, pre-ordered incident of the reproduction and reintegration of the Inductive Philosophy in its application to its 'princ.i.p.al' and 'n.o.blest subjects,' its 'more chosen subjects.'

The HISTORICAL KEY to the Elizabethan Art of Tradition, which formed the first book of this work as it was originally prepared for the press, is not included in the present publication. It was the part of the work first written, and the results of more recent research require to be incorporated in it, in order that it should represent adequately, in that particular aspect of it, the historical discovery which it is the object of this work to produce. Moreover, the demonstration which is contained in this volume appeared to const.i.tute properly a volume of itself.

Those who examine the subject from this ground, will find the external collateral evidence, the ample historical confirmation which is at hand, not necessary for the support of the propositions advanced here, though it will, of course, be inquired for, when once this ground is made.

The embarra.s.sing circ.u.mstances under which this great system of scientific practice makes its appearance in history, have not yet been taken into the account in our interpretation of it. We have already the doc.u.ments which contain the theory and rule of the modern civilisation, which is the civilisation of science in our hands. We have in our hands also, newly lit, newly trimmed, l.u.s.trous with the genius of our own time, that very lamp with which we are instructed to make this inquiry, that very light which we are told we must bring to bear upon the obscurities of these doc.u.ments, that very light in which we are told, we must unroll them; for they come to us, as the interpreter takes pains to tell us, with an 'infolded' science in them. That light of '_times_,' that knowledge of the conditions under which these works were published, which is essential to the true interpretation of them, thanks to our contemporary historians, is already in our hands. What we need now is to explore the secrets of this philosophy with it,--necessarily secrets at the time it was issued--what we need now is to open these books of a new learning in it, and read them by it.

In that part of the work above referred to, from which some extracts are subjoined for the purpose of introducing intelligibly the demonstration contained in this volume, it was the position of the Elizabethan Men of Letters that was exhibited, and the conditions which prescribed to the founders of a new school in philosophy, which was none other than the philosophy of practice, the form of their works and the concealment of their connection with them--conditions which made the secret of an a.s.sociation of 'Naturalists' applying science in that age to the n.o.blest subjects of speculative inquiry, and to the highest departments of practice, a life and death secret.

The _physical_ impossibility of publis.h.i.+ng at that time, anything openly relating to the questions in which the weal of men is most concerned, and which are the primary questions of the science of man's relief, the opposition which stood at that time prepared to crush any enterprise proposing openly for its end, the common interests of man as man, is the point which it was the object of that part of the work to exhibit. It was presented, not in the form of general statement merely, but in those memorable particulars which the falsified, suppressed, garbled history of the great founder of this school betrays to us; not as it is exhibited in contemporary doc.u.ments merely, but as it is carefully collected from these, and from the _traditions_ of 'the next ages.'