Augmentis Scientiarum, "dislike thin letters, and change them immediately into those of a middle tone." In accordance with this knowledge he alters the common English spelling of Madrid and writes Madrill (Obs. on a Libel: Spedding, Vol. I. p. 194). It is rather surprising to find Dekker in Match Me in London (I., 1631) similarly substituting Madrill.

We could extend these identities, but space will not permit. Sufficient have been noted to justify our assertion that there is evidence connecting Dekker and Bacon. To be consistent, Judge Stotsenburg should, therefore, argue that Dekker had a hand in Bacon, which is as absurd as to assume that the planets give light to the sun. Doubtless there was some bond of connection between the two men, but whether Dekker were anything more than one of Bacon's stage gobetweens is, to say the least, doubtful.

It is generally agreed amongst Baconians that much of the work produced in the name of "Shakespeare " was collaborated by certain minor poets, in the sense that they executed a considerable portion of the first drafting, and, probably, the whole of the transcribing; but that "Shakespeare" was a noun signifying nothing, Bacon merely a reviser, and the real authors poets who published their best under another's name and their hack work under their own is inconsistent with human nature.

An Impartial Study of the Shakespeare Title is an agreeably written and informing book. We advise our readers to accept and chew over the author's facts, but suspend judgment upon his theories.

HAROLD BAYLEY.

THE PARNASSUS

TRILOGY

(Continued from page 184).

"Father, whate'r your loving tongue shall ulter,
I'll drink your words with an attentive ear.
With mine eyes I'll drink the words you send."

-Cymbeline, I. i. 100.

"My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words."

-Romeo and Juliet, II. ii. 58.

"Take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings."-As You Like It, III. ii. 213.

"Age in his speech a majesty doth bear."

-Compare Richard II., II. i. 1-18.

I love to hear love play the orator;

The king-prettily, methought-did play the orator."

-1 Henry VI., III. i. 175.

-3 Henry VI., III. iii. 188.

"I'll play the orator as well as Nestor."

"Play the" is frequently found in Bacon and Shake

speare:

"Young men's advice can bear but little sway;
Counsel comes kindly from a head that's grey."

-Cf. Richard II., II. i. 1-6.

"What wisdom many winters have begot,

Time's midwifery at length shall bring to light.
I have a young conception in my brain:
Be you my time to bring it to some shape."

-Troilus and Cressida, I. iii. 312.

Bacon speaks of his work as a child of Time rather than of Wit. Novum Organum, Dedication and 1, 78. He speaks also of the "miscarriages of Time." Preface to Novum Organum, Op. IV. 15. Nec temporis partus nec abortus extant in fastis; and he constantly speaks of wisdom, science, intellect, as analogous to generation and the functions of reproduction. The extended

Q

employment of this metaphor in works of imagination is apparently pointed to in some Promus notes—e.g., 1,412, The son of somewhat; and the twice-repeated note, Et justificata est sapientia a filiis suis (Nos. 249 and 346).

This is a specimen of the Baconian and Shakespearean hints that may be picked up in the first thirtyfive lines of the first play. It is evident that the limits of this paper will not allow me to point out the hundreds of such correspondences that run through the plays. In truth a Baconian or Shakespearean air or flavour pervades the whole; the two are blended, the Baconian and Shakespearean impression alternately or concurrently presenting itself. The wit, with its overflowing, inexhaustible abundance, its sparkling brightness, reminds one of the Falstaff scenes. The Nurse's humour in Romeo and Juliet, with her reiteration of small details to assist memory, is exactly reproduced in Leonarde, the carrier (2 Par. I. 2); and Simson, the Innkeeper, like the Nurse, interlards his discourse with as they say (2 Par. II. 1). What Professor Meiklejohn refers to when he remarks that "there is no limit to Shakespeare's power of calling names," is most characteristically illustrated in Ingenioso's denunciation of his stingy patron (2 Par. I. i. 280-290). The Baconian antithesis reappears in every page. Bacon's characteristic way of using the word Nay as a formula for continuance the first word in a sentence-is frequent. Bacon's love of learning and sympathy with students— his earnest desire that scholars should be encouraged and their labour suitably rewarded-are indeed the ruling motives of the whole trilogy.

The Parnassus poet is saturated with classical knowledge, and, as these plays were intended for use at the University, he need not disguise his Latinity. In 2 Henry IV., I. i. 47, we have the expression, "He seemed in running to devour the way." Shakespeare,

of course, says nothing about the derivation of this phrase, and none of his commentators have even given us any information on the subject, or suspected that there was any to give. But the Parnassus poet, when he uses it, confesses his obligation to Catullus (a very favourite author with Shakespeare) :

"Associate yourselves with studious youths,
That, as Catullus saith, devours the way

That leads to Parnassus, where content doth dwell."

The line in Catullus, Ode 35, is :

"Quare si sapiet viam vorabit."

-1 Par., I. 96.

In a well-known passage of Henry V., I. i. 28, the young King is described by the Archbishop as having cast aside his wild courses.

"Consideration like an angel came,

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise

To envelope and contain celestial spirits."

Juliet has the same idea, but she inverts it in the irony of her grief :

"O Nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou didst bower the spirit of a friend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh."

-Romeo and Juliet, III. ii. 80.

And the same fancy is hidden in the lines:

"O what a mansion have those vices got
Which for their habitation chose out thee."

-Sonnet 95.

So Ingenioso, loading his fantastical patron with flattery, says:

"Great reason the Muses should flutter about your immortal head, since your body is nothing but a fair inn of fairer guests that dwell therein.”—2 Par., III. i. 1, 986.

Bacon's characteristic idea-that "The truth of being and of knowing is all one. The mind is the man, and knowledge is the mind; . . . knowledge is a double of that which is,"—is applied to fanciful uses by Shakespeare:

"When ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,

Do we not likewise see our learning there?"

-Love's Labour's Lost, IV. iii. 316.

The same fanciful use of Bacon's philosophy is made in these plays:

"True learning dwells in her fair beauteous face."

-1 Par., 391. which is the central philosophic idea in Love's Labour's Lost.

We know that Giordano Bruno's writings had been studied by Shakespeare. A very remarkable and poetical fancy of the old Italian heretic and martyr was spoken in reference to English women: "They are on earth what stars are above" (See Nineteenth Century, July, 1889, p. 109). Bruno's influence was predominant when Romeo and Juliet was written; accordingly Capulet, inviting Paris to his feast, promises him

"At my poor house, look to behold this night

Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light.”
Romeo and Juliet, I. ii. 25.

About the same time these plays were written, and
accordingly Philomusus has the same pretty fancy:-
"Here are so many pure bright shining stars

That Cynthias want their fair Endymions."

—1 Par., 446.

And Amoroso, tempting the scholar by the attractions of love, says :

"Then shall you have the choice of earthly stars
That shine on earth as Cynthia in her skye."

-Ibid., 492.