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of the forms of thought which gave us the Athanasian Creed and the XXXIX Articles.

The wisdom of the ancients cannot be so lightly dismissed. I am not a blind admirer of ancient philosophy, which itself teaches us that a philosopher should be a spectator of all time and of all existence. But I think it probable that there is truth and there is falsity alike in the most ancient and in the most recent thought. In the details of scientific discovery and invention the modern advance is undeniable. But steam engines and electric telegraphs are not exactly the materials of religion. When on the other hand one looks beyond details to principles, what strikes one is the comparative absence of paradox in the main view of the world, and of God's relation to it, which has come down to us from antiquity, as in the text, 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' Applying this contrast between the old and the new to the proposal for a philosophical reformation of religion, I cannot help thinking that ordinary men fall naturally enough into the old view that the great world around them is the work of God, but would be inclined to laugh at the new view, that it is literally the idea of God. 'No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new; for he saith, The old is better.'

If the Church of England took up with the new philosophy, the Roman Catholics would adhere to the old philosophy, as true, as reasonable, as convincing to the majority; and the new Reformation would probably end in the triumph of Roman Catholicism. Indeed, this seems to be about the last age to found a new religion; it is an age of invention and criticism; but its sentiment is not quite faith; its wisdom is too often paradox. Oxford.

279

'BY THEIR OWN BEAUTIES'

Case was a close student of Shakespeare, and had a valuable collection of books on the subject, including several copies of the second folio edition. He had many theories on the proper reading of certain lines, as well as on the wider problems of Shakespeare scholarship. He knew Shakespeare as well as he knew Homer.

FROM Literature, DECEMBER 8, 1900.

Your review of Professor Dowden's edition of
Romeo and Juliet, in the course of some remarks on
the editor's construction of a passage in Juliet's
speech, Act III, Sc. ii, quotes the lines as follows:
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway's eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties.

May I take this opportunity of calling attention to the authoritative reading of the last line? The imperfect first quarto of 1597 does not contain the passage at all. The second quarto of 1599, which

is admitted to be the first correct edition of the play, reads 'And by their own beauties'. So does the third quarto of 1609, and so does the first folio. Against this overwhelming force of early authorities the accepted reading "By their own beauties' rests only on the inferior authority of the fourth and fifth quartos and the later folios.

We ought, then, if possible, to begin the line in question with the conjunction and'. It will be objected that this would be to destroy the scansion of the line. Only, I answer, to our modern ears, accustomed to the common reading. The authoritative reading scans perfectly well thus:

And by their own beauties; or if love be blind It scans, indeed, exactly as a line just before it— That runaway's eyes may wink, and Romeo

In both these lines the trisyllabic foot heightens

the excited impatience of the whole speech. The truth is that the reading 'And by their own beauties' is the authoritative reading, scans as well as the accepted reading, and gives the most pointed sense. Juliet first states a paradox, and then explains how this paradox becomes a fact. It is to be hoped then that future editions will read, and Juliets sayLovers can see to do their amorous rites,

And by their own beauties.

Oxford, Dec. 1, 1900.

PS. With regard to the construction of the whole passage, Dr. Schmidt, in his Shakespeare Lexicon, shows that 'runaway', like 'runagate', is a synonym for vagabond', as in Richard III, Act V, Sc. iii:

A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways.

If we read, not' runaway's', but ' runaways', the construction is simple. Juliet wishes for night, that runaways' (or vagabonds') eyes may be closed, and Romeo may come untalked of and unseen by them; while lovers can see well enough, and by their own beauties. The ingenious interpretation accepted by Professor Dowden is as unnecessary as it is forced, and is rightly doubted in your review.

BACON-SHAKESPEARE

FROM The Times, JANUARY 3, 1902.

The contemporary evidence of Ben Jonson is decisive of this controversy. Not only does he, in the poems prefixed to the First Folio, describe the plays as the book and the writings of Shakespeare, but he also mentions both Shakespeare and Bacon as authors in the Discoveries', a work subsequent to the death of both; and in characterizing them he

refers to Shakespeare solely as poet and playwright, and to Bacon solely as orator and philosopher. The following passages from this work are full of interest in themselves and will perhaps save many columns of controversy:

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De Shakespeare nostrat.-Augustus in Hat.—' I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who choose ' that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour; for I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, ' as much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantsie, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility, 'that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped; Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power, would the rule of it had been so too. 'Many times he fell into those things could not escape 'laughter; as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, "Caesar then dost me wrong." He replied, "Caesar did never wrong but with just cause," and such like; which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his 'vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be 'praised than to be pardoned.' Dominus Verulamius. One, though he be excellent and the 'chief, is not to be imitated alone; for never no imitator ever grew up to his author; likeness is always on this side truth. 'Yet there happened in my time one noble Speaker, who 'was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more presly, more weightily, ' or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. 'No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. 'His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, with'out loss. He commanded where he spoke; and had his 'judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man 'that heard him was, lest he should make an end.'

After further saying of Bacon, under the heading Scriptorum Catalogus', that he may be named and

stand as the mark and axμn of our language', Jonson proceeds as follows:

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De Augmentis Scientiarum.-Julius Caesar.- Lord St. Alban.— 'I have ever observed it to have been the office of a wise 'patriot, among the greatest affairs of the State, to take care of the Commonwealth of Learning. For schools, they are the Seminaries of State, and nothing is worthier the study 'of a statesman than that part of the Republic which we call 'the Advancement of Letters. Witness the case of Julius Caesar, who in the heat of the civil war writ his books of Analogy and dedicated them to Tully. This made the late 'Lord St. Alban entitle his work Novum Organum: which ' though by the most of superficial men, who cannot get beyond the title of Nominals, it is not penetrated nor under'stood, it really openeth all defects of learning whatsoever ' and is a book Qui longum noto scriptori proroget aevum. My ' conceit of his Person was never increased towards him by his place or honours: but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he 'seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many Ages. 'In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him 'strength; for Greatness he could not want. Neither could 'I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it 'manifest.'

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A similar contrast reappears in Ben Jonson's Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden, where Jonson is reported to have said of Shakespeare among English poets that he wanted arte'. and of Bacon among great ones that my Lord Chancellor of England wringeth his speeches from the strings of his band, and other Councellors from the pyking of their teeth'. Nor will it do to object that Jonson was in a conspiracy to conceal Bacon's authorship of Shakespeare's plays. His way of speaking of Shakespeare and of Bacon as authors is too different to be explained away. He does not merely speak of them as of two personal friends who were both authors, the one of plays and poems, the other of speeches and philosophy. The point

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