For having been a studious, if not curious observer, as well of antiquities of virtue as late pieces, I forbear to say to your Lordship what I find and conceive; but to any other I would think to make myself believed."- New Year's Letter to the Earl of Salisbury.* "and She said thou wast my daughter;" This subtle touch finds its counterpart in one of Bacon's Apothegms: “There was a young man in Rome that was very like Augustus Cæsar: Augustus took knowledge of him, sent for the man and asked him, Was your mother never at Rome?' He answered, No, Sir, but my father was.'" As indelicacy appears in many of the plays, it is part of the res gesta, a factor in the problem: the reader is therefore referred to Bacon's Apothegms, and also to his History of Henry VII., Spedding's Works, Vol. VI., page 215, or Bohn's ed. Essays, &c., page 452, which will doubtless prove sufficient upon this point, and will illustrate his humor as well. *Thou art a piece of virtue, And I doubt not but thy training hath been noble." "Their transformations Were never for a piece of beauty rarer, Nor in a way so chaste."-A Winter's Tale, IV., 3. Of excellent witchcraft, who, of force, must know "Yet to imagine An Antony, were nature's piece 'gainst fancy, Condemning shadows quite."-Ant. and Cleo., V., 1. "All princely graces, That mould up such a piece as this is, With all the virtues that attend the good, Shall still be doubled on her."-Henry VIII., V., 5. "and thy father Was Duke of Milan; and thou his only heir Issued is a legal term, or rather the legal phrase or form of expressing the fact.* "But to your Majesty, whom God hath already blessed with so much royal issue, worthy to continue and represent you forever, and whose youthful and fruitful bed doth yet promise many the like renovations, it is proper and agreeable to be conversant not only in the transitory parts of good government, but in those acts also which are in their nature permanent and perpetual."-Advancement of Learning, Second Book. "Mir. O the heavens!" "O the," Promus of Formularies and Elegancies. "What foul play had we that we came from thence? Or blessed was't we did? Pros. Both, both, my girl: By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence, But blessedly holp hither." The depth of the Poet's insight, and his exquisite portrayal of one of the subtler phases of human nature might here, as in the past, wholly escape us, but for the following acute observation: "And he that is holpen, takes it for a fortune and *"But if the eldest son leave any issue, though he die in the life of his father, then neither the second son nor the issue of the eldest shall inherit the father's lands, but the father there shall be accounted to die without heirs, and the land shall be escheat."-The Use of the Law. "Of six preceeding ancestors, that gem Conferr'd by testament to the sequent issue, Hath it been ow'd and worn."-All's Well, V., 3. thanks the times; and he that is hurt, for a wrong, and imputeth it to the author."— Of Innovations. Moreover, Bacon's unaffected delight in antithesis will become manifest, both directly and incidentally, in subsequent citations. "Mir. O my heart bleeds To think o' the teen that I have turned you to."* Taken in connection with other and more striking clauses, such as the following, one might well surmise that the Poet was master of the secret of the circulation of the blood: "Why does my blood thus muster to my heart," "Could I meet them But once a day, it would unclog my heart That visit my sad heart."— Julius Cæsar, II., 2. "Or if that surly spirit, melancholy, Had baked thy blood, and made it heavy — thick, "Why, universal plodding prisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries :" 66 dice.' ; which have turned your Majesty to inestimable prejuLetter to King James, on his Estate. †The above is an exemplification of a peculiar "spiritual" philosophy of man's constitution, which is given repeated and unmistakable development; in the exposition of an occult, but Bacon also exhibits this same wonderful knowledge: : "Too continuous and copious an effusion of blood, such as sometimes takes place in hemorrhoids, sometimes in vomiting of blood from the opening or rupture of inner veins, and sometimes in wounds, causes speedy death; for the blood of the veins supplies the blood of the arteries, which again supplies the spirit."—History of Life and Death. "There are two great precursors of death, the one sent thoroughly consistent physiology; and of which the following are further examples: "Moreover, the course of life should if possible, be so ordered that it may have many and various restorations: and the spirits may not grow torpid by perpetual intercourse with the same things."-History of Life and Death. "My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up."-Tempest, I., 2. "Nor I, my spirits are nimble.”— Id., II., 1. "Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep."—Hamlet, III., 4. "But there is No danger in what show of death it makes, To be more fresh, reviving."-Cymbeline, I., 5. "In his Natural History, Bacon observes regarding drunk enness: : "The cause is for that the spirits of the wine oppress the spirits animal, and occupate part of the place where they are; and so make them weak to move. Besides they rob the spirits animal of their matter, whereby they are nourished; for the spirits of the wine prey upon it as well as they and so they make the spirits less supple and apt to move." Also: "Now the spirits are chiefly in the head and cells of the brain." And again, in his History of Life and Death: "We must be cautious about spices, wine, and strong drink, and use them very temperately, with intervals of abstinence; . . . For they supply to the spirits a heat not operative but predatory.” This hostility, or predatory action, is made the very essence of Cassio's memorable apostrophe in Othello, II., 3: “O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be from the head, the other from the heart, namely, convulsions and extreme labor of the pulse; for that deadly hiccough is itself a kind of convulsion. But this laboring of the pulse has a remarkable quickness, because on the point of death the heart trembles so violently that contraction and dilitation are almost confounded. But together with this quickness there is a feebleness and lowness, and often known by, let us call thee devil! . . . O that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!”" He further observes: "The power of opium to condense the spirits is remarkable; for perhaps three grains will in a short time so coagulate them that they cannot separate, but are quenched and rendered immovable. . . . Simple opiates, which are likewise called narcotics and stupefactives, are opium itself, which is the juice of the poppy, the plant and seed of the poppy, henbane, mandragora, hemlock, tobacco, and nightshade.' "Cleo. "Not poppy, nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, Give me to drink mandragora. Char. Why, madame? Cleo. That I might sleep out this great gap of time My Antony is away."-Antony and Cleopatra, I., 5. "O, I die, Horatio; The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirits." - Hamlet, V., 2. "Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, |