LIBER SECUNDUS. 519 



magnitudinem et ad mores conferat. Quare et merito etiam 

 divinitatis cujuspiam particeps videri possit; quia animum 

 erigit et in sublime rapit, rerum simulacra ad animi desideria 

 accommodando, non animum rebus (quod ratio facit et histo- 

 ria) submittendo. Atque his quidem illecebris et congruitate 

 qua animum humanum demulcet, addito etiam consortio mu- 

 sices unde suavius insinuari possit, aditum sibi patefecit, ut 

 honori fuerit etiam saeculis plane rudibus et apud nationes 

 barbaras, cum alias doctrine prorsus exclusae essent. 



Dramatica autem Poesis, quse theatrum habet pro mundo, 

 usu eximia est, si sana foret. Non parva enim esse posset 

 theatri et disciplina et corruptela. Atque corruptelarum in 

 hoc genere abunde est ; disciplina plane nostris temporibus est 

 neglecta. Attamen licet in rebuspublicis modernis habeatur 

 pro re ludicra actio theatralis, nisi forte nimium trahat e satira 

 et mordeat; tamen apud antiques curse fuit, ut animos homi- 

 nuni ad virtutem institueret. Quinetiam viris prudentibus, et 

 magnis philosophis, veluti animorum plectrum quoddam cen- 

 sebatur. Atque sane verissimum est, et tanquam secretum 

 quoddam naturae, hominum animos cum congregati sint, magis 

 quam cum soli sint, affectibus et impressionibus patere. 1 



1 There is nothing in the Advancement of Learning corresponding to this para- 

 graph. 



It is a curious fact that these remarks on the character of the modern drama were 

 probably written, and were certainly first published, in the same year which saw the 

 first collection of Shakespeare's plays; of which, though they had been filling the 

 theatre for the last thirty years, I very much doubt whether Bacon had ever heard. 

 How little notice they attracted in those days as works of literary pretension, may be 

 inferred from the extreme difficulty which modern editors have found in ascertaining 

 the dates, or even the order, of their production. Though numbers of contemporary 

 news-letters, filled with literary and fashionable intelligence, have been preserved, it 

 is only in the Stationer's register and the accounts kept by the Master of the Revels 

 that we find any notices of the publication or acting of Shakespeare's plays. In the 

 long series of letters from John Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton, scattered over 

 the whole period from 1698 to 1623, letters full of the news of the month ; news 

 of the court, the city, the pulpit, and the bookseller's shop ; in which court-masques 

 are described in minute detail, author, actors, plot, performance, reception and all ; 

 we look in vain for the name of Shakespeare or of any one of his plays. And yet during 

 that period Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Othello, Measure for Measure, the Merchant of 

 Venice, Macbeth, Lear, the Tempest, the Winter's Tale, Coriolanus, and several more, must 

 have appeared as novelties. And indeed that very letter without which we should hardly 

 know that Shakespeare was personally known to any one in the gi'eat world as a dis- 

 tinguished dramatic writer, I mean Lord Southampton's letter in furtherance of a 

 petition from him and Burbage to the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere proves at the same 

 time how little was known about him by people of that quality. " This other " (he 

 writes, after describing him as his especial friend and the writer of some of our best 



English plays,) hath to name William Shakespeare Both are right 



famous in their qualities, though it longeth not of your lordship's gravity and wisdom 

 to resort unto the places where they were wont to delight the public ear." This waa 



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