178 THE SEVEN FOLLIES OF SCIENCE 



tion takes ninety-nine per cent of his information from the 

 generally accepted books of the day. When Shakespeare 

 speaks of things which come within the sphere of his own 

 observation he is almost always correct, but when he 

 accepts the ideas and beliefs which prevailed amongst the 

 authors of his time he is frequently wrong. Like all the 

 men of his time he believed in a king bee, and his descrip- 

 tion of the government of the hive ("King Henry V," Act I, 

 Scene 2, line 188), as he understood it, is one of the most 

 beautiful and most frequently quoted passages in his 

 works, though as a statement of the true natural history 

 of the bee and the economy of the hive it is pure fiction. 

 So too the reference to "the kind life-rendering pelican," 

 in " Hamlet" 1 (Act IV, Scene 5, line 145), as well as in other 

 plays, was in strict accord with the notions that were then 

 accepted and that were portrayed in numerous pictures 

 and engravings as well as in the crest and scutcheon of 

 many noble families. This matter has been well discussed 

 by Professor Dowden of the University of Dublin in the 

 Introduction to "The Shakespeare Cyclopedia." 



Even Izaac Walton, who from his many opportunities 

 for observation in country fields and by riversides might 

 have been expected to be accurate in his knowledge of 

 facts, accepts many of the crude notions and erroneous 

 statements made by the writers who preceded him. 



1 Some of our readers will no doubt be surprised when told that in the 

 first collected edition of Shakespeare's works, generally known as the 

 " First Folio," the words are " Kinde Life-rendering Politicean," a curious 

 typographical mistake which has given rise to some interesting lucubrations. 

 If this were the true reading the politicians of Hamlet's time must have 

 been very different from those of our day. But the word is pelican in the 

 quartos, and the same alleged characteristic of the pelican is referred to in 

 Richard II and King Lear so that there can be no doubt that the modern 

 text is correct. 



