The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded. Bacon Delia Salter

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Atlantis,' the celestial vision of her kingdom; and being also 'ravished with that excellence, and awakening, he determined to seek her out. And so being by Merlin armed, and by Timon thoroughly instructed, he went forth to seek her in Fairy Land.' There was a little band of heroes in that age, a little band of philosophers and poets, secretly bent on that same adventure, sworn to the service of that same Gloriana, though they were fain to wear then the scarf and the device of another Queen on their armour. It is to the prince of this little band – 'the prince and mirror of all chivalry' – that this Poet dedicates his poem. But it is Raleigh's device which he adopts in the names he uses, and it is Raleigh who thus shares with Sydney the honour of his dedication.

      'In that Faery Queene, I mean,' he says, in his prose description of the Poem addressed to Raleigh, 'in that Faery Queene, I mean Glory in my general intention; but, in my particular, I conceive the most glorious person of our sovereign the Queen, and her kingdom – in Fairy Land.

      'And yet, in some places, I do otherwise shadow her. For considering she beareth two persons, one of a most Royal Queen or Empress, the other of a most VIRTUOUS and BEAUTIFUL lady – the latter part I do express in BEL-PHEBE, fashioning her name according to your own most excellent conceit of "Cynthia," Phebe and Cynthia being both names of Diana.' And thus he sings his poetic dedication: —

      'To thee, that art the Summer's Nightingale,

      Thy sovereign goddess's most dear delight,

      Why do I send this rustic madrigal,

      That may thy tuneful ear unseason quite?

      Thou, only fit this argument to write,

        In whose high thoughts pleasure hath built her bower,

        And dainty love learn'd sweetly to indite.

        My rhymes, I know, unsavoury are and soure

        To taste the streams, which like a golden showre,

        Flow from thy fruitful head of thy love's praise.

        Fitter, perhaps, to thunder martial stowre,[Footnote]

        When thee so list thy tuneful thoughts to raise,

        Yet till that thou thy poem wilt make known,

        Let thy fair Cynthia's praises be thus rudely shown.'

      [Footnote: 'Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage Or influence chide, or cheer the drooping stage.'

BEN JONSON.]

      'Of me,' says Raleigh, in a response to this obscure partner of his works and arts, – a response not less mysterious, till we have found the solution of it, for it is an enigma.

      'Of me no lines are loved, no letters are of price,

       Of all that speak the English tongue, but those of thy device.'

      [It was a 'device' that symbolised all. It was a circle containing the alphabet, or the A B C, and the esoteric meaning of it was 'all in each,' or all in all, the new doctrine of the unity of science (the 'Ideas' of the New 'Academe'). That was the token-name under which a great Book of this Academy was issued.]

      It is to Sidney, Raleigh, and the Poet of the 'Faery-Queene,' and the rest of that courtly company of Poets, that the contemporary author in the Art of Poetry alludes, with a special commendation of Raleigh's vein, as the 'most lofty, insolent, and passionate,' when he says,' they have writ excellently well, if their doings could be found out and made public with the rest.'

      CHAPTER IV

RALEIGH'S SCHOOL, CONTINUED. – THE NEW ACADEMYEXTRACT FROM A LATER CHAPTER OF RALEIGH'S LIFE

       Oliver. Where will the old Duke live?

       Charles. They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world.

      As You Like It.

       Stephano [sings]. Flout 'em and skout'em; and skout'em and flout 'em, Thought is free.

       Cal. That's not the tune.

      [Ariel plays the tune on a tabor and pipe.]

       Ste. What is this same?

       Trin. This is the tune of our catch, played by – the picture of —Nobody.

      But all was not over with him in the old England yet – the present had still its chief tasks for him.

      The man who had 'achieved' his greatness, the chief who had made his way through such angry hosts of rivals, and through such formidable social barriers, from his little seat in the Devonshire corner to a place in the state, so commanding, that even the jester, who was the 'Mr. Punch' of that day, conceived it to be within the limits of his prerogative to call attention to it, and that too in 'the presence' itself [See 'the knave' commands 'the queen.' —Tarleton] – a place of command so acknowledged, that even the poet could call him in the ear of England 'her most dear delight' – such a one was not going to give up so easily the game he had been playing here so long. He was not to be foiled with this great flaw in his fortunes even here; and though all his work appeared for the time to be undone, and though the eye that he had fastened on him was 'the eye' that had in it 'twenty thousand deaths.'

      It is this patient piecing and renewing of his broken webs, it is this second building up of his position rather than the first, that shows us what he is. One must see what he contrived to make of those 'apartments' in the Tower while he occupied them; what before unimagined conveniencies, and elegancies, and facilities of communication, and means of operation, they began to develop under the searching of his genius: what means of reaching and moving the public mind; what wires that reached to the most secret councils of state appeared to be inlaid in those old walls while he was within them; what springs that commanded even there movements not less striking and anomalous than those which had arrested the critical and admiring attention of Tarleton under the Tudor administration, – movements on that same royal board which Ferdinand and Miranda were seen to be playing on in Prospero's cell when all was done, – one must see what this logician, who was the magician also, contrived to make of the lodging which was at first only 'the cell' of a condemned criminal; what power there was there to foil his antagonists, and crush them too, – if nothing but throwing themselves under the wheels of his advancement would serve their purpose; one must look at all this to see 'what manner of man' this was, what stuff this genius was made of, in whose hearts ideas that had been parted from all antiquities were getting welded here then – welded so firmly that all futurities would not disjoin them, so firmly that thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world might combine in vain to disjoin them – the ideas whose union was the new 'birth of time.' It is this life in 'the cell' – this game, these masques, this tempest, that the magician will command there – which show us, when all is done, what new stuff of Nature's own this was, in which the new idea of combining 'the part operative' and the part speculative of human life – this new thought of making 'the art and practic part of life the mistress to its theoric' was understood in this scholar's own time (as we learn from the secret traditions of the school) to have had its first germination: this idea which is the idea of the modern learning – the idea of connecting knowledge generally and in a systematic manner with the human conduct – knowledge as distinguished from pre-supposition – the idea which came out afterwards so systematically СКАЧАТЬ