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

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СКАЧАТЬ that which old philosophies have 'not dreamt of,' – the lore of laws not written yet in books of man's devising, the lore of that of which man's ordinary life consisteth is here, uncollected, waiting to be spelt out.

       King. How well he's read to reason against reading.

      is the inference here.

       Dumain. Proceeded well to stop all good proceeding.

      It is progress that is proposed here also. After the survey of learning 'has been well taken, then to make progession' is the word. It is not the doctrine of unlearning that is taught here in this satire. It is a learning that includes all the extant wisdom, and finds it insufficient. It is one that requires a new and nobler study for its god-like ends. But, at the same time, the hindrances that a practical learning has to encounter are pointed at from the first. The fact, that the true ends of learning take us at once into the ground of the forbidden questions, is as plainly stated in the opening speech of the New Academy as the nature of the statement will permit. The fact, that the intellect is trained to vain delights under such conditions, because there is no earnest legitimate occupation of it permitted, is a fact that is glanced at here, as it is in other places, though not in such a manner, of course, as to lead to a 'question' from the government in regard to the meaning of the passages in which these grievances are referred to. Under these embarrassments it is, we are given to understand, however, that the criticism on the old learning and the plot for the new is about to proceed.

      Here it takes the form of comedy and broad farce. There is a touch of 'tart Aristophanes' in the representation here. This is the introductory performance of the school in which the student hopes for high words howsoever low the matter, emphasizing that hope with an allusion to the heights of learning, as he finds it, and the highest word of it, which seems irreverent, until we find from the whole purport of the play how far he at least is from taking it in vain, whatever implication of that sort his criticism may be intended to leave on others, who use good words with so much iteration and to so little purpose. 'That is a high hope for a low having' is the rejoinder of that associate of his, whose views on this point agree with his own so entirely. It is the height of the hope and the lowness of the having– it is the height of the words and the lowness of the matter, that makes the incongruity here. That is the soul of all the mirth that is stirring here. It is the height of 'the style' that 'gives us cause to climb in the merriment' that makes the subject of this essay. It is literature in general that is laughed at here, and the branches of it in particular. It is the old books that are walking about under these trees, with their follies all ravelled out, making sport for us.

      But this is not all. It is the defect in learning which is represented here – that same 'defect' which a graver work of this Academy reports, in connection with a proposition for the Advancement of Learning – for its advancement into the fields not yet taken up, and which turn out, upon inquiry, to be the fields of human life and practice; – it is that main defect which is represented here. 'I find a kind of science of "words" but none of "things,"' says the reporter. 'What do you read, my lord?' 'Words, words, words,' echoes the Prince of Denmark. 'I find in these antique books, in these Philosophies and Poems, a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of matter chosen to give glory either to the subtilty of disputations, or to the eloquence of discourses,' says the other and graver reporter; 'but as to the ordinary and common matter of which life consisteth, I do not find it erected into an art or science, or reduced to written inquiry.' 'How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words,' says a speaker, who comes out of that same palace of learning on to this stage with the secret badge of the new lore on him, which is the lore of practice – a speaker not less grave, though he comes in now in the garb of this pantomime, to make sport for us with his news of learning. For 'Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light for the law of writ and the liberty.'

      It is the high words and the low having that make the incongruity. But we cannot see the vanity of those heights of words, till the lowness of the matter which they profess to abstract has been brought into contrast with them, till the particulars which they do not grasp, which they can not compel, have been brought into studious contrast with them. The delicate graces of those flowery summits of speech which the ideal nature, when it energises in speech, creates, must overhang in this design the rude actuality which the untrained nature in man, forgotten of art, is always producing. And it is the might of nature in this opposition, it is the force of 'matter,' it is the unconquerable cause contrasted with the vanity of the words that have not comprehended the cause, it is the futility of these heights of words that are not 'forms' that do not correspond to things which must be exhibited here also. It is the force of the law in nature, that must be brought into opposition here with the height of the word, the ideal word, the higher, but not yet scientifically abstracted word, that seeks in vain because it has no 'grappling-hook' on the actuality, to bind it. There already are the heights of learning as it is, as this school finds it, dramatically exhibited on the one hand; but this, too, —life as it is, – as this school finds it, man's life as it is, unreduced to order by his philosophy, unreduced to melody by his verse, must also be dramatically exhibited on the other hand, must also be impersonated. It is life that we have here, the 'theoric' on the one side, the 'practic' on the other. The height of the books on the one side, the lowness, the unvisited, 'unlettered' lowness of the life on the other. That which exhibits the defect in learning that the new learning is to remedy, the new uncultured, unbroken ground of science must be exhibited here also. But that is man's life. That is the world. And what if it be? There are diagrams in this theatre large enough for that. It is the theatre of the New Academy which deals also in IDEAS, but prefers the solidarities. The wardrobe and other properties of this theatre are specially adapted to exigencies of this kind. The art that put the extant learning with those few strokes into the grotesque forms you see there, will not be stopped on this side either, for any law of writ or want of space and artistic comprehension. This is the learning that can be bounded in the nut-shell of an aphorism and include all in its bounds.

      There are not many persons here, and they are ordinary looking persons enough. But if you lift those dominos a little, which that 'refined traveller of Spain' has brought in fashion, you will find that this rustic garb and these homely country features hide more than they promised; and the princess, with her train, who is keeping state in the tents yonder, though there is an historical portrait there too, is greater than she seems. This Antony Dull is a poor rude fellow; but he is a great man in this play. This is the play in which one asks 'Which is the princess?' and the answer is, 'The tallest and the thickest.' Antony is the thickest, he is the acknowledged sovereign here in this school; for he is of that greater part that carries it, and though he hath never fed of the dainties bred in a book, these spectacles which the new 'book men' are getting up here are intended chiefly for him. And that unlettered small knowing soul 'Me' – 'still me' – insignificant as you think him when you see him in the form of a country swain, is a person of most extensive domains and occupations, and of the very highest dignity, as this philosophy will demonstrate in various ways, under various symbols. You will have that same me in the form of a Mountain, before you have read all the books of this school, and mastered all its 'tokens' and 'symbols.'

      The dramatic representation here is meagre; but we shall find upon inquiry it is already the Globe Theatre, with all its new solidarities, new in philosophy, new in poetry, that the leaves of this park hide – this park that the doors and windows of the New Academe open into – these new grounds that it lets out its students to play and study in, and collect their specimens from – 'still and contemplative in living art.' It was all the world that was going through that park that day haply, we shall find. It is all the world that we get in this narrow representation here, as we get it in a more limited representation still, in another place. 'All the world knows me in my book and my book in me,' cries the Egotist of the Mountain. It is the first Canto of that great Epic, whose argument runs through so many books, that is chanted СКАЧАТЬ