Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/98

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. xii. AUG. i, uos.

SHAKESPEARE'S GEOGRAPHY.

(9 th S. xi. 208, 333, 416, 469.) BOTH Bacon and Shakespeare (making the allusion, no doubt, in a general way, and without a specific reference) were jus- tified in saying that Aristotle thought that moral philosophy was not a study to which young men should be formally intro- duced. His theory was that they should be made thoroughly practical before becoming theoretical citizens, and he frequently includes ethics under the wider term " politics " or " political science." Thus, so far as Aristotle is concerned, there is nothing surprising in the references made to his opinion, whether in * Troilus and Cressida ' or the ' Advance- ment of Learning.' The coincidence, of course, is interesting, but that is all. A very different question arises when we are asked to believe that Bacon is the author of both passages. The statement in the 'Advance- ment of Learning' is defensible, and quite worthy of the scholar and philosopher ; but it is incredible that the logical thinker should have used such a reckless and brilliant prolepsis as that which enables Hector to refer to Aristotle. It is no explanation of such a literary freak to say that Bacon frequently lapsed in making historical allusions, for the one aberration differs from the other not merely in degree, but in kind. Bacon, like other scholars in all ages, made mistakes through neglecting to verify his references, but it has to be proved that his imagination was daring enough to make him deliberately pitchfork mythology into the sphere of history. It was only the sovereign ease and indifference of Shakespeare that could compass such liberties with perfectly plausible and effective results. He, too, was no doubt quite well aware that a fami- liarity with Greek philosophy was never within the possibilities of the plume- waving Hector ; but he was not on that account to be debarred from making the convenient assumption. The quick originality and the boldness of the proceeding point to the dramatist with his wide general knowledge rather than to the philosopher making a whimsical use of his exact scholarship. MR. STRONACH, by the way, seems to have over- looked the fact that the passage he quotes from ' Troilus and Cressida ' is that to which I referred. THOMAS BAYNE.

MR. STRONACH, in his reply at the last refer- ence, remarks that it is curious that a Latin quotation which occurs in Shakespeare's

'2 Henry VI.' also appears in Bacon's 'Promus,' from which, I suppose, he infers bhat Bacon must have written the play. Is it not a still more singular fact that a sentence in MR. STRONACH'S letter, which occupies seven lines, and on the face of it is not a quotation, appears almost verbatim in a foot- note to one of the apophthegms in "The Moral and Historical Works of Lord Bacon. With Introductory Dissertation and Notes by John Devey, M.A.," published by Bell & Daldy, 1868? This foot-note, referring to the apophthegm, " Chilon said that kings' friends and favourites were like casting counters ; that sometimes stood for one, sometimes for ten, sometimes for an hun- dred," states that this was not the saying of Chilon, but of Orontes, and concludes with the remark, " It is difficult to know whether to assign to this exclamation of Orontes, or to the famous allusion in the ' Winter Tale,' the origin of the modest expression of Lord Brougham, that the Whigs were all ciphers, and he was the only unit in the cabinet which gave the ciphers their value." A.S MR. STRONACH expresses himself in the same words, are we, therefore, to conclude that he also wrote the note in Devey's edition of Bacon's works ? C. M. PHILLIPS.

MR. STRONACH ignores my reference to ' The Tempest,' which shows that Shakspeare thought Milan to be on the sea. I said that there was only one Latin quotation in 'Love's Labour's Lost,' and I referred to "Fauste, precor, gelid a," &c. A note to that play says that it is the first line of the first eclogue of Mantuanus, and that " the eclogues of Man- tuanus were translated before the time of Shakspeare, and the Latin was printed on the opposite side of the page for the use of schools." Supposing that I am wrong, and that some of the simple Latin sentences spoken by Holofernes may be found in classical Latin, this would not prove Shak- speare's scholarship. He may have picked from a book a few words and sentences which anybody with the slightest knowledge of Latin could understand ; but this would not prove that he had read, or was capable of reading, it. He has quoted in 'Timon of Athens' "ira furor brevis est " from Horace ; but that does not prove that he had read Horace quite the contrary. When we find him quoting something very simple or very trite, and not quoting what shows real knowledge of the author, we come to tfce conclusion that he picked up the words which he repeats otherwise than by reading the works in which they are found. "Tantsene ajrimis ccelestibus irse " is another hackneyed