Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/269

 these were cast in the same mould, that he would have been meagrely provided with female types, leaving us unable to account for the great range of character which fills the scene, from awkward Audrey to queenly Hermione, from Mistress Overdone to Imogen, from the Pander's wife to Marina, from Phebe to Perdita.

Moreover, search Bacon's writings upon this matter of knowledge of woman to find, if you can, hints and passages which are parallel with the plays in temper or language. Look for traces of that fervor which devotes the plays to the great central passion, and consecrates them with so many moods and styles of womanhood. Ransack his letters in vain for any deep consciousness of sex like that which makes every play personal and vital with something that cannot be put aside. Read his Essay on Love, and contrast its dry, pragmatic tone with the pages which palpitate with Juliet, or those over which Viola tenderly broods and Helena frankly shines. Can we imagine that essay to have been a treasured favorite of Desdemona, or to have beguiled Ophelia during the absence of her prince, or to have served Cleopatra except to hang on Antony's hook for a sinker, as for jest she hung the salted cod? Isabella might have safely furnished a copy of it to every nun in her convent; but Imogen, for all her "pudency so rosy," would not have taken it to bed with her, to read three hours and fold down the leaf where she left off. The warmest expression which Bacon was ever overheard to make is preserved in a speech in praise of love, written probably for a masque. The speaker says: "In the