Chapter Seven

BACON'S POETIC GIFTS

T is extremely difficult, perhaps in the very nature of things impossible, to determine with certainty any man's possession of high poetic powers of mind from

the character of his prose writings alone. No one of us, indeed, can deny the existence of a wide chasm between Bacon's prose and Shake-speare's poetry. The two sets of works seem at first sight to differ, not in degree only, but also in kind. They are as unlike as the caterpillar and the butterfly, now walking the earth and then mounting on wings into the air. In like manner the true poetic spirit implies a state of being very different from that in which the mind is ordinarily exercised. The poet is a man "beside himself" -almost a second personality.

Here, then, are two spheres in which every human soul may have a dual being. The seers of our race are those who inhabit both; that is, who look upon life with two angles of vision-Reason and Imagination. Of men eminent at once in both of them, Milton, Goethe, and Poe are conspicuous examples. Milton's 'Areopagitica' is a "cloth of gold," worthy of the author of 'Paradise Lost,' or better still (according to some critics) of 'Paradise Regained.' Goethe's mind worked in poetry and prose with equal power. He could soar into the highest regions of creative thought at one moment, and with trained scientific eyes detect a vertebra in a sheep's skull at another. Poe's lyric genius was the greatest America has given to the world of literature, but it did

not prevent him from giving to it also, in feats of analytical legerdemain, most extraordinary and enduring effects in prose.

The question now arises, was Bacon one of these rare spirits? To determine it as well as we can, let us select a passage from Milton's prose and compare it with one from his poetry, the best in either instance that the genius of the author affords, and then do the same with Bacon. Our readers may thus judge for themselves whether there be any greater difference in mental quality between the two forms of composition in the one case than in the other.1

MILTON:

"Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them, to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and, being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And

1 One commentator sets the "dry light of intellect" in Bacon over against the "warm sunshine" of Shake-speare; another declares that the differences between the two minds are radical, the powers of one being analytical and those of the other synthetical.

These two criticisms fairly illustrate the prevailing ignorance of Bacon's intellectual character. As to the first that Bacon's intellect was not affected by his heart-nothing could possibly be at wider variance with the truth. Even Dr. Edwin A. Abbott, a severe critic, says in his Life of Bacon, that the "leading peculiarity of his style is its sympathetic nature." Mr. Whipple also testifies to the same effect as follows:

"Perhaps the finest sentence in his writings, certainly the one which best indicates the essential feeling of his soul, as he regarded human misery and ignorance, occurs in his description of one of the fathers of Solomon's House. 'His countenance,' he says, 'was as the countenance of one who pities men.'" - Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, p. 334.

Robert L. Ellis, one of the editors of Bacon's Works, associated with Mr. Spedding, tells us after a prolonged and dispassionate study of Bacon's writings, that a "deep sense of the misery of mankind is visible throughout all that he wrote.... He has often been called a utilitarian, not because he loved truth less than others, but because he loved men more." 99

For the absurdity of the other criticism, mentioned above, see our Bacon vs. Shakspere.

yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious lifeblood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life."- Areopagitica.

BACON :

"Thus far these, beyond

Compare of mortal prowess, yet observed
Their dread commander; he, above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tower; his form had yet not lost
All her original brightness, nor appear'd
Less than archangel ruin'd, and the excess
Of glory obscur'd; as when the sun, new-ris'n,
Looks through the horizontal misty air,
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs. Darken'd so, yet shone
Above them all the Arch-angel; but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care
Sat on his faded cheek; but under brows
Of dauntless courage and considerate pride,
Waiting revenge."

Paradise Lost, i. 587-604.

"Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God's favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground. Judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like

precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue."-Essay of Adversity.

"To be or not to be: that is the question;
Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; 't is a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause; there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others we know not of?
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."

Hamlet.

Here is a nice literary problem. In Milton, we have an eloquent eulogy of good books, and, following this, the grandest, most terrible figure the eye of imagination ever beheld. Boldness, originality, sublimity characterize both.

The image of God shining upon us through the clear light of knowledge, and that of the ruined archangel like the sun seen through a mist, are metaphors so striking and at the same time so similar, that under any circumstances, it would seem, we might have suspected their common origin.

Turning to the couplet from Bacon, what do we find? An intellect of a wholly different type, at once incisive and profound, grasping principles as firmly as Jupiter grasped thunderbolts, and wielding them with a brilliancy that is almost dazzling. The two passages, from the Essay and from 'Hamlet,' illustrate almost precisely the same mental qualities. They are both philosophical. They deal analytically, one with the joys and sorrows of this world, and the other with doubts and misgivings on the perilous edge of the next. There is no spiritual rift, and consequently no "warm sunshine" pouring down through the clouds, in either.

Now let us apply the same process to another phase of genius in these two authors. It is often said that Bacon could not have written the Shakespearean dramas because, in paraphrasing the Psalms of David, he converted them into doggerel. But Milton also paraphrased the Psalms of David into English verse, and in doggerel as bad as Bacon's. Let us compare them also:

MILTON :

"God is a just judge and severe,

And God is every day offended;

If the unjust will not forbear,

His sword he whets, His bow hath bended

Already, and for him intended

The tools of death, that waits him near.

"(His arrows purposely made he

For them that persecute). Behold
He travails big with vanity;

Trouble he hath conceived of old,
As in a womb; and from that mould
Hath at length brought forth a lie."