Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal I serv'd my King, he would not in mine age It is barely possible, here, that Bacon may have remembered Shakespeare's play, though it had never been printed, or that William Shakespeare, as well as Bacon, may have followed the same historical account of Cardinal Wolsey, in Holinshed, Hall, or Stowe; but in the brevity and peculiar turn of the expression, and in the use of the verb to have and the word but, the manner of Bacon may be distinctly recognized in the play. Again, Bacon uses the expression "if he had pleased God as he pleased the King he had not been ruined." The word ruined is not in Holinshed, but it appears in the preceding line of the play : "Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me." It is evident that Holinshed had been consulted, and that his account had, in general, been followed in the play; but it is also clear, that some other author, probably Cavendish, from whom all the later historians drew their materials, had also been consulted. Cavendish's "Life and Death of Thomas Woolsey," written prior to 1557, remained in MSS. until 1641;1 but copies of it had been deposited in various libraries at Oxford, Cambridge, and London. Hall and Holinshed drew from the MSS., and John Stowe had borrowed a copy. The story of Anne Bullen must have been derived from Cavendish, or from some other copier than Holinshed; but the play varies considerably from Cavendish, in the scenes concerning Anne Bullen; as for instance, in the scene of the maskers, Wolsey makes a mistake and selects Sir Edward Neville for the king, while in the play, he makes a good hit, and finds the king. It is certain that Bacon's studies for his Histories began at an early date, and must have made him familiar with these historians; and it is highly probable, if not quite certain, that he 1 Harleian Misc., V. 123. would have an opportunity to consult one of the MSS. copies of Cavendish. Holinshed's statement of this saying of the dying Cardinal, drawn from Cavendish, is as follows: "Sir, (quoth he,) I tarrie but the pleasure of God to render up my poore soule into his hands. I see the matter, how it is framed: but if I had served God as diligentlie as I have doone the King, he would not have given me over in my greie haires: but it is the just reward that I must receive for the diligent pains and studie that I have had to do him service, not regarding my service to God, but onlie to satisfie his pleasure." 1 The word pleased is not used, nor is anything said, in the play, about the king's "pleasure:" while in the letter of Bacon, pleased is the leading word. This shows that Bacon wrote rather from his remembrance of Holinshed than of the play. At the same time, the word served is also used by Bacon as in Holinshed, and it is made the leading word in the play, as more suitable than pleased for the few lines of verse which were required. And this tends strongly to the conclusion, that the saying passed into the play through the mind of Bacon. Furthermore, this word please is much in use, in the same manner, both in Bacon and the plays; as for instance, in the Julius Cæsar, thus: "Cass. I know not what you mean by that; but I am sure, Cæsar fell down. If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them, as they used to do the Players in the theatre, I am no true man."-Act I. Sc. 2. And in the "Christian Paradoxes" of Bacon, we have this: : "He knoweth if he please man, he cannot be the servant of Christ; yet, for Christ's sake, he pleaseth all men in all things." In like manner, the story of King Henry the Sixth's prophecy, about young Henry Earl of Richmond, passes from Holinshed into the play of Henry VI., pretty certainly through the head of Bacon; for, in the Essay of Prophecies, he says, " Henry the Sixth of England said of Henry the Seventh, when he was a lad, and gave him water, This is the lad that shall enjoy the crown for which we strive." 1 Chron. of Eng. (Lond. 1808), III. 755. And it is thus related in the play : "K. Hen. My Lord of Somerset, what youth is that, Som. My liege, it is young Henry, Earl of Richmond. Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts, 3 Hen. VI., Act IV. Sc. 6. § 3. JULIUS CÆSAR. As we have seen, there is satisfactory evidence, that Bacon had made a special study of the life and times of Julius Cæsar. The play of this name was not printed until it appeared in the Folio, but it seems to have been written about the year 1607, just when Bacon was engaged upon his Characters of Julius and Augustus Cæsar (written in Latin), in which allusion is made to Cæsar's ambition for a crown, in these words of the translation: — "For aiming at a real power, he was content to pass by all vain pomp and outward shows of power throughout his whole life; till at the last, whether high-flown with the continual exercise of power, or corrupted with flatteries, he affected the ensigns of power (the style and diadem of a king), which was the bait which wrought his overthrow." The Advancement contains a critical account of the merits of Julius Cæsar as a writer, and also this passage, which may be compared with the following lines of the play : "Cæsar did extremely affect the name of king; and some were set on, as he passed by, in popular acclamation to salute him king; whereupon finding the cry weak and poor, he put it off thus, in a kind of jest, as if they had mistaken his surname: Non rex sum, sed Cæsar." The play reads thus: "Casca. Why, there was a crown offered him: and, being offered him, he put it by with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell a' shouting. Bru. What was the second noise for? Casc. Why, for that too. Cas. They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for? Bru. Was the crown offered him thrice? Casc. Ay, marry, was 't, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than the other; and at every putting by mine honest neighbors shouted. Cas. Who offered him the crown? Casc. Why, Antony. Bru. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca. Casc. I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it: it was mere foolery, I did not mark it. I saw Mark Anthony offer him a crown: - yet 't was not a crown neither, 't was one of these coronets; and, as I told you, he put it by once; but for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again; but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by: and still as he refused it, the rabblement shouted, and clapped their chapped hands, and threw up their sweaty night-caps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath, because Cæsar refused the crown, that it had almost choked Cæsar; for he swooned, and fell down at it. Bru. What said he when he came unto himself? Casc. Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common herd was glad he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet, and offered them his throat to cut...... When he came to himself again, he said, if he had done, or said, anything amiss, he desired their worships to think it was his infirmity.. In several hands, in at his windows throw, As if they came from several citizens, Writings, all tending to the great opinion That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely Cæsar's ambition shall be glanced at." — Act I. Sc. 2. Here, it is not possible that Bacon could have followed Shakespeare, the Advancement being older than the play; but, on the other hand, it is possible, so far as the date is concerned, that Shakespeare may have seen the Advancement as well as Plutarch's Antony (in North's translation 1), from which some part of the story seems to have been taken. But the play follows the ideas of Bacon rather 1 Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans, translated out of French into English by Thomas North, Knight (dedicated to Q. Eliz. 16 Jan. 1579) London ed. 1631, p. 917. than those of Plutarch, and adopts the very peculiarities of Bacon's expressions, wherein they differ from North's Plutarch; as, for instance, in these: "he put it by with the back of his hand, thus," in the play, and "he put it off thus," in Bacon; “what was that last cry for?” and “finding the cry weak and poor"; "it was mere foolery” and “ in a kind of jest"; "he was very loath to lay his fingers off it," and "he put it off thus"; while these particular expressions are not used in North's Plutarch. Again, North's Plutarch speaks of "a laurell crowne" having "a royal band or diademe wreathed about it, which in old time was the ancient marke and token of a king”; in the play, it is called "a crown," or 66 one of these coronets," but never a diadem; while in Bacon, it is "the style and diadem of a king": whence it would seem clear that Bacon followed Plutarch rather than the play. 66 Again, the phrase "tell us the manner of it" finds a repetition in this from Bacon," the bed we call a hot bed, and the manner of it is this." Casca can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it"; and then, they "uttered such a deal of stinking breath," also not in Plutarch; which sounds very much like Bacon's saying of the crowd and throng that attended the procession when he took his seat in Chancery, that "there was much ado and a great deal of world, . ... hell to me, or purgatory, at least.” Indeed, the whole style and manner of the scene, and the thought, expression, language, and manner of the whole play, are so decidedly Baconian, that it is scarcely possible to doubt, either that the story of Plutarch passed through his pen into this scene, or that the play was written by him; a conclusion that is especially confirmed by the purely classical character of the piece, and by the consideration that William Shakespeare could have had but little pretensions to learning and skill in that kind. But if there be a lingering doubt in any mind, it must certainly be removed by a comparison of these further passages from the |