Mr. White's restoration of the words "our place and power,” in brackets, may find additional warrant, as well as in the following line (which he notices), from the next scene but one : "My absolute power and place here in Vienna;" except that he has transposed the order of the words, while, doubtless, the author himself used them in the same order, in all three instances; and there can be scarcely any doubt that the line originally stood thus: "Hold, therefore, Angelo, our power and place." In like manner, he proceeds to discuss the Evil Arts as well as the Good Arts, and enumerates "the depraved and pernicious doctrines" and principles of Machiavelli, of which one was, "That virtue itself a man should not trouble himself to obtain, but only the appearance thereof to the world, because the credit and reputation of virtue is a help, but the use of it is an impediment." He vigorously combats "such kind of corrupt wisdom" and "such dispensations from all the laws of charity and virtue," and lays it down, that "men ought to be so far removed from devoting themselves to wicked arts of this nature, that rather (if they are only in their own power, and can bear and sustain themselves without being carried away by a whirlwind or tempest of ambition) they ought to set before their eyes not only that general map of the world, "that all things are vanity and vexation of spirit," but also that more particular chart, namely, "that being without well-being is a curse, and the greater being the greater curse," and that "all virtue is most rewarded, and all wickedness most punished in itself;" as the poet excellently says: "Quæ vobis, quæ digna, viri, pro laudibus istis Præmia posse rear solvi? pulcherrima primum And so, on the other hand, it is no less truly said of the wicked, "His own manners will be his punishment.” 1 White's Shakes., III., p. 14; Note, p. 112. 2 Trans. of the De Aug., Works (Boston), IX. 295. An attentive study of these passages can scarcely fail to penetrate the subtle identity of thought and doctrine that pervades them both, and it will be observed that the close of the Duke's speech runs upon the same idea of justice and mercy, which has been already quoted from the "Antitheses," the word mortality being used for the verse, instead of justice; that is, the power of life and death in civil justice. "And thus," he tells us, in the conclusion of this Book, "have I intended to employ myself in tuning the harp of the muses and reducing it to perfect harmony, that hereafter the strings may be touched by a better hand or a better quill." He then felicitates himself upon the condition of learning in his time, alludes to the excellence and perfection of his Majesty's learning, which called "whole flocks of wits" around him, "as birds around a phoenix," and, lastly, points out the inseparable property of time, ever more and more to disclose Truth:" "for truth is truth To the end of reckoning." — Act V. Sc. 1. If there be any one thing for which these plays as a whole are preeminently remarkable, it is a profound recognition everywhere of an immanent world-streaming Divine Providence. In this fine play, in particular, it may be seen in the Duke being made a partaker of God's theatre and of "power divine," and in the "gentle Isabella," the nun, of whom Lucio is made to say: And there is perhaps nothing loftier, or more impressive, in any teaching, sacred or profane, than her final appeal to Lord Angelo : And He that might the vantage best have took, And mercy then will breathe within your lips, And not less pious, noble, and true, whether as applied to the De Augmentis alone, or to these dramas also, both inclusive, as twin products of the labors of a life, written chiefly in the earlier part of it, but enlarged, amended, elaborated, and finished in his later years, and finally given to the world together in the same year 1623, not openly as twins, but as utter strangers to each other, the one heralded to mankind under favor of a princely dedication and highsounding titles, the other carefully hidden, though secretly open, under a mask of Momus, and set to parade the universal theatre on its own merits in the name of a "noted weed," is the conclusion of this Advancement of Learning, an almost equally superb monument of his piety, his learning, his genius, and his intellect, in these words: "And certainly it may be objected to me with truth, that my words require an age; a whole age perhaps to prove them, and many ages to perfect them. But yet as even the greatest things are owing to their beginnings, it will be enough for me to have sown a seed for posterity and the Immortal God; whose Majesty I humbly implore through his Son our Saviour that He will vouchsafe favorably to accept these and the like offerings of the human intellect, seasoned with religion as with salt, and sacrificed to His Glory." Finally, this order of degree, justice, and authentic place of things, from the glorious planet Sol, enthroned like the commandment of a king, down through states, communities, and brotherhoods in cities, sounds very much like this passage from a Speech of Lord Bacon: "We see the degrees and differences of duties in families, between father and son, master and servant; in corporate bodies, between commonalties and their officers, recorders, stewards, and the like; yet all these give place to the king's commandments." The planets, too, were a favorite source of metaphor with him, as thus in the "Pericles": "The senate-house of planets all did sit, : To knit in her their best perfections.". : "You And thus it appears in another speech of Bacon that are the judges of circuits are, as it were, the planets of the kingdom," and again, "it will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and strongly united together than they have been; a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action." And here, again, we may remember "the magnificent palace, city, and hill" of the wise and good man of the New Atlantis, who wore "an aspect as if he pitied men," and "the several degrees of ascent whereby men did climb up the same, as if it had been a Scala Coeli." This is "the ladder to all high designs". Heaven's Ladder! And doubtless for this reason, the intended Fourth Part of the Great Instauration was to be called "Scala Intellectus: The Scaling Ladder of the Intellect, or Thread of the Labyrinth." Holinshed speaks of "the palpable blindness of that age wherein King John lived, as also the religion which they reposed in a rotten. ray, esteeming it as a Scala Cœli, or ladder to life."1 Possibly, this passage may have been seen by William Shakespeare; but here, also, we have distinct and indubitable proof of the fact, that it had become imprinted in the memory of Francis Bacon. 1 Chron. of Eng., II. 388. CHAPTER VIII. CONCLUSION. "I have, though in a despised weed, procured the good of all men. § 1. REFORMATION OF ABUSES. - BACON. How such a man could fall into the actual guilt of bribery to pervert justice, would be difficult to conceive, if that were really true in the full sense in which we understand the judicial offence of bribery and corruption; for this would necessarily imply, not only a direct contradiction to the tenor and spirit of all his writings, but such absolute want of moral principle and such Machiavellian baseness and utter worthlessness of character as would be wholly irreconcilable, as he himself said, when speaking of the Machiavellian Bad Arts, with any just notion of virtue, nobleness, or honor. A candid view of all the facts and circumstances, of which it is not improbable that we now know more, and can judge better, than the partial historians and personal enemies who have written against him, will certainly not justify this sweeping conclusion. We must take into view the state and condition of things in that and the actual nature of the case; age the character of the government as practically an absolute despotism, in which the most capricious favoritism was supreme arbiter of individual fortunes about the court; money a necessary, or the best, passport to place and power; abject subserviency a common condition of favor with the monarch and his greater favorites; and the most vile and corrupt practices a general thing among the principal courtiers, and |