Book VII., "Advancement of Learning").

"It is the speech of a lover, not of a wise man, Satis magnum
alter alteri Theatrum sumus" (p. 23, Book I., "Advancement of
Learning ").

" God hath of late raised an occasion, and erected as it were a
stage or theatre " (Charge against Mr S. W. and H. I. for Scandal,
&c.. Part I., p. 59, " Resuscitatio," 1671).

"For if a man can be partaker of God's Theatre, he shall
likewise be partaker of God's rest" (Essay xi., "Of Great
Place").

In the Essay upon " Friendship " (1607-12, Harleian MS. 5, 106 ;
also 1612 edition, but omitted in edition of 1625) we read: — "There
be some whose lines are, as if they perpetually played upon a stage,
disguised to all others, open only to themselves ; but perpetual dis-
simulation is painful, and he that is all fortune and no nature is an
exquisite hii'eling." This is a possible hint for " lines " in the sense
of verses (as a play of Avords), and perhaps refers to the plays. It
is striking this passage is omitted from the edition of 1625, as if
too dangerous. This quotation finds a parallel in this other
hint, " Certainly, there he whose Fortunes are like Horner's Verses,
that have a slide ami easiness more than the verses of other poets"
(Essay on "Fortune," 1625).

" But to enumerate these things were endless : I have given the
riile where a man cannot fitly play his own part : if he have not a
friend, he may quit the stage" ("Friendship").

Antonio. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,
A stage where every 'man must play a 2Kcrt.

("Merchant of Venice," act i. sc. 1.)

.The motto to the Globe Theatre Avas " Totm Mundiis agit his-

THE WORLD AS THEATRE. 93

trionem." It is well worthy note that Bacon's " Dc Augmcntis "
is called by him "The Intellectual Globe."

There are two ways of understanding these comparisons of the
world to a stage, and man's life with that of an actor's. The one is
as a poetical and fanciful simile, the other is as aphilosophiad truth.
I venture to maintain the belief the idea is applied by Bacon to
the Inlays in a far deeper sense than perhaps has been yet con-
ceived. And one of the reasons for our so doing, is the profound
reflection of the Platonic Philosophy in the Sonnets, and in such
plays as the "Midsummer's Night's Dream." This has been
universally acknowledged by all students of this art. Now
Plato's philosophy is essentially one that contemplates everything
as illusive and false, which does not pertain to the realities of mind.
Phenomena Avith him are idols, inmges, counterfeits, shadows, imita-
tions— and he uses these actual words to express the relationship
of form to matter. One of these words is mimesis, or mimetic,
which is the players' art. In fact with Plato, all we see in this
great world are but shows, it is a stage, on which we act before
the ages. If the difference obtaining between what we call reality
and unreality consists in endurance, then it is certain there is no
more reality in life outside mind, memory, and works than in
the actor's art, which has no reality outside the theatre or stage
he plays on. Everything which is not real, but related to something
else, carries the character of illusion and imitation about it. A
man looking back to his past life, with the exception of what he
holds in his hand of it, either of wealth, works, or writings, must
feel there is a curious element of the theatre about it. We have
acted, looked on at others, gone through infinite scenes, all of
which at the time gave the impression of reality even as the
present moment ; yet, except in memory, nothing substantial
remains, and the eternal now is but a series of scenes in which
we are both actors and spectators at the same time. The invis-
ible mind outlives the visible body. The characters of the plays
of Francis Bacon have more reality about them, than even the
lives of their originals, such as Julius Csesar, Anthony, or Brutus.

94 THE WORLD AS THEATRE.

It is evident from the fifteenth Sonnet the author of the plays
took this vieAV seriously and profoundly : —

When I consider everything that grows
Holds in 2)crfection hut a little ''moment,
That this huge stage prcsentcth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.

("Sonnet XV.")

This comparison of the world to "shows" or "plays" is re-
peated exactly by Bacon : " And therefore Velleius the Epicurean,
needed not to have asked, why God should have adorned the
Heavens with stars, as if he had been an ^dilis : one that should
have set forth some magnificent shows w^/(i?/s" ("Advancement of
Learning," Book II., p. 162, Wright).

The identification of Nature with the character of "God's Theatre"

is very striking in this passage, and I think it most essential to

point out. Bacon identifies Nature with Art, as we refind in the

" Winter's Tale." I allude to this because I feel convinced beyond

doubt in my own mind, Bacon looked upon the whole world as a

oiatural theatre, and therefore it is just as likely when he uses

the words " Nature " or " Interpretation of Nature " he is alluding

to the 1623 Folio as to real nature. He almost always wi-ites of

public life as a stage : — "First, if your Majesty do at any time

think it fit for your affairs to employ me again publicly upon

the stage," &c. ("Memorial of Access to King James," Nov. 13,

1622).

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets liis hour upon the stage
And tlien is heard no more : it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

(" Macbeth," act v. sc. 5.)

" Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that
goeth behind the curtain, and adviseth well of the motion" (Book I.,
p. 67, " Advancement of Learning," Wight).

This is the remark of a man who had thoroughly sifted
and seen through the clothes philosophy, and penetrated to the

THE WORLD AS THEATRE.

95

secret motives of the human breast. It is the ironical summing
up of one who had anatomized Society, and who found it pulled
by the mechanical wires of custom and selfishness. The whole
of the plays, particularly those pieces which we learn by heart,
are pregnant Avith just this extraordinary side-piercing sight,
which lays Imre the nakedness of the mind, and the vast difference
between reality and appearance. The importance of this subject
cannot lie over-estimated when we reflect hoAV largely Ethics
revolve upon the correspondence of ajDpearance to reality — that
is, of the outward man to the inward man ! Bacon gives us a touch
of his mind when he writes upon the Will and the Understanding
(in the Fifth Book " De Augmentis ") : — " That this Janus
is bifronted, and turns faces. For the face towards reason hath
the print of truth, but the face towards action hath the print of
goodness, Avhich nevertheless are faces " (ch. i.. Book V.).

In this case he seems to be alluding to his oiun Art. For he
places Inmgination (identified everywhere with poetry) as the
common attorney or nuncius between the Will (Action or external)
and the Understanding (Logic or rationalism of the plays).
They have faces, but only in appearance. He writes : — " Truth
and goodness diff'er but as the seal and the stamp."

" Your life is nothing but a continual acting on the stage "
(" Mask for Essex ")._

Tlie wide and universal theatre

Presents more woeful pageants than the scene

Wherein we play.

("As you like it," act ii. sc. 6.)

This is evidence that the wiiter of the pla//s regarded the Avorld
as a theatre.

" God sends men into this wretched thecttre, where being arrived,
their first language is that of mourning " (Bacon).

When we are born we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.

(" Lear," act iv. sc. 6.)

" In the meantime I think myself, howsoever it hath pleased
God otherwise to bless me, a most unfortunate man, to be de-

96 MUSIC OF THE SPHERES.

prived of two, a great number in true friendship, of those
friends, Avhom I accounted as no stage friends, hit private friends,
&c." (" Letter to Toby Iklatthew," ex.).

Music of the Spheres.

" Si Platonis et Cardani opinionibus fidem aliquam adhibeamus,
optima harmonia ex sphserarum conglomeratione generatiu', quae
auribus nostris propter distantise magnitudinem percipi non
potest" (ch. vi. "De Naturae Arcanis Tractatus ApoL," 1617,
R. Fludd). " If we place any belief in the opinions of Plato
and Cardan, a divine harmony is generated from the intercourse
of the spheres, which we cannot hear on account of the gi^eatness
of the distance." How exactly this idea is repeated in the
" Merchant of Venice."

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still qniring to the young eyed cherubims :
Such harmony is in immortal souls ;
But ■whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth gi'ossly clothe it in, 7ve cannot hear it.

(Act V. sc. 1.)

" The names of sounds in all probability were derived from
the seven stars, which move circularly in the heavens, and
compass the earth " (" Nicom, Harm.," c. 3). " The circum-
agitation of these bodies must of necessity cause a sound"
(Macrobius in " Somn. Scip.," ii. p. 82). "Pythagoras first
of all the Greeks conceived in his mind, and understood that
the spheres sounded something concordant, because of the
necessity of proportion, which never forsakes coelestial beings"
(Macrobius). "Those sounds which the seven Planets and
the sphere of fixed stars, and that which is above us, termed
by them Antichthon make, Pythagoras affirmed to be the nine
Muses : but the composition and symphony, and, as it were,
connexion of them all, Avhereof as being eternal and unbegotten,
each is a part and portion, he named Mnemosyne " (" Porphyry,"
p. 21). " Pythagoras, by musical proportion, calleth that a tone

MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. 97

by how much the moon is distant from the earth, &c." (vide,
" Pliny," 1. ii. c. 22).

Continuing the passage from Fhidd : " Cum tamen ab effectu,
in his inferioribus non modo hujus musicse consonantiae sym-
phoniacae cognoscantm', sed etiam dissonantiae ; nam illae amorem,
symphoniam, et appetentiam amabilem in rebus excitant, hse
odium, discordiam, et exitialem contemptum." This is the
doctrine of Pythagoras, le., " The Pythagoreans define music as
an apt composition of contraries, and an union of many, and con-
sent of difterents. Its end is to unite, and aptly conjoin. God
is the reconciler of things discordant, and this is his chief work
accoi'ding to music and medicine to reconcile enmities. In
music consists the agreement of all things, and aristocracy of the
universe ; jor what is harmony in the world, in the city is good govern-
ment, in a family temperance" (" Theon. Smyr. Matth.," c. i.).

This is endlessly repeated in the plays : —

Music do I hear ?
Ha ! Ha ! keep time : how sour sweet music is,
When time is broke and no proportion kept !
So is it in the mtisic of mens lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To check time broke in a disorder'd string ;
But for tlie concord of my state and time
Had not an car to hear my true time broke.

(" Richard II.," act v. sc. 5.)

Bacon evidently believed in the music of the Spheres. In his
Parable of the Universe, according to the fable of Pan, he writes :
" The two engines which Pan bears in his hands, do point the
one at Harmony, the other at Empire; for the pipe of seven
reeds doth evidently demonstrate the consent and harmony ; or
discordant concord of Nature, which is caused by the motion of the
seven loandering stars"* ("De Augmentis," chap. xiii. Book JL).

* " Examinemus diligenter fabulas poetarum et ingentia arcana sub iis
inveniemus. Cur Pan (per queni universa natura significatur) e.r. septcm
syringihus seit, calamis fistulam com2)osuit, per quam harmoniam dulcem
edidit, nisi quia spiritus iatelleetualis, qui movet ccelos, facit mtcs-icavi corrc-
spoiidentcm in his inferioribus, Nam per compositione ex septem fistulis

G

98 MUSIC OF THE SPHERES.

Compare " Midsummer Night's Dream," —

How shall we find the concord of this discord?

(Act V. sc. 1).

Compare First Part " King Henry IV." (act i. sc. 2) —
For we that take purses, go by the moon and seven stars.

This music of the Spheres, which is to be refound in Cicero's
"Vision of Scipio," is an especial subject of the Rosicrucians. So much
is this the case, that Spedding, in a footnote to the above passage
cited from Bacon, adds : — " For dreams about the music of the
Spheres, see Robert Fludd's work Utriusque Cosmi majoris scilicet
et minoris, tmtaphysica, j,)/M/sicft et technica Historia, 1617. The
third book of the first tract is wholly De Musicd mundana, and is
ilhistrated by an engraving of a bass viol, of which the dimensions
extend through the solar system."

"In 'Antony and Cleopatra,' Cleopatra, bewailing Antony's
death, compares his voice to the ' tuned spheres ' (act v. sc. 2) ;
and in ' Twelfth Night ' Olivia pays the same compliment to the
page in disguise, with whom she is in love. Pericles, prince of
Tyre, in his ecstasy at finding his daughter Marina, suddenly
hears sounds of music unheard by the others, which he calls the
music of the spheres " (Paul Stapfer, " Shakespeare and Classical
Antiquity," p. 92).

significatur congrcgatio sej^tem erbium phinetartim et mirahiU ipsoriim har-
monia in ccelo et in tcrris, hoc est, ubicunque natura ilia universalis se
extendit " (Tractatus Apol. , Pars iii. , De Occultis et admirandis Musices arcana
efifectibus, p. 178, 1617. Robert Fludd).