The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

But if any one is anxious to know who the third person of this triga really was, or is, a glance at the Directory would enable such a one to arrive at a truer conclusion than the first reading of this letter would naturally suggest. For this is none other than the person whom the principle of this triga, and its enlightened sentiment and bond of union, already symbolically comprehended, whom it was intended to comprehend ultimately in all the multiplicity and variety of his historical manifestations, though it involved a deliberate plan for reducing and suppressing his many-headedness, and restoring him to the use of his one only mind. For though the name of this person is often spelt in three letters, and oftener in one, it takes all the names in the Directory to spell it in full. For this is none other than the person that 'Michael' refers to so often and with so much emphasis, glancing always at his own private name, and the singular largeness and comprehensiveness of his particular and private constitution. 'All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.' 'I, the first of any, by my universal being. Every man carries with him the entire form of human condition.'

But the name of Mr. Isaac Gruter was not less comprehensive, and could be made to represent the whole triga in an emergency, as well as another; ['I take so great pleasure in being judged and known that it is almost indifferent to me in which of the two forms I am so'] though that does not hinder him from inviting Dr. Eawley to cast in his symbol, which was 'so considerable an appendage.' For though the very smallest circle sometimes represents it, it was none other than the symbol that gave name to the theatre in which the illustrated works of this school were first exhibited; the theatre which hung out for its sign on the outer wall, 'Hercules and his load too.' At a time when 'conceits' and 'devices in letters,' when anagrams and monograms, and charades, and all kinds of 'racking of orthography' were so much in use, not as curiosities merely, but to avoid another kind of 'racking,' a cipher referred to in this philosophy as the 'wheel cipher,' which required the letters of the alphabet to be written in a circle to serve as a key to the reading, supplies a clue to some of these symbols. The first three letters of the alphabet representing the whole in the circle, formed a character or symbol which was often made to stand as a 'token' for a proper name, easily spelt in that way, when phonography and anagrams were in such lively and constant use, – while it made, at the same time, a symbolical representation of the radical doctrine of the new school in philosophy, – a school then so new, that its 'Doctors' were compelled to 'pray in the aid of simile,' even in affixing their names to their own works, in some cases. And that same letter which was capable of representing in this secret language either the microcosm, or 'the larger whole,' as the case required (either with, or without the eye or I in it, sending rays to the circumference) sufficed also to spell the name of the Grand Master of this lodge, – 'who also was a man, take him for all in all,' – the man who took two hemispheres for 'his symbol.' That was the so considerable appendage which his friend alludes to, – though 'the natural gaiety of disposition,' of which we have so much experience in other places, and which the gravity of these pursuits happily does not cloud, suggests a glance in passing at another signification, which we find alluded to also in another place in Mrs. Quickly's 'Latin.' Mere frivolities as these conceits and private and retired arts seem now, the Author of the Advancement of Learning tells us, that to those who have spent their labours and studies in them, they seem great matters, referring particularly to that cipher in which it is possible to write omnia per omnia, and stopping to fasten the key of it to his 'index' of 'the principal and supreme sciences,' – those sciences 'which being committed to faithful privacy, wait the time when they may safely see the light, and not be stifled in their birth.'

New constructions, according to true definitions, was the plan, – this triga was the initiative.

CHAPTER XII

THE IGNORANT ELECTION REVOKED. – A WRESTLING INSTANCE

'For as they were men of the best composition in the state of Rome, which, either being consuls, inclined to the people' ['If he would but incline to the people, there never was a worthier man'], 'or being tribunes, inclined to the senate, so, in the matter which we handle now [doctrine of Cure], they be the best physicians which, being learned, incline to the traditions of experience; or, being empirics, incline to the methods of learning.' Advancement of Learning.

But while the Man of Science was yet planning these vast scientific changes – vast, but noiseless and beautiful as the movements of God in nature – there was another kind of revolution brewing. All that time there was a cloud on his political horizon – 'a huge one, a black one' – slowly and steadfastly accumulating, and rolling up from it, which he had always an eye on. He knew there was that in it which no scientific apparatus that could be put in operation then, on so short a notice, and when science was so feebly aided, would be able to divert or conduct entirely. He knew that so fearful a war-cloud would have to burst, and get overblown, before any chance for those peace operations, those operations of a solid and lasting peace, which he was bent on, could be had – before any space on the earth could be found broad enough for his Novum Organum to get to work on, before the central levers of it could begin to stir.

That revolution which 'was singing in the wind' then to his ear, was one which would have to come first in the chronological order; but it was easy enough to see that it was not going to be such a one, in all respects, as a man of his turn of genius would care to be out in with his works.

He knew well enough what there was in it. He had not been so long in such sharp daily collision with the elements of it – he had not been so long trying conclusions with them under such delicate conditions, conditions requiring so nice an observation – without arriving at some degree of assurance in regard to their main properties, without attaining, indeed, to what he calls knowledge on that subject – knowledge as distinguished from opinion – so as to be able to predict 'with a near aim' the results of the possible combinations. The conclusion of this observation was, that the revolutionary movements then at hand were not, on the whole, likely to be conducted throughout on rigidly scientific principles.

The spectacle of a people violently 'revoking their ignorant election,' and empirically seeking to better their state under such leaders as such a movement was likely to throw up, and that, too, when the old military government was still so strong in moral forces, so sure of a faction in the state – of a faction of the best, which would cleave the state to the centre, which would resist with the zealot's fire unto blood and desperation the unholy innovation – that would stand on the last plank of the wrecked order, and wade through seas of slaughter to restore it; the prospect of untried political innovation, under such circumstances, did not present itself to this Poet's imagination in a form so absolutely alluring, as it might have done to a philosopher of a less rigidly inductive, turn of mind.

His canvas, with its magic draught of the coming event, includes already some contingencies which the programme of the theoretical speculator in revolutions would have been far enough from including then, when such movements were yet untried in modern history, and the philosopher had to go back to mythical Rome to borrow an historical frame of one that would contain his piece. The conviction that the crash was, perhaps, inevitable, that the overthrow of the existing usurpation, and the restoration of the English subject to his rights, – a movement then already determined on, – would perhaps involve these so tragic consequences – the conviction that the revolution was at hand, was the conviction with which he made his arrangements for the future.

But if any one would like to see now for himself what vigorous grasp of particulars this inductive science of state involves, what a clear, comprehensive, and masterly basis of history it rests on, and how totally unlike the philosophy of prenotions it is in this respect – if one would see what breadth of revolutionary surges this Artist of the peace principles was able to span with his arches and sleepers, what upheavings from the then unsounded depths of political contingencies, what upliftings from the last depths of the revolutionary abysses, this science of stability, this science of the future STATE, is settled on, – such a one must explore this work yet further, and be able to find and unroll in it that revolutionary picture which it contains – that scientific exhibition which the Elizabethan statesman has contrived to fold in it of a state in which the elements are already cleaving and separating, one in which the historical solidities are already in solution, or struggling towards it – prematurely, perhaps, and in danger of being surprised and overtaken by new combinations, not less oppressive and unscientific than the old.

'Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,Hang up philosophy' —

wrote this Poet's fire of old.

'Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?'

it writes again. No?

'Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.'

'See now what learning is,' says the practical-minded nurse, quite dazzled and overawed with that exhibition of it which has just been brought within her reach, and expressing, in the readiest and largest terms which her vocabulary supplies to her, her admiration of the practical bent of Friar Laurence's genius; who seems to be doing his best to illustrate the idea which another student, who was not a Friar exactly, was undertaking to demonstrate from his cell about that time – the idea of the possibility of converging a large and studious observation of nature in general, – and it is a very large and curious one which this Friar betrays, – upon any of those ordinary questions of domestic life, which are constantly recurring for private solution. And though this knowledge might seem to be 'so variable as it falleth not under precept,' the prose philosopher is of the opinion that 'a universal insight, and a wisdom of council and advice, gathered by general observation of cases of like nature,' is available for the particular instances which occur in this department. And the philosophic poet appears to be of his opinion; for there is no end to the precepts which he inducts from this 'variable knowledge' when he gets it on his table of review, in the form of natural history, in 'prerogative cases' and 'illustrious instances,' cases cleared from their accidental and extraneous adjuncts – ideal cases. And though this poor Friar does not appear to have been very successful in this particular instance; if we take into account the fact that 'the Tragedy was the thing,' and that nothing but a tragedy would serve his purpose, and that all his learning was converged on that effect; if we take into account the fact that this is a scientific experiment, and that the characters are sacrificed for the sake of the useful conclusions, the success will not perhaps appear so questionable as to throw any discredit upon this new theory of the applicability of learning to questions of this nature.

'Unless philosophy can make a Juliet.' But this is the philosophy that did that very thing, and the one that made a Hamlet also, besides 'reversing a prince's doom'; for this is the one that takes into account those very things in heaven and earth which Horatio had omitted in his abstractions; and this is the philosopher who speaks from his philosophic chair of 'men of good composition,' and who gives a recipe for composing them. 'Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,' is Romeo's word. 'See now what learning is,' is the Nurse's commentary; for that same Friar, demure as he looks now under his hood, talking of 'simples' and great nature's latent virtues, is the one that will cog the nurse's hearts from them, and come back beloved of all the trades in Rome. With his new art of 'composition' he will compose, not Juliets nor Hamlets only; mastering the radicals, he will compose, he will dissolve and recompose ultimately the greater congregation; for the powers in nature are always one, and they are not many.

Let us see now, then, what it is, – this 'universal insight in the affairs of the world,' this 'wisdom of counsel and advice, gathered from cases of a like nature,' with an observation that includes all natures, – let us see what this new wisdom of counsel is, when it comes to be applied to this huge growth of the state, this creature of the ages; and in its great crisis of disorder – shaken, convulsed – wrapped in elemental horror, and threatening to dissolve into its primal warring atoms.

'Doctor, the Thanes fly from me.'

'If thou couldst, Doctor, cast  The water of MY LAND, find her disease,  And purge it to a sound and pristine health,  I would applaud thee to the very echo,  That should applaud again.''What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug,Would scour these English hence? Hear'st thou of them?''Cousins, I hope the days are near at handThat chambers will be safe.'

Let us see, then, what it is that this man will have, who criticises so severely the learning of other men, – who disposes so scornfully, right and left, of the physic and metaphysic of the schools as he finds them, – who daffs the learning of the world aside, and bids it pass. Let us see what the learning is that is not 'words,' as Hamlet says, complaining of the reading in his book.

This part has been taken out from its dramatic connections, and reserved for a separate exhibition, on account of a certain new and peculiar value it has acquired since it was produced in those connections. Time has changed it 'into something rich and strange,' – Time has framed it, and poured her illustration on it: it is history now. That flaming portent, this aurora that fills the seer's heaven, these fierce angry warriors, that are fighting here upon the clouds, 'in ranks, and squadrons, and right forms of war,' are but the marvels of that science that lays the future open.

'There is a history in all men's lives,Figuring the nature of the times deceased;The which observed, a man may prophesy,With a near aim, of the main chance of thingsAs yet not come to life, which, in their seedsAnd weak beginnings, lie intreasured.Such things become the hatch and brood of time.'

'One need not go to heaven to predict imminent changes and revolutions,' says that other philosopher, who scribbles on this same subject about these days in such an entertaining manner, and who brings so many 'buckets' from 'the headspring of sciences,' to water his plants in this field in particular. 'That which most threatens us is a divulsion of the whole mass.'

This part is produced here, then, as a specimen of that kind of prophecy which one does not need to go to heaven for. And the careful reader will observe, that notwithstanding the distinct disavowal of any supernatural gift on the part of this seer, and this frank explanation of the mystery of his Art, the prophecy appears to compare not unfavourably with others which seem to come to us with higher claims. A very useful and very remarkable kind of prophecy indeed, this inductive prophecy appears to be; and the question arises, whether a kind, endowed of God with a faculty of seeing, which commands the future in so inclusive a manner, and with so near and sufficient an aim for the most important practical purposes, ought to be besieging Heaven for a _super_natural gift, and questioning the ancient seers for some vague shadows of the coming event, instead of putting this immediate endowment – this 'godlike' endowment – under culture.

There is another reason for reserving this part. In the heat and turmoil of this great ACT, the Muse of the Inductive Science drops her mask, and she forgets to take it up again. The hand that is put forth to draw 'the next ages' into the scene, when the necessary question of the play requires it, is bare. It is the Man of Learning here everywhere, without any disguise, – the man of the new learning, openly applying his 'universal insight,' and 'wisdom of counsel and advice, gathered by general observation of cases of like nature,' to this great question of 'Policy,' which was then hurrying on, with such portentous movement, to its inevitable practical solution.

He who would see at last for himself, then, the trick of this 'Magician,' when he 'brings the rabble to his place,' the reader who would know at last why it is that these old Roman graves 'have waked their sleepers, oped, and let them forth, by his so potent art'; and why it is, that at this great crisis in English history, the noise of the old Roman battle hurtles so fiercely in the English ear, should read now – but read as a work of natural science in politics, from the scientific statesman's hands, deserves to be read – this great revolutionary scene, which the Poet, for reasons of his own, has buried in the heart of this Play, which he has subordinated with his own matchless skill to the general intention of it, but which we, for the sake of pursuing that general intention with the less interruption, now that the storm appears to be 'overblown,' may safely reserve for the conclusion of our reading of this scientific history, and criticism, and rejection of the Military Usurpation of the COMMON-WEAL.

The reading of it is very simple. One has only to observe that the Poet avails himself of the dialogue here, with even more than his usual freedom, for the purpose of disposing of the bolder passages, in the least objectionable manner, – interrupting the statement in critical points, and emphasizing it, by that interruption, to the careful reader 'of the argument,' but to the spectator, or to one who takes it as a dialogue merely, neutralizing it by that dramatic opposition. For the political criticism, which is of the boldest, passes safely enough, by being merely broken, and put into the mouths of opposing factions, who are just upon the point of coming to blows upon the stage, and cannot, therefore, be suspected of collusion.

For the popular magistracy, as it represents the ignorance, and stupidity, and capricious tyranny of the multitude, and their unfitness for rule, is subjected to the criticism of the true consulship, on the one hand, while the military usurpation of the chair of state, and the law of Conquest, is not less severely criticized by the true Tribune – the Tribune, whose Tribe is the Kind – on the other; and it was not necessary to produce, in any more prominent manner, just then, the fact, that both these offices and relations were combined in that tottering estate of the realm, – that 'old riotous form of military government,' which held then only by the virtual election of the stupidity and ignorance of the people, and which, this Poet and his friends were about to put on its trial, for its innovations in the government, and suppressions of the ancient estates of this realm, – for its suppression of the dignities and privileges of the Nobility, and its suppression of the chartered dignities and rights of the Commons.

Scene. – A Street. Cornets. Enter CORIOLANUS with his two military friends, who have shared with him the conduct of the Volscian wars, and have but just returned from their campaign, COMINIUS and TITUS LARTIUS, – and with them the old civilian MENENIUS, who, patrician as he is, on account of his honesty, – a truly patrician virtue, – is in favour with the people. 'He's an honest one. Would they were all so.'

The military element predominates in this group of citizens, and of course, they are talking of the wars, – the foreign wars: but the principle of inroad and aggression on the one hand, and defence on the other, the arts of subjugation, and reconciliation, the arts of WAR and GOVERNMENT in their most general forms are always cleared and identified, and tracked, under the specifications of the scene.

Cor. Tullus Aufidius then had made NEW HEAD.

Lart. He had, my lord, and that it was, which caused Our swifter COMPOSITION.

Cor. So then, the Volsces stand but as at first,  Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road  Upon us again.

Com. They [Volsces?] are worn, lord consul, so That we shall hardly in our ages see Their banners wave again.

* * * * *

[Enter Sicinius and Brutus.]

Cor. Behold! these are the tribunes of the people,  The tongues o' the common mouth. I do despise them;  For they do prank them in authority,  Against all noble sufferance.

Sic. Pass no further.

Cor. Ha! what is that?

Bru. It will be dangerous to Go on: No further.

Cor. What makes this CHANGE?

Men. The matter?

Com. Hath he not passed the NOBLES and the COMMONS?

Bru. Cominius. – No.

Cor. Have I had children's voices? [ Yes.]

Sen. Tribunes, give way: – he shall to the market-place.

Bru. The people are incensed against him.

Sic. Stop. Or all will fall in broil.

Cor. Are these your herd? Must these have voices that can yield them now, And straight disclaim their tongues? You, being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth? Have you not set them on?

Men. Be calm, be calm.

Cor. It is a purposed thing, and grows by plot, To curb the will of the nobility: – Suffer it, and live with such as cannot rule, Nor ever will be ruled.

Bru. Call't not a plot: The people cry you mocked them; and of late, When corn was given them gratis, you repined; Scandaled the suppliants for the people; called them Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.

Cor. Why, this was known before.

Bru. Not to them all.

Cor. Have you informed them since?

Bru. How! I inform them?

Cor. You are like to do such business.

Bru. Not unlike, Each way to better yours.

Cor. Why then should I be consul? By yon clouds, Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me Your fellow tribune.

Sic. You show too much of that,  For which the people stir: If you will pass  To where you are bound, you must inquire your way, —  Which you are out of, – with a gentler spirit;  Or never be so noble as a consul,  Nor yoke with him for tribune.

Men. Let's be calm.

Com. The people are abused; – set on – this paltering  Becomes not Rome: nor has Coriolanus  Deserved this so dishonoured rub, laid falsely  I' the plain way of his merit.

Cor. Tell me of corn: This was my speech, and I will speak't again.

Men. Not now, not now.

First Sen. Not in this heat, sir, now.

Cor. Now, as I live, I will. – My nobler friends I crave their pardons: – For the mutable, rank scented many, let them Regard me, as I do not flatter, and Therein behold themselves: I say again, In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate, The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition, Which we ourselves have ploughed for, sowed and scattered, By mingling them with us, the honoured number. Who lack not virtue, no, – nor power, but that Which they have given to– BEGGARS.