Ornithology of Shakespeare; another by Phipson on his Animal Lore; three by Ellacombe, Beisly, and Grindon on his Plant Lore; and an elaborate treatise by Patterson on the Insects mentioned in

the Plays.

Religion. The Bacon family was Catholic under Mary and Protestant under Elizabeth. As a conse

quence, Francis had no strong predilections in favor of either sect. In religion as in philosophy, he abhorred sects and sought only what was universal. The sincerity of his faith in an over-ruling Providence we have no reason to doubt, though his own statement, that "a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion," may have been, intentionally or unintentionally, autobiographical, indicating some laxity of opinions on this subject in the early part of his life. The anxieties and constant admonitions of his mother, culminating in the dethronement of her reason, as well as the subsequent battles of religious controversialists over his status, would seem to justify this inference.

"He was in power at the time of the Synod of Dort, and must for months have been deafened with talk about election, reprobation and final perseverance. Yet we do

not remember a line in his works from which it can be inferred that he was either a Calvinist or an Arminian." -Macaulay.

Shakespeare's religion was also an anomaly. Several books have been written on it, but they might have been compressed into the dimensions of Horrebow's famous chapter on snakes in Iceland. Some infer, from his toleration amid the fierce resentments of his time, that he was a Catholic; others, from the defiance hurled at the Pope in King John and from the panegyric on Cranmer in Henry VIII., that he was a Protestant; while others still, finding no consolations from belief in a future life in the Plays, proclaim him an infidel. Indeed, pious commentators always approach this subject walking backward and holding a mantle before them. They know instinctively that the great poet was also a great philosopher, building solidly on human reason, and from the summit of his magnificent structures allowing not even a vine to shoot upward.

"No church can claim him."-Richard Grant White.

"Both have an equal hatred of sects and parties: Bacon, of sophists and dogmatic philosophers; Shake

speare, of Puritans and zealots.

Just as Bacon banished religion from science, so did Shakespeare from art.

In both, this has been equally misconstrued, Le Maistre proving Bacon's lack of Christianity, as Birch has done that of Shakespeare."-Gervinus.

Music.-Both authors took great delight in music. Bacon devoted a long chapter of his Natural History to the consideration of sounds and the laws of melody. In the Plays, we find nothing sweeter than the strains that creep in our ears as we read them.

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Shakespeare seems to have been proficient in the art."-Richard Grant White.

"He seems also to have possessed, in an unusual degree, the power of judging and understanding the theory of music, that upon which the performance and execution of music depends. In the Two Gentlemen of Verona (i. 1), where the heroine of the play is conversing with her maid, there is a passage which enters so fully into the manner of how a song should be sung, that it seems to have been inserted intentionally to exhibit the young poet's knowledge in this branch of art. And Burney draws attention to the fact that the critic, who, in the scene referred to, is teaching Lucetta Julia's song, makes use of no expressions but such as were employed by the English as termini technici in the profession of music."-Ulrici.

Oratory.-Bacon was a natural orator.

of him:

Ben Jonson says

"There happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. . . . His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his will. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man who heard him was, lest he should make an end."

Another contemporary pronounced him "the eloquentest man that was born in this island."

Turning to the Plays, we find there the most wonderful speech that ever passed, or was supposed to pass, human lips. In power of sarcasm, in pathos, in sublimity of utterance, and, above all, in rhetorical subtlety, Mark Antony's oration over the body of Cæsar has no equal in forensic literature.

"Every line of this speech deserves an eulogium ; neither Demosthenes, nor Cicero, nor their glorious rival, the immortal Chatham, ever made a better.”—Sherlock.

Printing.-Bacon's knowledge of the printer's art extended to the minutest details. His first book was published when he was twenty-four, but under so heavy a title, The Greatest Birth of Time, that it sank at once into the sea of oblivion. The mys

teries of the craft, however, became finally very familiar to him. In the Novum Organum he announced his intention of writing a treatise on the subject, going so far as to include ink, pens, paper, parchment and seals in his prospectus for it.

The encyclopedic Shakespeare was also at home in the composing and press rooms. "He could not have been more so," says Mr. Appleton Morgan,* "if he had passed his days as a journeyman printer." We have the same high authority for the following statement:

"A small type, called nonpareil, was introduced in English printing houses from Holland about the year 1560, and became admired and preferred beyond the others in common use. It seems to have become a favorite with Shakespeare, who calls many of his lady characters 'nonpareils.'

Navigation. Among the subjects investigated by Bacon, that which surprises us most to find is, perhaps, the art of navigation. He went into it so thoroughly, however, that one of his editors feels compelled, by way of illustration, to give the picture of a fullrigged ship as a frontispiece to the book.

We are still more astonished, or should be if we

*President of the New York Shakespeare Society.