Chapter II: Part 2

This is clearly the fair basis of the discussion. What is assumed on the one side on behalf of Bacon we have a right to assume on the other on behalf of Shakespeare. But before proceeding on this basis, I must reply to the only argument of Judge Holmes which has much apparent weight. He contends that it was impossible for Shakespeare, with the opportunities he possessed, to acquire the knowledge which we find in the plays. Genius, however great, cannot give the knowledge of medical and legal terms, nor of the ancient languages. Now, it has been shown that the plays afford evidence of a great knowledge of law and medicine; and of works in Latin and Greek, French and Italian. How could such information have been obtained by a boy who had no advantages of study except at a country grammar school, which he left at the age of fourteen, who went to London at twenty-three and became an actor, and who spent most of his life as actor, theatrical proprietor, and man of business?

This objection presents difficulties to us, and for our time, when boys sometimes spend years in the study of Latin grammar. We cannot understand the rapidity with which all sorts of knowledge were imbibed in the period of the Renaissance. Then every one studied everything. Then Greek and Latin books were read by prince and peasant, by queens and generals. Then all sciences and arts were learned by men and women, by young and old. Thus speaks Robert Burton--who was forty years old when Shakespeare died: "What a world of books offers itself, in all subjects, arts and sciences, to the sweet content and capacity of the reader! In arithmetic, geometry, perspective, opticks, astronomy, architecture, _sculptura_, _pictura_, of which so many and elaborate treatises have lately been written; in mechanics and their mysteries, military matters, navigation, riding of horses, fencing, swimming, gardening, planting, great tomes of husbandry, cookery, faulconry, hunting, fishing, fowling; with exquisite pictures of all sports and games.... What vast tomes are extant in law, physic, and divinity, for profit, pleasure, practice.... Some take an infinite delight to study the very languages in which these books were written: Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Chaldee, Arabick, and the like." This was the fashion of that day, to study all languages, all subjects, all authors. A mind like that of Shakespeare could not have failed to share this universal desire for knowledge. After leaving the grammar school, he had nine years for such studies before he went to London. As soon as he began to write plays, he had new motives for study; for the subjects of the drama in vogue were often taken from classic story.

But Shakespeare had access to another source of knowledge besides the study of books. When he reached London, five or six play-houses were in full activity, and new plays were produced every year in vast numbers. New plays were then in constant demand, just as the new novel and new daily or weekly paper are called for now. The drama was the periodical literature of the time. Dramatic authors wrote with wonderful rapidity, borrowing their subjects from plays already on the stage, and from classic or recent history. Marlowe, Greene, Lyly, Peele, Kyd, Lodge, Nash, Chettle, Munday, Wilson, were all dramatic writers before Shakespeare. Philip Henslowe, a manager or proprietor of the theatres, bought two hundred and seventy plays in about ten years. Thomas Heywood wrote a part or the whole of two hundred and twenty plays during his dramatic career. Each acted play furnished material for some other. They were the property of the play-houses, not of the writers. One writer after another has accused Shakespeare of indifference to his reputation, because he did not publish a complete and revised edition of his works during his life. How could he do this, since they did not belong to him, but to the theatre? Yet every writer was at full liberty to make use of all he could remember of other plays, as he saw them acted; and Shakespeare was not slow to use this opportunity. No doubt he gained knowledge in this way, which he afterward employed much better than did the authors from whom he took it.

The first plays printed under Shakespeare's name did not appear till he had been connected with the stage eleven years. This gives time enough for him to have acquired all the knowledge to be found in his books. That he had read Latin and Greek books we are told by Ben Jonson; though that great scholar undervalued, as was natural, Shakespeare's attainments in those languages.

But Ben Jonson himself furnishes the best reply to those who think that Shakespeare could not have gained much knowledge of science or literature because he did not go to Oxford or Cambridge. What opportunities had Ben Jonson? A bricklayer by trade, called back immediately from his studies to use the trowel; then running away and enlisting as a common soldier; fighting in the Low Countries; coming home at nineteen, and going on the stage; sent to prison for fighting a duel--what opportunities for study had he? He was of a strong animal nature, combative, in perpetual quarrels, fond of drink, in pecuniary troubles, married at twenty, with a wife and children to support. Yet Jonson was celebrated for his learning. He was master of Greek and Latin literature. He took his characters from Athenæus, Libanius, Philostratus. Somehow he had found time for all this study. "Greek and Latin thought," says Taine, "were incorporated with his own, and made a part of it. He knew alchemy, and was as familiar with alembics, retorts, crucibles, etc., as if he had passed his life in seeking the philosopher's stone. He seems to have had a specialty in every branch of knowledge. He had all the methods of Latin art,--possessed the brilliant conciseness of Seneca and Lucan." If Ben Jonson--a bricklayer, a soldier, a fighter, a drinker--could yet find time to acquire this vast knowledge, is there any reason why Shakespeare, with much more leisure, might not have done the like? He did not possess as much Greek and Latin lore as Ben Jonson, who, probably, had Shakespeare in his mind when he wrote the following passage in his "Poetaster:"

"His learning savors not the school-like gloss
That most consists in echoing words and terms,
And soonest wins a man an empty name;
Nor any long or far-fetched circumstance
Wrapt in the curious generalties of art--
But a direct and analytic sum
Of all the worth and first effects of art.
And for his poesy, 'tis so rammed with life,
That it shall gather strength of life with being,
And live hereafter more admired than now."

The only other serious proof offered in support of the proposition that Bacon wrote the immortal Shakespearean drama is that certain coincidences of thought and language are found in the works of the two writers. When we examine them, however, they seem very insignificant. Take, as an example, two or three, on which Judge Holmes relies, and which he thinks very striking.

Holmes says (page 48) that Bacon quotes Aristotle, who said that "young men were no fit hearers of moral philosophy," and Shakespeare says ("Troilus and Cressida"):--

"Unlike young men whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy."

But since Bacon's remark was published in 1605, and "Troilus and Cressida" did not appear until 1609, Shakespeare might have seen it there, and introduced it into his play from his recollection of the passage in the "Advancement of Learning."

Another coincidence mentioned by Holmes is that both writers use the word "thrust:" Bacon saying that a ship "thrust into Weymouth;" and Shakespeare, that "Milan was thrust from Milan." He also thinks it cannot be an accident that both frequently use the word "wilderness," though in very different ways. Both also compare Queen Elizabeth to a "star." Bacon makes Atlantis an island in mid-ocean; and the island of Prospero is also in mid-ocean. Both have a good deal to say about "mirrors," and "props," and like phrases.

Such reasoning as this has very little weight. You cannot prove two contemporaneous writings to have proceeded from one author by the same words and phrases being found in both; for these are in the vocabulary of the time, and are the common property of all who read and write.

My position is that if either of these writers wrote the works attributed to the other, it is much more likely that Shakespeare wrote the philosophical works of Bacon than that Bacon wrote the poetical works of Shakespeare. Assuming then, as we have a right to do in this argument, that Shakespeare wrote the plays, what reasons are there for believing that he also wrote the philosophy?

First, this assumption will explain at once that hitherto insoluble problem of the contradiction between Bacon's character and conduct and his works. How could he have been, at the same time, what Pope calls him,--

"The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind"?

He was, in his philosophy, the leader of his age, the reformer of old abuses, the friend of progress. In his conduct, he was, as Macaulay has shown, "far behind his age,--far behind Sir Edward Coke; clinging to exploded abuses, withstanding the progress of improvement, struggling to push back the human mind." In his writings, he was calm, dignified, noble. In his life, he was an office-seeker through long years, seeking place by cringing subservience to men in power, made wretched to the last degree when office was denied him, addressing servile supplications to noblemen and to the sovereign. To gain and keep office he would desert his friends, attack his benefactors, and make abject apologies for any manly word he might have incautiously uttered. His philosophy rose far above earth and time, and sailed supreme in the air of universal reason. But "his desires were set on things below. Wealth, precedence, titles, patronage, the mace, the seals, the coronet, large houses, fair gardens, rich manors, massy services of plate, gay hangings," were "objects for which he stooped to everything and endured everything." These words of Macaulay have been thought too severe. But we defy any admirer of Bacon to read his life, by Spedding, without admitting their essential truth. How was it possible for a man to spend half of his life in the meanest of pursuits, and the other half in the noblest?

This difficulty is removed if we suppose that Bacon, the courtier and lawyer, with his other ambitions, was desirous of the fame of a great philosopher; and that he induced Shakespeare, then in the prime of his powers, to help him write the prose essays and treatises which are his chief works. He has himself admitted that he did actually ask the aid of the dramatists of his time in writing his books. This remarkable fact is stated by Bacon in a letter to Tobie Matthew, written in June, 1623, in which he says that he is devoting himself to making his writings more perfect--instancing the "Essays" and the "Advancement of Learning"--"by the help of some good pens, which forsake me not." One of these pens was that of Ben Jonson, the other might easily have been that of Shakespeare. Certainly there was no better pen in England at that time than his.

When Shakespeare's plays were being produced, Lord Bacon was fully occupied in his law practice, his parliamentary duties, and his office-seeking. The largest part of the Shakespeare drama was put on the stage, as modern research renders probable, in the ten or twelve years beginning with 1590. In 1597 Shakespeare was rich enough to buy the new place at Stratford-on-Avon, and was also lending money. In 1604 he was part owner of the Globe Theatre, so that the majority of the plays which gained for him this fortune must have been produced before that time. Now, these were just the busiest years of Bacon's life. In 1584 he was elected to Parliament. About the same time, he wrote his famous letter to Queen Elizabeth. In 1585 he was already seeking office from Walsingham and Burleigh. In 1586 he sat in Parliament for Taunton, and was active in debate and on committees. He became a bencher in the same year, and began to plead in the courts of Westminster. In 1589 he became queen's counsel, and member of Parliament for Liverpool. After this he continued active, both in Parliament and at the bar. He sought, by the help of Essex, to become Attorney-General. From that period, as crown lawyer, his whole time and thought were required to trace and frustrate the conspiracies with which the kingdom was full. It was evident that during these years he had no time to compose fifteen or twenty of the greatest works in any literature.

But how was Shakespeare occupied when Bacon's philosophy appeared? The "Advancement of Learning" was published in 1605, after most of the plays had been written, as we learn from the fact of Shakespeare's purchase of houses and lands. The "Novum Organum" was published in 1620, after Shakespeare's death. But it had been written years before; revised, altered, and copied again and again--it is said twelve times. Bacon had been engaged upon it during thirty years, and it was at last published incomplete and in fragments. If Shakespeare assisted in the composition of this work, his death in 1616 would account, at once, for its being left unfinished. And Shakespeare would have had ample time to furnish the ideas of the "Organum" in the last years of his life, when he had left the theatre. In 1613 he bought a house in Black Friars, where Ben Jonson also lived. Might not this have been that they might more conveniently coöperate in assisting Bacon to write the "Novum Organum"?

When we ask whether it would have been easier for the author of the philosophy to have composed the drama, or the dramatic poet to have written the philosophy, the answer will depend on which is the greater work of the two. The greater includes the less, but the less cannot include the greater. Now, the universal testimony of modern criticism in England, Germany, and France declares that no larger, deeper, or ampler intellect has ever appeared than that which produced the Shakespeare drama. This "myriad-minded" poet was also philosopher, man of the world, acquainted with practical affairs, one of those who saw the present and foresaw the future. All the ideas of the Baconian philosophy might easily have had their home in this vast intelligence. Great as are the thoughts of the "Novum Organum," they are far inferior to that world of thought which is in the drama. We can easily conceive that Shakespeare, having produced in his prime the wonders and glories of the plays, should in his after leisure have developed the leading ideas of the Baconian philosophy. But it is difficult to imagine that Bacon, while devoting his main strength to politics, to law, and to philosophy, should as a mere pastime for his leisure, have produced in his idle moments the greatest intellectual work ever done on earth.

If the greater includes the less, the mind of Shakespeare includes that of Bacon, and not _vice versa_. This will appear more plainly if we consider the quality of intellect displayed respectively in the dramas and the philosophy. The one is synthetic, creative; the other analytic, critical. The one puts together, the other takes apart and examines. Now, the genius which can put together can also take apart; but it by no means follows that the power of taking apart implies that of putting together. A watch-maker, who can put a watch together, can easily take it to pieces; but many a child who has taken his watch to pieces has found it impossible to put it together again.

When we compare the Shakespeare plays and the Baconian philosophy, it is curious to see how the one is throughout a display of the synthetic intellect, and the other of the analytic. The plays are pure creation, the production of living wholes. They people our thought with a race of beings who are living persons, and not pale abstractions. These airy nothings take flesh and form, and have a name and local habitation forever on the earth. Hamlet, Desdemona, Othello, Miranda, are as real people as Queen Elizabeth or Mary of Scotland. But when we turn to the Baconian philosophy, this faculty is absent. We have entered the laboratory of a great chemist, and are surrounded by retorts and crucibles, tests and re-agents, where the work done is a careful analysis of all existing things, to find what are their constituents and their qualities. Poetry creates, philosophy takes to pieces and examines.

It is, I think, a historic fact, that while those authors whose primary quality is poetic genius have often been also, on a lower plane, eminent as philosophers, there is, perhaps, not a single instance of one whose primary distinction was philosophic analysis, who has also been, on a lower plane, eminent as a poet. Milton, Petrarch, Goethe, Lucretius, Voltaire, Coleridge, were primarily and eminently poets; but all excelled, too, in a less degree, as logicians, metaphysicians, men of science, and philosophers. But what instance have we of any man like Bacon, chiefly eminent as lawyer, statesman, and philosopher, who was also distinguished, though in a less degree, as a poet? Among great lawyers, is there one eminent also as a dramatic or lyric author? Cicero tried it, but his verses are only doggerel. In Lord Campbell's list of the lord chancellors and chief justices of England no such instance appears. If Bacon wrote the Shakespeare drama, he is the one exception to an otherwise universal rule. But if Shakespeare coöperated in the production of the Baconian philosophy, he belongs to a class of poets who have done the same. Coleridge was one of the most imaginative of poets. His "Christabel" and "Ancient Mariner" are pure creations. But in later life he originated a new system of philosophy in England, the influence of which has not ceased to be felt to our day. The case would be exactly similar if we suppose that Shakespeare, having ranged the realm of imaginative poetry in his youth, had in his later days of leisure coöperated with Bacon and Ben Jonson in producing the "Advancement of Learning" and the "Novum Organum." We can easily think of them as meeting, sometimes at the house of Ben Jonson, sometimes at that of Shakespeare in Black Friars, and sometimes guests at that private house built by Lord Bacon for purposes of study, near his splendid palace of Gorhambury. "A most ingeniously contrived house," says Basil Montagu, "where, in the society of his philosophical friends, he devoted himself to study and meditation." Aubrey tells us that he had the aid of Hobbes in writing down his thoughts. Lord Bacon appears to have possessed the happy gift of using other men's faculties in his service. Ben Jonson, who had been a thorough student of chemistry, alchemy, and science in all the forms then known, aided Bacon in his observations of nature. Hobbes aided him in giving clearness to his thoughts and his language. And from Shakespeare he may have derived the radical and central ideas of his philosophy. He used the help of Dr. Playfer to translate his philosophy into Latin. Tobie Matthew gives him the last argument of Galileo for the Copernican system. He sends his works to others, begging them to correct the thoughts and the style. It is evident, then, that he would have been glad of the concurrence of Shakespeare, and that could easily be had, through their common friend, Ben Jonson.

If Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare, it is difficult to give any satisfactory reason for his concealment of that authorship. He had much pride, not to say vanity, in being known as an author. He had his name attached to all his other works, and sent them as presents to the universities, and to individuals, with letters calling their attention to these books. Would he have been willing permanently to conceal the fact of his being the author of the best poetry of his time? The reasons assigned by Judge Holmes for this are not satisfactory. They are: his desire to rise in the profession of the law, the low reputation of a play-writer, his wish to write more freely under an incognito, and his wish to rest his reputation on his philosophical works. But if he were reluctant to be regarded as the author of "Lear" and "Hamlet," he was willing to be known as the writer of "Masques," and a play about "Arthur," exhibited by the students of Gray's Inn. It is an error to say that the reputation of a play-writer was low. Judge Holmes, himself, tells us that there was nothing remarkable in a barrister of the inns of court writing for the stage. Ford and Beaumont were both lawyers as well as eminent play-writers. Lord Backhurst, Lord Brooke, Sir Henry Wotton, all wrote plays. And we find nothing in the Shakespeare dramas which Bacon need have feared to say under his own name. It would have been ruin to Sir Philip Francis to have avowed himself the author of "Junius." But the Shakespeare plays satirized no one, and made no enemies. If there were any reasons for concealment, they certainly do not apply to the year 1623, when the first folio appeared, which was after the death of Shakespeare and the fall of Bacon. The acknowledgment of their authorship at that time could no longer interfere with Bacon's rise. And it would be very little to the credit of his intelligence to assume that he was not then aware of the value of such works, or that he did not desire the reputation of being their author. It would have been contrary to his very nature not to have wished for the credit of that authorship.

On the other hand, there would be nothing surprising in the fact of Shakespeare's laying no claim to credit for having assisted in the composition of the "Advancement of Learning." Shakespeare was by nature as reticent and modest as Bacon was egotistical and ostentatious. What a veil is drawn over the poet's personality in his sonnets! We read in them his inmost sentiments, but they tell us absolutely nothing of the events of his life, or the facts of his position. And if, as we assume, he was one among several who helped Lord Bacon, though he might have done the most, there was no special reason why he should proclaim that fact.

Gervinus has shown, in three striking pages, the fundamental harmony between the ideas and mental tendencies of Shakespeare and Bacon. Their philosophy of man and of life was the same. If, then, Bacon needed to be helped in thinking out his system, there was no one alive who would have given him such stimulus and encouragement as Shakespeare. This also may explain his not mentioning the name of Shakespeare in his works; for that might have called too much attention to the source from which he received this important aid.

Nevertheless, I regard the monistic theory as in the last degree improbable. We have two great authors, and not one only. But if we are compelled to accept the view which ascribes a common source to the Shakespeare drama and the Baconian philosophy, I think there are good reasons for preferring Shakespeare to Bacon as the author of both. When the plays appeared, Bacon was absorbed in pursuits and ambitions foreign to such work; his accepted writings show no sign of such creative power; he was the last man in the world not to take the credit of such a success, and had no motive to conceal his authorship. On the other hand, there was a period in Shakespeare's life when he had abundant leisure to coöperate in the literary plans of Bacon; his ample intellect was full of the ideas which took form in those works; and he was just the person neither to claim nor to desire any credit for lending such assistance.

There is, certainly, every reason to believe that, among his other ambitions, Bacon desired that of striking out a new path of discovery, and initiating a better method in the study of nature. But we know that, in doing this, he sought aid in all quarters, and especially among Shakespeare's friends and companions. It is highly probable, therefore, that he became acquainted with the great dramatist, and that Shakespeare knew of Bacon's designs and became interested in them. And if so, who could offer better suggestions than he; and who would more willingly accept them than the overworked statesman and lawyer, who wished to be also a philosopher?

Finally, we may refer those who believe that the shape of the brow and head indicates the quality of mental power to the portraits of the two men. The head of Shakespeare, according to all the busts and pictures which remain to us, belongs to the type which antiquity has transmitted to us in the portraits of Homer and Plato. In this vast dome of thought there was room for everything. The head of Bacon is also a grand one, but less ample, less complete--less

"Teres, totus atque rotundus."

These portraits therefore agree with all we know of the writings, in showing us which, and which only, of the two minds was capable of containing the other.

THE EVOLUTION OF A GREAT POEM[4]

There are at least three existing manuscripts of Grays "Elegy," in the author's autograph. The earliest, containing the largest number of variations and the most curious, is that now in the possession of Sir William Fraser in London, and for which he paid the large sum of £230, in 1875. By the kindness of Sir William Fraser, I examined this manuscript at his rooms in London, in 1882. A facsimile copy of this valuable autograph, photographed from the original in 1862, is now before me. A second copy in the handwriting of Gray, called the Pembroke manuscript, is in the library of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. A facsimile of this autograph appears in Matthias's edition of Mason's "Gray," published in 1814. A third copy, in the poet's handwriting, copied by him for his friend, Dr. Wharton, is in the British Museum. I examined this, also, in 1882, and had an accurate copy made for me by one of the assistants in the museum. This was written after the other two, as is evident from the fact that it approaches most nearly to the form which the "Elegy" finally assumed when printed. There are only nine or ten expressions in this manuscript which differ from the poem as published by Gray. Most of these are unimportant. "_Or_" he changed, in three places, into "and." "_And_ in our ashes" he changed into "Even in our ashes," which was a clear improvement. It was not until after this third copy was written that the improvement was made which changed

"Forgive, ye Proud, the involuntary Fault,
If Memory to These no Trophies raise,"

into

"Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise."

Another important alteration of a single word was also made after this third manuscript was written. This was the change, in the forty-fifth stanza, of "Reins of Empire" into "Rod of Empire."

"The Elegy in a Country Churchyard" became at once one of the most popular poems in the language, and has remained so to this time. It has been equally a favorite with common readers, with literary men, and with poets. Its place will always be in the highest rank of English poetry. The fact, however, is--and it is a very curious fact--that this first-class poem was the work of a third-class poet. For Thomas Gray certainly does not stand in the first class with Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton. Nor can he fairly be put in the second class with Dryden, Pope, Burns, Wordsworth, and Byron. He belongs to the third, with Cowley, Cowper, Shelley, and Keats. There may be a doubt concerning some of whom I have named, but there can be no doubt that Gray will never stand higher than those who may be placed by critics in the third class. Yet it is equally certain that he has produced a first-class poem. How is this paradox to be explained?

What is the charm of Gray's "Elegy"? The thoughts are sufficiently commonplace. That all men must die, that the most humble may have had in them some power which, under other circumstances, might have made them famous,--these are somewhat trite statements; but the fascination of the verses consists in the tone, solemn but serene, which pervades them; in the pictures of coming night, of breaking day, of cheerful rural life, of happy homes; and lastly, in the perfect finish of the verse and the curious felicity of the diction. In short, the poem is a work of high art. It was not inspired, but it was carefully elaborated. And this appears plainly when we compare it, as it stands in the Fraser manuscript, with its final form.

This poem was a work of eight years. Its heading in the Fraser manuscript is "Stanzas Wrote in a Country Churchyard." It was, however, begun at Stoke in 1742, continued at Cambridge, and had its last touches added at Stoke-Pogis, June 12, 1750. In a letter to Horace Walpole of that date, Gray says, "Having put an end to a thing whose beginning you saw long ago, I immediately send it to you."

The corrections made by Gray during this period were many, and were probably all improvements. Many poets when they try to improve their verses only injure them. But Gray's corrections were invariably for the better. We may even say that, if it had been published as it was first written, and as it now stands in the Fraser manuscript, it would have ranked only with the best poetry of Shenstone or Cowper. Let me indicate some of the most important changes.

In line seventeen, the fine epithet of "incense-breathing" was an addition.

"The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,"

for the Fraser manuscript reads--

"Forever sleep. The breezy call of morn."

Nineteenth line, Fraser manuscript has--

"Or chanticleer so shrill, or echoing horn,"

corrected to

"The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn."

Twenty-fourth--"Coming kiss" was corrected to "envied kiss."

Forty-third--"Awake the silent dust" was corrected to "provoke the silent dust."

Forty-seventh--The correction of "Reins of Empire" to "Rod of Empire" first appears in the margin of the Pembroke manuscript.

Fifty-seventh--In the Fraser manuscript it reads--

"Some village Cato, who with dauntless breast,
Some mute, inglorious Tully here may rest;
Some Cæsar," etc.

In the Pembroke manuscript, these classical personages have disappeared, and the great improvement was made of substituting Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell, and thus maintaining the English coloring of the poem.

Fifty-first--This verse, beginning, "But Knowledge," etc., was placed, in the Fraser manuscript, after the one beginning, "Some village Cato," but with a note in the margin to transfer it to where it now stands. The third line of the stanza was first written, "Chill Penury had damped." This was first corrected to "depressed," and afterward to "repressed."

Fifty-fifth--"Their fate forbade," changed to "Their lot forbade."

Sixty-sixth--"Their struggling virtues" was improved to "Their growing virtues."

Seventy-first--"Crown the shrine" was altered to "heap the shrine," and in the next line "Incense hallowed by the muse's flame" was wisely changed to "Incense kindled by the muse's flame."

After the seventy-second line stand, in the Fraser manuscript, the following stanzas, which Gray, with admirable taste, afterward omitted. But, before he decided to leave them out altogether, he drew a black line down the margin, indicating that he would transfer them to another place. These stanzas were originally intended to close the poem. Afterward the thought occurred to him of "the hoary-headed swain" and the "Epitaph."

"The thoughtless World to Majesty may bow,
Exalt the Brave and idolize Success,
But more to Innocence their safety owe
Than Power and Genius e'er conspire to bless.

"And thou, who, mindful of the unhonored Dead,
Dost, in these Notes, their artless Tale relate,
By Night and lonely Contemplation led
To linger in the gloomy Walks of Fate;

"Hark, how the sacred Calm that broods around
Bids every fierce, tumultuous Passion cease,
In still, small Accents whispering from the Ground
A grateful Earnest of eternal Peace.

"No more with Reason and thyself at Strife,
Give anxious Cares and useless Wishes room;
But through the cool, sequestered Vale of Life
Pursue the silent Tenor of thy Doom."

After these stanzas, according to the Fraser manuscript, were to follow these lines, which I do not remember to have seen elsewhere:--

"If chance that e'er some pensive Spirit more,
By sympathetic Musings here delayed,
With vain though kind Enquiry shall explore
Thy once-loved Haunt, thy long-neglected Shade,

"Haply," etc.

But Gray soon dispensed with this feeble stanza, and made a new one by changing it into the one beginning:--

"For thee, who mindful."

The ninety-ninth and one hundredth lines stand in the Fraser manuscript--

"With hasty footsteps brush the dews away
On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn."

The following stanza is noticeable for the inversions so frequent in Gray, and which he had, perhaps, unconsciously adopted from his familiarity with the classics. He afterward omitted it:--

"Him have we seen the greenwood side along,
While o'er the heath we hied, our labors done.
Oft as the wood-lark piped her farewell song,
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun."

In the manuscript the word is spelled "whistful." In line 101, "hoary beech" is corrected to "spreading beech," and afterward to "nodding beech."

Line 113--"Dirges meet" was changed to "dirges dire;" and after 116 came the beautiful stanza, afterward omitted by Gray as being _de trop_ in this place:--

"There, scattered oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground."

Even in this verse there were two corrections. "Robin" was altered in the Fraser manuscript into "redbreast," and "frequent violets" into "showers of violets."

One of the most curious accidents to which this famous poem has been subjected was an erroneous change made in the early editions, which has been propagated almost to our time. In the stanza beginning--

"The boast of Heraldry, the pomp of Power,"

Gray wrote

"Awaits alike the inevitable Hour."

And so it stands in all three manuscripts, and in the printed edition which he himself superintended. His meaning was, "The inevitable Hour awaits everything. It stands there, waiting the boast of Heraldry," etc. But his editors, misled by his inverted style, supposed that it was the gifts of Heraldry, Power, Beauty, etc., that were waiting, and therefore corrected what they thought Gray's bad grammar, and printed the word "await." But so they destroyed the meaning. These things were not waiting at all for the dread hour; they were enjoying themselves, careless of its approach. But "the hour" was waiting for them. Gray's original reading has been restored in the last editions.

In tracing the development of this fine poem, we see it gradually improving under his careful touch, till it becomes a work of high art. In some poets--Wordsworth, for example--inspiration is at its maximum, and art at its minimum. In Gray, I think, inspiration was at its minimum, and art at its maximum.

RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL

AFFINITIES OF BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY[5]

It has long been known that many analogies exist between Buddhism and Christianity. The ceremonies, ritual, and rites of the Buddhists strikingly resemble those of the Roman Catholic Church. The Buddhist priests are monks. They take the same three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience which are binding on those of the Roman Church. They are mendicants, like the mendicant orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic. They are tonsured; use strings of beads, like the rosary, with which to count their prayers; have incense and candles in their worship; use fasts, processions, litanies, and holy water. They have something akin to the adoration of saints; repeat prayers in an unknown tongue; have a chanted psalmody with a double choir; and suspend the censer from five chains. In China, some Buddhists worship the image of a virgin, called the Queen of Heaven, having an infant in her arms, and holding a cross. In Thibet the Grand Lamas wear a mitre, dalmatica, and cope, and pronounce a benediction on the laity by extending the right hand over their heads. The Dalai-Lama resembles the Pope, and is regarded as the head of the Church. The worship of relics is very ancient among the Buddhists, and so are pilgrimages to sacred places.

Besides these resemblances in outward ceremonies, more important ones appear in the inner life and history of the two religions. Both belong to those systems which derive their character from a human founder, and not from a national tendency; to the class which contains the religions of Moses, Zoroaster, Confucius, and Mohammed, and not to that in which the Brahmanical, Egyptian, Scandinavian, Greek, and Roman religions are found. Both Buddhism and Christianity are catholic, and not ethnic; that is, not confined to a single race or nation, but by their missionary spirit passing beyond these boundaries, and making converts among many races. Christianity began among the Jews as a Semitic religion, but, being rejected by the Jewish nation, established itself among the Aryan races of Europe. In the same way Buddhism, beginning among an Aryan people--the Hindoos--was expelled from Hindostan, and established itself among the Mongol races of Eastern Asia. Besides its resemblances to the Roman Catholic side of Christendom, Buddhism has still closer analogies with the Protestant Church. Like Protestantism, it is a reform, which rejects a hierarchal system and does away with a priestly caste. Like Protestantism, it has emphasized the purely humane side of life, and is a religion of humanity rather than of piety. Both the Christian and Buddhist churches teach a divine incarnation, and both worship a God-man.

Are these remarkable analogies only casual resemblances, or are they real affinities? By affinity we here mean genetic relationship. Are Buddhism and Christianity related as mother and child, one being derived from the other; or are they related by both being derived from some common ancestor? Is either derived from the other, as Christianity from Judaism, or Protestantism from the Papal Church? That there can be no such affinity as this seems evident from history. History shows no trace of the contact which would be required for such influence. If Christianity had taken its customs from Buddhism, or Buddhism from Christianity, there must have been ample historic evidence of the fact. But, instead of this, history shows that each has grown up by its own natural development, and has unfolded its qualities separately and alone. The law of evolution also teaches that such great systems do not come from imitation, but as growths from a primal germ.

Nor does history give the least evidence of a common ancestry from which both took their common traits. We know that Buddhism was derived from Brahmanism, and that Christianity was derived from Judaism. Now, Judaism and Brahmanism have few analogies; they could not, therefore, have transmitted to their offspring what they did not themselves possess. Brahmanism came from an Aryan stock, in Central Asia; Judaism from a Semitic stem, thousands of miles to the west. If Buddhism and Christianity came from a common source, that source must have antedated both the Mosaic and Brahmanical systems. Even then it would be a case of atavism in which the original type disappeared in the children, to reappear in the later descendants.

Are, then, these striking resemblances, and others which are still to be mentioned, only accidental analogies? This does not necessarily follow; for there is a third alternative. They may be what are called in science homologies; that is, the same law working out similar results under the same conditions, though under different circumstances. The whale lives under different circumstances from other mammalia; but being a mammal, he has a like osseous structure. What seems to be a fin, being dissected, turns out to be an arm, with hand and fingers. There are like homologies in history. Take the instance of the English and French revolutions. In each case the legitimate king was tried, condemned, and executed. A republic followed. The republic gave way before a strong-handed usurper. Then the original race of kings was restored; but, having learned nothing and forgotten nothing, they were displaced a second time, and a constitutional monarch placed on the throne, who, though not the legitimate king, still belonged to the same race. Here the same laws of human nature have worked out similar results; for no one would suggest that France had copied its revolutions from England. And, in religion, human nature reproduces similar customs and ceremonies under like conditions. When, for instance, you have a mechanical system of prayer, in which the number of prayers is of chief importance, there must be some way of counting them, and so the rosary has been invented independently in different religions. We have no room to point out how this law has worked in other instances; but it is enough to refer to the principle.

Besides these resemblances between Buddhism and Christianity, there are also some equally remarkable differences, which should be noticed.

The first of these is the striking fact that Buddhism has been unable to recognize the existence of the Infinite Being. It has been called atheism by the majority of the best authorities. Even Arthur Lillie, who defends this system from the charge of agnosticism, says:[6] "An agnostic school of Buddhism without doubt exists. It professes plain atheism, and holds that every mortal, when he escapes from re-births, and the causation of Karma by the awakenment of the Bodhi or gnosis, will be annihilated. This Buddhism, by Eugène Burnouf, Saint-Hilaire, Max Müller, Csoma de Körös, and, I believe, almost every writer of note, is pronounced the original Buddhism,--the Buddhism of the South." Almost every writer of note, therefore, who has studied Buddhism in the Pâli, Singhalese, Chinese, and other languages, and has had direct access to its original sources, has pronounced it a system of atheism. But this opinion is opposed to the fact that Buddhists have everywhere worshiped unseen and superhuman powers, erected magnificent temples, maintained an elaborate ritual, and adored Buddha as the supreme ruler of the worlds. How shall we explain this paradox? All depends on the definition we give to the word "atheism." If a system is atheistic which sees only the temporal, and not the eternal; which knows no God as the author, creator, and ruler of Nature; which ascribes the origin of the universe to natural causes, to which only the finite is knowable, and the infinite unknowable--then Buddhism is atheism. But, in that case, much of the polytheism of the world must be regarded as atheism; for polytheism has largely worshiped finite gods. The whole race of Olympian deities were finite beings. Above them ruled the everlasting necessity of things. But who calls the Greek worshipers atheists? The Buddha, to most Buddhists, is a finite being, one who has passed through numerous births, has reached Nirvana, and will one day be superseded by another Buddha. Yet, for the time, he is the Supreme Being, Ruler of all the Worlds. He is the object of worship, and really divine, if in a subordinate sense.

I would not, therefore, call this religion atheism. No religion which worships superhuman powers can justly be called atheistic on account of its meagre metaphysics. How many Christians there are who do not fully realize the infinite and eternal nature of the Deity! To many He is no more than the Buddha is to his worshipers,--a supreme being, a mighty ruler, governing all things by his will. How few see God everywhere in nature, as Jesus saw Him, letting his sun shine on the evil and good, and sending his rain on the just and unjust. How few see Him in all of life, so that not a sparrow dies, or a single hair of the head falls, without the Father. Most Christians recognize the Deity only as occasionally interfering by special providences, particular judgments, and the like.

But in Christianity this ignorance of the eternal nature of God is the exception, while in Buddhism it is the rule. In the reaction against Brahmanism, the Brahmanic faith in the infinite was lost. In the fully developed system of the ancient Hindoo religion the infinite overpowered the finite, the temporal world was regarded as an illusion, and only the eternal was real. The reaction from this extreme was so complete as to carry the Buddhists to the exact opposite. If to the Brahman all the finite visible world was only _maya_--illusion, to the Buddhists all the infinite unseen world was unknowable, and practically nothing.

Perhaps the most original feature of Christianity is the fact that it has combined in a living synthesis that which in other systems was divided. Jesus regarded love to God and love to man as identical,--positing a harmonious whole of time and eternity, piety and humanity, faith and works,--and thus laid the foundation of a larger system than either Brahmanism or Buddhism. He did not invent piety, nor discover humanity. Long before he came the Brahmanic literature had sounded the deepest depths of spiritual life, and the Buddhist missionaries had preached universal benevolence to mankind. But the angelic hymn which foretold the new religion as bringing at once "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men" indicated the essence of the faith which was at the same time a heavenly love and an earthly blessing. This difference of result in the two systems came probably from the different methods of their authors. With Jesus life was the source of knowledge; the life was the light of men. With the Buddha, reflection, meditation, thought was the source of knowledge. In this, however, he included intuition no less than reflection. Sakya-muni understood perfectly that a mere intellectual judgment possessed little motive power; therefore he was not satisfied till he had obtained an intuitive perception of truth. That alone gave at once rest and power. But as the pure intellect, even in its highest act, is unable to grasp the infinite, the Buddha was an agnostic on this side of his creed by the very success of his method. Who, by searching, can find out God? The infinite can only be known by the process of living experience. This was the method of Jesus, and has been that of his religion. For what is faith but that receptive state of mind which waits on the Lord to receive the illumination which it cannot create by its own processes? However this may be, it is probable that the fatal defect in Buddhism which has neutralized its generous philanthropy and its noble humanities has been the absence of the inspiration which comes from the belief in an eternal world. Man is too great to be satisfied with time alone, or eternity alone; he needs to live from and for both. Hence, Buddhism is an arrested religion, while Christianity is progressive. Christianity has shown the capacity of outgrowing its own defects and correcting its own mistakes. For example, it has largely outgrown its habit of persecuting infidels and heretics. No one is now put to death for heresy. It has also passed out of the stage in which religion is considered to consist in leaving the world and entering a monastery. The anchorites of the early centuries are no longer to be found in Christendom. Even in Catholic countries the purpose of monastic life is no longer to save the soul by ascetic tortures, but to attain some practical end. The Protestant Reformation, which broke the yoke of priestly power and set free the mind of Europe, was a movement originating in Christianity itself, like other developments of a similar kind. No such signs of progress exist in the system of Buddhism. It has lost the missionary ardor of its early years; it has ceased from creating a vast literature such as grew up in its younger days; it no longer produces any wonders of architecture. It even lags behind the active life of the countries where it has its greatest power.

It is a curious analogy between the two systems that, while neither the Christ nor the Buddha practiced or taught asceticism, their followers soon made the essence of religion to consist in some form of monastic life. Both Jesus and Sakya-muni went about doing good. Both sent their followers into the world to preach a gospel. Jesus, after thirty years of a retired life, came among men "eating and drinking," and associating with "publicans and sinners." Sakya-muni, after spending some years as an anchorite, deliberately renounced that mode of religion as unsatisfactory, and associated with all men, as Jesus afterward did. Within a few centuries after their death, their followers relapsed into ascetic and monastic practices; but with this difference, that while in Christendom there has always been both a regular and a secular clergy, in the Buddhist countries the whole priesthood live in monasteries. They have no parish priests, unless as an exception. While in Christian countries the clergy has become more and more a practical body, in sympathy with the common life, in Buddhist lands they live apart and exercise little influence on the civil condition of the people.

Nor must we pass by the important fact that the word Christendom is synonymous with a progressive civilization, while Buddhism is everywhere connected with one which is arrested and stationary. The boundaries of the Christian religion are exactly coextensive with the advance of science, art, literature; and with the continued accumulation of knowledge, power, wealth, and the comforts of human life. According to Kuenen,[7] one of the most recent students of these questions, this difference is due to the principle of hope which exists in Christianity, but is absent in Buddhism. The one has always believed in a kingdom of God here and a blessed immortality hereafter. Buddhism has not this hope; and this, says Kuenen, "is a blank which nothing can fill." So large a thinker as Albert Réville has expressed his belief that even the intolerance of Christianity indicated a passionate love of truth which has created modern science. He says that "if Europe had not passed through those ages of intolerance, it is doubtful whether the science of our day would ever have arrived."[8] It is only within the boundaries of nations professing the Christian faith that we must go to-day to learn the latest discoveries in science, the best works of art, the most flourishing literature. Only within the same circle of Christian states is there a government by law, and not by will. Only within these boundaries have the rights of the individual been secured, while the power of the state has been increased. Government by law, joined with personal freedom, is only to be found where the faith exists which teaches that God not only supports the universal order of natural things, but is also the friend of the individual soul; and in just that circle of states in which the doctrine is taught that there is no individual soul for God to love and no Divine presence in the order of nature, human life has subsided into apathy, progress has ceased, and it has been found impossible to construct national unity. Saint-Hilaire affirms[9] that "in politics and legislation the dogma of Buddhism has remained inferior even to that of Brahmanism," and "has been able to do nothing to constitute states or to govern them by equitable rules." These Buddhist nations are really six: Siam, Burma, Nepaul, Thibet, Tartary, and Ceylon. The activity and social progress in China and Japan are no exceptions to this rule; for in neither country has Buddhism any appreciable influence on the character of the people.

To those who deny that the theology of a people influences its character, it may be instructive to see how exactly the good and evil influences of Buddhism correspond to the positive and negative traits of its doctrine. Its merits, says Saint-Hilaire, are its practical character, its abnegation of vulgar gratifications, its benevolence, mildness, sentiment of human equality, austerity of manners, dislike of falsehood, and respect for the family. Its defects are want of social power, egotistical aims, ignorance of the ideal good, of the sense of human right and human freedom, skepticism, incurable despair, contempt of life. All its human qualities correspond to its doctrinal teaching from the beginning. It has always taught benevolence, patience, self-denial, charity, and toleration. Its defects arise inevitably from its negative aim,--to get rid of sorrow and evil by sinking into apathy, instead of seeking for the triumph of good and the coming of a reign of God here on the earth.

As regards the Buddha himself, modern students differ widely. Some, of course, deny his very existence, and reduce him to a solar myth. M. Emile Senart, as quoted by Oldenberg,[10] following the Lalita Vistara as his authority, makes of him a solar hero, born of the morning cloud, contending by the power of light with the demons of darkness, rising in triumph to the zenith of heavenly glory, then passing into the night of Nirvana and disappearing from the scene.