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Math Reteach Workbook Grade 1 Pupil Edition
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN(s): 9780153204418, 0153204419
File Details: PDF, 4.55 MB
Year: 2001
Language: english
 Reteach
Workbook
PUPIL EDITION
G ra d e 1

Orlando • Boston • Dallas • Chicago • San Diego

www.harcourtschool.com
Copyright © by Harcourt, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
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HARCOURT and the Harcourt Logo are trademarks of Harcourt, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 0-15-320441-9

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 022 2004 2003 2002 2001

 CONTENTS

Unit 1: ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION 5.4 Doubles Plus 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

5.5 Problem Solving •
CONCEPTS
Draw a Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Chapter 1: Addition Concepts
Chapter 6: Addition Facts Practice
1.1 Addition Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
6.1 Remember the Facts . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.2 More Addition Stories . . . . . . . . . . . 2
6.2 Practice Sums Through 8 . . . . . . . . 27
1.3 Add with Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
6.3 Practice Sums Through 10 . . . . . . . 28
1.4 Problem Solving • Write an
6.4 Algebra • Follow the Rule . . . . . . . 29
Addition Sentence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6.5 Problem Solving • Write a
1.5 Add 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Number Sentence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Chapter 2: Using Addition
Chapter 7: Subtraction Strategies
2.1 Add in Any Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7.1 Count Back 1 and 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.2 Ways to Make 7 and 8 . . . . . . . . . . . 7
7.2 Count Back 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3 Ways to Make 9 and 10 . . . . . . . . . . 8
7.3 Relate Addition
2.4 Vertical Addition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
and Subtraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.5 Problem Solving •
7.4 Problem Solving •
Make a Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Draw a Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Chapter 3: Subtraction Concepts
Chapter 8: Subtraction Facts Practice
3.1 Subtraction Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
8.1 Remember the Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.2 Subtract with Pictures . . . . . . . . . . 12
8.2 Practice Subtraction
3.3 Write Subtraction Sentences . . . . . 13
Through 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.4 Problem Solving •
8.3 Practice Subtraction
Make a Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Through 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.5 Subtract All or None . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
8.4 Algebra • Follow the Rule . . . . . . . 38
Chapter 4: Using Subtraction 8.5 Fact Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.1 Take Apart 7 and 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 8.6 Problem Solving • Choose
4.2 Take Apart 9 and 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 the Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.3 Vertical Subtraction . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.4 How Many More? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Unit 3: NUMBERS TO 100 AND
4.5 Use Subtraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION TO 12

Unit 2: ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION Chapter 9: Building Numbers to 100

9.1 Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
FACTS TO 10
9.2 Tens and Ones to 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Chapter 5: Addition Strategies 9.3 Tens and Ones to 50 . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.1 Count On 1 and 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 9.4 Tens and Ones to 100 . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.2 Count On 1, 2, and 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 9.5 Expand Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.3 Doubles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
9.6 Problem Solving • Make 15.2 Make Tally Charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Reasonable Estimates . . . . . . . . . . 46 15.3 Picture Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
15.4 Bar Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Chapter 10: Comparing and 15.5 Problem Solving •
Ordering Numbers Make a Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
10.1 Greater Than . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
10.2 Less Than . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Chapter 16: Counting Pennies, Nickels,
10.3 Use , , or  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 and Dimes
10.4 Before, After, or Between . . . . . . . 50 16.1 Pennies and Nickels . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
10.5 1 Less, 1 More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 16.2 Pennies and Dimes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
10.6 10 Less, 10 More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 16.3 Count Groups of Coins . . . . . . . . . 76
16.4 Problem Solving • Act It Out . . . . 77
Chapter 11: Number Patterns
11.1 Ordinal Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Chapter 17: Using Money
11.2 Patterns on a Hundred Chart . . . . 54 17.1 Trade Pennies, Nickels,
11.3 Skip Count by 2s, 5s, and 10s . . . . . 55 and Dimes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
11.4 Problem Solving • 17.2 Equal Amounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Find a Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 17.3 Quarters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
17.4 One Dollar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Chapter 12: Addition to 12 17.5 Problem Solving • Act It Out . . . . 82
12.1 Count On to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
12.2 Doubles and Doubles Plus 1 . . . . . 58 Chapter 18: Telling Time
12.3 Add 3 Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 18.1 Read a Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
12.4 Problem Solving • Write a 18.2 Problem Solving • Act It Out . . . . 84
Number Sentence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 18.3 Time to the Hour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
18.4 Tell Time to the Half Hour . . . . . . 86
Chapter 13: Subtraction to 12 18.5 Practice Time to the Hour
13.1 Count Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 and Half Hour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
13.2 How Many More? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
13.3 Related Addition and Chapter 19: Time: Days and Months
Subtraction Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 19.1 Months and Days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
13.4 Problem Solving • 19.2 Order Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Draw a Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 19.3 Problem Solving •
Make a Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Chapter 14: Practice Addition 19.4 Read a Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
and Subtraction 19.5 Problem Solving • Make
14.1 Use Addition to Subtract . . . . . . . 65 Reasonable Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . 92
14.2 Fact Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
14.3 Practice Sums and Unit 5: GEOMETRY, MEASUREMENT,
Differences to 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 AND FRACTIONS
14.4 Problem Solving •
Choose a Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Chapter 20: Solid Figures and
Plane Shapes
Unit 4: MONEY, TIME, AND GRAPHING 20.1 Solid Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
20.2 Sort Solid Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Chapter 15: Data and Graphing 20.3 Flat Surfaces on Solids . . . . . . . . . . 95
15.1 Sort and Classify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
20.4 Plane Shapes on Solid Figures . . . 96 26.2 10 and More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
20.5 Sort and Identify Shapes . . . . . . . . 97 26.3 Make 10 to Add with 9 . . . . . . . . . 123
26.4 Make 10 to Add
Chapter 21: Spatial Sense with 6, 7, and 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
21.1 Same Size and Shape . . . . . . . . . . . 98 26.5 Add 3 Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
21.2 Symmetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 26.6 Problem Solving • Too Much
21.3 Give and Follow Directions . . . . . 100 Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
21.4 Locate Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
21.5 Problem Solving • Draw a Chapter 27: Subtraction Facts
Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 and Strategies
27.1 Count Back 1, 2, and 3 . . . . . . . . . . 127
Chapter 22: Patterns 27.2 Doubles Fact Families . . . . . . . . . . 128
22.1 Describe and Extend Patterns . . . 103 27.3 Think Addition to Subtract . . . . . 129
22.2 Pattern Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 27.4 Problem Solving • Choose
22.3 Make New Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 the Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
22.4 Problem Solving • Find a
Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Chapter 28: Addition and
Subtraction Practice
Chapter 23: Length 28.1 Practice Sums and
23.1 Compare Lengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Differences to 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
23.2 Use Nonstandard Units . . . . . . . . 108 28.2 Practice Sums and
23.3 Use an Inch Ruler . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Differences to 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
23.4 Use a Centimeter Ruler . . . . . . . . 110 28.3 Practice Sums and
23.5 Problem Solving • Make Differences to 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Reasonable Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . 111 28.4 Problem Solving •
Make a Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Chapter 24: Weight and Capacity
24.1 Use a Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Chapter 29: Adding 2-Digit Numbers
24.2 Estimate and Measure . . . . . . . . . . 113 29.1 Add Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
24.3 Compare Capacities . . . . . . . . . . . 114 29.2 Count On by Ones . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
24.4 Problem Solving • Choose the 29.3 Count On by Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Measuring Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 29.4 Add Tens and Ones . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
29.5 Model Adding 1-Digit to
Chapter 25: Fractions 2-Digit Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
25.1 Halves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
25.2 Fourths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Chapter 30: Subtracting 2-Digit Numbers
25.3 Thirds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 30.1 Subtract Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
25.4 Problem Solving • Choose the 30.2 Count Back by Ones . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 30.3 Count Back by Tens . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
25.5 Parts of Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 30.4 Subtract Tens and Ones . . . . . . . . 143
30.5 Model Subtracting 1-Digit
Unit 6: ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION from 2-Digit Numbers . . . . . . . . . 144
TO 20 AND WITH 2-DIGIT NUMBERS 30.6 Problem Solving • Use
Logical Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Chapter 26: Addition Facts and
Strategies to 20
26.1 Doubles and Doubles Plus 1 . . . . . 121
 LESSON 1.1
Name

Addition Stories
Use to tell a story. Draw the .
Count. Write how many there are in all.
1.

3 1 4 in all
2.

2 4 in all
3.

4 1 in all
4.
© Harcourt

1 1 in all
Reteach RW1
 LESSON 1.2
Name

More Addition Stories

Write the numbers.
Write how many in all.

1.

3 2 5 in all
2.

in all
3.

in all
4.
© Harcourt

in all

RW2 Reteach
 LESSON 1.3
Name

Add with Pictures

Put a on each bird.
Add. Write the sum.

1.

3 + 1 = 4
2.

1 + 2 =
3.

2 + 3 =
4.
© Harcourt

1 + 1 =
Reteach RW3
 LESSON 1.4
Name

Problem Solving • Write an Addition Sentence

Put a on each animal. Add.
Write the addition sentence.
1.

4 + 1 = 5
2.

3.

4.
© Harcourt

RW4 Reteach
 LESSON 1.5
Name

Add 0
Use . Write the numbers.
Write the sum.
1.

4 + 0 = 4
2.

+ =
3.

+ =
4.
© Harcourt

+ =
Reteach RW5
 LESSON 2.1
Name

Add in Any Order

3+2=5 2+3=5

Use and to find a sum.

Then add in a different order.
Draw and to show what you do.
1.

2+1= 3 1+2=
2.
© Harcourt

1+4= 4+1=
RW6 Reteach
 LESSON 2.2
Name

Ways to Make 7 and 8

Draw to show the numbers.
Color the parts. Write the sum.
1.

E
RED BLU

2 + 5 = 7
2.

3 + 4 =

3.

2 + 6 =
4.
© Harcourt

1 + 7 =
Reteach RW7
 LESSON 2.3
Name

Ways to Make 9 and 10

Put a on each egg.
Write the numbers.
1.

4 + 5 = 9
2.

+ = 9
3.

+ = 10
4.
© Harcourt

+ = 10

RW8 Reteach
 LESSON 2.4
Name

Vertical Addition
2
1
2 + 1 = 3 3
Use to add. Draw them.
Write the sum.
1.
1
+3
1+3= 4 4
2.
3
+2
3+2=
3.
1
+5
1+5=
© Harcourt

4.
2
+2
2+2=
Reteach RW9
 LESSON 2.5
Name

Problem Solving • Make a Model

1.

8 ¢
Put a penny on each circle.
Draw the pennies.
Add. Write the total amount.
2.

¢
3.

¢
4.
© Harcourt

¢
RW10 Reteach
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there can be no doubt, that such sum might be employed, if thought well—
for there was no definite trust attached to it—in furtherance of the quest of
the true “Shakespeare,” whether he might be found in Francis Bacon (as he
himself thought was the case) or in some other writer of the period in
question. Moreover, he had left in type certain “Baconian” essays, which,
although he gave no specific directions to that effect, it was known that he
desired to be published as his last words on a matter in which he was so
deeply interested, and these, at the request of his wife who survives him, I
have supervised and prepared for publication. Here a difficulty presented
itself. Some of these essays deal, to a certain extent, with the same subject
matter, and, consequently, the reader will find in them a certain amount of
repetition. At first I thought it might be possible to avoid this by collating
the various manuscripts, and fusing them together, as it were, into one
volume. It soon became apparent, however, that such “fusion” would lead
to “confusion,” and would be detrimental to Mr. Smithson’s work. I trust,
therefore, that the recurrence of various arguments, or sentiments, in the
following essays, will meet with generous toleration on the part of the
reader. After all, a certain amount of repetition is, sometimes, likely to do
more good than harm. The famous Mr. Justice Maule, while still at the Bar,
was once arguing a case before three Judges, one of whom, finding the
distinguished counsel somewhat prolix on this occasion, and inclined to
repeat his arguments, exclaimed testily: “Really, Mr. Maule, that is the third
time you have made that observation!” “Well,” replied Maule, quite
imperturbably, “there are three of your Lordships!” To repeat an argument
once for each Judge on the Bench was, then, in this great advocate’s
opinion, quite a right, proper, and useful thing to do. I am in hopes,
therefore, that there may be the same justification for a considerable amount
of repetition in the case now presented to a court—that of the reading public
—which, it is hoped, may consist of many more Judges than those
addressed by Mr. Justice Maule.
I would make this further observation with regard to Edward Smithson’s
Essays, though perhaps it is hardly necessary to make it. Although it has
been a pleasure to me to edit them, so far as they required editing at all, I
have, of course, no responsibility for the arguments or the opinions
expressed in them. Mr. Smithson, in the passage I have quoted above from
his article in The Nineteenth Century, says that I “ostentatiously disclaim
being a Baconian.” I am sorry if that disclaimer was made “ostentatiously,”
but speaking now, after the lapse of many years, and I trust without a shred
of “ostentation”—which, certainly, would be very much out of place—I
must say that I am still unwilling to label myself as a “Baconian.” It was, I
think, Professor Huxley who said that, if asked whether he believed that
there were inhabitants in Mars, his reply would be that he neither believed
nor disbelieved. He did not know. This is the “agnostic” position in which I
find myself with regard to the hypothesis that Bacon is the true
Shakespeare. I really do not know. Nevertheless, an astronomer who had
adopted Professor Huxley’s position concerning the possible existence of
inhabitants in Mars, might without prejudice to that agnostic position, find
himself impelled to set forth certain arguments which seemed to him to tell
in favour of such a possibility. In the same way it occurred to me some
years ago to write certain essays on the Baconian side of the case, two of
which I now venture to publish as a sequel to those of Mr. Smithson’s
authorship. I recognise that there is much that may quite fairly and
reasonably be urged in favour of the Baconian case. Merely to ridicule that
case appears to me to be indicative of folly rather than wisdom on the part
of those who adopt such an attitude. Nevertheless, when all is said and
done, I am far from thinking that the Baconian authorship of any of the
plays or poems published in the name of “Shakespeare” has been actually
proved. That Francis Bacon had, at any rate, something to do with the
production of some of these plays and poems is, at least, a very plausible
hypothesis. As Professor Lefranc writes, “Que l’auteur du théâtre
Shakespearien ait été en rapport avec Francis Bacon, c’est ce que nous
avons toujours été porté à admettre pour bien des raisons,”[24] and in
support of that hypothesis I may be said to hold a brief pro hâc vice in the
two “Baconian” Essays which I now venture to publish. But that is all. I
endeavour to keep an open mind upon this, as upon many other doubtful
questions. Professor Lefranc himself has shown, with great learning and
conspicuous ability, that a strong case can be made in favour of William
Stanley, Sixth Earl of Derby, as the author of some, at any rate, of the
“Shakespearean” plays, and more especially of that extraordinary play
Love’s Labour’s Lost.[25] But the constructive side of the “Shakespeare
Problem” I must be content to leave to younger and abler men, and such as
have much more time to devote to it than I have. With regard, however, to
“the man from Stratford,” as Mr. Henry James styles him, or the “Stratford
rustic,” as Messrs. Garnett and Gosse do not hesitate to characterize him,
his supposed authorship may, and, indeed, must be, set aside as one of the
greatest and most unfortunate of the many delusions which have, from time
to time, imposed themselves upon a credulous and “patient world.”[26]
I cannot conclude this note without a brief reference to two articles
which have lately appeared in the Quarterly Review (October, 1921, and
January, 1922), under the heading of “Recent Shakespearean Research,” by
Mr. C. R. Haines. I can find little or nothing that can be recalled “recent” in
them unless we give a quite unwonted extension to the meaning of that
word. Mr. Haines even includes such vieux jeu as the Plume MSS. in his
“recent” Shakespearean Research, but they certainly contain some very
remarkable statements. I will, however, here content myself by quoting the
following letter which I sent to the Nation and Athenæum after reading the
first of these articles, and which appeared in that paper on November 26th,
last:
“RECENT SHAKESPEAREAN RESEARCH.”
Sir,—In an article under the above heading in the October number of the Quarterly
Review, Mr. C. R. Haines writes (p. 229): “There cannot be the smallest doubt that
Shakespeare [i.e., William Shakspere, of Stratford] was possessed of books at his death.
One of these, with his undoubted signature [my italics], ‘W. Shr.’ is still extant in the
Bodleian Library.... A second, Florio’s version of Montaigne (1603), bears the signature
‘Wilm Shakspere,’ which is with some reason regarded as genuine.”
Now Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, who, I believe, is generally considered our
foremost “paleographer,” has told us that the “Florio’s Montaigne” signature is an
“undoubted forgery” (I have in my possession a letter of his addressed from the British
Museum in 1904 to the late Sir Herbert Tree, and kindly forwarded by the latter to me, in
which Sir Edward so states); and the same high authority writes in “Shakespeare’s
England” (Vol. I, p. 308, n.): “Nor is it possible to give a higher character to the signature,
‘Wm She.’ (not ‘W. Shr,’ as Mr. Haines prints it) in the Aldine Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses,’
1502, in the Bodleian Library.”
How in the face of this Mr. C. R. Haines can assert that the book referred to, in the
Bodleian Library, bears Shakespeare’s “undoubted signature,” or that the “Florio” signature
is with reason regarded as genuine, I am quite unable to understand.
A further question is suggested by the following passage in Mr. Haines’s article.
Alluding to the suit of “Belott v. Mountjoy,” he writes: “From this suit we also learn an
interesting by-fact, namely, that Belott and his wife, after quitting the Mountjoys, lived in
the house of George Wilkins, the playwright, who had the honour of collaborating with
Shakespeare in ‘Pericles,’ and possibly in ‘Timon.’ ” Here I would ask what particle of
evidence is there that the “George Wilkins, Victualler,” mentioned in the action, was
George Wilkins the pamphleteer and hack-dramatist? It is true Professor Wallace has told
us that, although “we have known nothing about Wilkins personally before,” he thinks that
“more than one reader with a livelier critical interest in these [Shakespearean] plays may be
able to smell the victualler” (Harper’s Magazine, March, 1910, p. 509); but, really, we can
hardly be expected to put implicit confidence in the deductions of Dr. Wallace’s olfactory
organ. What warrant, then, has Mr. Haines to characterize as a “fact” that which is only
guess-work and assumption? For my part, I can no more “smell the victualler” in the author
of “The Miseries of Inforst Marriage” than I can “smell” (as did Professor Wallace) the
French official Herald in Mountjoy of Muggle Street!
One more question and I have done, though many more occur to me. Mr. Haines invites
our attention to “The Plume MSS., which gave us the only glimpse of John Shakespeare at
his home, cracking jests with his famous son” (p. 241). May I respectfully ask him if it is
not the fact that this pleasant picture of John Shakespeare rests upon the (alleged) statement
of Sir John Mennes, and that Sir John Mennes was born on March 1st, 1599, whereas John
Shakespeare died in September, 1601, so that the infant Mennes must, presumably, have
been taken from his cradle in Kent, in his nurse’s arms, for the purpose of interviewing that
“merry-cheeked old man,” of which interview he made a record from memory when he had
learnt to write?
I trust Mr. Haines will enlighten a perplexed inquirer as to these matters in the second
article, which, as I gather, he is to contribute to the Quarterly Review on the results of
“Recent Shakespearean Research.”—Yours, &c.,
George Greenwood.

I turned, therefore, with some interest to Mr. Haines’s second article, but,
alas, I found no enlightenment therein. He has treated my questions with a
very discreet silence. Well, no doubt “silence is golden”—in some cases.
But such is “Shakespearean” criticism at the present day, of which these
articles are a very instructive and characteristic specimen. I am aware, of
course, that if I were to offer a paper in reply to them, however conclusive
that reply might be, and even if it were quite up to the literary standard of
the Review in question, it would be at once returned to me by the editor—if
not consigned to the “W.P.B.”—for the all-sufficient reason that the writer
is guilty of vile and intolerable heresy (to wit that he shares the conviction
of the late Henry James—and many others alive and dead—that the author
of Hamlet and Lear and Othello was actually a well-educated man, of high
position, and the representative of the highest culture of his day), and is
therefore taboo to the editors of all decent journals. Id sane intolerandum!
Indeed, with the exception of the editor of the National Review—to whom
the thanks of all unprejudiced and liberal-minded men are most justly due—
I know of no editor of an English quarterly or monthly magazine, since the
lamented death of Mr. Wray Skilbeck, who does not maintain this boycott
as though it were a matter of moral obligation, just as but a few years since
they boycotted the Free-thinker and the Rationalist. They freely open their
columns to attacks upon the “Anti-Stratfordian,” but on no account must he
be allowed to reply.
Whether such an attitude redounds to the credit of English literature it is
not for me, a “heretic,” to say. I would only venture to refer the reader to the
observations of Professor Abel Lefranc—a scholar and critic of European
reputation—upon this matter, in whose judgment it seems that such an
attitude with regard to an extremely interesting literary problem is not only
absurdly prejudiced and narrow-minded, but one which—I tremble as I say
it—makes some of our literary highbrows not a little ridiculous in the eyes
of men of common sense and unfettered judgment.[27]
G. G.
 THE MASQUE OF “TIME VINDICATED”[28]
The following extract from Mr. Smithson’s Article in The Nineteenth
Century of November 1913, headed “Ben Jonson’s Pious Fraud,” may well
stand as a preface to his now published Essay on Jonson’s Masque of Time
Vindicated, which was written by him in the year 1919. The reader may also
be referred to Chapters VI and VII of his Shakespeare-Bacon, published in
1899.
It is odd that we Baconians, differing as we do from our opponents in so many points,
should agree with them so entirely on one—the supreme importance of the testimony of
Ben Jonson. This paper is mainly concerned with two of his utterances, the Ode in the First
Folio, and the Prince’s Masque. Both the one and the other belong in point of composition
to the same period, 1622-3. We will begin with the Masque completed no doubt a few
months earlier than the Ode. In my opinion they were vital parts of one great scheme of
which Bacon, i.e., Bacon-Shakespeare, was the subject.
The genesis of the Prince’s Masque was probably on this wise: assuming that Bacon
was bent on disowning his plays, the publication of them, however generous in intention,
could at best be only a left-handed compliment to him. Consequently if the scheme was to
yield any true satisfaction to its originators (or any suitable consolation to Bacon regarded
as the victim of malicious if not disloyal persecution), it would have to give scope for some
direct (ad virum) expression, in their own persons if possible, of love and admiration for
their hero. A prince brought up in the court of James the First would be sure to decide that
a Masque was the thing and Ben Jonson the man. As the audience would necessarily be
select and discreet (Court influence being potent), the risk of disclosure was not serious;
and even if it had been, Jonson’s skill would have been equal to the task of hoodwinking
any probable audience. On this occasion luck helped cunning. In the nick of time, George
Wither, a “prodigious pourer forth of rhime,” happened to publish a volume of Satirical
Essays in rhyme, with a ridiculous dedication of the thing to himself as patron and
protector. This I fancy gave Jonson just what he wanted—a red herring to draw across the
scent.
The Prince’s Masque had another, and for our purpose far more significant title—Time
Vindicated to Himself and His Honours. Time, no Time of long ago, but the age that was
then passing, had been slandered, taxed with being mean and dull and sterile, and the
intention of the Masque or Pageant was to refute these calumnies in presence, not of an
inquisitive world, but of Time’s living ornaments (as well as himself). If report speak true,
it was presented on the 19th of January, 1623—the Sunday in that memorable year which
fell nearest to Bacon’s birthday—presented in circumstances of unprecedented splendour,
“the Prince leading the Measures with the French embassador’s wife.” The Masque (as
given in Jonson’s Works) is sub-divided into Antimasque and Masque proper.
Fame, the accredited mouthpiece of the author, is by far the most important personage
in the Antimasque. Her first business is to proclaim that she has been sent to invite to that
night’s “great spectacle,” not the many, but the few who alone were worthy to view it. An
inquisitive mob nicknamed The Curious at once begins to heckle Fame. A thrasonical
personage called Chronomastix, a caricature compounded in unequal proportions of
George Wither and the Ovid Junior of Jonson’s Poetaster, then appears on the scene.
Chronomastix, I may say in passing, seems to have deluded John Chamberlain, for he (J.
C.) tells a correspondent that Jonson in the Prince’s Masque “runs a risk by impersonating
George Withers as a whipper of the times, which is a dangerous jest.” At sight of
Chronomastix The Curious jeer at Fame for not recognising their idol, while Chronomastix
himself has the effrontery to call her his “mistress,” and tells her it is for her sake alone that
he “revells so in rime.” Fame retorts (in effect): “Away thou wretched Impostor! My
proclamation was not meant for thee or thy kind; goe revell with thine ignorant admirers.
Let worthy names alone.” Chronomastix is furious, brags of his popularity, and appeals to
The Curious to “come forth ... and now or never, spight of Fame, approve me.” The stage
direction here runs: “At this, the Mutes come in.” The first Mute, an elephantine creature,
meant of course for Jonson himself, is about to bring forth a “male-Poem ... that kicks at
Time already.” (Jonson’s Ode to Shakespeare was probably ruminated, if not written, at the
very time that this “male-Poem” was struggling to be born.) The second Mute, a quondam
Justice—reminding one of Justice Clement in Jonson’s earliest comedy—is in the habit of
carrying Chronomastix about “in his pocket” and crying “ ‘O happy man!’ to the wrong
party, meaning the Poet, where he meant the subject.” (This I take for a hint at the
confusion of mind that must have existed among lovers of the drama as to who
Shakespeare really was.) The succeeding pair of Mutes are, the one a printer in disguise
who conceals himself and “his presse in a hollow tree, and workes by glow-worm light, the
moon’s too open”; the other a compositor who in “an angle inhabited by ants will sit curled
whole days and nights, and work his eyes out for him.”[29] The fifth Mute is a learned
man, a schoolmaster, who is turning the works of the caricature Chronomastix into Latine.
(“Some good pens”—as we learn from his letters—were at this time engaged in turning
Bacon’s Advancement of Learning into Latin, the “general language.”) The sixth and last
Mute is a “Man of warre,” reminiscent of Gullio in the Return from Parnassus, who it may
be remembered worships “sweet Mr. Shakspeare,” talks “nothing but Shakspeare,” etc. Not
one of the Mutes ever opens his mouth, and all that the audience knows of them is told by
The Curious, whose function is to connect the Antimasque with the Masque and act as
nomenclators for the elephantine poet and his suite. The Mutes came, or seemed to come,
at the bidding of Chronomastix, in order to snub Fame for having insulted him. But
Chronomastix himself is the person actually snubbed by them, seeing that they ignore him
utterly. As for Fame, she treats the Mutes very coolly, her only comment being “What a
confederacy of Folly is here!”
 Following hard on this observation (of Fame’s) comes a dance, in which The Curious
adore Chronomastix and then carry him off in triumph. Afterwards The Curious come up
again, and one of them, addressing Fame, asks: “Now, Fame, how like you this?” Another
chimes in: “He scornes you, and defies you, has got a Fame of his owne, as well as a
Faction.” A third adds: “And these will deify him, to despite you.” Fame answers: “I envie
not the Apotheosis. ’Twill prove but deifying of a Pompion.” (If The Curious had scented
what Fame was about, a retort like this would have been enough to let them into the secret.
But this hint, as well as her previous taunt, “My hot inquisitors, what I am about is more
than you understand,” was lost on them and they continue their futile cackle.) Fame gets
rid of The Curious at last by means of the Cat and Fiddle, who, according to the stage
direction, “make sport with and drive them away.”
Relieved of the presence of all who were unfit to view the “great Spectacle” now on the
point of being exhibited “with all solemnity,” Fame at last lets herself go: “Commonly
(says she) The Curious are ill-natured and, like flies, seek Time’s corrupted parts to blow
upon, but may the sound ones live with fame and honour, free from the molestation of
these insects.”
The stage direction here runs: “Loud musique. To which the whole scene opens, where
Saturne sitting with Venus is discovered above, and certaine Votaries coming forth below,
which are the Chorus.”
Addressing the King, Fame announces that Saturn (Time) urged by Venus (emblem of
affection) had promised to set free “certaine glories of the Time,” which, though eminently
fitted to “adorn that age,” had nevertheless for mysterious reasons been kept in “darknesse”
by “Hecate (Queene of shades).” Venus puts in her word; assures Time that the liberation
of the “glories” is a “worke (which) will prove his honour” as well as exceed “men’s
hopes.” Saturn answers her gallantly and then addressing the Votaries says: “You shall not
long expect: with ease the things come forth (that) are born to please. Looke, have you
seene such lights as these?”
This is the very climax of the Masque. “The Masquers (so runs the stage direction) are
discovered and that which obscured them vanisheth.” The Votaries exclaim with rapture:
“These, these must sure some wonders be.... What grief, or envie had it beene, that these
and such had not beene seene, but still obscured in shade! Who are the glories of the Time
... and for the light were made!”
(Who were these “glories” whom Fame, the Prince, Ben Jonson, and the rest had with
difficulty rescued from the underworld, in whose behalf inquisitive intruders had been
excluded, about whom absurd mistakes of identity had been made, and who according to
Fame were destined to play parts in the “apotheosis” of a pumpkin?[30] The only answer
that occurs to me is that the spectacle consisted essentially of a selection from among the
dramatis personæ who were about to figure in the First Folio, especially characters out of
the sixteen or twenty then unpublished plays.)
The Masque ends with an exhortation to charity, the final words being:
 Man should not hunt mankind to death,
But strike the enemies of man.
Kill vices if you can:
They are your wildest beasts:
And when they thickest fall, you make the Gods true feasts.

(Bearing in mind that Bacon was probably regarded by the audience as an ill-used man,
this exhortation sorts well with what I take to be the true interpretation of the Masque. So
does the motto with which it opens. In that motto Martial bids ill-natured censors to leave
him alone and keep their venom for self-admirers, persons vain of their own achievements.
From first to last, therefore, Time Vindicated seems to have been deliberately adjusted to
Bacon.)
The second part of this quasi-national scheme for doing honour to Shakespeare-Bacon
falls now to be considered. The First Folio was published, it would seem, towards the end
of 1623. Though not entered on the Stationers’ Register till November, it may well have
been on the stocks before that, for the difficulties of collecting, arranging with interested
printers, editing, adapting (The Tempest for example), and so forth, must have been
extraordinary. The volume is introduced by some doggerel, signed “B. I.,” which tells the
reader:

This figure that thou here seest put,

It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein, etc.

Derision and mystification, twin motives or causes of the guy Chronomastix, are
equally the motives of this grotesque “figure.” Whether this were also intended to parody
the doggerel inscribed on Shakespeare’s gravestone in Stratford Church may be open to
doubt. That inscription runs:

Good frend, for Jesus sake forbeare

To digge the dust encloased heare;
Bleste be the man, etc.

Warned by “B. I.” that laughter is in that air, we turn to the famous Ode itself which is
signed “Ben: Ionson”(not “B. I.”) This Poem opens with a significant hint that the “name”
Shakespeare, as distinct from his “book” and his “fame,” was a delicate subject to handle.
After having assured himself with much ado that Shakespeare’s (true) name is now in no
danger, Jonson proceeds to inform him that he (Shakesspeare) is alive still, “a moniment
without a tombe.” Then comes the line: “And though thou hadst small Latin and less
Greek,” which is generally mistaken for a categorical statement that Shakespeare lacked
Latin, whereas it should be understood as equivalent to “Supposing thou hadst small
Latin,” etc. The word “would” in the next sentence (“From thence to honour thee I would
not seek”) shows this to be the reading.
Then come the triumphant verses in which, after having challenged “insolent Greece or
haughtie Rome” to produce a greater than Shakespeare, Jonson exclaims:

Triumph my Britaine, thou hast one to showe,

To whom all Scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When like Apollo he came forth, etc.

(Compare this with what Jonson wrote of Bacon not many years later: Bacon “is he,
who hath filled up all numbers; and performed that in our tongue, which may be compared
or preferred, either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome. In short, within his view and about
his times were all the wits born that could honour a language, or helpe study. Now things
daily fall, wits grow downe-ward, and Eloquence growes back-ward. So that hee may be
named, and stand as the marke and akme of our language.... Hee seemed to mee ever, by
his worke, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration that had beene in many
Ages.” The similarity between the two eulogies strikes one the moment they are brought
into juxtaposition, and this helps to explain the exclusion of the Ode from the collected
Workes of Ben: Jonson: 1640-1.)
After this rapturous outburst the mood changes, and we are bored by a number of
didactic lines about the need of toil and sweat as well as genius, “for the good poet’s made
as well as born.” The passage is one among many symptoms of Jonson’s long-standing
quarrel with Shakespeareolators—a quarrel which at a later date found expression in the
Discoveries—for refusing to see that the carelessness of their idol was at times not less
conspicuous than his genius. Satisfied with having vindicated his own consistency, Jonson
goes on to declare that each “well-torned and true-filed” line of Shakespeare’s “seemes to
shake a lance as brandished at the eyes of ignorance.” (Obviously, therefore, Jonson had in
view a peculiar kind of ignorance, one which the mere technique displayed in the First
Folio would, but for a misunderstanding, have put to flight. The quondam Justice of Time
Vindicated who was wont to cry “O happy man! to the wrong party,” suggests the
misunderstanding in question. What, moreover, are we to make of the “stage” shaking and
“lance” shaking and brandishing? How reconcile this punning upon shake and spear with
the opening lines of the Ode which breathe forth reverence for “thy name.” It had been
difficult, short of direct statement, to give plainer indications that Jonson was out for a
juggle with a pair of names, one of them an alias.)
On the heels of the lance-brandishing jest comes the passionate utterance: “Sweet Swan
of Avon, what a sight it were to see thee in our waters yet appeare, and make those flights
upon the bankes of Thames, that so did take Eliza and our James!” (Here suggestio falsi is
carried to the verge of the lie. What Jonson would have us think he felt about Warwick and
its Avon is one thing. What he actually thought may be gathered from a fragment of rather
later date in which he jeers at “Warwick Muses” for choosing a “Hoby-horse” as their
favourite mount—“the Pegasus that uses to waite on Warwick Muses,” etc. Be this as it
may, the ethics of the case would cause him no uneasiness. A secret had to be kept in
deference to the wishes of one whom Jonson regarded as almost the greatest and most
admirable of men, one too whose right to an incognito no living man of letters was likely
to dispute.)
Jonson’s yearning to see Shakespeare once more “upon the bankes of Thames” is
suddenly arrested by a vision. Turning his poetic eye upwards and catching sight of the
constellation Cygnus, he affects to be thrilled by the conceit that Shakespeare had been
metamorphosed, “advanced” to a higher sphere—“the hemisphere” as he calls it. (The Ode
belongs, as has been said, to 1622-23. Some ten or a dozen years earlier, Shakspere,
preferring humdrum Stratford to London and poetry, had turned his back on the Capital. If
this yearning had been uttered in 1612-13, instead of 1622-23, it might have been meant
for the Stratford man. So with the vision and the thrill, if we could have referred them to
1616-17, they would have provoked no question. But as things stand, question is
inevitable. Had the yearning been kept under since 1612, and why? The vision too and the
thrill, what had they to do with the testator of 1616? What more likely than that Jonson had
in his mind the social elevation of the wonderful man who long before 1623 had broken his
magic wand, doffed his singing robes, and taken leave of the stage for ever?)
The Ode closes on a note akin to despair at the low estate of Poetry ever since
Shakespeare had ceased to enrich and adorn it. A similar note, it will be remembered,
marks the close of Jonson’s appreciation of Bacon: “Now things daily fall: wits grow
downe-ward, and Eloquence growes back-ward” etc. Here again the thoughts of Jonson
were evidently running on Shakespeare; for with Jonson Eloquence was Poetry, or rather—
to speak by the book—Poetry was “the most prevailing Eloquence, and of the most exalted
Charact.”
The contention of this article may be compressed into one sentence: The Prince’s
Masque and the famous Ode to Shakespeare were a signal act of homage in two parts to
one man, and that man Francis Bacon. The proposition does not admit of demonstrative
proof. High probability is all that is claimed, and if the claim be rejected the fault is with
the advocate.

Such being the Preface, let us now turn to the further Essay on the
Masque of Time Vindicated, which Edward Smithson left for, alas,
posthumous publication.
Proprietas denique illa inseparabilis, quae Tempus ipsum sequitur, ut veritatem indies
parturiat. De Aug: Scientiarum, 1623.

The year 1623 was a memorable one for literature. First in order of date
came a masterpiece of Ben Jonson’s, the Masque of Time Vindicated. This
was followed by Bacon’s De Augmentis Scientiarum, an expanded version
of his Advancement of Learning, written many years earlier. The finest gift
of that year was the First Folio of Shakespeare.
Time Vindicated consists of two violently contrasted parts; jest and
earnest, antimasque and masque proper. The most conspicuous figure in the
farcical part is CHRONOMASTIX, an enigmatical creature, so greedy of
publicity (for fame is denied him) that his only “end” is “to get himselfe a
name,” to ingratiate himself with “rumor” (he would have said Fame) as an
inspired poet or maker.[31] Chronomastix is escorted by a doting mob of
inquisitive adorers, the Curious, who are obsessed by the expectation that
they are about to assist at the deification of a great poet, their own
incomparable Chronomastix as they fondly imagine. Fame, the
mouthpiece of Jonson, derides the Curious at every turn, and when they
tell her that Chronomastix “has got a Fame of his owne, as well as a
Faction: and these will deifie him, to despite you,” Fame replies: “I envie
not the Apotheosis. ’Twill prove but deifying of a Pompion.” The
antimasque closes with the ignominious expulsion of Chronomastix and
his votaries; obviously because the “great spectacle,” which Time intended
that “night to exhibit with all solemnity,” was too august for prying eyes to
see.
The Masque proper opens with an address to King James, the gist of
which is that “certaine glories of the Time,” till then artificially concealed,
were about to be freed “at Love’s suit” or intercession because admirably
fitted “to adorne the age.” The climax of the Masque follows this address
almost immediately. The stage direction runs: “The Masquers are
discovered, and that which obscur’d them, vanisheth.” The Chorus of the
Masque is delighted by the vision of the Masquers, and cries out: “What
griefe, or envie had it beene, that these, and such (as these) had not beene
seene, but still obscur’d in shade! Who are the glories of the Time, ... and
for the light were made!”
The essential fiction of Time Vindicated, known also as The Prince’s
Masque, is that Time had been reproached with incapacity to produce
masterpieces comparable anyway with those of Greece and Rome; and that
the revelation of these Masquers was a triumphant refutation of the
calumny. To suppose that this result was achieved by the Prince and his
companions would be to insult Ben Jonson, the Prince, and all concerned.
The all-important feature of the revelation must have been the make-up of
the Masquers.
For several months previous to 1623 Jonson’s mind had necessarily been
concentrated on Shakespeare; collecting manuscripts; squaring rival
publishers; appreciating contributions offered by admirers (Fletcher perhaps
and Chapman among others); amending originals, Julius Cæsar for
instance; acting as editor-in-chief of the great book; meditating his Ode to
“Shakespeare,” the man he lov’d and honoured (on this side idolatry) as
much as any. (See Discoveries, 1641, for this italicised passage).
There are many and various indications to justify the hypothesis that the
Masque as a whole was a tribute of love and admiration for “Shakespeare.”
Here are some of them. (1) Love is the incentive to the freeing of the
“wonders”—the “glories”—that so charmed the Chorus of the Masque.
Love for “Shakespeare” was probably Jonson’s leading motive for
undertaking all the drudgery connected with the First Folio. (2) The
mention of “envie” by the Chorus gives one to think. Deprecation of envy
is the burden of the enigmatical and portentous exordium of Jonson’s Ode
to Shakespeare. (3) For reasons unexplained by his accredited biographers,
the plays of Shakespeare had long been held back or secluded, but were
then on the eve of publication or disclosure; not indeed “cured and perfect
of their limbes”—to quote the editorial figment in the First Folio—but
certainly less damaged, and imperfect than even Jonson, at an earlier stage,
can have expected. (4) The audience of Time Vindicated is given to
understand that “the Bosse of Belinsgate,” a nickname for Jonson, “has a
male-poem in her belly now, big as a colt, that kicks at Time already.” In my
opinion this Time-defying poem was none other than the famous Ode to
Shakespeare. These indications alone are sufficient to justify the above-
mentioned hypothesis that the Masque as a whole was a tribute of love and
admiration for “Shakespeare.” On no other hypothesis would the title, Time
Vindicated, have been appropriate or even excusable. Whereas no other
conceivable title would have been so absolutely appropriate, if
“Shakespeare” were, as I believe he was, the hero of the Masque; in
precisely the same sense, by the way, in which he was the hero of the Ode;
the only Poet worthy to be compared, in the words of the Ode, with “all that
insolent Greece or haughtie Rome sent forth, or since did from their ashes
come.”
 Another significant feature of the Masque is the display of anxiety to
safeguard the spectacular revelation of the Masquers from the attentions of
inquisitive observers, an anxiety which requires the drastic expulsion of the
Curious. This anxiety, as I read it, betokened a secret intimately connected
with the First Folio. Before developing this contention, it may be well to
clear the ground, not only of Heminge and Condell, but also of the Stratford
gentleman’s representatives. Heminge and Condell were probably mere
dummies who gave Jonson carte blanche to say in their names anything
whether strictly true or not, which he thought conducive to the end in view;
the prefatory address ostensibly subscribed by them is too Jonsonian to
admit of any doubt on this score. As for “Mr. Shakspere,” he had long been
dead and buried, and his commonplace Will knows nothing of plays,
manuscripts, books, or anything that matters. And as for his representatives
—had they been consulted at all—they would have welcomed, rather than
vetoed publicity.
The object of these precautions to secure secrecy must have been a
persona grata to the King, Prince, and Court; this might go without saying.
A significant conjuration against hunting “Mankind to death” suggests that
he was also considered, by the Prince among others, a victim of malicious
persecution. For other clues we have to go back to the Antimasque. The
Curious have contrived to pick up several very useful items of information
about the mysterious object in question. They know for instance that he is
or has been served by printers and compositors so devoted to him, that they
were quite content to “worke eyes out for him,” in dark holes and corners,
the better to “conceale” them. They know too that a typical admirer of
certain “poems,” which he was in the habit of carrying about “in his
pocket,” made the ridiculous mistake of addressing his congratulations “to
the wrong party”: to Chronomastix, the “subject” of the Antimasque,
whom he mistook for the “Poet.” This blunder is crucial. The secret so
ostentatiously safeguarded was a secret of pseudonymity. The Poet of the
Masque (and of our quest)—the very antithesis of the blatant poetaster of
the Antimasque—was a “maker” who concealed his personality behind a
pen-name.
The evidence that Francis Bacon was a “concealed” poet is
incontestable. A private letter of his is conclusive, though Aubrey’s
corroborative evidence is by no means negligible. Moreover, Bacon,
besides being a persona grata at Court, was probably regarded by many
notabilities not as a criminal, but rather as a sufferer for the faults of his day
and generation. Ben Jonson’s views may be gathered from his Discoveries
(1641) where he tells that Bacon was “one of the greatest men ... that had
beene in many Ages ... perform’d that in our tongue which may be
compar’d or preferr’d to, either insolent Greece or haughtie Rome.... So that
hee may be nam’d and stand as the marke and akme of our language.... In
his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength: for
Greatnesse he could not want.” Francis Bacon then was the mysterious poet
of Time Vindicated. That Bacon was not the only concealed poet of those
days is probably true. London might have teemed with concealed poets. But
the only concealed poet who satisfies the many other conditions is Francis
Bacon. Additional evidence that we are on the right track is supplied by the
Antimasque. The “Nosed” ones among the Curious have smelt out apropos
of Chronomastix that “a schoolmaster is turning all his workes into Latin.”
Now it happens that about 1623 Bacon wrote to an intimate friend: “My
labours are most set to have those works ... Advancement of Learning ... the
Essays (etc), well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens that
forsake me not.” The Advancement of Learning in Latin form, De Aug:
Scientiarum, appeared in 1623, dedicated to Prince Charles the dedicatee of
our Masque (and Camden, Jonson’s “reverend” master may have helped in
the translation—but this is mere conjecture).[32]
The figure Chronomastix is not easy to range or class; for he is not a
caricature proper. He salutes Fame with impudent assurance (in the
Antimasque) as his “Deare Mistris” and tells her that “he revells so in rime”
for no other “end” than “to serve Fame ... and get himselfe a name.” Fame,
here as elsewhere, the mouthpiece of Jonson, browbeats the blatant
creature: “Away, I know thee not, wretched Impostor, Creatire of glory,
Mountebanke of witte, selfe-loving Braggart, ... Scorne of all the Muses,
goe revell with thine ignorant admirers, let worthy names alone.” A little
abashed by this rebuff, Chronomastix appeals to the Curious for
sympathy; tells them that his “glorious front and word at large triumphs in
print at my admirers charge”; and finishes his harangue by this invitation to
his friends and admirers: “Come forth that love me, and now or never,
spight of Fame, approve me.” Chronomastix therefore whatever he be, is
the very antithesis of a self-effacing poet or maker. He belongs I think to the
same genus as those fantastic portraits, Landru chez lui, etc., lately
exhibited in Piccadilly by the National Portrait Society, partly to amuse the
public and partly to puzzle quidnuncs. He was a freak in other words, and
his function was to amuse outsiders and put curiosity off the scent.
Turn we now from the figure Chronomastix, to the “Figure” which
mars the front page of the First Folio: the sorry “Figure ... wherein the
Graver had a strife with Nature to out-doo the life”; as “B. J.” (Ben Jonson)
significantly informs “the Reader.” “B. J.’s” innuendo does not stop here;
he follows it up by explicitly warning all readers to “looke not on” the
“picture,” but on the “Booke.” The warning seems almost superfluous; for
the effigy cannot be identified with portrait or bust of any human being.
Twin brother to Chronomastix, the thing is a freak expressly designed to
prevent inquisitive persons, ourselves among others, from scrutinising the
fiction then launched on the world.
Reverting once more to the Antimasque and the orgiastic dance at the
end of which the Curious carry away their deity Chronomastix: one or
other of the deluded adorers taunts Fame in these words: “He scornes you
and defies you, h’as got a Fame on’s owne, as well as a Faction, and these
will deifie him, to despite you.” Fame replies: “I envie not the Apotheosis.
’Twill prove but deifying of a Pompion.” When these words were spoken, it
is quite possible that neither the figure, nor the Ode, nor the prefatory
addresses had reached finality. But Jonson’s inside knowledge of the whole
project would enable him to forecast important results. One of these results,
in my opinion, was that a Pumpkin would be deified by posterity. In this
forecast a note of misgiving is perceptible enough; but of spitefulness there
is hardly a trace; for after all, the pumpkin is a deserving vegetable—the
stress here is on the word deserving, since that is the epithet by which the
surviving Burbages, in perfect good temper, described the deceased
Shakspere. This apotheosis idea, I may add, is also prominent in the
Shakespeare Ode at the point where Jonson pulls himself up: “But stay, I
see thee to the hemisphere advanced and made a constellation there.” In the
Ode however the apostrophe—half banter, half congratulation—is entirely
free from regret or misgiving.
From the point of view of the privileged few who were in the secret,
Time Vindicated and the Shakespeare Folio were, I consider, parts of a
superlative Act of Homage to the greatest of modern poets. From Jonson’s
special point of view they were a pious fraud, in which at the behest of
disinterested love and admiration for Bacon, he consented to undertake the
chief rôle. After the death of Bacon Jonson’s mood may have undergone
some modification. Certain it is that the Ode, his finest poem, is excluded
from the first edition, Vol. II, of his collected Works, and that in his
Discoveries he tells “posterity” certain truths about Shakespeare which
were not even suggested in the Ode.
Hitherto our thoughts have been preoccupied with Ben Jonson. They
shall now be devoted more closely to Bacon and the state of his mind and
feelings about 1623. In a pathetic letter of his to King James, Bacon
comforts himself with the knowledge that his fall was not the “act” of his
Sovereign, and then proceeds: “For now it is thus with me: I am a year and
a half old in misery ... mine own means through mine own improvidence
are poor and weak.... My dignities remain marks of your favour, but
burdens of my present fortune. The poor remnants ... of my former fortunes
in plate and jewels I have spread upon poor men unto whom I owed,
scarcely leaving myself bread.... I have often been told by many of my
Lords (of your Council), as it were in excusing the severity of the sentence,
that they knew they left me in good hands.... Help me, dear Sovereign ... so
far as I ... that desire to live to study, may not be driven to study to live.”
Here it is to be observed that the proceeds of sale of the Shakespeare
Folio, “printed at his admirers’ charge,” would help towards relieving the
fallen man’s pecuniary distress, whilst the august compliment conveyed by
the Masque would tend to soothe his lacerated feelings.
The attitude of a concealed poet to his art is rarely explicit, or
concealment would be next to impossible. In this connection I ask leave to
quote from an Essay, Shakespeare-Bacon, by E. W. S., published many
years ago.[33] The essayist, after having stated that Bacon’s qualifications
for dramatic work were of a high order, and that some at least of his
recognised Elizabethan output actually were dramatic, runs on: “Moreover,
curious as is Bacon’s manner when treating of ‘poesie,’ his manner when
dealing with dramatic poetry is more curious still. The Advancement of
Learning though not published till the reign of her successor, belongs to the
age of Queen Elizabeth, in conception, observation, reflection, and
substance generally. In this work, after having mapped out the “globe” of
human knowledge into three great continents of which poetry is one, he
finds himself face to face with dramatic poetry. Compelled to give the thing
a name, he rejects the almost inevitable word dramatic, in favour of the
distant word representative. And what he permits himself to say about
‘representative’ poetry, in that the natural, and appropriate place for saying
it, seems intended to suggest—what of course was absurdly untrue—that he
was all but a stranger to anything in the nature of a dramatic performance.
The suggestion too is strangely out of keeping with passages of unexpected
occurrence in other parts of the book. For instance, in handling what he
calls the ‘Georgics of the mind,’ he describes poetry (along with history) in
terms which so admirably characterise the very best dramatic poetry of the
age, that it is difficult to resist the conviction that he must have been
thinking chiefly of the masterpieces of Shakespeare. ‘In poetry,’ says he,
‘we may find painted forth with great life, how affections are kindled and
incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained from act
and further degree; how they disclose themselves, how they work, how they
vary, how they gather and fortify, how they are inwrapped one with another,
and how they do fight and encounter one with another ... how to set
affection against affection, and to master one by another; even as we use to
hunt beast with beast,’ etc. Another of these unexpected passages seems to
imply that Bacon, writing at the close of the Elizabethan epoch, was so
convinced of the paramount importance of dramatic poetry, as to have
forgotten that there was any poetry at all, except what had to do with the
theatre. In this passage Bacon has been claiming that ‘for expressing the
affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are more beholding to the
poets than to the philosophers’—at this point he suddenly breaks off with an
ironical: ‘But it is not good to stay too long in the theatre.’[34]
A question that has probably been intriguing some of my readers is: Why
did Bacon abandon the poet’s Crown to which his genius entitled him?
From among the complex of conceivable reasons it will suffice to pick out
three. (1) In dedicating the De Augmentis Scientiarum to Prince Charles,
1623, Bacon writes: “It is a book I think will live, and be a citizen of the
world which English books are not.” Again, a letter, of about the same date,
to an intimate friend contains this passage: “For these modern languages
will play the bank-rowtes with books; and since I have lost much time with
this age, I would be glad, as God shall give me leave, to recover it with
posterity.” “Play the bank-rowtes” means, I suppose, put a stop to the
currency; and “lost much time with this age” is probably an allusion to
pseudonymous work. These and similar passages justify the conclusion that
by this time Bacon had convinced himself that English as a literary
language, was doomed to go under to Latin. (2) The poet in Bacon, as in
Wordsworth and others, had expired with the passing of youth. (3) Bacon
imagined himself the Discoverer of a New Instrument or method, by which
human life would be so beatified that posterity would revere him as one of
its greatest benefactors; if only men of science (such as Harvey) were for
ever deprived of excuse for pooh-poohing the Novum Organum, merely
because its inventor was none other than Shakespeare, sonneteer and
dreamer of dreams.

[Note by the Editor]. There appears to be no doubt that in

“Chronomastix” Jonson was lampooning George Wither, whose “Abuses
Stript and Whipt, or Satiricall Essayes,” was published by Budge in 1622,
(there had been an earlier edition in 1613) and was followed by a poem
called “The Scourge.” In “Abuses Stript and Whipt” we find the following
lines:

And though full loth, ’cause their ill natures urge,

I’ll send abroad a satire with a scourge,
That to their shame for this abuse shall strip them,
And being naked in their vices whip them.
And to be sure of those that are most rash
Not one shall ’scape him that deserves the lash.

There is also an Epigram to “Time,” in which Wither asks:

Now swift-devouring, bald, and ill-fac’t Time,

Dost not thou blush to see thyself uncloak’t?

Another Epigram is to “Satyro-Mastix,” the last lines of which are:

Then scourge of Satyrs hold thy whip from mine,
Or I will make my rod lash thee and thine.

“Withers Motto” (1621) was “nec habeo nec careo nec curo.” This was
satirised by John Taylor, the Water-Poet, in the words “et habeo, et careo, et
curo,” and is obviously alluded to in Jonson’s Masque, where “Nose” says
“The gentleman-like Satyre cares for nobody.”
Wither, moreover, quarrelled with the Stationers’ Company and the
printers (who disapproved of his independent method of business), which
also was a subject for Jonson’s ridicule in the Masque:

One is his Printer in disguise, and keepes

His presse in a hollow tree, where to conceale him,
He workes by glow-worme light, the moon’s too open, etc., etc.

In the Dict: of National Biography we are told that “Jonson quarrelled

with Alex. Gill the elder for having quoted Wither’s work with approval in
his ‘Logonomia Anglica’ (1619), and Jonson revenged himself by
caricaturing Wither under the title of ‘Chronomastix’ in the Masque of Time
Vindicated presented at Court 1623-4,” and allusion is made to Jonson’s
sarcasm with regard to Wither’s quarrel with his printers.
Further, we find John Chamberlain writing to Sir Dudley Carleton, on
January 25, 1622-3, as follows with reference to the Masque of Time
Vindicated: “Ben Jonson they say is like to hear of it on both sides of the
head for personating George Withers, a poet or poetaster he terms him, as
hunting after some, by being a Chronomastix, or whipper of the time, which
is become so tender an argument that it must not be admitted either in jest
or earnest.” (The Court and Times of James the First. Ed. 1848. Vol. II, p.
356.)
These facts seem to have been well known to Mr. Smithson, for not only
does he quote John Chamberlain’s letter in his Nineteenth Century article,
where he expresses the opinion that “Chronomastix” is “a caricature
compounded in unequal proportions of George Wither and the Ovid Junior
of Jonson’s Poetaster (as to which see an interesting chapter in
Shakespeare-Bacon, headed “A Caricature of some Notable Elizabethan
Poet,” together with the chapter following), but among his manuscripts
were found certain Notes with reference to George Wither which I cite
lower down. It will be seen, however, that he was convinced that Jonson,
while lampooning and ridiculing Wither, the scourger of the time, had for
his main object the glorification of the Shakespearean drama under cover of
a Masque—those glorious works wherein “Time,” which had been vilified
by Wither, found its all-sufficient and splendid “Vindication.”[35]
The following are Mr. Smithson’s Notes to which I have made reference:
“Wither sends
 Abroad a Satyr with a scourge;
That to their shame for this abuse shall strip them,
And being naked in their vices whip them.
(Abuses Stript and Whipt. Ed. 1622, p. 305.)

He gives Justices of Peace a warning lest they be put out of the

Commission for partiality (p. 318). Ruffling Cavaliars also are touched (p.
320).
In the address to the reader of Shepheard’s Hunting, Wither to some
extent recants his disgust at Time—says he has been ‘persuaded to entertain
a better opinion of the Times than I lately conceived, and assured myself,
that Virtue had far more followers than I supposed.’ Curiously enough,
therefore, Wither’s frame of mind in 1622[36] seems to have been similar to
that of Jonson in Time Vindicated. The coincidence would help perhaps to
mislead the judgment of the time, and may have so commended itself to
Jonson.
I don’t think Wither knows why, or by whom he was persecuted. (See
Philarate to Willy in Eclogue I, and last page but two of ‘Address to the
Reader.’)
He calls Time ‘bald and ill-fac’d,’ ‘shameless time,’ speaks of his
‘deformities,’ ‘blockish age,’ that ‘truth’ in this age gets ‘hatred,’ ‘while
love and charitie are fled to heaven.’
He took upon him to scourge Time, and he was certainly arrogant
enough, in form at any rate, for Chronomastix.
I therefore take him to have been the stalking-horse or blind used by
Jonson, the Prince, and some others, to conceal the true object.”
 SHAKESPEARE—A THEORY
[The Notes of this Essay (except those inserted by the Editor) which are denoted by Roman
Numerals, will be found at the end of it.]

The recent discovery of an entry in a domestic expenses account book of

the Mannours or Manners family has attracted some notice. According to
Mr. Sidney Lee[37] the terms of the entry, under the head “Payments for
household stuff, plate, armour,” etc., are: “1613. Item 31 Martii to Mr.
Shakspeare in gold about my Lorde’s impreso [the terminal o should be a]
xliiijs., to Richard Burbadge for paynting and making yt in gold xliiijs..
[Total] iiijliviijs.” An impresa Camden describes as “a device in picture with
his motto or word borne by noble and learned personages to notifie some
particular conceit of their own,” its nearest modern analogue being the
book-plate.[38] Burbage seems to have made, as well as painted, the thing.
What there was for Mr. Shakespeare to do is by no means clear. The motto,
if motto there were, would to a certainty be designated by the “noble and
learned personage” himself. Moreover, some three years later (1616)
Burbage appears to have executed a similar commission for the same Earl
of Rutland, entirely without assistance. That the clerk who made the entry
denied to Burbage the “prefix of gentility” which he bestowed upon “Mr.
Shakespeare” is a fact of trivial import. If—to take an imaginary case—
Nick Bottom had been living “on his means” at South Place, Stratford-at-
the-Bow, this clerk would have dubbed him Mr. Bottom as a matter of
course in the same circumstances. Mr. Lee is of opinion that “the recovered
document discloses a capricious sign of homage on the part of a wealthy
and cultured nobleman to Shakespeare.” If he had suggested that the two-
guinea payment to “Mr. Shakespeare” may have been preceded by a hearty
meal in the buttery, without exciting any feeling of resentment on the part
of either recipient that the meal was not served in the dining-hall, I should
have been more disposed to agree with him.
The situation is a curious one. But any serious discussion of it would be
premature until we are actually in possession of the “rich harvest of new
disclosures” which Mr. Lee teaches us to expect.[39] Meanwhile the Bacon
theory regarded as a development of the hypothesis that Shakespeare was a
pen-name of Bacon’s is certainly not crushed, if it be not actually
encouraged, by this Belvoir disclosure, since no one in his senses would
think of denying the existence of “Mr. Shakespeare” or his acquaintance
with Richard Burbage.
In Gilbert Wats’ English version (1640) of Bacon’s Instauratio Magna,
Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Vicont St. Alban, who is designated as
“Tertius a Platone Philosophiæ Princeps,” is represented pen in hand, tall
hat on head, a voluminous lace ruff round his neck, in the act of inditing:
Mundus Mens Connubio Jungam Stabili.[40] On the opposite page two
worlds, a Mundus Visibilis and a Mundus Intellectualis are shown clasping
hands across space, in order, no doubt, to give emphasis to the idea of a
world and mind connubium. The picture typifies the conception of Bacon
which has prevailed ever since. A skater on his way to the Engadine
declared he was at a loss to understand why anyone ever went to
Switzerland in summer for pleasure. Some of us would have been tempted
to smile at the remark. But the prevailing conception of Bacon is probably
quite as inadequate as this skater’s conception of Switzerland. The age of
Queen Elizabeth probably had no presage—not a hint—that Francis Bacon
would ever develop into a “prince of philosophy.” In my opinion the Bacon
known to it was not a natural philosopher1 even in aspiration, but an artist
—an artist in words, who, if circumstances, more especially family
circumstances, had been favourable any time between 1580 and 1590 would
have openly confessed that poetry was his ideal, and declared himself a
poet. As it was, he took the line of least friction, and sooner or later
acquired the title of “concealed poet.” How far the concealment extended in
the early days it is impossible to discover. To Sir Philip Sidney,2 Sir J.
Harrington, and other accomplished young men of their class, the true state
of the case was doubtless an open secret.
Professor Nichol (Francis Bacon, Part I), though he thinks that Bacon
“did not write Shakespeare’s plays,” considers that “there is something
startling in the like magnificence of speech in which they find voice for
sentiments, often as nearly identical when they anticipate as when they
contravene the manners of thought and standards of action that prevail in
our country in our age. They are similar in this respect for rank,” etc.
Shelley discerned that Bacon “was a poet,” and Macaulay perceived that the
“poetical faculty” was “powerful” in Bacon. Taine held that Bacon “thought
as artists and poets habitually think,” that he was one of the finest of a
“poetic line,” that “his mental procédé was that of the creator, not reasoning
but intuition.” Bacon, then, was essentially a poet, belonged to the same
race as Sidney for example. Sidney died young, and his poetic activity
ceased some time before he died. Yet Sidney’s poetical achievement has
come down to our day. What has become of Bacon’s poetical achievement?
Was it also concealed?
Hallam, in the Introduction to the Literature of Europe, confessed he was
unable to identify “the young man who came up from Stratford, was
afterwards an indifferent player in a London theatre, and retired to his
native place in middle life, with the author of Macbeth and Lear.” Emerson
(Representative Men) declared: “The Egyptian verdict of Shakespearean
societies comes to mind, that Shakespeare3 was a jovial actor and manager.
I cannot marry this fact to his verse. Other admirable men have led lives in
some sort of keeping with their thought; but this man in wide contrast.” It
would be easy to adduce other evidence pointing in the same direction. But
Hallam and Emerson, unexceptionable witnesses, will serve the turn. On
one side, then, we are brought into contact with a poet or maker whose
poems elude us. On another side we are confronted with poems whose poet
or maker eludes us—some of us. What if Shakespeare were to Bacon what
Callisthenes, Aristophanes’ actor-friend, was to Aristophanes? Suppose by
way of working hypothesis that such was the case, that Shakespeare was a
pen-name of Bacon’s. In that case his ultimate intention as to dropping or
retaining the mask of pseudonymity would be affected by various
considerations extending far beyond the family circle. (a) To be “rewarded
of” the stage-manager was probably nothing less than degrading to a man of
good birth. (b) The conditions under which the hypothetical Shakespeare
must have written, were unfavourable to careful work. A man who is half
ashamed of what he is doing is hardly likely to do his best, especially when
more or less concealed. Certainly many of the plays suffer from faulty
construction, inconsistency, obscurity, bombast and so forth, and what is
more important, Shakespeare himself4 was probably quite as conscious of
these blemishes as were any of his critics. (c) With us the daily paper exerts
a certain influence on public opinion. In Bacon’s day the theatre was one of
the most effective means of appeal to any considerable audience, and in that
way the name Shakespeare probably got entangled in controversies with
which Bacon felt no desire to meddle autonymously.5 (d) The moral
tendency of Shakespearean work published before 1609, Venus and Adonis
for example, was not such as to forward any of the hypothetical author’s
schemes for place. (e) Early in the seventeenth century Bacon seems to
have convinced himself that for purposes of moment Latin was destined to
supplant English. He was haunted moreover by fear of impending civil
commotions, and augured ill for that “fair weather learning which needs the
nursing of luxurious leisure.” (f) Had there been no other considerations
than these, Bacon, even after he became Solicitor-General, might have been
induced himself to give to the world some at least of his hypothetical
offspring really “perfect of their limbes as he conceived them.” It is not to
be supposed that he would ever have claimed all or nearly all that passed
for Shakespeare’s. Much would have been disavowed altogether, and many
of the more inconvenient things would, quite fairly, have been ascribed to
collaboration, misprints, inexperience, haste, carelessness, etc. But the
action of the ill-conditioned group which in 1609 engineered the
publication of the Sonnets of Shakespeare, must have greatly reduced the
chance that Bacon would ever consent to edit anything of Shakespeare’s. So
far as intimate friends were concerned, the piratical publication, however
irritating,6 would be comparatively innocuous, and as for charitable
strangers, they might be trusted to discover extenuating circumstances in
the youth of the author and the fashion of the time. But the great
indiscriminating public, unaccustomed to make allowances, and led by an
enemy like Sir Edward Coke, would chortle over the self-revelations
suggested by the book, and put the worst construction on everything. Rather
than face such a prospect, Bacon would be willing to pay almost any price,
and the price he may be supposed to have paid was to seem to know
nothing and care nothing about “Shakespeare” or anything that was his.
Adherence to this policy would not necessarily involve any visible change
of attitude or conduct. On the contrary, the hypothetical Shakespeare would
be urged to hold on his usual course by the fear that any sudden stoppage,
of the supply of plays for instance, might arouse suspicions which
otherwise would have slept. Parenthetically it may be observed that Bacon
had already known what it was to give to the world things—the Essays of
1597—which he would rather have kept back, but was compelled to publish
because “to labour the state of them had been troublesome and subject to
interpretation.”
 The parting between Prospero and Ariel has been thought to adumbrate
the farewell of Shakespeare, whoever he was, to Poetry—a view that is
plausible enough. It would explain the position assigned to The Tempest in
the First Folio, and suggest an interesting answer to the question why
Prospero, who “prized his books above his dukedom” threatened—only
threatened—to drown a particular “book.” But no one knows within several
years when The Tempest was written. Nor is it at all certain that the poem
was wholly Shakespeare’s.[41] For anything we know to the contrary, the
editor of the First Folio may have interpolated the striking invocation—to
mention one passage only—which begins: “Ye elves of hills.”7 The Tempest
then, does not enable us to fix the date of Shakespeare’s practical
renunciation of poetry. I say, practical renunciation, because certain
passages in Henry the Eighth which feelingly represent the insecurity of
greatness might ex hypothesi have been contributed by Bacon just after his
fall, though his practical renunciation could hardly have taken place later
than 1612.[42] But whether the date were 1612 or somewhat earlier, the
hypothetical Shakespeare was amply provided with other interests and
pursuits. (a) Rhetoric had long held a high place in his affections. “Rhetoric
and Logic,” says he, “these two, rightly taken, are the gravest of the
sciences, being the arts of arts,”8 and what excellence he attained in the
former of these arts we know from Ben Jonson. (b) Though poesy, the
recreation of his leisure—Bacon would never have allowed that it was
anything but a recreation—were denied him, prose, splendid inimitable
prose was his to command. (c) The delightful days and months and years
which he had spent with poets both ancient and modern, particularly Ovid,9
might be turned to philosophical account. (d) Historical projects allured
him. In the Advancement of Learning, a history—a prose history no doubt
—of England from the “Wars of the Roses” downwards is noted as a
desideratum, and seems to have been begun. The History of the Reign of
King Henry VII (1622), however, is the only portion of the desiderated
history which reached completeness. (e) Legislative projects also attracted
him, less strongly no doubt than historical. (f) But at this time the Great
Instauration had possessed itself of the chief place in his affection: “Of this
I can assure you that though many things of great hope decay with youth,10
yet the proceeding in that work doth gain upon me, upon affection and
desire,” he writes, about 1609, to his bosom friend Matthew. The
instauration, say rather transfiguration, of human knowledge—that was the
vision which now fascinated him. When the spell began to work it is
difficult to determine. Early in the seventeenth century his conception of
human “learning” or “knowledge” or “science”—three words to which he
attached practically the same meaning—included Poetry, not as an
appendix, but as one of three fundamental constituents. Perhaps the word
“culture,” with “barbarism” for antithesis, would now come nearest to what
he then meant by learning. The Advancement of Learning is the work not of
a scholar in the technical sense, but of an omnivorous apprehensive
imaginative reader. It is the expression by an artist in words of the serried
thoughts of a mind steeped in poetry, deep versed in human nature, but
certainly not versed in natural philosophy as understood by his
contemporaries—Galileo for example, Gilbert and others. A passage in the
first of its two books runs: “No man that wadeth in learning or
contemplation thoroughly but will find printed in his heart nil novi super
terram.” It is incredible that Bacon can at this time have caught so much as
a glimpse of the “New Logic,” “New Art,” or—to give its latest name—
Novum Organum, which he afterwards declared was “quite new, totally new
in every kind.”11 But though the Advancement was in fact a plea for culture,
in Bacon’s intention it was a serious attempt to grapple with philosophy, an
attempt so serious that he afterwards declared the Novum Organum itself to
be the “same argument sunk deeper.” Moreover, in my opinion, it was his
first serious attempt in that direction, hence its importance to any right
apprehension of his genius.12
About the year 1609, the philosophical enthusiasm reached a climax.
Cogitata et Visa de Interpretatione Naturæ, Redargutio Philosophiarum,
Sapientia Veterum, and other pieces, some of which Boswell, one of his
executors, seems to have called impetus philosophici, were thrown off in
rapid succession. As early as 1610, however, he solicits the King to employ
him in writing a history of his Majesty’s “Time,” a hint surely that the
philosophical impetus had begun to abate. The change, whether it began
that year, or a year or two later, is intelligible enough. Science had not
claimed him her deliverer. Harvey is reported to have sneered at his
philosophy. Gilbert and Napier may have started the sneer; for Bacon
obviously undervalued mathematics, and spoke almost contemptuously of
Gilbert (whom Galileo fully appreciated). About this time, too, he probably
began to suspect that somewhere in the New Art, there lurked a defect
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vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
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Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
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Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

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ebookultra.com