The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

by Delia Bacon

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 edition. Excerpt: ...broader, as 'Tom' takes it, than that very vivid, but narrow limitation of its fields, which Mr. Macaulay has set down in our time, would make it. Indeed, this ' philosopher, ' that Lear so much inclines to, appears to have included in his investigations the two extremes of the new science of practice. He has sounded it apparently 'from its lowest note to the top of its key.' 'What is your study?' says the king to him, eyeing him curiously, and apparently struck with the practical result--anxious to have a word with him in private, but obliged to conduct the examination on the stage. 'How to prevent The Fiend, ' is Tom's reply. 'How to prevent the fiend and to kill vermin.' This is the Poet who says elsewhere, 'that without good nature, men are themselves but a nobler kind of vermin.' One cannot but observe, however, that Poor Tom's researches in this quite new field of a practical philosophy, do not appear to have been followed up since his time with any very marked success. One of these departments of 'his study' has indeed been seized, and is now occupied by whole troops of modern philosophers; but their inquiries, though very interesting and doubtlessly useful, do not appear to exhibit that direct and palpable bearing on practice, to which Tom's programme so severely inclines. For he is one who would make 'the art and practic part of life, the mistress to his theoric.' And as to that other mysterious object of his inquiries, Mr. Macaulay is not the only person who appears to think, that that does not come within the range of anything human. Many of our scholars are still of the opinion that, 'court holy water' is the best application in the world for him; and the fact that he does not appear to get 'prevented' with it; it is a fact which of...

462 pages, Paperback

First published December 20, 2000

About the author

Delia Bacon was an American writer of plays and short stories, best known for her work on the Shakespeare authorship question.

She promoted the theory that the plays attributed to William Shakespeare were written by a group of men, including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and others, which may have included Edmund Spenser, Lord Buckhurst and the Earl of Oxford.

Reviews

[Forked Radish]

The book that started the BS. Shakspeare collaborated with both Thomas Middleton and John Fletcher which precludes any authorship conspiracy.