Essay of Friendship (first printed in 1612) with the second act of the play : —

"With Julius Cæsar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest, as he set him down in his testament for heir in remainder after his nephew. And this was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death. For when Cæsar would have discharged the Senate, in regard of some ill presages, and especially a dream of Calpurnia; this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the Senate till his wife had dreamt a better dream."

For I can give his humour the true bent;

And I will bring him to the Capitol."— Act II. Sc. 1.

Cas. The cause is in my will; I will not come:

That is enough to satisfy the Senate;

But, for your private satisfaction,

Because I love you, I will let you know.
Calpurnia here, my wife, stays me at home:
She dreamt to-night she saw my statua,
Which, like a fountain with a hundred spouts,
Did run pure blood; and many lusty Romans
Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it.
And these does she apply for warnings and portents,
And evils imminent; and on her knee
Hath begg'd that I will stay at home to-day.
Dec. This dream is all amiss interpreted:

It was a vision, fair and fortunate.

Your statue spouting blood in many pipes,
In which so many smiling Romans bath'd,
Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck
Reviving blood: and that great men shall press
For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance:
This by Calpurnia's dream is signified.

Caes. And this way you have well expounded it.

Dec. I have, when you have heard what I can say:
And know it now. The Senate have concluded

To give this day a crown to mighty Cæsar:

If

you

shall send them word you will not come,

Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock

Apt to be render'd, for some one to say,

'Break up the Senate till another time,

When Cæsar's wife shall meet with better dreams.'"

The Essay continues:

.....

Act II. Sc. 2.

"And it seemeth his favor was so great, as Antonius in a letter which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero's Philippics, calleth him venefica, witch ; as if he had enchanted Cæsar. . . . The like or more was between Septimius Severus and Plautianus. For he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus; and would often maintain Plautianus in doing affronts to his son; and did write also in a letter to the Senate, by these words: I love the man so well, as I wish he may over-live me."

And the same thing appears in the play thus:

"Cas. Decius, well urg'd. I think it is not meet,
Mark Antony, so well belov'd of Cæsar,
Should outlive Cæsar."-Act II. Sc. 1.

§ 4. THE SOOTHSAYER.

In the Natural History (Sylva Sylvarum), Bacon goes into some curious investigations of "the force of imagination," and of the means whereby one mind may be affected by another through the imagination; and, in the course of the work, he gives some illustrations of his experiments "touching the emission of immateriate virtues from the minds and spirits of men," as in jugglers, soothsayers, witches, and the like.

He begins by saying that "imagination is of three kinds : the first joined with belief of that which is to come"; and under this head he proceeds thus: "The problem therefore is, whether a man constantly and strongly believing that such a thing shall be, .. it doth help anything to the effecting of the thing itself. And here again one must warily distinguish; for it is not meant, as hath been partly said before, that it should help by making a man more stout, or

more industrious, in which kind a constant belief doth much, but merely by a secret operation, or binding, or changing the spirit of another; ... for whatsoever a

man imagineth doubtingly, or with fear, must needs do hurt, if imagination hath any power at all." And of all this we have an exemplification in the "Julius Cæsar," where Cæsar bids the soothsayer come forward and repeat his warning, confronting him face to face, as if to try the courage and faith of the soothsayer himself in his own prophecy, thus: —

"Sooth. Cæsar!

Caes. Ha! Who calls?

Casca. Bid every noise be still. Peace yet again!

[Music ceases.

Caes. Who is it in the press that calls on me?

I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,
Cry, Cæsar! Speak: Cæsar is turn'd to hear.
Beware the ides of March.

Sooth.

Cæs.

What man is that?

Bru. A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.
Caes. Set him before me; let me see his face.

Casc. Fellow, come from the throng: look upon Cæsar.
Caes. What say'st thou to me now?

Speak once again.

Cas. He is a dreamer; let us leave him:-pass."

Act 1. Sc. 2.

The resemblance here might appear to be somewhat farfetched, if it were not confirmed by the more direct allusion, and more explicit identity, afforded in the play of Antony and Cleopatra, in reference to this same overmastering spirit and another soothsayer. In the Natural History (not printed until after his death), he tells the story of Cleopatra's soothsayer, thus:

"940. There was an Egyptian soothsayer, that made Antonius believe that his genius (which otherwise was brave and confident) was, in the presence of Octavianus Cæsar, poor and cowardly; and therefore, he advised him to absent himself as much as he could and remove far from him. This soothsayer was thought to be suborned by Cleopatra, to make him live in Egypt, and other remote places from Rome. Howsoever, the conceit of a predominant or mastering spirit of one man over another, is ancient, and received still, even in vulgar opinion."

And again, in the De Augmentis, he speaks of "those conceits (now become as it were popular) of the mastering spirit, of men unlucky and ill-omened, of the glances of love, envy, and the like."

And the story reappears in the play, thus:

"Ant. Now, sirrah: you do wish yourself in Egypt?

Sooth. Would I had never come from thence, nor you thither!

Ant. If you can, your reason?

Sooth. I see it in my motion, have it not in my tongue: but yet hie you again to Egypt.

Ant. Say to me, whose fortunes shall rise higher, Cæsar's or mine?
Sooth. Cæsar's.

Therefore, O Antony! stay not by his side:

Thy dæmon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee, is

Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,

Where Cæsar is not; but near him, thy angel

Becomes a fear, as being o'erpower'd: therefore,
Make space enough between you.

Sooth. To none but thee; no more, but when to thee.

If thou dost play with him at any game,

Thou 'rt sure to lose; and, of that natural luck,

He beats thee 'gainst the odds: thy lustre thickens,
When he shines by. I say again, thy spirit

Is all afraid to govern thee near him.

But, he away, 't is noble.

Ant.

Get thee gone."-Act II. Sc. 3.

The "Antony and Cleopatra," first printed in the Folio, was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1608, and was most probably written not long before. Of course, Shakespeare could not have borrowed this story from Bacon. There is more in Bacon's story than is said by the soothsayer in the play; and this proves that Bacon drew from some other source than the play. Bacon states that this soothsayer was thought to have been suborned by Cleopatra to make Antony live in Egypt, but this circumstance is not mentioned in the play. A similar story was to be found in North's translation of Plutarch's life of Antony, which Shakespeare may have seen as well as Bacon; and it is true that some parts of it are very closely followed in the

play. There is little doubt that the writer had read Plutarch. But Plutarch makes the soothsayer a member of the household of Antony at Rome: "With Antonius there was a Soothsayer or Astronomer of Egypt, that could cast a figure, and judge of men's nativities, to tell them what should happen to them."1 But the play, like Bacon's story, makes him not only an Egyptian, but one of the household of Cleopatra; and in the play, he is sent by Cleopatra as one of her numerous messengers from Egypt. to Antony at Rome to induce him to return to Egypt; and in this he is successful; all which is in exact keeping with Bacon's statement that he was thought to be suborned by Cleopatra to make Antony live in Egypt; but of this there is not the least hint in Plutarch. All this goes strongly to show, that this story, together with the doctrine of a predominant or mastering spirit of one man over another, went into the play through the Baconian strainer; for it is next to incredible, that both Bacon and Shakespeare should make the same variations upon the common original.

Again, in this same Natural History, considering of the substances that produce death with least pain, he records his conclusions upon the poison of the asp, in these words: :

"643. The death that is most without pain, hath been noted to be upon the taking of the potion of hemlock; which in humanity was the form of execution of capital offenders in Athens. The poison of the asp, that Cleopatra used, hath some affinity with it. The cause is, for that the torments of death are chiefly raised by the strife of the spirits; and these vapours quench the spirits by degrees; like to the death of an extreme old man. I conceive it is less painful than opium, because opium hath parts of heat mixed."

And, that the writer of this play had the same scientific knowledge and the same opinions of the quality and effect of this poison, will be seen in these lines of the play: "Cleo. Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there, That kills and pains not?

1 North's Plutarch, 926.