THE

PHILOSOPHY

OF

THE PLAYS OF SHAKSPERE

UNFOLDED.

BY DELIA BACON.

WITH

A PREFACE

BY

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE,

AUTHOR OF THE SCARLET LETTER, ETC.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WERTHEIMER AND CO.,,

CIRCUS PLACE, FINSBURY.

PREFACE

CHAP.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I. The Proposition

INTRODUCTION.

II. The Age of Elizabeth, and the Elizabethan Men of

Letters

III. Extracts from the Life of Raleigh. - Raleigh's School.

IV. Raleigh's School, continued. -The New Academy

PAGE.

iv

xvii

xxvii

li

BOOK I.*

THE ELIZABETHAN ART OF DELIVERY AND TRADITION.

PART I.

MICHAEL DE MONTAIGNE'S 'PRIVATE AND RETIRED ARTS.'

I. Ascent from Particulars to the 'Highest Parts of Sciences'

by the Enigmatic Method illustrated

II. Further Illustration of Particular Methods of Tradition.'-

Embarrassments of Literary Statesmen

III. The Possibility of great anonymous Works, - or Works

published under an assumed name, conveying under

rhetorical Disguises the Principal Sciences, -re-suggested

and illustrated

I

30

46

* The HISTORICAL KEY to the ELIZABETHAN ART OF TRADITION, which
formed the FIRST BOOK of this Work as it was originally prepared for
the Press, is reserved for separate publication.

M527915