The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.0523  Monday, 21 March 2005

From:           JD Markel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 18 Mar 2005 17:28:02 -0800 (PST)
Subject: 16.0492 Heywood's Apology
Comment:        Re: SHK 16.0492 Heywood's Apology

 >Such was likewise the opinion of a great statesman of
 >this land, about the time that certaine bookes were
 >called in question.

First to come to mind was whatever leader started the policy that
provoked Juvenal's "bread and circuses" lament.  But given he's probably
referencing an English comparison, "this" land, Bacon comes to mind.
How about "The Advancement of Learning" Book I?

"2. Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the
inconveniences which grow from man to man, much inferior to the former,
of relieving the necessities which arise from nature; which merit was
lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus'
theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled; and, forgetting their
several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood
all sociably together listening to the airs and accords of the harp; the
sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but
every beast returned to its own nature: wherein is aptly described the
nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed
desires of profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear
to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and
persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and
peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition
and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and
confusion."

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