Flitch of bacon custom claimed, he writes "... it is a little paradise, and the more like an antique one, as, by all I have said, the married couples seem to be driven out of it." Walpole concludes, "If you love a prospect, or bacon, you will certainly come hither." An anonymous humorous piece appeared in Joseph Addison's "Spectator" in 1714 purporting to explain the rarity of the flitch being awarded in terms of the poor quality of the applicants. The writer claims that the source is the "Register of Whichenovre-hall" but the truth is that the piece is almost certainly entirely fictitious. The
What a piece of work is a man What a piece of work is a man "What a piece of work is man!" is a phrase within a soliloquy by Prince Hamlet in William Shakespeare's play of the same name. Hamlet is reflecting, at first admiringly, and then despairingly, on the human condition. The soliloquy, spoken in the play by Prince Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act II, Scene 2, follows in its entirety. Rather than appearing in blank verse, the typical mode of composition of Shakespeare's plays, the speech appears in straight prose: Hamlet is saying that although humans may appear to think and act "nobly"