When Polonius instructs his man Reynaldo how best to find out what kind of life his son is leading in Paris, he suggests various circuitous ways of extracting information from Laertes' friends, such as hinting that he games or drinks, and noting how they receive such hints, and so by the judicious use of these indirect methods to draw forth the truth.

He illustrates his meaning by a metaphor from bowls; a game Shakespeare was interested in, and in which the curious fact that the player does not aim directly at the jack, but sends his ball in a curve, trusting to the bias to bring it round again, greatly appealed to him.

Thus, says Polonius, characteristically, do we men of wisdom and capacity, with winding ways

These lines describe so exactly what I propose to try and do in this book, that ‘assays of bias’ might well have served as title for it, could these words have been more easily understood by modern readers. I venture moreover to say I believe the game would have appealed to Shakespeare, for just as he was attracted by the subtle element in bowls, and the measure of skill and judgment needed to turn an indirect aim into a good and true hit, so would he have been interested in the working of the same method in the sphere of literature and psychology.