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iJ^ 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 THE SEER— THE INTERPRETEJ^ 
 
 THE ADDRESS DELIVERED BKFORE THE f-T. 
 SOCIETY OF TORONTO, 
 IX THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. JASBEIi, 
 APRH. THE 23RD, 1864. 
 
 THE REV. DR. SCADDING, 
 
 Senior Chaplain to the Society, 
 Etc., Etc. 
 
 REPRINTED. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 
 THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY, Likutee. 
 
 67 & 69 CoLBORNE Street. 
 
 1897. 
 
SHAKESPEARE, 
 
 \ 
 
 THE SEER— THE INTERPRETER. 
 
 THE ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE ST. GEORGE'S 
 
 SOCIETY OF TORONTO, 
 
 IX THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. JAMES, 
 
 APRIL THE 23RD, 1864. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. DR. SCADUING, 
 
 Seiiior Chaplain to the Society, 
 Etc., Etc. 
 
 REPRINTED. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 
 THE COPF, CLARK CO.MPANY, Limited. 
 
 67 & 69 CoLBORNE Street. 
 
 1897. 
 
rK ^>^^i 
 
 Sx 
 
 la'^^'i 
 
 T 
 
 1 
 
V 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Having taken a good deal of pains and had very great pleasure in the 
 composition of the following Tercentenary Address, and believing that there 
 are contained in it some tlioughts of importance to any one wishing to have 
 just views of the great English I literature which is our inheritance, I am 
 naturally desirous that it should not prove so immediately evanescent as such 
 public lectures generally are. I therefore readily comply with the expressetl 
 desire of the St. George's Society and others, and permi'i its publication. 
 
 Some matters which I could not well, under the circumstances — theologie 
 oblige — work into the text, I have added at the emi in the form of Notes. 
 Here several ]ioints connected with the general subject will be found concisely 
 touched on. The whole of this Appendix will, I think, be considered by the 
 intelligent reader, valuable and interesting. 
 
 For the proper understanding of the phraseol(^y in several places in the 
 Address, it should be mentioned that there was originally prefixed to it, the 
 130th verse of the 119th Psalm — "The entrance of Thy words giveth light: 
 it giveth understanding unto the simple " — as l)eing expressive on the whole, 
 of the general iilea desired to be conveyed of what was deemed to be the 
 prime cause of the soundness and richness of the great bulk of our Literature, 
 and of what is consequently its place and possible use in the education of the 
 £nglish-speaking races. 
 
 6 Trinity Square, 
 June, 1864. 
 
f 
 
SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 THE SEER— THE INTERPRETER. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION. 
 
 S I. The Era of Shake sftart. 
 
 Why do the men of this generation turn back their thoughts so often to the 
 generation of their fellow-men who lived some three or four hundred years a;;o> 
 It is because that generation witnessed the commencement of a great crisis in 
 human affairs, which affected deeply, in a variety of ways, our forefathers of ///,// 
 day, and their brother-men throughout all £uru|>e ; which has affected every 
 generation of the descendants of these ; which aflfecu all Europe now ; an<l 
 through it, touches ourselves nt-a all oilier communities of men on these wesu-rn 
 continents. The movements begun at the commencement of the crisis, three and 
 four hundred years ago, liave not \vorke<l themselves out. We all feel ourselves 
 this day borne onward on one or other of the liftings in the great undulation of 
 thought and new exjierience which then had its beginning, and which must be 
 looked at in its origin, or it cannot be understood. The more the era referred to 
 is studied, the more firmly will it W believetl that there was about that time a 
 special "lighting-down" of the divine Arm upon the earth, with a mingh-d 
 purpose of justice and mercy :— an interposition, not miraculous in the common 
 acceptation of the term, but one of which men, unconsciously but peculiarly fitted, 
 were made the instruments. 
 
 It would seem as if, in the order of Divine Providence, the fulness of time 
 was come when men should be permittetl to make great discoveries ; when 
 glimjises were to be allowed them even into the economy of the physical universe ; 
 when it was to be made known, by certain undeniable proofs, that the globe 
 which they inhabit is not, as it had lieen mostly imagined, the centre of the 
 celestial system, but a mere unit in an unnumbered multitude of worlds— a 
 revelation of itself sufficiently startling to revolutionize the prevalent philosophy 
 and theology of the era ;— and in corroboration of the new cosmical doctrine, the 
 round earth was to be circumnavigated ; the way to the East was to l>e seen to be 
 by the West ; and in following that track vast islands, new continents, which 
 barred the way, with nations and tribes and languages undreame<l of, were to be 
 stumbled on ; and enkindle the wondering sympathies of ail hearts and all 
 imaginations. 
 
 5 
 
9 HIIaKRSPEAHE. 
 
 ll » -niw latnveKn three ami four hunilrcd years ajjo that Copernicus livetl, 
 th« Cokinniiuf iwrnl. It i» exactly three humlred years since Galileo lived ; il is 
 alniosi ilur nnni'. Raleigh coasted and jjave name to the Viryinian shore ; it is a 
 litilt niort nun -iiaL -wnce Carticr ascendetl the St. Lawrence, and since Balboa, — 
 
 " With eairle «'.veH 
 ?4Caref1 at the I'aciflc, and all hit) men 
 Lnoked at each other in a wild sunniite, 
 Silent, upon a {K-ak in Darien." 
 
 'J'hci* i^iac Us4:()»erers and adventurers had, we doubt not, stirring within 
 them ini]iUH» mmi a divine spirit, with which the mental atmosphere of their 
 day wafc ciiBrpBi. enrerini; into and rousing to action the human souls that were 
 found metr urn Twnpathetic. 
 
 ^ 2. Inventiou of Printing. 
 
 TVicn iwi r.) provide a vehicle from man to man of the marvellous additions 
 to human intimittiLje. which in so many directions were being made, and as an 
 endunnr; maim ir recording the same, Printing was devised : it was put into the 
 heart of mpnums artisans to construct, first, stereotypic tablets in wood ; — and 
 then at las-., nowable types in metal, which, by arrangement and re-arrangement, 
 should t»t :iir nri) any variety of combination, and create duplicates of every 
 mental jitckiu::. .j an intinite extent, rendering thereby common to all men, and 
 imjieribija;i«. -;nt theories, the experiences, the conclusions, of each successive 
 generaiun. E" ;h fi)iir hundretl years since Coster lived ; since Faust lived ; since 
 Gutteiiiferr init '•tiinvlfer lived— inventors all ; we are fain to think, in whom a 
 divine sjiirr ii*rfwise moveil. 
 
 Bm KinaaKiently to these inventions and to these searchings of the round 
 world. Hilt »t may well believe, causative of them lo a very great degree, — 
 anuliitn stiTTiijr ,>t" men s minds had been taking place, in another direction. 
 
 ^ 3. The Sacred Scriptures Translated. 
 
 A-mimr nwiizeti men, we know, religion, so far as it is objectively concerned, 
 has alwH»f Tjsreti on a sacred literature. A collection of essential books,— a Bibli- 
 othtiO dnirtw—rhti accumulation of ages, has always been the /itera scripta, the 
 unchangcaiiit lindmg record of principles, the last appeal in all matters of religion, 
 not entirew auitincnve and subjective. 
 
 I^tw titssit ewential writings, deposited among the Christianized nations of 
 Europe, faail a die lapse of centuries, first by a silent innovation, and at length 
 by invctermt aiuse^ become a dead letter. They were preserved indeed and 
 guarded ■ iiiE it was as the poor African preserves and guards his fetich— super- 
 stitiouHk.. ant wtthout intelligence. They were kept in tongues not understood of 
 tlie pei^ik* wham they were purposed to enlighten ; nay not understood of the 
 maiorm animij: the class who were their professed guardians and expositors. 
 
 Wliert iccxsionaily, xs in the case of Wycliffe and others before him in 
 Britain, ant n Jie cxse of Hu.ss with others before and after him on the Continent, 
 
 * 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1^ 
 
 there were efforts to rescue the sacred literature from the durance in which it was 
 held, and to set it free among the Christian nations in their respective mother- 
 tonjjues, as it was originally delivered and as common sense dictated, then resist- 
 ance as cruel as it was blind and unreasoning always arose on the part of the most 
 powerful among its official keepers. 
 
 In the meantime, in the abeyance of these books of legitimate canons and 
 principles, thus slumbering in unknown languages, there sprang up to take their 
 place ami rule men's minds in their stead, a co<le of dogma and of custom, rounded 
 into system, which in the course of ages swelled to dimensions so gigantic, and 
 teeme<l with complications so manifold and perplexing, that the whole became a 
 yoke— the exact counterpart of the corruptetl Judaism of old— too grievous to be 
 borne. 
 
 In each successive age,— as we have seen already in Muss and other "bright 
 harbingers" of the dawn,— there were a few whose eyes were opene'' 'o see the 
 impostures by which they were surrounded, and to give warnings to ti • felluw- 
 men thereof, at the cost of reputation, and in repeated instances, of life. These 
 few became many at the time of the great crisis of three and four huPfired years ago. 
 
 Taking advantage of the new art, in 1462 li-." whole of th .-.acred books— 
 but still kept in •'!•> . jmmon Latin— were printed, and circulated in g:eater 
 numbers than was possible when copies could be i:.ultiplied only by tl^ r pr-M. 
 
 In 140 ;■ the same books were printed in the vernacular (ieiman ; in 1530, 
 in the vernacular French. In 1526 Tyndall printed in English the boo! :. of the 
 New Testament. In 1535 was in like manner published the whole of the Old 
 and New Testament, l)y Coverdalc. (Note I.) The condition ni the great move- 
 ment in the mental life of the age, may be judged of by the royal edict, very soon 
 afterwards issue<l (1 536), ordering every ecclesiastical person in charge of a church 
 within the realm, to "provide a book of the whole Bible, both in Latin and also 
 in English, and to lay the same in the Quiie, for every man that will to look and 
 read thereon" fvu/f Burnet iv. 91); and by the similar injunction in 1547, that 
 a copy of the " Paraphmse" or Commentary of Erasmus on the New Testament, 
 in English, should also be placed for the same purpose in every parish-church. 
 (Burnet ii. 43.) 
 
 The removing of one would lead gradually to the lifting off of every unlawful 
 yoke. The process indeed was destined to be a tedious one : but it is interesting 
 to notice how among the early castings about on the part of our people and nation, 
 for a just human freedom, the cue was ever taken or given in manner such as this. 
 Whatever was held to be Truth sacred and fundamental, this it was, albeit there 
 might be many a mistake concerning it, which was to de free and to maie free. 
 
 The same unearthly leaven wss, as we know, at work throughout the contin- 
 ent of Europe. At the beginning of 1500 Luther and Melancthon were in their 
 might, the labour of whose lives was to promote a real understanding of the sub- 
 stance of the ancient Hebrew and the later Christian wriJings. In 1527, Erasmus, 
 the father of modern biblical criticism, put forth the fourth edition of his New 
 Testament. 
 
8 
 
 SHAKBSPBARE. 
 
 § 4. Revival of Letters. 
 
 Conspiring with this interest in the literature of religion, and promotive of it, 
 was what is commonly called the Revival of letters — the revival of the study 
 especially of the Greek and Hebrew languajjes— the languages in which the sacretl 
 literature had been composetl — lx)th of which had fallen out of rational and 
 extended use in Europe. But, four hundred years ago, by means especially of the 
 re-conquests on the part of the Christian power in Spain, and the consequent 
 greater inter-communication there, between oriental and western minds, the 
 Hebrew tongue began to be intelligently cultivated. While about the same time 
 crowds of learned Greeks, scattered over Europe after the capture of Constanti- 
 nople in 1453, gained a subsistence by imparting their native language to the 
 scholars of the west. 
 
 The new learning as it was called — the renewed study of the neglected dialects 
 of the sacred literature — was identified with the so-called new, but in reality old 
 principles of thought and life — old as the idea of man himself in the Divine mind. 
 Just as now, it is again the revival in modern times of an intelligent study of the 
 same languages, combined with a wider acquaintance with all languages, that has 
 given rise to the criticisms which occasion to inadequately informed minds such 
 immense, but when calmly studied in the light of history, such irrational alarms. 
 Just as then — so now, — let no man for a moment doubt that in due time, and by 
 the patient employment of obvious means, the problem of Textual certitude will, 
 under God's guidance, solve itself; as so many other problems in the same relation 
 have (lone to the increased enlightenment of man and relief of his estate during the 
 last three centuries of European progress. (Note 11.) 
 
 But to return to the era at which we were glancing. Notwithstanding persistent 
 efforts to curb and crush it, on the part of all who felt their authority undermined, 
 an irrepressible activity of mind manifested itself more ami more, in all classes, 
 exercising itself with the curiosity of youth on all subjects of human inquiry. 
 Thought once enkindled was loth to be put out. 
 
 Especially was each one's inner manhood roused to a new consciousness by the 
 spirit of the teachings discovered to exist in the long-neglected Bibliotheca of 
 religion — teachings felt to be suited to himself, alike by the philosopher and the 
 unlearned. The entrance — the re-entrance of these divine words into the social 
 world of England and of Europe, gave light, — gave understanding even to the 
 simple —gave a dignity — a new meaning and value— to life, in the consciousness 
 of prince and peasant, of woman and child. 
 
 Then it was, in the midst of this ferment in which mingled so largely an 
 element that was divine, that the great fundamental writers of our wonderful 
 English literature began to deliver to the world their profound, exhaustive 
 Treatises. 
 
 Then the learned and judicious Hooker wrote his Books '' Of the Laws of 
 Ecclesiastical Polity," in which, it was once said, " there are such seeds of eternity 
 that they will last till the last fire shall consttme all learning." 
 
 i 
 
 A 
 
lilTRODUCTIOir. 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 Then it was that appeared, and studied and philosophized, the great Bacon, 
 the founder of the modem Inductive Science, the author, in a double sense, of the 
 Gnat Instauration of the Ncvtim Or^anon — the new Instrument by which the 
 Advancement of Human Learning was in all after-lime to be secured. 
 
 § 5, Especial Sympathy of the Present Age with the Era Three Hundred 
 
 Years Ago. 
 
 Now, the men of our day love to lay hold of occasions for reverting to the 
 stirring era of vvhioli we have been speaking, — to place themselves, so far as they 
 may, in the midst of its surroundings — l)ecause they, to a greater extent and in 
 larger numbers than was the case with their immediate forefathers, have learned to 
 sympathize with it. In the present generation, to a greater extent than in any 
 preceding one. History has been revived— History in its legitimate sense, laborious 
 and truth-seeking, without regard to bye-ends. 
 
 This has in some degree brought back to men's minds, in intelligible form, 
 the reality of things as they were, in many of the ages that are past. And among 
 the men of our time, there are found more perhaps than existed in any preceding 
 age, who, tims, through the resuscitations of history, have had their hearts set 
 aglow with fellow-feeling for those of their fellow-men, who, when the odds 
 were so against them, encountered the early shocks in the battle between 
 Darkness and Light. 
 
 In the midst of that battle, are we not all amazed still to find ourselves ? 
 Til' energy of the opjtosing hosts, though severely taxed, and fluctuating on both 
 sides from lime to time, has not been exhausted in the struggle. And we discover 
 from experience, that we too, like our forefathers, must manfully contend yet in a 
 variety of respects, if a<lvances in human knowledge — in human well-being — are to 
 be maintained — are to be yet extende<l. 
 
 So that our commemorations of the heroes of three and four hundred years 
 ago — our anniversaries of events that took place in those now far-distant times of 
 refreshment, are not only convenient epocha, pauslng-places from whence to review 
 the past, and look forward ho^iefnlly into the future, but they assume likewise, it> 
 some ihstances, the character of declarations of principles — and protests— too hot 
 and impatient oftentimes, —against falsehoods and wroni,'s that for wise though 
 inscrutable purposes are permitted to be long a-dying. (Note III.) 
 
 But why this prelude to the subject of the day ? It is that we may see the 
 place and funclion of the great poet whose birth we commemorate. 
 
 § 6. The Era Opportune for the Appearance of such a Poet. 
 
 In the midst of the great outburst of new thought and new life, three hundred 
 years ago, he also appeared and spoke. And we cannot but believe that he ti>o 
 was one of the elements, divinely ordained, and therefore beneficent, nay, required, 
 in the renovations that were to be. 
 
 ik 
 
IHMHi 
 
 10 
 
 SHAKB8PRARE 
 
 Just when the western mind had broken away from the traditions of a 
 philosophy and a faith equally debased, bursting through the vexatious meshes 
 thrown over it in the lapse of years, metaphysically by a Thomas Aquinas or a 
 Duns Scotus, and physically by a Hildebrand ; and when it had not yet had time 
 to forge again for itself, as in a few years it proceeded to do — on anvils Greek and 
 Latin and Jewish, new chains— just at this happy juncture, his astonishing gilts of 
 intellect began with a natural freetlom to unfold themselves ; and by degrees to 
 become mature,— not by what would have been to him the cramping discipline of 
 schools and books, but by dint of a quick and keen observation ; by an immediate 
 experience of life, an early implication in family joys and cares ; by a large inter- 
 course with men— with men at length, of the highest refinement, the greatest 
 mental endowment, the most extended familiarity with the daring enterprises of 
 the age. 
 
 §7- 
 
 To the British Race pre-eminentiy a Seer and an Interpreter. 
 
 The entrance of the divine words had given light, had given understanding 
 unto the simple : and in him, to a degree without parallel, in a manner, and in 
 directions, without example among the normal sons of men, were awakened 
 intuitions and visions whicii, clothed in words willi an ease, a brevity, a power 
 never before or since attained — have for their perfect human kindliness and grace 
 rendered all after-ages grateful and loving towards him. In this way he has 
 become, in respect of the common life of man in all its aspects and experiences, 
 especially as developed amongst ourselves and the otiier English-speaking portions 
 ^fthe human race, pre-eminently THE Seer and THE Interpreter. 
 
 This is indeed, what all poets are, whose words men do not willingly let die : 
 one in this direction, another in that. We cherish their utterai.ces because they 
 say what we would like to say : they express for us what we have on some occasion, 
 dimly thought or vaguely fell ; they iletine and embody the faint, transient mental 
 glimpses, the otherwise quickly forgotten glimmerings of phantasy, imagination, 
 inward light,— call it what you will,— which have mysteriously visited ourselves. 
 But our national poet has deserved the titles--SEER— Interpreter— beyond all 
 ^jther men, because his field of view, his sphere of insight and open speech, 
 embraced with an astonishing completeness the areas great and small, etheital and 
 «arthly, of every other poetic thinker. 
 
 The manifestation of such an one in the midst of the yeasty seethings of 
 British and European society three hundred years ago— made the programme, so 
 to speak, of the commenced renovation more rounded and complete. 
 
THE SKKK. II 
 
 II. SHAKESPEARE THE SEER. 
 
 § I . The Relations of his Sphere of Vie^v. 
 
 Whilst powerful minds were found ready and willing and able to enter into 
 the heart of the fermenting chaos, and develop out from the midst of it, enduring 
 because truthful systems of Religious Thought and Organization ; enduring because 
 truthful systems of Philosophy, of Government, of Law, of Discovery, of Coloniza- 
 tion — here was a man who was to embody in beautiful conceptions and words, 
 what fell not formally within the provinces of the others, bat what nevertheless, in 
 certain points of view, was not alien to the province of any one of them — the 
 inseparable accidents of our nature, — the feelings, the aspirations, the hopes, the 
 fears, the yearnings, the playful conceits, the blameless, nay, the happy, mercifully- 
 contrived imaginations ever attendant on common human aflfairs — attendant on 
 friendship, on companionship, on solitariness ; on family and social relations. 
 
 The existence of such an one, having power to accomplish this, in such a way 
 as that the emanations of his brain should prove sources of counsel and comfort 
 and purest delectation to after-generations of men, was, we must conceive, not 
 without purpose, in the divine ordering of things ; and if so, it is becoming in us, 
 as thoughtful believing men, to acknowledge it ; and to confess likewise that the 
 relics of such an one, the remaining records of his words, are not to be lightly 
 valued, but to be held in honour, and duly used. 
 
 § 2. A Literature a fore-ordaimJ Human Develofhient. 
 
 T sometimes think that in that tendency to narrowness which besets us all, we 
 are apt to neglect a hint divinely intended to be taken by us, from the palpable 
 fact, that our religion as Christians is grounded, objectively at least, on a Litera- 
 ture, — on a series of sacred books, greatly varied in contents and style, the 
 product, the accumulation from time to time, of a long succession of generations. 
 That hint was this — that a Literature, vast and varied, was to be an essential 
 development in the predestined progress of man : that man, constituted as he is, 
 intellectually — was fore-ordained to develop graphai — scriptunc — books — on all 
 the topics of human thought (as we see he has done) as instinctively as he was to 
 erect buildings for shelter and utility and beauty ; and that these products of his 
 intellect and spirit were to be at once the indices and helpful ministers of his 
 civilization. 
 
 § 3. Caution Against Confoundini^ Secular with C icred Writings. 
 
 In speaking thus, we are not putting the two literatures on an equality, the 
 sacred and ancient with the merely so-called secular and modern. That, by 
 which the hint was given v(it is through hints that man is divinely educated) — is, 
 like the original of all things on the earth and throughout the wide universe, sui 
 generis — is divine : but this we say, — that the secondary development fore- 
 
12 
 
 SHAKESPRARK 
 
 shadowed by the primary, is in accordance with the Divine will, and is so in all 
 its departments and all its forms, notwithstanding; that it has come to pass, that 
 here also, as in other earthly things, evil has in some degree become mingled whh 
 the good. 
 
 We make this remark for the purpose of vindicating, so far as we may, the 
 marvellous phenomena of Human Literature, past and present, from the contempt 
 which is sometimes sought, rather blindly, to be cast upon it by a narrow 
 dogmatism, which would stigmatize it all, indirectly, as a mixed congeries of filthy 
 rags and splendid sins. To entertain such a thought as this, is, I think, to ignore 
 foolishly the plans of God. 
 
 § 4. All the Human Faculties to he Developed and Made Productive. 
 
 It cannot be gainsaid that when man was divinely endowed with his faculties, 
 it was intended that they should all be developed to the fullest extent of their 
 capacity : that where the gilts were largest, and most perfect, there the develop- 
 ments should be the laigest and most perfect ; and that these highest and most 
 perfect developments of genius and intellect should serve as helps, as lights, as 
 encouragements, as consolations, to all inferior grades of men and minds in their 
 developments cotemporary and subsequent. 
 
 Thus by action and reaction between great and little, between less and more, 
 under divine supervision, under influences apparently human, but really super- 
 human, was the human race destined to educate itself, as we see it has to some 
 extent done, though as yet coming far short of what is clearly possible and 
 desirable, both in regard to the point attained, and the numbers embraced. 
 
 Now, at seasons of especial stirring in the affairs of men, in marked transi- 
 tions from old things to new and better, it might be expected, — as we may believe 
 it was divinely intended, — that there should be in literary form, especial develop- 
 ments — developments of especial importance to after generations. In proportion 
 as the movement itself was something "quick and powerful," pregnant with 
 results to the bettering of after generations, we might expect its intellectual 
 products would be over-ruled to be especially deserving of earnest study. And do 
 we not find this to be the fact .'' 
 
 Such a season of movement and of corresponding production, prolific and 
 precious, was. as we have seen, the era of three hundred years ago, when the 
 great men already named, with many others who are unnamed, in various degrees 
 resembling them, lived, and thought, and wrote. 
 
 § 5. All the Activities of the Human Mind may be Harmonious. 
 
 By maintaining it to be the divine plan, that in the predestined, though not 
 fulfilled education of man, ALL his faculties should receive culture, we get rid of 
 the antagonism often sought to be fostered between the culture of the religioos 
 instinct, and the cultute of the other gifts and faculties of man, — an antagonism 
 that has proved more fatal than any other thing to his progress. And we at the- 
 
TOBL ttUB. 13 
 
 ■same tioie acquire a configgicg- diar t&e co-ordinate cultivation of all the bcnlties 
 is the right educatioo ; ttac lie: juitivation of one of them, to the undue ignoring 
 or depreciatii^ of titc mc i^ luseiuevous and wrong. 
 
 • f i< [Jxsj^ty to be Cultivated. 
 
 Now if what tia^ iissa. «Bit has any foundation in truth and reality, it is 
 certainly the divine wilJ at vncssX. imong the developments of the great outburst 
 of intellectual life, tlmsr inniireti war; ago, that in the progress of man s education 
 and improvement, his- iMAUN-^nnf* iiiould be supplied with fitting food. 
 
 What a gift — wiiata vums. mureorless^ in every man, is this which we call the 
 Imagination 1 Wiiec iiauliu saiv aj^teti up with a pure light, how iispiring, how 
 stimulating, how ausiiunujg Wvea. morbiii, and darkened by the darkness with 
 which hateful su^»ersiilitn»- lawc io dften succeeded in filling it, how demoralizing, 
 how debasing, how uimiainuuj; D«u:ing the centuries preceding the era of wLich 
 we have spoken, the Mirustt y.aws, tiie Moralities, the Dances of Death may hire 
 served, and doubtiess dii. ^Kmt.. n »me respects as biblia pauperum — rude instruc- 
 tors to the profoundly illiunrt n rhe absence of intelligent oral teaching ; l>ut 
 think what the cruel, iifc-iuisr ^jfecrs on the delicate phantasy of young children 
 and others, of some of tiatr mur hideous representations must have been ! We 
 see what their effect wij* in, iie minds of writers and painters, in the cheerless 
 pages of Dante, and tttt muunsn frescoes of the Campo Santo of Pisa. 
 
 f 7- Siatesaeive may train the Imagination. 
 
 Behold then here thtr fmman. — the predestined, d'vinely-intended function of 
 our great English ?u^. He JKts rhe Seer— the great imaginative Seer, for hi* 
 feliow-men. He adder ti--tie:r -iires "a precious seeing." All true poets are 
 seers, indeed, as we have aait ; hut he was so pre-eminently. His eyes were 
 opened as those of no irtiKr, <.) iiir is we know, have ever been to delicate and 
 subtle insights into thefirruK -lie 'issences, the inner being and motive of thinj;s, 
 while at the same time ht -jnstsiessed the power of fixing his visions — all h>eautifal, 
 natural, simple, truthfu. — n rnrris. fnr the recognition, the delight, the refinement 
 of less-gifted but B^Trnjatneut tnnits. — that is to say, of ALL minds, when the 
 ■opportunity is either gainer- \r ^-rtntefi. 
 
 While the great piiiit»rtaher Bacon wxs driving off from the fields of human 
 thought the tdola. ti)e si»;rrnii shapes which haunted them, hindering the free 
 progress of knowledge, liit rrt^.r Poer was bringing in his idyllia, his beautiful 
 forms, to he uossessions anr ny*; thr ever, no impediments, but rather furtherances 
 to every thing good and Itibu ilSbre IV. ) 
 
 Thus has nutrin«nr A\r tie Ln.igination in the modern civilized man been 
 provided, — nutrimem suti-n ni iis vant^;, helping forward his improvement, co- 
 operating with his deveimnnsii la every direction, purged, so far as may be, <rf 
 ithe taint of evil. 
 
 If the Imaginaliun *«» it --nnnnue a power, as it had always been, in the eievat- 
 .ing and refining of men, vune «ch new aliment was required ; for the great poems 
 
[^H?BB! 
 
 u 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and dramas of the Greek and Roman civilizations, however impossible it might be 
 that they should ever become wholly obsolete, were no longer the pictures of 
 living men and women to mould the character of modem generations. 
 
 That the Imagination was to be a power in the civilization of which Chris- 
 tianity was destined to be the prime element, is hinted to us, nay is most un- 
 mistakably implied — by the sublime exercises to which this faculty is called in the 
 study of the sacred Literature on which our religion rests, and is to rest to the end 
 
 of time. 
 
 How few there are who have ever adequately realized in the magic mirror 
 within them, on which celestial visions nre sought to be flashed, the true grandeur, 
 the ineffable sublimity, the tender grace and perfect art, so plentifully to l)e dis- 
 covered in the poetic and dramatic portions of the Old Testament and of the New? 
 
 Who pictures in his mind as vividly as he ought, and as by the aid of fitting 
 guide he might, the "express image" of Him who throughout Christendom is 
 the central Object of all human interest ? 
 
 " Have I been so long time with you, and hast thou not known ME, Philip?" 
 To how many if closely tested, after years perhaps of wordy teaching without wise 
 culture of the imagination, might not a like gentle reproach be addressed ! 
 
 § 8. Ideality an Aid to Faith. 
 
 It is in this faculty, rightly informed, that a lively faith finds a potent aid in 
 mastering the evidence of things unseen. By such a combination of gift and 
 grace the student of Scripture and of history makes the personal acquaintance, sa 
 to speak, of St. Paul, of St. John, of all saintly and noble characters. Nay, more^ 
 it is this combination which has had the effect in many an instance of rendering 
 strong the weak, of causing men to stop the mouths of lions, to quench the violence 
 
 of fire. 
 
 Beyond question, it is the divine intention that all things set before us in the 
 literature of our religion shouW be somewhat thus adequately realized in order that 
 we may turn them to practical account in the regulation of the life. 
 
 Why now are they not thus effiectively realized so generally as they should be? 
 Because, as we have said, the Imagination has not receivetl so generally as it 
 ought the delicate culture which it needs. Because, on the contrary, in many an 
 instance in modern times, as in the mediaeval, it has been provided with fare 
 coarse and revolting ; and in addition to that, been insulted by vain terrors and 
 cruel mockeries in relation especially to religious subjects, until it would fain flee 
 away from the contemplation of them altogether. 
 
 In this department of men's training in the process of a modern Christian 
 civilization, excellent service is done by the beautiful visions and intuitions of the 
 great Sekr as moulded by him into language ;— and as transferred for us by a 
 thousand hands skilled in illustration, to canvas, to plates of steel, to sheets qf 
 copper, to broad blocks of wood, to marble, to bronze, to parian, or whatever 
 other thing or substance there may be, by means of whicti ever-living Art still 
 strives, without a symptom of flagging or exhaustion, U: "serve his wit." 
 
TUB INTEKPKETBR. 
 
 15 
 
 III. SHAKESPEARE THE INTERPRETER. 
 
 5 I. His Visions not only Described but Interpreted. 
 
 But again : in a region lower perhaps, it may be thought ; amidst things less 
 ethereal, less impalpable, our great Poet has a function, not less wonderfully, not 
 less perfectly executed, than is that which he fulfils in regard to the Imagination. 
 He not only sees, and depicts his visions, so that we may also see them xs in a 
 glass, and examine them ; but he goes minutely into the actions, little as well as 
 great, of the numerous persons, notable and secondar)', whom he brings before us. 
 In doing this, he has proved himself the Interpreter of the every-day life of men — 
 of all men. 
 
 § 2. The Relations of Things and Natural Sympathies Interpreted by him. 
 
 Kings, Statesmen, Historians, Philosophers, Divines, learn from him what 
 they themselves are, — iearn what are their own veritable relations to their fellow- 
 nien — better and more definitely than, in many an instance, they would perhaps 
 ever have done without his aid. Into the inmost consciousness of all sorts and 
 ojitditions, in an infinite variety of situations, he passed, and translated it for them 
 into words, brief, easy, luminous, — acknowledged at once as true. Womanhood 
 in all its phases he divined by a marvellous intuition, and transmuted his ideal 
 conceptions with a tender reverence, a just exactness, a consistent veri-similitude, 
 into a group of concrete forms that have approached nearer than any other emana- 
 tions from men to personal living creations. 
 
 .\I1 natural sympathies with youth, with boyhood, with childhood, with old 
 age, — all the human feelings stirred by the names, father, mother, brother, 
 comrade, friend — have in him perfect and plenteous expression. All trades, 
 crafts, -.nysteries and callings, find through him a voice. Through the coarse or 
 quaint wrappings of his rustics, his boors, his supposed incapables, his half-wits, — 
 his trivial folk of the street in burgh or village — there gleam forth shrewd evidences 
 of heart and material sense. Who ever entered the penetralia of so-cal led madness, 
 mastering and disclosing its arcana, as he has done ? His poor idiots all teach 
 their lesson, and shew the human soul pent up within them. There is a moral 
 purpose in his semi-brutish monster — that symbol of lowest human savagery 
 brought, as in the history of colonization we so often see it brought, into imme- 
 diate contact with highest and finest intellect, awed by it, hating it, yet insensibly, 
 irresistibly drawn to it, though finding in the meantime more congenial fellowship 
 in nature's immensely lower, but still raised, however slightly, above itself. 
 
 And to descend to the brute creation itself — to the irrational creatures of earth 
 and air, itssociated, oftentimes domesticated with us, exposetl to misery frequently 
 and destruction by our ca jrice and inconsiderateness — in regard to these, the 
 references in his works, are ever such as to betoken how humanly, how sympa- 
 
Ift 
 
 SHAKESPBARB 
 
 thetically their ways, their movements, their instincts, their interchanges of 
 meaning, had been r^arded and noted down in his all-observant mind. 
 
 His presentmenu of the purely ideal beings — of fay and faery and phantom — 
 with which the playful or fearful fancy of man has in all ages peopled the earth 
 and the air, giving by the universality of that development of his instincts another 
 token of his whence and his whither, his presentments of these will be instantly 
 called to mind by as all as some of the most exquisite and most incomparable of 
 his readings of the human heart. 
 
 § 3. The Poetry of Things Interpreted by Him. 
 
 In one word — he hxs taught us — he has taught all who have put themselves 
 in genial relations with him, — ihat there is nothing which is insignificant ; that 
 there is nothing which is not capable of being lifted up into the sphere of charity; 
 that there is no human being, no right human relation ; no fond dreaming of the 
 day or of the night, which may lightly be set down as common and of no account ; 
 that there is no true natural accident or affection which is destitute of a savour of 
 goodness — of an aroma of poetry — provided only we have a perception sufficiently 
 delicate to detect it. 
 
 All this has been done by him with profound art, with perfect effect : in a 
 spirit ever kindly; without pretension, or affectation ; without strained exaggera- 
 tion or undue burlesque. (Note V.) 
 
 § 4. TTU Lessons of Things Interpreted by Him. 
 
 Furthermore : whilst discharging his function thus, as the great Interpreter of 
 Life, embodying his intuitions in concrete forms, and setting them to act and react 
 one or. the other in every variety of relation, he threw off, during the process, with 
 the exuberance and apparent informality of nature itself, lesson upon lesson of 
 wisdom and of wit in its noblest sense, which have become with all the English- 
 speaking portions of the world, heir-looms ; inalienable possessions, ever to be 
 prized as principles and canons of motive and of conduct. (Note VI.) 
 
 § 5. .-/ Hint Diz'inely Given that such Lessons Should be Treasured. 
 
 And that we have here, again, another fore-ordained element to be employed 
 in the i)rocess of modem Christian civilization, a hint, — as in the case just now 
 referred to, of an enlightened and rightly-supplied imagination, — is, I think, 
 given us in the Sacred Literature which is the ultimate appeal of our religion — 
 the divine prototype of the secular developments in the literary direction, which so 
 strikingly distinguish Christianized, civilized man. 
 
 That sacred Literature is, as we know, not all dogma. There is a cosmogony 
 there. There is History there, varied, extensive, unique. There is poetry there, 
 as we have already seen, employed apparently because it is a vehicle of thought 
 congenial to man, pleasure-yielding, refining, — poetry devotional, idyllic, dramatic. 
 There, extatic rhapsodies of inspired bard and prophet are to be met with and 
 studied. There, are initiative types, divine germs of most — may we not say of 
 
THE INTEKPRETER. 17 
 
 all ' — of the developments of man in the direction of letters. If so, then there is 
 also amongst them a division of scriptural matter suggestive of our duty in regard 
 to the golden aphorisms, the terse presentments of wit and wisdom, profitable in 
 i the conduct of life, which are to be found scattered up and do« n in the writings 
 
 of all true sages. 
 
 The maxims and proverbs devised, collectetl, reduced to rhythmic order by 
 , Solomon, by Agur, by Lemuel, — why were these preser\ed and incorporated in the 
 
 ^ sacred code but to give the hint that it would be well for men in every successive 
 
 generation as a perpetual element in the process of civilization, to gather with care 
 similar conclusions of a practical wisdom wheresoever they shall be recognized ? 
 
 As a proof that some such practice prevailed among the immediate depositaries 
 of the original collections, we have the Plcclesiasticus of Joshua the son of Sirach, 
 the Panaretus of the pseudo-Solomon, the Treatises of Philo, the Visions, Com- 
 mands and Similitudes of Hermas, with other subsequent works aliounding with 
 gnomes and wise maxims, sedulously read and applied " for examples of life and 
 instruction in manners." 
 
 § 6. Shakespeart Rich in Aphorisms, and those often Biblical in Tone. 
 
 Now who is there who does not know, that in no field can the gleaner in this 
 regaYd more quickly gather up a sheaf that shall yield gmin worth the winnowing, 
 than in the works of the great poet of England ? 
 
 So akin in their tone and gravity are many of his sentences to Holy Writ, 
 that very possibly some of them are sometimes quoted by us unconsciously as such. 
 Akin indeed is his English everywhere to the English of the existing Translation, 
 because he was the contemporary of those who executed that work, and he 
 employed, just as they did, the common speech of the day, which, because it did 
 its work at a stroke, seems to us now so telling. 
 
 Akin veritably are large numbers of his best dicta to the subject-matter of 
 Holy Writ, for the reason that Ihey are intentional reflections of it. Living in a 
 community into which had freshly passed the divine worils — the divine logoi, the 
 absolute rerum rationes, — he, with all discerning men, recognized them and 
 J reproduced their substance. While akin again in another way, in their root and 
 
 essence, to Holy Writ, are many more of the aphorisms which his spiritual insight 
 enabled him to shape, inasmuch as they, like that, are in the strictest sense, of 
 the truth ; based deep down upon Truth's outspread universal rock. (Note VL) 
 
 § 7. Caution Against Confounding the Sacred with the Secular Precepts of fVisdom, 
 
 Here again, as before, it is right that I should declare, that in speaking thus, 
 the desire is not to place the secondary literature of this or any other poet or sage, 
 on a level with the primary literature, which has been developed among men ; 
 that primary literature is, as we have said, like all originals of things, divine. 
 But I aim to vindicate human literature generally, but especially that of modem 
 civilized man in its manifold and wonderful outgrowths, from the stigma of 
 comnionness and uncleanness — of antagonism to God. 
 
18 
 
 SHAKK.SPKAKB 
 
 § 8. Tkr Cust(fmary Objections Noticed. 
 
 It will he easy i»dtfcti ior any whu feel inclined so to do, to cull out from 
 the writings of the great port now commemorated, this word and that expression, 
 to cast in the face of all who may tleem it not improper lo speak of him in the 
 connexions just indicaicJ. I* this a conceit to rctine the imagination with ? Is 
 this a phrase typified anywhere in the higher literature of our religion ? 
 
 It will l)e sufficieiM to nepty fir-.t : — It is for numerous reasons sincerely to be 
 wished, tiiat that coaoeit a» it appears, that that phrase as it stands, were not 
 there ; it is even lo ht wisbeil — if such a thing were possible— that for common 
 use in families, only an edition of him should be in circuKition wherein such 
 stumbling-blocks do naj present themselves : just as, for the sake of all who are 
 compelled either to read, or i<:i hear read, various portions of the ancient Hebrew, 
 and some phrases in the later Christian, Scriptures, as they come before us now, 
 in our received English translation, — it is earnestly to be wished that the day were 
 fully come, when the general scholarship and the general intelligence shall be such 
 as to admit of a safe aimd judicious revision in this" respect and in some other 
 respects — a homage rererentfy due to the Sacred Literature of our faith, and 
 loyally to be paid, if we would commend it truthfully to the understanding and the 
 love of our fellow- nen. an«i hand it down to the generations following, as a sacred 
 deposit, in the mamtenance of whose purity and just appreciation we deemed no 
 painstakmg to be too great. 
 
 But, secondly, the objector must l)e cautioned : — Before you undertake to 
 condemn in a final manner even such words and things as those to which allusion 
 has been made, however o>niiemnab!e in their isolation they may appear — various 
 reasonable considerations are to be taken into account ; as, for example, the general 
 language of the age in which the poet lived, the character in whose mouth the 
 matters objected to are put. the poet's intention perhaps of moral contrast, on the 
 particular occasion, and so on. (Notes VII. and VIII.) 
 
 § 9. ShaJhrsptare not here Regarded as a Dramatist. 
 
 In these thonghts on oar great poet, on this day and in this place, I should 
 have gone beyond my prorince, had I attempted to regard him in the light of a 
 dramatist. Nor do I think it will appear that tliis is the aspect in which his name 
 will have enkindled enthosiasm to-day. This is the aspect in which he is almost 
 exclusively regarded by thotse who from some derived or inherited prejudice, or 
 from some impression ofimraatare childhood, both continuing uncorrected by an 
 intelligent study of his works— entertain unworthy, and, in some cases, bitter 
 thoughts in r^ard to him : — ami this is the aspect also in which he was almost 
 exclusively regarded eren by those who at the last memorable celebration of his 
 birth, believed that they adequately appreciated him. The century that has 
 passed since then, woaki not show itself to have been one of intellectual advance- 
 ment, if, in that space of time, the conception of che poet in the minds of thinking 
 men had not become higher and more comprehensive. 
 
 1 
 
TUB INTERPRKTKR. 
 
 Id 
 
 That the uufoldings of liis geniiis took form in the drama was an accident in 
 his listory ; one of tliose accidents, however, which, as in so many other cases, 
 contiibute— so wc lio well to believe— to the fulfilment ol divine plans. For in 
 what oilier way in his age, could he have executeil so effeclively— with such 
 spirit, such life, such fulness — his multiform ministry to his fellow-men ? 
 
 § lo. Tfie Significance of the Drama in Past limes. 
 
 At eras long anterior to his, we know, when other means of literary iidluence 
 were even fewer and more scant, large masses of human Ijeings used to he reached 
 through this channel, intellectually— religiously. In the centre of the most 
 ancient orchestras there was, in the conspicuous object called by the (iieeks the 
 thynteU, or altar,— l)y the Latins the pulpilnm or pulpit, a standing remembrancer 
 to the assembled multitudes, of what was once tlie didactic significance of the 
 drama. 
 
 May it not have been then, that in the case of one who was destined in the 
 latter day to be so widely a teacher of truth, a preacher of righteousness, it was 
 provided that, through the same old instrumentality, in the first instance, at least, 
 —however circumstances in after-times should do away with its conveniency— he 
 should win the ear, and through that, the heart, of the greatest number. 
 
 § li. Shakespeare here Kei;;ardeJ in the Ahtract as Seer and Interpreter ; and 
 
 as Mature. 
 
 We have regarded him rather in the abstract as the seer who has seen the 
 things of life, inner and outer, with a vision more subtle- -as the interpreter who 
 has read what he saw with a skill more perfect— moulded them into words with a 
 clearness and briefness mote acceptable— with adjuncts of instruction more full of 
 wisdom — more far-reaching, more universal— than was ever conceived of before, 
 or has ever been matched since. (Note IX.) We have regarded him too, not as 
 in that process of gradual growth— intuitional, spiritual, intellectual— through 
 which all human souls, even the most highly-endowed, must pass, but as in the 
 meridian of his strength — as mature. 
 
 g 12. Not Here Regarded in his Personal Capacity. 
 
 We have not regarded him in his personal capacity. Of his jiersonal life, 
 there is no man who knows anything which he can avouch with certitude— 
 beyond what may be gleaned from a few very casual records. We have regarded 
 him as a voice of wisdom uttering itself in our midst, through such channels as 
 were granted to it— as one to be understCKxl only from his words, like so many 
 more of the great seers and interpreters, who have from time to time appeared on 
 the earth ; who have come and gone and left no other sign but the message with 
 which they were charged. That they were men not essentially different from our- 
 selves, is a trivial fact which does not so much concern us, as the message. On 
 that, and not on them— it was hinted— our curiosity should most beneficially 
 exhaust itself. 
 
sbAKKHPRAKR 
 
 ll tKu fii-KjHeen that it would be better that they should become abstradtiuns, 
 fihadcf iif Tiufhty name, than that their message should lose any of its power with 
 men. Timm^fi he reports of "a thousand peering littlenesses,"— who — (to use the 
 wordf (if-ie modem p)et, who has so well caught the tone of the great seer and 
 mierjiwJVHT iimM^f) — 
 
 " If they find 
 Some st^in or blemish in a name of note, 
 Mot irrievinx that their t;reate8t are no amall, 
 Inrtste themaelveH with some insane delight, 
 Ami judge all nature from her feet of clay. 
 Without the will to lift their eyes, and Hee 
 Her vcndlike head crowned with spiritual fire. 
 Anil touching other worlds." 
 
 Tennytion, " Idph," p. Itl. 
 
 Ukt mfer seeniN to have been taken in regard to the great modem seer and 
 iirterpnns- >it life. With a self-depreciation that was real, which commands on 
 that awtnnr our reverence rather than our acquiescence, he, of his own accord, 
 appeami'ftawt rendered a biography impo.ssible : with a scorn of the "virtuous 
 lieK,' *u iibsi vendeti in relation to the dead, he would have no friend hang upon 
 him, Mffli teparteti, "more praise than niggard Truth would willingly ' e. 
 volatitHri.'* impart I " 
 
 Eausni at regard to his works — those of them in particular on which the 
 studies iif niiHTentv have been concentrated, he, wi»h a modesty which is charac- 
 leristir uhm of greatnes.s, and compatible with a high ambition, the result of an 
 nnquenciiuiitt thirst after perfectne.ss in the expression of beauty and truth, seems 
 never it iBae ooUectei them : like the ostrich-egg in the desert they were aban- 
 doned 11/ -hsr fate, one here, another there, as he advanced onwards to the 
 maturnx if. ^iw :^«niu.s, stretching forth ever to those things which are before. So 
 that tfafw 'iiwe come down to us in some respects not so sifted, not so pruned, not 
 so hamigsnaius,^ as we can conceive they would have been, had they, at the close 
 of hiF acssc.. andei^oiie the re-touchings of his own hand. 
 
 Hems 'wt have in them, not only a mine of wisdom and thought, but also (as 
 in the nse t' mi many other bequests from the seers and thinkers of old time) 
 legkraiatt iubject-matter for the exercise of our discernment — for the testing of the 
 critical feniJtvr within us. (Note X.) 
 
 1 13. inkr Rtdi^ious Convictions of Shakespeare as Gathered from his Recorded 
 
 Words. 
 
 l-n5HJwnf«mrry. however, of the casual records referred to, — of him personally, 
 notwitbHaniiing his self-depreciative reticence— we may gather from his own 
 •words, i»'cii tiercainty this : — which it is due to his memory to declare here with all 
 clean^gf.. fhr rhe admonition of a mixed assembly of his fellow-mortals, — that he 
 was a mnr who knew as well as any, before him or since, that " all the souls that 
 ever ^«r:. were forfeit once ; and that He that might the vantage best have took, 
 found on: c&e remedy" : — he knew and realized as v,rell as any, that "in the 
 
 r 
 
TIIK INTERPRRTRR. 
 
 n 
 
 conric of justice none should see salvation ; — that we all do |)ray for mercy ; and 
 that hat prayer iloth leach us all to render deeds of mercy." He knew as well as 
 any, and realized more perfectly perhaps than many — " whose Messed leet were 
 those, which, fourteen hundred years ajjo," as he speaks, " were nailed for our 
 advantage to the bitter cross." He, whatever may be thouyht, had not left out of 
 Kis regards that amazing spectacle ; nor had he failed to ponder its lesson. Me 
 had found there, even as most thinking men do find, something to grasp— after 
 floating, wavering, drifting hither and thither, long perhaps, on the shoreless sea 
 of conjecture. 
 
 •• Time's thievish progress " by to-morrows, " to eternity," had not failed to 
 waken in his all-conscious, sensitive soul, the deep scarchings which in all men 
 are so becoming ; and we find him at the last, in anticipation of his end, which 
 proved in fact to be near,— causing it to be recorded in his will— that his hope and 
 assured belief, was, through the only merits of Jesus Christ his Saviour, as he 
 speaks, to be made partaker of life everlasting. 
 
 8 14. TAe A'f/i^'ious Con, tdions of the Founders Generally of English Litem tnre. 
 
 Nor in this was he peculiar. The works of all the great thinkers of the era in 
 which he lived are characterized in a like manner. 
 
 Those old Tomes in Latin and English, "laid in the Quire of every church, for 
 every man that would to look and read thereon," had done good service. From 
 them as from a living oracle had come the word — " Veritas libcrabit vos" — " The 
 Truth shall set you free" ; " A^on est personam m acceptor Dens ; sed in omni gente 
 qui timet eum et operatur justitiam, acceptus est Illi" — -"God is no respecter of 
 persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness, is 
 accepted with Him." In the little knots that here and there over the broad land 
 had from time to time gathered round to read or to hear such declarations as these, 
 there had stood in the season of their quick youth the spirits who were to sway the 
 coming generations. 
 
 The wonderful Literature of England, which, as the product and symbol of 
 her modern civilization had its beginning three humlretl years ago, was in every 
 direction initiated by men who were not ashamed to show that they feared God — 
 not ashamed to show that they had admitted into their intellects and their hearts 
 the divine words — the hi^oi — the principles of truth absolute in regard to things 
 visible and invisible, which were then beginning to circulate with such freshened 
 energy throughout Christendom. (Note XL) 
 
 § 1 5. English Literature not to be Lgnored as Purely Secular by Religious Teachers. 
 
 Here then is what it behooves us to bear in mind. This great Literature is 
 not to be ignored, is not to be set down as a thing merely secular ; as something 
 that religion need take no cognizance of. On the contrary, it is to be regarded 
 and respected, as a predestined engine of power, in the process of our Christian 
 civilization, wheresoever that shall extend. We see with our eyes how it has 
 
22 
 
 SHAKESPBAllB 
 
 grown with the growth of that : and what an instrument, as well as indication of 
 progress, under the divine ordering, it has been. 
 
 In all its comprehensiveness then, it is something which it liecomes us nol to 
 overlook. Above all does it become us to honour, and not contemn, the spirit of 
 unaffected religion which its founders so generally evince. 
 
 § 1 6. This English Literature a Seed-Grain in Various Parts of the Earth. 
 
 England, like the sa red Banyan tree of the East, has sent out over very large 
 areas of the earth, branches of her stock, each in itself capable of sending down a 
 root, and becoming an independent existence. In the course of centuries, how 
 will the great globe lie girt with nations of our blood and speech ! 
 
 How full of interest is the reflection, that, everywhere, wherever our race 
 penetrates and plants itself, there it takes with it and deposits, as the seed of 
 further mental products, the fundamental works of such a literature ! 
 
 § 17. English Literature a Boml of Union Among the English-Speaking Peoples. 
 
 Whatever shall l)etide the off-shoots of our country historically in the future, 
 here there mus* be a certain bond of unity, a moulding power in relation to intel- 
 lect and character, which must maintain amongst them all a sense of kindred and 
 Christian brotherhood. 
 
 To this result will tend the works of our great Interpreter of nature and 
 humanity. They will serve, as much as anything, to perpetuate a oneness amidst 
 whatever amount of diversity of polity and p'ace may exist. And we may con- 
 ceive of situations in the history of the future, in which cities, captive soldiers, 
 families, imlividual men and women, shall have many a mitigation of loss and 
 distress, by means of this tie : just as cities, captive foes, families, and individuals 
 are reportetl to have been spared by virtue of kin or acquaintance with poets of old. 
 
 § 1 8. Shakespeare Virtually a Type of the Colonist. 
 
 In one point of view especially will our Seer and Interpreter be appreciated 
 among the junior members of the family of nations, — among the human down- 
 roolings from the great mother-tree of England. He will be recognized amongst 
 them as exhibiting and embodying in his history — even as they do in theirs — 
 in a manner indeed not exactly the same, yet analogous and strongly marketl 
 — the BEAVER-INSTINCT — the instinct which, strong in themselves and their 
 fathers before them, perpetuates, as it originated, the great colonizing movements 
 of the latter day. 
 
 What is aimed at by the men who boldly determine to sever old local ties, 
 and launch cut into spheres of action new and untried ? What is the ol)ject of the 
 struggles entered into so bravely there, which develop such before-undreamed-of 
 energies, enthusiasms, ec onouiics ? — It is the establishment of a home — the .ncciuisi- 
 tion of a property in soil, nnd visi!)!e structures for use, for repute, for beauty — 
 which shall be ideniifieti with them and with families bearing their names in after- 
 
TJIK INTERPRETER. 
 
 23 
 
 generations. And what was he, in his inner heart, aiming at, during the twenty 
 01 thirty years of mental and bodily toil, seconded by appliances all the while so 
 sci nt, so ignoble, in the state of life to which he had been led ? What reconciled 
 him, for so long a time, "finely-touched" in spirit as he was,— to a lot which 
 forced him, as he speaks, "to go here and there, and make himself a motley to 
 the view, to gore his own thoughts, to sell cheap what is most dear," — to subsist 
 by "public means," which tended, as he still speaks, to "breed public manners" 
 in him— manners unretired, unstudent-like, undomestic ; until he feared that at 
 length his nature, which yeametl all the while for privacy and quiet, and a larger 
 share of liberal rest — would be sulxlued to what it worked in — tinctured "like the 
 dyer's hand," indelibly, with the colours with which it had so much to deal? 
 
 He was toiling to make for himself a settled home, where he should be master 
 of himself and of his time, where at liberty and in jieace, heart and brain should 
 be free to indulge their sacred instincts. Until ihis should be secured, he was 
 fain to be as one of the exiled princes, whom his fancy liked to paint. A world- 
 wide reputation was not what he was intent upon. The assurance of renown, 
 immediate or posthumous, was not to be his consolation. His content was to be 
 his best having. And when this was at last secured, it would seem as if he would 
 almost have preferred that the record of his labours— the great port-folio which, as 
 we may conceive, he had kept l)y him, of his pieces in all their conditions, crude, 
 half-shaped, consummated — but still never anything else, as he would judge, but 
 imperfect and fragmentarj- — should be buried in ocean, fathoms-deep. (Note XII,) 
 
 As the swarms from the old British hive have sought to repeat in all the 
 world — in the several places where they have lighted— the old names — the old 
 scenes — to keep fresh, so far as they could, the a.ssociations of their former home — 
 so he longed that the place of his desired rest should be Stratford — where 
 again he might commune as of old with Nature, the Mighty Mother, who, in his 
 "dauntless infancy." had there so benignly "unveiled to him her awful face" ; 
 where, in the midst of the very scenes, where "the long, long thoughts of boy- 
 hood" had first visited him, he might haply persuade himself that even yet to 
 some extent, " Youth and he were housemates still." 
 
 It is seldom that yearnings such as these, stimulating alike the movements of 
 the home-em grant and the colonial, are jiermitted to be fully gratified : and when 
 gratified, the necessity of things renders brief the continuance of the boon. They 
 are manifestations in our nature, which point to its immortality — to those " houses 
 and possessions" eternal in the heavens, to which man is continually led to aspire. 
 But, awakening in the hearts of each successive generation, it is of advantage that 
 they should be indulgeti even in respect of earth : for although to individuals such 
 gratifications must always be transitory and may be very brief, — to the race at 
 large, the general result i> enduring and essential. 
 
 With our great }X)et. as we know, the goal of !iis honest ambition in this 
 respect was attained in the winning for himself, before decrepitude came on, an 
 independence ; and the acquisition in his native town of a goodly home, built to 
 
24 
 
 SHAKBSPEAKK. 
 
 his hand, and named New Place, — by a kiid of omen of its destiny, when we 
 regard its new owner, in his wonderful "many-sidedness," as a type of the 
 colonist also, albeit he found within the circuit of the Four Seas, his El Dorado — 
 his Fountain of Youth. (Note XIII.) 
 
 § 19. Shakespeare the best Exponent of the British Character. 
 
 In him, as moulded into ideal form out of the pure gold to be gathered in 
 dust and beautiful concretions from his works, the English-speaking world will 
 ever recognize their autocthon-poel, so to speak, — the poet most genuinely sprung 
 of itself. In him, the living compound known as the British race, will ever find 
 their own best exponent. 
 
 For is he not seen to have been— ^;ven as it also is— -while essentially 
 ambitious — and nobly so — yet unpretentious, reticent? While boldly adven- 
 turous, ready on occasion to tax purse and brain to the upmost, yet thrifty and 
 prudent. Though in potentiality a king, a legislator, a commander, a man, in 
 every most manly quality, — yet, in relation to the heart, the affections, and all the 
 sights and sounds of external nature, — a woman, a child. Believing — rejoicing — 
 in a hopeful future, yet making wise use of the present, respecting justly the past. 
 Loyally reverent of law and authority, jealous of infringement on liberty of speech 
 and action. Alive to poesy : impatient of sentimentality. Full of philosophy, 
 with not a spice of mysticism. Deeply religious, yet calmly critical of religion's 
 garb and profession. Scouting with a natural healthfulness the ascetic and the 
 monk. By a kindly ridicule putting an end to everything like cant. 
 
 § 19. 
 
 Orhis Terrarum iiritannicaruni Genio. 
 
 In one word : could we bring ourselves to imagine — as used once to be 
 imagined and believed — that there is such an abstraction as the Genius of a 
 Race — an ethereal impersonation of its spirituality — its intellect — as external to 
 itself — we might imagine that the CJenius of our composite national race had a 
 temporary avatar in this man — that his (Jenius was the national Genius, so 
 congenial, as we say, are the two felt to be. 
 
 From a work lately published amongst us by a well-known scholar, it is 
 familiar to us all that To the Genu's of the Land of Britain, — Genio 
 Terr.'E Britannice, — altars were actually raised. 
 
 The altars ideally set up this day in a thousand places to the memory of our 
 poet, bear an inscription of wider scope. To THE Genius — noc of the land of 
 Britain merely — but — OF THE Orbis Terrarum Britannicarum — of the 
 WHOLE English-speaking World. (Note XIV.) 
 
 There are not a few to be founc' of other races and tongues, who would gladly 
 assent to the scope of the epigraph being made widei still. (Notes XV., XVI., 
 XVII., XVIII.) 
 
CONCLCSIOS. 
 
 25 
 
 IV. CON'CLUSION. 
 
 § I. The Functions of the Seer and Interpreter FtilJilUd. 
 
 Such honour is due to those who accomplish the divine will. Here was a 
 Spirit, compact of the noblest gifts, each and all moulded to the fullest— developed 
 to the highest, the widest— by unwearied constancy in their culture, their use, 
 their application to the world without and the world within. And, the result was 
 —the deposit among a race destined in the latter days to replenish the earth and 
 to be the most influential of all races— of a special element of power to he 
 ■employed permanently in the perfecting, the Christianizing of men. As is the 
 wont so often, in the workings of God, this was done once— once for all. To our 
 great Seer and Interpret.'^.r, there has been no successor like or second. In 
 the particular arena, in which, in one point of view, his activity manifested itself, 
 and which was, as we have seen, a simple accident of that manifestation— immedi- 
 ately on his disappearance, a fatal deterioration commenced. 
 
 The predestined work was done : and, this completed, the doer was with- 
 drawn. He and his indeed, calculating by the years the human frame is con- 
 structed to endure, looked forward with reason to a continuance for many days, 
 amidst the familiar scenes of this lower life. But the Father of the spirits of all 
 flesh, knew best when it was fitting that the spirit which had been so "finely 
 touched"— and that too, with such "fine issues "—should return to his sphere and 
 be classed according to his works. 
 
 § 2. The most Authentic Effigies of Shakespeare. 
 
 The temporary vesture of the flesh, wh.v.;. he laid down, has mouldered to 
 dust, undisturbed, in the Church of the Holy Trinity at Stratford- the grand old 
 parish-church where he had learned to commune with his feilow-citizens and 
 fellow-Christians, in the national worship of his country. (Note XIX.) There, 
 within a niche in the northern wall of its chancel, is preserved the well-known 
 presentment of his outward form, which, sculptural from a mask taken from the 
 actual face, approximates, it is likely, more nearly than any of the painted or 
 engraved portraitures, to what the reality was. The more we study the whole 
 contour of that somewhat rudely car\ed, but expressive bust,— as we all now can 
 do by holding in our hands direct reflections of it from the photographic mirror— 
 the more we shali feel that we have there, so far as is possible now, the genuine 
 unidealized man before us. Among the many things associated with the memory 
 of the great poet which interest the imagination of pilgrims to his native place, 
 that bust is the true Agalma, as the old Greek would say— the sacred gem— the 
 object possessed of the strongest power of fascination. (Notes XX., XXI and 
 XXII.) 
 
 1 
 
26 
 
 SHAKESPEARIS. 
 
 Upon it -in its stony stillness in the stately church, how many of our fellow- 
 men have this day been looking, with a freshened interest ! 
 
 Towards it, seen only ideally and in phantasy, how many more, in widely- 
 separated portions of the globe. East and West, South and North, have in like 
 manner been gazing ! 
 
 To it-and, along with it and by it, to the meaning of the man and of his 
 existence, m the designs of God-you also, with them, have had now, your 
 intelligent regards, in all reverence directed. 
 
KOTES. 
 
 Ter-cenlefu*r% if 2.mer:itU^ i Translation in i8jj. 
 
 The Ter-cnteiiary n i^'Ji, if .overdale'i Translation of the Holy Scriptures,, 
 inaugurated the "Cetiieusnei ' u -he present generation. October the 4th, the 
 day when the printing: uf tut wwut wis • tynished," fell in that year on a Sunday ; 
 and throughout Lnj^laud tien* vis x very general "improvement" of the occasion. 
 On that day the wriiei jtain«i»-:i u be m St. \[ary's Church, Oxford, where it so 
 chanced that J. H. Jseviiaii t«iv«irert a discourse on St. John vi., 44; but very 
 characteristically, lie niauimi lilusion to Coveniale or his translation. It was 
 this ter-cenienaiy of i^-^ tiar ,«t to the erection of the beautiful "Martyrs" 
 Memorial"' in Oxfora. i«*si- he ^pot where Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer 
 "yielded their bodie.*- it wt uirnett in 1555-56. 
 
 In 1863 occurred t*vi/ -Rinari«abie tercentenaries ; one in Januarj', of the 
 final promulgation and iinr win»iicai subscription of the "Thirty-Nine Articles'" 
 as they stand nt>w ; tiit olite- — .liiserved by a Congress at Mechlin in Helgium, 
 in August, — of the i*rmii«a:«in ^i the Council of Trent. In 1862, on St, 
 Bartholomew's J >ay. wa.^ ; ii-zi'ntenai-y of the re-occupancy of the parish- 
 churches of England in tin: i,ii^<ish dergy after their temporary ejectment during 
 the Cromweliian period ""iii-, vithni eighteen months there was given occasion 
 to thoughtful persons w i—- t-v lin?e ^reat ecclesiastical epochs, from whence has, 
 in great measure, resuiiec tin: nai-shailing of Christians in the British Empire, as 
 elsewhere, under the tin~r I'jnnsing banners of the Contra-Reformation. the 
 Reformation, and tiit UuTj^-lKenrmatioa- See an interesting article on Subscrip- 
 tion and Inter-cv.,.iuunum hj -tie: ' >iioniai Church Chronicle for January, 1S64. 
 
 IT. 
 
 The :»^ailmi Jfeai Learning of 1^3 §. 
 
 On the appearance of immst -Virions of the Scriptures in the Hebrew and 
 Greek originals, some of lie: nnni liliteraie monks declaimed from the pulpits 
 that "there was now 2 n*no anti'iai^ discovered called Greek, of which people 
 should beware, since r v-a. ti:jr v'licli produced all heresies ; that in this language 
 was come forth a booic vuXks. tie New Testiment, which was now in everyliody's 
 hands, and was full of thons imt inars. And there had also another language 
 now started up, whidi tin-i alert Heiirew ; and that they who learned it were 
 turned Hebrews." f JTay . -jCL-? o rhe Olii Test., p. 30, where is a reference to 
 Erasmus, Epist., Lib. 33. %\. jgs. 
 
 rri. 
 
 Jir-^ 
 
 I jfGttiiltta at Pisa, Feb. 1S64. 
 
 With the Italian peupk: tie name of Galileo is now a watchword of progress 
 and religious lefomiatiuii Ti»» ^ocrh anniversary of the great astronomer's birth- 
 day (Feb. 18) was tiny ve;r uwtr-'/ed with great enthusiasm at Pisa, his native 
 place. The Leaning 'lOwe- tut s.;ene of manv of his scientific experiments, was 
 illumined on the occasiut., nmKarni^ \n the night as if it were transparent from 
 top to bottom. Over tiK- uuir if riie (Jhurch of St. Andrew, where he was 
 
:28 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 baptized, was placed this inscription, "Grazie immortali al Supremo Datore 
 c^'ogiii bene, perche in questo giorno or sono tre secoli, il natale di Galileo Galilei 
 illustro Pisa d' insperata e chiarissima luce." — " Immortal thanks to the Supreme 
 Giver of all good, that on this day, three centuries ago, the birth of Galileo 
 Galilei illumined Pisa with unhoped-for and resplendent light." — A correspondent 
 of the " Reader," writing from Pisa on the day of the commemoration, wonders 
 whether in England, on the 23rd of April, any one would think of thanking "the 
 Giver of all good " for Shakespeare. It is not improbable that many would think 
 of doing so. At the special Public Service on this 23rd, in the Cathedral of 
 Toronto, the Benedicite Opera Omnia was sung with intention, instead of the 
 Te Deum, as being peculiarly appropriate, calling, as that hymn does, on universal 
 nature, animate and inanimate, rational and irrational, which the great poet was 
 permitted, under God, so marvellously to read and interpret, to break forth, so to 
 speak, into praises to the " Supreme Giver of all good." 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Idola of Bacon. 
 
 " Quatuor sunt Idolorum quae mentes humanas olwident. Ii< (docendi 
 gratia) nomina imposuimus ; ut primum genus, Idola Tribus ; secundum, Idola 
 Spejus ; tertium Idola Fori; quartum, Idola Theatri vocentur." Aph. xxxix. 
 Nov. Org, Works, i. 250. Ed, Boston. The first are fallacies to which the 
 whole race, as human, is prone ; the second are such as the individual by his 
 special constitution is liable to ; the third, are those which adhere to words in 
 intercourse with men ; and the fourth arise from theories and preconceived 
 notions. — See the Notes of Messrs. El'is & Spedding on the above-cited passage. 
 
 V. 
 
 Absence of Malignity in Shakespeare's Pictures of Men. 
 
 The complete freedom from malignancy in Shakespeare's delineati ms re- 
 minds us of the sketches of the modern humorists, Doyle, Leech, Tenniel, e'c. 
 His Shyiock is not a satire on Jews but on men prone to sharp practice. It is 
 ■Coleridge who remarks that all sarcasms on women are put by him in the mouths 
 of villains. F/</^ Works, iv. 183. Harper-;. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The English of Shakespeare and of the present Translation of the Scriptures 
 
 alike. 
 
 As specimens of the similar use of words in the English version of the 
 Scriptures and in Shakespeare, take "convince" for "convict," as 
 
 Else might the world convince of levity 
 As well my undertakings, as your counsels. 
 
 Trail, and Cre*., it. i. 
 "Single" for "simple"; as "I speak it with a single heart." //en. V///., 
 
 V. 2. " Win'- 
 judge I win! 
 " Time y," 
 '• anxious > 
 Ham., iii. 1. ' 
 ^relation to " ; a 
 
 keep the eyes closed " ; as "I see things too, although you 
 
 ' 6'. of Ver., i. 2. "Carriage" for "things carried" ; as 
 
 Wc with his carriage." Temp., v. i. "Thought" for 
 
 r''->f!ta ; as "Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." 
 
 -! r; pined in thought." Twelfth Ni^ht, iv. 4. "By" for "in 
 
 " Ttieu ^pt;ik the truth by her." Two G. of Ver., ii. 4,, etc. 
 
wm 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 39* 
 
 [To illustrate St. Paul's " I know nothing by myself," — /. Cor., iv. 4 — 
 compare Lord Cobham's Letter to Raleigh (" Life and Times," p. 148), " So God 
 have mercy on my soul, as I know no treason by you I "] 
 
 In the English Book of Common Prayer, again, "indifferently," for example, 
 is illustrated by. "Then hear me speak indifferently lor all." Tit. And., i. I. 
 "Amazement" .it the close of the Marriage Service, by " Put yourself not into 
 amazement how these things should lie." M. for M., iv. 2., etc, 
 
 VIL 
 
 The Dramas of Shakespeare Stimulant of Good in Man. 
 
 " Memoria repetatis, oro, quae cuique vestrum fuerit animi sententia, fabulas 
 istas prima vice perlegenti. Nonne, cum totius Poematis de cursu, prolx)rum vos 
 ac piorum, si qui erant, partes suscipere meministis ; tum praecipue cum ventum 
 erat ad " Plaudite," quasi stimulos virtutis in animo relictos sentire ? neque ejus 
 modo virtutis, quae specie quadam el fervore juvenum corda commovere valeat, 
 ▼erum etiam severioris hujus, castimoniae, fidei, industriae, pietatis? Ut facile 
 quLs intelligere possit, quae aliquando subturpicula intexuntur, partim saecuii esse, 
 non scriptoris ; partim, ut ebrio« Laconicis pueris, tanquam odiosa ac vitanda 
 proponi. Ergo ilium virtuti ex animo favisse non est cur dubitemus : cum 
 praesertim plerique eorum, qui tunc scenicis dabant operam, in alia omnia abire 
 consueverint. " P'/'rfV Keble : De Poetiae Vi MedicA. Tom., i. p. 58. 
 
 VIH. 
 
 The Exquisite Accuracy of Shakespeare in Minute Points of Character. 
 
 " Nusquam ferme apud ilium ne tria quidem verba profert seu colonus forte 
 astans, sive miles, seu scurra popularis, seu quivis alius, quin propria: indolis 
 significationem quandam injiciat. Itaque jure quodam singulari tribuitur Shake- 
 spero ea laus, ut humani nihil a se alienum putet : quippe qui in omnium qui 
 ubique extant hominum formas, ingenia, mores transferre se noverit : in hoc 
 Natune plane similis. quae omni cura hngere solet et omare non ea tantum loca 
 quse vulgo ob exiiniam quandam pulchritudinem invisuntur, sed et obscuros 
 qaosque angulos, nuUo neque solis radio neque oculo admirantis facile tangendos. 
 Eadera Natura pari sedulitate, ut ita dicam, proceras ornavit quercus, ac minutis- 
 simum quodqueseu fungorum sive filicuni genus, nascentiuni forte sub umbra regiae 
 arboris. Atque in hanc fortasse partem accipiat aliquis non male piani majorum 
 nostrorum diligentiani, qui in sacrosanctis aedibus sollicite curabant exsculpi ac 
 poliri summa etiam laquearia, posticam columnarum partem, cetera quaeque a luce 
 et aspectu remota." Keble : De Poeticic Vi Medica, ii. 565. 
 
 IX. 
 
 .9. T, Coleridge's Estimate of Shakespeare in i8tS. 
 
 "O ! when I think of the inexhaustible mine of virgin treasure in our Shake- 
 speare, — that I have been almost daily reading him since 1 was ten ye.irs old, — 
 that the thirty intervening years have been unremittingly and not fruitlessly 
 employed in the study of the Greek, Latin, hnglish, Italian, .Spanish and Germaa 
 MIt-lettrists , and the last fifteen years in addition, far more intensely in the 
 analysis of the laws of life and reason as they exist in man — and that upon every 
 step I have made forward in taste, in acquisition of facts from history or my own 
 observation, and in knowledge of the ditTerent laws of being nnd their apparent 
 exceptions, from accidental collision of disturbing forces, — that at every new 
 accession of information, after every successful exercise of meditation, and every 
 
^ 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 -fresh presentation of experience, I have unfailingly discovered a proportionate 
 lincrease ot wisdom and intuition in Shakespeare ; when I know this, and know 
 too, that by a conceivable and possible, though hardly to be expected, arrangement 
 ot the British theatres, not all indeed, but a large, a very large, proportion of 
 this indefinite all — * * ♦ might be sent into the heads and hearts — into the 
 •very souls of the mass of mankind, to whom, except by this liv; jmment and 
 interpretation, it must remain for ever a sealed volume, a deep »ell without a 
 wheel or a windlass ; — it seems to me a pardonable enthusiasm to steal away from 
 sober likelihood, and share in so rich a feast in the fairy world of possibility ! " 
 Vide Works, vol. iv. 45. Harpers' Ed. Again : p. 185, " There are three 
 powers : — Wit. which cliscovers partial likeness hidden in general diversity ; 
 subtlety, which discovers the diversity concealed in general apparent sameness ; 
 and profundity, which discovers an essential unity under all the semblances of 
 difference. Give to a subtle man fancy, and he >s a wit ; to a deep man imaijina- 
 tion, and he i* a philosopher. Add again, pleasurable sensibility in the three-fold 
 form of sympathy with the interesting in morals, the impressive in form, and the 
 harmonious n sound, and you have the poet. But combine all, — wit, subtlety and 
 fancy, with profunditv, imagination, and moral and physical susceptil)ility of the 
 pleasurable, and let the object ot action be man universal ; and we shall have — O 
 rxsh prophecy '. say rather, we have-^a Shakespeare !" 
 
 X. 
 
 The Sonnets 0/ Shakespeare. 
 
 The Sonnets of Shakespeare have been in too many points unfairly taken as 
 illustrative ot his own private history. Very many of them were probably written 
 with no reference whatever to himself, but wholly as personating, for the occasion, 
 one or other of his many friends, — the earl of Southampton, for example, or the 
 earl of Pembroke. .A few of them may even, without much dillficulty, be imagined 
 to have been sportively feigned as missives from the inamoratas of these friends in 
 reply to ver-^s previously supplied by himself. Some of them may be regarded 
 as sketches in his art — as parer^a thrown off while working at particular characters 
 placed in particular >ituations in his dramas. Some of tliem, if not direct trans- 
 lations, may be close imitations of now forgotten or not yet detected Italian 
 originals. Whilst amongst them are without doubt some which may be taken as 
 expressive of lii« own personal natural feelings in relation to his wife, from whom, 
 while establi>hing his fortune by literary labour and business ventures in London, 
 he was absent during jxirtions of every year. But in regard even to these, we 
 cannot bring ourselves to imagine that they were ever intended by him to be laid 
 at her feet, — iiowever fully the pith and substance of them may have iieen, from 
 time to time, transmitted in homely prose, by post or carrier, to Stratford. 
 
 Of this miscellaneous I.ibtr Stndiortim, possession appears to have been 
 obtaineil surreptitiously ; and a printer was found to give it, without authority, to 
 the world. Though consisting partly of groups, and partly of independent j^icces, 
 the whole came forth as a continuous poem, the sonnets following one another as 
 stanzas in haphazani order, just as they had chanced to be entered on the pages 
 •of the manuscript book. Misprints and misplaced words abounded, to the great 
 obscuration and detriment of the poet's meaning. 
 
 Sonnet csii., supposed by some critics to have been addressed to his wife, 
 but not improbably written for, and in the chat^acter of, one of his friends, as 
 before suggested, is here given at lenglh, for the purpose of offering a conjectural 
 •emendation in a line, which appears to have been given up in despair, by the 
 •commentators. 
 
NOTES. 31 
 
 Your love and pity doth the imprMsion lUI 
 
 Which vulgar Bcandal stanip'd upon my brow ; 
 
 For >vhat care I who calls me well or ill 
 
 I( you o'enrreen my bad, my pood allow? 
 
 You are m. U-the-world, uid I must strive 
 
 To know my shames and praises from your tongoe ; 
 
 None else to me, nor I to none alive. 
 
 That I am sieel'd 'gainst censure, right or wrong. 
 
 In so profound abysm I throw all c*re 
 
 Of others' voices, that my adder's sense 
 
 To critic and to flatterer stopped are. 
 
 Mark how with my neglect I do dispense :— 
 You are so strongly in mv purpose bred. 
 That all the world besides methinks are dead. 
 
 Line 8 is usually read "That my steel'd sense or changes, right or wrong." A 
 mistake of letters in transcription, or of sounds in the hearing, has here so confused 
 the words as almost to deprive them of all meaning. Bv printing as above, we 
 recover the good word "censure," and get rid of "sense," which is not likely to 
 have been here, when it occurred immediately afterwards, at the end of line lo. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The Religious Spirit of the Founders of the Literature of England. 
 
 Here is an extract from Sir Edward Coke's Preface (A. D. 1550) to his 
 " Institutes of the Laws ol England " : 
 
 " Before I entered into any of these parts of our Institutes I, acknowledging 
 mine own weakness and want ot judgment to undertake so great works, directed 
 my humble suit and prayer to the Author of all goodness and wisdom, out of the 
 Book of Wisdom. Pater tt Deus misericcniia-, dti ntthi sedtum tuaruni assistricem 
 sapientiam, milte earn de calis sane/is tins, et a sede wagniiUiiinis tuir, ut maum 
 sit, et mecum lahoret, ut sciam quid acceptum sit apud te. Father and (Jod of 
 Mercy, give me wisdom, the assistant of thy seats ; O send her out of thy holy 
 heavens, and from ihe seat of thy greatness, that she niav be pre^^ent with me 
 and labour with me, that I may know what is pleasing unto thee. Amen." 
 
 This harmonizes with Hooker's grand reference to abstract Law, at the 
 beginning o( his "Polity." (Bk. L, xvi. 8.) 
 
 " Of Law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom 
 of God, her voice the harmony ot the world ; all things in heaven and earth do 
 her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted 
 from her power ; both angels and men and creaiures ol what condition soever, 
 though each in difTerent sort and manner, yet all with unilorm consent, admiring 
 her as the mother of their peace and joy." 
 
 Then read what Raieigh says in his " History of the World " (vide " Life and 
 Times," p. 219): 
 
 " He is rather a fool or ungrateful to God, or both, that doth not acknowledge, 
 how mean soever his estate may be, that the same is far greater than that which 
 God oweth him ; or doth not acknowledge, how sharp soever his afflictions be, that 
 the same are yet far less than those which are due unto him. And if a heathen 
 wise man call the adversities of the world but tributa r-ivendi—' the tributes of 
 living,'— a wise Christian man ought to know them and l)eai them but as the 
 tributes of offending. He ought to bear them man-like, and resolvedly, and not 
 as those whining soldiers do, qui gementes sequntur imperatorem. For seeing 
 God (who is the author of all our tragedies) hath written out for us and appointed 
 us all the parts we are to play, and hath not in their distribution been partial 
 to the most mighty princes of the world, • ♦ • why should other men, who are 
 but as the least worms, complain of wrongs ? " 
 
32 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Again: (Hist, of WofW, as quoted in "Life and Times," p. 192) "To- 
 repeat tiod's judgmeni* in particular, upon those of all degrees which have played 
 with Mis mercies, w i:>u]d require a volume apart ; for the sea of examples hath no 
 bottom. The marks s-rt on prtrate men are with their bodies cast mto the earth, 
 and their fortunes written oniy in the memory of those that lived with them, so as 
 those that succeed, ani hare not seen the fall of others, do not fear their own 
 faults. Ciod's judgments upon the great and greatest have been left to posterity — 
 first, by those happy hand> which the Holy Ghost hath guided ; and, secondly, by 
 their virtue who have gaihcred the acts and ends of men mighty and remarkable in. 
 the world. 
 
 A Prayer in verse by Raieigh. (" Life and Times," p. 176. ) 
 
 To ilMe. O J«an '. I direct my eyes, 
 
 To Um* aiy Sanis, to thee my humble knees ; 
 To ttee BIT h«-.krt «hall offer Mtcritice ; 
 Tolbee By ch<)UKhts, who my thouf^hts only sees ; 
 
 To the* myself— myself and all I give ; ' 
 
 To tbee I die, to thee I only live ! 
 
 Extract from the Pilgrimage of Raleigh, written in prospect of execution in. 
 1603. ( Vide " Life and Times,'' p. 167.) 
 
 I ikoae holy paths we'll travel 
 :<>Ki««n with rubiea thick as gravel ; 
 <.'«iliiit£<» ot ilianionds, sapphire fioon, 
 Hill «'.klb o( coral, and pearly bower?. 
 FlRMB ihence to heaveii'.s bribeless h:Ul, 
 WkMv 00 corrupted voices brawl ; 
 Xo co«Heieiu:« molten into gold, 
 So f«>fiped ao'Uyer bought or sold ; 
 Xo <»a« d«terr"d no vain-spent Journey, 
 For iheir Christ is the king's attorney, 
 WImi pkiatis for all without tlegrees, 
 And he hiich angels but no fees. 
 And whren cbe grand twelve million jury 
 l«f <Mir *ini» with direful fury, 
 tlainM oar soiils black verdicts give, 
 Cluwa |)l<ea<£« his death, and then we live. 
 Be thcun my speaker, taintless pleader, 
 I'nla&Mscd laviryer, true proceeder ! 
 TVoBJ Ti»"st salvation even for alms, 
 X<4 «iili » bribed lawyer's palms. 
 Thtn lli» b my eternal plea 
 T<j> Htan tKkt made hea\ en, earth and sea, 
 dieeiMir wy tlesh nuisc die so soon, 
 And want ■^ hesxl to dine next noon, 
 iwA ai the stroke of death, my arms being spread, 
 Set 00 my soul an everlasting head : 
 S« itiiUI I rejuiy, like a palmer fit, 
 TvtaA tiioae biest paths shewn in Thy Holy Writ." 
 
 Here is a ]^H>rti<» of a Prayer or Psalm of Bacon's. (Works, ii. 407. 
 H. Montagu's Ed., PhiL> "Thy creatures have been my books, but Thy Scrip- 
 tures much moi«. I have sought 1 hee in the courts, fields and gardens, but I 
 have found Thee in Thy Temptes^" 
 
 Here is a secience fnom hi> "Student's Prayer." "This also we humbly 
 and earnestly beg, that human things may not prejudice such as are divine : 
 neither that from the luilocking of the gates of sense and the kindling of a greater 
 natural light, anything of inci«duiity, or intellectual night, may arise in our minds 
 towards divine mysteries." 
 
 The conclusion of his AhetdartMnt Natura : " This is the form and rule of 
 our alphabet. May God the Creator, preserver and renewer of the universe, 
 protect and govern this work, both in its ascent to His glory, and its descent to- 
 
NOTIM. 33 
 
 the gooil of mankind, for the sake of His mercy and goodwill to men, through His 
 •only Son, Immanuel, God with us." 
 
 Some observations from his " Interpreutiunuf Nature," as applicable mutatis 
 mutandis, to-day, as they were three humired years ago : *' With resjiect to 
 augmentations and what may be called the new shores and tracts of philosophy, 
 all from the side of religion is full of grovelling suspicion ami impotent disdain. 
 Thus, some in their simplicity fear that any deeper inquisition into Nature may 
 penetrate perchance beyond the allowe<l and sanctionett limit of sobriety, im- 
 properly applying what is said of the secrets of God, many of which remain closed 
 under the divine signet, to the secrets of nature which are guarded by no interdict. 
 Others, with greater cunning, conceive that if men are ignorant of second causes, 
 each particular may be more easily leferreil to the Word of God, which they think 
 is of the highest interest to religion ; though this is no other than seeking to flatter 
 (iod with a lie. ♦ * ♦ Krom which it is '•ufficiently clear that in opinions of 
 this kind there is much weakness, and not a little envy and bitterness. For 
 natural philosophy is, next to the Divine word, the nn>st certain enemy of super- 
 stition, and the most wholesome food of faith ; ami is, therefore, rightly considered 
 the truest and loveliest handmaid of religion : the one displaying the will of (iod, 
 the other His power. So that he was not wrong who said " V'e do err, not know- 
 ing the Scriptures, nor the power of Cjod." joining in an intimate union, informa- 
 tion of His will, and meditation on His power. But, though this is most certain, 
 it still remains among the most effectual hindrances to natural philosophy, that all 
 which is pronounced by blind zeal and superstition is considered out of the reach 
 of dispute." Works, i. 424-5, B. Montagu's E«l. 
 
 Finally, here is a sentence taken almost ad aPerturam from the works of 
 another celebrated contemporary of the poet — Thomas Hobbs of Malmesbury 
 (1588-1679). 
 
 "Though I believe," he says in his Anrwer to Archb. Bramhall, (Works, iv. 
 Sir W. Molesworth's Ed.) "the Omnipotence of Gotl, and that He can do what 
 He will, yet I dare not say funv everything is done, liecause I cannot conceive nor 
 comprehend either the Divine Substance, or the way of its operation. And I 
 think it impitcy to speak concerning Go«i anything of my own head, or upon the 
 authority of philosophers or school-men, which I understand not, without warrant 
 in the Scripture : and what I say of OmnijKiience. I say of Ubiquity." 
 
 XII. 
 
 '^Wc Tempest, Shakespean's fareicell Drama. 
 
 It may be conceived that in several of the speeches of Prospero to Ariel, the 
 poet indirectly gives some expression to his own feelings of gratification at the 
 near prospect of final retirement to quiet and liberty at Stratford, In the words 
 of the Epilogue 
 
 " Now my charmij are all o'erthrown, 
 And what strength I have's my own. 
 Which is most (aim '— 
 
 is there an indication of failing health? In the reply "III deliver all" — to 
 Alonzo's address "I long to hear the story of your life, which must take the ear 
 strangely," have we a hint of a contemplated autobiography? 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Purchase of New Place. 
 
 A dialogue in the March numl>er of Macmillan (1864), supposed to take 
 .place at Stratford in 1579, between old Master Grunsey and Goodman Dodd, two 
 
34 
 
 SHAKE8PEARE. 
 
 During the talk 
 
 of tbt iiTtinani folk of the place, is eccelleutemtnte trwato, 
 lierwecii ne rwo worthies over their ale, the recent purchase of 
 
 " ."^ir Hnirh's 9,mx house beside the Qrainniar School," 
 ccimef a|>. unt in thus discussed : 
 
 DoDD. New PWe ben't no such bargain, when all's done ; 
 Twaa dear, 1 knows it. 
 
 <Qutiii«a?. Thou boui^ht'st better, mun. 
 
 At H<>KK)n Fields : all am't alike in skill. 
 
 D Thanki) to the Lord above ! I've not done ill. 
 No more has thee, friend Grunsey, in thy trade. 
 
 »i. !kJ-«o. But here's you'Hf Will wi' money made. 
 And money saved ; whereon I sets him down, 
 >Hiy else who likes, a credit to the town ; 
 Tho' 'wnie do shake their heads at player-folk. 
 
 D. A civil man he be to chat and joke ; 
 
 I've oft times had a bit o' talk wl' Will." 
 
 7"irt- " Sr Ffiiirh "' referred to, is Sir Hugh Ciopton, a Lord Mayor of f.ondon, 
 temp. H*;i. VET. ; he erected or caused to be erected, the existing noble biid,t,'e of 
 foun«:i. u-::ieT iver the Avon, at the /<?r</ where a Via Strata, a Roman road, or 
 road fcirnicL itter the Roman manner, crossed the Avon. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Genio Term Britannictt. 
 
 Tht liiv. Dr. McCaul's Volume on Britanno-Roman Inscriptions has 
 stamjied iii. rs CDver the figure of an Altar, found in 1 77 1 near Auchindavy, one 
 of the fiiHtuns '\i tiie Wail of Antoninus, liearing the inscription genio . terrae . 
 KKHAKKJittt . 5C . ciicCEius . FIRMUS . LEG . II . AVG. See also Stuart's Cale- 
 donia larmaar,. p. Jji 
 
 XV. 
 
 Schlegel on Shakespeare. 
 
 ^ Ciea'anl mteliigible even to the understanding of a child, wondrous and 
 fascinatiur; i: die youtiful imagination, he is still the friend and fellow-traveller of 
 the fuli-^[vvia man. the confidant of his thoughts and most serious feelings ; when 
 the prnnt if life is pa.st, the poet is still his faithful companion ; many other 
 associattx. w '*hom he clung in youth, appear empty and frivolous, and while he 
 marvek il viiat they owetl their former fascinating charm, our glorious Shake- 
 speare retan-f ail his value to the last, unshaken by the few solitary blemisher,, 
 defectc uf HHre^ as they are called, which are sometimes pointed out, but whirh 
 arf m ^Bmsm merelv the offspring of our own misapprehension." Vide Schlegt'i ; 
 " --Est^m. ^orka,' p. 267. Ed. Bohn. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Shakespeare the Poet of the Teutonic Nations. 
 
 " Sfaatsneare is most justly acknowledged to be the favourite poet not only 
 of the tnpiuh. but of all nations of Teutonic origin : excepting only when a 
 foreign and jrmaninil influence intervenes, and people have already become false 
 10 tbeir ar^nai character and better feeling." Schlegel: "^Esthetic:" p. 267. 
 Ed. Bohn 
 
NOTES. 
 
 35^ 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Shakespeare the Dramatic Homer of the North. 
 
 "Since the time of Uomer no pictures have been proiluced so life-like and 
 universal as those which Sliakespeare places before our eyes, comprehensively 
 grand, yet faithful to nature, even in miiu'i.. details and personal characteristics. 
 He is the dramatic Homer of the North, of our North, the latter, civili/ed, and 
 polished North, no longer ruling by the power of nature alone, but in the a(lde<l 
 strength of intellectual energy, a highly-developed workl variously framed and 
 moulded." Schlegel : "/Esthetic:" p. 272. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Guizofs Estimate of Shakespeare. 
 
 "The mighty genius whose view had embraced the whole destiny of man 
 could not have failed to recognize its sublime secret ; a sure instinct revealed to 
 him this final explanation, without which all is diukness and uncertainty. 
 Furnished therefore with the moral thread which never breaks in his hands, he 
 proceeds with firm steps through the embarrassments of circumstances and the 
 perplexities of varied feelings; nothing can be simple- at bottom than Shake- 
 speare's action ; nothing less complicated than the impression which it leaves on 
 our minds. Our interest is never divided, and still less does it waver between 
 two opposite inclinations, or two equally powerful affections. As soon as the 
 characters become known, and their position is developed, our choice is made ; 
 we know what we desire and what we fear, whom we hate and whom we love. 
 There is as little conflict of duties as of interests ; and the conscience wavers no 
 more than the affections. ♦ * » Ti,e characters are not represented as deceiving 
 or deceived, hovering between vice and virtue, weakness and crime ; what they 
 are, they are frankly and openly ; their actions are depicted in vigorous outlines, 
 so that even the weakest eyesight cannot mistake them. And yet — so admirable 
 is his perception of truth ! — in these actions, so positive, complete, and consistent, 
 all the inconsistencies and fantastic mixtures of human nature exist and are 
 displayed." Guizot :," Shakespeare and his Times:" p. 97, 98. Harpers' Ed. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Shakespeare a Member of the National Church of England. 
 
 To the question put in a Roman Catholic periodical called the Kamhler, 
 No. 7, 1854 (see Bohn's "Lowndes," p. 2337), " Was Shakespeare a Catholic ?" 
 an affirmative answer must be given, if the term "Catholic" is understood in 
 its unpartisan sense, either theologically, as the English Church accepts it, or 
 etymologically as non-conformists use it. But if the term is to have the exclusive 
 sense of "Advocate of the alleged rights of the Bishop of Rcme out ot his own 
 country, viz. Italy," then it is difficult to say where ure the grounds in the poet's 
 writings for anything but a negative reply. We are nevertheless informed that 
 M. Rio is engaged at an affirmative one, with the term in the question understood 
 in the latter sense. Cardinal Wiseman, who drew such a rosy-hued picture of 
 Modern England at Malines in October, 1863, will find no difficulty in furnishing 
 a similar answer in his promised lecture in July. 
 
 It is, however, a patent fact to all readers that Shakespeare lived and died a 
 member of the ancient historic Church of England. 
 
 We cannot see that he ever had any dealings with the newly-formed com- 
 munion of the Bishop of Rome's adherents, who first separated themselves fiom 
 
36 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 the ancient historic church of the country in 1569, the eleventh year of Elizabeth's 
 ■reign, after the issuing of the mandate (dated Feb. 25) of Michael Gislieri, the 
 then bishop, interdir'i'ig " Universis et singulis Proceribus, Subditis, Populis et 
 aliis prsedictis, ne ilh ejusve monitis, mandatis, et legibus audeant obedire." 
 
 One word may not here be deemed out of place, on a point which foreign 
 writers, mystified by the histories and catechisms supplied to them by Jesuits, 
 cannot see. In a work translated from the French, lately (1864) published by 
 Chapman and Hall, M. Alphonse Esquiros remarks: "It is curious to notice in 
 the country parts of England, with what care the monuments of the faith, the 
 charges, benefices, traditions and lands of the church passed from the hands of 
 the Catholic clergy into those of the Protestant. The very trace of this transition," 
 he says, "is now almost effaced from the soil of Great Britain." No wonder, 
 when no transition of the pronounced kind which he imagines, ever took place. 
 The English clergy and the English congregations who in 1570 accepted reform, 
 did not cease to be what they were confessedly before — Catholic. In France, 
 Spain, Italy, Austria, etc., it is supposed that by the acceptance of ecclesiastical 
 reform, — by a return to earlier and simpler arrangements, Catholicity must come 
 to an end. In books destined to be read in those countries, this point ought to 
 be, in a friendly spirit, explained. It is a point on which some Englishmen 
 themselves are not clear. 
 
 An excellent, earnest-minded man, the Rev. Richard Byfield, was Vicar of 
 Htr.itford in 1616. His clerical visitors appear — from certain memor.inda in the 
 ■Chamberlain's books of 1614— to have found quarters occasionally at New Place. 
 On the strength of this evidence a non-conformist paper lately ventured to express 
 the hope — the trust — that, ere he departed hence, "the greatest amongst men," 
 as the writer somewhat strongly speaks, "became a child of God!" Thus we 
 poor worms of the earth undertake to talk one of the other ! In projxjrtion as 
 we think this man or that man coincides in notion or custom of life with ourselves, 
 we, with a quasi-charity allow him to be, perhaps, a child of God ! Melius est 
 tit incidam in tnaittis Domini, vtutiv eiiim misericorditt ejus sunt, quam in i/tanus 
 hominum ! 
 
 We have here another example of that peculiar use of a phrase or of a word 
 by which partisans unconsciously beg the wiiole question, as between themselves 
 and those whom they would oppose. 
 
 XX. 
 
 The Bust of Shakespeare at Stratford. 
 
 The bust in the Church of the Holy Trinity at Stratford was originally in 
 colour. Towards the close of the last century it suffered the indignity of a coat 
 of white paint. "The wretched Maione," exclaims Charles L.amb, (Elia ii. 3.) 
 * * * "bribed the sexton of Stratforfi church to let him whitewash the 
 painted effigy of old Shakespeare, which stood there, in rude but lively fashion 
 depicted, to the very colour of the cheek, the eye, the eyebrow, hair, the very 
 dress he used to wear — the only authentic testimony we had, however imperfect, 
 of these curious parts and parcels of him. They covered him over with a coat of 
 white paint !" With an expression of indignant emphasis, too strong to be 
 repeated, he adds, " If I had been a justice of peace fr r Warwickshire, I would 
 have clapt both commentator and sexton fast in the stocks, for a pair of meddling 
 sacrilegious varlets. I think I see them at t'leir work — these sapient trouble- 
 tombs !" 
 
 The paint has now with great care been removed ; and the bust again appears 
 in colour, not so delicate perhaps as that which is to be seen on the vorks of 
 Gibson, but in keeping with its date and place. A vast amount of labour has 
 been entailed on the present generation by the Malones — mostly churchwardens — 
 
NOTES. 
 
 37 
 
 of the last century, who coated over with whitewash the frescoes, the gilding, the 
 veined marbles, ihe freckled granites, which beautified the interiors of the old 
 parish-churches. 
 
 The pnotograph in Friswell's " Life-pwrtraits," having lieen taken on a level 
 with the face, presents the features favourably for study. It will be observed how 
 fully the parts which are suppo-ed to indicate language and perceptive power and 
 memory, are developed. 
 
 Anciher plate in Friswell shows the interior of the chancel of this fine old. 
 church with its noble east window. In this picture we have an illustration of the 
 unreflecting way in which, in times past, monuments were wont to be put up in 
 churches. Blocking up the space between the end of the altar and the north wall, 
 and as prominent to the view of the assembled congregation as the communion 
 table itself, is the tomb, with recumbent effigy, of John Combe ! In the interval 
 on the south side is another but altogether dissimilar great structure — a kiml of 
 buffet for the reception of a large bust, and other conspicuous and most incon- 
 gruous objects ! 
 
 Executors in those days appear generally to have been possessed of an obtuse 
 sense of m<Klesty, propriety, architectural symmetry and beauty. To make room 
 for memorials ckstined to be re^nte<l by posterity as impertinences, they did not 
 hesitate to dig a hole in a venerable wall anywhere, to chop away a mullion or 
 two on one sid.; of a noble window, to cut a great piece out of a stately column, 
 consistmg perhaps of an exquisite sheaf of slender shafts reaching from the pave- 
 ment to the groined roof I 
 
 How easily might there be introducetl into the designs of church interiors, or 
 exteriors, a series of panels or recesses harmonizing with the architecture of the 
 building, for the reception of memorial inscriptions, medallions, and busts, which 
 then, instead of being eye-sore>. might contribute to richness and dignity of effect. 
 I suggest "exteriors,'" because in countries where lighted stoves are indispensable 
 for many months in every year, interiors are generally cleartd out at intervals by 
 fire. The shell, if of stone or brick, with its external decon.tions, may continue 
 available for the use of another iieneration. 
 
 XX t. 
 
 Shakespeare's Latin Epitaph. 
 
 .ludicio PrUuni, ^nio Socratein, art« Maronem 
 Terra fefiU, populus mteret, Olympus habet. 
 
 This distich, perhaps by the poet's so;i-in-law, Dr. Hall, is generally described 
 as a pair of lame Latin verses, r. *d then d'smissed. With the exception of the 
 shortening of the first syllable of : se fourth word, which of course by the oltl rule, 
 " longa vero non mutatur," is not ailowabie, the whole forms an epigram as good 
 as the generality of those tint v.e meet with on tombs. As a testimony to the 
 sentiment of friends and neighlx>iirs in regard to the poet at the time " his death, 
 these lines deserve attention. 1 hey d-.'clai'e that he wh > was laic* . the earth 
 below, whose loss men bewailc.. when the other world received him, .vas to be 
 likened for judiciousness, to the olc^ sagr ot Pylos, Nestor ; for wit and wisdom, to 
 a Socrates ; for poetic glamour ami skill, to a Virgil. Wo have here a hint of the 
 WD' in which the .sujierior mind ot the departed had been looked up to ; a hint of 
 his frank intercourse with all sort.s ana conditions of his fellownien ; of his friendly 
 passages of question ?nd answer with them ; of his solution haply of many a little 
 moral end metaphysical problem for them. Would there had been an intelligent 
 Plato about this .Socrates to have taken down some of his waste fliscourse ! The 
 comparison with Virgil sounds to us somewhat tame. He cerininly h.-\d all Virg.l 
 in him, and a great deal more. He contained at least a wliole Horace be.sides, 
 Warwickshire his Apulia, the Avon his Aufidus ; the nonest countryfolk round 
 
38 
 
 SHAKBSPEAHE. 
 
 Shottery and Charlecote, his Ofelli, his fortes eolcni, his uxorts soHhus ptrusta. 
 Much of his philosophy is very Horatian. — Honest hearty Homer would have been 
 the parallel. But in 1616 the name of Vii^il had mure of the old medixval 
 associations clinging to it, than it has now. It is with Virgil as the wizard, that 
 he is compared. On an early portrait of .Shakespeare, said to be nearly contem- 
 .poraneous, is the pregnant allusion " Ut Magus" — to be understood only by its 
 context in Hor. Ep. I. Lib. ii. 
 
 " Ao ne forte putes, me, que facere ipse recusem, 
 Ouum recte tractent alii, laudare maligTie ; 
 Ille per extentum funem mibi poeee videt.ur 
 Ire poeta ; meum qui pectus inaniter angit, 
 Irritat, mulcet, faUib lerroribug implet, 
 Ut Uaf/ut, et moda nie Thebis, modo ponit Athenis." 
 
 " Though I attfimpt not the dramatic muse, 
 Let me not seeui, malignant, to refuse 
 The praises due t3 thoee, who with success 
 Have tried this way to fame ; for I confess, 
 He giveij a desperate trial of his art. 
 Who with imagined woes can wring my heart ; 
 To pity soothe me, or to anger warm. 
 Or with false fears my panting breast alarm ; 
 Then, like a norce^rer, my rapt spirit bear 
 To Athens, or to Thebes, and fix it there." 
 
 An apt description of the dramatic poet's magical power over susceptible minds ! 
 This is the kind of "art" referred to in the epitaph, and there described as 
 Virgilian. [In the "desperate trial," — the "per extentum funem posse vidctur 
 ire poeta," who has not brought to his recollection, as a specimen of extreme 
 trial of art in a man's specialty, the fe.it of Blondin tit the Falls of Niagara?] 
 The distich under Oie bust at Stratford might be supplemented at this day from 
 the epitaph of the admirable Crichton of 1494. See Hallam, Lit. Hist. i. 210. 
 
 " Johannes jacet hie Mirandola : cetera norunt 
 Et Tagus, et Ganges ; foraan et Antipodes." 
 
 As here on the shores of the St. Lawrence, so literally on the Ganges, 
 literally at the Antipodes, where Mirandola is forgotten if he ever were remem- 
 bered, the name of Shakespeare is a household word. 
 
 The allusion to the poet as a Afa^us, and as a Soirates, may recall to the mind 
 of some, what thf latter is reivjricd by Plato as saying in the Dialogue entitlied 
 "Charmides." He had learned, he says, from one of the physicians of King 
 Zamolxis of Thrace, who were said to be able to render men immortal, that as 
 it is not proper to aftemjit to cure the eyes without the head, nor the head with- 
 out the body ; so neither is it proper to cure the body without the soul ; and that 
 the soul is cured by certain ituantatioiis ; and that these incantations are beautiful 
 reasons; and that by such, temperance was generated in the soul, which, when 
 generated and present, can easily impart health both to the head and to the rest 
 of the body. See Plato, vol. iv. p. 118. Ed. Bohn. .Such "mcantations" and 
 " beautiful reasons," quickening and curative to the spirit, abound, as every one 
 knows, in the writings of Shakespeare. 
 
 XXIL 
 
 Orthography of Shakespeare"^ s Name. 
 
 At the close of his two Dedications to the Earl of Southampton, prefixed to 
 the "Venug and Adonis'" and "The Kape of Lucrece" respectively, the poet 
 subscribed his name as — WiLLiAM StiAKESPEARE. By this deliberate act he seems 
 to have given the world to understand that such was the form his name should 
 wear in after ages ; and thus accordingly the first editors of his collected works, 
 Heminge and Condell, rendered the name, as also did Ben Jonson, and all the 
 other early admirers of Shakespeare.