thirty-six plays, were asked what the prevailing impression made on him
was, he would probably reply the profound reverence which Shakespeare
shows universally for religion--his deep sense of the mysterious
relation which exists between God and man. We feel that his silence on
transcendental subjects springs not from indifference, but from awe. The
remarkable words which he places in the mouth of Lafeu, in _All’s Well
that Ends Well_ (Act II. 3), merely sum up what we hear _sotto voce_ in
various forms of expression throughout his dramas; “we have our
philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural
and causeless. Hence it is that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing
ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an
unknown fear.” And the same reverence and humility find a voice in the
verses in which, in all probability, he took leave of the world of
active life.
Now my charms are all overthrown,
And what strength I have’s mine own,
Which is most faint.
... Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
No poet has dwelt more on the duty and moral efficacy of prayer, on the
omnipresence of God, and on the fact that in conscience we have a
Divine monitor.
Of the respect which Shakespeare entertained for Christianity as a
creed, of his conviction of its competency to fulfil and satisfy all the
ends of religion in men of the highest type of intelligence and ability,
we require no further proof than his Henry V. Henry V. is undoubtedly
his ideal man, as Theseus in the _Œdipus Coloneus_ is the ideal man
of Sophocles. And Henry V. is pre-eminently a Christian. Wherever
Shakespeare refers to the person and to the teachings of Christ, it is
always with peculiar tenderness and solemnity. His ethics are in one
respect essentially Christian, and that is in their emphatic insistence
on the virtues of mercy and forgiveness of injuries. In _Measure for
Measure_, he stretched the first as far as the Master Himself stretched
it, at the eleventh hour, to the penitent thief. And in the _Tempest_,
that play which seems to embody in allegory Shakespeare’s mature and
final philosophy of life, who does not recognise the symbol of Him who
rules, not merely in justice and righteousness, but in benevolence and
mercy, when Prospero, with sinners and traitors and foes in his power,
proclaims--
The rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further.
He struck this note in one of the earliest of his plays:--
Who by repentance is not satisfied,
Is nor of heaven, nor earth: for these are pleas’d.
By penitence th’ Eternal’s wrath’s appeas’d.[57]
and the note vibrates through his works. It is the crowning moral of
_Measure for Measure_; it is one of the dominant notes in _Cymbeline_.
He also reflects Christianity in the beautiful optimism which discerns
in evil the agent of good, and in calamity and sorrow the benevolence
and mercy of God. This is the philosophy which penetrates what were
probably his last three dramas, _The Winter’s Tale_, _Cymbeline_, and
_The Tempest_.
In these respects, then, it may fairly be maintained that Shakespeare is
Christian. For the rest his dramas might, so far as their philosophy is
concerned, have come down to us from classical antiquity. Nothing can be
more Greek than the main basis on which his ethics rest--the observance
of the mean, and the recognition of the relation of virtue to the
becoming. When Claudio says:--
As surfeit is the father of much fast,
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint;
when Norfolk says:--
The fire that mounts the liquor till ’t o’erflow
In seeming to augment it wastes it;
when Friar Laurence tells us that:--
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometime ’s by action dignified;
and Portia that
There is no good without respect,
we have not only the keys to his ethics but the texts for sermons which
find living illustrations in the fall of Angelo, of Coriolanus, of
Timon, and of many others of his protagonists. Thus do his ethics temper
and readjust for the sphere of working life, those of the Divine
Enthusiast who legislated, in some respects, too exclusively perhaps,
for a kingdom which is not of this world.
And so, his ‘religion’ being, to borrow an expression of his own, “as
broad and general as the casing air,” it has come to pass, that
Shakespeare has been claimed as an orthodox Protestant by Knight, Bishop
Wordsworth, and Trench; as an orthodox Roman Catholic by M. Rio, Mr.
Simpson, and Father Bowden; and as a simple agnostic by Gervinus,
Kreysig, and Professor Caird.
“He hath,” says Sir Thomas Browne speaking of himself, “one common and
authentic philosophy which he learnt in the schools, whereby he reasons
and satisfies the reason of other men: another more reserved and drawn
from experience whereby he satisfies his own.” It may be, it may quite
well be, for he has left nothing to justify conclusion to the contrary,
that the words of Shakespeare’s Will--mere formula though they be--are
the expression of what he “reserved” to satisfy himself, and that he
accepted the Christian Revelation. It may be, that what we are
_certainly_ warranted in concluding about him, represents all that can
be concluded, namely, that:--
He at least believed in soul, was very sure of God.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 50: Act I. Sc. i. This is a very pointed reference, but in the
second instance, in _All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act II. Sc. i., “They
say miracles are past,” he gives a turn to the expression which converts
it into a rebuke of Rationalism.]
[Footnote 51: Act I. Sc. ii.]
[Footnote 52: Act II. Sc. ii.]
[Footnote 53: In opposition to these may, it is true, be cited Othello’s
words to Desdemona--_Othello_, V. 2: the Duke’s remark about putting the
unrepentant Barnardine to death--_Measure for Measure_, IV. 3: the dying
speeches of Buckingham and Catharine in _Henry VIII._, II. 1; IV. 2:
Laertes on Ophelia,--_Hamlet_, V. 1. But these passages, and others like
them, cannot be cited as evidence to the contrary; they are merely
dramatic utterances.]
[Footnote 54: Cf. _Ethics_, I. x. 11, and III. vi. 6.]
[Footnote 55: _Shakespeare Commentaries_, Vol. II. 620-1.]
[Footnote 56: Article on Shakespeare, _Quarterly Review_ for July, 1871,
p. 46.]
[Footnote 57: _Two Gentlemen of Verona_: V. 4.]
INDEX
ACCIUS quoted, 244
ADDISON, 15: 272: 281
ÆSCHYLUS, 59;
quoted, 62;
his descriptions of Nature, 241;
his theology, 267: 261: 364
ALCÆUS, 287
ALCMAN quoted, 240
ALAMANNI, 123
ANACREON, 286
ANTHOLOGY, Greek, 116: 117: 243
ANTIMACHUS of Colophon, his Poems, 289
ANTIPATER of Sidon, 116
APOLLONIUS RHODIUS, 78;
beauty of his descriptions, 242-3
ARCHILOCHUS quoted, 287
ARIOSTO quoted, 79;
his _Orlando_, 113
ARISTOPHANES, 242: 260: 280;
his censure of Euripides, 265
ARISTOTLE, 63: 67;
influence on Spenser, 120-1;
style, 122;
his doctrine of the καθαρσις, 264-5;
his Æsthetics, 265-6;
Poetics, 274-6;
his _Rhetoric_, 287
ARMSTRONG, Dr. John, his connection with Thomson, 333
ARNOLD, Matthew, 63;
quoted, 21: 105: 106: 194: 272-3
ATHENÆUS, 293
AUSONIUS, his _Rosæ_, 246
AVITUS, 251
BACON, Lord, his _Sylva Sylvarum_, 114;
his Latin style, 122;
quoted, 182;
on poetry, 279
BARCLAY, his _Argenis_, 129
BARNUM, the late Mr., on Advertisement, 158
BEACONSFIELD, Lord, quoted, 219
BENECKE, Mr. E. F. M., his _Antimachus of Colophon_ and
_Position of Women in Greek Poetry_ reviewed, 255-93
BENTLEY, Richard, 156
BERNAYS, Prof., on the καθαρσις of Aristotle, 265
BOILEAU, 125
BOLINGBROKE, Lord, 119: 321
BOSWELL, James, 134
BOWDEN, Rev. H. Sebastian, his _Religion of Shakespeare_ reviewed, 351-69
BREWER, Rev. Prof., quoted, 361
BROWN, Mr. J. T. T., his _Authorship of
the Kingis Quair_ reviewed, 172-82
BROWNE, Sir Thomas, his _Hydriotaphia_, 102;
quoted, 368
BROWNING, Robert, on the Comparative Study of Ancient and
Modern Classical Literature, 64
BROWNING, Mrs., 297
BURKE, Edmund, 71: 100-1: 125: 126
BURNS, Robert, 145;
Comparison with Catullus, 347
BUTCHER, Prof. S. H., his _Some Aspects of
the Greek Genius_ reviewed, 255-69
BUTLER, Bishop, quoted, 214
BUTLER, Mr. Samuel, on Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 222-4
CÆDMON quoted, 95
CAINE, Mr. Hall, 28
CALLIMACHUS, 242
CAMOENS, 350
CAMPBELL, Prof. Lewis, 259
CAREW, Thomas, 305
CATULLUS, his descriptions of Nature, 245: 336-9;
quoted, 285;
characteristics of his genius, 335;
his _Attis_, 339-40;
his pathos, 337-8;
his connection with Lesbia, 342-5;
parallel between Poems to Lesbia and Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 345-6;
his versatility, 346;
comparison with Burns, 347;
Mr. Tremenheere’s version of the Love Poems, 347-9
CAWTHORN, John, 60
CHAUCER, 53: 8: 122-3
CHURCHILL, Charles, quoted, 159
CICERO, influence on English prose, 61;
as a critic of rhetoric, 278-9;
on immortality, 360
CLARENDON, 123
CLASSICS, influence of the Greek and
Roman Classics on English Literature, 58-63;
exclusion of from Schools of Literature
by the English Universities, 45-64;
effects of this illustrated, 76-83
CLAUDIAN quoted, 246
COLVIN, Mr. Sidney, his edition of Stevenson’s Letters reviewed, 165-71
COLERIDGE, S. T., 127: 130: 281
COLERIDGE, the late Lord, on Greek, 255
CORY, William, 253
COUSIN, Victor, his theory of beauty and art, 272
CRITICISM, reasons of present degraded state of, 13-26;
characteristics of current criticism described, 26-30: 270-1;
effects on literature generally, 31-4;
refusal of the Universities to train critics and men of letters, 38-44;
lethargy and indifference of scholars,
progressive degradation of literature the certain result, 43-44
CRITICS, characteristics of popular, 27-31: 93-109: 110-32: 151-7
CROWE, William, 249
CYNEWULF, 95
DANTE, 49;
quoted, 335;
his _Sonnets and Canzoni_, 350
DE QUINCEY, Thomas, characteristics of, 203-4;
his comparative failure, 305;
Mr. Hogg’s recollections of, 203-10
DOUGLAS, Gavin, his translation of Virgil, 96-7
DRAYTON, Michael, 60
DRYDEN, his _Discourse on Epic Poetry_, 65;
quoted, 153;
on the functions of poetry, 280;
his translations, 148
DUBOS, the Abbé, 281
DUNBAR, William, 176;
Mr. Smeaton’s _Life of_, reviewed, 183-92;
characteristics of his poetry, 190-1
DYER, John, his descriptive poetry, 248
EARLE, Prof., on relation of Classics to English Literature, 59 (note)
EARLE, John, his _Microcosmographie_, 129
EDITORS, their relation to current literature, 22;
in no way responsible for the present condition
of current literature, 23-24
ENNIUS, 59
EURIPIDES, 82;
his fine pictures of Nature, 242;
quoted, 262;
his _Alcestis_ quoted, 286
FELTHAM, Owen, his _Resolves_, 129
FLACCUS, Valerius, 246
FLETCHER, Phineas, 101
FOOTE, Samuel, quoted, 205
FOX, John, his _Book of Martyrs_, 113
FRAUNCE, Abraham, his _Countess of Pembroke’s Ivy Church_, 309
FROUDE, James Anthony, on the effect of discouraging
the study of the Classics, 65
GARNETT, Father, 354
GEOFFREY of Monmouth, 102
GERVINUS, Prof., quoted, 360
GLANVILLE, Joseph, 104
GIBBON, Edward, 125: 150: 198
GOETHE, 49: 86;
quoted, 273: 360: 362
GOLDSMITH quoted, 247
GOSSE, Edmund, his _Short History of Modern
English Literature_ reviewed 110-32
GOSSING, analysis of the accomplishment, 115;
compared with Euphuism, id.
GOWER, John, 124;
_Confessio Amantis_, 196
GRAY, Thomas, on Lydgate, 98
GREENE, Robert, 14
HALL, William, Mr. Sidney Lee on, 216
HAMPOLE, Richard of, his _Pricke of Conscience_, 179
HARRISON, Mr. Frederic, 35
HAWES, Stephen, his _Pastime of Pleasure_, 200
HERACLITUS quoted, 361
HERMESIANAX quoted, 287
HILL, Aaron, 331
HOCCLEVE, Thomas, 198
HOGG, Mr. James, his _Recollections of De Quincey_ reviewed, 203-10
HOMER quoted, his fine descriptions of Nature, 237-9;
his women, 286: 288;
his description of Hades, 297
HOOKER quoted, 362
HORACE, influence of his Epistles and Satires on English poetry, 60;
quoted, 151: 297: 301;
deficient in poetic sensibility, 336
HROSWITHA, 251
HUXLEY, Prof., on Merton Chair at Oxford, 38
IBYCUS, 240
JAGO, Richard, 249
JAMES I. of Scotland, his _Kingis Quair_, 172;
its genuineness vindicated, 174-82
JAPP, Dr. Alexander, _Life of De Quincey_, 209
JEBB, Prof., his services to Greek Literature, 258
JOHNSON, Dr., quoted, 152
JONSON, Ben, on Poetry, 280
JOWETT, Prof., quoted, 64
JUSSERAND, M., his _Literary History of
the English People_ reviewed, 193-202
KEATS, John, 127: 298: 347
LANDOR, W. S., 298
LANG, Mr. Andrew, 259
LAUDERDALE, 310
LEAF, Mr. Walter, 259
LEE, Mr. Sidney, his _Life of Shakespeare_ reviewed, 211-8;
on Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 229-30
LE GALLIENNE, Mr. Richard, his _Retrospective Reviews_ reviewed, 151-7
LEOPARDI quoted, 20: 300
LESBIA and CATULLUS, 335-50
LESSING, on Philologists, 86;
his _Laocoon_, 41;
his _Hamburgishe Dramaturgie_, 67
LOG-ROLLING, its pernicious effects, 133-44
LONGINUS, the Treatise attributed to, discussed, 276-8;
quoted, 270
LYDGATE, his style and versification, 98;
id., 115;
characteristics of his poetry, 198-9
MACAULAY, Lord, 145: 151
MALLET, David, claim to authorship of _Rule Britannia_ discussed, 321-4
MALORY, Thomas, 201
MANNYNG, his _Handlying of Synne_, 195
MARLOWE, Christopher, 14
MARTIAL, his epigrams, 337
MAX MÜLLER, Prof., 52
MELEAGER, his Anthology, 116-7;
quoted, 243
MENANDER quoted, 262
MIMNERMUS, his love poetry to Nanno, 287
MILTON quoted, 41 (note): 62;
his apology for _Smectymnuus_, quoted, 103;
on poetry, 267;
quoted, 212;
music of his verse, 317
MITFORD, Rev. J., on the corrections in Thomson’s _Seasons_, 330-4
MONTAGUE, Lady Mary Wortley, 125: 306
MOREL, M. Léon, his Monograph on Thomson, 319
MORE, Sir Thomas, his Utopia, 101
MORE, Henry, 274
MORGAN, Sir George Osborne, his _Translation
of Virgil’s Eclogues_ reviewed, 308-17
MORLEY, Mr. John, 63;
quoted, 64
MYERS, Mr. Ernest, 259
MÜLLER, Prof. E., his _Geschichte der Theorie
der Kunst bei den Alten_, 264
OGILVIE, John, 310
OVID, 60: 177: 178: 246
PACUVIUS, his _Dulorestes_ quoted, 244
PALGRAVE, Francis Turner, his _Landscape in Poetry_ reviewed, 236-49;
an appreciation of, 250-4
PATER, Walter, 62: 152: 265: 267
PECOCK, Reginald, his _Repressor_, 128-9
PETRARCH, 287: 296
PERSIUS quoted, 15
PHILLIPS, Mr. Stephen, his poems reviewed, 294-300
PINDAR quoted, 262;
his word pictures, 240
PLATO, his Symposium, 78-9;
quoted, 263;
his theory of poetry, 274: 276
PLUTARCH, his pictures of women, 290
POMFRET, John, his _Choice_, 101
POPE quoted, 84;
on Philologists, 86;
quoted, 139;
his _Satires_ and _Epistles_, 125;
his alleged revision of Thomson’s _Seasons_ discussed, 328-32
PROPERTIUS quoted, 246
PUBLISHERS, honourable character of the leading, 23
QUARTERLY REVIEW, article on _From Shakespeare to Pope_, 40
QUINTILIAN as a critic, 278
RAFFETY, Mr. Frank W., his _Books worth Reading_ reviewed, 145-50
ROSSETTI, Dante Gabriel, quoted, 173
ROSSETTI, William Michael, his edition of Shelley’s _Adonais_, 76-83
RUCELLAI, his dramas and his _L’Api_, 124
SAINTE-BEUVE, his essays, 41;
on Philologists, 86;
his criticism, 270;
the master of Matthew Arnold, 281
SAINTSBURY, Prof., his _Short History
of English Literature_ reviewed, 93-109
SALLUST, 61
SCHILLER, 41
SCHICK, Dr., on Lydgate’s versification, 99
SCHIPPER, Dr. J., on Dunbar, 183
SCHMEDING, Dr. G., his Monograph on Thomson, 318
SCHOOL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT OXFORD,
its deplorable organization, 45-72;
how this may be remedied, 73-5
SCOTT OF AMWELL, 249
SCOTT, Sir Walter, on Dunbar, 186
SELF-ADVERTISEMENT, its organization and effects, 158-64
SENECA, influence on English prose, 61
SEDULIUS, 251
SHAFTESBURY, third Earl of, his style, 117-9
SHAKESPEARE, 62: 81-2;
Clarendon Press edition of his _Hamlet_, 84-92;
quoted, 154: 158;
Mr. Lee’s _Life of_, 211-8;
scantiness of traditions of, 213;
his sonnets, various theories, 219-20;
about difficulties of supposing them autobiographical, 225-6;
his relations with Southampton and Pembroke, 228-34;
story in the Sonnets probably fictitious, 235;
religion of Shakespeare, 351-69;
his politics, 352-3;
not a Roman Catholic, 352-6;
on death, 357-8;
silence about a future life, 359,
and about metaphysical questions, 360;
comparison in this respect with Aristotle, 360;
his theology, 362-4;
on prayer, 365;
on conscience, 366;
his attitude to Christianity, 366;
when his ethics are Christian, 368;
his religious ideas summed up, 368-9
SHARP, Archbishop, quoted, 218
SHELLEY, his _Adonais_, 76-83;
absurd criticism of his style, 126
SHENSTONE, William, 249
SIDNEY, Sir Philip, 131
SIMPSON, Richard, 351: 368
SMART, Christopher, his _Song to David_, 340
SMEATON, Mr. Oliphant, his life of Dunbar reviewed, 183-92
SOPHOCLES, 242;
his ethics, 267-9;
quoted, 285;
his ideal man, 366
SPENSER, Edmund, 112: 113;
influence of Greek and Latin Classics on, 120-1;
influence of, on Milton, 121;
on the functions of poetry, 280
STANIHURST, Richard, 308
STEPHEN, Mr. Leslie, 35
STESICHORUS, his _Calyce_, 287
STEVENSON, R. L., _Letters_ reviewed, 165-71
STRABO quoted, 287
SWIFT, Jonathan, his _Sentiments of a Church of England Man_, 113;
_Tale of a Tub_, 144
TACITUS quoted, 20: 192: 254;
as a critic, 278-9;
on immortality, 360
TALLEYRAND quoted, 210
TENNYSON, Lord, 62: 162-3: 245: 247: 298: 337;
as a critic, 252
TERENCE, women of, 292
TEXT-BOOKS on English Literature, specimens of, 76-150
THACKERAY on Wordsworth and Moore, 250
THEOCRITUS, 243
THEOGNIS quoted, 262
THOMSON, James, 243;
quoted, 248;
claim to the authorship of _Rule Britannia_ vindicated, 321-8;
corrections in the _Seasons_ discussed, 328-34
THORPE, Thomas, 216: 227: 235
TOVEY, Rev. D. C., his edition of Thomson’s poems reviewed, 318-34
TREMENHEERE, Mr. J. H. A., his version of Catullus’ Love Poems, 335-50
TRISSINO, his _Sofonisba_, 123
THUCYDIDES, 258: 260;
on hope, 262
TUPPER, Martin, 251
TYLER, Mr. Thomas, on Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 228
TYRWHITT, Thomas, 223: 234
UNIVERSITIES, their indifference to
the interests of literature, 38-40: 45-50;
effects of the exclusion of the Greek and Roman Classics from
the so-called Schools of Literature at Oxford and Cambridge, 55-71
VARRO, as a critic, 278
VIRGIL, his beautiful descriptions of Nature, 245-6;
his Eclogues, 308-17
VOLTAIRE on Philologists, 86
WALTERS, Cuming, on Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 220-1
WARBURTON, Bishop, 205;
quoted, 270
WARTON, Dr. Joseph, on Thomson’s poetry, 330
WARTON, Thomas, on Lydgate, 98
WATSON, Mr. William, great beauty of his English hexameters, 317
WHARTON, Dr., his _Sappho_, 148
WILLMOTT, Rev. Aris, his _Gems from English Literature_, 163-4
WILLOUGHBY, his _Avisa_, 101: 225
WORDSWORTH, William, 153;
on Dyer’s poetry, 248;
his poems on classical legends, 298
WORSFOLD, Mr. Basil, his _Principles of Criticism_ reviewed, 270-82
WRANGHAM, Archdeacon, 310
WRIGHT, Dr. Aldis, his edition of Shakespeare’s _Hamlet_, 84-92
WRIGHT, Mr. W. H. Kearley, his _West Country Poets_ reviewed, 301-7
WYNTOWN, his _Chronicle_, 180-1
XENOPHON on women, 290
YOUNG, Edward, quoted, 87
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.
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Corrections:
Page 81 “Hamlet, act iv. sc .1” should be sc. 5 (There is pansies)
The following errors have been corrected in the text.
Page 8 changed ‘Jasserand’ to ‘Jusserand’ (done M. Jusserand
grave injustice)
Page 63 added space (Addington Symonds)
Page 90 added single quotes (The rest is silence.’ ‘O, O,)
Page 90 changed ‘than’ to ‘that’ (it would be more natural that)
Page 96-7 moved double quotes from (evicit gurgite moles,”)
to end of last line (armenta trahit.”)
Page 97 added opening double quotes (“Not sa fersly)
Page 101 added double quotes (Lord_, 1790.” _A Letter to)
Page 107 changed ‘”)’ to ‘)”’ (teeth of its subject)”. “His voluminous)
Page 184 added comma (and the few outsiders, whether)
Page 205 added single quote (Warburton on Shakespeare.’”)
Page 212 added comma (every alley green,)
Page 252 changed ‘charactistic’ to ‘characteristic’ (distinctive
feature is the characteristic)
Page 321 changed comma to period (both these questions.)
Page 326 changed period to semicolon (Britain’s wide domain;)
The following inconsistencies have been left as printed.
‘bookmaker’ vs. ‘book-maker’ vs. ‘book maker’
‘notebooks’ vs. ‘note-books’
‘overestimated’ vs. ‘over-estimated’
‘overestimation’ vs. ‘over-estimation’
‘rodomontade’ vs. ‘rhodomontade’
‘Wriothesley’ vs. ‘Wriothesly’
‘analysed’ vs. ‘analyzed’
‘Mort d’Arthur’ vs. ‘Morte d’Arthur’
‘Quinctilian’ vs. ‘Quintilian’
(‘Quintilia’ (Latin ‘Quintiliæ’) is a different person)
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