'Spirits are not finely touched
But for fine issues:'
Assuredly not ignorant how finely his own had been touched, and what
would be demanded from him in return. He was one who certainly knew that
there is none so wise that he can 'circumvent God;' and that for a man,
whether he be called early or late,
'Ripeness is all.'
Who shall persuade us that he abode outside of that holy temple of our
faith, whereof he has uttered such glorious things--admiring its beauty,
but not himself entering to worship there?
To the same effect, we may quote the preliminary sentence of Shakspere's
will: "I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping,
and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my
Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting." With such a master of
words, this avowal would be no mere formality. During Shakspere's last
residence at Stratford, moreover, the town was under strong religious
influences. Many a "great man in Israel," in fraternal visits to
the Rev. Richard Byfield, the vicar, is said to have been hospitably
entertained at New Place; and memorable evenings must have been spent in
converse on the highest themes. In addition to all this, the following
sonnet furnishes an interesting proof that the heart of Shakspere, at an
earlier period, had not been unsusceptible to religious sentiments and
aspirations:--
"Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Fooled by those rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of thine excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy body's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And, death once dead, there's no more dying then."
--_Sonnet_ 146.
All that such words suggest we gladly admit among the probabilities
of Shakspere's unknown life. But in his dramas themselves we find no
assured grasp of the highest spiritual truth, nothing to show that such
truth controlled his views of life with imperial sway; little or
nothing to uplift the reader from the play of human passions and the
entanglement of human interests to the higher realms of Faith. It is
the same Shakspere who reveals the depths of human corruption, and the
nobleness of human excellence. But in portraying the latter, he stops
short, and fails exactly where the higher light of faith would
have enabled him to complete the delineation. His best and greatest
characters are a law unto themselves: his men are passionate and strong;
his women are beautiful, with a loveliness that scarcely ever reminds us
of heaven: he has neither "raised the mortal to the skies," nor "brought
the angel down."
We turn, then, from Stratford-upon-Avon, feeling, as we have said,
more deeply than ever the mystery that overhangs the career of the man,
admiring, if possible, more heartily than ever the genius of the poet,
and acknowledging, not without mournfulness, how much greater Shakspere
might have been. For there was an inspiration within his reach that
would have made him chief among the witnesses of God to men; and his
magnificent endowments would then have been the richest offering ever
placed by human hand upon that Altar which "sanctifieth both the giver
and the gift."