CHAPTER II.

Of Shakspeare's Religious Principles and Sentiments derived from the Bible.

E are now to enter upon that which is the most important, and, I trust, will be found

the most interesting part of our undertaking. We are to show how scriptural, and consequently how true and just, are the conceptions which Shakspeare entertained of the being and attributes of God, of His general and particular Providence, of His revelation to man, of our duty towards Him and towards each other, of human life and of human death, of time and of eternityin a word, of every subject which it most concerns us as rational and responsible beings to conceive aright.

SECT. 1. Of the Being and Nature of God.

To begin, then, with the titles and attributes of God. Among the names by which He is revealed

to us in Scripture, are these: The Lord of Hosts, the King Immortal, the King of Kings.

In the First Part of King Henry VI. the Bishop of Winchester, Cardinal Beaufort, thus speaks of the deceased King Henry V. in the presence of his corpse, lying in state:

He was a king, blessed of the KINg of Kings,*
The battles of the LORD OF HOSTs he fought.

Act i. Sc. I.

And, in the Second Part of King Henry IV., Prince Henry to his father lying on his death-bed :

There is your crown:

And He that wears the crown IMMORTALLY
Long guard it yours!

Act iv. Sc. 4.

Among the attributes of God, we have been taught by revelation that He knows† all things; that He sees all things, even our most secret thoughts; that He neither slumbers, nor sleeps; and that His Providence is over all His works.

Accordingly our poet speaks of Him, as the High ALL SEER,' in King Richard III. Act v. Sc. I; and even in Pericles Prince of Tyre, where the characters are Heathen, we read of―

Powers

That give Heaven countless eyes to view men's acts.

Act i. Sc. 1.

See also King Richard III., quoted below, Sect. 8.

† On the Divine omniscience. See below, Ch. iii. Sect. 9.

Truly, therefore, is it said by Helena to the King of France :

It is not so with HIM THAT ALL THINGS KNOWS,
As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows;
But most it is presumption in us, when

The help of Heaven we count the act of men.
All's well that ends well. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Justly, too, does Hermione express her confidence when falsely accused :—

If powers divine

Behold our human actions, as they do,

I doubt not then but innocence shall make
False accusation blush, and tyranny.

Tremble at patience. Winter's Tale, Act iii. Sc. 2.

Nor was it without reason that Laertes, seeing and hearing proofs of the madness of his sister Ophelia, appealed to the divine compassion :—

Do you see this, O GOD?

Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 5.

Nor, again, that Queen Elizabeth, wife of King Edward IV., after the murder of her children, the two young Princes in the Tower, should thus expostulate :

Wilt thou, O GOD, fly from such gentle lambs,

And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?

When did'st Thou sleep, when such a deed was done?

K. Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 4.

Nor, once more, that Queen Katharine should protest against the two Cardinals who had lent

themselves to accomplish her divorce from King

Henry VIII. :

Ye have angels' faces; but Heaven knows your hearts.

K. Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 1. It may be that the striking description of Divine Providence, which we read in Troilus and Cressida, is pitched too high for heathen characters (a subject of which I shall have occasion to speak presently), but if admissible there at all, it could not be better placed than it is in the mouth of Ulysses :—

The providence that's in a watchful state,
Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps;
Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,
Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.*

Act iii. Sc. 3. In a note upon this passage, Mr. Henley asks, C Is there not here some allusion to the sublime description of the Divine Omnipresence in the 139th Psalm?' However this question may be answered, there will be no doubt in other passages that our poet's views of the providence, goodness, and justice of God were drawn directly from Holy Scripture. Thus, where Hamlet says

There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow-
Act v. Sc. 2.

we cannot doubt of the poet's allusion to our Lord's words:

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. Matt. x. 29.

* To be pronounced, probably, as a trisyllable.

Nor again, where good old Adam, in As you like it, says to Orlando :

I have five hundred crowns,
The thrifty hire I saved under your father,

Take that and HE that doth the ravens feed,

:

Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,

Be comfort to my age!

Act ii. Sc. 3.

can we fail to perceive that our poet had in mind. both the Psalmist and the Evangelist; the Psalmist, who writes of GOD, that

He feedeth the young ravens that call upon Him.

Ps. cxlvii. 9. and the Evangelist, who records our Lord's words: Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Matt. vi. 26.

From such an image it was an easy step for one with Shakspeare's imagination to moralize as he does in the following lines, spoken by King Henry VI. to the Duke of Suffolk:

But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,
And what a pitch she flew above the rest!

To see how God in all his creatures works!

Yea, man and birds are fain* of climbing high.

K. Henry VI. 2nd Part, Act ii. Sc. 1. And equally easy was it for a mind of Shakspeare's versatility to make a wicked man apply conversely the doctrine of God's goodness in His general pro

* Fond.