graves,' and takes a stern and deadly view of human affairs, such as alone befits the eye of an Atheist. In the fate of abandoned and murdered kings, the reality is made to break in upon him, and dissipate, as a delusion, the pious and confident hopes that before characterised him.

In Pomfret Castle, at the prospect of speedy death, we find him playing the finished sceptic, and building on the contradictions of the Bible an argument in favour of annihilation. On being murdered by Exton he evidences piety again, and directs his soul to mount on high;' but by what ratiocination he had so suddenly persuaded himself of his celestial prospects the poet who concludes by rhyme informs us not.

Comparisons between the sacrifice of the Son of God and mere mortals have always been held blasphemous. In this drama the reader will find such parallels unblushingly made between Jesus Christ and an 'oppressive' and unstable king.

In the speech of Gaunt, in Act 1, where he teaches Bolinbroke that there is no virtue like necessity,' we have an instance, of which this play affords several others, of Shakspere's partiality for that doctrine. It is curious that Warwick should teach it again to Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV.

RICHARD III.

Again our poet departs from historical truth, and in doing so, as before, he departs from religion. It has been recently established that Richard III. has been belied by historians. As Shakspere lived near to his time, it is likely that the truth was known to him; yet we find him making his hero more impious than the common histories warrant.

We see in this play, as in Macbeth, striking indications of our dramatist's peculiar philosophy, depreciating religious, raising moral influences-seeking in the constitution of human nature, rather than in grace, the inducements to vir

tue.

The author still reproduces his revolting groups of fierce and hateful disputants, contesting with each other the palm of malignity, and rivaling each other in invectives-with nothing in common save unanimous appeals to God to be

the minister of their curses, and to blast each other with his fearful vengeance.

Both in the folio and modern text of Richard III. parts have been omitted to preserve religious appearances. Mr. Knight confesses that one of Clarence's supplications, from the Redemption, was unnecessarily introduced. What then are we to say of the 'old odds and ends' by which Richard contemptuously characterises his cullings from holy writ, and the great variety of similar passages spread up and down the ancient and modern texts?

We have, in the scene between Queen Elizabeth and Queen Margaret, one of those fearful expressions of distrust in the interference of Providence, which shakes faith to its foundation, with the hand of a giant. Queen Elizabeth finds consolation in God, and argues his protection of her children. She exclaims

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

And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?

When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?

To this eloquent, pious, and passionate appeal, Queen Margaret replies in words which crush all hope, and to which there is no answer. God has done it, argues Margaret

When holy Harry died and my sweet son!

Shakspere, in Macbeth and other plays, reproduces this fell logic.

It is usual with devout writers-indeed, with writers with little or no pretension to this character-to bring the villains of their stories to conscience-stricken death-beds, and appal, by the terrors of the last hour, the daring wickedness of a life. Far different with our author, who arms his villainous hero against the last assault of religious monitions. With hell' before his eyes, he resolves to brave it. There is not an example more questionable, in a religious point of view, nor a resolution more blasphemous on record.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

This fairy toy is not remarkable for grave speculation in philosophy, either of this life or the next. But that Shakspere should have given such themes any place, in such an

imaginative production as this, denotes his taste for these digressions.

The speech of Theseus, at the opening of the fifth act, is a curious combination of poetry and satire on religion. It is one of the best specimens to be found, in which our author is both delicate and ingenious in his scepticism. He remarksSuch tricks hath strong imagination;

That if it would but apprehend some joy;

It comprehends some bringer of that joy;

a passage evidently directed at the foundation of Natural Theology.

TAMING OF THE SHREW.

Religious levity is the striking feature of the small portion in any sense theological in this play. It has numerous examples of the violation of that command, thou shalt not take the name of God in vain.' Both Grumio and Gremio, as well as Petruchio, sin in this respect. These indecorous freedoms would not be tolerated in any living author. would be denounced on all hands. Age, which makes all things venerable, seems to include impiety among its protegés.

ROMEO AND JULIET.

He

In the days of Shakspere dreams were held to be of supernatural origin. The celebrated dreams of holy writ had given sanctity to this phenomenon. Indeed, they are still regarded by metaphysicians, of the legitimate school, to be omens of the soul's immortality. It is not without surprise, therefore, that we find our poet, through the mouth of Mercutio, pronouncing dreams' as the

children of an idle brain,

Begot of nothing, but vain phantasy.

We are also presented with the creation of a priest, of whom, to say the least, he is far more philosophical than religious indeed, so much so, that the poet's tender critics are constrained to admit, he has drawn from 'nature's mysteries' in his delineation of the Friar.

Besides the Lucretian touches, in which our Friar indulges in his famous soliloquy, his morality is very conspicuous as being the morality of mere reason. In the perusal of this play we have to confess that desperate lovers may run to death without preparation, and quote Romeo and Juliet in their favour; and priests may omit the warnings of their office, and plead the Friar in their extenuation.

The Friar is the pure invention of the poet, yet Shakspere draws him, as all his priests, not suitably to their profession. Byron introduces an abbot in Manfred, and makes him religious, though no one supposes he participated in the sentiments which he thought it right to concede to the character. Whilst Shakspere makes Roman Catholic priests philosophers, he renders Church of England clergymen only ridiculous.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

Passages of the devoutest writers may be strained from their original purport, and applied by the irreligious to express their conceptions. But this play affords unmutilated and unforced speeches which have become the favourite quotations of bitter unbelievers.

The witticisms of this play are nearly all profane. An undisguised raillery is founded upon points of sacred writ. What dramatist, save Shakspere, ever represented the diffusion of the true knowledge of the gospel till it covers the earth as the waters cover the sea'-as tending to raise the price of pork,' by the proselytism of the Jews! Neither Rabelais nor Woolston have displayed more ingenuity in realising the ridiculous upon a serious subject than our poet has in this play. Upon what principle, therefore, we are to recognise in Shakspere a reverential mind,' and in others who fall below him in the same walk of wit, a professed disbelief, it is difficult to determine.

Shylock is a character that excites sympathy, while the Christians figuring in the play only awaken reprehension and disgust. Their scoffs, gibes, taunts, drive the friendless Jew to desperation, and foment the bad qualities he displays. With coarse brutality they triumph at his fall. And when robbed of his daughter, his fortune, and his life, Christianity,

which, like mercy, should have dropped as the gentle dew from heaven, is made still to assail him. Gratiano would sooner bring him to the gallows than show him favour, and he is hunted into the folds of the church, as though it were a den, and the poor, fallen, and trampled Jew, a wild beast. Surely Christians were never before set, by a Christian, in so execrable a light!

It may be urged that these men are not intended to illustrate the spirit, but the abuse of Christianity. Then why did not our poet indelibly mark this? Admitting that the abuse only is intended, who does not see the tendency of such an exhibition as we have? The commonest observer must be led to doubt the efficacy of that faith that exercised so little power over its believers. Shakspere, who could show morality all forgiving, even questionable in its charity, makes religion all persecuting.

Towards the end of the drama we find our author, restrained by no pious scruples, introducing as an illustration a fragment of Pantheism, such only as we should expect Michelet in our own day to be avowing, or the French Úniversity to be tolerating.

The scepticism of this play is of a bolder cast than Shakspere has before ventured upon, and if these dramas are a true indication of his mind, we, in the Merchant of Venice, can trace the progress of his disbelief. The character of Launcelot is one of more sustained profanation than before, and seems the commencement of a systematic course of raillery to be carried on by Falstaff and his crew, through the subsequent plays.

THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV.

Knight, after reciting the several editions of this play, beginning in 1598 to the folio of 1623, which he has adopted, says, 'not a few of the expressions which were thought profane, especially some of the ejaculations of Falstaff, have in the folio been softened or expunged.' Thus went on what the Countess, in All's Well that Ends Well, calls a 'corruption,' the clown a 'purifying' of the text; continued by a Bowdler and a Knight to suit the times. But even now this play is eminently remarkable for open