miracle and moral plays were fresh in the recollection of the people, and might still be seen! These supernatural, historical, and allegorical personages, superseded by a material and philosophical explanation of things! We are inclined to think there was a lurking pleasantry at them in the Ghost of Hamlet; and as an early play of Shakspere, Hamlet was intended not only to be a moral and pitiful comedy, but a more pleasant tragedy than is now generally supposed.

The clowns, and Falstaff, et hoc genus omne, are exponents of the altered state of theatrical theology. Shakspere was foremost in leading the triumph over the old order of things. The transition is nowhere so marked as in his plays. Placed in circumstances of controversy, the spirit which it engenders of proceeding to extremities with the adversary may have disposed Shakspere to undress the miracles, and more especially the morals of the plays, and reduce them to the nakedness of nature, and the truth of history, which has gained for Shakspere, with some, not only the idea that he had no religion, but had no moral purpose' in his works.

The few facts and numerous traditions about Shakspere in early life, and the inferences to be drawn from them, may be said to afford arguments against the idea of a religious formation of character in the poet. But as a comparison between his life and works would extend to a larger field of inquiry than his philosophy and religion, we leave it to some future time, or other hand.

The writer of the life of Shakspere in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia, says of Shakspere's moral character we know little. It might deserve all the praises bestowed upon it by modern writers; but there is greater probability in supposing that it was not wholly untainted by the vices of the period. On his honesty, or his justice, no censure has been passed even by tradition; but tradition does say he was not averse to the bottle, or to pursuits still more criminal.' But is there nothing in the works of this celebrated man to justify the suspicion of immorality?

Whoever has looked into the original editions of his dramas, will be disgusted with the obscenity of his allusions. They absolutely tecm with the grossest impurities-more

gross by far than can be found in any contemporary dramatist. Whalley, indeed, speaks of his remarkable modesty,' but, as a modern critic (Gifford) observes, we shall be at a loss to discover it.' 'His offensive metaphors and allusions,' says another, (Steevens) are undoubtedly more frequent than those of all his predecessors or contemporaries.'

Barry Cornwall thinks the secret of Shakspere's extensive knowledge was in his heart-a nature which sympathised with all mankind. An admission that Shakspere is somewhere to be found in his characters; and we think we can show that he sympathised with those who had no religion, rather than those who had; with infidelity rather than belief. In speaking of the benefits Shakspere conferred upon his country, Barry Cornwall says, "If Bacon educated the reason, Shakspere educated the heart;' and of the moral effects of his writings, he mentions the extensive charity' which he inculcated.

We cannot but believe that Shakspere spoke from the heart when, in the speech of the Duke, in Measure for Measure, he so eloquently painted the calamities of life, and made death preferable as the end of existence. It is said that he wrote it when midway between thirty and forty, the prime of life, when he could not have fully tasted of all its afflictions, when his age should have counteracted their force, and when there was such a remainder of hope. Of the same time of life, or younger, is the spokesman. We have every reason to suppose, therefore, that he delivered those sentiments in that speech, and so many similar to them elsewhere, from the heart, as well as all those philosophical speculations of his own, and satires upon the received opinions of others.

Barry Cornwall says of his sonnets-As one travels through these records of the great poet's feelings, a dim and shadowy history seems to rise and disclose itself before us; an intimation not to be neglected; seeing that such a man, however entangled amongst the conceits and fancies of his age, would hardly, in his own person, have wasted such sad and passionate verses on any subject that had no foundation in truth.'

Shakspere, different from the rest of his brother drama

tists, did not die in harness; we hear of him in his retirement at Stratford-upon-Avon. There, if anywhere, in the country, a provincial town, apart from his profession, and friends, and from metropolitan influences, he might have retired, like the Duke in As You Like It, put on a religious life, and thrown into neglect' the pomps and vanities of this world. It is related of him that he was accustomed to pass his hours of conviviality at Stratford, with one Mr. Combe, who was a usurer in the town, and on one occasion asked him to write his epitaph, which Shakspere gave in the following words:

Ten in the hundred lies here engraved,

"Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved.
If any one asks who lies in this tomb?

Oh, oh! quoth the Devil, 'tis my John à Combe.

It is said that the satire was so severely felt, that Mr. Combe never forgave it; therefore some commentators object to its authenticity, as not likely to proceed from a man of so much good nature as Shakspere. But the hypothesis of Shakspere's general incredulity is his best apology, and acquits him of anything more serious than heretical levity.

Collier throws a doubt on this being Shakspere's; but it being attributed to him, shows an appropriateness of the sentiment to the man.

It is traditioned very strongly that Shakspere died through the effects of a three days' conviviality with some brother bards. There is no improbability in this, such indulgences were common in those days, and in all times. Many of our poets have been guilty of similar excesses.

It

Shakspere was buried on the 25th of April, 1616. He states in his will, dated the 25th of March, 1616, only a month before, that he was in perfect health and memory. is therefore probable that he died suddenly, though it may be said the words are a mere formula to state that he was in a condition of mind and body to make a will.

In the name of God, Amen. I, William Shakspere, of Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of Warwick, gent., in perfect health and memory, (God be praised!) do make and ordain this my last will and testament, in manner and form

following; that is to say: First, 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; and my body to the earth whereof it is made.'

We notice this document, because some may regard it as an evidence of faith sufficiently conclusive to contradict the tenor of our conclusions from his works.

This will is not in Shakspere's handwriting, the signature only is his. It is acknowledged to be a strictly legal document, in a form common to those days, and not unfrequently used now, which proves the more that it was the form of the lawyer employed to draw it up. Knight's Penny Magazine, new series, No. 2, p. 16, says, 'The last wills of our ancestors used invariably to begin "In the name of God," etc. It was remarked as a novelty, that the will of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who died in 1744, (128 years after Shakspere's death) had not the usual preface.' Shakspere would have been the last man to scruple about a form. Hundreds of unbelievers in these days take the same course of custom for security. Voltaire, at a later period, went so far as to take the Sacraments, and make a confession of faith, to obtain the rites of burial.

Again, the practices of the age of Shakspere would make little of adopting such a will as a matter of policy. Everyone was then subject to penal inflictions for not attending divine service of the Established Church, whilst open dissent was punished with the gallows. The English of the sixteenth century had continually to change their faiths to save their lives. It is not till lately, if ever, that a point of conscience has been made of professions of faith by sceptics. Gibbon sat in parliament qualified by an oath that negatived his principles and Hume, in similar matters and socially, was all things to all men.

A forged will of Shakspere has been produced by the Catholics; and Protestants have represented him, without success, as being their champion. leave these pages to decide. whilst it begs that his body be ference to a future state. The

Whose advocate he was we The epitaph on his tomb, not disturbed, makes no reauthor of Shakspere's life in

Lardner, calls it a strange inscription.' It has the levity in serious matters, and ironical imprecation usual to Shakspere.

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear

To dig the dust enclosed here.

Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.

The humour which imagined the death scene of Falstaff, and so often found in the plays an occasion for mirth, even in the mournfulness of the grave, would, in the spirit of his own Biron, move to laughter the veriest misery of mankind; and did, it seems, convert into comedy the concluding tragic business of his own exit from the stage of real life. How can the discoverer of the reverential spirit in Shakspere, and of assurances of heavenly immortality in his works-how can the pious, who seek to the last a sign of faith in the promises of heaven, as those around the death-bed of Cardinal Beaufort-how can these reconcile the jesting of the profane old man with every "good friend' come to pay the 'holy and obsequious tear' of 'dear religious love over his earthly remains? Shakspere's opinion of his body, of his opinions and his writings, was declared in the sonnet before quoted, where he apparently denies the redemption :

But be contented: when that fell arrest,
Without all bail, shall carry me away.

We have therefore every à priori argument to suppose from his life what we have to confirm in the à posteriori examination of his works, that the tendency of Shakspere's philosophy, (in which he abstractedly, according to Hallam, excelled all other dramatic poets) and his views of religion, were of a sceptical tendency. Such being the true and living character of the man.