his wild, and yet admirable genius, or was it even Pope, who next to Shakespeare, is the most quoted of English poets, and who was not an irreligious man? or, was it Thompson, who in his Seasons, showed a familiarity with all the most beautiful scenes of nature? No, neither the love of nature, nor the highest culture in language and learning will make such a poet as Shakespeare. There are two elements in him, without which a man may be a great poet, but can not be a Shakespeare; a real sympathy with human nature, and a profound reverence for God and his authority. In one word Shakespeare was in substance, whatever his form of creed, or the manner of his life, a CHRISTIAN POET. Common readers do not think of this, and Shakespeare did not himself set this up as a distinctive feature of his works. It was a natural result of his mind, as he was himself a natural creation of his times. The fact that he was a Christian poet need not here be proved further, than to ask the reader, if he can find in Shakespeare any irreverence toward Christianity? Any satire upon good things? Any of the bitterness and malice which unchristian writers are sure to display? If he can not, then ask himself whether there is not a prevailing geniality, a sympathy with all that is good? Bad characters there are; evil doings, malign spirits, strange and wayward workings of human nature, but has the poet put into any of these, even the worst, any of that bitter, malicious and irreverent spirit, which characterizes much of all modern writing, and is particularly conspicuous in infidel writers. There can be no drama delineating at all the course of human nature, which does not delineate the evil as well as the good, the tragic as well as the comic. In Shakespeare's plays, there are true, real representations of all the forms and moods of human life, and it is that life which the great poet intended to represent. But has he anywhere made his characters the means of representing irreligion and infidelity? On the contrary his historical plays were, in the opinion of a O thou whose captain I account myself, The world had not then got over the idea that the spirits of the dead answered the prayers of the living. Soon after his prayer, Richmond goes to sleep, and the ghosts of King Henry, of Clarence, and of Hastings rise up before him, asking for vengeance. Then comes the ghost of Buckingham, and addressing Richmond says: I died for hope ere I could lend thee aid; But it is not my purpose to prove that Shakespeare is a Christian poet, which is obvious to the careful reader, as to show in what manner he became so, and in what manner this characteristic is exhibited. Looking to the historical development of Shakespeare, we find him coming into the world at a period when the drama had only just ceased to be a religious or moral entertainment; for, it is a fact, which seems strange now, that the religious drama was the first exhibited in England. The great German critic, Ulrici, says: "All art is in its rise connected with religion: a proof of its divine origin as immediate and secondary revelation. However strange the assertion may sound in the present state of dramatic art, it is not the less true that the church was the birthplace of the modern drama." The first plays exhibited in England were the "Miracle plays," which arose in the Middle Ages, and in fact much earlier, from some of the customs of the church. One of their customs was, that a deacon stood at the door of the church holding up a figurative representation of the subject preached upon. This pictorial representation gradually gave way to symbolical representation by living persons, and finally to dramatic scenes. These were soon secularized, by representations before the town corporations and guilds. In the early half of the fifteenth century, moral plays first appeared, which Ulrici regards as making an epoch; for the moralities, as they were called, took the place of the miracle plays, giving greater variety and attraction to the play-exhibition. In these plays, the virtues appear as characters, and the devil as a principal character among the vices. The end in view was the moral improvement of the spectators, and the catastrophe is generally the reward of virtue, the condemnation of vice and the vicious, or their pardon by God's grace. After this period, in another period, a thread of history began to be woven into these dramas, and thus we see the modern play gradually rising into being. Ulrici attributes the improvement of the dramatic art, as was the case with arts and with all science and philanthropy, to the thinkers of the Reformation."While supported by the power of a living faith, and a pure Gospel, it restored that mental freedom, that unchecked development of mind, which resting ultimately on faith is even required by the Gospel, it was itself little else than the first and greatest sign of the awakened consciousness of the Christian mind." We see now how the religious idea had entered into the very being of the drama, and at the time Shakespeare was born, in 1564, had lost its religious form and strictness, but retained its spirit; and the mind which then exercised itself to the composition of the drama, was also stimulated and made free by the life and spirit of the great Reformation. Just previous to Shakespeare also had appeared a series of poets who had improved the language and the mu sic of poetry. Lily is described as an elegant and learned writer; Greene as graceful, and Marlowe as a great poet. Shakespeare had only to choose between these various styles and materials to organize, as we may say, his genius into the best forms of the drama. Whatever he got from previous writers, his genius was his own, and it was for that genius to shape his materials into the best forms of the dramatic art. Christianity was a part of those materials, and the life and energy of the Reformation were a part of the impelling forces of his mind. Just then, too, Elizabeth, the maiden queen, who was the political representative of all that was noble and free in Europe, stood at the helm of that great nation, which was then the bulwark of Christian liberty against the tyranny produced by long ages of ecclesiastical corruption. It was when Shakespeare was twentyfour years of age, that Elizabeth returned in triumph from the defeat of Philip's invincible Armada. The hand of God interfered amidst surging waves and fearful tempests, the Spanish fleet was scattered and many of their ships destroyed: Shakespeare probably saw that splendid scene, when a general thanksgiving was returned, and Elizabeth amidst incredible rejoicings set out on her triumphant progress to London. The portraits of admirals were borne before her, the trophies of victory were hung up in St. Paul's, and then the distribution of rewards and the solemn services of the church. This event to which Shakespeare was probably a witness, says another critic, must have been eminently influential even in the history of art, and have contributed in great degree to develop that high and lofty spirit, which the dramatic poetry of England subsequently maintained. Thus we see the circumstances, by which Shakespeare was surrounded, the religious spirit of the drama in the previous generation, the literary antecedents of his time, the great uprising of the Reformation, with all the forces which impelled the glories of that day. Looking at them in the calm and critical review of after ages, we can say with Ulrici: "Every man, and every one especially who figures on the stage of the world, is in the main the creaation of the spirit of universal history, and his birth may be looked upon as necessary, in the same way that every great invention is not simply the arbitrary or accidental achievement of the inventor, but the inevitable result of a want of the age, which required to be satisfied. seeing clearly the conflict between the Poor soul, the center of thy sinful earth, The conflict that Shakespeare felt all human nature to have, he exhibited within himself, and which he observed in his plays, the conflict of sin and this conflict he brings most beautifully purity, of vice and virtue, and to all and even solemnly the great principles Thus Shakespeare came into the world to supply the want of a great poet, who should not deal in the solemn theologies of the schools, nor with the cowled monks of the Middle Ages, but who should represent living men, active with his free spirit while God overruled all with his eternal sovereignty; Thus making the drama of life what we find it really to be. But, there is another element in Shakespeare sub-taught by Christ, and appeals from sidiary to the higher ones, which we must also notice, in order to see how his forms or modes in the drama were But, these earthly passions to the divine love, which emanates from God and Christ. If you have any doubt of it, read some of the higher plays of Shakespeare, and see often and at every page, you come to characters and passages of poetry, which most strikingly exhibit this feature in the genius of Shakespeare. Take, for example, the principles of Divine Grace, as shown in the sacrifice of Christ, and thus far is man bound to show mercy rather than justice, as the great poet has it in Measure for Measure. Alas! Alas! Why all the souls that were, were forfeit once; Found out the remedy. How would you be, And again, in a passage, part of which makes one of the staple quotaapplicable, Shakespeare again appeals tions of orators, when they think it for mercy and shows his contempt for those little souls, who use a little authority, unmercifully thus: Could great rien thunder As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be For every pelting petty officer, The reader who looks into Shakespeare to learn what is the true character of his poetry will find many passages similar to those illustrating the quality of mercy, and that it is drawn directly from the Divine Grace, which we should imitate. But there is one well known, which is so beautiful, I can not forbear quoting it. It is in the Merchant of Venice, and Ulrici in commenting on that play says: "Ultimately, therefore, human life rests not on any arrogated right, but on the grace of God, and the Divine mercy which calls him to union with God, is the true and substantial basis of his life. The conformity of the human with the Divine will is the true life-giving morality of man, and this alone gives to right and wrong their true import and significance. The passage I refer to is in the speech of Portia to the Jew. Let all the ends thou aims't at, be thy country's, Thy God's and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a blessed martyr." A fairer lesson on worldly vanity or a more just view of duty was never given. I shall give but one more example, among thousands, in which the poet describes the music of the immortal soul. "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here wilt we sit and let the sounds of music But in his motion like an angel sings, These and many other passages from Shakespeare show that, when the character and the occasion afforded fitting opportunity, the fine spirit of the poet burst forth in short strains, to which only the Christian poet could give utterance. To those, who would have a correct view of Shakespeare in his relation to the age and Christianity, I would recommend the admirable work of ULRICI. It is not only a view of Shakespeare but an able and interesting criticism on what constitutes the dramatic art and the spirit of poetry. Of the two great forms of the drama, tragedy and comedy, as developed in Shakespeare's plays, Ulrici thus speaks: "Tragedy in Shakspeare is invariably the exhibition of the immediate sovereignty of divine justice and moral necessity. With him the tragic consists in the sufferings and final ruin of the humanly great, noble, and beautiful, which has fallen a prey to human weakness, and, looking alone to the present existence, has sought its contentment and consummation in this earth exclusively, and, consequently, mistaking its real objective liberty, has rejected the restraints of moral necessity. Thus does Shakespeare portray the human mind in its essential vocation and innate requisition to conform in its volition and action to the divine will. Man's conformity to God is nothing less than that moral necessity, which is at the same time his true liberty, inasmuch as his own will can not be really free when it is not in unison with the will of God. When man goes counter to the requisitions of his own nature, then does moral necessity meet him, from without, in the form of destiny, or, rather, as divine justice; his volition and endeavors are rendered nugatory and prove his destruction, his earthly life comes to an end, even because he had preferred the perishable to the real, held to it, and looked to it for support. "The comic of art may be designated in one word, as the dialectic of irony, which does not merely look upon human life one-sidedly, as a world of contradictions and absurdities, and swayed by accident and caprice of every kind, so as to appear thoroughly laughable; but which also rules and reigns within this world, and of itself corrects the one-sidedness of such a view, by allowing caprice and accident, and consequently the world also, which is swayed by them, to dissolve themselves, and converts them into their opposites. In all this there is a surpassing joyousness, which diffused over the whole representation, wells forth out of it again. In this unreal world we recognize all our human frailties and perversity; but, they can not cost us a pang, or a tear, for the light of divine love shines upon us throughout, and all the errors of head and heart, and all the accidents to which, through sin, the life of man is exposed, appear to be baffled and corrected by one another. On the contrary, there is surpassing pleasure in the thought, that even against our will, and in spite of us, the good and right are somehow brought about at last." Whether Shakespeare did in fact form this spiritual, and in truth theological scheme of his plays may be doubted; but, it can not be doubted, that he was in any fair sense a Christian poet. On this point his sonnets throw some light, and in a most interesting and critical essay on "The Sonnets of Shakespeare," by General Ethan A. Hitchcock, the ground is taken, that the sonnets were written in the spirit, and on the principle of one of those mysterious, spiritual societies of Christians who lived in the primitive times. How this may be, every Christian must be thankful, that the plays of Shakespeare, which were to be read by so many ages of time, are in fact imbued with the true spirit of Christianity. But, on the other hand, could those plays have been composed so beautifully, and read by such multitudes, if they had not been written in the spirit of Christianity? I think such a result would have been impossible, and that in fact after we make full allowance for all the genius, the humor, and the wit, with which the plays of Shakespeare are filled, a large part of their excellence and their popularity is due to the Christian spirit which pervades them. But who was Shakespeare? The argument for the works of a man to the man himself, is worth little, except as showing the evolution of Mind,-the manner in which the antecedents have been followed by their consequent performances. The vulgar world has been in haste to call the poet, Will Shakespeare, the Deerstealer, who led a sort of jovial, and |