Catholic spirit which the great poet displayed, do we behold the very noblest of religious developments. His sympathies were too extensive to be confined within the narrow boundaries of party, his thought was too universal to be hinged and fettered by dogmatic rule, he opened out his soul to the reception of all genial influences, no matter from what source they might chance to flow, and governed by an eclecticism most truly Catholic, he chose humanity for his sect and life for his dogma.

No man ever understood better, no man ever reverenced more than he that sense implanted in the human soul, whereby the individual is enabled to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil, and to shape his course of action according to the natural laws which regulate the moral universe. In his complete analysis of the human disposition, and of the different causes which tend to produce the varied phases of human action, he has evinced a most delicate appreciation of whatever is noble and beautiful in human life, and he always rises into the most impassioned and exalted eloquence of poetic utterance, wherever there is a good and beautiful action to be admired, wherever there is a human being animated by a lofty and noble purpose to be loved, wherever there is a divine virtue to be venerated, wherever there is an attribute of Deity to be adored.

What a religious greatness animates his description of Mercy, spoken by Portia, in the trial-scene of the "Merchant of Venice :"

"The quality of Mercy is not strained?

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath; it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway,

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute of God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice."

Could religion go beyond this? Could poesy aspire to height more exalted than the mercy-seat of God? If this does not evince a regard for the Great Superintending Providence, if this does not breathe the purest spirit of devotion, where can we hope to find them? There is then no hope left for us, we can only bewail our condition in sackcloth and ashes, and lament that religion is a thing unattainable by the sons of men.

Again. Who that has read that scene in the play of "Henry the Eighth," in which Wolsey, the once proud and haughty cardinal, is presented to us as the bowed, grief-stricken, heart-broken old man, but has felt the force of the deep meaning conveyed in that fond farewell taken of all his former pomp and power ? Who is there but must acknowledge the profound truth contained in that estimate of the vanity of human greatness, as well as the great religious lesson which it teaches?

"Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;
And, when he thinks good, easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening,-nips his root;
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory;
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
At length broke under me; and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye;
I feel my heart new opened: O, how wretched
Is that poor man, that hangs on princes' favours!
(There is, betwixt that smile we should aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have!)
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again."

And further on,

"I know myself now; and I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities,

A still and quiet conscience. The king has cured me,

I humbly thank his grace; and from these shoulders,

These ruined pillars out of pity, taken

A load would sink a navy, too much honour;

O, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden,
Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven."

And again,

"Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear

In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me,
Out of thine honest truth, to play the woman.
Let's dry our eyes; and thus far hear me, Cromwell
And, when I am forgotten, as I shall be,
And sleep in dull, cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of,-say, I taught thee;
Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,-
Found thee a way out of his wreck, to rise in ;
A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruined me.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:

By that sin fell the angels; how can man then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?
Love thyself last cherish those hearts that hate thee,
Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tougues. BE JUST AND FEAR NOT;

LET ALL THE ENDS THOU AIM'ST AT, BE THY COUNTRY'S,
THY GOD'S, AND TRUTH'S; then if thou fall'st O, Cromwell?
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the king;

And,-Prythee lead me in:

There, take an inventory of all I have,

To the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe,
And my integrity to heaven, is all

I dare now call my own. O, Cromwell! Cromwell!
Had I but served my God with half the zeal

I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.

CROMWELL :

Good Sir, have patience.

WOLSEY :

So I have. Farewell

The hopes of court! My hopes in heaven do dwell.”

Nor is it alone in individual passages selected from his writings and occurring but at long intervals, that we discover in Shakespeare this great wealth of religious thought and moral feeling, but we can hardly turn to one single page of any of his plays that does not read to us some great truth connected with our religious and moral being. The tragedy of "Hamlet" is one long sermon full of truths and lessons of the very deepest concernment, and no one could read "Hamlet" and follow to its conclusion the development of the character of the hero of the plot, and listen to his soliloquies, and his preachings, and his philosophic musings on life, death, and a future existence, without experiencing a deep awe concerning the great mystery of human being, and without, for the time, becoming a more serious and a wiser man.

But by that same subtle and all-seeing intellect, which enabled Shakespeare to grasp the many diversities of human disposition, he was also led to discover that the most sublime teachings and solemn truths are lost upon mankind, unless they can behold them acted and lived out by human beings like themselves. Hence we find in Shakespeare's plays characters embodying the noblest traits of individual being, not the mere heroic incarnations of cold abstract principles, but men and women actuated by the feelings and affections of our common humanity, yet overflowing with the most noble action and lofty virtue.

The very mention of the names of Isabella, the embodied type of female chastity, of Miranda, of artless affection, of Cordelia, of

filial duty, of Brutus, of stern republican virtue, will be suggestive to the minds of our readers, of multitudinous incidents, each one connected with the utterance of some great thought, or the action of some noble deed, and to which we could at once revert did our space permit us.

Besides his unbounded Catholicity, the quality most remarkable to be found connected with Shakespeare's genius is the everlasting newness which invests his every thought. That thought of his which strikes the mind to day, appears on the morrow to be clothed in a new shape, and awakens a different interest. The combined talent of our best tragic actors, has expended itself these two hundred and fifty years, on the endeavours effectively to represent on the British stage the characters and the incidents of his plays. Nor yet is the world tired of Shakespeare; and there appears every likelihood that our best theatrical talent for some centuries to come, will still be devoted to the effective representation of the creations of his genius. The sayings of Hamlet have grown with us into proverbs, and are daily slipping unconsciously from the mouths of men. There are but two books in the world that can be called inexhaustible-the Bible and the collected works of Shakespeare; all other books, sooner or later, must die their natural death; wise in their varied measure, their wisdom only travels a limited distance, but never oversteps the boundary line; these two books partake of the character of infallibility; were all other books destroyed, these two books would still be a complete literature of themselves, for one is the revelation of the life to come, the other the revelation of the life that now is.

And yet this Shakespeare possessed of the most Catholic and inexhaustible mind that ever breathed in human being, this greatest among mankind, if we regard him in the actions of his life unconnected with his intellectual labours, appears anything rather than a spectacle of greatness. Little has been recorded of him, but we may depend that in that age of literary achievement, had there been aught great and worthy of recording concerning his life, it would assuredly have been handed down to us. From poets, from great men generally, we expect a life out of the common track, one marked by no common kind of activity. But Shakespeare seemed indifferent to all ideas of subsequent fame, and lived a trifling, easy-going, comfortable existence. That he was born the eldest son of a wool-dealer at Stratford-upon-Avon; that he was educated at the free-school; that he lived a wild, irregular youth; that to escape the consequences incurred by a prosecution against him for deer-stealing, he fled to London, where he fell in

with a company of players, amongst whom he rose through various theatrical gradations until he became the manager of the Globe Theatre; that he married in his eighteenth year; that he died in his fifty-second, possessed of a comfortable fortune, leaving by will to his wife his second-best bed with the furniture; these few facts form nearly the whole amount of information we have concerning him. It was a life every way unworthy of him, though it cannot injure the fame he has acquired as the greatest man that ever adorned the history of his country, that ever adorned the history of the world.*

And while we lament his common-place sort of life, we may at the same time lament that nature has given us but one Shakepeare, but one perfect Catholic genius. Great poets we have had, Homer, Dante, Milton, Shelley; but none have realised that unbounded comprehensive soul that Shakespeare possessed. None but he ever climbed the hill; none but he ever saw beneath the veil; others have had but faint glimmerings, where he gazed upon the full unclouded brightness; others have touched her garments' hem, but he was Nature's own darling child. Oh! it gives a poor idea of human being, and of human life. that one man alone could distinguish the meaning of them. Yet, courage! the Divine nectar hath not yet been all poured out, and the future shall yet bring forth a mightier poet, one who shall combine in his own being alike the inexhaustible wisdom of the Catholic Shakespeare, and that strong poetic vigour productive of noble action, that stirred the sectarian Milton. WM. TIDD MATSON.

* "The Shakespeare Society have inquired in all directions, advertised the missing facts, offered money for any information that will lead to proof, and with what result? They have gleaned a few facts, touching the property, and dealings in regard to property, of the poet. It appears that, from year to year, he owned a larger share in the Blackfriars Theatre: its wardrobe and other appurtenances were his that he bought an estate in his native village, with his earnings, as writer and shareholder; that he lived in the best house in Stratford: was intrusted by his neighbours with their commissions in London, as of borrowing money and the like; that he was a veritable farmer. About the time when he was writing "Macbeth," he sues Philip Rogers, in the Borough Court of Stratford, for thirty-five shillings and tenpence, for corn delivered to him at different times; and in all respects, appears as a good husband, with no reputation for eccentricity or excess. He was a good-natured sort of man, an actor and shareholder in the theatre, not in any striking manner distinguished from other actors and managers."-Ralph Waldo Emerson.

INTEGRITY MORE SATISFYING THAN LEARNING. THAT great and far-famed scholar Grotius, on his death-bed, spoke thus: "Ah! I have consumed my life in a laborious doing of nothing! I would give all my learning and honor, for the plain integrity of John Urick!" This John Urick was a poor man, who spent eight hours a day in labour, eight in reading and prayer, and only eight in sleep and meals.