Chapter X: Part 10

The last passage is perhaps more remarkable than any, because it shows the utter ambiguity of the directest expression which the poet has left on the subject.

_Gaol._--Look you, sir, you know not which way you go.

_Post._--Yes, indeed do I, fellow.

_Gaol._--Your death has eyes in ’s head then; I have not seen
him so pictured: you must either be directed by some that take
upon them to know, or take upon yourself, that which I am sure
you do not know; or jump the after inquiry on your own peril;
and how you shall speed in your journey’s end, I think you’ll
never return to tell one.

_Post._--I tell thee, fellow, _there are none want eyes to
direct them the way I am going, but such as wink, and will not
use them_.

_Cymbeline_, V. 4.

Shakespeare, in truth, never attempts to lift the veil which for living man can be raised only by Revelation. The silence of his philosophy,--for we must not confound occasional sentiments and mere dramatic utterances with what justifies us in deducing that philosophy,--in relation to a life after this, is unbroken. It is, indeed, remarkable that he represents such speculations,--the dwelling on such problems,--as more likely to disturb, perplex, and hamper us, than to give us any comfort. As Hamlet puts it in the well-known lines:--

The native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Did he believe in the immortality of the soul and in a future state? Who can say? What we can say is, that if we require affirmative evidence of such a faith, we shall seek for it in vain. In the Sonnets, where he seems to speak from himself, the only immortality to which he refers is the permanence of the impression which his genius as a poet will leave--immortality in the sense in which Cicero and Tacitus have so eloquently interpreted the term. But on the other hand, if there is nothing to warrant a conclusion in the affirmative, there is nothing to warrant one in the negative. His attitude is precisely that of Aristotle in the _Ethics_; a life beyond this is neither affirmed nor denied, but the scale of probability inclines towards the negative, and his moral philosophy proceeds on the assumption that life is the end of life.[54]

Goethe has said that man was not born to solve the problems of the universe, but to attempt to solve them, that he might keep within the limits of the knowable. And it is within the limits of the knowable that Shakespeare’s theology confines itself. Starting simply, as Gervinus says, from the point, that man is born with powers and faculties which he is to use, and with powers of self-regulation and self-determination which are to direct aright the powers of action, the “Whence we are,” and the “Whither we are going,” are problems for which he has no solution.[55]

Men must endure
Their going hence e’en as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all.

And for ripeness or unripeness, man’s will is responsible. He would probably have agreed with the saying of Heraclitus, ηθος ανθρωπω δαιμων. Throughout his Dramas all is explicable, with the single exception of Macbeth, without reference to supernaturalism. Perfectly intelligible effects follow perfectly intelligible causes; the moral law solves all. But especially conspicuous is the absence of the theological element where we should especially have looked for it. “Men and women,” says Brewer, “are made to drain the cup of misery to the dregs; but, as from the depths into which they have fallen, by their own weakness, or by the weakness of others, the poet never raises them, in violation of the inexorable laws of nature, so neither does he put a new song in their mouths, or any expression of confidence in God’s righteous dealing. With as hard and precise a hand as Bacon does he sunder the celestial from the terrestrial kingdom, the things of earth from the things of heaven.”[56]

His theology, indeed, in its application to life, seems to resolve itself into the recognition of universal law, divinely appointed, immutable, inexorable, ubiquitous, controlling the physical world, controlling the moral world, vindicating itself in the smallest facts of life, and in the most stupendous convulsions of nature and society. In morals it is maintained by the observance of the mean on the one hand, and the due fulfilment of duty and obligation on the other. In politics it is maintained by the subordination of the individual to the state, and of the state to the higher law. Hooker says of Law, that as her voice is the harmony of the world, so her seat is the bosom of God. The Law Shakespeare recognises; of the Law-giver he is silent. As he is dumb before the mystery of death, so is he equally reticent in the face of that other mystery. He has nothing of the anthropomorphism of the Old Testament, of the Homeric poems, and of Milton. Nor has he ever expressed himself as Goethe has done in the famous passage in _Faust_, beginning: “Wer darf ihn nennen.” In two important respects he seems to differ from the Christian conception. He represents no miraculous interpositions of Providence, no suspension of natural laws in favour of the righteous, and to the detriment of the wicked. He is too reverend to say with Goethe, that man, so far as direction in action goes, is practically his own divinity. But he does say and represent--and that repeatedly--what is expressed in such passages as these:--

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
Which we ascribe to Heaven: the fated sky
Gives us full scope.

_All’s Well that Ends Well._

Men at some time are masters of their fate.

_Julius Cæsar._

Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger.

_Troilus and Cressida._

And we have no right to expect that Providence will cancel it. If deeds do not go with prayer, prayer is not likely to be of much avail. So the Bishop of Carlisle in _Richard II._:--

The means that Heaven yields must be embrac’d
And not neglected; else if Heaven would
And we will not, Heav’n’s offer we refuse:--

while the words which he puts into the mouth of Leonine in _Pericles_ are, we feel, significant:--

Pray: but be not tedious,
For the Gods are quick of ear, and I am sworn
To do my work with haste.

He has no sympathy with pious recluses. He has depicted no saint or religious enthusiast, or written a line to indicate that he had any respect for their ideals. With him,--

Spirits are not finely touched
But to fine issues.

They say best men are moulded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad.

Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds

are typical axioms in his philosophy of life. And the nearest approaches he has given us to the saintly type of character are the sentimental pietists, Henry VI. and Richard II., both of whom are failures, and border closely on moral imbecility. On the spiritual and moral efficacy of faith, he has nowhere laid stress. In his innumerable reflections on life and man, in his maxims and precepts, there is, as a rule, scarcely any flavour of Christian theology. They are just such as might be expected from a pure rationalist. Such is the philosophy of Hamlet, of Jacques, of the Duke in _Measure for Measure_, and of Prospero. Even Friar Laurence, though an ecclesiastic, reasons and advises just as a Stoic philosopher might have done. The friars in _Much Ado about Nothing_, and in _Measure for Measure_, the Bishop of Carlisle in _Richard II._, and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in _Henry IV._ and _Henry V._, and Cardinal Beaufort in _Henry VI._, act and speak like mere men of the world. A bulky volume would scarcely sum up the ethical and political reflections scattered up and down his plays; a few pages would comprise all that could be put down as exclusively theological. This complete subordination of the theological element to the ethical is the more conspicuous when we compare his dramas with the Homeric Epics, and with the tragedies of Æschylus and Sophocles.

And yet if a thoughtful person, after going attentively through the thirty-six plays, were asked what the prevailing impression made on him was, he would probably reply the profound reverence which Shakespeare shows universally for religion--his deep sense of the mysterious relation which exists between God and man. We feel that his silence on transcendental subjects springs not from indifference, but from awe. The remarkable words which he places in the mouth of Lafeu, in _All’s Well that Ends Well_ (Act II. 3), merely sum up what we hear _sotto voce_ in various forms of expression throughout his dramas; “we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. Hence it is that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.” And the same reverence and humility find a voice in the verses in which, in all probability, he took leave of the world of active life.

Now my charms are all overthrown,
And what strength I have’s mine own,
Which is most faint.
... Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.

No poet has dwelt more on the duty and moral efficacy of prayer, on the omnipresence of God, and on the fact that in conscience we have a Divine monitor.

Of the respect which Shakespeare entertained for Christianity as a creed, of his conviction of its competency to fulfil and satisfy all the ends of religion in men of the highest type of intelligence and ability, we require no further proof than his Henry V. Henry V. is undoubtedly his ideal man, as Theseus in the _Œdipus Coloneus_ is the ideal man of Sophocles. And Henry V. is pre-eminently a Christian. Wherever Shakespeare refers to the person and to the teachings of Christ, it is always with peculiar tenderness and solemnity. His ethics are in one respect essentially Christian, and that is in their emphatic insistence on the virtues of mercy and forgiveness of injuries. In _Measure for Measure_, he stretched the first as far as the Master Himself stretched it, at the eleventh hour, to the penitent thief. And in the _Tempest_, that play which seems to embody in allegory Shakespeare’s mature and final philosophy of life, who does not recognise the symbol of Him who rules, not merely in justice and righteousness, but in benevolence and mercy, when Prospero, with sinners and traitors and foes in his power, proclaims--

The rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further.

He struck this note in one of the earliest of his plays:--

Who by repentance is not satisfied,
Is nor of heaven, nor earth: for these are pleas’d.
By penitence th’ Eternal’s wrath’s appeas’d.[57]

and the note vibrates through his works. It is the crowning moral of _Measure for Measure_; it is one of the dominant notes in _Cymbeline_. He also reflects Christianity in the beautiful optimism which discerns in evil the agent of good, and in calamity and sorrow the benevolence and mercy of God. This is the philosophy which penetrates what were probably his last three dramas, _The Winter’s Tale_, _Cymbeline_, and _The Tempest_.

In these respects, then, it may fairly be maintained that Shakespeare is Christian. For the rest his dramas might, so far as their philosophy is concerned, have come down to us from classical antiquity. Nothing can be more Greek than the main basis on which his ethics rest--the observance of the mean, and the recognition of the relation of virtue to the becoming. When Claudio says:--

As surfeit is the father of much fast,
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint;

when Norfolk says:--

The fire that mounts the liquor till ’t o’erflow
In seeming to augment it wastes it;

when Friar Laurence tells us that:--

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometime ’s by action dignified;

and Portia that

There is no good without respect,

we have not only the keys to his ethics but the texts for sermons which find living illustrations in the fall of Angelo, of Coriolanus, of Timon, and of many others of his protagonists. Thus do his ethics temper and readjust for the sphere of working life, those of the Divine Enthusiast who legislated, in some respects, too exclusively perhaps, for a kingdom which is not of this world.

And so, his ‘religion’ being, to borrow an expression of his own, “as broad and general as the casing air,” it has come to pass, that Shakespeare has been claimed as an orthodox Protestant by Knight, Bishop Wordsworth, and Trench; as an orthodox Roman Catholic by M. Rio, Mr. Simpson, and Father Bowden; and as a simple agnostic by Gervinus, Kreysig, and Professor Caird.

“He hath,” says Sir Thomas Browne speaking of himself, “one common and authentic philosophy which he learnt in the schools, whereby he reasons and satisfies the reason of other men: another more reserved and drawn from experience whereby he satisfies his own.” It may be, it may quite well be, for he has left nothing to justify conclusion to the contrary, that the words of Shakespeare’s Will--mere formula though they be--are the expression of what he “reserved” to satisfy himself, and that he accepted the Christian Revelation. It may be, that what we are _certainly_ warranted in concluding about him, represents all that can be concluded, namely, that:--

He at least believed in soul, was very sure of God.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 50: Act I. Sc. i. This is a very pointed reference, but in the second instance, in _All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act II. Sc. i., “They say miracles are past,” he gives a turn to the expression which converts it into a rebuke of Rationalism.]

[Footnote 51: Act I. Sc. ii.]

[Footnote 52: Act II. Sc. ii.]

[Footnote 53: In opposition to these may, it is true, be cited Othello’s words to Desdemona--_Othello_, V. 2: the Duke’s remark about putting the unrepentant Barnardine to death--_Measure for Measure_, IV. 3: the dying speeches of Buckingham and Catharine in _Henry VIII._, II. 1; IV. 2: Laertes on Ophelia,--_Hamlet_, V. 1. But these passages, and others like them, cannot be cited as evidence to the contrary; they are merely dramatic utterances.]

[Footnote 54: Cf. _Ethics_, I. x. 11, and III. vi. 6.]

[Footnote 55: _Shakespeare Commentaries_, Vol. II. 620-1.]

[Footnote 56: Article on Shakespeare, _Quarterly Review_ for July, 1871, p. 46.]

[Footnote 57: _Two Gentlemen of Verona_: V. 4.]

INDEX

ACCIUS quoted, 244

ADDISON, 15: 272: 281

ÆSCHYLUS, 59;
quoted, 62;
his descriptions of Nature, 241;
his theology, 267: 261: 364

ALCÆUS, 287

ALCMAN quoted, 240

ALAMANNI, 123

ANACREON, 286

ANTHOLOGY, Greek, 116: 117: 243

ANTIMACHUS of Colophon, his Poems, 289

ANTIPATER of Sidon, 116

APOLLONIUS RHODIUS, 78;
beauty of his descriptions, 242-3

ARCHILOCHUS quoted, 287

ARIOSTO quoted, 79;
his _Orlando_, 113

ARISTOPHANES, 242: 260: 280;
his censure of Euripides, 265

ARISTOTLE, 63: 67;
influence on Spenser, 120-1;
style, 122;
his doctrine of the καθαρσις, 264-5;
his Æsthetics, 265-6;
Poetics, 274-6;
his _Rhetoric_, 287

ARMSTRONG, Dr. John, his connection with Thomson, 333

ARNOLD, Matthew, 63;
quoted, 21: 105: 106: 194: 272-3

ATHENÆUS, 293

AUSONIUS, his _Rosæ_, 246

AVITUS, 251

BACON, Lord, his _Sylva Sylvarum_, 114;
his Latin style, 122;
quoted, 182;
on poetry, 279

BARCLAY, his _Argenis_, 129

BARNUM, the late Mr., on Advertisement, 158

BEACONSFIELD, Lord, quoted, 219

BENECKE, Mr. E. F. M., his _Antimachus of Colophon_ and
_Position of Women in Greek Poetry_ reviewed, 255-93

BENTLEY, Richard, 156

BERNAYS, Prof., on the καθαρσις of Aristotle, 265

BOILEAU, 125

BOLINGBROKE, Lord, 119: 321

BOSWELL, James, 134

BOWDEN, Rev. H. Sebastian, his _Religion of Shakespeare_ reviewed, 351-69

BREWER, Rev. Prof., quoted, 361

BROWN, Mr. J. T. T., his _Authorship of
the Kingis Quair_ reviewed, 172-82

BROWNE, Sir Thomas, his _Hydriotaphia_, 102;
quoted, 368

BROWNING, Robert, on the Comparative Study of Ancient and
Modern Classical Literature, 64

BROWNING, Mrs., 297

BURKE, Edmund, 71: 100-1: 125: 126

BURNS, Robert, 145;
Comparison with Catullus, 347

BUTCHER, Prof. S. H., his _Some Aspects of
the Greek Genius_ reviewed, 255-69

BUTLER, Bishop, quoted, 214

BUTLER, Mr. Samuel, on Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 222-4

CÆDMON quoted, 95

CAINE, Mr. Hall, 28

CALLIMACHUS, 242

CAMOENS, 350

CAMPBELL, Prof. Lewis, 259

CAREW, Thomas, 305

CATULLUS, his descriptions of Nature, 245: 336-9;
quoted, 285;
characteristics of his genius, 335;
his _Attis_, 339-40;
his pathos, 337-8;
his connection with Lesbia, 342-5;
parallel between Poems to Lesbia and Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 345-6;
his versatility, 346;
comparison with Burns, 347;
Mr. Tremenheere’s version of the Love Poems, 347-9

CAWTHORN, John, 60

CHAUCER, 53: 8: 122-3

CHURCHILL, Charles, quoted, 159

CICERO, influence on English prose, 61;
as a critic of rhetoric, 278-9;
on immortality, 360

CLARENDON, 123

CLASSICS, influence of the Greek and
Roman Classics on English Literature, 58-63;
exclusion of from Schools of Literature
by the English Universities, 45-64;
effects of this illustrated, 76-83

CLAUDIAN quoted, 246

COLVIN, Mr. Sidney, his edition of Stevenson’s Letters reviewed, 165-71

COLERIDGE, S. T., 127: 130: 281

COLERIDGE, the late Lord, on Greek, 255

CORY, William, 253

COUSIN, Victor, his theory of beauty and art, 272

CRITICISM, reasons of present degraded state of, 13-26;
characteristics of current criticism described, 26-30: 270-1;
effects on literature generally, 31-4;
refusal of the Universities to train critics and men of letters, 38-44;
lethargy and indifference of scholars,
progressive degradation of literature the certain result, 43-44

CRITICS, characteristics of popular, 27-31: 93-109: 110-32: 151-7

CROWE, William, 249

CYNEWULF, 95

DANTE, 49;
quoted, 335;
his _Sonnets and Canzoni_, 350

DE QUINCEY, Thomas, characteristics of, 203-4;
his comparative failure, 305;
Mr. Hogg’s recollections of, 203-10

DOUGLAS, Gavin, his translation of Virgil, 96-7

DRAYTON, Michael, 60

DRYDEN, his _Discourse on Epic Poetry_, 65;
quoted, 153;
on the functions of poetry, 280;
his translations, 148

DUBOS, the Abbé, 281

DUNBAR, William, 176;
Mr. Smeaton’s _Life of_, reviewed, 183-92;
characteristics of his poetry, 190-1

DYER, John, his descriptive poetry, 248

EARLE, Prof., on relation of Classics to English Literature, 59 (note)

EARLE, John, his _Microcosmographie_, 129

EDITORS, their relation to current literature, 22;
in no way responsible for the present condition
of current literature, 23-24

ENNIUS, 59

EURIPIDES, 82;
his fine pictures of Nature, 242;
quoted, 262;
his _Alcestis_ quoted, 286

FELTHAM, Owen, his _Resolves_, 129

FLACCUS, Valerius, 246

FLETCHER, Phineas, 101

FOOTE, Samuel, quoted, 205

FOX, John, his _Book of Martyrs_, 113

FRAUNCE, Abraham, his _Countess of Pembroke’s Ivy Church_, 309

FROUDE, James Anthony, on the effect of discouraging
the study of the Classics, 65

GARNETT, Father, 354

GEOFFREY of Monmouth, 102

GERVINUS, Prof., quoted, 360

GLANVILLE, Joseph, 104

GIBBON, Edward, 125: 150: 198

GOETHE, 49: 86;
quoted, 273: 360: 362

GOLDSMITH quoted, 247

GOSSE, Edmund, his _Short History of Modern
English Literature_ reviewed 110-32

GOSSING, analysis of the accomplishment, 115;
compared with Euphuism, id.

GOWER, John, 124;
_Confessio Amantis_, 196

GRAY, Thomas, on Lydgate, 98

GREENE, Robert, 14

HALL, William, Mr. Sidney Lee on, 216

HAMPOLE, Richard of, his _Pricke of Conscience_, 179

HARRISON, Mr. Frederic, 35

HAWES, Stephen, his _Pastime of Pleasure_, 200

HERACLITUS quoted, 361

HERMESIANAX quoted, 287

HILL, Aaron, 331

HOCCLEVE, Thomas, 198

HOGG, Mr. James, his _Recollections of De Quincey_ reviewed, 203-10

HOMER quoted, his fine descriptions of Nature, 237-9;
his women, 286: 288;
his description of Hades, 297

HOOKER quoted, 362

HORACE, influence of his Epistles and Satires on English poetry, 60;
quoted, 151: 297: 301;
deficient in poetic sensibility, 336

HROSWITHA, 251

HUXLEY, Prof., on Merton Chair at Oxford, 38

IBYCUS, 240

JAGO, Richard, 249

JAMES I. of Scotland, his _Kingis Quair_, 172;
its genuineness vindicated, 174-82

JAPP, Dr. Alexander, _Life of De Quincey_, 209

JEBB, Prof., his services to Greek Literature, 258

JOHNSON, Dr., quoted, 152

JONSON, Ben, on Poetry, 280

JOWETT, Prof., quoted, 64

JUSSERAND, M., his _Literary History of
the English People_ reviewed, 193-202

KEATS, John, 127: 298: 347

LANDOR, W. S., 298

LANG, Mr. Andrew, 259

LAUDERDALE, 310

LEAF, Mr. Walter, 259

LEE, Mr. Sidney, his _Life of Shakespeare_ reviewed, 211-8;
on Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 229-30

LE GALLIENNE, Mr. Richard, his _Retrospective Reviews_ reviewed, 151-7

LEOPARDI quoted, 20: 300

LESBIA and CATULLUS, 335-50

LESSING, on Philologists, 86;
his _Laocoon_, 41;
his _Hamburgishe Dramaturgie_, 67

LOG-ROLLING, its pernicious effects, 133-44

LONGINUS, the Treatise attributed to, discussed, 276-8;
quoted, 270

LYDGATE, his style and versification, 98;
id., 115;
characteristics of his poetry, 198-9

MACAULAY, Lord, 145: 151

MALLET, David, claim to authorship of _Rule Britannia_ discussed, 321-4

MALORY, Thomas, 201

MANNYNG, his _Handlying of Synne_, 195

MARLOWE, Christopher, 14

MARTIAL, his epigrams, 337

MAX MÜLLER, Prof., 52

MELEAGER, his Anthology, 116-7;
quoted, 243

MENANDER quoted, 262

MIMNERMUS, his love poetry to Nanno, 287

MILTON quoted, 41 (note): 62;
his apology for _Smectymnuus_, quoted, 103;
on poetry, 267;
quoted, 212;
music of his verse, 317

MITFORD, Rev. J., on the corrections in Thomson’s _Seasons_, 330-4

MONTAGUE, Lady Mary Wortley, 125: 306

MOREL, M. Léon, his Monograph on Thomson, 319

MORE, Sir Thomas, his Utopia, 101

MORE, Henry, 274

MORGAN, Sir George Osborne, his _Translation
of Virgil’s Eclogues_ reviewed, 308-17

MORLEY, Mr. John, 63;
quoted, 64

MYERS, Mr. Ernest, 259

MÜLLER, Prof. E., his _Geschichte der Theorie
der Kunst bei den Alten_, 264

OGILVIE, John, 310

OVID, 60: 177: 178: 246

PACUVIUS, his _Dulorestes_ quoted, 244

PALGRAVE, Francis Turner, his _Landscape in Poetry_ reviewed, 236-49;
an appreciation of, 250-4

PATER, Walter, 62: 152: 265: 267

PECOCK, Reginald, his _Repressor_, 128-9

PETRARCH, 287: 296

PERSIUS quoted, 15

PHILLIPS, Mr. Stephen, his poems reviewed, 294-300

PINDAR quoted, 262;
his word pictures, 240

PLATO, his Symposium, 78-9;
quoted, 263;
his theory of poetry, 274: 276

PLUTARCH, his pictures of women, 290

POMFRET, John, his _Choice_, 101

POPE quoted, 84;
on Philologists, 86;
quoted, 139;
his _Satires_ and _Epistles_, 125;
his alleged revision of Thomson’s _Seasons_ discussed, 328-32

PROPERTIUS quoted, 246

PUBLISHERS, honourable character of the leading, 23

QUARTERLY REVIEW, article on _From Shakespeare to Pope_, 40

QUINTILIAN as a critic, 278

RAFFETY, Mr. Frank W., his _Books worth Reading_ reviewed, 145-50

ROSSETTI, Dante Gabriel, quoted, 173

ROSSETTI, William Michael, his edition of Shelley’s _Adonais_, 76-83

RUCELLAI, his dramas and his _L’Api_, 124

SAINTE-BEUVE, his essays, 41;
on Philologists, 86;
his criticism, 270;
the master of Matthew Arnold, 281

SAINTSBURY, Prof., his _Short History
of English Literature_ reviewed, 93-109

SALLUST, 61

SCHILLER, 41

SCHICK, Dr., on Lydgate’s versification, 99

SCHIPPER, Dr. J., on Dunbar, 183

SCHMEDING, Dr. G., his Monograph on Thomson, 318

SCHOOL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT OXFORD,
its deplorable organization, 45-72;
how this may be remedied, 73-5

SCOTT OF AMWELL, 249

SCOTT, Sir Walter, on Dunbar, 186

SELF-ADVERTISEMENT, its organization and effects, 158-64

SENECA, influence on English prose, 61

SEDULIUS, 251

SHAFTESBURY, third Earl of, his style, 117-9

SHAKESPEARE, 62: 81-2;
Clarendon Press edition of his _Hamlet_, 84-92;
quoted, 154: 158;
Mr. Lee’s _Life of_, 211-8;
scantiness of traditions of, 213;
his sonnets, various theories, 219-20;
about difficulties of supposing them autobiographical, 225-6;
his relations with Southampton and Pembroke, 228-34;
story in the Sonnets probably fictitious, 235;
religion of Shakespeare, 351-69;
his politics, 352-3;
not a Roman Catholic, 352-6;
on death, 357-8;
silence about a future life, 359,
and about metaphysical questions, 360;
comparison in this respect with Aristotle, 360;
his theology, 362-4;
on prayer, 365;
on conscience, 366;
his attitude to Christianity, 366;
when his ethics are Christian, 368;
his religious ideas summed up, 368-9

SHARP, Archbishop, quoted, 218

SHELLEY, his _Adonais_, 76-83;
absurd criticism of his style, 126

SHENSTONE, William, 249

SIDNEY, Sir Philip, 131

SIMPSON, Richard, 351: 368

SMART, Christopher, his _Song to David_, 340

SMEATON, Mr. Oliphant, his life of Dunbar reviewed, 183-92

SOPHOCLES, 242;
his ethics, 267-9;
quoted, 285;
his ideal man, 366

SPENSER, Edmund, 112: 113;
influence of Greek and Latin Classics on, 120-1;
influence of, on Milton, 121;
on the functions of poetry, 280

STANIHURST, Richard, 308

STEPHEN, Mr. Leslie, 35

STESICHORUS, his _Calyce_, 287

STEVENSON, R. L., _Letters_ reviewed, 165-71

STRABO quoted, 287

SWIFT, Jonathan, his _Sentiments of a Church of England Man_, 113;
_Tale of a Tub_, 144

TACITUS quoted, 20: 192: 254;
as a critic, 278-9;
on immortality, 360

TALLEYRAND quoted, 210

TENNYSON, Lord, 62: 162-3: 245: 247: 298: 337;
as a critic, 252

TERENCE, women of, 292

TEXT-BOOKS on English Literature, specimens of, 76-150

THACKERAY on Wordsworth and Moore, 250

THEOCRITUS, 243

THEOGNIS quoted, 262

THOMSON, James, 243;
quoted, 248;
claim to the authorship of _Rule Britannia_ vindicated, 321-8;
corrections in the _Seasons_ discussed, 328-34

THORPE, Thomas, 216: 227: 235

TOVEY, Rev. D. C., his edition of Thomson’s poems reviewed, 318-34

TREMENHEERE, Mr. J. H. A., his version of Catullus’ Love Poems, 335-50

TRISSINO, his _Sofonisba_, 123

THUCYDIDES, 258: 260;
on hope, 262

TUPPER, Martin, 251

TYLER, Mr. Thomas, on Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 228

TYRWHITT, Thomas, 223: 234

UNIVERSITIES, their indifference to
the interests of literature, 38-40: 45-50;
effects of the exclusion of the Greek and Roman Classics from
the so-called Schools of Literature at Oxford and Cambridge, 55-71

VARRO, as a critic, 278

VIRGIL, his beautiful descriptions of Nature, 245-6;
his Eclogues, 308-17

VOLTAIRE on Philologists, 86

WALTERS, Cuming, on Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 220-1

WARBURTON, Bishop, 205;
quoted, 270

WARTON, Dr. Joseph, on Thomson’s poetry, 330

WARTON, Thomas, on Lydgate, 98

WATSON, Mr. William, great beauty of his English hexameters, 317

WHARTON, Dr., his _Sappho_, 148

WILLMOTT, Rev. Aris, his _Gems from English Literature_, 163-4

WILLOUGHBY, his _Avisa_, 101: 225

WORDSWORTH, William, 153;
on Dyer’s poetry, 248;
his poems on classical legends, 298

WORSFOLD, Mr. Basil, his _Principles of Criticism_ reviewed, 270-82

WRANGHAM, Archdeacon, 310

WRIGHT, Dr. Aldis, his edition of Shakespeare’s _Hamlet_, 84-92

WRIGHT, Mr. W. H. Kearley, his _West Country Poets_ reviewed, 301-7

WYNTOWN, his _Chronicle_, 180-1

XENOPHON on women, 290

YOUNG, Edward, quoted, 87

Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

-------------------- Corrections:

Page 81 “Hamlet, act iv. sc .1” should be sc. 5 (There is pansies)

The following errors have been corrected in the text.

Page 8 changed ‘Jasserand’ to ‘Jusserand’ (done M. Jusserand
grave injustice)

Page 63 added space (Addington Symonds)

Page 90 added single quotes (The rest is silence.’ ‘O, O,)

Page 90 changed ‘than’ to ‘that’ (it would be more natural that)

Page 96-7 moved double quotes from (evicit gurgite moles,”)
to end of last line (armenta trahit.”)

Page 97 added opening double quotes (“Not sa fersly)

Page 101 added double quotes (Lord_, 1790.” _A Letter to)

Page 107 changed ‘”)’ to ‘)”’ (teeth of its subject)”. “His voluminous)

Page 184 added comma (and the few outsiders, whether)

Page 205 added single quote (Warburton on Shakespeare.’”)

Page 212 added comma (every alley green,)

Page 252 changed ‘charactistic’ to ‘characteristic’ (distinctive
feature is the characteristic)

Page 321 changed comma to period (both these questions.)

Page 326 changed period to semicolon (Britain’s wide domain;)

The following inconsistencies have been left as printed.

‘bookmaker’ vs. ‘book-maker’ vs. ‘book maker’

‘notebooks’ vs. ‘note-books’

‘overestimated’ vs. ‘over-estimated’

‘overestimation’ vs. ‘over-estimation’

‘rodomontade’ vs. ‘rhodomontade’

‘Wriothesley’ vs. ‘Wriothesly’

‘analysed’ vs. ‘analyzed’

‘Mort d’Arthur’ vs. ‘Morte d’Arthur’

‘Quinctilian’ vs. ‘Quintilian’
(‘Quintilia’ (Latin ‘Quintiliæ’) is a different person)
--------------------

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