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there can be no security for usurped and illegitimate authority ;

For though usurpers sway the rule awhile,

Yet Heavens are just, and time suppresseth wrongs :—
King Henry VI. 3rd Part, Act iii. Sc. 3.

on the other hand, he warns us that the loyalty and obedience which are due to lawful governors must be duly paid; for

Every subject's duty is the King's.

King Henry V. Act vi. Sc. 1. That it is an unhappy thing for a country when its king is under age is a thought which might occur to many minds; but that the thought should be expressed in words so precisely parallel as those which I am about to quote could not have happened without actual contact of the mind of the one writer with the mind of the other:

Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child.

Ecclesiastes, x. 16.

Woe to that land that's governed by a child.

K. Richard III. Act. ii. Sc. 3.

Among the countless marvels of Shakspeare's mind, it is not the least remarkable that he appears equally at home in regard to matters that must have been alien from his own experience and to those that came within it. For instance, whether he has to speak of the circumstances of land or sea, of peace or war, his sentiments and descriptions. are equally just and valuable; although of the sea

he had probably seen little, and of war he could have known nothing from personal observation. It would be beyond my purpose to enter into this subject; and I shall content myself by a general reference on the one hand to The Tempest, and on the other to King Henry V. and King Richard III.

But there are two points connected with the mention of war which belong fairly to the design I have had in view, and upon which, therefore, I shall venture to add a few words. One is, that war is a punishment sent by God. So the Bible teaches, see Ezek. v. and xiv. 21. And so Shakspeare teaches,

see King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 1.

War is His (God's) beadle;* war is His vengeance.

And again, see King Henry VI. 2nd Part, Act v. Sc. 2 :

O! war, thou son of hell,

Whom angry Heavens do make their minister,
Throw in the frozen bosom of our part

Hot coals of vengeance!

where Mr. Steevens has remarked that the last phrase is scriptural, and he quotes Psalm cxl. 10 in the Prayer Book version:

Let hot burning coals fall upon them!

The other point is the lawfulness of war. This, too, the Bible teaches; see Eccles. iii. 8, Luke iii. 14, Acts x. And so Shakspeare teaches-with the just and necessary provision-if the cause be

• This clause is omitted by Mr. Bowdler.

good.' See King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 1. In further proof of this point, the reader may consult a sermon preached by Bishop Andrewes before Queen Elizabeth, at Richmond, in 1609, at what time the Earl of Essex was going forth upon the expedition for Ireland,' to quell the insurrection excited by the Earl of Tyrone-a sermon, therefore, which our poet might have heard; although, as I have said, we have no reason to suppose that he took part in that or any other warlike expedition.†

SECT. 16. Of Death, the Intermediate State, and Day of Judgment.

I have already had occasion, in Section 14, to anticipate the mention of the first subject which occurs to be spoken of in this place, viz., our poet's belief in the immortality of the soul, and consequently in a future state. But the passage which tells most directly upon the point remains still to be quoted. I allude to the dialogue in Cymbeline, between Posthumus and the Jailor; and the lesson which it teaches so emphatically, is the more remarkable, because it proceeds out of the mouth of a Heathen :

Jailor. Come, sir, are you ready for death?

Bp. Andrewes' Works, vol. i. pp. 321-337.

He was, however, enrolled as a soldier in 1605, after the Gunpowder Plot. See Mr. Dyce's Life, p. 91.

Posthumus. Ready long ago.

thou art to live.

I am merrier to die than

Jail. Indeed, sir, he that sleeps, feels not the toothache: but a man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman to help him to bed, I think he would change places with his officer; for look you, sir, you know not which way you shall go.

Posth. Yes, indeed do I, fellow.

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

Posth. 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. Act v. Sc. 4.

And if this be true in a Heathen's mouth, how much more in a Christian's!

In the famous soliloquy of Hamlet, 'To be, or not to be,' when he comes to speak (as the Jailor has spoken above) of

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveller returns,

Act iii. Sc. I.

Mr. Douce suspects, not without reason, that Job x. 21, was present to our poet's mind :—

I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death.

And here let me introduce an observation which has occurred, I doubt not, to the minds of many

* i. e. venture at it without thought. So in Macbeth;

I'd jump the life to come. Act i. Sc. 7.

of my readers in the course of this and the preceding chapter.

There can be little doubt that our forefathers, in and before Shakspeare's time, and even Shakspeare himself, derived, not altogether unprofitably, some portion of their knowledge of Holy Scripture from the exhibitions of religious plays, called miracles, or mysteries; and consequently that much which would strike us now-a-days as irreverent, or at best of questionable propriety, when spoken upon the stage, did not appear to them in the same light. I imagine that when Justice Shallow observed to Silence, his brother justice,

Death, as the Psalmist* saith, is certain to all; all shall die;— King Henry IV. 2nd Part, Act iii. Sc. 2.

neither the author nor the actor would be conscious of any irreverence in thus introducing the Psalmist's name; but times are changed, and Mr. Bowdler, by omitting the clause printed in italics, gives us to understand that now it cannot with propriety be read' even in a family!'

Together with the certainty of death, the Psalmist also teaches us that the rich man shall carry nothing away with him when he dieth, neither shall his pomp follow him;' xlix. 17. And the Apostle, that 'As we brought nothing into this world, so it is certain we can carry nothing out;' 1 Tim. vi. 7.

See Psalm xc. 10. In Psalm xxii. 15, dust of death' may be compared with 'dusty death' in Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 5.

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