FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[48]"If the silent dead can feel any pleasure, or solace from our sorrow, Calvus, when, in wistful regret, we recall past loves, and weep for the friendships severed long ago, then be sure that Quintilia's grief for her early death is not so great as the joy she feels in knowing your love for her."

[48]"If the silent dead can feel any pleasure, or solace from our sorrow, Calvus, when, in wistful regret, we recall past loves, and weep for the friendships severed long ago, then be sure that Quintilia's grief for her early death is not so great as the joy she feels in knowing your love for her."

[49]The Religion of Shakespeare.Chiefly from the writings of the late Mr. Richard Simpson. By Henry Sebastian Bowden. London.

This book, which is partly a compilation from the uncollected writings of the late Richard Simpson and partly the composition of Father Bowden himself, is an attempt to show that Shakespeare was a Roman Catholic. It contains much interesting information; it is well written, and we have read it with pleasure. With much which we find in it we entirely concur and are in full sympathy. We take Shakespeare quite as seriously as Father Bowden does. We believe that the greatest of dramatic poets is also one of the greatest of moral teachers, that his theology and ethics deserve the most careful study, and that they have, too frequently, been either neglected or misinterpreted. We agree with Father Bowden that nothing could be sounder and more persistently emphasised than the ethical element in this poet's dramas; that his ethics are, in themain, the ethics of Christianity, and that so far from Shakespeare being simply an agnostic and having no religion at all, as Birch and others have contended, he is, if not formally, at least in essence, as religious as Æschylus and Sophocles.

And now Father Bowden must forgive us if we are unable to go further with him. We have no prejudice against Roman Catholicism, or against any of the creeds in which religious faith and reverence have found expression,—"Tros Rutulusve fuat nullo discrimine agetur." Our sole wish is, if possible, to get at the truth. It is of comparatively little consequence now to what form of religion Shakespeare belonged, but it would be at least interesting, if it could be shown that any particular sect could legitimately claim him.

In discussing this question we must bear in mind that in Shakespeare's time, as in the time of the ancients, religion had two aspects, its private and its public. In its public aspect it was a part of the machinery of the state, an essential portion of the political fabric. Till the Reformation there had been practically no schism and no difficulty. After the Reformation a most perplexing problem presented itself. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, in a long and terrible conflict, struggled for the mastery. At the accession of Elizabeth the victory had been won, so far as England was concerned, by Protestantism, and Protestantismwas the accepted religion of the nation. As such, it was the duty of every loyal citizen to uphold it; it became with the throne one of the two pillars on which the fabric of the state rested. Roman Catholicism became identified with the political rivals and enemies of England. Protestantism became identified with her lovers and upholders. Thus the Church and the Throne became indissoluble, at once the symbols, centres, and securities of political harmony and union. This accounts for the attitude of Hooker, Spenser, Shakespeare and Bacon towards Episcopalian Protestantism on the one hand, and towards Puritanism on the other. About Shakespeare's political opinions there can be no doubt at all, for, if we except the Comedies, he preaches them emphatically in almost every drama which he has left us. They were those of an uncompromising and intolerant Royalist, in whose eyes the only security for all that is dear to the patriot lay in implicit obedience to the will of the sovereign, and in upholding a system to which that will was law. That he should, therefore, have had any sympathy with the Roman Catholics is, ona priorigrounds, exceedingly improbable. We turn to his Dramas, and what do we find? It would be no exaggeration to say, that there is not a line in them which indicates that he regarded the Roman Catholics with favour. On the contrary, they abound in points directedagainst them. Thus he twice goes out of his way, once inHenry V.[50]and once inAll's Well that Ends Well, to observe that "miracles have ceased." There is a bitter sneer at them in the reference to the sanctimonious pirate and the commandments, inMeasure for Measure.[51]There can be little doubt that the words in the porter's speech inMacbeth, "here's an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to Heaven," have sarcastic reference to the doctrine of equivocation avowed by Garnett and popularly associated with the Jesuits; while the remark about the fitness of "the nun's lip to the friar's mouth"[52]inAll's Well that Ends Wellis another concession to Protestant prejudice.

InKing Johnsuch a speech as the following may be dramatic, but who can doubt that it expressed the poet's own sentiments?—

Tell him this tale; and from the mouth of EnglandAdd thus much more,—that no Italian priestShall tithe or toll in our dominions;But, as we under Heaven are supreme head,So, under Him, that great supremacy,

Tell him this tale; and from the mouth of England

Add thus much more,—that no Italian priest

Shall tithe or toll in our dominions;

But, as we under Heaven are supreme head,

So, under Him, that great supremacy,

Where we do reign, we will alone uphold,Without the assistance of a mortal hand:So tell the Pope; all reverence set apartTo him, and his usurp'd authority.

Where we do reign, we will alone uphold,

Without the assistance of a mortal hand:

So tell the Pope; all reverence set apart

To him, and his usurp'd authority.

King Johnis, indeed, simply the manifesto of Protestantism against papal aggression. What could be more contemptible than the character of Pandulph and the part which he plays? Is it credible that Shakespeare could have had any sympathy with a religion whose minister is one whom he represents as saying:

Meritorious shall that hand be called,Canonized, and worshipped as a saint,That takes away by any secret courseThy hateful life.

Meritorious shall that hand be called,

Canonized, and worshipped as a saint,

That takes away by any secret course

Thy hateful life.

InHenry VIII., again, we have an elaborate eulogy of the Reformation, Cranmer being presented in the most favourable light, Gardiner in the most unfavourable, while Wolsey is almost as detestable as Pandulph.

It is really pitiable to see the shifts to which the authors of this book are reduced to make out their theory. They have even pressed into its service Jordan's palpable and long-exploded forgery of John Shakespeare's Will, and the fact that John Shakespeare's name is found on a list of Recusants, when it is, in that very list, expressly stated that he had absented himself from church, simply from fear of process for debt. Passages in the dramas are similarly perverted. Shakespeare's hostility to the Protestantsinduced him, we are told, to pour contempt on Oldcastle by depicting him as Falstaff. His delineation of Malvolio, and his frequent sneers at the Puritans, are attributed to the same motive. The famous lines inHamlet, placed in the mouth of the Ghost, are cited to prove his belief in purgatory; the comical penances imposed on Biron and his friends inLove's Labour Lostto prove his belief in penance. When inLearit is said of Cordelia that:—

She shookThe holy water from her heavenly eyes.

She shook

The holy water from her heavenly eyes.

we are to see another indication of Shakespeare's religion as "they have a Catholic ring about them." Sentiments which are common to all sects of Christians are regarded as peculiar to Roman Catholicism; mere dramatic utterances are forced into illustrations of supposed personal convictions. What is habitually and systematically ignored is, that Shakespeare, being a dramatic poet, must necessarily make his characters express themselves dramatically, and that, as he was depicting times preceding the Reformation, his sentiments and expressions very naturally took the colour of the world in which his characters moved. The wonder is not that this should have occurred, but that Shakespeare should, in spite of the gross anachronism of such a process, have soProtestantizedpre-Reformation times. We are quite willing toconcede to Father Bowden that there is enough to warrant us in assuming that Shakespeare did not regard the Puritans with favour. But his dislike to them arose not from the fact that they were Protestants, but that they were not orthodox Protestants. He was opposed to them for the same reasons that Elizabeth and James, Hooker and Bacon were opposed to them. Their hostility to his profession, their sanctimonious cant, and the surly asceticism of their lives, no doubt contributed to his prejudice against them.

Nor are we in any way justified in concluding that Shakespeare accepted the teaching of the Church of Rome in spiritual matters. Nothing could be more unwarranted than what is assumed by Father Bowden in the following passage. He is speaking of Shakespeare's attitude in relation to death. "'Ripeness is all'; and he shows us in all his penitents how that ripeness is secured, sin forgiven, and heaven won on the lines of Catholic dogma and by the Sacraments of the Church."

What are the facts? Shakespeare's reticence about a future state, and what may await man, in the form of reward and punishment hereafter, is one of his most striking characteristics. Neither Cordelia nor Desdemona, neither Constance nor Imogen in their darkest hours expresses any confidence in the final mercy and justice of Heaven. Othello, falling by a fate asterrible as it was undeserved, dies without a syllable of hope. "The rest is silence" are the ominous words with which Hamlet takes leave of life. When Gloucester believes himself to be standing on the brink of death, in the farewell which he takes of the world he has no anticipation of any other; all he contemplates is "to shake patiently his great affliction off." So die Lear, Hotspur, Romeo, Antony, Eros, Enobarbus, Macbeth, Beaufort, Mercutio, Laertes. So die Brutus, Coriolanus, King John. In the Duke's speech inMeasure for Measure, where he is preparing Claudio to meet death, death is merely contemplated as an escape from the pains and discomforts of life. Macbeth would 'jump' the world to come if he could escape punishment in this. Prospero suggests no hope of any waking from the "rounding sleep." Even Isabella, dedicated as she was to religion, in fortifying Claudio against his fate draws no weapon from the armoury of faith. It is just the same in the dirge in Cymbeline, in the soliloquy of Posthumus, in the consolations addressed by the gaoler to Posthumus.[53]

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.

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 resolutionIs 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.

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 theEthics; 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," andthe "Whither we are going," are problems for which he has no solution.[55]

Men must endureTheir going hence e'en as their coming hither:Ripeness is all.

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 ofuniversal 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 inFaust, 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 lieWhich we ascribe to Heaven: the fated skyGives us full scope.All's Well that Ends Well.

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.

Men at some time are masters of their fate.

Julius Cæsar.

Omission to do what is necessarySeals a commission to a blank of danger.Troilus and Cressida.

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 inRichard II.:—

The means that Heaven yields must be embrac'dAnd not neglected; else if Heaven wouldAnd we will not, Heav'n's offer we refuse:—

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 inPericlesare, we feel, significant:—

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

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 touchedBut to fine issues.

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 betterFor being a little bad.

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 inMeasure for Measure, and of Prospero. Even Friar Laurence, though an ecclesiastic, reasons and advises just as a Stoic philosopher might have done. The friars inMuch Ado about Nothing, and inMeasure for Measure, the Bishop of Carlisle inRichard II., and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York inHenry IV.andHenry V., and Cardinal Beaufort inHenry 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 goingattentively 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, inAll's Well that Ends Well(Act II. 3), merely sum up what we hearsotto vocein 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 wantSpirits to enforce, art to enchant,And my ending is despairUnless I be relieved by prayer,Which pierces so that it assaultsMercy itself, and frees all faults.

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 theŒdipus Coloneusis 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. InMeasure for Measure, he stretched the first as far as the Master Himself stretched it, at the eleventh hour, to the penitent thief. And in theTempest, 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 isIn virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,The sole drift of my purpose doth extendNot a frown further.

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]

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 ofMeasure for Measure; it is one of the dominant notes inCymbeline. 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, andThe 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 useTurns to restraint;

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'erflowIn seeming to augment it wastes it;

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;

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 hereasons 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 arecertainlywarranted in concluding about him, represents all that can be concluded, namely, that:—

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

FOOTNOTES:[50]Act I. Sc. i. This is a very pointed reference, but in the second instance, inAll'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.[51]Act I. Sc. ii.[52]Act II. Sc. ii.[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 inHenry 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.[54]Cf.Ethics, I. x. 11, and III. vi. 6.[55]Shakespeare Commentaries, Vol. II. 620-1.[56]Article on Shakespeare,Quarterly Reviewfor July, 1871, p. 46.[57]Two Gentlemen of Verona: V. 4.

[50]Act I. Sc. i. This is a very pointed reference, but in the second instance, inAll'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.

[51]Act I. Sc. ii.

[52]Act II. Sc. ii.

[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 inHenry 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.

[54]Cf.Ethics, I. x. 11, and III. vi. 6.

[55]Shakespeare Commentaries, Vol. II. 620-1.

[56]Article on Shakespeare,Quarterly Reviewfor July, 1871, p. 46.

[57]Two Gentlemen of Verona: V. 4.

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