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 NEW YORK: 
 PHILLIPS & HUNT. 
 
 m CINCINNATI: 
 
 S WALDENcfeSTOVVE. 
 
 I 1883. 
 
The "Home CoLLEaE Series" will contain one hundred short papers on 
 a wide range of subjects — biographical, historical, scientific, literary, domes- 
 tic, political, and religious. Indeed, the religious tone will characterize all 
 of them. They are written for every bod}' — for all wliose leisure is limiteri, 
 but who desire to use the minutes for tlie enrichment of life. 
 
 These papers contain seeds from the be.st gardens in all the world of 
 human knowledge, and if dropped wisely into good soil, will bi'ing forth 
 harvests of beauty and value. 
 
 They are for the young — especially for young people (and older people, 
 too) who are out of the schools, who are full of "business" and "cares," 
 who are in danger of reading nothing, or of reading a sensatioual literature 
 that is worse tlian nothing. ^ 
 
 One of these papers a week read over and over, thought and talked about 
 at "odd times," will give in one year a vast fund of information, an intel- 
 lectual quickening, wortli even more tlian the mere knowledges acquired, a 
 taste for solid read'ng, many hours of simple and wholesome pleasure, and 
 ability to talk intelligently and helpfully to one's friends. 
 
 Pastors may organize " Home College " classes, or " Lyceum Reading 
 Unions," or "Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circles," and help tlie 
 young people to read and think and talk and live to worthier purpose. 
 
 A young man may have his own little " college " all by liirnself. read tliis 
 s ries of tracts one after the other, (tiiere will soon be one huidi'ed of them 
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 vry" and thus gain knowledge, and, what is better, a love of knowledge. 
 
 And what a young man may do in tliis respect, a young woman, and both 
 (lid men and old women, may do. 
 
 New Yokk, Jan., 1833. 
 
 J. H. ViNCEKT. 
 
 Copyright, 1SS3, by Phillu'S &11unt, Nl-w York. 
 
^r- 
 
 )0m^ €olkQt Serbs* Sitmkr CtutiitD-tbr^£. 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, 
 Warwickshire, England, in April, 1564. The precise day 
 of his birth is unknown, but since the baptismal register of 
 the church in Stratford shows April 26 to have been the 
 date of his baptism, it is probable that his birthday was 
 only a few days earlier, it being customary in those old times 
 to baptize infants as early after birth as was practicable. 
 
 Of Shakespeare's ancestors very little is certainly known. 
 The name itself indicates their military profession. It is 
 supposed to be derived from the fact that ancient spearmen 
 brandished the lance before hurling it on the enemy. Hence 
 old Ben Jonson wrote: 
 
 " Look how the father's face 
 Lives in his issue ; even so, the race 
 Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines 
 In his well torn and true-filed lines ; 
 In each of which he seems to shake a lance, 
 As brandished at the eyes of Ignorance." 
 
 Whether this conjecture concerning the founders of his 
 family be well-founded or fanciful is uncertain ; but of his 
 father it is certain he was no soldier. The scant annals and 
 traditions of Stratford afford such glimpses of his social posi- 
 tion and fortune as to make it certain that he was a respect- 
 able citizen, who, during the boyhood of his illustrious son, 
 possessed a moderate estate and was higlily esteemed by his 
 fellow townsmen, albeit his education had been so neglected 
 that he could not write his own name. His business was 
 that of a glover, to which he seems to have joined the 
 cultivation of his lands. In official circles he figured as 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 constable, juror, alderman, bailiff, and magistrate. By mar- 
 riage he vras allied to a family socially superior to his own. 
 His wife, Mary Arden, was tlie youngest of seven daughters, 
 and her marriage portion and her subsequent inheritance at 
 her father's death contributed considerably to the solid com- 
 fort of the home in which our poet spent his boyhood. 
 
 William was the third of eight children born to John and 
 Mary Shakespeare. Nothing is known of his child life. De 
 Quincy says: "There can be little doubt that William 
 Shakespeare, from his birth up to his tenth or perhaps his 
 eleventh year, lived in careless plenty, and saw nothing in 
 his father's house but that style of liberal housekeeping 
 which has ever distinguished the upper yeomanry and the 
 rural gentry of England." Possibly his father's expend- 
 itures were on a scale too liberal for his income, inasmuch 
 as his affairs became inextricably embarrassed in 1575. 
 His subsequent long-continued difficulties with his ci'editors, 
 of which the sensitive and observant William must have 
 been painfully aware, probably furnished more or less of 
 the materials out of which, in after j^ears, the poet drew in- 
 spiration when writing his Timon of Athens. One can 
 scarcely doubt that his father's h.irsh creditors were in his 
 mind when he composed these lines: 
 
 "His familiars to his buried fortunes 
 Slink all away; left their false vows with him, 
 Like empty purses picked: and his poor self, 
 A dedicated beggar to the air. 
 With his disease of all-shunned poverty, 
 • Walked, like contempt, alone." 
 
 There was a free grammar school in Stratfoi'd. Shakes- 
 peare's parents, notwithstanding their own illiteracy, must 
 have felt desirous of giving their hopeful boy an advantage 
 the lack of which in their own lives must have been more or 
 less a source of mortification, at least on occasions. Hence, 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEABR 
 
 in the absence of positive proof, it is inferred that they sent 
 him to this school. This inference is supported by the evi- 
 dence furnished in his works that his early education had 
 not been wholly neglected, that he had acquired at least 
 a smattering of the classics. Nevertheless, there is no posi- 
 tive proof that he was one of its pupils; nor, if he was, how 
 long he enjoyed its instruction. 
 
 Tradition said that " in his younger years he had been a 
 school-master ni the coixntry." Others thinks that possibly 
 he may have acted as an usher in the grammar school for a 
 time. Another tradition places him in a law office, the 
 financial needs of his father making it desirable, if not neces- 
 sary, that he should contribute somewhat to the family ex- 
 chequer. This latter supposition finds support in his use of 
 law terms and allusions to an extent quite unusual in the 
 dramatic literature of his age. But these are mere con- 
 jectures resting on nothing more solid than the " airy fabric 
 of a vision." 
 
 But when our poet reached his nineteenth year we see 
 him (too distinctly, for his own happiness) in the act of con- 
 tracting an ill-advised marriage with a yeoman's daughter, 
 named Anne Hathaway. How this marriage came about 
 cannot now be known. That it was folly for an impecunious 
 boy, not nineteen years old, to marry a woman of twenty- 
 six none will dispute. But who was to blame ? Both, 
 doubtless; but chiefly this mature woman. Anne was as- 
 suredly old enough to perceive its unwisdom. The proba- 
 bility is that she, if not the actual suitoi', was yet the lad's 
 beguiler, Shakespeare was a hnndsome, well-formed man. 
 His family and social connections were superior to hers. 
 Perhaps, as De Quincy shrewdly suggests, her womanly 
 intuition divined his prospective greatness. Moreover, being 
 only a yeoman's daughter without a fortune of any moment 
 in the marriage mai'ket, and ha\ing reached an age at which 
 her chances of marriage were becoming fewer every year, 
 
WILLIAM SRAKESPEABH. 
 
 she probably played off her charms, whatever they were, 
 upon the lad's susceptible and inexperienced nature. But, 
 be this as it may, the circumstances which surrounded this 
 ill-assorted marriage were discreditable to both parties. And, 
 as might be expected, it resulted in unhappiness to both, 
 though it probably led the young husband into the career 
 which developed his great poetical and dramatic genius. 
 Twenty years afterward, Shakespeare revealed the wound 
 that even then rankled in his breast in the following lines, 
 which he put into the mouth of the Duke Orsino, when ad- 
 vising his youthful page with respect to marriage: 
 
 " Let still the tooman take 
 An elder than herself; so wears she to him, 
 So sways she level in her husband's heart. 
 For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, 
 Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, 
 More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, 
 Than women's are. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Then let thy love he younger than thyself, 
 
 Or thy affection cannot hold the bent : 
 
 For women are as roses ; whose fair flower, 
 
 Being once displayed, doth fall tlmt very hour." 
 
 Shakespeare was married almost the first of December, 
 1582. The following May a daughter, Susanna, was born to 
 him. His father's reduced circumstances not permitting 
 him to give the imprudent pair a home, must have made 
 the boy husband more or less dependent on his wife's father. 
 What he did toward the support of his wife is unknown; 
 probably very little. ]t is also probable that Mistress Anne, 
 conscious that her gentle young husband, sobered by his 
 early trials into reflective moods, was ceasing even to re- 
 spect her because of her forwardness in bringing about their 
 marriage, began to retaliate his growing coolness by re- 
 proaching him for his dependence on her father. His 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEABE. 
 
 proverbial gentleness forbids the supposition that the dis- 
 cord was open and violent. It is, however, scarcely to be 
 doubted that their lives were inharmonious and unsatis- 
 factory. And when, in 1585, twins were born to them, the 
 increasing cost of maintenance for his family must have 
 impressed the poet with the obvious fact that Stratford was 
 not likely to furnish him the means of adding to his slender 
 resources. It is natural, therefore, to supjiose that the press- 
 ure of his discouraging circumstances led him to turn his 
 attention toward London. . By going thither he would cer- 
 tainly escape the anno}'ances of his marital life, and might 
 possibly discover a path leading to fortune, if not to fame. 
 
 To account for Shakespeare's departure from Stratford 
 and subsequent long residence in London, the early biogra- 
 phers of the poet invented a romantic story of his arrest 
 and judicial whipping for stealing deer from the park of Sir 
 Thomas Lucy. But later writers, after much sifting of the 
 few ascertainable facts in the case, either pronounce the 
 story unproven or discredit it entirely, as De Quincy does 
 when, in his usual forcible manner, he says, "This tale is 
 fabulous and rotten to the core." It is far more reasonable 
 to accept the theory that Shakespeare, seeing no opening in 
 Stratford for the play of his great talents, of which he 
 must have been more or less conscious, acted on the advice 
 of certain London play-actors who were natives of Strat- 
 ford, and who often acted in that town when on their pro- 
 vincial tours. His father, being an alderman, would necessarily 
 become acquainted with those men through their applications 
 to the aldermanic board for licenses. It is also very proba- 
 ble that the elder Shakespeare, being given to jovial hospi- 
 tality, entertained some of those leading actors at his table, 
 and that William's dramatic and poetic tastes were awakened 
 by listening to their conversations and witnessing their per- 
 formances. 
 
 But whatever his motives were, it is certain that Shakes- 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 peare when little more than twenty-two years of age went 
 to London, leaving his wife and children in Stratford, where 
 she remained to the end of her life. The incidents con- 
 nected with his introduction to the metroj^olis, could they 
 be ascertained, would no doubt be interesting and illustra- 
 tive of the influences which aided the develoj^ment of his 
 genius. But thick darkness covers this j)art of his career. 
 It is true that a myth once found currency which stated 
 that, on reaching London, he earned a living for some time 
 by holding the horses of persons who rode to the theater. 
 Another legend made him a " call-boy or deputy prompter, 
 whose business it was to summon each performer according 
 to his order of coming upon the stage." 
 
 Concerning these legends it may be said first, that they 
 contradict each other, since if he held horses outside the 
 theater he could not act as call-boy on the inside. Against 
 his holding horses lies the fact that gentlemen were not in 
 the habit of riding to the theater on horseback, and that, if 
 such had been their practice, they would not have left their 
 steeds in the streets exjDosed to the weather during the hours 
 required for the performance of a ,play. Against the sup- 
 position that our poet was only a call-boy at his first entrance 
 upon a theatrical life, lies the fact that his name appeal's in 
 1589, less than three yeai's after his arrival, "as a share- 
 holder in the important j^roperty of a principal London 
 theater." This latter unquestionable fact makes both leg- 
 ends incredible, and renders it almost certain that the act- 
 ors who had known the elder Shakespeare in Stratford had 
 discerned the signs of genius in the son, had invited him to 
 London, and had given him immediate employment in their 
 theater, either as an actor or as their assistant in altering 
 and adapting old plays to the demands of their stage. This 
 view is further strengthened by the not improbable sup- 
 position that, before going to London, Shakespeare had 
 written a series of sonnets which, though of very question- 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 able morality, contained many passages of rare poetic 
 strength and beauty. These sonnets which, when published, 
 he called, in their dedication to liOrd Southampton, " the 
 first heir of his invention," were circulated in manuscript 
 among Shakespeare's friends for several years. They were 
 more than sufficient to convince such sharp-sighted play- 
 actors as Betterton and Burbage, that while their young 
 author's handsome face and fine figure fitted him to fill the 
 part of mimic kings and potentates on the stage, his invent- 
 ive, penetrative, observant mind also gave promise of dra- 
 matic productions that might lend a dignity and literaiy 
 attractiveness to the theater, of which it then stood, as it 
 always has done, in very sore need. 
 
 Of Shakespeare's manner of life in London during the 
 twenty-five years of his residence there very little is posi- 
 tively known. At first he appears to have been employed 
 both as an actor and in adapting foreign and old English 
 plays to the demands of the London theatrical audiences of 
 that day. His success in these departments is proved by 
 his so soon becoming part proprietor of the theater. Two 
 years later he produced his first original play, " The Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona." From this time, 1591, his creative 
 genius was almost incessantly productive until 1611, when 
 he wrote his last play, "The Tempest." During these 
 twenty years of acting and play-writing — he probably did 
 not act in the latter part of this period — he produced thirty- 
 seven plays, an average of nearly one for every six months. 
 When the high intellectual merits of these plays are con- 
 sidered, with the variety and marked individuality of their 
 numerous characters, their profound observations on human 
 life, and their acute analyses of the motives which lie at the 
 roots of men's actions, this fertility of Shakespeare's genius 
 is truly astonishing. It justifies Coleridge in calling him 
 " our myriad-minded Shakespeare," and De Quincy in pro- 
 nouncing him " the glory of the human intellect." 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Neither play-actors nor their intimate friends have ever, 
 as a class, been noted for the moral purity of their lives. 
 Men whose aim in life is the mere amusement of the 
 idle and the gay are not apt to form very lofty ideals for 
 the guidance of their own lives. Hence, in too many, per- 
 haps a majority of cases, play-actors have been like Marlowe, 
 an actor of Shakespeare's day, of whom it was said in a 
 ballad on his death: 
 
 " He was a fellow to all those 
 Who did God's laws reject, 
 Consoi'ting with tlie Christian's foes 
 Aud men of ill aspect." 
 
 No doubt many, if not most, of our poet's theatrical asso- 
 ciates more or less resembled Marlowe. Taking his " Sugared 
 Sonnets " and the grossness found in his comedies as the 
 basis of judgment, one cannot Avell help thinking that Shakes- 
 peare's habits of life were not wholly unlike those of his 
 felloAV actors. That he was not like the worst of them is, 
 however, made tolerably certain by the amazing produc- 
 tiveness of his pen, and by his steadily increasing financial 
 prosperity. What his intellectual industry achieved we 
 have already seen, and his critics all admit that his latest 
 work was his best. His thrift in pecuniary rnatters is ap- 
 parent in that some three years after his arrival in London as 
 an impecunious rustic, he became, as stated above, the owner 
 of a share in the Blackfriars' Theater. Seven years later he 
 had largely increased his interest in that establishment. In 
 1603 he was a principal proprietor in the Globe Theater, 
 and was rich enough to purchase the best house, with one 
 hundred and seven adjacent acres, in his native town. He 
 also secured a renewed grant of arms from the Herald's 
 College for his father, whose fortunes and social position he 
 restored by liberal provisions for the comfort of his declin- 
 ing yccirs, In 1611, twenty -five years after his advent into 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 London, he was able to bid adieu to the scenes of his labors 
 and triumph, and to return to Stratford with an income 
 equivalent in modern money to not less than seven thousand 
 five hundred dollars per annum — the first man of letters 
 who made a fortune by literature. From these successes it 
 is a fair inference that, though the vices of his associates 
 may have charmed him on occasions into practices contrary 
 to Christian morality, yet they never loaded him with their 
 chains, never made him their slave. Vice levies such ex- 
 hausting taxes on time, brain, and purse that, if Shakes- 
 peare had been its bond-slave, his wonderful achievements 
 and financial prosperity would have been impossible to him. 
 Shakespeare's rare abilities appear to have won early 
 recognition in the literary world. As early as 1591 Edmund 
 Spenser speaks of him as " our pleasant Willie," 
 
 " The man whom nature's self had made 
 To mock herself, and truth to imitate." 
 
 He also designated him as 
 
 "That same gentle spirit from whose pen 
 Large streams of honey and sweet nectar flows." 
 
 Our great dramatist's reputation as actor, author, and 
 man is also shown in a pamphlet entitled "Kind-heart's 
 Dream," by a brother dramatist, named Henry Chettle, who, 
 having slandered ShakesjDeare in editing a posthumous work 
 by a notorious literary man, named Robert Greene, subse- 
 quently made him a very frank apology. After confessing 
 his offense Chettle says : " I am sorry, because myself have 
 seen his [Shakespeare's] demeanor no less civil than he is 
 excellent in the quality he professes; besides, divers, [persons] 
 of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which 
 argues his honesty; and his facetious grace in writing, that 
 approves his art." 
 
10 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 There is no reason for clonbting that this repenting ad- 
 versary fairly interjDreted public opinion concerning the 
 poet. It is also certain that Queen Elizabeth had some of 
 his plays performed at her court, though there is no evidence 
 that he ever acted in her presence. After her death he was 
 in favor with her successor, King James. That his influence 
 was great among his fellow actors and repressive of the 
 worst features of theatrical life is apparent in that he had 
 no sooner ceased from acting in 1604 than the company intro- 
 duced plays which displeased the court and offended the 
 tastes of many private individuals. E^ddently Shakespeare 
 stood on a higher plane, intellectually and morally, than the 
 men Avith whom he Avas associated. 
 
 Crowned with high literary reputation, and in possession 
 of wealth sufficiently ample to gratify his not immoderate 
 desires, Shakespeare spent the last four or five years of his 
 life in honorable retirement at Stratford. He died on the 
 23rd of April, 1616, when only fifty-two years old. The 
 disease which caused his death is unknown. His wife sur- 
 vived him over seven years. Of the three childi'en born to 
 them two daughters were living at the time of his death. 
 
 The fact that the only legacy to his wife mentioned in his 
 will was their " second-best bed," taken in connection with 
 the equally certain fact that he never took her to London 
 during his twenty-five years' residence there, has often been 
 cited as proof that the discord of their early life continued 
 to the bitter end. Possibly it did. His living so much 
 away from her certainly suggests that their marital affec- 
 tions were not very warm. Nevertheless, it does not prove 
 the permanence of their discord, inasmuch as he is known 
 to have paid at least an annual visit to Stratford, and to 
 have made liberal provision for her needs during his absence. 
 Tlie apparent meanness of his legacy is explained by the 
 fact that under English law her dowry was ample, since his 
 estate was principally freehold pi'operty. As to the " second- 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 11 
 
 best bed," it has been thought that it was the one on which 
 they had slept, the best bed being probably a spare one for 
 company, and that its bequest Avas not a mark of ill-will, 
 but of kindly feeling, if not of affection. There can be 
 little doubt, however, that from the first they were not suited 
 to each other, and that as his genius expanded they grew, 
 intellectually at least, farther and farther apart, having less 
 and less in common. Anne may have been proud of his 
 fame, but pride is not love, nor can its gratifications satisfy 
 the natural hunger of the human heart for affection. The 
 poet most likely felt that his marriage to her was one of the 
 great mistakes of his life; but, being of a peaceful, gentle 
 temper, he probably resolved, like a prudent man, to make 
 the best of his misfortune and to treat her kindly, although 
 it was not possible for him to lavish upon her that measure 
 of conjugal affection of which his great soul, had he been 
 truly mated, was capable. His case stands as a grave pro- 
 test against the folly of hasty, imprudent, ill-assorted mar- 
 riages. 
 
 No Christian can study Shakespeare's works without pro- 
 foundly regretting that his splendid genius, instead of being 
 consecrated to religion, was laid as a sacrifice on that polluted 
 altar, the theater. With what unequaled splendor would 
 his thoughts have shone had his far-seeing intellect been 
 illuminated by the presence of the indwelling God ! What 
 noble service he would have done for Christ had his great 
 heart been filled with divine love ! Never, perhaps, was 
 mortal man better fitted by nature for such high service than 
 Shakespeare ! His native gentleness, if dii-ected by divine 
 charity, would have made him like John among the dis- 
 ciples. His amazing mental penetration, his keen moral 
 perceptions, his power to make clear statements of truth, 
 his wondrous energy and suggestiveness of expression, had 
 they been pervaded, guided, sanctified, by the regenerating 
 forces of the Holy Spirit, would have made him among the 
 
12 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Christian poets of all ages what Paul was among the founders 
 of the Christian Church, Alas, that all these great endow- 
 ments should have been used to adorn an institution which, 
 from its origin until' now, has been an instrument of social 
 corruption! 
 
 But, it may be asked, must not Shakespeare be written 
 among the benefactors of the human race, despite his un- 
 fortunnte connection with the theater ? Did he not strive to 
 lift the drama out of the quagmire of moral corruption in 
 which he found it ? Has he not left the world a legacy of 
 immortal thought conceived in the interests of virtue and 
 religion ? 
 
 These queries arise very naturally in the mind of the 
 Christian who makes himself familiar with this remarkable 
 man's life and writings. In many things he stands out in 
 strangely inconsistent attitudes, and his dramas, being but 
 the expression of his character, necessarily resemble him. 
 They are marked by both badness and goodness. One is 
 disposed to think him a religious man when reading such 
 passages as the following, on man's responsibility for the 
 right use of his gifts : 
 
 " Heaven dotli with us as we with torches do ; 
 
 Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues 
 
 Did uot go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
 
 As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched 
 
 But to fine issues : nor nature never lends 
 
 The smallest scruple of her excellence, 
 
 But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 
 
 Herself the glory of a creditor, 
 
 Both thanks and use ; " 
 
 and this strong statement of the accountability of man 
 
 to God : 
 
 " In the corrupted currents of this world 
 Offense's gilded hand may shove by justice ; 
 . . , but 'tis not so above : 
 
WILLIAM SSAKmPEARE. 13 
 
 There is uo shuffling, there the action lies 
 In his true nature ; and we ourselves compelled, 
 Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 
 To give in evidence ; " 
 
 and this clear putting of the awful fact of universal 
 guilt and need of mercy : 
 
 " Consider this, — 
 That in the course of justice, none of us 
 Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy ; 
 And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
 The deeds of mercy ; " 
 
 also, this bold assertion of the doctrine of the atonement: 
 
 " Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once ; 
 And he that might the vantage best have took, 
 Found out the remedy." 
 
 Besides these admirable lines there are " above five 
 hundred passages in Shakespeare's works which are taken 
 apparently from Scripture originals, being either verbally or 
 substantially founded on questions from Holy Writ." After 
 reading them and wondering what motives influenced their 
 author to put them into dramas intended for performance 
 before audiences largely, if not mostly, composed of rude, 
 profane, vulgar, graceless men and women, such as were 
 wont to crowd a theater — especially its " pits " — in his times, 
 one is inclined to think, surely Shakespeare was a pious man 
 seeking to regenerate a corrupt institution. But when one 
 finds that many of these solemn and sublime passages are 
 intermingled with gross vulgarities, profane words, impure 
 allusions, the indecencies of tavern wits, and the adventures 
 of dissipated men and lewd women, one sickens at the un- 
 natural admixture. No truly religious man could have thus 
 yoked the holy to the unholy. On the other hand, no 
 
U WILLIAM SHAEiSSPEARE. 
 
 thorouglily bad man could have given such reverential ex- 
 pression to the sublimest truths of Holy Writ as one finds 
 in the selections cited above. Gervinus, as quoted by Pro- 
 fessor Shairp, claims that " the feelings and sentiments which 
 rise most frequently to the lips of his purest chai'acters may 
 be fairly taken as his own." But why may not the same 
 thing be claimed for the feelings and sentiments which rise 
 to the lips of his impure characters ? Coleridge, while ad- 
 mitting the presence of the impure in his plays, contends 
 that he has " no virtuous vice, never renders that amiable 
 which religion and reason teach us to detest, nor clothes im- 
 purity in the garb of virtue." He also claims that when 
 contrasted with the plays of his age the superior morality 
 of his dramas is unquestionable. Conceding all this, it yet 
 cannot be denied that Shakespeare treats his vicious char- 
 acters in such a facetious manner, that the reader is likely to 
 be so pleased with their wit, humor, jollity, and good-natured 
 abandon, as neither to look uj^on their vices with unqualified 
 moral censure, nor to feel very profoundly the solemnity 
 and point of the serious passages put into the mouths of his 
 other characters. 
 
 The Christian moralist cannot, therefore, accord Shakes- 
 peare a place among the benefactors of mankind, nor discern 
 in his character the impress of religious convictions. As to 
 his being a reformer of the theater it is enough to say that, 
 while his dramas gave it a loftier ideal than it had previously 
 possessed, it was not reformed thereby. And at a later 
 date, during the reign of Charles II., it became as vile as 
 vice could make it. Neither can his plays be accepted as 
 compositions written or fitted, in their aggregate influence, to 
 promote the interests of religion and virtue. No doubt 
 Shakespeare was a diligent reader of the Bible, that its sub- 
 lime truths made a strong impression on his poetic nature, 
 and that it sharpened his moral perceptions. But it is toler- 
 ably certain that it neither captured his will nor ruled his 
 
WILLTAM SEAESSPEARE. 15 
 
 life. Nevertheless, his artist's eye seeing how effective a 
 background for his tragedies its majestic truths woidd make, 
 he wrought them into his work with inimitable skill. They 
 had their place — were necessary, indeed — in pictures of human 
 life meant to be both idealistic and realistic. Hence 
 
 " What's good, what's bad, what helps, what hurts, he shows," 
 
 and therefore we find in his dramas, as in the feet of Neb- 
 uchadnezzar's image, an admixture of iron and clay — the 
 solidity of truth and virtue, and the frailty of error and vice. 
 And his dramas represent the man. He had moral light, 
 but it shone on a background of spiritual darkness; he had 
 religious sentiments which quickened his imagination and 
 swelled his emotions, but did not regenerate his heart. 
 Hence, in his actions " he was no stainless knight," yet he 
 was, through caution or a will strong enough to rein his ap- 
 petites and passions, or both, not given to excess in vices 
 prevalent in the theatrical circle of which he was apparently 
 the ruling spirit. In his business transactions he appears to 
 have been honorable; in demeanor, gentle; in spirit, kind 
 and conciliatory; in conversation, entertaining; in enter- 
 prise, vigorous and prudent; in his treatment of his family, 
 liberal, but apparently not demonstratively affectionate; in 
 intellect, a giant; in poetic genius, if not unequaled, yet 
 never excelled; in religion, a formalist with predilections 
 favoring, not Romanism or rigid ecclesiasticism, but puritan- 
 ism. Taking him all in all, he was a mighty man, who, had 
 he given the strength of his soul to the spiritual interests of 
 mankind, would have contributed immensely toward the 
 spread of the kingdom of God. But, notwithstanding his 
 devotion to the earthly, such was the splendor of his genius, 
 such the grandeur of his intellect, that Fame will continue 
 to trumpet his name to the world until the end of time. 
 Shakespeare won what he sought — the crown of immortality 
 on earth." 
 
16 WILLIAM SHAKESPBARi:. 
 
 CHARACTER OE SHAKESPEARE'S PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 Take away the dross fi-om the silver, and there shall come 
 forth a vessel for the finer. — Solomon. 
 
 Shakespeare's genius is unrivaled ; but it is the earthly 
 and the natural he paints. Of the heavenly and the super 
 natural — the spiritual, in the highest sense — he says little. 
 Perhaps the man felt more than the poet reveals. Perhaps 
 he deemed human life alone to be the proper subject for 
 dramatic treatment. Still the fact remains. His characters 
 are all human. For the divine we must turn to another 
 book and to other teachers. — Doctor Joseph Angus. 
 
 Of all the attempts in modern literature to reproduce the 
 manners and sentiments of the classical periods, Shakes- 
 peare's are by far the most successful In the employment 
 of classical imagery no poet has ever exhibited such mastery 
 and grace. — Professor Thomas B. Shaw. 
 
 All feel the beauty of Shakespeare's heroines, the variety, 
 the naturalness, the perfection of his portraiture of women. 
 They are in some sense the crowning glory of his finest 
 dramas. — Professor John Campbell Shairp. 
 
 The great art of Shakespeare, as a portrayer of character 
 and passion, seems to consist in his manner of making his 
 personages, accidentally, involuntarily — nay, even in spite of 
 themselves — express their own character and admit us, as it 
 were, into the utmost recesses of their hearts. — Shaw. 
 
 Shakespeare was not only a great poet, but a great philos- 
 opher. — Coleridge. 
 
[thought-outline to help the mkmory.] 
 
 1. Bb'thyear ? Bii'tliday ? Ancestors? Ben Jonson's lines? His father? 
 
 Mother? Brothei-s and sisters ? Child-] ife ? Education? Traditions about 
 his early Oe'ciipations < 
 
 2. Marriag-e? ^Vniie Hathaway? His reference to marriage? First child? 
 
 Twills^ TriHible' Departure tVoiii Stratford ^ " ' 
 
 3. Tlie deer-stealiiii;- story ? Life in London ? Unlikely stories? Probaliility ? 
 
 4. First ori.o-inal play ? Last play? Date of each? i Numher of plays produed'd ? 
 
 How Coleridge and De Quincey sneak of Shakespeare ? 
 
 5. General character of play-actovs? Frobable character of Shakespeare? Fi- 
 
 nancial success ? 
 
 6. Edmund Spenser's allusions to him in 1591 { Shakespeare and Henry (^'het- 
 
 tle ? Queen Elizabeth? Kinic James « 
 
 7. Last years ? Death ? Age I . Wifu ? Children ? His last will ? 
 
 8. Gi;eat ftiults of Shakespeare's works ? What he might have been? How are 
 
 his dramas like himself? 
 
 TE i?^t-:b O OI^S. 
 
 No. 1. Biblical Exploration. A Con- 
 densed Manual on How to Study Uie 
 Eil.le. By J. H. Vincent, D.D. FmU 
 and I icli 10 
 
 No. 2. Studies of the Stars. A Pocket 
 Guido to tlic Science of Astronomy. 
 By H. W. Warren, D.D .'. 10 
 
 No. 3. Biljlft Studies for Little People. 
 Jiy Eev. B. T. Vincent ■. 10 
 
 No. i. Enslish History. Bv J. H. Vin- 
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 No. 5. Greek History. By J. H. Vin- 
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 Nil. (!. Greek Literature. By A. D. 
 Vail, D.D ; 20 
 
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 No. 8. What Noted Men Think of the 
 Bible, liy L. T. Townsend, D.D 10 
 
 No. 9. William Cnllcn Bryant 10 
 
 No. 10. What is Education? By Wm. 
 
 F. Phelps, A.M -10 
 
 No. 11. Socrates. By Prof. W. P. Phelps, 
 A.M . 10 
 
 No. 12. Pestalozzi. Bv Prof. W. P. 
 Phelps, A.M ". Ill 
 
 No. 13. Anglo-Saxon. By Prof. Albert 
 S. Cook ,20 
 
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 F. Phelp<, A.M 10 
 
 No. 1.5. Friieliel. By Prof. Wm. P 
 PIielp=, A.M... 10 
 
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 cent.. D.D " 10 
 
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 Glimpses of Education in the Six- 
 teenth Coniurx. By Prof. Wm. P. 
 Phelps, A.M.. .'. 10 
 
 No. 18. Chrisiian Evidences. By J. H. 
 Vincent, D.D 10 
 
 No. 19. The Book of Books. By J. M. 
 Freeman, D.D 10 
 
 No. 20. The Chautaucpia Hand-Book. 
 
 By J. H. Vincent, D.D 10 
 
 No. 21. American History. By J. L. 
 
 Hurlliui, A.M 10 
 
 Nn. 22. Biblical Biolngry. By Rev. J. 
 
 H. Wvthe. A.M., M.D 10 
 
 No. 23. Enjrhsli Literature. By Prof. 
 
 J. H. Giliiiore 20 
 
 No. 21. Canadian History. By James 
 
 L. Hughes 10 
 
 No. 25. Self-Education. By Joseph Al- 
 
 den, D.D., LL.D 
 
 No, 26. The Tabernacle. By Rev. John 
 
 C.Hill 10 
 
 No. 27. Readings fri'm Ancient Classics. 10 
 No. 28. Manneisaiid Cusioms of-Bible ' 
 
 Times. By J. M. Freeman, D.D 10 
 
 No. 29. Man's Atitif|uitv and Language. 
 
 By M. S. Terry, D.D . " 10 
 
 No. 30. The World of Missions. By 
 
 Henry K. Carroll 10 
 
 No. 31. What Noted Men Think of 
 
 Christ. Bv L. T. Tovvnsend, D.D.... 10 
 No. 32. A Brief Outline nf the History 
 
 of Art. Bv Miss Julia B. De Forest.. 10 
 yn. 3:'.. Elihii Burritt: "The Leanvd 
 
 Jllnek.smith." By Charles Northend. 10 
 No. 34. Asiatic Historv ; China, Coiea, 
 
 Julian. By Rev. Wm. Elliot Griffls.. 10 
 Xo. 3.5. Outlines of General Historv. 
 
 Ity J. II. Vincent, D.D .". IC 
 
 Xo. 36. Assemlilv Bible Outlines. By 
 
 J. H. Vincent, D.D 10 
 
 No. 37. Assembly Normal Outlines. By 
 
 J. H. Vincent. D.D 
 
 No. 38. The Life of Christ. By Rev. 
 
 J. L. Hurlbut, M.A 10 
 
 No. 39. The Sunda\ -School Normal 
 
 Class. By J. H. Vincent, D.D 10 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 Published by PHILLIPS & HUNT, 805 Broadway, New York. 
 
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