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