Maundeville, to explain the orientalism of the lesson: and among other things, he threw out the idea that the postern gate of an Eastern city was so small, that it was impossible for a beast of burthen to pass through it, and was usually called “the needle’s eye,” and hence the force of the comparison. All this, Shakspeare, who was thinking his own thoughts, heard only incoherently, and he got a somewhat confused idea of the _postern_ and _needle_; but being, just then, at work on his Richard the Second, he goes home, and puts his Sunday reverie into the mouth of his hero, thus:— “My thoughts of things divine are intermixed With scruples, and do set the word itself Against the word, As thus—_Come little ones_; and then, again, _It is as hard to come, as for a camel_ _To thread the postern of a needle’s eye._” Such at least is the story, which this passage suggests to me as, very possibly, the way in which it came to him. I often trace to a similar source, that is, to the open Scriptures, and the vernacular services of the Church of England, the innumerable Siloan streams which freshen and even sanctify his verse. The great themes of redemption may be found richly illustrated in many passages; and I think I could select from his works enough of sacred poetry to fill a little volume, and one fit to be kept as a companion to the Prayer-Book and the Christian Year. I cannot credit the scandal that Shakspeare died of a debauch, nor do I believe he was less than an ordinary Christian. While the secrets of his heart are with his God, we may at least, in Christian charity, believe that the friend of publicans and sinners may have seen in him a practical dependence upon that Atonement which, by the mouth of Portia, he has preached so well:— —“Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this, That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy.” As I departed, I plucked a branch of ivy from the Church wall, near the spot where his dust awaits the resurrection. It was brought home with me to America—the land in which he has more readers than anywhere else in the whole world. How little he foresaw this, when in compliment to James the First, he recorded (if the passage be his own) the prediction that James should “make new nations;” adding—what proves rather true of himself— “Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, His honour, and the greatness of his name Shall be!” A threatening rain prevented my walking to Charlecote, but I went away contented. I was inclined to indulge a little in Jacques’ vein, and the melancholy clouds began to favour us with congenial tears, as—reduced to sober prose—I made my way in the storm, on the top of a stage-coach, through what was once the Forest of Arden. CHAPTER XXIII.