against another, and doth he seek pardon from the Lord? He sheweth no mercy to a man which is like himself, and doth he ask forgiveness of his own sins ?*

The Biblical critics, therefore, who, like Burkitt, except the particular clause which Portia refers to, viz., as we forgive them that trespass against us,' from the foregoing representation in regard to the origin of the several petitions of the Lord's Prayer, have, in all probability, made that single exception without sufficient reason. Besides, it is to be borne in mind that many of the Jews, though they did not accept Christ as their Messiah, yet they did accept Him as a teacher come from God.' And certainly it is not correct to suppose that the Christian Doctrine of salvation is not also the doctrine of salvation to the faithful Jew.

Upon the opening lines of the same speech of Portia, Mr. Douce has pointed out the resemblance to Ecclesiasticus xxxv. 20:—

Mercy is seasonable in the time of affliction, as clouds of rain in the time of drought.

And the argument drawn by Portia from the need which we all have for the mercy of God is repeated by our poet in the Second Part of King Henry VI., where Lord Say says to the rebels, who are carrying him off to execution :

Ah, countrymen! if when you make your prayers,

*On this subject see below, p. 163 sq., and p. 217.

God should be so obdurate as yourselves,
How would it fare with your departed souls?

Act iv. Sc. 8.

I have been loath to question the propriety of an observation made by so sound a thinker and so wellinformed a writer as Judge Blackstone; and now I ought not to quit this portion of my subject without drawing attention to a remark of one whose authority upon matters of this kind is still higher; I mean Dr. Johnson. In a note upon the last scene of King Lear he complains that 'our author, by negligence, gives his heathens the sentiments and practices of Christianity.' And Mr. Singer has repeated the remark in his edition of 1826. But I am inclined to doubt whether it is altogether well founded.* The lines which appeared to give occasion for it are these:

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices

Make instruments to scourge us.

Act v. Sc. 3.

Now, we meet with the same sentiment more than once in the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom:

For the foolish devices of their wickedness, wherewith being deceived they worshipped serpents void of reason and wild beasts, THOU didst send a multitude of wild beasts upon them for vengeance, that they might know that wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also shall he be punished.-xi. 16. See also xii. 23.

* I am glad to find myself supported in my opposition to the disparaging remark of Dr. Johnson, by the high authority of Schlegel, who, in his notice of King Lear, observes that Shakspeare lays particular stress on the circumstance that the Britons of that day were still heathens. But comp. Additional Illustrations, p. 365.

And though I cannot now remember any passage of a profane author* that comes fully up to the same. sentiment, or nearer to it than what we read in Eschylus (Agam.† v. 170 sq.) and Juvenal (Sat. i. 142 sq.), yet I have little doubt that such a passage may be found. But with regard to the remark itself, the truth, I believe, is that Shakspeare does, for the most part, make a difference between his heathen and his Christian characters. For instance, in the very play upon which Johnson's censure is made, viz., King Lear, we find the following sentiment, which I very much doubt whether our poet would have allowed any but a heathen character to utter :

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods ;-
They kill us for their sport:

Act iv. Sc. I.

lines which Mr. Bowdler has omitted, instead of suggesting in a note that they are spoken by one who was not a Christian. Again, I am inclined to think that in Coriolanus it is purposely left a doubtful point whether mercy is an attribute of the Deity or no. I allude to the following dialogue between

* We have it in St. Chrysostom upon the third Psalm, with a play upon the words, which must be lost in a translation; öðεv ʼn wηyǹ râs ἁμαρτίας, ἐκεῖθεν ἡ πληγὴ τῆς τιμωρίας.—Vol. v. p. 3.

+ Compare the sentiment in K. Lear, Act ii. Sc. 4.

'To wilful men,

The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters.'

Menenius and Sicinius, respecting Coriolanus, towards the close of the play :

Menenius. What he bids be done, is finished with his bidding. He wants nothing of a god but eternity and a heaven to throne in. Sicinius. Yes, mercy, if you report him truly.

Menenius. I paint him in the character.* Mark what mercy his mother shall bring from him. There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger. Act v. Sc. 4.

At the same time I must admit that in Titus Andronicus, of which the characters are heathen also, mercy is undoubtedly recognized as a divine attribute, where Tamora, Queen of the Goths, says to Titus :

Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them, then, in being merciful.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

In regard to this passage, however, it may be observed, first, that the play in which it occurs is generally allowed not to be Shakspeare's; secondly, that the date of the action belongs to a period almost as many centuries after, as Coriolanus was before, the commencement of the Christian era; and, thirdly, that in the interval are to be found, even in heathen authors, passages which fall little, if at all, short of the same sentiment. Take, for example, what Cicero had said in addressing Cæsar on behalf of Ligariusa passage partly quoted by Mr. Whalley:

Nihil est tam populare quam bonitas; nulla de virtutibus tuis

* That is, to the life, as he is.

Homines enim

plurimis nec admirabilior nec gratior misericordiâ est. ad Deos nullâ re propius accedunt quam salutem hominibus dando.Orat. pro Ligario, c. 12.

There is, however, one play of Shakspeare to which it must, I think, be confessed that the remark of Johnson is justly applicable, at least in some degree. I allude to Cymbeline, where Jupiter is made to say :

Whom best I love,* I cross.

Act v. Sc. 4.

And again, in the 1st Scene of the same Act, where Posthumus exclaims :

Gods! if you

Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I never
Had lived to put on this; so had you saved

The noble Imogen to repent, and struck

Me wretch, more worth your vengeance.

But, alack!

You snatch some hence for little faults; that's love,

To have them fall no more; you some permit

To second ills with ills, each elder worse.

Compare Isaiah lvii. 1.

Merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.‡

Upon the whole, then, while I cannot deny altogether the justice of Dr. Johnson's censure, still I would observe that to draw any very broad lines of

* There is also a passage in Othello, too painful to be quoted, where it has been remarked that reference is made to the doctrine of Scripture, 'Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth.'-See Act v. Sc. 2. Comp. Additional Illustrations, p. 365.

ti.e., to incite, instigate.

See also below, p. 160.