place in any future edition of "Shakspeare's Debt to the Bible," for we may assuredly trace its inspiration to the exhortation of the Apostle, "Let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night."

In Act III. Scene 2, the Nurse, sympathizing with Juliet, says:—

"There's no trust,

No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.

Ah, where's my man? give me some aqua-vitæ : These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.

Shame come to Romeo !"

"Aqua-vita" was a name in use for spirituous liquors, and has been traced by some to usquebaugh, an Erse word, signifying, water-of-life. Aqua-vita is a favourite remedy with the Nurse; and she has recourse to it upon all occasions trying to her feelings. (See Act IV.)

* 66

Shakspeare's Debt to the Bible." By the Rev. Charles Bullock, B.D. (London: Home Words Office.)

CYMBELINE.

CHAPTER IV.

"PAYING THE SHOT."-DR. RICHARDSON QUOTED. DR. GUTHRIE'S TESTIMONY.-TIMON OF ATHENS. AN ADMIRABLE MOTTO.

T is a trite saying, that Intemperance is not only a crime but a parent of crimes; and it is somewhat remarkable that the maliciously disposed appear to take an especial delight in suggesting Intemperance as the distinguishing sin of those whom they wish to malign. Such was the slander employed by the mockers of the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, and such was the weapon used by Iachimo when desirous of poisoning the mind of Imogen against her banished husband, as depicted in Shakspeare's "Cymbeline." In Act I. Scene 7 the fair lady is represented as giving audience to "a noble gentleman" of Rome, who brings letters from her husband.

The ignoble gentleman, in response to the question, Continues well my lord? His health, beseech you?" makes answer, "Well, madam.”

Imogen.

"Is he disposed to mirth? I hope he is."

Iachimo.

"Exceeding pleasant; none a stranger there
So merry and so gamesome: he is call'd
The Briton reveller."

The epithet was a wicked invention on the part of Iachimo, who rightly thought that Imogen's faith in the affection of the absent Posthumus Leonatus would be sorely put to the test by such a representation.

Later on we find Posthumus in Britain once more, but as a captive in prison (Act V. Scene 4). A discussion takes place between him and the gaoler. The gaoler asks, "Come, sir, are you ready for death?" Posthumus replies, "Ready long ago: so, if I prove a good repast to the spectators, the dish pays the shot." The gaoler reminds him it will prove "a heavy reckoning" for him. "But," he continues, "the comfort is, you shall be called to no more payments, and fear no more tavern bills; which are as often the sadness of parting, as the procuring of mirth. You come in faint for want of meat, depart reeling with too much drink; sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are paid too much; purse and brain both empty; the brain the heavier for being too light, the purse too light, being drawn of heaviness of this contradiction you shall now be quit."

"This contradiction," surely contains the sum of the whole matter upon the Temperance question.

cup.

Shakspeare anticipates the researches of Dr. B. W. Richardson, who tells us that "alcohol is not food"; so that if a man goes into a tavern "faint for want of meat," he is on a fool's errand if he thinks to find bodily sustenance in the intoxicating The remarkable passage moreover appears to have suggested the oft-quoted testimony of the late Dr. Thomas Guthrie, who once said: "I am in good spirits because I take no spirits; I am hale because I use no ale; I take no antidote in the form of drugs because I take no poison in the form of drinks. Thus, though in the first instance I sought only the public good, I have found my own good also since I became a total abstainer. I have these four reasons for continuing one: 1st, my health is stronger; 2nd, my head is clearer; 3rd, my heart is lighter; 4th, my purse is heavier."

Referring to the phrase, "the dish pays the shot," we mentioned in a previous chapter that many of the terms used in describing Bacchanalian customs have been imported into our language from the Danish. "Paying the shot," may be instanced as a case in point. Dr. Brewer, in his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable," says, "Hand out your shot, or Down with your shot-your reckoning or quota, your money (Saxon, sceat; Danish, schot)." And the same authority quotes from Ben Jonson the line,—

"As the fund of our pleasure, let us pay each his shot."

The phrase is sometimes expressed as, "Who's to pay the piper?" "Who is to stand Sam?" "Who is to pay the score?" The former comes from the tradition of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who agreed to rid the town of rats and mice; and when he had done so the people refused to pay him, whereupon he piped again, gathered all the children together, and piped them away from home and kindred.

"Timon of Athens," which has been the subject of much criticism and investigation, is a rich field for our present inquiry; and a remark of Timon's in the First Scene of Act I. supplies an admirable motto for a Temperance Society :

"'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after."

Coffee Rooms, Sailors' Rests, Soldiers' Institutes, these are the "after supports" which the labours of Lady Hope, Miss Weston, Mrs. Daniells, and Miss Robinson have so nobly founded in connection with the Temperance movement.

At Lord Timon's feast, Act I. Scene 2, Apemantus, churl though he was, had the best of the argument on the Temperance question at any rate, and moreover proposed a toast which Total Abstainers have good reason to remember for its blunt, plain, matter-of-fact philosophy.