valiant, not to fear them that kill the body,' provided that the heart be kept sound and upright. He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart To bring it into danger. Timon of Athens, Act iii. Sc. 5. that is, by suffering it to be provoked to uncharitableness or to revenge. At the same time, there are few who can show courageousness like that of S. Paul, because there are few who exercise themselves as he did, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men,' Acts xxiv. 16. Thus,' as Hamlet truly testifies : Conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; Act iii. Sc. I. a testimony which the guilty queen his mother soon after confirms, speaking from her own experience: Το my sick soul, as sin's true nature is, Each toy * seems prologue to some great amiss ;† It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. Act iv. Sc. 5. And the wicked King Richard III. still more forcibly : * Trifle. + Disaster. O! coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me! My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tale condemns me for a villain. Act v. Sc. 3. The dialogue between the two murderers, whom the same wicked king employed to assassinate his brother, the Duke of Clarence, in the Tower, is an extraordinary instance of our poet's deep acquaintance with the most secret workings of the human heart -such as I know not where to look for in any other, unless it be in the author of the Book of Proverbs, King Solomon. The 'bloody deed' was not yet committed: 1st Murd. What, if thy conscience come to thee again? 2nd. Murd. I'll not meddle with it, it is a dangerous thing; it makes a man a coward; a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it detects him. Act i. Sc. 4. I have not thought it necessary to follow Mr. Bowdler in omitting this last clause, which shows, by the bye, how much our poet's mind was tinctured with the phraseology of Scripture. The phraseology indeed would be of small account, if the imitation of Scriptural language were not accompanied, as it most evidently is, by an honest desire to give effect to the moral lessons which the Bible contains. But the truth is, that not even the Bible itself represents more vividly than our poet has done, not only in single passages but in whole plays, the evil consequences of sin, or shows more plainly how the wicked are confounded by the works of their own hands that sooner or later our sin will find us out, and that it will also most assuredly, sooner or later, be found out itself. How are the evils of ambition made to be seen and read of all men in King Richard III. and in Macbeth; the evils of jealousy in Othello; the evils of arrogance and self-will in Coriolanus! Of single passages tending to the same general effect it may suffice to produce what follows. In King Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 1:— · York. What will ensue hereof, there's none can tell; But by bad courses may be understood, That their events can never fall out good. In King Henry VI. 2nd Part, Act ii. Sc. 1:— King Henry. O God, what mischief work the wicked ones; Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby! In the Tempest, Act iii. Sc. 3: Gonzalo. All three of them are desperate; their great guilt, Like poison given to work a great time after, Now 'gins to bite the spirits. In Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2 : Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. From the disease we naturally pass to the remedy; and as we have no other source from whence to learn with certainty the true nature of repentance, except the Bible; so it may be said, without exaggeration, that no professed divine ever understood the doctrine of repentance better, or has expounded it more clearly than Shakspeare. He takes care to let us know that our repentance, in order to be real must proceed from sorrow felt not because we are to be punished for our sin, but because by it we have offended ONE whom it concerned us most of all to please; that, in order to be acceptable, it must be accompanied by confession and amendment amendment which will lead us to make reparation to the utmost of our power, for what we have done amiss; and that, after all, its efficacy consists not in any power of its own, but solely in the covenanted mercy and promises of God, through Christ. Thus, in Measure for Measure, the duke, disguised as a friar, instructs Juliet in the prison, upon the first of these points, as follows: Duke. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry? Duke. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience, And try your penitence, if it be sound, Or hollowly put on. He then proceeds to warn her: Lest you do repent, As that the sin hath brought you to this shame, Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not Heaven; Showing we'd not spare* Heaven, as we love it, But as we stand in fear— * i. e. Spare to offend heaven. Juliet. I do repent me, as it is an evil, Act ii. Sc. 3. There is a difficult passage in Cymbeline, which must, I imagine, look for its true interpretation to the views which our poet has elsewhere expressed upon the subject of this great duty. It is towards the conclusion of the play, where Posthumus, in prison, thus soliloquizes : My conscience! thou art fettered More than my shanks and wrists: you good gods, give me Then, free for ever! that is, he wishes for death, as the only way to everlasting freedom, provided he might die with a quiet conscience : Is't enough I am sorry? So children temporal fathers do appease ; Gods are more full of mercy. Must I repent? And, as involved in the notion of repentance, must I take my punishment as Juliet did hers, 'with joy ;' and, moreover, must I make satisfaction ? I cannot do it better than in gyves, Desired, more than constrained; to satisfy, that is, take my life-if such satisfaction be the main part, be the chief point, or principal condition of freedom from future punishment. So Steevens explains it; and, I think, rightly. |