Again, the following passage in AcT V. SCENE 2. of the same play, I come to visit the afflicted spirits Here in the prison, may have been suggested by 1 Pet. iii. 19. "By which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison." In the play of "Henry the Eighth," in Cranmer's prophetic speech, alluding to James the First, he says -He shall flourish, And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches To all the plains about him. The idea and expression of which lines are eminently scriptural. Also, in "Romeo and Juliet,” Bestrides the lazy-paced clouds And sails upon the bosom of the air, is probably taken from Ps. civ. "He maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind." We shall now subjoin a few passages taken at random from the "Fairy Queen;" which appear to have owed their origin to the same cause. In book i. canto 7. stanza 27. there occurs The messenger of so unhappy news Would fain have died; dead was his heart within; which is probably taken from 1 Sam. xxv. 37. "This heart (Nabal's) died within him; and he became as a stone." Also, in the same canto, stanza 27, we find~ Was never lady loved dearer day, Where day is redundant, as in John viii., "Abraham desired to see my day," i. e. me. Also, in Psalm ciii., "In the day when I call;" for when I call. Again, in canto viii. st. 96, we find Whose blessed spirits from underneath the throne which is an allusion to the following texts: "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground," Gen. iv. 10. "And I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God; ... and they cried O God, dost thou not judge and revenge our blood?" . . Rev. vi. 9, 10. In the 41st stanza of the same canto, there occurs the expression "were clene consumed;" which is to be met with in Psalm xxxi. "I am clean forgotten as a dead man out of mind." In the 12th canto, stanza 22— And on her now a garment she did weare And book ii. canto 3. stanza 22 Her face so fayre as flesh it seemed not, Both the above beautiful passages are greatly indebted to Solomon's song. "Thou art all fair; there is no spot on thee." Chap. vi. 7. “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys," &c. Chap. ii. 1. "My beloved is white and ruddy.” v. 10. The lines in the 12th canto of book i. The blazing brightness of her beauties beame, are taken from Rev. xii. 1. "A woman clothed with the sun," &c. The beautiful passage in book ii. canto 6. Yet neither spins nor cards, ne cares nor frets, must be indebted to Matt. vi. 28-9. "Consider the lilies of the valley they toil not, neither do they spin; yet even Solomon in his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Spenser has the word lett in its old sense of hindering in book ii. canto 1. st. 47. "To lett a weary wretch from his due rest;" for which he has the authority of the Translation of the Bible: "Only he who now letteth will lett till he be taken out of the way." The introducing a proper degree of method into the remaining part of our observations has induced us to distribute them into the three following divisions. The first will begin with the death of James the First, and terminate at the Restoration; the second will embrace the portion of time which intervened between the return of Charles the Second and the accession of the house of Hanover; the third, and last, will extend to the time at which these pages are written. The first of these periods embraces a part of our history which ought to be deeply engraved on the memories of all true lovers of their country; it contains the narrative of a struggle, which, in the importance of its consequences, the difficulties of their attainment, and the characters developed by it, will yield the palm to no other similar contest. This was the time-the critical timewhen the ancient rights and constitutions of our country were vindicated by the intrepid hardihood of a body of men, whose conduct it is too much the fashion of modern times to decry, because, forsooth, their rigid and puritanical ideas do not readily concert with |