Moreover, Shakspeare believed

II. IN THE MORAL ACCOUNTABILITY OF MAN'S EXISTENCE. Constantly does he refer to those elements implied in the doctrine of human responsibility; such as,

First: Sense of Duty. By this I mean Conscience. No uninspired man had a more vivid or profound conception of conscience than he.

How strongly does he represent (a) the natural power of conscience :

"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." (1)

With what terrible force (b) he speaks of the working of a guilty conscience,—

"Like poison given to work a great time after,
Now 'gins to bite the spirits." (3)

"The clogging burden of a guilty soul." (4)

'To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt." (")

"I'll haunt thee like a guilty conscience still." (7)

(1) Hamlet, Act i. Scene 4. (2) King Richard III. Act v. Scene 2. (3) Tempest, Act iii. Scene 3. (4) King Richard II. Act i. Scene 3. (5) Macbeth, Act iii. Scene 2. (6) Hamlet, Act iv. Scene 5. (7) Troilus and Cressida, Act v. Scene 2.

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her." (3)

Oh, it is monstrous! monstrous!
Methought, the billows spoke, and told me of it;
The wind did sing it to me; and the thunder,
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced
The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass." (4)

"O wretched state! O bosom, black as death!
O limèd soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged." (5)

Conscience does make cowards of us all ;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action." (6)

"My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,

And every tale condemns me for a villain.” (7)

'Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief does fear each bush an officer." (8)

(1) Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Scene 1. (3) Hamlet, Act i. Scene 5.

(5) Hamlet, Act iii. Scene 3. (7) King Richard III. Act v. Scene 3.

(2) King Henry VIII. Act ii. Scene 2. (4) The Tempest, Act iii. Scene 3.

(6) Hamlet, Act iii. Scene 1. (8) King Henry VI. Act v. Scene 6.

Again,

"Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;

And he but naked though locked up in steel." (1)

Such expressions as these remind us of the lines of Milton:"He that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts, benighted, walks under the midday sun, himself in his own dungeon."

In what strict accord is this description of Shakspeare with the Holy Bible on the same points.

Take the following as specimens :—

"There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked" (Isa. xlviii. 22). "The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.” (Isa. lvii. 20). "Among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest; but the Lord shall give them a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind; and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have no assurance of thy life" (Deut. xxviii. 65, 66). "The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days; a dreadful sound is in his ears; in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him. He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword. Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid, and they shall prevail against him as a king ready to battle" (Job XV. 20, 21, 22, 24). "The sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword" (Lev. xxvi. 36). "They were in great fear where no fear was" (Ps. liii. 5).

Nor is Shakspeare less striking and strong in his descriptions of the blessedness of (c) a good conscience :

(1) King Henry VI. Act iii. Scene 2.

:

"What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just." (2)

Again,

Again,

"There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats;
For I am armed so strong in honesty,

That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not.” (3)

"The trust I have is in my innocence." (4)

How true to Scripture is this also,

"The righteous are as bold as a lion" (Prov. xxviii. 1). Paul speaks of the "armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left;" and of "a conscience void of offence before God and man ;" and of a "peace of mind that passeth all understanding." Addison has said, that "A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body. It preserves a constant ease and serenity within us; and more than countervails the afflictions that possibly can befall us." And South, not less strikingly, has said, "A palsy may as well shake an oak, or a fever dry up a fountain, as either of them shake, dry up, or impair the delight of conscience; for it lies within, it centres in the heart, it grows into the very substance of the soul, so that it accompanies a man to his grave."

"He that has light within his own clear breast

May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day."-Milton.

The other point which he refers to, as implying accountability is,

(1) King Henry VIII. Act iii. Scene 2. (2) King Henry VI. Act iii. Scene 3. (3) Julius Cæsar, Act iv. Scene 2. (4) King Henry VI. Act iii.

Secondly: Free Agency. Shakspeare had no idea that man was the mere creature of circumstances- —a mere machine worked by outward sources, the victim of fate or necessity.

"This is," he says, "the excellent foppery of the world! that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeit of our own behaviour,) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting on." (1)

Again, he says,—

Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners; so that if we plant nettles, or sow lettuce; set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many; either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our will." (2)

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,

Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.” (3)

"Men at some time are masters of their fates:

free

""Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus." (5)

Milton himself has not expressed the doctrine of man's agency with more frequency or force. He has said, for example:

"And good He made thee; but to persevere

He left it in thy power; ordained thy will
By nature free, not over-ruled by Fate
Inextricable, or strict necessity,

(1) King Lear, Act i. Scene 2.

(3) All's well that ends well, Act i. Scene 1.

(*) Julius Cæsar, Act i. Scene 2.

(2) Othello, Act i. Scene 3.

(*) Othello, Act i. Scene 3.