To keep that oath were more impiety
Than Jephtha's when he sacrificed his daughter.
King Henry VI., Part III., v. 1.

"Tis not the many oaths that make the truth ;—
But the plain single vow, that is vow'd true.
What is not holy, that we swear not by,

But take the Highest to witness.--All's Well, iv. 2.

Cf. Matthew, v. 33–38; Romans, i. 9; 1 Thessalonians, ii. 5, &c.

Both the Bible and Shakspere have distinguished between "idle merriment" and reasonable mirth. Solomon tells us that there is "a time to weep and a time to laugh :”1 and . S. Paul admonishes us to "rejoice as though we rejoiced not; 992 or, to use the words of our Poet, we should restrain ourselves "Within the limit of becoming mirth.”—Love's Labour Lost, ii. 1.

A man who is perpetually smiling, always on the titter, is equally objectionable with one who never smiles at all: nothing is so offensive as the person who is always breaking out into a fool's laugh ;-grinning, when he should appear serious, and thus wounding the feelings of the speaker, and violating the commonest rules of good breeding. Now he will indulge the company with some vile and execrable pun; or inflict upon them a miserable joke; and to guard against its passing unnoticed, he will take care to supply the laughter as well as the joke, forgetting all the while the old Proverb, "He that laughs at his ain joke, spoils the sport o't."

There be of them, that will themselves laugh, to set on some barren quantity of spectators to laugh too; that's villainous; and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.—Hamlet, iii. 2.

Mirth, however, within the proper limits is both rational and salutary; for although, as Shakspere says, it "cannot

1 Ecclesiastes, iii. 4.

2 1 Corinthians, vii. 30.

move a soul in agony," yet "it bars a thousand harms and lengthens life."

For so the doctors hold it very meet;

Seeing too much sadness doth congeal the blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.

Taming of the Shrew (Induction).

And Solomon tells us, that "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine:" and that it "maketh a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken."2

Those that are in extremity of either, [melancholy and laughing] are abominable fellows; and betray themselves to every modern censure.As You Like It, iv. 1.

Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh, like parrots, at a bag-piper:
And other of such vinegar aspèct,

That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

Merchant of Venice, i. 1.

I shall now bring my remarks to a conclusion. Enough has, I think, been brought forward, to establish, as I proposed to do, the fact that the unchanging truths of God's Inspired Word underlie the teaching of the Immortal Bard of Avon. It would be no difficult task, but an easy and a pleasant one, to set before the reader further illustrations of the correspondency of Shakspere's teaching with that of the Bible; but in so doing, I might possibly incur the suspicion of attempting

To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet:
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,

A wasteful and ridiculous excess.-King John, iv. 2.

1 Proverbs, xvii. 22.

2 Proverbs, xv. 13; cf. Ecclus., xiii. 25; xxxviii. 18.

My task is now done. In reviewing our Poet I have endeavoured to speak of him "as he is;" "to extenuate nothing, nor set aught down in malice,"1 and in so doing, I think I have proved, that "taking him for all in all, we shall not look upon his like again :"2 and I trust that those, who, either from ignorance, or from prejudice, have hitherto conceived an erroneous opinion of the works of our great Poet, will be forced to acknowledge that even "in things evil" (if so they will have it) "there is some soul of goodness, would men observingly distil it out." This I have attempted to do; and I feel bound to confess, that I have been thus led to admire and appreciate, more than ever, the writings of one who (in the words of I. M. S.3)