The San Francisco call., 1899-10-16

upon instability and infirmity OF purpose
with relation TO the discharge of civic du-
ties, and that, like Dante, he regards
Yacillation as only one degree less despic-
able than overt and fragrant niquity
1. While it is thus true that Shakespeare
has for his characters scale OF values and
recognizes pantheon of virtues, II must
be said. on the other hand, that there is
an excellence for which he has but scant
and conventional appreciation. l refer to
the virtue which has primary reference to
God as those already mentioned have to
man or the state. Though ne can at times
manifest tenderness and reverence in his
allUsiUns to sacred things (aS, e. G., Il
Hen. ", l. !. 1927; Hamlet" l. /, 15S-164;
AIS Well IL. /, 139-l44D yet for reVer-
ence, for worship. for holiness of life, he
IN general has but slight regard The
amiable friar in Romeo and Juliet" by no
means inspires unqualified reverence; the
ambitious Gloucester not yet become
King Richard III. is willingly supported
in his young hypocrisy by two bishops,
and the sanity seeming Angelo in Meas
ure for Measure has but stolen the livery
of the court of heaven to serve the devil
in. 1t is true that in this same play We
have mention OF
Prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal
but the character of Isabella must be re-
garded as a quite exceptional one and
Shakespeare could hardly have sympa-
thized with the sentiment of Milton ("Par-
Judge not what is best
BY pleasure though to nature seeming meet,
Created thou art to nobler end,
Holy and pure, conformity divine.
Shakespeare came between the earlier
ages of faith with their exaltation of re-
ligion, and the puritanism of the seven
teenth century. He finds the middle ages
picturesque and despises the Puritans; he
himself is a child of the renaissance, and
mis- Kingdom is a kingdom Of this world
s. While Shakespeare'S prime interest is
in humanity he yet has an open eye for
the terror, the majesty and the beauty of
of all things visible: Take but two Illus
trations-the one of the sun C"Richard
H." III, ii, 41-2), when
From under the terrestrial ball
He fires the proud tops Of the eastern pines;
the other of the winds C'2 Hen. ", III,
T. 22-4f:
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging
with deaSening clamor In the slippery clouds;
or, if you wish another. add the picture
Of a navy afioat ("Henry ', III, prol. 4
49,. But in any case note how he person
ifes-how he makes nature alive with
man.
s. Shakespeare has definite views con-
cerning poetry, its nature and processes.
Thus ne proclaims the office of poetry to
soften and refine 1.-TWO Gentlemen Of
Verona" III. ii, 70 ff.):
Much is the force OF heaven bred poesy.
For Orpheus' lutte was strung with poets
sIneYs
Whose golden touch could soften steel and
stones,
Make tigers tame and huge levathans
Forsake unsounded deeps TO dance on sands,
Again, he tells us what is the poets mas
ter faculty Midsummer Nights Dream, -
" /, 12-1D:
The poets eye. in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth
to heaven:
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms Of things unknown, the poets pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and name
He af1irms a deep and hard truth Gas
You Like It. III, iii, 49, The truest
poetry is the most feigning." He perceives
that art may surpass nature ("Venus and
Adonis,' 2s9 ff.):
Look when painter would surpass the 1ife
In limning out well-proportioned steed.
His art with natures workmanship of strife,
As if the dead the living should exceed
80 did this horse excel common
In shape, IN courage, color pace and bone.
And in the perplexed question concerning
the relative superiority of art and nature
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