writings may be gathered also no inconsiderable contribution towards a full and accurate system of religious doctrine? He himself, in his modesty,

would doubtless have been content to say of himself, with the Soothsayer in Antony and Cleopatra, In Nature's infinite book of secrecy

A little I can read.

Others, I trust, will not hesitate for the future to declare in his behalf, that God's own infinite Book' of Grace and Truth had not been revealed to him in vain.

Before I drop altogether the subject upon which we have been engaged, I may mention a somewhat curious coincidence, of which the reader perhaps is not aware, between the outward form of the Holy Scriptures and of the plays of Shakspeare. I allude to the fact, that originally the former were not divided into chapters and verses, nor the latter into acts and scenes. Our poet's plays were written, and at first printed, in one unbroken continuity (Othello being, it is said, the only exception), until Mr. Rowe, in 1709, by introducing the present divisions and subdivisions, did for them what had been done by Hugo Cardinalis, in the thirteenth century, and by Rabbi Nathan, in the fifteenth, for the Books of the Old Testament (with the exception of the Book of Psalms, which had been originally divided as we now have it), and by Robert and Henry Stephens, in the sixteenth century, for the

Books of the New Testament, by dividing them into chapters, and by prefixing to the verses the numbers which they now bear. And as the complaint has been frequently made, not without reason in some instances, that this division of the Bible, into chapters especially, while it has great advantages, is attended also with frequent inconvenience, and leads to misunderstanding and misinterpretation of God's word; so it has been remarked by Shakspeare's greatest critic, that his plays, instead of being broken up in the representation, as they now are, ought to be exhibited with short pauses interposed as often as the scene is changed, or any considerable time is allowed to pass;' and he adds, 'this method would at once quell a thousand absurdities.' Whether this observation is a just one, I cannot tell: only, as editions of the Bible have been called for, and published, which represent the Sacred Text printed continuously in its original form, so it would, perhaps, be desirable that the lovers of Shakspeare might have the option, if not of seeing upon the stage his plays acted in the way which Dr. Johnson has pointed out, yet of reading them in a popular edition* arranged upon that plan. But be this also as it may; yet one opinion, at all events, I am prepared to maintain. In whatever shape the genuine plays of Shakspeare may be

pre

* The recent fac simile reprint of the first folio is a valuable movement in this direction.

*

sented to us, there is nothing-nothing of a literary kind-for which we have greater reason to thank the GIVER OF ALL GOOD, than for a large proportion of those works-excepting only the Book of Common Prayer, and THAT, which has imparted alike to it and to them no small share of the surpassing excellence, which, though in very different ways, they both possess-HIS OWN INCOMPARABLE, MOST HOLY, EVERLASTING WORD.

* In confirmation of this high estimate of the Prayer Book, I may be allowed to quote two authorities-one clerical and the other laynot inferior, perhaps, upon a literary question, to any who have written in the English tongue

'As to the greatest part of our Liturgy, there seem to be in it as great strains of true sublime eloquence as are anywhere to be found in our language.'-DEAN SWIFT, Works, vol. ix. p. 152.

'That great model of chaste, lofty, and pathetic eloquence, the Book of Common Prayer.'-LORD MACAULAY, History, vol. iii.

P. 355.

To these testimonies it may not be out of place to add here, what, I have somewhere read, that the greatest tragedian of the age, when asked what was the noblest composition in the English language, replied, The Burial Service of the Church of England.'

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES.

PAGE 2. Note.

Mr. Singer perhaps alluded to the remark of Mr. Capel Lloft, in his Aphorisms from Shakspeare, published in 1812:—' He (Shakspeare) had deeply imbibed the Scriptures.' Introd. p. xii.

PAGE 75.

In defence of the somewhat questionable allusion to Nebuchadnezzar's punishment, it is only fair to point out that our English Theophrastus, Bishop Earle, the author of MICROCOSMOGRAPHY, has the following passage in his character of A plain Country Fellow:

'He seems to have the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar; for his conversation* is among beasts, and his talons none of the shortest; only he eats not grass,t because he loves not sallets,' p. 64.

Before our poet is condemned for the allusion in question, let it be remembered that the author of the work from which the above (precisely parallel) passage is quoted was, in 1642, elected one of the Westminster Assembly (but refused to act); and, at the Restoration, was made Dean of Westminster, and afterwards