gotha (which occurs again in Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 2), there is perhaps in these last lines a further allusion to the domestic divisions' which were prophesied to follow after the Crucifixion of Christ; see Mark xiii. 8, 12; Luke xii. 52. Compare also Matt. xii. 25.

In King Henry VIII., Archbishop Cranmer is thus warned by his sovereign of the conspiracy which had been formed to effect his overthrow :—

Your enemies are many and not small.

At what ease

Might corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt
To swear against you! Such things have been done.
You are potently opposed and with a malice.
Of as great size. Ween* you of better luck,

I mean, in perjured witness, than your MASTER,
Whose minister you are, whiles here He lived
Upon this naughty earth?

Act v. Sc. I.

See Mark xiv. 55, also Matt. x. 25; John xv. 20.

Mr. Bowdler has omitted two passages in which reference is made by our poet to the traitor Judas, without sufficient reason, as it seems to me, for the omission in either case.† I will therefore transcribe them both. The former is in King Richard II., where the king says:

* Think, imagine, expect.

+ There is a third reference to Judas, also omitted by Mr. B., and perhaps with better reason, in King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2, where the three traitors, Bagot, Bushy, and Green, are described as 'Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas ! '

All hail!' to me?

Did they not sometime cry

As Judas did to Christ: but He, in Twelve,

Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.

Act iv. Sc. I.

Compare Matt. xxvi. 48. The other passage is in the Third Part of King Henry VI., and the revolting comparison is more justly appropriated to himself by the wicked Gloster. The king (Edward IV.) says to his brothers :—

K. Edw. Clarence and Gloster, love my lovely queen; And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.

Clar. The duty that I owe unto your majesty,

I seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.

K. Edw. Thanks, noble Clarence; worthy brother, thanks. Glo. And, that I love the tree from whence thou sprangst, Witness the loving kiss I give the fruit :—

[Then aside.

Το say the truth, so Judas kissed his master ;
And cried All hail!' when as he meant all harm.

Act v. Sc. 7.

There are two passages in Antony and Cleopatra which remind us of the reconciliation of Herod and Pilate, effected, as it would seem, by their common action in the death of Christ. See Luke xxiii. 12.

*Countenances. See Pt. I. ch. ii.

But soon that war had end, and the time's state

Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst Cæsar.

I know not, Menas,

Act 1. Sc. 2.

How lesser enmities may give way to greater.
Were't not that we stand up against them all,
"Twere pregnant they would square between themselves;
For they have entertained cause enough

To draw their swords: but how the fear of us
May cement their divisions, and bind up
The petty difference, we yet not know.

Act ii. Sc. I.

Pilate's washing his hands, as recorded in Matt. xxvii. 24, is referred to by Shakspeare in two instances, one of which is omitted by Mr. Bowdler, while the other is retained.

When King Richard II. is pressed by Bolingbroke and York to resign the crown, and Northumberland presents the paper containing the crimes alleged against him as the ground for his abdication, he thus upbraids them :—

Nay, all of you, that stand and look upon me,
Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,-
Tho' some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,
Showing an outward pity; yet you Pilates
Have here delivered me to my sour cross,
And water cannot wash away your sin.

Act iv. Sc. 1.

In place of the two intermediate lines, Mr. Bowdler has this one:

Tho' some of you are showing outward pity.

In King Richard III., after the murder of Clarence, one of the assassins exclaims :

G

my

bands

A bloody deed, and desperately despatched!
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash
Of this most grievous guilty murder done.

Act i. Sc. 4.

The fine passage, at the opening of Hamlet, which Shakspeare has put into the mouth of Horatio, owes probably quite as much to S. Matthew or S. Mark as it does to Plutarch, or to Ovid; though the critics have traced it only to the two latter.

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The
graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.
Stars shone with trains of fire; dews of blood fell;
Disaster veiled the sun; and the moist star
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

Act i. Sc. I.

14. The references made by our poet to the history of the Acts are few and not of much moment; yet they indicate somewhat curiously, if I am not mistaken, the minuteness of his attention to the sacred record.

In the First Part of King Henry VI., among other compliments paid by Charles Dauphin of France to Joan of Arc, she is pronounced superior to 'Saint Philip's daughters,' Act i. Sc. 2, that is the 'four daughters, virgins that did prophecy' of Philip the Evangelist, who are mentioned in Acts xxi. 9.

In the Comedy of Errors,* the scene of which is laid at Ephesus, Pinch the Schoolmaster is represented also as a conjuror.† It will be remembered that Ephesus was the place where S. Paul 'disputed daily in the school of one Tyrannus,' and where' ' many of them also that used curious arts brought their books together and burned them before all men.' See Acts xix. 9, 19. But previously to this burning of the books we read in the same narrative, V. 13:

Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying 'We adjure thee by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.'

Compare with this the speech of Pinch in Act iv.

Sc. 4.

I charge thee, Satan, housed within this man,
To yield possession to my holy prayers,

And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight;
I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.

To this I may add that in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, a servant at Ephesus, which was not far from Colossæ, has the name of Philemon.

In King Richard III. we read these words of Gloster, addressed first to Hastings, and then to the officers in attendance :

* One is inclined to suspect that the name Antipholus among the characters of this play is a mistake (on the part of author or printer) for Amphibolus ; i. e. àμpißoλoç, ambiguous, doubtful.

† On the union of the occupations of schoolmaster and conjuror, see Drake's Shakspeare and his Times, vol. i. p. 95.