Heaven hath a hand in these events,

To whose high will we bound our calm contents.
Ibid. Act v. Sc. 2.

It was not so meekly that the spirit of Old John of Gaunt was content to show itself, though exhibiting the same faith in the overruling Providence, but looking also to the just judgment of God :—

Put we our quarrel to the will of Heaven;
Who when He sees the hours ripe on earth,
Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.

Ibid. Act i. Sc. 2.

And with equal beauty and propriety Queen Katharine utters the same sentiment in King Henry VIII., addressing the two Cardinals :

Is this your Christian counsel ? out upon ye!
Heaven is above all yet:* there sits a Judge

That no king can corrupt.

Act iii. Sc. I.

And He is the judge to whom judgment belongeth,' because He alone is set in the throne, judging right,' and discerning all things, as the religious King Henry VI. piously confesses :

O THOU, that judgest all things, stay my thoughts;

If my suspect be false, forgive me, GoD:

For judgment only doth belong to THEE.

King Henry VI. 2nd Part, Act iii. Sc. 2.

* A corresponding sentiment is put by Sophocles with great effect into the mouth of the Chorus addressing Electra :

Θάρσει μοι, θάρσει, τέκνον·

ἔστι μέγας ἐν οὐρανῷ

Ζεὺς, ὃς ἐφορᾶ πάντα καὶ κρατύνει.

Soph. Elect. 173-6.

When the Duke of Albany, in King Lear, hears from a messenger that the Duke of Cornwall was 'dead, slain by his servant,' he exclaims :—

This shows You are above,

You justicers, that these our nether crimes

So speedily can venge!

Act iv. Sc. 2.

On the other hand, the tender mercy and loving kindness of the Divine Being, more especially towards those who need them most, are exhibited by our poet, again and again, in passages which represent the teaching of Scripture no less faithfully. For example; He who

is a Father of the fatherless, and defendeth the cause of the widow, Ps. lxviii. 5.

is thus described in King Richard II. :—

Duchess. Where then, alas! may I complain myself?
Gaunt. To Heaven-the Widow's Champion and Defence.
Act. i. Sc. 2.

And He who 'giveth sight to the blind,' and 'light to him that is in misery,' thus, in King Henry VI. 2nd Part:

K. Henry. Now God be praised, that to believing souls, Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair. Act ii. Sc. I.

But, of all others, the well-known speech of Portia, in the Merchant of Venice, exhibits the Divine attributes of mercy and forgiveness most clearly, and with the plainest reference to Holy Scripture:

Portia (to Antonio). Do you confess the bond?
Anton. I do.

Port. Then must the Jew be merciful.

Shylock. On what compulsion must I? tell me that.
Port. The quality of mercy is not strained :
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:
"Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
is above this scepter'd sway,
mercy

But

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Tho' justice be thy plea, consider this,—
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much,
To mitigate the justice of thy plea ;

Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

Shylock. My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,
The penalty and forfeit of my bond. Act iv. Sc. I.

In this last answer of Shylock, our poet has adopted with great propriety a form of speech- ' my deeds upon my head '-which reminds us, as Dr. Henley has pointed out, of the imprecation of the Jews, addressed to Pilate

His blood be on us, and on our children. Matt. xxvii. 25. On the other hand, the concluding part of Portia's speech called forth from Sir W. Blackstone the

remark that to refer the Jew to the Christian doctrine of salvation, and the Lord's Prayer, is a little out of character.' The learned judge was probably not aware that the Lord's Prayer was not composed by our Lord as containing anything which would be new and strange to His disciples, but as putting together, in a short form, all that was most valuable in the Jewish liturgies already known to them. See Lightfoot, vol. ii. p. 159, and p. 439, and Grotius on S. Matthew, vi. 9; who also refers to Ecclesiasticus xxviii. 2-4 :

Forgive thy neighbour the hurt that he hath done unto thee, so shall thy sins also be forgiven when thou prayest. One man beareth hatred against another, and doth he seek pardon from the Lord? He sheweth no mercy to a man which is like himself, and doth he ask forgiveness of his own sins?

The critics, therefore, who, like Burkitt, except the particular clause which Portia refers to, viz. ' as we forgive them that trespass against us,' from the foregoing representation in regard to the origin of the several petitions of the Lord's Prayer, have, in all probability, made that single exception without sufficient reason. Besides, it is to be borne in mind that many of the Jews, though they did not accept Christ as their Messiah, yet they did accept

Him as a teacher come from God.' And certainly it is not correct to suppose that the Christian Doctrine of salvation is not also the doctrine of salvation to the faithful Jew.

Upon the opening lines of the same speech of

H

Portia, Mr. Douce has pointed out the resemblance to Ecclesiasticus xxxv. 20:

Mercy is seasonable in the time of affliction, as clouds of rain in the time of drought.

And the argument drawn by Portia from the need which we all have for the mercy of God is repeated by our poet in the Second Part of King Henry VI., where Lord Say says to the rebels, who are carrying him off to execution :

Ah, countrymen ! if when you make your prayers,
God should be so obdurate as yourselves,

How would it fare with your departed souls?

Act iv. Sc. 8.

I have been loath to question the propriety of an observation made by so sound a thinker and so well-informed a writer as Judge Blackstone; and now I ought not to quit this portion of my subject without drawing attention to a remark of one whose authority upon matters of this kind is still higher. I mean Dr. Johnson. In a note upon the last scene of King Lear he complains that our author, by negligence, gives his Heathens the sentiments and practices of Christianity.' And Mr. Singer has repeated the remark in his edition of 1826. But I am inclined to doubt whether it is altogether wellfounded.* The lines which appeared to give occasion for it are these:

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to scourge us.

Act v. Sc. 3.

* See Supplementary Note at end of the volume.