From our poet's allusion to the observance of Sunday not much is to be inferred-except that it would seem, in his time, to have been the most usual day for the celebration of marriages. In Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio, in answer to Baptista's question how he had sped with his daughter Katharina, replies:

We have 'greed so well together,

That upon Sunday is the wedding day. Act ii. Sc. 1. Whether this remark may help to throw any light upon a passage in Much ado about nothing, over the meaning of which critics have disagreed, I will not undertake to say; but it may be worth considering. Benedict says to Claudio :

i'

Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again? Go to, faith: an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays. Act i. Sc. I.

i.e. sigh away the days which, if married on Sunday, will serve to remind you most of all of the mistake you made. Neither Warburton's explanation that even Sundays, the days formerly (he says) of most ease and diversion, will be passed uncomfortably; nor Steevens', that there is probably an allusion to the strict manner in which the Sabbath was observed by the Puritans, appears satisfactory. It would be simpler to suggest that Sunday is the day of the week which is generally spent most domestically. It is hardly to be supposed, that at the court of Cleopatra the difference was understood between Sundays

and working days, unless it could be supposed that the notion had come down by tradition from the captivity of the Israelites in Egypt; and then it would go far to settle an important question in theology!--but our poet has not scrupled to speak, in Antony and Cleopatra, of a worky-day fortune;' meaning a fortune not rich and splendid, but ordinary and common place, see Act i. Sc. 2; just as, with a propriety which admits of no question, he makes Marcellus to ask Horatio, in Hamlet :—

Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week?

Act i. Sc. I.

In the same play we have a reference to the season of Christmas, and to the traditions, that at that season, the cock

The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm :
So hallowed and so gracious is the time!

This passage, so beautiful in its simplicity, could only have been written by one who had the sense and feeling of a true Christian and loyal member of the Church in regard to the nativity of our Blessed Lord. Of the two other great festivals I am not aware that our poet makes mention, except to let us know, in Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. Sc. 1,

* i. e. Strikes with lameness or diseases.

that new doublets' were worn at Easter; and, in King Henry V. Act ii. Sc. 4, that Whitsuntidecalled, in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iv. Sc. 4, Pentecost was the season for morris dances,' and 'pageants of delight.'

It remains to notice here, that Shakspeare appears to have received and held, without misgiving, the doctrine of Baptismal Grace, which he would have been taught as an orthodox member of the Anglican Church. 'We will believe,' says King Henry V. to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of Ely

That what you speak is in your conscience washed

As pure as sin with baptism.

K. Henry V. Act i. Sc. 2..

And, in Othello, the villainous Iago is made to represent Desdemona's influence to be such, that it would be easy for her, if she wished

To win the Moor-wer't to renounce his baptism—
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin.

Act ii. Sc. 3.

The judicious reader will be surprised—and not, I think, well pleased to learn that Mr. Bowdler, in his Family Shakspeare,' has seen reason to omit the latter of these two lines.

And passing from the first scene of the Christian life to the last, from baptism to burial, we find, in Cymbeline, the rationale of interment with the head towards the east alluded to, and also the beautiful custom of strewing the grave with flowers, described

in language no less beautiful. The two brothers, Guiderius and Arviragus (Cadwal) are engaged in burying Fidele :

Guid. Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east:
My father hath a reason for❜t.
Act iv. Sc. 2.

The 'reason' could not properly have been, in the mouth of a Pagan-the Christian one-and therefore no further explanation is given

Arvig.

With fairest flowers,

Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
The azured hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom* not to slander,
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock + would,
With charitable bill, bring thee all this;

Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.

[Re-enter Belarius.

Bel. Here's a few flowers; but about midnight, more:
The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night
Are strewings fitt'st for graves.

SECT. 15. Of Politics-Peace and War.

We cannot conceive of Shakspeare otherwise than as a Conservative and a Royalist-if the anachronism involved in the use of both names may be pardoned. We may safely attribute to him a deep reverence for antiquity; and we need not doubt + Redbreast.

*See above, p. 19.

that the precept of Solomon, My son, fear thou the Lord and the King, and meddle not with them that are given to change,' Prov. xxiv. 21, approved itself thoroughly to his large heart and marvellous understanding. How just is the sentiment which ascribes to reverence' (or due regard for subordination) the power that keeps peace and order in the world, to borrow the gloss of Johnson upon the words that follow :

Tho' mean and mighty, rotting

Together, have one dust; yet reverence

(That ANGEL of the world) doth make distinction
Of place 'tween high and low.

Cymbeline, Act iv. Sc. z."

And where shall we find a more effective protest against the spirit of innovation and continual change, or the value of antiquity and custom more truly estimated and described, than in what follows; where a rash political movement is objected to

As tho' the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word.

The critics have been somewhat puzzled by 'word,' as here used, and have proposed to alter it; Warburton suggesting 'ward,' Johnson 'weal,' and Tyrwhitt 'work.' Had any one of them read the Bible as attentively, and known it as well as Shakspeare did, I imagine he would have recognized the expression as borrowed, probably, from Scripture, where word' occurs not unfrequently as put